#outlaws of the marsh

[darkfalcon-z]

by all account Jin Guanyao did some pretty deplorable things, but if you compare him to the heroes from classic Chinese literature, like of Song Jiang (from Water Margin) he comes off as pretty nice, reasonable guy - see Song Jiang's modus operandi is framing people for crimes (he has his guys commit those crimes, including child murder and mass slaughter), often getting the families of whoever he wants wants to join him killed (executed by authorities) or at least losing their homes. And yet everyone is like "yeah, Song Jiang, the Timely Rain, now that I have nowhere to go I'll join you, let me suck your dick" (as opposed to all the time people captured and almost killed him before they learned who he is and went "why didn't you say you are Song Jiang the Timely Rain, we've almost eaten you, let us suck your dick" - drugging people and using their meat as a filling for buns to sell to and drug more people is surprising common business model in Water Margin). So if Song Jiang gets to be a hero, why can't Jin Guangyao fans make him into one (without changing his character).

On the other hand how would Jin Guangyao measure up if Song Jiang was his opponent?

[rivvyelf]

Time has flown by so quickly. Around this time last year (July 2022) I decided to "put pen to paper" and begin typing the idea that swirled in my mind for years:

My first fic- Outlaws of the Inland Sea.

Two of my main passions are Chinese history and anything related to JRR Tolkien. So, for the past few years, I was thinking of ways to combine the two while not disrespecting either topic. Last year I said "to hell with it" and began this fanfiction combining Water Margin and Middle-Earth. I thought it would be a daunting task, but as I wrote more and more and ruminated, these two seemingly different works managed to fit together like peanut butter and jelly.

I suppose I'll use this Tumblr to reflect on my fanfiction and my writing process. Maybe repost anything that I find worthwhile?

For those who prefer the AO3 link, here it is: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41763987/chapters/104777022

Want to see my reflections and other notes on my fanfiction? Here's the link: https://rivvyelf.tumblr.com/outlawsnotes

[whalehouse1]

It might be a bit too early to celebrate, but FGO has given us two Water Margin characters and neither have been Li Kui which just THANK ALL DIVINE BEINGS! I’m hoping it’s one of the female bandits but if I had my top five choices for characters I’d want in from that novel: Shi Jin, Dai Zong, Gongshun Shen, Li Junyi and Zhang Qing (featherless arrow). Lu Da would also be great but only if his np involves him kicking his opponents in the crotch. Lü Fang is higher than Li Junyi if it weren’t for Yan Qing being a dick to him.

[lekopoofball]

I need y'all to know that there is a chapter in Shui Hu Zhuan in which Li Kui is mistaken for a Taoist priest and goes along with it without batting an eye, pretending he's a pro at exorcising evil spirits. The squire's daughter is apparently possessed by a violent devil, and he goes, yeah, I'll totally exorcise it from her; I'll need a bed, tons of meat, wine, and money.

He has them gather things for a sacrificial candlelight ritual which consists of roasting and eating an entire cow by himself. This has nothing to do with the exorcism and afterward he just says it's time for bed and starts to leave and everyone's like, um, wait a second... What about the devil?? He's like, oh, that? Well, can you show me where it is?

And the point is this gave me such Reigen vibes. Get this man a job at Spirits and Such. (Absolutely do not hire him, actually, he's a bit...) What AIN'T Reigen vibes is what he does after that...

[ms-musers]

He was so real for this

[jasontoddssuper]

I just said this on tiktok and for the love of all that's holy don't take this as a pro sh*p/dark romance/equivalent thing but i'm right,fandom simps CANNOT handle hot antagonists who also have actual personalities.When they said they think with their [redacteds],they really meant it huh

[plugnuts]

So many people sleep on Profile Stan when he’s literally fucked up numbers and code who gained sapience and is also power hungry and also tried to technically kill original Stan to essentially gain complete control of his online life- like come on the guy is literally everythign you could ask for

[claireverlasting]

🤗 - el

Well not much of a fandom (unless there actually is one out there and I’m not aware), definitely the shitton of wuxia novel I read in elementary school, personally favorite are Outlaws of the Marsh and The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants. (I think that’s what they’re called in English) I was obsessed with them and I think the whole thing was such a vibe, one thing I don’t like is the people in both books ended up working for the government, that really bummed me out

And there was obviously the Harry Potter/Pjo fic I wrote that I realized was just self-insert and copy-paste of pjo, I cringed and deleted it

[tati8if]

Random scenes ☻✿

[extinctionstories]

Two hundred years ago, the wetlands of Japan rustled with pink-tinged feathers. Tall, pale birds stepped carefully through reeds and iris, hunting small fish, crabs, and frogs. 

