#like i could pick a specifically medieval path

[ashleighneville]

I'm genuinely really like Nottingham I almost want to apply for a history masters there but I just like the courses better elsewhere

[howtofightwrite]

I've got a world-building/combat question. I have these two warring nations in my setting, both medieval-ish tech levels. One of them figures out how to make magical flying craft that are basically WWI airplanes. The other country invents dragon riders in response. Since then, they've been at war for ~60 years. I'm trying to figure out how the heck an air force would alter medieval combat strategies. If you've any suggestions, I'd appreciate it

The first, and biggest world building problem is that magic is part of your overall tech level. Ironically, Diskworld is an excellent example of how magical technology can basically function as an alternate path for social and technical development, though, honestly, a lot of high-magic settings tend to have tech leakage from magic.

One of the more common examples that comes to mind are ���magical radios.” Either it's an enchanted device that allows person to person communication, or it's direct telepathic communication, but whatever it is, it serves a fundamentally similar role to a handheld radio, or (depending on how it works) a phone. The thing is, it's functionally a magical replacement, and it would affect society in much the same way those technologies have.

This is a long way to say, if your magical combat technology has WWI-grade planes, there is a very real possibility that a lot of your warfare is also going to be at a similar magi-tech level, if not more advanced. Having written that, I'm reminded of The Red Star comic series; though, that has a heavy Soviet aesthetic, and is not-at-all medieval.

Again, it doesn't really matter if you have fully-automatic firearms, or if you have a bolt thrower that conjures and propels crystals at hyper-sonic speeds into your foes. If they have a similar rate of fire, and similar accuracy, the meaningful change is texture. Your characters might see tiny crystal fragments shattered on the floor, or embedded into walls, instead of bullet holes. There may be no smell, or conjuring the crystals might leave a different odor. A handheld lightning projector might leave scorch marks, and a scent of ozone, for instance.

Magic might also factor into armor and defenses. If you can use a magical ward to dispel conjured objects, that might be extremely useful for fortifying specific targets against incoming conjured attacks, but it would likely be wholly ineffective against the lightning projector, or some other kind of directed energy beam weapon.

“Inventing,” dragon riding as a response to someone else making a magical airship, does strike me as an odd cause-and-effect. If dragon riding was that easy, it would seem likely that someone would have militarized them long before that point. Inventing flying objects that could function as a hard counter to dragons feels a little more natural. Or, magical, AA installations. Though, this is something that could probably be finessed, if you're really committed to the setup. It's also worth remembering that air superiority is an extremely potent advantage, even if you're not sure what to do with it, meaning that if one side suddenly had fliers, and the other side couldn't come up with a counter in short order, they'd be picked apart, and the war wouldn't have this 60 year timescale.

If it seems like I went to ranged weapons very quickly, there's a simple reason. You can't joust from a plane. Your options are to either propel objects at people, or drop things on them from above. Dragons also (usually) have the option to breathe fire on them. Now, firearms did exist in the late medieval era. So, that's not that far out of range. I'm less sure of the invention of bombs. At least, of the variety you could deliver to your enemy on the battlefield. Though, it occurs to me, you could probably use a catapult or trebuchet to deliver an explosive payload, if the explosives were stable enough to survive launch, but sensitive enough to detonate on impact. (Of course, if you have some kind of magically primed explosive, that stays stable until it is ejected from the catapult, and then explodes on impact, that would work.)

Looping back to the timescale again, this would require some pretty potent defensive capabilities. A dragon, with the ability to breathe fire, and the capacity for strategic thinking, could easily starve out an entire kingdom, simply by making a habit of torching all the cropland it could find. It doesn't, particularly matter if it gets all the food, so long as it torches a meaningful percentage of the available crops. When you have farmers going hungry, you're going to see food production dipping, exacerbating the problem. When you have soldiers going hungry, they're not going to be able to fight as effectively. When you have the peasantry going hungry, you're going to see civil unrest, and probably rebellions coming for their lord's head. You can't wage a war against a hostile nation under those circumstances. (In fact, there were multiple peasant revolts during the Hundred Years War, which basically stalled out France's ability to fight. England also suffered multiple peasant uprisings at roughly the same time. Though, those were motivated by taxation, which ends in a similar place.)

A related concept that's somewhat hinted above, is that wars are expensive, and both France and England found themselves facing uprisings because of taxation needed to support the ongoing war. (The irony being that both nations encountered this at roughly the same point in history. Roughly 40 years into the war.) A war that's been going for 60 years will likely have ravaged the economies of the involved nations. This isn't necessarily something that your characters would be aware of, unless you expand the context to show non-wartime economies.

The simplest explanation for why this happens is that any money you spend prosecuting the war are products that you never see returning value from. The money itself doesn't leave the economy, but the natural resources, and labor required, are expended non-productively (from the perspective of economic growth.) So, if you have a peacetime merchant, they're moving money around, but they're paying for their goods, and then those goods are going to consumers, who may also be contributing to economic activity with those goods (this even applies for food, you can think of that as a necessary component to any productive activity.) If you're a wartime merchant, selling weapons to the military, you are contributing to economic activity when you buy the weapons, but when they're sold to the crown, that's no longer productive. Those weapons leave the economy and never return. Worse, any soldiers who are permanently wounded, or killed, are also removed from the economy. Over time, this can destroy the most prosperous of nations. (To be clear, this is more advanced economic analysis than anyone in the middle ages would have had. So, the idea that wars are expensive was understood, but the exact reasons it slowed the economy were not.) And, this kind of thinking is another form of technological advancement. Ideas for understanding complex systems have become more intricate and detailed over time. While it's not the concept of, “invention,” that you might be used to, it is a similar form of progress.

So, how would this look in your world? There's a lot of potential consequences, most of which are not contradictory.

An impoverished lower-class is very likely. Whether that includes wounded veterans or not is a little more up in the air, though after 60 years, military pensioners, and those who suffered life-altering injuries on the battlefield are likely to be a common sight, either on the street or in the poverty line. (Especially if the crown is willing to enforce drafts and conscription.) At this point, that might be a very real possibility.

A struggling aristocracy is also likely, with former major power players who've declined into poverty. This might take the form of borderline abandoned estates that have been taken over by the crown or squatters. (Probably not both at the same time.)

Serious inflation is likely (and could be why formerly stable guild members, merchants, and even some of the aristocracy might now find themselves struggling.) I realize this point isn't something most really think of when you're trying to write a fantasy world, but it's worth considering. More likely this will be seen in food prices having increased over time. So the major symptoms you'd likely see would be decaying structures that no one has the resources to maintain, rising food prices, and generalized poverty. Even in a fairly magically advanced setting, a lot of these things would, likely, still happen. Of course, if the dragons have been used to destroy the agricultural base, things would be even worse in that nation. To be clear, food and taxation riots are not off the table there.

This is sort of a non-sequitur, but if you have a setting with classic transmutation (lead, or other base metals, into gold), you would actually see inflation with every batch of transmuted gold hitting the market. It's sort of an amusing note on the fantasy of being able to produce as much money as you want, but ultimately, it's actually harmful from a macroeconomic perspective. (Basically, the same reason counterfeiting is a problem.) Though, it is a possible hook for criminal groups in one of those nations, producing counterfeit gold via transmutation.

There's also a real world example from 2020, where a jewelry company had fabricated “fake,” gold bars as collateral to secure loans. In total, they claimed to have 83 tons of gold used to obtain loans worth over 2.8 billion dollars, from 14 different creditors. Except, when they defaulted on those loans, and were forced to hand over the gold, it was discovered that these were in fact gold plated copper bars.

I realize the question was about the flying forces specifically, but so long as that advantage is dealt with quickly, and neither side is able to monopolize air superiority, that's not going to change nearly as much as having that level of magical advancement would on its own, and of course, the general consequences of having a war that's been going on for long enough that multiple generations have died on the battlefield. That's going to a bigger effect on your world as a whole.

-Starke

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[jennyyy007]

LITTLE LAMB 🩸 ੈ♡˳

Cw: vampire whumper, human whumpee, cruel whumper, creepy whumper, horror, medieval setting, kidnapping

———————————————————————

“Goodbye mama! I will return soon!”

Whumpee reassures cheerfully as they close the gardens gate and start walking over the small path leading into the woods.

It’s their little sisters birthday tomorrow and their mother asked them to pick some berries in the woods.

Tightly gripping the big basket they start skipping over into the deep woods.

It’s a beautifully sunny day, butterflies swim in the air, flowers started blooming almost everywhere since this spring started. This really doesn’t feel like a chore for Whumpee, but a break from all of the exhausting tasks at the bakery.

Whumpee keeps walking along the path before spotting the first raspberry bush by its side. They quickly hurry over to it, starting to pick the berries and carefully throwing them in the basket to not squish them up.

It’s so much fun!

Too much fun…

Whumpee quickly turns around as they hear some ruffling in a bush behind them. Almost dropping the basket, they quickly move to check who their secret stalker is.

“Hello?..”

They say, their voice slightly shaking in the process as they hold their basket tightly in their hand. A little bit more movement can be seen in the bush before-

Oh…

A small bunny reveals itself before playfully hopping away, disappearing behind a tree…

Whumpees stomach grumbles at that sight. They’re pretty hungry by now-

bang!

Loud thundering hits, making the already a little startled whumpee jump. The realization hits now, as they look around themselves…

where are they?

———————————————————————

Heavy raindrops pour down on the poor whumpee as they keep trying to find a way home. They have no idea where they came from, having been busy looking for berries for probably three or more hours.

The woods only seems to grow deeper as they run. There has to be some-

Ouch. Whumpee stumbled over a tree root, crashing down on the floor. Dropping their basket and accidentally breaking it while all the berries spill over the ground.

No- no no that was their Mothers favorite basket!

But as they try to get up, another realization hits in that process.

“Ahh!”

Whumpee twisted their ankle pretty badly. Tears start to build up in their eyes as they catch all their bravery together and get up, leaving the basket behind before starting to stumble their way. They still have no idea where home is, but staying in this forest overnight is definitely not a good idea. There could be wolves or bears…

Or worse.

After stumbling a little farther they notice something in the distance… a light.. no. A house! Of course it’s not a good idea to just head to a random house in the middle of the woods… but a house means that someone lives there and maybe there’s a town close.

Whumpee would rather stay at a strange persons house than get slaughtered by a hungry bear.

The shivering whumpee reaches the door before quickly knocking on it. It only takes a few seconds before the door swings open, like the person behind it was waiting for them.

As whumpee looks up they see a man. With raven black hair and brown eyes.. that in a specific lighting clould appear red.. he’s quite tall, probably two heads taller than whumpee.

“Good evening child. What can I do for you?”

Child? The man looks five.. maybe ten years older than them.

“G-good evening sir- I-I wanted to ask if- maybe I could have some.. s-some shelter overnight? I got.. lost in the woods and- m-my ankle twisted as well..”

Whumper looks down at the pathetic figure of a person. Shivering and dripping all over their front porch, their clothes covered in dirt and grass from the fall and there is even a small scratch on their knee… god..

“Oh but of course darling! Please, step inside I can’t have you get yourself in any danger out here!”

They say, stepping to the side to let them enter, smiling softly at them as they do so before closing the door again. Maybe a tiny bit too roughly, since they made another small jump… or maybe they’re just a frightened little lamb.

“Would you like to take a bath young one? I can provide you clothes and something to feast on if you’d like? You do look a little thin”

He says smiling as he steps past them, looking in their eyes. Whumpee makes a small nod.

“Y-yes please sir that- would be very nice“

The man makes a quick nod before stepping further down the hallway… a very beautiful hallway whumpee must say. The whole house… or.. mansion is architected in a pretty gothic style, no big lights just small candles along the walls or on shelves.

Whumper keeps motioning whumpee to follow them further up some stairs by the end of the hallway. As they reach the second floor whumper leads them to a bathroom. A giant one, which you would expect from a castle. There’s a big mirror, a large tub and a shower even.

The man walks over to the tub before setting the temperature warm and turning the water on before grabbing a bottle of lavender bubble bath. His favorite. And pouring it inside.

“Here you go darling. I will head out to prepare your dinner now. If you need anything, please call for me”

He says before leaving whumpee alone in the bathroom, closing the door behind them.

Whumpee sighs, relieved that they’re safe now. They quickly strip off their wet and dirty clothes before stumbling over to the tub, sitting inside.

Their ankle still hurts a little… but for some reason it already feels better.

Ahh… this is nice…

They think to themselves as they relax in the tub.

———————————————————————

“Goodnight child. Have sweet dreams.”

Whumper says before closing the door of the guest room and everything goes silent.

Except for the cracking of the fireplace, the whole atmosphere is so relaxing…

Whumpee moves to blow out the candle standing on the bedside table before they lay down, pulling the blanket over their shoulder.

Just a few minutes later.. as they were about to drift off to sleep, they hear a scream, making them shoot up.

They just imagined that right? It sounded so real…

Another one.

The high pitched, bloodcurdling scream of a woman. It came from downstairs..

whumpee quickly pushes the blanket off before setting a foot down on the floor, and a second one, getting up. Huh?… Their ankle feels completely fine. It doesn’t even hurt in the slightest. Odd…

Doesn��t matter- Whumpee quickly makes their way to the door, ripping it open before hurrying down the stairs, to the big hallway.

And as they reach the bottom of the stairs they see something truthly disturbing…

A woman… skinny… pale… wearing only a ripped, covered in blood, night gown. Similar to the clothing, provided by whumper, whumpee is wearing currently.

She stumbles closer before collapsing on the floor and whumpee immediately hurries to get over to the lady.

“Ma’am are you okay?! W-what happened?”

They ask as they try to help her up, without success… The lady looks like she’s been drained of her blood until near death… but as whumpee observes her face a little longer… they realize something… So-

“Sophie. Where do you think you’re-

Oh… Hello whumpee”

Whumpers voice sends chills down whumpees spine as they look up, seeing the man standing in front of them. His eyes glowing bright red…

“W-what- what h-happened?”

Whumpee says as they look at the woman in their arms. She doesn’t have much longer… and whumpee knows…

She was the towns librarian. A beautiful passionate woman… until she disappeared. Nobody knew where she went…

“Vam- vamp- d-drank m- my- me-“

The man just glares down at the two, resisting the urge to taste whumpees blood. Which’s sweet, honeylike smell he could already pick up miles before they even knocked on whumpers door.

“S-sophie- s-stay with me please-… sophie?…”

She’s dead… she’s actually dead… o-oh lord how- how did this happen they don’t understand!

“Oh… my poor Sophie… Your blood really was great.. Good that a new kettle came just in time…”

Whumper says, looking in whumpees eyes now. They look so frightened… so pathetic… so… delicious”

Whumpee suddenly starts to feel severely lightheaded, like looking in whumpers eyes was poisonous…

Just a few seconds later they loose grip on Sophies body before dropping to their side as everything goes black.

“See you soon little lamb…”

———————————————————————

Short story but part twooo??

