#hildegard the snake

[maculategiraffe]

me, explaining to the baby why hildegard needs a heater for her terrarium: see, humans are warm-blooded, which means we have a, kind of a mechanism inside us that helps keep our bodies and our blood warm. but hildegard is cold-blooded, which means she doesn't have that thing in her body to help her stay warm. so--

baby, fascinated: instead does she have a little teeny air conditioner inside?

[dr-dealswiththedevil]

Hello everyone. Mod Kakera here. 

As we prepare to continue the fangan, there’s going to be some story elements requiring new sprites. And there’s a lot of sprites that will be needed. So I’m reaching out to see if anyone would be interested in helping with sprite edits and creation of OC sprites. 

If you’re interested, message me over at @fragments-of-despair or drop your commission info here on this post, and I can reach out to work with you. 

Below the cut are descriptions of the OCs we’ll need help with, for those curious as to what we’re currently looking for. Feel free to ask any additional questions if you’re interested. 

Thank you!

DIVISION 1: 

Ringo Kaminagi: Former Ultimate Prosecutor, Class 76

Hair: Black

Eyes: Golden/Red

Age Range: between 18-21

Pronouns: She/Her

Birthday: October 13

Hometown/Birthplace: Hokkaido 

Talent: Prosecutor

Likes: Studying law

Dislikes: Theft

Personality: Stern yet kind, very serious about her job, gets flustered easily by friends. Can be described as a cross between Ishimaru and Kirumi in personality.

Song Associated with them: Little Miss Perfect by Taylor Louderman

Sachie Kozui: Former Ultimate Lucky Student, Class 76

Hair: Lavender

Eyes: Light Gold

Age Range: between 18-21

Pronouns: She/Her

Birthday: August 4

Hometown/Birthplace: Hokkaido

Talent: Lucky Student (ironically)

Likes: Climbing Trees, Ringo

Dislikes: Messing up, being unlucky

Personality: Sweet, playful, a bit of a clutz, gets nervous and panicked easily due to her talent having a Murphy’s Law type affect on those around her. A bit superstitious due to wanting to better her luck. 

Song Associated with them: A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton

DIVISION 2: 

Hildegard “Hilly” Pierrot, I.T. Expert/Technical Assistant

Hair: Red

Eyes: Green

Age Range: Mid 20s

Pronouns: He/She/They/Wumbo

Birthday: June 17

Hometown/Birthplace: Texas

Talent: Not Applicable

Likes: Cows, Ladies, Workouts

Dislikes: Romance, Sunburns

Personality: Applyjack from My Little Pony, but more sassy. A fun older sister type. Born and raised in the south on a farm, became I.T. expert to help with work. Determined and funny. Boisterous. 

Song Associated with them: Little Lion Man by Mumford and Sons

DIVISION 4

Alphonso Carlyle, Doctor and Therapist and former professional student

Hair: Dark purple with lavender streaks

Eyes: Dark purple

Age Range: Mid 40s

Pronouns: He/Hum (paperwork typo)

Birthday: December 31st

Hometown/Birthplace: Barcelona, Spain

Talent: Not Applicable

Likes: Studying, messing with Haruka

Dislikes: Bourbon

Personality: Calm, fun uncle energy. Knows he’s good at what he does, and knows how to ride the chaos train. Will cover for you if you sneak out after hours for teen-movie shenanigans. Very family oriented due to mother’s side of the family (large family from Spain), but also very dry humored from dad’s side (smaller family from Great Britain). Loves to nap.

Song Associated with them: Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads

DIVISION 6

Haruka Yoshida, Former Ultimate Police Officer (?), Class 75

Hair: Dark brown/reddish brown

Eyes: Blue-Grey

Age Range: Early/Mid 20s

Pronouns: He/Him

Birthday: January 27th

Hometown/Birthplace: Kyoto

Talent: Police Officer (on record)

Likes: Following Rules, Espionage, Banana Laffy Taffy

Dislikes: Shenanigans, being called by his given name

Personality: Has a lot of repressed emotions. Very proud of himself, his family, and the mission of the Future Foundation. Very loyal to causes he sees as just. Very quick to annoy. Deep down is rather sweet and kind.

Song Associated with them: Snake Eater by Cynthia Harrel

DIVISION 10

D’Andre “Rex” Sukimoto, Tech Prodigy and Resident Nerd of Culture 

Hair: Black (natural), Green (dyed)

Eyes: Brown (left), Hazel Green (Right)

Age Range: 15-18

Pronouns: He/They (experimenting)

Birthday: November 29

Hometown/Birthplace: Canada

Talent: Would have been Ultimate Play-Tester (Tragedy prevented Admission to Hope’s Peak)

Likes: Video Games, Coding, Experimenting

Dislikes: Homework, enforced bedtime

Personality: Classic little brother type. Loves getting into mischief. Very bright and very quick to learn. Sassy and savvy. Can and will prank you if given the chance. Strong sense of what is right and wrong. 

Song Associated with them: Robot Rock by Daft Punk

DIVISION 12

Haruhi Ortiz, Infrastructure Expert and OSHA Fan

Hair: Black with yellow tips (dyed)

Eyes: Black

Age Range: 16-19

Pronouns: He/She/They (genderfluid)

Birthday: June 21

Hometown/Birthplace: San Juan, Puerto Rico

Talent: Not Applicable

Likes: Architecture, Public Transit, Trees

Dislikes: Incorrect Lab Safety precautions, [REDACTED]

Personality Type: Withdrawn but calm and warm. Takes a lot to get them to open up. Not quick to anger. Hard to fluster. Hardworking. Often flies under the radar but can and will hold you hostage if you ask about how to better lay out a city. If truly angry, swears in their first language. 

Song Associated with them: Turnabout Sisters 2016 from Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice

Bonus: DIVISION 7

M.A.L.L.A.R.D. [ADDITIONAL INFORMATION SPOILERS]

Hair: None (chrome body)

Eyes: Light Bulb (changes color)

Birthday: December 21

Likes: Helping in the lab, Grapes, Chap Stick

Dislikes: Duct Tape, Glue, Bread Crumbs

Personality: Think Goddard from Jimmy Neutron, but a duck. 

[fuddieduddies-art]

🐷 💘 💛 🖤 🍝 🧐😞 🤔🍛 🎶 🩹 FOR TONY AND HILDEGARD

omg hiiii bestie. once more let's get some read more action cause this is a lot lol.

🐷 PIG FACE — what is your oc's favorite animal?

hildegard. again, certified bug liker. probably weird stuff specifically like spiders, centipedes, anything with like weird long ass legs and million eyes and pincers. tony will see a falcon and be like wooahh sick The Maltese Falcon (1941) reference.

💘 HEART WITH ARROW — what and/or who do(es) your oc consider the most important to them?

hildegard. the fact i do not have a immediate answer makes me so sad. probably some people at the circus who they still write to on their travels. it will become tristen god willing. tony. steph one million heart emojis and zivah :) and also dire, yes, but he would never say that to his face lol.

💛 YELLOW HEART — how many languages does your oc speak? what language(s) are they learning, if any?

hildegard. they speak common and elvish :] tony. english, some italian. fluent in talking shit.

🖤 BLACK HEART — has your oc killed or seriously wounded anyone before? have they broken someone's heart and/or broken someone's trust?

hildegard. somehow she hasn't lmao. definitely has caused a few accidents with their powers that have gotten people hurt, but nothing that serious. they don't strike me as a heartbreaker tho tony. iman you know this. yeah like a handful. whoops lmao. broke steph's heart with The Incident.

🍝 SPAGHETTI — what is/are your oc's favorite food(s)?

hildegard. stews and soup and meat pies and whatnot. tony. i bet his mom makes really banging risotto and It's That.

🧐 FACE WITH MONOCLE — is your oc more logical or emotional?

hildegard. more logical in a way people find maybe a little cold or uncomfortably clinical. tony. ohhh he is so emotional honestly he needs to chillax.

😞 DISAPPOINTED FACE — does your oc attract others, or do they tend to be left alone?

hildegard. tragically their weird and off-putting swag is too much for most, and they tend to be left alone. creatures don't mind, though. monsters don't mind. tony. everyone either wants to climb him like a tree or is immediately intimidated by him. so like jury's out. until the time of the campaign he's been very reluctant to make any sort of deeper connections with people. because of the curse.

🍛 CURRY AND RICE — what does your oc's typical dinner look like? do they usually eat dinner

hildegard. since he travels around a lot, he tends to eat stuff that can last longer and that's easy to have on the road. bread, cheeses, dried meats and fruits. tony. well. he has a notable and unfortunate dietary requirement, so generally speaking he just kind of does a Snake Meal of human flesh and whatever he has on hand, either leftovers or takeout or something he makes himself, and that keeps him going for about a week. girl dinner.

🎶 MUSICAL NOTES — what type of music does your oc like? do they listen to music very often?

hildegard. god what music do they have in dnd. spooky music from the sims 4. i think they'd like stuff that's pretty upbeat and intense, and songs that have a story. tony. dad rock and jazz. perhaps he peeps some more musical theatre bc of zivah. he likes to have something on in the background pretty often.

🩹 ADHESIVE BANDAGE — does your oc have any physical and/or mental disabilities?

all of my characters are autistic even if they're neurotypical because they are made and played by me. hope this helps.

