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des-no9 · 7 months ago

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Des' Githyanki Genitals HC

Hey and welcome to another lore dump of Des' githyanki HCs!!! As usual, we're all about sex and fucking in here, and githyanki are aliens. So we gotta make their bits fun.

Also, they lay eggs now (never used to apparently, we'll get to that). So I've accounted for that in their genitals.

Also!! I'l got different HCs for the Older generation githyanki -think Voss and Orpheus age- as I HC the githyanki that were alive during their rebellion, and not long after it, differ somewhat to modern githyanki like Lae'zel, and one of my OCs who will be modelling, Tuj.

Gonna go chronologically here, and start with the oldies. Voss is my model for this (obviously).

This is a long post btw lol. Also disclaimer: I'm only talking about the githyanki mostly. Thinking about the githzerai and their reproduction is a whole other beast LOL. Enjoy <3

Obvious TW for talk of slavery, breeding, eggs, violence, rape, lots of genitalia talk and art by yours truly

Older Generation Githyanki Genitals - during ensalvement to early Vlaakiths.

So the vague general consensus in the lore seems to be that the gith originally descended from humans in the very beginning, and this makes me think that their genitals early on during their enslavement and early in their freedom were closer to what we know our human genitalia to be.

But, then we have the illithid's experiments and how that changed their physiology quite vastly over the X number of years.

I HC that many of the illithid colonies varied, and so therefore so did the githyanki (shall be using githyanki to refer to them then even if that wasn't their name then). Some colonies were more focused purely on the numbers, breeding, breeding to send to other colonies for X purposes in their slavery. (I HC Vlaakith I was a branded breeding slave). So would have efficient genitalia. Maybe very little sexual dimorphism. Maybe closer to the modern githyanki like now with asexual breeding.

Some other colonies (like one I HC Voss came from) were bred purely as soldiers, attack and guard dogs. So they refined their physiology very strictly to breed the best, the strongest. Bearing in mind the need for the best warriors and breeders, so therefore keeping their genitalia tucked away and protected when not in use was essential.

It also makes me think things about some of the illithid colonies essentially neutering the githyanki in gestation and only keeping a select few breeders (much parallels to modern githyanki lol) basically to stop their slaves having sexual desire for each other or anything else, cutting it off and only having necessary urges. But I digress.

Basically during this era and the early years before they started breeding through eggs, I HC there was MUCH more variance in their genitalia (and probably some of their other physiology honestly) before it started to become much more streamlined through their eggs and no doubt the Vlaakiths interfering with their breeding to create the best, supreme, unified race in the one Vlaakith's vision.

So, I sketched up what I imagined Voss' genitals to be (obviously). I HC he has a slit where his bits are protected during fighting, since he was bred to be a fighter/attack dog for the illithid.

NOTE: his slit extends further down.

Notes and important points if you can't read my writing:

cock (easy word to use for it) sheathed inside slit

slit widens and gets wet when aroused, and the skin inside is rough, but is usually wrapped around to protect the cock even if the slit widens on arousal

cock can be pulled out from its sheath manually and how it sits soft

so, Voss' is a little different to the rest of his colonies would have looked purely because it's scarred to shit (from his hubris) They mostly all had two dicks, but the scar tissue healed his together (don't worry, he gets them separated again :>) and they can stick together as one if you want during arousal, or can be used as two For Their Pleasure :tm:

the tip can move independently. Very sensitive.

can come through slit and cock

slit gets wet and easily over stimulated

can come from slit stimulation alone

I think his colony bred more 'traditionally' how we know it as humans. Voss was a traditionally bred and live birth baby to me (Orpheus too). I think a lot of the early githyanki were traditionally bred as we know it, but some with varying ways of conception, birth lengths, delivery, even incubation

I like to think that maybe little spikes come out of the ridges on his cock to embed into whoever he's fucking if he wants to, to hold them in place, for some extra pain and usual githyanki sadism. This was specific to his colony and maybe one or two others, and maybe appears again in some modern githyanki.

I HC Orpheus has a slit too, but is maybe a little more in the human camp to what we know genitalia to be like since he's also ancient and a traditional non-egg baby. Closer to the ancestors they came from. I just like to HC that because he IS a little more....gentler, rounder, smooth, 'humanised' than a lot of the other githyanki we see. I love thinking about the little differences that set Orpheus apart from his people, even though he IS his people, the lifeblood of them. The blood of their Mother. Anyway, I digress.

Basically, for the oldies I think there's a LOT of freedom to be creative and almost do anything, using the illithid experiments, that they're aliens and so much unknown as our excuse. Also don't forget the most important - fun, and shoving all our kinks onto our fictional loves 24/7.

Modern Githyanki Genitalia HCS - egg time

So, the shift to egg laying and apparently it's asexual. I have a LOT of thoughts about this. With this happening thousands of years ago and also with them transitioning from NOT egg laying (putting in the assumption of live births here) to egg laying, there would be some sort of accommodation and change in their physiology for this, right?

Also this doesn't happen quickly. Magic can help yes! Also, they're aliens. Aliens can defy everything and anything we know as humans. I try not to press too much of our human and earth knowledge and experience onto alien races because who is to say their experiences and such are like ours. And also it makes it more fun for me to step away from the known into unknown and other possibilities. But anyway.

Lae'zel says the transition happened to egg laying after they were freed from the illithid and under Vlaakith's power. Now, I like to HC that Vlaakith kind of has this under her control (and therefore, all the subsequent Vlaakith's control). It's kind of like, a mass population control, sterilisation, selective, experimental and controlled breeding to try create her own perfect race in essence.

The execution is flawed, of course. Probably changes over time with all the (over 100) of Vlaakiths and leadership changes, in-fighting, evolution of the githyanki from the beginning of their enslavement to now. But the idea is there. And it sticks.

Okay so. As above I mentioned I HC there was a lot of differences between the githyanki in their genitalia from the different illithid colonies. And at first, transitioning to egg laying was probably a slow process as the first generation probably died out, or through their own ghustils, technology, psionics, they started to try to change their own bodies to accommodate egg laying. Some failed, some managed it. It was a difficult process that also in essence weeded out the weak for Vlaakith too.

And then once the eggs started laying, hatching, they probably still tinkered with them. Making sure the hatchlings that were born would be able to breed more and were born right, strong, and the proper future of their people. There were still probably live births happening at the very start during the transition, but magic and psionics probably sped this process along - even if it was probably very traumatic for a lot of newly annointed githyanki. Jumping from being experimented on by illithid in slave colonies to experimenting on yourself, and by your ghustil on order of your Queen? Fantastic. Just brilliant.

Fast forward to now and the githyanki genitalia are mostly uniform I think. Much more so than when they first gained their freedom and called themselves githyanki.

I think there's probably still some differences. Like genetic anomalies. And also that the atmosphere/plane etc of long-term creches can have influences on their hatcheries/eggs. Say a creche on a completely different material plane to Faerun's, or it's near like somewhere with intense psionic or void energy. I think things like that could (and do in canon!) have definite changes on physiology. (NOTE: I also like thinking about this in regard to things like skin-tone, texture, spot pattern, hair colour, face shape, accent.....the list is endless lol)

Okay. So. Without further delay here is my OC Tuj'da to model his bits for you :3

Notes:

some githyanki have less/more slits. Less is much less common as three is standard for efficient egg-laying.

all sexes can lay eggs

their shape and layout can look unique/different. eg, longer, smaller, more protruding. Think like different penis and vulva shapes. (Note: I took a lot of inspiration for the shape of their genitals from Art Deco shapes and style lol)

much like the older generation githyanki slits if they had them, they widen when aroused, and also when carrying eggs and to lay them

some githyanki are more sensitive in their smaller/egg slits than their main slits

their is sexual dimorphism between their genitals usually, but that can only be seen when aroused.

their cock positioning can be different too from where it comes from, and folds up and inside the githyanki. Lots of githyanki can control the length of their cock by using their psionics, but does require significant concentration and skill

very sensitive at the middle of their cock so some of them like to shorten it to cover that bit up to last even longer sometimes

they can be fucked with their cock tucked inside. It's uncomfortable for some, for others it's the best thing on the menu.

very short refractory period, if at all

they cum a lot. It tastes kind of sweet.

(after Vlaakith's sterilisation and population control is dissolved) fertilisation often requires psonics of some sort

I'm undecided on this, but for such a violent race that rape and also enjoy consenting sexual violence, I think maybe they'd also evolve/keep/develop the small spikes in their ridges that they can make pop out at will to embed into their partner. These ALSO come out from the ridged skin inside the sheath, not just the cock :>

their skin in general is rougher, tougher than other istik races so can take a much rougher fuck, and I think a willing istik's first time with a githyanki partner, there might be a bit of adjustment for...soreness lol

I haven't got many HCs for their actual fertilisation, their eggs, pregnancy etc as pregnancy etc can be a bit of squick for me, but most other things around it and eggs etc are okay. So I haven't thought too much about the actual way they GET egged up, lay them, fertilised etc. Maybe that's for another day.

For now, hope you enjoy these HCs! Some of them may change/I may adapt them as I continue to write the githyanki, but I feel like I'm happy with most of this!

Feel free to use any and all if you enjoy them <3! Thank you for reading and getting this far, hah. I just love the githyanki so much, they bring me so much joy. And I hope they do to you too.

-Des

#bg3 #githyanki #kith'rak voss #baldur's gate 3 #dungeons and dragons #dnd #des' HCs #des talks about githyanki genitals for thousands of words? no-one is surprised whatsoever #des writes #des draws #des' meta #tuj tag #as always love to hear your thoughts!!!!!

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vihattu-thethoroughbredofsin · 7 months ago

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Some thoughts about Cybertron in the Transformers One trailer (SPOILERS!)

I was most interested in the shown state of Cybertron in the trailer. Instead of the rather familiar image of a metallic futuristic and technologically advanced planet, the trailer shows a completely different state of the planet's surface. There is some kind of organic life here, and it looks interesting.

