#it was very bad vibes and my wife was suffering

[foldingfittedsheets]

So on Tuesday my wife and I dropped off the paperwork to register as legally married and as part of that I want to finally legally change my name. I haven’t used my deadname in decades and I’m so ready.

But the very nice lady at the Recorders office said we’d need to go through Social Security for name changes. Since we were already in the city we walked to the SS office.

The ground floor was like a TSA, with scanners and guards. They asked, “Do you have any weapons?”

We both did. My wife held out their cute Swiss Army knife which got an immediate pass. Mine caused more issue, though. It’s a cute little knife, it folds up to look like a leaf and unfolds into a blade. I showed the man and he looked gravely concerned.

When he asked to see it closer I obliged, folding it closed so I could take it off my key ring to hand over. And this man. This buff security man. Could not open my cutesy little knife to save his life. He futilely pawed at it from all different angles while I tried to say, “Look, you can see the hinge, just pull at the top…”

Finally he had to hand it back so I could open it for him. Then two other men came over and all three Very Serious Security Men in a Federal Building pored over my tiny cute knife with great intensity and concern. A ruler was produced and they conferred in hushed whispers.

I was honestly trying not to laugh when he finally passed it back and said I could keep it, but cautioned me not to pull it out. I solemnly agreed, returning my tiny weapon to my key ring.

#ramblies #ended up bailing on the security office though #it was very bad vibes and my wife was suffering #I’ll try to go Friday to the smaller one by us #I’d rather spend my days off with them doing nice things even if it means suffering a government office alone

[starberry-cupcake]

We are done with book 1, folks!!!

previously, in gideon the ninth

this happened

also, I was proven right about dulcinea (kind of)

just pointing that out again

final update of this book, it's gonna be a bit of a long one, folks (gideon, from inside my mind, where she is now living rent-free: "that's what she said!"):

we left off in the fight against not!dulcinea

yandere simulator twin w/inner chad was being used as a battery pad

regina george twin is at an unknown location

la gideon and my qp wife are fighting

harrowcita passed out

so basically not!dulcinea unlocks the big magnus archives entity monster harrowbean had previously locked

harrow wakes up to make a bone dome

for scale, this is the dome and mickey is gideon, but she's inside the thing

magnus archives junji ito monster keeps beating the dome from outside to crack it open like an egg

harrowbean starts to disintegrate from the inside because it's hard to make a bone spaceship earth and keep it up

camilla is accepting fate at this point, my poor beloved qp wife

but la gideon is not gonna give up

she's never gonna give you up

never gonna let you down

never gonna...

so harrow starts making a goodbye speech

reminding gideon to take care of the ninth and the barbie in the freezer

for the barbie reference, please go to this recap

but gideon is determined to come up with a plan

*very niche reference but "bien warrior" by miss bolivia plays in the background*

we all know this is a terrible idea because gideon's plans are always "punch really hard" and, in this case, that's a wild thing to do

but she does that

a metal version of that

she decides to, if I understand correctly (because description is scarce for various acceptable reasons) impale herself on the iron spikes inside the dome, to force Harrow to slurp her soul

so this is the situation

absolutely heartbreaking stuff

she's sort of ghost-placing herself behind Harrow to guide her using the sword

like this

and being all silly and gideon-esque and harrow is heartbroken and sad and it's all very very heartbreaking and I'm suffering

I'm ANGRY, OK????

IT'S NOT FAIR

I didn't even like gideon at the start

I complained about her for like a good first chunk of this book

I got mad at her for being dense and not following through with things

I got angry at her way of approaching situations and trusting people I didn't trust

I didn't totally vibe with her vibe most times

and then she made me like her and grow attached and NOW I HAVE TO SUFFER???

what's the point????? you make me like you and then you SACRIFICE YOURSELF?????

WHY??????

footage of me

anyway, it's fine, we're fine, everything's FINE

harrow and force-ghost gideon defeat not!dulcinea by aiming at the "issue" palmolive started

( @lady-harrowhark "paramedics" is actually a much better nickname, why didn't I think of that)

not!dulcinea crosses the veil, hopefully forever, good riddance bitch, you really did fuck everything up for petty reasons

harrow passes out

afterwards, harrow wakes up in like a sort of hospital situation or something like that

the space version of that

there's a man reading stuff in a tablet and a paper

a "flimsy", which I didn't know was something before this book (again, not a native English speaker, doing my best here)

the man has very specific eyes which I imagined in a way that I'm not sure is what it's supposed to be, but I'm gonna keep my version for now

this is the man of the hour, the emperor, many other titles I can't remember, the reason we all got together in the first place

harrow is upset, I'm upset, we're all upset

emperor sama over here can't do shit about it

according to him

which, what are you, the wizard of oz?

he's also like "forgive not!dulcinea, it was my bad" I WILL FORGIVE NOTHING

he says he can't bring gideon back without risking harrowbean as well

very limited for a man who claims to be god

who seems to have beef with a barbie in an ice cube

idk about this guy

so he tells harrow that he's gonna protect the ninth if she becomes lyctor because the universe is going to shit and he can't handle everything on his own anymore

you know what could have helped, my man? COMMUNICATION

WE DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING AT ANY GIVEN POINT

anyway, harrow is, at this point, tired and sad and grieving for everything so she says ok

according to this guy, the only other survivor is yandere simulator twin w/inner chad who is missing an arm

very convenient for him, who needs lyctors

an didn't, at any point, explain anything

but they "haven't been able" to find the bodies of: la gideon, my wife and regina george twin

everyone else was, at least, partially recovered, as far as I remember he said

they're probably gathering pieces of palmolive from every carpet and piece of wallpaper

I am reluctantly gonna miss that guy

so there is hope that I'm not a qp widow yet and that la gideon might come back in some capacity, which I MEAN, COME ON

also, I don't know if people would be making such a fuss about her arms if her body wasn't of consequence anymore

because I don't know much about these books but I did know that coming in, that and skull make up were my two clues

and we still don't know where she came from and if she's a demigod

and why her hair and eyes are that color

I don't know, I'm unsure about this

I hold hope

keeeeeeep hoooooolding ooooooon ♪

I am sure regina george twin will be back because people have been cryptic about her in replies to my updates

and I hope camilla comes back because right now I'm like a victorian wife, standing at a lighthouse, waiting for her sailor to come back from the depths of the sea, throwing messages in bottles

final extra notes:

THERE WAS A GLOSSARY ALL ALONG

I COULD HAVE BEEN LOOKING AT IT

maybe it was better this way, though, but WHY DIDN'T I LOOK PROPERLY

PALMOLIVE WOULD KILL ME FOR THIS OVERSIGHT

now I know what thanergy is, what thalergy is, what bone magic and flesh magic differ in, can you believe???

I can summon my own construct and everything

it's the only way to make friends as an adult, after all

there is a guide for the names and I have been pronouncing more things right than I thought because many of these are based in Latin and I'm a Spanish speaker so maybe if I had just pronounced them as they sounded to me I could have remembered more names

there is also a list of salseo/tea from judith

I kept making comments while reading them

she was acting like camilla was of no consequence from the start

ALSO PROTOZOA HAD KIDS?????? WHAT????

man, poor dude, rip this guy we never really knew

she did read chad for filth, which is correct

but they were off about absolutely everything else

important ending commentary of the book:

as an ending side note

I'm going to just point this out, with kindness and utmost respect

like, much love and respect and warm regards

don't kill me for this

as an editor

I am enraged with the tagline they have in the cover of this book, now that I've finished it

the quote that's in the cover about lesbian necromancers in a victorian mansion in space and whatnot

it sells the book incredibly short and also tells you things you shouldn't be told because a) they aren't as clear cut as they make them out to be and b) you should be told none of that entering this book

best experience is to know absolutely nothing

like gideon

and since I have an ebook, I see that quote more prominently than any blurb

it reads like the short summary of a fic and it doesn't do it justice one bit

now that I've finished the book, I think this post was about it and I didn't know at the time, because that's fair

this book is very difficult to categorize because it seems to be using a lot of different references and mixing them together in a very personal and unique way to the author

but, because of that, it's a very unique take on different things

I think it stands very aligned with both core classics and more contemporary foundations, at the same time

and the narrative point of view is a bit at-odds with the complexity of the lore, which makes it a very brave first part of a bigger thing for an author to throw out there

and it works, as it is

it actually works well like that

however, as difficult as it can be to explain it, that tagline really flattens it to something that I don't think favors how much more of that it is???

I don't know, that's just my personal & professional opinion, but anyway

I need to go find the next one

you haven't seen the last of me!!!!!

#luly reacts to tlt #gideon the ninth #tlt #tlt spoilers #gideon the ninth spoilers #gif cw #long post #trying not to do literary analysis at the end there #and editing analysis #for all of our sakes

[blues824]

Can I please request a sequel to the female douma in the remarried empress.

💐After her husband King Wharton dies she gives heinley her blessings to take over the crown and crowns him as king.

🌈During the devorse of navier and sovieshit she is still in the Western kingdom waiting for the arrival of heinley and his soon to be wife navier and heinley even has a letter of his sister in law (aka douma mc )

Telling the high priest her adopted father that she blesses the marriage of navier and heinley that she is even willing to give navier her tite of Queen because she doesn't want to see her friend suffer and douma mc and the high priest knows that navier her life passion in life was being the empress.

💐Later on navier gets to the western empire and douma mc publicy stats that navier is now the queen and she is now just the holy lady douma even giving navier her crown on her head as wedding presents.

