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knackeredforever · 2 years

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An overly long tumblr ramble about funny armoured sci fi protagonists because I feel like writing this right now:

The character type of armoured sci fi protagonist who barely speaks(mostly) and simultaneously mows downs hordes of aliens(most of the time) is one of my favourite type of character next to traumatised homosexuals so here are some of my thoughts and head cannons regarding some examples of them:

Part 1 Samus aran:

Samus Aran (Metroid): one of my favourite protagonists in any game ever the perfect silent protagonist in my opinion. Gaming’s og girlboss while every other female gaming character in the 80s was stereotypically feminine samus was a complete badass although I’m using hyperbole as this was in the original Metroid the frustrating glitchy (While yes wildly influential for its time) duck tape held together mess it is. Although the series would transform after one other game that hasn’t aged that well then create super Metroid one of the greatest games of all time created the Metroidvania genre and was so influential that…..

I have gotten massively off topic. This was originally about my thoughts about her one thing I love to think about is what samus is like when she’s not in combat on alien planets. I’ve always loved the idea of outside bounty hunting samus lives a relatively chill life considering she rarely takes off her helmet or even speaks. It’s canonical that a lot of people in the Metroid universe despite her fame don’t know she’s a woman. So then I doubt she gets recognised in public ever. So i imagine a scenario where samus lives in a modest house in a rural town on a planet probably somewhere in galactic federation(gf) controlled space where no one knows her as that famous universe saving bounty hunter. But as that one friendly over 6ft tall buff lady who has a large amount of pets from tons of different alien planets who she cares for obsessively but never says how or where she got them from. She occasionally goes on long “business trips” off planet probably hires someone to take care of her pets while she’s gone and Samus comes up with some excuse with what she was doing so people don’t get suspicious. If Samus wanted to she could live a life of constant fame and luxury outside of her bounty hunting in some huge mansion in a gf major planet but she enjoys the simple life outside of her demanding job despite the fact she has near infinite finances from her bounty hunting and helping out the gf so she could live any life she wants she chooses the simple one.

Also another point on samus’s sexuality and gender cause I always see a lot of discussion about that on tumblr so I thought I’d throw my hat in the ring. First off while I like the lesbian or bisexual Samus headcannons I’ve almost always seen samus as aroace personally outside of friends her closest companions are probably her many pets and she’d probably be satisfied with that when it came to romance I think when she was younger after she started bounty hunting but before the events of Metroid she probably was asked to go on lots of dates by lots of people of any gender or sexuality or even different alien species probably cause Samus is an incredibly conventionally attractive over6ft buff blonde but I doubt Samus enjoyed them, probably going on them with people cause that what normal people do but Samus didn’t have a normal upbringing. Her parents were murdered by a pirate space pterodactyl and she was raised on an alien planet by her two bird dads in complete isolation from the rest of the galaxy given a magical battle suit that defies physics even in universe and dedicated her life to stopping the people who took both her families from her. So she probably was never really exposed to normal conventions of attraction so never really found any reason to get into it and she’s happy like that. As for Samus’s gender this is also a hotly discussed topic with many seeing her as non binary of trans masc and I don’t really have an opinion on this if Nintendo were to turn around and say samus is nb or trans I would be cool with it cause it’s in perfect character for her case in point her dialogue in Metroid fusion. Discussing Adam and how her referred to her as lady while not as an insult it still is implied that no one had ever focused on Samus’s gender like that probably because it didn’t matter to them in a military environment or as a bounty hunter it probably only mattered that she could get the job done to other people. So it was never a big deal to other people and I think it’s not a big deal to Samus either she probably doesn’t care what people think her gender is which is why she isn’t going out of the way to correct people about it she simply does not consider it important I guess that means I see Samus as genderqueer but I’m not really sure regardless it dosent matter what her gender is she’s still gonna reduce the space pirates to dust anyway or any other threat to the galaxy. Anyway I think I’m done talking about Samus now I highly doubt we’ll ever get these ideas about samus built on in future games and we don’t need too there not necessary for the games or to appreciate Samus and her excellent characterisation in recent games especially dread but I certainly won’t have a problem if they do or who knows maybe the reason that they restarted the development for prime 4 was so they could implement the all important lesbian sex scene.

End of part 1 I’ll be doing a ramble on other chat that fit into this category later on originally they were all gonna be in one post but this took like an hour to write so that’s not happening welp next up is John halo so I’ll write that up some other time byyyyyyeeeee.

#metroid #samus aran #video games #character analysis #headcanon #sexuality #gender

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i-taste-the-revolution-xxx · 1 year

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Pigeon Pit - Feather River Canyon Blues

Pigeon Pit’s 2022 album Feather River Canyon Blues is, in my opinion, the most relevant US protest music of the year. A star of folk punk’s newest wave, Lomes Oleander is a multi-faceted, endlessly passionate artist whose work never fails to surprise and impress. Her latest release, FRCB is a folky, much more overtly political stray from her usual borderline-emo, acoustic works. There are still of course the vital songs of queer love and queer self-acceptance, but FRCB features the anthemic protest songs Milk Crates and Soup For My Family. The album delves into the simple—but full-of-struggle—rural American life, particularly through the eyes of a visibly queer person, and where Oleander finds her joy and calm and escape in the midst of it all. The album primarily features acoustic instruments and country music essentials—acoustic guitar, steel guitar, fiddle, banjo and a wobbly, all-permeating washtub bass—fronted by Oleander's’ gritty, breaking voice. Her sophomore album, Shut In, framed her as a staple in the folk punk genre, while this last release brought her more mainstream fame. She was raved about by NPR’s music journalists, named in the top albums of the year, and brought on to perform a live set for NPR’s Tiny Desk, where Lars Gottrich described her songs as “offering some sweetness in a world that doesn’t always share the same in return.”

So, going in order, here are my three favorites off the album:

Track 5: Empties

This is without a doubt my favorite song off this latest release—maybe off all of her releases (though Wichitalk is tough competition). Empties is a love song. It’s a song about the small shows of intimacy, how one person takes care of another, how deeply two people can become intertwined, and what it means to miss someone. The beat is light and fast and impossible not to dance to, while the lyrics will worm their way into your head and leave you absolutely enamored with Pigeon Pit.

2. Track 3: Milk Crates

A protest song, Oleander prefaced her Tiny Desk performance of Milk Crates with a speech on the inaccessibility of trans healthcare and abortion, the construction of Atlanta’s “Cop City”—a heavily protested police training camp whose construction is draining the city of resources, putting marginalized people in even more jeopardy and is responsible for the destruction of massive chunks of the Weelaunee Forest—as well as the stigma and discrimination against people with substance abuse and mental health struggles and the country’s pervasive homelessness epidemic, as well as other things.

The opening verse goes:

"Like a dog tugging on a rope

I don't even know where I'd go if they let go

In my selfish narrow mindedness

They put up a chain link fence

Now there's nothing I can do but bark my head off

But we're not fucking playing

I got these teeth for a reason

I know that it's life or death, I can't forget it

I lie down and you kiss my forehead

I tell you I'm just fucking exhausted from work

I don't wanna get drunk, I don't wanna go out

It feels like survival just isn't enough, is it?"

Milk Crates is one of the overtly political songs on the album, calling out the unethical treatment of workers in the country, the systematic oppression that props up all of our social structures, and the powerlessness we all feel when we become aware of the ways we’re being taken advantage of. She doesn’t resolve these tensions for us, but she describes to us the ways in which she lets go and what she lets go of in order to still live a loving and fulfilling life:

"And there are things in your life

That you were made to run away from

But it's not your grief, or your pain

Or any other kind of love"

She finds comfort in people and in herself and in her community, and really in anger and protest itself. Her passion and her will to change the world just pours out of her, and as a listener you can’t help but to feel that flame spark inside of you too.

3. And last, but by no means a subpar song is track 4: River Song

River Song is another love song, a song (in Oleander’s words) “about going swimming with your friends” and how “ there’s really nothing more important”. It’s about platonic love just as much as it is about romantic love. It’s about the role friends play in one’s personal growth and how desperately we all need each other. It’s about letting go of the pressure to mask and to perform for other people, and just giving into the love and chaos that people will pull out of you.

So, definitely, definitely, definitely go check out the album:

And if you have time and want to see Pigeon Pit’s incredible performance on Tiny Desk, I really highly recommend it. This set includes Empties, Milk Crates, River Song, Soup For My Family, and Wichitalk, my favorite song off her last album, Shut In. She’s amazing; please go check it out if you found this at all appealing.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wp99TlXu8U

#Spotify

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coreymichaelsmithson · 1 year

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Edison’s Medicine

I live in a crooked old farmhouse in rural Tennessee, with a tattooed folksinger and four handicapped dogs. Our house, the oldest in town, was built in 1899, and it stands on the unfashionable end of Main Street, where people don't bother to tidy up their porches and primroses poke from the concrete. The structure rests upon pilings rather than a real foundation, and as a result its central axis has become noticeably skewed, a feature that we're choosing to view as "whimsical" instead of "worrisome". Some of the walls are covered in whitewashed shiplap, others retain ragged remnants of floral wallpaper, and the overall feel is akin to a folk-art collage. Paintings and antiques abound. Tumbleweeds of doghair snag on the chair legs. Spiders haunt the crannies. Daniel, the musician, loves his bric-a-brac, so the majority of available surfaces are crowded with animal figurines, musical instruments, framed sheet music, toys, masks, tools, and heirlooms from his family. An enormous philodendron has colonized one fifth of the kitchen, its tendrils winding between ceramic dogs and fruit bowls. We've hung chandelier prisms in the western windows to cast rainbows across the walls. I've established my painting studio up front, while Daniel has set up his recording studio in the rear bedroom. Our house is full of laughter and music and quips from "ALL ABOUT EVE". It's dusty and cluttered and quite possibly the most peaceful home I have ever known.

McEwen is a town without stoplights. In fact, "town" is a pretty grand appellation for this place, which features three fast-food joints, three gas stations, two banks, two cemeteries, a handful of small businesses, a volunteer fire department, a post office, and maybe a dozen churches. City Hall doubles as the police station and municipal court. The hairdresser on Main Street is a real hoot; she's a chatty and charming New Yorker who collects vintage hats, and she'll even shave my back for an extra five bucks. There's a darling little deli that sells local goods ("Memories & Marmalade"), a weekly farmer's market, and a pair of decent antique shops. On the highest hilltop stands a water tower, a gleaming white sentry that looks especially dramatic under thunderheads.

McEwen's chief claim to fame is its annual outdoor barbecue, recorded in 1988 as being the world's largest by The Guinness Book of World Records. The grounds for this event stay idle for most of the year ... leaving behind a large field full of silent concession booths, empty souvenir stands, woodpiles, and faded pennants. Ever since I left the sandy paradise of Anastasia Island for the country life, this vacant green and the nearby Irish Catholic graveyard have been my go-to places for meditative walks.

A railroad bisects our town, and its freight trains roll through several times a day. There's a nostalgic and somewhat mournful feeling that creeps over me when I find myself walking alongside the tracks, and I hear an approaching locomotive sounding its horn. The crossing bell dings, and the striped boom gates descend. The orange light of afternoon falls upon weeds and gravel, broken bottles gleam beneath the crossbuck, and the creaking procession of hoppers and flats evokes distant destinations and the forgotten romance of the bindle. The web of iron that once bound our nation together suddenly comes into vivid focus, and as I watch the converging rails wobble under rising heat I think of hoboes and seekers and other wandering souls, ghosts climbing silently into the boxcars, ghosts in pork pie hats and tattered shoes, decamping for points unknown, and I find myself grieving for a musty mythos, for an era that died decades before my arrival, for an America that probably never even existed.

There really isn't anything to "do" around here, so our home life is mostly centered around cooking meals, nurturing our own professional and artistic ambitions, and caring for the dogs. It's a simple, uncomplicated existence, boring in all of the best ways. It's a season for spiritual pursuits and growing fresh herbs on the windowsill and mixing paints and tuning guitars. It's a season of quotidian bliss.

Because of their special needs, our dogs pretty much dictate the household's operations and schedule. Everything has to be specifically engineered to ensure their safety and comfort, and the routine is firmly embossed in everyone's mind. Late at night, before Daniel and I eat our supper, all six of us go for a walk through the quiet streets. Walking several handicapped dogs at once is not an easy task to manage ... the dogs all move in different directions, each following their own erratic interest, and so any human caught in the middle will inevitably be beribboned like a maypole by crisscrossing leashes. Cats, skunks, armadillos, and strays captivate them. We're constantly being interrupted mid-sentence by explosive barking and sudden lurches, and we've both pretty much given up on "directing" them. Besides, it's really their show, not ours, and so the walks have become a nightly exercise in Zen acceptance.

There are four dogs in our pack: Miss Cheez-It, Phantom, Bear, and Edison.

Miss Cheez-It is a calico border collie who was born without eyeballs. Despite her blindness, she is utterly fearless, and quite assertive. She has something of a 1950s juvenile delinquent vibe about her ... think of Rizzo from "GREASE" mixed with Tura Satana from "FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!", and you get some sense of her innate boldness. Daniel and I are convinced that if we were to turn her loose on the streets, she'd be leading an all-female switchblade gang within a week.

Phantom, our Australian Shepherd, is both blind and deaf ... but he is blissfully, radiantly happy. I've never see a dog so thrilled to be alive. When we retrieve the leashes from the antique toy chest by the door, he becomes the most excitable creature on earth. Every walk is an adventure, every meal is a feast, every smell is a novelty. Phantom wants for nothing. He is our household Buddha, with untamable fur and a perpetual smile, and an expression that says, "I love being here." His eyes, beautiful but utterly useless, are a milky blue, the color of a winter morning.

Bear, the hound, has all of his senses ... but his neurosis has taken the form of an unshakeable guilt complex, in itself something of a handicap. He requires ongoing reassurance that he is, indeed, a Very Good Boy, and that we aren't mad at him, and that he deserves to be here just like the rest of us, and that we won't ever skip him at dinnertime. He leads a pretty cushy life ... nobody raises a hand to him, nobody yells when he upchucks on the hardwood, and he's constantly showered with love and praise ... but he keeps giving us the most baleful glances, as if to say, "It's all my fault."

And this leaves us with Edison, the deaf pit bull. Although I adore all of the dogs, I've become especially attached to him. He's like a battery for affection. You can charge him up with hugs and rubs and kisses ... and when you need that love returned, he will surrender it all to you in a single devoted glance. As I write this, we are sharing the ancient orange sofa in the studio. This has become the standard arrangement for us: I take the north end, he anchors the south, my feet rest against his haunches, and he snores contentedly while I type. Whenever I shift my position, he immediately looks up at me to see if I am staying put or rising. He'll stubbornly follow me from room to room, never letting me out of his sight for more than a few minutes at a time. We are closely bonded, Edison and I. There is some kind of tacit understanding between us, a sense that we're in it for the long haul, that our fates are linked. We are mutually responsible for one another.

Unfortunately, pit bulls have gotten a bum rap in America. The public image of the breed has less to do with any innate malice than with the wickedness of bad masters ... illegal fighting rings, unscrupulous breeders, skinheads, neo-Nazis, self-professed "gangsters" who pride themselves on the viciousness of their dogs. Back when I lived in one of Kansas City's grimmest neighborhoods, I witnessed a yard full of neglected pits maul an escaped piglet, something I can never unsee.

My personal experience with pit bulls, on the other hand, has been consistently wonderful. I've watched these "beasts" nuzzle babies, and tolerate the senseless prodding of toddlers, and settle in for family time with the gentleness of lambs. Edison is the kind of monster who would allow pre-teen girls to slap makeup on his face and stick a tiara on his head. He has no real need for dignity, and will allow you to arrange him however you want, like a four-legged throw-pillow. When we're rough-housing in the mornings, he'll sometimes seize my right hand between his jaws. I know that he could easily destroy my painting career with a few choice bites ... but my trust in him is complete.

