#brief reference to slavery and loss | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

pomodoriyum · 3 months ago

Text

James Fitzjames and the Island of Bird Shit: historical connections/references in AMC's the Terror, and what that might say about JFJ's character

finally had time to write this up; below the cut is a brief introductory discussion of historical happenings re: guano trade. by no means am i a historian or an expert, but its a topic that's highly important to me especially when trying to understand a character like james fitzjames. Just a head's up-- it's pretty damning, and continues to add layers to his character, especially what his arc has to say about imperialism.

So let's begin-- key here will be the phrase:

First, a few sources that serve as a good introduction to the topic. Below, I've bullet-pointed the most important aspects of the articles (at least, as they relate to this meta).

Key points/areas:

WTF is guano: it is poop. "Guano islands" are small islands that are inhabited by bats & birds, esp. for breeding, and are mostly found off the coast of Peru. they are (or were) giant piles of poop. literally the size of mountains. Andean people harvested guano from these islands for a long time-- at least 1,500 to 5,000 years before colonization.

The guano age (1802-1884): note that the 'discovery' of guano by westerners happened sometime in the 1500s, and that its popularity as a fertilizer (and material for gunpowder) didn't hit until the 1800s (and 1870's for the gunpowder?). this caused a farming boom across the united states and europe, and a massive demand to extract it via mining. this extraction was done in the most evil and foul way possible, of course, because of capitalism, racism, and colonial imperialism.

Guano was such a powerful trading tool and moneymaker that the USA (and other countries too, I think) passed laws that encouraged citizens to claim any guano island they came across (hypothetically, these islands had to be 'unclaimed' by other governments, but, y'know how those things tend to go & who the USA deigns to recognize as a government). I believe that the USA still claims ownership of at least 10 islands (many in dispute), and the Guano Act also ensured that it was 'legal' for the USA to hold lands without declaring them as part of the USA, all while taking resources, enacting &enforcing laws, allowing the US military to operate on these places-- without the benefits of statehood & representation for the people who live there. This was the act that created an excuse for continued colonialism and theft, all in the name of money & literal shit. (no hate to the birds & their poop, though! I <3 ecology). also fuck the supreme court they were the ones that really solidified this into law with the case Jones V United States (1890), which was about a labor revolt where the workers (black) killed their overseers (white). they added bricks to the foundation of USA as Empire

Imperialism & colonialism, displacement & colonialism, Slavery-- all of these were things that happened in lockstep with the guano trade. It was horrible. Details about it can be found in 1493 by Charles C Mann

Working Conditions, slavery, exploitation of chinese immigrants & hawaiians, exploitation of black american immigrants-- almost all of these people were tricked into signing false job contracts, then kidnapped and brought to the islands by force where they would endure unimaginable working conditions until they were worked literally to death. please recall the context of the opium wars, as well (1839-1860), which happened during the same time frame, and which JFJ participated in.

Ecological importance & links to unsustainable farming practices that are causing climate crises / pollution / loss of topsoil (beginnings of over-reliance of fertilizers, which stress soils and cause microbial problems when misused-- which is all the damn time, because massive monoculture capitalistic farms don't care (and frequently the farmers themselves can't afford to care due to bottlenecks in the packing market!) about maintaining their soil. that's a whole other can of worms though and is worthy of another post.) nothing to do with JFJ tho. Important to note that the ecology of these islands has been destroyed for mining, like almost every known mine industry in history. extraction has a really, really high cost, and that cost is foisted onto the people who are being exploited by richer nations. please remember that this pattern still happens today, and that the overconsumption and lavish lifestyles of the global north are directly to blame for the climate crisis that's causing untold misery in the global south. <- this part isnt in the articles, btw, and if you want a more thorough discussion on this i'm happy to recommend some places to start. i fucking hate US empire and the 'conveniences' of consumerism. ouuughhhh mad now. if youre in the global north please stop ordering packages from amazon and fight for public transportation near you. im begging. like obvs theres much to be done but those things are simple and easy places to start. unhook yourself from the 'joy' of 'purchase'. p l e a s e. p l e a s e. OK. back 2 post

Historical connections to the irish potato famine (the andean potato blight hitched a ride to britain in a shipment of guano, kickstarting the famine [which was then intentionally exacerbated by the english])-- how does this impact JFJ's relationship with Francis?

It's important to note that these mines are still active, though the labor conditions have improved since their inception (i havent done much research into the labor conditions currently, so keep in mind that 'improved' might not actually mean that the quality of worklife for miners is acceptable or humane!). I think Peru is the place with the most well known guano industry, and it's still one of their exports.

TLDR: 1. guano became popular as a fertilizer in the USA/europe. 2. this caused massive demand for guano mining and mine expansion, including voracious demand for workers. 3. slaves, prisoners, and immigrants were all forced to work in horrible conditions mostly to death to fill ships with mountains of unprocessed shit. 4. This guano also was a vector for the potato blight which started the Irish Potato Famine. 5. i love birds & bats and im so fucking mad that guano was used to create bad farming practices that destroys our soil

If you'd like to read a more detailed discussion of the guano trade and its impact on people, I strongly recommend checking out 1493 by Charles C. Mann -- very user friendly and good for people who don't enjoy super dry history (like me). i'm sure theres other great resources about this as well.

Okay, so now that's out of the way. You too, reader, have at least some idea of the broad horrors of the guano trade. So what's that to do with Mr. James Fitzjames?

Let's take a look at this picture again. I think it says all we need:

most importantly, this line specifically links James Fitzjames to an island covered in bird shit. this is absolutely a reference to the guano trade, which occurred beforehand and in parallel to the franklin expedition.

the next question is: in what way is JFJ linked to the guano trade? was he an overseer there? was he 'just passing by?' Did he act as part of a military enforcing terrible labor conditions? We don't really know and can't say anything conclusively as far as show!JFJ, but the implications are not great.

obviously crozier bringing this up serves to shut the conversation down. nobody likes that he makes this comment; it's reminding them of something distasteful. jfj never expands on this point about 'birdshit island'-- honestly, i suspect it's something he's got a great deal of negative feelings about. i'd read it as guilt, but im not a great person to ask because i have a really hard time being objective about JFJ (he's one of the people from the show that I'd most like to hit with a car)

Please note that one of the populations of folks being kidnapped and worked to death were Chinese people. taken in the context of the rest of that conversation, where JFJ brags and laughs about setting chinese people on fire , it's uh-- well, it really, really emphasizes just how much harm JFJ does to chinese people specifically. And sure, we don't have confirmation about what exactly he was doing on 'birdshit island'-- but if it's something he's bragged about before / told stories about before, I don;t think it was anything good, considering what he enjoys telling stories about. especially since the Navy is used to enforce authority on people and as a tool of oppression.

Fascinating to note that the trade of guano is intricately linked to the irish potato famines, as the guano both enabled the monoculture farming practice and acted as the vector from which the potato blight spread. Francis is Irish!! this is just such an interesting detail!!!

In conclusion, there's nothing really definitive that we can say about what exactly JFJ was doing at the islands-- except that it probably wasn't a good thing. i do think we can safely read that he was involved in the industry somehow, which is pretty fucking damning in terms of his own ethics (or lack thereof) and how much he embraced english imperialism. it's one of those tiny details that has so much to say when you peel the layers back, and i wanted to bring some attention to it, because i haven't seen anyone talking about this before.

also, i *just* noticed this, but slipping the word capital in there is so so fucking slick. right on the money, we could say. three big cheers for the people who wrote and performed the Terror, because holy shit is it so good

EDIT: there's some additional discussion in the replies section of this post that's critical-- it seems like JFJ was (peripherally?) involved in the guano trade in Africa, *not* Peru, which changes things forsure. bird shit island how you intrigue me....

#the terror #the terror amc #james fitzjames #the terror meta #pomodoriwhines #anyway feel free to add on to this if you’ d like to continue the discussion!!!#there is much to say on this for sure!!#thought it would take waaaay longer to weite this up but i went into a fugue state lol #hope i didnt make any silly errors lol 😭

65 notes · View notes

she-posts-nerdy-stuff · 4 months ago

Text

Somehow, Through the Storm

Summary:

Living in the slums of the Warehouse District, Kaz and Inej are struggling to cling on to life through a seemingly unending winter. Wrapped up in a stranger's overcomplicated marriage contract that he is convinced is key to solving the merciless weather, Kaz remains busy and distracted for days on end, putting everything else at risk. So when a storm ravages the city and sweeps Inej into danger, the offer of safety, food, and a place to stay is an overwhelming one - no matter the cost. Terrified of mounting threats, Inej signs a contract - not knowing she would land herself trapped at the Menagerie. Kaz signs a contract that states if he can walk all the way through the city and back to the Warehouse District with Inej behind him, never looking back at her, they will both go free. But this is the Barrel, the darkest part of the city where the rules of physics can change with the stroke of a pen; the journey back will not be the same as journey there…

This is a Hadestown-inspired reimagining of the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, casting Kaz and Inej as our main characters and heavily featuring our beloved Crows, set in an alternate version of the Grishaverse with a different magic system based entirely on contracts.

Tags: @lunarthecorvus @marielaure @multi-fandom-bi @iggy-gotthisaccountunderduress @thelibraryofalexandriastillburns @devoted-people-hater @spraypaintstainonawhitewall

If anyone else would like to be added to the tag list let me know <3

Warnings for this chapter: references to death of a parent, reference to struggles with mental health, grief, loss of a child, implied abuse references, implied child abuse references, trafficking references, slavery references (similar to Kerch indenture contracts), anxiety, brief reference to past marital rape/non-con

AO3 link:

Somehow, Through the Storm - Chapter 19 - She_posts_nerdy_stuff - Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo [Archive of Our Own]

Chapter 19 - Marya

“What’s my name? My name is-” “Our lady of the Underground” “Brother, what’s my name?” “Our lady of ways, our lady of means” “Brother, what’s my name? My name is-” “Our lady of the upside-down,” “Wanna know my name? I’ll tell you: Persephone”

- Our Lady of the Underground, Hadestown

Marya could have cried from the moment she set eyes on the house, but she managed to restrain the tears until she was inside - and alone. Alone. She was actually alone.

It felt freeing for about the first two minutes.

Her childhood home was set back from the river quite a way, but she knew the shape of the land well and from the moment that they reached a particular meander in the river she felt like she had arrived. Which was marginally unfortunate, because there were actually another twenty minutes to go before they docked and it had made her feel impatient. She leant over the railing, watching the rural landscape unfold around her.

She loved the countryside. The pain in her chest at seeing it again, so long past and yet the landscape so perfectly unchanged, was greater than she anticipated. Her grip tightened around the metal railing, the flighty fabric of her gloves slipping against the curve. She released a long, contented breath as she studied the hills, the bends of the tributary snaking away from them as they continued down the river, the buildings that, from this distance, seemed like miniature things that could have been made of clay.

“We’re almost there,” she promised Penelope, quietly, “Fifteen minutes or so. The carriage ride from the harbour is short, but it will be enough time for me to talk you through the plan,”

“The plan, ma’am?”

“Just rooming and the like,” Marya kept her voice even, uncertain of whether or not her husband would have already given Penelope instructions about this, “It’s a slightly smaller house, but only my mother and a small staff. We’ll discuss it in the carriage,”

“Of course, ma’am,” said Penelope, very softly.

Marya glanced back over her shoulder, peering down the river as though she might have been able to see the city that long since faded into the distance. Or as though she was checking that it wasn’t following them. Ketterdam was, of course, long out of sight by now. Marya moved her gaze to the rose that was sticking out of the breast pocket of her coat. She glanced once more back at where the city would have been, had it been following her, and then plucked the flower out and crushed the petals in her palm.

“Dispose of this,” she said, holding the flower’s corpse out for Penelope to take, “And would you please get me a drink?”

“Of course, ma’am”

Marya didn’t move her attention away from the view but she felt Penelope’s absence, listened to the minor and then vanished patter of her feet. The landscape watched her impassively as the boat chugged on along its journey, and after a few minutes Penelope reappeared with a slender glass, curved along the rim so as to be suitable for travelling aboard a water vessel, of water. It had not been the kind of drink that Marya had in mind, but she downed it anyway and then handed the glass back.

“Do we have any brandy?”

“I’ll check, ma’am,”

Marya nodded.

“Thank you,”

The girl did, indeed, return with a glass of brandy and Marya held it in shivering fingers. She had to force herself to sip it slowly instead of tipping the thing straight down her throat, which was tempting no matter how wholly improper it was. And on a boat with no other passengers and such, perhaps she could - but no, no. She sipped the drink in quietude, hoping that it would somehow calm her nerves. She needed them to settle. She needed not to feel messy and foolish and childish and sorry for herself when she finally saw her mother once more.

It has occurred to her in the past few moments, as she wondered whether Penelope would have specific instructions for her husband about aspects of this trip, or whether she would be insisted upon to report back to him on her behaviours. Downing the brandy would certainly not be a good idea - but, Ghezen, what if ridding herself of the rose hadn’t been sensible either? Maybe she shouldn’t have done it - oh, oh but it was too late now wasn’t it? She took another shivering sip of brandy. Well, so long as she behaved herself for the six months to come, perhaps it would be - not fine, he would not forget the slight if it were reported back to him, but so long as she was careful it would only be this one issue of discussion.

Just breathe, she’d reminded herself, gripping the base of the glass as tightly as she possibly could without breaking it - or, as was more likely in these Saintsforsaken gloves, having it slipping straight out of her grasp and shattering on the floor or falling into the river. She did her best to steady herself.

Within the safe confines of their carriage, no other staff but the driver and footman outside, Marya had spoken softly to Penelope about the most likely arrangements at the house. She hadn’t wanted to mention it in detail at home, nor on a boat owned by her husband and manned by his staff, but - and whether it was because she was a self-hypocrite or simply a fool - she had come to trust Penelope to a decent enough extent. Maybe she was slipping. Maybe she needed to go back to just keeping her mouth shut.

“We’ll be on different floors to each other,” she said, “It’s unusual for us, I realise, but there’s simply no alternative arrangement,”

Penelope had always been in a small adjoining room to the master suite in the Van Eck mansion, from where she could easily be available at any time. Officially speaking, Marya wasn’t even sure that she was supposed to go anywhere without the girl as her accompaniment. She didn’t really remember when Penelope had appeared in her life, so she supposed it must have been then or shortly afterwards, but her ever-presence had become a strange comfort even in Marya’s endless quest for temporary privacy.

For all the other timing that she had calculated, she had never paused to do so for her time spent with Penelope. Perhaps because the percentage was going to be far higher than she cared to admit to herself; the girl was there when she woke, opening the curtains and bringing her tea and tablets, and she was there before she went to sleep, closing the curtains and bringing her tablets. Sometimes she wondered if Penelope must despise her. How couldn’t she? But even if she did, she was the closest thing Marya had left to a friend.

“You will probably have more free time than usual,” she managed, biting the inside of her lip, “We don’t - we can relax, a little,”

Penelope looked at her like the concept was foreign, then nodded a little as she adjusted herself on her seat. Marya wondered what the girl had once done for fun, in the years that it had existed.

Her mother wasn’t there to greet them from the carriage, as Marya had hoped she might be, but she was waiting in the foyer. Marya had stepped out onto the driveway, heard the pebbles crunching beneath her feet, and suddenly wondered if she might be about to collapse to her knees and sob. This was the place she had been born; where she stood now was where she had fallen and grazed her knee at seven, where she had stepped into the carriage that took her to her wedding, and where she had watched the carriage carrying her father’s coffin leave; this was the building she had gown in, studied in, danced in, cried in; the place that she had met her husband and the world that she had left behind. How long had it been since she’d come home? Her chest ached.

The pebbles had always been a wholly impractical driveway. They had more than once in Marya’s childhood been an issue for the horses, who had to have their feet tended to when stones cut them or became stuck within their shoes, they were uncomfortable crunchy and bouncy to drive along in a carriage, and they made it harder to carry anything to and from the house. Marya twisted her heels so they dug a little deeper into the pebbles and smiled. Her silly, impractical driveway that her parents were forever saying they should change and had never done anything about. She was home.

Penelope had turned to collect their travel bags from the carriage, but Marya called her back and asked the footman to deal with them instead so that they could step inside together.

Age had not led Marya’s mother to giving up on entirely pointless formalities, but Marya supposed that she hadn’t really expected any different. She’d traipsed after the servant who’d greeted them at the door whilst trying quickly to smooth her skirt down as much as possible, and wondered too late whether her hair was neat enough after the journey because the door to the foyer was already opening and her name was already being announced. She fixed her posture as quickly as she could manage, and stepped through the doorframe wondering whether other women in their late forties still feared admonishment from their parents.

“Marya!”

Her mother had greeted her with a slightly unexpected embrace, and in that moment Marya thought once again that she was about to break down into a melting pile of tears. But she gripped herself tightly, laid an arm across her mother’s shoulders to return the gesture, and pulled away with a smile.

“How was your journey?” her mother asked, leading her towards the sofa by one gloved hand.

Marya was almost so caught off guard that she found herself without an answer; her mother was still holding her hand, still smiling, asking her questions.

“Jan didn’t say why you were delayed, is everything alright? Oh, and look at this! You stood on the deck the whole time, I can see that - goodness, look at your hair,”

She reached out to fix one of the strays, and Marya sucked her teeth as she smiled again. No need to ring alarm bells for the apocalypse after all; her mother was still her mother.

“I’ll fix it before dinner,” she managed.

“I should hope so,”

She almost could have laughed.

“It’s so good to see you, Mama,”

“You too, my love,” she pulled Marya a little closer to press her lips briefly against her forehead, “My precious girl,”

They’d sat for a short time talking before a soft knock sounded on the door and a maid stepped inside.

“Excuse me, ma’am; you asked me to inform you when Mrs Van Eck’s room was prepared,”

Marya couldn’t help but twist her shoulder, slightly, at the title. Sometimes she forgot that was her name.

“Well that’s about time, too,” her mother complained, as Marya stood and offered her a hand to follow.

“Mama, please-”

“A half hour before your arrival I told them to be ready. Ghezen, no-one does anything properly around here anymore,”

“Mama,”

Her mother ignored her. Her eyes had landed, for the first time, on Penelope, and she was frowning. Penelope looked marginally terrified, but Marya wasn’t entirely concerned - her mother tended to have that effect on people.

