#I just... I love the way it tastes and the folklore surrounding it and the way it's made and BEES

[cchapsticck]

For writer's truth or dare

🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

thank you for your ask!

🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

ah jeez I think I probably hold a fair number of unpopular opinions, but to begin: Steve's kinda mean. And he's comfortable with that. This persistent pettiness and thoughtlessness when it comes to other people, even as he progresses through his arc of self improvement and thoughtfulness feels more true and more essential to his core character than is often given credit for - if its given credit at all, and isn't dismissed outright as fully a social coping mechanism or exists as a product of social pressure from less tasteful friends. Steve's had to learn a lot about himself over the years, but I don't think he's unearthed a fundamentally, structurally, essentially different person than the shithead 16 year old we met in season 1. Steve was a bully, and he isn't that anymore - he actively tries not to be that anymore. But that doesn't mean he's not still just a little mean because he chooses to be a little mean. Steve's kind of mean and petty because that's just how he interacts with the world, he's cynical and judgemental but these days its pointed a little more inwardly than it used to be - hell, his and Robin's number one social export is being little haters together - and it can, and does, coexist with the acts of platonic care he routinely expresses in his bitchy Steve way.

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

If definitely pulled on some real weird threads in my time but most recently, when I was writing dog at the door, I was doing a lot of research about folklore and symbolism surrounding dogs and I went down this huge rabbit hole about how that folklore intersected with rabies and what we as people understood about the disease contemporaneously to that folklore. I think only a little of that body of research actually made it, literally and directly, into the text itself. At least not with the kind of nuance I ended up getting into with the research. It was really interesting scientifically and sociologically but was fully unnecessary to the very unscientific metaphor I was trying to make with that information. So to the cutting room floor it went.

🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

All comments is good comments! But I do really love it when readers are able to articulate what was emotionally resonant with them, or connections to their own lived experiences that brought more weight to the work in their experience with it.

writer truth or dare

[sato-vendel]

Senisic Creation Story

As with any story, the creation story for the religion of Senisi has its variations. I'll spare you all the versions I've come across over the years- I doubt I could explain them all if I tried- so I'll tell it to you the way that I explain it to my students.

For some brief background before we start, I was raised in a Senisi literalist household and went to my early grades in a school that practiced those same beliefs. I myself, however, practice modernized Senisic, so naturally, that will affect my telling. And, for those of you who don't know, Thaimos is the God of modestly and restraint, and Caiaha is the Goddess of indulgence, beauty, and sensuality. With that said, here is my telling of the Senisic creation story.

Before time began, and the universe was absent from existence, only the divine parents were present. These parents were called Thaimos and Caiaha. Thaimos was content in the pure and the quiet, but Caiaha craved something more stimulating. She was insatiable, and couldn’t handle the monotony.  So, Caiaha made a decision, that she would create something. She propositioned Thaimos to help her, but he refused to take part in creation, no matter how she pleaded. Bitter from the rejection, she waited until Thaimos slept before falling upon him, and Heietn was conceived in her audacious act. Caiaha, patient for the only time, waited until the pregnancy was ready, and then she birthed the infant planet we now call home. She was fascinated by it and spent uncountable millennia molding it into something decadent enough for her tastes. She sculpted mountains, cut off her hair to make into grass and trees, and filled the oceans by spilling her blood onto the land. When waves beat against the shore, fish leapt from the spray. Animals formed from boulders or crawled out of the soil. These creatures were her children, and she was overcome as she watched them execute the cycle of life, consuming and creating, killing and reproducing. She cried from the happiness, and her tears fell into the sky, forming the stars. Thaimos continued to oversee, remaining in the void outside of Caiaha’s world, while she stayed and marveled over her precious Heietn. Every beautiful thing and place on the planet, from the most delicate flowers to looming mountains and oceans, was shaped by her hand, and to this day, she maintains Heietn so all her children who inhabit it can indulge just as she does.

And there it is! It is one of the 'cleaner' stories of the Senisic folklore, especially for one involving Caiaha. If anybody is interested in hearing more about the religion or the stories surrounding it, I'd love to talk about it more.

[whiskeyswifty]

1989 is so odd to me. it's in my top 3, some of my favorite songs in her discography are on it, and i've always found it so wild the way it seems to be an either you love it or you hate it album? it's either near the top of an album ranking or near the bottom, in my experience, and i was wondering if there's a way to explain how polarizing it is. not even among the gp, i've seen a lot of swifties insist her other pop albums are better and it's the worst, while others think the opposite, and i just find it all so interesting.

you're totally right, it's so polarizing within the fandom, which is hilarious considering how for the general public it's her most widely agreed upon enjoyable album. soooo bizarre to me. you'd think it would at least be middling among fans, but no! in my experience, a lot of taylor's albums and how they're favored by a fan, or detested, come down to what that fan's involvement was with taylor and that album during it's initial release. i'm willing to admit that at this point, 1989 doesn't stick out as the groundbreaking body of work in the current lineup of her albums like it did at the time. it was the first of many like it, and over the years has given way to some songs that are better than some on 1989. also she's since developed that sort of synth sound with jack that is now commonplace and a bit of a signature for her. these days it's a bit more polished than the experimental version of that on 1989. there are many arguments you can make for how 1989 isn't that "special" in the vacuum of her ouvre as it is today.

but i'll say it's more than just the songs in a vacuum. the name for her current tour is apt because she truly operated like many pop stars before her and created those chapterized eras around her albums (sorry she didn't invent it, far from it, and she didn't even reinvent it. it's textbook). with the music came entire personas and aesthetics and narratives and ways of communicating. and while the internet has preserved a lot of things, the experiences of being a fan, or even a particular type of fan, during each of the eras is a singular experience that you cannot reconstruct through photos and articles if you weren't there or an active part of it. that's not to try and gatekeep, like i don't care when you became a fan lol it doesn't affect me at all or how you compare to other fans really. but i'm saying it has a direct effect on your relationship to an era and the album of that era, for better or worse. sometimes it is just that you weren't old enough to be an active late teen/adult fan during the time surrounding 1989 and you don't understand how golden that time was comparatively. sometimes it can be because they don't like that kind of pop music insofar as their personal taste and that's not what they came to taylor for whenever it was they came to taylor, be it country era or folklore era or whatever. sometimes its a combination of both, as when you were born dictates the musical landscape you were plopped into and thereby influences your taste and what you consider "your" music is sometimes more happenstance than anything you actively selected. i digress.

it really was a golden time for people who were a certain type of fan, the right age with the right taste and the right amount of history with her at that time. context and meta context of it as it pertained to her place in the world at that time, and not to mention the overall in-real-time experience of her IG presence and the clues she dropped for each track, her complete physical makeover from hair to clothes, the squad friend group, the way 1989 music contrasted the rest of popular music at that time and what we'd been used to from her. the real time evolution of just her public persona and the song subject matter and the production style. i could go on. but there was a lot about that era, and about all of her eras, that are more than just the songs that skew how people feel about them, or have no feeling about them at all. a huge part of it is it's about how you experienced them in real time, and how they imprinted on you and what you brought to it. it's funny cuz the only other album that has such a visceral polarity about it is reputation, but that's for the totally opposite reason. it is widely agreed upon to be her least enjoyed album by the general public (and many critics) but a large amount of fans will put it at the top. i still think the reasoning is exactly the same, despite the inverse circumstance. what it was like to be a fan of hers during the circumstances surrounding that album, the narratives and the relationship she had to her fans at that point, and going to that concert which for a lot of younger fans was their first taylor concert, have cemented that album as their favorite. it was about the ERA and whether or not you experienced it as THAT kind of fan at that time that makes you a rep fan. the same way that NOT being a fan of a certain kind during the 1989 era and experiencing that might affect how lukewarm you are towards that album if that kind of music isn't your taste to begin with. it means nothing to them. people can be sensitive about it because she's advertised that a huge aspect of her work that she's proud of is her songwriting, so fans are quick to point to songs on their favorite albums as having "excellent" song writing compared to others or whatever as to why they hold it on a pedestal. all of her albums have highs and lows in that department, so that's a moot point for the most part (and a matter of taste really when it comes down to it). the reality is it's simply the way life unfolded for them and when an era did, or didn't, capture their attention and devotion. there's nothing about that that makes someone a better or worse fan of course, it's just the way things happen and why some fans cannot be swayed from their favs or moved to give a shit about something that they only ever heard diegetically in their own life at that time in a CVS.

the last thing i'll say is that a HUUUUUUUGE part of why 1989 is such a benchmark for her, and the general public's relationship with her, was that it wasn't just groundbreaking for her. it was groundbreaking for pop music. it completely changed the sounds of pop mainstream music and was an injection of originality that now probably sounds old hat. i can totally see how a person who came to 1989 many years later was already a part of a world saturated with 1989 copycats and derivatives, and to them that was "generic" pop music, and so it probably doesn't sound that special if you heard it too late. or if anything it sounded like something else they'd already heard and not uniquely taylor in the way they may have been used to something being "uniquely taylor". i personally think 1989 is a cut above the copycats, and a cut above all her other pop work to this day, but i'm sympathetic to those who didn't experience it at the right time to be receptive to it in the way it was received by the rest of us. i'm sorry you missed out! it was a rip roaring time.

[mediawhorefics]

It had me going! For a while there I wasn't sure if The Kingdoms was going to give me a happy ending. And while it did - and left me feeling so warm and gooey- this would have been my favorite Pulley book even if it hadn't. The way the rules of time travel are established and then stuck to so well! The atmosphere, and how each new location has it's own mood and temperament, but all united in this beautiful melancholy! The morally grey characters who are dynamic and interesting and flawed, but ultimately good and perfect for each other! I loved how you could see the amount of research that went into every aspect of it, but it never detracted from the story. I loved the voice. I loved the way violence was depicted. I loved all of the characters and how three dimensional and complicated every one was, each had their own reason for being there. So good. So good!!

Next on my list is The Boy and The Dog by Seishu Hase, then probably a middle grade title. Another book rec to look forward to (it comes out in January) is Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries. It begins a little slowly, but once Emily's academic rival and nemesis shows up, I became obsessed. Couldn't put it down and couldn't stop thinking about it. If you like Susanna Clarke, you'll enjoy it. Victorian academia plus faerie folklore on a remote Scandinavian island in the bitter winter. lovely!

god i know exactly what you mean !!!!! that book kept me guessing until the very end and i was so enthralled by the story/the concept/the word building. i really want to reread it when i get a moment because i feel like it would be a very different experience the second time around. esp. considering the complexity of the narrative.

and you're so right re: the rules of time travel! i'm a bit of a sucker for that trope but i thought the way she played with it was so fresh and different than i've ever encountered esp. in romance novels. and ofc the kingdoms is a lot more than a romance novel, but yk. her writing is always immersive to me but the kingdoms was something else. and it definitely has to do with, as you said, the very defined locations/timelines. i truly got lost in this one. and there's something so magical about that.

and! you're right! her characters are so incredibly fleshed out. i know some people don't love her morally grey characters (and lbr her unlikable female characters) but i personally always find myself so fascinated and wanting to peel back their layers. i think she's so talented in creating people that are so flawed, sometimes really rough around the edges, and showing us they are not just that one thing while simultaneously making us care about them. i've never met a simple/easy-to-figure-out/easy-to-categorize pulley character and that's something i find SO compelling about her writing.

overall it really lived up to the hype for me. which was hard considering there was SO much hype surrounding it. not only that but the fact some of it truly seemed written for me. i mean, time travel? scotland? a lighthouse? the anticipation was ridiculous but it exceeded my expectations. as you said so good !!!

thanks for the rec btw. i'm definitely going to add that emily wilde's encyclopaedia novel on my to read list! it sounds very intriguing. i've actually never read susanna clarke, but still.

as for me, i finished the bedlam stacks yesterday so i need to pick up something new. i've just started time is a mother, but that's a poetry collection so i need something bigger to read alongside it. i'm thinking either bad gays or a taste of gold and iron... just can't decide if i'm in the mood for a novel or non-fiction rn haha.

[alistonjdrake]

June tell me all your characters with A or J or S names!!

When I tell you I suddenly forget if any of my characters have names that start with these letters.

A Is For Argus an'Frederick Harver: It feels silly to have to explain him to you lol but for anyone who doesn't know, Argus is the youngest of 10 siblings and the legitimatized bastard of an emperor. This has all given him a bit of a complex that has bred a selfish, arrogant, hard-to-get-along-with personality and an unwillingness to change. But, lucky for him, he's beautiful and has a wonderful taste in desserts (but a horrible taste for men). At the moment I think my favorite thing about Argus is exploiting both his need to victimize himself (i.e his "no one has ever liked me in this family even when they've given me gifts and have tried to be nice to me" attitude.) as well as his ability to hold a grudge over petty slights but yet can't understand why people would do the same to him. Ashley Markell: The easiest way to describe Professor Markell is "can a 40-something man just be so sad and pathetic he resembles a Victorian Orphan?". A lover of gothic romance, cats, the history of magical creatures/monsters, and making Faustian Bargains. It's not mentioned much when I talk about Someone Will Die but Ashley does have one friend and positive connections in his life, he's just a conduit for gloom and shady characters so it's what he tends to dwell on. His romantic life is also not much to brag about but to in his defense, before his current on/off monstrous boyfriend, he didn't date much due to his dedication to being a frumpy historian and cat-dad. His estrangement from his family and the not entirely human conditions of it also never made him the most open, loving, and trusting person. Aayden Ponsonby: The soldier prince of Oskya. Now a brooding, angst-filled father of three with daddy issues of his own and under some considerable pressure due to the tensions that surround inheriting the Oskyan throne. Has a dark past as a momma's boy and has replaced that with being obsessed with his wife. Aayden has a quick temper, is publicly chaste and adverse to displays of affection, and thoroughly enjoys being a hater. Honorable Mentions: *Andrzej of the Druskeji: Mikolaj's childhood friend and ex-fling from The Night Court. By the time they meet again, he's happily married in the Ulra tradition. Loves his hunting dog, hallucinogens, and reading banned erotic books. *Adrian Gusky-Kiel: One of Justyna's younger brothers. He shows up in her story as her father's direct apprentice and a law student. *Asli: the "assassin trainer" and former mentor of Hartanti who is a fugitive and political enemy in the TSS series. *Aleksja: The daughter of Lord Wiech who suffered watching her dad be obsessed with Mikolaj. *Alexander Davies: The vampire folklore expert from another of my sad man shorts. *Arnold Stanislawski: The birthname of a certain courtesan and the alias used by another.

