#tales from an english major

[pemberlaey]

(some of) my literary roman empires

benedick’s “you” —> “thou” switch in 4.1

the extended portrait metaphor in pride and prejudice

may welland

the repression of female emotions in victorian fiction

henry’s “a country dance as an emblem of marriage” speech in northanger abbey + the way that 19th century dance scenes prefigure marriage in general

the moment in jane eyre when mr. rochester asks jane if she finds him handsome and she says “no, sir”

victorian floriography

ophelia’s final scene

ww1 solider poetry (sassoon, owens, rosenberg, brooke etc.)

the ambiguity surrounding bertha mason

juliet’s “O romeo, romeo, wherefore art thou romeo?” breaks from iambic pentameter because the name romeo has too many syllables so the problem is literally his name

éponine thénardier (just everything about her but especially the “i am the devil” scene)

[raayllum]

Quick run down: 4 is the lowest typical score given, 10 the typical highest score given (although you can technically go up to 12). Making my post because I noticed Callum’s Justice ranking was at 6 (lower than I’d expected) and I always meant to do a lil more formal comparison between the trio so here it is I suppose.

Devotion: This is value is about duty, faith, and friendship. You’re motivated by the bonds of loyalty and your love for others.

Truth: This value is about fidelity, certainty, and authenticity. You’re motivated by finding strength in facts and by the principle and pursuit of knowledge

Glory: Have you ever wanted to be celebrated by history? This value is about legacy, fame, and fortune. You’re motivated by praise, acclaim, and your desire to be remembered.

Justice: Have you ever been compelled to fix what’s wrong? This value is about balance, virtue, and reward. You’re motivated by adherence to fairness and what you think is right.

Liberty: Have you ever resisted the control of others? This value is about freedom and autonomy. You’re motivated by a world without oppression or suppression.

Mastery: Have you ever needed to rise above your own limits? This value is about control, achievement, and skill. You’re motivated by power, growth, and progress.

Similarities:

Glory is a 4 for all of them. Utterly unsurprising I think - they’re all willing to do things regardless of recognition and aren’t motivated by any real self importance

Truth is a 6 for all of them. I find it interesting that Callum gets the “hide the truth to protect others” rather than Rayla, but we do see elements of that in TTM. For Ezran, it has less to do with a moral truth (Rayla) or how to handle the truth (Callum) but more to do with maturing to see the truth (“I ignored something that is true” —4x03)

For anything other than their Most Important Feature, everything else has roughly an 8. This makes sense as it is still a core value, i.e. Callum jumping off the mountain is very devotional, Rayla works very hard to find real justice, Ezran cares a great deal about placing autonomy in other people’s hands (S3), etc. 

In Betweens:

Ezran and Rayla both have Mastery at a 6 with Callum having it at an 8; this makes sense as he is driven to look for knowledge and power (through magic) in ways they are not / are mostly settled and/or disinterested in

Ezran and Callum both have Devotion resting at 8 - high, but not their highest values. This makes sense as according to the game, Devotion is how obligated you feel to others. Ezran feels beholden to Katolis but that’s something he’s largely grown into, and he feels a wider responsibility to the world at large, moving in between them as he can. Callum is very devoted to his loved ones (mainly Ez and Rayla, but also Zym in a lot of ways) and his desire for freedom often interplays with a desire to have autonomy/capability to protect and/or provide for them in key ways. 

Rayla and Ezran have Liberty at an 8, showing that they value freedom (Rayla’s bio includes her goal to free all people from terrible fates like the one she almost had with the binding ceremony, we’ve gone over Ez’s, etc) even if it’s not as high as Callum’s - but more on that later

Highest Values

Ezran’s is Justice at 10. This makes sense as he is the series’ embodiment of Justice thematically as well as the series’ Witness. This reflects his role as the peace maker for elves and humans and dragons, both politically and interpersonally with Callum and Rayla in S1 and S4 in particular. It is also embedded into the fact that his death itself would have been Justice and his survival is what allows true justice to actually continue, his decisions as king, and the fact he’s king at all, per Harrow’s words: “My father told me that about all, I must be a Just king.” 

Callum’s is Liberty at 10. This foreshadows his arc in season four in terms of a complete loss of control/freedom and why it screws with him so royally. While many of the characters agonize over making the right choice (or a choice at all), not having a choice at all is what torments him the most: “I can’t do anything!” (2x07) particularly when it comes to protecting or helping his loved ones. We see this especially in his quote under Liberty in which despite being crown prince and heir to the throne, he states that he is beholden to his inner circle rather than a sense of duty. In S4 he is concerned about Aaravos hurting his loved ones, and that fear of doing awful things to other people is what has him so especially worried over the situation, reaffirming his statement that “I value those close to me more than anyone or anything” certainly. 

Rayla is Devotion at 10. At first glance it’s easy to take her “My only allegiance is to my heart and those that know it” as a similar kind of sentiment to Callum’s “I value those close to me” statement, but we know what Rayla’s heart is aligned with: “My heart for Xadia.” Her heart is given to whatever she feels her duty is, to what feels right, hence why she risks everything for Phyrrah, someone she doesn’t know at all, simply because leaving the dragon there results in “every fibre in my body is telling me this is wrong.” Bloodmoon Huntress also expands on this further, drawing comparisons to her and Runaan’s sense of duty and love for the whole world, as well as precisely what led her to take on the assassination mission in the first place. In S1-S3 Rayla gets better at listening to her heart rather than shutting it down, although this has changed in S4. She’s learning to prioritize her loved ones more and more, but at the cost of her actual heart.

Misc Notes:

For Callum, it’s worth noting that Devotion and Mastery (magic) are of equal value to Callum and are definitely two cornerstones of his more hands on arc. Thus, we can likely deduce that as much as Callum undeniably values Liberty, the fact it’s his highest value is also because it’s the value that informs and guides his arc the most Thematically. This means that his desire to learn magic and be there for his loved ones is of equal measure in terms of his decision making, but we also see him clearly prioritize his loved ones in ways he does not do with his own pursuit of magic. 

[ Side note: And just as a comparison, Claudia - Claudia’s - devotion is also an 8, but Mastery is her 10, even though so much of her arc is driven directly by devotion to her family (although her bio makes it clear it is supporting her family and her father, not merely her valuing them, as the distinctions are important too). ]

Following this “Two Pillars holstered by One Theme” logic, we can break Ezran and Rayla down into a similar manner.

Rayla is defined by her initial quest of Justice and a growing sense of Liberty (cue: being literally freed from her binding, other symbolic cycles, etc) but this is bound together and streamlined through her Devotion to a cause to people and her family. We can see S4 bring this together directly in her devotion to Callum and her family and how they are both either already literally or becoming entangled / entrapped in forces beyond their control with Rayla wanting to free / protect all of them.

For Ezran, this means he is defined by his place as Justice thematically first and foremost, with Devotion and Liberty as his two tether-hooks: re a child king being put in chains to try and give his people a choice > forced conscription, as well as the work he’s doing to try to create peace and a Narrative of Love (devotion) in S4.

Thus, the highest value for each of the Trio is what informs them at their core and subsequent thematically, with their two respective pillars as how those things are motivated and manifest throughout, with of course a good dose of overlap beyond all three. But either way, I just thought it was Neat™

Closing Note

One thing I found interesting when actually going each beat of their bios is that Rayla and Ezran are inverses of each other and very closely aligned. They share the exact same 3 values, all in similar amounts (either 8 or 10) and just rotate one out for their respective highest: for Rayla, Justice is at an 8, and for Ez, it gets bumped up to a 10 and his devotion down to an 8. This closeness between them, and how Callum diverges, lines up with how I’ve thought of and how I’ve written each of the trio for a while now, re: meta dated September 2021 about this exact difference, well before TOX came out.

Because Callum, strangely enough, does not have Justice™ as a particularly high value. It’s actually on the lower end of his scale, with other heroic characters like Amaya, Janai, and Aanya having it as a 10, an 8, and 8. The only none villain adjacent character (Soren, Viren, Claudia) with a Justice as low as Callum’s is Lujanne, and Callum’s justice ranking is the lowest of the trio’s. This is interesting particularly because Justice is defined by fixing what’s wrong/broken, a sense of fairness and balance. And while Callum wants to have positive impacts on the world and make things better, it shows that his big heart is also equally if not more so tethered to pragmatism, perhaps, compared to his family, even in decisions made like leaving with the egg in the first place being what was also safest for the egg and particularly Ezran during the attack on the castle. 

And well, if you know, you know ;) 

[ao3org]

Updates to AO3 "Mythology" Fandoms

Hi AO3 users! You may have noticed that recently, fandoms previously canonized as "Mythology" are being updated to "Religion & Lore". This renaming project is part of a wider ongoing process on AO3 about respectful treatment and naming of various religions, spiritual beliefs, faiths, and collections of folklores belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition. This includes both major and minor religions, as well as reconstructionist, ancient, and modern religions.

In the coming months, the term "Mythology" is being phased out of canonical fandom names. This is because of its potential for use as a disparaging term, and the way in which it is used primarily for religions which are already under-represented. Since "mythology" has connotations of being fictional or inferior to the religious beliefs of the speaker or writer, and is unfortunately used in this way by some, the decision has been made to replace this term with something that the Wrangling Committee believes is more inclusive and less derogatory.

After extensive discussion between individuals from varying religious backgrounds and beliefs, including wranglers representing the various fandoms which were being covered, it was felt that "Religion & Lore" was an appropriate and neutral way to describe the bodies of faith, belief, knowledge, and tradition associated with many of these religions which were ancestrally imparted and regional in nature. It is also hoped that this will decrease ambiguous or confused use, allowing people to more accurately describe their works and find works in which they are interested moving forward.

The use of "Ancient" in many of these fandoms' names reflects that these countries still exist but now have different predominant religions or spiritual beliefs. For example, Ancient Greek Religion & Lore (as Greece is now a predominantly Christian country) or Ancient Egyptian Religion (as Egypt is now a predominantly Muslim country). Because "Norse" does not refer to an extant country, region, or culture, it is not necessary to specify that it is historical or ancient in nature.

The names of these fandoms will also have the native language piped, if the English-language demonym is significantly different from the native-language demonym or if there is a culturally specific term based on consultation with individuals who speak these languages as a first language. We hope to give representation to the language of the source culture by doing so.

Each of these changes has been and will continue to be carefully researched and discussed with traditional knowledge keepers and researchers from the cultures represented in the fandoms under discussion.

Many religions face the issue of texts being written long after their events occurred. Unfortunately this is something which is shared across many religious fandoms; AO3 seeks to treat these religious fandoms equally. Care has been taken in researching characters relating to these fandoms, and character tags will be canonized or made a synonym on a case-by-case basis. Fandom tags that are currently synned to the Ancient religious fandoms have been checked as thoroughly as possible to ensure that they are not referring to modern folk tales, and where possible such relatively modern folk tales are canonized as their own fandoms.

(From time to time, ao3org posts announcements of recent or upcoming wrangling changes on behalf of the Tag Wrangling Committee.)

[theostrophywife]

written in the stars.

pairing: theodore nott x reader. song inspiration: until i found you by stephen sanchez feat. em beihold. author's note: boyfriend theo is the best theo. if you're wondering, then yes writing this hurt me as much as it hurts reading it but like in the best way possible.

Theodore Nott has always had an affinity for the stars. 

When he was younger, Theo's mother used to take him to the rooftop of Nott Manor and point out the constellations to him. The stars told stories, his mum had said. Theo listened with rapt attention as she recounted the tales of Aquila, Heracles, and Orion as they glittered against the backdrop of the English countryside.

The two of them would make an entire evening out of it. Laying on his back atop a nest of blankets and pillows, little Theo watched as the stars climbed higher and higher, filling the horizon with hope and light. Stargazing had been their special secret. The one thing that wasn’t tainted by his abusive father. Theo guarded the memory of those nights in his heart like a priceless treasure.

After his mother’s passing, Theo continued their tradition of stargazing. Even if she was no longer alive, all he had to do was look up at the sky to feel her with him. For that reason, the stars were special to him and he’d never shared its meaning with anyone. 

Until tonight. 

“Watch your step, cara mia.” Theo said as he guided you by the small of your back. 

The dark cloth covering your eyes prohibited you from seeing, but you trusted your boyfriend to keep you from falling. Though you weren’t a fan of surprises, Theo was impossible to resist. All he had to do was flash those pretty watercolor eyes at you and you were an absolute goner. 

For you, Theo had always been the exception. 

He guided you up a staircase, keeping a firm grip on your waist as the two of you ascended. Wherever you were going, it was pretty high up. You smiled as Theo took hold of your waist, knowing that you weren't the biggest fan of heights. Sometimes it felt like he knew you better than you knew yourself. When you reached the top, Theo unfastened his tie from behind your head. 

“You can open your eyes now, sweetheart.” 

You blinked, letting your eyes adjust to the dark. The wind whistled through the stone arches of the Astronomy Tower, framing the starkissed night with its marble pillars. The soft glow of the moon illuminated the nest of blankets and pillows arranged in the middle of the wooden floor. 

“Did you do all of this for me, babe?” 

Theo smiled. “I thought you might like to go stargazing with me,” he said, his voice soft. “Do you like it, my love?” 

“I love it, Teddy.” You beamed, standing on your tiptoes to kiss his nose. “But not nearly as much as I love you.” 

Theo grinned before pulling you in for a proper kiss. His lips were soft against yours and he tasted like peppermint. Butterflies erupted in your stomach as your knees buckled slightly. Theo never failed to make you feel like a lovestruck school girl. It never stopped feeling like this despite how many times you kissed this boy.

As if reading your thoughts, Theo smiled against your lips. “Come on, Y/N. I want to show you my favorite constellations.” 

The two of you laid down beneath the stars, making yourself comfortable amidst the blankets and pillows. Wordlessly, Theo pulled you into his arms and you nestled into the crook of his neck, breathing in the familiar scent of sea salt spray and sun kissed skin. 

“Tell me the story of the stars, Teddy.” 

He smiled, brushing your hair back. “That one right there is Ursa Major. Otherwise known as the Big Dipper, but if you look at the entire constellation, it actually forms a bear.” 

“I remember learning about that when I was little,” you said, gazing up at the sky. “Didn’t it have something to do with Zeus?”

Theo nodded. “In Greek mythology, the Olympian God Zeus fell in love with Callisto and got her pregnant. After she gave birth to the child, Hera was so mad she turned Callisto into a bear.” 

“That hardly seems fair,” you responded with a frown. 

“Zeus was a bit of a wanker,” Theo said in agreement. “Hera was even worse. She cursed Callisto to wander the forest for years in bear form until she was hunted by her own son Arcas. Just as he raised his spear to strike her down, Zeus stepped in and sent them up to the heavens. Callisto as Ursa Major and Arcas as Bootes.” 

“The Greek gods were truly a piece of work,” you replied. “But at least we got those constellations out of them."

You squinted, pointing at the cluster of stars hovering in the east. “What’s that one?” 

“That’s the constellation of Leo,” explained Theo. “Named after the Nemean lion that Heracles defeated during the first of his twelve labours.” 

“Didn’t he make a cloak out of the lion’s pelt?” 

“Smart girl,” Theo said proudly. “The cloak made Heracles invincible and more fearsome than he already was. The Nemean lion’s heart is made up of the star Regulus, which is associated with the arrival of spring.” 

“The Little King. I read that it burns hotter than the sun.” 

Theo couldn’t help but smile. Before he met you, he never thought he’d find someone to share such a special and intimate thing with. He was worried that no one else would understand his love for the stars, but as he watched you peer curiously up at the sky, your nose scrunched in careful concentration, Theo felt all of his doubts fade away. 

“Regulus is unique because it can be seen in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres.” 

The blue star glittered brightly above your heads, as if it was showing off for the occasion. “It’s beautiful,” you breathed. 

Theo stared at you, at the childlike wonder shimmering in your eyes, and he felt like the breath had been knocked out of his lungs. The gravity of what he felt for you hit him all at once. 

“Yeah,” Theo said softly, still looking at you. “Beautiful.” 

You grinned, intertwining your fingers and kissing his knuckles. “How do you know so much about the stars, Teddy?” 

“My mum taught me.” Theo answered, drawing circles on your hip. “When I was little, she used to take me to the rooftop of the manor and tell me the story behind each star. She was fascinated by them. Before she met my father, she wanted to teach astronomy at the Stati Magia.”

“The Italian School of Witchcraft?” 

Theo nodded. “My mother attended the Stati Magia, just like her mother and her mother before her. A tradition that I unintentionally broke, as nonna Lucia loves to remind me. Sometimes I think the old bat wishes that I was born a strega instead.” 

You giggled. “You would’ve been a very pretty witch.” Theo chuckled as you propped your head up in one hand. “Did your mum end up becoming a professor?”

“No,” Theo said sadly. “After I was born, my father said that her place was at the manor. He refused to move to Florence, even though he knew it was my mother’s dream.” 

You stroked his hair, nodding emphatically. Theo rarely talked about his mother. You knew that her passing was a painful subject for him, so you never pushed him to talk about it unless he wanted to.

“That’s awful. I’m so sorry, my love,” you said. “But at least she was able to pass down her love of the stars to you. In a way, she lived her dream by teaching you.” 

A soft smile tugged at your boyfriend’s lips. “I suppose she did.” 

You laid back down, but this time you cradled Theo against you. He rested his head against your chest, listening to the calming sound of your heartbeat. Talking about his mother will always be hard, but you helped ease the pain. 

“What about those stars?” You asked, pointing to the north. “What did your mother tell you about them?” 

“Perseus and Andromeda,” Theo answered. “Those are actually her favorites.”

“The chained maiden.” 

Theo stirred, inclining his gaze to the horizon. “Andromeda was the Princess of Aethiopia, the daughter of King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopeia. She was said to be very beautiful. Her mother bragged that Andromeda was fairer than the Nereids, which angered Poseidon. As punishment, the Sea God sent the creature Cetus to ravage that coast of their kingdom.” 

