#however their execution being burned at the stake is great

[rise-my-angel]

Heart of the Great Wolf

44 - Greenish White Bloodraven

Pairing: Jon Snow x F!Baratheon!Reader, Robb Stark x F!Baratheon!Reader (Past)

Length: 16.2

Warnings: angst/hurt comfort, past character deaths, trauma related insecurities, alcohol consumption, discussions of pregnancy and miscarriages

Notes: So, what do we think the wider reaction everyone here will have to this news, come morning exactly? Previous Chapter Here, Series Masterlist Here

Stannis Baratheon could not tell yet if he was offended or impressed. From the previous days when meeting him for the first time, to that night, already he knew opinions were going to be mixed. On one hand, he preferred not to treat men with any degree of special treatment, but unlike what many spoke of him as, Stannis did not feel a lack of emotion. In fact, it was that tie of not treating him any different against what his emotions were telling him of that was the conflict.

On another hand, the boy was stubborn. Quite stubborn, and rather stoic and quiet in comparison to the short time Stannis had encountered his brother. On the more difficult end, the more they spoke in those first days the easier it was for Stannis to understand what about him would have appealed to his first born daughter. As soon as this man of the Nights Watch had told him his name, he was struck by the appeal to emotion to give him the chance other men didn't deserve.

Perhaps however, it was exactly those emotions that was why Stannis was leaning towards impressed rather then insulted. The Lady Melisandre had the King beyond the Wall ready to be burned at the stake, due in part for his role of leadership for the wildings and their attack, another in part of if execution was the just sentence for him, then she demanded it for that of the Lord of Light.

The King beyond the Wall had only just begun to sound out in agony as the flames encased around him, when suddenly from a high point behind Stannis and the crowd did an arrow come. Landing directly into the wildling King's heart and ending his life before his sentence was truly carried out. Stannis had turned to look and see what happened, but only saw what should have made him angry, yet didn't.

Jon Snow had killed Mance Rayder quickly out of mercy, and in a very public display against the word of a King.

So as he sat in what became his office, the bastard boy standing across him the next day, part of Stannis pondered these very thoughts. Why wasn't he more insulted, offended, angry? He would not let it go without a word, but even Ser Davos watching could tell Stannis was not anywhere near the sort of reaction he would've had were it done by anyone else.

But he reprimanded Jon all the same. “I ordered Mance Rayder burnt at the stake. You prevented that order from being carried out. You showed mercy to Mance Rayder. A king's word is law. Perhaps you should ask Ser Davos how much mercy I show to lawbreakers.” He could see the boys eyes drifting to where only stubs of a once full hand now remained of it's fingers. Yet still, Stannis did not quite maintain the level of authority which he had spoken down to even the boys brother with. If anything, he was aware enough to know this was more of a parent lecturing a child. “Show too much kindness, people won't fear you. If they don't fear you, they don't follow you.”

Jon however, spoke with a calm respect. He stood in silence with his eyes drifted somewhat downward as Stannis lectured him, but it was not the same look now. More of a wide, bright eyed honesty that did not come with attitude nor judgment. Just a low, rough voice speaking the raw truth which Stannis found himself appreciating.

“With respect your grace, the free folk will never follow you no matter what you do. You're the man who burned their King alive.”

He did not appear someone who wanted power, but Stannis tested that intention all the same. “Who then? You?” Jon however, did not hesitate with confidence to tell him no. Explaining that they would only follow one of their own.

It was quiet for a moment, and the debate in his head stopped there. He could tell the boy was on edge, and was expecting a punishment further then such a conversation. Of course he would, he thought to himself. He was a bastard, used to being looked down on. And as it were, he could tell men such as Ser Alliser Thorne and Lord Janos Slynt despised him to the point Jon likely was seeing little light at the end of the path.

But Stannis also knew, the two of them had both been in the others proximity for a number of days now, and not once had the boy come close to bringing your name up. Which was interesting, considering you were the only reason Stannis had any preconceived notions about him in the first place. He knew there was a closeness between you and Jon once, which few were ever graced to have.

And he knew losing that closeness must hurt a great deal, and yet, Jon Snow did not once so far come close to saying your name or even indicating he knew anything about Stannis having a daughter besides Shireen. He was keeping something locked very tightly inside in front of Stannis and he couldn't help the manner in which he eased up.

Stannis wanted to know more about him, because he needed to understand what about a bastard could at all endear themselves to someone such as his firstborn daughter. And why the same bastard seemed to act as if you did not at all exist, now that you were gone.

So he switched tactics. Lightened the air up with something Stannis had an inkling was going to illicit a reaction more then the stoic, cold quiet Jon had thus far. Pulling out a raven scroll tucked underneath a pile of papers. “Do you know this wretched girl? Lyanna Mormont?”

Raising an eyebrow, Jon stepped forward as Stannis pushed it across the desk. “The Lord Commanders niece.”

“The daughter of the Lady of Bear Island, a child of ten. I asked to commit her house to my cause. That's her response.” And it got just the reaction he expected. Calm, more calm, and suddenly, what might have been the closest to a laugh if even only a smile, which he was going to pull from Jon that tried to peek out as he got to the crux of the answer.

Bear Island knows no King but the King in the North, whose name is Stark.

Only the slightest of raising of an eyebrow did Stannis lean forward, the ghost of a smirk which was not to be noticed by any. If perhaps only Ser Davos beside, who watched with a quiet intrigue of the growing dynamic as Stannis said, “That amuses you?”

In a second, did Jons tune change. The stone wall was put right back up and erased every scrap of personality Stannis was trying to slowly pull out of him. “I apologize, your Grace. Northerners can be a bit like the free folk. Loyal to their own.”

Setting it back down on the desk, Stannis commented that he knew all too well of that aspect of Jons people. Robert during his reign had gone on often and loudly about how difficult it was to control them, even with Lord Eddard Stark acting as Warden of the North. They were a stubborn people.

Just as Robb Stark had told Stannis they would be. And Stannis knew he was a fool for ignoring him.

Ser Davos begun going back and forth with Jon regarding that night's coming event. Lord Commander Jeor Mormont had been killed some years ago now, and a new one would need to be chosen now that the wildling threat had been taken care of. Stannis had said to Ser Davos directly before Jon had been summoned, that it was not passed a man like Thorne to hang Jon for what he sees, which is a traitor and a threat.

Stannis did not claim to care what caused the man to think Jon Snow was a traitor, any hearsay he heard wasn't his business but he did care of that being a threat. And Stannis did not come to regret refusing to aid in any way to Robb Stark, only to stand back and let his brother waste every potential in him by being taken out by an unpleasant man with a grudge.

He did not mince words telling Jon that. “Your bravery made him look weak. He'll punish you for it. I don't punish men for bravery. I reward them.”

The boy made it easy to figure out what you would have been drawn to him. He was blunt and genuine and without attitude when so many would have spoken to him at that point. No, Jon Snow seemed to approach the truth and the subsequent burdens with as much weight as as his long passed father did, as his late brother did, as Stannis did and most notably, the way he knew you did too. “I don't doubt it, your Grace. But I'm a brother of the Night's Watch. I've pledged them my life, my honour, my sword. I don't know what I have left to give you.”

But Stannis knew there was one thing. “You can give me the North.”

Doubt ran across Jons face in an instant. A doubt and an insecurity which any highborn wouldn't have reason to feel, but being a bastard instead, Jon did not hide from it. “I can't. Even if I wanted to, I'm a bastard. A Snow.”

But Stannis had thought, if this boy being a bastard did not matter to you, it should not effect the manner in which Stannis was growing to view him as. You admired a bastard, and Stannis did too, but law was law. He was a bastard boy with nothing to inherit and leaving on his own would be desertion. But, Stannis was a just man, and he knew the law decreed that there were ways in which to remedy both situations.

One which would spare Jon from being at the mercy of a Lord Commander with a hateful grudge looking to hang him, and one which would utilize what Stannis knew could be a powerful ally at his side. Both problems too, had the benefit of one singular, simple solution.

“Kneel before me. Lay your sword at my feet. Pledge me your service and you'll rise again as Jon Stark, Lord of Winterfell.”

Much to their surprise however, Jon had been elected as the new Lord Commander and subsequently told him no.

Stannis's life made even less sense the more the year progressed. Receiving word that Balon Greyjoy was dead, the Ironborn had organized the first Kingsmoot in centuries and voted for their new King to rule the Salt Throne. Who had begun to pull the Ironborn out of the North, leaving Stannis to start moving along to gauge what was left remaining. He had thought however, of all men, they had elected Euron Greyjoy.

During the Greyjoy rebellion, by the time Stannis was able to sail to the other side of the country, he had encountered Euron and Victarion Greyjoy as they burned Lord Tywin's ships at Lannisport.

Unlucky for Euron and his brother, who commanded the other half of the Greyjoy fleet, they were not the only men who lived and breathed the open waters. House Baratheon was built upon being surrounded by water since the start of their house's existence. Stannis was the sailor of his family, even moreso then his father. In times of war, Robert gave Stannis full command to do what needed to be done and it took only two months to destroy the Greyjoy fleet.

He held the rest of them off as Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon lay siege to Pyke. Only after two of Balon's sons had died, did he surrender. Handing his last remaining son to Ned Stark to take as prisoner and for the rest of that family to lick it's wounds as Stannis could finally return home to what was now, his two daughters. He had recalled hoping that Selyse's brother Alester had heeded his advice, and allowed you the chance to rule Dragonstone in his stead, with guidance from what stayed there of his council as necessary.

No doubt Selyse was still recovering, she had been as unwell this pregnancy as she was the entire time she was with you. Perhaps he should have known all four of those others wouldn't have come to term, the only two pregnancies which produced a living child she had been sick from minute one. Meaning Stannis sailed home already with plans in place on how to tackle that. You'd need to be focused on your lessons once more, and that would mean taking time away from you with Shireen.

He never said a word of it, but one of the few times Stannis felt something grow in his heart was the early morning his ship appeared in view of Dragonstone. Quickly did Ser Axell call to him, pointing out a figure high up looking. Or two figures. The one time Stannis had smiled so easily in front of his men, was the sight of his twelve year old daughter, with his three month old newborn daughter in your arms helping her wave them home.

By the time Shireen's greyscale had been cured, Stannis knew he had an unspoken reason as to why he was insistent on bringing you with him to Kings Landing. The two Stark boys had been a tedious influence on your wildness, and previously Selyse had been fed up with your growing attitude. He knew bringing you with him to the capitol would help in that regard. But he knew he couldn't bring Selyse and Shireen, first he needed his wife and her eldest brother Alester to serve the island for him and he was not cruel enough to think he had the right to separate Selyse from the first child she was able to have that lived in over twelve years.

But he could bring you. You were so much like him in some of the worst ways, and the older you got the clearer it was that you somehow inherited too, the worst self destructive tenancies of Robert. It was a difficult relationship his whole life with you, but he loved you. And if he could have only one thing in that rats nest of a capitol, he wanted it to be you.

It was why when your fourteenth nameday was approaching and you still had not bloomed, he gave explicit instructions to you not to say a word to anyone when it happened. To come to him and only him, but as it turned out, a handmaiden saw it first. He knew why Cersei insisted you took on handmaidens, she wanted a spy to watch over the only girl in the capitol she could dote on and try to groom you for her plans.

So he did what he had avoided doing for almost two years, sending you away again. He wrote to Lord Stark telling him to expect your arrival, and ordered Allard to ensure you left on the first ship the next morning. You'd be as far from her reach as possible with the Starks, and he refused to let you return until he was confident he had dismantled every one of Cersei's schemes involving you.

But two years with the Starks, and two years growing into someone close to a woman, well, you never really came back the way you used to be. You felt dragged back by force out of nowhere and you had blossomed into a girl of sixteen by the time he saw you again and now all those worse parts of himself and Robert clashed tenfold between you both.

It never got better. Only worse. Then he did what he once sent you away to avoid Cersei doing. He used you as a pawn for what was Stannis's own political movements, by marrying you off for his own strategic advantage. It was karma really, he did to you what he sent you away to avoid Cersei doing to you, and in return you sided against him in a war. You were declared a Queen at your independent Northern King and husbands side.

Then he refused to make peace. Then he lost at the Blackwater. Then he lost you, he lost the son in law he never gave a single chance, and he lost the grandson Stannis never knew he was to have.

Only to meet Robb Starks last living brother, a man who Stannis was almost certain was in love with you. Only to then separate once more not knowing if he'd ever find reason to convince Jon Snow he was worth more in this fight then a frozen castle at the edge of the world. Then they met at Deepwood Motte, a wildling army at Jon's back where he insisted they speak inside in private.

The news never stopped being out of control. According to Jon, you were dead, and then alive, you were a prisoner of the Boltons the entire time, and now the boy, Ramsay Bolton was preparing to start a war to get you back. Only, it got stranger and stranger what Jon told of him until it all led to what Stannis quickly caught onto was all but a thinly veiled threat when the subject came up, that you had been considered a traitor to Stannis before your death.

“My own brothers stabbed me seven times in the chest and I bled to death trying to convince men to help me to rescue her. The only reason I'm standing here, is because she brought me back. Not any god or priestess or ceremony, just her. If Ramsay is willing to start a war to get her back after spending a year torturing her, try to think what I'd to protect her against a father still trying to call her a traitor.”

Jon Snow had gone from refusing to even mention you out of a strangling grief he wished to internalize, to standing before a King with a not so subtle threat that he'd protect you against more then just the Boltons if Stannis tried to push it. He had gotten the image all wrong when he tried to imagine your place back within life, back in Stannis and Jon's lives. He was terribly wrong about it all.

Only, he wasn't as he now realized. He was right about almost all of it.

The ironic thing was, that faced with the reality of the imagined fantasy Stannis wondered up in the days in Castle Black, it was clear which one between you and Jon was equipped to handle him without any hesitations. Jon had stood before the sitting King with nerves and a raw honesty.

This time though, you sat across from him to position yourself as an equal, and the silence in the room was not wrought with nerves or tension. Just a stubbornness and a complete lack of intimidation.

Green eyes on green eyes unblinking in their stare against one another as you sat down before him and still you and your father sat in a silence. Whatever arguments the man was ready to put forth, you knew you were equally as ready to knock them all down.

Minutes passed before either of you broke, and it was your father who did it first. “I don't imagine your mother was thrilled over the matter.”

A sigh may have left your mouth were you less controlled in your nerves of said moment. “Her daughter went from a Baratheon to a Stark to a Snow. I didn't expect her nor you to be pleased by it.”

Any other man and there may have been blatant judgment in their tone, but in your father it was even and dry only caring of getting to the route of the topic at hand. “Neither of you presumed to think it would be appropriate for the man to gain blessing from the bride's father before a betrothal is made.”

You didn't blink, nor did Stannis. He did not jump right to his point without ensuring you understood where he was going to be coming at it from in root, but you didn't really feel the patience for it right now. It wasn't meant as a game but it felt one regardless. Your tone was if possible, even more flat and unwavering dry as his. “Previously, you had assumed Jon and I were sharing a bed so to speak. It seems a step backwards to care about asking permission for marriage before caring about pre marital affairs.”

Both of you were far too stubborn for this. “Two moons ago you married, we can cross out being with child as the reason for how rushed you went into this.”

A part of you hesitated, there was no shame in the truth anymore and certainly not with your father in comparison to the sort of affairs both his own brothers engaged in. But would it change his view of Jon you wondered. Then again, you could also find it in you to argue that if this changed his opinion now of all times, he must not have respected him as much as he claims. So you were honest. “Jon and I have shared romantic feelings since I was fifteen. We've known each other since I was eight. I think it is safe to say, he and I have done the opposite of rush into this.”

He didn't look as if this was new information, which was the strange part. You knew the only one who had an inkling was Shireen, but you had known for a fact she kept all of it to herself since she had never even confronted you of such subjects in that manner. How your father knew, you couldn't figure out.

Calm as ever, you both looked at one another, sat on either side of the desk in quiet as the muffled sounds of work and yelling filtered in through the stone walls against the crackling fire. “He taught you how to use a sword.” Not a question, and thus you gave one nod of a yes before he continued. A curiosity filtering in his gaze. “Selyse wasn't happy about that either, when you returned home that year.”

“It might be more productive by now to make a list of things I've done that have made either of you happy compared to not. If we name all the things about my life you disapprove of we may be sitting here quite a long time.” Silent for a moment you forced the question out. “What is your point here, father? Is it that I married without your expressed permission or is it because I married a bastard?”

“Something's changed since the last we spoke.”

Silence sat between you both more, “Has it?”

He couldn't have known, you know he didn't know. You were keeping it a secret from most everyone for a reason, including why he managed to escape alive in the first place. In truth, you didn't want to sit here and talk about Jon. You wanted to sit here and ask what on earth was wrong in your father's head when he decided he was going to let the red woman murder his own nephew, the only one he had left for all he knew.

You wanted to know why when there were so little of Baratheon blood left, were you all self destructing towards oblivion.

Your father murdered his brother, and tried to murder his nephew and you murdered your sister. You could sweeten that night with honey all you wanted, but at the end of the day, your father and you both killed your own blood. Maybe you wanted something from him which he couldn't provide. The answer of why this family was doomed to destroy each other.

Your father kept his calm in the face of a silent whirlwind behind your stoic gaze. “The last we were in Kings Landing, I met a number of Robert's bastards. Didn't care for any of them. Half Robert, half whatever tavern slut he bedded on a drunken night. The only nephew I had known for some time was Joffery, and not yet realizing the truth of his birth I saw no interest in getting to know any of Roberts other children. They weren't trueborn, and nieces and nephews or not, if Robert was not going to recognize them, why should I?”

Was it hypocritical you thought? The degree to which maybe you should rip the necklace from your person off and give it right back to the man who gave it to you, the one who didn't know what it was like to push dagger into the back of her skull. Mercy or not, why should you be angry about what Stannis had almost done to Gendry when you had done it yourself to your own little sister, to Shireen.

But it slipped out in an anger regardless. “Because they have your blood in their veins, same as I.”

You had seen her state, she had no life waiting even if she would ever awake without agonizing pain shocking her back to the darkness. It was different you told yourself, so why did this not feel different?

It was easier when you learned about Renly. You were still a person then, a human made whole in life and not a shell of what used to be with your sisters blood on your hands. This time, you learned about Gendry after you had already committed kinslaying exactly as your father did. You did not have the right to feel angry at him, when you did it yourself. You and your father were no better then the other.

If Stannis had a point he was making, he was tying it together from various starting points of stories he assumed were related together. “Your mother was not happy when I married you to a Northerner, but at least he was a highborn. Heir to Winterfell. Happy or not Robb Stark was an appropriate suitor for my daughter. Had in those days you come to me and told me you married a bastard without my permission, I'd have dragged you back to Dragonstone with me and never let you out of my sight for some time.”

Your eyes drifted to the side ever so slightly. Dramatic, but precisely what you would have expected in such years. Only, the connecting bonds your father weaved together, you hadn't expected. “So when I offered to make Jon the Lord of Winterfell, I offered to make him a Stark to do so. He was only a bastard, and law is law so I offered to declare him the name of his fathers house and seat in exchange for his fealty. He turned me down, and do you know what it was I had thought that day? What came to mind when he told me no?”

Shaking your head slightly, there wasn't a judgment in his gaze, but something a little more weighted with an emotion you were struggling to identify on Stannis, at least when it was directed towards you it was a struggle.

What wasn't expected, was the real answer. “I had wondered, that if in another life where you had lived, if you were still alive, would that have changed his mind. If I had offered to make him a Stark, offered to make him Lord of Winterfell, would he have accepted my offer, if you were alive to offer him as well.”

Brows narrowing, your head tilted in a slight ask of a confused whisper. “What does that mean?”

“Had you been alive, or more accurately, had any of us known you were alive, I would have given you to him as a wife in addition to everything else. Give the boy one more thing he never had, a highborn girl he had been in love with.” He had known, in whatever manner he deduced, your fathers time with Jon directed him to the very conclusion Jon had hidden from all too many. “Naming him a Stark wouldn't have changed the boy being born a bastard, and if I was willing to marry you to him then, I'm not sure how much else could convince you that is not the issue now.”

Nails dug into the leather of the other glove in your lap, not sharp enough to feel much of the pressure against your skin under. Still, nothing was said from you. “I am insulted this was all done without my knowledge or consent, but that does not mean I disapprove of the marriage or of him. You chose all on your own to let your surname become Snow, and your children will hold that name as well. If I cannot change that, I will not waste my energy being unhappy over it.”

Inhaling deeply, you had to convince yourself to turn and look back at him mid way through your own sentence. “What is this then? A lecture to tell me how disappointed you are?”

The immediate falling expression into something flat on your face at the ease in which your father looked at you without blinking and said, “It is like you said, if we were to sit down and discuss everytime I have been disappointed with something you've done, we'd have spent much more time in my office over the years going over it every other day.”

It was difficult to tell when he was being hyperbolic to amuse himself or to find a small rise out of you, but the stiff quiet between you both wasn't awkward as it was a bit of a distraction from the previous tension going unsaid. A hum in your throat had you peeling your eyes away with a smirk only he could've spotted without question. “And you wonder why you weren't invited. Now, can we move to the matters at hand or shall we sit here a little while longer and pretend I'm getting a stern talking too?”

Still though, it was a strange thought which remained in your head for the moments of quiet you were left alone in. Your father was right in a manner of speaking, everything he offered in their own way came to reality. Only without his help was the caveat for some, and titles were the difference in others.

The memory of seven fatal wounds forever carved into Jons chest. A death which led to every prediction of your father to come to fruition, but for as far as he has come, part of you wished he had taken the offer when he had the chance. Returning to life didn't make it any better that he died trying to find you in the first place.

He had done much to move on from it, move you both on from thinking of it, but it was right there every time you saw them. The memory unable to be shaken of walking down the steps of the Ice Cells for the very first time that morning as everything which had the chance to finding something positive in your life died all over again. It wouldn't have changed that he was Robbs heir, it wouldn't have changed how you felt about him, it wouldn't have changed that you would follow him no matter where he was to lead you.

It would've meant he lived, and for perhaps the first time, you hated how dedicated the Starks were to doing the right thing no matter the cost to themselves. Jon himself had told you he didn't regret trying to leave to find you, but he should.

“I have four thousand I can station between four castles right away, and I have another ten trapped in the Stormlands by the Golden Company.”

Were you anyone else, the guilt may have been brought out on your face right away but as it was, neither you nor Jon gave anything in expression away. Nor even shifted a glance to one another. A lie quick forming in your mind to jump to Jon's defence before anything of what he and you had done would be given away. This would be the worst time for that as such.

As it was, Jon stood confident as ever. It was clear his time in the Nights Watch had left an impact on him which had not gone away. Before Edd arrived, he looked the most comfortable walking even the ruins of the Nightfort, and still looked just as at home in these walls as he did at Castle Black. The only thing any different from your last time spent at the Wall, was there was slightly more grey and browns mixed with the ever present black on him, and the once wild curls now tamed pulled back.

