#Uncanny Tales for Hardened Readers

[mudwerks]

Ghosts and Goblins #nn (World's Work, 1938)

Uncanny Tales for Hardened Readers

[heliads]

In a Time of War

Based on this request: “imagine for the darkling when the reader is a deputy general and they had a long day with all that war stuff etc and it's the end of the day and they are just laying, gossiping etc and its just fluff”

masterlist

You can feel their stares even before you dismount from your horse and start walking between the evenly spaced yet still cluttered tents of the First and Second Army. You could feel their eyes on you even as you came riding in, as the wind caught at your cloak and tried to pull it away from you. You can most certainly feel their stares now, when you stride briskly past soldier after soldier to reach your tent.

It’s not as if you’re surprised to receive this attention. You don’t become deputy general of the First Army by accident, or rise so quickly through the ranks by kindness and kindness alone. There are many stories about what you must have done to get so far so quickly, who you must have killed or hurt or silenced. Some of them are true, some are not. Some you spread yourself, wanting a reputation that you could pull around you like a mask whenever you needed it.

Your renown works for you now, clearing the path of soldiers in front of you. They practically scamper out of your way, watching with bated breath as your boots march evenly towards your tent. Those who saw you today will go back to their friends with tales of how there was a hardened glint in your eye, a glare of bloodlust in your face. You may not be a Grisha, but you’re fairly certain that there are many soldiers who would be more afraid of you than any masters of the Small Science if they came across you on the battlefield.

There’s a guard by your door, standing rigid as if any extra straightening of his spine will spare him from your critical gaze, which sweeps over him with the uncanny edge of someone who’s spent a lifetime around soldiers and would certainly notice if his red kefta was disheveled. You point this out to him, along with a seemingly polite request that he leave you be for the time being.

When the Corporalnik squints at you, saying something about how he was supposed to stay at your door until his shift ended, your stance shifts slightly. Suddenly, you’ve gone from calm dignity to something significantly more dangerous. 

When you speak again, your voice is tinged with scorn. “Allow me to make myself more clear, then. You will be stepping away until I call you back. There is no room for debate.”

The red-cloaked soldier stammers for a second, then finally lands in the usual routine of sir-yes-sir and hurries away, forgetting the casual strut of a Grisha warrior until he’s no longer in your line of sight. You watch him go with a raised eyebrow, then shake your head slightly in disapproval and walk inside. The flap of the tent closes behind you, allowing you to move into the center of the room unimpeded. 

A voice sounds from one of the chairs by the fire. “You know, I thought my Grisha were all talking about how they weren’t afraid of anyone from the First Army, but I’m fairly sure that you just sent one of my best Heartrenders running to the hills after only a few words.” 

It is only now that you grin and let your stone cold demeanor melt away from you. “Perhaps you should train them better, then, if words from an otkazat’sya can terrify them so.”

Aleksander stands up from his chair, walking over to you with a smile. “I’m not sure that I’m the one who can train them to face that dilemma. I was ready to find a hiding spot myself.” 

You laugh as he helps you remove your heavy army-issue coat. “Of course you were. You’re putting on an awfully brave face now, though, so you must be fine.” 

He smiles. “I’m doing my best to stand up to you. It’s taking a lot out of me.”

You roll your eyes. “You’re impossible sometimes, you know that?” 

Aleksander follows you over to the fire, mimicking the way you hold your chilled hands over the flames. “You know, most of my soldiers and even your soldiers are nice to me. They don’t show up after scaring my Corporalki and then insult me.” 

You snort. “Your soldiers and my soldiers don’t know any better. They don’t have to deal with you on a daily basis.”

Aleksander turns to you now, placing a finger under your chin so he can guide your lips to his. “They don’t?” 

You were planning on gently slandering him a little more, but for some reason you can’t quite remember what you were going to say. He notices this, because of course he does, and gains a little self-righteousness in his smirk.

A second later, he’s walking away again, and if the room seems a little colder because he isn’t right there next to you, hands on yours, you do your best to ignore it. “How was your day?” He asks. “Win any battles?” 

You laugh, although it quickly dies away as the memories of all that had gone wrong come back to you. “I wish. Instead, I had to deal with a bunch of trackers griping over the fact that we apparently don’t have the most up-to-date compasses. Also, a group of five cartographers have banded together, saying that they can’t be expected to produce maps that quickly because they’re not inspired by the landscape.”

Aleksander snorts before he can catch himself. “They’re not inspired?” 

You nod, groaning. “They said they won’t be able to produce their best work unless they have time to rest and truly appreciate the nature and areas around them.” 

Aleksander looks back at you, a light of humor dancing behind his usually dark eyes. “And what did you do?” 

You can’t help but smirk. “I believe I told them that if they didn’t manage to find inspiration in the areas around them, I would make sure they all joined the ranks of foot soldiers and actually have to fight until they were excited about sketching again.”

