#horace draft

[hawkfurze]

This vine was all I can think of the farther I got into the Shadow of the Erdtree (I beaten the DLC a few days ago)

[korxus]

This was the movie's draft, and Oh. My. GOD, WE HAVE SMOL GREMLIN ENOCH WITH BLOND HAIR AND PLAYING WITH CLAY HOMNUCULI!!! :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

[ragingadhd]

Disorganized RA headcannons

During the whole Skandia arc, Cassandra would braid/play with Will’s hair. It was just something to distract them from their situation, but ever since, having his hair done has been very calming for Will.

Will and Gilan’s relationship consists mostly of them insulting each other. If they’re not insulting each other, they’re actually upset with each other.

One of the ways Will would get back at Horace while they were kids was to do the classic “Horace, there’s a spider on your head!” and Horace fell for it every time.

Maddie one way or another heard about that ‘spider’ trick and tried it on him. It still worked.

On that note, Horace was deathly afraid of insects (particularly spiders and bees) as a kid. As an adult, he’s not really scared of them, but he will still avoid them best he can.

At some point during Cassandra’s reign, Halt goes on a week long vacation out of the country. Cassandra had him legally banished during that week as a goof.

Horace is weirdly good at cutting hair. He could be a stylist if he wanted to. No one actually believes he has this ability though unless they see it for themselves.

[arrowheadedbitch]

Jesse: You can't kill me, you need me!

Ethan: You're forgetting one thing.

Jesse: Oh, and what's that?

Ethan: I can talk to ghosts.

And then they kill him to death

[coffeeanddimlights]

Scrapped dialogue exchange from TDODA (totally canon)

Enoch: I'm so hungry.

Peculiar Talking Horse:

[welcometotheduplays]

teenage horace and (a somewhat alive) camille

[jlhynde-insanitybrilliance]

i look forward to the soulmate rumors getting so bad that slughorn uses it as an excuse to tell tom to watch out for harry. "i heard tell that you boys are soulmates! tom, my boy, you need to do more to integrate dear henry into the way we do things." tom: "he's my *what*?"

Or alternative these soulmate rumors make everyone think Harry and Tom are dating.

Slughorn (approaching Harry and Tom) : Ah, there they are, my favorite couple!

Harry: Couple?!

Tom (grinning): Good evening, sir!

Slughorn: Good evening, lad! Are you keeping your date out of trouble tonight?

Harry: Date? He’s not my date. We’re not dating!

Tom: You’ll have to excuse, Evans, professor he gets flustered with public displays.

Slughorn: Ah, I see. Look, Henry there’s nothing to be embarrassed of. You and Tom are a smart match, if I do say so. A very smart match. What with both your natural magical prowess and intellect, I’d say you’re both evenly matched. No wonder your housemates call you soulmates!

Harry: W-Wha—We’re not soulmates!

Slughorn: Well, not technically. Soulmates don’t exist. But there is a unfathomable connection between you both from what I’ve observed. That’s a hard thing to find, my boy, don’t take it for granted.

Tom: Yes, darling, don’t take it for granted~❤️

[firendgold]

If you’re doing the violence ask game, can you do 9, 13 , and 19?

oooh, yes. I am indeed. Let's not delay. My friend the read-more is here to help.

choose violence ask game

9. worst part of canon

This is a very 2007 era, "I just finished Deathly Hallows" opinion, but even after all this time, I think the epilogue really is the worst part of canon. Not just because I personally dislike the canon ships, but because JKR (hereafter referred to as That Woman) had the opportunity to do some more "show not tell" for Life After Voldemort, to flesh out what the characters' priorities would be after defeating the figurehead of Wizarding Britain's prejudice and a few of his public cronies, and she just... didn't.

I probably could have stomached the canon ships if more attention was paid in the epilogue to the reforms that were made or being made to society, the ones that have only passing mentions in Pottermore or post-book interviews—the reformation of Azkaban/removal of dementors, actually seeing Harry as an Auror/Department Head (perhaps chasing down some minor league foe?), or any sort of follow up on the themes That Woman set up in the series. In DH alone we have heroes falling from pedestals, the gritty realities of war for the average people, hostile takeover of an already corrupt government, falsely torturing and imprisoning innocent people, the fallout of being betrayed by peers and/or superiors you trust, more kids becoming orphans... I could go on. There's many, many issues for the war's survivors to tackle once the dust has settled.

But we don't get that. Instead we get "here, look, the main characters got married and had kids! even Teddy is dating someone! you remember Teddy right? last time you saw him he was a baby, and now he's all grown up with a Weasley girlfriend! love love love! kiddos off to Hogwarts again! isn't that charming?" Eh... not really. I, uh, wanted to know if society has improved at all...?

I definitely get the appeal of having the "back to normal" feeling of Kids Boarding the Train at the Platform, I do... it just wasn't what I expected for the end of Harry Potter. In my not-so-humble opinion, "and then they got married and had kids" is boring in literature of any kind. It's just so boring. And it's worse for a world of magic where the characters could be doing anything else.

