#so apologies for the anachronistic language

[snezus-christ-risen]

Insult to Injury

Agatha/Rio - 4.1k words - Illness (Agatha)

Debuting what I hope is the first of many AAA fanfics. I had so much fun writing these two and I’ll probably do a second part to this story. I hope you all enjoy this as much as I’ve enjoyed reading all of the fantastic work ya’ll have been putting out! It’s a little messy and there are some NSFW elements. Minors DNI.

~~~

There was something off about the air on that otherwise fresh spring day. It was driving Rio to madness, not knowing what it was or why it was affecting her so strongly. All she knew was that some primal heat drove her forward through the woods, the smell growing stronger with every step she took towards the cottage that stood just beyond the edge of the forest. After spending days apart from her lover, excitement fluttered in her chest at the thought of what state she might find her in upon their reunion. Nevertheless, Rio chose to remain on the scenic route, choosing anticipation over the instant gratification that came with ripping open the fabric of reality and using it as a shortcut.

After a few more steps the scent of sickness snapped into focus, honeyed and intoxicating like an aged brandy. Absent was the heady tang of bloodshed (boo) or the cloying rot of old age; it was something altogether unique and pleasant, drawing her towards the dwelling the same way instinct compelled a bee to the flower fields. Rio took a moment, upon reaching the front door, to shake her body like a dog, hoping to dispel some of the giddiness that had built up during her walk.

Take it easy, she told herself. She will be delicate.

Occasionally Rio needed to remind herself that even at her healthiest, and regardless of her powers, Agatha was still flesh and bone. Just thinking about the delicate nature of her mortal lover was getting her all worked up again, which was the opposite of what she was trying to accomplish. Taking a deep breath, Rio let it out slowly and knocked on the door. She surmised, from the lack of response, that the occupant within was unconscious. Certainly not dead; she would have known if that were the case. Directing a breeze to push the door open, she stepped inside.

There was a bit of a chill in the air, and Rio soon saw why; one of the windows was half-opened, its tattered curtains rippling in the breeze. Though it was technically spring, they had just had a snowfall last week, and the day outside was brisk. Buzzing with anticipation (and a little annoyance at the window situation), Rio crept across the threshold with the quiet energy of an owl readying its talons for a mouse.

She could see a figure sprawled across the bed. Rio closed the space between the doorway and the bedside in just a few strides, eager to investigate the scene. Agatha lay there in a tangle of damp sheets and disheveled hair, breathing noisily through parted lips. Her nose was tinged red and glistening around the nostrils, the skin chapped from rough and repetitive contact. Her skin, flushed pink with fever, peeked through the bindings of her bedding, inviting Rio to touch. But she wouldn’t… not yet…

Grinning devilishly, Rio produced a bushel of baby’s breath in her upturned palm. Her smile faded when she remembered that Agatha was allergic; she didn’t want to kill the woman, at least not before she could have some fun with her. She waved the little white flowers out through the open window before conjuring up an unassuming yarrow. Giving her newest creation an once-over, she identified the perfect leaf… there… and plucked it. It looked tickly enough to get the job done without triggering an allergic reaction. Agatha would already be miserable about taking ill, without the added burden of having to contend with her allergies. Rio didn’t see the point of adding insult to injury.

Twirling the leaf between her thumb and forefinger, she tested it along a naked stretch of thigh. Her leg hairs rose in response to the stimulation, a reminder that, as much as Rio craved her death, there was so much she enjoyed about the complex simplicity of her living flesh - its heat, its softness, the way it reacted when she touched it like this. She continued dragging the leaf along Agatha’s leg, scaling over a twisted hump of blanket before sliding down the exposed curve of her hip. After working her way up inch by inch, over sections of bedsheets and skin, Rio finally settled the frond against Agatha’s throat like a knife.

It was here that she finally stirred, her hand moving just enough to call Rio’s attention to the lace handkerchief she was clutching like a security blanket. Her eyes lit up at this delightful observation as she lifted the leaf from her skin, holding completely still until Agatha settled again with a sigh. Then Rio sat down on the edge of the bed, moving slowly to avoid disturbing her. Disturbing her was still on the agenda, of course, but for that she had something more fun in mind. Leaning in with the concentration of an artist putting the finishing touches on her work, Rio swept the tip of the leaf up the length of Agatha’s nose and back down again. As soon as she got to the reddened rims of her nostrils they twitched, the feather-light touch tickling just enough to make Agatha scrunch her nose. She made a weak attempt to swat away the source of her irritation, brow furrowing as she turned her face into her pillow.

Rio was considering her next course of action when Agatha lifted her head slightly, eyes still closed, lips parted and quivering, and eyebrows raised expectantly. Mesmerized, she watched as Agatha panted softly before plunging her face back into the pillow. The bed rocked gently as she muffled two sneezes - “ih’TSHh!-h’TSHhh’uh” - followed by a long, congested moan.

It was Rio’s laughter, more than the sneezing, that boosted Agatha past the threshold of semi-consciousness. She was still working on opening her eyes all the way, but had the wherewithal to bring her handkerchief up to cover her nose when she turned to look up at Rio. The latter flashed her a cunning grin as she actively fought against the urge to straddle her.

“Bless you,” she purred, tapping her forehead with the tip of the leaf. “What do you have brewing in here?”

She would have stroked it down the length of her nose again if Agatha didn’t grab it immediately, her reflexes surprisingly sharp for someone still waking up in a fever haze. They both held onto it for a moment before Rio released it, hands and eyebrows raised in mock surrender. Agatha immediately tossed it aside, but it didn’t go far, landing on the edge of the bed next to Rio, who brushed it onto the floor. After a brief and unsuccessful struggle to sit up, Agatha settled for propping herself against her pillows, where she proceeded to stare at Rio in a state of mild delirium.

“I think I have a fever,” she said, unexpectedly forthcoming.

Rio opened her mouth in a silent gasp, feigning surprise. Leaning forward, she cupped one hand against Agatha’s cheek, using the other to gently pry her hand away from her nose. With the handkerchief out of the way, she could inspect it to her satisfaction. How much abuse had it taken before she arrived? It seemed to be running relentlessly, the skin around her nostrils painfully raw from all the wiping. Agatha was always so rough with her nose, like she was punishing it for daring to act according to its nature. More than happy to provide the tender loving care it was missing, Rio gave it a kiss before using the pad of her thumb to gently swipe the mess from her upper lip. Agatha shivered as she squinted up at her in silent indignation, too lethargic to object to her fussing.

“My love,” Rio cooed, unable to mask her delight. “You’ve caught a chill.”

“Don’t sound so excited,” Agatha deadpanned, wincing as her voice grated against her throat.

“I can’t help it,” she said, smirking when Agatha jerked to the side to cough before burying her nose in her handkerchief. “Just look at you, you’re pathetic. It’s beautiful.”

Agatha stopped blowing her nose to glare at her. She started to say something but quickly changed course, the catch in her breath and her crumpling expression announcing a more pressing need. It was terrible timing, having just been called pathetic; her ego didn’t want her to back down without a fight, but Agatha knew she didn’t stand a chance against this tickle. Waving her handkerchief like a flag of surrender, she brought it back to her face just in time to smother an itchy-sounding “hiih‘ISHHhyoo!”

Rio watched hungrily as her chest rose and fell, attending to every little snag and pitch change in her breath. Agatha had the tendency to sneeze in pairs, but sometimes the second one needed a little more time to come to fruition, which drove both of them crazy in different ways. When she finally managed to draw a solid breath she held it, nostrils flickering expectantly, before releasing it in an aggravated huff. Rio hummed with sympathy, knowing how much she hated losing a sneeze once it got started. Agatha finished blowing her nose, the crackling rush of loosened congestion quickly giving way to airy, unproductive blows. When she tried to breathe through her nose again, Rio could hear the air squeaking as it struggled through inflamed passageways. Rising from the bed, she padded over to the kitchen, stopping to make a show of closing the open window along the way.

“Where are you going?” came Agatha’s voice, meek and plaintive, from behind her.

“Not far,” she said, infuriatingly vague.

Agatha sank back against her pillows, too tired to pry any further, and watched with drowsy indifference as Rio staged a hostile takeover of her kitchen. Filling the kettle with water, Rio placed it on the trivet before surveying the items on the shelves. She trailed her nails along a row of jars as she contemplated her selection, and every now and then she would make a comment and laugh to herself. When she found what she needed she sat down at the table to prepare her ingredients. Periodically she found her gaze wandering over to check on Agatha, who was drifting in and out of sleep.

As soon as the kettle began whistling Rio removed it from the stove, pouring the water over the satchel of fresh herbs and letting it steep. Agatha was snoring steadily now, which helped Rio to feel a little less guilty about waking her up earlier. She got so distracted watching her that she almost forgot about the concoction cooling on the counter. Rio knew it would be bitter, so she added a generous amount of honey to help with the taste. She took a sip before recoiling with a full-bodied shudder; it was definitely sweet enough, but it was also a whole bunch of other things that Agatha was going to hate.

Rio was finishing up in the kitchen when Agatha woke up again, looking confused as she wiped her mouth, then her nose with the back of her hand. She had managed to glean enough energy from her short nap to sit upright, but that was as far as her body would allow her to go. Her sinuses adjusted quickly to the change in altitude, congestion softening and shifting and - “h’heh!” - tickling. Grabbing a clean handkerchief from the nightstand, Agatha tried to nip it in the bud with a series of forceful blows. While it left her feeling woozy, it also managed to scratch at the deep, quivering itch in the center of her face, reducing it to a mild annoyance. Just in time for her other mild annoyance to return.

“What do you have there?” she asked as Rio strolled over, sucking honey off her fingers one by one.

“Poison.” She gave her most menacing grin, short of showing her true face. “To put you out of your misery.”

She handed the cup to Agatha with a wink, her smile softening as she rejoined her on the bed. Agatha stared into the murky amber contents of her cup before glancing back up at Rio, expression unsure. Snorting out a laugh, Rio gave her a nod of encouragement.

“Drink,” she insisted. “It shouldn’t kill you, but it might help you feel better. I make no guarantees either way.”

Agatha hesitated before bringing the cup to her lips, testing the temperature of the liquid. Finding it suitable, she took a sip, closing her eyes tightly and screwing up her face as she swallowed. Not only was her throat raw, but the drink had a pungent, peppery aftertaste that made her sinuses prickle. Shaking her head, she tried to return the cup, but Rio resisted, folding her arms and leaving Agatha with no choice but to hold it.

“I know, it’s awful,” Rio sympathized, misreading the situation. “But I think it might help with the-”

“Would you just t-take it, please…”

As soon as Agatha spoke, Rio realized her mistake. Her voice only ever sounded that breathy and desperate for two reasons, and Rio was almost certain she could rule out one of them. Moving quickly, she took the cup from Agatha, who managed a wobbly look of gratitude before steepling her hands over her nose. Her shoulders scrunched up with the first palm-drenching release and Rio shivered, finding herself, as she often did, envious of her lover’s hands.

“hih’tCHSHh!-u… h’hiih!” The tickle teased her for a bit, making her breath flutter indecisively, before culminating in a spraying conclusion. “hihh’YSHHhhieu!”

With how messy those sneezes had been, Agatha was in no hurry to lower her hands. She kept them locked in place, attempting to rein in the persistent flow of congestion with slow, careful sniffles as she cast about for a handkerchief. Spotting the lacy white square crumbled up between the bedsheets, she reached for it, keeping one hand cupped protectively over her nose. Rio beat her to it, seizing the handkerchief with a victorious cackle.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, dangling it in front of Agatha, just out of reach. “Bit of a mess on your hands?”

Rio knew she was poking the bruises of an already wounded ego, but it didn’t stop her from looking aggrieved when Agatha leaned forward to yank the handkerchief from her hand. Clutching at her nose through the fabric, Agatha pressed her other hand against her lover’s inner thigh. Rio gasped at the unexpected pressure, then froze as she dragged it down her leg, wiping off the fluids that coated her hand.

“Consolation prize,” Agatha said, giving Rio a knowing look. “I don’t want you feeling left out.”

Then she started blowing her nose, loudly, using so much force that she had to secure the handkerchief in place with both hands. It was a classic Agatha move, an obnoxious attempt to secure the last word, but for once, Rio was speechless. Not only was she flustered, but there were so many distractions vying for her attention, scents and sounds and sensations swirling around her like leaves in an autumn breeze. Agatha was right - she was jealous, longing to switch places with the cloth that covered her mouth and nose. Rio closed her eyes, held her breath, and stroked her own leg, probing at the slightly damp spots in the fabric as she tried (and failed) to ground herself.

When she opened her eyes again, it was because Agatha sniffled and it sounded so close. There she was, taking her cup back from Rio with the dexterity of a natural thief, her careful efforts to avoid detection thwarted by her own reflexes. When she caught Rio watching her she smiled coyly, lifting the cup in a mock toast instead of pitching its contents to the floor as she had originally planned. Then she placed it amongst the clutter on the bedside table, where it would most likely sit, forgotten, for a while.

Before Rio could voice her disapproval Agatha was intercepting her lips, slamming against her body like a wall of pure heat. She needed a moment to process this pleasant surprise, but once she found her bearings Rio kissed back, threading her fingers through dark tresses and using them to tug Agatha closer. Hands that had known nothing but restraint since she first arrived were free to wander the fevered landscape of her body. It was a bit distracting how much skinnier Agatha felt since the last time they touched like this. How long had she been unwell for? Had she been eating enough — or at all? Questions she wished she had asked when she first arrived kept popping into her head, making it difficult to focus on the task at hand.

Whatever surge of energy compelled Agatha into her arms seemed to dissolve as quickly as it came. Unfortunately, being sick didn’t make her any less stubborn. She refused to listen to what her body was trying to tell her, choosing instead to push through the discomfort. Even with the blankets and their combined body heat Agatha couldn’t stop shivering, and she kept whirling away to cough, catch her breath, or swipe impatiently at her nose. Rio always welcomed her lips back with enthusiasm, but she was starting to question her ability to handle what this was building towards. Things between them had the tendency to burn out of control pretty quickly, and even if they were capable of practicing restraint, neither of them wanted to. As much as she wanted to keep going, Rio decided it was time to call a moratorium on their activities after the next interruption.

It happened sooner than she hoped, but not as soon as she expected. Agatha gradually disengaged from the kiss, turning away not with a flourish like all the other times but with slow, hazy uncertainty. One of her hands migrated up Rio’s body, reemerging from her clothing to hover near her nose. Rio removed her other hand from the side of her face and held it as if it were a small, injured animal, rubbing her thumb against her palm as she watched and waited. The handkerchiefs were lost to the bed sheets again, but Rio couldn’t tear her focus away long enough to look for one, and Agatha didn’t even bother trying. She was starting to resent her growing reliance on them, and while her hand was hardly a suitable alternative, she was a few degrees Fahrenheit past the point of caring.

The first sneeze tore out of her - “ET’SHhhiew!” - with unexpected force, carrying with it the weight of her building frustration. It left her hand soaked and her head reeling, and in pursuit of something solid to hold onto she reached instinctively for Rio. Agatha turned into her shoulder with a jagged inhale, releasing a shamelessly desperate “ihy’EESHhew!” that sent shivers through her body.

“Salud,” Rio said, somehow sounding both impressed and apologetic as Agatha slumped back against the headboard in a daze. She didn’t get sick in the same way mortals did, so while she found the process captivating (and arousing), it was hard not to experience something akin to survivor’s guilt in situations like this. “You know, sweetheart, we don’t have to keep going.”

Agatha didn’t respond, nor did she tend to her nose right away, choosing instead to let it trickle down to her lips while she waited for the dizziness to pass. Finally managing to make herself useful, Rio fished a clean handkerchief out of the sea of miscellaneous items on the nightstand. She used it to pat gingerly at the mess on her upper lip, cleaning up what she could before Agatha took over control of the cloth. As always, her touch was a lot rougher, impatient even, and she gave her nose a hasty blow before tossing the handkerchief aside. Despite her obvious misery, or perhaps because of it, she was determined to pick up from where they left off. When she leaned back in for a kiss Rio stopped her, pressing her hand to her chest with a gentle look. Agatha sat back, looking confused and a little hurt; it was rare for Rio to rebuff her advances.

“What do you say we take a break and get you into some warm clothing, hm?” Rio suggested, softly stroking the hair that spilled over her shoulders. “Maybe have a bath, or something to eat?”

Though Agatha chose not to answer, the increasingly complex mosaic of emotions on her face said plenty. Rio realized, too late, that she failed to explain the reasoning for her rejection. She didn’t want Agatha getting the wrong idea and thinking she was disgusted by her symptoms. It wasn’t that Rio kept her interests a secret; even if she hadn’t stated them explicitly and repeatedly, she would have thought the way she clung to Agatha during allergy season or whenever she got sick spoke volumes. While it wasn’t her intention, her dedication to transparency only seemed to make Agatha feel more self-conscious. She valued her power and control, so to willingly surrender both in order to make a mess of herself in front of her girlfriend was something she was still getting used to. Hoping to prove just how unbothered she was, Rio leaned in to give her a kiss, but it landed on her cheek as Agatha turned her head, redirecting a tearful glare meant for Rio towards the nightstand.

“Sweetheart,” Rio sighed. “Please don’t be like that. You know how much I want this - want you, but my love… you’re aren’t well. I don’t want to hurt you while you’re all–”

“Pathetic?” Agatha spat, still refusing to look at her.

“… sick,” she finished, frowning. “Agatha, you are burning up with fever, and I don’t think this isn’t helping.”

“Oh, please.” The other witch waved dismissively before folding her arms across her chest. “You know I run hot.”

“Not this hot,” Rio said, but Agatha was making it clear through her increasingly defensive body language that she was finished with this conversation. Rio sighed, anticipating more resistance as she returned to the topic of dinner. “Sick or not, you still need to eat. Do you have an appetite for anything besides me?”

She hoped the joke would lighten the tension, but if the hard set of her jaw was any indication, Agatha was not amused. An uncomfortable mixture of emotions was simmering just below the surface, but instead of taking time to process them she defaulted to anger, her comfort zone. She turned to glower at Rio, who could tell from the look in her eyes that she was about to say something hurtful.

“Did you come here to fuck me or take care of me?” she asked, her venomous tone undercut by the tremor in her voice. “Because you’re doing a terrible job of both.”

