#christ on the cross did not suffer as i have

[idk-what-to-call-the-blog]

[Image IDs:

(1: A tumblr post from user katabasiss, reading, "do you guys think jesus, the son of a carpenter, smelt the wood of the cross & temporarily thought of home" End #1)

(2: A paragraph, probably from a book, reading, "We will Abraham to question God, to argue with him as he did about the innocent at Sodom and Gomorrah. We want Abraham to say: 'No, don't ask for my son, don't you see he's my only one, don't you see how I have loved him, and don't you know he is Isaac? We laughed when you told us we would have a child; in spite of our disbelief we were filled with hope, and there followed such joy and laughter when he was born; we called him Yitzchak so that his life would be filled with laughter" End #2)

(3: A tumblr post from user noknowshame, reading, "why is religious Christmas imagery all so joyful and pleasant? where is the inherent horror of the birth Christ? A mother is handed her newborn child, wailing and innocent. Her hands come away sticky. Red. Simply by giving her son life she has already killed him. He is doomed from the beginning. Her love will not save him from suffering. Because the thing cradled in her arms is not a baby, it is a sacrifice: born among the other bleating animals whose blood will one day be spilled in the name of what demands it. the night is silent with anticipation. Mary, did you know? That your womb was also a grave?" End #3)

(4: Text reading, "And I wonder did Jesus feel his mother's heart break when His stopped? I wonder if for a split second, if He heard Mary's wails at the news of her boy, if God regretted taking her son. Not the son He gave for the world, but Mary's boy." End #4)

(5: Text reading, "What father

leaves you for a knife? Chooses his god instead?

-Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers, from 'Questions About the Father,' published in Shenandoah" End #5)

(6: A tumblr post, I'm not sure if it was made or reblogged by user cithaerons, reading, "Isaac asked, Father, whatever did I do to you that would make you want to kill me, your only son, You did nothing wrong isaac, So why did you want to cut my throat as if I were a lamb, asked the boy, if that man, may the lord's blessing be upon him, hadn't come and grabbed your arm, you would now be carrying home a corpse, It was the lord's idea, A test of what, Of my faith and my obedience, What kind of lord would order a father to kill his own son, He's the only lord we have, the lord of our ancestors, the lord who was here when we were born, And if that lord had a son, would he order him to be killed as well, asked isaac, Time will tell.

José Saramago, Cain: A Novel"

Everything between "And if that lord had a son" and "José Saramago" is highlighted in a faded reddish-pink color. End #6)

Biblical Parents 002.

[dreamcrow]

τετέλεσται... orz

[archersgoon]

when i moved back to the city i went the local public school for a year, but in the months beforehand my dickhead father convinced himself that if i was living in the city i should be living with him (a situation in which i would've died badly post-haste) and part of the argument was that he wanted me to go to the (obscenely expensive) private school near where he lived, because the public school in question apparently had a nasty reputation (it didn't. i did an exceedingly boring year there). and also because it was public i guess (big talk from a man who went [REDACTED]. anyway i thought this was absurd and i was telling my oldest sister, who'd gone the local catholic school back in the day about this and she was like no yeah. they used to throw frozen peas at me. ???????

[sweetheartspence]

౨ৎ booked & busy - s.r. ౨ৎ

you doze off while studying for finals. spencer is there to take care of you.

pairing: spencer reid x grad student!reader genre: fluff content: established relationship, gn!reader, reader is not taking care of themself, spencer uses pet names, tooth rotting fluff wc: 818 a/n: currently suffering through finals and cannot get my brain to focus. so this itty bitty blurb is the product. i wish i had a spencer to make sure i took care of myself. requests/asks are open! my masterlist!!

Your eyes are starting to blur after reading the same sentence for the fourth time, making no more sense out of it than you had the first three times. You're sitting cross legged on the couch, surrounded by papers, articles on the topic you're writing a dissertation on. God, this is your passion, but sometimes you wish you had picked something a little bit easier.

You scrub your hand over your face, sighing and knocking your glasses askew. There's too many big words, and you haven't gotten nearly enough sleep to process all of them. You've been so busy drafting this paper that you haven't been sleeping properly, and Spencer hasn't been around to make you. You chew absently on your thumbnail, shuffling a stack of papers around, trying to find a specific one. Had it even been in that stack? Did you completely imagine that quote?

You sigh again, setting your highlighter to the side. The words are swimming behind your eyelids, becoming little blobs on the page. You're honestly not even convinced they are words. Maybe this author is just making words up, and gaslighting you into believing they're real because of their credentials and the fact that it's been nearly a week since you've gotten a proper rest.

Maybe if you just close your eyes for a moment, you could get them to focus...

---

Spencer is headed back to your shared apartment. He's just gotten home from a long case across the country, lasting nearly a week and a half, and hadn't let you know that he was coming home. He was intending on surprising you, but when he walks in, he finds you fast asleep on the couch, your head tilted back, your mouth slightly open.

Spencer's heart nearly melts in his chest. God, did you have to be so cute? He wonders for a brief moment why you're not sleeping in your bed, but clocks the articles spread out over your lap and the couch. He smiles, and makes his way over to the couch, careful not to disturb you.

Spencer gathers up the papers, stacking them neatly and setting them aside on the coffee table. He gathers you carefully into his arms, tucking your head under his chin, and carries you off to bed.

---

You wake up horribly disoriented. When did you climb into your bed? You blink slowly, reaching up to rub at your eyes. And your glasses are off...

You sit up, looking around the room, blinking blearily, and you see a man sitting on the other side of the bed. He's reading, his fingers skimming along the pages, his lips pursed in concentration. He looks over at you as you sit up, his dark curls falling into his eyes, and immediately his features soften. "Hi, baby," Spencer says fondly, reaching out for you. He wraps a hand around your waist, pulling you to him, closing the book and setting it carefully on the nightstand. The tips of his fingers slide underneath the material of your shirt, tracing along sensitive skin.

"Hi," you say breathlessly, surprised to see him. "You're... home."

"Try not to sound so excited," Spencer smiles, tucking a stray piece of your hair out of your face. This is his favorite way to see you- soft, sleepy, a little lost, and all his.

"I'm- I was studying, and now I'm in bed," you tell him, your eyes widening almost comically. "Christ, I need to finish that chapter of my dissertation, I have pages due this weekend, and-"

"Sweetheart," Spencer interrupts gently. "You need to sleep. You can't do anything while you're this tired. You'll end up having to rewrite the pages anyway, and that's just going to make more work for yourself."

You bite your lip, considering this for a moment. You know he's right, you're too tired to really focus, and the bed is warm and inviting. Spencer is looking at you with those soft eyes, the expression he saves just for you, and you suddenly can't find it in yourself to move away from him.

"Okay," you whisper, tucking your nose into the soft hollow under his jaw. It fits perfectly into the spot, like it was made for you.

"Okay," Spencer repeats softly, placing a kiss on your forehead. "Go to sleep, darling. I'll be here when you wake up, and I'll make you tea, and we can figure out a work schedule for you to get your pages done."

You sigh, nuzzling further into his neck, hiking a leg up to drape it around his thigh. "You're too good to me, you know."

"Just giving you what you deserve," Spencer murmurs, running a gentle hand through your hair. "Go to sleep."

You fall asleep like that, tangled up in one another, the smell of him surrounding you. Old books, rain, and a hint of lemon.

It's the best sleep you've gotten in weeks.

[ozzgin]

How would the yokai harem react to you talking about a manipulative ex? content: gender neutral reader x various demons

Murasaki will silently listen to your rant with the same flat expression he always wears. Or was that a grimace you just spotted? Upon further inspection, he does seem more annoyed than usual. “At least you had the brain to walk away, I suppose,” he says with a huff. It doesn’t surprise him much, in all honesty; humans aren’t exactly known for their awareness, and you’re a particularly naïve one. He places a hand on your head and gives you a swift ruffle. Christ, you’re hopeless. Thankfully you won’t have to deal with that anymore, not under his watch. Had this happened in his presence, the offender would’ve been sliced in half.

Kiritsubo is very vocal throughout your retelling. They did what?! He’s so upset on your behalf, cheeks flushed and puffed up with indignance. After clarifying some details to him, you discover that the yokai is rather...oblivious himself. Good Lord, he would’ve fallen for it even harder. He pats his sword and declares he won’t ever allow it to happen again. You can’t help but chuckle at his confidence. Indeed, you might have to help him a little in recognizing the danger. You appreciate his good intentions, nonetheless.

Suma approaches your story with a very positive outlook, which is very much like him. With a laugh, he pats your back and praises you. “It’s a hard lesson, but a lesson still. Humans and demons are difficult creatures, eh? You can’t always read them, nor can you tell their intentions. To be aware of this and continue living with an open heart means you’re brave, not gullible.” That’s just the way things are. We get hurt and we learn from it. He’s proud of you for being here despite everything. “That’s not to say you have to deal with it alone,” he adds with a cheeky smile. “Let me know about it next time it happens, alright?”

Yuugiri is very unbothered, nodding along with a smile. Oh, you recognize that grin. A cold shiver runs down your spine as you realize your mistake. The serpent yokai is exceptionally vengeful, especially when it comes to you. Your ex-partner has now become a target for unknown terrors. Somewhere, sometime in the future, they will suffer. Yuugiri will make sure of it. No one messes with his precious little human and comes out unscathed. Oh, to think they took advantage of your innocence! Of course you’re easily manipulated, but it’s a gift that must be appreciated, not abused. He should be the only one with the privilege of...influencing you every now and then.

Sakaki scribbles in his sketchbook while listening to your rant. Truth be told, you’re not expecting much from him. He’ll probably tell you that it is indeed in the nature of most humans to be this devious, and misery is inescapable. Suffering is but an eternal part of life, from which only Death can free us. Gosh, you’ve been hanging out way too much with this gloom-ridden artist. You finally glance over his shoulder and notice the intricate pentagram. “It’s a curse,” he says with a flat smile. “I just need to find the guy, and then...heh. It’s not the poetic kind of agony, that’s for sure.” You’re his only source of happiness and hope, after all. There’s no way in Hell he’d ever allow anyone to interfere with it.

Sekiya is very similar to Kiritsubo in his reaction. His face begins to twist through a range of emotions. You know him so well, at this point, that you can already guess the stages of grief crossing his mind: he’d never treat you that way, and if someone else was to dare, he’d...he’d deal with them, right? Could a weakling like him even manage? Come, now, he’s still a yokai several ranks above the regular demons. Can he prove it to you, however? You stop his thoughts before they go any further, taking his hand in yours. “You’ll take care of me, right,” you ask. His eyes widen and his chest involuntarily swells up with pride. “Of course,” he barks loudly. Oh, to think you’d put your faith in him like that! He’s drunk with delight.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

The Keys Of Heaven [Chapter 2: To Judge The Living And The Dead]

Series summary: Three years ago, Father Aemond Targaryen performed a miracle. Now he is a cardinal, a media sensation, and a frontrunner to be elected pope. You are a nun who has been brought to Vatican City to assist with the papal conclave. But when your paths cross by happenstance, you must both reckon with your decision to join the Catholic Church…and what you want from the future.

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), references to abuse and violence, volcanoes, bodily injury, death, peril, scheming, pining, some drugs/alcohol/smoking, Catholic trivia you never asked to learn, kangaroos!

Word count: 5.7k

🦘 A very special thanks to my Aussie slang consultant @bearwithegg and also her mum (any mistakes are mine) 🦘

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Tagging: @mrs-starkgaryen @chattylurker @lauraneedstochill @ecstaticactus @neithriddle, more in comments! 🥰

🗝️ Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🗝️

Here is the story of Saint Agatha of Sicily.

Born in the time of the Roman Empire, when Christians were still being burned alive and fed to lions in the Colosseum, Agatha rejected the suitors she attracted as a beautiful daughter of a wealthy family. Instead, she pledged herself to Christ: a life of simplicity and service, a vow of chastity. No man could sway Agatha from her chosen path, not even the Roman governor Quintianus, who aspired to take the fifteen-year-old maiden as his wife. So Quintianus endeavored to change her mind.

