#dowry!verse

[sparklecryptid]

XDDD Oh hey, another reason Feanor is probably throwing a FIT in Mandos, his GRANDDAUGHTER is practically BEREFT of the jewels an elleth of her station should have! *furious screeching* (Feanor probably had a whole STORE ROOM filled with horrifyingly sparkly things he'd planned to give as dowry for the eventual granddaughters he was certain he would have. Lovely gorgeous things! But SO MUCH omg, just SO MUCH. Smaugs horde was a hill of pennies comparatively.)

And those no good suitors of hers aren't even DOING anything about it! *more furious screeching*

Glorfindel and Erestor meanwhile, probably quickly noted practical gifts (like the boots Glorfindel gave her WAY too early on) were far better received than jewels. Hmmm, maybe Erestor, being the Feanorian of the two, gave her something excessively shiny at least once, but took note of the strained smile and slightly panicky eyes and amended his gifts accordingly and told Glorfindel to do the same?

gold ruby and citrine bracelet: *wide panicky thank you?* :/

boots: *wide eyes and pleased smile* :)

basket of warm hand pies and a selection of three penny novels from Mithlond: *a HUG and lovely laughter* :D

Glorfindel and Erestor are SMART and can read their target WAY better than some give them credit for.

Fëanor: *showing the hoard of jewelry off to his sons* and here is the hoard of jewelry I have made and stored for my eventual granddaughters dowry *direct eye contact with his sons as he says that*

*later in the halls*

Fëanor:…..why doesn’t my granddaughter have any jewelry. She is a PRINCESS she needs at least ten sets - laurefinde I never liked you WHY ARE YOU GIVING HER BOOTS THIS EARLY - at least Moryo’s vassal has an idea of what to give her -

*later still*

Nerdanel: pleasure to meet you granddaughter, now about your dowry-

Anordil: my what

Nerdanel: your dowry. Fëanor himself made jewelry to be used in a dowry on the hope that one day we would have a granddaughter-

Anordil: ….is it too late to go back

Nerdanel: *sympathetic pat on the back* I’m afraid so. Let me know when you’re ready to sort through it.

[adlerthetattler]

"i don't smoke."

(Constanta @ Lacey - a-bloody-dowry)

SALTBURN sentence starters

"No?" Lacey holds the smoke out a little longer, in case she might change her mind, then shrugs. "More for me then."

The cigarette that was once for Constanta settles between her own fingers, lit in a flash. The night is cold for this time of year, but if enduring it means garnering some vital information, she's happy to. She's been on the hunt for a lead for months.

"Do you always linger outside clubs, or do you go inside them some days?"

[quranindex]

Discover Quran Verses about #Dowry @ https://quranindex.info/search/dowry [5:5] #Quran #Islam

[rom-e-o]

A Moment of Weakness (Emmrich/OC)💚F!Rook

The game isn't even out. We don't know Emmrich's personality, VA, ... really, anything beyond the bare bones as I write this ... but I couldn't help myself! I hope this little story is enjoyable, despite inaccuracies, haha!

TW: alcohol mention/mild tipsy behavior.

It had started with a simple sentence, but one that Emmrich immediately realized was shrouded in complex sentiment.

Hours before, Belisma (“Rook”, as she was affectionately called) had knocked on the door to his study and invited him to share a drink with him. More specifically, she had wanted to toast a successfully long day of battles and negotiations by imbibing together at the Lighthouse, a base that was unnerving as it was beautiful. She had even surprised him with a dusty bottle of red imported right from Nevarra. It carried the region’s distinct fruity notes; a stark contrast to the stench of death and semi-permanent haze of stale incense the region was known for.

Perhaps that was why such bottles were so coveted. Even he, with all his knowledge and history of the reason, carried not the knowledge of a versed sommelier. He did know, however, that the drink was strong.

The drink had boosted their spirits quickly, and loosened lips even more so.

Moments before, he'd been laughing amicably at an amusing anecdote she'd told him about an awkward encounter with a former suitor. Quite the crude young man, from what the woman had described. Hardly someone suitable for a woman like her, he'd thought.

Then, she’d let the sentence slip.

"I’m glad I can be useful here … I’m more suited for the battlefield than a quiet life anyway.” Then, she added, "Could you imagine … me, with a husband waiting for me back home? What poor soul could I do that to?”

Emmrich, dressed casually in a starched shirt and trousers (but still adorned in his rings and jangling bangles), paused to flick his gaze at present company.

"What?"

With a little hiccup, she allowed herself to sink against the weight of the table. "It's amusing, isn't it?"

"What is?" Emmrich prodded, a silver brow lifted. Her self-deprecating words had sobered him. "The thought of you with … a husband?”

"Right," she said. "Or a lover or ... someone of similar station. Even if someone was interested, I have nothing to offer. Mages aren’t exactly known for their large dowries and influence – even the wealthiest ones – compared to normal nobles.”

She paused, her eyes drifting askance as she tapped her nails on the oak table. “That was what he said, anyway.”

"Who?"

"Cyril," she reminded him. "I just told you about him. He was my last ... suitor, I suppose. I was 25. We met in a Circle. It feels like yesterday, but... his words stuck. Evidently."

The man gently lowered his chalice onto the table, the sweet wine forgotten. His eyes, rimmed with intrigue but touched with sadness, examined her. While a devoted scholar, Emmrich was also a man with decades of experience working with peers of many ages and backgrounds. Many called him a gentleman for the ways he seemed to invite conversation and put others at ease, but he preferred to his he simply put proper effort into listening. He leaned in, encouraging her to say more.

The silent prodding bore fruit. "I mean, it's inarguable. Look at me."

He did. He had been since they'd started working alongside each other.

He saw a lovely woman, just a small handful of years younger than him. She was a head shorter than him, with a feminine but muscled build from years of training as a mage and honing her skills. Her jaw, cut perfectly square enough to put the gems on any viscount's ring to shame, was adorned with bright eyes and lips that were ... very pleasant.

Her eyes reflected the color of freezing cold sap, tapped from the tree of Emprise du Lion. Her lips, painted with a swatch of coral, looked full and soft as far as he could tell. He hadn't been blessed enough to feel them pillow against his skin, but he could imagine. Her skin bore a light tan, and her hair swung gaily over her shoulders with each spin and flip on the battlefield. Starlight-gray waves sprouted from her scalp, and he thought they framed her face beautifully. Elegantly.

"I ... see you," he said carefully. He stammered a moment, eyes still searching for what she could mean. “I see you quite well, as a matter of fact.”

To him, she looked like a partner anyone would be lucky to have.

"Well, there you go," she added with a light, almost flippant laugh.

"I fail to see what's funny."

"...Emmrich, you don't have to be polite," she said, her voice becoming softer as a result of his stern but inquisitive tone. “I’m not a child.”

"I am being honest, with the politeness always secondary," he reminded her. “Lucanis can testify to that.”

A tense beat of silence passed. Before he could speak up, she sighed and pushed her chalice away. It flared bottom skipped lightly across the uneven wood grain. "I-I'm sorry. That's my cue. I’ve had enough to drink, I believe."

Another shaky laugh left her. Emmrich heard a telltale tremble in her voice, and rose to pursue her.

"Belisma, wait—”

"I’m sorry," she said, cutting him off. Palm flattening against the wall to better support her weight, she made her way toward the great hall's door to exit.

It only took one hobble for him to round the table after her. "You’re unsteady. I'll walk you."

"Please. Stay."

A man of many years, he could easily transcribe her true request from the dismal look on her face: “Keep back and let me go.”

So, he did.

Not one to disobey their leader, especially when she requested something so simple, he respected her desire for space. Falling back, he watched her go. She did not falter again, from what he could see.

Her shadow eventually slinked out of the room and to the left, which was the path he knew led to her quarters. As he watched her vanish into the night-darkened halls of the base, regret filled his lungs like sea water.

He should have said something sooner.

Night.

Night in the Fade was … very similar to the day, he had to admit. It wasn’t even really night, he supposed. Just an agreed upon hour where they all stole moments of slumber between onslaughts of enemies.

Back home, night was the most comfortable hour for the necromancer, as it shrouded the work in a silver-tinted darkness. Temperatures cooled, and his mind could home in better on his duties as an esteemed member of the Mourn Watch. Night was a time for study; a time for work. A time for solving problems he refused to let fester.

Here, the air still shimmered like mica, but the sky did not grow inky like it did in the mortal realms. Its comforts felt somewhat hollow, but it was all he had, so he took them.

When the Lighthouse was quiet save for his footsteps, he left his chamber and began to walk.

Emmrich knew his destination, in theory. There was a sparse list of places their Rook would, or could, travel to for relaxation. One of those areas was a small room located a few floors up, overlooking the Fade’s ever-twitching horizon. A small, stone room where mages could practice magic without risk of rogue spells hurting others.

Upon arriving at the room, he heard her voice from within. Grunts and yells of exertion peppered the otherwise quiet air. The older man took a deep breath, which served the dual purpose of bolstering his confidence as well as calming his racing heart.