You nodded, recalling the story. “King Cepheus chained her to a rock and offered her as a sacrifice to appease the sea monster.” 

“Luckily for Andromeda, the hero Perseus found her before Cetus could attack again. Perseus fell in love with Andromeda and defeated the monster so he could free the princess. They ended up marrying and became king and queen of Mycenae. When they died, the goddess Athena placed them side by side in the heavens so that they would never be parted, not even by death.” 

“A love written in the stars,” you said with awe and wonder. “I can see why it’s your mother’s favorite.”

“When I was a boy, she told me that she hoped I’d experience a love like theirs, minus the sea monster of course.” You chuckled. Theo knit his brows together like he did when he was deep in thought. When he spoke again, his voice was barely audible. “It’s sad to think that she never found her Perseus.” 

You brushed his hair back, running your fingers through his curls gently. “She might not have found her Perseus, but she did have her Theo.”

Theo turned over and looked at you. The intensity in his gaze made you shiver. He was so ingrained in your heart that it felt inaccurate to continue calling it yours.

“After she died, I never thought I’d share her stories with anyone again, but I’m glad I shared them with you.” 

“Thank you for trusting me, Theo.” You said as you placed a kiss on his temple. “It means the world to me that you not only shared your mother’s stories, but her memory as well. I would’ve loved to meet her.”

The tender smile on Theo’s face was heartbreaking. Then softly, he whispered. “She would’ve loved you, Y/N.”

Your heart cracked open, his words spilling like sunlight over every crevice, warming you from the inside out.

Tears formed at the corners of your eyes, but you forced yourself to give Theo a watery smile. “Because I’m a nerd who memorized obscure mythological facts?”

Your boyfriend smiled. “No,” he said gently, caressing your cheek. “Because you made her wish come true. You are my love written in the stars, cara mia.” 

The moonlight kissed Theo’s tan skin, the silver beams caressing his face like a lover as if the moon and the stars craved to commit his beauty to memory as badly as you did. Gods, he was breathtaking. 

This was the Teddy you knew and loved. Your Teddy.

Those watercolor eyes shimmered with emotion. “Sometimes I think the gods made you just for me, like our souls are linked in a way that neither logic nor magic can explain. Whatever it is, I think I’ve loved you since before the heavens and the earth existed and I’m fairly certain that I’d still love you even after the last star falls out of the sky.”

“You’re the love of my life, Theodore Nott.” Tears streamed down your cheeks as this boy—this beautiful boy ensnared your mind, body, and soul. “I’d find you in any universe and in any galaxy. Maybe someday we’ll be immortalized in the stars too.” 

Theo held your face in his hands. His expression was open and vulnerable, like he wasn’t afraid to lay himself bare before you. As if it was the most natural thing in the world. 

“We’re two halves of a whole,” Theo said. “I loved you yesterday. I love you today and I’ll love you tomorrow. You’re it for me, Y/N. You and no one else.” 

“You and no one else, Teddy.” 

Under the constellations of the star crossed lovers, Theo kissed you so gently that it made your heart ache. As Andromeda and Perseus kept watch over the horizon, Theodore Nott knew one thing for certain.

Someday the stars would tell your story too.

[vixen-academia]

Free MIT online courses that sound interesting

Arts & Literature

Introduction to World Music

Reading Fiction

Literary Interpretation: Virginia Woolf's Shakespeare

Introduction to Photography

Foundations of Western Culture II: Renaissance to Modernity

Studies in Poetry - Briths Poetry and the Sciences of the Mind

Studies in Literary History: Modernism: From Nietzsche to Fellini

Screen Women: Body Narratives in Popular American Film

Studies in Poetry: "What's the Use of Beauty"

Queer Cinema and Visual Culture

Monteverdi to Mozart: 1600 - 1800

Writing and Experience: Reading and Writing Autobiography

Advanced Topics in Hispanic Literature and Film: The Films of Luis Buñel

Major Authors: Rewriting Genesis: "Paradise Lost" and Twentieth-Century Fantasy

Arthurian Literature and Celtic Colonization

Contemporary Literature: Britsh Novel Now

Studies in Poetry: 20th Century Irish Poetry: The Shadow of W. B. Yeats

Writing About Literature: Writing About Love

Introduction to European and Latin American Fiction: Great Books On The Page and On The Screen

Popular Culture and Narrative: Use and Abuse of the Fairy Tale

Victorian Literature and Culture

Reading Poetry

English Renaissance Drama: Theatre and Society in the Age of Shakespeare

Introduction to Fiction

International Woman's Voice

Major Authors: Oscar Wilde and the "90's"

Prizewinners: Nobelistas

American Authors: American Women Authors

Shakespeare, Film and Media

Japanese Literature and Cinema

Woman's Novels: A Weekly Book Club

Classics of Chinese Literature

Major English Novels

Topics in South Asia Literature and Culture

Introduction to Literary Theory

History & Social Studies

American Classics

The Middle East in the 20th Century

Africa and the Politics of Knowledge

The Rise of Modern Science

European Imperialism in the 19th and 20th Century

Philosophy of Love

Human Rights: At Home and Abroad

The Nature of Creativity

Introduction to Comparative Politics

Riots, Rebellions, Revolutions

Introduction to the History of Technology

Ancient Philosophy

Youth Political Participation

[pommedepersephone]

You Say Potato, I Say Excellent! Or blocking, accents and legacy of morality tales in ‘The Resurrectionists’ minisode PART II

Alternate title: how Aziraphale’s naivety in this episode was supposed to make you a bit outraged

I have to shout out to @bowtiepastabitch for their AMAZING historical analysis of this minisode - it prompted me to finish this long ramble that has been drifting in my notes. Anyway, I have a major obsession with the ways blocking and dialogue interplay in Good Omens - you can check out my analysis of the blocking in the flashbacks in S1. But The Resurrectionists is really something special. This got so long I am splitting it into two parts. 

What we see in this minisode is a morality tale - a genre of children’s literature that was extremely popular in the early 1800s where the minisode is taking place. Catch up on the historical background in Part I.

When looking at this minisode, it is really important to look at two complementary narrative tools - Crowley’s accent and the placement of Aziraphale in relation to Crowley. Through the minisode, Crowley switches between his standard English accent and a delightful Scottish accent. But the switching isn’t random!

Scottish lines =  character Demon Crowley, who moves the plot of the story along

English lines = Crowley, the moral guide leading Aziraphale

Additionally, the two of them swap sides in their blocking frequently in this episode. Their standard placement is A/R + C/L but the swap to C/R + A/L is almost the norm in this minisode.

Analyzing Blocking and Dialogue

We open in the graveyard, with Aziraphale and Crowley in their standard placement, observing the statue of Gabriel. But then they notice Elspeth, digging up a corpse. When Aziraphale approaches Elspeth to inform her that her actions are Not Good, he actually ends up swapped with Crowley and finds himself on the left because what he is doing - making moral judgments on the actions of Elspeth with no understanding of what led her here - is doing Good, not good.

The next scene finds Crowley helping Elspeth cart the corpse away from the graveyard, while the trio debate all the other ways Elspeth could make money - Aziraphale suggests running a bookshop, farming, weaving, giving the standard Good party line about hard work blah blah blah. Aziraphale remains on the left - after all, those supposed options are completely unrealistic, unobtainable professions for someone in Elspeth's socioeconomic position. They aren't remotely helpful suggestions.

Aziraphale only finds himself back on the right when he and Crowley are introduced to Wee Morag, and have some time to listen and observe the reality of their situation.

Then, off we go to complete our journey to sell the body. Aziraphale and Crowley find themselves having a debate about morality, but Aziraphale is again ON THE LEFT as he waxes poetic about the virtues of poverty - doing Good, not good again. What I loved here was you saw the clear purpose between Crowley’s two accents as he switched mid-line -

Crowley: (SC) Oh, I'm down with wicked! (EN) Anyway, is it wicked? She needed the money. 

Upon reaching the lodging of Mr. Dalrymple, FRCSE, Crowley and Aziraphale take their standard places but this scene has one really important moment that I want to highlight. When they open the barrel to find the rotted corpse, the look on Crowley’s face is so telling. He often finds Aziraphale’s machinations amusing even when they are annoying, but here he looks decidedly disappointed. Aziraphale might have done Good by rendering the body unsellable, but what good did it do? The body is still been un-interred. Elspeth has wasted her energy, and has made a terrible first impression of the surgeon whom she needs to pay her for her services. It looks like Crowley wants to say something, but he stops himself and clenches his jaw. The PATIENCE he is showing to Aziraphale - this is a quality that Crowley has in SPADES but we really see him exercise it here.

After the discussion with Mr. Dalrymple, in which Aziraphale realizes the importance of dissections for educating medical students and thus leading to better care for the living, he asks the right question - why should the poor have to risk death to obtain bodies? But he let's himself get sidetracked by a blatant appeal to his emotions...

At this point, Aziraphale goes all in on body snatching being Good. Which... it still isn't because it is based on a broken system that disadvantages the poor? FOCUS, angel. He even goes as far as to offer to help Elspeth and Wee Morag in obtaining another corpse but note that again, he is on the LEFT -

Remember, Wee Morag is deeply conflicted about the morality of body snatching, and instead of explaining anything to her (like, that having your body dissected won't keep you out of heaven would be start) Aziraphale just sort of joins Elspeth in pressuring her to join in - which is pretty awful and coercive, but gee if that isn't just heaven's playbook for doing Good, not good.

So we return to the graveyard, and this is where everything goes sideways. Aziraphale spends basically this entire sequence on the left. First, he notices the ingenuity of the grave guns but fails to acknowledge the travesty of so much energy being spent on protecting wealthy corpses while the poor suffer. Then, the tragedy strikes. After Wee Morag is shot, Aziraphale wastes time justifying saving her, resulting in her dying before he can act. And after all this, after the heart break of seeing her partner die, we see Elspeth come to the logical conclusion. If body snatching is Good, then might as well take Wee Morag off to Mr. Dalrymple, right?

What shouldn't be overlooked is what takes place when Elspeth gets Wee Morag's body to Mr. Dalrymple. Because while Aziraphale is very clearly illustrating the dangers of black and white morality through religion, Dalrymple is showing that black and white morality through science is just as bad. Dalrymple has unshakable belief in the power of science and knowledge to alleviate human suffering and sees his work at Good. He cares about preventing illness, but ignore his role in perpetuating poverty - an unfortunate side effect of rigid belief systems of all shapes and sizes. He is downright cruel to Elspeth.

This is already getting real long, so we won't go into the absurdist comedy of the scene in the tomb - suffice to say that the surreal nature of Crowley's bargaining with Elspeth smacks of a fantastic tales of pacts made with the devil. It's delightfully unhinged.

The one line I think worth pointing out?

"Do I sound like a goat?"

I think this line is key in the narrative connection between the three minisodes in S2. All three flashbacks show Crowley and Aziraphale engaging in acts of deception, but they all have important differences:

In A Companion to Owls, the two work together, and they manage to pull off the trick and evade punishment.

In Nazi Zombies from Hell, Aziraphale comes up with a plan and Crowley goes along with it, and they barely manage to evade punishment.

In The Resurrectionists, Crowley comes up with a plan and Aziraphale goes along with it, and Crowley is sucked down to hell.

I think it's worth noting just how silly Crowley is in the first two minisodes. Bildad and Scottish Crowley are FUN even when dealing real heavy shit. Just a complete joy to watch. And we never see that level of silly from him again. Whatever happened in hell was clearly really bad since the next time we see him in St. James Park he is asking for holy water. He may have moments, but he is never the same.

Questions, comments, additional thoughts? Lay them on me. I'd love to dig into new lines of inquiry on this minisode because I just love it so much <3

[lostloveletters]

Give Me Shelter, The Night Is Dark (Vampire!Michael Corleone x Reader)

Summary: Local superstition and a reclusive man offer you refuge when your parents grievously misstep in Sicily, putting your life in danger in more ways than one.

Note: Female reader, but no other descriptors are used. This incredibly self-indulgent gothic romance-esque idea came to me while I was half-asleep, and the time period is intentionally vague, but it’s not a modern setting (here's a little aesthetic tag for this fic). Do not interact if you’re under 18, terf or radfem, or post thinspo/ED content.

Word count: 4.6k

Warnings: Major canon divergence. Canon-typical violence. Emotional manipulation. Vampirism, including non-consensual blood drinking and compulsion (in the context of it being an ability vampires possess and can use on humans). Sexually explicit content involving elements of bloodplay. Do not interact if you’re under 18.

You couldn’t remember what had brought your family to the village of Corleone, only that your father had promised you and your mother an extravagant Sicilian vacation. Three days of beachside paradise in Mondello, eating fresh seafood cooked to perfection and entertaining the antics of handsome men with scars that stood out like bolts of lightning against their tanned skin were hardly enough to sate your voracious appetite for the weeks of bliss you were promised. 

Despite your attempts at bargaining to stay in Palermo on your own, your mother refused, insisting she’d be better off throwing you into shark-infested waters than alone with the men who came calling to your hotel. Some days of travel through the breathtaking Sicilian countryside later, you and your parents arrived in Corleone, a village that appeared all but frozen in time, as if decades had passed it by with no one any the wiser. 

To your dismay, you found the selection of eligible men to spend your time with far more limited than in Palermo. The working young men were too tired from their labor in the fields or their trades to engage in foolish antics with a vacationing foreigner. The rest were mafiosi, as you gathered from the veiled comments and numerous euphemisms the older villagers used. 

These elderly became your companions during your stay in Corleone, talking wildly with their weathered hands over coffee or wine. Filomena, a woman of nearly eighty years and fluent in English, lived in the house next to the one your family was renting. Her husband Gianni only left the house if absolutely necessary, and she considered him a burdensome hermit. Each morning, she fetched you to accompany her into town. Some days, you’d do little else than sit outside of a cafe on the sleepy main street, eating and drinking and gossiping. 

Your Sicilian improved immensely in the near month you kept up with their chatter. Those women always had their ears to the ground, as far as knowing more about your father’s business in Corleone than you did. The vacation he promised you was little more than a gesture of confidence toward Don Manusco, a man notoriously difficult to meet directly with. That your father achieved this naturally generated interest in the village, as no one knew of him. When pressed for more information about your own family’s line of work, you answered what you knew, that your father invested, mostly in stocks, but occasionally in new business ventures. 

You were privy to little else, much to the disappointment of your companions, who moved onto other topics of discussion. One woman’s son sought work in Milan and within three months of getting hired at a factory, married a Northerner, much to her displeasure. In contrast, Filomena’s daughter was cloistered elsewhere in the countryside, preparing to take her vows and become a nun. 

Their superstitions, however, intrigued you most of all. A curse and blessing existed for nearly every conceivable situation. The most striking tale they spun regarded an abandoned villa about a mile past the rental house. Foreboding and hostile, its faded facade peeking out from thorny vines, it was once the envy of the village. At one point in time, though no one could agree quite when, the Don of another family lived there. He took in a strange young man, reclusive yet polite, wandering the countryside with two armed shepherds as bodyguards. He married a local girl, but the marriage ended tragically soon after the wedding. In a sudden blaze of fire and betrayal, she was killed. The strange man vanished not long after, and anyone associated with the villa—including the old Don Tomassino—were soon found dead or had disappeared altogether. Thus, no one dared approach it for fear of the curse surely cast upon the place.

Some of the gruesome murders in the vicinity of the villa could have been attributed to the tradition of violence Don Manusco carried on following Don Tomassino’s death. It didn’t explain the livestock dying of unusual causes, an older woman interjected. Even the land surrounding it was cursed, and the local shepherds knew better than to let their flocks graze nearby, explaining the abnormally tall grass and overgrown foliage that surrounded the villa.

Yet another woman claimed to have seen a demon or ghost in the form of a man wandering the villa’s grounds at night. Of course, she didn’t get close enough to take a good look, instead uttering Hail Marys as she ran into the local church to take refuge until her husband found her some time later.

Your mind drifted to the villa sometimes, this forbidden and mysterious monument to grief and superstition that seemed to cast a longer shadow over the village than the mafiosos who ran it. Like Don Manusco, who your parents were joining for dinner one evening, and Filomena insisted you join her and Gianni instead of eating alone.

The scent of stewing summer tomatoes with garlic and mouth-watering spices invited you inside the house, its windows open for hopes of cool breezes moving through. Gianni offered you wine and a simple antipasto spread of cheese and oranges to snack on while Filomena cooked dinner. Despite his reclusiveness, he somehow knew that your father’s dinner with Don Manusco involved more business than a friendly visit, the final chance for your father to seal what he hoped would be a lucrative deal with the mafia boss.

Two hours later, you sat across from Filomena at the small wooden table in their kitchen, filling your plate with the delicious meal she prepared. You ate silence while Filomena spoke, bickering with Gianni every now and then. As the sun set over Corleone, unease crept over you, though you chose to attribute it to the heat of the day and eating too quickly.

Until a commotion erupted up the street, almost deafening as it approached, finally arriving outside of Filomena’s house. Frantic Sicilian shouting mingled with rapid pounding on the front door startled you into dropping your fork. Filomena and Gianni shared a worried glance before both getting up from the table to answer. 

Wailing. 

Screaming. 

Arguing. 

All you found yourself able to do was sit in confused silence. When they returned to the kitchen with a few other locals, panic truly set in.

“You have to leave!” Filomena cried, pulling you out of your seat by your arm.

“What’s going on?” you asked.

“Your father’s a fool–”

Gianni shook his head. “A dead fool–”

“Your father should have never brought you here if he were going to try to cheat Don Manusco!” an older woman said.

Another cursed. “Selfish bastard!” 

“Go! As far from here as you can!” Filomena implored.

A hard push toward the back door was the extent of the help you’d receive from the villagers of Corleone. 

Blood pounded in your ears, your heart beating in time with your feet against the uneven dirt path that nearly tripped you up in your desperate rush to the rental home. You opened the door, scrambling upstairs in a frantic half-crawl to reach your room.