[spark-gem]

Black Clover Oc and Poll

I am having some fun writing an OC for a Black Clover Fanfic I want to do. Will it actually happen? Who knows at this point but I thought I would share anyways.

I’m still flushing out some artistic attributes and how I want the story to go but I would love to introduce you to the character…

Ava Hildegard

Her name translates to ‘life guardian’ in the German language.

She uses Charm magic, which has the ability to embed life or function into an object using the surrounding mana. It was inspired from phrases such a ‘good luck charm’. The downside to this is that her magic is physically taxing on the body since she is incorporating a bit of her own essence when creating a charm. She uses items in nature and symbolism to strengthen the charm.

You can think of her as someone who studies and improves upon magic support items.

She’s a member of the Black Bulls and helps Yami and Finral when it comes to the more administrative side of the Magic Knights.

Yami calls her his planner

She is a passionate, crafty (literally) and kind individual who has a tendency to become anxious when the spotlight is on her. Much preferring the company of friends then stiff authority interactions.

Has a tendency to downplay her own accomplishments and not understand the full gravity/intricacies of social interactions. This is due to both her own personality and living in a secluded area of the woods near the common realm.

Her love interest will be Fuegoleon. It’s guilty pleasure of mine that I wanted to see. I’ve read a lot of fanfic where characters/reader inserts are described as graceful or elegant (you know kind of competent) . I want to deviate from that with a love interest who is more awkward paired with someone who’s got there life together. If that makes sense. In any case writing their dynamic will be interesting.

That’s all I got for now but I do have a fun little thing for you guys.

I want to add a charm as Ava’s animal companion but can’t settle on a form. Whatever is chosen I’ll make a personality/function for later.

[bearvanhelsing]

10 Songs on Repeat

Tagged by @outeremissary - Thanks Emi!! You're so nice always thinking to tag me in these <3

This Magic Moment - Ben E. King (This played in the Sopranos and the character it played for is dead now and hurts lmao)

The Difference - The Wallflowers

Mexican Moon - Concrete Blonde

Snake Eater - Cynthia Harrell

Hurt - Hildegard von Blingen (Not on Spotify but if it was I know it would be on my "on repeat" hsafddf)

Something Stupid (From Better Call Saul) - Lola Marsh

Viva La Vida - Coldplay (This is so Embarrassing but I've been thinking about Dune Messiah...)

DLZ - T.V. On The Radio

Heal it Up - Concrete Blonde

Show Me How - Men I Trust

[maculategiraffe]

my sister just sent me a video of the baby building a long low structure out of magna tiles and saying "she is not a venomous snake, so she isn't biting me while I put the roof on her new terrarium"

[speromintpatty]

Here’s some more fuckin’ cheebs of my Ocs! Based off THIS In fucking order we've got Svartmard (No-and-you're-wrong TM), Hvitmard (Paranoia McParanoid), Hildegard (Anger Viking), Cornelis (CORN), Gytha Hvitmard (When-you-goth-in-the-20's), Rasmussen (The Good One), And Stellaluna Svartmard (Glasses-chan Von Pushover) Theses were the 7 first Surmadu that Martiza and Melody created (Cheebs not in order of creation though) and they were all kind of a fucking mess both biologically and mentally.

[musingmelsuinesmelancholy]

We had a huge thunderstorm last night too, it was wonderful. Got to collect water from it. Hoping to collect some herbs today (couldn’t gather much last night due to the lighting)

Toying around with including Orion with my St. John’s feast celebrations. Next month with the Dog Star and saint Guinefort as well as my witch father.

Starting to see a pattern ( I think ) with the Dog Star, Orion, the bull and the Pleiades.

Now just need to figure out where the snake/dragon constellations fit into it

Solstice celebrations focused mainly on taranis, nantosuelta, Belenus, maponos, Grannus and Sirona as a pair and Brigindu. St Hildegard was venerated as well.

SNAKES DOGS BEES AND BE-HEADINGS YEAAAAAAA

Bonne fête de la Sainte Jean Baptiste!

The Saint John (wolastoq) river being important to both my quebecois and maliseeet ancestors makes this time of year very….interesting haha

One of the names for my father’s people was “people of the beautiful river” (wolastoqiyik)

(((Excuse my shitty french haha)))

[theatrum-tenebrarum]

The Seraphim

"We stand directly in the sight of God – the Seraphim."

Seraphim Tetramorph, Cathedral of Santa Maria Nuova, Monreale, Sicily, 12th century

Their name, woven from a fiery song, comes from Hebrew saraf, meaning „to burn“ / „to scorch“. In the Bible, the Seraphim are mentioned by Isaiah, when the prophet recounts the vision of these beings. They are described to be standing over Adonai and having six wings. According to Isaiah, they use two wings to cover their faces, with another pair they cover their feet and they use the remaining two to fly. The prophet also recounts the powerful voices of these beings, as well as their ability to instantly remove evil. We are introduced to the latter by a certain Seraph that brings a piece of hot coal to Isaiah's lips and proclaims that by this act all evil is ritually cleansed from his soul.

Ninth Vision of Hildegard of Bingen, Personification of God’s Power, 12th century

It's interesting to note that the word „seraph“, when appearing elsewhere in the Old Testament, is referring to venomous snakes. It is unclear why, although some have suggested that the Seraphim, beings recounted by Isaiah, were in some way serpentine. When mentioning snakes himself, the same prophet also describes them as flying.

Seraphim and Angels, 'Queen Mary Psalter', 14th century

The visual image of these beings most probably has its roots in the Assyrian-Babylonian iconography. That is no surprise since Hebrew culture was influenced by the Mesopotamian world, amongst others. Therefore, earlier artists of the Christian world most likely translated the Assyrian winged genies - daimons into another visual and cultural language. That is how the story of angels in art begins.

Seraphim are commonly depicted with six colored wings. However, the iconographic distinction of angelic hierarchies had diminished over time as artists left the imagination of the hierarchies to the eye of each beholder.

Apkallu from the Nimrud palace in Mesopotamia, 9th century BC, State Museum of Egyptian Art in Munich, Germany

-Heidi (@theatrum-tenebrarum)

[simplynotaneggworks]

Fandoms and Ships

Disney Ella x Henry Cinderella Lady x Tramp (Human AUs) Lady and the Tramp Mary x Bert Mary Poppins Duchess x Thomas O’Malley (Human AUs) The Aristocats Pete’s Dragon (no specific ships; both original and live-action) Ariel x Eric The Little Mermaid Belle x Adam Beauty and the Beast Nala x Simba (Human AUs) The Lion King Kiara x Kovu (Human AUs) The Lion King Bo Peep x Woody (Human AUs) Toy Story Jessie x Buzz (Human AUs) Toy Story Mulan x Shang Mulan Jane x Tarzan Tarzan Kida x Milo Atlantis: The Lost Empire Dory x Marlin (Human AUs) Finding Nemo Violet x Tony The Incredibles Janice x Jesse Bridge to Terebithia Clarion x Milori Tinkerbell Tinkerbell x Terence Tinkerbell Tiana x Naveen The Princess and the Frog Alice x Tarrant Alice in Wonderland Rapunzel x Eugene Tangled Brave (no specific ships)  Elsa x Hans Frozen Anna x Kristoff Frozen Inside Out (no specific ships) Judy x Nick (Human AUs) Zootopia Coco (no specific ships) Izzy x Buzz Lightyear Miranda x Roland Sofia the First Sofia x Hugo Sofia the First Amber x Hildegard Sofia the First Elena x Mateo Elena of Avalor Isabel x Javier Elena of Avalor Cassandra x Varian Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure

Dreamworks Miguel x Tulio The Road to El Dorado Fiona x Shrek Shrek Astrid x Hiccup How to Train Your Dragon Valka x Stoick How to Train Your Dragon Roxanne x Megamind Megamind Rise of the Guardians (no specific ship) Eep x Guy The Croods

Illumination Lucy x Gru Despicable Me The Lorax (no specific ship)

Sony Ericka x Dracula Hotel Transylvania

Blue Sky Linda x Tulio Rio

Harry Potter (in no particular order) Willow (OC) x George Draco x Harry Nymphadora x Remus Sirius x Remus Lily x James Narcissa x Lucius Emma (OC) x Charlie Merula x Rowan Penny x Ben Molly x Arthur Oliver x Percy Hermione x Ron Seamus x Dean Luna x Neville Luna x Rolf Tina x Newt Queenie x Jacob Albus x Scorpius Andromeda x Ted Victoire x Teddy Fleur x Bill