First, Quintianus threatened Agatha with torture and death. When that proved ineffective, he had her put to work in a brothel. Yet after a full month of violations, Agatha was no closer to surrendering; on the contrary, her faith only seemed to grow stronger. She prayed to the Lord for courage; she proclaimed that to be His servant was the greatest possible freedom.

Quintianus was running out of ideas. He imprisoned Agatha and ordered his torturers to devise new and terrifying forms of punishment. Bloody and mutilated, Agatha was thrown back into her cell without food or medical attention, but the Lord did not abandon her: Saint Peter, Christ’s apostle and the first pope of the Church, appeared to comfort Agatha and miraculously healed her wounds.

Four days later when the torture resumed, Agatha knew that her short time on earth was ending. She prayed aloud: Lord, my Creator, you have always protected me from the cradle. You have taken me from the love of the world and given me patience to suffer. Now receive my soul. She died in prison in the year 251.

Long venerated as a martyr and a saint in her native Sicily, Agatha was officially canonized by Pope Gregory I in the 590s. Her feast day is celebrated on February 5th. She is invoked against a myriad of horrors; among them are volcanic eruptions.

~~~~~~~~~~

“But you don’t really believe that, do you?” he says on the beach at dusk. Your parents keep telling you it’s time to go back to the hotel, and you ask for five more minutes which turn into ten which turn into twenty. You are showing Aemond your rosary, red glass beads, a sterling silver chain; he is sitting behind you, his arms reaching around so he can study the artefact with his own fingertips, his chin resting on your shoulder. When the wind blows, his blonde hair tickles your cheek and your throat; when you shiver because the sun is vanishing, he pulls you in closer. “That there was some magical guy who could heal people and walk on water and then came back from the dead? I mean, Mother’s a Catholic, and she’s always trying to get us to ride the ferry over to Rhodes for Sunday Mass. But even when I go, I can’t take it seriously.”

“I guess I don’t care if it’s true,” you decide. “I just like how it makes me feel. I like being protected, I like how simple everything is. Be kind, be humble, help others, that’s it. And I think all the different saints are neat. There’s always someone to pray to, no matter what problem I have.”

Aemond snorts. “They only added them to get the pagans to convert.”

“What are pagans?”

“People who worshipped trees and rocks and stuff. Like the Vikings.”

He thinks I’m stupid, you think, and you’re already sensitive about this; Aemond is older, taller, more clever, more sophisticated, more strong. You don’t want him to think you’re some naïve kid who does whatever your parents tell you to. You really don’t; they find your conviction just as baffling, far beyond their middle-class, tangentially-Catholic expectations: a weekly appearance at Mass with a frilly dress and tidy hair, Mum having a yarn with the neighborhood wives afterwards, sometimes Sunday roast, back to real life by bedtime.

“But, you know, maybe you’re onto something,” Aemond says, backtracking. “If it makes you happy, that’s what matters. Maybe I’ll give it another shot. Next time Mother drags me to Rhodes I’ll try to listen a little bit instead of reading a Stephen King novel the whole time.”

“Do you think I’m a drongo?” you ask timidly.

He laughs. “A what?”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?”

“No, I don’t,” Aemond promises. “I think you care about something. And that takes courage.”

He’s still inspecting your rosary, running the smooth red beads through his fingers. “Do you want it? I’m getting a new one for Christmas. I already found it in my parents’ closet.”

“Sure,” he says, perhaps just to be polite. But when he takes the rosary in his own hands, he’s smiling.

~~~~~~~~~~

“We should have a pond like this at home,” Rhaena says as she helps you cast palmfuls of pellets that smell like the ocean—fish and brine shrimp and spirulina—into clear rippling water. Because the temperature is around 12 degrees Celsius, the koi are only somewhat active, skimming around the algae-covered stones at the bottom and nibbling halfheartedly at the food pellets.

Home. Here is what she means: a convent on the quiet northside of Sydney, Mass each morning, prayers before bed each night, sprawling fruit and vegetable gardens, a colony of stray cats you’ve adopted, offices where you take prayer requests and calls from desperate people in need of help, a shelter the sisters operate for survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking, cooking meals together, singing songs, lighting candles, playing games, watching rugby and cricket on a massive tube tv from the 90s, book clubs, knitting circles, hosting visitors from other convents, always decorating for the next holiday. This is why you became a nun. As a child, you were never as close with your sisters as you wanted to be—your interests were too divergent, your temperaments mismatched—and then as they dissolved away into their boyfriends and their unis, you felt like the house was suddenly so empty. But to be a nun is to have a perpetual sisterhood, and they love the Faith as much as you do.

You tell Rhaena: “Let’s talk to Mother Maureen about a koi pond. Maybe we can get funds and pay our guests in the shelter to help us build it.”

“Just like we did with the gardens.”

“Righto.”

“I’m kind of obsessed with these habits, too,” Rhaena says, spinning around in her loose white wool. The Sisters of Charity of Australia have been wearing modest yet casual clothes since the 1980s. You each have a white habit or two stowed away for formal occasions...but here in the Vatican, expectations are very traditional.

You chuckle and shake your head. “Yeah nah, I’m not helping you with that. I miss my Levi’s.” You point at the koi pond. “Check the corners, make sure I haven’t killed another one.”

Rhaena darts around the perimeter, peeking through bushes of red chrysanthemums. “I’ve been praying all morning. I’m so worried about Sister Augustina.”

“Why? She’s the person who needs your prayers the least. She’s with our Lord and Savior. She is at peace, she is home.”

Rhaena looks at you grimly. “Is she?”

You burst out laughing. “It takes more than getting a bit aggro to be damned to Hell.” You don’t believe Hell exists at all, but you keep this to yourself. Rhaena is rather dogmatic. Nonetheless she smiles to herself, reassured.

You glance around the Vatican Gardens, knowing exactly who you’re looking for; but you don’t see Aemond. There are other cardinals walking the tuff pebble pathways, red planets revolving around the ancient gravity of this place—first Neolithic settlements ten thousand years ago, then kings and a republic and back to kings again, and finally the Church rose up from the ashes of the empire to grow like dauntless ivy into the hearts of over one billion souls—some contemplative and alone, others entangled in weighty discussions. Cardinal Seaborn is rushing around frenetically, his scarlet cassock blowing in the wind. Cardinal Bogdi Marcu, he of the prehistoric age himself, is clinging to Sister Nuru’s arm as she patiently accompanies him through the gardens.

You spot Lucky talking to Cardinal Gideon Saati of South Sudan, a large but soft-spoken man who is ideologically moderate and therefore a possible consensus candidate if neither the conservatives or liberals can win the vote; and this makes him dangerous to Aemond. Cardinal Saati is nodding and dabbing at his eyes with a white handkerchief, Lucky has a hand resting gently on his shoulder. They are rarities here, and they understand each other. They both know the pain of having a homeland that is no longer a country: no functioning government, no reliable infrastructure, inescapable violence, war zones where faith feels so powerless.

Rhaena says: “Do you think we’ll be back home by Christmas?”

“Oh, sure thing. No conclave in the past two hundred years has taken more than a few days.”

“Beautiful. We can’t miss the singing and presents. I know how much you love Christmas music.”

“One conclave in the 1830s took a month and a half.”

“Nah, yeah?!”

“Deadset, mate.”

“Wow.” Rhaena blinks. “I wouldn’t trust this lot to not resort to bloodshed by then.”

Now you see them strolling towards the koi pond, disrupting sand-colored tuff pebbles with each step: Aemond, Lando, and Kazi, who is puffing on a square-shaped vape, white and red, the colors of the Polish flag. You realize that you’re smiling as Aemond approaches, then force yourself not to. You’re supposed to be somber; you’re supposed to be sad. Still, you cannot look away from him. You gaze at the destruction on the left half of his face—ropes of scar tissue, the frayed ruins of his eyelids stitched together to close the emptied socket—and you wonder what that must have been like, waking up in his hospital bed half-blind and with clamoring journalists filling up the lobby downstairs, bouquets of flowers arriving from Alpha TV, Mega Channel, the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, CNN, BBC, Deutsche Welle.

“Dead nun, dead pope.” Kazi sucks on his vape bleakly. “Inauspicious.”

Lando is pained and crosses himself. “Kazi, please.” Then he turns to you and Rhaena. “Sisters, I am so very sorry for your loss. Sister Augustina is with God now, let that serve as some consolation. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

You bow your head. “Thank you, Your Eminence.”

“We didn’t really know her that well,” Rhaena says.

“Will they have a funeral here?” Aemond asks you, like he’s trying to find an excuse to make conversation. Rhaena is gawking at him, wonderstruck; Aemond gives her a polite smile.

You answer: “No, Sister Penny told us she’s being sent back to Germany. I guess there’s a cemetery near her hometown she wished to be buried in. A plot beside a child’s.”

Lando and Kazi nod and murmur sympathetically, an acknowledgement of the life Sister Augustina had before she took her vows, forever shrouded in mystery, only shadows glimpsed through the veil; Aemond peers into the koi pond, his expression distant and troubled.

Lucky arrives, trudging across the volcanic pebbles that clatter under his red leather shoes. “Saati says he doesn’t want it.”

Kazi rolls his eyes. “Every cardinal says they don’t want it. And yet when the time comes, he’s out on that balcony waving to the crowds.”

“I think he’s sincere,” Lucky says, lighting a cigar and drawing in a mouthful of smoke. “He’s telling his supporters to look elsewhere.”

“To Aemo?” Kazi asks hopefully.

Lucky hesitates. “Saati is impressed that Jake lost four fingers in the service of our Lord.”

Kazi waves at Aemond. “He lost an eye!”

Lucky chuckles in a deep, gruff rumble. “Becoming pope is not a contest of misfortune, my friend. Otherwise more of them would be Haitians.”

Cam comes jogging over; being in his mid-forties, his knees are still good. He announces excitedly: “We have Micallef and Barraza!” Here’s who he means: Cardinal Xandru Micallef of Malta and Cardinal Juan Barraza of El Salvador, both pilfered from the dwindling pool of moderates.

Lucky exhales smoke. “I thought we already had Barraza. He’s on the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development with me and Aemo.”

“He told me he was considering Saati.”

“Saati doesn’t want it.”

Cam is confused. “Doesn’t everyone say that?”

“Okay, so who’s going to talk to Jake and figure out if he’s willing to steer his votes our way?” Kazi says between vape hits, and then, when Lucky raises his eyebrows at him: “It can’t be me. He hates me.”

The others groan. “What did you do?” Aemond asks, grinning.

Kazi is reluctant to share. “It was nothing.” He vapes as the others stare at him, waiting. “I asked if he was going to get a robot hand like Darth Vader.”

“Jake is very committed to his mission in Iran,” Lando muses softly. “I have a hard time believing he’d want to leave it.”

“Yeah, he does a lot of orphanage stuff, right?” Kazi says. “Lando, you should talk to him.”

“I’ll try,” Lando agrees, then looks to you and Rhaena. “Sisters, once again, I am so sorry for your loss and I will be praying for you and Sister Augustina.” He starts down the pathway and soon vanishes behind a row of tall laurel hedges.

Now Cam is relaying gossip he’s heard about the conservative faction: cardinals shifting from do Carmo to Jahoda, anxiety surrounding Aemond’s growing support. Your gaze catches on Aemond again, and you can’t look away. He keeps stealing glimpses of you too. Surely he could have had a plastic surgeon do a scar revision to make it less noticeable, and open the wound so he could insert a prosthetic eye; but of course Aemond would not want that. No one can see him without remembering what he did on Nea Kameni. He wears the proof of his miracle on his face.

You notice that Lucky is watching you as he smokes his cigar, his dark eyes kind yet intrigued, and then they rove to Aemond. You avert your attention elsewhere. On one of the narrow paved roads that wind through Vatican City, you see a white Fiat Panda zoom by on the other side of the foliage, employees running some errand.

“If I have a heart attack or choke on a fish bone or something, wait for the ambulance, don’t put me in one of those,” Kazi says. “They’re fire traps.”

