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In my quest to figure out when fuck-heads started thinking singular they was a modern invention, I found this page that outlines in detail why 1) it isn't grammatically incorrect and 2) all the arguments against it are as solid as the air.
So, the next time you have someone going on about how "singular they is eroding the integrity of english", just wip this out this hand dandy reference.
#not ace#nonbinary#linguistics#english#for those curious#as far as I know the rage against started on the 18th century#while Singular They has been in used since around the 1400s
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Black Sails - update on Captain Flint’s reading list - quick thoughts
I’ve been working my way through what I’m calling Captain Flint’s reading list - or the key books he either owned or were key to the plot of the show. To keep things fresh I have been reading more than one book at a time.
A few books were hard to find as e-books or based on the original formatting that has been maintained for the copies, I chose to purchase the hard copy.
After getting my Covid booster shot, I popped into a bookstore and got a hard copy of Meditations. I’d been getting tired of the free ebook with rather over the top language. This copy is hailed as the first translation in a generation from 2003 by Gregory Hays. I’ve been taking my time with it and find this translation to be more direct in its intentions. It still keeps the true feelings of the text, but it does shy away from the more dramatic:
- You should be like a rocky promontory, against which the restless surf continuously pounds. It stands fast while the churning sea is lulled to sleep at its feet.
which is what Miranda reads to Richard Guthrie as her favorite selection.
The Hays translation instead goes with:
- To be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it.
The ebook version has this variation from a translation by Casaubon, which is edited by someone who isn’t credited in the document. It is clear though that Casaubon took liberties with the translation - including paraphrasing things for the current reader of 1634 or 1635:
I have a feeling that some of these 17th and 18th century translations seem to have taken a rather loose interpretation of the text for their contemporary readers. I’m now personally curious to go digging around for the original Latin text and see if I can clear out the cobwebs of my own Latin skills which have gone unused for over twenty years. All in all, I’m starting to favor Hays’ translation which has that more exact vibe I recall from translating prose myself many moons ago. Latin is always so clear what is going on with its over the top number of verb tenses and noun declensions, but damn, they do tell you exactly what it going on.
Leviathan - by Hobbes. This is one that I’m still reading the ebook version since it would be pretty thick. Honestly, this was likely not the best -or- maybe the best choice to read around Midterm elections. I could just absorb the Hobbes-ness of it and feel smug as the political theatre was turned up to 11.
I love the transcriber’s notes on the text in the second paragraph - ‘and sometimes, it seems, just because.’ I can wholeheartedly agree with that statement.
My favorite parts so far are the oft quoted ‘of accidents of bread and cheese’ and his refusal to use consistent spelling of ‘we’ or ‘wee’ for ‘we’; sometimes using both spellings in the same paragraph! Lastly, his spelling of corn as ‘corne’.
Joking aside, it is a very interesting read. The first part goes about defining what is man, common sense, human nature, fighting against that human nature which would be a state of war and general crappiness. The idea that people suck and will sink to their lowest level = conflict/war is pretty obvious. It ties on the idea that uncivilized places would be in this state of war while a civilized commonwealth would not. But anyone watching Black Sails knows that the longer the series goes on the more and more you wonder what is a civilization? What makes a civil society? When is it justified to fight for your rights and wage war against an oppressive force? The pirates of Nassau both wage war upon merchants (and each other) yet have democratic crews voting on leaders and choices and giving leadership to someone with their consent which is a great transition into part two.
The commonwealth where people put aside those natural instincts and surrender their rights to the commonwealth to maintain order and stability. This commonwealth is led/cemented by the sovereign, who can drive all policies even if the people feel they are incorrect or flawed. What reading the text really highlighted for me how loosely the concept of the social contract and the role of the sovereign are communicated in passing. Multiple times Hobbes is quite clear that the ‘sovereign’ can be a single individual or can be an elected government of a collection of individuals. Furthermore, if it is a single individual, he’s staunchly opposed to the idea of that power being hereditary since it would just make him a king.
Are we as viewers to see the juxtaposition between England being civilization where the people of the commonwealth put up with the government to manage them while the pirates exist in a more primitive state of nature? Or is it through the process of removing oneself from the colonial naval complex where one is ruled by fear and punishment (that state of war/conflict) and by breaking free of this and forms a commonwealth where a crew democratically elects a captain and quartermaster, thus creating a social contract in a state of ‘lawlessness’?
Does Flint’s knowledge of Leviathan both feed into his belief that most men are dumb and would revert to that state of nature? E.g. Flint to Silver - “If left up to their own devices they’d eat it raw.” However, is it by joining his crew and his commonwealth, they escape that state of nature by forming a social contract with him?
I’m currently stuck in part three where he discusses the Christian commonwealth b/c well, he sort of has to address the geopolitical elements of the time and the power of the Church and the Church of England. It is a rather dry part of the text but there is no way it would have been published without the religious element. I’m not as excited by a man using Biblical text to back up his thesis that a commonwealth lead by a sovereign is key to advancing society and government. La Galatea - by Cervantes (Gyll translation). I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. It is stated to be a pastoral romance - an excuse to have lots of poems in homage to the man who really solidified the genre - Virgil. The idea that it is a single romance is misleading - it is all sorts of romances between shepherds and shepherdesses as well as a few cavilers and more noble ladies. The book introduces the famed Galatea, a beautiful shepherdess who has two men very much into her, Elicio and Erasto who happen to be best friends. I found some of the more exciting stories of Timbrio and his horrible luck in all of his travels.
The worst part is that the book ends with Elicio going forth to try to “rescue” Galatea from an arranged marriage by her father. And then Cervantes ends it with a statement that if the book is received well and his patrons give him some money, he’ll write book two. However, there is no book two! We’ll never know what happens.
For Black Sails, this means that James gave Miranda a book where the two boys never get the one girl! The prose is interesting and the poems are pretty much entirely about all sorts of romances/love/rejection/lust but there is no way to know how this ends. I have to admit, I wanted to know what happened! However, if Flint read the beginning where it describes Elicio as the more sophisticated shepherd and Erastro as the overly educated and eloquent but of the proletariat with a lovely lady who has their attention. . . . Well, he likely saw it as representing Thomas and himself. Two very different men (strange pairs in Thomas’s words) with a single woman between them, Miranda. Or are we to feel terrible that Miranda was given a book which didn’t reveal what happened thus her stuck with her ultimate fate while James and Thomas remain?
After talking with a friend, I was told to give Don Quixote another try. She’d also complained she struggled with it previously, and that I should seek out the Edith Grossman translation. I’ll see if I go down that path in the near future. Lastly, I’ve started Hugo Grotius’ De Jure Belli ac Pacis - with a harder to find edition of the second English translation by William Evats. I’d originally gotten a version from a right wing publisher in Indiana which annoyingly split each book up into an individual version as a part of their ‘Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics’ and references a 1738 version of the translation after the end of the series. I found the Evats’ translation from a law book publisher which dates back to 1682 and completely replicates the original text, odd printing format and all. Plus, it includes all three books in one volume. The language is quite similar to reading Hobbes with the need to define what is right, war, nature etc. But that makes sense since it was published in 1625 and Leviathan in 1651.
This will likely become more interesting as I get further into the book as it defines when war is justified, if the law applies in war and all sorts of other issues that are always swirling around in the series. The index references piracy several times where it concludes that robbers and pyrates do not = a civil society despite their equity among themselves. I was a little eager to see what Mr. Grotius had to say on the issue and I’ll see how it fits into the context of the greater work soon-ish, when I get to book III.
#black sails captain flint#captain flint's reading list#meditations#Marcus Aurelius#miguel de cervantes#la galatea#don quixote#Hugo Grotius#de jure belli ac pacis#Thomas Hobbes#leviathan#black sails#black sails meta
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Book Review: The Ruling Sea by Robert V.S. Redick
(and, because it's a sequel, kind of a review of The Red Wolf Conspiracy too)
Premise: The Chathrand Voyage series is a nautical fantasy series set in a world with technology that's sort of...18th century-ish? Like, imagine Treasure Island but with magic. I'm calling it "nautical fantasy," though I'm not sure that's even a thing, because the bulk of the story centers around a momentous voyage of the Chathrand, a famous ship that's basically what a cruise ship would probably be like if such things existed in the 1700s. Think of a galleon, but like ten times bigger.
Anyway, the Chathrand sets out with enough crew and passengers to populate a town, ostensibly to take a young girl, the daughter of an admiral of the Arquali Empire, to a prince of their neighboring kingdom, to make a treaty between them that will stop a war that has been raging for many years. The main character, Pazel Pathkendle, is a tarboy (like a cabin boy) on the ship, and he ends up befriending her. The two of them, as well as other friends they make along the way, slowly uncover a conspiracy involving a king who is supposed to be dead returning to subjugate the land, as well as another conspiracy of people working against this plan, all of whom have members aboard the ship.
The cast of characters is extensive, and everyone has their own motives for doing what they're doing, intricate plans that weave together and clash, fighting for dominance, and all of it is centered around the Chathrand. The first book sets everything up and takes the Chathrand on a journey along the coastline, showing off several locations in the world of Alifros. The second book focuses on the Chathrand heading for the south, attempting to cross the uncharted sea for lands no living man has seen.
Thoughts: While not without flaws, this series has been really great so far. I do so love thick fantasy tomes that take forever to get through and feel so satisfying when you finally finish them, and I think Redick does a good job of making a lot of interesting characters you can sympathize with or at least that you want to see what will happen to them. A few years elapsed between my reading of the first and second books, but when I dug into The Ruling Sea, I felt like I was reuniting with old friends, even though I hadn't really thought about them much in the intervening time. You know an author is able to write good characters when you start the second installment and keep going, "Oh yeah, Hercol! I like him. And Diadrelu, hi! She's cool. *huge gasp* NEEPS!!!!! I remember Neeps, he's the best!" (Side note: Redick is so good at coming up with interesting names that all sound different from each other but roll off the tongue really easily.) The only thing I don't like about the way Redick writes his characters is that he gives very little physical description, so it's really hard for me to imagine them, and it was even harder for me to remember who was who because it was just a bunch of names with zero description of what they looked like.
Redick is definitely what I would call a plot-inclined author. While his characters are all interesting and distinct, the real draw to these books is the intricate plot. I myself am a character-inclined reader, so while I was riveted by the plot and enjoyed all its twists and turns, I could have done with a bit more emphasis and time given to the characters' growth and relationships. All the same, I did really like what he did with the main character's romantic drama. It could so easily have turned into the kind of YA-ish swill of teenagers being stupid simply for the sake of melodrama, but this time there was actually a good plot reason for them to not communicate and thus misunderstand each other. And in the end, I didn't lose much respect for either of them, which is quite a feat.
I can't remember if this was as much of a problem in the first book, but in this one I definitely noticed a tendency in Redick towards a particular pet peeve of mine. Sometimes things that were really quite important to the plot would happen "off-screen," so to speak; there would be a line break, and then in the next scene the character would be thinking about or telling someone what happened that we didn't get to see. Sometimes, this makes sense, because you're skipping over something boring or something that needs to be kept a secret from the reader. But there were several times in this book where I couldn't understand why Redick didn't just go ahead and write the scene where the thing was happening, rather than laboring to explain it later.
[One such scene involved a different romance, the handling of which I did not like. The two are fine together, I guess; I don't feel strongly one way or another about them. But the romance seemed to just come out of nowhere. There was a scene where I was like, "Oh, okay, so they're attracted to each other, but Plot Stuff is happening now, so they'll talk about it later." After a scene or two of said Plot Stuff, we cut to a scene of them that very heavily implies they've slept together and are now at the point where they would die for each other. I'm certainly not complaining about Redick skipping over a sex scene, (ew, no thanks), but it just seemed to swoop in out of nowhere. I was kind of expecting to at least get a bit of the two having a conversation where they confess their love to each other or something, even if it still cut away from anything beyond that. The amount of emotion towards each other they expressed after that scene felt like too much too soon, when the attraction between them had been blink-and-you-miss-it before.]
Another problem (that might be related or not, I'm not sure) is that a lot of times, important plot points would just kind of...happen randomly? I mean, I get it--real life doesn't always have foreshadowing or climaxes or things happening when they do for reasons we can discern. So if you're trying to make your fiction realistic, it makes sense to have things just happen all of a sudden with no buildup. But sometimes in these books, there will be a scene of characters doing something or telling each other some piece of their motivation or backstory or plot, and I couldn't figure out why. Sometimes it felt like an "as you know, Bob" conversation that just ended up looking a bit clumsy from a writing perspective. Sometimes it was a matter of the transition between scenes being too abrupt, so it felt like a non-sequitur. Other times a scene would happen, a character would suddenly be clumsy with something important or someone would spring a plan they'd apparently been hiding with no warning to the reader at all, and I couldn't figure out why it was happening at that moment. I can't exactly put it into words--I looked at some reviews, and saw people complaining about the pacing, but I don't think that's what it is. At least, not all of the time. But I'm not sure what I would call it, so yeah, I guess we're going to blame it on pacing. And maybe issues with foreshadowing too.
One thing that's really, really cool about this series is the worldbuilding. There's so much detail and variety! The characters come from a variety of backgrounds, and of course the quest takes them to a lot of different locations, and it was really interesting to get a taste of all kinds of different cultures and customs in this world. There are a lot of things crammed into this series that could easily be the focus of their own story. Not only do you have all the things you'd expect of nautical fantasy, like dangerous storms, deadly whirlpools, thrilling sea battles, and a crazy captain. You've also got a wizard from another world who takes the form of an animal. You've got awakened animals, which basically means animals who gain sentience and the ability to speak. You've got ixchel, tiny little people like the Borrowers who are stowing aboard the ship. You've got ferocious beasts and mysterious words of power and deadly spells and a diving bell, of all things. There's so much variety, but I found myself buying into every new thing introduced to me, because there was a certain coherence to it all.
I can see how this series wouldn't be for everyone, but I've been enjoying it quite a bit. I don't think I've ever read anything quite like it. The closest book I can think of to it would be The Voyage of the Dawn Treader...but the two don't really have anything in common other than them both being nautical fantasies. So if this sounds interesting to you, then yeah, give it a try!
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Domain of Dread: Harrow’s Rock
A homebrew Domain of Dread, because I’m in raptures about Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. I. LOVE. HORROR. FANTASY. Ah. You may have noticed. I went for a more classic New-Englandy, Lovecraftian sort of nautical/cosmic horror, because the two suggested cosmic horror domains lacked a little something for me. LONG POST, to warn you. I got carried away. So:
Domain of Dread: Harrow’s Rock
Domain of Salt and Sleeping
Overview:
Darklord - Aloysius Carroway
Genre – nautical horror, ghost stories, gothic horror, cosmic horror
Hallmarks – maritime ghost stories, cycles of vengeance, eldritch dreamers
Mist Talismans – glass floats full of strange mist, tarnished bronze discs, strange whispering shells
Rage, bitterness and despair endlessly ebb and flow like a wine-dark tide against the salt-stained, hard-bitten coastline of Harrow’s Rock. Ghosts sail the frigid waters around this small, dismal island, and haunt the crumbling manors on its cliffs. Bobbling marsh-lights lure unwary fishers, travellers and smugglers into the depths of Loney Marsh. In the grim hamlet of Harrow Cove, ancient grudges mire the native islanders in endless feuds that not even death can finish. Island legend tells of an ancient, unknown entity that lies slumbering in a vast, flooded cavern beneath Harrow Cliff, its dreams washing out across the island from time to time, bringing fear and horror in their wake.
Harrow’s Rock is a battered island domain of ghosts, blood feuds and grudges, ruled over by a man whose vengeful determination to protect his family resulted in the sacrifice of an entire town, since resurrected by the Powers for his torment. Hope is in short supply here, and welcome even shorter.
Cove Characters – Characters from Harrow’s Rock tend to have a distinctly nautical bent, with few lives that have remained untouched by the waters in some way. They tend towards hardy, weather-beaten folk, stubborn and superstitious, with humans, half-orcs and dwarves being particularly common. Other, more otherworldly lineages (such as genasi, tieflings, and sorcerous lineages) are viewed with fear and superstition, but are more common than most Covefolk would like to admit. Naming conventions on Harrow’s Rock often follow old-fashioned/18th and 19th century British and North American patterns.
Noteworthy Features:
Those familiar with Harrow’s Rock know the following facts:
The four founding families of the island, the Carroways, Merricks, Redmarches and Whitmarshes, control everything of note on Harrow’s Rock.
Pretty much everything on the island or around it is haunted one way or another.
Loney Marsh, Lorn Point Lighthouse and Redmarch Manor are widely considered the most haunted locations on an extremely haunted isle.
The only true settlement on the island is the fishing port of Harrow Cove, where the ‘Harrow’ of Harrow’s Rock supposedly landed. Harrow’s Cove is notably grim and unwelcoming to outsiders, though it’s safer than some of the other areas on the island.
However haunted the land might be, the sea is even more so. It is not safe to sail the waters around Harrow’s Rock. Fisherfolk are the hardiest breed on a hardy island, and ghost pirates are the least of your worries out there.
Islanders do not talk about their dreams. Ever.
Settlements & Sites:
Harrow’s Rock is a grim, rocky island, roughly seven miles by seven miles, with large rocky cliffs to the east of the island and the low expanse of Loney Marsh to the west. Sunshine is rare on this windswept, dismal isle, with mists, rain and furious storms being far more common. The islanders tend to be insular, clannish and deeply suspicious of strangers, a suspicion only surpassed by their abiding and long-entrenched mistrust and hatred of each other.
Harrow’s Rock was known on maps for a good hundred or so years before it was first settled, associated with a person or entity known as ‘Harrow’, but it lay uninhabited until a ship commanded by four adventurers in search of a new home laid anchor there. Those four adventurers were Noah Carroway, Erasmus Merrick, Ervina Redmarch and Loney Whitmarsh, and their families became the four founding and controlling families of Harrow’s Rock.
Harrow Cove:
The port town of Harrow Cove lies nestled in a small bay beneath Harrow Cliff. Historically, the town was controlled fairly evenly between the Carroway and Merrick families. After the death of Ezekiel Carroway, Aloysius made a concerted effort to claim it wholly for his own family, and so it remains today. The town is the heart of Aloysius’ domain, and the Darklord himself still resides at his family’s ancient townhouse on the hill above the docks. Although he keeps largely to himself, having no interest in interacting with the townspeople he loathes, the town is wholly under his control. No one walks the streets and docks of Harrow Cove but that he is aware of it, and no ship enters the port without his permission. Life is grim in Harrow Cove, under the hateful, paranoid eyes of its master and once-destroyer.
Church of the Salt:
Near the docks in Harrow Cove, facing the sea, the stone bell-tower of the Church of the Salt rises above the surrounding buildings. The great double doors of this once proud church have been closed and viciously nailed shut, and while there is life within the walls, it gives a distinct air of a building under siege. The acolytes, priests and priestesses of the Salt know beyond doubt that the Darklord hates them with all his heart, more than anyone else in the town, and only an extremely precarious network of sewers, smugglers and ‘parishioners’ allow them to live and continue their ministry as much as they can. The Church of the Salt fully believe that Aloysius is tainted and empowered by the Dreamer beneath Harrow Cliff, and that as long as the Dreamer and its spawn, the demon child Ambrose, remain alive, no one can truly destroy the Darklord.
Redmarch Manor:
The ancestral home of the Redmarches, one of the founding families of the island, Redmarch Manor overlooks and controls what little arable land Harrow’s Rock can lay claim to. Secure in their control of pretty much all food on the island that doesn’t come from the sea, the scions of the Redmarch Clan are content to stay out of the machinations of the rest of the island. They have, after all, a myriad of their own problems. It takes a lot for anywhere on this island to be considered more haunted, but Redmarch Manor is certainly in the running, the apparent product of an unspecified family curse that may or may not involve the Dreamer. No Redmarch who grew up in its confines comes out entirely sane. The current heir, Rowena Redmarch, more than proves the point, being widely known as a drunk, a vicious fighter who would put Estelle Merrick to shame, and a woman haunted by her ancestors in ways that would also put Estelle Merrick to shame.
Loney Marsh:
Loney Marsh is roughly fourteen square miles of saltmarsh along the western edge of the island. Named for Loney Whitmarsh, the family matriarch who claimed the western half of the island at the founding (and largely wasn’t contested for it), and currently presided over by Eurydicia Marsh, Loney Marsh is known for smugglers, sinkholes, and being the source of roughly every ghost story on the island that doesn’t directly tie to Aloysius or the Dreamer. Of course, that being said, Loney Marsh is also the only place on the island that an enemy of Aloysius’ could conceivably hide, as not even the Darklord with all his powers can fully pierce the mists and morass of the marsh. There are several smugglers in Loney Marsh with ties to Harrow Cove, and perhaps to the Wrack of the Isle as well, and is one of the relatively few safe places to land boats outside of Harrow Cove. Loney Marsh is extremely difficult to navigate without a guide, and is home to any number of haunts and monsters.
Wrack of the Isle:
The Wrack of the Isle is a small islet about a mile and a half offshore on the northeastern side of Harrow’s Rock, wreathed in wooden docks, shacks and shanties, and festooned with the wind-tossed lights of storm lanterns. All the flotsam and jetsam of Harrow’s Rock winds up here, including exiles, outcasts, pirates both living and dead, and more or less the entire remnants of the Merrick family. The Wrack of the Isle is the private fiefdom of Estelle Merrick, so-called ‘Pirate Queen’ of the Wrack, and all who survive on the islet pay their dues to her. It is rumoured, though, that Estelle in her turn pays her dues to someone else. Her cousin, Elias Merrick, the fearsome ghost pirate of Harrow’s Rock and the scourge of all living who sail her seas.
Lorn Point Lighthouse:
High on the cliffs on the northeastern side of Harrow’s Rock, facing out across the waters towards the Wrack of the Isle, stands the ominous tower of Lorn Point Lighthouse, also known locally as Ghost Point Lighthouse. In the early days of Harrow’s Rock, when the Carroways and the Merricks were still on friendly terms, Eochbard Merrick built the lighthouse on Lorn Point to help guide shipping into Harrow Cove. When the Merricks were driven off the island, the lighthouse was abandoned and fell into ruin. Until the night the Mists claimed the island, when a ghostly green light abruptly started shining again from the top of the cliff. Nowadays, it’s widely known on the Rock that the light at Lorn Point does not guide living ships, but ghosts upon the waters instead, and travellers through the mists.