He knocked. A beat of silence passed.

Then, a voice called from beyond the iron-enforced frame. "Come in."

A pleasant voice. A kind, womanly, familiar voice that could lure enamored men to burn their tomes for her.

Ignoring that he fit into that category all too neatly himself, he swallowed and entered the chamber. As he laid his palm against the frame, the metal was warm to the touch, even through his adorned glove.

The room was built from stone, top to bottom, with only a few slots to serve as windows. They also provided the handy attribute of ventilation, as this chamber was one mages utilized to train their abilities.

It was quite common to enter the training room to find the air crackling with electricity, or to nearly slip on ice-covered stones from the last mage practicing a bout of freezing spells.

In this case, Belisma appeared to be practicing fire magic. Her staff drawn and the smell of cinder permeating the air, she turned and gave the visitor a smile. The iron-clad tip of her staff still burned red-hot in the semi-darkness as she turned to him.

"Oh! Emmrich."

She looked pleased to see him on the surface, but he knew her better by now. There was a slight, nervous way her lower eyelids would upturn when she peered at him, like she was squinting through him, as if to see better intentions.

Nodding, he risked a step forward. "I thought I heard you in here. I ... wanted to check on you."

Although he spoke carefully, her face still fell at his admission. "Ah. Because of earlier."

"Yes, earlier."

A measured sigh snaked in and out of her lungs.

"It … was a moment of weakness," she confessed, hands dropping to her sides. He noticed with a heavy heart that she cast her gaze to the opposite corner of the room. An obvious sign of shame. "I shouldn't have burdened you with that. I'd had too much to drink and ... I suppose the ghosts of the past got a hold of me. I apologize."

"You needn’t apologize for that," he said kindly. "You're hardly the first one to divulge personal secrets over a chalice of wine, and I'm sure you'll be far from the last."

Her brown eyes sought his. "W-Well, when you put it like that ... perhaps you're right."

"I often am," he teased.

She smiled at that, and his heart leapt again. Gods above, how had any man made the woman before him feel unworthy of affection. Had time-altering spells been more his forte, he might have chanced traveling back a few decades just to clobber the fool with a skull. Or two. Perhaps a dragon skill, if he could lift it. Taash could help, he reasoned.

As the silence spurred his thoughts, it quieted hers in tandem. She sighed, tapping the leather-wrapped end of her staff’s hilt against the floor.

In a split second, bright sparks flitted between the crevices in the stone, snaking their way upwards through the narrow channels until the fire leads to the wicks of the candles adorning the room's small chandelier. With the formerly cavernous room now aglow with firelight, he could more keenly observe a notable flush to her cheeks.

"Thank you," she said softly. "I'm glad I didn't scare you away from wanting to talk to me."

He snorted in amusement. "It'll take more than banter to scare me, dear."

The realization of the term slipping out hit too late, and he cleared his thought awkwardly. "I-I've seen more death than some armies, you know. So n-no. Not scared at all. No."

He heard her chuckle warmly at his stammering. Perhaps she found it endearing, he hoped.

Nonetheless, fighting his own blush now, a hand lofted to scratch his temple. It was also his turn to look away, lest he become lost in those syrupy eyes again.

“I promise to hold my drink better when we hold our next private celebration,” she noted gaily. “You won’t have to listen to an old maid ramble, haha. Nobody here needs that in our only place of respite.”

Just as Emmrich had turned to scuttle away, he was lured back. “Stop that.”

She paused, glancing up at him. “Hm?”

“Stop with the self-depreciating comments, Belisma.”

Unlike his voice before, which had wavered from boyish shyness, his tone in the moment was pure bravado. He allowed himself to take pleasure in watching her cheeks turn cherry-red. Despite the color that bloomed on her face, her eyes remained glued to him.

“E-Emm—”

“You are a woman of immense talent and beauty, and while I enjoy your company here more than the company of any other, I cannot abide by you taking every opportunity to be so disparaging of yourself.”

He took a step toward her, and Maker, she stayed in place. He didn’t so much as take a breath as he dared to advance another. Before he knew it, it had crossed the threshold between them enough for their chests to barely touch. He couldn’t help but note that she was even more captivating from this angle.

“You are our leader, a talented mage, and your dedication to leading us through this rather unprecedented situation is nothing short of remarkable,” he reminded her.

“You think—”

“You call yourself an ‘old maid’? Please. You are an incredible woman, and any soul across Tevinter, Nevarra, or bloody Thedas would be lucky to share a room, or a drink, with you. I certainly am.”

He saw her eyes widen, but he couldn’t stop himself. The floodgates had opened, and it was impossible to bring them crashing down again.

“They’d be even luckier to have you as a partner…a lover, as you said before.”

A stern finger lofted to prod her collarbone lightly, a gesture that would have potentially felt patronizing if they weren’t too adults that seemed to be drifting closer by the second.

The next words caught in his throat.

“A-As I…should …”

The molten intrigue in her eyes vanished in that moment. With the poise he often saw her display on the battlefield, her eyes fell shut as she flowed forward.

He braced for a slap, but felt her lips press against his instead.

Maker, he thought in a blitz of passion, how long had it been since anyone had kissed him? Decades, probably. The thought was met with fleeting entertainment, but quickly passed as he realized he wasn’t going to overthink himself out of appreciating the moment.

He leaned in, hands finding purchase on her hips for balance.

Her lips, as he’d thought, were so soft. They became even more pliable when he reciprocated, angling his head in a way so that slotted his nose beside hers and pressed hard into her cheek. The better angle allowed him to nudge all the closer. Her bottom lip was nestled between his at first, but with another sway of their bodies, she tilted away, and he took the opportunity to take that lip between his teeth just slightly.

He worried for a moment it was too forward, but concerns melted when she moaned (gods, a glorious sound!) and inched her arms upward. First, she gripped his shoulders. Then, her arms wrapped around his neck, nudging their pounding hearts into further alignment.

Just the scrape of his teeth made her gasp again, and her strong arms hauled him closer. With her bosom pressed to his chest and their thighs flush, it was euphoria. The man was too enamored to realized that he’d walked her backward across the room, pressing her to the stone wall gently. Unable to help himself, he smiled against the kiss, and she chased that smile with her own.

When they parted for air, panting and breathless, he stared into her eyes. They looked even darker than they had before. All the more tempting to become lost in them, he noted.

“I…I have not been kissed in a very, very long time …” he admitted breathlessly.

Belisma’s lips, now a slightly more muted shade after he’d kissed her lipstick off, curved into a smile.

“I’ve never been kissed like that,” she confessed with a whisper. “Ever.”

Shared mirth leapt between them, and he dared to rest his forehead against hers.

“P-Perhaps I should get tipsy more often if it leads to pleasant moments like this.”

A laughter, warm like summer thunder, rumbled in his chest. He eyes crinkled as he cupped her cheek, noting how she leaned int his touch.

“Well,” he husked, his voice shifting to a pleasant burr as he urged her close, “All the more reason from you to not drink alone again, dear.”

This time, he leaned in to capture her lips against his.

And she, their fearless Rook, leaned into him with abandon.

I'm now going to go back to begging BioWare for crumbs, haha.

[yabagofmilfs]

May I ask for some more detail on breeding programme verse... Tell me more about the team PR people spinning a love story to cover up Sid's bad behaviour? Tell me more about Sid having to play Geno's sweet happy pregnant omega in public while seething inside? Please?

i've been noodling on this for a bit so apologies in advance for the unhinged length of this brain dump.

i think it's like. breeding programs are very traditional, right? historically omegas were essentially used as currency. they were highly favored because they had a higher probability of producing dynamic children--alphas who could inherit and carry on the lineage, and omegas who were very valuable because they would bring in large dowries for high-compatibility matches.

now, obviously as society evolved these practices and the optics around them shifted. modern omegas have many more rights than they did even in the early 20th century when north american sports leagues formed and adopted breeding programs with the goal of producing athletically gifted children who would in turn "grow the game".

in the last decade or so there's been a big cultural shift, and the league has had to play catch up. they're giving a lot of lip service to supporting more progressive ideologies, so their messaging now is like entering into our breeding program isn't mandatory to be drafted into the nhl, but we're honored that so many of our players have been fortunate enough to find their match within our league. It speaks to the caliber of people who choose to play for us, and the nhl's long standing commitment to creating a supportive environment for our players and their families.

so of course they're still going to test everyone and provide them compatibility results--it's basically a free service they provide their players (you're welcome), and they roll it into the health and fitness assessments so they can't opt out--but they're not making anyone breed with their matches. that would be illegal. and if most of their players choose to do it, because hockey players are a pretty traditional bunch and the unspoken messaging is don't rock the boat, they're not going to push back on that.

and let's say in this version of the verse that russian players are not allowed to participate in the breeding program, because russian law mandates that their offspring are put back into their own leagues. so this naturally others the russian players, and there's a fair bit of xenophobia around all of it.