Rio felt her heart sink, but tried her best not to show it. Given how miserable Agatha was feeling, she was trying to be understanding, but her patience was starting to wane. Her gaze flickered over to the drink she had made, cold and abandoned on the nightstand, as she considered her next move. She could retaliate verbally, but she was afraid of what might come out of her mouth if she opened it. She could just fucking leave, if that was how the ungrateful witch felt - but she knew it wasn’t, not really. Besides, Rio didn’t want to leave. What she wanted was to stay and take care of her ill (and ill-tempered) girlfriend, but she decided that first she would go for a walk. Whatever was happening between them right now felt heavy and menacing and charged, like the air before a thunderstorm, and Rio feared what might happen if they stayed in the same space together for much longer.

It all dissipated in a dizzying rush the moment she stood up and started walking towards the door. She barely made it three steps before Agatha was scrambling to disentangle herself from her blankets.

“Wait!” she squeaked, stumbling out of bed to trail Rio in a misty-eyed panic. “I didn’t mean it, my love. Please, don’t go.”

It was the genuine desperation in her voice that made Rio turn around, just in time to catch Agatha as her legs gave out. Rio held her in a secure embrace, supporting her full weight until she stopped shaking. Then she half-carried her back to the bed, peppering Agatha with soft kisses and words of reassurance as she helped her lie back down. As soon as Rio crawled into bed beside her Agatha burrowed into her chest, her tears seeping through her clothing as they started flowing in earnest. Every now and then she would whimper something, but with her voice failing and her congestion worsening by the second, Rio could only guess at what she was saying and respond accordingly.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Rio said, holding Agatha close. “I’m not going anywhere.”

[musamora]

𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖓 𝖆 𝖋𝖎𝖊𝖑𝖉 𝖔𝖋 𝖌𝖗𝖎𝖊𝖛𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖘𝖙𝖆𝖗𝖘 「𝔣𝔶𝔬𝔡𝔬𝔯 𝔡𝔬𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔢𝔳𝔰𝔨𝔶」 ༉‧₊˚

content. gn!reader. major spoilers (bsd s5 ep 11), language of flowers, grief/mourning, dissociation, major character death, multiple extended metaphors, biblical references, established relationships, hurt no comfort, heavy angst, i apologize for this in advance. not proofread. 1.2k+ words.

author's note. partially based on an old post. i have cried multiple times throughout writing this oneshot (which has been oddly therapeutic). i hope my fellow fyodor lovers are taking care of themselves this week.

would you like to see more? fill out the taglist or comment under this post.

𝖜𝖍𝖎𝖙𝖊 𝖗𝖔𝖘𝖊𝖘 / waɪt ˈrəʊzɪz / ━━━ used to symbolize remembrance, love, and respect for the departed person, and a way of telling others that the departed has gone to heaven (Thursd).

A warmth burbled inside the hearth as swirled streams of flame billowed in gusts to then melt. Beams of amber shined against dusty glass frames splayed on a mantle, immortalized faces incandesced in the flickering shimmers of light. An older couple stood out against paled snow, hands resting against the shoulders of their budding son, whose eyes bore the most piercing of hues. Another sat beside it, captured from the same year. That same boy snuggled against the shoulder of another child as they both burrowed in the shade of a Linden tree, its branches unable to conceal the purity of their smiles as they relished in the company. Their frigid fingers intertwined as autumn turned to winter, heartened enough by each other's presence alone. Each photograph was a mere piece of a procumbent gallery; not an inch of the wooden surface remained uncovered as a story unfolded between each one.

However, a painting towered above them all.

Soft strokes blurred the resemblance of an anachronistic cathedral, walls sown with ancient tales of worship and devotion destined with promises of a life beyond living. But the centerpiece was them, a pair of blooming faces with those same intertwined fingers, eternally bound in the holiest of displays. Those piercing eyes, now delicate as the boy, who had grown into a man, looked upon his beloved with once-in-a-lifetime veneration.

The crackles of a record clicked into place as it spun endlessly on its track, humming a gentle melody into the comfortable ambiance, thawing the glacial remains of lonesome silence. (Name) nestled into their husband's office chair, fingers dancing across the worn surface of a letter. Fondness shone upon their face as they traced each smudged letter, allowing themself to be swallowed into leather. They flicked one of the papers with a resounding fwick, a glimmer in their eyes.

Nights ensnared in the confinements of a cell would only draw out yearning in the most desperate of men. But I will feel the touch of your enlightened hands in due time, моя милая. Like Joseph returned to Asenath, I will be home in time, as the Lord allows. Со всей моей любовью и душой, Федя

Yearning sighs escaped their lips, careful to place the letter back into an overstuffed box piled high with months of correspondence. They spread their hands against the arms of the chair, grasping onto the ledges as if holding onto another, head tilted back as tired eyes fluttered shut with a harmonical whistle in their throat, only to be interrupted by muffled knocks resonating from the front door.

The sequence was familiar — precise but shaken. Their eyes widened, breaking from the web of warmth as they rose from the chair. It was one of his subordinates; it had to be. Their feet pounded against rickety floorboards, the inanimate house bustling with life as they scrambled to mend their appearance. A heart pounded into the open air, swinging the door open, only to be met with the stars that forever drifted in the sky.

So gentle they were. So peaceful.

But it was not a person that they expected, instead immediately looking toward their feet with a knowing huff. And there it was, lying limp on the doormat — a bouquet of flowers.

These were unusual flowers, not unknown, but not the typical crimson salvias or milky corianders that usually arrived with each delivery. A frown deepened the insomnolent contour rooted in their eyelids as they bore their gaze into the menagerie of mismatched petals, enflamed anticipation glaciating into cool desolation. They lifted the bundle with utmost care, breeze twirling the ringlets of their hair as a forlorn omen. The door rocked back and forth as the wind went unnoticed, skin prickled as the heat of summer skies frosted over as they walked further into the house's silhouette.

Each flower was carefully plucked from its companions and spread in lonesome piles on the cold kitchen counter. Vibrant lilac shades of heliotropes blossomed, mementos of Tyrian eyes frozen in eternal devotion, softened only at their touch.

Paper scratched the soft skin of their palms, hands quick to toss out imperfections that sunk to the bottom of the wrap. One took a brilliant aquilegia, twirling it in their finger as violet speckles flaked into the air with each twist. The last they had seen these flowers was the eve of their engagement. Whispers of their resolute, intertwined paths were loosened from tight lips by a wine that had pried apart their own so intimately.

The blade of a knife sliced through solid air, a resonant haze efflorescent with each cut. They did not care to flinch as it slivered through their skin, silent as they beheld the vermillion that splattered the stem of a weeping hyacinth. These burdensome flowers danced in the eyes of Moscow passersby's sorrow, lining the trail toward an isolated mortuary rooted into the hill that overlooked their childhood home.

Each was placed carefully into a stiffened vase, crossed to shape a flawless display of rich purples and pinks. But even in the midst of such vibrancy, such life, one flower peeked underneath the rest, ghostly white petals acting as the centerpiece to this puzzle.

White roses.

Only once had they seen these flowers, often turned away with a constricted heart whenever their eyes merely glanced upon those petals. That same older couple, their faces immortalized not in bushels of homely flame but instead spectral through the flickers of a vigil. Those piercing eyes, the same that dared to carve into their very being, dulled in the gloom of despair, creased as sleep evaded the body and spirited abandoned the soul.

Perhaps it was for that reason he knew to prepare flowers; that no words could relieve the aching years bound to follow.

They loured upon the embodiment of their destination, life washed out by the emptiness that stood before them. Goosebumps scattered across the skin, an unforgiving frost rooted in place as their fingers twitched against wood. Then, the monotony snapped, the wound pulsing with pain as their body careened. Their eyes drifted from those retched flowers, falling upon a chair — his chair.

And they knew.

None would sit there. Not ever. The seat would remain forever occupied by the smoke of a spark snuffed out eternally, erased in only a few short moments of recollection. Cruel. The mind is but an uncaring machine, able to reach thoughts no human could bear.

And they trembled in the consequences of thought, far too conscious to move. Nails carved irate indentions into the table as knees buckled beneath them, body collapsing onto the cold wooden floor as deafened sobs excavated from their lungs. They clawed at their throat, unable to breathe as ignorance escaped them, paralyzed as if the reaper himself had mercifully struck his scythe down upon them.

A presence watched from beyond a now motionless door, snow-white tresses that shone against beams of moonlight, a man wincing at the guttural, broken screams of an empty heart that echoed from inside. The house was far too still now, far too large for only one soul to occupy. Unable to bear another moment of torment, he scraped the dirt from his uncovered palms, neglecting the tears that stained his cheeks as he fled from the home, now only a mausoleum of memories sitting within a field of grieving stars.

моя милая = my darling со всей моей любовью и душой = with all my love and soul федя = fedya

TAGLIST: @imhandicapableofmath @seisitive @solandiss @ruru-kiss @ishqani @zyilas

© MUSAMORA 2023 — do not repost or modify my works for any reason. do not steal graphics w/o explicit permission. reblogs are appreciated.

[matan4il]

It's very interesting that anti-Zionists claim to be "anti-colonial" given the arguments I routinely see them use against Jews. For years, I've seen them use full scale blood quantum arguments, for one. Most recently, now that we're fully in "Jesus was a Palestinian" season again, I saw a famous economist claim that "Jesus is genetically closer to Palestinians, (particularly Christians) than to Israelis (0 connection to most groups)," which is false to begin with.

Personally, I'm very sensitive to this kind of argument because I'm a ger. These people go after Jews like us very hard because to them we have the wrong DNA and thus undermine Jewish indigeneity, peoplehood, and history. Even if they concede the genetic evidence of born Jews' ancestral origins, they still point at gerim and any of our descendants as the "fake Jews" who don't belong… anywhere, actually. We don't belong in Israel because we're "foreign interlopers," and we don't belong outside of Israel because we had the gall to become Jews.

It's one type of antisemitism I can't seem to numb myself toward.

Hi Nonnie! Thank you for the ask, and my apologies about how long it's taking me to reply these days. Real life is not currently kind... :(

Okay, I had to roll my eyes so hard at that propaganda lie about Jesus. (found the economist in question, love it when someone who is living as a colonizer on stolen Native American land, has the audacity to goysplain a Jewish man to Jews, who support Jewish native rights. There really is no end to how much Jews just don't count to such people, is there?)

And it really is remarkable how many things he could get wrong in just that one part of his tweet...

Jesus was not a Palestinian, he was a Jew.

If you traveled back in time, and wanted to ask him about being Palestinian, you wouldn't be able to speak to Jesus in Arabic, which is the language of the Palestinians as Arabs, you would have to speak to him in either Hebrew or Aramaic (which is so close to ancient Hebrew, that I can speak some Aramaic simply by virtue of being a native Hebrew speaker) for him to understand you. Because he was a Jew.

If you did speak to Jesus in Hebrew or Aramaic, and asked him about being Palestinian, he wouldn't know what you're talking about, because the Romans would only rename the land Provincia Syria Palaestina in 136 AD, over 100 years after his death. Calling Jesus Palestinian is like saying that Chief Powhatan (probably best known as Pocahontas' father) was a Virginian, just because he was born and lived on territory that would later become Virginia. It's anachronistic, blatantly untrue, and totally imposing colonialist inventions on native people.

To the best of my knowledge NO ONE has dug up Jesus' DNA to compare it to ANY group. This is how you can tell that when he gets to that part, this guy is just blatantly making propaganda up.

Israelis are not one group, but Israeli Jews do test close to other Middle Eastern groups, and closest to other Jewish groups from around the world.

I guess, why settle for one bit of bullshit, when you can go for five?

I find it so interesting that you used the term "blood quantum." For non-Americans, who may not know it, here's a short introduction:

A person's Blood Quantum is the fraction of their ancestors, out of their total ancestors, who are documented as full-blood Native Americans. The blood quantum policy was first implemented by the federal government within tribes to limit native citizenship. However, since 1934, tribes were granted the authority/ability to create their own enrollment qualifications.

I find it interesting, because I keep thinking Jews and First Nations have so much in common, as native peoples. I remember coming across at least two different stories of people being adopted into Native American tribes. Obviously, each first nation has its own rules about it, before and after the colonization of America, but the point is... there is room for someone to become a member of the tribe, not based on blood. Most of the time, membership of the tribe IS based on ancestry, but it isn't limited to that. Some people come and live with the tribe, adopt its customs and way of life, emerge themselves in the values and heritage, embrace its spiritual beliefs, become a member of this community, and then they are adopted in. It's the same with Jews. Most of us are born Jewish, some of us choose to live this lifestyle, embrace the customs, beliefs and culture, go to synagogue, get to know the community, and eventually adopt and are adopted by it. That's the thing. Converting to Judaism isn't just changing your belief system. It's joining a tribe, and changing one's identity through this process of mutual adoption. Converts to Judaism don't take away ANYTHING from the native rights of Jews. On the contrary, this process of conversion is so different to when someone moves from one religion to another (think of how much simpler baptism is, to the long journey of converting to Judaism), precisely because Judaism isn't just a religion, unlike Christianity and Islam. It is an entire, intricate identity that combines multiple aspects, as all ancient, native identities do.

And in this context, think of Americans who are mostly of European descent, and have nothing to do with Native American culture, or way of life, but they can point to having an "exotic" great great great grandfather, who was a Native American chief. From what I've gathered, they would not be considered members of the tribe by most Native American nations. But the person who lives with the tribe, and shares its ways and its fate? That person is recognized as such by the tribe members.

Jews are the same. We are not native just because our ancestors are from Israel. We are also native, because we are the people who have preserved that Israelite identity. We have carried its torch, and passed it on along the generations, and we have shared our light with those, who chose to stand with us, to share our ways, our fate, and the consequences of the horrible hatred aimed at us.

I love you, my fellow tribe member. Thank you for sharing the light, and the burden, together! *sending so much love* xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[yugiri315]

LWJ Cosplay Log - Master Post

Making Lan Wangji

(AKA My Lan Zhan Cosplay Log)

This went from a historical project to cosplaying all the Hanguang-Jun, Lan Wangji in existence!  The main concept is Lan Wangji’s (LWJ) novel/manhua/audio drama design.  As the project started pre-pandemic, I didn’t consider the butler or dragon au in the design.  That would be too much.  There is a dash of videogame in him since there were some details I liked in that model.  If the title is “Mo Dao Zu Shi” then I have incorporated Lan Wangji’s description and concept arts into my design.  

Lan Wangji as known in The Untamed was generally avoided save for a tiny nod to the show’s Gusu Lan Clan.  “Mo Dao Zu Shi” Wangji and “Untamed” Wangji are distinct in my opinion.  Neither is superior from the other, just different enough that I need to pick one interpretation to play with.  The actors of Untamed, especially Xiao Zhan, really claimed the characters as their own and portrayed them wonderfully.  Wang Yibo’s Wangji is his Wangji, I won’t interfere that.  If you want to see that interpretation of Lan Wangji, then go watch the show.  It already exists.

A few caveats before you dive in:

1)     I am not a seamstress or tailor so I don’t know all the proper sewing terminology in English or any other language 2)     Also, modern romanization of Chinese confuses the shit out of me, a native speaker, so apologies for any spelling mistakes.  The Yale Romanization made so much more sense but then China thought they understood the English alphabet better than native English speakers so here we are.  Do as the Romans do, I guess. 3)     I am not a historical costumer either so all my info come from conjecture and research 4)     I am not a Chinese historian but I like to think I know enough about my history and culture through osmosis and the hell-hole disguised as Chinese school to talk about it 5)     I am not trying to make an authentic historical costume, I’m trying to make an anachronistic fantasy costume. Historicity went out the window the minute LWJ and every adult character decided to have their hair down.  I did try to make a semi-historically accurate version?  Depended on the mood at time of construction. 6)     I suck at being Chinese apparently so that will be my safety net if everything fails horribly :P  

The Lan Zhan Cosplay Log Layer 1:  Undergarments! 中衣 Layer 2A:  Yichang 衣裳   Layer 2B:  Ruqun 襦裙 Layer 3:  Zhiju 直裾 Layer 4A:  Leatherwork Layer 4B:  Jade Bling Layer 5A:  Dachang 大氅 Layer 5B:  Bijia 比甲 Layer 0:  Hair, Props, “Cheating,” & Overall Stats

Exhibit:  LWJ cosplay in action [1][2]

Citation

Patterning:  https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Qb411j7z6?spm_id_from=333.905.b_72656c61746564.1

http://www.yeoh.com/index2.php?section=journal&g=691

https://cosplayqna.tumblr.com/image/38971971992

https://torguqin.wordpress.com/hanfu/hanfu-tutorial-list/

Hanfu Resources:

@ziseviolet:  https://ziseviolet.tumblr.com/about

@fouryearsofshades:  https://fouryearsofshades.tumblr.com/post/179249195707/hello-do-you-happen-to-have-a-master-post-of-all

[abetterencounter]

A preface: The sad thing about getting older is that terms blossom and die over and over. I may use a term that is anachronistic to those versed in academic language of today. The last time I wrote anything on this topic was 20 years ago.

I The Past

Memory is a funny thing

I don’t remember Pennsylvania. We moved to Memphis when I was 5 and the only thing I carried with me was the name “Byron”, a friend, and an image of a crayon shaped ride-on toy. Memphis is my childhood. There I grew into a person. I learned I was Black in Memphis.

It wasn’t that I didn’t know before. It’s more that I thought of myself as “Ghanaian��. In Memphis I learned that “Black” meant something. It meant where you sat in class, who you talked to at recess, at lunch. When the teachers would call on you and when they wouldn’t. I learned to interpret when my parents were “putting on a brave face” and I therefore was also supposed to put on the same “stiff upper lip” to uphold the family honor. When authorities would come to my aid, and when they would encourage my aggressors. It meant not knowing if “that new restaurant that opened down the street” was going to seat you the time you begged your parents to take you.

The South is a maze.

My parents were no help. They are African and couldn’t relate to anything my brother and I were experiencing. As children my brother and I had more “Ghanaian British” accents and as jokes we would speak to each other with exaggerated phrases of our mother’s. One day at after-school camp one of the counselors, Keith, overheard me doing this and said I was mocking him. My brother and the other children all came to my defense explaining that we always talk like that because our mom is “English” (we didn’t always explain it for people). Keith said I was lying; my mother wasn’t from England and that I had to sit in the quiet room for the rest of the evening if I didn’t apologize for mocking him. My brother and I locked eyes and gave each other a look of recognition, why: Keith was one of our “bullies”. When you’re a black kid they come in all sizes and the problem with Keith was that our being in his after-school camp was a problem. His solution was to put mostly me in time out every other day or so. Or arrange activities to exclude us. When my mother arrived to pick us up, she made me apologize to him through tears not understanding my obstinance. Days later she asked again, trying to work out what had happened, and my eight-year-old brain could only articulate “he just doesn’t like us”. It was years later that we sat them down and told them: hey, we were trying to say, “that dude was hella racist and was picking on us all the time!” but what is parenting but a series of swings and misses.