Harrow Cliff and The Dreamer’s Cavern:
Towering over Harrow Cove, dwarfing the town, is the great black face of Harrow Cliff. The highest point on the island, higher even than Lorn Point, the cliff glares balefully out to sea and coldly cradles the town below. The cliff is riddled with caves and carved passages, some by the sea, some by smugglers and townsfolk, and some by the powers know what. Before ever the island was swallowed by the Mists, rumours and legends about Harrow Cliff abounded. It is said that if you follow the passages deep enough, if something guides you through the right twists and turns, you will emerge eventually into the Dreamer’s Cavern. No one knows who or what the Dreamer is, if it might be the ‘Harrow’ for which the island is named, but very few want to find out.
Aloysius Carroway:
Aloysius Carroway was born, the elder of a set of twins, to one of the founding families of the Rock. He and his twin brother Ezekiel grew up in Harrow Cove, at a time when the Carroway and Merrick families were vying increasingly over control of the port, and bad blood had grown between them.
Not that Aloysius and Ezekiel particularly cared. They were focused on their own endeavours. Aloysius, his studies, and Ezekiel, the pride and adventure of the fishing fleets. Though Ezekiel in particular clashed with the Merrick heir, Elias Merrick, a grudging respect soon grew between them, and life was good. Aloysius took over his father’s position as harbourmaster, Ezekiel as captain of the fishing fleet, and between them the brothers earned the respect of Harrow Cove.
Then, one day, a terrible storm swept the seas around Harrow’s Rock, and Ezekiel’s ship was announced lost at sea, with everyone aboard. The Cove was shaken, but Aloysius was devastated. There was nothing in the world he loved more than his twin, and he refused to believe that Ezekiel was truly dead. He dreamed repeatedly that Ezekiel was alive and would return to him, and his adamance, particularly on the subject of dreams, began to make people around him nervous. Harrow’s Rock had long had legends of the Dreamer in the Cavern, you see, and dreams were never a safe subject on the island.
And then Ezekiel did come back to him. In the aftermath of a second terrible storm, nearly two years after the first, a man washed up on the rocky beach underneath Harrow Cliff … with a newborn baby wrapped in seaweed in his arms. It was Ezekiel, and he introduced the child adamantly as his own, as his son Ambrose. He would not say who (or what) the mother had been.
Aloysius was overjoyed. His brother, the other half of his soul, was returned to him, and he had brought a tiny addition to the family along with him, something Aloysius, being not romantically inclined, had never hoped to see without his brother’s help.
No one else on Harrow’s Rock was overjoyed, however. To anyone with even an ounce of superstition, and no one on the Rock would be content with an ounce, everything about Ezekiel’s return reeked of ill-omen. From Aloysius’ dreams, to Ezekiel washing up beneath the Dreamer’s cliff, to the child’s increasingly obvious otherness, it all stank of the Dreamer. Nor did it help that Ezekiel himself was changed, grown as quiet and reticent as his brother after his experience. Rumours and superstition ran rampant in Harrow Cove. Spearheaded, with growing alarm and anger, by Elias Merrick, who could not find the man he had grudgingly grown to respect in this new Ezekiel.
Aloysius would hear none of it. His brother was returned to him, and his nephew, though a little odd, including such details as being able to breathe just fine in the bath, was a cheerful, friendly baby. He would hear no word against them. Not from anyone, for any reason.
Dreams stirred across the island in the wake of Ezekiel’s return. Strange, salty visions, never the same between one person and the next. It could have been nothing more than superstition itself, excited dreams thrown up by paranoia and rumour. But sentiment stirred against the Carroways regardless, and neither Ezekiel nor Aloysius himself were any help.
And then, a year to the day from the moment Ezekiel Carroway had washed up on Harrow Beach, on the day he had claimed for his child’s first birthday, another storm lashed the Rock, fierce enough to dwarf anything the island had seen in a hundred years. And the growing fear and superstition on the island finally flashed to violence.
No one would admit afterwards to having been there when the mob, lead by Elias Merrick, smashed down the door of the Carroway townhouse, while Aloysius was still working in the port, and dragged Ezekiel Carroway out into the street. They searched for the child as well, young Ambrose, but couldn’t find him. Their bloodlust would have to be content with an oddly calm, placid Ezekiel.
And he was calm. Utterly serene. It was said he looked Elias Merrick in the eye, no trace of fear or of the man he had once been as he faced his former friend, and eyed the boathook in his hand with nothing but a small smile. He made no sound and offered no words of protest, even as they beat him almost to death. And no one was there, no one would admit to being there, but still the rumour went that his eyes had been wide open and his mouth still smiling when Elias shoved him angrily off the dock and back into the watery embrace of his ‘lover’.
Aloysius witnessed this. He had been working in the port. He couldn’t miss a mob marching down the Cove’s docks. It took six men, at least two of them Merricks, to hold him back from trying to leap to his brother’s defense. He was almost insane with desperation, with rage. He fought them like a madman, but nothing he did could get him close enough. Ezekiel slipped away.
And when it was done, when his brother had been taken from him, Elias Merrick looked him in the eyes. Elias told him, with the barest hint of remorse, that he ‘did what had to be done’. To protect the island from whatever unnatural force Ezekiel had brought back with him.
There had been no one in the world that Aloysius loved more than his brother. Not a single soul.
He went back to the townhouse. In the midst of his grief and his fury, he found his nephew, Ambrose. His brother’s infant son. Alive, gloriously alive, and hidden in a water tank. Breathing away quite happily to himself, in the gentle quiet underwater. He’d slept through his father’s death. Aloysius, still lost in the serene white seas of rage, could only be glad of that. He retrieved the child. Swore on his brother’s name that he would protect him with his life from that day forth.
And swore, too, that he would not rest a single day of that life until he had driven Elias, the Merricks, and anyone else who might ever be a threat to his family, off the island.
It took almost twenty years. It took every trick and trade, every scrap of fortune and alliance, old and new, that Aloysius possessed. But he drove the Merrick fleet into the ground. Broke their finances. Took Harrow Cove, inch by inch, house by house, back for the Carroways. He took control of vital trade and supplies. Starved the lighthouse at Lorn Point. Drove the family to beggardom or to the sea. Fortune was incidental. The prosperity of Harrow’s Rock as a whole was beside the point. Everything he did from that day forth was to bring Elias Merrick to his knees.
And he succeeded. Beggared and battered further and further back, the Merricks left the island and went to their boats. Went to the sea. And the sea remembered Ezekiel too. Something in it. Whether it was a curse or something else, no Merrick ship could prosper around Harrow’s Rock. Many of them sank. One of them … was Elias’.
Perhaps that on its own would have been enough to draw the attentions of the Powers in the Mists. That single-minded devotion to slow, starvatious vengeance. But grudges were a way of life on Harrow’s Rock, blood feuds as common as bloodlines. One man slowly driving a family into the sea was nothing all that special on the Rock.
But Aloysius loved his brother’s son as well. He loved his nephew. He had taken that oath to Ezekiel’s memory just as firmly to heart. And as Ambrose grew and grew, into a fine, gentle, and terribly shy young man, so the rumours around their family grew in step. Ezekiel had been given back to his lover, whatever monstrosity that might have been, but his son still walked the island, and his brother bent all his powers to protecting him. And Aloysius was different now. He had learned from that day on the dock. He had learned to pay attention. The older Ambrose got, the more desperately paranoid and aware of rumour Aloysius became.
And the dreams swept the island even still. More and more as the years went on. Paranoia. Superstition. The Dreamer in the Cave. Or maybe Ambrose or Aloysius himself. Some taint, of Ezekiel or of the Carroway bloodline itself. Aloysius’ dreams predated the storm, after all. Ezekiel had been his twin. Perhaps the taint had carried, the moment Ezekiel’s ship had first been lost.
Either way, it came to a head once again. The terror on the island, and the fervour of Aloysius’ promise to his brother in response. The Church of the Salt had sprung up, its adherents agitating against the taint of the Dreamer, and Aloysius could see it coming once again. The worst day of his life. The loss of his family and his soul all over again.
He wasn’t going to allow it. Before any man, woman or child on the island dared lay hands on his family again, Aloysius Carroway was going to stop them.
Even if he had to kill each and every one of them to manage it.
There were no dreams, the day a priest of the Salt stood on the docks and loudly denounced Ambrose Carroway as a demon from the deep to be destroyed. Everyone on the island remembered that afterwards. That the night before it all ended, no one dreamed. Of the sea, or of anything. A sleep as deep and dreamless as the dead.
The next day, Aloysius calmly locked his tearful, pleading nephew away. Somewhere safe, somewhere no one on the island would know to look for him. And then he walked back down into town. Down the docks to the Church of the Salt, where he stood patiently waiting until the priests and priestesses came out to meet him.
And when they did, he gave them one chance to repent their words and threats against his nephew. One chance, to stave off his wrath. If they did not, he promised quietly, he would do as Elias had done to his brother. He would return Harrow Cove to the sea. All of it. Every man, woman and child. If they did not leave the island and renounced their threats against his family, then in his brother’s name, for his nephew’s protection, he would sink this town into the sea.
They didn’t listen. Much as the Merricks, twenty years earlier.
That night, for the first time in more than a year, a light appeared at Lorn Point Lighthouse. A green, ghostly light, shining out across the waters. The bells of the Church of the Salt started ringing, moved by no human hand. A thunderous crack echoed beneath the town. A hideous shudder and rumbling shook the island.
And the Mists rolled gently and inexorably across the Rock, as the town of Harrow Cove slumped forward into the sea.
Aloysius Carroway woke up in his townhouse. Exactly as it had been the day before. He stumbled out, dazed, into a Harrow Cove that looked exactly like the town he had just destroyed. Full of the townspeople he had just murdered, though they didn’t seem to remember him doing so. On an island exactly like Harrow’s Rock.
With just a few small differences ...
Aloysius’ Powers and Dominion
Aloysius has statistics similar to that of an Inquisitor of the Mind Fire, though his psionic abilities are either inborn or a potential influence of the Dreamer. His personal prowess pales in comparison to his control over his island and the influence of his dreams, however.
Paranoid Whispers: Aloysius’ awareness of his domain has been heightened by his paranoia. While his perception grows foggier the further from Harrow’s Cove it goes, and holds no dominion whatsoever over the sea and little over Loney Marsh, within Harrow Cove and most of the eastern side of the island, he is aware of all newcomers, and echoes of his dreams inform him of harmful intentions on the part of the islanders.
Wrathful Dreams: Whether consciously or not, Aloysius’ dreams now touch those of all who dwell in his domain. When he dreams of his brother, so do they. When he dreams of his hatred for them, so do they. And if his dreams visit harm upon them, that harm may manifest when they wake. Denizens of Harrow’s Rock do their best to avoid drawing the Darklord’s attention to them, lest he dream of them that night.
Closing the Borders: When Aloysius wishes to close the borders of Harrow’s Rock, great storms whip around the edges of his domain. Those who attempt to sail into those storms are affected as detailed in “The Mists” section in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft.
Aloysius’ Torment
Since the stormswept night when Harrow’s Rock and every soul on it were transported to the Mists, Aloysius has been tormented by the following circumstances:
Since entering the Mists, Aloysius’ dreams of his murdered brother Ezekiel have grown stronger and stronger, tormenting him with the dual convictions that his brother might have survived that day, as he survived the shipwreck before it, and that his brother is furious at his failure to protect his son. Aloysius longs to reach out to and find his brother, but the seas are now controlled by his enemies, and there is no known way to enter the Dreamer’s Cavern, if that is where Ezekiel now resides.
When Aloysius awoke in the newly remade Harrow Cove, he immediately rushed to check on his nephew, but found the locks broken and his nephew nowhere to be seen. He has no idea if Ambrose escaped and hates him too much for his actions to seek him out, or if Ambrose was found and taken by his enemies. None have come forward claiming to have done so, but Aloysius lives in feverish terror that he has failed despite it all and allowed his nephew to be captured or killed.
Aloysius does not and cannot trust a single person on the island. He remembers destroying Harrow Cove and murdering everyone in the town, though he is unsure to what extent it truly happened, and he remains uncertain how many, if any, of the islanders remember that too. His fears whisper that all of them do. They may be right.
While the island and particularly the town of Harrow Cove are his, the waters off the island are a much different story. The seas around Harrow’s Rock are more haunted than they have ever been, and there is one ghost in particular that gladly torments Aloysius by his presence. Elias Merrick sails the seas around the island, and would love to welcome his old friend, should Aloysius ever attempt to leave the safety of the town and his island behind to search for his brother, his nephew, or for freedom. From the light at Lorn Point, Aloysius is convinced that Elias is trying to lure outsiders to Harrow’s Rock to destroy him, and again, he may not be wrong. But outsiders may also be the only people Aloysius could convince to seek the Dreamer’s Cave and Ezekiel.
Roleplaying Aloysius
Personality Trait: “Everyone is out to get me and mine, but not if I get them first.”
Ideal: “Nothing is more important than the protection and memory of those I love.”
Bond: “I will find and keep my family safe, by whatever means necessary.”
Flaw: “Nobody and nothing can be trusted except my family.”
Adventures in Harrow’s Rock:
Harrow’s Rock is the domain of ghost stories, cycles of vengeance, petty feuds, dreaming horrors, and oceanic terrors. It is hostile for reasons both human and otherworldly: the hatred and paranoia of a superstitious populace and a man who watched his family die and seeks to emphatically prevent any potential repeat, and the otherworldly influence of the sea, the caves, and the ‘Dreamer’, whatever the Dreamer may be. If the Dreamer is anything, and not just the frothing superstition of the islanders and the subconscious telepathic powers of some of the island’s bloodlines.
When visitors follow Lorn Point’s light through the mists, or wash up in Loney Marsh or on the rocky beach beneath Harrow Cliff, they are faced with a wild, rocky island inhabited by sullen, paranoid, mistrustful people who want to either get rid of them before they attract attention, or use them for their own ends while trying to hide their own sins in the process. Characters born on the island face nights full of foreign dreams, perhaps vague memories of a great disaster that something tells them they shouldn’t have survived, and the deep conviction that there is a dreaming force on the island that deeply loathes them.
If the characters arrived by ship, they may find that Aloysius has closed the borders and will not let them leave until they help him find Ezekiel, Ambrose, or the way to the Dreamer’s Cavern. Or until they help someone else, the Church of the Salt or the Merricks, to destroy him and end his control over the island and the borders. If they washed up unwillingly on the shore, they may seek out a ship in Harrow Cove, Loney Marsh, or among the pirates of the Wrack of the Isle in an effort to escape again, any of which may embroil them further in the machinations of the Carroways, the Merricks, the Whitmarshes, or the Church of the Salt. Perhaps they might wish to investigate the mystery of the Dreamer themselves, or help individual islanders to avoid Aloysius’ notice, destroy the Darklord, or deal with their own private feuds or hauntings. Or perhaps they might stumble across a shy, fearful genasi youth who is somehow immune to the Darklord’s dreams …
Harrow’s Rock Adventures
d8 Adventure
1 In order to be allowed to leave the domain again, a man in Harrow’s Cove named Aloysius Carroway wants the party to search Loney Marsh for his missing nephew, without broadcasting to all and sundry that the youth is missing at all.
2 Outside the Church of the Salt, a ragged figure implores the party to help her find out what has happened to a shipment of food and medicine destined for the beleaguered faithful inside the walls.
3 While sailing into Harrow’s Rock, following the ghostly light of a strange lighthouse that isn’t on any map or chart, the party’s ship was captured by a spectral vessel, whose ghostly captain demands that they find some way to lure or trap a man named Aloysius Carroway onto a vessel and out to sea to meet him.
4 Waking up bewildered and lost in Loney Marsh, the party are found by a shy young water genasi youth who will not tell them his name, and is adamant that they should leave the island immediately before his uncle realises that they’re there. At all costs, he reiterates desperately, they must avoid Harrow Cove.
5 Landing in Loney Marsh, the party are taken to meet Eurydicia Marsh, who says that of course she’ll help them off the island, if they’ll just do a few little things for her first. Make a few deliveries, to some faithful in Harrow Cove, or her dear friend Estelle on the Wrack of the Isle. A few things like that …
6 While the party attempt to buy supplies in Harrow Cove, the shopkeep’s terrified son rushes downstairs, saying that he dreamt that Mr. Carroway was very angry with him, though he didn’t know why. To the party’s surprise, the shopkeep takes this incredibly seriously, and immediately tells the son to write a letter of apology to Mr. Carroway and deliver it post haste. And to not be seen doing so.
7 Delivered by the mists to a rocky beach beneath a great cliff, the party find that the nearest town distinctly does not welcome them, calling them ‘Dreamer’s get’ and either avoiding them or blackly cursing them off the island.
8 The merchants of the town in Harrow Cove approach the party and ask them to venture further inland, to Redmarch Manor, which controls what little farmable land exists on the island. Deliveries of produce have been delayed lately, and they would be grateful if the party would find out why.
The Dreamer’s Cavern
One of the central mysteries of Harrow’s Rock, the legend of the Dreamer’s Cavern is bound up in the founding of the island, the influence and curses of the families who settled there, potentially the return of Aloysius’ brother at least once and perhaps twice, and perhaps also the origins of Aloysius’ dreaming abilities, if those were not wishful thinking once and an influence of the Dark Powers now.
Who or what the Dreamer might be, or even if there is a Dreamer at all, is something you can decide before running an adventure in Harrow’s Rock. If you choose to have the Dreamer exist and be an active influence on the island, you may wish to draw more heavily from cosmic horror influences as much as ghost stories or nautical elements. If you choose instead to have the Dreamer’s influence simply be a facet of the deeply superstitious nature of the islanders, you might draw more from gothic or psychological horror. If the party seeks an endgame for Harrow’s Rock involving the reveal of the Dreamer, you must decide what influence that will have on Aloysius, the inhabitants of the island, and the potential solution to the Darklord’s curse.
Use the table below to help decide what the Dreamer might be, or come up with your own ideas:
The Dreamer’s Nature:
d6 Nature
1 The Dreamer is an aboleth or a kraken seeking escape from a watery prison beneath the island, and attempting to manipulate visitors or islanders into seeking it out to accomplish this. Slaying it will have no effect on Aloysius or his curse.
2 The Dreamer is a star spawn emissary, the ‘Harrow’ which landed on the island so many centuries ago, and it seeks nothing more nor less than to untether everyone on the island from reality altogether, influencing their dreams, passions and perceptions to shatter their understanding of the world. Revealing its nature may cause Aloysius to question the nature of his actions and his ‘awakening’ in the Mists, but might exacerbate rather than help his curse by further damaging his senses of reality and responsibility for his own actions.
3 The Dreamer is a sleeping atropal, an unfinished, stillborn god, whose wordless, noisome dreams infect everything in its vicinity with hateful emotions. It has infected many of the oldest family bloodlines on the island with its influence, leading to odd powers and a propensity towards violence among them. Slaying it may help Aloysius regain some clarity regarding his willingness to slaughter a town to ‘save’ his nephew, or it may cause him to surrender to his ‘bloodline’ and double down on his actions.
4 The Dreamer does not and never did exist. Aloysius’ dreams were his own powers and attachment to his twin, and Ezekiel’s change of personality was simply trauma from the shipwreck and his imprisonment at the hands of Ambrose’s marid mother. Revealing this may drive Aloysius deeper into his sense of justified power and retribution, highlighting that his brother’s death really was for nothing more than superstition and only Aloysius’ own power stands between his nephew and the same fate. It may have the opposite effect on Elias Merrick.
5 The Dreamer didn’t exist before Harrow’s Rock was drawn into the Mists, but it does now, as a facet of Aloysius’ curse. It is an empty shell, a puppet of the Dark Powers, embodied in the form of Aloysius’ dead brother, Ezekiel. If Aloysius personally encounters this embodiment, he may become completely enthralled and controlled by this puppet, willing to do anything it asks to protect his ‘brother’.
6 The Dreamer is Ezekiel himself, watery and undead, bound to the Aloysius and the island after death by his unquiet death, his bond with his brother, and the oaths Aloysius took in Ezekiel’s name. His death, and the destruction wrought upon Harrow’s Rock as a result of it, echoes psychically back through time to the island’s founding, manifesting as the Dreamer’s dreams. Depending on whether this Ezekiel approves or is horrified by what his brother has done, it may influence Aloysius in either direction, towards further vengeance or redemption. Destroying this version of the Dreamer will have a very personal and dramatic effect on Aloysius.
Finding Aloysius’ Family
If characters wish to gain Aloysius’ aid and approval to leave Harrow’s Rock once more, he will almost certainly either ask or attempt to trick them into doing one or more of these three things:
Find Ambrose for him on the island, likely searching into Loney Marsh and other areas where his perception is limited.
Go to the Wrack of the Isle and seek evidence of whether Ezekiel has been seen in the waters off the island, or if the Merricks have captured, imprisoned or murdered Ambrose.
Find some way to enter the Cavern of the Dreamer in search of Ezekiel.
If the party successfully finds Ambrose and chooses to bring him to Aloysius, or finds reasonably satisfactory evidence that the Merricks at least have not seen or captured either Ezekiel or Ambrose, Aloysius will open the domain’s borders and give them a mist talisman that will grant them passage out of Harrow’s Rock. If the party chooses to seek entrance to the Dreamer’s Cavern instead, the end result of that will depend on what you have decided the nature of the Dreamer is, and what effect that will have on Aloysius.
Destroying Aloysius
If the party wishes to attempt to remove Aloysius instead, in order to leave the island or after learning more of who he is, there are several parties in Harrow’s Rock would like nothing more than to see Aloysius killed, no matter what effect that might have on the domain of Harrow’s Rock.
The Merrick family want nothing more than revenge on Aloysius for what he did to them. If the party can find some way to distract or blind Aloysius to their approach, Estelle Merrick would be more than happy to lead an invasion of Harrow Cove to cut the bastard’s head off herself. Her cousin, by contrast, the spectral Elias Merrick, would prefer if Aloysius would be tricked or bludgeoned onto a vessel and brought out to sea to meet him, that he might ‘return him to his brother’. Whether or not either of these plans would work is a matter for you to decide.
