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rallamajoop · 3 months ago

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Queer lit of the 1800s: Two gay Victorian vampire stories you've probably never heard of

So, I have this post in the works tackling that all-important question: just why are there so many gay vampire stories? But in writing it, what was supposed to be a brief tangent about a couple of little-known m/m vampire stories from all the way back in the late 1800s era… started expanding into something not-so-brief, as such tangents are prone to do.

But what the hell, the internet tells me it's queer history month: clearly the only solution is to give those stories their own post, where my tangent can spin out as far as it likes!

Now, if you know anything about Victorian vampire literature or the lesbian vampire genre, you’ve probably already heard about Carmilla, by Sheridan le Fanu (1872), the world’s very first (known) lesbian vampire story. To this day, it's easily the second best-known and widely adapted tale in all the Victorian vampire canon (after Dracula, obviously) – and it probably deserves to be too.

But this is not a post about Carmilla, because Carmilla is not the only gay-vampire-story written way back in the Victorian era. It's not even the least subtle gay-vampire-tale.

There are (at least) two others, both featuring male/male vampire/human pairings. And whether or not they ‘deserve’ to be remembered in the same breath as Carmilla, they’re both fascinating works in their own rights: Manor, by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1884) – one of the world’s first gay activists – and A True Story of a Vampire, by Count Eric Stenbock (1894).

You can read both online. A True Story of a Vampire is long out of copyright and can be found on Gutenberg (Carmilla is too, if you're interested), and many other places. Manor has been translated into English only much more recently, but you can still get hold of it in pdf form, or buy it in ebook format. But if what you really want are some summaries, and/or whole lot of extra context and analysis to go with the stories themselves, I've got you covered below.

Manor (1884), Sailor Stories, and Karl Heinrich Ulrichs

We’ll start with Manor, since it was published ten years before our other example, and because I’m not quite cruel enough to leave you going "wait, did you really just tell me there was a legit gay activist writing vampire slashfic in his free time way back in the 1880s?" while I ramble on about the other story first. We'll start with the author himself, because his own story is at least as interesting as any fiction he ever published.

Born in Germany in 1825, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs knew from a young age that he was attracted to men. He trained in law, but wisely resigned before he could be fired in 1854 when his proclivities came to the attention of his superiors. Most in his position would've redoubled their efforts to hide; Ulrichs spent the next several years joining societies dedicated to science and literature and developing his own theories about non-hetero orientations, before officially coming out to his family in 1862.

He was just getting started. By 1867, he was ready to come out to the whole world.

Ulrichs is far from the first gay man to recognise his attraction without shame and find society in like-minded individuals ‒ but he may well be the very first to come out voluntarily and publicly, and advocate for the decriminalisation of homosexuality. And when I say "publicly" what I mean of course is, "in a formal address to the Congress of German Jurists." He was shouted down, but it was still a staggering act of bravery for a man of his time. It would still be a staggering act of bravery in many parts of the world today.

Undaunted by his reception, Ulrichs would also publish a dozen booklets advocating for rights for his community between 1864 and 1879, framing their sexuality as natural, inborn and wholly benign. In 1880, after multiple arrests for his political advocacy, he left Germany for self-imposed exile in Italy, where he would remain until his death in 1895. But it's during this period that he published some poetry, as well as Sailor Stories, a collection of four short stories inspired primarily by Norse mythology, including Manor (which we’ll get to, don’t worry).

Though Ulrichs saw little legal success in his lifetime, through modern eyes, his greatest failure might be only that he was so far ahead of his time. When he began writing and advocating, the word 'homosexuality' didn't even exist yet ‒ he himself used the term 'Urnings' for gay men, eventually coining terms for variations like 'Mannling' and 'Weibling' (gay male equivalent of 'butch' and 'femme') as well. He also came to recognise bisexuality, lesbian attraction, and even intersex conditions, theorising that all resulted from some combination of male and female characteristics developing in the same individual, as the available knowledge on embryonic development suggested might be possible. For a guy with only Victorian era science to work from, that's still remarkably close to the modern consensus today.

Nor did Ulrichs' work die with him. His writings would go on to inspire and be republished by gay rights movements that followed him ‒ including the work and advocacy of Magnus Hirschfeld, who created what may be the world's first trans-affirming clinic. Even in his own time, responses from his own readers show much his work meant to them, reassured at last that they weren't alone.

So how does a German activist from the 1880s find himself publishing gay vampire fiction based on Norse mythology while living in exile in Italy? I only wish I knew. My sources suggest his main goal with Sailor Stories was to publish something that would sell. Unsurprisingly, given the subject matter it seems to have sold very little. Manor is the third of four short tales, and by far the gayest of them all. It's also (IMHO) by far the best, and the most interesting.

Set in a Norwegian fishing village, Manor tells the story of the romance between a 15-year-old boy called Har, and the titular Manor, a sailor 4 years his senior, who rescues Har from the wreck which killed his father. In the days that follow, the pair become close, and Manor takes to swimming across the bay on summer evenings to visit Har at his home. And so they meet whenever they can, until tragedy strikes again, and Manor is killed in a shipwreck near the coast, leaving Har inconsolable with grief.

But this being a vampire story, in the nights after Manor’s death, something is seen swimming across the bay to Har’s home, just as Manor used to do. Har is visited night after night by the spectre of his beloved, who lies beside him in bed, strokes his cheek with cold hands, and kisses him with icy lips, draining his blood from his heart, "like an infant at its mother’s breast." Har himself awaits each night with mixed joy and fear, longing to see Manor again, even in such a form.

As Har weakens, the villagers attempt to trap Manor in his grave by hammering a stake through his body, but he continues to visit Har nonetheless, now sporting a gaping wound in his chest. The villagers return with a new stake, widened at the base like a giant nail, and finally, Manor is restrained in his grave. But it’s too late for Har: weakened and heartsick, he dies, begging only that he should be buried beside his beloved at last. Neither rise again.

Though I can’t speak to how it reads in the original German, in translation, Manor is relayed in largely workmanlike prose. Its tale is short, simple, and sad – but so much about it fascinates me all the same.

(Draugen, Theodor Kittelsen, 1891)

There’s the incorporation of elements you might better recognise from Norse draugr folklore – revenants more typically associated with deaths at sea, or charged with guarding their own graves ‒ but still far more closely related to the vampires of Slavic mythology than most people probably realise. Manor is also one of painfully few stories which clearly recognises what is surely the original purpose of hammering a stake through a vampire’s body: not to kill it, but to hold the creature down and prevent it from leaving its grave. As a hopeless vampire-nerd (I've presented panels at conventions about this stuff, it's dangerous to get me started), I can’t tell you how much I love those aspects of this story.

But above all, Ulrichs’ tale captures what might be one of the oldest and most traditional versions of the folkloric vampire: the spectre of a lost loved one, and the potent mixture of fear and twisted longing thus inspired, that the weight of their loss might drag you down into death to join them. Many ‘real’ tales of vampirism have been inspired by outbreaks of wasting diseases like consumption, working their way through a family, one member at a time. But in Har’s case, it is clearly grief as much as Manor’s physical visits that claims him. He loves Manor so much that he welcomes his lover back, even as a revenant. In his own way, Har too is cursed by Manor’s death to wander the world like the walking dead, until finally reunited with his lover once more.

Nowadays, tragic love stories like this tend to get an eye roll from a lot of the queer community. The old ‘bury your gays’ trope has been done to death, and we’re largely sick of being told that noble suffering is the best we can hope for. But it’s notable nonetheless that Manor’s sexuality has no bearing on his death, and little about the story would change were Har female. It's far from clear if the rest of the village even recognises Har and Manor's love for what it is, let alone whether they'd disapprove ‒ after all, vampires will often go after friends and acquaintances when lovers and family members are exhausted. As such, it’s hard to read the village’s attempts to keep Manor in his grave as a simple matter of prejudice. They're also genuinely trying to save Har's life.

And yet, the way Har keeps the undead Manor’s visits a secret, even begging for the stake to be removed so they can resume, echoes the real experiences of so many gay and lesbian couples far too clearly to be accidental. And however disturbing to a contemporary audience, Har’s willingness to follow his lover to the grave leaves little doubt of the depths of his feelings. To an audience in the 1800s, even the most cliched example of bury-your-gays would be revolutionary.