My grandmother came to stay with us when I was a teenager around when we were able to explain all that had happened in Memphis. We lived by then in Columbia Maryland. Chosen, when we were 12 because they began to worry that the meaning of Blackness in Memphis didn’t leave enough space for us. My grandmother had back trouble later in life, so convinced in the power of “chiropracty” she embarked on a grueling series of “adjustments” at a chiropractor in Laurel and it became my job to ferry her after school twice a week from Columbia to Laurel. Between her shark rebukes for missed shifts we talked about EVERYTHING. It was with her I first tried to explain what it’s like to live “as a fish in water”:

They call it “systemic racism now but I called it a caste system. I said that ever since I was a kid I knew there were two sets of rules for almost everything in life where I might interact with anyone with a badge or the ability to call a badge. School prepares you for this. You learn to not loiter. To give a wide berth to white women and to fear groups of white men when they are drunk and if you don’t know them really really well. I tried to explain to her that, unlike racism as a thing that “happened to her” when she traveled to the west, racism defined a large part of my experience because it is part of the underlying foundation of the country. That as a black person your status, at the bottom of the caste hierarchy matters. She was at first puzzled then troubled that all day, mostly without thinking, I make status calculations in my head, when I go to the bank, when I walk into a meeting, when I get a car repaired, when I plan a vacation or where to live. When people began to call it “structural” it fit. It made sense.

And as you mentioned: A portion of the country has been grappling with our historical and “present” caste system, now termed structural racism. But the backlash that started with books by Ibram Kendi has now begun to sweep away books about the Jewish experience in a misguided attempt to stop the process of “peering under the rug to see what’s hidden” but it’s futile: the secret is out.

There’s another concept though, that I don’t think we have figured out. I call it “cultural oppression”. I think we’ve begun to talk about it when we talk about it a little when we talk about “microaggressions” or like the better intersectional approaches that look at the power dynamics at play when Jews, given little other options, were put in the position of being the face of “big capital” or “the steamroller of progress” rolling over and taking advantage of the brown masses. Which goes some of the way into explaining the enmity… But it doesn’t capture something I learned.

Like you, I was never confused about being white. The Jews I knew in Memphis, while “white” in the sense that they weren’t getting pulled over by police, weren’t “culturally white”. I think if you asked many a Memphian Jew over the age of 40 whether they think of themselves as “white” or as “a Jew” first, most would say the latter, even the somewhat assimilated. But Maryland is a trip! Here I got to see the promise of America made manifest! Here Jews whether shtark and nails or universalist didn’t really think about it. I didn’t think of it as odd until I got married year later and the climate had changed.

How had that happened? Why are Jews in Memphis acutely aware of their status as “other” despite objectively meteoric economic success as an ethnic group overall and how has my wife never thought about it? This area is a liberal bastion. Being the seat of government power meant that much of de jure structural discrimination began to get dismantled (in some ways) moments after pen was put to paper. Across College towns (important later) and places that would later hubs of research and elite thought slowly began to adopt more of the cultural mindset that would allow “life liberty and the pursuit of happiness” to be an operative goal for a wider amount of people. But there were limits: integration stalled in the schools and we never quite got started regarding social and housing integration across black and white color lines. But in Maryland, In Silver Spring in the 90s, one could grow up blissfully unaware of being *anything*.

I think that was a mirage. I think It was a mirage for the same reason that suspect we both knew America’s “post racial compact”, “signed” with the election of Barack Obama was as ephemeral as the joy we all felt: the coda to the first post 2016 SNL skit “In the end, it seems as though Chappelle and Rock are the only ones who realize just how much farther the United States have to go to truly reach a post-racial society. Even longer now, probably.” As a black man I have become expert in recognizing when someone doesn’t recognize my fellow humanity. I couldn’t describe it if I wanted to but you just know when someone is bringing “I still believe I should own you” energy into an interaction. As a convert, what I had to learn to recognize was look that says, “you are the root of all evil, the perverters of paradise and agents of elemental malevolence”. There isn’t a “structure” that acknowledges the Jewish role as the foundation of evil within the basic construct of “good and evil” within Western culture in much the same way as American power structure places Blackness at its foundation. The archetype for “evil person that betrays the righteous ruler/king/lover/town”: the greedy Jew.

I was in the market in Kumasi in Ghana at a stall selling books: copies of Mein Kampf along with a few other of your favorite white supremacist favorites, with a few more on the side for your Islamic flavored bigot. Why do people in Ghana know about Jews at all? Far far in the past there are whispers of Jews perhaps traveling through as part of some emperor retinue but Jews have never touched the land, much less engineered the fall of society from the inside for fun and profit but there it was, the myth growing deeper roots, building an outpost in a new location on the backs of Christianity and Islam and the abstract reputation the every Jew knows precedes them.

In it’s “harmless” form it’s the jokes we all laugh about and have exhausted this Jew since Woody Allen drive them into the ground: “do they see me, or do they see a shuckling rabbi intoning in a strange language?” It’s a familiar feeling for any minority. But it’s also something that power and structure analysis can’t capture because it’s not attached to any of those notions. A somewhat radical idea: Most of my peer group grew up during a time when we papered over the deep enmity just under the surface of all the cultures the grew from the bosom of Judaism but contain within them over a 1000 years of a basic storyline that defines the Jew as the basic mythological evil.

2018 was the year that searches for blood+Jews and other conspiracies start to pick up. It’s no wonder that by 2020 Q was wholesale advancing the idea that a “secret cabal of shady liberal elites who want to destroy your culture and contaminate your daughters” also want to drain the blood from your children and drink it in secret ceremonies. I’m aware that the right wing fight against minority hiring and preferred admissions is ongoing but what “makes the news” and has captured the fever swamps of right wing anger are where “progressives” (denotation, anyone, including normie republicans) who are interested in general cultural progress are “intruding” on the safe spaces of comfortable “dominant paradigm” life. It’s a sign that we’re finally work to be even start imagining a post racial world. But our weapon in this battle is a tool for analysis constructed for a specific purpose in “the lab” of social society. It is perfectly fit for purpose to describe my oppression because the main operator of oppression against Black people is status (if you doubt me, when you denigrate black and brown people, the words you use are synonymous with “animal-like”, “without intelligence”, or “grotesque”) examining the power dynamics of society allows us to trace the development and creation of a culture that continues to restrict true free exercise.

But I want to posit a theory: Culture can also shape power dynamics

One of the signs of “whiteness” is when a group begins to turn their charity money away from sectarian concerns and embraces the public square as their main mission. Like the Germans and the Irish before them Jews have embraced this “step” with zeal, more zeal than their forebearers… but a funny thing happened: Jewish donations are a source of continual suspicion. Why? One would think, if anything: Jewish charity would cause a flowering of solidarity… Power analysis give you a hint, but it also somewhat implicates Jews forced accomplices of the dominant group and only posits maybe past enmity has flowered up. My answer is this:

Jewish exercise of power looks fundamentally different than any other groups exercise to every cultural system that has the Bible or Koran at its center.

Yes, “Power creates culture” but our culture is what decides how we perceive the exercise of that power. The two “big bads” on the right at this moment are Bill Gates and George Soros. Soros, oy, what are you going to do. But Bill gates, he’s a nerd but wonder what they are saying about him…

[fires up Telegram] “Bill Gates is a secret Zio-fascist don’t take his secret shoah shots! ZOMG!” [close Telegram]

The answer for a millennia of REAL corruption and REAL heinous acts across Europe and north Africa was to point at the Jews and let “nature take its course” such was the power of the myth. Whether Jews were rich and settled, poor and landless, cosmopolitan, or agrarian. The central role has never essentially changed. Which is why “power” as a concept can’t accurately capture this type of oppression, it operates through a story that sees its expression often whena Jew attains status and power that, for other groups would deliver them to higher status. Greater wealth an Irishman or a German man at the turn of the last century accumulates the more he was insulated from the jabs of racist boors, as we turn this century the richest Jews are constant targets of straight blood libel no chaser.

If you’re still reading: Two things. To grow we have to learn to see from each other’s eyes.

To people who are Jewish: I am Black. My world is DOMINATED by power. To understand what Black people are saying when they describe their experiences you’ll have to first try to embrace that objectively true fact that America has put the most defacto and dejure obstacles in the way of Black advancement.

To people who are Black, speaking across that divide: These aren’t things Black people have said but I don’t think that Black Americans see more than the “Woody Allen” “cute” antisemitism. The ideas that you see behind people’s eye are WILD. People literally think you’re a demon, and not just “crazy” people. Just “normal” but hotep-ish leaning people. And they don’t mind letting you know in front of your kids sometimes aggressively. Sometimes you’re just eating lunch and somebody just casually suggests that “your people” control the banking system and need to stop keeping everyone poor”… I think about the Charleston Shooting all the time because from 2015-2019 there was a mass shooting in a synagogue or an attempt at least once a year.

In any case: This is dedicated to the 6 million Jews, and roughly 11 million Slavs, Romani, LGBT, mentally or physically ill or disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, Afro-German Mischlinge, and other minorities not considered Aryan and the 15 million victims of the TransAtlantic Slave Trade.

[fangirleaconmigo]

Dad!Geralt/Professor Jaskier

So I asked myself. Self. How would Geralt, a man who did not grow up in a normal home, a man with trauma, process the sheer insanity of parent love?  Would he EVEN KNOW what was happening to him? And if Jaskier happened to be a professor and a foremost expert on witchers, what would happen if Geralt asked for his help?

If you like DAD FEELS, Ciri being an adorable matchmaker, Geralt being so preciously clueless and Jaskier being there for him, read on. And as always with my stuff humor/banter/flirting.

It’s a Trap.

PG maybe T rated for Jaskier being horny as always. About 11k words.  Now complete on AO3 here.

----

Professor Pankratz was Oxenfurt’s leading expert on witchers. There was just one problem. He’d never actually met one.

That’s why people dismissed academics: all book learning, no life experience. But there was value in musty books and ancient artifacts. Someone had to make sure the old knowledge on witchers didn’t disappear, so Jaskier rescued and guarded it. He bought raggedy manuscripts from second hand markets. He acquired cracked relics from shipwrecks. He snapped up forgotten tomes from estate sales. There was no substitute for the old knowledge. But he knew it was incomplete. Some riddles can’t be solved with your nose in a scroll.

Jaskier did want to meet a witcher. One interview and his research would be improved immeasurably. He’d have more stories to regale his students with. He’d be more confident in his academic contributions. He kept a ledger with questions handy, in case he ever had the privilege to interview a witcher.

However, attrition via monster attacks and mobs with torches had caused a regrettable shortage of them. And the ones left were understandably insular and distrustful. He’d written to the old keep at Kaer Morhen requesting an interview with any witcher there. But his letters had gone unanswered. He’d rushed out to any local town rumored to have a witcher on contract. He never seemed to get there in time. He’d almost given up.

Then one spring afternoon, Jaskier returned to his office to find a witcher waiting for him. His silver studded armor and conspicuous weaponry felt anachronistic in the stuffy narrow hall. It was like the man had ridden in from a fairy tale. Jaskier imagined a unicorn steed waiting patiently in front of the building. He pressed his lips tight to dissuade a delighted smile.

A witcher. Fallen into his lap.

A witcher who looked like that.

Jaskier hadn’t believed a single word of records describing witchers as evil, stinking, or mangey. He was a man of science, and he knew superstition and bigotry when he saw it. But he hadn’t gone so far as to imagine witchers as devastatingly handsome. This man’s body looked carved from marble. His fitted black clothing contrasted strikingly with his white hair and golden eyes. He looked mythical.

Jaskier approached him eagerly, hand out. “I’m--”

“Professor Pankratz,” said Geralt. His voice was more melody than words, low and rumbling.

“Please. Call me Jaskier. Pleasure to meet you.” He shook the witcher’s cool hand. The man’s grip was firm but not overbearing. His hand was soft other than a whisper of callus on his palm. Jaskier held it just half a beat too long.

“I’m Geralt,” he said. “Geralt of Rivia.”

“The famous white wolf, yes.” Said Jaskier. “Please, do come in.” He opened the door.

Geralt grunted as he passed the threshold. “No one calls me that.”

Jaskier had come up with that name, and he liked it. Academics tended to give their subjects of study nicknames, especially when deep in ale discussing their latest paper with colleagues. Geralt’s white hair and residency at the School of the Wolf made that the obvious choice. Apparently it hadn’t spread beyond the university walls. It would. Just you wait, wolf.

“Of course, my mistake,” Jaskier said and clasped a hand to his heart. “Deepest apologies.”

“Hmmm.”

Did witchers grunt half of their thoughts? If so, Jaskier would need to add a grunt based language to his repertoire and curriculum vitae. Maybe it was just this one, though. Maybe the white wolf was just a grunter.

“How may I help you, good sir witcher?” He asked, gesturing at the seating area in the corner.

Geralt lowered himself into an antique leather chair and leaned forward with his elbows on his thighs. Jaskier noticed dark circles under his eyes.

“I’m here because you’re the most renowned scholar on witchers, an area of study that is dwindling,” he said.

Hearing himself described as renowned by an actual witcher was an ego boost he probably didn’t need, but certainly appreciated. Jaskier dipped his head reverently.

“Consider me at your service, good witcher.”

“I hope you can help.” Geralt said. “I have a problem and I’m too far from Kaer Morhen to just ask Vesemir about it.”

“Oh yes the famous Vesemi—-”

“Are you going to keep doing that?” snapped Geralt.

“Sorry,” said Jaskier. He mimed locking his lips and throwing away the key. “Please do go on.”

Geralt closed his eyes and rubbed them. “Sorry. I’m just exhausted. I’ve been having symptoms of magical interference. Fits. Visions. Nightmares. I haven’t slept well in months. It’s why I’m here.”

Jaskier wasn’t clear on how that related to him. He was no magician. “Have you had a mage read you for spell traces?”

“Yes. There were none.” Said Geralt, sounding defeated.

“A physician then? For the fits? Nightmares and fits are common when a person is subjected to extreme violence.” Jaskier tried to be tactful but it was true. Witchers were still human and violence must still affect them, dulled though their empathy was through the trials. And their lives were full of it.

Geralt growled, frustrated.

“I do not need a physician. What would a physician know about a witcher? At any rate, I know what’s normal for me and this is not normal. This is not mere physiology.”

“I see,” said Jaskier. “And what would you like from me? A humble man of letters?” He crossed his legs and looked attentively at the witcher.

Geralt shrugged hopelessly. “You know about witchers. Maybe you know about curses or hexes that can affect us specifically. Or even substances that repel us. Anything. This has to stop. I’m desperate.”

Jaskier got up to fetch a quill and parchment. Honestly he had no idea what this could be. But he wasn’t going to turn down the chance to work with a witcher. Even a grumpy one. His best move would be to gather more information and hope something came to him.

“I’ll just need some detail.” He spread the parchment out onto the low table between them. He dipped the quill and poised it over the parchment. “What kind of visions are they? What do you see?”

Geralt slumped back into the chair and waved his hand carelessly. “The details aren’t important.”

“They could be. I would suggest you don’t dismiss that entirely,” said Jaskier, diplomatically.

Geralt was silent.

Jaskier didn’t know how to make him speak, so he tried another question. “Ok. Let’s move to the nightmares then. What do you remember of them?”

Geralt shifted and the old leather creaked. He picked at the studs along the arm of the chair with a fingernail. Were it one of his students, Jaskier would have scolded him for scratching the supple lambskin. But he let the witcher be. This was starting to feel like a situation that required a delicate approach.

“As I said.” Geralt repeated slowly. “The details aren’t important. What’s important is that some kind of magic has penetrated my mind and is manipulating my thoughts. I need to find out what it is and stop it.”

A large drop of ink fell from Jaskier’s quill onto the parchment, marring it. He’d been hovering too long.

“And you’re having fits?” he asked. “Surely you can tell me about those?”

“Yes.” said the witcher, absently rubbing his sternum.

Well at least there was that.

“What are they like, then?” urged Jaskier. He gave an encouraging smile.

The witcher seemed to be searching for words.

“Irritating.”

This was like helping a cat remove a stuck claw from a quilt. Geralt obviously needed help, yet he insisted upon growling at him and resisting his efforts.

Jaskier replaced the quill in the pot and held his palms up in surrender.

“How can I help you if you refuse to share details? It’s an honor to assist, I assure you, but how can I do so if you keep me in the dark?” asked Jaskier.

Geralt insisted, “I’m telling you that part isn’t important. I know what’s important.” He crossed his arms.

“That’s fine and good, sir witcher, but I need something to go on. You don’t solve a problem with no data.” Jaskier said.

Geralt thought for a moment, then brightened. “Come to my cottage.”

Jaskier tamped down the surge of pleasure. Had that pleasure been caused by the prospect of seeing a witcher in his natural habitat? Or was it related to a gorgeous man inviting him to come? To his cottage?

“Your cottage?” Asked Jaskier. He felt breathless but managed those two sturdy words.

“Yes,” said Geralt, latching onto his idea now with conviction. “Perhaps there are clues there. Hexes I missed. Substances I overlooked. You can walk around. Maybe you’ll find something.”

Ok. A professional call then.

“Whatever I can do for you in return, I’m willing,” said Geralt. “I’m desperate. I need to figure out a way to get some godsdamn sleep.”

Ten minutes ago, that offer would have sent Jaskier diving for his research and list of interview questions. But now that he’d met the witcher (and looked at him, and heard his voice), ‘Whatever I can do” and ‘I’m willing’ provoked a much different urge in him. It occurred to Jaskier that there were many alternate ways to relax a man enough to put him right to sleep. Maybe if he found nothing amiss at Geralt home, and the witcher needed more suggestions, he would offer them. For science of course.

Regardless, this was a boon. Jaskier would see weapons. Relics. Everyday practices of witchers. He’d learn more in a day in Geralt’s home than he had all of last year in the library.

“That’s a fantastic idea,” said Jaskier. “I can’t come today because I have a class now. But I’ll visit tomorrow in the afternoon before my evening lecture. How’s that?”

“Perfect,” said Geralt.

The witcher smiled for the first time. It looked good on him. Jaskier smiled back. Geralt of Rivia needed Jaskier’s help. And he was damn well going to get it.

-----