“We’ll just throw you down the nearest manhole,” Cam assures him.

“Cardinal Targaryen!” a voice booms—ostensibly friendly, undeniably threatening—and it is Cardinal Jahoda, passing by with his ever-present companions Cardinal Auclair and Cardinal Ferrari. Across the gardens, red-swathed men stand up straighter and observe intently. “You enjoy the company of women so much, perhaps you have chosen the wrong vocation.”

Aemond smirks tauntingly. “Well, the celibacy requirement might soon be done away with, as you know. One of so few ways in which Cardinal Auclair has proven himself a progressive.”

Auclair scoffs. “Are there even any Catholics in Greece?”

“There are more than there were three years ago.”

“Cardinal Nowak,” Jahoda says to Kazi. “You are a Slav. Poland still lives under the gloom of Russia’s shadow. It disappoints me more than I could ever express, seeing you standing here with men who wish to usher in disorder, degeneracy, alliances with despots.”

Kazi sighs. “Brothers, not everything is communism.”

“Ah, you are too young. You do not remember what it was like.”

Auclair’s cold blue eyes skate over Cam and Lucky. “Mongolia. Haiti. Who would wish to follow the examples of your countries?”

Lucky explodes: “Why don’t you atone for what France did to my people?!”

“The prime minister acknowledged that the independence debt was an injustice—”

“And where is the apology? Where are the reparations?!”

“Still begging for money two hundred years later,” Auclair sneers. “Still sniffing for scraps like dogs. Perhaps it is time to look inwards and interrogate your own behavior. It is not a shortage of funds that ails Haiti, but a deficit of morals.”

Lucky drops his cigar and lunges for Auclair, but his friends stop him: Kazi and Cam fill the space between them, Aemond throws an arm across Lucky’s shoulders and whispers something to him as Cardinal Jahoda and his companions continue on through the gardens. Auclair looks back once and gives you a critical, probing glare. Kazi trots after Cardinal Ferrari making race car noises: vroom vroom vroom.

Cam mutters as he cleans his eyeglasses: “Mongolia is on the rise. It’s a capitalist democracy.”

“They’re not white, so it doesn’t count,” Lucky says, collecting himself. Then he checks his watch, a small face with a simple leather band. “The next general congregation is beginning soon.” He starts to leave with Kazi and Cam in tow, but not Aemond. Lucky turns around. “Aemo?”

“I’ll catch up to you,” Aemond replies. Lucky nods; but now when he looks at you, his interest has turned to trepidation.

Aemond shouldn’t be talking to me, you think, you know. But perhaps he is willing to risk it. Perhaps he believes he is invincible.

Now the two of you are alone except for Rhaena, who is gaping at Aemond as if still trying to convince herself he’s real and not a celebrity entrapped in a photograph, a screen, a myth.

“You must be very busy with your responsibilities here, Sister Rhaena,” Aemond says.

“Oh yeah, it’s hard yakka.” Then she realizes he’s waiting for her to leave. “Have a good one!” she calls over her shoulder as she hurries away, doubtlessly in great anticipation of all the stories you’ll tell her later. But you won’t share everything.

“Should we walk?” Aemond asks, his hands behind his back, his large gold cross gleaming on its chain, a whisper of a smile on his lips. Of course you should; you follow him, the tuff pebbles crunching under your shoes. And when he speaks to you now, he is not stony like he is sometimes around the other cardinals, or barbed or coiled or sharp. He is that boy from the beach again. He listens, he cares. “Are you really alright?”

“Yeah. I only knew Sister Augustina for a week. It was a shock to find her like that, and now Sister Penny is under the pump trying to take over for her, but we’ll manage.”

Aemond is studying the marble statues you pass as you wander together: Saint Rita, the patron saint of impossible causes and suffering women, Saint Catherine who freed herself from the breaking wheel, Saint Lawrence who was roasted alive. Fountains trickle and evergreen shrubs rock in the brisk December breeze: boxwood, rosemary, myrtle, oleander, holly with vivid blood drops of berries. Aemond stops when he finds a statue of Saint Agatha and gestures to a nearby stone bench. Once you sit down, he joins you.

“It’s your saint,” Aemond says. He reaches into one of the pockets of his cassock and produces a lighter and a pack of Karelia cigarettes. “Do you mind?”

“No wukkas. Half the nuns in my convent smoke.”

Aemond smiles to himself as he lights his cigarette. “No wukkas,” he echoes, amused.

“Can I ask you something personal?”

“Of course.”

“What led you to the Church?” you say. “Now that all the memories are coming back, I recall you being...skeptical.” That’s a gentle word for it. You imagine him: a boy, sullen and convinced he is too smart for religion, dragged to the cathedral by his Mother, flipping through a copy of Cujo or The Shining or Pet Sematary.

“Once I opened my mind to Catholicism, I found it sort of inspiring. The Church sponsored Michelangelo and da Vinci, founded the first universities in Europe, shaped the political landscape of the world. And for people without other routes to safety and status, it provided that. I never really felt seen by my parents. The Church gave me a new family.”

He didn’t say he loves the Faith. Saint Agatha gazes impassively down at you, her arms crossed protectively over her own chest, so young, so vulnerable. “Do you ever regret becoming a priest?”

Aemond shrugs, like he’s wrestled with the question so many times it no longer interests him. “The more conversations you have, the more confessions you hear...the more you realize that everyone regrets things. Mothers regret their children. Childless women regret adoptions and abortions. Married people regret the cage that vows begin to feel like after the novelty has worn off, single people regret their loneliness, the poor regret not selling their souls and the rich regret not defying greed to become artists or musicians or actors. There is no escape from regret. You must learn to feel at home in whatever cage you’ve built around yourself.”

You smooth the white wool of your habit so you have something to preoccupy your hands with. “I wasn’t entirely truthful about my reasons for being here.”

Aemond furrows his brow. “You’re assisting with the conclave.”

“Yes and no.”

He takes a drag and tilts his head to the side as he waits for you to continue. He does this a lot when you’re alone with him, always curious, always silently working things out, and you are struck by an abrupt and violent attachment to him—every gesture, every word, the blue of his eye, a lungful of smoke—and you think nonsensically: What if we had never left that beach?

You admit: “I’ve been having doubts.”

“About the Church?”

“About being a nun.”

Aemond is watching you, an intense sort of focus, like the Second Coming and the resurrection of the dead are over and you’re the last two people on earth. “You’re thinking of leaving?”

“I’ve heard this is the hardest time,” you say, smiling a little ruefully. “When you’re young like Rhaena, everything is new and exciting, and you’re so relieved to have all the answers to life’s questions that you don’t really feel the opportunity costs. And then when you’re in your fifties or sixties, you’re settled down and complacent, and you’re not interested in abandoning your work and the friendships you’ve made. But I’m thirty-eight...and that’s kind of my last chance to start over, isn’t it? At least when it comes to...certain things.”

Aemond is trying to understand, but he seems bewildered, maybe even alarmed. His cigarette has burned down to ashes, but he hasn’t noticed yet; when it singes his fingers, he flicks the end of it away. “Do you feel called to be a mother?”

“Not exactly, I just...I feel...” You pause to decide how to explain it. “I have this sense that there is something else out there for me. Someone else, I guess. And it wasn’t like this for a lot of years. I thought I was at peace with never being married. I used to see couples or families walking around and not feel anything but joy for them. But now there’s...there’s yearning, I think.” Then you chuckle nervously. “And I don’t just mean the physical aspect. That’s part of it, of course. But what I’m really missing is the...the emotional closeness, the bond that’s shared between romantic partners. All the sudden there’s an absence I wasn’t aware of before. And the only time I’ve ever experienced a pull like this was when I knew I wanted to be a nun, so I’m not sure what to do with it.”

Now Aemond’s hands are knitted together, tense and rigid, as if he is trying to resist wringing them. There is pink in his cheeks, a faint gory bloom, a rare disclosure of his mortality. He’s made of blood, not stone, not light, not predestination. “I suppose there is always some...temptation in the unknown.”

“Oh no, I’m not...” Again, you laugh. “I didn’t take my vows until my twenties. I had jobs, I took classes at the TAFE, I’ve dated, I’ve been to clubs, I’ve downed more pornstar martinis than I could possibly count. I’m not innocent.”

He seems relieved and relaxes a bit. “Then we had a similar path.”

“Because I wanted to...you know...I wanted to be sure I was alright with giving up that part of my life. I liked those blokes, and we had fun together, but I never felt it was something I couldn’t live without.” You stop for a moment; your next sentence comes out in a rush. “And then I had a bad experience with a boyfriend, and after that I was positive I could give it up, so.”

“A bad experience?” Aemond waits for you to elaborate. You don’t. His eye flicks from your face to your medallion, to the nearby statue of Saint Agatha, back to your face. He isn’t just searching. There’s a low, arcane wrath like chambers of magma scorching beneath the earth.

“Anyway, back in Sydney I confided in Mother Maureen about how I was feeling, and when the Holy Father passed she suggested I come to the Vatican. She said that if being here at the heart of the Church during such a joyous time—seeing the rituals, meeting the cardinals, witnessing the inauguration of the next pope—didn’t renew my commitment to my vows, then I would know it was the right decision to leave.”

Aemond is still distracted. “And has God spoken to you?”

“Oh, He’s saying something. But I’m not sure what yet.”

There is the sound of harried footsteps on the pebbles, and Sister Penny sprints into view. Strands of frizzy red hair have escaped from her veil; her pale freckled face is flushed. “Sister!” she cries, gasping for air. You leap up off the bench and rush to her.

“Sister Penny?”

“Where on earth did Sister Augustina keep the laundry detergent? I’ve looked everywhere and I can’t find it, and I have a million other things to do, and I’m going absolutely mad—”

“I know where it is,” you say. “It’s in one of the cabinets in the kitchenette. I know, it’s odd, I’m not sure why she put it there. Here, I’ll help you.”

“And Cardinal Kelly lost his room key, so I gave him my copy but he forgot to return it and I don’t know where the spares are—”

“Shh. She’ll be right, mate.” You’re rubbing her shoulder. Sister Penny is in her fifties, very kind, very sensitive, not a particularly gifted administrator. But she has the most seniority after Sister Augustina, and so she has inherited her responsibilities whether she likes it or not.

You return with Sister Penny to the Domus Sanctae Marthae, but first you peer back at Aemond and give him a wave, subtle enough that Sister Penny will not notice. You aren’t supposed to be friends with a cardinal; that’s like a mouse befriending a lion. Aemond, now standing, waves back. But on his scarred face is something you rarely see from him, a doubt that is bone-deep and powerless.

Soon you’re sweeping through the cardinals’ rooms with Rhaena, tidying things up, making beds, wiping down bathrooms, beard hairs clogging the sinks and stray piss drops on the floor. But Aemond’s room is immaculate. You send Rhaena into the bathroom to see if he needs more shampoo or conditioner or toothpaste, and in the few seconds she’s gone you lean down over Aemond’s bed and breathe him in: smoke and cologne, vanilla and amber and cinnamon, and salt too, like something made him sweat through his clothes.

The stomach is an elastic organ—the more you eat, the more it wants—and lust is the same way, so you try not to feed it. On the rare occasions you find yourself too...distracted, that is easily remedied: a detachable showerhead, a hand slipped under the elastic waistband of your pajama pants. But now it all comes pouring back in, fifteen chaste years’ worth of longing, perhaps a lifetime’s worth, and you try not to imagine his hands covering you: a white veil gliding over your hair, sand on wet skin.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s night, and you are in Saint Peter’s Basilica, closed to the public until the conclave has concluded. You are here because the acoustics are good: you can hear the crowds out in the square singing The First Noel as they hold their candles and their handmade signs—God bless the Holy Father, Miracles are real, Pro-life and proud, Cardinal Targaryen for Pope—and you close your eyes as you listen. You love Christmas music, and without phones or radios, this is the only way you can get it.