The Church of the Salt would also like Aloysius destroyed, but they firmly believe that the true evil on the island is the Dreamer, and that all of Aloysius’ powers and abilities stem from this creature. They believe that Ezekiel bore the creature’s infection to his brother, that his demon son sustained it, and that Aloysius cannot truly be killed nor the island freed unless some way is found to destroy the Dreamer’s tools, breach the Dreamer’s Cavern, and destroy the dark entity there. Their goals, therefore, surprisingly align with Aloysius’ at least in some part, in that they want the party to find Ambrose and to find some way into the Dreamer’s Cavern. The divergence lies in what they want the party to do with Ambrose and/or the Dreamer afterwards. To that end, they are perfectly happy for a party to also appear to be working for Aloysius towards those goals, as long as they are sure that the party’s final decision will turn their way.
The Townspeople of Harrow Cove, if they do remember, either partially or fully, what Aloysius once did, might be more than motivated to help destroy him also. However, they more than anyone exist under Aloysius’ direct thumb and are more at risk of drawing his dreams down upon them, so the party would have to find some way to ensure their safety and ensure that the destruction of Harrow Cove will not be repeated before the townspeople would be moved to overtly help.
If the party truly wishes to destroy, rather than attempt to redeem, Aloysius, then the main things they will need to find a way around are his psychic awareness of every stranger in the vicinity of Harrow Cove, his knowledge through his dreams of island natives with ill-intent against him, and the terror that most islanders have of acting against them when he can potentially kill, curse or grievously harm them in his dreams.
Inhabitants of the Island
Once the party has landed on Harrow’s Rock, there are several factors and factions that might complicate any mission they might have, from escape, to aiding or destroying Aloysius, to exploring any of the mysteries of the island. Harrow’s Rock is a domain of ghosts and nautical horrors, nightmares and blood feuds. Getting anywhere on this island will not be an easy task.
Eurydicia Marsh, in Loney Marsh, controls almost all of the hidden travel and smuggling on Harrow’s Rock. Any party hoping to avoid Aloysius’ notice, keep certain secrets from him, or get materials to other allies without his notice, will almost inevitably wind up seeking an audience with her. And Eurydicia is always happy to help, for a price. Nothing comes free, darlings. She is a scion of one of the four families herself, and she has ventures across the island, and echoes of old family pride, that she would like the party’s help with as well.
Rowena Redmarch, in Redmarch Manor, seems the most disconnected of the four family scions from any of the driving plots of Harrow Cove, but the fact remains that she controls all land-based food supply to everyone else on the island. If the haunting of Redmarch Manor, her family curse, or the influence of the Dreamer on her, affect the delivery of those supplies, she will rapidly become relevant once again, even to such powerhouses as Aloysius or Estelle Merrick.
Ambrose Carroway, Aloysius’ nephew, may be the one person on the island, if his father is truly dead and gone, who might have a hope of redeeming Aloysius, but that depends entirely on what has happened to Ambrose since Harrow’s Rock was swallowed by the mist. If Ambrose is still alive, he may be a captive of the Merricks, Eurydicia Marsh, the Church of the Salt, or the Dark Powers. He may have no memory of who he is or what happened to him. He may remember all too well, and want nothing to do with the man who locked him up for his own ‘protection’ and then walked off to slaughter a town. He may want to reach his uncle, but be aware that there are influences on the island, such as the Dreamer or the Dark Powers, who would make any successful intervention difficult at best. He may simply be too traumatised and afraid to know what he wants to do without a little help and guidance.
Ambrose’s mother, if she (/it/they) was not the Dreamer and if she has access to or was trapped within the mists, might also wish to intervene on the island, for either Ambrose or Ezekiel’s sake. Or she might firmly respect Aloysius for his response to Harrow Cove, and wish to support him. She may also have been the force which sank Elias Merrick’s ship and killed him, all those years ago.
Feuds and horrors. The inhabitants of Harrow’s Rock tend towards the sullen, the superstitious and the bloody-minded. The party might encounter any number of hauntings, ghost stories, petty feuds or bloody murders simply by nature of the environment on Harrow’s Rock and the kind of people that inhabit it. Undead and aquatic monsters are common on the island and around it, and if the Dreamer’s influence is more real than not, also psychic influences, aberrations and madness. Even those islanders who want to help or be helped might not show it readily, for fear of Aloysius, the Dreamer, or just an islander mistrust of outsiders.
#d&d#homebrew#van richten's guide to ravenloft#domains of dread#long post#cosmic horror#lovecraftian#maritime horror#ghosts#feuds#i had too much fun with this#and yes it is based on that dream I had one time
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June Contest Submission #21: Dashing
Words: ca. 5,500 Setting: 18th Century Caribbean/ Non-Canon Lemon: lime CW: Mild Nudity/ Swearing/ Incest/ NO Lemons/ Small Limes/Violence
A/N:
Bold/Italic indicates that a character is writing.
Italic(with no Bold) indicates a character’s inner thoughts.
This story is a work of fiction and is not intended to represent a shred of historical accuracy in any way.
Dashing
Dearest mother,
is this truly where you envisioned my life to carry me? Did you foresee that your dutiful daughter, Elsa, would be crated onto a ship bound for worlds unknown when you married her to Lord Hans Westergaard of the Dutch West India Trading Company? Did you not wish to keep your only daughter close, say on the same continent? I apologize, I should not start a letter so drearily. Conceal, don’t feel. It has been weeks at sea and I am fatigued. Before I forget, I must thank you for the wonderful parting gift. A book of dashing swashbucklers to distract from the otherwise ceaseless monotony of blue only occasionally broken by a thin veil between Heaven and Poseidon. We have entered a bit of unfortunate weather and the ship rolls like a devil. The thunder grows ever louder, and sometimes it sounds as if it’s right on top—
The wooden crate that was the captain’s quarters flipped on its side. Tables, chairs, and a lady found themselves tumbling across the lacquered walls of the gilded box before falling back to the polished floor now stained with spilled ink and a smattering of blood.
Elsa held her head as she shook off the ringing in her ears. The doors to the cabin burst open where a panicked, and soaked, Hans Westergaard stood with arms outstretched between the paneled glass and his heart beating to the drone of endless rain.
“Hans..? What was—”
“Pirates!! Hurry, hide yourself! They are already boarding!”
Pirates? Attacking in the middle of a storm?
Elsa’s thoughts were cut short by the screams of men slicing through the roar of thunder and canons. Hans had locked the door behind him, leaving the fear to bubble within her corset. She frantically ran to the closet, but her hands had begun to shake as she fumbled with the latch.
Another loud *THOOM* rocked the cabin, but this time it was against the locked door.
Elsa finally got the latch open and threw herself inside amongst the forest of silk and linen. From within her sanctuary, all she could do was listen and pray.
*THOOM*
Glass and wood crashed.
Heels of heavy boots knocked.
*knock*
*knock*
The shrill of Elsa’s breath.
She held her quivering lips and tried to force the air back into her lungs.
The *knock* of boots grew. It trickled, slowly, until the canals of her ears were flooded. So close that she felt as if she would overflow with the anxiety and trapped air.
Then silence.
God, please protect me. Or send someone to protect me. Please, send anyone! Send Mr. Crusoe if you have to!
She was hit with a blinding light…
and a hand around her throat.
NO!! Get your filthy hands off me!
She screamed in her mind for her voice was clutched in the coarse grip around her neck. She fought with all her pampered might, her arms striking in all directions until they too were held in place by a second firm shackle.
Finally, Elsa managed to force her voice through the death grip.
“Get…. your brutish hands… OFF ME!!”
Blackness began to overtake her vision. The brute had her lifted against the back of the closet, her feet dangled in the air and the force around her neck tightened.
Her ears were once again flooded, but with the sound of her own heartbeat as the blood in her veins struggled to course. Until a most unexpected sound washed everything else into non-existence.
“Elsa…?”
….
That voice… a woman’s voice? I am being manhandled by a woman? And how does she know my name?
Elsa forced the darkness in her eyes to recede. The grip loosened and she fell to the closet floor. All she could see through the blur of burst veins was a wide, feathered hat, impossibly maroon hair, braided and beaded and rather filthy, and two verdant gems staring with a wide-eyed familiarity.
I know those eyes…
…..
“Anna…?”
Her attacker backed away, seemingly unsure of what she was looking at.
They stood within that broken, gilded box of a captain’s cabin. Alone with the sounds of swords and gunfire lost amongst the storm of surprise and uncertainty surrounding them.
Elsa could not bear it any longer.
“What happened to your hair?”
And years of separation vanished.
“My HAIR?! It’s been ten years and the first thing you do is judge my hair?!? Not, ‘oh hey, Anna, you look good for a dead girl’ or ‘oh my darling little sister, it’s been so long. I’ve missed you terribly?’. Either of those things would have been more normal!”
Elsa picked herself up and gently caressed the rapidly forming bruise around her neck.
“Nothing about this is normal! You tried to strangle me!”
“Oh relax. I was just trying to stop you from screaming and then knock you out.”
“Ah, I see. I am most relieved to hear that your plan was to simply render me unconscious.”
Anna’s head jerked back in a motion of mild disgust.
“Why are you talking like that? You didn’t use to sound so hoity-toity.”
Elsa looked rather indignant at the accusation as she mumbled “It’s not ‘hoity-toity’. Its grace and sophistication”.
“Well, you’re not in a graceful or sophisticated situation so come on.”
Anna grabbed her slender arm and she had almost forgotten that the hulking brute who was upon her moments before was the same lithe girl pulling her out into the rain as easily as a toddler dragging her teddy. The rain had washed the image of her sister away and all that was left was a pirate.
And her fear.
The ship rocked, lulled by the sudden absence of violence. Elsa found herself before a horde of men. Each one a more frightening image than the last and each one fit into her imaginary brute far better than the frame of her sister.
So much for Mr. Crusoe…
An immensely rotund man stepped forward with a sneer in his mouth and a hunger in his eye. Elsa had no idea someone got so large living on a ship. “Oi Cap’n! You found a bit o’ treasure there!”
His grubby hand reached for Elsa’s bosom in the most indelicate manner before a blade came between his dirty fingernail and the lace of her corset.
“You know the rules, Bob,” Anna said with a voice commanding Poseidon’s wrath. “You touch her and you lose a finger.”
Bob had the look of a scolded schoolboy as Anna dragged Elsa to the edge of the ship. “Aw cap’n… you always get the blonde ones!”
Anna spun around in a fury, leaving Elsa to stand perilously on the thin plank that formed a makeshift bridge. She panicked as she fought for her balance in her heels and voluminous dress that was gaining pounds of water every second.
“You shut your hole or I will shove Pete’s peg leg so far down your throat that you’ll be a three-legged barstool on Tortuga with a sign that says ‘reserved for Whale-Butt Willie’. Do I make myself CLEAR?”
*Silence* as the men all looked at each other in submission.
“Aye, cap’n…”
Elsa swung her arms in vain to save herself from falling when Anna decided to skip the plank altogether, lifted her like a commoner’s bride, and leaped across the gap between ships. She was carried to a new gilded box, although this one noticeably less gilded but with significantly richer contents.
“Let go of me, Anna! I am not a child, I am your older sis—”
Elsa landed on her butt as Anna crossed her arms.
“No, you’re not. Because your little sister died ten years ago. Now be quiet while I think of what to do with you.”
Elsa did her best to wring the rain out of her skirt, channeling the fear and anger building from her situation.
“What to do with me? You mean like the other ‘blondes’? Tell me, Anna, what exactly do you plan to do with me?”
“Elsa, don’t.”
“Not only do you slay men, but you bed women as well? Do you mean to have your way with me?” The anger was rapidly overtaking her fear as she glared at her little sister who still stood with her arms crossed, looking away.
“What? Gross, you’re my sister!”
“I don’t claim to know the depravities you pirates get up to. And you just said that I am not your sister. How am I to interpret that other than to treat you as you appear. A pirate who’s kidnapped me.”
Elsa’s gaze turned hard as thoughts filled her head of all the women Anna had grabbed by the neck and forced her will upon.
“…How could you, Anna?”
Anna’s shoulders visibly stiffened.
“I said, don’t.”
But Elsa did anyway.
“How could you do that to those women? You have your way with them and then what? Sell them into slavery? Is that my fate? You call yourself a woman while forcing—”
*SLAP*
Elsa stood, speechless, as a red brand formed across her cheek. The pain was nothing compared to the shock that came from her sister’s palm now embedded into her skin.
“Don’t you DARE judge me! You have been out here for all of five minutes. I have been on these waters since I was twelve FUCKING YEARS OLD! You don’t think I have had to put up with some shit?! You stand there in that ivory tower and judge my life when you don’t know the first thing about it!”
Anna’s chest was heaving in rage while she stood pointing an accusatory finger. Elsa remained motionless and silent, still trying to process the sensation across her cheek and the words being said.
Anna’s breathing started to calm. She crossed her arms again and turned so that she didn’t have to look at the bright red memento left behind by her hand.
“I…I don’t force them. I never force them. Don’t assume you know what life has been like for me. I could never do those things. I would never. My ship has rules, and those rules include being god-damned respectful so you better be god-damned respectful of me.”
Elsa’s fingers spread across her cheek, matching tip-for-tip against the first contact she has had with her sister since they were children. Her voice was low, almost a whisper.
“You’re right. I don’t know what your life has been like. I don’t know what drove you to run away, but I have a pretty good idea seeing as how I lived it in your stead. Perhaps… I sound so much like mother because…
… I was left behind.”
Anna felt the words land across her cheek as assuredly as Elsa felt her palm. She refused to turn and look at her sister. The shame of the truth was staring at her from across her own cabin and she would not bear it. She quietly stormed toward the door.
“Anna…? Where are you going?”
Still refusing to turn, Anna simply said “someone needs to pilot the ship” and walked into the rain.
I sat alone, looking out my window for years wondering if she would ever return to me, and now that she has she slaps me and holds me captive so that she can decide my fate?
Storm be damned, Elsa launched herself through the doors and turned toward the banister that led to the helm above. Her adrenaline-fueled legs carried her halfway up the stairs before she saw Anna at the wheel, staring at her in absolute shock.
Their eyes met and time seemed to slow to a fraction. Elsa felt the sound of Anna’s name on her breath as she began to release it into the howling wind. She didn’t feel the rain, or hear the shouting, or see the pully flying through the air as it slammed into her skull. All she knew was that she was about to yell out her sister’s name after she failed to do so ten years ago from her window as she watched Anna leave her behind.
\\///////////////////////////////
I’ve had the most wondrous dream. My ship was besieged by pirates! But I was not afraid for I was confronted by a most dashing figure. He was rough around the edges but with the kindest green eyes, like a crystal spring dusted with scattered sundrops through the canopy. He held me with such strength as he kissed me most tenderly. I can still taste the spicy sweetness on his lips; rum and coconut.
There he is now! The hat is missing but there is no mistaking those piercing eyes. And that hair, such an unthinkable maroon color. Yes, my dashing pirate.
\\///////////////////////////////
“Hey, you’re alive!”
As her vision cleared, Elsa lay with her back in the sand and stared wide-eyed and mouth ajar at the woman leaning above her.
“I… where…? ……..Anna?”
Anna leaned in close to inspect for signs of a concussion or any other injury. So close that Elsa caught a familiar scent from her sister’s lips.
Rum and coconut…
“Well, you look alive at least so that’s something.”
Elsa slowly sat up, fighting back a sudden pain in her temple. She reached for the side of her head and found a swath of fabric wrapped around.
“What happened?”
“You got knocked overboard. It was pretty awesome actually. You flew clear over the railing.”
“How did I get here?”
Anna placed her index finger under her bottom lip while she began to sort through her memories.
“Let’s see, first, mother married you to a slaver. Then I think I cut his head off but it’s hard to remember which dead dutchman was him. Then—”
“Anna! I meant how did I end up on this beach?”
“Oh! Be more specific, jeez. The storm carried us for a while and we washed up here.”
“You… jumped in after me?”
Anna’s face turned solemn but determined. She stood, clearly uncomfortable with the words she was about to say.
“Of course. I wasn’t going to leave you behind again.”
And despite the fact that she managed to get the words out, she still walked away in that same manner trying to keep the unsettling shame at arm’s length.
As Elsa watched her sister stroll up the beach toward the tree line, the reality of her predicament suddenly dawned on her.
“Wait, Anna! Are you telling me that we are stranded on a deserted island?!”
While keeping her stride, Anna replied with a simple ��yup”.
Elsa scrambled off the sand after her, with a newfound panic quickly settling in.
“What are we going to do? How are we going to survive?! We are going to starve to death. No, we will die of thirst first. Or perhaps cannibals will eat us—”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, chill out! There’s no such thing as cannibals on these islands. Seriously, you read too many books. Relax, this isn’t the first deserted island I’ve been stuck on.”
As they made their way off the beach Elsa saw swaths of blue cloth tied around branches and an array of wide leaves that formed a surprisingly well constructed little bungalow complete with a floor, walls of fabric to keep the bugs out, and a watertight roof.
“You’ve already made a house. How long was I unconscious?”
“Only since last night,” Anna said with a casual shrug.
“You constructed all this in a single morning?” Elsa’s jaw had dropped. “Where did you get this material…”
As she examined the blue strips of fabric and the makeshift netting her eyes grew wide and wider as she inspected herself to find that she was clad in nothing but her shift dress undergarment.
“That’s my dress!”
“Ya, you had enough fabric in that thing I could’ve made a whole other house! And the boning from the corset was a real help getting things sturdy.”
“You undressed me!”
“So? We’re sisters last I checked.”
Elsa’s modesty couldn’t help but notice that Anna was equally in a state of undress unfit for a lady. She wore a pair of simple slacks that ended at the middle of her calves and tied around a low waist with a piece of rope. Her shirt, or lack thereof, was missing a few buttons, a few sleeves, and several inches too short. Her bare ankles mocked Elsa’s sensibilities and were only eager to point out that Elsa’s ankles were also parading around the sand in nothing more than her pale skin.
“Last I checked, you told me that my sister had died. So who are you to take off my dress?” she said hoping that she wasn’t blushing.
Anna sat in her makeshift hovel with a sudden onset of melancholy.
“…You’re right. I’m sorry. The sister that you knew may have died, but perhaps I was hoping… considering that I saved you and all, that you could be… this Anna’s sister.”
Elsa came over, her heart suddenly heavy as she watched this brutish pirate transform into the girl she last saw ten years ago. She sat down next to Anna, their exposed freckled shoulders barely a hairsbreadth away.
“Anna… why did you run away?”
Anna looked down, twiddling her thumbs.
“I… I was betrothed to Duke Weasleton.”
Elsa tried to recall but confusion had clouded her memory.
“Weasleton? But he was so old. And didn’t he—”
“Die? Yes, he did die. After I left a letter opener in his eye socket.”
“Oh my God, Anna!
“Mother was going to disown me and sell me to a brothel. No way was I going to let that happen so I ran. Pretended I was a boy and stowed away on the first ship bound for the Caribbean.”
Without giving Elsa any time to dwell on her history, Anna changed the subject.
“I thought you were destined for the cloister?”
Taking the cue, Elsa obliged her sister’s request.
“I was, but after you left… I became mother’s only method for climbing the social ladder. You know I was never comfortable at social gatherings. Mother basically told me to smile, and not say anything or do anything. Conceal, don’t feel. Eventually, I caught the eye of one of the ‘princes’ of the West India Trading Company. I think you and I have spoken more words in the last few minutes than he and I spoke during our entire marriage, which admittedly was only just before we set sail.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m sorry?”
“For cutting your husband’s head off. Let’s have a toast!”
Anna reached behind her and pulled out from regions unknown a massive coconut. She reached around her other side and pulled out from different parts unknown a large knife. With the coconut in one hand and the knife in the other, she dexterously spun the coconut in her palm while slashing with the knife in precise timing to cleanly create a neat opening off the top of the husky surface.
“How did you do that?”
“Lots of practice. You should have seen the gash on my hand the first time I tried.”
“I’m glad I didn’t.”
Anna gave her sister the newly opened coconut and proceeded to open her own in the same fashion. With her own drink now ready, she motioned to Elsa’s coconut.
“To dead husbands and forgotten mothers!”
Elsa, a bit hesitant, found herself suddenly distracted. The scent of the freshly opened coconut combined with the stare of those green emeralds triggered a flutter she did not understand. She mentally shook the feeling away, concussion no doubt, and lightly knocked her coconut against the other.
“And to new sisters!”
\\///////////////////////////////
I have been stranded on an island with an unexpected companion. I don’t know how long it’s been. Time seems to pass differently here.
A moment ago, I found myself watching her for what seemed like hours. She was squatting on the beach, her elbows propped on her knees with her hands between them while she stared most intently at the sand below. I noticed that she was watching a crab enter to and fro from its burrow. At one point the crab came out of the hole and started scurrying about with its claws in the air like a little dance. Then Anna raised her own hands into the air, made little clamping motions, and started to scuttle across the sand after her newfound companion. It was absolutely absurd, this grown woman scurrying like a crab on the sand.
I can’t seem to reconcile this image of my sister who is just as boisterous, playful as ever, with this other woman. She hunted a wild boar, which she carried over her shoulders, seemingly with no effort, through the forest, barefoot, without a shred of decency. I could see the muscles of her arms tense under the weight. The freckled skin of her stomach has seen far more sun than any woman ought to. The heat and exertion caused beads of sweat to travel down her neck and across her collar bone…
It is a sight that I have neither seen nor read in my entire life and yet it is here and churning with the image of my sister scuttling across the beach. How do I reconcile such a thing?
And to make matters worse, she does not conduct herself as a lady should at all. As we explored the island, we hiked through rather rugged terrain. The ground was painful and I took quite a stumble. She had the gall to reach out and assist me as if she was a gentleman! I took the hand, grateful for the assistance nonetheless and she continued to aid me through our trek. As we scaled a wet rock, she lifted me as easily as the dead boar, and as I soared through the air, our arms glistening from the water and sweat, I couldn’t help but look up into those eyes. I thought I knew those eyes but… sometimes they stare at me in such a way…
How do I navigate these torrential feelings as they spin around my thoughts like the whirlpool of Odysseus? How can a single person be your oldest, dearest friend and yet also someone who you’ve just met… and who makes your heart skip a beat when you reach out and take her hand…and look into her eyes…?