The next day was another clear spring day and the scent of wildflowers infused the air. Jaskier put on a vibrant teal doublet and trousers. He knew the color drew attention to the natural pink flush in his cheeks and lips. He set his wire rimmed glasses on his nose. He didn’t need them to see, but presentation was important. People trusted a professor with spectacles. He ran his hands through his hair, and spritzed on a tasteful amount of perfume. Perfect.

Geralt’s directions were to a cottage a decent ride east of the city. There were a few wagons that went out that way. Jaskier bought a ticket and was there in an hour.

Geralt was splitting wood in the front when Jaskier arrived. Even from a distance, his physique was impressive, rippling as he brought the ax down. As large as the man was, he was even more powerful than one would expect. He cleaved through the wood like a knife through hot butter. Then he flipped another log onto the stump with nimble fingers, steadied it, then slammed back down with his ax.

To the casual observer, it would have looked like Jaskier had tripped on his feet. However, there had certainly been a brick in his path. Perhaps a stone. A pebble at minimum. Thankfully he righted himself by the time the witcher noticed him. Geralt walked over to open the gate. He was wearing a sleeveless undershirt and glistened with sweat. Stray strands of his white hair had slipped from the tie.

“Professor,” he said, and reached out to clasp his hand. Jaskier shook it. Geralt plastered the stray tendril back onto his head. “Sorry. Sweaty.”

“Ah yes, it’s no problem. Also, please. Jaskier.”

Geralt looked at him curiously, as though something had taken him by surprise.

“Yes?” Asked Jaskier.

“Nothing. Nothing.” Said Geralt.

“Well now I must know.” Said Jaskier.

“It’s just. I could have sworn your eyes were blue.” Said Geralt. He quickly turned away towards the cottage. “So yes. This way.”

Jaskier blinked.

“Ah yes. They’re kind of both. Depends on what I’m wearing.”

“Ah.”

Jaskier hopped to follow behind the witcher. The view from there was just as fine as when he was in front of Geralt. Seeing the witcher at work in the yard had demolished Jaskier’s professional restraint. He openly stared at Geralt’s ample muscular ass, secure in the fact that there was no one else around for miles to see him do it.

His reverie was interrupted when they arrived at the door. The cottage was clay and wood with a thatched roof. It was modest but well built. Jasker wiped his boots and crossed the threshold. It felt cavernous on the inside. The lower story was one large room with a stove in the middle. A flight of stairs on the back wall led to a second story. Jaskier was already eyeing it looking for the bedroom. One had to visualize one’s goals.

“Ciri, we have company,” called out Geralt.

“Ciri?” asked Jaskier. Who was Ciri?

A little girl with bouncy blonde hair and fair freckled skin bounded down the stairs. Geralt lit up like the sun. Did Geralt have a daughter? Why didn’t Geralt mention he had a daughter? Oh gods had she seen him ogle her father’s ass? Jaskier’s eyes darted around quickly to see if any windows faced the path up.

“Hey!” she said brightly. “Welcome! ! We don’t get many visitors.” She pumped Jaskier’s hand enthusiastically. She was Geralt’s opposite. Tiny. Effervescent.

“It is my pleasure indeed,” said Jaskier. He bowed low. “Pleasure to meet you, young lady.”

She pinched her trouser legs and dipped in a faux curtsy. Then she looked at Geralt.

“He’s pretty.”

Geralt smiled softly and did not look at Jaskier. “Yes he is.”

Well. That was a welcome turn of events.

“You didn’t say he was pretty.” Said Ciri.

Jaskier smiled conspiratorially. “He didn’t mention he had a charming daughter, either. He leaves out the most important details, doesn’t he?”

“He does.” She agreed. “And sometimes he just grunts.” She nudged Geralt playfully.

“Well,” said Jaskier. “Let's see if we can break him of that. I’m sure once he gets going it’ll be nothing but poetry and compliments for the two of us.”

Ciri nodded sagely, “I’m sure.”

“Ok, ok that’s enough of that,” said Geralt. He pulled the girl in and kissed the top of her head.

Jaskier was truly charmed by the sweet child and the cozy home. And the broad witcher, who was now looking at the child as though she had hung every single star. But he did have a lecture to get back to, so he’d better try to be of some help.

“So. Geralt. Is there anything in particular I should be looking for?” He asked.

Geralt considered. “Not really. That’s what I was hoping you could tell me.”

“Ok. Where would you like me to start?” Jaskier surveyed the room. It looked like there was a garden in the back as well and some kind of training course.

“Anywhere,” Geralt said.

So Jaskier began. He systematically worked his way through the house and the property. He looked through the cupboards. Rooted through the cellar. Walked through the training course in the back. He found nothing out of the ordinary. Definitely nothing that could be causing trouble for a witcher. He saved Ciri’s room upstairs for last, because he felt bad disturbing her.

“Sorry to bother you, darling.” He poked his head in.

She was laying on her bed reading.

“It’s no bother. It’s fun to have someone here.”

“Well, I hope I can be helpful. But to be honest I’ve seen nothing out of the ordinary. And Geralt is not forthcoming with details, as we discussed.” Jaskier said.

She nodded sympathetically.

“What about you dear child? Have you noticed anything different over the past few months? Magics? Visitors?”

“No.”

He felt a bit deflated. He was in the last room, and information from Ciri was his last resort.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Oh, it’s quite alright,” said Jaskier, and he offered a reassuring smile.

“I mean I’ve only been here a few months, so I wouldn’t even know.” She said.

Jaskier’s mind roiled. Why would Geralt’s daughter have only lived here a few months? Oh yes. Witchers were infertile. This was a child of destiny. A child of surprise. And a new arrival at that.

“Well, thank you Ciri.” Jaskier turned to go.

“Can you help him?” Ciri asked. “He won’t even tell me what’s wrong. But he’s tired. And he’s barely been eating.” Her voice was tinged with worry. Jaskier hated to see a child carrying such worry.

“That remains to be seen, I’m afraid.” Said Jaskier. “But I promise I’ll do everything in my power.”

That seemed to put her somewhat at ease.

Jaskier descended the stairs to the floor level. Geralt was sitting at the large wooden farm table furiously peeling carrots, his brow furrowed. When he noticed Jaskier, he looked up hopefully.

It was remarkable. He was like a different man here in his cottage with his daughter.

“You find anything? You know as you were looking around, I thought of something. I’ve never really used spices on the road. But I bought a large jar of paprika at the market a few months ago. I wonder if paprika is hostile to Witchers.”

Oh boy.

“That’s probably just an allergy,” said Jaskier gently. He gestured to the chair next to Geralt. “May I?”

“Have a seat,” said Geralt. He put down the carrot and peeler and wiped his hands on his trousers.

Ciri’s voice floated downstairs.

“Have you offered him a drink, dad?”

Geralt looked at him in a minor panic, like a student being asked about a reading he hadn’t done. Jaskier waved his hand.

“No, not necessary, I’ll be headed back soon. But first I need you to do something for me.”

“Yes, of course,” said Geralt.

Jaskier scooted his chair in and looked at the witcher meaningfully.

“Geralt. You have to tell me about these dreams and visions.”

Geralt’s face closed again. It was like a gate slamming down.

“Hmmmm.”

It was a growl that time.

“That’s just it. I’m really going to need you to talk to me,” said Jaskier. “With words.”

Geralt examined the cracks in the table surface, scowling.

“Ok. Looks like that’s all I can do here then,” said Jaskier with a performatively regretful sigh. He scooted his chair away from the table and got up to leave.

“No. Please. Jaskier.” said Geralt. The witcher’s hand darted out to catch his wrist. “Please. Sit.” He pulled Jaskier back to the chair.

Jaskier sat down again. He arranged his doublet and folded his hands, looking expectant.

Geralt breathed deeply. He spoke slowly. Halting.

“Every night now. I dream.”

“Yes?”

“I dream that Ciri is....torn apart by a griffin.”

“That sounds horrible’” said Jaskier. “I’m so sorry.”

Geralt grimaced in agreement.

“It is. And some nights it’s a basilisk. But they always...”

His throat caught.

“Tear her apart.”

Jaskier located a pitcher and cup on a nearby counter and poured him some water.

Now that Geralt was talking, Jaskier could take out his parchment again. But he knew he wouldn’t need notes for this. And he saw now that the man’s reticence wasn’t due to mere stubbornness. He was distressed.

Geralt took a sip of the water.

“You’re doing great.” Jaskier said. “And the visions?” he asked. “Can you tell me about those?”

Geralt cleared his throat.

“They’re waking visions. When we’re walking along the bluffs on the way to the town, I see her slipping and plunging to her death. Over and over. Clear as day. Ciri allows me to hold her hand when we pass so that I know she’s ok, but...I still see it.” His hands were resting on the table balled into fists.

“Gods, that’s terrible.” said Jaskier. He didn’t know the man from Adam but he was having the powerful urge to squeeze his hand.

“Any others?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Geralt pinched the bridge of his nose. “When we’re training. I see visions. Of her not being prepared. Of her being on a battlefield. And she gets...run through with a sword.” His voice fell to a whisper.

“And these fits?” asked Jaskier. “Are you having one now?”

Geralt nodded.

“Did it get worse when you told me about the visions?” Asked Jaskier.

Geralt nodded again. “I think they're connected.”

“Where is the pain the worst?” Jaskier asked.

Geralt took his hand. Jaskier was surprised, but successfully stifled any indication of it. Geralt guided Jaskier’s hand to his breastbone. He was squeezing a little too hard and Jaskier’s knuckles cracked.

“Here.” Said Geralt, voice husky. He pressed Jaskier’s hand to the center of his chest. Then he dropped it and looked flustered.

Jaskier left his hand on the table, just in case the witcher wanted to take it again.

“Geralt.”

“Yes?”

“How long have you been suffering these visions? And pains?” Jaskier asked.

“Two months maybe.” He said.

“Isn’t that about how long Ciri has been here?”

Geralt sat perturbed for a moment. Then his forehead relaxed and his eyes filled with recognition.

Jaskier’s job was done here.

“I didn’t want to tell you this.” Said Geralt. “I didn’t want to tell anyone.”

Jaskier nodded solemnly. “I understand. It’s hard to be vulnerable--”

“But Ciri is a source,” continued Geralt, frantically, as though he’d finally found the answer. He jabbed the table with his index finger. “Elder blood carrier. Could her magic be having some effect on me? Fuck. Fuck. Like the paprika?”

Dear sweet merciful Melitele.

“Like an allergy???” Jaskier had lost his careful diplomatic tone. He sounded openly incredulous. Geralt did not notice.

“What am I gonna do?” Demanded Geralt, searching Jaskier’s face.

“It’s. Not like the paprika.” Said Jaskier helplessly.

“Shit.” Said Geralt. “I am so fucked. I am so bad at this as it is. Look at me?! I grunt instead of speak. I can’t do her hair. This carrot cake is for her birthday which was last week because I didn’t know birthdays were fuckin important. The only stories I know are full of violence or lusty maidens. I know I shouldn’t be telling her these stories at bedtime but what do you do when that’s all you know?! Now I can’t tolerate her magic? Her very blood? Are there wards? Antidotes? Is there anything I can do??” He tried to catch his breath.

Every shred of witcher mystique fell away. In its place was this man. Struggling. Trying. Lost. Jaskier’s heart tightened. He covered Geralt's hands in his. Golden eyes flicked up to meet him.

“Geralt.” Said Jaskier. “Please breathe. I know exactly what is going on here. Everything is going to be ok.”

Geralt heaved a sigh of relief. His breath still wavered.

“Thank the gods,” he said with conviction.

“Witchers don’t grow up with their parents right?” Asked Jaskier.

“No.”

“Do you even know yours, Geralt?”

“No. What has that got to do—”

“Just. Please. Humor me.” Insisted Jaskier.

“Ok. Ok fine.” Said Geralt.

“This. All of this. The nightmares. Visions. Anxiety manifesting as pain,” said Jaskier.

“Yes?”

“It’s just part of being a parent, dear man.”

“No,” said Geralt and shook his head emphatically. “That’s not what this is. I know it. It is bad magics. Sorcery.”

“I’m afraid not,” said Jaskier gently. “You are suffering from an acute condition called being a parent.”

“But. I’ve never felt like this. I feel. Crazy.” Insisted Geralt.

Jaskier shrugged. “That’s exactly how both of my parents described it. Love to the point of insanity. Potent, that.”

“I’ve loved before.” Said Geralt. “It isn’t like I’ve never loved.”

“Yes but now your will to live depends on your child’s wellbeing. And the thing you believe to be your only job is actually impossible.”

“What is impossible?”

“Protecting her.”

“I can protect her.” Geralt sounded slightly outraged.

“Oh Geralt. That’s not how it works. We all have to take the hits life deals us. Look at your beautiful scars.”

Geralt looked at his shoulders and absently touched his arms.

“I know there was someone who wished they could’ve protected you from those.”

“But Ciri—“ he started.

“Geralt, you can’t protect Ciri from life or from hurt. You can’t be there every second. You aren’t a god. But everything inside you will scream that it’s your job. Your only job. It’s the cruelest joke the gods have ever played. It’s a trap.”

“Fuck.” Uttered Geralt.

“I know.” Jaskier squeezed Geralt’s hands and let them go. Geralt shook his head slowly.

“What IS my job then?”

“Not to protect her from the world. To help her to live in it.”

“This is hard.” Said Geralt simply. "Shit."

“Yes,” said Jaskier. “It is. But it’s also wonderful right? That’s what my parents said. Unless they were lying to me, and I provided unmitigated misery my entire youth.”

Geralt eyes widened. “No! No of course they weren’t. It’s wonderful too.”

“Good. Good.” said Jaskier. “Tell me something wonderful then.”

“There’s a lot.” Said Geralt. “Like, when she gives me her hand. Just puts her little hand in mine for no reason. I could be leading her anywhere, you know? To anyone. For any purpose. She wouldn’t even know.”

His voice was bursting at the seams with wonder. Jaskier glanced down. Geralt’s hands had let go of their fists.

“But she follows me.” He said. “She looks at me with her big blue eyes and just. Puts her life in my hands. Trusts that I’m good. For no reason. She just does.” Geralt smiled deeply and everything on his face crinkled.

“She loves you.” said Jaskier. “And I think she’s right about you too.” Jaskier met Geralt’s eyes and returned the warm smile.

“And I would bet” Jaskier continued, “that to a little girl who’s lost everything, a carrot cake from her father makes all the difference no matter when he makes it. I also bet that she thinks your bedtime stories are exciting. And you can be taught to braid. “

Geralt rubbed his face and leaned back. His eyes were watery.

“Thank you, Jaskier. You probably think I’m an idiot.”

“I think you’re precious.”

Geralt threw his head back and laughed. It was a magnificent sound.

“You’d be the first.”

“Oh I very much doubt that.” Jaskier said.

Geralt cleared his throat. “I’m just so ignorant.”

“Look. So am I.” said Jaskier. “Before I came here, I thought witchers were enigmas. Unknowable.”

Geralt chuckled and wiped his eyes.

“But you’re just a big old mess. Like any new father.”

“Yeah.”

“I know they do trials that are supposed to dim your emotions. Perhaps you should notify them that the trials are defective.”

Geralt’s shoulder shook with laughter again. Jaskier joined him. He laughed until his sides ached.

“What do I do? I am a mess.” Geralt asked.

“Let’s see.” said Jaskier. “Do you know how to meditate?

“Yes. I used to. But since she came, I’ve been so busy.”

“You need to do that again” said Jaskier. “Also. Try to take a nap. And talk to a friend whenever you’re feeling like this.”

Me. He thought. Talk to me. Too forward.

“Do you have frIends in the area?” Jaskier asked.

Geralt shook his head.

“My friends are scattered to the wind. On the path.”

“Well you always have one at Oxenfurt.”

Smooth.

“But unfortunately, I do need to get back for my evening lecture.”

Geralt stood up so quickly, the chair tipped over.

“Yes, of course, of course.” He turned his face to call up the stairs. “Ciri come say goodbye.”

Ciri appeared at the top of the stairs much too quickly. Her eyes were shining and Jaskier realized she must have heard the entire thing. One thing he remembered about being a child was the constant eavesdropping on adult conversations. She was down the stairs in a heartbeat and threw her arms around Jaskier.

“Thank you.” She squeezed hard and he wheezed. She was strong for a kid.

“No, thank you my dear.” Said Jaskier. “I learned valuable things today that will surely enrich my research.”

“Oh yeah, what?” asked Ciri, looking up at him, all freckles and wide eyes.

“That Geralt of Rivia is a handsome devil and has the most charming daughter on the continent.”

Ciri broke out into a gleeful smile and turned to look at Geralt. Witchers shouldn’t be able to blush. But the tips of Geralt’s ears were crimson.

“Sometimes theory just doesn’t teach you everything, child, remember that.” Jaskier said in his best professorly voice. “Now. Show me to the door, good lady?” He looked at Geralt. “Goodbye Geralt. And I mean it. Come find me anytime.”

“Thank you. Travel safe.” Said Geralt. He was still red, but quite clearly also pleased. Jaskier winked at him. He thought the witcher would melt from embarrassment. It was utterly adorable.

Jaskier allowed himself to be ushered out. Ciri walked him to the gate, one arm linked in his, the other swinging. She chattered as they walked, telling him all about the flowers and the birds and the cottage.

When they reached the gate, he turned and took her shoulders.

“Have a wonderful evening Ciri. I shall now regretfully take my leave.”

“Wait.” She said. “Before you go. Can you help me with this?” She waved at her messy hair. “Do you know how to braid?”

“Yes of course sweetheart. I actually find it quite soothing.”

She turned around and he plaited a quick braid. As he smoothed the last tendrils, he noticed Geralt was standing at the door watching. Jaskier waved. Geralt waved back.

“Can we see you again?” Asked Ciri. She took his sleeve and pulled it. He closed his hand over hers.

“It would be my honor. But it’s your father's decision.”

“Ok. I’ll see that he makes the correct one.” Said Ciri confidently.

Jaskier laughed. “I suspect that you will.”

She looked back at Geralt.

“I can tell you helped him.” She said.

“Yes but you helped him more.” Said Jaskier. “So go give him a hug because it physically pained me not to do it myself.”

“I will. And you can always hug him next time.” Said Ciri.

“Indeed.”

After another warm farewell, Jaskier left Ciri to catch the wagon. He would make it back just in time for his lecture. He was rewriting it completely as he walked. It wasn’t that his books had been wrong. They just hadn’t told the whole story. Meeting the witcher had transformed his perspective. As Jaskier had predicted, meeting Geralt of Rivia had changed everything.

Read the rest on AO3 here.

[mayakern]

Not sure if this has ever been asked before, if so I apologize, but I absolutely love your writing! How did you start develop your writing style and what kind of practice did you/do you normally do? Also is there any place that you've found is great to post writing to get good feedback? I love writing myself but I just don't know of any good places to get feedback on anything and where I can get some good constructive criticism. Thank you so much and can't wait to read more! -Zeve

thank you, that’s very sweet! 

unfortunately, i don’t have much advice to give you. i’m not a trained writer, i’ve just always really loved reading. i was lucky enough to have some really good english teachers in high school and a couple really fun classes in college, but i went to art school so there wasn’t much focus on prose. a lot of my writing practice is thanks to my love of RPing when i was growing up but i honestly haven’t written prose much since college. i don’t know if making a webcomic for 7 years counts as writing practice but uhh, i sure did do that!

this is my first time writing this way -- i’m going for sort of tonally anachronistic, with some of the trappings of like ye olde language but also modern stuff like “okay” and “would absolutely suck balls” and “fuck.” 

part of what inspired this is over the past couple months one of my friends made me read the first kushiel’s dart trilogy and MAN if that ain’t a way of writing that just sticks in the brain. for the first, like, week or so after finishing the third book all my thoughts were stuck in kushiel mode and it was honestly SUPER annoying.

as far as feedback goes, i’m lucky to have a number of close friends who have been very kind in sticking it out to help me with spitfire, some of them giving me feedback on multiple iterations of the outline, some proof reading for any dumb typos/grammatical errors i make (i’ve learned recently that i am likely mildly dyslexic which really explains a lot about my life growing up lol) or just providing general beta reading feedback. 

most of them don’t have tumblrs but here are some that do: @radtastical @scookart @umpunchy (this is just me wanting to thank them, please don’t ask them to beta read your work unless you’re already friends with them)

[spacenerrrd]

The Courtroom

Word Count: 1097 Warnings: Mention of Deceit (once, not a character), breakdown, being ignored, mentions of being left out, basically just a bunch of angst

Thank you @sidespromptblog for their post that prompted this idea

