#I wouldn’t be opposed to it now if he hadn’t been instrumental in destroying so much of my own work for being gay and satanic

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

The HORROR of hearing your little five-year-old voice singing awkwardly along to a pristine backing track because your dad was just dying to shove you in front of a mic and produce a song as soon as you could enunciate words semi-intelligibly.

[hanaasbananas]

100 Ways to say I Love You Chapter 99

I remember (Ladrien)

Sequel to chapter 92

AO3

The party was well underway, music, and laughter filling the hall with sounds of revelry. And yet...Adrien  struggled to muster any enthusiasm for the event despite the fact that he had been the one to open the castle, hosting a week of celebration in the wake of the rebels victory and his own new status as King.

His crown dug uncomfortably into his scalp, reminding him of it’s presence, and idly, he thought that it would have to be resized before the coronation.

Looking over the party from his place on the throne, Adrien couldn’t help but sigh. It was clear that there was still much work to do if there was to be true unity. Even now, despite the many classes in attendance, there was a distinct division among the hall.

The rebels, of course, were enjoying the finest dining that Adrien could provide. Some had bought their own instruments, beginning to play—tunes Adrien recognised from the times when he had snuck into their camps so long ago—the music a fast tempo that had other’s clapping and stomping to the beat.

On the other side of the hall, quiet conversations replaced raucous laughter, and Adrien spotted many a dirty look being sent across the room to the lower classes. He snorted as one of the rebel leaders caught such a look, and raised his wine glass in a toast, sending the young nobleman spinning back around in mortification, his cheeks burning red.

Many of the nobles had returned—those who had opposed his father and fled his rage, enticed back by the promise of peace, but they were vastly outnumbered by the more opportunistic men. Men who brought with them their daughters in an attempt to curry favour with the new king, all of them hoping that one of those girls might become their next Queen, that they might use their daughters as mouthpieces for their own agendas.

It was incredibly tiresome. Not to mention, a completely useless endeavour, for there was only one woman who occupied his mind. And there never would be another.

Adrien swore under his breath, spying the Lady Rossi weaving through the crowd towards him as her father watched. She was one of the more insufferable noblewomen, and he did not look forward to sharing her company—it had been difficult enough to prise himself from her grasp the first time. There would not be a second.

Rising quickly, he slipped from the room just as Lady Rossi began to climb up onto the dais, moving faster when he heard her call after him.

The corridor was blessedly cool as he made his way to his chambers. He hadn’t realised how stuffy the hall had become, but it was certainly a welcome relief to be out of it, allowing the crisp night air to fill his lungs. His room was chillier still, a draft coming in from the window, and Adrien shivered, crossing the room to slam the shutters closed. Finally alone, he pulled the crown from his head, setting it unceremoniously down on his desk, and took his shirt off, examining the bandages that covered his torso.

“I thought I told you not to fight.”

The voice came from behind him, almost deafening in the quiet room. Adrien froze, his heart stuttering in his chest.

No. Not now...please

Squeezing his eyes shut, Adrien dropped his head against the window with a thud . “Not tonight,” he muttered under his breath “please, I cannot bear….I cannot—” A wave of grief washed over him, so strong it threatened to wind him, to knock the ground out from under his feet, and he struggled to stay upright.

Ladybug had not been among those who had stormed the castle. She had not been with those who came after, to discuss negotiations as he’d lay in his sickbed. Two weeks later, and many of the rebels had given her up for dead, though they had not said it.

“Adrien—”

He raised his voice, “begone, foul apparition!”

For weeks now, he had been plagued by them. A flash of red in the corner of his eye, the cheerful sound of Ladybug’s laughter around the corner, he’d even see her standing in this very room, talking to him as she had on that night, so long ago. They drove him to insanity, yet he craved them nonetheless, clinging to the scraps of his delirium as though they might become something tangible in his hands.

“I am no apparition,” A soft hand landed on his shoulder, and Adrien hardly dared to breathe. Had he finally succumbed to the madness? Had he—

”It’s me, Adrien. I am here.”

Slowly, he turned around, staring in disbelief at Ladybug in front of him, regarding him steadily, her blue eyes glistening behind her mask.

With trembling hands, Adrien reached out to touch her, terrified that she would dissolve into mist the moment that he made contact, but she remained solid beneath his palm. Solid, and real. “ You —” he breathed, cupping her face, feeling her soft skin, the warmth of her cheek, the intricate embroidery of her mask. Ladybug’s eyes fluttered closed and she leaned into his touch with a contented sigh.

“You’re alive .” His voice cracked on the word, but he could not bring himself to care. “We thought that you had been lost.”

“I told you that I would return, didn’t I?” Her lips twisted into a frown, fingers coming up to trace his bandages. Her touch was feather light, but he shuddered, goosebumps rising all along his skin. “But you almost broke your promise. When I heard about what happened, about your injury, I—I feared the worst. But your father —!”

“Yes,” Adrien confirmed. “What you heard is true.”

Truthfully, he had been expecting father to turn on him—why wouldn’t he? As the nobles had begun to leave, and more and more reports of rebel activities were delivered, it was almost inevitable that father would attempt to kill the one the rebels wished to make king.

And he had almost succeeded. It had only been the extra fighting lessons Adrien had been taking with the guards, as well as the fortuitous timing of the rebels storming the throne room that had saved his life. Still, father had left him with a souvenir—a knife in his gut and a scar to go with it.

“Let us not talk about that, my lady,” Adrien murmured, stroking her cheek softly. There would be time enough to discuss such things later, he was sure. And he would not taint this moment with discussion of his father’s crimes.

Instead, they sat by the fire and spoke of anything and everything else. Of what they had done in the six months since they had seen each other last. Still, they avoided talk of their feelings, though they spoke for hours, until the pinks and oranges of the early morning sky began to stretch across the horizon, the light breaking through a gap in the curtains and slicing through the darkness of his room.

Until that was the only subject they had not broached.

“The night I left,” Ladybug said, haltingly “when I was last here, you said—you almost said something to me.”

Adrien swallowed. “I remember.” How could he forget the desperation that had clawed at his chest, the terror that had filled him at the thought of Ladybug never truly knowing what was in his heart? And how many nights had he lain awake, cursing the way that those words had stuck in his throat, choking him, preventing him from saying them at all.

“Has that changed?”

“Yes,” his voice came out in a whisper. Ladybug’s face fell, and she stood, taking a step back from him.

“Oh.” Before she could go further however, he grabbed hold of her wrist, standing and taking her hands in his.

“Yes, it has changed,” he began earnestly. “Because with every second that passes, with every breath that I take, my feelings for you grow ever stronger. You occupy my thoughts like no other, whether you are in front of me, or not. My love for you is deeper now than it was that night, and it will be deeper still tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, forevermore.” Lifting her hand, Adrien pressed a kiss to Ladybug’s knuckles. “My feelings have not diminished. They never have, and they never will.”