“Wat’cha doin?”
Startled, Elsa nearly jumped out of her skin and sent the paper in her hand flying into the air where she hastily grabbed them to whisk away from her sister’s prying eyes. Anna had magically appeared behind Elsa as she sat on the beach.
A shudder trembled across Elsa’s skin as she felt the linen fabric of Anna’s shirt press against her bare shoulder blades. Two freckled arms wrapped around her shoulders and embraced her in a close but casual fashion. Yet Elsa did not receive such affection casually. She bolted up and spun to look at her younger sister who knelt in the sand with her head cocked like a confused fox.
“Really, Anna, why do you not act like a lady!”
Her response to this was to lean back, causing her shirt to stretch against her chest, and bend one knee over the other as she gave a taunting eyebrow raise to Elsa.
“I am perfectly capable of acting ‘like a lady’. In fact, It’s one of my favorite things to do.”
Elsa looked away at the sight sprawled out on the sand, basking in the sun and taunting her with wiggling eyebrows.
“Oh really?”
“You didn’t see my closet of dresses in my cabin. I can pull off quite a figure if I want to.”
“When does a pirate have need of dresses?”
Anna grew a mischievous smile. She rose from the sand and slowly sauntered over to where Elsa was standing.
“It’s one of my favorite cons. I go into one of the big cities, Port Royal or Havanna, I insert myself into the circles of aristocratic socialites whose husbands are either too preoccupied or too deceased to notice. I mingle, I dance…”
She reached out with her hand and placed a single pad of the tip of her middle finger on the edge of Elsa’s shoulder so lightly that Elsa barely felt it and yet a new shudder rocked her entire body.
“Maybe I enter the service of a… very respectable woman…”
The fingertip slowly danced across Elsa’s shoulder. It skipped over the sleeve and made its meandering way toward the base of her neck. All the while, Anna stepped around to once again place herself against the rapidly stiffening back of her sister. That single middle finger now moved in short, deliberate strokes, up and down, gradually undulating pressure against Elsa’s neck.
Her head couldn’t help but lean to the side, coaxing the finger to lengthen its stride, where she unwittingly leaned into the soft whisper of Anna’s voice against her ear.
“As I…delicately pull at the laces that bind such a… woman of standing, releasing her from her monotonous life of apathy, I let my voice carry between the edge of my lips and the arch of her ear…
‘What more will you have of me, my lady…’”
“I would have you devour me.”
“What?”
“What?” Elsa’s entire body and mind froze.
I didn’t… I couldn’t! Did I just…?
“Did you just—”
“I just— I… jest! Yes, I jest, obviously. Really, Anna, you think I don’t know how to tease you back. I may be socially inept but I can surely tease my sister!”
Elsa broke free from her sister’s thrall, clutching the papers against her thundering chest. She shuffled down the beach, her legs as rigid as wooden pillars kicking up sand in their wake. Anna watched the pitiful sight stumble over a piece of driftwood, only to pick herself back up and continue on as if nothing had happened.
\\///////////////////////////////
Conceal, don’t feel. I must conceal for I can not possibly feel what I am feeling. I can not. I do not. I love my sister because she is my sister. I have missed this connection for so long… my mind is just confused. The heat, the concussion, the sheer insanity of this place. I should find Anna. Make sure that she didn’t take what I said as anything other than sisterly teasing.
As if on cue, Anna came bounding down the beach, arm swinging wildly to get Elsa’s attention.
“Els! Come look what I found!”
She grabbed Elsa’s arm and started pulling her back toward the way she came. Elsa kept pace this time and her arm relaxed into the grip that led it down the moonlit beach. They made their way over rocks and turned a corner into a small cove. Anna stopped and spread her arms out with a beaming smile of excitement.
“I don’t understand”, was all Elsa could think to say.
To Elsa’s horror, Anna lifted her shirt over her thick, maroon locks and threw it on the rocks. She now stood half-naked in the silver rays of the night sky.
Oh, dear God in Heaven and all that is good and decent in this world and the next…
“Just watch!”
Anna looked out on the water, as black as night with only the moonbeams cascading across the surface. Then in one swift motion, she dove in.
And Elsa’s eyes became filled with magic.
The water bloomed into a burst of color. Waves of blue light rippled across the surface, radiating out from the body that had penetrated it. Anna stood in the shallow water, surrounded by the light of heaven trapped within the waves of a starlight sea.
“What magic is this…?”
“Isn’t it awesome! They are like, tiny little animals that glow at night. Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?!”
“Never…”
“Well, don’t be shy Els. Dive in! They don’t bite or anything.”
Elsa hesitated. She looked at Anna, then at the black water below her, then at the mystical blue speckles dotting the surface around Anna’s waist, like a dress sewn by fairies that twinkled in the starlight. She placed one timid toe on the surface of the water and gasped in shock as spirals of blue light erupted from her touch. She looked once more to her sister who gave her the most reassuring smile in the entire world.
And she dove in.
Elsa soared through the azure sky, her loose hair flowing behind her as she came up from the surface near where stars in the sea met the stars that studded the pale skin of her sister’s body.
I can’t. I don’t! I won’t…
They stood inches apart, wading in the night sky like star-crossed constellations desperate to reach out and touch only to be perpetually far apart for eternity.
I mustn’t……..
She felt Anna peering deep into her soul. Did she wonder what was going on behind her eyes, as blue and brilliant as the luminescence surrounding their bodies? Could she sense the howling winds? Could she feel the thundering heartbeat through the water?
Would she feel it?
I… Oh to hell with it!!
The raging storm crashed against the surface. Hard and heavy and full of unbridled desire and longing. All at once, Elsa had released the torrent within her, letting the swells of her passion wash over her sister’s lips, her skin, her entire body, and soul. The magic had struck like lightning.
And then it was gone.
Anna pushed her sister away. That chasm of the cosmos restored.
“Elsa, what the hell are you—?”
“I am going to ask you a question, and I want you to answer me truthfully.” Elsa stood her ground in the heavens that would deny her.
“When you look at me, what do you see?”
“I don’t understand Elsa…”
“Do you see that girl, looking from her bedroom window? Her hand on the glass. Too afraid to go outside, too afraid to call out your name. Because when I look at you I see this girl. I see her laughing and playing and rolling around in the mud. But I also see this woman. Strong and kind. She makes me laugh, makes me inspired! I tremble when faced with the perils of the entire world, and yet she stands on top like it’s her domain! Tell me that I am insane. Tell me that all you see is that girl in the window and then I can be rid of these feelings that plague me for this impossible woman who can not be both sister and lover! Please—!!”
“YES, that is ALL I see!”
Anna was trembling. She still looked deep into her sister, locked by the pleading gaze no matter how much she wanted to turn away.
“That girl… that big sister who I left behind. When I look at you that is all I see.”
Elsa’s breathing finally started to slow. The words that she pleaded to hear had broken through the clouds of her heart and the calm would soon take over. The acceptance of what she already knew to be the way of the universe would come. Once back to civilization, she could resume her life. Banish the madness and—
“I saw her… every day. Everywhere. She was there when I joined a crew. She stood by me as I learned to man the wheel. I would not have survived a single day out here without her by my side.”
Elsa’s breathing had slowed to the point of imperception.
“…I saw her in the women that I knew. In…the women that I loved…It sounds so wrong but when you’re a young woman who relied on the faded memory of a long-lost sister for your support you can’t help but find that sister in any amount of affection you find! I had long accepted that it was my madness and I would take that madness wherever I go. And now that madness has taken a hold of you. When you came back into my life, I thought I could bury it, but instead, I passed it on to you.”
Each woman now turned away from the other, no longer able to meet each other’s solemn gaze.
“When we get off this island, I will go back to my ship and I will bring you to Curaçao and we will go our separate ways.”
Elsa simply nodded.
“I would still like to write you… if I can?” Anna’s voice had lost her usual commanding confidence.
“I would like that…” Elsa’s voice could barely carry itself over the narrow strip of water between them.
Anna slowly made her way across the water to the rocks where her discarded shirt lay. She buttoned the few remaining buttons over her chest when she heard the whisper of the water moving behind her.
Her dress clung to her body, revealed in the glow. Their eyes met for the first time once more and an inexplicable force dragged Anna back into the water and in the embrace of the siren below. Elsa’s hand caressed Anna’s cheek. Her finger traced lines down Anna’s neck. The span of cosmos between them receded until the storm that had once rocked both their celestial cores had dissipated and all that was left was their lips crossing the horizon. And Elsa felt her sister’s name on her breath once more as she finally released it to the wind.
“Would one night of madness be too much to ask?”
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Bad Girl Go Good (Colt x MC, N*FW)
A/N: A super dirty request from Des (thanks babe!); I don’t think I got everything you wanted but I definitely got in the three lines and I hope this is good enough.
Pairing: Colt x MC, ROD
Length: ~3800 words
Rating: N*FW (Swearing. Sex. Spanking. Oral Sex. Jesus, it’s just dirty, please be warned.)
Summary: Ellie knows she shouldn’t try to make Colt jealous. She knows this. She just…does it anyways.
Ellie looked over, biting her lip, mulling his question over in her head; she was vividly remembering when she got here, only an hour before, a kiss on the forehead and a low portent in whisper. “I need to take some meetings. Be good.”
This? This would not be good.
“Come on.” The guy (Ryan? Bryan? Something like that?) placed a gentle hand on her hip. “Just one dance.”
Ellie sighed through her nose. Whatever his name was, he was right; she knew that this wasn’t a date when Colt took her to the sideshow, she knew he was here on business, but she was hoping for a little bit more consideration than a head nod. She glanced over, once more, but he was thoroughly engaged in a conversation with a stranger whose stupid spiked hair and neck tattoo were obviously much more worthy of attention than she was.
“Fine.” She turned back to the guy in front of her, all hopeful eyes and preppy blazer, someone she would have never noticed if she weren’t being ignored. She didn’t even know if she would be seen, if it would evoke any kind of jealousy, but a large, bitter part of her hoped. “Just one dance.”
He took her hand to lead her into the dance floor, not noticing the frown on her face. She didn’t want to dance with this unnamed boy. She didn’t want to hold his hand or stop in the middle of the dance floor or start to move as he tried to talk in her ear. She definitely didn’t want to smell the alcohol of his cologne while he pulled her close to move to the beat.
She hazarded a glance through the crowd, past the drunken revelers and exhaust smoke; Colt still stood in the same spot, speaking to someone different now, but she could tell he was standing ramrod straight, hands in fists in his pockets. Great. If his work was going poorly, maybe she would be stuck here for hours.
She was relieved when the song ended, pulsing beat fading into something sultry and heated, but the stranger caught her arm when she turned.
“One more dance.” Pleading eyes caught hers. “Please.”
She looked around again and this time she couldn’t see Colt; he had moved out of sight of the makeshift dance floor. It may be petty but she knew his jealous streak; she knew the surest way to be pulled towards the exit would be to show interest in someone else. She tried to suppress her eye roll but wasn’t quite sure she succeeded. “Fine. Last dance.”
“Okay.”
She felt guilty. The guy in front of her seemed sweet, with a cute smile and hesitant dance steps that were worlds away from moody boys in leather jackets who clasped her hips like he owned them. It wasn’t this stranger’s fault that he wasn’t at all what she wanted. She sighed and tightened her arms around his shoulders, resolving to finish this dance and find Colt.
But when the dance had ended and she made her way out of the crowd, she found that it was neither easy to find Colt nor to get rid of her random dance partner, who had follow close behind.
“Hey, Ellie?” Crap. How did he know her name and she didn’t know his? She felt even guiltier.
She glanced around for Colt again but he had completely vanished. “Yeah?”
“Listen, I was having a great time dancing with you. I’d love to see you again sometime.” He stepped closer, eyes hopeful.
“I actually have to-” She gasped when he leaned even closer, intention crystal clear, his eyes trained on her lips. Crap. It was almost slow motion, his slow lean, her shock, her stepping away, and then the hand on her forearm, pulling her backwards so, instead of anonymous stranger, all she could see was familiar leather adorning a familiar shoulder.
“Back off.” Crap. Colt’s voice was barely restrained, the calm, even tone more frightening than a shout would have been. His hands were in fists, squaring off against the preppy boy, and Ellie felt her stomach clench. Guilt? Pride? Anticipation? She had seen those hands punch and grapple and fight; she had also felt those hands do other things that made her insides squirm.
The nameless boy took two large steps back, hands up in surrender, trying to put space between himself and the storm in front of him. “Whoa whoa whoa, man, I didn’t mean-”
“I said back off.” Colt didn’t even need to raise his voice before the kid fled, disappearing into the crowd so quickly she would have sworn it had all been a figment of her imagination.
Except.
The look in Colt’s eyes? Dark. Dangerous. Calculating. Furious.
The butterflies in her stomach? Eager. Nervous. Anticipating. Impatient.
“Let’s go,” he huffed, curtly.
She could only nod.
~~~~~
The ride home was silent. Granted, it was hard to hold a conversation with the rush of wind ripping through motorcycle helmets, but neither Colt nor Ellie even tried. His back was tense the entire way, muscles rigid underneath her fingertips as she clung to him. She had no problem playing with fire, had never been scared of the burn, but maybe she went too far this time?
Or maybe, as far as she and Colt were concerned, maybe there was no too far.
He threw the bike in park and barely waited for her to slide off before he was gone, throwing his helmet down and storming up to their room, stomping the entire way in a pique of rage. Ellie knew why he was pissed. She knew exactly why, the tremor in her stomach marking her as guilty, a willing participant in stoking his jealousy.
She followed, slowly, knowing he would need a few minutes on his own to cool down. She needed him jealous but not furious. Carefully schooling her face into her most innocent expression, long lashes batting in front of doe eyes, she walked into the room. “What’s wrong?”
He was facing away from her, shoulders raised, but spun when he heard the question. “What’s wrong.” His voice was unnaturally flat. Calm. Impassive. Crap.
“You, ah. You just seem. Upset?”
“Seriously?” He ripped his jacket off his shoulders and threw it to the floor. “Seriously? I’m in meetings for ten minutes and the next thing I know, some guy has his hands all over you?”
“That isn’t exactly what-”
“Isn’t it?” He stepped closer, eyebrows drawn into a dark angle that cautioned at the danger ahead. Apparently she had stopped being good at heeding these warnings, though, preferring to head straight into the unknown than remain on the sidelines of her old life.
She blinked at him, chin against her chest demurely. “Well, you weren’t exactly paying attention to me.”
“So you decided to pay attention to someone else?”
She looked at the floor. “It was just one dance.”
“Two dances and he tried to kiss you.”
“You were ignoring me.”
“So you decided this would get my attention?”
She flushed. Apparently Colt had been watching the entire exchange. She studied the floor, knowing that it was better to wait than respond. He walked toward her, slowly circling as Ellie fought every instinct to look up. She felt like prey as he stalked around her, predatory; she was a fly in a web, a mouse in a trap, and he was a ravenous creature going to destroy her in the most delicious way possible.
Finally, when Ellie’s toes were curled, pressing into the floor with the herculean effort of staying still, he spoke, voice dark. “I’m going to remind you exactly who you belong to.”
She sucked in a breath through her nose, watching as he backed up to lean against the desk, crossing his arms in a feigned display of relaxation. But there was nothing relaxed about the fire in his eyes.
“Are you gonna be good for me, Ellie?”
“Yes,” she whispered, barely a breath.
“I feel like you planned this.”
Her eyes widened and she liked her lips before responding, watching his eyes ravenously follow every twitch of her tongue. “I’m gonna be so good for you, Colt. Only you.”
“Then strip.”
She swallowed and, never dropping his heated gaze, slowly peeled off her shirt, raising the hem over the butterflies in the stomach, over the purple lace of her bra, over the flush in her cheeks, throwing it on the floor. His eyes never left her, a slow trail over exposed skin.
“Keep going.”
She nodded. Pants next. He looked hungry, gaze sharp on every move of her hands, unbuttoning her pants and sliding them over her legs, kicking off her heels along the way. She could feel the goosebumps erupt over her body, the cool air and anticipation making her limbs tingle.
He nodded, pointedly, and she waited a beat before she kept going, nimble fingers easily getting her bra off. Another nod and her underwear joined the pile on the floor. She waited, cautious eyes following his every move, as he pushed himself off the desk and strolled over to circle her again, eyes roving up and down her bare skin. Maybe she should feel awkward, stark naked while Colt was fully dressed, eyes raking over her. But she couldn’t feel anything but powerful, commanding his attention and controlling the intensity in his gaze without saying a word, a willing participant in his thrall.
Finally, he sauntered back to his desk and all it took was the crook of one index finger for Ellie to move, drawn like a moth to the fire in his eyes.
“Bend over the desk.” He moved out of the way so she could lean, position herself so she was on top of her school work, research on 18th century literature for an essay that she wouldn’t be able to finish without thinking about this very moment, her bare ass in the air, dark oak clutched between her fingers as she waited for Colt to punish her, to fuck her, to do something, anything.
He was right behind her and then everywhere as he leaned over. “You’ve been so bad, haven’t you, baby?” She could feel him, cotton t-shirt against her bare back, lips moving against her neck as he spoke.
She could only whine in response, caged between him and the desk.
“Ellie. Baby. You promise you’re gonna be good for me now?”
“Yessss.” She tried to move her hips back, to grind her ass right where she knew he would be hard and wanting, but strong hands on her hips stopped her, keeping her in place.
“If you want me to stop, just stay the word.”
“I know.”
“Count.”
She barely had time to inhale before the first hit landed, open palm on the flesh of her ass; she tightened her hands against the desk in surprise. It was restrained, a swat, a tease, a hint of what was to come. She shivered.
“Count,” he reminded, hand still cupping the curve of her.
“One.”
The next hit was harder, in a different spot, at the edge where cheek met thigh and she would surely feel it in the morning, and the day after that, a throb when she sat that would remind her of Colt and his jealousy and the fact that she couldn’t help but using that jealousy to her advantage so they could get what they both wanted.
“Two.”
The third hit landed on the other globe of her ass, slightly harder, vibrations of her flesh shooting waves of sensation through her body, into her core. Was it pleasure? Pain? Somewhere in the middle, in the hazy space where the only thing present, the only thing that mattered, was the impact of flesh on flesh and the heat slowly building in her core.
“Three.”
She thought of the first time, the very fist time. The first time his hand clipped her ass had been a swat, a tap, barely a spank, an otherwise unnotable contact while he was swiveling his hips and making her grip the headboard of his bed with fingers that were white at the knuckles. It would have been completely unnotable if not for the moan that tore through her throat, loud and wanton, audible over the sound of their flesh coming together.
She flushed when she realized that she made the same noise tonight, only four hits in, her knuckles again starting to pale as she clutched the edge of his desk.
“Four.”
She loved his hands, she really did. She loved his hands when he worked on his bike, deft fingers turning wrenches and finessing screws. She loved his hands when they gripped her hair or clutched her waist or made her ass bloom the most violent shade of crimson. She loved his hands when the fifth strike landed, down lower, almost her thigh, his other hand a steadying presence on the small of her back, centering her as the tension in her body climbed.
“Five.”
And she adored his hands now, slipping though her folds to apply a fealther of pressure to her clit, dipping inside her entrance, a tease that made her thighs clench.
“Fuck, sweetheart, you’re so wet already.” And she was, God, she was, wet and needy and desperate. He wiped her wetness on her ass and chuckled. “Are you sure you can take five more?”
“Yes.” She nodded, frantically.
He chuckled again at the pleading tone of her voice. “Fuck, Ellie, you look so good like this.”
She could imagine it, naked over his desk with his handprints on her ass, biceps already shaking with the effort of staying still. “Please, Colt, mo-”
The slap on her ass cut her off and echoed around the room.
“Six.”
Fuck, his hands could draw such pleasure from her, spinning it from her veins like a magician, a wave of fingers and slight of hand to make her melt into the sheets. She wanted to write odes about them, tapered graceful fingers again sliding inside of her so easy, where she was warm and wet and so so needy, needing those fingers to stroke and caress and fill her while she trembled around him. She barely had time to tense before those fingers were gone again and another hit landed.
“Seven.”
His hands also bloomed bruises, dark spots of color, vivid on the curve of her ass, the back of her thigh, possessive marks and hand prints that brought tears to her eyes, curses to her lips, and blessed relief to her bones. She was trying to stop her body from shaking, from trembling underneath him; she was sure she couldn’t.
“Eight.”
Those hands were starting to hurt now, her whimpers almost as loud as the sound of his flesh hitting hers, but the pain was warm, comforting, sending vibrations throughout her body and centering in her core, making her want more, more pressure, more pain, more anything.
“Nine.”
She had to bite her lip and screw her eyelids shut, desperately trying to keep from begging, to keep from asking Colt to just fuck her here, against his desk, where her ass was reddened and her nails burrowed divots into the wood and she just needed him to slide his cock inside her and never stop the tortuous pleasure-pain taking over her mind and body.
“Ten.”
She blinked the tears from her eyes and tried not to move, waiting, as he smoothed his palm over her ass. She could feel the phantom sting, the flush of blood raised to the surface; more prominent than that, however, was the wetness between her legs, slick down her thighs an obvious sign of her need. He was still behind her, not moving, and she needed-Jesus. She was sure he was admiring his work, the red on her ass, his hand prints on her. It would take hours to fade. She needed him to do something.
“Good girl. Come here, sweetheart.”
“Colt, please.” Finally, she stood to face him, thighs trembling. “Colt, I need-”
“Do you think you deserve my dick tonight?”
She felt her eyes fill with tears again. She wanted-
“Kneel.” She was on her knees before she realized, looking up at him, waiting again for a command. “Suck me.”
Her fingers were clumsy and she needed two tries before she got the button, shaky fingers making the zipper catch before finally she could pull out his cock. He was so hard, long and thick in her hand, obviously as turned on by spanking her as she was as the recipient of the stinging blows. She relished the silky skin under her fingertips, hands running up and down, before she pulled the head of his cock into her mouth and sucked, hard, hollowing her cheeks to pull him in.
His hand flew to her hair, fisting the strands between his fingers, tight. The pain was sharp, sudden, welcome, and she moved her head forward in appreciation, taking more of him, deeper, and working her tongue up the vein so she could hear the rumble in his chest.
