#pleasure island england

[museum-of-cool-vids]

before and after footage of Pleasure Island Family Theme Park, now abandoned after its' closure in 2016; located in Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire, England.

video edited and uploaded by user theforgottenworld on tiktok, who credited the following youtube pages on this video's original tiktok post for their various contributions: Tazer Urbex - UK Urban Explorer, Yorkshire Post, Simon Howe, The Weird and Obscure, and Theme Park World.

[opbackgrounds]

The Romanticism of One Piece VI: Nature and the Sublime

AO3 Part I Part V

“Then my heart with pleasure fills And dances with the daffodils”

—William Wordsworth

Anyone making even a cursory reading of the Romantics, particularly the English Romantic poets, will soon find an obsession with nature. Even in the early 1800s, the scars of the Industrial Revolution were starting to be felt in the environment. Increased urbanization, a technological boom, and the capitalistic glut for increased output which in turn demanded the consummation of increased natural resources was destroying old orders one after the other in order to make room for the coming modern age. 

The advent of trains, steamboats, and the telegraph changed the way people traveled and communicated forever. The allure of the city drove people from the countryside to work long, dangerous hours in factories. It seemed like the traditional way of things was being lost, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Poets and artists looked back fondly on the simplicity of their youths, and went in search of the beautiful and the sublime. 

When reading these poems and looking at these pieces of art, you’ll also find that solitude was an important aspect of this search, the ability to get away from the neverending wheel of the rat race to be alone with one’s thoughts. Quoting from Walden, Thoreau said it best, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” There was so much about modern society and civilization that rang false to these men, and it was only when communing with the primordial forces of nature that these falsities could be stripped away to reveal something pure and true.

One Piece is a manga that delights in its environments. Oda has clearly done his research while lovingly rendering each location, particularly once the series hits the Grand Line. I’ve always been amazed about how even minor islands with little page time feel fully realized, and how even similar environments can be easily distinguished from one another at a glance. The jungle of Little Garden looks nothing like the jungle of Skypiea, which in turn is completely distinct from Green Bit. 

Similarly, Robin’s desire to preserve and protect ancient relics of the past is something the Romantics would have approved of, and with Luffy at the helm, the Straw Hat Pirates don’t just travel the wonders of the Grand Line, but embrace each and every island they come across, no matter what insanity lies in wait. While it’s not a central focus of the series, arcs like Wano and Egghead explore environmental themes and the dangers of pursuing technological advance at the cost of careful ethics.

Poet William Wordsworth famously fought against building a railway through the Lake District of England, where he lived and wrote much of his best-regarded work, so much so that he wrote a sonnet voicing his displeasure with the proposed project, as well as the thought of hundreds of unappreciative tourists destroying the peace and beauty of the area. 

So while nature was to be appreciated, it was to be appreciated in the right way. It wasn’t enough to take in the sights for the sight’s sake, but an experience to be savored. Nature was an essential part of these writers and artist’s creative muses, and while many Romantics weren’t orthodox in their religion, there was a spiritual aspect in their veneration of the created world, particularly in their search for the sublime.

One Piece and the Sublime

“I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts; a sense of sublime, of something far more deeply interfused, whose dwelling is the light of setting sun, and the round ocean, and the living air, and the blue sky, and in the mind of man” —William Wordsworth

While the concept of the sublime existed long before the Romantic period, it was the Romantics who really took the idea and ran with it. It must be said that the sublime as talked about here is quite different from how the word is typically thought of in the modern day. The sublime’s roots are found in philosophy, as a sub-branch of the study of aesthetics. In his essay A Philosophical Enquiry into the Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, late Enlightenment/early Romantic writer Edmund Burke for the first time divided the ideas of the sublime and the beautiful into two distinct and separate categories. This essay was hugely influential to the Romantic movement going forward, particularly in England. 

According to Burke, “Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling.” 

So, in short, the sublime is a powerful emotion. The most powerful emotion a person is capable of feeling. In typical English fashion, Burke thought the strongest negative emotions were more powerful than the strongest positive emotions, so it stood to reason that the sublime must in turn come from the negative. While this might initially read as a rather unpleasant experience, the sublime was something actively sought out by the Romantics, and according to Burke was a pain that caused delight. 

Attempting to define something as ineffable as the sublime is like trying to define love. No matter how many lines a poet inks or how many portraits an artist completes attempting to capture the feeling of lightning striking the soul, they will always be incomplete. It’s the feeling of going out to an open prairie and being crushed by the weight of the sky, or walking in the shadow of a mountain and feeling your own smallness. It’s looking up at the bright night sky and recognizing that you are one amongst billions, a speck of cosmic dust drifting aimlessly on an insignificant planet in the corner of an insignificant galaxy in a universe whose vastness you can’t begin to comprehend. 

It’s the finite’s attempt at grasping the infinite, a complete breakdown of the rigid walls of the Enlightenment thinkers, the embrace of irrationality and emotion over cold, calculated reason. To use one of Burke’s own examples, it's the peasant kneeling before the dread majesty of their king. For some it was a way to commune with God. For others it replaced God altogether.  

Take for example a painting like The Monk by the Sea by Caspar David Friedrich. The titular monk is tiny compared to the broad vastness of the sky and ocean, which seems about to swallow him whole. Whether the figure in the painting is contemplating the divine, or whether the sublimity of the moment is itself divine is open to interpretation, and like many figures in Friedrich’s works, the monk is turned away from the viewer so his face, his identity, is not visible, because who any individual person is when compared to this overwhelming force isn't important. 

While terror was important to Burke in searching out the sublime, it was equally important that there be a layer of distance between the perceived danger and the subject searching for it. After all, the sublime was something to be contemplated just much as it was experienced. A sailor caught in a storm is just fighting for their life. There’s no ability to allow themselves to reflect on the nature of eternity on a mortal soul when they’re trying not to drown. But a person contemplating a painting of a ship caught in a storm, or better yet watching a stormy sea from a high cliff, has that element of terror without actually placing a person in immediate danger. That distance allows the person to be subsumed in the moment, in the feeling, of the sublime.

As a manga, there is a natural distance between the reader and what goes on in One Piece. The wild, cartoonish, fantasy further separates it from the real world. This gap is perhaps too great for some to find the sublime within its pages. At the same time, it ticks many of Burke’s boxes: the vastness of its world, the displays of power from the characters within, the call to imagination, awe, wonder, and, yes, terror. While I very much doubt Oda had the idea of the sublime in mind when he came up with the idea with Conqueror’s Haki, overwhelming power causing the weak-willed to faint while foaming at the mouth very much fits the vibe Burke was going for in his essay.

If given a choice in the matter, Luffy will always take the more dangerous path forward. While he’s not nearly contemplative enough for the traditional Romantic mindset, the narrative rewards his desire to seek out experiences and adventure. The series’ focus on emotional truth over realism invokes powerful feelings in the reader. The wonder of the White White Sea is all the stronger because of the danger of the Knock-Up Stream. The descent to Fishman Island is made all the more grand by the fragility of the bubble that protects the crew. The vast majority of the East Blue Saga is spent hyping up the danger of the Grand Line, and wouldn’t you know it, the Straw Hats barely sail into its waters for five minutes and there’s already a dozen things trying to kill them.

Even places like Water 7, which the Romantic’s push against urbanization would not have seen as sublime, is elevated by the whimsy of the sea train and the danger of Agua Laguna. Oda takes inspiration from all over the world and elevates those inspirations into something greater than reality, injecting so much high fantasy creativity and verve into every location that the reader cannot help but be moved. And nowhere can this be better seen by how Oda portrays the sea.

To quote Burke one last time, “A level plain of a vast extent on land, is certainly no mean idea; the prospect of such a plain may be as extensive as a prospect of the ocean; but can it ever fill the mind with anything so great as the ocean itself? This is owing to several causes; but it is owing to none more than this, that the ocean is an object of no small terror.” 

[allwaswell16]

All the One Direction fics I read and enjoyed in August 2024. You can listen to my podcast to hear me talk about each of these fics as well as an overview of what was posted on ao3 including the fics on this month’s fic roundup [ @1dmonthlyficroundup ] which you can find here!Please let the writers know if you liked the fics by leaving kudos and comments! Happy reading!

Fanfictional Podcast #65 |  ko-fi | fic recs

- Louis / Harry -

🌤️Your A-Team, Your Endgame by @silverkiiwii

(E, 70k, reality show au) a Next In Fashion au where Louis and Harry are partnered in the competition but they do not get along when they have to if they want to win. Full of fashion, banter, misunderstanding and a whole lot of making each other blush.

🌤️ Groupie Love by CuckooTrooke / @larrydoinglaundry

(E, 45k, m/f) In other words, Louis is a rock star on a world tour and Harry is a regular attendee. They could never work.

🌤️ But I know you by Thingssicant / @slowlyseducedbycurls

(NR, 26k, space) Harry is a journalist, Louis is an astronaut, but it's way more complicated than that

🌤️ You Can't Change The Rolling Tide by LiveLaughLoveLarry / @loveislarryislove

(M, 24k, summer) Louis lives on a tiny island off the coast of England and runs a sailboat touring company. When Niall is sidelined for the summer after his knee surgery, Louis needs a temporary new partner. Who better to fill that role than Harry, recently returned to the island after five years away?

🌤️ At your service, for your usage (series) by @holdingontochaos

(E, 16k, sex work) Louis is a doctor who works so much that he has barely any time to himself for pleasure, let alone to clean his house so he hires Harry as his naked maid and kills two birds with one stone.

🌤️ the past might be painful, but i’m in love with our future by localopa / @voulezloux

(T, 10k, part 2 of trans Louis verse) it takes a lot of convincing for louis to let harry take him to his first pride. harry understands his worries and fears. really, he does. he just wants to show his boyfriend that he doesn’t have to be alone anymore.

🌤️ never just the tip by journeytothepast / @suckerforhome

(E, 6k, omegaverse) Harry believes alphas can't control themselves. Louis proves him wrong.

🌤️ You Put the Boom Boom Into My Heart by @kingsofeverything

(T, 5k, historical) Harry's been trying all summer to come up with a way to show Louis how much he means to him before he leaves for college. Or five times Harry fails to win Wham! tickets and one time he succeeds.

🌤️ The Island by @jaerie

(E, 5k, part 2 of The Wilds) Researchers plucked some of them from their secluded island and transplanted them into an enclosure against their will like a bunch of zoo animals. But they weren't animals and they all had a story of how they got here.

🌤️ Dear Louis by callmenine

(E, 5k, famous/not famous) The one where Harry is a popstar having an existential crises and writes a song for his high school ex-boyfriend Louis after more than ten years of no contact.

🌤️ Let the Feeling Last by @allwaswell16

(T, 5k, unhinged pet fic) Omega Harry thinks the alpha at the grocery store buying a cart full of vegetables must be an amazing chef. He doesn't know that Alpha Louis is feeding all those vegetables to his pet pig.

🌤️ Stars over Amsterdam by @hellolovers13

(T, 4k, exes) Fate in form of Eras Tour tickets forces Louis to meet up with his Ex. Hopefully soon to be Ex-Ex.

🌤️ (on the edge until) you pull me in by @justanothershadeofblue

(E, 3k, fantasizing) His dick is not about to fall off, thank you very much, Niall, but it has been a while since he’s had time for a wank. 

🌤️ i'm going out tonight by @disgruntledkittenface

(M, 3k, established relationship) Louis hasn’t been appreciating his boyfriend Harry. He only realizes it when Harry takes matters into his own hands.

🌤️ I just wanna be yours (wanna be yours, wanna be yours) by @dreaminrainbows

(E, 3k, pwp) Harry studies his sixteen year old self’s face for a long moment and it's truly pathetic how in fourteen years nothing has really changed.

🌤️ the sign on your heart (it's reserved for me) by moon_rose25 / @darkinfinity

(G, 3k, kid fic) The one where Louis Tomlinson is a single dad and is finally allowing himself to start dating. Insert Harry Styles, a charming coffee shop owner who sweeps him off his feet.

🌤️ HOT TO GO! by @allwaswell16

(T, 2k, famous/not famous) When Harry does something weird at the barricade, he leaves Louis’ show devastated and hoping he can somehow make things right. Or the accidental pervert fic

🌤️ Gotta Feeling by @allwaswell16

(T, 2k, tour guide Louis) When Harry's life in Manchester isn't turning out the way he thought it would, he decides to visit his best friend in Mexico City. Maybe Niall can convince him to move halfway around the world.

🌤️ Ice, Ice, Baby by cherrylarry / @beelou

(G, 1k, meet cute) Figure skater Harry takes Louis out on the ice for the first time

- Rare Pairs -

🌤️ Like A Force Of Nature by @reminiscingintherain

(T, 30k, Zayn/Liam) the Heartstopper AU no one asked for.

🌤️ The Grundy County Drag Show Incident by @haztobegood

(T, 3k, Zayn/Liam) Holding a wireless mic in her gloved hand, Veronica Stardust owned the stage. She was one of the most vocally talented drag queens in the Midwest. Part 2 of Grundy County Incidents

[magics-neptunes-things]

Collide (6)

Hi guys!

This new chapter is a little bit more angsty but also very sweet 😇

Please enjoy!

TW : Injury, nightmares, mention of bad past, angst.

PART 1 I PART 2 I PART 3 I PART 4 I PART 5 | PART 7

______________________________________________________________

You didn’t give Alessia all the reasons for your nightmares, not because you don’t trust her, but because you don’t want to put her in front of the darkness of some people. When you see her the next morning for breakfast, Leah singing in the shower, it was without daring to look at her that you spoke.

"Less?"

"Mhm?"

Lost in her thoughts until now, the blonde looked up at you. You are leaning against the island of your kitchen while Alessia is seated at the table. You are never very in talking much in the morning, both needing time to wake up.

"You know, for last night…"

"You don’t have to explain anything to me" Alessia kindly assured you with a smile. "It’s okay"

"I know" you answered with a slight smile back. "It’s just that sometimes my dreams are a little too realistic. Things have happened in my past, but… well, you know."

It’s a very awkward explanation, but the blonde didn’t seem to want to hold it against you.

"And thank you, for staying and being there for me" you mutter shyly.

"You would have done the same for me"

The calm, safe tone that Alessia used made you look up at her. She’s not wrong, obviously.

"Yeah. I know you already have your share of best friends, but I’m happy with the place you’re taking in my life. You’re more like a sister to me than a simple friend"

Alessia’s chair rattles on the floor when she gets up, something that would have made you moan in everyday life. But since it’s to offer you one of her biggest teddy bear hugs, you don’t take the time to scold her, choosing to hug her back.

"I love you too" she whispers affectionately, rubbing your back.

Even if it’s not exactly what you told her, you understand the message and you hug her back even harder. That’s when Leah showed up in the kitchen, ready for today’s game.

"Molesting my girlfriend again, Russo?"

********

You and Leah are in the restaurant face to face when you talk about the subject that has been bothering you for a few days. It’s not a huge stress, but you’re wondering how to approach it, fearing a negative response from Leah.

The evening is going well, you have already come twice to this restaurant and each time you liked it very much. The choices are not multiple, but there is enough to satisfy your cravings for culinary discoveries and the list of foods rather restraint tolerated by Leah. The blonde is breathtaking in her outfit, once again, and you are happy to see that she made this clothing effort just for you.

It’s at dessert that you finally broach the subject, swinging nervously on your chair.

"Besides, I was wondering… do you have any plans while I’m away?"

You are called to training camps for the national team, Norway having to pass the play-offs to qualify for the next competition. With England already being on, Leah is kind of on vacation next week.

"No, not really. Probably spending time with my family, seeing Alex… that kind of things. Why?"

Leah looks at you curiously over her ice cream and you play mechanically with your spoon and a piece of cake.

"Would you like to come with me?"

"In Norway?"

You nod at her, without daring to look at her. The only time you offered it to Alina, she laughed and asked what the hell she would do there. You may not have chosen the best time since it was in summer and most people prefer to fly somewhere warm, but still.

"I thought I could show you some places I like and grew up in. And my parents have really wanted to meet you, since I’ve been talking to them about you. You can say no, if you don’t want to. There is no pressure and I will understand."

Leah’s hand gently settles on yours, making you look up at it immediately and stop your rambling.

"I'll come with pleasure Honey."

The simple answer makes you feel so relieved that you feel like your anxiety is deflating like a balloon.

"Yeah?"

"Of course"

"Awesome"

You can’t mask your smile, which makes Leah laugh softly. Her hand gets loose from yours when she starts eating her ice cream again, but you don’t take it personally. You have neither confirmed nor denied the rumors of relationship between you, preferring to live your story day by day. Plus, who are you against a mint chocolate chips ice cream?

Leah asks you what kind of clothes she needs to take and you laugh when she pouts when she learns the temperature differences between London, Oslo and your hometown. You have already spoken to her several times about your parents and she doesn’t seem otherwise stressed at the idea of meeting them. She’s right, you know your parents are going to love her very much. You’ve been working on it for a long time now anyway.

"Oh and there will surely be Mapi with Ingrid too" you inform Leah with a little amused smile.

"Excuse me?"

********

A few days later, you are on the plane to Norway, with some of your compatriots but especially Leah. You have another flight of a few hours to reach Tromsø, where you lived and grew up until you were stupid enough to want to run away with your first girlfriend to a bigger city. Having met her on the Internet, you have no memories with her in this city, which pleased Leah rather well. It’s not exactly the same for Oslo, but we’ll talk about it later.

Your parents, delighted to have their only child for a few days, have both picked you up at the airport. If Leah hasn’t been stressed in the last few days, she seems to have skyrocketed in the last half hour and the blonde didn’t stop talking for a single second. It made you laugh, but remembering how stressed you were when you officially met Leah’s relatives, you patiently answered each of her questions.

"It’s going to be ok Babe" you smile when you see her playing nervously with the tag of her suitcase while waiting to pass the security.