For a long moment, she simply stared at him, her eyes blown wide, lips parted in surprise. In the dying candlelight, with the light dancing across her features, she looked ethereal, an angel among men. And he, a mere mortal.

Adrien couldn’t say who moved first. One minute they were staring at each other, the air between them crackling with tension, and the next, they were kissing.

His mouth slanted over hers, one hand cupping her neck, the other gripping her waist, pulling her flush against him so that they stood chest to chest, no space in between them. Ladybug’s fingers buried themselves in his hair, tugging on the strands and causing him to groan, a rumble deep in his chest. She opened her mouth to him, skimming her tongue along his. Pulling back slightly, he tugged at her lip with his teeth, swallowing her moan.

She consumed his senses, igniting a fire in his blood, and Adrien thought that he would let her destroy him, burn him from the inside out, if only she would do it with a kiss.

As they stumbled towards the bed— neither of them willing to let go of the other for even a second—he traced a line from her hipbone to the small of her back, unlacing the back of her dress, kissing her jaw and collarbone, nipping and sucking at the hollow of her throat before rising and capturing her lips once more.

Afterwards, as they lay sated in bed, Adrien reached out, tracing a path up and down her arm. Ladybug’s eyes followed the movement, watching his hand before taking his wrist, her fingers running over the ribbon that she had given him as a token, still tied around his wrist.

“You kept it,” she sounded surprised.

“Of course.”

The edge was badly frayed from the many times he had toyed with it, but it was otherwise intact. Silently, Adrien watched as she unwound it, sitting up and turning her back to him. The sheets pooled around her waist, and he sat up too, pressing a kiss to her bare shoulder, wrapping his arms around her middle as she unbraided her hair. Glancing over at him, Ladybug held up the ribbon, “tie this into my hair for me?”

Her hair slid through his fingers like silk, the ribbon standing out starkly against her dark hair as he braided her hair clumsily, threading it through the plait. When he was done, she faced him again, her eyes seeming to glow in the early morning light. Holding his wrist, she kissed the pale strip of skin that had been underneath the ribbon, her lips lingering for a long moment. “Thank you for taking care of it for me.”

Gently, Adrien pushed a stray strand of hair out of her face, pressing a kiss to her brow, his heart brimming with contentment and joy.

“Always."

[clouds-of-yunmeng]

So... accidentally a One Shot happened...

Last night, when I couldn’t sleep, I had a thought...

Imagine a malevolent cultivator, who wants to bring back the spirit of somebody, but can’t sacrifice his own body - because what point is there in bringing this spirit back, if he isn’t there to see the carnage?

So he kidnaps a young, pure person to be the vessel for the spirit he is trying to summon...

That person happens to be Lan Sizhui...

Lan Jingyi came back running this time, ignoring all the rules of his sect, not even afraid of any punishment, panic driving him to run faster.

“Hanguang-Jun! Senior Wei!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, rushing past the others who threw him both annoyed and worried glances, but he saw none of them.

As the Cloud Recesses were generally a place of quiet and tranquility, Jingyi’s voice was clearly audible even from a great distance, and it was no surprise that Lan Wangji stood before Jingyi moments later, Wei Wuxian close behind him.

“What is the matter, Jingyi?” Lan Wangji asked calmly, not even blinking as the junior disciple clutched his outer robe, tugging him forward.

“It’s Sizhui! He took Sizhui!” Jingyi sobbed, “We fought him, but he was too strong, I wasn’t fast enough! Forgive me...!” he wept, crumbling to the ground, only held up by Wei Wuxian who pulled him close and looked him in the eyes with panicked urgency in his eyes.

“Where, Jingyi? Where were you? Where did he take Sizhui?!” he asked, his voice so commanding that Jingyi forgot to sob; compelled to answer immediately.

As soon as the boy had spoken, and both senior cultivators recognized the name of the village, they shared a look and without another word Lan Wangji unsheathed Bichen, stepping onto the blade. With one arm he held Wei Wuxian’s waist and with the other he held Jingyi, who still clung to Wei Wuxian.

Before long the trio arrived by the village and Jingyi - who had pulled himself together at last - directed them to the exact spot where he had last seen Sizhui.

Droplets of blood littered the ground along with traces of ash from burnt out talismans. It was clear that a fight had occurred here.

Wei Wuxian crouched down and picked up some of the ash, reaching out with his senses to pick up the slightest trace of spiritual energy residue.

“It’s... demonic cultivation!” he gasped moments later, standing up and looking around for more hints.

“I thought it might be... It all went so fast... and nothing Sizhui did was effective at all!” Lan Jingyi murmured uncertainly.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji said softly to get his attention and asked: “What purpose could someone who uses demonic cultivation have with our Sizhui?”

Wei Wuxian looked at his husband and shook his head.

“Many things... Make into a fierce corpse, make into a living corpse, make into a sacrifice...”

Lan Jingyi pulled at his hair, “Nooo!”

He shuddered to imagine what horrible things could be happening right now to his best friend, and all because he hadn’t fought well enough to protect him...

Wei Wuxian turned to the junior disciple and grabbed his shoulders.

“Jingyi-er, you must try to remember as much as you can! Who was the person who took Sizhui? What direction did they go?” he asked urgently.

Jingyi held his head in his hands and tried his best to remember anything.

“It was... a grown man... much taller than me or Sizhui... He looked like he came from an unknown sect, I couldn’t make out an emblem or anything... He had a crazed look in his eyes...”

Wei Wuxian nodded, “I see. In which direction did he take Sizhui?”

Jingyi, “This way. He went up the mountain, I think!”

“You were here to investigate an attack from a bunch of low level corpses, isn’t that right?” Lan Wangji said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

Jingyi nodded.

Lan Wangji, “Did you find those corpses?”

“Yes, and we fought them off successfully, but when we were almost finished one of the corpses was revealed to have been that person who took Sizhui away!” Jingyi whimpered, remembering painfully just how frightened his friend had been.

Wei Wuxian gasped, “So it was a trap! It struck me that the timing was so well planned too... considering that Wen Ning is currently at the Burial Mounds, commemorating the loss of his family...”

Lan Wangji nodded, “Indeed. The culprit seemed to be familiar with the Lan sect’s fighting style, and was also aware of the timing that would leave his target most vulnerable,” he summarized, and Wei Wuxian added, “and seeing as he knew that our Sizhui wasn’t as well protected, he also knew that he wouldn’t be sent out to investigate anything more dangerous than just some low level corpses...”

Finding little move evidence the trio rushed up the mountain in hopes of finding more clues there.

As they searched the woods at the base of the mountain, they found the strings of a guqin, scattered along a path where someone had walked through. They were the strings from Sizhui’s guqin, which he had secretly taken off of the instrument and dropped as he was carried away to leave a trail, hoping to be found.