Other Jedidiah x Octavius Night at the Museum Norman x Ethan Heavy Rain Kara x Conner Detroit: Become Human Simon x Markus Detroit: Become Human North x Josh Detroit: Become Human Rose x Hank Detroit: Become Human Aloy x Erend Horizon Zo x Varl Horizon Beta x Drakka Horizon Elisabet x Sylens Horizon Alva x Kotallo Horizon Jane x Gunther Jane and the Dragon Jester x Smithy Jane and the Dragon Pepper x Rake Jane and the Dragon Gwendolyn x Caradoc Jane and the Dragon Nancy x Jonathan Stranger Things Steve x Dustin Stranger Things Will x Mike Stranger Things Joyce x Jim Stranger Things Fran x Maxwell The Nanny Katniss x Peeta The Hunger Games Effie x Haymitch The Hunger Games Lucy x Coriolanus The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Emma x George Emma Elizabeth x Fitzwilliam Pride and Prejudice Marianne x Christopher Sense and Sensibility Elinor x Edward Sense and Sensibility Daniel x Johnny Karate Kid/Cobra Kai Robby x Miguel Karate Kid/Cobra Kai Ali x Amanda Karate Kid/Cobra Kai Dutch x Bobby Karate Kid/Cobra Kai Demetri x Eli Karate Kid/Cobra Kai Kumiko x Chozen Karate Kid/Cobra Kai Ellie x Alec Broadchurch Beth x Paul Broadchurch Rose x Ten Doctor Who Yuuri x Viktor Yuri on Ice Yuri x Otabek Yuri on Ice Marinette x Adrien Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir Alya x Nino Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir Chloe x Luka Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir Luka x Adrien Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir Elizabeth (OC) x Ydris Star Stable Online Maya x Alex Star Stable Online Elizabeth (non-OC) x Avalon Star Stable Online Anne x Lisa Star Stable Online Novalee x Forney Where the Heart Is Claire x James Outlander Elizabeth (OC) x Fergus Outlander Brianna x Roger Outlander Aziraphale x Crowley Good Omens Anneliese x Julian Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper Erika x Dominick Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper Sophie x Nicholas Barbie: Princess Charm School Skipper x Jonas Barbie and Her Sisters In a Pony Tale Barbie x Ken Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures Barbie (Margot Robbie) x Ken (Ryan Gosling) Barbie

[beautifulpaxielreads]

22 in 2022

Rules! Choose 22 books you want to read or goals you want to achieve in 2022. That’s it! It can be a mix of books and goals, or 22 books, or 22 goals…. it’s up to you. Then tag some friends to play along.

I was tagged by the lovely @storytime-reviews. Thank you!

1. Read at least one book from my TBR each month, according to @bookbandit's annual TBR Buster Challenge. Can be fiction or non-fiction.

2. Read all the books I own that are on my TBR.

3. Reread The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins.

4. Reread The Other Side of the Sky by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner in preparation for the sequel, Beyond the End of the World.

5. Read Beyond the End of the World.

6. Have another go at reading The Boy from the Mish by Gary Lonesborough.

7. Participate in more book photography challenges. I always forget to do them but I'm going to try a little bit harder this year.

8. Read at least some of the books on my TBR that are available at my local library.

9. Read more diverse books by #ownvoices authors.

10. Read more books by Australian authors.

11. Be more generous with my star ratings (thanks for the inspo, @storytime-reviews!).

12. Read more nonfiction.

13. Interact more with the Booklr community (when I feel up to it).

14. Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers #3) by Becky Chambers.

15. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

16. A Single Thread of Moonlight by Laura Wood

17. The Yield by Tara June Winch

18. Read at least one book by a trans or non-binary author

19. A Winter's Promise (The Mirror Visitor #1) by Christelle Dabos, translated by Hildegarde Serle

20. We Can't Keep Meeting Like This by Rachel Lynn Solomon

21. Read at least one (1) graphic novel.

22. Burn by Patrick Ness

That's it!

I'll tag some of my newer book-blogging followers to participate (only if you want to of course - no pressure): @the-bookgoddess, @jazzieam,@welsh87,@anonymouse-the-asian, and@mosscoveredpages plus anyone else who wants to have a go.

Happy reading all!

[moonbittern]

you guys i just realized that today is the one-year anniversary of me bringing phoenix home

[perditaswardrobe]

10th Century Fantastic Beasts

by Ken Hazlett and Nat Lawson

Costume Description: Original design of the Hogwarts Founders from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter

Bio: We are cosplayers from Southern California who occasionally combine our cosplaying with our other pastime- surfing. 

The Case of the Missing Founder (CLOSED)

By Epiphelia Holmes

Abstract: Circa 1010 common era (CE), Salazar Slytherin, learned magicker, scholar, world traveler, and basilisk breeder, disappeared. All wizarding histories, including the penultimate source on Hogwarts, Hogwarts, A History (Bagshot, 1905), note that Slytherin disagreed with the other three Founders on the teaching of magic to the Muggle-born, and thus, left Hogwarts, angry and disillusioned. Through dogged research and exhaustive detective work, the author of this paper reveals the true fate of Salazar Slytherin, and surprisingly, the fate of Rowen Ravenclaw, utilizing the early enchanted and startlingly lifelike paintings of Grimhilde of Bingen and Hildegard of Bingen, as well as accounts from Slytherin’s own newly discovered journal for Year 1032, 33, revealing the magicker as an avid naturalist of Fantastic Beasts, who extensively traveled the various routes of the Silk Road with Rowen Ravenclaw, after Ravenclaw’s ‘death’. Additionally, this article presents new evidence regarding a second Ravenclaw diadem, created after the infamous theft of the original artefact.

Excerpt from Section 1.3 History of the Artists:

Note: Artist history is primarily sourced from Vasari, 1569, unless otherwise noted. 

Grimhilde of Bingen (b. 964 d. 1138), a most misunderstood woman of her time, largely due to an ungrateful stepdaughter widely known primarily for her snow white skin, was, in actuality, a writer, composer, mystic, and artist of the 10th century. Forced to leave her homeland, in the Rhine, due to the aforementioned stepdaughter and an unfortunate incident involving a huntsman and several angry miners, Grimhilde settled in the region of what is now Cornwall in England. Her many interests and skills led her to the creation of an enchanted paintbrush, which created paintings, so lifelike, they are nearly indistinguishable from the photographs of today. 

Although Grimhilde’s paintings and writings became well known in the Wizarding world, her scholarly pursuits were not her only passion and she married and bore one daughter, also an artist, composer, and mystic. Grimhilde’s granddaughter, however, was born a Squib, which may have been what drove her to successes even beyond her mother and grandmother. Hildegard of Bingen (b. 1098 d. 1179) returned to her grandmother’s homeland as a young adult and became a German Benedictine abbess, a writer, a composer, a philosopher, a mystic, a visionary, a polymath, an artist, and is considered among Wizards and Muggles alike, to be the founder of scientific natural history in the Germanic region.

Among their many accomplishments, Grimhilde and Hildegard painted several important wizarding figures of their day, most notably, Salazar Slytherin and Rowen Ravenclaw. Grimhilde completed a series of paintings of the pair between 1026 and 1028. Hildegard, who inherited the enchanted brush, also painted Slytherin and Ravenclaw, circa 1132. These paintings, which show the two Founders, reunited, after Slytherin’s disappearance and Ravenclaw’s death as the witch, Rowena Ravenclaw, are masterfully created and provide a number of interesting facts regarding Slytherin’s mysterious disappearance from the school and Ravenclaw’s supposed death of a broken heart. The series of paintings of Slytherin and Ravenclaw by the two artists is known in the Wizarding art world as the dual Bingen series.

Excerpt from 2.1 Archival Research:

[…] No one in the Kavalier family possessed an ounce of magic any longer and thus, no one over the ages was able to decipher the ancient text, largely written in a combination of Middle Irish, Old Norse, Latin, and a code, possibly based on spoken Parseltongue. The journal, a simple leather book labeled “MXXXII, MXXXIII, A.D.”, containing sketches of strange beasts, was an unreadable text among nearly two dozen aged tomes, and almost universally ignored by the family over time. Indeed, until the late 1980s, when Mr. Clay Kavalier, a graphic novel artist, discovered the sketches of the Fantastic Beasts in the journal and used them as an inspiration for his drawings, the book was almost never opened. Mr. Kavalier’s highly accurate depictions of various Fantastic Beasts, found in a Muggle ‘comic book’, led the author of this article to the Slytherin journal, carefully stored and preserved by the Kavalier family, now, of Orange, California, USA. The authenticity of the journal was verified by the Historical Records Department, Ministry of Magic, in 2020.

[…] The depiction of the diadem in the dual Bingen series has long puzzled wizarding scholars, as it is widely known and accepted that Ravenclaw’s diadem was stolen by Helena Ravenclaw and hidden, only surfacing during the reign of He Who Must Not Be Named in the modern era. The original diadem possessed an oval blue jewel and “was said to grant wisdom to the wearer” (Bagshot, 1905).  A description of the dual Bingen series diadem is included in Section 3.1; it is noted here, however, that the two artefacts are different. Considering the possibility that Ravenclaw crafted a second diadem, the author of this article researched Wizarding metalworkers of the 10th century, finally discovering among the preserved papers of Lillith Helmschmied, the most famous female Wizarding metalworker of the 10th and 11th centuries, a sketch of the diadem depicted in the dual Bingen series. Unfortunately, Helmschmied does not indicate if the new diadem possessed the same abilities as the original. If, as many scholars opine, Ravenclaw enchanted the jewel herself (Bagshot, 1905), it seems likely that the second jewel was also enchanted.