J Is For Justyna Gusky-Kiel: From noblemen's bastard, to courtesan, to spy, Justyna has gone through all phases of her life with grace, kindness, and a keen fashion sense. Her soft and seemingly air-headed attitude conceals a sharp wit and a big, utterly huge heart. She can play the piano, recite poetry, and discuss dense medical texts as well as philosophy. Strongly opinionated but also open-minded and forgiving, Justyna's one of those people whose shockingly done a lot and has outlandish life experiences but she's more likely to talk about her garden than brag about anything unique she's done. Like, she could tell you about the time she avoided execution by trying folk medicine and saved a king from a life-threatening injury or she can talk about how she and her son baked bread for the first time that day and that's 100% what she would do instead. Prince Juan Diego: A background character in TSS but I find his appearances usually pretty funny. He's a representative from Sceoque in the Escana council so most of the time he's mentioned he's fielding flattering and being overly polite in order to cause insult or conflict. Cidro did threaten to throw him off a cliff, however.

S Is For Sofka Oprinchuk: The Oskyan-Mignolian Ambassador in TSS that is rumored to bathe in the blood of her dead husbands to keep her beauty, has repeatedly stolen men from Ambassador Ulmer, and swears her allegiance more towards the holy city than to her homeland Oskya (which has made her unlikable by Aayden and Princess Hadley's standards) but she's a dangerous woman with powerful allies.

Send me a letter of the alphabet A-Z, and if I have an OC starting with that letter, I’ll tell about them.

[cookinguptales]

kaleideyes said: HOW DO YOU SPONSOR A BEE HIVE?!

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

Ask around at your local farms! (Or just google, I guess.) A bunch of farms are starting to do that now, where you can pay a certain amount and it’ll go towards the maintenance of a hive and depending on how much you donate, you might get honey from the hive. It can be a real struggle to maintain hives (it’s very expensive) so a lot of beekeepers are turning to a sort of crowdfunding model.

I personally am incredibly extra so I’m doing a half hive sponsorship at a (semi) local cemetery. Gonna get that spooky honey. Mine is also fun because if I’m in town during the harvest, I get to help. :o

Anyway, I’m a Big Fan of bees and honey (you should... see my honey cabinet...) so I’m always trying to plant bee-friendly plants and support local apiaries at the farmer’s market but if you can’t do that tbh every little bit helps. There are a lot of charities out there that’ll let you donate to apicultural initiatives. Or that’ll help you yell at your local representative so they can ban agricultural practices that harm local populations. And honestly, just buying a jar of local (to you) honey is good when you can. It helps prop up the people doing the hard work of caring for bees. It’s also good when you can donate to groups that are saving bees that don’t produce honey! They’re super important as well!

[sophieakatz]

Thursday Thoughts: The Jewish Heart of The Nightmare Before Christmas

On a recent episode of the Disney For Scores podcast, Danny Elfman, composer and songwriter for The Nightmare Before Christmas, was asked about his relationship with Halloween and Christmas.

“Since I was a little kid,” Elfman replied, “my least favorite night of the year was Christmas, and my favorite night of the year was Halloween… At Christmas, I was just a lonely Jewish kid in a neighborhood without Jewish friends.”

And I had to pause the podcast and shout, “I KNEW IT!!!”

I love TNBC for a lot of reasons. The music is catchy. The stop-motion animation is amazing. The setting and characters are fascinating, bizarre, lovable, and unforgettable. But the thing I’m happiest to ramble on about when it comes to TNBC is its message.

Last year, I called this film an “Anti-Christmas Movie.” A Christmas movie follows a character who does not value Christmas as they gradually learn to bring Christmas into their life. However, the upshot of TNBC is that despite Jack’s fascination with Christmas, he should NOT bring Christmas into his life. Instead, he should let the Christmas people do their thing, and he should take pride in his own culture, his own people, and his own holiday.

And in my heart, I knew there was no way a movie like this could have been made only by gentiles. Gentiles love Christmas, and they love telling other people that we need Christmas. As a Jewish kid surrounded by non-Jews for most of my life, I know this all too well. When I was in kindergarten, some girls at school told me that if I didn’t believe in Santa (and Jesus and the Easter Bunny), then there would be monsters under my bed forever. That was just the beginning of a long road of well-meaning antisemitism, and at the end of that road, I’m left with a bad taste in my mouth at the very sight of a Christmas tree. To be clear, I don’t care if other people enjoy Christmas – my problem is with people telling me that I should enjoy Christmas.

In my experience, it’s not just religious Christians who were so eager to remind me that I shouldn’t be alone on Christmas. Atheists love Christmas and are very quick to tell me that I should love it, too, even after I politely explain that I don’t need Christmas to be happy. So while I had no idea whether the creators of TNBC were religious Christians, and given that Jesus is not mentioned even once in the film I had a hunch that they were not, I also had a hunch that this movie would not exist without some Jewish person’s contributions.

Now, Tim Burton is not Jewish, despite his clear love for and frequent use of Jewish folklore, imagery, and history. Henry Selick, the often-forgotten director of TNBC, is not Jewish, and I’m pretty sure Caroline Thompson, the screenwriter, is also not Jewish. So that leaves Danny Elfman. The lonely Jewish kid who, to paraphrase him, felt disconnected from the Christian world around him, loved getting to run around in a monster mask at Halloween, and grew gloomy at the sound of Christmas music in the mall. Danny Elfman, who poured his heart and soul into the character of Jack Skellington to the point where his soundtrack demos were often used in the final film instead of the studio recordings.

Sure, you can argue about who really holds the power of storytelling in a film. The characters and basic plot undeniably belong to Tim Burton. But a movie musical truly comes to life in its songs, and in TNBC, the music never stops playing. The music carries us through this world where Christmas isn’t the most important thing, where you don’t need to take on someone else’s culture in order to feel complete, where people love and support you for who you are in all your oddness and uniqueness.

It’s no wonder I love this movie so much, and it’s no wonder that a Jewish man was at the heart of its creation.

[a-detraque-barista]

Could i pls request a siren jin♡,,,one where he finds you after a storm in a shipwreck and he like nurses you back to health but when your finally ready to go he won't actually let you. You can decide the ending🙇‍♀️

A/N: thank you for requesting, my love, I hope you enjoy~

The cruise ship rocked back and forth repeatedly, waves crashing into the sides. Rain poured from the dark cumulonimbus clouds, successfully soaking through your clothing. Thunder and lightning rang and flashed all around. Panicked screams sounded from every room of the ship. You were holding onto the side rail tightly. You could barely keep your eyes open long enough to see the monstrous wave that was about to collide with the ship.

Almost everyone knew it was safer to stay on the large vessel rather than get on a smaller one and risk the chance of being drowned by the ocean itself. Although, it seems this boat wasn’t going to last much longer. The few people that did lower themselves in a raft down into the water were quickly flipped over and taken by the unforgiving sea.

Your soaked hair whipped in every which way before the wave came down on the ship. Your grip on the metal railing slipped as the entire cruise was flipped until it was sideways before crashing into the depths of the sea. A hook from the ship caught into your shirt and into your side as you attempted to swim back up to the surface. You watched as more people and debris began to float to the surface.

This was it. You had no way of surviving. Your lungs were running out of oxygen and you were sinking farther and farther to the seafloor. You relaxed your muscles and let out your last bit of breath, closing your eyes. You should have never accepted the ticket your friend had given you.

Breathing in, water filled your airway, burning. Faintly, you felt a tug on the hook that was dug into your side. Your eyes open just slightly to see a man taking the hook out of your flesh and felt his arms wrap around you.

Your vision turned black before you could look at your savior.

The sound of crashing water woke you. Eyes cracked open to be met with a cave ceiling. The hand resting by your side could feel a scratchy fabric underneath you. Your other hand laid on your stomach. You went to sit up only to lay back down again from the shooting pain in your side. Groaning while gently nursing your side, you looked down to see your shirt, now dried, with a bloodstain. Carefully, you lifted your shirt up to see bandages wrapped around your torso.

“Finally, you’re awake, I was starting to worry you would never wake up,” a voice came from your right making your head turn.

Your eyes landed on the man you remember before losing consciousness. His wet pink hair was slicked back, broad shoulders dripping with water. Muscly arms rested on the lip of the tide pool he treaded in. The sound of rushing water you had woken up to was the waterfall meeting the river that led outside of the cave you were in.

The man’s cyan eyes stay on you as you moved your head around to look at your new and unfamiliar surroundings. He studied your expression, your body, all the small movements you made hadn’t gone unnoticed by him. His gut trembled with hunger as he couldn’t look away from you. He felt parched even though he was in a pool of water.

“Wait...how come you were able to save me from that deep in the water?” you looked at him scrutinizing.

“Haha, well, ya see…” he brought the end of his tail high enough for you to see his monofin.

…

“All right, I’m out,” you went to stand but the pain in your side had you slowly lay back down, taking deep breaths through the pain.

“Doesn’t seem like you’re going anywhere, Moonlight.”

Moonlight? What an odd nickname. Although, this whole situation was odd. You didn’t have much of a choice, you could barely move without being in immense pain and you had no idea where you were.

Meanwhile, the half-man was studying your appearance. Normally the humans that were stranded or in need of help were men that made the journey to feed their egos. What was an extraordinary specimen like you doing all the way out here? His webbed hands reached towards your arm. Your skin was so smooth compared to his scaly skin.

With the touch of the man’s cold hand, it brought your attention to his face. His slicked, almost dry, hair was a rose pink that matched well with his pale skin. His plump rosy lips pursed as he studied your skin more. Guess the folklore and tales were actually true, merpeople do exist. There was something...off about him though. As if he wasn’t a normal merman based on stories. The sharp teeth that poked out when he spoke and the claws that lightly dragged across your skin were not the basic portrayals of a merman.

“What are you exactly?” you couldn’t keep the question from coming out but since you were stuck here, might as well learn about your inhuman savior.

He chuckled, “I’m what you humans call a siren.”

“Like the ones that lure people to their death with singing?”

“Is that what you humans think? We don’t have to sing to get humans under our spells. They merely have to look at us and they’ll be entranced if we so wish,” he explained as if he wasn’t admitting to killing humans.

He noticed your concerned expression and decided to reassure you, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to eat you. If I was going to I would’ve already done it. Besides, there was more than enough food from the rest of the wreck.”

“Why did you save me?”

“Cause you’re cute.”

It was simple and short. Nothing about it was sweet. Who knows how many other lives he could have saved especially if he had time to bandage your wound and eat while you were unconscious.

“If you keep staring at me like that then I’m going to have to eat you,” he chuckled as your eyes widened before darting away. He found you so adorable yet so delectable. There was no doubt in his mind that you would be the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted. However, he couldn’t bring himself to eat you. Something about you had pulled him to your location. That’s how he found the shipwreck. That part of the ocean belonged to someone else but he didn’t care at the time.

You went to ask for the siren’s name when your gut made a loud growling noise. Your cheeks turned red as you keep your gaze away from the smirking man next to you.

“Seems like my little human is hungry. I’ll be right back,” he chuckled again before submerging under the water and swam away.

This gave you a chance to look around, the dewy rock walls led up to an opening with the moon shining directly down into the cave you laid in. It was full and glowing brightly. You could hear the waves colliding with the outside of the rock formation around you. It was so dangerously calming.

“I’m back~” the siren popped his head out of the water, startling you. “I got you a mackerel!” he slapped the fish right beside you as he grinned.

You watched as water dripped down his smiling face. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

Over the past three weeks, you’ve learned that your savior’s name was Seokjin. He’d been taking care of you, never leaving your side for too long. You had started changing your bandages due to Seokjin’s claws accidentally catching on your sutures and reopening the wound. If he kept changing the bandages your wound would never heal.

Now the cut is almost completely healed and you’ve been thinking of ways to get home when Seokjin wasn’t talking your ear off. For someone who didn’t like humans very much, he liked to talk to you for hours. You wondered how he had so many stories to tell.

“Moonlight, what are you thinking about?” Seokjin’s voice pierced through your thoughts.

“Just trying to think of a way to get back home?” you sighed as you continued to drag your finger through the sand absentmindedly.

“Leave? Why would you want to leave?” his brows furrowed and his face scrunched up in disgust.

“Well...I can’t stay here. I have a life back home. Friends, work, I’m sure no one has any idea where I am. Or even if I’m alive for that matter,” you hoped you weren’t making your friends sick with worry.

Seokjin began laughing. It started as a chuckle and progressed to a sickening cackle that echoed throughout the cave. You slowly shuffled back until you hit the rough cave wall. Still, it wasn’t far enough from the crazed siren in front of you.

“You can’t leave, Moonlight. You’re mine,” he chuckled before pulling himself out of the tide pool and onto the sand. His long tail transformed into legs, allowing him to walk over to you and crouch down. He held your chin between his fingers, “I’ll never let you go. I’m your life now.”

“Let me go home,” your wide eyes were staring into his.

Your mind was going blank as a smirk stretched across his features. Your eyes could no longer focus. You willed your limbs to move but they wouldn’t comply. Soon, you couldn’t think at all. Seokjin wasn’t allowing you to even think of leaving him behind.

[ragnvdnir]

Folklore

Act I Part II: A Growing Seed of Flower [Our Blooming Chapter]

pairings: zhongli x fem!reader

foreword(prologue) Act I Part I

genre: angst, romance, forbidden love

summary: you meet the man you met earlier once more, you said it was coincidence. . .or not?

warnings: nothing deep for now, bit of crack? a little tease of y/n's backstory, not proofread

a/n: i finally wrote the chapter two, congrats to me. i decided to speed run a bit rn bc i don't want the fic to be longer than 20 chapters that's why im starting to put the build up of romance rn. also, let's just pretend that wangshu inn already existed at this time. adding to that, i tried to understand the lore sm but it seems that im still confused, that's why i might write some wrong things.

please be reminded that this is a work of fiction, this has nothing to do with the genshin lore.

now playing; so this is love

“so this is love. so this is what makes life divine”

The trip to finding an inn to stay was exhausting. Being unfamiliar with the land is a nuisance. It was luck that you found an inn before the night gets darker.

