#historical bookkeeping

[fantasyescapes17]

Closed Doors (Part 3, Final)

Soonyoung had made peace with his station in life. A younger son of a little-known family, he was not set to inherit a fortune and had nothing to recommend him but his bright personality. Nobody expected Soonyoung to make the match of the season. But when you- a woman with ties to the royal family and riches beyond his imagination, a Duchess in your own right- seeks Soonyoung's hand in marriage, his life begins to spiral entirely out of his control.

Genre: Hoshi x female!reader. Regency!AU. Your title is the Duchess of Graham but your first name is not mentioned.

Warnings: Not even remotely historically accurate. Much like Bridgerton, this is all about the aesthetic.

Word Count: 8.1k+

Part 1 Part 2

Series Masterlist [This is not the first installment in this series- it is strongly recommended to visit the Masterlist and read the installments in order as they are all interlinked and the timeline can be confusing.]

You awoke with the morning sun shining brightly in your eyes. 

One of the maids had opened the curtains and cracked the window. There was a gentle breeze and you could hear birds chirping; the sounds and fresh smells of the countryside estate were much more pleasing than the smoke and noise of London. 

You relaxed instinctively, knowing that you were home. It was warm under the covers and you sleepily sat up in bed and blinked at the maid. 

“What time is it?” you asked her. 

“It’s a quarter to eight, Your Grace. I thought perhaps you might want to sleep in, but since the Duke was already awake…” she trailed off with a giggle. 

The drowsiness cleared and you suddenly remembered where you were. Not in your usual bedchambers, but in the bedchambers of your newly wedded husband, now the Duke of Graham. Your face grew hot as you remembered the events of the previous night. Soonyoung had surprised you many times since your first meeting, but the events of the previous night had perhaps been the most pleasurable surprise of all. 

“Do you require anything, Your Grace?” the maid asked you, concerned. “If you are in any pain…” 

You wrapped the bedsheets around you tightly and tried not to show your embarrassment. 

“No- I… just help me dress, please. Where is the Duke?” 

“In the master study downstairs, Your Grace. He has been there all morning.” 

“All morning?” 

“Yes, Your Grace. He was awake long before most of the servants had arisen.” 

You were confused but kept your questions to yourself. You allowed the maid to help you dress and then went downstairs to the master study. This had been your late father’s favourite haunt, and although it was not as large as the grand library upstairs, it was still a luxurious room where your father had conducted most of his business meetings and matters of the estate. 

The study door was slightly ajar. You could hear familiar male voices: Soonyoung, Mr. Johnson the estate manager, and one of his assistant bookkeepers.

“There are separate ledgers for the household and for the estate?” Soonyoung was saying in a slightly confused voice. “If I wanted to see a consolidated view of the overall finances-” 

Mr. Johnson spoke up. “We reconcile everything on a quarterly basis, Your Grace. Those records are kept here. I would recommend viewing them separately, however, as the household ledgers only track expenses and outgoings and we report them here as a percentage of the gross income.” 

Soonyoung sighed. There was a hint of frustration in his voice. “But that gross income is before you’ve provided for taxes?” 

“Which taxes, Your Grace? The ones payable to the duchy or the ones payable to the Crown?” the bookkeeper asked patiently. 

“Those are separate taxes?” 

You knocked gently on the study door and pushed it open. Soonyoung was sitting behind the large mahogany desk, while various ledgers and volumes were open on the table before him. He was startled when he looked up and saw you. His ears promptly turned red and he jumped to his feet. 

“Your Grace!” 

The bookkeeper and Mr. Johnson also rose to greet you. 

“Good morning, gentlemen,” you greeted them with a small smile. “Isn’t it rather early to be going through these tedious ledgers?” 

Soonyoung rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “My apologies, Your Grace. I-I asked for Mr. Johnson to come. I wanted his help to better understand the matters of the estate.” 

It was certainly unusual behaviour, but as with everything Soonyoung did, you could see his innocence and good intentions shining through. His eyes were bloodshot. If the maid was to be believed, Soonyoung had been here grappling with the ledgers since half past five in the morning. The new Duke of Graham evidently did not shy away from hard work. You felt a sudden rush of affection for this man, your husband, and his dedication to his new role. 

“Perhaps we might adjourn for breakfast?” you suggested lightly. 

Soonyoung nodded and hastily closed the ledgers before coming over to you. “Yes, yes, of course.” 

“Shall we eat in the gardens?” you asked Soonyoung, who gave you a sudden handsome smile that made your heart skip a beat. You bit your lip and turned to the other gentlemen. “Thank you for coming on the Duke’s request, Mr. Johnson. I will ask the staff to arrange breakfast for you and your assistant in the parlour.” 

Mr. Johnson nodded gratefully. “Thank you, Your Grace.” 

Soonyoung offered you his arm and you took it before leaning closer to him. It was a strange and thrilling feeling to be so near him. While there was little reason to feel shy after the events of last night, you still enjoyed the subtle contact of your hand resting on his elbow. It was an innocent gesture, but now that Soonyoung was your husband, it felt far more meaningful. 

The sight of his soft smile left a strange but pleasant feeling in your stomach. 

The servants had set out your breakfast in the garden and Soonyoung blinked, squinting in the bright morning sunlight as you both stepped outdoors. The gardens were large and beautifully maintained with flower beds, water fountains,  and artfully shaped hedges.

“This estate is even more beautiful by day,” Soonyoung  said honestly. 

You bit your lip. “Something you might have discovered sooner if you had not shut yourself in the study on your very first morning here,” you replied. 

Soonyoung looked apologetic until he noticed the soft smile on your face. You did not appear angry, so he relaxed. 

"I apologise if I worried you, Your Grace."

“I was only surprised. Was going through the estate ledgers so much more exciting than having breakfast with your wife?” 

Soonyoung flushed. "No, I only…"

You smiled at him gently. "Yes?"

"As a second son I never took an interest in matters of the estate or business in my own family. Now I find myself the Duke of a duchy with a history and genealogy that goes back hundreds of years…" Soonyoung paused and bit his lip as he looked down at his teacup with a heavy sigh. "I only hope I can be what the title requires me to be."

You felt a sudden burst of affection for the man and you reached across the table to place your hand on top of his. 

"Soonyoung."

"Yes?"

"I want you to know that you are not alone. I am genuinely grateful for the effort you are putting in," you told him honestly. 

Soonyoung smiled in relief. "Thank you, Your Grace."

"Shall we eat?"

It was a pleasant breakfast in the fresh morning air. Soonyoung seemed in awe of everything; from the breakfast spread to the perfectly maintained flower beds. Soonyoung polished off his meal enthusiastically while telling you about the childhood he spent in the countryside. 

"I'm sure our estate wasn't even a quarter of this size," he admitted. "I don't remember much about it. I was sent off to boarding school and then the Royal Naval Academy fairly young, and I spent my summer breaks in London."

You blinked at him. "But the Viscount said he first met you in Oxford?"

He coughed, looking rather embarrassed. "Yes- I attended Oxford for about a year. It was fun; I made friends but I was bottom of the class and it was quite evident by the end of the first year that I was not about to become a barrister or a doctor. I thought I had best cut my losses, and transfer to the Royal Naval Academy."

"Were you drawn to the navy by a sense of adventure?" you asked with a smile. 

Soonyoung chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. "A boyish sense of adventure? I suppose so. I was certainly more motivated by the thought of defeating enemy warships than being called to the bar. I wanted to do something exciting, so I will not pretend that I was pleased to learn sailors are more likely to die from scurvy or drowning than at the edge of an enemy combatant's sword."

"Is there much sword-fighting in the Navy?"

He grinned at you sheepishly. "There was plenty in my fantasies."

You could not help but smile back at him. "It seems I must apologise, then, for depriving the Crown of a potentially heroic naval captain to defend our stormy seas."

"Considering the number of times I had to retake the lesson on using a sextant to navigate at sea, I am sure the Crown is quite grateful to you for keeping me on solid land, Your Grace," Soonyoung replied humbly. 

"Oh- I have always wanted to learn how to use a sextant," you said brightly. "It's a funny little contraption, is it not?"

Soonyoung chuckled as he sipped his tea. "Fiddly little things and awful to use. I was horrified when I went to the academy and learned that ships did not just sail blindly into the vast unknown, and marine navigation involved an overwhelming amount of mathematics and nautical charting," he admitted. 

"You expected more sword fighting?"

"I expected less calculating."

"Well," you said with a smile as you sipped your tea, "I am sorry that you are forced to do some calculating here. I noticed that you were going through the ledgers this morning. What prompted you to rise at daybreak on your first day and undertake that particularly painful task?"

Soonyoung blushed. "You will laugh if I tell you."

"Only if you say something funny."

“I- I woke at dawn and I could not sleep,” he admitted. His ears were slightly red. “I went out for a drink of water, but I wandered down the wrong hallway and found myself in what I now understand to be the ancestral gallery? It was a long hallway filled with portraits of your ancestors who all stared down at me disapprovingly from the walls. It struck me that I was responsible for continuing their legacy, and I did not relish the idea of having to face them if I hadn’t done everything in my power to uphold the glory of their duchy. I became quite anxious, so once I had escaped the gallery, I asked to meet the estate manager immediately.” 

The corner of your lips twitched noticeably. 

Soonyoung pouted at you. “You promised that you would not laugh, Your Grace!” 

“I promised no such thing,” you replied, but you could not help but let out a giggle at the thought of the poor Duke wandering around the manor at dawn. “But I will not laugh at you. I will only make one observation.” 

“That is?” 

“Many of these ancestors you saw in the portrait gallery were drunkards, gamblers, and adulterers. I assure you that there is nothing particularly grand or glorious about most of them. They were simply rich men. I do not think you shall find it incredibly difficult to outshine them, Your Grace,” you told him. “Honestly- the only prerequisite to be added to that gallery is to stay alive long enough to produce an heir that will put up your portrait once you are gone.” 

Soonyoung almost choked on his tea. “Yes- an heir, of course.” 

You bit your lip and avoided his gaze. “There is… no particular urgency on that front.” 

“Right.” 

“Shall we take a tour of the manor, then, to prevent Your Grace from losing your way and encountering more anxiety-inducing portraits?” 

Soonyoung smiled. “Yes, let’s.” 

Over the course of your first day as Soonyoung's wife, you were surprised by how pleasurable you found his company. Soonyoung was not suave or charming in the style of men like Viscount Hong, nor did he possess the bold confidence or pride that were often considered desirable among the male sex. 

No. Soonyoung was different. He was kind, he was honest, and he was humble. You had never met a man quite like him. You had never met a man that you wanted, more than anything in the world, to love and trust with all your heart. 

It was a long day but time spent with Soonyoung went by in a flash. You showed him around the manor, the gardens and the creek and told him about your family and childhood and the estate. Soonyoung listened to you intently. He hung onto your every word and although you had always been a quiet and reserved person, you found yourself speaking more than you usually did, opening up to him, and even laughing. 

Your maid, Rosie, noticed the lingering smile on your face as she helped you dress for bed later that night. 

"If I may say something, Your Grace…" Rosie began shyly as she combed through your hair. 

You blinked up at her in the mirror. "Yes?"

"We were all quite worried, Your Grace, when we heard that you had married in London so suddenly- and to a man with no fortune,  even Mr Johnson thought perhaps Your Grace was being taken advantage of…"

You looked up at her defensively. "I may be a woman but I am not an idiot, Rosie."

Rosie flushed. "Of course not, Your Grace! I see that now… I think we all understand why you married the Duke."

"Oh? And why is that?"

"Well… pardon me, Your Grace, but you haven't been yourself since the late Duke passed. You've become so quiet and withdrawn and we were rather worried. But since yesterday… well, old Mrs. Minnie in the gardens was saying that she couldn't remember the last time she saw you smiling so brightly."

You pursued your lips in embarrassment. Was it so obvious, even to the servants? You had always been careful not to reveal your true feelings too much, to mask your emotions behind a practised smile. But if even the servants could see that Soonyoung had such an effect on you…

The thought was strangely both comforting and scary. 

There was a knock on your door. One of the servants opened the door and poked her head in. She seemed to be stifling a smile. 

"Your Grace? The Duke is here for you. We found him wandering the upstairs hallways."

"Of course, please let him in. Are you done, Rosie?"

Rosie released your hair with a smile. "Of course, Your Grace. Good night."

The servants left while hiding their giggles, and Soonyoung entered your room with flushed cheeks. He was holding a bottle of wine- the same bottle, you realised, that you had brought to his room the previous night and left unfinished. He glanced awkwardly at the door that the servants exited from. 

"That is the second time one of the servants caught me lost in the manor," he said, embarrassed. "I think they are all laughing at me. I had forgotten where your bedchambers were."

You smiled at him. "Shall I draw you a map?"

"I would probably lose the map as well," Soonyoung joked. He stepped closer to you and revealed the bottle in his hand. "Can I tempt you with a glass of wine before bed? We never finished this one last night."

You nodded. "Of course."

It was a strange sort of intimacy; comfortable and yet still exciting, to crawl under the covers with Soonyoung as he poured you a glass of wine. He lit a cigar with your permission. You ordinarily disliked the smell of tobacco, but oddly, you did not mind anything much when you were with Soonyoung. 

Sipping the wine, you patiently answered his questions about the estate and the dukedom. You had been handling most of the important matters yourself for many months now; particularly since your father's illness had him bedridden. 

"It must have been very difficult," Soonyoung said gently, "taking care of the estate while you were worried about your father's health."

You looked down at his fingers entwined with yours and sighed. His touch was warm and comforting. 

"It was not easy," you confessed. "I lost my mother very young and my father was all I had. I was never a very social person. Without a mother or a sister to chaperone me I… I never even spent much time in society or at balls."

Soonyoung was quiet, but you could tell that he was listening. 

"I had always felt alone, but it wasn't until my father passed that I realised how alone I really was," you continued. "He had wanted me to marry before he died but his health became worse suddenly…"

 Soonyoung squeezed your hand. 

"I'm sorry," he whispered. 

You bit your lip. You had never spoken to anyone about this before and it felt almost cathartic to confess it all to Soonyoung. 

"The day after my father died, all the vultures descended."