What’s more, he didn’t drop them randomly. Lan Wangji noticed that he had dropped the strings in a specific order, rather than from first to last on the instrument.

He understood that Sizhui was referencing the Qin language used in techniques such as Inquiry or Evocation, and he spelled out something.

The further they went, the clearer it got.

Moling Su.

As soon as it was clear the trio rushed off to the territory of the former Moling Su sect.

What they found were the pitiful remnants of a pitiful sect. With their reputation destroyed, only few sect members stayed loyal to the Moling Su sect, vainly attempting to clear the name of the sect which Su She had tarnished so completely.

The three of them were greeted by hostility and Lan Wangji didn’t hesitate to subdue them.

The few people opposing him were fighting in a desperate manner, reminiscent of how a cornered animal lashes out in it’s panic.

They were no match for him, and so while he was fighting Wei Wuxian and Lan Jingyi went ahead to find Lan Sizhui.

Locked up in a dark cellar that was only lit by a few torches, Lan Sizhui had no idea that rescue was on the way. He looked awful; his pristine Lan sect robes were torn up, burnt and stained in places, his hair falling loosely all over his face and shoulders, and worst of all... his forehead band had been taken from him.

His kidnapper and their accomplice had dangled it in front of his face before stepping on it, tearing it and lastly burning it.

Lan Sizhui felt like he had failed so bad, like he was such a disappointment to his... to Hanguang-Jun and Senior Wei. He hadn’t been able to fight his way out, his sword out of his reach, his arms and legs bound by chains and his spiritual energy blocked.

As his kidnappers taunted him he thought he finally understood just how Wei Wuxian had once been pushed so far, back in the past, because even though he shuddered to imagine the consequences, he longed for power.

He wished he could call upon something, anything... even if it was resentful energy to free himself and fight his way out of there!

Alas, he had no way of doing so.

“It’s all because of those cutsleeves that you are here now. If you want to blame anyone, resent anyone... blame and resent them!” a woman said to him, tugging on his hair as she spat in his face.

“If not for them, my husband would still be here!” she shrieked, when suddenly the fires flickered as a breeze swept through the dungeon. She looked around and let go of Lan Sizhui’s hair, walking over to the man who had taken him away.

“What are you doing over there!? Is the array still not ready?!” she asked, and he muttered something in response, when the fires flickered again.

“Stop doing that!” the woman spat, but the man shook his head and said that it wasn’t his doing.

She was about to berate him when the crimson glow of the fire turned into a sickly shade of green.

The cellar door was kicked open and the gust of wind that came from it blew out all but one torch.

“So, so,” a quiet voice said, and a shadowy figure walked into the dingy cellar, “who would have thought that people still do this kind of stupid stuff...”

Lan Sizhui’s sight was blurred by tears, but he still recognized the silhouette, and even though his blood was rushing in his ears he knew this voice by heart.

“Senior Wei!” he gasped in utter relief, but the man in question didn’t respond.

He was too angry, too filled with hatred to dare look at his son right now. He stepped up closer to the two kidnappers and raised his hand.

“Sizhui-er, you better close your eyes,” he said calmly, waiting a brief moment before curling his fingers into a fist.

As though an invisible force had grabbed the man’s neck he writhed and gasped for air, but couldn’t get any.

Finally the woman had overcome her shock and she rushed towards Sizhui with a dagger, shrieking.

“LET MY BROTHER GO! You have taken away more than enough from me, you monster!” she screamed as she pressed the dagger to Sizhui’s neck with a trembling hand.

Sizhui held his breath. He neither dared to make a sound, nor open his eyes, so he sat still where he was held.

“Oh?” Wei Wuxian said lowly, without releasing his hand at all. “What have I taken from you, hm? I have never seen you in my life.”

“My husband! My dearest Su She!” the woman wept, “It is only fair that I take something from you in return!”

Wei Wuxian, “Su She?” He chuckled joylessly, “Do you realize what your husband has taken from me? From so many people in fact?”

Su She’s wife screamed so loudly, it hurt Sizhui’s ears, “I DON’T CARE!”

Wei Wuxian tightened his hand a bit, causing her brother to gargle desperately as his face turned purple.

“Take the dagger away from his neck and I will spare your brother’s life, even though I really shouldn’t,” Wei Wuxian demanded, and the sight of her brother caused Su She’s wife to drop the dagger and throw herself at Wei Wuxian’s feet instead.

“Please!” she wept, “Yiling Patriarch, let my brother go! I told him to seek out this disciple, I told him to find my husband’s old notes... I told him to do all these things!”

Wei Wuxian finally opened his hand and as though a noose had been cut loose the man fell to his knees gasping for air, choking and coughing.

“Why?” Wei Wuxian asked the woman, who wept beneath him. “Certainly you knew of your husband’s actions... yet you still seek to avenge his death. Not just that, you seek to use the same methods that ultimately caused his death.”

She looked up at him with something akin to genuine torment in her eyes and answered, “Because he was a kind husband nonetheless. He never forced himself on me, he never held me against my will...” She trembled and hugged herself as she remembered him, “Others called him cowardly... I found him to be kind... others called him cunning... I found him to be witty...” she explained.

Wei Wuxian found it hard to believe that she and him were referring to the same Su She, but then he had to admit that likely she wasn’t wrong in her belief.

He stepped away from her.

“You may not want to hear it from me, but let me tell you that no amount of hatred will ever quench the pain in your heart. I once sought solace in destruction and I lost everything because of it. Don’t go down the path that took my life, because unlike me, there likely won’t be anyone to bring you back once you are gone,” he said quietly.

Lan Sizhui shuddered, hearing those words even though they weren’t meant for him.

He had long known that Senior Wei held a dangerous darkness within himself, but somehow he had never feared that darkness. Even as a child, he hadn’t feared the man who struck terror into the hearts of so many.

Maybe it was childish naivete, maybe it was wishful thinking that this person would never hurt him... whatever it was, it felt strange now.

“Leave.” Wei Wuxian commanded and the siblings scrambled out the door, weeping and screaming in horror and relief to have been granted another chance after all.

Finally Wei Wuxian turned to face Sizhui and the green flames turned back to their usual warmth, making Wei Wuxian’s pale face look soft and gentle, rather than creepy and menacing.

“Sizhui-er,” Wei Wuxian said softly, moving to take off the chains that bound the young disciple. Sizhui looked at him with quivering eyes, but couldn’t bear it and lowered his gaze after a few moments. He hadn’t been able to save himself, needing to be rescued by Wei Wuxian once again...

Wei Wuxian undid all the chains at last and reached up to stroke Sizhui’s hair back, noticing the lack of his forehead band. He looked around and saw the greyish pile of ash that only vaguely resembled a ribbon at this point and sighed softly.