You shoved clothes and essentials into a bag, hardly paying attention to what exactly you were packing, just knowing you couldn’t flee empty-handed and hope to rely on the goodwill of strangers. 

In the kitchen, you grabbed what you could from the pantry and shoved everything into a wicker basket. With just that and your suitcase in hand, you clumsily ran across the uneven countryside roads, hoping to find somewhere to take shelter for the night. Every rustle of leaves and animal cry sent chills across your skin. Just when you felt hopeless for a place to hide, you saw the abandoned villa's high walls, overgrown with vines and bramble in the distance. Superstition be damned, it was better than dying at the hands of a mafioso.

The iron gate was closed, but not locked. You held your breath as you opened it, sending out silent thanks to the universe that it didn’t release some otherworldly screech and announce your presence. Hardly visible in the dead of night, the villa peeked out from beneath the plants that had overtaken it. Even from a distance, it appeared as if the building were hollowed out somehow. It remained your best bet. 

Superstition offered you refuge, as masculine voices drifted above the villa’s high walls, the structure still sturdy despite the general state of disrepair.

“Should we go in?”

“You sound as much of a fool as that old man. That place is cursed. Even if she were in there, she'd be dead anyway.”

Their heavy, rushed footsteps against the rocky terrain fell silent after a few moments. You sighed in relief, allowing yourself to relax just the slightest bit. Until you glanced back at the villa again, a new sense of dread making your stomach turn at the prospect of having to go inside the place. While you didn’t believe all of the rumors you’d been told over the previous few weeks, being in its presence unsettled you.

Then again, feeling unsettled in an abandoned villa was preferable to whatever would happen if Don Manusco’s men got his hands on you.

After a moment of hesitation, you approached the shadowy building, hoping your luck wouldn’t run out when you got inside. 

To your surprise, the interior wasn’t as poorly maintained as the exterior. The furniture betrayed the wealth of whoever lived there previously, though they’d seen better days. Dark wood scuffed or splintered. Dull fabrics that must have been rich violets or crimson upon their initial purchase. 

You walked into the living room, freezing upon seeing lit candles around. Someone was living there after all. 

“Hello? Is anyone–” you gasped upon seeing a man standing on the other side of the living room, partially obscured by shadows.

Even in the cover of darkness, his features rendered you speechless as he approached. Handsome seemed too pedestrian of a word to describe him. His raven hair fell across his forehead with a deceptive boyishness. Brown eyes, almost black as the night itself bore into your own. His skin wasn’t nearly as tan as the villagers you’d met, but you supposed someone who lived in such a place was wealthy enough to not have to partake in the grueling manual labor typical of the area, the strong Sicilian sun giving its residents a healthy glow which he lacked. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked quietly.

“The men who were outside before—I think they’re going to kill me,” you said, panic overtaking your senses as his face remained unmoved by your explanation. “Please, I didn’t know anyone lived here.”

“Why do they want to kill you?”

“I think my father tried to cheat Don Manusco. I don’t know all of the details, but if they don’t want to kill me, then they’ll probably—“ Your voice caught in your throat. 

“You can stay.”

“I’ll leave tomorrow and find a way to get back to Palermo.”

He shook his head. “You have a vendetta out against you now. Getting back to Palermo so soon will be nearly impossible, especially if Manusco has allies there.” He watched in unreadable silence as hopelessness ate away at your resolve. “You can stay,” he finally repeated. “Don’t leave the villa. Not during the day, and especially not at night. You’ll be safe.”

“Thank you. I owe you my life.” You offered him your name, as a courtesy and as collateral. More valuable than anything else you carried with you, he could use it to betray you for his own gain whenever he wished. You prayed it wouldn’t come to that.

“Michael Corleone,” he said.

“Like the village.”

He smiled the slightest bit, his dark eyes shining an almost betraying crimson in the moonlight. Ethereal. That was the right word for him. “Yes, like the village.”

Your host led you upstairs, helping you with your meager belongings despite your insistence you could handle your small suitcase and a basket of food, which you left on the console table in the foyer. The villa had certainly seen better days, its plaster walls cracked, crumbling in some places. You would’ve used caution going up the stairs if Michael hadn’t been so confident as he ascended them. 

He paused at the top of the stairs, glancing at each of the doors along the hallway. After a few moments, he seemed to settle on one, leading you to a dark bedroom, full of odd shadows that made you pause. It seemed otherwise better taken care of than the rest of the villa you’d seen up to that point.  

“It’s just me here. I’m afraid I’m not the best homemaker,” he half-joked in response to your hesitation to enter the room. 

“No, I’m sorry. It’s nice. I can’t thank you enough, Michael.”

He nodded. “I have insomnia, so you’ll see more of me at night than during the day. The cellar stays locked, but you can have the run of the place otherwise.”

You bid each other good night. 

When he shut the bedroom door behind you, you collapsed onto the bed and cried into your pillow, both from heartbreak and exhaustion, until you fell asleep. 

The following morning, you awoke to fresh bug bites on your arm–inflamed and itchy, though perfectly in line with each other, oddly enough. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and you supposed you’d rather deal with mosquito bites than whatever Don Manusco and his soldiers had in mind for you. 

True to his word, Michael was nowhere to be found when you went downstairs to eat a breakfast of bread and hard salami. Again, not ideal, but you’d make do with what you brought with you. For the rest of the day, you explored the villa, acquainting yourself with your new albeit temporary home.

You found yourself with little to do to pass the time. Venturing out onto the surrounding grounds of the villa was hardly an option, most of it so overgrown you couldn’t take a proper walk. There were a few books in the house, but often you found your mind drifting to your parents, what their fate looked like and what could await you if Don Manusco found out where you were hiding. By the time you’d finally see Michael around in the evenings, you’d force yourself to stay up as long as you could to be in his company. Soon, your schedule nearly matched his nocturnal one.

Over the following weeks, you got to know Michael. At times, you couldn’t help but stare at him, but sometimes it felt as though you couldn’t do much else if you tried. He was a gracious host for how you imposed on him, showing concern for the bug bites you tried to hide from him. A good thing he noticed, as he brought you a cup of tea, a deep maroon color that he explained was a natural remedy from the village for the discomfort you were experiencing. A common occurrence that you’d been fortunate enough to avoid since arriving in Corleone.

“You’re not from around here either,” you said one night. “I can tell from your accent.”

“I’m from New York, but my father was born here,” he explained. “My last name is a mistake from when he immigrated.”

“Do you miss it?”

He was silent for some time, lost in thought before answering with a soft, “Terribly.”

“But you can’t go back.”

“No, I’m very sick. I wouldn’t survive the trip.”

“I’m sorry,” you said, your curiosity getting the better of you when you asked, “What do you have?”

“What I have is incredibly rare, there’s no word for it. Sunlight puts me in excruciating pain, and my appetite is abnormal.”

“How long have you been sick for?”

“Years. More than you’d believe.”

“You know, everyone in the village thinks this place is cursed. If you just talked to them, then they’d understand what was going on and maybe be able to help.”

“I can’t be around people. It’s not safe for them.”

“I don’t understand,” you said. “Are you contagious?”

He hesitated. “Not how you’d think.”

“No matter what you have, it’s not good to be alone,” you argued.

“You’re here now.”

“Only until it’s safe for me to go to Palermo and leave Sicily.”

He shook his head. “You won’t be able to leave. Not when a man like Don Manusco has a vendetta out against you,” he said, his intense gaze boring into you. Your chest grew tighter as he spoke. “This villa is the only place you’ll ever be safe.”

“Michael, you’re scaring me.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I just know what he did to your parents…he and men like him have done to many others on this island, too.” Your silence perturbed him. He grabbed your shoulders, squeezing them gently, though his eyes seemed to blaze with fury. “I’m keeping you safe here, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” you whispered, your voice nearly catching in your throat.

“Then what’s there to be afraid of?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s right, as long as you stay here.”

“I can’t stay forever.”

He hummed dismissively, not bothering to acknowledge your statement. You soon excused yourself to go to sleep, a sudden uneasiness settling in your stomach.

You awoke late into the afternoon the following day, judging by the amber sunlight that streamed through the broken shutters. Still, your limbs felt heavy, and your head pounded as if you’d hardly slept at all. A quick glance at your arm revealed twin bug bites on your wrist again, this time darker than the previous ones, leaving your skin tender to the touch. 

Dizziness turned the room over when you sat up from the bed, and you nearly considered going back to sleep, if it weren’t for the hunger that ached in your bones. 

You ventured down into the kitchen, relieved to find a pot of tea sitting out. You didn’t even bother reheating it, though the consistency was odd, thicker in its room temperature state. The texture didn’t deter you, as the more you drank, the better you felt, your dizziness and aches gone as the tea overflowed from the corners of your mouth and dripped down your chin, insatiable until there was nothing left. Wiping off your face, you went back up to your room and fell back asleep.

A knock on the door woke you up in the pitch black some hours later. You lit the candle on your bedside table before getting up to answer. You knew it was Michael, concerned about why you hadn’t joined him yet. 

Just as you got up to answer, he opened the door, letting himself into your room–except it wasn’t your room. It was his, and you supposed he could enter whenever he wanted. 

Frozen in place by his gaze alone, you stood still and silent as he approached, demeanor darker and more intense as his presence filled the room, as if his essence somehow intermixed with each breath you took. A citrusy sweetness with a bloodcurdling undercurrent of violence filled your lungs. Despite this, you felt no fear, but rather anticipation when he finally reached out and caressed your cheek, his hand freezing against your warm skin.

“Michael,” you whispered.

“Don’t fight me, sweetheart.”

And you couldn’t. Not even if you tried. His eyes took in your face with a softness that betrayed his fondness for you. His lips pressed against yours, a chaste kiss to start, but it proved to be insufficient for him, as he claimed your mouth with the fervor of a man long starved for affection. His desire for you tangible as you kissed him back, allowing his hands to roam your body above your nightgown until his fingers brushed your thighs, pushing the hem up to your hips. 

He laid you back on the bed, ridding you of your panties and slipping his fingers between your folds. “Tell me how it feels,” he said, his lips against your skin. “Tell me everything.”

Before then, you would have died rather than admit it to him, but at his urging, the dam broke. Of course your thoughts of him weren’t always innocent. Some nights, when you were sure he was elsewhere, you touched yourself to the thought of him. The confession slipped from your mouth so quickly that shame couldn’t catch you, not when Michael pushed his fingers inside you, the heel of his palm rubbing against your clit, denying you any sensation but absolute pleasure. 

“I’ve wanted you since I first saw you,” he whispered, pressing desperate kisses into your neck. “You have no idea how hard it’s been for me not to–”

Your whine interrupted his train of thought, and a knife-sharp pain jolted through you when he sunk his teeth into your throat, breaking the fragile skin. His fingers curled inside you, a moan clawing its way out of you as you came, ecstasy pulsing through your limbs in waves that threatened to drown you in it. Spots clouded your vision and breath evaded you, the poignant scent of copper mixed with your sex made your head spin. 

“Michael, I–” You passed out, though you awoke later, curled up next to him, your body sore and more fatigued than ever. You winced when you tried to move your head, a dull ache coming from your neck. “What did you do?” you mumbled.

“Sweetheart?”

“To my neck.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, petting your hair. “I got carried away. I haven’t felt this way in a long time.”

“Me either,” you admitted. 

He smiled, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head. From then on, he was ravenous, and like a woman possessed, you gave in to him every time. Nights with him blurred together as thoughts of escaping Sicily and the danger that waited for you outside of the villa walls were almost nonexistent. 

Some time later, though you’d largely stopped keeping track of the days by then, you realized your food supply was running low. Michael would go out at night and get some for you if you asked, though he never revealed where exactly he went. Still unsure of your safety from Don Manusco, you figured the farm up the road would be a good place to swipe some fruit from the orchard and anything else they might have lying around and not exactly miss.

The sun felt especially harsh when you went outside. Each step brought about unimaginable fatigue that made your bones ache. You hardly made it halfway to the farm before you had to rest beneath a large tree’s shade to rest your tired limbs and eyes. 

“Excuse me, miss? Are you okay?” 

You jolted awake, surrounded by a handful of elderly villagers from around the countryside. You recognized at least one of the older women as one of your old cafe companions in Corleone.

“I’m fine.”

The woman in question squinted at you. “Where do I know you from?”

“We’ve never met before,” you said, voice tight with panic. “I have to go. Goodbye.” You forced yourself up, using what little strength you had to return to the villa, ignoring their calls for you to wait. Exhaustion swept over you by the time you made it inside, promptly collapsing in the foyer. They had recognized you, and surely they had seen you retreat into the villa and were on their way to let Don Manusco know of your whereabouts. They’d be foolish not to with the price on your head.

Michael was nowhere to be found, and you worried that by the time you finally saw him that night, it’d be too late to tell him what transpired. Tears rolled down your cheeks as fear and guilt crept up on you. Your carelessness had put Michael in danger, too.

With no way of knowing how long it’d be until word got back to Manusco, you considered the layout of the villa, which you knew like the back of your hand, and the best place to hide if he or his men intruded in search of you.

In hindsight, the kitchen cupboard was a more obvious choice for a hiding spot, but it was the most your fatigued brain could come up with while you were panicked. 

Your instincts had been right, though. The inevitable intrusion did come.

The voices that echoed through the foyer were the same ones from the night you first arrived in the villa. You kept a hand over your mouth, the other with an iron grip around the kitchen knife. 

“Come on, Don Manusco isn’t angry with you. He just wants to talk,” one of the men called out.

“It’s a misunderstanding,” the other added. “He knows you didn’t have anything to do with your father’s schemes.”

You couldn’t take a chance on whether or not they were telling the truth. 

Footsteps approached, growing louder with each passing second. You readied yourself for attack, until you heard a blood-curdling scream rip through the night and you dropped the knife in shock. 

With all of the foolishness of your father, you opened the cupboard door. Blood pooled around the man’s head, a look of terror etched into his face, betraying his final thoughts. Your gaze lifted, and you stumbled backward, unable to comprehend the gruesome sight before you. If you hadn’t been watching Michael with your own eyes, you would have assumed an animal attack was responsible for the carnage at your feet. What more, after the initial shock wore off, an almost physical pull drew you to the spilled blood.

The villagers had been right. It wasn’t mere superstition, but reality, one more horrific than any of them could have fathomed. The unexplained murders, the livestock deaths, all by his hand. His illness a fabrication to conceal the true nature of his being, something unnatural that existed in the worlds between life and death with a hunger to match. He’d been feeding from you for weeks, allowing you to carry on believing lies. Of course you felt awful, constantly fatigued. You could only hazard a guess as to what was really in the tea you’d been drinking like a fiend.

You wished you could scream at yourself for your naivete, as if he’d help you out of the kindness of his heart and not expect something in return. Your willful ignorance of his odd behavior in exchange for refuge in the one place where you’d be safe from who you thought were the only men who wanted to harm you. But he saved you from Don Manusco and his men. He kept you alive. He could gain little from drawing out your death for so long. Unless…your eyes widened, and you looked at him in horror.

Michael spoke your name softly. “Do you understand now?”

“You–You’ve been making me like you.”

“I should have done it sooner. It’s the best way to keep you safe.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Would you have believed me?”

“I guess not.”

He cupped your face in his hands, “Things won’t be that different. We’ll be together. No one will be able to hurt you.” 

“How–How much longer until I’m–”

“As soon as tonight, if you’ll let me.” Sensing your hesitation, he pressed a bloody kiss to your forehead. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. You trust me, don’t you?”

“Yes,” you whispered, overwhelmed by the urge to trust him, to commit to an eternity of all-consuming, reclusive violence with him. “I want to be with you. I want to be like you.”

His hands drifted down to your neck, his fingers digging into your pulse as he leaned in, his teeth grazing the half-healed wound he’d inflicted all those nights before. “I knew you’d make the right choice.”

[diamondsandtoads]

Do you love fairy tales? I want to hear from you!

EDIT: I will be closing the survey on November 9th! Thank you everyone who has participated!!!

My name is Ainjel Stephens and I am a PhD candidate in the Folklore department at Memorial University of Newfoundland. I am currently conducting a research project on fairy tales reception by queer-identifying individuals for my PhD dissertation under the supervision of Sarah Gordon. The purpose of this study is to learn how people who feel queer or identify as queer think about and respond to fairy tales.

Artist: Gustave Dore

If this sounds like a project you would be interested in participating in, then I invite you to take a short survey where you will be asked a few questions about who you are, as well as reflective questions about your thoughts and feelings on fairy tales, and if these tales are “queer.” It should only take about 10 minutes of your time to complete.

The survey asks if you would like to participate further with an interview with myself in order to discuss your thoughts and opinions on fairy tales. This interview will be a recorded hour-long interview through video conferencing platform Tauria or Webex. If you select yes, I will be in contact with you with further steps. If you select no, then that’s it! Thank you for participating.

To participate, you must be the age of majority and no younger than 19, have fairy tale knowledge in English, and identify with the term “queer.”

If you are interested, click the link below to participate in the anonymous survey.

If you have questions or want to chat further, you can contact me at alstephens@mun.ca or through my inbox on my project blog, www.diamondsandtoads.tumblr.com/

If you know anyone who may be interested in participating in this study, please send this post along.

Thank you for reading!

The proposal for this research has been reviewed by the Interdisciplinary Committee on Ethics in Human Research and found to be in compliance with Memorial University’s ethics policy. If you have ethical concerns about the research, such as your rights as a participant, you may contact the Chairperson of the ICEHR at icehr.chair@mun.ca or by telephone at 709-864-2861

[smolvenger]

Greetings bestie 💖🫡

Requesting a Professor Hiddles story (you can choose what subject he's teaching) where he already has this friendly type of dynamic w/ Reader and she's nervous about finals week and he goes "Tell you what, if you ace all your exams I'll take you out to dinner. Anything you want."

…And then (surprise surprise) she wants to skip all that because she just wants him 🫠🫠

I shall leave spice level entirely up to you 😏

And for some ✨inspiration✨…

Hi bestie! Thank you for requesting a Prof! Tom fic! I loved writing it!