"Vultures?" Soonyoung asked, confused. 

"One of my father's oldest friends- a nobleman more than twice my age- proposed marriage to me before my father had even been properly buried. When I refused him, he was furious. Another came to the funeral and told me that as a lady I couldn't possibly manage the duchy and that if I signed it over to him, he would take care of it for me and give me an allowance."

Soonyoung stared at you in disbelief. 

"Monsters," he mumbled. 

Your lower lip trembled. "There were more offers… some cruder than others. I began to realise that as long as I remained unmarried, I would continue to have a painted target on my forehead. But I had nobody to trust. That was when I finally reached out to Viscount Hong."

Soonyoung blinked. "But he is happily married."

You nodded. "That made it easier to trust him. I knew the Viscount from my youth, of course, but plenty of people that I knew from my youth had since revealed themselves to be untrustworthy. Viscount Hong was the only person who did not want anything from me and genuinely treated me as a friend. That is why I could confide in him. I sought his help to find a husband."

Soonyoung finished his glass of wine and then turned to look at you- his gaze was a little unfocused and you realised that he had drunk too much of the wine. The bottle lay empty on the bedside table. 

"Wouldn't you rather have married him instead?"

Your eyes widened. "Soonyoung!"

His lower lip stuck out, almost in a pout as he leaned his head against one of the pillows lazily. His tone was contemplative. "It's hardly outrageous. Viscount Hong is rich, handsome, very charming…"

"And as you pointed out yourself, quite happily married," you protested. 

"But you must have considered it?"

You blinked down at your husband. He did not seem angry; his eyelids seemed heavy but he forced them open to look up at you. It was genuine curiosity in his eyes and you felt obligated to answer him with honesty. 

You sighed. "I will admit that I considered Viscount Hong quite handsome when we were younger- although I dare you to find a young lady in the ton, married or single, who did not feel the same way about him at some point. He is quite attractive but no, I do not think I ever seriously considered marrying him."

"Why not?"

"I am not sure we would have suited each other."

"But you thought I suited you?"

You looked down at Soonyoung. His cheek was pressed against the pillow and his face was flushed. It had been a long day; he was clearly struggling to stay awake and his voice was beginning to sound slurred. 

"I did," you replied quietly. 

"Why-why did you marry me?" he mumbled. 

You took a deep breath. Frankly, you were surprised that Soonyoung had not asked you this question much, much sooner. It had quite clearly been on his mind. Stranger yet was that you dreaded being asked this question- it forced you to confront feelings that you were not sure you were ready to face. 

"I-"

There was a soft snore from the pillow. You looked down in surprise- Soonyoung had fallen asleep. His mouth was still slightly open and his face flushed. You giggled and leaned down to kiss his soft cheek. 

"Good night, Your Grace."

—----------------------------------------------

The first few weeks of your 'honeymoon period', as many called it, with Soonyoung were perhaps some of the happiest days you had ever spent. The Graham manor (a place that had never been a source of much happiness for you, and had become a source of misery since your father's death) was suddenly lit up by Soonyoung's mere presence. 

He resolved to learn about the estate. You discovered that, despite his seeming lack of confidence, Kwon Soonyoung could do anything if he set his mind to it. There was a steely determination that seemed to overtake him when it came to matters of the estate and dukedom. 

Even Mr. Johnson, the stiff and difficult-to-please estate manager, admitted to you that he was impressed with the way Soonyoung had taken charge of the dukedom. 

"His Grace insisted upon meeting the peasants himself," Mr. Johnson told you in confidence. "I assumed it was a vanity trip; some of the noblemen like to lord their wealth before the commoners. But His Grace actually walked through the fields instead of taking his carriage and spoke to each of the peasants individually to understand their troubles."

You blinked in surprise. "Did my father ever do that?"

Mr. Johnson chuckled. "No. The late Duke would make the peasants travel up to the manor if they had complaints and to submit their taxes. It took them all day- and meant that they couldn't tend to the fields."

"This way is better, then."

"Personally, I think some distance between the common folk and nobility should be maintained," Mr. Johnson said stiffly. "Yet I cannot find it in me to fault His Grace's methods. The other day, he resolved a land dispute that some of the peasants have been having for years… I wish I had been there to see it, but I was not at the site. It seems he convinced them to come to a mutual settlement."

You blinked. "How?"

"I wish I knew. He mediated it himself- they have come to accept His Grace's authority even in such a short time."

You were surprised as well. As the Duchess, you were hardly disliked but it had been ingrained in you from a young age to keep your distance from the peasants and be and be wary of everyone and everything. 

You were respected- but Soonyoung was beloved. He had such an amiable nature that in a matter of months, almost everyone in the duchy had fallen in love with him. 

You were no  exception. 

From the peasants, to the villagers, to the servants at the manor… everyone agreed that the new Duke of Graham was nothing short of a bright ray of sunshine. 

Soonyoung's dedication to his new role as Duke did not mean that he was any less dedicated to his role as a husband. He spent his evenings solely with you. You shared long walks in the gardens and often indulged in some wine before bed. Separate bed-chambers were not uncommon among married couples of the nobility, but you and Soonyoung had never felt the need for them. 

"We shall have to return to London soon," you told him one morning over breakfast as you both perused the post. "Her Majesty has specifically asked me to join her court now that I am married, and you will need to take your place in court among the other Dukes as well…"

Soonyoung blinked at you in surprise. "Has the Queen really written to you personally?"

You bit your lip. "She has always taken a personal interest in me. My mother was quite close to the Queen; she would not have issued the decree which allowed me to keep the title otherwise. I cannot risk offending Her Majesty."

Soonyoung nodded. "Then we shall return as Her Majesty commands."

You suddenly felt anxious. "Maybe it was foolish of me, but I did not invite many Dukes and Earls to our wedding. At least not the vultures. They are certainly upset at my decision not to marry any of them, and I am worried they may be unpleasant upon our return-"

Soonyoung reached across the table and placed his hand on yours gently. 

"It will be fine. We will handle it together."

You smiled at him gratefully. "Thank you, Soonyoung."

"When do we leave?"

"In two days."

—----------------------------------------------------

You were miserable as the carriage approached your London manor and you felt the familiar thickness of the city air. 

The court, the ton, and the intricate politics and pettiness of elite society had never been to your taste. You were by no means bad at it. Putting on a fake smile and pandering to society was a skill you had mastered early on in life, but it gave you almost no pleasure. 

You would have stayed at the estate with Soonyoung forever, if only it was possible. 

"Your Grace!" the butler greeted you politely as you stepped into the familiar luxurious manor and the servants rushed to carry your belongings inside. You turned- but the butler was addressing your husband. "There are a number of letters here for you."

Soonyoung took them and frowned as he rifled. 

"Letters already?" you wondered. 

"I wrote ahead to some of my friends that I was returning to London," Soonyoung admitted shyly. "Mr. Kim wishes to know when I will come by the gentleman's club for a game of cards. Viscount and Viscountess Hong have invited us to a dinner party on Saturday. And this is from… who is the Duke of Kent?"

You winced. "A disgusting old fellow."

"He invites me to join him on a hunting trip tomorrow with some other gentlemen," Soonyoung replied. He looked at you sheepishly. "I… am not particularly good at hunting."

You waved a hand dismissively. "Neither is the Duke of Kent."

"I suppose I should accept his invitation then. Perhaps Mr. Yoon will give me some tips about using a shotgun beforehand…" Soonyoung muttered thoughtfully, as he walked away to find an ink and pen to answer the invitations. 

You felt a strange anxiety in the pit of your stomach. 

"Soonyoung…"

He paused. "Yes, dear?"

"I know I have said this before, but some of these Dukes can be very unpleasant and manipulative, and I…" you trailed off, not sure how to explain yourself. 

You were worried for him. You were worried at the thought of your kind, caring husband alone with those manipulative noblemen who had decades of experience in the art of politics and under-handedness. Soonyoung's expression softened as he came back to you and leaned down to place a soft kiss on your forehead. 

"Do not worry, Your Grace," he said gently. 

"I will not be able to join you hunting, I am required to meet with the Queen tomorrow," you reminded him. 

"As you must."

Soonyoung seemed more confident. Perhaps his success at managing the duchy and popularity with the peasants had left him feeling more comfortable about his position as a Duke. Yet, you could not help but feel that your husband was about to be thrown in the lion's den unprepared. 

You had supper together before going to bed. As was common, the enormous London manor had separate bedrooms for the Duke and Duchess but Soonyoung always found his way to your bedroom after dark. On your first night in London, he arrived much later than usual, after you had already settled under the covers. 

"I got lost," Soonyoung mumbled to you in apology as he blew out your candle and slid under the covers beside you. His arm wrapped around your waist as you giggled. 

"Lost, again?"

He huffed, pressing his cheek to your shoulder. "This is my first night at the London manor. It took me over a month to find my way around the manor at the estate. Now I must acquaint myself with a completely new building full of winding corridors."

You giggled. "I'll have the butler draw you a map in the morning. Good night, Your Grace."

"Good night."

—-----------------------------------------------------------

Soonyoung left for his hunting trip at dawn and you had to leave soon afterwards for your engagement with the Queen. Her Majesty received you warmly in her tea parlour with some of the other ladies-in-waiting, and her sharp eyes scanned you as soon as you had taken your seat. 

"You look different, Duchess," the Queen told you bluntly. 

You bowed politely. "Do I, Your Majesty?"

"Yes. Marriage suits you. I can't be the first person to have told you this. I have seen excellent young ladies destroyed by entering into the wrong marriage, and it pleases me to see that this does not seem to be the case with you. Tell me; are you happy?"

You bit your lip and nodded. "I am, Your Majesty."

"We could have found you a Prince, you know."

You smiled at her graciously. "I am very grateful, Your Majesty. But I have a responsibility to my dukedom and my title- I could not abandon my family heritage to become a Princess."

The Queen nodded and sipped her tea. One of the other court ladies- the Countess Harrison- took the opportunity to speak. 

"Our dear Duchess is, as always, thinking about responsibilities that are not hers to bear," the Countess Harrison said with a titter. "Perhaps it is time you left your dukedom to the men and learned something from the other ladies about womanly responsibilities."

You sighed. You had long learned to pick your battles carefully with the court ladies. 

"And what are these womanly responsibilities, Countess?" you wondered. 

The Countess giggled. "Why, of course; bearing sons to continue the noble bloodline! Surely your family will not petition Her Majesty again to allow you to pass the title onto someone else, simply because you did not bear enough sons?"

"Enough sons?" you asked. You were not taking her conversation seriously at all- frankly, you were more interested in the lemon cakes being served than anything the Countess had to say. 

"But of course! You must have enough sons. Children sometimes die prematurely, it is an unfortunate reality."

You stirred some sugar into your tea. "So fear of your children dying is the reason your husband has sired so many bastards? If little Jonathan should die of fever, then at least your maid's bastard son can take over the Earldom. The continuation of the noble Harrison bloodline may depend upon it," you remarked coolly. 

The Countess flushed a furious shade of red. Some of the other court ladies giggled. They were no friends of yours, but they also did not have much loyalty to each other. 

The Queen looked at you with a friendly twinkle in her eye. 

"Now, now, Duchess. We are all delighted to see you happily married, but you must not be so mean to our Countess here," the Queen said lightly. Her tone was playful. 

"My apologies, Your Majesty," you said half-heartedly.

The Queen rose. "I wish to step outside onto the balcony. Accompany me, Duchess."

It was a statement and one that silenced the other court ladies immediately. The Queen had never been shy about the fact that you were her favourite court lady. Your mother had been her close personal friend, and despite their best efforts, none of the other court ladies had been able to wriggle their way into the Queen's good books quite like your family. 

You offered your arm to the Queen, who led you outside to the balcony and called for her snuffbox. Then she turned to you with a raised eyebrow. 

"Do you remember what I told you when you arrived in London a few months ago- after your father's death?" the Queen asked. 

You bit your lip. "Of course, Your Majesty. You told me that as a Duchess, nothing could come before my duty to the title and my dukedom, and that I would have to make my decisions carefully."

The Queen nodded. "Do you think it was sound advice?"

"I do, Your Majesty."

"Have you followed it?" 

You hesitated and the Queen's sharp eyes did not miss the look on your face. She glanced back at the parlour where the court ladies were still having tea and then raised an eyebrow at you. 

"I-I have tried, Your Majesty," you replied. 

"Then you should have no problem telling me why you chose to put your entire family's legacy in the hands of a poor second son without a penny to his name."

You swallowed. 

"Well?" the Queen asked. "Can you?"

"... I cannot."

—-------------------------------------------------------

You were drained of energy by the time you returned to the manor. The butler informed you that your husband had still not returned from his hunting trip, and that he had sent word for you to have supper without him.

You ate and went to bed but somehow, you could not sleep alone. You had become too used to Soonyoung's warm body against yours. He always tucked you in close to him with an arm around you and his soft and steady breathing was what helped you sleep. Without him, the room was too silent. 

You waited for Soonyoung to return, but the clock struck midnight and he was still not back. You wrapped a robe around yourself and went downstairs. 

The butler ran to you."Do you require anything, Your Grace-"

"Had the Duke still not returned from the hunting trip?" you demanded. 

The butler looked confused. 

"His Grace returned a few hours ago. He was tired and went straight to his bedchambers."

You blinked and nodded before dismissing the butler. Perhaps Soonyoung was too tired to risk getting lost in the manor in search of your room, and had gone to sleep in his own bedchambers. You went back upstairs and hurried to the bedchamber that you knew to be your husband’s. 

You knocked on the door. "Soonyoung?"

There was no response. You turned the handle. 

It was locked. 

An unsettling feeling came across you. You could not think of why Soonyoung would lock the door to his bedchamber. You often had to remind him even to just close the door- he had a careless habit of leaving doors completely ajar. 

There were footsteps on the stairs. Some of the servants were awake, and you decided to return to your own bedchambers instead of causing a scene.

—----------------------------------------------------

You awoke to find Soonyoung had already left the manor. The butler informed you that the Duke had gone to visit his friends Mr. Kim Mingyu and Mr. Lee Seokmin, and would be back in time to accompany you to the dinner party at Viscount Hong's. 