Aleksander laughs quietly, reaching out to pull you close to him. “That sounds about right? So, did they find inspiration?” 

You huff in irritation. “They’d better have, or I wasted a whole speech with my best imposing voice for nothing.” 

Aleksander smiles, absentmindedly tracing patterns on your shoulders and upper back with his fingers. “I have no doubt that you were very persuasive. They’ll no doubt be furiously drawing away in their sketchbooks right now.”

You lean against his collarbone, letting the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest distract you from the worries of having so many people to look after, with so little time or resources allocated to anyone in the First or Second Army. You glance up at him now, noting the same tension in his face that is no doubt reflected in yours. “What about you? Did you have any squabbles amongst the regiments?”

Aleksander sighs. “When aren’t there squabbles? Everyone likes to cling to the olden ways of doing things. The only problem is that the Grisha have to move forward with new techniques and technologies if they want to live, but that isn’t an option for many of them. Every day, someone’s complaining about having to work with another order of the Small Science. I ask a Corporalnik to work with a Materialnik and it’s like I told them to commit treason. I don’t know why they can’t all just listen to me and do what has to be done for the good of the Grisha if not for Ravka itself, but they never do.”

You pull him extra close to you, just because you can. “I have no doubt that you’re doing everything in your power to make sure your soldiers succeed. From the amount of time you spend in the Little Palace looking over everybody, there’s no way they could do anything but move forward.” 

Aleksander grimaces. “You’d think that, wouldn’t you? Yet they still seem stuck in place. I don’t know how to help them if they won’t allow themselves to be helped.”

You shrug. “Sometimes you have to play your cards before people even decide they’re in the game. Not all soldiers make it easy for you. That’s how war is, isn’t it? You think you’re fighting a common enemy, but there will always be conflict in your own forces, and that’s not even talking about tension between the First and Second Armies themselves.”

Aleksander taps your shoulder as a proof of your point. “You don’t have to tell me twice. Everyone thinks they’re better than someone else. No one ever listens.” 

You lean forward to press a kiss to his cheek. “They don’t have to listen all the time. We’ll do that for them. You handle your men, and I’ll handle mine. That’s how we’ve always done it, isn’t it? We’re still alive, our soldiers are still intact in their armies. Ravka is still afloat.”

Aleksander’s fingers have left the small of your back, tracing their way over your collarbone, the rough hem of your uniform. “We can still make it out. You’re not wrong.” 

You’re not right either, though. He knows as well as you do that the current state of Ravka won’t last forever, especially not as the other countries advance. Fjerdan drüskelle steal away more and more of his Grisha every day, and it seems like there’s nothing he can do about it. Ravka’s coffers dip lower and lower into debt, and you don’t know that your First Army soldiers are taking the steps to acclimate to the presence of the Grisha as they should. This country is teetering on the edge of a brutal civil war, and you’re not sure how long you’ll have until west and east Ravka split completely.

However, you’ve got some time until then. In the space in between, you and Aleksander will do your best to pour every ounce of heart and energy into doing what you can to shore up your soldiers, and make sure that your First and Second Armies survive for as long as they can. That’s why you first fell for him, in a way. He matched your dedication and spirit in every leap and bound. Now, you’ve split away some of your heart to care for him instead of just your soldiers, and he’s done the same for you. 

Yes, things may be hard. They always will be. As long as you have him, though, you know you can handle it, that the yoke can be borne another day. When you go to bed that night, your thoughts spiral through memories of the dark-eyed man until you finally fall into unconsciousness with a smile.

grishaverse tag list: sHaDoW mAn @underc0vercryptid​, @darlinggbrekker, @cameronsails​, @aleksanderwh0r3​

[kojinnie]

Flirted With You All My Life | Erwin Smith

Tags & Warnings: Erwin Smith x Reader | canon universe | deep, deep angst

Word Count: 1K+ (I know you said drabble, but I couldn’t help myself. I need SALVATION)

A/N: 

Dear anon, it seems you like to hurt yourself, so I couldn’t help myself to take the liberty in twisting your request into something even more painful. I’m so sorry to disappoint you, I’m just in the mood to write a really painful fic rn 🥺 

But please! Send me more of your ideas, I hope I’ll be able to stick to the script for next!

There was only the look of agony in your eyes, hidden by the dark of the night underneath your cape, and it only became obvious once you stepped into the light of Trost District’s streetlamps. 

The messenger noticed your bloodshot eyes and the hoarse voice as you spoke to him, “Please deliver this letter to the Commander.”

With shaky hands, the meek and timid cadet quickly took your letter and kept it secured in his horse’s tack room, alongside with other letters to be brought to the frontline. He nodded earnestly and strode away in his horse as the dawn started to crack.

The young cadet was in the last squad to depart for the frontline battle. A reinforcement squad from the Garrison to strengthen the Survey Corps’ defense against the horde of titans that appeared out of thin air inside Wall Maria. The Corps had set-up a retreat camp by the Wall, and a season had passed, neither news nor dead body ever came back anymore. Just reinforcement by reinforcement, dispatched under the supposedly request of your newly-wedded husband, the Commander Erwin Smith. 

