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hiemaldesirae · 5 months

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Arrax here: demon Alastor vampire Vox

Yep, endgame for Alastor is to get Vox to hell! By the time it gets there, due to drinking so much of Alastor's blood, he is more of a new kind of demon. He can actually fully eat ppl, blood, flesh, and bones all.

And what DancingafterDark said this is entirely new. It's also changing Vox's sire, however he's getting second hand so it's much, much slower and like the Fae, *It's not Freely Given.*

First thing to remember: This is Alastor's blood, Alastor's power given to his Love, his mate, the one he has known since they were both children and they both went to war together. It's lovingly, freely given to Vox to help him, to keep him fed so he doesn't just have to survive on swamp rats and other animals. Vox's sire is stealing that from Vox's very veins as her forcibly feeds from Vox.

Second thing: Vox's Sire is *letting* Alastor willingly into his body. Now, Alastor would never hurt Vox. Vox is his beloved muse, his childhood best friend and eventually once he is free, his mate. But this Ancient Vampire Lord? He is nothing to Alastor. Nothing more but a creature that hurt what is Alastor's most precious.

Remember what they say.

"We must not look at goblin men, We must not buy their fruits: Who knows upon what soil they fed their hungry thirsty roots?"

OH !!!!!!!!!!! ohohohohoho rubs my hands together like a dirty sewer rat... i am Thinking now. okay okay so. is al gonna do some freaky bloodbending stuff with the parts of his blood in voxs sire?? like fuckin. svsss heavenly demon style blood parasites that he can control nd make him suffer or something ... because i would sooo be down to see that happen. like genuinely stoked to watch this old crook fucking Explode or something

also im thinking of voxs arrival in hell now LMAO. i dont think hed really look all that much different since hes technically not living anymore anyway ... but that also means he's seen as an easy target (and a valuable one too, since alastor makes it clear the moment he arrives in hell that vox is His) which is SOO hilariously wrong. vox probably eats like 30 people before pentagram city starts to catch on that theres something a little off about the radio demons pretty pet

#ran rambles #hazbin hotel #general asks #radiostatic #vampire vox au

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haveyoureadthispoem-poll · 7 months

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"'We must not look at goblin men, / We must not buy their fruits: / Who knows upon what soil they fed / Their hungry thirsty roots?'"

Read it here | Reblog for a larger sample size!

#closed polls #polls #poetry #poems #poetry polls #poets and writing #tumblr poetry #have you read this #goblin market #christina rossetti #fantasy poetry

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ephemeral-phosphorescence · 9 months

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Goblin Stairs,

A Hunger Games fanfic.

Very much inspired by Jackie French novels and the Australian tradition of writing about time going thin and rubbing against itself too much. Basically, the fabric of time rips when Lucy Grey runs away from Snow in the woods, and she accidentally isekais herself into post-mockingjay District 12.

Wordcount is 1,668

Or going up with music On cold starry nights, To sup with the Queen Of the gay Northern Lights.

They stole little Bridget For seven years long; When she came down again Her friends were all gone.

Lucy-Grey’s mama had told her all about fairies. In songs she’d play to scare her little girl on the brightest moon-lit nights, or rhymes she’d laughingly chant as she sent the kids out to play. Fairies, she’d taught them, would take you away. You’d spend what felt like a few seconds with them and while you listened, time would grow thin. It would rub out in strange places, and you’d come back to find your family old and grey.

Of course, Lucy-Grey knew now that it was all just practical warnings. Don’t go off by yourself into the woods. Don’t talk to strangers. Especially don’t take food from strangers. And don’t go off with them, no matter how many beautiful visions they tempt you with.

God, Lucy-Grey wish she’d listened. Maybe she wouldn’t be in this situation right now if she had. Deep in the woods by herself. Running from him.

