#THAT BOOK WAS THE CANTERBURY TALES OF SPACE | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

the-lincyclopedia · 2 years

Text

High school English doesn’t look just one way

I’d like to stab the next person who responds to someone’s failure to understand theme/symbolism/metaphor/etc. with “clearly you didn’t pass high school English,” but a.) we’re not in the same physical space, and b.) even if we were, I don’t want to get arrested, so I’m writing this post instead.

This site is abounding in assumptions about high school English, and I want to burst the bubble of everyone who holds those assumptions, because high school English looks a whole lot of different ways. Different schools and districts use different curricula, different teachers have different quirks, AP differs from IB, etc. For better and for worse (quite possibly mostly for worse), there is no uniform knowledge base held by people who did, in fact, pass high school English.

I did the International Baccalaureate program in high school, but I did that program in the Midwestern US, and this is very much a post about my experience in the US school system. Here’s what my high school English experience looked like:

FRESHMAN YEAR

My freshman English teacher was funny and personable but not very good at teaching English, and I have no idea what was up with the curriculum. We only read two books (The Scarlet Letter and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass) as a group all year. We read poetry (Emily Dickinson), short stories (Edgar Allan Poe), and excerpts from a variety of things (Thoreau sticks out in my mind), and toward the end of the year we had to pick an American author (I think from a list?), read one of their books, read a biography of the author, and then do a project, but overall it wasn’t a very reading-heavy year.

Nor was it a writing-heavy year! Most of our assignments were art projects. One of my least-favorite days was the day we came to class with the first of our “creative journal” entries (i.e. mixed-media projects that connected our personal lives to the topic we were studying) and my teacher said, “I can already tell, without looking at any of your assignments, that none of them are creative enough.” I have no idea why we spent so much time on collages and whatnot in my English class, but we did.

Point being, this was emphatically not a time when I learned a lot about metaphor, symbolism, plot structure, etc.

SOPHOMORE YEAR

My sophomore English teacher was new to teaching after having been a professional dancer for over a decade. She was really cool! She was both humble enough and secure enough in herself to admit when she didn’t know things, which is not a universal trait for teachers. She was also great at fostering community, and the class got close and grew to respect one another.

Unlike freshman year, this was an incredibly reading-heavy year. We started out with creation myths and excerpts from the Iliad and the Odyssey, and what followed was a barrage:

Antigone (the Greek play)

Canterbury Tales

Dante’s Inferno

Macbeth

Much Ado about Nothing

Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus

The Importance of Being Earnest

And then at the end of the year we had to pick a novel written by a non-Western author and write a report on it. (I’m not complaining about that assignment in particular; the whole lot of it taken together was just a lot for one year!)

So, okay, we read a fuckton that year. And we did write some papers. But, as with freshman year, many of our assignments were creative projects. This worked better with this particular teacher and this particular class both because of the community we had built and because we had several very creative people in the class: there was this girl who was a mixed-media artist who made sculptures just about every time, and this boy who was an aspiring filmmaker who would make little movies every time, and this other boy who was an amazing composer who wrote an original song for every creative assignment (and also wrote a 40-minute-long musical with a bunch of original songs at the end of the year to express his appreciation to our teacher).

In the multiple-page thank-you note I wrote to this teacher at the end of the year, I told her I learned more in sophomore English about respecting and admiring my classmates than I did about English. Once again, not really a time when I learned about metaphor, symbolism, plot structure, etc.

JUNIOR YEAR

This is the point when I entered actual IB classes (the Diploma Programme--yes, it’s British and is spelled that way--only covers the last two years of high school, and my school wasn’t officially part of the Middle Years Programme when I was a freshman or sophomore). My junior year English teacher was a hardass who denied my accommodations request and treated us all pretty badly, but she understood more about teaching English than my previous two English teachers had.

It was another reading-heavy year, with our reading list looking like this:

Poetry by Mahmoud Darwish

Short stories by Lu Xun

Agamemnon

The House of Bernarda Alba

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Othello

Junior year, finally, we were actually writing. However, none of our writing assignments were called “papers.” They were either journals, which basically meant we were answering a set of questions and didn’t need to be super formal about it (punctuation, grammar, and citations were still expected, but paragraph structure could be looser), or commentaries, which were usually about some very specific aspect or section of what we read (say, a single monologue from Othello, or an argument for why a specific character was the protagonist of One Hundred Years of Solitude).

The thing about the IB style of commentaries, at least as they were taught at my high school, is that they were very concerned about how language means--how individual words combine to create a very specific meaning. You were never allowed to summarize anything, because phrasing and word choice were the entire point. Any paragraph would have to introduce a point, cite a quote that illustrated that point, and then dissect the quote to prove how it illustrated that point. You were never allowed to assume the quote proved the point on its own, nor were you generally allowed to point to several connected instances in one paragraph and reference them without direct quotes (say, with just page numbers).

So this was a year when I learned some things about things like metaphor and symbolism. However, plot structure basically got lost because it’s a harder thing to talk about when you have to pull a quote every single time you want to make a point. Moreover, the definition that all the teachers and professors from throughout my education used for metaphors was very different than the definition most people on Tumblr seem to use (which I’ve rage-posted about before).

SENIOR YEAR

Still IB, still writing commentaries that required direct quotes for everything and more often than not focused on a single paragraph or monologue. My senior year English teacher was much nicer than the junior year one, at least.

Our reading list:

Margaret Atwood’s poetry

Dust Tracks on a Road

Hamlet

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

The Lion and the Jewel

The Glass Menagerie

At this point, we learned about allegories, particularly when analyzing The Lion and the Jewel, a Nigerian play with a lot to say about colonialism. Once again, I’ll point out that the divide between allegory and metaphor in my high school English class was incredibly different than people on Tumblr claim it to be.

IN CONCLUSION

I spent the first half of my high school English career making art projects and the second half writing commentaries based on a single paragraph or monologue from the source material. When we spent time on the plot, it was usually for comprehension purposes, not analysis purposes; when we did analysis, it was usually at the word and sentence level, not at the story level. This means we learned a wildly different set of skills than a lot of Tumblrites assume are universal to high school English.

TL;DR: Shut up about “you clearly never passed high school English.” You have no idea how different high school English looks from one school to another.

#a lin original #academia #academic writing #school #high school

15 notes · View notes

jcmarchi · 2 months

Text

The study and practice of being human

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/the-study-and-practice-of-being-human/

The study and practice of being human

For their last meeting of the fall 2023 semester, the students in MIT’s course 21W.756 (Nature Poetry) piled into a bus and headed to a local performance space for a reading: their own.

Sure, students in the course, taught by Professor Joshua Bennett, spend much of the semester reading and discussing poems. But they create and perform, too, often using tools from their other studies at MIT. One student in 21W.756 built a custom field microphone to incorporate recorded sounds into his work; another designed collages to complement her poems.

“The students are phenomenal,” says Bennett, a professor of literature and Distinguished Chair of the Humanities at MIT. “I try to think about how everything else they’re studying at MIT might meet up with the study of literature in a productive way. We’ve got great students who do super-interesting things.”

Play video

He adds: “They are willing to take the leap between other classes and our class very seriously. They see it as an opportunity — and they’ve explicitly told me this — to talk about being human. They’ve cherished that, and it’s been a transformative experience to have witnessed that.”

Bennett, an award-winning professor with a broad portfolio of work, knows about leaping between disciplines. He has published books of literary criticism, cultural history, and three collections of poems. Bennett has also gained renown as a spoken-word poetry performer — he has another major tour slated for this summer — and helped found the poetry collaborative Strivers Row. His readings have gained what must be millions of views on YouTube, including “Tamara’s Opus,” a dramatic work written for his deaf sister.

In short, Bennett also does his own super-interesting things, while encouraging students to join him in the pursuit of knowledge.

“Why do we create literature in the first place?” Bennett asks. “Why do we go to college? Why do we listen to people tell stories? Why do 300 or 3,000 people at a poetry reading listen to me or others talk? I imagine some of it is, there are things we love about being alive. And one of them is the feeling you can learn something new. You can be astonished. There is a space for you to become more complete through knowledge.”

Reading (and listening to) everything

Bennett grew up in Yonkers, New York, in a family that included preachers and musicians, and helped inculcate a love of learning in him.

“I’m thankful I had parents who just weren’t narrow-minded,” Bennett says. “They taught me to read everything, to listen to everything. At school I was reading Fitzgerald, and other works that were canonical, and wherever I saw beauty I really gravitated to it.” At the same time, he notes, “I was exposed to the genius of gospel music, jazz, and Motown,” while learning about Black scientists and much more.

He credits a 10th grade English teacher, Kaliq Simms, for helping him realize his potential as a student and writer.

“We read Hamlet, the Merchant of Venice, the Canterbury Tales, and she took us through literature in a way that made it land,” Bennett says. “She taught those works alongside Toni Morrison and James Baldwin. There was just something about the way she spoke to us. Ms. Simms said I was a ‘witty elocutionist.’ She just saw something in me other people didn’t see, or couldn’t. She had a serious role in changing my trajectory.”

Thus bolstered, Bennett earned his undergraduate degree as a double major in Africana studies and English from the University of Pennsylvania, where he became involved in the competitive poetry-slam scene. Bennett did so well as a performer that in 2009, before he had graduated, he was invited to perform “Tamara’s Opus” at the White House; it is an apology to his sister for not having learned sign language sooner. Graduating in 2010, Bennett was a commencement speaker at Penn.

If that weren’t enough, Bennett also earned a prestigious Marshall Scholarship, allowing him to receive an MA in theater and performance studies from the University of Warwick, in Coventry, England. Bennett then earned his PhD in English from Princeton University. His dissertation, about the place and meaning of animals in Black literature, ultimately became his 2020 book, “Being Property Once Myself.” It won the Modern Language Association’s William Sanders Scarborough Prize.

“It really emerged from having two grandparents who were sharecroppers who met in a strawberry field in North Carolina and emphasized the beauty of that field,” Bennett says. “I thought, how is that possible? To come out of that context with a story of love and beauty. When I got to Princeton, I expected the appearence of animals in African American literature to always be about degredation, but instead what I found were writers who took animals on their own terms, as beautiful, as powerful, as annoying, as recalcitrant, and sometimes as radicals or fugitives.”

Those writers include major figures such as Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Robert Hayden, and Jesmyn Ward, among others. “I chose all canonical authors, on purpose,” Bennett says. “But that was to say, these are some of the most written-about books by African Americans, and even so, people had not written about them in this way.”

After receiving his PhD in 2016, Bennett spent three years as a Junior Fellow in Harvard University’s Society of Fellows, then joined the faculty of Dartmouth College in 2019. Two years later, he was promoted to full professor. Bennett joined the MIT faculty full-time starting in 2023.

Among other recent honors, Bennett was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2021. He also won the 2023 Paterson Poetry Prize for his 2022 poetry collection, “The Study of Human Life.”

What kind of writing?

Bennett’s prolific output, both in scholarly works and as a poet and performer, no doubt owes much to his inner drive and enthusiasm. But his ability to produce work across genres also seems tied to his flexible thinking about writerly voice. Bennett is not constrained by the idea that his writing can only take one register; he varies his approach depending upon the project.

“To me it’s all [just] different kinds of writing,” Bennett says. “I was raised around musicians, around preachers, which I think is really central, because I understood what they were doing, even if some of them were improvising sermons, as a kind of writing. Poetry, fiction, and nonfiction are all kinds of writing, so [the question became], what kind of writing is best suited to my object of concern?”

For instance, Bennett says his 2016 poetry collection, “The Sobbing School,” a complex series of explorations about sustaining selfhood in the context of violence and tragedy, is about grief; that subject matter shaped the form.

“At that moment, I thought, these need to be elegies,” Bennett says.

However, Bennett’s 2023 nonfiction book “Spoken Word,” a history of the spoken-word poetry movement, is different. It is a deeply researched book that Bennett has written for a general audience, with a fast-paced text replicating the sense of movement and novelty surrounding the growth of the spoken-word genre, its best-known venues, like the Nuyorican Poets Café in Manhattan, and the creation of competitive poetry slams. In The New York Times, Tas Tobey called it a “vibrant cultural history.”

“I wanted to write ‘Spoken Word’ like a spoken-word poem, which I say explicitly, but I also wanted it to be a history of loving accomplishment,” Bennett says. “How people have not just competed, but worked together to create a sound.”

Another motif of “Spoken Word” is that in the process of creating spoken word poetry, people have found meaning in their own lives, discerned meaning in the works of others, and established human bonds and affinities and they might not have otherwise understood.

From the poetry slam venue to his own classroom, Bennett encourages this process. Making literature is an act of human value and meaning, and helps us reflect on it, too.

“We are here to sit with beauty and discomfort the whole time,” Bennett says of his class discussions. “Some of the work we read will be from people who were imprisoned, or enslaved, and we’re reading their poems together and learning what they have to say about human life.” Of his students, he adds: “We need as many hands on deck as possible, we need as many students who care and are devoted and as imaginative as possible in the room, and we need to give them all the resources we can to produce a livable world.”

1 note · View note

wakamotogarou · 1 year

Text

The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue

By Geoffrey Chaucer

Here bygynneth the Book of the tales of Caunterbury

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote, The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licóur Of which vertú engendred is the flour; Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne, And smale foweles maken melodye, That slepen al the nyght with open ye, So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages, Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes, To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes; And specially, from every shires ende Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende, The hooly blisful martir for to seke, That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

Bifil that in that seson on a day, In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay, Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage To Caunterbury with ful devout corage, At nyght were come into that hostelrye Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye Of sondry folk, by áventure y-falle In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle, That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde. The chambres and the stables weren wyde, And wel we weren esed atte beste. And shortly, whan the sonne was to reste, So hadde I spoken with hem everychon, That I was of hir felaweshipe anon, And made forward erly for to ryse, To take oure wey, ther as I yow devyse.

But nathelees, whil I have tyme and space, Er that I ferther in this tale pace, Me thynketh it acordaunt to resoun To telle yow al the condicioun Of ech of hem, so as it semed me, And whiche they weren and of what degree, And eek in what array that they were inne; And at a Knyght than wol I first bigynne.

A Knyght ther was, and that a worthy man, That fro the tyme that he first bigan To riden out, he loved chivalrie, Trouthe and honóur, fredom and curteisie. Ful worthy was he in his lordes werre, And thereto hadde he riden, no man ferre, As wel in cristendom as in hethenesse, And evere honóured for his worthynesse. At Alisaundre he was whan it was wonne; Ful ofte tyme he hadde the bord bigonne Aboven alle nacions in Pruce. In Lettow hadde he reysed and in Ruce,— No cristen man so ofte of his degree. In Gernade at the seege eek hadde he be Of Algezir, and riden in Belmarye. At Lyeys was he, and at Satalye, Whan they were wonne; and in the Grete See At many a noble armee hadde he be.

At mortal batailles hadde he been fiftene, And foughten for oure feith at Tramyssene In lyste thries, and ay slayn his foo. This ilke worthy knyght hadde been also Somtyme with the lord of Palatye Agayn another hethen in Turkye; And evermoore he hadde a sovereyn prys. And though that he were worthy, he was wys, And of his port as meeke as is a mayde. He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde, In al his lyf, unto no maner wight. He was a verray, parfit, gentil knyght.

But for to tellen yow of his array, His hors weren goode, but he was nat gay; Of fustian he wered a gypon Al bismótered with his habergeon; For he was late y-come from his viage, And wente for to doon his pilgrymage.