The reinforcement would bring ration, medicines and clothes, yet none were to ever return. At first, there was grief hanging in the air as the people assumed everyone in the troops to be decimated to death by the titan’s might. The idea of complete destruction left wailing to be heard all through the cities. People’s morale was at all-time low. But then, one by one, letter would arrive, delivered by a lone soldier. The letters, sealed with a wax and signed with the name of their deployed husbands and sons, said the same thing: We’ll be back soon. Please pray for us.

You’d spend the day waiting for a letter from your husband, yet while everyone rejoiced as they receive the letters from their loved ones, you were left with nothing but growing pains.

Soon became later, and later became never. Another season had passed yet the only one coming back was another lone soldier requesting for more reinforcement to the Royal Government. And the letter that arrived became less and less; and there was none for you.

With the incomprehension came the murmurs, that said the military was no longer fighting titans, rather they were establishing new colony beyond the wall, with indulgences and whores. What could there be beyond the wall?

Ignorance labors evils, and mighty was the devil to turn your night into a battlefield of sorrow. Your mind fought between what’s left of your trust towards your husband, against paranoia, jealousy, agony of being kept in the dark for months without any trace left from him. How hard could it be to write a letter?

The thought finally came to your mind. The memories of your husband – the tall, handsome, and commanding figure of a man. With a deep, contemplating voice, and the eyes as deep as the tale of a vast prairie of water called ocean in the world that had gone by. 

You thought of him, and how he’s warm to the touch, and how soft were the kisses he left on your skin. You thought of him and you had realized, how painfully plain and mundane you were in comparison to him. How utterly expendable and replaceable.

The thought became nightmares, of Erwin’s flirtation with strange women in places less than sacred. The nightmares grew to be persistent and eventually it drowned you into false conviction.

“Am I a widow?” you asked the empty sky one night, “’Lest I’ll choose to be.”

So, finally you wrote that farewell letter. It said: “I will not be home when you return, for journey is where your heart lies.” Final letter sent for a man who was never yours to begin with, for his heart was devoted to humanity, and humanity was too vast for the acres of the home he made with you.  No matter how warm, no matter how safe.

There was an eerie silence as the horses rode through the plains before reaching the Survey Corps camp deep in the forest past the Wall. The meek and timid cadet navigated his horse closer to the main formation, as fear crept down his spine. He looked ahead and there he saw what’s left of the camp: A vivid picture of desolation.

He rode pas through countless of nameless mounds; men and women with blank expression scattered around the wage tents – wounded and helpless. The uncanny smell of rotting flesh, and the atmosphere of despair, filled up the lungs of the cadet that he couldn’t bear to let down a tear.

He climbed off of his horse and walked through the path of the camp. Beside the fire, sat two men writing down letters by letters, muttering the names of their death comrades. The lights of the fire gave the cadet a peak at what they were writing: “We’ll be back. Please pray for us.” It became clear that the letters were nothing but an empty, false hope – for it was better for the people to cling on to hope as long as one could, rather than to be devoured by grief and pain.

He walked through the paths and finally found the largest tent of them all, one where he was told he could meet the Commander. The cadet pulled out your letter and held it close to his chest, as he entered the dilapidated tent to deliver the Commander the letter that was meant to break you free from the shackles of endless suspense in waiting for a man whos heart no longer home.

As he stepped in, a body immediately blocked him from gazing further into the tent that was partitioned into several areas. Section Commander Hange Zoe stood tall before him, “What do you want?”

“I came from Trost District. A letter for the Commander from home.” The Cadet could feel his voice squeaked in fear.

There was a breaking point of Hange that the cadet never knew before, for their face was immediate to become wearied. Hange quickly took the letter and fiddled with it in their hands. It was obvious that Hange was torn on what to do, before a grim voice asked from an area veiled with a thin curtain that one could almost see through inside, “Hange, what’s that?” The voice of Captain Levi Ackerman seeped through.

“It’s, uh… A letter for Erwin. From home.”

There was an immediate silence gripping the tent. The cadet could hear a creaking sound of movement from a mattress behind the veil. To his surprise, he saw the Commander laying there.

“Bring it to him, Hange,” Levi muttered, there was a pain in his words, so real that it felt almost tangible. 

Hange stepped aside and let the cadet came in and walked through the veil to where the Commander was. With no warning, the cadet gasped in a discernible shock as he saw what’s left of the great Commander. There was no color to his face, his blue eyes had gone dull half-opened, his mouth murmuring incomprehensible words in a state of delirium. Commander Erwin Smith had lost all of his limbs, with the dull ends of where his limbs used to be blackened by gangrene. The cadet finally saw the horror of war that the military had tried to suppress from the civilians’ knowledge: an outbreak of plague at the end of the war against titans.