@a-living-canvas @watermelons-dont-grow-on-trees @theforeverdyingperson

[maulfucker]

I saw you had a post where you thought abt Dathomirian culture and I was wondering if you had any thoughts on how specifically Dathomirian queer culture manifests. I'd like to come up with things myself but I don't actually know a lot in general abt Dathomir yet, so I want other opinions. I've got two ideas tho

-Dathomirian queer ppl call each other "family" like some queer ppl did in our world

-Trans men might like earn their horns thru hunting and using animal bones and stuff as their horns? Idk like I said I don't know much

Good question! I haven't actually thought that much about queer culture in Dathomir despite having a gay nightbrother oc,,

I think the calling each other family thing probably wouldn't work very well since they already treat their clan as family and call each other brother and sister even without blood relation, but I love the idea of trans nightbrothers earning their horns! Dathomirians as a whole seem to be pretty open to body modifications, with tattoos being so natural in their culture, so hunting animals to use their bones or teeth or something to produce "prosthetic" horns sounds very fitting. It could be a whole thing for both trans and cis nightbrothers, using the extra horns as a way to show off their strength. plus it opens up the possibility of nightbrothers implanting horns in whimsical shapes such as smiley faces, stars or penises

I think as a people composed of multiple isolated communities, there's probably not a uniform queer culture across the planet. But also as people who tend to live in single-sex communities they are likely far more queer on average than what we see in the rest of the galaxy, like how cowboys were famously queer. They supposedly spend most of their lives around the same gender, so it wouldn't be unusual for that to be the gender they express attraction to more often. Though, much like how cowboys have been "reinterpreted" as a symbol of straight white masculinity, there's probably also a popular misconstruction of their culture as extremely straight, and/or extremely celibate. The "Nightsisters rule over Nightbrothers" reading of their culture is very obviously meant to show them as a reverse-sexist society, making the nightsisters a sort of "girl power" icon — they are strong independent women who can pick any man they want (implying that they do want men), which is like saying cowboys are strong fearless men who woo every damsel that crosses their path. which. sure, cowboys did have sex with women. sure, nightsisters do have sex with men. but more often than not they will be around other nightsisters, so they will more often than not have relationships with women (even if they're not really gay).

but I am not usamerican and my brain has the consistency of molten ice cream, so my knowledge of american cowboy culture is. basically just that. (the brazilian cowboy culture is quite different, especially considering there's like three distinct cowboy "sub"cultures, each with their different history, territory, and associations) So that's as far as I can take the cowboy comparison, but cowboys can be a pretty good source of inspiration I think. maybe look into that?

A quick look into medieval monasteries (another famously gender-segregated culture) says they were also pretty gay. And that the sexual persecution that is so commonplace in christianity today was not really a thing yet back then, which is also something to consider when trying to conceive the queer culture of a people who have nothing to do with our modern (overwhelmingly christian) society — do they have a reason to reject queer people and relationships, or are we just projecting our own worldviews and experiences onto a people who have none of the sociohistorical context that shaped our experiences?

I think homosexual/romantic and even polyamorous relationships would be pretty normalized, since there's not really any reason to only accept hetero relationships if they rarely ever live in mixed-sex communities. That said, there's probably still some expectation of heterosexual activity, in the form of the Selection and its implied procreation purposes. Dathomir is a very isolationist world, so to keep their population stable they need to procreate, even if it "goes against" an individual's sexuality. And this is where I think polyamorous relationships have reason to be encouraged: if a nightsister or nightbrother who already has a partner takes part in a Selection, why not bring their partner(s) into the relationship as well and increase the likelihood of producing offsprings?

As for the gender side of queerness.... well that's probably A Lot more complicated than I have time to discuss here. The gender binary seems pretty enforced in their culture from what little we see, and their sexual dimorphism probably makes trans and/or intersex people stand out A Lot more

I've mentioned this before, but I headcanon that the skin color difference is not a sex-chromosome-bound characteristic, but instead a sex-hormone-related expression of pigmentation, like in some birds such as peacocks. Both males and females are shown to have a range of skin tones, but in females it manifests as grayscale while in males it manifests as a color scale from red to yellow. So intersex people might have colors that are in-between, or that don't "match" their apparent sex, and trans people who undergo their equivalent of hrt might slowly change skin colors over time.

As for how nonbinary people work.... well as someone who is from a latin american country and speaks a romance language, I would like to imagine their "nonbinary" is a lot like ours — there is no "neutral" gender, they simply play with their presentation to be between one and the other, leaning towards whichever one might be considered more "transgressive" at the moment.

I don't think trans people would be forced out of their clans for being a different gender than everyone else, but it's possible their role in the clan might change to something more "befitting" of their new gender I also think there's probably a lot more contact between different clans than just the Selection, so it's possible for people who decide to start over as a new gender to take one of these moments of contact as an opportunity to "visit" another clan and never come back.

..... aaand it's almost 2 am so I gotta hit post

[the---hermit]

Hallo! Hope you don't mind me asking, what was your course structure like in Italy? Like we study Ancient in Bachelors first year, Medieval in second and Modern in third. We also did Ancient Greece and Rome in the second semester.

P.S. your blog REALLY inspires me to study more and your photographs are just so aesthetic, thank you so much 💕

Hello anon!

I don't mind at all, I'll try to be as clear as possible in my explainations, in case anything is confusing let me know. I wiil of course base this on my personal experience, it might be bit different in other universities but the general idea should be the same.

in bachelor you get a basic course in all historical eras so: ancient greek history, roman history, medieval history, modern history and contemporary history. these are all 12 credts value, so they are all pretty dense. Usually classes with this value are divided in two halves, and the second one has a focus on something specific (for example i had a insight on medieval economy in my medieval history calls, whereas in my contemporary history class we had an insight on the rise of scientific racism and creation of criminology in the late 1800s). Usually you have more options and you pick whichever class depending on which professor seems better to you and which focus is more interesting to you.

this idea here is that no matter what your main interests are you need to have a base of everything. this is clearly because you need to know at least in general all eras to be able to fully comprehend everything. with no base knowledge you couldn't get a real understanding of all passages because at the end of the day everything is linked to what happened before too strongly.

an important thing i have to mention is that we have a lot of choice in general, you have three or four classes to choose from at least. and that also includes all the other classes you take during your degree (if you are more interested in what i did i can definitely sit down and tell you about some of the classes i had in my bachelor). then other than these more basic classes you have many more that add up during you 3 years of bachelor. i did some italian litterature, philosophy, anthropology, two English classes, archeaology classes, as well as more practical classes like the modern history seminar i did where we learned how to actually be historians, how to work on different kind of sources and so on. The whole idea is that you can create an academic path for yourself that follows your interests. I should check but if i remember correctly we had 6 exams on the first year 12 on the second and 6 the last but to be honest i could be getting confused. I should definitely check my old bullet jorunals to tell you the precise number of exams.

During your masters you also get a lot of choice, but the classes are more advanced and on more specific topics! Again i can get a bit more specific if you want.

I wrote this and didn't reread if before posting so again if i am too confusing or didn't explain things well lmk, it's the end of the day and my brain is struggling.

[welcome-to-ratterrock]

imagine if the characters had access to Tiktok 😣

I Wonder what they would do on there, i think Sorcha would be an influencer ngl 🤷‍♀️

Oh, she absolutely would be an influencer, but a very specific kind of influencer - think Dita Von Teese as an influencer. Lots of Golden Hollywood glamour, exploring the world of theater and singing and burlesque, lots of Day In The Life Of A Chanteuse TikToks, shopping in high end boutiques and finding gorgeous vintage finds. One of her most famous TikTok’s is doing her makeup routine whilst handling her butterfly knife, singing an Irish cover of “Young and Beautiful.”

Lor would be all about Boxing/Gym Life, his matches and workout routines along with whatever trend tickles his fancy. LOTS of practical jokes and shenanigans directed at his siblings and his best mate Brig (“I DON’T WANNA BE ON BLOODY CAMARA, PISS OFF!”) and mixing of cocktails and bartending tricks.

Also lots of TikTok’s about his amazing, spectacular, gorgeous girlfriend. “Ain’t she the best? Rilla, show them your gorgeous smile, can’t believe a mug like me has this girlie on me arm…” The most popular TikTok of his featuring her is when he’s trying to teach her how to properly throw a punch. At the end Rilla leaps at the punching bag and holds onto it like a koala while Lorcan falls to the floor laughing.

Rilla’s TikToks are all about ballet and dancing and fashion, she had a huge following and she adores her fans. She loves to do TikTok’s of getting ready for her barre exercises whilst wearing a flower crown and telling about her latest adventure at the club, and is very big into promoting body positivity and body neutrality, and is always ready to be a cheerleader for anyone who is feeling down.

She also has countless ones about her sweet, loving, passionate boyfriend, “He’s as handsome as the devil but his heart is the kindest in the whole wide world! Look at those eyes! Oh, but they make me weak in the knees…!” The most popular TikTok of hers featuring him is when Rilla gave him a spa day, which meant a manicure, pedicure, a facial and massage and a full cosmetic makeover - Lorcan adored it.

Saoirse’s account is focused on activism, lots of marches and protests and lifting up grassroots movements and go fund me’s, showing ways to give back to the community and help those who don’t have housing or resources. She has to be careful with her TikTok’s because the police are aware enough about her and her influence to consider her a troublemaker…

Locke’s TikToks all about True Crime and whatever else he wants to info dump about - medieval executions and instruments of torture, the history of poisons, how the Victorians were obsessed with death, what it would take to actually reanimate dead tissue like in Frankenstein, et cetera.

He’s very confused by any attempts at flirting and is notorious about his beef with one Padraic Regal. And yet, he gets VERY bitchy to those who gush about Regal (“You’re NOT his type! Not…not that I…know about his - humph!- type…”) or insult him in anyway. Regal is his to insult, that’s all…

Padraic, meanwhile, holds off on posting anything on his account because he doesn’t want any kind of incriminating evidence that the police and or his rivals/competitors could use against him. But when he does, oh man…

Hashtags about him start going viral, people immediately falling over themselves about him. He becomes infamous for his cutting criticism of modern media, his witty observations and banter, his debonair fashion, his cultured charm, his flawless grooming/cosmetics, and Being That Bitch. Followers are quick to pick up on and note how he and Locke cross paths a lot despite their…tension. There’s a lot of teasing done, and some of Padraic’s more ardent supporters begin to harass Locke.

And then those followers disappear. And everyone learns that Padraic Regal is the only one allowed to fuck with Sage Locke.

[mask131]

Cold winter: Los Reyes Magos

LOS REYES MAGOS

Category: Spanish folklore / Christmas season / Biblical lore

In Spain, children don’t wait eagerly for Christmas. Christmas is a big holiday for adults, not for them! They don’t get any presents on Christmas… No, they only get presents during the other big holiday of the winter season. Not Christmas, not New Year… But the Epiphany, also known as “El dia de los Reyes” (The day of the Kings). And they don’t get their presents from any Santa or Saint Nicholas – but from Los Reyes Magos, The King-Magi – or those that the English like to call “The Three Wise Men”.

Everybody knows the story… After the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, three “wise men” (not actually but more about that later) came from the east to Judea, and asked king Herod to see the child that had been born “king of the Jews”, explaining that they knew he was here for they followed his “star” in the night sky, and came to pay homage. King Herod, who had tried to kill baby Jesus before, then sent the three wise men to search the baby on their own, but told them to come return to him afterward so he could too “pay homage” to the “king of the Jews”. Following the rising star, the three wise men finally found where baby Jesus was – and they all kneeled before him and his family, offering three gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh. But a dream warned them not to return to Herod or inform him about the child’s location, so after they paid their homage they “returned to their country by another path”.

In Spain, the Epiphany is a grand celebration of the Magi : they are the ones supposed to bring gifts to children on the night of the Epiphany (and the children notably have to send letters to the three Kings to explain their desires, just like with Santa). Each Epiphany Day great and colorful parades are organized throughout the town (called the cabalgatas de los reyes mmagos or cavalcades of the Magi), welcoming the three Kings as they throw candies and goodies at the audience: Melchior from Europe (or Arabia depending on the tradition), Gaspar from Asia, and Balthazar from Africa. Coming from the East while riding camels, they then proceed during the night (or the eve’s night) to visit each household, leaving gifts for the children in their polished shoes. In exchange, the children leave some food and drinks for both the Kings and their camels – sweet wine, fruits, milk, dried grass and hay… If the child was good, they will receive a gift – but if the child was bad, they will receive coal (though, just like with the Befana’s tradition, the coal was promptly replaced by a form of black candy called “sweet coal”). There is also a specific cake for the Epiphany, called the “Roscon de Reyes” (accents not included), a brioche-like cake with orange blossom water for the taste. It is in the shape of a circle, to mimic a crown, and has as “jewels” candied or crystalized fruits. Usually filled with cream (though some are “plain” without filling, while others prefer chocolate cream or whipped cream), it also contains a small figurine shaped like one of the Reyes Magos, and dried bean. Whoever gets the slice with the figurine is crowned the “king” or “queen” for the day, and is ensured to have good luck for the year ; however the one that gets the bean will have to pay for the cake.

I want to return on what I said before… the fact that the three Kings come from three different continents. It is a tradition that exists outside of Spain, and for quite a long time. In fact it was a tradition started by medieval art, and then reused by Renaissance art heavily – before being picked up by folk traditions such as the Epiphany holidays. This tradition insists on having the three Magi correspond to the three parts of the world (as they were known in the Middle-Ages, and before the discovery of America, “the fourth continent”). Hence the separation above and the idea that the Three Kings were white, oriental and black – to represent how the powerful kings of the entire world came kneeling down in front of Jesus. But this tradition tends to overlap with another one… another habit that rather has the three Kings represent the three ages of men, one being old, the other middle-age, and the last young. Sometimes the two depictions are separate, other times they overlap – and the last case is fascinating because the choice of superposition is not innocent. In this overlap, Melchior the European will be depicted as an old man, because in medieval (and Renaissance) ideas, Europe was the “old civilization” and the “father” of all things. Meanwhile, Balthazar of Africa will be depicted as a young man, because in medieval and Renaissance mindsets Africa was a “child” continent with barely any civilization (and if you told them Africa had a much older history than Europe they would have laughed in your face). Gaspar the Asian is usually the middle-aged one.

But this tradition of the “symbolism of three” actually comes from art and folk traditions – I want to insist on this. It is not a religious tradition, because for religious authorities and the “actual” Christian culture (pushing aside all local traditions), the three wise men don’t come from just anywhere in the world. They come from the East, the text is pretty clear.

But before that, let’s take a look at the actual title of these guys… People call them the “three wise men”. Wrong translation. Or an oversimplified one. People call them the “Three Kings” and the “Three Magi”, and this is half-right, because they are “king-magi”. The “king” part is pretty obvious, but the “Magi” part might be more obscure to people today. “magi” is the plural of “magus” which, yes, is the origin of “mage” and with time came to mean “sorcerer” (the New Testament several times use the term “magi” to designate sorcerer and male witches, like Simon the Mage or Elymas). But here, “magus” has to be understood in its original sense: the Greek transliteration of the Old Persian “magus”, which is actually a term designating the priesthood of Zoroastrianism. The Zoroastrian priests were most notably renowned as astronomers, because their study and religious practices demanded that they knew and observed the starts and the constellations (hence the whole “we followed a star to find the babe”). And, due to being both priests and astronomers, the “magi” came to be seen and perceived as men dabbling in the “occult” or men of many high and intellectual crafts – hence the evolution into “wise men” and “sorcerers”, and how from “priesthood-rulership” the “three magi kings” turned into “knowledgeable kings dabbling into astronomy”. That, coupled with them “coming from the East”, came to people identifying them as kings from the Parthian Empire, which stretches from Syria to India, and had Zoroastrianism as a dominant religion.