You tried not to read too much into it. Soonyoung had lived in London for a long time, and his friends were undoubtedly eager to meet him upon his return. 

You wondered if you would have had an easier time making friends if it had not been for your title. 

You kept yourself occupied for most of the day with your correspondence and answering invitations that flooded in from members of the ton who had learned you were back in London. The social season was drawing to a close and there were plenty of balls and events crammed into the next week. You could not possibly attend them all, nor did you wish to. 

Soonyoung finally returned in the evening. The carriage waited outside to take you both to the Viscount's home, and you smiled in relief at the sight of your husband. 

"Soonyoung!" you greeted him warmly. "I did not see you last night. How did the hunting trip go?"

Soonyoung grimaced as he helped you into the carriage. "I couldn't shoot anything," he told you honestly. "But neither did the Duke of Kent so at least I was not the worst hunter there. The Viscount shot a rather plump pheasant."

"Viscount Hong was there?"

"Yes, thankfully," Soonyoung muttered. You eyed your husband anxiously as the carriage took off. He was quiet, but it was not entirely unusual for Soonyoung to sometimes be more quiet and withdrawn. He often did it when he was focusing, or thinking deeply about something. 

"Did you enjoy your morning with Mr. Kim and Mr. Lee?" you asked lightly. 

Soonyoung nodded. "Oh-yes."

"What did you do?"

"We only played cards and talked about how they've been during the last few months. I didn't bet much money on the cards," he added quickly. 

You blinked, confused. "I am not worried about you gambling, Soonyoung."

He flushed. "Yes- of course."

The carriage arrived at the Viscount's grand manor and you both descended. Soonyoung offered you his arm and you took it. 

The Viscount and Viscountess were waiting to greet you at the entrance. Viscount Hong smiled, while his wife embraced you and congratulated you and Soonyoung warmly on your marriage. They guided you to the drawing room where about ten or eleven other guests were already gathered. You saw the Earl Harrison, the Duke of Kent and some of the other unpleasant old noblemen along with their wives. 

"Perhaps we should have looked more closely at the guest list before accepting this particular invitation," you mumbled to your husband. Soonyoung did not smile or agree with you. His expression was grim and he seemed uncomfortable. .

"Ah; the new Duke and Duchess of Graham!" the Earl Harrison greeted you loudly. You forced a smile. He was a disgusting man with a reputation for sleeping with his servants, and you had no respect for him. 

"Earl Harrison," you replied politely. 

"We had the pleasure of hunting with your husband just yesterday. Rather unfortunate that you did not enquire whether he could handle a shotgun before you married him!"

You felt Soonyoung stiffen beside you and gave the Earl a sharp look. 

"I did not consider proficiency with a shotgun to be one of my primary requirements in a husband, sir," you replied coolly. 

The Earl raised an eyebrow. "Indeed? Well, it leaves one to wonder…"

"Wonder what, exactly?" you demanded. 

"Why you married him, of course."

You felt a burst of irritation. You were normally much better at controlling your anger and keeping calm, but the Earl's snide remarks about Soonyoung wound you up more than they should have. Your jaw clenched but before you could respond, the Viscount and Viscountess inserted themselves into the conversation. 

"Earl Harrison!" the Viscountess said with a kind smile. "You must allow the Viscount to show you his new hunting rifles in the gallery. Perhaps you would be interested as well, Your Grace?"

You were furious but the Viscountess was the master of smoothing things over. She quickly ushered the gentlemen into the gallery to look at the rifles, and then took your arm and pulled you aside.

"Are you all right?" the Viscountess asked you gently. 

You nodded. "Thank you."

She sighed. "I am afraid Earl Harrison forcefully wrested an invitation to tonight's dinner from Joshua yesterday. I did not want to invite him at all, especially after I heard what he was  saying about you and the Duke during the hunting trip."

You stiffened. "What has he been saying about myself and the Duke?"

The Viscountess looked upset. "Nothing of any substance, only some nasty remarks about why you might have married the Duke. It's all baseless, really, everyone knows that-"

"Has he been saying these things in front of the Duke?"

The Viscountess bit her lip. "I do not know."

"I want to know what he is saying."

She sighed. "I am really not sure that you do…"

The Viscountess was a lovely woman, and the last thing you wanted was to create a scene in her home. But you were angry; you needed to know what this foolish Earl was running his mouth about. You had tolerated his insults long enough, and you would not allow him to insult your husband as well. 

You went into the gallery where a number of gentlemen were gathered looking at the Viscount's new hunting rifles. Earl Harrison was standing a short distance away and talking to the Duke of Kent. He made no attempt to even lower his voice. 

"-women have too much power these days, I tell you. Outrageous that the Duchess should have been given a title at all. That calculating wench knew that if she married one of us, she would be put in her rightful place immediately. So what does she do? Marries a poor man without connections or a fortune so that she can control him like a puppet!"

The Duke of Kent laughed. "Naturally, naturally. She wanted a young man she could keep under her thumb. The poor Duke does not realise she is emasculating him entirely. Pathetic excuse for a man."

You saw red. 

How dare they? How dare these disgusting men stand there and say these vile things about you and your husband in public? Had they said similar things within earshot of Soonyoung?The thought made your blood boil 

"Would you like to repeat that so that I can be sure what you are saying?" you demanded loudly. 

The room fell silent. All conversation ceased. 

Soonyoung and the Viscount Hong were standing a few feet away, and you saw your husband watching you with wide eyes. 

"W-what?" Earl Harrison sputtered. 

"I asked if you would like to repeat yourself," you said coldly. "Surely I must have misheard you. Surely you could not have been standing here and openly insulting the Duke and Duchess of Graham, who outrank you in every possible way. That would be a very foolish thing to do, don't you agree?"

The Duke of Kent smiled abominably. "My dear Duchess, you must not go into hysterics-"

"Then perhaps your and the Earl should avoid giving me reason to go into hysterics, Your Grace. Or have you forgotten who is the Queen's close confidante? Who receives letters and invitations to tea from Her Majesty personally? Allow me to refresh your memory, Earl Harrison. It is certainly not you or your stupid wife."

The Earl paled. "I have never had a woman dare to speak to me this way-'

"You do not want to make an enemy of me, Earl Harrison. I will not waste my time with backhanded gossip and failed petitions to the Crown. One word from me can persuade Her Majesty to strip you of your entire title and estate in a heartbeat. I will undo your generations-long lineage in an instant. Do not test me."

The Duke of Kent frowned. "That is quite enough!"

"I agree," you replied sharply. "I have had quite enough. My husband is a hundred times the man you will ever be, and the next time you worry about anyone being emasculated, you would do well to remember that a woman is in charge of the Crown and your life."

Soonyoung was staring at you with wide eyes,  as you walked over to him and took his arm. 

"We are leaving," you said firmly. The rest of the room watched in stunned silence. "I apologise for the intrusion, Viscount and Viscountess Hong. Thank you for your hospitality."

You took your husband's arm and walked out. 

—----------------------------------------------

Soonyoung said nothing in the carriage ride home. 

You could not speak either; the adrenaline was still pumping in your veins. You had never addressed anyone in that manner, much less an Earl and a Duke. They had said worse things about you in the past, you were sure, and it had not made you angry. But the idea of them saying these things about Soonyoung made your blood boil. 

"Perhaps we should go to bed early," Soonyoung mumbled as he left straight for his bedchambers. You had never seen him look so tired and withdrawn. 

You followed him upstairs to his bedchamber and called out to him just as he was about to slip inside and close the door behind him. 

"Soonyoung, wait."

"I'm tired-"

"Please don't close the door."

There was a long pause and he finally opened the door again, allowing you inside. You took a deep breath and entered, sitting on the edge of his bed as you thought about what to say to him. Soonyoung stood patiently near the door and watched you for a long moment before finally speaking. 

"It's all right," he said quietly. "You don't need to worry, Your Grace."

You blinked at him. "What?"

"I knew this was a marriage of convenience. You were always honest with me. I would be a fool if I resented you for it just because some Earl said it aloud. I knew perfectly well what this marriage was when I agreed to it."

Your heart dropped. 

"Soonyoung, no-"

"I know you were in a difficult position, and you needed to marry someone who would not dare to exercise power over you or the dukedom. It is a rational decision to make."

Your throat felt tight. 

"Don't call it that-"

"I am saying it is perfectly understandable and rational-"

"But it's not!" you cried. You rose and stood in front of him, grabbing his cold hands. For some reason you suddenly, desperately needed Soonyoung to understand what you were telling him. "Rational?  Choosing you was not a rational decision, Soonyoung. Far from it; it was possibly the least rational thing I have ever done in my life."

Soonyoung's hands were limp in yours but his dark eyes flashed. 

"What do you mean?" he asked. 

You took a deep breath and looked up at your husband. You had not expected to open up to him, or to reveal your vulnerabilities to him tonight, but it was now or never. 

"It was an impulse, pure impulse. I was so tired of always doing the right thing, the expected thing. If I was being rational then I would have married a Baron or a Lord. Heaven knows there are plenty of them to be had."

Soonyoung was quiet. "Why didn't you?'

"The night we met- at the ball when we danced- I know it was only a few moments but  you made me smile. I felt happy with you. For the first time in my life, I felt something that wasn’t just duty or obligation or responsibility. I felt like this nightmare of a life might be bearable if I could share it with someone like you," you confessed quietly. 

Soonyoung's expression had softened and his dark eyes looked down at you with a sudden gentleness and vulnerability. 

"But we hardly knew each other-"

"Which is why it wasn't a rational or calculated decision. The decision to marry you wasn't made for the good of the dukedom or the title. I made it for the most selfish of reasons- my own happiness. It was worse than irrational. It was a rebellion against everything my father expected from me."

Soonyoung's lower lip trembled. "You must have regretted it, then."

"I thought I might," you admitted shakily. "For the first few weeks after I proposed to you, I was terrified that I was making a mistake. But Soonyoung… you never gave me a single chance to regret it. At every turn, you only showed me, over and over again, that I made the right choice."

"Do you mean that?"

You lifted your hand to cup his cheek. 

"I love you," you told him firmly and honestly. 

Soonyoung kissed you. It was a soft, gentle, loving kiss and you wrapped your arms around his neck as he pulled you into his warm embrace. You gasped against his lips and he slowly pulled back and pressed his forehead against yours. 

"I love you too," he whispered. 

Your heart swelled with happiness. "Do you mean it?" you asked him softly. "Just moments ago, you were calling this a marriage of convenience-"

Soonyoung's lips curved into a smile as he cupped your cheeks. 

"Because I thought you felt that way. How could I not love you? You are a divine angel that came into my life. Some days I wake up and look at you beside me and think that I must be in some kind of dream, because I don't know what I did to deserve your love and trust."

Your lower lip trembled. "That's not true-"

"It is. I love you."

You wrapped your arms around his neck tightly and buried your face into his shoulders. Soonyoung embraced you and you breathed in your husband's warm, familiar scent.

"Then don't ever close that door again."”

"I won't," he promised. "I won't."

—------------------------------------------------------

[fairuzfan]

(This got soo much longer than I meant for it to be omg... sorry about that!!)

American Holocaust by David Stannard is a flawed book with some dated language, but of everything I've read, I think I like its explanation/argument against this weird sort of... competitive genocide stuff. I'm gonna butcher it a little by cutting out a LOT in order to not nuke your inbox with a super long ask, but:

[…] To say this is not to say that the Jewish Holocaust-the inhuman destruction of 6,000,000 people-was not an abominably unique event. It was. So, too, for reasons of its own, was the mass murder of about 1,000,000 Armenians in Turkey a few decades prior to the Holocaust. So, too, was the deliberately caused "terror-famine" in Stalin's Soviet Union in the 1930s, which killed more than 14,000,000 people. So, too, have been each of the genocidal slaughters of many millions more, decades after the Holocaust, in Burundi, Bangladesh, Kampuchea, East Timor, the Brazilian Amazon, and elsewhere. Additionally, within the framework of the Holocaust itself, there were aspects that were unique in the campaign of genocide conducted by the Nazis against Europe's Romani people, which resulted in the mass murder of perhaps 1,500,000 men, women, and children. [...]

Each of these genocides was distinct and unique, for one reason or another, as were (and are) others that go unmentioned here. In one case the sheer numbers of people killed may make it unique. In another case, the percentage of people killed may make it unique. In still a different case, the greatly compressed time period in which the genocide took place may make it unique. In a further case, the greatly extended time period in which the genocide took place may make it unique. No doubt the targeting of a specific group or groups for extermination by a particular nation's official policy may mark a given genocide as unique. So too might another group's being unofficially (but unmistakably) targeted for elimination by the actions of a multinational phalanx bent on total extirpation. Certainly the chilling utilization of technological instruments of destruction, such as gas chambers, and its assembly-line, bureaucratic, systematic methods of destruction makes the Holocaust unique. On the other hand, the savage employment of non-technological instruments of destruction, such as the unleashing of trained and hungry dogs to devour infants, and the burning and crude hacking to death of the inhabitants of entire cities, also makes the Spanish anti-Indian genocide unique.

[��]

A secondary tragedy of all these genocides, moreover, is that partisan representatives among the survivors of particular afflicted groups not uncommonly hold up their peoples' experience as so fundamentally different from the others that not only is scholarly comparison rejected out of hand, but mere cross-referencing or discussion of other genocidal events within the context of their own flatly is prohibited. It is almost as though the preemptive conclusion that one's own group has suffered more than others is something of a horrible award of distinction that will be diminished if the true extent of another group's suffering is acknowledged.

Compounding this secondary tragedy is the fact that such insistence on the incomparability of one's own historical suffering, by means of what Irving Louis Horowitz calls "moral bookkeeping," invariably pits one terribly injured group against another […]

Denial of massive death counts is common--and even readily understandable, if contemptible--among those whose forefathers were the perpetrators of the genocide. Such denials have at least two motives: first, protection of the moral reputations of those people and that country responsible for the genocidal activity (which seems the primary motive of those scholars and politicians who deny that massive genocide campaigns were carried out against American Indians); and second, on occasion, the desire to continue carrying out virulent racist assaults upon those who were the victims of the genocide in question (as seems to be the major purpose of the anti-Semitic so-called historical revisionists who claim that the Jewish Holocaust never happened or that its magnitude has been exaggerated). But for those who have themselves been victims of extermination campaigns to proclaim uniqueness for their experiences only as a way of denying recognition to others who also have suffered massive genocidal brutalities is to play into the hands of the brutalizers. Rather, as Michael Berenbaum has wisely put it, "we should let our sufferings, however incommensurate, unite us in condemnation of inhumanity rather than divide us in a calculus of calamity."

