#Julian Fellowes sure as fuck did.
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Ever just kill an entire child offscreen just so you can re-set a character to their early season one state but this time without their Mysterious Secret In Their Past?
#Julian Fellowes sure as fuck did.#They could have had a whole season of Peggy searching for her son???#and then a storyline of getting him back or trying to find a way to build a bond with him without ripping him from the security#of the only family he knows?#but let's have all that drama happen off fuckin screen#and plop her back on E 61st#because god fucking forbid we have any scenes that don't revolve around the white households#you've got powerhouses Denée and Audra dominating their miniscule scenes but then just have to waste another half an hour on Marian#whose job it is to just float around and have other characters exposition at her#and be a clotheshorse#(they're great clothes but PEGGY LOOKS HOT TOO WHEN ARE WE GETTING AN EVENINGWEAR LOOK FOR PEGGY???)#The Gilded Age#spoilers
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again I ask...
why must Peggy go down south?
i swear julian fellowes picks out the fucking silverware himself for each Russell scene but when it comes to the black characters it's a vague nod and " yeah sure whatever them people did and make sure PEGGY has a suitcase big enough to carry trauma we're going to inflict on her this season. anyway, what do you think about this salad fork, the color might anachronistic?"
her mother warned her so she's definitely going to witness or have a hate crime inflicted upon her and for... what?
I should have known what was up this season when I saw the season 2 poster with denee and Audra crouched in the back of an opera scene they are not apart of.
both my grandparents were Tuskegee graduates and packed everybody the fuck up to get out the south , WE KNOW THE SOUTH IS BAD WE GET IT WE GET PEGGY IS BLACK THEREFORE SHE MUST SUFFER
show me something different
oh and y'all already know.... FUCK ARMSTRONG
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Hello! I have a humble ask for you if you have a bit of time to indulge me. While I understand from your name that your interest is primarily in the late republic, I was wondering if you had any recommendations for me regarding a slightly later period:
I’ll be taking a class on the Roman Empire and its emperors (+Julius probably) next semester. I’ve got more of a background in Classical Greek history than Roman, so I’m a bit out of my depth. I did a brief survey of some of the early big names in high school (mostly I just remember J Seas, October August, Capri Pants Tibby, Little Booties, Neckbeard Zero, and Ostrich Boy, though I’m sure we covered others), but I was wondering if you had any recommendations for interesting figures in and around the imperial court at really any time during the centuries of Roman Empire to look out for and/or stan in the coming year. I tend to find that being able to latch on to interesting people with lots of personality or story about them makes it easier to study the surrounding events, so I’m hoping for some help from fellow tumblr nerds to get a head start on that. Thank you for reading (and perhaps replying)!
Welcome, dear reader! It sounds like you're in the market for a blorbo...or perhaps a punching bag!
You already know the Julio-Claudian Clusterfuck, so I'll skip them. (I recommend all of them though!) If you enjoyed their family drama, you'll find even more of it in the Severan dynasty. Starting with Rome's first African-born emperor, through his fratricidal sons, to Elagabalus - who might've been what we now call transgender, but it's hard to tell. These folks make the Julio-Claudians look stable.
Or maybe you'd prefer a more relatable guy like Marcus Aurelius. He's one of the few emperors whose inner personality we can really see, thanks to his diary surviving and getting renamed the Meditations. I think many people struggling with depression, anxiety or existential dread might find a lot in common with Marcus' writings. He was a good guy who tried his best, despite never wanting to be emperor and facing horrible luck. His predecessor Antoninus Pius was also a very cool dude, the kind who did good quietly and resolved issues with diplomacy instead of war. They're two of the few emperors I think were actually good people.
If military history's your thing, you can't go wrong with Trajan, Aurelian or Constantine. Trajan conquered Dacia and Mesopotamia, making the empire bigger than ever. Aurelian's superb leadership and character helped to end a 40-year civil war. People seem to either love Constantine or hate him. He was also the first Christian emperor, and played a huge role in shaping Christianity as an institution and orthodox set of beliefs. Whether that was good for Christianity is a question in itself...Constantine's family had tons of drama, too!
If you'd rather pray to Jupiter than Jesus, you'll probably like Julian, Rome's last pagan emperor and a Huge Fucking Nerd. He's a favorite of alternate history buffs for what paganism and Christianity might've turned into if he lived longer. Also, he wrote satirical fanfiction about other emperors for fun!
Vespasian, Titus and Hadrian are interesting if you're into Jewish history. Well, "interesting" in a bad way...You can blame the first two for the destruction of the Second Temple, and Hadrian for the atrocities of the Bar Kokhba revolt. I liked reading Flavius Josephus' account of the first Jewish revolt, which characterizes Vespasian, Titus and Herod (that Herod) quite vividly. It's a very bloody tragedy, and all the trigger warnings apply, but it really brings this time period to life. (Get an edition with a Jewish translator, if possible - older Christian-led translations tend to shove antisemitic junk in there.)
Titus was the emperor when Mt. Vesuvius erupted, so the ruins of Pompeii and Pliny the Elder's wacky Natural History date to Titus' time. Some people really connect with Hadrian's famous gay love affair with Antinous, and he was an incredibly well-traveled man who left monuments like Hadrian's Wall all over the empire...but his genocide in Judea overshadows everything else for me.
But hey, maybe you're fascinated by the awful ones. Or maybe you think some emperors have been misunderstood. There's been a lot of discussion in recent years over whether Tiberius, Nero, Domitian and Commodus were as bad as they're usually portrayed. I'm only really acquainted with Tiberius. In his case, I found not a monster, just a deeply troubled man who'd been put into the worst job possible against his will.
I don't know many imperial women, but I gotta give shout-outs to Livia, Julia the Elder, Agrippina the Elder and Younger, Empress Theodora (wife of Justinian), and Empress Irene (whom Charlemagne wanted to marry!).
Readers, feel free to chime in with your favorite emperors, empresses and court-adjacent Romans! The wilder the stories, the better!
#just roman asks#local-queer-classicist#roman emperors#suetonius is also a lot of fun for reading about the first twelve emperors#even if he's blatantly wrong sometimes. especially when he's wrong#A+ source of imperial gossip#genocide mention#jlrrt essays
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The Pipe Dream of a Mary Crawley Divorce
I've seen several posts here and on Reddit recently about speculation that Mary and Henry are gonna get a divorce in the next installment of "Downton Abbey".
And, you know, let me get at the head of that line.
But I just don't think it will ever happen.
I'm not sure if anyone remembers or knows about the behind the scenes drama of the "Matthew Goode Incident" but I'm pretty sure that it is a hill that Michelle Dockery will die on and that Fellowes will make sure she dies on.
Basically, cliff notes ...
Dockery got to know Matthew Goode during the shooting of a movie in which she had a bit part as Ryan Reynold's daughter - it's a long story. And later, Allen Leech got really tight with Matthew Goode on "The Imitation Game" and the three started hanging out together a lot.
It was then that someone - I think it was Dockery - got the galaxy brain idea to offer Matthew Goode a job on Downton Abbey, sight unseen ... and without permission or authority to do so. As a favor they wrote Henry Talbot in as a one-time but future prospect suitor in the - then - series finale.
At the time Dockery was pushing for a husband for Mary to close up "Downton Abbey" and Fellowes said no, that Mary was gonna be single and focused on being a mother to George and run the Estate now that Tom was leaving. They went back and forth about it. At the time Downton Abbey was supposed to end at Season 5 and the Christmas Special was written as a series finale. But then they got picked up for a Season 6 and the entire cast had to sign on.
And - allegedly (an urban legend) - Dockery used her Season 6 contract negotiation to force Matthew Goode on the show permanently as her husband. For, really, no other purpose than so that she, Matthew Goode, and Allen Leech could hang out. This went over like a lead balloon and due to the forced hand, Fellowes did the very bare minimum character work for Henry and basically shoe-horned him in at the last moment.
As it was Henry was hated by the fans and was incredibly disliked by Fellowes. Afterward, basically, the backlash was to Jar Jar Binks levels from the fandom that both Matthew Goode and Julian Fellowes want to memory hole the character at this point. However, out of pettiness, the character of Mary is now settled in a bad marriage with an absentee husband that I doubt Fellowes will ever allow Dockery to escape.
Fellowes basically gave Dockery everything she wanted and then drowning her and her character in it. Just like when Laura Carmichael continued to badger him about Gregson coming back, till he wrote his grizzly murder just to make it clear to Carmichael that it was never going to happen.
If you don't believe me ... Dockery admitted to it in a Season 6 PBS interview that has since been unlisted on youtube to erase evidence of the incident. Also, there is a interview with Matthew Goode during "The Offer" premiere in which someone asked him about appearing in "A New Era" and ... let's just say he was very cordial but not entirely shy about expressing his opinion of Downton Abbey at this point. Also ... you notice how throughout the promotion of both movies you never see Michelle Dockery with Julian Fellowes. Not in interviews nor podcasts, or any of his "Fireside Chats"?
Sadly, Mary will be saddled to Henry Talbot for all time as a long and continuous punishment for the very underhanded and arrogant play that Dockery made to get her way.
I can only say that, as a fellow writer, I can only aspire to the level of pettiness that Fellowes has exhibited to people fucking with his narrative.
#Downton Abbey#Michelle Dockery#Matthew Goode#Allen Leech#Julian Fellowes#Mary Crawley#Henry Talbot#Tom Branson
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Well that was a hell of a Taskmaster episode, wasn’t it? Episode 8 might have been my favourite so far of season 16. Brilliant performances across the board, I thought. I haven’t written liveblogs for most of this season because I’ve been watching it on these rich people’s giant wall-sized projector, like a private movie theatre, which is cool as fuck but means I have my computer across the room and hooked up to the thing, rather than on my lap where I can type. But I have to say a few things about this one after the fact.
So, first of all, remember how I made a post a few days ago about how it seems like comedians can’t focus much on anyone else when they’re asked to talk about a group of people that includes Sam Campbell? I find it funny that this episode confirmed that this rule applies even to his fellow Taskmaster season 16 contestants, as three of the four of them picked his name when asked to yell one.
I mean, I find it funny now, as we know the points worked out evenly. At the time, I was yelling at the giant screen like it was a major sports game, saying, “No! Come on, stop it! Pick someone else! Okay, Sam, I think everyone else is out to get you so you really need to be the first to find it. No! No, don’t leave the room it’s in! Come on, man! Look around you!” Because his victory in the season seems pretty assured at this point, but the sort of thing that could fuck it up would be some task where he not only doesn’t win, but ends up down by five points.
Luckily it didn’t matter, because he was so popular that he got picked to lose five points but also to gain five points. Because of course he did! Because of course if you ask a bunch of comedians in England in 2023 to name what comedian comes to mind when they think of someone who might be doing too well and will therefore be a threat to them, they’re going to say “Sam Campbell” and then try to think about other people.
Guys, I think the industry might be looking at him. Like some sort of one-eyed pigeon. But he’s just glad people are talking about him.
Anyway, the rest of the episode. What a good episode. The prize task, as Ed Gamble pointed out on the podcast, was pretty much just “bring in a thing”. But it gave everyone a chance to shine. Julian’s jacket has to be one of the Taskmaster prizes that I’d most like to own. A top quality Lucy story, one so absurd and so well delivered that it overcome the way I have been slightly put off by learning she genuinely believes all this stuff and it’s not just a schtick, and I didn’t even care, because this one was so funny. Every word made the story funnier. And Sam made me choke on my water from laughter when he revealed that his prize has nothing to do with his story, he just wanted to tell a story. I’d argue that he should have been given more points based on the fact that cobalt is objectively pretty and does look impressive after a drum roll, but then, I am biased by the way I back him like a sports team.
Then we have the secret task, which… I wasn’t sure what I wanted, whether I wanted this to pay off in some big way, or whether I thought it would be funnier to build it up and have it turn out to be nothing at all. I have to admit that this seemed slightly less interesting than either of those options – just make it a regular task. But I think that was made up for by Sam Campbell’s reaction to learning this. As Ed also pointed out on the podcast, all the way along, when Alex has brought up the secret task, most people have sort of rolled their eyes and ignored it. Except Sam, who’s looked interested and distracted and like he knows they’re playing some sort of trick on him and desperately wants to figure out what it is.
And after all that time and all that wondering, Alex just drops on him that it was only a normal task all along. And they’re about to just get on with things, with no mention of the fact that this task has been foreshadowed for ages, but then Sam stops them and says wait, wait… has this task been available to find all along? Like… was the secret task scavenger hunt ever even real? And Alex says it’s just been on his mind. And the look of disappointment on Sam’s face is funny enough to be worth more than whatever other payoffs I was hoping for.
Okay, this brings me to another point, which is that Ed Gamble on the podcast has been constantly saying that he’s surprised by how well Sam is doing, because he knew Sam Campbell had the creativity and talent, but thought he might just go out and mess around and not care about winning. So he’s impressed that Sam seems so competitive. But I don’t think Sam is really competitive, the way someone like Mae Martin was. He’s not arguing points in the studio or anything like that.
I think Sam Campbell has the same type of competitiveness that Hugh Dennis had, which is a weird comparison because that’s probably the only thing in the world that Sam Campbell has in common with Hugh Dennis. Hugh Dennis didn’t use to care about the points specifically, he was never bothered if he got robbed in the judging, but he did work really hard to do as well as possible in every task. Which might be slightly less fun than full-on Mae Martin (or, for that matter, Ed Gamble)-style competitiveness, but it’s still pretty good (as I’ve said before, I’m not too bothered by the lack of Gamblian argumentative competitiveness in season 16, as all rumours point to it coming back next season).
Part of why I called Sam Campbell as the winner is you can see in his comedy an ability to do the lateral thinking while keeping track of a bunch of other things at once, the videos and the props and everything else that’s going on. Most people who’ve done Taskmaster talk about how they fuck things up because it’s hard to remember all the rules and all the resources when you’re under pressure, and just do one thing at a time but will forget something else and then everything’s fallen down. Sam Campbell keeps not doing that, which is so cool to watch. Right from the first task, lying down after putting a can on the tower to avoid making any further mistakes. And you see it in all these little things. Like in that one live task where they were all cooperating by putting balls on each other’s hats for them, a move that Ed Gamble or Mae Martin simply wouldn’t have done at all. Sam does it, but when he has a ball ready and sees that Lucy already has two balls in her hat so putting one more there will win her the task, he turns away from her and puts one in Susan’s hat instead. Whimsical cooperation but still with an eye on accomplishing the set task. I love watching that kind of thing on Taskmaster. I love watching him plan things and do stuff deliberately while everyone else just panics under a time crunch.
And all that makes it extra funny when it just blows up in his face completely. Like when he did so well in the fish-mouse task, thought quickly and creatively enough to draw extra mice for extra credit, only to learn that it wasn’t a real task. Or when he’s the only contestant who’s able to keep the hunt for the secret in his mind at the same time as everything else, only to be told there wasn’t a special secret at all, it was just a task that everyone would do. And I have chosen to blame this disappointment for his uncharacteristically poor performance in the task, not looking in a fairly obvious place.
