#walburgablack

[thetorturedpoetsfest]

Welcome to Day 10 of The Tortured Poets Fest!

Click the links listed below to check out all of the content our lovely Tortured Poets have created for all of us today! (and go to our bio to access the rest of the AO3 Collection)

✍️ When I Had You, When I Lost You by Written_Willis

Ship(s): Alice Longbottom/Narcissa Black Malfoy

Rating: E

Summary:

“Ciss, what is this?”

“Just read it,” Narcissa manages to force out, chewing her lip. The space around them falls silent but the growing apprehension is nearly suffocating. She glances up in time to watch Alice's confusion shift into unshed tears. Alice doesn’t speak. Narcissa isn’t sure she’s even breathing. “Love, we knew it was coming. We knew our days were numbered.”

When a letter from Narcissa’s parents rips them apart what will they have left? For Narcissa, it’s the memory of one last night and weekly visits to St. Mungo’s. 🕯 I am what I am ‘cause you trained me by BathtubBanana

Ship(s): N/A — Walburga Black and Aberforth Dumbledore

Rating: M

Summary:

Walburga is a goat at the Asylum Farm and Aberforth is the worst wizard alive.

🗝 My Boy by Atterelia (video edit)

Ship(s): James Potter/Regulus Black

Summary: Jegulus angst set to "My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys"

📜 how did it end? by starlightsoaked

Ship(s): Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter

Rating: M

Summary:

Looking back, Draco thinks he should have known he was always going to have his heart broken by Harry Potter.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

in which draco proposes to harry, everything goes wrong, and he can't make so much as an ounce of sense of it all.

🖌 Down bad by BlackOnMaroon @cauldroncakesandwine 

Ship(s): Regulus Black/Barty Crouch Jr., Regulus Black/James Potter

Rating: E

Summary:

James and Regulus go through a break up, Regulus moves on with Barty.

If you're here for jegulus you will leave sad and unfulfilled.

**************

Be sure to check our page for Day 11’s reveals! Until then, Tortured Poets <3

🩶 Your mods, @wolfpadx @multiimoments @heartsoncover @lemonlans @mercurial-witch @steveahoi damagecontrol & shewritesmaybe

[satangotchi]

they are canon, lol.

[endversewinchester]

oh yes.

[robininthelabyrinth]

LXC is the legal guardian and adopter for LSZ or LJY, and NMJ has questions.

part 2 of the LJY-adopted-by-LQR fic (now also on ao3)

-

“So, did I knock you up before I went to war or something?” Nie Mingjue asked. “Because I feel like you should’ve mentioned it if that was the case. Possibly in a letter.”

Lan Xichen was so tired that it took him a solid minute to parse what was wrong with that sentence and how to respond, and it was not by following his first instinct to apologize that he should’ve written better letters.

“Stop making fun of me,” he said instead, groping towards some measure of dignity.

Sadly, dignity was in very short supply when you were taking care of babies. Multiple babies. Well, one baby and one toddler, which was somehow worse?

Lan Xichen was pretty sure they’d figured out how to time their crying off each other.

“I would never,” Nie Mingjue said, like a liar, and then he picked up little Jingyi and – Lan Xichen simply cannot find another way to put it – shook him, in a manner not unlike testing a melon for freshness.

For some reason, this made Lan Jingyi stop crying and start making snuffling little giggles instead.

“How did you do that?” Lan Xichen asked, eyes wide.

“Do what?” Nie Mingjue tucked the baby into the crook of his arm and scooped up some food off the table, offering it to him, and Lan Jingy actually ate it. “Xichen, are you feeling all right?”

“Shhh!” Lan Xichen hissed, eyes fixed on the baby, which was neither spitting up everything nor wailing as if his heart was broken. “No unnecessary noise during meals.”

Nie Mingjue snorted in amusement. “Sure,” he said amiably, in the tone Lan Xichen had long ago learned meant ‘nice rules you’ve got there, it’d be an awful shame if someone found a loophole in them’. “This isn’t a meal, though; it’s just a snack.”

Lan Xichen eyed the still-not-crying Lan Jingyi and decided that now was not the time for a spirited debate on the virtues of discipline and fulfilling the merits rather than the word of a rule.