Nipponia nippon, it would be dubbed by the national ornithological society, a bird emblematic of its country. The Crested Ibis. The Toki. The Peach Flower Bird.

Marshes slowly changed to rice fields, with farmers who resented the toki for ruining crops; to kill the birds was outlawed, so children chased them from the fields, singing warnings.

The doors of the country were pried open. Laws changed. Farmers bought their first guns, their sights set on birds who were no longer protected. The toki, the red-crowned crane, and many others began to suffer. But the worst was yet to come.

Pesticides are indiscriminate killers. The poison sprayed to kill a beetle can travel up the foodchain, toppling a cascade of larger animals, or affecting their ability to reproduce. It was reckless pesticide use that nearly wiped out the Bald Eagle. In the rice fields, the peach-flower-bird had little chance. 

In 1981, Japan’s last five living toki were removed from a wild that had become too dangerous for them.

I tell a lot of sad stories here, about mistakes we’ve made and animals we’ve lost. This isn’t one of those. This is a story about one of those precious times when we were able to fix the things we’d broken. 

A joint effort between Japan & China, and the discovery of seven more birds in that country, led to a successful breeding program, which in 2008 saw the first ibises fly free again in Japan. Today, at least 5000 toki exist in the world.

The last wild-born toki, one of those captured in 1981, lived almost long enough to see her species’ return. Reaching the equivalent age of a centenarian human, she died in 2003—not of old age, but injury after throwing herself against her cage door. 

Her name was ‘Kin’. ‘Gold’. 

Mended things can never be as whole as they once were. There will always be cracks that show, weak spots that remain vulnerable. Yet, like the shining seams of a kintsugi piece, these scars speak an important truth: here is a thing that someone chose to save; handle with care.

The title of this painting is ‘Restoration’. It is gouache on 22x30 inch watercolor paper

[rivvyelf]

"Chapter 1" has been posted! 10k words in 10 days yet again! Prelude and Chapter 2 have been revised. as well. No big revisions for the rest of the work. Probably more small inclusions throughout the work but nothing substantial.

FF.net link

AO3 link

Now, I can finally work on "Chapter 29." The end of Chapter 28 ended on a cliffhanger. Unfortunately, I have no idea how that cliffhanger went with readers. Such is life writing an English Water Margin fanfic. E.G. Mine's the second registered fanfic for Water Margin on FF.net and the first crossover. Too bad my written Chinese isn't advanced enough! I'd think it would get more eyes if it were in Chinese.

My only hope for an increase in the Water Margin fandom is the success of the upcoming Water Outlaws novel that has great reviews so far... or I may just need to add in that tag to my fic eventually.

[spcowboyau]

STANLEY “STAN” MARSH (24yo)

Son of a Randy Marsh, a farmer, and Sharon Marsh, housewife and women’s suffragist. He mainly earns his money working as a ranch hand at his father’s farm where they grow and raise their own crops and cattle. However, due to his resentment towards his father Stan often wanders far away from his home, usually ending with him running with some shady people, such as his good friend Kenny McCormick and his band of outlaws.

When he was younger he quickly got tired of earning his money as a ranch hand, so naturally he aimed for the more violent type of work the world had to offer, such as bounty hunting and occasionally offered his services as a hired gun, earning him the outlaw status. Nowadays he claims that the whole outlaw fiasco is way too exhausting and risky and settled on the simpler things in life, such as whiskey. Every now and then he rustles sheep and cattle for his father.

In our story he recently fell in with Kyle Broflovski, the rich boy that everyone in town is looking for. He promised him he wouldn’t leave his side no matter what, and that he will try his best to protect him from the authorities. Often times he doubts his ability to do so but refuses to back down from the challenges that come with his newfound life.

[lekopoofball]

I pulled an all-nighter working on a group presentation the night before, and I went mad from sleep deprivation and wrote things like:

"Song Jiang speaks of their, their um, the stuff of the thing that’s and the one that er he’s not an otter."