She’d thought he was a fairy, the first time she’d seen him. Standing on the dirty railway platform, in his pretty uniform and glowing golden hair. He sounded like a fairy too, speaking in that strange accent, Coriolanus Snow, every syllable crisp and sweet. And like all fairies that children found in the woods, he tempted her with a pathway home, tempting her with his trinkets. She’d thought maybe a fairy world wouldn’t be so bad, compared to where she was headed. Hoped for a fairy world even, grabbing that unnaturally perfect rose and slipping it into her mouth.

“We must not look at goblin men,

We must not buy their fruits:

Who knows upon what soil they fed

Their hungry thirsty roots?”

Lucy-Grey’s mother hadn’t believed in fairies, surely, but she’d once sounded so serious, smoothing her hair back from her face. “Don’t go off with fairies, my Lucy-Grey. You’ll not come home again if you do, not truly. Not once as it was.”

And as Lucy-Grey ran through the woods, listening to the mockingjays sing teasingly above her, trying to anticipate the direction of the bullets, she felt it. She felt time and air grow thin, like tissue paper. She felt it tear. Another rain of gunfire circled the trees, and she fell, forehead just missing the full impact of a jagged rock. Her heart beat a thousand drum falls a minute, and in a terrified last ditch attempt, she tried circling back to the path up to twelve. Feeling her boots on the soft dirt, and choking back a sob, she gathered her skirts and almost ran into the stranger.

Standing by the overgrown path, next to a blackberry bush, a basket of shimmering black fruits in her arm, she looked at Lucy-Grey with a puzzled demeanour. A coal miner, if the burn scars on her neck and hands were anything to go by, and the large leather jacket over her shoulders.

Finally. Lucy-Grey thought viciously. A real fucking person.

“You’re out far” the woman commented lightly.

“Please!” Lucy-Grey choked out all in a rush. “Please help me!”

The woman’s entire body changed, tensing up, and she poked her head around Lucy-Grey’s body. Her troubled eyes looking for the source of her distress. There was something about those eyes. Something Lucy-Grey recognised intimately.

“Bear?” She asked distractedly. Lucy-Grey heard the sound of Coryo’s boots tramping through the grass, trashing the sticks and foliage underfoot.

“No” She breathed out. “No, it’s my- my man, he went awful angry all of a sudden and he’s firing his gun and I don’t-“ she swallowed.

In what felt like a whip snap, the woman crossed the distance between them, shielding Lucy Grey behind her back. And in the same moment, had the bow across her back, loaded and aimed in the direction Lucy-Grey came from.

They waited for a second, the mockingjays chillingly quiet now.

There was an angry, anguished scream from deep in the woods and the sound of bullet fire that caused them both to flinch. The woman shook her head and grabbed Lucy-Grey’s arm roughly.

“Come on” she muttered and pulled her up the path in a rough sprint.

They ran for what felt like hours, up the trail they both seemed to know well. Flying through the trees, their feet gliding over the grasses. And once they were a few hours out from the borders of district twelve, they both allowed themselves to slow, panting heavily. Lucy-Grey fished around in her pack, and pulled out a bottle of water. After taking a long sip, she passed it to the woman, who drank it gratefully.

“You saved my life” she whispered gratefully. “Really, you did.”

“No trouble” the woman shook her head. “If you hadn’t warned me, I might have stepped into his line of fire. You’re almost a like a good luck charm.”

She felt like the furthest thing from a good-luck charm right now. She felt like a bad omen. Like she might accidentally be setting in motion a string of disastrous consequences for this woman, who’d probably just lead a simple, quiet life up until now, working in the mines and foraging on the days she had off.

The woman looked at her, with a drawn, almost unreadable expression.

“My name’s Katniss Everdeen, by the way. And I like your skirt.”

She continued up the path, motioning for the girl to follow behind her.

“I’m Lucy-Grey Baird” she responded breathlessly. “And thank-you, I sewed this one myself.”

“You’ll have to teach me how to do that” Katniss responded. “It looks very achievable.”

And before Lucy-grey had time to respond to that, Katniss had pressed her lips together and a look of frustration crossed her face.