okay, so all that said (lol sorry), here's the setup: sid, as an extraordinarily talented omega, has been media trained within an inch of his life from a young age. he's never been stupid enough to outright say he has no intention of entering into the nhl's breeding program since that is still the pervasive expectation, but he's talked around it in ways that give him plausible deniability--i'm not really thinking about being bred right now, i'm just focused on playing the best hockey i can for as long as i can--but even saying that much ruffles some feathers and gets the pundits talking.

he's relieved when the compatibility results from his draft are very low across the board so there's no pressure on him immediately. he gets retested every year, and it's always the same. he gets a lot of shit for it from every corner--alphas trying to scruff him or bite him on ice to induce a heat and get him bred that way, pundits speculating that maybe the league is covering for him because he's frigid, or barren, or queer (gasp). on the other side of the spectrum people wonder if he actually is pushing back on the archaic breeding programs and either vocally supporting him, or demanding he make a public statement to help turn the tides for other athletes in less privileged positions.

sid mostly tunes it out, and considers it the price he pays for getting to play and not having to take a season off every couple of years to push out a kid. it's not that he doesn't want kids eventually, it's just that hockey has always mattered more, and he's never been comfortable with the idea of being pushed into a match with someone.

enter geno. let's say he finally comes over to the nhl when he's 20 and sid's in his mid-30s, edging right up against his window of fertility closing. the league and even the team is starting to get really anxious that Sid really won't ever find a compatible match within their program, and they won't be able to capitalize on his offspring (imagine the marketing push when sidney crosby's alpha kid gets drafted).

i think in this version of events they're not immediately friends. geno is kind of shy and doesn't speak great english, and is a little in awe of the legendary sidney crosby. that coupled with it being drilled into him that he's not to touch any slutty north american omegas, he's gotta keep his seed for russia or whatever, means he's pretty wary of sid in general.

and i think for sid's part, he's just confused. he and geno don't really spend any time one on one, but he can't stop noticing him in a way that feels really overwhelming. and he starts having breakthrough heats constantly. everyone thinks it's the beginning of the end of his fertile period, and the league gets super pressed about it, throwing even the low-compatibility alphas at him during these mini heats to try to force a weak bond. but sid's not receptive to any of them.

i think maybe he finally corners geno after one of these instances. he's all churned up with a breakthrough heat and resentful that the team's breeding coordinator is trying to push him onto these subpar alphas who don't even smell right or have hands half as silky as geno's. he decides fuck it, and gives in to what he actually wants. they hook up, and afterward sid has very complicated feelings about it. geno's a rookie, sid's his captain, and geno's playing so well sid doesn't want to be a distraction, plus it's stupid of him to mess with an alpha. but neither of them can help themselves.

sid sets the terms early on, they can fool around but no penetrative sex, which geno agrees to because obviously he'd get in major trouble with russia if it ever came out that he was fucking canada's precious little omega. but sid keeps pushing the boundaries. he's so hungry for geno all the time, it's like he can't think of anything else when he's not actively playing. he pulls him into closets, into hotel rooms on the road, begs him to sneak out of gonch's house and come over. it goes from hands and mouths only, to just the tip, to you can fuck me but don't come in me, to it's fine as long as you don't knot.

i don't think that either of them realize that they're highly compatible and have essentially been cultivating a bond over a period of months, but it all comes to a head when Sid goes into full heat which triggers geno's rut and well. not only are they fully bonded but sid is fully knocked up.

the team is pretty conflicted about it. on one hand, they're relieved sid finally bred with someone, on the other geno is russian which complicates things on both sides of the equation. there will be a PR nightmare to deal with when they announce Sidney has finally bonded and bred and oh by the way it's with a russian rookie, and on Geno's end there will be massive legal ramifications with russia. the only real play they have is to court public approval by spinning it as some fairy tale, true mates love story and hoping that backs russia into a corner. (suspend your disbelief here.)

so things are really tense. sid is afraid and feels guilty and ashamed for the position he’s put them in—after all, he started it—and geno is torn between fear of what russia will do, and his tender feelings for sid alongside his burgeoning alpha instincts to take care of his pregnant mate.

they have to move in together, and sid throws a fit about it but ultimately gives in because he understands the optics are important. despite the fact that he can't even look at geno and doesn't want to be anywhere near him out of a mixture of misdirected anger and self-preservation, he doesn't want geno to have to face any significant consequences for sid's inability to control himself.

he freezes geno out in private but plays along in public, letting the pens' media team get shots of them smiling at each other, of geno's big hand spread at the small of his back, and one of sid in the blurry foreground, his mark a garish smudge of red against the backdrop of white ice, and geno in focus in the background, watching him from the bench with a gentle expression.

that lasts as long as it takes for geno to realize that sid is often sick at home where he keeps his distance from geno, but almost never when they're at the rink together or doing staged PR shit. he puts his foot down about sleeping in the same bed and letting geno touch him, and they inevitably start fucking again. sid pushes it to be harder and meaner than geno wants it to be, and it kind of wars with his instinct to treat a pregnant omega gently, but he also knows what sid's trying to prove-- that who he is, an omega who has carved a name and a legacy for himself in an alpha-dominated league without ever having an equal to lean on, is not going to be subsumed by being pregnant and mated. so he gives sid what he wants.

but he also begins to gently bully sid into spending more time with him and starts subtly courting him. little gifts, his favorite sweets, bringing him socks when his feet are cold, and leaving worn clothes around the house strategically so sid can steal them as often as he needs.

i think sid assumes geno is just playing the game. there have been so many staged moments, it's blurring the lines between what's just between them and what's being shared more broadly on geno's instagram or the pens socials. but then geno gets hurt--maybe a big hit, or his shoulder injury from rookie year?--and sid finds himself instinctively going into caregiver mode. and it's....nice. it's nice to take care of someone, and he can admit it's been nice to be taken care of by geno over the last few weeks.

so he starts reciprocating the courting behaviors, and things start to get painfully tender between them as they get closer, and sid gets more obviously pregnant.

and then the hammer drops with russia. they tell geno he either needs to come back to russia permanently, and bring his subpar western bride with him so the KHL can have the claim to their kid, or his russian citizenship will be revoked.

they get into a huge fight about it and sid is like okay well obviously we have to go i can't make you give up your home because i wanted your dick so bad, and geno finally just like. takes him down and bites him hard over his mark until he goes limp and says something cliche like i spent my whole life dreaming of the nhl, and now i'm here and i get to play with the best player in the world every day, and i get to come home and be with the best person in the world every night, and i'm not giving that up for anything. i'll make my home here with you, and maybe one day russia will change its mind but if they don't, okay. i made my choice and it's the right one.

so who knew, it turns out jen was right and they do have some fairy tale, true mates love story.

[xxgoblin-dumplingxx]

First time reader met Bruce either in general or to talk about the arrangement in arranged reader verse?

Of all the prissy little girls at this birthday party, you were the worst. Dressed in white from head to toe. Keeping carefully to the paths and never straying too far from your nanny. Or taking more than a modest nibble of any sweet.

It made Bruce itch to shove you into the nearest mud puddle to see if he could provoke you into a snit. It would be incredible to see you throw a tantrum. He bet you could scream with the best of them.

And finally, when he watched you wander down the path a ways, holding your doll, watching a group of other girls running across the grass- he got his opportunity when someone told him to go long to catch a frisbee.

So he did.

And when you tumbled into the puddle- tulle and bows flying, he felt a little bad. Just a little. When you were covered in mud and dirty water, lip trembling as you looked up at him.

But if you were going to say anything, you didn't get a chance. Adults swarmed around you with towels and fretting. Nothing though, could have prepared him for your little cry of anguish when you saw your doll. In her matching white dress. Ruined beyond repair.

___________

If Bruce had known who you were then, he might not have shoved you in a puddle. But- knowing who he was then, he might have waited until you were by the pond and shoved you in there; just to see the bigger splash.

Still. As he watched you fidget with your tennis bracelet and cross and uncross your feet- agitated and annoyed with being forced to wait for the meeting he called, he knew you wouldn't complain.

"The girl never cries." Your father was fond of bragging. "Never whines. She knows her place."

He'd said it as a selling point. As if he were selling the runt of a litter of puppies and trying to make up for your size.

Not that he cared about any of that. He didn't care about your "dowry" either. He only gave a shit that you were convenient. Good cover. And you'd make for good pictures, as gross as that made him feel. At least he wouldn't have to waste time dating you. And when the time came for kids. Well... he'd figure that out later.

[bwoahtastic]

I really loved the Seb and Nico as siblings dynamic you had in another verse, so what about that for the bridgerton au? A bit like Kate and Edwina? You have Seb as the diamond younger sister, pretty and bubbly and adored by all. And Nico is the older, beautiful but very icy sister that everyone is afraid of. Their finances are low, maybe they have no other family at all, and Nico knows that the only way he will be able to see Seb safe and happy is by finding him an appropriate husband. He is determined to protect Seb as he helps him find love, but can be a little overprotective at times. While Seb is loving the attention and adoration of the ton, Nico finds himself drawn to another alpha, maybe Lewis or Jenson, young rakish lords who flirt and are in no way appropriate for Seb (of course Nico always believes that anyone who approaches him is doing it to try and get to Seb) or even Toto, an extremely wealthy widower who still needs an heir. Nico feels incredibly selfish speaking to these alphas because he's here to find Seb a good alpha, not himself, but he can't help but want.