13. worst blorboficiation

I'm becoming such an old I had to look this up to make sure I knew what it meant before giving my opinion. :')

Am I allowed to say more than one person? This is me choosing violence, so I'm going to list off all the HP ones that came to my mind once I knew the definition.

Remus Lupin. Holy shit, bro. This fandom has ruined this character. I get that people like him. (I like him too!) I get that he's very hard to pin down because he's one of the more mysterious people, but (until recently) I've never seen a character who's pretty neutral in canon get so positively inflated by the fandom. And it's literally just because of wolfstar. Sirius gets inflated too (more on that in a sec), but Remus gets inflated just because long ago fans decided that the two of them were obviously together and, by extension, would be perfect, flawless co-dads for Harry. You could argue that Remus doesn't really show much romantic feeling towards Tonks until DH, but you'd also have to argue that he doesn't show much romantic feeling (or feelings at all, besides grief and nostalgia) for anyone.

But like... I'm not a total Debbie Downer. I get the appeal of wolfstar alone and wolfstar dads, really, but they're hard to completely buy into (especially when the latter usually turns into a Dumbledore bashfest). Sometimes fans act like their ideal of who Remus is and what he is to Harry, Sirius, and other characters is canon when it's not. Preferable to canon, maybe, but not source material at all. The wolfstar-partner-raising-Harry!Remus is nowhere close to the real Remus. The real Remus:

is unaccounted for for the first 10 years of Harry's time at the Dursleys, and for his first and second year, with no retroactive explanation given

doesn't contact Harry after year 3, and indeed isn't even seen or mentioned again until year 5

is only briefly around Harry in year 6 (you know, the year right after Sirius dies)

consents to starting a family and then almost immediately tries to leave that family behind once he finally gets bit by the "oh, maybe now I should try being Harry's surrogate parent" bug, then doesn't understand why that pisses Harry off

So. Yeah. You teach a kid the Patronus charm one time and suddenly you're the man who can Do No Wrong in 99.3% of all fanon material. It's irritating. Ships and/or found family stuff could wrangle with the man Remus is, they just choose not to in favor of recycling old fanon archetypes.

Sirius Black. Much of the same said above about Remus applies to Sirius tenfold. Sirius cares about Harry, sure, but lots of fans like to sand over the part where Sirius made one little protest about Harry going to the Dursleys, then fully committed to going after Pettigrew in 1981 without telling anyone about the Secret-Keeper switch, or anything that would have kept him out of jail even in our aforementioned corrupt wizarding society. In their minds, that evil meanie Dumbledore forced him to not whisk Harry away to Black Manor or whatever to raise him. *eyeroll*

Sirius is a character who is developmentally delayed in canon, but some of his fans downright infantilize him. Poor Sirius, he just wanted to be a baby gay and raise Harry but the Ministry/Dumbledore/That Woman just wouldn't let him. (You can argue the last one, but it is SO RARE to find a fanfic where Sirius has to grow the fuck up and face the consequences of his early choices, while also actually taking steps to be better and be a good surrogate dad for Harry.) Just because Sirius is Harry's godfather doesn't mean he's a perfect one. And he's not dealing with a typical kid either. Sirius and Harry wouldn't easily or neatly slot into typical familial roles because they've both Been Through Some Shit—and that's why their relationship is so compelling.

And I haven't even gone into the other side of fanon!Sirius, the one who's this devil-may-care man who Got All The Ladies in his time, is mostly physically and mentally unaffected by his Azkaban stint, and is only around to: support Harry in whatever independent!Harry schemes he has going on (screw Dumbledore! run away from the war somehow! become a Cool Dude! fight the power!), blather on about Lordships and fanon shit the real Sirius wouldn't give one toss about, or to give him girl advice on whatever girl (or harem) Harry is being shipped with in that particular fic. The only reason this version of Sirius isn't an obvious homophobic backlash to the "Sirius is gay" version is because I'm pretty sure this version came first chronologically in fandom. I'm actually not sure which version of Sirius is more annoying to me.

last but not least, we have:

Daphne Greengrass. Technically I shouldn't be able to put her here, because she doesn't even HAVE a canon personality. Everything about her besides her name, her House, and her sister('s relationship to Draco) is completely made up. But fanon has come to a Consensus on her, and this consensus is THE MOST annoying made-up persona in a fandom where we also have "he's just misunderstood/traumatized by the Muggle wars/going about things the wrong way!" Tom Riddle/Voldemort, "he was just being mean to Harry for his cover/Harry deserved it" Severus Snape, "brightest witch of her age And No Other Personality Traits" Hermione Granger, "he WAS going to change sides, really!" Draco Malfoy, and "purebloods wanting to gatekeep magical society and call uppity muggleborns slurs is fine actually" fanon discourse, among other irritants. Maybe it was intriguing the first time I read it. Now, it's not.