“So, what happened” she continued brusquely. “Did you run off from Ten or somewhere?”

“No” Lucy said, puzzled at the assumption. “No, we set off from twelve just this morning.”

“You’re from Twelve? Originally, or did you just get here? I mean after the war.”

“I’m Covey” she asserted. “Not from any district, but we had to settle here after the fighting stopped. My people should just be by the meadow.”

“Wonderful” Katniss responded. “I can drop you off there on the way back.” She turned around to look at her and then stopped. “Your head is bleeding.”

Lucy-Grey put her hand up to her forehead, where she could feel a viscous liquid dripping into her eyes- true, but she’d thought it was sweat. Her fingertips came away red.

“I tripped” she explained. But Katniss had already torn a section from her shirt, and had bundled it up to press on the wound. “It’s just a scratch, really.”

“Really?” Katniss frowned. “You seeing okay? No dizziness? No nausea?”

“Not yet”

“Alright.” Katniss seemed happy with that, but made her press the fabric to the cut as they continued their way up the path.

It shouldn’t be too long now, Lucy-grey thought, and despite all the troubles that awaited her, her heart couldn’t help but flutter in relief.

“So, you went deep into the woods with your man, doing what exactly?” Katniss asked, now herding Lucy in front of her. “Hunting?”

“We were running away.”

“Ah.” And then, a second later. “Why?”

Not quite sure how to explain all of the drama, especially to what seemed like a chronic recluse, Lucy-Grey finally just muttered. “The mayor is trying to kill me.”

There was a deep moment of silence as Katniss took that in. She took a second to note a marker, that signalled they weren’t more than twenty minutes from the meadow now.

“Okay, and you took a gun into the woods?”

“No” Lucy-Grey struggled. “We found the guns in the cabin, and he went off suddenly.”

“You sure there’s no dizziness?” Katniss asked cautiously. “No, I don’t know . . . shininess?”

“I’m sure” she answered patiently.

“Look, I was just in that cabin before I ran into you. There were no guns there. And no signs anyone had been there beside me. It's like you both just appeared.”

Lucy-Grey gritted her teeth, and continued walking in silence. Katniss let her, occasionally holding branches out of her way, and helping her over creeks and the like. Finally, they’d passed the last boundaries of trees and Lucy-Grey let herself sigh a relived breath. Until . . .

There was a shininess. She deliberated on telling Katniss for a second, then deciding to it as a problem for Barb Azure. But the shininess, persisted, a web of silver stretching across the boundary. A line of fallen silver chain across the grass and a battalion of rusted poles that had certainly not been there before they left.

“What.” She murmured confusedly.

“Fence” Katniss supplied. “Almost there.”

Lucy-grey felt her feet carry her forward without permission. Up onto the meadow, which should have been a haven of grass and flowers had been turned into a massive mound of dug-up dirt. And beyond that, only darkness. Bleak, black ground only sparsely populated by half-finished constructions.

“What happened?” She almost whimpered, looking anywhere for a recognisable landmark. Katniss took her shoulders gently, looking into her eyes, looking for signs of a concussion. But she wasn’t addled. There had been something there before. Surely, surely, there had been.

“Lucy-Grey” Katniss explained evenly. “It was bombed, during the war, do you remember? Bombed to nothing?”

She twisted wildly out of the grip, refusing to hear it, desperate to understand it. Her mother’s voice came back to her, singing in a silly little tune.

They stole little Bridget

For seven years long;

When she came down again

Her friends were all gone.

They took her lightly back,

Between the night and morrow,

They thought that she was fast asleep,

But she was dead with sorrow.

They have kept her ever since

Deep within the lake,

On a bed of flag-leaves,

Watching till she wake.

Lucy-Grey turned around, and vomited neatly onto Katniss Everdeen’s boots.