Many compare it to Cybertron from the endings of BeastsMachines and Cybertron (Galaxy Force) and the Cyberverse. But I won't agree. In the first case, the idea was that Cybertron, for the sake of balance, should combine its wild distant past and present, creating a techno-organic unity, in the second case it was a symbol of the rebirth of the planet and the return of power to Primus, and in the third it was a rather lazy and crooked way to show the world of Cybertron, which worked incomprehensibly and contradicted itself. At least that's how I understand it. Here, one gets the impression of a completely different idea.

The surface of Cybertron looks to be covered with organic plant life, not techno-organic, and this is interesting, given that most of the ground looks to be made up of metal and crystalline structures.

But most importantly, this vegetation looks somewhat wrong, but in a certain sense. It's like it doesn't belong here.

What I mean by that. Some of the plants look natural, while the rest looks out of line with the rest of the environment and even other vegetation. And this is not about the quality of the graphics, everything is just fine here, and therefore it seems to me that this impression is made intentionally.

Here is an example where plants look organic (first 3), and where they no longer combine with the place of growth (next 3).

And the appearance is strikingly different, as if these plants are not from the same biome, which leads to one thought, but more on that later.

On the other hand, animals, they are obviously completely metallic and mechanical. And, interestingly again, we see only these deer or antelopes, no flocks of birds or insects on the background, some small animals.

All this gives me the impression of a kind of post-apocalyptic world either at the stage of dying or at the initial stage of rebirth. Most of the territory is a wasteland of metal and ground, and the plants seem to be in separate oases. This may hint either that plants are gradually taking over the planet after a cataclysm, or that life is gradually dying on the surface.

We see the ruins of buildings covered with vegetation and the bodies, presumably of the Primes, also overgrown with some kind of plants. But all this does not look peaceful and whole.

At least there is an artificial danger for representatives of the fauna.

And since the Quintessons are definitely involved in the plot, I have two ideas about what's going on.

1. Techno-organic quintessons alter the planet for themselves and create suitable conditions and an ecosystem for themselves on the surface. This explains why the plants look so different, the Quintessons could have imported them from other planets or their native home. This would explain why antelopes resemble our animals so much, they could have been created under the impression of the fauna of other worlds. The ruins of the buildings could belong to transformers, who were enslaved and driven to live and work underground. Or transformers were also created in the image and likeness of someone as a workforce.

2. The planet was originally organic. Quintessons could fly here for resources or in search of a new home and begin to cyberform the planet, gradually killing organic life that remained only on small areas of the surface. At the same time, antelopes can be mutated or cyberformed animals that are gradually exterminated by the shown protection system. The buildings could belong to the alien race that originally lived here. At the same time, transformers can be a workforce created by quintessons.

This is definitely a very interesting and new look at Cybertron and the past of this planet, and it seems to me that the authors of the cartoon clearly decided to show Cybertron like this for a reason, there is an idea behind it.

Well, let's wait to see what happens.

#transformers #maccadam #transformers one #tf one #tfone #quintessons #spoilers #cybertronian worldbuilding #cybertronian nature

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justwannabecat · 3 months ago

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Real obsessed with my Owlman AU rn… not enough of them…

-Dick agrees to become Talon if Owlman helps him kill Tony Zucco

-Talon does undergo a lot of fucked up experiments and conditioning and whatnot, but not as much as if it were the Court doing it because Dick still needs to resemble a normal human. However, because of the conditioning he doesn’t actually leave to Bludhaven and they don’t have any REAL fights

-Jason WAS actually abducted because he tried to steal the wheels off of Bruce’s car (not Owlman. Owlman has no car, because they are assassins and that wouldn’t really help them stay hidden)

-Jason becomes the new Talon against his will. Dick still becomes Nightwing, a backup who no longer requires supervision.

-Jason does not like being Talon. Although at first the conditioning is working, he snaps out of it long enough to escape, trying to find his real mom. She tells the Joker about him.

-Of course, since the Bats are villains, the Rogues are heroes. Joker attempts to un-brainwash him, but is forced to flee when Owlman tracks them down.

-Jason’s death is faked as a punishment (having a life other than Talon is a privilege, not a promise) and he’s put through harsh training and conditioning for the next few years, as well as having trackers planted in each limb. His new identity is Raptor.

-Tim is still a little stalker, but he doesn’t go to Owlman about knowing his identity. That would be SUICIDE. Instead Owlman sends Nightwing to investigate Drake Manor during a gala and they find the photos, plus the one of Tim at the circus with Dick, so obviously he knows

-Owlman needs a new Talon. Now, normally he wouldn’t dare risk his Talon living in a separate house, but Tim knew for ages and didn’t say a word… so as long as Tim’s aware that he’ll kill his parents if he tries to get out of it, Tim can keep his identity :)

-Jason is actually really protective to Tim because he doesn’t want another kid to go through it. Although Tim starts off receptive toward it, as Tim’s own conditioning kicks in he starts to see Jason as a weak, failure Talon, and distances himself.

-Tim’s parents are accidentally killed by a hero as collateral in a fight. This just cements his loyalty to Owlman.

-Damian ran away from the League of (Heroes? I mean they’re good guys but what’s the name) because he’s still a bloodthirsty little fucker but instead of attacking Tim repeatedly he is harshly punished. Tim was Talon before him, therefore Tim has a higher standing in the family.

-Bruce is not lost in the timestream (mainly because I don’t know how that would work out) but Damian eventually becomes Talon and Tim becomes Shrike.

-At some point in time Jason would have given in and obeyed again? But idk it’s a long process and he’s been fucked up beyond repair :( but hey! When he does prove himself he gets a new identity and can pretend that he’s part of a happy family :)

-yeah they’re all pretty delusional

-Haven’t completely fleshed out everyone else. They probably won’t be very involved.

-erm. Alfred. Is terrified. But also he kinda still loves Bruce? From having raised him? But also Stockholm Syndrome is definitely a big part of it. He isn’t allowed to leave the manor. They have their groceries delivered. If Alfred tries to leave he gets shocked :( because again it’s a villain AU but I can’t make Alfred evil that’s a crime

#dc #Batman #batman au #owlman #Owlman AU #dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #damian al ghul #everyone is so fucked up it’s funny #but also very very not funny and sad #I want! more! Owlman AUs!#also yes technically Owlman is Thomas Wayne Jr #but I just want my batfam to be all dark and twisted that’s all #so fuck TW jr #he’s not my Owlman :(

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justlarkin · 3 months ago

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Hi! Sorry for bothering you. But I'm writing my own fanfiction of housamo, the whole game in fact, but I'm having complications on understanding the reasons why most of the exiles were banished according to their worlds rules... I'm not very smart and wiki information is incomplete or too difficult to get... could you please help me by sharing a simple explanation....?

No bother. I don't get some of the lore stuff in housamo either, so don't feel dumb about it.

So the general reason they were exiled is because the rebelled against the worlds' system in some way and had to be removed to protect their systems. Not all of the exiles' rules and backstories have been revealed yet, so I'm not sure about all of them currently.

-Takamagahara's system tosses away anything undesirable and works with Amaterasu exposing everyone's sins with her light and reflecting their shame back at them to keep them in line. Susanoo felt zero shame and therefore couldn't be controlled that way, so he was eventually sent away due to his behavior.

-The World of the Old Ones exists within Azathoth's dream, so invading one's dream without consent is considered very taboo and is forbidden. Cthulhu's ability allowed him to invade other's dreams whenever, which of course violated that big rule.

-Hourai's system runs on the belief of letting nature run it's course and not interfering, but Nüwa would constantly interfere by causing and trying to prevent wars and disasters.

-The Oceanic Realm's system is the belief that in the end everything and everyone will sink to the bottom of the ocean for eternity. From what little we learned from Gurangatch, the Rainbow Serpent would rise from the depths again and again, so while everything else would sink forever, they wouldn't.

-Great Spirit's system is the belief in unity with everyone being one with Wakan Tanka. Heyoka's eccentric behavior caused him to become a social pariah and an outcast, separating him from Wakan Tanka and the rest of Great Spirit, so he was exiled.

-Olympus' system relies heavily on everyone's connection to the world representative, Zeus, most importantly the familial and sexual bonds. Eurynome's rule allowed her to rend bloodlines and anything that stemmed from said bloodline such as curses, so the Olympians would've been screwed with most of them, especially the key players, being related to Zeus in some way. Also, Eurynome's relationship with Zeus isn't known yet, so there could've been more there. Another thought I've seen is that Eurynome might've rejected Zeus, which is unheard of with the way his power works, on top of the bloodline thing.

-Varuna-Kamadeva and Asura were essentially exiled for the opposite reasons. Shangri La's system is the belief that one should let go of all of their attachments to achieve enlightenment. A situation happened where one of Smokey God's other friends did something to Asura's daughter and he became enraged and attacked them. Unable to let go of his anger and wanting to continue fighting, he was exiled. Either Asura himself or a part of himself that he cut off went to Deva Loka and became known as Varuna.

I can't remember the exact way Deva Loka functions, but Varuna was the omnipotent world representative who would gift parts of his power to others. He would continue doing this until he was left with nothing but love and desire and became known as Varuna-Kamadeva. That's when the others decided that he wasn't fit to be world representative anymore and wanted him to relinquish that role to Shiva by making him fall for Parvati. And obviously Shiva blasted him once Varuna shot him with an arrow, exiling him. So since he became unworthy of the role of world representative once he lost his attachments, I guess the belief focuses on holding onto one's attachments.

-Yggdrasil holds the belief that the world will eventually experience Ragnarok and the era of gods will end, making way for the era of humanity. This of course never happened since Loki confined Yggdrasil within a wall that causes the world to loop post Ragnarok the same way Tokyo's wall functions. It's a world of those destined to fall, but Freyr couldn't be defeated as long as he had the power to rend through defeat, so he had to go. There's also just the fact that Freyr seemed to be opposed to meaningless sacrifice like what the gods intended to do for humanity.

