#read dorian gray before this so blame him for it

[ykiwrite]

departure

description: the only exception when headphones are not needed is when you're around

warnings: everything and none

requested: no

Not one soul truly knew with certainty what was the bond between Jenna and her headphones.

Majority of guesses pointed towards the same chain of remarks like a broken record, over and over.

She's obviously annoyed with all the attention around.

It's to drown out the fans, obviously.

Probably for a distraction.

While most of it was true, all of them were looked at from the surface level. There laid much heavier meaning. The one that Jenna herself is not too fond of uncovering to the world and never was.

She thinks it's sweeter that way. Not everyone has the right to know everything down to little details just because she made a choice of pursuing this path. Some things are better to stay under one's wing.

But when such thing is so broad, and the center of the media conversation, she grew to hate it which ultimately portrayed her as a liar and show-off. But she knew she was no different just because she preferred going outside more than staying inside. Just because she keeps on carrying them around everywhere she heads.

"Close your eyes, come on."

"I told you, i have them closed." Jenna insisted on the truth ever since you started struggling with her trickery for the past ten minutes. Unwilling and tired from opening gifts all day long.

It still felt like summer outside despite the calendar's date passing the one autumn was supposed to begin. You don't recollect signing a deal with the sun to set so deliberately on Jenna's face. As it were placed by your hand. Offering a daily reminder of how crudely you fell for the woman.

The sooner you start inscribing each detail of hers in your memory while this scenery lasts, the better. Not that you could ever forget her, even if she was taken away this very moment and never given back again.

You're just not sure how much will change, counting from this day onwards. A lot will.

Grabbing the box that, taking into account the trouble you withstand saving for it, could have been put together prettier.

But that was not Jenna's specialty after all. Being overly picky about things, it left no gaps for worry.

Normally, a grain of unease at giving gifts would invite itself but this one felt oddly at home.

Everything did with her around.

"So...it's nothing much. Just something that you're gonna, hopefully, take along with you when you leave."

Seeing the stuffed bags and girl's belongings as they confined the room felt suffocating. It took over your composure, twisting a knife stuck in you ever since news arrived. A week ago it had a life to it, it had Jenna written all over. Now, all it will become is an empty room until she's home again.

Jenna understood the absence of your pre-gift giving speech you surely had prepared for the obvious unsaid reasons. It made her awake.

Opening her eyes and first thing being you, she thought there's not a gift out there better than you in every way and form. But blinking the haziness away, she got the full picture.

"No way." She grabbed the box with a simple ribbon and a letter attached that will be delayed from opening for now. Knowing this day would never come if it wasn't for you making the actual move. All she did was words and never actions because "it's too much and i don't need it that bad".

Exactly why she needed it.

"But how? Why did you?"

You watched her open it like it has a fragile label plastered over. "I saved up. I know your saving addiction wouldn't let you do that and then what? You'd feel guilty so this is where i show up."

"Mannn, noise cancelling? Plus, it has that thing, forgot what it's called. You know the-"

She got over the moon with the unboxing while you watched. Less listened. You tried but it weighed heavy on your mind;

"So Jen," acted as a ground zero and breaking point, "since you landed this big role you're probably never gonna be home as much."

She knew where this was heading. You've been there many visits in the past.

"I won't be there to help with stuff unless you call or something. So distract yourself with this whenever you're out because i know how you are better than anyone-"

"Don't start again. You don't know that. I'm not gonna leave."

You hindered every way from this turning into arguing. Especially on her last day here. "Just listen to me. I want you to do great, even i'm not there."

God, this really is exhausting.

She stared at the folded headphones with your writing within them. A spot where no one could see. Just like a secret you were, and always remained, and it was always against Jenna to do so.

Her hands began to shake before she preoccupied them with the unfolding. Flashes were passing through the glass. She had no one to do what you were capable of. Or at least mimic, copy it in whatever way possible. The doors were opening against her will.

It was a double edged sword sooner than a pair of headphones she carried. Eternal reminder of what's left of you as ridiculous it sounds.

Your playlist compiled over the years was on while she was led by where the job took her down without you.

"I don't think i've ever seen someone so attached to their headphones, you know?"

Of course you didn't. God, he was too pushy. You wouldn't like him either.

Jenna laughed, toning down the insincerity but it was emerging.

"They were a gift before i left home some time ago. The whole idea was to-"

"Oh, they were? From who?" The man went ahead. He struck Jenna as someone who clearly wasn't interested in treating this podcast like a podcast. Rather a second hand source of news.

"Just someone that was, i mean- is really dear to me, you know?"

She should call you after this.

You were everywhere yet nowhere. In that woman leaning at the bar, in the deep waters of the conversation. In the guy sitting at the corner, reading something she can't figure out the name of. The girl chasing a dog for ten minutes straight.

This was so stupid.

"Are you okay?" Her only sane coworker out of everyone seated at this table patted her on the back, jolting her forwards. Perhaps she needed that.

"Yeah, why?" Who is she fooling?

"I saw who are you texting, that's why. Not to pry but maybe give it a break?" She was visibly cautious about the last part but uselessly.

"There's afterparty tomorrow, after the show. Maybe try and have fun?"

Come on. Jenna looked at her and smiled, in the meantime picking up the neatly placed headphones and pushing the chair to where it originally was. "Thanks but i don't think i'll be there. I'll be off now. You guys have fun, yeah?"

The third bottlecap dropping struck the floor and it was the loudest sound of the day besides the line ringing. Piercing her sense of hearing making it the only sound stuck for the rest of the week. Without Jenna acknowledging that. The cold, high story building with a nice view was never in the position to fill the void of you.

Jenna was tired. She was staring at the phone unanswered, it was all she saw on her unlit kitchen floor.

"I know you're not sleeping, please."

As a matter of fact, there was a mutual agreement. That type neither side obeys and respects. Maybe only just in the beginning but as days fly by it starts being harder to play by the rules.

She was only to call when it was critical. And to her, every day was critical and you weren't much different. Just better at hiding.

Quiet.

Jenna dared to smile to herself, unknowing she still had it in her.

"...it's late Jenna."

That alone, more than enough to keep her at bay. If only she can capture it and lock it away somewhere, anywhere that's close at reach.

"I know, i know. I just, i miss you."

The shuffling replaced your voice as it gave you time to think. So why did you go with the question you couldn't care less already knowing the answer to it. "How was the afterparty?"

Jenna knows you better than that. It's not foolproof.

"I didn't go."

"You should. Maybe you'd find someone."

A great deal of things this device around her head witnessed but this was fairly new.

"You know i won't-"

"What if you do?"

"Because i don't care about anybody else. Don't you get it already? In these past, what? Months we have been talking on and off?"

She let a sigh slip by her lips. "It was always you."

Hoping your laugh doesn't get mistaken for a rude one, it's just a cover up for what's really playing out behind the screen, you fought through, "Well then, prove it. You've been away for too long anyway."

Not much changed since the last time.

Even though, in regards to sites she visited, this is the most peace felt.

She wasn't an actor. A celebrity. A character. Someone who dealt with vast fame. She was simply Jenna here. And it's the purest version of her.

Standing at the entrance felt like the longest, most torturous thing she ever performed. There was nothing playing over the phone. Jenna still had them on which stopped her from detecting you behind closed doors.

You're not sure how long your hand was laying on the handle, it should probably do something about it soon.

It was not dark outside, but not complete daylight either. Jenna picked up on it when the inside light escaped. Shined on her greater and warmer than any place she's been to provided.

You stood there, for the first time. The silence in Jenna's mind, thanks to your gift, created a chance to worship, take you in ever more. Just like the first time.

Slowly, shortening the painful distance between, no words were said but if only eyes could speak.

It took Jenna some time to notice you removing what kept her grounded for so long. Until she finally heard it, without drawn out ringing of the line or a faulty service.

"You don't need them anymore."

"No. I don't."

notes: as you can see i was so heavy in the feels it needed to be done, thank you for surviving through i love you

[blueshistorysims]

Early January 1909, Willow Creek College, England

“How was your winter holiday?” Joel asked the moment Byron stepped into their dorm. 

“Horrible. I thought summer break was bad, but…” He sighed. “My poor sister.”

Upon returning home for the summer, Alexander and Byron learned of the argument Edeline had with their parents, and her refusal to even eat dinner with their mother. Byron pitied his sister greatly, and he felt anger at his mother for saying such horrible things. The summer only got worse since Alexander smartly decided to spend all his free time with his beau Edith so they could snog all day, leaving Byron to comfort his two sisters.

Christmas had only multiplied the awkwardness. Edeline still refused to speak to their mama, and Rebecca refused to apologize. Byron honestly thought that Edeline was going to run away and never come back, and he wouldn’t blame her. He had never been more glad in his life to leave after New Year’s.

“Well, maybe they will make amends.”

“I pray to God that they do,” he muttered, sitting next to his friend. 

“I still can’t believe next year is your last.”

“I know,” Byron replied. “I’m turning 14 next month, and I’m already looking at universities.”

“Good luck.”

The friendship he had with Joel was far different from the friendship he had with Reggie. It was a different connection, a different feeling, and Byron didn’t know how to describe it. He was always happier when Joel was there, and sometimes, when they messed around, and Joel would touch him, his heart fluttered. 

He didn’t know what to make of his feelings, so he went to the one place he found refuge, the library. More often than not, he found himself reading Leaves of Grass by Walt Wittman, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, among others, books that had been decried by Victorian society for their depictions of homosexuality, and yet, he couldn’t stop reading them. The words were comforting, relatable.

So perhaps it wasn’t surprising that it dawned on him, reading in the library late at night that reason why he connected with the words so much. The descriptions of the men and their relationships was how he felt about Joel. He was attracted to Joel. He was attracted to men.

The revelation shocked him, and if he hadn’t been in a library, he would have screamed. He liked men? That couldn’t be. He’d had crushes on girls in the past. He liked women. He was horrified by the thought. 

Unknowing what else to do, he went back to his room, close to tears, and to his relief, found it empty. He slammed the door shut and sat on the floor, leaning against his bed. “My god,” he whispered, tears spilling from his eyes.

So of course, five minutes later, the door opened, and Joel walked in, pointing at something. “Byron, are you  in t-what’s wrong?” He asked, surprised to see the state his friend was in. 

Byron looked up and wanted the scream. He was the last person he wanted to see. “...It-it’s nothing.”

Joel frowned and sat next to him. “I know we’ve only each other this year, but you can trust me. I consider you one of my closest friends.”

Byron wanted to scream. Instead, he wiped his face and shook his head. “...I couldn’t. I shan’t. Besides, isn’t it normal for us Englishmen to ignore our feelings and never speak of them?”

He laughed. “I am not like most Englishmen, Byron. I don’t think you are either.”

He turned to him, unsure of what to make of his words. “...What?”

Joel swallowed, his face growing pale. “I’ve seen what you’ve been reading lately,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “I’m about to do something very stupid.”

Byron barely processed what his friend had said before Joel pressed his lips against his.

Byron blinked. Joel was kissing him. He was kissing Joel. He liked kissing Joel. After a second, he just closed his eyes and went with it, deciding for once not to care about the consequences. 

[nyxshadowhawk]

The Red Book, Liber Primus: Part Two

I'm picking up right where I left off, so please go read Part One: https://nyxshadowhawk.tumblr.com/post/728084509673799680/the-red-book-liber-primus-part-one#notes

Soul and God

Jung says to his soul:

Who are you, child? My dreams have represented you as a child and as a maiden. I am ignorant of your mystery. Forgive me if I speak as in a dream, like a drunkard — are you God? Is God a child, a maiden?

Throughout this chapter, Jung has to grapple with unorthodox ideas of what God looks like. God as a child, let alone a maiden, is so dissonant with typical ideas of divinity in Christianity that I can’t really blame him for reeling over it. I see this as validation that God is inherently polymorphic, and can appear to different people in different ways depending on what they need to see. Jung sees God as a child or a maiden, and I see God as… well… a femboy.

Scholarliness belongs to the spirit of the time [i.e. the conscious mind], but this spirit in no way grasps the dream, since the soul is everywhere that scholarly knowledge is not.

“The soul is everywhere that scholarly knowledge is not” is a great way of putting it. I’ve had to constantly grapple with the balance between my analytical mind and my mystical mind, and since Jung was both a scientist and a mystic, I imagine he needed to do the same. The analytic mind needs everything to be backed up with primary sources and/or proven with empirical evidence, and it needs all of its arguments to be airtight. The mystical mind needs to make wild connections between unrelated things and to take symbols at face value, going more than a bit crazy in the process. The mystical and analytical parts of the mind can work in tandem, but they shouldn’t be confused with each other. If you let the mystical mind handle the analytic stuff, that’s how you get conspiracy theories. If you let the analytic mind handle the mystical stuff, it will shut them down and try to force them into a framework. Scholarship can’t reach everywhere, because some things just don’t make sense, and scholarship is also limited by the zeitgeist (i.e. what we know and how we know it, who’s in power and what their narrative is, needing things to make sense through the cultural lens).

But how can I attain the knowledge of the heart? You can attain this knowledge only by living your life to the full. You live your life fully if you also live what you have never yet lived, but have left for others to live and to think. But you should say, “The life that I could still live, I should live, and the thoughts that I could still think, I should think.” It appears as though you want to flee from yourself so as not to have to live what remains unlived until now. But you cannot flee from yourself. It is with you all the time and demands fulfillment. If you pretend to be blind and dumb to this demand, you feign being blind and deaf to yourself.

This reminds me a lot of the line spoken by Lord Henry in The Picture of Dorian Gray, “To realize one’s nature fully — that is what each of us is here for.” I’d say that this was a Jungian reference, except that Oscar Wilde was writing before Jung wrote any of this. I completely agree that before you attain any real spiritual knowledge, you must have as complete an understanding of yourself as possible. If you avoid developing this understanding of your internal world, then you won’t be really living, and you’ll feel that emptiness and lack of fulfillment that characterizes midlife crisis. And you won’t learn anything.

I had to recognize that I am only the expression and symbol of the soul. In the sense of the spirit of the depths, I am as I am in the visible world a symbol of my soul…

Again, really interesting concept — existing as a symbol of one’s soul, you existing through it instead of it through you. It’s the real thing, you’re the impression it leaves on the material world.

The spirit of the depths taught me to say, “I am the servant of a child.” Through this dictum I learn above all the most extreme humility, as what I most need.

The spirit of this time of course allowed me to believe in my reason. He let me see myself in the image of a leader with ripe thoughts. But the spirit of the depths teaches me that I am a servant, in fact the servant of a child. This dictum was repugnant to me and I hated it. But I had to recognize and accept that my soul is a child and that my God in my soul is a child.

Once again, Jung has a hard time seeing the divine in things that are small, trivial, or mundane. It’s so ridiculous to him that God should appear like a little kid, and that he should be in service to this little kid, that to admit this requires “extreme humility.”

If you are boys, your God is a woman. If you are women, your God is a boy. If you are men, your God is a maiden. The God is where you are not.

“The God is where you are not.” I love this. This suggests that there is something inherently divine about the Shadow, the inverse of whatever your conscious mind considers itself to be. Wherever you don’t build your conscious mind, God fills the empty space. It’s pretty natural for us humans to project ourselves onto God and interpret God as looking like us, hence why God is assumed to be a powerful old man in this patriarchal society. It’s quite another thing to be able to see God in something that isn’t like us, that doesn’t reflect the ideal. That’s another recurring theme.

I don’t know whether it’s always true that a man’s god is a maiden and a woman’s god is a boy, but I know that my god appears as a femboy.

The same inversion occurs with age. If you’re an old person, you have a young god, and vice-versa.

What is better, that man has life ahead of him, or that God does? I know no answer. Life; the unavoidable decides.

This is one of those utterly weird, out-of-the-box mystical ideas that are just so much fun to wonder about. The idea that god ages, that a young god belong to an old person may have more life ahead of it than the living human does, and the question of whether it is better for you to have more life or for your God to have more life. I don’t have an answer to that, either.

My God is a child, so wonder not that the spirit of this time in me is incensed to mockery and scorn. There will be no one who will laugh at me as I have laughed at myself.

Your God should not be a man of mockery, rather you yourself will be the man of mockery. You should mock yourself fand rise above this. If you have still not learned this from the old holy books, then go there, drink the blood and eat the flesh of him who was mocked and tormented for the sake of our sins, so that you totally become his nature, deny his being-apart-from-you; you should be he himself, not Christians but Christ, otherwise you will be of no use to the coming God.

You do not overcome the old teachings through doing less, but through doing more. Every step closer to my soul excites the scornful laughter of my devils, those cowardly ear-whisperers and poison-mixers. It was easy for them to laugh, since I had to do strange things.

The inner Zeitgeist, the voice of the society that Jung lives in, mocks him for his submission to a little kid. Jung feels like he is kind of immune to mockery at this point because no one can possibly mock him for this more than he mocks himself. He throws that mystical mockery into focus with this irreverent but also completely true characterization of Christianity. See, Jung gets it. He realizes that the Eucharist is, in fact, exactly what it looks like. You take God into you. You consume it. You become God. That’s the most mystical thing I’ve heard of this side of Orphism. You’re not a Christian, you are Christ himself, because you’ve partaken in Christ. Get with the program.

I don’t really blame Jung for distancing himself from mysticism throughout his career, because of the threat of mockery. Mysticism still has a stigma attached to it. Scientists don’t like it because it’s pure unadulterated crazy, and Christianity has a very weird relationship to it despite it arguably being the basis of the entire faith (see above). To be a mystic is to be isolated from and mocked by both camps. It’s easy to laugh at because, well, it’s very weird.

On the Service of the Soul

If you take a step towards your soul, you will think that you will at first miss the meaning. You will believe that you have sunk into meaninglessness, into eternal disorder. You will be right! Nothing will deliver you from disorder and meaninglessness, since this is the other half of the world.

Someone please tell Jordan Peterson that Jung says he needs to come to grips with chaos. Chaos matters because it’s half the world, so there is no “antidote” to it, no overcoming it. All you can really do is work with it.

If you marry the ordered to the chaos you produce the divine child, the supreme meaning beyond meaning and meaninglessness.

This is the Chemical Wedding, the orderly (fixed) sulfur and the chaotic (volatile) mercury producing the Philosopher’s Stone, which is an even mix of both. That volatile “dark flood of chaos” transmutes into fixed matter if you just sit with it and let it sort itself out.

I too was afraid, since we had forgotten that God is terrible. Christ taught: God is love. But you should know that love is also terrible.

Everyone has forgotten that God is terrible, and I think that’s a problem. Every time the atheists point out how evil and mean God is in the Old Testament, and how starkly this clashes with the all-loving God that Christians profess they worship, they treat it like it’s an invalidation of the entirety of Christianity. And it is, only because Christians expect everything to be internally consistent. God is, in fact, both, and that is The Point™. There’s also the fact that mystical experiences can be utterly terrifying, awesome and awful and sublime. God is scary as hell, people!

You dread the depths. It should horrify you, since the way of what is to come leads through it. You must endure the temptation of fear and doubt, and at the same time acknowledge to the bone that your fear is justified and your doubt is reasonable.

The first step of spiritual advancement is through the darkness, the chaos, the Underworld. You have to do your Shadow work first. It’s completely reasonable to be afraid of that, because it’s scary by nature, but you’ve still got to do it.

You still have to learn this, to succumb to no temptation, but to do everything of your own will, then you will be be free and beyond Christianity.

So interesting that this book contains what is essentially a road map to transcending Christianity! That’s because “the way of what is to come” involves the dark as well as the light, down as well as up, both halves of the whole. Seeing everything as good and light and “holy” all the time is just as much a temptation as the Devil in the desert. Man that’s ahead of its time!

I have had to recognize that I must submit to what I fear; yes, even more, that I must love what horrifies me.

Shadow work in a nutshell!

The slave to virtue finds the way as little as the slave to vices.

A repetition of what I said above, that divinity doesn’t mean all-goodness-all-the-time. Focusing only on the good and bright and celestial things is only half the equation and is still shooting yourself in the foot.

If you thought you were the master of your soul, become her servant. If you were her servant, become her master.

Inversion again. Whatever you think your relationship to your soul is, flip it and see what happens.

The Desert

(I’ll give you a moment to go and play the Journey soundtrack while you read this. *Opens Spotify*)

Jung’s self appears as a barren desert, because he has neglected it. This is the first time he’s ever really paid attention to his internal world. The “creative power of desire” is absent from Jung’s desert. If you’re able to focus on your internal world, and not just on “things, men, and thoughts,” you can cultivate it into a garden. (My own mindscape is a Skyrim-esque landscape that looks like green hills and pine forests surrounded by high, craggy silver mountains. It’s slowly developed into Umbragard.) Even if your mindscape is a garden, you still need things, men, and thoughts, but at least you will be their friend instead of their slave.

I turned myself away from things and men, but that is precisely how I became the secure prey of my thoughts, yes, I wholly became my thoughts.

If this is the first time you’ve ever focused on the internal world, then your thoughts will overwhelm you pretty quickly. I’ve spent a lot of time in my internal world, and I still get easily overwhelmed.

When you say that the place of the soul is not, then it is not. When you say that it is, then it is. Notice what the ancients said in images: the word is a creative act. The ancients said: in the beginning was the Word. Consider this and think upon it.

Oh boy, how do I sum this up quickly? I already had notes about this concept from another part of my Book of Shadows that I wrote long before reading this, so I’ll just post that here:

Eliphas Levi writes in Doctrine and Ritual, “To speak is to create.” To think is to exist (“I think therefore I am”), so to speak is more powerful than thought, and writing more powerful than that. This is why many gods of magic are also associated with words, both spoken and written. Hermes is the god of magic, and also of speech and of writing, which are forms of discourse — they’re an exchange of ideas, the same way goods and services are exchanged, and the same way people physically move from place to place when they travel. Hermes’ base characterization as messenger god is based around this same concept, the exchange of information between people. Thoth is self-begotten — he literally willed himself into existence. He decided that he existed, and so he did. In addition to magic, he is also the god of writing, books, record-keeping, and wisdom. Odin discovered the Norse writing system by hanging himself on the World Tree, Yggdrasil, and observing the patterns of its fallen branches. Through this act of self-sacrifice, he received the knowledge of runes. The line between speech/writing and magic is slim. This is why God created the world through “the Word,” and why many occultists believe that if you can pronounce God’s unspeakable name correctly, you can command the entire universe.

So, magic is as simple as it is difficult — you just have to state that something is so, and then accept that it is. It’s really hard to convince your mind that it’s actually possible to do that, and not a form of self-delusion that you’ll be mocked for. My gods have advised me that the easiest spell I can do to end my anxiety is “If I say everything is okay, then it is.” Not easy to convince myself of that while I’m anxious. But it really is that simple. To state that something is so is to bring it into being.

The words that oscillate between nonsense and supreme meaning are the oldest and truest.

Ain’t that the truth. Mystical experiences are somehow both complete insanity and the most profound truth there is, at the same time. That’s how you know that their messages and symbols are older than dirt.

Experiences in the Desert

Jung confronts his soul in the desert. The soul says to Jung, “Don’t you know that the way to truth stands open only to those without intentions?” This rings true for me. If you intend to get something out of a particular experience, then you’ll ignore everything that doesn’t align with the intention. What you want to learn and what you try to do is going to interfere with what you’re actually being taught or given. Intention is for magic; mysticism really requires a state of passive reception, so that you don’t overanalyze things. I have a tendency to shut down meditative visions because I’ll try to plan them out or somehow control them, and that makes them fizzle. My gods recommend that I stop trying to accomplish something specific, and ask more questions.