Oh, sorry, am I focusing on Sam Campbell too much? Look, at this point I’m developing enough of a SamCam obsession so people are lucky if I can have a conversation with them where I don’t mention Sam Campbell even if the topic isn’t Taskmaster. I’m certainly getting stuck on him when I am discussing Taskmaster. But it’s okay, because that’s something I have in common with all British comedians.
Though having said that, I do need to mention how funny Lucy Beaumont playing the horn was. And obviously Team Sue running around like preteen best friends at summer camp. And the JLS dynamics, with Julian wearily giving out advice about something he doesn’t care about, while Lucy is off in her own world. Great way to showcase all those dynamics, a task like this where they’re all in the same place but working separately.
And then we have the task that was stolen from Taskmaster NZ, which is a bit weird because they make a bunch of jokes that suggest it wasn’t stolen from Taskmaster NZ. Like Greg saying a “fortune trail” is something Alex made up, when it was clearly made up by Sam Smith (the guy who writes the tasks from TM NZ, not – you know, the other one of those). I was surprised they used an adapted task like this one, one that has a secret way to make it much easier, so if any of the contestants had seen Taskmaster NZ season 3, they could instantly crack this task. Of course, it turns out that famous comedians and actors have a busier schedule than I do, so none of them had time to sit around watching every episode to TM NZ season 3 as it came out. More’s the pity, they all missed out on Josh Thomson, whose frantic, intense hyper-competitiveness have made him one of my favourite contestants from any Taskmaster season. And his total meltdown in the fourtune trail task was one of my favourite parts of the season.
I wasn’t surprised that none of the season 16 contestants had seen it, though I was slightly surprised that apparently Ed Gamble hasn’t seen it, as he made no mention on the podcast of it being originally an NZ task. I see why they brought it over, and I liked it – I’ve enjoyed almost every NZ task that’s been used on Taskmaster. And while nothing in this task quite matched the beauty of the original task with Josh’s breakdown, this was still quite good. The way several of them found the lucky penny but none thought to use it. The way they were all so sure of themselves all the way along. Julian somehow winning just by not caring at all. Again, obviously, I was yelling at the screen when I realized Sam had pocketed the lucky penny instead of using it for coin tosses.
And then… look, I wanted to try to tone down the Campbell focus in this post, but how can I do that when the last filmed task was the sleeping one? Yeah the others were funny, but who’s going to come away from that focusing on anything besides the bribing of a small child?
Actually, to be fair, I think the star of that task was Flossy. I don’t know where they got her, but she was perfect. Her face might have made me laugh more than anything else in that episode. Especially her dismissiveness of Lucy and her incredulity about Sam’s promise.
Obviously we’ll get answers, right? I’d hoped we’d get an extended version of that scene, but they just released new outtakes yesterday and none of them included an explanation of whether Sam paid the eight-year-old child. Ed Gamble did, however, promise on the podcast that he will look into it and deliver us an answer. Also, obviously Sam will be back on the podcast, since each season’s winner is the guest for that season’s finale episode. So Ed can ask Sam about it then.
The other stuff was funny too. Julian actually doing an okay job of seeming to sleepwalk, until for some reason he then walked back into bed. Lucy being ludicrously awful at it. Susan’s genuinely good acting, I think she’d have fooled me. Sue building contraptions like, as they said on the podcast, someone out of Home Alone or Ferris Buller. All of it was funny. But obviously Sam stole the show again. Credit should go to the editors on that one too, I loved the way they showed it. A Kumar-with-the-basketball-style backtrack and reveal.
What a fucking great idea. I will no longer consider any Taskmaster contestant sufficiently committed to the bit if they go a whole season without bribing a single small child.
And then they ended on a game of charades, which was also funny. Just a top quality episode. I’m sad that we’re getting into the last couple of episodes already, this season has been so much fun. Maybe the oddest group they’ve had, in there doesn’t seem to be a single person in the “straight man” role.
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Okay so I've been really busy for months and I'm finally gonna like post the two dozen tumblr posts about the obsessions I've been in since fucking May, seriously they are all saved in my drafts and in need of editing, but damn it if I'm not gonna comment on the Gilded Age first. Should I be back logging from SAB to Percabeth to Game of Thrones to Nancy Drew to ER before I do this? Most definitely? Will I be doing that? Of fucking course not so sit the fuck down mutuals I'm about to unload about the bloody fucking Gilded Age.
So I adore The Gilded Age in like this really twisted way, but damn is it good. So when I started season 2 and found myself, dare I say board, I was a bit scared what one of my friends said about the premiere would be accurate, bot was I wrong, no no, it was boardroom, it was annoyance so let's discuss the pros and cons of the Gilded Age season 2 episode 1 as well as what I hope to see in the coming episodes and what I absolutely love and want most about this show.
Okay cons first cause those are easier. The opening is boring. There is a substantive lack of Larry Russel in the episode. And worst of all, it's not, what's the word, a good opener. Ya that's the word. the first half hour is boring and the second half brilliant. It's suffering a bit from what I'd like to call second season syndrome, some shows produce a season 2 opener even better than it's premiere episode (The West Wing, Agents of Shield, Game of Thrones, Grey's Anatomy, and many more), others, however, don't, and Gilded Age did not, at least at first. The slow opening, mainly the whole undetermined time jump thing, really doesn't help with that either.
Now with that out of the way, the pros! Okay so, let's see Marian, Oscar, Larry, Gladys, and Mrs. Russel were all in top form. The acting as always was impeccable! The ending was *chefs kiss* dramatic perfection. And of course the costumes and the sets, oh perfection. But most of all, my favorite pro from season 2 episode 1 was the characters and the ships!
Okay so let's list shall we.
I'm gonna start with Oscar. Love how he's got like an actually arc this season, we given him some development, we're given him some social shift, oh it's gonna be brilliant! I love him and Gladys, I love him and his romantic friend who I';m sure was named at some point but I've forgotten cause it's been a while since I watched season 1. I love all of it! I'm so excited to see the chaos develop as the season progresses.
Next up, the Irish maid the the American footmen (I know they have names but It's too late to dig out the imdb and I don't remember their names) They were adorably angsty in season 1 and now they keep being adorable and angsty. All I have to say is please of fucking please Julian Fellows don't you Fucking dare pull a Daisy and William on them. Okay? Okay?
It would be a crime to not also mention Mr. and Mrs. Russel, the power couple goals those two give off are so amazing! Honestly worshipable.
And last but not least the only ship not present in this first episode, and annoyingly the ship I adore most, Larry and Marian! Gods I adored the so obvious chemistry friends to lovers vibes they had going for them in season 1, and Fitzsimmons I feel I'm gonna be neglected some of those vibes this season. I desperately hope Larry returns from Rhode Island soon, and even more so interact with Miriam, look I know the trailers say he's gonna have an affair but I'll be dammed if that stops me shipping their chemistry (Should I list the ships I've shopped who weren't together and actually with other people for long stretches of time in the last month alone? I'll do it anyway. Nancy and Ace, Carol and Doug, Magnum and Higgens like three separate Grey's Anatomy ships, Beth and Benny, like probably something else too it's been a busy month). Anyways I'm so excited to see more of them, fingers crossed for episode 2. Anywho hope everyone has a lovely day while I sink into another ship relapse *looks at Paramount+* ooo, I should relapse in 5-0!
#the gilded age#larry russell#oscar van rhijn#bertha russel#marian brooke#larry x marian#the gilded age season 2#ships#shipping#the gilded age season 2 episode 1#george russell#agnes van rhijn
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JULIAN!! I need to know about all your ocs! So I’m probably gonna send a few of these 😂
📚 🎶 💯 🌈 🐶 ❤️ 💔 for all your ocs. I’ll find some more specific ones for each oc too 🩵 thanks
JESS! hello <3 thank you for always being so enthusiastic and excited about them 🥺 ilysm !!
okay, let's get started! gonna put a read more here because this is going to be pretty long since it's for all the ocs!!
📚 BOOKS — what level of education has your oc most recently completed/is currently in (GED, undergraduate, grad school, phd, etc)?
oliver hardwick has an undergraduate degree in classical literature and latin. he was lined up to do graduate level studies, but then the war broke out, so now he's an intelligence officer in easy company instead! he actually didn't want to pursue any more studies after undergraduate anyway, despite his parents pressuring him to do so. not that going to war was preferable though.
tommy monet graduated high school, just about. he has the smarts for more, but always claimed it wasn't for him, or people like him. he would laugh in the face of someone who suggested otherwise. his bad behaviour at school was less of a lack of enthusiasm for learning and more a way that he could easily blend in with the people he grew up with. he secretly would have loved to spend his time reading, expanding his knowledge and writing, but he couldn't stomach the idea of being seen as a "traitor" to his upbringing.
charlie scott also graduated high school, and he also wasn't interested in pursuing any higher education in an academic institution. instead, he basically started learning how to fix vehicles and different engines under the tutorship of a close family friend. so most of his knowledge and skills come from that training.
rhys llewyd was studying medicine before the war broke out and that's how when he joined up he was immediately chosen to be a corpsman. before the war, he was dead-set on becoming a doctor and was sure it was his passion in life. that changes during his time in the pacific and leaves him feeling pretty lost.
max jacobs does not want to be near any educational facility whatsoever lmao, but he did manage to graduate high school. the only form of "school" he enjoyed was the sniper training course he did in the marines. he actually really thrived in that environment, whereas in more traditional learning scenarios, he'd always found himself uninterested, distracted and frankly, just didn't really care. his fellow marines often make jokes about him "finishing top of class" and being the scout sniper "teacher's pet" despite almost being kicked out of every school he'd enrolled in before he joined up.
matty carter, my love, my baby boy, was very much in a similar situation as his best friend, ray person. they were both set to go to university after graduating high school, but then ray decides to fuck it and join the marines instead. naturally, he asks his best friend matty to join them with him too, and well, matty would rather be by ray's side than in a lecture hall, so that's exactly what he does. he joins the damn marines. he's very good at maths and all of the sciences, and was planning to study physics at university. he was a little bit obsessed with space as a kid, but always dismissed his love for it as being "the same as any other kid's".
caleb dawson, oh boy, here we go. pre-zombie outbreak, he's a final year architecture student, but that's not very descriptive of his educational background. his upbringing isn't quite as straight forward as how schooling usually goes, he travelled around a lot and was taken along on jobs with his father after turning ten. this meant he was in and out of schools most of the time and a lot of his education came from the group of criminals his father worked with. one of those taught him how to hack from an early age and he began joining them on jobs after a few years. his love of architecture and building design came from the earlier years when he was left in hotel rooms whilst they went out on robberies. he would sketch buildings from the window of those hotel rooms and eventually began to design his own. obviously to study architecture, you need good, and more importantly steady, grades and a high school diploma, so he always assumed it was out of the question for him. after a series of events that leave his father in prison and caleb having to find his way in life alone, he eventually does the work and gets onto a degree.
🎶 MUSICAL NOTES — what type of music does your oc like? do they listen to music very often?
oliver likes anything he can dance to. he's very much a fun of some uptempo jazz and loves nothing more than getting drunk and twirling around the room in a daze! he wants to listen to anything that will make him feel... no matter what emotion, he just wants to feel it all. mostly so he can forget what he actually feels inside!
tommy is very much a "i don't really care about music specifically" kinda guy. he'll appreciate and enjoy a lot of different styles but in a very passive kind of way.
charlie is pretty chill so generally he's into slower tempo more relaxing stuff, but if he can enjoy a bit of everything.
rhys trained in dance growing up so he's versed in a few different genres and styles of music, and even though he enjoys more gentle sounding music to listen to, he's absolutely down for the upbeat fun stuff too! he's pretty shy about his dancing, but if you get him out there then you'll be surprised by how free-spirited he really is!
max is your classic punk/pop-punk listening skater who has never played an instrument before but swears he would kill it in a band. but yeah, he's very into skateboarding culture and his music tastes reflect that pretty predictably. jesus of suburbia wasn't released until a year after the events of gen kill but that's very much the vibe.
matty also primarily listens to that kind of music.. y'know some soft rock, pop-punk, indie kinda stuff. but he probably consumes a bit of everything and is pretty versed in most music genres. he's also ray's best friend so yes, lots of singalongs.
caleb listens to film scores whilst he hacks. he can't bear to listen to anything with lyrics whilst he works but thinks purely classical music is a bit pretentious, so film scores are his go-to!
💯 HUNDRED POINTS SYMBOL — share three random facts about your oc that others may not know.
oliver:
he actively tries to bring shame to the family name
he hides his rage behind a carefree attitude very well
he dumbs himself down on purpose
tommy:
he cries reading poetry
he smokes but dislikes the smell of cigarettes
he talks to every cat he meets
charlie:
he's a really fast and strong swimmer
he grew up surrounded by mountain ranges
he hates hot weather
rhys:
he speaks fluent welsh
has a pretty big fear of heights
can play piano
max:
enjoys fighting in quite a masochistic way
ran away from home multiple times as a teen
definitely has an element of naivety when it comes to his own safety and wellbeing. he constantly provokes others and gets himself into fairly dangerous situations.
matty:
is a sweet baby boy who i love.
okay, no, i'll be serious, sorry i just love him so much.
has a smile that could power at least a whole county
is really really really good at playing tekken
he's also a maths whizz but is very lowkey about it
caleb:
constantly leaves cold mugs of coffee about the place, like literally all the time. especially if he's working on a hack
will NOT admit he's into speirs, despite the entire world, including every damn zombie out there, knowing about them
is secretly jealous of gwen's open and trusting nature, despite him constantly calling her out about being too naive
🌈 RAINBOW — what is your oc’s sexual orientation/gender identity? what pronouns do they use?
so all of these ocs use he/him and are queer, but i also have female ocs and nonbinary ocs that are a part of my hbo war f1 au! as well as my oc jess who uses she/her and is straight.
tommy is probably the character where sexuality is most relevant to his arc and inner conflicts. him being gay is quite a big factor in his family relations and past, so it does have a big impact on the way he carries himself and his sense of self.
oliver's sexuality is something he both clings to and tries to weaponise against his parents. he uses the disgust and prejudice of the era as a shield and there's a disconnect there between his sexual identity and who he really is. he would likely identify as gay but he's also slept with women if there's something to gain from the situation. he often jokes that he could never settle down with a woman though, as it would please his parents too much.
the other's queer identities are less clearly defined and the labels aren't really a big part of who they see themselves as. max is bi but tends to have a preference for men. matty isn't fully sure if he's bi or gay or not and he's kinda stuck in a situation where his romantic attentions are pulled toward one specific person, who happens to be a man, so he's very much still figuring things out. rhys and charlie are also in a similar place of figuring things out and likely won't find too many answers about that during the war either. rhys is closer to knowing what he wants in this regard though.
caleb is openly gay but he's out here fighting for his life against zombies so the topic of his sexuality isn't a massive part of his storyline other than y'know, speirs turning up and pinning him against a wall with his mouth just to shut him up. but yeah, he identifies as gay and doesn't really hide it from anyone either.
🐶 DOG FACE — does your oc have any pets?
tommy has a cat named badger and is basically a cat magnet wherever he goes!!
matty has an australian shepherd named polo who follows him around like a shadow. it's very cute.
oliver's parents never allowed him to have a pet growing up, it was one of their rules when they got married.