"Please no more. So much pain."

"You know you’re a sloth when you have shells for corneas."

[jackoshadows]

How is Jon Snow ‘idealistic’?

He’s one of the most pragmatic Starks in the books, which is something considering he is only 14/15 when the story starts. There’s a reason Maester Luwin tells Jon that ‘bastards grow up faster than other children’.

It’s Jon Snow who stays up at night worrying over his future and not any of the responsible adults, because he knows the realities of being a bastard. It’s Jon who makes the hard decision to go to the Wall because he has no place at Winterfell, not Ned or Benjen. Ned refuses to deal with this until Catelyn forces his hand.

 It’s Jon who explains the unfair rules to Arya about the difference between Robb and Bran practicing in the courtyard with the prince while Jon sits it out. It’s Jon who reassures Arya when she goes to him afraid that she too is a bastard. It’s Jon who leaves his name out so that the other Stark kids can get a direwolf.

Yes, Jon does not know how much the Night’s Watch has fallen as an institution in terms of it’s members now being outlaws, rapists and murderers. That’s because no one tells him the truth and not because he believes in songs and fairy tales. Benjen only tells him that it’s a hard, tough life with life long celibacy and not about it’s current status as a penal colony.

That’s why Jon ends up appreciating Tyrion Lannister as a friend, because Tyrion is the only person who does tell Jon the truth. That’s why Jon is hurt, that his own father send him to the Wall without telling him what the Wall has now become and then giving him a choice.

[Note: In fairness to Ned and Benjen, they both probably still think it a great honor to be a brother of the Night’s Watch. Like all the Starks before them they hold the Night’s Watch up as this important historical institution that has to be honored and then fail to actually support it in terms of funding and manpower]

Jon not recognizing that his fellow peers don’t have his education at the start of AGoT? That’s not idealism. That’s him not recognizing his privilege. At Winterfell he’s the bastard compared to his Stark siblings, always judged as less than them by nature of his birth. It’s only once he gets to the Wall that he realizes, with Donal Noye’s help, he has had it better than the other new recruits.

Jon wanting to be a ranger? That’s ambition, that’s self-confidence. Notice how after Sam Tarly explains that being a steward intern meant being groomed for leadership, Jon is immediately accepting of the decision.

Jon being angry and bitter at the unfairness of his world is not idealistic. Being angry about inequality and only being able to imagine a fairer world in dreams is the opposite of idealistic.

Jon’s not trying to end world hunger or trying to legitimize all bastards or set about righting all the wrongs of Westeros. He’s trying to do the best he can at world’s end on a little patch of land called the Night’s Watch for his fellow crows and freefolk there.

When Jon sends out the paper shields to the Crown in KL, he is angry and cynical and knows they will not send him any help. He is cynical about goodness and integrity which is clear from his interactions with his deputies at the Wall.

If anything, Jon Snow is ruthlessly pragmatic. Whether it’s taking child hostages, or telling the Freefolk that they will only get more food if they work for it or hiring spearwives to defend an entire castle or taking on Satin as his steward because he is good at it or using Wun Wun to rebuild or doing actual science experiments, all his decisions are immensely practical - which is why 99% of his policies keeps clashing with the outdated dogma of the likes of Bowen Marsh and Septon Cellador. 

‘You Know Nothing’ is a play on Socrates ‘I know that I know nothing’, an acknowledgement that he has yet to learn a lot despite being Lord Commander. The people he holds in high esteem are the likes of Donal Noye, Maester Aemon, Qhorin Halfhand and Samwell Tarly. 

It is true that all the Stark children growing up in the relative safety and comfort of home and family have lofty ideals as children. That’s the innocence of children. And then they grow up. This quote encapsulates that:

When Jon had been a boy at Winterfell, his hero had been the Young Dragon, the boy king who had conquered Dorne at the age of fourteen. Despite his bastard birth, or perhaps because of it, Jon Snow had dreamed of leading men to glory just as King Daeron had, of growing up to be a conqueror. Now he was a man grown and the Wall was his, yet all he had were doubts. He could not even seem to conquer those. - Jon, ADwD

Jon Snow is keenly aware of how hard his job is in terms of actually being able to help people. Idealistic is not a word I would use to describe him.

