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fwoopersongs · 3 years

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何必诗债换酒钱 - Notes

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Clean version here and thoughts under the cut.

I saw the song translation notes made by @shelterfromrain a while back and thought, wow! what a fantastic idea it is to share the results of the rabbit holing (that you inevitably end up engaging in when doing this) and leave a record for your future self while at it too! Currently some of the song and poetry translations on fwoopersongs do have little notes, but those were casually written on the fly and after so long, the thought process behind certain choices often get forgotten, which is such a waste... Long story short - I’m doing it this way from now on!

This song was requested by @peerlesssqq on twitter - which may or may not have bumped it up by like a year on my list (yes, I’ve been sitting on it since 2018 and you’ll see why) - and I had WAY more fun than expected, so 谢啦 ~ It was a delight to receive your DM request. I was happy for days!

Some background: 《何必诗债换酒钱》 is the theme song of 【文定乾坤】- a collection of musical works that feature notable contributors to Chinese literature in ancient times, poets and the like. Oh, and I did notice that the MV on bilibili looks like it could be a promo for a webtoon or game. Who knows? I’ll be checking out the rest of the songs, that’s for sure!

The following part of this post will be my thoughts for first the title, then each section - the intro, verse 1 & 2 and the chorus, ending off with some final comments.

Disclaimer first though (otherwise later you read already then feel like beating me up): Everything in this post is only my interpretation of the song. I have quite limited familiarity with mainland literature and culture, so of course don’t expect much xD Here you’ll only find a story-loving banana who jiak-ed kantang too much in her youth and now regrets it a whole lot. 说好了哈 I’m pants at analysis, worse at Chinese, and am not at all good with words ok?

Title

So《何必诗债换酒钱》, let’s start off with the word here that’s unfamiliar to most of us:

诗债 | shī zhài or a debt of poems/poetry debt is a legit thing! - All you authors and artists out there might be familiar with it - It’s what you call the resulting debt when a poet promises to write something for another person but hasn’t done it yet. Procrastination has apparently always been the curse of content creators.

In fact, in the Bai Juyi’s poem that came up on the 诗债 baidu page《晚春欲携酒寻沉四著作先以六韵寄之》- possibly addressed to a friend he owes - he was complaining of illness, old age and writer’s block. But then oh, he goes on and then I passed by a party where they had drinks, and was quite up to my gills & totally out of it for some time, and THAT’S why I’ve done you dirty and owe you ever so many poems. I don’t really understand the last two lines but apparently he then offers to bring a drink for this person he’s talking to, mentions a wish to meet a winter goddess (????? pretty girl? or the snow? idk which), and starts reminiscing the times that were like a precious string of pearls they had singing at Yang Pass. Most likely farewells, but without context I just don’t get it. Anyway bribery and misdirection huh? I see what you did there bro, and I’m sure the person you attempted to distract saw it coming too...

何必 | hé bì, is a rhetorical question of Must you really? In the case of this word, 何 functions as roughly ‘is it that’ and 必 as ‘it must be so’.

换酒钱 | huàn jiǔ qián is of course, exchange for money to purchase wine.

‘Must you really promise poems in exchange for money to buy wine?’ then is the literal translation of 何必诗债换酒钱.

So here is the question: Is alcohol worth a poetry debt? Onwards to the answer!

Intro

生就诗骨算来三百篇 Born and already a poet to the bones, (with) three hundred works counting up to now.

浪掷秦淮长安风流李杜王白 Spending lavishly in Qinhuai and Chang’an, free/unrestrained as Li and Du, Wang and Bai;

余下十分便随意肩上担 whatever left is divided in ten parts, casually thrown over a shoulder

权作金玉铜板相谢好人间 and taken for jade, gold and coin, a big thank you to this good world!

I interpreted the 生 in the first line as 天生 i.e. innate, natural born talent, so this first line describes someone born with a gift for poetry with ‘three hundred’ works to their name. Although... that three hundred should not be taken too literally, it’s more likely to be an allusion to collected works like the 16th century anthology of poems, Three Hundred Tang Poems. After all, Li Bai, Du Fu, Wang Wei and Bai Juyi are the most famous Tang Dynasty poets… and they were all name-dropped in the next line!

浪掷 | làng zhì was a new phrase for me, and means something like spending freely and lavishly or willfully wasted. Of course Chang’an was the capital during the Tang Dynasty and it was the world's most populous city at the time. One can only imagine how prosperous it must have been… and what fun things were there to spend your money on! The banks of Qinhuai river and that general area was once a gathering place for noble/wealthy families, scholars looking for a good time (and some say, the red light district xD). Though by Sui/Tang, that area was no longer doing as well due to political shifts. So the mental image I got from 浪掷秦淮长安 is of someone gallivanting through places of interest, from the bustling and prosperous to the dilapidated.

风流 | fēng liú is as always, hard to translate with no full equivalent in english. The feel it gives me ranges from, ‘cool, dashing bloke on a galloping horse with their cloak/robes/hair flowing elegantly in the wind’ to ‘pleasure seeking dandy who totally knows how to enjoy life, all the courtesans know him by courtesy name!’.

The third line started with 余下十分, which will not make any sense - why leftover? Divide what by ten? - until its put in context with the following:

Three hundred poems 算来三百篇 + 权作金玉铜板 pretend they are gold/jade/money (权作 | quán zuò just means to take one thing for another temporarily.)

The load thrown over the shoulder 肩上担

Spendthrift behaviour on tour 浪掷秦淮长安

The TITLE: bro so u wanna promise poetry in exchange for money to drink? why.

Let’s take those precious poems that can be exchanged for gold - a whole bagful of scrolls, and now I’m so rich I can scatter my money down the streets of entertainment districts and the capital! The very image of a 风流 poet, reckless and free spirited.

// Folks, please learn from this silly girl and do not read songs (or poems) line by line. They need to be appreciated at a distance, not one inch from your eyeballs.

Verse 1

两分与月劳烦身前打点 Two parts to the moon, (may I) trouble you to take care of me while I’m alive.

哪处巍峨峰峦当借我悬来观 Wherever there are majestic peaks and ranges, do lend me (your light) to hang and see by.

三分典高楼好与长风赴宴 Three parts pawned for the tall building, good for attending the banquet alongside the wind,

遍寻可爱星子唾手一把玩 searching for charming little stars, easily caught to play with.

Now we get to see how the poet is spending his ‘wealth’. This verse is a lot more literal as compared to the introduction, so there’s not much to say.

打点 used here is so interesting! Because it’s what you call bribing someone in a superior position to smoothen your path ahead (so to speak). Thanks to a childhood of tvb drama, I vaguely associate the type of people who would 打点 with rich merchant or minor noble fathers who want to give their sons an easier time at court. Either that or lower ranked officials with less moral scruples. Anyway, what’s being said in the song is something like: here is 20% dear moon, I’ll have to trouble you to bless me for the rest of this lifetime, and also please lend me your light to see by when I have need of it at scenic spots *for art*. The moon is a muse for many poets in all its forms after all… 明月, 圆月, 孤月, 残月, 冷月, 江月, 秋月 and so on.

Actually that whole sentence 劳烦身前打点 is so playful and fun that I put it in quotation marks to emphasize it. We’ve only just begun. Is the speaker already drunk?

And with the third line, 30% has been spent. Just noting here that 典 | diǎn can be read as pawn or mortgage. Another interesting thing to note would be that this imagery of ascending a tall building 高楼 and reaching out for stars 星子 in the last two lines of Verse 1 brings to mind one particular poem, famously attributed to Li Bai. Following translation by yours truly.

《夜宿山寺》- Overnight at the Mountain Temple 危楼高百尺 | dangerously towering a hundred feet high 手可摘星辰 | the stars are within reach 不敢高声语 | one dares not raise their voice 恐惊天上人 | for fear of disturbing the deities

Though the two probably have nothing to do with each other, doesn’t the reverence in the tone of this one bring out the playful irreverence of the other? So. Much. Fun. I adore the whole feel of 遍寻可爱星子唾手一把玩 SO MUCH.

Verse 2

两分与桥歇脚南北行船 Two parts to the bridge where travellers on foot and by boat from the north and south can rest,

欣然八方风物闲话半日茶碗 delighted by the scenery all around, idly chatting half the day away over bowls of tea.

三分典流水润色枯瘦石山 Three parts for the running water, moistening the gaunt stone mountains

又将天地一展伸手试浓淡 and again spreading heaven and earth wide, reaching out to test the viscosity (of the water).

It took a few listens, but in the end I really enjoyed the aesthetics here. And again, this verse is quite straight to the point albeit with two things I cannot understand.

The first point of confusion for me is why the lyricist chose to use 桥 | qiáo, a bridge as the place for people to rest on their journeys. I assumed here that this in reference to a pier or dock, assumed also that he is donating funds for this structure to be built or repaired. However, if that were the case 坞 | wù would have been enough - 船坞 was supposedly invented only in the Song Dynasty though, so maybe that’s why another word was chosen. But it’s not like there is any incidence of 桥 being used to mean ‘dock’ either!

The second thing that confuses me is the use of 典 for 流水. In verse one, that 典 was referring to the poetry works sold to reserve the venue for a banquet. That usage was apt. Here I suspect it might be for parallel structure, because there is no alternative reading for 典 that might allow one to use their 30% 三分 to do anything to flowing water 流水. That’s the literal reading, of course.

If we’re taking this a little less literally, it can be interpreted as borrowing the scenery (figuratively, since the place would not belong to anyone in the way you might own a property) to admire. It also expands on the second line’s mention of the surrounding view 欣然八方风物; there is running water which completes 润色 and brings the appearance of the gaunt and rocky mountains 枯瘦石山 closer to perfection.

润色 | rùn sè means to polish, to bring to greater heights. When you say something has been 润色 it is made more brilliant and closer to perfection by that addition. It can also mean moisten.

We always hear ‘rivers and mountains like a painting’ 江山如�� - originating from Su Dongpo’s《念奴娇·赤壁怀古》- used when the scenery is wonderful, because how often is real life as ideal as what we can imagine and depict? And that is exactly what is described here. The feeling out if the ‘water’ is concentrated or diluted 试浓淡 is used in answer to 一展 unfurling. 浓淡 of ink to 一展 of painting scroll. The land and sky seem like an ink wash painting, so beautiful that the viewer cannot help but reach out to run their hand through the water.

Chorus

Chorus Part 1

若趁游兴直到酣 If we take advantage of our wanderlust and go roaming till it is sated,

千字文章不值钱 classics and essays shan’t be worth a coin.

诗换花词换雪 A poem for a flower! A song for snow!

再作檄文斗天官 Another denunciation for those heavenly officials!

Starting off with three new terms for me: 游兴 | yóu xìng means enthusiasm for travel. 酣 | hān can mean having a great time drinking, or being very satisfied and satiated. 檄文 | xí wén is a type of official document written for important announcements, declaration of war, or denunciation and condemnation of certain people or actions.

While I still feel this need to go out to see the world, I shall keep on the road until I am satisfied. Who cares about writing, who cares for study, it’s all worthless to me. I do what I want. And what I want is to write a little poem in exchange for a flower, some lyrics for a flake of snow. I’ll even write a denunciation against those officials in heaven (immortals). Fight me!!!!

I point again at Verse 1 with climbing the tower to play with stars. It’s no longer just playing nearby, now he wants a go at the gods.

Among the four parts of the chorus, this one is the simplest for sure. The lines mean exactly what is said. It also feels the most chaotic and mischievous. Is the speaker drunk? Is he high on something? One thing’s for sure. He’s out of money.

Chorus Part 2

何愁不得一样我 Why feel troubled that (I) cannot have another just like me?

知交尽向话中添 for one who understands you and is understood, look entirely towards stories to fill that place

唐解元嵇中散 people like Tang Bohu (first in provincial examinations) and proud, upright and stubborn Ji Kang

且驰大梦任疯癫 Just chase that great dream, allow yourself to go mad.

I feel like the first two lines are quite straightforward, though they might not appear so on first reading: How could there be a need to feel sad or troubled that I have no like-minded equal. To find a true friend who understands you without need for words, and whom you understand in return, all you need to do is turn to those tales and stories 话中 for people to fill 添 that place.

唐解元 - People like Tang Yin, courtesy name: Bohu 唐寅, 字伯虎 (1470–1524 AD), noted painter, calligrapher and poet of the Ming Dynasty. Tang Yin led a life full of ups and downs that really cannot be covered in a paragraph’s worth of song translation notes. You can check out his wiki page if you’re curious though! There’s a little more on him where I cover the last line of this section. He is addressed as 解元 | jiè yuán here which is the term for the top scorer of the provincial examinations (second stage in the Imperial examination ladder). It is also an honorific for scholars. Tang Bohu is both.

嵇中散 - People like Ji Kang, courtesy name: Shuye 嵇康, 字叔夜, (223–262 AD), one of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove - a group of friends who wisely kept themselves aloof from the dangerous politics of the Court, and devoted themselves to art, refinement and debate, of the Three Kingdoms period. He was a Daoist philosopher, musician, writer and poet.

An accomplished musician, the qin composition 廣凌散 | guǎnglíng sàn is attributed to Ji Kang, though some versions of the story claim he learned it from a ghost while stopping at a pavillion on his way home. 嵇中散 was one of the names he was known by because of his appointment to the position of Attendant Counsellor, 中散大夫 | zhōng sàn dàfū, a civil official unspecified duties in the court of Cao Wei.

When Ji Kang was sentenced to death for his attempt to testify for a wrongly accused friend, three thousand scholars petitioned for his pardon to no avail. It’s said that at the execution ground, while they waited for the appointed hour, he had his favourite qin brought out and played a brilliant interpretation of Guanglin San that is now forever lost.

Do go read about them both if you have the time!

I would like to point out for the last line that 任 is to allow, to indulge, and it’s just such a heady sensation to say 任疯癫 - indulge in the madness! throw yourself in and don’t look back!

