#Half a Century of Poetry

[finelythreadedsky]

 On one level the book is about the life of a woman who is hardly more than a token in a great epic poem, on another it’s about how history and context shape how we are seen, and the brief moment there is to act between the inescapable past and the unknowable future. Perhaps to write Lavinia Le Guin had to live long enough to see her own early books read in a different context from the one where they were written, and to think about what that means.

-Jo Walton

[hanzajesthanza]

“the hanza never caught a break, they were treated so poorly by the narrative, sapkowski tortured them terribly”

they stayed in beauclair palace as incognito nobility for three straight months of dizzying dancing, feasting, and pouring wine down their throats*. and eating a sumptuous breakfast for two to three hours every single day together, hosting lazy mornings together day after day. strolling around the gardens. flirting with the knighthood. being the darlings of the duchess.

what i mean to say with this post is that though yes, geralt’s hanza died tragically, they got a moment of paradise to themselves, which they intentionally shared with each other, enjoying each others’ company.

we specifically have a canon three months of geralt’s hanza hanging out together in the most fairytale-like, magical place on the continent. it’s not like they go directly from hiding in the bushes in the swamps of angren to stygga castle.

so it’s astounding to me how little attention their winter snowed-in in beauclair seems to get by the fans 😭 (this isn’t admonishing, rather i’m trying to lift all of our spirits) guys, we have a period where they were not only alive, with one another, safe, but living very well and in good health**. and because they are fictional characters and not people, they can live immortally on the page and in the mind. stygga is their narrative end, but these three months can be forever, they can live in beauclair in your mind eternally if you so desire to imagine them there.

though their tragic end shouldn’t be forgotten or ignored. yes, in beauclair, they caught the biggest break of their lives—but the point of their team of heroes is that they willingly gave it all up, eagerly and gratefully tossed it aside—because they valued their quest and their leader (!) more.

——

* the wine thing applying to all except regis.

** yes, though their stay should be understood as being captive, they were captive in a paradise, which is a specific kind of captivity. it only began to really drive them mad by yuletide, when they had already spent a couple months there. i don’t think you cant say it’s the same as being held captive in the sense that, for example, yennefer was held captive—in a dark stone dungeon, tortured day-in-day-out.

[endiness]

conspiracy theory level up he’s actually co writing the new witcher book with andrzej sapkowski 😭

[mask131]

The truth about Medusa and her rape... Mythology breakdown time!

With the recent release of the Percy Jackson television series, Tumblr is bursting with mythological posts, and the apparition of Medusa the Gorgon has been the object of numerous talks throughout this website… Including more and more spreading of misinformation, and more debates about what is the “true” version of Medusa’s backstory.

Already let us make that clear: the idea that Medusa was actually “blessed” or “gifted” by Athena her petrifying gaze/snake-hair curse is to my knowledge not at all part of the Antique world. I still do not know exactly where this comes from, but I am aware of no Greek or Roman texts that talked about this – so it seems definitively a modern invention. After all, the figure of Medusa and her entire myth has been taken part, reinterpreted and modified by numerous modern women, feminist activist, feminist movements or artists engaged in the topic of women’s life and social conditions – most notably Medusa becoming the “symbol of raped women’ wrath and fury”. It is an interesting reading and a fascinating update of the ancient texts, and it is a worthy take on its own time and context – but today we are not talking about the posterity, reinvention and continuity of Medusa as a myth and a symbol. I want to clarify some points about the ACTUAL myth or legend of Medusa – the original tale, as told by the Greeks and then by the Romans.

Most specifically the question: Was Medusa raped?

Step 1: Yes, but no.

The backstory of Medusa you will find very often today, ranging from mythology manuals (vulgarization manuals of course) to Youtube videos, goes as such: Medusa was a priestess of Athena who got raped by Poseidon while in Athena’s temple, and as a result of this, Athena punished Medusa by turning her into the monstrous Gorgon.

Some will go even further claiming Athena’s “curse” wasn’t a punishment but a “gift” or blessing – and again, I don’t know where this comes from and nobody seems to be able to give me any reliable source for that, so… Let’s put this out of there.

Now this backstory – famous and popular enough to get into Riodan’s book series for example – is partially true. There are some elements here very wrong – and by wrong I do mean wrong.

The story of Medusa being raped and turned into a monster due to being raped does indeed exist, and it is the most famous and widespread of all the Medusa stories, the one people remembered for the longest time and wrote and illustrated the most about. Hence why Medusa became in the 20th century this very important cultural symbol tied to rape and the abuse of women and victim-blaming. HOWEVER – the origin of this story is Ovid’s Metamorphoses, from the first century CE or so. Ovid? A Roman poet writing for Roman people. “Metamorphoses”? One of the two fundamental works of Roman literature and one of the two main texts of Roman mythology, alongside Virgil’s Aeneid. This is a purely Roman story belonging to the Roman culture – and not the Greek one. The story of Medusa’s rape does not have Greek precedents to my knowledge, Ovid introduced the element of rape – which is no surprise given Ovid turned half of the romances of Greek mythology into rapes. Note that, on top of all this, Ovid wasn’t even writing for religious purposes, nor was his text an actual mythological effort – he wrote it with pure literary intentions at heart. It is just a piece of poetry and literature taking inspiration from the legends of the Greek world, not some sort of sacred text.

Second big point: The legend I summarized above? It isn’t even the story Ovid wrote, since there are a lot of elements that do not come from Ovid’s retelling of the story (book fourth of the Metamorphoses). For example Ovid never said Medusa was a priestess of Athena – all he said was that she was raped in the temple of Athena. I shouldn’t even be writing Athena since again, this is a Roman text: we are speaking of Minerva here, and of Neptune, not of Athena or Poseidon. Similarly, Minerva’s curse did not involve the petrifying gaze – rather all Ovid wrote about was that Minerva turned Medusa’s hair into snakes, to “punish” her because her hair were very beautiful, and it was what made her have many suitors (none of which she wanted to marry apparently), and it is also implied it is what made Neptune fall in love (or rather fall in lust) with her. I guess it is from this detail that the reading of “Athena’s curse was a gift” comes from – even though this story also clearly does victim-blaming of rape here.

But what is very fascinating is that… we are not definitively sure Neptune raped Medusa in Ovid’s retelling. For sure, the terms used by Ovid in his fourth book of Metamorphoses are clear: this was an action of violating, sexually assaulting, of soiling and corrupting, we are talking about rape. But Ovid refers several other times to Medusa in his other books, sometimes adding details the fourth-book stories does not have (the sixth book for examples evokes how Neptune turned into a bird to seduce Medusa, which is completely absent from the fourth book’s retelling of Medusa’ curse). And in all those other mentions, the terms to designate the relationship between Medusa and Neptune are more ambiguous, evoking seduction and romance rather than physical or sexual assault. (It does not help that Ovid has an habit of constantly confusing consensual and non-consensual sex in his poems, meaning that a rape in one book can turn into a romance in another, or reversal)

But the latter fact makes more sense when you recall that the rape element was invented and added by Ovid. Before, yes Poseidon and Medusa loved each other, but it was a pure romance, or at least a consensual one-night. Heck, if we go back to the oldest records of the love between Poseidon and Medusa, back in Hesiod’s Theogony, we have descriptions of the two of them laying together in a beautiful, flowery meadow – a stereotypical scene of pastoral romances – with no mention of any brutality or violence of any sort. As a result, it makes sense the original “romantic” story would still “leak” or cast a shadow over Ovid’s reinvented and slightly-confused tale.

Step 2: So… no rape?

Well, if we go by Greek texts, no, apparently Medusa was not raped in Greek mythology, and only became a rape victim through Ovid.

The Ancient Greek texts all record Poseidon and Medusa sleeping with each other and having children, but no mention of rape. And the whole “curse of Athena” thing is not present in the oldest records – no temple of Athena soiling, no angry Athena cursing a poor girl… “No curse?” you say “But then how did Medusa got turned into a Gorgon”? Answer: she did not. She was born like that.