[twola]

Seven Deadly Sins - IX

PAIRING: low to mid honor Arthur Morgan x Fem!reader

Because if one thing is true, it is that Arthur Morgan is a sinner. Pure, organic, non-GMO smut. A continuing series.

Warnings: Smut, Violence, Low to Medium Honor Arthur (and all that entails)

Perdition: a state of eternal punishment and damnation into which a sinful and unpenitent person passes after death.

➵ AO3 Link

➵ Previous | ➵  Next | ➵  Fic Masterlist

“I’m really sorry for you son, it's a hell of a thing.”

Arthur’s world slowed. It shrunk down to the room in this doctor’s office in Saint Denis, closing in on him, choking, like something pressing down on his chest. Making it even harder to breathe than it already is. 

“Wha- what d’ya mean?” He hoarsely asked the doctor, who frowned before turning toward the sink opposite where he sat.

Tuberculosis. Consumption.

“You’re real sick, it's - it's a progressive disease. You’ll be… well, the best thing is rest. And getting somewhere warm and dry and taking it easy now. Is that possible?”

“Sure, I can just take my winters in my country club in California. No, it's not possible.” Arthur retorts icily.

“Well.. like I said, I’m real sorry.”

The doctor moves toward the table, grabbing a syringe. “Let me give you some more energy today, at least.”

Arthur barely registers the pinch of the needle in his arm, but he does feel the rush of energy through his blood, a warming that goes to his head and jolts his weary bones.

The doctor goes back to the table, fiddling with the syringe he just emptied.

“Doc - does it, how - c’n I give it to someone by…?”

He turns around, slowly. The doctor’s eyes flit down to Arthur’s hands - his left ring finger that was conspicuously empty.

“Are you talking about a woman? One you’re intimate with?”

Arthur nods, an even larger pit growing in his stomach.

The doctor’s frown deepens.

-

Arthur Morgan has always been an unrepentant man. He stole, he robbed, he shot and he killed his way through life. He was sure he would get his someday - at the end of a revolver perhaps, or the hangman’s noose. 

He supposed he deserved it, that the higher power he’s never truly believed in would smite him down one day for his deeds - and he had accepted that. Bad men don’t get to have a good life. Why bother changing if all of that blood was going to damn him anyway?

The horse beneath him whinnies as he pushes his spurs into her side, urging her faster, faster, through the tepid and humid marshes of Bluewater, north, north to where the gang had taken refuge after Lakay, at some old blasted hill country camp in the damp and dark hills of Roanoke Ridge.

Arthur found himself praying - to a God he’s never prayed to before - that the punishment he was going to receive would be enough - enough to satisfy the divine being his justice. 

You don’t deserve that punishment.

You don't deserve to die. Eliza didn’t deserve to die. Isaac, that bright and bouncing boy, he certainly did not deserve to die.

The thoughts of damnation and punishment invade his psyche so much so that he does not even realize he’s reached Beaver Hollow, absentmindedly going through the motions of hitching his horse and starting to walk toward Tilly, at the edge of the camp reading a book on a blanket.

“Miss Tilly.”

Tilly looks up and smiles. He doesn’t even have to ask, “She took laundry down to the river.” She nods her head to the left, motioning down the hill toward the winding Kamassa carved out of the Roanoke Valley.

Arthur nods and quickly heads down the trail, unwilling to speak to anyone else at the moment. Thoughts of his impending demise were shoved to the back of his mind - he would face them later.

He needed to see you first.

-

You’re singing, singing, of all things. Scrubbing a shirt against a rock. One of his shirts. The domesticity of it all warms his heart for a short moment - a moment before he remembers he’s a dying outlaw on the run and you are not his wife doing laundry at your homestead. Your soft laugh, your sly smile; the way you sigh his name when he’s buried between your thighs. How could he ever be deserving of your love, of all things, with this much evil he’s done?

You’re a petty thief. A saint compared to him.

You’re simply the object of his transgressions.

He’s lusted after you, your nude frame in the moonlight in Flat Iron Lake. He saw you and lusted for you and took you, that night under the bright moonlight as you sighed his name.

He’s gluttonous with your body - the sweet tang of your slick, feasting upon you in some old boathouse, head between your thighs taking of you far more than his fill.