“You don’t work for me,”

“Mama, this is Penelope,” said Marya, attempting to cross a tightrope between remaining polite to her mother and begging her to be polite to someone else for once, “Jan said he told you she would be accompanying me; he said you would have a room for her,”

“Yes - yes, of course, I’m sorry,” she said, before acknowledging Penelope with a brief nod, “Well you know where your room is my darling; Janie will show your maid to hers,”

Penelope glanced nervously between Marya and the maid at the door, presumably Janie, before Marya gave her what she hoped was a reassuring nod. She took herself for a brief walk around the house, before she went upstairs. Just to stretch her legs, after the journey. Just to see it.

It didn’t take the front hallway to break her, not even the worn out rug that the cat used to sleep on because it was perfectly positioned to catch sunlight from the window above the door. It didn’t take the wide salon to break her, not even standing and staring blankly at the very spot she’d stood on to meet her future husband. It didn’t take the corridor that ran along the edge of the kitchens at the back of the house to break her, not even though she could smell the herbs and vegetables that had been brought in fresh from the garden instead of shipped for miles to reach them. It didn’t take the slender doorway to the servants’ staircase to break her, not even the thought of hiding behind it and pressing her back against the handle as someone rattled in it in fury to try and find her. It didn’t take the staircase to break her, not even the chip in the paint that she had caused when she was fifteen and no-one had ever got around to fixing. It didn’t take the first floor corridor, where the ever-closed door to her father’s ever-empty office watched her walking to the next staircase. It didn’t take the second floor corridor, not even when she caught her toe on the rug that lined it just as she had done a thousand times over, her entire life.

It was only when she opened the door, when she was confronted by her childhood bedroom, that Marya broke.

Nothing looked any different than it once had - even her bear, though he had been carefully propped up on the armchair next to a cushion instead of laid against the pillow, was present and accounted for - but it took Marya several minutes to pick herself up off the floor and wander through the dreamland. It was hers, yes, and it was all the same - but somehow that felt inherently incorrect. Her bed - a bed that she had never been forced in, a dark and twisting thing in her chest voiced the realisation of - was, of course, unslept in; the bookshelves dusted but untouched; the curtains still before the panes, when they’d always been partly lifted by the breeze when she was here because she liked to keep the windows open; her wardrobe still storing the pale dresses of a twenty-year-old girl. It felt like she was floating through a memory - no, that wasn’t right; this looked far too unlived in for a memory. It was like being in a museum, some kind of display about what the world used to look like when people had lived inside this house; everything was correct, all present and accounted for, kept neat and tidy and perfect, but it was devoid of life. You didn��t feel that anyone really existed here.

Marya had been back inside this room since she was twenty. She knew she had. She must have been. She would have brought Wylan here, when he was small, to see his grandparents, and surely she had visited with her husband at least twice. Had she ever been back alone? Yes, her mind promised her - but it couldn’t catch hold of the memory. Marya paused, leaning against the white-painted bedpost and studying the canopy. The funeral? That might be why she couldn’t remember it properly.

Marya’s father had died when her son was three. It had not been entirely unexpected, they knew his health was deteriorating, but it had somehow shocked her all the same. She knew they’d left Wylan at home, as tiny as he’d been, but had she come alone? She tried to search her mind, but truthfully she hardly remembered the funeral at all. And now her mind was wandering to the places that she never allowed it to go - no, it wasn’t wandering at all it was running; it was running through the wild and locked-up places that she had firmly told it not to ever touch, evading her every attempt to catch up and drag it back.

Wylan, three years old, sitting on her lap. Wylan, seven years old, getting paint in his curls when he came to see what she was doing in the art room. Wylan, barely months into his life, slowly relenting from his wailing as she rocked him in the middle of the night, singing him lullabies. Wylan, nine years old, leaning against her chest and weeping silent tears into her blouse as she sang him the same songs.

That one fucking stung. The memory hit her like a punch, crystal cut clarity of her son’s tiny frame pressed against her own, the feeling of her lips pursed so tightly together as she tried so desperately not to try in front of him.

“It’s going to be okay,” she’d promised him, when the lullaby was done, “Mama’s got you,”

Wylan burrowed closer and Marya closed her eyes, rocking him silently back and forth, trying to form a surely doomed escape plan deep in the back of her mind.

“Mama’s got you,” she said again, “You’re safe,”

The muscles in Marya’s legs would appear to have temporarily stopped working. She was on the floor again before she’d even realised it, kneeling at the foot of the bed, unable to control the tears spilling down her cheeks.

She didn’t even notice that anyone had knocked at the door until it creaked nervously open.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, are you-?” Penelope’s voice broke off as she leaned around the doorframe and laid eyes on Marya; as Marya turned in surprise to see her, “Marya?”

Marya lacked any possible response, but could only watch as the girl pushed the door quickly shut behind her and hurried across the room. She let her put an arm around her shoulders, and took the handkerchief she offered her in silence. They’d been sitting there for a long while before it dawned on her that Penelope had used her name. She turned to look at her; her voice barely loud enough to exist as she whispered:

“You called me Marya,”

Penelope’s face blanched, her hand stiffening against Marya’s shoulder. Marya reached out and laid her own gloved hand on Penelope’s.

“Thank you,”

The girl shrugged.

“No-one… no-one should have to deal with bad memories alone,”

Maybe Marya should have been concerned that she could read her so easily, but instead she dared to venture:

“Do you - you don’t have to answer this, but… do you remember things? From before?”

“It’s easier here,” Penelope admitted, after a brief bite of her lip, and Marya felt aware that her words came more easily here as well, even her general awareness of the world around her, “So far from the city, I suppose. I can… I don’t usually know my name, until you say it - and then you say it and I think of course, but the shape of it goes away again,”

Marya watched her as she spoke. The girl had physically drawn into herself, knees pulled up and arms tucked into her chest, but this was the most she’d ever had of a real conversation with her before and, in that sense, it was the most open Marya could have imagined her being.

“I don’t always know your name,” she said, “but it comes a little easier. I didn’t… except for when you ask me - I don’t mean that you pry, only like when you asked me if I’d ever left the city, or-”

Maray nodded, trying to calm the quickened pace of her words.

“Except for then, I don’t always really know that there was a before,”

“But… now?”

“My name is Penelope. I know I had a surname but I don’t know what it was. I lost… something- or someone? Something happened, when the… the…”

She tapped her forehead twice, then drew a little circle on it with her fingernail.

“It was in the city,” she said, still trying to show Marya what she meant, “They had the circles and… it did something else. They had fevers, and something-”

“The firepox?” said Marya suddenly, “The Queen's Lady Plague?”

Penelope nodded.

“I was very small,” she closed her eyes and Marya knew that she was there; she pictured her as a small child, wandering alone and frightened through the disease-ridden streets of Ketterdam. Her voice was a dreamy, vague whisper as she went on: “There was a woman… such a pretty woman. She said she’d help us. It would be so easy. I didn’t understand - she wanted my sister, really; bigger than me. I just… sort of happened to be there too, I think. It would be so easy, she promised us. All we had to do was sign our names,”

Marya felt a little ill. She knew, in theory, that her husband had capitalised massively from the plague by offering Grisha contracts to people desperate for safety from contagion, most of them those without anywhere else to go - and she knew he hadn’t been the only one.

“How old were you?”

“... eight? Maybe nine. My sister was sixteen, I think,”

She was the same age as Wylan, maybe a year older. No. She was the age that Wylan was supposed to be. The age he would have been by now, if his mother hadn’t failed him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “No-one should have done that to you,”

“Well,” Penelope turned her face back to Marya’s, smiling under her slightly tearful eyes, “Couldn’t have you left here all alone, could I?”

She nudged their shoulders against each other, and Marya found an absurd laugh escaping from her throat.

“I’ll say thank you,” she smiled, “But I really wouldn’t recommend this course of action in the future,”

Penelope raised an eyebrow, surprising Marya with the dry response:

“I’ll remember that for next time,”

Marya had made a decision - or maybe she had made the choice a long time ago, but was only just realising she’d done it. She didn’t know. She just knew that if it came down to it, and Ghezen knew that at some point it probably would, she’d make sure that she protected Penelope from anything she possibly could. Her son was beyond her protection, but the girl sitting next to her was not. Was she? No. Marya had to believe that she wasn’t. She had to believe that she could keep her safe.

6 notes · View notes

voiceoffenrisulfr · 1 year ago

Text

Multifandom Flash Bingo Masterlist (Beehive)

'Ax-Crazy' Silver & Gold - Chapter Nine. Natasha Romanoff (ish) x Original Male Character. Lia gets frustrated while waiting to recover from her injury, so her Soldier tries to take her mind off it. CW: Pure Smut :) 'Schrodinger's Butterfly' Silver & Gold - Chapter Seven. Natasha Romanoff (ish) x Original Male Character. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between reality and darkness. CW: Sudden personality changes, verbal abuse, distress, subconscious self-harm (mild), references to past self-harm and abuse, unrealism, fat shaming.

'And Now You Must Marry Me' With Eyes to See and Ears to Hear - Chapter 24. Clint Barton x Matt Murdock. It's the finale!

'Deja Vu' On The Tide - Chapter Six. Bucky Barnes x Original Male Character. Things are tense after the accidental kiss, and Lieutenant Tyne learns more about his newest recruit. CW: Mentions of homophobia and criminalisation of homosexuality, vague references to theoretical SA. 'Cheshire Cat Grin' With Eyes to See and Ears to Hear - Chapter 23. Clint Barton x Matt Murdock. Matt is caught in the shower, and Clint decides to punish him. CW: Kinky sex, sexual ‘punishment’.

'The End... Or is it?' Hail Hydra - Chapter Twelve. Bucky settles into his prolonged captivity until his creator is ready to return to him, and finds out exactly what it means to obey without question. CW: Restraint, forced obedience, physical punishment, sexual slavery/non-con, self-induced vomiting, disassociation following trauma. 'Wipe That Smile Off Your Face' With Eyes to See and Ears to Hear - Chapter 23. Clint Barton x Matt Murdock. Matt is caught in the shower, and Clint decides to punish him. CW: Kinky sex, sexual ‘punishment’. 'Blood from the Mouth' Hail Hydra - Chapter Two. Bucky’s captors leave their prisoner to fight through his illness. CW: sickness, overeating, paranoia, imprisonment, poor treatment of POWs, infection.

'Accidental Pornomancer' The Real Winter Soldier, Part Two. Bucky Barnes x Original Male Character. Winter is restless and needy, and takes advantage of having the Lieutenant's private number. CW: Smut, Breeding kink, Dom/Sub dynamic 'Dream Tells You to Wake Up' Silver & Gold - Chapter Seven. Natasha Romanoff (ish) x Original Male Character. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between reality and darkness. CW: Sudden personality changes, verbal abuse, distress, subconscious self-harm (mild), references to past self-harm and abuse, unrealism, fat shaming. 'I'm Cold... So Cold...' Hail Hydra - Chapter Three. When Sergeant Barnes starts to recover from his illness, he’s given other things to worry about. CW: illness recovery, temperature torture, hypothermia, loss of consciousness.

'Idiotic Partner Confession' Silver & Gold - Chapter Eight. Natasha Romanoff (ish) x Original Male Character. Everyone's favourite couple go exploring - but not everything goes as smoothly as they'd like. CW: Exposure, hypothermia, accidental injury. 'Man Bites Man' Hail Hydra - Chapter Six. Bucky seeks comfort. CW: Flashbacks (including forced amputation and brief body gore), Nightmares, T-rated smuttiness.

'Amnesiac Liar' Say You're Sorry. Bucky Barnes x Tony Stark. After months of apologetic pleading with no end in sight, Tony concocts a way for Bucky to earn his forgiveness - but it won't be easy. CW: Smut, punishment, mentions of murder and brainwashing, bad bdsm etiquette, punishment turns into sex. Loss of virginity. Kind of dub-con vibes? But not? The consent is very enthusiastic.

'Made a Slave' Hail Hydra - Chapter Eleven. Bucky gets to his new home, and is treated with surprising tenderness- until he isn't. CW: Violence, slavery, implied risk to life. 'Apocalypse Cult' Hail Hydra - Chapter Fourteen. Bucky finds out what it is to be a part of Zola’s experiment, and is marked as Hydra’s property. CW: Death of an unknown character, corpses, non-con body modification, sexual assault.

'Bigger is Better in Bed' In the Dark of the Night. James Buchannan 'Bucky' Barnes x Clint Barton. From the world of Multitudes (can mostly be read as a standalone smutfest though). Clint and Buck can’t remember the last time they had some time alone, so decide to go camping for a night and get away from the pressures of parenthood. The usual sexytimes ensue. CW: Basically PWP.

'Crying After Sex' Gold & Silver - Chapter Two. Natasha Romanoff (ish?) x Original Male Character. Our Aurelia finally gets what she wants, and the first date ends with a bang. CW: Smut.

@multifandom-flash

3 notes · View notes

easays · 1 year ago

Text

Violence Engines and Improvisation

Hi! This an actual play mini-essay. I use these mini-essays to practice writing about the shows and systems I spend so much time listening to and playing. In this essay, I discuss the distinct contribution improvisation and actual play make to contending with systemic violence. Below are spoilers for the most recent Worlds Beyond Number episode (29) as well as discussions of grief, anger, systemic violence, and brief references to chattel slavery.

As always, thanks for reading. Feel free to drop me a line if there’s an actual play you think I should listen to and discuss or if you have thoughts to share!

I know I’ve posted about this ad nauseum at this point, but the way @worldsbeyondpod pulls at my grief heart strings is unbelievable. I also think it’s part of a larger creative distinction in actual play worth exploring more deeply.

Most recently, Aabria Iyengar’s character Suvi has a moment where the truth of her parent’s real names give her a chance to pull on an endless web of scenes and stories they were in, tuck them away, and take them with her. These are memories she would never have access to otherwise, from parents she’d never be able to speak to. My heart raced in the moments of lead up here: I could feel my own grief in my throat, coated with names I would’ve screamed into that well of memories.

And she doesn’t do it. Iyengar says it’s too much for Suvi, and she pulls back. I was driving to work on my first listen, and I screamed “no” at my empty car before I even realized it. It vaulted out of me, like it was my own chance to know my parents taken away. I had to pause the show and spend the rest of my drive in silence because I surprised myself at how real it had felt.

How could it feel so real? Why does it matter that it felt so real? I stewed in my own thoughts. Violent war tore Suvi’s parents away; systemic governmental neglect and homophobia killed mine. It was not a 1-to-1, so the feelings bubbling in my chest had taken me by surprise. I began to think about the violence in both worlds, and how they act as containers for lives and stories. I think it’s more complex than violence begets violence, going beyond feeling the unfair grief at Suvi’s losses and my own.

There’s a quotation in Katherine McKittrick’s /Dear Science/ where she discusses improvised musical performance as a way to harness a glimpse of violent lived reality. She’s positioning it through the lens of chattel slavery, illustrating that improvised performance using waveform sound is a momentary way into the storm of the Middle Passage.

“I read Drexciya [the band] not as necessarily emerging from a narrative of the Middle Passage toward an Afrofuture aquatopia, but instead a collaborative sound-labor that draws attention to creative acts that disrupt disciplined ways of knowing…[They] create a signal with different sounds, thus taking waveform, synthesizing them, to provide a soundtrack to the storm: they electronically harness the storm…They harness the storm and then let it go. Improvisation demands practice and structure—it is not a natural process, it is practiced creative labor that is physiologically enacted.”

The importance of the improvisation here is the implicit acknowledgement that it cannot be the “real” thing. But that recognition is a freedom to create through and with rather than as, to show us all that creative labor is a necessary component to imagining a future otherwise without an abandonment of realities both historical and present.

There are one hundred ways to take this an apply it to the improvisation actual play creates, but the one I’m most interested in at this moment ties to the continual question of why Dungeons and Dragons for WBN? The racist and colonial violence’s historically baked into the system have led me, at other points, to lean more into viewing DnD based actual plays as mirrors of our own worlds. They are tales of inescapable violence and dominion that we must see and learn from. But is that all they are? Are those stories using DnD simply replicating violence, so that we can see and think maybe this is the time that the lesson sticks? I now think “not always.”

Charlie Hall recently spoke with the cast about this choice, and his conclusion draws on the fact that DnD is ultimately a system based on what the players and DMs choose to do rather than a pre-set violent outcome. This excerpt from Brennan Lee Mulligan sticks out:

I agree with Hall, and I also wanted to think more about what this work does at the audience level. What are we let in to when we are folded into this intimate, illuminating creative labor that we did not help build? I am not suggesting that this work is directly equivalent to what McKittrick examines. Her work deals with the horrific reality of chattel slavery and its innumerable legacies of violence and horror. What I am suggesting is that her interpretation of improvisation is critical because it acknowledges the distinct creative labor improvisation requires that leans into historical and contemporary realities, violent or otherwise, rather than flinching away. More importantly, these creations do not pretend to be simulacrum or representations.

I draw this quotation because I think it incredibly illustrates how to draw on something historically violent and the way it’s seen to reformulate it into something new. The “food” of Iyengar, Ishii, Wilson, and Milligan’s performances, like Drexciya’s waveforms, are the main vehicle. Taylor Moore’s sound design anchors their work, perhaps acting as the baking container if we extend the metaphor. We are drawn into the soundscape of the world, until we forget for a moment it is not our world.

For me, I think the most incredible element is that split second where I go “it’s not our world, but what if it is? what if it could be?” That is the power of improvisational creative labor, and the moment from this most recent episode I referenced at the top is only one of a thousand moments given so far. The cast distinctly push against the 1-to-1 reading of our world into theirs and vice versa, and my reading here is part processing the creative liberty and power when we loosen the reigns to see fictive worlds as mirrors. We seem to gain new perspectives, introspectively and externally, on the ingredients making up our world when we seem them used, rearranged, and made in the same crucible of violence our own lives exist within.

#actual play #brennan lee mulligan #aabria iyengar #lou wilson #erika ishii #worlds beyond number #worlds beyond number spoilers #wbn spoilers #suvirin kedberiket #eursulon #ame

6 notes · View notes

bradshawsbaby · 2 years ago

Text

Si Vis Amari Ama

II. Healing Hands

SERIES MASTERLIST

Pairings: Rooster (Roman Name: Gallus) x Female Reader (Roman Name: Sabina), featuring Hangman (Roman Name: Carnifex) x Phoenix

Summary: A girl whose freedom was stolen to pay her father’s debts. A gladiator enslaved for the entertainment of Rome. A love they never thought possible.