The most well-known and agreed “origins” of the three “scholar-kings” in religious traditions has a given set of countries: Persia for Melchior; India for Caspar (or Gaspar or Jaspar), Arabia for Balthasar (or Balthazar), though he is sometimes rather given Ethiopia as a kingdom. But there is another one, which overlaps with the “three ages of man” depictions, that rather claims that Caspar was the old one and “king of Tarsus” (a land on the southern coasts of today’s Turkey), Melchior was the middle-aged ruler of Arabia, and Balthazar the young man coming from Saba (today’s northern Yemen).

Similarly, which magus gave which gift to baby Jesus is a big subject of debates – but everyone agrees on the fact that there were three gifts. Gold, frankincense and myrrh. The meaning of these gifts has also been heavily debated. Some people invoke that, very simply, it just are very valuable, very rare gifts, precious enough to be worthy of a king – myrrh being a precious body oil, frankincense a type of perfume, and gold being gold. These people hold that the gifts should merely be interpreted as “gifts for a newborn king”. But another group rather wants to see in those gifts three symbols reflecting Jesus’ life, and his nature as the Christ. Indeed, “gold” would mean a form of material power and wealth, and reflect an earthly kingship, while frankincense (which is used as incense) would reflect a type of worship and prayers, and mean a divine nature (as Jesus is the “son of god”). As for the myrrh… it was used as an embalming oil, and would represent death – either the mortal nature of this son of God, or his foretold death at the cross, a crucifixion needed to redeem all of humanity. This is notably associated with a famous sentence “Gold, as to a king ; myrrh, as to one who was mortal ; and incense, as to a God”. (A “softer” interpretation in this sense rather invokes gold as symbolizing a great, pure virtue ; frankincense as representing a strong faith and solid prayers, while myrrh is here to symbolize the suffering of a mortal life).

- - - - - -

Unfortunately, in modern urban areas of Spain, the tradition of the Reyes Magos as gift-givers tends to be replaced by the much more well-known and widespread Santa Claus.

But I want to add one thing about the “Magi-Kings”. I talked about the folkloric and artistic tradition. I talked about the religious tradition. However, what about the original text? It is fascinating to look at the actual text that speaks of them, only one of the four Gospels, Matthew’s Gospel. Because… well most of what we “know” or believe about this trio isn’t in there.

For example yes, the three wise men come from the east… But the text never specifies that they were three. This idea came from the fact the magi came bearing three gifts – but nowhere in the text are they said to be three. (In fact early traditions and depictions spoke of two, four of five magi). Similarly, the names “Gaspar, Balthazar and Melchior” aren’t in the New Testament. They were “found” or “invented” later, in posterior texts. In fact some local churches give them different names: the Ethiopian Church, one of the oldest branches of Christianity in the world, calls them “Hor”, “Karsudan” and “Basanater”. And let’s tackle another myth: “reyes” magos ; “rois” mages ; “king” magi… The text never specifies that they were kings. The text only speaks of “magi”. Nowhere are they king. So where does it comes from? Well, this idea comes from the Old Testament, not the New, where a prophecy/vision describes the future upcoming Messiah (identified by Christians as Jesus) as being worshipped by kings upon his birth… Which the Christians promptly related to the scene of the “Adoration of the Magi”, when the magi kneeled in front of young Jesus bearing their gifts. And so bam! From just astrologer-priests, they became kings!

[enchantedchocolatebars]

A BIO I MADE FOR MY WITTEWIFE, CLARA!🧡💕🤎✨

Snatched the bio template from 👉here👈.

General Information:

Full Name: Clara Clawthrone.

Nickname(s): Claire, Eclair, Love, Dear, Cutie, Sweetheart, Charmer, Enchanter, Witchling, Good Girl, Bad Girl, Wench, Hateable Sorceress.

Age: 25 (long hair) 26 (short hair).

Gender: Female (She/Her).

Place of Birth: The Demon Realm.

Date of Birth: September 22 aka First Day Of Fall!🧡🧡🧡💕💕💕🍁🍃🍂✨

Species: Witch.

Occupation: Being pretty. Kidding! Saleswoman actually lol! She could be spotted a lot in the town's marketplace trying to sell little knick knacks and trinkets.

Skills / Abilities : Magic wielder!🔮✨

Voice: Tw//ilight Sp//arkle (M//y Lit//tle P//ony) And Il//ana (S//ym-Bi//onic Tit//an).

Status: Deceased.

Appearance:

Height: 5'4.

Weight: 130 lb.

Skin Type: Fair.

Hair Color: Shifts during seasons. In winter and fall, she's a full brunette with bits of orange in her hair. But in spring and summer, she's 🧡half🧡 and 🤎half🤎 lol.

Hair Style: (Left) Long and lovely! (Right) Short and super cute!

Eye Color: Green.

Clothing: Medieval / Renaissance / Fantasy style dress!

Accessories: Her staff!

Features: Her most prominent features are her freckles! <3 Also her cowlick! <3

Relationships:

Family: Mother, Father, Older and Younger Sister (she's a middle child), her baby.

Love Interest/Crush: A CERTAIN BLONDE.(⁠灬⁠º⁠‿⁠º⁠灬⁠)⁠♡(⁠*⁠˘⁠︶⁠˘⁠*⁠)⁠.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡(⁠ʃ⁠ƪ⁠＾⁠3⁠＾)(⁠●⁠♡⁠∀⁠♡⁠)

Friends/Allies: Being a friendly and outgoing witch, she's made alot of friends / allies on the Isles, but her bestest, most closest friend and ally of all time has to be her blue jay palisman, Syrup.🐦💙

Enemies: Uh, DEFINITELY Philip after that cave incident... That man really killed her hubby and JUST ran away. Coward.

Other Information:

History: Clara Clawthrone had a happy childhood growing up. She was a bright and bubbly little witch who loved her parents and sisters dearly.❤️ As a kid, she had a huge fascination with magic! Seeing it being used and using it herself was always a fun experience! Speaking of fun, as a teen, something else she found fascinating were humans and romance! She's never met one, but she's seen images of them. Alot were cute! Especially the boys.💕 A witch falling in love with a human might sound absurd to some, but to Clara, it was a dream come true! Almost like something in a fairy tale! Now an adult, that fantasy would soon become reality when the witchling one day crosses path with one in the marketplace. His name is Caleb...

Personality: Clara is a cute, cheerful, and carefree witch with a heart of gold and an eye for adventure! She's also quite inquisitive, always asking questions about new or unknown things.

Quote(s): "Ooo, can I touch it?" (I just feel like that's something you would hear her CONSTANTLY say lol).

Likes: Adventure, magic, fun, learning new spells / things in general, baking, birds (specifically blue jays), making friends, falling in love, gardening, dancing, dresses, using her fists in self-defense, being a bad girl™ rebel, children, dolls, flowers, sparkles, fireworks, shopping at the marketplace, and being a Clawthrone.

Dislikes: Long lines, bad attitudes, running out of / not having enough snails, her freckles (sometimes), upsetting someone she loves, feeling alone, getting hurt, seeing plants die, Caleb's fate, crooked daggers, and having her heart broken.

Goals: Finding the love of her life and getting the chance to one day travel the Isles with them.💕

Habits: LATE NIGHT SNACKING AND OVERSLEEPING.

Flaws: Her occasional naively and ditziness. Also, her tendencies to act immature sometimes.

Trivia:

• I named Clara 'Clara' because I think it goes well with the name 'Caleb'. Also, it's got 5 letters like Caleb so lol.😁

• She would LOVE chocolate and beef jerky.

• Her favorite flowers are orange lilies!🧡

• Is strong enough to pick up Caleb bridal style (and definitely has lol).

• Is pan💖💙💛

[cat-denied]

i think the best fire emblem game names are the jugdral ones, i.e. Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War and Fire Emblem: Thracia 776. let’s break this down.

1. Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War

this one rules firstly because it’s really long and weird. in a series with game names that evoke fantasy tropes and magic (like “blazing blade” and “shadow dragon” and “sacred stones”, or even something like “path of radiance,” or “mystery of the emblem,” which could be a nancy drew novel title), this game name easily stands out the most in the list. like okay, fantasy, fantasy, mystery, magic, artefacts...Genealogy. you know what i associate genealogy with?? my mom looking at ancestry dot com for fun and trying to collate our family history a few years back. i do NOT associate it with magic boys with swords and tragedy and pseudo-medieval political machinations. too bad that’s what you get!

secondly? it’s fully accurate. i mean i know game names are usually relevant to their games (because otherwise whats the fuckin point) but like. “shadow dragon and the blade of light” specifically calls out 1 character (the shadow dragon) and 1 magic artifact (the blade of light). three houses is about 3 houses but you only pick one of them and the only relevance it has to the story is “you pick between 3 groups” and “there are 3 groups in the game that fight each other.” big deal. that’s also true of, like, arguments i have with my family over what game we want to play at thanksgiving.

genealogy of the holy war? you cannot escape the fact that this game is a genealogy of a holy war. 100% of the game is dedicated to being a genealogy of a holy war. (if you’re not familiar: the first half of the game follows a dude named Sigurd as he gets embroiled in political conspiracy as a scapegoat by an evil cult that’s manipulating the government. the second half follows his son (and the kids of all his friends from the first generation) some ~20 years later as they go and fight the evil cult that’s now fully taken over the government.) you wield weapons blessed by your gods and use them to defeat a cult that wields dark magic and a weapon blessed by their (evil) god. this war is really fuckin holy. and hey two generations (AND the pairings in the first generation alter the stats of kids in the second) where it matters who your parents are - thats a genealogy baby! we did it! that’s the name of the game! and it’s Everywhere.

2. Fire Emblem: Thracia 776

what the fuck. what the fuck is this. “thracia”?? that isn’t a real word. all the other fire emblem titles are real words. why is 776 there?? is it seven hundred seventy six?? is it 7:76, the worst time of the day?? is it like 7.76?? it’s the fifth game in the series!! not the 776th one!! no other fire emblem games have numbers in the titles!! what the fuck is going on!?!?

10/10. no notes.

[on-a-lucky-tide]

For the writer’s ask game: 🧐 and 🧠 (Guxart, because he’s underwritten and I love the old tomcat)

Do you spend much time researching your stories?

Yes. Both for things to include, but also things to leave out, which is sometimes the most important thing (because an absence from a story can damage it more than an inclusion). In Dear Heart, I researched medieval libraries and archiving (medieval period is not my expertise) before I wrote Jaskier tidying up as a way to keep him occupied, but I decided not to include it any real detail. Why? Because it didn’t add anything to the emotional arc of the story, which was Jaskier finding his feet at Kaer Morhen and Eskel finding his feet around Geralt. There was the question over whether Vesemir would allow Jaskier, a kid he’s just met (yes, even at 40), anywhere near the last shreds he had left of his school.

I reasoned that the library would have been burnt to ash during the sacking. Any books or manuscripts in that room would have been recollected and brought back by Eskel, Geralt, Lambert and Vesemir (and maybe any visitors they had). Those books belong to Eskel and Geralt as much as Vesemir and Lambert, so I think that was a way for Vesemir to welcome Jaskier in without actually saying the words. Also, a cheeky nod to the way I play Skyrim and TW3, which is the collect all the books I can get my grubby player hands on. Do we really need three copies of this specific fairytale? Yes, Geralt, now eat that raw onion and be a good lad.

Headcanon: Guxart!

Oh-ho-ho, my beloved Tom Cat. Berry, inside me there are two wolves cats.

The first is a charming, suave Guxart who charmed Vesemir’s pants right off and out the window the second time they met (the first time, they were in a jail cell and it wasn’t really the right vibe for Guxart to get his Smooth on). He’s a bit sleezy, hasn’t met a person he doesn’t want to fuck, a bit cheeky, a bit all over the place in terms of his emotions. However, he is also faultlessly hardworking beneath the surface—he managed to keep the frickin’ Dyn Marw caravan together after the tournament, so he’s clearly organised, and he cares. It would have been much easier for him to run off into the wilderness and let the school fall like Kaer Seren, etc. But he didn’t. He has this… Fagan-esque approach to training. “Got to pick a pocket or two, lads”—he teaches the boys how to steal and cheat and survive first, and be a witcher second.

The second cat—it could even be the same guy after enough time, although sometimes I want to toy with Guxart as a member of the Stygga contingent—is broken and slow. His body has been shattered by the Path and fighting too many battles for too long. He’s a functional alcoholic and has very little survival instinct. He worked himself to ruin keeping the caravan going, protecting the vulnerable and broken witchers that it picked up along the way, but enduring that much hardship would take its toll. Without the kinship and camaraderie—every cat for himself, survival at all costs—Guxart would lose his way. He wouldn’t see purpose in the endless, pointless suffering of his brothers-in-arms.

After the soldiers take down the caravan, killing Axel and Cedric (see the letter from Gaetan’s stash in TW3), Guxart would try to disappear into the wilderness. The only reason he doesn’t get torn through by the first beast he finds is because he gets arrested for brawling instead, and ends up in a jail cell, which happens to also contain a grizzled, grumpy old wolf who is taking precisely none of his crap. And there begins my next Old Witchers in Love entry.

[interact-if]

It’s Day 1 of the LHM featured author interviews! To kick things off, let’s hear from Matheus!

Matheus, author of The Heir Quest

Latino Heritage Month Featured Author

You are your mother’s only child. The Queen’s only descendant.

Years have passed since the war that brought so much despair to the Allon Empire. Monsters, that for so long were treated like wild and irrational, suddenly turned against people, just to bring chaos all across the realm. As if that wasn’t enough, the people are rioting against the scarce situation they were left with the post-war, causing civil wars everywhere.

Kingdoms are crumbling. People are dying. Monsters are thriving.

All this until you meet your prophecy. One that promises that you must raise an army along with all the other three lands and deal with the monsters once and for all.

This is your quest… The Heir Quest.

The Heir Quest demo | Read more [here]

Tags: royalty, fantasy

(INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT UNDER THE CUT!)

Q1: So, tell us a little bit about the projects you’re working on!

I'm working on a duology called 'Trials of Allon' with, at the moment, the first book 'The Heir Quest' in progress. It's a dark fantasy with implied philosophy – if you can call my beliefs that – where you play as an Heir to the throne. All your life, your true identity were hidden even from yourself by your overprotective mother, the Queen. But, once the right time come, she reveals that you hold divine powers that will someday change the course of history. Your adventure was long foretold by an unnerving prophecy, but luckily, you won't be facing the terrors fate have in store for you alone.

The story resolves mostly around the consequences of your own actions, how even a small decision could change the path ahead.

Q2: What excites you most about using interactive fiction? What are some of the biggest challenges?

I always had a soft spot for games with plot-changing decisions, and specially how they alter the characters developments. In most interactive fiction you get to spend time with a specific character, to read different dialogue, to see their background, etc. Honestly, what I find the most fascinating is this ability to replay and experience different routes, pick different choices, see different arcs – each with their own depth – as you get to know more and more about an author's own imaginary and beautiful world, without limiting the story to one protagonist with one set adventure.