Exam Aid (Prof! Tom Hiddleston x Student! Reader)

Summary: When finals have gotten you down, your Shakespeare professor offers some help...and motivation...

Word Count: 5939 (woof)

Warnings: Eventual Smut at the end! NSFW! (Reader is a college student ((if undergrad or graduate that's up to you)) so she's over 18. Dom! Prof Hiddles and Sub! Reader, dirty talk, vaginal fingering, doggy style, doing it in an office. It's super filthy when it gets there, so be warned), mentions of anxiety and insomnia and mental health. My Shakespeare tastes and my IRL English Major college experiences are used and referenced bc it's my indulgent fic too and I do what I want. Some hurt/comfort. Prof Hiddles being both a dom and silly goofy in one fic bc get you a man who can do both.

Taglist: @huntress-artemiss@ijuststareatstuffhereok89@evelyn-kingsley@jennyggggrrr@five-miles-over@fictive-sl0th@ladycamillewrites@villainousshakespeare@holdmytesseract (smut starts at "I'm good at more than just kissing" and ends at "He looked at you with a sweet smile", for your comfort, bestie) @eleniblue@twhxhck@lokisgoodgirl@lovelysizzlingbluebird@raqnarokr@holymultiplefandomsbatman@michelleleewise@wolfsmom1@cheekyscamp@mochie85@muddyorbsblr

 It wasn’t the actual week of finals. Oh no, you knew how the drill would go. It was the month or week before. It would be assigned. Every last essay thrown on top of you. And with professors without a touch of reality for students.

“Who the hell has time to read and finish A Tale of Two Cities in two days?!” you thought as you shoved your unabridged copy of Dickens in your bag. Promising yourself to get through as much as you can and then read the Sparknotes summary in the morning. You weren’t immune to it.

Throughout your time in college, you had many a professor. Professors came in varieties. There were creative writing professors who ranged from tiny women who would assign short stories that made no sense to blonde men with glasses and toothy grins who loved it when their male classmates wrote exploitative abuse. Mythology professors with Greek accents and tans. Then there were the mixed bag of literature professors. 

The previous professor of the literature survey for Shakespeare also taught the American Literature Survey course. He was Dr. Rutledge. He wasn’t from this year, or even this reality. Either a wise old sage or a kooky scientist from the movie. He had long, thin grey hair, and wore bow ties with black glasses and thick tweed jackets. He smiled and would speak for hours in a tone half sarcastic, half serious. You knew he would go back home and cozy up with a whole copy of Moby Dick next to a fireplace as he sipped on tea or even scotch if he was feeling adventurous. When he brought up sex and seduction with the Scarlet Letter it was the equivalent of hearing a nun confess her last orgy. 

So when you registered this year for the Shakespeare course, that was the sight you were expecting.

Since the first day in walked someone different. He may have been wearing a suit, but he definitely was not Dr. Rutledge. 

Everyone was gossiping and chattering and sipping on their iced coffees when they fell silent. Every single back stood up straighter at the sight of him. Young, tall, virile. Long, curly reddish blonde hair. A goatee and glasses to show his maturity. Sharp suits that framed every inch of his lean but fit body. Eyes and cheekbones to die for. A jaw so straight it made the men taking the class question if they were.

No introduction of “hi, I’m-” No icebreaker games. He only stepped forward, to his podium. Held onto it, everyone leaned forward. He had all of you in the palm of his hand. Then, with his clear, bright baritone voice, he spoke-

“Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York…”

His voice…something about it. So…rich…Goddammit, he picked that one, the opening speech of Richard the Third. If he picked Romeo’s balcony declaration or something like that, you would be in even more danger of falling onto the floor in a horny heap of suppressed yearning. But no…it was Richard the Third’s monolgoue. Of all the characters he was playing, of all the characters in the Shakespeare canon you could thirst after, it was fucking Richard the Third. Definitely not known as a hunk or even a likable person according to canon. 

But the way he said it- threatening, villainous even. He leaned in and confessed his true feelings about the royal family and his plot to destroy them and rule over them. You could already feel something stirring inside you. And it was eight am in the morning. 

As he finished the monologue, speaking it so naturally it was as if it were his own words, the class burst into applause.

With a casual bow, brushing his curly blonde-red hair out of his face, he introduced himself.

“Hello class- good morning. I’m your professor- Professor Hiddleston, and I will make this as fun and engaging as a morning class on Shakespeare can be.”

From then on, you enjoyed the class. You tackled it on- after all, you wanted to have some fun. You loved Shakespeare. But Professor Thomas Hiddleston…was a bonus. Thank the lord he wore suits. And if not suits, white shirts with the sleeves rolled up. He might as well as taken it off for you. 

You went through various sonnets. Then explored the poetry- Aphrodite and Lucretia. Then the plays. Even plays that the undergrads thought the most dull he made intriguing. He made everything clear with Shakespeare’s life too himself- how the Bard lost a son named Hamlet. How Shakespeare was accustomed to the great courts and low brothels Prince Hal tasted both of. 

When theatres did productions or there was the odd movie adaptation in theatres, everyone went to go see it. Then he had a showing of lesser-known film adaptations. Showing how Orson Welles framed the shot of Falstaff to make the large knight seem even larger. The Bollywood Othello where at long, long last Emilia survived and she was the one to kill Iago, much to the class’s cheering.

“Are there any other movies we should watch?” he asked.

One kid shot up and suggested Shakespeare in Love. He raised an eyebrow.

“ It was not Shakespeare’s invention to have the lovers die. Romeo and Juliet was a a known story in Elizabethan era England and everyone knew back then that the lovers died. It’s like someone just suggesting that Superman comes from another planet- we all know he does. Not  because of him having an illicit affair as his poor wife was left to raise their surviving children far off and alone!”

“What about Anonymous!?” cried one kid, trying to be cool.

He let out a deep, ragged sigh. 

“There is more than enough evidence to suggest Shakespeare wrote the plays. Every criticism says he can’t write it because he was uneducated. However, if you look, there are hysterical inaccuracies in his geography And no one questions the authorship of Maya Angelou because of her lack of formal education! Just because he was not a nobleman, does not mean he was not aware of things as you are! Every Anti-Stratfordian argument boils down to classicism.” 

It was the best class you took. Having him teach definitely helped. And he would invite people for coffee talks and of course, you would bolt to join. Yet you enjoyed it- seeing him so relaxed. Warm in his coat as everyone circled around to talk about plays they knew of but hadn’t read in this class.

“Well- all of us went through our high schools. We all read Romeo and Juliet- what do you think?” he questioned them one autumnal day. 

“They’re just brats! Ugh!” one guy snarled out.

That you couldn’t take. You set down your drink, glaring at him. 

“They’re not!” you cried out passionately.

Eyes turned forward to you. You wished youcould have slapped him, but you stopped.

“Well, Y/N…why do you think that? Why are they not brats?” the professor asked. 

“I think…the plays aren’t meant to be realistic. Of course, they fall in love immediately- so do Rosamund and Orlando but no one calls them brats! It’s not Romeo and Juliet who get everyone killed! It’s not their love that hurts anyone- it’s just the feud and Paris l thinking he is entitled to Juliet’s body after her supposed death! No one knows about them- only they, the nurse, and the priest know about it! They’re innocent! Juliet calls Romeo her ‘friend!” Her one and only friend! That’s how alone she is without him! They are just innocent victims of a greater scheme. Hamlet and Othello fall prey to their own flaws- but Romeo and Juliet are just two young kids caught in the crossfire!”

You didn’t realize how passionate you were. You felt your face get hot with embarrassment as the class gaped at you. But the Professor was nodding his head. He gave you a small smile as you sat down.

“That was…very good. Next time, use the text and a few sources, and you have yourself a good essay, Y/N,” Professor Hiddleston said.

You liked how he challenged you. He would only want you to do better. He wouldn’t blow smoke up your ass, but he would support you. You would ask after each other. He told you a bit about his life- about how much there was to grade. How he got the job. Little things- but little things only added up to how much you liked him. Even…even…no, you couldn’t you would never say it aloud. But your bedtime fantasies…you were more than mere friends…but that was only for fantasies. 

You tried to let those regular Shakespeare classes comfort you. But finals were taking a toll on your sleep, and your health. You were so wound up and stressed, trying to read and perfect essays that you had trouble going to bed. Your brain kept churning- unable to think of anything else but your work. You couldn’t realx- you worked so hard to get into this school, this degree. If you didn’t pass then…you would be a failure and all that work to go to this school would be for nothing. 

At least after a sleepless night, you had something to look forward to- to distract yourself. But even lately in those classes, you curled into yourself. The heaviness of your exhaustion and the jolt of your anxiety over finals in an unending cycle of misery. You were so…tired…and done…and drained…you knew it would pass with time…

After class, as everyone filed out, Professor Hiddleston walked over to where you slowly gathered your things. He held out a hand to you.

“What is it, Y/N? You’re usually smiling and happy here. But you seem very grave lately…has something happened?”

You shook your head.

“Not really just…finals…I want to do well. I can’t get C’s- I want to do them perfectly! I want to! I want this degree! Now I…I’m so scared of failing…I wanted this school so much, now I…I…” you began to mutter.

You felt tears wriggling out of your eyes, and your breath shook as you uselessly tried to hold them back. He handed you tissues from his coat pocket. You felt like a trashbag- crying in front of this fucking Greek God. But he looked at you kindly. You wiped your eyes. Snot threatened to release from crying and you blew your nose. Ugh, he would think you were especially gross after that. But his gentle smile did not change. You wrapped up the tissues and tossed them aside- then he handed you the little plastic package.

“Is it mansplaining if I give you some advice?” he asked.

“Oh, no…it’s not…” you said. 

“Break your studies apart, Y/N. Ten little minutes at a time. A break. Then ten more. If you take time to focus, it will help you. Or if you make it fun and play music or make little drawings, then you have a picture as well…I know it means a lot…but if you rest, you will recover…and you must think smart, not hard,” he advised.

“Okay…” you nodded.

“Y/N, there are counselors here…they will help you and you don’t have to pay anything. They; 've helped me, and so many others, they should help you…” he suggested. He got out pamphlets from a corner of his desk to give to you. 

“I’ll see one…Why are you so kind to me?” you asked impulsively, looking up.

He put his hands in his pockets, glancing down, and then back up.

“If I may be frank, you remind me so much of myself when I was a student. I had a thesis I had to write on Shakespeare’s problem plays…and it consumed me. I wish someone had given me that advice at that time-I only want you to suffer a little less. Don’t be so hard on yourself- like I was on me…”

You nodded up at him, adjusting the straps of your bag and gathering your things in your arms. 

 “And I’ll..I’ll make it fun- I’ll think of a reward for after…” you said.

He placed his hands in front of him, his lips tightening, and then in a rushed exhale, he spoke. 

“Y/N…how would you…you…you like dinner? After finals?”

You perked your head up. Was this real? You blinked at him, saying nothing.

“Y/N…make me a bet…Go to counseling, break apart your studying, get through your finals, and do as well as you can…and I will take you out to dinner, how does that sound?” he asked.

You smiled at him, your heart beating fast. But yet…you were touched. You put a hand over your chest and released an exhale.

“Professor that…that sounds wonderful…” you answered.

“Ah, excellent. Now- is that a deal?” he asked with a tilt of his head.

You gave him a smile and a small laugh.

“It’s a deal,” you replied.

You managed to get a counseling session scheduled for tomorrow. You went inside, sat, met the kind therapist, and smiled as you vented and cried out your feelings. When you went back to where you lived and spent your emotions, you crashed onto the bed. It was the best nap you had ever taken. 

You followed his advice. You broke down studying or writing essays and researching. You took more breaks. You had made flashcards with doodles for the tests and were catching on quickly. Your research was more fruitful and your essays were getting better in your eyes. You found you slept a bit better at night.

Each day as you sat in at 8 am, the Professor would smile at you and nod. You felt more like yourself again despite the looming deadlines. And they didn’t seem like a matter of life or death anymore. 

Everyone knows the week before finals are hell. To study and work so much with no time off from usual classes. But… you would still miss that 8 a.m. Shakespeare survey- and the handsome professor in his suits.

“Y/N, don’t be scared- you will be phenomenal,”  He gave you a wink that turned you into jelly.

Damn him. To think you would have dinner with him. You turned around to peek at him erasing the markerboard and glimpsing his curved bum,  how his hair curled at the back, and his broad back.

Yeah, now that was motivation to do well.

You studied and wrote with enthusiasm. You completed it all in due time. The essays were to your satisfaction.  When you settled at night, you cuddled his pillow. Remembering his smell- be it his shampoo or cologne, the mild, citrus scent. Fantasizing about him. Of dancing slowly at a formal event with you in an evening gown. Feeling his hand on your back and his head lowering down to touch your forehead. Of sharing ice cream. Being a damsel in distress for him to rescue. Then you thought of his body…. And the images changed to something naughtier. Wearing short skirts and showing up to his class. And him noticing. And lifting it up…

You conked right to sleep.

Finals week began. The entire campus knew it was stressful and went ridiculously out of their way to cheer up the students. But it was a lot of fun, you had to admit. Having dogs on campus to pet. Discounts on coffee. That Monday morning the cafeteria was packed with the free breakfast they offered. Once you brave the long lines for free food, you headed out to your first final. 

Professors, to your amusement, dotted around the campus. If they didn’t have a class to be in, they were handing little care packages while dressed in silly costumes. The sight amused you and made you smile.

Then walking up, you turned to the right and jumped at the sight with a happy, surprised gasp that became laughter. Professor Hiddleston himself wore a light, frilly tutu made for girls a quarter of his age over his pants, little costume fairy wings over his shirt,  and had a headband with little stars on top like ears. 

He turned towards you and his face turned bright pink. 

“Professor Hiddleston! What is this?!” you asked.

He opened up his arms to present his silly costume.

“We’re doing our anti-stress events! I am here to provide you with help with your stress!” he announced theatrically.

You put your hands akimbo and surveyed his costume up and down. If the class knew, they would lose it.

“And you’re doing it?!” you asked.

“Why not! I’m not a stick in the mud all the time! I can have fun!”

You laughed again.

“I should take a picture and send you to the group chat of our class!”

“I don’t see why not!”

He posed as you took a picture. 

“And how are you feeling?”

“I feel better! Much better now- I feel like I’m ready…”

“Good! It will be done soon! A bit at a time!”

He handed over a stress-free care package. Exchanging smiles, you continued by with a lighter step in your shoes. 

You went to every test outside of the pre-written essay. You knew what to do as you wrote short essays for the tests. You didn’t completely panic and wrote them as well as you could. When it came to every exam,  you felt you knew and understood the material. The week flew by. 

Sure enough, on that Friday, with shaking hands and a turning stomach, you looked up your grades. Taking in a breath right when the clock hit noon, you tapped a shaking finger on the mouse.  The link buffered on your computer to view them. Then it lit up with revelation. 

You passed them. You passed them all. In fact, you did very well. 

Your heart was racing but—you realized…you didn’t have his number. Only his email address. With the still nervous feeling…you emailed him, your professor.

“Hello Professor,

My grades were announced- and they’re all spectacular. I passed all of them. So…you made that promise…are you available for dinner?”

You sent it off. You could only ruminate for five minutes- his response was quick. 

“Of course, dear Y/N…

Here’s my number below… Meet me in my office. The parking lot isn’t far from it.”

You managed to text him immediately. You were giggling and pacing your room like a high schooler as your phone buzzed with his responses.  You re-read them as you paced about with your phone in your face. The high of your crush floating you into the clouds. You were going to go to a nice restaurant- one wasn’t finalized yet, but something nice. And that meant you had to look the part!

You were so excited. You made sure your makeup was how you liked and that your hair looked clean. You put on a part dress-one with a shorter skirt. It was too perfect not to. It was cut only a little low to show some mild cleavage. The collar was wide enough so that it showed your collarbones. It was nice, but flirtatious and romantic. It hugged you in a perfect fit while making you feel amazing and sexy. 

Sure enough, you went over to his office. The place was abandoned. All offices and buildings on the Friday of the Finals are in the early evening. You walked over and knocked on the door.

He opened the door and your heart almost stopped.

He was lovely. In his suit. His curls and that slutty goatee combed. Smelling fresh and clean. He still was in his blue suit- bringing out the blue in his eyes. Loving, beautiful.

“Ah, Y/N- please, come in,” he welcomed.

You followed suit. He closed the door. There was a second where you just looked at each other. Despite his goatee, you saw him biting his lip.

“Now, how about that dinner, Y/N…” he offered. “There’s La Gardeniera-suitable. A nice place for a special occasion as this…”

You gave him a shrug.

“I don’t care…anywhere…” you replied. 

“Anywhere? ” he asked.

He put his hands in his pocket and looked at you. It was a simple office- white and brown as many are. There was a bright window, the blinds turned over, as the setting sun’s rays fell over it. There was a small bust of Shakespeare and a pitcher with cups of water. His desk had a neat stack of papers, and annotated books all over it. Cozy and comfortable- like how he made you. 

“I just…I want to be with you…I don’t mind. Take me to a McDonalds and I won’t care…” you went on.

“Y/N…I…me?” he asked.

“Yes, you! We don’t even have to eat or…to, uh…I just…” the words were failing you and you felt your heart pick up. You looked down at the floors and then back up at him. 

“You want to…to be with me…” he walked forward curiously. But you did not retreat. Did not back away. You only met him in his blue eyes, welcoming him.

“Y/N…are you sure?” he asked.

He took a step closer. He was right before you. And you did not retreat. You met his gaze. So close. The tension between you.

“Professor Hiddleston, I am sure…I just want to be with you…anywhere…you just…make me happy…” you finally confessed.

“You make me happy too…” he murmured

He leaned forward, seeking permission. You gave a shaky nod. 

Then he kissed you.

 Something in you released. So long it was boxed up- now wild and free.  He immediately took his hands and ran them up and down you and you held onto him in the kiss. Feeling him as he deepened it with the wet sound of lips. Grabbing onto each other, releasing what had been held for so long. He released and then kissed you-again, then again. Like he was drowning and you were air. 