Since you are behind her, you step forward to put a kiss just behind her ear and you smile as you feel her letting her go against you. In recent days, it was rather her role to reassure you, the blonde fearing that your nightmares came back constantly. That hasn’t been the case, but Leah’s increased attention to you hasn’t been unpleasant. Especially because it means you get even more hugs and kisses than usual.

You have one of the biggest hug from both of your parents at the same time, before detaching from them to turn to Leah and make the introductions. As you might have guessed, the first contact is more than successful. Your parents speak English very well, which is lucky. Leah speaks a few words of Norwegian that you taught her, but she might not be able to have an ongoing conversation in that language.

On the way home, your parents ask you about the trip and your level of fatigue. If you slept during the first flight, the second not. They also inquire about what you are planning to show Leah over the next few days, also informing you that they are planning a dinner with some of your family members. Your cousin will come to see you play in Oslo too, this will allow Leah to meet her before finding herself with her in the stands of the football stadium. Your parents will be there too.

Dinner goes well (you made sure to give your mother the list of things Leah eats) and the kindness of your parents seem to help Leah relax quickly. You show her the house of your childhood, finding your bedroom that you had at the time.

It's a fairly simple room whose only large window overlooks your garden. Your double bed is glued against the back wall in the middle of the wall with your collection of stuffed animals. Your black carpet on which you have spilled paint hundreds of times above is at the feet of it, giving in your opinion an artistic touch to the latter. There are old trophies you won with your football teams on a shelf, a desk full of memories and useless things in its drawers and dozens of photos hanging on the wall.

"Is that you?" laughs Leah as she approaches the photos on one of your bedroom walls, picturing you behind your first birthday cake.

"No, that's the neighbor" you answer with a grin.

Leah laughs again and you let her discover your room quietly, taking the opportunity to join the bathroom adjoining your room to change and refresh a little. You see Leah entering the bathroom too from the mirror, which allows you not to jump when she sticks to you to put kisses on your cheek.

"How are you feeling?" you ask the pretty blonde.

"Good. Your parents are adorable, but it’s not surprising when you see their daughter" Leah says maliciously.

You roll your eyes and close the water tape, then turn in her arms to put your arms around her neck. That’s all Leah needed to put her head on your neck and put some kisses in it.

"What about you?" she asks between two of her kisses.

"I’m glad you’re here" you smile.

********

The next two days were spent in Leah discovering your hometown, your favorite places and different members of your family. As you would expect, Leah are doing perfectly well in the setting, getting along wonderfully with everyone. Despite the difficulty of the language sometimes, but you gladly play the interpreters between the two different worlds. Only the cold seems to be a bit of a problem for Leah, but you are in the very north of Norway, even further north than if you were in Iceland.

One day before the day set by the Norwegian federation, you fly back to Oslo. You managed to get a room for Leah in the same hotel where your team is staying and you’re counting on your family to keep Leah busy during practice. You don’t know yet whether you’ll be able to slip into her room at night, but you’ll see. For the moment you share the hotel room with Leah and it suits you very well like that.

While waiting for the gathering, you show Oslo to Leah and you have an appointment for lunch with Ingrid and Mapi. The idea that the two blondes meet makes you laugh a lot and you know that it’s the same thing for Ingrid.

"Does she speak English?" asks Leah as you join the restaurant where you are supposed to meet.

"She understands it very well but answers Ingrid in Spanish. But I'm talking English with her, even if she speaks great Norwegian. Anyway, I never had any problems communicating with her."

Leah drops a little grunt as a simple answer and you roll your eyes. You managed to get from Leah that this tension would have been born since the elimination of Spain during the Euro, which is in your opinion a little futile.

"You’d better pass over. Ona and Lucy don’t seem to have this problem" you noted with amusement.

"Don’t count on me to coo with Maria Leon" grumbled at Leah.

"I don’t ask that much" you laughed before changing the subject.

You are the first arrivals and you inform Ingrid of your presence once seated at the table. Leah asks you some more questions about the city, which you answer with pleasure, happy to see your girlfriend take so much interest in your native country.

A few minutes later Ingrid and Mapi arrive, and you get up to greet them, imitated by Leah.

(The words in italics are in Norwegian but for the good of all I have not translated them)

"It’s good to see you" Ingrid smiles, hugging you before looking at you. "You look good."

"It’s fresh Norwegian air" you joke, before resuming in English. "Ingrid, this is Leah. Leah, this is Ingrid."

You let your best friend greet Leah, knowing your girlfriend is in good hands when you hear Ingrid greet Leah in a joyful tone. You turn towards Mapi, to whom you also give a hug. You then turn to Leah to redo the presentations, between Mapi and her this time. The exchange is a little more tense than with Ingrid and you roll your eyes when you see them shaking hands, but it’s already that.

The conversations finally go very well, even if Ingrid and you are very often the ones who link things. Leah’s hand settled right at the beginning of the meal naturally on your knee and you didn’t hesitate to interlace your fingers.

After the meal, you decide to take advantage of the mild weather (the term makes Mapi snorts) to go for a walk a little more. You know you’ll see Ingrid again in the next few days, but if your respective girlfriends can get along well and discover commonalities, why not.

"Hot chocolate?" offers Ingrid when you walk past a hot drink stand to take away.

"I’m coming to help you" you tell Ingrid, dropping Leah’s hand to follow her to the booth.

"I like her" immediately announces Ingrid in line to get your drinks. "You did well about listen to yourself"

You smile softly, your chaotic beginnings being far behind you now. Well, only a few months but a lot has already happened between you and you feel so good with the blonde that you have the impression that all this is far behind you.

"She’s great, really" you answer always smiling.

"And you look so happy" Ingrid adds without leaving your face with her eyes.

"I am" you confirm sincerely.

You have no trouble supporting Ingrid’s inquisitive gaze, which nods with her smile. You don’t have to add anything to convince her, but she will tell you a little later that she already was just by hearing you on the phone.

"Look at them" you laugh softly pointing at your two blondes.

Ingrid follows your gaze on Leah and Mapi, both talking from the tip of their lips at eachother as if they were afraid of being seen by someone. The scene seems to amuse Ingrid as much as you since she also laughs before it’s your turn to order.

Your return is greeted with a big smile on both sides and if Leah isn't begged to recover her hot chocoalt, she also doesn’t hesitate to put her arm around your waist. There are fewer people on the streets of Oslo than in London, but if Leah is spotted in the stands of your next match, people will probably quickly draw the right conclusions.

It’s finally in the late afternoon that you say goodbye to the couple who must join Ingrid’s family for dinner. You propose to Leah to show her the citadel, the nightfall offering you magnificent colors. Leah graciously accepts when you ask her to take pictures together before you return to the hotel.

It’s on the way back that your eyes are hung by a shop front that you know rather well. Your glance is noticed very quickly by Leah, who slows down a little. She understands very quickly.

"Do you mind if we say hello?" you ask Leah.

She seems to hesitate a little and you gently tighten her fingers in yours, trying to make her understand that you will respect her answer regardless of her nature.

"I guess" she finally answers, shrugging her shoulders.

You drag her to the tattoo shop, the doorbell ringing when you open it. It hasn’t changed much since the last time you came, except that other drawings were added to the wall. Leah quickly spots your signed football shirt on the wall.

"Y/N"

Leah’s eyes follow the sound of the voice to fall on a young woman of your age, whom she hadn’t seen. The girl gets up from the desk behind which she was half hiding, resting the pencil she had in her hand to come to you. Well, right up to you because she’s hugging you for a warm embrace. What annoys Leah a little, she was often talked about Spanish and their tactile side but she was never warned that in Norway we also went without stopping touching her girlfriend.

"I didn’t expect to see you! How are you?"

"I’m fine" you answer with a smile, casually getting out of her arms to introduce Leah.

You slide an arm in the hollow of her back to advance her to your height, resuming in English.

"Nora, this is Leah. My girlfriend."

If the blonde couldn’t help but feel a touch of jealousy, she can only smile when seeing the smile and the pride with which you designate her. Finally the ball is put back in the center quickly, she thinks, before extending her hand to the tattooist to greet her.

"I don’t speak good English" Nora apologizes to Leah.

After your blonde assured her that it was fine like this, Nora’s attention turns to you and you exchange your latest news. You didn’t lie to Leah, you didn’t have any recent contacts, the jersey she hung on her living room wall was from the last international game you played before moving to Manchester. Leah quickly notices this by paying more attention to the frame. She also realizes that a photo of you and your tattoo are displayed just below, under your jersey.

What she doesn’t appreciate is the affectionate tone with which Nora seems to talk to you. Leah therefore takes care not to let go of your hand for a single second during your exchange.

"Does she know about us?" asks curiously Nora after a few minutes.

As if she had understood that you were talking about her, Leah looks away from the photos of tattoos displayed on the wall to report her attention on you two. You smile at her before you answer Nora.

"Yes. I don’t think there’s much she doesn’t know about me" you answer honestly and shrug your shoulders.

You are interrupted by another couple of clients entering the establishment and Nora apologizes for taking care of them, letting you drag Leah a little back from the entrance.

"If you tell me that it’s on her tattoo table that you did your disgusting business, I’ll burn the store" whispers Leah from the corner of her lips.

You laugh softly as you hear her, glancing at her in astonishment. You did notice Leah’s touch of jealousy at first, but there was nothing special about the rest of your conversation.

"This isn't where we did our disgusting business, likeyou say" you smile and roll your eyes. "You can calm your inflammatory tendencies. Plus, I have done way more disgusting things with you, Williamson."

"Not if she keeps looking at you like she does" the blonde grumbled, ignoring the second part of your sentence.

"Don’t be jealous" you say while tiptoeing to put a kiss on her cheek.

"You slept with her"

"It was a long time ago. I find the best one since"

"Hm."

You roll your eyes one more time and you cross her eyes without letting go of your smile. Leah ends up not being able to hold her smile and you deposit a new kiss, on the corner of her lips this time.

********

A few hours later, in your hotel room, you find yourself awake very early in the morning. Which is surprising since usually Leah almost have to push you out of bed. When you look at the time on your phone, you realize it’s barely 5:00 in the morning. And no matter how hard you try to go back to sleep, you can’t. Your mind flies over the different places in Oslo that you visited with Leah.

And the part that you’ve carefully avoided, afraid of running into Helena. You don’t know if she still lives here, you don’t know what happened to her either. But you could still find the house in which she lives (lived?) very easily. Without giving yourself too much time to think, you end up getting out of bed by taking all the precautions to not wake Leah. You dress quickly and before looking for what drives you to do this, you find yourself in the streets of Oslo in the direction of Helena’s house.

As you expected, you quickly find the way to this place that you hate more than anything. The lights are on upstairs and you take care not to being visible from where you are. With the day beginning to rise, you can observe the garden and see that it is still poorly maintained. The walls are even more decrepit than before and when a silhouette passes in front of the window without curtains you suddenly freeze.

It’s her.

But, unlike the last times you saw her, you didn’t feel the terror that inhabited you in her presence. Which is intriguing and difficult for you to understand. Then, finally, you realize that you don’t care. You can’t say that you don’t feel any negative emotions when you think about her, but you don’t care what she’s become.

On the other hand, thinking about the panic that Leah could feel if she wakes up without seeing you by her side makes you retrace your steps.

Leah is still asleep when you find your hotel room, but she quickly starts moving as soon as you get rid of your shoes and coat. You get back on the bed and put a hand in her hair, only now realizing your body temperature difference.

"Your hands are freezing" Leah complains, shivering, trying to stick against you probably to regain a little warmth.

"I'm sorry" you mumble while laying a kiss on the top of her head.

It only takes a few seconds for Leah to realize that you are no longer wearing your pajamas, stepping back to better observe you. Her eyebrows are frowned when she looks at your clothes and her eyes are uncertain when she rises on yours.

"Where did you go?"

"I went to Helena’s"

You didn’t hesitate a second to tell her the truth, but you flinch when you see Leah's face drops.

"Why? What happened?"

"Nothing. It’s okay Babe"

But Leah doesn’t seem convinced and even seems to have trouble understanding what pushed you to go there. And honestly, you wouldn’t be able to explain why either. Actually, you recognize a little of panic in her eyes and in her voice when she talks again.

"Did you talk to her?"

"No" you answer by shaking your head, taking her hand in yours to play with her fingers. "I didn’t see her either, just out the window. Nothing changed there, it’s still creepy and poorly maintained."

"Why didn’t you ask me to come with you? If something had happened to you, I wouldn’t have even known where to get you Y/N, you’re completely unconscious"

"Leah stop, I’m fine"

Leah looks at you with a skeptical air before suddenly drawing you against her by mumbling things far too quickly and too low for you to understand something. But you let her do it, pressing your face on her chest and letting your hands slide on her arms.

"Never do that again. Never leave without telling me where you're going."

"Promise" you sigh softly, lulled by the beating of her heart and her arms around you.

"No sleeping now" Leah grumble while tickling your ribs.

"Leah" you moan, wriggling on her to avoid her fingers.

"I’m serious Y/N. If anything happened to you…"

You quickly understand that under her grumpy air, there is also a great deal of concern. So you hurry up to look at her. It will be necessary to quickly clarify your ideas to try to make her understand what you have done.

"Nothing will happen to me, Babe. I think I just needed to see this place again to realize where I am now. To realize how far I’ve come since. And to realize how lucky I am, too."

"It has nothing to do with luck. You’ve worked a lot to get where you are" Leah says, finally relaxing a bit.

"I wasn’t just talking about football" you point out with a smirk. "But the beautiful blonde in my bed, too."

Leah laughs while hearing you and you take advantage of her change of mood to deposit several kisses on her face, in the hollow of her neck and about every square centimeter of her skin that you can reach.

********

The match being important, the training camps were rather harsh and severe. You get up early in the morning to have breakfast with the team before going to train until lunch. A short walk through Oslo follows to relax before resuming training for the afternoon. In the late afternoon you have either physical strengthening or other activities such as swimming pool or other things that are supposed to increase your chances of winning.

Needless to say, when you return to your room at night, you are exhausted. Luckily Leah continues to discover Norway with your parents or cousin, or all three, which doesn’t make you feel too guilty for bringing her here without being able to take full care of her. The team is staying in the same hotel, three floors below Leah’s room. You managed to sneak into Leah’s room several times during the stay, regaining the comfort and benefits of her arms.

The massages and baths she offers you are much more pleasant than the care provided by the team caregivers, we will not lie.

The day of the game comes quickly and you learn that you will be part of the eleven players of the beginning of the game. You play against Italy, a team that you don’t know too well but that has shown its qualities many times. You are not extremely confident, but as you have nothing to lose it’s with some form of conviction that you join the field.

The stadium is pretty full and when you listen to the Italian national anthem, you look for Leah in the family area. You can’t help but smile when you see her, even if you quickly realize that she put on a Norway team jersey over her jacket. When she realizes that you are looking at her, she turns around before pointing to the back of the jersey. If you can’t read the name from where you are, you have no problem recognizing the number. And it’s yours.

"If that’s not dedication" mumbles Guro next to you with an amused smile.

You give her a quick look in turn, before greeting the Italian players who parade in front of you. You spotted Mapi a few rows above Leah and your family in the bleachers, all also dressed in a Norwegian jersey.

As you might have guessed, the game is physical and tactfully hard. Italy play in a rather rough way, each time flirting with the limit of the yellow card. So you find yourself quite often on the ground and it starts hitting on your nerves from the middle of the first half. You swear in Norwegian when the referee whistles after another tackle against you, accepting Ingrid’s hand to help you get up.

"Don’t let them get in your head, that’s exactly what they want. Stay focus." Ingrid tells you before joining the players standing close to the goal to try and get the free kick to the bottom of the net.

In Arsenal, it’s Katie who shoots the free kicks, but in the Norway team, it’s you who does it. You have been watching her a lot over the last few months, her kick and the precision she shows have always given you a lot of admiration. Even when you played her in Manchester City. Trying to remember the advices she gave you over time, you exhale before you step out of the ball to hit it.

You have the impression that it flies in slow motion, before finding the head of Vilde Bøe Risa and finishing at the bottom of the nets. The shouts of the crowd suddenly resound and you quickly join the rest of your teammates to celebrate the goal. You smile when you feel a few of them tapping on the head to congratulate yourself, returning to your place to allow the match to resume. When you look towards Leah, you can only smile when she raises her thumb in your direction.

It’s only with a small advantage on the counter that you find the changing rooms, but as your coach says, it’s better than nothing. You take advantage of the warmth of the changing rooms to warm up a little, accompanied by a hot tea. When you find the ground fifteen minutes later, the cold is still present but it seems to you less unpleasant.

Italy manages to equalize at the sixtieth minute, but thanks to a good pass from Ingrid you manage to allow Norway to regain the advantage about ten minutes later. The tension is palpable as the minutes pass the contacts become even more brutal than before.

And what was to happen happened.

It’s in the eighty-eighth minutes that you are again launched towards the goal.

You know that if you manage to score, it will definitely qualify your team. So you try to ignore your painful muscles and the different bruises that will definitely mark your body in a few hours to move away at full speed towards the opposing goalkeeper.

You only have one opponent to eliminate to get there, but she seems determined not to let you pass. The tackle you undergo is far from clean, your leg gripped in pincers between her two, emiting a sinister crack when you fall back on the ground.

The pain is immediate and so intense that you cannot hold back a real cry of pain. With your face leaning against the grass, you try to grab your leg to try to reduce the pain but you release it quickly when you understand your mistake. You’re in such pain that you can’t figure out exactly where you’re hurt.

Above you, an argument quickly broke out between several of your teammates and the player responsible for the tackle. The medical team is quickly at your side and you can’t help but push their hands when they start examining your leg.

"Don’t touch me" you beg by turning on your back.

Mixed up in the argument, Ingrid ends up shifting her attention to you by hearing the talking you have with the doctors. When she kneels beside you, one of the doctors quickly asks her to hold your hands to let them work. Ingrid obeys, letting you grab her hands as hard as you can.