Hand clenching in on itself, you forced your eyes back to the table you sat at, on one side of it Jon was stood braced with his palms against it and Stannis stood at the other in a similar position. For once, you had said nothing in argument as Jon had insensitively moved to almost push you back in the seat when you made to stand with them. Nothing said further when he seemed all but shove food in front of you with a pointing gesture to make you eat.

Ripping off small bits at a time, thankful that despite the almost amusing pushiness, Jon seemed to sense lately exactly what you needed, when you needed it. The past week in particular he was very keen on picking up any changes in your mood, behaviour, anything. You couldn't yet tell if Ghost, who currently was sat dutifully by the back of the room with keen watchful eyes, was doing the same on his own or picking up the habit influenced by Jon.

Though, Ghost did bring a dead fox all the way in from the wolfswood about a fortnight ago, and found you specifically to gift it to. Your two White Wolves both odd creatures, they were.

Jon's voice rumbled somewhat to the side of you, “I can send a raven to Storm's End. Find out if Aegon would be willing to negotiate letting your men leave.”

The quiet sat on your fathers face and you already knew the precise question which would come out of his mouth. “And why would the boy be willing to do so when he previously refused to cooperate?”

You were proud however, the ease in which Jon had the answer without finding his way to the lie which sat underneath the how. “Aegon knows eventually his aunt will make her move to Westeros, and he knows it will turn into the two of them against each other. We managed to negotiate a truce with him, he won't try and force the North to bend the knee or fight in his war and in exchange the North won't choose a side. If he and his aunt go to war, he agreed to show us peace if we give him neutrality.”

And the follow up you had seen coming, “How did you manage to come to that agreement?”

Quick and flat, you let it slide out as if natural in the moment statement meant as a jest towards your father, but Jon only briefly glanced to you with a wider look in his eyes at how easily you covered up to Stannis of all people, especially when you knew the lie was truly yours. “Some Kings are more willing to negotiate peace treaties with each other then you.”

Once more however, it was striking in the room between primarily Jon and Theon the degree to which only a few years apart from you and so much context of your life was forever missing to them. Ser Davos looked down with an amused glint in his eye covering a smirk, and your father only matched the flat look in your eye as an answer. “Very well then.” Looking back to Jon he was quick to the point. “Send word to him as soon as possible, the sooner I can get my men to begin work on the castles here the better prepared we can be.”

You could tell as the room filtered out, Jon was silent in his stare to grab your attention but it had missed you entirely as Theon came to speak beside you. “You can't avoid them forever, you know.”

Glancing to the side before flickering your gaze back to the cold outside, you held back something of a sigh. “I can when we leave and they stay here. We allowed them here to fight this fight, not preach things to me I had spent years avoiding being apart of.”

Theon could tell you were being stubborn, but you on the other hand knew that he wouldn't push the issue in the same manner others may. “Should have hanged them both before ever letting them get anywhere near Winterfell.” You didn't look with a glare that time but Theon felt it no doubt, following himself up with a more collected tone. “You can frame it however you like, but they were still part of that plan to kill you.”

Shortness on your tone, you almost interrupted him. Cutting through whatever words may have come next the moment you could sense the end of his breath. “Kidnap. Murder is a far charge away from that of kidnapping. And you and I both know now they did not plan it. Hanging them wouldn't change that someone else planned all of that.”

He was quiet, and you knew he felt as agitated as Jon would everytime you came up with excuses for what Beric and Thoros had been apart of. “Your father know about it?” The answer of no came so quickly it almost brought more aggravation from his tone you didn't need to look to know was there. “If they aren't guilty, why not tell him about it?”

“There is little Stannis Baratheon appreciates more then executing justice, but this didn't happen in his lands. It isn't his business. We are handling the rest, he doesn't need to be told everything which happens in my life.” You felt the cold wind stinging across your cheeks, but in a way you almost felt relieved by the sensation.

A bitter awakening which kept you on your toes instead of the comfortable many wanted for you now.

“Don't know much about him. Spent some twenty years at Castle Black before being made Lord Commander. Didn't last long after that, and if I don't know more means he probably wasn't very good at it.” Always one to appreciate the manner in which Edd got right to the point. Your arms crossed your chest, elbow propped up onto one to let your nails tap at your lip in thought as you listened.

He also thought little of your questions or their abrupt nature thankfully. “What happened to him exactly?” Also a stroke of luck he either did not pick up on your unusual curiosity or did not see fit to particularly care in prying about why.

Part of him looked exhausted, though you were beginning to feel as if all of you lived in such a state these days. His voice sounded distant and somewhat muttering as he clearly tried to recall the exact details he may have once knew. With how much he read you knew Sam might have been a better starting off point, but even if you could catch him alone, he'd mention the questions to Jon the moment they saw the other next. Which was the point you were trying to avoid, certain things simply didn't need to be added atop his shoulders despite what he insisted. He wouldn't let you take some of the burdens from his shoulders to share so you weren't going to add to them.

“Went ranging north of the Wall, disappeared, died. I assume. Hard to say that for sure anymore.” Your expression fell to a tie between somewhat dismayed and understanding, but regardless Edd caught the sense you were going to make him elaborate first. “Men disappear out there all the time, anything could have happened.”

Pacing along the length of the room, you shook your head more to yourself. “Any ranger perhaps, but I find it hard to believe the Lord Commander could disappear out there and no one would come back with anything to say about it.”

“They would if no one was there to come back with him.” Tormunds voice bounced off of the walls and against the wood towards your ears but your face scrunched slightly in a confusion. Turning to look at him there was something narrowed in his gaze towards you. “Sometimes crows leave all alone and don't come back, Mance didn't.”

It was Edd's turn to look back, standing a bit straighter with a tilt of his head towards him. “Mance Rayder wasn't Lord Commander, and he was born out there. This guy wasn't. Can't imagine many highborns willingly leaving everyone behind to live out in the snow.” This time, it was your eyes narrowing in a bit of a surprised curiosity. But it had to wait for now.

“Maybe he was looking for something.” As soon as you had asked for what, Tormund once more looked as if now he was the one withholding information on purpose. He clearly knew enough to give you small details but something else was being kept in his head despite you having the clear indication he knew more then he was willing to divulge. “Freedom? A Woman? Who knows.”

Edd piping up with a doubt in an amused tinge hinted at in his voice. “Man was in his sixties. Can't imagine he only found the urge by then to start sticking his dick into something after twenty years.”

“Be surprised what old men want when they go grey. I've seen plenty of grandpa's get new energy like their boys finding out they can play their cocks all over again.” Oh you were not the correct person to be a participant of this discussion. Holding a hand to your forehead as both men went back and forth until you found your limit of dick discussions for a lifetime.

Holding a hand out almost in a pleading for whatever they were saying to stop, you interrupted them with what was clearly an embarrassed grimace on your face. “I believe we have gotten far off the discussion, gentlemen.”

Nodding towards you, both men now smirked at one another in a knowing joke you were not in on. “You'd think being married to a crow she'd know all about that.”

Now you didn't even know what they were talking about anymore at all. Edd not helping as he indulged whatever joke Tormund was making at your expense. “Guess not. Suppose we know why they still don't have any little ones yet.”

Your face scrunched in a disapproval and yet almost an innocent bewilderment how you even got onto whatever this topic was. “I don't even have a clue what you two are going on about anymore.”

Whatever the smirk between Edd and Tormund meant, it had you rolling your eyes in an instant. Muttering as you made your way to leave the room to their boyish mockings on their own. “Many thanks for the assistance.”

Only, instead of finding the door to the cold outside did a large hand grab at your forearm and without any effort tug you backwards. Body landing somewhat in a stumble only to be cushioned by the now very close proximity of Tormund. Brows narrowed as he leaned down to look at you with a quiet but more serious tone for your hearing only. “If you're not going to stop snooping, may as well ask the only one here whose been out there his whole life.”

Raising an eyebrow, you found he almost matched your expression in a challenge. “I did ask you, and you claimed to not know anything.”

“Did I, now?”

Both pairs of eyes could've been mistaken for glaring had it not been a staring competition between you and Tormund of all people. Though you supposed to Edd it looked rather as such. Your voice lowered for only him to hear with a roughness held back in frustration. “I'm not paying games, Tormund. If you know something tell me, if not, let go of me.”

The last man to be intimidated by you, he didn't take the bait whatsoever. The smirk was almost infuriating however. “Starting to sound like the pretty crow needs another reminder how to loosen up.”

Only silence as your eyes narrowed just slightly more, only this time the jest behind it was far clearer to him then Edd now confused as anything. “If you weren't twice my size I'd have hit you by now.”

Passing a beat between you, instead he once more used his stature to turn you in place, tugging you more to his side before shoving you to the door as your previous goal was. Tormund this time following suit as he rumbled just behind you, “You know all the right things to say.”

In the cold air of the Nightfort, a great laugh left him as you sighed almost so deeply one would think it came from the mouth of a disappointed parent. Under your breath you whispered in an exasperation, “Seven hells, I knew you weren't done letting this go.”

Waiting until the moment you passed him by, did Ghost stand up and dutifully follow wherever the path was which Tormund was directing you. Unbeknownst to you as he trailed along, the red behind the direwolf's eyes weren't bright and attentive but almost darker and tense behind them. Tormund wasn't the only one not letting that go.

By the time the name Brynden Rivers came from your mouth, Tormund had told you he's never heard of him. Your eyes rolled with a glare up to him. “I know you haven't heard of him, that's why I didn't originally ask you that.”

The Nightfort made sense only in terms of when the Nights Watch was regarded with respect and given the manpower and resources to hold it. By the time it was abandoned it then no more made sense to keep it. You had walked for what felt like ten minutes and still found yourself only now approaching the other side of the courtyard. Not even five hundred men could maintain this place for such a long period of time, let alone the dwindled numbers you could presume had been it's final count.

“So what did you see exactly.”

Twice now you had seen it, in one dream then once more not long ago. Both times not alone but a crow with three eyes beside it, as if they stood one in the same now. It had pricked at your mind that first dream, the second you returned to the waking world that you knew the image in words you hadn't had at the forefront of your memory. It was why you scrambled to search the texts for it.

It had been more then only a red raven, it was a raven with feathers looking as if it was utterly coated and dripping in blood. Two eyes only but red blood dripping from it, but the crow with three was black as any normal bird. That one you had seen more then twice, but you had even less of an idea what it was meant to symbolize.

Tormund had clearly been thinking on it for a while, responding to such description easily. “Never seen or heard a raven like that. You said it was beside this crow?” A nod from you with no other input you let him stew on whatever was coming together in his head. “No one's seen a three eyed crow before, either but north of the Wall I know plenty who've talked about it. Say it's some omen of black magic.”

No, you thought, you'd seen black magic. It was in blood and fire and horrible death. This was not the same at all. Leaning now against a stone wall, the only destination he had intended was privacy. Ghost circling around to near a corner where his eyes could ensure focus from every oncoming angle before turning his head to watch you intently. Tormund stood somewhat a few feet in front of you, most of the jesting act now dropped as he prodded your mind for detail.

“Is there any difference in seeing it with your own eyes or seeing it in a dream?”

Tormund however had a strange answer. “The only place anyone's seen a three eyed crow is in a dream. Long time ago, my people would talk about it but no one's ever lived long enough to find it.” A question of why on your lips and once more you felt lost. “Never met anyone whose survived that far north, or at least survived long enough to come back. Last one to try said was about fifty years ago.”

Nothing was said and yet it dawned in your mind. Lips parting a bit as you looked down to the snow across the ground. Looking up hoping it would transform into a vision you could make sense of, but only stone and more snow in such a place as you already were. “This last one wouldn't have happened to be a man of the Nights Watch would it?”

A single nod and you despised how every answer made less sense to the mysteries wrapping around your mind. “Lord Bloodraven. That was the other title he went by. That's what I was discussing with Edd, the Lord Commander around fifty years ago disappeared ranging north of the wall, and before that most remember him as Lord Bloodraven.”

Answers should feel relieving, not that of a heavy weight adding to the strain in your head begging to turn into a pounding agony. “So, some old Lord Commanders coming to you in a dream with a three eyed crow. Maybe he's trying to tell you the answers you're looking for are out there.”

Just as Tormunds head gestured to where the Wall stood high someway beside you both, did a third voice join the pair of you. Only this one was both loud and yet a deep rasping with little patience in the short tone attached to it. “Then she won't find them.”

As the larger one turned, your head rose with a wider look bright in them as Jon stood with his posture tense and rigid a few feet from you. Leathers across him yet even without anything warmer you somehow felt as if you still were colder in the winter air then he was. A glance with Tormund, Jons eyes harsh and just as intense as the air around him he nodded behind him. “I want a moment with her.”

Neither you nor Jon moved until the small alcove you stood in was now alone save for three, one of which came up to Jons side more energetic then before. A gloved hand ran over the side of Ghosts face as Jon muttered something low and affectionate in tone before both came over to you. Still leaning against a stone wall, your hands wrung together as if nerves sat within you.

Perhaps they did, but you couldn't quite figure out what was wrong. Or, that kept being the problem wasn't it? “How did you know I was over here?” Jon only flickering his eyes pointedly to Ghost before your lips parted in a curiosity. “Do you do that often?”

Hardly what you could call a shrug came from him, Jon closing the distance more and as soon as he stepped with an arms reach you felt his warmth already radiate into your skin. “Only when I'm worried about you.”

Tensity in the air seemed both out of existence from him and heavyset within your blood. A gloved hand reached out as he invaded the remainder of your personal space along your arm, his head leaned down a slight bit to meet closer to your eyes. But you hardly met his, glancing away prompting Jon to try and follow to keep up. “You don't need to be. I'm staying in the castle walls still.”

Your voice was a mumble, but you could tell the meekness seeped through, wishing you could curl in on yourself as his hand ran down your upper arm. “What do you-” Your eyes flickered up to meet his and the brightness in yours painted an insecure image that you knew looked bad on you. Jons voice dropped to what felt like pity, “Darling,”

His hand tried to reach up, gently brush your cheek and jaw to turn you to look at him but you almost flinched from the touch. A shake of your head as you mumbled, eyes casting downward to the black across his torso instead. “Ever since Moat Cailin..” Trailing off you wished you sounded more put together then your wavering tone did. “I know you don't trust me but I still don't understand. Not trusting me is one thing, but it's as if you don't even want me doing anything.”

The same gloved hand ran through the loose strands of your hair as Jon muttered your name low, but you avoided his gaze still further when he tried to make you look at him again. His breath hot as if brushed across your skin and if he was any closer you'd be able to feel his curls were they loose, brushing against you as well. “That's not what this is.”

Down further your eyes found instead of up, you could now see the pommel of Longclaw sat against his side. Your hand still wrung together in front of you. “I try to help you, you make me stop. I try looking into things about whats coming for us and you tell me not to. I try and figure out what's happening with these dreams and visions and you get angry with me when I explain I'm doing it to help you.” He was silent, but his hand still ran through the strands.

Jon sighed deeply, trying again to no avail to get you to look up at him, and even the tender rasp of your name didn't do the trick. His other hand found your hip as you continued to not reach out to him the same way. “I trust you more then anyone else-”

Shaking your head, you felt your limbs tense at the feeling in your throat. Don't do this now you thought, don't get emotional now of all times. If it was evident as you spoke, you weren't looking enough at Jons reaction to know if he caught it or not. “You don't. I know that, that I've ruined that. But it's as if you don't want my help at all. I don't even know why you let me come if you didn't want me here-”

Cupping your cheek properly Jon leaned in to make you face him, but your eyes still couldn't handle whatever was in those beautiful greys. “If could only have one person with me anywhere, it would always be you, no matter what. Where is this coming from?”

Did you even hear him? You didn't know, the noise in your head was loud and too nonsensical to make out genuine words when he was so close to you. He was too warm it wasn't fair. “Everything I try to do to help you, and you get angry with me for it. If you don't trust me to help you, Jon, I'd rather you be honest and say it because everything about these past few weeks says you'd trust nearly anyone before me. And I get it, I do, I ruined all of it but..”

You shook your head in the pause of your words, Jon now letting his other hand dance along your jaw trying to tilt you back to him but the watering sting behind your eyes only got worse.

“You won't let me do anything to try, I don't even know when I have any chances to gain your trust again because you keep telling me to stop.” He muttered your name but the red in your stinging eyes warmed part of your face and throat and you despised how pathetic it was you were upset over nothing again. You didn't have the right to be upset Jon didn't trust you.

An attempt to lean in had you turn your face away from his, not in malice or the sorts, but heavy on an insecurity that used to sit on the man before you, not you before him. “I trust you, I want you here by my side, but it isn't as simple as that right now-”

“Then tell me how to fix it.” A second or two did you meet Jons desperate gaze but you looked away again as the upset wavered with frustration. “Either I'm a terrible Queen, or I'm a terrible wife, but I don't know how to fix it if you won't let me.” In the mere moments it took Jon to reign in the shock forming across at the rawness in your words did you fill it with whatever noise sounded off louder in your head. “I'm scrambling to find any scrap of something to help you but maybe I'm making it worse, maybe you don't want me to help and I'm too blind to realize it.”

Did Jon say your name? You weren't sure, the noise in your head now blended with the racing of your heart and not at all did you have the awareness to know any tears had fallen down your cheeks. You still refused to look at him. “I'm constantly scared I'm ruining things in your life, and- fuck.” Cutting yourself off something more panicked waved through you as the noise in your head turned clearer so too voices you might have recognized.

If Jon did or said anything you missed it, pulling away from his touch as you felt the tears and the impending humiliation. Wrapping what was once his fur cloak around you more, you shook your head, tears freezing in the cold air. “I thought doing this in private was the better choice, since I was getting in your way but now I don't even know what to do at all. Somethings been wrong between us and I don't understand why.”

His hands reached your forearms from behind, running down them as Jons warmth enveloped your back as you spoke. “In the crypt you said that maybe you didn't know me anymore, but really I don't know you. You came back different, you became a different person in the time we were apart and all I did when I came back was get worse. Maybe I don't know you anymore and I'm only just catching onto that.”

The second Jon tried to comfort you, breath warm at the side of your head as he rasped your name. A gloved hand trying to dance along your person to reach your scar but you pulled away again, that new rough wave inside you upset as ever before. You felt a mess as he followed you with the same low tones hoping to reach your ear. “You've got it wrong, I'm trying to protect you.”

But the only way you seemed to think Jon decided to do that was to push you away. You barley stood at his side when discussing things that mattered anymore, he hardly gave you anything to do to help him and got upset when you did like you did now, and try to figure things out, out of his way. “You told me if I couldn't lead, you still wanted me to stand by you. But now all you do is tell me to stop, tell others to stop helping me when I'm trying to do things for you. I don't think there's been a single day for weeks you haven't looked at me like you hate that I'm in the way.”

Jons voice rose a bit as it was stern, but you tried to walk away from him and it raised even more so he could keep up. But all you heard was anger, your rational mind didn't know what else it could be indicating. “You're not in the way and nobody, including me thinks that you are. Ever since that night on the ship it's like you're convinced I want to get rid of you.”

Turning towards him, it took him back both the raise in your own voice but also how it did not match the more devastated look in your eyes. “Ever since that night you look at me like I've lost my mind, Jon. And the moment I try and figure out what's happening to me you make me stop. All I want to do is be someone you can be proud is at your side but maybe I'm too stupid to realize that all I'm good for really is warming your bed at night like a whore.”

Jons brows narrowed, lips parting slightly as he looked at you. Something darker sat behind his eyes, head turned to the side just a bit as if figuring something out as he tried to close the gap you created between you. It wasn't a judgment on his part you said it with, but the words themselves struck something in Jon that put him on a cliff's edge which you yourself, could not see was there. Opening his mouth to speak, he thought better of whatever the words were before throwing out a demand of your name. “Look at me.”

Whatever Jon saw when you did, it was something he didn't like but you couldn't stand here and find out, not with people around not when you were in a place that was nowhere near home to hide or find any comfort in. You would rather have turned around, been in Winterfell and sought comfort in your bed, but no- the bed was Jons. Not yours.

“My lovely bride, you wouldn’t have happened to play around with other men while you were gone were you?”

Ramsay was right. Stoneheart was right. You weren't anything anymore. You were a Queen, a leader at Robb's side but all you could manage at Jons was being a whore for his pleasure. And now you just tricked yourself into thinking marrying him would make that mean anything else.

“Fighting for my whore of a bride sounds like a wonderful idea.”

He should've let you go back. He should've just let you go back to Ramsay. You hadn't gotten any better since then but at least Ramsay wasn't a good man, you weren't bringing him down by being in his clutches.

You heard Jons voice close through the muffles of your mind, “Darling, I need you to listen to me-”

But you shook your head. Turning away from him, not bothering to hide that you were wiping the tears away before any out there could too see how pathetic you were. “I've kept enough of your time.”

Oh if only you could turn around and see how heartbroken the wide eyed expression in Jons eyes were at that one. The return to formality last seen only in the days of Castle Black but now you were so much more to him. But you didn't see any of that. And it made Jon mad.

He had worked so hard to help heal your mind, and suddenly the weight of the world and winter and these dreams and visions all but destroyed the progress you had made for him. It was starting to feel as if you were as lost as those first days you came back to him. But this time so much more was at stake if Jon couldn't fix it in time.

If you found out on your own now, Jon didn't want to know what you'd do. You had long walked away as his heart tore away at him, still standing there. He lost the chance to tell you the other night, and ever since Jon was trying to wait for the same perfect opportunity. But maybe you needed to know right now. Before you let the memory of Ramsay Bolton take you from Jon, back into his torment.

If he could have killed that man all over again, Jon would ensure this time was far bloodier. It would not be many months more until it marked a year since you escaped Ramsay, but some times it felt as if Jon kept losing you to him over and over again. Everytime you got better, Ramsay pulled you away from Jons love, back to make you hate yourself all over again.

If he were being honest, Jon was glad Gilly was back in Winterfell, otherwise he knew he'd have ended up all but rudely kicking her out of the room with little proper decorum. Instead, all which occurred was Sam nearly being ambushed as Jon both barrelled into the room and slammed the door shut behind him. Sams head jolting backward, “Jon?”

Words trapped in his throat Jons hands braced themselves against the desk Sam had been sitting at, head hung down as his jaw clenched through breaths asking to painfully heave. Before he could be asked anything else in checking, Jon all but hissed your name out, eyes closed knowing he had to say it out loud to someone before he said it to you tonight.

“Ah, now I must admit, when they told me I'd be given a watch partner I didn't expect someone as important as yourself to do so.” Many times since meeting again, Thoros's voice was grating and irritating as it was preachy.

Only now as you slowly approached, hair blowing back in the high winds and all but clutching the fur around you to cover your front you hadn't yet met his gaze. No, instead it was the green wavering in the far distance on the North you saw first.

Once more in the winds the only sound, did Thoros break that peace. Softer in tone and a weight behind it that he was not often heard with. “Mesmerizing isn't it?” Your head titled just a little bit to indicate you were listening. “I know, for everything I stand for, I'm the last person who should admit that, but it is. Hard to take your eyes off it once you see it the first time.”