“Where’s monster number one gone?” Nie Mingjue asked abruptly. “He must be very good at hiding, because I looked away for a blink of an eye and he was gone.”

Lan Xichen’s eyes slowly dropped down to where a cloth-covered lump was not-so-sneakily edging towards Nie Mingjue’s foot.

Nie Mingjue was one of the foremost front line fighters of their generation, and possibly the previous one as well. His physical ability was matched only by his incredibly keen senses.

There was no way he was not aware of the lump.

“It’s a real shame, too,” Nie Mingjue continued. “I was planning on doing a test of how far you can throw children, but I think monster two here’s a bit too small to make the test worthwhile. But I guess it just wasn’t meant to be –”

You can’t throw children, Lan Xichen was about to say, except Lan Sizhui was tearing off the tablecloth and jumping up in excitement, shouting, “Here! Here! I’m here! I’m big enough! You can throw me!”

“Why does he want to be thrown,” Lan Xichen murmured, bewildered. He’d never wanted to be thrown around as a child. Had he?

In fairness, he wasn’t sure. No one had ever offered.

Apparently, though, Lan Sizhui did very much want to be thrown around, and Lan Jingyi even condescended to allow Lan Xichen to hold him while he watched.

“Higher! Higher!” Lan Sizhui shouted.

“Really? Is this high enough?” Nie Mingjue held him up at eye level.

“Higher!”

“Like this?” Above his head.

“Higher!”

“You sure?”

“Yes!”

“All right. How about –” Baxia slithered out from her place by the door, zipping over until she was right in front of Nie Mingjue, allowing him to step onto her like a stair, and then zipping upwards to about hip-height, lifting Nie Mingjue and Lan Sizhui with her. They very nearly hit a tree branch with their heads. “– this?”

Lan Sizhui shrieked with laughter.  

“It’s too early to introduce them to flying,” Lan Xichen objected, because it was. “Mingjue-xiong…”

Nie Mingjue hopped down with a laugh. “All right, one last toss,” he told Lan Sizhui. “Then you nap. Okay?”

“Okay!” Lan Sizhui, who had never once willingly succumbed to naptime in the entirety of the time that Lan Xichen had known him, promised earnestly.

Back into the pile of soft grass he went, giggling the entire time, and amazingly enough he really did fall asleep afterwards. Lan Jingyi, too, had fallen asleep at some point.

“I’ve decided that your brother needs more experience running a sect,” Lan Xichen told Nie Mingjue, who raised his eyebrows. “Starting immediately. I promise to allow you to leave when Jingyi is, oh, shall we say five years old..?”

You could reason with a five year old. 

Nie Mingjue laughed.

It was a type of laugh that suggested that he thought Lan Xichen was making a joke. This was incorrect.

“You’d be amazed at how serious I am,” Lan Xichen told him threateningly, “I’m sect leader here, this is my territory, I can have you arrested any time –” but by that point Nie Mingjue was already bundling him off to bed, too, combing out his hair and plying him with snacks and –

This was not helping his argument that Lan Xichen should be allowing him to leave rather than keep him trapped in the Cloud Recesses as a babysitter-slash-love-slave. 

Well, he wouldn’t really do that, of course. He’d let him go. Eventually.

It’d probably be good for Nie Mingjue’s stress levels, honestly.

“Seriously, though, how did you do that?” he asked, his head on Nie Mingjue’s lap. “They didn’t cry once.”

“I’m good with kids,” Nie Mingjue said, his fingers digging into Lan Xichen’s scalp in just the right way. “Now can you explain to me how exactly you ended up with them? Two, no less?”

Lan Xichen groaned and covered his eyes with a hand. “Sizhui’s Wangji’s,” he explained. “Not biologically, but he’s put his name down in the family register under his own. But, you know…”

“I know.”

Lan Xichen appreciated that he didn’t need to go into it. The doctors had estimated that Lan Wangji would regain full mobility within three years, so that was the period the elders had mandated for his so-called ‘seclusion’, but with Lan Wangji being locked away like that – even with visitors, even though he was trying his hardest to care for the child from where he was – meant that someone had to care for the child’s day-to-day life until his brother was ready to resume the role.

“Jingyi is a cousin, I think,” he continued. “His parents are dead, and uncle accepted guardianship for him…I think he’s going to adopt him, actually.”