Your best friend looks up at the family stands in front of you. She can therefore see that Leah has left her seat and moved as close to the field as possible, seeking to see as best as possible what is happening. Her face is twisted by worry, but what surprises Ingrid above all is to see that Mapi joined her and put a hand probably supposed to be comforting on Leah’s shoulder.

At their side, your parents and your cousin don’t seem to be particularly comfortable either.

Her eyes then rest on you when you are given morphine, before transferring to a stretcher. You leave the field under applause, but the pain and fear of the reality of your injury don’t allow you to appreciate them. Stretcher movements give you intense pain and you have to bite your hands so you don’t scream again. It’s a real relief when morphine finally takes effect some minutes after.

On the field, the end of the game is quickly whistled after the incident. When Ingrid joins her family and yours, she hugs Mapi while being having to answer hundred questions from your parents.

"Is it her ACL?" is the only question Leah asks.

"I don’t know" sighs Ingrid shaking her head, always in Mapi's arms. "She was... She wasn't able to say where exactly her pain was. I can try to get you into the locker room and infirmary if she hasn’t already left for the hospital. But maybe not everyone."

"Go ahead, Leah" your mother replies almost immediately, tapping on the blonde’s shoulder.

Leah hesitates for a split second, not wanting to interfere with the needs and desires of her in-laws. But one look at your father is enough to convince her and she skillfully jumps over the fence.

Ingrid trains her more or less discreetly towards the tunnel to reach the inside of the stadium, exchanging only a few words with your national coach in Norwegian. Obviously Leah doesn't understand a word of it, she only has in mind to be able to find you and know what you have.

Only a few dozen minutes have passed since the shock and your injury, but it seems to you that it's rather long hours. Despite the morphine, you continue to feel spikes of pain. You have never felt such intense pain and you find yourself having to focus on the painting of the ceiling to not lose consciousness.

After three knocks against the door, it opens slowly, letting your best friend and girlfriend pass.

"Leah" you manage to croak and she rushes towards you.

One of her hand squeezes your hand and the other gently caresses your hair while her eyes search for yours.

"What did they say?" Leah asks

"Nothing" you admit pitifully "They were waiting for morphine to take effect, it was hurting to much until now"

Speaking of which, you see two doctors come back inside the room and Ingrid slips away without having laid a kiss on your forehead. And after getting Leah’s promise to keep her informed.

Some new swearing in Norwegian escapes from your lips when they start auscultating you, Leah mentally promises herself to ask you about it in a few days. But right now she’s too busy sympathizing with your pain and looking for a way to turn you away from what’s happening.

"Did we win at least?"

"Yeah. 2-1. You were amazing by the way, we’re gonna have to fight to keep you at Arsenal if you keep playing that well."

You roll your eyes but you are quickly brought to the heart of the matter by the main doctor. He speaks Norwegian, so you have to translate it to Leah.

"What did he say?"

"He thinks it’s a fracture. They’ll transfer me to the hospital."

"At least it’s not your ACL" Leah sighs of relief.

You grimace before addressing the doctor again, asking if it's possible that someone could bring the things you left in the locker room.

Ingrid brings them to you, already changed and showered when she appears. Your parents, your cousin and Mapi follow her. All these people are not allowed to follow you to the hospital, but you reassure them as much as possible. You promise once again to keep them informed and you kiss them before going to the ambulance. Quickly realizing that it's impossible to put your foot on the ground or even hop while holding on to Leah, you are pushed on a bed to the vehicle.

Arriving at the hospital, you enjoy being able to wash yourself, with the precious help of Leah. You sigh with despair when you have to put on one of these hospital gowns, but this gives you the right to have access to a room and it's always more pleasant than the ambient noise of the reception of the emergency.

You leave Leah for a few moments to go for the scanner and she's eating the vanilla pudding of your meal tray when you come back.

"You hate vanilla" she exclaims for an excuse with an innocent face when you look at her with an half amused-half severe smile.

It also turns out that this is the only food that the blonde likes on what is offered on this set. You eat without much conviction under the insistence of Leah, the blonde certifying that she promised your mother to take care of you and that it begins by ensuring that you eat properly.

You both doze off when the doctors come back with your test results, you on your bed and Leah in a chair next to you. The blonde stubbornly refused to lie next to you despite your insistence, being too afraid to hurt you.

Leah’s frustration is at its height when you are given information in your native language, not understanding any of the words spoken. There is no similarity between these two languages and she wonders how you learned to speak English so well under these conditions.

"So?" she asks barely a second after the doctor has finished talking.

"Tibial tray fracture" you mumble

"Do you need surgery?"

You shake your head negatively, a little stunned by all this. You are interrupted by the doctor who tells you a few more words before leaving the room, shaking your hand then Leah's.

********

The night at the hospital was complicated for you, apart from the pain that kept you awake for many hours, you had to be taken away so that they put a cast that you will have to keep for a few weeks, before changing it for a splint. The only time you got your smile back was when you could choose the color of your blast.

"Red" you answered without hesitation.

"Red?" Leah asked when she saw the nurses preparing the mixture.

"If I have to stay stuck in the bleachers for a few weeks, I might as well match the colors of Arsenal"

You shrugged, trying to hide your sadness from this idea. Leah went through a lot more difficult than that and you don’t want to impose your moods on her. But she seems to have perfected her ability to read your thoughts since she immediately raised your face gently for you to look at her.

"Oh no, not that. You have the right to be sad, you have the right to be angry and you have the right to blame the whole world. But you don’t have the right to shut yourself up and not talk about how you feel. You don’t have to tell me if you’d rather confide to Less or someone else, but don’t shut yourself. Please."

Throat knotted, you couldn’t say anything, so you just nodded. That was enough for Leah who laid a tender kiss on your cheek.

"And you can count on me to be there every step of the way"

"I know" you smiled softly

With you and Leah not leaving until two days later, you mostly stayed in your hotel room after leaving the hospital. You have been busy for a long time with the various calls and messages you have received from many of your relatives. Instead of calling you once a week, your mother called you every day. And of course you got calls from Ingrid, Leila, Laia, Alessia (who in the meantime changed her name in your phone by Sis ✨), Katie and finally almost all of Arsenal.

"Nice free kick" told you Katie when she called you via FaceTime "I will have competition to take it at Arsenal, it’s good."

When you flew back to London and you’ve never been happier living in an elevator building. All that remains is to hope that it doesn’t break down for the next six weeks, when you can apparently start walking again without having the leg immobilized.

Leah will keep her promise to not to leave you alone for the slightest minute as she will establish a whole program with the club’s doctors so that your rehabilitation and the strengthening exercises you have to do will be planned at exactly the same times as the workouts of the others. When you’re not at Arsenal facilities, you are at home with her.

And on game days, you watch them play. The next match is against Aston Villa and you regret a little not participating in the game alongside Leah. Being able to beat the team in which your two exes evolve is a little too interesting idea for you, but it will wait next time. Meanwhile, you just follow Leah with your eyes, carefully studying Jordan’s behavior towards her.

Arsenal wins hands down and even if you are disappointed not to play with your team, you are very proud of your teammates. At the end of the match, you follow Lia who was replaced towards the end of the match on the field with your crutches, struggling a little because of the slippery ground. But you quickly reach the height of Alessia that you take in your arms to congratulate her on the goal she scored.

You’re having a hard time finding Leah in the crowd of players and you can’t help but get a little nervous about Jordan getting her before you. It’s however Katie who turns you away from this idea when she suddenly arrives behind you to lift you and begin to carry you like a bride.

"Let go of me, you maniac" you laugh when you see her starting a lap without letting you go.

"Why? Show everyone your cast!"

During one of the lunch breaks, her and Leah worked hard to reproduce the Arsenal logo on your cast and they are both very proud of their work. Your cast also has the names of all your teammates, a cat drawning made by Viv supposed to represent Raven, flowers made by Alessia and an Australian flag made by Kyra.

You roll your eyes, your arms around Katie's neck to stabilize you.

"Uh, the other way please" you mumble realizing that Lia is now exchanging a few words with Alina, right in the direction that Katie is going.

"Oops."

The Irish changes direction, only so that you find yourself facing Leah who looks at you both with fun.

"Can you give me back my girlfriend now please?"

"Dunno. I like her" Katie tease Leah as she tighten you up against her.

"I’m here too, by the way"

You see Caitlin waving her arm with a big smile a few meters from you, making the three of you laugh. When Katie finally puts you down, Leah beckons you to climb on her back, making you frown.

"People are gonna think this is weird, no?"

"Leah was in the stands of your last game with a jersey named after you. What would be weird is that they haven’t figured it out yet" Manu, who joined you, says.

"She’s right" Leah shrugged. "And at worst, we don’t care?"

Since the blonde doesn’t seem to see the slightest inconvenience, you don’t make yourself pray any longer. Leaning on her shoulders, you jump on her back, Leah passing her arms under your thighs so she can carry you properly. You greet the crowd from time to time when you hear your name, talking about everything and nothing with Leah and your teammates.

"So, we don't care right?" You ask Leah after a few minutes.

"Yes, why?"

You’re not answering her question. Instead, you lean over her and kiss her cheek, then the corner of her lips when she turns her head towards you. She grins and you grin back at her.

"Hard launch" Caitlin sings, her arm around Katie's waist.

"Yeah, you're the one to talk" Leah laughs while looking at them.

You didn’t see Jordan after the game and when you ask Alessia a little after, she will tell you that she actually went back to the locker room almost right after the whistle. It probably means to you that seeing you with Leah is difficult for her, probably confirming your theory. But the photos you see on social media a little later, while you are peacefully lying in Leah’s arms in your bed, could alone confirm that the blonde has indeed moved on.

The way she looks at you on those pictures gives you butterflies in your stomach and a wave of affection for her. Leah will only have two seconds to understand what happens to her when you drop your phone on the mattress to go up for her lips and kiss her passionately. She’s yours.

[qqueenofhades]

For the history questions, what historical period has given you the most inspiration for your writing/muses?

I feel like it's a cop-out if I say "hmm, all of them," and this will end up just being a long recap of all my various projects over the years, but a) fuck it, this is my blog, I can talk about my own stuff if I want to, and b) there have indeed been Many, both fic and original. I usually pick settings for historical/historical fantasy AUs that I already know and want to write about, so:

The Lightbearers (Once Upon a Time) and Starlight & Strange Magic (Timeless) are both 19th-century Victorian England/Europe/steampunk, one in the 1850s and the other in the 1880s, with lots of magic and misadventure and so forth. You can tell that I was really into steampunk around 10 years ago (it was Formative, okay) and there were plenty of opportunities to do fun things with the historical setting and real-life personalities (the scene of Flynn breaking into Buckingham Palace to spy on Queen Victoria and William Gladstone remains a favorite). There is also my massive The Swan and Crossbones series (OUAT/Black Sails, two fics, 800k words), which is set in the 18th-century Caribbean, Golden Age of Piracy, and pre-Revolutionary America and is a retelling of Treasure Island + family saga + multi-generational/multi-character/multi-source material historical fiction, wherein I both wrote 800k words and did a shitton of extra research in the middle of getting a PhD. Don't ask me why I did this either, but I still re-read them, especially The Rose and Thorn (the second installment in the series) for my own pleasure.

My All Souls Timeless trilogy, following the source material, involved general historian/academia shenanigans and time travel to Elizabethan England, which was lots of fun to research and write about, even if I otherwise tend to think that the Tudors are often overdone. One of my most popular fics and best shorter-form (only 65k words...) historical/period pieces is deo volente (lux aeterna) for The Old Guard, which takes the crusades as its general starting point and thematic thread to explore religion, faith, immortality, power, war, violence, love, queerness, and other such things. Another popular fic of mine that spanned 600 years of history (starting in the 14th century) and explored various periods in detail is my Sandman fic and in the waking world we wait and want, with a particular emphasis on queer history. (You will find that crops up often in my stuff, regardless of the setting.) We also have why draw me to that promised land (Shadow and Bone), set in the 1980s Soviet Union (my boast for the accuracy of this fic, based on my previous studies in Russian/Soviet history, is that someone told me they learned more from this fic than an entire semester of a university class, which is not entirely good because I then had many questions about their professor, but there you have it).

When it comes to original novels, I started off also 10+ years ago with medieval England, with the The Lion and the Rose series and others. I am fond of this one because it was what got me into medieval history in the first place and because even now, it still sells fairly steadily and gives me a couple bucks in royalties every month. My newest book, The Empire of Bones, is based (loosely) on my fic The Key of Solomon and basically has everything I possibly wanted to cram into a fantasy historical setting, from anywhere and any time at all. Thus we have the Christian-era Roman Empire, an Islamic Carthage, the Byzantines, Imperial China, Russian Jews and Ukrainian Cossacks, the Mali Empire, Celtic Britain, so forth and etcetera, etcetera. So as noted, if it looks interesting, I will find a way to throw it and the kitchen sink in somewhere, and I have the issue that whenever I read a book about a new place or period, I go "hmm, I should figure out how to write something gay about this." Alas.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Now I’m Covered In You [Chapter 1: Afternoon Light]

Series summary: Aemond is a prince of England. You are married to his brother. The Wars of the Roses are about to begin, and you have failed to fulfill your one crucial responsibility: to give the Greens a line of legitimate heirs. Will you survive the demands of your family back in Navarre, the schemes of the Duke of Hightower, the scandals of your dissolute husband, the growing animosity of Daemon Targaryen…and your own realization of a forbidden love?

Series title is a lyric from: Ivy by Taylor Swift.

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+), dubious consent, miscarriage, pregnancy, childbirth, violence, warfare, murder, alcoholism, sexism, infidelity, illness, death, only vaguely historically accurate, lots of horses!

Word count: 3.9k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

A/N: Not me pulling a Tom Brady by announcing my retirement only to immediately un-announce it. 😂😂 I regret to inform you that I am apparently incapable of not writing fanfiction. I had no ideas for a grand total of 1 week before this story showed up and possessed me entirely against my will...and then I fell in love with it. I’m still working on my book, but I had to get this out of my system too. I hope you enjoy it. 💜 I’ll tag some of my past readers, but I WILL NOT TAG YOU AGAIN unless you ask me to! 🥰

@elsolario @ladylannisterxo @doingfondue @tclegane @quartzs-posts @liathelioness @aemcndtargaryen @thelittleswanao3 @burningcoffeetimetravel @poohxlove @borikenlove @myspotofcraziness @travelingmypassion @graykageyama @skythighs @lauraneedstochill @darlingimafangirl @charenlie @thewew @eddies-bat-tattoos @minttea07 @joliettes @trifoliumviridi @flowerpotmage​ @thewitch-lives​ @tempt-ress​ @padfooteyes​ @teenagecriminalmastermind​ @chelsey01​ @anditsmywholeheart​ @heliosscribbles​ @killerqueen-ofwillowgreen​ @narwhal-swimmingintheocean​ @tillyt04​ @cicaspair418​ @fan-goddess

He’s thrusting into you, but you’re miles away: a speck of an island in the Mediterranean Sea, the glimmer of an unnamed star.

His rhythm is clumsy but never rough. He smells like wine and sandalwood, lavender and bleak perspiration. You moan when he expects you to. Your body moves with his, compliant, complicit. You roll your hips and tug at his white-blond hair, corollaries of ecstasy you wish you felt. You’ve learned to feign pleasure convincingly. Aegon will stop if he thinks you’re not enjoying yourself, and you need this to be over. What do you want me to do to you? he’ll ask, cerulean eyes drunk and muddy, words slurred, body repositioning. Do you like it this way? How about this? You can’t bear his curious consideration, his invasive hands. You don’t really like it any way. You’ve grown to accept that. You’ve had time to get used to the idea.

The air is sharp with the mineral ether of sex. Spots on the sheet beneath you are wet, clinging, cold. When Aegon kisses you—sloppily, carelessly—your lips and tongue follow his, willing him to finish, your eyes squeezed shut as he gropes your face with ungainly fingers. And at last, it’s done: he shudders, groans, flops down beside you on the mattress.

“Well done, wife,” Aegon pants. He gives your disheveled hair one absentminded stroke and then gazes up at the canopy, cloth embroidered with green roses and spiraling gold dragons. He yawns, his eyes dipping closed. The rise and fall of his bare, glistening chest is slowing.

“Aegon?”

“Hm?” He is inconvenienced; he is already half-asleep.

You roll onto your side, turning towards him. Aegon feels the mattress shift. Reluctantly, he rouses himself, sighs, swallows the rest of the wine in the cup he left perched on the nightstand. “I’m so sorry,” you say softly.

“About what?” He peers at you, groggy and half-listening, stray beads of red wine like blood on his chin. “Oh, yes. That.”

That. What he means is three miscarriages in one year, all early, all excruciating beyond words, all destructive to both the body and the soul. “You have no idea how hard I’m trying.”

“Don’t worry yourself, wife,” he says, yawning again. He always calls you that—wife—with a vague, impersonal fondness. Aegon doesn’t know anything about you. He doesn’t seem interested in remedying that. He doesn’t see it as something to be remedied at all. He attempts to set his empty cup back on the nightstand and doesn’t notice when it tumbles off and clanks against the floor. He burrows beneath the blankets like a hedgehog. “We’ll get it right eventually.”

Eventually, you think with horror, as you are left alone in the candlelight; Aegon plummets into sleep and is silent except for his snoring. How long will I have to do this?

Twelve months of marriage and you are no closer to fulfilling your purpose here. You are told what to eat, when to sleep with your husband, how to lie still afterwards so his seed can take hold, which saints to pray to. You are offered tender-voiced morsels of advice until they feel more like palms cracking across your face than gifts. Every second of your existence is consumed by the desperate need for Aegon’s heir, for the Greens’ future. And each time you lose a pregnancy, the clock starts over again.