Levi took the letter from Hange and knelt beside where Erwin laid, “Erwin. It’s letter from home. She must have missed you so bad.” There was a dim smile on Levi’s face. A smile seemed foreign on the face of the captain who was long hardened by war, and it became even stranger given the situation.

Levi knifed through the wax, and tore the letter open. But suddenly, a sense of misery deeper than the trenches engulfed the tent as he read through the letter in silence. The faint smile on his face was quick to freeze into a palpable agony as he closed his eyes. The letter hung in the captain’s hand. His fingers were trembling with anger and despair.

“Levi?” Hange cracked their silence in obvious worry as the captain broke into a deep, soundless wail next to Erwin. Something that no one had ever seen before, “Levi...?” Hange called for the captain’s name in an increasingly agonizing anxiety.

With what’s left of his heart, Levi gasped for air, trying to muffle the sound he never thought would hear coming from his words. Hange cupped their face with their fingers, left not knowing but painfully distraught upon seeing the struggle Levi was in as he tried to straighten his voice.

“Commander,” Levi said, looking into the tiny slit of Erwin Smith’s eyes, one that was strain opened by what’s left of him – a painful longing to hear from home, “she misses you. And she’ll be home when you return.”

The Commanders’ murmurs stopped, and he nodded his head solemnly.

“You may go now.”

The only time he had ever flirted with anything other than you was with death and the flirtation finally bears fruit as death finally takes him home.

As if he finally heard the words he had been waiting for, the Commander let out a deep sigh, before he slipped into the eternal cold. His blue eyes stared, but he was no longer seeing. The Commander had succumbed into a painless death.

For the first time in years, Levi Ackerman sobbed in sadness and anger. Looking at the man who had bathed with the fury of war; all he wanted was to bring peace to home, only for his home in the heart of a fickle spouse be anguished by the long wait. How selfish, how cold, Levi thought.

Maybe you were right, maybe these soldiers were not meant to live a life in the safety of a warm house in the town. Maybe they thrived while flirting with death and bruising dangers against their skins. Maybe it's all they knew of. But for better or worse, Erwin once dreamed of coming home to a feeling other than grief, and he had found it with you.

Levi reached for the pocket inside Erwin's jacket, and pulled out a letter yellowed with time. His heart broke to see that it was an old letter from you, one Erwin held close until his last day.

The most painful realization was not that Erwin died in vain, neither because his wife chose to leave him in the day he died. It's the realization that Erwin fought and died for someone and something that never belonged to him to begin with. There was no you nor was his home with you. Erwin's home was here, with his comrades, amidst death and wrath of war. You let him fought and died for a false hope.

Levi grazed the Commander's eyes close with his fingers as he finally murmured to the lifeless body, "Erwin, you're home already. With us."

Inspired by Vic Chestnutt's 'Flirted With You All My Life'

[thealogie]

thanks to the overwhelming silence and the fact that i can’t remember my old ao3 password and want to preserve my new ao3 for bookmarking rather than publishing anything I’m putting under the cut here some of the tentatively titled and probably-never-to-be-finished “Jeeves and the Unemployment Rate” which I wrote on the ios scrivener app a while ago (highly recommend if you want to write yourself fanfic on your commute and read it later) and then forgot.

It all started on a crisp sort of autumn morning when I returned to 3A Berkeley Mansions from a spot of lunch at my Aunt Dahlia’s with a bit of good news, a spring in my step, and sunshine on the old bean. It was the brightish sort of day, made all the brighter by the visit to a most Beloved Relation, who is the kind-hearted fly in the ointment of my theory that aunts are put on this earth for the sole purpose of crushing young nephews into submission, depression, and oppression under heels of steel. On this particular day, the old girl—in addition to being a generally good sort as usual— had also helped me solve a problem that had been vexing me for nearly a month.

I burst through the door with good cheer and a hankering for a whiskey fizz.

“Jeeves,” I bleeted. “Rally round.”

And rally around he did. Not that Jeeves does anything the seeing man would describe as “rallying.” But he floated gracefully out of the kitchen a moment before I called out for him, a whiskey fizz in hand.

“Ah, you are a marvel, as always, Jeeves. You’re sure you’re not a telepath? Positive of it, I mean? Very well, very well, I believe you,” I said, pouring the w. f. down the throat. “Right-o, now let us rally as men do. I bring splendid news from ol’ Dahlia.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Dashed splendid, I mean. The sort to grip you somewhere in the middle and lift you just a footish above the troubles of life so that you glide above them in the air without once dipping your toes into their murky depths—the troubles, I mean. Of life, that is,” I explained.

“Indeed, sir?”