As I said before, the oldest record of Medusa’s romance but also of her family comes from Hesiod’s Theogony (Hesiod being one of the two “founding authors” of Greek mythology, alongside Homer – Homer did wrote several times about Medusa, but only as a disembodied head and as a monster already dead, so we don’t have any information about her life). And what do we learn? That Medusa is part of a set of three sisters known as the Gorgons – because oh yes, Ovid did not mention Medusa’s sister now did he? How did Medusa’s sisters ALSO got snake-hair or petrifying-gaze if only Medusa was cursed for sleeping with Neptune? Ovid does not give us any answer because again, it is an “adaptational plot hole”, and the people that try to adapt Ovid’s story have to deal with the slight problem of Stheno and Euryale needing to share their sister’s curse despite seemingly not being involved in the whole Neptune business. Anyway, back to the Greek text.

So, you have those three Gorgon sisters, and Medusa is said to be mortal while her sisters are not. Why is it such a big deal? Because Medusa wasn’t originally some random human or priestess. Oh no! Who were the Gorgons’ parents? Phorcys and Keto/Ceto, aka two sea-gods. Not just two sea-gods – two sea-gods of the ancient, primordial generation of sea-gods, the one that predated Poseidon, and that were cousins to the Titans, the sea-gods born of Gaia mating with Pontos.

So the Gorgons were “divine” of nature – and this is why Medusa being a mortal was considered to be a MASSIVE problem and handicap for her, an abnormal thing for the daughter of two deities. But let’s dig a bit further… Who were Phorcys and Ceto? Long story short: in Greek mythology, they were considered to be sea-equivalents of Typhon and Gaia. They were the parents of many monsters and many sea-horrors: Keto/Ceto herself had her name attributed and equated with any very large creature (like whales) or any terrifying monster (like dragons) from the sea. The Gorgons themselves was a trio of monsters, but their sisters, that directly act as their double in the myth of Perseus? The Graiai – the monstrous trio of old women sharing one eye and one tooth. Hesiod also drops the fact that Ladon (the dragon that guarded the golden apples of the Hesperids), and Echidna (the snake-woman that mated with Typhon and became known as the “mother of monsters”) were also children of Phorcys and Ceto, while other authors will add other monster-related characters such as Scylla (of Charybdis and Scylla fame), the sirens, or Thoosa (the mother of Polyphemus the cyclop). Medusa herself is technically a “mother of monsters” since she birthed both Pegasus the flying horse and Chrysaor, a giant. So here is something very important to get: Medusa, and the Gorgons, were part of a family of monsters. Couple that with the absence of any mention of curses in these ancient texts, and everything is clear.

Originally Medusa was not a woman cursed to become a monster: she was born a monster, part of a group of monster siblings, birthed by monster-creating deities, and she belonged to the world of the “primordial abominations from the sea”, and the pre-Olympian threats, the remnants of the primordial chaos. It is no surprise that the Gorgons were said to live at the edge of the very known world, in the last patch of land before the end of the universe – in the most inhuman, primitive and liminal area possible. They were full-on monsters!

Now you might ask why Poseidon would sleep with a horrible monster, especially when you recall that the Greeks loved to depict the Gorgons as truly bizarre and grotesque. It wasn’t just snake-hair and petrifying gaze: they had boar tusks, and metallic claws, and bloated eyes, and a long tongue that constantly hanged down their bearded chin, and very large heads – some very old depictions even show her with a female centaur body! In fact, the ancient texts imply that it wasn’t so much the Gorgon’s gaze or eyes that had the power to turn people into stone – but that rather the Gorgon was just so hideous and so terrifying to look at people froze in terror – and then literally turned into stone out of fear and disgust. We are talking Lovecraftian level of eldritch horror here. So why would Poseidon, an Olympian god, sleep with one of these horrors? Well… If you know your Poseidon it wouldn’t surprise you too much because Poseidon had a thing for monsters. As a sort of “dark double” of Zeus, whereas Zeus fell in love with beautiful princesses and noble queens and birthed great gods and brave heroes, Poseidon was more about getting freaky with all sorts of unusual and bizarre goddesses, and giving birth to bandits and monsters. A good chunk of the villains of Greek mythology were born out of Poseidon’s loins: Polyphemus, Antaios, Orion, Charybdis, the Aloads… And even his most benevolent offspring has freaky stuff about it – Proteus the shapeshifter or Triton half-man half-fish… So yes, Poseidon sleeping with an abominable Gorgon is not so much out of character.

Step 3: The missing link

Now that we established what Medusa started out as, and what she ended up as… We need to evoke the evolution from point Hesiod to point Ovid, because while people summarized the Medusa debate as “Sea-born monster VS raped and punished woman”, there is a third element needed to understand this whole situation…

Yes Ovid did invent the rape. But he did not invent the idea that Medusa had been cursed by Athena.

The “gorgoneion” – the visual and artistic motif of the Gorgon’s head – was, as I said, a grotesque and monstrous face used to invoke fright into the enemies or to repel any vile influence or wicked spirit by the principle of “What’s the best way to repel bad stuff? Badder stuff”. Your Gorgon was your gargoyle, with all the hideous traits I described before – represented in front (unlike all the other side-portraits of gods and heroes), with the face being very large and flat, a big tongue out of a tusked-mouth, snake-hair, bulging crazy eyes, sometimes a beard or scales… Pure monster. But then… from the fifth century BCE to the second century BCE we see a slow evolution of the “gorgoneion” in art. Slowly the grotesque elements disappear, and the Gorgon’s face becomes… a regular, human face. Even more: it even becomes a pretty woman’s face! But with snakes instead of hair. As such, the idea that Medusa was a gorgeous woman who just had snakes and cursed-eyes DOES come from Ancient Greece – and existed well before Ovid wrote his rape story.

But what was the reason behind this change?

Well, we have to look at the Roman era again. Ovid’s tale of Medusa being cursed for her rape at the hands of Neptune had to rival with another record collected by a Greek author Apollodorus, or Pseudo-Apollodorus, in his Bibliotheca. In this collection of Greek myths, Apollodorus writes that indeed, Medusa was cursed by Athena to have her beautiful hair that seduced everybody be turned into snakes… But it wasn’t because of any rape or forbidden romance, no. It was just because Medusa was a very vain woman who liked to brag about her beauty and hair – and had the foolish idea of saying her hair looked better than Athena’s. (If you recall tales such as Arachne’s or the Judgement of Paris, you will know that despite Athena being wise and clever, one of her main flaws is her vanity).

“Wait a minute,” you are going to tell me, “The Bibliotheca was created in the second century CE! Well after Greece became part of the Roman Empire, and after Ovid’s Metamorphoses became a huge success! It isn’t a true Greek myth, it is just Ovid’s tale being projected here…” And people did agree for a time… Until it was discovered, in the scholias placed around the texts of Apollonios of Rhodes, that an author of the fifth century BCE named Pherecyde HAD recorded in his time a version of Medusa’s legend where she had been cursed into becoming an ugly monster as punishment for her vanity. We apparently do not have the original text of Pherecyde, but the many scholias referring to this lost piece are very clear about this. This means that the story that Apollodorus recorded isn’t a “novelty”, but rather the latest record of an older tradition going back to the fifth century BCE… THE SAME CENTURY THAT THE GORGONEION STARTED LOSING THEIR GROTESQUE, and that the face of Medusa started becoming more human in art.

[EDIT: I also forgot to add that this evolution of Medusa is also proved by strange literary elements, such as Pindar's mention in a poem of his (around 490 BCE) of "fair-cheeked Medusa". A description which seems strange given how Medusa used to be depicted as the epitome of ugliness... But that makes sense if the "cursed beauty" version of the myth had been going around at the time!]

And thus it is all connected and explained. Ovid did invent the rape yes – but he did not invent the idea of Athena cursing Medusa. It pre-existed as the most “recent” and dominating legend in Ancient Greece, having overshadowed by Ovid’s time the oldest Hesiodic records of Medusa being born a monster. So what Ovid did wasn’t completely create a new story out of nowhere, but twist the Greek traditions of Athena cursing Medusa and Medusa having a relationship with Poseidon, so that the two legends would form one and same story. And this explains in retrospect why Ovid focuses so much on describing Medusa’s beautiful hair, and why Ovid’s Minerva would think turning her hair into snake would be a “punishment fit for the crime”: these are leftovers of the Greek tale where Medusa was punished for her boasting and her vanity.