He undid his own hairband and tied it around Sizhui’s forehead as though it was a forehead ribbon before cradling the youth’s cheek in his hand.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, before shaking his head and sweeping Sizhui up in his arms regardless of his answer.

Sizhui sputtered and flailed in shock until Wei Wuxian shushed him.

“Let a parent take care of his son, will you?” he said and adjusted his grip on Sizhui’s thighs and shoulders. “Hanguang-Jun is still upstairs, so you have a few moments to let it all out where he can’t see or hear you,” he added after a few steps and looked into Sizhui’s eyes.

At first the boy tried to stay strong and keep his facade up as much as he could, but soon he crumbled and hid his face in the crook of Wei Wuxian’s neck.

He cried without making a sound. His shoulders trembled and his breath hitched every now and then, but if Wei Wuxian hadn’t felt the tears against his skin he wouldn’t have been sure if he truly was crying.

He sighed as he ascended the stairs with the crying youth in his arms.

“I remember you cried so loudly as a child... sometimes you woke up at night and cried until someone came to comfort you... sometimes I played a song on Chenqing for you...” he said fondly. “Maybe I should play something for you again, hm? A-Yuan?”

Sizhui laughed despite himself and clung even tighter to Wei Wuxian’s neck.

Wei Wuxian let out a quiet sigh of relief. The boy hadn’t lost his laughter, so there was hope that this ordeal would one day be little more than a memory.

He carried him all the way up the stairs, and by now Sizhui’s tears had fully dried up, and he almost looked like himself again - well, except for the crimson ribbon around his forehead, untied hair and dirtied robes.

At the top of the stairs was Lan Jingyi who called out Sizhui’s name with pure euphoria as soon as he saw him.

Wei Wuxian had told him to wait there and look out for dangers, but deep down Lan Jingyi knew, that Wei Wuxian didn’t want him to see whatever he would have done to the culprits if Sizhui hadn’t been okay.

Outside the building Lan Wangji was interrogating the two kidnappers who had hoped to escape after Wei Wuxian had shown them mercy, but obviously Wei Wuxian had known that Lan Wangji would prevent them from getting away unpunished.

Sizhui was afraid to face Lan Wangji, still beating himself up over his failure, no matter how many times Wei Wuxian had assured him.

Lan Wangji on the other hand wasn’t sure how to express his utter relief and joy at seeing his son alive and well, so he just reached over to straighten the crimson ribbon over his forehead, acting as though it was no less precious than the original forehead band.

That night, when they all came back to the Cloud Recesses, Wei Wuxian guided Sizhui to the Jingshi.

The boy wanted to argue and protest, afraid that Lan Wangji would disapprove, but calmed down when the latter joined them.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji tended to Lan Yuan’s injuries, helped him clean away all the filth and lastly clothed him in clean robes. Now that he didn’t need Wei Wuxian’s ribbon anymore, replacing it with a proper headband, Sizhui handed back the ribbon.

“Thank you, Senior Wei,” he said quietly, placing the ribbon in Wei Wuxian’s hands.

He then turned to look at Lan Wangji and bowed his head, “Thank you, Hanguang-Jun,” he said to him too.

At this point Wei Wuxian couldn’t endure the stiffness and formality any more, and he pulled both men into his arms; and even though both were surprised, neither one tried to pull away from the embrace, instead reaching out to hold on tightly.

They stayed together through the night, and deep in his heart, as he was held by both Wei Wuxian and Hanguang-Jun in their sleep, Lan Yuan felt loved.

[frmartinshomiliesandreflections]

16th April >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflections / Homilies on John 6:1-15 for Friday, Second Week of Eastertide: ‘What is that between so many?’.

Friday, Second Week of Easter

Gospel (Except USA)

John 6:1-15

The feeding of the five thousand

Jesus went off to the other side of the Sea of Galilee – or of Tiberias – and a large crowd followed him, impressed by the signs he gave by curing the sick. Jesus climbed the hillside, and sat down there with his disciples. It was shortly before the Jewish feast of Passover.

   Looking up, Jesus saw the crowds approaching and said to Philip, ‘Where can we buy some bread for these people to eat?’ He only said this to test Philip; he himself knew exactly what he was going to do. Philip answered, ‘Two hundred denarii would only buy enough to give them a small piece each.’ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said, ‘There is a small boy here with five barley loaves and two fish; but what is that between so many?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Make the people sit down.’ There was plenty of grass there, and as many as five thousand men sat down. Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and gave them out to all who were sitting ready; he then did the same with the fish, giving out as much as was wanted. When they had eaten enough he said to the disciples, ‘Pick up the pieces left over, so that nothing gets wasted.’ So they picked them up, and filled twelve hampers with scraps left over from the meal of five barley loaves. The people, seeing this sign that he had given, said, ‘This really is the prophet who is to come into the world.’ Jesus, who could see they were about to come and take him by force and make him king, escaped back to the hills by himself.

Gospel (USA)

John 6:1-15

Jesus distributed to those who were reclining as much as they wanted.

Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee. A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. The Jewish feast of Passover was near. When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, he said to Philip, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” He said this to test him, because he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?” Jesus said, “Have the people recline.” Now there was a great deal of grass in that place. So the men reclined, about five thousand in number. Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining, and also as much of the fish as they wanted. When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, “Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.” So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat. When the people saw the sign he had done, they said, “This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.” Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain alone.

Reflections (8)

(i) Friday, Second Week of Easter

Sometimes, individual members of a group that would normally hostile to Jesus often displayed an openness to Jesus that wouldn’t be typical of the group. Nicodemus, a leading Pharisee, was one such example in the gospel of John. On one occasion he stood up to his fellow Pharisees and challenged them to give Jesus a proper hearing, declaring that this would be in keeping with the spirit of the Jewish Law. In today’s gospel reading, Gamaliel a leading member of the Jewish Sanhedrin shows a similar openness. The Sanhedrin were the influential group of Jewish leaders most opposed to Jesus, but Gamaliel, a respected member of that group, shows a degree of openness to the preaching of the apostles that was not typical of the group as a whole. With great wisdom he suggests that they should leave the apostles alone and just wait and see. He declares that if their movement is of human origin it will break up of its own accord, whereas if it really is from God they will be unable to destroy it and may even find themselves fighting against God. His words were prophetic. The movement was from God and no human authority could destroy it. This was a very small and powerless movement and, yet, the Lord was working powerfully in and through it. What looked very unpromising from a human point of view was the instrument of God’s work in the world. The gospel reading also describes a situation that is very unpromising from a human point of view. There was a very large hungry crowd gathered around Jesus and his disciples and the only food source was a small boy with five loaves and two fish. Yet, because the boy was generous with his few resources, the Lord worked powerfully through his meagre resources for the feeding of the crowd, so that there was more than enough food for all. We are being reminded by both readings that, even when our own personal lives and the life of our church seem to hold out little promise, the Lord can be powerfully at work there, if we live towards him in a generous and trusting manner.