I narrowed my eyes a bit. There was something a bit soupy about his tone that told me he lacked the enthusiasm Betram Wilberforce was striving for in this situation. Like I said, rallying of any sort is out of the question when it comes to Jeeves, but a chap hopes that when he stirs up the pot with so much vim, he might be rewarded with a sincerely uttered “Very good, sir,” or, perhaps more ambitiously, “Most pleasing to hear it, sir. Perhaps you could recount the tale after I pour you another w. f.?”

I forged on bravely.

“Oh rather. I mean to say, you’re going to be biffed as well, old thing. Oh yes. The news touches you, is the thing. And I dare say it’s pleasant news of the sort that will have even demi-gods like yourself prancing about the place with a hop and a whistle.”

“Indeed, sir?”

Many times have I spoken to my man about his little habit of wielding “indeeds” against me in such sharpish tones.

“What do you...I mean. Yes, dashed ‘indeed,’ Jeeves,” I replied with some steel in my voice, “blasted, indeed! You know what, Jeeves, I’m surprised at you. You might show a bit more sympathy for the y.m. It’s not a happy household when a man comes through the door all hot and is immediately handed the ice.”

“Indeed, sir.”

“Jeeves!”

“My apologies, sir. I only meant to convey that it is just as you say. I should be glad to hear what Mrs. Travers relayed to you over luncheon.”

I crossed my arms and narrowed the Wooster baby blues even further until it was difficult to see a dashed thing.

“Alright Jeeves. Let’s have it.”

“Sir?”

“Out with it.”

“Sir?”

“Sir! I mean...to chopped liver with ‘sir,’ Jeeves. Something is rotten in the chez of Wooster. I see the displeased glint in your eyes. I should like to hear what’s hardened your heart against the young master’s general joie at the current state of vivre.”

“Well, sir. Is the pleasant information you wish to convey in any way related to the retirement Mrs. Travers’s head butler and her selection of a replacement?”

“By Jove,” I cried. “You do know all, what?! Jeeves, I know you don’t like this theory of mine, but it’s time we started to take the telepathy thingamummy seriously. Is it your deductive reasoning again? I mean, it’s too uncanny. Give me your Holmesian monologue on how you came to this one.”

“No deductions on this occasion, sir. Although I do not wish to jeopardize a friend, I must admit Seppings himself paid me a visit not an hour ago and divulged the news,” Jeeves said.

“Jeeves! Don’t tell me Seppings let the proverbial cat out of the proverbial bag?!”

“I’m afraid so, sir.”

“Oh rotten luck that!” I sighed, a bit put out that Seppings—the very retiring butler who had minutes ago been the source of my great gratitude—had ruined my surprise.

“As you say, sir.”

“And I suppose you know the person she intends to name as his replacement is, in fact, you?”

“I do, sir,” he said coldly.

“Er,” I replied.

“Will that be all, sir?”

“I can see you’re not too pleased with the young master, Jeeves, but I only thought—dash it, I mean, I thought it would please you. The superior title, an entire staff at your command, a house with guests of the more refined sort.”

Jeeves was unmoved by this. I forged on, feeling a bit like that Napoleon chappie must have felt trying to make good speed when it got nippy in Russia.

“Oh, think, you’d never cook again Jeeves! Every menu will be orchestrated by you and prepared by Anatole. Oh, and you don’t need to valet at all, Aunt Dahlia says. I mean, Uncle Tom would be glad to have you valet for him if you don’t trust anyone else with his clothes but they have a large-ish staff. If you’d like, you’d just be doing books and ordering people about all day and generally mastering the household.”

I had wilted a bit at his initial cold reception but I was at full speed again with my ramble, imagining Jeeves sitting behind his own desk, so many people for him to guide and mold.

“It is an incredibly generous offer, sir,” Jeeves said. “Will that be all?”

I wilted again.

“It’s only an offer, Jeeves. You can toss it out to the cold night air if it displeases you. I mean to say, what?! No one is making you take it—not that there are good odds against any mortal setting about making you do anything you don’t want to do and coming out on top,” I tried to mollify him.

“Very kind, sir,” Jeeves said stiffly. “Will that be all?”

I saw that Jeeves was not in a good way. And suddenly my own disappointment was the furthest thing from my mind. I softened immediately.

“Old thing, I wish you would tell me what’s bothering you,” I said ever so gently, or so I hoped.

“While it is commendable, Mr. Wooster, that you would secure another position for me rather than dismissing me, I am sorry to learn I have overstayed my welcome,” he explained, looking above the Wooster onion and straight at the wall opposite.

I scratched the Wooster temple, feeling flummoxed and flat out on my rear.

“Jeeves, old fruit, I’m feeling a bit flummoxed and flat out,” I confessed, leaving off the bit about my rear to preserve some dignity.

“Mr. Seppings came to congratulate me on the happy news, which he thought I was already privy to. After seeing that the news surprised and confused me, he confessed that he inadvertently overheard pieces of your discussions with Mrs. Travers,” Jeeves explained.

Oh. Oh, dear. That’s something to get hot under the collar about. If Seppings had indeed heard my conversation with Dahlia...

