#Stockholm Convention

[gudgurkan]

I'll be tabling at Stockholm's international comics festival this Saturday and Sunday. Hope to see you there!

[queenofthecats]

When you fell in love with the least popular character in the fandom, so barely anybody makes stuff for them if it’s not just shipping them with other characters <<<<<<

(Literally Yui Komori)

(Also Yoon-Bum)

(IS IT OBVI THAT I DON’T CARE FOR MASCULINE MEN in entertainment??) Low-key they’re just so rude and borderline abusive, if not fully. Ik it’s an unpopular opinion, but bro. I HATE THEM. They are literally all made with the same idea in mind for some reason. They had bad upbringing with either dead or abusive parents, so must treat fl/weaker male lead horribly, till they suddenly fall in love (how? Idk. They need therapy, not a relationship) and they are oh so sorry.

(Don’t even get me started on mangas where everybody only likes the seme/male lead, and they completely ignore the female and weaker male characters)

-thank you for coming to my Ted talk

[rennerator]

I LOVE HIM!!!! I LOVE HIM!!!! S2 LOVE LOVE LOVE <3

🥴

[drgnflyteabox]

red ochre [5]

series masterlist previous || part five -> kermes || part six -> madder

> summary: big nun, little nun > tags/warnings: guilt, religious / moral turmoil, stockholm syndrome, child abuse (past), scars, simon returns, corruption (past), misogyny (past), whipping (past), blood, suffering (past mostly), power imbalance, freeze response (past), guilt, dissociation, dom/sub dynamics, we're learning consent (kinda? eeh), violent imagery, dubcon/noncon, vaginal fingering, choking, throat grab

When Johnny asks how it felt to go from there – the convent, you think he means – to here, you can only describe it as dunking your hands into ice water. 

Shocking, painful, and prickling all over.

He only says hm, and moves on. His face is pensive. You don’t tell him that sometimes, you wake up and aren’t in the water anymore.

Even in prayer, you hadn’t thought as much as you had since you’d been taken. Hadn’t worried as much. Teachings from adults since youth had told you that everybody was inherently sinful, even children.

So why is the community around you so happy without God? They have their own, you know this, but the multitude of them and their roles in divine hierarchy aren’t necessarily about absolute power.

There are woman-Gods, Gods without designations, Gods for the earth and the children and unions between people. You find it hard to continue calling them heretics, devils, when they’re really just people. Different, yes, strange and incomprehensible, but people nonetheless.

Heathens, you try to think. Heathens, devils. They took you

You wonder when the last time you thought of yourself as just a person was, when you weren’t a thing set within a rigid mold, beaten down in more ways than one.

On the eve of Simon's return you catch Johnny doing something secretive. He's hunched over the table, the tip of his tongue stuck out of his mouth in concentration. The soft sound of scraping, of wood gently knocking is all you can hear over the fire.

“What's that?” you ask, when your curiosity gets the best of you.

Johnny turns, one eye squinted, the every picture of concentration. He holds up a carved figure – a woman, it looks like. Ah, it’s you. Though hard to tell, the woman wears a veil and sits on a chair, hunched.

Your veil. You’d nearly forgotten what it felt like. It used to be a weight, heavy and pressing, a shackle. Now you miss the safety of not feeling so exposed all the time.

Somewhere in the journey here it had been lost, or maybe thrown overboard. Your habit, too, replaced for the woolen Viking-style dresses bought and bartered for by Simon and Johnny. Even you have to admit you enjoy the colours more, even if the conformity of the convent felt safe.

“How long were you watching me?” you breathe, eyes wide and still staring.

“Not long, lamb,” he smiles disarmingly. “Ah just remember ye, sittin’ pretty.”

“Working on the tapestry,” you correct him, though it doesn’t really matter.

He looks back down to his little figure, pensive.

“Ah guess so,” he says jovially.

“It was my punishment,” you add. This probably matters even less, but the clash of worlds has thrown you off balance. You feel unbearably present, unbearably lucid.

I was a nun, you think. Am I still a nun?

“Punishment?” he frowns. “Ah thought they struck ye?”

“Sometimes. But sometimes I had to work extra hard.”

“Like a bairn?”

“A what?”

“A child, lamb,” he smiles again.

You look into the fire, thinking. Punishment applied to everyone, not just children, no? Even Simon and Johnny had punished you. But who had given them the right? Had you, with your secret want? Your secret lustful sin?

“You punished me,” you settle on.

“Aye, we did,” he nods. “Ye needed it.”

“Then why do you… ah, disparage the church for doing the same?”

He turns to you.

“Ah think ye got it all wrong,” he says simply. “We don’t give it to ye to make ye hurt. Aren’t ye better after? Righted?”

Righted. That’s a word worth its weight in gold. As is the truth of his words, but you stay quiet and look into the fire instead of responding.

You take up Johnny’s offer to spend time with Kari. Johnny walks you there, holds your hand in the cold and blows hot air on them as you wait together outside their door.

When Gaz opens it, he hoots and hollers as if the frigid air outside has no effect on him, as if his inner warmth and naturally excitable disposition is no match for the cold.

You have to admire that. At least a little.

“Hi there,” Gaz says to you, a greeting softer than the one he gave Johnny.

“Hello,” you try to subtly peek inside, “it’s… nice to see you.”

He doesn’t take offence to your awkward, stilted attempt at politeness. Maybe he knows you’re not quite comfortable here, to put it lightly, and only claps your shoulder gently to pull you in.

“Have fun!” Johnny shouts, already leaving, “and give me my wife back in one piece!”

That makes you sheepish, but you try to ignore your feelings in favour of moving towards Kari and the little baby, Tyra.

“Hello again,” she greets, smiling. The baby stares at you, babbles ceasing as if she’s seeing you for the first time. Her little head swings towards her mother, hiding despite her clear curiosity.

“You’ve met me before,” you say softly, trying valiantly not to frighten her as you take a seat opposite to Kari.

“She’s feeling shy lately,” Kari looks down and tuts, swiping a thumb over Tyra’s chubby cheek, “needs her mama.”

Weaving here is not much different than weaving at the convent. Once you get the basics down, you’re threading dyed wool into cloth astride Kari.

Some spirit of confidence grips you.

“Will you tell me anything about Simon and Johnny?”

“About-” she lifts her head, “Simon and Johnny? Don’t they speak to you?”

“They - do,” you rush to assure her, though your voice maintains a weary unsureness.

Luckily for you, she gives you a small but comforting smile over the wool.

“You’re looking for an outside opinion? That’s okay, lovely girl, I just might not know as much about them as my husband does,” she gestures with her chin towards Gaz, who walks towards you both.

“What d’you need to know?” he asks casually, sidling up to Kari affectionately, “think they’ll be able to answer better than me.”

“I only really know… what I’ve seen. I haven’t…” your mouth twists as you trail off, frustration germinating as you struggle. Right, you can commit sins of the flesh but you can’t ask a question to sate curiosity — one which might be the difference between surviving and not surviving.

Knowledge is important, after all. Powerful. You think of Eve, who doomed humanity for it, naked as the day she was born and as clueless as Adam yet ate the apple anyway.

“I know they’re… warriors,” you pause, “since they’re all scarred, but—“

“Well, not necessarily—” Kari starts, until Gaz puts a palm on her thigh and gives her a look you can’t discern. 

“That’s not something we should share,” Gaz says tightly, but kindly.

“How else..?” you frown.

Tyra stirs, and Kari gives Gaz another look.

“Simon’s father used to be chief,” she lifts the babe back into her lap, patting, cooing, “it’s not a nice story, but if you need it to understand them better then I don’t mind telling it.”

“I want to know about them,” you insist, trying to push past the sense of danger, the sense that you’ll be hurt or killed for toeing out of line.

Testing the elasticity of safety here perhaps isn’t wise, but testing it might be what you need to settle. Knowing where the boundaries are, what’s expected, where they come from… you wonder if you’ll doom everybody, like Eve.

“Believe it or don’t, but we’ve only just rekindled the hunts, the raids. How it should be,” she starts.

Gaz sighs, leaning back where he’s sitting. You assume his hesitance is out of loyalty for his comrades, but you choose tentatively to ignore him in favour of his wife.

“We had a lazy, drunken leader,” Kari continues, “Simon’s father inherited the title through lineage, not through prowess as is… more natural to us.”

You nod slowly, trying to imagine. In the church, such things were often gained with corruption: any wealthy lords’ son could rise high in the ranks, if he had the money and means.

The convent had somewhat of a similar issue, though the women were ‘married’ into the church and the power rested in the hands of their families. 

Such was the world.

Not always, but you’d heard of it often enough. One of the abbots of the monastery in the closest town had been the son of an affluent donator, and thus received power of authority over the other monks.