❤️ RED HEART — what are three of your oc’s positive traits?
oliver:
he's very open about his flaws and never tries to hide them or pretend that he's a better person than his actions prove him to be
he's actually a very smart and competent person when it comes to planning schemes or missions, and carrying them out, but he's often reluctant to show this as he despises being praised for his achievements due to the way his parents brought him up
whilst his charismatic nature is somewhat of a defence mechanism for him, he genuinely cares about his friends once they're in his life and will go to really far lengths to protect them
tommy:
he's genuinely caring and protective of his family and friends, even if he's not necessarily on amazing terms with all of them
he's very very observant of other people and can read them pretty well. this usually means others feel very seen by him and often appreciate the way he remembers and notices aspects of their personalities and lives. he struggles when he meets anyone similar to him though, as he's very in denial about himself
he's not afraid to stand up to people who deem themselves above him or others, even if he knows it will get him in trouble
charlie:
he's very patient with other people and is pretty calm when faced with criticism or other people's anger
has a pretty healthy way of expressing his emotions through his writing, especially his journals
he's very attentive to details, both with other people and in regard to their equipment and machinery
rhys:
he has a very soothing and gentle presence, even in the chaos of war, and marines often say they feel safer just having him around
knows exactly how to distract the guys and cheer them up, using small jokes and telling stories about his hometown. he also teaches the men welsh, even though they're all terrible at it, because he thinks it keeps their minds off the heavier stuff for a little while
would absolutely sacrifice himself for any of the k-company boys, but also knows his skills are needed to save them
max:
isn't afraid of bullies or bigots. will happily get his fists or face bloody just to stand up to them
in some ways he's very carefree and manages to truly live in the moment, even if it's mostly a response to "suburban fuckery" as he likes to call it. it's a bit of a challenge when he joins the marines and loses some of the anti-establishment non-conformity that he always claimed to live by, but he also gains a taste of camaraderie there that he starts to think is worth the trade off.
genuinely believes that failure is just a trial run and that he can accomplish anything that he wants if he tries hard enough (i'm putting this in positive traits, but it does have some mixed results and negative consequences as well, but it does get him through a lot of scrapes due to his sheer audacity to try)
matty:
have i mentioned he has a smile that can light up the whole world yet??? because yes... yes he does!!
is very graceful in defeat and enjoys watching his friends succeed and do well, he has so little jealously in that regard
he's pretty self-less honestly and can put aside something he wants if it goes against the majority's needs
he lives for making other people laugh or smile and other people's happiness genuinely brings him a lot of joy.
i'd also say he sees and appreciates the little things in life and usually knows what's important in a situation
caleb:
he very much subscribes to the "never leave a man behind" motto and will put himself in danger to make sure his friends are ok
would much rather get hurt than let the people he cares about suffer. this often leaves him in vulnerable situations where he leaves himself open to people who want him to suffer
despite all his trust issues and inability to let his guard down, he cares. he cares so damn much. and he's gentle really, he tries to hide it but it's there, pouring out from him as much as his rage
💔 BROKEN HEART — what are three of your oc’s negative traits?
oliver:
he's a hot mess, and before the war, he has little care for the consequences of his actions and how they affect the people around him, as long as he can say a fuck you to his parents
he's the textbook definition of self-destructive. he will intentionally fuck himself over, which inevitably fucks others over in the process
he knows exactly how to twist the knife with his words. he can and will snap at the people close to him if they try to look out for him or call him out on his self-destructive behaviour
tommy:
tries really really desperately to be someone he's not, and this constantly prevents him from reaching his full potential
can't decide if he hates himself or his father more, and in that confusion, decides that maybe it's just the world in general
does not know how to process emotions, whatsoever, and pushes away anyone who dares perceive him
charlie:
sometimes his calm nature can be mistaken or seen as a lack of care or concern for his relationships. this isn't necessarily negative by itself, but he does play into this and uses it to create a sense of detachment from having to show any vulnerability
tends to read people well enough to know a lot about their motivations but also closes them all off to his own. this tends to make people feel a bit locked out of his thoughts or emotions and he often needs to remind himself that he has to be vocal about how he feels in a lot of situations
whilst he writes a lot about his experiences and emotions, he doesn't always know how to actually share them with other people, especially when it comes to big important things
rhys:
he tends to hide behind his role of looking after the men instead of facing up to how the war is affecting him. this is pretty standard but he does heavily rely on this as a way of avoiding thinking about his own emotions. he feels like he's in a position where he's not allowed to feel any pain because the men rely on him to be the one who is there for them when they need it most. eddie's presence and their relationship is vital in this, due to eddie's position as an officer, and rhys viewing him in a different light to the others
actively tries to hide and diminish his light
uses his shyness as an excuse not to put himself out there
max:
gets into so many unnecessary situations because he can't accept that sometimes the fight isn't worth it. he truly doesn't know when to just shut up and keep his head down and it does often result in others having to take the hits alongside him
tends to avoid thinking too deeply about his own emotions and his method of always running and creating havoc to distract himself from the nothingness that surrounds his life is mentally exhausting in the longterm, not just for himself, but everyone else
really struggles when the higher ups fuck up during his time in the marines and gets real close to suffering the consequences of speaking up a number of times. this isn't a negative trait necessarily, but again, his mouth gets others in the shit with him and he actively needs to be held back and told to stand down, so it's pretty tiring for other people to deal with
matty:
his selflessness can make him too passive sometimes, he doesn't always stand up for himself when he should
he tends to settle for what he's given in life, with little fight when he has to sacrifice or give something he's worked for up
he's also very flippant about his life and future too. for instance, when ray asks him to join the marines with him, he doesn't need much convincing to change his plans of going to university to study physics, which realistically, could have offered him a path to a well paid career. instead, his best friend wants him to join the military and stay by his side, and regardless of whether this decision is right in the long run, he doesn't think very hard or long in the moment about how it will effect his life and future
caleb:
this boy is STUBBORN. like, really really really stubborn. he won't give up when he's arguing a point and it's extremely hard to get him to admit that he's wrong about something (when i say extremely hard i mean pretty much impossible)
he can also be kind of hypocritical too. he constantly calls gwen out on being too trusting and naive, but when someone who he feels he has loyalties to walks into their lives and is acting noticeably sketchy, he buries those suspicions deep, and chooses to put that loyalty first instead. despite this fucking everyone over, he doesn't tend to see it as naivety because he's too pre-occupied with the glaring trust issues and suspicions he has toward everyone else around him. he seems to think that protects him from displaying any qualities of naivety anywhere else
he's argumentative af and tends to bicker with people and fight about petty things to hide his anxiety and panic. he can't bear the idea of people seeing that side of him, even those closest to him
omg jess i think that's the longest response i've ever written to any ask lmaoooo but it was also so much fun to answer so thank you for asking them and if you (or anyone else) has read this far then well, damn, well done, you deserve quite literally the stars in the sky!
#julian's inbox#julian's ask games#my wips#julian's ocs#trying to remember all my tags for this#julian writes#oc: oliver hardwick#oc: tommy monet#oc: charlie scott#oc: rhys llewyd#oc: max jacobs#oc: matty carter#oc: caleb dawson#let's gooooooo
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Brainstorming Lake's relation to the main 6. I'm stoned and just trying to get back in the vibe.
Portia: they probably know each other the least out of them, they like each other as fellow chaotic souls, but also he brings out the worst in her brother and she really wants Julian to like..... stop doing self destructive things.
Julian: They are like so similar in certain ways that they get along really well in the worst possible way. Having similar shitty coping mechanisms and negative self image causes them to get to similarly dramatically destructive places. They hooked up once while working the plague and Julian became so uncomfortable with the situation he started avoiding Lake out of Feelings and eventually ended up assuming it was Lake "getting the message" and not wanting to work it out when Lake stopped showing up to work. He feels "slightly" guilty about that now. It does not help the self destructive tendencies. They both refuse to actually talk about it.
Muriel: like... he doesn't really hate Lake, he just gets frustrated that he causes problems for Asra and also by proxy Muriel. Lake likes him a great deal despite Muriel's frustration with him, in part because someone getting angry at him is pretty much the only form of affection he understands. Realizing that did not improve Muriel's mood about the whole thing. He was anti-necromancy but helped Asra 'cause he loves Asra and what the fuck if he can't stop the little gremlin he may as well get stuck in jail with him later. Damn it. Post resurrection Muriel did find Lake a lot more agreeable and they have a few moments that Lake can't remember. Ultimately for the time being he's just letting Lake forget because like... fuck all the Lucio business like shit. Unless they are staging an intervention. He is kind of concerned we aren't staging an intervention. What the fuck was the point of the Necromancy Bullshit Asra?
Nadia: did not improve her headaches at all. How? A blood bond with her *dead husband's* goat ghost? Like okay ultimately he did save the world and get Lucio's ghost out of the palace but surely it would have been significantly easier if they had *stopped to plan* for like *five fucking minutes*. At least he gave Lucio something to do afterwards instead of whine about being banned from Vesuvia. What a fucking nightmare.
Asra: mutually Lake and Asra run on a similar vein of Chaos Will Rein and so they tend to get into a feedback loop of energy and vibes no matter what direction that vibe happens to be going. The only impulse control they have is Muriel and when they separated the consequential emotional low that came with the breakup put them both in the worst possible places (Lake's place was slightly worse due to dying but that's kind of how Asra's place got worse) post resurrection Asra had to deal with his emotions feeling dulled and blunted compared to before and the very difficult task of rehabilitating Lake. They spent a lot of time at Mutiel's cabin before Lake learned to get enough motor controls down that he didn't need to be lifted places anymore, though Lake of course cannot remember this. It also made part of his mental recovery a bit difficult when they realized a lot got reset when he forgot most of being in the cabin. This caused a mild fracture in Asra and Muriel's relationship for a little bit and is part of why Muriel avoids Lake. When you're trying to build memory it's bad to cause more holes in the memory. Asra is super not hyped about Lucio, not okay and going to put a stop to it, but it's gotten all fucked up by all the magic and he is absolutely furious that Lucio is fucking shit up this much oh my god thing were really starting to look up what the fuckkkkk
Lucio: so before Lake died their only real interaction was Lake breaking into the palace to steal supplies for the clinic out of some really misguided impulse to do something good, as a result Lucio lost his temper and sent Lake to be Valdemar's test subject which ultimately ended up killing him. Now he kind of forgot about Lake even existing until a little while into their magic isolation gaslighting adventure at which point he starts to panic because he super super definitely needs Lake to like him really really badly and now that he likes Lake he feels really ashamed of having had him killed and he tries to lie about it and does get found out during the route, but so much magic shit and more gaslighting isolation time means he manages to twist it to like "look, you brought the plague into the palace. And like... it's Valdemar. I was scared of them like a LOT so I feel like while it was super shitty of me to have let them do that to you, with them and the Devil breathing down my back at the time I think it can be at least understandable that I didn't have the strength to resist them on something that seemed like a small battle in the grand scheme of things." And just you know being a fucking abusive nightmare about it because that's the trainwreck I am conducting! You have been warned lol
#the arcana fan apprentics#the arcana mc#the arcana apprentice#lake caliburn#lake and lucio#lucio morgasson#asra alnazar#julian devorak#portia devorak#nadia satrivana#muriel of the kokhuri#arcana headcanon#arcana apprentice headcanon
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Hey, I just wanted to respond to say that I was notified about your answer to my question originally.
You really said everything that I was thinking, but much more eloquently than I could come up with. I've written Downton fanfiction for like six years now to workshop and hone for my professional writing. So, I've got a really base understanding how the characters work and who they are. But sometimes that knowledge - however intimate I think it is - is more guttural and I can't quite put it into coherence as well as I should after all these years and hundreds of thousands of words.
So, you took the words right out my mouth, so to speak.
Though, I will say, I haven't listened to the latest Official Podcast Episode yet with Logan ... but I heard that a foreign TV Spot gave away a major spoiler about Robert ... and if it's true.
Violet is pretty fucking evil if you go back and watch Season 1 with the knowledge that she's trying to steal Matthew's rightful inheritance to give to Mary and it also brings up rights of succession in terms of later down the road. If things go south it could lead to a Civil War between George and Mary.
I remember Julian Fellowes stating in interviews when the show ended - before the movies - that George and Mary wouldn't get along at all in the future and that George was going to have "A Hard Go of It" at life - not helped by Mary. I'm not sure if Fellowes had changed his mind about that since then ...
But if Violet's secret is that Robert and Rosamund are not actually the 6th Earl's children, it would mean conflict between George and Mary later about how legitimate Mary's claim to the estate is from Matthew will. Since, if Robert is outed as illegitimate it makes Matthew's investment in Downton null, because, it was his house in the first place, therefore the investment doesn't exist and Mary wouldn't be his heiress since Matthew was the actual Earl the entire time, therefore everything goes to George by law.
From what Fellowes said about Mary in the future is that she doesn't give up Downton Abbey to George without a fight, refusing to leave - taking an entire wing for herself at one point to make a statement. To be fair, I don't know if he was joking, this was a text interview.
But all roads lead to future conflict between Mother and Son from the way that Fellowes tells it consistently. And I know that some people think that it doesn't really matter, because, Robert wouldn't be outed like that by his family ... but the way the Old Man tells it George isn't going to have the relationship with the family that the rest of them have ... and if push comes to shove he might use Robert's illegitimacy as a way to remove Mary as co-owner of the Estate and disinherit her when she refuses to give up power.
I'm not saying that'll happen ... but it does have the potential of getting incredibly ugly if Mary doesn't improve her relationship with her son.
Hello again! Well, I'm glad that my rambling actually made some sense, and I wonder if any of those will be true.
I haven't seen that TV spot in particular, but have read about it so I know about the newest rumour and now I see why they didn't really talk about the South of France-plot in the latest episode of the podcast in which they did a quick summary of the film but without giving much away.
Will put the rest of this under a cut due to the possible spoilers:
Since I haven't seen that TV spot yet, I don't know exactly what has been said or shown there, but if it's true, then it will definitely give us a fair amount of drama in the new film. And a really good reason for Violet to inherit a villa in the South of France. Also, as several people have pointed it out, this could give Robert and Edith an opportunity to bond with each other which is something I'd gladly watch. Although if the rumour is true, poor Robert will be devastated, to say the least.
As for the succession part, based on what I know about the whole situation, I don't think it would make a big difference if Robert is outed as an illegitimate child as removing him from the equation, Matthew would be the next in line, and since he's dead, George would be the next rightful heir. Of course, there is Mary, who was named as Matthew's sole heir in the letter he wrote before they went to the Highlands, but I don't think Robert's illegitimate status would change Matthew's will and thus her right to own the estate, because Mary didn't become the heiress because she was Robert's daughter but because she was Matthew's wife. Although I have to admit that I don't really understand why Robert's illegitimate status would make Matthew's investment in Downton null as it was a single sum of money that was paid only once, but I'm not a lawyer or anything, so I don't know how these things actually work.