(Douma mc gave the crown above to navier and the dress below to navier (it gave me kokochibo vibes )

🌈Imagen sovieshit sending douma mc a request for them to marry now she is single but she choices kosiar as her husband because it makes her closer to navier(and like she wants the men that hurt navier ) .

💐Her learning that heinley is planning to make the western kingdom a empire when he marries navier and her supporting him and her wanting to be the one who gets them married (douma mc is the priest on their wedding because the high priest already got them married and because his daughter wanted to do it he let her )

(What she wore to wed navier and heinley don't mind the skull )

🌈Imagen them getting invided to the eastern empire for the marriage of rattrash and sovieshit and seeing the infamous Christmas wedding dresses and douma mc telling heinley that her left navier for that mistake and her feeling for the first time in her life bad for her adopted father the high priest.

💐I can imagine totally see rattrash trying to provoke douma mc that she is no longer queen and douma mc just glaring at her saying that she doesn't need a crown for power that she could kill her rn and be forgiven and just calmy walking towards navier .

Preface: Your husband, King Wharton III, has passed away. What happens now?

This turned out to be total shit, but my mind was completely absent during this. I am so sorry 😭😭

Sovieshu

Once he found out that your husband had passed, he immediately wrote to you asking if you would become a concubine of his. Imagine his surprise when you rejected him. In the letter you sent to him, you called him an idiot for even thinking that you would ever want to become a mere mistress when you had just been a queen. Not just that, but you wrote that you were already engaged to Kosair. 

To get your revenge, you wrote to your adoptive father saying that you wished to see Heinrey and Navier married as it would be better for the Western Kingdom to have an heir soon, and that you were willing to relinquish the crown to Heinrey as long as the two were wed. So, in the courtroom, the High Priest already knew his answer when the King of the Western Kingdom asked to be married to the former Empress.

However, he was willing to overlook it, and he invited you, Heinrey, and Navier to his wedding to Rashta. You were dressed properly, this time without a veil over your face so that the Empress-to-be would be in the spotlight. It was very unexpected, actually.

During the reception, Sovieshu went up to you and kissed the back of your hand out of courtesy, and you could see the sadness in his eyes as he saw the engagement ring. However, you honestly didn’t care. You knew that Sovieshu was getting what he deserved anyway.

Rashta

She had heard through Sovieshu that your husband had passed away, and she felt bad for feeling happy that you were now a widow. However, you did mock her at the New Year’s Ball, so she held a very heavy grudge against you. 

However, her beloved Emperor still invited you to the wedding. She was upset about it, but remembered that you were the adopted child of the High Priest. So, she couldn’t do much about it anyway. She feared that the High Priest would not have married them had she removed you from the guest list. 

But, during the ceremony, she saw you lean over to the now-King Heinrey and whisper something that almost caused him to laugh. This got her really overthinking everything. Were you talking about her? How dare you?? You weren’t even the Queen of anything now.

Eventually, this ate at her mind minute after minute. After they were married, she marched over to you and questioned the audacity you had to talk about the Empress when you weren’t even a Queen anymore. However, you let out a very maniacal laugh before you questioned the audacity she had to talk to the Holy Lady, Daughter of the Gods, like that. You pulled her in close and leaned into her ear, and whispered I could kill you now and everyone would say that it was simply your time to go. Remember your place. This chilled the former mistress to the bone.

Navier

She knew that you probably wrote to the High Priest before she got her divorce because she didn’t even have to ask to be married to Heinrey. Plus, you were waiting for them at the dock when they arrived. You led her to her chambers after giving her a big hug.

A few weeks later, you had made a statement to the press that it was time for you to relinquish the crown to Heinrey, and Navier was surprised. To be fair, you weren’t born into the royal family, so that might have been why. So, she watched as you placed the crown that your husband once wore on Heinrey’s head. You then turned around and motioned a servant to come forth, and they had another crown. You took the crown, went up to Navier, and placed it upon her head, deeming her the Queen and yourself back to the Holy Lady.

Then, you both received the invitation to Sovieshu’s and Rashta’s wedding. You volunteered to go in place of them both, but Navier stated that it was her duty as Queen to put her griefs aside and be the representative of the Kingdom. You looked upon her with pride, happy that she’s still willing to fulfill her duties.

When she and Heinrey were getting married, you stated that you had been bestowed the power from your adoptive father to marry the two. So, preparations were made at once. You did splendidly, and you made sure that the entire event ran smoothly as the planner and the officiant. She was truly happy to have you as a sister-in-law, doubly so because you were engaged to her brother.

Heinrey

For once he was actually happy to see you (I say that jokingly). You hugged him before hugging Navier. You later explained that part of the reason why the High Priest quickly accepted their request to be wed was because you wrote to him and asked/begged him to.

Weeks later, you made a statement to the press saying you would be giving up the crown to Prince Heinrey. The coronation was really grand, and you were the one to place the crown that your husband had worn on Heinrey’s head. It surprised everyone when you took off your own crown and placed it on Navier’s head. You then announced that you were giving up the seat of Queen to Navier, and that you would go back to being known as the Holy Lady.

When you were all invited to Sovieshu and Rashta’s wedding, the three of you sat with each other. You put a hand over your mouth in surprise when you saw Rashta walking down the aisle in the dress she was wearing. You leaned over and whispered ‘For once I feel bad for Sovieshu’, and Heinrey had to cover his mouth so he wouldn’t laugh.

Eventually, it was Heinrey and Navier’s turn to get married in the Western Kingdom, and you were the officiant as well as the planner. You wanted the day to be absolutely perfect and wanted no stress being placed on either soon-to-be. The bird-man was so grateful for you, you would never believe it.

Kosair

Once he had received word of your husband passing away, he actually wrote a letter of condolences. You responded by asking to be engaged to him, since you were scared about not having an excuse for when Sovieshu inevitably asked for your hand in marriage. He obviously said yes.

He was by your side when you gave the crown to Heinrey, and the press definitely took a few pictures of you holding hands with Kosair. It was about time that your relationship became public anyway, considering you were about to be married soon.

Kosair loved you to the ends of the Earth and back, but there were times where he realized that he could never give you the life he deserved. For once, this really pulled at your heartstrings, and you took his hand in yours and said that it didn’t matter if he wasn’t the heir to a kingdom or anything. As long as he was yours and you were his, nothing else mattered. When it was the day for Heinrey and Navier’s wedding, you joked about getting experience from two sides: the officiant and the bride. This made him red, but he really couldn’t wait for the day he was able to be the one to lift your veil.

#remarried empress #the remarried empress x reader #the remarried empress #remarried empress x reader #sovieshu vict x reader #emperor sovieshu #sovieshu vict #sovieshu x reader #sovieshu #rashta x reader #rashta #navier trovi x reader #empress navier #navier trovi #navier x reader #navier #heinrey alles lazlo x reader #heinrey alles lazlo #heinrey x reader #heinrey #heinrey lazlo #heinrey lazlo x reader #kosair trovi x reader #kosair x reader #kosair trovi #kosair

[adainesfroggieboggy]

i want to share my future bad kids bc that i came up with for a fic. i love them dearly. Below the cut bc its so long.

Adaine goes to Fallinel for a while and goes into politics after college, but after quite a few years of working her ass off to fix the country, she leaves because Jawbone’s lycanthropy becomes very difficult for him to live alone. He has Sandra Lynn but they’re both getting old and he’s sick. She comes home for him, takes a job as the divination teacher at Augefort, and settles back into Elmville peacefully. I also think she dates a hell of a lot and I hc pan Adaine. I feel like with immortality, sexuality becomes pretty fluid, and Adaine very much leans into that. When she moves back to Elmville, she puts dating on pause and just teaches and cares for Jawbone (the principal of Augefort).

Fig and Ayda tour together for years. Fig loves playing and she never wants to stop. Not even when in their 30’s, Ayda decides she wants to settle down. They break up pretty amicably and Fig tours for a long time afterwards. She slows down when she hits her 40s and ends up living in Bastion City, still a rock star, but she doesn't tour quite so often or go quite so far, but she never quite stops. She's happy, and pulls tons of chicks when she wants to, but doesn't really date seriously? Even in her 40s, she's so young for an archdevil. Her friends have decades, she has centuries. She lives her young soul life for a long ass time.

Kristen spreads the gospel of Cassandra for a long time. She leaves the party to run the church and just gets too busy to continue the frequent traveling. She gets married and divorced, has a couple kids, and lives in Bastion City. She has a very amicable tradeoff with the kids and shares custody but spends the majority of her time running the church. Her kids are sweet and loved, and so is she. Her life is mundane and easy now, which she learns to really love. She just settles down and learns to channel her chaos. She becomes a very great mom, pastor, and person, doing a lot of volunteer and outreach work, loving the world, her life, and her family. I think she ends up having a very serious long-term relationship but keeps her very separate from her kids. it's a quiet life.

Riz is absolutely an investigative reporter! Murph says this in one of his fireside chats, and I wholeheartedly agree! He leaves the party first because he didn't ever want the adventuring life, he wants the detective, crime-solving part of it. He goes to school and ends up with a law degree (bc he's just cool and would absolutely take lawyer classes to make sure he was able to cite laws) and a really badass job as a reporter, kicking ass and taking names, but with words as his weapon! He stays in Bastion City, makes friends, and just is happy. He doesn't get married or have kids, but he has so much platonic love and familial love! He's so happy and cool and very effective. He likes to enlist Adaine for arcane cases, and she definitely heads over every time and stays over in his apartment and they're super close. He's also super close with fabian, but their lives are so different that it's a different kind of closeness.