With hym ther was his sone, a yong Squiér, A lovyere and a lusty bacheler, With lokkes crulle as they were leyd in presse. Of twenty yeer of age he was, I gesse. Of his statúre he was of evene lengthe, And wonderly delyvere and of greet strengthe. And he hadde been somtyme in chyvachie In Flaundres, in Artoys, and Pycardie, And born hym weel, as of so litel space, In hope to stonden in his lady grace. Embrouded was he, as it were a meede Al ful of fresshe floures whyte and reede. Syngynge he was, or floytynge, al the day; He was as fressh as is the month of May. Short was his gowne, with sleves longe and wyde; Wel koude he sitte on hors and faire ryde; He koude songes make and wel endite, Juste and eek daunce, and weel purtreye and write. So hoote he lovede that by nyghtertale He sleep namoore than dooth a nyghtyngale. Curteis he was, lowely and servysáble, And carf biforn his fader at the table.

A Yeman hadde he and servántz namo At that tyme, for hym liste ride soo; And he was clad in cote and hood of grene. A sheef of pecock arwes bright and kene, Under his belt he bar ful thriftily— Wel koude he dresse his takel yemanly; His arwes drouped noght with fetheres lowe— And in his hand he baar a myghty bowe. A not-heed hadde he, with a broun viságe. Of woodecraft wel koude he al the uságe. Upon his arm he baar a gay bracér, And by his syde a swerd and a bokeler, And on that oother syde a gay daggere, Harneised wel and sharp as point of spere; A Cristophere on his brest of silver sheene. An horn he bar, the bawdryk was of grene. A forster was he, soothly as I gesse.

Ther was also a Nonne, a Prioresse, That of hir smylyng was ful symple and coy; Hire gretteste ooth was but by seinte Loy, And she was cleped madame Eglentyne. Ful weel she soong the service dyvyne, Entuned in hir nose ful semely; And Frenssh she spak ful faire and fetisly, After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe, For Frenssh of Parys was to hire unknowe. At mete wel y-taught was she with-alle: She leet no morsel from hir lippes falle, Ne wette hir fyngres in hir sauce depe. Wel koude she carie a morsel and wel kepe Thát no drope ne fille upon hire brist; In curteisie was set ful muchel hir list. Hire over-lippe wyped she so clene That in hir coppe ther was no ferthyng sene Of grece, whan she dronken hadde hir draughte. Ful semely after hir mete she raughte. And sikerly she was of greet desport, And ful plesáunt and amyable of port, And peyned hire to countrefete cheere Of court, and been estatlich of manere, And to ben holden digne of reverence. But for to speken of hire conscience, She was so charitable and so pitous She wolde wepe if that she saugh a mous Kaught in a trappe, if it were deed or bledde. Of smale houndes hadde she, that she fedde With rosted flessh, or milk and wastel breed; But soore wepte she if oon of hem were deed, Or if men smoot it with a yerde smerte; And al was conscience and tendre herte.

Ful semyly hir wympul pynched was; Hire nose tretys, her eyen greye as glas, Hir mouth ful smal and ther-to softe and reed; But sikerly she hadde a fair forheed; It was almoost a spanne brood, I trowe; For, hardily, she was nat undergrowe. Ful fetys was hir cloke, as I was war; Of smal coral aboute hire arm she bar A peire of bedes, gauded al with grene, And ther-on heng a brooch of gold ful sheene, On which ther was first write a crowned A, And after, Amor vincit omnia.

Another Nonne with hire hadde she, That was hire chapeleyne, and Preestes thre.

A Monk ther was, a fair for the maistrie, An outridere, that lovede venerie; A manly man, to been an abbot able. Ful many a deyntee hors hadde he in stable; And whan he rood, men myghte his brydel heere Gýnglen in a whistlynge wynd als cleere, And eek as loude, as dooth the chapel belle, Ther as this lord was kepere of the celle. The reule of seint Maure or of seint Beneit, By-cause that it was old and som-del streit,— This ilke Monk leet olde thynges pace, And heeld after the newe world the space. He yaf nat of that text a pulled hen That seith that hunters ben nat hooly men, Ne that a monk, whan he is recchelees, Is likned til a fissh that is waterlees,— This is to seyn, a monk out of his cloystre. But thilke text heeld he nat worth an oystre; And I seyde his opinioun was good. What sholde he studie and make hymselven wood, Upon a book in cloystre alwey to poure, Or swynken with his handes and labóure, As Austyn bit? How shal the world be served? Lat Austyn have his swynk to him reserved. Therfore he was a prikasour aright: Grehoundes he hadde, as swift as fowel in flight; Of prikyng and of huntyng for the hare Was al his lust, for no cost wolde he spare. I seigh his sleves y-púrfiled at the hond With grys, and that the fyneste of a lond; And for to festne his hood under his chyn He hadde of gold y-wroght a curious pyn; A love-knotte in the gretter ende ther was. His heed was balled, that shoon as any glas, And eek his face, as he hadde been enoynt. He was a lord ful fat and in good poynt; His eyen stepe, and rollynge in his heed, That stemed as a forneys of a leed; His bootes souple, his hors in greet estaat. Now certeinly he was a fair prelaat. He was nat pale, as a forpyned goost: A fat swan loved he best of any roost. His palfrey was as broun as is a berye.

A Frere ther was, a wantowne and a merye, A lymytour, a ful solémpne man. In alle the ordres foure is noon that kan So muchel of daliaunce and fair langage. He hadde maad ful many a mariage Of yonge wommen at his owene cost. Unto his ordre he was a noble post. Ful wel biloved and famulier was he With frankeleyns over al in his contree, And eek with worthy wommen of the toun; For he hadde power of confessioun, As seyde hym-self, moore than a curát, For of his ordre he was licenciat. Ful swetely herde he confessioun, And plesaunt was his absolucioun. He was an esy man to yeve penaunce There as he wiste to have a good pitaunce; For unto a povre ordre for to yive Is signe that a man is wel y-shryve; For, if he yaf, he dorste make avaunt He wiste that a man was répentaunt; For many a man so hard is of his herte He may nat wepe al-thogh hym soore smerte. Therfore in stede of wepynge and preyéres Men moote yeve silver to the povre freres. His typet was ay farsed full of knyves And pynnes, for to yeven faire wyves. And certeinly he hadde a murye note: Wel koude he synge and pleyen on a rote; Of yeddynges he baar outrely the pris. His nekke whit was as the flour-de-lys; Ther-to he strong was as a champioun. He knew the tavernes wel in every toun, And everich hostiler and tappestere Bet than a lazar or a beggestere; For unto swich a worthy man as he Acorded nat, as by his facultee, To have with sike lazars aqueyntaunce; It is nat honest, it may nat avaunce Fór to deelen with no swich poraille, But al with riche and selleres of vitaille. And over-al, ther as profit sholde arise, Curteis he was and lowely of servyse. Ther nas no man nowher so vertuous. He was the beste beggere in his hous; [And yaf a certeyn ferme for the graunt, Noon of his brethren cam ther in his haunt;] For thogh a wydwe hadde noght a sho, So plesaunt was his In principio, Yet wolde he have a ferthyng er he wente: His purchas was wel bettre than his rente. And rage he koude, as it were right a whelpe. In love-dayes ther koude he muchel helpe, For there he was nat lyk a cloysterer With a thredbare cope, as is a povre scolér, But he was lyk a maister, or a pope; Of double worstede was his semycope, That rounded as a belle, out of the presse. Somwhat he lipsed for his wantownesse, To make his Englissh sweete upon his tonge; And in his harpyng, whan that he hadde songe, His eyen twynkled in his heed aryght As doon the sterres in the frosty nyght. This worthy lymytour was cleped Hubérd.

A Marchant was ther with a forked berd, In motteleye, and hye on horse he sat; Upon his heed a Flaundryssh bevere hat; His bootes clasped faire and fetisly. His resons he spak ful solémpnely, Sownynge alway thencrees of his wynnyng. He wolde the see were kept for any thing Bitwixe Middelburgh and Orewelle. Wel koude he in eschaunge sheeldes selle. This worthy man ful wel his wit bisette; Ther wiste no wight that he was in dette, So estatly was he of his gouvernaunce, With his bargaynes and with his chevyssaunce. For sothe he was a worthy man with-alle, But, sooth to seyn, I noot how men hym calle.

A Clerk ther was of Oxenford also, That unto logyk hadde longe y-go. As leene was his hors as is a rake, And he nas nat right fat, I undertake, But looked holwe, and ther-to sobrely. Ful thredbare was his overeste courtepy; For he hadde geten hym yet no benefice, Ne was so worldly for to have office; For hym was lévere háve at his beddes heed Twénty bookes, clad in blak or reed, Of Aristotle and his philosophie, Than robes riche, or fíthele, or gay sautrie. But al be that he was a philosophre, Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre; But al that he myghte of his freendes hente On bookes and on lernynge he it spente, And bisily gan for the soules preye Of hem that yaf hym wher-with to scoleye. Of studie took he moost cure and moost heede. Noght o word spak he moore than was neede; And that was seyd in forme and reverence, And short and quyk and ful of hy senténce. Sownynge in moral vertu was his speche; And gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche.

A Sergeant of the Lawe, war and wys, That often hadde been at the Parvys, Ther was also, ful riche of excellence. Discreet he was, and of greet reverence— He semed swich, his wordes weren so wise. Justice he was ful often in assise, By patente, and by pleyn commissioun. For his science and for his heigh renoun, Of fees and robes hadde he many oon. So greet a purchasour was nowher noon: Al was fee symple to hym in effect; His purchasyng myghte nat been infect. Nowher so bisy a man as he ther nas, And yet he semed bisier than he was. In termes hadde he caas and doomes alle That from the tyme of kyng William were falle. Ther-to he koude endite and make a thyng, Ther koude no wight pynche at his writyng; And every statut koude he pleyn by rote. He rood but hoomly in a medlee cote, Girt with a ceint of silk, with barres smale; Of his array telle I no lenger tale.

A Frankeleyn was in his compaignye. Whit was his berd as is the dayesye; Of his complexioun he was sangwyn. Wel loved he by the morwe a sop in wyn; To lyven in delit was evere his wone, For he was Epicurus owene sone, That heeld opinioun that pleyn delit Was verraily felicitee parfit. An housholdere, and that a greet, was he; Seint Julian he was in his contree. His breed, his ale, was alweys after oon; A bettre envyned man was nowher noon. Withoute bake mete was nevere his hous, Of fissh and flessh, and that so plentevous, It snewed in his hous of mete and drynke, Of alle deyntees that men koude thynke, After the sondry sesons of the yeer; So chaunged he his mete and his soper. Ful many a fat partrich hadde he in muwe, And many a breem and many a luce in stuwe. Wo was his cook but if his sauce were Poynaunt and sharp, and redy al his geere. His table dormant in his halle alway Stood redy covered al the longe day. At sessiouns ther was he lord and sire; Ful ofte tyme he was knyght of the shire. An anlaas, and a gipser al of silk, Heeng at his girdel, whit as morne milk. A shirreve hadde he been, and a countour; Was nowher such a worthy vavasour.

An Haberdasshere, and a Carpenter, A Webbe, a Dyere, and a Tapycer,— And they were clothed alle in o lyveree Of a solémpne and a greet fraternitee. Ful fressh and newe hir geere apiked was; Hir knyves were chaped noght with bras, But al with silver; wroght ful clene and weel Hire girdles and hir pouches everydeel. Wel semed ech of hem a fair burgeys To sitten in a yeldehalle, on a deys. Éverich, for the wisdom that he kan, Was shaply for to been an alderman; For catel hadde they ynogh and rente, And eek hir wyves wolde it wel assente, And elles certeyn were they to blame. It is ful fair to been y-cleped Madame, And goon to vigilies al bifore, And have a mantel roialliche y-bore.

A Cook they hadde with hem for the nones, To boille the chiknes with the marybones, And poudre-marchant tart, and galyngale. Wel koude he knowe a draughte of Londoun ale. He koude rooste, and sethe, and broille, and frye, Máken mortreux, and wel bake a pye. But greet harm was it, as it thoughte me, That on his shyne a mormal hadde he; For blankmanger, that made he with the beste.

A Shipman was ther, wonynge fer by weste; For aught I woot he was of Dertemouthe. He rood upon a rouncy, as he kouthe, In a gowne of faldyng to the knee. A daggere hangynge on a laas hadde he Aboute his nekke, under his arm adoun. The hoote somer hadde maad his hewe al broun; And certeinly he was a good felawe. Ful many a draughte of wyn hadde he y-drawe Fro Burdeux-ward, whil that the chapman sleep. Of nyce conscience took he no keep. If that he faught and hadde the hyer hond, By water he sente hem hoom to every lond. But of his craft to rekene wel his tydes, His stremes, and his daungers hym bisides, His herberwe and his moone, his lode-menage, Ther nas noon swich from Hulle to Cartage. Hardy he was and wys to undertake; With many a tempest hadde his berd been shake. He knew alle the havenes, as they were, From Gootlond to the Cape of Fynystere, And every cryke in Britaigne and in Spayne. His barge y-cleped was the Maudelayne.

With us ther was a Doctour of Phisik; In all this world ne was ther noon hym lik, To speke of phisik and of surgerye; For he was grounded in astronomye. He kepte his pacient a ful greet deel In houres, by his magyk natureel. Wel koude he fortunen the ascendent Of his ymáges for his pacient. He knew the cause of everich maladye, Were it of hoot, or cold, or moyste, or drye, And where they engendred and of what humour. He was a verray, parfit praktisour; The cause y-knowe, and of his harm the roote, Anon he yaf the sike man his boote. Ful redy hadde he his apothecaries To sende him drogges and his letuaries; For ech of hem made oother for to wynne, Hir frendshipe nas nat newe to bigynne. Wel knew he the olde Esculapius, And De{"y}scorides, and eek Rufus, Old Ypocras, Haly, and Galyen, Serapion, Razis, and Avycen, Averrois, Damascien, and Constantyn, Bernard, and Gatesden, and Gilbertyn. Of his diete mesurable was he, For it was of no superfluitee, But of greet norissyng and digestíble. His studie was but litel on the Bible. In sangwyn and in pers he clad was al, Lyned with taffata and with sendal. And yet he was but esy of dispence; He kepte that he wan in pestilence. For gold in phisik is a cordial; Therfore he lovede gold in special.

A Good Wif was ther of biside Bathe, But she was som-del deef, and that was scathe. Of clooth-makyng she hadde swich an haunt She passed hem of Ypres and of Gaunt. In al the parisshe wif ne was ther noon That to the offrynge bifore hire sholde goon; And if ther dide, certeyn so wrooth was she That she was out of alle charitee. Hir coverchiefs ful fyne weren of ground; I dorste swere they weyeden ten pound That on a Sonday weren upon hir heed. Hir hosen weren of fyn scarlet reed, Ful streite y-teyd, and shoes ful moyste and newe. Boold was hir face, and fair, and reed of hewe. She was a worthy womman al hir lyve; Housbondes at chirche dore she hadde fyve, Withouten oother compaignye in youthe; But ther-of nedeth nat to speke as nowthe. And thries hadde she been at Jérusalem; She hadde passed many a straunge strem; At Rome she hadde been, and at Boloigne, In Galice at Seint Jame, and at Coloigne. She koude muchel of wandrynge by the weye. Gat-tothed was she, soothly for to seye. Upon an amblere esily she sat, Y-wympled wel, and on hir heed an hat As brood as is a bokeler or a targe; A foot-mantel aboute hir hipes large, And on hire feet a paire of spores sharpe. In felaweshipe wel koude she laughe and carpe; Of remedies of love she knew per chauncé, For she koude of that art the olde daunce.