Meanwhile Seb is having the time of his life flirting with all of the alphas. He is adored and given gifts and gets to dance every dance at every ball. He has suitors lining up around the block and is the most desired omega in town. Maybe he tries to matchmake for Nico when he realises what's going on

Oh plss I love it!!

Nico and Seb being without any family, and Nico knows hr needs to find Seb a good husband to make sure he will have a good future. They still have their title, but they barely have enough funds for the season + a dowry for seb. Nico is so worried but tries not to have Seb realise, tries to set him up for success. Nico being so beautiful but so so cold, while Seb is a Ray of sunshine, so sweet and pretty and has the whole ton wrapped around his little finger!

Maybe Nico falls for Toto? Toto is a widower and vowed to never wed again, but the two dancing together saves them both from other attention so it happens frequently. Seb meanwhile basking in athe attention of any suitors and Nico is so hopeful that seb will find his happy ending! But meanwhile he is finding himself falling in love too, ith the person he least expected and who he knows will not reciprocate his feelings...

Seb seeing hos brother pining away so so much and tries to help! Clearly toto adores Nico just as much, they just need to get their shit together!

(Also Seb ending up with Jenson and Nico isnso exasperated cos they are so annoying together ksksk)

[dwellordream]

“Young women have always been for sale. In the fifth century bc, Herodotus describes the practice of selling Babylonian daughters at a yearly auction in his Histories. He wrote:

They used to collect all the young women who were old enough to be married and take the whole lot of them all at once to a certain place. A crowd of men would form a circle around them there. An auctioneer would get each of the women to stand up one by one, and he would put her up for sale. He used to start with the most attractive girl there, and then, once she had fetched a good price and been bought, he would go on to auction the next most attractive one. They were being sold to be wives, not slaves. All the well-off Babylonian men who wanted wives would outbid one another to buy the good-looking young women, while the commoners who wanted wives and were not interested in good looks used to end up with some money as well as the less attractive women.

The Babylonian men paid a bride price, but some of their money would come back to them because the young women were given dowries, which their husbands would administer even if they could not raid it. This exchange seems odd but was not so unusual in the classical world, where women served to cement together two male-controlled families. If a married daughter died without children, her money would go back to her family, which removed any incentive to harm her.

At the time, virginity was not always necessary to a girl’s successful marriage—the Lydians prostituted their daughters to raise money for their dowries. Because of the dangers of childbirth and high rate of early mortality in ancient Greece, it was common for wealthy relatives to provide not just their daughters but also their poor relations with dowries. Athenian law even required that the State dower poor women of just passable attractiveness; teeth were all that were required. Because Athens was under constant threat from its rivals, it depended on its young women to provide it with a constant stream of new soldiers.

Classical literature is filled with accounts of creative daughter disposal. In some memorable verses of The Odyssey, the father of Penelope, Odysseus’ wife, then thought to be a widow, urges her to marry the suitor with the most gifts. Greek fathers took care not to raise more daughters than they could dower. Outright infanticide was abhorrent to ancient Greeks, but they did practice “exposure,” wherein parents intentionally left unwanted infants exposed to the elements. They believed that the gods could choose to save the abandoned children, thereby eliminating their agency while achieving their aims. Husbands were not permitted to run through their wives’ dowries but neither could the wife.

A Greek woman’s dowry yielded about 18 percent per year, and if the couple got divorced, either party could request the dowry. It was returned to a woman’s guardian or, in certain cases, kept by the husband, who paid 18 percent interest to his former wife’s guardian for her support. The wealthier the family, the more likely it was that a marriage would take place between two young first cousins. Such marriages keep money in one family and tended to correlate with periods of cultural instability, when power was held by a few important families. Cousin marriage was particularly popular among the higher echelons in Elizabethan England, the Antebellum South, and in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain.

Greek girls who died in childhood were mourned specifically because they did not fulfill their destiny as wives and mothers. Their epitaphs make reference to their failure to marry, and the girls were quickly writ into myth. Like Persephone before them, they were considered married to Hades and dwelled, as wraiths, in the underworld.

In the Roman period, women did not fare better. Catullus sums up the Roman attitude toward marriage, writing, “If, when [a young woman] is ripe for marriage, she enters into wedlock, she is ever dearer to her husband and less hateful to her parents.”

The middle class continued to sell their daughters at regional markets throughout most European countries during the Middle Ages. For the upper middle classes, the social stasis of the period made marrying an heiress one of the only means to improve one’s social status, and it was nearly impossible to do without deception. The middle classes began to consult marriage brokers—a growing cottage industry in Europe—who would help them plot their rise, reconstruct their family histories, then help them relocate in order to achieve success in another part of the country. If a woman did marry up, she would find that she had much less control over both her body and her daily life—where she walked and even what she ate—than she had in a middle-class environment. In the upper classes, the legitimacy of heirs continued to be of primary importance, and as such women’s movements were intensely regulated.

Women were progressively more visible during the Renaissance. Increased trade created a new culture of conspicuous consumption, propped up by merchants and explorers who transported new goods through Genoa and Venice, Zanzibar and Constantinople, outward to European capitals and the known world. Newly available luxury goods made life easier and more enjoyable—tobacco, tea, coffee, silks, and spices facilitated a culture of male comfort in which wives and daughters played an important though entirely passive role. In ancient Greece and Rome women were kept mostly in the home, but during the Renaissance men put their velvet-swaddled wives and daughters on display, trotting them out in public, where they would often sit separately, saying little if anything but fulfilling a necessary decorative function. A woman’s beauty, or wealth, was most of all a statement about the social status of her presiding male, be he husband, father, or brother.

For much of the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, sumptuary laws on food and goods defined and limited social space. By legislating who could obtain specific fabrics, foods, drink, and other luxuries, governments prevented servants and the middle classes from masquerading as aristocrats by denying them access to the materials necessary to appear richer than they were. Pre-Reformation Europeans were just beginning to let go of feudal social organization.

Though more people now lived in cities, family patriarchs had long made decisions for their large clans and were not interested in giving up a privilege that had served them so well. Daughters were married to create important and lasting connections between families. Those who could not be married off in a way that would benefit the clan were often forced into nunneries. For a noble family, sending a daughter to a convent or forcing her into spinsterhood was far preferable to tainting a family line by permitting her to marry beneath her station.

This system of dispensing with daughters worked peaceably for hundreds of years, until Henry VIII came to need a son and heir. When his attempts to have his first marriage, which had produced no sons, annulled by the pope failed, Henry charged ecclesiastical and secular legal scholars in England with finding a way to divorce his consort Catherine and marry his pregnant mistress Anne Boleyn. Their solution was divorce and breaking away from the Catholic Church. Henry began the violent dissolution of Catholic monasteries in 1536. It lasted for four years, during which the crown plundered church lands, sold them off to rich allies, and used the surplus cash to wage dubious wars in France. For wealthy young women, newly Anglican, there was an additional change, perhaps the single most significant social change women would see until suffrage. Their safe haven—the convent—was now gone.

The absence of nunneries sent numerous marriageable aristocratic young women into circulation. When once they would have been in the country, awaiting the marriages arranged for them, or preparing to enter a convent, these young girls were now brought to court, which is where they were most likely to find husbands. By the time Henry’s daughter Elizabeth I began her reign in 1558, the atmosphere surrounding marriage had a new urgency.

Elizabeth’s rule began in religious chaos after her predecessor, her half sister Mary, violently restored Roman Catholicism to England. Elizabeth spent the better part of her first years on the throne fighting for her father’s Protestantism in an effort to fend off those who wished to depose her. Her legitimacy was questioned with every decision she made, and she understood that her courtiers were her key to maintaining the throne. She tightened her control over the aristocracy by reducing its size to a new low. She stripped disloyal aristocrats of their titles or made it known they were not welcome at court.

It was against this tumultuous backdrop that Elizabeth, in an effort to form beneficial social and political alliances, began having young ladies ceremonially presented to her at court. These presentations were small affairs and limited to the daughters of Elizabeth’s most important courtiers. They took place in the queen’s “withdrawing room,” a private room, but located next to larger public rooms, where she could go with a smaller party. The girls were led from a public stateroom into the smaller adjoining room at Hampton Court palace, so that other courtiers would know who was being favored.

At the more private ceremony of presentation, the young girls curtsied to the queen. The young girls had a vivid experience of being watched and assessed, enhanced by the fact that of the roughly 1,500 people in regular attendance at court, only fifty were women. These presentations came to be referred to as “drawing rooms,” and they engendered a curious experience that blended ostentatious display with the familial and private, a mix that would continue to characterize the debutante ritual for its duration

Many of the presented young women served her as attendants and became intermediaries between Elizabeth and the wider circle of her court. They helped Elizabeth to exert control over the nobility by creating an elegant buffer between the monarch and her courtiers. In order to present a petition to the queen, one first gave it to a lady-in-waiting, along with a fee that the lady in question would determine based on her closeness with the queen. Elizabeth encouraged her ladies to charge exorbitantly for this service—not so much because they’d have some independence, but so they would have enough money to be able to gamble with her.

