#fuck Marya

[cinnamonfridge]

I am so fucking done with all those fucking retarded morons at NaNoWriMo.

Fuck every god damn one of you. Go die in a mother fucking fire.

I'm actually glad I'm dying. Can't wait to see the end. But fucking know this... everything I ever posted is about to become public and I mean everything. Even all the moderator posts. See, I have an export of my account data from late May so it contains a lot of shit that staff and certain moderators don't want posted.

This is what you fucking pieces of shit have earned. May all of you and @nanowrimo burn in fucking hell.

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Hello I’m drunk and thinking about six of crows agaiiiiin (why is this a recurring phenomena???? Ah well can’t complain this has happened like twice now?? That’s not too bad tbf)

I’ve had a lot of Soc related dreams in my time fun fact

Anyway

Do you guys ever think about the fact that Wylan had precious few memories of his mother?? Even though he lost her at a similar age to Jesper, who remembers his mother clearly?? To Kaz losing his Da, who he’s implied to remember well?? (I have more thoughts on Kaz’s active choice to bury those memories and his freaking constant parallels to Matthias but that’s no relevant right this second)

Do you ever think about that in conjunction to Wylan being taken abroad and “everywhere” with his father all the time?? Bc sometimes I imagine Marya standing up to Van Eck in attempts to defend Wylan and I don’t imagine that was the only time she stood up to him (her defending Wylan is probably part of why he sent her away) and I wonder whether since we know she was probably not safe in her marriage (and probably didn’t chose it based on what we know of Alys and how the Kerch patriarchal system works) and I wonder whether to some degree Van Eck separated her from Wylan as some kind of effed up punishment for standing up to him because Wylan had very clear memories of going away w his father and is implied to have some kind of photographic/eidetic memory like Kaz in the whole card counting thingy so why would he have so few memories of his mother if not because he was actively kept away from her during those periods that he still has clear memories of?? Idk but ultimately van eck is a skiv and I wouldn’t put it past him to punish Marya by separating her from Wylan and like he wouldn’t out rightly state it but they both knew that was what he was doing yk??? Anyway that’s just a theory I have

I need to go to sleep

[greeen-bean]

After having the conversation woth his mum where she corrects him and called herself Van Eck instead of Hendricks, in a way to still attach herself to Jan, even after he tried to fake her death, i think Wylan would embrace his Van Eck status a lot more. The last thing his father wanted was for people to know who Wylan was and for him to continue there family name, the biggest "Fuck you" Wylan could do is... all of that really

[possessedbydevils]

HELLO WAR AND PEACE ENJOYERS

l didn't actually read the book, but there was a theater about it and l saw it, my fan is Helen. (l bought the book and l will read it if school gets off my ass) PS: the pic in the background is from the play and it's Helen!

[karamazovanon]

who is your favourite female character in Dostoyevsky's works!! i adore all the women in his stories to be honest. . . they deserve the world

OHHHHH THIS IS SUCH A GOOD QUESTION DONT MAKE ME CHOOSE BETWEEN ALL 78 OF MY WIVES....... i really do adore his female characters because truly madly deeply they are ALL UNHINGED in some capacity and that is the chief quality i look for in a woman. it's VERY close but i think in the end it's gotta be either nastasya filippovna or grushenka <333 honorable mentions list is too long but dunya, lise khokhlakova, and varvara stavrogina are also very dear to me—i just really really love morally complex women with devastating backstories who do bad things especially out of self-hatred/self-sabotage, extra especially if those bad things are to men <3 nastasya & grushenka did nothing wrong

[sprnklersplashes]

aftershocks (ao3)

He comes every month.

Sometimes, she recognises him. 

Other times, her heart seizes and she doesn’t know why. 

Every time he comes, he isn’t alone. He comes with at least two other men, clad in black with faces she can't place. He comes during different times, spring, summer, autumn, winter. Every time he appears, the room gets colder.