The whole thing is available to read on the Internet Archive if you're interested. (This part starts on pg 149, if you'd just like to have the full context without the parts I chopped.)

Additionally, Carrol Kakel's book The American West and the Nazi East, while imperfect, too, is also very useful in getting at the core issue with these arguments and what makes them harmful--regardless of intent. I'm gonna spare you and not quote too much from this one, but the general gist of what it's about and argues in favor of is summed up like this in its conclusion:

In the case of the Holocaust and its contexts, the new ‘optics’ helps us see that – contrary to the prevailing image of ‘industrial genocide’ – many aspects of the Holocaust are akin to earlier ‘colonial genocide’. It is worth noting (and emphasizing) that the distinction I make between ‘colonial genocide’ and ‘industrial genocide’ is not to suggest some type of crude and arbitrary ‘partitioning’ of the Nazi Holocaust; it is, rather, to suggest and reassert the (settler) colonial roots, content, and context of the Nazi project in the ‘Wild East’ – a content and context linked, in Hitler’s and Himmler’s ‘spatial’ and ‘racial’ fantasies, to the ‘North American precedent’. And finally, the new ‘optics’ also allows us to understand that the ‘genocide and colonialism’ nexus holds the key to recognizing the Holocaust’s origins, content, and context; that the Nazi Holocaust is not a copy – but an extremely radicalized variant – of earlier ‘colonial genocide’; and that ‘holocaust’ is not a separate category from, but the most extreme variant of, the blight on human history we call ‘genocide’.

One of the more infamous examples of someone trying to argue against comparison (at least in the NDN circles I run in, anyway) was Deborah Lipstadt claiming that "[What the United States did to Native Americans] was not the same as the Holocaust" because, she says, "The Native Americans were seen as "competitors" for land and resources. There was, therefore, a certain logic-horrible and immoral as it was-to the campaign against the Native Americans."

Just for context, the full paragraph from her blog post:

What the United States did to Native Americans was horrendous. I have not studied it closely and it's not my area of expertise, however, it seems clear that the treatment of the various Native American tribes was revolting. However, it was not the same as the Holocaust. The Native Americans were seen as "competitors" for land and resources. There was, therefore, a certain logic-horrible and immoral as it was-to the campaign against the Native Americans. [Please note: I am NOT justifying the attacks.] The German campaign against the Jews had no logic and was often completely illogical. People who were "useful" to the Germans were murdered or exiled, e.g. slave laborers in factories producing goods for the Wehrmacht and scientists who were producing important technological advances for the Germans. In a prime example of illogic, in June 1944 at the time of the landing at Normandy, when the Germans were truly on the defensive, they used precious ships and men to go to the Island of Corfu and deport the 1200 Jews who lived there. They ended up in Auschwitz. Approximately 100 of this old Jewish community survived.

This is obviously a repulsive take, but the bizarre rationalization of abject evil isn't what I think makes this such a good example of the big issue at the heart of the constant emphasis on "uniqueness." There are plenty of people who hold these "exceptionalist" beliefs without taking it that much further and dismissing other genocides altogether. No, the thing that makes this such a perfect encapsulation imo is the very first sentence, where this historian, this professor of "Holocaust Studies," this woman who's ostensibly spent most of her entire life studying genocide openly admits she's never really bothered to look into what, exactly, happened to all those Indians way back when.

This is ultimately what I, personally, see as the main issue with this line of thinking. The harm doesn't necessarily come from holding the Holocaust up as "worse" than any other genocidal event, though that way of thinking definitely has its own problems, but from holding it up as fundamentally different.

It's the way this view holds it up as completely separate, in its own little bubble of history where we can study it and analyze it and teach about it all we want... all without ever having to broach the subject of colonialism. You can have entire classes where you study every single minute detail of this one specific genocide without ever having to mention or--god forbid--criticize the system that's driven pretty much every other instance of it.

Deborah Lipstadt has spent the better part of a century learning everything there is to know about the Holocaust, but in all that time, she's apparently never felt the need to look into the events that its perpetrators openly and repeatedly referred to as their inspiration.

This is what makes this sort of framing so dangerous imo. You can spend your entire life educating yourself about genocide, but if it's only in the context of one genocide and the belief in the uniqueness and incomparability of that single event is core to your understanding of both it and your worldview as a whole, you will still be completely incapable of recognizing the signs when it starts to happen again.

this is a really informative ask. thank you so much for sending this in (love the citations haha) i think it adds a lot to the overall discussion.

[dwellordream]

Books Recs of 2024

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. Mystery/fantasy centered around Din, a young assistant investigator assigned to help an eccentric and infamous detective, Ana Dolabra, solve a series of murders. Din is an engraver, his brain altered so he has a photographic memory. However, no one is quite sure how he got his current position, since he failed every single one of his final exams except the combat portion. Ana is an exceedingly odd woman who refuses to go to any crime scene in person and often performs mad science experiments in her spare time. As Din struggles to keep up with the case, which revolves around a bioweapon being unleashed on a series of the empire's best engineers, he also worries what will happen when Ana finally uncovers his secrets.

Highfire by Eoin Colfer. Urban fantasy (very comedic fantasy) about a dragon called Vern (short for Wyvern), who teams up with a juvenile delinquent named Squib (real name Everett Moreau) to take down a corrupt sheriff who is plaguing the Lousiana bayou. Vern is a very small (seven feet long) dragon who is the last of his kind (as far as he knows). When he is spotted by a local troubled teen, his first instinct is to hunt Squib down and kill him, but he quickly realizes the two of them have a common enemy- the murderous sheriff who is running drugs through their territory.

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi. Magical realism about a romantic-minded art historian who is swept off his feet by a mysterious and charming heiress. After a whirlwind courtship, the happy couple return to her childhood home; a Gothic manor on a lonely island. The more time our narrator spends around his wife's past, the more questions are raised- increasingly sinister ones about who she is and what exactly she is capable of. Once upon a time, she was best friends with an equally odd and dreamy little girl named Indigo. But no one has seen Indigo for many years now- and the Flower Bride may be behind her disappearance.

Chlorine by Jade Song. Horror/magical realism. Since childhood, Ren's entire identity has been wrapped up in swimming. If she can be strong enough, fast enough, special enough, success is sure to come her way. As the end of high school approaches, Ren's passion for swimming becomes less about her future, and more about past legends of mermaids and sirens dragging sailors into the deep. School, friends, and her parents' expectations all fall away- Ren will make her home in the water, no matter what she has to do.

We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride & Jo Piazza. Realistic fiction. Jen and Riley have been best friends for as long as they can remember, despite their vastly different childhoods. Riley is from a middle class Black family; Jen was raised by an impoverished white single mother. After twenty years of doing almost everything together, their lives are at a crossroads- Riley is a news anchor about to take Philadelphia by storm, while Jen is expecting her first child with her police officer husband. When Jen's husband is involved in the murder of a Black teenage boy by a fellow officer, Riley finds herself expected to cover the story- and Jen finds herself expected to answer for her husband's actions- and her own beliefs about what racism looks like.

Queenpin by Megan Abbott. Crime thriller/noir. Our nameless heroine lives a mousy existence working as a bookkeeper for a rundown local night club, but her life is turned upside down when the infamous Gloria Denton, a gun moll and smuggler, takes her under her wing. Gloria transforms her young protege from a timid girl to a sophisticated, cunning woman capable of handling gangsters, conmen, thieves, and bookies, but when she falls for the wrong man, her relationship with Gloria is strained, and they must decide just how far they can trust one another.

Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch by Rivka Galchen. Historical fiction. Based on the real life trial of Katharina Kepler, mother of the famed Johannes Kepler, Imperial Mathematician to the Holy Roman Empire. Katharina is a busybody, a domineering and devilishly clever woman with a particular talent for healing. She is also a fiercely loyal mother to her adult children, but when an old neighborhood grudge flares into accusations of poison and witchcraft, Katharina is determined not to meekly confess and beg pardon. The more she lashes out at her neighbors and the authorities, the more charges begin to pile up against her- despite her son's desperate attempts to save her from torture and execution.

Bury Me Deep by Megan Abbott. Crime thriller/noir. Based on a real life murder case in 1931 Phoenix Arizona. Naive and sheltered Marion Seeley is deposited in Phoenix by her disgraced doctor husband, who is forced to take a job with a mining company in South America after his medical license is revoked. Marion befriends the vivacious Louise and Ginny, two fellow nurses, who introduce her to the underground party scene in Phoenix. Politicians and businessmen flock to the secret parties held by them, and it's a quick way to make money on the side. Drawn in by the luxury and thrills, Marion falls in love with Joe Lanigan, a powerful local politician, but as their affair intensifies, her friendship with the other women fractures, culminating in a gruesome crime.

[pipjackal]

The Hound Family Tree

The Hounds have always loyally served the Jackals.

Below is an extensive look at their history.

The Wolf’s Hound

Not many records of Billy Hound have survived to the modern day. From what we can surmise, the man was a loyal underling of the Wolf family, like countless generations before him.

There is not much to be said about Billy Hound. He lived, he served the Wolf family, and disappeared from all historical accounts after the fall of the family. An honorable fate for a dog, to fall alongside it’s master.

If not for the significance of his descendants in the lives of the Jackal family, it is unlikely that we would be talking about Billy Hound. So, we shall move onto the day the Hounds became relevant to our story.

The Loyal Friend

Buddy Hound had a considerable amount of ambition. He’d managed to obtain the loyalty of a large amount of dog families, among them the Retrievers, Bulldogs, and by some accounts even the Doberman family. From the scattered remains of the Wolf family, Buddy Hound had managed to scrounge together a respectable pile.

The Jackal’s, however, were untouchable. They were among the few families in the city in possession of Rune Weapons. Change was on the horizon. Gone were the days of petty organized crime families. This was the era of dynasties. And he already knew he didn’t have what it took to become a king.

So, when Cordelia Jackal approached him, looking to unite the remnants of the Wolf family, he was fast to agree. He worked tirelessly to get into her good graces. If the Hounds were to survive into this new era, they needed to make themselves invaluable. And so they did. Cordelia grew to rely a great deal on Buddy. She was not a woman used to making friends, but she found comfort in the Hound’s steadfast commitment to his job. He was an ever loyal friend, one capable of brightening the room with a joke and a smile.

The Useful Pups

The two would end up raising their children together, something that would become something of a tradition. Buddy and his wife, Darla, had three children: Hunter, their eldest son, and two twin daughters: Red and Gray. The children all happened to be born around the same time as the Jackal children, though after the death of Lilith Jackal, Buddy was careful to avoid bringing that fact up.

Hunter Hound was a responsible, if a bit dull, young man. He had an impeccable business sense that endeared him to Cordelia Jackal. By the time he was 22, he was handling practically all the Jackal’s bookkeeping. He’d gotten married to Grim Terrier of the Terrier family, further cementing the family’s loyalty to the Hounds and with them the Jackals. The Jackal girls, Salem and Blair, initially found him rather boring, but were unable to deny his obvious skills and came to respect him. Buddy Hound could not have been prouder of his son. He’d secured the family’s position for another generation.

The second Hound child had been given the name Red. It was an apt description, though it would not be the name she would be remembered by. At a certain point, it became habit to refer to her as Blood Hound. She wore the name well. Or perhaps it wore her. The Jackals had long been needing an attack dog. As Rune Weapons became more and more common, Cordelia feared that her children may end up having to face off against others in possession of a Rune Weapon. She needed an underling capable of doing that for them, someone fearless and loyal enough to risk it all for the sake of her family.

It is very fortunate, then, that Buddy’s daughter happened to perfectly fit that description. From a young age, Blood had been energetic, restless, and determined to fight. She’d been involved in plenty of playground brawls over the course of her youth and Buddy had made sure to encourage her talent as much as possible. Blood had grown up to be a skilled fighter, exactly what Cordelia needed most.

So she fought. As the Jackals started and ended conflicts, she fought. She fought and fought and fought until she could not physically fight any more. You can only take so many hits from a Rune Weapon. There’s only so much she could take. Blood Hound had spent her whole life fighting.

Gray Hound had never been good at much of anything. She’d tried. By the time she was in middle school she’d tried her hand at every possible talent that could make her useful. She envied her siblings. They’d secured a place for themselves. They had purpose and she had none. Gray went by unnoticed. She wasn’t particularly close with any one by the time she reached adulthood.

And then Blood died. Gray had barely spoken a word to her sister in the past few years, and in spite of that (or perhaps because of that), she found herself in an overwhelming state of grief. It was not long before that grief was replaced with fury. All anyone wanted to talk about was how fearless Blood had been, how hard she had fought for the Jackals. It wasn’t honorable. Her sister was dead.

Gray’s relationship with her family and the Jackals soured quickly after that. Within a month of her sister’s death, Gray ran off with a wealthy socialite by the name of Gentleman Goodboy and never looked back, even as her husband gambled away his fortune.

Hunter Hound died of a heart attack in his 40s. His young son, Tracker, discovered him dead at his desk hours later. With Hunter’s death, Buddy had outlived all but one of his children, the last of which had cut contact with him entirely. His wife, Darla, was overcome with such grief that for the remainder of her life she adorned herself in mourning dress, hardly speaking a word to her husband.

The Second Chance

After the death of their father, Lurcher and Tracker Hound were placed in a rather difficult position. Their mother, Grim Terrier, deeply resented her father-in-law and wished to raise her children as she saw fit. Buddy Hound, however, was determined to make sure his grandchildren were able to secure the family’s future for another generation.

Lurcher and Tracker Hound could not have been less alike. Lurcher was a deeply sensitive, creative child, who dreamed of becoming an sculptor. Their passion was not understood by Buddy Hound, who could not comprehend what use sculpting could be to the family’s continued success. Tracker Hound, however, had inherited his grandfather’s ambition, if not his overwhelming friendliness. He was straightforward and to the point, a quality that frustrated Buddy immensely.