He’s a greedy, greedy man - collecting your moans and sighs like a rich man collects gold coin - to drown himself in the pile he’s ripped from you.

He’s envious of any man who touches you - to brush against your soft skin that should be blessed only for him.

He’s killed, he’s murdered and maimed, for you - a wrathful punishment against men who dared disrespect or hurt you.

He’s guilty of slothful want - ignoring and shirking responsibilities and jobs and getting money to lock himself in a room with you and spend the hours worshiping your body.

He’s prideful in his possession, wanting all to know that you belonged to him - that you chose him, the miserable bastard that he is, above all others.

Just when he thought he was given his deliverance, laid on his knees next to you after Guarma - the karmic forces of the universe threaten to take him away from you again.

Your song falls into humming as you move to lift the wet work shirt of his - the blue one he always manages to stain, wringing out the water from it before laying it out on a large, flat stone to dry.

God almighty, does he love you. 

Maybe he will be spared this tiny bit of retribution for his incalculable sins and be damned to never touch you again. Never feeling your kiss or your warmth or the sweet clutch of your cunt on his cock again. That certainly is punishment for both of you.

Christ, he just wants to lay you down in the mossy grass and take you apart, loving each and every inch of you until he physically can’t. 

But he won’t.  If by some divine providence, he hasn’t cursed you, he swears he will never touch you again. He’ll put you atop his horse and take you to Annesburg and put you on a train with every penny he has socked away. To go on living, away from the gang that seems to be splintering by the day, away from him, slowly dying under the weight of his failing lungs-

“Oh, Arthur, there you are.” You turn and catch sight of him, a smile gracing your face as you slide across the rock to sit on the edge closer to him.

“Feel like I haven’t seen you in days,” you sigh, but cannot keep the smile from your face as he steps closer, a cold sweat breaking out over the back of his neck.

“Sweetheart, I-“

Arthur is cut off when you cover your mouth to cough, a wet, eerily familiar sound that sends his heart sinking to his feet.

“Sorry - think I’ve got a cold. Haven’t been feelin’ well since we got here, these damn hills….”

He’s been so busy since coming back from Guarma, moving the gang up to Beaver Hollow. The Pinkertons and the Indians and Annesburg and… he’s barely been around. He hadn’t heard a cough. His mind works a million miles an hour as he’s back in the chair in the doctor’s office in Saint Denis. 

“There’s a good chance you’ve given it to her, son.”

“What were you going to tell me, cowboy?”

You wipe your mouth with your sleeve and he sees the faintest red staining your teeth.

This is his comeuppance. This is everything he’s ever deserved. Every terrible decision in his life, every person he’s ever hurt - it has all come to this. Damnation and hellfire and all of the pain he’s ever dealt out to others - it comes back in a crushing feeling in his chest far worse than the sickness slowly killing him.

He should have known. He should have known.

People around him get hurt. 

They die, because of him.

Because he’s a bad person.

“Arthur? What is it-”

He moves to you in quick steps and falls to his knees, taking your hand and pressing it to his lips before moving against his cheek.

“I’ve damned us both.”

Your eyebrows quirk up in alarm, “What are you talk-”

“I- I’m dyin’. I got TB.”

“What? How - ?” You mumble incredulously, eyes like saucer plates.

“One o’ Strauss’s debts - beat him, he was already dyin’ and I beat him goddamn bloody….”

Your eyes start to lose their focus as you look down at your hand, small, pinkish splotches of blood faintly stain your fingers. You look back to him as color drains from your face.

A dawning of realization sweeps through your eyes.

“Oh, sweetheart. I - I…” he stumbles as his heart breaks. 

Words fail him.

He’s sorry, he’s sorry he’s sentenced you to death, a terrible fate of drowning within your own body. That you’ve been caught up in the punishment he was fated to receive in the life he’s lived. 

His bloodshot eyes water over as he can’t look at you anymore. He presses your hand to his lips again.

You pull it away violently. You may as well have shot him, the searing, visceral pain he feels piercing his heart - he would rather be shot than feel this.

“I…I need… I need to...” You whisper, standing up from your seat on the rock. You stumble a step away before catching yourself, eyes distant.

You may as well have stabbed him in the chest and ripped out his beating heart. He reaches out to you on his knees and you bat his hands away.