“To make a long story short, and more respectful to Simon—” Gaz looks at her then “—his father was needlessly cruel both to his own children, his wife, and to those he was responsible for.”

“So, those scars…?”

“Some are from fighting, of course. But usually, no one’s getting close enough to those two to land that kind of damage. I’m sure you can fill in the rest.”

Gaz butts in here,  “or, you can ask him yourself.”

“How did that woman, I forgot her name, come to be chief?” you frown in thought.

Gaz takes over again, his hand dragging up from the small of his wife's back and squeezing her nape. It’s as much of a warning as you’ve seen, though it’s quiet and Kari looks sheepish, not afraid, “Kate challenged him.”

“A challenge?” you frown, “such as?”

“A fight to the death.”

“Oh,” your lips close, and thin, and your eyebrows fly up. “I didn’t realize… I mean, violence is…”

They don’t do you the courtesy of filling in for you, so you go silent and the air settles.

Johnny picks you up later, when you’ve helped Kari with a big portion of her weaving. You love the threads, the dyeing process. It’s meditative.

“Good ?” Johnny nudges your side, slipping a hand to just above your waist, fingers tickling the side of your breast.

“Yes,” and it’s honest.

He walks you home, hand in hand, and cannot stop talking about Simon's return.

“Ah’ve never been without him this long,” he rambles over the fire, stirring a potato soup, “think yer gonnae be witness to something dirty. Sorry, lamb.”

Only he’s grinning, and he’s not sorry, and you can see the front of his pants begin to tent.

Johnny later offers you that very same sin, tilting his hips towards you and swinging his cock obscenely, cheekily. You do not take him up on it despite the smolder that begins between your legs – you simply turn, and try to sleep through the sounds of his self-abuse.

Simon returns without much fanfare, slipping into the house with a seemingly practiced silence. He moves like a ghost.

Johnny doesn't wake yet, sleeping like an affectionate log behind you.

His gaze meets yours, as impassive as always, framed in a halo of white winter light. He looks handsome this way, though it also has the effect of making his scars look deeper – crevasses on his face for shadows to lay in.

You watch as he strips his winter garments, slipping then beside you, evening out the weight on the bed.

“How did it go?” you whisper. If he's surprised that you spoke he doesn't show it, staring up at the ceiling, muscles decompressing. Sighing like a big dog.

In lieu of speaking, he lifts something into your focus. Oh, it's a tooth, sharp and white. A predator's tooth.

“The rest tomorrow,” he says quietly.

You can tell he's tired. His face looks weary. How far do they travel for these hunts? You assume quite far, as it’s enough to tire even a seasoned warrior.

So, rather than speaking, asking him from which creature he took this tooth, you tentatively reach your hand up to press your fingers against his thick scars.

Simon freezes, as do you. Then, as he relaxes, you trace the grooves on his face with your fingers tightly. Very lightly.

A delicate moment is born then. Johnny's deep, sleepy breathing behind you, Simon's acquiescence – it's a tranquil thing. As thin as lace, as sweet as a crisp apple.

After some time, when you've traced his face twice over and his eyes are half-lidded, you speak softly.

“Why me?”

“You're beautiful,” he says simply, sighing again, “we wanted to.”

It becomes harder, again, to hold the belief of them as devils. That they smelled the sin on you and picked you that way.

“Don't you think it's cruel?”

“No,” finally, he turns to you.

“It was,” you assert recklessly. Fear twists in your gut, poisonous.

“You were scared.”

“Yes.”

“Are you still scared?”

“I feel like you can see right through me. That scares me.”

“Not at first.”

“Then when?”

His hand finds the dip of your waist. Squeezes.

“On the boat, when you pushed up against me like a wet kitten. Even scared, you needed it.”

“You were cruel to me then, too.”

“I’m a cruel man.”

There's a stray thought that wiggles to life in the back of your head that suggests sympathy for him despite his statement. That you can begin seeing the path of his life and understand how he came to be.

You think of punishment again; about parents and children, husband's and wives, about Simon and his father. That wasn't punishment, if you're understanding it the way Kari implied.

A memory strikes you, unbidden and unwelcome. 

Salt blows in the air,  metallic and thick in your nose. Not sea salt, not the wind you love so much, but from blood spraying. 

The man brought his son to the convent, citing his bad behaviour as ungodly. Sister Margret was pleading with him, hands clasped in desperate prayer and voice high, reedy, as she begged him to just stop hitting him – please, just stop hitting him!

The boy cowered. Not a child, but a boy nonetheless. Young enough to make an impression, round-cheeked, on the cusp of manhood. Stained with blood.

He lifted the rope, again and again and again, even as Margret leapt for his arm and tried to stop him, pulling, shouting.

You were stock still, frozen, not even a tremble in your body. Your eyes had widened when he first struck the boy and you’d been stuck since.

Simon takes your hand, peels it away from your dress, pulling you bodily towards him and out of the memory.

With your cheek pressed close to his bare shoulder, you murmur, “did you take me to hurt me?”

“No,” he says, sounding for once like he isn’t hiding anything.

“Did you hit me to really hurt me?”

“No,” he repeats, then, “I hit you because you needed it, because you liked it.”

“I’ve seen…” you don’t continue.

“I know.”

“We’ve both been hurt,” your voice is a whisper.

“Mm,” Simon confirms.

You think of the boy. Of his father. Of his terrified, deer-like eyes, blood splattered on his back and on the ground and soaked into the rope – about how four townsmen had to pull his father away for fear of killing the boy.

How you felt when you hit yourself, when the abbess hit you, how different they were to when Simon took his palm to your ass.

Shame. That had been in the boy's eyes that day. He had hid his face in his arms, cowering not only from fear but from being seen.

You’d felt that same shame each time you’d been punished, intensifying, twisting together until you’d learned to turn the same pain inwards.

 “Are you afraid of being seen?” you murmur to Simon.

“No.”

You don’t have to say the silent part; that you’re the afraid one. That Simon correctly interpreting your need for a different kind of control, one that let you lose yourself, felt like you’d been flayed for all to see.

Simon moves his hand lower, cupping the soft curve of your behind, staring at you, testing the waters. You know that if you said no, he might anyways, but you stay quiet as his fingers lift the hem of your dress.

The fabric slides over your skin, a whisper in the air, tickling you. He rubs his rough, hairy knuckles against your thigh close to where it meets your leg.

He pauses there, breathing slowly, before he slides a finger up your slit and through the thatch of hair above it.

“If I made a request,” you murmured, “would you grant it?”

“Make it, and I’ll tell you.”

He slips a finger to rub your hole, just outside, teasing, while his thumb finds your clit.

“I don’t want you to take me until we’re man and wife… men and wife.”

Simon hums, rubs gently, makes your hips undulate.

“Do you think you’re in a place to be making requests like that, love?”

“I haven’t asked for anything else.”

He raises a brow, sliding his finger inside you to the knuckle when you’re wet enough.

“Haven’t you?”

Your breathing deepens, hands coming down to hold his thick wrist, pulling almost subconsciously. Even now, you can’t totally let go, leaning away from him and the pleasure.

But he understands, leaning over you, using his other hand to pin you to the mattress by your throat. It’s not the nicest hold, but the burning of your lungs heightens the pulsing in your cunt.

“Think you just made a few requests right now,” he grunts, using your leg to rub his hard, clothed cock.

There’s a stirring beside you. Johnny groans as he wakes up, then laughs sleepily.

“Ah woke up just in time,” his voice is rough with sleep.

Simon hums, mmm, in that deep rumble of his. He slips another finger inside you, crooking them, making you gasp raggedly. Your hands still clutch his wrist, weaker now, but it’s half resistance half comfort.

“Mm, good girl,” Johnny murmurs. He curls into your side, cock growing against your hip, wrapping a leg around you while his hand climbs beneath your pulled up dress and palms your tit.

God, you could die just like this: fighting for breath, touched all over, held down and made free. The hate you had for them feels irrelevant, the fear, the brutal way in which they stole you.

You can’t even think about if Simon will disregard your request – your last frontier against them, the treasure between your legs for a husband only.

Simon’s knuckle deep in it, but still, you can’t let go of that final tether. Not yet, not without any other internal pillars to hold you up.

Everything else has been wiped away. Drawings in the sand on a beach swept by foamy white waves.

Johnny leans in and bites your shoulder, gnawing, hips moving against you. You can’t arch like you want to, but you try.

Wet, sinful sounds grow as you gush around Simon’s fingers, as they use you to get off.

When you peak, white spots dance in your vision, mouth open in a silent scream choked away by Simon's heavy palm.

It’s like flying.

In the afternoon, when you’ve all slept, Simon leaves to speak with John and you prepare lunch with Johnny.

More fish, more potatoes. It’s growing on you.