Gorgug's life is super chill and simple He doesn't marry Zelda bc they're children, but he does fall head-over-heels for a woman and gets married. He leaves because he suffers a pretty severe head injury, but also because his wife is pregnant! He has a son his parents are so sweet and excited. He's a tinkerer, but also a professor at Augefort! Zac said that Gorgug may help people who are multiclassing, and I like the idea that Jawbone opens a completely new section of the school that focuses specifically on multiclassing, and Gorgug teaches both barbarian and artificer classes! He really chills out and his rage is very rare and almost always in defense of his family. Chill, happy, relaxed Gorgug just vibes with me.

FABIAN! My favorite most hc. He's a dad. He has two daughters and they're his whole entire world. Leaving the party was absolutely not his choice, but he lost his leg in a brutal battle and his body no longer cooperates with the way he needs to move. He's got chronic pain and just can't adventure any longer, so he ends up moving to a seaside town and becoming a stay-at-home dad. At some point during his recovery, his first wife leaves him and the girls and Cathilda moves in. The girls call her their Dida and she's like their other grandma. He's a stay-at-home dad and loves it! He and Aelwyn reconnect as adults and end up getting married now that they're no longer so toxic in each other's lives, and Aelwyn is an absolutely amazing stepmom. She'd never imagined having her own kids, but she loves the girls so much and they're all so happy together. Aelwyn is still a researcher and an abjurative wizard, so he happily stays at home. They might have a mansion in the sky because it's a bit in one of the fireside chats and I love to commit to a bit. They're so cute! Domestic, toxic masculinity is dead, stay-at-home dad and his smart, hot, kind, caring wife.

Also, bonus one, I am so tempted to kill Gilear. A lot of my hcs are based on actual things the cast has said, and Brennan says, "As the person who plays Gilear, I'd like to see him dead in the fucking ground." I am not a Gilear lover, I find him funny and entertaining, but there is something about that sad elf man that makes me wanna kill him. Like if we were in Spyre and I knew Gilear, I might just kill him. Straight up. (Kidding, kidding. I wouldn't kill him, but in a campaign? I'd probably attack him for fun so often bc i wouldn't have Emily at my table.) If he doesn't end up just straight-up dead, he's vice principal. It's much better to have his ex-wife's new boyfriend as his boss for the rest of his sad little life. No happiness for him. I love Emily, I love Fig. Gilear? Dead to me.

#dimension 20 #adaine abernant #fabian seacaster #riz gukgak #kristen applebees #gorgug thistlespring #fig faeth #aelwyn abernant #i hate gilear and don't know why #it started as a bit and now it's very real #gilear faeth hatepage ig

[mermaidsirennikita]

ARC REVIEW: A Sweet Sting of Salt by Rose Sutherland

4.25/5. Releases 4/9/2024.

Vibes: sapphic fairy tales, selkies, feminine rage, small magical towns by the sea

Heat Index: 2/10

As the village midwife, practical and prickly Jean lives a lonely existence--until the night she finds a young woman by the sea, hours from giving birth. Her name is Muirin, and after Jean helps her deliver a son, their connection seems natural. Less natural? Muirin's relationship with her odd, domineering husband. As Jean becomes convinced that Muirin is in danger, she hatches a plan to help her escape--not realizing that there is much more to her new love's presence than a bad marriage.

I love selkies--always have. They're very much a part of my childhood, which is why it's so frustrating to see them, very frequently, done wrong... And it's such a relief to see them done right. This is a lyrical fantasy romance rooted in history (think a nineteenth century fishing village) and folklore. It's queer--and not just in the sense that it's about two women falling in love--and longing is braided into the narrative.

Along with a heavy dose of rage against men who would trap and control women. Which. Is something I think a lot of us can relate to.

This is the kind of story that sucks you in, to the point that you can feel the sea salt, the stolen kisses and unraveling secrets. It's simple, but lovely--and I'd like to see more of its type.

Quick Takes:

--There's something delightfully whimsical and angsty all at once to Muirin and Jean's romance. Like, the framing is obviously angsty. They meet when Jean delivers Muirin's baby, so it's clear from the jump that Muirin is married to a man she doesn't want to be with. The novel doesn't shy away from subjects like domestic violence (though you see very little of it on the page), marital rape (though it's only alluded to), and homophobia.

Yet for all that, this isn't a story about suffering. It's ultimately a story about love--not just Muirin and Jean's though that's a gorgeous, sweet romance that feels like it's as much solace for Jean as it is for Muirin. it's also about the love between Jean and her found family, like the midwife who mentored her, and her friend who happens to be a gay fisherman. (The queer found family vibes are stroooong in this one.) It's also a story about reclaiming agency and throwing off oppression, and that is so deeply, deeply satisfying. "Satisfying" is literally how I would describe this narrative. Towards the end, I was just nodding along like "YES".

--Going back to the romance aspect... Yes, there's caretaking, there's solace found, there's catharsis. But there's also a lot of playfulness to it. Muirin is super flirty and openly interested in Jean. While Jean is understandably hesitant to engage at first, Muirin is just inherently endearing. You definitely get a bit of grumpy/sunshine here. Jean is never grumpy towards Muirin, but she's so guarded and frosty towards the world in general (with good reason) and Muirin is just so bright and charismatic and desperate to connect with her on every level.

And there is such a deep... womanliness to this romance. Like, this is obviously a book about two women falling in love. But it goes into the societal roles of women in this book's world. The midwife, the wife, the initial meet cute being a labor scene. There's a very real depiction of the kind of husband who is inherently afraid of his wife just like--making friends with another woman. Because even if Jean and Muirin weren't falling in love, Jean would represent an alternate life, options and a path beyond him.

--Another aspect I found immensely compelling was the midwifery of it all. You don't ever get the sense that there's anything twee about birth, but it's also not a ridiculously melodramatic horror show. It's a fact of life, and Jean's good at her job, and she treats it like a job. She cares, but she's also as practical as ever. Her practicality--and the way it melts away as she falls in love with Muirin, and really as soon as she becomes emotionally invested in her--is so endearing.

--Obviously, a baby is born almost immediately in this novel. Sutherland keeps the baby in it enough for him to be cute, but not so much that he takes away from the story. He adds to the stakes--he is not the only part of the stakes. What is happening to Muirin isn't just important because she has a baby. The baby is just another person impacted by what is happening to her.

--The selkie lore is great. One scene in particular towards the end had me clutching my face. it was just so beautifully done. Apparently, this all kicked off with an ancient Tumblr post I'm pretty sure I saw back in the day? Huh! Who knew? Yet another thing Tumblr has contributed to society. I do kind of wish that the lore side of the story had unfurled a little faster, but I get why it played out the way it did.

The Sex:

There is sex; it is entirely closed door. I could've done with some stuff on the page (always) but I didn't feel robbed.

At last, those crying out for a lesbian selkie story have found their hero. Read on any day, but especially a day when it's storming outside, or you're close to the sea, or both. Keep your eye out for mysterious seals who may or may not be beautiful women in disguise.

Thanks to NetGalley and Dell for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Preorder here:

Amazon

B&N

Bookshop.org

#romance novel blogging #book recs #romance novels #books #book reviews #arc reviews #netgalley

[noctusfury]

First Wife Before Valka? (HTTYD Headcanon/Theory)

Hello everyone, and welcome to my next HTTYD article. Today’s topic, we’ll dive into my headcanon and theory of Stoick having been a widower by the time he meets Valka.

Now you’re probably wondering why I’m even thinking that, because, surely, Valka was his one and only. However, I must emphasize their ten-year age gap. They would’ve probably married around... 18/19 and 28/29, respectively (assuming they haven’t had any miscarriages before Hiccup, then most likely 19); Hiccup would’ve been born when Valka was 20 and Stoick was 30. 

Even if you discount historical accuracy and write this world off as a fantasy world, we also cannot ignore the historical implements implied or otherwise entailed in this world as well. For example, I find it extremely hard to believe that Stoick didn’t marry at all until he married Valka. Especially when Vikings live supposedly short and dangerous lives. That just stretches plausibility too far. 

Let me return you to the final episode of DoB “Cast Out” where Alvin goes into detail concerning his and Stoick’s past. (I will go into more detail concerning Alvin’s past in a later article.)

Judging from how Alvin talks, it’s very likely that one of those “injuries” was Stoick’s father, who was the chief during that time, which would greatly explain Alvin’s eventual banishment from Berk as an Outcast. 

If this did, indeed, result in his father’s untimely death, then Stoick would’ve had to have taken up the mantle as Berk’s next chief. Gobber even goes as far to say earlier in the same episode:

Guessing by the dialogue, there seems to be an implication that Stoick was probably somewhere between 16-20 years of age when he became Chief. Young enough to be inexperienced and having difficulties of having suddenly having this position of responsibility thrusted upon him unfairly by Life and Fate. 

Since Dreamworks has a habit of omitting family members out for animation reasons, I believe he has other family members besides himself. I, personally, use the Book Stoick reference, where he has a younger brother and several sisters.

Regardless of whether he has several siblings and relatives or whether he’s an only child, the fact remains that there would’ve been serious pressure put on him to find himself a wife and produce an heir. After all, most Vikings live short lives to begin with, as stated and reinforced by the Twins explanation in RTTE Season 5 episode 5 “A Matter of Perspective”.

With this in mind, not to mention the ever-growing number of dragon raids, there would’ve been immense pressure to produce an heir before something bad should befall Stoick as well. 

He could’ve very well have been in his early twenties, like Hiccup, when he got married. As to who married him, well... that’s honestly up in the air, and up to the readers as well. If Spitelout had a sister, Stoick could’ve married her, which would tickle any “Cousin! Snotlout” backers out there. And it would explain the “in-law” vibes they (Stoick and Spitelout) give off.