I haven't read that interview with Julian Fellowes, but I do agree that things can get ugly between Mary and George in the future, although I think this wouldn't have a lot to do with Robert's status as Mary is in charge mainly because she is Matthew's widow. Obviously, this wouldn't happen during this film as George is only 6 or 7 years old, so he still have a few years before he gets to the point of wanting power over the estate. Still, I don't think he can use Robert's illegitimacy against Mary as first he would have to prove that legally which wouldn't be that easy, and second, because Mary is in charge due to her late husband being the rightful heir. I actually think this whole illegitimacy plot would rather be an internal thing - i.e. Robert trying to cope with the fact that his life has been a lie all along - than a serious legal threat that could lead to the family losing the title and the estate.
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Hmmm Geraskier Legally Blonde AU. Music major Jaskier follows his long-time muse Chiridean to law school (what, like it’s hard?) but finds him smitten with all-star student Yennefer. Cue Jaskier needing the broody TA, Geralt’s help in not flunking out. Jaskier ends up rocking the high-profile case of Callonetta, even after evil law professor Stregobor attempts to toss him out. (I also needed an excuse to put Jaskier in a playboy bunny outfit. For reasons.)
I am so so sorry this took so long. I almost made it into a longer piece and honestly I may still use the scenes in this to expand into a longer fic on AO3 if I have time but for now... voila!
_____________
Jaskier was tearing his hair out. There was no way he would be able to get the grades he needed to get into law school. He was a musician for fuck’s sake. There were so many words and they were all so boring. The paragraphs blended together and blurred making it nearly impossible to focus. He groaned and thumped his head on the table. He could do this. He wanted to do this. He had just hit a wall. He’d been concentrating so hard for weeks, which was, quite frankly, impressive for him. That sort of focus was usually reserved for his composing.
“Come on, Jask. You can do this!”
He couldn’t do this.
“How’s it going, buttercup?” Triss asked as she popped her head around the door.
Jaskier pouted and gazed wistfully out the window at the parties in the street below. “I should be out there, Triss. I could have been up on the stage or snogging some gorgeous person behind the curtain!”
Triss smirked and put her hands on her hips. “Snogging?”
Jaskier winked. “Or fucking,” he added with a shrug. “Anything is better than this shit!” He said gesturing widely to the the stack of books on his desk.
“You could just give up?”
Jaskier gaped at her and huffed. “My muse!” He whined.
“Suit yourself,” Triss shrugged. “Ready to go again?”
Jaskier groaned but nodded as Triss passed him another test whilst setting an alarm on her phone.
“Go!”
He sighed but began to scribble furiously. He could do this!
__________
He’d fucking done it. Jaskier Pankratz was at Law School. His parents had never been so proud. They’d restored his inheritance to their estate and he finally had access to his bank accounts again. No more living on tips and barista wages for him. He grinned. He’d always known that Chireadan would be the best muse! He strutted down the halls dressed in his favourite black skinny jeans and a shocking pink crop top, his guitar slung over his shoulder and an ice coffee in hand.
It was time for the next part of his plan. It was time to get his muse back!
He smiled and waved cheerfully at his fellow law students as he danced through the corridors, sipping his ice salted caramel latte through a straw. Most of them looked at him as if he was from another planet. Their clothes were black, black and black. Did no one in law school know what colour was? Yes he was wearing black jeans, but his top was brightly coloured and more than a little bit sexy. He’d paired the outfit with some designer sunglasses, a gift to himself to celebrate his reunion with his credit card, and a pair high heeled ankle boots that laced up at the front. His fashion sense was just wasted on these clever folk.
He sighed dramatically and glanced up at the doors. He was absolutely not lost. It was just… nothing was very clearly marked. Perhaps that’s why you needed all the extra tests to get into law school, even getting to class was a fucking exam.
“Are you alright?” A deep gruff voice asked. “You look lost.”
Jaskier spun around and peered over the top of his sunglasses. His jaw dropped. The man in front of him was fucking gorgeous. He had the most beautiful silver hair that was pulled into a bun, revealing a sneaky undercut on either side of his head. He was wearing a black turtle neck that was a tad too tight and stretched over hidden muscles, and on his face were a pair of thick black rimmed glasses. It shouldn’t have been so sexy but holy mother of fuck. Even the ratty old tweed jacket looked good on him.
“Lost in your eyes maybe,” Jaskier winked and bit his lips.
“Hmm.”
And then he turned and walked away. Jaskier pouted. The man must be straight. There wasn’t even a blush on his face, either that or Jaskier was losing him game.
Nah. It wasn’t that. He looked fucking hot and he knew it.
Jaskier hurried after him and placed a hand on his arm. “Wait! No. I’m sorry. I am lost, like actually lost and not just in your eyes, although can I just say,” he gestured to the man’s body. “Wow. What colour are your eyes? Yellow, no golden… doesn’t matter. They are gorgeous.”
The man raised an eyebrow at him.
“I’m Jaskier by the way. Jaskier Pankratz.” He held his hand out to shake but the man ignored it so he ran his fingers through his hair instead.
“What class?”
“Oh umm, excellent question,” Jaskier stuck out his tongue and he dug through his pockets for his schedule. It was already coffee stained and torn in the corner but who gives a shit. “Professor Stregobor?”
The man let out a weary sigh and pressed his fingers to his forehead. “Fuck.”
Jaskier tilted his head and put his free hand on his hip as he sipped his coffee. “Why ‘fuck’?”
“You’re not going to last two minutes. Follow me.”
Jaskier’s eyes widened. What was that supposed to mean? “Oh hang on!”
“Follow me.”
Jaskier’s jaw snapped shut. He hadn’t even made it to class yet and he was starting to regret everything.
_______________
“Come on…” Jaskier drawled as he rest his chin on his hands. The table was sticky and covered in beer but he ignored it. He had a job to do. He jutted out his bottom lip and widened his eyes at Chireadan.
Chireadan like everyone else in this damned party was dressed casually in a rather lovely blue jumper and chinos. Jaskier, who had been invited to the party by one Yennefer Vengerberg, was wearing a black corset, fishnet tights and a ridiculous pair of bunny ears. He should have known better than to trust Yennefer. She was fucking gorgeous and a phenomenal lawyer but she had taken a dislike to him. It was shame. He was pretty certain that under different circumstances they could have been friends. She was just ambitious and did not hesitate to trample on others to get what she wanted. He respected that.
It just had a few unpleasant side effects. Like turning up to a non-costume party dressed as a playboy bunny. At least he looked cute.
“No, no. Out of the question!” Chireadan said in his adorable little accent. It was what had drawn Jaskier to him in the first place. “I’m just not interested anymore.”
Jaskier let out a soft whine and batted his eyelids. “But I need you, you’re my muse!”
“Well you’ll have to find a new one. I’m done being fodder for your terrible songs.”
And like that the spell was broken. Jaskier gasped and sat back in his chair. “I. You. What?!” He shrieked.
“It was just one love song after another, and none of them even made sense? Do you even know how to rhyme? And we’re not even in love.” Chireadan huffed. “I want a girlfriend and I can’t do that with you trailing after me acting like a lovesick puppy. No. Julian. We are done.”
“Oh no. We are not done because you say so. We are done because you are a terrible muse with fucking awful taste in music. I cannot believe I wasted years on you!” Jaskier snapped. “I was just trying to repay you for saving my life but you. you.. ungrateful swine!”
“You’re acting like a child.”
“I’m a musician! I’m allowed to be dramatic!” He yelled and stood up, kicking the chair out from underneath him. “Yennefer Vengerberg will never love you. You’re wasting your time.”
“I know,” Chireadan sighed wistfully. “but I love her.”
Jaskier scoffed and fled the house. His pride was wounded. Not only had Stregobor called him a talentless fool who would never succeed in court, his muse, his precious muse had insulted his songs. He was fucking done with it all. He should never have come here.
His eyes stung and his throat ached as he bit back a sob. “Fuck!”
He shivered just as a heavy coat dropped around his shoulders. He touched the fabric in the dark; tweed. He smiled into his lap; Geralt. He felt Geralt sit next to him silently and he rest his head on Geralt’s shoulder.
“I spoke to Yen,” Geralt said in a low whisper. “I’d like to say she’s sorry for the costume joke.”
Jaskier chuckled. “Of course she’s not.”
“No.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Geralt grunted.
Jaskier sighed dramatically as he looked up at the stars. “What am I doing here, Geralt? I’m a musician, not a lawyer, and apparently I can’t even do that right.”
“What? Who said that?”
“Chireadan,” he whined.
“He knows fuck all,” Geralt growled.
Jaskier sat up and stared at Geralt in disbelief. “Does this mean you like my music, Geralt?” Geralt scowled and refused to meet his gaze. “Oh come on, I’m having a shit night. Humour me?”
“I like your music.”
“What do you like about it, three words or less?”
“Jaskier,” Geralt groaned.
“Please!”
“It’s catchy.” A pause. “And I like your voice.”
Jaskier swallowed as he tried to remind himself how to breathe. He was certain it was the booze and Geralt actually being nice to him for a change but he suddenly had an overwhelming urge to kiss him. He cupped Geralt’s face, turning it gently so he was looking at Jaskier. “Thank you, my dear.”
“Hmm.”
Geralt’s eyes flickered down to Jaskier’s lips. There was no mistaking that and even in the dark Jaskier was pretty sure he could see a blush on Geralt’s cheeks. He was fairly certain that if Geralt didn’t kiss him now, he might die. He licked his lips and tilted his head at his friend. “Geralt?” He asked quietly.
Geralt hummed, the ever present scowl on his forehead deepening. “Yeah?”
“Kiss me?”
And he did. Then he did it again, and again, until Jaskier had forgotten all the sadness in his heart because all that mattered were Geralt’s lips against his.
__________
Tag list: @alwenarin @slythnerd @davidtennan-t @flippinfricks @innocentcinnamonpun @marvagon @elliestormfound @geraskier-trashh @panerato @moonysourenza @artistsfuneral @victorieschild @hailhailsatan @wherethewordsare @havenoffandoms @bitchy-witchy-post-mortem @electricrituals @geralt-of-riviass @00qtee @kittynannygaming @stinastar @scribblesonmapleleaves @thecomfortofoldstorries @fontegagrilledcheese @anythinggoesfandoms @veritasrose @trickstermoose67
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The Resort - Arianna of Corporate
Arianna lifted her beige pleated skirt to show the underwear the Company had chosen for her, a matching set of blue bikini panties and bra, that combined with her blue top.
“Are you pleased, Master?” Arianna said and bent over the wooden desk.
Ariana had taken well to her training. In her daily life, she was barely aware she had become her boss’s, Julian’s slave.
With a little wiggle, she looked back to see if her boss was pleased.
She fixed her secretary’s glasses and smiled.
This was the way she had learned to show appreciation.
After Julian told her she won the sales competition to go on a corporate retirement, Ari was elated, so she had to show how thankful she was.
All their hard work finally paid off. All those hours he spent with her on the re-training program.
She barely remembered any of it, but it worked.
-----
Every day for the past month Ari arrived early to the office, logged onto her computer, and played the tutorial Julian prepared for her. All she could recall were the first few minutes where Julian talked about customer service, company loyalty, and... obedience? That couldn’t be right.
“Just because you don’t remember it doesn’t mean it isn’t working,” Julian reassured her, “Most learning is subconscious, like, how you learned to talk at first. You will notice the changes soon.”
He gave her a dismissive smile before getting back to work on his own computer.
Arianna sat down back at her computer and kept with the tutorial; even with all her doubts and how boring the program was, she had to admit her sales were higher than her co-workers since she began following Julian’s regime.
Though she wasn’t sure how she was doing it.
All she noticed was that a week into the program, she was growing uncomfortable with her regular underwear.
What she didn’t notice was the following Monday she arrived early to give Julian a personal fashion show where he chose her new wardrobe and lingerie.
She was getting more clients, mostly men, and meeting them in their homes or hotels to talk about their insurance packages. They were very receptive to her new wardrobe, complimenting her professional look.
But while she walked out of the meetings hours later with signatures worth thousands of dollars, she was a bit confused as to how it got so late in the night.
From the time she spent at the office, she listened to the program recommending Ari made healthier choices. Eating fewer carbs, exercising more.
Once again she talked with Julian about it.
“A good presentation assures the clients of your professionalism,” Julian said, “I bet you realized that the new wardrobe is getting you better contracts, here.”
Julian showed her charts that demonstrated the spike in sales since she began dressing according to Julian’s recommendations.
Ari sat beside him and absentmindedly nodded as her mind drifted off.
Julian offered to provide her with protein supplements and to make time to help her find an adequate cardio routine.
Ari nodded and forgot what happened after.
From that day on, Julian called her to his office for their daily cardio routine, and every time she couldn’t remember what she did inside his office. By the time she walked out, her neck and jaw felt a bit sore. And sometimes, when she looked at the mirror to fix her makeup, she found stains on her clothes or a dollop of cream in her hair.
As the program progressed, arousal was one of the difficulties she kept encountering in her daily life. Arianna never felt so sexually frustrated. Before working under Julian she used to only need to relieve herself once or twice a week, read an erotic story in the bath or before going to sleep, using her hands or trusty her vibrator.
Nowadays, when she had free time, it was all she could think about. Sometimes she imagined some of her clients, sometimes it was Julian.
Her vibrator’s batteries kept dying out on her, always keeping her on edge but never able to cum unless... unless she pictured Julian.
Julian choosing her clothes.
Julian taking off her clothes.
Julian’s lips on her own.
Julian’s cock between her lips.
Julian pulling on her hair.
Julian fucking her brains out.
Julian cumming down her throat, on her lips, on her back.
“Fuck!” Arianna screamed as another charge died before she could cum.
The following morning Arianna felt groggy, exhausted, and constantly horny. Sitting at her desk, Arianna’s fingers absentmindedly reached for her pussy. Images of herself on her knees, with a collar around her neck, Julian spanking her and calling her name. She was almost there.
She was gasping and staring at the computer when Julian touched her shoulder.
“Arianna!” He called.
Arianna jumped in her seat. She was not wearing a bra that day, (Julian didn’t tell her to do so) and her nipples were erect under her blouse. She felt self-conscious and blushing. Her hands bolted to the side, cleaning her pussy juices on the fabric of her skirt. “Yes, Sir?, I mean Julian?”
Julian smiled, “Sir is fine, did you finish today’s tutorial?”
Arianna looked away and checked her computer. “Yes, Sir,” Arianna said.
“Good girl, Arianna,” He tapped her shoulder.
Arianna shuddered with pleasure.
“Keep the wonderful work.” He smiled and walked away.
“Sir?” Arianna called out to him.
“Yes?” Julian turned and watched Arianna fidget in her seat.
“I would... I was feeling a bit distracted. Maybe you could assist me with some of those cardio exercises you have been helping me with?” She thrust her chest forward and curled one lock of her hair.
“Sorry Ari,” He said and began walking away, “We have to close accounts soon and see who goes to the corporate retreat with me this month, you are taking the lead so far, just hold on like that for a little bit. I think you have an appointment this afternoon?”
“Right, yes Sir, thank you for reminding me,” Arianna nodded and deflated.
