#yes if an anglo says something about it i will turn into a turtle ship and slam into them

[slotumn]

as always i must specify that this blog is not a safe zone for americanoids (canadians included as they are basically america-lite)

your government is braindead and so is your population. everyone in the world is, but your country holds disproportionate influence over others and adds in more doses of dumbfuckery to other countries' politics like our own organic homegrown morons aren't annoying enough to deal with

also americans spread fundie evangelical christianity to korea and now every time i go to The Motherland™ and get off the biggest stations in seoul i hear some braindead fuck screeching "JESUS HEAVEN DISBELIEF HELL" over megaphones in the middle of the square. they do that shit every fucking day even when it's raining

in the very least america should take all the annoying screeching fundies and braindead neoliberal politicians trying to turn our healthcare system american. koreans do not need them but you guys probably do bc they're still better at math than you. also my country should get to have nukes and american opinion should be irrelevant on the matter

[aethelar]

Your stories and ideas are getting better and better. Thank you for bringing so much joy to my days! I love that you plan to incorporate beasts from all over the world into your stories. Have you thought about a pirate AU or a Master and Commander AU? Newt would fit the Stephen Maturin type a lot, maybe the younger brother of admiral Theuseus Scamander who he accompanies on his voyages. And Graves a captain in his fleet. Dread pirate Grindelwald as their foe? A naval love story.

Ahhh, thank you! And yes, building up the beasts directory is still going (if anyone has any they know of, I’m always happy to hear about them!).

Master and Commander I know of, but have never read. A pirate AU though… Hmmmmm…

We’d move this one out of the 1920s, I think. I’m almost tempted to stick us in the Napoleonic wars, but let’s go one better than that. Let’s aim for the late seventeenth century, a time when the Spanish were rolling in gold from the New World and Britain was… looking the other way, shall we say, from the many pirates who were harrying the Spanish ships. The British and the Spanish were also more openly on the outs; Theseus perhaps became famous for his daring and strategy as a young captain during the Anglo-Spanish war of 1654-1660, a war that ended with British victory, a collection of Caribbean islands added to the Empire, and a new admiralty position for Theseus. Fabulous.

Fast forwards now to the 1680s, and Europe is beginning to frown on the buccaneers that had been all but officially mandated before. They’re getting rowdy and hard to control, and really, it’s not quite the done thing to be funding piracy against one’s enemy in this civilised day. So. The pirates have got to go, and Theseus is roped into stamping them out.

This seems like a good setup, don’t you think? Theseus takes Newt, because Newt is eternally footloose and incapable of committing to anything - he’s supposed to be a scribe for the local businesses, but he keeps being distracted and using his materials to draw the many birds and sea creatures down by the shore instead. Perhaps the navy will shape him up? It worked for Theseus, after all.

Theseus himself is too busy to watch Newt directly; after not one but three incidents where Newt got himself in trouble chasing after manta rays and turtles, Theseus hands him over to one of his junior captains.

“Keep an eye on him,” he tells Graves.

“Hello,” Newt waves, uniform askew and fingers stained with ink. He smiles, distracted and crooked, and Graves decides to hate him on sight. Newt is so clearly unsuited for navy life and Graves doesn’t have time to mollycoddle the admirals’ younger brother. It’s ridiculous. Nepotism. Feh.

Still, Graves is nothing if not stiffly formal and polite, and he treats the wayward Scamander as well as he can - though with a brisk, detached air that makes it clear he is doing his job and nothing more than that.

Because that’s all he’s doing. His job. If he gets fed up with the awkward, gangly way that Newt wields a sword and decides to teach him how to do it properly, that’s just his job. If he gets curious about the notebook Newt is always scratching away at with his quills and ink, and if that curiosity develops into an appreciation for the lightning-quick mind that hides behind Newt’s dreamy smile, that’s just his job. If he pauses, sometimes, and loses himself in the way the candlelight paints Newt in gold and copper, if he stumbles over his words and excuses himself for a bit of fresh air on the deck, if he jumps when Newt lays a tentative hand on his arm and asks him if everything is ok -

It’s just his job.

Graves holds to that like a lifeline because what would Theseus say, what would he do if he knew the thoughts that Graves can’t control? If he knew about the nights Graves wakes up with the sheets tangled around his legs, gasping Newt’s name and aching for his touch? Newt is a damnably tactile person and he grabs Graves by the elbow to drag him to see the dolphins playing in the bow wave, presses up against him as he leans over the side to laugh in delight, and when he turns to Graves and babbles something about pods and bottlenoses, when the sun sparkles off the red in his hair and the breeze chases his freckles over his perfect face -

It’s hard, to remember that it’s just a job.

When Grindelwald attacks, he does it with cannons, with flaming tar and spinning ropes that take down the main mast. He doesn’t bother to take the ship - he has enough of his own in his fleet, enough weathered pirates unwilling to give up their easy spoils - but Graves? He has uses for Graves. He drags the captain back into his stained and salt-corroded brig in chains and lights the fuses, and the last thing Graves sees is Newt, silhouetted gold against the fire. One of the pirates blocks his view and Graves strains against his bonds, but the sound of the ship exploding is unmistakeable. The smoke claws for the sky. The water heaves with the shockwave. The pirates cheer. Graves falls back, defeated and numb.

And Newt was so much more than a fucking job.

.

(Newt was bleeding, salt water stinging against the stump of his leg and the raw, mangled mess of burns up his side; Newt was clinging to his dolphins and fighting the urge to sleep because sleep would be so much warmer and so much deadlier than the freezing wind; Newt was crawling up the beach with a single minded determination and staying alive through sheer force of will. Grindelwald, he spits, and glares at the hazy specks disappearing over the horizon. He has a captain to save and a grudge to hold, and Grindelwald will learn that a Scamander is a dangerous thing to make an enemy of.)