The green truly was something else. Nothing but fear and horror has become you in the world of red and fire and yet the shimmering green against snow and ice was what drew you in so naturally. Neither of you spoke for a moment, Thoros leaned against one wall and you standing with both feet facing the far North with wide eyes.

By the time your voice spoke, Thoros had almost given up expecting conversation.

“She's pregnant.”

It took a good number of seconds and an entirely blank stare for the information to register to Sam, but the moment it did he shook his head out of the pause with a distinguished, “Huh?”

Jon's eyes were wide, something more vulnerable then Sam had seen in them for a very long time but it was there and Jon couldn't hide it. Repeating your name, there was something almost painful in the way Jon had to force it out. “She's pregnant. Around three weeks, she doesn't know.”

For the second time, Sam was at the disadvantage and had to be the one walked through things. “She- but- how would you know and she doesn't?” Only for a wide eyed and open mouthed realization to come over him, “Ghost. Ghost could probably sense it and if you went inside his head, then you could sense it.” The moment Sam begun a congratulations in his voice he stopped himself with another question instead. “Wait, she doesn't know. You haven't said anything to her?”

Grey eyes almost shining brighter then the firelight around the room, Jon felt nothing of the firm strength and resolve a King was expected to have. He felt more like a boy playing at leadership then truly one himself. “Sam, she's a mess. Everything the past two years and I managed to get her pregnant at one of her lowest points since I've seen her again.” Only the two of them in the room, Jon almost begged for the sun to go down already as if the night sky could hide such raw ramblings.

“You said it never gets any better.”

Still not facing him, you knew Thoros had heard you, but you elaborated anyways as you looked out to the green against the pitch black night sky. “In the dungeons, you told me it never gets any better. This feeling. What did you mean?”

He almost chuckled to himself, looking down to his feet before pushing off the wall to stand where you were precariously close to the edge of a mighty drop. “Five years it's been since the Lord granted me the ability to bring Beric back to the light. And in those five years I never thought I would meet a soul who would understand what such power feels like. Beric doesn't know, he never will. Coming back in comparison to bringing another back is easy. But us?” He whistled dramatically in the air. “There isn't a word in any language here or across the Narrow Sea that could describe what it feels like to someone who doesn't already know.”

The wind was bitter around your face but it kept you awake and reminded you that you at least had not yet taken a step too far and plunged to the ground. Far away your gaze was looking and so was the voice which matched your distant mind. “How do to handle it? Feeling everyday like you're so close to losing your mind, only to have that feeling double the next day and the next?”

A laugh from Thoros that time did not come across as genuine. Morose, macabre, but nothing in a genuine amusement as the wind almost mattered not around the two of you in something you had long since avoided speaking of.

He sounded more serious then most likely knew his whole life, “Well personally I drink a lot, but something tells me you haven't quite taken after your uncle in that regard.” Your eyes only then peeled to meet his, and there was a hint of a jest in there that was genuine. A person did still exist in the mess of him somewhere, so where was yours?

Tilting his head to implore him, Sam lowered his voice to something a bit more calming. “Jon, I don't really think many people get pregnant when the time is only perfect. Look at Gilly, she spent most of her time thinking I was never coming back, only for Karl and Rast to kill her father and take her home days after giving birth. Spent the first few months of Sam's life with me on the march back to the Wall.”

Sighing out deeply, Jon dropped his gaze. Jaw clenched as was his hands tensing against the wood, eyes slipping closed to try and think clearer. “This is different, Sam. I used to have visions of her, dreams of her. I'd see things that all came true of her, not realizing she was seeing me and now it's even stronger. Now she's almost living through memories that don't belong to her and she's going to make herself sick trying to figure it out to help me.”

“You used to-”

Pushing off the table Jon ran a hand over his mouth, the sight still came to him in his sleep sometimes. He'd wake up and all but throw the furs off the two of you to look you over to make sure you were alright. “I dreamt of the night she died. It was the last vision I ever saw of her. On the ground, soaked in her own blood and I kept watching her die over and over again. Then she came back to me, escaped the Boltons, came back to me and brought me back from the dead, Sam.”

Turning back once more Jon knew he looked almost like a wondering boy with fantasies then a man, a King discussing the complexities of his Queen. “She's done more to help me in that one day then I've ever wanted to ask of her, but I don't know how to get it through her head. Everytime I try, it's like she's afraid I'm lying to her or tricking her. Like somewhere inside her, she's scared she's going to wake up and be right back with Ramsay instead of me.”

He couldn't have that. The similarities were all too horrifying. Jon needed a way to get through to you before you were scared you had to have this child because you thought he expected it. Ramsay would've, it was the only reason he wanted you. He wanted you to give him an heir the way Rhaegar only wanted Jons mother to give him a third child. Jon couldn't have the first of your family together start off with those fears still swimming in your head, he couldn't.

Jon knew he's wanted to give you a child since your first night together. He had spilled inside of you secretly begging the gods to let it take, and then when it didn't Jon had to pretend he wasn't completely disappointed. It was far safer for your honour to wait, but that didn't change that Jon had wanted this a long time. Every single time he brewed you moontea he hated it, he wanted to throw it all into the fire and just take you twice more to ensure his seed took deep all over again.

But you came back to life so desperately alone, only to be told your only purpose in this new life was to be used for a child and nothing more. Not to get in the way, do as you were told and have a son and that was all you were needed for. He didn't want you to think that, and it slipped out in the air with Sam before he could contain the thoughts. “I don't want her thinking I did this on purpose.”

Sam though, had spent a good moment looking at him. Not with judgment or searching of guilt, but seeking a genuine raw honesty they both knew was sitting so close to the surface. “Did you?”

The truth between you two was strange. Not a man you ever would once think you'd care to have something in common with and yet at the frozen edge of the world, you and Thoros of Myr were the only ones who understood the turmoil of it all. The conflict. Beric could speak of doing what was told of him for the cause, but he didn't know what it felt like to be the reason it could happen.

Softly, you spoke out in a breathless sentence. “He doesn't understand. Jon tells me he needs me, but he doesn't get it. Not truly. He doesn't know what it feels like to realize your only purpose is him, that you wouldn't be here without him, you'd either be dead or live walking without cause if he weren't still here. That if you lost him, you'd lose the only reason to stay anymore.” Thoros was quiet as you spoke, and there was an eternal gratefulness in you that the night was too dark and wind to strong to see the watering behind your eyes.

“I'm not defending what happened, but you left him once and it brought you to us. And that brought him back to you. Maybe it's the Lord maybe it isn't, but it wasn't only someone elses plans against you, it wasn't vengeance. The only souls in this world who understand what it's like and we were supposed to come together. Beric doesn't understand why I have to bring him back everytime, but I'm willing to wager that if something happened to your King, you'd do everything then more to bring him back.”

Slowly you nodded, and Thoros did too. Bringing something up to his lips before handing it over to you. Turning with a raised eyebrow to the skin in his hand he clarified, “Black strap rum, courtesy of your fathers bannermen.”

Brows narrowing in hesitancy, you accepted it but the moment you opened the cap you glanced with more of a doubting glare. It took but one sip for you to cough before it even went down. A real laugh left him that time, grabbing you by the back of your cloak to keep you steady with one hand as his other went to take it back with a mighty sip for himself. You muttering out as he did so, “That is utterly vile.”

“You don't drink it for the flavour. But we still have time before they come, don't we?” Both of you looking to the green. “We'll find something for you to cope before then. Plenty of ways to self destruct.”

Taken back for a moment Jon asked Sam to repeat himself. “Did you get her pregnant on purpose?”

Jon almost couldn't hide his self doubt. He hadn't even considered that until that moment, but, what else was the alternative? Of course he wanted to get you pregnant, he's wanted that since the moment he came back. But he wouldn't get anything out of coming to Sam with this by lying. “I've always wanted her to be the mother of my children. Part of me hoped it took the night we were together, that first night in Castle Black..”

Opening his mouth to speak, Sam stopped with wider more playful eyes that in an instant had Jon turn inward knowing what was coming. “Oh. You two were...” Searching playfully for the right word he raised his eyebrows at Jon. “Intimate? The night she brought you back? You were that eager, were you?”

Turning away almost in a fidget, Jon rolled his eyes back knowing now he was moving far too much to be casual and both men knowing how much Sam was starting to enjoy teasing Jon about you. Almost mumbling Jon barley got out, unsure if he should even admit it. “I had her naked minutes after I first saw her in front of me.”

Leaning against the table he smirked at Jon, “And you're worried that after what? Nine months? That now is too soon to get her pregnant? By the sounds of it you'd be over the moon if she had right away.” Jon pushed off the table, pacing along the room with nerves once more. “Jon.” Turning halfway to look, Sam had dropped the mocking. “My point is, you've known each other since you were children. You snuck around with her for six years, and now you're married. It's normal for a man to try and get his wife pregnant. You didn't want children because you didn't want them to be bastards, now they won't be. They'll just be yours, and she knows that too. She's going to figure it out eventually.”

Hand running over is face Jon felt the nerves mix with exhaustion and it felt as it it boiled inside of him into something dizzying. “It's just..I hate not being able to help her with this..Ramsay's dead and I still can't make him go away for her..”

Soft as ever, both men looked at one another more vulnerable then some ever let themselves open up in a lifetime. “You can't force her to get better, Jon. You can only show her you'll always be there no matter how long it takes or how hard it gets.” Nodding, Jons head hung for a moment trying to ease his heart into slowing down enough to settle his breathing. “Trust me, it took Gilly and I a lot of work to get to where we are now. You two have known each other for way longer then that, you shouldn't be worse then me at this when you're talking to your own wife.”

“Thoros.”

Turning behind you, the nerves picked up in such a quick instant that you were grateful your hands were already clutched at the furs around you. Harder to see in the dark that way you almost flinched. But Jon stood there up on the so far, empty Wall as if he hadn't relaxed since you last saw him one bit, only having put the dark warm furs around him that blended so well with everything else on him like it was made as such.

Glancing to you for only a moment, Jon directed a quiet but respectful attention back to the man beside you. “I'll take over for you tonight, get some rest.”

A question formed in Thoros's eyes but he nodded. “Much appreciated, your grace.” Not quite passing you by, the slightly slicker Jons eyes slid down to the skin of what you now knew was rum before watching as the man turned the corner eventually to where the lift was.

By the time Jon had turned back, you once more were looking out to the shimmering sea of green against the night sky. Instead of a respectful stance next to you, Jon spared no time in coming up to your back. Not giving you the chance at pulling or pushing him away, Jon wrapped an arm around your front to pull you back into him. The other gloved hand raising up, across your neck to tilt your head enough to the side Jon could partially rest his forehead somewhat against yours.

You could feel him relaxing right away as your own hands came up. One somewhat finding the hand on your stomach, and the other grasping at what you could of his forearm. The wind between you both was cold, loud, and yet so much more peaceful then how you left him hours ago. And you voiced it as such, knowing you had to step up. “I shouldn't have spoken to you that way. I was out of line, and I'm so sorry.”

Sighing deep, you didn't blame him for it. You wouldn't take your apology either.

Instead of replying, Jon adjusted his hand to press yours against the scar over all the layers at your stomach before once again covering it and your hand with his own in the same spot. A gentle rasp in your ear had your eyes fluttering shut briefly at the soothing sensation. “I'm going to say something, and I need you to listen. No arguing, no anything. Just listen.”

You nodded, and for once Jon accepted that as enough for now.

Almost murmuring in your ear, you could feel the faint traces of his curls which fell loose dance across your skin as his thumb rubbed along your jaw. “Everything that's happening, you want to be there for it, help me fight it. But you keep going through waves of being alright and then this, because you refuse to admit you're still scared of him.”

You hated that you knew who he was talking about, and you hated that he was right.

You felt Jons breath dance along your skin as if the feeling itself made it easier to listen. “I let Ramsay say what he said, because no matter what, he had the right to say whatever he wanted his final words to be. But I was wrong about one thing. I should never have let you be there. I should've kept you away, beacuse ever since I took his head all you've been able to do is hear those final words over and over again.”

Shaking your head in denial, you managed to get out just the start of his name as he shushed you quiet again. Pulling you closer to his chest, almost nuzzling what he could reach of your head with his. “No, I know you have. You don't want it to be, but over and over again I know he's still there in your head. You went through hell with him, and I know you've been lying to me about the things he did. Trying to pretend it wasn't as bad as it was.”

Frozen to the spot, you thought for only a second when you realized it. “What are you talking about?”

It was Jons turn to shake his head, pressure on your scar against your hand Jon even closer mumbled into your ear. “I know he did things, made you do things that I never even could've imagined, and I know you don't want me to know because of how you think it'll look. But it doesn't change anything between us. You're scared he's right, that after all he did I won't want you, or I pity you. But he doesn't know me. Never has, and now he never will. Ramsay has no say in how much I will always love you, so I need you to understand me when I say I won't let him come between us anymore.”

You wanted to hide the watering in your eyes, but you had a strong feeling Jon was watching for it anyways. Stuttering barley a breath out, “Jon..everything in my head just feels..it's all wrong.”

Jon however, just kissed he side of it, before kissing the skin just under your ear. Breath hot against you, “Trust me, darling. It isn't just you. You're scared of disappointing me and proving Ramsay right, I'm scared of terrifying you into not wanting anything to do with me beacuse I'm too intense for you now.” Trying to protest in his own defence, Jon continued over your words. “For a year I thought you were dead, and for three and a half years before that you were married to my brother. And the first thing I did when I saw you alive in front of me was strip you naked and fuck you. And if we're being honest with each other, when I spilled inside you that night I was trying not to force you stay on my cock until it took.”

Pushing more against your scar, Jon almost smiled at the small gasp which left you. Looking to the green, but suddenly all you could see within it's shimmer was as if it reflected both you and Jon was you were now in it's sights. “Maybe it would've been easier if it had.” Jon silent, allowing you to elaborate on the thought before it left you. “Something Cersei told me, that if a woman has nothing in her life, she should treasure her child, hold onto one thing that's theirs, that makes sense if only to them.”

A hum vibrated through Jons chest into you, running his thumb more over your hand at your stomach before rasping, “You don't have nothing. You have me, you have your people, your family, you have everything right here waiting for you. And I'll help you however long it takes to get through that beautiful head, that you're allowed to not be alright. I don't want you to get better for anyone sake but your own. But you need to accept that you can't push this all down and pretend that's dealing with it, because now it's only hurting you more.”

As if every inch which Jon could reach of you was warm against the cold winds desperate to sting at the skin exposed. You leaned back almost more to hide from it without committing to turning away. A low murmur only he could hear, as your heart somehow did not beat yet raced all the same. “I haven't felt like myself since I've come back. I don't know if I ever will. I wanted to still give you the version of myself you fell in love with.”

Another large sigh left Jon, but the tone was creeping easier and easier back into being identifiable the more you relaxed against him. His voice low in your ear without ever wanting to move. “I was in love with you when I first caught a glance of you across the yard.” A small smile evident even when you could not see it on him. “I told you, we belong together. You can't get rid of me, and I'll never want you to. I want you by my side, but I'm not asking you to do the work. You're by my side because I love you, that's your job. Be the woman I love, and just let me love you for it.”

Almost giving you a tiny shake, you still managed to miss the brightness in his eyes shine with a smile as you huffed out a laugh. Your heart steadying a little calmer, “Sounds strange to say, but despite everything, life was so much easier when I was with child. We were in the middle of a war, but suddenly the only thing I was supposed to do was what I was raised my whole life to do. Marry a man and have his children, not very complicated it was.”

The whisper in your ear was almost insecure, “Were you happy?” A hum of question left your throat as he clarified. “When you were pregnant, being easy doesn't mean it made you happy. Were you?”

Your eyes narrowed for a small moment as you connected a few dots in your head, the fog clearing a bit more then it had felt for days leaving clues you otherwise missed. A soft smile fell over you, “I was married to a man I loved, and was going to have his child. Of course I was happy. But just beacuse we haven't gotten to the second part of that yet, Jon, doesn't mean it's for a lack of trying. You of all people should know that.” His chuckle pinged at your heart, it always did. “I'm not trying to deny you this, but it took Robb and I two years to get there.”

Only, the conversation you were expecting, wasn't what Jon approached it as. “It won't take two years, I promise.” A confused tilt of your head somewhat, you asked what he meant. Jon, spoke with the confidence of a man who knows what he wants, and suddenly the pressure of his touch against your scar made you lightheaded as he murmured to you. “I stopped brewing you moontea the night we married. It's only taken you and I two months. Not years.”

You were confused, trying to grasp what he was trying to say and- you knew Jon sensed the moment you figured it out. His hold on you was suddenly tight as if trying to keep you comfortingly close and to not let you move away. Your name came carefully from his lips, but you only stood wide eyed.

No longer even seeing the green, you only had one sense and it was the pressure of your hand trying to feel under all your layers. You...two months..the fortnight passed you had started this feeling. It was then you knew something in your head felt wrong but it wasn't that. Only, it was. Your emotions had been all over the place last time, needy, angry, on edge, you were more volatile then usual and you didn't understand why your head felt such a mess.

This time there was simply a bit of a pre existing mess it had to fight for attention with.

Previously you had worried you'd be a mess, conflicted and upset..but you had long moved passed that by now. You knew that, you had been ready the night you let Jon take you on Dragonstone. Yet, without that turmoil of conflict in your soul, you almost didn't know how to react, what to feel this time. Your voice barley there. “How did you-”

Jon luckily read the words in question. “Ghost can sense things we can't. He figured it out right away, I didn't until I was inside his head.” The cold winds no longer flew mindlessly by, it almost seemed to wrap around your limps and cocoon you in a sensation of something frozen to the spot without the sting of the temperature on your skin.

Your fingertips dug into what you could feel of the scar over everything and your heart lept from your chest and out to the world beyond. Almost echoing the words spoken some three years ago but not with quite the same joy, but an exasperated insecurity. “Why would you keep this from me?”

Turning your head moreso to the side, Jon rested his close enough he could almost lean down to nudge your nose with his. Nothing but patience poured from him. “If you haven't noticed, darling, your a bit all over the place lately. I didn't want to tell you while you were upset. I didn't want you to think-”

In what once might have allowed such insecurity to show in your tone, instead it was knocked back and downward by a hint of what could've been guessed was a smile. “You worried I'd feel pressured into it.” A nod was all you got from Jon, but letting your eyes slip closed, you found the bravery in you regardless. Reaching one arm backward, best you could you wrapped it moreso around the back of his neck, resting half along the skin you found there and half in the warm fur around him. Jon moved either closer into your back, or pulled you further into his embrace but his grip grew tighter once more. “I suppose it's only fair. I kept it from Robb, and you kept it from me.”

Were his heart not so heavy in his chest, Jon might have found it in him to chuckle. Instead you heard him roughly forcing a voice back out to the world in low, deep tones. “I know this isn't the life you dreamed of,” Wishing his grip wasn't so tight, you'd have turned to face him by now. Only this time you senses he was now the one hiding from you in a way.

Before the unsure feeling coming from on Jon could continue, you did what he seemed to be so good at with you. “Jon, the past is the past. I can't go back and wish I could change it now. You're my future now, and so the life I dream of is whatever we decide.”

He didn't say anything for a bit and neither did you. It wasn't the perfect portrait of a normal, joyous couple with such celebrating news, but perhaps that wouldn't suit you both. Not anymore. But surprisingly it was you who broke the quiet. The heavy weight you were so sure would burden you down with, it wasn't there. Not really.

You had made your peace with the life you lost, now it was the tormenting start of your new life plaguing your mind. But that shouldn't ruin this, they had no right being connected. “I believe that makes what? Four vows I've helped you break?”

Jon all but hid his face in your neck, muffled voice vibrating against you. “My father would be disappointed.”

Moving your hand back, you tried to keep him gently against you as much as you could manage from here. Leaning your head against his, there was the confidence in your voice to placate his insecure ones just as Jon would do for yours so often. “You are everything in a son a father could ask for. And I know yours is proud of you. He's always was proud, and he still is of who you've become. As is your mother.”

His hand over yours on your stomach tightened. After everything Jon had done to bring you back down to earth, he now was the one who didn't have the words anymore. But you didn't need him too. He wanted to focus on you as you did him.

And you knew Jon had forgotten, he lived an entire life thinking this would be something he would or could never have. He was so worried about how you'd react, you were starting to think it wasn't until right now Jon let himself truly feel something raw about it. But you'd let him take his time, just like he had with you. There was much to do come morning, but for now, the rest of the world and it's plights didn't get to exist. Not between you both, not right now.

Until the morning sun finally raised it's weary head, there was nothing up on the top of the Wall except you, Jon, and the new growing life he gifted you, against the otherworldly sight of a shimmering green winter sky.

#jon snow x reader #robb stark x reader #jon snow #robb stark #game of thrones #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #jon snow x you #robb stark x you #jon snow imagine #robb stark imagine

[dutch-and-flemish-painters]

Richard van Bleeck - Portrait of Sir John Holt - ca. 1700

oil on canvas, height: 124.5 cm (49 in) Edit this at Wikidata; width: 99.7 cm (39.2 in)

National Portrait Gallery, London, UK

Sir John Holt (23 December 1642 – 5 March 1710) was an English lawyer who served as Lord Chief Justice of England from 17 April 1689 to his death. He is frequently credited with playing a major role in ending the prosecution of witches in English law.

Historian John Callow argues in his 2022 book, The Last Witches of England, that sceptical jurists, especially Holt, had already largely stopped convictions for witchcraft under English law even before the Witchcraft Act 1735 finally concluded such prosecutions. Callow particularly credits Holt with great courage in doing so in the face of religious pressure, mob violence, and popular superstitious belief in witchcraft.

The Witchcraft Act 1735 (9 Geo. 2. c. 5) was an Act of the Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1735 which made it a crime for a person to claim that any human being had magical powers or was guilty of practising witchcraft. With this, the law abolished the hunting and executions of witches in Great Britain. The maximum penalty set out by the Act was a year's imprisonment.

It thus marks the end point of the witch trials in the Early Modern period for Great Britain and the beginning of the "modern legal history of witchcraft", repealing the earlier Witchcraft Acts which were originally based in an intolerance toward practitioners of magic but became mired in contested Christian doctrine and superstitious witch-phobia. Instead of assuming as the earlier laws did that witches were real and had real magical power derived from pacts with Satan, the new law assumed that there were no real witches, no one had real magic power and those claiming such powers were cheaters extorting money from gullible people.

The law was reverting to the view of the primitive and the medieval Church, expressed from at least the 8th century, at the Council of Paderborn, but contested by witch-phobic Dominican Inquisitors beginning in the mid 15th century, with some success in forwarding a new doctrine among the popes, as seen in the papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus (1484), but with far less success among the bishops. Thus the Act of 1735 reflected the general trend in Europe, where after a peak around 1600, and a series of outbursts in the late 17th century, witch-trials quickly subsided after 1700. The last person executed for witchcraft in Great Britain was Janet Horne in 1727.