She also regularly rejected petitions based on their lack of generosity toward her ladies. The queen could also be capricious—Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting could not marry of their own volition. Elizabeth Vernon spent a week in prison (with her new husband the Earl of Southampton) for marrying without the queen’s permission. Lettice Knollys was banished permanently for marrying Elizabeth’s favorite courtier, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. When Elizabeth discovered that another lady-in-waiting, Mary Shelton, was secretly married, she attacked her and broke her finger.

Elizabeth’s social standards and rituals persisted after her death, with queens taking over control of drawing rooms and social presentations even when there was a king on the throne. Elizabethan presentations-at-court served a very clear political purpose. Though they bore little resemblance to the feverish social theater that characterized the fully developed debutante ritual of the nineteenth century, these court presentations provided the foundation for modern debutante culture and served, too, as its myth of origin.

They show the important link between society and politics, a symbiotic relationship that only deepened as the ritual became institutionalized and spread outward to all corners of the British Empire. Elizabeth’s backroom maneuvers—quick conferences with her ladies or political advisers—provided the precedent for the many political meetings that took place at debutante parties in later centuries, and emphasized the soft power of social settings, which were controlled by women who understood that the way to power was not always hard work or even fortunate birth, but judicious conversation next to a sloshing punch bowl or quivering trifle.

The Stuart monarchs who followed Elizabeth continued the tradition of the drawing room (“with” was dropped from “withdrawing room” in the late seventeenth century), which retained its function as a matchmaking tool. Elizabeth’s successor, James I, arranged the marriage of his favorite courtier, the charming spendthrift James Hay, to Honoria Denny by granting Honoria’s reluctant father a title and royal patent. While these high-level marriages took strategy, marriage law remained chaotic. There was no legislation that defined marriage, and there were no protections for women after they were married. Rather, the absence of law meant that women might be forced into marriage by their fathers, married by capture, or tricked into marriage.

The age of consent to marriage was twelve for women and fourteen for men, and contracts were often made during the “unripe years.” It was a particularly dangerous time to be an heiress. During these years women could inherit property. Inheritance law was not clear on whether her property would become her husband’s upon marriage. Without knowing if they could control their property, many women resisted marriage.

Restrictive regulations for daughters intensified after they were wives, especially if they were considered to have broken proper codes of behavior. If a wife were to be convicted of adultery, she would lose her dowry or marriage portion and her husband could make a good case that she could punitively lose her property as well. There was no comparable financial forfeiture for adulterous men, and courts habitually disbelieved women who tried to defend themselves against claims of adultery. It is not difficult to explain widespread female acquiescence.”

- Kristen Richardson, “Marriage (Market Price).”

[abybweisse]

How old are these children/teens in the Koro-verse? Our Ciel, BD Real Ciel, Lizzy, Finny, Edward, Soma, Snake, Sieglinde, BD Doll(Freckles?) In the modern world they would be considered to be children or teens, Would they be considered to be teens or young adult in the British Victorian Era?

The "kid" ages

Real Ciel and our earl: about to turn 14

Lizzy: getting close to 15

Finny: about 16 during most of this, so probably close to 17 now

Edward: he's a prefect now, I think, so he's probably about 17/18

Soma: also about 17/18

Snake: I'm guessing about 17/18

Sieglinde: the youngest in the list, only about 12/13 now

Doll: 16 during the circus arc. Joker talks about Doll's tooth coming loose when she was 6, in a side chapter, and it was a flashback to ten years before.

Weston accepts students aged 13-18, though some might turn 19 before they graduate, due to when their birthday falls during the year.

In the UK, 17 is generally considered a young adult with most (if not all) adult legal rights. Rachel was married off to Vincent when she was 18, and he was about 24. Of course, it's a bit different for the girls, as they were essentially seen as property, passed from the father's household to her new husband's house. She moved out with whatever dowry and other personal belongings she had. Marriages could be finalized even sooner, since parents often arranged them, but they typically waited until both bride and groom were at least 17 before the actual wedding took place. Unless there was a "need" to marry them sooner, like a shotgun wedding....

More info than you were really asking for, but there ya go.

I'm honestly not an expert on legal ages and marriage in Victorian England, so I'd suggest googling for info on that, if you want to know more details. But I think I got the basics more right than wrong. 😆

[sparklecryptid]

*accidentally unfollows* ugh why is the follow/unfollow button right next to the ask button? *immediately follows again* ffs

ANYWAY

Anordil with more gold in her hair and around her neck and wrists and fingers and ANKLES than she EVER even saw in person in her first life let alone touched.

This is fine. This is FINE! She is not feeling ALL the imposter syndrome or anything! She is definitely NOT thinking of how one of the bright gold and bejeweled filigree tubes in her hair could've paid for half a year of collage probably, NOT AT ALL. (Even as long as she's been Anordil, I imagine that sort of thing just HITS her sometimes, given the weird way elven memory works.)

Everyone mentally notes apprehension about lots of shiny things and maybe they chalk it up to living as a wandering wild elf for so long, and among mortals where that much jewelry would be an invitation to get robbed.

Anordil: *wearing enough jewels to buy a 600k house*

Anordil: *suddenly hit with that fact*

Anordil: holy shit. This is more money than I’ve ever had. I could have paid off my student loans with this bracelet alone. The gold in my hair could buy me a nice house in a nice area. The combined value of all this gold and these high quality gems could just buy it outright and pay off my student loans. Fuck.

Anordil has experienced an error! She cannot believe that she’s wearing these things! Fuck. Give her a moment. Hey Elrond what’s with that face. Elrond. Elrond what do you MEAN that box holds the few Fëanor made jewelry items Maglor held onto because he remembered me. ELROND PUT THOSE AWAY DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW EXPENSIVE THOSE MUST BE!

[adarkrainbow]

Since you've explained the differences between the verse and prose versions of "Donkeyskin," I was wondering how Perrault's original verse version handles the issue of the king being "cured of his madness" and the princess forgiving him in the end. Based on the prose version, at least, it seems slightly astounding that father and daughter can so easily reconcile after his attempted incest. But knowing Perrault, I'll bet we can read an element of satire into it. At the very least, reconciling with her father has practical benefits for the princess – it confirms her royal heritage, so no one can object to her marriage to the prince, and it presumably gives her a dowry.

A most fascinating question!

Now, I have to say I haven't done the most thorough research when it comes to Donkeyskin (I can eventually go check some French scholar articles if you want), so I might very easily miss something.

In the prose version it is the prince's parents that insist for Donkeyskin's father to come, so that he can agree to the wedding (again because of this ancient rule according to which a daughter couldn't be wed without her father's consent) [Another interesting detail: in the prose version the Lilac fairy appears within the prince's palace BEFORE the parents insist for summoning Donkeyskin's father. Interesting when compared to the verse version, you'll see.] As a brief recap of the situation: the king is first invited, even though by an order of the Lilac fairy the invitation does not mention the identity of the bride. In the prose version the king arrives, and it is said he "forgot" his own disordered love and just married a "beautiful widow queen". And this is the prose version's solution for the "cure" of the king's madness: because remember, in the prose version, while he did felt a desire for his daughter, he was "excused"/"justified" by a pressure and manipulations from the political and religious power... As such the solution is easy: find a queen who is indeed more beautiful than the daughter, so as to "reorient" the desire towards another woman.

[The fact the prose version mentions that the king married in-between, thus "smothering" his incestuous desire, explains the basis of the final twist of Demy's movie, where the character of the Lilac fairy and the "beautiful widow queen" become one and the same, and thus her actions to protect her god-daughter become doubled by her own desire to seduce the king and become his wife.]

Anyway, let's check Perrault's original prose... In this version the whole "We MUST invite your father" is not present. After the wedding is decided, we are simply given a majestic demonstration of all the kings from all the four corners of the world being invited - Donkeyskin's father almost comes by accident, simply because the prince's father invited all of his neighbor-rulers. And unlike in the prose version... He never remarried. We still have a single king here. The fact the king never remarried brings an element of danger here - even if we admit he "killed" his incestuous desire, it means he still doesn't have an heir, except the prince of another kingdom, which means his crown will go to his family-in-law... And else, it also means he is still "available" and that the danger is not fully done. All in all this is one of the reasons the prose version decided to add a "widow queen" to the story, to avoid the worrying possibilities Perrault left open.