“Mphm- what-what were the grades?” he asked before kissing again.

You caught your breath and took a break still close to his lips. 

“Passed them. Flying colors,” you reported.

 He kissed you again, moaning into it. Then he broke it again.

“Well now…my little student…doing so well…” he rasped.

You grabbed him and heart racing you felt him kiss you. His facial hair scratched against you. He kissed you back. He backed you up.

“You’ve been…good…” he breathed, pressing you there into it. You wrapped your arms around his broad shoulders. 

“Mphm- this feels…feels so nice…you’re a good kisser,” you whispered.

“I’m good at more than just kissing, my dear-”

He held you, pulling you close. He backed you to the door-holding you against him. He then reached a hand and turned over the lock. It was sealed with a click. His hands then returned to you. He cupped your cheeks, then it slid down your neck, and your chest, and then settled on your wasit. 

“I’ve…I’ve…God, I’ve wanted you so much…I…I don’t know if I…think I can…hold back…my dear, I-I-if you’re not…not ready, I’ll-”

“I don’t want to leave yet- let’s wait for dinner-take me. Fuck me here, now,” you begged. 

You didn’t need to say any more than that.  ou shuddered. He found your skirt and touched your leg, lifting it up. Feeling your skin, cold from exposure.

“All this…is all for me now…”

His hand reached over your leg. His long fingers possessively gripped each bit of flesh. Enjoying it- feeling you for the first time. Treasuring you and making his mark- you were his and his alone. He wrapped an arm around you and lifted you up onto that door. You let out a sound He then took your leg and guided it to wrap around his waist, holding onto him. You were so dripping wet you could feel his pants brushing your soaked panties. He held you easily-so, so easily. Just muscle and wall holding you and keeping you in place. He managed to lift you up- keeping you up with how pressed he was to you. How warm. Keeping him on you.

Your lips crashed again. You kept touching him. One hand finally touching his hair- his beautiful, long curls. The other kissing into him. In his suit, he began to ground against you now that you had nowhere to go away- not that you would leave. He kissed you with tongue and fire. You wrapped your arms around him and kissed him back, wet noises and messy, desperate need.

“Tom…Tom, I-” you murmured.

He touched your chin, shushing you.

“We’re still in my office, my dear. And you will call me Professor,” he said.

He reached a hand down- feeling hte seat of your soaked panties. Smiling from teh effect already.

“Yes…yes, I will…” you breathed out. 

“Now- my little angel. She did so well…and she comes to me, so needy…so desperate-first for her finals and now for my cock-”

You held onto him, touching his tie. Pulling him up. You felt his erection stretching through his pants. The hooded eyes and soft voice, his hot breath. You gave him a smile- eager to have him. 

“I’m going to rip your clothes off and fuck you senselessly- and I want you- I never heard a thank you- I want to hear your gratitude for how I take care of you in every way…how does that sound? Too much for you?”

“It sounds wonderful for me-Professor,” you purred in response.

He wrapped an arm to help you up and carried you- legs around his waist.

. He then backed you over to his desk. He kept one by you- so close, so close. He took a hand and shoved aside the books and papers. It didn’t matter- now there was you. 

He pulled up your skirt. Desperately trying to find the zipper. Almost shaking in his long fingers. His erection seeping through his pants- he was so pent up.

“All that time. Wanting you. Feeling you near. Do you know how many nights I had to jerk off to imagine this- you! Seeing you- feeling you right there- my little beauty, angel, and siren at once.”

He shoved your dress off and down. Now in your bra and underwear. His hands went to under your straps- feeling them already- his bare flesh on your bare flesh. You were backed there.

“Thank you.”

“Thank you what?” he asked darkly.

“Th-thank you, Professor.”

He kissed you again. You were his little pet, his toy, his plaything. And you would please him- You held onto his shoulders. Grinding more into his body, He was still. Yet you heard his breaths, catching in his chest. He still remained clothed. 

Then in a rush, he gripped your bra.

“You won't need these- not with me.”

With a strength that made you gasp, He ripped your bra in half. He breasted so fast, panting like a beast. Looking down at your breasts.  Both large hands fondled them, moving them around. 

“Th-Thank you, Professor,” you whispered.

“But there’s one thing- one thing keeping me- from what I need” he growled.

He reached down, and in a second, he ripped your panties apart again in half. You gasped at the feeling. The cloth in two- uselessly falling apart.

“No bra- no panties when I see you -easier access- do you understand…I have a need for you, do you get it-”

“Yes- yes, sir.”

“Close- but not it. You forgot. And you’ll be punished.”

He turned you around, so your bare ass was shown. He immediately spanked you hard- it clapped around you. You let out a shout.

“It’s thank you-Professor.”

“Thank you Professor!” you cried out, feeling the sting. 

“And you will get it right!”

He spanked you again, harder. The momentum made you move against the desk, feeling your ass move with it. And feeling his greedy eyes all over your exposed skin.

“Th-Thank you, Professor!” you cried.

He pulled you back up but kept your back to his chest. He kissed your cheek, fondling you from behind, whispering in your ear.  

“If you don’t want another punishment-Tell me what I am-”

“You-you’re my-my-”

The words failed you. He leaned you down again and spanked you.

“You’re my professor!”

He spanked you again.

“Say it again- and say thank you-”

“Yes- yes- thank you, Professor…”

He grazed over you. Feeling you. You were catching your breath. Dripping so hard. He put his hands against your inner legs. 

“The more I do this- the more I see you, the more I’m with you, the more you- you torture me. I can’t stand it- I-I have to have you, Y/N- I have to, I have to-do you- do you want-”

You lightly turned your head over to see him and could have gasped. 

He unzipped his pants and lowered them. Already his cock was large and twitching. It leaked so much, that his precum made you shiver. It drizzled down and made a path down his leg. You clutched onto the desk, smiling and bracing yourself. 

“Yes- take me- take me on your desk, Professor…”

He smiled, and then his hand made you bend over it again. ‘

“Spread. Your. Legs.”

You were such a horny querying mess, he touched your legs so that they spread for him. Then finally, you felt him at your entrance, and inside. 

You let out a long groan- and so did he. As he got in - inch by inch. 

“Yes- yes all-ah!” you cried out as he got all of himself in you. 

He eased you in at first. Your legs again over. He gave a few gentle, experimental thrusts. It was slow, even sloppy. Each intrusion, poking you inside. You were making an appreciative groan. You ground your hips further against him. The room was hot and smelled thick with sex.

“There…you can take…take all your professor's cock, can you?” he growled.

“Yes-yes I can..”

He then made a sharp thrust inside and you cried out.

“Oh!”

He then experimented- hips rolling towards your ass. You let out sounds like you never heard yourself make. He then had a hand to keep you down. To keep you down And then he began to pick up. Slamming into you. Keeping you still, close, on him. 

“Nrg-nrgh- yes-there-fuck-there’s my-myfuck- good litlte student-nrgh-want to please me- hrng-begging-begging to-shit-yes-yes-darling-begging for me-”

You were moaning into it. Your body shakes forward and back from his thrusts. You felt yourself spiraling. Then he slowed. He leaned down and whispered into your ear. The pleasure was at a standstill, you caught your breath as you heard his hot voice right beside you.

“You have another order- cum only when I’m about to-cum when I tell you- yes?” he demanded

“Yes!”

“Yes, are you grateful!” He moved his hands to feel your arms. 

“I am- th-tahnk you, Pr-Professor.”

He went back up and began to thrust again. Slow- then medium. You let out those pornographic sounds out as he did.

“Fuck- what you do to me, darling,” he breathed out. 

He let out another gasp, his voice itching up in a groan and then back down. Then he slammed into you, letting out a loud voice. 

“Who is going to let you cum?  Who lets you cum when you’re a good girl?” he rasped. 

“My-my- fuck-professor will- will let me-cum-yes!

“Not yet- not yet-mine is-if-fuck, it’s building.-”

He spread your legs wide and entered you. Then he grabbed your hips. He began to pound into you. The desk shaking- the wall quivering. Slamming against that wall with a thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud. He whimpered your name. You clung onto it, your knuckles popping out of you.

“Yes-Yes you are-beautiful little student- you are-g-grateful- fuck.-tight-so tight- shit-”

He was so deep, just rutting into you. He was an animal. Pure fucking you into the desk You felt the itch of his suit- the deepness of it. The papers scrambling away- scratching you. The pure ecstasy of it.

“And” thrust “tell me-” thrust “tell me this”- thrust “darling-”

He laced a hand, it reached your folds. You let out a whimper. He dug around- two fingers in-already feeling you. God- you weren’t going to last. He wasn’t going to like it, but you weren’t going to last. You let out a whimper as you felt him inside you.

“What” thrust “ is it” thrust”- “what is it- good” thrust “good girls do- ”thrust

“They-they-they get to-to-to come, Professor-”

“Yes! Yes-you're at my-my limit-gods-gods- what you do to me-You’ve been good-so good- I can’t-I can’t-so cum, darling-”

He strummed you. And you let out another intense gasp. He was strumming you. His fingers making you more open, his cock in, out, in out. You felt it build- he played with your clit so much. Trying the right place, You felt it rise, but not there. And he kept thrusting. A frustration in his rasp.

“Yes- dammit- why won’t you now? Why won’t-won’t you cum?! Cum, dammit- cum- darling- fuck, fuck- god- yes, gods, I’m there…I’m getting there, cum, dammit- why won’t you cum…”

With a new fury, he pounded against you into the desk- the filthiest, most intense thing you felt. The pleasure building up you, going up, up about to be out of control. 

“I’m- I’m going to-I’m going to-I’m going to cum, professor I-I-I”

It would spiral up, yes, but you had yet to reach it. You ground your hips further, moving from his thrusts, as his fingers were there- finding you at the still of your high and just needing your brink.

“Yes- God, yes-cum, darling-I order you, your professor orders you-Yes- yes, cum, girl, dammit- do it, cum, darling- fuck, I’m about to- do it- CUM!” he deamnded like a yell.

With a last shout you cried- “PROFESSOR!” and you came.

Spiraling down from the pleasure. It broke into chills over you-your voice left you and yet your heart was racing. You could feel him gushing into you and yet you could also feel the cum from your own body between your legs, on his fingers.  He panted. He then moved you over. You saw his hair wild and arrayed. You moved it out of his face.

He looked at you with a sweet smile then took your hand and kissed it. He sat you down on a chair and took off his jacket- putting it over you like a cape. Then he went over and got you a glass of water from the pitcher. 

His voice had softened, he kept touching your face, checking for any accidental bruises or marks.

 “How are you? Are you…are you alright, Y/N? I didn’t go too…too-”

“You were perfect- it was perfect,” you replied with a smile. The water wasn’t super cold- but it was fresh. 

He let out a sigh of relief. He then cupped your cheek. 

“You should see yourself how I see you. You’re glowing. Absolutely glowing-I had only hoped you were…were happy with it…”

He looked down at the ruined bra and panties.

“I’ll buy you another…” he muttered in apology.

“Oh- an orgasm and dinner and new bra and panties? You spoil me rotten already!” you teased.

He gave you a kiss on the forehead and then he helped you back to dressing. 

“Here-we could…go back to my place and order something. At this rate, it might get late. I’m not that good of a cook-I was hoping a restaurant would impress you. I hope you don’t mind…”

“How could I, Professor?” you added, taking your hand in his. 

[yamayuandadu]

Tamamizu Monogatari, a unique love story

This article, unlike most of my recent longer pieces, was not planned in advance. I learned about the subject very recently, and instantly realized I absolutely have to introduce it to more people, the previously posted schedule be damned. The Tale of Tamamizu (玉水物語, Tamamizu Monogatari) is a story about a fox turning into a human, but a rather unconventional one, filled with an unusual degree of sympathy for the eponymous protagonist and focused on a rather unique relationship. In addition to summarizing it in detail and explaining the possible inspirations behind it, I will also try to explain why the tale found a new life on social media as a, broadly speaking, lgbt narrative, and why I think there is a compelling case to be made for such an interpretation. Unless stated otherwise, all images used through the article are taken from the Kyoto University Rare Materials Digital Archive, on whose website you can view scans of the original Tamamizu Monogatari.

The Tale of Tamamizu, also known as The Contest of Autumn Leaves (Momiji Awase) is an example of otogi-zōshi, illustrated prose narrative. The story was presumably originally composed in the Muromachi period (1335-1573), and it survives in multiple copies dated either to the early Edo period or to the end of the Japanese “middle ages” directly preceding it. The identity of the author (or authors) is unknown. Despite its apparent popularity in the past, it seems no major studies of the tale of Tamamizu have ever been conducted. A streamlined translation (or rather an extensive summary) was published online by Kyoto University Library in 2001 and can be accessed here. In 2018, a full translation, as well as a brief introduction, were prepared for the anthology Monsters, Animals, and Other Worlds. A Collection of Short Medieval Japanese Tales. Still, it doesn't seem either sparked all that much interest in Tamamizu, despite the story’s obvious modern appeal. Since the tale of Tamamizu is not well known, I will start with a detailed summary. I am consistently using female pronouns for Tamamizu after she transforms, as does the older translation. The other English translation switches between female and male pronouns. I will explain in the final paragraph of the article why I made the decision to follow the former. The Tale of Tamamizu The story of Tamamizu does not start with the eponymous character, but rather with a certain mr. Takayanagi from Toba. He is troubled, as while he is already 30, he has no children. He decides the only choice is to pray to gods and buddhas. This actually does work, and his wife becomes pregnant, and after the expected period gives birth to a daughter. She doesn’t get a name at any point in the story. The girl’s birth is followed by a timeskip. As we learn, she was distinguished by twenty five features associated with beauty. This is apparently a reference to the belief that a buddha possessed thirty two specific physical traits; the number might have been altered to twenty five because of a popular group of twenty five bodhisattvas associated with Amida. By the time she reached the age of fifteen or so, she also developed great skill in composing poetry in both Japanese and Chinese. Her parents at some point decided that it would be ideal to send her to serve in the emperor’s court in the future. The girl spends most of the time in awe of the blooming of flowers, the wind and other similar phenomena, as one would expect from a literary character of similar status. She maintains her own flower garden, and spends much of her time there.

On one of the days when she visited it alongside her friend Tsukisae, the daughter of her nurse, she caught the attention of a fox. The fox is, at this point in time, not yet Tamamizu. He wishes he could introduce himself to the girl. He considers the standard method - transforming into a nobleman - but he realizes this would likely sadden the girl’s parents, and would tarnish her reputation. He falls into despair. It does not exactly help that his attempts at visiting the garden again end up poorly - on the way there, he gets pelted with stones and then, after trying again, shot with an arrow. Still, he continued to hope to meet with the girl. An opportunity finally arose through a lucky coincidence. Another family living in the same area had multiple sons, but no daughters, much to the parents chagrin. They loudly lamented that they wished they had at least one girl among the children. The fox overheard that and realized it might be an opportunity. He transformed himself into a teenage girl (curiously, the story specifically puts her at the exact same age as the unnamed second protagonist), and enters their house. She explains that she is an orphan, and while passing by she overheard the family’s woes. She offers to become their daughter. The couple instantly agrees.

The fox spends some time living with her adoptive family, though she gets sad easily and keeps bursting into tears. After some time, they offer that they will find her a husband in due time, but she reacts to that poorly, and eventually suggests she would prefer to become the servant of a noble lady. Her adoptive mother agrees this isn’t a bad idea, and reveals that her younger sister is a lady-in-waiting of the daughter of a local noble, mr. Takayanagi. She suggests the fox could become her attendant too. She is overjoyed at this prospect, and is soon sent to Takayanagi’s mansion to meet with his daughter. The girl receives her new attendant warmly, and gives her a nickname, Tamamizu-no-mae (Tamamizu for short). They get along really well, and Tamamizu gets to partake in her various activities, serves her food and drinks, and even sleeps in the same bed (Tsukisae does too, though). While Tamamizu does remarkably well as a human, some of her fox habits remain. Most notably, she is really afraid of dogs. Her lady sympathizes with her plight, and actually bans dogs from her household. This is a much welcome change from Tamamizu’s point of view, though apparently some other members of the staff start to view her as a coward because of this, and simultaneously resent her closeness with the girl. The bond between Tamamizu and the girl reaches a new level when on a moonlight night they spontaneously compose a poem together. It deals with longing. We are told it was followed up by multiple other poems, which are not quoted in the story. Eventually the girl gets tired and heads to her room. However, Tamamizu remains outside gazing at the moon and eventually starts crying, unsure what fate awaits her. Tsukisae, who was inside all along, actually becomes concerned about Tamamizu, and says she feels sorry for her, correctly identifying the cause of her sorrow as love for an unidentified party. She shares her thoughts with their lady (in the form of a poem, of course). The latter summons Tamamizu inside, and soon all three go to bed together. Tamamizu is still overwhelmed by her feelings and can’t fall asleep, though. Tamamizu continues to serve the girl for the next three years. She also remains in touch with her adoptive mother, who sends her letters and new clothes every now and then. One day, many visitors arrived in the house for a friendly competition. The winner will be the person with the most beautiful collection of autumn leaves. Tamamizu decides she must find some for her mistress to give her an advantage. To accomplish that, at night for the first time in years she turns back into a fox, and leaves to visit her siblings. Not the adoptive ones, though. As it turns out, she has two fox brothers, one younger and one older. She actually hasn’t visited them in so long they assumed she died and held funerary services for her in the meanwhile. They are overjoyed to learn that is not the case, and after learning about her current life agree to help her with finding unique leaves. She tells them to leave them on the veranda of her mistress’ mansion, and reassures them it’s safe for foxes to be there thanks to the earlier decision to not allow dogs on the premises. After the visit Tamamizu returns home in her human form. Tsukisae and her mistress ask her where she has been, and she jokes about meeting with a “dubious fellow” (which, to be fair, is not even a lie, given the typical folkloric portrayal of foxes). This in turn leads to more jokes, revolving around Tamamizu no longer thinking about her mistress. She feels distressed by this suggestion.