Excerpt from 3.1 Description of the Garb:

The dual Bingen series may be the most important depiction of any of the Founders completed to date. Not only is the garb consistent with 10th century fashions, and thus, likely representing one of the more accurate portrayals of the Founders, there are accents to the garb which offer insight into the Founders themselves. The paintings in the series were created nearly 100 years apart. Neither Founder appears to have aged between the sessions and both are garbed identically in all paintings in the dual series. There is agreement among experts that Hildegard likely created her paintings from sketches completed by Grimhilde. 

Salazar Slytherin left Viking occupied lands, in what is now Ireland, as a young adult, and the garb the Founder wears in the paintings reflects the Founder’s roots in Viking Age Ireland. Salazar is painted wearing a green dress over a léine; the dress is heavily embroidered with Fantastic Beasts, including a zouwu, a demiguise (both visible and invisible), a phoenix, a unicorn, a manticore, an occamy, and a basilisk, all done in the style of the Book of Kells. One of the embroidery designs shows a kelpie, which are known to live in Black Lake, at Hogwarts. Snakes are embroidered over a border of Celtic knot work that runs along the base of the dress. The top of the dress and the top of the léine are both decorated with lace that incorporates Book of Kells style snakes. Salazar also wears a green coat, adorned with still more snakes. The paintings indicate that the Founder preferred fancy Wizarding fabrics and possessed an almost excessive flair. The coat is pinned with metal brooches to show off the dress embroidery and like many items made at the time, the base of the coat is lined with fur. From the painting, it is not possible to definitively ascertain the type of fur, but magi-biologists generally agree that it is likely Bodmin Moorcat (Challenger, 1899, Mirza et al., 2018).

Rowen Ravenclaw, who originated from the Kingdom of Alba (now, approximately the lowlands of Scotland), is painted in traditional Anglo-Saxon garb. Like Salazar, Rowen also wears fancy wizarding fabric unavailable to the Muggles of the time. Celtic style ravens are embroidered on the sleeves and around the keyhole opening of the long tunica. Chain embroidery winds around the ravens. Celtic knot work is embroidered along the base of the tunic. Consistent with Anglo-Saxon fashions, Ravenclaw is wearing short pants tucked into high socks that are secured with ties. Ravenclaw’s simple silver band diadem is completely consistent with Muggle styles of the day and contains the Celtic phrase, “Cíall gan chiomhsa • Maoin mór duini”, in a version of Gaelic spoken in Alba. The phrase approximates “Wit without limit: great treasure of Men”. According to Helmschmied, the band is made of silver and the words are stamped into the band. The jewel is noted as a sapphire and it is also set in silver. Rowen’s rich cloak is decorated around the base with silver trim and it is worn draped, similar to a Roman toga. Generally, Rowen’s garb is less decorated than Salazar’s garb. It is thought among some scholars that the Founder of the Ravenclaw House was more reserved than his Slytherin counterpart. The dual Bingen series would counter this idea.

Excerpt from 3.2 Description of the Fantastic Beasts

There are few records regarding the Fantastic Beasts depicted in the paintings, which include an occamy and a basilisk. Salazar’s journal records the names of both beasts who appear in the dual Bingen series and notes that the basilisk was one of three successful hatchings. The occamy is called Ocarina and the basilisk is King George. The occamy could be of any age, as occamy will grow or shrink to whatever size to occupy space, an ability they possess immediately after hatching. The basilisk is clearly a youngster, as it is small and still has wings, as compared to the centuries old and massively huge wingless basilisk found in the Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts in 1992. Salazar’s journal does not include any dates for the hatchings and says nothing about the other two successful hatchings. The journal also does not offer any information regarding how Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Grimhilde of Bingen all lived beyond the sketching and painting sessions involving the basilisk. As breeding of basilisks is currently illegal and has been illegal for centuries, very little is known about them. Magi-biologists generally agree that the most likely scenario is that the beast had either not yet developed any of the paralyzing or killing abilities possessed by the Chamber of Secrets basilisk or he was able to control his abilities (Verne, 1863, Challenger, 1891). Opinion is split regarding whether the basilisk himself decided against rampaging during the sessions or whether Salazar was able to train the beast (Mirza, 2020).

Excerpt from Appendix 2, The Bingen Wizarding Collection

[…] and in 1947, Ginger Bingen, used the ragged and worn set of paintbrushes to create her own series of Wizard paintings of Slytherin and Ravenclaw. Ginger Bingen’s paintings incorporate the last of her many times removed Great Aunt Grimhilde’s sketches and notes of her sessions with the two Founders. Experts do not agree on whether the paintings accurately reflect the two Founders, as the paintings have only recently been made public. For one, many say, the Founders are speaking modern English. Although the paintings were rumored to exist, the Bingen Wizarding collection remained in private hands until 2017. That year, the four paintings below were stolen from the estate of the last Bingen by a self-styled modern-day Robin Hood and hung in the toilet of Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem (well known even among Muggles as the oldest pub in England), when the pub was closed for the night.  As there were no heirs to the estate and no will, and no one really owned the paintings or knew what to do with them, they were left in place at the pub and secured with heavy charms and curses.

[ladyloptr]

•Merely A Maid•

Request: twt@LOKIBARBZ “idk if ill be able to explain this well enough so apologies for that but what if the reader is a maid/servant of the palace and loki notices her just doing her duties while at a meeting or something and when he stands as shes cleaning up the meeting table he notices how much smaller she is than him physically (cough cough size kink) n requests for her to work on his floor more just to tease her n intimidate her cuz hes mean like that. like maybe...... while shes tidying up his chamber he pulls her onto his lap after having a drink or two n starts praising her for being a good servant.”

Fandom: Thor 1

Pairing: Loki x Reader

Warnings: Smut, dub-con, size kink, praise kink, master-servant relationship.

{————}

You’ve worked in the palace nearly your entire life. Your mother came to Asgard with you when you were young, escaping a crumbling marriage. She was lucky enough to be recruited by Queen Frigga, and so, she was hired to work in the Queen’s chambers. You grew up with all the other servant’s children, not allowed to mingle with any of the noble or royal children who resided in the palace.

Your mother eventually passed away, succumbing to the stresses of servantry, leaving you to support yourself. Having no other options, you ended up having to apply for a servants job in the palace, and so here you are, refilling the goblets of court members with ale and Æsir wine.

There is a meeting going on, though you’re not quite sure what is being discussed. Something about someone evading taxes and alliances with Vanaheim, but you aren’t sure. You’ve been too focused on your duties to eavesdrop into matters that have nothing to do with you.

So focused that you’ve neglected to notice the pair of sharp emerald eyes watching you. Apparently, you’re not the only one neglecting to pay attention.

The younger prince’s curiosity is piqued when he realizes has never seen you before. His prides himself in knowing something about everyone, and yet for some reason he’s never seen you before. His eyes drift to your pointy ears, allowing him to come to the conclusion that you’re Ljölsafar (Light Elf).

“Allfather, Lord Fjörnd will be most displeased with your decision. He believes that his region-“

“-Well, Lord Fjörnd is not King of Vanaheim. My alliance is with King Freyr.” The Allfather says. “If he wishes to debate the increase in trade taxes, he may speak to Freyr. This meeting has come to a close, you are all dismissed.”

While all of the court members leave, Loki hangs back, remaining seated while watching you clean up the table. You place the goblets on a tray and use a rag to clean up any drink that may have spilled onto the table. You are confused when you notice that Loki is still there.

“My prince...?”

Loki rises from his seat and it’s then that he becomes overtly aware of how short you are, in comparison to him. Æsir and Vanir women are known for their tall stature, while Ljölsafar women are much shorter.

The fact that he towers over you makes him excited. He is vaguely aware of his dominance kinks, but never truly had the opportunity to explore them. Perhaps, if given the chance...

You avert your eyes to the floor, unable to look anywhere near him while he’s staring so intensely at you. “My prince... is there something wrong...?”

“I am reassigning you.”

Reassigning? You think to yourself. Can he even do that?

“My father placed you in your current position as a general custodial servant, am I correct?”

You nod, keeping your eyes downcast.

“I believe your talents will be useful elsewhere. I am in need of a new chambermaid, as my previous one has retired.” Loki allowing his eyes to shamelessly look over your body.

“I-I don’t have many talents, sir.”

“You are a fast cleaner and you listen to directions very well, from what I’ve seen during that dreadful meeting.” Loki says. “Not many servants in this palace are useful for anything more than scrubbing floors. You will be working as my chambermaid starting tomorrow.”

“How will I know what to do, sir? I haven’t the training.”

“Hildegard will tell you everything you need to know. My requests are very simple and few in number.” Loki drawls. “I doubt you need extensive training for something so uncomplicated.”

“I... understand, sir.” You bow, and gather the tray of goblets and cloth. You keep your eyes to the floor even as you exit the room, and you are quite certain you hear Loki chuckle to himself.

A few months later, and you come to realize why they call Loki the God of Mischief.

You had expected being a chambermaid would be hard work, however, it’s just the opposite.

Most of the work you find yourself doing are the mundane things, such as making sure his bed is neat after he’s gotten up in the morning.

There’s barely any actual work for you to do, as Loki’s chambers are always so spotless, he hardly ever leaves you anything to clean, besides the bathroom of course.

Speaking of the bathroom... he has started asking you to bathe him, and you know that he’s only started doing it just to be mean.

He somehow found out that you’re a virgin.