“Ellie, baby, fuck, so good.” She looked up to see dark eyes watching every slide of his cock between her lips. Holding his gaze, she pulled back so she could swirl her tongue around the head, giving a lusty suck. He cursed, low, before tightening his hold on her hand and urging her forward to take him deeper, again and again and again.
She was taking him as deep as she could, throat straining with the effort, swallowing spit and precum in a dirty squelch as her hands ran over his thighs, his balls, any inch of him that she could reach to touch and feel, muscles shaking underneath her ministration.
“Sweetheart, fuck,” Colt whimpered, voice weak and completely undone. “Ellie, touch yourself. Baby, please.”
She couldn’t move fast enough, hand dropping down to find her clit, rough movements in time with the rhythm of her mouth. Dipping two fingers inside, she found she was as drenched as he said, slick positively leaking from her core, wetting her folds and making it so easy to draw rough circles around her clit as familiar warmth started building.
She moaned, sound lost with the cock in her mouth. He obviously felt the vibrations though; with one last tug of her hair, he eased her off his cock and pulled her to stand, hands rough on her arms and pulling her close so her could kiss her, rough, possessive, a testament of ownership in every swipe of his tongue and bite of his teeth. She was pliant and could only follow his lead as he moved her to the bed, nudging her onto all fours. He obviously couldn’t wait, didn’t even take his clothes off, just knelt behind her to kiss across her shoulder blades and down her spine, jeans rough on her reddened thighs.
She clutched the sheet under her fingers as lined himself up before sinking inside her, fully. The noise from her mouth startled even her, low and lusty and almost crazed, and he responded immediately, a deeper thrust that punched the air from her lungs.
“Ellie…baby…” It was incessant, the roll of his hips against hers, and her elbows dropped to the bed. She could barely stay upright, his strong fingers digging into her hipbones the only thing preventing her from collapsing in a mess of liquid, a puddle of need and longing and absolute desire where a person once was.
She couldn’t stop her chapped lips from forming moans, curses, noises of indeterminate origin. “Colt, please.”
She couldn’t even think, could only hold on to the fabric gripped tightly between her fingers and shake. The heat was building with every drag of his cock inside her, every time his hips landed against the red of her ass, every time his jeans chafed against her sore thighs, impact enough to send throbbing warmth up her spine.
Her breaths were coming faster and faster, lungs struggling to provide oxygen to her weary body, when Colt pulled out of her. She gasped at the suddenness, feeling unpleasantly empty, groaning her displeasure into his bed; she heard him behind her, one wet stroke, another, and then a moan as he came, wet heat, liquid fire, landing on her handprint-marred skin, already so warm with the possessive impact of his blows, made hotter still by the streaks of white falling onto her body.
She couldn’t think, couldn’t keep up with the motions of his body, as he spread her legs and dove underneath her. She was still moaning, keening, desperate and hot and so close that, when he wrapped his hands around her thighs to pull her down to his mouth, it only took one gentle touch of that clever tongue underneath her, one press of the sharp edges of short fingernails curling into her ass. Then, she screamed, hurtling over the edge, pleasure radiating through her body and slamming through her brain until it was the only thing she knew and then everything is blessedly, quietly blank.
~~~~~
“Ellie?”
She was floating, far away, somewhere dark, where strong arms kept her warm and safe.
“Ellie?” The tinge of worry in his voice pulled her back, a gauzy tether returning her to earth. “Baby, you ok?”
“Yeah.” The timber of her voice spoke volumes, deep and soft. She couldn’t even open her eyes; it just took too much energy.
The arms were moving, all over, everywhere, all at once, in a dizzying pattern that she couldn’t follow. There were soft touches on her arms, her legs, so careful over the red of her ass, cool and calming on the heated skin. She moaned, unable to show her appreciation any other way, and the warmth against her cheek vibrated, a dark chuckle.
“I’m gonna clean you up now.”
She couldn’t answer, an assenting sigh the only noise she could make, and then there was something wet and soft, wiping where he spilled in streaks against the skin he scored. The feeling of regret was a surprise; she would have wanted to see the white in contrast to the flaming crimson, but it ebbed when he was next to her again, calming hands pulling her close and dropping a soft kiss to her forehead.
She was so tired, almost asleep curled against him when he spoke. “Only me.”
“Huh?” She opened her eyes and her lashes fluttered against his chest.
“You’re only this good for me. Only me. Not the guy at the sideshow.”
Ah. She had already forgotten about the sideshow. “You’re being silly. Only you.” She was fading fast, eyelids fighting a losing battle against her exhaustion. “The only one I ever want is you.”
“You have me,” Colt replied and she could feel him shifting against her, warm and comforting on her side.
“For forever?”
She couldn’t even stay awake to hear the answer, slipping into darkness.
.
.
.
Tags:
Perma @desiree-0816 @leelee10898 @emichelle @client-327 @choicesgremlin
ROD @omgjasminesimone @mskaneko
Colt
@deimosensblog @alegria1580 @choicesarehard @thefarrari @moonlit-girl-wonder @going-down-downtown@soniadotalves@jolietmaraud @flowerpowell@poeticscolt @brightpinkpeppercorn @zaira-oh-zaira @umiumichan @akrenich @sibella-plays-choices @maxwellsquidsuit @liamzigmichael4ever @octobereighth @i-only-signed-up-for-fanfiction
#playchoices fanfic#colt kaneko#colt x mc#choices rod#n*fw#lemon#30 diamond scene#tw:spanking#amy writes
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The longest DnD backstory i have made... so far
so small bit of context this is for a 5e game in a 18th century bloodborne style setting. it was meant to be one shot so i just made lady maria of the astral clock tower as my character, but the dm really likes the setting and how the game went so its becoming a full game, but i really liked how i played lady maria but i wanted something a little more then a dnd version of a bloodborne boss so i wrote this over the last few hours and its now 5:30 am oops The lady maria real name Blair ( insert appropriate lore last name with vanhellsing vibes to it ) class blood hunter level 10 Born into a noble house the daughter of a previous lady maria that died during child birth and a noble man, that was once a charming artist and writer but reduced to a cowardly shell of a man after the death of his first love, even though he has re married he never found his passions for the arts again now only making bland history text books for schools and little else. all through Blair's early life her grandfather on her mothers side would come around every few months bring gifts and tails of his latest monster hunts and the promise of "once your older if you wish it, I'll take you away from this stale noble life" as she grew her grandfather started training her in swordsmanship and fire arms, her farther forbid the training but the grandfather kept coming till one day he had the town guards waiting and threaten to have him killed if he took "his last piece of her away" blair over heard this but didn't understand at the time only being around 9 years old confused as her farther barely could even stand to look at her most days. Her grandfather didn't come for 3 years after that point, till one night blare started getting ravens at her window with short notes and pages taken from swordsmanship manuals page by page every day over time forming more then a few books on different styles of fighting and firearm manufacture and such. she trained every day till her hands were blistered from the bits of wood and furniture she had been using as wooden swords to train with in her bedroom. On the day before her 14th birthday she noticed a hooded figure with a raven in the small woods out her window, she grabbed a small kitchen knife she had stolen and suck out looking for them. it didn't take long till she was deep in the woods only to be startled by a well made wooden sword being thrown to her feet "pick it up and fight for your birthday present little one" the look of joy forced down by one of determination she picked up the sword and took the guard positions she'd been practicing for all this time, swing hard but true to form never faltering a step in her foot work, pushing the old man on to is back foot , not one to show to much mercy and a reflex from years of fighting he pushed hard in to his next swing and disarmed her of her wooden sword just as he dropped his guard about to gloat " guess some ones not getting her..." shes rushes him gets her body under his guard position thrusts her arms right up under his chin and with the stolen kitten knife to his neck "took you long enough old man" drops the knife to her side and hugs him tight enough she may have heard some of is old bones crack. and starts to cry into his chest. "okay alright little one, you won the fight now need to crush me now" as he hugs her back for a moment. "i know its been a while " only to hear " too long " as she kicks him in the shin "if you hit me again no present " She pules back to look at him to notice a few more scars on his face then last time she spoke to him. he stands up straight and calls out “ lady maria please come meet my grand daughter” As a hooded woman with a raven on her shoulder looking to be in her late 30s steps out from behind a tree. she steps forward and curtsy towards Blair “ its a honor to meet you little miss, i knew your mother well, and she would be very proud of such a skilled young fighter” she says with a smile, a head tilt and a slight tear in her eye “ you most certainly have her eyes and expressions... its like looking at a memory right before me” Blair looks to her before looking down to the dirt “ ive only heard story's from granddad and farther locked all the paintings of mum in the attic i haven't seen them in years” her grandfather after swallowing his anger “ well this just wont do “ and pulls out a locket from his pocket “ i have a portrait of her above the mantel in my family manner, why don't you hold on to this one, till you come see it for your self “ as he hands her the locked with a small picture of her mother inside. she holds it close before placing it around her neck. “but now little one its your birthday tomorrow and that's not your gift this is!” as the lady maria grabs a fabric wrapped sword from behind her “this was hers it needed some repairs after she put it aside when she moved in with your father, but its been cleaned sharped and has a fresh coat of sliver” Blair takes the wrapping off the sword to see a brilliant sliver coated steel scabbed, a saber with a enlarged almost small sword style handle and guard. she clips it to her belt and draws the blade “its heavy... well compared to a chair leg but the balance feels much nicer, this, this is mine now ?” her grandfather smiles “yes little one cant have you training with chair legs forever now can we, plus you will need a real blade when our lady maria hear starts training you in our family's blood magic next week ” Blair now looking rather confused “ blood magic?” the grandfather draws a dagger from his belt and slices the the blade along his palm as the blood runs down the blade it starts to crackle and spark with lightning he throws the blade at a tree and it sparks with a brilliant light and shark cracking sound like a small bolt of lighting, “now little one this is a family secret so don't go talking about magic, can you promise me that and don't let your father find that sword?” she nods her head with gusto “ yes sir ! totally, easy, no problem. and he wont look at me any way so its easy to steal stuff and sneak around ” the day starts to grow long and they say there goodby’s for now 3 years of weakly training some times with grandfather, some times with lady maria, some times with both and some times with a different lady maria she dresses the same and spoke the same formal way for the most part but much younger she explained “lady maria is not my name little one its a title... all the lady maria's are in some way related even you. im actually your cousin my name is Juliet. the older lady maria you met the first night was my aunt and your mothers sister. On her 16th birthday and a few years of Blair being a rebellious young teen and making trouble for the towns guard and her farther getting more and more strict as she aged, Blair promptly set out with trying to ruin her farther reputation especially when the step mother started pressing to “marry her off “ even though the farther was against it the step mother started making plans for marriage behind his back. Blair being a witty young trouble maker found out about her plans and took it as a challenge and found a new form of combat training in bar fights and sneaking to the next town over and drinking with the army boys in training. till it go to the tipping point a argument with her farther that was promoted by the step mother yelling at him for the better part of the day, when she came home at dusk one evening not looking to worse for ware but about as far lady like as one can get, her father going straight in to yelling “whats wrong with you!? why must you fight against the best life you’ll ever get? how ungrateful are you ! “ the step mother butting in “ your mother would be ashamed you” with out hesitation from across the room Blair pulls a knife cuts her palm and utters a Blood Curse of Bloated Agony on the step mother and drops the step mother to her knees in pain “ you know nothing about her you good for nothing noble piece of trash” “ and dad i don’t know if you hate me... or blame me for killing mum by being borne, but you never loved me you never gave me what i needed!, and you took away the only person that could! you stopped granddad from coming you took the one person that loved me! you left me with nothing what did you expect!? her farther now yelling at Blair to stop this “fine if you want to be with him so badly then leave but if you do your title stays behind your money you’ll will be nothing more then a common present!” “OH but father i have a title you could never take I’m the lady maria” as she drops the curse go’s to her room packs a travel bag grabs her mothers sword and walks right by her father who is trying to calm the step mother now screaming for a doctor and calling Blair a witch, on the way out Blair with sword worn proud on her side, she hesitates for a moment in the door way with her back to her farther, and can hear him over the sound of the now rageing woman next to him “what have i done Ive lost her again... i’m sorry i’m so sorry” blair pretends not to hear him and walks away in to the night. after another year of training now at the grandfathers manor and returning the locket, she started going on monster hunts and when the war came true and proper she fought right besides the young army boys from time to time as a mercenary and protected them from the monsters by night, even earning some honorary militarily ranks. now a few years after the war shes now 31 and has been a proper lady maria for a good while fighting monsters and making stories of her own.
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Chapter Fourteen
Summary: When you hear that your recently deceased grandmother left you her property in her will, at first you think that a dinky old cottage in the middle of nowhere isn’t going to mean much for you. But after spending a night there, you discover something far more valuable than the house itself: a hidden door that leads to another time, the same place but over 200 years in the past. In the late 18th Century, there is a king who will die before his 21st birthday unless you can save him. Will you help him, even if it means leaving your own life behind?
Genre: time travel, royalty AU, mystery. || Word count: 1.7k
A/N: all is revealed. tell me if you guessed the twists ;)))
---
“You.” Your voice is wobbly from crying, but the sharp edge of hate is undeniable. You run the back of your hand across your face to wipe away the tears and snot and glare at the man tied to the rickety wooden chair. He looks at you blankly. “You did this to me. This is your fault.”
You stare incredulously as Yoongi shifts slightly, putting himself between you and the healer. He holds his hands out to you in a peace-keeping gesture. “Y/n, calm down. You’re not in your right mind.”
“Not in my-? Of course I’m not in my right mind, Yoongi!” You push yourself up off the floor and move around so Jin is back in your line of sight. “Why did you do it? All of this. Why?”
Jin huffs, hums around the gag, and shrugs his shoulders.
You sniff away the last of your tears and glare at Yoongi. “Take it off.”
“Y/n…”
You narrow your eyes. In the back of your mind you know it’s not helpful to act this way, but the burning pit of rage inside you is the only thing keeping you from falling apart completely. “This man has taken everything from me, Yoongi. Indirectly or not. Let me speak to him.”
After Yoongi does as commanded, albeit with a heavy sigh, Jin coughs and works his jaw, glancing up at you with morose eyes. “Y/n, you must understand I had nothing to do with your situation. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I can assure you; this isn’t all my fault.”
You shake your head firmly. “The jig is up, Jin. You saw me come from that doorway. You’re a traveler, like me. Not from this time. I already know about your grand plan to steal the throne for yourself. Create a portal to the past like some kind of supervillain.”
He frowns in confusion. “What do you-? I didn’t create the portal. I was sent here by the witch. This is all her doing.”
You roll your eyes. “Oh, so now there’s a-”
“Y/n,” Yoongi cuts off harshly, turning around to face Jin, grabbing the front of his tunic to bring his face closer. “The witch. What did she look like? What did she tell you to do?”
Jin’s hand jerks against the ropes like he was about to raise it, then goes lax and sighs. “My girlfriend,” he admits with a sigh. “That witch. She was obsessed with royalty; said her and I could rule the province together if it wasn’t for the line going to someone else. That portal was created by her. I was meant to go back, kill the King, and return to a better timeline in our present day.” His eyes dart to you. “Did she send you too? She’s fucking crazy, don’t listen to anything she’s told you.”
You knit your brows. “No, I’m not… from your time, I… When you left, she didn’t,” you swallow, feeling bile rise in your throat. “She didn’t keep this house, did she?”
He shrugs as much as he can within his restraints. “Of course, she did. She told me she had to protect the portal.” He shudders. “Has she had the baby yet?”
“Oh God,” Yoongi murmurs low in his throat, “you’ve got to be kidding me.”
Your hand is clapped over your mouth and you sink to the floor, staring in bewilderment at the man tied up in front of you. “Wh- Grandma always said it was a sperm donor. I don’t… I don’t understand.”
“Grandma? No, this was a young lady. She owns the house. I’m sorry; who are you exactly?”
You shake your head numbly, and Yoongi rubs the back of his neck, straightening up. “That’s Y/n, from the year 2019. She’s your granddaughter.”
Your voice is light, on the verge of failing you completely. “Grandma wanted you to kill the King? She…” You sigh, thinking back to all the times you had curled up on the carpet in front of her rocking chair as she told you that knights in shining armor didn’t exist, that you couldn’t rely on a man to save you. “She was waiting for you, I think. All those years. She raised mom alone. She helped raise me.”
“Your mom? So it was a baby girl then?” Jin’s eyes soften and he blinks away tears that gather.
Ignoring this, Yoongi steps in, dragging over a stool to sit in front of Jin. “There’s one thing I still don’t understand. You admit your purpose here was to kill the King, and you’ve taken several attempts on his life. Surely if you’re his doctor you could easily kill him. Why don’t you?”
Jin ducks his head, and you see his lips tremble. “That kid is like family to me. I was a stranger and he showed me nothing but kindness. At the start, I told myself I’d wait until he was eighteen. I couldn’t kill a child. But then I realized I couldn’t kill him at all.”
Yoongi frowns. “Then why the attempts? Why not just live out your life as a healer?”
Jin sighs in a great shudder. “This whole time,” he confesses throatily, “this whole time I’ve been terrified she’s going to come back through to finish him off herself. I suppose I grew particularly suspicious of you, Yoongi, since this was the house I snuck out of when I arrived. And when I heard that you had brought a stranger to meet the King…” Jin turns his watery gaze to you, glancing under his eyelashes with an apologetic look on his face. “I thought perhaps you were her friend or something. I figured if I made it look like I was trying, then you wouldn’t go for him yourself. Honestly, I don’t even know what my plan was. I freaked out. I can’t lose him.”
Your eyes widen even further as the healer starts sobbing, shoulders shaking under the ropes that bind him to the chair. “Yoongi, untie him.”
“What?”
You glance up. “He can stay here, and I can go home. The portal only needs one transfer, right?”
“No,” Jin cuts in immediately, “I need to go back.”
Both you and Yoongi stare at him in confusion. Yoongi scoots forward on his stool. “Why? You said it yourself; King Jeon is like family to you-”
“And back there is my real family,” Jin insists. “I need to go back and raise my daughter, hopefully protect her from that witch’s influence. My… my daughter deserves better than to be raised by a crazy person. I can go back, make sure she’s put away where she can’t harm anybody. Please, Yoongi, Y/n. Let me go back to my daughter.”
Yoongi simply shrugs. “It’s up to Y/n.”
Once the two men shift their attention over to you, you squeeze your eyes shut and bury your face in your hands. Fuck. You had an out. You could go back to your love, Jimin, rip up that note and pretend like you had never left. You could spare him that misery.
But then… being raised by your grandma ruined your mom. She was too headstrong, too rational, too focused in the real world. At the time you had hated her for it. You had always preferred your grandmother’s magical tales and secrets to reality, but now you can see just how miserable your mother must have been. And the chance to have a strong parent in her life? To have a new chance?
You swallow hard and look back up at Jin. “Take care of mom. I… I hope you get to live happily there.”
Yoongi nods solemnly and reaches out to untie Jin’s bonds, freeing the man. You stand up yourself as he does, and the first this Jin does once he’s free is to rush over, enveloping you in a tight hug.
His fingers bunch up in the fabric of your shirt and he exhales unsteadily. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, planting his chin on the crown of your head, “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for her. Or for you. It’s been an honor to meet you, and I hope I live long enough to meet you again when I get back.”
A sob is ripped from your throat and your arms come up to hug him back. “I hope so too. My mom’s gonna love you, you know? So much.”
Any other occasion would see you cracking a grin at the way he squeezes himself through the gap, barely large enough for his shoulders to fit, but instead you just stare in a glum silence, biting your lip harshly to prevent any tears.
Once the door shuts behind him, Yoongi lets out a deep exhale. “It’s over now,” he states tiredly, “let’s close this for good.”
For such an impressive feat of magic and science, the portal closes without much fanfare. Yoongi recites a few lines as he scratches a symbol into the door. You press your hand over the carved symbol, a vaguely circular rune that’s made up of broad strokes. After reciting an incantation, you’re instructed to try the doorknob. It doesn’t open, doesn’t even twist.
Upon closer inspection, you can see the material of the door begin to shift, morph. The cracks between the door and it’s hinge are slowly closing up, and the definition in the grain melts away. “It’ll be gone by nightfall,” Yoongi explains, the two of you lapsing into an exhausted silence.
“Well,” he says eventually, “that was a lot to take in. How are you holding up?”
“Don’t,” you warn haltingly, “not just yet. I can’t-” you break off as your voice threatens to break. “Do you have something to help me sleep? Preferably for a very long time?”
Yoongi’s eyes are swimming with sympathy as he gives you a sad smile. “Of course. You did the right thing, Y/n. As hard as that probably is to hear right now. Get some rest.”
---
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Behind the Scenes
Written for @elderkevinmckinley as part of the Thasmin Holiday Gift exchange. I hope you enjoy it, despite the angsty bits, and Happy Holidays!
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“Doctor, you really need to get out of those clothes.” Yaz feels her face flush the moment she says it, though she knows the Doctor won’t register any underlying innuendo. She’s far too excited by the possibility of clothes shopping as a woman for the first time. Just a quick, careless statement, really only said because she isn’t ready to say goodbye to such an amazing woman. It’s only when they leave the wall she sits on, and Ryan casually bumps his shoulder into hers, winking as he passes, that she properly feels the embarrassment coil in her belly. It’s not an unpleasant feeling.
---------
She’s pulling levers in a space ship who knows how far from home. Their plan, as far as she can make out from what the Doctor will actually let her hear, is to crash land on an alien planet. And she’s pretty sure one of the levers just came away in her hand.
“Think you can do any better?” She hears from behind her. Gritting her teeth, she pulls to the left as hard as she can, thankful her training keeps her in the gym three times a week.
“Yes.” She hears the Doctor say, and can’t help the tiny smile flash across her face because, even in the face of literal death, the Doctor’s boundless enthusiasm is to be admired, and it still warms a place inside Yaz that almost believes she’s not about to die.
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“Obviously not a lot of Pakistani heritage around here.” She mumbles, feeling her blood turn cold. In her own time, moments like this burned her inside, filled her with rage when she was treated differently for her ancestry. Being a Muslim cop, she’d seen and heard some awful things, and dealt with the aftermath of some awful things. But here, seeing Ryan sit down at the back of the bus, how nonchalant he was pretending to be, and the Doctor and Graham hadn’t even noticed until they were all onboard. She was a police officer for goodness sake, she was trained to control her fear and anxieties in the face of danger. But this wasn’t danger. This was normal. Everything they faced, everything she fought against back in Sheffield, it was all normal here. The thought froze her solid, that she couldn’t do anything to help Ryan, that she didn’t even belong anywhere at all.