On the days she doesn’t recognise him, she doesn’t trust him either. She recoils away from him when he sits opposite her, the steel blue of his eyes slicing through her like a knife. There’s something familiar in the fine lines of his jaw, the dark locks of his hair.

He takes something from his pocket, a dark liquid in a dark vial, and tells her its medicine.  Distrust curls in her gut, a voice reminds her that she doesn’t need medicine because she’s not sick. 

A cool hand rests on her shoulder, a gentle voice whispers in her ear, telling her that Mr Van Eck only wishes to see her well. Meanwhile, Mr Van Eck consults his watch and it seems he’d rather be anywhere else.

His eyes darken, like a storm brewing. A voice tells her to run.

The nurse helps her drink it, whispering encouragement as she tips her head back. After that, it gets a bit dark. She feels herself fall back against the sheets. No hands catch her, no-one cups her head or breaks her fall. Through heavy-lidded eyes, she watches him nod curtly to the nurse. He murmurs something she can’t catch.

And then, it happens.  A leather strap between her teeth, cold metal against her temples. 

The days where she does recognise him… well, all hell breaks loose. 

She lives up to the madness he’s accused her of; she curses at him until her lady mother cringes in the next world. She screams until her throat bleeds, she throws all manner of things at him. A paintbrush, her hairbrush, a teacup, knitting needles (she’s no longer allowed to knit). She slaps him so hard his cheek turns red, she spits in his face, wraps her hands around his throat. He chokes beneath her touch and for a moment, it feels like freedom.

Then there are sets of hands on her, two, three, four, dragging her to her bed. Not her bed. Her bed is in her house in the Geldstraat, overlooking her garden and why won’t anyone listen to her? Callous hands force her onto the mattress, indifferent to her cries.

“I know what you fucking did, I know what you took from me! I’ll tell everyone! I will tell everyone!”. 

They try to force the liquid down her throat. She spits it at them and tells them to fuck off. The nurse sighs softly beside her and dimly, she hears a bell ringing. He stands there through it all, unimpressed and mildly irritated as reinforcements come barging in. 

Once, he had promised to love and honour her, to protect her and stand by her in sickness and in health. Now he stands impassive as she’s strapped to the bed, as a needle is jammed into her arm. He doesn’t flinch, not even when her eyes fill with tears and she begs, begs , until her voice fades and her the room darkens. 

A leather strap is forced between her teeth.

When she screams, desperate and ragged and burning with pain, he doesn’t even blink. Her back arches off the bed and she cries out, tears running like waterfalls down her cheeks. She cries, and she prays that if Ghezen still bothers with the likes of her, he release her from this. 

It does stop. Eventually. It could have been an hour. Could have been ten. She didn’t count. 

A blanket is tossed over her body. The hands that held her down now brush a cold cloth against her brow. She wants to tell them exactly where they can stick that cloth, but her lips are clumsy and heavy, and the room is already going grey. Her protests turn into weak moans that make the nurses tut in sympathy. 

“How many more times must she do this?” she hears the nurse ask. 

“As many times as it takes,” he says. His voice is empty. “You saw how she got today. If this is what she needs to protect herself… it must be done.” He pauses. “It is for the best, if she forgets him entirely.”

“Never,” she whispers. Her voice is rusted, like the gates outside this infernal place. It’s cracked and strained and heavy with the sleep overtaking her. They didn’t even hear her. But she heard herself and she meant it. They can shock her a thousand times, put the entire power of the gods through her head. She won’t ever, ever forget her little boy. 

The next morning, she paints a boy with red hair and blue eyes. One of the nurses asks who he is, and she just glares.

Tapping his nails against the hardwood desk in the foyer, Wylan swears the room gets smaller. He tries to remain or at least appear calm; he takes sips of water and breathes that good country air coming in through the window. None of it does anything to dislodge the feeling that someone is about to burst through those doors, drag him by his neck and drown him and Jesper in nearby lake.

Nothing calms him, until Jesper’s hand brushes against his. That helps.