How long can I do this before it breaks me, kills me, drives me mad?

~~~~~~~~~~

When a northern pike glides through cool rippling currents, yellow perch and bluegills scatter; and that’s exactly what the courtiers do to you. It’s a bit like living inside a glass bowl: people press their palms to the arched walls and stare like you’re a captive animal—a leopard or an elephant or a white bear from the Arctic—but they don’t speak to you. None of them know what to say. There are whispers flying, women in gowns and men in tunics gossiping about how last night was the first time the prince returned to your bed since your most recent miscarriage. The tentative speculation can begin again, glances at your waistline and delicate inquiries about your health. Bets are placed on whether you will at last produce an heir this time: boy, girl, white-haired or not, early, late, alive, dead. The clock has been reset.

You do not allow anyone to see your pain, your desperation. You have no true friends here. You are allied with the Greens, yes, but that does not mean they are your friends. The Duke of Hightower, chief advisor to the king, was insistent that you bring none of your ladies with you from your homeland; and so the women who attend you are English, polite but not particularly devoted, dutiful but not reliably discreet. He wanted no weak links, no chess pieces that he could not entirely control, no loyalties that ran deeper than his ambitions for Alicent and her children. Now, the Duke of Hightower is fiercely disappointed with you. He’s losing his ability to hide it.

As you traverse the Great Hall of Westminster Palace—an island, a lone cloud roaming across a clear sky—Prince Daemon, smirking and wolflike, stalks into your path.

“Hello there, Navarre,” he says, circling with one hand on the hilt of his sword, his strange deep-set eyes flicking all over you. He likes to call you this, a reminder of where you came from, of why Aegon married you: for an alliance, for advantages in the inevitable civil war when King Viserys dies, for heirs intrinsically linked with the Continent. You were one piece of a far grander design. Helaena was married off to Castile, you were brought west from Navarre, and thus the Greens gained supporters in the Iberian Peninsula. Helaena has given birth to one healthy son so far, and by all accounts has found great happiness in her new life across the Bay of Biscay. Daemon never tires of drawing attention to the fact that you have yet to fulfill your half of the bargain.

You bow your head swiftly, without conviction. “Prince Daemon.”

“My, that’s quite an extravagant gown. What have you got hidden under it? Your father’s famed archers, perhaps? Gold coins and steel daggers? I know what Prince Aegon would want under his skirts.” Daemon grins. “Lady Joanna Montford. Or is it Mountford? You must forgive me, I’m always mixing up the details.”

“I’ll defer to your better judgment, you have far more experience with whores than I do.”

He offers you a single rose, dyed black. “I regret that I did not have the opportunity to properly express my condolences after your most recent loss. It’s become difficult to keep up with them, they’ve grown so numerous. I’m sure you understand.”

You take the rose; untrimmed thorns bite into the defenseless flesh of your fingertips, but you don’t let it show on your face. “Only one from you? Your wife sent me a dozen.” They were red, the color of Navarre’s flag; though the resemblance to blood did not escape you.

“Yes, it’s true, her heart remains rather tender, much to my chagrin.”

“And yours remains nonexistent.” You pluck onyx petals from the rose one by one and toss them to the floor. Courtiers watch this, chattering spiritedly.

Daemon is still grinning. He has won. It never matters what you say, what you do; until you give Aegon a son, in every interaction Daemon walks away the victor. “I hope you enjoy the rest of this glorious July afternoon. And I hope you enjoy your evening as well. And the evening after that, and the evening after that…” He prowls closer, his voice dropping low and sinister. “And all those countless, blundering, long evenings you’ll spend under your mortifying drunk of a husband.”

You rip away from him—not his hands, no, even Daemon would not deign to touch you in front of an audience, but from his suffocating antipathy—and continue on your way to the royal stables, courtiers dispersing in your wake like startled doves. The cobblestones of the palace gardens are weather-beaten and craggy as you sail over them, warm summer wind in your hair, the hem of your gown dragging. Herbs and spices grow high and vivid green: angelica for digestion, feverfew for headaches, St. John’s wort for melancholy, betony to ward off evil spirits, chamomile to bring sleep, rosemary to quell nightmares, pennyroyal to induce a woman’s monthly blood. You have the opposite problem. All you seem to be able to do is bleed.

Inside the royal stables, the world is reduced to hushed subtleties: hooves thudding against straw, nickers and huffs, the swishing of tails, cascading sunlight dotted with whirling planets of dust. You drift by each of the stalls, inhaling the scent of horses and mid-summer. King Viserys promised you an Andalusian, brought by ship all the way from your homeland, for each child born to you and Aegon; alas, none of the animals housed here are yours yet. There’s Sunfyre, an Akhal-Teke, small-boned and shimmering gold. There’s Caraxes, a temperamental blood bay Arabian, and Syrax, a Marwari, cremello with blue eyes and delicate ears that curl in towards each other. Tessarion is a dappled blue-grey Percheron, young but gaining height and brute force each day. Jacaerys and Lucerys have Marwaris like their mother, Baela and Rhaena own volatile Arabians like their father. Joffrey is still riding a slow, potbellied pony; little Aegon III, Viserys II, and Visenya cannot ride at all yet. Every time you blink, it seems, the Blacks have added another child to their ranks, another inheritor to carry their claim forward. Your stomach sinks beneath your skin and scarlet ropes of muscle, a basket full of rocks.

You stop at the last stall, twice the size of any of the others. Vhagar towers over you. She is an English Great Horse, and the largest one that anyone can remember knowing of; her coat is a dark, lustrous brown, her massive hooves feathered, her muzzle sloped and velvety when you lay your palm against it. She lets you do this, as she always does; more than that, you think, she welcomes it.

You remove the letter from your bodice, your true purpose for coming here. You want to read it where you can be alone, where there are no prying eyes to report back to King Viserys, Queen Alicent, the Duke of Hightower, Aegon, Daemon, Rhaenyra the Crown Princess. You must keep your composure, your dignity. It’s all you have left.

You unfold the letter, your gaze skimming across your mother’s words, the slopes and summits of her letters heartbreakingly familiar, her fears loud through the ink-and-parchment silence. You expected this, and yet the weight of it stacks up in your ribcage like the splintered wreckage of a ship.

Think, my love, the Queen of Navarre writes. Think of everything you do, see, say, and feel. There is something that is poisoning the children inside of you. Do not trouble yourself with court gossip or bitter rivalries. You cannot serve your husband’s family—your family, now—if your attention is divided and your heart heavy with doubts. Shut yourself away from all things impassioned. Commit yourself to prayer and needlework. Purify yourself, dear daughter, prepare yourself in body and soul. God answers the cries of those who have won his favor.

You crumple the letter in your fists and then rip it to pieces, not out of wrath but so that nobody else might read it. The fragments flutter away like autumn leaves. You cannot resent your mother for her cushioned reprimands. She means well, but she cannot hope to understand; she bore ten children, eight of whom lived past the cradle, with no exceptional difficulty. Your father has taken mistresses on occasion, but not until years into his marriage, and regardless of his dalliances your mother remains his confidant, his greatest desire, his heart. Your life is nothing like hers. Your future has become something you didn’t know existed. You feel as if you have stumbled into a mirror, a duplicate world where everything is the same but the wrong way around. Where is your own satisfaction? Where is your soulmate?

There are footsteps, and you spin to see Prince Aemond standing in the doorway. He immediately turns to leave, and this is unsurprising; he never speaks to you, rarely looks at you, glides out of rooms as you come into them. You had once hoped to befriend him before his aversion to the notion became clear. He is palpably disinterested in you. But this afternoon as warm golden sunlight spills down on him, for reasons you cannot fathom, he hesitates; and now he’s waited too long, it would be rude for him to flee so obviously from you. Slowly, Aemond walks into the stable. He is so much like Daemon, though lighter: not in color but in gravity, his steps quieter, his hands graceful and precise. You’ve never seen him without his eyepatch. The Blacks call the cause of his maiming a sparring accident, the Greens call it an ambush, King Viserys doesn’t call it anything; perhaps he has forgotten it completely.

You expect Aemond to demand to know what you’re doing here, to scold you for jeopardizing your health with unnecessary excursions. “I’m so sorry for what you’re going through,” he says instead, his voice whisper-soft like pattering spring rain, like a leaf of lamb’s ear threaded between your fingers. “I hope my brother has been…kind about it.”

“He’s very kind. He doesn’t mention it at all.” Not once has anybody said those three words to you: I’m so sorry. They lift a million pounds from your shoulders, an eon of stones from your belly. “In fact, no one speaks of it with me. They speak in my direction, they tell me what to do differently, they assign blame…but no one has any interest in what I have to say back. No one asks me what it feels like to…to…”

It shocks you, knuckles to the gut: your breath hitches, your lips tremble, you swallow down tears like poison. It’s humiliating, this display of helplessness, this shattering of regal poise. You shield your face with both hands so Aemond cannot watch you war with yourself. And surely he is repulsed by you, this prince who has been mutilated and unavenged and overlooked since childhood. You have never known anyone as self-possessed as Aemond Targaryen. He endures all of life’s trials without emotion, without weakness. He must be appalled that you cannot do the same.

Yet when you are at last confident that you will not weep in front of him, you lower your hands to see that Aemond has silently obliterated the space between you. He is close enough to touch, his palm pressed to Vhagar’s monstrous neck. He’s looking at the horse, but he is listening to you. “She likes you,” he says gently. “She doesn’t like anyone.”

You’ve never been in such proximity to Aemond before. He’s taller than you remember; his eye is watchful and intent, a paler shade of blue than Aegon’s, more clear, a river rather than a sea riotous with storms. When you inhale, you taste pieces of him: leather, musk, the smoke of a blacksmith’s forge. There’s an abrupt weakness in your knees and ankles that you pretend not to notice. “Most of my friends have hooves these days.”

“I never see you go out riding.”

“I’m not allowed to.”

For an instant, his brow knits with confusion, and then he remembers. Horseback riding is thought to be calamitous for pregnancy, and your chances are slim enough already. “But that’s something that you once enjoyed, back in Navarre?” You flinch when you hear the name of your homeland, a reflex, Daemon’s taunts ringing in your skull like church bells. Everyone knows that’s what he calls you. “Forgive me, perhaps that word has painful connotations now.”

“It doesn’t sound so bad when you say it.” And that’s true: it’s not a dagger but a murmur, a musing, a dream. “Yes, I used to love riding horses. And dancing, attending hunting expeditions, reading poetry, plucking olives from the trees…my brothers and I would even knock swords together sometimes in the courtyard.” You smile wistfully, then lose it like a gull feather on waves. “And now I don’t do anything.”

“What brings you happiness here in England?”

“Nothing,” you reply, meeting his gaze for the first time. He studies you, his eye blue like the mid-summer afternoon sky, searching. And suddenly, you’ve never felt more interesting, you’ve never felt such raw hunger to unearth everything you’re built of. You skate your palm down Vhagar’s face and confess quietly, shakily: “I always thought I would teach my children to ride horses.”

“You will someday,” Aemond insists.

“When you’re little, five or ten years old, you dream about growing up and all the miraculous things you’ll be. And then you finally become an adult and you meet the rest of your life and…and…” You don’t like it. “It’s so different from what you imagined.”

“Yes,” Aemond agrees, soft and mournful.

“But I’ve interrupted you,” you say. “You came here to take Vhagar riding, I’m sure, and now you’re caught in my little web of nostalgia and self-pity. Please, accept my apology, and don’t let me delay you any further.”

“I was planning to go riding,” Aemond admits. He’s wearing a black leather messenger bag, you notice for the first time. He pulls at the strap that hangs from his right shoulder self-consciously. You have never seen Aemond betray any sign of self-consciousness before this moment. In many ways, you have never seen him at all. He asks you pointedly: “What if I took Vhagar out walking you accompanied me?”

“I told you. I can’t.”

“Not riding,” Aemond says. “Just walking. We’ll lead her down to the edge of the forest, let her stretch her legs a bit and eat some of the fallen apples. You’re allowed to walk, aren’t you?”

“I suppose so.” You stare at him, perplexed. You almost ask why he would offer to do such a thing, why he would feel inspired to raise your spirits. But you don’t want him to change his mind. You point to his messenger bag. “What do you have in there?”

“Parchment. Quills. A bottle of ink.”

“What do you write? Battle plans? Letters to marriageable foreign noblewomen?”

“Poems,” Aemond confesses in a whisper you can barely hear, not looking at you.

“Could I read some of your poems?”

“No,” he says immediately, startled.

“Never mind. It was wrong of me to ask.”

He doesn’t reply; he just fetches Vhagar’s halter from the hook on the stable wall, black leather studded with sapphires the size of ladybugs. She allows Aemond to place it on her without any resistance. He attaches the lead chain—heavy silver links—but he doesn’t need it. Vhagar follows him out of the stables, her colossal hooves drumming like distant thunder, her jet black mane whipping in the wind. Aemond matches his pace with yours as the three of you cross the emerald green field that separates Westminster Palace from the tree line of the forest.

After strolling for a while—Vhagar chomping on apples, you stepping gingerly over felled branches and gnarled roots—you and Aemond sit beneath a sprawling cedar that blots out the sun, its limbs like the wings of a dragon. He recounts myths and legends of England, things that Aegon has not thought to share with you once in the past twelve months, weeks of which you spent in bed bleeding out his would-be children: King Arthur and Beowulf, Robin Hood and the Rollright Stones, Saint George the guardian of the royal family. And as Aemond speaks, at some point you stop hearing him and start seeing him, everything that brought him here, everything that will happen next.

Once upon a time, King Viserys named his daughter Rhaenyra his successor. She was his only surviving offspring, the last vestige of his cherished wife Aemma, dead in fruitless childbirth and cold in her tomb in Windsor Castle. The king then promptly remarried and fathered four more Targaryens, closer to afterthoughts than assets in his eyes: Aegon, Helaena, Aemond, Daeron. Rhaenyra is still the king’s favorite, and is much loved in Northern England, where her mother hailed from. She has the support of Scotland as well. Her marriage to their Crown Prince Laenor Velaryon was meant to consolidate the two nations under one ruling family, one flag. To reinforce this alliance, her uncle Daemon wed Laenor’s sister Laena. But then Laena died, and Laenor did too, and all those tragic pieces fell together for Rhaenyra to get what she evidently wanted all along: Daemon in wedlock, in her confidence, in her bed. Her sons with Laenor will soon marry his daughters with Laena, and each new white-haired child she produces with her uncle gives the Blacks one more dynastic pawn to play in the game of thrones.

The merchants of Southern England—the Duke of Hightower foremost among them—are aghast at the thought of Rhaenyra’s ascension. No woman has ever successfully ruled England, and she is sure to be malevolently influenced by her uncle-husband. The Pope will not sanction their incestuous union, nor those of their children, though this does not daunt the Blacks. They will make a new order here in the British Isles; they will not play by the Continent’s rules. In reply, the kingdoms of Western Europe—to varying degrees of zealousness—support the Greens and the coronation of Aegon II upon his father’s death. King Viserys is in fine health now, but that could change at a moment’s notice: with a fall from a horse, with veins darkened by infection, with a vial of poison, with a resurgence of Plague. When the king is dead, Aegon must have every possible advantage to offer England, including a clear line of succession. This was supposed to be your role. This has become your greatest failure. Yet here under a hundred-year-old cedar tree outside Westminster Palace, Aemond makes you forget that for a while.

Hours later, you are back in your bedchamber when your husband arrives to fuck you. That’s a crude word for it, but that’s exactly what it is: something he does to you, not with you. You gulp down a cup of your apple cider, the drink you like best here in England, not as thick and bitter as ale, not a poor imposter of the Continent’s red wine. It is bright, sweet, sometimes vaguely minty. It makes you think of spring and summer, of rebirth. It fills you with the undying ambition to bear fruit of your own.

You turn to Aegon, who is yanking off his white shirt with his back to you, his hair in disarray, his pores sweating out wine and indifference. He crawls into the bed on all fours, slapping himself lightly across the face, forcing himself to stay awake until the act is done.

And you think, for the very first time: I wonder what it would have been like to marry Aemond.

[hesbianspock]

“The (Dublin Castle Scandal of 1884) took on overtones of English immorality versus Irish morality. … Hyde argues that the scandal, and belief that homosexuality was rampant in official circles in Ireland, did much to discredit the British government of the day. Irish Nationalists, especially conservative Catholics, would have been left with the image of British officials, regarded as imperialist occupiers of their island, as immoral and dissolute perverts, sexually preying on young men in Dublin” (Aldrich, Colonialism and Homosexuality).

so, upon reading this, my first thought was obviously fucking outlander.

outlander simultaneously utilizes the traditional homophobic trope of the homosexually-inclined predator and the politically useful historical impression of homosexuality as a symptom of the immoral and dissolute presence of colonizing english perverts while also plainly taking pleasure from this homosexual imperialism, from the opportunity to be voyeur to this predation and physical abuse of Virtuous Celtic Boys while denying them the chance to explore their own sexuality in the wake of such trauma at the price of an englishwoman’s temporary sexual dissatisfaction — an opportunity well-afforded to englishmen enduring the sort of homoerotic abuse and discipline rampant in the english army that undoubtedly contributed to randall’s unseen development into the character known to us.