Tamamizu’s brothers in the meanwhile succeed in their search for thrilling leaves. One of them found a branch with five-colored leaves decorated with the Lotus Sutra (as you probably know, one of the main religious texts in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition). Tamamizu is overjoyed, and instantly brings them to her mistress. The girl received plenty of leaves from other people in the meanwhile, but all of them pale in comparison. She is so happy about the gift that she requests Tamamizu to also write poems meant to accompany the presentation of the collection. She protests that she is unsuitable, but eventually accepts this honor and gets down to work. The parents of the girl came along to watch her write, and both of them concluded she is exceptionally skilled. She ends up providing five poems, one for each color of leaves gathered. They are subsequently combined by these the girl wrote herself.

Obviously, the main characters’ joint entry wins the competition. This grants the girl such fame that the emperor declares she should come to his court. Since her father is not affluent enough to pay for traveling there, he bestows additional estates upon him to make that possible. Even Tamamizu gets her own estate, Kakuta in Settsu Province. However, she decides it will be for the best to give it to her adoptive parents. Shortly after that, Tamamizu’s adoptive mother falls sick. She leaves her mistress to attend to her, but it did not help much and her condition kept worsening. Therefore, her stay had to be extended over and over again. This predicament worries her mistress, who sends her a letter to let her know that it is boring and gloomy without her around, and implores her to return as soon as her mother’s condition improves. Tsukisae is similarly concerned. Both of them voice their concerns through poems, which at this point should not be surprising for the reader.

Tamamizu of course appreciates these displays of sympathy, but she cannot return, so in response she only reassures both of them that she will meet with them again as soon as possible.  Shortly after that, the mother’s condition worsened yet again. The entire family laments through the entire day, but eventually everyone manages to fall asleep - save for Tamamizu. In the middle of the night Tamamizu notices that an old, hairless fox entered the house. She quickly realizes that he was her paternal uncle (a fox uncle, that is. Not a relative of her adoptive parents). The illness was his doing, as she quickly realizes. Tamamizu requests him to leave her adoptive mother alone. However, the old fox says he cannot do that, as the illness is his act of revenge against her family, since her father killed his child. He concluded it is only right to make his daughter sick so that she dies too.

Tamamizu admits that this makes sense in theory, but she points out that acting upon desire for revenge will only bring bad karma, and bad karma from previous lives is why both of them were born as foxes in the first place. She offers the old fox a crash course in Buddhist ethics, and warns him that accumulating even more bad karma might lead to someone eventually killing him too, and to yet more rebirths in one of the three realms which are best to avoid (animals, hungry spirits, hell).

The old fox notes following buddhas is for humans, not for those born in other realms of rebirth (he’s not entirely wrong, humans are generally held to be in the optimal condition to seek enlightenment; animals must follow instinct and thus end up accumulating bad karma, devas are to preoccupied with celestial bliss), but eventually he relents and agrees that it would be wrong to kill the woman because of the actions of her father. He concludes that it would not even make him feel better, since his child would remain dead. He tells Tamamizu that evidently he was able to meet her because of good karma acquired in a past life, asks her to pray for his deceased child, and leaves, announcing he shall become a monk reciting nenbutsu from now on. Tamamizu did what he asked for, and even performed a funerary service for her late cousin. With the problem solved, her adoptive mother returned to good health. She was therefore free to meet with her mistress again. She was elevated to the rank of chujo no kimi, the foremost among servants. However, despite her mistress’ best efforts to make her feel appreciated, she was suffering from persistent bouts of melancholy. She wished she could confess her love and consummate the relationship, but she concluded that since she kept her identity secret for so long, it would be no longer possible to reveal it without losing the acceptance of the girl. She decides she must disappear. However, before that she prepares a long poem explaining her predicament.

She placed it in a box, and gave it to her mistress, explaining that it should only be opened if something happens to her. She then broke down in tears.

Tamamizu’s mistress does not fully understand what is happening, and asks if she perhaps is worried about their planned relocation to the imperial court. However, Tamamizu denies that and guarantees she will accompany her on the journey there. Her mistress starts crying too, and says she has hoped they will always be together. Shortly after, the day of the journey came. Tamamizu’s mistress and mr. Takayanagi, now recognized as a lord, were certain that she went with them, but as soon as they reached their destination it turned out she was nowhere to be found. Days upon days of grieving followed. Eventually, the girl realized that she had no choice but to open the box. From the poem contained within, she learned everything about Tamamizu, from the day they first met all the way up to the disappearance. It explained how she hoped to protect her mistress through her current life and beyond, but had to give up after realizing it was all in vain. In the final words of the poem, she firmly refers to her with the name she was given by the girl - Tamamizu.

The poem moves her deeply, but the story does not have a happy ending - we never learn what happened to Tamamizu afterwards.

Tamamizu’s forerunners

It is agreed that much like the considerably more famous Tamamo no Mae, Tamamizu in part depends on earlier Chinese literature about foxes. Not exactly on the same sort of stories, though - she is not exactly a malevolent seductress, to put it lightly. The key to finding her forerunners is the scene in the beginning when the still nameless fox considers transforming into a male suitor at first, before settling on the form of a female attendant, and the erudition she displays through the story. An argument can be made that this is conscious engagement with a very specific type of older fox story, largely forgotten today. In Tang China, fox stories enjoyed considerable popularity. You may remember that I mentioned this in passing a few months ago in another fox-themed article. One of the genres popular at the time was focused on fox suitors. There are many stories like that, but they largely follow a similar plot: a male fox falls in love with a human girl, takes the form of a dashing literatus and requests marriage. The girl’s family rejects the proposal, as despite charm and erudition the fox is ultimately an outsider with no family, and doesn’t depend on the well established institution of matchmaking. Afterwards, he typically tries to win the girl over with some sort of trick, and fails in the process, thus meeting his demise when his real identity is inevitably exposed.

In some cases, twists are introduced and the fox is effectively exploited by the family: for example, in the story about a certain mr. Hu (a common surname which is a homonym for the word for fox) and the granddaughter of the official Li Yuangong, the Li family agrees for the girl to be taught by the fox, and even asks him for advice on various matters, just to kill him once he outlived his usefulness.

Zhou Wenju's painting A Literary Garden (文苑图, Wenyuantu), showing a group of discouring Tang literati (wikimedia commons)

Many literati came from humble backgrounds, and only attained high positions thanks to success in the imperial examinations. However, their advances were often frowned upon by nobles, who saw them as upstarts. Therefore, faking a more notable origin was widespread to secure a better position in the high strata of society. All of this is reflected in the stories of the fox suitors. Xiaofei Kang, who wrote my favorite monograph about Chinese fox beliefs, notes that the stories might have effectively been a way to cope with everyday anxieties. In other words, perhaps the fox self insert fails so that the real person sharing his precarious status can succeed.

Another aspect of the Tale of Tamamizu which offers a clue about its origins is the focus on Buddhism, and its role in the lives of non-humans in particular. Tamamizu evidently attains a considerable familiarity with Buddhist doctrine, to the point the old fox basically seems to perceive her as thinking more like a human than a fox. Evidently, she doesn’t think being an animal should prevent one from seeking good karma. This seems to reflect a medieval Buddhist phenomenon. Roughly from the Insei period (1086-1185) up to the eighteenth century, and especially between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, the dominant esoteric schools of Buddhism propagated the doctrine of hongaku (本覺), “original enlightenment”. This idea originates in an earlier Buddhis text, Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna. According to proponents of this idea all living beings, even plants, possessed an innate “Buddha nature”, as did natural features like mountains. They were innately capable of attaining enlightenment, or innately enlightened outright. Religion influences art, so it has been argued that the spread of new stories about animals behaving like people in the Muromachi period had a distinctly Buddhist dimension.

The modern reception of Tamamizu

Despite the fascinating themes of the story of Tamamizu, it only found a greater degree of modern recognition in 2019, outside of academic circles at that. I'm surprised it took so long, since when you think about it, the sensibilities of the author indeed seem surprisingly modern. The narrator even reassures us Tamamizu’s human form is the same age as the object of her affection, anticipating what sorts of shipping discourse could arise 700 years later. Anyway, in 2019 a fragment of the story was the subject of one of the classical Japanese literature questions from the National Center Test for University Admissions, a standardized university entrance exam held across Japan each January from 1990 to 2020. This obviously exposed an enormous number of people to it, not just exam-takers. Following this event, a Tamamizu fad seemingly swept social media and pixiv (curiously, there’s a single piece of art there which predates the phenomenon by six years; op actually updated the description in 2019 to say they are happy more people learned about the story). There’s even a Tamamizu Monogatari tag on Dynasty Scans as a result. It’s worth pointing out the wikipedia entry of the story was written in 2019 as well. Most curiously apparently a research project focused on Tamamizu, Kahoko Iguru’s Border transgression between species and gender as observed in “Tamamizu Monogatari”,  received a grant in the same year too (source; more info here). It doesn’t seem the results have been published yet. I will keep you updated if that changes, obviously. I am actually surprised I didn’t notice the Tamamizu phenomenon back then, even though 2019 Antonia was distinctly more terminally online than 2023 Antonia is. It’s worth noting that Tamamizu’s fame didn’t fade away. The online following the story gained was referenced in an Asahi Shimbun article a year later. A quick survey of social media will show you there are people still talking about Tamamizu today. People who aren’t me, that is. What made Tamamizu so unexpectedly popular - arguably more than the story has been in the past few centuries - in recent years? Most of the linked sources relatively neutrally state that people perceive it as a “unique love story”. Social media posts are often considerably more direct: for many people, the appeal lies in the realization the Tale of Tamamizu is probably the closest to a lesbian love story in the entire corpus of medieval Japanese literature. I won’t deny this is in no small part its appeal for me too. Note this is not an universal sentiment by any means, though. It is difficult to tell if this was the intent of the medieval author(s), of course. It is obviously impossible to deny that women attracted to women existed in medieval Japan, as is the case in every society since the dawn of history. However, they left little, if any, trace in textual sources. As pointed out by Bernard Faure, in Japan in the past as in many other historical societies “sexuality without men is properly unthinkable” and therefore received no coverage. While there is plenty of Japanese Buddhist literature dealing with male homosexuality (trust me though, you do not want to read it; I’ve included a brief explanation why in the bibliography), there is basically nothing when it comes to women. The only possible exception is what some authors argue might be a medieval depiction of a lesbian couple in Tengu Z��shi, a work I plan to discuss in more detail next month, but note that this would be only an example of condemnation, since this work is a religious polemic dealing with vices of the clergy. 

The supposed lesbian couple from Tengu Zōshi; image from Haruko Wakayabashi's The Seven Tengu Scrolls: Evil and the Rhetoric of Legitimacy in Medieval Japanese Buddhism; reproduced here for educational purposes only.

This sort of absence of evidence is a recurring pattern through history - you might recall my own attempts to find out what Bronze Age Mesopotamian sources have to say on this matter. Before the Meiji period, when the term dōseiai (同性愛) was coined as a calque of Charles Gilbert Chaddok’s freshly invented label “homosexual”, there wasn’t even a distinct Japanese term which could be applied to lesbian relationships. Once again, this does not indicate this phenomenon did not exist - but it does indicate that due to extreme levels of sexism in the perception of both sexuality and relationships it was difficult to even imagine for the average author. Faure suggests the prevailing attitude was presumably similar as in continental Buddhism, in which lesbian love “was at best perceived as a poor imitation of heterosexual relations—or a preparation for them—and as such condemned” at least in monastic rules. To put it bluntly, only penetrative sex was regarded as real.

And yet, in spite of this, I do not think it is wrong to wonder if perhaps what seems like subtext to a modern reader is actually intentional. This is obviously a reach, but given that relationships between women - not even romantic ones - were historically not a major concern of most authors, I would argue it is not impossible that a work which revolves virtually entirely around the relationships between female characters was written by a woman. Perhaps a woman romantically interested in other women, even. Even more boldly, I’d ponder if perhaps the ambiguous gender of the fox before transformation was meant to make the romance palatable to general audiences. Note that while foxes transforming is a mainstay of both Japanese and Chinese literature, the change of gender is actually quite uncommon in such stories, making this single reference all the more unusual. Granted, gender change is hardly a major focus in the story of Tamamizu. The only real indication the fox is male is the decision to take a male human form at first, but beyond that, things get muddy to the point the matter of gender in the story evidently warranted an actual study, as I pointed out earlier. As you’ve noticed, this matter was approached in different ways by translators too. I personally think the most important factor is the fact Tamamizu refers to herself with this name in the final poem. This name is intimately tied to the distinctly female identity she took. Whoever she was in the beginning, by the end of the story she is clearly Tamamizu. If one felt particularly bold a case perhaps even be made that Tamamizu can be read as a trans woman based on this, perhaps. I think simply disregarding the brief reference to a male form is valid too, though. Even if these arguments were to be refuted fully, I would argue that there is a further reason why at the very least reinterpreting the story as dealing with a gay relationship is not against the spirit of the original work. As I outlined, the tale of Tamamizu seems to draw inspiration from a very specific genre of fox stories, in which foxes are essentially a metaphor for people seeking relationships which were frowned upon. Obviously, the fact that Tamamizu is not a human by default makes any relationship she would be involved in somewhat unusual and frowned upon, but that does not assign a different metaphorical meaning to her struggle. Is Tamamizu even really fully a fox and not a human at all by the time she writes the confession of her love, though? The old fox seems to basically dispute if she still thinks like an animal. We also know that she maintained her human form for so long her biological relatives assumed she had passed away. She also found acceptance of virtually every single human character in the story - save for herself, that is. It’s also not like it’s hard to reinterpret her struggle specifically with the inability to consummate the relationship through the lens of the medieval Buddhist views of female sexuality, rather than through the lens of the general view that relationships between human and transformed foxes were doomed to failure. To paraphrase Cynthia Eller’s evergreen quote about futile search for nonexistent matriarchal prehistory in ancient texts, I do not think an invented wlw past can give anyone a future, but at the same time I do not think it means we should conclude that nobody ever had similar experiences in the past, or that we can relate with works even in ways their authors did not intend. For this reason, I would ultimately argue in favor of embracing the Tale of Tamamizu as a narrative which can be read as a lesbian love story.

Bibliography

Bernard Faure, The Red Thread. Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality (please note: read this book very cautiously since multiple content warnings apply. Faure is a remarkably progressive author, so it’s not about his personal attitude or anything. The problem is that it is not possible to deny much of the Japanese Buddhist discourse about homosexuality had little to do with modern notion of gay relationships, and essentially amounts to explaining when exploitation of children is a pious act)

Rania Huntington, Alien Kind. Foxes and Late Imperial Chinese Narrative (some sort of explicit content warning applies here too, though mostly because some of the discussed works are trashy Qing period erotica. More funny than anything.)

Xiaofei Kang, The Cult of the Fox: Power, Gender, and Popular Religion in Late Imperial and Modern China

Keller Kimbrough and Haruo Shirane (eds.), Monsters, Animals, and Other Worlds. A Collection of Short Medieval Japanese Tales

Jacqueline Stone, Medieval Tendai hongaku thought and the new Kamakura Buddhism: A reconsideration

[jayie-the-hufflepuff]

This is an idea I've had in my head for a while now, but now I finally made something out of it. Behold my new headcanon - that the mythological Clans in the nursery tales (LionClan, TigerClan, LeopardClan) are actually big cat species from ice age europe!

Basically, I've been watching a lot of paleontology-related videos lately about prehistoric wildlife, and it got me thinking about how there actually were big cats in England once like in the stories about the ancient Clans, but they weren't the lions, tigers, and leopards we know today. That gave me the idea that maybe the stories the Clans tell about those ancient Clans now are just heavily distorted versions of true events from England's ice age era and the real big cats that roamed the land at that time, twisted through many generations of retelling. Here, we see Squirrelflight telling her brood of three (more on why I chose these particular cats in a bit) the tales of the ancient Clans, while the true ancient cats are visible to the audience above her head, and the deeds from the nursery tales about them are painted on the cave walls.

As for the big cats themselves, there were (coincidentally enough) three big cat species in the UK during the ice age to choose from. I've chosen cave lions to represent LionClan, European ice age leopards to represent LeopardClan, and scimitar-toothed cats to represent TigerClan. Scimitar-toothed cats aren't as closely linked to tigers as cave lions are to African lions or ice age leopards are to today's leopards, but they were the only ones left to choose, and dangit they look cool so who cares? :P They didn't live in real Clans as the Clans imagine them in stories, they roamed either as solitary hunters or in loose groups (or in tighter groups like prides possibly, not totally sure what the consensus is for how these big cats lived, but there's a bit of wiggle room here considering these are fictional intelligent group-forming versions of these cats).

It was interesting trying to draw these three extinct species with no living photo refs. I used photos of lions and leopards for the cave lions and ice age leopards, but made some changes like adding more fluff for the leopard and giving the cave lion the shorter and broader muzzle and thick dense fur (but no sexually dimorphic mane) they were known to have. For the scimitar-toothed cat, there's really no living analog with quite the same facial features, so I ended up using this bit of paleoart as a reference. I gave the cave lion pretty simialar coloration and pattern to an african lion, only with a bit of a duller grayer coat. The leopard I made a bit paler than the leopards we know today, and the scimitar-toothed cat I used similar colors and pattern to a lynx, but with more darker stripe-ish markings to justify the "how TigerClan got their stripes" story.

I would like to stress here that I am not a paleoartist, I am not a paleontologist or a biology expert of any kind, I am simply a humble English major and website editor who likes to watch paleontology videos in my spare time. If there are any glaring inaccuracies in this in regards to how I depicted these species, I do apologize, I tried my best, but as I stressed I am in no way an expert or even a novice in this field.

The cave paintings above each cat's head represents the story told about their "Clan" in "Secrets of the Clans". For the scimitar-toothed cat, it's the moon shining its light down to create the shadows that will carve the dark stripes into their pelts - obviously just completely made up to explain the dark stripes these cats developed, which can be far more easily be explained as a form of camouflage in tall grass. For LeopardClan, it's the tale of Fleetfoot fighting the boars to claim the river, and for LionClan, it's Sunpelt's standoff against the giant snake Mouthclaw.