By this time, Cordelia Jackal had died and Blair Jackal was running things. She’d grown up alongside Buddy’s children and thus saw him as something of a father figure. She turned to him frequently for advice and assistance, especially in regards to her own child, Beau. Often, she found herself too busy to care for him, leaving him in the care of the aging Hound.

Beau Jackal and Lurcher Hound were fast friends. The two shared active imaginations and a deep sense of creativity. Tracker Hound, however, was rather serious from the start. He had no time for games and cared little about being liked.

As Beau took over the Jackal family, Lurcher was unexpectedly thrown into a high position of power that they did not ask for nor want. Buddy Hound was, of course, ecstatic to find his grandchild in such a secure position. But it wasn’t long before the pressure became too much for Lurcher. One evening, Lurcher went out for a stroll, leaving behind no note or anything to indicate where they were going. They did not return and were, in fact, never heard from again.

Buddy Hound took ill a year later. His wife, Darla, had passed some time before him. So the old man lay on his death bed with no one at his side. He sent for his daughter, Gray, and her children, but received no response. Tracker, too, had no interest in comforting the dying man. And so, Cordelia Jackal’s most loyal friend died alone in his bed.

Tracker Hound was the only Hound left by this point. As Beau Jackal drowned himself in sorrows and booze, it quickly became clear to Tracker that it was not Beau who was running the family. Merry Jackal had always been a sharp woman, someone Tracker felt he could respect far more than her husband. She quickly saw his skills as a bookkeeper and began working with him, developing a mutual respect.

Around this time, Tracker Hound met Daffodil Retriever. She was bright and beautiful, positive in a way Tracker could never dream of being. She was the only one who could make the dreary man smile. The two were wed, and instantly Tracker’s life became lighter. However, after Barker was born, Daffodil’s health rapidly deteriorated. Soon, the joy in Tracker’s life vanished and all that was left was Barker.

The Side of Their Throne

Barker Hound was a quiet, well behaved child. She caused no trouble and followed the rules her father set for her. By the metric used by the sort of parent who believed such a thing existed, Barker was the perfect child. Tracker was not impressed by this, nor would he be impressed by any of her considerable accomplishments.

Barker and Ritz were first introduced to each other not long after the death of Beau Jackal. They got along instantly. Ritz, who had been a rather hyperactive child before his father’s death, had retreated considerably into himself. Within a half hour of playing with Barker, he was smiling and laughing again. Merry, who had already appreciated Tracker’s company, began to invite the Hound’s over with great frequency. The two children grew up together as the closest of friends.

They remained friends into adulthood. Barker found herself in an immense position of power, as the trusted right hand of the Jackal family’s head. She was there to support him through it all. And in turn, he offered her what support he could when her father died (choked to death on a biscuit, hardly a fitting end) and her brief relationship with Colin Herder fell apart, leaving her a single mother.

The death of Carnival Jackal, Ritz’ wife, is where things truly began to fall apart. Ritz, once again, retreated into himself. Barker was left to run the Jackal family alone, taking over the responsibilities that Ritz had shirked. She swore she didn’t mind at first. Ever since they were kids, this is what she had done. Taken on the difficult jobs when Ritz couldn’t. A lifetime of doing someone else’s job. At a certain point that does get to you.

At a certain point the dog bites back.

[mxtxfanatic]

Alright mxtx fandoms, let’s discuss class distinctions. I see a lot of people who discuss the theme of classism in mxtx works by collapsing all class groups into two categories: the ultra rich upper class who make all the rules and the poverty-stricken lower class who are oppressed by them. However, this is rarely the case in her books. The prime examples I can think of are in tgcf and mdzs.

In mdzs, a lot of people claim that Wei Wuxian and Jin Guangyao come from “similar backgrounds,” but this is most definitely not the case. Yes, Jin Guangyao went unclaimed by his father until later into his adulthood after his mother’s death, but Meng Yao did not grow up poor. Meng Shi was a famed courtesan with high-profile clients before she had her son, and having Meng Yao was a plan for her to be made into a mistress or second wife (which ultimately failed). Sisi was almost turned into a second wife, which is what caused her to be attacked and ruined her looks. Sex workers operated in a weird social space in ancient history where they existed as an industry, but class distinctions between different kinds of sex work still existed/exists and Meng Shi was definitely not on the low end of the scale. Even if Jin Guangyao had never been acknowledged by his father, he still found an honest job as a bookkeeper before meeting Lan Xichen. Meanwhile, Wei Wuxian was a street orphan with no family, money, status, who barely remembered his name, and definitely no benefit of an education due to how young he was orphaned, who was eventually taken in as the companion servant to a local lord-equivalent’s son. Neither of these characters started off as gentry, but they were not of the same class growing up.

In tgcf, Mu Qing is touted as a “poor”/working-class character by a large portion of the fandom, but… there’s no real evidence that he is? I mean, I have no doubt that, given the circumstances of his father’s death and his mother’s eventual disability, he was in poverty at some point, and this seems to be corroborated within the narrative by the fact that he is well-known and loved by the street orphans in the city. However, you cannot tell me that the personal servant to the crown (and only) prince to an entire kingdom is surviving off poverty wages. You’d be better-served making an argument to me about Anne Boleyn being an accurate historical representation of English serfs. Hong Hong’er, actual child living in poverty, is notably set apart from Mu Qing: from his fraying, patched clothes to his dirty hands to Mu Qing’s unwillingness to touch him… Mu Qing is set apart from the upper crust because 1) he is not of nobility but, more importantly, 2) his father was a criminal publicly executed for treason. And #2 is particularly damning for Mu Qing’s status amongst the nobility because Feng Xin, also not from a noble family, is (conditionally) accepted amongst the same elite snobs in a way Mu Qing is not (which makes sense since why would a noble like the son of a man who may have conspired against their rule?). Interesting to note, though, that the only time Mu Qing is unquestionably included in the array of the elite is when Hong Hong’er is being ostracized by the same group (minus Xie Lian). So while Hua Cheng and Mu Qing both had childhoods outside the nobility, Mu Qing was not anywhere near the level of poverty Hua Cheng had to live through.

I feel like svsss escapes this sort of broad-stroke application of class status to characters because most characters really do either fall into one of the two groups or we are not given background information on them at all. We know that Shen Jiu and Yue Qingyuan were child slaves, with the former being bought by a cruel master and the latter being able to escape and join a sect. We know that Luo Binghe, while not a child slave, was a child servant working with his adoptive mother under cruel masters who were directly the cause of his mother’s death. Slight distinction, but functionally not any different in their effects and outcomes. Shen Yuan is said to come from a wealthy family in his world, and Liu Qingge and Liu Mingyan do, as well. All the major demon characters are nobility. The only character we see who does not fit into this distinct divide is Shang Qinghua, but his background only becomes fleshed-out in the extras. Not to say that classism isn’t also a theme, but it’s function is used differently here than in the other two novels (especially since in svsss, we are working with parallels feeding into cycles of abuse and how to break said cycles rather than recreating them into infinity).

So with all this said, I think it may actually help discussions of the classism theme within these different mxtx fandoms to acknowledge and take into account the nuances within the class positions that these characters occupy. Why is it that the functionally middle-class characters, after gaining a crumb of acceptance from the elites, tend to turn against those lower on the rung? How do characters of the same background and class status interact with others of differing status, and what makes their reactions different from each other despite being raised under similar conditions? What is mxtx trying to say about class as a social or even moral divider by adding all these class nuances or (with svsss) lack thereof into her various narratives?

[theresattrpgforthat]

Hi! I'm an apprentice librarian at a university of education, and I'd like to suggest our library get some TTRPGs, ones that are available in print and suitable for school (since our userbase is mainly aspiring teachers), ideally with a German translation (I know that part may be difficult).

Do you have some suggestions?

Theme: Available in German!

Hello friend, so my strategy for this was to find some German websites for roleplaying games and then try to see if they sold physical copies of certain games. This is going to be a bit different from my regular recommendations, mostly because I can’t read German! So I figured I’d send you to these different publishers, and point out specific games that look like potential candidates.

(Also German-speaking followers please sound off in the tags and comments!)

Plotbunny Games @plotbunnygames

From what I can tell, this is a small publisher with a number of indie ttrpgs, and most of these games look to have physical copies. The games that really stand out to me here are Follow, and Miss Bernberg’s Finishing School for Young Ladies. Follow is a game by Ben Robbins, the creator of Microscope, and is a GM-less collaborative storytelling game about going on a quest. I think it would be a great game for collaboration and quick brainstorming sessions. Miss Bernberg’s Finishing School for Young Ladies is made in-house, and is a Firebrands game, which means that it uses a number of small mini-games to tell a bigger story. Great for focusing on narrative over complex characters. There’s also a German translation of ImproVeto, which is a great tool for introducing safety tools, good for any roleplaying group.

Obscurati

Obscurati has two games that I recognize: Tiny Dungeons and Into the Dark. Tiny Dungeons is made by Gallant Knight Games. It is very streamlined, and has a lot of supplements for you to customize your setting. Obscurati appears to have a large number of physical Tiny Dungeon components, including a hardcover book. If you want traditional fantasy, this is probably worth checking out. Into the Dark is a Forged-in-Dark game by Off Guard Games, and is a dark-fantasy dungeon delving game that gives you character playbooks, tables for adventure generation, and a streamlined game system. I’m generally a fan of Forged in the Dark games because they give you some easy-to-understand mechanics that can carry a story really far. (This game is also in hardcover!)

Ulisses Spiele

Ulisses Spiele looks to be a pretty major publisher, with D&D, Warhammer, and Pathfinder all in one house. I'm assuming you're probably familiar with them. If you want a big-name roleplaying game, this is the place to be. Many of the games from this publishing house are pretty crunchy, so they’re more suited for folks who want to go through the traditional process of complex character creation, and specific rules for things like range, inventory, specific types of damage, etc.

If you’re looking for games that hearken to popular media, Dune and Tales from the Loop both come from Modiphius, a games company with a pretty good reputation for mechanically sound games, although they generally require a lot of bookkeeping. World of Darkness is the game system I’m most familiar with in this list, using dice pools of d10s, although much of the subject matter in these games is rather dark - especially since the bulk of their WoD catalogs appears to be Vampire: the Masquerade. I’m actually really intrigued by Die Schwarze Katze, of which I’m not entirely sure there is an English equivalent, and appears to be a fantasy game with cat characters!

Truant Spiele

Truant has a number of games that I am unfamiliar with, although I may have heard of their names before. Kult is labelled as an adult roleplaying game, so if you want something child-friendly, I’d stay away, and The One Ring has not received many friendly reviews - but Warbirds is a fantastical-historical game about fighter pilots and aerial combat, which looks pretty lighthearted, although this looks like a game that can have winners and losers. There’s also The Witcher RPG, a class-based system all about fighting monsters in a well-loved world based on that of the video game. The Witcher looks to be a bit on the crunchier side of things, so I’d see it as a better candidate for long-term campaigns rather than quick pick-up sessions. Finally, they carry Cyberpunk Red, which I’ve heard rave reviews for, with pre-generated enemies, a giant swathe of lore, and plenty of player support.

Fiasco

There’s a physical German version of Fiasco on the Pro-Indie website, along with a number of supplements. Fiasco is a game about a making a terrible movie using card stock and dice, and is great for lighthearted games and ridiculous stories.

Now, for some digital runners-up.

Pegasus Digital looks to be a German version of DriveThru Rpg, with a smaller catalogue but a lot of resources for Cthulhu 7, Shadowrun, and Avatar Legends. If you get folks who want to see what else is out there, this might be a handy website to direct them to.

Hero Kids is a game that only has a physical version in English, but it has a digital German equivalent! This is a great game for young role-players and folks who want a kid-friendly style of role-play.

DURF is a minimalist fantasy game with a number of different translations, including a German one. It isn’t available in print, but the game itself is small enough that printing copies of the game for yourself and fellow players shouldn’t be very expensive. DURF is based in OSR style play, so expect very small character sheets and an emphasis on your inventory.

Brindlewood Bay is only available in English and Polish, as far as I can tell- but there is a collection of play materials available in German! This game has such a big following because it has a reputation for being easy to teach, and it has a really wonderful mystery system, so I think it might be worth checking out.

[burned-out-match]

gepard thoughts <3

Imagine being a bookkeeper for the silvermane guards. Like... working in Bronya's office or something after the whole 'saving Belobog' situation.

Imagine being an important librarian for sorting archives, reviewing historical documents, maybe even proofreading and transcribing or translating.

So you've been working under the silvermane for a very long time. Cocolia never really acknowledged you since your work is behind the scenes. But Bronya... Bronya appreciates your hard work and decides to brag about you every once in a while.

So Captain Gepard confidently strides into Bronya's office, requesting access to some sort of legal policy for review (since changes are happening because of the overworld joining the underworld). So he asks 'Lady Bronya' and she chuckles, insisting that he doesn't need to use formalities. So the young captain sheepishly apologizes.

"Seeing as I've been requested to join [insert some fancy colleage] in only a few minutes, I'll pass your question to our head librarian, Y/N." Bronya leads Gepard over to your desk. There you sit, reading over some archives and completely unaware of the presence of others due to your interest in the task at hand. Bronya lets out a gentle 'ahem' and you look up.

"Oh! Lady Bronya... how may I assist you? I was just looking over some of our old legalities, and I can't believe some of the blatant prejudice displayed towards those in the underground! I mean-"

You notice the man standing next to her. Is that... Captain Landau?

"Y/N, I would like to officially introduce you to Captain Gepard."

Bronya gestures to the young man and he nods politely. He's smiling gently, and you swear you can see a blush on his face.

Little do you know, Gepard recognizes you almost immediately. He's seen you around Belobog and is distracted from his duties every time. He's finally meeting you. He's finally meeting the person that stops to speak with everyone in the city to greet them and wish them well... the person that is so undeniably kind, and so undeniably attractive.

Of course, Gepard would never admit that, but he stares at you whenever he sees you. Everything from the color of your hair in the sunlight to the way you carry yourself with such confidence is just... enchanting to him.