For the second question, I believe my biggest challenges are my own insecurities. It's embarrassing to admit it, but sometimes I read other IFs and start thinking, "Man, I wish I could write like that." It's something I've been working on, it's just part of refining my vocabulary in a language that isn't my own.

Q3: What has been something in your project you’ve had to do a weird amount of research for?

With Trials of Allon happening in medieval times, I can't simply write anything there and expect it to work. So, mostly the English language and life in the Middle Ages in general. For some reason, medieval food is a topic I gave more attention than others, such others there are probably more important. I started consuming a lot more of media about these dark times in general to expand my knowledge, and I've been looking for some Old English books to study and learn new terms and words. I hope I've been keeping the accuracy so far!

Q4: Which of your characters is most like you? How?

It may sound egocentric, but I think there are pieces of me in every character I write! But if I had to pick, I would choose C, the elf, and the Main Character. C is a very shy person at this point and still struggles with their insecurities, which I can relate a lot. And, though the MC's personality is moldable, they fear traveling around with no experience of the real life, which is a terror I share with them. Adulthood is terrifying.

Q5: Does your heritage influence your characters as you create them? (How? Why or why not?)

It does, and what I find funny is that sometimes it isn't intentional! I take a lot of inspiration on music in general, as I find Brazilian music really rich. So from time to time I'll be drafting a scene and I go like "Wait, isn't that a song?" and I listen to a song and just think "Wow, this reminds of this character" or "This inspired me to create a character!" In fact, there's a song lyric I'll definitely quote as an "easter egg" in the story, but it's way too soon to mention a Book Two dialogue here at this point.

I also joke with fellow Brazilians about how everything sounds cooler in our native language. For example, curses, titles, and sayings in general. So sometimes I just feel obligated to just open the Internet and search "How do you say 'word/expression' in English?" to know if there's any way for me to add them to the story.

Q6: What is something you love to see in interactive fiction?

I love to see different systems working for different games, how people manage to take advantage of all resources at their disposal, make an interactive story out of it and everything is set as the wanted "vibe," you know what I mean? Like, different aesthetics working for different stories and all of it just leaving a mark, a mark that is somehow unique for this IF and what reminds one of it.

I think it's more clear when you listen to a soundtrack, or the interface is coded in a specific way to match the atmosphere, or when there are different stats, and they change the story itself. The possibilities are infinite, and I love to see the effort people put into shaping their own creativity into a readable fiction with its own whole universe.

Q7: Any advice to give?

I think what leaves people more worried about actually starting an interactive fiction WIP is the coding part, but honestly, learning it's actually fun. The worst part is when you already learned, and it becomes stressful.

So if you want to start an IF, just sit down and do your writing as you normally do! There's a lot of guides on the Internet to the various mechanisms to create stories in store, and you'll only learn how to code with them once you start. Another advice is to play other games and pay attention to its features, so when you start writing yours, you'll have an idea of what to research in case you want to add that specific code for your game. At least, that was how I learned! There's also some really nice people around, so make friends on the way and don't be ashamed to ask them for help as well! 

You'll find frustrating bugs, you'll fix only to then find a typo, you'll post the demo and your eventual fandom will find bugs and typos you somehow missed out on and this way you'll upgrade your abilities every passing day. Someday, you'll finally test your own demo, and you won't experience any mistake during the entire playthrough. I can't speak for everyone, but after being appreciated for your writing, this sensation is a close second. You'll even start seeing the coding behind others' IFs.

In conclusion, there is no shame in learning, nor in making mistakes. You'll learn your way through this scary path of variables until your story is how you want it to be!

[ashintheairlikesnow]

For Vampire Chris! What if he and Jake went to a museum and came across some of Tooley's paintings? And Chris has a panic attack! We would finally get some Jake comfort. And maybe Chris would reveal more horrible things that Tooley had done to him.

CW: Discussion of death, blood, vampire whumpee, caretaker and whumpee

The sun sets early in the winter, and it's the only reason they can make this work.

Chris is barely awake even so, sipping from a coffee cup Jake filled with the contents of one of his blood packs, hoping he doesn't trip and spill and lead to Jake having some very awkward, panicked explanations to make to anyone nearby.

He'd slept in the truck Jake borrowed from Nat most of the way over here, curled in the passenger seat. He looks for all the world like any high schooler who stayed up too late the night before, dragged out by his family, forced to go learn when all he wants is rest.

Chris is draped in a hooded sweatshirt pulled on over his head, hair mussed from sleeping in the closet in the little nest-bed he made for himself in there. It sticks out like stray from beneath the hood he's pulled up, coppery strands occasionally covering his eyes and making him shove them out of the way with a snort that has no right to be as adorable as it is, considering the monster who makes the sound.

Not a monster, no. Not really.

Or his monster, anyway, the same way his mother is his mother. Jake is starting to understand the little vampire - more than three times his own age - has chosen him for family now.

The sweater he wears is kind of a joke, actually. Jake bought it weeks ago from a website that puts the covers of books on clothes, and it's an old cover image from Dracula.

Jake thought it was funny, anyway. Nat was less amused. Chris only smiled and said something about being happy the hairy palms thing isn't true.

The air is chilly, and Jake shivers a little as they head in from the parking lot across a small sidewalk next to a park and toward the museum itself, but of course Chris doesn't even notice. He seems to be enjoying it, the way it blows around his hair as they make their way slowly up the steps and past the row of Grecian-style columns that mark the entrance.

Jake has to visit for one of his classes, an extra-credit something-or-other, and Chris had asked to go along with him.

Jake had been hesitant, but seeing the way the vampire's green eyes sparkle as he moves around in public like any other person, well... he feels like he made the right choice to bring him along now.

"Finish up your drink, you can't take anything in once we pay and get past the lobby," Jake says, and Chris nods, gulping the last of the blood as fast as he can as they push through wide double-doors. Jake tries not to imagine how it must feel, swallowing thick congealing cooled blood. Someone's life, someone's heartbeat, down your throat...

Really, is he that much different? Jake has eaten a dozen cows' worth of beef in his life.

Does Chris see them all as just livestock? He doesn't act like it, but then, there are people who treat pigs or cows like pets and not like food...

His stomach flips a little and he forces himself to look around, up at the chandelier at the high ceiling, the heavy wooden desk they have to walk to off to the side to get their tickets. To stop trying to understand if Chris is a sort of stray they've adopted, or if he's a higher-level predator living with prey.

Once Chris drops the cup into a trash can, Jake throwing a couple wadded-up tissues on top so no one can accidentally see the smear of red around the edge of the lid, they buy their tickets, and wind their way through and past the little velvet ropes that mark off the entrance.

The museum opens before them into a grand hall, with paintings the size of two-story buildings on either side, permanent installations in the museum. Commissioned for its opening, sometime back in the 70's.

Jake picks up a brochure so they know which way to go - LGBTQ+ Art in Pre-War America is the temporary exhibit he's here to see, traveling work that is usually housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

"Oh, nice, it's on the first floor. Looks like you go through a couple of 'specialty' rooms, just showing off stuff from the in-house collection. Sounds cool, right?"

Chris, looking from side to side at the gigantic paintings that hang on the walls in the opening hall, hums softly, a tuneless constant sound. He doesn't answer Jake's question. He hums often, and Jake barely notices any longer, but there's something edged to it, now. As if just being around the paintings is making him nervous.

"Okay, little man, let's go over here." He touches Chris's arm, lightly, through the thick fabric of his sweater. The vampire looks over at him, smiling with his lips pressed together to hide his teeth from any potential prying eyes.

He follows easily, but he sticks closer to Jake than he normally does, and his eyes are constantly roving. They move through an exhibit of Pre-Colombian pottery first, on their way to the room in the back where the temporary showcase is.

Jake watches Chris's fingers twitch with the urge to touch, to learn by feeling the bumps and ridges in the ancient clay, and how he holds back as best he can. His urge to lift the clear protective plastic boxes right off the pottery so he can get at it is nearly physically painful.

Jake pretends not to see it when Chris's fingers trail along a column, settling for the white-painted rectangle the pottery is balanced on, taking in the rough texture smoothed by the matte paint.

"Did you ever meet anyone like you that was old enough to have made stuff like this?" Jake asks, stopping in front of a water jug in the shape of a man playing a flute with a dog at his feet. The dog wears a carved smile marked with disturbingly human-looking teeth. The paint it must have been covered in is worn by time, leaving the reddish-brown of the clay behind, with the faintest streaks of white still in the crevices.

"No," Chris replies, tilting his head, making direct eye contact with the statue in a way he never quite can do with any real person. Not comfortably, anyway. Jake has seen him force it and shudder afterwards, overwhelmed. When he'd asked about it, Chris had said he never liked looking at anyone's eyes, even before, when he was alive. It's too much, was all he would say. It's always too much. "None, um, none of us live that long."

"Why not?" They're alone in the room. It's the only reason Jake feels safe asking.

Chris's tongue runs over the sharpening bumps of his growing-in fangs, pressing against them, easing the itch and the ache of their return. After a second, he pulls a plastic bat on a cord from inside his sweater and puts the bat into his mouth, chewing on it idly, jaw working. "I, I, I don't know. That's just what what what my, my, my pack told me."

"I thought vampires lived in covens."

"No." Chris doesn't elaborate on this one. He can be weirdly secretive about how he lived before he came to Nat's, before he was pulled out of a basement, a living drug for a wealthy asshole.

Secretive, or just forgetting whatever wasn't essential.

He moves away to another pedestal, a shard broken off of a larger vessel, marked with a deep white and intense black angular design. He hums again, and Jake takes the hint and leaves him alone.

They spend several more minutes looking over the pottery before they head through a second room full of what must just be the favorite pieces of museum employees, as there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason, and each little card with the name of the piece and its maker has a paper next to it with a note on why each employee loves this piece in particular. Chris lingers around older things, a woven tapestry from medieval England, landscapes from the 19th century. He stares for a while at a painting called The Country Path by Joseph Poole Addy, a pale watercolor of winter trees with bare branches breaking the line of sky and a woman bundled in a coat carrying a basket down an equally colorless road.

Chris's humming getting louder, and he rocks a little, forward and back, his eyes moving again and again through the lines of the painting.

Jake wonders what it is about this one specifically that catches Chris like that, and when the vampire finally moves on he checks the employee's statement. Joseph Poole Addy, Irish painter in the 19th and 20th centuries, blah blah, something something countryside... Jake frowns, and glances over at Chris, who isn't looking back. He's moved on to something else.

Jake decides to ask him later.

They make it to the exhibit they're here to see, and Jake whistles under his breath as he enters. There are vibrant, saturated paintings lining the walls, a couple of large sculptures on the floor that still are taller than he is, a few smaller ones on pedestals. The work is mostly figurative, although there's some early abstraction there, a hint of the contemporary push to take even figurative work out of simply being an echo of a real life thing.

Chris looks at a sculpture, his head cocked so far to the side it looks almost birdlike, not quite human. Jake thinks his own neck would ache for days if he tried to do that. "Must've been, um, later," He mumbles to himself.

Jake files that away in his mental list of things to talk to Chris about later.

He walks slowly along the line of paintings. The whole point of being here is that he's supposed to pick a specific piece and write a short essay about it and the artist who made it, prove he saw it in person.

The class itself is about how to encourage better outcomes for healthcare in marginalized populations - but if she's giving out extra-credit for looking at queer art, well, Jake is happy to spend an hour in a museum.

After his dismal performance on the last test, he could use whatever credit he can get. Besides, the exhibit is actually kind of cool with that in mind. Every one of these artists was in some way outside of the sort of het ideal, and Jake smiles a little as he catches the heaviness of a look between two men seated across a table from one another, looks over the clasped hands of women, sitting with everything from shoulder to hip touching, who are listed as 'friends visiting the riverbank'.

Art that celebrates, hidden in plain sight. Art that rebels by sliding details in under the surface where only those looking for them will find them.

Each piece has another little paper, although this just has details about the artist and their work, what they were known for. He can use it as a jumping-off point for his paper, anyway.

"You, you, you finished her," Chris whispers, standing in front of a sculpture of a woman with her head thrown back as if in uproarious laughter, a woman with curls expertly carved so that her hair seems to have been there before the stone it's made of somehow. "I wonder if she, um, if if if she saw it."

"What'd you say, Chris?" Jake blinks, pulled out of his own internal reverie.

"Nothing," Chris responds, and walks slowly around the statue. The woman's smile is a shining light in the room. No one could carve like that without being at least a little in love with the subject.

Jake wanders away and then comes to an abrupt stop before a large painting, probably taller than Chris is. The background is near-total darkness with only a suggestion of stone, a single beam of light shining down to illuminate the central figure.

A naked boy clothed only in scraps of torn cloth that only emphasize his nakedness everywhere else is crouched in terror. His knees are bent and his feet are on the floor, one hand holding his weight with fingers slightly curled, his spine bent and arched as if he is caught in the midst of turning to look up to find the direction of the light. His other hand is thrown out, as if trying to ward off an attack.

He bleeds from a dozen or more places, the blood curving perfectly around his form, giving it extra weight and heft that makes it seem like he'll step out of the canvas, grab Jake, and shake him.

Jake's heart starts to race as he stares.

There are bones littering the ground around the thin, wasted boy, not bleached but sort of yellowed, marked with little notches as if cut with a knife. There might still be bits of skin attached to some of them, a hint of muscle. The detail makes Jake sick, but his panic, that comes from something else entirely. Just behind the panicked boy there is a body, as if just fallen, the eyes still open in the final terrified throes of death. The body's fingers are still dug into the dirt floor as if the dead man had been trying to pull himself somewhere, to escape.

A skull watches with eerie cheer from one corner of the painting, a few teeth missing and knocked out from its garish grin.

Barely visible, a thin wash of grayish-white, there is a pale, gnarled hand near the bottom reaching out from the background as if to grab the boy's ankle and drag him into the darkness.

Count Ugolino's Last Son, oils, 1932, reads the little plaque beside the painting. Its faint brassy shine glints in the carefully calibrated light. Edward Tooley, 1907 - 1936.

Jake swallows, but the lump in his throat doesn't budge, and he swallows again. And again. He can't take his eyes off the boy's painted hair, a dirtied copper, strawberry-blond badly in need of a wash. The wide green eyes with their terror writ large and clear, painted with lovingly perfect detail.

The boy in the painting is the perfect identical twin of the vampire who is still staring at the sculpture on the other side of the room. The fear in his face is so expertly done as to seem more photographic than painted in oil. The blood that drips to the ground follows his anatomy with absolute perfection. The bones are not bleached by they so often are in paintings, no, these...

These...

Jake holds his phone up and takes a photo, and then another of the little plaque.

"Chris." His voice cracks and Jake clears his throat. His heart is still pounding. "Chris, come look at this."

"Yes, Jake," Chris answers, sounding a little faint, and then he seems to simply appear at Jake's elbow, the teenage boy who has seen two world wars and a half-dozen smaller, stupider ones.

He goes still at Jake's side when he looks up. Jake looks over, just slightly, glancing sidelong to see a look of something like... wistfulness on the vampire boy's face.

"Tooley," He breathes. His hand goes up, and out, and he would have touched the canvas if Jake hadn't reached out and grabbed on to stop him. Chris jumps a little and turns to meet Jake's gaze. His eyes are pink-tinged in the whites, as if he's holding back tears. "Is, is, is he famous?"