CONCLUSION

Here is the simplified chronology of how Medusa’s evolution went.

A) Primitive Greek myths, Hesiodic tradition: Born a monster out of a family of sea-monsters and monstrous immortals. Is a grotesque, gargoylesque, eldritch abomination. Athena has only an indirect conflict with her, due to being Perseus’ “fairy godmother”. Has a lovely romance with Poseidon.

B) Slow evolution throughout Classical Greece and further: Medusa becomes a beautiful, human-looking girl that was cursed to have snake for hair and petrifying eyes, instead of being a Lovecraftian horror people could not gaze upon. Her conflict with Athena becomes direct, as it is Athena that cursed her due to being offended by her vain boasting. Her punishment is for her vanity and arrogant comparison to the goddess.

C) Ovid comes in: Medusa’s romance with Poseidon becomes a rape, and she is now punished for having been raped inside Athena’s temple.

[As a final note, I want to insist upon the fact that the story of Medusa being raped is not less "worthy" than any other version of the myth. Due to its enormous popularity, how it shaped the figure of Medusa throughout the centuries, and how it still survives today and echoes current-day problems, to try to deny the valid place of this story in the world of myths and legends would be foolish. HOWEVER it is important to place back things in their context, to recognize that it is not the ONLY tale of Medusa, that it was NOT part of Greek mythology, but rather of Roman legends - and let us all always remember this time Poseidon slept with a Lovecraftian horror because my guy is kinky.]

EDIT:

For illustration, I will place here visuals showing how the Ancient art evolved alongside Medusa's story.

Before the 5th century BCE: Medusa is a full-on monster

From the 5th century to the 2nd century BCE: A slow evolution as Medusa goes from a full-on monster to a human turned into a monster. As a result the two depictions of the grotesque and beautiful gorgoneion coexist.

Post 2nd century BCE: Medusa is now a human with snake hair, and just that

[biromanticbookbabe]

2023 Pinterest 50 Book Reading Challenge

15. A Book By an Author You Love but You Haven't Read Yet

Fear of Flying by Erica Jong

[returnsandreturns]

Crowley’s teased Aziraphale for centuries about not reading books exclusively because he likes the little crease he gets between his eyebrows when he doesn’t like how Crowley is behaving. He rarely gets to see it these days and it doesn’t show up as much as you’d think with some of the behaving Crowley does but the second he lounges against a shelf and says, “Dunno why you waste your time with all these books when television exists,” he’s sure to catch a glimpse of it. 

“They do the reading for you, angel,” he says. “And there’s–explosions and things. You know, ka-boom.”

He makes a little exploding motion with his hands and Aziraphale levels him with a look that would immediately scare off a mere mortal who just wanted to casually browse in a bookshop with an open sign right on the door. 

“This feels like blasphemy,” he says, “and I won’t have it in my bookshop.” 

“Oh, you let me blaspheme all the time until it’s about books,” Crowley says, trying not to smile too hard when Aziraphale’s glare turns into a pout. 

There’s an inevitability to books, though, with the amount of free time he’s created for himself and the amount of time he spends adjacent to them. He’ll leave the bookshop with paperbacks shoved in his back pocket, hidden by his jacket, always half expecting the angel to catch him as he’s leaving. His reaction would have been so complicated. Stealing is bad but reading is good. That’s the kind of black and white thinking you're taught upstairs. The gray of whether the virtue of reading overrides the sin of stealing is something Aziraphale is good at. A little puzzle that ends with the answer being libraries or politely asking.

The jig is up when Aziraphale happens upon him in the park, sprawled out under a tree with a copy of Tipping the Velvet, so engrossed in it that he doesn’t even notice until Aziraphale is standing over him. 

“Shit,” Crowley says, startled, dropping the book. “Since when do you loom?” 

“Since when do you read?” Aziraphale asks, like he’s just been given the most delightful gift he’s ever received. 

“. . .I steal,” Crowley says, sitting up on his elbows and raising his eyebrows. “From an angel’s bookshop, which is, I assume, doubly a sin. If I happen to glance through my stolen goods, that’s my business.”  

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, warmly, sitting a shopping bag down before moving to sit next to him. “Are there many paperbacks on my bookshelves?” 

“. . .just the occasional one lying around, I suppose,” Crowley says, suspiciously. 

“And why do you suppose that?” Aziraphale prompts. 

“. . .did you trick me into literacy?” Crowley asks, gasping.

“I merely placed books I thought you might enjoy around for you to make the choice,” Aziraphale says, adorably pleased with himself.

“Well, that’s familiar,” Crowley says, laughing. “You tempted me into literacy.” 

“Do you like this one?” Aziraphale asks, ignoring that and picking up the book, the broken spine immediately healing under his touch.

“I might,” Crowley says, defensively, then groans. “Oh, fuck, I lost my page.” 

“I miracled a bookmark before it hit the ground,” Aziraphale says, handing it back to him, and Crowley flips it open to see a black bookmark embossed with his initials and a lovely snake pattern, laughing.

“Satan help me,” he says, smiling at him, “but I kind of like this side of you. Bit of petty mischief. It’s cute.” 

“. . .could I tempt you into something else, perhaps?” Aziraphale asks, slowly. 

“Lunch?” Crowley asks. 

Instead of answering, Aziraphale reaches out to cup his cheek and kiss him, soft at first but then Crowley kisses him back, trying to hold back the impulses of thousands of years worth of not kissing Aziraphale as Aziraphale presses him down into the grass. 

Of course it was books that finally did it. 

“If I’d taken your suggestion to read all those poetry books you were pushing on me back in the eighteenth century, would you have done this then?” he asks, when they finally take a break. 

“Well, darling, if you must know, they were love poems,” Aziraphale says, despairingly, starting to sit up again until Crowley drags him back on top of him.

“I’ll read any poem you want, angel,” he says, hushed, “just don’t stop.” 

“Dangerous thing to say, darling,” Aziraphale says, kissing him softly on the forehead.

[lychniis]

⚘— DUE RESPITE.

i. SYNOPSIS : he demands his affection. it's long overdue, in his opinion. ( jing yuan x reader ) // evenfall event - prompt xi ( ❛ honey, just put your sweet lips on my lips.❜ ) + daisy.

ii. WARNING(S) : mild mentions of blood and one fucked up appendix, this is lowkey selfship coded, reader is a doctor and is lowkey tired too, jing yuan is just a wee bit touchy, a tiiiny hint of angst. very small but i swear but it's all fluff and sweet talking.

# masterlist

“Come here.” 

He smiles in indulgence, fingers pattering playfully over hardwood. You consider his request, sugar melting over your tongue with the passing moment. You reach out for more candy as the twisting in your gut persists. A wingbeat draws your attention again. Jing Yuan is still staring straight at you.

“Why?” you ask carefully.

“Let me kiss you.” Blunt, to the point, so unlike the lilting riddles he’d spin and confuse you with. You shake your head. 

“I smell of blood.” you’d overseen the surgery of one insistent patient, a short lifer whose stomach cramps stemmed from an inflamed appendix. Even after washing yourself down you can’t quite rid the tang iron rimming your fingertips. 

Jing Yuan laughs. To him, everything may as well be a joke. Or a threat. Or a simple amusement. You consider it the happy experience of going senile with age ( you had expressed it to him. He’d laughed even harder till the birds in his hair clear out and his shoulders shook and trembled like his being was wracked with earthquakes ).

“Trust me, I’ve smelled far worse.” he assures you, leaning forth to take your hand, his lips pressing up against the palm. “Come.” A tug. You’re a slave to the way his eyes shine. You hate how he has you so easily stringed up and weak for his words ( your heart is racing, it’s a traitorous little thing ripping away at your chest and stealing your breath and warming your cheeks ).

His large hands settle you easily on his lap, drumming staccato over your hips. His lips find your temple next. “Darling mine.” he whispers. “Darling mine.”

“Yes.”

Jing Yuan smiles and shuts his eyes, curling his grip around the hook of your legs. The action in firm, steady, half patient, half wanting. “Look at me.”

You turn your head away.