“Good girl, see you later,” Julian said and left.
Arianna had to bite her lip to keep herself from screaming as the orgasm shook her entire body.
After that meeting Arianna worked every afternoon, reviewing insurance policies with their clients over their dinner tables. She met new clients with the outfits that Julian suggested. And after every meeting that week she left shuddering, restless and sore, particularly around her breasts.
Every night she arrived at her home wet and increasingly horny, growing desperate and needy. Unable to cum, she fell asleep with her hands and vibe between her legs.
She blamed the excess of work on her sexual frustration; she was too tired to cum after all the sales she was closing.
On the last day of the competition, Arianna arrived to find a gift box on her desk.
There was a tiny note.
“Congratulations on completing the program.- Julian.”
Arianna opened the box and found a black collar with a metal ring on it.
She immediately put it around her neck and walked to Julian’s office.
“Did you like your gift?” Julian asked without lifting his eyes from the paperwork he was revising.
“I love it,” Arianna said, touching the leather collar.
Julian put down the pen and watched her blush.
“I think I have to give you a second commendation,” he said, “Since you are the leader in sales, you get to go with me to the beach for the corporate retreat,” Julian said with a wide smile and a growing erection.
“Thank you, sir.” She said bending over the desk and sliding her panties to the side.
“You deserve a reward for all your hard work.” He added and walked behind her.
He caressed her ass. His thumb pressing the small of her back like a button.
Arianna shuddered and arched, her eyes rolled to the back of her head.
“What are you?” Julian asked.
“Your loyal slave.” She droned.
“What is your purpose?” He asked.
“To serve you and please you, sir,” Julian slid his cock inside her.
“What are you going to do?” He began thrusting in and out of her.
“Anything you want, Master.” Arianna moaned.
That day she walked out of Julian’s office wearing a tag on her new collar.
She prepared for the trip with Julian by going to the salon and getting a Brazilian, despite Julian telling her how cute she looked with her brown bush between her legs, she didn’t want to embarrass him when wearing the new bikini he bought for her.
With something so tight and small, her pubes wouldn’t seem elegant.
-----
Arianna knelt on the carpeted floor of the hotel. Her eyes were foggy as she looked up and bobbed her head on the cock of a man from another branch of the company.
She was wearing a blue dress with ample cleavage that showcased the chain dangling from the collar around her neck.
The man fucked Arianna’s head until he came inside her mouth. She gulped it all down, careful to not let a single drop fall and stain her dress, “Thank you, Sir,” Arianna said with a devoted smile and cleaned her mouth.
Before someone else took their turn with her, Julian approached from behind her and helped her up.
“You are doing great, Ari” Julian whispered and placed his arm around her back.
He led her through the crowded hall. Ari saw men and women on their knees, fellow pets and slaves sucking and licking their masters.
She gave Julian a vapid smile. “Thank you, Master.”
“Are you ready for the next part of your training?” Julian asked and pulled her close, caressing her naked back.
“I am your loyal slave, Master,” She cuddled close to him, “Your faithful pet to be trained as you please.”
Julian gave her a confident smile and pushed open the big wooden doors that led out of the main hall.
The resort provided a few select services, among them a tattoo parlor.
Julian told Ari to sit on the chair facing backwards and exposing her back.
Julian showed the tattoo artist the design.
The tattoo artist, a cute, petite girl with raven hair and many piercings and tattoos, sat behind Ari.
“Maybe you should distract her while I work.” She told Julian.
He nodded and stood in front of Ari, taking out his cock.
Ari’s lips parted. She took her tongue out, letting a silver thread of drool fall from her mouth to the floor before she began sucking him.
Ari spaced out and enjoyed the vibrations on her lower back and the taste in her mouth.
She was serving her master proudly, just as he taught her during her training. She took as much as she could, trying to maintain eye contact, which was difficult with every thrust from her boss and how the tattoo artist stopped from time to time to play with Ari’s pussy, making her eyes roll to the back of her head.
“I am proud of you, pet.” Her Master said, caressing her face. She was so elated she almost came from the praise.
She pulled out the cock from her mouth to speak
“Thank you, Master.” She said with a smile and swallowed him whole.
A woman walked into the tattoo parlor and stood behind Julian. She was wearing a black suit with a pencil skirt. She had short black hair and diamond earrings.
She blew on Julian’s ear.
“Fuck!” He turned his head back and shivered.
She watched him fuck Ari’s head and gave him a Mona Lisa smile.
“Did her service training include female satisfaction?” She asked Julian with a demanding tone.
Julian pulled his cock out of Ari’s mouth, leaving her panting and drooling.
“I...” Julian gulped, “I... never asked. The program was supposed to cover it.” He said and stood aside.
“We will have to find out.” The woman said. She stood in front of Ari and lifted her skirt, exposing her naked bush; she parted her lips with her manicured hands and Ari began licking her earnestly, hungrily. Overtaken by instinct.
Ari lapped and sucked the woman in front of her. She was the first woman she ever serviced, but she did it expertly.
The tattoo artist finished her work and stood back while her clients finished. She could wait a little while to collect her tip.
The woman gave Julian an approving nod, and Julian took his place behind his slave. He lifted Ari’s ass, caressing the brand on her back. A mark of ownership to the company, to him. To his Mistress.
He pushed his cock inside Ari, making her release a sweet, soft moan.
Ari’s tongue dutifully pleased the woman in front of her. The tangy musk she breathed made her mind foggier than usual. Despite that, Ari didn’t neglect her duties to her Master. She moved her ass in a rhythm that she knew pleased her boss.
The woman’s legs gave in as she felt how Ariana relentlessly, yet kindly, pressed her clit with her tongue and her hands caressed her legs, her labia, and eventually drove her fingers inside her pussy with her lips and tongue still sucking her hard.
The sight of his slave, making another woman orgasm, brought Julian to the brim and made him release his pent-up cum inside her.
Ari felt a jolt of pleasure surge through her, making her eyes roll to the back of her head.
Her hanging tongue dripped with saliva and cum.
The woman cupped Ari’s chin and licked Ari’s tongue.
The tattoo artist walked behind her and handed her a handkerchief that the woman used to clean her wet pussy before fixing her clothes.
“May I?” The tattoo artist asked, pointing to Ari’s head.
“Go ahead.” The woman said.
The tattoo artist grabbed Ari’s head and positioned her against her eager pussy.
Ari pleasured the new woman automatically and with the same eagerness as she did before.
Julian’s cock popped out of Ari. A thread of cum still linked the two of them.
“It was a pleasant experience.” The woman said, grabbing Julian’s limp cock and caressing it back to life. “Maybe you would care for an exchange program?”
The tattoo artist gave pleasant screams while Ari greedily devoured her.
“We will see,” Julian gasped, “We still have the week ahead of us, Mistress,” Julian said and knelt in front of his boss.
“And she still has to serve many others.” His Mistress added, watching Ari bring the tattoo artist to an orgasm.
As Ariana recovered from the fogginess and noticed the scene surrounding her, with a pussy on her tongue, she knew she was going to enjoy the corporate retreat a lot. If her Master or Mistress allowed her.
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₊° 𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐚 𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐱 𝐟𝐞𝐦!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫
‧₊° 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐝𝐞, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐩 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐨 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐬. 𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫, 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐮𝐛 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟐𝟏𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟏𝟗𝐭𝐡. 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐬 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐦 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐚'𝐬 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐞.
tw: touching without consent
*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*
Julian opened the door with a cheeky smile, keeping it open for his friends and fellow heretics. His grin widened when lastly Nora and Y/N stepped inside— for the first time ever being able to hold hands while walking into a pub.
Even though Julian was pretty heartless, he still loved his little family just like any proud man would. He held a specific adoration for the two women. Not only did their fearless and ruthless attitude impress him every time again, he also loved the soft side they showed when it was just them and their family. Having seen both sides, made him make a promise to himself— to always protect them, no matter what, even though everyone knew both women were fully capable of that themselves.
“Ladies.” He bowed curtly and closed the door after him when everyone was inside.
“Now let’s have fun!”
Lily gave him a look, but her stern expression broke down because of his grin. Valerie and Beau wandered off to the bar, Julian wrapped his arm around a lost-looking Mary-Louise while Y/N’s eyes warily wandered around the place— this world was still new to her and she wasn’t sure if it would ever start to feel normal.
To say Nora was excited was an understatement. She had learned how use a mobile phone sooner than she had visited a pub in the 21st century and couldn’t wait to cross this off her list too. Her hand safely intertwined with Y/N’s, who looked around to take it all in. All the voices were hard to drown out in her head.
Y/N didn’t know how to feel about the world they were dropped in. In a way, the girl was a perfect mixture of Nora and Mary Lou— she was excited to explore this new version of earth but it also terrified her immensely. Scared of the unknown was a better way to put it. But, with Nora by her side, she was sure it wouldn’t be as scary. Besides, she had gone through scarier stuff before. A pub, filled with oddly dressed people talking about unknown or weird topics with electronic devices in their hands was nothing compared to fighting off fellow vampires or vampire hunters.
A squeeze in her hand interrupted her daydream.
“-Love?”
“I’m sorry?”
Nora stood in front of her with her usual mischievous smile, holding out her other hand for Y/N to hold. Y/N grabbed it and let her lead her to an empty spot in the far corner.
“You sit your pretty butt down and I’ll get us something to drink.”
“No-”
“No weird 21st century cocktail,” Nora cut her off and rolled her eyes in amusement, “I know.” She whispered teasingly.
Y/N crossed her arms and let out a puff of air. A few people stood crowded around a pool table, seemingly having fun. Right behind them was someone playing darts.
Y/N snorted when all of his attempts went over the board— his darts now sticking into the wall. Even though she had never played before, she knew she would do way better.
With the usual strut in her step, she walked over to the guy. She removed the darts out of the wall, not even looking at him.
Y/N raised her eyebrows, quietly asking him what he was still doing there, standing in her spot.
“You’re gonna try?” He seemed surprised and also unimpressed.
“Can’t be worse than you.”
The guy bit his lip and put a hand through his ruffled dark curls. He watched from next to the woman as she threw dart after dart— most landing around around the bulls-eye.
“Looks like you lost big time.” Nora teased and appeared next to Y/N, handing her girlfriend a drink before looking at the man. He seemed pissed but smug at the same time, now that two women seemed to want to keep him company.
“Do you want to give it a go?”
Nora shook her head and took a sip out of her beer bottle after landing on one of the seats around. She shrugged absentmindedly, “Long pointy things aren’t really my thing.”
Y/N playfully rolled her eyes at the innuendo and handed the guy the darts.
Nora sat with them for a while, shamelessly watching her girlfriend like a hawk while drinking her beer. God, Y/N looked great in these new type of clothes, no matter how much she had complained about how itchy her jeans were or how stupid it was that there were holes in them. Y/N had barely touched her drink, way too focused on their game of darts and thus also not realising how the guy stood closer to her every time they switched places. But Nora had. Oh, Nora definitely had. But like Lily had said before they left: no funny business, which meant that tearing the guy’s heart out was clearly not an option.
The man finished his bottle of beer, any reservations he previously had washed away with the alcohol in his system.
“You’re so fucking hot, look at you go.”
Nora's lip curled into a sneer, ready to jump in.
“And gay.” Y/N’s reply seemed to fly over his head.
“I doubt darts is the only thing you’re good at.” The way he said it made Nora’s blood boil.
“I better not have heard that correctly.” She flew up in an instant but the look on Y/N’s face told her she was ready to handle it on her own.
The guy held her lower back as he passed her and walked off into the crowd without another word.
Y/N turned around,
“What a dirty pig.”
“Glad that perverted git is gone.”
Nora immediately rolled her eyes at the look that followed on her girlfriend’s face.
“Nora Hildegard....jealous of a good-for-nothing guy? A guy!”
Y/N gave her a playful shove. Nora was barely jealous, Y/N knew that. They had been together for so long and had literally gone through sickness and health and basically died twice together, only coming out of it stronger. There was no one else for Y/N than Nora, and the heretic knew that all too well.
“I just get disgusted how he treated you. Are there even normal men nowadays, instead of only pigs?”
“There were pigs back then, too.”
“Sure, but they don’t try to hide it now.” Nora grabbed Y/N’s arm and pulled her closer, planting a quick peck on the girl’s lips. Both girls felt triumph knowing that they could finally kiss in public without being beaten out of the pub. They both grinned when they pulled back, knowing they had thought the same.
“I’m going to get myself another drink, be right back.”
Y/N turned back around and continued throwing darts, though this time she didn’t do her best, she just wanted to pass the time. After a couple minutes of absentmindedly throwing at the board in front of her, she felt a presence behind her. A hand suddenly grabbed her chin from behind and caught her by surprise. When feeling the presence, she had initially thought it was Nora who had returned, but her scent was far away and these rough hands holding her in place weren’t hers, neither were the chapped lips that were forcefully planted on her neck.
In the surprise of it all, she let out a muffled yelp. His intoxicated mind took this as an invitation to continue, making Y/N freeze every muscle in her body. Shove the damn bloke off, she yelled at herself. She knew she had the strength, but she was so shocked that her brain didn’t know how to send the signals to the rest of her body.
Over at the bar, Nora had heard her girlfriend’s muffled cry for help thanks to her hearing and immediately filtered out the rest. She didn’t care who saw her use her speed, or who would witness the thing about to happen next. All she cared about was helping Y/N and doing whatever harm popped into her mind to the guy holding her locked.
Nora’s speedy walk caught the attention of all the people around and the hushed whispers immediately reached the rest of the heretics.
Y/N still stood there, limp, shocked, horror in her eyes and in that moment, all Nora saw was red. Her eyes darkened, black veins formed around her eyes and her teeth shone in the dim bar light, serving as a warning. She grabbed the man’s head, who finally realised all eyes were on him.
Nora squeezed his head and slammed it into the wall next to him in full force within a second. She dropped him and gave him a second to recuperate. He groaned and looked dazed... or maybe he was still drunk? Not effective enough, Nora thought. Her eyes quickly flickered to Y/N’s, seeing her girlfriend nod slowly. She was okay. Well, she wasn’t, but she’d be okay until Nora was done with the guy.
“Nora! Leave it!”
But she zoned out every voice or rational thought and didn’t hear Lily yell. She tended to do that when it came to Y/N being hurt. The rest of the heretics watched in anticipation, knowing Nora wouldn’t do this if the guy hadn’t deserved it. Some of them even wore smirks.
Nora stood over him, an evil and taunting look on her face.
“Now, that did not have the desired effect I hoped for. Apparently your head’s not as hollow as I deemed it it to be.” Within a flash, she held him by his neck and made him stand up, squeezing the air out of his lungs. His face turned blue, “This might have.”
Her hand dove into his chest and pulled out his heart. People who had previously watched in confusion and terror, now started screaming, especially when Nora turned around— heart in her hand, blood dripping down her arm, eyes bloodshot and fangs out.
“You fool!” Lily frantically looked around, not knowing where to start damage control.
Nora threw the heart behind her, not caring where it landed. He didn’t need it anymore, anyway. She blinked a few times, going back to normal, before running up to Y/N.