They’re stood at the front desk at Saint Hilde’s, finalising the papers to have his mother discharged. Two months have passed since the auction; since his father was arrested. He’ spent two months signing papers and getting the house done up and meeting with Cornelis Smeet. Those two months passed in a blink, but when he thinks about his mother spending all that time alone, in here, it feels too long.

“Nearly there, merchling,” Jesper says. “Just on her medical history now.” Wylan nods. His grip on Jesper’s hand tightens. 

“Last winter, she had a bout of the flu. There was a worry about pneumonia but it never got there.” Wylan makes a mental note to move more blankets up to her room. “And a stomach virus last spring. Two years ago she had a chest infection.” Wylan nods. They have the best mediks in Ketterdam within arm’s reach, but it might be worth assigning one specifically to his mother. “And… most recently, concerns that her monthly bleeding had stopped.”

Definitely a private medik then.

Suddenly, Jesper stops, his tall frame stiffening beside him. Their breath is sharp as they inhale. 

“Jes?”

“Miss Hendriks is prone to fits of rage and hysteria,” he reads. “In the past, M. Hendriks has needed to be sedated for her safety.” Their voice is weak and their trails off, their eyes soft when they look to Wylan.

“Wy are you okay?” It takes too much effort just to nod. He presses his tongue between his teeth and bites down. It’s a lie, he reminds himself. A lie his father concocted and one he’ll dismantle.

He nods again.

“Since the beginning of her stay at Saint Hilde’s, Miss Hendriks has undergone regular…” He stops. He swallows. “Regular electroshock therapy… at the reuqest of her… guardian… Jan Van Eck.” 

Electroshock therapy.

Jan Van Eck.

His father electrocuted her. 

The room tilts. Something rings in his ears. Warm hands wrap around his shoulders and he sinks into something-someone-Jesper. There, he finds the crook of Jesper’s neck and presses into it, wrapping his shaking hands around his waist. As Jesper whispers in his ear, Wylan breathes, in, out, focusing on the faint scent of smoke and sweat lingering on Jesper’s skin. He grasps it, and tries to stay in this moment, but his mind pulls him back through the years. All those lonely months he spent wandering his house while his father disappeared. How many of them were to come here, to see his wife electrocuted because she gave him a defective child?

“I hate him,” he mumbles. “I… fucking… hate him.”

And maybe with the way he was raised, he would have been scolded for saying such a horrible thing about his own father. Thankfully, Jesper wasn’t raised the way he was. They don’t scold, they hold him tight, kiss his cheek and rub warmth into his icy hands. 

“I know, darling,” they tell him softly. “I know.”

Sunbeams press into Wylan’s eyes, blurring the edges and obscuring the white-and-blue tiles of the floor. A small bird lands on the other side of the barred windows, and it chirps merrily at them. 

He doesn’t just hate this place, he thinks. He wants to burn it to the ground.

Bringing her home is… its hard. Saints, hard isn’t even the right word for it. 

Flanked by Wylan and Jesper, she approaches the house warily, as if she’s being led to a live snake. Neighbors begin gathering at their fences when they see her, their mouths hanging open. What a spectacle it must be. Marya Hendricks returned from the dead, the wayward Van Eck holding her while a boy in Barrel flash opens the door. Wylan regards his neighbours with little more than a passing glance. Hopefully, they don’t see the gesture he’s making behind his back.

Once inside, Martha freezes, her lips parted in a silent gasp. Wylan goes to take her coat, stops himself, starts again, hesitates. He feels like a stranger in his body, an actor without a script. While Jesper carefully cups Marya’s arm and guides her through the house, sits her down, and makes her tea, Wylan just trails after them, waiting for when he can be useful. 

It stays hard.

She walks slowly through the house, her footsteps silent, her hand always on the wall. She never enters a room unless Wylan and Jesper are there first, hovers outside half-open doors. She eats slowly if she eats at all. More often than not, she just looks at the plate with a caution Wylan recognises. It's the kind he learned in the Barrel, during the Ice Court and everything after.