When Simon returns, he has in his arms a rolled up fur. Though unprocessed and still wet underneath, it’s beautiful, pale, spotted.

He takes a heavy seat in front of you, laying the skin over his knees, taking your hand in his and bringing it to the fur.

Soft. Dense. Your fingers move through the pelt.

“For you,” Simon says.

You look up at him, heart dancing.

His gifts. The apple, the orgasms, this– you don’t know what to make of it. Yes, it’s a kindness, but he’s a cruel man. He’d said so himself, and you’d felt the brunt of it.

Leaning into that cruelty has given you a strange power, a strange solidity. You’d so begun to familiarize yourself with his harshness that you’d forgotten this complexity.

You pinch the fur, feeling it between your fingers, breathing slowly. Your neck ached, but it wasn’t a bad ache; it felt like a phantom hand.

“For me?”

Johnny slides three bowls on the table, grinning.

“Yer first wedding gift,” he says jovially.

 “Oh, I see,” you murmur, but it isn’t a disappointed oh.

Simon leaves later again, full of soup, to process the rest of the hunt’s boon with John. He takes the pelt with him, a snowcat pelt you’ve learned.

Yet, he’d returned with not much more than scratches on him from travel. Tired, yes, but a few hours of sleep and splattering his spend on your belly had fixed that earlier.

You’d bathed, since, though the feeling was hard to shake.

Johnny putters about again, returning to his carving of the little mini you. A peek into the past, one you no longer embodied.

“Can I see when you’re done?” you ask, slipping your favourite wool dress on. The red, well worn one. Soft, comforting. 

“Course,” he mumbles, concentrating. Then, his head shoots up.

“Ye want one o’ Simon ‘n’ I, lamb? Carry us around?” Only it sounds like aroond.

You nod, walking on socked feet to where he’s carving.

“Yes.”

[seat-safety-switch]

You've probably not heard of the Stockholm Divorce. It's a new thing, only innovated in the last couple years. Conventional court-based divorces are messy, expensive affairs, where both parties often attempt to cause the maximum amount of damage to each other. Things don't have to be this way, and the next generation of divorce attorneys has found a better method.

Initiating the Stockholm Divorce is simple, and it should be obvious once it's been explained. Ninety-five percent of marriages start to suffer serious problems after a trip to Ikea. The reason why is simple. Assembling cheap, particle-board furniture with your spouse is bound to drive a wedge into any slight schism or disagreement you may have with them. Many successful couples simply just don't do it together, breeding resentment when it turns out that the "handy" dude you married just operates a Dodge Ram and doesn't actually own a screwdriver.

Where the genius of this divorce comes is that it starts one step earlier, well before the Ikea assembly causes a cascade of emotional chaos. Ikea's stores are notoriously maze-like, so what you can do is take your partner to a corner of the store, tell them you're going to go grab something and will be "right back," then just walk out and get in the car. You'll be back to singles life immediately, and your formerly-significant other will be stuck wandering the store for all eternity, wondering if you did in fact leave them behind or just are also looking for them at the same time, maybe in rugs or lighting or something. Don't worry, they won't starve. There's a restaurant.

Is it cruel? Somewhat, but like in many other cases, the cruelty is offset by novelty. Already, Ikeas across this great nation are filling up with divorced folks, which means it's a good place to go to meet new folks. And it's been fantastic for the stockholders: a new study shows that for every 15 minutes someone is forced to wander the store, wondering if they will ever see the face of their loved ones again, they buy approximately $17 in goods. This new mechanism has been so profitable, in fact, that the corporate bigwigs have decided that all the stores will now be open 24 hours a day, so as to encourage more frenzied, anxiety-laden purchasing as the customers gradually come to terms with the end of their relationship.

[chrystabelleblaumferge]

ACOTAR hits the same notes for me as a show Luke Supernatural. Stuff to genuinely enjoy, but that nosedives into awfulness so fast. Yet, by the same hand, like you’ve said it’s the gift that keeps on giving—there’s always more to discuss.

For instance, a hot take that would piss so many people off:

If SJM wasn’t a coward, then for instance, Amarantha could have basically won at the end of acotar in exchange for, say, Feyre and Lucien going free. Having Tam Lin end up captured, Bonnie Janet losing, and exploring what would come of that. That’s a subversion a romance reader might not expect considering the conventions of the genre. And in the next book we get copious, kinky dubcon as, say. Tamlin slowly develops Stockholm syndrome for Amarantha as a survival response.

That would be a dark romance. It also puts the focus where it truly belongs, on Tamlin, as Amarantha’s main target and victim. Fucked up, but everyone knows very clearly that what’s going on is the bad ending and so can embrace the emotions and themes to be found in that darkness. Instead… Riceman.

I've not watched Supernatural myself to form an assessment of the show but the "So bad that it's good" element isn't there for me personally tbh. It lacks even what the most awfully infamous fanfiction "My Immortal" achieves. Unlike My Immortal, I cannot even pinpoint to any moment where ACOTAR as a whole tried to be funny intentionally or unintentionally. They take themselves way too seriously all the time and that ends up hurting the overall product especially considering the inconsistent writing of an egocentric author who thinks she's untouchable and above criticism.

As for Dark Romance, maybe that plot line you mentioned would have been a good setup for a dark romance since it is truly dark but you have to be very skilled at pulling that sort of writing as an author. We all know at this point that SJM is woefully incompetent. She wants to write complex morality yet her characters have the personality and morality depth of a puddle. Narratively what exactly even is their classic Hero's Journey arc even supposed to be? None of them even have a semblance of theme going about them and even the characters that have this potential like Lucien Vanserra, Nesta Archeron and Tamlin for overcoming them in their personal arcs end up nowhere due to authorial incompetence.

Let's be real, SJM is not only a coward. She just does not have it within her as an author to write anything beyond shallow Wattpad tier writing of 'stupid blonde blue eyed self insert' meets 'the most dark, broody magic man to ever magic'ed' and they have a tumultuous and toxic relationship that's only ideal if you were stupid and peaked in high school to still admire. The characters themselves don't have ANY maturity whatsoever since she bases it on her own black and white thinking that her main characters have to be good and people must accept that but at the same time she wants them to be 'deep' and 'thought-provoking'.

Had she had any guts or foresight of as an author, she could have easily achieved complex morality in the form of not letting Ricespam get away with shit other characters get chastised for in the most self-masturbatory way where he does villain shit but is never punished for it. I have legitimately created my own version of this shitshow through human OCs who exists purely out of spite to mock SJM's general incompetence at handling grey morality. One of these OCs start off as an ideal young teenage boy who wanted to see his elder brother who ruled over their small dukedom in the human lands achieve the greater goal of peace but in a tragic sense becomes disillusioned and vengeful once Velaris invades his lands, killed his family (his brother included) and tortured in a Velaris prison leading him to develop a severe hatred of the Fae and killing them without trial once he escapes through the help of loyal retainers.

I'm not going to bother to say that my OC is a good person when he takes no prisoners, tortures Velaris POWs and destroys Fae settlements in his former territory without any survivors. In the humans' eyes, he's naturally their hero resisting an occupation against a race that sees them as lesser. A human lord who rose up to fight for them when they are being subjugated and enslaved despite his controversial methods. But the Fae would naturally fear and despise him for being cruel to their kin and see him as evil as he does them. I'm very careful to not woobifying him and saying his tragic backstory makes all his war crimes forgivable. Yes he's a freedom fighter for humans but I also have the foresight to acknowledge that he's going to have Fae enemies naturally. Not all humans agree with his brutality either and his journey is one to reflect that Vengeance leads to an eye for an eye mentality and only prolongs the cycle of hatred amidst the fog of war and violence. He also has a road to redemption if he sees the errors of his ways, learn that just because he was traumatised - it doesn't mean he has a right to do so to others. He will still liberate the human lands, free his people from the yoke of Fae imperialism but he must realise that his cruelty makes him as much as a tyrant like Ricespam is.

Despite SJM barking all day in interviews about how traditional fantasy authors don't get it, she hasn't achieved this level of ASOIAF complex morality when it took me only 10 minutes to come up with this character concept. Your characters can be good people who do actually morally reprehensible stuff but also be redeemed in logical ways. But nooooo, we'd never get any form of depth or logic beyond "Riceman = Goodest, most feminist man to ever exist!!11"

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

The Year In Doom & Gloom

Doom & Gloom From The Tomb celebrated its 15th anniversary this year, which is crazy. But what can I say, I keep finding cool live tapes and keep feeling compelled to share them with you ... whoever you are! A lot of this website is just me talking to myself, hashing and rehashing and re-re-hashing various obsessions, getting impossibly niche about some of my favorite artists, trying to shine a light into the darkest corners of music history. But that makes it sound like it's a serious endeavor. Mostly, it's fun. I hope it's fun for you too. So, if you need to catch up, here's a tip-of-the-iceberg rundown of what we checked out over the last 12 months ... as always, thank a taper!