-Kitezh's system is belief of diffusion, so pretty much just combining and spreading into other sources to achieve power. Maybe it's more parasitic or infectious in nature. Like if they were to be attacked by invaders, Perun could mix himself into their memories to mess with and dominate them for example. Perun lived heavily by this belief, but the ultimate goal of diffusion is complete assimilation, to be combined everyone, so you're no longer identifiable to one location. He attempted to do this by removing all documented traces of himself, but the problem was Veles existed. Veles' rules, his words, allowed him to separate and isolate things, so he was potentially able to untangle everything achieved through diffusion. Ofc Perun wasn't the one who wanted him to go, but he still violated the belief of the world.

Those are the ones I could think of rn, some of them haven't been revealed clearly or I'm just blanking rn.

#ask

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not-a-space-alien · 7 months ago

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K&J x MMSS 4: Valen & Jim Part 4B

So, this is the first chapter of an alternate timeline that we wrote to the fourth crossover. This diverges from the story at the original chapter 4 (I'll call it chapter "4A" and this is the "B" timeline.)

The first three chapters go the same way, and then in chapter 4, for the "B" timeline, Jim's dropoff with his sister goes without incident, meaning Valen doesn't get burned and therefore does not come back into human territory with Jim. They go their separate ways and don't meet again until years later.

Since Valen does not have the protection from Jim and Liz in this timeline, he ends up getting captured by vampires hunters when he comes back years later--the same ones that took Kane in K+J. Those hunters then get the details from Jim's book mixed up--since obviously Valen would be mentioned in it--and think of Valen as "That vampire from Jim Liberman's book," assuming he's the one who held Jim hostage without really checking the details. They then offer Valen to Jim, who showed up expecting Kane like in K+J canon. So this version would be more of a "caretaker-turned-whumpee" and "whumpee-turned-caretaker" story.

We lovingly refer to this as "the horrors version." What happens to Valen in this AU is much, much worse than what happens to him in canon MMSS.

K&J masterlist

MMSS masterlist

K&J x MMSS crossover masterlist

To be added to the taglist, contact @whumpsday

Warnings: Blood, aftermath of torture. The usual. Just some real sicko shit.

***

The rest of the meeting at the border is tense, but ultimately goes off without a hitch. Valen is ultimately happy to be rid of the car and simply runs back home. They exchanged phone numbers, and Valen calls to leave a message to say he got home safely.

They talk a little bit over the phone over the next week or two, but Valen decides to leave Jim to his human life, and goes back to focusing on his research. Down the road, he realizes he needs to spend some time on human territory to make it feasible, but by then he hasn't talked to Jim in years and doesn't want to bother him. That's when the unthinkable happens.

***

They'd told Valen that his victim, Jim Liberman, was coming to pick him up, for revenge. That he'd get his just deserts.

Valen can't remember who Jim is. He'd racked his brain, trying to think of all the people he'd ever wronged, and had come up empty. He's no stranger to tears at this point, but he cried like he'd never cried before that day, salty tears streaming down his cheeks in the same track they'd run a thousand times before, over the bare silver muzzle that had been fused with his melted skin for years at this point. They hadn't even given him a chance, they'd just assumed the worst about him and used that as evidence that he deserved the worst torture imaginable for years, and now he was going to be given to someone who was going to treat him even worse, and he couldn't even remember who or why.

Then the hunter drags him outside and throws him at the feet of the human who was to be his new jailer. And he does recognize him. They met once for a few days, 15 years ago, and Valen's hazy, pain-addled brain can't quite remember what their interaction had been. Valen found him outside, he remembers, and he'd taken him home. That was bad, right? Had he kidnapped Jim? Maybe that's what they'd been talking about.

That doesn't sound like something Valen would do, though. Well, maybe it was something he would do now, he has no way of knowing what kind of person he is now. He does remember he used to be very kind and compassionate, though, and it seems like he wouldn't have hurt a stray human. But the hunters have been telling him over and over that he's a monster, a leech, a wretched animal that deserves all the pain it's getting, so maybe he did hurt Jim, maybe he does deserve to be strung up in the sun forever with his air cut off.

But still. Even if he deserves it, it's too horrible to think about. He trembles on the ground, looking at Jim’s knees with pleading eyes. Please just kill me. Please just end this travesty of existence.

All of Jim's nerves and expectations go out the door the second he lays eyes on the vampire the hunter pushed in front of him.

Not Kane. Valen.

Jim looks at him in shock that quickly morphs into horror. He opens his mouth to object, to say you had the wrong guy and even if you had the right guy this would be unthinkable, but the words die in his throat. They're already handing Valen over to him, and only because they think he deserves revenge. He won't say anything that could even potentially jeopardize that. These hunters probably would not approve of him freeing Valen. God, they used the padded cuffs he brought for Kane, but that's a silver muzzle.

"I'll be g-going now." he says shakily to the hunter instead.

"Just give me a call if it's too much trouble and you want to return it." says Chase.

"That won't be necessary." Jim says curtly, trying to hold back tears. He and the hunter exchange goodbyes, and Jim drops to his knees, eye-level with Valen.

"Oh my god. Oh my god, Valen, holy shit, what did they do to you?" he whispers in horror.

"What did they do to you?" Just what I deserve, right? That's what they'd been saying this whole time, so he'd started to believe it. The alternative was something unthinkable.

Jim reaches to unlock the muzzle- he can try to talk to Valen about the whole please don't use persuasion on me thing later, but it's apparent that Valen won't be able to speak for a bit anyway. "I'm gonna take this off, is that okay?" he asks.

Jim is taking the muzzle off? That can't be right. The muzzle stays on was the very first rule the hunters had laid down, because he was dangerous and could use his mouth to hurt in a number of ways, and this burning sensation locked around the lower half of his face had become the only constant in his new life, and the idea that it would go away had never occurred to him as a possibility. It was part of him now, just as his skin was melted to the silver.

And why is Jim asking Is that okay? like his opinion on anything makes any difference? What is he doing, talking to Valen like he's a person? Valen doesn't answer, sitting there with eyes downcast. Some humans didn't like it when he made eye contact, they said he was trying to use persuasion on them, and that earned him the ultimate punishment: the sun. He avoided eye contact like the plague. Even just looking up at Jim earlier had been risky.

"Alright. I'm goin' for it. Sorry that there's no way to do it without it hurting, but that thing on your face can't be comfortable. Sooner I get it off, sooner you can heal, right?" Jim gives his bony shoulder a gentle squeeze. "S'gonna be okay. You're out. I- I'm gonna help you, like you helped me." His tears do fall, then.

He unlocks the muzzle and begins pulling it off. It's melted into Valen's face and almost impossible to remove. His skin tears like wet paper. Jim punctuates his efforts with a sorry every few seconds until it's off, leaving Valen's face a gory mess, lips completely gone and teeth on full display. Jim retches involuntarily at the sight. "I'm so fucking sorry, Valen. Least it's off."

Valen dissociates from the pain, just thinking of Jim’s words. It's going to be okay? I'm gonna help you? None of this sounds right, it clashes with what the hunters had been telling him for years. Like you helped me. Maybe Valen had helped this human? But then why had the hunters punished him? Helping a stray human does sound more like something Valen would have done, though, in the past, when he'd been a person and not a rabid animal.

Oh, that's right. That's the answer to what kind of person he is now, as he'd wondered earlier. He's not a person at all, he's a mindless animal, the kind that would, here still on the hunter's doorstep, immediately bite the metaphorical hand that feeds, in an attempt to turn it into the literal hand that feeds.

Valen's mouth hadn't been free in years, and all he can think of is his primal instincts urging him to take the chance to feed while he can. They hadn't needed to train the instinct out of him, because he'd had no opportunity to use it. And Jim is so very full of delicious, aromatic blood, and so soft and vulnerable, and so very, very right there next to his mouth, and Valen is so very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very hungry.

As soon as Jim says least it's off, the gory mess he'd just exposed around Valen's jaw comes to life and snaps shut over Jim's wrist.

Jim freezes, eyes wide and mouth shut tight. He cranes his neck to the side, just like he's supposed to, even though it's covered in fabric and Valen feeds from his wrist. He hasn't forgotten how to behave.

He trembles horribly as Valen feeds, crying much harder, though the only sounds that escape him are quiet sobs.

Until he starts to feel lightheaded. More lightheaded than Kane ever made him, even when Kane overfed.

"Valen, p-please." he whispers through his tears.

Nobody hears him. Valen's stomach is a blackhole that can never be filled, his heart a void that screams to be filled with violence.

Valen, p-please... Valen is gone, there's only this animal that won't stop drinking until he's forced to. He'll kill Jim, but he doesn't care, he can't.

He bites again, getting a bigger mouthful, tearing more skin, sweet, wet blood gushing into his mouth, down the front of his nearly-naked body

Jim knows it's bad bad bad, he'll be punished for sure, but he has to get away or he'll die. He pushes Valen off of him- it's easier than he'd thought it would be. His already-hurting wrist erupts even further into pain, and Jim cries out softly, cowering away from him.

Valen hasn't been strong in years. It's easy to push him off, his fangs tearing the skin as they're pulled out. He swallows what's in his mouth desperately, licking the remaining blood off his shaking, chained hands.

He bit, he attacked, he fed, the ultimate thing he wasn't allowed to do. The hunters are all still nearby, they'll surely hear Jim's pained sounds, and then he'll be punished beyond belief. But he needs the blood, he needs it, he can't think of anything else.

Jim holds his bleeding wrist to himself, sobbing.

"I'm sorry, I'm s-sorry, sir." he blubbers. "Please don't hurt me, I'm sorry. Please, I just, I don't wanna die."

Chase comes back out, hearing the commotion. "The fuck! It bit you?!"

Valen cowers when Chase comes back on the scene, his very presence instantly reducing Valen to a submissive, trembling mess. He whines like a dog, the only method of communication that had been available to him for years, and presses himself into the floor. Please don't put it back on, please please please.