The mischievous thing, ever since he discovered that information, he’s been terrorizing you. Sometimes he’ll act like a complete fool and ask you undress him, as if he’s suddenly forgotten how to do it himself.

And then there are times he’ll just be downright terrifying. A good example being the one time he asked you a question and opted to stand over you and gaze down at you as if you were his prey and he were the predator. It took a while for you to stutter out an appropriate answer.

A feast is currently going on tonight, in celebration of Thor and his friends coming out victorious in a recent battle, and Loki is surprisingly absent from his chambers. He usually doesn’t attend such things, finding the rowdy crowds of people to be quite distasteful.

You busy yourself with making sure the bathroom is clean, his bed is neat, and his bookshelves are in order. You are so engrossed in your work that you don’t hear Loki enter. He slowly closes the door behind himself and watches you dust around the corners of his chambers.

You yelp in surprise when you turn around to see him standing there staring at you. Your ears turn red as you wonder how long he’s been standing there for.

“I-I’m sorry, my prince... I didn’t... I didn’t hear you come in.”

Loki waves his hand dismissively, then walks by you to sit on the edge of his bed. You notice his movements are somewhat sluggish, so you decide to speak up.

“My prince... are you well?”

“I had a few drinks, I am fine, merely tipsy.” Loki motions for you to come towards him, and so you do, albeit with a bit of hesitation.

“Sir...?”

You let out a startled squeak he takes your waist with both of his hands, spins you around and pulls you onto his lap, your back facing him.

“M-my prince?” You squirm in his strong hold, only exciting him more. “What are you doing?”

“You’re such a good servant.” He drawls. “Such a good girl. I’ve wanted you ever since I laid my eyes on you.” He licks your earlobe causing you to jump. “Ljölsafar are such delicate things. Knowing that I could accidentally break you in half excites me.”

You gasp when Loki starts sucking on the spot behind your ear. He undoes the strings on the front of your dress, and then pulls the fabric down enough for your breasts to pop out. He pinched both of your nipples, rolling them in between his fingers as they harden. You start squirming again, and he clicks his tongue in disapproval.

“Ah, ah, ah. Don’t do that.” Loki warns in your ear. “Be a good girl for me and stay still.”

Loki slips one of his hands underneath the skirt of your dress, his fingers snaking up your thighs. He stops at your panties and rubs his fingers against the damp material. Without another word he rips the cloth, now leaving you bare for him.

“Such an obedient girl. So well behaved.” He mutters, then pushes two of his fingers into you. “So wet. Is this for me, girl?”

You squeal, bewildered by his actions. “M-my prince, I’m n-not worthy-!”

“To the eyes of the court you may not be, but to me...?” He groans. “I can’t wait to deflower you. To be the first to fill you with my seed.”

He gently pumps his fingers, mindful of the fact that you’re untouched, and you arch your back against him in response.

“You are much too tight, my dear.” He chuckles, darkly. “I am afraid I might rip you in half when I take you.”

Despite the fact that he told you not to do it only moments before, you still can’t help but squirm underneath his attentions. You whine when he pulls his fingers out.

“On your knees, girl.” He orders, pushing you to kneel in front of him. You look away as he undoes the placket of his pants, freeing his erection.

Loki grabs your face, forcing you to look at him. Your ears are red and your face is flushed. “You are so bashful. It only makes me want to break you even more.” He tangles his fingers into your hair and tugs you forward, the swollen head of his cock touching the tip of your nose.

“Suck.”

You look up at him, fearfully. You’ve never given oral to anyone, let alone someone of high authority.

It’s not like you can disobey, though, and the scariest part may be that you sort of want to do this for him.

So, you take his head into your mouth and run your tongue over the slit. A loud groan tells you that you’re doing well so far. Your mouth is small, so you’re only able to fit a small portion of his cock in your mouth. You use your hands to massage the rest of his length.

“Ohhh, your mouth is sin.” He hisses.

After few long minutes of this, he pulls you off of him, and picks you up. He turns and suddenly drops you onto the bed, letting out a mischievous laugh when you yelp in surprise.

With a snap of his fingers, his armor and clothing is gone. He hurriedly pulls your dress down and off of you, absentmindedly throwing it off to the side. Your hands grip his upper arms as he cages you between him and his bed. You can feel the head of his cock nudge your entrance. It feels so big, you’re unsure how that’s going to fit.

“My prince... I don’t think I can...”

“You can.”

You blush heavily as your next words leave your mouth. “I... I don’t think it will fit.”

“I will make it fit.”

He hoists your legs up onto his shoulders and captures your mouth into a kiss. You let his tongue slip past your lips, and you soon come to realize that he has been trying to distract you when you feel a sharp pain followed by a burning sensation. He swallows your cries of pain and proceeds to slowly push in further.

By the time he’s fully sheathed inside of you, you’re shaking and your face is strained with tears. He takes his hand and wipes your tears away.

“I am going to move.” He informs you. “The pain will lessen over time.”

You aren’t sure if he’s telling the truth or if he’s lying out of desperation for some sort of release.

Loki slowly rocks back and forth, slightly shaking from restraining himself. All he truly wants is to fuck you through a wall, but that would have to wait. The last thing he needs is the whole palace thinking that he’s murdering you in his chambers.

“I can’t do this forever.” Loki grits out. He’s slowly losing his patience.

“It’s... it’s okay.” You breathe out. “It’s still there... but it’s starting to go away...”

Loki hums in acknowledgment and starts thrusting harder, speeding up his pace. You moan, the feeling of pleasure finally overcoming the pain you were experiencing earlier. He looks down at you, and the sight of seeing your small cunt being absolutely wrecked by his large cock drives him insane.

“Norns, you’re so tight.” He moans. “I could just sit here inside of you for days.”

You sigh, blissfully. You feel properly filled to the brim, his girth pleasantly stretching you out. A high pitched moan escapes you when he starts thumbing your clit, massaging it in tight circles. Something inside of you starts to knot tightly, and you desperately buck your hips up to meet his.

“My prince-! I-“ He cuts you off with another kiss, his hips now frantically thrusting.

“Cum.” He orders, his voice hoarse. “Cum for me. Cum for your prince.”

Your eyes roll back and your mouth hangs open in a silent scream. The feeling of your muscles squeezing his cock pushes him over the edge right after you. He stills and pulls you as close as possible to his body, ensuring that you take every drop of his cum. He gives one last weak thrust before collapsing on top of you.

“I am keeping you.” Loki mutters, his voice muffled by the pillow. “You will not allow anyone else to touch you. You are mine now, understand?”

“I understand.” You say softly.

He rolls off of you, and you’re mildly surprised when he pulls you up against his chest.

“We... didn’t use a contraceptive elixir.” You mutter, somewhat worried about what that might mean for you.

“I know. I did say you are mine, yes?”

“I could be flogged for laying with you, or even killed if I am found pregnant with your child.”

“And you won’t have to worry about that for very long.” Loki says with a mischievous tone. “I am, in fact, next in line to become king.”

You have no idea what he’s planning, but you don’t ask, instead choosing to stay silent.

Before you know it, you’ve drifted off to sleep.

[mamsellechosette24601]

In the Green vs the real Hildegard's writings and philosophy

Because of “In the Green”, I started reading a bit about Hildegard and her thinking so as to better explore the themes of the musical. I read the book “Hildegard of Bingen: A Spiritual Reader", by Carmen Acevedo Butcher, which was short and insightful, with lots of excerpts from Hildegard, so I’ll share what I got from it in relation to the musical.

1. The symbolism of the colour green and of the sun

"Hildegard called this vigor viriditas, the “green” energy of agape love pulsing through the entire universe. Over and over in her writings, she chooses viriditas to express God’s vitality and the ways His goodness and love charge the whole world with life, beauty, and renewal—literally, with “greenness.” Her unique, creative use of this Latin word makes it something of a neologism in her work. In Hildegard’s mind, viriditas was first found in the green of the garden of Eden, but it is also the green of whatever twig you or I happen to be looking at in this present moment, whoever we are, wherever we may be. She knew that the natural opposite of this “greening” energy was spiritual desiccation (including what we often call “depression”). But, like God’s mercy, His revitalizing viriditas has no limits. Wherever Hildegard looked, she saw that this “green” force animates every creature and plant on this planet with verdant divine love."

"The patriarchs and prophets who prefigured and predicted Christ were the “roots” of God’s divine tree, on which sprouted the most delicate “bud,” who is God’s Son, and from Him grew the “fruit” of the virtues: Humility, Charity, Divine Love, Patience, and their sisters. This is a favorite metaphor for Hildegard, and in her songs she praises the Virgin Mary as the “twig” or “branch” on which the “bud,” baby Jesus, flowered. By her intelligent selection of this one word, oculus, Hildegard has shown the center of her work—that to see God is to grow."

"In one of this volume’s poems praising Mary, “Grateful for the Unobtrusive Good,” Hildegard’s use of metaphors suggests that she saw no separation between symbol and fact. Metaphors were reality to her. Hildegard’s point in this song is that the divinely made sun giving earth life is also, in a mystical way, the life-giving Son of God who as the Word made creation’s every twig, including Mary, and yet was also Mary’s “Bloom”(…) In this song to Mary, the sun (also God’s Spirit) shines on the Virgin Mary, the “greenest twig.” She is a twig, not even a branch; but she is green with God’s pregnant vitality, and her comparative insignificance (as a woman, and unmarried) prepares her for the greatness of God’s Spirit to grow within her and produce the miraculous “flowering” of God’s divine-human Son. Her weakness is her strength, a recurring theme in Hildegard."