“I need to be alone right now,” Your voice has gone low and you refuse to meet his gaze.

“Sweetheart-“

“ Leave me alone.” You snarl back at him.

You turn away from him, quickly walking further down the riverbank, stumbling across the smooth river stones. He jumps to his feet, quickly following you, catching up to you after several steps.

“Darlin' - let me- let me take you to the…”

You stop in your tracks, not turning around. Arthur tries to grab your hand, and you nearly hiss at him, drawing away. You finally turn your head partway toward him, and a burning, smoldering, naked hatred reflects back at him.

“Haven’t you done enough?” Your frame shudders as you try to hold in a cough.

Arthur stops - painfully close to you. Close enough to reach out and draw your small frame to his, but his arms don’t work. 

Your eyes narrow before you turn and walk away, your body language obvious that you do not want him to follow.

He’s watched before as someone he’s loved walked away from him. The stabbing, crushing feeling as real as any bullet or knife, or blow. The slow bleed of being left alone. The exsanguination of his beating heart - where love is given, but not received in return. 

-

Arthur lies in his cot. It feels so empty. It truly is only made for one person, especially one of his size, but he’s gotten so used to you being in it that he can’t bear to sleep without your warmth next to him.

Roanoke is cold. Damp. He’s stripped to his dark blue union suit, underneath a heavy blanket on his cot, staring at the flicker of the oil lantern as darkness settles in.

Arthur stumbled back into camp as the dusk was falling in, he somehow managed to avoid needing to interact with people and was able to pull the canvas shut on his tent as the hours wore on.

He’s listening for you, your soft voice or shy footsteps. Staring at the pocketwatch he left on the bedside table again, vowing to wait just a bit longer before storming out of his tent and going straight for his horse to scour the countryside for you. The nagging feeling in his chest was compounded by the damn Murfrees around.

Fortunately, for his sanity, he is not forced to make that decision.

The tent’s flaps are drawn back and a form slides between them. The burning lantern throws light on you, as you step closer, wringing your hands and staring at the ground. Your bare feet peek out from under your skirts.

“Sweetheart?”

You quietly pad toward the cot, and sit yourself down on the edge, swallowing and finally meeting his gaze as he sits up, shedding the blanket and placing his legs over the edge of the cot. Your eyes are red and bloodshot, and he knows that he’s the cause of it.

“If we’re dyin’, then I don’t want to spend any more time bein’ cross with you. I want to be with you as much as I can.” You say softly, almost a whisper.

“I’m so sorr-”

“Don’t. We’re here now. Ain’t nothing gonna change that.”

You settle in to sit next to him, and he puts his arm around you as he kisses your shoulder. For a moment you stare at the pitch of the tent before turning your head toward him.

His hand gently cups your cheek as he leans to kiss your forehead. “You’re… you’re the best thin’ that’s happened to me.”

You’re silent, and each moment that goes by drives the stake deeper into his heart as your eyes search his face.

“Darl-”

You cut him off by pressing your lips to his. By throwing your arms around him and pushing your body against him. By crawling into his lap and weaving your fingers through his hair.  He pants gently, eyes wide as you pull back only inches. He thought he’d never taste your lips again. 

“Make love to me, Arthur.”  

“Are y’sure?”

Your eyes flit downward to his lips before coming back up to his eyes. Your hand moves to cup his cheek as you lean into him again, pressing your forehead against his. You nod, slowly, to answer his question. 

You press your lips to his and he drinks of you as if he were a parched man. His arms wind around you, pulling you against him, plastered against each other.

“Oh, darlin’…” He sighs between kisses, having maneuvered you to straddle his lap, his hands settle on your hips as you begin to slowly roll your hips against his.

Your knees settle on either side of his hips as he sits on the cot, and through the layers of cotton of your skirts and his union suit, he swells. A groan escapes his throat as his blood settles hotly in his lap.

With one slow undulation, you cant your hips so that his burgeoning cock settles against your folds, parting them through fabric. Arthur’s eyes flutter open as you sit up straight in his lap, and your fingers slowly move to the collar of his dark blue union suit, undoing the first two buttons with practiced ease, as if you had been undressing him all of your life instead of only a couple of months.