Author’s Note: Time for them to finally meet! I’ve been looking forward to this part, and I hope you enjoy it!

Word Count: 4.7k

Warnings: Slavery in the ancient world, injury in gladiatorial combat, mentions of blood, references to medical treatment, angst, brief language, alternating point of view.

“Sabina! Just the person I was looking for!”

You looked up in surprise at the sound of the semi-familiar voice calling your name, carefully lowering the serving platter you’d just spent the last twenty minutes painstakingly scrubbing onto the long, flat wooden surface of the kitchen work table.

Without thinking about it, you wiped your hand down the side of your tunic and then winced. You were still getting used to the finer quality of your clothing now that you had been acquired as a household slave in the villa of Atticus Cornelius Juventus. All your life—or, at least, all the time you’d been the property of someone else—you had only ever worn roughspun tunics made of cheap fabric that tore so frequently you’d become an expert with a needle and thread before your seventh birthday. Now, however—now things were different. Dominus and Domina had very exacting standards when it came to appearances, from their own all the way down to the lowliest kitchen slave.

“Everything has to be perfect where they’re concerned,” Phoenix had once whispered to you, the tiniest hint of derision in her voice. You admired the way the loss of her freedom somehow hadn’t stripped her of her independent spirit. “Even their slaves are the best dressed in Rome,” she explained, her dark eyes rolling back for a moment.

It was true. Though your tunics—you actually had more than one now—were nowhere near as fine or as delicate as Domina’s, there was no denying that the quality was the best you had ever known. It had made you anxious at first, wearing such a fine tunic while carrying out all your chores around the villa. You’d seen others punished for making a mess of themselves, and you didn’t want to face the same fate.

Over the past two and a half months since you’d entered the service of your masters, Domina had scolded you on several occasions for being too careless with your appearance.

“Don’t wipe your hands on your tunic like a common sewer rat,” she’d snapped one evening after you’d finished helping to set the table for dinner, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “You should count yourself lucky that we’ve deigned to give you something so fine.”

“Yes, Domina,” you had murmured in embarrassment, lowering your head as was expected.

“I think our generosity deserves a bit of gratitude, don’t you, my love?” she asked, tilting her chin in the direction of Dominus.

He looked more interested in his wine than he did in the conversation at hand, but he nodded and waved his hand in agreement anyway.

Domina turned her gaze, shrewd as a cat’s, back on you. “Go on. Say thank you,” she demanded.

“Thank you, Domina. Thank you, Dominus,” you said meekly, bobbing a small curtsy for emphasis. Nearby, you could sense Phoenix’s eyes narrowing in the direction of your mistress.

“Now be gone from my sight,” Domina waved you off, reaching for a ripe fig resting on the platter before her.

From then on, you’d been incredibly self-aware of your treatment of your clothing and your appearance, though from time to time you still caught yourself slipping up.

Like now.

You bit your lip, but the tension in your shoulders eased when you realized that there was no one about who would scold you for the simple mistake. Not even Titus, though he was a freedman and in the employ of your masters.

It was Titus who had called for you, much to your surprise. Though you had interacted with the medicus on a few occasions over the past couple months, the conversations had always been short and you could see no reason why he’d be seeking you out now.

“Hello, Titus,” you said politely, rising from your seat at the table and bowing your head respectfully, though he waved you off. As a former slave himself, he never stood on such ceremonies. “Can I help you with something?”

The older man smiled, the deep lines on his forehead and around his mouth creasing as he did so. “Actually, yes. Yes, you can. I need your assistance at the ludus,” he told you, his steady, well-trained hands resting calmly at his sides.

Your eyes widened at his request, and you felt a strange dip of—it wasn’t quite fear, but rather some disconcerting feeling deep within your stomach.

You had known when you had been sold here what kind of household this was. Dominus didn’t acquire his riches by chance, but rather through the lucrative business of gladiators. And from what you had gathered, his private ludus boasted some of the very best fighters Rome had to offer—including their champion.

Any trepidation you’d had about living on a property with such brutal men had been put to rest, however, when you realized just how large the villa of Atticus Cornelius Juventus was. Situated in the fashionable district of the Palatine Hill, the household itself was separated entirely from the ludus—the gladiator school where the fighters worked and trained and ate and slept. You knew that many of the household slaves from the villa also performed duties at the ludus—Phoenix was one of them—but you yourself had never had occasion to cross that barrier.

And you’d been perfectly content with that arrangement.

“Oh,” you stammered shyly, looking up at Titus as he gazed back at you expectantly, kindness brimming in his dark eyes. “But I thought that—well, I just—”

Titus laughed softly, though in a way that let you know he wasn’t mocking you. “Dear girl, you don’t have to look like a gazelle they just let loose in the arena. The boys won’t bite you, I promise you that. Well, most of them won’t.”

You felt your face growing warm at his words, and you bashfully twisted your hands in the folds of your tunic. “O-of course. I just thought that—well, doesn’t Phoenix normally assist you at the ludus?”

“She does,” Titus nodded, running a hand through his graying hair. “But she’s out at the moment running errands for Aurelia.” The corner of his mouth twisted slightly at the mention of Domina’s name. Your mistress seemed to have that effect on many people. “And the boys just arrived back from an event at the arena. I’m afraid Gallus is wounded rather badly, which means I’ll need an extra set of hands.”

Gallus.

You recognized the name. Though you had never been to the Colosseum yourself, it was impossible not to hear the talk of the famed gladiators who graced the sands of the arena. And even if you didn’t hear the talk, the graffiti plastered across the city was enough to get the point across, down to the lewd and shockingly explicit drawings.

Gallus was the one they called “The Barbarian from Britannia,” the undefeated champion of Rome who was able to take down any opponent thrown his way, man or beast.

And he resided right here, in this household.

“Me?” you asked, eyes widening once more, this time in shock. “You need me to help you? I mean, wouldn’t there be somebody better—”

“From what Phoenix tells me, you have quite the touch when it comes to caring for those who are sick and injured,” Titus cut you off, a smile curving his lips as he raised his eyebrows curiously.

Your skin grew hot at the undeserved praise. “Oh, but that’s different. I mean, I can help with small cuts and burns, bruises and bumps. Things like that. But a—a gladiator?”

“Trust me, he bleeds just the same as you and me,” Titus assured you, taking you by the arm and leading you through the kitchens and across the open gardens of the villa until you came to the locked gate through which you had never entered before. Pulling a small ring of keys from inside his toga, Titus fitted one into the lock and turned.

The sound of it reverberated through your skull as the old medicus guided you through the opening in the gate.

Titus must have noted your growing agitation as you walked across the empty training grounds and towards the private cells where the gladiators resided because he gently patted your arm and glanced down at you with a sympathetic look in his eyes.

“He’s asleep right now,” he told you quietly, guiding you surely past sealed door after sealed door. How many gladiators were kept here exactly? “He wouldn’t do you any harm—don’t let the name fool you—but even so, he should be fairly worn out while we’re tending to him.”

“What happened to him exactly?” you asked, your trepidation slowly giving way to a sort of gentle curiosity. You had seen brutal injuries over the years, but the thought of seeing a gladiator’s injuries up close made you feel a little woozy.

“Took part of a battle ax to the chest,” Titus replied, as if it were the most common thing in the world. He must have noticed your eyes bugging out of your head because he quickly added, “It’s not as bad as it sounds. And he’s been through worse. But still, between that and some other smaller wounds, I could really use the assistance. I’ll walk you through it,” he told you calmly, finally stopping in front of a closed door, the farthest one from the training grounds. It seemed that being the champion had its perks, for this cell afforded its occupant the most quiet and the most privacy.

You held your breath as Titus pushed the door open, your heart thumping in your chest as you followed behind him on quiet feet. Maybe he was right—you really were like a gazelle they’d just let loose in the arena, terrified of being devoured by the prowling lions.

The cell was smaller than you had initially anticipated and scarcely furnished—for all that he was Rome’s champion, you realized with startling clarity, Gallus was still a slave. There was a small bronze brazier in the corner, which Titus had evidently already lit to provide some illumination—the small window high on the wall only afforded so much daylight. Against another wall was a small wooden table, on which sat a pitcher and a couple scattered cups. There was one stool tucked neatly underneath. You took in all this before your eyes slowly glided to the other end of the room, in which there was a low bed pressed against the wall.

And on that bed lay a man.

The largest man you had ever seen.

You let out the breath you hadn’t even realized you’d still been holding as your eyes fell on him, taking in the unconscious form of “The Barbarian of Britannia.”

You weren’t really sure what you had been expecting. Maybe, with a name like that, you’d secretly been anticipating some kind of monster, a half-man with twisted fangs and sharp claws, like in the stories you’d heard growing up as a child.

But he was just a man.

Not a beast. Not a monster. A man.

As Titus nudged you closer toward his bedside, and your eyes adjusted to the dim light in the cell, you were able to take a fuller measure of him.

He was nearly naked. You were suddenly acutely aware of that fact. You had seen naked bodies before—there was no dignity afforded the enslaved—and it didn’t embarrass you, not really, but you suddenly felt a burning urge to avert your gaze and look anywhere but at him.

Maybe it was because of his size. He was just so large, that you almost wondered how you and Titus had managed to cram into this tiny cell beside him. His shoulders, his chest, his arms, his legs—they all looked so massive and powerful, even as he lay in that vulnerable state. No wonder he was undefeated.

As your eyes shyly made their way back up his form, you took note of all the scars that marked his skin. His thighs were littered with them, including a deep gash just above his left knee. His arms and hands were much the same, including some fresh marks that he must have acquired just today, as Titus had said.

His chest and shoulders were what caused the gasp to catch in your throat. There, right across the center of his chest, was a bloody gouge, the lacerated edges indicating the mark of a Roman battle ax. And up on his shoulder was a massive scar, the skin pink and puckered from a wound that had clearly taken a long time to heal.

Finally, your eyes landed on his face. His chin was deeply scarred as well, the marks telling a story you could only begin to imagine. You tilted your head to the side, gazing curiously at the hair that adorned the top of his lip. Living your entire life in Rome, you’d only ever seen men clean-shaven, perhaps with a day or two’s worth of scruff. You had never seen a man appear to grow hair so intentionally on his face before, and you found yourself transfixed.

It was dark, as was the rest of his hair, though as you moved closer to the bed you realized that there were streaks of gold buried in the thick depths. It seemed to fall softly, not as short as the way Roman men wore it, yet not quite as long as you would imagine a barbarian from Britannia to keep it.

His dark lashes fluttered slightly as you stood over him, but he didn’t wake.

And for some inexplicable reason, you weren’t afraid.

By all accounts, this man had slaughtered hundreds, had stolen their very life breath with the hands that now lay still at his sides. And yet, as you stood beside him, you felt no fear.

“Here, take a seat,” Titus told you kindly, reaching for the stool that sat beneath the small table and setting it down for you beside the bed. “I did a cursory cleansing of his wounds when he first arrived back, but it looks like the cut is deep enough that it’s going to require sutures. While I’m preparing the instruments, I would like you to apply a poultice I made. It should hopefully relieve some of the pain and cleanse the gash further.”

You simply nodded in response, reaching for the strips of clean linens that had already been prepared. From the smell of them, Titus had put together a concoction involving acid vinegar. Grabbing hold of the longest strip, you laid it across Gallus’ chest and began to gently press it into his open wound. He let out a soft hiss under his breath, which made you stiffen slightly, but still he did not wake. Breathing deeply, you reached for another vinegar-soaked linen strip and laid it across one of the minor wounds on his forearm.

Within moments, you had the poultice applied to every wound that was visible to your eyes, your heart growing heavy as you began to take stock of just how many injuries—both new and old—this man had suffered in his life. Glancing over your shoulder, you saw that Titus was still preparing his instruments for suturing, soaking his needles in vinegar and passing them through the flames of the brazier.

Looking back down at the gladiator who had somehow ended up entrusted to your care, you found your heart moved in a sudden rush of compassion for him. What had his life been like before he was brought here? Did he have a family? A home? Did he even want to be doing this?

Reaching out slowly, you found yourself stroking his forehead with gentle fingers, brushing his hair away from his face. Your fingertips trailed slowly down his cheek, tracing the contours of his skin, feeling the firm bone beneath. His skin was so warm that it was practically hot to the touch.

You were gazing down at him, cupping his cheek in your hand, when his eyes suddenly fluttered open, two dark orbs staring up at you.

He blinked once.

Then twice.

Confusion passed through his eyes for a moment as he gazed at you, your hand still resting on his cheek.

Then his expression hardened, his dark eyes as stony and unyielding as obsidian.

“Who are you?” he demanded roughly, his voice sounding angry. He tried to sit up, tried to move away from your touch, but ended up wincing in pain.

You removed your hand from his face immediately, suddenly feeling foolish. “I—I—” you stammered, not knowing how to respond. Your tongue was suddenly stuck to the roof of your mouth.

“Oh, don’t be such a brute,” Titus scolded, suddenly appearing over your shoulder as you rose from the stool, nearly tripping backwards over it. “See, you’ve got the poor girl all upset when all she was trying to do was help you.”

Gallus scowled coldly at the medicus, eyes narrowing. “What is she doing here? Where’s Phoenix?” he demanded, his gravelly voice making goosebumps rise on your skin. He spared a brief glance in your direction, but then his eyes narrowed further and he quickly turned away.

“Phoenix had other obligations, and I needed the help. What were you thinking, taking an ax to the chest like that?” Titus asked, seemingly unfazed by this hulking man’s barely concealed fury.

“My apologies,” Gallus spat bitterly, glaring. He glanced down at linen bandages covering his body, wincing some more as he forced himself into a sitting position despite his obvious agony. Blood was already starting to soak through most of them.

“Oh, you shouldn’t!” you exclaimed before you could stop yourself, instinctively moving towards him to try to fix the bandaging.

He pulled away from you and his glare intensified. You swallowed, dropping your gaze to your bare feet.

“Get her out of here, Titus,” he said coldly, turning to stare at the far wall.

“Gallus, she—”

“Get. Her. Out,” he forced out through gritted teeth, refusing to look at you again.

“I’ll go,” you said softly, holding up a placating hand towards Titus when it looked like the older man was going to continue to argue. “I’m sorry,” you added, almost to yourself, as you slipped out of the cell and ran without looking back out of the ludus.

You hoped you would never have to go back there again.

He had never felt hands so gentle in his life.

For a moment, just for a moment as he’d started to come to, he’d wondered if maybe that Germanic fighter’s ax really had killed him and he was being welcomed into the fields of eternity.

That was the only explanation for a touch so soft, a touch that seemed to reach deep down into the very core of him.

But then he’d opened his eyes and he realized that the sweet release of death had not yet claimed him.

He was still in his dank, dingy cell, his body wracked with an agony that he’d somehow learned to live with over the years. He was not yet free.

And yet, that touch remained.

That face had appeared, floating above him and looking deeply into his eyes—when had he last seen a face so innocent? When had he ever seen a face so innocent?

When had he ever felt a touch so gentle?

Never.

And so he recoiled instantly, knowing that a man like him didn’t deserve a touch so light and tender. A man like him didn’t deserve to be in the presence of such innocence.

He would only destroy it, as he destroyed everything else.

He felt shame—damn, when had he last felt shame?—bubble up inside him as that innocent face fell at his cruel and cutting words, disappearing from his sight as its owner fled his cell without a backwards glance.

Good.

He didn’t like the feeling that innocent face and those gentle hands had stirred deep inside him, deep inside that place that still ached and longed for something just beyond his reach.

He hoped she never came back.

“You really are a fucking brute, you know that?” Titus scoffed in disgust, pushing him back down onto the bed and forcibly adjusting his bandages.

His hands certainly weren’t gentle.

“Shut up, Titus,” Gallus muttered brusquely, turning his face away from the older man. He and the medicus had known each other for quite some time, and neither of them had any qualms when it came to blunt honesty.

“She only came here because I asked her to,” Titus went on, as if he hadn’t spoken. “And I only asked her to because Phoenix told me how good she was at tending wounds,” he said pointedly.

Gallus just blinked. If Titus expected him to look chastened, he would be sorely disappointed, no matter that a nagging feeling of guilt was tugging at his gut.

“Why didn’t you just bring Phoenix?” he demanded, frowning like a petulant child.

“I told you, she’s busy. Or have you forgotten that she’s at the beck and call of Atticus and Aurelia, and not you?” Titus asked sharply, raising a brow as he looked down at him.

Gallus flushed angrily at his words, his hands balling into tight fights.

“Easy there, barbarian,” Titus murmured, his tone softening slightly. “She’ll be back soon enough. I’ll have her come check on you later tonight.”

The two of them were quiet for a while as Titus focused on his work, beginning the slow process of stitching up the wound on Gallus’ chest. Gallus’ jaw clenched, but he made no complaints.

“You should apologize to her,” Titus said quietly, once his work was done and he was washing his hands in the small basin he’d brought with him.

“I’ve never even seen her before,” Gallus said gruffly, leaning back against the wall. “What, does she live here now?”

“She belongs here now,” Titus corrected. “She’s just as much a slave as you are, Gallus, so you don’t have to take out your rage against Rome on her.”

He deflated slightly at the medicus’ words, that nagging feeling returning to his chest. “I’ve never seen her before,” he said again, more quietly this time.

“She was only brought here a couple months ago. Aurelia keeps her busy in the villa, so there’s never been any reason to send her over to the ludus,” Titus explained, drying his hands and packing up his supplies.

Gallus’ jaw tightened angrily at the mention of Aurelia’s name, but he ignored the feeling of disgust that rose inside him. “So how do you expect me to apologize to her then?”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way,” Titus shrugged, the hint of a smirk tugging at his lips. “Well, I’m off to see to the others. Have a good evening, barbarian,” he said without malice, closing the door to the cell behind him as he left.

“Sure,” Gallus muttered darkly, lying back on his bed and trying not to remember what the touch of those gentle hands had felt like.

It took a few days before he saw you again.

It wasn’t like he was going out of his way to find you or anything like that. No, he was just keeping an eye out. If he happened to see you, he would apologize, and if not, then he wouldn’t.