Did I mention that this story fascinates me? There are layers to this thing.

For completeness, I’ve also read the rest of Sailor Stories (and you can too at the same link). Only one of the other three tales contains any queer romance: the first, Sulitelma, where a boy called Erich falls for a handsome sailor called Harald he meets aboard a spectral storm ship. But there's no happy ending: his sister falls for the same handsome sailor, and shoves Erich overboard to his death to eliminate her competition.

Atlantis, the second story in the collection, is a direct sequel to Sulitelma, but it's even more bizarre. Erich is barely mentioned, and instead we find ourselves reading a tale which I can only summarise as like something I might have found on fanfiction.net back in the early aughts, written by some 14yo trying to straightwash the original material. Here, Harald and some of his fellows go on shore leave to the land of the phoenix, populated by Greek nymphs and Cupid, and mildly comedic hijinx ensue. It is fascinatingly bizarre, but not exactly satisfying as a read (or a sequel).

The final story, The Monk of Sumboe, tells of how two close friends destroy their relationship and themselves with their fixation on the tale of an alluring siren. There's a solid concept in there somewhere, but it's far too short and abrupt to do much with it, and all the characters remain strictly heterosexual. But if there's one thematic detail that ties it to the rest of the collection (beside the many Norse elements), it's that hopeless longing for something others would warn you away from ‒ whether that be a phantom ship, a visit from a vampire lover, or an elusive siren. None of these tales end well for their protagonists, but we're drawn to sympathise with them nonetheless.

I cannot guess what reception Karl Ulrichs expected in publishing this book. Sailor Stories is neither a work that could expect good reception from mainstream audiences or a defiantly-radical queer masterpiece. What did people make of it in its own time? Was it read and cherished by at least a few boys or men like Har and Manor? I’d hope so, but I’ll probably never know.

If you'd like to read more about Karl Ulrichs, I can recommend (among my sources) this New York Times article for a quick overview of his work, or the various work of Michael Lombardi-Nash and Hubert Kennedy (link 2). You can also read the first chapter of his published correspondence online for free.

A True Story of a Vampire (1894), and Count Eric Stenbock

Our second Victorian vampire tale was first published in English, though it was written by a Swedish Count. Like Carmilla in its own day (and quite unlike Karl Ulrichs), both story and author seem to have flown largely under the radar until many years after publication, the queer subtext little noted or commented upon (if at all).

If nothing else though, A True Story of a Vampire aptly demonstrates that at least someone of that era spotted what Carmilla was really about – because he wrote his own version, only about men. Stenbock’s tale is effectively a much shorter, gender-swapped version of Carmilla – but with a larger age gap between vampire and victim lending the story uncomfortable pederastic overtones.

"Vampire stories are generally located in Styria; mine is also," it begins – though I couldn’t name you any vampire story from the era besides Carmilla set there. The narrator, the surviving sister of the vampire’s victim, is called ‘Carmela’, if you needed further proof.

Much like in Carmilla herself, the vampire, Count Vardalek (a Slavic term for vampire) arrives at their house after being forced to seek local hospitality when some convenient ‘accident’ interrupts his travels. There, he bewitches and slowly drains the life from her brother, Gabriel – a boy described in terms variously angelic and fey, a wild thing who befriends wild animals and would rather climb a tree to a window than take the stairs to his own room, but who cleans up beautifully for church – a sublime, cinnamon roll of a creature, far too good for this sinful earth, too pure. Gabriel is a true male equivalent of the likes of Dracula’s Lucy, feminised further still by his youth and innocence. Had a vampire not got him, one can only imagine he’d have eventually have been spirited away by the fairies.

Gabriel and the mysterious Count are drawn to one another immediately. Even as Gabriel wastes slowly away, he greets Vardalek eagerly each time he returns by throwing his arms around his neck and kissing him on the lips. Count Vardalek himself seems to be a vampire of the psychic variety, gaining in health and vitality while Gabriel wilts, merely after spending time in one another’s presence. Vardalek himself seems to genuinely regret Gabriel’s inevitable death, but unlike in Carmilla, there’s no rescue at our conclusion. Gabriel dies, and we’re given no reason to assume he’ll rise again.

To the modern reader, the true horror of this tale lies not with the vampires or even the homoeroticism, but with those uncomfortably pederastic implications. Gabriel can’t be more than twelve years old, his youth and innocence emphasised in his every description. Pains are taken to suggest that Gabriel’s own attraction to Vardalek is as much responsible for his fate as the vampire himself. Gabriel’s father is similarly bewitched by this charming stranger, and never recognises the danger, or the reason for his son’s tragic death. Even the narrator, his loving sister, cannot truly hate Vardalek for taking her brother from her – even when her father dies of grief soon after. Gabriel’s fate seems sealed from the moment the Count enters their home.

But knowing how often real child molesters get away with it, their actions excused or downplayed by their family, their victims accused of ‘seducing’ their abusers and made complicit in their own misery… I can only say that, for my money, A True Story of a Vampire is a very effective horror story in ways the author probably never intended, once you start to question the reliability of its narrator.

It won’t surprise you to learn that the author, Count Eric Stanislaus Stenbock, was a (very) gay man, deeply involved with the gothic and decadent artistic movements of his day. Born to a Swedish Count and an English heiress, Stenbock seems to be remembered less for his writing than for his character. In The Oxford Book of Modern Verse, 1892-1935, W.B. Yeats describes him as a "scholar, connoisseur, drunkard, poet, pervert, most charming of men" ‒ naming Stenbock as an exemplar of the poetic zeitgeist of the age. Notably however, none of Stenbock’s actual poetry is featured in the volume.

Stories about Stenbock are so bizarre that it’s hard to know how much should be believed. Eric Stenbock supposedly travelled with a multitude of exotic pets and a life-sized doll he referred to as his 'son', dabbled in religions ranging from Roman Catholicism to Buddhism, and decorated his dwelling with peacock feathers, oriental shawls, a bronze statue of Eros and a hanging pentagram. One acquaintance once compared him to a 'magnified child': "very fair hair beautifully curled, and a blond, round, blue-eyed face," who paused at the door and "took a little phial out of his pocket, from which he anointed his fingers, before passing them through his locks." But by his thirties, he was already dying of liver disease after years of alcoholism. He passed away at only 35.

Stenbock’s surviving artistic legacy consists of three volumes of poetry and one of prose, with some of those poems including explicit references to Ganymede or male lovers. So how did he escape the same controversy that dogged similar works by other queer creatives of his day, like Oscar Wilde or Walt Whitman – let alone Karl Ulrichs? Well, simple: his work never attracted enough attention to generate real controversy. Stenbock may have been just as much a character as figures like Wilde, but he hadn't nearly the same talent or success.

One last minor biographic detail that may be worthy of note (discovered courtesy of some very poor-quality scans of his one proper biography) is that the youthful Gabriel of A True Story of a Vampire may owe his name to a real Gabriele ‒ a female cousin ten years Stenbock’s junior, whom he would've spent time with in his teens, and seems to have been especially fond of. Whatever the true significance of that name, he'd use it more than once in his fiction: another short story, The Other Side: A Breton Legend, also stars an angelic little boy called Gabriel, with a similar dangerous attraction to the strange. It features some lovely mood and imagery as it sets the scene, but (perhaps as a result of the lack of a suitable model story like Carmilla) it is, in my opinion, a much weaker story overall.

But again, the most disturbing aspect of Stenbock's biography are the hints about his own relationships with much younger men. His second book of poetry, Myrtle, Rue and Cypress, is dedicated to three people: Simeon Solomon (a gay painter of the pre-Raphaelite movement, whom he met at Oxford), Arvid Stenbock, Eric's cousin, and to "the memory of Charles Fowler" ‒ the son of a Clergyman, who died of consumption at only 16.

This enigmatic dedication is all we know about Stenbock's relationship with Fowler. We don't even know how the they met (Fowler seems to have had a relative at Oxford at the same time as Stenbock, but even this is speculation). But that dedication, in a book which will go on to feature poems about the beauty of Ganymede, or explicitly addressed 'To A Boy' (Tis ever a delight, dear, To gaze upon thy face, To love the life within thee, Fair fashioned, full of grace) makes it hard to read Stenbock's feelings as remotely platonic.