“Oh bugger all,” I groaned.

“He had not meant to eavesdrop, sir, but came to understand that you were asking Mrs. Travers’ advice on how to end my employment while avoiding the unpleasantness that generally accompanies an outright dismissal. If I may say, sir, the elected course is prudent. The offer of employment from Mrs. Travers at increased salary and title would have spared embarrassment on all sides,” Jeeves said. Except it wasn’t Jeeves at all, dash it. He had the faraway look of an automaton who has no thoughts at all, nevertheless the dozen or so ripe ones that seem always to be floating around in Jeeves’s head. “Sir, will that be all?”

Oh, dash it. Let me stop there for a mo’.

At this point, you must be feeling as betrayed as Jeeves. “Wooster, you useless goose!” you’re undoubtedly crying. “You’ve somehow managed to ensnare a divine nymph to crease your trousers and mix your cocktails? You have in your household a first-rate mind who should be writing treatises on literature and holding saloons in Paris, yet you dare to hand him the mitten? Refund me the price of the rag I’ve purchased or prepare to duel.”

I beg you gentle reader, give this Wooster a chance to redeem himself. An oaf I am, but an oaf pure of heart. My sin, you see, is not being up to this literary wheeze, not caprice.

In the normal course of events, you know, stories begin when matters are about to get wheeling on, then they trot on until everybody’s generally got their ankles up in the air and such, and then they end when everything’s been tidied up and all persons’ ankles are firmly back on the ground. You’re familiar with said basic structure, no doubt? Well, I’m no good at it. This Wooster frequently starts his wheezes when things have already gone ankles up. Jeeves tells me the more scholarly writer sorts try to hide this flaw by pretending to do this same thing deliberately and calling it “starting in medias res.”

Allow me to fill you in on three basic facts that might persuade you to regard Bertram Wilberforce as the well-intentioned buffoon he is rather than the malicious villain he is painted out to be in the above passage:

A. I’m in love with Jeeves. I mean properly daffy him and all that. I mean to say, I hear music when he walks into the room. When he leaves, clouds of doom descend upon me. His every touch however brief and accidental is etched indelibly in my memory. It’s properly scorching stuff, you see. But he hasn’t a clue.

B. I can’t tell a fellow I’m daffy for him so long as I’m his employer. I mean, he takes his wages fishing me out of the soup, drying me off, and setting me on my way again. I mean, you don’t need me to spell out the how and why. It’s simply not preux at all.

C. Premise A and premise B, when combined, put me in quite a bind. I shared said bind with an old chum of mine just a few weeks prior to the cheery-cum-calamitous afternoon I’ve recounted to you above.

“So, you’d like to get a leg over Jeeves, eh?” Ginger said crassly after I’d unburdened my very soul to him.

I’ve known Ginger for ages. I mean, I used to know Ginger rather biblically. Now we’re just chums. And unlike some chaps who used to know each other, we’re rather un-jealous and supportive chums. Though, Ginger’s support was a bit more vulgar than a laddie hopes for when said laddie is in the throws of a love that is all divinity and light.

“Ginger! You crude fishmonger,” I cried, scandalized. “This is serious, for once. What am I to do? Am I to take this to my grave? Saddens a chap to think of going on like this forever.”

“Want to roger him good, eh ol’ boy?” Ginger continued, without hearing me at all.

“No, Ginger. It’s not like that. I mean it is. But it’s more. I also want us to sit by the fire, reading poetry. I want to make him smile every day I am alive. I want his hands enveloped in mine,” I declared. “Were I a glove, and all that!”

“I think the Romeo chappie wanted to be a glove to touch that bird’s cheek, Bertie.”

“Well, Jeeves is too sensible to sit around resting his cheek in his hands when he’s wearing work gloves. But I mean it! I would shape shift into one of his imminently reasonable and dull gloves if I could, so I could be wrapped all around his elegant hands,” I sighed dreamily, giving Madeleine Bassett a run for her money.

“Looks like he’s got you wrapped around his fingers, all right,” Ginger laughed, clapping me on the back in a chummy sort of fashion.

“Oh but Ginger, don’t tease. Not today. If you had the smartest and handsomest man in England residing in your home, you too would find him a worthy general and think twice before acting without orders,” I sighed, chin in hand.

“Please Bertie,” Ginger said, rolling his eyes. “I hope you aren’t about to start again with your campaign to make Jeeves Prime Minister, Bertie.”

At this comment, the Wooster corpus, previously slumped over the table, sat at attention with a bolt of inspiration. “Euree—something. Jeeves would know. Something a Greek chappie once said when his grey matter finally got going. I mean to say, that’s it, Ginger! Oh, you’ve got it.”

Ginger blinked at me in confusion. “You’re going to make Jeeves the Prime Minister? I suppose, that would do the country a bit of good. And, you have a point. If you tell the Prime Minister you want to bugger him, there’s no danger of him going along with it because he feels obliged.”