If he just so happened to walk by the fence that separated the ludus from the main villa more often than usual, what was that to anybody?

Almost a week after his abrupt dismissal of you from his cell, he had just about given up hope that he would ever lay eyes on you again when he suddenly saw you appear at the opening in the fence, Phoenix by your side.

He could only assume, judging by the large baskets you both carried, that you had come to collect laundry from the ludus. Well, and there was plenty of it. He saw Phoenix say something to you, but from this distance, he couldn’t judge what it was. All he knew was that she suddenly left your side, retreating back through the fence towards the villa.

This was it. Probably the only opportunity he’d have to apologize. He’d never hear the end of it from Titus if he didn’t.

Sighing, he stepped into the hot midafternoon sun and began crossing the pathway until he was just a few feet away from you.

You had seen him coming. He’d seen the way your eyes had caught on his figure as he approached—it was rather hard for someone of his size to be stealthy—and he didn’t fail to notice the way your shoulders stiffened slightly.

He frightened you.

Normally, he didn’t mind. He often relished the fact that he was able to strike fear into people’s hearts. But this time, the realization rankled.

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” he muttered without preamble, his voice sounding gruff to his own ears.

When was the last time he had apologized for anything?

Your eyes widened as you stared up at him, but you didn’t say anything in response.

“I was—rude to you the other day,” he went on awkwardly, shifting from foot to foot as he stood before you. “It wasn’t your fault that—well, I just mean—I shouldn’t have said what I said. I’m sorry.”

The quiet between the two of you stretched until it became almost unbearable. He was about to turn on his heel and walk away when you suddenly stepped forward, staring at a spot on his arm.

“You’re bleeding,” you said softly, pointing at one of the bandages on his arm, through which dark red blood was starting to seep.

“What?” he asked in confusion, blinking down at where you were pointing. “Oh, that. Yeah. Stubborn thing just doesn’t want to heal. It keeps opening,” he said, shrugging it off.

“I can help,” you told him, stepping closer and gingerly touching his arm on either side of the wound.

He stiffened and you flinched.

“I’m sorry,” you murmured as you let him go, your head lowering just as it had when he’d demanded to know who you were. “I shouldn’t have—”

“No, it’s alright,” he said, his voice quieter now. “I’ve heard you’re a very good healer.”

“I don’t know about that, but I know how to patch up wounds,” you replied, chancing a glance upwards.

He suddenly found himself wanting to know where you had acquired that skill—and why it had been necessary.

“My name is Gallus,” he found himself saying, not quite sure why.

Your lips started to curve into just a hint of a smile as you opened your mouth to reply. “My name is—”

“Sabina!”

Phoenix’s voice suddenly rang out as she came hurrying back through the fence and onto the grounds of the ludus. She came to a sudden halt when she saw him standing beside you.

“Is this barbarian bothering you?” Phoenix asked, the humor in her tone shining through.

“No, no, I was just going to—”

“No time. Aurelia is demanding your presence in the kitchen,” Phoenix sighed, rolling her eyes. “I’ll handle the laundry over here. You go.”

“Oh, but Gallus’ arm,” you countered, indicating the bloody bandage wrapped about his forearm.

“I’ll be fine,” he hastened to reassure you, though he felt his blood growing hot at the demand from Aurelia.

“I’ll check it for him,” Phoenix promised, pushing you along. “Now go. I don’t want you getting in trouble,” she said firmly.

Your eyes drifted over Phoenix’s shoulder and landed on him once more.

He hadn’t been mistaken. Yours really was the most innocent face he had ever seen.

“Goodbye, Gallus,” you said softly, turning and disappearing back inside the massive walls of the villa.

He glanced down at his arm, where he could still feel your touch.

“Goodbye, Sabina,” he whispered in response.

Your head felt a bit fuzzy and unfocused as you tripped your way to the kitchen, rushing to get there so that Domina would not be displeased.

But at the moment, your domina was the least of your concerns.

For the past week, you had been doing your best to avoid the ludus at all costs, never wanting to step foot on those grounds again.

Now you were wondering how you could get back.

#bradley rooster bradshaw #rooster x reader #x reader #x female reader #top gun #top gun: maverick #miles teller #hannix #hangman x phoenix #Ancient Rome AU #si vis amari ama ⚔️

234 notes · View notes

she-posts-nerdy-stuff · 9 months ago

Text

Don’t Go Blindly Into The Dark

Summary:

To hide that he can't read, Jan Van Eck has been forcing his son to pretend he's blind since he was eight years old. Wylan is now attending Ketterdam University, and meeting Jesper Fahey may very well be about to change his life. But is he safe to tell Jesper the truth? And what will Jesper say if he does?

Jesper is struggling to weigh up his life in the Barrel and his life at the University of Ketterdam, and there's a good chance that his growing debt is about to make the decision for him. He hasn't attended class consecutively for months, but maybe that will change when his newest project includes partnering up with Wylan Van Eck. But can he really leave the Barrel behind him? And how long can he keep up the pretence of who he thinks Wylan wants him to be?

Meanwhile there is a darkness growing in Ketterdam, and it seems a killer may be stalking the streets of West Stave. An unknown evil is closing its jaws over the city, and it’s starting to feel like nowhere is safe.

Tags: @justalunaticfangirl @lunarthecorvus @i-need-help-this-is-my-obsession @devoted-people-hater

If anyone else would like to be tagged let me know :)

Content warnings for this chapter: death, trafficking references, slavery (Kerch indenture system), injuries, broken bones, blood, violence, implied violence, abuse, ptsd, implied child abuse, loss of loved ones, grief, dehumanisation, imprisonment, misogyny, implied sexual assault (there isn't a scene focusing on the event itself and what happened isn't explicitly stated but it's very strongly implied that the character experienced this during the course of this chapter), dead bodies, murder, non-consensual drug use, choking/airway trauma, child abuse, separation from home & family

Note: You guys... this is over 8000 words long... it was not originally suppsoed to be this long but I love Anya so much I just looked up at some point like 'oh damn, whoops'. Other than it being so ridiculously longer than all the other chapters I really hope that you enjoy this, I am honestly so happy with it I'm so excited to be able to share it!!! I do, however, want to say please read through the content warnings, because this chapter is pretty dark <3 Thank you all so much for reading!!!!!!!!

AO3 link

Interlude - Anya

The end of Anya’s life was characterised by knocks on doors. So mundane. So simple.

The first one came at the Van Eck house. Joras wasn’t long back from a voyage with one of Van Eck’s shipments, as a Squaller he travelled with most of the trade ships to call winds or calm the skies whenever necessary, and had caught a bad break to two of his fingers during the journey.

“What did you do this time?” Anya asked, shaking her head, letting gentle humour lilt in her voice, as she gestured for him to sit down with her.

Joras insisted he had got his hand trapped between the boom and the thwart, which meant nothing to Anya because she didn’t know the parts of a boat - and that meant she couldn’t be certain whether or not the story added up, because she didn’t know how booms or thwarts worked. She felt suspicious as she eased Joras’ hand into hers, but she said nothing. It wasn’t too difficult an injury to fix; Anya traced her fingertips lightly over the broken bones and shifted them back into place, the dark bruising shrinking beneath her touch, the quick cracking sound of his bones filling the air between them and then dissipating just as quickly. Joras flexed his fingers in and out of his fist, then pulled a sharp arc through the air so a brief gust of wind flew through the workshop. Anya laughed as her hair lifted briefly up off her shoulders and then resettled.

“Perfect,” he smiled, “As always,”

“You just do that because you like to hear me laugh,”

“Well, who wouldn’t want to hear such a beautiful sound?”

Anya liked Joras - enough that she didn’t mind his flirting, and might even reciprocate from time to time - but theirs was a difficult friendship to maintain. So frequently he vanished, and for so long, and so often he came back injured. For the past year or so the two of them had been the only Grisha indentured at the Van Eck house, and so much of Anya’s time was spent alone trying not to go mad in the confines of the workshop. Wylan would often sneak to see her, when he could; on early mornings, or when his father was out or busy with other occupations.

She’d once told him, when they were alone in the workshop, that sometimes she thought she wouldn’t mind kissing Joras. More to fill a silence than anything else, not that it was a lie but just that she couldn’t think of anything else to say, but Wylan had burst out laughing and Anya wasn’t sure she’d ever been happier to see him smile. She still threw one of her grapes at him in mock offence, though.

“Hey!”

“I’m sorry,” he managed, still laughing, as he picked up the grape and threw it back at her, “You just took me by surprise,”

A moment passed.

“So… Joras?”

“Oh, leave me alone,”

“You brought it up!” Wylan cried, laughing again, before suddenly wincing and glancing at the door as he lowered his voice, “Why don’t you just ask him?”

Anya raised her eyebrows.

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

“I could spontaneously combust,” she said, restraining a giggle, “Or… I don’t know, accidentally kill him or something,”

Wylan laughed again, pressing one hand over his mouth to try and muffle the sound.

As Joras looked at her now, somehow she knew that he genuinely meant that he enjoyed her laugh, that even though the sound was a silly, fun-filled shriek and not the pretty drifting and tinkling of bells, that he thought it was beautiful. She stared back into his eyes for a minute, eyes that so calmly settled on her as though they had never wanted to be anywhere else but here, the dark moss of a forest floor containing a thousand beautiful secrets that Anya wanted to learn.

“What?” he smiled, a little nervously, “What are you looking at?”

Anya shrugged.

“Just you,”

“Oh? You like what you see?”

“I might,”

Joras’ smile changed ever so slightly, something sparkling on the edge of those dark green eyes.

“And if I said-”

A banging sounded against the door, and Anya collapsed back into her chair like a deflated balloon as Joras turned his head towards the sound. It would either be Wylan or Paige, one of the younger maids in the house; no-one else ever knocked.

“Come in,”

The door crept open and Paige leaned cautiously around its edge, looking suspiciously like her nervous smile was trying to hide something. She greeted Joras quietly, her focus clearly elsewhere, before turning towards Anya.

“Mister Van Eck would like to see you in the main house,” she said softly, “He said to Tailor Wylan’s scars,”

Anya frowned, feeling her guard raising inside her. There was a schedule for Tailoring Wylan’s scars, and she shouldn’t be needed until next week. But she nodded anyway, stood and walked to the door, catching a final glance at Joras over her shoulder as she left. He looked worried. She tried to give him as reassuring a smile as she could manage.

Paige led Anya to the living room door and then knocked, and when they were called inside a moment later Anya was once again set to alarm when she realised that it was not Wylan’s voice she could hear, but Jan Van Eck’s. They would not be able to have much conversation, then, if he intended to hover over them like a hawk. She bit her lip, something anxious seeping through her chest, and followed the maid inside.

Wylan wasn’t there.

The door banged shut behind Anya and she whirled instinctively, fighting the urge to duck and pull her hands over her ears, to see that Paige had disappeared. She turned back with about as much politeness and dignity as she could muster, to find herself faced by Jan Van Eck, with two of his guards either side of him, and a man she didn’t know. He must have been a similar age to Van Eck, maybe a little older but it was hard to say, and wore the same mercher black, an expensive looking tie pin, a thick, gold wedding band, and shoes so well shined that when she dipped her gaze Anya could see her own frightened reflection staring back up at her.

“Mister Van Eck,” she managed a polite smile, lowering her head in the customary Kerch bow, “I was expecting that your son-”

“Wylan will not be joining us today,” his voice was cold and as the words rushed over her, Anya’s blood seemed to shiver into matching its temperature, “Well?”

It took Anya a moment to realise that he was no longer addressing her, but the stranger at his side. He looked her up and down, like he was surveying a painting in a gallery or a cut of meat on a market stall, and then shrugged.

“Agreeable terms,” he replied, before holding his hand out towards Van Eck, “The deal is the deal,”

“The deal is the deal,”

They shook. Anya stood there, blinking, as the stranger marched straight past her and out of the door as though she weren’t even there.

“By tomorrow morning,” he said over his shoulder, “If that’s possible,”

“Of course,” Van Eck nodded, “As soon as possible,”

Anya didn’t understand. She watched the door close again, fidgeted with the sleeve of her kefta, waited until she thought it was appropriate to venture:

“Sir, I’m sorry, I do not-”

She cut off in a gasp as Van Eck grabbed her shoulder, shoving her almost onto the floor as he hissed into her ear so the guards could not hear him.

“I know what you did, you little wretch. I should sell you into a whorehouse on East Stave for pulling a stunt like that,” he spun her round to face him with almost embarrassing ease, his hand was bigger than her entire shoulder, and a slow, terrifying smile spread across his face as he pushed her towards the door and said: “But luckily for you, Councilman Hoede offered a far more favourable price,”

For a moment Anya barely registered what was happening, could do nothing but search her mind for what she could have possibly done.

“Rest assured,” he continued, “you will never get anywhere near my son again,”

Anya stumbled. Wylan. He knew that she’d been helping Wylan.

And now she was going to leave him here, in this house, they were going to take her away and who would be here for-

“Wylan!” she shouted, because surely, surely, he had to be here somewhere, he had to hear her, he had to know, she had to warn him, “Wylan!”

She didn’t know where she found the strength to break free, but the next thing she knew she’d wrestled away from Van Eck’s grasp and was running into the hallway, screaming Wylan’s name up the staircase. The guards were, of course, on top of her in seconds.

She was on the second step of the stairs when they grabbed her; a hand under her shoulder, on her waist, an arm wrapping around her middle and dragging her backwards.

“Wylan!” she tried again

Please hear me.

“Wylan!”

“Wylan is at university,” said Van Eck coolly, watching her from across the hallway with his arms folded across his chest, “And if you have no intentions of calming yourself-”

“Babink,” she snarled at him, trying to push forwards through the guards’ hold on her, ignoring the stunned looks on the faces of servants hovering nervously in doorways, “You do not deserve a son like him, you do not deserve the ground that he walks on,”

Never had she spoken like this before, not to him, not to anyone. It might have been her only chance to ever do so. Might as well lean into it.

She spat and snarled every word that she could think of, every possible name that she could call this man, fighting uselessly against the iron grip of the guards pinning her in place. Van Eck just stood and watched her, almost with mild amusement, like a parent waiting for their toddler to tire themselves out instead of succumbing to their tantrum. She paused for breath, which felt heavy and constricted in her chest, and Van Eck studied his fingernails.

“Are you quite done?”

“Nothing would ever be enough to be finished with you,” she hissed, still trying to step forwards against her restraints, but she had to admit that she was running out of Kerch words to say.

She resorted back to babink, sure that he would understand its meaning well enough, and he just gave a long, low sigh.

“Knock her out,”

“I could kill you!” she shouted, hurling herself forwards and almost tumbling straight onto the floor with her own momentum as her wrists fell free. It wasn’t true, of course, she wasn’t even sure she could’ve done it if she’d tried. But it felt good to say it, to scream it, “I could kill you for what you did to him!”

Van Eck’s hand landed on her shoulder, tight and painful, and then the guards were on her again and she was being forced towards the ground.

“If that is at all true, Anya,” he said, leaning down like he was speaking to a very small child, “then you have missed your chance,”

Pain exploded on the side of Anya’s skull, and everything went dark. She dreamed of Ravka. She woke up in chains.

Waking up came, at first, hand in hand with a strange sense of confusion for her surroundings. Her mind quickly lost its grip on the image of home that she’d been lost in, replaced by tall walls and dark, austere wood panelling beneath wallpaper that told the stories of somebody else’s god; at first she thought she knew where she was, a small storage closet off a service corridor at the back of the Van Eck house that moved from the Grisha workshop to the servants’ staircase and above. This room was the right size, had the right panelling, had the same basic shelving units at her back and neatly folded piles of linens - but she was facing the wrong way, she realised, because sitting like this should mean the door was behind her and instead she was staring at it dead on; the door, also, bore no brass hook on its back but instead there was a slender hat rack at its side, empty of property but for a red kefta draped over one of its pegs like the skin of a dead animal yet to be transformed into a coat for sale. Her red kefta, with the white embroidery and the loose stitching along the cuff where she’d caught it on a nail protruding from the top of the table. She could see the little rip from here, the broken red and white threads curling over each other and hanging frozen in the air. It reminded her that this was not, in fact, her kefta, not really, that such damage would never have so easily occurred upon the fabric of the real thing; this was a Kerch kefta, a false impression of something that was supposed to mean so much more than it, and Anya did not own it. Anya did not own anything. If she’d moved to pick up the costume now she would have felt fabric practically ready to break between her fingers, seams set to burst with the pressure of quick movement, a practically translucent weave, a red ribbon pinned to the lapel - nothing about it built for battle. But she didn’t do that, couldn’t in fact, because there was another thing wrong with this room: Anya was chained to a chair.

This hadn’t particularly surprised her, it hadn’t been the first thing to alert her something was amiss, and it definitely wasn’t the first time she’d woken up like this during her time in Ketterdam. But it was the realisation that she did not know where she was that made the panic grip her; the foreboding sense that this was new, this was different, and that meant she didn’t know what was going to happen next.

She didn’t know how much time passed before the door clicked and groaned its way open, but it must have been at least an hour. Footsteps had sounded down the corridor more than once and Anya had braced for the appearance of a stranger, but none had come. This time, though, the footsteps had been different - one in command, expensive shoes and a confident stride, another more nervously obedient scurrying afterwards, and two more in almost perfect time with each other. Someone important, with a servant and two guards. She was sure of it. Whoever was keeping her here, they were coming to collect.

Anya had quite easily readied herself for the arrival. Her hands were bound tightly to each arm of the chair but she didn’t need her Grisha power to summon tears, she was well-practised at calling for them on cue. With cheeks wet and eyes still brimming, she lowered her face towards her chest and waited for the door to open. Look weak. Look frightened. Look willing. Look quiet.

It was one of the guards who opened the door. The lock giving way to his key with a loud clunk that slightly surprised Anya - Van Eck rarely bothered with a lock if she was already in chains; he knew well enough she would not get anywhere - and in he stepped, harsh face peering over her and beady eyes flitting over the room. Anya looked up slowly, sniffing through her fake tears, blinking both to adjust to the sudden stream of light pouring through the open door and because she knew that more droplets of water would roll prettily down her cheeks as she did so. She let a breath catch in her throat as her eyes met the guard’s, pleading silently until he turned away and stood to attention with his side towards the door.