In the early modern period, witch trials were seen between 1400 and 1782, where around 40,000 to 60,000 were killed due to suspicion that they were practicing witchcraft. These trials occurred primarily in Europe, and were particularly severe in some parts of the Holy Roman Empire. Some witch-hunts would last for years, and some sources estimate 100,000 trials occurred. Groundwork on the concept of witchcraft (a person's collaboration with the devil through the use of magic) was developed by Christian theologians as early as the 13th century. However, prosecutions for the practice of witchcraft reached a high point only from 1560 to 1630 during the Counter-Reformation and the European wars of religion, with some regions burning at the stake those who were convicted, of whom roughly 80% were women, mostly over the age of 40.

Richard van Bleeck (1670–1733) was a Dutch Golden Age painter.

#richard van bleeck #golden age #the hague #uk #portrait

[thatsparrow]

thoughts after the first 2 episodes of live-action atla

(mild spoilers to follow)

(these opinions are obviously informed by having grown up on the animated series, and my primarily considering the live-action version in terms of how it holds up as an adaption to a previously existing property, as opposed to wholly treating it as its own entity)

1. the bending was one of the things I was most interested to see, and it's absolutely some of the most visually interesting, creative, and dynamic parts of the show. it also adds a new level of intensity and violence to the fights (gotta say, far more immolation than I expected) — there's a much more visceral sense of what happens when you earthbend a bunch of jagged stones bullet-speed or how it would feel to get hit by a concussive blast of air or that we're dealing with real fire here, and, where the animated show seemed to treat firebending as mainly like dealing force damage to other people (excepting a couple significant, plot-relevant moments, e.g., zuko's scar, aang burning katara's hands, the lightning that hits aang's back), the live-action show makes clear how brutal those hits would actually be (related: also lent a new appreciation to the kyoshi warriors fighting with metal fans—of course if you're a non-bender, you'd need a practical, handheld means not just of fighting, but of blocking elemental attacks coming your way)

2. the first episode starts before the war, establishing the fire nation's plan to attack, and leading with their assault on the southern air temple, aang leaving shortly beforehand and getting caught in the storm, and setting all of this during the "comet festival," previewing the importance of sozin's comet presumably before however they plan to adapt the finale. most of this is information we got in flashbacks in the animated show (some of it shown explicitly, some just alluded to). I liked the sequence at the southern air temple, but I do think the decision to dedicate a big chunk of the pilot to this backstory shows how much of the live-action focuses on exposition and tying everything into the overarching story. will get into it more once katara and sokka meet aang, but one of my biggest takeaways with the longer episode run-times and shorter season (a decision I'm sure was logistically/executively driven) is that the show feels like it has no time to breathe. they're trying to fit so much story into eight episodes that suddenly everything has to be in service of setting up all the things aang has to do and finding ways to get him through that checklist of goals as soon as possible, as opposed to the characters organically exploring the world, driven by the fun, curious, sometime selfish impulses of kids/teenagers, coming across the ever-present consequences of the war and reacting to those situations, ramping up the stakes throughout the season

3. I'll give the live-action credit in that I think it's able to create a sense of scale and grandeur in a way that doesn't always translate in the animated version. the southern air temple and the surrounding mountains truly feel up in the clouds. the wreckage of the fire nation ship that katara explores feels massive. the spine and ribs supporting the water tribe's tent. appa's size comparison to all the other characters! those visuals added a new element and depth to the scenes that I thought was really well done

4. okay, one of my main beefs was how often it felt like they changed the plot in a way that removed agency from the characters. things are happening around them rather than really done by them. aang's emergence from the iceberg is a great example of this. instead of being caused by katara's explosive bursts of anger (also previewing how strong she is as a bender), it almost felt more like something that happened to coincide with her trying to summon the canoe back. was she the source? it was hard to tell. and if not, you lose all the impetus that comes from katara (and sokka, inadvertently) being the ones to bring about aang's arrival. instead, they just happen to be at the right place in the right time.

5. again, it's wild to me how fast the story moved. I left the room for like ten minutes right when zuko's ship was arriving, and when I came back, they were already leaving on appa for the southern air temple (which also happened in the same episode! wild!!)

6. aside — re: the previous point about the characters' lack of agency, was thinking about this in terms of aang and katara not hitting the tripwire in the old fire nation ship—a moment of two kids exploring a place they're not supposed to be, making a mistake, and that mistake having ramifications. feels like such a byproduct of current media engagement/discourse that the characters don't seem allowed to make mistakes or have negative attributes or fuck up at all really! if something bad happens, it's caused externally, and if there's any internal or interpersonal tension, it's solved right away

(okay quick read more break bc this got a little long)

7. side effect of that compressed timeline, trying to balance all the various storylines while also prioritizing exposition and plot, there's no room for character development, let alone the characters getting a chance to know one another. no time passes between aang waking up in the southern water tribe and katara and sokka agreeing to go with him. other than him being the avatar, why do they really care about one another? what's their connection? it doesn't feel like they have much of one, not helped by the fact that the next episode has them all pursuing (mostly) separate ends

8. one thing that the compressed timeline also felt like it was missing was room for fun—that aang's first thought on waking up was wanting to go penguin sledding, that when they reach the southern air temple they first play airball, that he wants to go kyoshi island to ride giant koi fish! the live-action version has so little time to focus on anything but plot that it missed this piece of a 12-year-old kid being a 12-year-old kid, who left the air temple in part because he was overwhelmed by the responsibility in front of him, who wants to explore the world and, in the process, can't help but continue to come across all these consequences of the fire nation's conquest—moments which often hit that much harder for the moments of levity just before (e.g., aang beating sokka in airball before discovering gyatso's body)

9. coming from the animated series, it was a little—surprising, I guess? how quickly aang leans wholeheartedly into his destiny to end the war, and that becomes the guiding motivation for their decisions, e.g., visiting kyoshi island to seek out the shrine, rather than just goofing around with some giant koi fish (granted, I haven't seen the animated series in a while, but I really felt like mention of studying waterbending, particularly katara wanting to improve as a waterbender, was raised much earlier). additionally, given how quickly he accepts the responsibility, so much of his internal tension revolves around being afraid of his own power and how to best approach his aims, rather than the animated show's more persistent early dilemma of him being reluctant to accept the mantle of avatar and all that goes with it (this is maybe going to sound like a goofy way of phrasing it, but live-action aang feels more like a character than he does like a kid)

10. again, a side effect of the compressed timeline, but because there are significantly fewer episodes (8 vs… 20?), there's this need to have everything be related to the central story. I think back to the animated show, where so many of the episodes' stakes were less directly tied to the fire nation (certainly initial events might be triggered or influenced by the nature of the war/conquest existing around them, the characters living under the shadow of that past and current violence, but then the episode's tension would be focused elsewhere.) zuko wasn't the main villain for every episode, or his pursuance of the gaang often felt more like a 1v1 than the gaang up against the might of the fire nation. necessarily, the live-action show needs to move more quickly, but it's wild to me that zhao is introduced and leads a force against the gaang in episode two, when we've barely event gotten a sense of zuko as an adversary

11. overall, I thought all the actors were really solid, particularly the kids/teenagers — I was struck by how much aang and katara felt like kids in comparison to sokka, suki, and zuko

12. that said, I feel like the actors are doing their best with what they've been given, which so often feels like not enough. I was really struck, particularly in episode 2, how much of a backseat character katara felt like, which is wild! I think her actor does a great job of conveying katara's hope and stubbornness, but it was frustrating me how little it sememed like her character had to do. the sokka/suki romance is fun, but it did feel very unbalanced to me how much focus that got, and how little screentime katara received in comparison (she goes with aang to the library, she watches him when she's in the spirit world, she stands up to zuko, and that's… mostly it? man I don't know, maybe it gets corrected in later episodes, but in my mind, she's such a driving force in the animated show, and in the live-action, it feels like she's been made as uncomplicated as possible, and that leads to her being a much less action-driven character)

13. very cool and fun how they represented the spirit world! there was a disorienting, unsettling, dream-like element to it that added a new sense of unreality and danger to what those trips to the spirit world would feel like

14. so. I get why kyoshi is the first avatar aang speaks to, bc you've established his rationale for visiting kyoshi island as seeking out her shrine, but it definitely felt… odd? disastifying? that she's the first avatar he speaks to as opposed to roku. kyoshi has such a specific perspective as the avatar, one that's often at odds with aang's approach informed by having been raised by the monks, and so it was surprising to have this first conversation with a past avatar be one where the two are inherently disaligned in their methods, compared to the mentor/mentee relationship between roku and aang 

15. speaking of the conversation between aang and kyoshi, the resolution to that moment being kyoshi taking over aang's body to fight off zhao also felt like another instance of the characters having less agency, and therefore less opportunity to learn from their choices. instead of balancing kyoshi's advice with the monks' teachings, she does all the fighting for aang, so he's absolved from needing to thread that needle. instead of stealing the waterbending scroll and incurring the anger of the pirates, it's just given to katara (and she struggles significantly less with learning the forms)

16. this is a small thing, but I was hoping to see far more animals than we have. no penguins? no rough riders? no giant koi fish? no unagi?? (I know with the changes, they didn't have much role in the plot, but I always want a giant water eel)

17. I was very surprised that the motivation for visiting the northern water temple was kyoshi's warning to aang, rather than him and katara trying to find a waterbending master, which still felt like a good enough reason on its own. I have to assume it's to establish urgency because by the end of the ep, there are only 6 episodes left in the season, but it leads to feeling like the characters are just being ushered from one location to the next for the sake of checking off plot points, rather than them choosing what to do and where to go based on their own inner motivations

18. I think that's everything

tldr there were elements of watching it that I really enjoyed, but having grown up on the animated series, it was difficult to watch the live-action without also keeping the animated series analogs in mind and often feeling less satisfied by the adaptation choices that were made—understandable ones, to be sure, to suit the constraints of the shorter season, and likely a whole host of other logistical and production concerns, but I do think the plot and characters suffer as a result

#avatar the last airbender #atla #atla live action #atla spoilers #kayla's media tag #avatar

[aladdin]

WHO STOLE MY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY? Aladdin Investigates

In 2021, I made a social media post to publicly call out one of my clients, Z2 Comics, for underpaying their creatives. I received between $45 - $75 a page for my coloring work, always below the industry minimum standard for mainstream work, while being pushed to work at rapid and unsustainable speeds. In that post, I expressed other grievances, as well, such as being told by Z2 leadership that I was simply replaceable - they told me they could hire new colorists for as low as $30 a page. 

The CEO of the company, Josh Frankel, appeared on my public call-out thread to tell me I was being "inappropriate,", and proceeded to terminate all active projects with my coloring studio, I Love Lamp, LLC. He was fully in his right to execute that decision - we had no work-for-hire contracts between us to complicate the business / legal side of things. 

Although Josh referred to himself as my “employer” on that thread, he must have either been confused. Luckily for him, because he was my client, and not an employer, it was not a federal crime for him to terminate our relationship over my open discussion of compensation with other working artists. 

Z2 found new colorists to finish up Elvis The Graphic Novel, Sublime: $5 at the Door, and Machine Gun Kelly's Hotel Diablo Graphic Novel. 

Although I met lots of great illustrators and editors during my time working with Z2, the experience was, broadly speaking, a nightmare. I was more than ready to sever ties. I retained, however, a massive financial stake in the work that I'd done - I never surrendered any of my intellectual property. 

The More You Know: In the American Legal system, a colorist is a co-author of the comic books on which they work, with the full rights that entails. 

I had no energy for a fight, so I straight up offered all of my IP to Z2, for free, under the condition that they write out an official contract. My intention was to have a complete list of work I'd done for Z2, and ensure that I'd be properly credited for my work, by the company, moving forward - a mutually beneficial arrangement, I believed. 

Josh rejected the offer, saying that a contract wouldn't be necessarily, and that the email itself "should work fine." In that same email, Josh also accepted an apology from me that I didn't make. I laughed at the clown, and wrote his name down in my burn-book ("Josh Frankel Is a Fugly Slut").

I made no further attempts to offer my IP to the Z2 circus show. Instead, when Z2 continued use my work in promotional material, I sent a cease and desist to Z2's marketing department, and offered an explanation to the various new hires that Z2 never secured the rights to my work. I was ignored, and the solicitations continued. 

The Hotel Diablo graphic novel, which was completed in my absence, was nonetheless heavily marketed using pages that my studio had colored - because, presumably, other colorists had been paid $30 a page, and their efforts reflected that. BloodyDisgusting and ComicsBeat both published uncredited previews of my work on that book, which have since been corrected to include my name. Explaining how my name had been omitted, the journalist at Bloody-Disgusting told me that he “was only able to run what I was provided with.” 

Z2 comics thought that it was in their best interests, apparently, to simply remove my credits from future publications - or, the company is just so sloppy that no one even knows who worked on what.

When the The Elvis Graphic Novel was released, the final print contained my my covers, my pin-ups, and more than a dozen pages of interior coloring, with the rest of the color art clearly modeled after my own - but my credits had been entirely stripped from the work.

Confused and angry, I checked the copyright text within the book - the Elvis Estate was claiming 100% of the IP rights in the book. Where did my intellectual property go? 

Did the Elvis Estate steal my color art? Does the Elvis Estate even know that my color art was stolen? Does the Elvis Estate they know they are trafficking in grifted IP? 

I'm sure that Elvis would be rolling in his grave to know that his brand was associated with stealing the work of other artists. 

Anyway, I checked online, and there exists no record (that I can find) that credits me for my coloring work on that Elvis, other than my own various social media posts. When I nominated myself for awards in 2021, I had included that Title -  how embarrassing to discover that there was no public record of my involvement.  

Newly incensed, I contacted an Arts / Entertainment lawyer for the first time. I never intended to file lawsuits - I just wanted to be treated fairly, and recover my intellectual property. The lawyer explained the dynamics of IP and copyright in 2022, and sent me on a quest to the US Copyright Offices to look up all the copyrights to the books I've worked on. 

Wouldn't you know it, almost every Graphic Novel I ever worked on with Z2 had been registered, with the entirety of the Intellectual Property being copyrighted by Z2's various clients. These copyrights were not filed independently by the artists - all the copyrights were registered by the same Lawyer in Alexandria, VA. I sent the lawyer an email asking, in effect, "Hey WTF?"

I have received no reply, and have since reported their office to the Virginia State Bar. 

Early in my tenure contracting for Z2, in 2020, Z2 co-founder Josh Frankel explained to me, at his birthday party, that he was withholding my creator credits in the press so that I wouldn't get poached out from under him. It was his clever solution for retaining my services. At the time, I didn’t have other offers for work, and I was encouraged by other creators to push through my frustrations, and earn my place at the table. I kept working for Z2, despite feeling devalued (because I was literally being devalued). 

Upon further reflection, there is reason to suspect that Josh's idea to withhold my credits may have had even broader implications than what he revealed to me. The concerted effort to minimize my association with Z2 comics happened to dovetail quite nicely with a possible corporate embezzlement scheme - Z2 had legal access to, but not legal ownership over, my Intellectual Property. Somehow, all of Z2′s clientele seems to be under the impression that they own 100% of the IP contained within their various projects.  I haven’t fenced a lot of stolen goods, but I imagine, as an arm-chair gangster, that it’s lot easier to sell stolen material if the buyers don't know that it was stolen. Did the clients even bother to check if the colorist had signed away his rights? 

From my studio in Baltimore, I can't do much other than speculate. Some questions remain, for me:

What happened, behind the scenes, that caused Z2's clients to believe that they owned all of my IP? 

Is there a relationship between this years-long IP 'displacement,’ and the fact that Josh Frankel left the company this Fall? 

If Z2 did, in fact, intentionally embezzle hundreds of pages of my coloring art over the course of 3 years, would that constitute a valid RICO case to be mounted against the company? 

Did God himself orchestrate these events to amuse himself over the irony of a bunch of 'anti-establishment' Artists and musicians using the power of the State to facilitate the theft of art from smaller creators? 

When I colored 2 pages of the Magic comic for Boom!, I was credited in their press release, and was tagged in tweets for months as the book was reviewed, and later collected into trade paperback editions. 

Z2, meanwhile, has sent dozens of my pages out for previews, while withholding my name from the credits. Some popular outlets that currently feature my uncredited work online include Paste Magazine, ScreenRant, the Hollywood Reporter, the Comics Journal, and BleedingCool. 

Was there a legitimate corporate conspiracy against me, with agents in place across all spectrums of Pop Culture? Is the US State going to stand in my way as I march through Hell to take revenge on God for his failure to protect me and my family? Must I surrender my own humanity in order to summon the cyberpunk that lurks within? What will I become? 

Sorry, my degree is in “Dramatic Writing,” not “Intellectual Property Law.”

Anyway, here's a non-exhaustive list of of Copyright Claimants that have filed, with the US Copyright Office, for full legal ownership over my Intellectual Property on their various publishing projects. For the lulz, I have added three asterisks to each book that utilizes “Anti-Authoritarianism” as a major literary theme. 

Grateful Dead Productions  Grateful Dead - Origins ***

Dominic Harrison ("Yungblud") Yungblud Presents: The Twisted Tales of the Ritalin Club *** Yungblud Presents: Weird Times at Quarry Bank ***

Moriah Rose Pereira ("Poppy") Poppy 1: Genesis *** Poppy's Inferno ***

Universal Music Group The Final Symphony: A Beethoven Anthology.

Skillet Eden II: The Aftermath ***

Dance Gavin Dance  Tale of the Robot ***

Rico Nasty, Inc.  Nightmare Vaycay *** Note: all images in this post were colored by Aladdin Collar for I Love Lamp, LLC, whose services were solicited by Z2 Comics. The Elvis Estate actually made minor adjustments to the Elvis cover, to their credit, they were very helpful in making their final touches, instead sending a thousand emails about inane bullshit. The paper texture on A Robot’s Tale was taken from an old book on archive.org, I don’t remember which one. The b/g textures of the Yungblud Presents cover below were originally from scans of a silk tie-dye scarf I originally made with my Mom for the Grateful Dead book and reused in at least 4 different projects. 

#Aladdin Collar #Z2 Comics #Publishing #Comics #Color Art #Grateful Dead #Poppy #yungblud #skillet #dance gavin dance #rico nasty #elvis presley #Intellectual Property #Copyright

[local-ragamuffin]

The Year Between (A Castlevania fic)

Summary: After Lisa Tepes was burned at the stake and Dracula Vlad Tepes announced that everyone in Wallachia only has one year until he unleashes his army from hell upon them, a small child runs to the vampire’s castle to beg him to spare everyone. It doesn’t go as planned... But at least she gets to live, and Dracula gets a new friend(?). 

Run. Run, run run run run RUN. Her brain screamed at her, that this was a bad idea, but she didn’t think anyone else was dumb enough to try. Her little legs went as fast as they could carry her little body. Her little arms shielded her face from most of the pouring rain, yet she could barely see. Mud caked her already torn shoes and splashed onto the backs of her ankles as she ran like her life depended on it. 

In a way, it did. It had been a day since Dracula’s wife was executed under the charge of witchcraft.  She wasn’t a bad woman, the child knew that much. Lisa Tepes had visited the orphanage on multiple occasions to help the other children when they got sick. She didn’t deserve the cruel fate the church had given her... And now, Dracula Vlad Tepes, her husband, had given everyone in Wallachia one year to prepare for his wrath. He had sworn to unleash an army from the depths of Hell upon the land to avenge his beloved. 

And this small child thought she could convince him to change his mind. She knew it probably wouldn’t work, but some small part of her believed that if he could love someone enough to get married, then he could understand that not everyone deserved to die. 

So, she ran through the pouring rain to the steps of the dreaded Castlevania, narrowly dodging skeletons and beasts as she went. The heavy rain provided enough cover for her to move without being seen by the monsters, but it did little to ease her terror. 

Finally, she stumbled up the steps and stared up at the enormous doors. She knew she was small, but now, she felt like an ant before the giant castle. The child took some deep breaths to calm herself, and with a shaking hand, she knocked. 

The door creaked open, just enough for the child to see an eye staring down at her. It took all of her courage not to run away crying. She was here for a reason.

“I... I’m here to speak to Mister Dracula... It’s, it’s important...” Her voice was barely above a whisper, and yet she knew the eye’s owner could hear her. The eye widened before returning to its weary and enraged state. A deep voice responded, a voice that sent a chill down the girl’s spine.

“I do not take kindly to visitors, little one. Why do you disturb me? Do you not value your life?” The girl responded almost immediately. She had practiced what she wanted to say in front of her reflection in the window for the past several hours. Still, her voice shook, both from the cold and the fear coursing through her veins.

“I- I’m sorry for your loss... But I don’t think everyone should die. Only some people are bad, most people are nice, they’re just... Sc- scared...” The vampire’s eyes softened at this. She was only a child, with her whole life ahead of her, and she knew he planned to slaughter everyone... And yet, here she is, pleading for mercy on behalf of the people who killed his beloved Lisa. What would she say? Vlad was never great with children, or humans in general. That was his wife’s forte. Perhaps she would take pity on the child, invite her inside, maybe? The vampire was at a loss for words. He couldn’t bring himself to hate the poor thing. 

Eventually, he spoke once more, his voice now much softer. “I cannot forgive them for what they have done to my wife, little one, and so I cannot let them live. However, I cannot bring myself to hate you. You are an innocent child, and yet you took it upon yourself to apologize on behalf of your people... You do not deserve death. If you stay here, with me, I can guarantee your safety once I unleash my army in one year’s time. Do... Do you have a name, little one?” He... was offering to spare her, and her alone? This wasn’t the outcome she had expected, but... If she could at least save herself, maybe she could convince him before it was too late. She made up her mind, despite how frightened she was of the monster she spoke to. “...O- okay... I’ll stay with you... ‘m Evelyn...” Dracula opened the door wide enough for Evelyn to see him. He towered over the trembling child, and she once again felt like an ant looking up at a giant. He stepped aside, bowing and stretching out one arm to welcome her into his home. 

“I promise, I will keep you safe, Evelyn. No harm shall come to you here. Welcome to my home, child.”

And so, her little legs, trembling with each step, carried her little body through the enormous doorway and into the strangest year of her life thus far. 

A/N: Hey! I hope you like my fic so far! I might write more if enough people enjoy this! This is my first time writing a fanfic for any fandom, so I’m a bit nervous... Thanks to @alucarddear for giving me the advice I needed to put my thoughts into something tangible! 

#castlevania netflix #castlevania fic #dracula vlad tepes #oc #my first fic #feedback would be appreciated! #story #rags writes #the year between

[we-pay-for-everything]

Merlin’s more “serious” episodes are both its undoing and its saving grace. The filler episodes are usually boring, but the plot heavy ones are incredibly aggravating. Morgana going evil makes no sense. We witnessed her growing resentment torward the king, but she always cared for people - so why doesn’t she care about taking innocent lives anymore? Why isn’t it enough to defeat Uther? Why must she get her revenge? What happened in that full year she was gone? Also, I assume that Morgana only doesn’t just kill Uther because she wants to take control of Camelot in order to restore magic to the kingdom. She’s had many chances to kill him already...  