“Then why is he with you?”

“I volunteered.”

“Xichen, I say this with a full heart of affection and tremendous respect for your capabilities,” Nie Mingjue said. “But why in the world would you go and do a stupid thing like that?”

Lan Xichen sighed. The worst part was, he couldn’t even argue that it wasn’t stupid – he was, quite obviously, terrible with children.

“Uncle’s still injured from the war,” he admitted. In fact, his injury was probably even older than the war, dating as far back as the burning of the Cloud Recesses – his uncle had never been much of a fighter, his impressive cultivation strength stemming almost entirely from gentler arts like music and learning and meditation, but when his home and his family and his students were at risk, he’d fought, while Lan Xichen ran. Not just fought; he’d kept fighting long past the point that his body allowed. It only made sense for the bill to need to be paid. “He had a recurrence of an old complaint, not long ago; he started coughing up blood. The doctors insisted that he try to avoid anything that might cause him  stress.”

“Stress. Like, say, a rowdy infant?”

“Exactly like a rowdy infant,” Lan Xichen agreed, glad that Nie Mingjue did not mention that what had happened with Lan Wangji was also likely a source of stress. At least the two of them had slowly started to repair their relationship recently – the heartbreak would kill their uncle sooner than anything else, and Lan Xichen might be weak, but he really couldn’t tolerate the idea of suffering any more loss.

And also, if Lan Wangji could see his way to forgiving their uncle, he might one day agree to forgive Lan Xichen, too.

“I see. So you ended up with the little one, too.”

“Yes. And they hate me.” Nie Mingjue coughed a little. “No, don’t deny it. They clearly hate me. They always cry and spit and yell -”

“They’re children, Xichen,” Nie Mingjue said. “Traumatized children. They do that.”

Lan Xichen didn’t need to open his eyes to know that Nie Mingjue was frowning in memory of pain long past. Lan Xichen remembered, with painful clarity, how young Nie Huaisang had been when Lao Nie had died, how badly he had taken it.

There’d been a lot of crying and vomiting and yelling there as well.

“You’re good with kids,” Lan Xichen said instead of commenting, trading delicacy for delicacy; he would not touch Nie Mingjue’s still-bleeding wounds just as Nie Mingjue avoided his own. “Very good.”

“Well, I like to think so, anyway.”

They remained in blissful, comfortable silence for a while.

“How would it have even worked?” Lan Xichen finally asked. His eyes were still closed, Nie Mingjue’s fingers running through his hair; he never wanted to move again.

“Hmm?”

“If you knocked me up before you went to war. I mean, they’re not even the same age.”

“Well, one of them’s from the affair, obviously.”

“I’m sorry, am I cheating on you now?” Lan Xichen opened an eye and pinned Nie Mingjue with a fierce look that instructed his lover to reconsider.

“Of course not,” Nie Mingjue said, mock-solemnly. His eyes were dancing. “You were so distraught after receiving incorrect news of my untimely demise that you conducted a ghost marriage with my spirit, and then went and had a child to continue my name.”

“…they’re both surnamed Lan.”

“So what? Are you saying I’m not good enough to marry into your sect, is that it?”

Lan Xichen’s cheeks were hurting from trying not to laugh. “I wouldn’t dream of implying such a thing.”

“There you go, then.”

“Can I ask why I felt the need to have a child to continue your name if I had one already?”

“…well, fuck,” Nie Mingjue said. “I’ve got nothing.”

Lan Xichen burst out laughing.

[bedlamsbard]

for the wip word-search: spear.

“Big guy? Dark hair? Pointy spear? Wears a lot of black and green? Also pretty scary? Friend of Rocket’s and Nebula’s?”

More than one sentence since this bit of dialogue is all sentence fragments! This one's also from the Yonder Thor story.

[sirpotty]

Walburga Black icons!🦋

face claim:Penny Dreadful.

⚠️▪︎Do not repost as if it were yours,be aware.

🌱~ If you use,like or reblogue.