#the hunger games #thg #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #tbosas #hunger games fanfiction #tbosas fanfiction #tbosas movie #katniss everdeen #lucy gray baird #the hunger games books #the hunger games ballad of songbirds and snakes #the ballad of songbirds and snakes book

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godzilla-reads · 2 years

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🍇 Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti, visually interpreted by Omar Rayyan

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

“We must not look at goblin men,

We must not buy their fruits:

Who knows upon what soil they fed

Their hungry thirsty roots?”

A poem-story about two sisters, one who falls to the temptation of the Goblin Market, and another who will do anything to save her sister.

I love this poem a lot, it’s one of my absolute favorite Rossetti poems and it’s paired so beautifully with Omar Rayyan’s talented watercolors. And to read how he did this as a passion project instead of a publisher commission makes it even better! Let yourself be immersed in the beauty, the danger, the temptation of the Goblin Market.

#godzilla reads #goblin market #christina rossetti #omar rayyan #book review #poetry #books and art #reading #booklr #bookworm #bookish #book blog #booklover #bibliophile #book blurb #booklife

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skelecha1rs · 10 months

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“We must not look at goblin men,

We must not buy their fruits:

Who knows upon what soil they fed

Their hungry thirsty roots?”

- Fragment from 'Goblin Market', Christina Rossetti (1862)

#goblin market #christina rossetti #poetry #poem #victorian #victorian poetry #dark #aesthetic #darkcore #dark aesthetic #quotes #.txt

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ginko-simp-central · 1 year

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Hungry Roots

Mushi-Shi Week 2023

Fri. 4th: Food / Tooth

Inspired by ep9, The Heavy Seed, and also the line in Goblin Market, "Who knows upon what soil they fed / Their hungry thirsty roots?"

@mushishiweek

#mushishiweek2023 #mushishiweek

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semper-legens · 6 months

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24. Not Good For Maidens, by Tori Bovalino

Owned: No, library Page count: 358 My summary: Laura and May had their whole lives planned out. They were going to be witches, like their mothers and grandmothers before them. Then May was tempted away to the goblin market, and all hell began to break loose. Now, eighteen years later, Laura's daughter has lost her cousin to the market. She knows nothing of her family's heritage...but now, she has to brave the worst parts of it. My rating: 3/5 My commentary:

Witches and goblins and magic, oh my! When I read the blurb for this book, I decided it was most definitely in my wheelhouse. The Goblin Market, though not among my favourite poems, is still one I think of fondly. ('We must not look at goblin men/We must not buy their fruits/Who knows upon what soil they fed/Their hungry thirsty roots?') And this book is very consciously based upon that poem. The problem is that I'm not sure that the narrative bore out its promise. The ideas that were brought up on the blurb didn't go much further, and the characters were largely forgettable. It was a shame, really, because I feel like this is the kind of thing I would have been a lot more charitable towards and even enjoyed as a teenager - but alas, the adult version of me was not too impressed.

First of all, the narrative is actually two narratives - the focus is split between Lou's rescue of Neela in the present day, and May's ill-fated journey into the Market eighteen years ago. This more hampers than helps the narrative. May and Laura are pretty clear on what happened to May in the present part of the story, meaning that there isn't a lot of tension, more just learning the details of what happened. But Lou's story isn't all that better. Lou isn't a particularly proactive character - outside of insisting she goes to York with May, she doesn't really do a lot, just allowing herself to be pushed and pulled with the whims of both witches and market. It's only in the last section, where she goes back to help Eitra, that she really takes matters into her own hands. She's static thanks to the greater focus on Laura and May; Laura and May are static because their story is flashback, because it can only lead to the point at which we started. And certain things are made obvious by the framing - obviously the older goblin lady helping Lou is Eitra, there's nobody and nothing else she could be. The narrative doesn't even bother with a big reveal of that to the reader! Eitra just casually tells Lou her name, and so any sense of threat Lou could have from her is instantly negated.