Every single time I see "politically-neutral blonde/black-haired ice queen who teaches Harry about Noble Houses/convinces him that Not All Slytherins/gets him on the Right Political Path For His Future" I want to throw up in my mouth. It's so fucking boring. It's not what Harry Potter is about to me, it's not what it should be about, and it's not even what I look for in other media. (I think the Sword of Truth series is the only series I read where there's actual politics that I care about, and it's still high fantasy!) So much Daphne and Haphne fandom content just feels like a bunch of people missed the point of the series, which is that pretentious family nonsense is just that and pureblood tradition shit doesn't matter. And Daphne's "backstory" is not even logical. Neutral factions? "Gray" factions? Do you really think that 1970s era Voldemort, at the top of his game, would have been okay with a supposedly prominent and influential pureblood family sitting out the war in the way the Greengrasses are often written? Like, actually saying "no thanks, our clan has always been capital-N Neutral" to him? No. Fuck no. He would have murdered them all and skipped away, leaving them to be found by other "fence-sitting" purebloods as an example. Yes, there are people who are neutral in wars, but not in the HP universe when Voldemort asks you directly. And the fanon Greengrasses would have been asked directly to get that skull tattoo.

I've even been bamboozled in the past into reading Haphnes that I think are going to be different but then start treading down this same stupid road, like the comments are getting to them or something. (And readers, why the fuck would you want to read the exact same fanfic 1,000 times but written by 1,000 different people? Hello??)

It's gotten to the point where it's actually refreshing if Daphne shows up in a fic and isn't shipped with Harry, or if she is but she has a completely different personality than the above. I'm reading a few Haphnes now that I can stomach because they are different or the plot is interesting enough for me to ignore the tropes, but it's been a long time since an HP fanon "collective character headcanon" or ship other than wolfstar has left such a bad taste in my mouth or caused me to actively avoid content with that character.

...oop. I know I said "last but not least" above but I forgot to mention Regulus Black so I'll briefly do so here. I don't know what happened in the last five-ish years but this man went from "devoted Voldemort follower who did one decent thing because he liked his slave, thank goodness, even though he slowed down the locket's destruction by taking it away" to "OMG my BLORBO he was fighting the GOOD FIGHT and also he's probably in love with James Potter!! and Lily is evil for keeping them apart!!" Huh?? Fanon's gonna fanon, but is one fanfic really responsible for all this? Jegulus and "secret freedom fighter Regulus" are just beyond my comprehension I guess. Mostly because it seems like fandom picks and chooses when they want a character to be evil-aligned-but-complex, and when they want to just sand over their rough edges and make them an Unsung Hero Who Did Nothing Wrong Ever. And also because I firmly believe that if James was gay, he'd have been with Sirius.

19. you're mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like...

Teacher/student ships. (I mean, of course. I'm running this blog.) Of course IRL I don't condone that at all, but some of the most fascinating pairs in the HP universe are bonds between some of the professors and some of their students. Albus and Harry speak for themselves. But you've also got Minerva and Hermione to a lesser extent, and Snape with Draco in the early years (not so much later). And even those are nothing compared to the most interesting partnerships, which imo are between adults who at one point weren't both adults. Consider Albus and Minerva, who have been teaching, working and living together for at least five decades, before which Minerva was probably one of Albus' better Transfiguration students. Consider Albus and Snape, with Snape being the person who so recently graduated from being one of Albus' pupils to being one of his closest confidants. Consider Horace Slughorn and... well, Tom Riddle was my first choice, but really him with any student, because imo that man is very weird about networking with children. Hell, consider Albus and Tom because you know that was the most awkward seven years either of them has ever had, both being so powerful and skilled while intensely disliking each other. They're all so good. Playing with power dynamics can be fun. Especially when (and this is the only time I want politics in my HP fics!!) the older party potentially faces consequences, or doesn't, for taking advantage of the younger one, precisely because of who's involved and who's on the Hogwarts Board of Governors and what war's going on right now in the background and...

I think that's all the violence I can dish out for these questions! Thanks for the ask.~

[tautline-hitch]

also realized while rereading Aeneid 6 that the way Horace uses Orpheus-summoning-Eurydice to address Virgil in Odes 1.24 really matches nothing in Georgics 4 so closely as it matches Aeneas's plea to the sibyl:

si potuit Manis accersere coniugis Orpheus Threicia fretus cithara fidibusque canoris (Aen. 6.119–20)

"If Orpheus availed to summon his wife's shade, strong in his Thracian lyre and tuneful strings..." (Fairclough)

quid si Threicio blandius Orpheo auditam moderere arboribus fidem num vanae redeat sanguis imagini...? (Odes 1.24.13–15)

"What if you could play more charmingly than Thracian Orpheus the lyre once heeded by the trees? Would blood return to the empty wraith...?" (Rudd)

the conditional, the epithet, fidem / fidibus, the fact that V cuts off the question (the next line moves off to Castor & Pollux) but H completes the thought (a very Horatian 'well, and?').......

thinking about what this means in light of dates (probably just that H was reading Aeneid 6 in early draft, which doesn't seem implausible at all; less likely but more interesting, V responding to H responding to V). but also thinking about Odes 4.12 again. what it means to address the dead man whom you instructed not to mourn too long for the dead. and, because This Is How Literature Works—at least if you insist on striking your head on the stars—to keep doing it after you yourself have died.