There is an easter egg here too. A nod to a poem by Tang Yin which can be read as his stance on his lifestyle choice after the alleged accusations of bribery in the final step of the Imperial examinations left him disgraced, and unable to pursue a civil career. Thematically the line does not call back to the poem at all, similarities end with the choice of words: chasing the dream 驰大梦 and indulging madness 任疯癫. I leave an excerpt below. Translation again by me.

《桃花庵歌》- Song of a Plum Blossom Cottage // 若将花酒比车马 | if tawdriness and wine were compared against fine carriage and steed 他得驱驰我得闲 | he would have to drive and work hard for speed whilst I have my idle rest 别人笑我太疯癫 | others mock me for my madness 我笑他人看不穿 | i am amused for they do not perceive 不见五陵豪杰墓 | can’t you see that at the Emperors’ mausoleums and heroes’ graves 无花无酒锄做田 | there are no flowers, no wine, only land ploughed for farming

The second part of the chorus isn’t related to the first, but it has the same theme of showcasing the untamable (unhinged xD) spirit of the speaker. This time, the people he admires ‘intellectual equals’ and kindred spirits are featured, the 任性 feeling here has been pushed to greater heights.

Chorus Part 3

敢夸洒落何须酒 If one dares to boast of carefreeness, why, they hardly need wine.

不煮黄粱也称仙 Even without brewing millet they would still be called Immortal.

镜湖桌白梅盏 The tables in the mirror-like lake, white plum blossoms in the cups,

等来春风恰开宴 await the spring breeze which arrives just in time for the feast to start!

Li Bai is regarded as both the god of poetry 诗仙 and god of drunkards wine 酒仙 because he wrote some of his greatest poems while drinking. The first two lines seem to be gently poking fun at that. Like hey, if you dare to claim to be all groovy, surely you have no need for alcohol? Just like how an immortal would still be an immortal without wine, your writing talent should not need any stimulants. This would be the time to mention that 黄粱 | huáng liáng is also known as millet, a type of grain that can be used to brew wine.

洒落 | sǎ luò has a few meanings, like shower down or blame, but the relevant one here would be 洒脱 generous, uninhibited and open. For me it feels similar to 风流 in that there is that ‘free, and exhilaratingly unrestrained’ element. 洒落 is in the most positive sense, being always open to having a good time, but without that dissolute or vaguely whirlwind-romance like connotation of 风流.

It feels like the intensity is letting up a little here - this is a light-hearted and frivolous song all the way through, but the words 洒落, 称仙 and imagery of a clear lake, white plum blossoms and the crisp spring breeze are grounding and sweet. Spirited in a different way from before.

Chorus Part 4

四角天地也醺然 The four corners and heaven and earth are also tipsy,

醉极自有桃李搀 when I’ve overindulged, my students will be there to help.

快意只笔下讨 Gratification can only be claimed from beneath the brush;

何必诗债换酒钱 is falling into poetry debt worth that money for drink?

New words: 醺然 | xūn rán just means drunk. A new word for me though! 桃李 | táo lǐ is literally peach 桃 and plum 李 (李花, also known as 玉梅) flowers, and is a metaphor for students. The term originates from a story in 《韩诗外传》which was set in the Wei Kingdom of the Spring and Autumn period (771 to 476 BCE). There was once a highly ranked official who was sacked from his post and left for the north. He met another gentleman and remarked that the people he helped before did not lift a finger when he was in need. This person replied that, if someone were to plant peach and plum trees in spring, he could relax under their shade in the Summer and taste their fruit in the Autumn. But if that person were to plant weeds, nothing can be done with their leaves in Spring and there would only be burrs to hurt himself on in Autumn. Clearly the people the unfortunate gentlemen had helped before were not worth his effort. Students ought to be carefully selected and carefully cultivated as one would a tree.

Reading the four corners and heaven and earth 四角天地 are also tipsy 也醺然, I imagine the world sort of spinning around the speaker because he is drunk. But that’s okay, because his students (or the trees xD) will be there to support him.

快意 | kuài yì is the feeling of sudden relaxation, and then lightheartedness and joy. In this line, I felt like the intention would be closer to 畅快，爽快 and so chose gratification, because really writing is like scratching an itch isn’t it? Pleasure from satisfaction of a desire. Phrasing it as 笔下讨 is so very fitting though, because 讨 can be interpreted - somewhat contradicting - as either to demand or to beg. What could be more gratifying than having squeezed out the perfect sentence or word under your figurative pen?

So so so after all that, 何必诗债换酒钱? What do you think, is alcohol worth the poetry debt? Is Mr. Poet actually drunk and about to dig himself a deeper hole of owed poems to get even MORE drunk, or has he just been thinking about it all along? :)

Thoughts

This has been such a fun adventure following our madcap big spender from the shining Chang’an to the inviting Qinhuai, shadow of great poets in tow and all. We’ve done everything from talking to the moon and seeing the sights by her light, to boating down a river, dragging fingers through the water. It was sort of like being on a backpacking tour, except with with someone contemplating opening (or perhaps regretting opening this can of worms?) poetry commissions instead of singing in the streets?

Dear reader, if you’ve reached this point of my post, thank you. I hope you enjoy the song as much as I do now!

#何必诗债换酒钱 #translation notes #i made a new years resolution and this is step one #i had so many more things to say lol but it's like 1 am and i need to go to bed #this took way longer than i thought it might

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demoncryptspanties · 5 years

Text

Time After Time

part 3

Masterlist, Part1, Part 2

A/N okay I apologise for this chapter being sort of short, I think there will be like another 3 or 4 after this but enjoy.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

This bliss seemed to last the whole 3 years. You and Ambrose seemed to be joined together by fate. The two of you participated in Lupercalia once, in your last year but again it wasn’t the best night the two of you had together. Lilac’s course was an extra year due to her indiscretions leading her to fail the potion class which she decided to retake so the two of you had remained close.

She acted as the family you didn’t have, excusing Angelica, and Tom became a close friend. You hadn’t spoken to your mother at all, your father at least once a month but even keeping to that seemed difficult due to how busy the both of you were. Your parents had divorced, that seeming like the best option and your father had moved back to his old home, a relic on the edge of the witch’s territory.

Jude had yet to take his place as high priest and therefore although you could have visited you decided against it. The hostility that would have come from the community especially your mother would have been too much and whereas if you went alone it would have been bad, taking Ambrose would have been even worse.

Your time at the school was calm, as normal as you would expect it to be, you kept to the curfew after that night and kept the Friday tradition of going to the river. The weather was always good there, the sky blue and just warm enough. Above all Ambrose made you feel safe and at home, never bored because he would always be around the corner with somewhere new to explore or something new to talk about. Overall, you would argue that it was the best 3 years of your life. You had grown and matured and your relationship by most standards was pretty perfect.

The only thing is that he had yet to introduce you to any of his family. Although close to his aunts who had agreed to house you after your course, you had yet to see let alone meet them. His uncle, as distant as he is didn’t seem bothered about you either.

It was days after your final piece was due, you were now waiting for the results of your efforts. Ambrose had tried to keep you as occupied as he could after you had submitted it but you both had given up after day two and decided to stay in the house until you go the letter. You were comfortable snuggled into Ambrose’s shoulder as he was turned away from you. Your hands drew patterns across his chest and stomach, still in a sleepy haze.

“I am probably the most skilled person you have ever met when it comes to apparitions” He mumbled turning to you with a playful smirk.

“You are an arrogant man and I hope this lie haunts you forever.” You said offering him a lazy smile.

“Stop being so dramatic. I am probably the best in the house at apparitions.” He pulled you closer, one of his hands resting on your cheek.

“Look, I have gotten better so that is actually a gross overstatement of your abilities.” He pulled you onto of him, making you gasp and giggle. You gave him a quick peck before moving out of his arms.

“Prove it.” He said. Raising your eyebrow slightly, you conjured a set of fish almost identical to the ones in the river where you first met. They swam close to him and then in a spiral moving towards the ceiling and then back down to circle him and dissipate near the floor.

“Okay, I admit, you have gotten better. But I also have.” He raised his hands muttering under his breath. Schools of fish filled the room, chasing each other and moving in circles around you. He included coral and seaweed on the floor and a bigger fish at towards the ceiling. Although the room itself was small, the abundance of glowing fish made it seem marginally larger.

Your eyes were full of wonder staring at them, but while the apparitions themselves took a large amount of concentration he was focussed on you and your reactions. Truthfully, he had been trying to do this at this scale for a year now, it’s more difficult when you have no visible reference to go back to. More so if you haven’t got material of the whatever you are trying to replicate. The look on your face was worth the trouble.

You two had stayed together as a pair the entire day showing each other small charms and spells while gorging on fruits and wine. It was truly a day to remember and you did years later when it mattered the most.

The following day brought the results of your final piece. While the marks weren’t as high as you were hoping, you passed and that was enough. When you had received the letter from the academy for gifted students, Ambrose had been quick to wrap his arms around you, lips against your hair. He had read through the piece itself and being a prodigy himself he was beyond proud of you. His exacts words were “This includes such precision in emotion, you really must have drawn from your own experience. It is raw and authentic which is something you cannot teach. It’s good, and I’m not just saying that because I love you”

The following day consisted of you and him packing. You had already booked a place on a boat back to America feeling the urge to go back to a warmer country. Although you had learned to love many aspects of your time here, the weather was not it. You didn’t think you would ever get used to the constant change, you could never just look at the sky and conclude that it would not rain today because an hour later you would be soaked and an hour after that there could be such intense heat you would think you were in Egypt.

You also had decided to move in with Ambrose. The Aunties were happy to have you and his uncle was happy to have you join the coven. Although bittersweet to some degree you had spoken with your dad who was happy with the outcome, after you had promised to visit him.

The three-day journey to the docks was overall grimy and boring. Although Ambrose did his best to keep you as occupied as he could, his love of napping and your inability to get comfortable in the carriage meant that you for at least 4 hours each day you had no company, so you wrote. A habit you picked up when you started the course in order to both practise and fill time when you had little to do. Most of it was nonsense, sometimes you would come out with the odd poem you were proud of but other times it was just a collection of nothing.

Unloading to put on the boat which Ambrose had insisted on doing himself and waiting around for the boat to actually leave itself had given you time to sort out your thought of the last 3 days. You had filled the notebook with mostly nonsense thoughts which you tore out unless the brought back a specific feeling you wanted to remember. You set your notebook down on the cabin and passed out the minute your head hit the bed in your cabin.

Ambrose had wanted to see the boat go off, so he didn’t join you until later when you were already asleep. Still feeling awake due to him napping not 3 hours earlier he pottered around the cabin. At first, picking up a book from the bottom of your trunk but he soon turned his attention to the stuffed notebook on the desk.

He sifted through it settling on one which he had actually watched you write.

Like horses, they rode into the sun as if they knew nothing was wrong,

But when hand in hand they appeared with passion and the whole universe turned to gather.

They watched the star's fashion a rope to tether themselves together.

And when they died, they watched as the stars burned brighter than forever.

And when there was not a spec left the universe still remembered,

The two broken stars who went into the sun and came out together.

He pocketed the paper thinking that you wouldn’t miss it that much with all the other things in there and how he watched you throw out half the things you wrote. He thought you were good, he thought you were more than good. Probably better than himself though he would never admit that. He found it unfair that your gender had prohibited you from studying at Oxford, more so that even at the witch’s school you had not been judged fairly due to you being better than the male students. Although you kept with tradition and still did mostly what seemed as more feminine subjects, it wasn’t unusual to find women in the writing course or the conjuring course and therefore it would make sense that by this point they would judge fairly but they had not.

In his opinion, you were robbed of a distinction but of course, he was biased. He saw everything you did as perfect, better than perfect and connected deeply with all the writing. Most likely because it was often about him, but when it was ambiguous enough you didn’t admit that, saying something along the lines of “I was embodying the character of that book I was reading.”

He looked over at your sleeping form, eyes full of warmth and adoration. Your head was snuggled into the pillow. You couldn’t have been comfortable, with the terrible wooden bed so with a spell he piled you up on an artificial mattress. His Aunt Hilda had taught him to do it a few years ago for this exact reason, something about moss feeling like a cloud underneath you.

You hadn’t met either of them yet, but after 3 years of knowing Ambrose, they felt like they knew you. He had mentioned you in every one of his letters since you had met, and you featured in every mirror conversation he had with them. They had been ecstatic when he told them you two were together, even Zelda squealed a little in excitement. Definitely overshadowed by Hilda’s own joy.

It was for this reason that he took your hand mirror and opened a link to Hilda’s own mirror. She was greeted by Zelda who had been expecting him.

“Sorry dear, Hilda is just writing a list of questions so that she knows what to cook Y/N when she gets here.” Zelda had a sly smirk on her face.

“It’s good to see you too auntie. Is there anything you would like to ask before we get there,” you shuffled slightly in your sleep getting used to the new noise of quiet conversation among the sound of the sea.

“Yes well. What is her favourite colour, we cannot have her feeling uncomfortable in her own room?” Zelda lit a pipe holding it to her lips before blowing out and obscuring his view.

“Peach but I don’t think that matters. She can just sleep in my room, with me.” Ambrose said after a few beats.

“No that won’t do. Your room still doesn’t have a bed and I will not have you having sex in my house.” Zelda’s eyes twinkled slightly despite her blunt wording.

“We are witches and warlocks what about Lupercalia. Isn’t sexuality encouraged?” Ambrose himself shared the same twinkle. Hilda entered the room a moment after.

“I suppose your right” Zelda said nothing more moving to let her sister sit closer to the mirror.

“Okay well first of all hello Ambrose. Is that her in the back, ooo, she’s pretty, move the mirror a little.” He moved the mirror upwards and turned it around giving them a full view of you. You were in the same position as before, face slightly obscured by the pillow.

“Yes, she is pretty, more so when you can see her whole face,” He chuckled lightly as if remembering a moment.

Hilda put him out of his daze shuffling her paper slightly and frowning to herself, “Okay well does she eat meat.”