Or it could’ve been some random woman.

However, this is where we dive into my own personal headcanon as to Stoick’s marital background.

My Headcanon and Backstory for Stoick’s First Wife

After Alvin was banished, Alvin’s family figured it was time to leave Berk because of the dishonor their family suffered by Alvin’s actions. While it was a common unspoken law that families were exempt from discrimination from a former member’s crimes, the death of a rather popular and experienced leader so suddenly due to their son’s insubordination really hit many the wrong way, and there were many who resented them and blamed their lack of parenting/discipline in Alvin’s conduct.

So, Alvin’s family decided to leave Berk. In doing so, they had also hoped to marry their daughter off to a good family outside of Berk, since no one would take her now after Alvin’s outlawry. As they were prepping themselves for the journey in the middle of the night, they also came to Stoick to tell them the news of their departure, once again apologizing for the misdeeds of their son. Stoick waves it off and says that he is only sorry that he couldn’t stop them from leaving, having viewed them as a second family to him.

When he was told that Alvin’s sister would marry outside of Berk, feeling somewhat responsible for her current circumstances, he discusses the matter with them and asks for their daughter’s hand in marriage, honestly shocking everyone. They ask Alvin’s sister whether she consents to the match, or if she would rather go with them and find a suitor elsewhere. She, after some pondering, wishes to accept Stoick’s hand, saying that she bore him no ill will for Alvin’s banishment, and that it would be better to marry someone she knows and respects, even if that means staying behind and having to deal with their neighbors’ resentment. In her heart, she doesn’t want to leave the island of her birth, regardless of what the circumstances or outcome will be.

Her parents respect her decision and agree to the match, deciding to remain until they’re wed. While the populace is generally unhappy with the union, the promise of feasting and food caused them to push it aside and enjoy the merriment. Once the knot is tied, they are officially married, and Alvin’s parents decide that it’s time to leave, and wish them good fortune and blessings aplenty before departing. And they sail out of this saga.

As Stoick continues to prove his mettle to the people, the Berkians have a change of heart and view him with pride and approval, and now trust him as a capable leader, with the potential to even rival if not surpass his father before him. And Alvin’s sister continues to encourage him and take care of him as he learns and improves on his chiefing duties. Aside from their honeymoon, they’ve been unable to copulate due to his increasing responsibilities as well as the dragon raids. It’s not until the harvest ends that he’s able to rest and give her some proper attention. Time for Operation Produce-An-Heir!

When told that she’s pregnant with his child, six months later, everyone is joyous, and starts to look favorably on her since there is hope that the Haddock line will continue and they can finally relax.

However, in the final two weeks of her incubation, she gets sick; complications arise and the baby comes sooner than expected. After 6 hours, she is very weak, but the baby was able to make it. It’s a son! The joyous news was short-lived, however, Alvin’s sister’s illness turns to phenomena, and she succumbs to it, passing away. The baby ends up dying the next day because of internal complications that the midwives can’t understand (due to lack of modern technology). And Alvin’s sister eventually succumbed to her illness and now grief and passed away not long after.

As Stoick reels from the disastrous double news, the Berkians, while sympathetic and distraught over their deaths, start whispering superstitiously amongst themselves, believing that the gods must be punishing him after all for having married the sister of his father’s killer. 

Once their funerals have concluded, Stoick requested for two rune-stones to be carved and erected in memory of his wife and child and have them be located behind the house. He was 21 when he was engaged to Alvin’s sister, and she was 19; they were 22 and 20, respectively, when they married. They’ve been married for 2 years. She and their child died when he was almost 25. 

Headcanon & Backstory For Stoick Meeting Valka 

Three years later, pressure again to marry comes up again. One day, when Stoick goes to the Althing to attend the Chieftains’ Council, he meets Old Wrinkly and his family along the way as they help them fend off pirates. He was almost killed by an Outcast’s blade as he was busy fighting two others, but the pirate was intercepted by Valka, Old Wrinkly’s eldest daughter, saving Stoick’s life. They continue to fight together until the pirates are defeated.

Old Wrinkly thanks him and introduces himself and his family, and also Valka, to Stoick, and they embrace in kinship, travelling together until they reached the Althing. While there, as Old Wrinkly, his sons, and Stoick drink mead together, the former wonders whether Stoick would be willing to enter a match with his eldest daughter, Valka, and Stoick says that he wouldn’t mind at all. And a deal is struck. Old Wrinkly warns him that they have not had problems with the dragons, and ask for his tolerance that she won’t share in the anti-dragon views of Berk. Stoick says that it’s fine, as he also has secret hopes that they can end the dragon wars and be at war no more. 

Stoick and Valka get engaged when they’re 28 and 18, respectively; they get married several months later. Valka gets pregnant with Hiccup at 19, and, while he was born three months earlier than he should’ve, is born healthy, and Hiccup is gifted to them at 30 and verge-of-20, respectively. Stoick and Valka still visit the rune-stones of his first wife and child, even well after Valka leaves a-questing for the Home of Dragons. 

When he’s growing up, upon learning of his dead kin, Hiccup would go visit the stones as well, often talking to them and looking after them. Whenever the paint comes off, he adds a fresh coat of it onto the runes. He even plants some flowers in front and around the stones to give it some cheer and color. Even though Stoick refuses to talk about them, Hiccup loves them dearly, and wishes that he could’ve met them at least once, and wonders what it would’ve been like to have an older sibling. When he’s fully grown and a Chieftain himself, he commissions the Berserkers to give him stone for him to build a family temple of sorts to house the rune-stones of not only Stoick’s first wife and child, but Stoick’s father as well, along with any of his own children who die prematurely, in order that the rune-stones will always be preserved, away from the natural elements, and to have it be the family’s memorial shrine. ^_^

Conclusion

So, in conclusion, I do not believe that Valka was Stoick’s first marriage, since the age gap is glaringly too wide for this to be the case. Regardless if this was a fantasy world that is not built on historical or real-life references, I highly doubt that his people and the council would’ve allowed him to rule for almost 10 years (if not 10 years if he ruled at 18 instead of 20-something) without marrying and begetting an heir to stabilize Berk’s security for the future as dragon raids and even conflicts with other humans continue to increase. Especially during a time when he could die at any moment by dragon, by circumstance, by nature, or by man.

So my theory is that Stoick married the first time long before he met Valka and married her. As to whom did he marry, well... it’s honestly up to you. It could be Spitelout’s sister, it could be a random woman, it could be anyone. Heck, it could even be Osvald the Agreeable’s sister for all we know! 

For me, my headcanon is that it’s Alvin’s sister (OC), not long after Alvin’s banishment. And the events thereafter that happen in later years. Plausible? 

So what do you guys think? Do you think Stoick married once before Valka came along? I look forward to hear your thoughts! ^_^

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope to see you in my next article!

Long Live the Night!

— Noctus Fury

#noctusfury #httyd #httyd fandom #httyd articles #stoick haddock #valka haddock #hiccup haddock #alvin the treacherous #httyd theories #httyd headcanons #berk #httyd lore #httyd backstory #original characters #stoick's wife before valka #stoick before valka came along #httyd 1 #pre-httyd 1 #httyd franchise #httyd series #httyd headcanon #httyd theory #httyd article #stoick's past

[spontaneouselfcombustion]

It’s very weird thinking about how things like míriel just Giving Up and dying is essentially???? Kinda???? Like??? Elf suicide???? Like she dies of her own will and volition. She even does it after a traumatic event (bc a childbirth that intense and medically effecting does count), in a state similar postpartum depression? Like she’s so unable to keep going she just Doesn’t. And it’s the first time that’s ever happened. And even living in the halls of mandos and just Vibing doesn’t help soothe and restore her. Even when she finally DOES reembody she says close to the dead and the goddess of sadness like damn, my girl is really going through it and elves never invented psychology so rip.

And just— when you put it like that. Finwë wife killed herself in paradise. She couldn’t continue and she chose to not be alive anymore. No one has ever done this (yet— I’m lookin at you thousands of elves about to get tortured n shit B) ). He’s got a wee baby to care for his wife just effectively committed suicide and he has no support because no one fucking knows what to do with this. It’s never happened before there’s no protocol for this. And she won’t come back. it’s not just that she can’t like with humans it’s that she’s choosing not to. It’s cruel to put it this way but she’s actively abandoning her husband and baby who love and need her. It’s not her intention and in many ways it’s something she can’t help but it doesn’t change that it’s going to feel like that for them. So finwë is just left totally bereft and isolated and pours everything into fëanor until the loneliness is so unbearable he asks to be able to remarry because he can’t take the sorrow and isolation anymore.

And then for fëanor man— she’s not just gone she chose to be gone and he did that to her. That’s so damaging to a growing child. Like it’s not totally true and míriel would never blame him but when you look solely at the facts— míriel is Fine, míriel has fëanor, míriel is so Not Fine she chooses to pass on. It’s going to eat at him. And again since this has never happened before and finwë doesn’t even have the experience of raising any other children to rely on for some of it none of it gets addressed really. Fëanor and finwë become intensely enmeshed and codependent because they’re the only two elves in all existence at this point who can comprehend this kinda is suffering and trauma. And OFC fëanor hates his stepmom and half brothers. It’s CLASSIC we can all look at fëanor and see like, the standard template of every kid struggling with changes to the family dynamic after a parent’s death or a divorce. It’s just no one here has HAD a parent die like this OR had a divorce. So once again no one actually knows what the fuck they’re looking at or what to do with it and so it festers.