“Not quite, laddie. If Jeeves had another job, a better job, then I would be just another man, not his employer,” I said.

“With you so far,” he said, wrinkling his nose.

“Well, young masters who wish to stay a step above the devil don’t go foisting declarations on unsuspecting valets and then expect them to go on dressing and feeding and living with said y.m. as though nothing is amiss,” I explained patiently. “But if he doesn’t work for me, I could tell him I love him. We’d just be two men, standing before each other. And if he doesn’t feel the same, he’d just biff off to his new household, that’s that.”

“I get all that. Bertie, you really are a Christmas pudding of a man,” Ginger said. “What I’m saying is...Well, that’s no solution at all. I mean. Right now, at least you get to be close to him day in and out, don’t you? If you send him away…you do realize he’ll be, in fact, away, don’t you?” he said sagely, buttering a scone with a great air dignity. “Or maybe you don’t. There’s no end to things you don’t realize, darling.”

I puffed up the chest. My love had made me feel a touch noble, like those self-sacrificing beazels in the old Greek plays. “I’d rather watch him walk out the door after I’ve said my piece than have him say ‘Very good, sir’ and shimmer into the kitchen to put dinner together because it’s what’s expected of him,” I said with a touch haught. “Now Ginger, if you’re a friend, you’ll help me draw up a list of suitable households where Jeeves will be happy and well-paid. You know he’s not exactly the ‘happy to put down anchor anywhere’ sort of fellow.’”

“That’s mild, Bertie. The man’s as particular as all hell,” Ginger exclaimed.

I sighed dreamily, planting the Wooster chin atop the Wooster palm. “Isn’t he just? It’s an infuriating quality of his.

“Oh dear lord, you’re done for.”

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: Beast Master, Time Travel, Grey Hawk

Fiction (Easily Distracted): Year’s Best Horror Stories 1976

The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series IV Edited by Gerald W. Page (1976 DAW)

Lifeguard by Arthur Byron Cover:A sharp diamond of a story told in the first-person and saying what needs to be said about youth’s expiring ambitions, the narrow horizon of small town life, summertime, pot, and an uncanny will-o-the-wisp.

Anime (Walker’s Retreat): Where have I seen this before? Oh, only with the Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Marvel, DC, Biohazard/Resident Evil, The Last of Us, and so many other Western corporate properties. There are two key differences between what’s going on with anime and what’s going on with Western entertainment. The first is that the Death Cult doesn’t run Japan’s culture industry, not the way it is in the West. The second is that the entertainment corporations don’t outright hate their customers. So, instead of esoteric Molech worship we have the (by comparison) easier problem of a Brand Fan problem.

Comic Books (Dark Worlds Quarterly): 1975 was the new Golden Age of dinosaur comics with Joe Kubert leading the pack. By some strange coincidence all the dinosaur/jungle guys had names that started with a T (Tarzan, Turok, Tragg) or a K (Korg and Kong). So Tragg and the Sky-Gods, Korg 70,000 BC and Kong the Untamed made their dino comic cover debuts. Skull the Slayer had dinos but not for long. It got weirder with more UFO stuff. Valley of the Dinosaurs was based on a Hanna-Barbera cartoon and like The Land of the Lost (1974-1976) (which didn’t have a comic) was Saturday Morning pandering to the dino lovers.

D&D (Tao DND): The Higher Path of D&D, the one beyond merely killing things and taking away their treasure, is the human experience of pitting Self against that which we do not think should be.  Not my self.  The Player’s Self.  The players are entitled to fight for those causes they want to fight for.  I won’t tell them how to do that; I won’t shame them into fighting for causes I think are right and noble; I won’t clear the road for them.  I won’t judge them for their choices.  I won’t encourage them to believe what I believe and I won’t punish them when they don’t.

Fiction (DMR Books): When you think of literary thieves, who do you think of? Maurice Le Blanc’s sly gentleman thief Arsene Lupin? Richard Stark’s harden, professional Parker? Yet, aside from the crime genre, thievery as an occupation appears most often in sword and sorcery. Thieves as protagonists have a long history in sword and sorcery. This trope probably began in mythology and legend. Prometheus stole fire from the gods. Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. In High Fantasy, Bilbo Baggins was recruited to burgle a dragon. So let’s look at their fictional heritage.

Writing (John C. Wright): For every C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Cordwainer Smith, Gene Wolfe, Walter M. Miller, or Orson Scott Card writing from a Christian perspective, one can list ten men of heathen or secular perspective lauded with the greatest fame our genre can bestow. Instead of Gene Roddenberry making stories to say men cannot be free in utopia or George Lucas saying men must fight their dark side, we now have Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson making stories to say free men are toxic, and that the fight is pointless, for the light offers no more answers than the darkness.

Interview (Superversive SF): Today, we have a treat! An interview with Brian Niemeier, author of Don’t Give Money to People Who Hate You in which he talks about how he came to write this surprise breakout book. 1. How did you come to write this book?