The vaulted stucco ceiling is plated with gold. The floor is made of white marble and sand-colored travertine and crimson porphyry, red like lust or wrath or pride. Here is a fountain held up by cherubs, there is a basin taken from Emperor Hadrian’s tomb, there is monument to Pope Alexander VII adorned with the personified virtues of Truth and Love. And everywhere are depictions of keys; Saint Peter is the keeper of the keys of heaven, given to him by Christ. The leadership of the Church changes hands again and again, but the mission lives on, eternal, divine, pure despite the complexities and failures of mankind.

Occasionally, you hear the shuffling footsteps of cardinals as they pace the echoing corridors seeking God’s guidance. Cardinal Marcu, stooped and shaky, stopped to have a yarn with you perhaps half an hour ago; he seemed to be under the impression that Barack Obama is still the president of the United States. You are grateful that cardinals aged eighty and older are not permitted to vote in the conclave.

Your eyes are still closed when someone brushes up against you, a hand grazing across your hip, too light a touch to be intentional. You instinctively gasp and flinch away.

Aemond steps back, holding up his hands. “I’m sorry,” he says uncertainly.

You laugh when you see it’s him, pressing a palm to your pounding heart. “No, I’m sorry, I just startle really easily.”

He’s still bewildered. “I didn’t mean to frighten you, I thought I barely—”

“No, really, it’s alright. I just...when people touch me and I can’t see it coming, it just freaks me out. But I’m fine now.”

His eye travels down to your medallion—Saint Agatha carved into plain, unprecious iron—and then he turns fierce. He moves towards you, drops his voice, demands as he stands so close his smoke and cologne seeps into your lungs: “Who was he?”

“It doesn’t matter, Aemond.”

“It does. What was his name?”

“Why are you asking?”

“Because I want to know.”

“So you can have him murdered?” you mock, and Aemond sighs and rubs his scarred forehead. “You aren’t asking for honorable reasons.”

He shakes his head and stares at the wall, centuries-old marble and gold, hot blood in his face, rage pulsing in his carotids and his jugulars.

Your voice is calm, because this is a truth you’ve lived with for fifteen years; it’s a part of your mental scenery, something you know happened but not something you feel anymore, aside from primeval muscle memories that never seem to die. “It wasn’t something I could have proved in court. He said if I told anyone, he would kill me. And then he got pulled over for drunk driving, and when they searched the car they found unregistered guns, and while he was in jail I packed my things and moved down to Sydney and showed up on the doorstep of the convent. And everything was okay after that.”

“He should have suffered,” Aemond seethes.

“I moved on. I had to. And that saved me, having a life that was mine. That I chose, that I had always wanted. The Lord tells us: Refrain from anger, abandon wrath. Do not be provoked, it brings only harm. And that’s true.”

“But what if you didn’t join the Church for the right reasons? What if it was just an escape for you, or some sort of trauma response—?”

“Why did you join the Church, Aemond?” you say. “So a billion people would love you?” He turns away, exasperated, but he doesn’t object. “You don’t get to question my motivations. Not when I have felt called to the Faith since I was a child.”

He breathes deeply, touches his palm to the gold cross that hangs from his neck, and looks at you again. “If I was the pope, I would help people. Lucky knows that. They all know that.”

“But that’s not why you want it.”

Several long hushed moments slip by like sand through your fingers. From outside, you can hear the crowds are now singing O Come, All Ye Faithful. Aemond says softly: “I shouldn’t have left you.”

He can’t mean that. It’s preposterous. “What, when you were twelve?”

He doesn’t respond.

Now your words are gentle. “I’m alright, Aemond. Really. You just caught me by surprise, I’m fine now. I’m not afraid of you or anything. Here, look.”

You reach out and take his hand, and instantly you know it was a mistake. There is a blazing light that fills your skull, a burning martyr, a revelation: you can feel him pulling you in and the heat of his face beneath your fingerprints, soft lips, rough scar, his palms circling your waist, your white veil falling away as he pulls the pins from your hair, the thirty-three buttons of his cassock unfastened and then—

But before any of this can happen, you jolt away from each other, Aemond clasping his hands behind his back and you clinging to your iron medallion. On it are engraved Saint Agatha’s words to God: I am your sheep, make me worthy to overcome the devil. And from across the space between you, a few footsteps that might as well be twenty-nine years, you and Aemond gaze at each other with terror, with wonder.

You don’t feel too old to start over.

You feel like your life is just beginning.

[pirate-poet]

updated with more poems and all (two) songs!

salt & honey masterpost

JANUARY – 1888

salt & honey is a crossover fic that puts characters from the Master and Commander media into the Sunless Sea/Fallen London universe. The Surprise is a steamship, the sea is the zee, Stephen is imprisoned at the Isle of Cats instead of Mahon...well. Please heed the warnings on this one, it's angst-heavy!

LINK and the fic is COMPLETE!

bonus content below the cut(currently the map, twenty title poems, mentioned music, more to be added including full poem list and calendar)

(edited sunless sea map)

A note on the poetry: some of these are very topically relevant to the fic to the point that I was yelling to my alpha readers about how perfect they were! Some are very not topically relevant but still good poems. I highly recommend them all! I took great pains to make sure that each poem was written before the time of the fic so the characters could, theoretically, have read them. Also I'm going by Ao3 chapter numbers, not how they would be numbered without the introduction and interlude.

Ch 2 title: Edward Lear's "The Jumblies Ch 3 title: Emily Dickinson's "A little bread - A crust - A crumb" Ch 4 title: Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "Jenny" Ch 5 title: Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "In Memoriam A. H. H. Canto 11" Ch 6 title: Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Pains of Sleep" Ch 7 title: William Blake's "The Garden of Love" Ch 8 title: Adam Lindsay Gordon's "The Swimmer" Ch 9 title: William Butler Yeats' "Byzantium" Ch 10 title: Robert Browning's "Prospice" Ch 11 title: Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "Insomnia" Ch 12 title: Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "In Memoriam A. H. H. Canto 24" Ch 13 title: Gerard Manley Hopkins' "I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day" Ch 14 title: Christina Rosetti's "Promises like Pie-crust" Ch 15 title: George Barlow's "The Immortal and The Mortal" Ch 16 title: John Keats' "Ode on Indolence" Ch 17 title: Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "Jenny" Ch 18 title: Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "In Memoriam A. H. H. Canto 3" Ch 19 title: William Blake's "Holy Thursday" Ch 20 title: Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "In Memoriam A. H. H. Canto 4" (for some reason this one is hard to find just as a poem so have a shmoop link) Ch 21 title: John Clare's "A Vision"

Music I mentioned: Surprisingly I didn't mention a lot, which is strange because I am a classical musician(hobbyist). The issue I have with mentioning music, though, is I have NO idea what was popular at the time and finding out is harder than finding out when a poem was published. Oh well, maybe I should be more chill about historical accuracy in the alternate history fiction universe.

Ch 26: Dvorak's Humoresque (i stand by Jack's pun. it's fiddly) Ch 29: Paganini's duet

[revehae]

Could you do something from dream 00line + mark bullying, dub con and non con? 🥺

well… this is basically what you asked! i changed it up just a little bit tw // noncon, forced oral (m receiving), gangbang

“come on,” jeno groaned playfully, grip on your hair tightening. “that’s not how you used to do it.”

you whimpered weakly, the muffled sound sending a tiny tremble through jeno’s cock as he kept your warm mouth around him in spite of your protests. not that you could expect anything less from him. he was never afraid of forcing you into something you never wanted. 

jeno had never seemed afraid of anything, now that you thought about it. you still remembered the risky exploits they made you tag along on. how could you not? it was only some years ago, back when they would force you to please them in the boys’ locker room. 

haechan laughed, both at jeno’s encouragement and the miserable look on your face. he always did like seeing you suffer. “you want her to gag on your dick like a virgin?”

jeno shrugged. “call it nostalgia.”

“guys, come on,” mark said, as if he was trying to put a stop to this. but you knew better. time after time of being disappointed, getting your hopes up thinking he would make them leave you alone, you learned years ago that mark was hardly any different. “aren’t we a little too old for this now?”

haechan rolled his eyes in annoyance. “jesus christ,” he sighed. “will you ever get off your moral high horse?”

“he can do whatever he wants. he can leave, if that’s what makes him happier,” jeno said, in spite of knowing mark wouldn’t go, the same way you did. he yanked your hair harder, forcing your mouth further down onto his cock until you were damn near suffocating. “i’m not stopping until she gags.”

jaemin laughed out of nowhere, having been quietly watching the entire situation unfold. “maybe she’s had practice since then, jeno.”

“you mean, our little slut has been whoring herself out to other guys?” haechan chimed in, snickering. the thought amused him. no guys used to ever come near you, like you were the most unfuckable thing in the world. you were obscure and unnoticed. 

jeno felt you pushing at his thighs like you used to do when you desperately needed to come up for air. “in that case, what’s the fucking problem? why are you being so difficult?”

your eyes winced closed when jeno slapped your cheek, the burn of his palm sizzling on the side of your face as you jolted back. your eyes watered, and before you could bother to recover, jeno was forcing his cock back inside your throat, thrusting his hips. 

that was when you finally and inadvertently gave him what he wanted, gagging around his cock and scraping at his thighs for mercy that he wouldn’t give you, keeping your mouth on him by your hair. 

“that’s it, babe,” jeno told you, looking down at you with a blend of scorn and amusement. “choke on it just like that.”

mark shook his head in disapproval, arms crossed. “jeno, dude. you’re gonna hurt the poor girl.”

jaemin crouched down beside you when jeno pulled out of your sore throat, having finally gotten what he wanted. “don’t be such a prude, mark. she can take it,” jaemin replied, looking at you almost dotingly. he pressed two of his fingers into the corners of your lips and forced them into a smile. “isn’t that right, baby?”

you shook your head, backing away from them until you crashed backwards into the side of the hotel mattress. when you started to crawl towards the door, haechan kicked your ass with his shoe, making you slump onto the floor for all of two seconds before you scurried onto your feet.

and nearly tripping over them, you made a beeline for the door. the same door mark was near, as if he was toying with the idea of turning around and heading out too. but rather than let you go, he gripped your arm. 

your eyes were stinging. you glanced up at him desperately, hoping that maybe he would show some remorse. “please. you said you were sorry. you promised.”

it’s not right, mark told himself, swallowing as he looked at the fear in your stare. after graduating, he told himself that he would be a better man and not a stupid boy.

and that was why on the last day of school, he took it upon himself to apologize for everything the four of them had done to you that senior year. he promised that he never meant for things to go so far, that he meant every word of what he told you, that he regretted everything he had done to hurt you. 

and even now mark wanted to make them stop, he really did. but that desire was outweighed by the one to feel you again, to lose himself in the heat of you as his thrusts became more and more restless. 

and a moment or three later, that was exactly what he was doing, all the while holding your smaller body down as his eyes fluttered closed, hypnotized by the sweet squeeze of your vice-like cunt. he became increasingly feverish with every passing second, unable to hear the thoughts that told him to be gentle. 

jaemin nudged haechan playfully. “you know, this is exactly how i remember it.”

“ah,” haechan replied with a pleasant sigh, a little smile on his lips as he watched mark fuck you mindlessly. “some things never change.”

[yaeggravate]

Is Capitano Anfortas Alberich?

Hiii, I have been losing my mind over this for months, and I needed to share my findings all in one place.

This might get debunked in a few weeks but until then there is actually a very high chance Capitano is Anfortas. …And not just because his constellation is a giant arrow pointing straight at him.

WARNING: This contains spoilers for the World Quest Shadows of the Mountains.

UPDATE (5.1): WE WON 🎉🥳

UPDATE (5.3): welp turns out i was wrong. well, i'll leave the ghost of a more interesting timeline here

As a refresher, Anfortas was the Knight Marshal of the Schwanenritter (German for Swan Knights), a Khaenri'ahn warrior band who went on to protect Sumeru from the onslaught of the "Dark Beasts" during the Cataclysm. The giant Ruin Golems scattered in the forest and desert of Sumeru were piloted by them.