Her captor stepped inside, and immediately Anya clicked the pieces together. It was the same man she’d seen at the Van Eck house, with his slowly roaming eyes and fingers that twitched briefly towards his wedding ring before falling still. She’d first thought him to be closer in age to Jan Van Eck but perhaps the lighting here was less flattering. She would guess he was at least in his early fifties, and he was as obviously prosperous as he had looked at their brief earlier encounter; dressed in fine mercher black with a large, dark blue stone glinting in his tie pin.

Luckily for you, Councilman Hoede offered a far more favourable price.

So this was it, was it? This was all that her desperate fighting had gotten her. A house farther down the same road, new people to learn, new rules to follow, new threats to contend with. No chance of moving any further. No chance of helping Wylan.

She was still on the same fucking street. And all of it was over.

Hoede was followed in by a servant but the other guard remained outside the door, perhaps in case she started shouting again or tried to get out. They obviously knew everything she’d done in her final moments at the Van Eck house.

“Anya?” asked Hoede, not that it particularly sounded like any kind of question of introduction, studying the tears of her cheeks with what she, grimly and yet victoriously, thought might have been satisfaction, “I am glad to see you have awoken,”

I’m sure you are. What a waste of money it would be if I’d dropped dead on my way here.

“I am Councilman Hoede and, as you should know, I purchased your indenture just recently,”

Anya nodded, slowly, then attempted a halting, nervous:

“Yes, sir,”

Hoede gave a single, sharp nod, still surveying her.

“Well before we can take this agreement any further,” he said, as if she was agreeing to anything here, “we need to discuss what happened yesterday,”

Yesterday? How long had she been unconscious? What had they done to her?

“I am very sorry, sir,” she said, emphasising her accent ever so slightly, “I was frightened, I did not understand what was happening and I panicked,”

“That’s very understandable,” Hoede nodded, “It is not uncommon for those like yourself to be prone to such hysterics, I know, but you must learn to keep them under control,”

“Of course, sir,” she managed, through gritted teeth.

“Are you calm enough now that we can remove your bonds? You will be sensible?”

“Yes, sir,” Anya bit the inside of her lip, hard, “Thank you,”

Hoede regarded her for a moment longer, then snapped his fingers towards the boy at his side. He was maybe twenty or a little more, Zemeni born but with no hint of an accent in the few words she’d overheard him sharing with Hoede as they walked down the hallway, slender and neatly fitted together like his joints had been intentionally snapped into place. He smiled at her and Anya felt the skin on her arms turn colder even though there was no breeze in the room. Why would he look at her like that? What did he want from her?

“Show her to the Grisha workshop,” Hoede told him, “But know that I will keep a close eye on you, young lady, and misbehaviour shall not be tolerated,”

And then the door had banged shut and he was gone. The guard followed him out, and the pair was alone. Anya swallowed tightly as the servant knelt at her feet to first free her ankles, and then her wrists.

“I’m sorry about him,” he said, softly, “But I promise, it’s not too bad here,”

She resisted the urge to huff in reply; servant he may be, and his seeming dislike of Hoede may not be false, but he had more power than her here and she would not risk taking the bait in a cruel plan. If she had learned nothing else of this country, she had at least learned that everyone always had an ulterior motive.

“What’s your name?”

“Anya,”

“Good to meet you, Anya. I’m Ori,”

She said nothing.

“I’m told you were brought from Councilman Van Eck’s house?” he asked, almost cheerily, as he unwound the chains from around the chair leg.

“Bought,” she corrected, distantly, as though it were a simple matter of grammar.

“I met his son once,” Ori continued, as though she had not spoken, and though it seemed he would have gone on, Anya lurched forwards and grabbed his shoulder before he could utter another word, fire in her chest.

“Wylan?” she whispered, forgetting any hopes of keeping herself away from traps or tricks, forgetting any sensible need to hide her secrets, “You’ve seen him? Is he-?”

“Y-years ago,” the boy stammered in surprise, leaning away from her, “When he was a child,”

Anya dropped away from him, breaths shuddering through her chest, nodding and lowering her gaze apologetically.

“Excuse me,” she dared to murmur, “I… I do not know what came over me,”

Ori glanced at her for a moment, then his easy smile returned and he offered her a hand to get to her feet.

“You are close with him? Wylan?” he asked, either ignoring or not noticing how nervously Anya accepted his outstretched hand.

How was she supposed to answer this without wading into dangerous territory? She had acted rashly, without thought, and now she was going to have to face the consequences.

“He is kind,” was all she dared to murmur.

There were two other Grisha in the workshop here; a Fabrikator named Yuri, a couple of years older than Anya, and Retvenko, a Squaller some good amount of years older than either of them who’d been at the house ever since the Ravkan Civil War. When Anya stepped over the threshold that first day they both looked up, then at each other, some kind of secret language passing between their silent eyes. As soon as Ori had introduced them to each other he left, and Retvenko beckoned Anya toward him to issue her a warning. She listened, terrified, promising herself she would be careful. But, of course, that didn’t make a difference. It took about a month.

They both knew, afterwards, when she crept to the workshop like a frightened mouse and spent the entire day in silence, studying the ground, trying to keep herself from crying. Yuri watched her over the top of his work, and she felt like she was going to catch alight beneath his gaze. Retvenko did her the small blessing of ignoring her, but for passing her a glass of water when they paused for lunch.

“At least drink,”

Anya said nothing. When the pair returned she had not moved an inch from where she sat, had not touched the glass. Yuri held out a piece of fruit towards her and suddenly a dam burst inside her; the tears flooded out of her from despair and pain and sorrow and from being so overwhelmed by this simple, tiny act of kindness. Sobs burned like fire in her throat, the tears felt like acid on her cheeks. She was vaguely aware of Retvenko calling for a maid, of words passing between lips, of being shepherded out of the workshop and up the servants’ staircase to her little room. They claimed that she was ill, and she got three days alone, shivering in her room, to stitch the pieces of herself back together. It was lucky timing, if you could call it that; Hoede’s wife returned from her break to the countryside that week and remained at the house for a full five months. For a full five months, nothing happened.

“May I ask why you're here?” said Anya, offering a chair to the boy who had just been led into the Grisha workshop.

He looked too young to wear the purple stadwatch uniform he was clad in, but she guessed he must be just a year younger than her. There was a nasty bruise under his eye, dark purple and blue, that Hoede wanted her to clear up for him.

“It’s my new post - well, first post, really,” he said, as he sat down, “I’m staying here for a while, I think; they want extra security at the Councillmen’s houses because of what happened to the Zemeni Trade Ambassador,”

“We should be introduced properly then,” she nodded, “If we are to know each other for some time. I am Anya,”

“Joost,”

“Good to meet you, Joost,” she stood slightly to lean over him as she reached out to Heal his bruise, “This will itch for a moment, but then it will be fine,”

Anya didn’t smile much these days. There were too many things going on inside her head for that. It was barely a month since they told her that Wylan…

No, Anya didn’t smile much at all these days. But when Joost looked up at her with those wide, pale blue eyes, something tugged at the corners of her mouth. He’s clearly never experienced Grisha power before, and the awe in his expression made him look so innocent that she couldn’t help it. She smiled, just a little, to see that innocence still existed somewhere. And so close by.

It had only been after about a week of living at the Hoede house that the Councilman asked her about Wylan. That boy, Ori, must have told him. Anya seethed - more for her own foolishness than for him reporting on her; she should have known that he’d do it. That he may have had no choice but to do so.

“Perhaps, Anya,” Hoede had said, “if we don’t have any problems, it would be possible to arrange some time for you to see him again,”

“Really?” she’d whispered, looking up, in spite of herself.

She tried to reel it back but it was too late. Hoede had heard the desperation in her voice, seen it in her eyes. He knew he’d got her. He smiled.

It wasn’t true, was it? She knew that, really, of course she did. Even if Hoede wasn’t outright lying to her, Van Eck would never allow it.

“It may be possible. Can we agree that if the next month passes without issue you will be happy to write to him?”

“He-”

“I’m aware of the child’s lack of sight,” Hoede waved a vague hand, “I am sure someone would be able to read it to him, and that he could transcribe a reply. Would you like that? Do we have a deal?”

It didn’t matter that she knew, somewhere inside of her, that this was a front, a trap, a lie. It didn’t matter if it was just a dream. Because he’d found her lever anyway, and Anya nodded even though she knew that she probably shouldn’t.

“We have a deal,”

And that was it, then. He had rendered her incapable of saying no.

It was an evening not long after this that the second knock in the build up to Anya’s death came calling. The knock came on the door of her little bedroom and she was led out to the back of the house by a guard in Hoede’s green livery with no answers to her questions. The air was crisp enough to raise the hair on her arms as she padded out into the night, to see Hoede and a group of guards waiting for her. Anya was shoved roughly forwards by the meaty hand of the guard who brought her downstairs and found herself almost tripping straight over a girl lying in the grass of the garden. She was on her back, staring unblinking at the dark sky with empty eyes. There was nothing behind them anymore, there was only the reflection of the stars far above. Anya gasped.

“What- what happened?”

“It is not of your concern,” snarled Hoede, his eyes dangerous.

Anya took a deep, shuddering breath.

“I cannot Heal her if she is already-”

“She is dead,” said Hoede, simply, as if both of them couldn’t already see it. As if it didn’t matter, “Make it look like she was choked,”

“Why-?”

Anya’s question died with the sting of a hand across her cheek.

“Do it,”

Shivering, though not because the night was cold, she knelt at the corpse's side and took her hand into her own. There was nothing to feel beneath the press of empty skin; no blood, no movement, nothing. But she must have died quite recently because livor mortis, where the blood pooled on the underside of the body without a heart to keep it pumping, had not yet begun. Barely an hour then, maybe less.

The girl was young, Anya realised - at least a year younger than her, probably more. She was dressed in scant fake silks, her body lithe beneath them, her feet bare. Her skin had the golden hue of someone who’d been raised in the Southern Colonies, under a brighter sun than that of Kerch, and her brown eyes were wide and startled, more like they belonged to a doe than that they matched the leopard spots painted on her cheek and down her neck.

Anya raised one hand to the girl’s neck, very slowly, and began to trace her fingers across the skin. With her other hand she reached out to her insides, trying to find out what had happened, and was met with the shock of water inside her lungs. Water? She had drowned?

She traced a thumb over the girl’s pointed cheekbone as though to brush away a non-existent tear, smudging the edge of a painted leopard spot. What did they do to you?

This couldn’t be right. The girl bore no signs of drowning; her flesh had not bloated, her skin had not discoloured. Her skin and hair were bone dry, but she couldn’t have been dead longer than an hour.

But there were too many eyes on Anya to investigate much further. Too many threats for her to dare taking much longer. She apologised silently to the stranger as she spread bruises across her throat and then, with a sharp tug through the air that sparked real tears into the corner of Anya’s eyes, crushed her windpipe.

“What was her name?”

No-one answered her. She could hear them moving behind her but she stayed leaning over the girl anyway, brushing the hair of her face as she began to whisper a prayer. They were pulling her away before she’d got the chance to close the girl’s eyes.

“No - no wait, please, let me-”

“Your job is done,”

“No, please, please, let me pray for her, let me- let me-”

The guard holding her gave her a sharp shake, strong enough to rattle her teeth so they felt like they might spring right out of her jaw, and lifted Anya clear off the ground with casual ease as she continued to try and pull away.

“No, please, please-” she tried, still scrambling uselessly towards the girl, “Please-”

She earned herself a smack on the side of the head, and finally fell silent. They held her there as two more guards collected the corpse, and Anya watched Hoede through a stream of tears as she bit her tongue to keep her pleas and questions to herself.

“You will not breathe a word of this to anyone,” he said, looking down at her, “Understood?”

Anya breathed tightly, lowering her gaze not from fear, and definitely not from respect, but because she did not want him to see her cry.

“Yes, Onkel,” she whispered, “Of course,”

She did as she was told.

Anya had written to Wylan at least five times since coming to this house, though a reply had never come and she knew in her heart that the letters were never sent. It was a month ago, now, that she’d dared to ask Hoede about the possibility of seeing him again.

“I’m afraid I learned just earlier today that the boy has left the city,” he’d said, almost distracted, “to attend music school in Belendt. I assumed you knew of this - did he not write to you?”

Of course he didn’t, Hoede knew that. But Anya didn’t even care for this cruelty, because she’d stopped listening by the time he said that. Because there was not a chance that Jan Van Eck would let his son leave this city. If Wylan wasn’t in that house anymore it could only mean one thing, she knew. She felt like something was piercing her through the stomach; the moment Hoede had left, a painful sob forced its way from her throat and she fell onto her knees. Yuri’s gentle arm appeared around her shoulders and she wept into his chest, unable to articulate any of the thousand things inside her head. She didn’t need to hear anything else.

She knew.

But, somehow, once Joost had drawn that smile out of her, it was like she’d remembered how to and her body didn’t want to let go of it. He started stopping to talk to her on his every round of the house, even bringing her little trinkets that he’d bought in the city - a little beaded bracelet, a whimsical map of Kerch with an ocean full of hand-sketched sea monsters.

The third of those fate-sealing knocks, if you believe in things like fate, came not for Anya, but for Yuri. No-one knew why Hoede had come for the Fabrikator this early evening, and no-one knew what had happened whilst he was gone, but when he returned something profound had clearly changed.

“Yuri?” Anya ventured, watching him, “Are you-?”

He flinched to look up at her, eyes flashing and wild.

“I didn’t mean to hurt her,” he whispered, “I don’t- I didn’t- I- I-”

His words broke into fragments as though he couldn’t breathe, but before Anya could say anything more he had lurched to his feet and met her in the centre of the room.

“It broke her,” he hissed, grabbing Anya’s hand so tight enough to be painful, “It’s inside her head. It’s in my head, all of it. It’s screaming,”

“Yuri-” Anya tried, pulling her hand to no avail, “Yuri, please-”

“She doesn’t even remember,” the way his voice shook almost made it sound like he was laughing, but he looked absolutely terrified, “So much metal in the body. I can feel it,”

“Yuri-”

He pressed a finger to his lips, shaking his head, then said softly:

“You need more calcium. Did you know that? I didn’t, before, but I can feel it now,”

“I- what? Yuri-”

“I can help with that,”

“What are you-?”

Yuri raised one of his hands and then suddenly there was a guard on his arm, forcing him backwards. He didn’t struggle, but he kept his gaze on her and his free hand still held hers close.

“They came for me,” he whispered, eyes wild and desperate, gripping her even tighter and pulling her close, “They’ll come for you too. They’re coming,”

“Let go of me, Yuri, let-”

“Pray,” he snarled, letting go of her so she fell backwards with her own momentum and crashed against the wall, “They’ll come for you next,”

Anya stared at him, shaking, pressed against the wall on the floor of the Grisha workshop. What was happening? This was Yuri. Yuri, who had found her on the bad nights, brought her food and water, who had sat with whilst she wept. Yuri, who had held her when the news about Wylan came, who had cradled her like a child and never pressured her to tell him any of it, who had let her cry into his shoulder for what to him would have sounded like nothing of more gravity than a weather report. She stared up at him, still quivering, as someone offered her their hand to help her to her feet and someone else began to lead Yuri out of the workshop.

“Wh-What-?”

“He didn’t mean to hurt you,” murmured someone to Anya’s right, and after a beat she realised it was Greta’s hand that she was holding; a maid about her age who had always been kind and gentle, “He has a very bad fever, it’s addling his mind. Mister Hoede wants him quarantined, to make sure it doesn’t spread. Don’t pay his words any heed, it doesn’t mean anything,”

Anya nodded stiffly, a little shakily.

“Are you alright?”

“I- yes, thank you,”

Greta smiled and gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

“I’ll bring some tea,” she said, “It’ll do you good,”

Anya could only nod, and return shivering to her chair at the workbench. He was just spouting nonsense, wasn’t he? It was just a fever. Wasn’t it? She shuddered, rubbing her wrist where the shadow of his hand still gripped her.

The last knock didn’t take too long to come.

Anya and Retvenko were sitting in the workshop, in their customary silence, when Greta rapped the open frame as she stepped into view.

“Mister Hoede asked for you to go to the boathouse,” she told Anya, with a light shrug that told Anya there was no point in asking why because Greta didn’t know either.

Anya nodded, glancing briefly back at Retvenko with frightened questions in her eyes that he either did not notice or did not care to acknowledge - it was impossible to tell with him - and followed her out into the garden. Crossing through the damp grass it was difficult to push away the memory of the dead girl she had Tailored, and as she tried to push the thoughts away Anya forced herself to focus on the crocuses growing near the boathouse and around her feet. She could smell them in the air, rising up to greet her and cradle something close to her chest. Joras had given her a bunch of crocuses, once, that he got at the harbour on his return; six of them, tucked together in a brown woven ribbon.

“How did you possibly afford this?” she’d asked, holding them close and inhaling their scent like a drug.

“Who says I bought them?” he teased, and when he saw her stricken expression: “I picked them Ani, don’t look at me like that!”

They’d both laughed. Anya convinced Paige to let her keep a glass of water from the kitchen in the workshop, and the crocuses sat in the centre of the table until they’d turned so brown and dry and wilted that she could no longer justify keeping them. Looking back on it, she wished she pressed them when they were fresh; she could have tucked them into the pocket of kefta and kept them close forever. But they were long dead now.

“Pretty,” Wylan had said, when he was certain it was only the two of them in the room; only Anya knew that he could see the flowers, “You have definitely got to ask him to kiss you,”

“Wylan!”

“He picked you flowers, Ani,” he’d teased, having overhead the nickname that morning, before Joras left for another voyage, “He even chose a ribbon for them. I bet he’d say yes,”

Anya blushed so profusely that she wasn’t sure she’d ever looked pinker in her entire life.

“I should never have told you,”

Wylan grinned.

“You did though,” he preened, “Now you have to live with it forever,”

Anya wondered if Joras knew where she’d gone, if he ever thought about her anymore. She thought about Wylan, grinning at her over a vase of crocuses, laughing, the light dancing in his eyes, and suddenly felt the desire to rip every single flower from the beds and tear them into a thousand pieces. Why was the smell so strong? She hated it. It was choking her. She prayed for something, anything, strong enough to overpower it so she never had to smell those stupid flowers ever again.

“Anya?”

