#Raphael (the bedlam stacks)

[msunitedstatesjames]

Every Natasha Pulley book ever:

Bulky Man is unintentionally bulky, he's just sort of stronger than everyone because that's the nature of his life. Everyone assumes Bulky Man is violent because of his girth, but he actually hates violence and is really just the nicest little dude inside.

Fragile Dude is little and/or easily breakable. Fragile Dude is brilliant and/or powerful. He too is pretty nice, but he's probably had to use his intellect and/or power to commit some kind of atrocity in the past that he will be attempting to keep secret over the course of the story. This will be revealed 3/4 of the way through the book, but the circumstances surrounding the atrocity will be so horrible that everyone will agree it was probably justified.

Bulky Man and Fragile Dude are both dissatisfied with their lives to some extent.

Bulky Man and Fragile Dude meet through a series of unlikely and often unfortunate events.

Bulky Man and Fragile Dude are forced to work together in some capacity.

Bulky Man and Fragile Dude are both a little bit afraid of the other, but there's also some quality that they really like or respect in the other nonetheless.

Bulky Man and Fragile Dude continue to work together, but now they're starting to reluctantly take a liking to the other. Neither of them realize that the other actually likes them though.

Bulky Man and Fragile Dude have had to help each other out of some sticky situations by now. They're clearly head over heels in love these days, but circumstance and/or society is keeping them from acknowledging it. People have started to hint to Bulky Man that Fragile Dude is actually super shady, so you better watch your back. Bulky Man doesn't really care that much at this point, but he's like, I guess I better look into these accusations.

(Some kind of cute but unusually intelligent animal is usually involved with the plot and/or their relationship by this point. Also, there's at least one loveable child character that usually helps the characters bond.)

Bulky Man and Fragile Dude have a nice, cheerful break from all of the traumatic events they've been experiencing, which inevitably ends in a romantic encounter.

Because of communication issues or societal issues, both chraracters still don't actually believe the other character loves them, and they both act like it was just a one off thing and an accident and that everything is totally fine.

Things are awkward between Bulky Man and Fragile Dude, but the traumatic events have really fired up again so they still have to work together. Plus, they're both just that desperate to be together, even though they think the other character hates them now.

Bulky Man finds out Fragile Dude's secret, but usually he doesn't get it quite right or he's missing some essential information. Bulky Man is temporarily horrified of Fragile Dude. Bulky Man chides himself for being so desperate for affection that he fell in love with some kind of psycho.

At this point, either Bulky Man makes a stupid mistake while being horrified or circumstances just happen to suddenly get a lot worse or both. Bulky Man and Fragile Dude are physically separated, often by force and some kind of authority. At some point in here, Bulky Man realizes he was wrong about Fragile Dude.

A slapdash plot is hatched to save the stolen love interest. Usually Bulky Man has to save Fragile Dude, but occassionally the script is flipped.

Ultimately, the stolen love interest is rescued, though it was a real close thing at some point. The Day is saved, usually through murder/s, caused by a combination of Bulky Man reluctantly bashing some heads in and Fragile Dude using his wits and/or power to get the right people killed. Often, our protagonists are then forced to straight up run away from the Bad Times, leaving their lives and families behind. (The loveable child from earlier will either be tragically left behind or adopted by the now happy couple.)

Bulky Man and Fragile Dude are a little bit sad at the things they've lost along the way, but mostly they're going to live happily ever after.

#natasha pulley #the watchmaker of filigree street #The lost future of pepperharrow #the bedlam stacks #the kingdoms #the half life of valery k #the mars house #thaniel steepleton #Keita mori #Merrick tremayne #Raphael (the bedlam stacks) #Joe tournier #missouri kite #Valery kolkhanov #Shenkov #January stirling #Aubrey gale #River gale #books #bookblr #mine

[saintlygames]

they fell in love in two weeks this is real

#the bedlam stacks #merrick tremayne #raphael #raphael thebedlamstacks #sorry idc about raphael's canon appearance to me he has black hair and darker skin #natasha pulley #fanart

[vanillaflowerstuff]

i'm reading the bedlam stacks again cause i'm really sad and it's funny how their first impressions of each other are basically:

merrick: he's so ✨elegant✨ and ✨graceful✨ and he could totally throw me across a courtyard

raphael: touches him whenever possible, kills a guy for him pretty much immediately

they have no chill. and i love that for them

#the bedlam stacks #i gotta draw that scene where raphael calms him down when he's panicking about clem being on the verge of death via altitude sickness

[thenatashapulleyuniverse]

natasha writing a child mori and missouri pov is sweet and also hurts, but if she had ever given raphael that treatment i think i would have disintegrated on the spot. can you imagine.