It doesn’t help that the same volume includes a poem about an actual vampire, published ten years before A True Story of a Vampire would ever be penned, but with very comparable subject matter:

With slow soft sensual sips Draw the life from the tender spray, And brush from thy soft lithe lips The bloom of thy boyhood away

It's worth keeping in mind that Stenbock himself would've been only 21 at the time of Fowler's death, and that we don't know whether he ever acted on his attraction (whatever form it may have taken). He may well, as I've seen suggested, have kept his admiration private, idealising the image of the beautiful, dying boy in his final days, in that classic Victorian-gothic way. But it doesn't help that Stenbock's cousin Arvid, from that other dedication in the same book, was 8 years his junior, and that their family apparently disapproved of their relationship as "unnaturally close." Or that another famous Stenbock-associate was Norman O'Neil, a composer whom he met on a London omnibus in 1891, when O'Neil too was only 16. Stenbock was apparently taken by his intelligence and beauty, and would go on to leave him a considerable sum of money in his will. By 1891, Stenbock would've been 31, but his fixations hadn't aged with him.

So how are we to take all this? This was an age where a marriage between a 16-year-old girl and a suitor of Stenbock's age would scarcely have raised eyebrows. Uncomfortable as it may sound today, for many queer youths of the era, a romance with someone older and experienced enough to play mentor may genuinely have represented the safest real option available. There are layers of complicated subtext, meanwhile, in the idea of any gay man of the Victorian era casting himself as a vampiric monster, doomed to ruin the object of their attraction with their very touch. There may be layers more in Stenbock framing his tale as "A true story" before telling us of the misery a foreign Count brought to an innocent family, with his helpless fixation on their youngest child.

It's worth noting also that even in Manor, by Legit Gay Activist Karl Ulrichs, our love story is between a boy of 15 and a man of 19 ‒ an age gap of only 4 years, but large enough at 15 to raise some serious eyebrows. His first story too, Sulitelma, involves attraction between a man and a boy (exact ages unknown). Though Ulrichs explicitly viewed relationships with prepubescent children as reprehensible, he seems to have had no problem with relationships between young teens and much older adults ‒ even printing a story sent in by a reader (details in this article), joyfully recounting how he (the reader) was initiated into the world of male/male love as a 14-year-old by his brother's riding master. Ulrichs saw no reason to disapprove.

To confuse things for anyone looking this up today, google Ulrichs, and you'll find a number of online articles claiming that his own first experience involved being sexually assaulted by a riding instructor when he was only 14. This is wrong on multiple fronts: not only is the story related by Ulrichs as a positive experience, it wasn't even Ulrichs it happened to. No, shit like this would not be okay if it happened today (and frequently wasn't then), but we don't help ourselves by distorting the stories told by our queer forebears to fit modern expectations.

But none of that surrounding context makes the youth of the day any less vulnerable to predation, or Stenbock's fixation on youthful beauty less creepy. Today, no evidence remains to help us guess whether idealising the beauty and innocence of youth was the greatest of Stenbock's actual crimes, or the least of them. Anything is possible.

In brief: welcome to the joy of trying to reconcile the complicated place of pederasty in queer history! I'm afraid you can look forward to seeing a lot of it from here on back.

A True Story of a Vampire is not a bad work of fiction by any means. There are some lovely descriptions and entertaining turns of phrase, and the horror is certainly effective. It may even be considerably more readable than Carmilla to many, simply for being so much shorter. But how you feel about it is really going to be up to you.

One last digression about Carmilla and Christabel

There’s one additional work that I’ve once or twice seen listed as an even earlier queer vampire tale: Samuel Coleridge’s unfinished poem Christabel (1800) – the only problem being there’s no vampire in the story (and how queer it is may be questionable too).

Like Carmilla, Christabel tells of a Baron’s daughter (the titular Christabel) who comes upon a mysterious stranger in apparent distress (Geraldine) and invites her into her home. We never learn what kind of being Geraldine truly is (three further parts were planned in addition to the two that were completed), but when she undresses, Christabel spies something that horrifies her, remembering it later with the words "Again she saw that bosom old / Again she felt that bosom cold." But under Geraldine’s spell, Christabel’s recollection of this incident comes and goes, and Geraldine has soon bewitched her father too.

All ‘evidence’ that Geraldine was intended to be a vampire rests on such details as Geraldine having to be carried past an iron gate into the house, much as vampires have to be invited in – but that particular vampire trope wasn’t actually codified until a solid century later (like most vampire-tropes, we have Stoker's Dracula to blame). The idea that Geraldine has the cold, shrivelled body of the undead and revives herself on Christabel’s blood is a perfectly valid reading, but the more obvious interpretation would be that she’s some manner of shapeshifting fairy creature, weakened by the iron of the gateway, not the entrance to Christabel’s home. The aristocratic literary vampire had existed for over 40 years and appeared in numerous works of fiction by Carmilla's day; but Christabel predates the origins of the genre a solid two decades. For Coleridge to have come up with the idea independently seems vanishingly unlikely.

I mention Christabel here partly for completeness, but mostly to bring us back around to the greater family of Carmilla, which is still legitimately the first known queer vampire story. Though far better known than any other story discussed here today, how it came about is perhaps the most mysterious.

Sheridan le Fanu was a prolific writer, but I don’t know of any other story he’s penned with subtext like Carmilla's (and I’m not quite invested enough to read all of the rest to check, though someone totally should so I don't have to). Le Fanu was married, and had children, and that's all I can discover about his personal life. Was he some shade of queer himself? Did he have connections to anyone who was? Did he even realise what he was writing with Carmilla? Nothing I’ve read about him provides any answers. Nor can I tell you how many readers spotted the subtext it the story was first published. In its own time, it caused no great scandal, nor even seems to have garnered much attention (by contrast, Byron & Polidori's The Vampyre caused an uproar when it was published in 1819, mostly thanks to Byron's established fame and debates over its true authorship). It took until well into the 20th Century for it to obtain the reputation it has today.

But I’m sure it’s no coincidence that it was Carmilla that spoke to Stenbock enough that he chose to retell it. And while A True Story of a Vampire is still the only other vampire story of the era set in Styria, there was almost another one: Dracula, at least Stoker’s early plans for the novel. Styria also remains part of the unused prequel chapter later published as Dracula’s Guest. The setting isn’t the only detail Stoker nearly-borrowed from Carmilla either, my favourite example being the weird schedule by which both she and Dracula seem to have to be in bed in their coffins at dawn each day, both apparently helpless and immobile in sleep, though both are also repeatedly seen up and about later in the day. Neither tale offers any real explanation.

Have I mentioned lately that Stoker, too, was almost certainly some shade of gay?

Now, the fact that two different queer writers both found Carmilla so very inspiring – and would even both publish their own works of vampire literature within five years of one another – isn’t much to go on, in trying to establish what a story like Carmilla might’ve meant to England’s queer population some twenty years after it was written. Maybe Carmilla was being eagerly passed around London’s own Uranian gothic societies at the time. Or maybe two different men happened upon it by chance in wholly different circumstances, and took very different things from reading it. Maybe Stoker didn’t even notice the queer subtext himself. But I can’t help but wonder if just maybe, there's something more than coincidence at work here.

Carmilla the vampire is an explicitly villainous character, her victim confused and unwilling. But she remains one of the most complex and sympathetic vampires of her era. And perhaps, to a community who had never seen Ulrichs’ writing published in their own language, and might never see themselves represented in fiction except as monsters buried in layers of protective subtext, that still meant something to readers like Stenbock, and Stocker, and who knows how many others.

In short, maybe old, gay vampire stories like these really are worth remembering. I'll leave that one up to you.

#queer history #vampires #Dracula #Manor #Karl Heinrich Ulrichs #A True Story of a Vampire #Count Eric Stenbock #Carmilla #gay vampire stuff

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hinakazino · 10 months ago

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Royal Reverse Harem Plot Idea???

A little idea popped into my head...

Imagine being transferred into your favorite novel as the villainess. You'd only seen a couple official cover arts of her, and she shares the same name whilst also looking similar to you. So it is just completely crazy but not uncalled for, that no one can tell anything's changed.