We tie ourselves up with intentions.

Take it from me: If you try to accomplish something, you will end up getting stuck.

The soul says to Jung, “Do you know who I am? Have you grasped me, defined me, and made me into a dead formula? Have you measured the depths of my chasms, and explored all the ways down which I am yet going to lead you?”

I love this. It implies that the soul is something inherently immeasurable, incomprehensible, and utterly unscientific. You cannot define the soul. That’s the conscious mind attempting to impose a framework onto something that’s too amorphous to really fit into one. Of course, Jung will attempt to create this framework anyway, but that doesn’t change the fact that the best way to understand the soul is to not try to understand it.

The spirit of this time considers itself extremely clever, like every such spirit of the time. But wisdom is simpleminded, not just simple. […] Only in the desert do we become aware of our terrible simplemindedness, but we are afraid of admitting it. […] We cannot save ourselves through increasing our cleverness, but through accepting what our cleverness hates most, namely simplemindedness. Yet we also do not want to be artificial fools because we have fallen into simplemindedness, rather we will be clever fools. That leads to supreme meaning. Cleverness couples itself with intention. Simplemindedness knows no intention. Cleverness conquers the world, but simplemindedness the soul.

I’m betting that this is why the protagonist of so many fairy tales is a “simpleton.” They’re a person who doesn’t overthink things, doesn’t have an agenda, doesn’t operate from a place of self-interest or distrust. Their utter lack of cynicism is what allows them to accept help from ignoble-looking supernatural beings and friendly animals. They recieve all experiences with childlike wonder. They choose the plain-looking object instead of the shiny gold one, because they don’t feel the need to impress anybody. They aren’t stupid, per se — they’re more like 0 The Fool in a tarot deck, in that their naivete prevents them from being clever, and that works out well for them.

Jung’s conscious mind keeps saying “this is stupid!” but he has to stick with it. Overcoming his scorn at himself brings him nearer to his soul, and his desert starts to become green. “Many will laugh at my foolishness. But no one will laugh more than I laughed at myself.”

Descent into Hell in the Future

Time for katabasis! You knew it was coming. No Hero’s Journey is complete without a full-on descent into the Underworld.

Do you want me to leave myself to chance, to the madness of my own darkness? Wither? Wither? You fall, and I want to fall with you, whoever you are.

The spirit of the depths opened my eyes and I caught a glimpse of the inner things, the world of my soul, the many-formed and changing.

Most of the illustrations are big, beautiful paintings in in Liber Secundus, but there’s a few small ones nestled in Liber Primus. The first one is this one of a man in white walking in the Underworld, surrounded by shadowy monsters. The man in the image is too dark-skinned to be Jung, and he has shoulder-length black hair, but is clearly meant to represent Jung. I’m not sure why Jung decided to represent himself this way. But then again, the form that I take during my active imagination also looks nothing like me, so I get it.

Jung describes a cave of black water, across which is a “luminous red stone.” I immediately thought of the lake in the cave in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and the red stone is obviously a familiar image as well. Jung sees a severed head floating in the stream, a large black scarab, a red sun surrounded by snakes, represented in the next image:

There’s some interpretation of these images, but before we get there, Jung writes at length about one of my favorite subjects — divine madness!

These lines really struck me:

When can I order my thinking to be quiet, so that my thoughts, those unruly hounds, will crawl to my feet? How can I ever hope to hear your voice louder, to see you clearer, when all my thoughts howl? […] The fullness of my knowledge threatens to fall in on me. My knowledge was a thousand voices, an army roaring like lions; the air trembles when they speak, and I am their defenseless sacrifice. […] Let me persist in divine astonishment, so that I am ready to behold your wonders.

As a person who deals with anxiety and shame on a regular basis, I can say from experience that the voices of one’s thoughts can be overwhelming to the point of being intolerable. I’ve had fight-or-flight triggered by my thoughts alone, even when nothing bad is going on in real life (e.g. over something as non-threatening as sending emails). Likening those thoughts to an army of dangerous animals is a great metaphor. It’s also “knowledge” that Jung feels threatened by in this scene — knowledge can be helpful or powerful, but it also interferes with the ability to interpret dream-images at face value. Later in this paragraph, Jung cries for mercy from “science that clever knower” and the “serpent of judgement.” This goes back to what I was saying before about the balance between the analytic and the mystical mind. This is one context in which empirical thinking and analysis need not apply. Jung’s instincts to explain and categorize everything, to force them to make sense, and to pass judgement make the experience of katabasis even harder than it already is.

That’s where madness comes in. Madness suspends logic, judgement, and categorization. Madness forces you to allow things to not make sense. It is the state of being submerged in raw, unfiltered unconscious. Here’s what Jung has to say about it:

This is how I overcame madness. If you do not know what divine madness is, suspend judgement and wait for the fruits. But know that there is a divine madness which is nothing other than the overpowering of the spirit of this time through the spirit of the depths. Speak then of sick delusion when the spirit of the depths can no longer stay down and forces a man to speak in tongues instead of in human speech, and makes him believe that he himself is the spirit of the depths. But also speak of sick delusion when the spirit of this time does not leave a man and forces him to see only the surface, to deny the spirit of the depths and to take himself for the spirit of the times. The spirit of this time is ungodly, the spirit of the depths is ungodly, balance is godly.

[…]

Thus can you differentiate sick and divine delusion. Whoever does the one and does without the other you may call sick since he is out of balance.

That phrase “suspend judgement and wait for the fruits” means almost exactly the same thing as something Dionysus told me: “Take your sanity off like a mask, and take everything at face value as you would in a dream.” When you’re traversing the Otherworld, the way to maintain your sanity is to deliberately suspend your sanity. Attempting to overanalyze everything will drive you crazy, literally, because the Otherworld doesn’t conform to any kind of human logic. So, just accept it. If you remove your sanity, then it’ll still be there for you when you come back, instead of it getting damaged by all the nonsense that bombards you.

Jung defines madness as the Spirit of the Depths overtaking the Zeitgeist, i.e. the unconscious mind subsuming the conscious mind. He also distinguishes deliberate, mystical madness from psychiatric disorders — in the former case, one allows the Spirit of the Depths to take over, while in the latter case, the Spirit of the Depths forces itself on the person. I’ve made similar distinctions in some of my answers, like this one. Psychiatric disorders are debilitating, and prevent a person from living a normal life, while my mystical madness doesn’t last beyond my deliberate engagement with it and doesn’t interfere with my normal life. I think it’s interesting that Jung says that when a person is forcibly overtaken by the Spirit of the Depths, they think they are the Spirit of the Depths. That seems to describe all the people I’ve encountered on the internet who claim to be gods, unable to distinguish between their own fixed identities and the massive, inconsistent identities of the spirits. Sometimes it’s good to experience that (“ego death”), but you have to come back down again.

I also think it’s interesting that Jung defines possession by the Zeitgeist, denial of the unconscious mind and its contents, as a sort of mental illness. Such a person is probably the sort who allows atheism or reliance on scientific objectivity to essentially replace religion, blocking out any engagement with the irrational aspects of existence and denying that there is any healthy or productive way to engage with them. (One of the things I think Jung got right is that irrational, mystical, and weird things are an inherent and manifest part of life, and that science needs to find some way of addressing them.) The healthiest mental state is some balance between the two. There’s our running theme of reconciliation of duality.

Jung continues:

But who can withstand fear when the divine intoxication and madness comes to him? Love, soul, and God are beautiful and terrible. The ancients brought over some of the beauty of God into this world, and this world became so beautiful that it appeared to the spirit of the time to be fulfillment, and better than the bosom of the Godhead. The frightfulness and cruelty of the world lay under wraps and in the depths of our hearts. If the spirit of the depths seizes you, you will feel the cruelty and cry out in torment. The spirit of the depths is pregnant with iron, fire, and death. You are right to fear the spirit of the depths, as he is full of horror.

Divine madness is useful and productive, but it’s still madness, and therefore scary as all hell. Looking God full in the face is going to cause insanity, the question is whether it’s the permanent kind or not. God is full of beauty and wonder, but don’t assume (as the Zeitgeist does) that its unfathomable beauty is fulfillment in and of itself, because you still have to confront the abject horror of it to get the full picture. If you don’t, the Spirit of the Depths will make sure you do on its terms instead of yours, and it won’t be pretty.

Jung also says this a couple of paragraphs earlier:

To the extent that the Christianity of this time lacks madness, it lacks divine life. Take note of what the ancients taught us in images: madness is divine.

I’m definitely going to be quoting this line in future posts, because this right here is one of the big reasons I prefer Dionysus to Christ. Madness is divine, but Christianity doesn’t often leave a lot of room for madness, or magic. It categorizes everything into very rigid theology and word-for-word interpretations of the Bible, despite mysticism being at its core and a constant lurking presence throughout its history. (Someday, I promise I will write a long answer on that.) It (sometimes violently) rejects everything that doesn’t conform to its framework as heresy. If Christianity lacks its madness and mysticism, and becomes more about the frameworks of orthodoxy and politics, its spiritual core is gone. One of the running themes throughout Jung’s mystical experiences, going all the way back to his childhood, is that he has to grapple with the fact that Christianity doesn’t serve his spiritual needs. He recognizes that it is incomplete, and that it focuses on only one-half of the equation, but because of the time and place he lives in, he can’t just hop on over to Dionysus like I could. We’ll get back to this, too.

Moving on. Jung provides some interpretation of the three images he saw in the Underworld: the severed head floating in the river, the black scarab, and the red sun:

Blood shone at me from the red light of the crystal, and when I picked it up to discover its mystery, there lay the horror uncovered before me: in the depths of what is to come lay murder. The blond hero lay slain. The black beetle is the death that is necessary for renewal; and so, thereafter, a new sun glowed, the sun of the depths, full of riddles, a sun of the night. And as the rising sun of spring quickens the dead earth, so the sun of the depths quickened the dead, and thus began the terrible struggle between light and darkness. Out of that burst the powerful and ever unvanquished source of blood.

We’ll get back to the dead hero, because that gets its own chapter. The black scarab I immediately associated with the Egyptian god Khepri, who pushes the sun. Another connection I made that I’m surprised Jung didn’t explicitly spell out has to do with his drawing of the red sun — it looks exactly like an egg cell, and it’s surrounded by snakes that look like sperm, one of which is touching it. Jung interprets the snakes as the reanimated dead matter that blots out the sun, but the drawing looks like a moment of conception. A significant portion of Liber Primus focuses on the conception of the god of the new age, which is explicitly a god that reconciles dualities. Here is the conception of the God, inside the womb of the Earth. And, I’m realizing right now as I write this… Zeus conceived Zagreus with Persephone, the lady of the Underworld, in the form of a serpent… Adding on to that, Macrobius identifies Dionysus with the chthonic or dark aspect of the sun: “They observe the holy mystery in the rites by calling the sun Apollo when it is in the upper (that is, daytime) hemisphere; when it is in the lower (that is, night-time) hemisphere, it is considered Dionysus, who is Liber.” Gee, I wonder who the god of the new age is! (Obviously, I’m biased, so take what you will from this.)

It struck me that Jung’s description of the Underworld is very pagan. It doesn’t sound like a Christian depiction of Hell at all. There’s no fire, no demons, no sinners being tortured, none of Dante’s creative punishments or Lucifer and his angels plotting revenge. Instead we get rivers, the sun, a scarab beetle, and loads and loads of snakes. Jung seems to agree, because in a 1925 lecture (cited in the footnotes) he says:

The light in the cave from the crystal was, I thought, like the stone of wisdom [the philosopher’s stone]. The secret murder of the hero I could not understand at all. The beetle of course I knew to be an ancient sun symbol, and the setting sun, the luminous red disk, was archetypal. The serpents I thought might have been connected with Egyptian material. I could not then realize that it was all so archetypal.

I don’t know the details of all Jung’s theories on why he saw these specific images, but here’s my theory: The “pagan-ness” of this Underworld is a sign that it can be escaped. Hell is a place of punishment, of permanent separation from God if not literal torture. The pagan Underworld is a place of death, but death is part of a cycle, and a lot of hero stories involve some sort of katabasis or symbolic death and rebirth. This is the nigredo stage of alchemy, a critical first step of the initiation process. The Christian concept of Hell does not represent that very well. That’s just my opinion.

The next section is a commentary on how events have no inherent meaning, but that humans assign meaning to events:

The events that happen are always the same. But the creative depths of man are not always the same. Events signify nothing, they signify only in us. We create the meaning of events. The meaning is and always was artificial. We make it.

Because of this we seek in ourselves the meaning of events, so that the way of what is to come becomes apparent and our life can flow again.

That which you need comes from yourself, namely the meaning of the event. The meaning of events is not their particular meaning. This meaning exists in learned books. Events have no meaning.

The meaning of events comes from the possibility of life in this world that you create. It is the mastery of this world and the assertion of your soul in this world.

The meaning of events is the supreme meaning, that is not in events, and not in the soul, but in God standing between events and the soul, the mediator of life, the bridge and the going-across.

I like this idea of God standing “between events and the soul.” Events have no meaning, stuff just happens. Looking for meaning in the external world is pointless, so it has to be found in the internal world. In order to put to use all of the information you find in the internal world, you need to bring it outward and impress your soul upon the external world. God is the mediator that allows you to do that. God translates the language of the internal world into that of the external world, and vice-versa. That’s basically the alchemical process and/or Hero’s Journey right there — journey into the internal world, receive spiritual insight, bring it down. I’ve been struggling with that last part, but I know it’s doable.

And now, we finally get to Shadow work! I’m just going to transcribe this entire section:

Therefore I take part in that murder; the sun of the depths also shines in me after the murder has been accomplished; the thousand serpents that want to devour the sun are also in me. I myself am a murderer and murdered, sacrificer and sacrificed. The upwelling blood streams out of me.

You all have a share in the murder. In you the reborn one will come to be, and the sun of the depths will rise, and a thousand serpents will develop from your dead matter and fall on the sun to choke it. Your blood will stream forth. The peoples demonstrate this at the present time in unforgettable acts, that will be written with blood in unforgettable books for eternal memory.

But I ask you, when do men fall on their brothers with mighty weapons and bloody acts? They do such if they do not know that their brother is themselves. They themselves are sacrificers, but they mutually do the service of sacrifice. They must all sacrifice each other, since the time has not yet come when man puts the bloody knife into himself, in order to sacrifice the one he kills in his brother. But whom do people kill? They kill the noble, the brave, the heroes. They take aim at these and do not know that with these they mean themselves. They should sacrifice the hero in themselves, and because they do not know this, they kill their courageous brother.

The time is still not ripe. But through this blood sacrifice, it should ripen. So long as it is possible to murder the brother instead of oneself, the time is not ripe. Frightful things must happen until men grow ripe. But anything else will not ripen humanity. Hence all this that takes place in these days must also be, so that the renewal can come. Since the source of blood that follows the shrouding of the sun is also the source of the new life.

As the fate of the peoples is represented to you in events, so it will happen in your heart. If the hero in you is slain, then the sun of the depths rises in you, glowing from afar, and from a dreadful place. But all the same, everything that up till now seemed to be dead in you will come to life, and will change into poisonous serpents that will cover the sun, and you will fall into night and confusion. Your blood also will stream from many wounds in this frightful struggle. Your shock and doubt will be great, but from such torment the new life will be born. Birth is blood and torment. Your darkness, which you did not suspect since it was dead, will come to life and you will feel the crush of total evil and the conflicts of life that still now lie buried in the matter of your body. But the serpents are dreadful evil thoughts and feelings.

You thought you knew that abyss? Oh you clever people! It is another thing to experience it. Everything will happen to you. Think of all the frightful and devilish things that men have inflicted on their brothers. That should happen to you in your heart. Suffer it yourself through your own hand, and know that it is your own heinous and devilish hand that inflicts the suffering on you, but not your brother, who wrestles with his own devils.

I would like you to see what the murdered hero means. Those nameless men who in our day have murdered a prince are blind prophets who demonstrate in events what then is valid only for the soul. Through the murder of princes we will learn that the prince in us, the hero, is threatened. Whether this should be seen as a good or a bad sign need not concern us. What is awful today is good in a hundred years, and in two hundred years is bad again. But we must recognize what is happening: there are nameless ones in you who threaten your prince, the hereditary ruler.

But our ruler is the spirit of this time, which rules and leads in us all. It is the general spirit in which we think and act today. He is of frightful power, since he has brought immeasurable good to this world and fascinated men with unbelievable pleasure. He is bejeweled with the most beautiful heroic virtue, and wants to drive men up to the brightest solar heights, in everlasting ascent.

The hero wants to open up everything he can. But the nameless spirit of the depths evokes everything that man cannot. Incapacity prevents further ascent. Greater height requires greater virtue. We do not possess it. We must first create it by learning to live with our incapacity. We must give it life. For how else shall it develop into ability?

We cannot slay our incapacity and rise above it. But that is precisely what we wanted. Incapacity will overcome us and demand its share of life. Our ability will desert us, and we will believe, in the sense of the spirit of this time, that it is a loss. Yet it is no loss but a gain, not for outer trappings, however, but for inner capability.

The one who learns to live with his incapacity has learned a great deal. This will lead us to the valuation of the smallest things, and to wise limitation, which the greater height demands. If all heroism is erased, we fall back into the misery of humanity and into even worse. Our foundations will fall into the cesspool of our underworld, among the rubble of all the centuries in us.

The heroic in you is the fact that you are ruled by the thought that this or that is good, that this or that performance is indispensable, this or that cause is objectionable, this or that goal must be attained in headlong striving work, this or that pleasure should be ruthlessly repressed at all costs. Consequently you sin against incapacity. But incapacity exists. No one should deny it, find fault with it, or shout it down.

Jung is speaking in the context of the impending World Wars. That’s the blood sacrifice that he refers to, but everything he says here is also applicable to Shadow work more generally. The reason why people kill each other is because they project their own Shadows, their own Depths, onto each other. The heroes are the ones that die, because people become heroes by going to war and killing a bunch of people or by dying nobly in battle. In order to do Shadow work, you have to admit that you are complicit in this violence, and that you are both the killer and the victim. You’re the one holding the gun. When Jung says that he is both “murderer and murdered, sacrificer and sacrificed,” I’m reminded of Dionysus executing Pentheus by dismemberment, the same way he himself was murdered. I’m also reminded of how bulls and goats were named as representations of Dionysus himself before being sacrificed to him, sacrificing himself to himself. As far as I know, Dionysus is the only Ancient Greek god with that particular dynamic, that direct identification with the animals (and fictional people) sacrificed to him. All of the sacrifice and blood and death paves the way for resurrection and restoration, as it does in alchemy.

These lines are particularly striking: “You thought you knew that abyss? Oh you clever people! It is another thing to experience it. Everything will happen to you. […] Suffer it yourself through your own hand, and know that it is your own heinous and devilish hand that inflicts the suffering on you…” You thought you knew the dark? Oh, you don’t even know the dark, buddy. Not until you see the abyss staring back into you. The real truth is that you are heinous, you are devilish, you are the thing you fear the most and the thing you think you’re fighting against. “Oh you clever people!” is my new favorite insult. Cleverness won’t help you against your Shadow. Shadow is stark.

Facing the Shadow also requires the death of the hero, your “perfect” idealized image of yourself. The Zeitgeist wants you to rise to this ideal and become the most moral, the most pure, the most powerful, etc. But this is just unrealistic. You’re human, and you’re flawed. The way to transcend those flaws is to learn to live with them, maybe even turn them into advantages. But to do that, you have to admit that the flaws are there. No matter how much you may try to sort your actions and qualities into good and bad, useful and useless, meaningful and meaningless, or any other dichotomy, incapacity still exists. Whatever you’ve rejected will always exist, weighing you down, until you figure out how to turn your weaknesses into your greatest strengths. I love the idea of “sinning against incapacity” because it is so transgressive but also so true. You can sin against the dark, too, because the dark is also God.

More to come!

[pynkhues]

🧠 Beth

🧠 Rio

🧠 Pick a character, and I'll tell you my favorite headcanon for them.

I feel like everyone knows my favourite headcanons for these two, haha, sooo let's go with new ones.

Beth

Beth can make a meal out of anything. Had to learn how to when the pantry was empty and their mom was in bed, and sometimes she thinks those years were when she was her most adventurous, her most optimistic, her most brave-faced, because hopelessness flooded the ground floor of her psyche and here she was, every minute of every day, patching holes in the little boat, the little life she was trying to make Annie, because if she drowned so did her sister, and that was something Beth wouldn't - couldn't - ever let happen.

So she learned how to make layered casseroles on scraps and crumble cakes out of half rotten fruit the kiosk let her take home for free and quiche out of turned cream. Not everything worked. Sometimes things came out sour or bitter or worst of all, gritty, and some things turned their stomachs and saw them spend a night together in the bathroom, spewing their guts up, but a part of her liked that maybe. Liked the challenge and the adventure and the way Annie would always commentate. Pretend to be a food critic, talk in big words she didn't understand and always end it with wowowow a million stars even if the meal was awful, and she remembers that most of all when she's making faces in her kids' sandwiches, even though Emma's the only one who says thank you and Kenny complains about being too old for it, and some nights when it's just her and Annie, they get drunk and look for the food in Annie's fridge that's going off and Beth whips something up and Annie gets out her notebook and she slurs a million stars between giggles as she takes another bite of something Beth's pretty sure will make them sick (but at least they can blame that on the hangover these days).

Rio

Rio's not really into tv or movies - Rosa didn't have one while he was a kid, and when he was old enough to get one himself, he was too busy and it just didn't really appeal. He reads though, voraciously, something he thinks Rosa passed onto him, and while he reads mostly literary fiction, poetry, occassionally high fantasy, he's always had a soft spot for monster stories. Inhaled Dorian Gray, Frankenstein, The Invisible Man before he started highscool, and he doesn't like movies, he doesn't, but he saw Godzilla when he was 11 at a friend's place, and maybe it just hit at the right moment, the right minute.

Latched onto a feeling of a past that won't be reconciled with and a future that's not waiting for you, and a monster in the sea that would consume both if you let it. Maybe there was something in it that lodged in his chest and saw him sneaking into the cinema with friends to see The Thing and Alien and the Godzilla remake, and he could tell them he just thought they were dope, but Rio knows metaphor from monster, knows the hurt and hope in the jaws of a beast, and maybe he just never stops seeing himself there. Not the guy with the gun, but the one with the torch - facing up to light the way into the future.

Fanfic writers emoji ask game

[a-model-of-propriety]

Mirrors

They had always hated mirrors, each and every one of them. And yet, try as they might, they couldn't escape their reflections.

As a little mid-week bonus and apology for taking so long to update, here's a longer ficlet/character study! TW for mentions of self-hate (lmk if I'm missing any big TWs!)

[read on ao3]

Henry Jekyll had always hated mirrors. Growing up, there were days when he couldn’t bear to even look at his reflection. Every time he lost his temper, every time he made some impulsive, stupid decision that got him in trouble, every time he knew he let down everyone around him, he couldn’t bear to face himself. He couldn’t bear the fact that he was the one that had let everyone down. Every time he glanced towards the mirror, he hated that all his imperfections were reflected back at him.