He's knocked out of his daydreaming when you get up from your desk and walk over to him. You're so much lovelier up close...

"Hello! I'm Y/N. Nice to meet you, Gepard!"

You smile so brightly... so beautifully... that Gepard feels the wind rush out of his lungs. The ever-stoic captain is lost for words.

"H-hello, Y/N... *ahem* I was... um-"

Bronya, of course, notices his behavior and excuses herself.

Gepard knows that this is going to take a while.

[holmsister]

Btw the double-entry method of bookkeeping ("partita doppia") and several other money-related innovations are widely credited to Central Italian merchants and bankers from the middle ages like my cringesona is Historically Accurate thank you very much

Hes probably from the same area Marcella is from. They immediately know where the other is from because of their accent when they speak common but when other people ask if they come from the same country they both pretend they have no idea what they are talking about. My cringesona does it to be ~mysterious~ Marcella does it because well. He is cringe

[lboogie1906]

Attorney John Wesley Cromwell (September 5, 1846 - April 14, 1927) was a lawyer, teacher, civil servant, journalist, historian, and civil rights activist in DC. He was among the founders of the Bethel Literary and Historical Society and the American Negro Academy, both based in the capital. He worked for decades in the administration of the US Post Office.

He was a founder, editor, and contributor to several newspapers and journals, including most prominently the People’s Advocate. In the latter half of his career, he wrote articles and manuscripts and gave speeches, establishing himself as a leading scholar of African American history. He was described as the “best English scholar in the US.” He was successful as a lawyer and was the first African American lawyer to appear before the Interstate Commerce Commission.

He was born enslaved in Portsmouth, Virginia. He was the youngest of twelve children. His parents were Willis H. and Elizabeth (Carney) Cromwell. His father worked as a ferryman on the Elizabeth River and was allowed to keep some of his wages. One brother, Levi, later became well-known as a caterer in DC.

In 1873 he married Lucy A. McGuinn of Richmond and had seven children with her. The couple stressed the importance of education for all their children, who included Otelia, Mary E., Martha, Lucy, John Wesley Jr., and Brent.

Otelia Cromwell became the first African American graduate of Smith College. She was a teacher and professor at Miner Teacher College and received a Ph.D. from Yale. Mary E. Cromwell taught mathematics. John Wesley Cromwell, Jr. taught mathematics, German, and bookkeeping; he became the first African American certified public accountant.

After Lucy’s death, he married Annie E. Conn (1892) of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

His granddaughter Adelaide M. Cromwell, child of John Wesley Jr., is a noted sociologist and historian. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[winter-dayz]

Bringer of Death

Pairing: Shin Yuna x Reader Mummy AU; Inspired by The Mummy (1999) Genre: Angst; Fluff Words: 3278 Warnings: implied major character death; implied suicide; strong language

Masterlist | Fictober Masterpost

Taglist:  @soobin-chois

This was your chance. This expedition would cement your place with the company’s excavation team. It was your shot to be taken seriously—to be seen as a real archaeologist and not a junior bookkeeper.

You made it to the dig site without much fanfare, a recently uncovered tomb that had just barely been breached. The original finders’ team gave up the excavation, opening the site to bids with historical societies. Your company won the bid, but since the more senior archaeologists were working on several other big projects across Egypt, China, Peru, and Mexico, you were tasked with the small, newly opened excavation.

As you trekked down the steep, crumbling stone stairs to the tomb’s entrance, you passed by the few remaining archaeologists from the original team. You nodded to them politely, skirting past, but were stopped short by a hand wrapping around your wrist.

“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you…” The last man in the small group whispered harshly. He looked up to his team members, all of whom glanced at you before rapidly looking away. They refused to meet your confused eyes.

You nodded politely, again, and had to yank your wrist from his tight grasp. “I think I’ll be fine with a few bones and dust. It should be a simple excavation, really.”

It really should. Why this team had chosen to give up a brand new find baffled everyone at your company, but you weren’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. This could be your big break.

“I’m tellin’ you, girlie. There’s something in that tomb. Something that don’t want us messin’ with it.” He gritted out. His eyes were wild, and as he reached to grab your arm again, you hustled down several more steps.

“Well, if I get turned into a mummy. You’ll be the first one I’m coming after.” You spat back at the aggressive man.

🎃

Contrary to what that man had warned you about, the tomb seemed to be mostly empty. Honestly, it was no wonder your company managed to snag the bid for so low.

After descending the stairs, an archway opened into a large empty stone room. There were two rooms off of the main room, filled with dust and grime. There were a few pedestals as if items were meant to be displayed, but there weren’t any actual artifacts. Maybe the previous team had looted them…

So, what was the point of this job, anyway? You were hoping this would’ve been your big breakthrough, but it was so barren, there wasn’t really anything to work with.

You meandered through the desolate rooms anyway, inspecting the stone work. Based on the uneven amounts of dust on the pedestals, it did seem that there used to be something perched on them, but it had still been many, many years since those items would’ve been stolen so it hadn’t been the original team like you’d previously thought. More likely raiders from a few decades ago at least.

What really threw you for a loop was one wall in the main room. You could swear you heard shuffling and felt a breeze behind a small section. You leaned in, noticing again how the grime on the stones seemed uneven, and pushed on those bricks.

A click. A rumble. The wall slid up.

Now this was the kind of thing you were hoping for. A secret room? It was just like The Mummy. Maybe you really would find something “scary” in a hidden room and that crazed man from before would’ve been proven right. It’d at least be more exciting than the dust you had been observing so far.

You wandered through the secret passage, which seemed to slope at a gentle downwards spiral. Eventually, you saw the flickering of candles through an open archway. You had no time to wonder who would be keeping the candles lit though when as soon as you crossed the arch’s threshold, you found yourself staring into the eyes of a woman.

She sat, straight and confident, upon a throne at the back of the room.

Around her neck were layers and layers of expensive looking chains and jeweled talisman necklaces; even her clothing seemed to be of the quality of linens and silks you couldn’t find just anywhere. Between the two of you laid a large, majestic sarcophagus. Vases, gems, silver and gold all laid about, overflowing around the room. And the kicker? Everything looked pristine. Not a speck of dirt, dust, or grime on anything. Even the stonework and murals on the walls looked as fresh as the day they would’ve been created.

The woman, young and beautiful, kept her big, round eyes narrowed on you as you took in the state of your surroundings with obvious confusion. She was a bit pale, which was understandable if she’d been trapped in this tomb since the previous team left—which had to be the only way she was here, right?

“Who are you? What are you doing in my domain?” The strange woman demanded, finally breaking your engrossment of everything.

Your eyes wide and head tilted in confusion. What were you doing here, no, what was she doing here? You assumed she must’ve been trapped and abandoned by the previous team, but then… How did she even get into this room? It had been sealed by a secret wall. The stones you had pressed to uncover it had been undisturbed. Also, if she had been abandoned accidentally, why didn’t she seem scared or hungry? Why was she just as luxurious and pristine as everything else in the room, despite the rest of the tomb being so dirty? 

You finally found your words through the endless stream of questions racking your brain. “My name is Y/N. I’m an archaeologist.”

“Speak plainly, peasant.” The woman kept her eyes narrowed and tilted her chin up to look at you down her nose. “What is your purpose here?”

How much more “plain” could you speak? Didn’t she know what an archaeologist is? “I…” You hesitated to find your wording, “I’m like a librarian.”

“Are you here to steal from me?”

“No!” You shouted, appalled. While some companies took things from archaeological digs to sell to museums or rich snobs, yours did not. It worked to document the history and culture before returning the items to a pristine, preserved condition that remained with the original country.  “I’m a scholar, not a treasure hunter.”

“So you have come here to study?”

“Um… yeah.” This was insane. Maybe you actually should’ve listened to that man’s warnings.

“What year is it? I am surprised by a woman scholar.” What year is it? My god, how long had she been trapped? You flinched but told her the date regardless. “Ah, well I’m glad to see humans have progressed.”

She stood from her throne and bowed politely. “I am Shin Yuna. This is my tomb.”

Holy shit. It really is like The Mummy.

🎃

To say you believed Yuna was the owner of the tomb would’ve been a gross misconception.

After being welcomed in by someone claiming to be a thousands-year-old woman, you acted politely and kept a six foot distance at all times, only gazing over the objects and not even truly studying anything.

You left early that day with the excuse that you didn’t have proper equipment.

And then the rug was ripped out from under you when you dug into the town’s local history and the country’s governmental archives.

Shin Yuna was the most revered princess in the country’s history… From 2000 years ago. Despite it not being a woman’s place at the time, she was a fierce warrior and intelligent scholar. The texts spoke of her love for crafting clothes and storytelling as well. She was an all-around enlightened and beloved woman of the area.

Unfortunately, she was killed in a surprise attack on one of the villages she had been visiting. She died protecting the children and mothers during the raid.

To show their admiration and deep grief at the loss of their princess, it was said the country performed a ritual when burying her in the tomb. She was put to rest with great treasures and supposed magical items to help her move on peacefully if she felt her duty was completed; however if Yuna’s spirit felt she had not accomplished enough, she would rise again to lead her people once more.

And it seemed to have worked.

As did the seal on the door to protect her ritual burial… Just, maybe that seal had worked a bit too well, since she hadn’t left her tomb in 2000 years.

Which definitely showed when you came back around to start working.

Yuna was insatiable for knowledge, and for days on end while you were carefully observing and cataloging the items in the tomb, she would ask questions. She wanted to know all about how the world had changed, evolved, and adapted. She wanted to know about how her country had blossomed. She wanted to know the things you had seen when you had traveled, the kinds of art and fashion in style throughout the centuries. She wanted to know if stories were still being told about her villages… which is when you had to disappoint her and tell her that, until recently when her tomb had been discovered, no one widespread had really known much of her people.

She hated that. It put her in a bad mood, and she began sulking.

You kinda hated that. Yuna, for essentially a mummy and immortal woman who had been trapped for an unimaginable amount of time, was such a bubbly person. To see her upset didn’t sit right with you, but there wasn’t much you thought you could do to fix it.

Until one afternoon it boiled over when you began actually moving items around to see the smaller artifacts.

“You can’t just go rifling through my things!” Yuna shouted, more of a whine than in anger, following closely behind you as you carefully moved a vase. “Have you no respect for the dead?”

You sighed, “Yuna, it’s literally my job. I have to catalog what has been discovered. Look, I’m being extremely careful and respectful. ” You added a muttered, “You’re not even really dead,” under your breath.

Yuna huffed, her cute lips pouting. Cute? Well… yes, she did look rather cute pouting like that even if you wish she wasn’t so upset recently… “Why do you even need to do that?” She mumbled through cute, pouty lips.

“So that we can teach and learn from your history.”

Her eyes brightened, and her lips split into a big grin. It was such a simple thing to you, just a part of your job. But, apparently, it was just the right thing to pull Yuna out of her funk. “You’ll tell stories about me and my people? Okay, then rifle away!”

Fuck, she’s adorable.

🎃

Something of a friendship blossomed between you and the former princess. Although, neither of you could deny the obvious attraction that grew as well.

You didn’t think “flirting” was a thing when Yuna was properly alive, but she was damn good at it, regardless.

You, on the other hand, were awkward. Like a little bird trying to impress, you brought her modern-day gifts and things to try. When she expressed her fascination with your manicure, you brought her nail polishes in all different colors to try. She loved the soft, subtle pinks the most. When you had an extra long day planned, you went and got pizzas. She didn’t need to eat, but she appreciated the new flavors anyway. When she talked about how much she used to love to sew and try new clothes, you brought her magazines. She had really loved your talks about art and fashion before so when she saw pictures, she was ecstatic.

And you… You felt a certain amount of pride in having brought such a big smile to such a beautiful face. You felt a warmth in your belly at the way her hand would gently caress your shoulder in thanks for a gift. You felt a dizziness when she would stand just a little bit closer to you and exchange stories and knowledge…

🎃

“Death is only the beginning…” You whispered out, polishing the stone.

Yuna looked up from where she was painting her nails. “Hm? What did you say, precious?”

You blushed, still unused to the nickname she had adopted for you, looking over your shoulder to the beautiful woman. She met your eyes with a playful glint. Even when you turned away, you knew she was watching you work. “Oh nothing… I was just reading the inscription on your sarcophagus. It’s a bit ominous, don’t you think?”

When you looked back to her, after she remained silent for a moment, you caught her shrugging nonchalantly. “I was trying to be optimistic, actually. Hopes for the afterlife to be paradise and all that.”

“Well, it kind of sounds foreboding.”

“Well, yeah, it was to stop tomb raiders too. They need to think there’s a curse here,” Yuna giggled softly.

“Curse, my ass.” You mumbled getting back to work.

Your new… friend might be a mummy. Magic might be real. But you’d be damned if you thought anything in this place was cursed.

Yuna paused in her painting, hopping down from where she perched on the throne and coming to lean against the sarcophagus. “You don’t believe in curses?”

“I didn’t say that. You’re real and alive… Kind of… So I’m sure curses are too. But, I can’t find it in me to believe that you would’ve actually cursed anything here.” You paused, pulling off your gloves. “Your plan to make outsiders believe this place is cursed is working, though, you know. I was at a bar one town over the other night, and this guy was so insistent to warn me away. ‘There is a creature in those depths. The Bringer of Death. It will never eat. Never sleep. Never stop.’ A superstitious drunk if I’ve ever seen one. He definitely didn’t believe that the tomb was a couple empty, dirty rooms like I countered with.”

Yuna and you tried to stare each other down but easily broke into giggles. You leaned against the sarcophagus, which you’re sure would make your boss spiral into a fit if they saw, and nudged her playfully.

Eventually, she sighed out, “Well, I am no man, and I care not for ‘bringing death,’ but that drunkard was right that I cannot sleep or eat. A shame too, I really enjoyed that pizza you brought me, precious.”

🎃

You don’t really know how you got here.

Logically, it made sense. Yuna and you had been dancing around each other, making heart eyes, for days.

But you hadn’t fathomed it would culminate in her soft lips against yours.