“Yes.” His gaze was more towards you than Hilda himself. He often did this in the morning. Even though he loves his sleep, he somehow still manages to wake up a good hour earlier than you. Sometimes he’ll just sit for the full hour staring and thinking, other times you wake up because of his stare but most of the time he writes.

You never seem to see what he writes even though at times you watch him do it, he even reads some pieces out to you but the various notebooks that he actually writes them in you can never find. Not that you were looking.

Zelda and Hilda had gotten into a little spat, so Ambrose was free to lose himself in you, “Ambrose, just what doesn’t she eat. That would be an easier question.” Zelda said clearly, overtaking Hilda’s small protests.

“Nothing, she isn’t that keen on pork but not so much that she wouldn’t eat it if given to her,” Zelda gave her sister a stern look and got up to leave. The two said their goodbyes to him, Hilda promising to make a magnificent meal.

He felt the need to be close to you after that, huddling behind your body, he put an arm over your stomach, you snuggle deeper into him with a soft hum. The sway of the ship and warmth of your bodies on each other lulled you both to sleep.

The journey from there seemed to come so much quicker than you would have hoped. Before you knew it, you were standing in front of the Spellman household, while Ambrose was shaking with what you thought was anticipation, you were so lightheaded if it wasn’t for Ambrose’s grip on you, you probably would have fallen over.

The door opened before he could reach to knock, revealing a blonde woman with a large smile. “Ambrose darling and you must be Y/N” It was as if her smile healed you because you perked up immediately.

“Yes, that is me. Aunt Hilda right” A shy smile revealed itself as Ambrose held your hand a little tighter.

“Yes. By Satan’s horns, you are so pretty. You really weren’t lying Ambrose. She’s like a doll.” You giggled slightly at the compliment, another figure this time red-headed emerging behind her.

“Let’s not scare her before she enters the house Hilda and stop smothering her.” Zelda had a teasing smile on her face, leading the two of you into the house with your luggage floating an inch off the ground next to you.

Ambrose put a reassuring hand on your back and gave you a quick peck before walking a couple steps in front of you. Selene wrapped herself tighter on your arm mirroring your own nervousness.

The evening consisted of you unpacking, a quick meal of beef stew from Hilda but no visit from Ambrose’s uncle who had said he was going to be there. Ambrose didn’t seem fussed about it but you held his and the whole way through dinner regardless.

By the time you were settled in bed, you were beyond knackered. The sky was pitch black, the moon not offering a soft glow that night which did little to ease your nervousness. You fell asleep easily in your own room and remained in a dreamless slumber the entirety of the night.

When you woke it seemed to be about midday, Ambrose choosing not to wake you since you seemed so tired. You wrapped yourself with one of his robes and proceeded downstairs to the kitchen. A man in a suit with a mischievous but inviting smile was sitting at the table opposite Ambrose on the table you ate dinner. Zelda was sitting on his left, but Hilda was nowhere to be seen.

You walked down carefully not to disturb the conversation, pulling the robe tighter around you and settling down on Ambrose’s right putting a hand on his shoulder so he knew you were there. He put a hand almost passively on your thigh under the table the conversation stopping.

You put a handout and introduced yourself, he did the same offering you a soft smile when he took your hand. He was Ambrose’s uncle Edward. The reason he gave to missing dinner was that he was in a meeting, but the way Ambrose explained to you while he looked with the same smile suggested otherwise.

Edward had asked about your schooling with a distant interest which led to an hour-long conversation which seemed to make Ambrose increasingly uncomfortable and leading to Zelda practically throwing him out of the house with the guise that he had another meeting.

You turned to him with a worried expression, “Ambrose what did I miss. What did he say?”

He seemed to contemplate something for a moment, his fingers drumming on the table lightly before he answered. “He isn’t exactly happy that I stayed for such a long time with no actual purpose. He’ll be okay in a few days. Anyways you said we would go to meet Angelica next week and then you wanted to go across to Central America for a year.”

“Yeah, there’s a coven of witches somewhere there who are experts in healing charms and herbology whom I’d like to do research with.”

“Central America is a big place to look for a small coven.” Although he didn’t seem distant in the conversation there still seemed to be something weighing on him.

“That is why we are going to see my sister, she studied there during my second year. She said she would set us up and whatever and I’m getting way too ahead of myself, aren’t I?”

He chuckled lightly and kissed your head, “No. Well yes but we already agreed that you were going but I got an offer to go to Rome for something or another. I really want to go, and it would make sense since that coven is basically all women and its more your forte than mine.”

You cut him off with a peck, “That’s fine, it works out great, are you going to go for the full year or?”

“Yeah, yeah the full year. I’ll go with you to meet Angelica but after that, we shall diverge.”

You hummed lightly and finished your tea.

The next week was comfortable for you. In a way you felt more at home than you ever had, staying with the aunties had given you new people to know and a new environment to explore. It seemed like the beginning of a journey that you were happy to take.

Ambrose seemed a little distant but his happiness to see you never wavered, he was just busy with something which is the excuse he gave to you, but you didn’t push. You had yet to see his uncle again, but it seemed for the best like the aunties were deliberately ushering you around so you wouldn’t run into him.

The day it came for the two of you to leave it didn’t seem any different, the aunties said goodbye with sincerity and the two of you left to meet your sister.

The journey seemed longer than expected but easy once you passed into central America. She was staying in a small town by the border to meet you, but it seemed more like a village. The locals were kind and you found your way to her quickly.

She opened the door like she had sensed you there and ushered you inside out of the heat. “So, my favourite siblings how good it is to see you after all this time.”

You both raised an eyebrow at her remark but neither of you commented on it.” Well,, Angelica, we spoke yesterday, and I was busy packing. Also, I’m your only sibling, I have to be your favourite.”

“Yeah well you make it rather difficult,” she said with a smirk. Before you were able to respond she addressed Ambrose with a much more serious tone. “So, you’re leaving us for Rome then?”

“Yup, I’m leaving tomorrow when you go on your way to the coven.” Angelica seemed unnerved about his statement and shuffled uncomfortably in her seat.

“Just be careful. I don’t have a good feeling about Europe in general in all honesty.” You both looked at her in a little confusion but after a second Angelicas, serious nature seemed to dissipate as quickly as it appeared, and her friendly nature was back.

The three of you spoke a little but retired to bed early. Ambrose had left before you woke up but kissed your forehead and left a note saying that he loved you before he left. You couldn’t help but feel as if there was something wrong but didn’t think too much of it.

You left that day, starting off by car and then moving on foot for the remainder of the journey. It took you about 2 days to get there and you were greeted by women from all different places.

The women held a feast for the two of you and your education started the next day. It was done in three components, the first being herbs, mixtures and whatnot. Your teacher reminded you a lot of Hilda, she was smart and kind, forever with a warm smile on her face. The second was hexing, turns out while also wreaking havoc they could be used for good if you knew what to do. The third was summoning, although demon summoning was something you were familiar with there were, any other beings that you could summon that would be of a different help.

Your first week was spent learning these things, with no word from Ambrose. The aunties hadn’t heard from him either which made you worry a little, but it had only been a week. The next couple of weeks were the same. You had joined Angelica with taking over responsibilities of day to day living and settled in well there. Everyone was kind and loving and you felt very much at home here.

You had spoken to Ambrose twice, he seemed distant but about the same as usual. You again thought nothing of it which should have been the first clue that something was wrong.

You had been at the coven for about half a year when the aunties contacted you. Ambrose and you had spoken once a week, up until it became once every two weeks and every now and again, he forgot. The distance between you two had dissipated but he was still distracted.

You hadn’t heard from him for 3 weeks when the aunties told you to come back. You got back to their house in record time. The women of the coven said that you were welcome back any time and let you leave with a gentle understanding of why. Angelica said that she would leave in a week to her small apartment near you to be there if you needed her.

#ambrose spellman imagine #ambrose spellman x reader #ambrose spellman #time after time

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stvlti · 4 years

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And so I leap, widowed at twenty-seven, From a made Heaven, lest I too be shriven. WIDOW WIDOW WIDOW. I like this line 🍸

Pick a passage (500 words or less) from any fanfic I’ve written and I’ll give you a “DVD commentary”

rules of the ask game | my AO3

oh my god, okay. I really do appreciate you sending this in, I was hoping to get a serious one for this ask meme. but I have to be honest, I have pretty much not looked at that poem since I first wrote it back in 2015, so when I received this ask I was scratching my head asking myself what the fuck was even going on inside my head when I wrote that last line (“lest I too be shriven”) 5 years ago. the subsequent guesswork + digging through multiple online dictionaries / articles it took for me to compile a response... *lies down*

it’s ok though, it was fun trying to piece it back together. so, without further ado: this is False-Eyed Doll, a Death Note poem.

CW: REFERENCES TO SUICIDE & CANON CHARACTER DEATHS

– also, spoilers ahead! turn back if you want to read the poem first –

So the lines you submitted are the last 2 lines of the poem, which was written as a derivative form of the Sonnet, making these 2 lines the final couplet of the Sonnet.

Now the thing about Sonnets is, if you are following the Shakespearean format, the ‘turn’ (volta) occurs right before the final couplet, meaning this couplet is the ‘conclusion’ that follows the ‘twist’ of the poem’s narrative.

Now He has Her slain; oh, will l remain Wilting in His wake, maddened by His maw?

Yet He by own pen dies, man who became Law. And so I leap, widowed at twenty-seven, From a made Heaven, lest I too be shriven.

I wrote this poem as a ‘Misa poem’, and I meant for it to reappropriate certain canon events in Misa’s POV. So the poem’s narrative begins with the thesis of Misa being introduced to Light and his Kira world order (in stanza I), then sets up her relationship with Rem, her "guardian angel" Shinigami with differing opinions on Light (in stanza II) as the antithesis. The main thrust of the narrative concerns itself with Misa’s conflicting position between the two. However in spite of Rem’s warning, Misa chooses Light, because with the Kira crusade she has finally found a tentative foundation she could grow into and reestablish her footing in this world after her own tragedy (“in His embrace I shall rule again”).

That was the trajectory of her life plans. So the ‘twist’, the turn, comes when not only Rem dies but Light, her new foundation, does too ("Yet He by own pen dies, man who became Law”). Of course, this is not a surprise for us the readers, since we know how the story ends in canon, but it’s a huge double whammy (heh, Wammy) to Misa.

So then we arrive at the final couplet, which centres on Misa’s response to this ‘turn’ of events.

And so I leap

“So she leaps”, because this is the only logical conclusion she could come to after losing her “Law” and foundation. She sees no other future ahead with all her plans in ruins, so she climbs to the top of the investigation tower and chooses* death. (This line is a reference to the anime post-credits scene, where it’s implied she commits suicide.)

widowed at twenty-seven

Honestly I’m cringing a bit that the word choice, “widowed”, was what caught your eye. I’m not sure that’s my proudest detail in this poem 😬 I guess I was really leaning into the MisaxLight component there. There’s always been this underlying sense of commitment that Misa has projected onto Light in canon, from her wanting to start that kind of married, domestic life with Light during the Yotsuba arc, to her trying her hand at playing the stay-at-home housewife during the Light-as-L arc (albeit imperfectly) - there are so many aspects in her interactions with Light that simply screams marriage, at least from Misa’s POV. And on a meta level, she definitely promises her mind, body, and soul to Light’s Kira crusade, trading away her lifespan, altering herself to carry the Eyes for Light, and at the core of it, giving her heart over to Light completely. She has effectively married herself not just to Light, but to Kira, too. So to call Light’s death and the loss of everything that comes it a sort of “widowing” is simply the truth. It is Misa’s truth.

And I fought hard to keep the aged “twenty-seven” detail, because I always found it sort of fascinating that Misa qualifies for the 27 Club. She’s a star in the entertainment industry, at this point she’s amassed a successful mini empire with a career spanning modelling, fashion, cosmetics, TV acting, etc., and yet she’s gone too soon at just 27, because she chose* death to escape a tortured existence... (Just like many other legends have before her, who passed away from their own coping mechanisms in addiction and etc.) It’s definitely tragic, but there’s also a sort of dangerous romanticism that certain people associate Club 27 with, which unfortunately I think would be in line with Misa’s worldview too.

(HUGE DISCLAIMER HERE, ok, I do not condone this sort of thinking! This poem is a persona poem! The views represented here do not represent my own. But it is in my opinion the sort of unhealthy ideas Misa would’ve believed in. )

But you know what though. Insisting to keep “widowed at twenty-seven” on this line had its consequences too, because then I had to find a word that rhymed for the last line, which brings us to...

From a made Heaven, lest I too be shriven

Bro, this line gave me soooo much trouble trying to piece back together the thought process behind it. The front part is pretty self-explanatory, it’s a “made Heaven” because Kira’s empire is just made by one man claiming to be God. It’s an artificial Heaven, not a real one. But dang, “shriven”???

2015!me was being too clever for my own good. Forget all the wack shit I was shitposting in the fandom about, this is the thing that’s ultimately come back to bite me in the ass, isn’t it

Ok but we’re here now, and we gotta finish this ‘DVD commentary’, so let’s get into it. Obviously I was trying to keep up the whole motif of God and Heaven and religion, so I went looking for a word that would fit the theme. Except, to be completely honest, I was raised irreligious, so when I chose the word “shriven” I kinda just chose it because (1) it sounded cool; (2) it rhymes. I don’t have any emotional connection to the word and I certainly don’t have a nuanced grasp of its meaning, which, really bad form of me as a poet. I don’t do that anymore. (And it’s probably the reason why I kept this in the fandom corners and never shared it in class back then 😭 I was hoping I wouldn’t be quizzed on this lmaooo)

But what I do know, is that “shriven” means to confess and receive penance for one’s sins. And I was aiming for meta here - because there is the Catholic concept of punishment and repentance for one’s wrongdoings, but there is also the secular, judicial concept of punishment and reform for one’s crimes. And, okay, I was making some assumptions* here, i.e. even without her memories Misa could guess something happened to Light, and that something had to do with the Kira case. She’s a bottle blonde, but she’s not dumb dumb, so she could’ve reasonably made an educated guess. So then, “lest I too be shriven”: in a way, Misa is choosing* suicide in fear of being “shriven” by the criminal justice system much the same way they’ve done Light in. And even without the judicial component, she could (and logically, should) be wary of the general persecution and social stigma that comes with being involved in a high-profile criminal investigation like this. (Because it wasn’t just any other criminal, it was Kira, the world’s most wanted killer and mass-murderer, and there’s still plenty of people left in the world with a bone to pick with Kira’s ideology, methods, and many more left with a vendetta for the loved ones Kira has taken away from them.) So this line sets up a nice subtle dichotomy, one that flips the script, because now she’s not the one who passes ‘divine’ judgement, delivers punishments and ‘shrives’ the criminals by Kira’s side, now she’s ‘fallen from grace’ (so to speak) from their 'made Heaven’ and she’s the one running away from being delivered justice and penance.