Another annoying thing about evil Morgana, other than its “men are deserving of compassion, but women are just evil and crazy and must burn at the stake” implications, is that, the eviler Morgana gets, the more it seems that Arthur and Uther can’t live without her. A big issue with Merlin is how inconsistent everyone’s characterization is. An ambitious plot can’t be properly executed this way.

The entire fate of Camelot rests on Merlin’s unflinching belief that he must save Arthur and Uther at all costs. He must save Arthur because he will restore magic to the kingdom and unite the lands, even though there’s no evidence of either, and he must save Uther because his death would destabilize the Kingdom and hurt Arthur. According to Gaius, Arthur is not yet ready to take over the throne - and that is true - but the pros of killing Uther still outweigh the cons. Arthur is immature, yes, but he’s a man of the people and will do anything for Camelot: he’s respected by all, he’s one of the greatest knights in all the lands, he’s willing to listen to others and learn from his mistakes even if he’s also stubborn. Uther may be more experienced in ruling the kingdom, but he has many enemies and a frightening body count; he’s also inflexible and ruthless. Uther is all that stands in the way of Arthur becoming the great King he’s destined to become and perhaps ending the war on magic.

Merlin believes Arthur is his destiny because the last dragon said so, and everything he’s seen so far naturally strengthens his belief in Arthur - it’s clear that he has the potential to be a great king. However, for magic to become legal, since Uther will never change his mind, Arthur must see reason. As long as Uther lives, Arthur will follow him blindly and his lies and beliefs will continue to poison Arthur against magic. And this is partly Merlin’s fault - not only is he the one keeping Uther alive, but he’s withholding vital information from the man he wishes to become king. Because of Merlin’s lies, Arthur believed that Morgause had deceived Arthur with a vision of his dead mother. His mother had exposed Uther hypocrisy, which, for the first time, made Arthur seriously question Uther’s judgment. However, Merlin covered for Uther, because doing so meant Arthur wouldn’t suffer and the king would live. But even if Merlin didn’t wish for the King to die, he at least had a chance to show Arthur that magic wasn’t necessarily evil or deceitful, and that Uther had a personal vendetta against magic and was a hypocrite for murdering all magic users or sympathizers when both he and Gaius had used magic before. 

Furthermore, by keeping his own secret, Merlin kept Arthur for being exposed to the healing and protective powers of magic. Arthur is loyal, especially to those who risk their lives for him, so if Merlin had made Arthur see that he was helping him, Arthur’s attitude towards magic could’ve shifted a bit. How is he supposed to see that magic isn’t evil when all he knows are the many times magic has been used to kill either him or his father? He grew up believing magic was wrong and that magic users were ill or less than human. To undo this indoctrination, something or someone needed to make him question his beliefs, yet Merlin never let it.

I understand that Merlin has to look out for himself and Arthur never gave him a good reason to trust he wouldn’t tell Uther about him. However, by keeping the truth from Arthur, he wasn’t given a real chance to change his mind. Merlin is simply banking on a prophecy that tells him one day Arthur will accept magic, which is foolish and hypocritical. Merlin will go against the dragon’s heedings when it’s convenient, so it isn’t that his faith in the dragon’s wisdom is unshakable - rather, some advice is just easier to follow. Merlin, as Arthur’s servant and sort-of friend, has room to at least create opportunities in Arthur’s life to show him not all magic is evil and Uther is a liar. The death and suffering of magic users and sympathizers is more on Merlin’s hands than it is on Arthur’s - Arthur has the excuse of ignorance. (I will say, Arthur’s relationship to magic is inconsistent and there were times he saw its power for good and ignored it, but Arthur believes it is his duty to follow his father and that Camelot is only safe due to Uther’s reign of terror - a fact which truthfully is never disproven). If Merlin trusts that Arthur is kind and better than Uther, than he must give him a chance to become the king Camelot needs. Merlin chooses to stand by and let people die. He refused to help Morgana by sharing his secret, and look where that got them. Maybe it sounds unfair to put it all on Merlin but he took on this responsibility himself - as he chose to interfere and decide what’s best for Camelot, he must be held accountable. Had he let Uther die a long time ago, Arthur would be King, Morgana wouldn’t be evil, and although Camelot would be somewhat vulnerable, magic users would be a bit safer and there would be hope for a brighter future. 

It’s funny that Merlin’s main reason to save Morgana after she fell down the stairs was knowing she’s Uther’s real daughter. I understand he was afraid of Uther going mad and unleashing hell on Camelot, but it’s still ironic that he protects Arthur because he will be better than Uther, yet he protects Uther with the same gusto - even if only from emotional damage.

I don’t believe Uther is the real, or only, bad guy of Merlin - it often seems like Merlin and Gaius are just as culpable. Gaius, after all, protects and admires Uther, and so does Merlin to an extent. 

#merlin #bbc merlin #morgana #bbc morgana #uther pendragon #arthur pendragon #gaius #bbc gaius #dunno how to tag this show yet

[heartscfvalor]

Introducing: Wednesday Addams

“Wednesday’s child Full of woe”

Wednesday Friday Addams is the second born child of Gomez and Morticia Addams, and the youngest sister to Pugsley, and thus is the youngest of the Addams line, unless her younger brother Pubert is ever born. She has a very close connection with Lurch, the family’s butler, and her grandmother, Esmerelda, with whom she was taught witchcraft.

As a small child, Wednesday was comparatively the “normal” child of her family, having a quite bright and cheerful demeanor, whilst having a few “odd” hobbies, such as raising tarantulas and having her favorite dolls beheaded. Her favorite color has always been black, and she kept her hair in twin braids, considering they were easier to manage in such a style.

The older she got, however, the more dark, grim and downright bitter Wednesday became; by the age of thirteen, she adopted an almost sinister personality, rarely ever smiling, and often subjecting Pugsley to forms of torture, such as electrocuting him in an execution chair, and branding him with a tire iron. She also had some great relish in psychologically torturing him, as well as attempting to kill him several times, though none of her efforts worked, and she had to concede that her brother was there to stay.

During her school years, Wednesday was often the outcast among her peers, something she didn’t mind in the slightest, as she saw the other children as either mere playthings, or no one of great interest. However, she’d been able to be friendly with a few other outcasts, especially if they were being bullied, because if it was something she abhorred, it was bullying. Her teachers often found her strange, as did many people outside of her family, but her intelligence was enough for them to not say anything to give way to their thoughts, though during one school assembly, one of her teachers did ask Morticia about Wednesday’s great aunt, Calpurnia, who’d been burned at the stake in 1706 for witchcraft. Morticia was able to assure the teacher that while Wednesday held deep admiration for her aunt, she and Gomez had stressed that their daughter should go through college first before following in Calpurnia’s footsteps.

Wednesday went through a period of several rebellions during her teen years, like burning down a summer camp, to wearing brighter colors. But by the time she was twenty years old, she is back to her normal gothic attire, with her hair as long and luxurious as her mother’s, opting to let it flow loose down her back, or tying it in a tight braid to keep it out of her face. She eventually leaves the Addams manor in order to try adult life on her own, but she remains close with her family, as loyalty and love are their top priorities.

#introducing;; wednesday #visage;; wednesday #regarding;; wednesday #musings;; wednesday

[daimonclub]

Three brave and glorious women

Yana Rykhlitska Three brave and glorious women. For the International Women Day 2023 I would like to remember three extraordinary female characters, offering this way my homage to all the women of the world who are struggling for justice and freedom. Yana Rykhlitska, a 29-year-old paramedic who volunteered for the Ukrainian army in the 93rd Kholodnyi Yar Mechanized Brigade, has been killed near the city of Bajmut. Yana died during the evacuation of the wounded because the ambulance she was moving in was shot at by Russian troops, most likely by mercenaries of the Wagner Group, who have been slaying the city for days. Yana was known among the Ukrainian military fighting on the Bajmut front as "the angel of Ukrainian troops". An insurance company worker, Yana voluntarily joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces to work as a doctor at the stabilization center in the city of Bajmut following the Russian invasion. Furthermore she had been active in raising funds for Ukrainian fighters since the beginning of the invasion. Yana's friend Tetiana Zenart explained, "Hours before his medical evacuation vehicle was attacked, I asked her how she was." "She replied to me that she was having fun and still one piece." Spanish journalist Almudena Ariza also wanted to remember Yana, whom he met at the military hospital in the besieged city of Bajmut. "He told us she couldn't talk to the media, but offered us coffee and smiles," she wrote on his Twitter account. Rykhlitska's work was greatly appreciated by the soldiers, but also by the civilian population. She will always be remembered as a brave warrior, especially in Bajmut, where she also carried out 'on-site' evacuation work. They call her "bakhmoth angel." Her loss dealt a major blow to Ukrainian resistance.

St. Joan of Arc Jeanne d'Arc, also known as Joan of Arc, was born into a peasant family in northeastern France during the Hundred Years War between France and England. In 1429, at the age of 17, she presented herself to the Dauphin of France, Charles VII, and convinced him to give her command of an army to liberate the city of Orléans from the English siege. Joan also led troops to overcome a monastery named Bastille des Augustins that controlled a south approach to two English strongholds, Les Tourelles and Saint-Loup. These strongholds were part of a series of forts built by the English around Orleans in an effort to prevent anyone from leaving the city and to prevent trade and communication from entering, which helped secure her victory. Thanks to her military skills and her ability to inspire soldiers, Her leadership and military tactics were instrumental in repulsing an English attempt to conquer France during the war. Joan was able to win the battle and subsequently led the dauphin to her coronation as king of France. However, in 1430, Joan was captured by allied forces of the English and Burgundians and she was sold to the English. She was tried for heresy and witchcraft before an ecclesiastical court and was accused of having received her military and political instructions directly from God. This was considered heretical, as it challenged the authority of the Catholic Church. Furthermore, she was accused of wearing men's clothes and of behaving inappropriate for a woman. Giovanna defended herself with great courage, but she was sentenced to death by being burned at the stake. She was executed in Rouen, Normandy on May 30, 1431, at the age of 19. It was only in 1456 that the Catholic Church recognized her innocence and proclaimed her a saint.

Queen Boudicca Boudicca, also spelled Boadicea or Boudica, was the queen of the ancient British Iceni tribe. She is renowned for leading a rebellion against Roman rule in 60 CE. Widely regarded as a British national heroine and a symbol of the struggle for justice and independence, Boudica became queen of the Iceni people when she married King Prasutagus. Her name means "Victorious Woman", known in Latin chronicles as Boadicea or Boudicea, and in Welsh as Buddug. The rebellion of the Iceni tribe in 47 CE could be considered as one of the causes of Boudicca's rebellion against the Romans. The Iceni's earlier rebellion against the Romans shows that despite their alliance with Rome, there were still tensions between the two sides. When the Romans tried to disarm the Iceni, it may have been seen as a breach of trust and a violation of their agreement. This could have further fueled the Iceni's resentment towards Rome and increased their willingness to rebel again. On his death in AD 60/61, Prasutagus made his two daughters as well as the Roman Emperor Nero his heirs. The Romans ignored the will, and the kingdom was absorbed into the province of Britannia. Catus Decianus, procurator of Britain, was sent to secure the Iceni kingdom for Rome, confiscating the royal family's properties and mistreating Boudicca and her daughters. In response to this abuse, Boudicca led a revolt against the Romans. She raised an army of over 120,000 uniting various rival tribes to form a formidable force and attacked the Roman cities of Colchester, London and Verulamium (modern St Albans), killing and destroying everything in her way. Her most important victory was that of London, which she burned to the ground. While her forces did manage to massacre approximately 70,000 Romans and their supporters, in the end Boudicca's rebellion was defeated by the Roman army led by Governor Suetonius Paulinus at the Battle of Watling Street in AD 61. According to some sources, she Boudicca died soon after, while others say she survived and lived for some time after the revolt. The Roman army was heavily outnumbered - according to the historian Cassius Dio the rebels numbered 230,000 - but Boudica's army was crushed, and according to Tacitus, neither the women nor the animals were spared. Tacitus states that Boudica poisoned herself; Dio says she fell sick and died, after which she was given a lavish burial. It has been argued that these accounts are not mutually exclusive. Anyway, despite her defeat, Boudicca has become a symbol of resistance and freedom for many Britons and her story has been passed down through the generations as an example of courage and determination against oppression.

Boudicca Statue Westminster Bridge London To find out more about women you can also read: Women’s quotes Thoughts on women Men and women quotes Quotes on feminism Quotes by Arguments Quotes by Authors Thoughts & Opinions   Read the full article

#8 #army #Boudica #Boudicca #Boudicea #Britain #Day #defence #Empire #English #feast #fighting #freedom #French #heresy #hero #heroine #Iceni #international #invasion #Jeanned'Arc #JoanofArc #justice #London #March #Orléans #rebellion #Romans #soldiers #Ukrainian

[mythology-studios]

A story me and my boyfriend wrote

Me and my boyfriend have had a story in the works for awhile and in passing said we should post it somewhere. And since I'm on here on this god forsaken site, I thought maybe this would be a cool place to post it. He's not on here so its just me but he doesn't mind me posting it. If you come across this randomly I would love it if you read this. please enjoy!

This not profread so bare with me plz 👏

TW The following: Parental death, church being evil, public execution, death by fire, running away, threat to a child's life, violence

Prologue

A small child wakes up in a familiar town. She hears her mother call her down the stairs, her  father already eating food. Her mother tells her to sit down while she prepares her food. The little girl first picks up her book before she sits, starts reading it to herself. She reads of mythical beings something that always catches her attention is these winged beasts called dragons. She is handed food by her lovely mother and as her father finishes his, there’s a knock at the door. The father, brushing himself off looking presentable, opens the door to see three guardsmen and one paladin. The paladin grabs the daughter, mother, and  father and brings them to the townsquare. The little girl unfortunately dropped the book back at the old, rickety townhouse.

 As the paladin and guardsmen harshly drag the family to the townsquare the townspeople start to gather around. The family is now tied to the stakes(poles). The paladin finally starts to speak shouting, “ This family has allowed their child to say the word of heresy. This is treason of the highest regards. Let this be a lesson to all who disobey the church.” The father spits at the paladin and for that the paladin swings his large broad ax down on the father’s face. The father lay dead while the mother screamed. The screams are so horrid that they can be heard all throughout the mountains. The mother with sticks laying all about her feet covered with this sticky substance starts to struggle as best she can. 

The paladin laughs to himself as he stares at the mother in distress and brings up his torch and starts to light it. He looks dead at the townspeople and looks back at his guardsmen, and he says “ Don’t let this happen again men.” As he finishes he tosses down his torch towards the sticks under the mother’s feet. It quickly engulfs in the flames along with the mother. The sickeningly sweet smell of the burning flesh goes all throughout the town and the woods. You can even hear the wolves howling now . He gets up to the daughter and spits on her. “ This is all your fault. They didn’t have to die. You caused all of this pain, remember this when you go see Satan himself.” He starts to raise his ax, but soon hears a horde of screaming coming from the townspeople. Apparently the wolves and other woodland creatures smell a great feast being made for them. The paladin and his guardsmen start running towards the danger leaving the girl alone. 

The embers of the mother’s fiery corpse start to burn away at the girl's ropes, also scarring her arm. When the ropes snap she darts towards her little shack of a house. She grabs everything she could possibly need: clothes , food , water , a compass and as soon as she’s about to leave she looks down. The book. That's a sweet, sweet haven of a book. She takes it and starts towards the woods avoiding all the townspeople. As she gets towards the front gates however she sees a vile monster in paladin armor. He starts yelling at his guardsmen to round up everyone. He spots the little girl and pulls out his crossbow. One bolt is all it could take for this little girl. He shoots. However with all the commotion, he is not able to hit a shot. The girl recognizes that she is now being hunted for darts towards the drawbridge. As they are closing it she makes her desperate leap of faith. She crosses the chasm of “deadly” water. She lands with effort due to how inexperienced she is at running away.

 She runs deep into the woods, so deep in fact that she can’t hear anything anymore, just birds and wildlife. And yet she finds a cabin she makes her way into and seems to be a well dressed huntress. The huntress was covered in all black with nice gold fur pelt on her back. She turns to the little girl with a little bit of shock due to not knowing a child would just barge in on her like this. She, very confused, asked what the girl was doing there. The little girl tells her the story of what happened and of course the huntress doesn’t believe her because she's a child until she notices the scar on her arm. 

The huntress stares at the child for a moment and looks at what the child is holding, seeing a book clutched in her hands. Holding the book tightly to her small. The huntress flips through the book before landing on a page and after a moment she takes a pen to it, circling the page. As she read, a wide grin showed on her face and she shut the book. Without a word, she looks at the girl and leaves. About five minutes go by, and the little girl is still in the cabin. The walls around her seem to be decaying rather quickly. The house around her, while it looked relatively new, looked to be about 50 years old. The huntress’s items were vanishing in front of the girl. All trances of the Huntress had all but disappeared. The girl flips through her book and finds the Huntress had circled a page about dragons. The girl goes outside into the forest to find the huntress and sees her track have disappeared. 

#original story #prologue #I cut this shorter then it is #hope you enjoy #fantasy story #creative writing #writing

[multiverseofmiracleshq]

DOMAIN: HIGH AVALON

BARON(S): Morgan LeFay

CAPITAL: The Faire

HISTORY:

For some, to visit HIGH AVALON is to travel back into the past. High Avalon is medieval in nature; home to Lords, Ladies, Kings and Queens, the domain was formed in the early days of Battleworld and operated independently ever since. In the early days of High Avalon, things were different from how they ended up in the present. High Avalon acted as a magical hotspot due to its position over the portal to the domain of OTHERWORLD. Baron ARTHUR PENDRAGON accepted magic from all and never dreamed that MORGAN LEFAY, his sister, would execute him for the throne. Ruthless by nature, LeFay seized the domain and changed a great many things. Despite a high concentration of magical beings in the realm, Baroness LeFay outlawed all unsanctioned magic so that she could remain the most powerful magic user in the realm. It was because of this that those who were gifted with magic had no choice but to conceal their abilities – which was easier for some than others. LeFay’s tyrannical rule of the domain has made the recent years tense and the magic that once filled the air has begun to dwindle. The portal to Otherworld has been closed so that those who came from the magical domain cannot get home. Instead, they became hunted by LeFay and her guard, THE ORDER OF THE NIGHT, for sport. High Avalon has an illustrious history, but the future is grim.

THINGS TO KNOW:

Magic remains the lifeblood of High Avalon. Communities of magic users have formed in the dead of night, and they actively look for a way to reopen the portal – which exists under the BRADDOCK LIGHTHOUSE – so that they can go home to Otherworld. Tasked with ensuring this doesn’t happen are LeFay’s guards; the Order of the Night are a group of Knights led by BRIAN OF BRADDOCK, the aristocrat whose family once served Baron Pendragon. They’re opposed by the DEFENDERS OF THE OPAL, a group who protect a sorceress named OPAL LUNA SATURNYNE and help to harbor hunted magical beings. Saturnyne has long been believed to be the perfect replacement for Baroness LeFay when she’s overthrown. They often meet in secret at the Crucible, an old tavern run by JESSICA JONES. Blocked from entering the bar is KEVIN KILGRAVE, the Purple Man. Kilgrave has long been a close personal enforcer of Baroness LeFay who uses his ability to control people to gain information on magical fugitives. He resides in Morgan LeFay’s castle, the Faire, along with her closest associates. Anyone who is caught stepping outside the law is brought to the Stake, where they are held in the dungeon before being burned at the stake. Due to their mutations being mistaken for magic, the domain is not safe for mutants. For the noblemen living cushy lives, however, the Eternity Palace is a popular spot to gather. While magical beings have been outlawed, the Eternal gods who escaped EGYPTIA during Baron APOCALYPSE’S butchering of the Old Gods are allowed to live in debauchery and luxury there as long as they use their abilities to aid Baroness LeFay from time to time. Anyone who enters their palace is guaranteed a good time. Some have attempted to get them to join the fight against Lefay, but they have been reluctant to lend a hand. If LeFay isn’t overthrown, some wonder if the domain will survive at all. If it loses its magic entirely, there’s a chance it’ll die.

PLEASE SEE UNDER THE CUT FOR BIOS.

AURORA – not many mutants live in High Avalon due to the dangers that it presents, but AURORA was so desperate to get away from her other self, JEANNE-MARIE BEAUBIER, that she fled the domain of MOONVALE and ended up in High Avalon because she thought no one would look for her there. Within the borders of High Avalon, Aurora built a life for herself as an astronomer due to the work with the stars that she had done with the group known as ALPHA FLIGHT in her home domain. What most don’t know, however, is that Aurora was not always her own person. Her other self, Beaubier, was the dominant personality until an experiment separated the two. Aurora fled before they could be reconnected and has hidden in her new life ever since. Her talents make her valuable to Baroness MORGAN LEFAY, who has no clue that Aurora is actually a mutant. As long as she can keep up her ruse, she should be fine.It’s all about playing a part convincingly. 

DRUIG – originally from EGYPTIA, the Eternal Old God DRUIG escaped from his home domain after the Baron APOCALYPSE began his massacre of the Old Gods. He, along with his fellow Eternal SERSI, ended up running to High Avalon due to its strong magical aura. There, they met the Baroness MORGAN LEFAY. LeFay, who had a strict no policy against magic, seemed to find some value in the Eternals and allowed Druig and Sersi to stay in their own palace, Eternity,  as long as they used their abilities to help her in the hunt for magical beings. More than willing to use his powers of mind possession, Druig agreed and began a hedonistic lifestyle of partying with very little thought about the Eternals he had left behind. Very little, that was, until Druig realized that Battleworld was a fraud created by THE GOD EMPEROR DOOM, aka, VICTOR VON DOOM following the Incursions. Disappointed by the fact that eight years of his life had been spent forsaking his friends and that their reality was fraud, Druig knows that he needs to return to Egyptia, help free his friends and then take on God Emperor Doom. He’s not sure how to do it quite yet, but he’s always been good at getting people to do what he wants. He’ll figure it out.

ELEKTRA NATCHIOS – some have no choice with where their story begins. For ELEKTRA NATCHIOS, it was as the daughter of a nobleman with a considerable fortune. During a night raid the Lady Natchios was murdered and her daughter was taken as hostage for a ransom. To the surprise of the Guild of Thieves – known primarily as the HAND – Sir Natchios refused payment and turned his back on his only child. Sparing her life, the Hand raised Natchios to be a thief and assassin instead. She became so skilled at her craft that they eventually sold her to Baroness MORGAN LEFAY to work as a personal hitman; it was for the Baroness that Natchios was directed to infiltrate the DEFENDERS OF THE OPAL, a group that harbored and aided magical beings. Despite her best efforts, Natchios fell in love with MATTHEW MURDOCK and made the decision to be with him instead of continuing her employment for the Baroness. Now a woman with a bounty on her head, Natchios has the ability to make a decision for herself for the first time since she was a girl. She no longer has the perks that comes with being the Baronesses assassin, but it’s worth it. It’s not often that one has the chance to reclaim their soul once it's been sold.