Barely-Legible Bulletin In view of King Irmin's present indisposed state and the current unknown threats facing the Kingdom……Knight Marshal Anfortas has proclaimed that he will temporarily take up the post of Regent and lead the Regnum Concilium Ultimum until the Kingdom returns to a state of normalcy…

At some point, King Irmin became indisposed (unable to rule), which made Anfortas step in as a temporary regent until the Kingdom returned to a state of normalcy. (Didn't age well.)

Mysterious Box in a Secret Compartment: The writings are as follows: "Remember always that it was the Alberich Clan, who did not have royal blood, who stepped in as regents when the strength of the one-eyed king Irmin failed."

This is further confirmed in Kaeya's secret notes from the Hidden Strife event which implies Anfortas is part of the Alberich clan.

Later, Anfortas was betrayed by his comrade Hadura. He fought and executed them, losing his left eye in the process. With Hadura, the last of his comrades, gone, the Schwanenritter are no more.

The ultimate fate of Anfortas is currently unknown as is his exact relation to Kaeya and Chlothar. Whether or not Anfortas is Kaeya's father/uncle/grandfather/secret older brother is not the point of this post.

This is specifically about the connection between Capitano and Anfortas.

I will start by listing the reasons why he could be Capitano and then consider the reasons why he's not.

THE THREE NAILS

Capitano's constellation is likely the three nails which is a reference to the crucifixion of Jesus.

Triclavianism is the belief that three nails were used to crucify Jesus Christ.

I do believe it belongs to Capitano, since he said he would pick up the mantle of "salvation" and is in the nation where people can be resurrected. …Needless to say, we can assume there's not going to be 50 plot twists behind this.

The three nails symbolize salvation and redemption, as well as the suffering of Jesus. You can also think of it as a symbol of martyrdom.

Anfortas is named after the Fisher King from Arthurian legends, who guarded the Holy Grail. The Fisher King was cursed by an incurable wound, stuck between life and death, doomed to suffer for eternity. There are several versions of the legend, with differing names for the Fisher King, "Anfortas" being one of them.

As it happens, the Fisher King is likened to Jesus on the cross quite prominently, both in art and on stage.

Carman explores the use of Christian symbolism in Perlesvaus. He connects the Fisher King with Christ himself, noting his name, Messios, his function as a sufferer, and his death symbolizing the Crucifixion.

In the version of Wagner, he even gets stabbed by the Holy Spear in the same side as Jesus while he was crucified!

Parzival became the primary source for Richard Wagner's 1882 opera Parsifal, in which the Fisher King is wounded by the spear that pierced Jesus's side.

As if that wasn't enough, one of Anfortas' knights left a note inside a Ruin Golem. They state they don't know whether they will be seen as sinners or heroes but believe Anfortas will find a way to save them.

An Abandoned Letter ...I often think lately about how future generations will tell my story. Will I be a sinner? Or a hero......The situation here is dire, but I believe that our Marshal will find a way. I believe... We once fought bravely here, doing our best to prevent this inglorious war. I believe that when it is all over... we shall recover our past splendor...Glory evermore... to Khaenri'ah...

This thematically fits the three nails. Unfortunately for this knight, Anfortas was unable to save Khaenri'ah and their people were condemned as "sinners" throughout history.

At the time of writing, Capitano says something curious in the trailer for 5.1:

Humanity's survival is worth any price If I could go back I would do whatever it took to ensure their survival. You've experienced something similar, Mavuika. You should know exactly what I mean.

Though we don't know the full context yet, this is not a surprising revelation if Capitano is Anfortas; he lost his homeland Khaenri'ah, "the pride of humankind," after all. Furthermore, he compares his suffering to that of the Pyro Archon, the ruler of Natlan. Anfortas was also briefly responsible for the survival of a nation, acting as the KING regent of Khaenri'ah.

Another incredible parallel to the Three Nails can be found in the influential poem The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot which is about the Fisher King.

The Man with Three Staves (an authentic member of the Tarot pack) I associate, quite arbitrarily, with the Fisher King himself.

In the poem Eliot associates the Fisher King with the tarot card the Three Staves.

(The Three of Wands/Staves in Thoth and Rider Waite decks.)

The poem is actually important enough to be referenced in the game a bunch of times. If you recall, in the Veluriyam Mirage event, we ran into three brothers, two of which argued in front of Kaeya and Klee. Turns out the names of these two brothers are in the poem, with the game possibly using them as stand-ins for Anfortas and Chlothar. You can read more about it here in a separate post.

My point is, since the poem is a source of inspiration, it can be assumed the writers are aware of the association of the Three Staves with the Fisher King, aka Anfortas.

If true, I think they did something really clever here by combining the Three Staves with the Three Nails.

THE BLACK SERPENT

I think most people have noticed the draconic/serpent imagery on Capitano's outfit. He has black scales, makeshift claws and a bunch of infinity symbols.

It is curious then that Capitano is essentially dressed as a black serpent/dragon.

Dainsleif: Black Serpent Knights. They once belonged to the Royal Guard of Khaenri'ah.

(...Yet unlike Capitano, the Black Serpent Knights don't look anything like black serpents.)

Little known fact is that even though Anfortas was the leader of the Schwanenritter, his knights still wore the Black Serpent armour. Ynghildr, one of the Swan Knights, turned into a Shadowy Husk that used the Windcutter model.

Mysterious Chronicles: "…Ynghildr, Schwanenritter, 'Damsel of the Dale' …Went missing in the battle against the Onslaught of Dark Beasts. Only her … and signet ring were recovered. A proper knight's funeral was arranged for her…"

(We even end up fighting her during the WQ Vimana Agama 💔.)

In the Shadows of the Mountains WQ, we find out two Khaenri'ahn knights, also using Black Serpent armour, went forth to Natlan to stop the Abyss; their sacrifice turned them into statues for 500 years. I think it's highly likely they were sent there on Anfortas' orders.

This is because one of the knights has interesting lines before and after you bring him peace:

"Irizar": "Leave! Go… I don't want him to see me— like this—" (The voice seems to come from the very depths of the unmoving statue. There is a hint of respect toward someone remaining within…)

Irizar: Did you see? Your orders have been carried out… You… won't be disappointed…

The thing is one of Anfortas' Ruin Golems is right next to Natlan.

This is also where you find the note written by the knight who worries if they'll be seen as sinners or heroes. I do not think they were ordered by Dainsleif, as his last order before he returned to the palace was "to protect the people of Khaenri'ah" while the last will of the Schwanenritter was to destroy the Cataclysm, which is an interesting contrast in itself…

Dainsleif: To this day, I still remember the final orders I, the Twilight Sword, gave to Halfdan on the day of disaster in Khaenri'ah, before I made haste back to the palace... "Inform all Black Serpent Knights to protect the people of Khaenri'ah at all costs." Zurvan: They said that those heroes (Schwanenritter) had walked their path despite the ill repute they had garnered… And that it was to carry the will those heroes had borne, and to completely destroy the disaster from the dark depths that they had followed the heroes' path to this place.

My personal speculation is that the Schwanenritter was a special division from the Black Serpent Knights. From the book Perinheri, we know there was an Alberich who was "commander of half the knights". As stated by old man Pierro himself, the reliability of this book is a bit dodgy, but this might give us a clearer vision on who was in charge.

Anyway, if those knights were sent by Anfortas, there's a chance he might have ended up in Natlan himself as they were heavily affected by the Abyss. Perhaps something funky happened to him there amidst all the chaos… who knows? If we consider the three nails and what it represents, perhaps Anfortas died; but since he's a Khaenri'ahn likely cursed with immortality and Natlan's leylines are weak, death won't come to him that easy.

One other thing: on either side of the door to Khaenri'ah, there are two reliefs that show a guardian holding a sword. As it happens, their helmets are flat and have a huge 8-pointed star in the middle... just like Capitano.

OTHER SIMILARITIES AND SUSPICIOUS BEHAVIOR 🤨

–Both Anfortas and Capitano are commanders of an army. To paraphrase @kaeyacollection, if I was Pierro, I would want someone with experience to lead my army and not some random bloodstained guy from Mondstadt, right? Pierro and Anfortas would have undoubtedly known each other as Pierro was a Royal Mage and Anfortas was part of the Royal Guard, so it wouldn't be strange for Pierro to recruit someone who he's already familiar with and can depend on.

Mocking Mask (Pierro): Since my level of learning could not compare with the sages, I failed to earn the favor of the previous ruler.

Furthermore, Pierro refers to King Irmin as the "previous ruler" which is an odd choice of words as it could either imply there is still a current ruler out there or Pierro simply acknowledged Anfortas as the last one, which has some interesting implications seeing as he only took up the position temporarily.

–Anfortas is highly respected, as shown by the note written by the knight who believed in him until the end. Someone even tried to write a letter to him begging him to petition the king. And if that knight who was sent to Natlan was referring to the Marshal, it means his main concern was that he would fail Anfortas.

Furthermore, there's a message left scattered across Ruin Guards with the encryption key being Anfortas' name…

Decoded message: We Schwanenritters have fought to the last one

We don't know who left it there, and hell it might be Anfortas himself, but whoever it was certainly valued the name. Fun fact: the achievement you get when you interact with all the Ruin Guards is called In the Name of Anfortas. This is similar to the achievement In the Name of Favonius, which you can get after completing a daily commission that indirectly involves Kaeya!

As far as we can tell, Capitano is also highly admired. Viktor would rather work for him, Varka wrote an entire love letter about him and the voicelines of the Harbingers confirm he's respectable man. (Although Wanderer and those of us who have run into Cap's animal lava farm may have some questions 🤨)

About The Captain "The ever-righteous Captain," "the brave and fearless Captain," "the nigh-invincible Captain"... Even my mechanical ears demand maintenance after listening to so many compliments from the members of the Fatui. Don't you think that possessing absolute righteousness is actually a latent danger? And that's without taking his great personal strength into account.

According to Wanderer, Capitano is seen as extremely righteous. We don't know enough about Anfortas to compare his morals with Capitano's but we do know that he executed his own comrade after a betrayal yet still gave them a proper knight's funeral since they were the last one left. This could allign with Cap's extreme righteousness and honor.

–Capitano proclaimed to the Pyro Archon that someone needs to pick up the mantle of salvation during a crisis…. which is exactly what Anfortas did. He stepped in when Irmin was busy poking holes in the veilussy of sin. Who knows? Perhaps Capitano doesn't want history to repeat itself.

–There could be another reason, though. You see, The Schwanenritter is named after the legend of the Swan Knight. These were an order of Grail Knights who would be sent out in secret to provide a ruler to a kingdom if there was none.

Members of this order are sent out in secret to provide lords to kingdoms that have lost their protectors

Furthermore, the Swan Knight had to hide his origins and name; same thing Capitano is doing.

The story of the Knight of the Swan, or Swan Knight, is a medieval tale about a mysterious rescuer who comes in a swan-drawn boat to defend a damsel, his only condition being that he must never be asked his name.

Varka: The man hides everything under the mask he wears, so no one can know his past or his origins.

–Speaking of which, when Capitano was first mentioned in Varka's letter, guess who was there to witness it?

What's funny is he doesn't even speak during this entire scene. They just forced him to stand there for seemingly no reason.

–Capitano is in Natlan. In Kaeya's hidden letters, there is a lot of fire imagery. Kaeya's father takes this even further by practically quoting Natlan's rule of resurrection. They even use the same term for ashes/embers in the original CN.

Mysterious Box in a Secret Compartment: A piece of it has been burned away, and the remaining parts show signs of having been rescued from that same flame.

Mysterious Box in a Secret Compartment: (Kaeya's father): "Though we could not restore Khaenri'ah to life, we of the Alberich Clan should lead lives as those who blaze like fire, rather than those who wallow in the embers." Dainsleif (Travail trailer, Natlan): The rules of war are woven in the womb: the victors shall burn bright, while the losers must turn to ash.

Mysterious Box in a Secret Compartment: (Kaeya): "Now that I look at it, his handwriting was as grieving as a smoking ash pile."