A good man was ther of religioun, And was a povre Person of a Toun; But riche he was of hooly thoght and werk. He was also a lerned man, a clerk, That Cristes Gospel trewely wolde preche; His parisshens devoutly wolde he teche. Benygne he was, and wonder diligent, And in adversitee ful pacient; And swich he was y-preved ofte sithes. Ful looth were hym to cursen for his tithes, But rather wolde he yeven, out of doute, Unto his povre parisshens aboute, Of his offrýng and eek of his substaunce; He koude in litel thyng have suffisaunce. Wyd was his parisshe, and houses fer asonder, But he ne lafte nat, for reyn ne thonder, In siknesse nor in meschief to visíte The ferreste in his parisshe, muche and lite, Upon his feet, and in his hand a staf. This noble ensample to his sheep he yaf, That first he wroghte and afterward he taughte. Out of the gospel he tho wordes caughte; And this figure he added eek therto, That if gold ruste, what shal iren doo? For if a preest be foul, on whom we truste, No wonder is a lewed man to ruste; And shame it is, if a prest take keep, A shiten shepherde and a clene sheep. Wel oghte a preest ensample for to yive By his clennesse how that his sheep sholde lyve. He sette nat his benefice to hyre And leet his sheep encombred in the myre, And ran to Londoun, unto Seinte Poules, To seken hym a chaunterie for soules, Or with a bretherhed to been withholde; But dwelte at hoom and kepte wel his folde, So that the wolf ne made it nat myscarie; He was a shepherde, and noght a mercenarie. And though he hooly were and vertuous, He was to synful man nat despitous, Ne of his speche daungerous ne digne, But in his techyng díscreet and benygne. To drawen folk to hevene by fairnesse, By good ensample, this was his bisynesse. But it were any persone obstinat, What so he were, of heigh or lough estat, Hym wolde he snybben sharply for the nonys. A bettre preest I trowe that nowher noon ys. He waited after no pompe and reverence, Ne maked him a spiced conscience; But Cristes loore and his apostles twelve He taughte, but first he folwed it hymselve.

With hym ther was a Plowman, was his brother, That hadde y-lad of dong ful many a fother; A trewe swynkere and a good was he, Lyvynge in pees and parfit charitee. God loved he best, with al his hoole herte, At alle tymes, thogh him gamed or smerte. And thanne his neighebor right as hymselve. He wolde thresshe, and therto dyke and delve, For Cristes sake, for every povre wight, Withouten hire, if it lay in his myght. His tithes payede he ful faire and wel, Bothe of his propre swynk and his catel. In a tabard he rood upon a mere.

Ther was also a Reve and a Millere, A Somnour and a Pardoner also, A Maunciple, and myself,—ther were namo.

The Millere was a stout carl for the nones; Ful byg he was of brawn and eek of bones. That proved wel, for over-al, ther he cam, At wrastlynge he wolde have alwey the ram. He was short-sholdred, brood, a thikke knarre; Ther nas no dore that he nolde heve of harre, Or breke it at a rennyng with his heed. His berd as any sowe or fox was reed, And therto brood, as though it were a spade. Upon the cop right of his nose he hade A werte, and thereon stood a toft of herys, Reed as the brustles of a sowes erys; His nosethirles blake were and wyde. A swerd and a bokeler bar he by his syde. His mouth as greet was as a greet forneys; He was a janglere and a goliardeys, And that was moost of synne and harlotries. Wel koude he stelen corn and tollen thries; And yet he hadde a thombe of gold, pardee. A whit cote and a blew hood wered he. A baggepipe wel koude he blowe and sowne, And therwithal he broghte us out of towne.

A gentil Maunciple was ther of a temple, Of which achátours myghte take exemple For to be wise in byynge of vitaille; For, wheither that he payde or took by taille, Algate he wayted so in his achaat That he was ay biforn and in good staat. Now is nat that of God a ful fair grace, That swich a lewed mannes wit shal pace The wisdom of an heep of lerned men? Of maistres hadde he mo than thries ten, That weren of lawe expert and curious, Of whiche ther weren a duszeyne in that hous Worthy to been stywardes of rente and lond Of any lord that is in Engelond, To maken hym lyve by his propre good, In honour dettelees, but if he were wood, Or lyve as scarsly as hym list desire; And able for to helpen al a shire In any caas that myghte falle or happe; And yet this Manciple sette hir aller cappe

The Reve was a sclendre colerik man. His berd was shave as ny as ever he kan; His heer was by his erys round y-shorn; His top was dokked lyk a preest biforn. Ful longe were his legges and ful lene, Y-lyk a staf, ther was no calf y-sene. Wel koude he kepe a gerner and a bynne; Ther was noon auditour koude on him wynne. Wel wiste he, by the droghte and by the reyn, The yeldynge of his seed and of his greyn. His lordes sheep, his neet, his dayerye, His swyn, his hors, his stoor, and his pultrye, Was hoolly in this reves governyng; And by his covenant yaf the rekenyng Syn that his lord was twenty yeer of age; There koude no man brynge hym in arrerage. There nas baillif, ne hierde, nor oother hyne, That he ne knew his sleighte and his covyne; They were adrad of hym as of the deeth. His wonyng was ful fair upon an heeth; With grene trees shadwed was his place. He koude bettre than his lord purchace; Ful riche he was a-stored pryvely. His lord wel koude he plesen subtilly, To yeve and lene hym of his owene good, And have a thank, and yet a cote and hood. In youthe he hadde lerned a good myster; He was a wel good wrighte, a carpenter. This Reve sat upon a ful good stot, That was al pomely grey, and highte Scot. A long surcote of pers upon he hade, And by his syde he baar a rusty blade. Of Northfolk was this Reve of which I telle, Biside a toun men clepen Baldeswelle. Tukked he was as is a frere, aboute. And evere he rood the hyndreste of oure route.

A Somonour was ther with us in that place, That hadde a fyr-reed cherubynnes face, For sawcefleem he was, with eyen narwe. As hoot he was and lecherous as a sparwe, With scaled browes blake and piled berd,— Of his visage children were aferd. Ther nas quyk-silver, lytarge, ne brymstoon, Boras, ceruce, ne oille of tartre noon, Ne oynement that wolde clense and byte, That hym myghte helpen of his whelkes white, Nor of the knobbes sittynge on his chekes. Wel loved he garleek, oynons, and eek lekes, And for to drynken strong wyn, reed as blood. Thanne wolde he speke, and crie as he were wood. And whan that he wel dronken hadde the wyn, Than wolde he speke no word but Latyn. A fewe termes hadde he, two or thre, That he had lerned out of som decree,— No wonder is, he herde it al the day; And eek ye knowen wel how that a jay Kan clepen "Watte" as wel as kan the pope. But whoso koude in oother thyng hym grope, Thanne hadde he spent al his philosophie; Ay "Questio quid juris" wolde he crie. He was a gentil harlot and a kynde; A bettre felawe sholde men noght fynde. He wolde suffre for a quart of wyn A good felawe to have his concubyn A twelf month, and excuse hym atte fulle; And prively a fynch eek koude he pulle. And if he foond owher a good felawe, He wolde techen him to have noon awe, In swich caas, of the erchedekenes curs, But if a mannes soule were in his purs; For in his purs he sholde y-punysshed be: "Purs is the erchedekenes helle," seyde he. But wel I woot he lyed right in dede. Of cursyng oghte ech gilty man him drede, For curs wol slee, right as assoillyng savith; And also war him of a Significavit. In daunger hadde he at his owene gise The yonge girles of the diocise, And knew hir conseil, and was al hir reed. A gerland hadde he set upon his heed, As greet as it were for an ale-stake; A bokeleer hadde he maad him of a cake.

With hym ther rood a gentil Pardoner Of Rouncivale, his freend and his compeer, That streight was comen fro the court of Rome. Ful loude he soong, "Com hider, love, to me!" This Somonour bar to hym a stif burdoun; Was nevere trompe of half so greet a soun. This Pardoner hadde heer as yelow as wex, But smothe it heeng as dooth a strike of flex; By ounces henge his lokkes that he hadde, And therwith he his shuldres overspradde. But thynne it lay, by colpons, oon and oon; But hood, for jolitee, wered he noon, For it was trussed up in his walét. Hym thoughte he rood al of the newe jet; Dischevelee, save his cappe, he rood al bare. Swiche glarynge eyen hadde he as an hare. A vernycle hadde he sowed upon his cappe. His walet lay biforn hym in his lappe, Bret-ful of pardoun, comen from Rome al hoot. A voys he hadde as smal as hath a goot. No berd hadde he, ne nevere sholde have, As smothe it was as it were late y-shave; I trowe he were a geldyng or a mare. But of his craft, fro Berwyk into Ware, Ne was ther swich another pardoner; For in his male he hadde a pilwe-beer, Which that, he seyde, was Oure Lady veyl; He seyde he hadde a gobet of the seyl That Seinte Peter hadde, whan that he wente Upon the see, til Jesu Crist hym hente. He hadde a croys of latoun, ful of stones, And in a glas he hadde pigges bones. But with thise relikes, whan that he fond A povre person dwellynge upon lond, Upon a day he gat hym moore moneye Than that the person gat in monthes tweye; And thus with feyned flaterye and japes He made the person and the peple his apes. But trewely to tellen atte laste, He was in chirche a noble ecclesiaste; Wel koude he rede a lessoun or a storie, But alderbest he song an offertorie; For wel he wiste, whan that song was songe, He moste preche, and wel affile his tonge To wynne silver, as he ful wel koude; Therefore he song the murierly and loude.

Now have I toold you shortly, in a clause, Thestaat, tharray, the nombre, and eek the cause Why that assembled was this compaignye In Southwerk, at this gentil hostelrye That highte the Tabard, faste by the Belle. But now is tyme to yow for to telle How that we baren us that ilke nyght, Whan we were in that hostelrie alyght; And after wol I telle of our viage And al the remenaunt of oure pilgrimage.

But first, I pray yow, of youre curteisye, That ye narette it nat my vileynye, Thogh that I pleynly speke in this mateere, To telle yow hir wordes and hir cheere, Ne thogh I speke hir wordes proprely. For this ye knowen al-so wel as I, Whoso shal telle a tale after a man, He moot reherce, as ny as evere he kan, Everich a word, if it be in his charge, Al speke he never so rudeliche and large; Or ellis he moot telle his tale untrewe, Or feyne thyng, or fynde wordes newe. He may nat spare, althogh he were his brother; He moot as wel seye o word as another. Crist spak hymself ful brode in hooly writ, And wel ye woot no vileynye is it. Eek Plato seith, whoso kan hym rede, "The wordes moote be cosyn to the dede."

Also I prey yow to foryeve it me, Al have I nat set folk in hir degree Heere in this tale, as that they sholde stonde; My wit is short, ye may wel understonde.

Greet chiere made oure Hoost us everichon, And to the soper sette he us anon, And served us with vitaille at the beste: Strong was the wyn and wel to drynke us leste.

A semely man Oure Hooste was with-alle For to been a marchal in an halle. A large man he was with eyen stepe, A fairer burgeys was ther noon in Chepe; Boold of his speche, and wys, and well y-taught, And of manhod hym lakkede right naught. Eek thereto he was right a myrie man, And after soper pleyen he bigan, And spak of myrthe amonges othere thynges, Whan that we hadde maad our rekenynges; And seyde thus: "Now, lordynges, trewely, Ye been to me right welcome, hertely; For by my trouthe, if that I shal nat lye, I saugh nat this yeer so myrie a compaignye At ones in this herberwe as is now. Fayn wolde I doon yow myrthe, wiste I how; And of a myrthe I am right now bythoght, To doon yow ese, and it shal coste noght.

"Ye goon to Canterbury—God yow speede, The blisful martir quite yow youre meede! And wel I woot, as ye goon by the weye, Ye shapen yow to talen and to pleye; For trewely confort ne myrthe is noon To ride by the weye doumb as a stoon; And therfore wol I maken yow disport, As I seyde erst, and doon yow som confort. And if you liketh alle, by oon assent, For to stonden at my juggement, And for to werken as I shal yow seye, To-morwe, whan ye riden by the weye, Now, by my fader soule, that is deed, But ye be myrie, I wol yeve yow myn heed! Hoold up youre hond, withouten moore speche."

Oure conseil was nat longe for to seche; Us thoughte it was noght worth to make it wys, And graunted hym withouten moore avys, And bad him seye his verdit, as hym leste.

"Lordynges," quod he, "now herkneth for the beste; But taak it nought, I prey yow, in desdeyn; This is the poynt, to speken short and pleyn, That ech of yow, to shorte with oure weye In this viage, shal telle tales tweye, To Caunterbury-ward, I mene it so, And homward he shal tellen othere two, Of aventúres that whilom han bifalle. And which of yow that bereth hym beste of alle, That is to seyn, that telleth in this caas Tales of best sentence and moost solaas, Shal have a soper at oure aller cost, Heere in this place, sittynge by this post, Whan that we come agayn fro Caunterbury. And, for to make yow the moore mury, I wol myselven gladly with yow ryde, Right at myn owene cost, and be youre gyde; And whoso wole my juggement withseye Shal paye al that we spenden by the weye. And if ye vouche-sauf that it be so, Tel me anon, withouten wordes mo, And I wol erly shape me therfore."

This thyng was graunted, and oure othes swore With ful glad herte, and preyden hym also That he wolde vouche-sauf for to do so, And that he wolde been oure governour, And of our tales juge and réportour, And sette a soper at a certeyn pris; And we wol reuled been at his devys In heigh and lough; and thus, by oon assent, We been acorded to his juggement. And therupon the wyn was fet anon; We dronken, and to reste wente echon, Withouten any lenger taryynge.

Amorwe, whan that day gan for to sprynge, Up roos oure Hoost and was oure aller cok, And gadrede us togidre alle in a flok; And forth we riden, a litel moore than paas, Unto the wateryng of Seint Thomas; And there oure Hoost bigan his hors areste, And seyde, "Lordynges, herkneth, if yow leste: Ye woot youre foreward and I it yow recorde. If even-song and morwe-song accorde, Lat se now who shal telle the firste tale. As ever mote I drynke wyn or ale, Whoso be rebel to my juggement Shal paye for all that by the wey is spent. Now draweth cut, er that we ferrer twynne; He which that hath the shorteste shal bigynne. Sire Knyght," quod he, "my mayster and my lord Now draweth cut, for that is myn accord. Cometh neer," quod he, "my lady Prioresse. And ye, sire Clerk, lat be your shamefastnesse, Ne studieth noght. Ley hond to, every man."

Anon to drawen every wight bigan, And, shortly for to tellen as it was, Were it by áventúre, or sort, or cas, The sothe is this, the cut fil to the Knyght, Of which ful blithe and glad was every wyght; And telle he moste his tale, as was resoun, By foreward and by composicioun, As ye han herd; what nedeth wordes mo? And whan this goode man saugh that it was so, As he that wys was and obedient To kepe his foreward by his free assent, He seyde, "Syn I shal bigynne the game, What, welcome be the cut, a Goddes name! Now lat us ryde, and herkneth what I seye." And with that word we ryden forth oure weye; And he bigan with right a myrie cheere His tale anon, and seyde in this manére.

#poetry #poem #Geoffrey Chaucer #Canterbury Tales #for research purposes and study!