~~~

“Of course you suggested a salad Logan.”

“Not just a salad. Of course we need protein for a well rounded meal so we should have some baked chicken.”

Roman groaned. “YAWWNNN! We should just get Chinese takeout!”

“But Thomas should be eating consistently healthy as the fresh food will-”

“Borrringggg! We don’t do it very often, just let the poor man eat his favourite tonight!”

Logan turned to Patton for support, but was greeted with a weak smile.

“I really do miss their dumplings…”

“Exactly! Virgil, you agree with us don’t you?”

Logan turned to face the anxious side who just shrugged. “He has been nervous about his work recently… Maybe this might help him.”

“Right! So we’re gonna order a dish of dumplings, spring rolls, rice crackers-”

“With the amount you are going to order he will feel sluggish and guilty for eating so much unhealthy food.” Roman rolled his eyes. “No he won’t, it’s only this once he’ll be fine.” He turned around and walked into the kitchen to order.

Patton gave a soft smile to Logan. “Next time you can choose the meal we pick,” he patted his shoulder before following Roman.

“That’s what you said last time too,” Logan mumbled.

Virgil shuffled his feet a bit, not making eye contact with Logan. “Sorry, I-”

“It’s fine Virgil, I understand,” Logan interrupted Virgil apology.

Virgil gave an awkward nod before scattering into the kitchen with the others.

Logan watched them go off, laughing at something Roman said that he didn’t quite catch. He probably wouldn’t of understood the joke anyway. He never does.

Logan didn’t participate during family dinner time. He passed it off that he was feeling unwell, and before Patton could pull the puppy eye trick on him, he had sunk out of the room. But he wasn’t going to his room. Instead, he rose in the middle of the courtroom. He stood in front of where Roman sat as the judge, just a mere week ago. He turned his head slightly to look at the witness box, where he had been brought up as evidence for Deceit’s case.

Even though he was the most qualified to help them do it properly.

Even though they knew he liked to play pretend for the sake of knowledge after he opened up to them.

Logan closed his eyes, adjusted his tie and cleared his throat. When he reopened them, they burnt. They burnt with a sense of passion, fuelled with anger and a hidden sadness.

Then he let loose.

“Would you like to explain to me why they won’t listen to me?” His voice boomed, echoing in the empty room. “How no matter how many times I am proven right, they won’t take my advice? Why I’m always cast to the side?” He stepped forward, hands slamming against the front of the witness stand as what little control he had broke as he started to scream. “Why is it that no matter how many palm cards I make to assist me with understanding their language, that they just don’t love me? It’s so obvious that I try so hard! The evidence is there! I’ve opened up to them, I have followed their stupid ideas to please them, yet nothing is reciprocated! Why does this even affect me?! Why does this hurt!? I don’t want to… to feel this anymore.” His eyes were watering now, his yells starting to go raw. But his voice quieted down to a whisper, as any louder would make him crack “How do I make this go away?”

He stood there for at least ten minutes, allowing the shaking that was going through his arms calm down and stopping the speed at which his chest was rising and falling. Once he was able to take a deep breath without it being caught in the lump in his throat, he slowly started to move. His feet took him up the step and sat him in the seat behind the witness stand. He tucked the chair in and stared out. He looked out to where Virgil sat in the Jury, eyes gazing over to where Deceit and Patton played the lawyers.

Where he should of been.

Logan’s gaze went up beside him, where Roman ridiculed him and laughed at him for being hurt. For being lied at and for being left out. Again.

Finally, his eyes fell to the back of the room, to the seat that he was forced to. Out of the scenario, where everyone else got to participate but him. The only time he got involved was when he was used to correct and check information.

“That’s all I’m good for, that’s why,” He mumbled. “That’s all they keep me around for. Because I’m needed to correct information. They don’t want me. They need me, but they’re never going to love me.” Tears fell from his eyes, his voice wavering. “I… I l-love them… and it all hurts so much… I am done being used. I don’t just want to be their pawn. I am just so, so tired. These emotions are exhausting. I’m logic and yet I feel… this.”

Logan had to take a second, taking a deep breath because he was going to break but dear god did he have so much more.

“I don’t know how long I can keep going like this. Where every decision of mine is belittled and I’m constantly left out. Where I’m called apart of their family because they need me, when in reality th-they… I’m not… I just want… I want to be apart of the fa-family… and I can’t go much longer pretending I’m fine that I’m n-not…”

That was where Logan shattered.

He leant forward on his arms as he started to sob. It rippled through his body and shook him of everything he had. His saw throat cried out more as he choked on everything he had been holding in and all his suffering. He lost track of how long he had been sitting there, feeling disgusting at how he expressed his emotion. How it shattered every bit of him. Slowly, when someone the sobbing stopped and the tears had slowed down, Logan could no longer keep his eyes open. They inevitably closed from the weight of emotional turmoil and exhaustion, pulling him into a deep slumber. In his sleep, he would slowly pick up the pieces of his broken self. Then he would spend the morning stitching himself back together, piece by piece until his mask was perfect in place again.

Until he shattered yet again.

~~~

~~~

A/N: Well That Hurt.

And now, the tags (thank to the people who asked to be tagged, it was pretty nice uwu):

@emologan

@kastrefeila

@tacohippy56900

@ambersky0319

@smolgoblinsstuff

Fanders Logan Tag list:

@thats-so-crash

@Ffsas-side-account

@lo-brokeit

@yonnie-boy

@unknownsandersfan

@sanders-sides-shambles

@pandagirl0730

@bubblegum-borb

@the-feels-are-coming

@starry-eyed-haiku-dreamer

@logically-asexual

@hanramz-the-fander

@ahoardofsides

@callboxkat

@faacethefacts

@angered-turtle

@anachronistic-cat

@reba-andthesides

@AskolotlQuestions

@crankywhenprovoked

@katatles-the-fish

@ispeakhalflies

@dib-leo-pard

@sassy-in-glasses

@elvishfrenchassassin

@ocotopushugs

@goodonebadgirl

@kirsten-the-freak

@haikyuupaladin

@weird-short-person

@thisisshien

@lepardlover

@someshinningideas

@angeliclogan

@nightlovechild

@siriuswhiskers

@anastasialestina

@i-will-physically-fight-you

@ace-v-p-d

@radioactivebread

@theshipqueenarrives

@allthemetalsoftherainbow

@dudlebuggs

@cinquefoilelove

@rptheturk

@ono-its-ryane

@evilmuffin

@k9cat

@theresneverenoughfandoms

@raisin-oatmeal-cookie

@hamster-corn

@roman-is-a-dramatic-prince

@vulnerablevirgil

@confinesofpersonalknowledge

@candiukas

@thought-u-said-dragon-queen

@muontsy2

@katesattic

@toujours-fidele

@planetsanders

@anonymouseandkeyboard

@logan-exe

@jughead-is-canonically-aroace

@justmyshitandmoreshit

@blaikleethepanagender

@runyou-cleverboy-andremember

@heck-im-lost

@ultimate-queen-of-fandoms2

@beetlequail

@johnlockandrarry

@moltengoldenstardust

@analogical-mess

[furymint]

FFXIV Write: Prompt #17

wc: 1,033

Nolanel kept his head down as he followed Elliot through the tight rows of bookshelves. He'd found the store months ago in the Brume while delivering one of his father's crafts, and though he remembered to take Elliot to it, he did not remember how ridiculously it was organized.

Each shelf rose to a different height, some crooked, some collapsing, and bore books up to the patched ceiling. Piles of tomes lined the cases like fences. Their spines split and cracked from age, pressure, and mold. Several loose pages had been stamped into the damp carpet, their ink passages smeared to nothingness.

Maybe he shouldn't have brought Elliot. None of this chaos could hold aught of value to him--these books were unused and uncared for. Too many were written in anachronistic language. No one could read them in the Brume. This was a storage, barely a store. He almost wondered if books could be haunted.

"'Tis a bit like a treasure hunt," Elliot said, ripping a book free from an overstuffed shelf. Rot marred the cover, but the inside was clean--and didn't interest him. He shoved it back. "Kind of exciting."

So not a treasure hunt and not exciting. Nolanel apologized.

"I'm serious, you know," Elliot insisted. "I think it's fun. Oh!" He hopped and craned his head to a collection set on the top shelf. Pointing, he said, "Music, see?"

Nearby, a chair sat surrounded by books. Elliot removed the tower atop it, lifted it free, and jammed it under the shelf he wanted to reach.

"Hold on, I'll get it." Nolanel navigated the busy floor and set a hand to the chair's weak back.

Elliot shooed him away. "This thing is light as a feather and more delicate asides. Your weight would crush the legs beneath it."

"One of the legs is uneven," Nolanel observed.

Squinting in focus and defiance, Elliot mounted the chair. It wobbled beneath his lacquered heel. To assert he was fine, Elliot stamped the scratched wood and gave a confident, "No problem at all."

Nolanel sighed and positioned his hands just behind Elliot's back--if the chair shifted, or his balance broke, he'd fall into Nolanel. "Just grab your books. I got you if you slip."

The chair creaked as Elliot leaned into the bookshelf. His thin fingers scratched at the spine of the first tome. For an extra ilm of height, he shifted his weight to one foot. The book slid into his grip. He passed it down to Nolanel, who set it atop an adjacent pile.

Reaching for the second, Elliot swayed to the right. Nolanel caught him by the waist; Elliot stiffened; by instinct, Nolanel steadied him with his other hand; Elliot shivered. The chair leg snapped.

Nolanel lurched forward and grabbed him. He hugged Elliot from behind, stunned at once by warmth, and dragged him free of the books scattered from the collapse. The buzzing light of the store seemed to go silent.  He heard naught but his and Elliot's hurried breaths. Adrenaline hammered their chests, and he felt almost sick from the identical race of Elliot's heart against his. He blamed himself and the cold. 

"Thank you," Elliot whispered, awed and genuine, brushing his hand over Nolanel's pinning arm, ridging the fabric of his greatcoat. 

Nolanel's breath didn't steady, but it did stop. Once Elliot gathered his legs beneath him, Nolanel let go and left to turn down a different aisle. His hands shut into fists. He shoved them in his coat pocket, sniffed, and pushed a thick book from his path with his foot.

He focused on anything other than his wonder for the unique sound of Elliot's thanks and how it arrested him.

By a mercy, Elliot let him be.

From the other side of the wall of shelves, Elliot dug through lopsided piles. His steps creaked singularly across the floor.

Nolanel kept track of the noise, thinking how silly Elliot walked--head sideways, hands tucked behind--until he snapped back to his solitude. Little else interested him here, but he would try any way to soothe his heart except listen to it. He stood taller, careful not to slice himself with his boot's iron toe, and reached for a pristine tome. New books were easier to read. Maybe this one--

Chirping a "Pardon me," Elliot slipped between Nolanel and the shelf to prod at a yellow-bound serial.

Nolanel balked; his breath stirred the lilac-scented hair of Elliot's crown; he growled to himself and curved away.

Implacable need dizzied him. His body tensed with a bone-cracking fear. The shelves seemed to curve over him, threatening to fall and bury and suffocate him, but he still couldn't breathe. Defiance choked him with unfixed desire, and dispassion screamed for rule, but he understood nothing now than that he worshiped the name of a flower he didn't know.

He careened around the counter and leaned into its chipped surface. Peeled stain crackled under his arms. The transparent film clung to his woolen sleeves. He rubbed them free, thought of Elliot again, and moved to ask if they could leave this damnable place.

But Elliot appeared, immaculate and unbothered, seven books in his arms and a smile like a benison on his lips. He padded around Nolanel and hefted his collection to the table.

One by one, Nolanel inspected each book for a price. Sheet music, a chapbook, a children's story, a confessions, then war history and something in another language. "This's everything?" he asked, surprised at the surety of his own voice.

"Yes, thank you again." Elliot bowed, hand over his heart, and dipped at the knee. Then he sprung up, frightened by his own severity, and slapped his open hands to the counter in a jagged song. “I don’t have any small coins right now, but I can break them and pay you back if we get tea.”

Nolanel hid his face in his collar and dug in his pockets for gil. “Deal if we get stew at the Knight.”

The shopkeep finally emerged to leaf through the books. Elliot set his arms against the counter and leaned his head into them. Peering up at Nolanel with something like a smirk, he mused, “I do owe you one, I suppose.”

[hermannsthumb]

ok so last night on my side twitter i got really invested in the concept of a regency/late 1700s/early 1800s newmann au featuring mildly incompetent highwayman newt who really only manages to steal one thing from nobleman hermann......his heart....and then i wrote a little ficlet of it, and then ferio drew some VERY cute art of it on twitter here

anyway terrible meet-cute an anachronistic language left and right below the cut

Hermann has never cared for long coach rides. The cramped confines of carriages make his leg ache, and the constant jostling sets his nerves on end and ensures he can never quite fall asleep. This one in particular is unbearable, and not because the journey has lasted him a day already. It’s more due to the fact that Hermann’s currently being robbed.

At least, that’s what Hermann assumes is happening: the carriage has come to a screeching halt, and there’s a great deal of shouting going on outside. He hears his coachman cry out, and then nothing. Hermann does not move.

The carriage door is flung open. Hermann comes face to face with the end of a pistol. “Evening,” the owner of the pistol says, gruff-voiced. The man is mounted on horseback--a fearsome, snarling thing--and a black bandanna covers the lower half of his face. Not that Hermann would be able to see his face anyway: the night obscures his eyes, only his body thrown into sharp relief by the lanterns of Hermann’s carriage. He’s wrapped in a dark cape.

Hermann’s heard rumors of the highwayman that lurks these roads--it’s one of the reasons why he’d been so nervous to travel in the first place. They say the highwayman has eyes that flash like the devil’s, that he sprang forth from nightmares, that he’ll take everything but prisoners. The Magpie, they call him.

“Hello,” Hermann says, unsure of the proper procedure for being robbed. “What have you done to my coachman?”

“Oh, he’ll be fine,” the highwayman says, oddly polite; as far as Hermann knows, this doesn’t seem to be the usual procedure. “I only knocked him over the head. He’ll wake up in a bit.” That’s a relief, at least. Hermann can’t steer for the life of him, and he’d rather not be stranded in the woods all night. The highwayman shakes his pistol in Hermann’s face. “In the meantime, how about you start handing everything over?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have much in the way of valuables on me,” Hermann says, unsure once more, but this time of why he’s apologizing to a highwayman. The pistol is alarming him, making him unable to think straight--Hermann’s never been at the end of one before. His heart is racing.

