#and is sometimes discomfiting

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Random headcanons post

Would [character] ever get a pet?

1) Maedhros

When he comes back from the Halls he befriends one of Oromë’s hounds. It’s been following Edrahil around looking very friendly and apologetic, and Edrahil is giving it raised-eyebrow suspicious looks. Maedhros gives it pats and, privately, some advice on giving people their space.

Everyone feels rather unsettled and finally someone asks “Maedhros, are you sure that’s a dog?” Maedhros replies “It is just as much a dog as I am an elf” and everyone looks uncomfortably at each other and decides to drop the subject.

[bookwyrminspiration]

I was reading the tags on your last post and I was curious what you thought about the cache scene? I love seeing others perspectives about different parts of books and stuff like that if you want to share!!!!

I'd love to share! This is more what my immediate thoughts were upon reading it, but I wasn't the hugest fan. As I was going through I couldn't help thinking: are we seriously still going?

That one scene where Oralie, Dex, and Sophie go through the seven secrets takes 73 pages, which may not seem like a lot, but Stellarlune's 728 pages. That's 10 percent of the entire book. That, to me at least, is a lot of time to dedicate to one unbroken scene. I also wondered what Shannon was doing from a writer's perspective, because I understand she created a corner and backed herself into it, but I don't understand her response to that.

There are seven secrets, obviously they don't know which little gem is the one they need, but did she have all the memories planned from the beginning? Or, as I assumed, did she have seven slots to fill, use one or two for the important things, and then fill the others with things she came up with on the spot--for example, the one with Bronte or the matchmaker one. Those just reference past things, but I don't think they're really important now, they're just filling space.

But she also has the benefit of just being able to show us what's important. She could've skipped through a few secrets without fully showing us by just saying like "the next two weren't any more helpful, talking about something to do with ancient dwarf politics and some mountain range" and then getting to the important one or something. We didn't need to see all of them--and I don't see a huge benefit in suspense, which of these seven secrets is relevant, because we immediate start to implement them into the story and solve them. It would've saved time that could've been dedicated to what was actually relevant.

I don't know, that's just not a writing choice I would've made, dedicating so much time and coming up with what feels like a lot of filler. Especially so late in the series.

Oh and another thing that I'm wondering about: why make Oralie the one who can open it when it was specifically given to Sophie? I mean, I suppose there's nothing wrong with her being it's keeper temporarily, and it makes sense for things to be tailored to Oralie, but the way it was set up prior made it feel like it would have more to do with Sophie herself. If Oralie was the one to open it, why not just leave it with her? For the story and suspense we've been carrying for five books, i know, but that's just another choice I wouldn't have made.

All that is more focused on the writing style than the content itself, but that's also a whole other thing! And I've talked about some of my Stellarlune thoughts before, so I figured I wouldn't get into it here. But those were my thoughts when reading the cache scene, there were just a few things that made it...strange? to read through

Of course if you liked it, that's totally fine! Everyone's got different preferences, and I'm glad that something I didn't quite like was able to bring someone else joy :)

[cuubism]

Hob will always be grateful that he and Dream got together before Dream's retirement, for so many reasons. One of them is this: that he knows what Dream of the Endless looks like when he laughs, when he's flustered, when he's flushed with pleasure, or warm from a hot shower. Because he knows these things he can fully appreciate the contrast in how Dream--just Dream, himself, not Of The Anything--looks in those moments.

Dream of the Endless had been a work of fine art that never cracked. Hob doesn't think he saw him blush once, ever. His skin was always pale and even, even when Hob made him smile, or cry out in pleasure, or warmed him by the fire. He was how he was.

This Dream, human Dream, his Dream, blushes so easily, and it's a delight. Even human, his complexion is very pale, so the slightest redness is stark on his skin. When Hob surprises him with a kiss he blushes high on his cheeks. When they're gasping for breath after sex--gasping for breath, another thing Dream of the Endless had never done--Dream's face will be flushed red and damp with sweat. He's embarrassed about it, which only makes the blush worse, but Hob finds it incredibly charming.

Or like now: when he's coming out of the shower. Hob has to stifle a laugh. The poor once-dream king's whole chest, neck, and face are splotchy and red from the heat. He does like his showers boiling hot, and he pays for it in this. It's rather un-sexy--Hob's sure Dream would prefer to swan out of the bathroom dripping in a more picturesque and alluring way. But Hob thinks it's all very cute.

Dream scowls at him as he laughs. "You are making fun. Cease that this instant."

"Sorry, Your Highness, it's just that you look like a calico cat that's gone through a forest fire."

Dream throws a towel at him before he's even had a chance to dry his hair with it. When Hob catches it, his scowl only deepens.

Hob steps into his space and starts drying his hair for him. "S'tough when you can't dictate every little bit of your appearance, isn't it?" He's not without sympathy. He knows that even now, for Dream, relinquishing the tiniest bit of control feels like losing a battle.

Dream pokes at one of the red patches on his skin, which is gradually fading. His fingertip leaves a white indent. "I do not know why the blood insists on continually traveling towards the surface. It has other business."

"Perhaps it's just greedy for warmth." He tousles Dream's hair, which earns him another pout. "Like the body it's trying to run, hm?"

"Body," Dream echoes, with distaste. He does not always like having one, Hob knows. Nor especially one that can show his emotions so clearly, and without his agreement.

"It looks good on you," Hob tells him, caressing his cheek. "Warmth. You know."

Warmth, and life. It's worth more than anything to see dream having these moments of life. An overly-hot shower. A blushing smile.

Hob kisses his cheek, and, predictably, he blushes.

"...Perhaps," Dream finally allows. The redness from the shower is fading, but the shade on his cheeks lingers. He's so unbearably lovely.

Hob kisses the corner of his mouth. Murmurs there, "Should we see just how much I can make you blush?"

"This fixation is discomfiting," Dream complains. But he follows agreeably when Hob takes his hands and draws him into the bedroom. He always follows in the end, even if he complains the whole while. Hob thinks that, deep down, Dream wants this life, even if it's sometimes all splotchy. It's just hard to feel like he can have it. It's new and still rubbed raw, and these little changes are as confronting as they are, secretly, comforting.

But Hob loves him in this life, and loves showing him how much he loves him. Especially when he can get that blush to rise all along Dream's chest and throat and cheeks and the tips of his ears. Because another thing that's wonderful about Dream's human body?

It takes kisses so beautifully.

[grison-in-space]

man I've been listening to Guards! Guards! again, right. I was going to do Feet of Clay again but I wanted so badly to spend some time with Lady Sybil in her element, so I detoured over to the beginning. (Incidentally, Making-Money!Vetinari up against Guards!-Guards!Vetinari is one hell of a contrast. One gets the sincere impression that older Vetinari would wipe the floor with his younger self if they ever met, and then be painfully embarrassed afterward; and yet you can see the potential among the arrogance. I wrote this bit before I wrote a longer piece about that exchange, but I'll get round to linking it in here in a moment.)

But I wanted to discuss Sybil.

The first thing you have to understand about Sybil is that she is an archetype of a certain kind of autistic person, usually a woman (or a queer man). You find them in every kind of domestic animal fancy, although Sybil is of the class and rank that generally focuses on relatively large, expensive, and impractical animals; the dragon fancy is mostly based on the dog fancy, with strong influence from horse fancies and sometimes cat or falconry fancies. It is not a coincidence that Sybil is unmarried and that most of her time is spent with other women, often middle class or upper class women, who share her all consuming interest in dragons; this has been a really common social circle for autistics, especially autistic women with independent money, into a given animal fancy since the cultural concept of animal fancies existed.

The second thing you have to understand about Sybil is that she is not at all a conventionally attractive woman. Here are the things we learn about her as Vimes does, in order: she has inherited wealth and status that she does not particularly care about; she is large--taller than Vimes himself, or at least tall enough to loom over him--and "booms" confidently and incomprehensibly at him; and even after she takes off the heavy protective armor useful for conducting a dragon mating, she's tall and fat and (implied to be) heavily muscled under the fat. Her figure is compared to the Venus of Willendork, or perhaps an operatic Valkyrie, and she wears wigs because she is generally fairly bald, or at least singed. She's loud by nature. She wanders around with a dragon on her shoulder creating awful smells and occasionally dribbling.