He thought his formula would fix things, somehow. He just had to isolate the impulsiveness, isolate the immaturity, isolate the temper. If he could do that, maybe he could get rid of them, and then he could finally face himself without shame. A foolish thought, really. Now they’re just more visible than ever. Now they talk back at him, constantly nagging him for more time to indulge their whims.

The face reflected back at him may not be his own anymore, but it was still undeniably a part of him. Maybe one day he could face that reflection proudly. Maybe one day the face of Edward Hyde will not be a constant reminder to him of all he wished he was not. But today, today that reflection is just as unbearable to confront.

Henry Jekyll had always hated mirrors; they always reminded him of everything he hated about himself.

–

Creechur had always hated mirrors. That was the one constant in his life. Even before he knew what they were called, he knew he hated them. Even before he knew what hate was, he knew it was how he felt. The mirror was the first thing to show him what he was, the first thing to tell him why Victor ran away that first night, the first thing to tell him why no one could stand looking at him for very long those first few weeks.

The worst part was that, looking in that mirror, Creechur didn’t blame them. The first time he had recognized that face as his own, he turned away in fright too. Though now he could look himself in the eyes – his eyes were the worst part – he still hated the knowledge that he looked so terrifying, the knowledge that, try as he might, he would never truly look like he belonged anywhere. No matter what, he would always look like a monster. He never asked to be created. If he had to exist, why did he have to exist like this?

Creechur had always hated mirrors; they always reminded him of all the ways he was different.

–

Dorian Gray had always hated mirrors. He hadn’t always realized that he hated them; in fact, there was a time when he would have said he loved mirrors. He didn’t much care for that time of his life. And besides, the unfavorable sentiment was always there, hiding beneath the surface where he could conveniently deny its existence. Only with the passage of time could he finally confront that reality.

The trouble with mirrors, he found, is that they only reflected the surface. They only reflected what he wanted to see. A mirror was flattering, yes, but it was inherently dishonest. This is what he loved, and this is what he despised. He loved the physical reminder of his good fortune – who else could be blessed with youth and beauty as he was? – and he despised the constant reminder of what he had done for that blessing, for that curse.

Maybe that was why he brought that mirror into the room with his portrait. One told him lovely, breathtaking lies, and the other told him the cruel, heart-wrenching truth. Some days, he couldn’t tell which he preferred. Was it better to live in blissful ignorance, or would it only allow his soul to grow uglier? The contrast between the mirror of his face and the mirror of his soul was captivating in its very dreadfulness.

Dorian Gray had always hated mirrors; they always reminded him of the horrible lie he was living.

–

Tristan Torres had always hated mirrors. Well, maybe not always. He didn’t mind them much when he was little. Back then, they reflected a young child, surrounded by sisters who, despite their busy lives, always found time to play with him, even if it meant a sleepless night afterward. Tristan treasured those memories of him posing in front of a mirror, showing off his sister’s latest fashion line – did she ever make it big like she always talked about? Somehow, he’d never checked. But obviously he can’t seek her out, it would be far too dangerous.

That was the problem, he supposed. The mirrors that used to reflect a child surrounded by loved ones now showed a lone Traveller, out of place no matter where he went. Even those that knew him could not be confided in. They all had roles to play in time, and any interference on his part could cause irreparable damage, damage even he didn’t quite know the scope of. Only he moved independent of time, and only he could be trusted with this knowledge. All alone.

Where did that child go? Would his sisters still recognize him if he ever went back? Could he ever go back, knowing the things he has learned in his travels? Would he ever belong with them again? No, he couldn’t go back. Like it or not, he has changed, and he couldn’t go back to the life he recklessly abandoned an eternity ago.

Tristan Torres had always hated mirrors; they always reminded him of how utterly alone he was in the world.

–

The Count of Monte Cristo had always hated mirrors. Even when he was Edmond Dantés, he could not bear them. When he was Edmond, they showed him all the things he lacked, all the things he thought he could never be. Those mirrors reflected his simple clothing, never to rival that of his superiors; his calloused hands from years on a ship; his inexperienced, naïve expression. Oh, how he hated those flaws the mirror always reminded him of.

Then, for a magical few months, that didn’t matter. The moment Mercédès agreed to wait for him, the mirror held no horrors for him. If she could love him in spite of it all, what could there possibly be to despise? During those months, he would stand in front of the mirror, trying to convince himself that the blissful life he was living was as real as the reflection gazing back at him. Though he could never find in his reflection what exactly made him worthy of Mercédès, the mere knowledge of her love for him was more than enough.

Now, the mirror is even more repulsive to the Count than ever before. Now, when he looks at his glassy reflection, he no longer recognizes himself. He can pick out little things – his build, the curve of his face, the callouses, even more than in his sailing days, stubbornly refusing to leave his hands – they don’t resemble Edmond Dantés, not anymore. Gone was the simple clothing, replaced by ornate costumes that only fed the lies of his life. Gone was the naïvety, gone the steadfast belief in the goodness of humanity. Gone was the man that Mercédès had fallen in love with all those years ago.

The Count of Monte Cristo always hated mirrors; they always reminded him of all he had lost.

[mirtifero]

OC TIME!!! (almost forgot a tw: abuse , suicide mention and drug addictions)

Added a read more because this is huge sorry

K so dude fucking hell I hate drawing Henry. Litrally how the FUCK can I even draw him??? "Ethereal beauty" i write on the story, having no clue how tf I can draw that. He's like... a blond twink, Dorian Gray like. What am I supposed to do here.

In case u dont know Henry: he's an usamerican that is currently studying aboard in Brazil (where the story is at) and he's a perfect person. He's innocent, kind, smart, strong, pretty... he's everythjng. Thing is, he's actually a piece of shit (woah!). Since hw was a child, he used his appearance to deceive peopl3 to get things. He'd hurt other children and start crying because the blame would be passed to them. He was always praised as some sort of angel and so, some sort of angel he is.

The story is by the end of the third year of high school (senior year), and about the insecurities of Hector blah blah I won't go into detail rn. Henry is not really a villain of the story... but he is not one of the good guys either... hes p evil lol. "What does he do?" in the story, he basically is there for money, bc he knows that the school he's in is from a poor location and full of, guess what, possible drug addicts. He goes for all the 3 protagonists (ok theres only 1 protg but these 2 r also v important).

Hector he kinda fails to get to him but he does convince him for a good time that he was inhumane and that he simply shouldn't exist, so he should just deal with it and hide it otherwise everyone would hate him. But Henry wouldn't, he'd keep his "dirty secret of being unnatural". He fails to get to the bit he actually sells him drugs lol bc Hector sees what hes doing bc one of his victims was his friend. Both of them actually. (Explained this one kinda badly byt its because he mostly failed lol Hector already thought this abt himself before Henry even met him)

Marcos is more simple, I think. Henry just threats to out him. Not directly, it's more complicated. Marcos is this very "heterotop" kind of guy, he's a fucking himbo. He's stupid, no one likes him, he already was a cigarette addict before he met Henry, he's basically pathetic. The only person who just... tolerated him, was Hector. He puts this strong and though persona just because he thinks he'll have more friends with it, but he's a very emotional guy. Okay back to Henry, Marcos fell in love with him, because *woah!* he's gay(!). He secretly confesses to him and is very visibly terrified of anyone else knowing. Henry sees him and goes "oh well easy money". So besides just pretty much "kindly" demanding constant cash or gifts (most of which Marcos can't even afford), he basically makes Marcos believe he, well, does't deserve that love, and is a disgusting human being for thinking anyone could ever love him. He basically offers "free" drugs to Marcos. "Free" because he asks for absurd amounts of payment later. As Marcos is Hector's... only friend for a good time, and even if Hector is bad at emotions(tm), he DOES realize something is fucked up and that's why he doesn't fall for Henry's shenanigans.

Okay! Last one is more simple because she's a newer character, her name is Sofia! Sofia is more insecure about........ well, to simply put, being a woman. She feels like she could never be a woman in the way she is, and that she is too "bland" and "unemotional" for all of that. She is very pressured by her family to be perfect, and a kind emotional good lady who can play violin and be amazing. She feels odd and all of that adds to the fact that she is of very strong asian ancestry, which makes her feel like she "stands out too much" around everyone else. She's, differently from Hector, incredibly suicidal too. There' a lot of parallels between her and Hector, (that lead to moments like "I'm nothing like you" etc) but that's not relevant rn. Thing s basically that Henry made her persue a relationship with Hector, because that woud "fix" her, knowing very damn well it wouldn't work and it'd make the situation worse. When it doesn't work he just makes her believe that, well, then, she really is useless and deserving of nothing. He basically puts a little teather of pity and offers her his products but she, although very sensible and unable to barely talk, she sees though Henry's plans, pushes him to the floor nd runs away. She disappears from school for some time, but she's okay.

Okay then -- what about it? What happens to Henry when these people realize what he did to them and many other people who just were unable to get him punished for his actions?

They fucking steal his money lol. They steal EVERYTHING they can get. Henry freaks out and gets really aggressive and irrational, ends up ruining his entire reputation from freaking out like that, call of of them slurs nd well... yeah, everything is ruined for him. His reputation and his money were everything he had, and they stole it.

That's not the main plot but AAAA I LOVE IT SOOO MUCH. Itz real fun to think abt and I spent hours writing this mess here. I love Henry, he's the worst human being ever, and I find that amszjng. It's probably kinda hard to understad why he's one of my favorite ocs because of me sucking at describing things (I'm better at just. Writing than telling akjaks) but yeah!!! Hope someone read this lol.

Edit: FORGOT TO MENTION!! Yeah, his themes are very obvious. It's probably very easy to tell what I was going for here, what I was angry about when I made this, but I still love it a lot, because it envolves a lot of things :3

[sleekervae]

The Neighbour [3.3]

A/N: Guess what dumbass tested positive for covid 🥲

Warnings: this chapter is primarily smut. nipple play, hand job, fingering, the notion of oral and unprotected sex

The rain continued to beat down on the windows, the once clear glass panes heavily distorted with thick drizzles of water that obscured Eva's view of the neighbourhood. Not that she minded nor gave a care as she continued to work at her desk, her fingers pattering on her keyboard to sync with the pattering outside.

Pluto meanwhile watching Remington curiously thumb and pick over her extensive library, the tabby all too anxious to have his new friend scratch at his ears while he napped. Remington's eyes simply glazed over the expansive titles: Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, Dorian Gray. They were all titles to perfectly encapsulate the solemn and recklessly wicked cold mood that had settled in his chest.

Eva glanced at him peripherally, her eyes following his every slow twitch and anxious exhale. He was stalling for something, vexed to make up his mind as to whether to read his book or to talk about whatever it was that had been bothering him all day. She pushed her chair back from her desk, watching his fingers just graze the spine of Hound of the Baskervilles.

"What's going on with you?" she asked, her voice a gentle plea rather than accusation.

Remington simply shrugged it off, "Just a little tired, I guess," he sighed quietly.

Eva swallowed back the lump in her throat, "... Have I done something? Because this bookshelf is the most interest you've shown in anything today,"

He was taken aback by her question, a part of him amused and dismayed in her thinking that she'd done something to wrong him.

"No Eva, you haven't done anything wrong," he said, smiling in hopes to put her at ease, "It would take a lot for you to mess up my day,"

She smiled back reassuringly, turning the spoke in her chair to face him properly, "Then will you tell me what's going on? This have something to do with your nightmare last night?"

Remington foiled on a near instant, his facing paling and his posture slumping down as he recounted to her his previous dream. Eva stayed quiet and patient, she imagined the scene playing out in her mind so vividly as though she was there. It was a terrifying notion, and she couldn't blame him for being so put off.

Remington had always been so emotionally vulnerable, and yet he continued to feel as though he had to hide these feelings from her just to prove how strong he was. It was a recurring fear -- when he would have to leave again. And despite her words the unpredictability of the next two years was as monstrous as his nightmare.

" -- I'm scared, too," she admitted after a bout of silent, "You think that it's not in the back of my mind but I wake up every morning and go to sleep every night -- watching everything that you and your brothers are putting together -- and I'm reminded that this won't be the way it is forever," she motioned around the room with her finger.

"I've never loved someone the way that I love you, and I think that's because you make it so easy to love you. And for that reason alone, I want to cherish the moments that we have together so that when the day finally comes I won't feel so empty inside because I have these memories of us here. And... and a prayer that you'll be excited to come home to me,"

Remington laughed, a despondent, self-pitiful laugh as he came to crouch before her, taking her smaller hands in his, "I'm sorry I keep dredging this shit up,"

"Remington, I don't know who put it in your head that you can't be vulnerable with your partners, but you never ever have to be sorry when you want to talk about how you're feeling," she said, "I want all your bad days and fights and just the opportunity to make you feel a little bit better,"

"Yeah, I know," he nodded, "I just want to stop feeling this way,"

"What way?"

"Like there's a bomb about to go off next to me? I step on the wrong cue and everything I worked so hard for has fucked off,"

Eva took a lock of his hair between her fingers, tying it into a small, intricate braid, "It's healthy to feel all these things. But you don't every have to hide them from me. You've always asked me to trust you Remington, and I trust that while you are on a world tour that you'll also be excited to come back to me -- that means a shit ton more to me than any I love you,"

Remington smiled, genuine and yet somber, his brown eyes paling from their usually glittery saturation, "Why are you so nice to me like this?" he asked.

"Because you are the weirdest, most beautiful person I've ever met in my whole life," she replied, "Not a lot of boyfriends would let their girlfriends braid their hair, anyhow," she poked at the braid to make her point, earning a hearty laugh from Remington that was reminiscent of himself.

"Not all girlfriends would braid their boyfriends' hair, you ever think about that?" he smirked.

"They just don't know what they're missing," Eva carded her fingers through the ends of his hair, coming down to press a kiss to his forehead, "Now, is there anything I can do to make you feel better?"

"You already have," he said.

"But I'm also just fishing for a work break," she replied.

Remington glanced over at her bookshelf, the spines cracked and varied in colour, "This is gonna' sound really weird -- but would you read a book to me?"

In an instant her face lit up, "Why in the hell would that be weird?"

So he jumped up onto the couch, waiting impatiently while she picked out a book for them to read: Written on the Body. It was a book Eva had started a while ago and had always meant to finish, she was fascinated with the author's ability to entwine poetry into narrative story telling so consistently and smoothly. She sat down with her legs crossed, giggling as Remington nestled his head in his lap.

Picturesque was the scene, like something in an early 2010s romantic movie. The windows held fast against the constant hammering of ice cold rain, all the while warmth and merry comfort shrouded the small apartment. Pluto was sleeping at the foot of the couch, lying flat as a board and snoring subtly. His weak snores were drowned as Eva read on, now lying back on the couch while Remington lay on her stomach. While a little tough to catch on to at first, he was quickly becoming enthralled with this narrator's story and their fascination with Louise -- the plot of this intrepid novel's affair.

Remington craned his neck up to steal a glance, her dark ocean eyes the only part of her face visible over the bleak horizon of that book. He rubbed at the soft material of her leggings, her thigh shifting under his hot touch. Eva was reading the recount of this couple's ongoings in private, the things they would do with and to each other whilst away from prying eyes.

"We don’t take drugs, we’re drugged out on danger, where to meet, when to speak, what happens when we see each other publicly. We think no-one has noticed but there are always faces at the curtain, eyes on the road. There’s nothing to whisper about so they whisper about us,"

Remington couldn't help the inclination as he pushed her shirt up until it sat over her ribs. His lips ghosted over the soft flesh and when she didn't protest he dotted her abdomen in wet kisses, his tongue darting out to taste the faint salt of her skin. Eva would inhale quickly now and again, her fingers trembling while gripping the book tighter.

"Turn up the music. We’re dancing together tightly sealed like a pair of 50s homosexuals. If anyone knocks at the door we won’t answer. If I have to answer we’ll say she’s my accountant. We can’t hear anything but the music smooth as a tube lubricating us round the floor. I’ve been waiting for her all week."

She couldn't help but chuckle amusedly at some of the narrator's analogies; and a chuckle would quickly be silence by her teeth biting down on her lips when Remington slipped his hands 'round to undo her bra clasp, giving him full access to massage, stroke, and tease her sensitive breasts.

Eva hadn't been reading all that long and yet she couldn't deny the embers that began to take heat within her. With one hand she held up the book, the other she slinked into Remington's hair and her nails massaged his scalp. Her bra was practically hanging off of her as his lips and fingers lavished her breasts and nipples. His tongue was slowly tracing circles around the erected flesh, gradually increasing speed, then alternating circling and gently flicking, always keeping the touch gentle, and his mind focussed on giving pleasure.

It was becoming visibly harder for Eva to concentrate as she read on, pausing between small words and becoming flushed and flustered to find her place again;

"If anyone knocks at the -- oh wait. Shit," she gasped, frantic to find her place again as Remington tugged and twisted at the sensitive buds. His lips and tongue continued to ravage her nipples and his own body shuddered as he felt her squirm beneath him.

"All week has been a regime of clocks and calendars. I thought she might telephone on Thursday to say that she couldn’t come, that sometimes happens even though we’re only together one weekend in five and those stolen after-office hour --"

Eva's hand flew over her mouth as Remington's hand gripped both breasts tightly, thumbing and flicking and twisting at one nipple, the other between his lips and teeth. He sucked at the bud, rolling it between his teeth and tugging sharply. Strands of his long hair tickled along her chest. She was too lost in the way everything felt to think twice about the whines and cries and sobs that spilled from her lips. It just feels so good, too good, and he was so good with his mouth, so good with his hands.

"Keep reading, Eva," his voice was a hoarse whisper, "You know I want to hear you,"

A strangled moan left her lips as her free hand flew to his hair, the hand clutching the book tightly in fear she may drop it. He lifted himself up from the nearly bruised nipple. A single line of spit connected his lips to the bud, and with a mischievous grin, he licked a stripe along it. She sobbed again, and he shifted to toy with the other nipple, completely unforgiving in his actions. Beneath the overwhelming pleasure was pain, because of the way he bit a little too roughly, tugged a little too harshly, sucked at the bud that the pressure was dizzyingly painful. But it was so good, it was so good she felt herself at the brink.

"She arches her... body like a cat on a stretch -- oh god. She nuzzles her cunt into my face l-like a filly at the gate. She smells of the sea. She smells of-of rockpools when I was a child. She keeps a -- oh god, yes! -- starfish in there. I crouch down to taste the salt, to run my fingers around the rim. She opens and shuts like a sea ane-anemone. She’s refilled each day with fresh tides of longING --"

Eva wasn't sure if he meant to or not, however between the previously abused nipple rolled between his finger, the other between his teeth, and the scintillating passage, she was sent over the edge. Her orgasm rippled through her, shaking beneath him, eyes rolling back and arching off the couch, pushing her chest closer towards him. Remington’s eyes were hooded, watching with pleasurable satisfaction with his blood rushing to his dick now. He was heavily obsessed with her nipples; he was obsessed with making her come from just playing with her nipples.

As she came down he met her gaze, his brown eyes now a shadowy black, "You're so good for me, baby," his hand moved from her breast to come between their bodies, and Eva could already tell from his shifting that he was pulling himself out of his pants, stroking himself slowly.

The book fell flat against her torso as Eva gasped, "I want you, Rem,"

Clothes were shed and scattered in an instant, with warm hands roaming across sensitive flesh and lips smacking against stifled whines and moans. Pluto was quick to dart to his bed when Eva's bra clocked him over his head.

Eva pushed him down onto the other side of couch gently and climbed into his lap. His warm hands gripped her curves and his thumbs rubbed over your hip bones; she sighed happily and pressed forward to feel the heat of his erection against her core.

"You're so sexy when you read out loud," his hand came down against her ass lightly, "I love hearing your voice -- and all the other pretty sounds you make with it," she giggled merrily as she came down to kiss him.

"And what about all the sounds you make?" she replied, her hand coming down to pump his dick just the way she knew he liked. He whimpered, burying his nose into her bosom and exhaling his warm breath. Her fingers twisted back into his hair while the other hand wrapped around the base of his cock to hold him in place while she pressed the tip to her entrance, “Oh god,” she sighed as she sank down onto him. He echoed her and dug his nails into her back as she rolled her hips, “God, this is - you’re perfect,”

“You’re pretty perfect yourself, doll,” Remington mumbled, his head falling against the back of the couch, “God, you make me feel so good-“ he grunted low in the back of his throat when she started grinding her clit down against his pelvis, “That’s gonna send me over the edge,” he warned.

“Me too,” Eva panted, closing her eyes and beginning to speed up, “Me too. Gotta slow down,”

“So why,“ he asked, his fingers flexing against her ass as she started to move herself gracefully up and down his length, “are you going faster? Holy fuck, your tits look so damn great like this-” and they both laughed breathlessly; he raised one eyebrow and thumbed one nipple, “Do I need to make you slow down?”

She whimpered a little and he nodded decisively before holding Eva firmly in place. She tried to raise herself, trying to shift her weight, to swivel her hips, but his hands were steady and she couldn't move.

“Nice and slow, babydoll. Nice and slow. Ride my cock nice and slow. Yeah, that’s it-“ Remington sighed as he gave her a little leeway to move again, “That’s a good girl. Bouncing nice and slow…god Eva, you have the best ass - and your boobs- Fuck-“ she nodded and whined as she involuntarily squeezed around his cock as she sunk down on him. “Fuck, you gonna come for me? I’m gonna come for you, doll-”

He couldn’t get the words out in their entirety before his orgasm hit, his body tensing and seizing under her. She kissed him desperately and, as he squeezed her thigh one last time, she came too. She shuddered and trembled, the warmth spread through her like sand falling evenly. She traced his jawline in awe, her hips still rocking to take more of him.

“You’re so beautiful when you come,” Remington murmured, pulling back slumping back on the couch, “So beautiful. And it feels so good, having you come on me like that,” He brushed a hand through her hair and she snuggled into him, warm and happy and relaxed.

"You deserve to feel good," she spoke sweetly, her head nestled in the crook of his neck, "And you deserve praise and kisses and all the reassurance that you're so loved, Rem. I want to give you all these things; regardless of our jobs,"

His larger hands ran up and down the expanse of her back, his anxieties worn down to only revel in the tingling aura of post-pleasure, "Like I said before Eva; you're too nice to me sometimes," he chuckled.

She understood his need to be close, to be touching her as much as he could, "And even when you learn to be nice to yourself, I'll continue to do so," she smiled.

Her fingers raised to trace down the bridge of his nose, an intimate comfort to Remington now, and he couldn't resist but to try and bite at her dainty fingers. They giggled together as he raised her chin to kiss her. She tasted of salt and lip balm, and when she pulled away Remington watched her visage in the cool haze of the room.

"You're hair is getting longer, too," he pointed out.

Eva instinctively ran her fingers through a lock of her hair, glancing curiously at the ends, "Suppose it is. Maybe I can pay Larissa to give me a trim?"

"No," Remington shook his head, "Grow it out. I want to see you with long hair -- n-not that your short hair isn't cute," he stammered suddenly, "I love your hair, regardless,"

"I know," she simpered, "I'll think it over," she then sat up, raising her arms and stretching out her back. Remington thought back momentarily to that passage she was reading just minutes before, her image filling in the gape of that scene.

Eva turned to look out the window, shuddering as the rain continued to beat down upon the glass, "Wanna watch a movie?" she asked suddenly.