Jim snaps out of it with the hunter's call. He's on a rescue mission now, he remembers. He needs to get Valen out of here safe, no matter now terrified he is of him.

"N-no." he lies, unable to stop crying. "This is the vampire's blood. Just, just tryin' to switch muzzle."

"Fuck, I told you it wasn't a good idea. You should've asked. Here, let me put the muzzle back on, it's better with it on." Chase starts to approach, going straight for the discarded silver muzzle on the ground.

Jim kicks the gore-covered monstrosity away. "No, just, use the one I've got." He doesn't want to muzzle Valen at all, especially given how painful Valen's face looks, but there's no way he can drive home with Valen unmuzzled after this. "It's in the car."

"Right, switching. Sure, your call." As Chase goes to grab the padded muzzle from the car, Jim mouths I'm sorry to Valen.

Chase fastens the muzzle onto Valen, too tight. "You good to go? Need anything else?" He assumes Jim's crying is due to seeing his captor again, emotions high.

"I'm good."

"You sure?"

"Yes." Jim insists. "I can handle this."

"Alright. Drive safe." Chase heads back inside.

Valen remains a terrified, quivering puddle on the floor, hardly able to believe he'd escaped Chase's check-in without being strapped to the board and set outside in anticipation of the sunrise. He'd swallowed blood, he'd fed, and it's better than he's felt in years despite the raw mess of his face and the new muzzle squeezing him. It doesn't burn, and his stomach has something in it, and any relief from the pain in any amount is welcome at this point.

He rolls over so he's facedown on the ground. He's muzzled again, the way he should be, and that's enough for his brain to remember he's supposed to be submissive and obedient and nonthreatening. He stares straight at the ground, no chance of eye contact

Jim shuffles back over to Valen and reaches out a shaking, bleeding hand to gently rest on his forehead. This way, if Valen lunges again, he can easily push back. Heart clenching with terror, he puts his uninjured hand under Valen's muzzled mouth.

"Please spit." he whispers. "I can't ask the hunter for first aid without letting him know you bit me. I need the bleeding to stop. Please."

Valen looks at what Jim's doing through a haze of pain and confusion. Spit. He knows that one. He has to be obedient.

As best as he can through the bit blocking his mouth, he lets bloody saliva dribble out of his mouth, stringing down into Jim's hand

"Thank you." Jim retracts both hands and rubs the saliva over his wound, thankfully stopping the bleeding pretty quick.

He takes a moment to breathe, trying to calm himself down. "Well, least I don't have to psyche myself up to feed you. Jumpin' right in the deep end." he says nervously. "Do you remember, when you found me? I was dying, and you gave me water. You saved my life. I'll never forget it. I'll make sure you get home safe, too."

Valen doesn't look at him. He can't. But Jim's words are washing over him in waves. Valen had saved his life. Yes, that sounds right. He'll make sure he gets home safe, too. That doesn't. Valen is a dangerous creature, and he'd just attacked Jim, and he was going to be disciplined and tortured. It'd already sunk in a long time ago that he was going to be imprisoned and in pain for the rest of his life, and there was no way he could let himself believe Jim's words, to open the can of worms to start hoping again, because that was always how he got hurt emotionally. Bitter tears spring into his eyes.

As shaken as he is by the bite, Jim remembers what it was like to be so thirsty he'd do anything for water. He gets it, and he can see how terrified and desperate Valen is.

"It's okay. Let's get you in the car, alright?" Jim takes Valen's arm and helps him into the back seat, figuring he might want to lie down.

He's too nervous to take the muzzle off: if Valen bites while he's driving, it'd be very bad for both of them. He does take off both sets of cuffs, though. "Hope that's a little more comfortable. It's gonna be a few hours until we get back to my place, figure you could crash there while you heal up and head home whenever you're ready. I'll take that thing off when we get home, okay?" He gestures to the muzzle. "Don't wanna get in an accident."

Valen watches Jim help him into the car, and take his manacles off, and promise him gentleness, all with wide, uncomprehending eyes. Head home? Head home???? The possibility is too absurd to comprehend. Is Jim being cruel, messing with him? No, that doesn’t make sense. If Valen really had saved Jim's life, maybe this is real?

He lies down in the back of the car, with his wrists free, limply allowing himself to be carted around. He should apologize for biting Jim as soon as he can. Maybe that will earn him less pain.

He stews in that thought for part of the ride before being once again overwhelmed by his animalistic fear, and he starts pawing at the muzzle, trying to get it off, but there's a lock on it. He whines, tears streaming down his face.

Jim hears miserable whining from behind him. "Hold on, lemme pull over and see what's up.”

He does, pulling onto the shoulder and opening the back door. "I know it sucks right now. I'm so sorry. I'd ask what's wrong, but there's a lot. What can I help you with right now?" He's hoping Valen can charade it to him. He doesn't have anything to write with, and Valen won't be able to talk until he heals, muzzle or not.

Valen claws at the muzzle on his face, worming around in the backseat, just wallowing in his desperation

"Hey, hey hey hey." Jim hesitantly reaches out and takes Valen's hands in his. "If I take that thing off you, are you gonna bite me again? I'll take it off if you think you can hold off."

Valen tries to steady himself. Jim is helping him, Jim is trying to help him. Right?

He bit Jim, and it was nowhere near enough blood to sate his hunger, but if he wants the muzzle off, he has to not bite. He can do that, right? He nods slowly

"Awesome. Thank you, I know it's gotta be hard. But you did take enough to make me woozy, so I hope it's enough, 'cause I can't give you more tonight. I only got so much blood. I'll find a way to get you more soon, though, okay?" He can ask people. Liz or Laken, maybe.

Jim unlocks the muzzle, lifting it off Valen's face. "Didn't realize that asshole put it on this tight. I'm sorry, that had to hurt, 'specially with your face. Is there anything else?"

It's off and it'll stay off if he behaves. He can do that, he can behave. He rolls over and curls up into a ball. He wishes he had something to cover himself, in case the sun comes up. Still hiding his face, he mimes a motion like pulling a blanket over himself

"Yeah, fuck, sorry." Jim should've been thinking about the fact that Valen would want some clothes for the ride home. He came expecting to have to come face to face with his abuser, only to be met with this entire situation, and his brain's on the fritz. He takes his flannel off and hands it to Valen. "Will this work for now? We'll be home in like, two hours, and then I can get you some real clothes." It’s well before sunrise, but Valen would have no way of knowing what time it is.

Still crying, Valen takes the flannel and wraps it around himself, barely managing to get his arms into the sleeves, like he doesn't remember how to put on a shirt.

Thank you. It's the most covered he's been in years, and if he gets thrown into the sun, less of him will be burned. He wants to say thank you. But no, that's talking, that's bad, he might use persuasion, he has to show he's obedient. Eyes still downcast, he nods, hoping Jim can see his appreciation non-verbally.

"Alright. Let me know if you need anything else. When we get home, I'll get you a pen and paper so you can write. You can take a bath, get into some pajamas, and I've got a bed set up in the basement for you." Jim gets back in the driver's seat and keeps going.

All of that sounds too good for him. He doesn't deserve a bath, and pajamas, and a bed. He knows that now, the hunters taught him, the hunters taught him he needs to be happy with a concrete floor and a hose and whatever pain they were giving him, because it could always, always be worse, somehow.

Valen tries to show he's grateful, but he's just so scared. He can't get his hopes up that this foggy promise of comfort from somewhere above him is real and not something he's imagining. He has a very good imagination.

He stays curled up in a ball, shaking. It's the first time in forever nothing is actively hurting him, and he has something in his stomach, and he feels okay, but all this change is making the entirety of his ordeal hit him all at once, and he can't seem to stop crying and being scared even though Jim is being kind to him. He tries to stay quiet so as not to seem ungrateful, but the tears and sobs occasionally come out in waves all the way home.

Jim's heart breaks for Valen. He has no idea what kind of unimaginable horrors he's been through, but he knows what it's like to be helpless and scared. He's just glad he can do something about it.

When they arrive home, Jim opens the back door and peers in at Valen again. He's nervous, very nervous, to be so close to Valen after the bite. But for the past decade, Valen's been almost like a deity of safety in his mind, the savior who took him from the brink of death and delivered him home. If Valen isn't safe, no one is.

"We're here, bud. C'mon, let's get you inside." he encourages, holding out a hand for Valen to take.

Valen wants to bite again. He really, really wants to. All he'd wanted to do for the past five years was bite the people who were causing him pain, and he is in pain and helpless and scared, and it's like wading through thick fog to grasp what's actually going on and what he needs to do.

Don't bite, the muzzle will stay off if you don't bite. Don't bite.

He gingerly reaches out and takes Jim's hand.

Jim takes him inside, leaving all the restraints in the car. He doesn't plan on using them. "Alright, what do you wanna do first? Bath, sleep, or write? Uh, just hold up one two or three fingers. And I'll get you some clothes."

Valen feels so overwhelmed by the way Jim is talking to him. He has to make decisions? He's too tired to think, drained and exhausted by his hunger and fear. He holds up two fingers. That was for sleep, right? Maybe he wants to just be left alone for a while

"Yeah, I bet you're exhausted. Lemme grab something for you to wear, just hang tight for a second, yeah?" Jim leaves briefly, returning with a set of soft checkered pajamas and a familiar outfit: the clothes Valen gave to Jim 10 years ago.

"I can finally return 'em." Jim says with a smile, handing everything to Valen.

Valen takes the clothes with shaking hands. He recognizes them. He finally remembers taking Jim home and caring for him when he was in need. Just as Jim is doing for him now. He buries his face in the outfit and drops to his knees, crying. He wants to say thank you. But he shouldn't try to talk, that's bad, and he should be good for Jim, who's helping him.

Jim goes down with him, rubbing his back, careful to avoid the half-healed burns. "You're gonna be alright. I've got you. I won't let anything bad happen to you. How about I show you downstairs, you get some rest, and tomorrow you can get cleaned up, get some more blood in you, and if your mouth's not healed enough to talk yet- which, yeah, I dunno how long that'll take- you can write anything you wanna say. Sound good?"