... Eurydicen vox ipsa et frigida lingua, a miseram Eurydicen! anima fugiente vocabat Eurydicen toto referebant flumine ripae. (Geo. 4.525–27)

Eurydice that voice and cold tongue called Ah poor Eurydice with dying breath Eurydice the riverbanks returned

[dragonsdendoodles]

similar vein to that other ask but opposite, what do you think enoch and horace would argue about non trivially, like the worst disagreement theyve had

Oh good lord angst time. Buckle up kids today we’re going over why my friends yell at me. Fair warning this one’s also gonna be long

So there are two scenarios. One where Horace is the one hurt, and one where Enoch is.

I think whatever it is either way, it started small. I think generally they’d be good at communication, having picked that up from Hugh and Fiona, but it was, at the time, a small issue. It was not a stupid issue, because if it were a stupid issue it would turn into an argument about the argument itself.

The two things that made the first scenario significantly worse:

1. We have seen how Enoch is just in general. He has zero filter and he’s a jerk and sometimes it’s funny and sometimes he takes it a bit too far. I think, very similarly to myself, he can’t actually tell. He can tell when he’s hurt someone, but he doesn’t actually know what it was that hurt them. We’ve also seen him argue with people quite a lot, which leads me to believe he can be pretty volatile.

2. My headcanon for Horace being upset is that whenever he is, he gets in his head until he’s convinced himself that if he voices his concerns with whoever upset him (especially Enoch) he’s either going to be yelled at again and it’ll go nowhere or he’ll bother them more by bringing it back up and that combined with blaming himself for the whole thing means that eventually he just kind of shuts down. Stops talking. Waits for it to go away.

Normally, if I were writing them in this fashion (surprise surprise, I have a fic draft where I am,) Enoch would pester Horace about whatever he’s upset about until he fesses up, they talk it out, kiss a little, after an hour of trying to get this out of him it’s over in ten minutes.

However, if they were to get into a Big Actual Fight about whatever it was, I think Enoch would not have the patience to sit and deflect Horace’s “I’m fine/nothing’s wrong/you didn’t do anything/I’m just being stupid”s for as long as he usually has to. If Horace’s stubbornness wins out instead of Enoch’s and Enoch is both upset that Horace won’t ever fucking talk to him and doesn’t have near enough patience to keep pushing the issue to be able to have the information to resolve it, Enoch decides fine. If you’re going to be like this, then I’ll let you fucking be like this until you can be a fucking adult and actually fucking talk to me. Except that doesn’t come out like that, it’s Enoch, so it comes out as insults. Horace snaps back because the insults were uncalled for, Enoch snaps back because oh we’re doing this now, and neither knows who raised their voice first but now they’re both yelling. It gets messy. Someone gets called unreasonable, the other asks why he’s even still with him if he’s so horrible, the first asks why the hell he’d even say that when he knows why (the answer is he’s not, they’re both just pissed off and throwing words at each other to see what sticks,) it goes on for maybe twenty minutes tops. They get tired of crying and screaming at each other so depending on how bad they need one, one of them hugs the other and they actually talk about it or one of them goes away to calm himself down and process everything and then they hug and talk about it. Things are a little shaky for a while, but for the most part they’re just relieved it’s over and for some reason the other is still here and still loves them and isn’t leaving anytime soon. They apologized, they solved the issue by sitting down and talking about it, so for the most part everything’s okay now. There might be a day or so of walking on eggshells for fear of it happening again, but for all the hurt and all the shouting, chances are they don’t even remember what they were arguing about in the first place.

The important canon point and headcanon for the second option: Horace is shown in (at least my reading of) the books to be a bit of a people-pleaser. He does not like confrontation, he does not like upsetting people, he is too anxious and would much rather just Not Deal With That. Because of this, I am of the opinion that when he is in a particularly anxious mood or if he can sense that something is going wrong and he needs to fix it, he’ll make something up to hopefully dissipate the situation. (Think Dear Evan Hansen but on a lesser scale. It would not go farther than one person in this instance.) He knows it’s a terrible habit to have, and he is genuinely trying to fix it, but occasionally something slips out involuntarily and he feels horrible about it.

The biggest problem with that, other than the habit of being a compulsive liar: it doesn’t work. It works on people he doesn’t know, because they don’t know what his face means when he says something and then immediately gets even more nervous, but his friends and Miss Peregrine absolutely do. He knows they can tell and he is genuinely trying to fix it, so he just as quickly apologizes and corrects himself. It still hurts the other person, but it’s better than doubling down, which used to be how that would go because this all started to get himself out of trouble.

It hurts everyone involved and Horace absolutely hates that he does it, but the worst person he could do it to is Enoch. Because now his own boyfriend can’t fucking trust him and if there is one thing that pisses off Enoch more than pretty much anything else, it’s being lied to. And Enoch can and will call him on it. Immediately. Horace is doing his best to stop that from happening and chooses his words very carefully when he’s nervous in an effort to prevent it, but occasionally he gets paranoid that he’s done something Enoch won’t like and then he gets careless and forgets and then it’s just about getting out of this and uh oh.