He presses his face to your hair. “No?” he intones with feigned disappointment. “I cannot see your face?”

“No.” you play along, reaching for more of the rock candy. Jing Yuan stops you, and it’s warm, warm, warm all over. There’s is something tempered in his gaze. It’s a lazy adoration. 

“Is there any way I can appease my beloved then?” he muses. “Should I beg on my knees? Wax poetry?”

You groan. “No, no poetry, Jing Yuan.”

“No poetry either? My, you are a tough case, aren’t you?” he’s sweeping you away from the floor, draped on his lap and his chest. Your grasp lays upon his heart. You feel it beat. Your head turns and you face him, lips pursing as you try to stifle back the flustered curl tugging at the corners. “There.” he whispers. A finger taps at your jaw. 

He lets you close the gap and steal away gaping kisses.

“I’m weak for you, aren’t i?” you mumble mournfully between them. Jing Yuan softens to it. “An utter fool. An idiot.”

“Maybe. But I’d be a hypocrite for belittling you for it, no?” he’s chasing after your lips again in a rare moment of greed. He’s not a selfish man. Jing Yuan would let himself be rend by a thousand swords or scorched by starfire if it means another lives a life in peace. It’s a simple truth nestled in him, so blatant in its presence yet artfully tucked away beneath paraphernalia and other quirks picked over the centuries. 

( Jing Yuan who’d let himself bleed, bleed, bleed. )

Your nose nuzzles at the column of his neck. You will not be thinking of tragedy today. “Just keep holding me.”

His eyes crinkle at the corners. He is flesh and blood in your grasp. he is whole. He is him.

The respite is welcomed.

❪⠀🎬⠀❫ AINE SPEAKS ;;

working through this event like the damn aventurine boss jk jk. anyway i am ill for this man and i want him to hold me thank you.

anyway, this evenfall post was requested by @floraldresvi!! i hope you like it!!!

if you’d like to be added to the taglist, fill this form up!

taglist — @dustofthedailylife @meimeimeirin @silentmoths @crystalflygeo @ofoceansandtombsanew

AINE | 2024. do no plagiarize, repost or rework this piece.

[therrion-jof]

Jaskier and Pegasos,Lettenhove,1270

After everything is done, Jaschiere goes back to Lettenhove.

Pegasos is the only companion he has with him on his all adventure, so he occasionally takes his horse around to recall his adventures and write half a century of poetry.

While writing, they sometimes takes a nap.

Lettehove is estate of fea, so Jaskier's body is changed back before he left.

[creative-type]

The Romanticism of One Piece

I’m always amazed by how Oda has managed to stay thematically consistent for more than two decades while writing a thousand plus chapter epic about silly pirates having fun chasing their dreams. One Piece, at its core, is about the dawn of a romantic adventure, and its been that way since volume one, chapter one.

But romance is one of those terms whose meaning as shifted over the years and is drastically misunderstood. So what is literary romance, and how does One Piece fit within its framework?

Well buckle up, folks. This is gonna be a long one.

Romanticism as a movement started in the late 18th century, and is described by Isaiah Berlin as the “the greatest single shift in the consciousness of the West”. The modern ideas of childhood, imagination,  and sentimentality were born here. It’s a rejection of society’s constraints in favor of impossible yearning for impossible goals. Romantics were restless and passionate, and embraced the magnitude of their feeling over the scientific rigors of the Age of Reason.

Sound familiar?

Romanticism gets its name from the old medieval ballads (themselves written in the Romantic languages) that became popular with the growing movement. The 19th century was a period of incredible change. Industrialization, urbanization, and the development of the middle class were all new. Revolution, both industrial and political, was changing the course of the world forever. The Romantics worshiped heroes of the past (in fact, the term hero worship was coined during this time) and sought a return to nature. William Wordsworth famously lobbied against the building of railways in his beloved Lake District, and much of the art of the time, whether it be painting or poetry, focused heavily on man’s relation with nature

In addition to rebelling against traditional political structures, the Romantics also broke away from the traditional religious teaching, many believing that man found enlightenment not through theology or the bible, but by study and attunement with nature. One of proto-Romantic writer Jean-Jaques Rousseau’s most influential works Emile, or On Education was banned in parts of Europe and even publicly burned due to its ideas on natural religion.

All of this leads to the Romantic pursuit of the sublime. While Enlightenment thinkers would often attempt to remove themselves emotionally from what they were experiencing in order to understand said experience through objective, immutable fact, the Romantics sought emotion, awe, and reverence that transcended rational thought. They celebrated and marveled at the wonders of creation, allowing themselves to be consumed by emotion and experience. These were not stoic people, and its here where One Piece truly begins to shine as a work of Romantic art

The world of One Piece, particularly once the story gets to the Grand Line, is chalk full of impossible wonder and whimsy. Each island visited along the journey is a feast for the eyes, and Oda’s art does each distinct and incredible location every justice. Luffy has no desire to see the boring or everyday, and he has no qualm in expressing his excitement everywhere he goes. Oda has made the conscious decision never to let the reader look into Luffy’s thoughts via thought bubbles, but the audience is still able to connect with him because they are always aware of what he he is feeling. Every smile takes up half his face, every sadness drawn as a sniveling wreck. Logical ideas are routinely rejected in favor of desired experiences, and Luffy himself rejects the opportunity to hear the answer to the series’s biggest questions because to him, the journey is more important.

It’s important that Luffy’s mindset isn’t all that common, even a world as wild and wacky as One Piece. As the Jaya arc proves, Roger’s execution initially inspired a generation of pirates to go out and follow their dreams, but in the twenty years since his death that ideaolgy has crumbled under the weight of a new wave of dreamless pragmaticism, the same way the Romantic movement gave way to the Realists who followed. 

Luffy’s Romantic spirit stands out, even amongst the Straw Hat Pirates. Many of the Straw Hat’s character arcs involve Luffy helping to remove the blocks that prevent them from living out their Romantic ideals. As the series progresses, the crew inches towards embodying that freedom of spirit that Luffy exemplifies. What that looks like for each crewmate is different (Romanticism is highly individualistic, after all) but they’re given the opportunity to live out that ideal because of their association with Luffy.

This theme of freedom of expression and pursuit of dreams follows the Straw Hats wherever they go on both the micro and macro level. The Romantic pursuit of self-determination bleeds over nearly every arc with Luffy at its epicenter, until it comes to a crescendo during the Wano arc, when the true nature of Luffy’s fruit comes to light for the first time.

Luffy is the beating heart of One Piece’s Romanticism. He specifically imbues many of the Romantic ideals of childhood, such as innocence, joy, and being unprejudiced by a corrupting society. He’s uncomplicated yet passionate, without a care in the world for what anyone else thinks about him, and because of that disregard for authority he comes off as equal parts wise and naive.

In Emile, Rousseau lays out his idea of childhood education, which doesn’t include a classroom so much as the child’s interaction with the world, emphasizing the senses and building on the child’s own observations and inferences. The Romantic child was instinctual and in tune with nature, and a character like Luffy growing up on the fringes of society while spending most of his time romping around in the woods would not be out of place (see Mary Robinson’s The Savage of Aveyron, based on the real story of a feral boy that had been found in France).

What makes Luffy different is that he never loses that simplicity of character even as he interacts with an increasingly complex world. Yes, he matures both as a person and a captain, bearing the weight of terrible loss and difficult decisions, but he does it still while maintaining that curious mix of selfish desire to do whatever he wants and selfless sacrifice towards the people he cares about. Luffy doesn’t want to be a hero, but remains uncorrupted by the malevolent social hierarchies that rule One Piece’s world.

But for all the ways One Piece is a Romantic story, the philosophy of the series departs in several key places. The Romantics of the late 18th and 19th centuries were reacting to the anxieties brought around by the Industrial Revolution and the subsequent urbanization that came along with it, while One Piece belongs squarely to the post-modern era of the 21st. While both glorify a long-gone past, what that past looks like is very different. One Piece fully embraces technology and progress, as best seen during the conflict between Noland and Calgura in the Skypia flashback. While industrialization is sometimes portrayed negatively (see Wano) it’s just as likely to be seen in a positive light (Water 7), and the mysterious civilization of the Void Century was more technologically advanced than the present day manga, not less.