You let out a sigh of relief as you finally stood in front of the said inn. All your exhaustion came crashing down suddenly.

“Ah, I want to rest already.”

You entered the inn. Observing your surroundings, the furnitures and structure was very different from your homeland. The sudden thought of your home taste like sweet and sour on your mouth. Sweet, because you finally got to explore the world beyond yours like you’ve always wanted to. Sour, because you left your homeland disobeying your parents.

‘I just wanted to be free. . .’

You snapped out of your thoughts when the receptionist called you. “Are you gonna check in?” she gave you a small smile. You nodded and took out your mora, you somehow got it somewhere.

“For a day?” she asked.

“No, I would actually want to stay here until I go on another journey, would that be fine?”

“Of course, however, it’s gonna cost you a lot of mora— we can give you a discount though.”

“That would be very nice. Say, do you have any vacant job? Like anything? I really need it.” You looked at the receptionist hopefully.

“Well uhm, we’re not really looking for someone to hire. However, since you look like you’re just new here, then I guess I can give you a job.” You felt her eyeing your clothes. Well you can’t blame her, your clothes were really out of liyue’s clothing.

“Really? Thank you so much! When can I start?” The receptionist smiled at you and told you that you can start tomorrow night. You thanked her again as she showed you the way to your room.

You keep tossing around your bed as if you can’t sleep. After a few minutes of changing positions, you finally sat up.

‘I can’t sleep.’

You decided to went to the balcony of the inn and unwind. You arrived at the top, looking around your surroundings, two figures caught your attention, it seems that they’re having a conversation so you paid no mind to them and rest your forearms on the railings of the balcony.

Cold whispers of the wind suddenly embraced your form sending a shiver down to your spine. You hug yourself as you let out a puff of breath.

Sighing at the cold, you stared back at the glistening stars and moon. The loneliness of your voyage came crashing suddenly. The homesickness is kicking in. You never disobeyed your parents like that. You never escaped like that.

You wouldn’t call it escaping actually. It’s just that more likely, they’re taking your own rights and freedom. You would rather call what you did running away. . .finding what your heart wants, and it’s not in your homeland, you knew that all too well.

You love where you live, but at the same time, you hate it. You can’t be free because of your parents who unknowingly neglected you. All they think is your homeland here and there, they’re too prideful, think too highly of themselves.

You don’t want to live a life like that, that’s why you run away. A tear manage to escape your eyes, you wiped it as you stand up and decided to go back to your room.

As you turn around, you catch a figure looking at you in your rear view. You looked back at the person. Realizing that the figure seems familiar, you turn your whole body to face it and looked at the face of it carefully.

As if a light bulb appeared, your face brightens up a surprised expression. You opened your mouth and let words out to the man.

“So it’s you again, what a coincidence, mister gold!”

The man who stood feet away from you, stared at you and move his feet towards your place. “Meeting you once more is the least that I expected, a coincidence indeed.” He nodded while a hand is placed under his chin.

“So, what brings you here in this inn? Gonna stay a night here too?” You started as you stared at his amber eyes again.

“No, that’s not it. Just visited a. . .friend, that’s it.”

“Ooh, the one you’re talking to earlier?” You asked a he let out a hmm.

“Yes, that’s him indeed.”

“Nice.”

Awkward tension started rising as you just stood there, while he stared at you, waiting for you to talk.

“Uhm, do you know any good places here in liyue? You know, I don’t where to go and continue my adventure hehe.” You scratch the back of your neck as you looked away, embarrassed.

“Good places, you say? I know a few that does have a ravishing scenery and history. If you do not mind, I can suggest a few.”

“Sure! I would appreciate that!”

“Let’s see, you can start with the Guyun Stone Forest, located at the Sea of Clouds.”

“Oh uh, where is that?” you laughed awkwardly.

“It seems that you’re not familiar with liyue, you really are new here.” You let out a small ‘yeah’ in response.

The man infront of you sighed and nodded to himself, as if making a decision.“Alright then, meet me here tomorrow morning, I’ll accompany you.”

Your eyes widened as you looked at the man infront of you. ‘What?’

“There’s no need! I don’t want to disturb you any longer.” You shook your hands infront of you, refusing to take his offer.

“It’s fine, you look like you’ve shown interest in liyue, that’s great. It’s my duty to show people the beauty of my land— I mean the land of Geo Archon. Besides, is it not good that you have someone who will guide you on your journey?”

“O—oh, yeah you’re right. But is it really alright with you?” You gazed at man, still baffled by his service.

“Like I said, it’s fine. Now, are you gonna accept my offer of kindness or not?”

“Ofcourse I do! Who wouldn’t want a free tour guide?” You smiled at him.

“Free? Who said it’s free?” Your smile soons fade as you stared at him.

“Oh, yeah ofcourse it’s not free. Well, what do you want?” You sighed and looked at him colorless.

‘Honestly speaking, I don’t know.’ Rex Lapis thought.

“I’ll let you know when time’s up.”

“Well, when is time’s up ?”

“When you decided to rest from your adventures.”

“Fine then, just make sure it’s not illegal, I will really call liyue’s Archon and say that you’re a disgrace to his land.” Rex Lapis bit his lips to stiffle a chuckle at your remarks.

“It’s a contract then.” He finally said after he swallowed his laughters.

“A contract? Oh yeah, almost forgot that liyue is also the land of contracts. It’s a contract.” You shook your hands with him, noticing once again his hands.

“By the way, can I ask a question?” You utter while still gazing at his hands.

“Ask away.”

“Why is your arms and hand like that?” You now looked at his amber eyes. It went silent for a second before he answered.

“It’s a secret.”

After that night

“Where are we heading?” You followed behind him while checking your surroundings. You two had been walking for so long.

“We’re heading to a place called Luhua Pool.” He answered while looking at the sides every now and then. Checking if a citizen is around. He wouldn’t want to be recognize, right?

After a few minutes of walking which made your legs hurt, you finally arrived at Luhua Pool.

“We are here, take a look around and share your thoughts.”

Your mouth parted in awe looking at the terraces of water. “Why does the water looks clearer than my eye sight.” He find it funny that you say such ridiculous things easily.

“Well, the water you see right now is full of minerals that it appears to be smooth and crystal clear.” He continued explaining the legends of Luhua Pool while your mind drifts somewhere.

‘Can I drink the water? It probably taste so good knowing it’s full of minerals.’

You two stayed there for an hour before deciding to continue your travels.

It went on and on like that until you arrived at your last stop for today, Guyun Stone Forest.

The sun was already setting when you arrived there. Exhaustion filled you but the breath taking scenery before you made all that fade away.

“So this is Guyun Stone Forest, huh?”

“Indeed, Would you hear why the stones are are formed like that?” You continued staring at the scenery and nodded.

“Go on.”

As he spoke, you glanced at him rambling about the history of the place. You seem to can’t take your eyes off him, the beam of sun glimmer on him, making him shine like gold in your view.

For a moment, you forgot about the breath taking scenery where you are. Because right now, infront of you, this man is making you fall to your death only to take you back to life whenever he sets his amber eyes on you.

A skip of a heart beat, a glimer of eyes, a strung on heart strings, a butterfly in stomach, a taste of heaven, a blossom of flowers, a whisper of love. You feel it all, just by looking at him. He pass and spreads on your mind and body and soul, a folklore.

‘Yeah, what is this. . .’

“Hey, what's your name? I feel like mister gold is an old a nickname anymore.” He stopped talking to look at you, you swore he brought life to you the moment he laid his eyes on you after dying from his beauty.

“Well i am–”

‘Just a second, she doesn't know i am Rex Lapis yet.’

You patiently waited for him to say his name. He sighed and continued.

“– nameless.”

“Huh?” You furrowed your eyebrows.

“I am nameless, I don't have a name.”

“What? How is that? Then what do people call you?” Confusion painted your face.

“It's. . . anything, they call me anything they want since i am– well. . .nameless.”

“Odd, how is that even possible.” You muttered. You stared into nothing until an idea come to you that removed the cease in your eyebrows.

“Ah ha! I'll give you a name instead since you don't have one!” You grin at him. Its his now turn to furrow eyebrows.

“Give me. . .a name?”

“Yup! yup! I'll make you one so i don't have to call you mister gold anymore.”

“What will you call me then?” He asked her, looking forward to his name created by you.

“Well, let's see,” You put you hand under your chin, thinking of a name for him.

“How about. . .

. . . Zhongli!”

Taglist:

@escapeis @lovyrn @grassorzhonglisass

send an ask or comment to be added!

©kazu-topia, do not copy or translate my works, thank you!

[amysteriousmessenger]

‘Love Bites’ Vampire!Saeran Choi Drabbles

Hello! This is one of my slightly belated pieces for @mysme-rbb, which I worked on with the very, very talented and sweet @amagicalduckling <3 Their art is so beautiful and I’m honoured to have been paired with them for some Saeran pieces! Please check out @amagicalduckling for more of their beautiful artwork, they are criminally underrated!!  Tw: mentions of blood, biting, vampirism, rough kissing Will be under the cut after Ray!

Vampire! Ray Drabble

Ray was melancholic by nature, you knew that, but you’d never had been able to guess why it if hadn’t been for that fateful night in the garden. He always did such a good job of hiding his fangs from you and brushing his hair over his ears so you couldn’t see their slightly pointed tips. He always kept his distance as best as he could, never coming too close into your personal space. You’d assumed it was out of respect and the nervousness of overstepping the boundaries, this idea was always aided by the fact that he usually looked a little bit strained whenever he was in your company.

The way you came to find out about Ray was because you had foolishly pricked your finger on a rose that he had been trying to show you outside. With the beautiful arrangements only being illuminated by moonlight, it had been difficult to see what you were doing, and you’d placed your finger directly onto the little spike and yelped in pain. As soon as you had pulled your hand back, to indicate what had caused you to cry out, Ray had immediately brought his own hand up to his mouth and feverishly covered it. You were confused and thought that perhaps Ray was sensitive to the sight of blood, but it was when he turned to run from you that you saw the white, iridescent fangs peering from behind his lips. You saw them, and he knew that you had. Ray ran at top speed away from you, leaving you with the drop of the blood slowly dripping down the side of your finger.

You felt a little lightheaded from the sight and had to stumble your way over to the bench, a… vampire? Surely, such things like that didn’t exist. They weren’t real. They were myths. Folklore. Children’s horror stories to tell before bed. And yet, as you considered Ray, really thought about him, you realised how quickly it all added up. He was so pale, sickly looking even at the best of times. You’d thought that the prominent blue veins on his neck and wrists was a result of his pasty complexion, but that was clearly not the truth of the matter. It also occurred to you that you never really saw him during the day, but he had always excused this fact as he must work arduously long hours and the only time he could find to get away and visit you was into the early hours of the night. While you supposed that there was at least some truth in that statement, it didn’t help the fact that it aligned with what you thought could be coming into fruition. Was he really a vampire? Had he been trying to hide it from you for all this time?  

And those fangs. Those could not be denied. They were the teeth of a predator, a hidden threat that he had tried so hard to keep a secret from you. So many questions raced through your head, and yet all you could worry about was where Ray was. He had left so quickly, clearly a bit distressed. You felt somewhat guilty for your own carelessness, but how were you to know? There was no way you would have guessed what was really happening here at Mint Eye. You had only been here to test a game, for crying out loud.

Suddenly, you felt anxious to be alone in the gardens at night, especially without Ray. Even if he was hiding something this serious from you, he was still the only person that you had gotten to make yourself friendly with. Well, in his case, more than a little bit friendly, but that was besides the point in that moment. You stood, trying to find your way through the maze of flowers and get back to your room but with little success. As you turned the corner, you spotted a figure at the other end of the path and it caused you to cry out in surprise, maybe slightly even in fear. It was Ray.

You’d never thought that the sight of Ray would ever frighten you, but as he stood there, pale and gaunt surrounded by the red flushes of rose petals, you had to wonder how you hadn’t realised it sooner. He looked guilty, and scared. So, so scared. You put your hands up to him slowly, asking if he was okay, but instead of receiving any sort of reply about his own wellbeing, Ray flurried out several apologies at you. He averted his gaze downwards, as though he felt as though he was no longer allowed to look at you directly for what he was. You stared at him as he spoke, focused on the slight protrusion of his sharp teeth over his lips. It was obvious that he had practiced speaking without making them visible, so you could only really see them if you were already looking for them.

‘Ray… It’s okay.’ You whispered, coming a little bit closer to him. He took a step back, moving his back up against the roses further so that he was surrounded by them. If it had been at any other moment, you would have taken the time to think about the fact he looked like a delicate portrait right then, the passion of the red surrounding his pale frame. But alas, you did not have that luxury.

‘It’s not! I scared you, oh how could I ever forgive myself! How could you ever forgive me for this! I should have been able to show more restraint… My savior was right, she’s always right…’ He replied almost frantically, to the point where you weren’t quite sure if he was talking to you or telling you his own inner monologue.

‘M-My Savior said that I’m not strong enough yet, which is why I find… you difficult to be around. I want to be around you always but- she says you’re too tempting for someone like me.’

‘Too tempting…?’ You asked, a slightly unsure as to what he meant. That was, until he gestured to your bleeding fingertip, and it suddenly made more sense to you. ‘I don’t mind if you… want to be around me. I want to be around you too.’ You added, attempting to phrase it in the same way that he did, since he was clearly skirting around using certain vocabulary. It made you realised that there was a good chance that Ray was unhappy about the fact he wanted you in such a way. If he allowed himself to get too close, he would inevitably bring you pain.

As you stepped closer to him, you watched as he reached his own leathered hand towards his mouth, anxiously biting onto the tips of the fabric. He wasn’t just chewing it, he was really biting it, to the point you were worried he might hurt himself.