Truth be told, Edison is getting on in years. We can't sugar-coat the facts of aging. He's already starting to show some early signs of dementia ... he has to be coaxed to eat his breakfast, and he no longer trusts that he can just remain in place when I get up to refill my coffee. There's sometimes a befuddled, worried look in his eyes, as if he doesn't fully grasp something he's expected to understand. No amount of encouragement will soothe a dog who is losing his faculties, and his confusion will grow increasingly heartbreaking as time goes on. Lipomas and liver spots already mottle his skin. He's developed some arthritis in his hips, for which he takes an anti-inflammatory drug twice a day. I sneak the pills into his mouth via dollops of mayonnaise, giving his siblings an equal amount so that the poor creatures don't feel cheated. I know I'm dispensing far too much of the stuff ... Daniel probably thinks I'm ushering us all into the poorhouse, spoonful by heaping spoonful ... but I want to spoil these mutts for as long as we have them.

Part of being a dog parent is understanding that they won't always be around. Sooner or later, Edison's dog bowl will stay empty. Sooner or later, this couch will seem twice as long as it does now.

And so I give everything I've got to our embraces. Whenever I pet Edison, it's with a focus and intensity that keeps my mind locked in the "here and now". Every time I scratch his neck, every time we snuggle, every time I pluck burrs from his paws, it's with the understanding that we'll only have so many more moments like this. Our special bond, like all bonds, is a fleeting thing. Even though Edison is as deaf as his namesake, I whisper into his ear how deeply I love him, how he'll always be my special buddy, how he's "the most bestest boy in the whole wide world". I tell him that he's smart, and cooperative, and loyal, and sweet-natured. Only the latter two of those things are true, but I want him to feel good about himself. Besides, he doesn't hear a lick of it. For all he knows or cares, I might as well be reciting the Gettysburg address. But he can feel what I am saying to him. For the remainder of his days, he will be assured of my devotion.

Edison, Bear, Daniel, and I share the bed every night. Unfortunately, Edison has no gift for geometry, and Bear is basically a skittish pony disguised as a dog, so cramming us all onto a queen-sized mattress is often a clumsy business. Paws poke into backs, limbs collide, the real estate is badly subdivided, everybody snores ... but we make it work. We make it work because we have to.

Unlike people, dogs always remain in the moment. They may wait, with varying degrees of patience, for anticipated events ... meals, walks, a parent returning home from the salt mines ... but for the most part they seem to exist entirely in the present. They are the masters of mindfulness.

When I hold Edison, my senses snap back to the experience at hand. I note the texture of his fur and the mélange of odors trapped within. I listen to the sound of his breathing, the purring rumble of his satisfaction. My heart rate slows, as does his. My muscles unclench, as do his. The noise of the world diminishes, unresolved crises fade, the inchoate terrors of tomorrow dissolve ... until there is only this old dog, my noble friend and I, sharing a quiet moment of fellowship in the middle of nowhere. He can't hear the train whistle, though he may feel the rumble of the tankers in the trembling of our house. He sometimes feels me crying against his neck, and hooks a sympathetic foreleg over my wrist. And in this way we mark the passing of time, curled up against one another, healing neglected injuries. These are moments of mutual restoration, and I wouldn't trade them for anything. Edison is curing more maladies than he will ever know.

Those pills he takes with his meals are just the beginning. The roster of remedies will likely grow in the years to come. He will need more drugs, more doctor visits, more patience. But we'll be ready when the time comes. That's the deal we're keeping, he and I, until the very end. I'll help take care of Edison's medicine, and Edison will help take care of mine. Because for me, the phrase "Edison's medicine" has two meanings.

Edison has medicine. Edison is medicine.

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tomorrowedblog · 1 year

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Friday Releases for May 12

Friday is the busiest day of the week for new releases, so we've decided to collect them all in one place. Friday Releases for May 12 include The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, BlackBerry, Fool's Paradise, and more.

BlackBerry

BlackBerry, the new movie from Matt Johnson, is out today.

The true story of the meteoric rise & catastrophic demise of the world’s first smartphone, BLACKBERRY is a whirlwind ride through a ruthlessly competitive Silicon Valley at breakneck speeds.

Fool's Paradise

Fool's Paradise, the new movie from Charlie Day, is out today.

A satirical comedy about a down on his luck publicist, who gets his lucky break when he discovers a man recently released from a mental health facility looks just like a method actor who refuses to leave his trailer. With the help of a powerful producer, the publicist helps the man become a huge star, even marrying his beautiful leading lady. Their adventures lead them to cross paths with drunken costars, irreverent unhoused action heroes, unpredictable directors, super agent, and power-mad moguls. Fame and fortune are not all they’re cracked up to be, and the two men must fight their way back to the things that matter the most.

Knights of the Zodiac

Knights of the Zodiac, the new movie from Tomasz Baginski, is out today.

Based on the international anime sensation, Knights of the Zodiac brings the Saint Seiya saga to the big screen in live-action for the first time. Seiya (Mackenyu), a headstrong street teen, spends his time fighting for cash while he searches for his abducted sister. When one of his fights unwittingly taps into mystical powers he never knew he had, Seiya finds himself thrust into a world of warring saints, ancient magical training and a reincarnated goddess who needs his protection. If he’s to survive, he will need to embrace his destiny and sacrifice everything to take his rightful place among the Knights of the Zodiac.

Monica

Monica, the new movie from Andrea Pallaoro, is out today.

A woman returns home to care for her ailing mother who she hasn’t seen in years in this tender portrait of family, forgiveness, and acceptance.

Hypnotic

Hypnotic, the new movie from Robert Rodriguez, is out today.

A detective becomes entangled in a mystery involving his missing daughter and a secret government program while investigating a string of reality-bending crimes.

Organ Trail

Organ Trail, the new movie from Michael Patrick Jann, is out today.

Abigale and her family fall victim to a ruthless gang while making their way across the Oregon Trail. As the only survivor, she will do whatever it takes to retrieve her one earthly possession, her family’s horse, from the clutches of the bloodthirsty bandits.

The Mother

The Mother, the new movie from Niki Caro, is out today.

A military-trained assassin comes out of hiding to protect the daughter she’s never met from ruthless criminals gunning for revenge.

The Starling Girl

The Starling Girl, the new movie from Laurel Parmet, is out today.

Seventeen-year-old Jem Starling struggles to define her place within her fundamentalist Christian community in rural Kentucky. Even her greatest joy of dancing with the church group is tempered by worry that her actions are sinful and she is caught between a burgeoning awareness of her own sexuality and her religious devotion. With the return of Owen, an enigmatic youth pastor, Jem soon finds herself attracted to his worldliness and charm. Slowly, he draws her into a dangerous relationship that could upend their entire community.

Crater

Crater, the new movie from Kyle Patrick Alvarez, is out today.

“Crater” is the story of Caleb Channing, who was raised on a lunar mining colony and is about to be permanently relocated to an idyllic faraway planet following the death of his father. But before leaving, to fulfill his dad’s last wish, he and his three best friends, Dylan, Borney and Marcus, and a new arrival from Earth, Addison, hijack a rover for one final adventure on a journey to explore a mysterious crater.

Mulligan

Mulligan, the new TV series from Robert Carlock and Sam Means, is out today.

In this satirical comedy, when most of Earth is destroyed by aliens, can a few survivors rebuild what’s left of America and form a more perfect union?

City On Fire

City On Fire, the new TV series from Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, is out today.

A college student is shot in Central Park on July 4, 2003. The investigation connects a series of mysterious citywide fires, the downtown music scene, and a wealthy uptown reel estate family fraying under the strain of the many secrets they keep.

Black Knight

Black Knight, the new TV series from Cho Ui-seok, is out today.

With only 1% of humanity left The Black Knights remain their last hope to overturn the world.

The Great S3

The third season of The Great, the TV series from Tony McNamara, is out today.

The Great is a satirical, comedic drama about the rise of Catherine the Great from outsider to the longest reigning female ruler in Russia’s history. A fictionalized, fun and anachronistic story of an idealistic, romantic young girl, who arrives in Russia for an arranged marriage to the mercurial Emperor Peter. Hoping for love and sunshine, she finds instead a dangerous, depraved, backward world that she resolves to change. All she has to do is kill her husband, beat the church, baffle the military and get the court onside.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the new game from Nintendo, is out today.

In this sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you’ll decide your own path through the sprawling landscapes of Hyrule and the mysterious islands floating in the vast skies above. Can you harness the power of Link’s new abilities to fight back against the malevolent forces that threaten the kingdom?

#Games #Movies #TV #News

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64bitgamer · 2 years

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greatamericansatan · 2 years

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Spooktober 2022, Days Six, Seven, and Eight

Spooktober is a 31 day event of coming up with original horror ideas based on prompts my writing group argues over. The arguing used to be fun but people are acting so weird about it this year. Sigh. These are my entries.

SPOOKTOBER DAY #6 — Clones

TITLE: Doctor Philliplier

PREMISE: It’s an early ’90s straight-to-cable midnight creepshow, now a moldy VHS retrieved from the ruins of a trailer in rural Arkansas. You pop it in the old VHS player and it whirs to disgusting life, some intersection of Michael Keaton’s “Multiplicity” and Jeff Fahey’s “Body Parts.”

Dr. Phillips is a plastic surgeon and legit science genius, out of his mind on cocaine and narcissism. He dabbles in womanizing on the LA punk scene, and stand-up comedy. One night his experimental rejuvenation process goes out of control, reducing him to a pile of deformed limbs and a screaming head. He buds clones that are much more well-formed and tries to boss them into helping out, but they are aberrant in the head.

Despite not really looking quite like him, everyone is somehow fooled. The silver-haired one takes over his stand-up, veering the act into surreal voices and weird noises. The lanky Lux Interior-looking one takes over the drugging and womanizing, despite only being able to mumble nonsense in an Elvis impression.

HORROR ELEMENT: Will he ever get his body and his life back? Good help is so hard to get.

Poster by AI, modified with photoshop.

SPOOKTOBER DAY #7 — Cabins

TITLE: The Cabin of The Cyclops

PREMISE: Dr. Jarecky is suave and beautiful, despite having lost an eye in youth. Together with his assistant Helmut, he runs a mental health asylum in 1950s Oregon. But all is not well. He has a cabin retreat where he takes “special cases” – beautiful young women – for “intensive therapy.” The girls are getting wise, and Helmut has realized that in his hubris, Dr. Jarecky has brought too many to the cabin. The bad men are decidedly outnumbered, and these girls were locked up for reasons…

HORROR ELEMENT: Corrupt care professionals are the real horror. Well, at the beginning. Later on the horror is justice.

Poster by AI, modified with photoshop.

SPOOKTOBER DAY #8 — Cryptids

TITLE: Flatwoods

PREMISE: Before she was a ghostly cryptid terrorizing modern people, Honora Knecht was an occultist in 1880s Sutton, West Virginia. She wasn’t much of a showman, but had some fame by merit of being seven feet tall. Sinope Locke was a daughter of power, adrift in a life not her own. On a lark her fiancé paid for Honora to entertain at one of their parties, and Sinope fell in love.

Is it love or witchcraft? Honora’s eyes glow red, her long fingers look like talons in lace gloves, her witch hat like the minaret of a Turkish mosque.

HORROR ELEMENT: I could tell stable diffusion AI knew what the Flatwoods Monster was, but it refused to make a sensible result. The horror is trying to cheap out on making art but still having to work for it lol.

Poster by AI, modified with photoshop.

SPOOKTOBER DAY #8 — Cryptids… ALTERNATE

TITLE: Come With Me, Baby, to LoveLand

PREMISE: While coming up with ideas for cryptid stories, I played with romance novel covers involving the Loveland Frog. The fake author name is to obscure the torso, helping me spend less time making sense of that in photoshop.

HORROR ELEMENT: Accidentally swallow a tadpole while swimming in Loveland, Ohio. Go ahead. Don’t be surprised if you turn into a frog. Don’t be surprised when your lady loves you even more. Don’t be surprised when she gives birth to horrendous amounts of tadpoles. And don’t be surprised that it never ends.

Poster by AI, modified with photoshop.

In case you were curious what these look like before I try to fix them, enjoy this collage. AI seldom gets me something I’d use unmodified, don’t know how people do it.

#POINKY POIK PILLIPER #from the desk of Great American Satan #spooktober

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theotheroccassionalfanficwriter · 3 years

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Cryo Archon!Childe fucking his wife on their wedding night and he gets her pregnant? and he's a little yandereish like the way you write him? your work is sublime

Thank you~! I had fun writing this since I never once entertained Childe being a cryo archon but the image of him having the signature tip dyed hair was simply o(*////▽////*)q

In Snezhnaya with Love

Summary: Cryo Archon's most treasured and beloved possession was not his gnosis, but the Tsaritsa that was protected in the depths of the Zapolyarny Palace.

Of the current Seven, the Cryo Archon, the Tsar of Snezhnaya was famed for his glorious victories in the battlefield, a once human who vanquished gods when meeting gods and slayed demons when meeting demons. All Snezhnayans held their Cryo Archon with high regards, loved him and respected him for all the battles he had won for himself and that of Snezhnaya. They tell the story of their Archon, the second to ascend among the Original Seven, whose battle prowess was second only to Morax of Liyue.

Though no one knew their Tsar’s once mortal name, their were many monikers he went by at the times he paraded himself as a mortal; Tartaglia of the Harbingers when in Snezhnaya, Childe when in Liyue, Herrscher in Mondstadt, Wakasama in Inazuma, Le Seigneur in Fontaine, Bhagavan in Sumeru, and Kasike in Natlan. Thus, the people of Snezhnaya found no need to discover their Archon’s once name.

And you were one of them, you had no need nor want to know the Cryo Archon, the Tsar, beyond what he wanted his people to know. All that mattered was that you loved him just as your fellow countrymen did. Though you were no devout follower of the Tsar, despite your status as the heiress of 10 Noble Houses of Snezhnaya’s high society, you still carried yourself like one.

You were after all graced with his element, and your Uncle Pulcinella’s position in the Harbingers ensured that you brought no shame to the prestige of your bloodline and your status as a Cryo Vision Holder. You were the embodiment of your Archon’s ideals, Strength not only to protect one’s self and family but also to challenge the Divine.

It was the price you willingly paid to enjoy the privileges your vision and status granted you. Perhaps in another world you would have gone on and married someone not out of love but out of duty, but such thoughts flew out of the window that one summer day in Morepesok.

It had been a vacation for you, a rare moment of freedom from the prying and judging eyes of the world. You had been allowed to roam free in your Uncle Pulcinella’s vacation villa in the rural seaside village. It was one of the top tourist destinations in Snezhnaya, a town seemingly stuck in time, where the rest of Snezhnaya was filled with towering buildings and skyscrapers of metal and light, Morepesok retained the traditional houses of Snezhnaya.

A rare glimpse of the past long gone. It was during this trip that you had your fateful encounter with the young man, his orange hair with sky blue tips that gently swayed in the cold wind, and his piercing blue eyes that had taken your breath away.

He smiled at you, curious and just a touch of arrogance that let you know he knew he was handsome. Your cheeks flushed not from the cold but from embarrassment.

“Hey there, girlie~!” He called out as he trotted towards you, his hunter attire letting you know he was one of the hunters of Morepesok.

“He-hello” You greeted him back, soft and shy. Stuttering as you felt your heartbeat quicken with each step that he took towards you.

“Don’t you know it’s dangerous in this area?” He asked you, eyes glinting with cold amusement and something in you wanted to rise to his unspoken challenge.