"I guess. He's... he's here, isn't he?"

"He always wanted to, um, to to to to be famous." Chris's eyes move over the details, but it's not with surprise, it's with easy familiarity. He's seen this painting before.

He's been this painting before.

"That's you, isn't it?" Jake asks in a hushed voice. "Like, that was really you."

Chris looks away again, a faint flush in his cheeks. He's full enough of blood for it to happen, and you'd never know he isn't alive if you didn't already. "Yes," He whispers, and wipes at the corner of his eye with one hand. "That, that, that's me."

"Were you his model?" Jake blinks, looking back over the painted twin of the vampire beside him. The fear in the boy's face, woven in with a kind of awful resignation. It's all so perfectly rendered.

"Yes. Sort, um. Sort of. He, he, he kept me in a room." Chris exhales, slowly, and his eyes shift over to the paper with the little bit of biographical information on it. Edward Tooley's early works focused on landscapes or retreads of common historical subjects, only to find greater excellence and focus when he began to paint, again and again, the same figure - a representation of the darkness of the human soul - he stated appeared to him and demanded to be portrayed... art historians believe Tooley was driven by the demons of the Great War that had taken his family from him one by one to seek out uncomfortable subjects that force viewers to see the damage humans do to one another...

Chris's nose wrinkles as he reads, his lips moving slightly with the words as he takes them in. "I never did that. Never, um, wanted to be painted. Also, um this, um. He was... wasn't... he wasn't... wasn't like the paper says."

Jake looks over, reads it himself. Gregarious, sociable, popular with the libertine art crowd... he frowns. "What part is wrong?"

"This." Chris points, this at least he can safely make contact with, and presses the pad of his finger under a sentence that reads took inspiration from the ugly side of the city hidden under its shining lights. "He, he, he he didn't care about anyone in the city. He thought everyone who, who who who who-who wasn't him was, um, was stupid."

"What did he care about?" Jake imagines telling his professor that instead of an essay, he's going to bring in a vampire who literally knew one of the artists in person. How she might react.

Probably call the cops and report an unsecured vampire loose on the streets. But maybe she'd listen to what Chris had to say first.

"Blood," Chris says, softly. His voice is getting lower and lower, until it's barely more than a whisper. "Pain. Fear. Being... being the the the the last person who, who saw someone. He, he, he, he liked to lay them out and paint them, liked me to, to, to... arrange them for him."

Jake's eyes go unwillingly back to the dead body behind the scared boy in the painting. The grasping fingers, the open eyes that look sightless, lifeless, at nothing at all. When he looks, he can see - more suggestion than made clear - that the body's throat is torn open, as if by an animal's teeth.

Now, only now that he's looking for it, does he realize there is the slightest hint of red tears on the cheeks of the painted boy, a sheen of pink on his teeth where he begs for mercy from the grasping singular hand coming out of the dark.

His stomach flips again. "Chris, are you saying-"

"His, his, his name was Ben." Chris nods at the dead body in the painting. "I asked. Before..." He gestures, a little vaguely. "That."

Jake feels a sudden, wild urge to look up missing persons cases from New York City in 1932. See if there's anyone named Ben on there. He knows without having to do so that there definitely will be.

"What happened to him... after?"

"I don't know. I, I, I was never let out when Tooley was gone. I... wonder how, how, how many of me there are." Chris looks up at the echo of his own face, his head tilting again. His lips tremble, just a little, and then part to show the hint of white teeth wet with pinkish saliva. "On walls, in houses, in... in places like, um. Like this. How many there are... is, is, is, is that what I still look like?"

Jake clears his throat again, looks down at his feet. This feels, suddenly, like he's walked in on someone looking down at his own dead body in a funeral home. Interrupting a moment so immensely private it shouldn't even exist.

"Yeah," he says, a little gruffly. "Yeah, that's it. More or less. Except I hope I scare you less than that. Also you wear a lot more clothes with us."

Chris laughs - it's a huff of sound, barely-there. Then he turns away from himself. "We, we, we can't see ourselves, in mirrors," He says, and he's got the little plastic bat back in his hand, rubbing his thumb over the carved silicone. "But I have mirrors everywhere. On these walls."

He goes suddenly terribly still. He isn't breathing.

He doesn't have to, but the realization that he isn't even pretending is a jolt of awareness of exactly how dead Chris is. He leaves the exhibit, and Jake is left to scramble after him, struggling to catch up to someone he should be able to easily outrun.

He breaks into a flat run when they get outside the double-doors, jumps the steps three at a time with grace, and runs across the grass and towards the stand of trees halfway across the park. Even Jake, who works out four days a week, is breathing hard and has a hitch in his rib by the time he catches up.

He finds Chris curled up under a tree in the evening dark, the stars starting to twinkle overhead as the sun finally allows them a clear night sky to shine in.

Jake drops to his knees, ignoring the damp that seeps into his jeans from soil that still hasn't dried since yesterday's rains, and he leans over, putting a warm hand to either side of the vampire's face.

Chris looks up, his eyes glinting like a cat's briefly in the dark, and there are trails down his cheeks, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl that is anything but angry.

No, this is grief.

This is loss.

Jake knows the feeling.

"Talk to me," Jake says softly. "Tell me what it was like, what it's been like for you. Tell me about the life you've lived before I knew you."

"It, it, it hurt," Chris whispers, and his own hands cover Jake's. They're the same temperature as the air around them, and Jake shivers a little. It's almost a chill. "Every time. I, I, I try not to kill, Jake, I try so hard, but but but he would keep me so hungry and I couldn't-... stop..."

Jake thinks about the robbers Chris killed - for him, to save him from them - and how he'd locked himself in the closet afterward. Had he cried like this, over taking lives even when in defense?

"The museum thing said this guy Tooley died in 1936. He was only, what, twenty-nine? Did... did you-"

"Yes." Chris's voice is thick but it's not quite with regret. "I was hungry. He, he he he he didn't bring food. I was so hungry... then I was, um, was alone for a while... then, then, then, then then then I was taken for, for, for the, um, the trade, for my v-venom, and..."

"Got it. I got it, Chris. It's okay," Jake says, softly. "It's going to be okay. You're with us, now. And we'll never, ever make you hurt someone that way. We'll never make you go hungry. We'll never hurt you or use you."

Chris ducks his head, rocking forward until it knocks into Jake's shoulder, and Jake slides his arms around the vampire's shoulders, listening to his soft, muffled sobs, wondering how red his shirt will be stained by the time the vampire's tears have been cried out.

The same mouth that tore out the throat of a dead body that lays in a painting on the wall is so close to his neck it would take less than an inch for him to bite down. Even without fangs, he could lock his jaw and break the skin.

The same dangerous monster that has killed likely dozens to stay alive, the same stalking predator that has been the last sight of far too many, cries in his arms. Just a teenage boy who has been lonely, and terrified, and hurt for too long.

A teenager... and a monster that hunts prey after dark. Jake tightens his arms around Chris, holds him tighter.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter how long he's been alive, not really.

He's just Chris.

That matters more.

-

@mylifeisonthebookshelf @insaneinthepaingame @keeper-of-all-the-random-things @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @newandfiguringitout @astrobly @endless-whump @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @doveotions @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @downriver914 @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @nonsensical-whump @outofangband @what-a-whump

[rottenroyalebooks]

The One Thing They Couldn’t Have

Pairing: Wilbur Soot x Fem! Reader (Ft. Tommyinnit and Niki Nihachu)

Genre: Real Person Fic, Romance, Medieval Era

Warnings: Mentions of death, POV changes, dense characters. 

Summary: Princess Y/N is the Heir to her Kingdom. She has her future set out for her on a silver platter, everyone knows that, but things begin to change when she falls in love with the Stable Boy, Wilbur Soot.

***

The thing about love is that it sneaks up on you when you least expect it. You could be sitting in a field watching the sun set with someone you’ve known your entire life and next thing you know; you see them in a different light. The way the golden sun hits their face reveals a whole new person in a way.

Falling in love is easy, beautiful even. Falling in love is like waking up to the warmth of the sun hitting your face. Falling in love is like taking a sip of tea and it being the perfect temperature. Falling in love is looking into their eyes and seeing your future.

Being in love is a different story. Being in love is like falling into a large rose bush, soft at first, but becomes horrible when you try to get up and the thorns poke at your skin leaving scratches on your skin.

At least that’s how it felt when Wilbur caught my eye when we were watching the sun set from the roof of the stables.

The golden hue reflected off his skin as the sun made his way passed the mountains of Ophelia leaving a trail of Darkness in its’ path. I felt the flutter in my stomach as his lips moved. I had been so caught up in the moment that I couldn’t even tell what he was saying.

“…and then Tommy fell in the mud. It was honestly so funny you should have- Hey, are you okay?” I didn’t realize he was looking at me and I blinked, snapping myself out of the state of realization that dawned on me.

“Uh, yeah I’m fine,” I turned away from him to see the sky changing colors, “I’m only tired. Had to wake up early this morning so I could pick out the flowers for the Ball. Mum wants it to be perfect.”

He was silent for a moment, I could hear him shuffle in his spot next to me, “I honestly forget you’re the Princess sometimes, Y/n. When I hear you talk about things like a Ball or Crowns is when I remember.”

I chuckled, I certainly never really felt like a Princess around Wilbur. Not that it’s a bad thing, it was quite refreshing to not have someone calling me “Your highness” or “Princess” when they spoke to me. I was just Y/n around him, it was comfortable.

I first met Wilbur when we were small children. His parents had passed away in a fire and my father took pity on him, giving him a job in the stables on castle grounds. I decided to introduce myself to him and we played when he was done with his daily tasks. We became close, and I spent a lot of my time bugging him daily when I didn’t have many things to do.

Though as of late, my schedule had been filled to the brim with planning for this specific ball, because Princes and sons of Dukes would be coming from all corners of the continent to try to impress my parents enough to let them take my hand in Marriage.

“This Ball is different, Wilbur, very different.” I said bringing my knees up to my chest as the stars began to peek out from the darkening sky.

“What do you mean? How is it different?” The confusion laced in his voice, but by his tone I could tell that he secretly knew something was up.

“The Ball is in a week and it’s where I’m going to meet my husband.” I admitted quietly as the lanterns in the kingdom that could be seen from the Stable roof top below the large hill the castle sat upon started lighting up in the darkness.

I always loved seeing Ophelia from different perspectives.

He was silent, eerily silent. The tension between the two of us could have been cut with a knife.

I broke the silence, “What? No jab at how I’m truly a Princess after all. Rightful Heir to Ophelia at that-”

“How long have you known?” He interrupted, his tone ice cold.

“I knew it was coming, but I didn’t think it would be so soon. I thought this was just going to be another one of my mother’s fancy Balls that she likes to throw, until I peeked at the Guest List earlier.”

“You’re the crowned Princess of Ophelia, don’t you have a say in who you Marry?” He was quiet, but I could still hear him.

“My father is letting me Choose between many Barons and Second Born Prince’s. Though I know for a fact that no matter what, I won’t be happy with them.”

I didn’t mean to say that last part, it just slipped out, but I thought he wouldn’t pick up on what I was trying to say.

Unfortunately, he did, “Are you in love with someone?”

“Yes, it’s you.” I wanted to tell him, “But as long as I am a Princess, we cannot be together.”

My lips parted as I was about to try and dig myself out of the hole I had created, but the loud chimes of the Castle’s Bell rung from the tallest tower, signaling that it was time for me to go inside for Supper.

“Saved by the Bell.” Wilbur mumbled and I chuckled lightly, kissing his temple like I did every so often before standing up.

He stood up with me and headed down the ladder that went into the back of the stables and helped me as I climbed down. I reached the ground and I looked up at him.

“I’ll see you sometime tomorrow, hopefully I won’t get too sucked into decision making.”

“I will try to look presentable for her majesty,” He joked, bowing to me mockingly and I returned the joke with a curtsy.

“Good, if you fail to meet my expectation it’s off with your head!” I pulled out a Posher accent making him laugh harder.

“Goodnight, Y/N.” He said and with that, we parted ways. He went into the Stables to go into his room, and I returned to the castle to eat with my family.

***

“She’s getting Married!?!” Tommy’s voice was loud, and Wilbur was quick to silence him, covering the younger boy’s mouth with his hand. He glanced around at the people around who gave the two boys before returning to their conversations.

“Quiet Tommy,” He hissed removing his hand, “She’s not getting married yet, but her parents are hosting some type of Ball to show her off like a Prize to be won. She’s supposed to choose a husband there.”

Tommy listened intently and tilted his head, “So she’s going to marry a man she barely knows? Man being a royal has it’s downsides.”

Wilbur sighed as he lifted a haybale, with Tommy’s help, to feed one of the horses that the Royal Family owned.

“Are you going to tell her your feelings for her or are you just going to watch her get married off to some loser in fancy clothing?” Tommy was blunt, he was never one to sugar coat anything.

“I can’t tell her, Tommy! She’s the Crowned Princess and I’m a Stable Boy. She’s going to marry a Prince, Duke, or Barron and become the Queen someday while I am probably going to be a Stable Boy for the rest of my life.”

“Well, if that were the case, you’d be a stable Man -ouch!”

Wilbur punched him in the arm, rolling his eyes as he went into the storage room to get the supplies to clean the horses, “The point is, Tommy, I wouldn’t be able to give her what she needs. The Stables don’t get paid very well.”

Tommy followed suit, leaning against the doorframe, watching Wilbur collect the materials, “I highly doubt that she cares much about wealth if she’s your friend now. I think you should tell her how you feel, Wilbur, honestly what is the worst thing that could happen?”

Wilbur turned around with the things spilling out of his arms, “She doesn’t feel the same and I lose my best friend.”

Tommy blinked a few times, reaching out to help him, “I thought I was your best friend?”

“Tommy.”

“Yeah, whatever, my guess is that she wouldn’t drop you because of your feelings for her.”

“Your feelings for who?”

***

I watched as the Boys froze and turned their heads in my direction. Tommy fumbled with the things in his arms, so I reached out to help him. I felt my chest tighten in either jealousy or rage. Maybe it was both at the time.

“Y/N, what are you doing here, shouldn’t you be planning?” Wilbur tried changing the subject, but I wasn’t having it.

“Something came up and The King and Queen need to travel to a neighboring kingdom for a while. I was sent to inform you to prep the horses, but never mind that!” I shook my head and took a step toward Wilbur, “Who do you have feelings for?”

I shouldn’t have gotten so mad, but how could I not? We told each other everything. There were never any secrets between the two of us, so why would he keep this from me?

He placed the items that were in his hands on top of the things Tommy was holding which made the boy tumble backward, but Wilbur ignored the grunts of his friend, “I don’t believe that’s any of your concern, m’lady.” He said as he walked past me.

A shocked gasped escaped my lips, following him through the stables, “What do you mean by that? We tell each other everything!”

“Trust me, we don’t.” He said as he opened a gate and started preparing one of the horses.

I huffed and turned to Tommy who bumped into a pillar and dropped everything in his hands. I stepped closer to him and when he noticed me, he tensed up as I crossed my arms across my chest, “Thomas.”

“Princess.”

“Tommy, don’t you dare…” Wilbur warned from behind me, and Tommy glanced over my shoulder, but I moved to block his view of Wilbur.