ELIZABETH OF BRADDOCK – the twin of the ORDER OF THE NIGHT leader BRIAN BRADDOCK, Lady ELIZABETH “BETSY” BRADDOCK was raised in a life of privilege and wealth. The Braddock family had a long history as knights; before his death, Braddock’s father had also served on the Order. As a woman, it was known that Braddock would never be able to join no matter how competent she was. That was fine by her. As much as she loved her brother, they both knew what Brian was doing was wrong but he had little say in the matter. Braddock had other problems to deal with. Unlike her twin, she was born a mutant with telepathic abilities. Forced to keep them a secret so that no one would assume she was magic, Braddock began to spend time at the family’s old keep, The BRADDOCK LIGHTHOUSE. The Lighthouse was situated over the closed portal to Otherworld, and after spending some time there, Braddock realized she could feel the magic coming through. Some of that magic manifested into the fabled STARLIGHT SWORD, which Braddock then claimed. She now wields the Sword to help all magical beings find peace and stability. Her association with the weapon also stipulates that she become the personal guard of the future Baroness, the insufferable OPAL LUNA SATURNYNE. It doesn’t matter that Braddock never followed the family legacy to become a Knight. What she’s doing is dangerous but vital. As one of the main protectors of magic in High Avalon, Braddock knows one day she’ll have to go head to head with the Baroness MORGAN LEFAY. It’s only a matter of time. 

EROS – although he is an Eternal Old God, EROS never lived in Egyptia. He hailed, instead, from INFINITA, the capital of MOONVALE alongside his brother, the Baron THANOS. Unable to agree with the Baron’s choices, Eros made the choice to leave Moonvale in search of greener pastures. Although High Avalon didn’t like magical creatures, he found fellow Eternal Old Gods DRUIG and SERSI already established there; making the choice to live with them, Eros officially moved to High Avalon. His status is cushy and luxurious. There appears to be little reason that Eros would want to leave the situation he has placed in, but Baroness MORGAN LEFAY’s treatment of those who are magical has not gone unnoticed. Just like he was unable to stand by Thanos, Eros is unsure if he can sit idle and silent forever as injustices are repeatedly enacted. At the end of the day, Eros finds himself to be a fair being. Even if he hasn’t been able to bring himself to do anything, that doesn’t mean that he never will.

JACOB LOCKLEY – known as the premier carriage driver of High Avalon, JACOB LOCKLEY managed to slide under the radar in High Avalon.  Starting with nothing, Lockley made a name for himself when bought a few horses and a carriage, eventually gaining enough of a reputation to transport even the Baroness herself, MORGAN LEFAY. Although he was trusted by LeFay, Lockley had a few tricks up his sleeve. He would take the information that he overheard when transporting LeFay, her aide KEVIN KILGRAVE and other noblemen and pass it along to the DEFENDERS OF THE OPAL for them to use in their protection of magical beings. It was a good way to make a difference without putting himself openly in a position to be executed at the Stake. Lockley found himself to be comfortable in his life until the day he made a startling realization. “Jacob” Lockley was actually “Jake” Lockley, one of the personalities of MARC SPECTOR. Spector was also known as Moon Knight, and he had been chosen by the FANTASTIC FOUR to enter the Negative Zone during the Incursions. When the ship left the Negative Zone the occupants were sucked into their Battleworld lives; Spector, specifically, had his three personalities separated into three different individuals. Upon realizing what happened and seeing that eight years had passed, Lockley continued to keep his head down. For the first time in his life, he’s his own person. His life may not be much but it’s comfortable and it’s his. He’s not willing to go back to being in Spector’s head and give it up. Not if he has any say in the matter, that is.

JESSICA JONES – once an average tavern wench with unnatural strength, JESSICA JONES was spotted by the Baroness’ enforcer KEVIN KILGRAVE and forced into a relationship with him due to his ability to make people do as he said. Jones lived with him for five years, all free will lost to his words. It was at that point that she was saved by the DEFENDERS OF THE OPAL and escaped the Faire. Kilgrave was enraged that his wife was kidnapped, but Jones managed to get a witch to cast a spell on her that would make her impervious to Kilgrave’s command. Determined to start fresh, Jones opened up the tavern the Crucible and developed a drinking problem funded by her own establishment. That aside, Jones joined the Defenders who had helped her and used her strength to help harbor magical beings. She slowly began to heal from her trauma and eventually married fellow Defender LUKE CAGE. The nightmares haven’t gone away, but Jones knows that she’s lucky to be free. The least that she can do is help others to be free as well.

KATHERINE OF BISHOP – wealthy from birth, Lady KATHERINE of BISHOP was the daughter of Lord DEREK of BISHOP and Lady ELEANOR of BISHOP. She had everything she could have ever wanted; Derek of Bishop was known to be one of the noblemen with the privilege of being in Baroness MORGAN LEFAY’S inner circle. Katherine Bishop, however, always felt conscious of her wealth and began to steal from the rich during gatherings in order to give to the poor. It was after one of the Baronesses royal balls that Bishop set off home by herself, only to be assaulted. Devastated, she retreated to her chambers for months before making the decision to not let the attack define her. Training in archery, Bishop became the mentee of traveling archer CLINTON BARTON and soon became skilled in her craft. Now interested in doing more than just stealing, Bishop began to use her resources to help smuggle magical beings and fund the DEFENDERS OF THE OPAL. Should she get caught, Bishop’s fate would be sealed and she would be executed at the Stake. She doesn’t care, however. What she’s doing is worth it and matters. Bishop has been made a victim before and built herself up once more. She now is in a place where she can help others find security as well.

MATTHEW MURDOCK – a founding member of the DEFENDERS OF THE OPAL, MATTHEW MURDOCK lost his sight as a young boy after a spell went wrong. He came from a poor family of farmers, and after his father was forced to enlist and died in battle he was raised by a blind old man named STICK. Trained in combat, Murdock chose to not become a Knight and instead went against Baroness MORGAN LEFAY so that he could be a DEFENDER OF THE OPAL. It was through the Defenders that Murdock met a thief named ELEKTRA NATCHIOS, and the two fell in love. Things didn’t last, however, when Natchios was exposed as a plant by Baroness LeFay to scope out where magical beings were being harbored. Natchios ultimately chose to leave LeFay’s service due to her love for Murdock, and she joined him in the Defenders. His position in the Defenders is solid; Murdock has no desire to lead even if that’s a role he’s been forced into. He has also become close with JESSICA JONES, the owner of the Crucible Tavern. The two – alongside Lucas Cage and Daniel Rand – have done a lot to help the magical population of High Avalon. The four of them continue to be the team that High Avalon needs. Matt, from humble origins, has come a long way. He doesn’t take the work that he does for granted.

MEGGAN PUCEANU of BRADDOCK – fae are one of the many species that threaten Baroness MORGAN LEFAY’s control over High Avalon. Born half-fae and half-mutant in High Avalon, MEGGAN PUCEANU (later of BRADDOCK) found herself in a dangerous position from the moment of her birth. Forced to hide her pointed ears and pretend as if she was human, Puceanu of Braddock was successful until one day when she was spotted doing magic by the leader of the ORDER OF THE NIGHT, a Knight named BRIAN BRADDOCK. Taken by her beauty, Braddock spared Puceanu of Braddock and agreed to keep her secret. The two later married and had a daughter that they named MAGGIE. Keeping her secret isn’t easy, but Puceanu of Braddock knows that she has no choice if she wants to avoid the Stake. She has a daughter and a husband that she loves. As much as it drains and pains her to not use her magic, she has to think about that. They’re what matters above all else. Puceanu of Braddpck can be selfish later when LeFay is defeated. 

SERSI – when the Baron APOCALYPSE began his slaying of the Old Gods in EGYPTIA, some were fortunate enough to escape; this included the Eternal Old God SERSI. Sersi, always a fan of hedonism and the finer things, cut a deal with the Baroness of High Avalon, MORGAN LEFAY, that would see her and her fellow Eternal Old God DRUIG set up in the Eternity Palace with as much wealth as they desired. The only stipulation was to help the Baroness when requested, and Sersi agreed quickly. She’s not entirely selfish and heartless, though. Her heart aches for the magical beings hunted across the land. As one who just escaped a near death, however, she plans on joining security a bit before jeopardizing it. She’s Eternal, after all. There’ll be time to help later. 

WANDA MAXIMOFF – long considered the most powerful being in the domain, the witch called WANDA MAXIMOFF posed the biggest threat to Baroness MORGAN LEFAY. One of her first tasks as Baroness was to hunt down Maximoff and imprison her. Knowing that her magic surpassed her own, the Baroness decided to keep Maximoff alive and restrained with the aid of the GOD EMPEROR DOOM. Trapped in her magical prison, Maximoff spent years scrying realities for the Baroness so that LeFay could keep tabs on everyone else in the other domains. Longing for her son and freedom, Maximoff eventually stopped responding and refused to work any further for the Baroness. Infuriated, LeFay had no choice but to cut her losses and sentenced Maximoff to be burned at the Stake. Tired and resigned to her fate due to the guilt she felt for being forced to work for the Baroness for all those years, Maximoff was surprisingly saved by the DEFENDERS OF THE OPAL, who took her back to the Crucible Tavern. Maximoff, though exhausted, has begun to help the Defenders make a stand against LeFay. She hopes that it’ll help absolve her from the crimes she’s committed, but she’s unsure. There may be nothing for a witch to do but burn.

OTHER RESIDENTS:

Brian of Braddock – knight in the Order of the Night,  husband of Meggan Braddock and twin to Elizabeth Braddock.

Clinton Barton – traveling archer and mentor to Katherine of Bishop.

Danielle Cage – daughter of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones.

Lucas Cage – defender of the Opal and husband of Jessica Jones.

Maggie of Braddock – daughter of Meggan Braddock.

William Kaplan – son of Wanda Maximoff and magic user.

Wilson Fisk – a nobleman Lord.

#mvmevents #event: secret wars #secret wars: battleworld domain #battleworld domain: high avalon #battleworld #p

[bitcofun]

Key Takeaways Vitalik Buterin stated that Ethereum remained in a "long and complex shift" stage throughout his discussion at the 5th edition of EthCC today. Buterin approximated that Ethereum would just be approximately "55% total" following its shift to Proof-of-Stake. He included that he believed the network deals with "short-term discomfort, long-lasting gain" ahead. Buterin stated that Ethereum deals with "short-term discomfort, long-lasting gain" as it gets ready for the Merge and other significant modifications. Buterin Discusses Ethereum's Future Ethereum remains in a "long and complex shift" stage, according to its developer Vitalik Buterin. Speaking to a jam-packed primary space at the EthCC conference in Paris Thursday, Buterin went over how Ethereum is going through numerous considerable modifications that will eventually enhance the system in the long term. Buterin opened the 40- minute discussion by talking about Ethereum's "long and complex shift," however included that the network was approaching ending up being "a more robust and effective system." Buterin broke down Ethereum's upcoming modifications into 4 stages that he very first gone over on Bankless previously this year: the Merge, the Surge, the Verge, and the Purge. The Merge describes the network's shift from Proof-of-Stake, which is anticipated to ship at some point around September 19 The Surge describes the addition of 64 fragment chains, which are anticipated to decrease blockage on the primary chain by dispersing traffic. The Verge relate to the addition of stateless customers focused on making the network more decentralized, and the Purge includes getting rid of historic information in a quote to improve the network. In recommendation to the Proof-of-Stake upgrade, otherwise called EIP-3675, Buterin stated that Ethereum would be approximately "55% total" following the Merge. Another significant procedure upgrade Buterin highlighted was EIP-4444, a proposition concentrated on keeping historic information in execution customers. "Because individuals worth scalability, you can't depend on nodes to save whatever," he stated, prior to namechecking The Graph, BitTorrent, and obstruct explorers as prospective sources for saving information in the future. Buterin likewise pointed out EIP-1559, the cost burning design that was presented in August 2021 to make gas costs more foreseeable. "EIP-1559 was fantastic. It altered a lot, however it altered how we think of deals," he stated. Once the numerous modifications are carried out, Buterin stated, Ethereum will possibly have the ability to procedure 100,000 deals per 2nd (instead of the 15 or so it deals with today), while Layer 2 rollups might end up being 3 times more affordable as the network ends up being more scalable. Short-Term Pain, Long-Term Gain While Buterin spoke at length about the modifications, he included a caution. "There's a great deal of things taking place, however that does not suggest that we need to go by doing this permanently," he stated, keeping in mind that he believed Ethereum would require to "settle" in the future. " The abilities of Ethereum are progressively quickly," he stated. "But the rate of modification is going to need to decrease." Buterin stated that the network would need to enhance for security and predictability and described what he called "the escape speed thesis," arguing that Ethereum of the future might end up being adequately established that it does not need anymore significant overhauls. "It's comparable to Turing Completeness ... if you have a computer system that's effective enough, you can develop practically anything on it." Summarizing Ethereum's future, Buterin stated that he anticipated the network would need to compete with "short-term discomfort, long-lasting gain" as it gets ready for the Merge, the Surge, the Verge, and the Purge. " There is this discomfort that occurs when, however generally future generations will be really happy," he stated.

The 5th edition of EthCC is happening today in Paris. The three-day occasion has actually invited a range of speakers from jobs within the Ethereum community, consisting of the similarity Lens Protocol, Polygon, Optimism, and UMA. Disclosure: At the time of composing, the author of this piece owned ETH, MATIC, AAVE, and a number of other cryptocurrencies. The info on or accessed through this site is gotten from independent sources our company believe to be precise and trustworthy, however Decentral Media, Inc. makes no representation or service warranty regarding the timeliness, efficiency, or precision of any info on or accessed through this site. Decentral Media, Inc. is not a financial investment consultant. We do not offer customized financial investment suggestions or other monetary suggestions. The details on this site goes through alter without notification. Some or all of the info on this site might end up being out-of-date, or it might be or end up being insufficient or incorrect. We may, however are not bound to, upgrade any out-of-date, insufficient, or unreliable info. You ought to never ever make a financial investment choice on an ICO, IEO, or other financial investment based upon the info on this site, and you must never ever analyze or otherwise depend on any of the details on this site as financial investment recommendations. We highly suggest that you seek advice from a certified financial investment consultant or other competent monetary expert if you are looking for financial investment guidance on an ICO, IEO, or other financial investment. We do decline payment in any kind for examining or reporting on any ICO, IEO, cryptocurrency, currency, tokenized sales, securities, or products. See complete terms Ethereum Jumps 12% as the Merge Draws Nearer The rally comes 2 days after Tim Beiko recommended a tentative September 19 launch date for Ethereum's long-awaited Merge to Proof-of-Stake. Ethereum Rallies Amid Merge Hype Ethereum is breaking out. ... Ethereum and the Merge to Proof-of-Stake With Trent Van Epps 2022 is set to be Ethereum's most essential year. The date is still unidentified, the world's most utilized blockchain is preparing to finish "the Merge" from a Proof-of-Work ... Ethereum Fees Only "Truly Acceptable" Under $0.05, Says Bu ... Vitalik Buterin has actually stated that charges on Ethereum will just be "really appropriate" if they are reduced to under 5 cents. He did highlight the development being made to that ... Read More

[cherry-shipping]

friendship ended with ultimate witch dr self insert now ultimate dreamer is my best friend

#cherry chats #yea im thinkin its kinda messy to have two different talents and i cant even figure out what the ultimate witch would be useful for #however their execution being burned at the stake is great #and i realized it fits better for an edgy moody character like yohane from love live sunshine rather than....... me #so now im just the ultimate dreamer! #the only relevant thing i can think of them doing during a killing game is if one participant has a reocurring dream that they can analyze #other unimportant parts is that they zone out easily and fall asleep during class trials #they throw slumber parties (which in a killing game leads to someone being murdered & thats like a whole chapter) #they daydream a lot about many various things so sometimes other characters snap them out of something #and often times its just a regular daydream but in a killing game thanks to plot convenience they might unknowingly be plagued by Visions™️ #and as for a non despair au they always fall asleep in class and bring different pretty pillows with them everyday like that girl in the uhh #musaigen no phantom anime #cant remember her name. #i havent watched it in years man #if you want Deep Lore then the reason they wanna sleep all the time is simply cause they do not like life as it is #their theme is id rather sleep by kkb #‘i feel so funny these days / id rather sleep than stay awake / trees used to talk to me / now i know whats real and what is fake #are we from outer space? / this doesnt feel like the right place / and well try anything / just to be a kid once again’ #so yeah thats their agenda they seem easygoing and ditzy at first but they really arent afraid to be mean or hold back when theyre angry #maybe not physically but theyll definitely be cold and insult you #though it isnt easy to get them that worked up mostly they just bottle things up and act distant #hey! thats more insight on me as a person too. cool. #anyway bye bye ultimate witch i loved ur design tho

[mycheese-tasted-like-applepie]

Hi! May I request smthng Merlin x 21st century!reader (platonic) please? So the reader is like a Gen Z young adult accidentally travels thru time to the setting of the show. The reader does smthng that other people interpreted as magic so they be trying to execute her but Merlin saves her somehowwww (with prompts 2 and 15). Hope this isnt a bother. Thank you and hope u have a great day!! :DD

I can try my best, but I'm not the best with this😂 I try to keep things in the normal setting, but I hope you like my attempt! Not a bother at all!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Witch

You get sent from the 21st century to realm of myth and magic. It doesn’t take too long until you are guilty of magic.

#2 “You are quite interesting.”

#15 “Please don’t be scared. I’ve got you.”

You had no idea how this happened. First, you were sitting in your room, watching some Netflix as per usual when you get done with college classes. The next thing you knew, you were in the middle of what...well...you couldn’t even place the year.

Should’ve paid more attention in history class.

All you knew was that it looked like a kingdom, and when you asked around (people thought you looked like a lunatic), and you learned you were in Camelot.

But that’s a legend, right? You had to be dreaming, right?

You pinched yourself, and there was pain. Nope, this was somehow real. There was no amount of science or religion that you knew of to make this possible. But no, the sights and smells were real.

You were in the timeframe of Merlin and Arthur.

Despite being nowhere near home, you couldn’t help but feel a bit giddy, especially after you heard whispers about Prince Arthur. This only helped prove to you that this was real. However, you were in such a state, that you didn’t even notice the weird stares people were giving you.

I guess a woman wearing pants was a rare sight in this time.

Also, you completely forgot about magic.

So, wanna know how you were about to get burned at the stake?

Well, for starters the way you dressed was not typical of a woman at that time period. The way you talked was different, and some of the things you let slip through your mouth were not even a thing yet. Plus, you brought things up that sounded like you were predicting the future. Someone must’ve thought it was witchcraft, and now here you were.

All your excitement went to terror as you saw the crowd of people waiting to watch you burn. Some of them shouted obscure things at you. You were crying, which apparently wasn’t new, because the guards paid you no mind. The thought of never seeing your family again, and them not knowing what happened to you, made you even more sad.

And you didn’t even get to see Merlin or Arthur.

Suddenly, just as you saw the torch be lit, it burst into flames. However, it was strange, the flames didn’t burn you. In fact, your vision got all wobbly and you felt sick to your stomach. It was if you were spinning rapidly because you couldn’t even place where you were. However, as your feet hit solid ground again, you collapsed onto what felt like forest floor.

“Please don’t be scared. I’ve got you.” Arms were suddenly around your body, slowly helping you to your feet. It was a man who did this, that much was clear. His voice sounded very kind and caring, and you felt like you could trust him.

Looking up, you saw the boyish face of a young man. He was grinning, had short black hair, pretty blue eyes, and was wearing something that would be expected of a commoner.

“What happened?” You asked, while placing a hand to your dizzy forehead.

“Ah, I’m sorry, it’s just...I haven’t met someone else who can use magic in a long time...I had to save you.” The man said to you with a wide grin. 

“That was you?” You asked him in surprise. He nodded.

“Yep. I conjured up that large flame to distract people before using a transportation spell to bring us both here, just outside of Camelot’s borders.” He explained, and you nodded slowly. Again, you were having a hard time believing all this was real.

“I’m Merlin.” He introduced himself, and you felt your heart skip a beat. So, this was Merlin? You were picturing something more impressive. However, he still was quite powerful if he managed to snatch you in front of those people without being noticed.

“I’m Y/N...and I’m sorry, but I’m not a sorceress...” You admitted sheepishly, and you saw Merlin’s face drop slightly before he perked up again.

“That’s a shame...but I’m glad I was able to save the life of someone who was innocent.” He said with a bright smile. It seemed to be contagious, and you found yourself smiling as well.

“So, what’s your story then?” Merlin asked you, and you took a deep breath. He was in for a long explanation...

“You are quite interesting.” Was all Merlin could say after you told him you were practically from the future and all that occurs there. He said it with a laugh, which made you know he didn’t quite believe it all.

“Do you think magic brought me here?” You asked the warlock. Merlin crossed his arms and thought.

“I don’t know...if it was...perhaps we could find a way to bring you back.” He pondered and you felt your heartrate increase at that. You could go home and see your family and pets again. But also...the thought of leaving made you kind of sad.

However, one step at a time.

“But I would need some help, and my books...which are in Camelot.” He said with a sigh, causing you to frown slightly. A couple minutes of silence passed before he spoke again.

“Right, if we’re going to sneak back in, you’re going to need some new clothes.” You nodded in agreement. It would definitely help you blend in better. Along with that, Merlin promised to get you up to speed as to what was happening, so you didn’t seem so confused.

“We’ll pretend we’re old friends and I brought you to Camelot for a better life.” Merlin said, and you smiled with a nod. You liked this idea so far. Plus, Merlin seemed to be a rather nice man. Not like the old man that you read about. As you guys started walking to enact phase one of the plan, you had a question for the sorcerer. 

“So, Merlin, what do you do in Camelot?” You asked him, and he tried to stifle a sigh.

“I’m Prince Arthur’s man servant.” That nearly caused you to giggle. This wasn’t like the legend you read about, but perhaps they weren’t legends at all. Maybe all this magic was actually real and lost to history.

Now here you were, side by side with Merlin, to see how the legend actually went down.

#bbc merlin #merlin #merlin x reader #merlin imagines

[sushireads]

jungkook fic recs

this is a list of jungkook fics i’ve read and loved very much! enjoy. <3

ps. all fics with 🍙 are the ones i loved a little bit more.

2! 3! by @gimmesumsuga

smut, fluff | one shot | 3K words

The one at the end of Jungkook’s Wembley Vlive.

IDOL au

a dangerous game by @goldngguk​ 

horror | series

You were in love with him. Jeon Jeongguk was everything you’d ever dreamed of and more. He was wealthy, kind, gentle, and most importantly, he loved you dearly. You knew he would always be there for you to guide you and protect you. You’d been together for just over a year and knew he had made plans to propose to you. But you found it strange that he had never brought you home to meet his parents.