“Oh? Was there?” You replied, “With this being part of my uncle’s villa, I doubt that there is anything here that would be dangerous to me…”

His smile fades away and you continued, “Of course even if this part of the woods is no longer a part of his villa, other than our beloved Tsar’s ire, I would be the most dangerous creature out here.”

You punctuated your words with the masterful and powerful display of your control over Cryo. The frostarm lawachurl heading towards your location toppled over, the top of their head bleeding out from the spikes of cryo that burst out from their forehead. Their dying cry had the man before you looking back and his laughter echoed in the desolate winter forest of Morepesok.

“Hahahaha!” He laughed, hands on his stomach as he bent over “Amazing, comrade! This is the first time I’ve ever seen Cryo be used in such a way! Not even the Tsar was said to be that ruthless!”

You smiled at him, sweet and pleased at his praise, “Perhaps, our beloved Tsar has yet to meet an opponent that would make him use such cruelty.”

“Interesting, I’m Ajax of Morepesok. And you...must be Pulcinella’s treasured niece” His smile turned more genuine offering his hand to you he added, “Something tells me would get along most splendidly.”

And as you gave him your hand, he brought it close to his lips, kissing it gently and you knew, as the distant sound of the waves crashing into the shore sounded in the forest, that your first defeat was in the hands of this charming young man.

And it was your sweetest defeat, you spent most of your days in his cabin, an inheritance from his deceased family, your time split between sparring with him and going ice fishing. Each moment spent made you stronger, Ajax taught you in every weapon he knew. Each touch that corrected your stance sent shivers down your spine.

And neither of you shied away from the inevitable. His touches became less innocent, less sincere in teaching you. And you took every opportunity to have skinship with him, from taking advantage of the gentle cold air to asking for his help in reeling in the ridiculously large fishes in Morepesok.

Despite the never ending cold of Snezhnaya, the distance between you and Ajax slowly melted away with each shed of layer between the two of you. In his cabin, you were just a young maiden in love, and he was just your strong lover who sheltered you from the harshness of the world.

The domesticity of your everyday life with him lulled you into a false sense of comfort, the mornings and afternoons spent with him would come to an end. Maybe, it was the knowledge that you would never be able to return to this time, or perhaps it was your reluctance to be forgotten so easily that led to this point.

The moment Ajax had kissed you against his door, you had shed all pretense of propriety. You kissed him back, tongue entangling with his as his hands ventured down and began divesting you of your clothes. Neither of you stopped kissing as your hand went to his pants and unbuckled his belt, his hydro vision dropping to the ground in sync with him removing your top that held your cryo vision.

You broke off to breath and found your neck being kissed as Ajax lifted you up and you let out a surprised gasp. Your arms automatically embraced his neck as he brought you upstairs and into his bedroom. You had no chance to look around as he gently placed you atop his soft bed.

His lips trailed down from your neck to the center of your chest down to your groin, leaving a soft trail of kisses before he began to eat you out.

Outside the window of his room, snow fell harshly and the windows softly shook with each gust of wind. Idly you wondered what had made the Tsar rage about but this thought was lost to the lust and pleasure of your love making with Ajax.

You laid on his chest, utterly spent as he curled his arm around you and gave you soft kisses atop your head. Neither of you spoke, unwilling to face the reality of your departure. But you were never one to falter from the things that you didn’t like.

You were always moving forward. Bravely facing whatever comes your way, be it life or love. So you broke the silence, because it was what you believed you owed him.

“I’m enlisting in the Fatui” Your voice soft, “This would be most likely the last time we would meet.”

You felt his hand on your waist tighten before it relaxed. You looked at him and was greeted by his warm smile.

“But not definitely” He said and your heart ached because you knew that even if you met him next time there was no chance for anything more.

“Ajax, the next time we meet, I will no longer be as I am today.”

“...”

His eyes grew cold and you found yourself underneath him, he looked at you darkly and foolishly you still found yourself lost in his beautiful eyes.

“We will meet again,” he said, voice hard and steely “and no one would be able to take you away from me.”

His kiss was hard and biting, cold and passionate, and for a moment you believed him.

“Promise me then,” You begged him as tears gathered in the edges of your eyes as you surrendered to him once more “promise me that you’ll wait for me, that you’ll fight for me and I’ll return to you and fight for you.”

“I promise” Ajax smiled, his coldness and anger melting away as he showered you with all of his love. Leaving traces of himself on you, marking you to proclaim his rightful ownership of you.

Enlisting in the Fatui and joining their ranks hadn’t been easy with the additional expectation being brought by your familial connection with one of the current Harbingers, and with that the hatred and envy of others. You didn’t care for it though, thoughts of Ajax and the life you’d have with him making it easier for you. Then again, the Fatui was a place where strength was respected and it was something you had in spades, from fighting abilities to scheming. You didn’t have the best leadership skills but that was something that could be slowly learned.

All in all, you had gritted your teeth, bore the difficulties, and slowly but surely made your way up in the ranks and into being a Harbinger. Innamorati, they called you and you it was a name you proudly wore. A name bestowed upon you by your beloved Cryo Archon, the Tsar with his bright orange hair and deep blue eyes that reminded you of Ajax.

It was surprising to see such a familiar and beloved face in that of the beloved Archon but you had learned to hide your emotions. But even as you walked away from him and went home to celebrate, the unmistakable pull you felt didn’t allow you to delude yourself completely.

You needed to see Ajax.

The trip to Morepesok was faster with the portable waypoint Ajax had made you. An easy temptation to meet him in the middle of your enlistment but one you never took. You wanted to prove yourself, and at the same time show him that you’d never easily cave, be it for him or for something else, you would keep your word. And maybe that was why the waiting figure of your Tsar, in Ajax’ clothes, had shaken your heart.

The winds howled and snow fell harshly, each step he took towards made you tremble whether it was from trepidation or something else you didn’t know but as he took a strand of your hair and held close to his lips you couldn’t help but call for him,

“Ajax?”

You felt at loss, not knowing how much of the days you spent with him were true, not knowing if his words had been meant. You wouldn’t be able to take it if it wasn’t.

“Yes, my love?” He asked, gently and comforting as he took you into his arms and held you tight enough that it hurt.

You didn’t know what to say, unable to put your feelings into words so you buried your face into his chest, held him just as tight with your trembling hands and begged him to understand what your heart wanted.

You never noticed how you remained unaffected by the cold, despite the howling winds and harshly falling snow that surrounded you. All you could think of was the feeling you held tightly as Ajax carried you inside his home, up to his bedroom and slowly but gently began to undress you.

You made no protest beyond the need to have your hand held by his. He had laughed, soft and gentle, at your clinginess but no less than pleased at it.

“I’d need my hand to properly undress you” He said even if he had no problem tearing your clothes off.

You gave him an unimpressed glance but nonetheless leaned close when he moved to take your panties off, you snuggled closer to him, holding his hand tighter. You felt your panties drop to your feet and you moved to take it off them. Ajax pushed you to sit and the bed, finding it adorable and pleasing how you easily complied.

Trusted him so much that you made no protest beyond the soft pout when he untangled your hands. He gently rolled your black thigh highs off your legs, raising one leg high to slowly and teasingly slide it off your smooth legs.

He smirked at seeing your pussy twitch ever so often, knowing that you were surely having lewd thoughts. So he pulled you closer by your legs until your pussy was just a scant few centimeters away from his face. Your breath hitched and you unconsciously wanted to close your legs but his hands stopped it and began the process of taking off your remaining thigh highs. The process barely took a minute but it felt so long that you were ready to beg him.

When your thighs were freed from your thigh highs, you spread your legs, fingers going towards your labia and spreading it wide for him to see.

“Please?” You begged, voice soft and cute as you showed him your glistening wet pussy.

And Ajax, had never been one to deny you. Spoiling you with gifts and affection until you were drunk and dizzy from it. His mouth pressed close to your cunt, tongue licking the outside, circling your clit before it made its way in. He ate you like the sweet treat that you were, holding your thighs securely as you writhed on the bed with pleasure, moans growing louder and louder with each passing minute until you were crying for release.

He was relentless in teasing you, calloused hands teasing your clit before stopping when you were on the edge of your orgasm.

“Ajax~” You cried his name, moaning and panting as his fingers fucked you “please le—ahh!”

“Aren’t you my most devoted Harbinger?” He teased, “Surely you can hold on until I order you to come?”

You nod your head with slight hesitation but it was something Ajax could forgive seeing how you were feverish with want and your earlier words of begging for his cock.

His fingers went in and out of your pussy, each thrust accompanied by the squelch of your slick, his saliva and the hydro that coated his fingers. Your pussy loosened with each passing minute as he alternated his attention to your sweet cunt and your cute clit.

When he had deemed you loose enough, he stood up and freed his cock from the tight and uncomfortable confines of pants, he let his pants and briefs drop to the floor before he climbed the bed and in one smooth motion, plunged his cock into your waiting wet pussy.

“Cum” He ordered and you did, voice a sweet melody to his ears as he fucked you through your orgasm, the loud creaking of the bed and the sound of the head board as it repeatedly slammed on the wall made you aware of your situation, as the haze of lust slightly lifted.

It didn’t do much beyond making you want to hold his hand which Ajax did, held your hand as he repeatedly rammed his cock into your pussy, slowly reaching your depths with each thrust of his cock until he let out his cum inside you, spilling it deep inside your pussy that Ajax knew that there wasn’t any impossibility you wouldn’t end up pregnant.

He softly fell on top of you, caging you beneath him as you hugged his muscular back and simply existed in that moment. His cock remained inside of you and the feeling of being connected in such a way, on having all of him touching your skin, the soft sound of his ragged breaths and his scent mixing with the smell of sex that pervaded your nose anchored you in this precise moment.

Where the world felt like it had melted away leaving the two of you alone. Neither a monarch and his subject nor a god and its believer. Just you and him, as lovers.

“Did you really mean it?” You asked, soft and preparing for the worst.

“Yes,” He answered, voice equally soft as he squeezed you tight, he continued “I meant every I love yous I said to you, every promise made.”

He kissed you on your neck, on the vein that betrayed your heart’s quick pulse. He inhaled your scent which he had missed so dearly, remembering the nights he had spent thinking of you, wondering what you were doing. The nights he laid awake missing your warmth on his side, the afternoon naps where he held you close to his heart.

He watched from afar as you slowly and steadily made your way up in the ranks, each battle won and lost that slowly shaped you into a Harbinger. He thought of the days that made him want to simply steal you away, lock you in his room until you forgot your family, your duty, and only had him in your mind.

But he stopped himself, he knew that doing so would make you lose the shine that had entranced him, he would lose the you that he came to love. The you that was bound by duty both self-imposed and ones imposed by society. So he waited, until the day came when you stood before him, surprise hidden well but he was Ajax, he was your Cryo Archon, he was your lover whom you eagerly wrote every week.

So he knew your tells better than anyone else, knew the moment it clicked in your mind, saw the trepidation behind your eyes and Ajax wouldn’t have that. He had promised you after all, and he was one to keep promises.

Even if one day you wanted to leave him, he wouldn’t allow you. He had a promise to keep after all.

In the depths of Zapolyarny Palace was a room where the Tsaritsa, the Tsar’s most beloved wife resided. It was a room filled with splendor and grace, the best and most beautiful artworks and gadgets decorated the room.

It was a room that the Tsar loved the most, and thus it was the most important room in the Palace. The best of the Fatui sans the Harbingers guarded the doors that led to the halls of the room. It was strictly guarded and meant to ensure that not a single thing would be stolen from the room.

It was after all where you resided, a place where the Tsar designated as his home. His personal haven from courtly matters and godly duties. And today was no exception, every day you spent on the room was reliving your wedding night.

The soft silk sheets that you felt on your back, the white lacy lingerie that you wore underneath your wedding gown. It’s tiny slits that showcased your exposed and erect nipples, the your cum filled pussy that dripped with your husband’s thick cum that was always replenished multiple times in a day. The soft clink of the chains that held your wrists and had your legs spread widely. The familiar sensation of your collar that held your Cryo vision, a mark of his favor and love, a seal that ensured you would remain his until you drew your last breath. The soft cotton of your blindfold had enhanced your other senses beyond compare, making you hyper aware of everything that was happening in the room.

The familiar footsteps on the warm carpet of your bedroom, the familiar rustle of his clothes as it fell softly on the ground, cape first, shirt second, belt next and lastly his pants. His warm calloused hands gently caressing the insides of your thighs.

The same routine, repeated every day at different times since you married him. You couldn’t tell how much time had passed since he blindfolded you, how long you had spent with him, the days blurred as he never removed your blindfold.

He took you apart every time and mended you back, fucking you over and over again until he felt satisfied, until your pussy felt raw, until you were begging him for sweet release, until you lifelessly laid on his chest enjoying the feel of his hard cock being warmed by your cunt.

Your apprehension melted away with each fucking, with each release of his seed inside you, until you could only demand more of his time, more of his attention, more of his cum filling you up.

You loved when he was rough with you, the harsh and loud clinks of the chain as you moaned wantonly, begging him to cum inside you, to use you as he saw fit. And each time he went along with your wishes, fulfilling each and every demand you asked of him.

You kissed him with everything that you were, unrestrained by duty or dignity, only knowing what you want as you rubbed your naked and marked body against his, you weren’t the dignified or noble Tsaritsa the public knew. In this room filled with the most prized treasures of the Tsar, you were his most precious slut.

A slut that opened your legs for him alone, a slut that presented your ass and pussy to him with eager eyes hidden by a blindfold. A slut that couldn’t wait to be filled to the brim. It was his duty, his calling as a husband and as your lover to fulfill your needs, to ram his cock again and again inside your loose pussy that held so much of his cum even when your stomach was already showing.

It was his duty to ensure that you, his lewd wife, would be filled with his cum, from your pussy, to your asshole, to those pretty pink lips that eagerly wrapped itself on his cock. He loved how you didn’t care where he fucked you in the room. He loved how different you acted depending on whether he was ramming his cock inside you on the bed, or fucking you in front of the window.

He loved the way you moaned when the table digged on your hips, the way you grasped at the cover as he slid his dick in and out of your loose pussy, cum spilling down your thighs and pooling on the floor. He loved how slutty you could get when being fucked in the bathtub, water sloshing as you repeatedly slammed your pussy down his cock, moaning loud enough that some of it undoubtedly could be heard behind the thick doors of your room.

He loved the sounds you made, pleased and eager, as he fucked your mouth in front of the fireplace, your naked body sitting on the floor while a Cryo dildo repeatedly slammed inside your pussy.

He loved you when your stomach began showing signs of pregnancy, growing big with each passing week and yet you remained unaware, or perhaps you paid it no mind.

He couldn’t tell if you were genuinely happy with the arrangement but as long as you remained by his side, happily doing what he wants, whispering I love yous and adoration in his ears. Eagerly kissing him good morning and good bye, Ajax didn’t put any thought on it.

On the ninth month of your pregnancy, the blindfold was taken off, you looked at him with love and the unmistakable look of longing.

“I missed you!” You told him, eagerly running up to hug him, and plaster your entire naked body, cum dripping down between your legs, to his.

He laughed at you, amused and loving and gently held you close, “You shouldn’t run so quickly, you’re carrying our child after all.”

You nod, and look at your bulging stomach, hand instinctively rubbing it.

“I hope this child will look just like you!”

“Is that so?” He asked a pensive look in his eyes as he rubbed your stomach.

“Yes! How lovely would it be to see a child version of you? A mini-you calling me mother!”

He smiled at you fondly, pleased to know that you still loved him. He kissed you lovingly on your lips and whispered, “As you wish.”

#childe x reader #tartaglia x reader #genshin impact childe x reader #cryo!archon childe #genshin impact x reader #yandere childe x reader

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blue-eyes-tattoos · 4 years

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Here are my favourite fics written in 2020! ✨

(Obviously there’s tons of great 2020 fics I haven’t read yet)

Pt. I = everything over 20k words

Sorted by word count. Hope you enjoy!