God, I love her. Speaking as another erstwhile animal fancy autistic, she's really living the dream there. And this little Watch man shows up in her life, totally fails to understand what she's asking for when she tries to conscript him into the easy job for the breeding she's trying to facilitate, and then sits and asks her a bunch of pointed questions about her beloved dragons. He's weird in his own way and a little drunk, and he really is unfortunate enough not to have any dragons experience at all, but he sits down and he asks her questions and he listens to everything she can infodump at her with, as far as I can tell, rapt fascination.

This is not an experience Sybil Ramkin has frequently had. He doesn't try to escape or change the subject or draw her back to the pieces he cares about even a little bit. He's clearly dazed and confused and probably, knowing Vimes, a little bit drunk, but he's not even visibly discomfited enough to shove poor old Dewdrop Maybelline Talonthrust the First out of his lap. Sybil clearly knows that most people don't appreciate being drooled acid on, and tells Vimes repeatedly that he can shove the old man off, but he makes no effort to do so at any point. Given that dragons are described as having a quite pervasive smell, and given all the other details of their biology, I can't even begin to imagine how awful the old dragon must smell... and Vimes just sort of rolls with it.

(It's a pity Pterry didn't understand show names at all, of course; the ones we get should tell us something about the relationships among dragons and kennels, and the prefixes should be repeated, and whatever Sybil's own kennel name is should be present in many of the dragons she mentions. Probably it's either Talonthrust or Moonmist, but either way Goodboy Bindle Featherstone of Quirm is named entirely wrong. He's clearly of her own breeding, so he should have a kennel prefix or suffix that aligns with hers, not a name that has nothing in common with her other dragons and implies that his dam was bred by the duchess of Quirm rather than by Sybil herself.)

He listens and he listens and he asks questions and he goes down to the kennels to look at her pride and joy and listen to her explaining what makes each of them so nice. And then he brings her an incredibly exciting present. And he expresses interest in the sweet little whittle she's been trying to work out what to do with, who is totally not a breeding specimen but is too weird even for the sort of people who adopt dragons from the Sunshine Sanctuary. He doesn't even try to leave until the big dragon overhead causes a big stir, and then when she has him taken to her house to recover, she finds him reading her book about diseases of the dragons with every evidence of fascination.

Small wonder she takes notice of him, really.

[netherfeildren]

Hey Vic 🖤

Do you have any erotic literature recommendations?

hey hello! i got this question twice today so i will answer briefly here for something for u guy to read tonight if you want and then i’ll compile a more in depth list tomorrow!

the crossfire series by sylvia day : one of my most favorite series of all time but heavy heavy trigger warnings that you should look up before reading. i’ll say tho it’s not only such a gorgeously sexy story but so meaningful too despite the crazy dramatics of the plot

everything elsie silvers writes is super fun/ sexy / easy to read

in the same vein look at all of melanie harlow’s stuff also fun sexy good time reads

gianna darling : all her stuff is good

THE MADE SERIES BY DANIELLE LORI holy shit christian allister (book 2) is my end all be all — i think the authors a weirdo tho so like … pirate it or something but omg definitely read this, it’s actually my number one rec if anyone needs an epub site dm me :3

and if you want something more “highbrow” less romance bookish all of anaïs nin’s erotica is very beautiful but not always necessarily “sexy” if that’s what you’re looking for. definitely veers more in the vein of grotesque or discomfiting more than it’s usually romantic. but you know… sometimes that’s what you’re looking for

[anghraine]

It's difficult to articulate, but I've been thinking for awhile about this ... thing people do, where they will be ostensibly accepting and tolerant of the fact of me being autistic, bipolar, etc, but they're viscerally uncomfortable with any particular symptom being attributable to any of those things.

Like, people joke that I'm a vampire because I dislike direct sunlight (and in fact find it rather painful). But the idea that this is an autistic sensory issue seems to discomfit them—they'll be like, oh, it must be something wrong with your glasses, it must be that it's especially bright today, it must be anything else. Or there's the concept that I sometimes lose the ability to speak coherently because I'm autistic ... where they'll be like, oh, that's not autism, it's just loud in here, it's XYZ. Same with losing focus and being unable to sleep when I'm manic, etc.

No matter how well-established something is as a symptom of X disorder and no matter how important it was to actually getting diagnosed with the disorder, there's this weird resistance to the particulars of the disorder actually resulting from it.

I was also thinking of all those posts lately that are like ... you shouldn't attribute particular behaviors or experiences to your disorder, it's not really internal to you but just a collection of tendencies. And it seems, if not identical, to participate in that sort of thing? It's like, okay, I can acknowledge that you're disabled in a general way or even that you're genuinely a person with X Disorder, but you shouldn't attribute any specific actions or experiences to it, ever. For your own good, of course :)

[unhetalia]

well. I guess it depends on what relationship head canons you have for ukus if they ever truly got together?

I had to think about this (nap) because I realised just how LITTLE established relationship UKUS I've actually consumed. I think I've read a lot more established RusAme than established UKUS. Maybe because I'm incredibly picky about the latter dynamic? Anyway - because I haven't read a lot of it, I had to think really hard about what it would look like.

I personally don't think there would be obvious differences between Arthur-and-Alfred-as-friends and Arthur-and-Alfred-as-lovers, but that still means talking about how I see Arthur and Alfred as friends.

As friends, banter is a huge part of Alfred and Arthur's dynamic. A long time ago, there was probably real bitterness in their jabs. Over time, it becomes a softer thing. (One of the songs I associate with UKUS is "So American" by Olivia Rodrigo, because I absolutely believe that's one of the things Arthur always says to Alfred - "you're so American", smirking or laughing, no sharpness or rebuke in his words.)

Arthur grew up with a lot of siblings and he's quick witted - but Alfred has amazing memory and can bring up anything anyone has done that he's witnessed, and is really good at knowing exactly what someone finds embarrassing or infuriating. They have fun riling each other up - this is what leads to them trying to scare each other silly every Halloween.

As a couple, this doesn't change. (It works for them, especially since both of them have a hard time expressing themselves sincerely.) The importance of this aspect of their dynamic is the fact that Alfred doesn't get offended by any of Arthur's comments - not the stuff about himself, or his dry, unimpressed observations about everything around him. He finds it funny, and Arthur thrives on that. Arthur has suffered a lot from being tied to people who found him wanting in some way, but Alfred is one of the few people who actively enjoys and seeks out Arthur's company and doesn't seem to find him wanting in some way.

The second thing is they have a good balance of things they enjoy doing together, and things they're dragging each other to. Alfred enjoys a lot of British media and food (once again, something that's more important to Arthur than he can say). Arthur enjoys McDonald's, and doesn't mind eating there when Alfred gets a craving. But Arthur doesn't enjoy the wilderness in the way Alfred does - is a bit ... discomfited at how there's huge swathes of American land that are completely wild. Alfred drags him to these places, for hiking and camping, and Arthur re-discovers a part of himself that he'd lost in England's industrialisation. Meanwhile, Arthur really pushes Alfred to appreciate the depth of English and European history. It allows for both comfort and growth in their relationship.

The third thing - Alfred is high energy, and so curious about the world. I absolutely believe Alfred has a few doctorates under his belt and invents and fixes things in his spare time. While I don't see Alfred working for the government, I can sometimes see him working for NASA. He's constantly tinkering or jotting things down. He's actually incredibly cerebral.

Arthur is physical. He never stopped sword fighting, and practices martial arts. He runs, and goes to the gym, does boxing (I've mentioned these things in my headcanon about England's appearance before). But when he's not doing those things, he does things that quiet his mind. He crochets or knits. Something repetitive and soothing. Meditative.

They can sit for hours in the same room, Arthur knitting while Alfred has blueprints spread over their coffee table. And its peaceful, and you don't think it even matters if the other person is there or not, but Arthur has to go to London for a week to sort something out and Alfred can't get anything done at home and has to go to the office every day.