I almost didn’t. My dispositions have always run toward writing fiction, so I initially resisted tackling nonfiction. It was only when several friends, family members, and readers urged me to collect my thoughts on the culture war in a book that I relented.

Pulp Magazines (Don Herron): In Chapter 2 of the 1943 serial Batman — “The Bat’s Cave” — Bruce Wayne’s butler Alfred wiles away the time reading the October 1940 issue of Spicy Detective. The “spicy” element should be obvious from the cover art—and from the prim Alfred’s startled expression. The content of the stories lived up to the lascivious suggestion of the cover. But only just.

Horror (Too Much Horror Fiction): When it comes to pulp horror fiction, I don’t think there’s any doubt that “Slime” is one of the perfect gems of the style. Originally published in a 1953 issue of the venerated magazine “Weird Tales,” Joseph Payne Brennan’s 30-odd page tale is rife with all the weaknesses and all the glories of pulp horror in full flower. Brennan overuses words and phrases (“hood of horror” and “black mantle”), utilizes some weak analogies (alien as… some wild planet in a distant galaxy), and his country dialogue makes “Hee-Haw” sound like Olivier reciting the Bard.

Westerns (Western Fiction Review): This time, the author behind the pseudonym of Tabor Evans is James Reasoner and he provides us with a cracking tale. The action comes thick and fast as Longarm searches for the long missing army payroll. From the word go someone is out to stop Longarm getting to Sweetwater Canyon but he battles through. Once there Longarm finds himself in a range war and the canyon is part of the land being fought for.

Cinema (New Iron Age Blogspot): Released in 1982, this movie was a complete flop and only became well-known, and something of a cult classic, when it became ubiquitous on cable throughout the 80s. To kids of my generation, this was one of their early experiences with Sword & Sorcery, and maybe the very first. It established in a lot of kid’s minds what the genre was supposed to be, and it still inspires a lot of affection to this day.

D&D (Dungeon Fantastic): What I like about the systems I’d consider: AD&D – Power level. I like the HP levels. I have a strong dislike for d4 HP thieves and I like d10 fighters better than d8 fighters. – Cleric spells. I like clerics getting spells at level 1, and bonuses for Wisdom are fine with me. I get why from a world-building standpoint the vast majority of clerics being level 1 and not getting spells makes PCs quickly become special . . . but I’d rather have them start with a spell. – I like AC starting at 10, not 9 (but see below.)

Hugos (Emperor Ponders): Some particular trends in genre literature have become obvious during the past few years. One of them is the use of Brobdingnagian titles, a compulsion to write paragraph-long titles, some of whom even give away the plot. I suspect this may have started as a quirky, ironic thing to do, but I don’t think it’s funny unless you are lampooning or referencing some stuffy style like academic papers or writing comedy. And, to be fair, that’s to some extent what this story is doing—referencing, not the comedy.

Anthology (Science fiction fantasy blogspot): Beyond Time: Classic Tales of Time Unwound, edited by Mike Ashley This is one of a number of anthologies in the Science Fiction Classics series published by the British Library, this one (as you may have guessed) dealing with time travel. As usual in this series, there is a long introduction by the editor, supplemented by biographical notes on the authors at the start of each story.

RPG (Grey Hawk Grognard): The thing to remember first in a Greyhawk-setting mass combat is that the AD&D rules are geared towards small, skirmish-level actions. In other words, melee with a small party of adventurers and a relatively small group of enemies and/or monsters. This scale is reflected in the spells, such as animate dead (there’s really no way to have a literal army of skeletons unless you have hundreds of 5th level clerics or 9th level magic-users) and even mass invisibility requires a 14th level magic-user, and such are exceedingly rare in the World of Greyhawk.

History (Didact’s Reach): Legends were forged on that day, such as that of “The Boys of Pointe du Hoc”. Heroes fought to the bitter end, on both sides. Germans opened the gates of Hell itself upon the Allied infantrymen wading ashore through the pounding surf of Omaha Beach, raining shot and shell down on them. Americans and Canadians and British and New Zealanders and many others bayoneted, grenaded, shot, clubbed, and mauled their German opponents to their gruesome deaths.

Pulp Fiction (Rough Edges): Of the many, many series written for the pulps by H. Bedford-Jones, his longest-running featured a fat little Cockney named John Solomon, which ran from 1914 to 1936 and encompassed more than twenty novels and novellas. John Solomon may not seem very impressive at first glance, but he actually runs a far-flung intelligence network and makes a specialty of thwarting all sorts of criminal and espionage schemes around the world. I’ve been aware of this series for years but hadn’t read any of them until recently, when I started at the most logical place, the novel THE GATE OF FAREWELL, which was published originally as a serial in ARGOSY in 1914 and is Solomon’s first appearance.

Sensor Sweep: Beast Master, Time Travel, Grey Hawk published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/