I don't know what to make of it and perhaps there's no deeper connection, but you have to admit, it is a little odd…

–The name Anfortas is speculated to be derived from french "enfertez" which means infirmity or weakness/illness. This is a very interesting contrast to Capitano's strong man persona. Not to mention, Capitano's commedia dell'arte counterpart is a braggart who only boasted about his strength. Who knows, perhaps Anfortano is suffering from an ailment/curse and is using whatever means he can to make himself stronger. (Such as the "presence" inside him.)

That being said, in the book Perinheri, the Alberich who was commander of half the knights was part of the "mightiest figures in Khaenri'ah".

–For some reason, Kaeya has what looks like snakeheads with a split tongue on his pants. You can also find a version of this on Capitano's outfit. …Yeah, I don't know either.

Jokes aside, Kaeya is wearing the top half of Capitano's modified Fatui coat complete with weird double flaps and fur boa. (There was a Hoyofair fananimation a year ago where the artist portrayed Anfortas with black fur which is pretty funny in hindsight.)

If Capitano isn't related to Kaeya, I'm going to need a very good explanation for why they share the same terrible fashion sense.

–Both Chlothar and Caribert have black hair and blue eyes... just like our buddy Capitano. While that's not enough to claim they're related, it is certainly a point in our favor.

–Since Pierro was original enough to give the title of "the Doctor" to a doctor, it wouldn't be too out of place for him to dub a marshal "the Captain".

–Kaeya was adopted by Crepus, who owned a Delusion. Is it really a coincidence that Kaeya was taken in by a man with ties to the Fatui? If any of the Harbingers are connected to Kaeya, Pierro (Khaenri'ahn) and Capitano (identity unknown) would be the two biggest suspects, right?

WHY CAPITANO CAN'T BE ANFORTAS…HAHA UNLESS?

–As mentioned before, Anfortas lost his left eye. From Mika's character story, we know Capitano has glowing dark blue eyes plural. However, it's unclear whether he lost his eye in the literal sense or was only blinded. It's possible Anfortas simply grew the eye back but if that's the case I don't see the point in mentioning the loss in the first place, other than to draw a parallel to Kaeya (who didn't even lose his eye either…)

–Capitano uses a strange power that looks related to Nightsoul… …Whatever it is, it could point at him being from Natlan. However, the Traveler can use Phlogiston despite not being from Natlan. We don't have Pyro Traveler yet but I suspect they will be able to use Nightsoul as well.

Mavuika also says she sensed an "unsual presence" inside Capitano. This "presence" could explain his ability to use Walmart Nightsoul and why he has knowledge on a secret oath made 500 years ago (and why he has two eyes again).

–I think it's possible Anfortas is either Kaeya's "pirate" grandpa or his father and if that's the case the chances of Capitano being playable are abyssmal 💀. However, Arthurian Anfortas was famously saved by his nephew Parzival. If they go by the legend and Parzival is the equivalent of Kaeya, Anfortas could be his uncle instead.

In any case, we'll have to wait and see where the story goes from here. Even if Anfortas isn't Capitano, he still has major relevance that has yet to be revealed. Until then, much like Anfortas and Capitano, all we can do is suffer on the cross 👍🏽

*UPDATE 5.1: CAPITANO'S LINES FROM THE AQ

"The Captain": Why...? Because I am a survivor of Khaenri'ah. I've witnessed the devastation and terror of the Abyss with my own eyes. "The Captain": That's right. My family, my comrades, my homeland... were all lost to the Abyss. It is an unforgettable pain, one that no amount of time could ever dull... not even five hundred years. "The Captain": If I could go back, I would reject all false hope. I would do whatever it took to ensure their survival.

"The Captain": That story begins with the cataclysm five hundred years ago.... I failed to save Khaenri'ah from the rampage of the Abyss. When the situation became unsalvageable, I fled to Natlan with the remainder of my platoon. "The Captain": Only to find that Natlan had fallen victim to the same tragedy. I defended this land for quite some time and, in the process, met the chief of the Masters of the Night-Wind, Ayizu. I'm sure many people viewed Khaenri'ah as the cause of the tragedy, but Ayizu was kind to me all the same, and even helped me in my time of need. "The Captain": From that moment, I made it my mission to aid Natlan. In battle, a warrior fights to win. Even though my homeland was lost, I was already committed to this fight.

"The Captain": Heh, even without the mask, my past appearance is long gone. Even with the curse of immortality, the flesh still rots. Paimon: Wait, do you know someone named Dainsleif? That problem doesn't seem quite so... extreme for him. "The Captain": You've met him already? Paimon: Yeah, a bunch of times. Sounds like you know him, too. "The Captain": During the age of Khaenri'ah, all I knew was his name. The last time I saw him in person, he was traveling with the Prince. He carries a degree of pain and hatred that far surpasses my own.⁸

[nameless-jamie]

Hi, could you write a fic where the team gets food poisoning? Maybe Rupert did something to change their catering before a big match or Shandy comes back with a vengeance. And now PA has to take care of the whole Richmond team?

Thanks

Drabble - Everyone's PA

Masterlist

Jamie Tartt x fem! PA reader

TW: cursing, mentions of puking and food poisoning

A/N: Hi I changed the context a little and made it a vengeance from West Ham in general hope its still good. Thank you for the request!

In all her time as Jamie Tartt’s PA, Y/N had dealt with her fair share of absolute disasters. She had smoothed over last-minute schedule changes, tracked down missing passports, and even fished Jamie’s car keys out of the fridge once when he was convinced someone had stolen them. But this? This was something else entirely.

The AFC Richmond locker room looked like the aftermath of a battlefield. Players were sprawled across benches, the floor, and, in some cases, curled up in the fetal position near the walls, groaning in pure misery. Others were fighting for dominance over the toilets. The air was thick with suffering, the kind only brought on by the worst kind of intestinal betrayal.

“Jesus Christ,” Y/N stood at the entrance, arms crossed, surveying the wreckage with a mixture of horror and resignation. “What the hell happened in here?”

Colin, who was lying flat on his back with one arm dramatically thrown over his forehead, barely cracked open one eye to look at her. “This is it. This is how we die.”

From the other side of the room, Sam let out a pathetic whimper, his forehead pressed against a bench as he clutched his stomach. “I have never known pain like this.”

“Don't let my mum find out I went out like this,” Isaac mumbled from his position near the showers, face pale and eyes vacant as if he had already accepted his fate.

The sound of someone retching echoed from the bathrooms. Y/N grimaced. “Oh my God. Could someone please tell me what happened?”

Jamie, the only one still upright—though he was leaning against the wall for dear life—lifted his head just enough to look at her, his face pale and sweaty. “It was the food,” he croaked, voice barely above a whisper, as if speaking took too much effort.

She stared at him. “What food?”

“The Chinese stuff,” he murmured, wincing slightly as he shifted his weight. “West Ham sent over food. Said it was a gift to congratulate us on the win. Every one of us ate it.”

Y/N blinked. Then blinked again.

And then she let out a slow, measured breath through her nose, rubbing her temples as she processed just how monumentally stupid that was.

“You’re telling me,” she said, her voice eerily calm, “that you all decided to eat a massive amount of free food from West Ham—a team that hates Richmond—without even checking where it came from? From your fucking rival.”

Jamie hesitated, then gave a small shrug. “...Yeah? Maybe they wanted to be friends or somethin'.”

She threw her hands in the air. “Oh, you absolute idiots.”

“Oi,” Jamie pouted, though it lacked his usual energy. “How were we supposed to know it was dodgy?”

“I don’t know, Jamie. Maybe because it came from West Ham? Or maybe because this particular restaurant is literally known for having health code violations? Did that not set off any alarm bells for you? Could've googled it.”

Jamie blinked at her, then turned his head slightly to where Dani Rojas was curled up in a ball, moaning weakly in Spanish.

“…Fair point,” Jamie admitted.

Y/N pinched the bridge of her nose, exhaling sharply. “So, let me get this straight. All of you ate it?”

“Not Will,” Dani mumbled, barely lifting his head.

Y/N turned her gaze to the one person in the room who seemed completely fine. Will, the kitman, stood off to the side, sipping a juice box, looking mildly concerned but otherwise unaffected.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why are you fine?”

Will shrugged. “I don’t trust free food.”

Jamie let out a weak, pitiful groan. “Wish I didn’t.”

Y/N groaned, shaking her head. “This is unbelievable.” She turned back to Jamie, crossing her arms. “Can you at least help me sort this mess out?”

Jamie, bless him, made a valiant effort to push off the wall and stand on his own, attempting to look capable and useful. The moment he took a step forward, however, his legs wobbled, and he immediately stumbled, barely catching himself before he hit the floor.

Y/N sighed. “Right. So I’m on my own.”

She cracked her knuckles, rolled up her sleeves, and got to work.

For the next three hours, Y/N played nurse to a whole Premier League team. Will did help her a little...

She handed out water bottles and electrolyte tablets like she was running a triage unit. She forced them to sip ginger tea and chew on dry crackers to keep something in their stomachs. She confiscated Jan Maas’ gym bag when he attempted to head for a workout, claiming he could “sweat out the poison.”

“That is not how food poisoning works, Jan.”

"In the Netherland's we heal like this, pain is the best medicine."

"Fuckin' hellllll...."

She physically wrestled Jamie’s phone out of his hands when he attempted to tweet, “West Ham is full of ops. This means war.”

“I will delete your whole account, Tartt.”

"The people want to know how Jamie Tartt is doin' and he's doin' pretty shit right now, love. Literally."

At one point, Ted came in and tried to help, but his version of helping consisted mostly of telling food-related motivational stories about resilience and the importance of trusting one’s gut—while an entire team of men clutched their stomachs in agony. She had to politely but firmly push him out of the room.

By the time the worst of it had passed, she was exhausted.

She flopped onto the worn-out couch in the locker room, sighing deeply as she finally allowed herself to relax.

Jamie, looking only marginally less like death, shuffled over and unceremoniously plopped his head onto her lap.

She glanced down at him, raising an eyebrow. “You reek.”

“ 'M still fit, though,” he murmured, voice raspy from hours of misery.

She let out a dry laugh. “Debatable.”

Jamie smirked up at her, eyes twinkling with something just a little softer than his usual cockiness. “I know you think so, love.”

She rolled her eyes but ran her fingers through his messy hair anyway, smoothing it away from his forehead.

Jamie sighed contently, melting against her like a cat in a sunbeam. “Dunno what we’d do without you.”

Y/N huffed. “Probably die.”

Jamie hummed. “Yeah. But like… in a funny way, yeah?”

She groaned. “You’re insufferable.”

He grinned sleepily. “And yet, here you are, takin’ care of me and my whole team.”

She flicked his forehead. “Shut up and sleep.”

Jamie let out a soft chuckle but obeyed, closing his eyes as he relaxed against her.

Y/N sighed, staring down at him, then looking around at the absolute chaos that had unfolded in the last few hours.

This was her life.

And, God help her, she wouldn’t change it for anything.

By the time the worst of the food poisoning had passed, most of the team had either passed out from sheer exhaustion or been picked up by loved ones. Isaac’s mum had come to get him (which was both adorable and terrifying), Sam had been whisked away by Simi, and Dani had somehow mustered enough energy to call an Uber before dramatically collapsing into the backseat.

That just left Jamie.

Jamie, who was currently draped across one of the benches, looking like he’d just survived a near-death experience. He had one arm lazily slung over his stomach, his head lolling to the side as he gave Y/N his best sad, pathetic, I-need-you-to-feel-bad-for-me eyes.

“Everyone’s gone,” she pointed out, pulling on her coat. “You should probably call an Uber to take you home. Maybe Keeley or Roy can come get you.”

She was hoping he liked that idea because she wouldn't let this pukey striker in her car.

Jamie let out a long, pitiful sigh, blinking up at her as if she’d just suggested he attempt to walk to his house on broken legs. “Can’t. Keeley’s in Ibiza, Roy would never get me, you know me mums in Manchester and I basically pay you to take care of me, soooo.”

She frowned and asked him innocently. “What about one of the lads?”