the audience is intended not only to take voyeuristic sexual pleasure from jamie’s repeated sexual harassment and assault — gabaldon has said as much herself — but also to believe that such sexually charged punishment as jamie takes throughout his life (and metes out, once, to claire) is necessary and justifiable. jamie’s descriptions of his repeated childhood beatings at the hands of his older male relatives are not criticized nor are they even questioned by claire, who laughs at her husband’s humorous descriptions of the abuse that, when meted upon her own english body, she threatens to kill him over. randall reaches orgasmic pleasure at the lash ripping jamie’s primitive and colonized skin, claire laughs at stories of a switch bruising his virtuous body, and the audience is to thrill at the thought of both.

upon learning that randall propositioned jamie prior to these floggings, claire’s expressed horror is not at the fact that randall is a sadistic rapist — in fairness to her, she has been made well aware of that fact already — but that randall is engages in homosexual behavior. she gives no comment on jamie’s apparently relaxed attitude to homosexuality in general (“i considered it” “my father wouldn’t have given the sodomy a care”), but this can hardly be described as the result of an enlightened attitude. she describes frank — a character immediately queered by his profession as historian/antiquarian, a field traditionally viewed as the realm of the homosexual — as having “hands white and hairless as a girl’s,” an unfavorable and gay-coded comparison with jamie’s undeniable traditional masculinity. her reaction to jamie’s repeated torture and rape is one of selfishness — she is concerned for him, but her concern primarily expresses itself in relation to his resulting inability or unwillingness to re-engage her in their marriage bed. out of this desire to have him retake this traditional heterosexual role, to bend to her will as his english wife, claire deliberately triggers him with details of his rape he had confided to her. his role as the virtuous scottish youth preyed upon by the deviant english homosexual is to provide for claire, the englishwoman’s, voyeuristic and maternal pleasure — when his lasting trauma from being the subject of imperial violence interferes with her sexual desires, she chooses to revictimize him in pursuit of her own pleasure. both she and randall utilize the colony of scotland as a frontier within which to enact sexual desires considered deviant and forbidden in england on the bodies of a subjugated populace.

in conclusion outlander is not self aware about any of this and is just breathtakingly imperialist, anti-scottish, AND homophobic all at once.

[oumaheroes]

My submission for the @hws-anthology! Thank you so much to all of the mods for making this possible

Characters/ Ships: England, France- FrUK (But gently… softly)

Summary: The rediscovery of lost relics has a habit of awakening unwelcomed feelings. The past overlaps with the present far more than France realises.

---------‐----------------

Sunken Nostalgia

‘There you are. Hiding as usual.’

England looked over his shoulder at the sound of France’s voice. He was leant against the railings of the walkway overlooking Portsmouth harbour, wearing a light coat and stood as far as he could get away from the main crowds without missing the view. It was a busy day, unsurprisingly given the circumstances, and even where he was on the waterfront people were thronged out all along the railings and in the nearby buildings to get the best look at the happenings out at sea. It was not every day that a ship this old- a rare find indeed for how intact it was rumoured to be- was raised back to the surface. Some more eager watchers had even gone out onto the water themselves; past England, France saw a small pleasure boat packed with onlookers come in closer to shore to avoid an official navy ship, bearing down imperiously on anything in its way.

Maybe sensing his wish to be alone from just his expression, or from whatever it was that connected their people to them as they so keenly were, the onlookers nearest to England had given him as wide of a berth as they possibly could. He stood there in the crowd out of place and alone, a lone island close pressed by a sea of mortal life that dare not come closer than the five feet he mentally permitted.

‘I wondered when you’d show up.’ Was all England said as France approached.

‘You thought that I would?’

‘No, that I’m still surprised by. But I felt you arrive a few hours ago.’

‘Ah.’

‘Boat? Plane?’

‘Plane, then train. You know as well as I do that those ferries are frightful things.’

‘That’s just your delicate constitution talking.’

France didn’t bother to reply. He joined England at the railing and handed him one of the takeaway cups that he was carrying, waggling it when he hesitated.

England took it gingerly, ‘You should have told me you were coming.’

‘What on earth for.’

‘Common courtesy. It is my land you are invading.’

‘I’m invading, am I? Today’s events affecting your terminology?’

England gave him a dry look and popped open the lid of his cup, ‘You brought me tea?’

‘You like tea.’

‘I do.’ England looked suspicious. ‘You never bring me tea.’

‘Hmm.’ France made sure the lid of his own cup of bitterly dark coffee was secure and leant his arms against the railing’s cool metal, ‘Well, your look of disgust will lose its charm if I see it too much.’

‘As long as you breathe I’ll wear it, so you don’t have to worry about it going anywhere.’ England took a tentative sip and turned back out to the water.

Portsmouth harbour spread out around them, deep docks and industrial ships on the murky grey sea. Beyond the harbour and out to the horizon were large, sturdy boats, supporting a large, odd looking white crane that rose impossibly high up into the sky. It looked something like a praying mantis, all arms and disproportionate length.

France ran a hand through his hair to tame it back, and wished that he’d remembered to bring a hairband with him. ‘Finally happening then, is it?’

‘Apparently so.’

‘It’s been talked about for long enough.’

‘They had to invent a way to raise her without damaging her.’

‘I’m still surprised there’s anything of the Mary Rose (1) left to raise. Or damage.’

England made a non-commital noise.

France gently swirled his coffee, trying to cool it. ‘You weren’t on her when she went down were you?’

England shot him a warning look, eyes going to the humans nearby. ‘No. I was moved to another one the day before. A change in gunners, or perhaps one of the captains was unwell; I can’t remember. But I should have been. He blamed me for her loss, though.’

‘Henry?’(2)

‘Hmm.’

‘I would have blamed you too. Poor thing was so heavy in the water, like a round, fat duck.’

England rolled his eyes, ‘You weren’t even there.’

‘I was on the shore.’

‘Exactly. No where near the actual danger.’

‘I’d had enough of fighting you at sea, thank you.’

‘You knew you’d lose, that’s why.’

‘My love, need I remind you whose sunken ship we are waiting to see dragged out of the mud?’

‘Which was sunk from an oversight-‘

‘Your navy’s oversight.’

‘And not from any effort on your part.’

France leant over and kissed England on the cheek, his cool skin growing warm as France stayed close to whisper in his ear, ‘Your misplaced insistence is scaring the children.'

To their left, a small child had wandered away from their family and now stood close enough to likely hear them. He stared up at them, wide-eyed and baffled until his mother clucked for him to come away.

England stepped rather rudely on France’s shoe, ‘If anyone’s scaring them, it’s you.’

They fell into silence, sinking under the general chatter of the people around them and the sound of the waves breaking against the concrete embankment below.

‘When do you leave for the Falklands?’(3) France asked after a while, risking a taste of his coffee. It was disappointingly English, ‘I assume you’re going, now that things have become serious.’

‘As soon as this is done.’

France nodded and nudged him gently with his shoulder. ‘How far you have fallen. Surely your navy isn’t quite so lacking that now they’re forced to recruit your long-fallen flagships.’

England smiled, safely hidden at the corner of France’s eye, ‘Depends on who you ask.’

‘Well, if you ask me-‘

‘I’m not.’

‘You should, you know. I’d give you the truth.’

England laughed, a sharp bark, ‘Why are you really here, Francis.’

France ignored England’s eyes on him and shrugged, ‘Just to watch.’

‘Just to watch. Why?’

‘Why not?’

England snorted, disappointment shown only in the downturn of his mouth, and turned away.

----------------------------

It didn’t happen.

Deteriorating weather, a problem with the crane, some drama between the Mary Rose Trust and the army personnel that were helping them- it didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. What was one more day to her or to them, after so many centuries waiting.

That night, quiet and contemplative in England’s small hotel room, France closed his eyes to the memory of canon fire and felt for England’s familiar hand in the dark.

----------------------------

If England was still curious as to why France had stayed with him to watch the Mary Rose be raised, or why he was there in the first place, he didn’t let it show. He left for the harbour early the next morning, jangling the hotel room keys before France’s bleary eyes and placing them silently on the bedside table. France found him again later in the same spot as the day before, when the sun was actually up and thus made the goings on visible.

It was just as busy as the day before. Boats of all sizes bloomed like algae on the water and the crowds watching on the harbour grew larger every passing hour.

‘I wonder if they’ll find clothes,’ France mused before the worst of the onlookers had arrived. It was overcast and cool, the temperature made bitter by the morning, and France stood chilled next to England who was annoyingly content with it all.

‘I doubt it. Been down there for too long, most of it will have rotted away.’

‘I hope there’s still something caught up there. I like it when they find everyday items in these sorts of things: combs and clothes and such. Little reminders of what things were once like every day.’

‘They won’t find much. Far too old.’

‘It would be nice if they did. I don’t have anything from that far back. Nothing fabric, anyway.’

England watched a seagull pass overhead, screeching loudly, ‘What on earth would you do with it?’

‘Nothing.’ France shrugged, ‘Have them restored and put in a museum, most likely. Using them isn’t the point. Remembering and admiring them is, looking upon examples of who we were and how we lived.’

‘Is that why you’re really here? To steal any potential treasure they find?’

France scoffed. ‘Hardly. Damp and rotten English fabric has no value for me.’

‘Mock it, then.’

‘Far more likely.’

England shook his head and picked at his coat sleeve.

France leant his head on his elbow and watched England’s fingers, remembering fat gold rings with inlaid expensive stones which had once sat there. Smaller hands, a youth’s hands- skin stained black with gunpowder beneath torn lace. England had never been able to keep himself from ruining his clothes. He walked through delicate things like cobwebs, hardly seeing them at all, a magpie-like need for finery without understanding its function.

‘It’s strange to think about us doing that now, isn’t it?’ France mused.

England stopped and looked up, ‘Wearing those sorts of clothes?’

France nodded to the waves, ‘Us warring on the Channel. The Channel of all places. Odd, isn’t it, how that sort of thing feels like strangely like childhood.’

‘This isn’t the Channel, this is-’

‘Oh, stop it, you know that’s not what I meant.’

‘Either way, say the word,’ England’s face was serious but his eyes betrayed him, ‘It’s been far too long without practice in my opinion. You’re too close for comfort these days- quicker boats and planes and all that.’

‘There are talks of a tunnel, you know.’ (4)

‘God.’

‘One road to connect us.’

‘Abysmal.’

‘I can be here within an hour or two.’

France was surprised when all England did was give a short, quick laugh, ‘I suppose I’ll need to change my locks.’

----------------------------

Despite several signs to the contrary, eventually something notable did happen.

A rippling of the water, the line of the crane rising, and then the old wreckage of the Mary Rose slowly emerged to the modern day in her metal coffin. From the docks and the televisions, sixty million people watched the blackened ribs of her cracked belly emerge to a thunderous cheering and the cannon fire of reawakened city defences. The first breath of air she’d felt in nearly five hundred years, the old Tudor wood greeting a new Elizabethan age.

Watching her return on modern concrete embankments, her last living sailor smiled widely to see her. England’s expression softened to something younger and boyish as the old ship became visible, as if greeting an old friend after years apart.

France tried to see it through his eyes, past the dark remains and the sludge to find something beautiful or special. Something which matched the colours and the vibrancy of the period that he remembered, hopeful nostalgia given physical form.

It was a disappointment. Nothing remained of the old ship but fingers of dark wood, skeletal and misshapen. All else was lost: the once tall, straight mast, the billowing sails, and her black shiny cannons over a beautiful crafted wooden hull. She had been beautiful. What was left behind was nothing at all but a lump of something undefinable, impossible to see as a ship at all without being told so.

Yet England was still smiling, relaxed and loose as he took in the crowds and the scene on the water.

France shook his head and dug his cigarettes out of his pocket. ‘You look as if she has returned whole.’

To his regret, now aware that he was being watched, England’s easy openness vanished, face smoothing back under his usual control, ‘Shut up.’

France offered him a cigarette, ‘There is nothing wrong with that. Though I admit that I had hoped there would be more. From what the news had been saying-‘

‘This is more than they ever thought we’d get. And even fifty years ago, this wouldn’t have been possible. Humanity’s come a long way.’

‘Maybe too far.’ France cupped his hand around his lighter to protect it from the wind and held the cigarette in his lips. The smoke filled his lungs, sweet and safe. ‘I hoped to see something I recognised. All this fanfare and money and all you’ve got for your troubles is a few pieces of old wood.’

‘It’s more than I had before.’

‘But aren’t you unhappy with that? Didn’t you hope to find more; for her to be better preserved, at least?’

England thought for a moment, flicking the end of his cigarette with his thumb to scatter the ash in the breeze. ‘No,’ he said eventually, ‘I think no matter what she could have looked like, she wouldn’t live up to how I remember her.’

He paused. Then added, ‘Those ships were once everything. The fastest travel, the most powerful weapons, the only way to get safely off my land with any distance. I think that if she had come back perfectly whole, I would find her more disappointing; I’d only see how jarringly small she is against everything else.’

France considered this. ‘You are right in that this is an odd world she has come back to. Nothing is the same from when she sank, not the look of the shores nor even the language. Technology, ideas, religion-’

‘I’m still here,’ England said. A hint of his soft smile had returned, eyes back on the strange crane and its messy cargo. ‘It’s the same soil. Same air, same skies. That’s essentially what we are, isn’t it. The passing things no one thinks about which change on the surface but remain the same underneath.’

France didn’t reply and England coloured, seemingly only then aware of what he’d said. ‘Besides. Who else would know exactly what’s missing but us. I’d rather think about what’s still there.’

‘There I was, thinking you’d gone sweet.’ France flicked the end of his cigarette into the water below them and hooked one arm through England’s, ‘The Falklands ignored for this; I would never have guessed you’d favour sentimentality over current politics.’

‘I don’t.’

A lie, a lie. England young, his small hands smoothing mud over his old torc, hoping to keep it hidden and safe from harm. He could have instead given it to please Rome: new, hungry invader eager for twists of Celtic gold. A lie, a lie- England at his Plantagenet court, eyes on the windows to the sea and the unknown beyond whilst behind his back his monarchy and way of life tore itself apart, a dirty boy in fine clothes who’d have been just as happy in rags if they’d kept him warm.

A lie, a lie. Arthur after Alfred left, more heartbroken that he should have been for the loss of one colony among many.

France smiled, ‘Of course you don’t.’

They looked out to the boats and the crane in silence, listening to the crowds and the seagulls overhead. The unchanging sounds of millennia, birds and welcoming crowds watching as ships with their sailors returned to them.

Glancing down the seafront, to the people young and old clapping and shouting with the ancient city at their backs, England seemed to read France’s thoughts. He stepped closer, their arms still linked- a solid weight against France’s side. ‘It’s all the same thing, isn’t it. Just dressed differently.’

France thought of all the things he’d had and lost over the years, from delicate gold trinkets to wooden shoes, handmade woollen tunics to the finest silks. Different versions of his long life kept safe and lost somewhere in the soil. Whether they were whole or not didn’t bring the past any closer.

Maybe, merely closure was enough.

‘Yes. I suppose so.’

----------------------------

AN:

A huge thanks to the always wonderful TheDisappointedIdealist12 for kindly beta reading this more times than needed and being my creative sounding board. Thank you for your help, your friendship, and for everything else

Historical Notes:

The Mary Rose was, as touched on in this fic, an English battle ship which sailed from 1511- 1545 and was a key part of several major battles between England and France. She was sunk in July of 1545, theorised due to the reasons listed here- overfull with men and heavy, she keeled over in the water when she was turned to fire guns. Aside from this, the sinking could also have been due to gunports being left open (let all the water in as she turned), the wind hitting the sails at the wrong time, or age making her too heavy. Potentially, it was a combination of several reasons. She sank not far from the port of Portsmouth, in the Battle of the Solent. She was raised in 1982, when this fic is set. Learn more about the Mary Rose here! https://maryrose.org/about-the-mary-rose/

King Henry VIII was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for running through wives like there was no tomorrow in a violent, unstoppable fashion, and spending lots of England’s gold. Much of this gold was stolen from looted monasteries he had decided weren’t very important any more, after he’d turned the Kingdom Protestant from the traditional Catholic just to marry his mistress (whom he later beheaded- yay!). The Mary Rose was said to be his favourite ship, and he tried to have her raised in his lifetime

Falklands War: The Falklands War, a not officially declared war between the United Kingdom and Argentina which lasted 10 weeks. It was fought over the British territory of The Falklands (Islas Malvinas) which lies off the coast of Argentina in 1982. The war spanned April to June, and the Mary Rose was raised in May with the British Army being heavily involved. As both were happening at once, many soldiers involved in the raising had friends or knew those in other units who were at that moment going off to fight. It made things somewhat tense and frustrating, according to some involved (This is the documentary I watched whilst researching this topic, I recommend giving it a watch! It has interviews with some soldiers who comment about this odd situation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAJgKunmGdk)

Channel tunnel: The Channel Tunnel, the underground route between the south of England and the north of France connecting Dover to Callais, was only built in 1994- 12 whole years after this fic is set. Arthur has a few years of peace left

[blacknwhitemood]

Back side:

Some details - See You and It's called a heart in red:

This is my 7" DM singles collection, I put front and back side photos by the year of release order. I'm goint go buy three more rare singles tomorrow, I'll show them in another post (you can read full story here). I collect only original DM vinyls, I try to catch cheap pieces with a bit of luck. Some of sellers offer me lots of 12" maxi singles but I have to draw the line somewhere. I have only one, Live In Silence (11,5 minutes long version), I love it, I listened to it 100 times on youtube and it was very cheap because of the paper cover's bad condition. No CDs or DVDs - except... I found at the same sellers two late songs (Wrong; Only When I Lose Myself - see photos below), I sang this two songs endlessly times while I was practicing for karaoke party. And the DVD: I don't trust youtube as much as I trust something that is in my hand. I can watch my favourite videos anytime in the best quality.