0 notes

mariacallous · 2 years

Text

Geoffrey Chaucer is often called the father of English literature, but this acclaimed biography reveals him as a great European writer and thinker. Uncovering important new information about Chaucer’s travels, private life, and the circulation of his writings, Marion Turner reconstructs in unprecedented detail the cosmopolitan world of Chaucer’s adventurous life, focusing on the places and spaces that fired his imagination. From the wharves of London to the frescoed chapels of Florence, the book recounts Chaucer’s experiences as a prisoner of war in France, as a father visiting his daughter’s nunnery, as a member of a chaotic Parliament, and as a diplomat in Milan. At the same time, the book offers a comprehensive exploration of Chaucer’s writings. The result is a landmark biography and a fresh account of the extraordinary story of how a wine merchant’s son became the poet of The Canterbury Tales.

1 note · View note

lordmagnusen · 2 years

Text

Portent Universe - Into the Belly of the Beast - A Daring Professor Paradigm Adventure!

The story that follows was written for a book called "The Fans are Buried Tales", an anthology edited by Peter David, with short stories by writers including David himself, Robert Greenberger, Michael Jan Friedman, Jo Duffy, and Keith R. A. DeCandido.

The book was inspired by both the 14th century book "The Canterbury Tales", and by a time in the early 2000s where attendants to the Star Trek convention Farpoint got trapped in a hotel for several days because of a snow storm. To pass the time, tales were shared, yoga classes were taught, and even acting seminars were conducted by Armin Shimerman.

In "The Fans are Buried Tales", cosplayers including ninjas, zombies, Amazons, and Trekkies gather at the hotel bar to tell each stories… all while staying in costume. When I saw the call for authors, I signed up to write a pulp hero tale, and decided to write a story starring my Portent Universe character Professor Paradigm.

This is a semi-canon Paradigm story… because the original Paradigm has Superman-like powers,; and the one in this tale is just a two-fisted scientist. Alternate Portent Universe?

Into the Belly of the Beast - A Daring Professor Paradigm Adventure!

The storm raged outside the hotel, and the bar was getting ever so crowded, but there was always space for one more person. His white shirt, made from light fabric, belied the weather outside, but his riding boots and jodhpur pants told you that he was dressed for action. He smoothed back his slick, black hair, and consulted the readout on the electronics-studded bracer on his left forearm.

"Good time for a drink, isn't it?" the man said, his white teeth flashing beneath his dark, pencil-thin mustache.

He joined a crowd already gathered at the bar, and ordered a glass of Spanish sherry, or jérez. A fellow dressed in a Japanese robot costume pointed at him "Hey, you're Professor Paradigm, the Spanish pulp hero!"

Paradigma took a sip of his sherry, and nodded, smiling again. "Feliciano Gámiz, at your service."

"Professor, tell us about one of your adventures!" exclaimed a woman wearing the uniform of a Cosmic Journey's Cosmicfleet lieutenant.

"Yes," chimed a teenage boy dressed as a ninja "like when you defeated Herr von Wahr's dark magic with nothing but your fists and science!"

A steampunk rocketgirl shook her head "Everybody's heard that one!"

Feliciano sighed, longingly, and nodded "I know which one I'll tell…"

"Spain, 1932, deep in the woods of Grazalema, in the Cádiz province of Andalucía. I had been tracking the beast for several days now. A cryptid known as a gailán had migrated from the nearby province of Granada, and the locals here were not used to dealing with his kind of beast."

"I just happened to be visiting a good friend of mine, who lent me his laboratory. Having studied the biology of the gailán, at least in books, I thought I knew how to get it to stop attacking people."

Setting his glass down on the bar, he cupped one fist in his other hand, forming a sphere. "I built a device filled with chemicals, designed to slowly release the substances into the creature. Why such a device, and not just, say, tranquilizer darts? First, because as I said, the chemicals needed to be slowly released into the beast's system. If they were to be released too quickly, the creature would go mad and cause even greater havoc."

"Second, a gailán's hide is so thick, that nothing we had would penetrate it. I had to improvise."

He waved with his hands in front of him, as if parting an imaginary thicket. "Bushes littered the floor, while firs and oaks grew so close together that our vision was impaired. I have traversed such places before, but I had to be on my toes to face the gailán, so the tracking had fallen to one of my companions, Paquirri, an experienced woodsman from the area."

Paradigm grabbed a salt shaker, and sprinkled some crystals on the bartop. "The trail was a bit cold, but Paquirri was quite deft, and he led us to a clearing where we finally spotted our quarry: a feral cat the size of a bull, with the face of a man and a lion's maw… the gailán!"

Hopping from his stool, Feliciano mimicked a prowling stance. "I was as silent as humanly possible, but as I was not carrying my usual equipment, I had forgotten to dim my scent. The gailán caught a whiff, and just as I was approaching it from behind, STRUCK ME WITH ITS WHIP-LIKE TAIL!"

The audience ooohd and aaahd, as Paradigm lifted his shirt a bit to show the scar left by the beast's strike to his ribcage. "I leapt back, half from the pain, half as calculated move, and grabbed the cloth bag with the device between my teeth." Again, he flashed his perfect smile.

"Zig! Zag! I avoided several tail strikes, and managed to get close to the gailán. Stepping on its tail, I encircled its thick neck with my arms, and used my hands to work open its jaws…"

With a crowd hanging onto his every word, Paradigm made motions to indicate how he wrestled with the cryptid, and added some struggling noises and pants to enhance the story.

"Alas, it was all for nothing… I could not pry open that steel trap of a mouth."

Knowing that pauses only increased his audience's engagement, he stopped and took another sip from his drink. "What to do, then? Time for--"

He locked eyes with a boy, no more than ten, sitting with his parents. The whole family was dressed in the costumes of the Intergalactic Emerald Beacons, the comic book peacekeeping agents. The boy said, grinning "Plan B! Professor Paradigm always has a plan B!"

"That's right, young Beacon!" Paradigm said, winking. "I let go of the beast, and quickly rolled on my shoulder one, two, three times to get some distance between us, then started to run. Where to? Well, to another clearing where we had set up camp earlier."

"Right there, in that clearing, was my other companion, my friend's daughter, Mari. She was waiting by the makeshift catapult we'd built from a small tree before pursuing the gailán. When I drew closer to her spot, she cut the rope holding down the tree, transforming potential energy into kinetic energy, launching our payload through the air!"

The Japanese robot frowned slightly "I thought you said you couldn't hurt it with the stuff you had! What did you throw at it?"

Paradigma smiled "Food. A small, roasted pig."

Robot and others in the crowd opened their mouths agape. "Yes, just like that." Feliciano said.

"The gailán could not resist the delicious treat, and opened its mide wide open. And that's when I made use of my considerable athletic skills, specifically the right arm that got me the gold medal for shot put in the 1928 Amsterdam Summer Olympics. I established a new world record of 16 meters that day."

"Of course, my chemical-releasing device was far lighter than what we used at the Olympics, so even a hastily-calculated throw hit its mark, right after the piglet. The gailán devoured both pork and device at once, and, its belly full, withdrew into the deep of the forest. It lurked around the area for some years, but never attacked a human ever again."

Paradigm finished the last of his sherry, and flicked a peanut into the air, catching it with his mouth. "And that, my friends, is how we were able to get my cat to take his medicine."

END

1 note · View note

emeraldbirdcollector · 2 years

Text

When I get bored, I do weird stuff.

Like try to memorize the General Prologue for Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Because it’s there.

So I got to thinking, while I was doing this, about what the pilgrims would be doing in modern times, given enough seed money to get started. Came up with the following, would enjoy discussion.

1. The Knight- Out of his depth. Way, way out of his depth. Used to getting automatic deference and respect, and used to religious warfare as a norm - would consider religious tolerance an abomination. Or...maybe not, maybe he has some of the same sort of respect for those he faced on the battlefield as Richard I and Saladin seem to have had for each other. Might be a massive danger to Muslim and Jewish populations in his neighborhood if given knowledge of and access to modern weaponry. Might even go full terrorist, while remaining eerily soft-spoken and polite. Or might hire himself out to Renfaires to give demonstrations, or join the military and work his way up to officer ranks. Or might have a television show/YouTube channel where he talks about what the military of today is Doing All Wrong. One never knows. He would need careful watching.

2. The Squire - Becomes handsome and charming celebrity, showing off his musical skills by writing/performing love songs that make young women swoon. Is constantly in the tabloids having passionate relationships with beautiful women. May end up as frontman for a boy band.

3. The Yeoman - Probably ends up doing wilderness survival training, or has a bowhunting show on TV. If he gets overconfident and if he ends up in the Americas, he might die by moose or polar/grizzly bear. Otherwise he should be fine.

4. The Prioress - Joins a convent that does substantial charity work with orphans and/or rescued animals. Is relieved to be a simple nun with simple duties she enjoys, instead of being out of her depth in the Prioress position (my theory is that she is a young half-educated girl shoved into that position because of personnel shortages related to the Black Death). Dotes on her charges with all her might. Lives relatively happily. Hopefully meets enough actual Jewish people to realize how wrong her anti-Semitic assumptions were.

5. The Monk - Immediately leaves the monastic life and is aggravated to discover that hunting is no longer so available or easy in modern England. Moves to America, probably does die of moose or bear.

6. The Friar - Becomes a television evangelist. Makes millions. Fathers several dozen illegitimate children. Retains a large fan base no matter how many scandals he gets involved in. Lives the good life, at least by purely physical standards.

7. The Merchant - Learns about the stock market. Either makes a fortune or loses his shirt or both. Probably both, multiple times.

8. The Clerk of Oxford - Goes home to Oxford, gets a position where, in exchange for some office hours every week spent serving as a primary source and letting historians, theologians, philosophers and other scholars pick his brain, he gets a simple living space, food, health care, a modest stipend, and full access to the Bodleian. Walks into the Bodleian, and either has a heart attack immediately and haunts the Bodleian forever as the Bookworm Ghost, or simply falls to his knees in awe, sobbing with joy at the sight of So Many Books. In either case, refuses to leave until forced, and comes back as soon as it opens again. May need some therapy once he finds out just how much the scholarly mindset has changed since his era, especially wrt religion - might also have trouble dealing with female scholars on equal terms, but then who knows, Heloise and Hildegard of Bingen and Catherine of Siena existed. Is assigned a grad student to remind him to eat and sleep on a regular basis.

9. Sergeant At Law - ends up teaching modern law students about the history of English legal practice in his day. Becomes a solid respectable citizen, thanks to his excellent memory.

10. Franklin - becomes a food critic, gets his own food and travel documentary, learns about all different sorts of cuisine, and delights in them, probably eventually dies of cardiac arrest from overeating. Becomes good friends with Guy Fieri.

11. Guildsmen - Become historical craft demonstrators. Or run for office, not sure which.

12. Cook - Gets treatment for that sore on his shin. Does cooking demonstrations for historical reenactments, teaches people what things like "blancmange" and "mortreux" are. May get his own cooking show.

13. Shipman - has his own YouTube channel featuring pirate stories (sometimes with him doing the piracy, sometimes with him fighting the pirates- he went back and forth in his day) and lots of sea shanties sung happily with vigor and verve. May run a tourist boat.

14. The Doctor of Phisik - is absolutely refused any possibility of returning to the practice of medicine until he updates his knowledge _substantially_. Finds out he needs no official qualifications whatsoever to become an astrologer, so does that instead and becomes well known and famous in astrology circles. Genuinely believes in the accuracy and effectiveness of his readings, no matter what evidence is provided him to the contrary. Makes a fortune.

15. The Wife of Bath - has a grand old time. Discovers feminism. Approves highly. Clothmaking skills plus an eye for beauty and desirability make her an excellent fashion designer - quality stuff, well-made, attractively-cut especially for larger women (she is not ashamed to be a Woman of Mass and Substance and is shocked to find that anyone would be), and with POCKETS. Travels extensively. Has lots of affairs. Gets a hearing aid. May market her own line of sex toys. Has absolutely no shame, and needs none. May marry again, may not, but either way it's on her own damn terms.

16. The Parson - may have to go through seminary again, may not. Becomes a quiet Catholic parish priest. Well, _probably_ stays Catholic, but just might convert to Anglicanism or another Protestant sect - he does seem to have had some Wycliffean leanings. But then, he'd probably approve of Pope Francis, who is in fact a solid ethical improvement on the popes of Chaucer's day. At least there's only ONE Catholic Pope and he's in Vatican City and not Avignon. In any case, does good work among the poor and homeless, is a trusted advisor and counselor to his flock, keeps his conscience clean, focuses on caring for others and teaching good behavior and religious devotion by example first and preaching later. Generally does just what he would have done back then, except in a somewhat different setting. Does not get involved with politics, except to benefit the poor, hungry and homeless. No matter how much people demand it of him. When he dies, his funeral is attended by a massive crowd of people genuinely mourning him, startling those who thought of him as just a simple parish priest.

17. The Ploughman - learns a modern trade, perhaps construction work. Works hard, helps others, is generally genial and friendly, pays his union dues as faithfully as he once paid his tithes, lives a comfortable peaceful life and is quite popular at his workplace and in his neighborhood. We find after his death that he was one of those people who lived simply but secretly gave away, bit by bit, what amounted to a fortune in charity. His funeral is as well-attended as his brother's.

18. The Miller - Goes into pro wrestling. May end badly if he forgets it's supposed to be fake and accidentally kills someone. His schtick involves bagpipes. Somehow.

19. The Manciple - Goes into the stock market. Is a quiet genius at it, despite lack of instruction. Does MUCH better than the Merchant. When asked his secret, simply replies, with a shrug, "I buy low and sell high."

20. The Reeve - becomes a CPA, manages money for the billionaire crowd (especially for the children of billionaires who inherit their money but haven't a clue how to properly handle it), does solidly well for his employers and gets extremely wealthy himself through mostly-legal means. Mostly.

21. The Summoner - gets treatment for his skin disease, remains an alcoholic. Turns his propensity to speak in Latin when drunk into "speaking in tongues" and runs a faith-healing ministry with the Pardoner.

22. The Pardoner - joins the Summoner in his ministry, using his "relics" as magical items that he claims will heal and bring prosperity - in exchange, of course, for donations. They learn about Gospel music, and sing duets enthusiastically, with great fervor and reasonable harmony. Maybe they even put out a couple of albums. Eventually they get caught in bed together, and melodramatically claim it was a trick of the devil. This may or may not end their career. (I don’t think either of them are honest enough to come right out and support gay rights, sadly.)

#geoffrey chaucer #canterbury tales #canterbury pilgrims

19 notes · View notes

wedreamedlove · 2 years

Photo

[MY SWEET JOURNEY III — WITH EVAN]

The late summer breeze carried some heat as the beautiful afternoon sunlight shone brightly on the land.

Standing next to the French windows of the workshop, what entered my vision were verdant mountains.

[MC]: Evan.

I turned my head. In this moment, Evan was sitting on a small couch and the coffee I brewed was already empty.

The page of a book turned again as he only hummed out an upraised “Mm” from his throat.

Thus, I quietly went up to him to sit down right against him. However, although Evan didn’t raise his eyes, his hands paused slightly, and so I sat down on his thigh instead.

[MC]: The Canterbury Tales... Do you really like this book?

E: Its structure is very interesting. You can immerse yourself in it immediately even after flipping it open once in a while.

Evan closed his book and tightened the arm he had around my waist a little.

E: Finished your business?

[MC]: Mhm, just now I altered the study’s blueprints again.

[MC]: As for the arrangements here, I suddenly have a new idea.