Now, about the actual topic of the incestuous love, Perrault writes that the king did get rid of it... Well almost. Not quite. Again with Perrault nothing is as easy as it seems. On a first glance it SEEMS it is done with because he writes "The father of the bride / Who had once been of her in love / But had time to purify the fires / That had burned his soul / He had banished from it all criminal desire / And of this odious flame / The few that remained in his soul / Only made stronger his paternal love". A casual first-time reading seems to go: The guy had time to wait, without his daughter in sight. He fought against his own incestuous desires, he purified his soul, and he rather focused onto his fatherly love in a healthy way. Aka, the incestuous desire was converted by the guy's willpower into a healthy fatherly love. Okay... But if we read closer, we see that there is still a possibility of danger because Perrault choses the metaphor of the father's "fatherly love" being fueled by "the few that remained of this odious flame". Aka yes, her father smothered the incestuous desire and converted it in a regular fatherhood... But he still has a tiny bit of the perverse desire within her. AND overall it just shows a full cycle. Already before it was his fatherly love that turned into an incestuous desire. Now the incestuous desire it reconverted into a fatherly love. But we see that within this guy's soul, the two are intrincately linked, and they are just two facets of a same coin: so there is still the danger of it returning... Especially since he doesn't have a new wife like in the prose version.

And this danger seems highlighted by another interesting change: the fairy godmother only appears AFTER the father and the daughter were reunited to tell the entire story. Or rather she arrives at the exact moment the two reunite... Which leads to quite interesting implications. In the prose version we can imagine this being sort of a private revelation that only the prince and his family know about ; but here, the fairy godmother makes the tale basically right in front of everybody on the wedding day... The poem only mentions the fact that the fairy godmother, by telling the story of Donkeyskin, "completes Donkeyskin's glory" (which is a meta-textual pun, as in story she makes the girl admirable by telling all that she suffered, but in a meta-textual level she is the storyteller who is telling the Donkeyskin fairytale and thus making it a "famous" story.) But when you consider how the things are organized, the fairy godmother (who always worked to prevent the incest to happen, even if she kind of failed pretty hard at her job) literaly pops up as the king and daughter "embrace" each other (in their arms) to start telling the story "Oh yeah, and do you all recall when your old man tried to marry you?". She is almost embarrassing in public the king, she is warning directly the parents-in-law of Donkeyskin about her father, and also seems to remind the girl to not so easily forget what she had to go through...

Mind you, I am definitively reading way too much into this. I am not saying this did not exist - no, these underlying texts did exist certainly, because again those tales were meant to be read, and re-read and re-re-read, and since they were really short each sentence was carefully crafted. But what I am saying is that these underlying texts were never meant to be the final end or the obvious message of the story. They are meant to be little asides and disquieting implications you notice afterward. But the main message is that Donkeyskin is now safe - because she is married. I haven't really stressed that, but in the worldbuilding and aesthetic and mindset of this tale, we are speaking of an incestuous MARRIAGE. I think it is important to insist because we are not in a Basile tale where sexuality exists as a thing in its own right... We are in a galant, courtly, noble poetry here - we speak of weddings as the very symbols of love and sex. The incestuous king isn't like a real-life incestuous father: the king was seeking his daughter as a bride for a wedding, and can't "touch" her or harm her in any way if she doesn't agree to be his bride. I think it is a fact we tend to forget due to how real this subject is and his grave it is in the real-world... But it is a fairytale world, a literary 17th century fairytale world, and so here we have almost Barbie dolls-like characters that don't have much of a sexuality, and where all sex is replaced by marriages. (In "folk" fairytales sexuality does exist since we are in an uncensored storytelling, but in the "salons" and classical 17th century fairytales, all sex was reduced to double-entendres or innuendos, if not completely removed - we are in a Disney logic where it is the wedding that makes the children.)

As such, Donkeyskin is meant to be "safe" from her father when he arrives because he might still be alone... but she is married. To the prince. She is "taken" and thus the king can't marry her as he intended - and since he can't marry her due to a union already existing, his lust can't touch her, even if it still exists, because again the old king lusts for a "bride" not just a random woman. If he can't marry her, he is not interested in her - at least not in a romantic/sexual way - and as such, it explains why the old king's incestuous love can turn/be converted into a fatherly love. He doesn't see her as a potential bride anymore, only as her daughter he must act as the father of during her wedding to another. (It is truly an oversimplified, censored Disney-logic, and yet when you think about it with modern eyes it becomes a twisted psychanalytic Oedipian mess equalling how deeply psychofucked-up Snow-White tends to get in modern media when it comes to familial relationships)

So long story short - yes Perrault slides cynical jokes and a touch of darkness. Not by saying Donkeyskin is still in danger of being raped by her father, no, her finding her prince (and her working hard to make sure the prince would marry her) means she saved herself from her father's incest by becoming someone else's wife and preventing any wedding. (In fact there is something to say about how the fairy godmother fails at protecting the princess from the incest by suggesting extravagant gifts and repulsive disguises ; while the princess herself finds the only actual way to truly save her, by winning the heart of another prince and marrying him) And again, we are not working within the real-life workings of incest, we are here in a fantasized, simplified, childish "fairytale" working of incest where it all relies on a wedding and outside of a marriage ceremony nothing can happen. But the cynicism and satire of Perrault here lies in the fact that he still points out how the king basically only "returned" to being a good father because he was frustrated in his incestuous desire. The dark joke is that Perrault points out how basically any father who is too loving can become an incestuous predator if they don't control their own passions, and how in those men dominated by their own desires, fatherly love and incestuous love are just two sides of the same coin. Hence the dark irony of the king using "what little remains" of his "incestuous flame" to "rekindle the fire" of his healthy fatherly love...

Perrault was part of the Jansenite world of religious thinking. There's a lot of studies about Jansenite messages throughout his fairytales, but one of the recurring trends in it is how he depicts a world where humans turn into monsters because they are dominated by their emotions and desires to a point of destruction of all norms. This is why we have the predatory figures of the Wolf or of the Ogre(ss), and the vile figures of the wicked mother in "Diamonds and Toads" and wicked stepmother in "Cinderella". It is the whole point of showing what happens when men let their lust and gluttony turn them into beasts, and when women become abusers and self-destroyers when they allow pride and greed to dictate their behavior... But I digress.

A final point I could make about the verse Donkeyskin and how there's an implicaton of the king still being the hypocrite that he is... When the king sees her again he shouts great cries of emotions "Blessed be the Heavens who allow me to see you again, my dear child!", and he has this very obvious gestures of affection - he runs to take her in his arms, and he "cries with joy". This is of course meant to be placed in parallel with the beginning of the tale where the king is also depicted as having great cries of emotions and lots of tears and gestures of pain, in front of his wife's deadly sickness. Except in the beginning the narrator explicitely points out that when a man is grieving so hard and so intensely, it is usually because he wants to be rid of the chore as soon as possible and make all the needed rituals as fast as can be, to move on to something else... Which is proven when he also immediately wants to marry again once his wife is dead and buried. So here, Perrault implies a sort of same "fakeness" of the emotions by having the king be so expressive and dramatical in his reunion with his daughter... The same way he promised to his dying wife with teary eyes he would never be able to love again....

[quranindex]

Discover Quran Verses about #Dowry @ https://quranindex.info/search/dowry [5:5] #Quran #Islam

[thgfanfictionlibrary]

Mature Rated Fics Masterlist (40)

Part 1- Part 34 / Part 35 / Part 36 / Part 37 / Part 38 / Part 39 / 

Created: March 14th, 2024

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The Audition-burkygirl (ao3)  Summary: The choices we make and the chances we take define our future. For Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, it all begins with the audition. The Boy and the Mutt-atetheredmind (ao3)  Summary: When Katniss finds it increasingly impossible to perform as the Mockingjay during the rebellion, the unscrupulous Coin takes drastic measures to bring Peeta back to her. But Katniss soon learns there's something not quite right with this Peeta. The Dark Arrow-Alliswell (ao3)  Summary: Inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1888, Historical Romance: The Black Arrow. Peeta Mellark, orphaned and heir to his family’s estate, land and fortune, befriends and aids strange run-away, John Cattermole. In their adventures Peeta discovers his Guardian, Lord Thread, has pilfered all his wealth and has a sinister scheme to kidnap Miss Katniss Everdeen and force her to marry him to gain access to her inheritance through her marriage to Peeta. With the help of the Dark Daggers Order, Peeta intends on stopping Thread from achieving his nefarious goals and save the newly found love of his life… unless she saves him first. The Escort-HGfanonezillion (ao3)  Summary: "This was such a stupid idea. What was I even thinking? It's not like I'm a freak. I've just never had a sexual encounter with anyone but myself. I should never have said anything to Johanna about it because she knows just which buttons to push to goad me into a bad choice." The Five Stages-annieoakley1 (ao3)  Summary: “Katniss, I’m Peeta. Peeta Mellark. Uh, David’s son. There’s been an accident. You need to come home.” Katniss receives a phone call that will change her life forever. Modern day AU. Written for Prompts in Panem's Round 3, Day 2 challenge. Visual Prompt: The Death of the Virgin The Heir to Panem-DustWriter (ff.net)  Summary: Katniss alone wins the 74th Hunger Games to return to her family and home in District Twelve. But the admiration of a dangerous suitor changes her life and plans forever.  The King and the Huntress-Chele20035 (ao3)  Summary: Two lonely souls have a chance meeting in the forest, unknowing that it will change their lives forever. The Maiden and the Scoundrel-appleblossomgirl (ao3) S ummary: Written for the Everlark Fic Exchange on Tumblr for this prompt: "Prompt #63 Historical AU: Katniss has been engaged to Peeta’s older brother since they were children, but upon meeting a Capitolite, the groom-to-be breaks the engagement, leaving Katniss devastated and feeling rejected. To avoid more scandal and losing K’s dowry, the Mellark’s hurry to offer a new betrothal to their youngest son. Neither P or K are very happy about the new arrangement, P is a known womanizer and K is too puritanical. They gradually fall in love… make it as smutty as you like :)  The Match and the Rock-HGfanonezillion (ao3)  Summary: Katniss and Peeta are doing well co-parenting while separated, but some big changes are coming and being apart may not be so easy anymore. the next morning-angylinni (ao3)  Summary: Katniss wakes up to discover that she really is living the dream. Set in the Finding Home verse

[imhereonthekitchenfloor]

Rating Taylor Swift songs based on how they would be perceived by medieval peasants*: Fearless

*context: I'm imagining showing medieval peasants how awesome the future is by playing them the greatest music of our day and age (Taylor obviously). I am also trying to have them not go insane nor have me be accused of witchcraft.