7" singles

Just Can't Get Enough / Any Second Now 1981 Made in France

See You / Now, This Is Fun 1982 Made in England

Everything Counts / Work Hard 1983 Made in West Germany

Peoplpe Are People / In Your Memory 1984 Made in France

Master And Servant / (Set Me Free) Remotivate Me 1984 Made in France

It's Called A Heart / Fly On THe Windscreen 1985 Made in West Germany (red vinyl)

Shake The Disease / Flexible 1985 Made in Holland

A Question Of Lust / Christmas Island 1986 Made in Belgium

A Question Of Time (remix) / Black Celebration live 1986 Made in West Germany

Strangelove / Pimpf 1987 Made in Belgium

Never Let Me Down Again / Pleasure Little Treasure 1987 Made in West Germany

Behind The Wheel (remix) / Route 66 1987 Made in West Germany

World In My Eyes / Happiest Girl 1990 Made in France

12" maxi singles

Live In Silence (Longer) / My Secret Garden / Live In Silence (Quieter) 1982 Made In West Germany

CD / DVD

Wrong / Oh Well (maxi CD, 2009) Only When I Lose Myself / Headstar (maxi CD, 1998) The Videos 86>98 (DVD, 2000)

[corvuserpens]

A Girl, An Ocean {A Black Sails Fanfic} - Ch. 4

Fandom: Black Sails Rating: Teen and up audiences Warnings: Displays of misogyny, gendered slurs Category: Action adventure with romance Characters: Billy Bones, Hal Gates, De Groot, Jean DuBois, OC, NPCs (I don't know how else to name any extra OCs I come up with for plot purposes lmao) Relationships: Billy Bones/OC, Hal Gates/OC (paternal), Jean duBois/OC (bffs) Additional tags: Original character-centric, first person POV, canon character x original character romance, self-discovery journey, kinda alternative prequel to canon, canon compliant, slow burn, mutual pining, friends to lovers, tooth-rotting sweetness, cute but also sexy, angst galore, found family, Hal Gates has two children now, canon typical violence Series: Part One of Six of A Girl, An Ocean Chapters: 4/13 Summary: Mr. Folsom continues to be a prick, so Constance teaches him a lesson about what happens when you disrespect her. Much swearing follows.

Author's note: Trying to post these weekly while doing my Master's project/thesis is HARD but right now this fic is the only thing keeping me sane. Next chapter will be a bit more exciting 😉

Chapter iv.

The following day didn't pan out much better than the previous. Mr. De Groot remained patient as he taught me, and even let me steer the helm for a few minutes so I could gain a feel for it. The wheel was much heavier than I had anticipated, difficult to turn, and the coxswain explained it was due to a combination between the influence of the currents on the rudder and the steering tiller that connected it to the helm. He called on Tanner, his apprentice, to take over so he could take me below decks to show me. Before returning to the surface we passed by the great cabin, where all the maps, logs and navigation instruments were kept when not in use.

There, we found a man around my age with large green eyes behind a pair of wiry spectacles hunched over a ledger, quill flying over the page he was working on. He paused momentarily to look up and see who it was, then put the feather in its ink well to stand up.

"Mr. Dufresne, good morning." De Groot encouraged me forward with his hand. "I don't believe you've been introduced to our newest recruit, yet?"

"I have not." The man named Dufresne walked around the desk to shake my hand. "Hello. Constance, is that right?" "Indeed," I replied with a cordial smile which he didn't bother returning. "A pleasure, welcome aboard." At least he had manners, so I considered myself satisfied. "Thank you, sir." "Oh, please, you may do away with the "sir"." He shook his hands with a blush. "I only have a year of seniority over you. Dufresne is fine." De Groot gave his shoulder a pat. "He is our purser. Any complaints you may have with your wage or if you need access to the ship's funds, he's the man you come talk to." "And if you'll forgive me, I have much work to do. So, with your permission..." "Of course, of course." De Groot let him return to his post with the ledgers. "We won't disturb you long, I just want to show Constance some of our charts." "Take your time." Dufresne adjusted his glasses and took up the quill once more. Meanwhile, De Groot reached into a mahogany drawer and pulled out old, stained charts, which he laid out with care on the second, smaller desk to the side. I hadn't noticed before, but the cabin was furnished with shelves stocked with countless books, like a compact library. Clearly, Flint was highly literate. I wondered what kind of books he enjoyed and if anyone in the crew could have access to them. Not that I would be having much time to read in the following months.

The map De Groot chose for me was a very old, stained map of the west coast of England, complete with the Isle of Man and surrounding islands, plus a piece of the eastern Irish coast. He figured I would be more familiar with that part of the world than the Bahamas. I was allowed to take it with me to study for a few days. The goal was to charter a course from England to Ireland, with Bristol as a starting point.

Afterwards, it was back to knot lessons with Mr. Folsom. His mood had not improved over night, sadly. Before teaching me the two remaining knots I had to learn, the zeppelin and bowline, he made me repeat the other three to make sure I had gotten it through my skull. The stopper and the clove hitch I managed with ease, but the butterfly continued to be a source of endless frustration. I still hadn't figured out how to make it properly. Folsom didn't bother showing me how to do it again; he forged ahead to the other two. The zeppelin, meant to tie two rope ends together, wasn't so bad. He explained that there was a similar knot, the square knot, that did the same job, but was far less secure. He showed me the two knots for comparison and insisted I learned the zeppelin and use it above the square knot.

But the bowline... God in heaven, the bowline. It was a perfectly fine knot, as far as they go. It was the knot to use when you wanted to tie off a launch, a dinghy or anything you wanted so it wouldn't drift away. He made it look so easy to tie off, but when I tried, all I did was tangle myself in the rope. After the first three attempts, Folsom waved me off, told me to practice that and the butterfly, and scurried up the shrouds once again.

I was in in the middle of my nineteenth try when Mr. Gates approached me. In his hand, he held a thin document tied off with a string.

"There you are," he said as a greeting. "Got something here for you to read and sign."

I set my practice rope aside to take a look. My brow tensed into a divot. "What is this, Mr. Gates?"

"The Articles of the Walrus," he explained. "Every ship has them, though they vary from one to the other. Think of it as an employment contract. This lists the set of duties you are obligated to as a member of the crew, as well as your rights. I would encourage you to read them over with care, then come see me to sign them. We'll find someone to serve as a witness, should legal liabilities arise, and once your name is set in them, you will officially be a part of this band of bandits." He smiled at me, eyebrows arched. "Sound good?"

I let my fingers brush over the words, heart beating fast with excitement and anticipation. I returned Gates' smile with my own, forgetting about my struggles with the ropes for a minute. "Aye, it does."

The quartermaster gave me a tap on the arm, satisfied. "Take your time with them, alright? You don't have to sign right away or even today. If you have any questions, come and find me."

"Will do, Mr. Gates. Thank you."

He offered a little bow and was off. Meanwhile, I took the opportunity to take a quick break from my lessons to at least read the first page (there were three of them in total).

Like Gates had said, it was a list of rules to be adhered to while on the ship, and nothing I hadn't expected already: loyalty to the captain and crew, to perform my various duties well, monetary compensation and access to healthcare should I suffer any injuries while on the job and even severance pay in case I decided to leave or circumstances forced my departure. Truthfully, I was flabbergast at such conditions. My cousin in the army complained copiously about the poor wages and the lack of protections should the worst come to pass. This was... surprisingly fair. Had I any way to contact him, I might have counseled him to become a pirate instead. I smiled at the thought of his face, receiving such a letter.

But the most surprising detail of the Articles were the wages. I had to rub my eyes to make sure they were working properly and looked again. How much you got paid depended on the haul wielded by a potential prize and its wealth was to be equally distributed by all members of the crew. No exceptions. Not for the quartermaster nor the first mate, not for the boatswain or even the captain. Aboard the Walrus, all men worked equally, so they shared equally. It was remarkable.

A sharp whistle from above startled me. It was Folsom, hanging from the larboard main sail yard tip, glaring at me.

"Have you got the fucking knots done yet?!" He bellowed.

In a hurry, skin going damp with sweat as I stashed the Articles somewhere safe from the wind, I returned to my practice. I did wish the men wouldn't swear quite so much...

One hour later, I had finally figured out the butterfly, having repeated it correctly five times in a row. The bowline continued to elude me, however. When the lunch bell tolled, Folsom came back down to see my progress. I pursed my lips and dipped my chin while he looked over my knots. He stared at me with malice, causing a chill to run down my spine.

"Took your time, but you finally got it, eh?" He smoothed his tongue over a gap where a tooth used to be. "Don't think I forgot my promise to take you up to the yards. We need to verify if you've learned, right? I hope so, for the crew's sake. Would be awful if someone got hurt due to your lack of talent, wouldn't it?"

I stared at him horrified, chest locking up, making it hard to breathe. He had to be joking. Please be joking, please say you're just hazing me and you're not actually serious.

But all he did was laugh in my face and turn his back on me to follow the others to the mess hall. I remained, feet bolted to my spot and eyes up on the sails as if they were ghosts swaying in the wind.

***

While everyone was having lunch, I sat cross legged on my hammock with the Articles, trying to keep my mind away from my afternoon test. I couldn't focus on the words, however. Before I knew it, I was reading the same sentence time and again without assimilating a single thing.

Maybe I should take it up with Gates. Surely he wouldn't allow Folsom to let me take on such great responsibility so early in my career. If the crew's general safety and the ship's capacity was at risk for it, the quartermaster should be notified and it wouldn't count as my seeking favoritism, would it? I was just doing my job.

Oh God, but what if that spelled trouble for Folsom? He would know I had been the one to rat him out and then my life would really become hell. Plus, he would tell the rest of the crew I was a snitch and I would be kicked out before the ink dried on the Articles. On the other hand, if the rigger was being serious about his test and someone did get hurt (or, heaven forbid, got killed), they wouldn't blame Folsom for it. They would blame me, the novice who didn't learn properly, the girl who had no business being on a pirate ship.

No matter which way I looked at it, I was, for lack of a more suitable term, pretty much fucked. Even just thinking the profanity made me blush and silently beg forgiveness.

Jean found me slumped over the Articles. "Salut! I didn't see you at lunch." He leaned over to get a proper look at me, eyebrows knit together with concern. "What's with that face? Did something happen?"

I sighed and figured he was probably the only person to whom it was safe to talk about my dilemma. Hopefully he could assure me that Folsom wouldn't go through with it, that he was all throat and it was meant to scare me, nothing more.

Boy, was I wrong.

When I finished telling him everything, he had a sour look on his face. "Damn, what an asshole. Oh, uh, sorry." He grinned sheepishly and shrugged when I winced. "You get used to it, I mean... ever heard the phrase "swearing like a sailor?" Anyway, that wasn't at all what it was like with me and Will Robins. No matter how many times we got it wrong, he would accompany us step-by-step and tell us exactly where we were making the mistake. We learned all the knots in a couple of days. And he didn't take us up to the yards but a week from our initiation."

My chest deflated with a long, despairing breath. "Do you really think he's gonna make me mess up on purpose?"

"Jesus Christ, I hope not. Someone could get seriously hurt. And Gates would have his head." He paused and took a minute to think. "Maybe you should tell him about this."

"I can't," I bemoaned. "Folsom would know it was me, and then what? If the whole crew finds out I talked to Gates, they will have grounds to vote me out and he won't have a choice but to accept it or risk mutiny."

"Tell Billy, then." He suggested. "He would get him in line and make sure no one found out about your involvement. Constance, you can't get on the yards without knowing the proper knots and how to tie them effectively, it's dangerous."

I only had one option, then. It wouldn't be pretty, and it would be risky to my reputation all the same, but at least I would be alone in bearing the brunt of the consequences. No one needed to get hurt but me.

With a deep, uneven breath to rein in the anxiety gnawing at my stomach, I put the Articles aside and hopped off my hammock. "Don't worry, Jean. That's not gonna happen. Thank you for your advice. I will take it into consideration." And I walked past him to face my destiny, whatever it might be.

Back on the main deck, I marched up to Folsom at the starboard shroud. He was talking to two other riggers, whose names I didn't know. They were laughing about something. When one of them saw me coming, he tapped Folsom's shoulder and pointed. Folsom twisted around and smirked, arms crossed. "I was starting to think you had bolted. Let's get this over with then, shall we? Come on." He grabbed onto the shroud line and jumped onto the bulwark.

I squared my shoulders and planted my feet firm on the floor boards. "No."

Folsom froze just as he had set a foot on the rat lines. His cold gray eyes narrowed at me. "What?"

"This is dangerous and you know it. I haven't had the time to properly learn the knots! If I go up there with you, it's a recipe for disaster." My voice started out shaky and insecure, but as I progressed, it stabilized and grew more firm. "I won't risk my life or the crew's for your sick joke and your prejudice."

That mean little smirk returned to his toothless mouth. I hated how victorious he looked. It made me want to push him overboard. "I taught you the fucking knots. If you didn't learn them right, then maybe you're just not cut out for this. It's not your fault. Women just don't belong in ships, s'all."

A blinding rage set fire to my innards, for once making my face flare up not with shame, but with rage. "Like hell you taught me the knots. If you had bothered teaching me like you did with Jean and Will maybe I might have learned already, but you didn't!"

By then, our argument had garnered a small crowd which formed a circle around us. I could feel their stare on me, and it unnerved me, but I kept my eyes on Folsom and focused on my point.

"You saw I was struggling and didn't help. You saw me practice for hours on end, going in circles, and couldn't care less, and now you want me to go up the yards with you? It's not my fault you're such a f... F... a FUCKING prick of a teacher!"

I had to shout the swear, or else it wouldn't have come out. The crowd burst into laughter, some of them bending over, clutching to their sides, finding my puritanical hiccup hilarious. But not Folsom.

He dropped onto the deck with a stomp akin to a gun shot, face twisted with anger, murder in his eyes. He advanced toward me and hovered, nose inches from mine, but no matter how intimidated I felt, I refused to move. Maybe I shuddered a little, but that was it.

"What the fuck did you say to me?" He growled.

Despite the fear pumping in my veins and how dry my mouth was, I forced a smile on my lips and seized the opportunity. "If you didn't hear me properly the first time, then maybe you're not as smart as you think you are."

A long chorus of "uuuuu" filled the deck. Folsom raised his hand, making me shrink back in preparation for the blow. "You fucking cunt--!"

"That's enough, Folsom!"

The rigger froze, looked to the side. As I slowly lowered my arms, I followed his gaze: Mr. Gates was bulldozing his way through the crowd, shoving aside anyone who didn't move out of his way in time. His cheeks were red with anger, mouth set on a stern line beneath his mustache. Jean trailed after him, his face a mask of pure anxiety. I hadn't noticed him among the others, but he must have been there and ran to fetch the quartermaster when the argument started escalating.

Gates stopped between Folsom and I, fists on his hips as he turned from one to the other repeatedly, waiting. Although he was taller than Gates, Folsom shriveled under his glare.

"Well? Anyone care to explain what the fuck's going on here?"

I said nothing. Figured it was Folsom's responsibility to tell him, since this was mostly his fault.

"This brat--" he pointed a finger at me. "Is refusing to learn how to manage the rigging and is blaming me for it. Like it's my fault she's too daft to learn or that I'm somehow responsible for her cowardice."

Oh, that son of a... "Excuse me? He's the one who showed me how to tie the knots once and then left me to figure it out on my own! And now he wanted me to climb to the yards and learn the rigging, when he knows I can barely do those knots."

"Shut your trap, you little--!"

"YOU shut your trap," Gates ordered. "Before I knock what's left of your teeth! So she's not learning anything from you, is that it? Funny, because from what De Groot, Thierry and Bjorn said, she's been proving to be hard-working and eager to learn."

Thierry and Bjorn were the two men who had been into storage with me, the previous day. They had given me the worst tasks, ordered me to carry the heaviest weights and laughed when I struggled, panting like a dying animal. I never imagined they would then report back to Gates and praise me.

I scanned the crowd for their faces -- there they were. Bjorn, barrel chested and fiery red hair with a braided beard to match, and Thierry, with round cheeks the color of ebony and an easy smile on his lips. They were watching the whole thing like it was the most entertaining piece of theater they had seen and smirked at me with approval in their eyes.

Folsom's fists clenched and unclenched as he searched for a better argument to make. I crossed my arms and raised my chin, savoring how he squirmed. Gates pinched the bridge of his nose, then snapped his fingers.

"I know how to solve this conundrum. You--" he pointed to Folsom. "Have two days to teach her how to tie the fucking knots. And you--" his finger swerved to me. "Have two days to learn them. If she can't tie the knots with her eyes closed by then, you will both regret it. Do I make myself clear?"

I thought it was unfair that I was being threatened with punishment along with Folsom, but this early into the game, I didn't have the guts to argue with Mr. Gates. Therefore, reluctantly, I bit my tongue and nodded. Folsom swore under his breath, but also waved out a hand air in annoyance. "Fine."

"That's settled, then. Two days. Don't disappoint me. Either of you." Mr. Gates turned his back on us and slid through the crowd. "Don't you people have anything to do? Get back to work!"

The men scattered like roaches to return to their posts. Before he left, Jean and I exchanged a look: his of concern, mine of gratitude. I nodded to let him know I was fine, and he left as well.

"Fucking hell..."

I looked to Folsom, who was still fuming but steadily calming down. He pegged me with a glare which I returned, scrunching up my brow and slitting my eyes to make myself as menacing as possible. I was done letting him or anyone else on this crew treat me like garbage. They could tease and haze all they liked, but when I felt they've gone too far, I was going to speak up.