You're betrothed to Gojo Satoru, crown prince of the Jujutsu Empire but of course he hates your guts. It's not like you can even blame him because from what you read. The villainess had basically bullied the female lead every chance she got and even tried to have her killed off.

You know that the villainess dies in the original plot, but you don't want to. What do you do then? You do your very best to right your wrongs and end up gaining an air of respect after a month or so. Alongside that, you try to stay on Satoru's good side out of everything because in the end of the plot he is the one who gets you killed.

(He hires Toji to take you out of course.) Nothing seems to be working however, so you soon decide on a divorce. As the villainess you do come from a high ranking noble family anyway so it shouldn't be hard to stay alive.

OR, that is what you thought before you realized another issue that soon became evident a year later. Despite all your effort to avoid all the 2nd male leads and important characters to the plot, it was like they were drawn to you.

At first you were fine with it because it meant that you wouldn't be forced into marriage so quickly. Your noble family unfortunately was big on arranged marriages but your "affairs" seemed to throw them off guard.

The big issue was that eventually these important characters grew an obsessive, almost Yandere-like love for you. Which you only began to notice too late, and rejection was not available.

The worst of them all? Sukuna Ryomen. Emperor of the Empire of Curses, Gojo Satoru's sworn enemy, and the only other being on this planet that can be called his equal.

You had to deal with others too of course, everyone seemed to have their own red flags. Choso would consistently stalk you, Toji didn't like the idea of you going outside, Yuki always wanted to be near you, Gojo was beginning to guilt trip you, Shoko believed you'd be safest with her, and Geto had attempted to kidnap you. The rest? You weren't fully sure.

All you did know was that out of everyone, Sukuna Ryomen was clearly the craziest because he succeeded in kidnapping you. Now you're known as the damsel in distress stolen to another kingdom, with a reward amount higher than anyone can count issued by the crown prince himself.

Next: 1

#jjk #gojo satoru #geto suguru #toji fushiguro #yuki tsukumo #choso kamo #gojo x reader #Toji x reader #yuki x reader #geto x reader #choso x reader #sukuna ryomen #sukuna x reader #jjk x reader #jjk reverse harem #hinakazino thoughts

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oliverrevengers · 11 months ago

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officialising fever — katsuki bakugo/m.reader.

it was about five in the morning when y/n got an unexpected call from his somewhat boyfriend. katsuki and him were always living in a ‘will-they-won’t-they’ kind of relationship, everyone knew they loved each other, they know they love each other, but there’s heavy fear of commitment coming from the both of them.

but their domestically obvious acts made everyone confused with why they don’t just make it official. times like these, where katsuki gets so extremely sick that he is barely capable of calling only one person unless he wants to pass out and he immediately calls y/n. it made y/n’s head hurt as he strides towards the other boy’s dorm. why are they tip toeing around the bush? for five years now?

y/n had the key for katsuki’s room, because.. of course, he does. the soft sunrise was the only source of light in the room, the bundle of blankets that was once the katsuki bakugo, now lay in a small ball and let out a small groan to let y/n know that he is aware of his presence.

y/n couldn’t help but chuckle and close the door lightly behind as to not awake any one up. he walked up to the bed and sat down on the edge. his hand slowly rubbing up and down on katsuki’s blanket-covered back. “you alive?” y/n asked. katsuki turned around to look at y/n with a beet red face, raspy and groggy voice, “doesn’t feel like i am.”

“you toke something?” y/n pushed the blonde hair sticking to his boy’s forehead, completely unbothered by the sweat and stickiness from the fever. katsuki grumbled which translated to ‘yes, i did.’.

they both sat quietly together for a few moments. just katsuki’s sick, heavy breathing and y/n’s cold hand that has found itself under katsuki’s shirt on his bare skin. it was a chaste act, just comforting and loving. y/n suddenly spoke, “you ever want us to be official?”

“huh?” katsuki opened his eyes, eyebrows furrowed in confusion, ‘the hell is this guy talking about so suddenly?’ katsuki thought himself. y/n sighed , glancing at the clock on the bedside table; only twenty minutes left until they both had to head to class. it was winter, the sun was barely out even though it was already morning.

“i don’t know.. i just.. i just want us to be together.”

“we are together. are we not together?” katsuki’s voice was gruff and anyone could easily tell that it was painful for him to speak. y/n knew it was selfish and mean to make him engage in this conversation when he was sick, but they had to have it at some point. y/n shrugged, “no, we are, but again we’re not?”

katsuki stared at the ceiling, “we do everything couples do.” he said. he could feel y/n’s hand leave his skin, “eh, not everything.” y/n chuckled, seemingly proud of his dumb joke. katsuki groaned, “i’m too sick for your horny.” they both laughed before falling into silence again.

katsuki’s mind started to wander. he knew why he wanted to prevent putting a label on him and y/n’s relationship. “i’m scared shit will hit the fan the moment we call each other boyfriend. all shit always hits the fan.”

y/n tilted his head to the side, looking at katsuki who continued to look up and not at him, “i’m not going anywhere, katsuki. the title won’t make it hurt less if something happens and we have to part ways, which, fyi, will never happen. i’ve been dealing and loving your ass for almost all our lives, it’s routine and peaceful, i’m staying for better and most importantly for all the worst.”

katsuki turned his head, finally looking at y/n, “you’re right.” he never did that with anyone. it was enormously hard for him to ever speak this freely, this calmly and openly, but that was always the case when he was with y/n.

he taught katsuki how to be. how to love and how he should be loved. how to take breaks and how to prioritise himself. how to deal with his anger. how to be good. katsuki knew that if it were not for this boy that he met when he was four years then he would be doomed.

y/n leaned down and placed a small kiss on katsuki’s lip. “i’ll get you sick.” the blonde mumbled, yet his hands cupped y/n’s face, keeping their lips close and noses touching.

y/n was late that day, and for all the next week that katsuki was sick.

#bnha #bnha x male reader #mha #katsuki bakugou #katsuki bakugou x male reader #katsuki bakugo #mha x male reader #katsuki bakugo fanfiction #katsuki bakugo fluff

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discluded · 2 years ago

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I just realized that the porsche in the book was probably like kinn’s type? Cos they initially imagined a korean actor to play it right.. so apo being called to cast is really sus lol

I have never read KPTN and according to people who have, it's better for my brain that I haven't 😂

According to Reliable Sources, apparently Porsche wasn't Kinn's Type™ because Kinn's type is pretty and novel!Porsche wasn't pretty. But Apo is very pretty so obviously that wouldn't work 😁

Okay since I have a minute now:

KinnPorsche Casting: The Lore

First posting (one version) of the casting story for everyone to set the stage. Thanks to @lorddio for helping me find this one again and MileApo Safe Place for translating as always. it's got a very special part that needs highlight 😉

But setting the record straight(ha!) about the basics:

Mile was Kinn's face model, and purportedly many elements of Kinn were based off of Mile's public image (very importantly: wealthy heir to an important Thai family)

In the variations of posts about Mile is Kinn lore I've seen, this was the specific photo that inspired Daemi's Kinn. He reposted it around the same time his casting for KPTS was announced (this was reposted Dec 2020) but if I remember correctly from scrolling back in his feed, it was taken when he was 24-25 years old.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by MP 15.15 (@milephakphum)

instagram

As anon mentioned, and Apo mentioned in the clip above, Daemi chose a Korean actor as the face cast for Porsche.

However, he was contacted and specifically invited to audition for the role of Porsche. According to Apo, he didn't even read for any other characters

Those are the basic public facts we can agree on. But of course there's more going on behind the scenes! There's actually a lot going on here so I'm going to break it down for each actor, starting with Mile because that might set the ground for some of what happened with Apo.

Admittedly some of this is my opinion or interpretation, so take it with a grain of salt and use your own judgment! Again, the above facts are what is probably known and agreed upon.

Casting dates (a clarification)

First of all, there's a couple of confusing things going on with the dates, which I actually didn't highlight in the last post about it, but was exposed by the Facebook posts.

The first Facebook post dated October 1, 2020 talks about how the audition process has started and the first round will go on to October 3. The second post is from October 4 and then lists the dates of the auditions for October 10.