Jamie groaned. “They’re all just as fucked as me, babe. Most of them are already gone.”

He wasn’t wrong.

But that didn’t mean she wanted to deal with him personally.

She sighed, rubbing her temple. “You could just—”

Before she could even suggest getting an Uber again, Jamie turned the full force of his kicked-puppy expression on her.

“Please?” he murmured, voice hoarse and pitiful.

And damn him, because he knew she couldn’t say no to him when he looked like that.

Y/N let out a long, suffering groan. “Fine. Get your sorry pretty ass up. You're lucky I get paid for this.”

Getting Jamie into the car was an ordeal.

First, he claimed he was too weak to stand, so she had to practically drag him out of the locker room. Then, once they were in the car, he decided that sitting upright was too much effort, so he slouched down in the passenger seat, legs sprawled, head leaning against the window like some tragic poet contemplating the meaning of life.

“You’re so dramatic,” she muttered, pulling out of the parking lot.

Jamie cracked one eye open. “You love it.”

She shot him a glare. “I tolerate it.”

He grinned, but it was lazy, barely-there—like even teasing her was taking too much energy.

For the first few minutes, it was quiet. Peaceful, even. Y/N started to think maybe—just maybe—this wouldn’t be so bad.

And then Jamie groaned.

“Ugh, my stomach hurts,” he whined, shifting in his seat.

Y/N tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “Yeah, Jamie, that’s what happens when you eat poisoned food.”

“D’you think it’s real food poisoning? Or just, like… West Ham curse poisoning?”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s real food poisoning, you idiot.”

Jamie hummed, clearly unconvinced.

A beat of silence. Then—

“I think I’m gonna be sick.”

Y/N immediately slammed on the brakes, sending Jamie lurching forward with an undignified squawk.

“Oh my God,” she hissed. “Do not throw up in my car.”

Jamie groaned dramatically, leaning his forehead against the window. “Pull overrrr.”

She swerved into the first available parking lot, barely getting the car into park before Jamie threw open the door and stumbled out.

Y/N sighed, leaning her head against the steering wheel as she listened to him retching into the bushes.

This was, officially, the worst night of her life.

After a few minutes, Jamie crawled back into the car, looking even paler than before, but at least he wasn’t actively vomiting anymore.

She handed him a water bottle. “Drink.”

Jamie took it, sipped it weakly, then let out a tired sigh, leaning his head back against the seat. “You’re a saint, y’know that?”

She snorted. “More like an idiot for agreeing to this.”

Jamie cracked a small smile. “Still. Thanks.”

Y/N rolled her eyes but didn’t argue, simply pulling back onto the road.

By the time they got to Jamie’s house, he was half-asleep, mumbling incoherent nonsense about chickens and West Ham’s bad vibes. She had to help him inside, guiding him toward the couch as he slumped against her like a deadweight.

“Alright,” she muttered, helping him lie down. “You’re home. You’re alive. My job here is done.”

But before she could pull away, Jamie grabbed her wrist, blinking up at her blearily.

“Stay?” he murmured.

Y/N hesitated. “Jamie…”

“Just till I fall asleep,” he mumbled, already halfway there. “Promise.”

She sighed, looking down at him—his tired face, his messy hair, the way he still managed to look stupidly attractive even while on the brink of death.

She was so going to regret this.

But still, she sat down beside him.

Jamie hummed in contentment, shifting slightly so his head rested against her thigh. Within minutes, his breathing evened out, soft and steady.

Y/N leaned her head back against the couch, sighing deeply.

Maybe she was an idiot for always putting up with Jamie Tartt’s nonsense.

But as she absentmindedly ran her fingers through his hair, she figured it wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

[princessbrunette]

reader x sarah x jb where sarah and reader are making out in front of johnbee- he’s in trouble so he doesn’t get to touch 🥺

𐙚🦢🩰⋆.˚❆

“okay, i get it — i’m reckless, alright? i suck, how long is this gonna go on for? you know what this is? it’s cruel. the agreement was that we both get to have her, sarah.” john b scolds, sat with his hands tied by the blue bandana, his blonde girlfriends handiwork. she smirks, pulling away from your mouth, looking at him over your shoulder where you lay panting and nude against her — legs split embarrassingly wide, hole twitching around nothing as she circles at your clit. his mouth practically waters at the sight of your glossy folds, all open and needy — a hole he knows he can stuff well.

“the agreement was that you stop putting your life at risk for this bullshit treasure hunt. suffer the consequences, john b.” sarah hums with a smile, dragging her lips down your ear. “you really could’ve been in my place right now. touching her tits, grabbing her ass, fingering her pussy. but no…” she shrugs and it’s just to rile him up.

“jesus christ.” he pants. “what do you want me to do huh? get down on my knees? sarah i’ll do it.” he shakes his head, brow creased in desperation. seeing a man that was usually so in charge and calm get all urgent just for a taste of your pussy made your legs quake, squeezing more drool from your swollen, puffy pussy lips. “she needs me.” he states.

“do you… need him, babe?” sarah tilts her head with a jokey smile, craning round to look at you. you didn’t know what to say, you did want him — but you didn’t want to let her down so you simply shrug, avoiding all eyes. sarah sighs, rolling her eyes before sliding out from behind you and wandering over to john b, releasing him from the constraint carelessly. “fine. have at it.” she quirks an eyebrow and he marches over, looming over your spread open body.

“do you need me?” he pants, eyes doing all the touching for him. you drag your eyes from sarah and nod pitifully, lip wobbling as you force your legs even wider. he huffs out a smirk, swivelling his head to look at sarah where she stands with her arms crossed in just her seamless bra and panties. “ouch. all that being cruel for nothing, sarah cameron.”

“eat me.” she smirks, coming back over to join the two of you.

“uh-uh, not after that stunt. our pretty girl right here however,” he marvels at you, hands on the insides of your trembling knees holding you open sliding inward to reach your folds where he spreads them, inspecting your holes and pulsing clit. “oh i’m eating it all night.”

𐙚🦢🩰⋆.˚❆

[slamminslamminmcgill]

all im saying is ✨Logan with a knot✨ and Wade overstimulating you bc you cant get away -🦐

shrimp anon more like shrimp COLORS bro your vision is INSANE!!!!!!

soooo idk conventional a/b/o rules and i kinda don't care so im picturing a heat cycle as once a month endeavour. and bc you're on T you're a HORNY motherfucker and you're angry and violent so it's basically whoever can get their hands on you or knot in you first will take care of you. then as long as you get bred at least once you're fine. then you calm down and it's big aftercare hours bc your post-heat clarity endorphins are going CRAZY

now since your heat only comes once a month, wade treats it as a special occasion. and it wouldn't be fair of him to do the honors EVERY month, now would it?

so even though he's home with you, and logan's not, and won't be for a while, wade wilson will refuse to fuck you. it's not his turn. he did it last month.

and your heat is MISERABLE. imagine the worst period cramp you ever had, combined with hot flashes, searing rage, and it gives your cunt the sensitivity of a fucking bear trap. you'll clamp down on anything that touches you.

so no matter how much you suffer. no matter if you scream, cry, beg, grovel, bite, or commit acts of gratuitous violence against him.

he will hold out.

he will hold out until logan gets home and finds you naked, cuffed to the bed by your hands and ankles, a chewy ball-gag in your mouth getting crushed by your gritting teeth, and wade's holding a wand vibrator to your cunt.

he waves gayly at logan, "hey pinkie pie, merry christmas! wanna come open your gift?"

"jesus christ, are you fucking torturing him?! the hell is wrong with you?!"

"with ME?! where's your holiday spirit?"

logan just stares at him blankly, puzzled by what this psychotic dipshit could possibly be talking about. in response, and in the spirit of the season, wade sings him a song.

"🎼it's the mooost wonderful tiiiiime, of the mooonth~!🎵"

now he gets it.

"oh... okay. so then why did you tie him down like that?"

"well, we had a little INCIDENT earlier..."

--

you had managed to grab one of wade's guns and shot him in the chest

"OW!!! you RESOURCEFUL little shit!!! GRRR, oh~ mysweetboybabydarling i'msoproudofyou, butnoi'mnot, BAD BOY!!!"

--

"no, i mean why didn't you take care of him your-fucking-self, wilson? you really gotta make this my problem as soon as i walk in the fuckin' door?"

"your PROBLEM?! i hand you some prime-time, limited-edition, hot and bothered, ripe for the breeding, tranny boy BUSSY on a silver platter, and that's somehow NOT where your dick wants to spend its evening? am i hearing that right? please tell me i'm not. please tell me you're not this stupid, pookie bear."

instead of arguing back, logan goes quiet. he's thinking. and then, he laughs. that low, husky laugh that you have when you're marveling at the nerve of whatever dumb motherfucker is talking to you. or maybe, when that dumb motherfucker is making a point.

"heh... y'know what? fine." logan angrily strips his clothes off, one by one. his tanktop, "you want me to be the one to knot him? huh?" his belt, his jeans "can't do anything yourself, can ya?" and lastly, his boxers. then he grabs his cock and shakes it at wade.

"so then get me hard, you faggot." he clicks his tongue twice. "c'mon."

wade throws himself at logan's knees and gives him that gawkgawk4000turbotyphoon treatment to get him up. logan sighs in relaxation, grateful that wade was putting his mouth to such better use. once his eyes flutter open, he nods at you, finally giving you even a modicum of attention while you're under intense distress, and he merely waves at you nonchalantly, like how a pedestrian does to a car that lets him cross.

"hang tight, bub. be with ya in a second."

wade works him over until his knot is just barely starting to swell. he then takes his fattened cock and slaps wade across the face with it.

"take his chains off."

"hm... are you sure you want me to do that, princess? he's feisty, y'know. might get yourself bit, if you're not careful."

logan slaps wade again, but this time it's a bitchslap, using the back of his hand. and his claws.

"take. his fucking. chains off."

"mmm, right AWAY, your majesty~!"

[saintmelangell]

hi!! can u talk more about jesus as an ontological woman! i'm so interested in this and i can't find anything online

julian of norwich views the second person in the trinity as mother (as a he/him mother!): in our Mother Christ we profit and increase, and in Mercy He reformeth us and restoreth, transforming christ's death on the cross into the pangs of a woman in labour through which humankind is reborn into eternal life, into proximity with god: through belief in the death and resurrection of christ the believer slides out of the mother-wounds of christ and into the waiting arms of the shekinah, who covers mary at her impregnation. and it is women who are present at his crucifixion, as woman surround and aid a mother in labour. medieval iconography sometimes portrayed christ as a mother pelican, a bird which pricks her own breast to feed her young on her own blood. medieval physicians theorizined that mother's blood was "transubstantiated" into milk. thus to consume the blood of the sacrament is also to imbibe the mother's milk of christ. medieval thinkers conflated (and this is antisemitic at its core) circumcision with castration and emasculation. jesus' apperance is memorialized through sexualized organs only: the only description we have of his body is that he is circumcised. (consider how women are frequently reduced, in the collective memory of the patriarchy, to the sexualness of their attributes.) jesus' suffering on the cross makes him co-sufferer with all of creation: through the incarnation god may take, allegedly, the body of a man, but he also takes on the experiences of all humanity, forcing us to question: is a person their body or their experiences? bioethics would argue it is their experiences, therefore, christ is a black woman. the process of jesus' death is one of violation, specifically sexual violation: the opening of his mother-wound with the prick of a roman lance, his stripping and the division of his clothes (what happened to his צִיצִיּוֹת‎? did they take even this sacred tassel from him too?).

if the deprivation of jesus' jewish identity allows him to be rebuilt by oppressors in their own image, then what is to stop the oppressed from remaking him in theirs? stripping back all philosophy, this question is the central idea of liberation theology.

[rhiannonsknife]

could i maybe request a blurb where everyone finds out what shauna was doing with jackie in the meatshed, and you’re the only one that sides with/ doesn’t turn against her? like sure she’s a little freak but look at her! she’s so sad! who could possibly be mean to her???