HAVE I EVEN SAID ANYTHING IN THIS ASK. Basically Alfred and Arthur after having sex is incredibly similar to them before having sex. The act of sex changes everything and nothing all at once. But their relationship is a lot of being able to feel appreciated where you never felt appreciated before, a lot of being able to do things together that you love, and doing things together that you hate but somehow still helps you grow as a person, and also being able to do nothing together.

[ashesandhackles]

@hprecfest Day 10, 11 and 12

Posting three days worth of recs cos real life got in the way of posting it on their said days :P enjoy!

Day 10 - A fest fic

Nymphadora by @bluethepineapple

Written for the @womenofthehouseofblack , this fic is dark fairytale about families - families you are part of, families you have left behind and the complicated love that runs through both. The implied parallel in conversation between Andromeda and Tonks to Andromeda and Bellatrix is particularly haunting.

Summary:

Nymphadora (Greek) n. "The gifts of the Nymphs"

Andromeda could only watch as her daughter set off to war.

The Rougarou by @evesaintyves

Wolfstar.

I am big champion of reading everything written by Eve, but this fic is my favourite from her! This fic is steeped in grief and death post First War, and even as Remus tries his best to hide away from it all, New Orleans haunts him. It's a beautiful piece and I keep rereading it time and again.

Summary:

After the end of the first war, Remus goes to New Orleans to forget.

Day 11 - A dark fic

Three Knocks Upon the Door by @lunapwrites

Lily/Tonks.

This fic! Such effective imagery and contextaulisation for the quotes we know from canon. The Lily in this story has a hypnotic quality to her, and you can't help be drawn in - like Tonks.

Summary:

Knocking on wood three times is said to bring good fortune; but three knocks on your window or door without a clear cause is an omen of death.

In this case, it's a little of both.

(In which Tonks gets suspended from field duty, and takes matters into her own hands.)

First and Last and Always by Vermoulian

Sirius Black/Severus Snape.

The Snirius discord server is in love with this fic - and I can see why. It is beautifully written and makes you sit viscerally in Snape's headspace, to the point that sometimes you are discomfited.

Summary:

Black had been nearly skeletal when he came out of Azkaban, but he’d put on muscle again.

He prowled, and he loomed, and whatever earthy animal quality he’d had as a younger man had transmuted into something feral and predatory, during his twelve years of imprisonment.

Severus had his wand. He swallowed hard. His wand. Magic. His only defense, because Black outweighed him by at least three stone. But magic was more than enough. Severus had never needed physical prowess. His magical strength, and the keenness of his mind, gave him the advantage.

Except when it didn’t.

Day 12 - A WIP you are following

Beasts by @whinlatter

Ginny Weasley coming of age fic? Ginny Weasley fic that addresses all the canon gaps of Hinny relationship in a layered way? Sign me up! I have always liked Ginny, but beyond wondering about how Chamber of Secrets affected her - I never cared for her. Whinlatter makes you care about her interior life, makes you see that post war Hinny isn't going to be as easy as breathing. Basically, it's love.

Summary:

Ginny Weasley comes of age among them: the beasts, the wild things of their world.

(or: how the youngest Weasley won the Hanging Out With Hagrid Award).

Canon compliant, multi-chapter, non-linear narrative, Golden Gen, PS through post-DH (1981-1999). Harry/Ginny.

The War of Roses by @saintsenara

Sirius Black/Severus Snape.

A canon divergent Snirius fic from asenora? I slammed the subscribe button even before reading it - but having read the first chapter, I greatly enjoy the emphasis on what Azkaban has done to Sirius and I cannot wait to see where she takes this.

Summary:

Sirius Black does not die. But this does not mean that it is easy for him to live.

Or: a butterfly flaps its wings and Sirius does not go to the Department of Mysteries. What follows from that twist of fate is a story about the long, destructive shadow of a schoolboy rivalry; a story about surviving, and how surviving is sometimes more difficult than dying; a story about the fragility of beauty, the gentleness of hope, and the value of choice.

It is also a love story.

Scylla and Charybdis by @saintsenara

Severus Snape/Lord Voldemort.

I love the way Asenora writes Snape - his insecurity, his attraction to power, danger and darkness. I love how the narrative has cuts from his older self reflections, and I am really curious to see where she will take this. It also has Snirius crumbs so large that we could make a sandwich.

Summary:

Severus Snape just wants somewhere to belong.

This will turn out to be a curse.

[wyldblunt]

[GRIPPING MY HEAD AND GROANING, OVERCOME WITH VISIONS OF TORMENT] thinkign about. glyndwr, champion of vlast,

my first thought was "vlast lives au" but it doesn't even have to be that. it can be that he WAS always meant to be vlast's champion but ... well. sucks. and actually he probably wouldn't even know bc he doesn't remember his dream/wyld hunt at all (and if he DID know it would drive him into a delirious hateful breakdown bc over the years he has developed a phobia of one day remembering his wyld hunt, or finding out that everything in his life HAS been in service of a forgotten hunt whether he meant it to be or not. he does not want to know.)

i have already been kicking around the idea of glyn having this. very very bad habit, after PoF, of prowling the mists kind of voyeuristically looking in on other timelines (alan heavily disapproves of this and worries about him a lot, merrit hates it and worries about him a lot, rytlock thinks it is a really bad idea but still got tricked into giving over some tips, canach hates it but won't bring it up bc they are both so fiercely independent that sometimes it means they mutually fail to do things like, uh, "Talking About My Needs, Opinions, and Feelings in Regards to Our Relationship, Lest I Infringe Upon Your Will"). he thinks about vlast a lot. he thinks about rytlock's fuckup a lot. he knows, obviously, that sulking around peering into smudgy windows between realities hoping you get a glimpse of a timeline where things went better is an astonishingly bad idea.

(i mean, like, what would you even do if you found one. kill that glyndwr and steal his life? ha ha ha! that's, that's wacky. you wouldn't do that.)

and maybe one day he looks through a rift and sees himself with vlast. shining as brightly as alan does with aurene. infinitely stronger, OBVIOUSLY stronger. not just accepted by the world but beloved, TRULY thought of as a hero (because he's never been that to tyria, no matter what he does — alan is the hero of tyria. glyndwr is a necessary evil, a weapon that makes everyone uncomfortable but is too valuable to set aside. he jokes about it all the time. because he thinks about it all the time.)

maybe he keeps coming back to that window. maybe he sees that he's still WITH alan in that timeline. maybe he sees so much less death, there. so many more victories. how can there not be, with another dragon on your side?

but maybe he doesn't see merrit. or canach, for that matter. maybe the lorelei he sees at alan's side isn't the same, in ways he feels discomfited by.

maybe one day he gets spotted. he knows better, but he can't help speaking. maybe he asks about canach.

and glyndwr, champion of vlast, barely remembers. it takes him a second; when he finally makes the connection, he seems a little amused. "oh, canach. that wayward secondborn — the one i put down in southsun."

(in glyn's timeline, after all, it was alan who handled all that — and he'd always rather put someone in handcuffs before he puts them in a box. not like glyn.)

(in glyn's timeline, after all, he was insulted that the thing even came across his desk — a karka infestation? for fuck's sake. as if he didn't have better things to do.)

(in glyn's timeline, after all, they've even joked about it, laying in bed — "it's a good thing it WASN'T you, dear. we would have just killed each other!" ha, ha —)

this is when he should have left. especially when he already wants to leap on his doppelganger and strangle him to death, because at every moment he's seeming like less a mockery of everything that's gone wrong in his world and more a mockery of every way he's managed to better himself.

but, as always, glyn can't help himself. he has to ask about merrit. he has to. her absense has been so conspicuous, every time he's stopped to spy on this world (and how many times has it been now? a dozen? more?).

now glyndwr, champion of vlast, does not look amused. now he's the one asking questions. he's asking what glyn means by that. he's asking about maguuma. he's asking, again and again, with increasing violence, what year it is, in glyn's tyria, how long is it after the mordrem campaign, how did you manage to get them all out—

maybe this is when glyndwr starts running. (we've said it already. glyndwr, champion of vlast, is infinitely stronger, obviously stronger.) maybe he's lucky he's spent this long slipping in and out of the mists — he can navigate just a little better. he still knows better than to lose time by looking back.