[jxcksonxveryoc]

Black Family tree

[amzarashi]

Famelicose, Gansey & Ronan

famelicose; often or very hungry

gansey looks up from his journal when he hears the door slam shut. he knows it’s ronan, but some part of him still can’t believe that ronan had agreed to move into monmouth with him, so he looks just to make sure. it’s late into the night and his shoulders ache just a bit, from how long he was hunching down, but he smiles fondly at ronan when the other passes by him to get to his room. he looks tired and slightly drunk and gansey knows that he should put a stop to the frequency with which ronan has been consuming alcohol, but he also doesn’t know how to go about it without accidentally invalidating ronan’s pain or taking away ronan’s only coping mechanism. 

right now, however, he can help, or at least try to and that’s why gansey finds himself standing up and heading to the kitchen counter to try and whip up a meal for ronan despite him being a terrible cook. alcohol makes ronan hungry and they’re low on snacks and gansey doesn’t know how to make anything other than a salad but he’s seen ronan on his many cooking adventures and gansey believes that he can whip up something partially edible if he just follows the motions that he’s seen ronan do.

it’s not a success. 

twenty minutes and twenty almost-cuss words later, he’s ready to admit defeat when ronan steps outside of his room. he looks freshly showered and clean for 3 am, but gansey isn’t one to judge. there is a sly grin painting ronan’s features, and gansey half wonders if he’d always been this pretty. ronan’s features aren’t delicate by any means, but gansey finds his eyes lingering on them for far too long sometimes, and sometimes, like right now, he can’t help but wonder what ronan’s lips would taste like and gansey stops that train of thought before it can barrel through and break the semblance of a friendship that he’s trying so hard to save. 

ronan, thankfully, chooses to comment on gansey’s disastrous culinary trip with just enough bite in it to mask the playfulness of his tone. gansey doesn’t dare dwell on the way his heart skips a beat at how ronan’s lips curl around the words, but there’s a feeling that’s making itself known in his stomach and he chalks it up to hunger and the unfulfilled promise of food, but he knows it’s something else. it’s always been there, and he’s never acknowledged it for fear of the consequences. 

gansey’s never been one to worry about consequences. he’s also never been someone who’s had to worry about going hungry, but right now, both those possibilities are very real and staring at him in the form of one ronan lynch. gansey steadies his breathing, and adjusts his glasses, and matches ronan’s calculating gaze. there’s the moment that everyone’s told him about-- silent invitations and things left unsaid and how fleeting it is -- and there’s a challenge in ronan’s eyes, a now or never, and for a moment, he forgets to worry about consequences and ruined friendships and all he wants is to feed this creature in him that’s starving for touch. 

but he can’t bring himself to move, and ronan breaks away with a quiet huff and heads back into his room. the room is quiet once again but gansey’s thoughts are loud-- louder than bombs, louder than ronan’s weird music, louder than his own heartbeat-- and the pit in his stomach is angry and he doesn’t think he’ll be getting much sleep tonight after all.

writing requests

[bomberqueen17]

replying to replies about being middle-aged

bittylildragon replied to your post “sometimes”

I'm gonna be honest, that fic you keep describing as lovely does not sound lovely to me if those are the erroneous assumptions the author is making

Well so here’s the thing. If from the beginning, they’d just gone with Jaskier is sixtyish in this story as a premise, it would’ve been completely fine, and I would be writing out a fic rec instead. Like, it would even work out, the way his friends talk about him, the way he worries about being past it, the way he mostly can still get around and get up to his normal shenanigans, but is occasionally Regretful of doing something too physically-rash. 

Given that it’s a non-canon story, there’s no reason they couldn’t have done that, either. They just... didn’t think to, because as far as I can tell they genuinely thought that was reasonable for a character in his forties. 

If I just... erased the few lines where Jaskier explicitly discussed his age (there are a few “ah twenty years ago!” kinds of lines as well here and there, and like, guys. Twenty years is a long time, but it’s not like, a crazy long time. I can laugh with some of my friends about the dumb shit we got up to 20 years ago but then later that same evening I can find myself doing some shit that is like 80% as dumb, just better-informed. All those Witcher 3 playthroughs? I met DF and MM 22 and 26 years ago, respectively, and our shenanigans are only constrained by the kids asleep upstairs, y’dig? we’ve got like, another 25 years before we retire, if we’re lucky)-- if you just changed those numbers, the fic would be absolutely perfect. 

brighteyedjill

replied to your post

“sometimes”

*in Monty Python voice* I'm not dead yet

RIGHT

walburgablack

replied to your post

“sometimes”

oh ffs, forty is maaaaybe middle-aged?