Evan raised his eyebrow slightly and propped his chin on his hand with interest.

E: Perfect, I also have a premature proposal.

Our eyes met and we drew in the smile of tacit understanding in each other’s eyes.

[MC]: Looks like we’ve thought of the same thing again.

E: Indeed, that seems to be the case.

Evan’s gaze drifted to the window sill and stopped on a quiet corner.

E: My guess is that you wish to place a multi-functional bookcase here, correct?

[MC]: That’s right! No matter how you think of it, having a large bookcase is a blessing.

[MC]: Moreover, according to our current frequency of buying books, our small book rack is about to be filled soon.

E: Mm, bookcases have more storage, and it’ll also be easier to find books when they’re arranged by category.

[MC]: I was thinking this too. Your novels can be placed at the very top and my design reference books can be placed at the very bottom.

Evan rubbed his chin gently against the top of my head.

E: It’s just our books being placed together, but from a certain perspective it also counts as a further step in sharing a private space.

[MC]: Yeah! You can also place the things you often use here.

[MC]: Only a table placed full of things feels like it has life.

It was just a workshop, but because of Evan’s participation it was overgrown with many notions related to a home.

So, no matter how small the project, they all seemed to have an unusual warmth.

E: What are you smiling about?

I looked up and took back the uncontrollable rise of the corners of my mouth.

[MC]: It’s nothing, I just feel that you’re a little different from usual.

[MC]: Right now you look very... domestic?

E: Domestic?

[MC]: Mhm, because whether it’s the arrangement of furniture or the use of space, you seem to be in your element.

When he heard this, Evan also smiled softly and pressed his forehead to mine, letting the strands of my hair that trailed down brush over his ears.

E: Maybe I’m not in my element.

E: It’s only because you’re here, so I’m especially invested.

The custom wooden bookcase was quickly settled in the corner.

[MC]: Its size is perfect and its color also looks nice. Fortunately, you were there when I was struggling over which one to choose.

E: As long as you like it.

Evan came to my side and placed thick hardback books into the bookcase, one by one.

[MC]: I’ll help too.

[MC]: Heehee, Operation: Fill Bookcase starts now!

Even though I had prepared myself, I still underestimated the weight of the book and overestimated the height of the bookcase.

The step stool wasn’t very stable and when I rose slightly onto my toes, I suddenly lost balance and tipped over together with the book.

E: Careful—

Nearly without any time to react, a pair of large hands promptly caught my body that staggered backward.

E: Are you alright?

I unconsciously held onto Evan’s neck and released a long breath of relief before I felt lingering palpitations.

[MC]: I’m alright... Fortunately, I didn’t drop the book on the ground.

Evan burst into laughter and slowly set me down.

E: You’re that concerned about the book?

Evan supported both of his hands on the edges of the bookcase and bent down, touching the tip of his nose to mine.

E: Right now, there should be something more important than these books.

This sentence was spoken very slowly and the breath that caressed me brushed back the strands of hair that were beside my ear.

[MC]: But we haven’t organized everything yet...

Evan slipped the book out of my hand and easily placed it inside the empty shelf above my head.

His nose slid down, following the line of my cheek, and stopped above my neck where he placed a light kiss.

E: Operation: Fill Bookcase may need to pause first for now, wouldn’t you say?

Raising my head a little, I crashed into his gentle gaze.

And so I could clearly see that figure which was trapped between him and the bookcase shrink without stop until it disappeared inside a warm breath.

#光与夜之恋 #light and night #LN Evan #LN Lu Chen #my translations

18 notes · View notes

brywrites · 3 years

Text

Lock and Key I

Summary: In which Spencer Reid stumbles upon a GED class at Millburn and feels something like hope for the first time in weeks.

[Series Masterlist]

....

The prison library is a haven, for the few minutes he’s allowed to visit twice a week. It’s quiet, secluded, and full of his favorite things – books. The selection is nowhere near as nice as his personal collection at home, or the public library, but it’s better than nothing. Without words, he’d go mad. He needs stories to keep him sane, to give him a route he can escape by.

Today though, he’s startled to walk into the small space and find twelve other prisoners inside – accompanied by a face he’s never seen before. A woman. What’s even more surprising is that she doesn’t wear the uniform of a guard or an employee. Instead she’s in Converse sneakers and a lavender polka-dotted dress. It’s been so long since he saw that color – any bright color, really. But it’s his favorite and it isn’t until that moment that the realizes how much he’s missed the simplest of things. The sight of his favorite color. Bright images in dull spaces. Things that look hopeful.

Reid isn’t sure what’s going on, but the other prisoners seem to be too absorbed in the books to notice him. Just as he’s thinking he can back away quietly and return tomorrow, she turns around, smiling at the sight of him.

“Well hello there!” she says. “Are you Luis?”

Reid tilts his head, confused. How does this stranger know his friend? “Uh, no, no I’m not. I’m sorry, who are you?”

Her smile drops, though she doesn’t seem annoyed. Merely disappointed. “Oh. They told me Luis would be joining us today, but he never showed up. I’m Y/N. I’m one of the teachers here.”

This is the first he’s heard of such a thing. “You teach?”

She nods. “That’s right! I teach a couple of different groups – a few college classes here and there, a resume workshop. This is my GED class. We’re starting a unit on British Literature so they’ve all come to pick out a novel. You must be new here,” she notes, looking him over. He can feel himself flush under her gaze. It’s been a while since someone looked at him just to see him and not to evaluate his potential as a threat or a tool. “If you’d like, you can join the class. I’ve got plenty of open seats.”

“Oh no, I don’t need a GED.”

“It’s never too late to graduate,” she says. Then, considering him, “But that’s not what you meant is it?”

The way she’s studying him makes him nervous, though he’s certain it’s the same way he’s studied suspects and victims, trying to see beyond the obvious and understand what lies beneath. How strange, to be on the other side of that stare. “I’ve graduated high school already,” he informs her, hoping he doesn’t sound aloof. “And college. Actually, I hold three PhDs.”

“In what?”

“Mathematics, chemistry, and engineering.”

Y/N holds his gaze, taking this in. It’s as though she’s trying to decide whether or not to believe him. He figures in this environment, perhaps it’s not unusual to be told blatant lies by some prisoners. Delusion and paranoia aren’t uncommon. To teach in a place like this, she would have to be insightful and observant. For whatever reason, she must decide to trust him, because she smiles again.

“Well that’s rather impressive. You’re more qualified than I am. Just a Master’s for me.”

Reid decides against commenting in the irony of the situation, that despite his qualifications he’s nothing but a prisoner here. The same category as every drug-dealer, murderer, petty thief, and gangbanger. No better. But the way she looks at him, it at least makes him feel normal again. She looks at him like he’s a human being, with no disdain or disgust in her gaze, and no air of superiority in her voice.

“What did you study?” he asks her.

“English literature in college, education in grad school. I specialized in literature and languages, though I’m not too shabby when it comes to history. If it’s the STEM field you’ll be wanting though, you’ll have to check in on Tuesdays and Thursdays, my colleague teaches those classes.”

Glancing down at her watch, her eyes widen. “Goodness, we’re almost out of time.” She turns to the other inmates and instructs them to make their choices before she has to dismiss class for the day. To him, she adds, “It was nice to meet you – um…”

“Doct-” he begins, before stopping himself. This isn’t a normal introduction. Here, he holds no title, no position of importance. “Er, Spencer. My name is Spencer.”

“Well, Doc –” He tries not to smile at her casual acknowledgment – “if you ever change your mind, we meet Mondays and Wednesdays in room W15 during the afternoon rec slot.”

Despite having no need to attend a GED class, and for reasons he cannot quite explain, he finds himself slipping into that very room on Wednesday afternoon. Y/N glances up from the whiteboard she writes on, faltering for only a brief moment when she catches sight of him slipping into an empty seat in the back row, but she carries on. They’re talking about common themes in Brit Lit, and she’s explaining the Canterbury Tales, which they’ll be reading parts of. From what Reid gathers, there aren’t enough copies of books for them to all read the same novel, but she’s printed out large sections of the Tales for them to read together. It’s familiar, and for someone whose life has largely revolved in academia, it’s soothing to be in an environment where learning is taking place and discussion is happening. Even though he sits silently in the back row, observing.

The other inmates have all picked out books to read on their own and report on, from King Lear to Brave New World. A few have even selected Bronte and Austen novels, which Y/N applauds them for. When she divides them into groups to read and discuss “The Knight’s Tale,” she slips over to join Reid in the back of the room.

“I didn’t think you’d make it, Doc,” she tells him.

He shrugs. “I – I’ve kind of missed the classroom. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to sit in. If you don’t mind, of course!”

“Not at all.” She smiles, dismissing his worry with a wave of her hand. “The more the merrier. Besides, it’s rare that I have students with such an extensive education beforehand. You’ll need to file an enrollment slip though, just for official records.”

She hands him a piece of paper and a commissary pen. While he doesn’t need the credit, he could use the normalcy. Discussions about books with other people in a space that feels a little safer – even if it doesn’t look like the classrooms he’s used to. The walls are stark white and bare save for three posters of famous writers and scientists. The two windows have thick bars on them. The desks are bolted to the floor. Every man in the room wears prison issued blues. But there is a whiteboard and a bookshelf and a clock. And Y/N, in a bright blue turtleneck. It makes him think of the sky, which he only gets a glimpse of for a few hours each week. Suddenly, she’s become the most vivid connection to the outside world.

“How long have you been teaching here?” he asks as he writes down answers to the form’s printed questions.

“Almost three years now. It started with just GED classes, but some volunteer programs have helped us bring new opportunities to the guys. It took me a while to convince the warden, but they’ve been a huge success. So are you coming from another facility? I know we had some transfers last week.”

He shakes his head. “I uh, I haven’t been sentenced yet. But there was overcrowding at the jail so they sent me here.” Reid pauses. “I assumed you would’ve known that.” The inmate records are publicly available. All she’d have to do is search his name or the number on his clothing and everything she needed to know would be right there – his charges, his admission date, his identifying information and that ID photo from his first day.

But she just shrugs. “I make a point not to look up what my students have been convicted of. I let them volunteer that information if they choose to, but I respect their privacy. Besides, I’d like to believe all of us are more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”

He’s struck by her words. After all, for the last decade his job has been to see people precisely as the worst thing they’ve ever done. To delve deep into those actions and develop a profile of a person on that alone. He has an impulse to dismiss her statement as naïve, but it reminds him of Garcia, of her boundless optimism and her ability to see the best in the world even after looking at the worst of it. That memory and the smile Y/N looks at him with softens the heart he’s been carefully hardening since he arrived here. And so rather than dampen her spirit he asks, “Does it matter if I’ve read all of the books you’re discussing already?”

Her eyes widen ever so slightly with surprise. “All of them?”

“My mother was a literature professor,” he says. “And I just really like books.”

“Well, typically I’d encourage you to take the courses we offer for college credit but they’re full. Since you already have your GED, I suppose we could treat it like you’re auditing. It might help some of the guys to have someone with a little more academic experience…” She trails off and then gasps. “Oh wait! How would you feel about being the TA for the class? It’s been so long since I had one for the GED classes.”

“Like… grade papers and things?”

“No, not like that,” she says. “There are strict rules about who sees what here. Being a TA for me would be less typical TA duties and more of mentoring the other students, helping me clean up after class, re-shelving books, things like that. It’s not an official job so there’s no pay, but you would get good time credit.”

Though he doesn’t know what his sentence here will be, if he’s sentenced at all, he knows that any good time credit he can obtain to reduce the length of it is worth it. And so he says, “Okay.”

Y/N’s eyes light up. Her smile is the prettiest thing he’s seen since he got here. “Perfect! Oh, this is so exciting. I’m glad you joined us.” When he finishes the paperwork, she leads him to an empty seat at a group of tables.

“No, no, you’ve got it all wrong, Porkchop. It’s a love story,” one of the men is saying to another.

“Come on now, Xavier, you know the rules,” Y/N interrupts. “Nicknames stay outside the classroom. We use first names here.”

“Sorry, Teach,” Xavier says. He tries again. “It’s a love story, Carl.”

“That’s more like it. Carl, I can’t wait to hear your response. But first, I’m going to have Spencer join your group, alright? He’s our newest student and our TA for the class. He’s read a lot of these books so if you’re having a hard time or want to talk to someone about the material outside of class time, he’s a great person to ask.”

The group welcomes him – Xavier, Carl, Richie, and Luis. Reid is grateful to be with Luis, the one person he knows he can consider a friend inside. They talk about Chaucer and “The Franklin’s Tale,” and he’s surprised by the critiques and connections his peers make. Their debate is certainly different than the conversation he’d expect to find at a university class, but their ideas are still insightful and interesting. They make connections to their own lives, to the sacrifices they have made and the power of love they have witnessed firsthand. Mothers who never stop fighting for their appeal cases. Friends who send money so they can afford commissary. The difficulty of skipping commissary so they can send money home to their own families outside.

When their discussion finally winds down, Reid asks, “What’s the rule with nicknames about?”

“It’s Miss Y/N’s way of humanizing people,” Xavier says. “She says when we use first names like that, we’re all equals. But it’s different outside of class. We stick to nicknames because that’s what you do, y’know?” Reid shakes his head. Xavier chuckles. “You’re fresh meat, huh. First time you been down? In here, COs turn you into just a number or a last name. So nicknames inside are a way to hold on to some of your identity. Beyond that, there’s some guys in here you don’t want knowing your name, you feel me?”

“Nicknames gotta be given to you by someone else. Can’t make your own. Course, that means they’re usually a little insulting. They call me Porkchop,” Carl says. “Xavier’s Hammerhead. Richie is Spiders. And Luis, he been christened Slim Jim yesterday at chow. But don’t worry, we’ll find one for you soon.” Reid isn’t sure how to feel about the assurance. He doesn’t want to belong here, doesn’t want to fit in or get comfortable. On the other hand, he may be here for a while. Maybe laying low and finding allies wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

He knows one thing for sure – as he walks out of class, Y/N flashes that bright smile at him again. And for some reason, it makes him feel hopeful. More hopeful than any session with lawyers or judges has made him feel. Monday can’t come soon enough.

[Next]

Tags: @calm-and-doctor @averyhotchner

#criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x reader #reid x reader #prison reid #prison!reid

316 notes · View notes

lec743 · 2 years

Text

Fandom Nerds

So Tina, not being the social butterfly of the group, wouldn’t really be introduced to anything that she doesn’t find on her own. She’s found out about Sonic and reads a lot of Amy and Shadow fanfiction. She’s found Ranma 1/2 manga books and she collects her favorites. She reads a lot of old literature like Journey to the West, Frankenstein, Beowulf, and Canterbury Tales to name a few.

However, all these things has been something she’s had to find on her own and has obsessed over on her own. She’s never really shared with anyone her interests and no one’s really shared their interests with her. That is until the boys show her what Jupiter Jim is.

*******************************************************************************************

(Tina and the Turtle boys are walking down the streets of New York heading to the Super Crazy All Night-er Arcade)

(They pass a movie theater)

(Tina finds that she’s the only one walking now, and turns around to see the boys obsessing's over a movie poster)

(Tina looks over their shoulders to see a sci-fi looking poster, with a black man in a spacesuit, doing a cool pose. In bold letters above the man it said Jupiter Jim)

T: The poster looks nice.

M: We’ll be able to watch it in thirty minutes. That’s enough time to get snacks and have a bathroom break.

D: I’ll go see which seats are most optimal for our viewing pleasure!

(Donnie then ran into the movie theater)

R: I’ll buy the tickets.