(i mean, what do you think he would do. kill you and steal your life? give up the one he has, the one that's so much better than yours?)

(the thing is, you would. the throne of a dragon champion, acceptance at last, unfathomable power — you would throw all of that in the mud and tread on it without looking down, for your son.)

(and he's you.)

maybe glyndwr, champion of vlast, is still catching up. maybe glyn can hear him gaining, can tell what he's planning, can calculate already that he'll be caught in moments at this rate, and there's probably no choice but to stop and face him—

(i mean, what are you going to do? kill him and doom his timeline, just to protect what's yours?)

(the thing is, he would.)

(and you're him.)

[a-queer-seminarian]

Hey Avery, I love this blog and the binary-breakers blog. They’ve both been a great help to me as I reconstruct my faith. But I’m struggling with something: my fiancé and I are scheduled to light an advent candle during the Sunday morning service at his church. Initially I was really looking forward to it, but by chance I was curious about how old Mary was when she bore Jesus, and when I looked it up I learned she could have been anywhere from 13-16. Moreover, some traditions put Joseph as being much, much older. It’s just hard not to think in a very . . . sinister direction when considering that context, especially as far as God’s role in this is concerned. What did you learn about this topic in seminary, if anything? Is there any hope that my “problematic” interpretation is unnecessary/invalid?

Hi there! I think it's lovely y'all are going to light an advent candle tomorrow, and I hope it's a meaningful experience! I also totally get your dismay about Mary's age at Jesus's birth.

To start with the facts: yes, Mary was almost certainly a teenager when betrothed to Joseph. The Bible doesn't give any confirmation of her age, but in both ancient Jewish culture and Roman culture, girls were usually married off not too many years after they started menstruating.

When it comes to Joseph's age, I do have some slightly relieving news — he's unlikely to have been the old man he's often depicted as in medieval art. (I actually had a fascinating conversation on this topic with queer Catholic art historian Amy Neville on my podcast that you can read or listen to here!) He almost certainly would have been older than Mary, but it's uncertain how much older.

In ancient Jewish culture, the "ideal" marriage was actually one between a man and a woman who were both in their teens, with an expectation that a man marry by age 20. Being able to support a wife & kids was a key indicator of manhood, so men were expected to get married as young as they could. But in practice, it was more common for men to marry in their late 20s / by age 30, which does mean that their wives would often be a good ten or fifteen years younger than they were.

The Bible doesn't tell us what age Joseph was when he and Mary were betrothed, but it's unlikely he was older than 30, just as it's unlikely she was older than 18.

So maybe that's not quite as discomfiting as the image of a much older Joseph, but by our modern standards, it's still pedophilia. So what do we make of that? And what did God think of that??

__

I believe it is an act of faith to be troubled by elements of scripture that should be troubling, rather than shrugging them off as being "God's will" just because they're in the Bible. I highly recommend Rachel Held Evans' book Inspired on this topic, which has a whole chapter on grappling with difficult biblical texts (you can read a long passage from it here).

While exploring our emotions and giving them holy space, it is also important to accept that biblical cultures are two thousand or more years old — the ancient world had completely different understandings of morality from us. That doesn't mean we shrug off displays of sexism or xenophobia in scripture — bigotry is bigotry, whether an ancient iteration or what we have today — but learning about biblical cultures enriches our understanding of why certain things, like slavery or women having little say in whom they marry, are present in the Bible (and often completely taken for granted by its human authors). It can help us distinguish between what is truly God-ordained, versus what the humans writing down their experience of God presume is God-ordained.

I appreciate how womanist theologian Wil Gafney explores the complexity of appreciating the Bible as an ancient human text while looking for Divine truth "between the lines":

“There is liberation in the gospel even though it is sometimes obscured by the structures of power that benefit from holding people captive. There is also a story in and between the lines of and behind the text we hold so dear that points to a liberation that not even the authors and editors of scripture were able to see clearly or, see their way to record.

Jesus was a rabbi, he would have never wanted us to cling to the letters and syntax of these texts as though they were his very body and blood but rather, his spirit and the Spirit of God, blow through them, ruffling and disturbing them and permitting us to read new truths in and out of them and, not lose sight of the ancient stories that are also part of our shared heritage."

___

When it comes to Mary's young age when betrothed to Joseph and approached by Gabriel to request her "yes" to carrying God's child, your question of God's "role" in that is a vital one to ask.

In Mary's world, a woman without a kyrios, a man to be her protector, was in a very precarious position. Mary has to be betrothed to someone in her teens. We don't know whether God "approves" of this cultural practice, but we can see how God works within this custom to ensure Mary's security throughout her life:

when Joseph plans to divorce her after she becomes pregnant with Jesus, God sends an angel to persuade him to stick by her;

when Jesus is dying on the cross, he ensures that his beloved will protect Mary after he's gone.

Throughout scripture, God largely seems to operate within a people's cultural expectations (with key exceptions, like how God insists Their people treat foreigners the same as members of the group, or when God warns against giving the people a king just because that's what all the other nations have). That's what I see here. Mary must have a husband to be secure in her culture, and I imagine God ensuring that that husband will be one who will treat her well.

__

Then there's the question of God espousing Mary — of the Holy Spirit "overshadowing" her so that she conceives Jesus. What exactly is this "overshadowing" act? Why is God getting a teen girl pregnant?

Again, Rev. Wil Gafney provides words that wrestle out the good news with this complexity. When reading Luke 1, she urges us to sit with our distress at the image of a powerful "male" figure (Gabriel) approaching a teen girl to tell her what's going to happen to her body:

"Sit with me in this moment, this uncomfortable moment, before rushing to find proof of her consent, or argue that contemporary notions of consent do not apply to ancient texts, or God knew she’d say yes so it was prophetic, or contend that (human) gender does not apply to divine beings, Gabriel or God, and the Holy Spirit is feminine anyway. Hold those thoughts and just sit in the moment with this young woman."

Our distress is holy; it shows our connection to a fellow human being, our thirst for justice. Honor what you feel, don't discard your emotions, even while you join them to sociohistorical understanding.

I highly recommend you read Gafney's whole article, but here's a little more from it that balances ancient culture with modern ethics:

"Yet in a world which did not necessarily recognize her sole ownership of her body and did not understand our notions of consent and rape, this very young woman had the dignity, courage, and temerity to question a messenger of the Living God about what would happen to her body before giving her consent. That is important. That gets lost when we rush to her capitulation. Before Mary said, “yes,” she said, “wait a minute, explain this to me.” ... Did the Ever-Blessed Virgin Mary say, “me too?” Perhaps not. A close reading shows her presumably powerless in every way but sufficiently empowered to talk back to the emissary of God, determine for herself, and grant what consent she could no matter the power of the One asking. And yet in that moment after being told by someone else what would happen to her body, she became not just the Mother of God, but the holy sister to those of us who do say, “Me too.” "

Because Mary was a teen girl, an impoverished Palestinian Jew living under empire, she can extend solidarity to people across all time who experience similar oppression, whose bodily autonomy is equally precarious. Just as her son, God in human flesh, extends solidarity to all who have ever been arrested or executed under an unjust state through his crucifixion. Divine power is expressed in and through those whom the world denigrates and discards — that's why God chose Mary, and why Mary in turn chose God.

Sorry this got so long and has a lot of complex stuff to wrestle with. I honor your courage to ask the hard questions, and I hope you are able to take time throughout Advent to keep pondering! There are no easy answers, but wrestling can yield a blessing.

[chlorinewriter]

Good and bad news on the Mishanks Holy Heathens fic for priest Mihawk & heathen Shanks. The good news is that I've more than tripled my wordcount from last time I posted about it and things are still going pretty strong. It's been fun!