Now, October 10, the "official" audition date is (1) The day Mile and Apo were both fast tracked through auditions and (2) met again. I don't think anyone on the English side of fandom has noticed this or at least publicly talked about this discrepancy so I'm bringing you hot news (that I've been sitting on and not sharing lol)

youtube

It is worth pointing out that this is supposedly the photo below is of their first kiss from the auditions, and they're both wearing different clothes, so. I'm guessing the fast tracking was actually for the first round of auditions between Oct 1-3, and then the kiss was Oct 10.

Anyway, they sat next to each other and Apo talked to Mile first, regardless of if it was the same day (likely not, in my opinion)

There's also a couple of different photos of them together at audition.

Notably, in the first they're sat in uh, waiting area chairs. There's a different clip of Apo sitting behind Bible, so I'm guessing this is before Apo talked to Mile and he had noticed Mile while sitting in this area and went to talk to him.

The moved together down the line to the audition room, I think?

where Sprite interviewed them:

youtube

Also based on this last photo they switched sitting order at some point while waiting to audition

Mile's casting

So aside from the fact Mile visibly went to auditions, there is a rumor with some basis that Mile was pre-cast as Kinn. Probably soft confirmed by Mile himself.

I'm just going to close the loop on this discrepancy too: I think Mile was an invited audition/casting in the same way Ke Huy Quan was invited to audition for for Waymond Wang. Mile did audition. He was likely get the role because he was so preferentially invited by the authors and was the basis for the character.

Clearly, Ke Huy Quan won an Oscar and Mile won a GQ breakout actor award, so in invited casting, even for seemingly "unimportant" roles, it doesn't speak to an actor deserving or not deserving the role based on of acting skills. Mile also was cast as the main character Bohn in My Engineer in 2017 before turning it down; he clearly has some acting chops and can win lead roles.

In academia, often times internal postings will open for tenure track positions with a preferred candidate in mind; but due to rules these postings are made public and sometimes an outside candidate will blow the preferred candidate out of the water in terms of quality and get hired instead.

Which is to say there could have been another actor that ended up impressing more in auditions as Kinn even with Mile being preferred, or another actor pair that seemed more suited for Kinn and Porsche.

The other thing auditions do is allow for actors to screen test chemistry. So finally, Mile actually going through the casting process allows him to screen test a for a pairing partner. Which brings us to...

Pre-cast Preferred casting rumor credibility: 10/10

Apo's Casting

Play Mastermind.mp3 by Taylor Swift

Once Twice upon a time, the planets and the fates And all the stars aligned You and I ended up in the same room At the same time

Okay if you didn't catch it on the first watch...

Mile, what the heck is that expression. 😂😂😂

Again, Apo was invited to go to casting specifically for Porsche and only for Porsche. Apo has never acted in a BL before going to audition for KPTS, so the question begged who invited him and why?

First of all, Mile has made it clear that he was a fan of Apo's acting work and followed his career after they met in the gym. He's also made it clear he had the world's biggest crush on Apo. Look how excited he was to talk about working with Apo and how handsome he thinks Apo is in January 2021 (like 3 months after they met again!)

If Mile was the preferential Kinn cast and he didn't have an pairing partner, it would make sense to ask him if there were any actors he thought he might work well with.

I'm not entirely convinced Mile engineered for Apo to get cast or anything. Apo's acting career and skills stand on their own and I think their insane screen chemistry speaks volumes about why they were cast. But as for who made the request to Apo's manager ... hm 😏 Maybe we'll find out one day.

Mile Phakphum - Mastermind.mp3 rumor credibility: 6/10

#mile phakphum #apo nattawin #mileapo #kinnporsche #kpts #kinnporsche lore #kinnporsche bts #kinnporsche meta #filmania #old but gold

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pyropsychiccollector · 4 months ago

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I'll, uh... Keep the racier bday pics to myself.... (人◕ω◕);; Unfortunately, Vergil-chan's account has been getting bogged down by Tumblr's nonsense again. Don't want to waste time getting flagged for Art. \(人◕ω◕)/ Just know that there are versions of these without the clothes. Yosh. (人◕ω◕)(人◕ω◕)(人◕ω◕)

*cough* Anyway. (人◕ω◕);; @vergilsama922 has rather gone all-out this year. I'd only wanted sprites for a couple of characters, and like the generous soul he is... He went far above and beyond that. (人◕ω◕) Sprites, smut, bday art... On top of games that came out within the last couple months that I splurged on - Fate Stay Night (Switch port), Famicom Detective Club's third installment, and of course...

Ace Attorney Investigations Collection released just a couple of weeks ago~ \(人◕ω◕)/ I cannot convey how long I've waited for the sequel of AAI to release out here in the west. You know how back in the day Danganronpa had a fan translation before it got an official dub in the west a couple years later? ... Yes? No? Well, that's because Spike Chunsoft didn't procrastinate like hell. Some people remember the fan translation, and some fans don't. I remember cuz of Let's Players like Pharaoh2091 and Nicob. However, AAI2 has been out in Japan for... how many years now? Oh yes. 13. Yes, 13 years. (人◕ω◕)*** Us international fans relied on a much cherished fan translation that gave us the redemption of the Ace Attorney Investigation series we so desperately needed (Turnabout Ablaze dragged!!! It was good enough til the Yatagarasu reveal, then it fizzled out. (人◕ω◕)***). I played the fan translation myself, for all the bugs it wound up giving my comp back in the day. (人◕ω◕) But I could never get it to be portable as it was intended to be.

... Well, it finally got an official dub. And while I'm grateful to have it in my hands, the "official" names are... well... (人◕ω◕) ... Let's just say it's like Herlock Sholmes for me. I block out the "official" names, myself. The fan dub names are much more... charming, shall we say. But at the end of the day, that's just my preference. If any of you guys loved the official names, I'm happy for you. (人◕ω◕) As for me... 'Tis shall always be Ray Shields, Sebastian Debeste, Blaise Debeste, Sirhan Dogen, Justine Courtney, and Simon Keyes for me. ... And all the other fan dubs, of course. (人◕ω◕) I'm not salty. Not at all. ... I won't even talk about the Objection voices. (人◕ω◕)**.........

Anyway. (人◕ω◕) This has been a good year so far. The games have rolled in for me, I got plenty of new art to lavish my ships with. Here is just a foretaste of the things to come. Praise Vergil-chan for his wondrous work~ \(人◕ω◕)/

#Birthday 2024 #Assassination Classroom #Danganronpa #Fairy Tail #Makoto harem #Nagisa harem #Natsu harem #Naezono #NagiKae #Natza

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europeanmusicals · 9 months ago

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Hello, do you have access to the Rudolf proshot? The one on youtube got taken down and I couldn't find it on vk.

Thank you for all your post, your blog keeps me coming back to this stuff.

I had download it before it got taken down, including ripping the subtitles, so I've now uploaded the video and subtitles onto the Internet Archive for streaming and downloading: https://archive.org/details/rudolf-affaire-mayerling-act-1-hd-with-english-subs

And I'm also noticing Mozart das Musical things being hit on Youtube lately (had to edit out all the Mozart clips from 'european musicals being gay for 30 minutes" video as it got blocked worldwide for the Mozart clips) so a reminder I've had the proshot with subtitles on the Internet Archive for a couple years now. Someone commented about whether or not I got hit for any Elisabeth clips yet, I haven't, I don't know if anyone else has.

But I have a bunch of proshots with English subtitles on the Internet Archive as a backup in case they ever get taken down off Youtube. Of course I support purchasing copies of the proshots, however I want to back these up because most of the subtitles for these proshots are fanmade and not official, and when these videos with fanmade subtitles are taken off Youtube we could lose the subtitles, and sometimes the only English translation of the musical, forever. And I don't want those translations lost.

I didn't save the username of who uploaded the HD Rudolf proshot with subtitles on Youtube to be able to credit them as the subtitle creator so if anyone remembers or know the name please do let me know so I can add that credit on there.

#rudolf affaire mayerling #answeredasks #mozart das musical #european musicals

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8bitsupervillain · 2 months ago

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Higurashi When They Cry Hou Ch. 8 Matsuribayashi pt. 34

This playthrough/readthrough of Matsuribayashi is now officially as long as the entire Minagoroshi playthrough. By time all is said and done I believe it will be at least twice as long as Minagoroshi.