"It's a movie kind of day, isn't it?" Remington grinned, "Are you okay to elongate your break?"

"Beauty of being my own boss," she smirked, untangling herself from him and stood up on wobbly legs, "You pick, I'll grab a blanket,"

Remington did his own stretch, sitting upright on the couch and grabbing the remote to flip through Eva's Netflix. She drew a soft blanket from the closet and had it wrapped around her slim body as she went to draw the curtains to just a sliver to let in some light.

When she came back to sit with him she found the opening for Léon the Professional rolling across the screen. It was a great movie, and yet they'd both seen it enough times to not care whether or not their attention drew elsewhere.

Pluto had awoken from his nap by now and crept quietly to his food bowl, the clinking of his collar against the metal was the only intervening sound over the movie. He stopped and stared curiously at his owner and her boyfriend, his gaze apparently contemplative on whether to jump on the couch with them or return to his bed. Instead, the pale tabby decided to slip behind the drawn curtain and lie down against the cool lining, watching the rain obliterate the view.

They snuggled together under the blanket, Remington sat back against the arm rest while Eva settled back in his lap and reclined against his chest. His fingers ran up and down her arms; it wasn't so much a tickling sensation as much as it spun a warmth in her stomach and she shifted against him, delighted to find him erect against her.

"Already want another round?" she asked teasingly, rolling her hips against him. Remington smirked, leaning over to bite gently at her shoulder. His hands moved from her arms and began to stroke over her stomach and steadily slipping lower.

At the same time Eva shifted so she could grab his dick without his fingers losing her flesh. She switched between pumping him and rubbing her thumb over his slit, matching the tease he inflicted as he rubbed her in small circles over and over. She turned to bury her face in his shoulder, licking a soft trail up his neck and capturing his earlobe in between her teeth, tugging lightly. He swore softly under his breath, rocking into her tightening grasp.

He composed himself just momentarily, enough to whisper into her ear, "How about we make this interesting?" he thumbed slowly at her clit as he spoke.

Eva swallowed down her moans, "What'd you have in mind?" she asked, her own rhythm on his cock beginning to settle.

"First one to come has to make dinner tonight?" he wagered, his eyes dark and heavy with want and mischief.

"You're on," the words barely left her lips before he pushed two fingers inside her, his gasp at the slick matched hers.

"God, I love how fucking wet you get for me," his voice was like honey, warm and sweet, and he had switched back to soft circles. Her whines were tight and she bit down heavily on her bottom lip.

Her best retaliation was his tip, rubbing lightly and collecting his dribble to spread down the rest of him. Remington shook his head, kissing down to her collarbone. He felt done for when her nails began to rub and scratch at his nipples.

It sent a thrill down Eva's spine when she heard his shuddering moan, feeling him stiffen, and she knew she had him right where she wanted him, "That feel good, honey?" she muttered, speeding up her motions, "Relax. Come on my hand,"

However, Remington wasn't ready to give in so easily. He sped up his circling, flicking rapidly at her clit with a renewed determination. He smiled as her hips began to twitch, rocking up into his hand and he pressed down a little harder, "You first, beautiful,"

Eva's back arched off the couch and she tossed her head against the faux leather, mewling and trembling as whilst her third orgasm rippled through her body, "Oh -- fuck," she swore in pleasure and yet in dismay to find that she'd lost the bet.

"Good girl," Remington praised, grunting under his breath as her hand sped up yet again, and he came right afterwards. Eva leaned over to kiss him as his hips twitched and trembled.

The stars in their eyes floated away and their breathing was heavy, yet stable as they snuggled together under the blanket. Remington leaned over momentarily to snatch some tissues from the side table, cleaning himself up and Eva before wrapping the soiled tissue in more tissue.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his clean hand stroking through her hair. Eva glanced at him through hooded eyes, pouting playfully.

"Yeah, just a little butt-hurt. I wanted to win," she simpered.

"I think you won regardless, baby," he chuckled, grabbing at her waist to tickle her, "But I know how sensitive you get after a couple orgasms,"

Eva shrieked and squirmed about, his touch was amplified from the pleasure before. He laughed himself as he continued to torture her, moving to tickle at her ribs and just stopping to rub at her breasts.

"That's why I think we should have a best two out of three," she giggled, scratching at the places he's previously tickled to ward off the sensation.

"Fine," Remington smirked, "But... I want my dinner, first,"

She sighed dramatically, nuzzling her head into the crook of his shoulder, "Alrighty, what would you like to eat?"

Remington looked down at her, his eyes glimmering with mischief despite the darkness. Eva's thigh clenched together, another shot of electricity running down her spine from that heavy look alone, "Oh, God help me,"

"Get on your back, beautiful," he ordered. She did as she was told, lying back on the other side of the couch with her left knee bent up, and her right leg hanging off the edge. Remington crawled on top of her, kissing her hard before crawling back down to position himself between her legs, "Figure this way, we both win,"

He ran his tongue through her folds the way he knew she liked, silencing whatever witty comeback that was about to spill from her.

[rufousnmacska]

Only You

A manorian arranged marriage fic from an anon request -

Do you think you could write an angsty manorian drabble where political/royal pressures and such has Dorian marry someone else + Dorian being mortal has Manon encouraging him? just all that manorian heartbreak+pining. also really love your fics!

This turned into much more than a drabble, but I hope everyone enjoys it! 🤗

Many thanks to @itach-i for beta reading and helping plot things out! ❤️

*

PART ONE

*

Dorian hadn’t noticed the cold until his valet wrapped a furred robe around him. How long had he been standing out here? The sun had just broken from the horizon and his breath was pooling in front of him with each exhale. The valet, a gray-haired man named Ruben, disappeared back into the royal suite, muttering something about the foolishness of young men. Dorian smiled grimly, knowing he was indeed foolish. Worse. He was a godsdamned idiot. And he felt numb, as though his body was somewhere far from here, his mind with it. None of it was due to the winter chill. Staring off towards the hills west of Rifthold, his eyes glanced over the many red and gold banners attached to the city’s roofs, snapping in the wind. Part of him loved seeing his people so excited, so proud for the coming celebration. They’d suffered greatly during the war and had worked hard in the rebuilding effort of the last two years. But that small joy for his kingdom was overshadowed by his own despair. How many times had he stood in this spot, watching and waiting and holding his breath until he caught sight of those silvery wings and moon white hair dancing in the sky? He’d known today would be his last chance to watch for her. And since sleep was a fool’s hope, he’d come out to his balcony and stood here for hours, his gaze on the west, wondering where it had all gone wrong.

***

The rising sun shone brightly off the tops of the castle towers, giving the small group of witches their first real view of Rifthold in the distance. In the past, this sight would leave Manon breathless with anticipation, pushing Abraxos to speed up in her excitement. There had been times when her giddy desperation to reach the castle was almost humiliating, forcing her to contain her emotions before she landed. But no matter her control in those moments, Dorian would greet her on his balcony with a ferocious embrace, seeing right through her mask. He always had. Now, Manon wished that truth away, pushing it deep down, along with the nausea roiling in her gut. As they drew nearer to Rifthold, she could just barely make out the decorations hanging from the castle. It almost brought up the meager breakfast she’d eaten not long ago. With the brightening sky, she realized the entire city was decked out, covered in colorful banners and garlands. Of course, a royal wedding demanded finery. She had expected it, guarded herself against it. But her expectations were dealt a swift blow by the reality now facing her. Manon was on her way to Dorian’s wedding. Not as the bride, but as a royal guest. And she had no one but herself to blame.

*****

Six months earlier…

Manon frowned as Abraxos landed on an unusually empty balcony. Though she’d never asked for it, the space had been rebuilt to provide a large enough area to comfortably hold a wyvern. Wrapping halfway around the king’s tower, the balcony offered magnificent views of the ocean to the east and the mountains to the west. As she dismounted, Manon realized that vast western view was what gave Dorian the ability to know she was almost there. Normally, she wouldn’t notice the view because he would be there, scooping her up and taking her inside to say hello in her favorite ways. But tonight, she and Abraxos were alone.

Quietly, so as not to startle Ruben, Manon stepped through the doorway. She needn’t have bothered. The bedroom was as empty as the outside and she heard no sounds coming through the door to the other rooms. Wondering if he hadn’t received her last message telling him when to expect her, Manon sat on a sofa to wait. She lasted less than five minutes before pacing around the room, then finally deciding to go in search of Dorian.

The office was empty and as she continued through to the exterior door, Manon rolled her eyes at the messy desk. How Dorian managed to keep everything straight in the piles and stacks of papers was beyond her. She wasn’t in the corridor long before she heard angry voices echoing up the stairway. Chaol and Dorian had stopped part way up the tower.

“You can’t afford to just dismiss this threat of rebellion. Lord Frey is an ass, but he has the ear of too many other nobles to be ignored.” Chaol sounded winded. Manon didn’t think he came up here very often since his mobility was tied to his wife’s magic. That he was here now to continue this conversation was significant.

“I refuse to give into his demands,” Dorian growled. “He complains about me leaving the kingdom to Erawan, and yet he brags about how he profited from the war. Whatever gold he has in his coffers did not come from me.”

Manon inched back to the door on silent feet. She knew Dorian’s lords were causing trouble, but he’d refused to go into detail about it with her. The thought of anyone claiming Dorian had willfully abandoned Adarlan to Erawan made her blood boil. The valg king and his armies had left a path of scorched earth and devastation on his march to Terrasen. And Dorian had spent the last two years of his life dedicated to rebuilding his kingdom.

Chaol sighed. “Yes, but what he’s proposed in exchange—”

“What he’s proposed will not be considered,” Dorian interrupted. It was a voice Manon had never heard from him.

After a long pause, Chaol continued. “I know how you feel, Dorian. But we need to put emotions aside and think this through. I’m not saying we go along with it. But right now, we have to look at every option.”

“You say ‘we’ as if you would be the one marrying his daughter.”

Manon gasped, covering her mouth to remain quiet.

“It would be a political alliance,” Chaol reasoned. “You wouldn’t have to end things with—”

Again, Dorian refused to let him finish. “Stop. I’ve told you my decision. We will find some other way to placate the rebellious lords. I am not marrying her.”

Soft footsteps punctuated by the clack of a cane sounded as Chaol left his king and descended the tower. When he was gone, she heard Dorian smash his fist into the stone wall, pieces of mortar crumbling and raining down onto the floor. Manon was paralyzed, her hands balled up into tight fists, eyes wide. And that was how Dorian found her when he took the final steps up to his suite.

***

“You misunderstood. Frey doesn’t have enough clout to demand such a thing.” Dorian was frantic, spending the last two hours trying to explain away what Manon had heard. But her face had frozen into a mask, nothing he said could tease out even the slightest reaction.

“You can’t be so flippant,” she said, the stony resolve in her voice starting to scare him. “He’s offered you an out from civil war. If you care about your kingdom, you must do it.”

He was going mad. First Chaol, now Manon. Where was Yrene to talk some sense into them? He cared about his kingdom and his people. He cared so much that he had no life whatsoever beyond the endless meetings and negotiations and squabbles. His sole joy in life was standing before him now arguing that he should marry someone else.

“If I care?” he asked. “I was prepared to die for it. On many occasions. I would gladly give my life. But I won’t give my heart.”

Manon blinked slowly, and he realized she was looking past him. “You once told me you were prepared to give up your throne for Sorscha. Then the war taught you how foolish, how childish that was. And now, as if you learned nothing, sacrificed nothing, you want to do the same thing. Your life and your heart are one in the same.” Finally, her golden eyes met his. “I am immortal. You are not. You need a human queen to give you heirs and unite your kingdom. I will not play a part in disrupting that.”

Dorian searched for any sign - an unshed tear, a twitch of her lips, a clenched jaw. But there was nothing. Nothing on her face except a cold certainty that left him feeling lost, alone. He knew this was an act, a means of protecting herself. And yet, she was right. When they’d parted ways in Orynth after the war, he’d ignored the desire to ask her for some sort of commitment beyond “We’ll see.” They both had countries to rebuild and had chosen that greater responsibility over personal wishes. Dorian told himself then that they had time. Yes, he was a mortal. But he still had a plentiful well of raw magic on which to draw upon, magic that would give him a much longer life than a normal human. And only two short years later, out of nowhere, everything was falling apart.

No, he would not let his people suffer through war again. But giving in to extortion was not an acceptable alternative. He thought of Aelin, wondering how she would handle a situation like this. With the way her people adored her, he knew she’d never reach this point. Maybe Frey and his allies were right. Maybe he’d left them to fend for themselves out of cowardice instead of prudence. Suddenly, Dorian was exhausted, tired of being king, tired of giving up everything he wanted. He rubbed his eyes until they were red

“You know it has to be this way,” she said, having watched him sort out his thoughts. “No matter what they claim, you’ve never once abandoned this kingdom. Which is why you won’t do it now.”

Dorian stared at the ground, grasping for a way out, but his mind felt like aspic, soft and muddled and useless. “I won’t be a king who takes a queen and still keeps a lover.” The ultimatum was hard to voice, but it was true. Despite his rakish history, he’d never taken a new lover without breaking things off with the old one. If ever an exception was to be made, it would be with Manon. But he would never disrespect her, a queen in her own right, by reducing her to a secret paramour and source of castle gossip.

Still stoic, she replied, “I would not expect you to.”

They had always pushed and teased each other, seeing which one would break first and admit their feelings or give in to the desire. Desperately hoping that they were playing that game now, he surrendered. “I want you, Manon. No one else.”

The slightest hitch in her breathing and a tiny flutter of her eyes sent his hope soaring. But, with a firm tone that meant she would say no more, Manon said, “Marry her, Dorian. Save your throne and keep your people from more bloodshed.”

Before he could respond, she walked out the door and climbed into the saddle still strapped to her wyvern. Manon was in the air without a look back, and Dorian sank to the ground, his head in his hands.

*****

Rumors were flying through the witch city faster than the most agile wyverns. Mere months ago, the witches had expected an announcement from their queen, happy news that their kingdom would be united with Adarlan. Some were not in favor of their queen marrying a human, king or not. Others, especially those in the queen’s council, saw it as a good match. A love match, they claimed. But now, after the royal messenger from Adarlan had arrived, the gossip was spinning out of control.

Manon stared at the thick envelope sealed with red and gold wax, the wyvern stamped into it watching her with a single mocking eye. Dorian had once laughed about how significant it was for his royal crest to include a wyvern, a connection forged between their two kingdoms before they had even met. She’d brushed the thought away at the time, rolling her eyes at his insistence that fate was at work. But now, the memory of his teasing voice sank into her chest, adding to the heaviness and pain that had been choking her since she’d left him on that balcony months ago.

“You don’t have to go. No one would fault you for it. We can send Petrah as a representative,” Glennis said, her voice stiff and formal. It was a tone usually relegated for council meetings, not a conversation with her granddaughter.

She was silent for a long moment, still looking at the envelope. Instead of answering, Manon picked it up and ripped apart the seal. The invitation was written in fanciful blue ink with a border of red berries and ivy stamped into the parchment. She frowned at the flowery words that matched the design, knowing the girl must have been behind all of it. The girl. Manon knew she was likely close to Dorian’s age, but she didn’t care. The future queen of Adarlan would forever be the girl in her mind. Even so, it was impossible to miss her name in elegant calligraphy.

Your presence is requested at the royal wedding of Lady Eveline Frey and His Majesty Dorian Havilliard II, King of Adarlan

Manon stopped reading at his name and continued to flip through the remaining pages. They contained notices of the pre-wedding events that the ‘happy couple’ hoped people would attend, despite the possibility of poor weather at that time of year.

Happy. Her eyes caught on that word and didn’t move. She knew it was a lie. And yet, her old doubts and fears flooded back into her mind. She was still heartless despite her efforts to change, he deserved someone who could sufficiently return his affections. She was immortal, he was not. Manon had reasoned that she would rather lose him like this than watch up close as he aged and died. Rather lose him now, when they could both move on to full lives, than be forced to somehow carry on after his death. A magically extended life or not, she could see no other scenario if she continued with him. And if that was truly how she felt, then she wanted to be there and show him they were both better off this way.

Glennis watched her, likely reading every thought that had gone through her head. For when Manon said she was going, her grandmother’s head dipped in resignation. “Then I will accompany you.”

Manon lost count of her attempts at crafting a reply. She began with a simple list of witches who would attend with her, which morphed into a long drawn out explanation of why she wanted to be there. Then she backtracked into a brief, two sentence response. And even then, she had to make several copies until one was legible. The anguish of what she faced kept showing itself in her shaking hand.

Her eyes keep going back to their names and she found herself wondering what the girl was like. Did she like to read? Could she fight with a sword? Would she stand up to the nobility who claimed Dorian was not worthy of his throne? How would she react to him waking up screaming in the middle of the night from a nightmare in which he’d been torturing people?

That last thought made her feel sick. Not because of the dreams that still plagued him - she was well versed in helping to comfort him, just as he knew how to ease her grief and fear after a nightmare. It was the idea that they’d be sharing a bed that turned her stomach.

Gods what was she thinking? There were two months until the wedding. Was that long enough to forget everything Dorian was to her?

Manon knew the answer. And yet, when she read over their names again, she made herself remember why things had to be this way. Adarlan could not survive another war, especially one which tore it apart from the inside out. This was for the best. His and hers. This wedding would be closure, and afterwards, she could move on, search for a suitable consort. Not to become her king. She could not bear seeing anyone else beside her in that capacity. But finding an acceptable male to produce an heir would help to stabilize her kingdom. If Dorian was forced to set aside his heart to help his people, then she would do the same.

When she gave the reply to Glennis later, her grandmother frowned. “I find myself not wanting to send this.”

“It will be us and two sentinels. That’s all,” Manon said, ignoring the witch’s reluctance. “We will arrive the day before and leave immediately after the ceremony.” As Glennis nodded in agreement, Manon noticed she held a royal envelope in her other hand. “What is that?”

Again, that frown. “It’s from Prince Fennick Whitethorn of Doranelle. A cousin of Rowan’s I believe.”

“Was he in Orynth?” She didn’t recall him being there, but her memories from those early days battling Erawan’s army were foggy.

“I don’t think he was.”

Manon took it, examining front and back. The wax seal matched that of Queen Sellene Whitethorn. “What could this be?” she wondered aloud.

Glennis was already walking away, but she turned and said sharply, “I can only imagine.”

Manon was glad she waited until she was alone to read it, for by the end of it, she was sitting motionless, the letter forgotten on the floor.

Prince Fennick Whitethorn, a cousin to both Rowan and Queen Sellene, had written to express his regards and dismay at the news that the King of Adarlan would marry a noble from his own kingdom. He’d felt compelled to write her directly, offering her his support and friendship since he’d experienced something similar a few hundred years before. As Doranelle’s representative at the festivities, he hoped they could meet in Rifthold. In not so veiled terms, he suggested they might establish an alliance of their own, one that would be amenable to both their countries.

Mere hours after speculating about taking a consort and here she was, staring at a proposal. She couldn’t decide between outrage or amazement at the audacity of the fae male. It had certainly taken balls to approach her this way. And at this time. Picking up the letter, she read it over again. From the sounds of it, Fennick had been left heartbroken in his past. A past that extended even further back than her own. Had she not used her own immortality as a reason that Dorian should wed another? Here was an immortal throwing himself at her, eager for alliance. But she wondered if his interest would wane when he was told that at best, he might become her consort. There was only one man who she’d accept as her king, and he was now outside her reach.

She decided not to send a reply. If the fae prince was there, she would meet with him, see what kind of male he was and whether he might bring anything of worth to an alliance. If not, it would be one less thing to worry about.

That night, as she tried and failed to fall asleep, Manon found herself imagining how she might say goodbye to Dorian. They never used the word, choosing instead to focus only on their hellos. It made a twisted sort of sense that this goodbye, this parting that would be permanent, would be the first and last time it was spoken between them.

***

Yrene found Dorian in his office, watching the brutal winter winds send snow whipping through the air outside his window. Judging from her expression, she knew why he’d sent for her. When her eyes went to the letter on his desk, her shoulders seemed to slump, and she sat down heavily across from him.

“She will be attending,” he said, pushing the short reply across the desk in case she wanted to read it. After immediately recognizing the handwriting as Manon’s, he’d stared at it for a long time. As if there might be some sign of hesitation on her part, he’d examined the note, his eyes running over each stroke of ink, again and again. It was flawless. Just like her, he’d thought miserably.

“I didn’t think she’d actually come. It was meant as a formality between two allies.”

“Perhaps that’s why she has agreed. Formality, nothing more,” Yrene offered.

“How do you think Eveline will handle it?” Despite a wedding date only a few weeks away, Dorian barely spoke to his future queen. Yrene had been acting as a go between, keeping Dorian from having to feign pleasantries and interest in someone who he’d claimed looked and acted like an empty doll.

“She has been trained as a courtier since birth. I’m sure she will be as polite and ladylike as she always is.” Yrene rose and came around the desk, standing in front of the window to make Dorian look at her. “She may appear timid and vapid in front of her father, but she is no fool. She knows what this arrangement is and why it’s happening. Your involvement with Manon was never much of a secret. Eveline knows she is not your choice. But like you, she is doing her duty.”

Dorian didn’t reply. He knew his opinion of her was misguided, that it was based on anger at the situation, at her father. Which was why he kept his distance. If he couldn’t keep himself in check in private or with his friends, how could he expect to refrain from unleashing his rage on her with hurtful words? At least, that’s what he told himself. It was true, but some part of him knew that if he gave in and spent time with her, it would make this all the more real.

Yrene’s eyes darkened as she said, “Lord Frey has a reputation to match Chaol’s father. With her mother gone, I suspect Eveline has not had much control over her life. This would be nothing new to her.”

Now fully ashamed of himself, Dorian only nodded. If there was anything he could understand, it was not being able to defy a bullying parent. A new sense of sympathy filled him as he wondered how desperate Eveline must be for a new life. Freedom from an abusive father would be worth the heavy responsibilities and loss of privacy that came with being a queen. Maybe it was time to make an effort. He couldn’t envision a future where he would ever develop actual feelings for Eveline. But he could at least become her friend.

“What else have you learned about her?” he asked.

Yrene shrugged. “Her education has been extensive, and she knows much about the court and how it runs. She enjoys art and music, embroidery …” She trailed off, trying to think of any other attributes worth sharing. “Horse riding. She always seems to be coming back from the stables when I see her. I’ve gotten the impression her father does not approve of that hobby, but she maintains that being a good horsewoman befits a true lady.”

“So, she does disobey him then …” Dorian smiled slightly, recalling how he used to rebel against his parents. Horse riding was much less scandalous. “Does she need any help with the wedding plans?”

The suddenness of his change in tone had Yrene blinking at him. “I don’t believe so. But I can ask her.”

Dorian stood and walked towards the door. He knew if he didn’t start now, he never would. “I will go ask. I’d like to recommend some music.”

“Wait,” Yrene cried, trailing him out into the corridor. When she caught up to him, she asked, “What are you doing?”

The fear in her eyes almost made Dorian turn around and forget his pledge of moments ago to try and accept this. Yrene had always been the biggest supporter of his relationship with Manon. Whether she was helping them arrange a short, secret escape from their duties, or using her sharp tongue to tear down any detractors of the Witch Kingdom, or giving him advice on how to help Manon recover from the loss of her coven … Yrene had always been there. And now, for the first time, it seemed to be sinking in for her that what she had dreamed for her friends – a happily ever after to rival what she had with Chaol – was impossible. It pained Dorian to see it and he pulled her into a hug.