And that’s the thing. being middle-aged isn’t a thing that people understand anymore. It’s seen as this thing to dread, and then gets mushed into the same thing as being geriatric. So in our society, being past your mid-thirties (...ish) is basically the same as being retired which is some unspecified brief span of waiting for death. Like, we can’t even imagine being middle-aged. You’re young, and then you’re In Denial, and then you’re dead.

Which ties into this from the tags on @rionsanura‘s reblog of the post-- 

#but i also think that part of the conception that jaskier was waiting around to die#was centered on the fact that he himself didn't realize he wasn't old?#cause he was vain#and used to life as a Beautiful Youth?#perhaps not#perhaps it's the author's ignorance

So like---------- in many societies, being middle-aged is something you ASPIRE to??? I’d imagine on the Continent it would be too. you’ve survived youth! You’ve lived long enough to marry, and maybe get some kids! You have a career! You’ve had time to amass some kind of wealth or stability!! In our society this is stuff we aspire to too, but we do so while also wanting, somehow, to cling to this illusion of youth as well. You want to settle down but you don’t want to LOOK TOO SETTLED, you don’t want to look too prosperous, you want that Youth Energy and Being In Touch or whatever-- it’s all weird and self-contradicting. 

Like! In real life being middle-aged often means something of an end to awkwardness (ok at least an easing of it, i will die still awkward but i shove my foot wholesale into my mouth MUCH less often now through sheer dint of practice), maybe you’ve figured out what fashions suit you so you wear those instead of chasing trends, you’ve finally got a handle on just what it is that upsets your tummy so you eat things that actually nourish you more consistently, yeah you get hangovers more easily and you can’t bounce back from all-nighters like you used to and you just can’t wear ridiculous high heels anymore without paying for it but like, your skin is probably way better, you finally figured out how to get your hair to do that thing you want it to, mostly you’ve figured out how to pay your bills and you know you’re good at some stuff and probably have managed to get paid for them, you’ve probably gotten therapy at some point so you’re not just a bleeding wound of all the wrongs done you in your childhood all the time-- I’m not saying I have my shit together exactly, but shit, guys, I cry a fuckton less than I did even ten years ago, and my cheekbones have come into their own thank you very much.  Sure your body starts to betray you, but I had sciatica at 22 and tendonitis at 27, generally my body is about as well-behaved as it ever was from a daily maintenance perspective. And I just have seen enough shit that I get fazed a lot less often and know what to do a lot more often and that is just nice, y’all, there’s so much less drama and so much less fear all the time. (I mean. *gestures broadly around* not so much at the moment, but like. at least I know who I am.)

like, Jaskier in his forties, in my stories at least, is just settling into a prestigious career, he’s got a back catalogue that’s got him some fame at this point, he’s got a handle on his own appetites and mostly can control his self-destructive impulses, mostly, and in general life is good! But there’s no real awareness in our society about that, that like, life gets good once you’ve got the hang of it, which necessarily also means you are Older. Sheesh. 

allmyfansquees

replied to your post

“sometimes”

This is like an INCREDIBLE Untamed fic I read last week which was utterly exquisite... except that it had an 8-month-old baby talk in complete sentences. Short ones. But... complete sentences. WT actual F?

Ha oh man. 

It’s not like, a huge dealbreaker, but it’s like yeah okay this person did not think to type into a search bar “when baby start talk” or like. “basic child developmental timeline”. And I guess there’s no way to easily google “what’s it like to be 45″ (although I would argue that since most societies have an established age of retirement you could probably start there???) 

I get it, folks, I get that it’s hard to have characters’ ages line up with timelines and things, and if you need a character to Do A Thing For Plot it can be tricky to make that work out. But like. Make that a two-year-old, friend. And make Jaskier sixty, and this fic is perfect. 

I would wager it is definitely down to a) not having thought about it that much, b) he’s forty in canon! (never mind that he is also still out on the road in canon), c) not understanding the life expectancy of 50 does not equal dying of old age at 50 fallacy and definitely, definitely, d) not having thought about it all that much. 