#mori (12): already has the world on his shoulders and has to nearly kill a man to protect him for his own good #missouri (10): forced to harden himself to cruelty to be able to survive a war #raphael (9-13): learned he is going to outlive everybody he loves #anyways what if i screamed. #the watchmaker of filigree street #twofs #the lost future of pepperharrow #tlfop #the bedlam stacks #tbs #the kingdoms #natasha pulley

[clanima]

Raphael, from "The Bedlam Stacks"

After rereading "The Bedlam Stacks" I couldn't NOT draw these guys.

Trying to draw them based only on the book's informations was a fun exercise though!

#the bedlam stacks #natasha pulley #the bedlam stacks fanart #raphael #le torri di vetro #traditional art #sketch #books #book fanart #do you think Raphael was actually in love with Harry? #I think NOT #also cool rocks #fruity #gay #def queer in some ways

[monti-moth]

There might come a day where Raphael isn’t my go to practice subject. Not today, tho. And probably not soon.

#my art #natasha pulley #the bedlam stacks #raphael bedlamstacks

[letsoulswander]

AFTER HARRY LEAVES RAPHAEL IS NEVER WARM AGAIN 🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊

#i MAINTAIN that it should be rafael because spanish doesn't have the ph consonant #and raphael is just his spanish name not his quechua one. the spelling doesn't matter as much #the bedlam stacks #drafting this 10-16-23 because i'm going insane but sadie isn't caught up yet #UPDATE SADIE READ THE SCENE #YEAH

[trillgutterbug]

"While he waited for the slow tap to fill his cup, he pulled the lacing of the cassock open down his back, his arms bent behind him and his fingertips precise on the strings. He had laced it crosswise so that he could get out of it himself, although it didn't look as if it had been made for that. It had a red velvet ribbon in the back of the collar."

— natasha pulley coming for my fucking life with undisguised priest kink

#i swear to god #i can't be unbiased about this obviously but passages that take my breath away #i do Not have a priest kink and yet. here we are. #mr raphael bedlamstacks i'd make a fool of myself given the chance 🙏 #he's just like.... everything. to me. #goals on every possible axis #the bedlam stacks #he was tenderly holding a deaf baby moments before this....... hands so big they went all the way around her #anyway im normal goodbye

[artbykhuggs]

“The portrait had seemed like a memorial.” - “The Bedlam Stacks” by Natasha Pulley

I’ve started and restarted this painting a dozen times over the last two years trying to do justice to this gorgeous book.

#the bedlam stacks #natasha pulley #pulleyverse #raphael tbs #at any given moment i am mere seconds away from crying over this book and its characters #the beautiful tragedy that is raphael sends me off-the-charts feral on a regular basis #trying to get the vibes right in this was a struggle #i rarely feel happy/proud of my art but this one... this one I kind of like #digital art #myartwork #artbykhuggs #art by khuggs

[heligan]

I love the absolute lack of internal homophobia Merrick has. Not even a flicker of it. He jumps straight from thinking about the women he was in unrequited love with, going 'hmm I didn't really think marriage was for me' to 'but waking up in the arms of a shirtless Raphael is nice though. I could do this every day' with absolutely no mention of the fact Raphael's a man. My dude knows what he's about and he's very alright with it. I love him.

#we know he's never shared a bed with anyone before but. what did you get up to in the navy merrick #what did you get up to in the navy that makes you‚ a man in 1860‚ so normal about suddenly realising that: #1. raphael is more important to you than anything else #and 2. you really like being held by him #the bedlam stacks #merrick tremayne

[sesamestreep]

Merrick/Raphael, "instantly"

i keep telling myself I'm going to write an honest-to-god coffee shop AU for these dorks and then I never do, so here's the espresso shot version 🤎

It’s another busy afternoon in the café and this time Inti is out because Aquila brought home a nasty case of strep from school and gave it to her, so Raphael is stuck at the register again and he’s in such an efficient rhythm with taking customers’ orders that, once Merrick gets to the front of the line, he just rings up his usual without even asking. It’s only after Raphael has told him his total that he looks up to find Merrick staring at him with wide eyes and he instantly regrets every choice that has lead him to this moment.

“Sorry, I should have—”

“No, it’s fine,” Merrick says, fumbling to quickly pay with his card. If there’s one thing Raphael has noticed about him (aside from his name and his usual order and…well, quite a few things, now that he thinks about it), it’s how much he hates being in the way. He’s obsessively polite about that in particular.