Valen tries to compose himself, sniffling. He's scared, but all he can really do is hang in there and trust that what Jim is saying is true, and that everything will be okay. Downstairs and rest sound nice.

When Jim shows him downstairs, the basement reminds him uncomfortably of his cell at the hunter's compound, although he quickly decides he'd prefer it to the upstairs anyway just because it has no windows and therefore no risk of the sun.

There's a bed, and a blanket, and a pillow. Jim intends those to be for him, right? He'd said he'd set up a bed for him. Right? But it seems so outrageously luxurious, so much more than he deserves or is used to, that he can't bring himself to accept it. He must be misunderstanding somehow, or thinking wishfully. Such things are not for him anymore, and he can't risk seeming entitled and presumptuous. He can hear the hunters' voices: You think you get a bed, leech? That's cute.

No, he can't risk it. He needs to show he'll be happy with whatever Jim gives him. Especially after he'd bitten Jim. There's no way that behavior should be rewarded like this.

He really, really wants the blanket, so maybe if he shows he knows his place, Jim will be kind and give it to him anyway, even though it's too good for him.

Valen staggers to the corner of the room and slides down onto the ground, lying on the cement floor with the clothes Jim had given him under his head as a substitute for a pillow. He hopes that misusing the clothes that way won't seem too entitled. The voices come back. Oh, you think you deserve a pillow, leech? That's cute. Since you don't know how to use them, might as well take them back.

"Oh, hey, what's wrong? Is something wrong with the air mattress? I know it's not, like, the best thing ever, but I only got... you can use my bed if you want. It's upstairs, but I can close the curtains and you should be peachy." Jim offers. "You can sleep wherever you want. Take your pick."

Oh no, no, this is too hard, it's too hard to try and figure out if it's really safe to accept the air mattress. He wants it so badly, which is the exact reason why he knows he can't have it. That is something they trained into him. He curls his bony knees up to his chest and cries, unsure of what to do

Okay, Valen is scared. He's just scared. "It's okay. Nothing's gonna hurt here." Jim says softly. "How about you put on your pajamas and get into bed? Can you do that? I'll turn around while you get changed, just like, make any noise to let me know when you're done or if you need help.”

He turns around, hoping this will encourage Valen.

Valen wishes Jim would stop phrasing things so ambiguously, and start just saying what he wants Valen to do. He is used to commands, not ambiguous suggestions. How about you put on your pajamas and get into bed could mean anything. He thinks it means Jim wants him to do that, but he really wishes Jim would just order him to use the bed so he can do it without being afraid that he's doing something he'll be punished for.

But he'd said Nothing's gonna hurt here. That doesn't seem right. How will Jim punish him, then, if he won't be using pain to do it? Unless Jim doesn't think he needs punished? Maybe he doesn't, if Valen saved him, like it seems like he did forever ago, in another life. But the hunters had seemed so sure he'd deserved it, so maybe they knew something Jim didn't.

Oh no, if that was the case then maybe there was some danger that Jim could find out what it was that made him deserve pain, and then stop being nice to him and helping him. His brain runs off in this anxious train of thought, before he tries to ground himself by the fact that Jim has turned around and clearly wants him to get changed. Just get changed, you can do it, stop using your wild imagination and just get changed.

He drops the mangled, bloodstained tatters that comprise the clothes he'd been wearing when he'd been captured to the ground, then pulls on the pajamas. They're soft and warm and cozy, and so, so wonderful and that makes him so nervous because surely this can't be for him, this has to be a mistake, right?

Say thank you, say thank you or he might take them back. He tries to remember how to talk. You have to vibrate your throat, like a growl, and move your lips, except he doesn't have those right now. He tries anyway, and it comes out as a strangulated gurgle. He puts his hands over his mouth. No, talking is bad, isn't it? He doesn't know, he'd never been given the opportunity with the hunters.

Jim turns around at the sound to see Valen dressed. "Awesome. You can go to bed now, get some rest. And don't touch the door, okay? It's got silver on it. I was, uh, expecting someone else, not you. The hunters said I was picking up Kane, so y'know, precautions. I'll leave it open, so don't worry about it. You need anything else before I head up?"

Go to bed. Go to bed, go to bed means go to the bed and lie down in it and close your eyes and go to sleep. Right? He wants to so badly. But he is so, so anxious. He wants Jim to reaffirm that he means for Valen to sleep on the air mattress. It feels like it's not going to be safe to accept the bed and the blanket and the pillow unless Jim tells him he has to.

He can't look Jim in the eye and give him a questioning facial expression. He can't ask Are you sure? Valen is completely oblivious as Jim tells him about the door--he has no intention of going near the door, or trying to escape, escape is impossible and useless to even hope for--he's laser-focused on the bed. He steps towards it and kneels again, slowly extending one hand out to touch the blanket, whimpering as though he expects Jim to hit him. Keeping his eyes low, he looks at Jim and pauses with his hand on the blanket, to give Jim an opportunity to either tell him to keep going, or to shoo him away and confirm his doubts.

"Yeah, that's it. Shit, at least Kane let me sleep in a damn bed. Go for it. You're all good." Jim gives him a thumbs-up. "Or, uh, if there's some other problem, I could get something for you to write with after all?"

Valen nods at the suggestion, and holds his hand out, trying not to cry. Why did this feel so hard?

"Alright, one second." Jim heads upstairs, coming back a moment later with a pen, paper, and a cutting board he grabbed just for a hard surface to put the paper on. He sits on the air mattress, handing Valen the materials and patting the space next to him. "What do you wanna say? It's alright, you're safe now."

Valen doesn't get up onto the bed next to Jim. He stays kneeling on the floor and takes the materials from Jim. His hand is shaky, and he fumbles with the pencil, crying as his hands struggle to write, something he hasn't done in years. Eventually he manages to get out a message in messy font: I don't deserve a bed.

Jim sighs sadly. "Yeah you do, man. You deserve a bed. Promise. Look, I don't know all of what those fuckers did to you, I can't say I know how you feel. But I do know what it's like to have to learn how to be a person again after being told over and over again I'm not one. You're a person. You deserve nice things, and you deserve to be safe, and you deserve a bed. Okay?"

Finally, finally that's enough to make him feel like he can take the bed without being anxious about it. It sounds like it's safe for the blanket and pillows too. Tears still rolling down his cheeks, he crawls into the bed underneath the blanket, balling up and tucking himself away.

"There you go. Feel free to come up and get me if you need anything, alright? Up the stairs, down the hall, first door on the left. Hope you sleep good." Jim pats him on the shoulder before getting up, turning the lights off, and heading upstairs. As promised, the door remains open.

The feeling of softness around him still feels wrong wrong wrong, after so long on hard floors, but he weeps with joy at the luxury. He falls asleep truly comfortable for the first time in years. Maybe, just maybe everything is going to be okay. He doesn't try and get out of bed, especially not to leave the room; he isn't convinced he could make it up the stairs anyway. But he doesn't even want to. He doesn't want to escape from the luxury of having a blanket.

***

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#whump #K+J #angst #whumpblr #hurt/comfort

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quill-of-thoth · 9 months ago

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Letters From Watson: The Naval Treaty

Themes, Crimes, and Lies

For those of you tuning in to this reread without background knowledge this one is going to get esoteric, and for that I apologize. The primary mystery here is whether the cases known as The Second Stain and The Naval Treaty are, in a Watsonian perspective, fictionalized, and secondly it's whether they are fictionalized versions of the same case. (The Watsonian perspective, remember, is the game we play of attempting to make the timelines, scientific knowledge, and biographies of Holmes and Watson make sense as if they were real, historical people. From a Doylist perspective, Second Stain, published eleven years after this during ACD's reluctant revival of the franchise, is almost certainly a shortened remix of The Naval Treaty.) Fictionalization, Evidence:

National Importance, Exhibit A: Although names have been changed to protect the recognizable, neither Second Stain nor Naval Treaty is shy about connecting the case to a high ranking politician, or allowing a contemporary audience (or a wikipedia literate one) to draw relatively concrete conclusions about the contents of the lost documents. As I pointed out in A Scandal in Bohemia, this does not make a lot of sense if you assume any of the details such as the date or the "identity" of the fictionalized public figures are even close to accurate. A Watson whose first published short story referenced the obviously nonexistent "King of Bohemia" and fudged the year might feel confident that the safely married public figure in question, residing in a different country with a different primary language, would not bother him over the similarities and therefore confirm them, but I wouldn't assume the same lassez-faire idea would apply to the prime minister of his own country. I don't have the time or expertise to go into 1890's british laws and see if this would amount to some kind of libel, but I don't have to: Watson characterizes himself as a patriot, and has sympathy for the victims in both of his espionage stories. We can assume that enough of the details are fudged to give the innocent privacy and not reflect too badly or obviously on the public figures under whose watch these thefts (or whatever inspired these stories) took place.

Crowded timeline of Summer of 1888, Exhibit B: 1888 and 1889 are wild years no matter how you start your Holmesian chronology. Lots of cases happen and if you take Watson's word for the exact dates you run into contradictions. If one presumes that high profile cases are slightly fictionalized, (such as giving a date that's a year or two off), it makes the timeline much more manageable. Then there's the fact that Second Stain and Naval Treaty are recorded by Watson as occurring in the same month. "The July which immediately succeeded my marriage was made memorable by three cases [...] recorded in my notes under the headings of “The Adventure of the Second Stain,” “The Adventure of the Naval Treaty,” and “The Adventure of the Tired Captain.”" -The opening paragraph of The Adventure of the Naval Treaty. Second Stain was written up much later, so when reading in publication order this is a lot less obvious than when reading in Baring-Gould’s chronology order. But even Baring-Gould apparently decided that two documents scandals in 1888 were too much, and ignored all text indications in order to place Second Stain in 1886.