Lou Reed - Sister Ray in the 70s

“Candy Says” - Lou Reed, Kongress Zentrum, Hamburg, Germany, March 29, 1979

Lou Reed - October 1974

Lou Reed - Lady Mitchell Hall, Cambridge, England, October 13, 1972

Lou Reed - City Hall, Sheffield, England, June 1, 1974

Lou Reed - Konserthuset, Stockholm, Sweden, May 14, 1974

Lou Reed - Parc Des Expositions De Colmar, Theatre De Plein Air, Colmar, France, August 12, 2004

The Modern Lovers - Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, October 27, 1972

The Modern Lovers - Sword in the Stone, Boston, Massachusetts, 1972

The Modern Lovers - Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, February 23, 1974

Foggy Notion - The Bowery Ballroom, New York City, December 13, 2023

The Feelies - Daniel Street, Milford, Connecticut, July 22, 2011

John Sinclair - BAR, New Haven, Connecticut, September 28, 2003

Meg Baird + Chris Forsyth, Cafe Nine, New Haven, Connecticut, October 26, 2022

John Fahey - McCabe’s Guitar Shop, Santa Monica, California, December 1979

The Go-Betweens - The Gatekeeper To Your Soul

Frank Black - Wetlands, New York City, June 13, 1994

Jacobites - Hearts Are Like Flowers

The Replacements - The Ritz, New York City, June 21, 1986

Willie Nelson - El Rey Theatre, Los Angeles, California, December 20, 1997

Neil Young - Razor Love (1984-2020)

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Control The Violent Side

“Peace Of Mind” - Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Community Theater, Berkeley, California, November 2, 1976

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Festival Hall, Osaka, Japan, March 4, 1976

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Copps Coliseum, Hamilton, Ontario, October 31, 1996

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, California, October 1 / October 2, 1994

Fairport Convention - Harlow Town Hall, Essex, England, June 15, 1974

Richard & Linda Thompson - Dublin Stadium, Dublin, Ireland, November 10, 1979

Robyn Hitchcock & Richard Thompson - “First Girl I Loved (Incredible String Band),” The Barbican, London, England, July 19, 2009

Can - Nordseeheilbad, Cuxhaven, Germany, January 7, 1976

Bob Dylan and The Band - “Nobody ‘Cept You” (Outtake)

Bob Dylan & The Band - Chicago Stadium, Chicago, Illinois, Jan. 3, 1974

Patti Smith - Max’s Kansas City, New York City, September 1, 1974

Patti Smith Group / John Cale / Television - The Palladium, New York City, December 31, 1976

Television - Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, California, December 9, 1992

Television - Roseland, New York City, October 2, 2004

Grant Lee Buffalo - Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London, England, October 11, 1994

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Vredenburg, Utrecht, The Netherlands, December 4, 1982

Wilco - Orpheum Theatre, Boston, Massachusetts, October 19, 2002

[skarsjoy]

It’s finally here! The audiobook for “In the Distance” by Hernan Diaz (and narrated by Alexander Skarsgård) was released today by publisher @penguinrandomhouse. I’ve been posting about this in my IG stories since December 10th and shared a couple free samples of it from Spotify and AudioBooksNow. The narration is in English and takes 624 minutes to complete.

Description from his website: A young Swedish immigrant finds himself penniless and alone in California. The boy travels east in search of his brother, moving on foot against the great current of emigrants pushing west. Driven back again and again, he meets naturalists, criminals, religious fanatics, swindlers, Indians, and lawmen, and his exploits turn him into a legend. Díaz defies the conventions of historical fiction and genre, offering a probing look at the stereotypes that populate our past and a portrait of radical foreignness.

📸 The photo of Alex is by @christinefoto from Stockholm in 2022 for his @Thenorthmanfilm press tour. (Thanks for the idea, @kazzamological.) The remaining images are from the Penguin Randomhouse website.

[hettolandija]

2024 convention schedule (multifandom and SPN cons):

January 19-21 - Albuquerque Comic Con - Jared February 9-11 - ATL Comic Convention - Jared & Genevieve March 2-3 - Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle - Misha March 9-10 - All Hell Breaks Loose 12 in Melbourne - Jensen and Jared March 15-17 - Creation Entertainment BURBANK, CA - Jensen and Misha April 19-21 - Jus In Bello 14, Italy - Jared and Jensen April 26- 28 - Cross Rroads 8, Birmingham - Misha

May 4-5 - Comic Con Stockholm - Misha May 4-5 - Comic Con Liverpool - Jared May 11-12 - Infinity Con, Düsseldorf - Jared & Genevieve -appearance canceled May 12 - Comic Con Finland - Misha

May 17-19 - Creation Entertainment NEW JERSEY - Jensen, Jared and Misha May 25-26 - Purgatory 8, Düsseldorf - Jensen and Misha + Jared June 1-6 - DarkLight Convention 6, Paris - Jared & Genevieve + Jensen

June 7-9 - Creation Entertainment COLUMBUS, OH - Jensen and Misha

June 22-23 - Dutch Comic Con - Misha June 28-30 - Creation Entertainment SEATTLE - Jensen and Misha + Jared

July 4-5 - Fan Expo Denver - Jared July 12-14 - Creation Entertainment SAN FRANCISCO - Jensen and Misha

July 26 - San Diego Comic Con - Jensen

August 9-11 - Steel City Con - Jared

August 10-11 - Comic Con Wales - Jensen + Danneel August 16-18 - Creation Entertainment AUSTIN, TX - Jensen, Jared and Misha August 23-25 - Creation Entertainment INDIANAPOLIS - Jensen and Misha + Jared August 29-September 2 - Dragon Con 2024 - Jared + Gen (she had to cancel)

September 20-22 - Creation Entertainment WASHINGTON, DC - Jensen and Misha + Jared

October 5-6 - Comic Con Scotland - Misha + Jensen (he had to cancel) October 11-13 - Creation Entertainment CHARLOTTE, NC - Jensen and Misha + Jared (he had to cancel)

October 19-20 - Comic Con Belgium - Misha October 26-27 - Comic Con Brussels - Jared

November 1-3 - Creation Entertainment CHICAGO - Jensen, Jared and Misha

November 9-10 - Comic Con Liverpool 2 - Jensen (he had to cancel) November 22-24 - Creation Entertainment ORLANDO - Jensen and Misha + Jared December 5-6 - CCXP, Brasil - Misha

December 6-8 - Creation Entertainment NASHVILLE - Jensen, Jared and Misha

[heysawbones]

Many of us have backgrounds that we feel alienate us from others. The result of that alienation is often a protectiveness of the thing which alienated us in the first place; a sort of Stockholm Syndrome attachment to the pain that shapes us. We draw identity and, if we need it, pride from that suffering.

Me, I’m uncomfortable when NPR - an outlet I’m very attached to - discusses poverty. In an effort to be transparent and equitable, statements are often prefaced with an admission that the speaker hasn’t been poor, and hasn’t known anybody who is or was. We’re trying, is what they’re saying. We know that we’re outsiders, but we take this seriously and we mean well. They know that it’s important that their peers, their audience, keep the poor in mind. They go on to express their concerns in terms that make it clear that they do not expect any poor people - past or present - to be listening. In a broad, entirely unintentional sense, people like me don’t exist to the people who make the informative content that I like best. 

Despite their good intentions, listening to an NPR bit on poverty makes me feel worse about where I came from, instead of glad that someone is paying attention. It almost feels exploitative of them, and it’s hard to put a finger on exactly why this is.

---

I was active duty Army for four years, and in the Reserves for three. The corpus of Army uniforms mean something specific to me, because of the context in which they entered my life. Desert boots. Digital camo. TA-50 belts. These are purely functional in my mind - you wear them because you have to. The tasks you’ve been assigned necessitate these items. It just so happens that these tasks are often difficult - not intellectually, but spiritually. Physically. They try your patience, your faith in humanity. They dominate your life. As an enlisted person, it’s not uncommon to be treated as something less than a human being. Military service is often a hardship. You control very little, and you form a strong bond with your peers over the experience of, and the gallows humor generated by, said lack of control. 

I don’t like it when I see civilians in paramilitary get-ups that pull from actual military supplies. ACU pants, regulation (or near regulation) desert boots, random bits and pieces of gear they picked up from the Army surplus to look tough. There’s a guy I see walking around my neighborhood sometimes who wears ACU pants, boots, and carries a fucking rucksack, you know, a real one. One of the old ones. He’s got it tied around his torso and everything. And he’ll have a t-shirt tucked into his pants with all that. He looks like a real jackass, and every time I see him, I want to chew him up and spit him out. 