But here we have another twist. These cave paintings actually depict events, and creatures, far older than even these ancient Clans, stories passed down from their own ancient ancestors, or else surmzied through finding remainds of the ancient creatures and creating a story around them. The giant snake Mouthclaw is a titanoboa (they didn’t live anywhere near the UK, but oh well - maybe just one managed to find their way over there :P) and the "boars” Fleetfoot supposedly faced are actually the terrifying “hell pig” (actually more closely related to hippos, far more terrifying than boars in my opinion), the enteledont! I based the painting of Sunpelt on a real cave painting thought to be a cave lion, the one of Fleetfoot loosely on a real painting thought to be an ice age leopard, and the enteledont loosely on a real cave painting of a running boar. I couldn’t find any really old cave paintings of snakes in that same style, so I had to kind of wing that one. Not sure it totally fits the art style of the others, but oh well, best I could do.

Now for the last bit - why I chose Squirrel and her first litter to be the ones telling/hearing the tale. Mostly because of an interesting AU I thought of - what if the Three (not counting Hollyleaf, but oh well, I couldn’t exactly stick Dovekit in here when she wasn’t born yet) weren’t reincarnations of ancient Tribe cats, but of ancient big cats? Lionblaze would be a cave lion, of course, then maybe an ice age leopard for Dovewing and a scimitar-tooth for Jayfeather? Dunno, but it could make for a really fun AU. :D

Anyway, this was a lot of fun to draw and I’m super happy with how it turned out: :D

[pemberlaey]

things in 19th century novels that bring me an immense amount of joy

a passive aggressive pianoforte moment

any country dance scene

flower symbolism

the love interest telling the heroine he loves her mid panic attack

a women rejecting a marriage proposal from a man she hates

hands

when lore gets dropped via letter

and, most importantly, the First Name Drop™

[maniculum]

Do you have any books or sources for learning Olde English? I want to write a medieval-based story but I don't know how to write the characters speak the language.

That depends -- when you say "Olde English" do you mean Old English, like pre-1066 English? That's pretty far from modern English and it's unlikely that readers will be able to understand it easily. If that's what you're looking for, the texts I was taught with are:

Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader

Quirk's Old English Grammar

Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader

They're all from a while back -- and, as you can see, some use the now-deprecated term "Anglo-Saxon" -- so you can find older editions free in the public domain. More recent revised editions can generally be found in cheap paperback form. I believe there are some more modern textbooks that are quite good, but I haven't looked at them, and I don't know how affordable they are.

I have also consulted with Zoe (@meanderingmedievalist) on this, and she recommends Baker's Introduction to Old English, as well as the related resource Old English Aerobics:

The reason there are textbooks for this, though, is because you genuinely have to treat it as a foreign language. It's very different from modern English. As a sample, here's the beginning of Beowulf:

Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon hu ða æþelingas      ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scefing      sceaþena þreatum monegum maegþum      meodosetla ofteah egsode eorle syððan aerest wearð feasceaft funden he þæs frofre gebad weox under wolcnum weorðmyndum þah oð þæt him aeghwylc þara ymbsittendra ofer hronrade      hyran scolde, gomban gyldan      þæt wæs god cyning.

So if you put a lot of it into a story for a modern audience, most of them will be a bit lost.

If when you say "Olde English" you mean "English that sounds archaic and medieval, but is comprehensible to a modern audience", you're probably looking for Middle English.

I don't have any direct references for learning the language there, as I was mostly taught through immersion (i.e., here's a Middle English text, read and translate it, now do another until you get a feel for it), but Zoe recommends Fulk's Introduction to Middle English, so that's a good bet if you don't want to go through that process.

However, I do think the "just read the texts" method also works fine -- especially since, if you're writing a medieval story, you'll want to read some of the literature anyway for inspiration. Here's what you can do to use that method outside of a classroom setting:

Step One: Get a Middle English text with a facing-page translation. Armitage's edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is good for this. Read the Middle English text, referring to the Modern English translation on the facing page whenever you don't understand it. Do this with a pencil in hand, so you can annotate the text with definitions, translations, and notes about how the sentences work.

Step Two: Get a Middle English text for which modern translations exist. Don't get the modern translation. The Canterbury Tales works for this: it's a classic and you should be able to pick up a copy anywhere. The version on my shelves is Baugh's Chaucer's Major Poetry -- which is heavily footnoted with definitions, potentially saving some time with the dictionary -- but it doesn't really matter as long as it's in the original. Read it. Every time you don't know a word, look it up in the Middle English Dictionary (available free online, in searchable form, here) and write it down. Again, best to annotate directly on the page with a pencil. Trust me, it helps to do it that way. Once you're done, get a modern translation and check your work.

At this point, you'll probably have picked up enough of the language that you should be able to write in it to some degree, though you'll want to continue making reference to the Middle English Dictionary to make sure you're employing period-appropriate usage and spelling. If you have access to the Oxford English Dictionary (if you're at a university, you almost certainly do, otherwise check with your local library), use that to check when the words you're using originated -- the OED has that listed, and that'll keep you from accidentally dropping an 18th-century term into medieval dialogue. You can also use their Historical Thesaurus to find period-appropriate equivalents for terminology.

Optional Step Three: Keep reading more Middle English literature with the dictionary open, annotating as you go, to get additional practice. If you can get through Le Morte Darthur in the original (get the P.J.C. Field edition), I think you'll be set in terms of "writing convincing medieval prose". Not because it's particularly difficult -- it's late medieval, so the language is actually more modern than either of the texts mentioned in steps one and two -- but just because it's long, so you'll get a lot of practice working through it. As a bonus, reading Malory will familiarize you with lots of good knightly vocabulary in case that's the kind of story you want to write.

Optional Step Four: Read scholarly articles on Middle English language and literature to get a more in-depth understanding. Again, check with your local library, or if you're at a university, a university library will have a vast amount of resources on this subject you can browse through.

[frogs-in3-hills]

okay i’ve had most of my life to steam on the ending of princess tutu and i’m only just now peeking in on the fandom side of things. and i love all the post-canon stories where ahiru gets to be a girl again!! but there’s another side there where i think we are missing the potential comedy of fakir’s girlfriend literally just being a duck. he starts taking the train to the city outside and taking university classes to hone his writing. he doesn’t really make friends with anyone else but he seems nice enough and he sometimes likes going to watch the ballet students. he has very strong opinions on the works of drosselmeyer. he talks and dresses like he’s from the 1900s and he’s obviously never used a computer before. it’s probably because he’s from that weirdass, walled-off part of the city where nobody ever returns from. he really likes ducks. and apparently he has a girl back home but he won’t ever talk about her.

then one day he starts bringing a duck to his lectures. an actual fucking duck. well, she’s a very well-behaved duck, and fakir seems much happier when he brings her so everyone just kind of accepts it. oh yeah, fakir, that’s the duck guy. he writes about ducks and he has a duck named duck. she’s a very friendly duck, and he lets her waddle off to hang out with other groups or to swim in the fountain. sometimes she perches on his desk in class and watches him write as if she can read the words (and he still uses a feather quill and ink—in hindsight, he’s an english major, so this is maybe the least weird thing about him). sometimes after the lecture he’ll sit outside and explain everything to his duck like she could actually understand, and everybody just figures that’s how he processes, like a programmer with a rubber duck on their desk, except with a real duck instead. he writes about ducks too. lots and lots of ducks. he is, inexplicably, the duck guy.

their university has a small ballet major. anyone is free to use the practice rooms. one of the ballet students swears up and down she once saw the strangest thing through the window one night—fakir and his duck, dancing a piecemealed pas de deux in the darkness. the duck was standing on a little stool so she could reach his hand and she was on the tips of her feet, as if trying to dance en pointe. and fakir was laughing. nobody had ever really seen fakir laugh before. it was almost as weird as him dancing with a duck who had somehow gotten ballet training. the student told all of her friends about this strange sight, but nobody believed her—“that’s crazy,” they said, “you must be dreaming up fairy tales.”

fakir is mysterious and offputting and quite the loner. but everyone mostly likes him because he is the duck guy.

[screamingatanemptyroom]

Please Fix the Story- Side Part - Adonis

My first side part of two. Will plan for a second one for Liam. Hope you guys enjoy seeing it from a "hero's" perspective!

Enjoy!

Masterpost linked here!

____________________________

 I am the hero.

I believed this with every part of my being. Every cell and every atom within me screamed for me to step into the spotlight that was rightfully mine. The center stage that everyone longed for but so few could touch.

I grew up in obscurity. A father in a dead-end job whose lack of drive and ambition led our family to live paycheck to paycheck. Coming home just to drink and complain about work. I also had two older brothers who finished high school and went straight to work in the shop like our old man, with little regard for the world beyond our small town. But my mother… my mother was like me. She was a dreamer.

During my childhood she would read to me every night before bed. Classics, sci-fi, adventure stories… any book my mother could get her hands on. We explored world after world from the safety of my room as she read to me, equal parts excitement and longing shining in her eyes as she described faraway places and people that she would never get to see.

But her favorite story, the one we read most often, was a classic. A story of a brave knight, a hero. A story of a beautiful princess. A story of an evil dragon. I would listen with childish wonder as she described the princess being kidnapped and guarded in a tower, the knight and the dragon’s harrowing battle, and the happily ever after that awaited the hero and the princess.

“All stories should be like this one.” She told me confidently. “It is the best story in the world.”

She would point to pictures of the knight in the story book, a man in metal armor with a brightly shining sword. “When you grow up, you are going to be a great hero, a great man like him!”

I looked up at her, confused. “What about dad? Isn’t he great? Shouldn’t I grow up to be like him?”

At my question, her eyes were filled with sorrow and rage. “Don’t you EVER end up being like your dad. He’s a nobody.” She pointed at the book. “There’s no pictures of men like your dad in here, because they’re not important enough to get pictures. They don’t defeat the dragon, they don’t marry the princess, and they don’t have happy endings.”

“But Dad married you, and you are better than any princess!”

“…” She just stared silently at me for a moment. “Promise me you won’t become like your father. PROMISE.”

“… I promise.” I looked down at the knight in shining armor again, feeling determined.

I am the hero.

____________________________

My mother left us shortly after. Quietly walked out with her bags while we were all sleeping. My father didn’t say much to us about it. Just worked harder at his dead-end job and drank more when he was home. I watched it all, and knew without a doubt: My father was unhappy because he wasn’t the hero my mother wanted him to be. But I was different than him.

I worked hard, studied harder. Got into college on a scholarship. I was studying finance, determined to get into a career that would make a lot of money. To be different from my father. Packed away with all of my textbooks and papers, however, I still carried around my mother’s favorite book, the only memento I had of her, the only thing she had left behind for me to keep.

And that’s how I met Arabella.

My fairy tale book slipped out of my bag one day as I sat on bench trying to find a specific paper. I bent over and reached out to pick it up, but she got there before me.

“I love this book! Such a classic!” She smiled at me as she handed it over.

I fell in love with her smile.

We talked at length about books and stories. She was an English major, a lover of writing in all its forms. After that fateful day we spent many hours together. Talking, laughing, trading ideas. I fell deeper and deeper in love with her, fantasizing about confessing my feelings, and having her reciprocate. We would get married, have children, become successful, important people. Different from my father and mother.

She was my princess, my happy ending.

… Until she wasn’t.

“This is my boyfriend, Ben.” She introduced him with a different smile. I had thought I had seen all of her smiles, but it turns out that her most beautiful one, the one filled with love, was saved for someone else.

I hated him.

Hated how he seemed to shine in every space he was in. Hated that he was always the center of attention. He was a natural born leader, a great conversationalist, an all-around good guy that everyone liked. I hated everything about him, but most of all I hated the fact that he stole the love of my life from me. My darling Arabella.

She was mine.

But when I finally worked up my courage to tell her my feelings, instead of a smile filled with love, I got a look of pity and concern. She didn’t feel the same. She hoped we could still be friends.

I was humiliated. I thought I was the hero of her story, but I was just a nobody, a friend, an extra on the sidelines.

I was just like my father.

I hated my father, hated myself for being like him. But slowly, inevitably, my hatred took a new turn.

Arabella. Why did she not love me? Why was she ignoring our obvious connection? Why did she look at me with pity when I was so much better than that loser she was dating?

I hated her too. If she had never been there, I would have never felt so weak and helpless. I felt trapped in the sidelines, and couldn’t see a way to escape this fate of being nothing, of fading into obscurity. I had to do something. I refused to disappear into nothingness.

I am the hero.

So I fixed the problem.

And as I stood over the bodies of Arabella and Ben, my hand still holding the blood-stained knife, watching the blood pooling under them, rolling slowly towards my shoes. I realized the truth behind my world:

I was special.

The world froze. An inhuman being, the System, offered me a chance to work with it, to save the universe.

It was everything I wanted and more. Power. Prestige. A mission. I would be the main character, the knight I read about. I would be the hero.

It warned me that if I left with it, this world would be destroyed. I looked around. Now that I knew that this world was a lower realm, a romance story that I was a side character in, it all seemed so… small. Worthless. This world had done nothing but contain me, and I deserved to escape it.

I felt a brief flash of conscience. If I said yes, everyone I knew would be destroyed. My father. My brothers. My friends in college.

My mother.

Arabella.

But what have they ever done for me? I looked at the two options in front of me, and selected “Yes” with a firm hand.

And in that instant, they were gone.

And I was free.

____________________________

The System and I came up with a plan to save the universe. We tied all the heroes to me, to help me improve their character, in bonds called Fate.

But it wasn’t enough.

So we got a dragon, an evil creature who could be a good prototype for the villains in the lower realms. My nemesis to fight. But this failed too. The dragon was weak. For all its anger and desperation in the beginning, it soon became like a soulless, lifeless puppet. Silently completing its mission in each lower realm, often dying so quickly that I barely had time to influence the hero’s story. Punishments, threats… nothing worked. The nameless villain just looked at me with eyes that seemed like they belonged to something dead.

“You cannot threaten me.” It whispered. “You have already destroyed everything I love. My family is gone. I am alone.”

I felt a brief moment of panic at his words, but pushed it down and walked away. Refusing to dwell on the thought that rose up at his words:

We were similar. We both lost everyone. We were both alone. But we were so different… I lost mine by choice.

It didn’t matter. I did what I had to do.

I am the hero.

____________________________

We were getting nowhere. We needed something more, before the universe became too unstable, and all of the lower realms collapsed.

We needed a heroine. My princess.

There was only one option. One woman that I would accept. The love of my life, the heroine of my story,

Arabella.

I knew the System could do it. It was the god of this universe, filled with strange, unnatural abilities. It could bring her back, erase what I had done.

It had to.

After much arguing, the System agreed to “create” an Arabella.

I met her in the higher realm, the System had dressed her in gorgeous clothes, just like the princess she was meant to be.

I looked at her, and she was just as beautiful as I remembered. And she was mine.

But then everything went wrong.

She looked like Arabella. And sometimes had similarities to Arabella, such as a love for stories. But she was also so very different.

“Call me Bel.” She asked me one day, her eyes filled with frustration.

“But you ARE Arabella.” I felt desperate to explain.

She shook her head. “It doesn’t feel right. I don’t want to be called that. You mean something different than me when you use that name, and it makes me uncomfortable.”

What could I say. How could I explain? I bit my tongue and agreed.

It was so frustrating. Having my Arabella so close, yet so far away of me. She learned about our world quickly, and displayed an astonishing talent for fixing the lower realms in a variety of ways, but never once in the way that I wanted, the true and better way.

I tried to tell her about the higher story. About fate. The princess and the hero needed to fall in love. Our happiness, our love would stabilize all of the lower realms. Save the universe.

But Bel after listening to me, gave me a look. A look I knew all too well. It was the same look Arabella gave me in my original world.

A look of rejection.

I had become a higher being. Becoming the hero that would define all heroes. Much more than the silly hero my mother showed me in a worn-out story book. But still my princess refused me. She would leave me, just like my mother left my father for being a nobody. An extra. A background character.

I refused to let that happen.

I am the hero.

____________________________

I continued the story. She would be “kidnapped” by the dragon. I would rescue her, we would fall in love, and the dragon would be defeated. All would be right.

But she refused. She decided to die rather than be rescued. And then the System made her a deal.

I watched her disappear. I watched the foolish dragon make a bad deal to follow her. And as they faded from the realm, I panicked.

They had left me behind, the hero, the main character. I had to stop Bel from succeeding, from changing her fate to join the villains. She would accept her fate. She would be my heroine again.

The System, for the first time, fought me. I wanted my memories, control over some of the story, power. It argued that I would only push her further away. I refused to compromise.

Finally, the System agreed, but would only send me to a few worlds.

“She’s already visited twelve worlds.” It stated in a dispassionate voice.

I was in shock. “It’s only been a few minutes!”

“Time moves differently in the Void.”

“SEND ME!”

____________________________

A zombie world. I was the hero, Eric, already in a relationship with a cheerful girl named Hannah. She was a lovely heroine, but utterly helpless. As she stared up at me with love and respect in her gaze, I should have felt happy, content. She treated me as the hero I was, as the center of her universe.

I didn’t care.

She wasn’t Arabella… Bel. She was just a small little character of a broken lower realm. I didn’t need such a worthless being’s love.

I needed HER.

I turned my attention to Jason, Eric’s friend.  A pathetic secondary lead. I despised him, watching his struggles with disdain. Jason was a disgusting worm, following the heroine around like a lost puppy. Oblivious to the fact that she only loved the hero. He was a nobody, an extra.

He reminded me of my father.

I hid his role in Bel’s character’s death. Filled his head with thoughts of violence, planning on using him at just the right moment.

And when Bel showed up, I put myself forward as the perfect hero. Reasonable, friendly, respectful of boundaries. After all the time I spent fixing lower realms with her, I knew what she would like best. The only downside is that I had to play my role, to pretend to love Hannah. I felt the bonds of fate. Anytime I tried to break away from them, the System’s power would correct me. But I still tried my best, hoping that Bel would see beyond the characters we played, see the true me.