Debut rating

👑🤺🛡⚔️👑🤺🛡⚔️👑

Fearless: pavement, parking lot, car?? After the confusing first verse this song becomes a really sweet tale about riding in a wagon or cart and ruining your nice dress for the oen you love. Considering most women only own one nice dress and one day dress, this is a beautiful sentiment🥹 8/10

Fifteen: the setting of this song is very confusing. It seems (?) Like this may be about the upper class going to school. A senior boy means a lord. A freshmen is a novice. Fifteen is a good age for marriage, but how is this not arranged? 3/10

Love Story: this is so romantic 😍 this is the most beautiful love story ever heard!! They were going to run away because they didn't have parental consent. Regardless of being peasants, they were each other's prince and princess. 10/10!!!

Hey Stephen: hasn't every medieval girl fallen in love with that boy that every other girl is offering their dowry to? Very relatable but nothing too special. 7/10

White Horse: fun fact! White horses have always been a fairytale symbol throughout ancient history so this symbol would translate well to medieval times. The idea of not being a princess or someone chasing after your hand with promise of a horse are also relatable medieval imagery. 8/10 due to some confusing and modern dialect.

You Belong With Me: 😳 what is happening? There's something here about unrequited love but the details are all lost. 2/10

Breathe: medieval friendships were usually a contractual agreement and the few positive and real friendships were reserved for men as masculinity was seen as a holy state and and only masculine beings could have real friends. This song is likely about 2 men having a falling out. Not super relatable but it mostly makes sense. 4/10

Tell Me Why: is this about a physical fight? Are knights facing off? Is this about lovers?? I'm a little lost on context. 5/10 just because everything but bullets and shots makes sense

You're Not Sorry: what happened here 😳 someone MESSED UP. Who knows what a phone is but this song hit deep. 9/10

The Way I Loved You: passion vs sensibility. A secret lover vs someone who is committed. Marriage is very rarely romantic, so this song feels very relatable. 8/10 because the acting insane is a bit questionable. Why are you risking being accused of witchcraft?

Forever & Always: this sounds like a devastating divorce. Perhaps there was an agreement with another women? That is one of several grounds for divorce and it would track with the anger in this song. Unfortunate. 3/10

The Best Day: pumpkins? Tractor? Car? Video? There's too many anachronisms to listen with ease but some lyrics still can hit. 5/10

Change: Are the serfs revolting??? Good for them! This song is so hopeful! 10/10 even though it's unrealistic.

Jump Then Fall: "jump then fall into me" in itself is a weird phrase but cute enough song about blossoming love. 6/10

Untouchable: a song of yearning AND the singer dreams of being literate. Relatable dreams. 7/10.

Come In With The Rain: (tbh, my twilight analysis of this song made this one really difficult) this is likely about another serf living on the masters property and it sounds scandalous. Clandestine affairs are not aligned with the medieval Christian values. 3/10

Superstar: Is this about a traveling performer or nobility visiting the town? Another song about being into the guy every girl will offer her dowry to, this time with more anachronisms. 4/10

The Other Side of the Door: Nothing is more exciting than passion in romance! It's so rare in the world of arranged marriage. I can't help but wonder if these two are in different social classes and thus the secrecy of throwing pebbles🤭 juicy! 6/10 for all the talks about phones and photographs

Today was a Fairytale: fairy tail? 👀 fairy as in the french word for fae as in A MAGICAL BEING??? "Time slowed down whenever you're around" ‼️ the ability to control the flow of time? "Can you feel this magic in the air. It must have been the way you kissed me" 🔪 THAT'S IT. LET'S GET EM BOYS. 0/10 (you have been burned at the stake for witchcraft)

You All Over Me: Did you say God? Medieval songs LOVE talking about God!! This song seems to be asking for penance. Some of the song is a little confusing but good job being devout! 9/10

Mr. Perfectly Fine: mister as in master, right? Is this song about a master (craftsman) leaving his betrothed? The grammar here is pretty confusing so 2/10

We Were Happy: HE WAS OFFERING LAND AND YOU HAD TO LEAVE HIM? You didn't have choices? Who had a larger dowry and best you to him? 😭 9/10

That's When: oh medieval songs love repetitive choruses and the words "that's when" really delivered! 9/10 because this would raise 0 red flags but also barely makes sense in modern English let alone medieval

Don't You: this album is full of unrequited love. I can imagine walking into the market place and seeing the peasant from two properties over with the woman he ended up choosing. Then he DARES to ask how you are? I don't like it. This is too much. 3/10

Bye Bye Baby: this is DEFINITELY a divorce song. I mean... a traditional couple meets at their wedding and these two used to share a bed so.... The sadness of the singer leads me to question the cause of divorce. Did he commit a crime? Were they spiritually related? Did he have relations with another woman? I have more questions than answers. 2/10

[koenji]

Ketubah (Jewish marriage contract), Corfu, Greece, Monday, 14th of Nisan 5537 (Apr. 21, 1777).

Witnesses: Shemuʼel Mili, Ḥayyim Cohen Ben Yosef.

Bride: Rivḳah Aboab Bat Yehudah Ḥayyim.

Groom: Yehudah Aboab Ben Yosef.

Manuscript written on parchment in Sephardic square script. An arch frames the text. It is surrounded by abundant vegetal tendrils and animals that are swathed between small inserts of the twelve signs of the zodiac, King David playing the lyre, Moses holding the Torah, Jacob's dream, the Binding of Isaac, and Adam and Eve.

It includes biblical verses Gen. 27:28; Is. 62:5; Prov18:22, and Ruth 4:11 and "tena'im," or "conditions," detailing the couple's union in friendship, trust and faith.

It is beautifully illustrated with many colors: blue, yellow, green and red. It lists the dowry given by the bride's parents to the groom and the groom's gifts to the bride, includes numerous details about the jewelry, and the colors and materials of the clothing. The name of the jewelry and clothing are written in Roman and Hebrew characters.

In addition it mentions that there is a copy of the ketubah in the archive of the synagogue.

x

[tadpoledyke]

For those of you who asked, here's the first of my lesbian knight fantasy short stories and I hope to write more.

Lady Deleilun, eldest daughter to King Meuric of Guineda. Rumours surrounded her as thick and tangled as the black locks that cascaded and bounced around her face.That her real father was a fairy king, a Kelpie, or some other terrifying otherworldly being. That she came from the peat bogs, birthed by the mud itself, and if one looked her directly in her deep brown eyes, they would sink into the ground where they stood, slowly engulfed by the warm earth. When a baby with skin like spiced mead is born to alabaster parents, people start talking.

She was never to be a reagent though. Seven years after Deleilun, when her hair was just beginning to grey, Queen Eira birthed twin boys, fair of skin and hair. Siors and Steffan would then grow up to fight. First for their father's affections, then the throne of Guineda.

This had left the young princess to spend her formative years in solitude. While the royal household slept, she would steal manuscripts to read by candlelight, curled up at her windowsill. On warmer nights, if she felt she could get away with it, she would ride into the woods on horseback with a dagger strapped to her thigh.

A lady of her calibre usually had plans of betrothment in the making the minute they procured their first blood. Often, even before that. Gangly, underdeveloped girls wedded to equally immature and awkward boys all for purse and politics. But the rumours around Deleilun kept suitors at bay. Every monarch for miles knew that no dowry was worth angering the faefolk.

That was until swordsmen on their patrols started to see an embodiment of Áine herself instead of an unrefined youth. The twigs in her hair were now more endearing than unkempt, and the whisperings of her beauty, political knowledge and charming manner were starting to outweigh any fear of fae curse. By the time Deleilun turned twenty, the proposals were coming in thick and fast.

Among the nobles from across the lands that tried, there was nobody who could spark even a flicker of interest in her eyes. With most noble ladies her age already married and bearing children, her parents were apprenhensive.