Jesper often tactfully removes the meal and sets a cup of tea down in front of her. Most days, she shrinks away from it, hands pulled to her chest, and looks at Jesper with a fear that makes Wylan want to go down to Hellgate and beat his father black and blue.

She’s so… fragile. Wylan can’t ever remember her being like this. He remembers her laugh, her warmth, swinging him up in the air to carry him. He doesn’t remember her flinching whenever a door closes, looking anxiously over her shoulder whenever someone passes behind her. He remembers her stroking his hair as he played with her skirts. Now she tenses when he enters the room, her eyes almost instinctively moving to the nearest exit.

He doesn’t blame her. Whoever did all this to her in Saint Hilde is to blame, as is his father for putting her there to begin with. But there are few words to describe how it feels when you walk into a room and your mother, who once proclaimed you the most wonderful boy in the world, looks at you and expects you to hurt her.

It rips him apart and douses his insides with gasoline. He wants to set himself on fire.

Its three weeks in when things begin to change. Saturday morning. He had woken relatively late, having all but collapsed into bed the previous night. Being a Councilman takes so much out of him during the week that some weeks he’s asleep long before Jesper is. One of the maids tells him Jesper has just gone to the bakery and he should return soon. 

Wylan potters around the house for a bit, tidies papers, organises files, makes coffee, before he inevitably returns to the piano. Pieces of paper are strewn across from the last time he was here, each one containing a fragment of a new song. 

After all was done and the house was settled, what felt like a million melodies flooded Wylan’s head, begging for a turn on the instruments he never thought he’d see again. In the first few days, as Wylan had jumped from song to song and scratched notes haphazardly down on parchment, he came the closest he ever has to understanding Jesper’s frantic mind.

They’re a little more organised now. Wylan grabs the one closest to him and without checking it, places it in front of him and starts playing.

All at once, the rest of the house fades away as the song springs to life beneath his fingers. It's a collection of low, long notes that rise sharply, growing into what feel like icicles, winking in a winter storm. His left hand continues with the minor chords that hold together the higher notes dancing beneath his right hand, twinkling like little white snowflakes, the first fall of winter, before anyone can come in and ruin it. Frost on bare branches, grey skies streaked with white, lone grey wolves circling the scene.

(Matthias’ name forms on his lips. That’s the piece’s name, he decides)

It’s only when he’s played three more bars that he finds he’s not written any of it down. The snow clears from his vision and places him back in the white-walled music room, howling winds replaced by the distant bubbling of the canal. Hurriedly, Wylan grabs the pen and begins writing before the picture can disappear and he has to begin the search all over again.

With the music gone now, Wylan finds himself more aware of his surroundings, the house and its objects solid around him. And because of that, he doesn’t jumpw hen he hears a timid clacking of lady’s shoes on the wooden floor. Nor does he have to wonder who it is.

His throat runs dry. Lead lines his stomach, a knot forms in his throat.

“Good morning,” he says as he forces a smile. Marya stands a good distance from the piano, anxious eyes flicking form the piano to him. He opens his mouth again, to offer her breakfast, but she stops him.

“You were playing.” Cautiously, she shuffles closer, her back straight as if posing for a portrait. After looking at Wylan for a long moment, her hands rest lightly on the piano.

“Y-yes,” he stammers. A hot flush comes over him. “I-I was just working on a-”

“Play it again,” she asks. Wylan blinks, unsure if he heard her correctly. Her eyes fall closed, lashes resting against the shadows beneath them. “Please.”

He doesn’t need another incentive.

The song comes back to him, the same collection of low chords and high notes folding in together. But this time, the snow doesn’t come, the sky remains a watered-down blue. He can’t find his way back to that frosted landscape. He’s too busy watching his mother and noticing how her hazel eyes follow his fingers, her face creasing as though she’s searching for something she can’t place. He reaches the newest part, the one he found this morning, and wills himself to commit it to memory.

“Wylan.”