“If there was another way, Yrene, I’d do it. You know that.”

She hugged him back fiercely, her voice shaking as she said, “I know. She is my friend too, Dorian. And I don’t want to lose her.”

Gods, Dorian thought his heart couldn’t break anymore. And here it was, cracking into even more fragments, each time becoming smaller and smaller. “I know.”

Yrene backed away and let loose a string of curses and insults about Lord Frey that left his eyes wide and mouth agape. He’d never heard her speak like that before, had never thought her capable of such filthy language.

Before she could think to apologize, he laughed. “Well said, Lady!”

Red with embarrassment, Yrene burst into laughter too. When they’d both regained their composure, she said, “Come. I’ll walk with you to Eveline’s rooms and catch you up on her wedding plans.”

“Thank you,” he said, and meant it. “She is as much a pawn in this game as anyone, and she doesn’t deserve my animosity.”

Yrene nodded. “As much as I hate to admit it, she’s a perfectly lovely young woman. It makes things worse in a way.”

When they reached her rooms, Yrene led him inside.

“Your Majesty,” Eveline said brightly. Her dark hair matched her eyes and she gave him a beaming smile. “I was not expecting you today.” She was going through a stack of replies to the invitations.

“Please, call me Dorian. I insist,” he said. “I have one more to add.” Slowly, as if not wanting to give it up, he handed her Manon’s reply. He and Yrene both watched her carefully as she read it.

With the same smile as before, Eveline said, “I’m so pleased the Witch Queen will be attending. None of your other royal friends are able to come due to the weather. Though Doranelle is sending someone.” She paused, thinking. “I can’t remember his name.”

As the two women went through the replies and spoke quietly, Dorian pretended to listen. For one terrible moment, he wondered what the word princeling might sound like from Eveline’s mouth. The thought felt blasphemous, leaving him spinning and trapped between two worlds: the reality sitting next to him, this perfectly lovely woman for whom he felt nothing, and a dream world where he’d wake up happy each morning to snow white hair and golden eyes. A dream that had slipped through his fingers, like the wind gusting wildly outside.

Perfectly lovely. Eveline was lovely, and perfect, with exquisite manners, an impeccable wardrobe, and a distinguished education. But despite that loveliness and perfection, he knew without a doubt that his feelings towards Eveline would never come close to what he felt for Manon. Manon was his mirror, his equal. If beings other than fae were able to have true mates, she would be his.

The thought struck him like a dagger, straight to whatever bits of his heart yet remained. Shaking his head, Dorian tried not to think of Manon, of how this next visit for the wedding would likely be her last. Tried not to dwell on how he would have to live the rest of his life without her, his mate in every way that counted.

Of course, he failed. And when Eveline asked him about what music he’d prefer, Dorian used every ounce of strength he had left to force a smile on his face and answer.

To be continued...

***

Thanks for reading! You can find my writing master list here or on AO3.

It’s been a while since I’ve written and I’m not sure who all is still out there. So if I missed you, or you’d like to be tagged/removed for parts two and three, let me know.

@itach-i @bookishwitchling @manontrashbeak @awesomelena555 @jimetg98 @over300books

[5lazarus]

To the Victor the Spoils

In the Skyhold gardens, in Adamant's wake, Solas meets Loghain.

A character study of two trickster-kings, speaking a little too honestly.

As Loghain himself says, "The past is always with us. It’s in our bones and our blood and we wear it on our skin. You can think otherwise, but you’ll never get far without it." Read on Archive of Our Own here.

The Inquisitor’s hand aches, and Solas is responsible, so he rouses himself from the Fade and dresses quietly. His erstwhile roommates, Varric and Dorian, snore away soundly. They came back late last night and may still wake up drunk. If this were not the third night in the row they had done this, he would be more sympathetic and leave a tincture for their headache. Alas, they must learn soon, or he will simply make a lot of noise waking up. There are healthier ways to cope with bad battles and beloveds’ deaths by drinking, however Varric wants to honor Hawke. Adamant has left them all aching. He would still like to sleep.

Outside Blackwall is running the new recruits through their basic drills. He is yelling at them about honor—another Adaman casualty. The children look like badly-plucked chickens in their ill-worn armor, shambling in the gray morning light. Solas would tell them to stand up straight and widen their stances, but here he does not need to play the drill sergeant. He leave Blackwall to his work and retreats into the main keep.

Morning prayer has just released and Leliana is wistful, her hood down. She pauses by Varric’s table and looks unseeingly at the stack of books. Then she sees him, and her face grows as porcelain-clear as a doll’s.

“Good morning, Solas,” she says. “You’re up early.”

The easiest way to answer is to obfuscate, and the best way to obfuscate is simply to say the truth. Solas says, “I enjoy the quiet, before Skyhold’s residents slip back into their daily routines.”

Leliana chuckles, and the porcelain visage warms into flesh. “Surely the Fade reflects routine too? The Hero of Ferelden told me she found me at my prayers, when we were trapped by a Sloth demon.”

You people dream such dull lives, Solas thinks but does not say, but of course I took the dreams away. He says, “There is disruption to be found on both sides of the Veil.” She watches him as he walks towards the cloister. He resists the urge to strut. Apostates, particularly those claiming to be hermits, do not walk with pride in their power and accomplishments. Many of the mages he has observed scuttle rather than stride. Solas has never tried to draw attention to himself; he cannot help being six feet tall and occasionally a redhead. Still, he tempers his walk.

In the cloister Elan’Vemal is buzzing around the felandaris like an angry wasp. Solas ignores her and walks towards the royal elfroot, pulling out his knife.

“Absolutely not,” she says.

Solas crouches down next to the bush. “I beg your pardon?” he says to the branches. The tips of its leaves are an electric violent. He can grind the stalks into a salve that will soothe the spasms in the Inquisitor’s hand and temporarily numb the spread of the Anchor. The leaves he will keep for himself.

“Inquisitor’s only,” Elan’Vemal says. “Unless you have a requisition form.” She looms over him, arms crossed. She’s a nasty little creature. The Inquisitor had not been pleased at her barefaced attempt at manipulation. Solas touches his own cheek, sans vallaslin, and does not even allow the thought to fully form.

He says, “I am making a salve for the Inquisitor.”

“A likely story.” Elan’Vemal is unimpressed.

Irritated, Solas says, “The stalk of this plant, ground into a salve with arbor blessing harvested wild and the stamen of the amrita vein, releases a numbing agent useful for treating Fade-inflicted wounds.” This is accurate enough, for her purposes. “We will be marching on Adamant in two weeks, and best be prepared.” He takes his knife and cuts only two branches from the stalk, when initially he had hoped to take three. Elan’Vemal watches him work. He is careful not to wound the plant. Grudgingly she remains silent as Solas ties the branches into a small bundle.

As he pushes himself to his feet, brushing the dirt from his knees, she says, “And the leaves? What will you use that for?”

Solas says, “Getting high, of course. What else?”

Shocked, Elan’Vemal laughs. He smiles slightly and makes his escape, dodging Mother Giselle with a polite “good morning.” The salve will not take much time to prepare, but the day is barely long for all he wants to do. There is the basic sketch for his fresco of Adamant. He already has a sense of what the colors need to be, and so he need to requisition more cinnabar for the corrupted lyrium holding the City enchained. There are calculations to be run, as well, regarding the latest of his Veil accelerometers. They have reactivated enough for him to use the lodestone at Skyhold as a base and predict where the Veil is weakest. The Inquisitor ought to plan her next foray where the Veil needs the most attention; but first, he must soothe her hand, and let her know she is cared for. He cares for her. She knows that; but after Adamant, the reminder will help.

A man is staring at him, not unkindly, so Solas turns with a practiced mild expression.

“May I help you?” he asks. It has not been easy to fall back into the habits he developed as Mythal’s thrall, but he has never been one for ease.

Loghain says, “You fought valiantly at Adamant.”

The almost-king of Ferelden: even now he cannot help but trip into exalted circles. Solas takes him in quickly before responding. He has heard the Inquisitor complain about Loghain’s betrayal of the Night-Elves, the resistance force both the Dalish and the urban elves of Ferelden launched against the Orlesian occupation. Solas separates the personal dislike from the political necessity. Of course the Teryn could not keep the elves of Ferelden armed; he could not risked an armed and organized minority clamoring for land just after they had waged and won one foreign war. Factionalism is so easy to fall into; Solas knows this from experience. That does not excuse it, but one does what must be done. He has done similar and worse. He would have left Cailan to die at Ostagar, and the Wardens too—but he would not have been so obvious about it.

Loghain himself looks like a tired but brawny old man, much like himself nowadays. Blue rings his eyes, but he is clean-shaved and his armor is polished. If the darkspawn in his blood keeps him up at night, he does not let it taint his day. He still survives.

Why does he notice him? Why did he notice him on the battlefield? Solas is too old for flattery. What does he want from him?

Solas says, “Thank you. You as well.” Inveterate loser, he thinks. He does not know if he is insulting him or Loghain: both, this is your human kin, the Fade will press him into your archetype.

Loghain says, “I’ve fought with apostates before, when we faced down the Archdemon—Dalish and human too. But I’d never seen any mage move that quickly, or so competently bark orders at frozen soldier in the field. Have you served before? Ferelden, Tevinter, or Orlais?”

Solas, as practiced, recites, “I’ve journeyed deep into the Fade, in ancient ruins and battlefields, where I’ve watched as hosts of spirits clash to reenact the bloody past in ancient wars both famous and forgotten.” He smiles thinly. “One learns from their mistakes.” Yours and mine, he thinks and cannot say: I would have done what you did at Ostagar, but I would have made sure I was not blamed. So quickly one’s allies misunderstand the good one attempts to have wrought; so quickly it spirals out of one’s own control.

Loghain stares at him. “You dream on battlefields? And can see what had happened there?”

“I can watch spirits copy the strongest emotions felt there,” Solas corrects. “There is truth but she wears many faces.” Obfuscation via weak poeticism works so very well, though it marks him as more polished than most elves. “In the same blood-drenched patch of dirty a spirit acts and reenacts a soldier throwing himself to the ground in anguish as he sees his king overpowered. And then, in the same blink, another plays the role of the relieved foot soldier, glad to be spared a fatal charge in a battle of fools.” Perhaps bringing up Ostagar is not the most tactful, but he struggles to know the average quickling’s reference-point. His knowledge of history is vast, and time has slowed to a crawl. He does not know what else to reference.

Loghain presses his thin lips into an even thinner line. “Ostagar,” he says. “And before I’ve had my breakfast. Did you go there deliberately, or just…fall asleep?”

“I was in the neighborhood,” Solas says simply. It is not an untruth. He had found Flemeth’s cottage first. The dreams came easy. “Battles that change the tide of history mark the Fade as much they do the waking world. It is difficult to dream anything else, north of the Korcari Wilds.”

Loghain stares into his eyes. Solas, of course, peers back. The man’s eyes are a clear, cold blue, more brilliant for the bruises under them. The former regent of Ferelden says levelly, “When I dream, all I remember is a fool’s death and a hard choice. And I’d make the same again.”

“As you should,” Solas says. “There is no time for regret. You have lived your life according to the demands of your honor: for your countrymen, and now, your fellow Wardens. If you regretted that choice—if you sought to deny it, to fruitlessly work against the tide of the history you have made, that would be dishonorable. But you are an honorable man, are you not?” He realizes he is perhaps speaking more passionately than he ought. This is not Blackwall, an easy mirror to his own sins. He must remember what he is in the world: an elf, an apostate, a dirty outsider—no matter that he keeps himself cleaner than Cassandra. Repressively, he says, “Forgive me. Adamant stirs up old memories in us all. I am marked by what I witnessed as well.”

Loghain says, “You know war. Of course, most of your people do. The Warden has told me what the elves face in Orlais and Tevinter. It’s not much better in Ferelden.” Solas stirs, irritated, wanting to deny—but he is an elf, he is stuck in these circumstances, and he does know war intimately. He could not help but speak first. He cannot snap back. Loghain may be held in dishonor; that does not mean an elf can talk back. “Your friends have spent the past two nights in the tavern, drinking, and when that lugubrious warden isn’t weeping into his ale, he’s drilling the recruits to exhaustion. At least that will make them sleep at night. But that won’t do away with the dreams.” He smiles thinly. “I find your description of the Fade comforting. It means no one can lie about the past. Whatever it is. It’s always with us. It’s in our bones and our blood and sinks into our dreams. We wear it on our skin, and even the heavens are scarred with it. However history writes us.”

“To the victor the spoils,” Solas says.

Loghain burbles a laugh. It’s a pleasant sound, unexpected and a little hoarse. “Ha! And it’s my daughter who won. And right now—the Inquisition. The Wardens. Us. It’s easy to die for your cause. I could have claimed my redemption, if I need one, at Adamant. But it’s much harder to live for it, bearing the weight of the dead.”

Solas, surprised, says, “Yes.” He thinks, this is a lonely man, opening his deepest thoughts to a stranger, but aren’t I the same? Haven’t I been doing the same, with him, with Blackwall, with the Iron Bull and Varric and Cassandra and them all? He did not need the death of Wisdom as an excuse. He has found comradeship enough where he goes. He clears his throat, suddenly overcome. He thinks it through: I am upset, why? What has disturbed me? That this man carries his sins on his skin, and rejects the need for redemption. History has painted him the villain; I, also. Dread Wolf take you: what will they say about Loghain?

Loghain says, “It’s early in the day for this talk. I must be keeping you from your work.” The moment has passed; now they are awkward with each other, and not two soldiers who are harrowing a war. The man’s drawing into himself, embarrassed at the truth he told. Disappointed, Solas draws up to his full height and remembers: don’t hold yourself too tall.

He says, “Quite,” and holds up the pouch of royal elfroot. “Duty calls.” The Inquisitor’s hand is hurting and needs a salve. The quartermaster needs to order him cinnabar. Then there is the composition of the fresco to calculate and then sketch with charcoal, and more calculations, and sidestepping Leliana and Vivienne as to how he made those calculations. He saw it in the Fade. When he saw it, the Fade was everything, and there was no bleary waking. He leaves the courtyard and the almost-king, remembering and forgetting his words.

[khaleesiofalicante]

OK I’M HERE! I READ IT! I’M LATE BUT IT DID IT! SERIOUSLY REGRETTING NOT READING IT EARLIER! FUCK SLEEP WHO NEEDS SLEEP!

I LOVE THE TWINS SO MUCH SHCDUJUHKFDUISVFDHYDEBCSJ

LEXI TELLING EVERYONE THAT SHE CAN TALK TO RAZIEL BESTIE YOU DOING GREAT!!!

“Lying is wrong!” Selena had told her sister.

“Yes, but cookies are delicious,” Lexi had pointed out, munching on them.

“Daddy!” Selena had said. “Tell her it’s wrong.”

“Lying is wrong!” Daddy had said, but she had barely heard a word since his mouth had been stuffed with cookies too.

LYING IS OKAY IF YOU GET COOKIES

She did not care much for jewellery, especially expensive ones. But Magnus had given this to her – and she didn’t want to take it off.

She combed her long hair and tied it into a high ponytail. If she was going shopping with Magnus, she had to look her best.

It was fine. There were worse ways to spend your tenth birthday. She got to spend it with Magnus. She was not going to complain about it.

AWWW SHE’S LITERALLY MAGNUS’ NO.1 FAN UHSDUCSDUYSDCFUYKSVCD

“Oh!” Selena had beamed. “Like Magnus! He always looks so magnificent!”

“Sure,” David had said, his ears pink in the cold. “That’s who I was thinking about.”

I don’t know much but I do know that his ears were not pink because of the cold and he was not thinking about Magnus.

Selena remembered wishing she caught the fever so Magnus could take care of her too.

Same- I MEAN WOULDN’T WE ALL??

ALSO, MAX STAYING WITH DAVID WHEN HE WAS SICK DWHYDYGUFEYUKGFYEUGFEWUYG

Oh, Jocelyn died.

Rip I guess?

OOOO THEY INVITED THE COHORT TO TALK ABOUT THIS STUFF BECAUSE SHADOWHUNTERS ARE DYING OF MUNDANE ILLNESSES

I say we kill them.

Selena had never felt anger like that before. She had wanted to drown that awful man in the lake she floated around in her dreams.

BESTIE SAME

“Lettuce?”

“Yes?”

“No screaming when I show you the gift,” Daddy said. “We have visitors at the institute.”

“Is it a sword?” Lexi asked.

“No,” Daddy replied.

“Then I won’t scream,” her twin shrugged at him.

AHUEDCHGUHFEWUIFUIRUI SHE’S SUCH A HERONDALE I LOVE-

PUPPY OH MY GOD IT’S A PUPPY!!!!!!!!

“IT’S A PUPPY! IT’S A PUPPY! OH MY GOD, IT’S A PUPPY! DAVID GOT US A PUPPY!”

Her twin had jumped – no, leaped – off the counter and dashed towards their father, who was holding a small grey puppy in his arms.

“I AM SO SORRY I TOLD YOU I DON’T WANT YOU, LITTLE FRIEND. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH. I WILL PROTECT YOU WITH MY TWENTY TOY SWORDS!”

“Lexi, stop screaming!” Mommy said. “You will wake everyone up.”

“EVERYONE WAKE UP AND COME MEET MY PUPPY!” Lexi screamed even louder.

I LOVE HER SO MUCH DHJBSDCHJBFSJSFEDSF

She drew the unlock rune on the door the way her daddy did on his office door and sneaked into the Consul’s office.

I’m not even surprised anymore-

AWW, SELENA GOING THERE TO LOOK AT THE MURAL OF IDRIS. YOU’LL GO THERE ONE DAY BESTIE I PROMISE

ANJALI IS HERE Y’ALL!!!!!!!

Anjali walked over to her father’s desk, sat down on the chair, and put her feet on the table.

The Inquisitor’s table.

Only she could get away with something like that.

THERE’S MY FAVORITE PERSON EVER Y’ALL

EVEN ALEC IS WARY OF HER UHJSDVCUHSVDUUHSVUHSUIVGRVSR

Selena loved Idris with all her heart. But she knew Idris was not a perfect place.

Any place that was mean to Magnus could never be perfect.

EXACTLY

“Well, it turned out well for me,” Anjali winked. “Now when he gives me shit for my ‘bad judgement’ I just throw his dating history in his face. Dated Zara Dearborn? Broke up with Cristina Rosales? Yikes. Could not be me.”

BESTIE YES! HOW CAN DIEGO JUDGE PEOPLE’S JUDGEMENT WHEN HIS DATING HISTORY LOOKS LIKE THAT???

“Just because he looks like a movie star, it doesn’t mean everything should be handed to him,” Anjali answered, rolling her eyes. “Entitled piece of shit.”

You know I kinda ship them-

“Dang, girl. No practice swords for you, huh. You just straight up went for the mortal sword. I like your style.”

“Uncle Kit!” Selena yelled and ran towards him.

KIT KIT KIT KIT KIT KIT KIT KIT HISDUIDEUYKFSFUS7IKKIYGVFSDLY7TKGVFEDYTGFECYGU

ASH OMG ASH IS HERE TOO!!!!

"some man called Anus" BYE-

PARABATAI KIT AND ASH OMG

The whole pre-meeting prep is kinda giving me pre-wedding vibes idk how to explain but the whole rush and organizing that day and making calls and stuff.

“Ash was very beautiful. After Magnus of course” “She liked Aunt Izzy best. After Magnus of course,” GIRL HAS HER PRIORITIES STRAIGHT

"How bad can the cohort be?" well you see-

“Is that the cohort?” Selena asked, her voice a whisper.

“No, that’s a bitch.”

Yup. that’s accurate

“Is he here?”

“Whom?” Daddy asked.

“Alec Lightwood,” the woman asked.

“You mean the Consul?” Daddy asked.

“I meant Alec.”

“The Consul?”

“Alec!”

“Who also happens to be the Consul?”

“Fine, yes, the Consul!” the woman sounded impatient. “Is he here yet?”

It’s Lightwood-Bane bitch

AWWW SELENA DESCRIBING ALEC AS REGAL THAT’S SO CUTE

And accurate-

IT’S THE SAME BLUE AGAIN

Selena noticed her father was looking very emotional. She couldn’t blame him.

“My liege,” Daddy bowed deeply.

“Cut it out,” the Consul smacked him. “What’s the status?”

Yup, that’s them. Also same Jace.Same.

“I always expected the offspring of these two to be like…”

“Like what?” Daddy demanded.

At that moment, Lexi ran past the hall, yelling and screaming as she carried a toy sword in one hand and Dorian Gray in another.

“MAKE WAY FOR ALEXANDRA THE GREAT AND HER LOYAL COMPANION DORIAN GRAY! CHRISTOPHER! BRING ME MY OTHER NINETEEN SWORDS! WE MUST SET FIRE TO THE EVIL EMPEROR AND SAVE THE PRINCESS!”

“Like that,” Magnus chuckled.

Will in the afterlife, wiping tears: A true Herondale.

“I hope so too, Magnus,” Selena said shyly.

The Consul frowned at that. “It’s Uncle Magnus to you.”

Selena ignored that. The Consul was not the boss of her.

Well, technically he was the boss of everyone. But still!

UHNJCSDUHUSDHSVUDVUD SELENA

Do not remind me. I would like to remain blissfully unaware that not all of them are mortal :D

The Consul grumbled and turned to Mommy. “You were right to name her Fairchild. She is going to be a pain in my ass.”

“Hey!” Daddy covered Selena's ears again. “It’s like you guys didn't get my monthly newsletter on language modification!”

“No one here reads your newsletter, Jace,” Aunt Izzy rolled her eyes.

"I do," the Consul put up his hand.

Of course, you do Alec. I can totally see the LBAF gang defying Alec left and right UHKGXUYCSUYGCSYCFSED

“Izzy, how many times!” the Consul grumbled. “No placing bets on the children. Besides, everyone knows it’s going to be Alexandra.”

“Hey!” her parents said at the same time.

“What are y’all doing here?” Lexi came running then, cause her superpower was to magically appear whenever someone was talking about her. “We have shit to do! Come on!”

“Not helping, Lettuce!” Daddy shook his head. “Clary, take the lead.”

Of course, it’s gonna be Lexi.

FHUJCSDUHSDUHJ SELENA NOT UNDERSTANDING THE INNUENDO MAGNUS MADE LMAO NOT IN FRONT OF THE KIDS

“My name is Alexander Lightwood-Bane. I’m the Consul of the Clave. You will talk to me with respect.”

Selena saw Zara flinch at that. It was satisfying to watch.

Zara, I will gladly feed you to sharks stfu

“You sound a little jealous,” Zara grinned. “If you want to come back, we can arrange that. You could leave that good for nothing husband of yours and-”

“Zara, I swear by the angel,” Aunt Izzy said through gritted teeth. “Insult my husband again and see what happens.”

ISABELLE YES! I NEED MORE SIZZY WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH OF THESE TWO

SHE DID NOT JUST INSULT MAX AND RAFE FUCK YOU BITCH

OH, NOW SHE INSULTED THE TWINS. I WILL DROWN YOU DO NOT TEST ME

“They called me a freak too,” her mother spoke. “Insult our children again and I will show you what freaks can do.”

YES CLARY

Max and David were really close. Like Daddy and Uncle Alec.