What’s more important than modernization and technological advance is the ways people use said technology. The beautifully rendered locations along the Straw Hat’s journey are just as likely to be vast stretches of wilderness as bustling metropolises, and that search of wonder and the sublime is equally likely to be found in both.

More importantly, I think, is that the Romantics of old were solitary creatures, brooding and isolated from the people around them. There was a preoccupation of creating art devoid of outside influence. The sublime was a deeply personal experience that by its very nature could not be shared with others. Melancholy, loss, solitude, and death were preoccupations of the Romantic mind, the price of visionary genius being social isolation.

One of the most famous Romantic heroes of the 19th century was Thomas Chatterton, a young genius of a poet who, in the midst of poverty and depression killed himself at the age of 17. He was immortalized in paintings and poems, and his influence can be felt to this day by the persistence of the trope of the suffering artist that he, and countless others, helped codify.

One Piece is the story of a boy who rejects the confines of society in search of his own freedom, but he does not do so alone. Luffy is driven as much by the desire to be with his friends as he is by his desire to find the One Piece. The series agrees that risking death is an acceptable part of chasing ones dream, but rejects the notion that it should be sought out or celebrated. It’s better to live an undignified life in the hope of a better tomorrow than to give into an easy death.

And that’s the fascinating part about how philosophies evolve over time, because as much as One Piece borrows from the Romantic era of the 18 and 19th centuries, it isn’t a Romantic story, just as how no amount of research and copying of style could ever turn a historical novel written today into a product of the era its trying to emulate. Oda has taken an old idea and made it into something new, using that idea as the guide for the entire series. Like sun, guiding to the dawn of a new era.

A Romance dawn, if you will. 

[radiofreederry]

Happy birthday, Langston Hughes! (February 1, 1901)

One of the most innovative and celebrated Black poets in American history, Langston Hughes was an influential leader in the period known as the Harlem Renaissance, in which Black art and literature began to flourish and gain new prominence. Hughes’ poetry often dealt with social issues, particularly with regards to racial inequality and the status of Black Americans as unequal citizens, and the struggles faced by working-class Black people in America. In part due to his experiences in segregated America, Hughes was sympathetic and supportive of communism, as in the first half of the 20th Century the Communist Party was the only political party unreservedly and resolutely in favor of racial equality. While never a member of the party himself, Hughes associated with it, and his work was frequently published in the party’s newspapers. Hughes traveled to the Soviet Union and served as a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War for a Black newspaper. Though his radicalism diminished in later years, Hughes remains highly influential and acclaimed.

“Good morning, Revolution: You’re the very best friend I ever had. We gonna pal around together from now on.”

[endiness]

But the truth is that the incident that was the catalyst for those first notes, from which my work later began, was a coincidence - namely that a pencil and paper were among the things my companions and I had stolen from the camp of the troops of Lyria. And so it came to pass... Dandelion, Half a Century of Poetry

[letsgetrowdy43]

My sweet boy ☆—

Request: 🐞Warren gets his first girlfriend and Honey gets emotional cause her baby is growing up.

Picture this!! Warren x Black Cat character

Au Masterlist!!

Growing up Warren was always a shy boy. He was popular in the sense that he was extremely talented in his sport, the one that his father and uncles were also stars in, and the one that had news outlets buzzing about him and the generational talent they claimed him to be. But no news article or tabloid would ever capture just how humble and timid he was.

So when Warren Hughes eventually brought home a girl, everyone within the Hughes' family and friends was shocked.

The girl in question was Marissa, who happened to be so far away from Warren's usual world, but she was perfect for him. She held little to no knowledge about the hockey world, which was something Warren almost preferred, no pressure, no expectation, just her poetry books and detective fiction. Her mother was a professor at UBC, head of the English facility, specializing in nineteenth-century literature, leading Marissa to her love of Poe's work. And she, well she was just some literature junkie who craved a fiction-like love. which she received from one of the purest hearts in her lifetime.

Marissa had always been the pinnacle of his desires, he'd be lying if he said that he hadn't pined after her for the better half of middle school and high school. Something about her awkwardly blunt demeanour, and warm smile made him forget his name, made him forget the entire English language in fact.

Warren asked her out in their shared bio class, his face a very cute shade of pink as he stuttered about wanting to take her out for coffee. Her eyes went wide at his invitation, she was weird, she was deliberately known as the weird girl in their graduating class so to Marissa she was either living a dream or he was trying to set her up for some sick joke.

If you had told her within the next month she would've fallen absolutely head over heels for him, she would've said that you were lying, but it was true. Warren Hughes, the infamous hockey himbo, was the easiest person to fall in love with. In the span of the first month, she had met his family, kissed him at the fair, and somehow convinced him to try reading classics.

He prom-proposed to her in April of that year, nothing spectacular just a bouquet of tulips and a few shared kisses as they drove around the coast of Vancouver in her mom's car. Warren was her passenger Princess, and she was the keeper of his heart, it was perfect in the ways that they were total opposites but so right for each other all at the same time. It was like from pen to paper, and then to real life, a portrayal of the purest fictional love.

Honey loved Marissa, she was always respectful, and a pleasant guest in the house, but most importantly she had brought a little more love into Warren's life. It had been his draft year, and just like most boys who have the spotlight turned on them, Warren was seemingly losing a sense of his being within the media and the articles. But Marissa changed that, and Honey quite literally loved her for that.

The woman stood in the living room, tears in her eyes as she fixed her son's tie, “it's almost as if you do this for every game day,” she teased as her hands flattened out the collar of his dress shirt. “I said I could do it, just want it to be perfect,” he mumbled as she smiled, her hands cupping her son's face as she scrunched up his face. "for my health, please stop growing," she said, voice growing weaker as the tears started, Quinn and Hayden came into the room, all dressed up and ready for the picture portion of the night.

"When did Marissa's family say that they would be here?" Quinn asked as Honey found her at her husband's side, trying to dry her tears as she watched her once baby fix his styled hair. He looked down at his phone, "They should be here any minute," he shrugged before a quiet knock on the door made him freeze, cheeks blazing red as the anxiety of prom night kicked in.

Honey opened the door with a beaming smile, "perfect timing!" she said pulling Marissa's mother into a hug as she ushered the young girl's family into the house.

Marissa looked beautiful, there were far better words to put just how good she looked, but Warren couldn't think of a single one. She wore a pale yellow dress, lace and tool decorating the skirt and shaping her hips, showing just enough cleavage to seem modest but still teasing what she had. Her hair fell so perfectly just above her shoulder, bangs styled the usual way but were accentuated with the metal headband she wore, little stars forming a crown on her head as she smiled at her boyfriend whose face lit up like a candle.

"Hi," she whispered from the other side of the door frame, Warren's body blocking her from entering the house, stuck in an anxious trance that made her stomach roll with nerves, "you okay?" He shook his head, riding himself off the dazed expression and smiling shyly, "You look perfect," he mumbled making her smirk. "Don't look so bad yourself handsome," she said with some more confidence, raising up on her tiptoes to press and gloss-covered kiss to his cheek, making his face blush a much deeper red.

He took her by the hand and led her into the living room where the two families waited for them. A gasp left Honey's lips as she saw them both, tears in her eyes as she watched Warren spin the girl around, his cheeks rosy and face broken out into a grin as his girlfriend hugged herself closer to his side. The two of them grew anxious under their families' stares as both dads tried to hurry up the picture taking process and getting 'the show on the road, so they could be early for the grand march portion of the night.

"Quinn," Honey whispered through her smile, "look how happy our baby is, let him have a moment," she said quietly before pressing a kiss to her husband's cheek. "Remember when we were that young," he grinned thinking back to their prom when Honey spent months being mad at him. Even though they weren't together at the time, he'd promised to take her to prom if neither of them were in relationships, the time came and he never asked, just assuming they were going together. She spent weeks mad that he had forgotten about her, until the night before when he asked what time she wanted to be picked up. "Yeah when you forgot to ask me to prom," she laughed as his lips formed a straight line. "I wasn't the brightest," he shrugged making his wife laugh, thinking about the very couple-looking prom photos that hung in her living room for years, constant teasing from their sibling about how in love they looked even with the lack of established relationship.