“With a fancy carriage like yours?” the highwayman says, and snorts. “Don’t hold out on me, handsome.”

Handsome? Hermann starts fumbling in his pockets. It’s the truth, really, he doesn’t have many valuables on his person tonight. He hates ostentatious reminders of his family’s wealth and never wears jewelry, though he is admittedly fond of silk cravats and a good handkerchief. He pulls his money bag from his breeches, his nice pocket watch from inside his waistcoat. “I swear to you,” Hermann says, laying them delicately on the empty seat next to him within reach of the highwayman, “this is all I have.”

The highwayman lowers his pistol and leans in to pick up each. That’s when Hermann springs to action; he twists the head of his cane just so and unsheathes a sword, whips it out and points it at the highwayman’s chest in one furious, fluid motion, hopes for the element of surprise. “Drop them,” Hermann snarls. He doesn’t expect it to work. The highwayman has a pistol, after all, he could shoot Hermann dead before Hermann even gets remotely close to stabbing him. But the highwayman takes one look at Hermann’s sword, lets out a shrill little yelp, and immediately falls off his horse.

Hermann blinks. He peers out the carriage door.

The highwayman is lying in a little heap on the dirt road, bandanna askew, cape twisted about his person. His pistol’s fallen from his hand to the carriage seat.  “Easy!” he squeaks, and holds his hands up to shield himself from the sword. “You could really hurt someone with that.” His voice has lost all hint of threatening gruffness. It’s somewhat high, Hermann realizes. A little scratchy.

“As opposed to swinging pistols about,” Hermann says, not lowering the sword, “which are infamously harmless.”

“It’s not loaded,” the highwayman says, and sure enough, when Hermann picks up the pistol and inspects it, the bullet chamber is completely empty. Which, frankly, raises more questions.

“Why do you carry an empty pistol?”

“It’s all about appearance, you know, instilling fear. I don’t actually want to kill anyone,” the highwayman says, and he gets a little sarcastic. “You might not know this, but that’s incredibly illegal.”

“One might say the same of robbery,” Hermann points out.

“One might,” the highwayman says, and he gets to his feet cautiously, shadowy eyes trained on the sword. “One might also say it’s nothing but a--redistribution of wealth. How familiar are you with folklore? Ever heard of Robin Hood?”

The highwayman’s actually quite short, Hermann sees, now that he’s down from that dreadful horse of his. His breeches are nearly indecently tight. Not that Hermann noticed. “Oh, so you’re a noble thief,” Hermann says. “Forgive me for making assumptions. Typically when strange men rob me at gunpoint I tend to think the worst of them.”

“Mostly noble,” the highwayman says, and Hermann can nearly hear his grin behind his bandanna. “I’m also the poor, common folk in the scenario, see.”

“Mm.” Hermann lowers his sword an inch. “You’re fairly talkative for a highwayman.” He supposes the magpie moniker is appropriate. 

“You’re surprisingly merciful for someone I tried to rob,” the highwayman says. “If I return your belongings, will you stop pointing that thing at me?”

“Remove your mask first,” Hermann orders. The highwayman hesitates a moment, and then his gloved hands go to the knot of his bandanna. He unties it, and it falls to the ground. Hermann nearly drops the sword in shock.

The highwayman is young, no older than Hermann himself--not the aged, haggard man of legends Hermann had been expecting. His features are soft, rounded, his hair messy, his cheeks freckled. His eyes aren’t like some sort of devil’s at all--they’re green, shielded by a pair of thick spectacles, which would explain all the flashing in the light. Hermann’s aware he’s staring, but he can’t help it. The highwayman is--attractive. “Now?” the highwayman says, and there’s a little mischievous glint in his eye, as if he’s somehow privy to Hermann’s thoughts. Or perhaps he merely has eyes. Hermann had not been particularly subtle in his sweeping examination of the man. His cheeks feel warm.

“Oh, go on,” he sighs, and finally re-sheaths the sword. The highwayman bows courteously--and perhaps a bit mockingly--and ducks down to pick up Hermann’s money and watch.

“No one’s ever fought back before,” the highwayman says, out of sight. “Mostly everyone’s too afraid. Or too wealthy to care. What are a few stolen gold rings if you’ve got a dozen more at home?”

“I don’t particularly care either,” Hermann confesses. “It’s my father’s wealth, not mine, and we don’t exactly--get along.” Hermann’s unclear on why he’s explaining so much of his life to a thief, albeit a handsome and oddly charming thief. “I’m simply in a hurry, you see, and was already feeling rather cross, so you can only imagine how your presence must’ve affected me.”

“A hurry?” the highwayman says, ducking back into sight with Hermann’s money bag and watch clutched in his hands. He’s grinning once more.

Hermann’s heart sinks in his chest. He is in a hurry, and he’s certainly lost a great deal of time by now--the sun’s set throughout the course of his exchange with the highwayman. He’ll have to pay for an inn along the route, now, perhaps pay someone to deliver a message to Newton and let him know his arrival will be delayed. Their first meeting put off yet another day. “I was in a hurry,” Hermann corrects. “I’m due to meet--someone.”

“A lover?” the highwayman says, mischievous glint back. “Don’t say yes. I’ll be heartbroken.”

Hermann’s heart flutters a bit. Damn this little man. “Are you always this incorrigibly flirtatious with your victims?”

“No,” the highwayman says, and winks. “You’re the exception.” He turns the watch over in his hands, and Hermann’s surprised to see him frown at the Gottlieb family crest. It’s a little gaudy, Hermann supposes; he tends to avoid using it on much other than the watch in question, which had been a gift, and his letter seal. “This is--familiar,” the highwayman says. Very suddenly, his eyes widen behind his spectacles. He looks up at Hermann. “Hermann?” he squeaks.

“Yes?” Hermann says, eyebrows arching. “How do you know--?”

“I swear to you,” the highwayman stammers, “I didn’t know it was you. Truly. I wouldn’t have--”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s meant to fund my research,” the highwayman says, and Hermann shuts his eyes and groans, because of course, of course it’s him.

“Of course,” he says. “Newton.”

“In the flesh,” Newton says, and gives a high, nervous laugh. “Uh. Sorry?”

“You pulled a pistol on me!”

“Unloaded!” Newton exclaims. “You pulled a sword on me! Why do you even own a sword?”

“Frankly, I don’t believe that is any of your business,” Hermann sniffs. “Bloody well figures you’re a thief. What are you doing lurking about in the woods when I was meant to be arriving at your estate tonight?” Not just a thief, but a terrible host at that.

“I was bored of waiting for you!” Newton says. “It was only meant to be a quick little robbery.” Hermann believes it; even through no means of communication but letter correspondence over the course of their four year-long partnership, Hermann has inferred how easily restless and distracted Newton is made. “What are you doing travelling the route of the Magpie?”

“The Magpie,” Hermann snorts derisively. Newton--shrill-voiced, a good head shorter than the average man, waving an empty pistol--springing forth from nightmares.

“Don’t laugh!” Newton says. “You were all over the Magpie, Hermann, you thought I was so mysterious and alluring. I bet you were a minute away from asking me to ravish you right here.”

“Mysterious and alluring indeed,” Hermann says, choosing not to remark on the accusation of desired ravishment but instead recalling in vivid detail Newton falling from his horse. And then he recalls something else. “You called me handsome.”

“Perhaps I did,” Newton says, cheeks flaming.

“Do you still--”

“Yes,” Newton says.

Hermann glances to the front of the carriage. “How long until--”

Newton’s inching up to the side of the carriage. “Another half an hour or so,” he says. “I’m highly skilled at rendering people unconscious. Doctor’s touch, you know.”

Hermann does not miss the innuendo. “Get up here, then,” Hermann says, and Newton hoists himself inside and falls upon Hermann with kisses.

[nicolekidmanwigfactory]

Pedro Almodóvar's "A Little Night Music"

I was VERY VERY VERY bored at work last night and it occurred to me that A Little Night Music would be a perfect musical for Almodóvar to adapt, with it’s switching partners and examination of the sexes and sexuality. So I got creative and imagined what that might look like and modeled it based on his late 1980s/early 1990s movies. All the songs would remain in their normal places, perhaps with a few lines modified to reflect its updated time and setting.

The show is interrupted with commentary by the Liebeslieder Singers, now a group of Flamenco Singers. While still in waltz time, the music takes on the more traditional musical sounds of Spain.

Desiree Armfeldt, Spain's aging, but glamorous thespian, tours the country during the 1980s at the height of the La movida madrileña in a flashy production of Lorca’s Blood Wedding. Back on his Toledo estate, her father, Señor Armfeldt- Madrid's most famous drag queen/rent boy before the Civil War- raises his daughter’s daughter, Federica, a dour girl with a penchant for staging suicides based on the Catholic martyrs. Señor Armfeldt enchants Federica with stories of his childhood, including the three sonrisas of the night.

Desiree’s former lover, the widowed Federico is a cabinet minister in the Suarez government and newly married to the still-virginal Ana, a former novitiate who left the convent due to an incident involving the Friday fish during the previous year’s Lenten season. Federico's son, Enrique, a theology student at the local university, has known Ana since birth and shares a familial bond with her, as well as a carnal desire. Ana’s maid, Paula, a companion of Franco and his allies, regales Ana with tales of her worldly knowledge.

With the help of his manservant, Señor Armfeldt puts on his old drag and reminisces about his prime, before the Civil War, and how his talents brought him his riches, and how even with Franco gone, he’s far too old to go back to his old life of drag and tricks. At appropriate pauses in “Liasions,” Señor Armfeldt delivers veiled insults toward his daughter which also serve as critiques of regressive Franco regime and its Catholic supporters.

Federico and Ana attend a performance of Blood Wedding, but leave after Ana becomes upset, Federico returns to stage door Desiree, where they rekindle their relationship and have a tryst after he explains his marital predicament to Desiree. Desiree’s current lover, the bisexual and recently retired torero Carlo Magnus-Malcolm, interrupts them and after talking her way out of the sticky situation, Federico leaves and returns home to Ana. Carlo doubts Desiree’s story and tells his wife, the transgender matchmaker/cabaret singer Carlota, who realizes Ana is an old classmate of her younger sister.

Carlota pays Ana a visit and informs her of her husband’s infidelity over a glass of sangria. Over a flashback montage with an anachronistic recording of Estrella Morente singing in the background, Carlota explains to Ana how during her time living and working as a Catholic priest, listening to the confessions of adulterous men showed her that men cause their wives nothing but pain. The priestly Carlota took on each of their sins personally, leading her to realize that she herself did so because she accepted their sins as a woman, not as a priest, leading Carlota to come to terms with her long-questioned gender identity. Ana questions why Carlota puts up with her husband’s infidelities.

Desiree plots to steal Federico from Ana. Ana and Carlota plot to shame Desiree for her home wrecking and embarrass their husbands in the process. Enrique struggles with reconciling his theological studies and his borderline-incestuous feelings for his step-mother, going so far to frequenting a similar looking prostitute. Federica’s staged suicides become more elaborate. All of this eventually culminates in a visit from Desiree to her father and daugher. She convinces her father to host Federico and his family at the estate outside of Toledo to spend a weekend in the country. The invitations go out, and lo and behold, who shows up but Carlo and Carlota, on their way to Granada for Carlo to meet with an up-and-coming matador to possibly take on and train.

During the siesta, Señor Armfeldt’s guests mingle: Ana and Carlota get their plan straight; Federico and Carlo discuss their shared ambitions with Desiree in the driest of terms while keeping wary of the other; Enrique gets on well with Federica and confesses that he’s in love with his stepmother, the first time he’s said it aloud.

Señor Armfeldt, tasked with his most extravagant party since the fall of the Second Spanish Republic, puts on his highest drag and proceeds to dust off his pre-war persona of Madame Tápame during dinner, much to the embarrassment of Desiree but delight of her guests. Carlota flirts with Federico, angering her husband and upsetting Ana, despite Ana’s knowledge of the plan. Desiree is able to rebuff all of Carlota’s disguised insults with her own stinging rebukes. Madame Tápame, reveling in being able to live out her vocation once again, reads everyone at the table for their atrocious behavior, but Enrique storms away from the table after declaring everyone immoral. To cut the tension, Federica stages a suicide modeled on the martyrdom of Santa Cecilia, using one of Carlo’s banderillos as the sword.  

Everyone leaves the table except Federica. Still posing as Santa Cecilia, we see her smile for the first time before she leaves to find Ana and tell her about Enrique’s love. Desiree catches up with Federico to “rescue” him from his marriage, but he rebuffs her. She’s hurt but lets him go.

Ana finds Enrique with another of Carlo’s banderillos, who’s ready to slice his throat when Ana declares how comical he’s been. They embrace and run off into the barn. Ana’s maid Paula, who’d snuck off during the chaos of dinner, sneaks out of the main house, kisses Señor Armfeldt’s manservant good night, and sings “The Miller’s Son” to compare the fun of her life to Ana’s marriage, which also serves to examine the cultural revolution of Spain as a result of La movida madrileña- Ana’s marriage representing the Franco years and Paula being La movida. During the final “there are mouths to be kissed/before mouths to be fed...” portion, Paula gives a knowing glance, referring to Ana and her newfound freedom (NB: not that Federico was an oppressive and dictatorial husband, just than her life with Federico was symbolic of life under Franco, sexually repressed and unfulfilling). 

Carlota finds Federico on the terrace and apologizes to him for her behavior at dinner. They see Enrique and Ana run by, kissing and discussing their future alive. Realizing what this means for him, Carlota comforts Federico. Inside the house, Desiree ends her relationship with Carlo once and for all. He spots Federico and Carolta sitting together through a window and misinterpreting their body language, challenges the other man to a fight. Federico refuses and takes a fist to the face and Carlota runs into her husband’s arms, bowled over by his willingness to fight for her. Desiree finds Federico again, and now free from his marital obligations, he allows himelf to be “rescued.” Señor Armfeldt, still in drag as Madame Tápame, discusses the night’s events with Federica, and says perhaps she’s not as irrelevant as she once thought, but even she must know when it’s time to stop living for the past and let the new generation of fools and lovers take over. 

Señor Armfeldt is wheeled away and the curtain comes down on the evening’s three couples, now appropriately matched and dancing together in the flamenco style.

[hereidinathoreauwrites]

Fiona Felicity Frizzle (or: Frizzle, the younger)

Magic School Bus Rides Again one-shot drabble: the adventures of Fiona Felicity Frizzle (travels through science and time with the new teacher)

No one ever could keep me tied down. Not that anyone had ever really tried.

If there was one thing the Frizzle family was, we were proud of our eccentricity and desire to learn. We were also special. Mom used to say we all had a little touch of magic. Nothing world-shaking or time-altering but just a sparkle that let us be extraordinary. And my sister and I seemed to have more than just your average sparkle.

Of the two of us, Val had always been the golden child. She excelled in both school and the extraordinary specialties of our name. She was smart, curious, charming, and talented, even among our family. That’s why no one raised any stink when she was gifted the keys at the tender age of 16. She was ready for them; everyone could see it.

And while I wasn’t far behind her in most things, in this, she indisputably won.

I never wanted to follow in Valerie’s footsteps. No one even expected it of me. We were free to pursue whatever we wished. She was just the perfect embodiment of a Frizzle. Everyone in our extended family looked up to her and I was just Frizzle: the younger.

All the same though, when Val was handed those keys, it awoke a deep hunger in me. Hunger for the kind of adventure only having the keys could provide. But the keys were out of reach. So I’d just have to find adventure on my own.

With that spirit, one day I just grabbed up my knapsack and took off. What can I say? I was 16, it was 1993 and I had waited long enough. The world was my oyster and I intended to know everything about it that I could. Keys or no keys, I wasn’t going to let my education suffer. Maybe I should have apologized for taking Dad’s Time-Winder but the thing was just collecting dust. Wasn’t it better if it was in use?

So my curious tinkering may have set the thing off and I ended up spending quite a long time on ancient Lesbos Island helping a wonderful young woman write some very beautiful poetry. In return, she let me study her father’s books on medicine and biology. It all worked out in the end. After a while, I was able to un-tinker what I had tinkered and the Time-Winder shot me forward to the year 2016. Deciding I should maybe leave exploring time for later, I instead set off to explore space.

After a few hitch-hikes and a brief stint as a stand-up comedian in Lithuania, my lucky break got me all the way to a place I’d always wanted to go — the steppes of Mongolia in the Altai Mountains. So in a way, it was lucky my plane crashed there. I met a fascinating young girl who taught me about how her culture has hunted with golden eagles for generations. I nearly got frostbite cantering after her on her hunt. In return, I taught her everything I knew about medicine and human biology. When I was ready, I left her family to join a caravan heading east.

From Mongolia came a rather trying time in Japan, where I struggled to master calligraphy and the lost art of the sword. After that, I crossed the Pacific in a one-woman kayak and nearly drowned just off the coast of Guam. A passing freighter offered me a ride and I happily bounced from Guam to Hawai’i to the Gulf of California.

Sometime later, I found myself wandering through the Brazilian jungle and somehow ended up being adopted by a family of golden lion tamarin monkeys. I think they wanted my necklace but didn’t know how to ask. They were a lot of fun, especially when they tried to comb my hair for me. I learned a lot about climbing from them. When I left, one of them followed me. Before long, she was sitting on my shoulder, comfortably jumping from adventure to adventure with me. I called her Goldie.

Goldie made my adventures more interesting by far. She was curious and sneaky, often getting her fingers into things people didn’t want them in. One time, I’d had to pry her away from a bakery in Germany after she’d discovered banana crème filling. I don’t think we’re welcome in that bakery anymore…

She’d also once pilfered the Hope Diamond. I don’t think anyone noticed though; I had recently perfected my espionage skills in study with the KGB and CIA (independently, of course) and those transferred rather well to breaking into the Smithsonian to restore the jewel.

Goldie eventually learned though that some times were better than others for sticking her fingers into things. It took a few years (and a lot of stern reprimands and banana crème pastries) but I eventually taught her.