Maybe even closer. Like Uncle Alec and Magnus - cause one of them was a warlock! And they always gave each other dopey looks.

HJBASYUGJCESDYUTGVCSDUTVSDT6U7VSDC THIS! (I think they get together because of the snippet but if they don’t-)

The moment Magnus left, Max snatched the credit card and whistled. “Y’all, Christmas came early.”

“We can’t just buy anything, Max,” Rafe rolled his eyes. “Dad will be pissed when he finds out.”

“Maybe we should buy little things we can hide,” Max winked. “Little…but expensive things.”

“Oh, like diamond rings?” Lexi gleamed.

“What would you even do with diamond rings?” Selena demanded.

“Sell them in the black market in exchange for cash,” Lexi replied.

“By the angel, Lex,” Rafe chuckled. “I'm gonna keep both my eyes on you.”

LEXI YES OMG YES YES YES YES

“Your demands are unacceptable,” Rafe said, imitating his father. “How about ice-cream?”

“I accept your counter proposal,” Lexi nodded, imitating Daddy. “Let’s unleash hell in Baskin-Robbins.”

BASKIN ROBBINS BOUTA BE RAIDED BY 4 CHAOTIC CHILDREN LET’S GO

Holy fuck she has children. Who’s the poor father?

“These are my sisters Saraquel and Remiel and Michael,” the boy pointed at the girls, completely ignoring Rafe’s comment. “Our parents named us after the archangels.”

“And they called us angel freaks?” Lexi muttered incredulously.

“I know, Lexi. Fancy names indeed,” Max nodded. “But kinda hard to pronounce to be honest.”

A very genuine what the fuck

“My name is Alexandra James Herondale,” Lexi said, her voice steady. “And I am named after the greatest Consul and dopest archer of all time. He is a better man than any of your dumb archangels.”

YES LEXI YOU GO, GIRL

“Idris is lame,” Max snorted now. “You don’t even have internet.”

Lexi shuddered at that.

The reason I would never want to live in Idris

THE WAY SELENA WAS READY TO BEAT THE GUY UP WHEN HE INSULTED MAGNUS AND HOW MAX GOT ANGRY WHEN HE INSULTED DAVID

SELENA’S 10 BITCH FUCK YOU

“Holy shit!” one of the girls said. “That was kinda cool. Is that a twin thing?”

“It’s a common sense thing,” Lexi rolled her eyes. “Duck!”

People are idiots

But Selena tried not to think about the other girl. It didn’t matter whose daughter Michael was – it only mattered whose daughter Selena was.

And she was the daughter of Clary Fairchild and Jace Herondale.

She was not going to run.

GIRL YES

Y’ALL DON'T GET KILLED

AYY MAGNUS IS HERE THEY’RE ALL GONNA BE OK NOW

“It’s warlock magic,” the boy whispered – but not too quietly. “It’s demonic.”

Some of the ichor from the demons fell right on the boy’s head.

“Oops,” Magnus said. “Warlock magic is also a little clumsy.”

HVBCDSHJCSDYCDYJGCD THE BOY DESERVED IT!!!!!

“Manuel has an important meeting,” Zara rolled her eyes. “I’m stuck babysitting them.”

“It’s not babysitting when you do it!” Daddy said incredulously. “You’re their mother. It’s called parenting.”

GODDAMIT WOMAN DON'T HAVE CHILDREN IF YOU CAN’T TAKE CARE OF THEM

“He called David a bastard,” Lexi said.

“He did what?” her mother demanded.

“And he called Max a freak,” Selena said.

“He did what?” the Consul demanded.

“And he flirted with Selena,” Rafe made a face.

“HE DID WHAT?” Daddy looked murderous.

NAH BECAUSE WE’RE ALL DOWNRIGHT READY TO KILL THIS BITCH

ALSO, SELENA WAS SO RIGHT TO BREAK THE BOY’S NOSE.

“Look at them! Cahooting in demonic languages,” Zara sniffed.

“It’s Spanish,” Aunt Izzy said incredulously. “Your husband speaks it too!”

Zara you dumb shit-

That part where Magnus was checking up on all of them and seeing if they’re ok and the kids looked like they had never seen anything like that-

They deserve better. GODDAMN IT JULIAN BLACKTHORN MANAGED TO BE A BETTER PARENT 12

Her father held Selena’s hand in his. “You better raise your son to respect women, Zara – Because I’m raising my daughters to break noses.”

YES YES YES YES

He knelt down next to her and put a strand of hair behind her ear. “Can I tell you a secret, cupcake?”

Selena nodded. She loved secrets.

“People call me a freak too,” Magnus winked.

“You?” Selena gasped.

“Yes,” he nodded. “If people call you a freak, it means you are doing something different. Something bold. Something small minds will never be able to think of. So, it’s not an insult. Don’t forget that.”

YES THIS

AWWW THE LITTLE GIRL GAVE SELENA HER NECKLACE.

“Some people don’t like women in power.”

“Why not?”

“Because women get shit done.”

Selena giggled at that. “You said a bad word.”

“It’s not bad. Say it with me, Selena,” her mother said gently. “Women get shit done.”

YES WE GET SHIT DONE

“Are you saying I shouldn’t be afraid?” Selena asked. “I should be strong?”

“I'm saying you should be anything you want to be,” her mother kissed her head. “You can be brave like Izzy. You can be fearless like Emma. You can be kind like Cristina. You can be cool like Dru. You can be sensible like Maia. You can be confident like Lily. You can be smart like Tessa. You can be fierce like Diana. You can be geeky like me.”

Her mother held her face closely. “You get to decide what kind of woman you want to be. I want you to remember that - because there is no wrong way to be a woman.”

THIS! WE NEED TO HEAR THIS MORE OFTEN!

“The next time someone points fingers at you because you are a woman, go ahead and break them.”

DO IT

This was her mother.

Clary Fairchild. One of the most powerful shadowhunters.

Selena sometimes forgot that. Sometimes you forget your mom is so much more than your mom.

There is a person underneath that – someone full of dreams and hopes and talents you could never imagine.

SHE’S LITERALLY SO POWERFUL AND AMAZING IF I SEE ONE MORE PERSON HATE ON HER I'M GONNA KILL THEM

THE IDRIS VISION EDYUGYFEUGYUKGFEWUYTGFEWUTFEW7FE

Rafe was going to be their leader. He would be Selena’s Consul. She knew it.

Gigi was going to be just like Aunt Izzy. An amazing inventor. A chaos to be reckoned with.

Lexi was going to be the best fighter in the whole world. She would fly above everyone and everything.

And David and Max…Well, they seemed very happy with each other. Selena supposed that was enough. Like Uncle Alec and Magnus. To find something you can be happy with no matter what. Because sometimes there was no greater purpose than love.

And Selena….She knew exactly what she was going to do.

She was going to lead all of them back to Idris.

Explain why I'm crying reading this. I love them all so much. They mean so much to me already. SELENA ONE DAY YOU’RE GONNA LEAD THEM ALL BACK TO IDRIS I KNOW YOU WILL

This chapter was beautiful. I'm gonna be in a corner crying in case someone needs me. See ya on Friday!! (well technically it’ll be Saturday for me since for me the updates come after midnight)

THIS GAVE ME LIFE. LIFE, YA HEAR ME?

Also my favorite comment (which I might print on something) - GODDAMIT WOMAN DON'T HAVE CHILDREN IF YOU CAN’T TAKE CARE OF THEM

Also this made me laugh out loud so hard >> - GODDAMN IT JULIAN BLACKTHORN MANAGED TO BE A BETTER PARENT 12

[straydog733]

Reading Resolution: “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde

26. Wild Card: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

List Progress: 3/30

It is always so easy to blame your sins on someone else. It is the world’s fault, your friend’s fault, the media’s fault, anyone’s fault that you do bad things, and you are just swept along for the ride. The Picture of Dorian Gray, the 1891 classic by Oscar Wilde, follows the titular young man as he tries his hardest to avoid any and all consequences for his actions, even consequences from his own body. It is a story both deeply rooted in its Victorian setting and sickeningly universal. While the basic premise may have worked its way into the public consciousness, there is still a great deal of nuance and detail to be found here.

Dorian Gray is a beautiful young gentleman, and he knows it. His fellow elites praise him for his youth and good looks, and the lounging, sardonic Lord Henry tells him to enjoy every moment of his early years, before he begins to wither on the vine. This causes a huge existential crisis in Dorian, and when another friend, Basil, paints a beautiful portrait of him, he wishes to God that the portrait could age while he stays the same. And magically, it does. But more than just wrinkling and balding, the portrait takes on all physical and moral signs of degradation from Dorian’s actions. Dorian sees it as the perfect opportunity to spend his life drinking, carousing, whoring, and being a horrible person, while still appearing to be the specimen of purity. He freezes his outsides, and in the process rots his soul.

While the pitch of the aging portrait has worked its way into cultural osmosis, there are still plenty of twists and turns to be found in the actual plotline of the book, with how Dorian goes about his sins and avoids consequences. Lord Henry is a great character, with lots of lush monologues about morality and sin, and he is especially great to read out loud. The one downside is that occasionally both the characters and the narrative can be long-winded. A chapter covering a several-year time skip in particular is a bit of a slog. But for a piece of classic literature, this is one that still has a great deal to say to someone in 2022. Not that anyone who should actually read it would.

Would I Recommend It: Yes.

[oldfritz]

this was surprisingly hard because half of them I wanted to throw in f, but then felt guilty about it so here’s where we are. explanations under the cut to be nice (fair warning: I’m writing this while tipsy so this is a journey)

S-tier

Old Fritz: look me in the eyes. look at me. are you looking? good. where else was I was going to put him? where? in C with the other losers? foolish. I am ruining my life for this man, I’m going to go into debt so I can be moderately qualified to write books on him so Tim Blanning and Christopher Clark don’t boo my off the stage. I sit here sometimes and I’m like ‘y’know, I would start a podcast to talk about his life’ as if I’m some straight white guy who thinks any of you want to listen to me for an hour. he’s a bastard, a smug bastard, and is the epitome of self-destructive tendencies. and, honestly, I wouldn’t mind if he wasn’t so fucking misogynistic all the time. ‘oh women aren’t fit to rule’ shut up Fritz before I time travel to fuck your wife and make her have one night where life feels worthwhile. but he’s funny, I enjoy how he does foreign policy, and he’s unfortunately relatable to me. cheers, Fritz. here’s to never being satisfied from one gay disaster with anger issues to another. may we burn in hell together

A-tier

Friedrich iii: “Suzanne, he was only on the throne for 99 days!! how can he be this high up when some of these bastards refused to die?” I hear you, my friends, and I have answers. I’ll tell you two words you’ll be shocked to hear put together: liberal Hohenzollern. a rare breed, isn’t it? imagine, friends, a world where he got over his throat cancer because he listened to a doctor and we get through the 1910s, 20s, even the 30s without Wilhelm II Electric Boogaloo being in power. Prussia is still on the map, the Anglo-Prussian alliance is strong, and I live in peace. but no. this stupid man had to keep smoking. because he’s selfish and doesn’t care about my needs. you know, he actually loved his wife. rare in this family. loved her and wasn’t abusive. the bar is so low, guys. and his wife is amazing too, Victoria. the world would’ve been in competent hands if they’d been in power longer (and Bismarck would’ve been out of a job still but at least these guys are smart. their son inherited grandma Vicki’s IQ). I would sleep with both of them and would thank them for the honor (when it should always be the other way around, remember that)

B-tier

Friedrich I: if your name is Friedrich and only Friedrich, we’re buds. that’s my rule. I have to give him credit where credit’s due. he was the first. while I agree with Fritz in his proscription that he was ‘small in big ways and big in small ways’ (I may have flipped that around), he wasn’t a bad guy. he just was born into the wrong job for him. I appreciate that he rode on his father’s coattails of proving useful to the Habsburgs and did a little himself to get that sweet, sweet kingship. smart move. I also like that he saw Louis XIV and said to himself “I stan, I kin, on God we’re gonna do that’ and tried. only for have his stupid, ungrateful, unclassy son to do away with that. I, too, am a woman of luxury and self-indulgance and if I had all the riches of Brandenburg and Prussia at the time (not much), I would spend them ridiculously on outfits and music and art. now, what did he do as king? what policy legacy did he leave behind? that’s a good one :)

C-tier

Friedrich Wilhelm III: now as a king he sucks. and I stand by this because, you know, he lost to him *imagine me pretending to be short and saying ‘oui, oui’ in a bad french accent*. and as any proper Englishwoman I can’t support a monarch who goes around losing to the French unless their name is Mary I. but, he’s a pathetic little man. he really is. so indecisive, so unsure of himself. what are you doing little guy? you think because your last name is Hohenzollern, God thinks you’re a good king? well it is like 1805 and, while divine right isn’t really being used as much, it’s as good as any reason on why you’re the chosen one and my family is eating dirt in Sicily and on the Scottish border. he’s really just a dude, nothing extraordinary about him except that his wife was the only one with brains and was the first to establish that (sorry Wilhelm I). he cried when he found out that his children didn’t call him ‘papa’ and went into a deep depressive state when his wife suddenly died. he’s an average man, of average abilities, but of big heart. and the big heart is what bumps him up, for me, from his old place as an F to a C. though, his moralizing is tedious

Friedrich Wilhelm II: this man should have partied with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. everyone’s got that one ruler whose all about sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll. for the US it’s JFK, for the UK it’s Margaret Thatcher Charles II, France has Louis XIV. Prussia has this guy and we should thank him. so many mistresses, so much sex, so much revelry and debauchery and sin! this guy’s personal life is like a treasure trove of political and sexual intrigue. if you’re into that - as I am as a town gossip - you’ll love him. I am constantly amazed by the fact that some STD didn’t kill him. syphilis, herpes, crabs. something, man, anything. but he didn’t. he’s a shit king though. absolutely horrible. all he did was whine that he didn’t get taught anything by Uncle Fritz and, yes, that’s not good if it’s true (but it’s not completely because the treatises are detailed but I guess he didn’t have time to read) but c’mon. actually apply yourself and learn on the job. I know that would’ve required him to not be balls deep somewhere, but unfortunately he’s not Dorian Gray. there’s work that needed to be done and he didn’t do it. boo!!

D-tier

Wilhelm I: apparently he was a good guy, unlike the other 3 who populate the lowest rungs of Prussian kinghood. so I give him that and I can respect that. but what did he do? what were his own ideas? I thought about putting Bismarck as king instead because, really, he was. Bismarck was a minister who ran around the king’s back to set things up exactly as he liked and it fucking worked because he was the brains. his wife was intelligent too, but theirs wasn’t a wamr and loving marriage. and Bismarck worked to get Wilhelm to distrust her because she was liberal and the fact that Wilhelm would listen to Otto even if it meant allowing himself to be drowned in the Rhine is pathetic. fun party at Versailles though. hope it was worth the war reparations

F-tier (bastard time) I’m going in a different order because I want to go from the ones I hate least to most xoxo

Friedrich Wilhelm IV: “I won’t accept a crown from the gutter” then you won’t accept a crown at all, stupid idiot! god, the smugness. the authoritarian impulses. I know it was the cool thing in 1848 to put down any revolts/protests with as much force as possible, but man, at least the Habsburgs were transparent. homie was like “yeah guys lol I’ll make a constitution and it’ll be epic! you’ll have so many rights! xoxo gossip girl” and then...nope. and AND he wanted the Habsburgs in charge of things too! Mr. ‘I’m Nostalgic For When HRE Was Great And We Blew Austrian Dick!’ grow up man. it’s Prussia time buddy, Austria is beginning to fall apart. don’t look to the past, look to the future, but you didn’t have that vision did you?

Wilhelm II: *banging pots and pans* I blame this man for everything! now, intellectually, does Germany take all the blame for WWI? no, that’s foolish and propaganda of the Allies only. if you’re a European power in 1914, you get to share the blame (ex: why did UK need to make this a naval arms race? Austria should’ve declared war on Serbia sooner if that’s what it wished to do. Russia, please stay out of the Balkans then and forever). but does my irrational hatred of Wilhelm blind me to this truth when I see his stupid face and that ugly fucking mustache that I wish to yank off? my god, yes. I see him and Rule Britannia and The Yanks Are Coming start playing so loud in my head and I’m like ‘yeah, the kaiser’s gonna pay.’ I’m sorry that Bismarck’s ego was bigger than yours but did you have to prove him right by getting incompetent buffoons who were playing checkers when he set the board up for chess to replace him? Did you have to prove Freud right by displacing private problems onto public life with your little tit-for-tat with George IV (VI?) because his mummy loved you more? Why did you need to fuck every naval vessel you saw like an inferior of Peter the Great who believed he was Sir Francis Drake? but that’s just the first war and he lived to see things setting up for the second. wasn’t in convenient for you to be close with the N@zis when you thought they might want a king back on the throne and you could reclaim your little tyrant. like every goddamn Prussian conservative or Junker, you thought you could play the tyrannical cockroach. sure, you figured out earlier that he was no pal, but you still collaborated and you still allowed yourself to get played like the weak man of conscience you are. cheers!

Friedrich Wilhelm I: ladies and gentleman, the moment you’ve all been waiting for! the biggest bastard straight outta Berlin, FW1! and who doesn’t love an abusive father? who doesn’t love a man, so insecure and pathetic, that he needs to terrorize children to be able to look at himself and have a little pride. I understand that it was because he wanted his kids, specifically Fritz, to be best. but being best and perfect meant being miniature versions of him and aren’t we supposed to want our children to be better than a carbon-copy of a small man? honestly, I could live with the occasional smack for this time period. it’s within the norm and, while horrible, isn’t irreparably damaging. this guy really had to beat the shit out of Fritz and Wilhelmina and I’m sure Augustus and Henry and Amalia and all the others (so many kids) didn’t get spared either because if you hit one, you’ll hit ‘em all. and I judge them for their flaws all the same but, for some of them, it gets hard to. because what fighting chance did they have when their father was telling them how worthless they were and beating them senseless and threatening death and life imprisonment on some? I’m constantly impressed by Henry and Fritz and Wilhelmina for amounting to any semblance of maturity, even though it’s always fleeting, because this man didn’t give them the tools to be functioning adults. but each of them managed to be greater than their father, as did Amalia managing a really cool coup in Sweden. and what did FW1 get? he built up his army, had a tall guy fetish, increased the treasury, and made the cabinet and executive offices more efficient. there used to be this one guy on here that would argue that that was all a good king made and that this lowlife didn’t deserve the contempt he got by some on here (an obvious vague of me) for his behavior as a father. and maybe I’m a crackpot, but I believe the quality of a man outshines all those other achievements and that that’s meaningless to me, in my personal life. and when I get to hell, before I go to any of these other men, I’ll go to him and ask him how hell’s fires feel because, if his God was real, it would never love him. and that’s beautiful

[littlequeenies]

BEBE BUELL: MUSING ON MUSES AND OTHER FANS

📷BEBE BUELLJUNE 17, 2020

Before embarking on a musical career of her own, Bebe Buell was a much in-demand model but was most often seen as the second fiddle to the famous rock musicians she was dating. She, however, saw herself as the Muse to these musicians, inspiring and sharing ideas with them. Inevitably, the term “groupie” would arise. As she says, “I’m not opposed to ‘groupies,’ per se. I just don’t like being called a name or being tagged like a sheep to slaughter’. Bebe elaborates on this idea for PKM.

I remember the first time I saw a photograph of Oscar Wilde. I was five and it was Easter. We were at the Virginia Beach home of my mother’s friends, Poppy and Tilly, who were hosting a Sunday get together. We were dressed in our pastels and frills and the candy and food was flowing. It was an adult affair and, being the only child there, I wandered off to explore while the grown-ups enjoyed their martinis and snacks. I found myself in a living room study area and on the table was a big book filled with photos of poets, painters, sculptors and scholars. I was immediately drawn to an image of Oscar draped on a chair like a velvet throw! It stuck with me and when I got older I looked him up in the school library. At the age of twelve I read The Picture Of Dorian Gray, but my main interest was in Oscar Wilde, the man and his story. I felt an instant connection, just as I have with all the great inspirations in my life. In 1978, when I was living between NYC, Maine and LA, before finishing the year in London, I never missed one episode of Masterpiece Theatre and their 13 episodes of Lillie about the life of Lillie Langtry, played brilliantly by Francesca Annis. To my delight, it explored in great depth the relationship/friendship between Oscar and Lillie, and I became obsessed with knowing everything and anything I could about their dynamic. I was intrigued, too, by the descriptions of Mrs. Langtry in the press at that time in England and the U.S. She was often called a “Professional Beauty” or “The Jersey Lily” because she was born on Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands off the coast of Normandy. She was also one of the most featured women in advertising; her face was everywhere. She was the image for Pears Soap and the most respected painters of the day stood in line just to have a sitting with her. In 1877, she met Edward, Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, and became his first publicly acknowledged mistress.

One of my favorite quotes was attributed to her from her conversations with Wilde: “They saw me, those reckless seekers of beauty, and in a night I was famous.” This reminded me of the back room at Max’s Kansas City, the temple of cool when I arrived in New York during the era of everything! It was this platonic duo that introduced me to the role of the “Muse”—that is the Artist and the Muse. Throughout history and especially in the arts, there seems to always be a driving force that brings the flora. In the series Lillie, they emphasized how Oscar would repeat Lillie’s quips and observations in his writing. Their banter with one another fascinated me and I often envisioned myself as a “Patron of The Arts”, in a sense, as I’ve always promoted and sang the praises of those whose work I liked. I felt an affinity with that spirit—the gift of inspiring and sharing special ideas with an artist I admired. It wasn’t just music. I adored musing with photographers, writers, film directors and designers, too. Creative energies have always fed my soul. The first time I referenced the term “muse” was in a 1981 interview I did with the Emmy-winning writer Stephen Demorest for the edgy publication Oui. Its sister magazine in France was called Lui. Playboy had taken over ownership of Oui so it was a glossy, classy, European-style men’s delight, targeting a younger demographic. When Stephen approached me about the piece, he showed me a couple other interviews with “It Girls” that had been published.

One was with Patti D’Arbanville, the inspiration for some of Cat Stevens’ biggest hits. He even used her last name in one of the songs, “Lady D’Arbanville”. I knew Patti from the early 70s and, in fact, it was she who introduced me to Jimmy Page in 1973 on a night out dancing with her in NYC. It was a quick meeting, as I was eager to get home to my boyfriend at the time, Todd Rundgren. A year later, I would run into Mr. Page again and the rest is the stuff of rock tales.

I adored Patti so knowing that both she and Jerry Hall had done this particular interview sealed the deal. Like Patti Boyd, Jane Asher, Linda Eastman, Maureen Van Zandt, Sara Dylan, to name a few, the musical muse is the most often of the muses referenced. I recall how so many people wanted to know my viewpoints and opinions about the word “muse” and why I preferred it to the term “groupie”.

Even in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous, his beloved character Penny Lane’s first words on screen are, “We are not groupies. We inspire the music- we are bandaids!”. The film was Cameron’s love letter to women and how even at that time a stigma was attached to calling a woman a groupie; it was not necessarily a compliment. It was almost like a dismissive jab, on par with “she’s such a slut” or “whore”. Another scene in Almost Famous has all of the members of the fictitious band Stillwater squeezed onto a small plane that, they thought, was about to crash. Secrets were spilled and fingers were pointed. In one of the most moving moments, the William character defends Penny when she is described as “that groupie” by one of the band members. William nails it when he points out who and “what” she really is- a bright light and cherished fan. Someone who loved them all and for all the right reasons.