She held you firmly, despite her gentle disposition, refusing to let you move away for even a second to breathe. One hand grasped your waist, teasing to inch south and caress your backside, while the other trailed up your own arm. Her nails grazed lightly, soothingly, against your bare flesh and sent chills up your spine in the most pleasurable way.

You really couldn’t believe this was happening.

Yuna finally pulled away, only a hair’s breadth, to allow you to gasp in oxygen. You sighed as she ran her nose along yours, both of you with fluttering eyes and small smiles. Her grasp on you didn’t falter; one hand holding your waist firmly, the other now cupping your neck sweetly.

“Jesus, princess,” You spoke softly, leaning your forehead to hers. “You literally stole my breath away.”

Yuna hummed and rubbed her nose back and forth against yours affectionately. “If I could have it my way, I’d steal all of you and keep you here forever, precious.”

You both giggled, but yours trailed off as one of her talisman necklaces caught your eye.

It was mesmerizing, and you pulled away a bit further to get a better view. Your own hand, of which both had been wrapped around Yuna’s neck, trailed down to lift the stone.

“This amulet… There are legends about it…” You finally spoke again, still breathless. Both from the kiss and from the beautiful, opalescent gem resting between the two of your chests.

“Oh, really?” Yuna asked, sounding distracted. She would always indulge in your stories though, even if she was obviously eyeing your lips and thinking of other things. “Like what?”

“It’s rumored to have the power to bring the dead to life. I’ve heard, recently actually, of a treasure hunter searching for it. He wants to resurrect his wife.”

“We’ll make sure that we don’t bring anyone back from the dead then…” Yuna kissed your cheek, seeing the way you tilted your head at her in teasing disbelief. “Okay, well anyone else.” She smiled smally.

🎃

“The hunter you spoke of. He broke into the tomb last night.”

That was the last thing you wanted to be greeted with. “What!? Are you okay? Did he hurt you? Did he steal the amulet?”

“Thankfully, he did not discover the hidden door to this sanctum. Both I and the amulet are safe for now… The powers bestowed on me through these talismans allow me to see who crosses the threshold and inflict whatever hallucination and emotion I deem fit. When you first entered, your aura felt safe. Hungry, which I now know was for knowledge, but safe.” Yuna smiled at you, before it fell into a scowl. “This man, though… His aura felt like those that were here before you. Greedy, selfish, dark. Like them, I used my abilities to inflict a foreboding feeling of doom and death and hallucinations of the shadows enclosing. His resolve was stronger than theirs had been, I fear.”

“What do we need to do, princess?”

She smiled again, this time wistfully. “Not we… I.” Yuna removed the opalescent talisman from her neck. “You will take the unenchanted and non-magical artifacts with you today. I know you finished cataloging days ago anyway… I want you to tell stories about me and my people. I want everyone to know that the people of this country descend from a resilient ancestry full of magic and ferocity and brilliance. I want the little girls, especially, to know they can be a warrior and a scholar.” She breathed, her eyes watery. “You will do this. You will tell these stories and be successful and alive. And I will destroy this amulet and collapse the tomb. I will die along with this dangerous magic, but I will die having completed my duty in keeping my people safe.”

Your eyes widened, full of tears, at her words. “I don’t want to lose you! You’re… you’re my friend, princess.”

Yuna sniffled, holding back her own sobs with a joke, “Well, you cannot stay. I’m almost positive that would kill you. Lack of air and all…” She leaned in slowly to kiss the tear tracks from your cheeks. “Besides, it would get dull rather quickly when I am put to eternal rest.”

You nodded, slowly packing up your things. Yuna had taken the liberty to stack the artifacts into your wagon before you even arrived. “I’m going to miss you…”

“I’m sorry it must end this way, but I did enjoy our brief time together.” Yuna took off one of her other precious necklaces, clasping it around your neck before you left the chamber. “I guess I did turn out to be the Bringer of Death… Just, it is my own.”

[handeaux]

In 1872, Cincinnati Ground To A Halt As The City’s Horses Succumbed To A Virus

It sounds like something out of a science fiction movie. For nearly three weeks in the autumn of 1872, Cincinnati was paralyzed by a virus with no known cure.

Humans were not susceptible to this virus. It only affected horses, but the entire operation of Cincinnati life and business depended primarily on horses. When the city’s horses were incapacitated, Cincinnati screeched into paralysis.

The strange episode began one evening in October when Dan Rice’s circus rolled into town. Four of the horses showed symptoms of some sort of respiratory illness and were taken to veterinarian George W. Bowler for treatment. Dr. Bowler readily identified the affliction as the “Canadian horse disease” that was then infesting the northern tier of states but doubted it would spread beyond his stable on Ninth Street.

Alas, Dr. Bowler’s optimism was unfounded and the next few days found cases throughout the downtown area. Journalists struggled to name the disease. “Epizooty” was a common label, but newspaper reports invoked “equine influenza” or “hippo-typhoid-laryngitis” or “epiglottic catarrh” or “epizootic influenza” and even “hipporhinorrheaeirthus”! Whatever they called it, the disease would hobble a city absolutely dependent on horse power to operate at all.

Josiah “Si” Keck, presiding at the Board of Aldermen, introduced a resolution to draft squads of men for duty at the city’s firehouses. With the horses out of commission, only manpower could replace horsepower to haul the heavy steam-powered fire engines of the day. Thankfully, only a few minor fires were reported during the height of the contagion.

According to the Cincinnati Enquirer [11 November 1872], other horse-dependent companies tried different alternatives:

“The United States Express Company has prepared to follow the example of the Eastern Companies. All of their horses, twenty-two in number, being completely disabled, they will at once substitute steers, and the streets of this city will show the curious spectacle of express wagons drawn by the propelling force of a farmer’s haycart.”

Historian Alvin F. Harlow, writing in the Bulletin of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio [April 1951], noted that the bovine substitutes were simply not cut out for jobs readily accomplished by horses:

“The oxen, with great, wild, pathetic eyes, slobbering, swaying slowly through the streets, were a strange spectacle to city folk, and were followed by crowds of children for a day or two, until the novelty wore off. But as agencies of traction, they were a disappointment. Not all of them were well broken to the yoke; few men in town knew how to drive them, and as they are—with the possible exception of the tortoise and the two-toed sloth—the slowest walkers in the whole zoological category, they did not accomplish much in a day, according to city standards.”

Just think of an entire city operating on the capable talents of horses, now immobilized by an unseen microbe. Garbage piled up as the city’s sanitation wagons stood idle. “Garbage” back then meant kitchen and table scraps which, even in the chill of autumn, ripened malodorously in unattended cans. The situation was even worse at the city’s slaughterhouses. Even though the butchers had stopped working – there were no wagons available to deliver the slaughtered pork and beef – there were likewise no wagons to dispose of the offal and trimmings. The stench was indescribable.

Cincinnati’s streetcars were horsedrawn in 1872. It would be a decade before electrical trolleys debuted. The entire commuter system of the city shut down and the Cincinnati workforce, from C-suite executives to the lowliest laborers, had to hoof it. Harlow describes an exhausting scene:

“Towards dusk each evening the great trek homeward began, and from then until 9 P.M. the streets were thronged with business men, clerks, bookkeepers, warehouse and factory workers, trudging wearily. To reach their work again at 7 or 7:30 next morning, when most people's day began, soon proved too much for some of them, and they took to sleeping in their places of business; which in turn became less and less necessary, as those businesses were compelled to shut down for lack of transportation.”

Even funerals were affected. Teams of undertakers pulled hearses to the depot of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton railroad, whose tracks ran along the front of Spring Grove Cemetery. Mourners followed along on foot until the hearse was loaded on the train, then rode out for the burial. Other cemeteries put interments on hold for the duration.

The city faced the serious prospect of starvation. Food arrived in the city by rail and by river, but there were no carts to carry it from the wharf or the depot. Fresh vegetables rotted down by the river while families went hungry just a few blocks north. Farmers from the suburbs refused to bring their crops into Cincinnati for fear that their own draft animals would succumb to the dread epizooty.

As humans attempted to fill the horse’s role, every wheelbarrow in the city was drafted into use and some sold for astronomical sums. Even so, as noted by Harlow, human power had its very fragile limits:

“If the load was very heavy, as for instance, hogsheads of tobacco, massive machinery or an iron safe of a ton weight, ropes were also attached to each side of the wagon and passed over the shoulders of two files of straining men, while three or four others, their feet striving for toeholds in earth or cobbles, pushed against the wagon's tail until shoulder-bones threatened to wear through the flesh.”

Among the worst effects of the pandemic was the inability to dispose of dead horses. Horses died in Cincinnati at the rate of twenty or thirty a day at the height of the disease in November 1872, and there was nothing available to haul the carcasses out to the reduction plants, where they might be turned into soap fat or fertilizer. Alderman Si Keck, who owned one of these “stink factories,” found a partial solution by renting a small steam-powered truck from one of the city’s pork-packing plants but could still handle only a few of the equine corpses.

By the end of November, new cases and fatalities had diminished considerably. As December opened, the city was almost back to normal, with a new appreciation of the four-legged residents who truly powered our city.

Only one case of a human contracting the epizooty was recorded in 1872. Joseph Einstein was a well-known dealer when Cincinnati’s Fifth Street was the largest horse market in the United States. Einstein spent weeks, around the clock, nursing his stock and developed symptoms remarkably similar to those afflicting his horses. Several local doctors confirmed that he had somehow succumbed to the dread epizooty.

Just as mysteriously as it appeared, the epizooty vanished, and never visited Cincinnati to that degree ever again.

[hyunnieshannie]

Boundless

Series: Boundless

Word Count: 2,832

Pairing: Hyunjin x Female Reader

Genre/Warnings: Fantasy AU, Non Idol Au, harsh words (swearing) Dom!Hyunjin, degradation, mentions of anxiety, sex as a dare, self esteem issues, mentions names of other idols. (Anything else I have missed just let me know and will be added in, more warnings will be added with each chapter update)

A/N: this is my first attempt at writing a proper fic with smut included. I hope you enjoy🖤

PREVIOUS MASTER LIST NEXT

~Prologue~

The world can be so beautiful. Simple things like the changing of the seasons, to the way the clouds look on a particularly sunny day, how the flowers bloom vibrantly after a beautiful white winter. But the key word for you, was can. To you the world was dull and these days seemed more dull than ever. You had been trapped in your home for two years, during the pandemic and now that it’s finally over the world felt as if it had only gotten worse. People had forgotten how to properly socialize without staring deep into their phones, and due to this people had forgotten what basic human decency was. All your life you had felt the overbearing negativity of this world. Elementary school was certainly the easiest. You had a small group of friends which you played with everyday, but when middle school hit; one by one those friends disappeared. And by the time you were in highschool you had learned that you didn’t need a big group of people around you. You were much more interested in reading, and focusing on yourself and so that's exactly what you did. You had friends in highschool, but not ones you considered close. And as they say, people come and go. This was life. Now that you’ve been accepted to your choice college, you figured maybe this could be a new start, a new school in a new state. Living on your own (with a roommate) of course on campus. Maybe you could reinvent yourself. But in a world of impossible beauty standards and expectations of how to act and be noticed, your attempts to fit in never worked out. Because you are no supermodel, or an extraordinarily social person, you are unbelievably. Ordinary. 

Your roommate would often spend nights away from the dorm, and you found yourself feeling more homesick with each passing day. You didn’t make many friends, as your anxiety would get in the way of talking to new people. You got lonely very quickly, and thus drew back to your favorite form of comfort. Reading. People suck, and often never offer the same type of comfort a good book would. You read anything that caught your eye with a good plot, sci-fi, fantasy, historical fiction, even the occasional romance. You got attached to characters, laughed with them, cried with them and grew with them. And that was more than what you could say for the so called ‘friends’ you had made throughout your life. “Ah he’s such a red flag!” you mutter to yourself, as you sat cozily in your dorm room. “He's just going to hurt you, walk away! Go to Wooyoung! He loves you!” you turn the page eager to read the next chapter, but unfortunately for you, your timer goes off notifying you, it was time to start walking over to your class. You picked yourself up and groaned, disappointed you couldn't continue the next chapter, where the characters would definitely fight for the main protagonist's hand in marriage. You wanted to know if she’d really choose Yeonjun the (in your opinion) selfish prince over Wooyoung, the (in your very biased opinion) wonderful bookkeeper. “Ugh, fuck it” you say as you snatch the book from off your bed, opening it up to where you left off, reading as you walked to class. “I hate to admit it Tzuyu, Yeonjun isn’t that bad,” you say as you flip the page, “But the cute bookkeeper treated you better”. You didn't realize you were speaking aloud until someone behind you whispered to their friend. 

“How strange.” she giggled, 

“See this is why I don’t go back to my dorm often,” the other whispers back, maybe they didn’t know you could hear them, or maybe they intended for you to hear them but still it stung to know they were there literally talking behind your back. The two girls pick up their pace and walk past you laughing as they do. You look to your roommate, who ignores you. You were used to this. Either you were ignored like some sort of ghost that no one noticed. Or they spoke about you with little regard towards your feelings. It didn’t bother you as much as it used to throughout highschool but now you’d have to deal with occasionally seeing your roommate in the dorm knowing how she actually felt about you. 

“Ignore them,” a voice sounds from behind you, you look up to see Changbin walking towards you, “They’re just bitchess with nothing better to do,” he smiles warmly at you, Changbin was someone you met your first year of college during orientation. He was a well built man, with incredibly gorgeous features. Toned muscles from going to the gym often and a beautiful smile. How can anyone be so incredibly good looking you thought to yourself, “So Y/N, are you going to the party tonight?” your heart races as he says your name, you didn’t even know that he knew it. You’ve barely spoken to him, only in passing during class. But that didn’t stop you from having the biggest crush on him. You often wondered what it would be like to have him pick you up and pin you against the wall as he kissed you harshly, a curiosity you would never satisfy. 

“Party?” you say, 

“The one Jisungs throwing.” he smiles, 

“Oh,” you hadn’t been invited but you didn’t want to admit that to him, “No, I have to study for a test.” you force a weak smile at him, 

“Oh come on Y/N come it’ll be fun, I haven’t seen you at any of the other parties so you have to come to this one.” Did he have to make that comment? Of course you hadn’t gone to the others, how could you go somewhere when you weren’t even invited?