I feel like if you wanted to you could sit down and trace basically everything bonkers fëanor does beck to míriel’s suicide and the subsequent events and dynamics it creates after. And not in a “it’s all míriel’s fault for being so weak and not just toughing it out blah blah blah kinda way” but just that all of this was so damaging, scarring, mismanaged, poorly thought thru on all sides, and just massively impactful even outside of their house (like they made a LAW bc of it, it’s the FIRST TIME these events have ever occurred, some might not have even thought what míriel did was POSSIBLE — at least on an emotional level) that OF COURSE it effects all his actions and choices. You could probably look at things like the kinslaying and find some shadow of míriel’s effects on him there.

Like okay— lemme just do just that in a very odd the cuff manner, just off the dome. No matter what finwë might’ve said fëanor had likely lived his entire life with at least a small part of him believing he is Bad and Entirely Dangerous/Evil. It’s the child logic of “it hurt my mommy to have me, she didn’t want to live because of it. I must be bad to have hurt my mommy so bad. She must not have loved me enough or at all because she wanted to be dead, she didn’t want to raise me. She must have known I’d only hurt her more because I’m so bad. Maybe she hated me because I hurt her so much she felt she had to die”.

Like— unless the gateway is wrong or I’m worse at math and reading than I thought— she dies when he’s around a year old. So he never got to meet her. He only has the facts and whatever flavor people put on it when they talk about her/what happened. He only has the facts of it and no real knowledge of her as a person to help inform why this would happen and maybe help him understand her and find a smidge of peace or release from that self loathing. He only has the idealized stories his father tells him about her (and you know finwë’s stories of her are all soooo glowing bc he’s in his own grief too) which can make him both love her as this Concept of a Perfect Mother who’d Love Him Forever and also make him feel Worse bc He Killed Her/Made Her Want To Die.

It doesn’t matter that fëanor is an adult with kids when finwë remarries— it’s going to absolutely obliterate his precarious mental health. And his new stepmom and half-brothers are all like nice, charming, well liked good people. Fëanor is not. He’s respected and admired but not as universally well liked as his brothers, he’s absolutely a personality you gotta have a taste for. It just hammers in for him the idea that something IS wrong with him. He was Not Enough for his father of his mother. Finwë went off to have more sons and that’s Proof. And it just Spirals from there for years as fëanor’s issues never really get addressed and the relationships spur and strain.

By the time his father his murdered and his silmarils stolen he’s 1) obviously out of his gourd with grief and rage and 2) probably going to find it easier to be The Bad One. Sometimes it’s just easier to lean into thinking you’re bad or evil or cruel. It feels like owning what people put on you or putting on an armor. And he can also tell himself that he’s avenging his father as his true son and being the bravest and strongest of his brothers, doing all the things they’re too weak to do. He’s already Bad anyway so why not be Bad and use that Badness to mow through every obstacle between him and the REAL enemy everyone else is too weak and cowardly to deal with? They should’ve just given him the boats. It’s not his problem they were fools. Didn’t anyone tell them he’s just as adept at destroying as he is making?

Like— I feel like there’s holes in that example and malformed bits but it’s literally just what I came up with on the spot to kinda prove my point. Míriel’s death, the nature of it and the repercussions on her family and elf society are just bonkers. If you want to sit down, think about them and map them out you can find the shadow of them everywhere without having to really get into any bullshitting or reaching.

#meta #silmarillion #feanor #finwe #miriel #feanorians #I kinda wanna go over this and reread/edit it but the app has crashed TWICE while I wrote this so I’m not taking chances #I’ve been listening to a guy talk about a book about a child who struggles with attachment bond creation and yes that did influence this #Fëanor really is the Most Specialist Elf Ever he literally invented childhood trauma and ofc was Super Intense About It #suicide tw #suicide mention

[call-sign-shark]

hello! random question <3

would rat and the rest of the shelby family ever meet and interact? just curious!! i feel like tommy would be a dick if he ever met rat tbh but polly or ada would get along well with her? im not too sure, what do you think?

Hi sweetie, thank you for the lovely question. You made me smile like an idiot. What a good timing though, ‘cause I’m currently working on Rat’s and Arthur’s the next snippet. 😌

In truth, I planned to write something about Rat’s meeting with Modern!Shelby family but I did not think about it yet, then your wonderful question popped in my ask box and made my brain worked hard. So here we go!

Thomas Shelby: I think you’re absolutely right about Tommy. In this Modern!AU, Tommy’s main job is politics even if he is still involved in illegal activities — but no spoil. With that in mind, he would consider Rat as a “walking bag of harmful troubles” for both his reputation and his brother’s. She’s loud, impolite, unpredictable and he absolutely despise these traits. Moreover, the reason behind him being a dick with her is directly linked with her link with Jack Nelson. His favorite sentence would be: “Listen brother, I know you’re feeling empathic but keeping this girl with you won’t do you good. I don’t think she has a positive impact on you. Dump her back on the streets and focus on getting back to your wife and your career. She isn’t worth it.”

John Shelby: While John is often represented as goofy and good-natured, I don’t think he’s that sympathetic with newcomers. His relationship with Heaven in Heaven in Your Eyes is quite unique, and it is not how he would behave with the other women his brothers bring. Surprisingly enough, he would not fancy Rat. Don’t get me wrong, he wouldn’t be a dick but he would be suspicious as fuck. Look, his big brother is having an existential crisis: he has lost his job, he has lost his wife, and he is addicted to drugs. The moment he tries to get better, a rude, unruly and problematic girl bursts out from nowhere and shakes his life. Isn’t it scary? So yeah, John is afraid of the possibility of Rat bringing problems to Arthur, as well as pulling him deeper in his addictions. John be like “Eh, she sounds like a bad idea, bro.” To that Arthur would just shrug and reply “My life’s made of bad ideas and stupid decisions”

Polly Gray: In this Modern!AU, Aunt Pol has a little esoteric shop and still has some supernatural gifts only a few believes in. From the moment she’d see Rat, her mother instincts would kick in. We should not forget that Rat is in her very early twenties, so Polly would feel she’s a lost little girl who tries to run away from something/someone. She would also understand that a lot of her rude behavior is just the way she’s found to protect herself — as well as being symptoms of deep traumas. That’s why she would often invite her for tea time and would prolly force-feed her sometimes. 😂 Also, I can perfectly picture Polly slapping Arthur’s head and scolding him like: “Don’t talk to her like that!” // “Do you even feed her? She looks so thin!” // “Can’t you be more gentle with her?!”

Also she would notice that her nephew has feelings for that chaotic blue-haired pixie. Which would lead her to grab Arthur and tell him: “Listen. That girl is more fragile than what she shows. So keep your dick in your fucking trousers and don’t make her suffer more than she already does.”

Ada Shelby: At first, Ada would look at her and raise a brow. She doesn’t understand why her brother decides to take care of her, but it’s none of her business. But one day she sees Rat punching the shit out of a grown-ass man who was catcalling a girl in the streets and she grows fascinated by her. I feel like they’d have a very sisterly bond, with Ada appreciating Rat’s toughness, ability to survive by herself and her Muay Thai skills. As for Rat, she would love Ada’s quick wit and strong boss girl vibes.

She would prolly say something like “You’re quite an endearing annoying little thing, girl.”

Rat is Reader/You in the Peaky Blinders modern AU Loose Cannon. || Or how a chaotic punk girl wrecked a soldier’s life and stole his heart.

#arthur shelby #peaky blinders #arthur shelby x reader #Peaky blinders imagine #Tommy Shelby #Tommy Shelby x reader #John Shelby #Polly gray #Ada Shelby #Rat the Brat

[chloeangelic]

OMG! The new chapter of ''Love Me Back'' is so much. How can something that starts like this chapter end up so badly? As with any good story, I knew the angst was around the corner, but what an ending.😳

I loved how you put her mental issues out in the open, with her thoughts and the therapy session in the first part of the chapter. It makes her more realistic, complex, and easier to comprehend. I totally get her. I share some of her thoughts, but at the same time, this chapter made me a bit angry. I hope the next part makes sense at the end. The mix of feelings this chapter made me feel is murky. Which shows me how well-written I found it and how much I liked it.

Self-worth can be a tricky thing, especially when starting a new relationship adds the fear of showing your true self and being rejected, a thing she's already gone through by the glimpses of her past relationships. Being told you're not girlfriend/wife material can create deep wounds, increasing her mental health struggles.

Their relationship is new, and they still have a lot to settle. I know WORDS are IMPORTANT, and they are needed, but seeing Joel show her with his actions what he wants (after all, he wouldn't let anyone get close to his daughter and develop a connection) while the reader is not able to acknowledge it, is frustrating. Not talking beforehand makes the whole situation way worse. The offer of take of Sarah, I feel like she might not be using her words yet, but she's putting herself out. She's trying to give Joel what he needs and be someone he can rely on, to be a team. The pain of Joel's rejection, coupled with his initial lack of attention, causes everything to explode. When, for once, she has the strength to defend herself and express her feelings, it's one of the worst moments.

I would love to read Joel's thoughts on the whole scene. He has so many fronts at the same time. I'm not excusing him because he could have handled the whole situation better (both of them could have). He also has his struggles and anxieties clouding his perception of the reader's emotions, making it harder for him to open himself and accept help. I hope the situation gets solved soon.