(Tina followed the boys inside. She didn’t mind what they did together, the point was to just hang out anyways)

T: (turning to Leo) So what’s Jupiter Jim all about?

(The three hoodie covered turtle teens gasped at her at the same time. It made Tina feel like she should know about Jupiter Jim already)

L: Jupiter Jim is only the best space hero in cinema!

(As they bought their tickets and Tina bought the snacks the boys info dumped on her everything they know about the comics and movies of Jupiter Jim)

(Tina thought it was nice how passionate they were about this character and the world he inhabits)

(Tina watched the movie with them and she found out pretty quickly that the boys have seen this movie before considering how they were quoting the lines every other minute)

(Tina was enjoying their enthusiasm and she was enjoying the story and editing of the movie over all)

(The five of them exit the movie theater)

D: (sighs happily) Can’t have a better night than seeing Jupiter Jim defeat a giant space dragon.

M: I loved the part with the laser sword and cutting the head off the giant monster woman thing.

R: I always feel bad for the monster mom and her son. Sure it’s cool that Jupiter Jim’s capable of killing the guy through wrestling but he was just complaining about the noise the human colonizers were making.

L: You don’t kill people when you have a noise complaint.

D: I don’t know. I’m always close to offing you guys when I’m in the middle of a sensitive experiment.

M: What did you think of the movie, Tina.

T: It was fun. I liked the obvious parallels to Beowulf in it. Does Jupiter Jim do that often, take old stories and put them into a space age type settings?

(The hoodie covered turtle teens gave her a confused look)

L: We don’t... know...

R: What’s Beowulf?

(Tina then happily explained the story of Beowulf to them and gave them examples in other media where they can see the same themes and story beats)

#fanfiction #oc-Tina Kurama #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt

5 notes · View notes

thecreaturecodex · 3 years

Text

Brass Steed

“DnD - Phantom Steed” © deviantArt user KonanStarchaser, accessed at her gallery here

[Did you remember that Heroes of Battle had monsters in it? Did you remember that the book Heroes of Battle even existed? I didn’t either, until I was trawling through my files. The monsters in Heroes of Battle clearly feel like an afterthought; they have no art and minimal abilities or flavor text. The brass steed is one of the more interesting, since it has literary precedent, but it doesn’t even do what the Brass Horse in The Canterbury Tales can do! So I gave it a few more abilities in my version to bring it closer to its roots.]

Brass Steed CR 8 N Construct This fantastic horse is made out of gleaming metal. Its eyes are luminous.

Brass steeds are prized mounts that never tire and can transport their riders hundreds of miles in a day. Each brass steed is usually a custom job built for a wealthy client, so no two are exactly the same. Some may be tailored to look like a realistic horse, with barding and the like, whereas others are in the shape of more fantastical or monstrous creatures. Gemstones are set in its eyes—although rubies are standard, some commissioners may prefer different colors.

A brass steed is a solid combatant, and never panics as a real horse does. They shrug off mundane weapons and most spells, although acid and electricity spells can slow and damage them. Brass steeds are healed by fire, and can shoot fiery rays from their eyes. Some extravagantly wealthy armies foster whole cavalry charges of brass steeds, shooting each other with their eye rays to keep in fighting condition.

The most fantastical ability of a brass steed is its ability to transport riders through the Plane of Shadow. Although tales that it can carry a traveler anywhere in the world in a single day are somewhat exaggerated, it can nevertheless allow for great speed. Some generals keep a brass steed for themselves to retreat from a losing battle to fight another day, and especially prized diplomats and scouts may ride one in order to visit multiple kingdoms in a single trip.

Construction A brass steed’s body is made out of brass, with gemstones worth at least 3,000 gp set into the eyes. Brass Steed CL 10th; Price 43,000 gp Requirements Craft Construct, geas/quest, haste, scorching ray, shadow walk, creator must be at least caster level 10th; Skill Craft (armorsmithing) or Craft (weaponsmithing) DC 15; Cost 23,000 gp.

Brass Steed CR 8 XP 4,800 N Large construct Init +2; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +0 Defense AC 23, touch 11, flat-footed 21 (-1 size, +2 Dex, +12 natural) hp 85 (10d10+30) Fort +3, Ref +5, Will +3 DR 10/adamantine; Immune construct traits, magic Offense Speed 50 ft. Melee bite +15 (1d8+6), 2 hooves +10 (1d6+3) Ranged eye ray +11 touch (8d6 fire) Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft. Statistics Str 23, Dex 15, Con -, Int -, Wis 10, Cha 1 Base Atk +10; CMB +17; CMD 29 (33 vs. trip) Feats Run (B) SQ shadow walk Ecology Environment any land Organization solitary or stable (2-8) Treasure none Special Abilities Eye Ray (Su) As a swift action once every 4 rounds, a brass steed can shoot fire from its eyes. Treat this as a ranged touch attack with a range of 200 feet and no range increment. A creature struck takes 8d6 points of fire damage. Immunity to Magic (Ex) A brass steed is immune to any spell or spell-like ability that allows spell resistance. In addition, certain spells and effects function differently against the creature, as noted below.

Spells that deal acid damage deal no damage to a brass steed, but slow it (As the spell) for 1d4 rounds

Spells that deal electricity damage deal full damage to a brass steed

Spells that deal fire damage breaks any slow effect on the brass steed, and heals it for 1 point of damage per every 3 points of fire damage it would otherwise deal. Excess hit points are gained as temporary hit points. A brass steed gains no saving throw against fire effects.

Shadow Walk (Su) A brass steed can use shadow walk as a supernatural ability once per day (CL 10th). It may take other willing creatures with it, but cannot transport unwilling creatures in this fashion.

#brass steed #the canterbury tales #D&D #pathfinder 1e #construct

64 notes · View notes

hopelikethemoon · 4 years

Text

Moonbeam (Ezra x Reader) [smut] {Werewolf AU}

Title: Moonbeam Rating: Explicit Length: 6,000 Warnings: Non-graphic description of bodily injury and smut (cunnilingus, doggy style sex, mentions of masturbation). Reader Details: To the best of my knowledge, there are no references to Reader’s physical details, beyond being a bisexual woman. I tried my best to keep it as vague as possible. Notes: So, this is the second lengthy Ezra fic I’ve written this month, but the only one that will see the light of day. Shout-out to @rzrcrst for pre-reading this for me. Werewolves are my niche and I’m absolutely incapable of writing them without creating the lore around their existence. Ezra exudes big werewolf energy (P.S. Javier exudes big vampire energy) and since I’m not really in a fandom until I write a werewolf AU, I present you all with my very own version of space werewolves. Depending on audience reactions, there might be more of this story to tell.

Taglist:@princessbatears @djarin-junk @absurdthirst @hdlynn @legally-a-bastard @opheliaelysia @heather-lynn @sabinemorans @crazinessgraveyardsandcartoons @pedrospunk @maybege @chews-erotically @katlikeme @lose-eels @youmeanmybrain @theindiealto @irishleesh93

You had heard the rumors, but never once had you believed that they were true. A werewolf living on a moon? Werewolves were the stuff of fairytales. They weren’t real.

They weren’t real.

But someone who had come before you had clearly considered the potential. Why else had someone thought to set up a cleverly concealed steel trap?

The pain was overwhelming. Worse than anything you’d ever encountered before. You were lucky your leg hadn’t snapped in two — your heavy coveralls were your saving grace.

You howled out in pain as you dropped to your knees, trying in vain to pry the trap off your leg. The sharp teeth had bit through the fabric of your coveralls and the dark stain forming told you everything you needed to know about your future. If you didn’t get the trap off soon, you were going to bleed out.

And then you’d become a smorgasbord for whatever creatures lived on this moon. There had to be something terrifying in the forest that had convinced everyone to believe in werewolves.

“Kriff.” You swore, your arms throbbing with effort as you tried yet again to free your leg from the trap. You dropped back onto your ass, before sinking down onto the soft mossy ground beneath you.

At least the stars were out. You could see them through the bareboned trees as they swayed above you in the evening breeze.

The pain wasn’t so bad at a certain point, most likely because of the blood loss. That would do it. That woozy, tingling sensation that had your vision blurring at the edges.

A branch snapped nearby, sending a dull spike of nerves through you. You hadn’t made a study of the flora and fauna on the moon — but that certainly didn’t sound like a small creature.

“Please don’t eat me.” You mumbled, tilting your head to look in the direction of the sound. The filtered moonlight from the crescent moon above barely illuminated the forest around you and your flashlight was just out of reach.

You heard the sound of another branch snapping under foot, “Hello?”

All men are beasts in their own right, but the man that stepped into your line of view seemed an unlikely candidate.

“I do believe that trap was not set to ensnare one such as you,” He drawled out with a honey-sweet cadence as he moved towards you.

“I don’t think it’s broken,” You offered weakly, trying to sit up as he knelt beside you, but your vision blurred harshly and you sank back onto the ground.

“How fortuitous you are that I take my evening stroll through this very copse of trees.” He mused, effortlessly freeing your leg from the steel trap.

“How—“

“You have lost a considerable amount of blood, little lamb. I would be most obliged to offer shelter and succor. These woods are no place to remain alone. One can never know what creatures fresh blood may attract.”

You exhaled shakily as you stared up at the stars above you. He was right — you’d never make it back to your transport alone on your leg. “Promise not to kill me?” You cracked, tilting your head to look at him.

He flashed you a toothy grin, “I promise.”

“What is your name?” You asked as he hoisted you into his arms, with surprising ease.

“Ezra.” He told you, looking down at you. “And what is your name, little lamb?”

“Ezra.” You repeated softly, resting your cheek against his chest as he carried you through the forest. You gave him your own name, feeling a strange warmth wash through you when he repeated it back in that beguiling tone of his.

“Am I right in my assumption that you are the occupant of the transport that arrived just two nights ago.” Ezra questioned quietly.

“Depends on who is asking.” You jested lightly, “I am. Reconnaissance mission for a mining program.”

“Ah,” His grip on you seemed to tighten. “Another greedy venture to strip the moon of its precious lunaxium?”

“I can only assume.” You glanced up at him, “Above my pay grade.”

“You should leave within the week.” Ezra remarked, keeping his sharp gaze focused ahead of him. “It won’t be safe for you.”

“You don’t believe in that stupid story, do you?” You questioned, “Isn’t that just a tale to keep prospectors from coming here?”

“I once believed that.” Ezra muttered, before falling silent for the remainder of the journey to his humble abode.

You had so many questions for your serendipitous savior, but he tended to your leg in relative silence and then left you to rest in his bed.

From what you could tell, Ezra had fashioned a home for himself out of a crashed transport vessel that you could only assume had been his own at one time. Perhaps he’d been like you once upon a time, a drifter picking up odd jobs and landing in bad situations.

Ezra was handsome. The moonlight hadn’t tricked you into thinking that — in the garish light of his bedroom, he was still just as striking. Warm eyes, long lashes, a mess of chestnut hair with a shock of blonde, and a wiry frame.

How long had he been living on Lykaios? Had his vessel crashed on a wayward venture and he’d had no one to come looking for him? Not that anyone would come looking for you either.

Maybe Shiva. They would’ve probably come looking for your corpse just to get what was owed to them.

It was a damn miracle that Ezra had stumbled upon you. How had he even found you? The woods all looked the same.

Sleep came slowly and fitfully. Despite the shot Ezra had given you, your leg was agonizingly painful if you moved at all. Fortunately, there were books within reach — well-loved, with worn pages. You wondered if they had been Ezra’s to start with, or if he’d found someone’s abandoned transport.

He had excellent taste.

You hadn’t seen a stack of Chaucer since you were much younger. His copy of Canterbury Tales had been opened so many times the spine wilted in your palm.

Ezra announced himself with a short knock, before sliding open the durasteel door. “I expected you to be asleep. You had quite the evening, little lamb.”

“I tried.” You made a note of the page you were on before closing the book and sitting it aside on the bedside shelf. “I got distracted by… your collection of novels.”

He chuckled, leaning against the doorframe. “I see you’re getting acquainted with my old oppo Chaucer.”

“I’ll have you know, Chaucer is my friend.” You quipped, drumming your fingers against the cover of the book. “It was nice to retrace old lines.”

“He’s an acquired taste,” Ezra tucked his hands behind his back and stepped into the room. “Youth may outrun the old, but not outwit.”

You smiled a little, “Earn what you can since everything’s for sale.”

Ezra chuckled, shaking his head. “And how true that is.” He gestured grandly towards your leg, “But oftentimes it comes with folly.”

“Is that how you ended up here?” You questioned, “I wanted to ask you last night, but with everything...”

He shrugged, dragging over a trunk and perching on the edge of it. “Five years ago I stood where you stand. They were looking for a new form of clean energy — lunaxium seemed like the answer.” Ezra pressed his tongue to the inside of his cheek, looking away from you then. “This place is filled with hidden dangers. Once you can put weight on your leg, I encourage you to leave.”

“You could come with me.”

Ezra’s gaze snapped towards you, “No.”

Your brows furrowed together, “Alright.”

“I need to change your bandages,” Ezra exhaled heavily as he rose from the trunk, he turned his back to you as he moved to retrieve the roll of gauze from a shelf.

Your eyes widened as you spotted a twisted scar that ran up the back of his neck into his hairline and vanished down the back of his shirt. You hadn’t noticed it last night while he fussed over you.

“Ezra, why can’t you leave?”

Ezra sighed heavily as he sat down on the foot of the bed, drawing your leg into his lap. “It’s home.” He answered simply, unwinding the bandages. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but this—“ He gestured around him. “It’s mine.”

“And you haven’t gone stir crazy after five years?” You questioned, grimacing as he prodded at your wound. “I was gone for two months on a solo mission once and I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to Shiva again. Even if they did rob me blind during liar’s dice.”

“You get used to solitude.” Ezra glanced at you briefly, before turning his attention to the task at hand. He cleaned the area around the wound, before wrapping fresh bandaging around it. “Once or twice a year, someone like yourself arrives and…”

“And the mythical werewolf eats them?” You jested, sinking back against the mattress as he laid your leg back down on the bed.

“Something like that.” He offered dryly, eyeing at you warily. “There’s a full moon in eleven days. I would advise you not to wait around to discover whether or not it is simply lore.”

Your brows knit together and you sat up, arms curled around your waist. “You say that like there’s a chance it is true. You’ve been here for five years… What have you seen?”

“I have things I must attend to away from here.” Ezra said abruptly, “Rest and I’ll return in a few hours to escort you back to your transport.”

Ezra did little to assuage that sinking sensation that told you that maybe just maybe there were werewolves on Lykaios.

“Before you settled here, what did you do?” You questioned, leaning into Ezra’s side as he kept a firm hand coiled around you for support. “Your transport didn’t offer many clues, outside of your exquisite taste in literature.”

Ezra chuckled, looking at you from the corner of his eyes. “I was a harvester. A damn good one, at that. But seasons get hard, tides turn, allegiances bend. Fell into a bit of a snare with an associate and had to dig my way out.”

“I think we’ve all been there before,” You shook your head. “I enjoy gambling. Nasty habit.” You admitted. “I wasn’t meant to be the one to come to Lykaois. My friend — the one I mentioned before — had been assigned to this mission. They lost it in a dicey bet with me.”

“Dicey?”

“What gambler plays honorably?” You countered. “I cheated.”

“And this friend of yours was meant to come here instead?”

You nodded, “Tried to win it back right up until the moment I took off.” Shiva had been furious that they’d lost and even more furious knowing that you hadn’t played fair. “I’ve heard the stories about Lykaois and I wanted to find out if they were true.”