Mysterious death of the Furude couple continued

It’s kind of amusing seeing just how wrong-footed Ooishi is in regards to the mysterious deaths. He’s completely vindicated in thinking that Satoko is behind the deaths of her mother and stepfather, but just completely wrong about the other two. It doesn’t help that Oryou chimed in with the idea that the death of Rika’s dad was mystically demanded because of his lack of belief during the dam conflict.

So the two years that the killings/disappearances being ascribed to the curse must really have eaten away at Ooishi in the intervening time.

Breaking with the format somewhat I want to bring some attention to the manga version of these events. I have not read the entirety of the Matsuribayashi manga adaptation (primarily because for whatever reason the sites I’ve looked at the manga at only translated about half of Matsuribayashi in English, the rest is in Brazilian), but I felt somewhat compelled to look at the manga version of the deaths of the Furude couple.

Also a couple of minor snippets from Distrust of the mother of a queen

I like these pages because you don’t quite get the same amount of emotion in the visual novel as you do here in the manga. I suppose I should warn you ahead of time, this will get bloody.

As mentioned, I haven’t really read much of the manga, just the occasional bits here and there, but if there’s one thing I enjoy about them it’s these facial expressions. They’re wonderful, and I really wish the visual novels had something this going on. Not to keep harping on about Umineko, but that has some wonderful facial expressions, so I can only assume that the lack of them in Higurashi is just down to Ryukishi07, or whoever not being that confident in their artistic abilities.

It’s not really elaborated upon in the visual novel, but I think the idea that she was able to get Rika’s mom to leave just by mentioning she has a phone call is kind of silly. Just got to say though, A plus tackle there Okonogi. Just shoulder-check her into oblivion.

The death of the Furude priest happens as it does in the visual novel, and after she gets shoulder-checked to hell Rika’s mom wakes up strapped to a table.

Say what you will about Takano, she is definitely willing to get her hands dirty.

Extremely willing to get her hands dirty. You know, just in case the casual murder of five kids, and the brutal disembowelment of another wasn’t enough to convince you.

This is an unrelated thought that won’t make sense to you, but the use of the past tense “you were the queen carrier before Rika-chan” does answer that question I ask in a later part.

I’m pretty sure she’s just doing this because of the massive bone to pick she has with Rika’s mom. But who knows, I guess this implies when they performed the dissection of the dam murderer they had anesthetized the poor guy before they poked and prodded his noodle. Of course I suppose this all depends on if you accept the manga as canon to the visual novels.

Just grin and bear it! Also I would like to once again bring up my disappointment at the lack of murderous villain Takano art. Look at this million dollar smile.

Like I said, I need you to reconcile with yourself if you believe the events of the manga are canonical with the events of the visual novels. Also I once again want you to ask yourself if the troubled and abusive childhood of a person can be an acceptable justification for committing deeds like this.

#higurashi #higurashi when they cry #higurashi no naku koro ni #higurashi playthrough

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silver-wield · 11 months ago

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OMFG now SE is inciting flame wars in their own JP page. Wtf are they doing this? Some JP fans are trying to be chill but others are obviously livid. Of course, Cloud would NEVER MISTAKE Tifa's name. I'm not questioning that. She's not the one who got called mama canonically. But if it's coming from the official page it sends WTF VIBES?? Someone pointed out if they're doing this because they're confident Cloud is NOTHING like that and that if there was a legit joke, he would have called everyone, even the rock on the floor as Tifa. Because Tifa is everywhere.. but that "joke" doesn't have any punchline, it just makes the c/as happy and pity tifa instead. Jokes need to be funny and jab jokes at canon, but I can't think of any decent reason why they would incite a flame war on their canon couple 2 weeks before the game, 1 week before the book, and also on valentine's day. I don't get it. Even my brother who has zero idea about FF7 thinks it's weird because they should be playing safe, not like this but that I shouldn't take it seriously. But I am because I'm tired of them playing over our emotions already. Wtf do they want? I don't care if I look like I'm overthinking. Why are they portraying an ooc cloud as a cheating bastard and ooc tifa into something like that? I hope they realize delulus actually take this shit seriously. Jfc.

It's just a crappy video made by a not at all funny comedian. I guess the humour just doesn't translate when you've been stuck dealing with rancid fucking trolls for years, but what would SE know about that? They don't acknowledge the damage their marketing and shit does to our mental health. They just want our money.

#ship war #for the fandom

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historymakesmeangry · 2 years ago

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Hogan's Heroes after the war headcanons

Carter:

I'm taking this from a fic I read (can't remember the name rn), but he would totally become a high school chemistry teacher- would be the students' favorite teacher for sure

Starts a family pretty soon after coming home, has a big family which he loves wholeheartedly

Tells stories of the war to his children and grandchildren despite it being classified, no one knows if he's telling the truth or not (and yes, he does both, he loves tell more tame, false stories to make the real stories seem more outlandish)

Goes partially deaf during the war from his explosions

Helps create the town's Fourth of July fireworks show, people come from all over the state (and sometimes surrounding states) to see it

Hogan:

Stays in the military afterwards - the higher ups wanted to make him a General but he reasoned he would be stuck behind a desk more often than not, so does as much as he can (read: gets into trouble) to stay a colonel

Stays in Germany, officially working in West Germany but takes frequent trips to East Germany as a spy (perhaps he works for the newly formed CIA with his military job being a cover)

Keeps in touch with Shultz and Klink after the war, mostly to bother them or to use them for a scheme of his. But makes sure they have enough food during the hard times (which isn't as bad bc they live in West Germany)

Marries Tiger a long time after the war, they both got busy and hardly ran into each other, but they knew they wouldn't find someone else better for them after years had past (they wanted to settle down before they did and both of their jobs didn't allow that)

Kinch:

I see him staying in the military as well, do know what he would do, but I don't feel like he would be stationed or work in Europe. Maybe he works as a translator

Keeps on learning new languages, he loves languages and tries to learn as much as he can

Boxes in his spare time, he's the champion of his category for a long time running, it becomes a challenge in his neighborhood to beat him in a fight

He keeps up with radios as well, taking in old ones to fix and resell and making some by scratch, never sees the interest in TV, the radio is all you need

Starts a good sized family, it was never a question on wanting to (as so many decide not to have kids to bring them into horrible situations the world can throw at them), he had his mind set on a family since he was a child

LeBeau:

Starts a successful pastry restaurant in Paris

Has enough money and respect to open another or even make his restaurant bigger, but denies it, wanting to have the smaller, homier feel

He tries to find Mayra to marry, but gives it up when he finds a woman much better than her (the rest of the team all gave a collective sigh of relief when he met his wife)

Rescues dogs to a point it becomes an issue that his friends had to hold an intervention

Newkirk:

Also inspired by a fanfic (which I also don't remember it's name), he goes into the BBC, first starting with radio, but when TV becomes popular he moves onto that - acting of course, but once and a while he'll help with the costumes when they are understaffed and out of time

Is asked by the government to keep on spying for them, but he never liked that stuff anyway, too many people getting shot

Does marry but never has kids by choice (he had a horrible father and doesn't even want the chance of becoming like him), he spoils his nieces and nephews instead

Goes without question that they all keep in contact, with Carter sending the most letters, and even meet up in one of their respective countries every couple of years

#hogan's heroes #hogans heroes

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tedwardremus · 1 year ago

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Am I to suffer this constant stream of interruption?

The quaint village of Hogsmeade was abuzz with the excitement of students from Hogwarts enjoying their first weekend visit of the fall term. Among the loud and cheerful crowd, a blue-haired wizard calmly leaned against a lamppost, watching two teenagers try to sneak bottles of butterbeer out of the pub.

Or at least he hoped he looked calm. Teddy Lupin was surprised at how sweaty his palms felt and how fast his heart was racing. It shouldn't be that big of a deal to be standing in Hogsmeade. He was no longer a student, having worked as a legislative aid for the newly reformed Werewolf Affairs and Support Office (formally the Werewolf Registration Office) for over a year. He was allowed to be in the village whenever he wanted. And while this visit had been marked on his calendar for several weeks it really shouldn't be that big of a deal. Except today was actually in fact a big deal. A Very big deal.