“Riding a bus in Montgomery. Good times.” She smiled darkly, catching the Doctor’s eye. She saw sympathy, and pain, and a darkness that seemed thinly veiled. Then she thought about Ryan again, sat at the back on his own, and the darkness made sense.
---------
There’s a warmth inside her, and she thinks she’s about to burst. She feels so much, so often, and after the rollercoaster of the day, she’s tired of feeling. She just wants it out of her, in the open, where she doesn’t have to pretend anymore.
“I want more. More of the universe. More time with you.” She can feel her eyes betraying her, blinks back the tears, ignores them. “You’re like the best person I’ve ever met.” Oversharing, maybe. Will the Doctor let it go to her head? Definitely, but if that’s what it takes to stay by her side then she’ll take it. Yaz can hear the others replying, knows they’re still in the room, but her eyes are all the Doctor’s, and it feels like maybe the Doctor only has eyes for her as well.
“I can’t guarantee you’re gonna be safe.” She remembers the space ship, remembers believing for the first time that she was going to die. How she wouldn’t have changed anything.
“We know.” She smiles. She wants to laugh at the intensity on the Doctor’s face as she continues, like they wouldn’t all leap at the chance to see more with this incredible woman.
“Do you? Really? Because when I pull that lever I’m never quite sure what’s going to happen.”
“That’s okay.” Ryan replies, and she nods because of course it is. Yaz doesn’t believe for a second the Doctor knows what she’s doing.
“You’re not gonna come back as the same people that left here.”
“But that’s alright, I think that’s good.” The Doctor looks at them, an intense look that hits Yaz right in her lower belly.
“Be sure.” She says, with something a little like pain, or maybe loss, tainting her tone. “All of you. Be sure.” And as she looks at this amazing woman who fell to Earth from space, who owns a time machine that she can’t quite control, and who says things she’d have to toss a coin to believe, well. Yaz has never been more sure of anything in her life.
---------
Yaz knows there’s never been a worse moment to want to kiss the Doctor. There’d been some really bad ones where she’d thought ‘I wonder what would happen if I just...did it. Just quickly.’ And then shaken her head and carried on running from the sentient blankets of toxic gas, or the killer gnomes. But here, now. The Doctor dazzling her with more science than her brain is ever supposed to hear, and all she can think about is taking that soft face between her hands, pushing on to the tips of her toes, and the force required to press her lips against the Doctors. Never mind that there’s an alien gremlin loose on the ship killing indiscriminately and eating literally everything. This moment of the Doctor showing her the wonders of the universe, starting right here with the iPhone version of CERN is still the most beautiful part time time Yaz has seen so far.
“I love it.” The Doctor murmurs, her eyes bright with wonder. “Conceptually. And actually.” And Yaz understands.
---------
The Doctor stands over her, something warm and sad in her eye when Yaz acknowledges her.
“She made it out, right? She got to Lahore? She lived.” Something burned on the tip of her tongue, making her mouth taste of ash.
“She made it.” The Doctor replied, nodding slightly. The knowledge doesn’t bring relief like she thinks it should; instead she just feels cold. Empty. They shouldn’t have gone, she realises. She shouldn’t have gone behind her Nani’s back, shouldn’t have betrayed her trust. She feels sick to her stomach, and the lack of judgement in the Doctor’s gaze only makes it all worse. She looks up at the TimeLord, as a tear falls down her cheek. The Doctor, no words, nothing but warmth and light and care, pulls Yaz in to a tight hug, letting Yaz weep quietly.
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She’s afraid to look her in the eyes. She’s not usually so timid, she knows, and she doesn’t want the Doctor to think less of her for it. So she avoids looking up.
“Doctor, can I make a request?”
“Always.” Comes the gentle response that at this point she’d expected. She remembers finding the scanner, and the necklace on the floor, and Dan just...gone. Nothing left. She sees it all flashing behind her eyes as she speaks.
“If Dan hadn’t of switched scanners, it would have been me in that test room.” She looks up, tears in her eyes, and this feels oh so familiar, but hurts in such a new way for her. “He saved my life.” The Doctor looks back, offering a half smile of sympathy, and waits patiently. Yaz takes a deep breath, holds back her tears, then continues. “I wanna take this to his daughter. Tell her how much he loved it. How much he loved her.” She wants to believe it’s her training courses kicking in; that this is what she’s supposed to do, she’s just playing a role, of course she doesn’t blame herself. But she does. How can she not? The Doctor smiles at her again, more genuine, and more warmth.
“It’s the least we can do.” There’s a hint of something akin to pride in the Doctor’s gaze that Yaz can’t make out, but now isn’t the time to go searching. Now is the time to tell a young girl about how brave her father was, and console her as best Yaz can. Still, Yazmin smiles properly for the first time since re-entering the TARDIS.
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Yaz has been here before. Not exactly here, not in 18th century Lancashire. Not in the middle of a witch trial surrounded by sentient alien mud. But-
“Completely normal. No magic. And no signs of any sickness.” The Doctor breaths, sounding surprised.
“You’re wrong.” Willa replies, almost defiantly. There’s something about the way she stands, or perhaps it’s the familiarity of the betrayal that makes Yaz’s stomach twist sickeningly.
“I think I know what it is that’s making you sick.” Yaz says quietly, looking up at the poor girl. “I had it, at my school where I’m from. When Izzy Flint turned the whole class against me.” Five years past, and the memory still stings. Her first real friend, destroying everything they’d had. She has eyes only for Willa, even as she’s carried back by her memories. “Everyday I’d wake up feeling this...dread. Fear.” She feels so cold, back in that place where her best friend hurled slurs at her down the languages building, giggling with girls that they’d hated only weeks before. But, she’s here. In Lancashire, three hundred years before that, and there’s a young girl who needs her.
“How did you get rid of it?” Willa breaths.
“I didn’t.” Yaz stands, ready to offer whatever Willa needs of her. “I just took it, had the year from hell.” Willa flinches, and realization shoots through her. “When I say hell, I don’t literally mean hell, I mean it was really awful. And I told myself, when I got bigger, I would stand up to the Izzy Flints of this world.” Her heart hammers, remembering the resolution that hit her in year eleven, pushed down a flight of stairs, fracturing her elbow. How...strong she’d felt when she didn’t cry, when she decided no more bullying.
“I can’t stand up to Becka, she’ll have me tried for a witch!” Willa’s hands trembled. Yaz could feel her knee wobbling too. Willa looks up to the Doctor, and Yaz’s eyes followed, remembering for the first time that she was still there. Wondering if the Doctor was going to want to talk to her about it, later, when there was no more danger. Half hoping she would.
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Most of her treasured memories these days seemed to focus on the Doctor explaining things she has no business knowing. The Doctor has always just talked at a mile a minute, never really caring if the people around her were following, or if they were even trying to. But Yaz, she makes a conscious effort to learn everything she can, to understand to the limits of her weak, human brain, everything the Doctor rambles about.
“I’ve told you about the Solitract, right?” The Doctor says, and Yaz has a hard time preventing a nervous bark of laughter from leaving her throat. Of course the Doctor loses track of what they’ve already seen, and done. Of course she forgets what they’ve talked about, late into the night when they’re spinning through space.
“Literally, never heard the word before.” The Doctor, always moving a little too fast for Yaz, sits her down on the bed, and starts explaining about her own myths, her own bedtime stories, and it’s the closest she’s ever gotten to actually talking about herself, and Yaz is caught up in the excitement. Eyes shining, hands fidgeting without control, the Doctor reminds her of a boy she’d once liked, who would light up the world around him when asked about his favourite pokemon game. Unbidden, her mind goes back to Suranga, to wanting to press her lips against the Doctor’s, to show her how exciting she makes Yaz’s world. Always a little bit too complicated for her to wrap her head around fully, but she’ll be damned if she isn’t going to try.
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“Their life, verses seven billion others.” Yaz choked back a cry. Her family, her friends, everything she’d ever loved. Gone, because The Doctor wasn’t prepared to do what had to be done.
“There must be a way. There’s always a way.” She said, turning away from Yaz. The words were on the tip of her tongue. There isn’t. The Doctor’s endless supply of hope was going to kill her planet, and Yaz was too in awe to stop her. Awe? Was it awe that stilled her. In all their months of travel, she’d never seen the Doctor harm someone, whether it would have been necessary or not. Could she even do it? Yaz knew a thing or two about force - she had to, when she’d joined the force. But did the Doctor? Was Yaz afraid of her, of what her relentless pacifism might mean for everything she’d ever loved?
“...I could block the signals.”
“Neurobalancers!” The pair exclaimed, Yaz’s eyes wide. Would it work? It had to work. And, if it didn’t?
Yaz refused to entertain the notion longer than a second.
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If Kratos were human
We all know the Greek Gods are known for fits of jealousy, rage, murder, unfair punishments, infidelity, and much more. What if they were punished? Born again into unknown bodies, stripped of their heritage, and had to walk the world alone? They still have their memories and knowledge, but weak mortals with no power can’t accomplish great deeds, right?
Kratos> Malin
Kratos- God of strength and power
Malin- English name meaning “strong, little warrior”
He was once a symbol of power. He and his siblings were chosen by Zeus himself to be his warriors. Now, Kratos, no, Malin looks into the mirror only to be disappointed by the scrawny body. He was bullied when he was younger because of his awkwardly skinny limbs, and his mentality formed him into a timid, useless coward. Malin soon found that it was easy to forget himself. Simple, actually. Humans are one of the most adaptable creatures, and he understood that he was no different from them anymore.
As Malin finished his essay on Shakespeare’s King Lear, he couldn’t help but wonder what would happen when he died. He thought of it a lot, maybe too much. Would he just be reborn again? Would he go back to his normal being?
Malin sighs and sends his final draft to his Literature professor. He logs out of the cafe’s computer and finishes his coffee. The workers are starting to clean up, so he decides to take his leave.
He misses his siblings. His fierce sisters, and energetic brother. He’s an only child now. Adopted after nurses found a baby in the NICU, with no parents to claim. His parents were nice. They gave up trying for a baby after years of no success, and he felt strange whenever they’d call him their “little warrior”, their little Malin. They smiled when he’d respond like an adult, and used words they don’t remember ever teaching him. His father gave him bone-crushing hugs when his report cards came in the mail. His mother cried when he’d come home from school bruised. They weren’t violent people. They taught him to be a lover instead of a fighter, and he found himself listening.
Malin knew he was lucky with earthling parents. Could’ve been far worse. They let him try out for soccer and encouraged him to join Library Practice after they found out he suffered from asthma. Turns out, the difficult language of the 18th and 19th century was right down his alley. It wasn’t a surprise that he’d be accepted into the top schools, and he found himself wanting to stay in his hometown. With his parents. They accepted his faults and weaknesses. Something he never knew as a god.
Attached to mortals...how puny.
It’s almost 11 now, and Malin is only halfway home, but as he passes through a dangerous neighborhood, he feels the now familiar fear ball up in his stomach. There’s an odd chill in the air considering the season, and he pulls up his hood to stop the wind from numbing his ears.
He slows when he hears a scream. Muffled shouts and scrambling follows. Once Malin realizes it’s happening in the alleyway he has yet to pass, the fear coils and expands.
He pulls his hood tighter further and shoves his hands in his pocket.
There is nothing he can do.
When he reaches the alleyway, he slows down and leans his head ever so slightly to observe the scene. There are three men, who cornered a girl. One is rifling through her purse, while the other two push her around violently.
Malin clenches his teeth and freezes when the dim light shows the tear-stained cheeks of the girl. She’s small and frail looking. Obviously terrified if she’s not even screaming anymore.
“Hey! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” The one holding the purse steps towards him. They are all suddenly closer. Malin looks down and sees that he had started to walk down the alley.
“Uh.” Malin takes a step back. “I...um-”
Malin is grabbed and pushed against the nearby wall. “You gonna play hero? You think you can beat us, motherfucker?”
No. He can’t. Malin’s eyes widen, “Just take what you want and leave her alone.”
Suddenly, Malin is thrown to the ground and his hood falls off as the assailant grabs him again. “She’s only got five bucks on her. You wanna entertain us?” He sneered.
Malin slams into the ground again and it takes him a moment to feel the pain from the punch. He hears the girl being shoved to the ground and the other men make their way to Malin. It’s a blur of fists and feet, aiming at any part they can reach.
If only…
He used to be feared. He was a force to be reckoned with. But that’s all past-tense now. Kratos has closed his eyes and turned his back. He is a new person and has long accepted this new lifestyle, new body, and new struggles.
Soon, the men get bored and give him a few final kicks before spitting at him and walking away. Malin rolls over and tries to push himself up. He groans and looks down to see a trail of bloody drool strung down from his lip. He can feel his nose dripping blood too. He looks up and notices that he can only see out of one eye; the other one is probably swollen shut.
He takes slow, deep breaths, and lamely shuffles around on the ground like a worm. He just needs to get up. That’s all. Just get up.
Malin hears the girl whimper and stumbles to him. He feels her hands grip his shoulders and help him sit up. He’s now kneeling, slouched over, but at least he’s somewhat upright. He grabs her arms to steady himself. Malin looks up at this blubbering girl. Her cheek is red and already bruising, probably when she was first being mugged.
He flinches when her hands cup his head, and she lightly touches his forehead, right above his eyebrow. When her hand pulls back, he sees that it has some blood on it. They're both breathing hard, trying to subdue the pain.
“I’m sorry. I just...I wanted to…” Malin felt the cuts and scrapes on his cheeks burn from his tears that were finally falling.
He watched as the girl in front of him let out a breathy laugh, which almost could be mistaken for a sob. “Why are you apologizing?” Her eyes shone. “You’re so strong.”
Malin gulped and looked at this girl. He wanted to remember her tear-streaked face, disheveled hair, bright eyes, and the small smile. This girl, who’s caramel hair was being whipped in the wind, her dark eyes made her look even more precious and gentle. This girl, who watched him get beat to a pulp, who watched him not even attempt to fight back, called him strong.
He gripped her even harder, but she didn’t pull away. He leaned into her and rested his head on her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him, and for the first time, he felt it. Strength. Malin was exhausted and sore, but being able to get through the beating, even without fighting physically, he fought for the girl. He protected her. Bravery was pulsing through him, and he hadn’t felt that intoxicating rush in so long.
Malin let go of her and put his hands on the cold ground. With a heave, he pushed himself up. The girl quickly stood up with him and put one of his arms around her shoulders.
“Okay. Good.” She praised. Malin had half the mind to feel like a child, but he just accepted her presence.
They looked at each other, and Malin could just see it in her. She saw this scrawny young man and made him her hero. And he’d be that. If only one believed in him, that’s fine.
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An Occasional Attempt to Read, Discuss and Review the Wonders of Comics
By: John Rafferty, cranky old man, and Fan of All Things Comics
Riding the IND
Designed with the intent to acknowledge the Immense Contribution of the Independent Comic Press, and highlight a more unique stable of products
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Short Hops on the IND
Quick looks at books from the Independent Press, when the reviewer has too much on his plate
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Seven Secrets #2 (Boom! Studios)
Writer: Tom Taylor Artist: Danielle DiNicuolo
‘You know, being a Leader, I really expected my decisions to be undermined less.
Really? That’s cute.
Why do I keep you around?
Mainly to hold this. I suspect you have unusually weak arms.’
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So, Caspar has been born, and shipped off to be trained, becoming another Secret in the Order of Secrets…
And he comes back. At 9 years old, trained in the martial arts, Smarter, more inquisitive and much more driven than any Initiate before. Training with Keepers and Holders, to become one of them.
And more importantly, to discover his roots.
Taylor’s scripting is tight and fast. He packs a great deal of story into 24 pages. More importantly, he brings Caspar’s story fully around, to the point of Sigurd’s departure.
The artwork from Danielle DeNicuolo is simply beautiful. I know… I waffled on about how pretty her pencils were last time, but Jeebus, this issue is prettier. It’s almost as if last issue was a test balloon, to see if she had the hook she wanted, and now… well, she’s fishing the pond dry!
This issue ends on a terrific cliffhanger line, one I will not repeat.
More importantly, one which can mean many things, depending where the story goes.
Suffice to say, I am determined to follow this book. I would suggest you do so also.
Out of 5🌶 🌶🌶🌶🌶.5
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Locke & Key ‘…In Pale Battalions Go…’ #1 (IDW)
Writer: Joe Hill Artist: Gabriel Rodriguez
‘Where did Father find you? Be honest, I shall have the truth soon enough. I best not learn he hauled you out of some sordid immoral hole.
No. Worse. Canada.
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Locke & Key.
The story of Key House, on Lovecraft Island, has spanned years, for Key House, itself is older than the Americas.
The Lockes have forever been the guardians of the Keys to Key House, guarding them against the Evilthat wants to use them… for the Keys are Weapons. Not weapons like guns, and rifles and knives or spears. But Weapons.
Those which have the Power to Destroy. And the Keys DO want to be used.
Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez have taken it upon themselves to bring us another tale in the History of Key House. Thank Gods!
The year is 1918, and the Great War is raging in Europe. Jonathan Locke is 14 years old, and wants to fulfill his destiny, for the Lockes have been represented in every war. As the only son, this is his right, and with the Keys of Key House, there’s no telling what he can do…
Gabriel Rodriguez seems to have decided to leave everything on the battlefield with his artwork. His pages are so expressive, and capture the feel of the World War One era. If the closing splash is any indication, the actual war pieces will be fantastic.
As far as Mr. Hill, what can I say? There has not been a miss, even remotely, in his portfolio… and this latest edition of the Locke Family chronicle is no exception.
My only complaint, it relies on a conceit that the Reader knows the story already, and gives little information about the Keys in play… Now, this is a minor dig, for if the Gentle Reader perusing this truly wants to find the history of Key House, and its family of Guardians, they would merely have to purchase the prior volumes of Locke and Key, and read to their heart’s content.
Out of 5🌶 🌶🌶🌶🌶
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A Man Among Ye #1 & 2 (Image / Top Cow)
Writer: Stephanie Phillips Artist: Craig Cermak
‘You might try using the eyes that head, Jack, unless you fancy a new breathing hole. Still I do love the smell of gunpowder in the morning…
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Well, this is a pleasant surprise…
A comic about pirates. Not any pirate, not a ‘Jack Sparrow’ type of pirate.
No, this is a look at Captain John ‘Calico Jack’ Rackham, and more importantly, his first mate, Anne Bonny.
The stories of Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny and Mary Read are almost as extensive, and fantastic as those of Blackbeard, William Kidd and Bartholomew Roberts.
What makes Anne Bonny and Mary Read so special is their being successful Female Pirates in a male dominated world. Every bit as strong, independent, and batshit crazy as all the others of their time, Bonny and Read ran the British Navy ragged throughout the Caribbean, while doing so an all-male crew, an amazing feat for the 18th Century.
Stephanie Phillips has certainly done her research, taking this story from the sinking of a British frigate by Rackham and his crew, to the British Governor of the Bahamas, and his plan to capture all the pirates, and execute them.
Cermak’s art is nicely complementary to the story, however I find it a little trope-y… The Heroes / anti-heroes are pretty, the ‘Villain’ is an ugly brute, and things are a little to clean… This is a pirate story, on the High Seas, there is nothing clean and pretty about this…
But, I digress.
With two issues in, and the British on their tail, Rackham, Bonny and Read have their hands full. Knowing a little of the history here, I am looking forward to seeing how much legend Phillips mixes in with the facts of the raids on the Barbary Coast, the Tortugas, and the shipping lanes.
It’s really nice to see a non-Super, strong Female Led Book. Here’s hoping it gets legs, and readers!
Out of 5🌶 🌶🌶🌶🌶
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Bomb Queen - Trump Card Part 1 (Image - Shadowline)
Creator - Jimmie Robinson
‘Why the FU*%ing rush? *cough - cough* He’ll be gone like every asshole politician. They’re all the same.
Not this time. Trump changed the Constitution by repealing the 22nd Amendment. He’ll make himself President for Life if he wins this election.
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Sweet Jeebus. As if Jimmie Robinson hasn’t fed the zeitgeist enough with cut-off shirts and tiny, tight skirts, now he feeds the fears of America, outlining an America with a lunatic trying to rewrite Democracy… And the need for Bomb Queen to run against him!
This is my introduction to Bomb Queen, the ninth mini-series, each of the earlier ones a titillating wonder of humor and over-sexed action. At this point in her world, the anti-hero has had her own country for Super-Villains, and is now on the run, having beset upon by the World’s Heroes.
Captured by her Clone / Sire (these things are never clear), Bomb Queen is offered a choice, as it were. Run for office against the Orange Horror, or well, you know, because heroes aren’t really heroes…
His artwork is pretty, simple, and clean. There’s a certain elegance about the characters he draws. They’re not overmuscled, although the ladies do have exceptionally large ‘lungs’, which are emphasized by uniform cutouts (a’la Power Girl)…
This book is full of hoots, giggles, belly laughs, and unfortunately, the harsh reality of the 2016 Election. There’s a two page spread which harkens back to the CNN / MSNBC / National Television Network ‘Man on the Street’ interviews, with paraphrased quotes I heard about Trump over his opponents, and over Clinton. The idea that Robinson could make it fit so easily, and fluidly… well it both makes me ill, and gives me pause to want to read much more.
As I said, Jimmie Robinson has grabbed the National Zeitgeist by the shorthairs with this storyline, not because he’s rich, and just can, but because it’s just too soon, and no one will be able to deny the ugly nature of what they are reading.
This is worth a read to see where he takes it, to see if he has the stones to finish what he started, and to see HOW THE HELL Bomb Queen WALKS IN THOSE FRICKIN BOOTS!!!
Out of 5🌶 🌶🌶🌶🌶
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Cyberpunk 2077 Trauma Team #1 (Dark Horse Comics)
Writer: Cullen Bunn Artist: Miguel Valderrama
‘Everyone’s resentful of how little money they make. Doesn’t change anything.
We get the call.
We do the job.
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As I read this book, and watched the flashes of color race across my eyes, my first thoughts were ‘godsdamn, this guy makes Frank Miller look good!’