She held the girl’s cheeks and softly examined her before her eyes landed on her girlfriend’s face. The look Nora had sported not even ten seconds ago, the one that had frightened everyone in the bar, completely vanished the moment she held her girlfriend in her arms. Instead, her soft eyes were now filled with worry.
“Are you alright?!”
Y/N kept quiet, ashamed she couldn’t stand up for herself. Nora nodded, knowing very well what Y/N was thinking but couldn’t say. Being together for so many years made it easy to read someone that well.
She pulled her into a tight embrace, holding her girl’s head close to her chest and planting multiple kisses on her hair. She softly massaged the girl’s scalp. She knew Y/N always responded better to physical contact, which was why Nora used it to calm the girl down most times.
Y/N was safe now, in her arms, and Nora would protect her with her life. In this century and in the next.
*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*
tag list: @xxxtwilightaxelxxx
#nora hildegard#noralise imagine#nora hildegard imagine#nora hildegard x reader#noralise#tvd one shot#tvd imagines#tvd x reader#nora hildegard blurb#mary louise imagine#stefan salvatore x reader#stefan salvator imagine#damon salvator x reader#heretics imagine#legacies imagine
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SOLIS OCCASUM — Chuck Grant
NOT REQUESTED!
Blood on her hands never quite perturbed her. Not until it was Chuck Grant’s blood upon them after she had just watched a side of his implode from a bullet.
WARNINGS: Blood, injury, language, war-time violence
It had all occurred so quickly for her — for them all, each one standing in the Austria bitter dusk.
There was the fleeting moment of serenity in driving through the gravel roadway, laughing over her boyfriend, Chuck Grant’s, chuckles regarding Bill Guarnere’s ardent words after their jump into Normandy. A leap into hell as gunshots rattled in air, only to be followed by blinding flashes of smoke. It seemed a life time ago in the string of miseries that shadowed the very thing that immersed them in this fire and brimstone existence.
She couldn’t recall the last time she had watched Chuck Grant smile so genuinely, vacant of burden and melancholy. Nor the last time she laughed without a blister of despair in her throat. The war was over — at least on the Western Front — and they could breathe with tranquil lungs for a moment.
But...that’d be just too fair.
Chuck had slid off the leather of the seat, rather begrudgingly, to manage a fidgety and mumbling replacement in the midst of the overcast road. She remained in the stiff cradle of leather seating whilst shaking her head in amusement at the bumbling halfwit in the headlights. She suppressed a smile with a subtle tremor of her lips as they dared to defy and curl up at the corners.
The tremor vanished with an anchor in her expression when her eyes were intrigued by something — no, someone — back-first on the road in front of the inebriated man. The somber tone of realization rattled the giddiness from her when it was recognized as a body. The grey, blood soiled uniform declaring wordlessly that it was a German soldier with an American bullet embedded in his sternum. She only knew it was so when the glint of a pistol digested the moonlight in the hand of the replacement.
“You good here, Mac? You need some help?” Chuck cautiously inquired, eyes scathing the movements of the pistol rather than the man. The coppery bitterness of blood stung the evening dampness as he stepped towards the bewildered private.
Y/N slipped off the seat herself, a dour gaze being pinned on her by Chuck, an unspoken stay away in his moonlit eyes. She shook her head subtly, propelling away from the juddering engine of the Jeep, placing the delicate pressure of her hand on her sidearm. Her boots are what landed roughly — loudly — into the crumbly dirt as she took flank across from Chuck and behind the replacement, who was giddily mumbling around the lines of the Krauts refusing to supply him gas.
Then younger private — evidently wading knee-deep in a drunken stupor — veered with a stumble towards her, laughing, “Well...can’t Sergeant Grant here fight for himself or does he need his little whore to do it for him?”
Y/N eyed the frustrated clench of Chuck’s striking jaw, damn near prepared to give this private the beating of his life. In the thin-ice silence that sheathed bitterly over them, Chuck’s shallow breaths were shards of glass and she spoke to the private before he could throttle the spindly twenty-something.
“If I wasn’t here, he surely would and you’d be a bloody pulp on the ground, but, fortunately, I’m here to deal with you instead,” she acknowledged with taunting underlies of smug, the crook of her palm weighted on the hammer of her pistol after regarding that his own hand was itching to retrieve his own.
And, in a fleetingly agitated second, they both yanked out their respective pistols from a notch in their belts, the muzzle of each aimed to the ridge between the opposer’s broad eyes.
“Put it down,” Y/N lowly beckoned, a bite of abrasion dripping from her abruptly pulsing nerves. And, in the half light of the moon, she intercepted Chuck’s piqued gaze with her own, teetering on the cliff of being overwhelmed. Does she pull the trigger? Claim self-defense? Or try to talk him down from his own defensive position?
“You first,” the private squinted at her with a hardened glaze on his bloodshot eyes.
“I can’t do that, private,” she murmured, every muscle in her face tense and communicated wordlessly the psychological and moral friction raging in her stomach. Subtly, she re-adjusted her clammy clasp on the soulless clunk of metal just as a flood of headlights from the opposite direction protruded through the darkness, “You know we have a problem here. Just give me or Sergeant Grant your weapon.”
“So you can shoot me like one of these limey’s?” Mac exclaimed hotly,
Then, it was as if the disease of his mind had realized it was now or never, and manifested in the pistol as he hastily turned his boot, firing the weapon precisely at Chuck Grant. And, he instantly crumpled onto the jagged gravel, a mangled wound on the side of his head where scalp previously was.
The forebode imploded down her body with impressive debris. And she faintly felt the subtle pressure of speckles of blood on her cold-bitten cheeks, all the voices that responded to the gun firing seemed to muffle and it was all too much noise for her already ringing ears to manage. Y/N could make no link to who was talking at her or around her, what they were saying, merely that it was all loud and demanding. Suddenly, there was a pressure encompassing her forearm and then she finally screamed regardless of her resolve to suppress the mind-numbing anguish for the sake of herself.
“Y/N, hey, hey,” Floyd Talbert’s incessant voice penetrated her feeble ears — when did he get here?
“I-I...” she uttered with a throb in the stern of her eyes, hyperventilating like she had just ran miles and miles, “Chuck.”
Discreetly whilst murmuring — sounding deluged far in water — he jostled the pistol from her clenched, quivering hands, replacing it in his own belt.
“He shot Chuck,” her sorrowful stare slid over the restrained replacement at the still rumbling engine of the Jeep, “He was shot! And I just stood there!”
Floyd lightly exuded a tauter squeeze on her forearm, mind certain she’d beeline for the replacement in her misery, “This isn’t your fault—”
“I need to see him,” Y/N blurted with a forlorn, uncharacteristic hush, as if the enraged outburst was nonexistent in her haywire conscious.
She jostled out from his clasp furiously, the moonlight casting pallid illumination on the casting of blood on her elegant features for him to see for the first time. And he was too momentarily thrown back with seeing his own friend’s blood on her face to stop her.
Her boots stridently tread over the gritty stones as she staggered to the stock-still figure of Chuck Grant, still awkwardly tilted on his side with soldiers bearing on gauze to the gaping head wound.
“Oh, God,” she sputtered out crazily, declining to the gravel with kneecaps swollen in lacerations by the stony shards. Her hands yearned to grasp him in prevention of him going away — dying on her like Eugene Jackson, Hoobler, Julian.
The blood trickled from the wound it belonged in surges, beat out by a slowing heart — his heart — around his ear and towards the curve of his hairline. Cramped fingers shakily reached to apply pressure on top of the gauze with the other begrimed hands — she was the only medic present, she had a moral oath to help every wounded man she could.
Blood on her hands never quite perturbed her in every rush they made to staunch bleeding, propel back in spills of innards, or grabbing the hand of the dying soldier in her care. Not until it was Chuck Grant’s blood upon them after she had just watched a side of his head implode from a bullet.
There was so much blood and dirt on his baggy uniform and what skin was exposed, one would assume the hapless man had been off dancing with the devil. Her chest was heaving and she couldn’t get any word uttered through her clenched throat as she mustered every nerve of strength into the heaps of gauze on his wound.
“Found a pulse!” one of the adjacent soldiers proclaimed, essentially launching from his knees after his sweeping fingers were greeted by a subduing pulse.
Y/N nearly crumpled in on her shoulders with a hideous sob of relief yet maintained braced palms on his head, a few quavering fingers treading through his bloodied and disheveled hair. And she nearly wanted to internally curse out his hero heart for what he’d done in her defense. He should’ve never gotten out of the Jeep.
“What the fuck happened?!” The soldier supplying to her gauze and sulfur packets nearly dropped what he was clasping into the dirt, as Eugene Roe came hastening towards the pair of them.
His fellow medic’s expression was consumed with petrification as he regarded her heaving body knelt alongside the bloodied sergeant on the ground. Floyd Talbert wordlessly gestured to the constrained replacement a few feet from the bloodied disaster, Roe’s broad eyes finding the abandoned guns on the gravel with the limp German.
Glancing up, Y/N could see Roe with horror petrified amidst the dirt on his face, it being no different than the feeling devouring her chest as he replaced the soldier at her side. Discreetly, he shed off her hands from the crimson-saturated white lump, his fingers prodding around the grim wound, face scrunched up into a medic’s typical focused expression yet his eyes wide as they could have become.
Her eyes were just as remarkably expanded as his as they steadied eye contact with one another, and it seemed incredulous now to call her the most fierce in the regiment when she trembled like an ill child.
“Doll, you’re going to have to get out of the way so we can get him to the aid station,” Doc attempted to nudge her from the access points to Chuck’s left side where she had steadied herself. She remained head strongly knelt in her spot amongst the dirt and blood, a stern glint in her narrowing eyes, nearly daring the New Orleans man to jostle her aside.
“I’m going with him,” her lips that bustled typically with a honey-sickle voice were firm in a frown.
“You’re covered in blood, Y/N,” Floyd reluctantly interjected, hands plucking her upper arms to persuade her away, scrub herself of the ghastly disaster on her skin and OD’s.
She attempted to duck out from the curve of his hands, but relented when her own were pried with a strain off the greying heap of Chuck Grant. Numbly, through hooded eyes, she watched a handful of soldiers heave the leaden body of her boyfriend into the rear of a rumbling Jeep, Roe tinkering in preparation of a plasma IV.
Absentmindedly, she smudged the blood on the crevices of her hands upon the crevices of her newly tailored OD’s, spoiling them with blood once again. Blood wasn’t the worst thing to ever grace her olive-clothed adornments, but it soaked heavily with sentiment now.
Floyd retreated to one final effort to ease her onto her quavery legs, but relented when she furiously snapped away, mumbling of her desire to be alone. He sucked in a breath, lowering his knees into the damp dirt beside her.
“I could’ve gotten that gun from his hand — I’ve done it on Krauts so many times.....but couldn’t on a fucking scrawny kid,” in agitation, she wrenched off her helmet, a silver beam of moonlight cresting over her freshly washed hair. Sweat tickled the creases of her hair as she feebly shook her head.
“This ain’t your fault, doll,” Floyd adamantly repeated his assurance from a few minutes prior, but it was not enough to devour the darkness that had been residing in her core longer than she cared to admit, “You did what any mature soldier woulda.”
Nevertheless, regret washed over her like the long laggard waves on a beach. There was no way back. There was no way to make it right. And the remorse would eat at her everyday of her life.
—
Y/N remained alongside him that night, gaze throbbing on the bandages that were applied about his partially swollen head, where the tousle of plumed brown hair had been shaved off.
She cupped his cold cheek softly, gradually, and delicately, not even minding the scanty blood speckles from his wound still existent on her fine skin. His brown, feathery hair was littered with dust and debris, his exposed skin blemished by dirt. His jacket was a shambled mess, ghastly saturated with blood and sweat, yet she was just relieved — even the slightest — that his chest shifted with subtle breaths in the silence of the dank room.
Still after an hour after wandering stupefied into the provisional recovery room the German brain doctor had arranged prior to his departure, her conscious was scarred by the repetitive remindings and contemplation of his prognosis; he’d survive, but there existed the uncertainty of damage to his speech, thinking, and movement.
She placed her aching hand over the one limply turned over on the stretcher, the clear IV tubing intertwined with his poignant veins and bloodied, pallid skin. The flushing of crimson liquid gradually coursed through the cylindrical existence of the tube, a vague gush surrendering sound to the pristine silence.
“They’re sending him off to a military hospital in the morning,” Richard Winters amicable voice shattered the remainder of the silence like a spiderweb, his light footfalls halting at her left, his electric blues searing into her hunched figure, “Just received the telegram from Sink.”
Distantly, she nodded so he’d at least know she had heard him, but mouth remaining concrete in stillness, expression vacant — haunted. Blood still traced the crevices of her fine skin, the high of her cheeks flushed from the rawly bitter night and vexed by blood from where her hands rubbed vigorously at them.
“He’s allowing you to go with him,” Winters prudently knelt alongside the exhausted woman, the grotty floorboards grousing beneath his weight. Once more, she meagerly nodded, broad and glazed eyes intrigued with the elusive risings of Chuck’s chest.
Winters hand was just mere inches from her goosebumped arm to provoke her detached attention. He wanted to touch her but seemed like he couldn’t bring himself to, therefore reiterating his lenient tone, “You’re going home, Y/N.”
She glanced down at him in utter incredulity — there was no going home. Physically, certainly. Mentally? Every shard of her conscious would be scattered across Europe for the rest of her damned life. Yet, her trepidation was contrasted by the tranquility on his clean-shaven face, and she couldn’t bear to slip into the allure of his consolation.
“Sir,” she uttered, he regarding how she winced like she was in anguish over reluctance, “I can’t go home just because someone pities my ass, it’s unfair — humiliating....”
“You have the points,” he recalled lowly, her frustration tensing after with a clench of her jaw — points she had been keen to ignore, maybe even gesture off to a more deserving man of Easy.
“You deserve it more than anyone. You were there every time you were needed, did everything you could with the little supplies you had, were the last one to stay behind in every retreat to cover us.....back in Bastogne, I sent word up to CP about what’d you done....got you that battlefield commission but Sink wants to send you off with this,” Winters furnished a slim rectangular box from his jacket pocket, yawning it stiffly open with the hazy lantern illuminating a distinguished service medal.
“And Grant will receive a Purple Heart after he wakes up at the hospital,” he mumbled when her stupor sidelined her voice, bloodshot eyes grazing over the golden bend of the medal, “May I?” He nodded in inquiry to the medal then her breast pocket, eyebrow quirked.
Somehow in her thrumming awe, squirrely neurons still firing to comprehend that this medal wasn’t for anyone else but her, that her — a young woman in a male battalion, hell, army — was designated to be a recipient of this honor over her male counterparts, she nodded. His pallid fingers slipped the medal from its velvet flap, unbinding the clip to skew through the thin sheath of her pocket, cordially maneuvering it through whilst she eyed him intently.
“Thank you, sir,” there was no agitation in her voice as if her heart beat so steadily now.
“Why? I’m not the one who did everything you have,” he mused with a curl of a simper, and she meekly mirrored it. Winters patted her knee cursorily whilst easing fluidly to his feet, “Anyway, get some rest. You two leave at 0800.”