Pretty cool, right? But honestly, if I had a chance to write this poem again I would not do this to myself ( T д T ) The cool rhyme scheme is not worth all this mental gymnastics just to get at the idea I was trying to communicate ( T _ T )

(*) Note:

I kept talking about Misa “choosing” death, but the very idea itself is also a bit of an assumption on my part. Sure, at face value we have no reason to suspect it’s not an act she chose to commit of her volition. But, there’s also been talk about whether her choosing to commit suicide at 27 is simply a result of her shortened lifespan after her having traded her remaining years away twice. Like it was simply time’s up for her at 27, and she had to die one way or another. Another consideration is the fact that Ryuk has stated all users of Death Note are cursed with an unhappy life / end eventually. There’s no telling whether that’s another contributing factor to Misa’s suicide, too. But for this poem and the sake of its concentrated narrative focus, I’ve chosen to go with the interpretation that Misa chose to commit suicide of her own accord. That bit of commentary on “lest I too be shriven” also subscribes to the particular school of interpretations / headcanons that Misa possessed far more cognizance than we expect throughout the whole investigation and story of Death Note. Like I said, she’s a bottle blonde, but she’s not dumb dumb. I like the fanon that’s been gaining popularity in recent years, the idea that Misa is plenty capable and cunning for a normal civilian and young entrepreneur. She just seems dumb next to literal geniuses.

#ask meme #answered #midi #fantomn #long post #dang this one really spun out of control it's WAY too long #dn meta: Misa Amane #this one QUALIFIES ok i start going into fandom meta like halfway through *sweats* really though if any of you like Misa GO read cas's meta

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matildainmotion · 4 years

Text

An Encouraging Blog about Despair

Recently I have been in despair. I notice as I write this that despair is like love – it’s a feeling that you do more than feel – you are in it. In love. In despair. Something larger than you, in which you reside, an atmosphere, a weather.

I am not good at being in despair. At Halloween I wrote a blog about fear, about being good at feeling afraid. I’m experienced at fear, paradoxically comfortable with the discomfort of it. This is not true of despair, at which I am terrible. Fear is energetic. It makes my heart go fast, ready for fight or flight. Despair makes me want to lie down and never get up again, and I don’t know how to manage this, how to carry this wish for an absolute lack of action, a kind of anti-wish, a wish for no more wishing.

I had an afternoon of despair in John Lewis in Kingston. It was one of the last shopping days before Christmas – crowds of people, multiple storeys of multiple mounds of stuff. I had to steer the children past the gold-wrapped chocolate boxes and giant gingerbread men, walk them through glossy, mirrored aisles of carefully coloured lipsticks and nail varnish. We made it to the lifts. We were headed for the bed linen department: displays of patterned duvets covers; shelves of fitted sheets; a choice between foam, feathered and other kinds of fluff-filled pillows. My son and I had a disagreement about which duvet cover to purchase for my husband. My son wanted the blue, stripy one. I wanted the one in black and white with a pattern reminiscent of trees. I thought I should get to choose what I bought for Daddy. He was okay with that, he said, as long as I agreed with his choice. He got angry and tried to kick me. His little sister meanwhile was running up and down the shiny floors and veering off to press her nose against the glass of the balcony that looked down over the many other departments. In that moment, for many reasons, I wanted to lie down and never get up again. Not on one of the display beds. Right where I was on the department floor, between the balcony and the start of the shelves of sheets. It was not because of the kids – they were my best reason to keep standing. But I couldn’t do it, because I am not good at despair- I’d rather be scared or angry. So I got more angry with my son, which wasn’t fair, and we all ended up in tears, and Daddy got more sets of duvet covers than I had intended.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine, writes Mary Oliver, who died this year, in her poem Wild Geese. Let me try to do that, to tell you about my despair, in an attempt to get better at it. This is the time of year for writing lists – lists of things achieved in the last year, lists of things to get done in the next. Hopeful lists. Lists are generally hopeful – they imply possibility. I don’t think, out of all the lists I have written in my life, I have ever made a ‘To Despair List.’ Let me do that now.

Here are some things about which I am in despair:

- My impatience with my mother, which comes from not wanting her to be nearly 80 and ready to sit down sometimes, or to focus on the small things – what kind of wood to put on the stove- when I am screaming quietly about the big things (the melting ice, rising seas) which I know she cannot fix but still, like a little girl, wish that she could.

- How often I do not stop to give someone who is homeless money, either because these days I pay for everything by card and so have no change, or because I am not brave enough to get over the awkward, uncomfortable gap of me, upright, walking past, and the man or woman, sitting, propped up outside Tescos with a paper cup.

- How when I do have the courage to stop and give money a part of me believes this makes everything okay.

- The election result and Boris Johnson. How I do not allow the children to call each other names but do allow them to call Boris Johnson “a stupid idiot,” even though I know this solves nothing and, long term, makes the deep divisions, that are the real problem, worse.

- Climate change, of course, but also how I am too cowardly to read the literature that would make my despair better informed.

- Consumerism, how many duvet covers I could choose, how gross are the inequalities of rich and poor, and the many ways in which I participate in the system that creates this disparity.

- The number of emails I get every day from people doing good work and asking for money to support their work and how I do not know to which to give or how much because it is all good and all critically important.

- How often I end up shouting at the children or making threats to them despite having read numerous conscious and alternative parenting books.

- My ability to sleep soundly through the night.

- Brexit, what it will mean and how I keep on putting off getting my daughter a passport.

- My children staying seated at the kitchen table and eating a wholesome supper I have made them – an image of motherhood I daily fail to fulfil.

- The big things – racism, poverty, refugees, rape, war, starvation, environmental destruction - and knowing that under all the big things are a million little things, specific people, animals, habitats, details, and a million moments of exact and awful loss.

I could go on, but that will do, for now, because writing this list has reminded me of when I was 7 and rather religious, and the lists I made back then. I used to go in secret to my room every day after school and pray. I felt simultaneously embarrassed about this- too shy to tell even my mother- and yet also that it would be shameful not to do it. I had decided that to be a good person it was necessary for me to list, on my knees, every day, all the people and troubles that I knew – it took me a good hour and I remember worrying about how to explain my absence to everyone during this time. Even back then I felt furtive about despair, about my sense of inadequacy in the face of all that is troubled and all that needs care in the world.

You do not have to be good, writes Mary Oliver. You do not have to walk on your knees/ For a hundred miles through the desert repenting./ You only have to let the soft animal of your body/ Love what it loves./ Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine./ Meanwhile the world goes on…

Meanwhile the children, those soft animals, are growing up. My son turns eight next week. What to do? How to go on, caring for him and my daughter, whilst despairing? I can’t lie down and weep whenever I wish. Punishing prayer is not the answer either, but I do find myself coming round to a word that has religious connotations: faith.

I am finding that being a mother requires me to have faith in the future. I realise as I write this that faith is different from hope. I can feel hopeless but be faithful. Hope has expectations. Faith does not. Hope involves trying to guess what the future might look like. Faith involves embracing genuinely not knowing. I am in despair, I can live in hope, but with faith, I am not ‘in’ it – rather it is something I must actively put into other things no matter how I am feeling: I must have faith in the children.

When my husband and I got married we wrote our own wedding vows. The ending of my vows to him went like this:

I don’t promise never to have crazy crushes, or even fall in love with other men, women, books, landscapes, ways of life….but I promise to be faithful to you, for you to stay as my centre, my home. A final word on being ‘faithful’ - not sleeping with anyone else seems like the least of it. Faithful, full of faith - faith is a belief not based on proof: I promise to believe in you and in our togetherness for the rest of our lives, even at the times when there is no evidence, no proof that it is a good idea.

Rereading this vow helps me now. I hope my children may live long and joyful lives, but I often despair that this is possible – there is no proof that it will happen. Meanwhile, I can still have faith in them and in my act of caring for them. I can believe in this process – the process of them growing up and me witnessing and supporting them to do it, however imperfectly it unfolds.

As has become my practice, I find it useful and affirming when I align my mothering and my making. I am writing a novel. I have been writing it for a long time, for the same length of time as I have been a mother. I hope it will be brilliant. I hope it will get published. Some days these hopes seem ridiculous. However, every day I have faith that it is worth my writing it whatever happens.

The first gift my husband ever gave me was a book called The Gift by Lewis Hyde. In it Hyde describes the act of making and the act of giving as inextricably connected. You make something, then you give it away so that you can make something else, and then you give that away too, and on and on. When you make and give in this way it is an act of faith because you have to let go entirely of whatever you have made – you do not know and cannot control what will become of it. Like being a mother to a child. And maybe this is what despair has to teach me, because being in despair, like being in love, involves a kind of letting go, a relinquishing of control – no wonder I’m not good at it.

Meanwhile, as the children bounce on the bed, with its new duvet cover, I read others online discussing how much to share or not with their children of the woes of the world that are present and coming, and of climate change in particular – do we bring them up to be aware? Or protect them from the anxiety of it for as long as possible? It is a good question but there is something in it that, for me, is often missing from the conversation. It is this: the future is theirs, not mine. My son learnt to read by studying danger signs and the exact instructions to be followed in states of emergency – I suspect he and my daughter both understand more about the future already than I do. To quote from another poet, Kahil Gibran, “Your children are not your children…For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.” I can tell them what I know about climate change but my knowledge is necessarily limited, no matter what I have or haven’t read. I can’t tell them about the future – I can’t even visit it in my dreams. But I can continue to have faith in them and in their tomorrows. I can continue the process of mothering and making, of giving away whatever I have made, including them.

“Meanwhile…” Mary Oliver says again, “Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,/ are heading home again./ Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,/ the world offers itself to your imagination,/ calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -/ over and over announcing your place/ in the family of things.”

Meanwhile, the world keeps on offering itself to you, whoever you are – the world, the geese in it and everything else, carry on gifting regardless. Isn’t that amazing? And my job, I think, in despair or in love, has to be to keep on offering my imagination back to the world, regardless. I will do that, even if all I can offer right now is a blog about despair.

One thing I offered to the world a few years back is a thing called Mothers Who Make. It is a grass roots, peer support network, growing across the UK and overseas. It is about announcing the place of two activities- mothering and making - in the world, over and over, keeping faith in their value no matter what, no matter how lonely or despairing any mother may feel.

If you are a mother and a maker, of any kind, you can come to a hub meeting and tell the other women there about your despair, and they will tell you about theirs. You can also tell them about what you love. And you do not have to be good. You can find out if there is a meeting near you here.

And if you cannot make it in person to a group, you can connect online - we have a lively Facebook community.

Mothers Who Make is currently unfunded and so if it feels like a good kind of gifting to you, an act of faith you can make, you can give us £3 per month, so that we can, meanwhile, go on – go on making and giving, making and giving, for now and for the future which we cannot visit, but which our children will.

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soracities · 6 years

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i absolutely adore you and your blog! do you have any recommendations (besides your posts obviously) for a beginner, like what would be the the books/poems/collections etc you think everyone should read? thank you!

I have no idea when this was sent so I’m very, very sorry for how late this is.

As far as recommendations go, I’m very, very careful about “should read” – it is highly nebulous and entirely subjective territory and it really depends on what exactly it is you’re looking for–I took it as gospel when I was younger and a lot of my early experiences with the literary canon were incredibly unfulfilling (and also, very isolating) as a result. I don’t know what you’re into, either, so I can really only give you what I’ve loved or learned most from which is definitely not a prescriptive ‘should’.

In any case, I made a previous list here that I hope helps, at least as a starting point. It focuses on works of classic fiction (both older and contemporary) which might be a good place to begin with, but if you’d prefer something more specific just let me know and I’ll try my best.