📔 Mine Would Be You by crinkle-eyed-boo | @crinkle-eyed-boo 115k

(E, Larry, Exes to Lovers, Artist!Harry, Writer!Louis)

Louis returns to New York City five years after he left it – and the love of his life – behind. He didn't intend to see Harry again, but fate has a funny way of pulling them together, whether they like it or not. After making a begrudging truce, they both start to wonder: Would it be so bad if history repeated itself?

📔 Have Love, Will Travel by kingsofeverything | @kingsofeverything 97k

(E, Larry, Friends to Lovers, Road Trip)

Rather than spend the summer working at their desks, Louis and Harry are given the opportunity to crisscross the country together in a tiny camper, filming their adventures for a YouTube series. It soon becomes obvious to their viewers that there’s something more than friendship between them. Eventually, they figure it out.

📔 You’ve Got My Devotion (Hate You Sometimes) by lucythegoosey | @harryrainbows 95k

(E, Larry, Canon Compliant, Exes/Enemies to Lovers, Fake Relationship)

Harry and Louis are forced to fake-date after an old video from when they were dating emerges.

📔 The Murmur of Yearning by MediaWhore | @mediawhorefics 93k

(M, Larry, Historical AU, Slow Burn)

Four years ago, Harry Styles was forced into a marriage of convenience to enrich and ally both his and his promised's families. The sudden, and slightly suspicious, death of the Marquess of Haxshire, however, brings great disturbance to Crescentfield Hall and, as his late's husband's closest male relative, Harry unexpectedly finds himself the head of a family he never felt he belonged to.

📔 Nothing But You On My Mind by nonsensedarling | @absoloutenonsense 84k

(E, Larry, Enemies to Lovers, (modern) Royalty AU)

Louis Tomlinson is a PR manager hired to improve the image of royal bad-boy Prince Harry Styles. Unfortunately for him, that means being faced with the Prince's constant innuendos, incessant dirty jokes, and relentless flirting. Louis just wants to make it to Princess Gemma's coronation; once she's crowned Queen, his contract is up and he never has to see the Prince again.

📔 Untamed Hearts by Layne Faire | @laynefaire 69k

(E, Ziam, side Larry, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining)

It could have been the heat of the summer sun; it might have been the silvered sheen of an early harvest moon. If he dug deep enough, Liam could find every reason ever needed to explain away what happened. In the end, though, it all came down to two meddling friends, a touch of Prince, a bit of Keats, and the moon over the ocean. Its a recipe for disaster. Or love. Probably love.

📔 Live a Thousand Lifetimes by Layne Faire | @laynefaire 58k

(E, Ziam, very minor side Larry, Canon Compliant, Future Fic, Exes to Lovers, Farm)

It’s 2025. After secretly writing and producing their first album in ten years, One Direction is weeks away from releasing their first new single and announcing a world tour. With the whirlwind about to begin again, Liam re-evaluates the last ten years - the fame, the money, the people who changed his life forever - and the person who walked away.

📔 The Recklessness in Water by LarryOn 51k

(E, Larry, Enemies to Lovers, lifeguard!Harry, unemployed!Louis)

Louis Tomlinson is miserable. He's stuck on a family vacation at a lake cabin in New Hampshire when all he wants to do is bemoan his sorry existence and wallow in his sweatpants. As if the humidity and mosquitos weren't bad enough, he becomes the singular target of an obnoxious lifeguard named Harry.

📔 Need So Much Of You by lululawrence | @lululawrence 47k

(Not Rated, Larry, Canon Compliant, Fake Relationship, Friends to Lovers)

The would-have-been canon compliant, fake relationship, friends with benefits, friends to lovers fic where Louis wonders if this thing going on with Harry is going to break him or change everything for the better.

📔 We Can Take The Long Road Home by pinkcords | @pinkcords 46k

(E, Larry, Strangers to Lovers, Road Trip)

Harry and Louis fall in love down the coast of California.

📔 Caves End by jacaranda_bloom | @jacaranda-bloom 40k

(E, Larry, famous/non-famous, Farm)

The one where Harry has lost his future, Louis has lost his past, but maybe together, they can find a way through the dark.

📔 Say It Back by wordsnnotes | @quelsentiment 40k

(T, Larry, side Ziam, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, College/Uni AU, Asexual Character)

Harry doesn't know what he wants; Louis is too caught up in his problems to care about what he wants; Niall knows perfectly well what he wants, and that's to be everybody's best friend and comic relief; Zayn thought he knew what he wanted until he's reminded of the past; and Liam has come to terms with the fact that it's okay not to know what you want sometimes.

📔 Until by allwaswell16 | @allwaswell16 38k

(E, Larry, side Shiall, famous/non-famous, Enemies to Lovers, Farm)

Rural Eagle County, Colorado wasn’t the type of place to find a famous musician or actor. At least not until songwriter Louis Tomlinson showed up with pop star Niall Horan to visit his uncle’s horse ranch, and they just happened to find themselves next door to a reclusive former movie star.

📔 Love Moves Like The Sea by flamboyo | @chrysopon 33k

(M, Larry, Friends to Lovers, Pining, Sharing a Bed)

Spending two weeks in his uncle's old house by Lee Bay beach is not Louis' ideal holiday, but sadly is the only one he can afford this summer. Spending those alone with Harry, his best friend who he has spent the last five years in love with, may make everything a little better, though. Away from everyday reality, alone somewhere that makes you forget your past and gloss over your future, maybe it's time for two friends to finally explore what they haven't said (but felt) for years.

📔 If Love Was Easy, They’d Call It Hockey by drowninshallowwater | @drowninshallowwater 28k

(Not Rated - there is smut though, Larry, Hockey AU, Friends to Lovers, hockey player!Louis, doctor!Harry, feat one of my favourite bands in a supporting role)

The one where it takes a broken collarbone for Louis to get back what he lost, even if it is seven years down the road.

📔 Sunflower: Vol. 1 by ourownstrings | @ourownstrings 27k

(M, Larry, side Ziam, farmer!Louis, florist!Harry, Misunderstandings, Grief/Mourning, Depression)

“Real farmers love mornings.” Louis hated that sentiment. But then he wasn’t a real farmer. He just got stuck in the family business and drags himself to the farmers market where he put on his best sunny sales pitch. That is until he meets the new flower vendor. The flower boy who is even wearing floral-patterned clothes as he sells bouquets. Suddenly, Saturday mornings are the highlight of his week.

📔 Walls Are Just Walls (You Are My Home) by logogram | @et-y-etc 26k

(E, Larry, famous/non-famous, Friends to Lovers)

After being injured in a hiking accident, musician Harry and his bodyguard are stuck on the trail with no cell service, no supplies, and with nightfall coming. Louis, who’s a wilderness first responder, comes across them, gives first aid, and calls for a rescue.

📔 A Road To Something Better by taggiecb | @taggiecb 25k

(E, Larry, writer!Louis, mayor!Harry, Friends to Lovers)

Louis Tomlinson, famous romance novelist, has just had the rug pulled out from under his feet when his boyfriend leaves him without notice. What's the most appropriate response to this? Move a thousand miles away and seclude himself in a tiny lake town, of course. But nothing is as he expects it to be in the very best way, especially not the handsome mayor of McAll, Idaho.

📔 You Burn so Bright You can Blind Somebody by heartmeetsbreakx | @heartmeetsbreakx 20k

(GA, Ziam, minor side Larry, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, YouTuber!Liam)

Liam is a popular YouTube vlogger and sometimes Zayn is his cameraman. Liam's subscribers start analyzing their relationship and it changes everything.

#hlsource #hldaily #hlcreators #tracksintheam #zmu #liam93productions #dailytomlinson #stylesnews #2020 fic rec #larry fic rec #ziam fic rec #my fic rec #mine #making this post on a tablet takes EFFORT y’all #hope i didn’t forget any tags

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cincinnatusvirtue · 4 years

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Romantic Poets in Profile: John Keats (1795-1821)

The first generation of English language Romantic poets stemmed from the late 18th century and is most associated with the names of Blake, Coleridge & Wordsworth. The second generation that followed was born at the tale end of the 18th century and overlapped with the first to varying degrees. This second generation is usually most associated with another trio: Lord Byron, Percy Shelley & John Keats.

While all six of these men are known for their poetic output they are also known for their lives and how they in turned informed their poetry. In the second generation only Lord Byron was a commercial & critical success in his lifetime to a wider audience. Arguably, the celebrity & personality surrounding Byron and the many complex events of his life, notably many scandals are just as well known as the poetry itself. Meanwhile, Shelley’s political and philosophical ideals were much more explicit and in some ways regarded as too ahead of their time and out of place in the era of the Regency in which he wrote. His sometimes scandalous life and indeed the literary acclaim of his wife, author Mary Shelley and her work Frankenstein perhaps also clouded out the reception to his poetry both in his lifetime and later to an extent too. Though both Byron and Shelley’s poetry has gone on to remain influential and highly regarded in subsequent generations, undoubtedly so too did the events of their lives and their political & philosophical ideals. John Keats is perhaps the only one of this trio who’s poetical output was not also obscured by the details of his life. Other than like Byron & Shelley, Keats did see his share of tragedy in life and indeed lived a short life. However, it can probably be contended that Keats unlike his contemporaries is less known for his personality and life and more solely for his poetry and to a degree his ideas on poetry. Yet, it would be a mistake to not say that his life and experiences did not influence his writing...

Early Life:

-John Keats was born on October 31, 1795 to Thomas & Frances Keats, he was the first of four children. His siblings in order included George, Thomas & Fanny.

-He was born in the Moorgate area of London where his father managed an called the Swan & Hoop, where he previously worked in the horse stables next door. Keats was born into a working class humble origin unlike Byron & Shelley who both had aristocratic backgrounds and were heirs to fortunes and titles of nobility.

-John’s parents had hoped to send him to Eton or Harrow like Byron & Shelley but could not afford the cost. Instead he was sent to the boarding school Enfield where he nevertheless was giving a thorough and modern education. Early on he developed an interest like many of contemporaries in the classics such as Greek & Latin & history.

-John was physically quite short in stature at only roughly over 5 feet in height and slender in build but he was said to be physically strong despite his stature and made up for it with a tough demeanor willing to fight any bullies to himself or his brothers. He was also described as having curly reddish-brown hair.

-He was very interested in literature and was almost always seen reading and by age 13 he was quite focused academically. Winning an academic prize in 1809.

-At age 8 (1804) the first of many family tragedies took place when his father fell from his horse after a visit to Enfield wherein Mr. Keats died of a fracture to the skull, depriving the family of a steady source of income.

-Frances Keats remarried shortly there after but left her new spouse and sent her children to live with her parents instead.

-Frances herself died of tuberculosis in 1810 when John was only 14 years old. Leaving all four Keats in the legal guardianship of their maternal grandmother, who likewise appointed two legal guardians in the event of her own passing.

-Keats had decided to enter the medical profession, which in the early 19th century did not just follow a strict course of years of medical school and residency at a hospital with strict licensing. Instead, many future doctors started out at apprentices to others, who served as either traveling or local surgeons & apothecaries. In the autumn of 1810, Keats entered his apprenticeship with Thomas Hammond, the local family doctor. Living with Hammond & his family in the attic above the surgeon’s practice for the next 3-4 years.

Medicine & Poetry

-In 1814, Keats (aged 19) tried some of his early efforts at poetry having never let go of his interest in poetry & literature during his apprenticeship. His early efforts were regarded as imitation and derivative, even in title of his earliest surviving poem “An Imitation of Spenser” named after the poet-author Edmund Spenser.

-1815 saw John admitted to Guy’s Hospital as a medical student, he became a dresser or assistant to surgeons. This sense of dedication and responsibility seemed to be leave the impression to all that he was destined to a life as a doctor which would have likely brought him financial security, something he never really had.

-Finances were always a sensitive issue for Keats who was stubborn in his independence and determined to make his own way in life. His mother had left him £800 for his 21st birthday and had left £8,000 to be divided between her four children upon their reaching the age of maturity (Keats 21st). However, he was never informed by his legal guardian/attorneys about the £800 bequeathment, possibly due to their own lack of information.

-Despite his heavy involvement in medicine, he was increasingly devoted to poetry and writing, which began to conflict with his studies. Nevertheless in 1816 he did receive his apothecaries license, essentially making him a licensed practitioner of medicine to serve as pharmacist, surgeon and physician. By year’s end taking inspiration from other well known poets, namely Lord Byron & Leigh Hunt, John decided instead to devote his life and earnings to poetry rather than medicine.

-In 1816, Keats got his sonnet “O Solitude” published in the Examiner, a liberal leaning weekly paper-magazine publication that was well known throughout Britain for its radical politics and featured modern artists including poets, it was published by Leigh Hunt, himself a poet and radical intellectual. Also a friend of both Lord Byron & Percy Shelley.

-October 1816 through a mutual friend, Hunt met Keats for the first time. Under Leigh’s influence Keats met with radical artists and intellectuals of the day, though Keats wasn’t especially political in his writing. Within month of meeting Hunt, his first volume of poems, called simply “Poems” was released to no commercial success and little critical notice aside from a favorable review in the publication, The Champion.

-Keats managed to switch his original publishers to a new set of publishers who’s past clients included Samuel Coleridge. His new publishers were very enthusiastic about his poems and paid him an advance for a second volume.

-Meanwhile, Leigh Hunt published an article on Keats & Shelley to derive attention to their poetry while also publishing “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.” The sonnet which marvels at Chapman’s translations of the Greek author and bard Homer, struck a chord with many in the literary world and while he wasn’t a commercial success, many new literary friends and acquaintances came into Keats’ social circle. They were impressed with his talents and felt in time he had more untapped potential.

-1817 saw Keats leave London having faced too many ailments in the cramped quarters near the medical school as he had at one point intended to return to medicine and join the Royal College of Surgeons but nevertheless his poetic ambitions won him over.

-John moved in with his brothers to the nearby village of Hampstead where his brother Tom had now like their mother started to suffer tuberculosis. John & George tried their best to help their brother but in the days before antibiotics and vaccines were known and developed, tuberculosis was essentially a death sentence, sometimes fast acting or as in Tom’s case long and drawn out. Which combined with his poor finances depressed Keats (who was prone to depression his entire life).

-Hampstead nevertheless allowed Keats to be in a more rural setting more congenial to his writing and close his friends like Leigh Hunt and others in their literary circle. Also Samuel Coleridge, the first generation Romantic poet who on at least one occasion walked with Keats through the woods talking by Keats’ own account on everything from poetry to metaphysics.

A Walking Tour of the British Isles:

-In June 1818, the Keats brothers went their separate ways, Tom remained infirm due to his illness and in the care of others at Hampstead. While John & George departed themselves. John travelled with his friend Charles Armitage Brown intending to take a walking tour of the north of Britain, so as to acquire some poetic inspiration and alleviate his depression. The tour would take Keats & Brown to the famed and picturesque Lake District of Northwest England’s Cumbria region, along with a tour of Scotland & Ireland. To save on travel expenses, they’d walk everywhere except where boat ferries were needed. George Keats and his new wife Georgina accompanied John & Charles part of the way. They was bound to emigrate for America where ultimately they would remain but perish poor and suffering from tuberculosis. George said what would be his farewell to John in Lancaster, England. Seeing each other only once more briefly in 1820.

-Keats & Brown made for the Lake District in Cumbria where famed first generation Romantic poet, William Wordsworth was living. He attempted to meet with Wordsworth at his home in the area but no one was home at the time. The two poets had met in 1817 on a number of occasions.