Gentle Readers, in my introduction to this book, inside the first 5 or six pages, I was making comparisons between the artist of this book, and the master of dark, splatter mayhem.
Miguel Valderrama has a very special touch to his pencils and inks, maybe he buys them from the same place, perhaps they are fashioned from the same tree and graphite quarry… whatever the reason, the cause, I want MORE!
The biggest difference is the lightness of touch, the fine lines, there are many more, much more elaborate detail than the broad strokes Master Miller uses, however, this is not a complaint. Rather , the observation is more of a wistful longing for a, well, a ‘What if Frank Miller Drew Everything The Way He Drew His Crowd Scenes?
The answer might be found in this book
Cullen Bunn’s story reads like a reality television story. This is a look into the psych eval of the lone surviving member from a Medical Evac Team. This Trauma Team has medics, and soldiers to act as guards, as the areas they are sent into aren’t exactly Beverly Hills, unless the 90210 has been overrun by the Crips and Bloods, and they are eating the shop owners.
As Nadia is running through her memories of the events, we are seeing it in real time, along with the interviewer’s requests for clarification. She appears to be a solid medic, her only concern being getting back in the field. She has a job to do…
Now, at first glance, this could be seen as pretty derivative… like Judge Dredd / Anderson as a Guard / Medic team… BUT… and this is a Big One, the comparison ends with the big helmets and firefights.
There’s none of the cynicism, or the poking fun at the Government / Branches / Cabinet Offices. Rather, there’s what feels like a genuine look at how being a survivor has effected this character, and how she is going to handle getting back out into the field.
I liked this. I have to say, I went in to this book with some preconceptions, and was happy to see them dashed. The interactions between the Team characters come across as real, there’s little stilted, unnatural dialogue… and that was a great thing to see.
The twist Bunn slams at the reader on the last page of the book, well, I want to see Issue 2, just to see how this plays out.
Out of 5🌶 🌶🌶🌶.5
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HEAVY #1 (VAULT Comics)
Writer: Max Bemis Artist: Eryk Donovan
‘I’ve got fifteen Hitlers to do away with before the end of the night!
They’re throats aren’t gonna slit themselves!
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Have you ever read ‘The Punisher’?
Seen R.I.P.D.?
Put the two together, you’ve pretty much read this book.
Hyperviolence, set to a redemption arc, while saving the Multiverse from the worst iterations of the Famous (both good and bad… Leonardo DaVinci as a bisexual foot fetishist who uses his genius to become Dictator of the World, and build weapons that are sexual torture devices???!!!???)
The redemption part?? To get to the Other Side, and redeem yourself, you have to partner with, and train the jerk who killed you and your girl, and make sure he doesn’t get killed when you are on the job!
Unless this is what you are into… HARD PASS!
Out of 5🌶 🌶🌶🌶
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We Only Find Them When They’re Dead #1 (Boom! Studios)
Writer: Al Ewing Artist: Simone De Meo
Boss, tell me if I’m out of line here, I don’t mind not knowi—
— But what IS this between you and Richter? What happened?
Oh, it’s quite simple, Jason.
She killed my PARENTS.
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I was hooked on this book before I got to these lines of dialogue.
I don’t know if it was the absolutely wonderful artwork, the beauty of the layouts, the detail, the ——Oh Hell, Simone De Meo’s artwork grabbed me and held me for the three readings I gave this book. I couldn’t get over the visuals, her place ts of panels, the character sketches… Hell, some of this was downright cinematic.
There are panels, and pages, that made me think of James Gunn’s vision of Knowhere… and that is high praise from me.
Al Ewing, what is there to say. After reading his work on Judge Dredd, i sought out his work wherever I could find it.. This is tough for me, not being a big Marvel Fan, since almost everything he has written has been for the House of the Iron Mouse…
The story, is simplicity. Explorers in Space find the corpses of the Gods. Well, that is as close as they can come to what they are.
There is a market for their meat, the materials which clothe them, certain parts of their organs, both a legal and a Black Market.
Once a Godcorpse has been identified, the Sutopsy Ships descend upon it, to stake claims. these are monitored by Escort Ships, in place to enforce Government Regulations concerning what can and cannot be stripped from the Godcorpse.
Violate protocols and die.
This is the story of the Vikaam Two, her captain, Georges Malik, his crew, and his plan to find a Living God.
I can’t wait!
Eight Bells… All is well…
Out of 5🌶 🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶
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Grendel, Kentucky #1 (AWA /Upshot)
Writer: Jeff McComsey Artist: Tommy Lee Edwards
‘You believe what Pap said about Clyde?
How he died?
Do I believe a bear killed my Daddy?
No Fuckin’ Way.
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1976. Junior Year of High School, my AP English class was assigned ‘Beowulf’ as an Advanced Placement Test read. In the Olde English translation.
It was an attempt by my teacher, a wonderful elf of a nun, to get her literary stunted students to stretch, comprehend, and recognize themes once they see them, in preparation for the exam and the expectations of college.
2020. As is my wont, I picked up all the First Issues of the Indy Comics at my local purveyor of Four Color Sequential Art, The Geekery.
While running up my near National Deficit weekly Comics tab, my eyes slid across the title, and the gritty cover… Hmmmmm, too much of a draw not to at least give a look, add it to the pile.
In the opening pages of this book, Clyde Wallace has dressed himself in catcher’s mask, chest protector and knee / shin guards (poor man’s body armor), and strapped on enough real and makeshift weaponry (baseball bat with spikes driven through the business end to an M-60 grenade launcher) to make Rambo, Negan and Max Rockatansky run screaming into the night.
Clyde marches into the mouth of a mine…
WHOA! By Hrothgar, King of the Danes… This is Beowulf… In Kentucky!!??!!
Set in 1971, the Beowulf character, Denny, is a veteran of the Viet Nam Police Action, his warriors, well they are an all female biker gang, led by Marnie, a woman his father raised from childhood. The King, Pap, is the Town Elder, and he knows something he isn’t talking about.
Yeah, this is already good, one issue in.
Jeff McComsey has written an offbeat take on the Beowulf epic, taking some very severe literary license with the story lines. The epic heroes and warriors, well, not so much. Relatively amoral, criminal for support, ahhhh lets face it, these guys are all anti-heroes, at best.
If this were today’s America, I’m not sure I wouldn’t be rooting for the monster.
But I digress.
The artwork by Tommy Lee Edwards is gritty, hard on the eyes, and, well appropriate to the story. His artwork HURTS at times, you can feel the violence, the intent, through the eyes. America in 1971, it was not a pretty place.
As a miniseries (1 of 4, so far), this is worth the read. Too much more, and it would feel like I was prepping for a test again… but I digress.
Out of 5🌶 🌶🌶🌶🌶
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Inkblot #1 (Image Comics)
Creators: Emma Kubert and Rusty Gladd
‘Sweet Suckleberries!
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Her Name is KUBERT. As in Joe, and Adam and Andy and Katie.
That alone earns her the right to a viewing.
The fact that this is a fun little book she co-created with Rusty Gladd, well, that’s a gallon of whipped Italian Sweet Cream on top of the cake!
Give this a shot! Buy it for your little ones, if you have any! Lie about having little ones, and buy it for yourself! You won’t be disappointed!
Out of 5🌶 🌶🌶🌶🌶.5
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Spy Island #1 (Dark Horse Comics)
Writer: Chelsea Cain Cover / Designer / Supplemental Art: Lia Miternique Artist: Elise McCall
‘Some people are afraid of the ocean. There’s a word for it: ‘Thalassophobia’. A fear of the open ocean and what lies beneath its surface.
Not me.
I think the ocean’s great*.
*except for the Kraken.
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SO. That happened.
There is an area of the Atlantic Ocean, delineated by vertices at Miami, Florida, San Juan Puerto Rico, and Bermuda, which has been the source of many stories concerning the disappearance of airplanes, ships, crews of ship, and unusual activities. This area, lovingly referred to as the Devil’s Triangle, or the Bermuda Triangle, is the source of this tale.
Spy Island is located somewhere inside the Triangle, and it plays host to spies, bad actors, scientists, etc from all nations, some other worlds, and all times.
It’s the story of Nora Freud, Agent for an unnamed country, possibly the USA, possibly not. She is a spy, and so much more. She is also a woman of action, who can perform any assignment given to her.
Including assassination.
Lia Miternique and Elise McCall have put together an artistically gorgeous offering in this book. Between the inserts for the fish, maps, the advertisements and covers, this a visually wondrous.The underwater scenes in and of themselves are masterful, offering a view of the ocean one might actually see off t a Caribbean island.
The story, well it is OK. Lots of self exposition, not much action (the best stuff is in the first 4 pages), this is setting up like a spy thriller, of sorts. DUH, bimbo!!! Look at the title!
It is a first issue, and seems to be tagged for a longer run, so, I’m willing to give Ms. Cain the benefit of the doubt here. She had to have given the artists the perspective to draw from, and I am cautiously optimistic, based on Mockingbird, and her NYT Best Seller Status…
It’s worth a shot, just for the eye candy…
Out of 5🌶 🌶🌶🌶.5
#indie comics#seven secrets#locke & key#a man among ye#bomb queen#cyberpunk 2077#heavy#we only find them when they're dead#grendel ky#inkblot#spy island#image comics#dark horse comics#boom studios#comics#comic books
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How the Devil Became a Dreamboat: Exploring the Byronic Hero with Kylo Ren
As it turns out, the popular problematic favorite and the OG problematic favorite are basically the same person.
Welcome to Elements of Story, a biweekly column about narrative tropes, what they mean, and why they just won’t go away.
For the inaugural installment of Elements of Story, and just in time for Valentine’s day, I’m going to dissect an archetype that has been causing a stir and setting hearts aflutter for centuries: the Byronic hero.
Definitions of the Byronic hero vary by source, but the basic gist is that he’s an arrogant yet emotionally sensitive rebel who rages against societal norms, is usually haunted by a dark and mysterious past, and has been a staple of romantic storylines for hundreds of years. You could literally write a book about the history of the Byronic Hero—indeed, multiple people already have—so for the sake of concision and also my continued sanity, we’re going to investigate the Byronic hero through the specific example of one of his most recent appearances: Kylo Ren (Adam Driver).
Ever since The Force Awakens first premiered, Darth Vader’s grandson and #1 fan has been a point of contention within the Star Wars fandom, particularly with regards to his dynamic with protagonist Rey (Daisy Ridley). While things have calmed down somewhat following the underwhelming finale that was The Rise of Skywalker, if you want to start a fight online about a galaxy far, far away, mention “Reylo” and see what happens.
One of the most genuinely befuddling things about the discourse surrounding Reylo is the frequently held opinion that its allure is anyway inexplicable or unforeseeable. Similarly, the common, lazy narrative that its popularity can be explained away as Adam Driver’s thirst-club projecting their desire onto the Star Wars universe reeks of ignorance. Whether borne of conscious intent or sheer coincidence, Kylo Ren is a villain who also fits a centuries-old romantic archetype like a glove in ways that are hinted towards in The Force Awakens and laid increasingly bare in each subsequent installment. That some viewers picked up on the Byronic subtext early while others did not simply speaks to the variance in media consumption habits and tastes between audience members. If you’re familiar with an archetype, you’re going to spot its likeness, and view said likeness through the lens of the implications baked in with that lineage. If you’re not, you won’t.
So, who is this Byronic Hero guy, anyway? Well, the tl;dr version is that he’s basically Satan and his origins predate Lord Byron by at least a few hundred years.
In truth, the Byronic Hero is so old that tracing his origins gets quite speculative. There’s not a singular definitive answer so much as a collection of theories. To give a relatively cohesive explanation of who this guy is and how he got here without writing a novel, I’m going to things down into two key questions:
What makes the Byronic hero satanic?
How did Satan become romanticized?
To address the first question, let’s start by talking about the Devil. I’m not going to say that John Milton was the first storyteller to make Satan cool, but he sure did make such a characterization mainstream with Paradise Lost. The most beautiful of God’s angels, Lucifer chafes at God’s omnipotence, convinces a number of his brethren to join him in a rebellion that ultimately fails, is banished to Hell and eternally damned, but stubbornly stands by his choices because, “better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.” Milton’s Satan was, to use modern parlance, a beautiful trash fire—a handsome, passionate dreamer whose quick-tempered fervor proves self-destructive in spite of his considerable intellect. He is, in other words, smart enough to know that his hubris will be his downfall, but too in thrall to his passions for that knowledge to save himself from such a fate. He is a tragic hero as defined by Aristotle, an inherently sympathetic figure not as much in spite of his flaws as because of them.
not as much in spite of his flaws as because of them.
Let’s stop for a second so I can convince you Kylo Ren fits this pattern, in case you aren’t convinced already. With his journey from Ben “too much Vader in him” Solo to Kylo Ren, his rejection of his heritage and violent rebellion against Luke Skywalker, he follows the same basic trajectory of Milton’s Lucifer. And as far as personality is concerned, Ben didn’t gel well with the “there is no passion” Jedi code, and unlike Anakin Skywalker, it didn’t even take the development of a particular relationship for things to reach a breaking point.
Now, as far as how Satan became a romantic figure, we need to make a stopover with the Romantics because the journey from Romantic to romantic is really just semantics. Romanticism was a prominent intellectual and artistic movement in Western culture that took place in the late 18th and 19th centuries and encompassed everything from literature and painting to architecture and music. It emphasized emotion, spontaneity, irrationality, and the individual with a particular focus on subjectivity, and is generally regarded as a reactionary movement—a rebuttal against the rationalism that defined the Enlightenment.
Romantics loved Milton’s Satan. “My favorite hero, Milton’s Satan,” Robert Burns gushed, lauding Satan’s “intrepid, unyielding independence,” “desperate daring,” and “noble defiance of hardship.” That Byron, one of his contemporaries, would channel his admiration for the same figure into a series of mercurial protagonists that would codify an archetype is hardly surprising. While crediting Byron with inventing the Byronic hero is a significant stretch considering the archetype is really just Satan rebranded, there is one key component of this character that Byron did add to the equation, and that is a particular kind of longing that a number of commentators have likened to homesickness. “Love is homesickness,” Sigmund Freud wrote in his seminal essay on the Uncanny. In terms of understanding the human mind, Freud is one small step above total quack, but as far as narrative theory is concerned he made some compelling arguments, this being one of them. As Deborah Lutz says in her essay “Love as Homesickness: Longing for a Transcendental Home in Byron and the Dangerous Lover Narrative,” “the Byronic hero often[…] is a criminal, an outlaw who is not only self-exiled, but actively, hatefully, works against society as a murderous pirate,” yet also often feels, “pains of remorse, not only for his crime but also for his self-inflicted homelessness.” Kylo Ren, with his laments of “I’m being torn apart,” and “let the past die, kill it if you have to” rhetoric interspersed with explosive bouts of self-loathing, could not be more emblematic of this facet of the Byronic hero if he tried.
All of this helps explain what makes this archetype emotionally engaging, but not how “self-hating emotional clusterfuck” became sexy. In order to get to the bottom of that, we actually need to go back quite a bit. In Western culture, sexuality, death, and evil have been birds of a feather since the nascence of Christianity, which took vague correlations between these concepts already present in several Greek mythological figures and ran with them. While the Devil is often depicted as a hideous beast, the concept that he might also take the form of a man—specifically, an attractive one—dates back centuries (Lucifer was the prettiest, remember), and is apparent in a number of surviving records of witch trial confessions detailing demonic encounters. But taking on a handsome face is not the only attribute frequently bestowed upon Satan and his kin. As Toni Reed writes in her book Demon Lovers and their Victims in British Fiction, “identifying Satan and other demons with sexuality, especially with huge phalluses, may well trace back to Greek mythology.”
That’s right. Satan has serious BDE. Do with that information what you will.
It’s worth noting that the Byronic hero is ultimately a beloved romantic fantasy not because it represents something many people want in real life, but precisely the opposite, much like0 how enjoying seeing the lions at the zoo doesn’t mean you want one in your house. He’s a darkly tempting, narratively intriguing prospect that is enjoyable to experience vicariously through fiction, a Pandora’s box that can be opened and then closed again without repercussion. Times and tastes change and the Byronic hero evolves to suit them—devil, tempestuous gentleman, wannabe Sith—but his defining characteristics and their guilty pleasure appeal are eternal.
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I must admit, I always had a crush on Gaston, from Beauty and the Beast. Yes, he was an idiot, but I loved his character design. I imagine a world where he got over Belle and knew another girl.
The girl’s name is Claire. She is Gaston’s wife, but aversely to most girls he had known, she was strong tempered and had a silver and often viperine tongue. When he married her, he knew exactly what he was getting into. He would spend a whole hour trying to avoid her killing every single girl that dared to lay eyes on her husband.
But when she’s calm, she takes care of their house, reads to him when he gets home and enjoys teasing him until he kisses her. They do complement each other, as Gaston thinks she is the only one in the world that can compete with his beauty, and she knows he’s the only one that can make her calm and not die trying when she gets mad.
So, AU’ full story under the cut if you like :D...
Gaston just let her go. She wasn’t into him, he got it, so he moved on, it was her loss.
Soon, news about Belle’s wedding with that beasty prince came to town. She had broken the spell, and now she became royalty. Totally out of his league now, but not that he cared much anymore.
A few months later, he was summoned by one of the richest men from the area. As a hunter, he was asked to provide food for him and his family, in exchange for payment. So he accepted, a job as good as any other.
After a few months, he was carrying his hunting bounty to the noble’s house, when he saw a little lass for the first time: She was short, her hair was silver as the moon and her skin as pale as snow. He couldn’t see her eyes, as they were following a lecture while she was in the garden. Well now, never in his life he had seen someone who could beat his own beauty.
He got close to her and said hi. To his surprise, she lifted her eyes and stared right to his. She nodded slightly, and he knew he was doomed. She had greeted him, a commoner, even when it was against common customs to greet a stranger and that he had that macho aura around him. She didn’t ignore him, nor looked down on him, but she also didn’t throw herself to his arms as many girls from town. Then he knew he had to own her.
When he asked the noble about the girl, he noticed that the man seemed uncomfortable. At first he claimed he didn’t know who he was talking about, but then the little lass walked in the room. So he introduced them; she was his oldest daughter, named Claire due to her light appearance. She offered her curtseys, but she kept her face free from emotion. His inner self was screaming to achieve a smile from that stiff lady.
As time went on, he found himself visiting the manor more often than before. Sometimes Claire would go out to the gardens, but most of the time she spent her days in her room. But when he was able to approach her, he never could get that promised smile. He started to notice that most of the time she seemed depressed, she had one heck of a bad temper and was sarcastic and would scold him for his bad manners, but she was never rude to him, even though his lack of subtlety. And boy, he knew she wasn’t that patient, as he had heard the screams and fights with her parents, followed by the sound of broken plates and slammed doors. What a hell of a pretty, little girl.
After many attempts, he gave up. He wasn’t going to achieve something by his ways, so he stopped, and began listening. She would start reading him beautiful though sad poems soon after he stayed in silence. Surprisingly, he found himself still awake and enjoying her company, longing for their meetings, wondering how her soft hair would look tangled around his rough hands, and hunting with all his might, so she could taste something from he had got specially for her delight.
One day, his curiosity won over, and he asked her how could a girl as beautiful as her be single. She choked, piercing him with her eyes, but she had built some trust towards him, so she told him his story.
Long turned short, she was born in a family that often bore girls who married higher ranked novelty. As the first child of her generation, her parents expected her to marry the prince from France in the future, but their hopes burnt to ashes when she was born as white as snow, as beliefs said kids with her hair color and skin where evil and people thought they carried misfortune. When she was rejected by the royal family, her parents thought she still had hope. But no one would want to marry her for something as stupid as her appearance. So she had grown up in that manor, away from society and constantly hearing that she was a failure, that she couldn’t manage to fulfill the family’s expectations and that the family’s honor had been damaged by her.
When she finished telling her story, she could see rage into his eyes. She was right. Gaston couldn’t believe it, it was plain 18th century and people still believed those kinds of superstitions.
“Marry me” He said. She opened her eyes wide opened, but regained her composure pretty fast, “I’ll ask your father for your hand, tonight”.
“Calm down, Romeo. He won’t let you. He plans to send me to a cloister as soon as I reach majority”.
He wouldn’t take it. Over his dead body he would let her beauty and grace get rotten in such a place.
“Then... scape with me. Let’s run away, come to my town. Everyone there respects me, no one will hurt you there”.
“What? Have you gone mad? My father will get you killed by dawn, pretty lad!”
“He has no power where I come from. No one knows you exist, he has kept your existence a secret as good as he can. I’ll let him know that if he tries to chase you, everyone will know about his run-away daughter, and as I am incapable of harming you this way, only you know about this. He will care about his family, his honor, and he will let us go away”
Claire stood there, frankly surprised. Amazing, this young fellow proved himself to be more than the pretty face she always thought he was... she didn’t had any attachments towards her family, so she cared a rat ass about her own reputation. But there was only one thing that kept her from accepting his offer.
“Gaston, I really appreciate your intentions, but you can’t play with a lady’s heart like that. A lady will think that you have feelings involved and get the wrong idea. You deserve to be happy with someone you love, someone happier and light hearted”
She almost fell back as she saw him moving so fast towards her that she couldn’t react. He grabbed her by the waist and lifted her, making her spin in the air as easily as if she was a doll.
“Is that one your only objection?” He asked, blissfully.
“W-what? How dare you touch a lady like this! L-let go off me, Gaston!”
He stopped and put her back to ground, smiling.
“A lady is the most foolish and hardheaded woman I have ever met, and I fell in love with her just the way she is”
And grabbing her head closer to him, he kissed her.
...
They did run away, and yes, her father had tried to chase them, but as expected, Gaston was really respected in town, and no one dared to lay a finger upon the newly weds. Her father gave up, secretly feeling relieve as she had finally gotten married. After a few years, he would even send presents and support to the couple once in a while.
As Gaston had promised her, she could freely go around town and she wouldn’t get insults because of her looks nor people would treat her differently from others. He had made it very clear, to whoever made her feel excluded or sad in any way possible, he would make their life’s a living hell and then he would spread their bodies across the nearest forest to feed the wolves. Everyone knew you don’t screw with Gaston.