For poetry, I think anthologies are probably the easiest way to discover and build your own tastes because they’re so varied, so maybe try the following:

A Book of Luminous Things (ed. Czesław Miłosz )

Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times (ed. Neil Astley)

The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (ed. Ilya Kaminsy)

Whetu Moana: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English (ed. Reina Whaitiri, Albert Wendt, Robert Sullivan)

The Poetry of Arab Women (ed. Nathalie Handal)

Hinterland: Caribbean Poetry from the West Indies and Britain (ed. E.A. Markham)

The various volumes of the Oxford and Norton Anthologies might also be useful

And as for individual collections and non-fiction, I think the following are all worth a look–it’s far from exhaustive (and like I said, I have no idea what you like at all), but they’re the ones I started with / found most accessible (either in terms of style or substance or just general feeling), so hopefully you might find something you like too, or at least find paths you can branch off from:

Poetry (collections)

Sonnets and Elegies (Rainer Maria Rilke)

Leaves of Grass (Walt Whitman)

Crush (Richard Siken)

Where the Sidewalk Ends (Shel Silverstein)

Bright Dead Things, Ada Limón

The Captain’s Verses / Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (Pablo Neruda)

The Essential Haiku, Versions of Basho, Buson and Issa (ed. and trans. Robert Hass)

The Trouble with Poetry (Billy Collins)

What the Living Do (Marie Howe)

Loose Woman (Sandra Cisneros)

The Wild Iris / Averno (Louise Glück)

Wild Geese: Selected Poems (Mary Oliver)

The Black Unicorn (Audre Lorde)

The Dream of a Common Language (Adrienne Rich)

The World’s Wife / Rapture (Carol Ann Duffy)

What Is This Thing Called Love? / Tell Me (Kim Addonizio)

The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu

Selected Poems (Nizar Qabbani)

100 Poems (e.e. cummings)

Without an Alphabet, Without a Face (Saadi Youssef)

A Tree Within (Octavio Paz)

Almond Blossoms and Beyond / Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982 (Mahmoud Darwish)

Selected Poems / Songs and Ballads (Lorca)

Rose (Li-Young Lee)

The Cinnamon Peeler: Poems (Michael Ondaatje)

Poems and Prose (Christina Rossetti)

Helen of Troy (Sara Teasdale)

Bride of Ice (Marina Tsvetaeva)

Collected Poems (Langston Hughes)

Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (Emily Dickinson)

Collected Poems (Anna Akhmatova)

Collected Poems (Sylvia Plath)

Collected Poems (Lucille Clifton)

The War Poets (the most famous: Wilfred Owen / Siegfried Sassoon, but maybe try Sidney Keyes if you can find him)

The Romantics (Keats / Shelley / Wordsworth / Coleridge / Byron / Blake)

Essays and other non-fiction:

Letters to a Young Poet (Rainer Maria Rilke)

Upstream (Mary Oliver)

Ways of Seeing (John Berger)

Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays (Zadie Smith)

A Field Guide to Getting Lost / The Faraway Nearby (Rebecca Solnit)

Sister Outsider: Essays (Audre Lorde)

The Fire Next Time / Notes of a Native Son (James Baldwin–or honestly, anything by him)

Reborn: Journals and Notebooks / As Consciousness Is Harnessed into Flesh: Journals and Notebooks (Susan Sontag–and if that settles well maybe her essays afterwards)

A Room of One’s Own (Virginia Woolf)

Plainwater: Essays and Poetry (Anne Carson)

The Souls of Black Folk (W. E. B. Du Bois)

Like I said, this is by no means exhaustive, and I’m not big into ‘should’ ( if anyone has more recommendations though please add them on!). At the end of the day, I think literature is a deeply personal experience and you ought to feel free to follow it wherever it takes you. If you want to gain better literary fluency or a deeper of understanding of a time period/art movement/culture then that’s a completely different thing, of course, but otherwise my best advice is to just feel your way through it and follow what resonates most with you. My only real ‘should’ is to read as widely and freely as you can, search out voices that don’t sound like yours or whose worlds are completely different to the one you live in, and to find what comforts you, what confronts you (equally important), what makes you question and what gives you answers and also, more than anything else, what you enjoy.

Anyway, I hope this helps. Happy reading, anon x

#ask #anonymous #book recs #poetry recs #beginner guides

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scotianostra · 6 years

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On August 1st 1747 Proscription Act introduced, banning tartan and the carrying of weapons. The penalty for a first offence was six months in jail and a second offence resulted in transportation for seven years.

So how effective was this ban? I think the banning of the tartan has been overplayed at times, the main part of the act was to disarm the Highland clans. That's not to say that tartan wasn't banned, just that it should be looked at more closely.

I dug into the subject further and unearthed this excellent article in The National.......

It would, of course, be wrong to underestimate the effect of the ban. It was enacted by a ruthless government that intended it to be enforced and there are records of instances in which it was enforced.

Probably the weaving of tartan in many glens ceased or was greatly inhibited (at least during the early years of the legislation). It should be remembered, however, that the ban only applied in the Highland part of Scotland, it did not apply to women, and judging by the amount of portraits of the time in which the sitters wore tartan, it seems not to have deterred gentry. (Gentlemen who could command three servants, women and boys, in addition to those serving in the army, were exempt from the ban.)

The Earl of Holderness, in 1752, noted reports that “…universally the sheriffs, or their deputies, are very negligent of their duty in omitting to secure [imprison] persons wearing the Highland dress or carrying arms”.

There is, in fact, much evidence, not least from the old statistical accounts, which were written by parish ministers, to indicate that the ban on tartan was far from entirely effective. James D Scarlett, widely considered to have been the best authority on such matters, ventured the following opinion: “Except in the hands of a few Hanoverian officers, who saw in it an opportunity to persecute the Highlanders, the Dress Act does not seem to have been much enforced.”

The point of this is that tartan was obviously enormously significant to Highlanders or the Hanoverian government would have had no reason to ban it. Given this significance surely, in spite of the ban (or in a sense because of it), steps would have been taken to preserve the knowledge relating to tartan and the old traditional patterns. It is inconceivable that the Highland people, faced with this measure from a hated regime, would have tamely destroyed every stitch of old plaiding and applied themselves obediently to the business of forgetting their traditional setts.

Proscription simply would not have brought about a period of racial amnesia during which all memory of tartan patterns stopped being handed down from father to son and from mother to daughter. The oft-repeated assertion that this was so is the real invention. It not only offends common sense, but is contradicted by a sound body of evidence.

We know from the ledger of William Wilson & Sons that prior to the repeal of Proscription their customers were (apart from military and colonial) largely on Scotland’s eastern coast. However, after repeal in 1782, they increased sales of tartan in the Highlands. This is to say that when they began to promote clan tartans they were selling them to Highlanders, many of whom were old enough to remember whether such a concept was authentic or a deception. We also know that Wilsons took trouble to seek out genuine traditional setts from the Highlands.

“Wilsons were known to have toured the Highlands in the late 18th and early 19th century, looking for old patterns that they could use as a basis for their traditional tartans”, (Peter MacDonald, Head of Research, Scottish Tartans Authority).

Even as late as 1822, the year of the visit of King George to Edinburgh, there remained living eye-witnesses to the 45 uprising (Patrick Grant, who had fought alongside the Glengarry regiment at Culloden, was 108. The widow of James Stewart of Tulloch, who gave Prince Charles Edward a pair of brogues at Dunkeld, was 99 – some 30 years after Wilsons had started to sell clan tartans in the Highlands).

Sir Walter Scott played such a major part in the organising of the 1822 visit (and has, indeed, been thought of by some as the inventor of clan tartans) that it is worth considering his views on their provenance. He is often quoted as saying: “I do not believe a word of the nonsense about every clan or name having a regular pattern which was undeviatingly adhered to.”

Less well known is his conviction that clan tartans were “of considerable antiquity” and that he believed that he could demonstrate that they had been worn “a great many years before 1745”. These comments indicate that Scott very sensibly saw that clan tartans had their origins during the era prior to Culloden.

The present author’s suggestion for a realistic definition is: any pattern that has had a special association with a particular clan, probably because it has been woven and worn in a territory dominated by the clan in question, or any tartan known to have been worn in a uniform manner by a clan.

What is being opposed here is the assertion that the concept of clan tartans was invented some 50 or more years after Culloden. It is not the purpose of this article to maintain that all clans necessarily had exclusive setts pre-45, but that there is convincing evidence some clans had tartan patterns particularly associated with them, and that in effect there were clan tartans in Highland society prior to 1745.

Crucial to penetrating this mystery is the actual experience of the generations of Highlanders who lived throughout the 18th century. These were the people who knew, and who handed down, the truth. It is a fact of history that generally only the wealthy and influential leave records of their recollections and opinions for posterity, so relevant material is strictly limited. In fact the present writer has found not a single clear and specific statement from any such person denying the existence of clan tartans prior to 1745.

On the other hand, evidence by statement or by implication to the effect that clan tartans were a reality of the Jacobite era is not difficult to come by.

Anne MacVicar was born in Lochawe, Argyll, in 1755. This was during the period of the ineffective ban on tartan. She married and became Mrs Grant of Laggan, Speyside. Anne was a poet. In 1795 she wrote The Highlanders. When this work was included in the collection Poems on Various Subjects, published in 1803, her notes to The Highlander included this statement: “[Tartan] was the manufacture of their women, and the distinction of their clans, each having had a sett (as they styled it) of tartan peculiarly their own.”

General David Stewart of Garth was the co-organiser, with Sir Walter Scott, of the 1822 Royal Visit. Garth had served in the Black Watch regiment since 1787. He was the author of Sketches of the Character, Manners, and Present State of the Highlanders of Scotland (1739). In his preface to that publication the General explains that he had been fortunate in having received much of the knowledge that he passes on from older men of the regiment, writing: “I had also the advantage of being acquainted with several highland gentlemen who had served as private soldiers in the regiment when first organized.”

Garth then has this to say about clan tartans: “In dyeing and arranging the various colours of their tartans, they displayed no small art and taste, preserving at the same time the distinctive patterns (or sets, as they were called) of the different clans, tribes, families, and districts. Thus a Macdonald, a Campbell, a Mackenzie. &c. was known by his plaid; and in like manner the Athole, Glen-orchy, and other colours of different districts were easily distinguishable.”

Garth adds an observation that though only a statement of common sense, is worth repeating in the context of this article: “It was easy to preserve and perpetuate any particular set, or pattern.”

Those who refuse to accept evidence of this quality must resort to effectively accusing Mrs Grant and General Stewart of having been misled or being in some other way channels of disinformation. Is their testimony to be overruled in favour of a modern prejudice?

At the risk of labouring the point, when William Wilson & Sons started to sell clan tartans to Scottish Highlanders there could have been absolutely no mystery as to whether this was an authentic tradition or a commercial novelty. If a person was too young to remember 1745 and what had gone before, he or she had only to ask a father, mother, uncle, aunt, or an elderly neighbour or friend. It seems unlikely that proud Highlanders would buy into something that they knew to be a racket.

As for the disappearance of all the old setts, no matter how often this has been copied from book to book, it was always too preposterous to require serious attention. Of course big manufacturers made the most of clan tartans, exploited them, if that term is preferred, but they did not dream the idea up out of thin air and gleefully bamboozle a generation of Highlanders.

With regard to provenance, each clan tartan has to be considered individually. Some have been passed down from Jacobite times, some are military in origin, some were designed or adopted in the early 19th century, and yet others are even more recent. There need not be any sense of the romantic and gullible versus the wise and realistic.

In truth, where the history of tartan is concerned, very few are wise. It is surely ironic that such a vibrantly colourful subject is comprised so frustratingly of grey areas. Anyone championing any point of view (including this one) has difficult questions to answer.

Allan Breck Stewart, of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped, was surely a romantic character. Yet he was a real man and Stevenson’s novel was based very much on real events. These events took place during the period of Proscription. Regarding the sett, which we know as Stewart of Appin, James D Scarlett had this to say: “Without being foolishly definite, I would say that it would be probable that Allan Breck wore the Appin Stewart sett and would certainly regard it as authentic.”

#scotland #History

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vivaciouslyvermillion · 5 years

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A Brief Forward for her too, and Communion.

Due to the unsettling and triggering themes of these two poems, I believe it is necessary to provide a brief rationale of not only what they mean to me, but why I have written them.

***

One morning ago, I was sitting on the train, heading to work as I do most days. Looking out over the cliffs at Scarborough and listening to ‘Everything Goes (Wow)’ by Broods, a wave of what can only be described as nostalgic sensibility and authenticity washed over me. It was in this moment I realised I didn’t want to hide the parts of me that I had tried exhaustingly to conceal for so long. I couldn’t, not anymore.

For much of my life, I have remained silent and obedient in an effort to maintain the ego and pride of others. I have sacrificed my art, my words, and myself in a futile effort to hold onto meaningless relationships and a false idealisation of myself. I’ve struggled to understand why I’ve always acted in this way. I think I believed that if the truth could never manifest in reality, words onto paper, words to the wind, that I could hold onto all the things I wish I had, wish I was, but that were never really there in the first place. However, I have come to realise that every trauma, happiness, high and low are what make me who I am. They are what enable me to manifest meaning and intention within my life, to seek and achieve every ambition. I cannot love and acknowledge only part of myself. I must learn to embrace every flaw, trait, and experience that has shaped and developed my character.

This is my first attempt at doing so.

***

I initially wrote these poems for a writing subject in my last year of university. In our first week of class, we were given a series of readings which centred around various authors reasons for writing. George Orwell’s Why I Write struck me in particular. In this excerpt, Orwell identifies injustice as the primary motivational driver behind his writing; finding passion and purpose through his anger at the injustices of the world. This reading was the first of many that prompted me to explore my own motivations for writing and ever since, I have continually questioned my purpose, cause, reasoning and primarily, what I want to achieve through my writing. It was not until my reading of Seo-Yung Chu’s A Refuge For Jae-In Doe that I began to arrive at an answer to these plaguing questions. In her piece, I somehow found comfort and assurance through her ability to convey every emotion, struggle, and demon she experienced as a result of her sexual assault. Quite frankly, I was in awe of the power and control she demonstrated in Jae-In Doe. She inspired me to raise my voice, (if only a little), to attempt to acknowledge something I would much rather forget. My poem Abyss is the product of this inspiration.

I was gifted with an amazing wealth of constructive criticism from my class with particular relation to the intangibility of my poetry at times. As a result, I searched for, and spent an enormous amount of time trying to create greater moments of embodiment and tangibility within my consequent work. Initially, finding a will and ability to create tangible vignettes was extremely difficult for me. I attribute this to the sensitive and at times, disturbing nature of these poems as well as my desire not to hurt others, let alone myself by revisiting painful moments in the past. It is against our nature to return to the worst moments of our lives and it took a lot of time for me to gain the courage to do so. I spent a lot of time weighing the risks against the benefits of not only going back there, but trying to make sense of what happened there. But with a little help and a lot of love, I slowly started to write and thereby, mend.