-Keats wrote a series of letters to his siblings almost daily, serving as a diary and practice place for his new found poetry. In it he described not only the natural scenery of mountains, lake, rivers and glens but of the habits and appearance of the people of Northern England, Scotland & Ireland. Which to 19th century Londoners was almost as foreign as far flung parts of the European continent.

-Keats visited the grave and cottage of Scottish lyricist Robert Burns, he also visited Northern Ireland in the vicinity of Belfast along with the Scottish Highlands and several of the Scottish islands. Keats also made observations of the extreme poverty the average Scots & Irish rural families faced at the time, with most children walking barefoot and that to keep warm meant burning bog peat in smoky huts with no outlets but the one doorway into the home. The poverty shocked Keats sensibilities but the walking tour was pivotal in giving Keats new perspectives & indeed inspiration.

Return to Hampstead, Wentworth Place & Fanny Brawne:

-Keats and Brown returned to Hampstead in August of 1818, after two months of a walking tour. He returned to caring for Tom whose condition worsened and would eventually pass away from his prolonged illness on December 1st, depressing Keats greatly. Its possible during his caring for Tom that Keats contracted the disease himself which he began to refer to as a “family disease” having previously taken his mother.

-Following Tom’s death and George’s moving to America, John found himself alone with the English winter oncoming. He moved into Charles Brown’s newly owned Wentworth Place, a house about ten minutes from his old lodgings in Hampstead. It was here that Keats in the spring of 1819 would write a handful of his greatest known poems, his Odes on which his legacy largely rests to this day. Including Odes to a Nightingale, Melancholy & Grecian Urn.

-Meanwhile, the publication of his second volume of poetry, the classically influenced Endymion, was also negatively received by the literary critics, many of whom opposed Keats for his association with Leigh Hunt and the radical politics he espoused.

-1819 also produced some of his other posthumously best known works: Lamia, The Eve of St. Agnes, Hyperion, La Belle Dame Sans Merci. His publishers were lukewarm to the poems but did agree to publish them in 1820 the third and final collections of poems released in his lifetime under the title-Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes & Other Poems.

-Previously in 1817, he had met an Isabella Jones who appears to have been an early long term flirtation with Keats and likely was one whom inspired much of his poetry that was noted for its sensual language. In letters to his brother George and from glancing remarks from others, it appears likely Keats had his first and possibly only sexual relationship with Jones though the two seemed to never commit to an actual full blown romantic relationship. Their trysts continued until early 1819.

-By autumn 1818 Keats would be meet the great love of his life, Fanny Brawne. Fanny was an 18 daughter of a widow who was friends with Keats neighbors at Wentworth Place. By 1819 the Brawnes had moved next door and John saw Fanny daily. Evidently the two had much in common, including having grandparents who owned inns, family loss due to tuberculosis and interest in literature and theater.

-John gave books to Fanny to read and in time the two were almost inseparable. They appear by summer 1819 to have been informally engaged to marry, “engaged to be engaged” as is sometimes described. Nevertheless, despite his new romance and his productive and more mature poetry two things continued to put limitations on Keats as they always had. The first was finances or lack there of. Keats got his publishing advances but also had to borrow money and was often generous in loaning great sums to others making him indebted. He also had no critical or commercial breakthrough as a poet yet either. He did not want to marry Fanny until he made something of himself financially.

-The second trouble was the ever present danger of exposure to tuberculosis. The realization that Keats was fatally afflicted with the same disease that killed his mother, younger brothers & sister in law occurred in early 1820. Upon hemorrhaging blood in coughing fits, Keats was aware his death was approaching.

-He wrote hundreds of letters and messages to Fanny and professed what amounted to great anguish over loving her and the realization that his poverty and now fatal affliction would prevent their marriage from ever taking place.

Exile to Italy and Death:

-The treatment for tuberculosis patients in the early 19th century usually to ease though not cure the symptoms was to send the patient to warmer climates to ease the burden on the lungs and English winters with cold and damp conditions in confined spaces was usually regarded as too harsh on a patient in Keats state.

-In September 1820 on the recommendations of his doctors, Keats left England and Fanny behind forever, ship bound for Italy with the final destination being Rome.

-Percy Shelley, now living in self-imposed exile in Italy to evade creditors to whom he was indebted back in England along with the goal of establishing his own radical magazine publication jointly with Leigh Hunt & Lord Byron heard of Keats illness and wrote to him with the offer of having him stay with the Shelleys in Pisa & Florence Italy where they were staying. Keats, who had previously met Shelley in England through Hunt years before declined the offer. Shelley was a proponent and fan of Keats work but offered unsolicited advice to Keats on how to improve his poetry in time. Keats found this patronizing and ever stubborn about making his own way refused Shelley’s help, albeit politely and under the guise of not wanting to burden’s Shelley’s family which had suffered numerous deaths of Percy and Mary’s children (of which only one would survive to adulthood)

-Shelley also wrote to Byron about Keats but Keats & Byron whom never met had a more distanced relationship. Byron thought Shelley was too high praising of Keats abilities and in turn Keats felt that their differences were really creative stating: “You speak of Lord Byron and me – There is this great difference between us. He describes what he sees – I describe what I imagine – Mine is the hardest task.”

-Keats’ friends helped contribute financially for his trip and to accompany him was his friend the artist Joseph Severn. Their journey to Italy was plagued by storms and then followed up with a ten day on ship quarantine while docked in Naples due to a cholera outbreak in Britain. From Naples, they travelled overland to Rome arriving in November two months after they left England.

-Keats & Severn settled into a villa next to he famed Spanish Steps in Rome, at first he took daily carriage rides but his bad health caused this to cease. he was cared for by Severn & an English doctor by the name of Clark. Fearing he might commit suicide by being given opium tinctures in laudanum, he was denied any real painkiller leaving him in agonizing coughing fits. Additionally, Clark followed the normal course of recommended treatment in those days including reducing his diet and bleeding the patient with lancets & leeches. This probably weakened an already sick Keats.

-1821 came around and so Keats linger in agony, often to the point of tears as described by Severn, mostly due to the prolonged suffering and wishing to end his ordeal.

-Finally, Keats succumbed to the disease and died in his rented Roman villa on February 23, 1821. He was 25 years old.

-Severn had him buried in Rome’s Protestant Cemetery with a tombstone arranged by Severn & Charles Brown. To this day it is a common place for tourists to visit.

-Percy Shelley & Leigh Hunt claimed that Keats died due to his sensitive nature from reading a bad review of his poetry which in turn burst a blood vessel. Byron while not personally subscribing to that theory did make a sarcastic quip in reference to it in his latest narrative poem, Don Juan. Shelley meanwhile had immortalized Keats in his poetic tribute, Adonais.

-1822 saw Shelley, Byron, Leigh Hunt and others stationed near Livorno, Italy to finally piece together Shelley’s long awaited radical publication which attacked the politics of monarchy in England, an offense that in the 19th century could land one in prison. All three men had liberal or radical leanings and were also supportive of Italian nationalism rising up against the Austrian Empire & Papacy which ruled over much of Italy at the time which existed as multiple kingdoms and occupied territory than one state. For their politics and to avoid press coverage in England over personal scandals especially on Byron’s case, the three had exiled themselves to Continental Europe.

-However, in July 1822, just shy of his 30th birthday, Shelley while boating with another friend was caught in a storm at sea. Having never learned to swim, Shelley drowned and washed ashore days later. He was unrecognizable due to crabs eating his face but for a copy of a Keats’ poem Lamia kept in the pocket of his pants which he was known to have had on his person at the time of his boating excursion. In a dramatic scene on an Italian beach, Shelley’s body was cremated with Byron in attendance. His heart however was calcified and not reduced to ashes, instead Mary Shelley supposedly kept this as a keepsake and had it stored in a cabinet at her home in England until her own death where his heart was supposedly buried with her when she died decades later. Shelley’s ashes however were like Keats buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, next to his son’s grave. Both poets graves are widely visited and the villa Keats died in is now the Keats-Shelley museum dedicated to both men with memorabilia contained therein, including Keats’ death bed.

-With Shelley’s death, the project for a radical publication died away. Byron tired of life in Italy after several years decided to join the Greek War of Independence then underway in revolt against centuries of Ottoman Turkish rule. Byron had hoped to use his celebrity and wealth to help finance Greek rebels and possibly be given command of troops despite no real military experience. Byron arrived in Greece in summer 1823 to find the rebels poorly organized and facing in-fighting. His next several months was coordinating the donation of loans to provide supplies and uniforms but he tried to avoid alienating different Greek factions. In April 1824, having contracted a fever and weakened like Keats with bleeding treatment via lancets and leeches and from this weakness he died of complications to his fever. He was age 36. His remains were embalmed and except for his heart were buried in England.

-Thus ended the second generation of English Romantic poets, all dead within three years of each other and none older than their mid-thirties.

-All three men are routinely taught at school and cited by subsequent generations of poets and writer as influences. Though often Byron and Shelley will be regarded for the quality of their work, their work is sometimes overshadowed by their tumultuous personalities, political outlooks and the many scandals that colored their lives. John Keats, relative to the other two major poets of his generation is generally only regarded for his work and his Odes in particular are regarded as among the finest examples of English language poetry in history, fulfilling his dream to be regarded as one of the great poets of the language, albeit posthumously...

#john keats #romantic poetry #romanticism #19th century #england #italy #fanny brawne #percy bysshe shelley #lord byron #mary shelley #leigh hunt #english language #poetry #1800s

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thisdancingheart · 4 years

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Remember YFIP?

My Year of Grief and Cancellation

What was I trying to accomplish with my anonymous Tumblr?

By Liat Kaplan Feb. 25, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/25/style/your-fave-is-problematic-tumblr.html

If you were on Tumblr in the early 2010s, you may remember a blog called Your Fave Is Problematic. If not, its content should still sound familiar to you. The posts contained long lists of celebrities’ regrettable (racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ethnophobic, ableist and so on) statements and actions — the stuff that gets people canceled these days.

That blog was my blog. I spent hours researching each post; as you can probably imagine, my search history was pretty ugly.

Your Fave Is Problematic had around 50,000 followers at its peak, in 2014, when I was a high school senior, but its influence was outsized. I got in a feud with a prominent young adult fiction author over his inclusion. One actor submitted himself, perhaps as a dare (or a plea) to dig up his worst. “Problematic fave” became a well-worn meme; even after I stopped posting, my blog was cited in books, articles, podcasts and think pieces. Through it all, my identity stayed private.

The blog started, as so many anonymous online projects do, as vengeful public shaming masquerading as social criticism. I was fine-tuning my moral compass and coming into my own as a feminist. So when I noticed classmates making sexist jokes on Facebook, including some about me, I started taking screenshots to post on a Tumblr called Calling Out Sexists. My policy was that I would take down a post only if its author publicly apologized.

A group of students brought the blog to the attention of our school’s administrators, who threatened to take legal action if I continued to write about them. Meanwhile, other Tumblr users had begun submitting screenshots featuring statements from minor celebrities. With graduation hanging in the balance, I shifted my focus away from my peers and toward public figures. I rebranded. Money and fame had protected them since time immemorial. What harm could my little blog do?

So I posted photos of Lady Gaga in V magazine with her skin bronzed to an unnatural brown. I pulled out troubling quotes from an essay Lena Dunham had written about a trip to Japan. I noted Taylor Swift’s since-changed homophobic lyric in “Picture to Burn.” My most popular posts tended to be about women — which makes sense, because the celebrity press tends to be more critical of them.

As it turned out, I had bigger things to worry about than dissecting the careers of celebrities I’d never met. On a winter morning, I woke up to the news that my older sister, Tamar, who was studying in Bolivia, had been in a bus crash, and the outlook was not good. I pored over research to escape from what felt like an impossible situation: my sister slowly dying of treatable injuries in a rural area thousands of miles away.

We held a public memorial service for Tamar in our hometown. Some of my classmates showed up, including a few who had written nasty things about me online. I found their shows of kindness insulting now, during what was quickly becoming the worst year of my life.

I tried going back to school after a few weeks, but I found myself picking frequent arguments with classmates and teachers. The school made an arrangement with my parents: I would be placed on “medical leave” for the remainder of the semester. I would graduate on time, but I wouldn’t return to campus.

Stuck at home, I devoted myself to Tumblr. What was I trying to accomplish? Mostly, I was interested in knocking people off their pedestals. I also enjoyed being popular, controversial, discussed. When a comedian I had posted about name-checked my blog on Twitter, I was giddy.

Then I started receiving threats. Someone sent me a screenshot of a house from Google Maps, claiming to have found my IP address. It wasn’t my house, but still. I realized that for every person on Tumblr who looked up to my blog, there were many more, online and offline, who hated it — and me. I started posting less and, eventually, stopped posting at all.

In the years since, I’ve looked back on my blog with shame and regret — about my pettiness, my motivating rage, my hard-and-fast assumptions that people were either good or bad. Who was I to lump together known misogynists with people who got tattoos in languages they didn’t speak? I just wanted to see someone face consequences; no one who’d hurt me ever had.

There’s something almost quaint about it all now: teenage me, teaching myself about social justice on Tumblr while also posturing as an authority on that very subject, thinking I was making a difference while engaging in a bit of schadenfreude. Meanwhile, other movements — local, global, unified in their purposes and rooted in progressive philosophies — were organizing for actual justice. Looking back, I was more of a cop than a social justice warrior, as people on Tumblr had come to think of me.

These days, there’s no shortage of online accountability efforts, the large part of them anonymously run. Some accounts post typically anodyne but occasionally explosive celebrity gossip. Others are explicitly aimed at naming, shaming and punishing people for all kinds of actions and missteps. My own work fell somewhere in the middle, I think; the information I posted was out in the open, but I was cataloging it to make a case against the veneration of the rich and famous.

As many have noted, the coronavirus pandemic has pronounced the distance between celebrities and the rest of us. And their actions have been subject to greater scrutiny — the vacations they’ve gone on, the parties they’ve held, the access they’ve had to testing and care during a health crisis that has taken millions of lives.

But celebrity culture began to crumble long before Covid-19. Mounting accusations of many kinds, whispered between industry professionals, had become too loud to ignore. Social media, which gave celebrities more control over their images and influence over their fans, also opened them up to new kinds of criticism. People have lost jobs and entire careers because of the kinds of errors my blog cited. Others have apologized for work and behavior that, re-examined in a contemporary context, just doesn’t hold up.

For years, I’ve regretted the spotlight I put on other people’s mistakes, as if one day I wouldn’t make plenty of my own. There can be an unsparing purity to growing into one’s social conscience that is often overbroad.

My brain wasn’t ready for nuance. I was angered by hypocrisy and cruelty; what I did about it was apply a level of scrutiny that left no room for error. I’m not saying that I should be canceled for my teenage blog. (Please don't!) I just know what we all should know by now: that no one who has lived publicly, online or off, has a spotless record.