“One shouldn’t go looking for the stuff of myth.” Ezra drawled out. “In my erstwhile profession, I had a certain predilection for danger. It can be damning.”

“Look, I don’t mean to pry, but… is there a reason you can’t leave?” You stopped abruptly, causing him to stumble slightly. “My transport has life support for three. If there’s someone else you’ve got here — if that’s why you don’t want to leave.”

You could feel Ezra’s gaze bore into your skin.

“I’m not leaving.” You told him, when he made no attempt to answer your question. “I’ll take a day or two to rest, but I’m finishing what I’ve started.”

“It’s not safe.”

“Then why don’t you leave?” You pushed back. “If it’s so dangerous, why aren’t you trying to leave?”

Ezra worked his jaw slowly, before looking towards the sky and sighing heavily. “I’m not the only inhabitant on this moon. Some have been here for much longer than me and they…” He shook his head slowly.

You curled your fingers around his forearm, turning to stare at him. “They’re what?”

“Little lamb, be glad you were found by me and not one of them.” Ezra gritted out, holding your gaze. “Consider your luck and leave before it runs out.”

He wasn’t going to relent. Whatever secrets Lykaois held, he wasn’t going to reveal them to you.

“Will you at least let me give you a few of my books?” You questioned, squeezing his arm tight as you used him to support your weight.

“Depends on what you’re offering.” Ezra retorted, “But we need to keep moving. You need to get your leg up.”

Ezra was entranced with your small collection of books. Like a man starved, he snatched up every book — flipping through its pages with reverence. You couldn’t imagine spending five years without getting your hands on a new book.

You thought he would abruptly leave once he had you safely tucked into your transport — but he lingered.

“Nothing in the world is single; all things by a law divine in one another's being mingle. Why not I with thine?” Ezra read, the words falling from his tongue with a richness that your mind had never been able to give them.

“Shelley?” You questioned, tilting your head to try to get a look at the book he was holding.

“Indeed.” He closed the book and held it to his chest. “Our dear friend Percy had quite a way with words. Overshadowed — and rightfully so — by his beloved wife.”

“I haven’t been able to get my hands on Frankenstein. Not since I was maybe fourteen.” You admitted.

Ezra snapped his fingers, “You should’ve spoken up, little lamb. Mary has kept me company on many lonely nights.”

“I will part with Percy,” You told him, hobbling towards him on your wounded leg. “But only if you are willing to part with Mary.”

He hummed thoughtfully, still clutching the book to his chest. “I will have to consult with her.” Ezra told you with a soft smile, “I have no doubt that she is as tired of my company as anyone would be.”

You reached out and covered his hand with yours, “I will let you reunite the couple for just one night. But you have to promise me that you’ll bring me Frankenstein.”

Ezra’s gaze lowered to where your hand was on his, a faint color rising in his cheeks. “Promise me you’ll leave once books have been exchanged.” He covered your hand with his other hand, squeezing gently. “If you stay, I won’t be able to protect you.”

“Protect me from what?”

“Me.” Ezra breathed out, his dark eyes setting on yours. “I will bring you lunaxium that you can take back to whomever hired you. Warn them from this place and forget it.”

“It’s not that simple.” You found yourself leaning into him for support, “I have to complete testing and analysis. Reports. I can’t just take back a lump of lunaxium and hope for the best.”

A growl like sound rose up in the back of his throat, “Then I’ll do the reports for you. I know more than I ever cared to know of lunaxium and this godsforsaken rock. You are not to venture beyond this transport.”

You pulled your hand away from his, “I’ll do as I please, thank you.”

Ezra gritted his teeth, “Do you have a death wish? Now isn’t the time for obstinance. Not this close to a full moon.”

You blinked at him, “Are you…?”

His expression faltered, fingers twitching against the book before he held it out to you, “Keep it and leave tonight. Please.”

“No.” You shook your head, “I want to know.”

“Among these stories,” He gestured to your shelf of books, “I’m afraid it’s an unimpressive tale.”

“I’m always looking to hear new stories.” You told him, grimacing as you put too much weight down on your leg. “Shit.”

“Please sit,” Ezra urged, moving swiftly to curl his arm around your waist as he guided you towards the makeshift sofa you’d made from a weapon crate and oversized pillows.

He sank down onto the opposite end, hands covering his face as he let out a heavy sigh. “Five years ago, I was just like you. Starry-eyed, devil-may-care.”

“Is that how you see me?”

“Yes.” He glanced at you from the corner of his eye. “I came here looking for lunaxium like every ill-fated prospector before me. The rumors, the legend, the myth — they made for a tantalizing adventure.” His expression sobered as he stared straight ahead. “It’s painful. Muscles tear, bones shatter, skin stretches.”

Your heart clenched and your stomach roiled at the thought.

“They say the first was a corruption. There are wolves among us, lurking beyond the trees — fearful in their own right of what looms above them. Someone played with fate and made a monster that even Shelley couldn’t have imagined. Lunaxium has no effect on humans, but it calms the beast for awhile.”

Without even thinking about it, you carefully shifted onto your good knee, letting your leg rest over the side of the sofa as you leaned towards Ezra. “This scar.” You said as you gingerly brushed your fingers over the back of his neck.

He tensed, fingers clenching and unclenching in his lap. “I was attacked on my second night here.” He confessed, exhaling slowly. “Forgive me, little lamb. It has been a right smart spell since I have felt another’s touch.”

“You shouldn’t have to live like that, Ezra.” You whispered, playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. “Isolating yourself… Maybe there’s a cure.”

“I can’t leave Lykaois.” He admitted, closing his eyes as he relaxed under the gentle touch of your fingers. “We’re reliant on the lunaxium and whatever this moon is cursed with. I would go mad.”

“Has anyone ever tried to leave?”

“There are stories.” Ezra turned to look at you. “I appreciate your offer. If it weren’t for what I’ve become, I would accept it without hesitation. But I would rather perish in the solitude of my transport than lose my mind somewhere among the stars.”

You trailed your fingers from his hair, along the curve of his jaw. “I could come back.”

“And put yourself in danger twice over?”

“I put myself in danger every time I venture out on a harvest with a ragtag team that might turn their weapons on me. Life is a risk, Ezra.” You held his gaze as you brushed your thumb over his bottom lip. “I can be your connection to the world you’ve lost. Name it, anything — I’ll bring it back here to you.”

“It’s dangerous.” Ezra seemed compelled by the offer. “The others… they’ve been here long enough to lose what’s left of their humanity.”

“Then protect me.” You brushed your fingers through the hair that fell against his forehead.

“There’s so much I miss,” He admitted, his expression matching the way his voice broke as he held your gaze. “Five years… it’s a lifetime to spend alone.” He curled his fingers around your hand, rubbing his thumb against the center of your palm. “I don’t want you to risk yourself for me.”

“I’m not afraid.” You told him, and as foolish as it was — you weren’t.

Ezra’s gaze flickered between your eyes and your lips and your breath caught somewhere in the back of your throat when he started to lean towards you.

He wasn’t the only one who had gone years without knowing a lover’s touch. You played things close to the chest, avoided anything that could ensnare you — except for him.

For all of his warm charm, there was an underlying current of danger that had you feeling like a moth to the flame. He was a monster. A creature made from a curse you hadn’t even believed in.

“Ezra.” You breathed out, leaning in until your nose brushed against his.

He petted his fingers over your cheek as his breath mingled with yours, “You’re hurt.”

“It’s just my leg.” Your lips were a hair’s breadth away from his, “I think we both need this.”

Ezra curled his fingers around the back of your head as his lips crashed against yours. You groaned against his lips and his tongue took the opportunity to slip into your mouth, curling against yours.

He kissed like a man possessed, desperate and all consuming. He hauled you into his lap like you weighed nothing, his hands clawing at your back, your ass, your arms — anywhere he could reach.

He was starved for a connection like this. You had sensed it in the way he gravitated towards you, the way he lingered, the gentle touches as he mended your leg.

You hissed softly as you shifted your weight in his lap, trying not to put pressure on your leg, but it was hard not to in that position.

Ezra cupped your cheek, drawing your focus to his face as his other hand curled tight around your hip. “Do you trust me, little lamb?” He questioned, waiting until you nodded before he started to guide you back lengthways on the sofa.

You scraped your fingernails over his scalp as you slid your fingers through his hair. His knee slotted in between your thighs as he draped himself over you.

Greedy hands grabbed at the back of his shirt, pulling it up to reveal new skin to touch. He was touch starved. Every brush of your fingers against his untouched skin made him rut against your thigh.

Ezra’s mouth worked down the column of your throat, teeth lightly scraping as his tongue darted out to taste your skin. His own hands sliding under your shirt, skimming over your ribs.

You’d missed the feeling of large, rough hands against your skin. It had been more than a few cycles since you’d fallen into bed with a man. A year, maybe two, since you’d been with anyone at all.

“Ezra.” You breathed out as his mouth moved over your covered breast, his tongue seeking out your nipple through the soft fabric.

His eyes snapped to meet yours, pupils blown with arousal as he let out a ragged breath. “I can smell you.” Ezra murmured, his tongue flicking out to tease the peak of your nipple, the fabric darkened from his mouth. “You’re soaked, aren’t you little lamb?” He questioned, a hand wandering down your side, curling around your thigh.

You felt your chest and cheeks burn with a heady mix of arousal and embarrassment. You were slick. You could feel your underwear clinging to your cunt, desire fueled solely by the man crowded onto the sofa with you.

“In my bed,” Ezra whispered, untangling the hand you had in his hair. He brought your hand to his lips, inhaling deeply before wrapping his lips around your first two fingers.

An unabashed moan escaped you, your hips lifting off the sofa as you ground yourself against his knee. You should’ve been ashamed — he had known that you’d tried to put yourself to sleep by burying your face in his pillow and your hand between your thighs.

Ezra released your fingers with a wet pop, his nostrils flaring as he held your gaze. “You didn’t come, did you? Did la petite mort evade you?”

“Yes.” You whispered, tracing your dampened fingers over his scruffy cheek. “I was so close, but it wasn’t enough.”

He smirked at you as he pressed his knee firmly against you. “May I?”

“Please.” You nodded, sinking back against the sofa as Ezra moved down your body. Skilled fingers worked at the fastenings of your pants, peeling the heavy fabric down your thighs before tossing them aside.

He inhaled deeply, breathing in the scent of you, “Sit up, little lamb.” Ezra told you, sinking onto the ground in front of you. “Look at you.” He drawled as your thighs parted, your injured leg draped over his shoulder.

You gasped quietly as he stroked his thumb over the damp spot on your underwear, barely brushing over your clit — but even that mere touch was enough to make you tremble.

“Did you think of me?” Ezra questioned, peeling the fabric to the side, sweeping his fingers between your slick folds.

“Maybe.” You retorted, biting down on your bottom lip as you watched him lick your arousal from his fingers.

A quiet growl rose up the back of his throat as he leaned in between your thighs. He held your underwear to the side as he lapped at you, his tongue sweeping between your folds.

Your fingers slid into his hair, grip tightening as he traced the tip of his tongue over your clit.

“Do you need these?” Ezra mumbled, tugging at your underwear.

“No. No.” You shook your head, pitching your hips towards him.

Ezra effortlessly tore away the crotch of your underwear, his mouth descending upon your tender flesh. His tongue delved between your folds, thrusting into your slick core. He grabbed at your thigh, holding you steady as he turned his attention to your clit.

You cried out as he wrapped his lips around that throbbing bundle of nerves. He sucked lightly at it, swirling his tongue over it as his fingers pressed into your cunt.

He didn’t let up, his tongue working over your clit as he worked his fingers in and out of you. His fingers were deliciously thick, dragging in and out of you, brushing over that sweet spot within you that made your entire core quake.

Ezra was good.

His name was heavy on your tongue as you shattered, your inner walls clenching around his fingers, thighs trapping his face between your legs.

“I need…” You panted out, breath hitching as he curled his fingers within you. “Fuck!” You shouted, nearly ripping his hair out as you felt a dam break as your vision blurred from the sudden burst of molten desire. Ezra was undeterred, his tongue sweeping up every drop of you.

“More.” You urged, writhing beneath him. “Ezra, please.”

“I might hurt you.” Ezra warned you, dragging his hands down your thighs as he nipped at the soft flesh of your inner thigh. “I don’t… I don’t know if I control myself.”

“Forget about my leg,” You tugged at his hair. “And fuck me.”

Ezra squeezed your hip and barked out, “On your knees.”

You waited until he let go of you before you gracelessly flopping over on the sofa, knees planted firmly on the cushion as you grabbed at the metal shaft that made up the back of the sofa.

“You smell so fucking good like this,” Ezra breathed out, hands sliding over your bare hips as he crowded close to you. “It’s been so long.” He pressed his lips to the back of your neck, his breath hot against your skin.

“Same.” You laughed breathlessly, reaching behind you to grab at his hair. “I don’t break easy.”

“You’ve never fucked a werewolf before.” Ezra murmured, curling his fingers loosely around your throat, keeping you pinned back against his chest as his cock slid between your oversensitive folds. “Have you?”

“Not yet.” You gritted out, curling your fingers around his forearm, thankful that he was able to keep you upright. He was strong, but the fingers wrapped around your throat were gentle.

The head of his cock caught against your entrance and Ezra’s hips bucked forward, pressing into you.

You moaned, completely caught up in the sensation of his thick cock filling you. The stretch was just this side of too much — especially in this angle.

Ezra pulled back, his cock nearly slipping from you entirely before slamming back into you. His thrusts were brutal — all that strength and power that was hidden in his wiry build. He was reaching spots no one else had ever hit.

He released his tight grip on your hip, slipping his hand between your thighs to stroke your aching clit. You clenched around him in response, making him feel even thicker as he drove into you. Again and again.

Your nails bit into his forearm, leaving crescent moon shapes in his skin as you clung to him. You were so close, perched right on the precipice of another orgasm.

“Come.” Ezra’s fingers curled around your jaw, his lips close to your ear. “I want to feel you come. The sweet clench of your cunt around my cock.” He mouthed a row of kisses down your neck, growling against the crook of your neck as your body obeyed him.

He didn’t relent, even as your body pulsed around his cock. “Fuck.” He grunted out, his teeth scraping your skin.

“Ezra.” You moaned out, your eyes falling closed as you basked in the overwhelming sensation of him fucking into you.

His grip loosened at your jaw as he started to slide out of you, but you reached behind you, grabbing at his ass — desperately trying to keep him right there.

Something snapped. Some frayed cord of control that he had been clinging to.

You grabbed at the back of the sofa for support as he roughly grabbed at your hips. He bottomed out once, twice, three times before he growled out your name and came.

Ezra curled his arm around your waist, keeping you pinned to him as he rearranged the two of you. He kept the softening length of his cock buried within you as he sank down onto the sofa with you resting back against his chest.

“You’re very strong,” You mumbled, scratching your nails through the hair on his forearm as you looked down at the arm he had tightly curled around you.

He huffed, a throaty chuckle escaping him as he rested his forehead against your shoulder. “One perk of this damnable curse.” He brushed his thumb over your stomach gently.

“Is the sex a perk too?” You questioned, closing your eyes as you leaned back against him. “Because, I’m not sure I want to leave at all now.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Ezra kissed your shoulder. “I’ve kept my distance. From the others.” He sighed heavily. “You don’t want to become like me, little lamb.”

“I never said that I do.” You pointed out.