To say it has been a long process in deciding whether to show this side of myself, to let you know that this side of myself is quite real is an understatement. But I have finally realised that this is what my writing is all about- it is a journey, a constant work in progress. To me, my writing is all about acknowledgement, empowerment through survival, strength and most of all, resilience. Through the writing of these poems, along with my other work, I believe I have successfully answered the questions that were posed to me in that class early last year. I have learnt that to delve into darkness is both brave and courageous; it is something that not many have the ability, or inclination to do. I know that through and by writing, I am slowly regaining the strength and power that was taken from me far too many times. By confronting my past, I am facing my future.

I believe Orwell summarises my purpose best when he says “one would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist or understand”. My demons have been my motivation for over ten years now. They force me to question my existence and purpose, life’s meaning and experiences, and prompt me to continually learn and re-learn myself. I have always written with these things in mind and it is my intent to continue writing this way; to continue to struggle with my demons, to make sense of them and myself. Ultimately, my creative vision, purpose and intent is best summated by Foucault- “it would probably not be worth the trouble of making books if they failed to teach the author something he hadn’t known before, if they didn’t lead to unforeseen places, and if they didn’t disperse one toward a strange and new relation with himself”.

These poems are angry, they are written from a place of trauma, hurt and healing. These poems are about my growth from a child into a woman, they are about empowerment and resilience. They are a shout into the void - “I am still here, I have overcome”. I used to be angry but I’m not anymore. I am healing, I am independently fierce, stronger, louder - powerful. Someone told me once that whilst we may not be in control of what happens to us, we are in control of how we react to what happens to us. In this twenty-third year on earth, my heart and mind are clear, I am focused on my ambitions and the aspirations I have for my life. It’s as if for the first time, I am able to understand the things that have always evaded me.

***

Some people won’t like my honesty, I know that. But I find comfort in knowing that people will dislike me for who I am and not for who I pretend to be.

Mardi.

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whopooh · 6 years

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Miss Fisher Year of Quotes: January challenge, e.e. cummings

The Miss Fisher Year of Quotes has started, and it started with a bang!

The idea with the challenge is that we every month are given three quotes that are either thematically or authorially linked, and the writers write from either one of them (or, in case of strong dedication, two or perhaps all).

The January prompt was three passages from the poet e e cummings, and they can be read in full here -- I’ll call them 1) ‘I Like My Body’, 2) ‘Whenever you think’, and 3) ‘Your Little Voice’. They’re very poetic quotes, which also shows in many of the fics they’ve spurred. I am impressed with the outcome – both because they are not very easy prompts, and because despite the sensuality and intimacy of his quotes, they still also produced quite a lot of fics that weren’t about Phryne and Jack. Also, more people have joined in to the challenge, which is absolutely wonderful -- welcome!

(I had first decided to not do monthly overviews for 2018, since they took a bit too much time for me in the end of last year. But, I have decided to try it, after all, although to keep them shorter. That is, I’ll do the overview and structuring, but I won’t go as much in depth into the fics. I really loved doing it, but it’s too time-consuming. Sorry about that!)

First is the odd fic out, whose connection to cummings is only silly. It’s @whopooh, ”A Love Story to the Letter”, that from the name “e e” associated to lipograms, which is a kind of both very constructed and constricted fics that choose to not use one of the letters in the alphabet. This one attempted to write about Miss Fisher without the letter “e”, at least until the mystery of the missing letter could be solved.

Second, there is a lovely anti-quote fic, @satin-swallow, “We Are No Longer Quite Ourselves”, which uses ‘Whenever you think’ to talk against it, giving us four characters thinking, believing, knowing, and feeling, and the fic argues for not putting one thing above the others.

A deep look at the same quote, ‘Whenever you think’, is also provided by JustMyType, who in “Nobody-But-Himself” dives into Jack’s development over time. We get to see Jack as a very young policeman, and his relationship to Rosie starting to grow, and from that “thinking” phase going on through his life with believing, knowing, and finally feeling and being truly himself.

Then we have the group of fics that focus on affinity, love, and connection – but primarily about other characters than Phryne and Jack, which is super lovely. This kind of fic tend to receive less love on AO3, but they are definitely worth a read.

Quailitea’s “Over the Wires” focuses on Dot from the prompt of ‘Your little voice’, and it’s in such a sweet and innovative way. In @wah-pah/S_Winter_Fitzgerald's “dear girl”, the little voice is Janey’s, and Phryne hears it in her dream. It’s a lovely exploration of loss, but also acceptance and love. The relation between Phryne and Janey with regard to the same quote is also the topic of 912luvjaxlean’s poetic “Your Little Voice”.

@whopooh's “The Moment You Feel”, uses ‘Whenever you think’ for Mac, giving a short intro and retrospection into her life through the lense of thinking and science versus feeling and love. @geenee27's “The Way To Treat A Lady” uses the same quote, but for the lovely Elsie, giving us the story of her first time meeting Jack, in a beautiful scene from his early days as a policeman.

The largest group, which is not surprising of course, consists of stories about Phryne’s and Jack’s relationship. The large theme is love, connection, and sensuality. Many have used the ‘I like my body’ quote, and the way it shows the speaker seeing his or her own body in a complately new light because of it being with “your body”. It pleases me so much to find that the quotes are used in so many different ways -- some not making the quote a part of the story, others using phrases from it as the characters’ words or thoughts, and others still making the phrases show up as overt poetry quotes. The mix is lovely, as is the sensuality that goes through the fics of this month.

aurora-australis, “Grappled Souls” is a reunion fic that cleverly uses ‘Your little voice’ only as inspiration, not quoting it. The theme is that Jack have a small voice as an inner ‘consciousnesses’, making him do things he otherwise maybe wouldn't, and it turns out that it’s not just any voice. When Phryne finally is back from England, she is intrigued by how Jack doesn’t seem to have missed her as much as he ought to have done. Also @firesign23's “Sensations” does not de facto use the quote, but rather embodies the sensuousness of a poem like 'I like my body'. The fic gives us the sensuousness of Phryne’s perspective, waiting for Jack to come to London, and then when he’s finally there and she gets to touch him.

912luvjaxlean gives us in “My Strong Walls” a very short prose poem, where Jack contemplates how Phryne managed to get inside his defences, using fragments of ‘I like your body’. And in “Big Love Crumbs”, 912luvjaxlean (who actually did a triple and write for all the quotes -- well done!) takes a phrase from ‘I like your body’ and expands it from Phryne’s perspective, turning it into a domestic scene where Jack (with ginger snaps) manages to spread love crumbs in her bed, that give a completely different texture to her sheets, and from that into a declaration of love.

In DeVereWinterton, “Coming home”, ‘I like my body’ is paraphrased, and phrases mixed in into the story that gives us Phryne’s thoughts on her and Jack’s first time, so it’s she who is the “I” liking her body. The same quote is the prompt for reindeerjumper's “again and again and again”, but from the other perspective -- here the “I” is Jack. The quote is also used in the dialogue, as part of what Jack says. @zannadubs23/Inzannatea writes in “No Taste For Accounting” a fic that is primarily about accounting, and sensual distractions when a poor girl is simply trying to ger her accounting done -- but Jack has also just been reading poetry, and so uses e e cummings’ phrases to Phryne while seducing her.

In CollingwoodGirl’s/ @jeneenp's, “just You, and I”, the quote of ‘I like your body’ is physically there, in a book, and Phryne tries to make Jack read it. It’s an intensely sexual moment, Phryne being turned on by his voice as he reads, but then Jack hesitates -- because he finds the poem too intimate, a love letter, and he questions if the poet really ought to have shared it. Phryne, instead, challenges him to write his own love letter.

Also in @omgimsarahtoo's “Up to Chance”, the poem is read aloud, and Phryne is profoundly affected by it. This is also the start of a cool and daring project, where @omgimsarahtoo will try to capture all the monthly prompts in the same fic over the year. The set-up is therefore longer-term: Phryne is away in northern Victoria for a case and speaks to Jack on the phone, and he recites 'I like my body' that made him think about her. Phryne promises in the end to go to the library to find something that she can read for him, for the next day.

Like @omgimsarahtoo, also @loopyhoopyfrood decided to do a long-term project: a poem for every monthly quote, collected in their “Year of Quotes Poetry Collection”. This fandom surely isn’t afraid of challenges! For January, this means that a modernist like e. e. cummings, seen through the lense of characters from a TV show in the 2010′s, results in a sonnet! I find this very cool. This is an awesome challenge, and the result for this specific quote (’I like my body’) is lovely, as the sonnet focuses on two kinds of caresses and touches, of love and lust respectively, between Phryne and Jack.

I’ll end with two fics that are perhaps a bit reluctant in relation to the quotes -- both @adverbally and @missingmissfisher had some trouble with them and dug deeper to find the context around them. They found a continuation that focuses on never stopping to fight to be yourself, and not allowing others to try to make you “everybody else”. From this @adverbally in “And Never Stop Fighting” created a lovely in-canon moment between Phryne and Jack after her birthday party in the end of season one, giving both a character study of Phryne and a glimps of intimacy between the two of them long before they actually are in a relationship. @missingmissfisher is in “Under all silences” offering a story with a slight canon-divergence between the two last episodes of season one, and it’s only just started so we will see where it leads and how it makes use of the January quotes!

The full collection, which most fics have been entered into, is here.

Thanks to everyone who partook in this challenge and gave us such lovely fics! And thank you @firesign23 for doing the MFMM Year of Quotes! Also, February’s challenge is declared, and it will be quotes on the theme of love.

#mfmm fanfic #mfmm year of quotes #mfmm and e e cummings #mfmm monthly overview #miss fisher challenges

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nealcassatiel · 7 years

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Neal Cassady/Dean Moriarty/Dean Winchester - The similarities between the ‘On The Road’ protagonist and Dean Winchester

Jack Kerouac’s ‘On The Road’ and a general introduction to The Beats

Jack Kerouac travelled across the USA with his friend Neal Cassady in the 1950s, and wrote about his travels in the book ‘On The Road’. Along with his friends William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and others, this group of friends (all of which were writers) declared themselves as The Beats – a play on words of both to be ‘beat down’ and also the more positive ‘beatific’. Along with Allen Ginsberg’s most known poem ‘Howl’, this work and ‘On the Road’ cemented this small group of writers in the American literary canon.

The Beats were inspired by Modernist poets such as William Carlos Williams, as well as the booming jazz musicians of the 1940s and 1950s, and Transcendentalist writers such as Thoreau, Whitman, and Emerson. ‘On the Road’ combines the sounds of scat singing in jazz, with transcendentalist philosophies, and tropes of American road literature. ‘On the Road’ is cool, in tune with nature, and details the philosophical and literal freedom of speeding down the highway across American.

Both Sal Paradise (Jack Kerouac) and Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) in On The Road travel across the states in search of something, whether that is something physical like human connection, or more importantly something spiritual.

Neal Cassady

In the winter of 1946 Neal Cassady drove into New York and met Jack Kerouac and his friends.

Cassady was born in Salt Lake City in 1926 and spent his childhood travelling around the western states with his father who was a chronic alcoholic which resulted in him being unemployed for long periods and thus hoboing around the States. This resulted in Cassady being both independent and irresponsible. Although he was very intelligent, he never stayed in one place long enough to attend school regularly and spent much of his time in Denver pool halls, stealing cars for fun, and going to reform school. He was good looking and a highly sexual person with a huge sexual appetite which he tried to satiate at every opportunity. When he arrived in New York he was married to LuAnne Henderson (with whom he cheated on continuously). In the late 1940s he started sleeping with Allen Ginsberg, who wrote Howl in which Neal is written in as the hero of the poem. In 1966 he died by the side of a railroad track after walking home drunk after a wedding. (The Beat Generation, Christopher Gair)

Cassady was energetic, drove fast (some friends of his were scared to be in the same car as him), stole cars, hustled people at pool, drank to excess, got into trouble with the police, and had a lot of sex with both genders. Whilst Kerouac was more bookish and quiet, Neal was an energetic and outgoing character who was ‘sharp, witty, gregarious, and lived for excitement and sexual conquests.’ (I Celebrate Myself, 81).

(Neal Cassady)

Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg

In 1947, Allen reveled in a wild sexual weekend with Neal. Allen hoped that he could teach Neal about literature, and Neal could teach him about sex. Whilst other people simply saw Neal as a con man, Allen knew there was more to him. Allen fell in love with him instantly but Neal quickly got bored and always needed to be on the move as he could never stay in one place for too long. They continuously wrote to each other, however whilst Allen poured his heart out to Neal and in the early years hoped to be his partner, Neal tried to impress upon Allen that he was not interested in a long term homosexual affair. They both slept together in 1947, and certainly until 1955 (possibly later) they continued to sleep together sporadically.

Supernatural and On The Road

Eric Kripke has stated that Sam and Dean are based off the characters from On The Road (Sal and Dean). In the episode in S4 where Chuck is introduced and they go into a comic book store where the owner asks if they are larping, at one point asking if their names are ‘Sal and Dane’. So, it is quite clear that their names are based off On The Road.

Also, On the Road is a semi-fictional/semi-autobiographical work. The characters in the book are based off real life people, much like how the Supernatural books are based off the lives of Sam and Dean.

On The Road is a foremost example of American Road fiction – two guys driving across the states in a car searching for something – sounds pretty much the same as the premise for Supernatural. Take away the ghosts and hunting and Supernatural is about two guys driving across the states, with no place they’re really heading, meeting people, listening to music, hustling pool, and getting into trouble with the police. That could also be a great summary of On The Road.

Specifically in the early seasons, Supernatural sets itself up as a Road movie, but on TV. It is cool, the guys are cool, the music used is cool, they drink, steal cars, and live a free life on the road.

On the Road has two main protagonists; Sal and Dean. Sal is more bookish and quiet, slightly in awe of Dean’s wild ways. Whilst in Supernatural Sam is more bookish and quiet, both in awe and disgruntled about Dean’s wilder ways.

I mean..... come ON

Neal Cassady and Dean Winchester

Lets go over again what Neal Cassady (who Dean Moriarty was based on) was like;

- He spent his childhood travelling around the western states with his father.