People who idolize the “glory” of being a cop or in the military are unique among wannabes, in the sense that they could actually just go be a cop or join the military. If one is able-bodied and has not done it, but insists on looking like they are obsessed with doing so, I dislike them a lot. I am 99% sure they are pathetic and possibly even dangerous, because it’s honestly hard not to get into the military if you are able-bodied and try at all. You’ve got to have done something pretty ridiculous. Come suffer if you want to wear this shit. You don’t want to suffer, don’t fucking wear military gear. 

Once, I chewed a guy out at an anime convention for cosplaying a contemporary Soldier and not tucking his boot laces in. 

---

I watched professional wrestling as a kid. It was popular in my house. The thing about my house, is that we were poor. More than being poor, we were white trash in the middle of a majority Latinx neighborhood. We were garbage. Pro wrestling wasn’t something other kids were into, where I grew up. It was, in fact, actively held in disdain. It’s not hard to understand why I grew up under the impression that pro wrestling was largely something that white trash sustained, like NASCAR, but for even less tasteful people. The rising popularity of pro wrestling has been strange for me. I can’t describe it very well. Is it the lack of acknowledgement? I have a friend who is going to school to become a pro wrestler, and it’s not like I have a problem with wrestling itself. I still enjoy it. I still think Ric Flair is hilarious. At least people haven’t all spontaneously decided that they love destruction derbies, but still really hate white trash.

---

The common thread that runs through these is that they are, in the most crass sense, personal problems. On some level they strike me as... appropriative? I loathe to use the word, less for the definition and more for the baggage. NPR talks about the plight of the poor because they care, sure, but also because they have a reputation of Serious Talk about Uncomfortable Issues to maintain. Discussing poverty is, in its way, credibility. People in military gear without military backgrounds are quite literally exploiting cultural capital given to people who have presumably done very hard things, while pointedly refusing to do the hard thing. Hearing podcasters talk about pro wrestling storylines is jarring, sort of like hearing Bob Garfield from On The Media say “4chan” twice in an episode. Seeing it on twitter coming from the kinds of people who would’ve reeled in disbelief at the way I grew up feels a little like spotting tourists.

[kaiserposting]

NON BL*E L*CK OC STUFF UNDER THE CUT Ope n at your own risk

This is Luggs I've had him since I was 12!! He's the main antagonist of my original ocverse and an alien underworld crime boss. He is the mary sue of that universe. I think his actions might have violated the geneva convention at least twice idk.

He has a human girlfriend he kidnapped from her house but she was cool with it (no stockholm syndrome business she has her own reasons in her storyline). And he has a creepy CCTV room he watches the screens in complete darkness to stalk and study people when hes bored so I lowkey predicted K*iser before knsr even conceived of him.

Apologies about any sloppiness 1. I cannot really find reference images for such a creature so I just drew from imagination which I rarely ever do. 2. I haven't drawn anything non-human in like 2+ years.

Here is the last drawing I made of him (from 2020) which I was using as a reference (He used to have a reference sheet I paid for back in deviantart days from like 2016 or something crazy like that buuuut ufortunately it was lost to time which is a shame since it was erally #gorg so like yeah I need to reference my crappy ass drawings for him now LOL)

Actually this is not half-bad tbh by my standards, I think he looks more aesthetically pleasing in the old one but it does not give across his his unsettling and alien vibes as well as my redraw imo. I also always struggled drawing his body before so it's cool to be at a place where I can draw him closer to what I imagined in my head when I was a little!

Yap yap. I am feeling a re-spark of interest in this whole old project so I might be redrawing some of the other OCs in the coming days so yea I guess we'll deal with that if I get to it. It has a whole bunch of lore too and the cast is wide (more than 30 characters) so it was a pretty expansive thing . Anyways yayy yay for me.

[gudgurkan]

I did a test print of this sticker design and I'm very happy with the result, so I'm going to order the rest as well!

I'll start selling them on a convention I'm going to in Stockholm called Games & Geek Market taking place April 7th.

[howdoesagrapewrites]

Could you please, please write something for Yandere Hobie! Anything ♡

Yandere profile: 𝙷𝚘𝚋𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝙱𝚛𝚘𝚠𝚗

Hobart "Hobie" Brown aka Spider-Man or in a much more reduced measure, known as "Spider-Punk" from earth █████ is the 004 subject to be recognized as an unstable force.

He is a mild concern, as his tendencies seem to spread slower than other specimens.

██ 20% *___*

███ 40% *___*

████ 60% *___*

█████ 80% *___*

██████ 100% *___*

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐝. 𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐬𝐞𝐞: 𝐇𝐨𝐛𝐢𝐞 𝐁𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐀𝐥𝐩𝐡𝐚𝐛𝐞𝐭.𝐞𝐱𝐞

𝘼𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣: 𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙙𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣? 𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙞𝙩 𝙜𝙚𝙩?

Despite suffering from the interdimensional disease known as "lovesickness" [temporary name] Hobie Brown rarely displays affection in a conventional way, preferring to casually initiate physical touch as opposed to big gestures or traditional performances of love, however, he makes the difference between platonic affection to his mates and his lover very clear

𝘽𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙙: 𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙢𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙮 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙜𝙚𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙞𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚�� 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜?

Quite bloody in fact. He has shown to not be above murder under the mantle of Spider-Man, nevertheless, his judgement of who "deserves" death and torture get severely clouded under the spell of the love sickness, he won't usually kill out of jealousy, but out of protectiveness, he considers jealousy to be petty and confidently thinks he can earn his lovers affection even with competition in the way.

𝘾𝙧𝙪𝙚𝙡𝙩𝙮: 𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙖𝙗𝙙𝙪𝙘𝙩𝙚𝙙? 𝙒𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙢𝙤𝙘𝙠 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢?

It is extremely difficult for Hobie to end up in a situation where he would kidnap his lover, but if it were to happen, he would do it knowing its at the cost of their love, even someone as manipulative as him knows that doing something so vile is not easy to "manipulate away", and he wouldn't want a partner with stockholm syndrome, so a kidnapping would not be a culmination of his obsession, but a downfall, and as painful as it'd be, he'd accept all the things they have to call him

𝘿𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜: 𝘼𝙨𝙞𝙙𝙚 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙖𝙗𝙙𝙪𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣, 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙙𝙤 𝙖𝙣𝙮𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜’𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡?

Like mentioned above, the abilities and tactics used by the subject, are of the psychological variety, so he could manipulate his lover to tolerate, accept or normalize his behaviours, but that's as far as he'd go. To him, there's nothing more foul than the patriarchal desire to find a love who's free only to cut their wings off and get the credit for "taming" their subservient partner. However, he would continue to kill people he considers are a threat or "undeserving" of his beloved, even if that upsets them

𝙀𝙭𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙚𝙙: 𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙢𝙪𝙘𝙝 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙙𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙗𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜? 𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙫𝙪𝙡𝙣𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙞𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜?

Completely vulnerable. Even if he tries his best to have the upper hand, he's completely vulnerable and he embraces it, turns it into part of his arsenal

𝙁𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩: 𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡 𝙞𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙛𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙗𝙖𝙘𝙠?

The subject's organism seems to be fighting the disease very strongly, allowing him to preserve his sanity, he would not be violent towards his target, much less be upset by them reacting negatively to a negative situation

𝙂𝙖𝙢𝙚: 𝙄𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙖 𝙜𝙖𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢? 𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙢𝙪𝙘𝙝 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙚𝙣𝙟𝙤𝙮 𝙬𝙖𝙩𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙧𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙚𝙨𝙘𝙖𝙥𝙚?

It is not a game. He understands the abnormality in his feelings and behavior, and tries to keep his beloved safe from this. Opposed to his regular behavior, where he enjoys teasing and having control, he would not enjoy seeing his partner scared or severely psychologically scarred

𝙃𝙚𝙡𝙡: 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙗𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜’𝙨 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙨𝙩 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢?

Most likely finding him engaging in his violent "night activities" with someone they know or even cherish

𝙄𝙙𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙨: 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝙛𝙪𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚 𝙙𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙙 𝙛𝙤𝙧/𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜?

Lives in the moment, from what we have observed in variants, he doesn't plan a future and accept the various outcomes that his partner's wishes bring

𝙅𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙮: 𝘿𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙜𝙚𝙩 𝙟𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙤𝙪𝙨? 𝘿𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙡𝙖𝙨𝙝 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙤𝙧 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙙 𝙖 𝙬𝙖𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙘𝙤𝙥𝙚?

Does not see jealousy as a valid emotion, and considers it disrespectful to the bond with his beloved, he is protective, maybe overzealous on keeping them "safe"

𝙆𝙞𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙨: 𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙙𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙖𝙘𝙩 𝙖𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙧 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜?

Affectionate, in different levels, but always sweet, maybe too much on the teasing side

𝙇𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙡𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨: 𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙜𝙤 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙧 𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙖𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜?