When that happens, Enoch stops talking to him for a while. If Horace tries to say something, they fight about it and it’s an argument Horace cannot win because Enoch’s right. He should be able to trust and be honest with him, but for some reason he was scared enough to convince himself he couldn’t, and now Enoch can’t trust him. Once Enoch comes back from processing everything, they have a serious talk about why he said what he did and the thought process behind it and why Horace thought lying to him about whatever the completely innocent thing was would be a good idea and this cannot happen again. Horace understands and apologizes and tries to make up for it because that’s all he can do, and Enoch’s still upset about it for a while, but eventually he trusts Horace again and the issue is resolved. Neither of them feel good about the situation until it’s all but forgotten in a few weeks, after they’ve built that trust back up.

In writing this I realized that one can very easily lead into the other, so for all intents and purposes if we start with one and it becomes two, the argument stays two and two cannot turn back into one. It’s no longer about whatever actually caused it, it’s about the fact that now one of us is just saying things to appease the other and that habit happens to be the one thing that had it been literally anyone else that relationship of any kind would have been over.

Neither of these happens often. They are very good at communication generally, having been friends and best friends long before they were boyfriends, so 99.9% of the time if something happens that would cause an argument, they sit down and actually talk it out and it’s fine. This is just that .1% where it gets pretty bad. They understand each other better than even they think they do sometimes, so they come out okay, if not for a couple bad memories. They do talk about those bad memories sometimes as well, especially if it started with an insecurity of one of them, and they make sure that whatever it was all is forgiven and nothing is permanently damaged. If there’s damage left over, they talk about it immediately and do whatever needs to be done to resolve it. Neither holds grudges against the other.

[dragonslovecoins]

Working on my draft for my RA AU. Can't figure out what it's missing, but here you go, read it.

TW death

“You little sneak! Get back here!”

Will raced towards the tree, sweat pouring down the back of his neck as Horace chased him. He had won (fairly, he might add) at a game of cards, but Horace found a card on the ground and fully believed Will was cheating. He reached the tree and just managed to find a hold and scramble up it with practiced ease, placing his feet on the branches and climbing up before Horace could grab him. He did this almost every day. He knew what he was doing.

But he was not as practiced as he thought.

One branch broke under his foot, and he gasped, digging his nails into the branch he currently held on to in an instinctual attempt to save himself. He’s nearly fallen before. He knew what to do, didn’t he? He kicked out, trying to dig his heels into the bark and find a foothold. But the branch he was clinging to was too weak to hold his weight, and it snapped with a foreboding SNAP!.

Time froze for a second. Will could almost see eyes glinting in the shadows of the leave.

The branches flew past at breakneck speed as he plummeted to the ground, and he wanted to scream but couldn’t. He flailed hopelessly, turning this way and that, but it hit him – he was going to hit the ground. He was going to die, and this was it. He was supposed to be a knight, wasn’t he? Make his father’s memory proud?

What a useless way to die.

Tears sprung to his eyes - was it from their air, or from his own impending doom?

He landed on his head. It was over before he could do anything else. Blood and brain matter sprayed everywhere, the sound of the impact echoing through the air.

Horace froze, blood splattering over him. Alyss and Jenny screamed. George gaped, eyes widening as he stared on.

“H-Horace….” George stammered, as though Horace could explain what he did, what had happened. That saying his name could reverse what happened.

Horace didn’t know what to do, either.

The caretakers rushed forward, ushering Horace away from the splattered mess that was once Will. Horace could barely register what had happened, just that one caretaker was fetching Baron Arald, another was trying to comfort him uselessly, and the rest were pulling the others away from the bloody mess. Alyss was fighting them, trying to reach the split corpse as though convinced she could put him back together.

Alyss was always used to putting things back together. Of fixing everything when even Jenny couldn’t.

Yet she couldn’t understand, in her grief filled haze, that she couldn’t put everything back together this time.

-o-

Baron Arald was mindlessly spinning his late wife’s necklace in his hands when a caretaker notified him of the death. He glanced up, grayish eyes marked by black, dead veins and full of sadness and surprise.

“A death? How? Who?” He questioned, sitting up. The caretaker swallowed, blood still on her shaking hands.

“H-Horace…Will….” She stammered, before managing to collect herself enough to make a better attempt to tell him what had happened. “Horace was chasing little Will around again, and he went up the tree, and…and he…he fell. All thirty feet. Landed on his head, Baron.”

“And what of the body?” Baron asked, leaving his chair to ghost closer to the young woman. Recalling his less than mortal self when she flinched, he apologetically retreated back to his chair.

“We had the knights collect it.” She looked away, swallowing nervously. “Is he…?”

“Of course he will be. The Vulture has been waiting for him to die, honestly. He always talked about what he’d use him for if he died – he probably orchestrated this.” Baron Arald replied sharply. He settled back, hearing Pauline rattling the shelves. A bauble from last year’s Harvest Fest falls to the floor and shatters. At that, he sits up and shoots the rattling shelves a glare.