“I’ll try.”
—
Chuck Grant woke three weeks following his arrival at the military hospital in Virginia; it was a rather disconcerted awakening, the man’s fret being that he’d awake in a world of crimson pain on the gravel road, head surging with a bleeding river.
While he did enter consciousness with an anchor of pain in his body — particularly the side of his head — he was in a pristine white room rather than on a cradle of grot like his last memory served. And it was quiet. In war, the swirl of silence was a predecessor to a pillage from Ares himself, but this quietude didn’t unnerve him the slightest, perhaps because of the morphine drip. His medically-subdued nerves only rattled when he had acknowledged the absence of Y/N from any inch of the room, his ears resonating with her dimmed scream he had heard in his dwindling consciousness.
Chuck gradually shifted his mouth open, his jaw popping like a rickety spring, and his lips abuzz from abrupt movement. And he attempted to speak. A gurgled disaster bounded from his sand-dry throat, and then another, and another in his bumbling confusion. Why weren’t there any words forming? There were all on the tip of his tongue but that’s where they cemented.
Papery footfalls resounded through his veil of panic and his ample eyes darted to the approaching presence — adorned in crisp, tailored OD’s and far from a rumpled soldier, was Y/N. Her face’s color was profuse in her cheeks and her hair was fashioned in era-typical victory rolls. She was safe.
“Hi there, soldier,” she murmured softly, internally keen to bustle to him in a blitz of relief but swayed in desire when eyeing his perturbed expression. His eyes bounced around his surroundings and his mouth was shifting to and fro in contemplation.
“I-I...” - and then he attempted to speak, and that’s when the damage of his injury bitterly shrouded the vivid sunlight of the room; it was the staggering of a murmur that slipped from frowned, chapped lips. Hastily, a frustrated grouse replaced the effort, the trembling of his right arm that was a far cry from being in his control.
“I know, Chuck,” her voice is honey and milk, even though it resonated with defeat and a ruptured wound of her conscious. Yet, he was merely relieved to hear her voice — see her — after too long spent in an unconscious hell.
She sat by his side on the cot, smoothing his hair from his sweaty brow, gentle touch erupting goosebumps on his flushed skin where a bandage was now vacant. Her fingertips swept around in avoidance of the decent threading of string through his healing wound, and the achingly red skin encompassing it.
Chuck’s hand felt shackled by a metaphysical anchor as he shakily met her own on his cheek, flattening it to the pallid apple of his cheek. His teeth chattered beneath her hand as the anxiety and forebode only swelled through his bloodstream; he was ashamed, a cripple by one single shot. And he wished to a devastating extent that he was still bleeding out upon the gravel of a shadowy Austrian road — that help never had come for him that night.
“It’ll come back over time,” she meekly uttered, considering that she now could perceive the reluctant tears now falling down his cheeks, “I will do everything I can to help you — I ain’t leaving you to deal with any of this on your own, no matter how much you try to get rid of me.”
Y/N thumbed off a few of the warm trickles from his face, his cheeks rising fleetingly in a humored smirk when a similar one graced her own fine lips. And when they pressed to his forehead, he could feel their familiar warmth, and perhaps he’d be okay.
#band of brothers#hbo war#hbowar#band of brothers imagines#hbo war imagine#bandofbrothersimagine#band of brothers x reader
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Ok, so I've played VTMNR a few times now, and I've noticed something which I think is interesting. Near the end of the book, if you've romanced Lettow and choose to fight the SI with him, you'll have the opportunity to kiss him in the hallway. If you decide to kiss him again, or just return to the room with him, there will be one retainer left. Depending on your relationship with Lettow, he'll act differently here. If your Lettow/Camarilla relationship is moderate (3 dots), he'll become cool and composed in front of the retainer. Additionally, he'll touch your wrist in a lingering way, which you realize he's doing in order to check your watch. If your Camarilla relationship is high (5 dots), the part about about him being "cool and collected, even in the presence of a single retainer he is the Eagle Prince" is not mentioned, and Lettow will touch your face instead. In my opinion, the nature of the relationship is more unclear in the 3dot interaction. Personally, I find that it feels more manipulative (though I'm probably not clever enough to explain why). With 5 dots, I follow him to Egypt everytime, but with 3 dots I still follow him. I'm just much more wary about how "happy" their relationship will be. Will he sacrifice my character to the Sabbat if needed? Who knows! Although, really, who's to say you're not being played by him the entire story, even with a full relationship meter.
Another variation I've noticed is during the confrontation with Donati when Lettow flutters up the steps, he will A) see you and force himself to stand, B) stand (because he's an elder), or C) rise to his hands and knees, but is too weak to get up more. I'm not sure what the trigger is for whichever action he takes (or if there are more variants of this), but my more moderate relationship characters got either scenario A or B, while my high relationship character got scenario C. When I played through it, I personally liked scenario C the best because to me, it feels like he trusts the main character enough that he's willing to afford a moment of weakness around them. Afterall, he's still able to attack Donati no matter if you get A, B, or C, so he's clearly not that close to the brink of death.
While I love Lettow and his romance, I'm pretty confused by it all. First of all, I don't really understand his character or ambitions too well. Despite how friendly and trusting he seems in the the first chapter (showing you Jasper's death? Why?), he's suspicious of the courier from the start (if you spy on Carlos in the parking garage, he'll reveal that Lettow thinks you might be an SI agent). And I don't think that suspicion ever goes away, it just evolves. He dismisses the idea that you're SI, but then he thinks you're allied with *potential diablerist* Julian (even if you aren't) then quickly seems to realize it's you (maybe by sensing her in your blood?). He continues to suspect you, until he seems to REALIZE realize that you diablerized Aila. Before the final confrontation between you, Julian, and Lettow, there's a moment where Lettow is reading his book and asks you in a tired, soft voice "I need to know why you--". He never gets to finish that thought, but I'm pretty sure he's asking why you killed her. However, after the warehouse meeting, Lettow decides to spare both you and Julian?? Because he's tired and lonely?? I dont get it, what's his agenda? Why spare them? From what I know, the traditions say that killing/diablerizing a fellow vampire is punishable by death, so isn't Lettow actively going against the Camarilla? I can kinda understand if he doesn't want to kill the player character, since he thinks Aila is in our veins, and he's potentially formed some sort of attachment to us (though I think at this point, Julian's formula has completely eradicated any traces of Aila from our blood, so surely Lettow can detect that?). However, I can't really understand why he spares Julian. Maybe he does it because the author wants to highlight that Lettow is a rare breed of kindred, one that's truly benevolent with a high humanity, but that's the only reason I can think of. Really, I'm just not sure what type of person Lettow is, or what his game is. Julian is clearly depicted as being pretty manipulative and as having these huge ambitions that he needs the courier to help him achieve, but I don't think that's true for Lettow. Asides from running packages, he doesn't really benefit from them (asides from the whole "maybe Aila's reincarnated" thing). So maybe he's manipulating the player at this super high level, but you know, maybe he's just actually a great, merciful person (except he did actually kill a ventrue in his court for having conspired to diablerize Invidia Caul. So what's up with that?)
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read this monster of an ask, and please let me know what you think!
THANK YOU ANON FOR THIS BEAUTIFUL ASK.
TL;DR at the bottom!
If your Lettow/Camarilla relationship is moderate (3 dots), he'll become cool and composed in front of the retainer. Additionally, he'll touch your wrist in a lingering way, which you realize he's doing in order to check your watch. If your Camarilla relationship is high (5 dots), the part about about him being "cool and collected, even in the presence of a single retainer he is the Eagle Prince" is not mentioned, and Lettow will touch your face instead. In my opinion, the nature of the relationship is more unclear in the 3dot interaction.
Honestly, personally? I just write this off as him not trusting you nearly as well. "Lingering" suggests he *wants* to touch you, but the biggest giveaway is that he doesn't seem to have the need to check your watch at all in the five dot one (if I’m understanding you correctly). That tells me that with five dots, he just openly wants to touch you and isn't afraid to show it (aww), but with three dots he's a little more reluctant and is just *pretending* to check your watch.
He's got walls up in three dots he doesn't in five.
Another variation I've noticed is during the confrontation with Donati when Lettow flutters up the steps, he will A) see you and force himself to stand, B) stand (because he's an elder), or C) rise to his hands and knees, but is too weak to get up more. I'm not sure what the trigger is for whichever action he takes (or if there are more variants of this), but my more moderate relationship characters got either scenario A or B, while my high relationship character got scenario C. When I played through it, I personally liked scenario C the best because to me, it feels like he trusts the main character enough that he's willing to afford a moment of weakness around them.
That's my exact same impression too -- there's trust with five dots that doesn't exist with three.
Despite how friendly and trusting he seems in the the first chapter (showing you Jasper's death? Why?), he's suspicious of the courier from the start (if you spy on Carlos in the parking garage, he'll reveal that Lettow thinks you might be an SI agent).
Okay I actually do have thoughts on this.This gets a little bit beside the point of your ask, so bear with me.
Regarding Jasper -- all I can say is, "Why NOT show you Jasper's death"? He doesn't have any reason NOT to show you. It doesn't make him vulnerable for you to know that Jasper is dead, or how he died. It doesn’t give the Courier any kind of edge against him. So Lettow has nothing to lose and everything to gain (your trust) by making you think you’re important enough that you get to watch the video.
Regarding Lettow thinking you're an SI agent -- I know this isn't the point of your ask but I do have thoughts on that, so please humour me for a moment before I go back to your point --
There's something very subtle in VTMNR that is never shown outright. It's very, very subtle but if you think about it, there's a really big reason why Lettow could think you're an SI agent despite being a vampire.
Think about it. Lettow himself points out that he's the only Prince that is as paranoid as he is about the SI, and yet Tucson is swarming with their agents. All the other Princes are emailing and texting and they're not dealing with the SI to nearly the degree Lettow has.
So what's the difference between Lettow and those Princes?
Lettow has an Autarkis in his Domain who's constantly blowing the Masquerade, that's why!
Who keeps calling you and speaking openly about being Kindred?
Julian.
Who keeps pinging the SI in his phone calls, forcing you to switch phones over and over?
Julian.
Who keeps loudly saying things like "WE CAN'T LET ANYONE KNOW WE'RE VAMPIRES" potentially in earshot of the SI, who you KNOW are watching you?
Julian.
Julian flaunts the Masquerade CONSTANTLY. And in doing so, he makes Lettow a target, because Lettow’s the guy in charge of the area!
So what has this got to do with Lettow thinking you're an agent of the SI? I have to admit, I can't quite connect the dots here, but I think it goes back to Julian once again. Julian's operating under his nose. Julian doesn't give a fuck about the Masquerade. Julian has links to you. I wouldn't be surprised if those factors, combined perhaps with stuff happening behind the scenes that the Courier never sees, is why Lettow at first believes you're an agent of the SI.
Basically -- Lettow sees Julian pulling shit, and at first thinks it’s because he’s part of the SI. Lettow sees you have connections to Julian (or perhaps the other way around) and thinks that because of that you have connections to the SI as well.
Later, Lettow does admit the idea is ridiculous, because he sarcastically tells Dove (paraphrased) “why yes, I’m sure that this vampire isn’t helping the vampire hunters.”
(I also believe that Julian is the one that actually SENT the video of Jasper's death to Lettow. I honestly can't think of any other explanation as to who it can be from. Obfuscate doesn't work with electronic devices, indicating the video has been doctored to hide Julian, and who would do that except Julian himself, especially since he tells us that he has video editing skills? Julian knew that Jasper was recording, but didn't wipe the video or take the camera to erase evidence of his crime. So who else but Julian sent that video?)
Anyway, moving on --
Before the final confrontation between you, Julian, and Lettow, there's a moment where Lettow is reading his book and asks you in a tired, soft voice "I need to know why you--". He never gets to finish that thought, but I'm pretty sure he's asking why you killed her. However, after the warehouse meeting, Lettow decides to spare both you and Julian?? Because he's tired and lonely?? I dont get it, what's his agenda? Why spare them?
My impression is that it was just that -- because he was tired and lonely.
At first he lets you live because his couriers are dropping like flies and he needs every one he can get. And as the story goes on, he gets tireder and tireder until he seems on the brink of succumbing to torpor himself. (Bitch is 200 years old and whining about how old he is even though he had an 800YO girlfriend!) At the end of the story, he's exhausted.
And he's also quite clearly severely depressed. And apathy is a strong symptom of depression.
So yeah. I think he spares both the courier and Julian simply because he's too tired and depressed to give a flying fuck any more. Aila's gone, killing the courier won't bring her back. What's the point in killing them? What's the point in killing Julian, when he demonstrates several times he thinks Julian is no threat? (He's wrong, but he clearly underestimates Julian -- he tells Julian that the Masquerade will survive Julian, and he tells Dove that Julian is "just an Anarch.")
I also think his feelings regarding Aila herself are complicated -- it must HURT to survive someone who died via what's essentially suicide. He knows Aila was suicidal. He must have complicated feelings regarding that -- feelings like he wasn't enough, feelings like maybe she didn't love him as much as he loved her.
So yeah. I think he was too tired and lonely and too devastated to care about enacting justice against either of them. I think he just wanted to put it behind him. Run away to the Middle East, let it go, put it behind him, never think about it again.
As for Lettow’s agenda itself?
I’m not going to say he can’t be manipulative. But I do believe he isn’t as manipulative as the other Princes, and that he sincerely does want to do better than they do.
The biggest evidence in support of this, if nothing else, is that Lettow is Gangrel. Gangrel, as a rule, don’t do political bullshit. They tend not to participate in the Jyhad. They tend to be loners, and they often don’t raise their own childer -- so they (often) lack a mentor/mentee relationship that other clans have, meaning that nobody was there to mentor them in ways to survive, let alone thrive, in political bullshit.
So that means Lettow would be drastically inexperienced in manipulation and bullshit outside of what he’d have seen as a mortal aristocrat, and would also probably be way less tolerant of political bullshit than other Kindred. He doesn’t have Dominate to help him. He doesn’t have Presence to help him. Just a magic bird, his own shapeshifting skills and what his friends can give him.
Remember that Lettow became Prince because there was literally nobody else available. He said so himself that he basically stepped into the job because there was nobody else -- he was the one that killed the old Prince (and in a rather extra way, no less) and there were no other Elders in the area.
Plus, by this stage, Aila was dead and he wanted to hunt down her murderers. Or, if I have my timelines incorrect, she was in torpor and therefore vulnerable and in need of protection.
What better way to do that than with the resources a Prince had at his disposal?
I don’t think it’s a complete coincidence that he stopped being a Prince on the same night that he finally confronted her killer.
TL;DR --
Lettow doesn't trust the Courier as much if their relationship with the Camarilla isn't great.
Lettow underestimates Julian, and doesn't think he's a threat at all, even though it's almost certainly Julian that drew the SI to Tucson like flies to honey.
By the end of the story, Lettow is deeply depressed, apathetic, and on the border of succumbing to torpor and ennui himself because of that, and so literally doesn't care enough any more about bringing Julian and the Courier to justice.