The rigger shook his head. "Alright. Get over here."

I followed him to the highcastle, but we didn't climb the stairs. Instead, he sat on the steps and motioned for me to do the same.

"Do you have your practice ropes?"

I pulled them out of my pocket and placed them on his extended hand.

"Three times around your hand." He acted out the instructions for me to see. "Finger beneath the bottom row. Grab the middle row. Middle finger passes under that row. Slide them all the way over the back of your hand." He held up his perfect butterfly not. "Got it?"

"I believe so," I replied, then prepared to mimic him.

"Three times around your hand..."

He walked me through the whole knot and, what do you know? I got it right on the first try. I held it up for examination and couldn't rein back a small, satisfied smile when he nodded his approval.

"That's good. Adjust it so it's tight around you wrist."

I passed my hand through the hoop and pulled on the line to close it on my arm. It held fast, just as it was supposed to.

"You got it. Now tie it again."

I broke the knot and repeated it without Folsom's instructions, with full confidence. Again, I managed it without struggling.

"The bowline, now." He put one of his feet up so he could bring the line around his ankle. "One loop. Make a cross. Twist the line up and backwards. Pass the end through it from underneath, then under the line, back into the new loop from above. Pull the line to close it."

Again, he explained what I should do, step-by-step, correcting me when necessary. He tugged on the finished bowline to make sure it was secure, then told me to do it again, without help. On the first try, I twisted the rope downward instead of upward, but I soon realized the mistake and corrected it. When I got stumped on how to get the end through, he was quick to remind me, yet let me finish on my own. And there was my bowline, strong and true. By the fourth try, I was able to tie it without any assistance.

It was so easy after learning, I felt doubly annoyed at my mentor. My eyes shot up from my bowline to Folsom's. "Why couldn't you have taught me like this from the beginning?" I said. "It would have been so much easier for both of us."

"Women don't belong in ships," he shrugged. "It's not natural."

"Says who, exactly?"

Another shrug, until he stopped to really think about it, then stammered. "I don't know, God, I suppose. It's just the way things are."

"At the risk of blaspheming, do you see God come down from the heavens to cast me out of the Walrus as He did with Adam and Eve when they were expelled from Paradise?"

"Well, no, but that don't mean anything. God tells me not to sin, yet He won't come down to keep me from it, either."

"Oh, and I'm to believe you make a grand effort not to?" I arched an eyebrow in doubt. Folsom turned away, hands wringing around the line he held. "Exactly. So maybe people just take pleasure in doing what they're not supposed to. I thought that was what the whole pirate philosophy was about? Do what you want and hang the rules. You want to swear and raid and... visit the "ladies of the night" (that got a snort out of him) and I want to sail. Why should I be denied my wish just because I'm a woman? I'm learning, aren't I?"

Folsom chewed on my words for a couple of minutes. While he was at it, I tied a butterfly and a bowline. Both knots were flawless. When I looked up, I caught him half smiling. I set the rope aside and held out my tar covered hand. "You're a good teacher, Mr. Folsom. I want to show I'm a good student, too. Truce?" He stared down at my hand, but soon took it and gave it a firm shake. "Truce." I let go of his palm and grabbed the rope once more. "Now, you said you were going to teach me the cleat hitch next."

"Aye, that I did." He stood up and lead the way to the bow of the ship. "And I'm also going to teach you how to swear, because that teeny wittle "fucking" you choked out was ridiculous." My stomach lurched, both from the reminder of my silly figure and the actual profanity. "In my defense, I'm not used to using swears. My parents wouldn't allow it."

"Had a feeling you were a pampered brat." This insult came out much more casual, without any of the contempt he'd previously laced them with. So, I let it slide. "Well shit, you're a fucking pirate now, so that means you'll fucking swear like one, goddammit."

"Oh my God, stop!" I brought up my hands to my ears to muffle out his voice. They felt hot against my palms, same as my cheeks. "The fuck's the matter with it? Them's just words! When you stub your toe somewhere during a bathroom run in the middle of the night, do you want to say "oh gee golly, that hurt?" No! You want to scream, "ow, shit, my fucking foot!" So you're gonna say as many profanities as you can and you're gonna let your tongue get a feel for them, until they come out as naturally as any other pissing word."

I winced to Folsom's never-ending string of curses. Couldn't even begin to imagine myself putting so many of them into a single sentence. We got to the fifes. Folsom crossed his arms and pinned me with a hard stare. "You know what this is?" I hesitated, already guessing what was coming. "A fife rail," I muttered. "No," he said. "It's a goddamn fife rail. Say it." I swallowed dry and turned the word over in my mouth like it was dirt before trying: "A god-damn f-fife rail." "What? Didn't hear nothing. Spit it out, you cunt."

I glared at him for using that word again. I hated it. My blood boiled in my veins as that old anger stirred up, so much so that, to my shock, the profanity came out much easier. "A goddamn fife rail."

"That's more like it." He grinned at the way I brought my hands to my mouth, face flaming hot. "And you know what you're gonna do with this fife rail? You're gonna tie a fucking line to the pin. Go on."

Oh, God have mercy. "I'm gonna tie a ffff... Dammit, I'm gonna tie a fucking line to the stupid fucking pin!"

Huh. What do you know. It does feel good when you do it angry. Folsom laughed loud and good, reminding me too much of a gull squawking.

"There! There you have it! Fucking hell." He smacked a hand on the rail with a relaxed sigh. "Oh, which reminds me. I'm not a fucking prick." He smirked like a cat about to jump on a mouse. "I'm a fucking asshole of the worst kind."

"You really are, though." I retorted, arms crossing at my front. "An extremely irritating, prejudiced little shit and a cock-faced son of a bitch." Oh, sweet Jesus, it felt too good. My Mother and Father would have fainted if they even imagined I was using such language.

"Alright, alright, don't get excited, you're gonna hurt my feelings." But judging by his big grin, it was clear he was pleased with my rotten mouth.

He taught me the cleat hitch, which I tied with ease. Just like that, my knots (and my swearing) improved from one minute to the next, and I felt certain that we would both pass Gates' test without breaking a sweat.

Before wrapping up the lesson, I remembered there was something else I needed to do in order to become an official member of the crew. I asked Folsom if he would like to do the honors and, surprisingly, he agreed. Therefore, we descended to my hammock to get the Articles, and then it was off to find Mr. Gates.

He was in the great cabin with captain Flint, which was just my luck since I would likely need his presence as well. The door was open when we arrived, all I had to do was knock. "If I may have a moment...? I will be brief."

"Come in," Flint said. Once again, he was sitting at his desk, while Gates occupied the chair across from it. Folsom and I stepped into the cabin to stand by him.

"I have read the Articles as you requested, Mr. Gates. And I think I'm ready to sign. If it's alright with you and the captain, I already brought a witness."

Gates' dark eyes hopped between the two of us with mild surprise, which he was entitled to, since not an hour ago he had seen us at each other's throats. Flint remained impassive, if a little curious.

"I take it you've made your peace with each other, then?" Gates asked cautiously.

"We have, yes." I answered.

Folsom added: "She's not so bad, now that she's gotten her potty mouth."

"Shush, you," I hissed, cheeks flaring up yet again.

Gates chuckled and shook his head. He looked to Flint. "Any objections?"

"Not on my part." He said while smoothing down his beard. "If this is truly what she wants, then go ahead."

Gates pushed the ink well in my direction. I set the Articles on the desk, dipped the quill and scribbled my name in elegant calligraphy, the product of my high class education. I added a swift, bold swirl to my signature, almost like a personal statement. I'm here, this is who I am and this is what I choose.

My old life as a proper lady was over. My new life as a scallywag had officially begun.

***

Two days later, Gates called the two of us to him and ordered me to perform my knots with my eyes closed. I let Folsom tie a blind fold around my eyes, as a precaution and extra flair. Neither one of us wished me to fail, so putting on a bit of a show, though risky, was sure to fortify our success as mentor and pupil beyond doubt.

I tied all five knots without a hitch. Mr. Gates was satisfied with the results, so Folsom and I came away from our ordeal with our hides untanned and pride swelling in our chests.

As we moved on through the weather deck, Folsom turned to me. "What do we say?"

I set my hands on my hips with a bright grin. "Fuck yeah."

"Damn right."

[plaguedocboi]

Before I leave New England does anyone want to help me steal the Moby Dick animatronic from Pleasure Island Massachusetts

[bomberqueen17]

Liveblogging the Aubreyad, book 5: Desolation Island pt 1

We left off after book 4 with Jack sent home with the news of the victorious Mauritius Campaign. The scene opens and we find that his reward for this was an appointment to the Sea Fencibles, which left him ashore for a considerable period of time. But with the various prize-money and head money from the Mauritius campaign he has been buying horses, making improvements to the house, and alas, investing in schemes and playing cards for high stakes.

However, his children are doing well and it seems a new appointment to a ship will be forthcoming. Ashgrove Cottage, as we see, is entirely staffed by sailors and former sailors, who are not intimidated by Sophie's mother, and Killick and Bonden are part of the household. Jack has paid off his mother-in-law Mrs. Williams's debts at least, and she is no longer living with them out of necessity, but rather because she prefers it alas.

Stephen has been staying with them periodically, and Diana Villiers is in England again, and the two have arranged to meet. Stephen's first appearance in the book is destined to be as part of a consultation of a number of physicians concerning Sophie Aubrey's mother's health.

But Jack has news of a new ship, and is eager to have Stephen join him aboard. He's been given command of a fifty-gun fourth-rate, an old unfashionable sort of ship, and it's none other than the Horrible Old Leopard, ostensibly bound for the East Indies by way of Botany Bay where they're to rescue Bligh from another mutiny.

We see the two men ashore a little bit, and come to understand that Stephen, tormented over Diana, has been taking perhaps too much refuge in laudanum, and has made some mistakes in his intelligence-work and, possibly, as a medical man. He is, however, still keen-witted enough to notice that Jack is being cheated at cards. Jack calls out Andrew Wray for it, who is a highly-placed secretary in the Treasury office, but Wray does not respond to the challenge.

They have a dinner before they leave, and have a chance to speak to Peter Heywood, who had formerly commanded the Leopard but also had known Bligh of Botany Bay in former days, had in fact been involved as a youngster in the mutiny against him. TOM PULLINGS attends, and we get a little paragraph to give us some appreciation of how much time has elapsed since the beginning of this series, now at least a decade ago:

Thursday brought Mr Pullings, and in his candid pleasure at seeing Jack and Stephen again he seemed scarcely to have changed from the long-legged, long-armed, shy, friendly, tubular youth Stephen had first met as a midshipman so many years ago; but in fact he was a man of far greater weight, more burly both in character and person. It was apparent, from his competent handling of young George, produced for his inspection, and from his behaviour to Captain Heywood, that he was now in the full tide of his life, and swimming well. His behaviour was of course perfectly deferential, but it was that of a man who had seen a great deal of service, and who thoroughly understood his profession.

Stephen tells Jack he cannot accompany him in the Leopard, and sets off to London to see Diana. But she is not there. She has left hastily and permanently, leaving unpaid bills and another Dear John note for Stephen; apparently government men came and took her away, and then she came back, packed up her things, and left with the American Mr. Johnson again, never to be seen again.

Stephen takes this badly, as you might understand. He is summoned to the Admiralty, where an Admiral in charge of intelligence makes an inept attempt to manipulate him into revealing information about Diana and her friend Louisa Wogan. This only infuriates Stephen, who nearly fights the man, but instead leaves. His friend Sir Joseph Blaine tracks him down and explains what's going on-- one Louisa Wogan was an agent for the Americans and used her charms to extract a great deal of information from various British officials. Diana had forwarded letters for her, and it is unclear how much Diana knew at any point-- likely nothing, but it was possible she was also an agent under deep cover.

What Sir Joseph wants is for Stephen to travel with Louisa Wogan, who has been sentenced to transportation to Botany Bay, and to try to uncover who she was working with. Sir Joseph has arranged for Mrs. Wogan to be transported on the Leopard, as well as some other prisoners, to give the operation camoflage.

Stephen knows that on some level he is being got rid of. He knows too much but has recently been unreliable. They cannot entrust him with any very sensitive missions. They cannot cut him loose. But he is so depressed he agrees to it.

Except Jack then balks, because he does not want to transport prisoners, thinks it ignominious duty for a man-of-war, is furious at the whole idea. Stephen makes a single effort to fix things, gives up, but then Sophie takes over with more spirit than she normally displays, throwing a candle on the floor and making Jack listen to her. Stephen had said he wanted to go, and she wants Jack to go with Stephen. She is, in part, afraid (she confesses this to Stephen earlier) that Jack will get into a duel with Andrew Wray and be killed, but she is also afraid that Jack keeps getting into more trouble with the scoundrels and speculators that are trying to drain away his fortune, and she also worries he has been pining for the sea. So she makes a rare show of temper, and then pleads with him that this would do Stephen good, Stephen has been disappointed by Diana again and must not be left here in England to brood in this cold climate, and surely Jack must do Stephen good. This argument quite destroys any resistance Jack had: he must do all in his power to help Stephen.

So they go.

Soon after departure, in heavy weather, the convicts murder their superintendent, and their surgeon dies falling down a ladder. They were supposed to be a self-sustaining little unit and not be under the purview of the ship's company, but Pullings discovers that their conditions are too squalid to tolerate. He and Jack completely scrap the accomodations originally set out by the transportation board-- a poorly-ventilated cage with awful drainage-- clean the whole area, and rehouse everyone in more reasonable accomodations.

(Stephen is in withdrawal, having quit his laudanum. It makes him very cranky. Jack and Tom are solicitous of him. “They could not tell that his whole person was shrieking for its usual dose, but they did know that he was in need of something, and having no more than kindness, coffee, toast, and orange marmalade, they offered these, together with tobacco.”)

They also, in the storm, have discovered a stowaway aboard the ship. Which is unheard-of, a man-of-war of that period being so starved for hands they would take anyone animate as a volunteer, usually. The young man is so seasick as to be incoherent, a starved little slip of a fellow. After he is taken away to the sick-bay, Pullings admits he's seen him before-- he tried to volunteer, and Pullings heard his educated accent and saw his soft hands and emaciated frame and turned him away, because he thought the work would actually kill him.

(Stephen recognizes him as well; the man had tried to speak to him outside a coffee-shop. He recognizes the name as well. He is Louisa Wogan's hopeless lover, one Michael Herapath, who was interrogated after her arrest but dismissed as knowing nothing of substance.)

We meet Mrs. Wogan, a beautiful young woman with genteel manners. She politely asks if someone can take away the dead rat that she had killed with her shoe. Stephen ascertains that while she knew Diana, she does not know him; Diana never mentioned him, apparently. Stephen also notices here and in a few other places that some of the rats on the ship seem to be sick.

[I'll pause here for some content warnings. As with everything in this series, it's all Period Typical Whatever, and I admit some of it passes by me and I don't notice it, so please be advised, there's probably racism and sexism and worse I'm just not remarking. But I will caution that among the convicts, there's discussion of some of them being "idiots", one of the women is a "half-wit" who in her simplicity has sex with literally any man who asks, and another is a "Gipsy", who tells fortunes and such, though Stephen does treat her as a person.]

The ship goes on about its way, Michael Herapath begins to learn how to be a sailor, and decides to learn how to climb the rigging. He contrives to fall in, and Jack rescues him. He writes Jack a handsome note of thanks, which impresses Jack, and while he is recuperating in the sick-bay (he struck an obstacle on the way down and was mildly injured) Stephen befriends him somewhat.

The second lieutenant, Grant, an older fellow who had his seniority stripped from him at some point for some matter of discipline, leaving him junior to Tom Pullings, is revealed to be a bit of a tedious blow-hard, who does not do subordination very well. He holds forth at length about the only possible place to cross the equator, the place he crossed it, until Pullings quite midlly asks how many times he has performed this feat? Twice, he answers, and Pullings points out that Aubrey has done so a score of times. Jack rejects this-- only eighteen times, he says, as he doesn't count all the times he crossed it when on a patrol that led back and forth over it.

This does not quiet Grant at all. He does not recognize that anyone else might have expertise on anything. He continues on his discourse, unmoved.

But meanwhile some of the convicts are ill, and after a little while it comes out that they are sick with gaol-fever (this is typhus, which had a very high mortality rate before antibiotics were discovered). It spreads throughout the ship's company despite Stephen's best efforts at quarantine (he does not know typhus is spread by lice). As the ship is becalmed in the doldrums or variables near the equator, drifting helplessly, more and more of the crew sicken and die, leaving the Leopard severely undermanned.

Among the sick are Stephen's assistant, an anatomist named Martin from the Channel Islands, and none other than poor Tom Pullings.

Herapath, being well-educated, takes over from Martin as Stephen's assistant in the crisis. Martin survives the fever, but before he can recover dies of pneumonia.

The ship drifts for twenty-three days, and 116 men die. But then the wind picks up at last, the ship begins to run again, and even the sick men perk up and begin to recover. Jack rates Herapath a midshipman to reward him for his service even though Herapath, an American citizen, is thus ineligible for any promotion beyond master's mate.

Stephen begs Jack to stop at the nearest land, which in this case is now Brazil, they having drifted so far west from their course in the doldrums. He needs supplies, and also needs to discharge a number of the gaol-fever convalescents, who are too fragile to survive shipboard life. First among these is Thomas Pullings, heartbroken, and so weak he cannot sit up.