They took photos out by the trees in their front yards, tiny pink petals blossoming on the branches as each family took photos with their respective child and then the two of them taking photos together. Honey held it together for all of her photos and broke the moment Warren dipped Marissa as she placed a kiss on his cheek for a photo.

Her hand covered her mouth to muffle her cries as she leaned against Quinn, "thought you said you weren't gonna cry, only during the grad ceremony," the man mused as she nudged Quinn's side. "Shut up, our baby is grown and in love, I hate it," she sniffed, "remember when took him home from the hospital and our moms were gushing over how much he looked like you? I miss him being that small," she whispered as Quinn laughed and wrapped his arm around her, hugging her into his side as she wiped the tears. "I do too, but now he's a whole person, and we helped shape him into that person" he grinned as Warren shook Marissa's father's hand, and was pulled into a hug by her mother, "and I'd say we did a pretty good job."

Warren placed a kiss on Marissa's cheek as she went to talk to her family and Warren went to his. "Is it okay if I drive my truck to the school, therefore we don't have to rely on you guys to pick us up?" Honey nodded and looked at Quinn. "You're not drinking if you drive?" "Of course not," he shrugged, "We don't know if we are even going to the grad party but if we do and I drive I won't drink, and if I want to I will call one of you," Quinn smiled and nodded as he squeezed his son's shoulder. "Deal, now go have fun," he approved with a grin as Warren ran into the house to grab his keys.

Quinn grinned at Honey, "I'd say we did an amazing job," he bragged causing Honey to cry even more. "Please stop talking Q," she groaned as she led the way to their car, saying their goodbyes to Marissa's family as they got into the van. They watched as Warren opened the passenger side door for the young girl who blushed at his actions, got into his car and drove off in the direction of the school.

Honey couldn't stop the growing, it was inevitable, but she could join along for the ride, watching as her son turned from one of the sweetest boys into a caring man.

-

-

-

[that-one-gay-writer1227]

Hi! Good day I hope I'm not bothering you. Can I make a request about a Yan Venti x reader with a breeding kink? Hehehehe

His and Only His

A/N: Thank you so much for this request Anon! Don't worry, you're not bothering me! I actually had a lot of fun writing this request, so if anything your submission made my day a wee bit better! I wasn't sure if you wanted fem, masc, or neutral reader so I went ahead and wrote it as neutral but fem-bodied. I hope you don't mind! Also I apologize for the delay, I've been working on a personal project of mine unrelated to Tumblr lol. This is the first time ive written a yandere fic so i apologize if its not up to par, either way i hope you enjoy.

Summary: A certain bard has been hiding some very vivid feelings for you that are borderline obsessive, and one day he decides he wants to take you home and fill you up after an accidental confession <3

Warnings: smut, breeding kink, manipulative and possessive yandere themes, slight overstimulation, penetrative sex (the reader has a vagina), sub-reader, dom venti, oral giving (reader recieves), pet names (baby, cutie, etc. ), marking kink, !everything in here is fully consensual!

Tagging: @hitomisuzuya hey!!! I thought you might like this one since you also like yan venti fics lol.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You and Venti met a few months ago in one of mondstat's most renowned taverns, the angel's share, and soon became drinking buddies. Usually, you two would talk about the most random things; your days, assholes you encountered, books you've read, and music.

Once you had mentioned that you were interested in learning how to write poetry venti jumped at the chance. Even started an entire class to teach poetry. Everyone thought it was for the public, but no; it'd be all for you. Everything he was doing was all for you.

He just couldn't stop thinking of you. Your smile, your voice, the way you walk, talk, and breathe.

Archons, from the first night he met you, he knew you just had to be his.

His to hold,

His to love,

His to breed

To be fully honest, he's had non-stop dreams and thoughts of you carrying his children. He's always wanted a family, for centuries he's thought about it. Raising a son or daughter in a life full of music and stories. Everything had started pure and innocent; it could have even been labeled a crush. But the more and more the two of you talked, he just couldn't help how often the thought of you being full of his seed would come to him. Slowly creeping into every one of his waking thoughts until you being fucked so full was the only thing he was concerned with anymore.

So here you are, late at night at angel's share waiting for your favorite bard to join you. It was just after new years, and the breeze was as gentle as ever in the wonderful city of mondstat. You had ordered a drink from diluc, the current bartender for the night and the owner of the place. You ordered a simple drink just to keep yourself company while waiting for Venti to arrive.

As if he had heard your thoughts, the blue-haired tone deaf bard walked in the door, a large grin plastered on his face and his lyre under his left arm. He waved hello to diluc and Jose before he went up the stairs to join you at your usual table. He took a seat in front of you and your half-finished drink. The second floor was nearly empty, leaving only the two of you under the candles aglow.

You smiled brightly at him. "Why hello stranger! fancy seeing you here." You teased making venti chuckle.

"Ehe same to you stranger, I actually came here looking for someone dear to me. Their name is y/n, you haven't seen them have you?" He teased back, locking eyes with you.

You couldn't help but feel your heart flutter a little. although your feelings were not nearly as intense as venti's, you had to admit you had definitely been struck by cupid to some degree. He was someone who intrigued you and made you laugh when no one else could, something you were very happy to have in life.

"I might have heard that name a few times, any more information on this Y/n?" You wanted to keep this going for just a little bit longer to see how much you could bring out. You were beyond curious and honestly the wine you'd had made you tipsy so there was no fear of him discovering your little crush.

This made him smirk. He placed his thumb under his chin and grazed his lips with a sweet slide of his index finger, feigning thought for a moment.

"Well, for starters they have beautiful eyes, as strong as the sea and as free as the seven winds. They have a talent for writing some of the most dazzling poetry! They also blush the same way you are right now, a jaw-dropping red more vibrant than the brightest apples in all of mondstat!" He bit his lip with a slight giggle as you felt your face be lit aglow.

You knew he liked to tease, and that was part of the reason that you developed feelings for him, but how did you not notice how direct it was before? Normally his teasing was simply a nickname, maybe a quick pickup line. But this? This was making your heart jump back and forth in your throat and chest.

"i- well you, i..." You felt the words get caught in your throat. what were you doing? You needed to pull yourself together before things got out of hand. Quickly trying to regain your composure, you'd sputtered a quick sentence, barely audible "Shh... my poetry isn't that good..."

"Well I beg to differ, I think it was stunning. I liked it with my whole heart." Venti was quick to retort. He was really trying to be the end of you tonight huh?

"Well I like you with my whole heart" You were convinced you'd thought. You were shocked to feel that your mouth was open as if you'd just said something. You slapped a hand over your mouth, eyes bugging out. Venti looked at you, blinking a few times before his expression changed.

"What was that songbird? Do you like me?" He teased, leaning forward to pull your hand from your mouth. It took little effort, as he then took his other hand and pulled your chin in his direction, leaning over just a little and glancing down at your lips. "I wanna hear you say it songbird."

Please, don't let this be a dream; you'd think. You weren't sure what you were expecting after accidentally blurting your heart out to your best friend, but this certainly was by far the best possible reaction. You took a quivering breath and uttered, "I...I like you."

Something in his eyes changed, he was still looking at your lips, going back and forth between your eyes and mouth. Now his eyes were glued to your lips, something darker overtaking them. Watching the words leave your tongue, watching the shapes you make when you talk, the melodies dripping out.

"Can I do something crazy?" Venti asked, hushed but confident. Something that sounded a little too perfect not to have been rehearsed. You nodded hesitantly before he leaned in slowly towards you.

You felt his breath tickle your neck softly, there was a pause as you leaned your head to the side giving him more access. you felt like you were on fire. His hand slid from your chin to the back of your neck, pulling you closer. He gave a soft chuckle before locking his lips around your neck.

You couldn't help the gentle mewl that left you when he began sucking on the tender skin. The hand tangled in your hair gently got tighter as his kisses grew hungrier and more passionate.

You felt the heat of the moment jump between your thighs as he climbed over the table quietly. His hunger for you didn't seem to quench as he kissed your neck, it only became stronger. He began biting different spots on your neck, kneading the flesh with his teeth and tongue. It was only when you heard a group of people from downstairs leave that you realized that you both were on display, all it took was someone looking up.