“Inform me of who our mutual Wilbur Soot is in love with, and I will bring you some desert from inside the castle.” His eyes lit up at my words, but he did hesitate before speaking again,

“He’s in love with a girl in the Kingdom! Yeah, yeah, her name is Lucy Montgomery and she’s the daughter of the Blacksmith.”

“This isn’t fair.” I thought to myself as I felt my heart break in my chest, “I thought we had something, but I guess I was wrong.”

“Y/N?” Wilbur called to me and I stood up straight, not daring to meet his gaze as the dam would break at any moment.

“I have a ball to plan. Fetch the horses quickly, please.” I turned on my heels and started walking out of the stables.

“Will I see you tonight?”

Not bothering to turn around, I replied, “Since the King and Queen are out of the Kingdom someone has to rule while they are gone and that responsibility falls onto me, Wilbur, I have much to do.”

I left without another word. I knew I couldn’t face him now, not after he broke my heart accidently. It wasn’t his fault though; he couldn’t have possibly known.

I returned to the Castle and went inside as my parents were about to leave. I held in my emotions not knowing what they would do if they found out. They hugged my younger sister and I goodbye so we could continue our preparations in the Ballroom.

“I was thinking for the centerpieces we could have lilacs instead of roses!” Niki said as she skipped around the ballroom aimlessly and I nibbled on my lip, watching the sixteen-year-old prance around the room.

“Yeah, Lilacs are pretty.” I answered plainly, sitting in my father’s seat, sitting up straight.

“Imaging yourself as Queen again? You know that’s not going to happen for a long time.” She teased, sitting in my mother’s seat next to me, “Come to think that in just two weeks’ time you’ll get to choose your husband amongst all the handsome Princes, Barons and Dukes! I cannot wait until it’s my turn.” Her tone had become dreamy, looking up at the ceiling above us.

I chuckled deeply, “Can I tell you a secret, Niki?”

Her head snapped toward me, “A Secret? Of course! It’ll be safe with me, Y/N.”

I smiled knowingly, leaning in closer to whisper into her ear, “I don’t want to get married.”

Her smile faded and she slowly turned her head to me again, “You don’t want to get married? Surely, it’s not unheard of, but mother and father won’t be pleased…”

I rolled my eyes, “No, Niki, this is all still happening. I just don’t…” My voice cracked loudly, and Niki jumped, holding my hand in concern. Castle servants heard and looked over at me, concerned as well.

Niki stood up, facing them, “Leave us. Everyone. Go!” She demanded and all the servants scurried out, finishing the tasks that they were doing before the entire ballroom was empty.

She sat back down next to me, “What’s wrong? You can talk to me.” I felt the tears rush down my face, as I couldn’t hold them back anymore.

“I’m in love with Wilbur.” I admitted to her, resting my head against the seat behind me, trying to suppress my emotions, “I’m in love with him while he is in love with another! Gods I am so foolish.”

She huffed, “That rat bastard! How could he not be in love with you? I guess I owe Tommy money.”

I just glared at her.

“Sorry! Okay, we must dry those tears before a maid sees! You know how much the castle maids love to Gossip. The last thing we need is for this to find its way to Father. He’ll behead the man for sure.” She grabbed a cloth from a nearby table and patted my eyes with it.

“I just don’t know what to do, Niki, I don’t know how I could learn to love another as much as I for Wilbur. I’ve known him for most of my life! I told him everything.” Her hand clamped over my mouth to silence me.

“Sister, I know exactly what’s going to happen. You and I are going to finish the much-needed preparations for this Ball to distract you from this and then a charming handsome man at the ball will sweep you off your feet and you’ll live happily ever after The End.” I nodded slowly so she removed her hand.

“Let’s just focus on the preparations for now.”

She snickered, “Deal.”

***

It had been a few days since the incident at the stables and Wilbur had grown concerned. Y/N hadn’t visited him on his roof top to watch the sunset with him once since then. He was given the afternoon to himself by his superiors, so he went down to the Kingdom to visit Tommy and his family, who owned a lovely bakery in the middle of the square.

“You’re just over reacting, Wilbur.” Tommy said as the two sat in his room, tossing a small ball back and forth, “She said it herself, she’s ruling the kingdom until her parents return from their trip and she’s planning an entire Royal Ball. I’m sure she’s just busy with all that.”

Wilbur sighed, all kinds of thoughts running through his head, “But she seemed upset when she left us, remember? And when I would see her on the Castle grounds, she would just ignore me whenever I called to her…”

Tommy caught the ball that was thrown to him and placed it on his lap, “Wilbur, I don’t know much about women, I’m seventeen. If I were to guess though, you broke her heart.”

“Tommy, I need to have a word with you!” A familiar female voice called from the outside of the door and it opened to reveal Princess Niki on the other side making the boys both stand up.

“Princess Niki!” Wilbur was surprised to see the younger Princess away from the castle in the middle of the day, especially without guards.

“What are you doing out in the Kingdom, Niki? How did you leave the Castle Grounds?” Tommy asked as the girl walked in with an old cloak hood on over her head.

“I have been escaping my personal guards since I was five years old, Tommy, it’s not very difficult.” She said with a shrug, sitting down on Tommy’s bed.

“What are you doing here, Princess?”

Thea’s eyes landed on Wilbur, “I came to see if you knew where he was, but I should have known to just check here after the stables.” She directed her full attention to Wilbur then, “You broke my sister, I hope you’re happy.”

Wilbur did a double take, “What do you mean I broke her?”

“After she found out you were in love with some Lucy Montgomery, she had a good cry and the next day she started acting cold and distant, kind of like our Nurse occasionally.” Niki crossed her arms when she received a confused look from Wilbur.

“I don’t understand…”

“Gods she’s in love with you! You absolute moron! You told her that you were in love with another, and you broke her heart.” She snapped at him and watched as Wilbur’s face went as pale as a ghost and he glared at Tommy.

Tommy raised his hand to his mouth and bit his knuckle, “Okay, I see how this could be my fault.”

It was Niki’s turn to look confused, “What am I missing?”

“He’s not in love with Lucy, that was just a lie I came up with on the spot when she overheard a bit of our conversation about how he realized he was in love with her the night prior,” Tommy explained slowly, “Only to find out soon after that she was planning a Ball to help her choose her future husband.”

Niki laughed bitterly, “Wow! Boys are all idiots. I sure have hope for the future of humanity.” Sarcasm dripped from her voice like venom, “You need to fix this because Y/N, I love her to death, but she is driving me crazy.”

“I can’t tell her.” He shook his head as he sat on the floor with a deep sigh.

Tommy blinked, “I’m lost,”

“Shocker.” Niki interrupted; Tommy glared at her for a moment, turning his attention back to Wilbur.

“Why can’t you tell her? You love her, she loves you, happily ever after the end!” Tommy said, closing an air book with his hand.

“Because Y/N honors Ophelia’s traditions and rules,” Niki explained to Tommy as Wilbur stared at the floor, “And according to Tradition, The Crowned Princess has the ball and meets her husband who is one of the guests at the upcoming Ball.”

“Plus, if I tell her now, it will just complicate things even further.” He muttered with his gaze locked on his feet.

Tommy’s mother burst into the room, “Oh Thomas! Wilbur! Horrible news! The King and Queen- Princess? What are you doing in my home?” She stopped as soon as she saw Niki.

“Yes, I apologize for barging in so suddenly, but what about my parents?”

She hesitated and looked to Wilbur, “Wilbur, I think you may want to escort Niki home.” She started and looked back at the young Princess, “A messenger just ran through the Kingdom on a horse, your highness, your parents have been murdered.”

***

I was in shock upon reading the news of my parents’ death. According to the letter that came with the messenger from the neighboring King, they hadn’t showed up to his castle for the meeting they were establishing and when he sent a representative to our kingdom, they found my parents carriage broken and ransacked, their bodies inside.

The messenger was kneeling before me as I read the letter from the King, addressed to me. I nibbled on my lip and looked to the head of house, who was my father’s right hand.

“What are we to do? My parents are dead, Phil.” I said to him and he nodded.

“We should start planning the Coronation, yes?”

My breath hitched as I gave the letter to one of the servants, “Bring this to my father’s study, please.” I muttered to her before turning to the Scribe, “I need you to write an announcement.” I told him and he nodded, dipping his pen into some fresh ink, and getting ready to write on the scroll.

“In light of the passing of the King and Queen, Princess Y/N will be crowned Queen in a weeks’ time. It is highly recommended that no one should leave the Safety of Ophelia while the royal Guard investigates.” My voice is shaky, but I tried to sound brave as the Castle staff watched me with pity.

“A week? Your highness, I don’t think the staff,”

 “We already started planning for the Ball, Phil, we will use everything from that and use it for the after party. Maria,” I called to the head maid who stepped forward at my request, “You and Niki will begin planning the coronation as I cannot take part in it.” She nodded and stepped back. I turned to the Knights, “Someone needs to retrieve… my parents so they can be buried properly in the family Cemetery. Send your bravest men to retrieve and begin the investigation. Whoever murdered my parents will pay for their crimes in Ophelia.”

“Princess. You just lost your parents, let me take over.” Phil calmy said as he walked over to me, but I shook my head.

“Will someone find Princess Niki and escort her to her chambers? And bring me Wilbur from the Stables.” I snapped unintentionally and with a wave of my hand I dismissed the staff. I walked up to the thrones that sat along the end of the room, sitting down in the one my father used to sit in himself.

The room was soon empty, and I felt my walls start to weaken. My parents were gone, I was going to become Queen in the matter of a week at the prime age of twenty-one. I sat up straight as the doors to the throne room opened again, a knight escorting Wilbur into the throne room.

The knight forced him to kneel before me and he had a worried look on his face. I smiled very lightly and looked to the knight, “Leave us, Sir.” I said and he nodded, turning around, and exiting the room.

When the doors closed, we were alone, he stood up slowly as did I.

“Is what the messenger said true?” He asked lowly. All I could do was nod as my walls crumbled and fell around him. I felt hot tears running down my face and he opened his arms, where I found myself in a matter of seconds. He had me pressed against his chest as I sobbed.

***

As the days went on and Y/N became increasingly busier. She was still in charge of the kingdom, so Wilbur understood, he just wanted to spend some time alone with her before she became Queen but hasn’t had that opportunity since the moment in the throne room.

Ophelia was buzzing about the upcoming Coronation, getting the square ready for the large celebration they would be having. Everyone was exited that the darling Princess Y/N will soon be the Queen.

When Wilbur was done with helping Tommy’s mother decorate the Bakery, he returned to the castle grounds as the sun was about to start it’s decent. As usual he climbed up the ladder with an old blanket to watch the sunset.

He didn’t expect Y/N to be waiting up there with her knees tucked below her chin as she stared at the kingdom below.

“Y/N? What are you doing here?” He asked, catching her attention and his heart swelling at the small smile she gave him.

“I just thought we’d watch the sunset together.” She said softly and Wilbur nodded, taking a seat next to her and wrapping the blanket around her shoulders.

“Won’t you be cold?”

Wilbur shook his head, “I’ll be fine, we don’t want our Queen to be cold, do we?” A small smile appeared on his lips as he looked down at his best friend, adoration written on his face, a look that was given a blind eye.

Y/N pulled the blanket around her shoulders as she noticed the sky changing colors, “We’re moving the coronation up a few days,” She admitted, not meeting his gaze, “Phil thinks that if our enemies catch wind at the fact Ophelia is leaderless, they will attack. I can’t afford to send my men out to war right now.”

Wilbur’s face softened, “Does that mean you’ll be too busy…”

Y/N looked over at him, a frown on her face as she shook her head, taking one of his larger hands in her two small ones, “Wilbur, I promise that I will always make time for you. I would gladly sit on this roof when we are both old just to watch this sunset with you.” She promised with sincerity in her eyes, until she looked away again.

“You can barely climb up here now, do you really think I’ll be able to help you up here when we’re old?” He teased, nudging her arm playfully with his elbow, making her giggle.

“I must confess,” She took a deep breath, not wanting to meet his eyes, “I know you said you love another, and I understand if you don’t feel the same,”

Wilbur felt his heart speed up, “No, no…” The thought to himself as he stared at the side of her face, “Don’t do this to me now, Y/N.”

“I’m in love with you, Wilbur.”

The words coming out of her mouth made him smile sadly, he knew already, but she was The one thing he couldn’t have.

He couldn’t control the words that came out of his mouth next, the words that screamed hope for the two young lovers, a hope that wouldn’t survive, couldn’t thrive, “I must confess something as well. I am not in love with Lucy McGregor, in fact I barely know the poor girl.”

Her eyebrows furrowed and she met his gaze again, “Then, who is the girl that you were talking about?”

Wilbur chuckled deeply, “Well, she’s beautiful. She has a heart of gold. She accepts people for who they are and not for the money they have or what class they come from. She loves unconditionally and charms everyone she meets. She’s brave, she’s kind, and she is going to make an amazing Queen. I’m in love with you, Y/N.”

He wished he could read the look in her eyes, only able to see the small smile morphing onto her face.

“Wow, I am so stupid.”

“No, no,” Wilbur interjected with a cheeky smile on his face, “Tommy is stupid.”

Y/N let out a laugh, her giggles forcing her to tilt her head back, “That boy is funny.”

He smiled and opened his arms for her, which she gladly accepted, and opened the blanket to wrap it around both of their shoulders as he pulled her into his chest, “Should we,”

“No,” She mumbled shaking her head lightly as she stared off into the sunset, “Let’s just enjoy this moment. I’m not a Princess about to be Queen and you’re don’t work for me. It’s just us just for a little while.”

Wilbur let out a small sigh, looking down at her and using his free hand he placed it on her jaw, moving Y/N’s head so she was looking at her before bending down slightly and placing his lips on hers.

***

I looked at myself in the mirror in front of me, the Coronation dress looked stunning, my hair was perfectly done up, and my sister Niki was sitting on my bed, watching me.

“Everything changes after today, doesn’t it?” Niki asked, making me look at her in the mirror, my eyes meeting hers.

“Nothing really has to change, it may take a while to get used to the difference, but you and I are in this together, Niki. Mom and Dad would have wanted it that way.” I said, turning around to look at her directly, “You get to make your own choices in life, make your own decisions, and whatever you choose to do, I will be right behind you.”

She smiled lightly, nodding at my reassurance, “What about you and Wilbur?”

My smile fell and my heart sank, “He’s the one thing I can’t have, Niki, we come from different worlds.”

“But you’ll be Queen and you will love each other through everything life throws at you. Who cares if he doesn’t have royal blood? I know you don’t. The two of you are soulmates and I fully believe that.”

Maria and Phil interrupted by poking their heads into the room, “The Archbishop is ready to start the Coronation. Niki, please come with us to your place.” Phil said and she stood from her place on the bed, in a beautiful dress of her own as she walked to the door to follow Maria out.

Before she left, she paused turning to me again, “I’ve read up on Ophelia’s laws and there isn’t anything stating against a Queen or King marrying a commoner, because most of the time they are already married when their Coronation comes along. I found that information quite amusing.”

With a quick movement, she was gone, and I turned to look at myself once more, hearing the Citizens of Ophelia buzzing outside the castle walls waiting to watch the Coronation take place on the large Balcony per my request.

I want everyone to witness this, and they seemed to want to witness it as well.