For these reasons, I’ve thought about deleting my Tumblr. But doing that would mean erasing my own errors of judgment. I almost feel like I need to leave it up to punish myself for having made it in the first place. That, and I know someone could (and probably would) just pull it up on Wayback Machine. The internet, after all, never forgets.

~~~~~~~

#YFIP #fuck her and her lack of real remorse #25Feb2021 #NYT

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codedredalert · 3 years

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thoughtful wedding gifts that will leave him speechless [One Piece, fantasy au] – Vinsmoke siblings

Whumptober 2021 No. 3 - taunting | insults | Who did this to you?

1195 words, lawsan arranged marriage fantasy au

tags/warnings: sibling violence, arranged marriage

( On Ao3 )

===/\===

to marry a prince, the bargain was made

and the maiden's voice taken in trade

His brothers pile into the bridal carriage, shit-eating grins on their identical faces, and Sanji is instantly on edge.

"Excited for your big day?" Ichiji asks.

"Bet you never thought you'd be useful to the family, huh?" Yonji laughs, clapping Sanji on the shoulder.

"You're getting their crown prince, y'know," Niji reminds him, as if Sanji could forget. "Not a bad deal for an artificial mage who can't do magic. Lucky for you he likes worthless blondes."

The three of them laugh like that was some sort of clever joke. Sanji sighs.

"Old news," he says, willing them to leave. Of course, no such luck.

"Actually, there's a new twist." Niji leans forward. "Apparently, he likes blondes but it's a see and not hear kind of deal. And e haven't gotten you a wedding gift yet."

"You can get out and stay far, far away," Sanji suggested with just the slightest touch of false cheer. "That'd make a great gift."

They laugh at his joke, which is never a good sign.

"How d'you feel about jewellery, bro?" Yonji asks. "Jewellery that goes 'kaboom'."

Grins stretch eerily wide and suddenly Yonji's hand holding his shoulder is pinning him to the high back of the seat and Niji has his other shoulder, and one knee across Sanji's lap to stop him from kicking. They grab his hands and pin them against the seat back. On the seat opposite, Ichiji sits back and grins.

"Get off me!" Sanji shouts, struggling, but they're stronger, they've always been stronger and they're actually mages. "The hell are you doing!?"

Green sparks to life around both his wrists, a ring of not-quite formed power, and then deep lightning blue joins it. Sanji tries to yank his hands away, but they have a good lock on him. He twists and headbutts Yonji and they both hiss. Yonji flinches and his shoulder shoves into Niji, whose head knocks into the wall where the driver sits outside. The magic around Sanji's wrists flickers unsteadily.

"What's going on in there?" the driver's voice calls.

"Keep driving!" Ichiji orders, a touch of power behind his words. The driver hesitates as he places the voice of one of his princes, even as Yonji curses and Niji backhands Sanji across the face.

"Yes, your highness," the driver says.

Sanji's right leg is free. He knees Yonji in the sternum, and then snaps it up at the knee for a high kick to catch Niji in the back of the head, sending him crashing into the driver's partition again. Niji's elbow lands on the tender part where Sanji's neck, ear and jaw meet, sending Sanji down onto the seat with a strange ringing in his head. He flails as a blow comes down on his eye, and nose, and then there's an outraged noise from Ichiji.

"You kicked me," he says, furious. He slams a boot down on Sanji's shin, and Sanji feels the bone crack. His knee comes up to catch under Sanji's jaw, where Niji's hand in his hair holds it in place.

"Get in here, bro," Yonji says. He has Sanji's arm in a joint lock now, one where he could snap Sanji's elbow the wrong way. He pulls and something wrenches, bruises, but doesn't quite break. "C'mon."

Ichiji's hand wraps around Sanji's forearm, and the other hand over his mouth and nose.

The magic flickers into shape around Sanji's wrists again. Green, then blue, and now neon red. They swirl into one, and then metal lays heavy and strangely alive against Sanji's skin.

"Listen, worm," Ichiji hisses. "One sound out of you, and these bracelets explode with enough force to take out this whole procession. Any non-augmented human will be blown to bits."

Sanji's eyes widen, then narrow, calling Ichiji's bluff. His brothers wouldn't kill him. They'd have nothing to deliver when the procession reached Dressrosa. Ichiji sees it.

"You count as augmented, dumbass," he says. "But it's still enough force to blow your hands clean off. You can kiss your beloved servant's work hobbies goodbye. Got it? Ah, no, don't answer, just nod."

Sanji swallows and nods. Ichiji pulls away and the other two follow his lead, leaving Sanji sprawled half on the seat and half on the floor. They sit to admire their work and Sanji glares at them, but doesn't move. At this point, he knows it'll be over faster if they gloat and leave.

"Hey," Yonji says after a moment as he and Niji get their breath back. "Maybe we should add a failsafe, for screaming and shit. For when he's getting—" he leers and makes an obscene hand gesture.

Sanji's face burns against the seat cushion and his brothers laugh but then pause to think about this.

After a moment, Ichiji half-stands, leaning over Sanji to avoid hitting his head against the roof.

"Hm," Ichiji hums, looking down at him through his dark glasses. He taps his finger on his arm once, twice in thought. Sanji doesn't dare to breathe too loud in case that sets off the bracelets.

"Nah," he says. "Too much work."

Yonji and Niji snicker.

"Yeah, true."

"Good point. You hear that, Sanji?" A blue-gloved hand pats his cheek in a mockery of affection. "Just don't scream like a little bitch and you'll be fine."

They hop out of the carriage, laughing before taking off, the sygaldry in their armour lighting up as it activated. With a step each of them vanished off to terrorise the rural Dressrosan countryside, taking a mile with every step. Sanji lays across the seat and floor, breathing slowly. The bracelets are simple silvery bands that catch too much light and have an almost pearlescent quality to them. There is no opening or join or clasp on them, no point of weakness or removal.

A few times, Sanji tries to pull himself up, but with the jolting of the carriage, and the broken shin, it's all he can do to stay quiet without moving too much. He waits for his accelerated healing to take care of his new injuries, and with nothing to do except stare at the inside of the roof, 'accelerated' felt slower than ever.

At some rest stop or another, the procession halts, and the door opens.

His sister's voice gasps.

"Sanji, who did this to you?"

Sanji doesn't answer, of course. He shakes his head slightly as she helps him back up on the seat and checks his injuries, a frown across her pretty pink-painted lips.

Her eyes catch the new bracelets, and the iridescent sheen of the tandem magic that real mages struggle so much with and the Germa princes are famed and feared for. It doesn't take a Germa spymaster to figure out what must have happened.

"Oh, Sanji," Reiju sighed, her eyes shining with almost-pity for him, for the closest thing that could pass for pity in the Germa royals.

But she is the Germa princess, and spymaster, and diplomat. She will not let him go as she once did, so long ago, and he does not ( cannot ) ask.

===/END\===

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soldouthaz · 4 years

Photo

hey! beneath the cut you’ll find a list of fics I've read and re-read this month. it’s been almost two months since my last rec so I thought I would update you guys just in case!

as always, the fics are marked with their details as well as if it is b!L, b!H, or smut free. please make sure to pay attention to this if it’s something that you’re interested in and only interact with the ones that align with your tastes. be kind and considerate and always think about leaving a nice comment or kudos or reblog if you read! I think everyone could use some positivity right now :)

I'm also putting together a list of halloween themed fics coming out in October so make sure to look out for that as well!

happy reading!

read this month

✰ loving you’s a bloodsport by @rosesau 106k | royal au | no smut

harry is a bratty prince, louis is a guard who works in his palace, and niall is the only one who's got his life in control. as someone once said: this is not a love story, but love is in it. that is, love is just outside it, looking for a way to break in.

✰ take my whole life too by @goodmorninglou 18k | dom/sub | WIP | b!L

Louis knows three things, at the base of it all.

He likes when Harry hurts him. He doesn’t know why, not really, but he knows that he likes it. Likes giving up control, likes feeling small and taken care of, likes being praised for taking whatever Harry gives him for as long as he gives it.

He and Harry are meant to be. No matter what time they finally fall together, what day, what age, what place, the moment that they do, that’ll be it. It’s going to be them against everyone else, hand in hand for the rest of their lives. That’s been a given since they met. The half of Louis’ soul that’s missing is Harry’s.

And, sans those two things, he doesn’t really know much of anything at all.

✰ quiet people have the loudest minds by @2tiedships2 38k | a/b/o | heavily implied b!L

The one where Louis is a nonverbal omega who has accepted the fact that he will never find an alpha that will treat him as an equal. On the other hand, he’s never met anyone like Harry.

✰ there’s nothing like it, nothing at all by @falsegoodnight 15k | dom/sub | b!L | sequel

Harry isn’t ready for things to change, and the end is just the beginning.

✰ filthy musings by @smrwine 55k | one shots | b!L

A collection of drabbles for your reading pleasure.

✰ fuck u betta by @jacaranda-bloom 11k | PWP | b!L

There’s something about having Louis like this, exposed and desperate, that makes a primal urge bubble up from deep inside Harry’s chest. Desire mixed with something else, something unquantifiable. It’s the thing that makes them want this, need this. Nothing else will satisfy them or quench their thirst.

OR the one where Harry likes the thrill of the chase, Louis likes to be chased, and everyone gets what they need… in the end.

✰ three days in february by @mercurial-madhouse / writing_practice 189k | slight magic | b!L

Louis is cursed after a night out with the lads and the five have just three days to figure out what happened and how to break it before Harry and Louis both lose their sanity and maybe something more. Louis can hear everything Harry thinks and Harry isn’t sure he can keep his feelings for Louis a secret from his own mind.

✰ works like a charm by @falsegoodnight 18k | hogwarts au | b!L

Ever since Louis joined the team in fifth year, a few facts have become set in stone.

One: Louis is the best chaser in Hogwarts.

Two: Harry is the best beater in Hogwarts.

Three: They do not get along.

So it’s really unfair of Liam to think that forcing them to spend time together as Louis recovers from his injury will make them the best of friends. The last thing Louis would do is get along with that git.

✰ kings by dolce_piccante 13k | marcel fic | no smut

Marcel receives an invitation to his ten year high school reunion, which brings up some painful memories of his youth. His lifelong best friend and roommate, Louis, is as supportive and kind as ever, but Marcel still has hesitations. Louis was Prom King. Marcel...was not.

Will Marcel make the reunion a night to remember with his former classmate, Zayn, who is newly wealthy, handsome, and reveals his childhood crush on Marcel? Or will Louis finally realize what everyone else has known all along?

✰ until by @allwaswell16 38k | cowboy harry | b!L

✰ tastes like strawberries by @sadaveniren 5k | a/b/o | b!L*

I’m stressed. I’m nesting and demand cuddles. Come over

Harry frowned and double checked who the text was from. Yup, it still said Louis - Grad, which meant it was from Louis from his grad school.

aka Louis texts Harry by mistake. It works out.

re-read this month

✰ until I found you by @comebackassholes / dimpled-halo 45k | a/b/o | b!H

Harry Styles is the popstar of the century, or so the media proclaims. He’s linked to every omega he’s seen with, donned as an alpha lothario who isn’t ready to settle down any time soon. His team works hard to publicise him as an alpha who can’t keep his knot in his pants, but not everything is as it seems.

Louis Tomlinson, an aspiring musician working as a porn star and camboy, is waiting for his big break. When he meets Harry Styles he can’t stand the alpha that only uses his power and fame to bed as many omegas as possible. He runs into him at a party and hopes to never see him again only to find that Harry’s assistant is dating Louis’ best friend. To make matters worse, Harry’s about to embark on a world tour and is in need of a guitarist at the last minute, an opportunity Zayn uses to put in a good word for Louis.

What happens when the opportunity that Louis has been waiting for finally comes, but at the price of having to share the stage with one Harry Styles?

✰ makes perfect by checkthemargins 8k | feminization | b!L

"What if you practiced on like, a mannequin?" Louis presses. "Or one of those blow up sex dolls? Or even just like, I don't know, a pillow or something. Whatever it'd fit around."

Harry tilts his head thoughtfully, curls catching the light so entrancingly that Louis finds himself reaching up to push his fingers through them. "It's different, though, innit? When it's a real person. A pillow won't snog me."

"Why should it?" says Louis. "You can't even take its bra off."

✰ confessions of a fabricated alpha by @jaerie 18k | a/b/o | b!H

Famous alpha Harry Styles has a secret and paying an alpha to roleplay a relationship with him over the phone is the only way he can be himself.

✰ like a siren in the night by @crazyupsetter 24k | a/b/o | b!L

“There is an infestation in my home,” Louis hisses, righting himself quickly and pushing his way past Harry, heading directly for the kitchen. He’s rather haphazardly dressed himself, a coat thrown on over a loose flannel shirt and black pants, slippers on his feet.

Harry resists the urge to sigh, closing the door and trailing behind him slowly. “What kind of infestation?”

For all he knows, Louis is going to claim that there’s a ghost infestation. Harry has no idea what the end game is here – all he knows is that Louis has found at least three complaints a week to bring up since he’s been living on Harry’s property, and he’s been living here for six months.

It’s way too many fucking complaints, is what Harry is saying. Especially when most of them are ridiculous to start with.

fics that have been featured in #ficrecfriday so far

✰ loving you’s a bloodsport (x)

✰ into the midnight sun (x)

✰ bruise you like a peach (x)

✰ push you out, pull you back in (x)

if you guys need any more recs, please be sure to check out @cheershalo ‘s blog for her fic recs! they’re amazing and I can’t wait to see what other lists are coming soon!! :)

happy reading! remember to be kind and keep calm <3

#fic recs #monthly recs #my fic recs

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what-big-teeth · 4 years

Text

Heal (Male Fae ; Fic Raffle)

And done! @serenitydusk requested a story with the female reader being a witch who encounters a male fae. Like I said before, my muse grabbed hold to her wonderful ideas and refused to let go until there was story that incorporated those elements (all 11 eleven pages worth). So I hope you all enjoy this fic!

tw: blood ; injury ; attempted break in Female Reader (POV) x Male Monster The forest is alive in more ways than one.

The verdant green of the trees and underbrush is near blinding. The shade of the rich soil almost appears jet black. And the scent of the fresh blooms is short of addictive; almost mouthwatering.

All signs of the Fae.

You’ve known this fact ever since you moved to the outskirts of your picaresque, rural town. The power ebbing and flowing from the surrounding land told you as much. You haven’t pinpoint the exact source, and you’re fine with not knowing.

Some stones are better left unturned.

You know the land you live on is not your own. So you leave offerings near the thickening edge of the forest, where the old trail has been reclaimed by nature. Today, you offer a small jar of honey, freshly gathered from a nearby hive; untouched, chilled milk in a glass bottle; and healing salves neatly packed and tied in dense cloth. The latter is always gone when you return to give more offerings the next day.

Since you’ve begun paying your respects, in return, your decrepit cottage has slowly recovered from the damage caused by time and the elements. The musty scent covered up by the herbal bundles hanging from the ceiling has turned naturally sweet. The molded cracks and leaks in the walls and roof no longer exist. And most importantly, your meager foraging has grown bountiful, leaving you with an excess of ingredients to use. Most of it for your famed healing salves and ointments. You can’t help but smile knowing your work is just as popular among the Good Neighbors as it is among the townsfolk.

Which is why today, you’re able to head into town to answer a house call.

You tuck away another container of pain-relieving ointment then slide the top of your leather satchel in place. After a final glimpse at your cold hearth and sun-filled workshop, you set off.

The main path into town leads eastward, past two, towering rows of conifers. Their citrus, piney scent engulfs you with every step.

By the time you reach the town’s entrance, the sun is almost high in the sky. The townsfolk are up and about with many greeting you cordially. You do the same, but keep pace towards your destination. A few fallen leaves and pine needles cling to your light cloak; you know the fabric is suffused with the forest’s scent. Your patient won’t mind, but her caretaker may be offended.

Once your feet carry you down a narrow, cobbled street and to a bold, blue door, you lift your hand and give the barrier three solid knocks. There isn’t enough time to pluck away every needle and dust off every leaf before the door wrenches opens.

Roderick regards you with a critical eye, as if the piercing stare will send you scuttling back to your cottage. You stand your ground instead, and give him a pleasant, practiced smile.

“Good morning, Mr. Tate. I’m here for Mrs. Hale‘s weekly house call.”

You quickly learned to never call Edith anything but Mrs. Hale in his presence. The first time you did, your affront nearly left you without the gold coin and tip she promised you. So you adapted and now tread carefully, letting Roderick hear what he’d prefer. But great god and goddess if he didn’t make your attempts at pleasantries difficult.

Roderick hums low then steps away from the threshold. You swiftly enter in case he decides to change his mind.