“Pauline, you forget yourself!” He snapped, and the shaking stopped abruptly. All was still, then a heavy book from the shelf flies at him and nearly hits him. He catches it and sharpens his glare. “Pauline, you are not a child. I understand you hate…no, despise him, and I fully understand that, but you can’t pitch the world’s greatest fit over any mention of him. At the very least, leave my items out of your fit.”

He could feel Pauline’s glare in return, but she indeed settled down and instead darted to his bedroom to shatter his mirror, the only sign of her existence a white, almost smoky form wisping past with the speed of a bird in flight. He sighed, turning to the obviously terrified caretaker.

“Please summon a servant to clean the glass. I shall notify The Vulture of this.” He commanded firmly. She nodded and scampered off.

He sat there, contemplating just saving the poor thing from such a fate, of running the corpse to some other fief to be buried. But The Vulture would know.

He always did.

After some mourning, he heaved a great sigh and got up to light the fireplace. He sat back as the flames ate at the wood greedily. He was oddly reminded of him and King Duncan.

“Thinking about me, Arald?”

Baron Arald shuddered.

The Vulture King has arrived.

King Duncan stepped from behind his chair, black eyes dead and slightly crinkled in a smile. It still looked hollow, false. Baron Arald kept his eyes focused on the flames, watching him from his peripheral vision.

“He’s a dead man smiling.” He thought, and the vestiges of humanity still left in him bristled, unnerved. He almost had to remind himself that he, too, was pretty much entirely dead.

Almost.

“My liege,” Baron Arald spoke, eyes still fixed on the flames. “I have news.”

“Oh? Do tell,” The Vulture replied, face clothed in shadow. His tone showed he already knew it, but only wanted him to say it. He grit his teeth slightly, and King Duncan laughed.

“Oh, Baron Arald! Don’t be so mad~,” He cooed, cupping his face and digging those cold, cold nails slightly into his cheek. A threat, a tease, and a flirt all in one. Baron Arald knew very well King Duncan was only so nice and flirty if he wanted something.

And right now, Duncan wanted him to applaud him.

“Your eye for new rangers is admirable, dear king.” He answered, turning his gaze to his king, and King Duncan smiled wider, soulless black eyes trained on him. “Who do you think shall take the young one?”

“O'Carrick. Who else?” Duncan answered. He smiled, looking out the window to study the blood left on the ground, shining on the grass. “Hmm…I should give him feathers. A little birdie, maybe? Since he fell and all.” Duncan added with a laugh. Baron Arald wanted to snap back and say it wasn’t funny, but he kept his mouth shut, feeling Duncan dig his claws in.

“Would it not be unwise to have a bird with…well, a glorified fish?” He regretted his words as soon as he spoke them, but shockingly, King Duncan laughed at that.

“Glorified fish! How amusing!” He tossed his head back, the flames roaring up before sputtering, dying slowly in his presence. “As for unwise…no! He raised a vampire, he can raise a little birdie. Don’t you agree, Pauline?”

The entire shelf flies at them at that. Baron Arald immediately shied away out of leftover instinct, but Duncan simply pulled him to his chest and blocked him from the shelf. King Duncan could not feel pain, but he knew Baron Arald could. And his favorite little Baron would not feel pain.

“Now now, Pauline. Don’t throw a hissy fit. Come see me! Show that pretty face. A pretty woman shouldn’t be so vicious to her king.” He drawled, smiling wider as the small light above Arald’s desk swung wildly, the candles flickering. The windows chilled, handprints left on the glass. King Duncan just laughs, blonde hair tossed by her fury.

“Well, little Arald. Let’s give her time to calm down. Come back to my palace! Help me put our newest little ranger together.” King Duncan grinned, and Baron Arald swallowed, knowing those grinning teeth would be at his throat later. Whether he played his cards right or very, very wrong, only when he was with him would he tell.

“...yes. Okay, my liege.”

Horace watches the knights scraping whatever they could off the grass. He needed a bath, but he couldn’t make himself move. He smelled of blood, was coated in blood.

Will’s blood was on Horace’s hands, figuratively and literally.

A book suddenly soared through the air and hit the back of his head. He whirled around, and saw George behind him, chest heaving. Stunned grief had turned to fury, and George was more furious than he had ever seen the young boy.

“You…You murderer! You killed him! Are you happy now?! You’ve always been a Gods’ Damned bully!” He shouted, arming himself with another book. Jenny jumped up, grabbing George’s wrist.

“George, stop!” She cried, tears streaming down her puffy cheeks. “This isn’t the answer!”

“It is! He’s a murderer and I hate him!” George snarled, ripping his arm away from Jenny and hurling another book at him. This time, Horace dodged, his own grief fueling his anger.

“I didn’t do anything!” Horace howled, grabbing the book and tossing it back. It struck the smaller boy square in the head, making him cry out and stumble back. “He fell by himself! He chose to climb the tree!”

Alyss stood, rushing over to grab George. She shot Horace a tearful glare, full of blame and anger.

“Don’t blame Will. You always blamed him when he got hurt from your actions, and now you’re too stupid to accept you caused someone’s death. Just…go to Hells!”

With that, she dragged George to the bedrooms, slamming the door firmly. Jenny looked at him.