He freezes. The notes hang in the air, patiently waiting for their successors, but though he knows them, he can’t make his fingers play them. He can’t make himself do anything; his soul has stepped outside his body and is watching the scene with wide eyes and held breath, so sure that this is a dream and he will wake up on the floor of a tomb. 

Wylan sits perfectly still as she comes around the piano, and with a lady’s grace, she lowers herself beside him. Up close, he can see the tears glistening in her eyes, but beneath them, there is a clarity that felt unthinkable when he took her from Saint Hilde. Part of him wants to pinch himself but if this is a dream, he will stay in it forever.

She hesitates, looking to him for an answer. He nods, and then her palm is against his cheek. The fingers are cold, and he gasps. But they stay here.

“My Wylan,” she says. This time, her voice shakes. Shakes her head, licks her lips. “How did I ever forget you?” 

Disbelief creases her features and with it, an unmistakable shame crawls over her. Her hand trembles against his cheek, two tears run down her now-red face.

Guilt tears through her, bleeds through the trembling. Eight years worth of shame and guilt she shouldn’t even have, and he comes back to his body.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he says. He gasps; his throat is so tight. Then, he breaks. “Mama, it wasn’t your fault.” 

And then, they don’t know who started it, but their arms are wrapped around each other, their hearts beating staccato rhythms against each other, eight lost, lonely years held between them. Tears of shame and guilt and grief and relief run and Wylan feels all of it. It drowns him.

“Wylan, my baby,” his mother weeps into his shoulder. A trembling hand cups his head, hot breath on his skin. “I left you here alone-”

“Mama, it was never your fault,” he says again. He bites his tongue before he can finish and say that it was his fault and also his father’s. Words and pictures come back to him; her sitting in that chair in Saint Hilde, piles and piles of her paintings, Jesper reading her file. “Regular electroshock therapy”.

He remembers it, and he wants to find his father and burn him down himself.

But he won’t right now. Now, he just pulls her closer, rests his chin on her shoulder, and says again, stronger.

“It was never your fault.” Then, he swallows, the picture clear. “It was his. It was always his.”

He’s not sure if she believes him, or even remembers. But, there’s a small nod against his shoulder and for now, it’ll be enough.

[funkyspacerat]

Esme introducing Janet to Marya as "Janet Blake, who doesn't like your painting very much" kills me every single time I watch like. "Hello, welcome to my home, these are my friends. This one fucking hates your art btw. Thinks you're a shit painter."

[anotherfandomtrash]

Just girls being pals

[shellyseashell]

ok i know i’ve known about marya for like. less than a day. and from what i can tell her and claudine have a typically sister like relationship. but have you CONSIDERED. claudine x marya. unhealthily religious girl x the demon that won’t leave her alone.

[penguin--person]

I don’t know how I’m only just understanding that kozlov is nina’s father

whoops

whhos gonna tell them ...

[lalaboy]

thinking about families and houses and the sometimes supernatural relationship between them. Dmitrievna is her house, the Kuragins have nothing but a house, and the Bolkonskys are haunted by the house.

[dolokhoded]

i feel like legally i have to ask maryatole. so. feelings on maryatole for the bingo...

i'm sorry im being so mean to you guys' ships today but you keep giving me ships that wrong marya very badly

[storkmuffin]

Tolstoy is a great writer because when he writes about an ugly woman he makes her unabashedly unattractive *and* really horny. Most male writers are so repulsed by the idea of an unfuckable woman they can't imagine her humanity at all, but not Uncle Leon.

[thalassous]

ME WHEN I SEE TOTO THALASSOUS RB ART ASK GAME THINGS 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️F4 expression & kin list palette for my mary b my most specialest girlie!!

nobody, and i mean nobody does it like marya nikolayevna bolkonskaya.

[mynameisemma]

Isn't it insane how pretty much every female character in wap except for Marya fits the "blorbo fucked over by the narrative" definition

[surrender-souls]

edward nygma would read war and peace and brag about it