“No, I suppose you didn’t.” He shifted beneath you, whispering a quick apology when you whimpered at the movement.

“I’m okay.” You promised, trailing your fingers up the side of his thigh. “Overwhelmed.”

“Two days.”

“Hmm?”

“You can safely stay for two more days, but then you must leave. It gets harder to maintain this the nearer we draw to the full moon.” Ezra told you, nuzzling at the crook of your neck.

“Two days.” You agreed solemnly.

Ezra returned just after nightfall with a stack of research notes and his well-loved copy of Frankenstein.

“Did you know she dedicated herself to getting her husband’s works published.” You mused, looking up from the notes on lunaxium to watch Ezra as he consumed Percy’s book of poems.

“Hmm?”

“Mary.” You explained. “As accomplished as she was, she also worked to ensure her husband’s writing would be read.”

“Indeed.” Ezra tucked the red ribbon into the page he was reading and sat it aside. “I believe their romance blossomed on her mother’s grave, no? A rather odd pair.”

“His works are dreadfully romantic, for such a macabre couple.” You pointed out, flipping over another page of notes, copying down a comment on your own notations.

“The sunlight claps the earth, and the moonbeams kiss the sea: what are all these kissings worth, if thou kiss not me?” Ezra recited, drumming his fingers against the cover. “I had forgotten that was dear Percy.” He sank back against the wall, pushing fingers through his unruly hair. “I miss the sea.”

“I’d bring it back in a bottle if I could.” You told him, chewing on your bottom lip. “I meant what I said before. I can come back.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, moonbeam.” He let the word slip off his tongue like it was sugar-sweet. “You will grow bored of the to-and-fro.” He pursed his lips. “Though I am much appreciative of the offer. You should go back to your friends.”

“I have one friend in this galaxy Ezra and oftentimes I’m certain they want to ring my neck.” You shook your head. “You deserve to have a friend too.”

“I will never be able to leave,” He reminded you. “And you can never stay.”

“There’s still an in-between.” Your brows rose hopefully. “A new moon, perhaps? When the moon is there, but not visible.”

“You’re persistent.”

“I’ve been told that before.” You smirked a little. “What would you like me to bring back when I return after the full moon?”

Ezra exhaled heavily, pinching at the bridge of his nose. “I would be forever indebted to you if you might get your hands on a copy of War & Peace. Dreadfully long, but I hunger for some longevity in my literature.”

“Done.”

He snapped his fingers, “Cheese.”

You arched a brow. “I have cheese.”

“Real cheese?” Ezra corrected. “That wretched aero cheese is nauseating.” He blanched, watching you as you rose from your seat.

You hobbled out of the room, into the corridor where the hyperfreeze unit was mounted in the interior wall beside the coolant system. You returned moments later with a block of Reggianito.

“You’re in luck.” You said, sinking down onto the floor beside him. “I have a hook-up on Sector Block G7.”

Ezra broke off a piece and popped it into his mouth, sinking back against the wall with a satisfied moan. “It will be safe for you to return in a fortnight.”

You slapped his leg playfully, “You’ll let me return if I bring cheese?”

He grinned and continued. “If you come then, you’ll have a fortnight to stay, should you choose to.”

“That should give me enough time to find War & Peace for you and settle my debts.”

Ezra took another bite of cheese, before passing it back to you. “Do they still make those honeysticks?” He questioned. “Little tubes with honey collected from…” He squinted, “I can’t remember the planet.”

“I can look.” You wrapped the cheese back in the cloth, before sitting it aside. “How will you be when I return?” You questioned.

“A little worse for wear,” Ezra shrugged a shoulder, resting his hand on your thigh. “The lunaxium helps.”

“Is it… is it like a drug?”

“I suppose.” Ezra dragged his teeth over his bottom lip. “There’s this hunger,” He explained, knocking his fist against his sternum. “This clawing sensation. It gets worse closer to the full moon. I lose my mind.” He shook his head. “I tried to wean myself off two years ago. Just to feel something.”

“What happened?” You rested your hand over his.

“It triggered the beast.” He answered with a frown. “Middle of the cycle and violent.” Ezra tilted his head to look at you. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t.” You shook your head slowly, interlacing your fingers with his. “Maybe this will be good for you. Help you keep your humanity.”

“How so?”

“The others, the ones that were already here.” Your brows furrowed together as you turned to stare at him, “Did they lose their humanity because they lost touch with other humans?”

Ezra blinked, “You, moonbeam, are a clever one.”

“I read a lot.” You smiled at him, “And you’re in luck — I have always loved monster stories.”

#pedro pascal x reader #ezra x reader #ezra (prospect)#ezra (prospect) x reader

363 notes · View notes

lailoken · 3 years

Text

‘Land Drakes’

“Dragons are often associated in many people's minds with the landscape and being representative of the energies contained within it, and East Anglia is not without its own dragon tales as well. This story, which happened in 1405, comes from the Suffolk/Essex border town of Bures St. Mary and is left to us in monkish Latin by John de Trokelowe and Henry de Blandforde. They describe a creature 'vast in body, with a tufted head, saw-like teeth and a very long tail, which did evil by going to and fro among the sheep and killing many.’ The bowmen of Richard de Waldergrave, on whose land the dragon lurked, moved out to confront it but the body of the beast turned the arrows aside and they sprang back from its armour, 'as if from stone or iron; and those arrows which fell on the spine of its back glanced off again and sprang away with clangings as if they had struck plates of bronze.' But when the dragon saw that the men were advancing once more, 'it took refuge in the mere and hid among the reeds; nor was it any more seen.’

A fearsome, winged dragon once terrified the inhabitants of Ludham in Norfolk by appearing in the village each night, so that none dared to venture out after darkness had fallen. Each morning, after the drake had returned to its lair, the villagers filled up the entrance with stones and bricks, but these failed to stop the beast from making its nightly sorties. One afternoon, the villagers were horrified on seeing the dragon emerging from its burrow. When it had travelled some way away, a brave, strong man rolled a single round stone into the entrance of the lair, completely stopping it up. After basking in the warm sunshine, the dragon made its way home, only to find its way inside totally blocked. Finding it impossible for it to move the stone it left, lashing its tail in fury and bellowing loudly, over the fields towards the Bishop's palace. There, it passed along the causeway to the ruined Abbey of St. Bene't, where it slid under the great archway and disappeared into the vaults underneath. After some time, its former home was filled in and the people of Ludham were never troubled again, the dragon never more appearing.

Finally on this subject, among the MSS in the Library of the Dean and Chapter at Canterbury is the Warden's small, leather-bound book, in which the following story appears; ‘. . . on Friday the 26th September in the year of Our Lord 1449, about the hour of Vespers, two terrible Dragons were seen fighting for about the space of one hour, on two hills, of which one, in Suffolk, is called Kydyndon Hyl and the other in Essex Blacdon Hyl. One was black in colour and the other reddish and spotted. After a long conflict the reddish one obtained the victory over the black, which done, both returned into the hills above named whence they had come, that is to say, each to his own place to the admiration of many beholding them.' Kydyndon Hyl is now known as Killingdon Hill at Kedington on the Suffolk side of the river Stour, whilst Blacdon Hyl, opposite in Essex, is now known as Ballingdon Hall. A mile separates them. On the banks of the Stour, below Killingdon Hill and between it and Ballingdon Hill, is a large marshy meadow, locally known as ‘Sharpfight Meadow', probable scene of the battle.

Although this is a very small sample of East Anglian Dragon tales, it is interesting to see how closely each of these beasts is associated with a landscape feature or features; hills, meadows, old ruins, rivers, etc. and how well they bear out the persistent association of them with geomantic energies. In other regions, magical practitioners describe these energies in terms of Serpents, Snakes, ‘Worms' and Lizards, but they all contain the same essential import; these animals are the embodiment of the natural, telluric currents that flow through the land and may be made use of by the witch or folk-magician, having sufficient knowledge and expertise. The lay of the land, its character, gentleness or otherwise, contributes to the character of the residing 'dragon' and hence the qualities of the energies available there. These are embedded in the old tales and are there as pointers and guides for subsequent practitioners to make use of.”

—

The Devil’s Plantation:

East Anglian Lore, Witchcraft& Folk-Magic

Chapter 1: ‘The Living Landscape’

by Nigel G. Pearson

#the devil’s plantation #nigel g. pearson #East Anglian lore #land Wights #land spirits #land drakes #dragons #drakes #wyrms

31 notes · View notes

literarypilgrim · 4 years

Text

Read Like a Gilmore

All 339 Books Referenced In “Gilmore Girls”

Not my original list, but thought it’d be fun to go through and see which one’s I’ve actually read :P If it’s in bold, I’ve got it, and if it’s struck through, I’ve read it. I’ve put a ‘read more’ because it ended up being an insanely long post, and I’m now very sad at how many of these I haven’t read. (I’ve spaced them into groups of ten to make it easier to read)

1. 1984 by George Orwell 2. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 3. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll 4. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon 5. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser 6. Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt 7. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy 8. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank 9. The Archidamian War by Donald Kagan 10. The Art of Fiction by Henry James

11. The Art of War by Sun Tzu 12. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner 13. Atonement by Ian McEwan 14. Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy 15. The Awakening by Kate Chopin 16. Babe by Dick King-Smith 17. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi 18. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie 19. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett 20. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath 21. Beloved by Toni Morrison 22. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney 23. The Bhagava Gita 24. The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy 25. Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel 26. A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy 27. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley 28. Brick Lane by Monica Ali 29. Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner 30. Candide by Voltaire 31. The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer 32. Carrie by Stephen King 33. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller 34. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger 35. Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White 36. The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman 37. Christine by Stephen King 38. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens 39. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess 40. The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse 41. The Collected Stories by Eudora Welty 42. A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare 43. Complete Novels by Dawn Powell 44. The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton 45. Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker 46. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole 47. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas 48. Cousin Bette by Honore de Balzac 49. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky 50. The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber 51. The Crucible by Arthur Miller 52. Cujo by Stephen King 53. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon 54. Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende 55. David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D 56. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens 57. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown 58. Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol 59. Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 60. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller 61. Deenie by Judy Blume 62. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson 63. The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx 64. The Divine Comedy by Dante 65. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells 66. Don Quixote by Cervantes 67. Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv 68. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson 69. Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe 70. Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook 71. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe 72. Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn 73. Eloise by Kay Thompson 74. Emily the Strange by Roger Reger 75. Emma by Jane Austen 76. Empire Falls by Richard Russo 77. Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol 78. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton 79. Ethics by Spinoza 80. Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves

81. Eva Luna by Isabel Allende 82. Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer 83. Extravagance by Gary Krist 84. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury 85. Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore 86. The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan 87. Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser 88. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson 89. The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien 90. Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein 91. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom 92. Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce 93. Fletch by Gregory McDonald 94. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes 95. The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem 96. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand 97. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 98. Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger 99. Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers 100. Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut 101. Gender Trouble by Judith Butler 102. George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg 103. Gidget by Fredrick Kohner 104. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen 105. The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels 106. The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo 107. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy 108. Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky 109. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell 110. The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford

111. The Gospel According to Judy Bloom 112. The Graduate by Charles Webb 113. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck 114. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 115. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 116. The Group by Mary McCarthy 117. Hamlet by William Shakespeare 118. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling 119. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling 120. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers 121. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad 122. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry 123. Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare 124. Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare 125. Henry V by William Shakespeare 126. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby 127. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon 128. Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris 129. The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton 130. House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III 131. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende 132. How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer 133. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss 134. How the Light Gets In by M. J. Hyland 135. Howl by Allen Ginsberg 136. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo 137. The Iliad by Homer 138. I’m With the Band by Pamela des Barres 139. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote 140. Inferno by Dante

141. Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee 142. Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy 143. It Takes a Village by Hillary Rodham Clinton 144. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 145. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan 146. Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare 147. The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain 148. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair 149. Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito 150. The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander 151. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain 152. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini 153. Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence 154. The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal 155. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman 156. The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield 157. Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis 158. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke 159. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken 160. Life of Pi by Yann Martel

161. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens 162. The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway 163. The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen 164. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott 165. Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton 166. Lord of the Flies by William Golding 167. The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson 168. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold 169. The Love Story by Erich Segal 170. Macbeth by William Shakespeare 171. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert 172. The Manticore by Robertson Davies 173. Marathon Man by William Goldman 174. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov 175. Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir 176. Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman 177. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris 178. The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer 179. Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken 180. The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare 181. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka 182. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides 183. The Miracle Worker by William Gibson 184. Moby Dick by Herman Melville 185. The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin 186. Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor 187. A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman 188. Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret 189. A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars 190. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

191. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf 192. Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall 193. My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh 194. My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken 195. My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest 196. Myra Waldo’s Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo 197. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult 198. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer 199. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco 200. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri 201. The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin 202. Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen 203. New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson 204. The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay 205. Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich 206. Night by Elie Wiesel 207. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen 208. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan 209. Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell 210. Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski

211. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (will NEVER read again) 212. Old School by Tobias Wolff 213. On the Road by Jack Kerouac 214. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey 215. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 216. The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan 217. Oracle Night by Paul Auster 218. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood 219. Othello by Shakespeare 220. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens 221. The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan 222. Out of Africa by Isac Dineson 223. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton 224. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster 225. The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan 226. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky 227. Peyton Place by Grace Metalious 228. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde 229. Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington 230. Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi 231. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain 232. The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby 233. The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker 234. The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche 235. The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind 236. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 237. Property by Valerie Martin 238. Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon 239. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw 240. Quattrocento by James Mckean

241. A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall 242. Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers 243. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe 244. The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham 245. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi 246. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier 247. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin 248. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant 249. Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman 250. The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien 251. R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton 252. Rita Hayworth by Stephen King 253. Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert 254. Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton 255. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare 256. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf 257. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster 258. Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin 259. The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition 260. Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi 261. Sanctuary by William Faulkner 262. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford 263. Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James 264. The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum 265. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne 266. Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand 267. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir 268. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd 269. Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman 270. Selected Hotels of Europe

271. Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell 272. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen 273. A Separate Peace by John Knowles 274. Several Biographies of Winston Churchill 275. Sexus by Henry Miller 276. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon 277. Shane by Jack Shaefer 278. The Shining by Stephen King 279. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse 280. S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton 281. Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut 282. Small Island by Andrea Levy 283. Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway 284. Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers 285. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore 286. The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht 287. Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos 288. The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker 289. Songbook by Nick Hornby 290. The Sonnets by William Shakespeare 291. Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning 292. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron 293. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner 294. Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov 295. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach 296. The Story of My Life by Helen Keller 297. A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams 298. Stuart Little by E. B. White 299. Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway 300. Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust

301. Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett 302. Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber 303. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens 304. Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald 305. Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry 306. Time and Again by Jack Finney 307. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger 308. To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway 309. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 310. The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare 311. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith 312. The Trial by Franz Kafka 313. The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson 314. Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett 315. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom 316. Ulysses by James Joyce 317. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath 318. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe 319. Unless by Carol Shields 320. Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

321. The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers 322. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray 323. Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard 324. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides 325. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett 326. Walden by Henry David Thoreau 327. Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten 328. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy 329. We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker 330. What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles 331. What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell 332. When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka 333. Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson 334. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee 335. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire 336. The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum 337. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte 338. The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings 339. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

#books in Gilmore Girls #reading list #booklr #have you read?

108 notes · View notes