If there was one thing I never did, it was settle down. There was just too much to see and learn. I had barely cracked into world languages, let alone the dead ones! My pack was always home to half a dozen books or so that I swapped out as I finished them. Reading a chapter or two of a classic before falling asleep at night was the best way to finish off a day of adventure. And long flights between new adventures were perfect for picking up phrases in other languages.

Goldie and I traversed the world, never once looking back in our endless thirst for knowledge and adventure.

At some point while rocketing down the Alps on stolen skis, I realized I had turned 33 somewhere in my wanderlust.

And for some reason, that made me more homesick than anything else. I debated going home but never made a move to. For one, I had effectively vanished for twenty-three years when I’d used the Time-Winder the first time. I’d be the wrong age if I went home. Val would be nearly twice my age now. It just seemed wrong. And I hadn’t even told my parents when I left.

I didn’t belong at home.

After that, I stopped counting my numerical age. I measured my life in adventures and I had more of those than I had years on this Earth. Besides, it was harder to keep track of one’s age when one was leaping through time constantly.

Despite the inherent danger I’d found in using the Time-Winder, it was irresistible to have that power and not use it. What was an adventure without a little risk after all?

And use it I did.

It was finicky but functional. I couldn’t choose the destination precisely but it always seemed to take Goldie and me where we needed to go.

1567 was an incredible year. Yes, I may have romanced both the captain’s wife and the captain himself aboard a trading vessel and then accidentally won a sword duel to become captain of a passing pirate schooner but life was so dull without conflict. So I may have picked those fights deliberately. Elizabeth was an incredible woman though…she didn’t even care that I was a woman.

Shame the pirates learned I was a woman as well and chased me halfway across the Caribbean before I managed to slip into Costa Rica and vanish.

Nikola Tesla was a surprising ally in my quest to explore time. He was fascinated by my Time-Winder, even though I’m not sure he completely understood what it was. I spent many months at his side, studying engineering, chemistry, and electricity alongside him. Leaving was difficult but I had to. Edison was getting suspicious and I wasn’t looking to end up in any history books.

I picked up guitar somewhere between Han dynasty China and 1980’s New York, which surprisingly opened up more doors for me than my newly-cultivated ability to speak 14 different languages (2 of which were dead languages!) fluently. Seems throughout most of history, people have had more use for music performers than they have for reliable translators. Goldie and I played our way across America and Russia during two different centuries on the pennies cast by passersby and the tips of the tipsy.

Splashing along the tide lines with Rachel Carson was a truly illuminating experience. Was there nothing that woman didn’t know about the ocean? She was an incredible friend and companion to me in the 1950s when I’d stopped to study the early days of space exploration and the rise of the environmental movement. And who better to apprentice myself to than Rachel herself? We took a great many tidepool specimens back to her study and spent many weeks identifying each one and making small sketches. I even offered my critiques on some of her writings.

But when she mentioned Val, I knew it was time to leave her. Coming so close to my sister while she was chasing her own adventure was jarring and it brought back feelings I hadn’t realized I’d buried so long ago.

I could pretend all I wanted but what I knew I craved, I couldn’t have. Without the keys, I was imprisoned in this life of wandering. The most I could hope for was a surface look at whatever phenomenon or historical event caught my eye. I was doomed to see everything through unbreakable glass.

But still, it was all I had. Val had inherited the keys. That left me with whatever I could take and whatever I could explore on my own. So I got even more daring.

Maybe Alcatraz was a step too far though...

Goldie and I were sailing down the Colorado River on a raft I’d constructed on my own sometime in 1842 when my real adventure finally began.

As I struggled to both man the tiller and the sail (Goldie scouting ahead from our mast), an anachronistic ringing sound came from my pack.

Strange…I wouldn’t have thought my phone would work in a time before it was invented…

Risking letting go of the tiller, I dug into the pocket and pulled out the ringing device.  Wow, cell reception was surprisingly strong out here.

I answered the phone with one hand. “Hello? What’s up?” The sail rope slackened and I leaned on it to rig my sail back up.

“Hello Fi!” It had been years since I’d heard that voice.

“Val!” Goldie shrieked, drawing my attention back to the river. “Can you hold on one second?” I tucked the phone between my teeth so I could hold the sail with one hand and adjust the rudder with the other. Goldie and I shot down the river, dodging nimbly between the rapids. The rope burned into my hands and I smiled around the phone in my mouth. This was just as incredible as I had imagined!

We burst out into some steady water a few seconds later and I finally released my grip on the sail.

“Sorry about that, rapids.” I continued, holding the phone to my ear again. “What can I do you for, Val?”

“I’ve got a proposition for you, dearest sister of mine.”

“Oh yeah? What?”

“How do you feel about teaching?”

“Teaching…?”

“Yes. You’d have to give up your lonely quest to explore all of time though. How does 2017 sound?”

“Does this mean…!”

“Yes Fiona. The keys are being passed. It’s your turn to inherit the Bus.”

I didn’t wait a second. Barely giving Goldie time to jump onto my shoulder, I scooped up my bag and tinkered the Time-Winder one last time.

At last, I was stepping right through that glass door.

[coin-river-blog]

The document dump site calls out Craig Wright for forging documents. But maybe that's just more "fake news."

On February 8, Craig Wright, who purports to be Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto, published an extensive (and thoroughly popcorn worthy) Medium post about what Bitcoin was – and wasn't – designed to do. In it, he says, "Bitcoin was never designed to help an anonymous money-transfer system, and I was always opposed to those seeking to operate outside the law." He continues:

"I do not like Wikileaks, and I have never been a fan of Assange's methods. More importantly, I am strongly opposed to criminal markets and bucket shops. Ross Ulbricht and others like him are criminals. They are not freedom fighters, they are not libertarians. They simply are predators, and they are all that Bitcoin was designed to make far more difficult."

Such actors, Wright says, are why he (i.e., Satoshi) left: "I needed to fix what I allowed." In a follow-up post titled "The Story of Bitcoin, Continued," Wright paints a vivid picture of his thought process during the years directly following the invention of Bitcoin, though one in which the timeline isn't always clear. He claims that he was working in 2011 to stop human trafficking and sexual slavery, and that Bitcoin was created to be "an immutable evidence trail" that could stop such evils.

At first glance, the posts constitute, if not a complete rewriting of cryptocurrency history, a creative reimagining of the genesis of Bitcoin.

The real Satoshi Nakamoto actually referenced WikiLeaks several times on the Bitcoin Forum. After WikiLeaks floated the idea of accepting bitcoin donations in 2010, early Bitcoin users discussed the possibility on a thread titled "Wikileaks contact info?"

At the time, WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, were public enemy number 1 for their role in publishing classified documents about US involvement in the Iraq War and War in Afghanistan. Considering this, on December 5, 2010, Satoshi wrote: "I make this appeal to WikiLeaks not to try to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a small beta community in its infancy. You would not stand to get more than pocket change, and the heat you would bring would likely destroy us at this stage."

On December 11, 2010, he added: "WikiLeaks has kicked the hornet's nest, and the swarm is headed towards us."

So, Wright's version of events can't necessarily be taken to contradict Satoshi's opinion of WikiLeaks or criminal activity, especially given the dearth of publicly available writings from Satoshi, who simply stopped posting anything past December 2010 (save a lone March 2014 post stating that he was not Dorian Nakamoto, the ).

But a corresponding tweet demonstrates that Wright is, in fact, attempting to rewrite history. As part of his bid to convince the world anew that he is (or "was" as he puts it at the end of his February 9 post) Satoshi Nakamoto, he tweeted screenshots of an apparent proposal called "Project BlackNet" that he says he filed with the Australian government in 2001.

The abstract uses some of the same language as the Bitcoin white paper. Proof? Not quite. As a reddit poster pointed out:

"[I]n this scam attempt he was not aware that Satoshi shared a draft of the Bitcoin whitepaper in august 2008. As we can see, there are plenty of corrections made in the final Bitcoin whitepaper compared to the draft. The fake 'Black Net' paper, which should've preceded the draft by a whopping 7 years, strangely also contains these same corrections."

Ironically, much of the legwork on collecting and analyzing those drafts was done by Gwern Branwen, who co-authored the now-infamous 2015 Wired article about Wright, "Bitcoin's Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Is Probably This Unknown Australian Genius."

Wright's tweet gave WikiLeaks ample opportunity to hit back against Wright. It did so today, February 12, by reminding people that this isn't the first time Wright's been caught up in a forgery dispute, posting:

It followed up with documentation from a GitHub repository called CultOfCraig dedicated, in part, to documenting his history of alleged forgery, which WikiLeaks claims to have independently verified. The document actually surfaced in February of last year. In it, Wright appears to have edited an August 2008 blog post to say he would "have a cryptocurrency paper out soon."

The Bitcoin white paper was released in October of that year, but even it did not use the term "cryptocurrency." Nor had Wei Dai, David Chaum, or Nick Szabo in their presentations of b-money, ecash, or bit gold, respectively. If it was a forgery, then, it was an anachronistic forgery.

Wright, however, remains undeterred, calling WikiLeaks "fake news." The website Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC) disagrees. Instead, it finds, "[W]hile the material dumps are unaltered and not biased they have demonstrated a political agenda though the information they choose to dump, which some believe tends to favor Russia."

Elizabeth Lea Vos of Disobedient Media objects to the bent of that assessment, citing former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray, who claims to have tried to leak official documents to WikiLeaks only to be refused "because they could not 100% verify them." (However, MBFC never questioned the veracity of the documents published by WikiLeaks.) Of Vos' site, MBFC says, "Overall, we rate Disobedient Media a strongly right biased conspiracy source, based on numerous examples of publishing information that is not conclusive or supported by evidence."

If that sounds like a digression, apologies. But distrust of media sources – and even the fact checkers that rate media sources – is part of what allows malevolent actors like Craig Wright to persist; get far enough down the rabbit hole and the truth becomes harder to make out. Now, Wright has gone so far as to suggest that WikiLeaks, which stands apart from traditional media structures by publishing directly, is fraudulent.

The finger-pointing and forgeries and cries of fake news, as fun as it all is, obscures Bitcoin's true beginnings and allows observers to reframe the narrative to fit their own leanings, just as Wright has done. There is an evidence trail of what actually happened, alright, but it's far from immutable.

Jeff Benson is Managing Editor of ETHNews. He's worked as a writer and editor everywhere from Sudan to Reno. He holds a bachelor's in politics from Willamette University and a master's in nationalism studies from University of Edinburgh. When he's not in the newsroom, he trots the globe and writes about it. He holds a bit of value in ETH.

ETHNews is committed to its Editorial Policy

Like what you read? Follow us on Twitter @ETHNews_ to receive the latest WikiLeaks, Craig Wright or other Ethereum cryptocurrencies and tokens news.

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[perfectlyrose]

Golden Future

Summary:  The Doctor is rather fascinated by an anachronistic blonde with impossible timelines that he stumbles across on a asteroid bazaar.

Pairing: Eight/Rose

Rating: all ages // Word Count: 1414

Note:  For Nancy ( @chocolatequeennk ) on the occasion of the anniversary of her birth ♥♥ Happy Birthday my dear! This isn’t quite canon-compliant but it’s close-ish :)

AO3

The Doctor watched the incongruous blonde in blue leather wander from table to table on this backwater asteroid bazaar. She seemed familiar but he was positive he would remember meeting her if he had. Even with his occasional memory gaps and lapses, he knew he would recall meeting someone with timelines like hers.

Time danced around her, golden strands glimmering and glittering as they twisted and turned. There was an infinitude of them, like she had once had the entirety of time at her fingertips and in her grasp, as impossible as that was for someone who appeared to be human from his short observation.

He was rather mesmerized, to be quite honest.

The Doctor pushed off the building he was leaning against, brushed off his velvet frock coat and headed towards her, curiosity getting the better of him. He trailed behind her for a few minutes, watching as she chatted with the vendors in broken Yilutian. The Doctor was impressed she knew as much as she did as it was a difficult language for a humanoid to pronounce at the best of times.

He was following her to the next stall when she stopped suddenly and whirled around to face him. She crossed leather-coated arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow as she flicked her eyes over him, obviously assessing his threat level.

“If you’re going to follow me around, you might as well introduce yourself,” she said. English was her language of choice this time, with a London accent if he wasn’t mistaken.

“Terribly rude of me, I apologize,” he answered with his most charming smile, watching the shock play over her face at his own English accent. “I was just curious.”

“About what?” She narrowed her eyes and shifted, subtly getting ready to make a run for it if she needed to. He was rather impressed by her readiness. She must have been traveling for quite some time.

“Oh, just the fact that humans don’t make it to this asteroid for another century at least and yet you seem to be here anyways,” he said mildly, smile never dropping.

“You so sure that I’m human?” she retorted.

The Doctor peeked at her dancing timelines again. They were almost blinding now that he was closer to her and still just as undecipherable.

“Not entirely,” he admitted.

She snorted and looked like she was considering walking away when she turned back eyes wide and alight with hope. “You said humans wouldn’t get here for another century, yeah?”

“I did say that, didn’t I?”

“You could only know that if you were a time traveler,” she said, gaze now searching, looking at him as something other than a potential threat.

He wasn’t entirely sure what she thought he potentially was now but he was less than surprised at her obviously being a time traveler as well. That would account for some of the knots and twists in her timelines. Not for the dancing or the sheer amount, but for some of the complexity.

“I suppose that’s true as well,” The Doctor said with a smile. “You must be as well.”

Her mouth twisted into a sad smile. “Used to be.”

“Could I interest you in a cup of tea?” he blurted out before he really thought the better of it. Something inside of him insisted that this woman should never be sad, that he should always try to make her happy.

He wasn’t sure where that urge came from but he was going to listen to it for now.

“Don’t think they sell any ‘round here,” she said, gesturing to the bazaar around them.

“I have some on my ship.”

She looked at him carefully. “Alright, that sounds like a bit of a line but I haven’t had a decent cuppa in a week so lead the way!”

He offered her his arm and felt his hearts lighten and trip over themselves when she giggled and took it.

Curious.

“So, you don’t look like a Time Agent,” she ventured after a few moments of silence.

He made a face. “Those idiots are amateurs who should never have been allowed time travel technology.”

She laughed again. “You sound just like someone I used to know. Used to rail about the Time Agency even when a former agent was travelling with us.”

“They’re astonishingly irresponsible with the Web of Time,” he agreed.

“So if you’re not a Time Agent, how do you go about traveling?”

“I’ve got the best ship in the universe,” he boasted, chest puffing out a bit. “She can take me anywhere.”

The blonde’s smile was impish and looked like it was about to burst into a full-fledged grin at any moment. “Full of it, you are.”

“What about you?”

“Oh, used to travel with a friend in his ship but these days I’m going solo with some experimental tech. Trying to get back home,” she shrugged. “Taking longer than I was hoping it would.”

“I might be able to help,” he offered. “I’m good with tech or I could just give you a lift.”

“Might take you up on that,” she replied with a soft smile. “You remind me a lot of the friend I used to travel with, honestly, the one I’m trying to get back to.”

“Thought you said you were trying to get home?”

She bit her lip before answering. “He is my home. Him and his ship. Promised I was gonna stay with him forever and I’m trying to keep that promise.”

“He’s a lucky man,” the Doctor said. “What’s his name?”

“The Doctor,” she said, affection and love and longing all evident in her voice.

It felt like a lightning bolt had hit him, hearing his own name, and he stopped in his tracks, looking down at the blonde in awe.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, letting go of his arm, obviously confused.

“You said the Doctor?” he asked, needing to hear it again.

“Yeah. Do you know him?”

Perhaps this is why she felt so familiar, he thought. She was from his future.

“My dear, I am the Doctor.”

Her face paled and she took a step closer, searching his eyes. He let her, staring back as he let some of his shields fall away. It felt like she would see right through them anyways.

“Doctor?” She rested a hand on the center of his chest, right between his hearts.

The hope in the single word nearly broke him. What had she been through trying to get back to a future him? What had separated them in the first place? If his own reaction was anything to go by, his future self wouldn’t have wanted them to be apart any more than she did. She didn’t seem to be fazed by the fact that he looked different than the version of him that she knew which implied that she’d been with him through a regeneration and had stayed . There weren’t many who did that.

He had a feeling that this woman was going to be extremely dear to him.

“I believe we have a lot to talk about,” he said. “My offer of tea and a lift still stands.”

“I’m definitely gonna take you up on that now,” she said. “Hopefully the TARDIS can scrounge up some of my favorite blend. Wasn’t able to find any where I’ve been recently.”

“We’ll just have to find out,” he replied. Her timelines brightened when she talked about the TARDIS so fondly and he had a sneaking suspicion that his ship would do anything for her. “May I ask your name, first? I feel at a bit of a disadvantage.”

She laughed and slid the hand that had been on his chest into one of his, twining their fingers together like it was her right. He couldn’t find it in him to argue even a little bit, not when it felt so perfect.

“My name’s Rose. Rose Tyler.”

“Well, it’s lovely to meet you for the first time, Rose Tyler.”

“And it’s better than you could ever imagine to meet you again,” she said, grinning up at him.. “Now take me to your ship. I’ve been away from home for way too long.”

“Your wish is my command,” he promised as he tugged them in the direction of the TARDIS, the words echoing in his head oddly like they were from a timeline not yet lived by him.

He had a golden future forward to, he could already tell.

[writing-creative-fiction]

VISAWUS – aka The Victorian Interdisciplinary Association of the Western United States – embraces scholars of the Victorian era from any academic discipline and any career stage. Thus, the presenters at their annual conference in November 2019 ranged from eminent Professors with publication lists as long as your arm to under-graduate students approaching the final examinations of their Bachelor degree – and somewhere toward the lower end of that scale is me, for I decided to respond to their Call for Papers in February and was offered the opportunity to speak on one of their panels. The venue for the 2019 conference was the 15-storey Courtyard by Marriott Hotel, which has occupied the historic Alaska Building in Pioneer Square, Seattle, since 2010. The building dates back to 1903 and was designed by Earnes and Young to provide suitable office and storage facilities for the stockholders of the Scandinavian-American Bank during the Alaskan gold-rush. On its completion, Seattle’s Alaska Building, with its state-of-the-art fireproof construction, was the first 14-storey steel-framed construction in Seattle and the tallest building in Northwest America. The images below show The Alaska Building, as portrayed in an information booklet at the hotel, and The Arctic Building, which is just round the corner from The Alaska Building.