And he knew all she saw was a murderer.

“I-I can’t believe you did this,” She hiccuped, and she, too, turned her back on him and escaped to the kitchens.

In truth, Horace blamed himself for the entire ordeal. But he couldn’t process it, not yet. He was stunned and guilty, his young mind unable to process the tragic death.

He went to the prayer room and knelt at the statue of the Soul Guide. He cupped his hands at his heart and whispered a prayer.

“Will,” He whispered. “Forgive me.”

[hawkfurze]

One of the unalloyed gold needles that Miquella crafted to ward away the meddling of outer gods. Capable of subduing the flame of frenzy if inherited, allowing one to cheat fate and avoid becoming Lord of Frenzied Flame.

[baberoe-archive]

hiiiii everyone im going to make you look at art <3 okay <3

first up we got two photos from august sander's people of the twentieth century, a decades long project he never finished aimed at identifying and organizing the "types" of people in early twentieth century germany. in photos for this project he usually identified people along socio-economic and geographic lines. on the left we have officer, world war i, cologne (1914) and on the right we have boxers, cologne (1928). museum had a bunch of sander on display and they paired it with the shortcut to the systematic life: superficial life (2002) by tsui kuang-yu, which is outside the scope of this post but super interesting so i encourage everyone to look it up lol

up next: the junkers officer (1934) by george grosz, another artist associated with neue sachlichkeit/new objectivity. im not well versed in german art but recently i have been so intrigued by leftist art of the weimar republic and it felt simply serendipitous. unfortunately by the time i saw this the museum was closing in 15 minutes so i had to rush out </3 SAD

this is air war (1944) by ralston crawford. first time i heard of this artist! during wwii he served as chief of the visual presentation unit of the weather division of the army air corps in washington dc and southeast asia.

negro soldier (1945) by robert smullyan sloan. sloan was drafted in 43 and illustrated army educational materials and posters for war bonds. the wall label says the title was given by the artist, which makes me think sloan didn't personally know this guy, which makes me very curious about the circumstances of its production. no name is given to the sitter, but he served in the european-african-middle eastern campaign in the army and was awarded a good conduct medal. sloan has a drawing at the met (station hospital [1943-44] ), but unfortunately i can't find much else about him online that might help contextualize this painting.

i think it pairs really well with this horace pippin from 1943 called mr. prejudice. pippin served in wwi with the harlem hellfighters, and the soldier at center might be a self portrait. he has a pretty good amount of paintings about the war actually -- i normally associate him with landscapes for some reason, though i think thats just because the pippin at my local art museum is a landscape lmao. his illustrated war journals are digitized at the archives of american art if you want to check it out!

up next are some pieces of interest that i want to share but about which i otherwise have little to say

L: untitled (military maneuvers at an abandoned mine) (1940-42) by harry gottlieb

R: italy goes to war (1941) by arthur dove

L: christ before pilate (1949) by david aronson. wall text wants us to note the soldier's helmet is german

R: the funeral (1949) by francisco dosamantes

ending with this delightful 1914 the wrestlers by henri gaudier-brzeska, whom the label quotes as saying, "i went to see the wrestlers -- God! i have seldom seen anything so lovely... they fought with amazing vivacity and spirit, turning in the air, falling back on their heads, and in a flash were up again on the other side, utterly incomprehensible." something about wrestling/boxing that make men gay as fuck. beautiful

[he11swinter]

Ok,imagine the juggernaut having a lover (who was short and feral) that mysteriously disappeared while he was alive and as a ghost he sees a reincarnated version of her

(Hope this isn’t too complicated)

I like this concept, but I’ve been trying all day to write a draft I’m satisfied with and cannot justify letting the Juggernaut near another living woman.

Forgive me. I don’t know how to write romance for Horace, but modifications or another request is totally okay! 🥺

[arriansarchive]

Emma Bloom/Male!Peculiar!Reader

I'm just Ken... where I see love, she sees a friend...

I'm listening to that song and I thought that line fit just a little bit with Reader and Emma in this story

Only that line though

This is set when Abe is with Miss P

This is actually a really old draft from a year ago, but I'm finishing it up to try to get something out

Summary: You're sick of Emma ignoring you for Abe, so you corner her one night to talk.

The night was long, and you were restless in your chair. The owls hooting seemed to lull you to sleep most nights but not this one.

You sat awake at your desk, tapping a pen on the paper. Many normal things happened today, almost too normal.

Emma ignoring you for Abe, Fiona and Hugh doing everything together, Enoch being a prick, Emma ignoring you for Abe.

That sentence made your blood boil over the edge of it's imaginary pot. Abe was a problem for your friendship ever since he arrived at Miss Peregrine's house.

You and Emma had been close friends for many years. You both were basically inseparable. You went to the beach together, you helped her pick out clothes for random events, history work Miss Peregrine assigned, and other.

But then Abe came, and it all went away as quick as a feather being carried through the wind.

Suddenly a light switch being flipped from across the hall sparks your attention. You and Emma's rooms were adjacent to one anothers. That means it could only be Emma.