The bad news is that I realized I can't have my cake and eat it, too. Not with this fic. I wanted a one-shot that was sexy and tense and still emotionally gut-wrenching but also put Mihawk and Shanks in a different beginning relationship than the original show/manga/etc and the format was just not working for that. Turns out jamming three in-depth flashbacks into a fight scene is sorta disruptive, lol. So! A short chaptered fic it shall be. I'm thinking 4 or 5 chapters. I have waaaay more of the back end written than the front, so it'll be a bit before I have the first chapter out. That said, another snippet before I post the first chapter sometime in the next week. You could say the Mihawk and Shanks first meeting does not quite go spectacularly:

Shanks accepts the roll of paper from Mihawk’s hand, eyebrow jumping and other hand remaining on his sword’s hilt. “What’s this?” he asks, already slipping the meticulously tied ribbon from the paper and unfurling it.

“An official writ,” Mihawk replies, and though he is standing easily, Yoru still on his back, the Redeemer is watchful. His faith is imbued through his body, hardening skin and muscles, and the limited foresight it grants him hovers at the edges of his awareness. There are too many possibilities right now for any one to stick out. That doesn't really matter. There will only be two that come to fruition.

At some point in time this heathen is going to start running, or he's going to fight. They always do. He’s almost surprised the man hadn’t taken off when he’d seen the distinctive black and red robes Mihawk is wearing.

Probably a fight, then.

Lips moving soundlessly as he scans the paper, nonetheless Shanks appears to have no other trouble reading the writ and Mihawk is mildly surprised. Many of the godless he’s been sent after couldn’t even read their own condemnations. With the long scars over his one eye, a salt and sweat stained white shirt, and a weathered blue cloak far from immaculate, Shanks looks like he should be part of that group of grimy illiterates, but... He carries himself differently.

Occasionally the infidel pauses, and slowly his eyebrows drop into a furrow. After a few moments, Shanks looks up. And there is no dread in his face when he says, “I’m being denounced by the Holy First?”

“It is a Writ of Denouncement, yes.” Though the information is on the paper, there’s something searching in the other man’s gaze that makes Mihawk restless, and he adds, “You are called to the Holy See for judgement.”

“And you’re gonna accompany me there?” Shanks smiles, and from someone else it would have been mirthless. Not so with him. The grin actually seems amused, even warm. Mihawk inclines his head stiffly, his instincts warring with the discomfiting charisma of the other man as Shanks continues. “And I’ll – what? Be given a fair and just trial in the eyes of your Lord?”

“Your guilt is decided,” Mihawk retorts sharply, and it is not as easy to deliver the script as it usually is in the face of that grin. “Our Lord,” extra emphasis on our, as if Mihawk has anything to prove, “knows your wicked heart. What remains is your punishment.”

“Ah. Right. My wicked heart.” Shanks checks the paper, looks back up. “So what is the punishment, for, ah...” He reads off the list, ironic in his studiousness. “Consorting with demons, misleading the populace, decrying the Church, accosting Church officials, challenging Church doctrine, encouraging heretical tenets, displaying heretical uses of faith, waylaying shipments meant for Church officials, throwing spoiled produce at–”

“It is not for me to decide,” Mihawk interrupts. He forgot how long the list was. It also had not occurred to him when he read it in the Holy See that there were no murders or similarly violent offenses on the list. Though he seems to remember the priest who had been splattered with the fruit claiming it had been done with the enthusiasm of a most pernicious assault. That had caused quite a stir in the cathedral, a few years ago.

He doesn’t think he’s been called to track down – and execute upon resistance – a heretic such as this before. Not that it matters. It doesn’t. Such are the orders of the Lord.

Mihawk banishes the thoughts creeping unformed in the corners of his mind, reaches back to grip Yoru with deliberate and blatant threat.  

“I will see you before the Holy First. One way or another.”

Shanks’ hand tightens around the writ, crumpling the paper, and though there is still no fear in his direct gaze, he takes a few steps back. Mihawk's faith-imbued eyes can see something bright beginning to coalesce in the pirate's chest, and with a jarring mix of butcher-knife interest and muted disappointment Mihawk realizes this is going exactly where he knew it would.

Somehow, for just a moment, he'd thought...

“I don’t want to fight you, Redeemer Mihawk,” Shanks says quietly.

Yoru makes a shivery, beautiful peal as he pulls it from its sheathe, and the familiar sound loosens the tightness in Mihawk's chest. “Wise,” he replies, arching the sword one–handed over his head in a movement as natural as it is graceful. “Fighting any Redeemer is ill-advised.”

The blade ends up pointed unwaveringly at the heathen, but Shanks is not looking at Yoru. He still has that searching expression on his face, demanding and expectant as his eyes catch at Mihawk’s. “Not the Redeemers. I just don’t want to fight you."

[adelrambles]

Idk if you’ve ever fully answered this on your blog but: DO YOU THINK Bishop fully redeemed himself in the future? By becoming president and uniting all races? Or is he still 🗑️

Oh man no, I don't think Bishop's Good Guy act is all that genuine. I think there's some change, but at his base, beneath all the subterfuge, he's still the same guy. I may have gone over this on the blog before, but like ey what am I gonna just get handed this opportunity to ramble ad nauseum and not take it? NEVER

There are a few pieces of evidence we can read into regarding the faux-ness of Bishop's new persona. First and foremost, for me, is the two instances where he presents the turtles with his "origin story," so to speak. In each instance, he keeps the details vague, and is very hesitant to admit to any direct wrong-doing on his part. The first story is so vague on the details that it feels like he's trying to brush past the turtles' concerns as quickly as possible. The SECOND, though. Bishop consistently dances around going into any detail about what he did or why it was wrong. And he goes on to push all of the blame onto Stockman! I mean honestly, he says Stockman "took things too far." Like dude!! We already know nothing is "too far" for you! It's very suspect to me that the subsequent lab collapse could have been ALL Stockman's fault. Bishop also elevates his own accomplishments and takes full credit for the success of the PGA. Idk but there's something really insidious to me about how he presents the information to make himself look as good as possible-- and the way he's able to convince at least a few of his former enemies that he's trustworthy.

There are other little inconsistencies in his behavior, like him writing off the turtles' warnings about Sh'Okanabo. The Bishop I know is a paranoid freak, he would never in a million years brush off a lead on a possible threat without checking it at all. And if we assume that, then that suggests Bishop said as much to give the turtles the impression it wasn't something worth looking into, meaning he was probably trying to direct their attention away for some reason. All of this tells me (if we just. ignore the possibility of it being a writing flaw agdhgshd) that Bishop is still a very cold and calculating personality, fully willing to throw others to the wolves for his own purposes, but he is WAY better at manipulting, now.

I've said before that I find it likely Bishop's weakest point is his social skills; we see that his superior officers (i.e. the president) dislike him-- which, frankly, is a detriment to his cause as it put his funding in jeopardy at least once that we know of-- and everyone he meets tends to come away some level of discomfitted. So what FF presents us with is a Bishop who needed to improve these skills for the sake of his ultimate goal. If the safety of earth requires friendly relations with aliens, then he needed to become an ambassador, and if he needed to become an ambassador, then he needed to be less overtly unpleasant. Thus, he changed tack. As a result, we have someone who appears trustworthy and is very good at lying and directing your attention, but is just as utilitarian as ever under the mask. That's just his job, after all.

Other details include:

- His intro. We see Bishop personally taking time out to go through monitors all over the city. He apparently has a very thorough surveillance system that he reviews himself. Again, paranoid freak.

- When addressing the turtles, we sometimes see him slip back into snarkier comments. This usually happens when he's frustrated (snapping at them for not attacking the Mouser fast enough for his tastes,) or when he's not being obeyed (making a snide comment about Cody having nightmares when they refuse to exclude him from a mission briefing.)

- As my friend Trauma pointed out to me recently, when storming the moonbase Bishop's men had their guns defaulted to lethal force, he had to give the order to switch to non-lethal. He was fully ready to wipe that place out.

- His willingness to include the turtles and later Cody on missions strikes me as, yknow, very utilitarian in its own right. Cuz those are teenagers, yeah. It could be argued that Bishop can't tell how old the turtles are but he definitely knows Cody is young, and knows well enough that he shouldn't be in a combat situation. But in the finale he praises Cody's decision to defy him and fight anyway. So what changed? In essence, Cody was effective. Bishop is fine with child soldiers as long as they do a good job (and can't be publicly traced back to him.)