Leading up to this, Stephen has contrived to get Herapath and Wogan time alone together, and has begun to feed documents to Herapath to give to Wogan, to poison her as an intelligence source. She produces some lovely, useful, illuminating letters, which Stephen gets ashore to the American consul in Recife along with his own reports on them, back to Sir Joseph.

Meanwhile the Leopard meets HMS Nymph, carrying despatches but put in to effect some repairs; she reports that there is a Dutch 74-gun ship, the Waakzaamheid, patrolling nearby, which chased her.

Jack has great respect for the Dutch and keenly does not wish to meet any Dutch 74s. As they make their way back across the Atlantic toward the Cape, he tries to get his diminished crew into some kind of fighting condition, setting up his two brass long nines as stern-chasers to be fired from his cabin and bribing his steward, Killick, into allowing this desecration of his housekeeping by letting Killick fire off some of the shots, which works beautifully to pacify him.

They see the Dutchman, and finally make a distant approach, close enough to signal, and after some signaling the Dutchman hoists his own colors and gives Leopard a broadside at extreme range, which does little damage. Leopard flees, but slowly, and they begin to exchange fire with their chasers. At dark, Jack has a barrel set adrift with burning pitch and crackers in it, to decoy the ship away from them, and changes course, pleased with the day's performance and certain to evade the Dutchman in the night.

In the morning the Dutchman is there, closer than before. Jack realizes that they are being driven southward, away from the Cape. This is what happens in a long, determined, eerie chase, the Dutch captain knowing exactly what Jack needs.

One night the Waakzaamheid makes an attempt at boarding, gliding up and opening broadsides, but Jack guesses what he's about, and does not return fire until he sights the boats-- far away, and on the other side of the ship, trying to sneak around him. The attack only fails because an errant breeze favors the Leopard and allows them to get away. They kill a number of Dutchmen in the boats with grapeshot, and barely escape. Jack knows his weak crew could not repel boarders.

He resolves to run down far enough south that the seas will be too rough for such capers again. The Dutchman follows him, much more driven and focused than is in any way warranted by what a dubious prize the Leopard would make. (Jack theorizes that perhaps in the attempted boarding, he killed someone the Dutch captain cared about a great deal; otherwise he cannot explain the dogged pursuit.)

Stephen has begun creating a false document, in French, purporting to have been among the affects of Martin (who had spoken fluent French), pretending to be the report of a French agent discussing British intelligence including all of the double agents therein. He creates this document intending to pretend to have found it, intending to ask Herapath to help him make copies for British authorities, which will thus enable Herapath to bring it to Louisa; this will admirably uncover whether Louisa's American chiefs have any direct connections with French intelligence, by implicating a number of their agents as traitors. Stephen of course has at his disposal a wealth of detail known only to himself, Sir Joseph, and a few men in Paris, to make this document very, very convincing.

Larkin, the master, has been drinking heavily and now snaps and murders one of the Marine officers. They confine him.

They meet a British whaler, who gives them news that they have not seen the Dutchman. Jack asks him to correct his navigational charts of the area, and gets valuable information about various remote islands in the region.

The master having gone insane, Jack realizes his duties had been neglected-- he does not know how much water they have. Stephen notices that Grant seems to be frightened; he has never been in action before. Jack doesn't understand what's wrong with Grant but recognizes something is amiss in his behavior.

The Dutchman appears again. He is stalking them. He chases them with reckless speed. One of the women aboard (the "Gipsy") gives birth overnight, and Stephen has to perform a Cesarian section on her.

The seas are enormous now and the Dutchman, gaining, opens fire with the bow chasers: he means to destroy the Leopard, not take her, for no boarding can be possible in this sea, and any damage to a mast means broaching-to and foundering with all hands and no hope of rescue.

Jack begins to return fire with the stern-chasers. The spray spoils the priming, and Moore, the Marine officer, suggests using a cigar in place of slow match, as one can hold it in one's mouth.

They run this way, exchanging fire, frantic activity; Leopard's mizen-top is hit, Waakzaamheid is gaining. They start their water to increase speed.

A splinter knocks Jack out, hitting his head. He is unconscious for some moments, and Stephen has to stitch his scalp back together.

He drags himself back up, helps run out the gun again. Moore aims and fires it, and Jack is knocked down again, his leg injured. But the shot flies true and hits the Waakzaamheid's foremast, bringing it down, and causing the ship to broach-to.

She is immediately overwhelmed by the following wave and vanishes without a trace.

'My God, oh my God,' [Jack] said. 'Six hundred men.'

I will call an intermission here.

[sixminutestoriesblog]

st. patrick's day

Saint Patrick's Day! Green beer, green clothes, parades and corned beef and cabbage for all! In America, we have a lot of traditions associated with St. Pat's Day and a pleasure in celebrating them whether we're Irish or not - heck, even whether we understand them or not.

So let's take a look at some of the ways we celebrate and what we get wrong - and right.

To start with the man himself, Saint Patrick wasn't Irish. Patrick grew up on the Britain side of things. This doesn't make him British however. At the time, the Isle of Britain was run, mostly, by the Romans and letters from Patrick that have survived see him not only writing them in Latin but signing them as Patricius. Whether he was Roman by birth is still a mystery to this day but his family is believed to have been part of the Roman aristocracy. At sixteen, he was kidnapped and ended up in slavery as a shepherd in Ireland before eventually escaping back to Britain. After receiving training however, he returned to Ireland as a missionary and the rest is - well, not history but certainly lore.

There's some speculation, in fact, that the Saint Patrick of myth was actually two men. Saint Patrick the escaped slave and a bishop sent by Pope Celestine in 431 named Palladius to support the 'Irish believing in Christ' that already lived there.

Did he, or they, at least drive out the snakes? Legend says that St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland and the island has been slither free since. The truth is - according to fossil records, Ireland never had any snakes to drive out. Ireland was under an ice sheet up until the last glacial period and after that it was safely surrounded by water. To save a little bit of the story, some historians believe 'driving out the snakes' was more of a metaphor for driving out the pagan religions of that time instead.

But we totally wear green to avoid getting pinched! Right? Actually - yes. Though the pinching is supposed to come from mischievous leprechauns, not your over-enthusiastic siblings. Apparently, leprechauns can't see you if you're wearing green and therefore, they can't pinch what they can't see. Given our decorations featuring the little people dressed all in green, you'd think that would make it hard for them to find each other but - not really. You see, traditionally - leprechauns wore red.

The pot of gold, sometimes at the end of the rainbow though - that's real(ish).

So is the leprechauns' strange blind spot with green why everything's green on St. Pat's Day? Not really. Green is associated with Ireland, the Emerald Isle, these days but for most of its history, Ireland, and St. Patrick's, color - was blue. Green recently came into prominence during Ireland's struggle with England. Green came to be associated with the Irish side of things and wearing green was a way to show which side of that you were on. The green beer/food though? That's entirely an American thing.

Speaking of green beer, the drinking is an American thing as well. Or, at least, the 'this is a traditional part of the holiday'. In Ireland, Saint Patrick's Day has long been a Catholic religious holiday - and it also happens to fall in the middle of Lent. Originally, the day had a lot more to do with going to church than to the local pub. Which isn't to say no one in Ireland celebrates the holiday with a drink. 'Drowning the shamrock' involved pouring whiskey over a shamrock in the bottom of a glass. The whiskey is then drunk and the soaked plant is thrown over your left shoulder to complete the tradition - and get you some extra luck.

Shamrocks being considered lucky is a part of the holiday. Called 'seamroy' by the ancient Celts, the shamrock was considered a sacred plant. St. Patrick was also supposed to have used the three leaves of the plant to explain the Trinity during his sermons. Like the clover, finding a four leaf shamrock is good luck and five leaves promises a future of vast wealth!

So, yes, a lot of our St. Pat's Day traditions aren't exactly... traditional. Don't discount them or their importance however. Many of the ways we celebrate St. Patrick's Day today are the direct results of Irish immigrants to America. The parades, the corned beef and cabbage, the celebration of Irish traditions - those were all created in the mid to late 1800s by Irish Americans that wanted to celebrate their heritage. So don't feel bad for indulging in a day of parties and eating your favorite food.

Just remember to cut a cross in your soda buns to 'let the devil out' before putting them in the oven to bake for the holiday.

[tailsbeth-writes]

The Rules: Copy the following prompts or make your own, post what fandoms you write for & your followers can request one of the prompts with a ship, character or fandom for a ficlet. Have fun! 

🌈 For all of June, Ficlet Fridays will be Pride themed. This week's prompts are quotes from LGBTQ+ film & TV 🌈

Give yourself over to absolute pleasure. (The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1975)

I can do those things with either a man or a woman. (Brooklyn 99)

When somebody calls you a name, you take it and own it. (Pride, 2014)

You can have anything you want in this world, just close your eyes. (Closet Monster, 2015)

At some point, you gotta decide for yourself who you gonna be. Can’t let nobody make that decision for you. (Moonlight, 2016)

What happens to my soul if I go mad? Does it stay trapped inside or is it floating free? (Holding the Man, 2015)

We're going to Fire Island. It's like gay Disney World. (Fire Island, 2022)

Wild card - send me a quote from a TV show or film of your choice.

I'm using these quotes solely for vibes, I might edit the quote and mesh it in but mostly it's vibes. Also I recommend all of these 🥰

My fandoms: Red, White and Royal Blue, Bridgerton, Skam, Heartstopper & Young Royals. (My aim is to get them done by next Friday as I've got a busy weekend working at Edinburgh Pride 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️)

Tag you're it: @taste-thewaste @thesleepyskipper @priincebutt @sophie1973 @cricketnationrise

@onthewaytosomewhere @myheartalivewrites @softboynick @thinkof-england @firenati0n

And own tag as always 💛

[newmusickarl]

Top 100 Songs of 2024

Thanks to everyone who has followed the 2024 round-up so far, hopefully you’ve discovered something new along the way. If you’re only joining in now, then you’ve arrived at the best time. For the next part of my annual year-end collections, it’s time to share with you my favourite songs of the last 12 months, in the form of one mammoth playlist. Unlike my albums list this one is unranked and it isn’t necessarily what I think are the “best” songs of the year, but more the songs that have ultimately come to soundtrack and define my 2024 in some way.

As ever, in this year’s playlist are plenty of lesser-known gems from some of my favourite new discoveries, the year’s best album cuts, my favourite collaborations, big festival anthems, a few guilty pleasures and, of course, some of 2024’s biggest singles.

As always, for the sake of diversity, I’ve kept it to strictly one song per artist (excluding those who are also included on other tracks as features). This a rule I really wanted to break this year as there were several tracks from Fontaines and Lola Young in particular that should be on here. However, I stuck with my rules and only included one from each, to ensure I could spotlight as many different great artists as possible.

As a bonus for Apple Music users, I’ve also included my mega Best Songs: 2015-2024 playlist, which contains all my annual year-end playlists from the last decade.

So, dive in on your platform of choice, hit the shuffle button and you never know - you might find some inspiration for your own New Year’s Eve mix or your new favourite song. Enjoy!

Listen to the Top 100 Songs of 2024 Playlist:

On Spotify here

On Apple Music here

Listen to the Best of 2015-2024 playlist:

On Apple Music here

My Top 100 Songs of 2024 (in alphabetical order by artist):

1. Paying Bills At The End of The World by Aaron West and The Roaring Twenties

2. Sadness As A Gift by Adrianne Lenker

3. Black Eye by Allie X

4. My Drummer’s Girlfriend by ALT BLK ERA

5. Living A Lie by The Amazons

6. U Should Not Be Doing That by Amyl and The Sniffers

7. I Never Had Control by Another Sky

8. Curse by Architects

9. Kimbara by Barry Can’t Swim

10. Release Myself by Bess Atwell

11. Into The Blue by Best Youth

12. TEXAS HOLD ‘EM by Beyoncé

13. Call Me After Midnight by Bleachers

14. Hunger Games by Bob Vylan

15. Better Now by Bombay Bicycle Club featuring Rae Morris

16. S P E Y S I D E by Bon Iver

17. Alright, Ok! by Bored Marsh

18. Kool-Aid by Bring Me The Horizon

19. Clams Casino by Cassandra Jenkins

20. 360 by Charli XCX

21. Aw, Shoot! By CMAT

22. Hourglass by Cold Cave

23. 3AM (LA LA LA) by Confidence Man

24. Next To You by Deco

25. Little Birds by DIIV

26. Gears by Divorce

27. Split Lip by Dolores Forever

28. Perfect by Du Blonde

29. Houdini by Dua Lipa

30. Balu by Elbow

31. The World’s Biggest Paving Slab by English Teacher

32. Enter The Mirror by Everything Everything

33. Screamland by Father John Misty

34. City Glitter by Fazerdaze

35. Mother by Fiona-Lee

36. Starburster by Fontaines D.C.

37. Gratitude by Foxing

38. Ceasefire by Frank Turner

39. Say Goodbye by Future Islands

40. Blue Jeans & White T-Shirts by The Gaslight Anthem

41. Van Halen by Geographer

42. Holy, Holy by Geordie Greep

43. Gleams by George FitzGerald

44. Living In The ‘20s by Green Day

45. Cover Up the Cover Up by Gruff Rhys

46. Lonely Is The Muse by Halsey

47. V. by Hayden Thorpe

48. Dive by Holly Humberstone

49. 1995 by Holly Macve

50. Uptight by Home Counties

51. Dirt by The Howl & The Hum

52. Buffalo by Hurray For The Riff Raff

53. Gift Horse by IDLES

54. Zombieland by Jake Bugg

55. All You Children by Jamie xx featuring The Avalanches

56. New World (Flow) by Joe Goddard & Fiorious

57. Red Sky by Kaliko

58. G.O.A.T by Kasabian

59. Love You Got by Kelly Lee Owens

60. Not Like Us by Kendrick Lamar

61. I’m Flush by Kneecap

62. Portrait Of A Dead Girl by The Last Dinner Party

63. Merry Old England by The Libertines

64. Love Song by Lime Garden

65. The Emptiness Machine by LINKIN PARK

66. Messy by Lola Young

67. Santa Fe by London Grammar

68. Feast of Tongues by Los Campesinos!

69. Bounce by LYVIA

70. Loud Bark by Mannequin Pussy

71. Hanging by Marika Hackman

72. The End Can Be As Good As The Start by Maxïmo Park

73. Crying Over U by Medium Build

74. Bubblegum Dog by MGMT

75. Greatest Dancer by Nadine Shah

76. Conversion by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

77. No One’s Watching Me by Olivia Dean & Ezra Collective

78. Doubt by One True Pairing

79. You & The Packhorse Blues by Orlando Weeks

80. Somebody Without U by Oscar and the Wolf

81. A Reckoning by Owen

82. Lobster Telephone by Peggy Gou

83. God of Everything Else by Porridge Radio

84. Never Need Me by Rachel Chinouriri

85. Soup by Remi Wolf

86. Adored by Royel Otis

87. People Watching by Sam Fender

88. Deer Teeth by Sega Bodega

89. Everything and Nothing by SOFT PLAY

90. 10,000 Hours by Spielmann

91. Literary Mind by SPRINTS

92. Broken Man by St. Vincent

93. Robin by Swim Deep

94. Drone:Nodrone by The Cure

95. How Can I Love Her More? By The Lemon Twigs

96. Right Back To It by Waxahatchee featuring MJ Lenderman

97. Silver by Wunderhorse

98. Clementine by Yannis & The Yaw

99. Dream Job by Yard Act

100. Elephant by 070 Shake

Thanks for listening! Still to come over the festive period – my favourite EPs & Gigs of 2024!

[coastermaynia]

Coasters on Previous Years' Lists

List of coasters on the prompt lists from 2020-2023, alphabetical by park name!

Adventureland

Dragon (2021)

Monster (2022)

Outlaw (2023)

Alton Towers

Galactica (2022)

Oblivion (2021)

Smiler (2020)

Wicker Man (2023)

Blackpool Pleasure Beach

Icon (2021)

Busch Gardens Tampa

Cobra’s Curse (2022)

Iron Gwazi (2021)

Kumba (2020)

Montu (2023)

Busch Gardens Williamsburg

Alpengeist (2022)

Pantheon (2021)

Verbolten (2023)

California’s Great America

Gold Striker (2020)

RailBlazer (2023)

Canada’s Wonderland

Bat (2023)

Behemoth (2022)

Leviathan (2020)

Yukon Striker (2021)

Carowinds

Copperhead Strike (2020)

Fury 325 (2021)

Nighthawk (2022)

Cedar Point

Corkscrew (2022)

GateKeeper (2023)

Millennium Force (2020)

Steel Vengeance (2021)

Chessington World of Adventures

Dragon’s Fury (2022)

China Dinosaurs Park

Dinoconda (2021)

Dollywood

Lightning Rod (2020)

Thunderhead (2022)

Dorney Park

Steel Force (2023)

Drayton Manor

Shockwave (2022)

Efteling

Baron 1898 (2021)

Vliegende Hollander (2023)

Joris en de Draak (2022)

Energylandia

Zadra (2020)

Europa Park

blue fire (2023)

Silver Star (2022)

Wodan (2020)

Farup Sommerland

Fonix (2022)

Ferrari Land

Red Force (2021)

Fuji-Q Highland

Do-Dodonpa (2020)

Eejenika (2022)

Fujiyama (2021)

Takabisha (2023)

Fun Spot Atlanta

ArieForce One (2023)

Hansa Park

Flucht von Hovgorod (2023)

Karnan (2020)

Heide Park

Colossos (2022)

Krake (2023)

Hersheypark

Candymonium (2020)

Skyrush (2021)

Wildcat’s Revenge (2023)

Holiday Park

Expedition GeForce (2021)

Holiday World

Voyage (2020)

Indiana Beach

Steel Hawg (2021)

Islands of Adventure

Velocicoaster (2022)

Kennywood

Phantom’s Revenge (2020)

Steel Curtain (2021)

Kentucky Kingdom

T3 (2020)

Kings Dominion

Intinidator 305 (2020)

Twisted Timbers (2022)

Volcano (2023)

Kings Island

Beast (2020)

Mystic Timbers (2021)

Orion (2023)

Racer (2022)

Knott’s Berry Farm

GhostRider (2022)

HangTime (2020)

Silver Bullet (2023)

Xcelerator (2021)

Knoebels

Impulse (2022)

Phoenix (2020)

Kolmarden

Wildfire (2020)

Liseberg

Helix (2020)

Marineland

Dragon Mountain (2022)

Motiongate

Dragon Gliders (2023)

Nagashima Spa Land

Hakugei (2021)

Steel Dragon 2000 (2020)

Nanchang Sunac Land

Coaster Through the Clouds (2022)

Oakwood

Speed (2021)

Parc Asterix

Toutatis (2023)

Phantasialand

F.L.Y. (2023)

Taron (2020)

Winja’s (2022)

Plopsaland De Panne

Ride to Happiness (2023)

PortAdventura Park

Dragon Khan (2022)

Shambhala (2021)

Sea World Australia

Leviathan (2023)

Sea World Orlando

Ice Breaker (2020)

Mako (2021)

Sea World San Antonio

Texas Stingray (2021)

Silver Dollar City

Time Traveler (2020)

Silverwood

Aftershock (2023)

Six Flags Fiesta Texas

Dr. Diabolical’s Cliffhanger (2023)

Six Flags Great Adventure

El Toro (2022)

Jersey Devil (2021)

Kingda Ka (2020)

Nitro (2023)

Six Flags Great America

Maxx Force (2021)

Six Flags Magic Mountain

Full Throttle (2023)

Goliath (2020)

Twisted Colossus (2022)

X2 (2021)

Six Flags Mexico

Medusa (2021)

Six Flags New England

Wicked Cyclone (2022)

Six Flags Over Georgia

Blue Hawk (2022)

Thorpe Park

Colossus (2020)

Nemesis Inferno (2022)

Stealth (2021)

Swarm (2023)

Tobu Zoo Park

Kawasemi (2022)

Tokyo Dome City

Thunder Dolphin (2020)

Universal Studios Florida

Rip Ride Rockit (2021)

Universal Studios Japan

Flying Dinosaur (2023)

Walibi Belgium

Kondaa (2021)

Walibi Holland

Untamed (2020)