I trust you can pull out something from my ramble and that it wasn't too much, lol.😅 Thanks for the chapter! Despite preferring fluff, I'm a sucker for angst like the one you wrote.♥️

Ahhh im so glad you enjoyed it and got something out of it!!! i definitely think that new relationships are a massive catalyst for self worth issues because its such a vulnerable state to be in and youre so afraid of the other person finding something out about you thats suddenly a dealbreaker and just peacing out.

LMB girl has held soooo much back from joel, thinking shes shielding him from it, and it blows up in her face so bad cause she has this vault of crap thats bound to explode open with one little bad vibe from joel, even though theyre both misplacing their frustration. ive tried to make this fic as realistic as possible, and i think a lot of us have had periods of bottling things up and not being able to expect when the last drop hits

the whole series having such a mental health focus wasnt my intention when i started writing it - my initial idea was for it to be more FWB centered actually, but ive ended up including so much of my own experiences with self worth issues and subsequent healing, and that has made the whole thing more interesting i think

joels thoughts come out in ch 7!!!

so glad youre willing to suffer through my angst, and theres a lot of fluff coming up which is very uncharacteristic for me but we all need to see joel and his crab girl happy - they deserve it hahaha

thanks for sticking around, i love reading your detailed thoughts on the chapters <3 <3 <3

#chloe answers #love me back fic

[general-sleepy]

Assigning Saw Traps to Dracula Characters:

Because this is how my mind works. Also, I previously mentioned I was playing with this and @animate-mush encouraged my bad behavior. (With brief summaries of the traps if you're not as disastrously obsessed with the Saw series as I am.

Seward: I can honestly really see Jack in Lawrence's place in the Bathroom Trap (the main setup of the first movie, you wake up in a room with a stranger and you have to murder them or several of your loved ones will be killed; also in order to murder them you have to cut off your foot). Both of them are physicians who are emotionally disconnected and generally don't appreciate their lives. Honestly, though, I don't think the self-amputation aspect of the trap would be that huge of a deal for Jack. He might think it's kind of morbidly interesting.

Jonathan: I wasn't sure about this at first, but I decided Jonathan could take Adam's role in the Bathroom Trap. Adam is being punished for being passive, which is also a trait of Jonathan at the beginning of the novel; though due to politeness and a desire to please, rather than Adam's internalized homophobia unspecified mental illness. So, they have to suffer the wages of their own passivity, being helpless to another (implicitly more important) person's whims. Honestly, I can see John Kramer looking at Jonathan and getting big "pawn in someone else's game" energy. (Note that this applies to Jonathan pre-novel; post-novel, John would be very sore about Jon's willingness to die for/with Mina, because loving someone so much you couldn't live without them is pretty cringe tbh).

Arthur: Jigsaw would honestly struggle to find a reason to throw Art into a murder game. Maybe if he didn't process the grief of losing nearly everyone he loves in a few months in exactly the way John Kramer approved of. He'd probably get stuck in one of the more basic ones. Maybe the Venus Fly Trap (there's like a mini iron maiden around your neck and you have to cut out your eye to get the key surgically implanted behind it to get out of it). Arthur's a tough guy, though; honestly, I think he could get through it.

Quincey: Maybe Rigg's game (being faced with a variety of people in Saw traps and being encouraged not to help them, because either they deserve to die or they can only recover by "helping" themselves). We know that Quincey is self-sacrificing and willing to put his neck out to help near-strangers because for some reason he believes concern for others is a valuable reason to risk your own life. However, I imagine that Quincey would help rescue a victim of domestic violence, instead of deciding that she won't learn anything unless she pulls herself up by her bootstraps and helps herself (by killing her husband and suffering horrible pain, because DV victims are just complacent).

Lucy: Lucy and William Easton don't have a lot in common, but I realized his trap would fit for her. William's trap is super complicated, but mostly he has to go through a variety of situations where he decides who lives and who dies. Like, having to decide whether to kill a healthy young orphan with no friends or family and a chronically ill wife and mother, both of whom have done literally nothing wrong. Or having to decide which two of five people to save from being shot in the chest with a shotgun. This is the worst thing that could happen to Lucy, a boundlessly loving people-pleaser. That might be why he puts her in a trap, to encourage her to stand up for herself or something.

Mina: My immediate instinct was the Angel Trap (you're hooked up to this rig that is going to rip your ribs open unless you can fish the key out of a bottle of acid before it melts), mostly because of her and Kerry giving me kind of similar vibes. Kerry, a cop, is put in the trap because she's apparently obsessed with death more than the living, though really it seems like she's just too close to catching Jigsaw. Mina is fascinated by ghost stories and reads about criminology. She's, in a way, suicidal, and John Kramer absolutely cannot stand that. John would say that becoming a vampire is still close enough to living that you should still appreciate it.

Van Helsing: I was struggling to figure this out until I saw Saw X. Van Helsing is obsessed with brains and intellect and feels himself to be intellectually superior, so I think the brain surgery trap (you have to cut out a certain amount of your own brain tissue or your head gets roasted in a kind of mini-brazen bull) would fit. Maybe the instructions/insult tape would be something like, "You think you know what's going on in my brain, let's see if you know what's going on in yours." Something dumb like that.

#saw #dracula #saw x spoilers #i didn't put renfield here because john might actually dig his whole vibe #“you're obsessed with living? ah hell yeah living's awesome. carry on you crazy bastard. best of luck” #jonathan harker #mina harker #jack seward #quincey morris #arthur holmwood #abraham van helsing #tw: gore #tw: domestic violence #tw: suicide

[zenatness]

Finished Rogue Trader.

The journal is probably the weakest part of the game. The information in it is often too vague to be helpful and several of the rumors don't update and hang around even when you've dealt with them which effectively renders the whole rumor section useless.

Unfortunately, leveling up was a chore rather than a reward. There was simply too much to choose from and my lack of familiarity with the system made a lot of the decisions guesswork, and you constantly leveled up. It was a relief when I hit level 55 and could just enjoy the game. An auto-level option for the companions in particular would have helped immensely.

That being said, even coming straight from Baldur's Gate 3, I found the game to be really fun and engaging. Solid Warhammer-vibes and enjoyable characters, art was on point, good writing, good voice actors. Could do with more voiced parts and more character portraits for the npcs though. It also had a lot more different game elements going on than I thought it would.

I also learned that some people are just determined to always be the worst and apparently embarrassing a lord by flirting with his wife in public is how you make him a loyal subject. As for the ending...

There I was, unwittingly raising a god-son (very different from a godson) and setting a good example to ensure that this little corner of the galaxy would become as close to a utopia as we could manage. I'd somehow only managed to max out relations with one faction, but it was the navy so a good chunk of them decided to side with me when the Imperium threw a hissy fit over the *checks notes* Emperor worshipping, Chaos-smiting, tithe paying rogue trader establishing a successful territory on the outskirts of the Imperium where people just don't suffer as much. Oh and something something xenos collaborating blabla god-son etc etc. The Imperium overreacted is what I'm saying. So now they can't come over anymore.

The game was so aeldari heavy that for a while I forgot there were other xenos factions (I was, admittedly, twirling my hair and batting my eyes at Nocturne the entire time). But that said, the first introduction to the necrons was both smooth and delivered on the "oh shit." It, uh, didn't keep giving that horror and fear when they proved embarrassingly weak in both space and regular battle, but still.

Heinrix informed his boss that the von Valussy was worth being branded a heretic for, as expected, and became my new master of whispers which... made so much sense that I had to take a moment and wonder how I hadn't even considered that. Good on him for becoming more than a trophy husband.

Jae disappeared from my ship and I couldn't find her, and after two turns around Footfall I gave up. To nobody's surprise I got her bad ending - dead in a gutter. Welp :I

Argenta... yeah pretty sure becoming a sister repentia was her bad ending. Not sure what I could have done to change that outcome.

The rest of the humans had either neutral or good endings, though I honestly can't tell with Idira's because it was so lackluster. Compared to everyone else's it was barely an ending tbh. Even Opticon-22 got more of an ending (second favorite npc, bless his lovely circuits etc, but like... Idira deserved more, you know?)

As for the xenos... Both Yrliet and Marazhai hung around on the ship for years and then went off and did their own thing. Their own thing being, ah, yes, becoming corsairs and pirates respectively and raiding in my corner of the galaxy together. After everything I did for you and your people. Ugh. You better invite me to the wedding. Abelard... will stay at home. Marazhai knows what he did.

At least Nocturne stayed in touch in his own way. Maybe he can do me a favor and take the wayward xenos allies by their pointy ears and teach them manners and gratitude.

Tease.

#rogue trader #fifth Warhammer game I've played #(if you can even count Inquisitor Martyr) #easily the best of them #still needs a bit of polish but definitely enjoyable #one major flaw is obviously the way that there's missing dialogue options when you bump into Nocturne after chapter 3 #I'm sure there's supposed to be an option that lets you pick the 7 foot tall man up and spin him around #but it just wasn't showing for me for some reason? #I had to settle for stiff politeness? #tragic

[yourworsttotebag]

tell me more about your thoughts on wyll needing a hero….. 👁️👁️ evie dating sim next steps??

Very broadly, I just enjoy the idea of the hero getting rescued, laying down their literal and metaphorical armor and having someone hold them and care for them.

And I think Wyll is such a good candidate for this because he so badly wants to be the right kind of hero. He'll gladly accept more and more weight and responsibility. I wonder if maybe he feels some necessary part of being heroic is the suffering and the shouldering of burdens. I think Wyll might not even realize how much being a hero, or even just a good guy, is weighing on him until the pressure is relieved just a tiny bit.

The specific Wyll/Evie arranged marriage au I've been puttering around with is extremely vibes based. The timeline is all cooked, there's no ending, there's enormous time skips where I just don't know what's supposed to happen. It's more of a wish list than anything.