Also like did you see that car chase? He ran civilians off the road and did not give a FUCK. That's the same guy.

[yuanshenexplorer]

"Thank You. Signed..."

Pairing : Wriothesley x Neuvillette Warning : Boy x Boy, Angst (at the beginning) This Pov (even if it's more like an one shot) was inspired by « The DJ is crying for help » by AJR ! Even if it don't really fit the lyrics X) Number of words : 1 476 (Not too bad, I'd say) Hope you’ll like it ! ^^

A subdued light filtered through the few gaps left by the blinds on the closed windows of his home, barely illuminating this room of scattered belongings, unmade bed, and where a dark silhouette stood in a fetal position. He had hidden his face between his arms and, behind a cascade of white hair, was holding back tears. The rain was falling hard outside, as if echoing Neuvillette's malaise, reduced to a huddled, shabby-looking form. In front of him, crumpled and sometimes torn leaves were spread out. A malevolent reminder, circling him like a vulture in front of a carcass.

Another day's work over. Again.

A day worthy of hell. A day of incessant mockery, disgusted glances, sickening insults. Why so much hate? Why be so angry with him? He hadn't done them any harm… Or had he… Maybe once he'd made them suffer…

When the truth had hit their discomfited faces, a truth that disgusted many. This way of being, this attraction, perhaps too different from the others, had upset his way of working. Neuvillette couldn't take it anymore. A tear rolled down his pale cheek, and a bolt of lightning tore the sky in response. In a rush, almost madness, he lunged for his table, his only escape. He grabbed his violin, wedged it under his chin and, without waiting any longer, began to play his heart out. He poured streams of emotion onto those strings.

Surely he'll be receiving complaints the next day.

Surely someone will be banging on the walls, yelling at him to stop. But for once, he wanted to let go. No matter the insults, no matter what will happen tomorrow.

Tonight, he was letting himself go.

Only much later did his instrument stop emitting melancholy wails. When the storm outside stopped roaring, and the rain had finished flooding the streets and accumulating his sorrows. He had no strength left. His energy had been drained, by this rain, by the sounds of his violin, now resting in its place.

He lay back on his bed, staring at the ceiling of his room, his ears still ringing with the shrill melodies of his instrument. And so, his face framed by his tangled white locks, his cheeks still red from crying, his eyes itching uncomfortably, he fell asleep, praying for a better day.

The next day was no exception to the rule: he woke abruptly, torn from the comforting world of dreams by a violent pounding on his door.

When he opened the door, his face half asleep, his hair a mess, his elegant figure cowering like a defenseless animal, his imposing form looking shabby.

He had a moment of total incomprehension, why hit his door with such force?

Oh…

His violin…

"Would it be possible not to have to endure your music for a week?"

Of course… He must have expected it.

Neuvillette looked at him neutrally. The face of his apartment neighbor came to him like a blurred face, with distorted contours. His constricted throat refused to let out the slightest sound.

Yet he had to apologize. His mouth opened, but no words came out.

"If this keeps up, I'll have to report you. You're annoying everyone with your racket."

His gray, storm-sky gaze darkened. Was he going to be homeless too? That was condemning him to a slow death without comfort.

As he forced himself, his throat tugging at him to try to get out just simple words, a door opened beside them, accompanied by a disgruntled growl.

"What's all that noise?"

An imposing man with tousled hair stepped out of his apartment, rubbing his eyes as he yawned. His sharp eyes glared at the man with the deafening complaints.

"Isn't there any way we can have a quiet morning? I don't need anyone yelling, people yell enough at my work."

His gaze turned to Neuvillette, who was watching him with a worried expression. He too was about to get angry with him. They'd both gang up on him. It was all over.

Yet his neighbor's icy blue eyes only stared at him for a brief moment. A gleam seemed to ignite them for a moment.

What was he waiting for to get angry too?

Did he want him to feel guilty too?

Yet, contrary to what they'd all hoped, for once, Neuvillette didn't blame himself. He wasn't sorry.

So he maintained the contact between them, without flinching, even though his eyes betrayed his mental weakness.

Suddenly, the man with the jet-black mane let out a simple puff of his nose, which for once didn't sound like mockery.

"Nice music last night. Personal composition?"

The man with the long white hair blinked. He'd imagined every conceivable scenario, but what about this one?

He hadn't expected it at all.

"T…Thanks…?"

His voice came to him like a squeak, as if he were regaining the use of speech after years without speaking.

When he looked more than a little surprised, the man next to him could only smile in amusement. His gaze went cold, however, as he turned his head towards the other man, who remained frozen.

"To what do I owe the honor of these unpleasant cries on a Saturday morning?"

The man said nothing, stammering inaudible words.

"No longer able to say anything?

He sighed, crossing his arms.

-Let the poor guy decompress from his days, he's got a right to have passions, hasn't he?

-Y-Yes, but…

-You're the only one it bothers. I don't get the impression you really thought about our sleeping hours when you had the music cranked up on your speakers."

Surely out of arguments, the man turned away from his two neighbors, and left, uttering a string of expletives. The man with the icy eyes sighed, resting one shoulder against the wall.

"We shouldn't hear too much more about it in a while.

-Thank you...

-That's a lot of thanks for me," the man pointed out, smirking.

Neuvillette froze slightly. It was true that it had been a long time since he had thanked anyone else.

"You'd better believe I'm in a good mood…" surmised the white man.

-Even after being woken up by such an energetic fellow?" the other pointed out, frowning.

-I guess so… Sorry to have woken you up."

The man chuckled.

Neuvillette suddenly felt nostalgic. It was the first time in a long time that a man had laughed with him and not at him. He'd missed that feeling.

"I was already awake a long time ago, unlike you."

The white man blinked in surprise. The dark-haired man straightened up, his eternal smile pasted to his thin lips.

"On that note…

He turned around.

-I hope to hear you play the violin again soon."

And so he left, waving politely. Unconsciously, Neuvillette followed him with his eyes, attracted by that rebellious hair and soothing aura, which had made his troubles disappear, leaving him in a torrent of nostalgia and well-being - a sensation he'd really missed.

He smiled. Sincerely. Before gently closing the door of his apartment, he headed for his bedroom, glancing at his violin, before cleaning himself up and dressing comfortably for the weekend.

As he dried his hair, enjoying the gentle rubbing of the soft bath towel, he was startled by the unusual sound of his doorbell.

His gray eyes narrowed in concern. Usually, disgruntled neighbors didn't bother to use it, preferring to pound on the door with their fists, even if it meant threatening to damage it.

So he was surprised to hear this high-pitched but gentle sound, instead of the usual deafening crash.

He hesitated, unsure of what to do.

Eventually, Neuvillette opened his door, softly, with distrust.

He was astonished, once he'd opened the door wide, to not notice anyone. His foot stumbled over something, and the sound of a bag being crumpled reached him.

He looked down, only to see a white plastic bag and a can of cold tea, where a post-it note had been stuck.

He picked up the package, absently, and picked up the paper on which someone had jotted down a few words in hasty handwriting.

"Every storm needs a clearing. Wriothesley."

Neuvillette remained standing, the can of cold tea in his hand, ignoring the drops wetting his hand, and the cold metal beginning to spread in his palm.

His mind had understood who had dropped off this intriguing gift, and this little message which, to the man with the violin, appeared as words of encouragement.

He returned to his house, grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, and wrote a message of his own.

He went outside, delighted with his message, and stuck it on his ebony-haired neighbor's ringtone, his smile never leaving his lips.

"Thank you. Neuvillette."

A single thought occurred to him as he closed the door of his apartment, his heart light and his soul relaxed.

Decidedly, that was a lot of thanks for one man.

*** Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) *** (because I'm not qualified enough to write an entire POV by myself X) Sorry if there are mistakes :')) Just a question, am I the only one who is absolutely obsessed with this ship ? ;-; Have a nice day and thank you for reading this ! ^^

[jooster-got-my-soul]

A jooster story

Summary: when Jeeves entered Bertie Wooster's service, he didn't expect to find a rare gem of a gentleman, someone he would develop distressingly inappropriate feelings for. 3rd person POV, Jeeves-centric.