You pushed him off you slightly, making him look at you confused and a little hurt.

"Can we go somewhere private, I don't want everyone to see us up here." his look softened as your words settled with him, he nodded and stood up, grabbing your hand.

~~~~~~~~~~

The walk to your home wasn't far. You lived in the capital of mondstat in a small apartment near the inn. It was just more convenient for the sweet bard to keep an eye on you, and to get closer to you. You fumbled your keys, trying to open the door quickly and distractedly.

Venti wrapped his hands around your waist, placing his nose in the crook of your neck, softly breathing you in. His hands squeezed ever so slightly tighter as if to preview what you were in for.

"Absolutely divine..." was all he muttered before a gentle breeze blew past you, opening your door.

You paid the weird phenomenon no mind as you grabbed his hand, leading him inside.

"Please don't mind the mess, I wasn't expecting company." Your shy mumbling was cut off when venti pushed you against the wall, going back to kissing your neck. He grabbed your sides, pulling your flesh against him. You could feel how hard he had grown just from kissing alone.

The sensation of feeling his hands finally being on you, the taste of your skin. It was intoxicating to him. He let his hands travel from your hips to palm the outside of your sex. He could feel how needy you'd grown from his touching. You bucked your hips into his hand as if telling him what you were so desperate for.

"Have patience sweet y/n. You'll get what you're so needy for when it's time." He moved from kissing your neck down, down, and down until he was sitting in front of you on his knees. He looked up at you with slitted and dangerous eyes. something you'd never seen on him before.

He began peppering kisses along the outside of your clothing, barely sending little shocks straight to your core.

"You have no idea how long I've wanted this, how long I've wanted to taste you." He pulled the hem of your pants, snapping the band closed. He let out a soft hum and looped his fingers, pulling your pants and undergarments down to his level.

The way his eyes glistened in desire was mesmerizing. He leaned forwards, nuzzling his nose onto the front of your folds, sending a chill down your spine. "Open your legs wide for me, songbird."

You did as told, lifting one leg over his shoulder, the other turned outwards to give him a better angle. He took this invite to slowly and passionately kitten lick everything his tongue would touch.

The room was filled with loud sounds of his mouth working wonders and your earthly moans. You gripped his hair as to take attention from your shaking, damn near faltering legs. you couldn't help the bucks you were making against his face. You loved the way he was moaning against your dripping sex, slurping every last drop you had to offer.

You felt the coil in your stomach growing tighter and tighter as you clenched your thighs around his head. His hands left his sex and under your thighs, pulling you closer and closer until you could only see his eyes peeking from under your flesh. Without warning, your riding became fevered, bucking widely you came all over his mouth.

Without missing a beat he ate every last drop, whining and whimpering at how absolutely amazing you tasted to him. When he was finished, he stood up on wobbly knees, still high from your orgasm, and kissed you sloppily.

You could taste your release on his tongue and the need in his passion. You bit his lip, trying to gain dominance, but you were only met with him sliding his tongue into your mouth, exploring every inch he could find refuge in. You wrapped your hands around his neck as he lifted you up.

With your hips around him, he took you to the couch and laid down on top of him. You kept your legs wrapped around his waist as he ground into you.

"Tell me what you want me to do to you," He commanded, propped up on his elbows above you, still grinding. his breath dancing over your face.

"Archons, please stop....teasing, I ne..need you to fuck me please-" You whimpered quietly feeling your need stronger than ever. You wanted to feel him stretching you, splitting you. His hands gripping your waist as he pounded into you.

He didn't say anything, he only leaned down and kissed you. His lips soft and methodic. He sent one of his hands down to your chest, gently squeezing, making you moan. He took the advantage to explore your mouth yet again. Taking your tongue and gently sucking on it.

You arched your back into his touch as he began taking his clothes off. Slowly, almost tauntingly he exposed more and more of himself.

Eventually, you both were left bare. His beautiful form in front of you. You blushed at what was to come. He spread your legs apart and leaned forward to kiss you again. You wrapped your hands around his neck and his hair as he lined his cock at your entrance.

He reached a hand out and cupped your cheek.

"You are mine. I need to hear you say that you're mine and only mine," He whispered to you. There was lust behind it, but also something more. Almost a desperation for you to reassure him that you weren't anyone else's. He needed to know that he was all you'd ever need.

"I'm yours. Only yours."

That was all he needed. A newfound primal drive pumping through his brain. His click, his trigger, and you just pulled it. He plunged into you. Starting very slowly, watching how he disappeared inside of you.

You arched your back and tightened your legs around his back, making him sink into you faster. He started thrusting his leaking cock into your soaked cunt, making you moan vibrantly.

"I've been dreaming....dreaming of you taking me like this. beg-begging for me not to stop. You wanna be full of my seed? Full of my fucking cum?" You nodded at his question without hesitation, without regard to the fact that there'd be no way out of this if he filled you. "Beg for it....beg for my cum."

But Why would you want to escape?

His hand dipped to your sex, swirling his fingers as he pumped into you. His balls tight and slapping against your ass, he gripped his hand around your flesh tight enough to leave bruises and shot hot strings of cum deep into you. Warmth spread into you as he drilled into you.

Little did you know neither would be getting up for a very long time, I mean, you were his, so it was only natural that he made your neighbors aware of that fact. He had to make sure you took to his seed, that you only remembered how to moan his name.

After all, you were his and only his. Forever and always.

[materassassino]

Q or U, whoever you decide!

Thank you for this one! 🥺

Minific prompts

U - Coming Home

“Can you stop fidgeting?”

Joe blinks, jerked forcefully out of his reverie by Andy’s forceful hand on his knee. He hadn’t even realised it had been bouncing. He looks at her, and she groans.

“Not the eyes, Joe...”

“I’m sorry!” He isn’t. “I can’t help it!” That’s the truth.

A nervous energy is prickling just under his skin, lightning in his blood. He got the window seat on the train, so he’s been staring out at the miles going past, impatient to the point of near madness. It’s been a month. A whole month. How could anyone expect him to not start pacing the too-small cage of his own mind when his soul has been missing half of itself?

Separation has always made him twitchy, and wistful, and prone to morose sighing. Andy learnt this centuries ago, and still she insisted.

(He knows why. She wants time with them, with each of them alone, something sacred and only theirs. And he’s loved this, just him-and-Andy, like those centuries ago when they wandered across the entirety of North Africa while Nicky and Quynh went East. And Andy knows better than to think he hasn’t loved this, that he doesn’t want more of it. But, well… Nicky.)

He shrugs helplessly. Nicky is always present in his thoughts, in time with his heartbeat, even when Joe isn’t actively thinking of him.

She sighs.

“At least it’s not poetry,” she grumbles, sliding lower in her seat with folded arms and outstretched legs.

“The poetry is for him, where it isn’t wasted,” Joe says primly. She snorts at that, bumping her shoulder into his.

--

It is night by the time they arrive at their destination, the small country station almost completely black. They’re the only ones who get off there, stumbling tiredly off the train and into the dark. A car’s headlights turn on.

“Hey!” Nile calls from the window, waving. Joe brightens at seeing her, but his heart sinks when he realises she’s alone. He tries not to pout as he heaves his bag into the boot and settles in the back seat. He’s not sure he manages, but it’s dark enough that Nile probably doesn’t notice. It’s not her fault, anyway, it’s entirely his.

“Have fun without us?” Andy asks.

“He cheats at rummy,” Nile replies, sounding completely and utterly betrayed, making Joe burst out laughing.

The drive back to the safehouse is long and, to Joe, incredibly slow. Time is molasses now, his destination so close and yet so stubbornly out of reach. The road is narrow and packed in on either side by dense forest, so whenever they encounter another vehicle it’s a stalemate as they stare each other down, daring the other to back up.

Joe drums his fingers on his knee, toe tapping, as a bus stands its ground and waits, like it has all the time in the world, for Nile to ease into the sliver of grass on the side. They nearly lose a wing mirror to a tree trunk.