Unlike other Princes, Lettow is from a clan that typically is separate from all this political bullshit, has no social Disciplines, and had a motive to be Prince in that his lover was dead and he wanted to find her killer with any resources he could get to be at his disposal. So I truly believe that while he may feel the need to be manipulative from time to time, he truly did want just what was best for the Kindred around him.
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Wynne's Birthday Diary - William Hillenberg
"Wynne stop daydreaming and wash the berries. We don't have all day" I felt a nudge on my shoulder laden with flour. This disturbed the train of my thoughts which annoyed me a bit.
"M-My apologies. I was just..... pondering about something" I dusted my shoulder and continued rinsing the fruits with water.
"Oh yeah? What were you thinking of?" Portia asked me back. She had a teasing tone to her voice while I just rolled my eyes. Ugh, she really wasn't believing me, was she?
"It's nothing......really.......well........" I looked around for a second, trying to find a topic to talk about before Portia could press my spacing out further. And after a couple of seconds, I finally found two idiotic birds to snarl on outside.
"Ugh yare yare dawa" I scoffed as I stared out the window.
"What's the matter now?" Portia asked.
"Look at Ilya outside. Seems like Pepi is not going let go of his leg, is she??" I remarked as I watched the red-haired himbo trying to shake the innocent feline off his pillar limb that he falls on the grass during the struggle, still screeching like a monkey let loose.
I just sighed and shook my head after seeing the nonsense ruckus out. I was definitely tired of such a shit.
"Such a baka he is. Fucking scared of a cat"
"Pfff looks like Pepi is having fun. Too much fun" Portia laughed as she cut the blueberries into definite circles.
"True. Ugh but look at Erik now. Panicking as always" I scoffed again. And like I implied, Erik (@sylph-dreams) was trying to get Pepi away from Julian's leg and also shouting pleads to her. Seriously just why am I dating such idiots and how did I end up like this??
"Then why don't you go and help them, Ms. Whiny?" Portia nudged me hard enough to send me stumbling.
"Fine. Whatever" I rolled my eyes again and left the kitchen to both of the morons outside.
"Now now, would you two stop freaking out and calm down for a bit? You are creating a mess which I definitely won't tolerate, for your kind information" I crossed my arms as I glared at both of them.
After I came, Pepi instantly let go of Julian's leg and jumped off it before going inside the house and meowing like nothing happened. Her fellow feline Esther, who was watching the tantrum from the corner, too joined Pepi inside, not caring about the two.
"I-I am sorry Wynne. But she wasn't letting Ilya go!" Erik rubbed his neck from shame.
"You could have solved the matter in a cooperative way than panicking and making the situation difficult than ever Erik. Have some decency on the grounds" I scolded him sternly.
"I'm sorry......I won't do it again" he looked down, ashamed of his previous behavior.
I sighed and spoke to him in a bit more soft way this time.
"It's alright. Just keep it in mind to not mess up again, Ok? Same with you Ilya" I glared at Julian next.
"Y-Yes ma'am" he replied, his face red from embarrassment.
"Right. Now get in" I pointed behind me with my thumb, still glaring at both of them, and they quickly went inside the house by my command and without objecting with me.
I watched both of them from the corner of my eye and sighed once they were out of sight.
"Just what will I do with both of them....." I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples with my fingers.
"Wynne!" I heard someone calling my name from the front of me. And by the call, I shifted my eyes up to the person who called me.
And I found out that the person was none other than the birthday boy.
"O-Oh! William!" I walked quickly over to him. He was not looking so tired as usual. Looks like he was relieved from work early.
"There you are. I was looking for you. You and Esther weren't at the shop so I got worried" he told me.
"But I did leave a note that we both would be at Portia's cottage" I replied him back.
"You mean *this* note" he handed me the paper on which I had written.
in Japanese.........
"Oh fuck......I am so sorry!" I facepalmed hard.
"Do you even know how many dictionaries it took me to find the meaning of what you have written??" He crossed his arms. He was clearly annoyed.
"Gosh I am so sorry William. I was in such a hurry that I forgot to write it in English" I replied from frustration while he just sighed.
"Just don't do it again Pipsqueak. Japanese is a pain in the ass for me. We have been dating for more than a year. You should have known this" he walked away to the cottage.
"ugh I told you I was sorry. What is your problem?" I pouted and crossed my own arms, following him.
"Yeah yeah. Like I said, don't repeat it. I forgive you" he replied without turning to me as he opened the door of the house.
And as quick as she can, Portia lunged upon him and hugged him tight.
"W-Whoa! What the??" William stumbled back a bit.
"Happy birthday Will!!" She literally shouted from joy as she smiled brightly at him.
"O-Oh! Thanks Pasha! I didn't know you would remember it" He smiled nervously at her, and hugged her back lightly.
"Are you kidding me?? Of course I would remember!! You are my friend!" She punched his shoulder playfully.
"Oww. Thanks again Pasha" he smiled more, letting go of her and rubbing where she had hit him.
As soon as Will thought that he was finally free of any more hugs, Erik attacked him with his own tight embrace.
"Happy birthday My Dearest Pal!!" He was literally lifting him up with his strong hug that it made me giggle.
"Oh Gods! T-Thanks Erik. Sorry but, can you please keep me down now?" He was chuckling in between his words.
"Oh! Sorry!! Got too excited over here haha!!" Erik then let him down gently and grinned at him with a thumbs-up.
"Well. I will not lift you up but-" Julian gently hugs him and kisses both of his cheeks tenderly which made the brunet blush.
"Here. That should be enough for making birthday boy flustered" he smirked at him and winked.
"Gosh Ilya......" William blushed more and looked away. Gosh he looked so adorable that way. Like a kitten receiving the affection that was out of his expectations.
"Come on. Let's cut the cake now. I believe we should not waste any more time. Babe must be hungry you know" I approached William and hugged his arm close while facing the others.
"Oh yeah why not! I will go and bring it" As soon as I heard Erik say it, I quickly grabbed him from the back of his shirt.
"Wynne let me goooooo" he whined as he attempted to get away but I literally had my nails dug onto his fabric.
"I can't, sorry and also not so sorry. Pasha, you go and bring it" I ordered her.
After listening to the quicksand incident that happened with him when he was a kid made me not want to risk it at all.
"Sure! Right on it" Portia nodded and went to get the cake we both had made together for William.
I sighed and finally let Erik go before pushing William to the dining table and settling him down on the chair.
I then gave him a small kiss on the cheek before he giggled and patted my head.
"There there Pipsqueak" He rolled the strands of my hair around his fingers.
"Today is a special day. I gotta spoil you, you know" I whispered in his ear.
"I know Wynne. I won't resist. Don't worry" he lowly purred against me while rubbing his cheek on my nose. It was his natural incorrigible habit to purr like a cat, which I of course didn't mind. I find it rather adorable and arousing.
"Here is the mighty caaaaaaaake~" Portia sung her way through the halls from the kitchen to place it in front of William.
"Oh! It’s a Blueberry cake! How wonderful!!" William exclaimed from joy as his hazel eyes shone from excitement. It aroused a giggle from all of us, because it's very rare to see William so happy like this. But we all were of course glad so.
"Correct Dear. Only for you" I kissed William's cheek again, and this time he kissed me back on the corner of my lips, making me blush.
"Thank you Cornflower. I really appreciate it" he smiled at me.
I in reply just chuckled and bumped my forehead lightly with his as an acceptance of his compliment, which made him purr again.
"Alright you two lovecats, let's not let the candle burn away" Portia laughed.
This made us both snap away from each other and look away, still blushing, while Portia and others continued to laugh at us.
"H-Hey, stop. I missed him!" I pouted, my cheeks were still hot.
"Yeah yeah. I swear if I see you both sleep with each other tonight, I won't be surprised" Pasha joked while shrugging.
"Pasha!!!" Both Will and I yelled from embarrassment. Julian and Erik both wheezed and laughed from our reactions which made us even more flustered.
The fact that they both had started to sing 'Wynne and William sitting on tree' was making me literally lose my shit and want to bury them six feet alive.
"What? I am saying the truth" she smirked and wiggled her eyebrows, especially at me.
"N-No....it's not like that at all" I covered my mouth and let my cheeks have a massive blood rush.
"Y-Yeah.....she is right......We don't do that" William supported my statement, his blush was still on his face.
"Whatever. Now go on and cut the cake. We won't tease you anymore" Portia reassured us and the two boys had stopped laughing like hyenas after hearing her.
"Ugh finally!" I backed away from William to give him some space. Will then took the knife in his hand and as he was about to cut it, Erik interrupted him.
"make a wish first! It's important!" He reminded him.
"U-Ugh but, Erik. It doesn't matter. My wish will never come true. Even on my birthday" William protested.
"But it's a tradition! You cannot just ruin that!!" Erik didn't give up on his justification.
"Ugggggh. Fine" William rolled his eyes before closing them, and taking his time to think for his wish. Erik from satisfaction crossed his arms and smiled in triumph.
And when he was done, he opened his eyes and bent forward to blow the candle. He was about as close as the moon and earth from blowing the fire on the wax stick..........
But then they came..........
"Well how do you do, fellow humans??" The horned creature walked inside the cottage after they literally opened the door without touching it. A cool and fast gush of wind accompanied their menacing and chaotic aura also spreading it everywhere around.
Julian was shivering the whole time as he hugged me close, while Pasha and Erik were indifferent but intimated of their presence.
And William..........
"Q-Quaestor!! Is something wrong??" William stood up and looked at the doctor in front of him.
"Oh there is nothing to worry about My Dear. I just came here to wish my favourite lovely novice a happy being born day!" They had their usual crooked smile on their sharp mouth as they looked directly at William, who was now very red from fluster.
"I-I-I......T-Thank you so much Quaestor. I-It's really a pleasure hearing it from you. And the fact that you came here solely to wish me......it is really making me happy!!" Will beamed.
"Hehehehe! Anything for you My Lovely~ And I even bought a gift for you~" They sang happily.
William gasped from anticipation and I could literally see sparks in his eyes. Gosh he was just so obsessed with them that I could not help but roll my eyes from annoyance and a teeny meeny bit of jealousy.
"Oh gosh I can't wait! Wynne come on. Let's cut the cake and move to the presents fast!" William shook me by my shoulder.
"Ok Ok!! Jeez. Chill out Will! And Valdemar, what the hell took you so long?? I thought I told you to come at the exact time, didn't I?" I placed my hands on my hips and glared at them.
"Oh my apologies Sweetheart. I had some........ business to be taken care of. I didn't know that it would take me a lot of time" Valdemar excused themselves.
"Whatever. Come inside please" I ordered them.
"With pleasure, sweet cheeks" they grinned wider and came inside, the door shutting off with a slam by itself making Julian jump on his feet.
"I better not ask what they were doing this whole time" Ilya talked to himself as he shivered and rubbed his forearms.
"Yare Yare" I rolled my eyes again and sighed.
"Alright everyone! Attention over here! The birthday boy is going to cut his cake!" Erik announced while adding a comical and dramatic tune to it.
"Jesus. Nice try Erik" I giggled between my speech.
"Hehe. Thanks! I had been practicing this for the past week" he rubbed his neck and grinned with a blush while I shook my head, still chuckling.
I then placed my hand gently on William's shoulder to give him some assurance. Will touched my hand with his, gave me a smile, and then looked forward. After he was done wishing, he blew the candle.
Happy birthday to you~
Happy birthday to you~~
Happy birthday to Dear William~~
Happy birthday to you~!!! ❣️❣️❣️❣️
There was nothing but joy and happiness in the room. Even though a literal demon was present at the party, it didn't curtain the delightful ambiance. A big hats off and thanks so much to Valdemar for not putting any crazy shit during the present time and dinner. Honestly.
After the cake had been cut, me and Pasha served everyone a piece. William of course loved it because it was made be none other than me✨. Julian and Erik liked it.......too much, that they demanded for more but I had to deny them because I had to save it for me and Portia.
And Valdemar did eat some of the cake saying that it was interesting how it tasted sweet and sour and creamy, and that it reminded of the taste of the flesh of an old angry lady they ate years ago.
Hearing this fact, Julian had almost died from choking on a fucking blueberry...........
And Erik almost broke down crying from seeing Jules losing his life because of a small fruit..............
But anyways, after both of them had calmed down. We moved onto the phase William had been bubbling with excitement for the past half an hour. And it was presents.
Erik went first with his present of a carmine red woolen scarf and beanie cap for him. William when wore it looked very cute and handsome in it that I couldn't help but call him Red Riding Hood.
And just like the name, he had really turned red from face after the compliment.........how adorable of him.
Next was Pasha who have him a handmade cat charm which looked like Esther. And also that was the first time I heard William purring the loudest that my heart was running marathons. Was it because it was arousing me a lot or it was hella loud for my eardrums, I will never know.
After that it was me and I gifted him with big baskets of blueberries right from my village. They were grown by me and my father and there were about 8 of such baskets full of love for him.
I am going to be real honest here but a soft spot on my neck was hurting and swollen red from how he had bitten me hard after the party for the berries.
Anyways, moving onto Julian, he had gifted William with brand-new sets of surgical knives. From the shine and the look of it, it was quite expensive-looking. I wonder how did he afford it. But aside that, William was of course delighted from his gift that it urged him to kiss the redhead doctor right on the lips, which turned both of them into cherries and left Pasha and Erik in awe while Valdemar just chuckled.
And me........well I just wanted to erase myself from existence. Nothing new here. hahahaha!!!!
And last but not the least, on no no of course not. How can they ever be the least huh?
Because THIS LITERAL DEATH DEMON GIFTED WILLIAM WITH A FUCKING BEATING LIVE HUMAN HEART!!!!! I DON’T KNOW HOW IN THE WORLD WAS IT POSSIBLE BUT YES WHAT I AM WRITING IS ALL TRUE!!!!!
And guess what.......
He adored it!!!!!!!
Yes......he loved it so much that he it got him meowing from 'orgasm' loudly, scaring the hell out of Julian as always. Ugh was there just for once a time where Ilya wasn't scared?? I bet none!
Anyways, back to the birthday boy, he was so overwhelmed and overjoyed that tears of joy were leaking from his hazel eyes. This of course got me worried to the most but when I got to know that the tears was not of pain and sadness but of happiness, I deadpanned, but make that times thousand plus 💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢.
But but but, if we ignore the bizarre parts of the birthday party (which are a lot) for the best boy ever, it was very very enjoyable and memorable. Valdemar had their own type of enjoyment participating in a human's activity, Julian, Pasha, Erik and I were satisfied with our work and effort. And William, the moon of our party, was happy and grateful to all of us. Just what we all wanted.
Though this party was not the one I had in my expectations and perfect according to me, I will of course never ever forget it. Whether it be the best or the worst thing about it. It would always be in my heart just like how William Hillenberg is.
Deep inside, safe and too good to be forgettable,
#the arcana#the arcana game#fan apprentice#wynne toprak#arcana mc#arcana apprentice#arcana oc#oc x oc#julian devorak#portia devorak#questor valdemar#apprentice erik#valdemar#ilya devorak#ilyushka devorak#doctor julian devorak#pasha devorak#the arcana julian#the arcana portia#the arcana valdemar#william Hillenberg#what I wrote
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