This could be considered part one of a linger story, though if you ignore the final paragraph it could stand alone.

Idk, the jooster feelings attacked me and this is what came out. Maybe I'll do a Bertie- centric part 2 sometime soon-ish.

If one were to ask Jeeves how his feelings for his employer came to be, they would receive the most un-Jeevesian gesture, in the form of a helpless shrug, in response. Because Jeeves, despite his good memory and intelligence, would be unable to pinpoint the specific moment in time they bloomed, and as to what caused them? There were simply too many reasons.

You see, when one has been in service for as meny years as Jeeves had, it doesn't take much time to see how the higher class looks upon the ones who serve them. That is, they take them for granted. Servants are expected to be invisible and act only when needed, even the ones personally accompanying their masters or mistresses, and of course everything they do for said masters and mistresses is only expected. The higher class sees no need in thanking or acknowledging the services of mere servants except for the most extreme cases, as they are expected.

This attitude was so common that one gets used to it, especially if, like Jeeves, they have been serving nobles since very young. It's normal, it's expected, and while it had always made Jeeves feel a little discomfited, he would never dare disrupt this status quo, though when he had enough reputation and finances to be able to choose his employers he did, in most cases, leave the employ of those he found the most obnoxious.

It was due to this experiences that, after a particularly disastrous employment, he decided to take a risk and change his ways. Until then, the ones he'd served were all respectable gentlemen, old and the very picture of nobility, but perhaps because of these characteristics, he'd noticed those kinds of gentlemen had two ways they reacted to his intelligence and wit: either they made use of Jeeves until he felt like a wet rag, or they humiliated him in hopes of proving themselves superior to what they perceived as a threat.

His latest resignation was from the service of a gentleman firmly in this second category, and the one who made him consider seeking someone younger as his employer. It wasn't an option he had considered before, in truth, as the younger generation often had... excentric tastes, which clashed with Jeeve's conservative tastes. But he needed a change, he could feel it, so when he returned to the Junior Ganymede he immediately consulted the book where previous valets had left reviews on the nobles they've served.

Immediately, one caught his attention. Beltram Wilberforce Wooster, future Lord Yaxley. The comments didn't paint him in a flattering light: naïve, dimwitted, and eccentric were some of the adjectives applied. Jeeves identified this young man as the usual target of those who entered a gentleman's employment for their own profit, that is, a gentleman who wouldn't notice small valuables disappearing from his home.

Now, normally someone like Mr. Wooster wouldn't catch Jeeve's eye, but then again, he'd had enough of serious, smart and respectable. In Mr. Wooster Jeeves saw, not only change, but an opportunity as two adjectives on the large list caught his eye: foolishly kind, and manipulable.

Jeeves knew himself well. He had many flaws, and he couldn't say he was blind to them. He knew that he had an above average intelligence, and the ability to apply it for his benefit. This Mr. Wooster looked like the kind of young man he could... persuade to, let's say, be an ideal employer.

He expected a challenge. Not because of Mr. Wooster, but because it would be difficult to have any kind of influence while remaining invisible. Only...

Mr. Wooster talked to him.

It wasn't like his other employers didn't talk to him, but Mr. Wooster talked to him. When he said 'Jeeves' he wasn't talking to 'the convenient servant named Jeeves', but to him, Reginald Jeeves. It was a baffling, but welcome, change, one that made his plans easier than he had expected. And watching his employer follow his manipulations, he felt that he had finally found the one employment he'd keep until retirement.

Oh, he didn't know how right he was, distressingly so.

Mr. Wooster was, to put it plainly, one of a kind. Generous, kind, loyal and honourable, it was as if Jeeves had stumbled into a rare gem worth kingdoms by pure chance while trying to find a mediocre treasury. The young man Jeeves had selected as a means to a comfortable life quickly disrupted everything he thought he knew about the world.

What servant, after all, could say their employer made them feel seen? As well as appreciated, needed, valued. It was a distinctly new experience, one that had caught him off balance more than once. Hearing his employer sing his praises, even when his schemes often landed him in embarrassing or uncomfortable situations had made a warm, wriggly feeling appear in his chest.

Having him show care for him, on the other hand, had utterly destroyed every single wall he had.

He could still remember every second of that day. Him waking up with a sire throat, nausea and a pounding head that had nothing to do with a hangover. Him trying to go about as usual, only for his employer to use that overdeveloped emotional intelligence that he'd demonstrated more than once and notice he wasn't okay. His employer, sending him back to bed without listening to his protests. Mr Wooster who, unlike other employers who would just send a servant away when sick in case they algo caught the sickness, tried to get him as comfortable as possible to aid his recovery.

Bertram Wooster, who had tended to him, bringing his food and water and new boojs for him to entertain himself. Who had wiped the sweat from his fevered face. Who had answered to his protests with a kind smile and a 'let me do this, old fruit, to try and repay everything you do for me.'

When had his feelings bloomed? Jeeves didn't know, because it felt as if they've been there from the very beginning. What had caused them? Jeeves had a million reasons, an avalanche of tiny gestures and moments he'd had with one Bertram Wilbert Wooster that had gone up and beyond every wall he'd tried to build.

It took some time, after his realization, to assimilate his improper feelings, and he had a hard time hiding from his employer's too keen gaze, but once he'd accepted that he, Reginald Jeeves, had fallen irreversibly in love with one Bertram Wooster...

Well, it just became his new normal. And gave him all the more reason to help his employer avoid unwanted engagements.

He tried to give no sign of his changed regard, but if one looked closely, they could see all the little clues. The splashes of color sometimes allowed on his employer's clothes. Schemes that were more complex, that had more care for his employer, often having the would-be wives end in the embarrassing and uncomfortable situations his employer occupied before. And, most importantly, the care Jeeves applied to his dities towards his gentleman. Not that he didn't serve him immaculately before, but now he did his duties with gusto, rebelling in every little thing he did. He cooked what he knew were his employer's favourite foods more often, he appeared at the perfect time with whatever his employer needed, not a second of delay...

Every little gesture betrayed his devotion, in sum. And while Mr. Wooster was aware that Jeeves was using what he called his 'stuffed frog expression' less and less, while he noticed that he had (impossibly, in Mr. Wooster's mind) improved the way he did his duties, he would be helpless to provide a good reason.

(Oh, there was a reason he wanyed to give, if only because he dearly wished it were true, but he wouldn't dare. Though that's another story entirely.)

And so, the status quo remained at Berkeley Mansions, with Jeeves behaving like the perfect valet and nothing more. A status quo he was determined to do his utmost to maintain.

He could have never foreseen the events that would destroy said status quo and irreversibly change his relationship with his employer. Events that started, innocuously, with a telegram from Brinkley Court.

[littlestsnicket]

witcher wip amnesty 2023

summary: there was a post going around ages ago about an AU where geralt went to get jaskier before A Grain of Truth, so he's there when geralt refers to nivellen as a friend. and i had a 'oh jaskier would not react like that' moment and started writing fic. and then i thought 'do i really need to rehash why i think large parts of fandom are misinterpreting jaskier and geralt's fight on the mountain?' and i thought 'no' but it turns out i already had.

word count: .8k

[also on ao3]

I know someone nearby, an old friend

“Geralt, it’s fine. It was a joke.”

“It’s not fine,” Geralt growled.

“You don’t need to get all self-flagellate-y. I said it’s fine.”

“I’m not self-flagellate-y. That’s not why it’s not fine.” Geralt deliberately did not comment on Jaskier’s tendency to make up words, he did not want to give Jaskier the opportunity to derail the conversation.

“I said it was fine.” Jaskier’s voice dropped to a lower register. He was actually angry. Geralt wasn’t backing down on this though. 

“You do this to me all the time.”

“Well, I am a bard and you are an emotionally constipated Witcher. I’m allowed and you’re not.”

“Jaskier, shut up and let me finish.”

Jaskier’s face scrunched in exaggerated displeasure, but he sat there studying Geralt with uncomfortable intensity for a very long moment. 

“Geralt.”

“What?”

“I’m trying very hard here, but you’re going to have to actually say something.”