And/Or

(ii) Friday, Second Week of Easter

I remember some people saying recently when they heard this very familiar gospel story again that prior to this they hadn’t really paid much attention to the presence of the small boy. We tend to focus on Jesus and his disciples, and on the crowd. Yet, the small boy with his five barley loaves and two fish is the key to what happens. In John’s version of this episode, which we have just heard, he is first referred to by Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, but he is referred to in a way which suggests his relative insignificance, ‘There is a small boy here with five loaves and two fish; but what is that between so many?’ However, Jesus does not consider the presence of this small boy with his meagre resources to be insignificant. Jesus knows that if the boy is prepared to part with his precious little store, great things can happen. Indeed, according to the gospel reading, Jesus goes on to satisfy the hunger of the crowd with the five loaves and two fish of this small boy. Perhaps we can never know what exactly happened on that day, but the gospel reading is suggesting that the Lord can work powerfully through what are apparently very insignificant resources, a small boy and his few loaves and fish. Our human resources, inadequate though they may be, matter a great deal to the Lord. If we offer our own meagre resources to him, he can enhance them beyond all our expectations. All the Lord asks is that we are generous with what we have, little as that may be, and he will work through us in ways that will surprise us. The Lord’s way of working is different to how the world works. As Saint Paul came to realize, the Lord’s power is often made perfect in weakness.

 And/Or

(iii) Friday, Second Week of Easter

When we are faced with a challenge or a problem the way we speak about it can be very important. We can speak about it in a way that deflates us and drains us of energy or we can speak about it in a way that makes us hopeful and inspires us. In this morning’s gospel reading, Jesus sees crowds coming towards him. Seeing that they were in need of food, he asked Philip where food could be bought to give them something to eat. Philip’s response to Jesus showed that he felt overwhelmed by the problem. The words he used were very defeatist, ‘Two hundred denarii would only buy enough to give them a small piece each’. When Andrew chimed in, he too spoke in a way that conveyed a kind of hopelessness. Noticing that there was one small boy with five barley loaves and two fish, he asked, ‘What is that between so many?’ However, the way Jesus spoke in response to the problem was much more inspirational. He gave instructions to the disciples, he prayed aloud to God, and somehow the crowd got fed with the young boy’s small fare. We can all be a little bit like the disciples before the challenges that life throws up. We can become limp before it all. The gospel reading this morning encourages us to remain hopeful even in the face of situations that seem very unpromising. The reading suggests that the Lord can work in surprising ways in situations that seem daunting. Saint Paul seems to have a very strong sense of how the Lord can work powerfully in weakness. That is why he could say in his letter to the Philippians, a little written from prison, from a very unpromising situation, ‘I can do all things through him who strengthens me’.

 And/Or

(iv) Friday, Second Week of Easter

Jesus and his disciples found themselves before a situation that seemed beyond their ability to deal with. Philip and Andrew were both at a loss. Their inclination was to do nothing because the situation seemed hopeless. Where could food be found to feed such a crowd? Jesus knew that something could be done and he involved his disciples in doing what could be done, calling on them to make the people sit down and then asking them to collect the pieces that were left over when everyone had eaten. With the Lord’s help what seemed impossible became possible. The gospel reading suggests that the Lord can work powerfully through meagre resources. Like the disciples, we can feel hopeless before certain situations. We find it very hard to get started. It all seems too much for us. Yet, there is always something we can do, no matter how small. It may seem as small as the two barley loaves and five fish, but the Lord can work powerfully through our efforts, small as they may seem to us. We can always ask the Lord to do what he can with the little that we have and if we do that we may discover, like the disciples, that something wonderful happens.

 And/Or

(v) Friday, Second Week of Easter

In this morning’s gospel reading we find Jesus and his disciples faced with a hungry crowd and little or no means of feeding them. In this situation different people reacted in different ways. Philip made a calculation: on the basis of the number of people and the amount of money available to buy food, and decided that nothing could be done. Andrew recognized that one of the crowd had a small amount of food but he dismissed this small resource as of no value. There were two other reactions in the story. There is the reaction of the small boy who willing gave to Jesus the few pieces of food that he had. This is the reaction of the generous person, of the one who is prepared to give all he or she has, even though it appears to be far less than what is needed. He gave all he had to give. Then there is the reaction of Jesus himself. He took the few resources that the young boy was generous enough to part with and, having prayed the prayer of thanksgiving to God over these small pieces of food, he somehow fed the enormous crowd. The gospel teaches us that if we give generously from our resources to others, the Lord will work powerfully through those resources, small as they may seem to us.

 And/Or

(vi) Friday, Second Week of Easter

It is difficult to know exactly what happened that day in the wilderness when Jesus and his disciples found themselves before a large hungry crowd. However, the message that the evangelist seeks to communicate through his telling of that event is reasonably clear. Jesus is presented as working powerfully through very meagre resources. He feeds a multitude with five loaves and two fish. The Lord can work powerfully through our own rather limited resources, if we are generous with those resources and place them at the Lord’s disposal. A little can go a long way when it is placed in the hands of the Lord. Saint Paul expresses that truth in these terms: ‘God’s power is made perfect in weakness’. The tendency of Philip and Andrew in the gospel story was to complain about the hopelessness of the situation, ‘Two hundred denarii would not buy enough… What is that between so many?’ We are all prone to throwing our hands up to the heavens in exasperation and even despair. The gospel reading calls on us rather to have an expectant faith, a faith in the Lord’s power to work wonders with even the little that we give him.

And/Or

 (vii) Friday, Second Week of Easter

In today’s gospel reading, Andrew, noticing that a small boy has give barley loaves and two fish, asks the question, ‘What is that between so many?’ His assessment was that the resources available were much too small to meet the need. We can all find ourselves asking a similar kind of question to Andrew, ‘What is that between so many?’ We see some need or other and we recognize that our own personal resources or those of the group are not sufficient to meet the need. Andrew, Philip and the other disciples went on to discover that the Lord worked powerfully in and through the few resources that the small boy made available. The hunger of the crowd was satisfied and there was food left over. The gospel reading reminds us that the Lord can work powerfully through humble and meagre resources if they are made available to him. We are all aware of our limitations, our weaknesses, and, yet, we are not always so aware of the many ways that the Lord can work through us, in spite of our weaknesses, if we trust him to do so. The small amount of food that the boy had was not enough to feed the crowd in itself, and, yet, Jesus could not have fed the crowd without it. The Lord needs what we have, even if it seems slight to us, and he can accomplish far more than we could imagine with the little we have if we make ourselves available to him.