Case so Nice We Wrote it Twice, Evidence:

Exhibit A, Case Structure: The particulars of the case are extremely similar: a young public servant charged with national security documents leaves them in an insecure location briefly and has them stolen by a trusted household member. The documents, although potentially ruinous, are not released to a foreign power because the would-be seller is separated from them almost immediately after hiding them away. The hiding place is a hollow in the floor of a room.

Exhibit B, Case List: At the beginning of The Naval Treaty, Watson lists Second Stain as taking place in the same month. Even with Watson's flattering description of both of Gascoyne-Cecil's expies and his sympathetic portrayal of the public officials in need of remedial document security courses, TWO major data breaches seems deeply careless, even if nothing comes of either. I think it's more probable that the case Watson originally named The Second Stain had very little to do with national security.

Exhibit C, publication date: The Second Stain was published 11 years after The Naval Treaty and 14 years after its alleged date of occurrence. (Year and decade that shall remain nameless my ass.) It's the final story of the second batch of short story publications (which were collected into the third book of short stories, The Return of Sherlock Holmes). Watson didn't publish again for four years: it's possible he was scraping the bottom of the barrel for publishable cases and decided it was time to revisit a case that he'd already told, or tape the interesting bits from multiple cases together.

Conclusion: I believe that both The Naval Treaty and The Second Stain are two different retellings of the same case, but both are changed a lot to make them both less identifiable, and more exciting. The incident that inspired both stories probably did not take place in early summer of 1888, if only because the easiest way of fudging the details of a case would be to definitively give the wrong year.

Additionally, it may be that certain details in The Second Stain were originally part of a case that had nothing to do with any top secret documents. The blackmail angle already present in that story would be sufficient for a case on their own, but the secret documents that Mrs. Hope squirreled away could have been deeply boring business documents, or deeply boring official government documents that nonetheless had no strategic value. If so, it's very possible for Watson to have swapped some details between the two cases: a prospective brother in law with no political knowledge might impulsively steal a document that was more embarrassing than strategic, such as an impolitic letter from a foreign official, in the hopes that it was valuable, while a career blackmailer might target the wife of a government official known to have access to military strategy documents. The victims in both cases come off as more sympathetic, and the danger to the country less severe, if the diligent young clerk has a breakdown over a clearly important military document, and the wife of a government official is blackmailed into handing over an angry letter from a foreign dignitary.

#letters from watson #fictionalization #timelines

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bluegarners · 1 year ago

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sometimes i have a hard time wrapping my head around the complexity of bruce's love versus his devotion versus his guilt/ego. now that all may sound entirely separate, but it works like this in my head...

see, because im always thinking about dick's observation that bruce would probably trade everything to get his parents back/prevent their deaths. granted, dick might have been uncharitable in that lens, but he is also one of the few people who reads bruce accurately and clearly. to that point, i would argue that, subconsciously at least, dick also recognizes that a part of bruce will always believe that he is at the center of everything- that bad things happen because of him. connecting all of that to every death bruce has witnessed to/been the indirect cause of/believes himself to have been able to stop some tragedy but wasn't able to/etc., i think within that seemingly not nice interpretation of bruce, we get the idea that bruce believes that had his parents survived that night, the world likely would have been a better place. batman would have never existed/there would have never been a need for batman to exist. in bruce's mind, i imagine that he can't picture a world where he is not batman, fighting the good fight, and therefore any world where there is no batman is a world that is a) much better off, and b) not fraught with death and tragedy caused by his hand

now, granted, this is an interpretation of my own viewing on how dick's observation and bruce's character throughout the years has evolved. i think bruce is an egotistical person, not in the sense that he thinks he is superior to everyone in the world, but that he believes that so much around him is a result of him. i believe bruce has a hard time separating himself from the lives of those around him, a kind of "everything i touch goes to ruin" idea that constantly floats around him- an idea that, more than once and rather frequently, does get proven to him, and, to an extent, people tell him. obviously, jason's narrative is brought to the forefront. anyone who has ever been connected to bruce wayne or batman has been connected to him via some kind of tragedy. a "what's the common denominator?" situation that can be hard to overlook and is definitely not one bruce overlooks

and going back to the love versus devotion versus guilt thing, bruce loves his people and his city so much. he loves the world and protects it because despite every bad thing in it, there is clear and abundant evidence of good. just as well, bruce is devoted to loving and protecting- it is what he believes he's best at, and without it, he would be little else. there was a time where bruce was more obvious with his love, in both physical and verbal confirmation, but i believe at this point it's generally agreed that bruce shows his love in an unconventional way- despite that, he still loves and loves greatly. however, that is where the guilt comes in. his midas touch for tragedy gets in the way of his love and devotion entirely

bruce feels guilty for loving, guilty for bringing people into his circle, guilty for being batman- a force that does as much good as it does reinforce the narrative that it's all cyclical. his inability to let go of his guilty conscious prevents him from 1) showing his love, 2) letting others love him, and 3) getting better. to me, bruce is always in this insistent circle of helping, loving, realizing, shunning, and disappearing that his devotion just goes to waste and is hardly recognizable outside of his bat insignia. what bruce is devoted to is people but it gets pushed aside in favor of batman so often because of his iron grip on the past, his guilt, and his constant fear of what's going to happen to the people around him because of him

which really discredits those people who choose to stick around and stay by his side. bruce loves so much and yet is so constantly blind to how people love him, and the result is this mess of a character that see-saws between this intense display of hard sacrifice and moral ground, and a simple man who's defining trait is the family he somehow built around himself

idk where i was going with this, but my summary is essentially he is sooooooooo annoying to write for and think about because a lot of what he does doesn't make sense or apply to his character, but at the same time it does which makes it harder to recognize when he is being genuine and when he is using something as a shield or weapon against another

#this is all a mess anddoesnt make sense but yea i have a love/hate relationship with him #bruce wayne #batman

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transthadymacdermot · 2 months ago

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i would like to hear more about the relationship between mary and eoin if that is alright! it seems like it might be a little complicated?

Yeah. god. so, they've known each other since they were very small, and been very close since childhood, because their parents knew one another and so they were raised side by side. they weren't each other's only friends growing up -- Mary had Kathleen and Eoin had Kathleen AND Donal -- but they represent for each other pretty much the only person either of them has ever met who shares the sense of profound alienation from 1) 'normal' expected behaviour, and 2) their own actual personalities, which they both feel like they have to repress to be accepted in society, in Eoin's case because anti-autistic ableism won't stand for him making weird noises and in Mary's case because she's expected to perform femininity flawlessly to "count" as a woman. additionally, they've had similar experiences wrt the violence of the british empire on their families & communities at large, so generally both of them feel like the other one understands them in a way no one else does AND like therefore the other one is the only person they can truly be themselves around. and obviously there's the fact that they're extremely physically attracted to one another. that too.

Anyway on this basis their relationship evolved pretty quickly from Just Friends to "well, you're the only person I can ever talk to and I feel like no one else understands my situation so obviously I want to make out about it." in an ideal world I think they would at least try to get married and either way live together and probably jump at the opportunity to adopt any children which might appear to have a family together. HOWEVER, the spanner in the works is the fact that Eoin leads the local anti-landlord anti-british sectarian gang, and Mary does NOT approve on several levels. first, she objects to the mere essence of, like, being in a paramilitary that kills people (including people they know. whenever Eoin kills an informer she stops talking to him for a little while), but also she thinks (rightly!) that there's a very high chance he dies or is arrested or is transported or is executed or suffers some sort of live changing injury which would take him away from her and complicate both of their lives severely. as such she refuses to get romantically or sexually involved with him until he leaves the gang. Eoin, for his part, takes issue with her taking issue, because he feels like it's a necessity for him to take up arms in defence of the people and also has constructed a whole complex around not being able to be a "good person" and therefore why should he even leave the gang. Mary is conflicted over how the sweet and silly man she loves could also torture people to death. Eoin feels like it's the only way he can protect the woman he's obsessed with. both of them think omfg why can't they understand it from my point of view it's so obvious. etc

The result of the situation is that Eoin kind of resents Mary for refusing to get with him until he leaves his gang and Mary REALLY resents Eoin for refusing to leave the gang and get with her because she really really really wants to sleep with him but is going for the olympic medal in catholic-ly denying herself the pleasures of the flesh until he does what she wants. they love each other more than anything in the world and would both probably kill everyone else and then themselves if the other died but also both think the other is stupid and unreasonable and Just Doesn't Understand. [derry girls voice] "mammy we come as a set" type situation BUT they hate each other's life choices even if they understand them BUT they also both absolutely have said each other's names while in bed with someone else before BUT they disagree fundamentally on probably the most important political issue that impacts their lives BUT if they were cats you couldn't adopt them separately BUT

#ty for asking I love 2 talk about them. I want 2 use them as stress balls #peasantsverse #transphobia /#jory.postbox

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i3utterflyeffect · 3 months ago

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@violetthunderstormokay i'm not putting this all on the prev post because dear god i'm not bombarding op lgsdfkglsgjlfgslkgjfld

but! i've talked about it before (i THINK) at least once. quick disclaimer: i swear on god these guys were around before deltarune. me and mystic were just fucking around with this idea already because what if 'haha video game isekai was fucked up'.

ANYWAY Chaosverse mainly takes place inside a creepypasta-level virtual reality which may or may not be alive (it is and it has trauma because of course it does <3) and... well. B is not originally a moth! He is in fact a player, and ends up... maybe accidentally stealing a guy's body.

the person's body he stole? Hud! And the game has a sense of humor because guess where Hud gets stuck.

the hud. <3

Hud isn't normally that aggressive but between the game trying to suppress his emotions, the game not understanding that anger is also an emotion, and also having no sensation of contact with the outside world, he kind of goes a little bit mad. Especially since he's under the impression that B is fully an adult making these decisions despite Hud actively trying to tell him to get out of his body in the most direct way he can (which is unfortunately just creepypasta style)

Outside in the real world though, B is (approximately) 14 and has a very difficult home life and is completely unaware that he is very very very transgender. He uses the game as escapism from his real life, but unfortunately, at this point sentience is becoming a common thing!