And the worldbuilding here…sort of isn't? It's established that the people of York are fully in on the goblins and magic, but not a lot of time is spent among them exploring that. What is the Market, when it's being enticing? It's built up as a threat so much that, purely under the logic of the book, I struggle to understand why people actually go there. Even when May or Louisa are being drawn in, there's still lurid descriptions of market stalls selling human body parts. Do the genuine revellers…just look past that? If we saw the Market from their perspective, it'd add a lot to our understanding of it, but the narrative doesn't seem that interested in it. Furthermore, the whole 'Laura and May are on the verge of their witch graduation' thing doesn't come up until halfway through the book. Nor does the magic ice that can kill goblins. And what worldbuilding and exposition there is just seems to circle around a few key points, so I was sick of hearing about the Market and the fruits and the Doctrine and this and that over and over and over again.

I feel like I've been too negative on this book, though. The fact is that it did have some good ideas. The Goblin Market in itself is not a bad concept, and some of the manifestations of its creepiness did genuinely work. The bleakness of the lower levels Lou traverses came through quite well, even if the overworld was not shiny enough to contrast it. May was a fairly engaging character, with her struggles with sexuality and obvious attraction to women caught up with the Market and the traumas she underwent there. This book had a lot of promise, that's what I'm trying to get across. it's just that the actual narrative as-writ didn't quite live up to that promise.

Next…sigh. I've put this off long enough. Back to the House of Night.

#Not Good For Maidens #Tori Bovalino #bookblr #book blog #book blogger #3

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comparativetarot · 9 months

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Two of Cups. Art by Nara Lesser, from Neurotic Owl’s Faerytale Tarot.

I was thinking that this was bending my rules a bit, since Christina Rosetti’s The Goblin Market is very much a literary single author fairytale, but then so are all of the Hans Christian Andersen stories I’ve used, so that’s not it. And the idea of eating fairy fruit and being trapped in a fairy bargain obviously predates Rosetti by a long, long ways – the basic story has been told in lots of different ways and places. The ones that really feel like they don’t fit to me are Pinocchio, The Wizard of Oz, and Alice, and honestly it’s messy and I can’t tell you exactly why those three don’t feel the same to me as all of these other stories. Luckily this is my random project and I don’t have to justify my choices, so behold, Lizzie and Laura about to get in trouble.

Have y’all read ‘The Goblin Market’? You very much should, it’s beautiful and a quick read, and you can find the full text here. I read it lots of times as a child and then not at all for a long time – it’s been sitting on my shelf for 20+ years and I just hadn’t picked it up again till I read ‘The Goblins of Bellwater’ (excellent modern fairytale, highly recommend) and the section quoted at the beginning made me go WHAT and pick it up again. I was a very oblivious child you guys. I was busy with the scary goblins and tempting fruit and hahahaha platonic sisterly love story omg tiny Nara.

I mean:

‘Evening by evening Among the brookside rushes, Laura bow’d her head to hear, Lizzie veil’d her blushes: Crouching close together In the cooling weather, With clasping arms and cautioning lips, With tingling cheeks and finger tips. “Lie close,” Laura said, Pricking up her golden head: “We must not look at goblin men, We must not buy their fruits: Who knows upon what soil they fed Their hungry thirsty roots?”

And then later, when Lizzie has braved the goblins and gotten covered in fairy fruit juice to save Laura:

‘She cried, “Laura,” up the garden, “Did you miss me? Come and kiss me. Never mind my bruises, Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices Squeez’d from goblin fruits for you, Goblin pulp and goblin dew. Eat me, drink me, love me; Laura, make much of me; For your sake I have braved the glen And had to do with goblin merchant men.”

So, yes, the poem both calls them sisters and very carefully points out that later in life they end up properly married with children but nope, sorry, ‘sisters’ in the same sense that the two doctors in Ballet Shoes are just spinster roommates.

#Nara Lesser #Neurotic Owl’s Faerytale Tarot #Two of Cups #Two #Cups #Minor Arcana #Tarot #Folklore #The Goblin Market #Goblin

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