 And/Or

(viii) Friday, Second Week of Easter

We are very familiar with the story from the life of Jesus that we have just read. The feeding of the multitude is one of the few stories from the public ministry of Jesus that is to be found in all four gospels. Today we read the account from the gospel of John. Only this gospel gives us the dialogue between Jesus and the two disciples, Philip and Andrew. That dialogue shows us how the perspective of Jesus differs greatly from that of his two disciples. When Philip saw the large hungry crowd, he almost despaired, ‘Six months wages wouldn’t buy enough to give each of them a little’ Andrew was just a little more hopeful. He recognized that there was a boy present who had five loaves and two fish, but he realistically asked, ‘What is that among so many people?’ Jesus, however, saw the rich potential of those meagre resources and immediately began to take control of the situation, ‘Make the people sit down’. In some mysterious way, Jesus worked with those few resources to feed the multitude. In the wordsof Saint Paul that God’s power was made perfect in weakness. The gospel reading suggests that when we ourselves feel at our weakest, our most vulnerable, our lowest, when our own resources seem meagre, the Lord can work powerfully in us and through us.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

[ruleandruinrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, RED!

You have been accepted for the role of TATIANA LANTSOV. Reading this application made me legitimately laugh out loud -- in the best of ways. She is tenacious, bratty, frivolous, and conniving in the best of ways. A character to remember, a character that will leave you legitimately shook. You captured all of that and more in this single application. I don’t think I could ever see anyone more fitting to portray Tatiana than you. Parts of your application had me laughing in near tears, while others had me feeling sad for the girl that could be so much more. I cannot wait for you to reign her holy terror on the dash and I cannot wait to see how she unfolds in the world of Ravka. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for this application! You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

OUT OF CHARACTER

ALIAS: Rita (if that gets confusing since there’s also a Rita character, I can just go by Red?)

PREFERRED PRONOUNS: she/her

AGE: 20

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: 6 – The deadline for my internship report is June 20th, and though it’s finished atm, I know I’m gonna be stressing out about it on that first deadline day or so, so I won’t be very active. After that, prepare to never get rid of me. I am halfway through an internship at a news agency, and since I no longer have classes but can’t start publishing things because I chose politics and need a lot of time to get familiar with the specifics of how parliament works until they’re sure I won’t fuck up, I’m finding myself with more free time than I’ve had in months.

TRIGGERS: OMITTED

CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS: scarlettduharts.tumblr.com; agirlnamedsparrow.tumblr.com; aurormoody.tumblr.com; thurstanselwyn.tumblr.com;

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER: Tatiana Dmitrievna Lantsov

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER?

I have always been fascinated by people who are completely removed from reality.

It’s only natural, then, that one of my favorite archetypes has long since become that of the bad, mad aristocrat - the guileless narcissist dripping with entitlement, oblivious to their own emotional vacancy. Tatiana, with all her envy and penchant for childish grudges, is one of such aristocrats.

But the fun is always in seeing beneath that, isn’t it? Tatiana actually reminds me of Veda Pierce, another rotten, irredeemable brat, but one whose motivations are never explained in the source material, and that I’ve always speculated about.

Tatiana may be frivolous and mean but she’s also quite pitiful. She’s never learnt how to love, how to think, how to work an honest day… Her upbringing left her so blissfully unaware of the real world, such a stranger to pain and want, that she’s forced to make up large problems out of small inconveniences and takes even the grandest things in her life for granted. The girl was denied a large part of what makes a person a person, and with the entitlement instilled into her from birth, it’s really no wonder that that she grew into a monster.

Could she still have become someone good? Sure! Plenty of people turned out a lot better after surviving a lot worse than being a poor little rich girl. It’s not about excusing her. But there are definitely reasons that make Tatiana who she is.

I’d love to get to explore the heart of Tatiana, small and cold and vacant as it may be, to get to the core of a sort of character that is often relegated to the role of minor antagonist in other people’s stories.

I won’t pretend that the Barbie Ferreira faceclaim left me totally cold either. I adore her and leapt with joy as soon as I saw you were using her for a character. Barbie has such a captivating, beautifully decadent look to her – I could honestly go on and on about how striking she is, and she’s absolutely perfect for Tatiana!

WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND?

-If she were to think clearly, Tatiana would find that she doesn’t want the royal family to fall. That would put her in a very bad position and she evidently does not want to be in it. But Tatiana isn’t thinking clearly. She isn’t and she won’t. A part of her will always ache to see those who fancy themselves above her knocked down from their heights and she’d go against her own self-interest to do it. So if someone were to, let’s say, approach her and bargain with her to spy on her cousin Ana or spread rumors about Anton (which she probably already does, with some discretion), she could easily be persuaded to. She probably wouldn’t even anticipate the dire, dire consequences her actions could have. I like the idea of Tatiana being an instrument to sabotage the royal family without realizing that their fall would bring her down with them.

-I also want to explore the courtship from hell™ with Ilya like crazy! I’d love to see a liaisons dangereuses type of dynamic develop between them, with Tatiana trying to destroy any girl he sleeps with and going atomic on the whole seduction aspect of the issue, eventually ending with a “if I can’t have you no one else will” kind of thing.

- I think it would be fun to explore a rivalry with Darya? Tatiana hates and envies Anastasia with every beat of her black heart, but she loves them too. The thought of being replaced in their heart probably kills her, and she must hate the warmth between her cousin and the Voronov girl.

- One of the things that I’d be the most interested in exploring with Tatiana would be a connection with someone, either grisha or not, who is actually dangerous. Maybe she pisses them off, maybe she amuses them because of how shameless she is, whatever. I just want her to get close enough for them to burst her bubble a little, to make her see that there are people capable of far worse than she is. And not necessarily because they’re worse people, you see? Only because they’ve been had a lifetime of hardship and jumping over loops that never existed in her sheltered life – because they’re better at being bad.

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE?: Yes! I wouldn’t want her to get killed off before I had a chance to explore the ideas I have on her, but if it eventually made sense to the plot, I wouldn’t be opposed to it at all! Let’s be honest: Tatiana, at least as she is now, is probably not well-equipped to survive much…

IN DEPTH

IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE(S):

She wanted to gauge out its eyes and eat them.

Two red gems in a golden necklace, daring her to run her fingers through their surface – bloody and very, very red. She’d cut her teeth if she bit through it. And it only made the urge to press them against her lips all the more tempting, to kiss them before wrapping them around her neck as the other one had.

“Isn’t it lovely?”, Anastasia asked, and Tatiana was plunged back into her cousin’s bedroom, sunk on the divan while the little fool twirled away and banished the red in a fluttering haze of white silk.

“Oh, beautiful”, she spat.

But her cousin was not beautiful. In the eyes of peasants and of the new bourgeoisie, perhaps, untrained to the subtleties of it. Tatiana had finer tastes, a keener eye. Their eyes were too round, the poise in their movements too calculated to hold any grace. Theirs was the beauty of the peasant girl, gone with the first fallen leaf – she did not know how to be a proper princess and it did not belong to them.