So, when Jutta sings “I can see the last of the light / Reflected in the green / Of everything”and we know what is going to happen, we’re supposed to cry at the distortion of life’s goodness

Sun Song gains a much more religious meaning, when we see everything that the sun and nature meant for Hildegard. In her “Book of Divine Works”, the Holy Spirit says: "I’m the divine flame of life, I burn above the golden fields, I sparkle on water, and I shine like the sun, the moon, and all the stars. Together with the loving, hidden power of the wind, I make everything come alive. Remember that I’m also Reason. I inform the wind of the first Word that created all things. I’m your breath, I’m the breath of all things, and none die because I am that Life." (should I read into In the Green’s “Air leaves my lungs/ I’m lying on my back / I’m staring at the sky / I open up my mouth but the air swallows my cry”? Jutta was forsaken by God, completely).

Death Ceremony, with its translation of “O Viridissima Virga”, introduces us to Jutta’s and Hildegard’s quest away from Eve’s curse and towards the Virgin Mary. The “little green branch” seeks the “branch of freshest green”, instead of rotting.

The idea of strength in weakness, which the Hildegards find in First Verb, appears, together with the aforementioned notions of the “green” and the “bud”, in Hildegard’s “Play of the Virtues”. "The virtues and the souls: 'When the world began, everything pulsed with life and was the tenderest shade of green.Flowers blossomed everywhere. But, after the Fall, everything green faded." The Warrior-of-Truth saw it all and said: 'I see what happened, but my house is not yet full. Look at me instead. I’m the image of your Father. Know my broken body broken for you. I’m exhausted. I’m tired of being made a laughing-stock. It goes straight through me. Even my followers lose heart. But remember this. The original abundance of green did not have to shrivel up, and your faith will see its way to strength, until you know the divinity of my jewel-covered body intimately, a gem in each injury, and each injury a bud. Look, Father! See my wounds? Now, let people everywhere kneel before God the Father, who’ll hand us strength on strength." 

2. Hildegard’s “Scivias”, where she first shares her divine visions vs Jutta

In “Scivias” Hildegard writes a metaphor of the sinning soul. Turning away from God and towards sin (the “North”), the soul speaks “I regret that so much now! For I was captured, robbed, blinded, and violated. My garment was torn. I was dragged to a gruesome place and subjected to the worst kind of slavery”.

Then the soul repents, and hides in a cave, like Jutta hid in the Undergound: “After I’d said this, I went down the narrow path and hid from the eyes of the North. I went into a tiny cave and wept because I’d lost my Mother Zion. I wept, too, for all my wounds. I wept for my sadness. I wept and wept. I cried so many tears, they absorbed my pain and bruises. Then I smelled something very sweet. It reminded me of my mother’s soft breath on my cheek. That small comfort made me cry some more. I was so full of joy that I cried until it shook the mountain of my cave." The crying out of joy that will force the soul out of the cave also kind of reminds me of The Ripening, especially in this connection to a mother’s love (“In living I have learned/ to love another as a mother/ And I’ve felt that love inside my wicked flesh”) but I may be reading too much into it.

The soul then is persecuted by her enemies, and we are told “Then I saw poisonous snakes, scorpions, and other hideous reptiles slithering towards me. The snakes were hissing. I screamed, “Mother! Where are you?! Help me!” I heard my mother say, “Run, daughter! The Omnipotent, Unconquerable Provider has given you wings. Fly! Fly over these things blocking your path!” And I did." Compare this to “I’m not going back / I’ll run until I die / And when I can no longer run / I’ll teach myself to fly / I try”. All in all, the world of Hildegard’s visions is far from the reality Jutta faced.

The soul faces self-doubt and recovers remembering it was created by God: “The Devil’s poison arrow is the evil robbing me of my spiritual joy. I don’t want to celebrate people or God. I doubt everything when I feel this way, including my salvation. But when God helps me remember that He created me, then—even in the middle of my depression—I tell the Devil, “I won’t give in to my fragile clay. I’ll fight you!” How? When my inner self decides to rebel against God, I’ll walk with wise patience over the marrow and blood of my body. I’ll be the lion defending himself from a snake, roaring and knocking it back into its hole.” It echoes Jutta’s advice to Hildegard in The Rule, but of course, she is not whole like she claims she is. (“When you are whole, you will be like me / When you are whole, you will move confidently / Through your life / And you will understand how the boulder becomes sand / And you will know how to not become sand / When you are whole, you will never be scared / When you are whole, you will always be prepared / For a dragon's attack! / And you will slay the beast..or scare him away at least / And you will never again be the least”)

3. In “The Play of the Virtues”, Hildegard focuses a lot on clothing, as a metaphor for the “wearing” of salvation, as something we’re born with and must keep clean. This enhances how soul shattering Jutta’s experience was, “His hand pulling at my skirt”.

4. Letter to the Belgian Monk Guibert (1175) and Light Undercover: "My spirit is ever illuminated by what I call the shadow of the living Light. It has no physical limitations whatsoever and is much brighter than a cloud through which the sun shines. I can never predict when or how I’ll see it. As water reflects the sun, the moon, and the stars, this shadow of the living Light reflects God’s Word, sermons, virtues, and the things that humans do. Whatever I see in that Light’s shadow stays in my mind for a long time, stored away. I see and understand, hear and know at the same time. I only know what I see in these visions, because I’m untaught. I record what I see and hear, without adding my own words, and my Latin is unrefined, because that’s how I hear it in my visions. I’ve not been taught to write like a philosopher. Also, my visions are filled with images and sounds that are nothing like words spoken by any human. They’re more like a blazing fire and a cloud floating through a clear sky. I can’t comprehend this Light’s shadow any better than I can look right at the sun. Also, sometimes in that shadow (but not very often) I see another light. This is the living Light I spoke of earlier. I’m even less able to explain what this Light is like in comparison to the other. But I can say that when I look at it, every feeling of sadness disappears, and my every ache leaves me. I’m no longer an old, sick woman. I become young again." “Light is in the dark”, strength is in weakness.

5. The entire play gains a deeper, metalinguistic meaning, when we learn that for Hildegard, “When we sing, we repossess some of the Eden lost when Adam fell”. (Letter to the Prelates at Mainz, 1178).

6. Becoming Whole

Hildegard’s visions in “The Book of Life’s Merits” and Underground"I saw a very tall man. His head and shoulders were above the highest clouds. His torso was in a white cloud below this, while his upper legs were in the earth’s atmosphere. From the knees down, he was planted in the earth, and his feet were rooted in the deepest waters of the abyss, which represent the virtues and their power. They are the antidotes to sin, because they have the might to make anything whole. They do this by cleansing whatever they touch and making it holy. They nurture and sustain the world, and they bear all things. Everything on earth steeps in the moisture of the virtues and is made strong, in the same way that the soul makes the body moist and healthy, regenerating it."

In contrast to Jutta’s teachings about the body, Hildegard finds more balance in her writings, as Butcher puts it “Hildegard understood the symbiotic relationship between body and soul. She knew that when the body and soul are not in sync, a person’s whole world is out of whack. While she believed that the physical body is easily wayward and must be controlled, she did not teach that the body is evil (…) Hildegard’s work also emphasizes taking care of the body, because it is the sacred temple of the Holy Spirit”. Against ideas of duality, Hildegard brings “God’s goodness and the essential wholeness of a divine creation that refuses to be separated into neat-but-useless categories of earth and spirit, body and soul, nature and people”.

[let-the-dream-begin]

A Place to Belong Chapter 30: Crushed Violet

Chapter 29

Read on AO3

This chapter contains a funeral service for an infant. If you want to skip just that part, you can skip to "A month passed quietly," because there is some important Jenny/Claire character building at the end. But the end does still discuss the loss of Caitlin and also Faith, so if you'd like to skip altogether, that is completely fine. Please don't feel like you have to read any of it if it's too much. I love you all, take care of yourselves<3

The service was almost unbearable.

Kitty was bewildered; she kept asking when baby Caitlin would come back so she could hold her like she’d held Janet and Michael when they were born. If Brianna had any confusion, she didn’t share it aloud

Jamie and Maggie knew.

Claire couldn’t be sure at first, but seeing the way the two of them held hands through the entire service, both of their sets of little knuckles white, made her absolutely certain. Oh, and the tears. Maggie was weeping, quietly enough that Claire could tell she was the only one who’d noticed, but weeping all the same. She was too young, much too young to have her heart broken like that. Claire had known for years that Maggie was sensitive. She was so quiet and reserved, especially in comparison to her siblings and her cousin. Things always touched her so deeply. Dead flowers in Claire’s garden still made her cry to this day.

And Claire could not forget how in awe she had been when Brianna had been placed in her arms.

“I love her, Auntie.”

Oh, and she did. Even at three years old Maggie’s heart was fit to burst with love. She’d behaved very similarly when she saw Michael and Janet for the first time, clasping her hands together and crying: “Oh, how darling! Oh very sweet!”