You were suddenly moving quickly down the path towards him, ‘Ray! Please, stop that. It’s okay! I’m not scared of you.’

‘I’m scared that I might hurt you!’ He almost wailed. You knew that there was an obsessive nature to Ray, which walked hand in hand with his melancholy, but you knew that he wouldn’t hurt you like this. For the most part, he was tender-hearted and sensitive. Of course, he had room in that heart for hate, but yet, so much more room for sensitivity.

‘You’re not going to hurt me. I trust you.’

‘Please, be more careful with who you award your trust to. I don’t deserve it.’ He replied, but pulled his own glove away stiffly, since he didn’t want to worry you any further. At such a distance, he had nothing to distract himself from the pull he felt towards your blood.

‘If you want it, take it. I don’t want to see you be so strained over this. I don’t know what’s happening here at Magenta, but I know that you’re good. And kind.’ You were at his side, offering your hand to him. Initially, he tried to move his body away from your hand and cover his teeth again with his hand, but it was evident that he was growing more and more needy by the passing second. You tried to assure him that it was okay and reached out a slightly shaky hand to his cold cheek. ‘And I want to help you.’

After a few moments of tentative consideration, he took your offer. Ray watched your eyes as he held your finger in both of his hands, as though it was something fragile, delicate even. He hesitated before bringing it to his own lips, the thin line of dark red suddenly giving a burst of colour to his otherwise exceedingly white pallor. He gently took the blood that was already at the surface of your skin, closing his eyes as he did so, but you couldn’t decide whether it was out of shame or whether it was to savour the moment between the two of you. You gasped as you felt the sharpness of his teeth graze against your skin before he let the tip of them bite into your soft flesh, producing more of the red he was so desperately craving. It wasn’t as painful as you thought it would be, but your heart was still racing, nonetheless. When he was done, he pressed a single, sorry kiss into the palm of your hand and apologised for hurting you, adding that he was undeserving of your pain as he wiped the rest of the blood away with a handkerchief out of his pocket.

‘I’d rather be hurt a thousand times over than for you to have to suffer even once…’ He whispered into the darkness of the garden. Not that he would feel bold enough to tell you, but Ray undeniably saw the poetry in tasting your blood. He’s ashamed of what he is, but he relished in the fact that you were willing to share such a vital piece of yourself with him like this. He entirely made a mental plan to carry the handkerchief with him at all times, as a token and reminder of this newfound connection with you.

Vampire! Suit Saeran Drabble 

Meeting Saeran was an experience unto itself, let alone processing the surprise you received in how differently he treated you and himself. Saeran doesn’t hide what he is in the same way that Ray did, he acts proud of it. A shining example of what Mint Eye could offer to people with the Elixir, but only if they were strong enough to deserve it. He’s the strongest Believer and the strongest Vampire produced from the Elixir, The Savior said it herself. She called him her ‘One True Offspring’. When you had asked what that meant, since Ray had never mentioned anything like that to you, Saeran had angrily snapped that firstly, he shouldn’t have to answer your questions and secondly, it meant that he had been turned using The Savior’s own blood in the Elixir given to him. That meant that he was special, and better than anyone else there. He repeated that a lot, but you were never quite who if he was saying that to you or to himself but he clearly made an attempt to believe it, at least for his own sake.

Saeran carried himself around Magenta so differently to Ray, you heard his footsteps from down the corridor when he wanted you to know to anticipate him and yet you never heard him when he suddenly appeared behind you. He was most definitely choosing when to make his presence known and when he wanted to startle you from standing silently around a corner. Saeran certainly disproved to you the lore that Vampires needed to be invited into rooms in order to gain entrance, as he came in whenever he pleased. He never hid his fangs either or tried to cover his ears either with his unkempt hair, if anything, he seemed to enjoy the attention that could be brought to them by smirking at you or asking if ‘you like what you see, Princess?’ You could feel the anger in his voice, he was practically dripping with a rage that he did not know how to release properly. It weighed on his shoulders, and somehow seemed to push him in on himself to the point where he was constantly forcing himself to stand taller, to be louder so that he would not be entirely consumed by it. The atmosphere he carried was tense, to say the least. It seemed to make him paler. Saeran’s dark undereyes were no longer something a simple goodnight sleep could fix; they were almost bruises of their own. Purple, sunken.

While he was not lacking for blood in the same way that Ray had suffered without, it appeared that Saeran was overworking himself to the point that the added sustenance did little to actually aid him, so he kept on coming back for more and more each time. He appeared at any hour of the day or night, which suggested that he was no longer really sleeping, or if he was he was only sleeping for very short amounts of time, and it was really showing him his face. You were sure his appearance must have sat somewhere between Dorian Gray and his portrait, beautiful yet rotting. The way he felt on the inside was slowly, yet surely, manifesting itself. He was so capable of kindness, and yet he never allowed himself to admit to it. If Saeran didn’t have his cruelty, he didn’t have anything. He needed to hold onto it to hold himself together as the Persecutor.

His kisses were rougher too, leaving your lips feeling puffy, tender, and always breathless. He seemed to thrive on the fact he could make you feel so weak, as though it was precisely your weakness that gave him the strength he needed to carry on this strained life he led. He’d sneak up behind you frequently, with the confidence that Ray never quite found, and bury his face into the side of your neck, running rough kisses along it until you sigh against him from the touch, not even bothering to move your hair out of the way as he did so. Even as he kissed you like this, he’d taunt you for enjoying his touch so much in comparison to Ray, who barely ‘had the guts’ to touch you freely. Saeran would lift up your finger to show him the tiny bite impressions that Ray had originally left, only to have Saeran go over them more harshly with his own bite, before moving back up to your throat.

He dragged his fangs along the thin skin of your neck, so you knew it was coming, before promptly biting you. He doesn’t try to be delicate like Ray, and he’s more likely to take too much blood and leave you feeling woozy. He’ll take as much blood as he wants, really. Once you inevitably faint in his arms, he’d usually carry you back and placed you on the bed, but only so he can reprimand you for being such a burden to him. He’d never admit to anything else, especially not to feeling bad about pushing you to your limit.

‘Heh… Don’t look so happy with yourself, your blood tastes like shit anyway. I should go and find someone better, someone sweeter.’ He smirked before laughing, his eyes alive with a frantic excitement. He still had a small steak of blood running down his lips and onto his chin, which he promptly wiped away onto his black suit sleeve without releasing you from his unwavering gaze.

There were times when he’d suddenly stop laughing and looked at his blood-covered hand in disgust, before dragging that same gaze over towards you. He’d look at the redness on his hands and try to wipe it away, even after it dried and would not budge without soap and water. Saeran would still furiously rub his skin against the fabric of his clothes in a vain attempt to wipe his slate clean. You were never able to decipher what Saeran felt in the moment that he decided that ‘play time’ was over, but he never seemed happy about the outcome of the collision the two of you had found yourselves in, even when he was the one that instigated it. He’d half-assedly throw a bag of food from the kitchen at you, telling you that you ought to be grateful for having such a kind master for feeding you, before promptly turning on his heels to leave and slamming the door shut.

He was complicated, that was for sure.

 Vampire! GE Saeran Drabble 

Saeran had been through so much, and yet he was coming out stronger and stronger from it each day. He had a lot to process, about himself, the things that had happened to him and the things that he has done to other people, especially to you. Saeran had a difficult time accepting the he hurt you. He understands that he did it and he has accepted the fact that he did it, but somehow his heart never wanted to believe it. No matter how many times you told him he needed to forgive himself for it, Saeran knew that he never could.

He tried to make it up to you in every way that he could think of. He was so loving, so caring. He always served your food first, gave you extra helpings and always made dessert for afterwards. His food was always so well made, filled with all the vitamins and minerals that your body could have possibly needed and always tasted like he had been cooking his whole life. He’d even try to feed you the last few bites if you’d let him, just to make sure that you’d gotten enough food. It’s sweet, and he does it out of care, but there’s a part of Saeran that does it because he feels as though he needs to make amends to your body for the way he treated it.

He’s not keen on drinking your blood, he feels as though he’s taking advantage of you and doesn’t enjoy the fact that he has to hurt you to be able to do it. He’d looked into alternatives that he could try, such as blood banks or from animals, just any means of supply that didn’t involve hurting you. It didn’t work out very well and in the end it started to do him more harm than good, so he usually just tried to wait for as long as he can in between biting you. And even then, he waits for you to offer because he doesn’t want to pressure you into giving up so sacred for him, Saeran would much rather have himself suffer than to make you feel any sort of uneasy around him.

He was a lot more considerate and knowledgeable about the outside world nowadays, and would look into various ways of making it less painful for you: the most effective one to date being numbing creams. He’s not a fan of the chemical taste of the cream in his mouth, but he would happily deal with it if it was for your sake. While he did still have a preference for your neck, because it felt a little bit more romantic to him, Saeran would always give you the choice on where you wanted him to bite. He knows it’s not his body to dictate, and if anything, he actually wants you to put some more of your own rules in place about it. He’d be more than happy if you wanted him to do it somewhere less visible so that you could hide it from people. As long as you weren’t hiding your actual relationship with him, he wouldn’t mind. He’s very understanding of the fact that sometimes it is a little awkward to have marks like that in public and that you didn’t want to answer questions from strangers all of the time.

He was very gentle with it, making sure to apply the numbing cream beforehand and to avoid any particularly sensitive spots while never biting too deep. Saeran never took more than what was absolutely necessary either, even if you told him that it was okay to do it. You figured that he always remembered the time that Saeran would make you faint after taking too much blood, and that it must weigh on his consciousness heavily. Telling him to take more than the bottom-line wasn’t something you frequently told him to do though, since you already knew he was restraining himself and trying to put some boundaries in place for your own protection, so you didn’t want to push him. He cleaned the area after drinking from it and pressed a little patterned band-aid onto it and sealed it with a kiss, just for good measure. It really didn’t sit right with him that he had to hurt you like this so he tried to make amends for it wherever he could.

He always wiped his mouth before he kissed you, since he thought it would be rather cruel to make you taste the blood that you had just willingly offered up to him. You’d find the taste unpleasant anyway, even if Saeran enjoyed it. Saeran was rather poetic at the best of times, but it was especially true when he was feeling a little bit drunk off of your love (and blood). If you ever asked him what your blood tasted like, he’d write you a verbal essay on how sweet it is. It’s intoxicating to him and it always had been, even when he was both Ray and Saeran. The two of them were so confused by their sudden feelings and this undeniable pull towards you that neither could escape from. If you let him, he’ll probably even get a little bit cliché with how he feels like he’s reached some form of enlightenment by your blood being the thing that can kept him alive, along with how he can feel your love beating through his veins and giving him strength. Sometimes you can’t help but cringe at some of the things that Saeran says, but he means it in such a sweet way that you find it even more affectionate.

In times like this, Saeran was so adorable and kind-hearted. He generally felt a bit bad about himself, since he knows that he can’t ever become a human again as a result of his time in Mint Eye, so you have to make the extra effort to love him in this moment. You cupped his face with both of your hands and told him how precious he was to you and that he is, and always will be, the most important thing in your life.

Vampire! Unknown Drabble

There were no words that allowed you to accurately describe Unknown. He was exactly that. You never quite knew what he was thinking and for the most part he definitely relished in that fact. His actions were unpredictable, and he barely seemed to keep a routine for too long, lest someone figured it out and learned to predict his moves. Everyone walked on eggshells around him out of fear and uncertainty, and he seemed to enjoy it. He found it humorous, even. He enjoyed taking you by surprise in particular, it was his main form of entertainment. You were a toy for him to play with when he got bored.

He was sort of what you expected a modern-day vampire to be, look-wise and attitude-wise. His attire was certainly a change. It felt as though he was trying to actively reflect the anguish he felt within, but at the same time, it was an external threat. A threat that if you got too close to him, you’d be in danger of getting hurt yourself. The spikes were enough to ensure that, even if Unknown wasn’t. He reminded you of Saeran, but you could tell that there was a stark difference between the two of them. Unknown rarely displayed anger in the same way that Saeran did, it was certainly there, but it wasn’t as explosive. Sometimes it was cold, warped, and vindictive underneath layers of you weren’t sure what. Like Saeran, he made little attempt to hide his fangs or ears, but he didn’t necessarily show them off unless he was actively trying to taunt someone. It was more as though he didn’t care about them until they were of use to him. At which point, he’d smirk and release the sharpened canines: a spark of excitement in his eyes inviting you closer, to dare test him.

When he wanted to feed from you, he’d summon you to wherever he is rather than coming to see you himself. After all, you were a failed experiment who couldn’t even do your job of talking to the RFA correctly; being an assistant was the best job you’d be able to manage, so he told you that you ought to be grateful for it especially since Magenta wasn’t in the habit of keeping ‘useless’ things around for very long.

He was usually desperate when he called for you because of the long hours he forced his body to endure, even throughout the daytime when he’d naturally be sleeping. He entirely believed that because he’s strong, he wasn’t allowed to feel anything except for that strength, so he had to keep himself at the same standard of work every single day in order to maintain it. He’d burn the candle at both ends and then continue trying to light the wick. When you thought of him, there was always one particular instance that came to mind when he had no choice but to display an element of weakness to you, and it enraged him. He had been out on a recon mission for The Savior and had over-exerted himself in the process, sustaining an injury. He had crashed into your room afterwards, panting and holding onto his bleeding wound, drinking enough blood in one go that he’d made you  back onto your bed with light-headedness. He hadn’t done that since, and rarely pushed you past that point, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t willing to dance with the limit of it. He’d say it was because he preferred to tease you with it, to savour what belonged to him, even though you knew it wasn’t his only reason for taking it slow.

How he bit you depended on what mood he was in, but his typical go-to is to have you sitting on his lap while he’s at his desk and facing him so that he can pull you towards him by your hips, making sure that your collarbones are already level with his mouth. He shouldn’t have to do any of the work, he wanted you already in position for him.