Right now I'm picturing a) their current game ages in their mid 20s and b) Wyll isn't a warlock yet. Is Wyll changed too much by pushing this event later? That - remains to be seen, don't think about it, don't worry, we're gonna figure it out or we won't.

But I think during his time in Baldur's Gate, Wyll would still feel beholden to heroic ideals and feel a little burdened by the idea of being a Duke and living up to his father. And Wyll's banishment would come after he and Evie have gotten past their initial iciness, after their big sex scene, when they think things are most likely to work out, so it feels as bad as possible that Wyll is suddenly gone.

He kind of falls into monster hunting as he wanders around the Sword Coast, the story we're all familiar with. The people Wyll helps adore him and he's happy to be of use but he's at his emotional low point. He has new warlock powers but they're frightening and unfamiliar. His family, including his wife, is gone. He can never go home again.

So one of the scenes I have actually written is one where Wyll is pinned down by some Really Bad monsters and Evie suddenly rides in and saves the day. And Wyll is shocked! He figured she would write him off as dead and start her life over but instead she left her comfortable existence to come find him because she was worried about him.

And all of my iterations of Evie kind of thrive at the fun adventuring parts of being a hero for hire. She's been so bored and isolated for so long that having a cause to focus on gives her a ton of energy. She says to Wyll, "Hey, I care about you and I'm basically a super hero. Let's keep each other safe instead of you suffering alone because you think you need to atone or want to be extra noble while a dragon cuts you in half."

What does it mean for Wyll to establish his Blade of Frontiers rep with a partner? Is it a lot different from the game? Does it ever dovetail with tadpole stuff? I honestly have no idea. I answered another ask where I went into more of the difficulties I'm facing with this because I'm just too early in the process to even know what I'm doing. It could all get split into something else for all I know!

I DO think they would make a pretty hilarious good cop/bad cop duo on the frontiers. Like, "You better tell us who's in charge of your murder cult. My wife's a sorcerer and she's crazy." Wyll insists that he can be the bad cop sometimes and Evie's just like, "Oh honey...no...no, you can't."

#sorry this is so long D: #i had a lot of time to think and type little furtive notes on my phone today #wyll x evie #m: asks #m: writing

[ladyniniane]

One song for every OC

Aka: “My blorbos x Florence and the Machine”

I was tagged by @violets-in-her-arms-writes thank you for this tag, it’s everything I wanted to do :P

Rules: Assign a song that fits the vibe of your OC.

So here are the songs that fit some of my FE3H OCs (It would be too long if I did all of them). As usual, if you want to read the story, it’s here (in French).

Maeve Fresnay - “Free” by Florence and the Machine

I'm always running from something/I push it back, but it keeps on coming/ And being clever never got me very far

Is this how it is? / Is this how it's always been?/To exist in the face of suffering and death / And somehow still keep singing

Explanation: Maeve is a very sweet, caring and sensitive character. Because of that, she’s very adept at reading the world around her and receptive to other people’s emotions. And that often makes her anxious. However, she has a lot of inner strength and maintains a positive attitude in spite of everything. And since she’s a musician by vocation but decided to join the army to follow her friends, she in fact keeps singing in the face of suffering and death.

Enid Fresnay - “Cassandra” by Florence and the Machine

Well, can you see me? I cannot see you / Everything I thought I knew has fallen out of view / In this blindness I'm condemned to / Well, can you hear me? I cannot hear you / Every song I thought I knew, I've been deafened to / And there's no one left to sing to

Take me back / Oh, drunken gods of slaughter / You know I've always been your / Favorite daughter

Explanation: Enid is Maeve’s older sister. She’s a cold and damaged woman who has sworn revenge on the dark mages who captured her and experimented on her when she was a child. The turn of events has made that she and Maeve are now separated. Enid thinks her sister is dead and Maeve is hoping that she’s alive. Enid fears that there’s no place for her within this world. This song perfectly reflects this feeling of alienation. Enid is also a fearsome warrior, something that the last line perfectly conveys.

Mencia Ordelaffi - “Girls against God” by Florence and the Machine

What a thing to admit / That when someone looks at me with real love I don't like it very much /Kinda makes me feel like I'm being crushed Is this something that you would like to discuss?

Oh God, you're gonna get it /You'll be sorry that you messed with me

Explanation: The rest of the song doesn’t really fit but those lyrics are perfect for her. Mencia grew up with an abusive mother and as such, isn’t really used to being loved and doesn’t like feeling vulnerable. Her anger burns inside of her and she uses it to power through life. Her story starts as she’s disfigured following a major battle, her first real battle, a really painful ordeal. She will now have to live with scars on her face. Still, she’s determined not to give up and will overcome all obstacles.

Anselma von Arundel - “Daffodil” by Florence and the Machine

I'm not bad, I'm not good / I drank every sky that I could / Made myself mythical, tried to be real / Saw the future in the face of a / Daffodil

We practice resurrection every night / Raising the dead under the moonlight And in the gloaming, I start to cry / You're a perfect pearl hung in the sky

I never thought it would get this far / This somewhat drunken joke Sometimes, I see so much beauty / I don't think that I can cope

Explanation: Well, Anselma isn’t exactly an OC. She’s technically a canon character, but the only things we know about her in the game are her name and a few glimpses of her personnality. So here, we’re talking about the version of  her that I developed.

Anselma is a survivor. She has been the concubine of an emperor and the wife of a king. She was forced to take part in a plot against said king because the conspirators were threatening to harm her biological daughter. Baldy injured when the assination took place, she’s now living in secluded area. The “perfect pearl” makes me think of how she sees her adopted daughter, whom she often compares to the moon. Meeting this child gave her a new objective and a chance to make things right for once.

Sometime ago I made some edits centered on Anselma and those lyrics, so it’s time to use them!

Bonus: “King” fits the vibe of so many of my characters that I have to mention it:

But you need your rotten heart / Your dazzling pain like diamond rings You need to go to war to find material to sing / I am no mother, I am no bride, I am king

I need my golden crown of sorrow / My bloody sword to swing My empty halls to echo with grand self-mythology / I am no mother, I am no bride, I am king

Je tague @lilias42 (si tu as d’autres chansons associées à tes histoires et tes persos ça peut être super sympa ! Si tu veux le faire, bien sûr).

#écriture #ocappreciation #writeblr #fe3h #fire emblem three houses #fe3h ocs #fe3h oc

[bookgeekgrrl]

My media this week (20-26 Aug 2023)

my absolute fave line in all of heartstopper, so glad they left it unaltered

📚 STUFF I READ 📚

😍 how a resurrection really feels (LiarsandThieves22) - 176K, steddie - post s4 fixit with a timeline merge - just brilliantly executed, lots of great emotional moments as well as even more laugh out loud ones. Big, big rec.

🙂 The Wedding Bait (Golden Years #1) (Adele Buck, author & narrator) - novella; cishet romance but MCs in their 50s, which was a nice change

😊 Murder at the Village Fair (Miss Underhay Mysteries #13) (Helena Dixon, author; Karen Cass, narrator) - Matt & Kitty are on a sort-of delayed honeymoon & get involved in murder in Yorkshire while visiting his aunt

😊 here there be dragons (theundiagnosable) - 66K, original hockey fic - epitome of sunshine/grumpy - POV char has extreme anxiety/anxiety-induced paranoia/anger outbursts due to fear etc - he gets better & it does end very happily but first we gotta watch him train wreck everything & suffer (to be clear, I did enjoy reading this! but it's a lot!)

🥰 Lemon Meringue Lies (Nejinee) - 111K, technically stucky modern no-powers AU but honestly such an AU that it's really more of original fic WHICH ISN'T at all bad - best friends to lovers, lots of oblivousness, pining, angst, emotional dumbassery but also a really great external setting & compelling supporting characters (who just all happen to have names/physical traits as MCU characters) [reread]

😍 if I'm gonna get back to you someday (napricot) - 46K, post Endgame fixit with "a clusterfuck of Steves" from different multiverses [reread for stucky bookclub]

😍 Golden Handcuffs (seekwill) - 70K, Good Omens human AU where they're both professors at a small Scottish university - brilliant fic, great characterizations, solid story development, absolutely loved it

💖💖 +246K of shorter fic so shout out to these I really loved 💖💖

Mandatory Fun (One-EyedBossman (desert000rose), SecretFandomStories) - MCU: stucky, 39K - Part 11 of Differently Okay Local Idiots; Bucky & Steve go suit shopping with Natasha & together navigate another bump in their road

To the Waters and the Wild (rainbow_nerds) - MCU: magical shrunkyclunks, 23K - selkie!Bucky finds Captain America frozen when he's 10 years old, but no one believes him; ~15 years later, Cap finally thaws out

To Kiss the Tender Inward of Thy Hand (circ_bamboo) - Band Sinister (KJ Charles): Ned Caulfield/George Penn, 32K - beautiful backstory of how Ned & George met

Sit (fandomfluffandfuck) - MCU: stucky, 21K, Part 1 of You Can('t) Teach An Old Dog New Tricks - modern, no powers AU - promising start to a series about older/old guard dom Steve & newbie dom Bucky

📺 STUFF I WATCHED 📺

Game Changer - s2, e1-4; s3, e5-8; s5, e9

Make Some Noise - s2, e6

Um, Actually - s8, e11

Heartstopper - s2, e1-8

Only Murders In The Building - s3, e4

Harley Quinn - s4, e7

What We Do In The Shadows - s5, e8

D20: Mentopolis - "F For Freezer" (s1, e3)

D20: Adventuring Party - "We Are Feeling Machines That Think" (s14, e3)

Much Ado About Nothing (Wyndham Theatre 2011) {Tate/Tennant version}

🎧 PODCASTS 🎧

Re: Dracula - August 20: We Shall To-night Play

Re: Dracula - August 21: Goods are Delivered

Vibe Check - A Special Conversation with Emily King

Ed Zitron's 15 Minutes In Hell - Episode 3 - Taylor Lorenz, The Washington Post

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Embracing Adventure in Fayetteville

⭐ Shedunnit Book Club - Murder-on-Sea

⭐ Switched on Pop - Wonders: "Stacy's Mom" and Adam Schlesinger

⭐ 99% Invisible #550 - Melanie Speaks

Vibe Check - Did AI Write That Song?