“Fuck,” Geralt sighed and pressed the heels of his hands into his browbone before forcing hmiself to speak. “If you hadn’t had some doubt, if it didn't weigh on you in any way that I kept denying we’re friends, would you have left or would you have squawked at me about being a needlessly cruel Witcher and talked in circles until I was too irritated to be properly mad anymore?”

“Oh, that’s...” Jaskier trailed off looking away.

“You mean more to me than I know how to say.”

Jaskier’s mouth quirked like it always did right before he said something he thought was funny but was actually incredibly irritating. But his expression shifted the moment his gaze settled back on Geralt. Geralt could see the gears in Jaskier’s mind downshifting as he forced himself to properly engage with the conversation they were having. It had taken Geralt a very long time to understand that, for all his fast talking and nearly uncanny observational skills, it sometimes took Jaskier a while to really process and integrate new information. 

“I know. And you’re my best friend.”

Jaskier dropped his gaze to stare at his hands, fidgeting with his fingers. Geralt was privately glad he did, Jaskier’s intensity discomfited him as much as he also craved the attention.

Suddenly, Geralt found himself fixed with Jaskier’s blue eyed stare, “Do you really think that little of me, that I would let you get away with that for decades if it bothered me?” 

Jaskier’s smile went wobbly but sincere. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. I guess I shouldn’t claim it wouldn’t have made any difference to have that reassurance of you having said it, but it wasn’t that. I made it pretty clear you were really hurting me and you just kept going. And I—I get it, I’m not mad anymore, but I can’t just let you do that. Yen hurt you, and you—”

“I wasn’t—”

“No. Yennefer reminded you how easy it is to hurt someone who cares about you and you decided to deal the decisive blow first before I could hurt you too. It’s not fine, but I do understand. You haven’t lived this long by ignoring potential threats.”

Geralt sighed. Sometimes Jaskier was impossible, mostly because he was right. 

“Why didn’t you tell her you didn’t wish for that? You didn’t wish for that, did you?”

“No. It wouldn’t have mattered.”

“Exactly,” Jaskier replied, his voice pained. 

Geralt, unsure what else to do, rested his hand on Jaskier’s shoulder. 

“Just, you know, do better next time. And for what it’s worth, though I made no secret of how much I hated her, I am truly sorry the two of you won’t get a second chance.”

They were both quiet for a long time, at least by Jaskier’s standards, before Jaskier did the imitation of a hyper-alert squirrel he did when his attention caught on something he was uncertain about. “You know, I don’t like this place. There’s something off about it. It’s... creepy? But not in an oooo spooky old house way. You get used to that. This gets worse the longer I’m here. It’s... whatever is in the ceiling is not a cat.”

Jaskier was right. Geralt refocused all of his senses. Cats did not make subtle clicking noises. He remembered the barefoot prints vanishing suddenly in the snow. “It’s a bruxa. We have to get to Ciri. Now.”

“Tell me what you need me to do,” Jaskier said as he tailed Geralt down the hall.

“Go with Ciri and get to Roach. Watch out for her. She doesn’t trust me yet and might not listen.”

“Ok. Yes, easy. This will be fine,” Jaskier mumbled to himself. Geralt didn’t snap at him to be quiet like he once might have. He was used to Jaskier, his murmuring wasn’t distracting as much as it was a reassuring reminder that he was there.

[sketching-shark]

Wukong was always the villain? I read in a comment that he was the villain in everything and that he's like the Joker but with powers so i have this doubt now...

Ps: Sorry if this is ignorant btw

Hello anon! So while keeping in mind that I'm in no way an expert on how the Monkey King is perceived the world over, my general impression is that while Sun Wukong being portrayed as solely a villain is pretty popular in the east and increasingly so in the west, that's FAR from the only way that he's been portrayed. He is after all literally worshiped as a god in a number of places, and is even often considered to be a protector of children! It also can't be forgotten that he saved many, many individuals from everything from demonic goldfish to drought over the course of Xiyouji, and that at the end he becomes the Buddha Victorious in Strife. And that's to say nothing of his clear love of his monkey family, and that many of his actions are driven by his desire to keep them happy and safe. In any case, from the yaoguai perspective he seems to have done so much for them at one point that they were all 100% behind him when it came to waging war against heaven.

I think that perhaps a lot of the understanding of him as solely a chaotic villain is due to the fact that Journey to the West is some 1,400 pages long and a lot of it is about Sun Wukong's slow transformation from a violent yaoguai to a buddha. It probably is more exciting too to focus on the fact that he spent centuries as a literal yaoguai warlord, and that he waged his havoc in heaven as well as told Tang Sanzang that he had literally killed more people than he could remember during his warlord era. Of course, it can't be forgotten that this killing of countless individuals is explicitly said to be true as well of the lauded Tang emperor, but that's a contextual detail that can be easily missed. I personally think that a lot of Xiyouji brings up (although never specifically answers) many discomfiting questions about violence and power in the shaping of a society and to what extent religion might be able to alleviate (or even exacerbate!) the resultant suffering, and that Sun Wukong's actions are one of the main ways these questions are raised.

I bring this all up to say that the neat thing about Sun Wukong is that he is a very complex character who nevertheless does a lot of heinous things, but then again he's doing that in the context of a lot of other beings, both yaoguai, human, and even god, doing the same in the name of pursuing their own desires and ambitions. But this complexity often means that retellings--which by their nature of their length have to be a LOT shorter than the og classic--won't balance all of the parts of the Monkey King's character out because to do so sufficiently honestly requires a lot of context. So in the end we get a lot of flanderization of the Monkey King into either a cheeky and loving SWK or an ultraviolent unrepentant SWK (or the retelling will veer off into another direction of a quite popular brooding asshole SWK lmao). In the west specifically, however, this sort of simplification and flanderization seems to often translate into a "uwu dumb chaos monkey" version, so that even if SWK is well meaning he'll just commit one doofy blunder after another or go ignoramus murder on the situation. Hence the association with the Joker, who if my understanding of that character is right just does what he does because he wants chaos.

In all honesty though, I think this association is a big misreading of SWK's character. Besides Xiyouji making it obvious that SWK rarely starts any of the fights he gets into (never mind starting fights just for shits and giggles) and that he is very content to live in relative peace with his monkey family, he pretty much always has a very clear reason for committing the violence that he does, even if that reason is sometimes some version of "I want the thing and will beat you up if I don't get it." To give but a few examples: SWK commits his first murder in the book because his opponent the Demon King of Confusion had been brutally attacking the Mt. Huaguoshan simians and kidnapping their young; he DID steal a lot of stuff from heaven but only goes to war with them when the deities are literally breaking down the Monkey King's door and threatening his home; he murders over a thousand human hunters because they had been relentlessly hunting his monkey family; he burns down a Buddhist monastery because the monks conspired to kill Tang Sanzang and steal his robe; and he kills the Lady Bone Demon because she wanted to eat Tang Sanzang. These are just a few examples throughout the course of the work, but you can see how in each one it isn't a case of the Monkey King crying havoc and letting slip the dogs of war as it is someone trying to hurt or kill someone under SWK's protection and him responding in like. There is no doubt that SWK can be a very destructive and impulsive monkey, but he also seems equally if not more likely to have thought a situation through and gone with violence anyway because the situation wasn't going to resolve itself any other way, and indeed he often only goes ahead with violence after giving his opponents the opportunity to stop and give up.

That said, I'd be willing to bet that an awareness of Xiyouji Sun Wukong's very deliberate decisions to kill and threaten are one of the main reasons behind the popular presentations of him as solely a villain, especially since the context behind his reasons for violence can be very easily lost. As it is, the Monkey King has been described by some as Xiyouji's first villain, and there are numerous reasons for thinking this is true. After all, no matter your reasons killing so many people you can't remember them all is still killing so many people you can't remember them all.

I hope you find this useful anon! Again I'm no expert, and if I'm missing something people should definitely feel free to point that out. And as always it needs to be noted that @journeytothewestresearch has kindly provided FREE pdf copies of the Anthony C. Yu English translation of Journey to the West on his website, so if you have the time and desire to do so you can flip through that and come to your own conclusions on what's going on with the Monkey King.