Teddy Lupin had planned this visit with Victoire Weasley since September. It was their first official outing as a couple. And while he had known Vic her whole life the thought of actually being an official couple still made his heart jump and his head swirl in a whirlpool of incoherent thoughts.

And really what was there to be nervous about? The kiss at Platform 9 3/4 proved that the romantic feelings were mutual. She had flashed her sweet smile and said, "I love you too, and not in a cousin-sort-of-family-way either" while she boarded the train and his heart had swelled in size. And on top of that their near-daily letters full of flirtations, gossip, advice, and thoughts he'd only dare share with here were enough proof that the relationship was real. This wasn't a dream.

No, really he shouldn't be nervous.

He just wanted this day to be perfect. For her. Because she was perfect. And they had both been waiting for this day for far too long.

As Teddy scanned the high street of Hogsmeade once more, he couldn't help but smile at the sight of Victoire running toward him. Her blonde hair whipped around her in the autumn wind. She was radiant. Just as he was about to take in the cool pool blue of her eyes he was knocked back into the lamppost as she wrapped around him in a big hug. Their laughter mingled together as he leaned in to kiss her lips in a proper greeting.

"Hi." She breathed, their faces still close together. His hands now placed on her slender waist.

"Hi." He smiled back.

"Did you wait long?"

"Yes, it's been months of waiting."

"You exaggerate. It's only been weeks."

Teddy looked down at her laughing face and wondered if he should counter with his real thoughts of how waiting months, weeks, or even days without her was too much. Maybe she should drop out of school right now and they live as bohemians across the continent. He thought the better of it though and simply grabbed her hand and led her inside to the Three Broomsticks.

Vic found a small table in a corner of the pub while Teddy went to get the drinks.

"So, how's the castle? Did you get those Celtic ruin translations finished?" Teddy asked as he returned with the two butterbeers.

"Oh, it got finished. Not sure any of it was correct though." Vic accepted the bottle and after a beat gave Teddy an incredulous look, "You know, I don't really understand the point of having an older boyfriend if you can't help me with my homework. I can't believe you took a completely different set of NEWT courses than me."

Teddy took a long sip of his butterbeer before replying "My apologies, should I give you Titus Whinchley's floo address? I'm pretty sure he got O's in Ancient Ruins and Arithmancy."

"Oh Merlin, don't even joke about doing that. Titus Whinchley is more boring than Binn's lecture on goblin uprisings."

"And you already have a boyfriend, of course."

"Oh yes, that too."

Teddy and Vic both leaned into each other when - "Oi! Teddy!"

A blur of dark hair ran into view and dropped himself into the empty chair at their table. "You didn't tell me you were visiting today! Can you get me a firewhiskey?"

"No, James" Teddy stated firmly and gave James Potter a pointed look. "Get lost."

"What? No! Come on! Haven't you missed me?" James leaned back in his chair and propped his feet onto the round wooden table.

"Ew, James get your muddy boots off the table! That's so rude!" Victoire exclaimed as she kicked the chair from underneath her cousin and he tumbled onto the hard floor.

"I'm just being friendly," James said as he stood up and rubbed his bottom. " Are you two going to be one of those gross couples that just snog all the time and call each other the most sicking nicknames?"

Teddy rolled his head back and stared at the ceiling, wondering what misdeed he did in a past life to be cursed with James Potter's existence. "Only when we're around you."

James gave out a snort in disgust and bounded away out the door.

"He misses you, you know," Vic said as she took a sip of her drink. "Or at least he did last year. He was pretty down without you around. I overheard him talking to Professor Longbottom about how school seemed pointless without his best friend."

"I'm his older brother, not his best friend."

Vic looked up at Teddy with a smirk on her face as he took another sip of butterbeer. "I don't think he sees the difference."

Teddy disguised his choke as a cough.

After they had warmed themselves with drinks and each other's company they ventured to Honeydukes where Teddy and Victoire indulged in an assortment of sweets. Vic insisted she needed more sustenance for studying. "You can't get through NEWTS without sugar quills, everyone knows that." Teddy never needed an excuse to buy more chocolates.

As they strolled the aisles, James Potter materialized out of thin air, and Teddy caught sight of a familiar shimmery silver material that James was wading up and placing in his school bag.

"What are you doing with the cloak?" Teddy asked shaking his head in disbelief.

"Dad gave it to me."

"I know, but what are you doing with it in Honeydukes? You're not shoplifting are you? I'll buy you anything you want."

"Nah, I was just waiting for Fred. I've been trying to get the jump on him all day. He pushed me into the lake yesterday, you know."

Teddy ran his hand through his hair which changed from his normal bright blue to duller yellow. "Just don't cause trouble OK? I'm here to hang out with Vic, not babysit you."

"Do you have the map?"

"No, why would I carry around a map of a school I don't go to anymore."

"I know Dad gave it to you."

"Yeah, because my dad made it."

"So did my grandfather. You should give it to me. Don't even think about giving it to Al. He won't do anything fun with it."

"I gave it back to Harry after I graduated."

"Why would you do a thing like that?"

"As I said earlier, I don't need a map for a school I no longer attend. I'm sure Harry will give it to you eventually."

"Why won't he give it to me now?"

"He doesn't trust you."

"Why didn't you give it to me then?"

"I don't trust you either."

"Oi, Vic, your boyfriend is boring" James turned to Victoire. Victoire just rolled her eyes and pushed James out of the way.

"Come on, Teddy let's make our purchases and leave. I need to go to the bookstore." Vic swished her hair over her shoulder and marched toward the cashier. Teddy gave James a parting pat on the back and followed Vic to the front of the shop.

At the bookstore, Victoire looked for a present for her sister Dominque while Teddy looked over a selection of ink wells. "She loves all those cheesy romance books but I think it's time to refine her palate. Maybe The Alchemist's Daughter's Diary?

"Isn't that also a cheesy romance novel?"

"Oh Ted, you know nothing of the classics."

As Teddy rounded the corner of shelves he walked straight into another shopper causing him to drop ink down the front of his robes..

"Hey, Teddy, when you and Vic have kids will I be their uncle or cousin?"

Teddy looked widely around the store. "Are you doing this on purpose?"

"What running into you everywhere you go?" James asked innocently, "Nah, it's just a small village and there isn't much to do."

"Don't you have friends to hang out with?"

"Archie is in detention and Ellie is helping her dad in the greenhouse. Splinter is trying to flirt with Peggy and it is decidedly too painful to watch. But for real: Am I an uncle or a cousin?"

"You have a friend named Splinter?"

"You're ignoring the question. Uncle or Cousin?"

"You're nothing. What are you talking about?" Teddy grabbed James' should and steered him in the direction of the door as Vic purchased two books for her sister. "This is literally my first date with Vic and we are teenagers. We aren't even close to talking about kids. At this point, I'm lucky if we'll make it to Christmas at the pace you keep disrupting our time together."

"Ah, she's used to me." James shrugged off Teddy's hand and turned to face him. "Are you coming to my match next week?"

"Of course I am, I told you so in my last letter."

"Good, it's my first ever match on a real team. I want to make sure you see me win. "

Teddy was never sure if James' confidence was an act to rile people up or if he was genuinely that sure of himself. Teddy advised James to go back to school soon before curfew and joined Vic at the register and to pay for the ink that he had spilled.

"Do you think that kid has ever had a thought he didn't immediately have to shout out loud?" Teddy asked Vic while they watched James skip up the street and tackle his cousin Fred, he was distracted with the latest Firebolt 300 in the window of the quidditch shop to notice James, into a bale of hay.

"Maman says Auntie Ginny needs to reteach him proper conversation techniques."

"I don't think the Potters believe in your mother's standard of etiquette."

Vic just shrugged and continued to lead Teddy up the street until they reached the path past the train station that led back to the castle. But just as their lips were about to meet in a sweet farewell, a familiar voice rang out.

"Teddy! Victoire! I -" Teddy swished his wand and James froze on the spot.

"I'll unfreeze him on my way out," Teddy told Victoire as he tightened his grip around her waist. "I didn't want him to ruin our goodbye again"

"You know" Vic whispered as their noses started to touch. "As head girl, I can ensure that he is in detention next Hogsmeade visit."