Re: Dracula -August 23: Ominous in His Calm

ICYMI - How to Make Millions Playing Dungeons & Dragons

⭐ The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Mysterious Sinkholes of Mt Baldy

Twenty Thousand Hertz+ - The Voice Inside

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Arthurdale

Re: Dracula - August 24: Some Terrible Shock

Strong Songs - "Soul Vaccination" by Tower of Power

Dear Prudence - My Wife Goes Braless Around Our Teenage Sons. Help!

Re: Dracula - August 25: Another Bad Night

What Next: TBD - TikTok's Shady Deal with the U.S.

Into It - Did Taylor Swift Curse Scooter Braun? And Will Fyre Fest Fool Us Twyce?

Endless Thread - PARKS! Pt. 4: Death Sea

⭐ Smart Podcast, Trashy Books - 577. Killing Folks with Deanna Raybourn

Wait Wait… Don't Tell Me! - WWDTM: Mark Ronson

🎶 MUSIC 🎶

Soft Rock Ballads

'80s Soft Pop

Relaxing '80s Rock

Unreal Unearth [Hozier] {2023}

'80s Training Montage

Tower of Power

Presenting The Doobie Brothers

Presenting Steely Dan

Presenting Electric Light Orchestra

#sunday reading recap #bookgeekgrrl's reading habits #bookgeekgrrl's soundtracks #fanfic ftw #miss underhay mysteries #much ado about nothing #heartstopper s2 #dropout tv #d20: mentopolis #d20: adventuring party #still feeling pretty mellow for the music #steely dan #the doobie brothers #electric light orchestra #tower of power #hozier #'80s music #99% invisible podcast #shedunnit podcast #smart podcast‚ trashy books #switched on pop podcast #the atlas obscura podcast #twenty thousand hertz podcast #strong songs podcast #vibe check podcast #endless thread podcast #re: dracula #into it podcast #wait wait... don't tell me! #dear prudence podcast

[horrortino]

Classic Horror Books #1: The Castle of Otranto

I started off my plunge into Classic Horror with The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole. It is a short story published in 1764, and often regarded as the first “Gothic” novel. I read mine in a collection of gothic stories called A Treasury of Gothic and Supernatural by Avenel Books. And…it kind of gave me whiplash, lmao. I have read entirely contemporary books for the last few years, and even before that I’m not sure when I had read a book this old. To jump into something that is written with near entirely run-on sentences and “thou”, “thy”, “thee” this-and-that, my brain was uhhh chugging to say the least. This is something I suspect will improve as I go through the list, but for right now, it was a bit hard. I had to really concentrate to glean what was going on, and who was speaking.

The gist of this story is that the Prince Manfred of the Castle Otranto has been a bad guy. His father and grandfather before him were bad guys too. And for this, the haunted Castle of Otranto is going to give Prince Manfred his ghostly retribution. Unfortunately, his whole family, the church, and even another castle’s royalty gets caught in the shitstorm as well.

It definitely has the gothic literature vibes down. Dastardly men, spooky castles, damsels in distress, religion, ghosts, romance, and hey, it even has a giant spectral knight! Despite that, I found it a bit dry, although that may just be the writing style of the period. It also suffered from a little weird pacing. Sometimes it seemed like things were going quickly, and then other times it focused too heavily on something that could have been much, much shorter. The dialogue was copious and heavy, very formal, and sometimes I was like, “will you just get to the point!!” But, overall, I did like the story, and it was interesting to read something that is labeled the “first Gothic story”, because Gothic elements just seem so commonplace to me that I didn’t ever think of them originating from something.

One fun tidbit I came across was the mention of “Queer Elements” regarding this story while I was researching. I personally did not notice the queer/homoerotic elements that were pointed out, but because of that, I ended up down a rabbit hole of queer components in Gothic lit. There are several publications that visit this in detail, and I will look into them while I continue my reading list.

Spoilers ahead, in pink!

Manfred was such an asshole, and my biggest disappointment in the story was despite all this shit being his fault (and his father & grandfather’s fault), Isabella, Hippolita, Theodore, and both his children paid the price for his misdeeds. Then he just like…retires to religion afterward, to repent, I guess?? Sure dude, try to marry (and ASSAULT??) a young girl who was engaged to your (now smushed) son, be a total twat to your loving wife, abuse this random kid you suddenly want to place all your blame on (Theodore), and then accidentally MURDER your daughter! I was all invested in this cute “love at first sight” thing that Theodore and Matilda had going on and then, nope. Stabbed.

The whole random giant legs and arms and such showing up and frightening Bianca, Diego, and Jaquez was sort of hilarious though. It’s laughable but I suppose if I walked into a room and an enormous armored hand was just waiting for me, I would be a bit scared too lol

Well! Thank you for joining me on this little jaunt through my first dip into Classic Horror! Up next is The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, a gothic horror-romance from 1794. It is also 704 pages long, which means I mayyy supplement it with a few shorter stories/manga so that I don’t get too burnt out reading it.

See you next time!

#classic horror books #the castle of otranto #horace walpole #horrortino

[waitingforwinterwinds]

A Clash of Kings - 31 CATELYN III (pages 426-439)

Cat meets with Stannis and Renly, it goes about as poorly as we all expected.

-

Storm's End sounds epic, but Durran sounds like an asshole, everyone was begging him to just move the foundations but he was all, "no, imma fight the gods. some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice i am willing to make." Yes, he did eventually get the thing built, thanks to the help of Bran the Builder and/or The Children of the Forest, but how many suffered for it? (my gosh this place is just full of guys grinding up smallfolk for their compensation castles. And I notice that it was the 7th that managed to stay up, 7 being a bit of a Big Number for the southern folk.)

Otherwise his dress was plain: studded leather jerkin over quilted doublet, worn boots, breeches of brown roughspun.

roughspun = 🥛

Even more curious was his standard bearer - a woman garbed all in reds, face shadowed within the deep hood of her scarlet cloak. A red priestess, Catelyn thought,wondering. The sect was numerous and powerful in the Free Cities and the distant east, but there were few in the Seven Kingdoms.

oh that's interesting. I don't know why I didn't think Cat would know about the Mel's sect, or where I got the impression Mel's the first red priestess to come to the Westeros in any length of time worth remembering. Like yeah, Cat's educated and religious herself, of course it makes sense for her to be aware of one of the other major religions, even if it's not very widespread in her immediate area, but it just never occurred to me that people would see Mel and understand what she was without being told?

He yanked his longsword from its scabbard. The steel gleamed strangely bright in the wan sunlight, now red, now yellow, now blazing white. The air around it seemed to shimmer, as if from heat. ... Some of the light seemed to go out of the world when Stannis slid his sword back into its scabbard.

colour shifting glowstick sword?! I want one, I need one.

[Insert Lightsaber Joke Here]

(Actually, I think they do make colour shifting lightsabers... remind me to google that later, never too early to shop for my own birthday gift!)

It is past time I went back to Riverrun to close my father's eyes, she thought. That much at least I can do. I may be a poor envoy, but I am a good mourner, gods save me.

Poor Cat, she's just so weary. She knows her part in starting it all, and she's trying to deescalate, but everyone has suddenly decided "actually, country ravaging violence sounds like a great idea" and there's just so little she can do about it all.

That choice Renly had denied himself in his headlong rush to come to grips with his brother. He had outdistanced his supply lines, left food and forage days behind with all his wagons and mules and oxen. He must come to battle soon or starve.

I keep wanting to remark on Renly's arrogance, but the specific type of arrogance he displays has my brain churning out the word 'cocksure,' and then back itself up because 'yeah the word fits but am I allowed to say that? Renly's gay, does that put it at too bad of a pun for public consumption?'

Renly laughed. "Loras, stay and help me pray. It's been so long I've quite forgotten how. -"

[Insert Joke about Idolatry and Body Worship Here... and Loras will Ins-]

sorry. We all know what he meant by 'pray'

In Catelyn's small corner of the camp, Shadd was slicing carrots into a kettle, Hall Mollen was dicing with three of his Winterfell men, and Lucas Blackwood sat sharpening his dagger. "Lady Stark," Lucas said when he saw her, "Mollen says it is to be battle at dawn." "Hall has the truth of it," she answered. And a loose tongue as well, it would seem. "Dow we fight or flee?" "We pray, Lucas," she answered him. "We pray."

I love the quiet comradery of this, not just between the men, but between them and Cat, so far in these sorts if scenes, I get vibes of 'she's not just the boss's wife or mother,' but their lady/boss, which is nice. (I don't know, just a lot of the other teams vibe like they'd look at a widow and go 'you're not my boss, you his wife/mother, which means you mean nothing' regardless of her own contributions.)

#a clash of kings #a song of ice and fire #catelyn stark #catelyn tully #a chapter a day reading #acok #asoiaf