- 🦔

shaunaaaaaa!! :( why do you guys love to see her suffer on this blog? (also, mind you, i just wrote this on my phone while watching a movie and i didn’t beta read…)

the freezing cold bites at your cheeks as you stand outside the cabin. the tension hangs heavier than it ever did before, a new low you didn’t think was possible. shauna stands before you in the snow, arms wrapped tightly around herself, her face pale and blanker than you’ve seen it so far.

“she’s been in there talking to jackie!” tai’s voice is sharp, almost disgusted but mostly confused. “holding her hand, doing her make up! do you realize how insane that is?” she gestures wildly toward the meat shed. “she’s been braid-“ tai chokes on the word. “braiding her hair. jesus, shauna”

shauna flinches, just barely, but you catch it. her lip trembles for half a second before she tightens her jaw, locking down any vulnerability.

“she’s gone, shauna,” tai presses, stepping closer, the anger in her voice rising. “jackie’s dead. and whatever you’re doing in that shed? it’s it’s not normal!”

the others linger nearby, silent but visibly uneasy: nat leans against the side of the cabin with her arms crossed over her chest, lottie stands a little further back, watching the scene unfold, whereas van fidgets awkwardly, her gaze darting between tai and shauna as if she’s unsure whether to intervene or stay out of it.

in the end, it’s you who steps up. “that’s enough!”

tai turns on you instantly, her eyes narrowing. “what?”

“i said, that’s enough,” you repeat firmly, stepping closer to shauna. you purposefully place yourself between her and tai, shielding shauna from her angry glare.

“oh, so you’re fine with this?” tai snaps, her arms flying up in disbelief. “with her acting like jackie’s still alive? do you even get how screwed up that is?”

“she’s grieving” you reason, refusing to back down. “i get that this…whatever she’s doing, probably isn’t healthy, but yelling at her isn’t going to help!”

tai lets out a sharp laugh, though it lacks any humor. “unbelievable. you’re actually defending this? her?”

“yes, tai. i am” thankfully, your voice doesn’t waver. you glance back at shauna, who’s staring at you with wide, tear-filled eyes. “she’s sad. she lost her best friend. yeah, maybe she’s handling it in a way we don’t understand, but that doesn’t mean we get to tear her down for it!”

tai’s mouth opens like she’s about to argue, but for the first time, she seems at a loss for words.

“jesus fucking christ,” nat mutters, breaking the silence. she rubs her temples, breath puffing in the cold air. “this is such a shitshow”

you ignore her, focusing on shauna instead, whose shoulders are beginning to shake. gently, you reach out and take her arm, tugging her away from the center of the group. “come on,” you tell her softly. “you don’t need to deal with this right now”

shauna lets you guide her back towards the warmth of the cabin, her steps slow and hesitant at first.

behind you, tai lets out an exasperated noise, but she doesn’t follow yet. you hear van mutter something under her breath, but it’s muffled by the wind, and you don’t care enough to turn back and ask.

you lead shauna back and inside, the noise of the others fading into the background. “i-” she starts, her voice barely above a whisper. then she shakes her head, squeezing her eyes shut.

“you don’t have to explain, not to me”

her lip trembles again, and this time, the tears finally come. they roll silently down her cheeks as she stands there, shoulders hunched, her entire body shaking with the effort to hold herself together. you step closer, pulling her into a hug without hesitation. for a moment, shauna stiffens, but then she crumples against you, burying her face in your shoulder as the sobs finally break free.

“i’ve got you,” you murmur, your hand gently running up and down her back. “It’s okay, shauna. i’ve got you”

[tinyshyteacup]

1st time writing

Tw: vehicle accident, not gory

Part 2

Screams and Scotch - Part 1

Chibs had seen some stupid shite in his time, but this? This was bloody ridiculous.

He was pulling out of TM’s lot when the sound of a screaming engine made him pause. His sharp eyes tracked the sleek, black Ducati as it weaved dangerously through traffic. The guy riding it was a reckless bastard, leaning too hard into turns, gunning it between cars with barely an inch to spare. But it wasn’t the rider that caught his attention.

It was the girl on the back.

She was tiny—five foot nothing, at best—and clinging to the rider like her life depended on it. Her hands were locked around his waist, her knuckles white even from this distance. Her hair whipped wildly in the wind, and even over the roar of the engine, he could hear her screaming. Not the kind of scream that came with excitement or thrill-seeking. No, this was terror.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, already swinging his Harley around. He wasn’t about to play hero—stupid people did stupid things, and they suffered for it—but something about the way she clung to the guy set his teeth on edge. She looked like she wasn’t there by choice. And that? That was a problem.

He kicked his bike into gear, following at a distance, keeping an eye on them as they shot down Main Street.

It happened fast.

Too fast.

One second, the Ducati was tearing down the road, the rider too cocky, too sure of himself as he cut through traffic. The next, he made a critical mistake. He didn’t see the truck ahead of him slamming on the brakes.

Chibs barely had time to swear before it happened.

The bike clipped the back of the truck at high speed. The front wheel crumpled, the force sending the rider flying over the handlebars. He slammed into the pavement and rolled, limbs flailing. But Chibs’ focus was on her.

The girl.

She was thrown off the back like a ragdoll, hitting the asphalt hard. She skidded, her body bouncing once—twice—before going still.

Chibs was already moving, his Harley forgotten in the middle of the road as he ran toward the wreck. The rider was groaning, trying to push himself up, but Chibs ignored him. He crouched next to the girl, his gut twisting at the sight of her.

Blood smeared the pavement beneath her. Her jeans were torn at the knees, scraped raw, and her arms had deep road rash. But it was her head that worried him. Her face was slack, peaceful in a way that didn’t belong here. A deep cut on her forehead leaked crimson into her hair.

“Shite, lass,” he muttered, pressing two fingers to her neck. Her pulse was there—faint, but there.

“Hey,” he tapped her cheek lightly, his accent thickening. “C’mon now, open those pretty eyes for me, yeah?”

Nothing. "Ah, fuckin’ hell.”

He checked her breathing—shallow, but steady—before looking up. People were gathering. Someone had already called 911. Sirens were wailing in the distance.

The rider groaned louder, drawing attention, but Chibs shot him a look that shut him up. “You keep your arse right there,” he warned, voice low and sharp. “Yer lucky I don’t put ye under for good.”

The bastard had been laughing on that bike. Chibs had seen it. The reckless grin, the thrill of showing off. And now she was lying here, broken because of him.

When the ambulance arrived, Chibs was still kneeling beside her, his gloved hand pressing gently against her shoulder. When the paramedics rushed over, he didn’t move.

“She’s breathin’. Took a bad hit to the head.”

One of them nodded, assessing her injuries, but when they asked for her information, Chibs stiffened.

“I dunno,” he admitted, glancing down at her. “I don’t know her name.”

The ride to St. Thomas was a blur. Chibs hadn’t planned on going, but when the paramedics loaded her onto the stretcher, they just assumed.

“You’re coming with her, right?”

He could’ve said no. Could’ve walked away, probably should have.

Instead, he muttered, “Aye,” and climbed into the ambulance.

He sat in the corner, arms crossed, watching as they worked. Her tiny frame looked even smaller against the white sheets, and for some reason, that pissed him off. She looked fragile, in a way that had looked like she had no business being tangled up in this shite.

When they rolled her into the ER, he followed. Nurses swarmed. Someone tried to stop him, but he just gave them a look, and they backed off.

Finally, a nurse approached him. “Are you family?”

Chibs hesitated. He didn’t even know her bloody name.

“Filip Telford,” he said instead. “Call me Chibs.”

The nurse nodded. “She had a wallet on her. Her name is—”

She said it. Her name.

And for some reason, it hit him harder than expected. He rolled it around in his head, memorizing it, feeling it settle in his chest.

When they finally let him into the room, she was still unconscious. Her face was pale, but the bandages were clean, the IV steady. Chibs pulled up a chair, watching her breathe.

He didn’t know why he stayed.

Didn’t know why he felt this urge to make sure she woke up.

But he did.

And something told him this wasn’t the last time he’d see her.

Not by a long shot.

[cuubism]

Can I pressure you to work on the 'having a job sucks ass' math AU fic?

yeah 😂 i started working on it when i was annoyed with my job. which is always

here's a snippet from earlier in the fic, because i think the later part i'm working on won't make a ton of sense out of context

[ make me work on one of my fics if you want ]

-

Dream shuts his laptop as Hob approaches. Oh, yeah. He was definitely waiting for Hob, specifically. Hob is getting the sense that he’s in trouble. And he’s not stupid. It’s not hard to guess what has Dream upset.

“Look,” he starts, “don’t even—”

“Hob Gadling,” Dream interrupts. Yep, that’s the trouble tone, the one Hob used to get when he did shit like giving himself a concussion playing pick up football on the quad. “It is ten p.m.”

“I own a watch too, Dream,” Hob says tiredly. Does Dream think he wants to be working this late? He’s just trying to stay employed.

Dream’s lips press into a thin line. And Hob knows him well enough, can read him well enough to recognize that what’s underneath the annoyance is concern. But what exactly does Dream expect him to do about it?

Hob sits down—more like collapses—into the armchair diagonal to where Dream is on the couch. God, what he really wants is to just fucking face plant into bed, not deal with this.

Christ. When did he start thinking about talking to Dream as dealing with?

Then again, this is less talking to Dream and more arguing with Dream, and he fucking hates doing that.

He scrubs his hands over his face. “It’s far away, alright?” he argues, though it sounds more like a whine. “It’s not like I can teleport.”

“It is not acceptable that they keep you so late,” Dream says. Then his tone softens. “I worry over your level of exhaustion. That is not even mentioning the commute.”

“Honestly, the commute’s not the worst part,” Hob says. “Gives me more time to get stuff done. Or fall asleep.”

Dream gives him a flat look. “Precisely.”

“I don’t want to hear judgment about work ethic from you of all people,” Hob snaps. God, he hates arguing with Dream, he hates it. It’s not like when they bicker. And it’s not like arguing with anyone else. The thought that Dream is upset with him is genuinely distressing.

“I think I of all people am uniquely qualified to give it,” Dream says.

He’s not wrong. Dream is a workaholic if ever there was one. It’s something Hob’s had to talk to him about in the past. Frequently, in the past, Hob was the one who was better about it.

It’s just that having this job is a level of relentless he couldn’t possibly have anticipated.

Hob can’t just quit though, even if he is overworked. It’s a good job, career-wise, and it pays really well, and he wants Dream to be able to keep his post-doc position without worrying about the salary because Dream is just quite frankly not cut out for anything where he isn’t able to work independently at least ninety percent of the time and Hob doesn’t want to see him suffer, and he wants them to be able to buy a house someday—

“Look,” he says, before Dream can suggest that he actually quit or something, “Dream, we’re making fucking bank, okay?”

Dream raises an eyebrow. “We are?”

“Yeah, we’re married, or did you forget?”

“It’s your money.”

“The joint bank account says otherwise. Half of it is yours.”

Dream frowns, then gets a wicked look in his eye. Oh no. “Does that entitle me to half of your suffering as well? Do I get half a say in whether it continues?”

“That’s not the point—”

“Are you going to watch me suffer half your exhaustion and do nothing about it?” Dream challenges, steamrolling right over him. He’s impossible to argue with when he really gets going. And great, now he’s employing that look. That pleading look that he knows Hob can’t say no to, eyes wide and helpless. “Will you leave me to my agonies?”

“Alright,” Hob says, pressing his hands to his eyes. “Enough. Stop joking around.”

“I’m quite serious. I don’t wish to see you suffer.” He crosses the room, kneels in front of Hob’s chair, and takes Hob’s hands, bringing them down from his face. “Your unintended comparison was more apt than you realize. When you prosper, I prosper. When you suffer, so equally do I.”

“Should have been a fucking poet instead of a mathematician, Dream,” Hob says. It shouldn’t come out as bitter as it does.

Except— “Maths is poetry,” he says, echoing it just as Dream says it, too. Hob had known he would.

It makes him smile, that he can predict Dream like that.