- His father was a chronic alcoholic which resulted in him being unemployed for long periods and thus hoboing around the States.

- Cassady (due to his upbringing) was both independent and irresponsible.

- Although he was very intelligent, he never stayed in one place long enough to attend school regularly.

- Although he never had a formal education, in his 20s he started reading a great deal.

- He could never stay in one place for too long, both as a child, teen, and adult.

- He spent much of his time in Denver pool halls

- He stole cars, loved cars, was good at fixing cars.

- He went to reform school.

- He was good looking in a jock kind of way.

- He was a highly sexual person with a huge sexual appetite which he tried to satiate at every opportunity.

- He drank a lot and took drugs, but mainly drank.

- He slept with both men and women, notably Allen Ginsberg who was friends with both Cassady and Kerouac.

- Although he slept with both men and women, he presented himself to most people as heterosexual. It is worth noting that he was alive during the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, and being bisexual or gay was incredibly difficult during those years. Neal was somewhat of a celebrity and it is understandable that Neal denied his attraction to men.

- He was energetic.

- He loved cars and drove incredibly fast

- He hustled pool.

- He got in trouble with the police.

- He was sharp, witty, and funny.

- He was likened to a James Dean kind of person.

I don’t think there is any need for me to go through each of these points and give evidence as to how Dean Winchester fits every single one of these character traits as well. I would expect any viewer of the show to look at that list and assume that one is describing Dean Winchester. From the alcoholic father who drove with him round the States, to his own excessive drinking, need for sex, intelligence yet lack of education, hustling of pool, stealing cars….. you get the idea. They are highly highly highly similar.

The bisexuality question

It is common knowledge that Neal Cassady slept with both men and women, and the similarities between Neal and Dean Winchester are so strong that it would be easy to argue that because Neal Cassady sleeps with men and women, so does Dean Winchester. Every single description of Cassady could apply to Dean Winchester, so it doesn’t make sense to say ‘every single one applies apart from the bisexuality.’ Of course, there are aspects of both Cassady and Dean Winchester which don’t match up, however the core information about Cassady which readers and scholars know about does match up.

I hope this has been a good introduction to Neal Cassady and Dean Winchester. This is my basic summary of this discussion, however if you have more questions then don’t hesitate to send in an ask! My undergraduate and postgraduate research focuses were the Beats and American Road Narratives so if you want to know more about any of this let me know :)

I’m also thinking of writing a bit about Allen Ginsberg and Cas, as well as some stuff on SPN and spirituality in particular transcendentalism and Buddhism, so I’ll try and get that done at some point. Any general questions about the Beats, especially Ginsberg I am more than happy to answer :)

#supernatural and on the road #on the road #dean winchester and neal cassady #supernatural meta #spn meta #my supernatural discourse #supernatural and the beats #dean winchester x bisexuality #bisexual!dean #Cas x Ginsberg #cas x ginsberg x buddhism

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wearejustvisiting · 6 years

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Doki Doki Literature Club: Review

So I finished Doki Doki Literature club a few days ago and took some time to stew on it. And I can definitely say that the end result is...not the great, deep, powerful psychological thriller that everyone is talking about. (did I play a different game or something?) But before we go on, I need to mention that this review is going to contain a massive amount of spoilers. Doki Doki Literature club is not something I recommend wasting our time with, but it is something I recommend looking into for yourself. Also, I am gonna have to say that if you are easily disturbed, stop reading. The game gets dark, almost to a hilarious degree.Good? Let's get going.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________ Doki Doki Literature club is a dating sim which has the problems of all other dating sims. You have skinny white girls of varying heights and busts all after your body in what can be described as some sort of disturbing fantasy, where the girls are awarded to you for sitting through the proper dialogue trees and clicking the right buttons. Make no mistake, the girls in this game aren't characters. They're trophies.

Well, for the first three hours anyhow. Then, in an actually surprisingly touching scene, it is found out that your childhood friend Sayori has...depression. I just want to say as someone with bipolar, depression is hard to get right in a game. But these guys, they got it right. Way right. Like, if the player character's "i know what's best for you" dialogue wasn't so damn creepy I might actually have thought that part of the game was worth a damn. But no. No it wasn't. Turns out that this, that Sayori having depression, is a preamble. An introduction to what this game thinks is creepy: Shock value.

If I were asked what the main problems of this game are, it would be:1: Characters.The characters are not good. Hell, not even their weird post-game-gets-fucked-with versions are any good. We have Sayori the dull, Natsuki the obnoxious, Yuri the shy, and Monika. She's evil. And you'll be able to tell within the first hour of the game (don't worry about pacing, I'll get to it)

To go a little more in depth with the characters, we should look at Sayori first. SAYORI: SCAPEGOAT OF THE AGES

Sayori is a ditzy childhood friend of yours with a good heart, who ends up killing herself at the end of act 1 for nothing more than shock value. Her In game death contributes to nothing. You could have just had her disappear, or have the death happen off screen. But no. Dan Salvato, the mastermind behind this, thought it was important, it was NECESSARY to make us sit through this. To go into her room and to look at her hanging, dead body. Dan seems to be a bit of a necrophiliac, since he sure does love making us look at dead people. Like...a lot. Let's be real, Sayori's death is just shock value. The game wants to seem more important than it actually is, so it throws a dead girl at the screen and hopes it creeps us out. To the point where in the back of the literature club's classroom, whenever something spooky is about to go down, a picture of Sayori's hanging body can be seen. They use this girl's death like a silent hill siren, and it doesn't make any fucking sense. THis is some sort of revolutionary psychological thriller, and yet all it's doing is using the suicide of some girl as a shocking little extra. It's heinous.

But Sayori's disappearance, the fact that she is NO LONGER AROUND is necessary. Because it launches us into a timeline split that...well, that I need to explain.

SIDE NOTEThis game's timeline splits when Sayori dies. Weird things start happening in game in an attempt to jumpscare you. We will be referring to the events before the death of Sayori as Timeline 1, or T1 for shor, and everything after that will be referred to as Timeline 2, or T2 for short. As Sayori dies in T1 in a pre-rendered, predetermined, stupid looking NIN ripoff cutscene, we won't be talking about her in T2...but that leads us into talking about:

YURI: AIN'T CREEPY GIRLS JUST THE CUTEST?

So in T1 we're introduced to Yuri, who is shy and sad and reads books and is just the most annoyingly boring garbage. She's kinda considered the brooding member of the party, the one who doesn't really talk much. She's got a rough exterior, but inside she is just such a sad, soft, lonely little bird! Isn't this how ALL shy, reclusive women are!?

T1 Yuri is kinda boring, but she's the one I got stuck with due to arbitrary choices I made during the beginning of the game which I now kind of regret making. She's not really an interesting character, though the game definitely tries hard to make her interesting in T1.

It's revealed that she likes weird books. One book, which isn't a real book, is about humans being experimented on while they're still alive and conscious. Which, now that I think about it , is kind of symbolic for the game in and of itself. As in, you feel like the government is testing how long you can stay awake. I nearly failed the experiment. Multiple times.

This is supposed to add depth to the character. We're supposed to think she is more interesting than she actually is. This is furthered by the fact that she likes collecting knives. It's seen as this weird, horrifying thing by the game's plot, but...I mean, it's a knife collection. It's nothing to be afraid of. Unless we're talking about T2 Yuri, that is. T2 Yuri is about as threatening as a 4 year old pretending to be a police officer. Sure, she's got a brand new yandere coat of paint recklessly shellacked onto her, but it's not creepy apart from like...a jumpscare or two.

SIDENOTE: Yandere is this stupid anime trope that essentially makes a girl 'crazygonuts' for you to the point where she's willing to kill or be killed for you. It's stupid, I know. But apparently to people who don't know how obsessive personality disorder works, this is hot. Or something. It sure as shit ain't compelling.

T2 Yuri is one of this game's many failures of good character building. This character COULD have been interesting. She could have bee a character fighting with her obsession against the Monika character (She's my least favorite, we'll get to her) and had really honest, gut-wrenching scenes about fighting with her inner self.

But literally, in the game, the most disturbing thing T2 Yuri does is masturbate with a pen you dropped. That's it. That's as weird as it gets. Sure, there is stuff that's supposed to be more disturbing. She self harms, and you are forced to look at the results of that self harm. Because Dan Salvato thinks that if you're forced to look at it, you're going to somehow be really freaked out by it.

Once again, someone's mental illness and self harm is used not as character development, but as shock value. You are not supposed to feel for Yuri, you are supposed to be scared of Yuri. Anyways, she kills herself in the middle of a conversation with you and you're forced to sit through the worst paced scene in gaming history. But Pacing is a totally different section of the review. We'll get to it. Trust me.

NATSUKI: DEATH OF CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

Due to the fact that I was arbitrarily handed over to Yuri in the first timeline of the game, I don't know too much about T1 Natsuki. I know that she's cranky and that she's got a bloodsugar problem, or something.

To be fair, she actually starts out as a great character. We're drip-fed hints through dialogue and poems about her that are giving us hints about her life at a deliciously teasing pace. It draws you in you get interested. But in T2, I can tell you EXACTLY the line that made me give up on her. The EXACT PIECE of dialogue, it will be etched into my brain for years to come. The line that told me 'wow, these writers have NO fucking clue what they're doing'

"My father would beat the shit out of m if I found out"

...Okay. Not only do we later find out that she wasn't actually the one who said this line later in the game. Not only is it disrespectful to people who have gone through that trauma. But it kills this character's good writing.

Let's take a step back and learn how to write trauma.

SIDENOTE: Good writing of a traumatic character comes down to how the character behaves due to their trauma. For example: Nick Wilde from Zootopia is an untrustworthy kind of guy, who never puts stock in anything unless it's proven to work. He's also the victim of (what is essentially) a racially motivated hat crime. This doesn't excuse his actions, but it explains them. The trouble with Natsuki is that it's revealed too early on. If we had figured out with Nick Wilde that that stuff happened to him, say, five minutes after meeting the character, that would be total bullshit. But with T2 Natsuki, we learn too early what's going on. It kills the ability to figure out the character for yourself, and it destroys the buildup to what would have been a better reveal later in the game.

Because there are SO MANY BETTER REVEALS to Natsuki having an abusive father later in T2. But no. Once Again, Dan Salvato didn't want to let his writing about traumatic events slip past you. It tells us something when he doesn't even expect the player to pick up subtext that becomes surtext later on in the game. What I'm trying to say is that if Natsuki's abuse had been revealed later in the game, the character would have felt more compelling. But here we are, in the middle of T2, getting all these AMAZING hints to something that we already know. Because Dan Salvato does not think you're smart enough to get it yourself.

As for T2 Natsuki's death, it's...I mean it's there. Her eyes bleed, her neck snaps, she jumpscares you...It's not creepy for more than like three minutes. But what irks me is they have the balls to NOT actually kill her. She lives. She's back five minutes later.

Her death wasn't even a real death. This entire character was just a waste of time. All because Dan Salvato REALLY wanted to get another creepy silent hills death in there.

MONIKA: FLOWEY, BUT LESS INTERESTING

They say behind every great villain is a great motive. Which is why Monika's Motive sucks. She sucks as a villain, and yet EVERYONE seems to like her for some reason. I liked her better when she was flowey and the game was undertale and we had actual goddamn GAMEPLAY.

SIDENOTE: So in Undertale, the 2015 Toby Fox masterclass in indie game making, there's this character called Flowey who is fully aware that undertale is a game. He is fully aware of it. And he is REALLY GOOD at messing with the player. Deleting saves, crashing and bricking the game, etc. But Flowey is also good because of his motive. He only wants to kill you because he has grown tired of time and time again sitting through the same thing over and over, he got tired of having no feelings. So he started Killing. Monika has a...somewhat similar makeup.

Before we go on, I want to say that Monika being the villain is haphazardly revealed in like the first hour and a half of the game or something. On the second day of T1 she starts talking about saving the game and reloading the game, but then hastily backtracks over herself. Sure. Sure you don't know what that means.

Whereas flowey got a good introduction and good development (and a neat theme song) Monika gets (along with lumbar scoliosis) a fisher price version of villainy. She's really just a cold hearted monster with no development or any REAL motive. Her actions are cowardly at best.

Monika will 'delete' characters from he game, even though she doesn't really. She also messes with the games settings to get things going her way. Why is this? What is her motive to coding herself into the game like this and taking it over?

She wants to date the Player. Not the player CHARACTER, mind you, but the player themselves.

THIS IS THE MOST STUPID SHIT I HAVE EVER HEARD WHY THE FUCK WOULD ANYONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND

Let's analyze the two big problems with this:

1: She knows she's inside a game (and insults YOU, the PLAYER, for not knowing it was a game even though you obviously do) so why would she want to date the PLAYER if she knows she can't get into the real world?

2: People have pointed this out as a joke, but if she wanted to date the player so bad, then why didn't she just code herself a playable path? She's proficient enough at manipulating the game to supposedly get to the game's command line. Can she not just...give herself a path?

We also learn that Monika is manipulating the other characters to say things to try and scare the player character off. But if she REALLY wanted the player, why even bother? Just write into a poem that that's what is going on. Don't pussyfoot around it either, just straight up tell me. Natsuki got to tell me something was wrong with Yuri, so why couldn't Monika just at the beginning of the game be like 'yo I wanna get jiggy with it'??

I've heard people describe DDLC as a game that insults the tropes of dating sims and trivializes them. But...if the villain's motive is to, in the end, date the player, that kills it as a piece of subversive narrative. It further approves the idea that every character in a dating sim wants to sleep with you and ONLY you. Even the ones you can't normally get with in the game.

There are other problems with this game; However, the second biggest problem is definitely 2: Pacing So a former developer for Maxis games and former writer for Gamepro, Soren Johnson, describe fun in games like this.