Claire and Jenny had laughed their heads off at that. She’d certainly gotten both of those phrases from her English Auntie.

She’d held them carefully, fussed over them both as she had Brianna.

As she would have Caitlin.

She’d been too young to hold Kitty when she was born, but the older they grew the more she fussed over her as she had all three of the infants in her life that she could remember. She hardly ever played with Kitty and Brianna, rather, she sat and watched, tutting and mother-henning them like Claire imagined Jenny had done to Jamie at that age. But it was not because she was bossy, or because she liked to hold power over them. It was because she loved them so fiercely.

As fiercely as she’d have loved Caitlin.

Jenny hadn’t wanted the children to see her cold and lifeless. It would have upset them far too much, and Claire couldn’t say she’d disagreed. But watching Maggie shuddering in the Lallybroch graveyard, she couldn’t help but feel as if they’d robbed that poor child of something that she’d needed.

For the life of her, Claire could not remember any other part of the burial besides those horrible tears on Maggie’s dear face, and the gentle reminder of Brianna’s hand in hers. Perhaps she didn’t take her eyes off of Maggie because she couldn’t bear to look at Jenny. A little girl, however sad she may be, could be comforted, could be rocked, could be soothed. In fact, Claire knew exactly what she could do to make Maggie smile again, even laugh. But Jenny…

There was nothing she could do to bring her out of that black despair.

The grief etched into every one of her features -- of Ian’s features -- was too real, too familiar to her. She couldn’t bear to look up and see her own old, still hardly-healed scars of grief in her sister’s face. It would have broken her.

So instead, she kept her eyes trained on Maggie, on that poor, broken-hearted little girl, on her big brother, how he held her hand, patted her head, hugged her around the shoulders, and on Brianna’s hand, occasionally rubbing gentle, reassuring circles with her thumb into her palm.

After what seemed like an eternity, it was time to trickle dirt on top of poor little Caitlin. Claire finally allowed herself a glimpse at Jenny and Ian as they poured dirt into the grave, and her stomach lurched. If she hadn’t looked away after that split second, she was sure she would have vomited on the spot. Claire had not been there when Mother Hildegard had buried Faith. It was something that she still felt guilt over to this day. Her mother hadn’t been there to guide her into the next world, to tuck her in with a handful of dirt.

But now, seeing Jenny and Ian do just that, she was blasphemously grateful she hadn’t been able to see her buried. She would have been feral. She would have thrown herself into that hole with her and demanded they throw the dirt upon them both. They’d have had to sedate her. She was not strong enough to bear it.

It was an absolute marvel to her that Jenny was still standing.

When it came time for Claire and Brianna to scoop dirt into the grave, Claire steadied her hand around Brianna’s on the handle of the little shovel.

Goodbye, my little Goddaughter. Tell your cousin that I love her.

Your uncle will take care of you.

——

Claire sat in one of the armchairs in the parlor, Brianna sitting in her lap. Jenny and Ian were sitting in silence on the sofa, Ian’s arms wrapped protectively around Jenny. Maggie and wee Jamie were nestled together in the other armchair, their tiny bodies fitting snugly right beside one another. The twins were napping, Kitty was flitting about, trailed closely by Fergus, keeping an eye on her. Dear boy.

Claire had watched Jenny carefully for the entire wake. She knew it was silly, what with Ian sitting right beside her the whole time, but she couldn’t help but take note of everything she ate, how much of it she ate, how much whisky she had. Last night, long after supper had ended for the rest of the household, Claire had returned to the Laird's room with two bowls of broth. It had not been all that long ago when Jenny was constantly pestering her to eat, urging her to keep herself alive despite the fervent wish to waste away.

And, by God, Claire would return that favor.

She’d been thankful beyond all measure that poor wee Caitlin was already gone from the room by the time she’d gotten there. She couldn’t bear having to be the one to say it:

“It’s time, Jenny.”

Too familiar.

Kitty tugged on her mother’s sleeve, and Jenny absently caressed the girl’s head, not hearing her when she said: “May I be excused now, Mam?”

Claire was very abruptly brought back to a time and a place she hadn’t thought about in a very long time.

Her own small voice, precisely Kitty’s age, tugging on a black skirt in her own living room, surrounded by adults that she hardly knew.

“May I be excused, Grannie?”

Kitty was tired of not understanding, of being met with nothing but sadness. She just wanted to escape back to her dolls, to her nonsense, make-believe faery world in her bedroom.

And, though the memory was older, etched with cobwebs at the very edges of Claire’s mind, it was a feeling that was, once again, quite familiar.

“Aye, mo chridhe,” Ian answered for her. “Go play now.”

Kitty grinned and bounded over to Brianna, still in her mother’s lap, arms now draped around her neck.

“Come on, Banna.” She tugged on her little skirt. “Da says we can play now.”

Brianna untucked her head from underneath her mother’s chin, looking into her eyes. “May I, Mummy?”

“Go ahead, darling.”

Brianna slipped off of her lap, and Claire met Fergus’s eye from across the room, silently pleading: Make sure they don't trouble anyone. He nodded in understanding, conspicuously following the little troublemakers up the stairs.

The rest of the wake proceeded quietly, and within the hour most of the very few people that didn’t live in the house had trickled out. Mrs. Crook and Mrs. Donnelly started cleaning up, and Maggie was immediately on her feet, helping. Wee Jamie even helped, moved to action by Maggie’s example. They helped all they could before the servants grew tired of having to instruct them, and it wasn’t long before Maggie was tugging her brother by the hand to stand beside the sofa where Jenny and Ian still sat. Hesitating just a bit before doing so, Maggie gently kissed her mother’s cheek, then moved to do the same to Ian. Jamie copied Maggie, and Claire did not miss the single tear that trickled down Jenny’s cheek. Ian held Maggie’s face in his hands, pressing their foreheads together, whispering in Gaelic before kissing her forehead. He then did the same to Jamie, and then he sent them off upstairs.

Claire sat in silence, alone with Jenny and Ian for the first time since she’d brought them supper last night. She swallowed thickly, leaning forward in her chair slightly.

“Is there anything I can do?” Claire said, admonishing herself even as the words left her mouth. What could you possibly do that would be any actual help?

“It would appear not.”

Jenny’s voice genuinely startled Claire. She hadn’t spoken a word all day until then. Before Claire could process what she’d said or even begin to decipher its meaning, Ian chimed in.

“Thank ye, lass,” he said kindly, the sadness in his eyes palpable. “Ye can check on the bairns, if ye dinna mind. The twins.”

“Of course.” Claire immediately sprang up.

“If we need ye we’ll send fer ye,” Ian said.

Claire nodded, departing the room at once. As she ascended the stairs, her mind swam with questions over Jenny’s words, but she shook it off. She’s grieving. Leave it be.

——

A month passed quietly. The holidays were uneventful. Claire, Fergus, and Brianna had a quiet little Christmas morning in Claire’s bedroom in front of the fireplace. Claire had made a new dress for Brianna’s beloved doll, Miss Nettie, and Fergus had carved her a wooden snake exactly like Sawny (which had nearly caused Claire to burst into tears). Claire gave Fergus new arm warmers, since his old ones were tattered and quickly becoming too small. He was quite impressed that she’d knitted them herself; he was all too aware how painful a task knitting was for her. And for Claire, Fergus gave her a single glass jar. She’d recently shattered a jar of herbs and was short a jar, but not any longer. Christmas was a sweet, albeit quiet and brief moment for her little family, and Claire was grateful.

Hogmanay was almost as quiet and brief. It was the worst year of the drought so far, and perhaps the most painful December this family had yet to endure, so food was scarce and company was limited. The children had a nice time; they were none the wiser to its lack of grandeur, and they were each quite enamored with the wee arm warmers that Claire had made for them. She’d made a pair for Jenny and Ian as well, and Ian had apologized profusely on both of their behalf for having nothing to give her or her children. She’d waved them off, insisting that there was nothing she needed.

On January fourth, a month and a day since Caitlin was brought into their lives and taken away all at once, Jenny and Claire were bundled up with the goats, milking them. Claire had been surprised when, the day after Caitlin’s burial, Jenny was up with the birds, eating breakfast with the family and going about her chores. Her eyes were red, sunken in, rimmed with black, but she kept herself busy, useful. Sometimes she held her children close for far longer than she should have, sometimes she avoided them like the plague.

Claire supposed that that was somewhere they differed. When Claire suffered a loss, she wallowed, she wasted away. But Jenny needed to work until her mind went numb. Claire remembered very clearly the months right after they’d lost Jamie, how Claire had fallen dumb on most days while Jenny chattered away, one of them unable to find words, the other unable to stop her words. This time, however, was different.

Jenny had hardly spoken in the month and one day since Caitlin. She spoke in hushed whispers to Ian, she spoke lovingly to her children, to Brianna, but other than that, her lips remained sealed in a tight, hard line. When she did speak to Claire, it was brief, three or four word sentences. Claire knew she couldn’t compare Jamie’s loss to Caitlin’s loss, so she really couldn’t say that Jenny should have been handling them the same way. But something just didn’t seem right.

Claire was all too aware that anger was a normal reaction to grief. So she was never surprised when Jenny’s tone was clipped, when she seemed irritable. But it wasn’t exactly that. Jenny never snapped, never lashed out, never shed hot tears of rage. It was as if she was being cold. 