“Mother is near the hearth. She insisted on preparing some tea,” he says, voice tightening. “‘For our guest’”, she said.

Roderick can barely think of you as such thanks to how you’ve proclaimed yourself a witch. You hope, with time, he’ll slowly come around. Just as many of the other townsfolk have.

You thank him and follow him the short distance to the kitchen. Edith sits at their small dining table, her wizened, deep brown hands clutching the steaming mug before her. Her wide nose flares as she inhales the vapors as the fresh scent of peppermint prickles your nose. One of your favorites.

“Roddy, is that the healer?” Her dark, rheumy eyes squint in your direction and her wrinkled face lifts with a smile. “It’s so good to see you, my dear.”

“Likewise, ma’am.”

As much as you wish to greet her properly with a hug or a pat to the back of her hand, you ignore the urge. Roderick could easily kick you out for not treating his mother-in-law with the “proper respect”. Instead, you remove your satchel and take the empty seat across from her.

“Roddy,” she says, “be a dear and pour our guest some tea, will you?”

You glance at Roderick; he looks as if he’s swallowed a bitter draught. But he does as his mother-in-law asks then stands at the kitchen entrance, like a sentinel. No matter. You’re here for Edith and her alone.

As you both chat about summer’s approach and her change in hairstyle, you examine her hands. You carefully bend each finger, checking her expression for any signs of pain. None. You then move on to her wrists and see her twinge at the slight movement.

“It’s better than it was before,” she says.

“That’s good, but I’d still like you to keep using the compress and herbal infusion. Warm the infusion and apply it three times a day, as before.”

“Yes, yes. Roddy will help me, won’t you dear?”

As you place some lengths of cotton wool and dried herbs for the infusion on the table, the crinkle of Roderick’s lips and nose lessens.

“Of course, Mother. You only need to ask.”

Edith smiles beatifically before her mouth falls open.

“Oh, you haven’t finished your tea.”

With the way Roderick’s nostrils flare, you know you’ve overstayed your welcome.

“What I managed to have was delicious,” you say, patting the back of her free hand. “I should get going.”

“Won’t you stay for dinner? Roddy can walk you back to your cottage afterwards.”

His gritted jaw says otherwise. You kindly decline Edith’s invitation and gather your satchel.

Roderick leads you to the front door, holding it open as you pass through. A harsh jingling from his person draws your attention.

“Here,” he says, thrusting a leather pouch your way. “Your coin.”

You carefully take it from his tense, outstretched hand.

“Thank—”

The door slams shut.

“...you.”

The bustle from the town’s main square drifts through the air. With a sigh, you turn back the way you came. There are a few items you need to purchase before returning home.

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

Like many times before, your offering of healing salves has vanished from where you’ve left it. But surprisingly, so has the fresh honey and milk. That hasn’t happened before. Believing this to be a good sign, you smile and walk back in the direction of your cottage.

You arrive just as the sun has nearly vanished beneath the horizon, before the more natural denizens of the forest have fully awakened. You slide the wooden security bar in front of the door and light your hearth, as you do every night. Your mouth stretches open in a wide yawn, but you ignore the temptation to bathe and curl up in your bed. There are some herbs that need to be hung for drying and your recent tincture needs to be strained. So first—

You hear a knock at the door.

Your brows knit together; you’re not expecting any company. The townsfolk know better than to venture into the forest so close to nighttime.One knock becomes two. Then three, four, five. Silence. You only hear the chirping and buzzing of the usual nocturnal insects. The tight grip on your cloak loosens. Perhaps the person has—

A dull “thwack” sounds against the door. It’s followed by a creaking wrench and a deep grunt of effort. Then again and again. You know the sounds intimately. You’ve passed by men from the town felling trees for firewood in the fall.

The person outside is breaking in.

You nearly lose your footing backing away from the source of the sound. Your gaze darts around your workshop. The knives you own aren’t meant for injuring or self-defense. They pale in comparison to a sharpened axe.

The axe bites into the door with more force. The wood groans. Splinters. The blade hits true again. You see a hint of it through the door. Your stomach roils.

But you manage to swallow your scream. You refuse to give the intruder any pleasure from the palpable fear gripping your chest. Even as your lungs struggle to draw in air, you whip around and grab one of your paring knives. You aim it towards the door and brace yourself for what’s to come next.

There’s a pained yell, mingled with a sharp curse. A growl then an animalistic scream, aimed away from your door. Grunts and groans, which you recognize as signs of struggling. They’re cut off by a weighty ‘thud’ and a lighter one that swiftly follows. The sounds of the forest are muted and you stand unharmed in one piece. But how?

With slow careful steps, you edge towards the damaged door. You place your paring knife on the floor and slide the security bar away, swiftly picking up your knife once the plank is secured.

The would-be intruder lays on the ground in a crumpled heap, their face pressed into the grass. An arrow pierces their flesh just beneath their shoulder, its fletching of hawk feathers ruffling in the night’s breeze. You can’t help but wince; for the shot to have fractured bone, the strength behind such an attack had to be enormous.

Looking up, you see the source of that strength.

Your savior stands half a stone’s throw away, cloaked in shadows. What little light remains from the sinking sun acts as a backlight, revealing his silhouette. You’re able to see the outline of their quiver and longbow. They’re of humanoid shape, but something about his head makes you uncertain.It’s then you realize the odd shapes framing his head are large, curled horns. And see the glowing, green pinpoints staring at you. Not human. But fae.

Neither of you move from where you stand. Part of you wants to, however, not wishing to incur the wrath of this Kindly Neighbor. But you’re frozen where you stand. Perhaps by his power.

“You are unharmed?”

The masculine voice would be soothing if not for the rasping edges surrounding it. He sounds injured, but you have no way of confirming your suspicions. You swallow against the nervous lump in your throat.

“Yes, I am. I…appreciate your aid and concern.”

The fae scoffs.

“Your thanks is misplaced,” he says. “I’m merely reinforcing the laws of the forest established by its ruler. Nothing more.”

A groan interrupts your thoughts on how to continue the conversation. The bulky, would-be intruder shifts his head against the ground, turning their tanned face away from the dirt. You’re able to make out his features thanks to your lit hearth, and find them familiar.Roderick isn’t the only one in town who is wary of you. But he is the most forward with his actions and words. The man lying near your home is one of his friends.

You stifle the curse building behind your tongue. The fae have never condoned vulgarity and you don’t wish to make things worse in this delicate situation.

“You should return indoors,” the fae says suddenly. “And find a way to deafen your hearing.”

A sharp chill rushes down your spine.

“May I ask why?”

You think you hear his grip clench tighter around his bow.

“This man’s actions have assured his death.”

Your stomach plummets as your mouth opens before you’re able to stop it.

“Please don’t!”

The unnatural silence amplifies the pounding in your head. The fae hisses, his body shifting in a stilted manner as he hunches forward to guard his middle. So he is injured.

“And why should I show him mercy?” he rasps out.

“This man has family and friends,” you say. “If they came to search for him, they could disrupt the peace of the town and the forest in general. I don’t wish for any innocents to accidentally bring the forest’s wrath onto their heads because of him.”

Because not even you, who many of the townsfolk believe to be powerful, wish to incur the wrath of the forest itself.

The fae says nothing in return and you fear he’ll deny your request. After a strong heartbeat, you speak again.

“Please do this and I’ll tend to your wounds until you fully heal.”

Your sense of logic catches up to you and decries your words as dangerous. You know what the Kindly Ones do for anyone must be repaid in kind by their own terms. But you don’t take them back. Because avoiding any harm befalling the townsfolk is better than having it seep into the town or fall upon it like sudden deluge. This thought alone keeps your gaze stalwart as the night settles around you.

“Done.”

The weight of your agreement settles beneath your skin and latches onto your bones. It’s a warning; if you don’t uphold your end of the bargain, the oath will find another way. One that’s more grievous.

The fae stalks over to the fallen man. His ram skull mask and long, inky, black hair coming into view. He slowly hefts Roderick’s friend up onto his feet with a claw-tipped hand. If it weren’t for the bloodied slash interrupting the pale white skin of his torso, you believe he could do so without effort. Surprisingly, Roderick’s friend groans then startles, crying out as he agitates his injury.

“Listen to me.”

An otherworldly reverberation bolster’s the fae voice. Roderick’s friend goes ramrod straight.

“You will run back home like the cur you are. You will tell the one who sent you how displeased I am. And if he should step foot in this forest, my hounds will hunt him down and rend him apart. Then come for you.”

The man screams as if facing death incarnate. And in a way, he is. The fae releases him and he runs down the path into town. The fae snorts at the sight, swaying unsteadily.

“One last thing,” he says, his gaze finding yours. “Do not remove my mask.”

He then falls over in a heap.

The forest comes to life again moments later, as if the last few occurrences never happened. You curse freely, the reality of your situation becoming apparent. Clenching your jaw so as not to hear your teeth chatter, you rush over towards the fae. The rhythmic rise and fall of his bloodstained chest makes you sigh with relief.

It takes a great deal of strength and energy—neither which you barely have due to the long day—to drag him inside. It’s only after securing your home again that you keep hauling him towards the rug before the hearth. Sweat beads your brow once you finish. One obstacle done. Checking over his injury reveals some stemming thanks to the clumpings of dried blood. That gives you enough time to create a makeshift bed and gather what you need. Warm water, pieces of cotton cloth, ointment and healing salve…

The blood that once stained his skin now clings to your hands. But thanks to your attentiveness, the injury is concealed beneath a generous amount of medicine and two layers of cotton cloth. Your patient shifts against the thick quilt and pillows beneath him. A good sign.

“You’ll need to remain here for a few days for the wound to heal properly.” You rub your clean forearm against your clammy brow. “Is that alright?”

“Whatever it takes to hide my moment of weakness,” he rumbles curtly.

You resist the urge to curl your lip. He’ll be just fine.

“Shall I leave the hearth lit for you?”

“No need. I can sleep without it.”

With an accepting hum, you place a blanket onto his brown breeches, ensuring it doesn’t touch his wound.

“If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to call. Pleasant dreams.”

A sense of wrongness almost overcomes you with him inside your home. Luckily, you’re able to stave it off. You know you’ve done the right thing. You’ve saved an innocent family from the attention of the fae. You’ve saved a guilty if foolish man from a pain worse than death. These realizations bolster you, becoming a calming mantra.As you finish straining your tincture and hanging your herbal bundles to dry, you feel as if you’re being watched. You refuse to turn and confirm this, your shoulders hunching.

“Conall,” he says.

You nearly drop the damp, clean sieve in your hand.

“Pardon?”

“You may call me Conall. It should help make my temporary stay easier.”

He falls silent immediately after. It’s only after ensuring the green pinpoints have vanished that you heat up your bathing water, douse the hearth, and retreat to your room.You hope he heals and leaves soon; time cannot pass fast enough. But you know it won’t.

Slumber pricks at your mind and it coaxes you into unawareness.

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

The awkward tension between you and Conall rears its head the next day. He accepts the food, drink, and aid you provide without a word. Which you are more than satisfied with. The only thing that stirs your annoyance is his staring.

Perhaps Conall hasn’t seen a human up close going through their usual routine. Or he hasn’t been inside of a human home. Either way, you feel the vivid pinpoints that are his eyes follow you when your back is turned. The strain comes to a head two days later, when Conall’s injury has begun scaring.

“What is it?” you snap.

If Conall is surprised by your tense words, you can’t tell due to his mask. It only serves to infuriate you more.

“You’ve stared at me as if trying to look right through me, even though I’m doing what I can to ensure your health. Yes, this is part of our original bargain. But I will not be made into some object in my own home! Why is it that you stare so much?”

Hints of frigid fear attempt to douse your building irritation. You stifle them easily, expecting a snide response.

“You are worth looking at,” he says. “Especially in my eyes.”

A new heat replaces your searing temper. One that floods your cheeks and heats your blood. Your mouth snaps shut and you swiftly finish wrapping cotton cloth around his torso.

“Y-Your injury is nearly healed,” you say, standing up and hurrying towards your filled basin. Thrusting your hands into the chilly water does nothing to help. “You should be able to move easily now. Perhaps leave in a few more days.”

“That is good to know, healer.” You hear something akin to mirth in his tone. “Perhaps I will get to see more of that fire you have hidden before then.”

You flee moments later, as much as you’re later loathed to admit. Even worse, his words stay lodged in your thoughts even into the next day. But that isn’t the only change you notice.

Conall begins to compliment your cooking, sincerely stating how comforting it is. He even aids you while you wrap his torso with fresh cotton cloth by holding it in place. During one long day after a promised house call, you find him asleep before the lit hearth. As expected. But the bundle of vivid, wildflowers awaiting you at the table is new.

So is the smile it brings to your lips and how you welcome it.

Soon enough, Conall begins to ask you about your house calls. About seeing Edith weekly. About Lucas, the little boy with golden-brown skin whose illness you’re monitoring. It isn’t surprising when the talks veer into more personal territory. He asks about your favored places in the forest and in town. What sweets you prefer. How you gather the offerings you leave near the forest’s edge.

“But how did you…”

Your voice trails off as his gaze darts away from yours. You smile and place your spoon into your cooling stew.

“I take it my healing salve is of the greatest use to you?”

Conall hums, lifting another bite of dinner underneath the pointed edge of his mask.

“The honey and milk are not unwelcomed,” he murmurs. “Perhaps that can be said about other things as well.”

This time, his eyes meet yours. And with a small thrill, you realize the sight of them no longer frightens you. Before your bravery leaves, you reach across your table and place your hand on the back of his.

“I agree.”

Your smile falters. As much as you wish to not ruin this peaceful moment, reality nudges at your mind like always.

“You’ll be leaving soon, won’t you?”

Conall pulls his hand away. Only to gently thread his fingers through yours, being careful of his claws. But he still skims your skin with them, making your shiver.

“Yes. But I will return, if you wish to wait for me.”

The breath you take is silent, but heavy. You release it as you laugh, happiness bubbling up from inside you.

“I do. For however long it takes.”

That night, before bed, Conall calls for you. As you kneel beside his makeshift bed in your nightshirt, he lifts his hand and cups your cheek. With his other hand slowly lifting his mask, he closes the distance between you. His lips press against your skin, then trail down the side of your neck before resting at your pulse. He lingers there, then gently scrapes his sharp teeth against the area. Your self-control nearly shatters then and there as he pulls away, replacing his mask.

“When the morning comes, I will be gone.” You can hear the smirk in his voice. “But when I return, I plan to continue where I left off.”

You lift your own hand to touch the back of his.

“Can I know one thing before you go?”

He nods.

“Why is it you can’t remove your mask?”

His thumb stroking the warm skin of your cheek pauses stiffly before resuming.

“This...is my punishment for my recklessness,” he says. “It’s one of many shackles binding me to the Queen who rules over these lands and lands beneath the hills. As long as she holds them, I’ll never truly be free. All of my being will solely belong to her. My thoughts, my appearance, my strength, my skill. Anyone who attempts to remove those bindings will face her wrath. But no more.

“I have something precious to fight for and see again. Even if I have to challenge every member of her Hunt; even if I have to face her head on, I promise I will prevail. So that one day, you’ll find me standing before you, utterly freed.”

Hot tears slip from your eyes and he patiently wipes them away.

“I accept your bargain,” you say. He coaxes you closer, pulling you into a warm embrace. Even with your nightshirt acting as a barrier, you commit the feeling of what skin touches yours to memory.

Morning wakes you with a slight chill in the air. You lay on Conall’s makeshift bed a bit longer, inhaling the fading scent of him: deep and heady like the forest after a strong rain. This, too, you lock away in your heart as you stand to your feet. All that’s left to do is to wait.

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

Days become weeks. And weeks turn into months. Soon enough, the harvesting festival is nearly here with the townsfolk preparing for the festivities. You still make your usual house calls, some to newer patients and others to familiar ones.

Little Lucas has long overcome his illness and is happy to play with the other children again. Edith always has a cup of herbal tea with honey ready for you, glad to talk to you about anything and everything. Roderick is nowhere to be found during these visits. But the few times you do glimpse him, he looks at you with muted fear. He may never change.