You know who's cusping on the brink of sentience at the absolute worst time?

Birch.

Birch is aware that something is terribly wrong with his brother, but isn't sure what, and it drives them to become really really paranoid until they end up accidentally attacking B (and Hud) with a baseball bat after getting scared by them. Of course Birch immediately snaps out of it and calls the ambulance, but both Hud and B die.

WHICH IS WHERE THE TIME TRAVEL KICKS IN because apparently the game has savestates! i would say the game wasn't done with them but in reality the game has no fucking clue what happened either. it just tanked when the two of them died. that was when it resolved that it should maybe just Stop Fucking With The NPCs because somehow things KEEP GOING WRONG. it hates the styx family so much it will inconvenience them at any point possible.

also even though the savestate did load about maybe 10 years before B arrived, he ends up getting a body, this time separate of hud!

remember how i said the clones other than Chaos and Carnage have no brain activity? they were cloned from a player character, therefore they are registered as players even though no one is there.

after discovering B is also, in some sense, her kid, Jenna ends up taking them in. Hud isn't very happy about this, obviously, but B has become stuck in the game, so a lot more of his unhealthy coping mechanisms shine through, and eventually Hud finds out this is LITERALLY A KID and is absolutely fucking mortified. didn't mention this before but Hud was actually in college so he's horrified that he just. literally bullied a kid who already clearly wasn't doing that good mentally. the others don't know anything about this, and even though both of the Styx twins are dealing with their own issues (mr. 'i essentially bullied a kid who has infinite trauma already' and mg. 'HOLY SHIT I KILLED A PERSON HOLY SHIT OH MY GOD I'M JUST GOING TO PRETEND NOTHING HAPPENED AND HOPE THIS DOESN'T BECOME AN EMOTIONAL SAW TRAP' [it will]), B doesn't exactly have anywhere else to go so Jenna is taking care of them. this does culminate in a lot of issues but eventually after talking it out Hud essentially becomes a very protective older brother to B.

birch is fine don't worry about him. he's definitely not dealing with a nuclear bomb of repressed trauma 👍

#pitch posts #chaosverse (OCs)#birch styx (OC)#jenna styx (OC)#b styx (OC)#hudson styx (OC)#fun fact: hud and b came from a meme from that image of the HUD saying 'you are being hunted'#or more accurately split!#they used 2 be just Funny Antagonist Who's Mean For No Reason. also they were called bitch which is why birch is called that. one letter of #and b technically did name himself bitch but the game was like 'SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU'RE RUINING MY COOL STORY >:('#yes that is an accurate depiction of the game. it is extremely childish and controlling. shakes that thing in a jar #maybe i'll talk more about game later. it's very complex and have a lot of fucking issues. what's wrong with you Boy!!#(caused everything that's wrong with it)#for now i'll leave it there though

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pianocat939 · 2 years ago

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Can I request a Blurb about how the rottmnt boys (separately) would react to their s/o losing a limb or an eye? (maybe they were targeted for being connected to the turtles)

I chose losing an eye because it's somewhat similar to blindness and I'm very well-versed in blindness. I'm not blind obviously, but my mother is so I know the behaviours of a blind person more than a normal person I suppose I could say.

Kinda angsty ngl.

Tw: guilt, depression, some suicidal implications (not a lot but still there), injury, not stated but definitely separation anxiety

(Sorry but I kinda projected quite a lot so apologies if it's a little over the top)

✦Raking the Buttersticks✦

Is very careful to not touch you without addressing himself whenever he's on your blindside. He goes full mama bear if you're in public. Sure you may be able to see on one side, but he's gonna hold your arm so he can make sure you don't bump into anything. Feels very disappointed in himself for not protecting you and therefore it triggers his eldest-child syndrome. So, in other words, he's going to be very protective of you.

✦Labeling the Queers✦

Busting out the depression and self-hate. He's going to feel like a complete idiot for not protecting you from the enemies. He either goes A. full-on "I wish to never live" or B. freaks out when he's not defending you. Either way, he's going to do a lot of things to make up for the fact you lost your eye. Whether it's keeping you close to him if you guys leave the lair, or placing items into your hand that you can't see (I do this nonstop haha).

✦Didgeridoo Goes Honk Honk✦

I wouldn't be surprised if he tries to invent something that'll improve your vision. It could be a sensor if anything is close to your blindside, similar to a car. But anyway, he's going to be mad at himself rather than disappointed. Why did his stupid self not see the projectile coming? Why didn't he save your eye? He delves deep into an abyss of questions and possibilities to the day you lost it. He absolutely hates you leaving to go out to the open world, it internally freaks him out.

✦Michelle Obama✦

I think he would have a hard time adjusting to the fact you can't see in one eye. He might accidentally touch you from your blind part or tries to show you things on it as well. It'll take most likely a month or two for him to finally remember what behaviours he needs to execute. Once he does though, he'll know exactly what to do. If you are having trouble reaching for something then he'll guide your arm/hand to it. And if he ever serves something, he always puts the utensils on your good side. Yes, he feels guilty about the incident but is glad that you survived more than anything.

(I would totally write more on a blind MC with turtles but I have like 3 other blurbs to do + requests)

#rottmnt #blurbs #tmnt #rottmnt x reader #tmnt x reader #tmnt2018 #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #donnie #mikey #leo #raph

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mrbubblyurchin · 6 months ago

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Adapting Republic Commando into canon

Yes. I am doing this for fun.

RC was written for the EU, so I thought it could be fun to try to adapt some of its story into the current canon. In fact, there are only a few issues that need to be solved for this to work! Let’s begin.

1- Twi’Leks and Humans can breed

This was a rule that took place in Legends, but obviously we known Kanan and Hera had Jacen in Canon, which means there is now no reason as to why Atin and Laseema cannot.

2- CSF

In the EU, the CSF were pretty popular as the police force more than the Coruscant Guard. I figured that this doesn’t change anything in particular, maybe just that Kal says he prefers working with the CSF over the CG because he has Obrim in the CSF

3- Mandalore

So, obviously Mandalore from the EU and Mandalore from the Clone Wars are… different. Well I have a solution to this. The clones were created in 32 BBY, which was during the Phantom Menace. AKA, after Obi-Wan met Satine, well, after Sabine’s well established rule, she created Mandalore as pacifists. But, for the sake of this universe, a group of Mandalorians went to form their own ‘Mandalore’ on Kyrimorut to adhere to their more traditional Mandalorian values. Jango ruled this new Mandalore for a short time, explaining why Shysa wanted his heir, and why Shysa eventually becomes a Mandalorian ruler. This place would still be Mandalore to them, but it would be separate from the actual Mandalore of the Clone Wars Series.

Kyrimorut= New Mandalore= From Republic Commando

Mandalore= Actual Mandalore= From The Clone Wars

4- Spaarti Clones

So obviously the Spaarti Clones bred by Palps don’t exist in canon. So we are changing them to the most recent batch of clone troopers shipped off Kamino at the end of the war. Maybe still made with second generation Jango DNA. Instead of investigating the Spaarti clones, maybe Besany can find something related to Order 66. Which brings me to my next point…

5- Order 66

This is the biggest issue of canonization within the series. Because in the EU, there were no inhibitor chips. The clones just followed orders. So… what does that do here? Well… there are a few solutions.

Solution One is that they didn’t listen. The Nulls are already incredibly deviant when it comes to orders, so not a real problem there. Omega Squad is iffy, because they weren’t around any Jedi when it happened, but they knew they were going to meet up with Etain, who was a known Jedi. I could see Darman still fighting the chip, but not really for Niner, Atin, or Corr. Fi doesn’t matter since he isn’t wearing his trooper armor, and therefore doesn’t receive Order 66.

Solution Two is better. And it’s that Besany discovered the inhibitor chips based on the same report made by Rex that Ahsoka watched. She managed to access Anakin’s database or whatever cause Jaing tech skills for the win. While she did not discover the purpose of the chips or anything, she discovered they were there, and Kal hated having those chips inside his boys’ heads, and had them be removed as soon as possible in secret. Not to protect the Jedi, but just because Kal didn’t want the Kaminoans to be able to control his sons in any way. Then, when Order 66 rolled around, none of them obeyed.

So, yeah. That’s my idea on adapting RC into canon. Thank you for reading!

#atin skirata #clone commando boss #clone commando fixer #clone commando scorch #clone commando sev #darman skirata #fi skirata #niner skirata #omega squad #republic commando #order 66

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missvifdor · 2 years ago

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Lady Lesso x Reader Angst/Fluff/Smut Idea of fic:

Listen. And if... Reader, who is a woman, an Ever and the sister of Guenevere, therefore the aunt of Tedros. And when Guinevere ran away with Lancelot and after Arthur died, Reader had taken care of Tedros by raising him. Time passes and Tedros begins his first year at school while Reader becomes a faculty member of the School of Good (Obviously, the same events as in the movies happen with some small modifications that I will explain).

Reader is a princess but she never entered the stereotypes dictated to be that, she's not the type to sit there looking pretty and waiting to be rescued, she doesn't have the patience or the inclination this side. Reader was also a bookworm and wasn't as popular as Guinevere in their youth and that suited her just fine.

She knows how to fight with two swords simultaneously with as much strength and precision as any Everboy and even much better, she is courageous, determined and above all she really cares about the happiness of the people in whom she cares (and not only because it was destined to go on the side of Good). And here is her story with our Dean of Evil. She went to School for Good and Evil and studied there at the same time as Leonora. And here's the thing, Tedros wasn't the only one in the family who wanted to fight to love a Never (guess it runs in the family).

During her years at school, Reader fell in love with Leonora of Galvadon from the School of Evil. Their relationship was secret but Reader was ready to go public and fight for the right to love Lenora, his True Love. However, nothing went as she hoped and she ended up heartbroken.

Leonora broke up with Reader suddenly and very coldly before they could make their relationship public, then they both went their separate ways until graduation. The truth is that Leonora didn't want to break up, not for a second, but she found herself trapped and manipulated by Rafal into his grand plan and she didn't want Reader to get hurt through her fault.