The Alaska Building, from an information booklet provided at the hotel

The Arctic Building, just round the corner from The Alaska Building

Just me, then! As the only representative of the UK – apart from a Toronto-based Professor hailing originally from the northwest of England – I could easily have felt a little out of place at VISAWUS 2019, but, on the contrary, I was warmly welcomed and enjoyed many interesting and helpful conversations with fellow delegates – although several misunderstood the name of my University – Canterbury Christ Church – and assumed I was from New Zealand. They realised their mistake as soon as they heard my clearly English accent! Following Registration and breakfast on Thursday morning, the first panel I attended focused on the works of Charles Dickens, so the conference couldn’t possibly have got off to a better start as far as I’m concerned. Between them, Joshua Brorby, Matthew Van Winkle and Cayla Eagan treated us to words of wisdom on:

• the mutability of words in Our Mutual Friend • the theme of memory in both Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend • an analysis of the real-life case that inspired The Chimes.

This led to an interesting Q&A session in which we discussed philology, etymology and the standardisation of language, wills and inheritance, the differences between connected, spatial and temporal memory, the value – or power – of literacy in the nineteenth-century, and whether infanticide could possibly be a manifestation of maternal care. After lunch, I chose to attend the panel on Marital Stakes, in which Katherine Anderson, Veronika Larsen and So Park provided valuable insights into:

• evolving perceptions of torture in the nineteenth-century, including domestic torture, both mental and physical, with reference to The Egoist, Daniel Deronda, and He knew he was Right and encompassing cases in India and Jamaica as well as the UK • early stage adaptations of Jane Eyre, and their ‘correcting’ of the novel’s moral deviancies by, for example, elevating Mr Rochester to the peerage, legitimising Adele, and omitting any suggestion of rebelliousness in Jane. • socio-economic restrictions and/or consequences in the nineteenth-century marriage market, as “intricately and delicately” handled by George Gissing in novels such as The Odd Women.

These, as can be imagined, led to a lively debate among panellists and audience.

My Paper

During the short tea-break that followed the second round of panels, I made my way to the Yukon room on the second floor of the hotel in order to connect my laptop to the projector and ensure my PowerPoint presentation would work; all was well!

Ready to go, and the audience begins to arrive.

There were only two of us on Panel 3C: me and Elizabeth Chang, a Professor from the University of Missouri, so we had plenty time for our presentations and a lengthy Q&A session. Elizabeth spoke about travel journals published in the 1880s by John Murray – the same publishing house that worked with the Admiralty earlier in the century to publish the Arctic Narratives that I’m looking at. Elizabeth’s journals related to voyages in China, on the Yang Tse River and the River of Golden Sand. Written by William Gill and Thomas Blakiston, the journals included descriptions of the native Boatmen tugging the boats with ropes, in a very similar way to that in which British seafarers in the Arctic would tug their ships through the ice. Blakiston, however, likened the Boatmen to a team of “dogs”; an analogy underscored by attitudes of white colonial superiority, and one that would never have been applied to their British counterparts. On a more conciliatory note, Elizabeth explained how Archibald Little, an Englishman living in China, had tried to introduce steam ships to the Yang Tse, while his wife – the author Alicia Little – campaigned against the practice of foot-binding.

When it came to my turn to speak, I presented my paper on the ways in which, through their engagement with literature, art and popular culture, the Victorian public gained personal temporal and emotional stakes in the Arctic – as well as the political and financial stakes they held via government and taxation.

Having introduced my audience to the Arctic as the Victorians would have known it  – by way of a map from 1879 – I  illustrated the circular trajectory of Arctic representations in the nineteenth century with examples from adult and children’s literature ranging from The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere, through Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, a selection of fairy tales and boys-own style stories, articles in the popular press, and the play The Frozen Deep, to Tess of the D’Urbervilles and The Purple Cloud, and demonstrated how these imbued readers with both temporal and emotional stakes in the Arctic. Evidencing the same concepts with reference to the Arctic paintings of Biard, Landseer and Riviére, I concluding with a brief examination of the ways in which remnants recovered from Arctic expeditions were revered as ‘relics’ and collected for public display as well as being reproduced for home entertainment such as Magic Lantern shows, thus substantiating my claims for the Victorian public’s stake in the Arctic. Following this, a range of interesting and pertinent questions were asked of both me and Elizabeth, and we were able to recognise and develop common threads and themes in our papers, as alluded to above.

A Pleasant Evening – and the second day of the conference

That evening, I had dinner in the hotel’s Bistro with the wife of one of the VISAWUS Board members (while he attended the Board Dinner). We were both disappointed with the quality of our food, and received apologies and a bill-waiver, but we had a super time chatting about our very different lives!

On Friday morning, I selected Panel 4C for my attention – it’s always so difficult to choose between concurrent panels at these events, but I chose well on this occasion as Susan Shelangoskie’s account of the Brett brothers prolonged yet ultimately successful enterprise in laying the first transatlantic telegraph cables was compelling; I could see clear similarities between the way John Brett promoted their project anonymously in the press and the way John Barrow promoted Arctic exploration anonymously in the same papers and journals. Robert Steele’s consideration of the role, concept and variations of time and time-keeping in Far from the Madding Crowd, was equally thought-provoking – especially as I had watched (again) the 2015 film version of this novel on the flight across from England –  and Katherine Voyles’s thoughts on the ways in which modern reportage draws on nineteenth-century lyrical realism were interesting if appearing a little anachronistic to the conference. After a mid-morning break, I indulged in some Post-Colonial papers with:

• Sumangala Bhattacharya – who connected Gaskell’s Cranford to the twenty-first century US Border crisis via the character of Peter • Beth Hightower – who argued that Dickens funnels his own Oriental racism through the character of Flora Finching in Little Dorrit • Ava Bindas – who focused on ‘epistemologies of space’ and ‘narrative dialects’ that define domestic, gendered and social mobility.

Business A formal Lunch and Business Meeting in the hotel’s Alaska Ballroom followed, providing a good opportunity for delegates to share information, ideas and advice concerning a range of topics relevant to Victorian studies, career development, and transatlantic co-operation. Similar discussions, of course, accompanied the Conference Dinner that evening. The Business Meeting consisted of introducing the Board members, hearing a Finance report and updates on this and future conferences – next year’s will be in Reno – and the presentation of an engraved plate to a lovely lady called Kathleen, whose surname escapes me but who founded VISAWUS with Richard Fulton c.1986.

My most eagerly anticipated Panel Having referenced at least one of her books extensively in my MA dissertation, I was keen to hear what Erika Behrisch Elce had to say on the Journals of Ships’ Surgeons, so, after lunch, I trotted along to Panel 6A on which she was accompanied by Dorice Elliott and Nathan Kapoor. The latter spoke about Geothermal energy in modern New Zealand and linked it very tentatively to the Victorian era by describing it as a form of decolonisation; an innovative alternative to the energy legacies of former colonial powers (I’m not convinced!). Dorice spoke about Australian emigration, and resulting conflicts of identity, as demonstrated in Henry Kingsley’s novel The Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn. Of primary interest to me in my research, however, was Erika’s account of the journals kept by Ships’ Surgeons – journals that reveal the day-to-day illnesses, ailments and condition of each man on board every ship; a far more revealing and accurate record than the Narratives published by ships’ Officers: or, as Erika put it, “an alternative chronicle that can alter the master narrative.” One case that she focused on concerned Captain Kellet’s ships joining the over-wintering ships of Captain McClure in the Arctic in 1853. McClure was stubbornly refusing to turn back or abandon ship, so Kellet ordered his ship’s surgeon, Domville, to inspect every one of McClure’s crew, including McClure himself, and assess their health. Domville declared almost every crew member “utterly unfit to continue Arctic service”, forcing McClure to turn back against his will. Under questioning, Erika confirmed that ships’ surgeons were usually the healthiest people onboard, despite their exposure to so many sick and diseased individuals suffering from “everything from sunstroke to dyssentry”. She attributes their good health to their habit of “constantly experimenting on themselves” with quinine, different diets and a range of other “common treatments”. She also noted that ships’ surgeons, generally, had “tons of responsibility but no authority”, so Domville’s success in saving McClure and his men was presumably an exception to this rule. Dorice pointed out at this point that surgeons onboard the convict ships sailing to Australia had full authority over the convicts while the Captain maintained authority over the crew.

Colour Theories In the Friday ‘teatime’ session, I chose to attend panel 7C, on which Kristen Feay, Amy Woodson-Boulton and Julie Codell discussed the ways in which the Industrial Revolution destabilised perceptions of colour, leading to George Field’s Chromotography in 1843, Owen Jones’s The Grammar of Ornament in 1852, and Christopher Dresser’s The Art of Decorative Design in 1862. This was a very well co-ordinated panel with a clear connecting thread linking each paper.

Conference Dinner & Keynote Address The highlight of the conference, obviously, was the Keynote Address by Professor Andrea Kaston-Tange, Chair of English and Director of Liberal Arts at Macalester College. Her address was entitled ‘Embedded in Empire: Reading Lucie Duff Gordon’s Egypt’ and it focused on the published letters of the eponymous lady, who lived much of her life in Egypt for health reasons as well as out of a spirit of adventure that was evident in her youth, when she is recorded as having plaited a live snake into her hair. Prof. Kaston-Tange, however, also used her address to question the value of nostalgia, asking how useful it is (or is not) and what good (or harm) it does.

Keynote Speech

A three-course dinner provided ample time to discuss the issues she raised and to enjoy another sociable opportunity to converse with fellow delegates.

Final Day, and Time to Moderate On Saturday morning, I followed my birthday breakfast by attending Panel 8C, in the Kodiak Room on the 15th floor – where all C panels were based; B panels being next door in the Klondike Room and A panels (such as mine) a few floors down in the Yukon Room on Floor 2.

On this two-person panel, Michael Carelse argued convincingly for ‘literary impressionism’ in Thomas Hardy’s The Woodlanders, showing how Hardy was influenced by the paintings of J.M.W. Turner and the French Impressionist painters with regard to the symbolic significance of outward detail, so that this novel, in contrast to his previous one, The Mayor of Casterbridge, omits detail in a way that mimics the representational ethos of Impressionism and anticipates Modernism. Claire Barwise followed this with an exploration of satire in the sensation novels of Mary Elizabeth Braddon – a “phenomenal woman”, Claire said, “who not only wrote more than 80 novels but also founded the Belgravia Magazine and raised 11 children!” Focusing on 2 of those 80 novels, Lady Audley’s Secret and The Doctor’s Wife, Claire invoked Bakhtin’s theory of the carnivalesque to explain their inversion and subversion of social norms.

On Panel 9B, after a break for coffee, David Wayne Thomas, Priti Joshi, and Edward Beasley all focused on different aspects of British Rule in India, and did so in such depth, and with such enthusiasm, that there was no time left for questions at the end of the 90 minutes. David provided handouts to help us follow his exposition of the failure of the Ilbert Bill in 1883, while Priti used PowerPoint slides to show images relating to the 1857 Mutiny and argue for the recurrent identification – or misidentification – of portraits in the Illustrated London News and John Lang’s Wanderings in India, which was serialised in Household Words in 1857 and published in book form the following year. Edward, in his turn, argued for the reputation of Charles Napier; a Liberal Socialist hero of the UK working classes who was nevertheless regarded as a facist oppressor in India. Edward’s biography of this controversial Commander in Chief of the British Army is due out next year and will make fascinating reading, I think.

After lunch, the final panels of the conference took place. I had volunteered to moderate Panel 10B as the topics of the two speakers were both close to my heart: Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers and British Free Public Libraries. On the first of these, Sierra McMillan first demonstrated how the para-text of illustrations and advertisements in the serialised copies of The Pickwick Papers affected the text and the ways in which readers engaged with it, and then discussed ways in which readers could select from a variety of binding options once they had collected a full set of the serialised issues. Richard Fulton then introduced his research into the history of Free Public Libraries in the UK, explaining how the working classes went from initial mistrust of what they saw as middle-class charity to the overwhelming popularity of the libraries as a source of civic pride and a resource used and valued by the working classes in their hundreds of thousands. And that was the end of the conference! I went for a swim in the hotel’s basement fitness centre, ate a salad in my room, and began to pack in preparation for the next stage of my transatlantic adventure:

Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. I arrived in Victoria, via a trip on two buses and a ferry, at 7:30pm on Sunday 10th November and discovered that November 11th is a public holiday for Veterans’ Day. The military parade was long, loud, and very impressive, with representatives from many different branches of the Canadian Forces, including the Mounties in their bright red tunics.  Crowds thronged the route of the parade and the 11:00am Ceremony of Remembrance outside the British Legislature Building on Bellevue Street, and the city was full of uniformed personnel for the rest of the day.

I watched the parade and then took a long walk round the coastal path, passing James Bay, Fisherman’s Wharf, Breakwater, and Ogden Point, and emerging into Beacon Hill Park with its exquisitely carved Totem Pole – the tallest in the world at 127 feet & 7 inches – Rose Garden, Ducks, Fountains, Petting Zoo, and Lookout Post, among other attractions. From there, the paths led me to Superior Street and thereby back to Government Street and through the grounds of the Legislature Building to where the morning’s wreaths lay bright yet poignant around the plinth of the war memorial.

World’s tallest Totem Pole

Veterans’ Day Wreaths

From there I explored the shops and historic buildings of the Old Town before returning to my Hostel to spend the evening relaxing with fellow solo travellers from around the world. Tuesday morning found me basking in the history of British Columbia; first in the 3-storey Royal B.C. Museum, founded in 1886, and then in the B.C. Archives, housed in the basement of the same building, which claims to have been “collecting and preserving photographs, documents, maps and historical records since 1894”.  Having obtained a Researcher Pass (valid for two years; oh, I do hope I get the chance to use it again!), I was able to indulge in a few hours of research before heading to the Ferry Port to catch my evening Clipper sailing back to Seattle. My research revealed a couple of letters and maps of interest, but the B.C. records are evidently not old enough to contain a great deal pertaining to my current project.

early map pertaining to a possible Northwest Passage

On Wednesday, I had a few hours to explore Seattle’s Pike Place Market and Waterfront before taking the Link Light Railway to the airport and catching my flight home. Altogether a very enjoyable first transatlantic experience, which I very much hope I will not be my last.

  Transatlantic Trip – VISAWUS 2019 VISAWUS – aka The Victorian Interdisciplinary Association of the Western United States – embraces scholars of the Victorian era from any academic discipline and any career stage.

[theliterateape]

Chicago Town Pizza

By Bill Arnett

When I was in college, I had a get-rich-quick dream about going to live in Japan. I would sell my services as a real American and native English speaker to grammar, spell and usage check the tidal wave of video games coming in from overseas rife with errors. Here are some examples, the most famous being this line from the game Zero Wing: “All your base are belong to us." What’s the context? Does it matter? I’d also work as an actor playing the stereotypical American in movies. Tall, slow and easily angered? Can do. Always shown up by the more nimble and level headed Asian heroes? Where do I sign?

I never got to live that dream. But it appears my services are needed again. This time in the U.K. They don’t need my help with the language they invented, actually, but with pizza. This is an ad for a frozen pizza called Chicago Town Pizza. As a 20-year resident of Chicago and a consumer of pizza, I’ve got five ways to fix your product and ad campaign. This one is a freebie! If you find my services useful know that I have a passport.

1. The name. While there is a clear association between the city of Chicago and pizza, the name should be Chi-Town Pizza, Chi-Town being a widely recognized nickname for the city. My guess is the phrase Chi-Town confused the British test audience so you went with Chicago Town. Let’s split the difference, how about: Chi-Town, Chicago-Style Pizza.

2. You probably know that the pizza you’re selling isn’t Chicago-style pizza but a generic thin-ish crust frozen pizza. Chicago style is cooked in a pan, making it thick with toppings that extend to the edges. Why even use Chicago if you don’t want to do Chicago-style pizza? Did it test better as an American city name than New York? Why even use a U.S. city name at all?

3. The video is clearly shot in California. Specifically the drainage canal named the Los Angeles River. It’s a familiar location for most Americans because it is used for many TV shows and movies, Terminator 2: Judgment Day chief among them. While you picked the one spot in LA without an anachronistic palm tree in the background you aren't fooling anyone. Back to point 2, why not LA Pizza?

3a. The license plate on the VW, while not displaying a state name, uses a California plate color scheme and layout. The Chicago flag is an easy thing to near-duplicate without getting into trouble.

4. The sky line on the box is needlessly generic. A quick Google search for "Chicago skyline" reveals two easily and legally steal-able features. One is the “X” pattern of girders on the side of the Hancock Building, the other being the double antennas on both the Hancock and Willis Tower. Take the art you have, give one building some x’s and another double antennas. Boom, you’ve got Chicago.

I hope you find these notes helpful.

For my American readers, I know what you’re asking. How does it taste? Don’t take my word for it: Try this review from 13Tenantry  or this head-to-head taste test, complements of Charlie Fleming, pitting Chicago Town against their chief competitor, Iceland Pizza Yes. Iceland frozen pizza. Honestly, if you want a city name more legit than Iceland Pizza all you have to do blindfold yourself and throw a dart at a map.

As I looked deeper into this, I was surprised to learn that the doughy-crust pizza in the TV ad is not the only style made by Chicago Town. They offer a "legit" Chicago-esque Deep Dish. I stand corrected. In case you're curious, they also have Chicken Club, Stuffed Crust Pepperoni Plus, New Yorker, Pizza Kitchen Roasted Chicken, Sloppy Joe, Pulled Beef Brisket, Cajun Chicken, American Hot, BBQ Sizzler, Buffalo Chicken, and Salted Caramel Dessert. I wish. I was. Joking. You guys clearly know what you're doing. So I apologize, I guess.