I’m not really getting my panties in a bunch about this, I just felt like a kind of rant. Like, I’m not mad, and I’m not going to say anything to the author, because the author doesn’t really deserve to be like, Called Out about it, and if you think you know what fic it is please don’t like point this out to the author. Just... if you are  the author, or have written a fic like it where Jaskier is 40 and retired, please... please, IDK, pay a little more attention to the world? and think about where you’re gonna be at 40 and realize that retirement age isn’t under 60 basically anywhere in the world?? and like, think about why you don’t appear to have any older friends or relatives and what’s that about??? 

Anyway. 

[herawell]

@walburgablack replied to your post “Did Balarama and Krishna know that they were brothers while growing up...”

I figured cousins? Nanda and Vasudeva share a grandfather, which is why Rohini is sheltering in Gokul/Vraj.

@glyphenthusiast replied to your post “Did Balarama and Krishna know that they were brothers while growing up...”

Tbh I always figured that Balaram and Krishna thought of themselves as brothers, regardless of what anyone said; but I could also see Balaram picking up on it sooner and Krishna either knowing and not saying anything or not knowing and finding out later.

@demonkidpliz replied to your post “Did Balarama and Krishna know that they were brothers while growing up...”

I'm fairly certain they knew. Krishna knew he was adopted. And Balaram is biologically Devaki's son. Rohini was the surrogate.

[tahiifanfics]

“Sentenciados a um casamento, Orion e Walburga foram vencidos pelo destino e se tornaram vítimas de um sentimento mortífero”

Nyah: https://fanfiction.com.br/historia/788376/Love_in_the_dark/

Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/story/240369492-love-in-the-dark

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26373607/chapters/64238374

[sophia-sol]

@lastontheboat​ reblogged your post and added: Daughter of Mystery by Heather Rose Jones is not _quite_ historical, but it’s definitely fantasy set in a recognizably 17th century setting, and it’s an enjoyable read.

Oh yes, I loved Daughter of Mystery, thanks for reminding me of it because I haven’t read the sequels yet!

@perspicaciouslynameless replied to your post: Maybe Regency Impostors by Cat Sebastian? Or The Wildes of Lindow Castle by Eloisa James              

Thanks, haven’t read either of those, I’ll take a look!

@walburgablack replied to your post: KJ Charles, if you want something queer                    

I’ve heard good things about KJ Charles, maybe this is my time to finally get around to reading their stuff!

@seaglassandeelgrass replied to your post: If you want romance + murder mystery, the Lynnes & Mathey series or anything by Sebastian Nothwell        

Thanks, I hadn’t heard of either of these before, I’ll take a look!

@teapotsahoy replied to your post:: have you read rose lerner?  I love almost everything she does.  It never makes me go "oh no hets."                  

Rose Lerner wrote my very favourite book in the romance genre ever (True Pretenses!!!!) so yes I have read all of her stuff! Thanks for the rec though, I’m always happy to hear from more people who love Rose Lerner!

[satangotchi]

them when they announced that they were expecting their first child ( sirius )

[imaybeinlovewithsiriusblack]

You know what gets me? walburga black hated sirius because he hated the concept of blood purity and what voldemort stood for, and praised regulus for following it. she disowned him for not supporting voldemort and the ideals of their family. and thought that regulus did. she never got to know the true cause of regulus’ death. she thought he died as a loyal follower of voldemort. but what’s worse than that is she would have known about the charges against sirius when he went to azkaban. she would have been under the impression that he was an undercover spy for voldemort after all, and that he did believe in blood purity and all of that. which means that she would have regret disowning him, believing that he was “a true black” after all. she would have been proud of him. she died while he was in azkaban, which means she died believing that both her sons upheld their “family ideals” and were followers of voldemort, when in fact, neither of them were.

[robininthelabyrinth]

I read Mo Du! It is so so good!

Ahhhh, fantastic!!! Tell me what/who you liked best, favorite scenes, everything :D 

[fullofstoryshapes]

i love Malevolent and Without Form enormously; I love your Elia, and I have no idea why it has such a negative over-reaction in comments (jk jk i know why)

(Pardon me if this and subsequent replies were sent yonks ago - I’m clearing my inboxes!)

Thank you so much! It still does me so much good to balance the responses to this fic and find a net positive