“Are you ready, Princess?” Phil asked and I took a deep breath, turning my head to meet his gaze.

“I will never be as good of a Ruler as my father had been before me, but my people need me, and I need them. It’s my turn to lead.” I said straightening my posture and brushing down my dress.

Phil sighed and walked over to me, “Your father once said to me, A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent.”

I smiled lightly, nodding at his words as I realized the meaning.

“Alright, lets get going. There are some people outside waiting to watch you become Queen.”

I linked my arm with his, mostly to help keep my nerves at bay as we started walking down the hallway towards the large balcony. I heard the music flowing from outside and I smiled as I heard people singing and dancing.

I stopped by the doors when Phil told me to, and the music fell silent. Trumpets started blaring and he stepped outside first, walking out to the side of the balcony and I stepped out a few paces after him.

The Archbishop nodded for me to stand in from of him, next to the balcony railing so I did, coming into the view of the crowd, hearing their cheers as I turned to the Archbishop.

The ceremony went uninterrupted and as planned, then came the promises.

“Y/N, do you promise to be a kind and just ruler?”

“I do.”

“Do you promise to be fair and honest?”

“I do.”

“Do you promise to think of your citizens before yourself?”

“I do.”

I watched as he grabbed the crown from its place on the pillow, “Then it is my honor by the word of the father, the son, and the holy ghost that I crown thee, Y/N L/N Queen of Ophelia.”

He placed the crown on my head and the crowd shouted in our direction, “God save the Queen!”

I turned to my citizens and smiled down at them, waving politely, and taking a glance over at Niki, who smiled at me encouragingly.

The crowd started to quiet down; it was time for me to make a speech. I looked around the crowd in search of Wilbur and when my eyes landed on him, he smiled and waved slightly, and I smiled down at him in return.

“Hello citizens, it is an honor to be your queen. Together we will make Ophelia strong, and I promise to keep you all safe. My father was one of the best rulers Ophelia could have asked for and I hope to be as respected as he was.” I said slowly and my eyes locked with Wilbur’s again as I felt a ping of courage flow through my bones.

“And as my first declaration as Queen, I have a question for someone in particular.” I placed my hands on the railing and leaned forward slightly, a smile on my face as Wilbur and Tommy, who stood next to him, gave me a look of pure confusion.

“Wilbur Soot,” I started, a cheeky smile on my face as he began to smile back. I knew it would be risky and I knew we would have to jump through a lot of different hurtles, but at that moment all I could say was.

“Will you marry me?”

[bogkeep]

hmmmmmmmmmm maybe i’ll write an Introspective Musing Post about my relationship to religion and their depiction in stories because i’ve pondering about this topic lately

so for those who are reading this and DON’T know what’s been going on...  there’s this webcomic i fell in love with some years ago, about six years actually, that depicts a post-apocalyptic fantasy/horror adventure set in the nordic countries. it had, and has still, some very uncomfortable flaws regarding racial representation, and the creator has historically not dealt very well with criticism towards it. it’s a whole Thing. my relationship with this comic has fluctuated a lot, since there are a lot of elements in it i DO love and i still feel very nostalgic about, and like idk i felt like i trust my skills in critical thinking enough to keep reading. aaand then the creator went a teensy bit off the deep end created a whole minicomic which is like... a lukewarm social media dystopia where christians are oppressed (and also everyone is a cute bunny, including our lord and saviour jesus christ). which is already tonedeaf enough considering there are religious people who DO get prosecuted for their faith, like, that’s an actual reality for a lot of people - but as far as i can tell, usually not christians. and then there’s an afterword that’s like, “anyway i got recently converted and realized i’m a disgusting human being full of sin who doesn’t deserve redemption but jesus loves me so i’ll be fine!! remember to repent for your sins xoxo” and a bunch of other stuff and IT’S KIND OF REALLY CONCERNING i have, uh, been habitually looking at the reactions to and discussions around this, maybe it’s not very self care of me but there’s a lot of overwhelming things rn and it’s fantastically distracting, yknow? like, overall this situation is fairly reminiscent of the whole jkr thing. creator of a series that is Fairly Beloved, does something hurtful, handles backlash in a weird way, a lot of people start taking distance from Beloved Series or find ways to enjoy it on their own terms, creator later reveals to have been fully radicalized and releases a whole manifesto, and any and all criticism gets framed as harassment and proving them right. of course, one of them is a super rich person with a LOT of media power and a topic that is a lot more destructive in our current zeitgeist, and the other is an independent webcomic creator, so it’s  not the same situation. just similar vibez ya feel as a result of this, i have been Thinking. and just this feels like some sort of defeat like god dammit she got me i AM thinking about the topic she wrote about!!! i should dismiss the whole thing!!! but thinking about topics is probably a good thing so hey lets go. me, i’m agnostic. i understand that this is a ‘lazy’ position to take, but it’s what works for me. i simply do not vibe with organized religion, personally. (i had the wikipedia page for ‘chaos magic’ open in a tab for several weeks, if that helps.) i was raised by atheists in a majorly atheist culture. christian atheist, i should specify. norway has been mostly and historically lutheran, and religion has usually been a private and personal thing. it turns out the teacher i had in 7th grade was mormon, but i ONLY found out because he showed up in a tv series discussing religious groups in norway later, and he was honestly one of the best teachers i have ever had - he reignited the whole class’ interest in science, math, and dungeons and dragons. it was a real “wait WHAT” moment for my teenage self. i think i was briefly converted to christianity by my friend when i was like 7, who grew up in a christian family (i visited them a couple times and always forgot they do prayers before dinner. oops!), but like, she ALSO made me believe she was the guardian of a secret magic orb that controls the entire world and if i told anybody the world would burn down in 3 seconds. i only suspected something was off when one day the Orb ran on batteries, and another day the Orb had to be plugged in to charge. in my defense i really wanted to be part of a cool fantasy plot. i had no idea how to be a christian beyond “uuuuh believe in god i guess” so it just faded away on its own. when i met this friend several years later, she was no longer christian. i think every childhood friend of mine who grew up in a christian family, was no longer christian when they grew up. most notably my closest internet friend whose family was catholic - she had several siblings, and each of them took a wildly different path, from hippie treehugger to laveyan satanist or something in that area. (i joined them for a sermon in a church when they visited my town. my phone went off during it because i had forgotten to silence it. oops!) ((i also really liked their mother’s interpretation of purgatory. she explained it as a bath, not fire. i like that.)) i have never had any personal negative experiences with christianity, despite being openly queer/gay/trans. the only time someone has directly told me i’m going to hell was some guy who saw me wearing a hoodie on norway’s constitution day. yeah i still remember that you bastard i’ve sworn to be spiteful about it till the day i die!! i’ve actually had much more insufferable interactions with the obnoxious kind of atheists - like yes yes i agree with you on a lot but that doesn’t diminish your ability to be an absolute hypocrite, it turns out? i remember going to see the movie ‘noah’ with a friend who had recently discovered reddit atheism and it was just really exhausting to discuss it with her. one of these Obnoxious Atheists is my Own Mother. which is a little strange, honestly, because she LOVES visiting churches for the Aesthetic and Architecture. we cannot go anywhere without having to stop by a pretty church to Admire and Explore. I’VE BEEN IN SO MANY CHURCHES FOR AN ATHEIST RAISED NON-CHRISTIAN. i’ve been to the vatican TWICE (i genuinely don’t even know how much of my extended family is christian. up north in the tiny village i come from, i believe my uncle is the churchkeeper, and it’s the only building in the area that did not get burnt down by the the nazis during ww2 - mostly because soldiers needed a place to sleep. still don’t know whether or not said uncle believes or not, because hey, it’s Personal) i think my biggest personal relationship to religion, and christianity specifically, has been academic. yeah, we learned a brief synopsis of world religions at school (and i remember the class used to be called ‘christianity, religion, and ethics’ and got changed to ‘religion, beliefs, and ethics’ which is cool. it was probably a big discourse but i was a teen who didnt care), but also my bachelor degree is in art history, specifically western art history because it’s a vast sprawling topic and they had to distill it as best they could SIGHS. western art history is deeply entangled with the history of the church, and i think the most i’ve ever learnt about christianity is through these classes (one of my professors wrote an article about how jesus can be interpreted as queer which i Deeply Appreciate). i also specifically tried to diversify my academic input by picking classes such as ‘depiction of muslims and jewish people in western medieval art’ and ‘art and religion’ when i was an exchange student in canada, along with 101 classes in anthropology and archaeology. because i think human diversity and culture is very cool and i want to absorb that knowledge as best as i can. i think my exchange semester in canada was the most religiously diverse space have ever been in, to be honest. now as an adult i have more christian friends again, but friends who chose it for themselves, and who practice in ways that sound good and healthy, like a place of solace and community for them. the vast majority of my friends are queer too, yknow?? i’ve known too many people who have seen these identities as fated opposites, but they aren’t, they’re just parts of who people are. it’s like... i genuinely love people having their faiths and beliefs so much. i love people finding that space where they belong and feel safe in. i love people having communities and heritages and connections. i deeply respect and admire opening up that space for faith within any other communities, like... if i’m going to listen to a podcast about scepticism and cults, i am not going to listen to it if it’s just an excuse to bash religion. i think the search for truth needs to be compassionate, always. you can acknowledge that crystals are cool and make people happy AND that multi level marketing schemes are deeply harmful and prey on people in vulnerable situaitons. YOU KNOW???? so now’s when i bring up Apocalypse Comic again. one of the things i really did like about it was, ironically, how it handled religion. in its setting, people have returned to old gods, and their magic drew power from their religion. characters from different regions had different beliefs and sources. in the first arc, they meet the spirit of a lutheran pastor, who ends up helping them with her powers. it was treated as, in the creators own words, ‘just another mythology’. and honestly? i love that. it was one of the nicest depictions i’ve seen of christianity in fiction, and as something that could coexist with other faiths. I Vibe With That. and then, uh, then... bunny dystopia comic. it just... it just straight up tells you christianity is literally the only way to..?? be a good person??? i guess?? i’m still kind of struggling to parse what exactly it wanted to say. the evil social media overlord bird tells you the bible makes you a DANGEROUS FREETHINKER, but the comic also treats rewriting the bible or finding your own way to faith as something,, Bad. The Bible Must Remain Unsullied. Never Criticize The Bible. also, doing good things just for social media clout is bad and selfish. you should do good things so you don’t burn in hell instead. is that the message? it reads a lot like the comic creator already had the idea for the comic, but only got the urge to make it after she was converted and needed to spread the good word. you do you i guess!! i understand that she’s new to this and probably Going Through Something, and this is just a step on her journey. but the absolute self-loathing she described in her afterword... it does not sound good. i’m just some agnostic kid so what do i know, but i do not think that kind of self-flagellating is a kind faith to have for yourself. i might not ever have been properly religious, but you know what i AM familiar with? a brain wired for ocd and intrusive thoughts. for a lot of my life i’ve struggled with my own kind of purity complex. i’ve had this really strange sensitivity for things that felt ‘tainted’. i’ve experienced having to remove more and more words from my vocabulary because they were Bad and i did not want to sully my sentences. it stacked, too - if a word turned out to be an euphemism for something, i could never feel comfortable saying it again. i still struggle a bit with these things, but i have confronted these things within myself. i’ve had to make myself comfortable with imperfection and ‘tainted’ things and accept that these are just, arbitrary categories my mind made up. maybe that’s the reason i can’t do organized religion even if i found one that fit for me - just like diets can trigger disordered eating, i think it would carve some bad brainpaths for me. so yeah i’m worried i guess! i’m worried when people think it’s so good that she finally found the correct faith even if it’s causing all this self-hate. is there really not a better way? or are they just trusting she’ll find it? and yeah it’s none of my concern, it’s like, i worry for jkr too but i do not want her within miles of my trans self thANKS. so like, i DO enjoy media that explores faith and what it means for you. my favourite band is the oh hellos, which DOES draw on faith and the songwriter’s experience with it. because of my religious iliteracy most of it has flown over my head for years and i’m like “oh hey this is gay” and then only later realize it was about god all along Probably. i like what they’ve done with the place. also, stormlight archive - i had NO idea sanderson was mormon, the way he writes his characters, many of whom actively discuss religion and their relationship to it. i love that about the books, honestly. Media That Explores Religion In A Complex And Compassionate Way... we like that i’ve been thinking about my own stories too, and how i might want to explore faith in them. most of my settings are based on magic and it’s like, what role does religion have in a world where gods are real and makes u magic. in sparrow spellcaster’s story, xe creates? summons? an old god - brings them to life out of the idea of them. it’s a story about hubris, mostly. then there’s iphimery, the story where i am actively fleshing out a pantheon. there’s no doubt the gods are real in the fantasy version of iphimery, they are the source of magic and sustain themselves on slivers of humanity in exchange. but in the modern version, where they are mostly forgotten? that’s some room for me to explore, i think. especially the character of timian, who comes from a smaller town and moves to a large and diverse city. in the fantasy story, the guardian deity chooses his sister as a vessel. in the modern setting, that does not happen, and i don’t yet know what does, but i really want timian to be someone who struggles with his identity - his faith, his sexuality, the expectations cast upon him by his hometown... i’m sure it’s a cliché story retold through a million gay characters but i want to do it too okay. i want to see him carve out his own way of existing within the world because i care him and want to see him thrive!!! alrighty i THINK that’s all i wanted to write. thanks if you read all of this, and if you didn’t that’s super cool have a nice day !

[inkandpen22]

Time is Irrelevant (1/?): The Mystery of Psychology

Pairing: Eleventh Doctor x Female!Reader 

Warnings: None

Word Count: 1.7k 

Part Summary: Y/N is an undergraduate student double majoring in history and English. While she’s cramming away at her research paper she’s approached by a rather peculiar man. 

Masterlist

“History, like love, is so apt to surround her heroes with an atmosphere of imaginary brightness.” 

                                            - James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans

I’ve never imagined myself as one of the greats. They’ve lived before my time and their legacies will outlive me long after I’m gone. The greatest task I can accomplish is do them justice by telling their stories. I must immerse myself in their lives and hope to influence others with their work. I’m merely the surface that the puzzle of history rests upon. Over time, I’ve collected facts from as many historical periods as possible and have memorized them.

I’ve always found history easy to retain. I believe it to be a blessing. Once I’ve heard, read, or watched any kind of information about history I’ll remember it for the rest of my life. My gift made the subject easy for me in school. I also excelled in English. Words resonate with people for generations, they’re needed to retell history. A simple sentence or everyday speech may end up in every history book across the country. Words are equally as influential to our history as our actions. Hence why I’m a history and English double-major. With history comes life lessons, valuable lessons that can only be learned from past experiences. English, words, can impact an entire generation or many, thus influencing history. By telling the stories of the past, I hope to better the future.

___________________________________________________ 

As I review the archives on the Crusades in front of me, my fingers tap against the table to the beat of the music coming from my earbuds in the otherwise silent archives. Many of my friends have never understood how I’m able to read and listen to music at the same time. What can I say? I’m talented. Disregard the fact that I’ve read this book fifty times over so I could practically recite it from memory. I’m kinda mixing wars here by listening to Hamilton while reading about the French and Indian War. Oh well, there are no rules against the action. 