I feel that women have been unfairly branded and labeled without cause. I’ve often said that I’m not opposed to “groupies,” per se. I just don’t like being called a name or being tagged like a sheep to slaughter. Summing me up for the life I’ve lived, seen through someone else’s eyes or, worse, exaggerating the truth. I didn’t want those I’ve truly loved or the relationships I’ve had to be considered less sincere because of the visibility of my partner.

Certainly loving music or dating musicians is not derogatory. Isn’t it logical, then, that birds of a feather flock together? Like-minded tribes mate or unite because of chemistry? Rock boys and models have been drawn to each other since forever! In the Netflix series Hollywood, you find that sex and sexual favors were the core of the industry. Several of the movie stars everyone loved on screen had started out as rent boys or nude models to make ends meet. Who decides why someone can give a blow job to the “right” person and get a starring role in a movie and another blow job by an aspiring talent gets tossed into the trash can of regret.

Why, after having four children with Mick Jagger, a successful modeling career and now being Mrs. Rupert Murdoch, would anyone refer to Jerry Hall as a groupie? Or gold digger, another favorite term used to describe women who marry well. Or Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg or Winona Ryder, for heaven’s sake? These are the questions I’ve always had and one of the main reason why I have rejected the term groupie in the press. It’s not a personal attack on those who identify with the moniker. It’s my own rebellion against being labeled and frowned on for the relationships I’ve had.

I’ve taken this stand for a long time, even though it’s also caused some judgement and negativity towards me from other women. It’s almost as if they think I see myself as better than them. Or that I’m not being honest when I don’t just call myself a full-on groupie, and own it. My closest friends tell me it’s just jealousy but that doesn’t make it any less hurtful to have tales and lies circulated about you by people you barely know or those who don’t know me at all. Or to have relationships that lasted for years being reduced to a laundry list of “conquests.”

This is nothing new, of course. Catherine The Great‘s enemies within the Emperor’s Court turned on her and started rumors that she was a sex fiend who had intercourse with horses. That stuck with her throughout her life and even in the museums of Russia, the tale has echoed although it’s completely untrue. Cleopatra and Anne Boleyn were also targeted. Ruining reputations was the way people got their revenge in days of yore. Or in some cases, the reason why some lost their heads to the guillotine. Why is it that women who have power or beauty have been subjected to crazy accusations of sexual voracity or deviance? Eve takes the blame for the banishment from Eden and although she was supposedly created from Adam’s rib, she is seen as a temptress and Adam as her victim.

I believe every woman should identify by how she feels comfortable and for the work she does. I personally prefer to be known for what I do, my accomplishments, my career. However, dating a rock star or an actor should not merit a nasty quip or name calling fest. It becomes unbalanced when just because someone gets famous as, say, a model or an actress and then dates a rock star, that she should get called anything other than what she does to earn a living. I’m not sure “groupie” falls under the umbrella of job occupation. I’d file it under pastime, hobby, passion, or fetish.

The origins of the groupie started with nothing more than a desire to be close to the band—the guys who made the music. Or in some cases, the women. The term came into use in the mid-1960s as slang for women who liked to hang out with musicians. It’s fair to say that not all “groupies” are the same. There are many tiers and pecking orders when narrowing it down. Certainly not every girl who dreams of being with a rock star will waltz backstage and demand sex or give oral gratification. That’s the image I despise and wish would not tarnish the entire viewpoint to the outside world. Some of the girls on the scene want to take the word “groupie” back, to personify what it meant in the ‘60s and early ‘70s. It became something entirely different when the ‘80s rolled around. Bands born out of the LA scene liked a different kind of arm candy than the Rolling Stones or the Beatles. They preferred exotic dancers and porn stars, the girls du jour of the time. Just as music changes with each era, so do the kinds of women who pursue the bands. But, more importantly, what kind of women the bands seek out. One man’s status is another man’s yen.

And then there are those who look at being a groupie as a form of prostitution. I’ve never understood that one because most girls who live that lifestyle don’t charge money to be with their favorite rock god or even their crew. It’s a thrill to be with the band, but it seems the glamor that was once attached to that goal has changed. For me, it was a thrill to fight to say “I’m IN the band”… or even “I AM the band!”

When I was living with Todd, he produced one of the first all-female bands, Fanny. They were so great! June Millington could shred! I felt bewildered when I would hear snide remarks wondering if Todd was sleeping with one of them. I thought to myself that would have never been said or thought if they weren’t women.

The bottom line is preference. We all have a choice. And we all can be whatever we want. We can wear many hats. I see myself as a mother, wife, musician, singer, songwriter, writer, mentor, animal lover… many different things. What I do in my spare time is how I make my soul happy. Who I date is based on connections, fate and karma. We end up with who we’re meant to be with and the experiences we have are all meant to be. I’ve been with my husband Jim for twenty years now. Our 18th wedding anniversary is coming in August 2020. So, I’m writing this piece from the perspective of a wife, mother, working musician, writer and mentor. Not just a girl who had lots of suitors in her youth. Every single little thing is part of the journey.

The first time I saw a photo in Rolling Stone of what they called a “groupie”, I was 15 years old and in the 10th grade. It was 1969, and neither the image nor the word was at all something ugly to me. It just seemed exciting and cool. The girls were so outrageously dressed, and it reflected an almost innocent charm. I didn’t aspire to be a groupie but they seemed like they were the ones who made the guys in the band cool. They helped dress them, created make-up looks and spread the word all over town about how good they were. It didn’t seem to be so much about sex and backstage antics. Maybe I was too young to fully understand everything, especially from the pages of a magazine.

On my first trip to LA with Todd in 1973, when I finally did meet some real girls who liked to be called groupies, it still didn’t seem derogatory. I started to see how it was all just tossed together in some people’s minds. It’s a complex dance between an artist and his muse. None of it is something so vulgar or tainted as being only about sexual conquest. Maybe to some, it’s about that. But for me it was a series of fated encounters that have lasted throughout my life.

Some people see a groupie as a girl who will do anything, including have sex with a roadie, to get to the band. There is that element to the rock n’ roll lifestyle. But it’s not the entire package. Others see groupies as a vibe, the girls who are there when the band makes it, the girls that helped them make it, the on-the-road bestie, or the girls who get the bands drugs and food. Or even give them the clothes off their backs if the band is short a cool stage look. I often joke that that’s how wearing your lingerie out became a signature rock girl look- the band had taken her clothes to wear onstage!

I recall reading where Pamela Des Barres said she was still a virgin when she first discovered her teenage heart being drawn to rock boys. It felt sexual to her and it was also just youthful and sweet. Not a salacious sexual quest. More a desire to be near the music and the men who made it. That’s perhaps what one would define as a “classic groupie”. Or, in some circles, “fan” is the preferred analogy. I can relate to that myself as I knew when I was ten years old, I would hang out with Mick Jagger one day. I knew those were my people… my kind.

Pamela has made a career out of her life as a proud groupie. But certainly she has a right to claim the term because she helped invent it! She now calls it her “groupie heart” and that is something anyone who’s ever had a crush on someone or loved someone’s music so much that it altered your DNA can relate to. Hasn’t everyone felt that way? Every guy or gal who picks up a guitar or slings a mic stand had to have been dazzled by their inspiration or felt a need to pursue that for their own futures. So, my point is this- none of it is negative nor should one word hold so much power that when it’s flung at a woman, she’ll feel shamed or scorned.

When I started to get a bit of fame, the media seemed to want to call me anything but “groupie”. It was “Friend Of The Stars”, “Queen Of The Rock Chicks”, “Leggy Model”, “The Mother Of All Rock Chicks”, “It Girl”… so when the internet entered our lives, I began to see just how judgmental and downright mean people were about the women who hung out with the bands. It started to become something so dirty and taboo that I wanted no part of that term. It’s a thin line, a hard one to walk. Personally, I feel loving music and being attracted to musicians is as natural as doctors and nurses getting along. Humans are drawn to their soul tribe. Music, musicians and all art forms attract me. I’m the moth to that flame.

As an entertainer myself, it always hurt me when what I actually do for my job was ignored or not taken seriously because of the famous names I’ve been attached to. It’s so one-sided to only put that burden on women. It has been the norm for men to be patted on the back and admired for their taste in women and especially if they were able to appeal to many and have tons of sexual experiences. Even in the animal kingdom, the male peacock has the massive plume bloom to attract as many lovers as he can. A male lion can rule the pride with his sexual domination. A male celebrity only becomes more famous if he’s got a beautiful model or actress on his arm. Whereas a woman who’s dance card is busy or even full is often ridiculed or bashed. Branded with the scarlet letter of infamy.

It started to get under my skin when I saw myself defined only by who I’d dated or had close friendships with. It’s the luck of the draw. Some women who are in the public eye can date and marry a celeb several times and be embraced for it. They use it to further their already visible life. They are proud and exploit all their lovers as the playthings that they’ve become. Some have become famous by leaking a porno or being on a reality show. What was once a limited field has become wide open with lots of branches of thought and assumption. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy for me to fight for my image… my persona… my legacy. But I did fight. I turned down almost every request I was presented to be interviewed for groupie documentaries or sensationalized TV shows. Sometimes turning down large sums of money. But I wanted to work hard and felt if I worked hard enough one day I’d be thought of for what I did on a stage, in front of the lens of a camera, as a mother and at times even a manager, more than who I shared my life with. Dare I use the “R” word? I wanted RESPECT.

There’s lots of contrast in the definition of groupie or muse but what about “partners”… the duos who took the world by storm. Sonny & Cher, Karen & Richard Carpenter, Debbie Harry & Chris Stein, Jack & Meg White, Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsbourg, Stevie Nicks & Lindsey Buckingham, Annie Lennox & Dave Stewart, Kim Gordon & Thurston Moore, etc… Or Chrissie Hynde and Courtney Love, who both married musicians. There’s a kaleidoscope of ways women are seen. It all depends on how you are first perceived. The general public seem to hold on to how they first heard of you even if you go on to do many different things in your life. Marianne Faithfull is a perfect example of someone who has been able to transcend her detractors and carry on like the warrior she is. But it baffles my mind how anyone could call her or Anita Pallenberg anything but tastemakers and trendsetters. They were the women I would stare at for hours as a young girl. They fascinated me almost more than the guys they hung out with. Yet I still hear them sometimes referred to as groupies.

Like any entertainer, I have an overwhelming need to be loved and to give love and positive energy to others. That’s why I crave being onstage. The connection with the audience is almost like having the best sex in the world. Or at minimum, a great, soulful hug that sends sparks through your body. I’ve been doing this since 1980, in public anyway. This is my life… not the talented, special men I dated in my youth. That’s part of my story and I will never regret a single heartbreak nor will I ever regret loving to the point of forgetting myself and my own pursuits. But I want to be remembered for more than my dates or suitors. I gave birth to a child who grew up to become a superstar so the role of nurturer has followed me throughout my life. I’ve accepted the fact that my fate is to be a vessel for talent and to enrich those who possess it. It’s become who I am- all the parts and pieces of my karma rolled into one big bang! My artistic side occupies just as much space as my musing side- equal parts love and creative energy.

Things come full circle especially when I get approached after one of my shows by young girls that call me “High Priestress” or tell me that they are my “groupies”. When I hear the words “Bebe, Im your biggest groupie!”, my heart swells but I also like to immediately remind them that I do what I do onstage because of them. Because of the exchange being a performer gives to my being. It’s like fuel… hors d’oeuvres for the soul.

One morning in 2009, I got a call from an old industry friend who had landed at Interscope Records. I was awoken with, “Bebe, you’ve been touted in a song produced by Pharrell Williams called ‘Bebe Buell’ by a young band from Boston called Chester French.” I remember thinking “wow, that’s a nice compliment” because the gist of the song was that someone like me or Pamela Anderson Lee were the creme de la creme of rock-boy desire. There’s a clothing line called ‘Muse & Lyrics‘ that has a blouse/top called “The Bebe” and the brand ‘I’m With The Band’ has named their leopard scarfs and headbands the “Bebe”. There’s even a cocktail called “The Bebe Buell”.

But I think one of the coolest things was having Cameron Crowe name the lead singer in Stillwater Jeff Bebe. He gave me the original T-shirt that was used in the movie, too, and boy do I treasure it! Cameron sprinkled all kinds of little clues and messages throughout Almost Famous. I was especially touched by the Jeff Bebe nod because he knew how much I wanted to be a singer in a band. I remember him once saying to me that I should just go for it. At that point, people only knew me as a model and Todd Rundgren’s girlfriend. I hadn’t even done Playboy yet, so I was still trying to figure out who I was and how to do it. I finally did but it took me six more years to get in the studio and front a band!

It’s moving to be honored and it’s also nice to be appreciated by the younger generation of pop culture lovers. The first time my name was in a song, I was excited by it. My old friend G.E. Smith had a line on his solo album that was about coming to visit “Bebe and Liz”… he came over to my best friend Liz Derringer’s house to play it for us. We were elated… it was cool. I would never be so bold as to sit here and make a list of my lovers or the songs they wrote for me because it seems so long ago. I’d rather leave that up to the fans of the music to decipher and besides not all songs written for others are acknowledged as such. I’ve had several songs given to me as gifts or written to me in letters.

Sometimes the authors don’t admit it because their feelings change and they don’t want to upset their new love interest. Didn’t Bob Dylan write “Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat”, “Just Like A Woman”, “Fourth Time Around” and “Like A Rolling Stone” about Edie Sedgwick, only to later deny it? I know the feeling because it’s happened to me. So, at this point in my life, I just cherish the letters (yes, I still have them so one day when we’re all gone they will maybe solve the puzzles) and I respect and allow artistic license to have its day. It’s an artist’s prerogative to change their minds so I hold no hurt feelings. Music buffs are pretty smart anyway and they usually know the truth, so it matters little unless it’s blatant. The one topic that irks me is that I claimed This Year’s Model was about me. Well, that’s impossible because I didn’t meet and start to date Elvis Costello until he was well into Armed Forces. I was living with him in London when he recorded it in the fall of 1978. He included a couple of lyrics from songs on Armed Forces in letters to me but I can say with certainty that “Party Girl” wasn’t one of them. I guess it was the timing of the release that made people speculate I was the subject, but I wasn’t and never claimed to be. He didn’t even know me when he wrote those records. Why this is disputed has always been a mystery to me. The songs Mr. Costello sent me in letters were from later albums, starting with Get Happy. I will always wonder too why he would say something so false and perpetuate a rumor twenty years later in the liner notes of a re-issue.  Here’s to hoping it is finally put to rest. And even with the shame and pain I felt at the time, I feel no regret or ill will toward anyone. To me the truth is pretty obvious. Remember the story I told earlier about Catherine The Great? Revenge is often used when hearts are hurt, and it is very common in the entertainment industry.

In summing up my thoughts on the topic, I feel it’s time in our culture to appreciate the roles women have played in art since the beginning of time. Dali had his Gala, Picasso would hide the initials of his mistresses in his paintings and secretly tell them so they would know it was for them, Clapton immortalized his love and lust for Patti Boyd with the ultimate ode in “Layla” and John Lennon may have written the most beautiful love song of all for Yoko in “Woman”. Or was it Paul McCartney with “The Long And Winding Road” about Jane Asher or “Maybe I’m Amazed” about the spectacular Linda Eastman McCartney?

We can’t leave out the spirited and unique George Sand whose given name was Aurore Dupin. She was born in Paris on July 1, 1804 and adopted the name “George” because women couldn’t write professionally with the freedom of men in those days. She became one of the most popular writers in Europe during her lifetime- one of the most notable writers of the European Romantic era. She would wear male attire in public saying it was easier and more affordable than women’s garb. She was a confidant to Franz Liszt and lover and muse to Chopin. She would lie beneath the piano while Chopin composed, saying it sent the music through her entire body instead of just her ears.

Music is primal and it gets into our bloodstream. It’s easy to see why young girls get crushes on their idols and some even grow up to marry their dream man. But the days of defining women by their sexual desires or “conquests” should be on the wane. I never looked at the men I dated or loved as conquests. Humans aren’t territories to be battled over or ceded to. The human connection is divine. Each and every person we cross paths with is part of our magical life story.  So, whatever you identify yourself as is fine. That is your privilege and judgement should not follow even if the choices aren’t the norm. As Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.”

*Closing side note* As I was finishing this essay, I was doodling with a People magazine crossword puzzle and one of the clues was “GROUPIE”. Guess what the answer was… “FAN”. The timing was uncanny!

[clockworkfall]

What are you currently hyperfixated on? Also feel free to longpost about it

okokok so i’ve been thinking about the nature of tragedy specifically in literature and how both explicit and nonexplicit queer rep fit into it

quick interjection but warning that this is kind of long and i get a touch more academic than usual

so- to get into what im talking about i have to talk about what makes a good, functioning tragedy. tragedy, if we go by the intentions of the greeks, is meant to produce catharsis, a feeling of safety and release of emotions

now, this only works if the tragedy of a story lies in inevitable circumstances, it does not work if the tragedy exists within the inherent self of the central character

for an example of a working tragedy we can look at oedipus- oedipus actively tries to run from his fate; he is told he will kill his father and marry his mother so he moves away from home, yet he still ends up doing those things and that is how we get a good tragedy. his end was inevitable and the ending of the actual play does create catharsis. romeo and juliet is a tragedy because romeo and juliet die due to a feud that had nothing to do with them

these are tragedies of inescapable circumstance and that is why they work

if we look at tragedies that don't work, those of the inherent self, we often take a turn into gothic horror (which is a fun sidenote but more importantly there is no functional catharsis)

like if we look at the picture of dorian gray, all of the tragedy within that book exists because of dorian’s inherent flaws that he does not seek to change. if we look at frankenstein we can find a functioning tragedy if we read the book with the Creature as the central character due to circumstances he didn't want or wish for whereas victor’s tragedy is his ambition and therefore nonfunctional because that is an inherent quality of his self

now- the important part of all this is how it applies to queer people in lit. in my personal experience, i end up with a weird, discomforting feeling at the end of many stories with characters that are either explicitly queer or can be read as such. it is a strange, hollow and unreleased sadness that queer people are the subject of tragedy but the tragedy is always that they are queer, not that they exist in circumstances that are harmful to them

this is where i have fewer examples because it is a little hard to pick out but the example i’ve been looking at most, and i’d have to reread this book to make sure im right, is a book called the house of impossible beauties. it’s not classic lit, but it takes place in new york during the aids epidemic and centres on a group of queer people and, spoiler, things do not end happily. personally i took issue with the ending largely because it felt like the queerness of the characters was blamed for their misfortune rather than what was happening around them. it was that same discomforting feeling i was talking about before.

another slightly weaker example, largely because this theory is mine so it deals with my favourites, is hamlet. it is very easy to read hamlet and horatio as queer; horatio is literally the only person hamlet trusts to tell his plans and his beliefs, when hamlet is dying horatio tries to kill himself to join him, it is essentially explicit. now, hamlet is a well-regarded tragedy. however in the context of this specific idea i’d argue that it is not a functioning tragedy. at least not for horatio. horatio’s end is tragic because of his relationship with hamlet and how very explicitly inherent it is to his character.  horatio’s end gives me that same pit in my stomach, it’s a terrible sadness of just once wanting to see myself end well

now obviously this theory is very influenced by my own queerness and im sure there are other people who would argue against the point im trying to make but im not trying to convince them, im trying to prove a point and that point is this:

tragedy works. it has for centuries as a method of catharsis. however, many writers of tragedies with queer characters ignore the way a true tragedy functions thus creating an almost anti-tragedy resulting in a build-up of emotions rather than a release of them

of course there are more complicated aspects of this i could explore but they are not the point and there are many stories where queer people end unhappily or happily due to inherent nature but i am specifically discussing tragedy and stories that can be read as such and how queer characters are the sacrifice at the altar for the sake of plot and tragic appearances

anyway im very passionate about it but i do need to look at a few more examples so i can narrow down the points and be more specific but this is what im working on at the moment

also this was a very fun ask i’ve been thinking about this for days and i’ve only been able to tell like two people

[lesdemonium]

I’d Be the Choiceless Hope Chapter 14

Ship: Geraskier Word count: 40228 (total) Chapter: 14/16 Summary:  

“Such a nice, beautiful sound,” the fae crooned. “If only he were this way always.”

Julian’s mother stood up. She claimed she was prepared to stop the fae, to protect her baby, but in Julian’s darkest moments he doubted this part of the story. His mother loved him, of that he had no doubt, but she had been young and weary, and even years later, she couldn’t quite get the twinge of exhaustion out of her eyes when she recalled Julian’s infancy. Even if she had been keen on protecting him, the fae was too close, too fast, too set on his plan.

“A gift, for the new mother,” the fae continued. He leaned a hand in to stroke Julian’s cheek. “I give you the gift of obedience.”

As a baby, Jaskier was visited by a fae, who gifted Jaskier’s mother with Jaskier’s obedience. As Jaskier grew older, the “gift” became more of a curse.

Additional tags: AngstAngst with a Happy EndingHeavy AngstUnrequited LoveNot Actually Unrequited LoveAlternate Universe - Canon DivergenceCanon EraNot Canon CompliantCursed Jaskier | DandelionAlternate Universe - Ella Enchanted FusionCurse of ObedienceRape/Non-con ElementsImplied/Referenced Rape/Non-conJaskier | Dandelion Whump

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In the tavern in Tridam Jaskier played for only about half an hour before the crowd threw food at him and told him to cut out the maudlin crap. He couldn't blame them; it was hard to focus on singing of the might of the White Wolf, when Jaskier's wounds were still such a raw edge. He tried to change his tune, play happier songs, and his audience accepted it, though they did not tip him well enough to afford more than a bowl of stew. Perhaps they could spot his fraudulent smile, and the way it didn't quite reach his eyes. Maybe he was lacking charm now.

In Prana he found a lover. A beautiful man, with red, curly hair and a beard long enough for Jaskier to run his fingers through it. He told Jaskier exactly where he wanted him to be, exactly what he wanted Jaskier to do. Jaskier accepted it, allowing himself to be moved and bossed. There was a simplicity in it all, and he found himself almost comfortable with the tension in his muscles at each order. At least it was familiar. The man wasn't much for pillow talk, exactly, and fell asleep soon after they finished. The next morning, as he dressed, he was far more chatty.

"Where did you say you were headed?" he asked Jaskier as he tied up his trousers.

What was his name again? Rognir? Radek? It escaped Jaskier, but Jaskier was pretty sure that his own name had escaped his companion as well. At least they had that in common.

"South. Toward Sodden. Bards do better in big cities, after all. More coin to be made."

The man hummed, and Jaskier's heart ached. How silly, for something as simple as a hum to render him weak to the affections of his heart. Jaskier didn't have time for this. He pushed himself up in the bed, then turned to retrieve his own trousers.

"I'd be careful that way, if I were you. I’ve heard word of Nilfgaard moving north."

Jaskier shrugged his shoulders. "It will take them ages to make it that far north, surely. Last I heard, they were still in Assengard. Not exactly near to Sodden."

He stood, and turned to his companion just in time to see him shake his head. Then he pulled his shirt back on--a shame, to hide all that chest hair, in a shirt so stiff--and shrugged his shoulders.