More and more of his chest becomes visible to you as you work your way down, the bones of his ribcage much more prominent under the layer of muscle than they ever had been before.

He wheezes. Your fingers stop haltingly, the third button of his union suit halfway undone, falling back against his sternum. His bloodshot eyes catch yours once he has recovered his breath, pained, vulnerable. 

“We don’t have to do this.” He mumbles, gaze locked on yours, the blue-green of his irises betraying that while the low tones of his voice say one thing, his tortured soul pleads for another.

“I’m not leaving.” You whisper back at him, your fingers slowly moving back to the buttons of his suit. Your gaze flutters down to his chest again as you continue your work of disrobing him.

You’re completely caught by surprise when he lifts you from his lap and easily maneuvers your body to lay on the cot before he climbs atop you, pressing his hips into yours again before chasing your lips as he settles his elbows on either side of your head.

Even ill, even dying, Arthur has more than enough strength to move you however he pleases.

His lips trail from yours down your neck, nuzzling his beard against your skin, leaving warm, wet splotches as he works his way down. He pulls back, balancing on his knees, shrugging out of the arms of his union suit, letting the fabric hang at his waist. You pull your shirt from your skirts and up and over your head, letting it fall to the wayside over the side of the cot.

He leans down and catches your lips briefly before sitting back up again, unbuttoning his union suit completely and pushing it down to his knees. His swollen cock bobs before he places his hand upon it and strokes a few times.

You shimmy your bloomers down from underneath your skirts, kicking them away as you draw your skirts to lay limply around your waist, baring your lower half to him as he hovers above you. 

Arthur’s hand moves slowly from his cock toward you. He slides the sleeves of your chemise down, and the cotton falls from your skin as his fingers tug at it. He traces the pad of his thumb over your nipple, and you shiver as the skin pebbles as he passes it over. Arthur’s large hand then moves to cup your breast, squeezing lightly. His other hand weaves into your hair as he kisses you breathlessly. 

The hot line of him settles against your soft belly as he settles between your hips, your legs falling open for him as the cotton layers of your skirts fall away.

Arthur wants to spend every waking second he has left in his miserable life in the gentle warmth of your embrace, skin to skin, about to bury his cock in your hips.

And when both he and you are bare and tangled in each other in his dark tent, with nothing but the heavy beating of your hearts and panting of your breath in the tent, Arthur gently, slowly slides his cock into your folds. A soft groan escapes his mouth as your hips touch, and you wrap your legs over his hips, crossing your ankles over his back as you whine back, the stretch of when he enters you sweet and overwhelming.

He takes his time, waiting for you to grow used to his intrusion into your body. When he does start to move his hips, it’s slow, gentle, as if he were savoring each and every second of being locked inside you. He slides down your chest, leaving small love bites upon your skin as you squirm underneath him with each thrust of his hips downwards to press you into the cot.

Your fingers spread out over his back, his hands weaving through your unbound hair, and your hips moving together in the dance of lovemaking without rush or the ferocity of your normal coupling. His hips roll and you accept: the sound of wet skin on wet skin periodically interspersed between soft moans, cut off gasps, and the creaking of the cot as your bodies move together.

You come and it’s completely by surprise, a choked-off whine as you clutch at Arthur’s shoulders, trying to smother your noise into his neck. He grunts and continues his pace through your orgasm, whispering soft affirmations into your ear as he fucks you, until the clutch around his flesh is too much to stand.

“I’m gonna… god-” he rasps into your ear, you can feel the muscles in his stomach clench against yours as he careens toward orgasm, “Where d’ya -”

“Inside - always inside, until -” you whisper, and he presses his mouth over yours to stop you from continuing further, from speaking into the world the terrible, unfailing truth.

He hitches his hips into yours, and a stifled moan rumbles from his chest against your mouth, as you can feel his cock twitch within your cunt. Arthur pours himself into you, coating your inner walls with his warm spend. How many more times would he be able to do this before he or you couldn’t?

He gasps, far more winded than he should be.

Arthur pulls out and you feel the slow drip of his cooling spend from your body, knowing it doesn't matter anymore. He quietly settles himself next to you, his hand moving to cup your cheek.