She is being cold to me.

It felt ridiculous, selfish, even, to be thinking that way. What should Jenny care about Claire's feelings? Her child was dead and buried, and however she chose to get through the day was not for Claire to judge. But there was something so terribly unsettling about seeing Jenny smile at her children, and then watching it fade into that coldness when her eyes settled on Claire again.

Claire tried to tell herself that she was being paranoid. But there was one particular instance she could not deny. Claire was sitting in the parlor with Brianna on the floor by the fire, rocking her, singing to her, when Jenny had entered with a basket of mending. Claire had been so engrossed in Brianna’s little giggles that she hadn’t heard Jenny. What made Claire notice her presence was that she felt her.

She could feel eyes burning into the back of her head. When she finally turned to see her, Claire almost jumped clean out of her skin. Jenny had never looked so hateful.

And that was when Claire had put it together. When Brianna had entered the world without breath, Jenny had saved her. When Claire was bleeding to death and burning with fever, Jenny had revived her. Jenny had worked herself nearly to the bone to deliver Brianna, and to see Claire through it safely. She promised it, vowed it.

But Claire had done nothing to save Caitlin.

There was nothing she could have done. She was too small, too weak from her mother’s malnourishment. Perhaps if she’d been full term she’d have lived despite the lack of nutrients, but even still. Her lungs were not strong enough to draw breath for more than a few hours. And there was nothing in this century that Claire could do.

Logically, she knew that, and she was sure that deep down, Jenny knew that as well. But that didn’t change the fact that Caitlin was gone, and Claire hadn’t stopped it.

So now, they sat in silence with the goats, the only sounds the squelching of the milk into the buckets and Claire’s heart hammering in her own ears. She’d been planning exactly what to say, exactly how to say it, for weeks now, but nothing could prepare her for how it would feel to actually say it to her.

“Jenny,” she began, ashamed at herself already to hear how thin her voice was. “You do know that I love you, don't you?”

She paused, waiting for a verbal response.

“Aye, ’course,” she finally said, not looking up from her bucket.

“Because I do. I care about you so much. You are my sister, truly, and I love your children like they’re my own.”

Jenny nodded wordlessly.

“I want you to know that I…that I understand why you’re upset with me,” she said carefully. Jenny did not stop milking. “I don’t blame you for hating me, Jenny.” Claire was looking at her, silently pleading with her to stop, to just look at her damn it.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save her. I’m sorry I didn’t try. You can blame me; I want you to blame me. In all my knowledge, I was powerless to do something when it really mattered. And I understand why that angers you.”

Please, sister…look at me.

“My heart is broken for you, Jenny. If there was something I could do, anything, I’d have done it. I’m so, so sorry — ”

“Anything?” She finally stopped milking.

“What?” Claire blinked, shocked at hearing her speak.

“Ye’d have done anything?” She finally turned to look at her. So cold…

“Of course,” Claire said fervently. “If she could have been saved I would have done it, no matter the cost.”

“She couldna be saved?”

“No…she couldn’t. Her lungs were too weak, she was too small — ”

“Could she be saved in your time?”

Claire’s brow furrowed, bewildered for a moment.

Then it hit her like a ton of bricks.

Oh. Oh.

Oh, Jenny…

She swallowed thickly. “I…I don’t know.”

“Ye said Brianna’s birth could ha’ been painless in yer time,” she said. “That it would take no effort at all to save yer lives.”

“Jenny…”

“Ye said that Brianna’s seizures could be helped in yer time,” she went on. “Ye said to me, plain as day, after that first seizure, ye said that if her life were in danger ye’d take her through the stones wi’out a doubt.”

“Oh, Jenny…”

“What of my wee Caitlin?” Her face was reddening, her eyes swimming with unshed tears. “When her life was in danger?”

“Jenny, she wouldn't have survived the journey…”

“What of my other bairns? If something happened to them that would be painless in yer time?”

“I don’t know how it works. I don’t even know if Brianna can do it…”

“But it’s a possibility fer ye, it always has been!” she snapped. “Ye told my brother ye’d do it, leave this suffering behind so yer bairn would be safe. I didna ken how…why he’d ask such a thing of ye, I didna fully understand when first ye told me…”

“Jenny, please — ”

“But now, I canna...fer the life of me, Claire, I canna understand what ye’ve done.”

Claire was helpless to stop the tears that rolled down her own cheeks.

“Ye had that power to save yer child, and ye turned it down.” She was near to shouting now. “I’d give anything, anything, my own life fer a chance like that if it meant my Caitlin would live, if it meant I could stop any of my other bairns from dying needlessly!”

“Jenny, I swear to you on my daughter’s life that if I’d have known the pregnancy was dangerous, I’d have taken you to the stones myself to see if you could travel through. I didn’t realize, I hadn’t even thought…”

“No. Ye hadna thought at all.” Jenny swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

“I’m sorry…Jenny, I’m sorry,” Claire pleaded, desperate. “What do you want me to say? What do you want me to do? Please, Jenny…”

She stared silently at the dirt between her feet.

“Do you…” Claire’s stomach flipped at the thought, a thought that hadn’t surfaced in many, many years, a type of doubt that hadn’t crept into her consciousness since she couldn’t even say when.

“Do you want me to go back?” Her voice cracked slightly on that last word. “Do you want me to take Brianna to my own time?”

Jenny’s face changed in a way that Claire could not quite put her finger on.

“I’d finally keep my promise to Jamie. I could take her to doctors for her seizures. She’s…she’s young enough that she would…forget.” Claire swallowed hard against the lump that had formed in her throat. “I could very easily write off the memories as dreams, as games. She’d be none the wiser, and she’d be safe.”

Jenny still said nothing, but now she was crying silently.

“We can all travel to the stones, you, Ian, Fergus, the children. There’s a way to know when you arrive if you can travel. There’s a sound, a buzzing. We can see if you can all…come with me. We can try.”

Claire was shocked to see Jenny shaking her head.

“Jamie couldna hear it,” she said flatly. “Ye told me that when he tried delivering ye to yer first husband that he couldna hear it.”

“But we could try — ”

“I’m no’ a fool, Claire.” She kept her eyes on the ground. “I’m no faery, I ken that.”

“Neither am I.”

“Maybe no’ to yerself.” She finally picked her head up to look at her. She sighed, wiping her eyes again. “I dinna even ken what I’m accusing ye of. I dinna ken what I expect ye to do. I’m just…I’m…”

“Angry.” Claire nodded in understanding. “Hurt.”

Jenny nodded.

“I meant it. When I said I understand why you hate me.”

“I dinna hate ye, Claire.”

Claire blinked dumbly. “You don’t?”

“I dinna want ye to go, either,” she continued, sniffling. “I’d never forgive myself if ye both disappeared. No’ to mention it would break Kitty’s heart, and Maggie’s…”

“But…you said…”

“I ken,” she said quickly, shamefully. “I’m sorry, Claire…I’ve been hating ye to my very core this past month and I’ve no good reason fer it.”

“You do have good reason. You lost your child. And it’s heartbreaking.”

“Aye…but ye were there…ye held her through her baptism, ye stayed wi’ us until she was gone.” Her voice caught in her throat. “Ye’ve been nothing but good to me, sister, to my family, even to yer wee Goddaughter.”

“But I…I couldn’t save her.”

“No one could. Like no one could save yer wee Faith.”

She was right.

“Just…just tell me one thing, Claire, the truth of it.” Jenny steeled herself, forcing herself to look Claire in the eye. “Would she have lived, in yer time? Or would she have perished anyway? I have to know, Claire.”

Claire swallowed thickly.

“I truly don’t know.”

“Is it certain that she’d be saved?”

“No. Not certain.”

Jenny let out the breath she’d been holding.

“I think…I think Faith would have been lost no matter what century I was in. That’s something I’ve come to terms with. Things are better in my time, but still not perfect. For Caitlin…I don’t know. She may have been lost either way, like Faith, or she may have been saved. I just don’t know.”

Jenny nodded, exhaling shakily. “Thank you.”

Claire nodded as well. “It’s safer there…but not safe. If that makes sense,” Claire reasoned. She thought back three years, to the time before Brianna was born, when she’d thought about the horror and absurdity of Jewish children being murdered in the century that was supposed to be “safer”.

“I told myself that a lot before Brianna was born, to justify what I’d done. To justify denying her something safer.”

“Suppose I was telling myself that the twentieth century was free of any sorrow at all so I could justify my thinking that ye were a wicked, selfish bitch.” She made a face somewhere between a smirk and a grimace. Ashamed.

“But…” she continued, sighing. “It would appear I was wrong.”

“It’s alright, Jenny,” Claire said gently. “Truly, I wanted you to hate me. If it would help you move past the grief, I wanted you to hate me for it.”

Jenny shook her head, more tears welling up. “Oh, I tried hard enough…and it didna help.”

Without thinking, Claire threw her arms around Jenny, and for a split second was terrified that she’d throw her off of her, but Jenny simply melted into her arms, falling apart, sobbing. Claire held her tightly, kissed her head, rocked her.

“It’s alright, sister…get it out, now, it’s alright…

“You’ll be alright.

“We’ll be alright.”