A windy autumn eve, three days to Mabon. The wine, simmered with honey and fruit of the season just as the princess liked, was flowing like water. Lords and princes from as far south as Brittany had displayed their skills with swords, bows and quills: reciting poetry in praise of their lands, themselves and the lady of their affections.

Then came the turn of Prince Cain, heir to the throne of the neighbouring kingdom. Twig-armed and squeaky-voiced, it seemed a miracle that he could even pick up a sword. With a smug smile, he began his verse.

Honor’d thy womb would be

to hold and bear mine fiery seed

Not a second did pass before Deleilun’s jewelled goblet clattered to the floor.

You wretched men with eyes like wolves!

With bile for blood!

Wine soaked into the hem of her dress, staining the soft white wool red as she strode across the court.

Where I see maiden you see meat!

You want not wives nor mothers!

Accursed is the woman who shares your bed!

Accursed is the daughter she shall then bear!

Cain reached for his sword but a steely gaze from one of his knights stayed his hand.

If you so think my womb be a coffer,

So help me God,

I shall see that it will never be filled.

this maiden betrothes herself

To the rich, wet soils

The wrinkled trees

The blossoming flowers, the babbling brooks,

sweetest of fruit that Guineda bears,

And the providence from which they come!

And thus, she shall never lay with a man!

I declare with all thee and God as my witness!

I will never lay with a man!

Meredydd inhaled sharply, trying their best to maintain a knight’s stoic expression. There was more poetry in the fair maiden’s outburst than there was in any of the verses the nobles had recited that night. And what a maiden she was too. A hallowed sight. Earth brown skin glowing with passion, fire behind her eyes and a single tear rolling down her plump rosy cheek.

This was the same girl who had regularly awoken them in the dead of night to steal candied ginger and almonds from the castle confectionery. These were more than simple midnight treats, though. They were currency to bribe the stable-hands with, should they be spotted trying to sneak her horse out.

Her face would flicker in the weak lamplight and Merydydd’s arms would ache. Sore from training, those arms would still labor. Hoisting the princess onto her horse, picking her up when she would Tumble into the creek. Over years of this midnight ritual, she had learnt to control her horse with just her legs, the way knights did to keep their hands free for weapons.

How long before I can hunt pigeons with you and the other squires then, Didkins?

We don’t hunt pigeons, your highness. You need a falcon for that and even father doesn’t have one.We shoot deer on horseback, sometimes boar and pheasant. All things you will be able to do when you stop snapping your bowstring at my arm.

Keep calling me that and I’ll keep doing it, Didkins!

She laughed and snapped her bowstring once more. And by God and all his divine creation, Merydydd could never forget that laugh.

A gentle tap on their shoulder brought the esquire back to reality. Most of the guests and the royal family had left the great hall. The torches were starting to dim, and nobody was bothering to top up their grease.

Merydydd. I am assigning you to Lady Deleilun’s quarters tonight. Inside. I know it is not customary but the King insists. After tonight…

The older knight trailed off, trying to find the proper words to describe the unspeakable

Yes, Sir. His Majesty is right to worry. Nothing men want more than a woman they can’t have.

Sir Ivor placed a heavy hand on Merydydd’s shoulder.

No blunders tonight, son. If the Lady is hurt her father will have my head.

Yes, Father.

It was just past midnight when Merydydd gently opened the heavy oak door to Lady Deleilun’s room. The first thing they sensed was the warmth from the fire, which bathed the whole room in a flickering orange light. A cool autumn breeze whistled through the gaps in the window shutters, made from beautifully carved deer antlers. Deleilun’s ladies in waiting cuddled up on a soft hay mattress on the floor, while the princess herself was fast asleep in her elaborate bed, lost within the pile of pillows, blankets and a soft bearskin for warmth. Her beloved tomcat Llew paced around the bed, yellow eyes alert to any vermin that may emerge from the walls.

The young soldier propped themselves up on the window ledge and gazed out over the castle grounds, determined not to fall asleep.

It was difficult. The fire was warm. The gentle rhythmic snores of all three ladies was comforting. Merydydd took to pinching themselves every minute or so to keep awake.

A sudden rustle and the sound of tiptoed footsteps made them start and jump from their post. They spun around, ready to draw their sword.

I thought sleep would have taken you by now, soldier.

Merydydd could not decide where to look as the firelight flickered delicately across her bare skin. The only thing that covered her was the soft veil over her hair, from which dark, curly tendrils emerged. The rest of it was in two long braids that fell over her chest.

It was hard to think of the chivalrous thing to do in this moment.

Lady Deleilun squinted a little, and then smiled softly.

Didkins?

Merydydd’s face only got redder as she approached.

Hand me that dress before I freeze my tits off. Where’s all that knightly chivalry?

She teased as her old friend rushed to grab the woolen robe she had pointed out.

Merydydd finally spoke.

Do you need the chamber pot, my lady?

Deleilun shook her head and turned around, motioning to Merydydd to lace her dress up.

They did, trying not to think about the way their fingers felt brushing against her soft skin.

I’m restless. I need to go to the chapel.

It’s not safe, your highness! There’s a reason I’m here.

Come with me then. You’re armed aren’t you?

Merydydd placed a hand on the hilt of their sword and nodded. Deleilun smiled and grabbed her Didkin’s hand before they could object. The pair crept from her room, tiptoeing down the stone steps and across a small stretch or garden to the chapel.

Deleilun knelt before the altar and quickly made a sign of the cross as Merydydd tried to light one of the old, half-melted candles. The castle had a few chapels and this one was the least used. Covered in moss and ivy, it was hardly appropriate for nobility, but she liked the solitude it provided.

He finally got a flame going and sat to the side, avoiding eye contact.

Merydydd’s training for knighthood had intensified in recent years, putting a stop to their midnight adventures. Deleilun remembered all of his complaints about the weapons the squires had to train with; purposefully made to be heavier than those used in combat. They certainly did his biceps good. The presentations of proposals had given her an excuse to look at him from afar. He had grown into a fine man of honourable stoicism.

What she saw now was the Didkin she was accustomed to. Bashful, boyish charm. Hair the colour of autumn leaves, tousled by the wind that brings them. Innumerable freckles dancing in the light of burning tallow. In contrast with his muscular frame, his face was still soft. Grey-green eyes wide, with beautiful long lashes that curled upwards like new shoots.

She sighed and turned her eyes back to the wooden cross. Symbolism of the Son of Man aside, it was a calming shape. So simple. Drawing the eyes in a repetitive motion.

Do you think I’ll miss out, Didkin? On copulation, that is.

He replied without looking up from the candle flame.

I wouldn’t know, my lady.

She raised her eyebrows.

Really? Young handsome squire like yourself?

His cheeks flushed at her compliment and he turned his face upward, away from the candlelight so as to hide it. Once it subsided, he turned to meet her expectant gaze for the first time that night.

It’s not that simple, Deleilun.

He whispered. She could not help but smile slightly at his use of her first name. Just as he used to do in the days when they would play in the paddock, muddy from spring rain. Running and tripping and rolling and wrestling, alongside the other children of the noble households and the hunting hounds.

You remember picking llygad y dydd for me? Almost every day, in the seasons that they grew. The little white ones?

He nodded.

You are a good man, Didkin. You always have been.

Didkin looked at the cross, then at Deleilun, then back at the cross.

There is something I must show you, Deleilun.

He sighed, voice quivering a little as he slowly crossed himself. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. He then stood up, kicked his boots off and started pulling his trousers and leggings off as well. Once those were off he gathered the clothing covering his top half, and lifted it up over his chest as his friend looked on, alarmed.

Goodness Merydydd what-

Look, Deleilun. Please just look.

Her eyes scanned his form, every curve and crevice more pronounced in the yellow candlelight. She was about to ask, what injury warranted the swaths of bandages around his chest, when her gaze landed in between his sturdy thighs. No phallus extended from the bramble bush of pubic hair.

Put your clothes on before you catch your death, you sheep’s dick.

Merydydd nervously put their clothes back on, never taking their gaze off Deleilun. She had turned back towards the altar, lips pursed in thought.

I’m sorry, your highness… I… should not have … I can explain …

Deleilun smiled slightly and shook her head

You can’t surprise me with much, Didkins.

Father’s mother, somewhat prophetic. Before she died, told mama she would birth a girl destined to be a knight… I suppose that’s me.

Deleilun turned to face them, grabbing both his hands.

Are you a girl though, Didkins?

Merydydd bit their lip as the princess continued

When I was born, so many thought, from the way that I looked, that I could never be my father’s daughter. Some people still fear that. Even I don’t know the truth.

He sighed.

The truth is I don’t feel a woman. But I am no man either: only as much man as it takes to pick a lady’s favourite flowers.

And teach her to ride? And handle a bow?

Deleilun added, smiling as she made little circles around his knuckles with her thumbs.

She giggled as she met eyes with the squire and pulled him closer. Merydydd smiled slightly, already feeling the rumoured pull of her peat-bog eyes.