Unknown’s hands were roughly on your shoulders, both pulling you towards him and holding you steady. He bites first, kissed later. There’s little warning to feeling his teeth, except for the second or so beforehand where you feel his hot breath fan over you, just before you feel the sharp break of that skin underneath. Sometimes he’d hover for a few seconds longer than usual because he sought the thrill of you not knowing when the pain was coming. He has a preference for the neck and collarbones, not that he’d never explain why to you but, simply, he doesn’t think he should have to anyway. You’d have laughed at the cliché nature of it, but you’d rather he kept it to the same area instead of spreading it all over your body. That being said, he had bitten your thighs a couple of times when your neck had been a little too sore for him to drink from there, when the skin needed time to heal.

Unknown swapped between biting and kissing at your neck, making his way up towards your mouth to continue the blood-tinted kiss there. Each time you tasted the metallic tinge on your tongue, it left your breathless, but not as much as the bite he’d leave on your lower lip did. You wouldn’t admit it to Unknown, but those kisses were some of your favourites that you had shared with him.

Not only did he leave your skin with actual bites, but he made point of littering your throat with lovebites each time too. As though the real bites weren’t enough for him, Unknown always had to go one step further with his act of possession over you. It was a cocky game, in his own mind, he needed to show that you were his and that no other Believer was permitted to look at you in the same that that he did.

When he was done and needed the wipe the blood away from his face, he’d wipe it straight onto the back of his hand. He’d make no effort to properly clean it until he went to wash his hands, it didn’t seem to bother him.

 Vampire! Savior Saeran Drabble 

It’s ironic, to Saeran, that crosses and biblical imagery did nothing to inhibit a Vampire, especially considering how linked the two aesthetics were. They truly went hand in damned hand. Mint Eye had always been steeped in Catholicism, as it was the core religion of the previous Savior, but as Saeran was forced to take the throne, he had not made any changes to those principles. He had been taught to instil and swallow those same beliefs in himself as they had been handed to him, even if they were not truly his own. He had been prepared in such a way that he would be able to take over Mint Eye when he had truly reached the peak of his strength and was intended to forge a new way for the organisation.

You had been bathed, dressed, and summoned to the throne room, where many Believers and the Savior in question were already gathered. You’d heard whispers that you were going to be cleansed, but the atmosphere you found yourself in did not seem to fit the one you associated with a cleansing. However, The Savior had yet to conduct a ceremony of his own since taking the throne and you started to fear that, perhaps, you were to be the leading spectacle. You walked between the Believers, as you were told to kneel before Saeran.

He was so lifeless in comparison to the Saerans you had once encountered before him. He was so sad, empty. At the very least, Ray’s melancholy had an element of hope to it, but as The New Savior stood before you, there was little more than a shell of the man that you had come to know. Your interaction with him was limited, but it was so plainly obvious to you that he was just being used as a pawn, a pawn in disguise of the King. It seemed distinctly sacrilegious to have a vampire dressed in religious garments, but you supposed that Saeran had probably not received a choice in either of those matters.

Another Believer came up from behind you and asked for your wrist, which he then wiped over with disinfectant fluid before presenting it to The Savior. Saeran reached out his hand to grab your arm, pulling it towards him. He was silent as his teeth suddenly found their way into your wrist, but he barely took more than a small mouthful of blood. Even with your arm in his grasp, Saeran said nothing and continued to just plainly stare ahead into the masses, occasionally throwing glances in your direction.

‘Are you ready for the next initiation step?’ He asked. You could still see your blood in his mouth, the thin line of red providing a stark colour contrast to the rest of his chilly pallor.

‘Yes.’ You replied.

Once done, he turned and pushed the red Elixir bottle towards you, tilting it into your open mouth. It was lukewarm and overwhelmed all of your senses with the metallic taste of blood and chemicals. It burned. Tasting blood like this felt so wrong. You felt it fill your mouth and you forced it down your throat swallow, gasping for air as soon as it passed. Was that… his blood? In the same way that he had been given his Savior’s blood?

You were asked to stand as Saeran took another step towards you. You tried to watch his eyes, looking for any hint of the life that Ray and Saeran had once brought to them, but The Savior in front of you had clearly managed to subdue that hope. Or rather, he had been forced and conditioned to abandon it.

Almost sombrely, he pressed a small kiss against your lips; causing you to once again receive a fresh taste of blood. Except this time, it was the remnants of your own that had been left on his own tongue. There was little free affection in his kiss, and it appeared to be more about the process of the initiation rather than anything to do with kindness or tenderness. It only lasted for a second or so and was nothing intimate, ending almost as soon as it had begun. He pulled away first, placing the bottle that he had been previously holding back onto the throne room altar.

You were hugely aware of the fact that you were still being watched by an entire room of people and felt so exposed, so seen. It was uncomfortable to have to wait there for it to be over when you would have much rather have had this be a private affair: not that you had been warned in advance anyway.

He pressed his bloody lips against your forehead, leaving a red stain against your skin. Saeran then reached a cold hand towards your face, dragging his thumb across the bloody kissmark and smearing it into the shape of an eye. A baptism.

Vampire! SE Saeran Drabble

He was trying. Saeran was really trying. Being around people was difficult, well, everything was a little difficult for him. It was taking all of his energy to adjust and process things, so you rarely saw him during the day. He was always pretty low energy and spent the majority of his time asleep or alone, with you only ever really catching glimpses of him at night. You guessed that it was at least a good thing that he was catching up on the sleep that he had deprived himself of for so many years, even if it meant you rarely got to see him.

Saeran didn’t really talk to anyone anyway, only you and his brother. That is, whenever he can be bothered to talk to Saeyoung as he often complained that he’s too tired for conversation. He usually didn’t have the energy to talk to his brother that much because of how hyperactive the other was. Saeyoung understands that Saeran needs time, even if it hurt him to not be able to pull his brother close after all of those years apart. Irreparable damage had been done where they would need years to repair it. There were even a few tense moments where Saeran had thought that Saeyoung was taunting him, or not trusting him, by wearing his crucifix necklace. Of course, his brother tried to explain that that was not the case and that Saeran wasn’t affected by religious symbols anyway, but it still seemed to annoy him. Eventually, Saeyoung stopped wearing his necklace and kept it in a drawer next to his bed, feeling as though the faith he believed in was probably redundant now that he knew how it had been tainted by the people he trusted.

Saeyoung had offered to let Saeran drink his blood before, as a way of making reparations to his twin, but Saeran flat out denied it: saying it would be disgusting to drink from him. He also threw in the comment that Saeyoung’s blood would taste ‘like shit’ because of his diet anyway, which was entirely understandable. Neither of you could fault Saeran for that.

Saeran felt rather conflicted and tentative about drinking your blood, often feeling pangs of guilt for how he previously treated you as Unknown. He often waited right up until he was pretty desperate before letting on that he was in need, and you’d have to realise on your own that his tiredness was not just coming from social exhaustion. He probably wouldn’t ask, so you’d have to offer.

When it happened, it usually happened in the same way with Saeran turning you around so that your back was facing him and you couldn’t look at him. He already felt some sort of way about biting you in the first place so the last thing he wanted was to have to look into your eyes as he did it. He felt more comfortable like this, and he felt as though he could take his time rationalising it a bit more when he wasn’t being watched. ‘Don’t turn around.’ He said tiredly. He sighed, clearly feeling a little awkward but not wanting to rush into it. It would be in this moment where he thought about how roughly he used to do it to you and wonder where he had gotten that confidence from. Truly, it felt like a lifetime ago.

Saeran placed his hands onto your shoulders, pausing right above where he was going to bite for a few seconds, letting his hot breath fan over you until he finally broke the skin. He wasn’t as rough as he used to be, and it was quite obvious how much he had been restraining himself by how quickly he drank. ‘Sorry.’ He whispered under the wight of the guilt. He always sounded like he was crying when he did this, even if you didn’t see any tears fall. You placed your hand on top of his own just to let him know that it was okay. Saeran wasn’t one for words, so he appreciated the support even if he didn’t tell you that directly.

He sat behind you for a few moments while he calmed down, his thumbs ever so slightly rubbing circles into your shoulders; a rare sign of intimacy from him. He doesn’t kiss you in that moment for a number of reasons. He felt parasitic, and he didn’t want to tie that emotion to affection. And yet, undeniably because he doesn’t want you to see him for what he is. Saeran carries a lot of shame, especially when he’s feeling so vulnerable as he does when he’s in that state. He wiped the blood from his lips onto the back of his sleeve, but would change his jumper shortly afterwards because it made him feel dirty to even look at. Saeran didn’t want to sit with your blood on him, that was cruel to the both of you.

You’d often find that he’d leave you a little gift the next day but would claim to not have any knowledge of it. It was always a little thing that only he would think to bring you, such a small flower from the garden or one of his snacks out of the kitchen.

[hungry-tum-stuff]

Introducing: Lumen!

*picrew by julitronix, you can find it here: https://picrew.me/image_maker/395291

Lumen (they/them) is a Wendigo. I’m personally a big fan of the folklore surrounding them and I decided to put my own spin on the human-turned-monster aspect of the mythology in creating Lumen.

In general Lumen is a sweetie pie, they try their hardest to be kind despite being viewed as a sort of demon within their small community, and ostracized by the general public. But they’ve managed to make a living for themself regardless: they love knitting, sewing and embroidering so they’ve converted their little cabin at the edge of their village into a tailor’s shop, and spend most of their days making or mending clothes. Unfortunately they don’t get much business on account of their reputation as the “local horned and hooved tailor,” but when winter rolls around and people need to mend their jackets or buy a new sweater on a budget, Lumen is their go-to guy. They genuinely want to help people, and they feel like they have to in order to make up for some awful things they’ve done, but most people just can’t get past their appearance.

(TW: Mentions of cannibalism up ahead)

Lumen doesn’t exactly blame folks for being scared of them however, because despite acting sweet, they’re still a man-eating monster. Y’see, Wendigos are created when a person cannibalizes someone they love, and from that point on, they are cursed with a hunger that can only be satiated by human flesh. And the more people they eat, the more they become an insatiably hungry inhuman monster. At some point Wendigos completely lose their humanity, and they’re nothing more than a terrifying hunter. Lumen has been able to retain their humanity, though their constant hunger has proven to be a constant challenge. They’ve found ways to stave it off for awhile, and while they’ve gotten increasingly better at managing the hunger, at some point they simply can’t control themselves.

Fun Facts about Lumen…

They don’t remember when they “go feral” and eat somebody. Their mind is simply overcome with hunger and they only come to when they’re full. As a result, they suffer from frequent boughs of migraine-inducing amnesia once they start getting a little too hungry, even if they don’t end up hurting somebody.

While they’re in that feral blacked-out state, they act nothing like their usual self. Lumen is usually talkative, polite, and gentle. But once they start acting like nothing more than a starved, rabid animal, then it’s time to run.

Lumen is able to keep the feral side of the hunger at bay by eating raw meat, even though they don’t really like eating animals either. Eating raw meat doesn’t keep them full in the slightest, but it takes the especially painful edge off the hunger.

Lumen can’t eat plants, since they’re a carnivore any type of fruits or vegetables make them sick. But they can eat sweets, and they especially love meat pies. However, sweets just taste good, even though they don’t take the edge off the hunger at all.

I’ll likely post more about them later (especially about their tummy 👀) but for now I’ll just leave this here as an introduction to them!

Thank you for reading!!!

[hyperbolicreverie]

Hey Rev! I loved your devil fruit post yesterday (reblogged it and gave my own two cents about Paramecia types), and I love that you’re trying to think about the science of devil fruits in-universe! Smile’s existence definitely lends to scientists studying devil fruits, but I’m genuinely curious how deep that rabbit hole goes!

Like for example, I tossed around the idea of there being sub-categories for Paramecias, but that’s not a leap seeing as canonically there’s some for Zoans. Mythical and Ancient Zoans for example, and also Chopper points out during Water 7 that they even get classified as far down as Carnivorous Zoans- are there classes for Herbivores and Omnivores as well? And Chopper said Carnivorous Zoan wielders are more aggressive, so do Zoans affect the ability user’s mind as well as body? (The Five Elders did note that Zoan fruits have minds of their own…) Would a Herbivorous Zoan become a vegetarian and lose taste for meat? What about logias? Are there sub-types for “solid” elements like ice, “liquid/plasma-like” elements like magma, or non-tangible ones like light?

There’s a Devil Fruit Encyclopedia in-universe, and given the experiments by Vegapunk and Caesar and such, I wonder if this is a legitimate field of study, and how much of it is science and how much of it dives into history and folklore for rarer fruits that don’t appear as often. (I believe one anon had an idea that Mythical Zoans inspired the legends surrounding them.) Like do certain devil fruits always reincarnate into the same kind of fruit? If one kind of fruit grows really slowly, could years go by before the devil fruit attached to it is reborn?

Sorry if I’m rambling- it just makes me happy to see I’m not the only one who thinks way too much about a pirate anime 😂 I’d love to hear more of your thoughts about potential lore and world-building!

It really is a fun rabbit hole to spiral down, because I feel like attempting to answer one question spawns three new questions all on its own.

I do frequently see Paramecia fruits sorted into broad categories--generator-type, alteration-type, et cetera, but I find it interesting that Zoans are the only variety that have canon subtypes (unless you count Special Paramecia, but there is only a single example of one of those and one fruit does not a healthy sample size make). Who even came up with the classifications? Are there proper categories for Paramecia fruits or did whomever started assigning these things just deem Paramecia to be "the grab bag class" and leave it at that? Seems lazy, if so. Zoans seem to have received the lion's share of fleshing out as far as characteristics--as you point out, we learn that bit about Carnivorous Zoans affecting temperament and then much more recently that little reveal about them having wills of their own. I am very, very interested in what exactly that means. Like, is there a consciousness involved or what? Is it because Zoan fruits are the only ones directly related to living creatures with brains and instincts, or is it something else? Do all devil fruits have a "will" to a certain degree and Zoans are just that much more noticeable? How do we know this about the fruits in the first place? Please, I want to know!