He seeks to impress, he wants to prove himself worthy of his lover's admiration, there is an undertone of both adoration and ego on his part

𝙈𝙖𝙨𝙠: 𝘼𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙧𝙨 𝙙𝙧𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙙𝙞𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙖𝙘𝙩 𝙖𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙚𝙡𝙨𝙚?

He doesn't see his sneaking around as a mask, in his mind, he's just taking care of his partner by keeping them safe, and trying to reduce possible stressing or upsetting news, though he may gaslight if he's sure his actions will drive his partner away

𝙉𝙖𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙮: 𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙥𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙨𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜?

As of today, date ██/██/█ no infected variant of the subject has shown to be prone or even have performed a punishment on their partner

𝙊𝙥𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣: 𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙖𝙬𝙖𝙮 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜?

Only to freedom and socialization in the extreme case where he deems the world "too dangerous"

𝙋𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚: 𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙥𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜?

Very patient and understanding of the less than ideal situation, as he is able to retain self awareness and (arguably) his sanity, stronger than average

𝙌𝙪𝙞𝙩: 𝙄𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙙𝙞𝙚𝙨, 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙚𝙨, 𝙤𝙧 𝙨𝙪𝙘𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙛𝙪𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙚𝙨𝙘𝙖𝙥𝙚𝙨, 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙗𝙚 𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙢𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙤𝙣?

Depending on the circumstances of their death, he would either become lucid due to shock and possibly end his own life, or lash out his anger even more towards the outside world, (if he considers them responsible for their demise).

In the case they escaped, he continues to stalk and protect from the shadows

𝙍𝙚𝙜𝙧𝙚𝙩: 𝙒𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡 𝙜𝙪𝙞𝙡𝙩𝙮 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙖𝙗𝙙𝙪𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜? 𝙒𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙜𝙤?

Possibly one of the most guilt-riddled specimens

𝙎𝙩𝙞𝙜𝙢𝙖: 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙗𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙨𝙞𝙙𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢 (𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙙𝙝𝙤𝙤𝙙, 𝙘𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙤𝙨𝙞𝙩𝙮, 𝙚𝙩𝙘)?

The lovesickness [temporary name] is an opportunistic pathogen that causes alterations in behavior, as well as other symptoms, like delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, anxiety, and the most prevalent one, intense feelings of "love" directed at their "target", this can manifest as a sense of possession, or need to incorporate/merge into their darling.

We have not been able to establish what triggers this illness, it seems to be triggered after certain traumatic or shocking events described as "canon event" [see document attached] but others simply appear without a clear catalyzer

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙨: 𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙙𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙨𝙚𝙚𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙨𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙢, 𝙘𝙧𝙮, 𝙖𝙣𝙙/𝙤𝙧 𝙞𝙨𝙤𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙫𝙚𝙨?

He resents himself deeply for any distress caused to his target

𝙐𝙣𝙞𝙦𝙪𝙚: 𝙒𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙙𝙤 𝙖𝙣𝙮𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙙𝙞𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙡𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙘 𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙚?

As I have mentioned throughout the report, he is very self-aware, and his immune system seems to be very zealous when fighting the disease

𝙑𝙞𝙘𝙚: 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙚𝙖𝙠𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙡𝙤𝙞𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙤 𝙚𝙨𝙘𝙖𝙥𝙚?

His sense of justice

𝙒𝙞𝙩’𝙨 𝙚𝙣𝙙: 𝙒𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙪𝙧𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜?

𝙓𝙤𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙣: 𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙢𝙪𝙘𝙝 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙤𝙧 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜? 𝙏𝙤 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙡𝙚𝙣𝙜𝙩𝙝 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙜𝙤 𝙩𝙤 𝙬𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧?

Possibly, however it's not ever his goal

He adores his darling as the very incarnation of hope, progress. He sees in them the potential and light he wants to save in this world, as the sickness progresses, he will change his mind to "wanting to protect them from the world"

𝙔𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣: 𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝙙𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙚 𝙖𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙗𝙚𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙨𝙣𝙖𝙥?

The amount of time it takes for the lovesickness to set in, is unfortunately unknown yet

𝙕𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙝: 𝙒𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙗𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙠 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜?

No.

[probablyasocialecologist]

According to research by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT), the UK has licensed more than £472 million in arms exports to Israel since 2015. This includes tank components, armour-piercing ammunition and small arms, but, in keeping with the structure of the British weapons industry, aerospace components for fighters and drones predominate. It’s difficult to get clear numbers from the arms industry. The headline figure is taken from the value of standard licences, but the UK also operates a system of open licences that permit transfers of unlimited – and unspecified – quantities of particular military goods. Since 2015, 57 such licences have been granted for export to Israel, ten of those in 2022. They include British components for the American-designed F-35 aircraft, which campaigners estimate have been worth £336 million to the companies (primarily BAE Systems) producing them. Because the quantities of goods issued under open licences are not made public, groups such as CAAT have to back-engineer their value. In recent years the government has become increasingly hostile to Freedom of Information requests on arms, but there is enough publicly available data to be certain that the planes currently flattening apartment blocks and refugee camps in Gaza rely on components engineered and manufactured in Britain. There is little appetite in Westminster for reform of the domestic arms industry. For one thing, it is a rare economic success story. The UK is the second largest exporter of defence items in the world and, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Initiative, the sixth largest exporter of major conventional weapons (which means everything short of weapons of mass destruction), primarily aircraft. The total value of standard licences issued in 2021 was £10.7 billion, and the industry depends on its aerospace sector, which accounts for 72 per cent of export business. More than half of all British defence exports go to the Middle East – but to Saudi Arabia rather than Israel. Human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, accuse BAE Systems of being party to Saudi war crimes in Yemen, where BAE-supplied (and serviced) fighters have bombed schools and hospitals.

James Butler, Up in Arms

[drgnflyteabox]

red ochre [4]

series masterlist previous || part four -> orchil || part five -> kermes

> summary: double-edged swords, field trips, and wolf figurines > tags/warnings: religious & sexual guilt / shame, stockholm syndrome, inner turmoil, suicidal thoughts (minor), violent thoughts, oral (f), dubcon/noncon, stockholm syndrome, reader says "stop" / "no" but johnny continues, reader has some puritanical ideas about sex (virtue, virginity) but shes a nun so give her a break, power imbalance, thoughts of death/afterlife, self hatred, "little" used affectionately not as a size indicator lol

You wake up to the sound of a childs’ babbles the next morning, disoriented and confused - had sister Margery taken in another orphan girl to raise up in the convent? The softness of the bed beneath you betrays your confusion, rocking you slowly into reality as you blearily open your eyes.

Johnny sits at the table, cooing to a baby on his knee. He bounces them as they make sounds, soft happy ones that contrast with his muscles and scars and hair. In your observation of him you think about how a man so coarse-looking could be so soft to lay against, how he could go from sweet to firmer than stone in a moment. How his hands held you down not two days past, and soothed the skin that still ached as you shifted in bed now.

A conflicted series of emotions had risen in you since, and though something had calmed inside you, the primary tide was a pervasive sense of shame and it tended to overpower everything else.

“Who's that?” Johnny says, his voice high-pitched. “Is that my wife?”

He's cooing to the child, but still you burn and twist with too many things to dwell on lest you go mad.

Simon is nowhere to be found, but that's not been unusual in these winter mornings.

“Who's this?” You murmur, sitting up. Your woolen shift is warm, a soft red colour dyed by one of the village women that Johnny told you he'd traded for specially. Red ochre, he’d said, fingering the cloth. A beautiful muted red kind of colour.

A little like dried blood.

“Gaz's bairn,” Johnny says. “His house is gettin’ invaded by some rowdy boys, and the lasses’ are at the river.” 

He must see the confusion on your face, because he adds, “boys are gettin’ ready for a hunting party.”

The baby shrieks, clapping clumsily as Johnny lifts a carved wooden toy up to them. He crinkles his eyes, looking between you and the baby. You want to discourage whatever thoughts he's having, so you stand and move to the fire, away from his wandering blues.

“Should I make something?” You don't dare look at him.

“So sweet of ye,” Johnny hums. “The baby eats eggs.”

You nod.

As you steadily become more awake, thoughts begin to cloud your mind.

Guilt is strange; it spreads like a plague, tainting anything you've decided to take some control of. Cooking, chores, talking cautiously with the men or allowing your heart to soften. The poison has grown from your first peak, spreading outward from your core and into your mind, leaving you worse off.

Simon hadn't done anything else, nor had Johnny. You'd cooked them lunch and breakfast, asked for sewing equipment for mending and receiving it promptly after. From Gaz's woman, Johnny had said. She says hello. Any contact outside of Johnny or Simon hadn't once crossed your mind, especially not since having sat on Simon's lap at the feast like a prize.

But you were a prize, a stolen woman, taken to wife. However you spun the narrative it was hard to get past that fact and harder still to get past that it might fulfill something inside you that nothing else could or could've. That perhaps you were tainted, and the taking had been because they saw it in you somehow. Sniffed the false servant of God as you worked, not anything by coincidence but guided by some instinct that told them you were just as bad.