But at least now, he knows you aren’t to be trifled with.

That evening, after the festival, you finish creating another batch of ointment as the harvest moon illuminates the night sky. Fatigue slows your attempts at cleaning your tools, but you manage to finish the task. A series of knocks on your door startles you. Forgetfulness and drowsiness are to blame for you not securing your door.

Wary, you silently take the sharp dagger gifted to you by Edith a few weeks ago. You slowly walk towards the door and open it.

A shirtless man with vivid green pupils surrounded by black peers down at you. The scar running against the bridge of his straight, pale white nose nearly interrupts his entire face. One of the pointed tips of his ears is missing, replaced by a healing scab. But it and its twin are framed by familiar curling horns as is his head. His ragged yet long inky, black hair shifts as he sways. A wet gasp tears from your throat as he pitches forward and you break his fall.

“Conall!”

He buries his nose into the juncture of your neck and shoulder. The hot breath he releases is tempered with a soft kiss on your skin.

“How I’ve missed this scent.”

A laugh slips out of you before you can stop it. You hold him close, sniffling against your tears.

“It seems I’m injured yet again,” he mutters wryly, sounding tired.

You place a hand against your beloved Conall’s cheek as he grins, being careful of the green bruising.

“I’ll take care of you,” you say. “If you’ll let me.”

The weight of your promise settles into your bones, palpable but not unpleasant. It even sends a shiver down your spine. Or is that caused by Conall’s warm smile?

You’re not sure. But at this moment, you don’t mind not knowing. Not as you close the distance between the two of you. Before the warmth of his kiss is all you know, he whispers against your skin.

“As long as I can do the same for you.”

#monster boyfriend #monster/human #monster romance #exophilia #fae boyfriend #fairy #fair folk #200 follower raffle #I hope you all enjoy!#fem reader #female reader

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vesperlionheart · 3 years

Text

For haha’s - Darklina

There is blood throughout the halls of the Keramzin orphanage, it stains the stones and clings to the walls and dries on the hands of Alina Starkov. She tastes something bitter deep in her throat but swallows it down as she moves through the orphanage, searching for more of the bodies left inside. She steps over the bloated form of a dirty man in hides, slashed open and killed the old fashioned way. She passes more of his companions but doesn’t care for any of them until she finds her children.

She buries her babies with reverence and then burns the rest in a pit without a second thought.

When Mal doesn’t come back she drinks.

When the new month comes she prays.

When the season ends without sight or sound of him, she leaves.

Nikolai Lantsov watched nervously as another dark ritual finished filling out the color in an old monster’s features. Aleksander Morozova was just as handsome and devilishly fit in features as he had been on the day he died, if not better since he was actually, not dead. It was unnerving to watch what felt like for the thousandth time, a dark miracle perverting nature-but weren't Girsha like that to begin with? Who else lived for 500 years and looked like a university chap?

“You’re very pretty,” Nikolai admitted, not ashamed of the truth.

The darkling was adjusting his gloves, tugging them down over his hands until his knuckles stood out, but he paused to glance up through his lashes and spare the boy king a withering, unimpressed look. “I know.”

“Don’t let me stroke your ego, I’m properly sloshed so I’m sure it's only the intoxication that’s talking.”

Nikolai gestured to the glass in his hand before knocking it back for the last dregs of amber colored courage. He hated every damned step to this never ending ritual on account of how annoying and bothersome it was, not how terrifying each peak into the land of death was. But worse than all of that was the demon inside of him that refused to stay down. Nearly a year later and it was getting worse.

“You’ll need your wits about you for what comes next.”

“You’ve been so helpful,” Nikolai scoffed, “with letting me know the summation of all this planning, you know. It would have been terrible if you only told me one damned step at a time and kept me hanging in blind suspicion for months.”

“Sarcasm does not become you, puppy prince.”

Nikolai glared with a smile. “Good thing I only speak the truth then.”

“You must now summon someone for me.”

“Of course I must. Who is it this time?” A painter to capture your likeness in oils? A seamstress to dress you in silks? A palace chef who could-

“Alina Starkov.”

The name caused a physical pain in Nikolai’s chest as every longing and snuffed out desire snapped back into place, like an overextended rubber band that had been stretched too far. It hurt to hear that name, but he didn’t mind this sort of pain.

“The sun summoner died. She’s not someone I can so easily summon for your royal darkness, even if I did raise your ass from the grave.” He was impressed with himself for how calm he came across. “You’ll have to adapt.”

The darkling, beautiful and cold, did not respond at first, or give any indication that he had heard and understood the king’s words, but he twisted the leather of his gloves around his wrist, almost like a nervous habit. Eventually, he opened his mouth to speak. “I did not ask for the sun summoner, I asked for Alina Starkov, and nothing less will be sufficient in helping me subjugate the monster within you, little hound.”

“Sturmhond.”

“I did not stutter,” The Darkling scoffed. “As I do not miss the hint of desperation in your voice, the way it shakes your eyes when you watch my revival though it may sicken you. Your hands are dirty with more than one type of darkness but they must be blackened further if you wish to have control over your own fragment of hell.”

“I don’t want to control it, I want to kill it and no matter how desperately I want that I can’t bring back the dead for you-ckee!”

Nikolai’s words were choked out as a leather glove wrapped around his throat and pulled him up off the ground.He grabbed at the wrist and kicked until he was shoved against the wall and left to sag back onto his feet.

“Do not make the mistake of lying to me,” the darkling hissed. “I know she isn’t dead, I went first into the long night and she did not follow. She lives and she resides in your country, so summon her to your palace, summon her for me.”

Back on his feet again Nikolai rubbed at his neck, suspecting it to bruise for how roughly it had been gripped. “You also know that her powers left her, don’t you? Even if I could, you’d be asking for a farm girl.”

“I won’t explain myself to you, there is no reason to. I care not for her power or her fame or her status as a saint, I simply request Alina Starkov. Do what you can to find the farm girl with no powers. I know it is within your abilities.”

Nikolai turned away and reached to pour himself another drink, but found barely enough for a half glass in the decanter. It wasn’t enough for him so it was clearly not enough to share.

“I wasn’t trying to deceive you when I told you she’s dead. To the best of my knowledge that’s the truth. She retired to obscurity with the tracker and together they set up an orphanage. We maintained some limited contact over the years but when my letters went unanswered I sent someone to seek her out.”

The Darkling’s silence was as good as a question so Nikolai continued.

“The orphanage was bloody and empty.” Nikolai sipped his drink and tried to pretend his heart wasn’t bleeding in his chest as he relieved the pain from that day. “Locals explained a band of extremists passed through, upset at their adoption of suspected grisha children. There were graves and a pit discovered on site but nothing else. Sightings of the tracker, Mal, led my spies to conclude she...she was one of the graves.”

“But it was not confirmed,” the Darkling clarified. “You did not dig up her bones to see for yourself if one of the mounds was hers. You only assumed and you assumed wrong. She did not die.”

Nikolai dared to hope and it hurt like thorns in his heart. “How could you say something like that so confidently? Up until a month ago you didn’t have flesh. What do you know?”

“Nothing so humble connects her and I. If she were to be gone from this world I would know it, yet I feel her still. Alina Starkov lives and I need her.”

The darkling looked down at his hand, at the center of his palm and it was almost as if there was something there he was transfixed by. The harsh edges of his expression softened and emotion made his slate gray eyes a little lighter. The darkling swallowed and the harsh lines to his features returned in time for him to fix the blond with a withering stare.

“She lives. Find her.”

No one had ever accused Alina Starkov of being a gabler, but playing cards with the Three Babas might have been the riskiest thing she did on an impulse. It would have been less dangerous to play cards with a devil, because at least with a devil you know what you're wagering.

There was something disconcerting about waking up one morning only to realize there was no vision left for you; no epic battle plans, to cunning exploits, nothing planned out to accommodate the travesty destiny had raised you to rally against. She didn’t even have a villain to set herself up against. The world wasn’t perfect, but the fold was no longer an issue and Alina found herself without purpose. Her children were gone, her would-be husband lost to his whims, and the powers that gave her such grand meaning were only a memory.

And that all mde her wander.

A little older, a little broader, a little wiser, she traveled on foot or by cart when the neighbors of her country were kind enough to spare her the room. She ended up somewhere in the backwoods, somewhere rural enough to have a single village center like it was some big deal and enough work for a girl with rough hands to apply herself to.

The town felt safe enough and that made her wonder, so when she asked the neighbors they told her about the three babas who watched over the town and kept it a little separate from the rest of the world with its problems and its wars.

That question must have been invitation enough because Alina found herself invited to a game of four way trick on the edge of town under the leaning roof of a wood cutter’s cottage. Three older woman,each dressed in varying colors and patterns, head covering shawls, and wooden shoes, were there when Alina arrived like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Take a seat.”

“Sit a while.”

“Play a spell.”

Sitting down opposite the three felt like being back in front of Baghra, standing in the shadow of a mountain more ancient than memory itself. Yet with Baghra there was never this exact sense of wrongness. Reality never felt off in this way with the Darkling’s mother.

“You were expecting me?” Alina asked, touching the felt edged cards in front of her without reaching for them. Their texture was so worn and soft she assumed they had been played for decades. When was the last time she played cards? Did she know the rules to this game?

“Saw you coming is more like it,” the baba to Alina’s right croaked. Her head shawl was bright red with swirls of autumn blooms in shades of gold and yellow. Compared to the fabric her skin was withered and pale.

“Take your hand,” the baba directly across from Alina instructed, sounding crankier than her counterparts. Her eyes were unseeing, sagged over with wrinkled flesh and her babushka was a vivid green with emerald threads stirling through the lighter fabric to illustrate buds and grass fields in full health. The headscarf stayed pinned in place with the help of a white crane pin.

“I’m not sure I know how to play,” Alina admitted before looking at her cards. Her hands were on the table but she was still licking her lips nervously, wishing for something stronger to throw back down her throat. Her head was fuzzy with too much clarity.

“You will,” the last grandmother calmly corrected, looking up through her silver lashes from underneath a headscarf of brilliant blue, brighter than the sky and deeper than the oceans. Her smile was deceptively sweet, too thin, and too light. She sounded impossibly young for her physical appearance. “Pick up and play with us.”

“What’s the game called?” Alina asked, picking up her cards.

They were just as soft on the underside where the painted pictures stared back at her. It looked more like a tapo deck, a truth telling card series where wise women and elders would tell stories out of the pictures and even predict fates. Plenty of people used such a deck for idle games, but the stories were always the things that seemed to hold the most magic.

“Trick,” the grandmother in red said.

“Trap,” the grandmother in green corrected.

“Take,” the grandmother in blue giggled.

Alina looked over her cards again. “I’m not willing to wager anything on my first game before even learning the rules.”

“Your time is value enough, my dear one,” the baba in blue cooed. “Let us teach you and show you the way.”

“I’ll admit to being a little lost,” Alina said, watching as the first two babas put down cards on the table then drew from the deck.

The first card had a trio of children running through a field and the scrawling script said it was called: Innocence. The second card was of a woman hanging a curtain over her window, looking back over her shoulder to a bed where a lover waited. The script above said it was called: deception. When inverted it looked like the woman was pulling the curtain down the other name for it was: revelation.

“Being lost is the first step to being found.” The third grandmother hummed before laying down a card with the picture of a son standing in front of his father and grandfather, each holding a sword from a different era. It read: inheritance.

Alina looked down at her cards and when she inhaled a sensation settled into the back of her throat, like the taste of a thick milk tea with burnt cloves, she swallowed it down before she could realize what it was. Her fingers stilled atop a card before she played it: Turmoil.

Only with the card down atop the table did she recognize the taste on her tongue: Merzost. It was enough to lift the haze of suggestion she had been operating under and it was like waking up from a dream that didn’t make sense. But Alina didn’t panic. When she looked up again she could tell the grandmother in green knew what had happened.

“You’re all witches, aren’t you?”

“What a crude thing to say,” the blue one teased.

“Was I wrong?” she dared.

“I like her,” the one in red admitted, looking at the one in green. “I told you I would. It only took one round.”

The grandmother in red huffed then called out, “Trick,” before gathering up all the cards played in that round and putting them on Alina’s side; her winnings.

The next few cards were played in silence. Silence, Infatuation, Betrayal. Alina put down the last card, aware of what this round signified. Her card was of a hunter carrying home a far elk. The title was: Bounty.

“Trap,” the one in green cheered as another layer of enchantment lifted. It felt so different from her small science, but also not. Alina was in more control of her senses and her thoughts, but that only lead to near panicking.

“Why do you have me here and what could you want with me when I’m an empty vessel in your eyes?” She asked the old women as each drew a new card from the deck.

“Then let’s skip a little ahead and show you,” the one in green said before laying down the first card for play. The one in blue gathered the previous set and put them next to Alina’s wrist.

The cards were dealt: Conflict, Victory, Peace.

Alina swallowed down her disgust and played the last card, the only card she could: Slaughter.

“Take,” the one in red called out, flicking her wrist so the cards were turned over and fell into a neat pile in front of Alina. Atop them all was the picture of a butcher with his gutted lamb. He held cleaver but Alina saw a hand sickle and felt it between her fingers.

“Why,” she whispered, tasting Merzost again as something heavier settled amongst them.

“Because,” the first baba said while playing her last card. It was a child crying in between the trees. The title said: Lost.

“But also,” the grandmother in red played her last card: Anointed.

“And yet,” the last grandmother played her card of a boy looking back over his shoulder at a back littered with scars and wounds: Scarred. Between them the old woman seemed to speak without words.

Alina glanced down at her last card and sneered at the picture, not believing in it: Tyrant. The painting was of a beautiful woman with long black hair and eyes as green as raw Malachite. Atop her head was a crown of green stones and at her feet were the people, bowed so low they were curled figures in the corners of the card’s picture.

“I’m not.”

“Not as you are, no,” the one in blue gently corrected before touching the card to push it back towards Alina. “But we’d like to see this now.”

“You’ve had your stab at peace, little lamb,” the one in red chuckled.

“As you have with the small sciences,” the woman in red said, now no longer a crone but a beautiful woman with a face full of fire. Alina dropped her face to the table, averting her gaze as heat roared across her back.

“An age of saints has passed, now let us deal with angels,” the woman in green cooed, her long black hair spilling over the table. She stood but Alina didn’t see it, her eyes were squeezed tight. Her left fist went cold and she felt snow and ice on it.

“What a fun game,” the beauty in blue cooed, picking up the snow kissed corners of her cape.

When the world was quiet again Alina dared lift her gaze.

The table was empty and her hands were bleeding. Into each palm a mark had been cut and colored with black magic. Her veins were thick with dark colors as she swayed in her seat.

The story isn’t done, let's have our fun. Lets see a new book, a different chapter in this wondrous dream.

Alina came down with a fever and survived on the good graces of the villagers who turned oddly devoted to the saint with no powers. That didn’t seem to matter to them one bit and she was all the more confused because of it. No one she spoke to had any more information about the three grandmothers, only that Alina was favored and welcomed in all their homes.

A month later she still had no more answers but plenty of questions when a rider came to visit. He questioned the first villager with a portate, seemingly expecting nothing until Alina walked out of the miller’s hut.

The rider dropped the portrait and Alina saw her face, colored and youthful with the same delicate features from years ago.

“I’ll need a horse,” Alina said to whoever was nearest. “It seems this story isn’t done with me yet.”

#no tags #my writing #writing

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