Logias seem to be the least complex, possibly because they're so rare, but there do seem to be some ways to break them down. For one, there seem to be logia fruits that are "stronger" or "weaker" versions of another one--and I use quotations because a lot of that is up to the user. But, Monet's snow fruit being a lighter version of Kuzan's ice fruit, for example. (We get these with some of the Paramecia fruits too, like the Kilo and Ton fruits, so it seems to be a somewhat established feature). And speaking of logias, they bring up such fascinating possibilities for interactions. Like, what the hell is Caribou made of anyway? What's "swamp?" Or, could you conceivably turn Crocodile into a glass statue with sufficient application of heat? Could you trap Enel in a bottle and use him to power things? Or trap Kizaru in a small mirrored space?

As for what people study and what people know about devil fruits, the vast majority of ordinary civilians, at least outside the Grand Line, still don't really believe they exist, so any research is probably very restricted. I don't seem to recall the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia being very widely available either, which probably contributes to the misinformation. Then, you have to consider that the people with the power and resources and understanding to undertake this sort of research are probably benefited by the masses not knowing about them--it limits the parties interested in the fruits, after all. This also folds nicely into the question about Mythical Zoans in particular. Which came first, legends or the fruits? Bit of a chicken and egg situation, but it's hard to say if even those people who research them know for sure.

I do wish we knew more about how regeneration works, because again, we've only seen it happen once, and one example does not a good sample make. Does each fruit require a specific base fruit to recreate itself out of? Is it always whichever is closest or is it a crapshoot? Gosh, the idea that there could be a time limit on regeneration for some of them, increasing their rarity simply because of that alone?

(Also, please do not apologize about rambling, I am the queen of rambling, and narrative and worldbuilding analyses are some of my favorite things. I will go off on pretty much anything if given a prompt and I will be happy to do so).

[simultaneously-sick-and-calm]

»pairing: Man from the Railroad!Atsuhiro x fem!reader

»word count: 3.2k

»Part 1 | IS IT A GOD INSIDE YOU, GIRL? (1st OGoA AU piece by @get-shiggy-with-it )

»summary: A deal is struck and a desire indulged.

»a/n: part two!! Thanks to my beloved @get-shiggy-with-it for beta reading for me. I hope you enjoy!

»warnings: Appalachian folklore, piv sex, fingering (f receiving), monsterfucking (if you squint), implied tragedy (mine disasters, death of workers/children), some reader backstory, historical AU 1800's mining town, Old Gods of Appalachia podcast AU, 18+ MDNI

The Man from the Railroad was no less intriguing when he returned one evening weeks later to meet with your brother. Just as you'd suspected, he’d practically leaped at the opportunity to cut a potentially lucrative deal without the ever-present gaze of your father looking over his shoulder. For years he had been trying, and failing to make dear old dad believe that he was ready to take over the company. Much to his chagrin however, it was clear that while your father didn’t really trust anyone with the specific ins and outs of the business; the man had seemed in recent years to bristle just a little less when approached by your soft questioning voice, over the harsh cut of his son’s.

This time upon entering the parlor room Atsuhiro took your hand in his own immediately, bringing it once again to the soft plush of his lips in greeting. The heat under your collar seared up the length of your neck, settling once again on your cheeks. “My darling lady! How lovely it is to see your enchanting face. A sight for sore eyes, indeed.”

“Why thank you, Sir. Once again you’re proving to be far too kind.” You brother failed to stifle a huff, clearly irritated that you were distracting his mysterious benefactor. The noise of it shook you back from the daydreams threatening to pull you under.

Pushing from your mind the thoughts of hands at your waist...or how his lips might brush over more of your skin in that same gentle way they caressed your fingers; you guided Atsuhiro’s attention to your brother, finally introducing them. “Henry, this is the Man from the Railroad who asked to see you the other night.”

“Yes, of course!” came your brother’s too jovial attempt at making himself appear likeable. Guiding your guest away without so much as acknowledging your presence. “I was so pleased to hear that you’re interested in our little family affair, kind Sir. Please follow me and we can speak more privately in the office.”

“That sounds just delightful. Lead the way, my friend.” Casting one last glance over the shoulder of his perfectly pressed suit, Atsuhiro winked and followed your brother through the office door.

And just like that, you were once again left standing alone at the desk, consumed by the lingering heat of his lips against your skin. And oh lord above you were hungry for it. It wasn’t an overly familiar feeling, admittedly, but you were no stranger to this kind of desire...to this yearning that threatened to burn you up from the inside whenever you caught wind of him. Which had been often over the last several days.

Since his appearance it seemed as though he was everywhere. Word spread of groups gathering in the large fields just outside town, all to listen to him speak. He promised them purpose, good and honest work that would better not only their own lives but those of all who surrounded them.

Fathers and sons.

Wanderers and vagrants.

All were welcome to join him in working for the Railroad. There was a place for every good, hard-working man among his ranks, and every voice who whispered about this black-suited man with the green bolo tie seemed almost as smitten as you.

Even as all the rumors and the chatter flowed like the streams at the base of the mountain. As the other young women in town flushed and swooned at the sight of the hat sitting proudly above the group of men that surrounded him; you held on to one small thing. The way that his given name tasted on your tongue. It was bitter and sweet, rolling over the plush of your lips with an uncertain kind of hope. For all the tongues that wagged about his sudden and overwhelming appearance in your small hometown, none of them referred to him by any name at all.

Only you had been bestowed the privilege--no, the honor, of having a name to breathe out into the darkest moments of night when every beautiful slope of his face occupied your mind. Those fleeting seconds when all you could hear was the gentle tone of his whispering in your ear, imagining the way that it might deepen and rasp under your kiss. The way it would feel to have your fingers intertwined with his own, or trace them delicately over the sharp line of his jaw and the gentle turn of his grin. All of a sudden the ornate handle behind you turned, startling you once again from your daydreams.

Henry’s voice, followed immediately by the soft floating drone of Atsuhiro’s were just on the other side. You caught just the tail end of their conversation as the door swung open. “Well, Henry my friend, I am simply delighted at the prospect of our future endeavors together. I think that with your manpower, and my connections we can truly turn the tide in this battle. Industry is the path to the future, and we must move along with it. Ever onward and ever forward, as they say, hmm?”

“You’re absolutely right, Sir. I think this is the start of a great partnership.” Henry hadn’t sounded so enthusiastic about anything, aside from maybe a free round of drinks at his favorite watering hole, in years. “We have many who would love to be a part of the kind of thing that you’re offering, and I think that my father especially will be looking forward to seeing all your plans come to fruition.”

Fruition. That was quite the word choice for Henry, and you did your best to stifle a chuckle. Usually by this time he was long inebriated past the point where words with a second syllable became a struggle for him. The attempt was admittedly half-hearted, and the smallest of sounds slipped out before it could be reigned back into the confines of your chest.

Thankfully, Henry was already in the midst of pulling a coat from the rack, and making his way out after a hearty handshake with his new partner. “Wonderful to meet you, and I’m sorry that I have to run out so quickly...I, uh have another meeting to get to.'' He tipped his hat in Atsuhiro’s direction and added a muffled “Sister. I’ll see you in the morning. Please make sure that the good gentleman has all of the information that he needs before you go.”

The both of you murmured farewells in return as he hurried out--no doubt late to boast about his success to the usual crowd of drunkards and fools with whom he spent most evenings. And with his hurried exit, you felt the heat under your skin creep back into its former home. Warming your face in what must have been a world record time. Absently you lifted a hand to brush a stray hair from your eyes, hoping in vain that the action might shake you out whatever state these daydreams had thrust you into. A beat passed in silence, and then another before you felt Atsuhiro’s eyes find you across the small space. He was so much closer just an hour before and still you felt like you’re burning up from the inside out at his attention.

Steeling yourself against your own hesitation, you turned to face him and tried to find your voice among the rabble of butterflies that currently occupied all of the space that used to cradle your lungs. “Henry, seemed to be rather taken with you, Sir--”

“As much as I enjoy hearing you refer to me so formally, my darling girl. You are well aware of my name.”

His hungry stare could have consumed you. In fact, the longer you stood there, with just a few steps holding the rigid distance between you, the more of you became quite certain that it would do just that. Every quip that you might have hoped to throw back sizzled away on the molten heat of your usually sharp tongue. “Y-yes, I am aware of it.”

“Then why,” three smooth strides closed the distance between you, bringing him impossibly close, “my dear, do you seem so insistent on forgetting it just when I want to hear it the most?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I know a great many things. Things that others do not, and could not know. Like the way that your lips curl so lovely around my name in the stillness of night. It's a tantalizing sound my dear, and I am eager to hear more of it."

He was so close as he spoke, the way his breath danced over your lips was astounding. Being so close to him felt similar to the way you had imagined in the several days since he last filled the space around you, but there was also something altogether unexpected about it. Everything about him seemed to surround you, compressing into a space far too small for any physical being to occupy.

The heady smell of him had you intoxicated, clinging to every inch of skin that lay exposed in the cool autumn air that rolled through the open door. His very presence was heavy, like the blankets of fog that clung for far too long at the mouths of caves, or the last sticky days of summer heat that always lingered on the mountain air.

As a child you could recall the way it felt to taste air like tonight’s on your tongue. The way that it invaded your senses, and bit back as if it had teeth all its own sharp and jagged, in their futile attempts to keep the turning seasons at bay. If it weren’t for the way Atsuhiro’s fingertips burned a path along your cheek as they moved smoothly from temple to jaw, you might have been lost to its chill.

He knew.

He knew everything.

More than just the way you spoke his given name. More than the flicker of hope that melted away at the wax seal surrounding your heart. More than the way you melted into his embrace in the same way now.

The glint in his earthen eyes gave way to something more than human, a sum of parts greater than just the man himself who now pressed his body so close to your own. And in that moment, every story your grandmother shared, every warning weaved intricately into the design of the tales came back to you. Along with one other...

Your grandfather didn’t often indulge in storytelling, but he made sure to tell you one. The one about the man from the company with a green bolo tie and sharp silver tongue, that he had met as a younger man. The man who never shared his name, but worked beside him for years to open the mine. To set your family's legacy on its path, one which would eventually lead to this great reaping of the effort he had sown generations ago. You hadn’t ever figured out if the tale was laced with warning like all the others. Honestly, you couldn’t remember any other details, but now you were quite sure that it would make no difference.

You were certain of just one thing. What he needed, and what you wanted were one and the same.

What he sought from you was an opportunity for indulgence. The shred of his humanity that remained among whatever else made up the mass of him was wavering. Flickering like the prayer candles adorning every window in every home as they mourned the things he and his revolution stole from them. He knew that you understood what he was -- what he wasn't, really, and that you weren’t afraid. The weight of your acceptance seemed to settle on his shoulders, and he crumbled into you.

“Atsuhiro...” You whispered into the lips that ghosted over your own.

He tasted like the first crisp breeze of the season. Sharp, and tinged with inevitability, but heavy with understanding that the death of all things familiar lay in wait at its heels.

Desperation overtook him, painting a new color on his usually monochrome pallet. Teeth and tongue fought hard to remain in control, and he won. Licking into your mouth and sighing beautifully when finally you relented the battle of wills and allowed him to consume you completely.

The hands that moments ago were caging you in, now began to roam. Kneading, sliding, savoring every pliable part of you. Hooking a hand beneath one of your knees, Astuhiro lifted your leg, guiding you so shift backward until you found yourself seated on the desk. You used the leverage to lock your legs around his waist and pull him into you, the action bunching your skirts around your waist. Mewling when your hips were finally pressed fully together, you felt the smirk return to his face. Finally you felt him, hard and hot, even through the few remaining layers of clothing that kept you apart.

He pulled away then, tilting your face to look up at him and relishing in the way you groaned at the loss of his heat. Not to say that he was faring much better, it had been so long since he allowed himself this small pleasure, and you were so willing. He was surprised at himself, really, for managing to hold it together this long already. “This is not the first time you have been touched like this, is it, my pet?” He purred into your ear as fingers traced a soft line up the length of your leg, halting to knead the soft flesh just inches away from where you both wanted him to be.

“No, it’s not--hmmm, please…”

He could practically feel the pulsing, the soft wet heat of your waiting cunt. The pretty sounds you made going straight to his cock, and he wanted more. He needed to hear you cry out his name in strangled ecstasy. “Please what, my darling girl? You’re doing so well for me already. Tell me what it is that you need?” he crooned, relishing in the way you preened at even the smallest bit of praise.

“I think,” you began, once again finding the bravery within yourself that his presence seemed to pull out of you, “that it is you who needs me, Atsuhiro.”

He was, for a split second, shocked at the way you took his face in both hands, pulled him to your level and kissed him hard. It was beautiful, this growing fire in you, and as it overtook his senses, he thought for a moment about how he could have loved it--could have loved you--in another life. Or even in his own, back when he was truly just a man. When his name was his own to give freely and did not come with so steep a price.

But now was not the time to linger on such fantasies.

The hand trapped between your bodies made quick work of your underwear, baring your needy cunt to him at last. And Atsuhiro groaned, an altogether animal sound at the slick he found waiting for him there, and he used its abundance to ease first one long finger, then a second, in time into the heat of you. Stroking gently, he explored the soft velvet of your walls until he found it, the spot that made you keen against him. The dark whimper of his given name that fell from your lips when he began to circle the bundle of nerves in sync, was almost more than he could bear. Never in all his time spent on this wretched earth, had he heard something so beautiful.

Now, you were no sweet spring blossom, innocence was something you left behind long ago. But the delicious way he played your body like a violin was foreign indeed. None of the clumsy hands that rushed to lift your skirts had ever made you feel so good.

"Astu--Ah!" You gasped against his shoulder, feeling for all intents like a spring wound too tightly. One hand wound itself tightly in his silky hair and the other blindly searching for the smooth buckle at his waist. Panting, struggling for words between ragged breaths. "Wait! Wait, I--fuck--I want to feel you."

"Yes, of course my dear."

Sliding from your seat on the desk, you beckoned him to follow and settled back into the plush of the sofa. You barely caught the way that his breath hitched as you finally loosed him from the confinement of his clothes. Taking a moment to admire him, you allowed your fingers to trace the lines. Strong smooth stomach giving way to slender hips and and cock that you might even say was pretty. Impressive, certainly, but not in any way that made you fear pain. Rather he looked as though he was made to fit together with you just right.