Finally they make their turning, and relief settles on Joe like sunlight. The light in the kitchen is on, and Joe sees his silhouette move from one window to another.

He’s out of the car before Nile’s even pulled the handbrake. He grabs both their bags, because he’ll never hear the end of it if he doesn’t, and keeps his eyes on the front door. It opens as he reaches it.

Oh, light of his life! A thousand poems couldn’t describe the vision before him! It is as if the shadows are lifted from his sight!

He dumps the bags on the doorstep and draws Nicky into his arms, burying his face in his neck.

“Halabik,” Nicky says, just the tiniest hint of reproach for not even getting inside the damn house, but Joe doesn’t care. He makes a plaintive noise against Nicky’s warm skin, breathing in deep, and beneath the smell of cooking and his cheap-ass three-in-one bodywash is that scent that is purely, perfectly Nicky. The scent of home.

Nicky pushes him away gently, earning himself another noise like a small woodland creature being oppressed, but it’s simply to plant both his hands on the sides of Joe’s head and pull him into a kiss. Joe melts into it, melts into the taste of Nicky and the warmth of his lips and body, and he is so ready to simply drag this man into bed and wrap himself in him in any and all ways possible.

“Let us in, you fools!” Andy barks, planting a boot on Joe’s ass – not hard, but a nudge.

They roll with it, breaking the kiss with a laugh, but refuse to part as Nicky drags Joe backwards into the house. Nile is the one to lug Joe’s bag in.

“It’s only been a month!” she says, shaking her head.

“We’re woefully co-dependent,” Joe says, making Nicky chuckle.

“There’s dinner,” Nicky says. “We were waiting for you two.”

Joe can’t resist planting another kiss on him, and a nuzzle for good measure. He can smell it, fragrant and mouth-watering, the kamounia Nicky always makes for a homecoming, regardless of where they are and what the weather is. Beef, most likely, out here, but Joe wouldn’t complain whatever it was.

It is late, but the good food and the bottle of wine ease the exhaustion from the sharp tension of travel to the mellow, warm bonelessness of coming home. Nicky hooks his ankle around Joe’s, smiles that soft, beautiful smile, and Joe lets it wash over him, lets the relief flow through him. He knows his bed won’t be agonisingly empty tonight, and his dreams will settle.

He leans into Nicky, pressing their shoulders together, and sighs in contentment.

[lovemyromance]

SJM doesn't write her men as fuckbois, end of argument. This is romantasy, this is not real life situationships.

She writes her men as prideful beings, unwilling to kneel for anyone but their woman.

She writes her men as desperate for their female counterparts, willing to wait centuries to even earn a second glance.

So this concept of "Oh, Azriel & Elain don't actually want each other, they're just trying to blow off steam." Is ridiculous.

Regardless of their past, their background, the second they meet their love interest they fall in line and are head over heels for that ONE woman. It's not finicky love. It didn't just pass over the course of 2 pages.

SJM empowers the women more and gives them previous love interests. Feyre had Tamlin & Isaac Hale. Nesta had half of the seedy bar crowd in Velaris (no shade, go off city girl) & Tomas Mandray. Elain had Graysen.

You know what their past flings didn't get?

A POV.

We never got a POV from Tamlin, despite him being a main character and love interest in ACOTAR. We didn't get a POV from Tomas or random dude in Nesta's apartment. We didn't get a POV from Graysen.

You know which MMCs did get a POV?

Rhysand.

Cassian.

Azriel.

That in itself should be enough evidence that whatever happening between Elriel isn't just a fling, as the antis try to make it out to be.

Rhysand got a POV when he was endgame with Feyre. Cassian got a POV before he was endgame with Nesta. Now Azriel gets a POV, and there's only one sister left....

Why would SJM give Azriel a whole POV otherwise? Why not just tell it from Elain's POV?

And no it's not because that would reveal how much she apparently secretly loves Lucien while she's ready to drop her panties for Shadow Boy

That bonus chapter in ACOSF was not just SJM being in a silly goofy mood and deciding to write fuckboy Az as a new part of the story.

Also - all these people clamoring "wELL hAvE yOu rEaD tHe aZrIeL bOnUs cHaPtER?" They're just trynna use each other - Have YOU read the bonus chapter?

What part of that longing and tension and pining gave you lust and incel behavior? This man feels so undeserving of her, he thinks even touching her is to taint her goodness.

That shit poetic af.

He's out here being Azriel Allen Poe, describing her hair like dawn and begging on his knees to taste her and y'all are out here thinking "nah, they're just a fling."

Do you spout poetry and are tortured every waking moment with the love you hold for your situationship? If so - I don't think they're a situationship anymore bestie.

And Elain also wanted his hands on her. The antis trying to spin "oh she was indifferent to it, she could have been fine with or without him" is so ridiculous because literally she says yes. OFFER AND PERMISSION. She is aroused when he touches her NECK. Like come on, how down bad do you have to be for someone to get turned on when they touch your NECK. And, on top of that, she feels hurt when Azriel says this is a mistake.

Would someone only trynna get laid feel hurt over that? Would they avoid the other person after if they just wanted to blow off steam? No. She wanted Azriel just as badly. And anyone who tries to say otherwise, is just flat out not reading the words on the page.

When will Eluciens & Gwynriels quit trying to cheapen what is canon in order to make their ships work? SJM doesn't write fuckboi men. That's not up for debate.

And the fact that they'd rather have Az be using Elain (or I vice versa) for sex than actually hold feelings for her says a lot.

[whencyclopedia]

Marie de France

Marie de France (wrote c. 1160-1215 CE) was a multilingual poet and translator, the first female poet of France, and a highly influential literary voice of 12th-century CE Europe. She is credited with establishing the literary genre of chivalric literature (though this is contested), contributing to the development of the Arthurian Legend, and developing the Breton lais (a short poem) as an art form. Marie's published works include:

Lais (including the Arthurian works Chevrefueil and Lanval)

Aesop's Fables (a translation from Middle English to French) and other fables

St. Patrick's Purgatory (also known as The Legend of the Purgatory of St. Patrick)

She was trilingual, writing in the Francien (Parisian) dialect with a command of Latin and Middle English. Her lais were developed from the earlier Breton lais poetic form and so she must have also known Celtic Breton and been acquainted with Brittany. Her works influenced later poets, notably Geoffrey Chaucer, and her imagery in St. Patrick's Purgatory would be used by later writers in depictions of the Christian afterlife.

Marie's works were popular in aristocratic circles but frequently featured lower-class characters as more worthy and noble than their supposed social superiors and always cast women as strong central characters. Her vision of female equality has led to her designation as a proto-feminist in the modern day, and her works remain as popular as they were in her lifetime.

Identity

Her actual name is unknown – `Marie de France' is a pen name given her only in the 16th century CE. All that is known of her comes from her work in which she identifies herself as Marie from France. Based on details in her work including knowledge of place names and geography, and the sources she drew from, scholars have determined that Marie spent a significant amount of time in England at the court of Henry II (r. 1154-1189 CE) and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine (l. c. 1122-1204 CE).

Scholars suggest Marie may have been Henry's half-sister who perhaps followed him from Normandy to England when he was crowned king in 1154 CE. The Lais of Marie de France are dedicated to “a noble king” who is most likely Henry II but precisely how Marie meant this dedication is unclear. Marie's poetry often features women imprisoned or otherwise poorly treated by men and this theme mirrors Henry's relationship with Eleanor.

Throughout their marriage, Henry was unfaithful to his wife numerous times and carried on an open affair with the noblewoman Rosamund Clifford. When Henry's sons rebelled in 1173-1174 CE with Eleanor's support, the king had her imprisoned for the next 16 years. This same sort of relationship, often with similar details, appears in a number of Marie's works. Further, Henry does not seem to have been as fond of poetry and poets as his wife was and so an interpretation of Marie's dedication as sarcastic is probable.

In modern-day scholarship, Marie is almost always credited with establishing the genre of chivalric literature, but this seems unlikely as her works clearly draw on a pre-existing tradition of courtly love literature whose central motifs she inverts. In courtly love poetry, the knight is seen rescuing the damsel in distress; in Marie's works, the knight is often the one who has imprisoned her in the first place or, sometimes, the one in need of rescue.

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