Anya flinched as Greta’s hand brushed against her elbow, shaking herself back into reality.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes,” Anya rubbed a disobedient tear off her cheek, “Yes. Thank you,”

They walked inside in silence.

Hoede stood inside the boathouse, with a stadwatch officer, whom Anya guessed must be high up by the little stripes on the breast of his jacket, and another man wearing mercher black, but they weren’t the first thing that Anya noticed. The first thing she noticed was the large metal… well, box, she thought, for lack of a better word to describe it. The front wall was made up mostly by a large window and inside she could see a small table, wherein sat a small boy kicking his feet off the edge of his chair. A stadwatch guard stood behind him.

Hoede nodded at Greta to dismiss her, then beckoned Anya wordlessly to the box and gestured for her to step through the open door on the side. The stadwatch guard closed the door behind her, and she heard the sound of a lock being moved on the outside. This side of the glass was mirrored, so Anya could no longer see Hoede or the strangers in the boathouse, but there was a vent above the glass and she could hear them speaking. The guard directed her to sit down, and she followed the instruction.

“What’s going on?” asked the boy, looking between them.

The guard told him to be quiet, and with a nervous shiver he stuck his thumb into his mouth. How old was he? Not yet ten, surely. What was going on here?

An entire hour passed by as a hum of voices began to slowly filter into the boathouse, a small crowd gathering for no purpose that Anya could divine, before the door opened once more and Hoede stepped inside. He patted the boy on the back.

“Be brave, lad, and there’s a few kruge in it for you, ja?”

The boy nodded nervously, looking up at him with wide, innocent eyes.

“And you,” he turned to Anya and she braced as he grabbed her by the chin, tilting her face up to meet his eye, “You do as you’re told and this will be over soon, ja?”

Anya forced her serene mask over her features, the cloak she wore day in, day out, and gave him a vague, empty lie of a smile.

“Of course, Onkel,”

He nodded, apparently satisfied, and stepped back through the door. There was another low conversation on the other side of the glass that Anya could not properly hear beyond the edges of words - “results… Fabrikator”, “the dose”, “compensate”. What the hell was she listening to?

“Sergeant?” called a voice she didn’t know, loudly now and clearly for the ears of those trapped inside this strange box, “First test,”

The stadwatch guard instructed the little boy to pull up one of his sleeves, and almost as soon as he had done so he produced a small knife and crossed it over the child’s skin. The boy burst into tears as blood leaked onto his pale skin and Anya, glaring at the stranger, immediately leant forwards to him as she tried to whisper comforts.

“Let me see,” she murmured, “I can-”

“Stop that,” snapped the sergeant, placing a hand on her shoulder, but Hoede’s voice floated through the grate telling him to leave off and he stepped away.

Anya shot an angry stare to the mirror that she hoped was aimed at Hoede, and then laid her fingers softly over the boy’s cut to close the wound. He stared at her, then back at the smooth, unbroken skin of his arm, running a finger over it like he couldn’t believe what had happened.

“Was that magic?”

“Of a sort,” Anya smiled, watching him. Innocence, she thought again, with an internal shake of the head, that’s still all it takes to make me smile, “The same kind of magic that your body does, given time and a bit of bandage,”

The boy nodded, still running his fingertips over the place that she had Healed him.

“Yes, good,” came Hoede’s impatient voice through the grate, “Now the parem,”

Anya frowned. She didn’t know that word.

The sergeant demanded the boy hold out his arm again and he shied away, shaking his head, but the man grabbed his wrist and pulled it sharply towards him as he slashed the knife across his forearm once more. Before Anya had a chance to respond, he had placed a small envelope in front of her on the table.

“Swallow the contents of the packet,” said Hoede.

If he thought she trusted him enough to do that without question then he must be mad.

“What is it?”

“That isn’t your concern,”

“What is it?” she demanded, refusing to touch the envelope until she was answered.

“It’s not going to kill you,” he said, impatiently, “We want to judge the drug's effect, we're just going to ask you to perform some simple tasks. The Sergeant will make sure you do only what you're told, understood?”

Anya nodded, more because she saw no other way out of this than following instructions than because she felt convinced, and slowly reached for the little packet.

“No-one will harm you, but if you hurt the Sergeant you have no way out of that cell. It's locked from the outside,”

Anya nodded again, then peeled back the edge of the envelope and tipped the contents down her throat.

“Is…” she frowned, but still the hope that she had tried so hard to kill sparked inside her chest, “Is it just jurda?”

“What does it taste like?” asked Hoede.

“Like jurda, only sweeter. It’s-”

Anya cut herself off with a sharp gasp as every muscle in her body seemed to seize. She inhaled heavily, leaning back. She couldn’t smell crocuses anymore. She could smell blood - the boy’s blood, bleeding lightly on the skin of his arm across the table from her. She could hear his heartbeat, and the sergeant's heartbeat, and the heartbeats of everyone on the other side of the mirror. Each one of them sounded different, she realised; every heart had its own individual pattern, and she could hear all of them without even trying. What was this? It was… beautiful. Anya sighed, and realised she was smiling. A different kind of smile. A new one.

“Just the same as the Fabrikator,” said someone on the other side of the glass.

His heart rate had risen; he was scared of her. Good. He should be.

“Heal the boy,” called Hoede.

Anya knew, somehow, that she wouldn’t need to try. She didn’t even look at him, just to see if it would work - and it did. She waved her hand; no touch, no line of sight, nothing. The boy’s cut closed in an instant, and Anya felt something rushing inside her.

“That was magic,” he whispered, and she did turn to see him then.

“It feels like magic,”

“Anya, listen closely,”

Anya made a soft humming sound. She didn’t really want to listen to him anymore. She didn’t have to. She could do anything she wanted to. And that was definitely going to be a problem for Councilman Hoede.

“We’re going to perform the next test now. Sergeant, cut the boy’s thumb off,”

The child cried out in fear, scrambling to sit on both his hands as he frantically shook his head. The sergeant stepped forwards, but Anya wasn’t worried. She looked up at him, smiling her brand new smile.

“Shoot the glass,”

“What did she say?”

“Sergeant!”

Anya watched him. For a moment, she wasn’t sure if it was working. She reached out to him again - it was so easy, so quick. The sound of his blood rushing moved through her like she was floating on the surface of the True Sea, she wrapped an invisible hook around his heart and felt its rhythm as she raised the rest of her focus to his brain and said again:

“Shoot the glass,”

She knew that it had worked this time. There was a slight knack to it, but once she’d done it once she knew that she could do it again and again and again. His heartbeat calmed and settled, safe and eased in her command. Comfortable. His face went slack, his eyes blank, and then he drew his weapon and turned to follow his orders like a good little watchdog.

The gunshots were loud but they couldn’t frighten her now, not when she could control them - not when the heartbeats were even louder. Not when she was floating. The glass rained down ahead of them, a shattered mirage, and a frenzy of cries filled the air. Guns were raised, the cocking of pistols hit her ears, but Anya was calm. She was not afraid. She would never have to be afraid again.

“Wait,”

All of them - every single one, with a single word - fell quiet and blank. They looked up at her expectantly, patiently. Her toy soldiers.

“Hoede,” she beckoned, “Come inside,”

He obeyed, of course.

“Come here,” she whispered to the boy, not commanding him like she had done the others.

He shuffled towards her and tucked himself into the arm she offered him, either too scared or too confused or too overwhelmed to ask any questions.

“Don’t look,” she whispered, gently easing him against her shoulder and stroking the back of his head.

He settled into her, one tiny fist clinging to her kefta. Anya looked up at Hoede, waiting in patient, expectant silence.

“Do as you're told and this will soon be over, ja?”

It was definitely not for innocence that she was smiling any longer.

Anya didn’t know the layout of Ketterdam well, but it wasn’t hard to find her way to the harbours. She ran as far as she could down the Geldstraat, only halting briefly in front of the house that she was pretty sure, though she didn’t know the street or the front of the house very well, belonged to Jan Van Eck. She hesitated - but she didn’t even know why. Wylan wasn’t there. Wylan was… he wasn’t there. There was nothing left in this city for her, not anymore.

It was time to go home.

#don't go blindly into the dark #grishaverse #six of crows #crooked kingdom #leigh bardugo #wylan van eck #anya (six of crows)#wesper fic #wylan hendriks #soc fandom #soc fic #soc fanfiction #six of crows fandom #six of crows fanfic #six of crows fic #wesper fanfiction #grishaverse fandom #grishaverse fanfic

5 notes · View notes

web-series-content-warnings · 3 years ago

Text

Freeman’s Mind (season 1) (webseries)

Links: Series playlist

Genre: Fanseries (for Half-Life), Science Fiction, Comedy

Medium: Machinima

Rating: R

Status: Complete

General things:

Flashing lights, mild to moderate. Usually slow flashing, or brief sudden flashes of light

Swearing

Graphic violence and gore

Gun violence

Moderate sexual references

Jokes about violence and abuse, including sexual violence, cannibalism, cults, and slavery

Bigoted jokes of all kinds

Ableism and ableist language, including the R slur (which is used repeatedly as a slur)

Minor character death

Explosions, gunshots, and other sudden loud sounds

Yelling and screaming

Insects and parasites

Animal death, animal death references

Vomit, sewage, and overall grossness

The main character is a drug addict. This is shown and referenced throughout the series, always played for laughs

Soldiers, references to the U.S. army, references to war and war crimes

Zombies

Paranoia fuel, related to conspiracies and governments

Heights, including characters dying by falling, and characters jumping from or around high places

Submersion under water and characters almost drowning

Throughout the series, the main character experiences numerous near death experiences and is shown to be traumatized by these experiences to the point of a possible psychotic break. This is played for laughs

Specific scenes that can be easily skipped:

The Q-word is used, in a non-homophobic context (Episode 27, 3:43)

Starting at Episode 28, there are increasing references to the main character being paranoid and potentially experiencing psychosis

Memory loss and amnesia (Episode 35, 0:00-Episode 37, 5:16)

Memory loss mention (Episode 39, 6:41-6:44)

#fanseries #science fiction #machinima #freeman’s mind #half-life #comedy #webseries

4 notes · View notes

blacklister214 · 4 years ago

Text

Shadow and Bone Book to Show Changes

SPOILERS BELOW!

I LOVED the changes made for the show! LOVED THEM SO MUCH! It gave me things I hoped for and things I didn’t think to hope for, but loved none the less.

When I first saw the trailer for Shadow and Bone I immediately speed-read the trilogy. I found myself disappointed on multiple fronts so declined to read the other books in the universe. For the first book my problems came in two forms: Darkling and Mal. Simply put: Darkling was too psychotic and Mal was too thin. The shows really came through for me in both areas. Those I’ll address first:

1) Darkling: Gave him flashbacks that explain his character the creation of the Fold. These flashbacks show the Grisha were persecuted even the Darkling was loyally serving the King. He was genuinely trying to use his power to help people. His first go to back then wasn’t murder. We got to see his loss of a mortal grisha and the pain it caused him. We saw the Fold was created in a moment of grief and its consequences were largely unintended. Alina makes the first move in their romantic relationship and he checks for consent when they seem to be moving beyond kissing. He demonstrates in scenes without Alina genuine empathy, concern for, and loyalty to her. He doesn’t plan to kill Mal. He doesn’t blind Baghra. He picks a better target for his attack, that comprised of the leaders of a rebellion. People who tried to murder Alina. People who allow Grisha to be hunted and/or sold into slavery. This plays way better then an innocent village being destroyed to cow the populace into submission. Granted he is still undoubted taking out civilians, which I was hoping wouldn’t happen, but still he plays as an anti-villain rather than a straight-up villain. I like moral complexity so this works for me.

2) Mal: Spent a reasonable amount of time in flashbacks getting invested in his relationship with Alina. Introduced their relationship as going both ways. Book Mal seems to take Alina for granted, is oblivious to Alina’s turmoil and goes off to tumble Grisha women. He hangs out with people who refer to her as “Sticks” in reference to her appearance. Show Mal on the other not only notices when things go wrong for Alina, but he takes steps to cheer her up. His attraction to Alina before the sun summoner stuff is there, if not acted on. He tries to help her when her powers are first discovered, despite being injured. He is shown taking risks to get back to her, rather than just following his orders. We get to hear his letters, which are very nice. He never shames her for her power or for developing ties to the Darkling. He plays a major role in the final show down, rather than just being a convenient hostage.

These changes alone would have me cheering but there was more:

3) Mal/Darkling conversations: Brief but glorious. They are quite revealing about both characters. The first one, with the flowers, we get Mal really does pay attention to Alina and that Darkling is both manipulative and besotted. Got to get the girl I’m courting flowers. Want her to like them. I know, I’ll trick this idiot into telling me what her favorites are! How smart am I?! In the second conversation Mal is an absolute champ in front of Darkling, threatening to kill him if Darkling let’s him live. Not super smart, given how a similar conversation went with Inej, but certainly brave. Darkling for his part reveals not only his jealousy, but also his perspective of why he is better for Alina. And the whole “I’m not going to kill you, because time will do it for me” was showing the kind of wisdom one might expect of a man hundreds of years old. Why do more to make Alina hate you if your end goal is have her with you? Something Book Darkling clearly did not get.

4) Baghra/Darkling stuff: Baghra tries to kill Mal, albeit with greater good intentions. She wants Darkling to prioritize himself rather than worry about his country and other Grisha. We get the sense Darkling is pissed because she endangered Alina rather than because she dared to thwarted his Amplifier plans. Adds to the world of ambiguous mortality and that always makes me happy. Honestly it also made me wonder if she was going to have those Grisha kill Alina which I think would have been a fun deviation.

5) Filling out the world with other morally ambiguous characters. Alina story is fascinating overall, but watching her train for most of the show would have gotten stale. The extra characters provided world expansion, action, romance and levity and I loved it. Also showing the Grisha getting their ass kicked from time to time was very cool. Bringing people to a common level.

6) Alina. I didn’t have a problem with book Alina, but holy smokes do I like what they added to her character. First, the “Shu” thing. Timely and fits nicely into the overall theme of prejudice. Second, burning those maps? Genius. It not only emphasizes her ingenuity and devotion to Mal, but it also foreshadows things to come. The plot point begins the show with the idea that you can act from good intentions and still yield dreadful consequences. Alina, Darkling, and Nina all encounter this situation during the course of the season.

In summary: It was wonderful, I am grateful, and I’m off to watch it again!

#shadow and bone #darkling #mal #alina #netflix #book adaptation

13 notes · View notes

ssaalexblake · 5 years ago

Text

I am, as they say, That person who has a huge ass pile of books to read that i’ve had, in some cases, for years, but i saw the new Suzanne Collins book was out and got an e-copy and read it immediately, you know, as you do when you have a huge pile of books to get through.

anyway, spoilers, definitely ---

I’ve never actually read a Book where the whole story was from the perspective of a terrible protagonist, i have read books where there have been spare chapters from the perspective of villains, but never has the villain been the Protagonist before in my experience. And this protagonist was showing danger signs of a seriously pathological narcissistic personality from the opening world building chapters, and it only got worse and worse as the stakes in his life got higher and higher.

And here’s the thing, i Know people were immediate and vapid in attacking Collins for this when the plot summary were released, and i will admit, my eyes rolled so very much at the immediate assumption that this was a story to make you sympathise wigh him, because, simply, i’ve read the trilogy. Collins’ doesn’t even make her Hero characters that sympathetic a lot of the time, with the exception of Prim and Rue, whose literary function demanded them to be symbols of purity and innocence, practically everybody else is in a shade of grey. The victors we love all have blood on their hands, even Peeta, who is also a symbol for non violent ideals, is corrupted by the narrative. This is not a series that is particularly nice to it’s cast of characters, even when we are meant to Like them.

But now after some brief fandom browsing i am now just going ‘wtf’ at the idea that people are Still holding onto the idea After having read it that, just because a story is about a bad guy, the author Must somehow be endorsing their actions. I’ve literally never read a story with a more unsympathetic protagonist. What a Disgusting person.

This story revealed that the villain is a pathological and possessive narcissist who is very much the hero of his own story, but sure as hell nobody else’s.

I also noted that people have been commenting that the book is too Coincidental in its references and that it made it a bad story, that they were just for clout. That Snow is in 12. The lake. The bakery and so on and so on, and that it put people off and seemed just a grab to keep people interested, but the thing is, it’s a Ballad. This isn’t ‘the novel of songbirds and snakes’, it’s ‘the Ballad’. It plays out, contextually, with the deliberate knowledge that all the readers have read how this story ends in the trilogy, as one of the covey’s songs.

I’m not sure how to phrase it, but i feel like viewing the story and plot itself as more of a folk song or limerick is the best way to look at it from, it’s not Meant to be a novel. It’s a Ballad. The literary devices in two such storytelling methods are very different, in a ballad i would Expect this type of thing which is fair because the book is named a ballad. In a novel i would find it a bit too coincidental, but i don’t think that was how we were supposed to look at it.

That all aside, i never actually had any feelings for Snow beyond the literary device he embodied, the power so vast and beyond you it is hopeless to even think of defying it. Now i have Many feelings about Snow, namely, that i actively hate him now.

This book may actually play out as a cautionary tale about being careful of narcissists, actually, and taking care to make sure they do not end up amassing too much power.

I would say Collins portrayed Snow as a mixture of the old Nurture versus Nature debate, his absolute lust for total control to no longer be the victim of something as horrific as the war was Clearly a case of circumstance... If he had never been in the war, he would not have felt the sheer powerlessness that has led to his absolute need for control.

There is also the other angle of his nurturing that plays into this, his Absolute sense of entitlement as a Snow. He was born a Snow, not some lowly normal capitol family, or worse, one of those ‘district animals’. In his mind, what was rightfully His was stolen from him when they lose the business in the war because of district 13, he got bit in the ass by capitalism, hilariously. His family’s business went under, and the loss of income from it took them from hero to zero, but he though he was Owed his money and status by virtue of his birth and did not see how fragile the perch of his wealth and status was even After the perch had been toppled and he was left penniless. The presence of irrefutable evidence that nothing but access to more dollars provided his life style did not even break through his entitlement.

But i mean, there are a lot of entitled capitalists in this world who think that just because they Used to have money and a thriving business means they are entitled to always have that, and while it makes them not that great, it doesn’t exactly make them Monsters. But here’s the thing, you also cannot claim that Snow is not just naturally a self centered narcissist. That is just a personality trait, and it is This that makes the above a horrifying problem.