“You did want your usual, right?” Raphael asks, and he’s not embarrassed that he remembered. He isn’t. It just means he’s good at his job. That’s nothing to be embarrassed about!

“Yes, that’s perfect.”

“Merrick…”

“That’s what I wanted,” he says, firmly, and then gives Raphael a hesitant smile. “I just didn’t know I was so predictable.”

Raphael remembers what Inti’s always scolding him about and tries smiling back. “Not predictable,” he says. “Memorable.”

“Oh,” Merrick replies, looking pinker than he had a moment ago, despite having just come in from the cold. “Well, that’s certainly better.”

“You staying, or…?”

“Yeah, I thought I might.”

“Good. I’ll, uh…”

Merrick nods, even though Raphael hasn’t managed to articulate his thought yet. “Sure. I’ll be around, if you want me.”

With that, he makes way for the next customer in line and Raphael is left to think about what exactly it is that he wants, which is not a subject he allows himself to dwell on very often. He counts it as a minor miracle that he gets anyone's drink order right after that.

#WHATEVER #here you go #as we used to say in the not too distant past of this website #take a fucking sip babes #three sentence fic #not three sentences obvi #but pretty close to 300 words as promised #three sentence prompt game #firstelevens #ask #the bedlam stacks #merrick tremayne #raphael no last name #pulleyverse #au #raphael runs the cafe in this scenario and doesn't usually work the register #except when they're shortstaffed #merrick is a regular #that's basically the entire AU as far as I've figured out #do people do anything in coffee shop AUs????? #poor zainab talked me through an entire plot for this fic and I'm still like..........i don't know i can't write it im stupidtttt!!!!! #anyway take this away from me byyeeee #homelywenchsociety #that's my writing tag dont worry abt it #at this point that's ALSO my writing tag w/e

[saintlygames]

i love them i love them i love

#the bedlam stacks #tbs #merrick tremayne #raphael #raphael thebedlamstacks #keita mori #natasha pulley #pulleyverse #they are my favourites #my boys #fanart

[vanillaflowerstuff]

i know mermay is almost over and i kept forgetting to draw this, but! bedlamstacks mermaid au! merrick is a marine biologist instead of a botanist. no idea what the story is, other than that

#my art #book fanart #the bedlam stacks #tbs #natasha pulley #mermay #mermaid au #merrick tremayne #raphael #i really like how these colors came out #i think they are Okay #illustration #art

[thenatashapulleyuniverse]

It's the way love is presented as a warning throughout The Bedlam Stacks.

‘That’s what you have to be careful of.' That's what the stewards warned Merrick as they passed the scene of the markayuq holding the human bones in his arms, the last moment being of them kissing. It comes as a warning to both humans and markayuq, especially the latter. They are not the sort made for love. That girl's bones won't be laid to rest, and that markayuq will wake up, probably grieving at what he's done.

Despite the grim scene, Mr "he had managed to become more important than Clem or cinchona or anything else" Tremayne over here BLUSHES. Because he doesn't see despair, he sees a private moment between lovers, put up on display for everybody to see!! This display is in the front fucking entrance for a reason!! Do you guys see realize how insane his reaction is??

It was the same way I couldn’t look at French postcards; a kind of pointless prudishness that came from never having married.

This line drives me nuts every single day.

And we come back to Raphael, who doesn't expect much from anybody. Who's first real friend died for him waiting, who sent his son in his place so that Raphael wouldn't wake up all alone, and who's OWN SON did what two previous generations of Tremaynes couldn't do: wait with the patience of a man who just wanted to have coffee again with his closest friend.

Love was a warning, that's how it goes for all immortal stories. But in a world where they'll never have enough time and the odds are against them, it's all they have. They can't have this, they shouldn't be allowed to have this and it will only end in heartbreak. But by GOD will they try, and be all the more better for it.

#fic writing is going a little insane as you can see #have i talked enough about the markayuq with the human bones in their hands? #i dont think ive talked enough about it #when will pulley write another book thats just like the bedlam stacks but isnt the bedlam stack but is the bedlam stacks #when will we get another raphael #where is my bedlam stacks 2!!! thats the better question!!! #the bedlam stacks #tbs #natasha pulley

[aurorawest]

I love these two

#the bedlam stacks #raphael #merrick tremayne

[monti-moth]

✨

#my art #natasha pulley #the bedlam stacks #raphael bedlamstacks