KILLER, HUNTER, YANDERE au

About Time by @yoonia

ON-GOING | 🍙, angst | series

Be careful for what you wish for, because you may never know how to deal with them once it comes true. What would you do when your wish for a second chance actually came true? But was it really a fulfilled wish? Too many questions lie when it actually happened. Were they real memories? Or perhaps a part of a past life? Was it only a dream all along? Will everything be different this time?

SOULMATE, TIME LEAP, TIME TRAVEL au

ALL I WANT FOR COCKMAS by @junqkook

fluff, crack, smut | one shot | 3.6K words

you tell santa exactly what you want for christmas.

CHRISTMAS, SANTA au

Amour by @taesthetes

fluff, fantasy | one shot | 6.1K words

{{ noun // a love affair, usually secret; a lover }}

To love would be committing the greatest sin.

ANGEL, DEMON au

aurora. by @krreader​​

angst, fluff | one shot | 6K+ words

dawn comes after the darkness, and with it the promise that what has been torn by the sea is not lost. - lisa wingate 

IDOL au

baecation by @1kook

smut, fluff | one shot | 5.9K words

“Lose the top, or lose the right to present yourself in any low back gown for the next three months.” He truly knew the way to your heart.

RICH, VACATION au

banana milk by @kimnjss

smut | one shot | 6.7K words

sent to the grocery store in the middle of the day, you’d never believe who you ran into in the milk aisle.

STRANGERS TO LOVERS au

bandslam by @ironicarmy​​

angst, smut | series

Cocky drummer Jeon Jungkook has never been the type to hate on anyone. But when his best friend Taehyung unexpectedly leaves the band and leaves you in his place, he can’t really blame himself when he acts with disdain towards you. Not even when there’s a prize at stake.

COLLEGE, ENEMIES TO LOVERS, ROCK BAND au

Be Mine by @staerrylights

angst, fluff, smut | one shot | 5.5K words

When the worlds of a campus’ star player and ordinary girl collide, sparks will fly.

JOCK, FUCK BOY au

Bells by @taetaesbaebaepsae

fluff | one shot | 1.6K words

SOULMATE au

bitchin’ by @kinktae

🍙, fluff, angst, smut | series

The 80s were a time of choices. Which perm was right for you? What color neon would you wear next? None of these choices, however, were more questionable than a certain deal you made with Jeon Jungkook.

—part of the rewind series

1980s, ENEMIES TO LOVERS, FRAT BOY, FAKE DATING au

black card by @minsprings

🍙, fluff, smut | two shots

a long night at another one of your obligatory high society functions has you desperate to relieve some stress with your husband jungkook, who’s been apparently hiding a kink from you for some time.

CRAZY RICH ASIANS, CEO, ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIP, HIGH SOCIETY au

Blackjack by @kpopfanfictrash

smut | series

Bangtan is one of the most vicious mafias on the west coast. Only six members are known by name though, with a mysterious seventh member dubbed only as ‘the shadow.’ When you become indebted to the worst of the worst – how, exactly can you find a way out?

MAFIA au

caught me. by @jeongi

smut | one shot | 13.5K words

you hate your temporary roommate, jungkook and it doesn’t help that he’s been catching you at the most inconvenient of times.

ENEMIES TO LOVERS, ROOMMATE au

Crybaby by @lavishedinjimin​​

smut | two shots

dangerous love by @seulgiology

smut, light fluff | one shot | 3.7K words

MAFIA au

Departure by @nomnomsik

smut, fluff | one shot | 6.2K words

As a flight attendant for Korean Air, you’re scheduled for a thirteen-hour flight to Japan. However, things get intimate between you and your partner and co-pilot, Jeon Jungkook, when he realizes Park Jimin, the famous idol from Korea, broads the plane and blatantly flirts with you.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT, IDOL, PILOT au

Dumbo by @cinnaminsvga​

humor, smut | one shot | 17.2K words

you know what they say about boys with big noses…

{or alternatively: jungkook has a big dick but he doesn’t know how to use it, but luckily you’re there to help.}

Dynasty by @jimlingss​

angst, smut, fluff | one shot | 17.4K words

It’s no secret that the Emperor is infertile. But even so, a girl is selected every three months and brought to become his concubine in hopes of conceiving the next heir. This time, it’s you. And in order to prevent execution, Jeon Jungkook might just aid you in conception.

HISTORICAL au

Euphoria by @seokstrivia

fluff, smut, angst | one shot | 7.6K words

There was always a sign on Jungkooks’ door that said something along the lines of, ‘Warning; I am naked in here. Do not enter unless you’re ready to see a whole lot of dick.’  

or, that one roommate au where Jungkook is a cocky bastard.

ROOMMATE, SLOW BURN au

fatal attraction by @jungcock

ON-GOING | 🍙, angst, smut | series

Your dangerous ex-boyfriend comes back to haunt you in more ways than one.

SERIAL KILLER au

first time together by @httpjeon

fluff, smut, angst | one shot | 8.4K words

you never thought you’d fall for the charms of jeon jungkook, the campus heartthrob, play boy, and fuck boy.

—part of the together series

COLLEGE, FUCK BOY au

flesh and blood by @kinktae

fluff, smut | series

You are living in a society that is just now picking up the scraps that the Great Outbreak left behind after the government killed off the majority of the zombies. Still, some remain, and fear still lies within society’s walls. So imagine your surprise when the very thing you’ve been taught to fear ends up saving your life, showing you that maybe two beating hearts aren’t always required when it comes to love.

ZOMBIE au

For science by @boymeetsweevil

fluff, smut | series 

Jungkook asks you to let him watch you get off. For science.

NERD au

Game Over by @gukgalore

smut, fluff | one shot | 5K words

You try your hand at a certain TikTok trend using your boyfriend.

DOMESTIC COUPLE au

Head in the Clouds by @taequois​​

one shot | 3.7K words

You were the third wheel for your best friend’s date but why was Jeon Jungkook kissing you instead? 

YANDERE au

Hellblazer by @jungkookiebus

smut, fantasy | series

“Few people really think about dying… paranoids worry about it without really understanding it. Victims of fatal accidents and murder don’t have time to think. You only really think about it if you take the time to. And you only take the time if you know it’s going to happen.” -John Constantine, Dangerous Habits Pt. 1: The Beginning of the End, Issue #41.

CONSTANTINE, DEMON au

HIDDEN STARS by @jungblue

angst, smut | series

It started out simple, but when your feelings start to grow for the idol who isn’t allowed to date, things get complicated.

IDOL au

Hiraeth by @darlingwoes

smut, angst, fluff | series

Hiraeth: A longing for a home you can’t return to, or that never was.

It was confusing, the whole ordeal was. But no matter how many times you told yourself to go back, he was always there, taunting you to stay.

ROYALTY, TIME TRAVEL au

His Name by @jimlingss

🍙, angst | series

Jeon Jungkook is a puzzle with too many missing pieces from his past and too many sides. Somehow, it’s become your job to solve him.

MULTIPLE PERSONALITY au

i wish i missed my ex by @angelguk

smut, fluff, angst | one shot | 18K words

COLLEGE, FAKE DATING, FRIENDS TO LOVERS au

It Ain’t Me by @inferno-loop​​

angst | series

industrial by @taendrils​

fluff, smut | one shot | 8.1K words

❝there are lines you shouldn’t cross, things you shouldn’t touch and skin you shouldn’t mark when your hands are missing your gloves.❞

PIERCER au

Jeon Jungkook Must Die by @tayegi

smut | one shot | 14K words

Jungkook is Typing... by @glassbangtan

mild smut, angst, fluff | one shot | 21.1K words

You and Jungkook met online when you were only fourteen years old. Neither of you thought meeting up would be a possibility, until you’re hired as Big Hit’s new editor.

IDOL au

Killjoy by @taequois​​

smut | one shot | 9.3K words

You thought you’re trapped in the lion’s den when Jungkook kidnaps you. But he’s no lion and unfortunately for him, you weren’t a mouse either.

YANDERE au

Laundry Fairy by @bulletproofbirdy

fluff, smut | one shot | 3.5K words

You wake on Saturday to find that your boyfriend has cleaned your apartment and done your laundry–shenanigans ensue with the help of the spin cycle.

ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIP au

love alive by @jamaisjoons

angst, fluff, smut | one shot | 17K words

a year after you and jungkook break up, the two of you meet at your brother’s party.

—part of the mixtape series

EXES, POST-BREAKUP au

Making of a lover by @smileyoongle​

angst | one shot | 2.4K words

CHEATING, YANDERE au

mask by @onherwings

🍙, angst, fluff, smut | one shot | 32.1K words

Perhaps you signed up for more than you expected when you agreed to pretend you were just Jungkook’s roommate when his (female) childhood friend comes to visit.

BOYFRIEND, COLLEGE au

mastur-bait by @kookswife​​

🍙, smut, fluff, humor | two shots

you drunkenly touch yourself in front of your neighbour, hoping he’ll take notice. you can’t help but do a double take when he actually does.

—part of The Connotation trilogy

BAD BOY au

Meeting their soulmate for the first time by @sunyoonandstars

🍙, fluff | one shot | 2.1K words

Jungkook is driven by the desire to, one day, meet his soulmate. However, he had not imagined it to happen so soon …

“Jungkook’s eyes met yours only for a brief moment. Still, this split second was all it took to send a surge of thrilling heat through his entire body, the intensity of your gaze leaving every last fiber of his being vibrating and his veins tingling with what felt like a million of tiny electric shocks. He could have sworn his heart literally skipped a beat. Or two. At least. Because those eyes weren’t just any eyes. They were the eyes. The eyes which had been haunting his dreams …”

IDOL, SOULMATE au

melomaniac. by @jeonscript

smut | one shot | 13K words

you’re wholeheartedly, madly in love with jungkook and yet you shouldn’t be because he’s supposed to be your best friend and nothing more. worst part of it all is that you know he’s in love with you too.

BAND, FRIENDS TO LOVERS, PUNK au

Mind in the Gutter by @kpopfanfictrash

smut, fluff, humor | one shot | 18K words

Starting over is never fun. Especially not when you decide to take the phrase fully to heart; new job, new city, new coworkers and new relationships. When you are dragged to a happy hour by your new co-worker, Taehyung, you end up sitting beside a (very) cute, (very) shy IT worker named Jungkook. Several drinks later, he mentions he is in a professional bowling league with his friends and you rather enthusiastically invite yourself along. As time passes and you begin to grow closer, you still find it impossible to read Jungkook. Working in the same company and seeing each other so often, it is only so long before one of you snaps. But who?

BOWLING, WORKPLACE au

more than friends by @matchakoo​

smut, angst, tiny fluff | two shots

you and jungkook have been roommates and close friends for a couple years, and you’re oblivious to the fact that the only reason why he hates your recent fuck-buddy is because he has the fattest crush on you.

ROOMMATE au

morning rush. by @atdawnsuga

smut | one shot | 3.2K words

You develop a strange relationship with the boy you share your morning commute with.  

COLLEGE au

Movin’ by @mygsii

smut | one shot | 3.9K words

you’re moving to a new place and have called up some movers to help. you didn’t expect to find one of them extremely attractive, nor did you expect to have him all over you as soon as break time rolled around.

MOVER au

Mutual by @seokjxnnie​​

smut | one shot | 2.7K words

Your boss was always talking about how her son would be perfect for you, promising that he was going to the staff holiday party. He turned out to be the hook up that happened a couple months ago, who you kept around for some good dick.

OFFICE au

My Type by @shadowsremedy​​

smut | one shot | 6K words

Never judge a book by its cover.

COLLEGE au

neighbour by @imagniation​​

fluff, smut | one shot | 4K words

‘you think I can afford a plumber?’ your endearing neighbour jeongguk has magic hands that fix toilets and make you orgasm.

NEIGHBOURS au

one thing right by @hobios

🍙, fluff, angst, smut | series

“i’ve been wrong about a million times, but i’ve got one thing right.”

or, desperate to get your ailing mother into the best care possible, you ask your childhood friend turned enemy to marry you for his health insurance benefits. the only problem is it’s illegal. and he’s the sheriff. and you swore to hate him since the day he broke your best friend’s heart.

ENEMIES TO LOVERS, FAKE MARRIAGE, SHERIFF, SLOW BURN au

One Year, My Love by @hayjeon

🍙, angst, fluff, smut | two shots 

You forge a marriage contract with the strangely speaking man who suddenly stumbled into your town with memory loss, but little do you know that he’s actually the lost Crown Prince, and a lot can happen between a married man and woman in one year.

FAKE MARRIAGE, ROYALTY au

Orange Tulips by @kainks

angst, fluff, light smut | one shot | 10.2K words

You’d remember Jungkook with every life you lived. Only he’d never remember you, never recall how your fates were written in the stars since the beginning of time.

REINCARNATION, SOULMATE au

Pay by Play by @yoonia

smut | one shot | 3.6K words

—part of @bangtansmutcentral‘s Made With Love Project

CAM BOY au

Pen Pal by @chinkbihh

angst | series

As a lonely person, the idea of exchanging letters with someone apart from society was actually quite appealing to you.  In a random act of charity and desperation, you sign up for a pen pal and get paired up with an inmate named Jungkook.  The letters were meant to help him cope with prison life, but little did anyone know it was actually driving him more mad.  

PRISONER, SERIAL KILLER, YANDERE au

Piss Off Your Parents by @littlemisskookie

smut | one shot | 16.4K words

In an effort to piss off your parents you move in with their worst nightmare- a boy with tattoos, a rock band, and an irresistible charm.

BAD BOY, FAKE DATING, RICH, ROOMMATE au

Play Pretend by @seokoloqy

smut, angst | one shot | 8.6K words

walking under ladders, splitting the pole, breaking mirrors, going near black cats—just to name a few things Jeon Jungkook doesn’t do before his soccer games.

And after Jungkook catches his girlfriend cheating on him, he’s going to need a little more than luck to get her back. He needs you.

FAKE DATING, FRIENDS TO LOVERS, SOCCER PLAYER au

Quarter Quell by @chinkbihh

ON-GOING | 🍙 | series

Every 25 years there is a Quarter Quell edition of the Hunger Games. Quells mark the anniversaries of the districts’ defeat by the Capitol, and include special celebrations. The Games involves some sort of twist that makes them even more disastrous or difficult to compete in, or watch.

HUNGER GAMES, YANDERE au

Redolent by @baeseoul

ON-GOING | angst, smut | series

You and Jungkook have a past, but the biggest mistake of his life has him losing you in every way. It isn’t until the smell of the unique combination of vanilla and pear blossom for the first time in over a year reminds him of you and your endearing candle obsession that he’s forced to reminisce about what he had, and what he lost. He wants to reconcile, but what if you’re doing just fine without him?

INDIE ROCKER, MUSICIAN au

Rigor Mortis by @readyplayerhobi

smut, angst, horror, fluff | one shot | 28.5K words

A night out at a bar results in you going home with a young and attractive police officer. But if you think the night was something to remember, that’s nothing compared to waking up to find a zombie outbreak in the city. A chance encounter with Officer Jeon leads to him helping you escape from the plague infested city.

POLICE OFFICER, ZOMBIE au

ROTTENFOLK by @junqkook

🍙, smut, fantasy | one shot (in dire need of a part two though!!!) | 13.5K words

a look was as hazardous as chemicals, a kiss as perilous as poison; his eyes and lips felt akin to a cure, but he was purely venom.

—part of BTS Smut Club’s The Heatwave Project

FAIRIE, ROYALTY au

roulette. by @taesthetes

light fluff, angst | one shot | 1.2K words

noun : a gambling game of chance.

he loves me, click, he loves me not, bang.

ASSASSIN, MAFIA au

Ruin the Dress... Shirt by @fortunexkookie

smut, fluff | one shot | 4.8K words

What could possibly go wrong during a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner with your brand new boyfriend? Let’s be honest, you shouldn’t have even asked.

NEW RELATIONSHIP au

Scum’s Wish by @bobagukk

angst, smut | one shot | 4.8K words

Secret Slut by @jeonsweetpea

🍙, smut | two shots

Jungkook accidentally gifts you, his boss, a sex toy for Secret Santa.

ASSISTANT, CEO au

skype sex by @floralseokjin​​

smut, fluff | one shot | 2.9K words

—part of the first love, last love drabble series

CYBER SEX au

Somnolent by @forgottenpasta

fluff | one shot | 3.5K words

After spending one night in bed with you, Jeongguk finds out he is unable to sleep unless you’re sleeping with him.

ROOMMATE au

Sprout by @hugseoks

fluff, crack | one shot | 1.2K words

After a nice evening out with your friends, you find yourself coming home to your sleeping toddler and the new hairstyle she had tried on your husband.

DAD, HUSBAND au

stand-in by @gvksp4ce

angst, smut, fluff | one shot | 10K words

frat parties always suck to a certain degree, especially when you walk in on your best friend’s partner nailing your own boyfriend on said buddy’s bed. However, drowning in self-pity was not on Jeon’s watch.

COLLEGE, FAKE DATING, FRIENDS TO LOVERS au

strawberry lips by @personasintro

fluff | drabble | 2.8K words

it’s not your fault your professor is extremely young and oh, so hot

PROFESSOR au

Summer Solstice by @brokenspinez​​

smut | one shot | 6K words

Down on your luck and desperate for a successful harvest, you pray to the gods. You figure no one in heaven was listening to your prayers when nothing happens immediately. But one fateful night, your prayers are answered. Are you willing to pay the price? The sacrifice might not be what you were expecting….

GOD au

Tangsuyuk Love by @full-of-jams​​

fluff, smut | one shot | 11.5K words

College student Jungkook flirts with a customer who always orders take-out tangsuyuk at his part-time job. Meanwhile he’s miserably trying not to fail his Math class, while hiding his ever-growing crush on you.

COLLEGE, FRIENDS TO LOVERS au

tell me no lies by @jeongi

angst, smut, minimal fluff | one shot | 15.1K words

You chose to rob your boss, however; you never expected to fall in love with him.

—part of BTS Smut Club's Under Fire Summer Project

CEO, CRIMINAL, ROBBERS au

the beast hidden inside by @harvcore​​

smut | one shot | 1.5K words

never come home smelling like another man, especially when it’s mating season.

or 𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐣𝐞𝐨𝐧 𝐣𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐤𝐨𝐨𝐤, 𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐥𝐩𝐡𝐚, 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐢𝐩 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐥 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐭𝐬…

ALPHA au

the best part of me is you by @yourdelights

fluff, smut, angst | one shot | 9K words

Having been best friends since childhood, you’re an expert in all things Jungkook. You know everything about him, from how he took his coffee to the sound of his laugh after a successful prank. There was no part of him that you didn’t know like the back of your hand, or so you thought. Your view on things gets a bit skewed after discovering the one secret Jungkook had kept from you: he’s a camboy.

BEST FRIEND, CAM BOY au

the coffee shop contract by @gukyi

fluff | one shot | 18K words

apparently, having an instagram profile with a different girl in every picture is reason enough for your friends to strike up a deal where they’ll pay you to have a relationship. well, jeon jungkook’s no good at relationships, but a fake relationship isn’t a real relationship. is it?

COLLEGE, FAKE DATING au

the engagement by @virgoknj

angst | drabble | 3.4K words

in where your ex jungkook appears at your engagement party

EXES au

the jeon twins by @krreader

fluff, angst | one shot | 3.2K words

jk thought he was doing this for his twin’s good. falling in love with you while pretending to be kookie was never something he planned on doing and he hated himself for it.

COLLEGE, TWINS au

The Jorts by @gukslut​

fluff, smut | one shot | 6.5K words

ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIP au

the sea & the storm by @jamaisjoons

angst, fluff, smut | one shot | 20K words

the sea is a powerful mistress. she is calm and beautiful. she is mysterious and alluring. she is a force to be reckoned with. above all, however, she is lonely. until she meets him.

—part of the Fantastical Stories for Curious Souls collaboration

SEA SPIRIT au

the train of lost souls by @inktae

angst, fantasy, fluff | one shot | 13.6K words

The moment you step inside the train, you are given two options.

You can choose to live, to be given a second and a last chance in life, in exchange for your memories and your previous existence. You can choose to be alive again, but it can only be an entirely new life. Everyone you’ve ever crossed paths with would forget your name. All the pain and the love you knew, all the ups and downs that made you hurt and made you smile — all of it, completely gone.

Or you can choose to move on, to give your life away while keeping your memories until the end of time. To step out of the world of the living and to embrace a new kind of loneliness, but with the warmth of your past always safe between your cold hands.

You are dead, but it’s up to you to do something about it.

The choice is solely yours.

The Truth About Forever by @thedefinitionofbts

romance, implied smut, angst | one shot | 6.3K words

There are a lot of things you know. You knew the water in the lake was the clearest, most fresh tasting in the world and that lavender hyacinth graced every hillside, peeking through patches of wild grass and forest green shrubbery. You knew the weather was pleasant enough and the air clean enough even for someone with a body as weak as yours to sleep peacefully under clear moonlit nights. You know a lot of things, but there was one thing you didn’t know…  

“Jungkook and Y/N forever…” Seokjin reads the little inscription on the corner. “Hey, this person even has the same name as you, how weird.”

SLICE OF LIFE au

the universe of us. by @taesthetes

🍙, fluff, angst, fantasy | one shot | 21.1K words

nefelibata : (noun) lit. “cloud-walker”; the one who lives in the clouds of their own imagination or dreams

The story of Icarus tells of a naive being who loved the sun and flew too close, leading to his untimely descent into the ocean. But what the tale didn’t speak of was how the sun and the moon fell in love with him, too. And with the pull of the tides due to the attraction of the sun and the moon, he tosses and turns, torn between two entities.

So if Kim Taehyung embodies the sun, then Jeon Jungkook is the moon.

And you are Icarus.

DREAM, SLICE OF LIFE au

The Virgin Volume by @kpopfanfictrash​

smut, angst | two shots

The year? Some point after college. The occasion? Namjoon is getting married and the Rich Man’s Crochet Club has convened once again. Somewhere between the drinks and the laughter, everyone has the same realization: Jungkook has never been in a serious relationship. In the name of all that is holy (Overwatch and booze), the club’s mission is revived. Now though, their goal is much more perilous. Now, they aim to find Jeon Jungkook a girlfriend.

—part of The Rich Man’s Crochet Club series

COLLEGE, FRIENDS O LOVERS, VIRGIN au

the wedding planners by @gukyi

fluff, light smut, light angst | one shot | 28K words

jeon jungkook is three things: cocky, terrible, and your worst enemy. then your best friend hoseok gets engaged to the love of his life, and suddenly jeon jungkook is four things: cocky, terrible, your worst enemy, and the man you will be spending the next seven months with in order to plan your best friend’s wedding.

and then, as if your life couldn’t get any shittier, you make the poor decision of sleeping with him on the first day of the job.