"I've heard they're as far as Hochebuz." His eyes swept over the room and he retrieved a discarded purse.

"I'm sure Cintra’s army will sack them before they get too far. This is hardly the first time Nilfgaard has grown too big for its britches. The rest of the continent will set them straight."

Jaskier's companion shrugged again, his hand on the door. "Suit yourself."

He said this in lieu of a goodbye. Normally, Jaskier would have rolled his eyes, commented to himself on how rude that was, to not even say goodbye to the person you just spent the night with. Jaskier was relieved, though. Relieved that the man wanted to leave, and with haste, at that. Yes, he would suit himself.

Jaskier "suited himself" in Vizima through the winter. The lady of a grand court was quite taken with him, and begged her lordly husband to allow Jaskier to grace their court. Jaskier couldn't quite tell what, exactly, she was so taken with, as even he could admit that he quickly wore out his welcome among his audiences. The lady, Amelie seemed to enjoy his songs of heartbreak, however, and begged him to play for the rest of her ladies at every opportunity. It was cathartic, in a way. He had rid himself of his own tears, but whenever he saw the misty look in the eyes of the ladies he played for, he could almost feel it himself. Every time, he could breathe just a little easier. When he closed his eyes, he still saw amber eyes staring at him, but it didn't hurt as much. It only filled him with a sense of longing, which Jaskier could deal with. He had grown familiar with that particular feeling, after all these years.

In Maribor, whispers of Nilfgaard’s advance continued. People spoke in hushed voices, largely about how they had thought the winter would have slowed them down, but seemed to have only made them stronger. They were advancing on Cintra proper, though, and surely Cintra would put them back in their place.

Maribor wasn’t great for making money, but after Jaskier’s winter at court, his purse was full and he could afford a few duds to try out new material. The songs weren’t as popular as his songs about the White Wolf, but he wasn’t expecting them to be. Not everyone cared for songs of heartbreak, but betrayal seemed to at least be a uniting thread.

Jaskier heard tell of a witcher in Aldesberg. He traveled there as fast as he could, but the alderman told Jaskier, with an incredulous eyebrow raised, that he had just missed the white haired beast. The witcher had brought the alderman the head of the selkiemore just that morning, and hightailed it out of town only an hour before Jaskier made it there.

The same thing happened in Lyria and Scala, and by the time it happened in Kagen, Jaskier couldn’t bring himself to be surprised anymore. It was no longer a coincidence that he was missing Geralt; it was an intention.

Jaskier curbed himself north as news of Nilfgaard’s war chased at his coattails. Everyone who could, it seemed, was moving north, trying to escape the bloodshed. Freedom fighters everywhere talked a big game, but when a new traveler strode into town with tales of Nilfgaard’s victories, every one of them paled and sunk into their drinks.

“You sing songs of the White Wolf,” Jaskier’s bed partner in Mayena said to him, her long nails trailing along his bare shoulder in a way that made him shiver.

“On occasion. Can’t stay on one subject for too long, before people grow tired of the same songs,” Jaskier deflected, and he took her hand to press a kiss along her fingertips. She giggled, but would not be deterred.

“Have you any new ones? What has he fought lately?” she asked.

“I’m afraid I can’t answer that for you.” The bed suddenly felt cold, unwelcoming, and Jaskier pushed himself to a seat. “I haven’t traveled with Geralt of Rivia for quite some time. Almost a year, now.”

He pulled on his smallclothes and trousers, and tried not to cringe as her fingers trailed along his back.

“I’ve heard rumors. Of a bard that traveled with a witcher.” Jaskier felt a chill run down his spine in a different way. He kept his movements paced as he pulled his shirt over his head. “The bard does everything you ask him to.”

Jaskier fixed her with a rueful smile, then turned to pull on his boots. “Some rumors are just that: rumors,” he said, gathering the rest of his belongings in his hand. “This has been lovely, but I really must take my leave.” He took her hand, though everything in him urged him to recoil, to slink away, to get to safety. Instead, Jaskier pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “Remember me fondly?”

If she responded, Jaskier didn’t know, he was out of the room so fast. On to the next town. And the next. And the next.

Cintra fell when Jaskier was in Dorian. He stayed there a full week, his fingers twitching the entire time, trying to decide what to do, where to go. Overnight, it was as if the town was haunted. Routines and work went about as normal, but the chatter was gone, and a thin veneer of gray seemed to settle over everything. Jaskier couldn’t stay here, he knew that. The smart option would be to go north, to avoid Nilfgaard’s advancing forces.

Jaskier went south, toward Cintra.

Geralt’s child surprise had been in Cintra. Though Jaskier himself had no attachment to the child, had never even met the child, there was still something inside him screaming that he had to get there, to make sure they were safe. He refused to believe they were already dead. If they had already died, then all hope would be lost, for Jaskier, and perhaps even for Geralt and the continent.

A small, quiet part of Jaskier hoped that if he made it to Cintra in time, and found the child surprise, he could find Geralt, too. It was selfish of him, he knew, and he tempered it only with the fact that he truly did want to help, and this felt like an actionable way to help. He had been listless and without direction since he and Geralt had parted. This gave him a direction.

The direction brought him to a tavern in Dillingen. Coin had been scarce, but usually barkeeps were willing to put him up in exchange for an evening of song. If he helped a little here and there, they’d throw him a hot meal. The tips were bad, near nonexistent, but Jaskier wasn’t surprised. War seemed to make people hold onto their coin just a little tighter.

“I thank you all for being such a wonderful audience,” Jaskier said with a flourishing bow, only to be met with weak, scattered applause. “I must take my leave of you now. I hope we all meet again someday soon.”

He made his way to the bar, landing a few coins on the table in exchange for an ale. It tasted like cold piss, but Jaskier couldn’t quite bring himself to put it away. He had paid for it, after all. Someone touched his shoulder.

“Sorry, love,” Jaskier said, not bothering to turn around. “Show’s over. I have an early day tomorrow.”

“You can leave with us, nice and easy, or we can make a scene.”

The voice was deeper and gruffer than Jaskier expected. He turned in his seat to see two Nilfgaardian soldiers before him. A quick glance around confirmed that the entire tavern was turned in their direction, and every face Jaskier could see looked petrified. Jaskier felt pretty petrified himself. Every instinct in him told him to run, to get far away from these soldiers, but how far would he honestly get?

Jaskier nodded once, took his ale and downed it all in one, continuous gulp, and allowed the soldiers to take him.

“I get the distinct feeling you think I’m someone that I’m not,” Jaskier argued, as they sat him in a chair, deep in the basement of a modest castle. If castles could be modest.

The soldiers did not reply, though one did roll his eyes. At least they were listening, even if they did not rise to his bait. There wasn’t much of a point of keeping up the arguing and annoying he had done thus far, though he had to admit he was… curious. The chair he sat in was a fine one, with cushions and all, and steel manacles affixed to it, which his wrists were now bound by. The table in front of him was grand, with ornate carvings, and though he was undoubtedly in the dungeons, there were little touches of elegance here and there.

Likely, the Nilfgaardians would kill him once they realized they only had Jaskier, rather than someone important, but there were far more uncomfortable places to be held.

He was left waiting, alone, for a long time. So long he had started humming, testing the parameters of his bindings--the chair tilted backward, so it was moveable, but made of a thick wood that would be hard to break--and coming up with wild conjectures for what, exactly, he was doing there. Who did they think he was? Some noble with power and lands? Well, he had divested himself of all that. Someone with information? Unlikely, unless they wanted to know the lyrics to all of his songs and where the best brothels in various towns were. Truly, they must have just mixed him up for someone far more important.

It wasn’t until a tall, thin, blonde man walked in that Jaskier started to feel nervous. The man had a proud air about him, and Jaskier was suddenly overwhelmed with the knowledge that this was bad . Very, very bad. Either he had a particularly proud lower level officer before him, or he had a rightly proud higher level officer before him. He wasn’t sure which option was worse.

“Bard,” the man greeted. “I’m Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach. You may refer to me as Cahir.” He took a seat at the other end of the table. “You have some information I want.”

“No, I’m quite certain I don’t,” Jaskier answered. “I’m only a bard, nothing more, and I’m afraid the best information I could give you is possibly best lute care or how to tell if a woman who’s giving you bedroom eyes is married, and whether or not she’s worth it.”

Cahir’s eyebrow quirked, but otherwise his face remained stoic. “I’m not interested in your profession. I’m interested in the company you keep.”

Jaskier’s throat dried. It took him a few hard swallows before he felt as if he could speak again without betraying anything. “I think you’ll notice that I was alone when your fine men picked me up.”

“I want to know the location of Geralt of Rivia.”

Jaskier sighed. “Again, I think you’ll notice that I was alone when you took me from that tavern.”

“I’ve heard interesting tales around these parts,” Cahir said, tapping his fingers on the table. He looked off, just to the left of Jaskier’s head. “You are a bard that goes by the name of Jaskier. Your given name, however, is Julien Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove. Though, I learned recently that a Viscountess by the name of Adeline and her husband are to inherit the title and lands that come with it upon the death of the current Count of Lettenhove.”

Jaskier furrowed his eyebrows, watching Cahir’s fingers as they tapped an easy, unhurried beat. “I hardly think familial political squabbles of a minor town would be considered interesting to the conquering Nilfgaardian army. If you want my blessing to invade, by all means, go ahead. As you have heard, I have been disinherited,” Jaskier smirked, as if his heart wasn’t pounding away in his chest.

“That’s not the interesting part,” Cahir answered, smirking back and finally meeting Jaskier’s eye. “I’ve already met the Viscountess. She had quite a lot to say about her disinherited brother. Including your choice of companion and a very interesting gift given to you by a fae.”

Jaskier tried very hard to keep his face neutral. This could still be a trick. He could still be missing information. It would not do to give anything away now.

“Stick out your tongue,” Cahir ordered, and Jaskier did. Cahir’s eyebrow raised. “Put your tongue away, and touch your nose.” This, Jaskier tried, but with his bound hands, all he could do was strain his wrist against the manacle and bend himself forward to awkwardly, so awkwardly, press his nose against his finger. “Stop, and sit back up.”

Jaskier faced him again, his jaw set and his eyes ablaze. This was far worse than he had anticipated, all because Adeline had a grudge.

“Very interesting indeed.” Cahir’s smile was cruel, and Jaskier would have given anything to smack it off his face. “Tell me, where is Geralt of Rivia?”

“I don’t know.”

“Now, now, Jaskier. You wouldn't lie to me, would you?” Cahir frowned, but his voice was still amused.

“We’ve already established that I can’t. I haven’t seen Geralt in over a year now. Last I heard of him was over nine months ago in Kagen. He could be anywhere on the continent now. Asking me questions about him is useless at best .” He would have gestured extravagantly to make this particular point, if only he had the mobility currently. As it was, Jaskier could only roll his eyes, with feeling, and his head with it.

Cahir ran his fingers over his chin. There wasn’t a beard there, and Jaskier had half a mind to tell him that he looked ridiculous, but this wasn’t exactly the situation to press his luck in.

“I believe you,” Cahir finally answered, and Jaskier resisted the urge to roll his eyes again. How generous of Cahir. “I still think you can be of some use to me, though. It’s so rare that I can find such an obedient soldier.”

Jaskier’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not a Nilfgaardian soldier,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m not a soldier, period. I’ll be no help in conquering cities.”

Cahir laughed and shook his head. “Not to worry, bard. I have a much more special task for you. So much more important. You should feel honored.”

The smile Cahir gave Jaskier was proud, as if he truly was going to honor Jaskier. Jaskier grimaced in response, and tensed his body, as if that would protect him from whatever blow was to come.

“Find the witcher and the princess.” Jaskier’s eyes grew wide and he shook his head, as if shaking his head fast enough would stop Cahir from speaking. It didn’t work, and Cahir continued on, “As soon as you and the witcher are alone, kill him with whatever weapon you can find.”

“No! Stop it!” Jaskier demanded, trying futilely to free himself of the manacles. It wasn’t working, it only made the steel cut into his skin, but still he tried. The chair was heavier than he thought, and all he could do was rock it back and forth, barely lifting the legs off the floor. “I won’t do it! This won’t work!”

“It will. You do everything you’re told, whether you want to or not,” Cahir answered, unbothered. “Do whatever you can to kill him, and bring the princess back here. Do not tell anyone of this plan.”

He stood up, unmoved by the hot, angry tears streaming down Jaskier’s face or the way Jaskier continued to struggle. It didn’t matter, Jaskier knew. He already had his orders, and Cahir had been exceptionally specific.

“We will draw the witcher back. Word has already spread that we have his bard; it won’t take long before he tries to free you, if your sister’s information is accurate. When we release you, carry out our plan.” He wiped off his pants, and gave Jaskier a pitying gaze. “Unfortunately, it would look too suspicious if you came out of here looking as if nothing had happened. So I do apologize for this, and I hope you know that Nilfgaard appreciates your service to the emperor.”

Jaskier stared up at Cahir blankly as he exited the room. He blinked as the guards advanced on him, taking him away from the ornate table, the solid chair with the cushions, and into his own cell where he was shackled to the wall.

He lost time, after that. It didn't much matter if he was there for hours, or days, or weeks. It felt like years. It felt like one bruise bled into the next, one humiliation topped by another. It turned out the guards knew about his gift as well. Jaskier had always been an oddity or a delight, depending on the partner. He had never been a joke before.

read chapter 15

[fataziraphale]

The Best and Wisest Man Whom I Have Ever Known (A Good Omens Secret Santa)

Happy holidays, @ditherwings!!! I was your Good Omens Secret Santa! I had oodles of fun writing this—I too adore literary history and Aziraphale being a dork. You have excellent taste! I hope your holidays are wonderful and you enjoy this offering from me.

When Aziraphale sent a letter to cancel their dinner plans, Crowley dropped a potted plant in shock, scattering ceramic shards all over his kitchen floor. Aziraphale never turned down the Café Royal. He relished in running into all those authors he was fond of, like the unsettlingly tall one who flirted a bit too much for Crowley’s taste. Plus—and this generally piqued Aziraphale’s interest even more—their French patisserie was to die for.

Perhaps more alarming, Aziraphale’s elegantly looped handwriting announced he was cancelling dinner because he was currently in mourning.

In mourning? For a human, then? It didn’t seem in-character. Among their other arrangements, Crowley and Aziraphale had made a pact, some drunken night in 1431, that they weren’t going to love any specific humans. Sure, it was all right for Aziraphale to go the salons and debate the merits of various magazine poems, or be on a first-name basis with his local baker. It was another matter entirely for him to become attached.

It all got too messy. They’d agreed on that. They’d practically emptied out a winery after Boccaccio died—Aziraphale because the man had made such incredible contributions to the literary canon, Crowley because he’d inspired a whole generation of women to take up masturbating, but both because Giovanni was a friend. They knew what happened to humans after they died, they knew the man’s soul would live on until at least Armageddon, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that they would miss him, and they couldn’t keep going on like this, becoming blubbery messes incapable of doing their duties every time a good drinking buddy got ill. So they’d decided not to. They’d promised.

So then who the dev—who was Aziraphale mourning now?

Miffed at Aziraphale going back on his word (and certainly not worried about the angel, don’t be daft), Crowley fetched his hat and coat and set off into the streets of London. Carriages crowded the road, humans weaving in and out of the foggy air. Crowley flagged a cab and rattled off Aziraphale’s address, tapping his foot against the carriage floor as it bumped against the cobblestones.

It was awfully inconvenient, relying on humans for transport, but he had never been particularly good with horses. He’d read in the paper about a German woman who’d traveled a great distance in some sort of horseless carriage. He’d been thinking of heading to the continent to see what the fuss was for himself. He wondered if Aziraphale would like to come along—they could go hear that new Brahms piano thing everyone and their mother raved about.

But no. Aziraphale was in mourning.

Not for the first time, Crowley wondered if it wasn’t simply a euphemism. If Aziraphale wasn’t angry with Crowley but too polite to say so. Sure, they’d had that tiff in the 60s over holy water, but Crowley had thought they’d patched things up. He’d bought Aziraphale his weight in apology chocolate. So what could be the matter now?

Yet as he exited the cab onto Aziraphale’s street, Crowley couldn’t help but notice a pattern: young men sporting black armbands. Yes, there were bucketloads of them—this one hurrying into his apartment, that one buying flowers from a stand on the roadside, those two comforting a weeping woman. Crowley remembered himself just enough to push one mourner into the street, making sure to do so when no carriages where heading his way.

The bookshop was closed, but that was normal for Tuesdays. Crowley rang the bell and, when no one answered, willed the knob to turn.

The angel Aziraphale sat his desk, sniffling over a copy of The Strand.

Crowley stared at him. Indeed, Aziraphale did appear to be mourning—he wore a black crêpe around his upper arm, and another adorned the hat hanging on his hat stand. He put down the magazine with a sigh that came from the very depths of his soul, if angels had that sort of thing (Crowley wasn’t entirely sure). He removed his spectacles from his nose, tucked them into his pocket, and caught eyes with Crowley across the room.

“Oh, my dear boy,” Aziraphale murmured. “You’ve read it, haven’t you? Do sit down. Would you like some tea? No, you’ll likely need something stronger.”

Mystified, Crowley lowered himself into a chair, stopping first to lift a heap of books off its seat and onto the floor. “Read what? I saw the men in the streets. Who died? Is it someone important?” His eyes widened. “They didn’t catch that friend of yours, did they? That author who wears all those gaudy green flowers?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “Oscar is perfectly sound, though I’m not sure A Woman of No Importance was his tightest work. Perhaps he should stick with prose rather than drama.”

“Then what’s this about? Someone from your gentleman’s club? No, it’s got to be some famous bugger if everyone’s gutted about it.” Crowley cast his eyes around for inspiration. “It’s not the Queen. I would have heard if it were the bloody Queen.”

Aziraphale drew a handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes. Crowley had never known Aziraphale to be a crier, but now he was getting the disturbing impulse to start saying things like “There, there” and “It’ll all be all right in the end.”

“He was a great man,” said Aziraphale. “Perhaps Britain’s finest. Crowley, I simply don’t know how I will go on without him.”

Crowley had already reached across the desk for Aziraphale’s hand before he remembered he was supposed to be a demon. “I thought we said we weren’t going to do this. Not after Joan. We weren’t going to get close to humans.”

“Oh, he and I aren’t close. Goodness, though, I should think I’m going to write the man a very stern letter. You simply can’t go playing with people’s emotions like that!”

“It probably wasn’t his fault,” Crowley said. “You know, dying. Humans tend to do it whether they want to or not.”

“But humans can choose not to murder a beloved cultural figure!”

This caught Crowley’s attention. Murder wasn’t always the work of his side, but it was certainly more in his wheelhouse than the angel’s.

“Do you want revenge, angel?” Crowley tried his best to snarl, but his tone came out more like sympathy. “Because I can help you with that. I can turn the murderer’s… undergarments into ants. I don’t know, give me time to think of something really devious, I’m a bit rusty.”

“Perhaps you could write him a letter too,” said Aziraphale, and then his eyes lit up. Something inside him clicked, and a smile lifted his chubby cheeks to Heaven—just as it had when he’d first tried bread back in Mesopotamia, or last week when he’d showed off his charmingly bad gavotte.

“We could start a movement,” Aziraphale gushed. Crowley’s heart, despite not strictly needing to beat, threatened to give out altogether. “Yes, I believe we could! One letter might not sway the man, but twenty? Fifty? One hundred? We could rally the men in the streets! Tape up posters in Trafalgar Square! I could make a picket sign! I’ve always wanted to make a picket sign.” He stood up, raising a triumphant fist as he glared righteously at a stack of encyclopedias. “Why, if we put enough pressure on the man, he’ll have to cave! He’ll bring the dead back to life in no time at all!”

“Er,” said Crowley. “I’m not sure that’s how that works.”

“Don’t be silly, dear. If anyone can think of a way to bring back the world’s greatest detective, it’s Mr. Arthur Conan Doyle.”

“Why would this Conan Doyle bloke kill a detective? Did he do a crime he wants covered up? Does the detective owe him money?”

“What? Oh, Crowley.” Aziraphale chuckled. Crowley could feel his cheeks growing pink for at least three reasons. “Sherlock Holmes is fictional. He’s Doyle’s literary creation.” He frowned. “I gave you The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes last Christmas. Did you not read it?”

Crowley stared. “Do you mean to tell me, all this time, you’ve been planning to skip out on dinner because you’re mourning someone fictional?”

“He’s a very good detective.”

“I don’t believe this! Angel, I thought you were actually depressed!”

“I am depressed!” Aziraphale scoffed. “And it’s perfectly reasonable to be affected by literature! Why, just last year, I closed my bookshop for a month to recover from The Picture of Dorian Gray!”

“I thought you just didn’t fancy dealing with customers!”

“And you, my dear.” Aziraphale jabbed a finger in his direction. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten you! 1806 BC! You cried after reading The Epic of Gilgamesh! At seeing the humans’ first attempt at truly great literature!”

“Angel, those were tears of laughter! That guy Enkidu had a hard-on for two bloody weeks! Could you keep a straight face reading that?”

“There’s no need to be crass.” Aziraphale coughed into his handkerchief, but Crowley could recognize those upturned lips anywhere. “Anyway, I’m hardly alone in this. Plenty of readers lived for the Holmes stories. It’s a true pity there won’t be any more.”

“Good. Oodles of angry humans. Doyle did my job for me.” Crowley was already mentally drafting a very threatening letter. Naming the man’s children should do the trick. In the off-chance he didn’t have any children, well, the replacing Doyle’s undergarments with ants idea was growing on him.

“But you see, this is why I mustn’t go to dinner with you.” Aziraphale assumed his most sincere expression. “It would be disrespectful to be seen lavishly dining and carrying on when such a tragedy has befallen the literary world. Why, none of my friends there would let me hear the end of it.” He gazed forlornly into an empty mug, rimmed around the top with cocoa stains.

“What about lunch?”

Aziraphale’s head snapped up. “Oh, excellent. I’m simply starving. And a man must eat. No one could blame me for that.”

Crowley’s mouth curled into a devilish grin. He held out his hand, and Aziraphale took it. “I won’t tell any of your author friends if you don’t bring up me and Gilgamesh.”

“Perhaps only in private.”

“It’s a funny poem! The bloke had sex for two weeks!”

“Ah, that reminds me. If you truly don’t want your first edition Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, may I have it back? It would make an excellent addition to my collection.”

“You devious bastard. You only bought me that bloody book because you wanted it.”

Crowley weaved between dusty stacks of hardbacks and emerged blinking onto the Soho street. Remembering the mourner with his arm around his compatriot, Crowley vaguely thought of putting an arm around Aziraphale.

But that wasn’t the way their love language worked. Crowley’s love was showing up. Was badgering Mr. Arthur Conan Doyle to a bloody pulp until he brought Sherlock Holmes back to life, logic be damned. Was giving Aziraphale an excuse to pig out on French pastry. Was hailing a cab and taking Aziraphale’s hand to pull him up inside.

As Aziraphale’s plushy hip pressed into Crowley’s, he thought of the new electric lights they’d shown off at the Paris Exposition. He could feel that current now, running through the angel’s body into his.

He realized Aziraphale had only broken his promise if their pact not to love humans extended to fictional ones. At any rate, if it included falling in love with angels, Crowley was in an awful lot of trouble, and he owed Aziraphale about £15.

Perhaps some promises were made to be broken.