When somebody else is harmed, it is about how it will effect Him. The tragedy in being assigned district 12, girl, was not that a girl was being stolen away to be murdered, but that he got stuck with one of the kids unlikely to win. Tigris’ implication of what she may have had to do to keep their family operating was first and foremost about how uncomfortable and disgusted it made Him. Other were reduced to utter horrors to survive the war and he judged them for it, all the while, he only escaped such a thing because of a crime his grandmother committed (looting was, technically, illegal). Clemmie maybe needing him? It wasn’t about her or her life, it was about how it might effect Him (to a point, it is fair to fear for your own life in such a situation, but most would bother to feel bad about it). This is just a handful of examples, but there are many, many more.

He is also Horrifyingly possesive. He, Literally, is a textbook case of an abusive boyfriend who kills their girlfriend because they might have priorities other than him. Lucy Gray may not be dead, i was not left with the impression he succeeded in killing her, but the deal sealer is in the attempt, not whether he succeeds. The entire narrative in his head towards his relationship with lucy contains every danger sign i’ve ever been warned against in men. He wishes to Own her, not love her, and that he was literally given her life on a plate as an experiment did not help with his narcissistic entitlement. His family and friends (though, he did not have friends) all assumed he loved her and because they said it he assumed it was true. But it was possession he was feeling.

He did not help Lucy out of the goodness of his heart, it was self serving. It was self serving the entire time. Us, having knowledge of his internal monologue are aware of his self centered intentions, but the characters around him, unaware of this, treat him as if he is a good person because they assume he has charitable motives. He very much does not. Him comforting Clemmie was, every step of the way, for his own benefit. He Certainly was not the saint Sejanus thought he was.

But he still Believes the people who tell him how great he is!!! Narcissist.

he is, in short, a right piece of work. What a monster it takes to get your ‘brother’ executed for treason and manage to make it about himself in about an Hour. What a monster it takes to attempt to do that to Lucy Gray. What a monster it takes to get the Plinth’s only child killed and take his inheritance and power out of a sense of entitlement and continue calling the grieving mother ‘ma’.

Anyway, brilliant character building. I Hate him.

I also Love the world building, the confirmation that Reaping Day is on July 4th, the idea that in the beginning even the capitol citizens thought the hunger games were barbaric and depressing and that they had to be won over by a propaganda campaign of dehumanization and entertainment. The idea that mentors were once capitol citizens, that it went wrong so they erased it from history but cherrypicked the parts that worked.

I found Dr Gall or whatever her name was gravitating towards Snow interesting, because people who are like that Naturally gravitate towards people who prove their world views right, and by all rights Snow does turn out very much like her (admittedly, with less an interest in science), who is to say she in turn was not less of a monster in earlier life but grew into it as well? She saw something in him and nurtured it with poison.

This is getting increasingly more random, But i love Peeta’s highjacking now. I was never against it, but it was never the plot for me, but now i am So into it. Because Sejanus is Very peeta like, that idealism. And how satisfying it must have been for Snow to finally be able to crack into that and destroy it because he has the Power to do so now.

On the flip side, I actually now wish we had Peeta perspective chapters, because there is a compelling argument to say Snow and Peeta have their similarities, too. I mean, their defining difference is that Peeta is a good person, but they have the same talent for sheer manipulation as each other, Peeta manipulated hunger games audiences into keeping Katniss alive longer, Snow did the same with Lucy Gray. They are both deeply charismatic, generally liked by their peers, popular, are sabotaged by small groups of people who hate them for reasons beyond their control. They are inversions, same coin, different sides.

The sexual slavery of the victors is now a more narratively interesting thing, as well, because snow is, in this book, Disgusted by the idea of any kind of sexual impropriety (not My opinion, but he considers it impropriety). He is disturbed by Tigris’ implication she may have had to engage in it. Was what he did to the victors merely a case of his disdain for district animals and wishing to subject them to the most degrading thing as possible? How did he get from A to B here?

Seeing the very first career pack was interesting, too. I wonder if the stronger districts started to band together in the games from realising the strategy had advantages or of the capitol subtly Encouraged the behavior themselves. The latter seems more likely, considering they were the ones out for a good show.

I was interested on canon confirmation on the peacekeepers, to be honest. I’ve seen fic discuss where exactly they come from, but to know they are made up from less wealthy capitol citizens And district people after either money/a way out of their assigned district’s profession or both was a nice lore drop.

I know it’s not Confirmed Tigris is the same Tigris who played a part in mockingjay but... it would be so wonderful if she were. Being brought down, in part, by she who nurtured him. Tigris loved Coryo because she thought he was somebody he was not, so when and how did she find out who he Really was?

In the end, i find the idea that this books Shows us Snow created the country we see in the trilogy through the reasoning that A) humanity is terrible and will always fight and try to destroy each other and that B) he decided that if point A was true, he’d amass enough personal power to make sure he would Always be in control of the fights and come out on top of them utterly Fascinating societal commentary, most of which is not really my lane to address so i won’t (also, it’s fairly obvious).

But the idea that Snow was one of the capitol ones who sees the district people in a more favourable light simply because he’s at least willing to admit they’re not zoo animals is Stunning when you put it in context of all the things He does to them. He’s not even close to the worst one and look what he did!

In the end, i think Collins has fleshed out this world and made it more horrifying than it was before. And Panem is meant to be a reflection of our own society’s failings. This book was not to say ‘oh Snow was an actual person so wasn’t That bad’, it was trying to say ‘Snow was an actual person and is Very much terrible’ because the idea is this series is a highlighted reflection of the real bad in our own world. If the monster Snow is cannot be relatable to a real person, how is it any kind of societal commentary at all? He cannot be one dimensional and totally evil from the womb if you want the story to actually say anything.

I also did find this story relied on Collins’ previously seen not necessarily realistic world from the original books to make its point, and i did not expect that to be a deal breaker for so many people considering the story from the trilogy relied on its audience’s skill to read into the meaning rather than the literal at times as well, but i stand by my assertation that the title is meant to be an indication of the type of narrative the book observes, it is a song, which is a very different style of story than that in any other kind of media.

#tbosas #tbosas spoilers #the ballad of songbirds and snakes spoilers #admittedly i only read this b/c i know i'd finish it quickly b/c it's not v long and wouldn't be like #reading level hard #b/c i can't be bothered with anything complicated right now #But i did enjoy it #i've enjoyed genuinely hating the person whose head i'm in #who knew

4 notes · View notes

random-thought-depository · 5 years ago

Text

Re: my last post: I started thinking along those lines when I read this section of Charles Mann’s 1491:

“Who today would want to live in the Greece of Plato and Socrates, with its slavery, constant warfare, institutionalized pederasty, and relentless culling of surplus population? Yet Athens had a coruscating tradition of rhetoric, lyric drama, and philosophy. So did Tenochtitlan and the other cities in the Triple Alliance. In fact, the corpus of writings in classical Nahuatl, the language of the Alliance, is even larger than the corpus of texts in classical Greek.

The Nahuatl word tlamatini (literally "he who knows things") meant something akin to "thinker-teacher" - a philosopher, if you will. The tlamatini, who "himself was writing and wisdom," was expected to write and maintain the codices and live in a way that set a moral example. "He puts a mirror before others," the Mexica said. In what may have been the first large-scale compulsory education program in history, every male citizen of the Triple Alliance, no matter what his social class, had to attend one sort of school or another until the age of sixteen. Many tlamatinime (the plural form of the word) taught at the elite academies that trained the next generation of priests, teachers, and high administrators.

Like Greek philosophy, the teachings of the tlamatinime were only tenuously connected to the official dogma of Tlacaelel. ... But the tlamatinime shared the religion's sense of the evanescence of existence. "Truly do we live on Earth?" asked a poem or song attributed to Nezahualcoyotl (1402-72), a founding figure in Mesoamerica thought and the tlatoani of Texcoco, one of the other two members of the Triple Alliance. His lyric, among the most famous in the Nahuatl canon, answers its own question:

Not forever on earth; only a little while here. Be it jade, it shatters. Be it gold, it breaks. Be it a quetzal feather, it tears apart. Not forever on earth; only a little while here.

In another verse assigned to Nezahualcoyotl this theme emerged even more baldly:

Like a painting, we will be erased. Like a flower, we will dry up here on earth. Like plumed vestments of the precious bird, That precious bird with the agile neck, We will come to an end.

Contemplating mortality, thinkers in many cultures have drawn solace from the prospect of life after death. This consolation was denied to the Mexica, who were agonizingly uncertain about what happened to the soul. "Do flowers go to the region of the dead?" Nezahualcoyotl asked. "In the Beyond are we still dead or do we live?" Many if not most tlamatinime saw existence as Nabokov feared: "a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness."

In Nahuatl rhetoric, things were frequently represented by the unusual device of naming two of their elements - a kind of doubled Homeric epithet. Instead of directly mentioning his body, a poet might refer to "my hand, my foot" (noma nocxi), which the savvy listener would know was a synecdoche, in the same way that readers of English know that writers who mention "the crown" are actually talking about the entire monarch, and not just the headgear. Similarly, the poet's speech would be "his word, his breath" (itlatol ihiyo). A double-barreled term for "truth" is neltilitztli tzintliztli, which means something like "fundamental truth, true basic principle." In Nahuatl, the words almost shimmer with connotation: what was true was well grounded, stable and immutable, enduring above all.

Because we human beings are transitory, our lives as ephemeral as dreams, the tlamatinime suggested that immutable truth is by its nature beyond human experience. On the ever-changing earth, wrote Leon-Portilla, the Mexican historian, "nothing is 'true' in the Nahuatl sense of the word." Time and again, the tlamatinime wrestled with this dilemma. How can beings of the moment grasp the perduring? It would be like asking a stone to understand mortality.

According to Leon-Portilla, one exit from this philosophical blind alley was seen by the fifteenth-century poet Ayocuan Cuetzpaltzin, who described it metaphorically, as poets will, by invoking the coyolli bird, known for its bell-like song:

He goes his way singing, offering flowers. And his words rain down Like jade and quetzal plumes. Is this what pleases the Giver of Life? Is that the only truth on earth?

Ayocuan's remarks cannot be fully understood out of the Nahuatl context, Leon-Portilla argued. "Flowers and song" was a standard double epithet for poetry, the highest art; "jade and quetzal feathers" was a synecdoche for great value, in the way Europeans might refer to "gold and silver." The song of the bird, spontaneously produced, stands for aesthetic inspiration. Ayocuan was suggesting, Leon-Portilla said, that there is a time when humankind can touch the enduring truths that underlie our fleeting lives. That time is at the moment of artistic creation. "From whence come the flowers [the artistic creations] that enrapture man?" asks the poet. "The songs that intoxicate, the lovely songs?" And he answers: "Only from His [that is, Omoteotl's] home do they come, from the innermost part of heaven." Through art alone, the Mexica said, can human beings approach the real.

Cut short by Cortes, Mexica philosophy did not have the chance to reach as far as Greek or Chinese philosophy. But surviving testimony intimates that it was well on its way. The stacks of Nahuatl manuscripts in Mexican archives depict the tlamatinime meeting to exchange ideas and gossip, as did the Vienna Circle and the French philosophes and the Taisho-period Kyoto school. The musings of the tlamatinime occurred in the intellectual neighborhoods frequented by philosophers from Brussels to Beijing, but the mix was entirely the Mexica's own. Voltaire, Rousseau, and Hobbes never had a chance to speak with these men or even know of their existence - and here, at last, we begin to appreciate the enormity of the calamity, for the disintegration of native America was a loss not just to those societies but to the human enterprise as a whole.

Having grown separately for millennia, the Americas were a boundless sea of novel ideas, dreams, stories, philosophies, religions, moralities, discoveries, and all the other products of the mind. Few things are more sublime or characteristically human than the cross-fertilization of cultures. The simple discovery by Europe of the existence of the Americas caused an intellectual ferment. How much grander would have been the tumult if Indian societies had survived in full splendor!” - Charles Mann, 1491.

The obvious subtext, of course, is that this is completely erased from the pop culture memory of the Aztecs, and we mostly only remember the ugliest parts of Aztec culture. I feel this section of 1491 is very poignant.

And it makes me imagine something like... the Worldwar books, but the Race won and completely conquered Earth in the 1940s, and a historian in that world writing centuries later, writing about Martin Luther and Kant and Nietzsche and German Romanticism and German Expressionism and the Institute of Sexology so on, in a world where nobody but specialist historians remembers these things, and writing about them in this sort of tone of “Did you know there was more to German culture than Nazism? Did you know that Nazi ideology was only one particularly nasty part of a much bigger, older, richer culture, and that bigger culture included very cool, interesting, beautiful things that were only very tenuously connected to Nazism or were even opposed to it? Wild, huh? Really makes you think!”

#history thoughts

3 notes · View notes

visionofnoxus · 5 years ago

Note

☂ - for my muse to be arrested and beg yours to help them (Get Sona out of baby jail)

// And another one. I hope this story pleases you. Not quite what you requested, but that is a theme when dealing with me, is it not? Comments and thoughts welcome and desired.

“Atten-tion!” Came the sharp two part command, the noxian marines striking a salute as the Grand General boarded the heavy war frigate, it’s captain offering a deep bow to him. Letting his eyes scan the deck, general took in the signs of battle. A damaged rail, patched pieces of deck with fresh wood, lacking paint job for time being. “No major damage then captain, did the convoy not offer much of a fight?” The Master Tactician questioned, noting a raven sitting in the mast, observing the situation. The six blood red eyes glanced at him, a single caw coming out before the bird took flight. Most curious, he mused, deciphering the flashing images that the demonic bird had witnessed.

“No sir. The opening salvo crippled the largest of the escorting warship. Then it was a matter of mopping up the rest. The convoy surrendered soon after the demacian frigate was burning” the captain answered, unable to contain his grin at the successful operation. Swain responded with a minuscule smile of his own. Yes, this appeared very good indeed… “And what of the cargo?” He questioned the eager man. “Plenty of Piltovian goods, being transported to Demacia for selling. Not much of gold or raw resource I’m afraid” The captain answered, the two heading past the row of marines and sailors who were forming the welcoming party on the deck. “And the passengers?” Swain the last question, the men reaching stairs leading below deck. “In the brig sir”.

Descending into the bowels of the ship, the two men soon entered the brig, the door guarded by two marines who likewise saluted them as they passed. The dim lighting of the space did little to add to the charm, the iron bars making the place even more ominous looking. Groups of people sat hunched in the small cells, some daring a glance at the two noxians, most making damn sure not to so much as look in the general direction. Taking a lantern from the entrance, Swain took the lead, stepping through the rows of small cells, his cold gaze distant and void of empathy at the sorry state of the captives. No major wounds or injury on any of them. Swain could make an educated guess what the Noxian forces had done with any more injured individuals. “Sir… The one at the back might be of interest” The captain offered, Swain’s eyesight following the instruction to the far end of the brig, spotting immediately the person referred to.

With a few long strides, his great coat shuffling and feather-shaped polets clicking, the Grand General stopped at the last person, placed alone in a cell. Young woman, her modest travelling clothes unable to conceal the young femine beauty, the grime and dirt of the brig and captivity unable to taint her. A striking hair, pale in color but shifting towards blue even with a hint of blonde here and there. Swain peered into the cage, a shade of bloody crimson mixing into his eyes as he spoke quietly: “Name?”. The woman stirred, looking up from the back of the cage at her jailers. There was fear, sorrow, but also some quiet determination in her eyes. Interesting. “She did not give any. Hasn’t spoken a single word. But there was something off with her. When the marines boarded, they told me they found her playing to the passengers below the deck” The captain narrated, images of the battle flashing in Swain’s mind. The burning ships, explosions and cannon fire, a brief, brutal melee as the noxians boarded the passenger ship, slaying the crew that resisted. “Played?” He repeated, puzzled, the woman staring at her from across the cell. “Yes… The passengers and even the crew below deck were all surprisingly… Calm. No heroic last stands. No foolish banter. After initial clash there were no casualties. We captured almost everyone alive” The captain explained, his voice giving away his own confusion at how “clean” the whole matter had been at the end compared to usual massacre.

The general stared at the young woman and she returned the stare with those sapphire colored eyes of hers. Yet not a single word left her lips, the eye contact they shared the sole form of communication. And then Swain heard it, a whisper in his mind, a soft voice of a woman, the message more emotion or intent, rather than words. “Captain” The Grand General said quietly, his eyes not once leaving the woman’s, a tiniest nod signaling he’d heard, if not necessarily agreed with her. “Was the instrument a sort of a string instrument, played horizontally?”. Swain did not see the captain’s confused expression, but heard it loud and clear. “Uh… Yes, sir? It was?”. “And where is this instrument?” Came the next question, the general leading his subordinate forward in conversation. “It is in the storage a deck above, I think…”. So few paces away. “Have it brought to her. And I would have her transported to Maelstrom captain” The Grand General requested, not having the official right to just take the ship captain’s prisoners. But anyone with any understanding of the situation knew to treat this as command. “Of course sir, I’ll gladly offer her as a tribute to my commander” The captain answered, reciting the necessarily formality. He did not know it yet, but this choice would later earn the captain a new ship in his fleet.

“Excellent. Now then it is time for us to be on our wa…” The Grand General paused, turning his head back to look at the young woman, who had stood up, stepping across the cell, her eyes locked at his, pleading. “… Very well, I take your compliance in trade for this then, lady Buvelle” Swain answered calmly, bowing his head ever so slightly. The young woman gave him a determined nod, though no smile or other signs of… Appeasement were given. “Captain, the captives we have, Noxus will deliver them to the port town of Palclyff. We will let them loose as a gesture of good faith and recognition of the strength of the soldiers who fought to protect them. The bounty however remains ours by right of conquest”. The Captain blinked a few times at the announcement. Palclyff was a neutral town on the border of the western reach of Noxian empire, but everyone knew it was so because of the Demacian royal navy regularly stopping to resupply there. In other words: “We are letting them free, Grand General?” The naval officer asked, confused. “Yes. You will take from the loot to compensate the crew for the loss of profit from slavery”. Turning away from the cages, Swain departed, leaving the young lady behind for now. “I’d appreciate if her luggage found it’s way to Maelstrom alongside her” He told the captain as he stepped past the sailor.