“Tatiana”, they called, “are you upset?”

She hadn’t noticed how the hunger had seeped into her features, twisting their softness with a child’s angry pout. A stranger would have found the sight of it juvenile, even endearing. The servants would have quaked in their boots.

“I am not.” But how couldn’t she be, with such a great injustice dangling before her? All the diamonds and emeralds in the world did not matter. She might as well have been dressed in rags without the glorious necklace Anastasia had taken.

“You”, she snapped, pointing towards the nearest servant, “bring me a glass of kvas this instant.”

The mousy boy barely glanced at her before rushing out of the room, long warned of the screams that would come should he take too long to acquiesce. A tall woman entered in his stead. Sour and homely, unworthy of interest.

And yet the voice was cavernous, too proud for a woman of her station.

“The Queen requests your Highness’s presence”, she announced, not meriting Tatiana with a single glance. But oh, how she looked at Ana. Like a fire in winter, her eyes reflecting its warmth despite all the coldness of her posture. For a moment, she forgot to want the eyes in the necklace, the red jewels. She wanted the woman’s colorless ones instead.

That was no way to look at one’s betters.

“Excuse me.”

Anastasia didn’t protest, didn’t so much as ask what the servant wanted. She turned around like an obedient little dove, dropping the necklace on the nearest dresser. They were a haze of white when they left the room, flowing fabric trailing after their heavy black curls.

“Sooka.”

Curse her, she thought, curse her and her bloodline and her blasted crown and all the ugly suitors that may worship at her bland little feet.

Tatiana stretched her legs, her bare feet, scowling at the whiteness of her skin. Rita Jacos had promised to fix its pastiness, but she could still see something waxy, something unworthy of her perfection. And so was the room.

Once, in another room, Tatiana had been read tales of the old Os Alta. She had been very small, then, wrapped in fine frills and with her bare feet dangling from the lap of the old, frumpy woman she had once loved. It didn’t hurt to think of Nanny Baluskaya now – she had been dead for too long. She could hardly recall the texture of the old lady’s wrinkled hands, the frost in her voice when she spoke of the large, unforgiving land they called home and its days of sunlight.

“No mama”, she would order, “tell me more of the palace. I want to hear of the princes and the princesses, not of peasants and wheat!”

And so Mama would tell her of gold and rubies and a time where the palace walls had been draped in them and Tatiana could never understand why it was that the Lantsov’s could not live as lavishly as their ancestors had. The war and the wheat were the peasant’s to worry about, the darkness a grisha affair, none of them of any concern to the nobility.

Tatiana knew now, with her bare feet dangling from the divan and no old woman to hold her, that she would have brought Os Alta to its glory days if she’d been a princess. They’d have red drapes and golden embroidery, heads of the finest beasts mounted on the walls. It infuriated her to think of what could have been.

Until her dark eyes met the red ones across the room.

She felt a smile curl her lips, a quick flash of sharp teeth that nearly stopped the servant on his track when he came to deliver the kvas. Tatiana eyed him with contempt before taking her glass, and tried to keep him from seeing that the smile came from his hesitation as well. Was it for the beauty, she wondered, or for the fear? It didn’t much matter – and neither did he.

Tatiana rose from the divan, glass still in hand, and walked to the drawer to wrap her other greedy hand around the necklace. She marveled at the weight of the gold in her palm. The sly smile returned and then…

She threw it against a mirror in the opposite wall.

It survived, of course. Its eyes were glistening amongst the gold and shards of glass, oblivious to the devastation Tatiana had meant to cause. And the sound of the shattering mirror had nothing on the scream that left her throat. Her freckled cheeks grew red, her throat sore.

“Has something-” the servant didn’t get to finish his sentence before she turned around to throw the glass his way. It shattered against the wall behind him and the boy was left shaking, cowering at her.

“What did you do?”, she yelled, “Do you know how many of you that necklace is worth, you little pig?”

There was a tinge of perversity to it, at first, the hint of a smile in her distorted lips. But Tatiana burnt through it very quickly. At last, the fire of righteous indignation took her, and she had nothing but anger boiling in her blood.

“Please”, the boy begged, “I did nothing. I will call for my mother, she will settle it!”

“Mother?”

What a laugh, what a riot - for the little fool to think he was the son of anyone of worth! She raised her hand and delivered a swift blow across his face.

He began to sob.

“My – my- my mother is the head of the servants, you see?”

Her nose wrinkled in disgust. What did it matter that he was the son of the arrogant woman that had called for her cousin? It shouldn’t even have infuriated her as deeply as it did. It shouldn’t. It shouldn’t! She struck the boy twice as hard for daring to voice his unfortunate parentage. Surely he must have known, must have seen how the woman had ignored her – the filthy ugly rat.

The scream that left her throat had nothing human to it, nothing but the full depth of madness in the world, the chaos that must have existed in the parts of Ravka the darkness had long taken. It broke through Tatiana’s body, through her chest. The grief of being made to feel nothing reminded her that she was alive.

“They should have you hung by your entrails and fed to your mama for dinner”, she pronounced every syllable with excruciating clarity, meeting the boy’s gaze for the first time.  She saw nothing but the fear in him, the pathetic subservience. And he saw something terrifying.

Her, Tatiana thought, and the word held all the triumph in the world – her saw her.

She raised her head to find a guard walking in their direction, hesitant for only a moment before he too grabbed the boy by the arm. They couldn’t hurt her – not if she screamed, mangled or killed. Her blood was purer than any part of them.

“Is this how you repay my beloved cousin for her kindness?” She was yelling again, all the self-righteousness of a judge with the shrewdness of a harpy.

Tatiana didn’t merit the guard with a glance until a few moments later, when she spoke in his direction. “I suppose the filthy little fleabag meant to break the necklace! But, as you must know, someone like him wouldn’t know the first thing about how strong the piece is. He broke the mirror instead!”

“I could have hurt myself”, she continued, her voice rising an octave higher, “I could have been blinded by the broken glass!”

The guard turned somber. And Tatiana, for all her rage, began to feel a tingle of satisfaction. She laughed when the man dragged the servant away, the taste of it far sweeter than of the bitter kvas.

“Go on little malen'kaya krysa, squeal!”

Tatiana would never know what had happened to the boy and his mother - she would never care. But she did, for the faintest moment, care to know what took the guard’s expression before he turned away to drag the boy.

She would have never have suspected it to be boredom.

CHARACTER HEADCANONS:

-Tatiana had a vast sum of pets during her childhood: a cat, a dog, a pony, a caged lark, even a wildcat. She remembers their names, their beauty and the passing interest they held, and will occasionally mention them. What she forgets is exactly why she was bored of them or what her father did to them afterwards. It’s not something she often thinks about.