Suddenly, there is a tap on my shoulder. I assume someone must be able to hear my music and is asking for me to turn it down. I close my book as I remove one of my earbuds and peer over my shoulder. I lift my eyes and meet the gaze of a rather handsome individual. 

“I’m sorry is it too loud?” I apologize. 

“Not at all,” he assures me with a gentle smile and I take note of his accent. “I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of information on the French Revolution?” 

The gentleman is lucky, an average person wouldn’t know the archives by heart. I’ve spent nearly every day up here since the early days of freshman year. 

“You’re on the right floor so good job.” I joke and point my finger towards the proper section in the middle of the room near me. “Most of the books on the French Revolution that I’ve been able to find are over there but there are more throughout the library upstairs. Nonetheless, those should be a good start.” 

He grins, pausing for a moment as he stares me in the eye.  “Thank you.” His focus travels to my book sitting on the table. “The Last of The Mohicans, good choice.” 

He leaves, as quickly as he appeared, towards the section I suggested. That man is something else entirely. He’s likely a professor considering he’s down here and his considerably formal attire. Only a professor would wear a bow tie. Then again, he appears awfully young. A TA perhaps? That wouldn’t explain his accent though. He could be a visiting professor. Plus, oddly enough, he knows of my book, not many people I know do. 

I pop my earbud back in and dive back into reading. The whole interaction was short but interesting nonetheless. I’m not sure what it was about him but he was different than most. It could be that he had this awkward charm and I’m not used to people being so polite. For a young man, he seemed old fashioned. His wording was more articulate, could be because he’s British. Normally a guy would say ‘uh hey so like, could you…. um…  show me where the books are for the French Revolution or whatever it’s called? If they have an audiobook or DVD that’s cool too!’ 

Okay, that’s it, I can’t focus after that guy talked to me. I’ve read the same sentence five times over. It’s best just head home, it’s getting late anyway. 

The sun is setting as I make my way back to the apartment. I take the more scenic route by the original brick buildings from the colonial era. Mainly because I like the brick path, especially now that it’s fall and the leaves coat the ground. I’m not surprised to see some boys playing football on the lawn in the center of campus. My first thought is how American they appear, with the crisp leaves scattering the ground, everyone in their duck boots, and playing football. I feel as if I’m in a Lands End catalog.

On the way home, I stop by the student union to fetch a late dinner to take home. I shuffle through the music on my phone, trying to find the perfect playlist for the walk back. I approach the door to the building and the person ahead of me holds it for me as I stare down at my phone. 

“Thank you” I mumble absentmindedly. 

“Oh well hello again!” 

I look up and believe it or not it’s the same man from before. I take notice of his exquisite eyes, their long lashes, and his multicolored uniqueness. I’ve never seen anything like them before. They’re like marbles. A warm chestnut shade toward the cornea but then fades into a ring of emerald that transitions into a deep ocean blue. He has every possibility in one. 

“Oh hey!” I respond politely, “did you find the book you were looking for?” 

He shows me the hardcover book in his hand. “Yeah, thank you so much for your help earlier!” He holds out his hand for me to shake, “it’s nice to meet you...” 

“Y/N,” I answer, accepting his hand. “It’s nice to meet you too!” 

I’m not the kind for such formal introductions. In this day and age, there are rarely introductions just frequent run-ins until everyone becomes acquainted. 

The gentleman stares at me for a second, visibly deep in thought. He continues to hold my hand, but I’m too awkward to remove it. Then, snaps himself out of it, parting from my hand. “Beautiful name,” he compliments, charmingly.

Normally, I would imagine girls swoon over a compliment from a man with his foreign accent. American girls love a pretty English accent. Yet, his attention makes me feel on display. I’ve never been fond of physical compliments. I never know how to respond to them. 

“Are you meeting someone?” I ask.

He looks confused but realizes I’m referring to the building. “Oh! No, no I’m here to get something to eat.” 

 This was nice, but now I’m over being polite because I’m starving. Plus, I’ve been in the archives practically all day working on my research paper for Medieval History for I’m beyond tired. 

“Oh okay…” I stumble over my words, “well, it was nice to you!” I nod, preparing to walk away.

“Would you like to join me?” He asks abruptly before I’m able to escape. 

It’s ironic, I’m a mess and he’s wanting my company. The image of me schlepping around this ten-pound backpack wasn’t off-putting to him, really? 

 “Awesome!” He declares, not giving me the chance to decline his offer before he ushers me inside. “I’ll meet you over there after you get your food!” He adds, pointing over to a specific table. 

I was really looking forward to eating in my bed at home, but I can’t decline anyone and risk hurting their feelings. Sticking to my word, I head over to where he instructed after I grab my usual sushi order. Sure enough, he’s already seated at the table. I notice the fact we’re in the far back corner separated from the workers or the other few eaters this time of night. I place my bag next to me on the floor as I get situated. 

“You like sushi?” He inquires. 

I sway my head from side to side, “Americanized sushi. The traditional raw fish I’ve never tried.” 

He chuckles lightly, “one day you’ll have to try it. It’s surprisingly not as bad as one might assume.”He speaks so smoothly. Does it come naturally or does he have to work at it? 

“One day,” I sigh with a smile. I would love to see the world and experience everything it has to offer. Yet, I’m a poor college student with responsibilities. 

“What’s your major?” He asks, creating casual conversation. 

“I’m a double major, English, and history,” I nod. 

He raises his eyebrows, appearing amazed. “Impressive!” 

“What about you? What do you do?” I’m purposefully vague enough with my questions because I still don’t know whether he’s a student or a professor. He could pass as a graduate student and that’s what has me stumped. 

“Oh uh...” he stammers, rubbing his hands together in his lap. “I’m a doctor.” 

He’s a professor then. I’m having a social dinner with a professor... is this allowed? “Oh okay,” I try to remain unfazed. “What is it that you teach?” 

I’m assuming he must teach history considering the search for the French Revolution book. Then again, I don’t know of any English professors in the department. The topic isn’t really one for some light reading. He could be required to take a history course, though I doubt it. 

“Psychology,” he rushes out an answer. 

Do I ask or is that too bold? Then again, I’ve never really cared about superficial social standards. 

I lean forward in my chair, resting my arms on the table as curiosity appears on my face. “If you don’t mind me asking, why were you looking for books on the French Revolution earlier?” 

He hesitates as if he’s evaluating my question. His features go blank then shift to sternness. Did I say something wrong? Was I not being polite when I asked that? 

“I was picking it up for a friend,” he answers plainly, questionably. 

I don’t believe him, not for a second. I’m no expert in psychology but his eyes glanced to his right while his voice went up a little at the end of his sentence. He’s lying. My heart quickens and I do everything in my power to remain calm. I’m going to play along and act oblivious. Perhaps, he has a good reason for lying.

“I was just wondering because you said you were in Psychology,” I say light-heartedly, waving my hand to dismiss the matter. 

He sighs deeply, placing his napkin on the table. “They said you’d be hard to fool.” His eyes meet mine with a smirk as he leans back in his chair. “You don’t miss a thing do you?” He snickers. 

His words are so ominous they make my breathing hitch as I drop my chopsticks. 

“What?” I calmly question, reaching for my back slowly. 

In a swift movement, he grabs my hand on the table and points a metal shiny thing at my face. I attempt to yank myself free, but he just squeezes tighter. I look into the light radiating from the buzzing object. Then, suddenly, my sight goes dark. This can’t be good.

_____________________________

Masterlist

[sny-bylle]

Personal Dark Souls rankings

World Building:

DS1 > DS2 > DS3

Let’s start with an quite obvious one. I agree with many fans that DS3 is more linear, while the other two games allow more exploration. 

What gives DS2 the lower place is the fact that sometimes hidden paths are SO WELL hidden that I actually lost orientation at some point. I couldn’t find the next location or simply couldn’t recognize if a place actually was a dead end or not. That way I really was unsure whether I was making any progression in the game or not. 

DS1 linked the levels perfectly. At the beginning, I immediately tried out all paths from Firelink Shrine. And I had no problems memorizing the several locked / accessible entrances and where they (might) lead.

Soundtracks: 

DS3 > DS1 > DS2

You mainly hear Music played either when you’re in a Boss Battle or at Firelink Shrine / Majula. And while I consider Majula’s Soundtrack better than the Shrines, I can’t say the same about the rest in its game. 

Generally you’re too busy focusing on the boss to pay much attention to the Soundtrack. But in DS3 it happened often enough that I still noticed some bosses’ melodies. First it was at the Cryszal Sage battle, where I thought: Man this music is creepy and intense! Then in the Abyss Watchers battle I thought: Holy sh*t the bell and the violins and the voice! Absolutely badass! These are only a few examples of many times I caught myself focusing more on the soundtrack than the Boss. Yes, it cost me many lives, but it’s worth it! 

DS1 didn’t have many soundtracks I really noticed. But still, after some boss battles I had an earworm. Right while I’m typing this, I have the Gaping Dragon’s soundtrack in my head. 

And DS2... In short: There isn’t a single soundtrack I had really memorized. Majula is the only great exeption. 

Level Design:

DS2 > DS1 > DS3

When I think of it, DS2 generally has he biggest world. And due to this size, so many different locations could fit into the game. We have a great underground “labyrinth”, stormy mountains with Dragons flying around, sand pits, giant castles built at the edge of the ocean, simple forests and don’t get me started on Drangelic Castle. I think from all levels in EVERY Dark Souls game, Drangelic castle has to be my favourite... Okay, next to Anor Londo. 

All places in DS2 are noticeable and memorable in their very own way and I love that! I could never look my fill when I traveled from one location to the other. Even the Gutter has its own uniqueness. I still hate it. 

Now to DS1. It’s lower placed because in my opinion the levels are too bound to the Dark Medieval Fantasy theme. The game mainly consists of Castles, Dungeons, Catacombs, ruins of Castles, evil lairs filled with fire, abandoned Cities, maybe a forest. The only exceptions I can think of right now, are the Crystal Cave and Blighttown. But I think that’s it. 

Now to DS3. I don’t dislike the levels at all. I just think they’re... not quite diverse. Just like DS1, we have our ruins, catacombs, castles, forests, etc. But plus to this, another detail makes almost every location similar to each other: Everything is in ruins. Destroyed. Far past its glory. Abandoned. And full of freaking candles. Again, not that I dislike it. But I feel like so many levels follow the same style. Of course there are some exceptions here and there. Sure, it might have something to do with the lore in DS3. But it is as it is.

Bosses:

DS3 > DS1 > DS2

As I mentioned before, what makes bossfights far more enjoyable for me than in the other games, is the soundtrack. That already is a big plus point for DS3. Apart from that I appreciate the variety of the bosses. With that I don’t only mean the species, but also the sizes. From a group of old men up to one gigantic skeleton. 

Also I think DS3 has the most cutscenes for its bosses. Altogether I feel like most efforts were put into DS3 bosses than in the other games. And the fights themselves are often enjoyable. I can’t think of much that really frustrated me in the game, except the Curse Rotten Greatwood. But again, there I like that you have a different fight mechanic, where you have to hit specific spots to deal damage. Heck, I even like the fight against the Ancient Wyvern, just because the mechanics are different. 

The fights against DS1 bosses was also often fun. Except Bed of Chaos. But here you mainly just have the “beat it until it stops moving” fight. Pretty simple. Not that I complain though, it doesn’t make the fights less enjoyable. 

What I like the most about DS1 bosses, are the bosses themselves. With that I mean their character, their design, and most importantly: Their lore. I already knew Sif’s story before I started to play any Dark Souls just because he got so famous. I like how we have our four main bosses introduced in the beginning cutscene. With Gwyndolin you have the chance to freaking challenge a god. In the DLC you get into the role of the fairytales’ noble knight, who saves the land from evil forces, and who slays the big monster to rescue the pretty princess. Also the fight against Artorias is one of the best fights in the entire series. 

DS2 also has bosses which I like, simply because of their lore. Especially King Vendrick and the Ivory King. But what gives DS2 the last place, is the lacking diversity in the bosses. Many of them are... well... Dudes in Armors. Of course I think of the exceptions, too. And the fact that DS2 has so many bosses. But to put it simple: The number of good and enjoyable bosses is heavenly balanced with the number of frustrating / less memorable ones.

DLCs

DS2 > DS3 > DS1

As I said before: DS2 has a great level design. And the same goes to its DLCs. 

Frozen Eleum Loyce with its clear blue sky and buildings covered in snow is one of the prettiest areas in the series. And I love the idea, where you have the option to search for trapped Knights which will then help you to fight against the final boss. And the bossfight itself is also one of he best in the series. Mainly because of the boss stage itself and the Burnt Ivory King’s epic entrance. 

Heck, I even loved the Frigid Outskirts. I can see what it’s so hated by many fans, but I enjoyed the concept of this great field of snow, where you have to navigate trough the storms and defend yourself against demonic thunder horses. The grim Atmosphere is intense. Okay, I didn’t like the bossfight, but that’s actually the only negative point I have. 

While the other two DLCs weren’t that much fun and eye-candy, I still couldn’t stop exploring every corner of the maps. Especially the Sunken King DLC. Also the bosses were great, too. Even if I got really frustrated at the fight against Elana, I still liked her character design. 

So, in short: The flaws in DS2′s DLCs could be easily overshadowed by all the good aspects.

I actually had to think whether I should put DS3 above DS1 or otherwise. But I decided to rank DS3 higher because of the level design. To be honest, it wasn’t really that much fun to navigate through any DLC maps. The Ringes City looks beautiful though. And I liked that the lore about Gwyn was picked up again. The characters all were great and the fight against Ariandel and Friede was epic in every aspect. 

But from all levels in the series, I felt like the DLCs in DS3 are the least obliging. Yes, Dark Souls is known to be hard, I know that. But here it was just frustrating and disheartening. Usually when I die in Dark Souls, I’m thinking: Okay, next time I got this. I need to pay attention to X so I won’t get killed again. I can make it. Challenge accepted. But here I just was glad when I could bring places behind me. I didn’t feel that much of a sense of accomplishment while I fought my way through. It’s definetely the Lore that carried DS3′s DLC to the second place. Also Lorian was mentioned and had a role. Yes, that is important.

The main reason I placed DS1′s DLC last is the location’s design. Mainly it’s just a brighter, dryer version of Darkroot Garden. On the other hand I liked Oolacile and The Abyss. But especially in Oolacile I didn’t have that much fun either. Mainly because of the enemy type you encountered there. What I really liked though, were the bossfights. Okay, the Sanctuary Guardian and Kalameet were very similar to Monster Hunter battles for me. Manus was fun to fight because dodging his attacks felt really rewarding. Plus you had Sif by your side. But Artorias. Dang, he was hard. And Challenging. I died at least 20 times against him. But i didn’t care, just because the fight against him was so fantastic!

As I said, DS3 and DS1 are very close to each other and DS1 could have easily landed on second place, just because of Artorias. You could actually just consider both of them as second.

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So, for now this will be it. I have no idea if anyone will ever read this list, or even care about my opinion. But I just felt like talking about anything Dark Souls related. Noone in my real life is interested in Dark Souls at all, so I decided to share my thoughts here.

If you want, you can write why you agree or disagree with my views. If you want, you can even ask for other aspects to rank the three games, but it’s totally up to you.

For those who spent their time reading this: Thank you very much for reading. It’s much appreciated!