In short, a few years later, here they are both teachers in their respective schools and in a way work colleagues who are obliged to interact at meetings and lunches, Leonora and Reader are torn between having their hearts broken and being happy to interact even if it's cold or awkward. And since Leonora is Reader's True Love, she couldn't move on after breaking up with another Prince or Princess.

Throughout the events until Tedros makes his circus to have the right to be with Sophie, when Leonora says that "Ever and Never together is repulsive" breaks Reader's heart harder and she can't really hide the hurt glint in his eyes.

Leonora sees it though and she blames herself. After the meeting, Leonora tries to catch up with Reader to talk to her but it turns into an argument with Reader saying "But you didn't have to come and get me anymore to explain your own word or action! I'm sorry to have you so disgusted that you feel compelled to say this so directly in front of everyone! I don't know what to say to you, Lesso. It was you who broke up with me when I was ready to fight for you! God, I was even ready to face the judgment of my own family and friends for you! So don't act like you care about my feelings and leave me alone!" Leonora is left to fend for herself and Reader runs away crying.

The events of the film pass, the school and the students are in danger because of Rafal. Reader protects as many students as she can with her magic and swords but ends up injured in the process.

When the schools have merged and Rafal is defeated, Leonora comes to Reader's bedside and confesses everything to her. They share a passionate and intense kiss. Reader saying "I'm all yours Leonora. Every breath, every kiss, they've always been yours and yours alone" and then it goes to with Leonora saying "Let me adore you like I should have for too long".

Long, detailed and intense smut with Leonora at the controls to end in style.

The end.

If there are people interested in writing it in the format they want, you can use this idea as many times as you want, I would be super interested in reading it! Don't forget to tag me!

#lady lesso x reader #leonora lesso x reader #Lady Lesso #lady lesso imagine #lady lesso fluff #lady lesso fanfic #Lady Lesso angst #school for good and evil #sge movie #sge netflix

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mightnotfeelrealbutitsok · 1 year ago

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A huge breakdown of Marian's death scene in Robin Hood so I can keep thinking about it

It's a lull in the action. The King is vulnerable, injured, and none of Robin's gang are there to save him from Guy, who has a clear path to come in and kill him. Except Marian. Marian doesn't have to think about trying to stop Guy. She runs straight over to try and talk him out of it, unarmed, which shows that she still has faith in him. Despite her saying earlier that killing the Sheriff was Guy's last chance to be a good man, and Guy failing to do that, Marian hasn't given up on the compassion she sees in Guy's character and she believes she has the power to persuade him to spare the King.

She comes to Guy with her palms up, and she's smiling as she reasons with him. Which is pretty painful; she underestimates what she's reckoning with. She almost laughs because she thinks she has the upper hand - because she always has done before. The one time he was going to let her die, have her hanged as the Nightwatchman, Guy couldn't go through with it and bore the Sheriff's anger to save her. Marian knows that Guy loves her and she's been using that to her advantage for a long time. Marian is sure that if she puts herself between Guy and his aim, she can control what he does, because she matters more to him than anything. But she shouldn't have been so certain, considering that he refused to betray the Sheriff even for the reward of her love.

Guy shows that he has no intention of letting Marian stop him. He shouts at her to get out of the way and brandishes his sword to show his seriousness. There's a mixture of emotions in his command. He is in part genuinely angry, because Marian is opposing and trying to foil his plans as she has repeatedly done before, and she's separating him from the ultimate power which he believes will come with killing the King. Guy is determined for the King to die and is certainly not willing to make a compromise. But, he obviously still loves Marian. So there is desperation and fear in his order for her to get out of his way. It's almost a plea. For her own sake Guy is desperate for Marian to stand down because otherwise he is scared of what he will be forced to do. He can't just abandon the killing of the King and that means if Marian doesn't relent he will have to use some force or violence against her, and he doesn't want to hurt her.

For a moment, Marian appears intimidated by Guy's threat. The sword held to her chest makes her realise that she is not completely shielded from danger. But then she seems to leave this thought and regain conviction of her power over Guy. She brings out the line which she knows should force Guy's surrender: daring him to kill her if he wants to get to the King. It's a challenge which Marian is certain Guy could never rise to. Because he loves her and has shown again and again that he can't help but protect her. So, Marian believes she's won, playing on the strength of his love for her.

As she expected, Guy won't just kill her. He's determined that things shall be as he envisioned; the King will die and he will have great power, and he will take Marian to be his wife, by force if necessary. His mind is set on this happy ending, this final realisation of both his key desires. He tells Marian, with certainty, 'we will be together'. There's a sense however that Guy knows his happy ending is in danger. As he speaks he is trying to convince himself that all can still go to plan. In reality, Marian is unlikely to back down, and Guy is going to have to choose between his two desires - he can have power, or he can have Marian. But maybe he also knows that without power, there is no guarantee that he can have Marian either. Deep down he still doubts Marian's love for him, and knows that he threw away any promise of it by not killing the Sheriff. Therefore Guy must know he's on the brink of defeat. Marian won't choose him over justice, and he's already chosen the Sheriff and his plots over Marian. All he can do is try to assert control and hope Marian might warm towards his vision of a future together, at least because she knows the other option for her may well be death. He's pleading with her.

Then, Marian confirms her final choice. She chooses justice and honesty and love, and in choosing these she must know that she's risking death. She is ready to resign to it. In the desert, when the gang were strung out to die, she already said that she was ready to die, as long as she would die doing good. Now she is no more selfish and her mind is unchanged. Marian tells Guy the truth. 'I would rather die than be with you, Guy of Gisborne.' It is the most blunt, hope-shattering, cruel truth. Marian declares that she could never imagine feeling love for Guy. To make it worse, she justifies this by stating that she loves Robin instead. Marian's love for Robin, and what he stands for, and the King, and England, prevails. She knows that this will injure Guy and that she will lose her power over him by declaring with finality that he can never win her. She would rather bear the consequences than betray Robin and her cause. She is tired of being a spy and a liar and is relieved to tell Guy the one truth that she has yet withheld from him.

Marian has delivered the harshest possible blow to Guy. He loves her passionately and now he knows his love is futile and will never be reciprocated. The prospect of a life with Marian is destroyed. It is the certainty which is most crushing; he has spent forever being slighted and betrayed by Marian, questioning whether his love is requited, and wondering jealously about her relationship with Robin. But now his last hope is extinguished. Every moment of friendship, alliance, confidence and tenderness between the two of them must be viewed as a cruel trick. Guy is belittled and his ego bruised. What's more, he must confront this as a defeat in his rivalry with Robin Hood. Robin has won what they both wanted most, something more valuable than Locksley or a title.

His reponse is still barely justified. But he is in a moment of extreme anguish. Guy is a man used to killing. Killing means victory and killing means power and killing is what he naturally resorts to. Killing Marian is the action available to Guy which can restore his power most effectively. The murder of Marian serves multiple purposes. First, it can be some kind of punishment and revenge against her; in recompense for all Marian's betrayal and the way she has deeply hurt Guy's feelings by not loving him, she dies. Second, it is punishment and revenge against Robin Hood. Robin will be deprived of his win; Guy can prevent him from having Marian. 'If I can't have her, no one can'. There's also some kind of possession achieved by killing Marian. The directors called it a messed-up 'consummation' of their relationship. It's intimate, for Guy to seize Marian and hold her to him. The violence is akin to his passion for her. And by killing her, Guy is controlling her, like he wanted to control her as his wife; determining the end of her life gives him ultimate power over her. Lastly, Guy is rising to Marian's challenge: killing her because she is the obstacle standing between him and the King. Eradicating Marian is a step towards killing the King... though Guy doesn't get any further. Perhaps then the King has ceased to matter to him. The murder might be prompted by Marian's direct challenge to kill her which is made in defence of the King, but, if anything, Guy rises to the challenge not in order to continue on his mission, but in order to spite Marian, to surprise her and mock her. Marian completely subverted their potential for love and her claims of caring for Guy when she said she'd rather die than have him, and Guy matches that. He depended on her loving him, and she took that from him; but she also depended on him loving her, so that he wouldn't hurt her. So Guy doubles back on himself in a similar way to Marian, by going ahead and doing the thing Marian thought he could never do. It's like a reply that says 'if you renounce our love, so will I'.

In the moment that they look each other in the eyes, they probably know some of what each other are feeling. There isn't blame or malice on either of their faces. Guy looks tormented by grief even as he stabs Marian. Marian looks accepting of a death which she has come close to before; her previous life-threatening injury was at Guy's hand too. As she is stabbed Marian is not panicked but brave, because she knows she has stood for good. It's even like she understands that this is an inescapable consequence. She has spent a long time passively receiving Guy's turbulent expressions of love - this is just another.

Marian falls and Robin and the others rush in. What is important is that no attention is paid to Guy. He is not given the honour of even being credited for Marian's killing. Marian doesn't waste her last minutes cursing Guy, but instead pledging herself to Robin. There's something forgiving about that, but Marian doesn't pity or apologise to Guy either. She has given him all the care and pity she can, willing him to be a good man, but finally refusing to deceive him about her feelings. In the end Marian doesn't bestow blame on Guy and that shows the greatness of her character and her capability for self-sacrifice.

While he is denied the privilege of intruding on Marian's final moments, which certainly affords Robin and the gang some victory, Guy is tortured by what he's done. It is impossible for him to not feel agonised by losing Marian. He has failed to exhibit horror after murdering many times before, but now he whimpers and breaks down. He would not try to save Marian from what he's done, or to wage further attacks on Robin, though. That shows that he feels some sense of closure. He has exacted enough punishment and he has kept his power. There is immense emotional cost for Guy, but the murder seems to have been an inevitable tragic resolution, a great cathartic release. His love for Marian could never have just been laid to rest good-naturedly.

#bbc robin hood #robin hood bbc #guy of gisborne #robin hood #ouch #guy x marian #love #scream #ships

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