#ladybuvelle #hope you like it #I did my best to do something interesting #papa burd storytimes

2 notes · View notes

myhumaninteractionsafterall · 6 years ago

Photo

The Equalizer 2 (2018)

If I were to write about this movie, I would start by rereading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book Between the World and Me which is featured twice in the film. Then I would continue by focusing on this section from the NYT review by Michiko Kakutani of Coates’ book, and talk about how the film is a continuous contortion.

The “need to be always on guard” was exhausting, “the slow siphoning of essence,” Mr. Coates writes. He “feared not just the violence of this world but the rules designed to protect you from it, the rules that would have you contort your body to address the block, and contort again to be taken seriously by colleagues, and contort again so as not to give police a reason.”[1]

Then analyze the post elevator scene in the middle of the film and contrast it with the painting negotiation scene from earlier.

Referencing this passage from the review when talking about where Denzel lives vs where his targets live and when he comes to them vs when he does not.

Those Dreamers, he contends, “have forgotten the scale of theft that enriched them in slavery; the terror that allowed them, for a century, to pilfer the vote; the segregationist policy that gave them their suburbs. They have forgotten, because to remember would tumble them out of the beautiful Dream and force them to live down here with us, down here in the world.”[1]

Then arrive at a conclusion about subject vs object and reference this idea from the book as highlighted by this section of the NYT review.

After Sept. 11, he writes that he could “see no difference between the officer” who had gunned down his Howard University schoolmate Prince Jones a year earlier — firing 16 shots at the unarmed young man, who was on his way to visit his fiancée — and the police and firefighters who lost their own lives in the terrorist attacks: “They were not human to me. Black, white, or whatever, they were menaces of nature; they were the fire, the comet, the storm, which could — with no justification — shatter my body.”

This startling passage seems meant not to convey a contempt for the first responders on Sept. 11, but to underscore the depth of Mr. Coates’s emotion over the loss of his friend and his anger at police killings of unarmed black men — killings that represent to him larger historical forces at work in American society, in which black men and women were enslaved, their families and bodies broken, and in which terrible inequities continue to exist. Yet it could be easily taken out of context, and it distracts attention from Mr. Coates’s profoundly moving account of Prince Jones’s brief life...[1]

As well as talking about the concluding gambit by the bad guy tying in with Between the World and Me’s stated audience.

There is also an interesting aside about how Richard Wright’s Native Son is used and how that would contrast with the use of Coates and that Wright’s poem is the source of Coates’ title for his work.

That is all only if I were to write about this movie. I probably will not.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/books/review-in-between-the-world-and-me-ta-nehisi-coates-delivers-a-desperate-dispatch-to-his-son.html

#The Equalizer #The Equalizer 2 #film #film analysis #film review #Ta-Nehisi Coates #Between the World and Me #denzel washington #film notes

2 notes · View notes

terramythos · 4 years ago

Text

TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 6 of 26

Title: The Killing Moon (Dreamblood #1) (2012)

Author: N. K. Jemisin

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, First-Person, Third-Person, Female Protagonist, LGBT Protagonist, Asexual Protagonist.

Rating: 8/10

Date Began: 2/07/2021

Date Finished: 2/13/2021

Peace is sacred in the walled city-state of Gujaareh, and must be maintained at any cost. The Gatherers are a priesthood tasked with maintaining this goal. In the name of Hananja, Goddess of the moon, they walk the city at night and harvest Dreamblood-- the magic of dreams-- from Gujaareh's denizens. They bring the peace of death to those who need it... and to those judged criminal or corrupt.

But something else haunts Gujaareh's streets. A Reaper, a rogue Gatherer driven to endless madness and hunger from Dreamblood, is preying on the innocent, casting their souls into an eternal nightmare. Ehiru, one of the elder Gatherers, finds himself caught in the middle of a political conspiracy between his priesthood, the holy Prince, and the monstrous Reaper. An insidious corruption runs deeper than Ehiru knows-- and it may be too late to stop.

The Gatherer’s eyes glittered in her memory, so dark, so cold--but compassionate, too. That had been the truly terrifying thing. A killer with no malice in his heart: it was unnatural. With nothing in his heart, really, except the absolute conviction that murder could be right and true and holy.

Full review, major spoilers, and content warnings under the cut.

Content warnings for the book: Graphic depictions of violence, gore, death, warfare, and murder-- including death of children and mass murder. Discussions of p*dophilia/grooming (nothing graphic). Brief reference to r*pe. One character is a minor infatuated with a much older character-- not reciprocated. Rigid gender and social roles, including slavery. Magic-induced addiction and withdrawal. Loss of sanity/altered mental states/mind control/gaslighting.

Last year I read N. K. Jemisin's short story collection How Long 'Til Black Future Month? One of my favorite stories was The Narcomancer, which explored a vibrant, ancient Egypt-inspired world with themes of faith, dreams, violence, and duty. I wanted to read more from the universe, and finally got to do so with The Killing Moon, the first book in the Dreamblood duology.

Jemisin's creativity in worldbuilding is, in my opinion, unmatched in the fantasy genre. I thought Gujaareh was super interesting and fleshed out. While the ancient Egypt inspiration is obvious, it's also clearly an original fantasy culture in its own right. Everything from religious practices to social castes to gender roles to the fucking architecture felt methodical and thought out. The base premise of assassin priests compassionately harvesting magic from people is a fascinating idea and totally gripping. The pacing is a little slow, but I didn't mind so much because learning about the world was so fun.

While there's a hefty amount of worldbuilding exposition in the story, Jemisin doles out information gradually. Bits and pieces of Gujaareen law, etc are introduced at the beginning of each chapter, and usually have a thematic connection to the events of the story. Information is sparing at times, meaning that one doesn't have a full picture of how everything ties together until pretty far into the story. Even something as crucial as the dream-based magic system isn't fully realized until near the end. I like the mystery of this approach, and I can appreciate how difficult it must be to keep the reader invested vs frustrating them with a lack of info. Jemisin consistently does a great job with this in everything I've read by her.

I did want a little bit more from the narcomancy aspect of the story, since dream worlds are such a huge part of Gujaareen religion and culture. In The Killing Moon we see just a few dreamscapes, and then only briefly. There's so much potential with narcomancy as a magic system, yet most of what we see is an outside, "real-world" perspective, which isn't terribly unique compared to other kinds of magic. Dreamblood being a narcotic (heh) with some Extra Fantasy Stuff is interesting, but I wanted more. Perhaps The Shadowed Sun expands on this.

Characterization is the other Big Thing with this book, as it's very much a character-driven story. Overall I'm torn. There's some things I really liked, and others that felt underdeveloped. I'll go over my favorite things first.

Ehiru is probably the strongest of the main cast, and I really enjoyed his character arc. Here's a guy who is completely devoted to his faith, regardless of what others may think of it. Yet he's not a self-righteous dick. He sees Gathering as a loving and holy thing, so when he errs in the line of duty, it totally consumes him. And things just get worse and worse for him as the story progresses. Say what you will about the Gatherers and the belief system of Gujaareh; Ehiru comes off as intensely caring, devoted, and compassionate, and I genuinely felt bad for him throughout the novel. I'm not religious but these kinds of faith narratives are super interesting to me.

Looking at characterization as a whole, I appreciate The Killing Moon's gray morality. No one in the story is wholly good or evil. The Gatherers are an obvious example, considering they murder people in the dead of night in the name of their Goddess-- but do so to help those in need. Despite being a megalomaniacal mass-murderer, the Prince has believable reasons for his horrific actions, and they’re not wholly selfish. Even the Reaper is a clear victim of Dreamblood's addictive and mind-altering nature; it sometimes regresses into the person it used to be, which is sad and disturbing. There's a lot of moral complexity in the characters and the laws and belief systems they follow. This kind of nuanced writing is much more interesting to read than a black and white approach.

Beyond this, though, I struggled to connect with the other leads. Nijiri's utter devotion to Ehiru is basically his whole character, and while the tragedy of that is interesting for its own reasons, I kept wanting more from him. Sunandi is a good "outsider perspective" character but I had a hard time understanding her at times. For example, the two most important people in her life, Kinja and Lin, die in quick succession. Yet besides a brief outburst when Lin dies, this barely seems to affect her. I get people mourn in all kinds of ways but it seems odd. Her sexual tension with Ehiru is also weird and underdeveloped. Perhaps this is meant to be a callback to The Narcomancer, but it doesn't accomplish much in this narrative.

Another issue I had was emotional connection to minor-yet-important characters. Kinja dies offscreen before the story, yet is supposed to be a big part of Sunandi's past (and thus emotional arc). But he's never even in a flashback, so I never felt WHY he mattered to her. Una-une is the big one, though. It's pretty easy to figure out he's the Reaper by process of elimination, but he's barely in the story outside of a few early mentions. There's this part near the end that's clearly meant to be an emotional moment; Ehiru realizes his (apparently beloved) mentor Una-une is the horrific monster, and thus a foil to the situation between himself and Nijiri. But we never saw the relationship between Ehiru and Una-une, and nothing really established this prior... so there's no emotional payoff. It felt at times like this book was part of a much longer story that for whatever reason we never got to see. In some ways that can be useful to make the world and history seem vast, but here it made me feel emotionally distant from several characters. Perhaps flashbacks with these important characters would have helped bridge the gap.

Credit where it's due, though; it's clear a lot of the dark, often brutal tone and stylistic flair in The Killing Moon was adapted into Jemisin's fantastic Broken Earth trilogy. Probably the most notable are the cryptic interlude chapters told from the perspective of a mysterious character whose identity is unknown until the end. We learn bits and pieces of the beliefs and lore of the world through excerpts of common laws and wisdom. I also liked the occasional stream-of-consciousness writing during tense or surreal moments. The Broken Earth is an improvement overall, but I can appreciate The Killing Moon for establishing some of these techniques early.

I enjoyed this book overall and am planning to read The Shadowed Sun. While I have some criticisms about The Killing Moon, I think it just suffers in comparison to other works I've read by Jemisin. It was still an entertaining and intense read, with a captivating and original world. It's not a story for the faint of heart, though, so please mind the content warnings.

#taylor reads #8/10 #2021 reading challenge

11 notes · View notes

buttsonthebeach · 7 years ago

Text

“Awakened” is (almost) a year old!

On March 4th last year I took a huge leap and began posting Awakened, a fic set twenty years past Trespasser and revolving around the question of “what if the energy of the Anchor was still slowly killing Ellana? How would Solas and their daughter react? What would they dare to save her, and what would be the cost?”

I knew it was a risk straying so far from canon and telling a story that revolved so much around original characters like their daughter Ashara, and her friends Lucius and Claudia. I knew it was never going to be a popular fic. But a year later, I can say without a doubt that it was the fic that taught me the most as a writer, that made my heart soar the most with each comment and kudos (if you have ever read Awakened and mentioned it to me you have probably witnessed my flailing) it received.

So take a risk and post something that you’re worried won’t work! You never know what you’ll learn from it, or who it will bring into your life.

You can read the opening section of Awakened below (TW for brief violence), and the rest on AO3 at the link above!

********

Lucius Talvas would never forget the sound of his little brother's skull when it hit the cobblestones of Vyrantium's streets.

Erast was only eight. He did not understand that the elf who pushed him out the window had been beaten down, too. Then again, the elf didn't understand that the boy he tossed so easily, so carelessly, had also known days of hunger and fear. That though his ears were round, he was no stranger to want.

"Now you know that I do not play, human," the elf said. "Give me your money or -"

Lucius set the elf on fire, of course.

That was how it felt when he did. Like an afterthought, though he'd never used magic before. One moment the elf was standing there, barely concealing the tremble in the hand that held the knife, and then he was in flames. It was the third day of riots in Vyrantium. It was 9:54 Dragon, ten years since Magister Pavus and Magister Tilani stood on the floor of the Magisterium and demanded an end to slavery. Ten years since the forces of Fen'Harel began to make that a reality. Of course, that was the beginning of a war, and promises were made to the slaves who joined the Imperium’s efforts - stay on our side, do not follow the Dread Wolf, and there are fields south of the sea that will be yours.

They did not follow through.

Ten years of those broken promises, and now the streets burned and Erast fell without a sound until he hit the pavement, and Lucius felt the flames still in his veins even as the elf's corpse smoldered. He was twelve. He did not remember the world before the broken promises.

The sound came to him now and then when he studied in the Circle. Less so when he transferred to the one in Minrathous. He was happy their parents never heard it. They’d gone out of the shop that day, during a lull in the rioting, hoping to get more food. They never came back, and he never found out why. But at least they didn't have to flinch when someone dropped a heavy book, or come awake at night because someone closed a door too hard. They didn’t feel the rage, the fire bubble up in them when they passed an elf on the street who had the same slanted eyes or too-narrow hips.

Lucius sometimes hated the Altus mages who studied alongside him, who had never heard such a sound. Some of them told stories they thought were harrowing, of fleeing sumptuous country homes for ‘cramped’ city dwellings, or having to give up a prize horse because now they had to paythe slaves (and stop calling them slaves). Some had true horror stories, of mothers and fathers murdered in their beds by angry slaves. But none of them had heard that sound.

It was going to be fine, Lucius always told himself when the rage bubbled up. Eventually, if he studied enough, if he channeled the fire carefully enough, if he twirled his staff just right, his mind would clear, and all he would hear was the wind in the harbor. He was lucky. He was good at this. More determined than the others. And now that would pay off.

Magister Corix was interested in being his patron.

True, he was twenty-four, and he'd seen others with less skill made Enchanter before him, but he wasn't going to complain now. He didn’t complain when he got up early to help his father run the print shop instead of going to school, and he didn’t complain when other students went home for holidays and he stayed in the Circle studying. He was the only member of his family who still drew breath, the first one in generations untold who was gifted with magic. He didn’t have room to complain. The only problem now was that Magister Corix had never considered a Laetan apprentice. He made it clear that he wanted some - assurances. So there Lucius was, going to the back of the Circle library, the one filled with journals and genealogies, searching for the final link he needed to make his case. The journal of a magister who may just be the ancestor he needed to prove he came from good blood.

He walked down the rows of bookshelves until he reached the one the librarian indicated. Third shelf, midway down - Devrenix, Ether - then a blank spot.

Where was Estoris?

It was a dusty shelf in an unfrequented aisle, but the one book he needed was missing. Of course.

He sighed. Whoever had it would have to bring it back before long. For now, he would go to his usual haunt - the books on practical applications of lightning spells, and whether or not they could be used as a sustained source of power for various items. But every day he came back that week, it was still gone. He was getting nervous. Magister Corix would not wait forever.

On the seventh day, as he passed through the aisle, he reached one of the sections set aside for studying, and was startled to see it was occupied. By an elf, no less. It was hard not to stare at the long, bladed ears. Different than the short, sharp ears of the elf in Vyrantium who killed Erast. It had been a while since he'd seen one, and never here in the Circle. For her part, she didn't seem to notice. She was scribbling furiously in a notebook, glancing back and forth between what appeared to be a translation guide for Ancient Tevene, and -

The Collected Journals of Magister Nicon Estoris.

"Excuse me," he said before he realized what he was doing. "How much longer do you need that?"

The eyes that met his were round, blue, and sat above a smattering of freckles that covered a straight, strong nose. Her skin was light brown, still darker than most elves he'd known, and she had thick, kinky brown hair, tied back impatiently behind her so that loose curls framed her angular face.

"Pardon? I do not speak Tevene."

She had faint traces of an accent, though what one he couldn't name.

"I'm sorry. I just asked how much longer you'll need that book. I have been looking for it all week. It is a matter of some urgency."

Her fingers curled around the book, defensively.

"Could I keep it another hour? I'm nearly done. I apologize that I have kept it from you."

"That is fine. Bring it to the section on elemental magics when you're done." He realized that he'd never seen her before. It was a large Circle, true, but he still knew most faces. She had to be new here. "Do you know where that is?"

She narrowed her eyes and his pulse jumped a little. It was a predatory movement.

"Yes. I will be there within the hour." She went back to reading.

"I'm Lucius Talvas, by the way," he said. "In case you need to ask for me."

She did not lift her head. Instead she turned a page in the book. He was on the verge of repeating himself when she spoke.

"Ash Ostwick."

A peculiar name. He wondered as he walked away if she was from the alienage - or, former alienage, he supposed - in Ostwick. If so, why was she here in Tevinter? And why was she pouring over an obscure journal by an ancient magister? It didn't matter. What mattered was that he almost had the book in hand. He would be able to prove himself. He would have a patron. He would never hear that sound again.

This Ash was true to her word, at least. It had only been half an hour when she arrived at his table and held out the book. He stood to receive it - there was never a bad time to practice his manners, not if this book meant what he hoped it did - and realized that she was taller than he expected. Not quite his height, but taller than other elves. She looked less like she was starving all the time, too.

"I apologize again for the trouble," she said.

"Thank you," he said. She nodded and it seemed like she was about to turn and go. He couldn't resist asking. "Your accent - where are you from, exactly?"

She looked at him for a moment. "Enasan," she said then. "Born and raised."

Enasan - the elven republic far in the south. That did explain the strange lilt. He'd heard they made an effort to raise their children to speak Elvhen.

"Enasan? I've never met anyone from there. You are far from home." Questions bubbled in his mind. What is it like there? What is it like to study magic without this scrabbling for position? To see a new nation rise? Was it worth the blood in the streets, the cries of 'Fen'Harel enasalin?’ The sound of Erast's skull when it hit the cobblestone?

"I am," she said, neutrally. She inclined her head then. "Farewell."

She was gone from his mind for the rest of the day, because the journal was a success. An overly poetic, somewhat annoying success. The part he was reading covered Nicon’s grief at the loss of his betrothed. Between the constant laments and weird digressions on the Fade (some sort of bizarre poetry about pulling pieces of it away and locking it like jewels in stormheart so he could at last find where her spirit roamed), he found the reference to the cousin who came to console him. The cousin who later moved to Vyrantium, bet his fortune and lost it, married the daughter of an up and coming shopkeeper, lost her dowry, and left behind three children who would later sire the Talvas family line.

If anyone had asked him about the elf who had the book first, he would have wagered he'd never see her again. He might not have even remembered who they were talking about. *

#throwback thursday #awakened #ashara lavellan #lucius talvas

45 notes · View notes