Teddy chuckled as their lips met. "Great, I'm sure he'll do something to deserve it."

And just like their parting in September as he kissed Vic deeply her warm soft touch made his skin tingle and his hair turn bright pink with happiness.

"Still thinking about calling Titus Whinchley?

"Shut it"

"Love you."

"Love you, too."

#teddy lupin #victoire weasley #teddy x victoire #tedoire #james sirius potter #harry potter #harry potter fanfiction

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call-me-copycat · 2 months ago

Note

📏 How tall are you

📺 Fave anime

📖 Fave book

Thank you for sending me these asks!

📏 How tall are you (already answered)

📺 Fave Anime:

I feel it should be pretty obvious by now haha

But to officially answer it's been MHA ever since it came out 10 years ago ( ˶>ᴗ<˶)

📖 Fave Book:

I loveee the book Botchan! (Master Darling). Long explanation underneath!

It's a pretty old book (made in 1906) and I'm not normally one for older books, but it feels rather modern!

I don't remember much, but it's about this boy who's just very very blunt and mischievous. Whenever he does something bad though, he owns up to it because he's a good person.

Some bad things happen (I think he loses his parents?) and his brother goes to move out, but before he leaves Botchan for good, he gives him a good amount of money and tells him that he can't control what he spends it on, but to spend it wisely.

Botchan wanted to do something interesting with it like open a shop or something, but he passes by a college and believed that his brother would've wanted him to go to school (despite him not being interested in the slightest)

The only course he graduates from is middle school math, so he's sent out across Japan to a more rural area (he was originally in Tokyo) to a small middle school that needed a math teacher.

The kids are mean. That's basically all that happens after that. I think it's relatable even from how old it is because middle schoolers always were and always will be very mean (⁠╥⁠﹏⁠╥⁠)

They make fun of him for his accent, play tricks on him, set locusts into his sleeping bag and stomp on the roof of the group house at night to wake him up. The thing is he's not even mad at the mischief! He loves seeing it!

But he despised the fact that the kids would play innocent when questioned by the other teachers (calling is dishonorable - something something it's fine to cause problems but you have to do so with the knowledge that you're going to get into trouble for it)

There's also lots of teacher drama that he doesn't understand or like. It's very funny, probably how a lot of people would react when being placed in a drama show. He's very blunt and doesn't understand their mannerisms. (If you're angry at each other why don't you just talk it out? If you don't like his shirt why'd you tell him it looked nice? Etc etc)

He also calls all the teachers based on what they look like instead of their names because he can't be bothered. The principal is called Tanuki I believe, then there's Red Shirt (guy who always wears a red shirt), and his friend Porcupine (his hair is always spiked up).

It's very funny! The only thing is there are like 5 very different translations that I only found out after reading. I looked at a couple after I finished and I think I can definitely change the feeling of the story based on the translation type. The one I got was an older translation, it was a little poorly done and had all types of English sprinkled in (British, Shakespearean, Southern, etc).

Sorry for the long post! I just think it's really good and have been trying to get people to read it, but most see how old it is and put it off >⁠.⁠<

You can read it for free (like I did) on Project Gutenberg!

Here's a couple pages:

Thanks for the ask! Sorry for getting wrapped up about my favorite book (⁠^⁠～⁠^⁠;⁠)⁠ゞ

#💬#ask games #ask game #botchan #books #reading recommendations

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jordanandegypt · 3 months ago

Text

September 21, 2024

After being slow roasted at the Temple of Karnack, we checked into the Winter Palace for a well deserved shower and a nap. This is a fabulous old hotel with superb service and a stunning grounds.

We also got the news that one of our excellent travelers tested positive for Covid. BUMMER!! But to her credit, feeling symptoms of a cold earlier today she immediately masked. I’m writing this on September 24 - and no one else has contacted it. YAY!!

After a brief group meeting, we opted to move ahead with the Home Hosted dinner minus the couple currently in limited quarantine.

This is really one of my favorite things we do on an OAT trip. A family - sometime some English, sometimes limited English and sometimes NO English - invites you into their home and into their life. They are generous and kind and aware that they are ambassadors of their country. I truly can remember EVERY SINGLE time we have done this - all very fond memories.

Our family - and I wish I could remember names but I cannot - 🥲 welcomed us with smiles and generosity. Before we left, we were told that we would always have a friend to visit, a meal to eat and a place to sleep, should we ever return. We were family. I can’t tell you how this moves me. This family spoke English very well and they were more than willing to talk about their current and past situation. The husband - was a farmer. They had 4 children, all well educated and ambitious. Their older son was in the military doing his required service of 2 years following his graduation from HS. Only males serve - FYI. Their older daughter attends college where she lives in a house with 11 other girls. Her major is German and she wanted to be a translator. Their second son is 15 and in HS and loves soccer. Their youngest girl - who has NO inhibitions - is 7 and we believe will be a superstar in a few years.

We were served a delicious meal and then they shared family photos and talked about the closeness of their family. Her sister has a son in Wisconsin - so we got a map out to show them how close Michigan was to Wisconsin and explained how Michigan is much, much better. (Just kidding). We asked them about their marriage and how they met. The dating process in Egypt involves families. In the case of our new family, they were both working in tourism and he saw her. He told us he saw her and wanted her and just went to his mother to have her begin the process. Three months after that both he and his brother had a double wedding. They shared their wedding photos and we were surprised to see that she did not have a head covering in the pictures. “OF COURSE!! Woman do not wear head coverings on their wedding day!”

The entire matching process is complicate but without variations. The families are “vetted”. Mothers of both bride and groom much accept the match. Finances of groom are examined. How much gold will the groom give to the bride? This couple had “seen" each there - but their official meeting was at their wedding.

NORMAL is just what you are used to, my friends.

Anyway - we do the whole thing quite differently - but whatever works.

We also asked the woman about their head covering and the fact that all of the women we had seen outdoors were in Black Abayas. AGAIN - “OF COURSE” and she went to her room to bring out her Black Abaya. This is outdoor garb of Muslim women in this region. In Cairo we saw all types of clothing - BTW. ALL types. But since arriving in Luxor, women not wearing a black abayas are surely visitors.

We asked - isn’t it hot? She replied” not a bit” but we felt the material in his heavy garb and it felt HOT to me. But then, our dear hostess brought out several other abayas - all different colors and styles. Beautiful. Now the wedding dress is form fitted, low-cut and figure enhancing but after that - big and roomy. I loved the pride that her husband had in those pictures.

One more thing I forgot; We met with a lovely young single woman who met with us in Cairo to discuss Women’s Rights in Egypt. I LOVE these opportunities! She talked to us about 3 things: woman’s wear, abortion and divorce.

Woman’s wear: Customs, Traditions or Personal Decision. Our speaker was wearing a beautifully colored abaya and a head scarf. She had two sisters who did not wear the head scarf. She explained to us that not just Muslin women wear head coverings and often - especially in the smaller villages Christian women also covered their head. Her decision to cover was personal. She was Muslim and as she aged she believed it was necessary to cover as part of her journey.

Abortion: It is forbidden in Islam to have sex before marriage. (RIGHT!). But occasionally an unwanted pregnancy did occur and the law was in the case of incest, rape, severe deformity of the fetus or the health of the mother - it was OK. If however you did NOT meet this criteria, you could seek advise from and Muslim scholar - female or male - and if he/she granted permission the procedure could be done. Where? It appears there might exist a “network” of physicians that would be willing to do the procedure.

Divorce. The divorce rate in Egypt is over 50%. In the near past woman have been able to seek a divorce. The term is “divorcing one’s self.” That is different from the husband divorcing his wife. Ahhhhh - words…. The procedure and protocol is very well defined. The woman keeps the house - if she has children. IF she has kept a list of everything she has purchased, she gets that too. She keeps her dowry.

Did you know a Muslim man can still have 4 wives - UNLESS it says he may not in the marriage contract?

The bride NEVER takes the last name of the groom. Their children will take the father’s last name. The bride and groom do NOT mingle assets nor have combined bank accounts. The bride moves into the groom’s home until the groom can afford to move either to the floor above his parents or in the case of Cairo - and other big cities, buys a house or condo.

Stay tuned - I'm only a few days behind...

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