He would also work really hard to give her everything she could wish, from jewelry to dresses, so she would be the luckiest woman in town by having him as her husband. She really didn’t need anything, but she gave up trying to convince him. He liked to show her around beautifully dressed.
And of course, she was aware that she was married to the most desired man from town, so shortly after getting married, Gaston realized that she could be amazingly possessive and jealous, while she would get mad whenever some girl started drooling about him. He found it kinda cute, but he also cherished his life and safety, so he stopped flirting around, finding it incredibly easy as he had the most beautiful girl in the world, he was sure.
And they lived happily ever after... well, not always happily, because each one had their own flaws to fight against to, but they stayed together and had each other’s backs, so they decided to call that happiness.
....
If you read this far, thank you so much for doing it! And please, forgive my English and any grammatical error or spelling mistake, as English is not my first language and I live in a hispanic country. And most important, excuse the excessive use of the word “as”, I really felt like I used it too much but I’m too lazy to change it. I hope you liked it! :D Yeih for villains redemptions!
“
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Fast-Forward: Part 2
Find part one: HERE.
Bright light flickered above her as she shifted underneath the heavy quilt. Claire was hot, warmer than she’d ever been in her life. The heat stifled her as she tried to dig her way out.
Seeing her distress, Jamie gently pried the duvet from the sides where Jenny had tucked it in tight. He’d been with her all night, watching and waiting as if to assure himself that she was safe.
Jenny and Ian had been raging when he’d driven home, his sister’s face alight with fury as he’d pulled his car to a stop in the drive. Rushing from the porch, Ian had tried to pull her backwards, his gaze apologetic as she’d waggled her finger at her wayward brother.
But upon seeing the small ball curled on his backseat, Jenny had stilled.
“What on earth, Jamie Fraser,” she’d whispered, opening the door and peeling back the furry blanket to reveal the tiny slip of a girl dressed in funky 18th century clothes.
“I found her. She just appeared up at Craigh na Dunn…” his voice petered out as he reached out to run a single finger along her exposed cheek.
“The fairy hill?” Jenny gasped, her eyes flickering from Jamie to the girl. “Very strange, and ye thought to bring her here...why?”
There was nothing unkind about her words, more a lilt of morbid curiosity. But as Jamie carried her from the car to the spare room, the Frasers began to feel a strange camaraderie with the stranger.
She’d slept for almost a whole day, barely moving an inch. She had been vocal though, crying out as if to quash the demons that rose behind her eyelids as she dozed.
Jenny had forced Jamie from the room as she’d stripped the lass down, removing her grubby clothes in favour of something altogether more comfortable.
Jenny’s cry had brought Jamie rushing back into the small box room just moments later as the pair looked over their new guests mangled back.
“Who would do such a thing?” Jenny gasped, holding her hands over her mouth as if to stop herself from vomiting on the spot. Jamie and Jenny swallowed simultaneously as Jamie reached forward and ghosted his hands over the deep welts. Not physically touching the wounds, he traced the lines with his fingers, his mind trying to conjure a reasonable explanation for the violence that had so harshly been leveled against her.
“She’s been thrashed,” he whispered, wishing he didn’t have to vocalise these particular notions, “wi’ a whip. Cat o’ nine probably from the look of her. There are still wee patches where ye can see how the lead balls hit her.”
“Poor thing,” Ian replied from the doorway, his eyes catching his wife-to-be’s as she ran her shaky hands through her loose hair. “Can you aid her?”
“No’ likely,” Jenny scoffed, her throat clenching painfully at the thought of having to stitch the poor creature back up again, “she’ll need to be admitted. I’ve seen them fix up men on the battlefield wi’ shrapnel wounds similar, but the chance of infection and death is still high. She’s already bordering fever as it is.”
Jamie had convinced Jenny that above all else, the wee thing needed sleep first and foremost. Doctoring could wait a day or so, and it was likely the hospital would put her to rest before any major surgery as it was.
Hovering behind the closed door, Ian held Jenny’s hand as tightly as he thought reasonable. He could see the anguish in her eyes as she shuffled her feet against the thick wooden floors.
“What are ye thinking, love?” He whispered, pausing as he listened out for Jamie mumbling over his sleeping patient.
“What if the person who hurt her is...well, ye ken verra well. If he’s her husband, we’ll have no choice but to send her back.” The words stuck painfully in Jenny’s throat as she spoke. She’d been training as a nurse before the war had started. Back in those early days she’d seen many a battered wife, all of whom had no escape from the brutality of their spouses. She knew here, at Lallybroch, they could protect her if that was the case. But only if the man responsible for her injuries didn’t catch up to them.
“Dinna werrett too much, Janet,” Ian soothed, rubbing her arms as he pulled her into his chest, “our Jamie’ll protect her...as will we.”
Feeling her limbs freed of the constraints that had held her through the night, Claire scrunched her shoulders and curled her legs up to her chest. She felt something light touch her forehead, a brief lingering whisper of contact that brought conflicting feelings to life beneath her skin. The bed beneath her was too soft for a jail cell, her surroundings too warm to be Fort William’s dank dungeons. But she knew she hadn’t been in her right mind, and the last memories she had were of the harsh ring of the British army right behind her, ready to drag her back to her hellish prison. It was entirely likely that her mind was cushioning the blow, allowing her a minutes peace before the imminent torment began again.
Sensing her reluctance to wake, Jamie busied himself. Tidying here and there, he made sure her feet were still covered as he waited for her to open her eyes naturally. Eager as he was to unlock her secrets, he also understood that employing any force in the matter would be detrimental to her recovery.
“Where am I?” Pushing herself up, Claire blinked, her pupils pained by the brightness of the room as she tried to move without disturbing the welts on her back. Her voice cracked as she spoke, her throat raw and dry from disuse.
Jamie turned, holding his hands behind his back as he took a step closer to her, his fingers fumbling in the back pockets of his trousers.
She eyed him with some trepidation as she took in his appearance. He could see the shock as her eyes darted all over the room, analysing every little fixture and fitting as if seeing it for the first time. There wasn’t much to the attic bedroom, which was one of the main reasons Jamie had for putting her up here. One small lightswitch and only a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. The fireplace was stacked with logs but the heat rose from the floors below rendered it mostly useless.
Gripping painfully onto the bedsheets, she caught sight of the light. Swallowing audibly, she sat up straight, her spine going rigid at the sight.
“W-where am I? Please…” she repeated, not looking at him as she spoke.
“Yer in the highlands, miss,” Jamie replied, dragging the wooden chair from beside the fireplace so that he could sit beside her once more. “Lallybroch to be precise, it’s near Beauly. But I found ye at Craigh na Dunn, nearer to Inverness.”
“D-did you see the soldiers...the army?” She choked, almost buckling under the pressure of the words as she stumbled as she spoke.
“Nah,” Jamie chuckled, without humour, “ye willna find the British army up there now, lassie. The ones left in service are all in Coventry, Manchester and London if no’ scattered about the places that need them the most.”
Flicking her eyes from the bulb back to Jamie, her posture seemed to loosen at his statement, the worry fading from her face as she leant sideways against the ancient headboard. The wood creaked as she did so, startling her for a split second.
“I canna keep calling ye lass though, aye? Will you tell me your name now?”
Shuffling her backside against the bed, she dragged the sheet up to cover her chest as she tilted her head to the side. Appraising him, Jamie could tell she was assessing the immediate danger, ensuring that she wasn’t about to land herself in hot water if she revealed who she really was.
“Claire,” she finally replied, obviously making her decision as she nodded her head once, “Claire Beauchamp.”
“Nice to meet ye, Claire, Claire Beauchamp,” Jamie returned, smiling as he repeated her name exactly as she’d given it to him but with a lighter tone. He hoped that injecting a little humour might relax her some.
Forgetting herself for just a moment, Claire leaned back further, flattening her back against the intricate patterning on the headboard. Gasping she reeled forwards, the sores blistering painfully as certain parts of the masterfully carved wood stuck into the semi-healed slashes that ran along the middle of her spine. Tears sprung to her eyes as she remembered the lash hitting her over and over, the merciless slap of the leather tearing chunks from her thin flesh.
Jamie stood, the legs of the chair scraping along the floor as he dashed forwards.
“Don’t...please!” Claire cried, one hand held up in surrender as the other clung to her middle as if holding herself together. “Don’t touch me.”
The words triggered distant memories and Jamie stumbled backwards, his cheeks flushed as the rage simmered beneath the surface.
“I willna touch ye, I promise, Claire. No’ if you don’t wish me to. But we have to get you seen to. If you don’t get those...wounds,” struggling to find a neutral word to describe her injuries, Jamie paused for a moment before continuing, “seen to, they’ll get infected and you’ll be verra sick.”
“I-infect?” She questioned, her damp eyes catching Jamie’s as she tried to understand his strange speech.
“Aye,” he returned, his brain working overtime to try and come up with another word for it. Maybe, he thought, looking her up and down for the millionth time, someone had kept her hostage. It had been known. Solitary men taking weans and locking them away from the world so they had no notion of...well, anything much upon their release. “They’ll become red and sore, ye ken so far?” Claire nodded.
“Dirt that’s already in yer...cuts...will linger there and cause you to become sick.”
“Does that mean you know what to do about that?” She asked hopefully, her fingers loosening their hold against the cotton fabric as she bent closer to Jamie.
“I don’t, no. But my sister does. She’s a nurse. We’ll get you to Inverness, to the hospital…”
“No!” Claire all but yelled, jumping to her knees as fear took a punishing grip on her once more. “N-no. Not Inverness.”
Jamie waited, but she didn’t qualify her statement. Instead she shifted her knees against the soft mattress and shook her head wildly, her eyes wide as saucers as her chest rose and fell at an excruciatingly fast pace.
“Claire--” he began, hoping to assuage her fears. But he could already see the cogs turning. He knew in that moment that it would take something incredibly powerful to change her mind. “Alright,” he submitted, backing up a little more as he held eye contact with her, “I willna force you to go. But,” he continued, waggling a finger in her direction as he spoke, “if Jenny’s skills dinna heal you properly and you get fever, ye have to promise you’ll let me take you to someone more senior.” Seeing her ready to argue he held up a hand to stop her, his eyes serious as he finished. “I will protect you, Claire. But that can only happen if ye let me help you too, aye?”
Nodding, Claire felt the fight leave her as she exhausted the last of her energy. Squirrelling back under the blanket, she lay on her side, eyes open and focused only on the window ledge as she tried to comprehend her new situation.
Seeing her calm *distress*, Jamie slid alongside the bed and tapped on the glass filled with water that he’d left on the bedside table.
“Drink something, Claire. For me. I’ll leave you be for a wee while, just while I go and fetch Jenny and her medical kit. Rest up.”
Closing the door softly behind him, Jamie bent his head against the door, closing his eyes as he exhaled loudly. His fists balled at his sides, he fought against the urge to throw something, deciding instead to put his anger to better use.
Stomping down the stairs, he went in search of Jenny and Ian, desperate to begin proceedings as soon as possible.
Claire listened as her savior's footsteps vanished, the sound of his footfalls disappearing as he wandered off.
Breathing in through her nose, she climbed from the bed and silently made her way to the tiny window. Sounds of whooshing had disrupted her conversation with Jamie and her eyes had glazed at the sound. Unable to place such a...racket, she’d shaken off the uneasy feeling that had taken root at the base of her spine in favour of listening to her host.
Running her fingers over the chipping wood of the windowframe, Claire looked below, her eyes catching the shine of the large blue object hidden in the shed opposite. Its black wheels gleamed in the sun, the silver metal of the rims reflecting the yellow light as midday approached. She had never seen anything like it. It *looked* like a sort of posh carriage, but there was nowhere for horses to be attached.
Odd.
Glancing to the left, she could see the windy drive as it faded beyond the tree line but nothing more *irregular* appeared, for which she was grateful.
Stepping backwards, Claire viewed the sill below her, her eyes catching the indentations that lined the old wood. Just as she was about to turn back, something twinkled, catching her gaze as she slowly stepped forwards once more.
Her fingers reached forward as her breathing began to hitch.
Jamie’s name was carved first. It was crude and jagged, as if it’d been done with a dull blade. Next to it sat ‘Jenny’, written in slightly neater font with a little more flair. But it wasn’t the names that caught her attention. There, next to the ‘e’ in Jamie was carved a date.
Trembling, the tips of her fingers traced the number over and over, her mind reeling at the digits as she tried to make some sense of it.
Finally turning her back on the facts, she stumbled back towards the bed and slid herself under the sheets. Ignoring the water, Claire pulled the duvet over her head and sunk deeper into the mattress, her whole body shaking as she muttered over and over, her words inaudible to human ears as she tried desperately not to pass out once more.
“19--46…1-9-4-6...1946.”
#;Mod MBD#Fast-Forward#jamie x claire#Eventually#Claire falls through the stones#Modern Jamie AU#Role Reversal Time Switch AU
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Hey this is the same anon who asked the question about Taewoong getting hit at the busking, and yes I wanted to know your opinion on it if you don't mind :3
Of course I don’t mind, I just really wasn’t sure whether you wanted to hear my opinion or a rendition of what exactly happened, sorry. ^^’
There are two main things that I’d like to mention.
1. Let’s start with what I’ve already talked about a little in the previous ask. You probably know that because of the strong Chinese influence (and the belief that basically everything Chinese is the highest form of perfection) up until the 18th century confucianism had HUGE power over all aspects of life in Korea. Since then it’s become less prominent and a lot of other things - science, globalization, various philosophies and religions etc - have found their way into Korean customs but confucianism is just so deeply rooted in Korean society that people still act on it subconsciously. One of the most basic rule of confucianism is: respect your elders. Which sounds nice. Really. Carrying heavy bags or giving up seats for them is common everywhere. But that’s not what Koreans mean by respecting your elders. Sure you have to do those, plus you’re also expected to use a different level of speech, receive things with two hands and bow deeper to them. Ok, fine, sure. Oh, and you also can’t smoke or drink in front of them or make direct eye contact during conversations or basically do anything they disapprove of in their presence. You especially can’t complain or start an argument with them. That’s just unheard of. In the Far East you are taught to be servile, while in the West you are taught to fight for your justice (unfortunately people often take it as you have to fight whether or not you’re right and completely disrespect others while doing so so no, it’s not an ultimately better system if you wanted to take that away from this). In Korea if you have colliding opinions with an elder, they’re automatically right and you’re wrong. End of story. People in higher social status just do not lose to those in lower ones. And the real problem with this system is that elders often abuse their authority. They know that they can practically get away with anything. Some young boys in their twenties are doing something unusual near my shop? There is a group of girls standing around them and they look like they’re about to be really loud! What do I, the old shop owner lady do? I don’t exactly know what they are doing but it’s just not appealing to me so because I’m older, I’m perfectly entitled to stop them - however I want. Pushing one of them would definitely deliver the message! So she does. And everyone just stands there, not sure what to do, how to react. Someone eventually asks her to leave and they continue the event but the old lady gets away with it like nothing happened.
2. And that ties into the second thing I want to mention. This honestly didn’t occur to me till I read that ‘unpopular kpop opinions’ post. What if this happened to another, more popular group? The international fans would be indignant for sure but if I don’t count the online rage, they could actually do next to nothing for the member of said group. How about the Koreans present, you ask? Well, honestly? I don’t think things would be that different. Seriously, what would the fans/staff/members do? Gang up on the lady and idk push her back or what? Because I’m absolutely certain that they would never take legal actions against an old lady pushing some youngster on the street. Talk to her themselves and explain what and why they are doing and why she shouldn’t push them over? Sounds like the best solution but this kind of lecturing is just as unlikely in Korea as calling the police. So no, I don’t think it would’ve played out that differently even with a more popular group - not to mention that big groups don’t really go busking on the streets to promote themselves.
Finally, let me just say: we don’t exactly know what happened and even though I’d like to believe that after the whole thing the old lady realised that she shouldn’t have done that and apologised, let’s be real, that never happened and I’m sure Taewoong has thought more about what he might have done wrong to deserve that than the lady has thought about apologizing.
So let me summarize this wall of text. My opinion? Elders should learn some manners to deserve the amount of respect they receive in Korea.
I haven’t talked about it with anyone yet so I’m very curious what you guys think. Anyone reading this (props to you, it’s more than 800 words oops), I’d love to read your opinion so tag me/send an ask/message me or idk what else please~
#long story short: sad but not surprised#also#yes i was quite harsh there i know#snuper#taewoong#ask#long post
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whoops just wrote a 1300 word drabble thing about my personal headcanon for charles’ childhood haha. I was going to cut it under a read-more but I'm really happy with it so it’s staying like this... then again it's crawling on 4AM during a week where I've been getting only one to two hours of sleep a night, so it could actually read like a nightmare and I'm too tired to tell LOL
Every man and woman, whether they’d eventually become sinner or saint, was once nothing more than a child. Charles Vane, one of the most feared, vicious pirate captains of the 18th century, had started as a scrappy, dirty boy with his hair long and wild, running careless through the streets of the unremarkable fishing town he’d been born in. With a drunken coward of a father, Charles’ only reprieve for decent upbringing came from that of his mother. Johanna, her name was, and she had deep brown hair the same color as Charles’ and eyes the very same bright, cutting blue.
Johanna was a woman of strength, far more refined than her low upbringing gave any right for her to be. In spite of the unfortunate turn in her life, being married to a man such as Charles’ father, who was good for nothing other than finding himself three sheets to the wind before sundown, Johanna grew to love what had become for one simple reason: Charles was born.
Johanna loved her son. At times when she wasn’t working up the street for the Goddings (a wealthy family she served), she was in her garden, humming or softly singing songs, or sitting by candlelight and reading from the books Lady Goddings would allow her to borrow. During these moments, Charles was always at home. He sat in the garden with her, listening to her sing, or sat by her side while she read aloud and was entranced by what spirit she brought to the words. These were kind moments between the pair and they were kind moments which were always interrupted by the return of his father – when the man managed to return home, that is.
Johanna never stayed quiet around Charles’ father, often telling him exactly what she thought of his habits and how wretched of a father he was to his boy. She wasn’t a shrill woman, but a woman built with an iron-rod for a spine, who looked down at his drunken, hung-over father and spoke in a low, even, cold tone to push her point across. Her voice would never raise and she would never nag, but Johanna was not the sort to sit idly by and allow her husband to think his behavior was okay.
He was, of course, too selfish to do anything about the choices he made other than to keep making the same mistakes time and time again.
Though Johanna was careful not fill her son with any false hope as to his standing in society, she made certain he understood the importance of not following the same path his father did. She wanted him to make something of himself, to be better than the man whose name he bore. With her ability to lift her chin and continue making the best of the life she had, Johanna helped instill a foundation within Charles more concrete than anything else in his young life.
This wasn’t to say Charles was a particularly decent child. He played on the docks most often, enjoying the way the wind picked up and the sharp, briny scent of the sea burrowed sharp inside his nose. The older he grew and the more attention he drew to himself, Charles somehow found the wrong kind of attention. A small group of boys, some smaller than Charles and some much larger, began to taunt him. The son of the town drunk was an easy target, but what enraged them even further was his inability to ever cower to them or fear them. They could (and did) leave Charles in a bloodied heap after they struck him and kicked him and shoved him down, but he’d always fight as much as he could until they’d decided they’d inflicted enough damage for the day.
Then, when next they saw him, expecting him to bow his head, they’d instead find that same fire, that same defiance.
Johanna disliked seeing her boy as damaged as he was, but while she never once told him to engage in the brawls, she never once told him not to. There was a certain pride in her eyes to see the fight inside her son, to see he would always challenge the world to become what he wanted to be. She never told him, but she was proud of him just the same.
Unfortunately for young Charles, his life didn’t have the chance to unfurl without tragic interference. A brute of a man, once privateer turned pirate, turned his rage upon the small, seemingly insignificant village Charles lived in. There was no warning, there was no obvious motive. Before the town could prepare themselves, cannon fire tore wood to splinters and shattered stone to pebbles. Men stormed the beach with wild laughs and growls more beastlike than human, their blades soon wet with blood, their clothes soon soaked. They lit fires where they could brush flame against dry fodder and the smell of death was soon joined by that of the world aflame.
When three men rounded on Charles, Johanna, and his father, Charles’ father threw himself at their feet and begged for mercy, promising whatever they’d take to spare him. He spoke nothing to the pale-face of his wife or to his trembling son, but begged them over and over, spare me! Spare me!
His cries became nothing more than a gurgle as a blade pressed through his throat, bursting through the back of his neck, cutting him off immediately.
Johanna shoved Charles from her as the men advanced toward them. Go, she urged her son without ever looking at him, and though her hand was trembling, her jaw was set and her eyes blazed with defiance he knew well. Charles hesitated only a moment, but Johanna urged him again and the panic in her voice was enough to know there was no room for question. He tore himself away from her, running, but halfway through the house immediately decided he wouldn’t be the sort of man who ran away.
He pulled a beaten, metal rod his mother often used to poke the fire in their hearth and turned back around, feeling sick to his stomach, dizzy, with his blood rushing in his ears so loud he could barely hear his mother’s screams. Rounding into the room Charles saw the exact moment one man slipped the sharp end of his blade into Johanna’s pretty white throat, splitting the skin so easily it nearly looked fake. The red, red blood stained her skin and her dress. She choked. Her fear-filled eyes locked with her son’s as he stared in the doorway, fingers still grasped tight around the metal rod… and then she was dead.
The man slipped his sword back and laughed.
Rage became Charles, filling him with heat he’d never before felt. He cried in anguish, raised the metal rod and charged forward with blind aggression, laying it with all his might against the man’s back over and over again. After the initial surprise he and the two men who were with him quickly overpowered Charles, though he still spat at them, cursed them, and tried to free himself from their grasp. Any moment he managed to slip away, he didn’t run, but only used it as an opportunity to attack them again. Their skin was beneath his dirty fingernails by the end and though he was bloody, though he was bruised, and though his head pounded for how hard they’d struck him, they bore the marks of his anguish as well.
Perhaps it was a curse Charles had fought the way he had. If he’d run, maybe he would have been slain for simple sport. If he’d never dared show what spirit lurked within him, maybe Albinus would not have decided he was of the few treasures to pluck from the town they’d torn to shreds. Maybe he wouldn’t have had to spend the next six years as a slave boy to the very same men who’d slaughtered his mother.
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