Your little book, the one you missed dearly, the one piece of physical evidence that damned you. 

Though God had never spoken to you back, you'd imagined in the convent that when you passed he'd simply show you the blasphemous, lustful evidence of your filthy mind and send you to burn.

Now you knew that He wouldn't have to do that. You'd simply burn without any chance, damned worse now by your treacherous cunt.

“-nun? Where's my little nun gone?” You turn, startled. The eggs are crisp, and darkening by the second.

You hurry to pull them out of the hot fat as Johnny watches you, still cooing and bouncing. 

“Sorry,” you slide him a nearly burnt egg. “Can the baby still eat them?”

 “Should be fine,” he tears the egg with his fingers, offering tiny pieces.

It's hard, but not too tough or burnt. Just browned, fried and crispy. You wonder if this could count as a sin, how nearly wasting food would weigh against coming on the fingers of a viking heathen.

The hopelessness gets you sometimes, gets you as you try to sleep and in moments like these. What option do you have? Adapt, or what? Sure, it's probably better to take advantage of their lack of extreme violence and make your predicament as best as possible, especially without an escape route and without the strength to fight them. 

You feel watched, judged, observed on all sides. Giving in and navigating how to be a viking wife might be better than resisting forever, but the unseen eye of divine judgement and its gaze rests heavily on you. In fact, it's like it seeps into you through your skin and connects with the shame to compound both feelings.

“There she goes again,” Johnny says, but you hear him this time.

“I'm here,” you say. The baby smacks their lips, enjoying the egg despite its texture.

“No ye aren't,” his blue eyes are piercing, cutting through the fog of unease. “Ye getting all worked up again? I better not catch ye out back again.”

You shake your head, though he's right to think that way. Cleansing yourself has been on the back of your mind, not only the holy kind but what they can bring you with a different kind of force. 

There's the sprout of desire that's grown bigger and bigger, as if some dry seed had always resided inside you and they had watered it back to life.

“I'm not,” you finally say, though too much time has passed and it's clear Johnny doesn't believe you.

The door opens and you're saved by the interruption. A new anxiety forms as multiple people enter, curling suddenly like a hook. Simon, Gaz, Gaz's wife and Price step in.

“Tyra,” Gaz says. “Where's my little Tyra?”

The baby shrieks again, reaching her hands out. You see the resemblance to both Gaz and her mother now, seeing them up close again. She claps for Gaz, her mother behind him and smiling at you gently.

“How are ye, Kari?” 

“I'm well, thank you,” Kari says. She's always so soft, so glowy every time you see her. No wonder Gaz has scooped her up, you think you'd have also planted a baby in her belly if you were both able and a viking. Such thoughts sometimes arrested you at random in the convent, admiring the other women and dismissing them as silly. 

You try not to put more weight into them now, as it doesn't serve your predicament. 

But still, you admire Kari. 

“And you?” her eyes soften.

“Well,” you parrot. There’s no way to explain how unwell you really are - or how your well-ness is causing that unwellness. It's confusing enough for you.

“She's settling in,” Simon says. He's trading looks like Price, whose beard is becoming a little overgrown.

Gaz takes Tyra, who babbles happily. For a moment it's like this place isn't all evil and temptation, but also love and care. It's easy to get lost in the image of Gaz and Kari making kissy faces to Tyra, who is unknowing of the world and happy to be in it.

They don't linger long. There are words exchanged that you don't pay attention to, hands clapped and Tyra kissed goodbye. You learn that she's nearly two, still a baby but getting bigger. Price teases the couple about their next as they leave, making Kari laugh a hearty laugh that fills you with warmth.

It evaporates a little when you're left with Simon and Johnny and silence, the atmosphere changing to something unfamiliar. This boundary you'd crossed with them has left you someplace awkward, with you mostly lost in your head.

Simon is good at getting you out of that space, but he's been gone often since the incident and Johnny's intensity tends to push you further inward.

He comes up behind you, now, and sets his heavy hands on your shoulders.

“She been like this all day?” He asks Johnny, who hums affirmatively.

Simon leans down, lips brushing the top of your head, hands squeezing your shoulders, before he pulls you backwards into his torso.

“Your god speaking to ya?” He asks. 

“No,” you say honestly. “He's silent.”

“Silent, eh?” There's a chuckle, then two. They're heathens, you remind yourself. Heathens.

“Lamb, why don't ye spend some time with the wee lady Tyra?” Johnny scoots forward on the bench, touches your knee, smiles.

“Might do you some good,” Simon agrees. “‘specially since we're goin’ on a hunt.”

You pause.

“A hunt?”

Johnny nods. 

“I'll be stayin’ behind,” he says. “Watch our little nun.”

Simon finally sits behind you, hands sliding from your shoulders to the softness of your upper arms, still squeezing.

“It's past time,” Simon says quietly behind you. He explains the yearly hunt, the walrus in the right location, the ivory they will sell and the oil they will gain for use. There's a whisper of something there, maybe longing, maybe not. You can't tell, not with his aloofness. He's closed off as a default, but he rubs your arms like he's comforting you and you decide to take it as such.

There's nothing left for you to say, so you just nod. You're still trying to resist taking on an intimate role, a wifely role, something that will make them think you've given up. You haven't yet, you might not. You have options, even if they're unpleasant or permanent. 

A shiver passes through you. That isn't what you want. You're stuck, but you have to rationalize: it isn't what you thought it would be.

You've felt good. You feel good now. The remaining pain comes from the twisting, growing shame that slowly turns in a circle and ensnares your insides.

That, and the taking. It still feels unfair, feels wrong. If you think on it too hard you start to feel like a thing, not a person.

Johnny seems regretful that night, a mix of pride and love for Simon warring with his need to stay home with you. He sleeps in the middle, leaving you near the wall and opting to join hands with Simon through the night. These moments humanize them to you as well – to your distress, and to your softening. 

They love each other in the way you've seen some of the villagers love each other, in the way that love is universal; it's a little different, because they're different, but it's tender nonetheless. 

Love is luck, you think. Luck enough to find someone to be tender with in a world that is hard to live in, that is so utilitarian, so survival dependent. 

Simon leaves the next morning with a group of hunters. Price leads the pack of them, slapping the backs of some of the younger ones who for them it'll be their first or second winter hunt, encouraging them. It's a mixed group with both men and women, younger and older, seasoned and green. 

You stand beside Johnny at the door, watching the group move through the village until they are gone. Johnny tells you that they’ll ride horses, but they’re further out. Lest we smell the horse shite, he laughs. Got enough on our plate with Si. The joke has a thread of longing in it.

You’ve never been truly alone with either of them, you realize. Sure, a few hours here and there, but never for the days that Simon plans to be gone. Never slept alone with either of them.

Simon has been somewhat of a buffer, even if he’s the one who initiated the incident and carried it out. He balances the infinite well of restlessness Johnny has.

It’s frightening and comforting all at once. For one, you don’t feel like a bug pinned by its wings, even if that means you’re even more anchor-less than before. Simon is solid despite his surliness, and without him to steady the dynamic you worry.

“Ah dinnae know what to make,” Johnny bemoans. He wants to prepare some kind of gift as a surprise. “Already got too many statues.”

“Statues?” you ask, tilting your head towards him.

“Aye,” he nods, moving to a far corner of the house. He produces a little leather pouch, then little carved wooden figurines. One of them is a wolf, the other a bird.

“You made this?” you take one delicately in your hand, as if it would break. Statues, he said. They’re cute, clearly having been made with care.

Turning the wolf in your hand, you admire the polished shine of the wood.

“Aye,” he says again. “Si’s got too many.”

He spends a portion of the day puttering about, stoking the fire, sharpening various tools. You can’t tell if he’s restless because Simon is gone, or if you hadn’t noticed his restless nature as much because Simon was his outlet.

An urge rises in you, that screaming urge you know more intimately than anything else, awakened and restless like a hungry beast – it stirs as Johnny stokes the fire, crouched and with his back to you.

The only way to go if not out is in and you won’t. Push him in, you think. If you want out, push him in. 

But you won't. There’s darkness at the core of you to be sure, but not that kind of darkness. Not the kind both he and Simon are steeped in. Violence, sadism maybe.

That would make you the other side of the coin. 

The same swirling pattern of thoughts plague you even as Johnny serves you fish and more turnip for dinner, even as he pulls you into bed for that night and wraps himself around you.

You want to kick. To scream. To have a fit. Some insane, perverse fit; something that would have earned you an exorcism or an execution in the village. These thoughts come unbidden to you as you try not to feel the grasp of Johnny’s hand to your waist, nor the scruff of his beard on your throat. 

Your identity has shifted, already. You aren't dead inside, not anymore. Not hoping for some outer force to take you away.