ENEMIES TO LOVERS, WEDDING au

through the night by @nightbts

ON-GOING | 🍙, fluff, angst | series

IDOL au

Travel Diary by @nitaescence

fluff | one shot | 2.5K words

BOYFRIEND, VLOGGER au

way down in bed stuy by @minstrivia

smut, light angst | one shot | 5K+ words

as a final farewell you fuck your sister’s unbelievably attractive knave boyfriend that you definitely do not have feelings for…again.

CHEATING au

Welcome to the Underworld (AO3 Link) by @spookitokki

fluff, smut, fantasy | one shot | 9.6K words

In a dark little second-hand shop downtown, stuffed in an alleyway you only stumbled into because you were lost, you found a charming antique radio. When you turned it on, it began to play what would become your favorite radio show, “Welcome to the Underworld”

DEMON, RADIO SHOW HOST au

youngblood by @jinitude

smut | one shot | 14.6K words

“I don’t care if he’s got the potential to be the next big thing. I’m done trying to chase a story that doesn’t exist. The kid is a wet leaf left on the curb to dry and crumble into pieces the next day. You’re going to send me to five of his concerts and I can already tell you how each one is going to go. He’s a wannabe bad boy who jizzes his pants when he sees a girl looking at him. Assign me someone else.”

ENEMIES TO LOVERS, JOURNALIST, ROCK STAR au

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#bts fic recs #namjoon fic recs #jin fic recs #yoongi fic recs #hoseok fic recs #jimin fic recs #taehyung fic recs #jungkook fic recs #fic recs #bts fic recs masterlist #bts smut #bts fluff #bts angst #bts x reader #jungkook smut #jungkook fluff #jungkook angst #jungkook x reader #bts masterlist

[cherri-cherri]

× Little Flower ×

-----------×-----------

Pairings - Ryoumen Sukuna x Reader

Synopsis - No one was allowed to touch you as you were his. Those who dared would suffer a fate worse than death...

Warnings - Possible Grammar Errors, Slight Gore, Swear Words

A/N - This fic here is pretty short but I wanted to write this after having a weird dream with flowers and Sukuna. I honestly have mixed feelings about this one but I hope you all enjoy! - 🍒

----------------×----------------

"Speak, girl. Do you know why you stand here on trial here today?" A voice called out to you from above but you simply kept your head hanging down to stare at the stacks of dry wood pressed under your feet. Your body ached due to the countless bruises and cuts littering your skin and the tightness of the ropes cutting into your bound wrists weren't helping at all in the slightest.

"Y/N L/N, do you understand why you stand before us?" The voice repeated again, this time a rough hand grabbing ahold of your hair and gripping it tightly, forcing you to stare up at the man before you.

"Cat has your tongue? Well then, let me remind you that you were caught giving aid to the king of curses. No doubt spreading your legs for him like that harlot you are" his words only mirrored the disgusted look in his cold grey eyes, glaring down at you as his grip on your hair only tightened. Sad to think that you would be used to this knowing your uncle was not a kind or gentle man and yet his words only stung.

"...I did no such thing....He was hurt and I was trying to help, I was–" Letting out a yelp as your cheek burned from the slap your uncle gave you, you felt tears prickling your eyes as he leaned in closer.

"Liar!! Someone saw you with him, saw you hold him! It is obvious that your vile ways allowed him to take over your mind and possess you!" Yelling at the top of his lungs, you heard others around you cheering the man on as some even chimed in. So many hateful words, so many people who you believed to friends and family only for all of them to look at you with such disdain and anger. Tears began to form until your uncle released you and stepped away, "There is only one way to save your soul now before he swallows it whole. The flames will send you to the afterlife and maybe then, you will be saved."

Your heart dropped after hearing that. You were going to die, all because of giving a monster sanctuary, all because you tried to be kind. Men carrying large clay pots came to the stake you were bound to and then began splashing you with oil. Coughing as the liquid was poured ontop of your head, you heard the chanting of the people all around you, screaming and yelling for your death over and over again as your uncle came walking back towards you while holding up a lit torch.

This was the end. Your miserable life ending at such a horrible note, it made you let out a small saddened chuckle as you slowly closed your eyes and waited for the fire to engulf your completely until nothing but ash reminded.

You waited..

And waited..

The ropes wrapped around your wrists were soon sliced off and at the same time, you hear a few thuds collapsing onto gravel not too far away from you. When you opened your eyes, you found yourself staring at your uncle. Your now headless uncle. The blood erupting from his neck like a geyser as the body slumped down to its knees, occasionally twitching as the blood sprayed across your face and ragged dress. The color drained from your face completely as you stared down at the blood on your clothes, horrified until a large tattooed around wrapped itself around your waist. Freezing completely, you looked back forward to see the villagers beginning to flee until those who even took a step back were diced into cubed pieces.

"Any human who moves another muscle will die." A rough voice called out behind you, sending your heart to panic. Turning your head slightly to the side, you saw him.

Ryoumen Sukuna.

His eyes darted down towards you, crimson hues staring into your watery E/C eyes and he simply gave you a toothy grin. "Come on now, Y/N, you shouldn't give such a frightened look to your knight in shining armor. I just saved your life."

"Y-you killed them.. " you muttered, causing Sukuna to roll his eyes as he lifted you in the air before placing you down onto his shoulder to carry you. "And? I don't see what's wrong here. You're alive, they're dead. Now that we've been over that, I think you owe me a reward—"

"I knew it..." a woman said from the crowd, her knuckles turning white from how hard she was gripping her fists. She stared at the two of you with fear in her eyes, more so you than Sukuna. "Y-you were sleeping with him..you dirty whore...letting a monster in this village. Letting a curse spread in this village!" As she screamed out, blood soon enough trickled down her lips as she felt a pain in her chest before a growing numbness. Looking down, the woman saw nothing but a gaping hole in the middle of her chest, blood dribbling down the emptiness to the stomach until she slowly collapsed on her back. Others around her screamed out, some moving from the places they were standing before being sliced in half or trisected into parts. You gasped out, covering your mouth as you felt bile rising up.

"S-she did nothing wrong!" You yelled to Sukuna as he only stared at the remaining people in the crowd with a smirk. "Wrong...As far as I see, everyone here has committed a great sin."

Crimson stained the once grey pathway as people are killed by the curse one after another. A few brave (or foolish) souls attempted to even rush at Sukuna only to make it as far as five steps forward before their insides became their outsides. A woman tried to beg for her life by offering herself as Sukuna's personal slave, even going as far as to give away to lives of her children but once again it proved nothing as she too was killed.

It didn't take long for Sukuna to kill off the rest of the villagers, regardless of their age or even if they were innocent or not. They were all killed and slaughtered brutally without mercy, their blood mixing together as the smell of their corpses began to reek. You stared down at the headless corpse of your uncle, eyes dulled as you thought perhaps it would've been better if the fire had claimed you. Then no one wouldve been killed. No, no that wasn't true.

It would've been better if you never met him. If you simply continued on your way and left him bleeding out for the shamans to find. If you had never opened your heart to the curse..then no one would've died. Then no one would've been killed. Feeling a hand brush your hair gently with his nails and combing a strain behind your ear, you were snapped out of your thoughts. Sukuna pulled you closer towards him with one arm and wrapped each of his arms around your small frame before pressing his lips onto your forehead.

"They didn't have to die..." your voice was practically a whisper at this point, hoarse and dry from the screaming and begging for him to stop. Sukuna merely chuckled as he released you, "Do you feel guilty?"

"What sort of question is that supposed to be? Of course I do...." Saying that you didn't would only be half of the truth. Sure you were angry with how they were so quick to hurt you and kill you but then again, if you knew this was what Sukuna was capable, you would've accepted the punishment. You should've listened, should've stayed away from him that night yet apart of you knew that this perhaps wouldn't have changed much.

"I don't see why when because of you, your people get to live on..."

Those words got your attention as they left you confused. Before you could even question him however, you heard a small weak voice speaking out towards it. "You've doomed us all, girl..."

You could've swore that it was your uncle speaking to you and yet you knew that was impossible seeing as his vocal cords were severed alongside his head. But when your eyes slowly looked over to the severed head, you saw a large flower growing where the blood pooled over. It might have been beautiful if it wasnt for the fact that your uncle's face was on the flower, darkened eyes staring at you. Gasping out, you covered you mouth and took a step back, pressing your back into the warm chest of Sukuna as he pointed over towards the other bodies littered around the execution ground.

A variety of flowers had sprouted forth from the blood soaked ground, each with the faces of the dead villagers as they yelled and screamed out in agony at you. So many cried out your name, children who were unfortunately brought here wailed as their mothers simply screamed out multiple swears at you. Speechless, you froze at the sight as more flowers simply began to grow up around the two of you and were only spreading. Small vines began to creep towards you, only to be sliced away when it got too far, not to you but to Sukuna.

"Regret, anger, hatred, sadness. So much negative energy, so much rage here. I wanted to repay my little flower and what else to gift her with than a garden of her own." He hunching over and reaching for one the screaming flowers, he plucked it forth from the ground as the face on it contorted in pain before it began to beg for mercy. "Flowers for my flower. Though none of this compare to you." Sukuna chuckled, placing the plant onto the back of your ear before combing a strand of your hair.

You felt disgusted as the flower's voice grew more and more faint, it practically whispering in your ear for himself to be spared such a fate. You could do nothing but silently say how sorry you were yet your hushed apologies were drowned out by the voices of your new cursed garden.

#jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jujutsu kaisen x reader #sukuna x reader #ryomen sukuna #ryoumen sukuna #jjk angst #jjk sukuna

[scotianostra]

23rd August 1305 saw the trial and execution in London of Sir William Wallace, one time Guardian of Scotland.

I posted yesterday stating the trial happened then, it came u in a source I was reading about Wallace, sometimes the historians can get it wrong, but the post yesterday served as more of prelude and a taster of todays more detailed one. Wallace is said to have accepted his execution without resistance and a brave heart. He even made a final confession to a priest and read from the book of Psalms before his punishment.

Types of execution at The Elms ranged from burning at the stake (for heretics) to the tried and tested hanged-drawn-and-quartered method for those convicted of high treason. For those unfamiliar with this method, it involves being dragged by a horse to the place of execution, hanged  until almost dead, then disembowelled whilst still conscious, beheaded, and finally being chopped into four pieces (i.e. ‘quartered) and subsequently having these pieces put on display across the city, or in Sir William Wallace’s case, the country.

I think it only right to give a background post about Sir William Wallace so hang on to your hats, there’ll be no mention of French Princess’s, Blue painted Australians or the like. 

Much of what we know about Wallace comes from  Blind Harry, also known as Harry, Hary or Henry the Minstrel, is renowned as the author of The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace, more commonly known as The Wallace. The trouble is how reliable can Blind Harry’s account be, it was written over 150 years after Wallace's grisly demise, the stories about oor erstwhile hero would have been handed down through  word of mouth, possibly even in song. 

Harty claims that Wallace's father was named Malcolm, and on this basis Wallace has traditionally been identified as Sir Malcolm Wallace, a minor landowner from Renfrewshire. Sir Malcolm was a descendant of Richard Wallace, a native of the lordship of Oswestry on the Welsh border, (Wallace itself meaning Welshman),  who first came to Scotland in the twelfth-century in the service of Walter Fitz Alan, first High Steward of Scotland. This Stewart connection has also been used by historians to explain Wallace's place in the 'patriotic' struggle of the 1290s.

But  Harry’s story has some flaws, now I’m not decrying the story, just some details like his age.

No reliable evidence exists to gives us an estimate of his age. Harry claims that Wallace was 'forty and five [years] of age' when he was executed,  but also states that he was 'bot eighteen yer auld' shortly before the Battle of Stirling Bridge, which would place the year of his birth around 1278/9.

It shows how difficult it is to build a picture of Sir William.

The contemporary English chronicler William Rishanger implies that Wallace was a young man when he emerged as the leader of armed resistance to the English in southern Scotland in 1297, but this does little to narrow things down. According to Hary, Wallace was raised by his two uncles - both clerics - who saw to his education after his father was killed by an English knight named Fenwick

 One of his uncles was from Dunipace, a wee town not far from my home in Falkirk, it is through this uncle we get an oft quoted phrase  “This is the truth I tell you: of all things freedom’s most fine. Never submit to live, my son, in the bonds of slavery entwined.” The second pic shows part of the quote, it is on a paving stone on Falkirk High Street  that I often walk past.

He does seem to have had two brothers, Malcolm - who would provide Wallace with much-needed support in the later part of his career - and John - who would later be executed for supporting Robert Bruce after 1306. His activities before 1297 are also uncertain, but they may have been less than wholesome. Contemporary English accounts describe him as a 'brigand' and a 'thief', suggesting he may have lived outside the law even before the English invaded. Of course, these may simply be attempts by hostile writers to blacken his reputation. However, a legal document of August 1296 mentions 'a thief, one William le Waleys' as an accomplice of a cleric named Matthew of York who had in June of that year been convicted of robbery at Perth. This could well be our William.

Again I am not trying to blacken his character, I am merely pointing out the difficult job that historians have when piecing together his life. 

Whatever the details of his early life, following the English invasion of 1296 that Wallace first emerged into the mainstream of Scottish affairs in a big way. The death of King Alexander III in 1286, followed by the death of his granddaughter Margaret of Norway in 1290, had provoked a major succession crisis in Scotland. Efforts to settle the ongoing dispute between the competing Balliol and Bruce factions had led to increasing English interference in the governance of Scotland, culminating in a full-scale invasion of the kingdom in 1296. I’ve covered all this in posts regarding King John Balliol, the sacking of Berwick and  the first Battle of Dunbar all in 1296.

One of Wallace’s first encounters with the English is told in typically dramatic form by Blind Harry, the story goes that William was fishing  when he is accosted by five soldiers in the service of 'lorde Persye'  Henry Percy, 1st Baron Percy who was the warden of Galloway and Ayrshire .  The honest, unsuspecting Wallace offers them some of his fish so long as they leave the rest for his uncle - 'ane agyt knycht' - Wallace hopes to feed, but the soldiers demand all of his fish and attack him when he refuses them. Remarkably, Wallace disarms the first attacker using only a 'poutstaff' ('fishing pole'), seizes the discarded sword, kills two of the soldiers, severs the hand of another, and chases the survivors off! 

The earliest confirmed encounter between Wallace and the English administration occurred in May 1297, when Wallace and a small band of supporters killed William Heselrig, the English sheriff of Lanark, shortly before an assize was due to be held in the town. According to the indictment against him in 1305, Wallace and his men also dismembered Helelrig's corpse. Famously, Hary claims that Wallace's attack on Heselrig was in retribution for the killing of Wallace's wife - Marion Braidfute, as Harry identifies her. 

It is apparent from contemporary English accounts of the incident at Lanark that it proved to be a powerful recruiting tool for Wallace's rebellion. As Walter Guisborough put it, 'the common folk of the land followed him as their leader and ruler; the retainers of the great lords adhered to him; and even though the lords themselves were present with the English king in body, at heart they were on the opposite side'.

What I find remarkable is that the killing of the soldiers and then Heselrig kickstarted, the uprising against Edwards army and around 4 months Wallace and Andrew de Moray had assembled a combined army of over 6 thousand troops that ambushed the English as they crossed the Forth at Stirling.

Before Stirling we also had the capitulation of the Nobility at Irvine, I have also covered this in a previous post.

In the wake of the Scottish victory at Stirling Bridge, the English administration in Scotland all but collapsed. The Scots were once again able to form a government of their own, and at its head - now as Guardians of Scotland - were Wallace and Murray, although Murray's tenure was cut short when he died - probably of wounds sustained at Stirling Bridge - in November.

This was the zenith of Wallace's career. He had emerged from obscurity to the very summit of Scottish society, all in the space of a year. It also meant he had a price on his head and was the most wanted man in Scotland.

Edward I returned from the Continent in March 1298 and set his sights on Scotland, he marched with an army North in late June and quickly discovered that Wallace's response to the threat had been to devastate southern Scotland and withdraw with his army out of reach of the English. A bitter and frustrating campaign followed, with Edward almost abandoning the chase altogether. However, in late July Edward got wind that the Scots had been sighted near Falkirk, and hurriedly moved his army to meet them. 

Precisely why the confrontation at Falkirk happened is, as with so much of Wallace's career, uncertain. Until this point in the campaign Wallace had carefully avoided the English army, a prudent strategy that would later pay off for the Scots under Bruce. Guisborough claims that Wallace had learned that Edward planned to withdraw and hoped to attack the English in the rear. This would at least explain why Wallace so suddenly abandoned his previously cautious strategy. However, given the potential challenges he was facing from the nobility of Scotland it may equally have been the case that Wallace felt compelled to face the English in open battle sooner or later and prove that his success at Stirling Bridge - which was after all arguably at least as much Murray's as it was Wallace's - was not just a lucky accident. 

Whatever the case, the battle that followed was an utter catastrophe for the guardian. Abandoned by the cavalry, who may have lost their nerve as they had at Irvine or - as claimed by subsequent Scottish chroniclers - betrayed Wallace, Wallace's schiltrons - tightly-packed bodies of infantry armed with long spearmen - repelled the English cavalry but fell prey to English archery, which broke up their formations and left them vulnerable to a renewed assault by the cavalry. Wallace escaped the battle with his life, but his position as guardian had been irrevocably damaged. It is not entirely clear precisely when or where he resigned the guardianship, but by the end of 1298 Robert Bruce, earl of Carrick (the future king), and John Comyn, lord of Badenoch, were jointly exercising the office of guardian.

Wallace's time as guardian may have been decisively ended, but he remained an active opponent of the English in Scotland. The resistance he offered to the English in this period was not always in keeping with the wishes of the guardians. For instance, in August 1299 an altercation took place at a council at Peebles at which Wallace's plan to travel to France was condemned by Sir David Graham as being 'without the leave or approval of the Guardians'. Wallace's plans were defended by his brother Malcolm, who argued that they were at least 'for the good of the kingdom'

Wallace did indeed leave for France in 1299, apparently on a diplomatic mission to seek the support of King Philip IV against Edward I. Wallace's reception in France was initially hostile, since at the time Philip was himself seeking peaceful relations with Edward I, and Wallace was briefly incarcerated by the French king. However, in November 1300 Philip was writing to his envoys to the pope asking them to promote Wallace's case at the papal court. It is possible that Wallace himself visited to Rome assist in making the Scottish case to the pope in person, and the fact that when he was eventually he reportedly had on his person a safe-conduct from King Hakon V of Norway may suggest he also travelled to Norway on diplomatic business (although he may simply have planned to do so at some point). By 1303 - possibly earlier - he was back in Scotland and again involved in armed resistance to the English

By this point the tide in the war was slowly turning against the Scots. The French were once again pursuing a peaceful policy towards the English following their own military reversal at Courtrai in 1302. Scottish nobles were gradually making their peace with the English, and the surrender of Stirling Castle marked the effective end to organised Scottish resistance on a large scale. In light of his increasing success, Edward I was generally willing to be fairly accommodating towards those Scots who were willing to submit to him, but this was not so with Wallace. Indeed, in the general amnesty offered to the Scots by the English, Wallace might at best 'render himself up to the will and mercy of our sovereign lord the king, if it shall seem good to him' - hardly an encouraging prospect. When Wallace's long-standing cohort Simon Fraser submitted to Edward in July 1304, he was welcomed into the king's peace only on the understanding that he would assist in the ever-intensifying hunt for the fugitive Wallace. Nevertheless, Wallace remained at large until 3rd August 1305, when he was seized near Glasgow by men in the service of Sir John Menteith, keeper of Dumbarton Castle on behalf of King Edward. Menteith - identified as Wallace's 'gossop' ('godfather') by Harry.

Having finally captured Wallace, Edward I refused even to see him. Instead, Wallace was taken to London for what for want of a better word might be called a trial.

Sir Peter Malory, one of the king's justices, presided over the proceedings, which were little more than a formality. The charges were considerable. Wallace had, according his accusers, been a traitor to King Edward, perpetrated armed resistance against him and slain the king's officers (William Heselrig was mentioned by name), assumed the authority of 'a superior' of Scotland, submitted 'to the fealty and lordship of the lord king of France and [gave] him help to the destruction of the kingdom of England', made war on the northern counties of England, 'feloniously and seditiously assaulted, burned and devastated religious men and nuns...[and] inflicted [upon] all, old and young, wives and widows, children and babes the worst death which he could devise', and 'harmoniously and eagerly...refused to submit himself to the lord king's peace' even after being defeated at Falkirk. According to the Annals of London, he 'answered that he had never been a traitor to the king of England, but granted the other crimes charged against him'.

In the eyes of the English as an outlaw, Wallace had no recourse to a defence. Instead, he was summarily sentenced to be executed in the manner reserved for traitors. Wallace was thus 'dispolyeid of his weid' as Hary puts it and dragged naked on a hurdle through the streets of London. At Smithfield he was hanged by the neck 'for the robberies, homicides and felonies which he carried out in the kingdom of England and the land of Scotland'

Before he could suffocate he was taken down and emasculated and disembowelled 'for the dreadful wickedness which he did to the church'. His 'heart, liver and lungs and all the bowels...from which such perverse thoughts proceeded' were then burned. Presumably now dead, Wallace was beheaded - the punishment for outlawry - and his body was divided into four parts. His head was to be displayed on London Bridge (where it remained until at least September the following year, when it was joined by that of his former comrade Simon Fraser). The remaining quarters were to be displayed on gibbets at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Stirling and Perth, 'to put dread in and to warn all by-passers and observers'.

The savagery with which Wallace was dispatched contrasts sharply with Edward I's attitude toward the Scots in general, but let’s not forget it was the usual punishment for any person deemed to be a traitor.

However it appeared that Longshanks earlier experiences with the Scots had convinced the ageing English king that a more conciliatory approach to establishing a lasting English administration in the kingdom. Edward's new plan for the settlement of Scotland envisaged a ruling council composed primarily of Scots - including the likes of Bruce and Comyn - which would advise an English lieutenant who would retain overall authority. Scots law and custom was to be respected, at least in the short term, and it may have seemed to many at the time that the objections that had fuelled Wallace's original rebellion in 1297 had been addressed. 

As we know, the matter would be rendered moot less than six months after Wallace's death when Robert Bruce killed Comyn, forcing him to make public his ambition to become King of Scots. In many senses Bruce's struggle was quite unlike Wallace's, being primarily motivated by his own ambitions and perception of his rights. That being said, if Wallace had not maintained the momentum behind Scottish resistance to the English, particularly in the crucial year of 1297, then Bruce may never have had his opportunity to make his successful bid for power.

Pics are statues of Sir William Wallace around Scotland in order, Bemersyde near Dryburgh, Aberdeen, opposite His Majesty's Theatre,  Edinburgh Castle, Newmarket Street Ayr, St Nicholas Church, Lanark, Stirling Town Centre, The National Wallace Monument Abbey Craig, Stirling, showing it before and after it’s recent restoration,  Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh and his memorial at Smithfield, London. There are others around the world that remember the Scots Patriot who so bravely stood up to fight for his country.

#Scotland #scottish #Sir William Wallace #medieval history #judicial murder #execution #history