-She’s a virgin. Not in the frail, cowardly way some girls are, with their dry entrails and their tiresome insecurities. No, because Tatiana would never reduce herself to that kind of thing. But she has known who will take her virginity since she was a very young girl. She’s disgusted by most men - bored by the young ones, who will avert their eyes from her chest and tremble in her presence, and furious at the old, who open their ghastly mouths and smile like she’s nothing but a piece of flesh. It’s nearly as bad as the rage when they won’t look at her, really… She would have all their heads as a queen. But not his. She’d much rather have Ilya Tsarov’s head intact. He is power, beauty, ice carved into man. Why would she want any of those beastly creatures, when she can have him? Besides, virginity can be a weapon in itself. Tatiana tells herself that she’s quite knowledgeable about the appetites of the flesh already, and that being a virgin doesn’t really put her at a disadvantage against other people. It’s a shame that there are butterflies in her stomach whenever someone comes close to touching her. She’s getting tired of waiting. There’s a good chance she’ll grow irritated soon enough, and an irritated Duchess Tatiana Lantsov is not an enemy Ilya Tsarov wants to face.

- She is plagued by the persistence of a childhood nickname. Tati – a plain, playful thing fit for a bitch or a servant, cracking on the tongues of those not fit to address her even by her proper title. The lowly ones have long learnt not to use it, lest they incur on her wrath. It’s only when those of royal blood utter it that Tatiana is forced to bite down her rage and choke on blackness and bile before she can bite back.

-[TW: Emotional abuse, arranged marriage, just a fucking horror story in general] She didn’t come from love, as some terrible things do. “I will not marry him”, Natalya had said, trembling as they wrapped the gold around her neck. But they painted her mouth, poured something fiery down her throat, and she was married by the morning. They laughed at the foolish girl in her drunken haze, the Queen’s youngest and prettiest sister. She was seventeen. Tatiana’s father was a clever man, rich in name and coin, short and stout, but nonetheless blessed with a slimy smile and an unassuming charm that helped him pull the strings of everyone around him. The truth was that Grigori wanted the Lantsov name for his children, and there was little anyone could have done to stop him. He tried to get Natalya to love him, truly. Why wouldn’t he have? She was so lovely - her stupidity was only another of her many charms. He lavished her in jewelry and ignored the way she would flinch at his touch. It wasn’t his fault he grew bored of her. Her resistance would have tattered through any man’s nerves, and young girls could be quite dull. Tatiana was born a year after they’d married, wide-eyed and even lovelier than her mother. And saints, was she adored! Of course, Natalya was never very present when her daughter was a child, off with her soldiers and the things they gave her to dream… But she more than made up for it with her gifts, with the desperate kisses she would plant on her little girl’s face. Tatiana could never quite understand what was wrong with her mother. But she soon realized that the more accusations of abandonment she made, the more fervent Natalya’s adoration would be. So she grew fluent in the language of pouts and shrieking, saving the best for when her father came to visit. Oh, how Grigori loves her beauty, her pride, the nobility that she embodies! He is, and has always been, utterly enchanted by everything about her. It doesn’t keep him from using her to control Natalya, of course, keeping his wife’s sense of worth at a manageable low by reminding her of what a terrible mother she is, how unloved she is even by her only child. But Grigori likes to think it’s one of the many things he and Tatiana share. He’s sure that there’s a strong bond between them, that he could control her if he really wanted to – the fact that she’s almost as selfish as he is has to mean something!

-Tatiana isn’t stupid - she’s only remarkable at making herself seem so. She’s a clever enough girl and even had a brain for mathematics as a child. She was good at history and geography as well. She’d develop obsessions with different lands and eras, dressing herself and decorating her room in their likeness. But they were nothing but varnish with which to cover her true interest, colorful pieces to be forgotten when the season passed. What she truly loved was her vanity, the details of a world she was sure was all hers to take. And that’s a very stupid thing to think, particularly for a sheltered girl who’s never known loss or had any sort of power that didn’t come from a name or a sore throat. It’s the sort of smug stupidity that can bleed into everything one does.

-Tatiana is an occasional reader, but doesn’t really have the mental persistence for complicated literature. She devours romance novels. The silly girls and and bland boys in their pages amuse her, and she tells herself that’s why she can’t stop reading them. She was also fond of tales of adventurers and explorers as a child, but has long abandoned them to the dust.

-She’s a marvelous dancer, a pitiful sower and an atrocious singer.

-“Make me”, she tells her, and does not say beautiful. Tatiana knows she is beautiful. She knows, and it only makes the flaws all the more glaring, the indifference with which some look at her all the more hurtful. The approval of the others is meaningless. “Make me”, she tells her, “make me perfect”.

EXTRAS:

Inspiration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31rVmUuPErQ – Remember how I mentioned that Tatiana reminded me of Veda Pierce and that my take on her was sort of inspired on the character? Veda is middle-class turned new money rather than aristocracy but watch this video and tell me if the utterly delusional, juvenile, hurtful rant around 2:06 and the little fit at the end aren’t SO Tatiana. “But why Veda?” Because she’s a cunt, Mildred, that’s why <3 I listened to this whenever I needed inspiration for the app tbh.

Songs for Tatiana:

(not long, organized or consistent enough to be a playlist, but a valiant attempt nonetheless)

Beauty is empty, mars argo

I see you staring in your mirror

What will it take for you to see

Your pretty smile is a monster

And your beauty is empty

Red lips, Sky Ferreira

Little bitch

Growing so bored of your fits

‘Cause sooner or later, you’re done

And down with the worms

And no one remembers your name

Too bad

Primadonna, Mariana and the diamonds  -

I can’t help but I need it all

The primadonna life, the rise and fall

You say that I’m kinda difficult

But it’s always someone else’s fault

Got you wrapped around my finger, babe

You can count on me to misbehave

And I’m sad to the core, core, core

Every day is a chore, chore, chore

When you feel of a whole more more

I wanna be adored

(just the entire fucking song tbh)

Beautiful, Dirty, Rich – Lady Gaga

Bang bang, we’re beautiful and dirty rich – I know this seems hella weak, but the song is one I could see as a soundtrack while Tatiana walks down a room? XD

Gold, Guns, Girls – Metric

All the gold and the guns in the world (couldn’t get you off)

All the gold and the guns and the girls (couldn’t get you off)

All the boys, all the choices in the world

(…)

Is it ever gonna be enough?

Yellow Flicker Beat – Lorde

My blood is a flood of rubies, precious stones

It keeps my veins hot, the fires find a home in me

(…)

They used to shout my name, now they whisper it

I’m speeding up and this is the

Red, orange, yellow flicker beat sparking up my heart

Pinterest Board: https://www.pinterest.pt/girlbitesback/character-tatiana/

ANYTHING ELSE? OMITTED