An outer force has taken you, and now you wrestle with the ramifications on your spirit.

It's unclean now, surely. But hadn't it always been?

Hadn't you willed this?

Happy faces appear in your mind. Kari. Tyra. Gaz. Price. Johnny. Simon is too hard to read, but the way he treats Johnny is enough to convey some kind of contentment.

And then the look at breakfast. The baby. Johnny’s gentle cooing, his attention. Simon’s hands squeezing you, reassuring you.

They contribute to the degradation of your spirit, to each rend of the glue that has held you together since first consciousness.

You try to hold onto the fear from before. Their words from before – behave and we won’t kill you. Does that still apply? Are you still under an ever present, looming threat? Were they only trying to get you moving? 

Some part of you shudders to realize that it doesn’t feel that way. Even when they had sprung it on you to marry you, you hadn’t felt the same mortal fear as when they had absconded with you. 

No, it had been hurt. Disappointment. The fear had shifted with your identity, staying present but becoming unfamiliar.

The you that they had taken was unfamiliar too. She’d have never built snowmen, nor ground her pussy into the hand of a viking and relaxed into another’s hold as you are now.

You wanted to live, you think. Even then.

A couple days pass. Johnny finally finds a suitable enough gift for Simon, a double edged blade he’s carving and sharpening.

The sight of it makes something tighten in your chest, so you avoid looking at it.

Between you both, it’s less awkward than you worried about. You come to a different understanding of him, one that comes from watching his independence without Simon. They truly do fit together, you think. Complement each other.

What about you? Are you here for them to have other options? A cunt, you think crudely. Something that gets wet without extra effort, something easy. You’ve certainly not made it hard. The thought puts you in another stink, frowning down at the pair of linen summer pants you’d found and started to mend.

“What’s this face ye got on?” Johnny steps up to you, setting the heavy blade on the table, and sitting.

You don’t speak, you just sew. Are you just a womb? Is that it?

“Awe, lamb,” he leans forward, hands finding the tops of your thighs and leaning on them. “So sour.”

When you still don’t respond, he reaches to take your sewing. You lose some bearing and prick him with the needle, frissy that he’s trying to take you out of your ruminations.

Provocative.

“Och,” he waves his hand, then laughs. “Prickly, are we?”

He forces the fabric from your hands, squeezing your hand until it opens with the needle and thread. You make some kind of irritated sound, like a growling cat, still half in reality and half in your mind.

“Ye’ve been stuck,” he pokes your forehead. “Stuck here, eh? Let me fix that.”

And then you’re pulled up to your feet, steered to the bed, and pushed before you can adapt.

“Simon’ll have’tae forgive me,” he murmurs. You’re sat on the edge, looking down at him with a frown.

“What-” you make a strange, caught off guard squeaking sound as he pushes you by the shoulders, lifting the edge of your dress.

“Sh,” he says sharply. “Should’a done this days ago.”

“Wait- don’t-” you slam your knees shut, trying to sit back up. Something sharp you can’t name explodes outwards from your chest, sharp spikes pricking your lungs and your heart, twisting.

Your struggle is mostly futile, though it’s easier that Simon isn’t here. Your arms flail, your legs scoot you away up the bed.

“Noo-” you try again. Your fear stems mostly from the uncertainty of what he’ll do, of the fear that he’ll steal the last true thing you have; your virtue. 

“Relax,” he strong-arms you into lying down, arms crossed at your chest and his huge hand keeping them pushed down.

He positions himself parallel to you, replacing his hand with his bigger knee, his face right where he wants it.

“Ye should’ve asked me, lamb,” he murmurs, then kisses the hair above your pussy. Your stomach tightens, breath coming out in strained gasps from the combined weight of his knee and your shame.

You’re wet.

“I won’t smack ye if I don’t have tae,” he says. His hands rub up your hips, then your thighs, before coming up to your pussy and spreading your lips open.

Your clit strains in the open air, a cool breeze from the gaps in the door making it jump. He watches for a moment, cruelly, listening to the sound of your laboured breathing.

Then he dives in, tongue first. Because of the angle, his tongue dips down towards your hole while his lower lip catches your clit, making you gasp.

“Let me,” he hums, pauses. “Let me take care of ye, lamb.”

And God, he does. Johnny licks over you like a starved man, sucking your labia before flicking the tip of his tongue over your clit again as sounds come out of you like someone is pounding a fist into your chest.

He slurps your wetness obscenely, using his fingers to scoop whatever leaks from your hole as best he can and bringing them to his mouth to suck clean. He murmurs fervently about how good you taste, how he can smell the desperation from you.

“So neglected,” he sucks the wetness from your hair, even. “Forgive me.”

He’s talking to your cunt again, leaving you trembling against the bed and tightening, tightening, rising, rising–

He stops. 

You damn near scream, but the sound gets trapped where he’s still putting his weight on you.

“I’m gonnae move, and yer gonnae stay right there all sweet for me, aren’t ye?” he turns to look at you, and though you can hardly see him you nod.

He lifts off, making you grunt involuntarily, then switches positions so he’s on his hands and knees nearly on top of you.

“Open those legs,” he says. Leans down to kiss your sternum over the fabric of your dress. “Let me ease yer mind.”

You can feel yourself falling further from grace, but God help you – you open your legs.

Johnny keeps eye contact as he slides down, getting on his stomach with those piercing blue eyes cutting through you.

When his mouth touches your cunt again, you feel yourself start to shake, growing more insane by the second. His tongue touches your hot, swollen flesh, dragging wetly against everything sensitive. He’s like an animal, you think. A heathen. No wonder these people have not seen God’s light. No wonder it does not reach here.

Something so sinful, so good, couldn’t possibly exist in the puritanical world you’d been taken from.

God, you think again, body twisting against the sheets, is this really what they kept from us?

“Please,” you cry out. Please stop? Please continue? It’s a plea for more than just Johnny, more than God. It’s a question that burrows deep in your mind and begs you to understand yourself, to untangle, to feel and release.

And oh, you’re breathing, breathing in, breathing in perhaps for the first time in your life. You wrench his hair in your fists, uncaring, screaming into the cold winter afternoon without a care. Your back arches, tilting your cunt further into his face, legs straining, gushing. Blood rushes in your ears, deafening you, once again turning the world into a small point where you can neither hear nor see.

All you can do is feel, ride, undulate. This is that fit you’d wanted earlier, it’s some insane hysteria, some sin that feels like ecstasy. 

Your nipples tighten, stimulated by the chill of the air and the scratch of your woolen dress. Your peak is maddening, drawn-out and pushed further by Johnny’s lips suctioned around your clit and sucking in hard.

The moment you truly finish, when the stimulation turns to discomfort, you release his hair and push at his head.

“Stop,” you gasp. “Stop it.”

He doesn’t. His hands find your thighs, holding you open, running his tongue from your clit and then piercing it into your hole. His nose rubs on you, and though tears spill from your eyes you grind into it, crying for him to end it.

“One more,” he grunts.

“No,” you moan. Then you peak again, mouth open in a silent scream and eyes screwing shut, the fusion of sharp, near-painful pleasure and actual, overstimulated pain brings you a climax you could have never imagined of on your own.

You weep again as he pulls away, feeling raw and tender. 

Boneless.

You wake in the middle of the night bundled and in both furs and arms. You’re pleasantly sore, pulsing a little still between your legs where Johnny’s thigh keeps you company. He’s so warm, so comfortable, that it’s easy for you to fall back asleep.

You wake again in the early morning, so early that the light of dawn hasn't yet breached the cabin.

Johnny snuffles behind you. Nose on your shoulder, hands migrating to rest just below your breasts.

“Mmmlamb,” he murmurs.

Your muscles are heavy, still. Weighed down with relaxation. It's true that you had gotten worked up, and that his actions had helped. You don't find any shame, not now. You've found a rare pocket of respite.

Simon is due back in a day or two unless there are extenuating circumstances. A winter storm, maybe. Or an errant predator. 

What would life look like if he never returned? It’s an uncomfortable thought. You’re still on the edge of how you feel, teetering between extremes, but you rely on them both for survival.

Where could you go? Even when you’d ran, the plan had been borne of heart, not mind. Without Simon or Johnny, you’d be in a terrible precarious situation.

Without Simon permanently? You weren’t sure.

You very slowly extricate yourself from Johnny’s arms, sliding out of bed and into the cold air. The fire is just coals, so you add a few pieces of wood and stoke it for the day. In the dark, you can see the reflection of the fire in the sword Johnny had left on the table.

You pad to it, staring, curious and afraid. It looked orange from the fire, only darker. It looked like your beautiful red ochre dress, your blood dress.

You reach your fingers out and stroke along the blade, breathing shallowly in the dark.

Dawn breaks.