The tears in your eyes spill over, and he knows, it’s not from joy or physical satisfaction. He pulls you into his chest and his throat gets tight as you sob into his skin. Your hands are gathered tightly between the two of you, and he’s afraid you’re going to feel the rattling of his failing lungs under your fingertips.

He’s afraid that he’s going to feel the rattle from your lungs as you’re wrapped in his arms.

You weep into the curve of his neck. You weep for the impending death of dreams, of futures, and for your collective demise.

He cannot stop the tears from spilling from his own eyes. They track down his cheeks, hollowed and gaunt, as he stares at the pitch of the tent where the two of you are slowly dying in each other’s arms.

He weeps for you, that you are a casualty of the damnation he was always destined for. 

[myemuisemo]

Part 7 of Letters from Watson, "Light in the Darkness," has one spot where contemporary readers would have been the edge of their walnut, horsehair-stuffed, plush-covered seats, murmuring: "It's got to be... can it really be... it must be... c'mon Holmes, surely you see this!" Then there's another where the reaction would be: "But how? I have so many questions!"

C'mon Holmes, surely you see it!

Holmes' "perfect shriek of delight" at realizing how he ought to test a key clue is what the savvy reader was surely feeling, no matter how ungentlemanly it might be by the standards of its day.

What got me digging into the matter of the pills is that Watson, Lestrade, and Gregson seem too unconcerned with what poison is involved. While forensic toxicology was nowhere near what we see on crime shows now, the concept existed. The Marsh test for arsenic had been developed back in the 1830s, to prove arsenic poisoning in suspected murder cases. While this poison is clearly too fast-acting to be arsenic -- or even the Aqua Tofana of the newspaper editorials -- surely if there was one poison that scientists tested for, there were at least efforts to test for more.

Showing little concern over something that seems important and puzzling is usually, in old texts, an indication that whatever-it-was wasn't puzzling to contemporaries.

Here, nobody is puzzled because in this period, everyone who enjoyed sensation stories and true crime already knew that of course if you have a poison duel, the poison is water-soluble and fast-acting. As far as I can tell from stories under the excellent Poison Duels tag on Strange History, the poison used in poison duels wasn't specified in these tales (which might be outright urban legends). The poison in a poison duel is just that kind of poison.

In a poison duel, the combatants each choose a pill to dissolve in their drink. One is a harmless placebo. The other is a fast-acting deadly poison. These stories had been popular since at least the 1820s and kept recurring. Were they true? That's dubious. It's possible that the murder method here is the equivalent of a meme.

Why have a poison duel? As a duel, it's a matter of honor, so Drebber and the murderer are, for some reason, heinously offended with one another. But why poison? Why not pistols at dawn?

Traditional dueling had been outlawed in the UK in 1819, though the United States was slower and less consistent in banning it. More important, though, is that a poison duel was the (dramatic, hypothetical) choice if one party was physically unfit to duel or if one party was seen as being beneath the other in status and honor.

Drebber has been established as wealthy (his gold ornaments), penny-pinching (his other clothes and his choice of lodging), and uncouth to the point of casually sexually assaulting his landlady's innocent daughter. Either the murderer is a man with standards who sees Drebber as beneath him, or Drebber is a snob who sees the murderer as beneath him.

Since we still don't have an explanation for the wedding ring, I'm right there in the smoking lounge with 1880s readers in speculating that Drebber assaulted, coerced, or otherwise harmed a young woman that the murderer cared about. Sister? Sweetheart? We've already got a brother-avenges-sister pair in the story: is this foreshadowing?

But how? I have so many questions!

Holmes characterizes our murderer as "a shrewd and desperate man.... [who can] change his name, and vanish in an instant among the four million inhabitants of this great city." This feels like the build-up to having a little vehmgericht conspiracy as a treat, but that red herring is swiftly pickled.

(The steel handcuffs with springs that Holmes touts are an improvement over the D-shaped cuffs in use at the time.)

The murderer is...

...a taxi driver?

But taxi drivers in London had been licensed since the mid-1600s and had been required to demonstrate "the knowledge" of London streets for 15-20 years by the time of the story! Taxi driver was not a job that a person could fake with the same readiness as picking up a ladder and passing as a laborer.

It's a great job for being invisible on the streets of London, since cabs were everywhere. Unlicensed cabs probably operated, but not for long. How had the murderer come by a cab to drive? I have so many questions!