And oh, how perfect it was.

Atsuhiro trembled as he sank to the hilt into your warmth, and the both of you sighed as he began to move.

Slowly.

Gently.

The moment stretched and was reverent in a way, as though the both of you understood its gravity. He angled and nudged that heavenly spot again, and the way you clenched around him forced a low groan into the air between you.

He looked up with wide eyes, struck again by the reality of you.

Never in any of the handful of times that he'd chosen to indulge in his baser instincts had the object of his fixation been anything more than a pretty face and a warm body, in the end. And he had the small handful of marbles in his breast pocket to prove it. Each one a reminder that he was no longer Sako Atsuhiro. He couldn't risk leaving a loose pair of loose lips with something so powerful as his own name.

But you…

You were something altogether different than the rest. Unexpected. Secure.

He could lose himself in you.

And as you came undone around him with a whimper of his given name, he did just that. Vaulting with you over the precipice. He worked you both through the high, and in return you kissed him deeply.

A while later, still entwined on the old velvet sofa, your name, whispered softly in the surrounding stillness pulled you back from the edge of sleep.

"Hmm?" You asked gently, afraid to disturb the peace. You knew that this was borrowed time.

"You know that I cannot--"

You silenced him with lips against his own. "I know."

"Thank you, my dear."

--

You awoke the next morning to a stack of those shiny cards on the desk, and a note. Scrawled quickly over the surface were just a handful of words.

These are for the men that your brother wishes to send my way. Keep none for yourself. Ever onward and ever forward.

-A

Next to them in the slim vase where you'd left the blue marble, now was only a long white feather. Very much like the one you'd noticed missing from his hat.

[escher-room-with-a-view]

elaborating on my autism headcanons!!

- sarah -

her special interests are usually between one and three. once she develops a special interest, it stays with her for years; in fact, some of her interests, like reading and writing, have been with her for as long as she can remember. her other special interests are theatre and arts and crafts; the latter is quite a broad category, but it includes things like sewing, felting, embroidery, watercolor painting, book binding, and making collages. sarah delves further into her interests the more they’re encouraged, but she also uses them as coping mechanisms to feel better about or distract herself from the real world around her. in the cases of acting and crafts, she uses these to express how she feels, whereas reading and writing are used more as forms of escapism. her favorite genre of literature is fantasy, though she doesn’t mind any particular fantasy subgenres and is willing to broaden her knowledge of the genre by reading most of them. meanwhile, she isn’t anywhere near as selective when it comes to theatre. so long as there’s a soundtrack and cast that resonates with her, she doesn’t care if it’s opera or ballet, tragedy or comedy, contemporary or dating back thousands of years. indeed, she doesn’t ever feel like her knowledge of theatre is complete—and while it feels unattainable, she’d like to develop at least a cursory knowledge of every play there is.

sarah stims by talking to herself, chewing on her lips or hair, pacing, doing needlework, doodling, and absentmindedly writing. she also has echolalia, repeating the same word or phrase to herself either out loud or in her head; certain phrases can get stuck in her head for weeks on end. she’s rather quiet when she talks to herself—in fact, most of the time, she just whispers or mutters. furthermore, when pacing, she walks in circles or back and forth. she doesn’t use stim toys very much because they don’t appeal to her, though she does like the idea of making her own stim toys and other objects, such as slime or reversibles.

her relationship with routine is complicated. on the one hand, she doesn’t take change well and has difficulty adapting to new situations, especially those that are unfamiliar and stressful. this means that, to some extent, she prefers it when things stay the same. however, this is more of a general status quo sort of sameness that she likes to maintain. on a smaller level, she’s easily bored by sameness and likes it when at least one novel or interesting thing happens each day. for instance, if sarah has gone to the same school her entire life, she’s going to be upset—even devastated—if circumstances force her to change schools without any sort of preparation or warning. however, if her commute to the school every day is identical, she’ll grow bored of it easily and may one day consider taking a different path there just to see what happens.

sarah tends to struggle with eye contact and, on the rare occasions that she wants to maintain it, has to force herself to do so. it makes her immensely uncomfortable to look someone in the eye for an extended period of time. while irene sometimes mistakes this for her not listening, sarah is trying to explain that it’s not something within her control.

she is hyposensitive to (and indeed fascinated with) colors and lights. however, loud noises bother her and can be painful for her. sarah also prefers not to be touched unless she initiates the contact first. being touched without her permission startles her and makes her immensely uncomfortable, as does being surrounded or cornered; all of these can easily overwhelm her in the right circumstances. she hates haunted houses for this exact reason. her hyposensitivity also extends to texture and physical sensations, albeit not in the same way; rather than being obsessed with or actively seeking out sensations and textures, sarah is so hyposensitive to both of them that she sometimes doesn’t even notice sensory input unless it’s excruciatingly painful or needs constant adjusting. her senses of taste and smell are neither above nor below what’s considered average, though she has a preference for sweets, white meat, and anything crunchy. 

something else that she and jareth have in common is the fact that their living spaces, specifically their rooms, both have to be organized in a very specific way. any alterations in this organization are bothersome and overwhelming to the both of them; this includes rearranging or removing objects, changing the location of the room entirely, or changes in things like how much light or air the room receives. 

- jareth -

he tends to have a lot of special interests at a time, and they change often. his current ones are architecture, illusions, astronomy, fashion, humans/anthropology/sociology, various pseudosciences, and surrealist art. however, in the past he’s been interested in ornithology, geology, romanticism in art and literature, the labyrinth’s prehistory, wordplay and rhetorical/literary devices, cats, different types of governments, letter writing, collecting trinkets and antiques, choreography, and many, many more. living for such a long time has provided him with the opportunity to both develop and engage in a wide variety of passions. in fact, some of these past special interests still remain with him today and simply aren’t considered his “main” ones anymore because they’re not as strong.

his favorite pseudosciences are graphology, phrenology, and astrology. he also likes to try and determine the future via methods like alectromancy, astromancy, augury, scrying, and lithomancy.

he stims using crystals/via contact juggling. this is usually when he’s understimulated, absentminded, or just needs something to occupy himself with. it’s also enjoyable to him. he has other ways of stimming, though, many of which are meant to self-soothe. for instance, feeling nervous or excited might drive him to shake one leg or hand; he also feels compelled to chew on things in such instances. when overwhelmed, he scratches his arms as one would if they had an itch. jareth is trying to stop doing this and is thus looking for alternatives. he views stim toys as some of humanity’s greatest inventions. if he lived aboveground, i imagine he’d have different versions of the same stim toys for different purposes: neutral colors when he needs to prevent overstimulation, bright colors when he’s just stimming because it makes him happy.

he doesn’t mind loud noises, but he is sensitive to bright lights and colors. in fact, he’s so nonchalant toward noise that, when he listens to music, he likes for it to be as loud as possible. in his mind, good music is never quite loud enough. there are certain textures and tastes he doesn’t like, which drives him to be very selective with what he wears and what he eats. with regards to clothing, he likes silk and leather but can’t stand wool, denim, anything baggy or distressed, or velvet. because he conducts magic through his hands, he has sensitive palms; his gloves allow him to touch things without being bothered by them, while also allowing him to use magic undeterred. he’s especially sensitive around food, preferring things that are bland or savory and refusing to eat anything with a consistency that’s too soft. for instance, he finds eggs revolting in most forms.

without a routine, jareth tends to become dejected or burnt out. unfortunately, though, his frequent executive dysfunction makes it difficult for him to plan out and adhere to routines without frequent reminders—which, when they come in the form of goblins, usually annoy him more than anything else. this is why he hasn’t had a proper schedule in years. it’s a bit of a vicious cycle; his unhappiness has led to a lack of motivation, and his difficulty creating something he can stick to has made him even more unhappy. he works best with clear, written instructions that are placed where he can see them. he especially needs specific times to eat and sleep; without them, irritability and physical discomfort set in. in the event that he does have a routine, changes that might seem small to others are often nerve-racking to him.

though he sometimes uses eye contact and close proximity to others to intimidate, he genuinely feels uncomfortable without eye contact and has difficulty remembering to mind others’ personal space most of the time. he can be quite touchy-feely when he cares about someone—even platonically—and isn’t afraid of showing it, but he doesn’t really know when or if to back off unless explicitly told to.

- didymus -

when it comes to special interests, he and sarah have a lot in common. they both love drama and literature; however, didymus has a particular interest in folklore, both that of humans and that of the labyrinth. he only has two special interests: literature (including plays) and history. both of these influenced his desire to become a knight and continue to influence his behavior, as he seeks to emulate the idea of a noble and valiant knight to a T. he has some difficulty responding appropriately to or understanding various social cues. as a result, he spends most of his nights and some of his mornings scripting out how his day is going to go: how he’s going to speak to other people, how they might respond to him, and how he’s going to respond to their responses. whenever didymus makes a new friend, he puts effort into studying their mannerisms and personality so he can adequately pinpoint how they might behave toward him and thus figure out how he’s going to interact with them. furthermore, he speaks and acts like a gallant knight from a fairytale or play because of his constant reading. his consumption of literature provides him with a consistent model of behavior that’s bound by a set of rules, unlike the behavior of people in the real world—which can often be unpredictable, and whose rules are less coherent. as a result, didymus believes that emulating the kinds of characters he admires will make others admire him in turn, and make him easier to understand. 

his favorite earth authors are william shakespeare, miguel de cervantes, and alexandre dumas. he is also especially fond of arthurian legend and various human mythologies, such as norse, celtic, and japanese.

one of his favorite ways to stim is by chasing or wagging his tail. he also stims by absentmindedly practicing swordfighting moves with his cane, scratching behind his ear with a hind paw, pacing, and talking to himself. pacing is the only one out of all of these that doesn’t lift his spirits; rather, he does it when he’s thinking because it helps his ideas flow. didymus is most inclined to chase his tail or scratch his ears when he’s bored, practice his parries when excited, and talk to himself when he’s overwhelmed. in the last case, this is often combined with pacing; together, both stims provide a good release for emotions he has difficulty expressing otherwise. when didymus talks to himself, he is unlike sarah in that he doesn’t do so quietly. his volume remains the same as it usually is in a conversation; when he grows passionate, it raises accordingly. sarah introduced him to stim toys; his favorite ones are the ones that make noise, whether they click or woosh or do something else. he also uses dog toys as substitutes and enjoys the ones that squeak, though he has to keep his own set somewhere where ambrosius won’t find it.

his strongest sense by far is his sense of smell; it isn’t necessarily a lot of scents at once that can be upsetting for him, but rather scents that he finds unpleasant. these include sharp or chemical smells such as vinegar, ammonia, spices, perfume, citrus, alcohol, cleaning products, and herbs. aside from these, there aren’t any smells he can confidently say he doesn’t like. he also has hypersensitive hearing and prefers soft classical music, hymns and chants, or music that dates back thousands of years. he hates the sound of bells chiming, loud drums, or thunder; the last of these especially bothers him, though he would never admit it. he was once bothered by the sound of metal objects clanging together when he was a kit, but he appears to have outgrown that in particular. he has poor color vision, as do most canines, so bright colors don’t affect him at all. he finds flashing lights mildly frightening in some cases and annoying in others.

to didymus, routine is the thief of joy. he craves adventure every day and hates when things are the exact same; even having to do the same task in the same way as he did the day before, for instance, is enough to bore him out of his skull. as a result, he likes to mix up how he does things by placing his daily activities in different orders, doing them with his friends, or replacing some activities with others entirely. for instance, he, hoggle, and ludo take turns with household chores—not only so that they can share responsibilities, but so that didymus can have time to go off and pursue his knightly dreams. much of the time, his friends are willing to accompany him on his adventures so long as he’s able to keep them safe—and so long as they can be home by dinner.

he doesn’t really like eye contact, but he tries to maintain it because he thinks doing so is respectful. he does see one perk to his small stature; he’s too short to meet eyes with most people, so his lack of eye contact usually isn’t judged. it wouldn’t be either way because almost everyone in the labyrinth either is ND or knows someone who is ND, but he really does want to maintain eye contact because the books he reads make him think that it’s the proper thing to do. his friends are trying to convince him that he doesn’t need to make eye contact if it makes him uncomfortable; however, because he seems to believe that it’s a rule, he has difficulty convincing himself not to follow it. in fact, didymus is very much inclined to follow the rules that are provided to him and becomes anxious when encouraged or required to break them. without clear rules, the world becomes nonsensical and unpredictable—and therefore upsetting—to him. it was his idea to propose a set of rules for his friends’ home; they accepted and have worked together to write them down so that guests know how to behave.

he gets along really well with the wiseman; despite his typical impatience, didymus is one of few people who actually have the patience to listen to the wiseman. in fact, didymus isn’t just patient with him; his ramblings actively intrigue didymus, and whenever he has the opportunity he makes his contributions as big as he possibly can. didymus really appreciates it when his friends let him infodump, and he figures it’s only fair that he should let others do the same. in fact, didymus also places a lot of value on fairness; it’s the whole reason he opposes jareth in the first place.

[insomniac-dot-ink]

Books I’ve Read in 2020

AHello! I’m trying to read as many books as I can during the quarantine, here’s what I’ve finished so far:

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (literary fiction): a son writes a letter about his life to his illiterate mother. Breathtakingly beautiful with it’s way with words this book is lovely and real in the hardest and sweetest ways. The author’s combination of prose and poetry is dazzling and intricate, this book has stuck with me for days afterward. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (fantasy): a money-lender gets in trouble after bragging she can turn silver into gold and is kidnapped and ordered to do so by a fey creature. It may be that I am the perfect audience for this type of book, but it’s my favorite thing I’ve read all year. It’s a book that equally takes on the fantastical and real-world with compelling female characters at the center of the whole thing. A wonderful fantasy journey inspired by eastern-European Jewish folklore. 5 out of 5 stars.