But instead, she paid me little to no attention. Only focusing on Hannah, or on the pathetic bastard of a villain who trailed behind her. He was as weak and useless as always, his character supposed to be the leader of a violent gang. Instead, he cooked meals and brewed tea, calling himself a support spouse.

I wanted to kill him.

But I couldn’t. I needed to be a perfect hero. Otherwise, my princess would never love me.

In the end, I failed. The dragon died, but Bel still didn’t look my way. She completed her mission and left the world without a goodbye.

Heartless as always.

____________________________

The System agreed to send me to a second world. A vampire realm. I played her brother Alexander. 

The realm was a disaster. I tried to be perfect, tried to be reasonable and helpful. But I had pushed too far from the character’s role. The System forcefully corrected me, treating me like a puppet over and over, acting like a foolish teenager in love rather than a confident immortal being. I watched in silent rage as the dragon married my princess with a smirk, calling me brother-in-law. I could do nothing but seethe, trapped in this cage of a character, unable to do anything but watched as she saved the realm again.

In the end, it felt so good to kill him. I watched the dragon die under my hands with a smile. And if Bel reacted poorly… well she just didn’t understand my point of view. She didn’t remember our destiny together. She didn’t remember that the dragon was a monster, a villain.

I just had to convince her.

____________________________

“YOU FAILED.” The system told me in the void. It had no emotions, no humanity, but even so I felt that there was a note of panic within its voice.

“You wouldn’t let me do anything!” I argued back. “Give me more freedom, and I promise I will convince her of our point of view.”

“WHAT IF SHE REFUSES?”

“Then I will make sure she fails her mission. Either way, we win, correct?”

“…” The System was silent for a few moments. “YOU HAVE ONE LAST CHANCE. SHE HAS NO MEMORY IN THIS REALM. SHE MUST FAIL. ”

I laughed. “She will.”

I did everything I could. Desperate, this time I resorted to all means: kidnapping, drugging her, lying to her. I betrayed the whole world to the alien race, trying to force her mission to fail.

But she still won. She still refused me, even when her mind and body were falling apart.

And with her power, she restarted our story in the higher realm. She chose the dragon again. She chose to reject fate. And at the end of it I realized her plan was never just to simply join the villain. She became the new System. She became a god.

____________________________

She looked at me, filled with a power I would never know. Standing next to the love of her life that wasn’t me. And I couldn’t help but wonder:

Had I really been so wrong?

“I have a much better ‘fate’ in store for you:” She told me. Smiling a smile I had never seen before. Different from any I had ever seen before A cruel smile. And I truly believed in the depths of my soul, that she was not, she never had been Arabella. The girl I thought I loved, died on the ground after I stabbed her in the heart. Not even her body was left behind as I destroyed the world behind me.

I am the hero.

“You will be banished to a lower realm. To live out your days as an insignificant side character.”

Her power lifted me off the ground, healing the wound in my side. I was helpless against it. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be! I was the knight! The hero! I would defeat the dragon, save the princess. I would live happily ever after!

“NO! YOU CAN’T!!!”

I am the hero.

“By day, you will remember nothing… but every night, your memories of the higher realms will be returned to you, just enough so you can always live in regret for what you have done.”

“NO!” I struggled against her powers, but there was nothing I could do. I stared into her eyes. So familiar, but foreign. And filled with nothing but weary disdain. I knew that look, knew it all too well. It was the look sealed into my heart, in the depths of my worst nightmares.

It was the look my mother gave my father the night she left. That look couldn’t be for me. It was for nobodies. For extras. For people of no importance. Not for me. Never for me.

I am the hero.

“You must accept your fate, Adonis. Goodbye.”

____________________________

“Heading home, Adler?”

Craig, the middle-aged man in the cubicle next to mine, spoke up as I stood up at my desk.  His space was decorated with miscellaneous motivational signs and pictures of his smiling family. He hid a space heater under his desk, but everyone liked him too much to report it to the manager.

“Yeah, shouldn’t you be done for the day too?” I responded blandly, putting on my coat and walking away. I didn’t really want to get drawn in to a long conversation, which Craig was well known for. From a distance I saw a man and a woman talking, and felt a tightening in my chest. I didn’t want to talk to them, but I couldn’t resist saying hi to her.

“Hi Anne.” I joined the conversation between the two, ignoring the flicker of frustration that crossed her expression. Hopefully she’s just tired. “… Hi Brad.” I added after a long hesitation.

They both greeted me, and fell into an awkward silence. I knew they wanted me to leave, but a strange stubbornness kept my feet rooted in place. “Have you heard about that new movie about knights and dragons that’s coming out soon?”

Anne still seemed annoyed, but showed a brief look of interest at my question. “Oh yeah! I’ve been wanting to go see that one!”

Then would you like to go with me? I bit the words back before they could slip out. It would not go over well, especially with Brad, Anne’s boyfriend standing next to me. Instead, I said something I didn’t mean. “Maybe we could all go see it as a group?”

“Maybe.” Her response was noncommittal.

“…”

“…”

After the silence stretched on too long, I finally couldn’t take it anymore. “Well, have a good night.”

They both waved silently at me, and returned to their conversation with one another, never sparing another glance my way.

I walked away, feeling uncomfortable.

My apartment was empty. I had considered pets, but it would be too much extra cost to the monthly lease. I turned on the light, set down my coat, and looked around with a sigh. The room was pretty bare. I had a few sparse decorations, but couldn’t be bothered to do more. All I needed was a few pieces of furniture, and multiple shelves of books.  I made myself a quick microwave dinner, and since I had finished my latest book last night, went searching through the bookshelves for what I wanted to read next.

My hand paused over a well-worn book. It was a classic story, about knights and princesses and dragons. Basic, childish almost, but I always felt drawn to it. I picked it up once more, and settled down to read.

Passing a quiet evening, I got ready to sleep. I stared up at the ceiling above my bed, a strange emptiness within me.

I wonder what Anne is doing now?

A sigh escaped me. I knew she didn’t return my feelings. She didn’t even like me as a friend.

I’m just not the guy for her. And I need to be content with that.

After all, it's not like I'm the hero of a fairy tale.

With that last melancholy thought, I fell asleep, my hands still clutching the book of fairy tales.

…

…

…

And I remembered.

I remembered everything.

I was the higher-level being Adonis. Hero of the universe. Cast aside by Bel. Banished to a lower realm.

And now I was powerless.

Helpless.

Nothing.

THIS ISN’T RIGHT!!! THIS ISN’T ME!!! I AM SPECIAL. I AM MEANT FOR GREATNESS!

I AM THE HERO!

I woke up, shaking in terror and agony. My trembling hands clutched my sweat soaked face. And in the dull light of the sunrise streaming through the window into my bare and empty apartment…. I screamed.

I tried to hold onto my memories, but I could already feel them fading away. I would once again become Adler, the pencil pushing nobody who read fantasy books and nursed a silent crush on a woman at work who already had a boyfriend.

Until night came again. And I remembered once more.

This was my punishment.

This was my hell.

My only solace was that in this lower realm I was mortal. I would grow old. I would eventually die. And I would be free from this wretched existence.

My memories grew foggy, confused.

I thought of my mother, of my promise to her to be the hero of her story book. I thought of Arabella, of her bright smile that I fell in love with. I thought of Bel, our adventures, and her triumph over fate.

And I hated them all.

“NOOOOOO!” My anguished cry tore through the apartment, but there was no one around to hear it.

“I AM THE HERO!!! THEY ARE NOTHING!” I tried to scramble out of the bed, desperate to run away, to escape.

“I AM THE HERO!!!” I fell to my knees, my thoughts becoming vague.

“I AM… THE… HERO!” I desperately held onto the word. I knew it was important.

“I…. AM….”

I blinked, feeling confused.

“What was I saying?”  Wiping my forehead, I grimaced as it came away with a cold sweat. “Must have had a nightmare.”

I stood up, heading to the bathroom to shower. I had a long day of work ahead of me. I had several reports due soon, and maybe… just maybe… I could catch a glimpse of Anne when I passed by on my lunch break.

As I walked towards the shower, I caught sight of my face in the mirror, and came to a stop. As I stood there, staring into my own eyes, I felt the strangest urge to scream.

But it quickly passed and I went back to getting ready for my day.

“Hopefully tonight I sleep better.” I muttered to myself, looking away and closing the door behind me.

I didn’t want to be late to work.

[roserunodays]

Kotoko's Connection with the Fairy Tale of Red Riding Hood

So THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A JOKE POST, but I kept looking into it, and now here's a full blown analysis instead lol. I realized that Kotoko has many allusions to the story of Red Riding Hood besides the wolves and her signature red jacket. The themes of familial love, protection, and deception all seem to be reflected in Kotoko's actions and what we know of her past and personal life so far. So this post will detail more of the connections between her and this tale, as well as theorize on certain parts on what her story might reveal in the future!

MAJOR THANKS to my English major himejoshi librarian bunny mutual @lillyviarabbit for proof reading this so that my writing doesn't sound clunky af 🙏

A Quick Aside: The Other Side of this Tale (TW for sexual assault and rape mention)

So...there's another side to the original tale of Red Riding Hood, one that deals with much heavier themes on what the story as a whole is supposed to symbolize. I didn't want to analyze these themes of rape, sexual assault, and analogies of being 'turned' into a woman (such as hoods/veils representing both marriage and bereavement). They are there though, and easy analogies can be made, but that's not the content I want to cover. This is mainly because I just don't think we have enough evidence or hints as of now from Kotoko's past that suggests these parts from the Red Riding Hood story are also in her story. I did not want to speculate on these parts either because I wanted to treat them with respect and sensitivity, rather than simply speculate that they have to do with a fictional character's past when we don't even have any evidence to theorize that they do. So this post will only touch upon the more well known parts of the story instead!

Also I won't be talking about Jacques Roulet and his weird ass story because none of it makes sense to me with how it's related to Kotoko, so I will leave that to someone with a bigger brain to analyze that 💀 and I'll be sticking to analyzing similarities with Perrault's version of the story, though the analysis referenced at the end also includes the Grimm version!

Allusions to Red Riding Hood Herself:

One of the major similarities between Kotoko and Red Riding Hood is — well — the red hooded jacket!

This jacket is the most recognizable part of the fairy tale, and it clearly sticks out in Kotoko's wardrobe as the outfit she wears while she's in her forest world, notably with the wolves she's running with in HARROW.

Appearance wise, Kotoko also seems to fit the bill for how Red has been portrayed throughout various iterations of the story over time.

Red's appearance generally describes a girl with short black hair and a bob that reaches down to be exact.

"Another difference lies in the fact that, in addition to [her hair] being black, Little Red Riding Hood’s hair is generally short, reaching to her chin at most, with a charming bob that frames her face."

The signature hood is also noted, with Kotoko's prisoner uniform being the only one to notably have a hood on it.

"It becomes a powerful indicator of sense. History shows that an object that goes on a woman’s or girl’s head has always been ambivalent, not to say ambiguous. It covers, it conceals, it protects, but it also alludes, adorns and attracts."

Not only does Kotoko's hood uniform reflect her similarity with Red Riding Hood, it also highlights Kotoko's tendency to protect/conceal all the aspects of herself she does not want to reveal to anyone else.

It's clear that Kotoko doesn't trust anyone else in the prison, wanting to conceal as much stuff about her as possible so she can analyze their behavior and how much they change following the time between trial 1 and trial 2. This secretive nature, interpreted by her actions and the hood she wears as a way for Kotoko to protect herself and her fragile self-worth, is also highlighted in Streaming Heart's lyrics.

"Though I seem to say many things, please try and seek out the real me. In the space between truth and lies, hidden away so well."

The Grandmother:

Another major fact that gets overlooked is how Kotoko offhandedly mentions in her family structure that she has a grandmother. As a lot of us already know, the main plot of Little Red Riding Hood is that the girl delivers food to her grandmother, who is sick and lives in a house in the woods. This detail from her interrogation is rather...specific, given that she doesn't even mention having a grandfather, just a grandmother along with her parents and older brother.

One additional piece of evidence that connects to this is the symbolism of her birthday flower, Monstera Deliciosa!

In many Asian cultures, this plant can also symbolize a respect and honoring of the elderly. Interesting, considering that this is the plant Yamanaka picked out for Kotoko.

While we don't exactly know the details between Kotoko and the relationship she has with her grandmother, her birthday flower seems to hint that she has some kind of respect for her, or at least they are most likely on good terms with each other.

"Once upon a time there lived in a certain village a little country girl, the prettiest creature who was ever seen. Her mother was excessively fond of her; and her grandmother doted on her still more. This good woman had a little red riding hood made for her. It suited the girl so extremely well that everybody called her Little Red Riding Hood."

And that is why I wonder: did something happen to Kotoko's grandmother that made her realize how flawed and unfair justice can really be? Well, we know that in the story, the wolf disguises himself as Red's grandmother to try and trick her. But why litter Kotoko with all this wolf symbolism (besides the dog/tool dehumanization she's associated with) if she's supposed to allude to the character of Red Riding Hood?

The Wolf:

There is a major difference when it comes to the Tale of Red Riding Hood and Kotoko’s MV symbolism, which is the wolf’s role in each of their stories.

For Red, the wolf is the enemy. The wolf is one who tricks her from the very beginning, and the one who tries to eat her and her grandmother.

"Grandmother, what big arms you have!" "All the better to hug you with, my dear." "Grandmother, what big legs you have!" "All the better to run with, my child." "Grandmother, what big ears you have!" "All the better to hear with, my child." "Grandmother, what big eyes you have!" "All the better to see with, my child." "Grandmother, what big teeth you have got!" "All the better to eat you up with."

But Kotoko…she’s with the wolf. The wolf is instead her companion it seems, the one who runs and sits beside her when she’s doing her vigilante stuff.

And more importantly, the wolf seems like the one to be enabling her, helping her continue with rescuing the little girl and beating up the child kidnapper. It is the one thing by her side that encourages her to bare her fangs and protect the weak.

People have speculated that this wolf represents a person in Kotoko's life, a vigilante partner she used to have? Her older brother perhaps? Who knows really, but I think we can all agree that this wolf is a person who has influenced Kotoko a lot. It is the one thing that pushes her continue with this, to continue with the cycle of cruelty and violence in her act of handing out her own form of justice. And that brings me to Kotoko's jacket again.

The Red/Pink Jacket:

I want to address the difference between Kotoko's jacket in her forest world, as opposed to it in the real world. In the forest world, we see that the jacket is more of a hot pinkish color.

I'm not sure if this is fully because of the lighting, but the color difference for the jacket is very notable if you compare them side by side. In the real world, the jacket is clearly more red than pink:

So why make this jacket be two different colors in two different places? Well, I'd like to theorize that the answer has to do with this girl that appears for a brief few seconds in HARROW, in the flashback sequence while Kotoko is beating up the child kidnapper dude.

Or as I like to call her: PINK SHIRT GIRL ✨

One final thing I wanted to talk about is how this girl relates to Kotoko, the different colors for her same jacket in the MV, and the sole reason why I think she wears a pink shirt. A lot of people have speculated that this girl is a younger version of Kotoko, possibly back when she was a child. Pink for Kotoko seems to emphasize her ideals at their most pure level.

When Kotoko is wearing her jacket when it's pink, she's in her forest world that emphasizes Kotoko's purpose in protecting the weak. She's emotional there, she falters, worn out by the running and desperate to continue going. There is nothing shown in those scenes that shows her childlike ideals being tainted, yet.

But when Kotoko alludes to her self-hatred and the wolf urges her to go on with the attack, HARROW switches back to the real world where the jacket is red. We Kotoko smile after she presumably kills the child kidnapper guy as she declares that she wants to be "drowning in the knowledge that [she] is right", and thus, this seems like we the audience realize this is the moment when Kotoko's ideals begin to become more distorted than how they were presented in the forest world.

We see that she finally gains a satisfaction that everything that she did wasn't for completely nothing, and that she now has the purpose that makes her existence useful. While she does want to protect the weak and give out justice, it is not entirely motivated by altruism, as HARROW points out. When Kotoko's pink jacket becomes red, it seems to signify how her pure, child-like ideals become tainted and much more flawed compared to them initially.

This, along with Kotoko having the wolf as her companion, all seem to point at just how much Kotoko herself has become the very monsters she wanted to destroy. The child-like pink has now become a red stained with blood, or rather a shade of magenta. A mix of red and pink that highlights Kotoko's immature and child-like view of a black and white world, while also noting that Kotoko is not the innocent Little Red Riding Hood she once was anymore—

She is the wolf. She is a Red Riding Hood who has been led on by the wolf's ideals, the prey that has been ensnared and eaten by the wolf at the end of the original Charles Perrault story.

She is the wolf, the monster now.

She is now the sinner she hates so much.

Sources:

https://journals.openedition.org/strenae/6423 This one is the Red Riding Hood clothing analysis!

https://core.ecu.edu/parillek/littleredcinder.pdf "Little Red Riding Hood" Charles Perrault version

https://medium.com/@monsterahelpful/the-symbolism-and-history-behind-the-monstera-leaf-unveiling-its-meaning-11ba828837c2 Monstera Deliciosa symbolism!

https://twitter.com/pug_maniac/status/1735912110423732687 Yamanaka's tweet for Kotoko's birthday flower!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Red_Riding_Hood The Wikipedia page for Little Red Riding Hood! This also contains the heavier themes I was talking about in the beginning, so if you want to find out more, they have a whole section about it here. Trigger Warnings for sexual assault and rape for this Wikipedia page.

https://youtu.be/VrAW8zyoEiY?si=a3p4nb8B1TTza-x_ Translation video for Kotoko's first voice drama, Task.

https://youtu.be/_gTTtS0Fvxk?si=Y1Zwu3XOI_nRHgex HARROW MV

Also I'd love to read more analyses if anyone writes them, especially on topics I avoided, so tag me if you write any!!!