Whenever Miss Peregrine does sleep, which tonight would be one of those nights, she sleeps heavily, so as long as you didn't make any huge noises you could get out of the house easily. That's what you suspect Emma is doing.

Abe is also a heavy sleep, so you suspect that he wouldn't be coming on this midnight stroll. You would be though.

You shot up from your desk, shoved a few pillows under your blankets, and made for the door, waiting for the right time to follow suit behind Emma.

She was probably heading to the beach, you presumed. Since every time before Abe, you and Emma went out to the beach to just talk and think.

You heard the downstairs door opened and shut quietly then started to slowly peek out your door. The hallway was barren and empty just like you thought.

Your footsteps were light inside of your socks, once you get the the bottom slipping on shoes and a fluffy hat.

The front door opened and closed once more as you exited the desolate, quiet household that in the day was loud and bustling with activity.

The walk to the beach was peaceful for your racing mind. It calmed you down immensely, probably for the better with what your about to talk to Emma about.

The outside ring of the beach was beautiful. The plants displayed out the front always calmed your nerves whenever you happened to be in distress.

Usually whenever Emma and you came here, it was to talk about some stupid new rule or short-lived piece of drama that came about in the house. Enoch picking on Horace, Fiona and Hugh, something like that. Something stupid.

Something stupid that the two of you laughed at.

There was no more laughing between you and her. There was just silence. Where there used to be a bold, strong connection; there was dead quiet, a broken string.

You sighed whenever Emma came into view. A sigh of relief? You'll never know. Her blue dress flowed as her knees were drawn up to her chest, her heading hiding in them. You could tell it was her from her blonde head of hair, a head of hair you'd know anywhere.

"Emma Bloom!" You called out, somewhat teasingly.

She looked up and turned her head on the direction where you were standing, waving your hands like a maniac.

"You." Emma rolled her eyes.

You jogged over to where she sat on the sand and took your rightful place beside her. Whenever you looked into her eyes, you saw they were red and irritated. She had been crying; and, for Emma, that meant something really bad had happened.

"What's wrong with you?" You said awkwardly.

You were never good at heartfelt conversations. You thought that was what Emma loved about you until Abe, heartwarming pep-talks Abe, came about.

"You wouldn't care. You don't like him anyways." She sighed and rubbed her eyes again.

You looked away from her and sighed. "I might not like him, but I still want to know what's ailing your heart, love."

She sniffled. "I'll tell you if you promise to never call me that ever again."

Nodding your head, you smile softly. "Deal."

Emma began to explain to you that Abe was planning to go join some mame-shift, hollow-hunters army that sent him a letter a few days ago.

"-and that would leave me alone." She finished.

You almost scoffed but managed to keep it inside, though maybe not your sour expression. She looked over at you, needing somebody to give her some advice.

"My advice to you, Emma, is to look around you at the people who really care about you." You sighed. "I've been right here for weeks, knowing he'd eventually leave you, but you've glazed past me every time."

She huffed and got up from her position on the sand to storm away. "I knew you'd do this. You make everything all about yourself!"

You looked up and started to call after her, but you felt it would do no good. Once Emma got set on something, she wouldn't change her mind. It was something you loved about her.

Supposing you'd just walk back to the house, you got up from your seat. Maybe it would take Abe leaving for her to realize what she had. Maybe you would wait until then.

[soup-of-the-daisies]

Prongsfoot Week

Day 4: What type of story that you like to Read and/or Write for this ship?

I generally write what I want to read, so the answer to both overlaps massively: nearly anything, but I have a soft spot for the ‘everything is good and everyone is happy’ AUs. Old married couple Sirius and James with various children (but at least Harry), sweating domesticity. Also mutual pining.

I like ‘em as gay men and as lesbians and as disaster bisexuals who don’t really fit into any gender mould. I even like ‘em as a het couple, should a fic catch my attention. Siytherin!Sirius and Gryffindor!James is also really tasty. Arranged marriage au? Even better. Give it to me.

Fics where they both end up in Slytherin are SO much fun too. I’ve got one in my drafts:

Then ‘Potter, James!’ echoes through the Great Hall, and Sirius watches, with far too many nerves rolling around in his stomach, as the mop of unruly black hair struts towards the little stool with a purpose. A toothy grin directed at Professor McGonagall is swiftly replaced by something solemn and determined, and then the Hat is dropped onto his head, covering his thick eyebrows and dark-rimmed spectacles.

When it doesn’t immediately call out the House of the Brave, as expected, Sirius feels treacherous hope unfurl in his chest like nightshade.

By the one-minute mark, the Gryffindor table starts to squirm; by the second, the rest of the Hall breaks out in hissing little whispers. The third ticks past before long, then the fourth, and as James sits stiff and stubborn on the little stool, even the Professors cannot contain their intrigue: the large bloke Sirius recognises as Horace Slughorn is leaning forward, cheeks pink.

At five minutes and thirty-five seconds, half a minute after James Potter has officially become a hatstall, the Sorting Hat grumbles and says, loud enough for all to hear:

“By Merlin, child, alright, I suppose you’ll do just fine in SLYTHERIN!”

And the silence is immense.