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll (horror graphic novel): a series of short horror comics. Absolutely bone-chilling! This was a really fun type of scary story, especially the last one which made my skin absolutely crawl. Deliciously eerie, this was treat to read if not a little too short. 4 out of 5 stars.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender (magical realism): a young girl can taste other people’s emotions in their cooking and begins to understand her family in new ways. This was a weird book, but it has everything you’ve got to love about that combination of the surreal and mundane. It’s sense of character was electrifying and I had fun engaging with this type of off-kilter real world. I was a little frustrated in parts bc of some characters choices, but that too was true to life. 4 out of 5 stars.

Crier’s War by Nina Varela (steampunk fantasy wlw): about a Made automaton heir to a throne and her human hand-maiden that is trying to kill her. This was an easy read with a lot of tension between the two main characters that I liked, but the writing itself was very weak. There was waaay too much exposition in parts and the dialogue had some really hockey lines. I enjoyed the twists and turns in the middle of the book, but the beginning and end didn’t have much movement. 2.5 stars out of 5.

The Huntress by Kate Quinn (historical fiction): honestly, I’m a little disappointed. This book just did not hit my sweet spots, it wasn’t fast-paced enough for me to get immersed in the plot, and the characters weren’t real enough to be wholly invested in them. That said I adored Nina Markova and the Night Witches, so that did help. 3 starts out of 5.

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White (horror sci-fi retelling): HAND IN UNLOVABLE HAND. A retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein from the perspective of Victor Frankenstein’s wife and my God! The characters! The plot was well-enough, but the characters took the whole show for being complex and compelling. The main character was breathtakingly layered and I was wholly invested in Elizabeth and her story and the triumph at the end of this story was tangible. 4 out of 5 stars! 

Uprooted by Naomi Novik (fantasy): A story of a young woman who lives in a valley where a girl must go live with a wizard for 10 years. She is certain she won’t be chosen, but ends up having to be “uprooted” herself. I enjoyed most of this book! However, I think I liked “Spinning Silver” a lot more just because the ending of this one somehow lost me. The characters were good and plot compelling, but (SPOILERS) the big battle at the end seemed to drag and didn’t interest me somehow. 3.8 out of 5 stars.

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (fantasy): excellent read! A story of a young woman in Jazz Age Mexico who goes on an adventure with a Mayan death God who is trying to regain his throne. A romp across the country absolutely brimming with likable characters and fairy tale twists. My only complaint would be that most of it felt a little predictable due to the fact we knew where we were going throughout the whole story, However, it was still greatly enjoyable for the heroine herself, Casiopea. 4 out of 5 stars!

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (literary): a story of two families in a progressive “planned” community, how their lives intertwine, their secrets, and a central question surrounding motherhood. Deeply empathetic to its characters and introspective, this is an every-day story of people in suburbia that reads like a thriller. I could barely put it down and felt deeply for its characters and situations, 5 out of 5 stars!

Wilder Girls by Rory Power (YA sci-fi suspense): a story of a group of girls at a boarding school on an island affected by the “tox” which alters their bodies in strange ways like giving them scales or an extra spine. This was an eerie, interesting read with a wlw romance! Watch out for the body horror in this one, but it was very gripping and held my interest. Some of the pacing was off in places (like the romance), but had a very creepy atmosphere that did it for me. 3.8 out of 5 stars!

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio (thriller-mystery): A thriller about a group of Shakespeare actors in their last year of college and one of their classmates who turns up dead. I enjoyed the murder mystery part of this novel more than I expected despite the fact I had guessed who had “done it” pretty early on. I really enjoyed the James-Oliver dynamic with its growing homoeroticism, but I didn’t like how the character of Meredith was handled at all. She felt like a one-note aside. I might have given this book four stars, but the ending was EXTREMELY frustrating for me and I did not like the “open-ended” conclusion. 3 out of 5 stars.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman (literary humor): a weird character-driven comedy about an old grumpy man and a new family that moves in next to him. Warning for themes of suicide. Anyway, I don’t normally indulge in cliches like “I laughed, I cried, I loved one Cat Annoyance.” However, that’s exactly what I did. I laughed out loud, I cried my eyes out (THE CAT’S HEAD WAS IN HIS PALM), I loved this book. It was sweet and compelling and thoroughly immersive. 5 out of 5 stars!

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow (historical fantasy): set in the early 1900s comes a story of a young girl and her experience with “Doors” that lead to different worlds. This book had a lot of great character development and really interesting descriptions, however, I didn’t like it as much as I wanted to. I found it hard to get myself to sit down a read it. There was just something missing with the push to “page-turn,” but it was still a really good book. 3.7 out of 5 stars!

Gideon the 9th by Tamsyn Muir (high fantasy, kinda gay): I AM FILLED WITH EMOTIONS. This was book was definitely a page-turner. I was very confused with it at the beginning, but the characters and their interactions were, forgive the expression, the life blood of the story and kept me wholly invested. The ending has CRUSHED my heart, but damn did I have a good time reading it. 4.5 out of 5 stars!

Harrow the 9th by Tamsyn Muir (sequel to Gideon the 9th): I really enjoyed this book. It was just as strange and twisting as the first book, though I think I enjoyed the first one a bit more since I love Gideon. It was fun ride overall, though the ending was kind of really confusing. So 4 out of 5 stars.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (historical fiction): Overall, I really enjoyed this book! The writing style was personable and grounded in reality. I found myself really liking the main characters and the exploration of the life of a bi main character was really well done I thought. A solid book with drama and glamor to boot. 4.6 out of 5 stars!

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah (historical fiction): A story of two sisters during WWII and their resistance to Nazi occupation. To be honest, this book wasn’t my cup of tea. It was compelling, but also wholly depressing and I felt like gloried in the pain of the two main characters too much. The history was wonderful and realistic, but it didn’t make me feel anything good afterward. It was just dark. 3 out of 5 stars.

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston (mlm romance): I finally finished this after the heaviness of The Nightingale. This is a story of the First Son of the USA falling for the prince of England. And it turned out to be a very fun and light hearted read! Some of it was kinda generic and too political, and it coulda been shorter, but I thought the romance itself made up for it. It just made me feel so sweet and lovely inside. 4 out of 5 stars!

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman (literary humor): I’m searching out heartfelt books and this one ticked off all the marks on my “sweet” list. A lovely book that made me cry more times than I would like to admit. Compassionate beyond belief, funny and heartfelt. I think I enjoyed A Man Called Ove slightly more, but this book was also dear to me and something I hope to reread in the future. 4.2 out of 5 stars!

Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel (sci-fi): A post-apocalyptical story about a group of traveling Shakespeare actors and a symphony. Overall, an excellent read that somehow pictures a more realistic or even softer version of the apocalypse. At first, I wasn't happy with the jumping around of the story, but as I progressed I grew fonder and fonder of the interwoven characters and their journey. A very fascinating read about a world that hits a little too close to home. The appreciation of the arts and preserving humanity was somehow very hopeful and I was fully engaged with this story. 5 out of 5 Stars!

Up next: The Hidden Life of Trees by by Peter Wohlleben (nonfiction science), The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin (urban fantasy), The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (fantasy)

[thecaffeinebookwarrior]

Monster of the Week: The Undead!

From spooky scary skeletons to the original zombies, let’s have a look at the undead who have risen around the globe! This will not include vampires (which I have already compiled a post on) or ghosts (which I plan to compile a post on.)

Note that many of these can best be understood -- or only understood -- in their original cultural context, and I encourage you to continue your research if the lore interests you.

Skeletons/Skeletal Creatures

I am, for whatever reason, enthusiastic about skeletons. There’s a drama to them. They look like they’re perpetually grinning, or grimacing, which makes them oddly relatable. As an artist, I’m always thinking about them as the framework for poses. 

More importantly, there’s one in all of us -- sorry if that made you uncomfortable -- which makes them a universally recurring being in global folklore. Let’s take a look at just a few.

Gashadokuro

Literally translating to “rattling skull,” the Gashadokuro is also called Odokoru (giant skull) or simply “the hungry skeleton.” That basically tells you all you need to know. 

These big boys (and I mean REALLY big) wander around the countryside at night. Their name derives from the eerie rattling noise produced by their giant skulls. As chill as this may sound, the Gashadokuro is not actually chill at all, and if you come across them they will not hesitate bite your head off. This may seem like a jerk move, since they don’t even have a stomach, but they need the energy of the living in order to sustain themselves.

Like most undead fellas on this list, the Gashadokuro has its origins in the real world. They are thought to originate from the mass-graves, usually of those who died under violent or inhumane circumstances, the supernatural byproduct of countless skeletons. 

The first Gashadokuro was thought to have originated after a specific bloody rebellion, in which the bereaved, sorceress daughter of a samurai summoned a giant skeleton from the mass grave of the rebelling soldiers and used it to attack the city. Queen behavior, if you ask me.

Santa Muerte

Image Source

Let’s conclude this portion with my favorite skeleton (excluding Baron Samedi, who doesn’t count, as he is often depicted as a man, or a man with a skull-like face), the goddess/folk saint Santa Muerte.  

I still have a lot to learn about the rich folklore surrounding Santa Muerte, but to my understanding, she was born of a combination of pre-Columbian Indigenous religions and Mexican-American folk Catholicism. 

Depicted as a skeleton in beautiful, feminine attire and considered to be embodiment of death, Santa Muerte is a healing and protective figure. She is beloved by legions of worshippers, despite condemnations from the Catholic church, and symbolizes a culturally positive relationship with death. 

Despite appearances, she is a life-affirming figure.

Zombies and Reanimated Corpses:

The Draugr

When we hear “zombie,” we don’t traditionally think of “Norse mythology.” And yet, the Nordics had their very own zombie mythos, boasting some truly terrifying undead.

It is said that they first emerge from their graves as little more than wisps of smoke and a stench of decay, before adopting a humanoid form that boasts superhuman strength, the ability to change size at will, and the ability to shape-shift. 

They aren’t mindless -- far from it. They boast an anthropomorphic intelligence, which makes them all the more dangerous.  

As to what drives them from their graves? Jealousy and bitterness towards the living. Relatable, honestly. 

The Jiangshi

(Note: I wish they were all as adorable as the one in this gif.)

This Chinese hopping corpse may have evolved into more of a vampire by Western influences, but it was originally far more zombie-like. And a unique zombie at that. 

Due to rigor mortis, the Jiangshi hops stiffly from place to place, holding its arms straight out. What’s even more singular is their origin. Try to guess. Go ahead, try. You won’t be able to.

The Jiangshi is what occurs when a bereaved family, lacking the proper funds to send their loved one’s body back to their ancestral land for burial, hires a necromancing corpse driver to reanimate the cadaver and guide it as it hops back to its resting place. They’d travel at night to avoid or minimize decay, either prodded by a stick or to the beat of a drum.

Other ways to create a Jiangshi include improper burial, suicide, or possession.

Looking upon a Jiangshi is said to be bad luck, and presumably very unpleasant. However, the real problem is their insatiable appetite. 

But fear not: if you see an unhealthy looking fellow hopping towards you with pasty, possibly decaying skin, you can protect yourself with mirrors, the hooves of a black donkey, or the wood of a peach tree. They can also be scared off by the sound of a crowing rooster, though that would require a bit of planning, and the cooperation of the rooster in question. Which, knowing roosters, is unlikely. 

Haitian Zombies

All legends of the undead have roots in real tragedies, but this one is particularly upsetting -- and the source of the zombie legend in the Western world today.

The enslaved people of Haiti believed that death would set them free, sending them back to an idyllic version of their homeland unburdened by colonialism. But only if death came naturally. Suicide would turn them into mindless husks, carrying out the drudgery of their captors. A haunting parallel to the practice of slavery itself. 

The concept was introduced to a contemporary audience by the 1932 film White Zombie, which sees a white “voodoo master” (who clearly didn’t know anything about the actual Voodoo religion) using witchcraft to create obedient slaves. He eventually uses this (ahem) “”voodoo”” on a white woman to try and force her to fall in love with him. 

With the term “zombie” in public consciousness, it became an applicable allegory for all of society’s ills, and can now be used to refer to anything from mob mentality to consumerism. But few are as haunting and as disturbing as its origins.

Videos on zombies: 

The Origin of the Zombie, from Haiti to the US

Where Zombies Come From

100 Hundred Years of Zombie Evolution in Pop Culture

Best Contemporary Zombie Movies*

*That I know of. Will update with more.

Night of the Living Dead - Though White Zombie introduced the term, it was arguably this film that popularized zombies as we know them today, particularly as an allegory for herd mentality and consumerism. Its successors, including Day of the Dead and Dawn of the Dead, prove similarly influential. 

The Evil Dead Trilogy - Established that zombies can be fun, while also serving as an allegory for various societal problems. Also features undead that are refreshingly ravenous and evil without necessarily being mindless.

The Re-Animator - These days, the average zombie movie pushes the bounds of creativity is “make ‘em faster!” The Re-Animator’s take on the genre, however, would make Mary Shelley proud. Based loosely on the Lovecraft story, “Herbert West - Reanimator,” the films greatest triumph is its ability to have fun with its grisly premise, and compel the audience to have fun, too. It’s also a cautionary tale about why it’s important to be careful while getting a roommate. 

Shaun of the Dead - I’m not kidding. This film is great, and shows that you don’t need a serious tone to be heartfelt, scary, or provide a thought-provoking social commentary. Way back when I was a sixteen-year-old college freshman, I turned up to class as a zombie cheerleader, and my psychology professor recommended Shaun of the Dead to me. She’s a woman of impeccable taste, and it did not disappoint. 

28 Days Later - Before Cillian Murphy gave us Tommy Shelby, a gangster so pretty he could give Al Capone a sexual identity crisis, he was proving his mettle in the zombie-addled UK. For 2020 reasons, watching him wander the abandoned streets of London with a questionable haircut feels very topical. Add a stellar performance from Naomie Harris, and there’s a reason it sent me into a bisexual panic it’s considered a modern classic of the genre. 

Little Monsters - An egregiously underrated flick, featuring a kindergarten teacher (who happens to be, you know, Lupita Nyong’o) protecting her class during a zombie outbreak. A must watch if you want a zombie movie with a powerhouse lead, a happy ending, and perhaps the most badass kindergarten teacher in cinematic history.