“I don’t really like big crowds of people, and I don’t have anyone to go with on such short notice.”  

“You don’t need a date for a party you know?” 

“I don’t know a lot of people, the way you and Jisung do. It’s not really about a date, it’s more less wanting someone familiar with me so I don’t get nervous” you laugh, the two of you continue walking towards the lecture hall with an awkward silence, you sneak a look at Changbin who looks like he’s in deep thought. 

“Okay I got it then!” He says as the two of you walk into the building, Jisung who stood waiting by a vending machine yells for Changbin's attention and he waves to him, then looks back at you “So” you look up at him confused, “you’d go if someone you knew would be there right?” he asks, you nod in response, “Perfect, I’ll pick you up at seven.” he smiles, but before you could tell him that wasn’t what you meant he waves back to you as he runs off to catch up with Jisung and his other friends he turns back to you, and yells “Seven be outside your dorm!” you nod. Changbin invited me to a party, you think to yourself, your heart fluttering. Your crush wanted you to go so badly, he offered to be your date. You smile at the thought.

After popping out of the shower, you carefully do your makeup, and pick out a short black dress from your closet. And once you’re ready you head downstairs to wait for Changbin. As you walk out the doors you see he’s already standing there looking at his phone, he looks back up when he hears you approach him. “Damn Y/N I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in anything other than jeans and a hoodie.” he smiles, 

“Is that a good or bad thing?” 

“Well you look good in your hoodies, but you look good like this too, I could get used to it,” he smirks, your heart pounding. He thinks I look good in my usual outfits.. Does that mean he’s looked at you the way you have him? The two of you leave walking off campus and towards Jisungs home which was fairly close. The music booms through speakers, and large crowds of  people who are already visibly drunk dance and talk all around. Changbin guides you through the doors and greets everyone who comes up to him. He doesn’t leave your side until he offers to get you a drink. 

“Y/N?” Jisung says as he walks up to you, “No way Bin actually got you to come!” he says, “You look hot, didn't expect that out of you” he laughs, 

“Thanks?” you say questioning what he meant by that, 

“Fuck off Jisung,” Changbin says as he returns with two drinks, 

“Oh come on I’m just fucking around,” Jisung laughs, as Changbin hands you your drink, “anyways Y/N I need to borrow Bin, I gotta talk to him about this thing we had planned.” he smiles at you cheerfully as he grabs Changbins arm and drags him away. Half an hour passes and Changbin hasn’t returned. Your anxiety begins to get to you as you stand alone in a room full of people. You make your way to the kitchen and stop when you hear a familiar voice, “If you can’t do it Bin you lose the bet, and you know what that means bro” Jisung laughs, 

“The girls never been to a party Ji” Changbin sighs, “It took me giving her no option to come how the fuck am I gonna get her to-” 

“She's probably drunk by now, little miss bookworm probably hasn’t ever drank either so it should be easy,” a girl laughs, 

“Nah thats fucked up if shes drunk im not going through with it,” Changbin says, staringcoldly at the girl,

“Awe don’t tell me you’re starting to rethink the dare Binnie” your roommates voice sounds from another area in the kitchen that you can’t see. 

“I’m not rethinking shit, I’m just not gonna fucking do it if shes drunk. Thats beyond fucked up” 

“I agree with Bin, if she's drunk that's not cool.” Jisung says with a serious face. 

“It’s a little late for fucked up dont you think? You accepted a dare to literally fuck the loser on campus for a measly fifty bucks. Whats fucked up is how far your rep is gonna drop when people find out” the girl laughs, your heart stings hearing her words. He was dared to fuck you. 

“Common Binnie it’s easy poor girls got it bad for you, she’d probably jump at the chance, think of how funny it would be” Because of course how funny would it be if the boy the loser has a crush on fucks her for a dare, wow what a great joke. With that Changbin notices you standing there, you’ve heard everything. You turn around and walk straight out of the party, your chest stings, and tears stream down your cheek. Because who was I to think he’d actually be interested in me. He chases you down the street as you continue to walk faster, wanting nothing more than to get away from him, 

“Y/N! Wait” he yells out, as he grabs onto your wrist, 

“Get away from me.” you hiss, your face heating up with anger and hurt, 

“Y/N please let me explain,” you jerk your hand away from him, he looks hurt and confused by your action how fucking dare he look at me like that. Did he think because you had a crush on him you’d melt to his touch? That you’d let him explain his stupid fucking dare? No.

“Seo Changbin, don’t you ever come near me again,” you turn around walking away from him, you walk back towards your dorm, in tears. Everything that happened tonight was straight out of a drama and you couldn’t believe these things actually happened in real life. As you walk back on to campus you see the light from the library still on, the one place you know you can find exactly what you need. Comfort. You make your way inside where the librarian sits peacefully reading a book, 

“Y/N!” he yells, knowing the library is currently empty, 

“What are you doing here so late Mr. Lee?” 

“I was going to ask you the same question, miss Y/LN, is everything alright?” he asks, 

“Just a bit of heartbreak,” you whisper, his face showing signs of concern, “That book you gave me really tore me apart you know!” you force a laugh, you really weren't ready to explain this situation to anyone let alone, the only person who ever spoke to you as an equal. 

“Oh!” he laughs, “I had the same reaction! Well I’m glad you're here,” he says, “What kind of book are you looking for tonight?” he says, 

“Something that will take me far away from here,” you smile, 

“Well, I may be able to help with that,” he gets up and opens the door to his office, walking out with a small bag, “I was going to save this one for your birthday next week but it seems I’ve broken your heart with my last gift so consider this one to be the one that mends it” he smiles, 

“You didn’t have to mr. Lee,” you say as you take the bag from him, 

“Well I was out with one of your teachers and it caught my eye and I thought to myself, Lee Taemin if you do not bring this book back to your favorite reader you will regret it,” he laughs, “I kid you not, it called out to me as if begging me to bring it back for you” 

“Maybe it was calling out for you!” you laugh, 

“No, it was definitely calling for you,” he smiles, “Now go on, get home.” he smiles, you thank him once again for the gift and begin to leave, “Oh and Y/N” you turn back around to see what he called you for, “The boy who made you cry tonight, never deserved to be blessed with the gift of your heart. Write the story your heart deserves.” he smiles at you, like a brother trying to comfort his heartbroken younger sister. 

“Thank you,” you say weakly smiling at him as you exit the library. 

You wash the makeup off and change into a comfortable pair of leggings and a large hoodie, sliding into bed and laying down to stare at the ceiling. The events of that night are still eating away at your heart. You turn to your side and stare at the gift from Mr. Lee. you sit back up, turning the lamp on your side table on, opening the bag and staring at the large book that lay within it. The beautifully decorated leather cover that you could tell was handmade, a reddish brown with gorgeous gold details, the pages with gold trimming shone brightly under the light. It was magnificent, and by far the most beautiful book to be added to your collection. Almost like mr. Lee said, you felt a pull from it begging to be opened, to be read. It called out to you. You trace your fingers over the golden indented title, Boundless. You open the book carefully, turning the first page, from its title page, only to find it completely empty. There is no table of contents, you turn to the next page, once again empty. You flip through the whole book and there's nothing. You sit the book down, thinking of how strange it is for a book of this size to be empty, maybe it was sold by mistake? Just then the alarm on your clock on the nightstand goes off, you panic trying to shut it down. Did you accidentally set an alarm? No. You never would’ve set one for eleven pm, nor am. The light on your desk flickers and the room falls into a deep darkness, your heart begins to beat out of your chest and fear sinks in, just then the whispering starts, “Am i going crazy?” you say out loud, the whispers grow louder, and louder until light shines again, but not from your lamp, the book itself glows vibrantly illuminating the dark room around you. “Y/N…Y/N… Y/N!” the whispers chant, the book flies open landing on a page directly in the middle of the book, in a panicked state you jump off your bed wondering what could possibly be going on, but your head spins, or is the room spinning? You couldn't tell, the whispers growing into loud shouting, you drop down into a ball covering your ears, squeezing your eyes shut. You feel something pulling at you, you let out a scream as your body finally gives way and you’re being dragged back onto your bed, “Help!” was the last thing anyone would have heard coming from your dorm.

~~~~

Tags: @thvjnm @chanlixiiee @channiesbub @jaebaebaegot7 @maeleelee @iadorethemskz @maenijw @hangin-out-with-the-street-rats @jinniespuppy @painstakingly-juno @lethallyprotected @mimi-sierra04

[bellaleighwrites]

Writeblr Intro

General Info

Hello! My name is Isabella. I'm in my 40s (a sentence that I'm going to have to change in 13.5 months, but leaving it for now). I've been writing for as long as I can remember. We won't talk about most of my early attempts. I could probably recreate the story I wrote in 7th grade word for word if I wanted to. But, the only reason to do that would be to torture somebody with it. And I don't have anybody I dislike enough to make them read that thing. Same as any of the poetry I wrote during my poetry phase in junior high and high school.

Currently, I work at the service desk in a grocery store. It's great for people watching. Of course, it's also good for making me want to never leave my house and not have to deal with people ever again. If I could get my ADHD brain to work long enough to look into classes, I really want to go into accounting or bookkeeping. The morning bookwork is my favorite part of my job honestly (other than most of my coworkers. I DO like them). I'm the oldest of 4 girls (though, technically one of them is actually a sister from another mister. But, her kids call me and my other sisters "aunt" and my parents "grandma and grandpa" so she still counts.) and have TEN niblings ranging in age from 19 down to almost 8. I think. I tend to lose track of the younger ones.

Anyway! On to my writing! Which is honestly the most interesting thing about me, anyway.

I am in the process of revising my first novel. It's an Urban Fantasy about a vampire who is trying to protect his girlfriend in a world going increasingly mad. He has reason to believe that his Sire is in town and gunning for his friends. He's been informed by the local seer that he will somehow be instrumental in preventing the end of the world. There is apparently a Necromancer loose in the city - and when you and most of your friends are dead, that is a bit concerning. And the firestarting abilities he thought he lost when he was turned have returned, and after 275 years of being dormant they're out of control. This is the first in a series. The book doesn't have a title yet, but the series is called The Vampires of Sangue Collina. Any posts about it will be tagged with #Sangue Collina.

I am also writing the first draft of a Historical Romance. a Regency-era second chance romance. Four years ago, Evelyn and Lucas fell in love. But, her stepfather intended to marry her to the son of an associate of his, using her dowry to pay off a gambling debt. Evelyn takes one night for herself and sleeps with Lucas before running away. Four years later, Lucas has a bad riding accident and in his moments of semi-lucidity the only coherent thing he can say is Evelyn’s name. So, his older brother tracks her down. When he finds her, he also discovers that she has had Lucas’s baby. He drags them both back to London. When Lucas finally actually wakes up and finds out about their child - and about the fact that her stepfather is still looking for her - he realizes the only way to protect them is to marry her. Of course he kind of hates her for what she did, and never mind her reasons. I'm 12 scenes in and really like most of what I have, even though I know that it DOES need a lot of work. I'm probably going to have to add in some flashbacks or something. Because the 12th scene is literally the first time Evelyn and Lucas see each other, and they don't have a proper conversation until the next scene. I need to do something about that. But, that is future me's problem. The tags for that are #You're still the one and #ysto.

And then there's my fanfiction. I write Bridgerton. Mostly Kate and Anthony. And it would take way too long to talk about all of my fics on here. I'll be posting later to talk about all of them. And with links to everything.

Anyway! I intend to post writing updates and snippets on here. I'll also be reblogging writing advice and I want to get better about reblogging other people's writing.

I am especially looking for fellow romance writers. Bonus if you also write historical romance. Much as I love my mutuals, it would be great to find people I can talk to about the specifics of my genre.

[someone-took-lost]

new designs. new designs. let’s go!!

right off the bat, cabaret and millennium are the keepers of this batch, as i just wasn’t the happiest with star and prim. these two were just not my leads of the group, since for this i played around with other concepts for the designs. and in the end, the two i’m keeping were just my favorites. cabaret will likely end up being someone else’s kiddo, but for this, millennium is definitely what i most intended for the characters.

but for now, here are the brief descriptions of each of ‘em that i used to help with the designing process.

cabaret cantor [they/she/he|gay|oldest]

suave and smooth, cabaret is the dramatic focus of most conversations whenever they’re in the room. they’re a specialist in “doing whatever they want.” and an expert in “talking out of their ass.” as said by their closest friends. needless to say, cabaret is ambitious and a show-off, but tends to be more show-off than ambition. they love to dance, and especially in a theatre capacity, and are willing to preform for just about any occasion brought up. and their most favorite being particularly for charity events, as a big part of the reason they like to bring attention to themself is so that they are able to bring a light to others. and help those who have no voice, sing their hearts desires.

star stunned [he/him|straight|oldest]

a specialist in rhinestone designs, star is a dress designer who also studies the stars. he watches them from the canterlot observatory, and from his telescope from his mother’s home’s balcony. and he dreams of them falling to earth with their pleasant glow in his hooves. star is quiet, and tends to keep to himself within the boutique. sowing, and sketching new designs, while marking the movement of stars. he’s a regular bookworm, who has some trouble being any sort of group focus. but slowly, but surely, he’s working on getting to know everyone around him. he’s just nervous is all.

primrose quartz [she/her|pansexual|oldest]

the grounded and sweet pony of old, acropolis is a researcher who dedicates herself to her studies in full. she dreams of one day creating a library filled with historic tombs and texts, and she gleams at any and all opportunities she gets to bookkeep and study. acropolis is a specialist in ancient architecture, and seeks to bring back what was lost and show those today the beauty of what once was. and sometimes she can get a little too passionate about it--she could go on long lectures and spiels on their development to today, probably all within a single breath. which tends to leave those listening in a snooze, and leaving her in a disappointed spiral of upset.

millennium diamond [they/he|pansexual|oldest]

as their name suggests, millennium is the million dollar pony who dresses in finery, and buys it too. they’re a business mogul, who specializes in creating jewelry and selling it. they’re a creative, who seeks to use their talents for more than just show, but also marketability. and while it isn’t a terrible trait, it can lead them to come off as cold and calculating, when really they’re just very cunning and constantly thinking of their next move.