Total fun=meaningful decisions/time played

Essentially, this means that the amount of fun a player has ins equal to how many decisions the player makes over the time they play. In a fun game like Skyrim, you make a lot of meaningful decisions in a little amount of time. So even though Skyrim is longer (Hell, I've probably sank at least 800 hours into that game across two whole platforms) I have a lot of fun with this game. DDLC's crimes against pacing are egregious. This game doesn't start getting to the creepy stuff that its fans tout as groundbreaking until FIVE HOURS into the game. Imagine getting a horror game, but having to sit through a schooday's worth of just tensionless, boring nothing.

While T1 has a pacing problem with slowness, T2 has one with quickness. It seems like after that first barrier of a character death got broken, DDLC decided to blow its load all over the damn place. Creepy thing after shocking thing until you just become numb to it. It's either too slow or too fast. And then...then there's the final weekend. As mentioned earlier, Yuri kills herself in T2. Now, you would expect a normal person who just saw a woman kill herself in front of them go to the police, or scream for help, or run all over the building in terror. What do you do? What happens?

You sit there. With the corpse. For THREE. IN. GAME. DAYS. YOU'RE EXPECTED TO SIT AND CLICK A SCREEN WITH A SLOWLY DECOMPOSING BODY ON IT FOR 45 GODDAMN MINUTES.

I legit thought my game was broken. I had to look it up and make sure, and if you have to LOOK UP a solution to a dating sim, that's just...that's just bad design. Monika writes this off, saying that the 'script of the game' is broken, but we know the deal. Once again, Dan Salvato thinks that forcing you to sit through a traumatic event is going to scare you even more.

But after having sat through three hours of 'ooky spooky' bullshit, I didn't care. I wanted the game to be broken because I wanted to be done.

3: Was there anything good? There were two good things about this game, and both of them are easy to explain. So forgive me.

Credit where credit is due, some of the jpeg and music manipulation was good. It wasn't nearly enough to save the game, sure, and I still wouldn't reccomend it since you can find all these creepy effects the game pulls on the internet. Bu some of the manipulation techniques were legit kinda creepy.

And the file manipulation in the computer, outside of the game, blurring the line between diegetic and non-diegetic (Diegesis referring to what is and isn't in the universe of a piece of media, e.g. background music in non-diagetic but dialogue is diagetic) was really cool. I haven't seen stuff like that since Imscared back in 2013, and that game was legitimately terrifying. I felt like a genius trying to figure some of this stuff out.

Other than that, I mean...I guess the game IS free...i doesn't take up TOO much space on my hard drive...

4: CONCLUSIONit feels like the people who wrote this game wanted to write a creepy pasta. I can imagine this being some creepy story passed around forums i 2014, being talked about. Having its own little mini fandom on tumblr, maybe a stupid living tombstone song about it. I can imagine people making fangame versions of this creepy pasta, even down to bloody eyes and hyper realistic blood and all those little creepy pasta tropes. If this had been like Sonic.exe, a fad that we all forgot about and eventually brought into the realm of parody? That would at least be more entertaining than what we got.

Instead we got a bunch of writers who can't write and artists who watch too much anime to know how real clothes and breasts work, who in all honesty probably didn't want to hang out with nerdy game programmers and Just didn't put in their all. The programmers obviously wanted this game more than the writers did.

This game isn't worth the $0.00 it's charging for the standard product.

If you just want to play a piece of good metafiction, stop playing DDLC, get a job, and go buy a PS2 with Metal Gear Solid 2 on it.

If you want a good 'game about games' just bite the bullet and spend $15 bucks on undertale.

If you want a free indie horror game that really gets under your skin, go get Yume Nikki. Trust me, that one's a real ride.

I also have problems with he music of this game, but that's a rant for another time. All I want to say is that you can do better.

You can do so much better.

Let this be a reminder that just because a game is free and has cute anime girls and a weird premise, doesn't mean it will all be good.

No matter how much it wants you to believe it is.

#Mari rambles #DDLC #tw blood #tw death mention #tw suicide mention #Mari reviews

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wendynerdwrites · 7 years

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Sapphires and Salt --- A Salty Teens Fic

Sansa:

A sudden rush of light and fresh air jolts her from her troubled sleep. She tries to bury her face in her pillows, only to have her bedclothes ripped off of her violently.

“Up,” Aunt Lyanna says, sitting atop Sansa’s bedside and brushing a curtain of greasy red hair from her face, “You’ve been in bed a week, and court convenes in three hours.”

“So?” Sansa asks, scoffing, “Why should that matter to me? It’s not as if I have a place there anymore.”

“Don’t be absurd,” the queen replies, “Remember who you are. You’re Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell, daughter of the Lord of the North, Granddaughter of the Lord of the Riverlands, Niece to the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and the Lord of the Vale--”

“-The jilted cast-offs of the prince of Dragonstone-”

The queen looks as if she’s about to say something, but appears to think better of it.

“Niece, I am ordering you, as your queen, to get out of bed. You are going to get up, bathe, dress, and walk into the throne room with the pride of a Stark, understand? Show that brat Aegon every inch of what he’s missed out on.”

Sansa feels bile rush to her throat. “Aegon? Aegon is going to be there?”

“Aye,” Lyanna says, getting to her feet and striding to Sansa’s dressing table, “We dragged that spoiled shit and that common slut back to court. And I can assure you, the king is none too pleased with either.”

Two of the five maids Lyanna brought with her help Sansa out of bed and into a tub of steaming water scented with the aroma of almonds and roses. Lady pads over to the side of the tub and nuzzles the hand Sansa hangs over the edge. Sansa strokes her wolf’s ears affectionately. Lady has barely moved from her bedside all week.

Sansa watches her aunt suspiciously as Lyanna goes through her jewel-chest. Her aunt has always been a bit of a mystery to her. To everyone, really. To this day, no one aside from the king and his wife seem to be sure what occurred between them that led to the Rebellion and their marriage. Some claimed Lyanna was abducted and raped, others insisted she ran off with the king in a swirl of rebellion and romance. After four years at court observing the royal couple, Sansa’s been inclined to think it was somewhere in the middle. The two seemed to love one another, but her aunt always seemed rather unsatisfied and melancholy.

Aunt Lyanna was never unkind to Sansa, but their relationship has always been a bit strained. Lyanna had more in common with Sansa’s wild younger sister, Arya, and it was clear before long that the queen would have preferred a girl of Arya’s inclinations to join her at court than Sansa. Queen Lyanna is a wild woman herself, a voracious huntress and rider who adored besting men with a blade. Far, far more than she enjoyed holding court, that was certain. Queen Lyanna had no patience for pomp, pageantry, or the feminine arts, often eschewing gowns for breeches and leaving her ladies to ride out to the kingswood with her two eldest daughters, Visenya and Lyarra, who had similar dispositions.

When Sansa came to court, it was clear that Lyanna expected her to be similar: to look and act like a Northern girl in full. Indeed, apparently she’d gotten the descriptions of her two nieces from her brother’s letters mixed up, and had expected the scabby-kneed tom-boy, not the perfect lady.

Upon discovering the mistake, the queen encouraged Sansa to be more like her ideal: to ride, learn to fight, to hunt like mad. She pushed her niece to pursue every activity designated as more “masculine”, to unexpected results. Aside from taking up the bow and falconry as regular hobbies, Sansa ended up resisting all of her aunt’s martial inclinations. Instead she took the opportunity of the “freedom” her aunt offered her to read everything her Septa back in Winterfell deemed “unfit” for a lady, and became even more engrossed in reading than she’d been prior. She took up statecraft, trade, astronomy, art, and music over swords and lances. And even when hawking, she had a habit of releasing her game that drove her aunt mad.

Ironically, Sansa ended up becoming closer to the king than the Stark queen, something Sansa sensed bothered her aunt as well.

“If you’re going to be a queen and survive a marriage to my spoiled step-son,” Lyanna had told her, “You have to be strong.”

Another thing Lyanna couldn’t stand: the fact that her niece worshipped the ground Aegon walked.

It was no secret that the relationship between the Crown Prince and his Stark step-mother was strained. That was partly why the betrothal was crafted in the first place. Princess Elia, Aegon’s mother and Rhaegar’s first wife, died during Robert’s Rebellion. Rhaegar had left Elia (and their two children) to run off with Aunt Lyanna, sparking the war. Rhaegar won the war, of course, making Lyanna his queen, something that infuriated Houses Martell and Stark. But a betrothal between Prince Viserys and Princess Arianne, the heir to Dorne, and the fact that Elia’s son remained heir to the Iron Throne managed to placate the Martells. House Stark, however, was another story. They feared for Aunt Lyanna’s safety, and that only got worse as Prince Aegon grew up resenting his step-mother, viewing her as a whore who humiliated, killed, and supplanted his mother. The fact that King Rhaegar had sent his son with Lyanna, Prince Jon, off to foster in the Reach at a young age as well didn’t help.

So, to try and bridge the gap and promote a reconciliation between the half-Martell Crown Prince and the House Stark, the betrothal was arranged.

Sansa left her home in the North at age eleven to come to King’s Landing to get to know her future husband. And she thought she had. Aegon, despite his resentment towards her Aunt Lyanna, was always kind, gallant, and lovely to her. He was everything a prince should be: tall, strong, handsome, well-mannered. And Sansa thought he’d come to love her. Despite the fact that their betrothal was set in stone before they’d even met, he’d courted her upon her arrival to the Red Keep, writing her poems and songs, giving her gifts, escorting her to events, and calling her his lady love. As she grew older, he began stealing kisses and even touched her a few times in a way that gave her shivers and even… Well, he did some wicked things to her that often left her dizzy and boneless. Wicked, wicked things he assured her weren’t worth confessing or atoning for, as they were his sins. And not once did he ever let her reciprocate.

Her prince, with his amethyst eyes and mischievous smile, made her life seem like a dream. How many favors had she made him, ones he’s pressed to his lips and proudly worn? How many times had she sworn her love to him, only to have him swear it right back?

She did everything she could to be his ideal bride-to-be. She worshipped him.

Sansa still remembers the last time she saw him. He’d taken off for Dragonstone to prepare it for their use. On their wedding day, Aegon would formally be granted the ancestral seat of the heir to the Iron Throne, and their wedding wasn’t too far off. Before stepping onto the ship, he’d donned the new cloak she’d made him and kissed her fingertips formally. Then as if he couldn’t contain his passion, he grabbed her before all the court and all of Blackwater Bay and kissed her lips deep. Highly improper, but oh-so-thrilling. And then he’d sprinted toward the ship, grinning.

It had left her so dazed that it wasn’t until later that she thought to blush over so many lords and ladies witnessing that kiss.

Aegon wrote to her to say he felt that Dragonstone would require far more modifications than expected for it to be worthy of her. And so he’d requested more funds from the treasury, and sated her with daily letters assuring her of his love. He told her of the things he was building for her, things based on what she missed from Winterfell: a lemon tree orchard, glass gardens, a fancy bathing chamber with a tub that would be as big as the Hot Spring baths from back home, but twice as fine.

And then…

Lyanna’s warnings, always taken with a grain of salt, turned true. Word came from Dragonstone. Aegon had eloped with Daena Valeryon, daughter of the Lord of Driftmark, a “dragonseed”, and declared her his princess.

His letter to his father (he didn’t write to Sansa), declared his bride to be of “proper and worthy Valyrian blood, a descendent of our own royal bloodline, with the silver-gold hair and amethyst eyes to prove it. A proper vessel to purify our bloodline and preserve the traits of Old Valyria.”

That wasn’t enough, however. Despite not sending Sansa an explanation, it was clear he intended to send her a message. The date Aegon gave for his clandestine wedding was the same date as Sansa’s fifteenth Name Day, and he’d sent her letters--- lying letters--- assuring her of his love following that date.

Lyanna was right. Lyanna was right all along.

Not that Sansa felt particularly inclined to turn to her aunt now. Lyanna hadn’t exactly offered Sansa a shoulder to cry on when the news came, preferring instead to devote her time to arguing with her husband and his council. When she did come to visit Sansa before, her manner was patronizing and cloying.

For years, Lyanna warned Sansa not to trust anyone in King’s Landing. Sansa’s all too ready to take that advice now.

Brokenhearted she may be, but Sansa isn’t stupid. There have been rumors for years about how Queen Lyanna desires to see her own son, Prince Jon, supplant his elder half-brother, and that it was partly why King Rhaegar sent Jon to foster in the Reach when he was eight. Sansa’s only ever exchanged light correspondence with her cousin, and though he’s always been kind and courteous in his letters, she always got the odd feeling that she was being condescended to.

Everyone knows the story of Duncan, the Prince of the Dragonflies, who gave up his crown to marry Jenny of the Oldstones. But that was different. Jenny was a common girl with no name or title behind her. Lady Daena is of one of the chief Houses of the Crownlands, a family that has married into House Targaryen multiple times, who shared Valyrian ancestry with the royal family.

If not for the betrothal, she’d probably be considered a fine match for Prince Aegon. And he wouldn’t be the first king of Westeros to have broken a betrothal in his youth--- just look at Jaehaerys II.

Not to mention, there’s the precedent set by Rhaegar himself. How could the king justify disinheriting his son for defying his designated match to wed another when… Well...

Everyone in King’s Landing plays a game, Sansa knows that. Even before Aegon jilted her, she knew that. But she’d always thought his game was to raise up his Martell cousins when he took the throne. She never imagined this.

Lyanna is no different.

As Sansa is helped out of the tub, the doors open, and Visenya, her looks as Targaryen as her name, marches in carrying a velvet-wrapped parcel. “It’s ready,” she tells her mother.

Lyanna rises from Sansa’s dressing table, leaving an array of carefully-arranged pieces laying out on the surface. Sansa takes her aunt’s place, watching her royal aunt and cousin unwrap the parcel through the mirror as the maids dry and comb her hair.

Yards of shimmering, silvery-white damask and myrish lace spill out of the velvet, and Sansa’s heart stops. It’s her wedding gown, completed, with a chain of pearls studding the trim.

Lyanna and Visenya smirk at her.

“You’re going to dazzle the room,” Lyanna says, “You’ll look every inch a queen.”

Sansa gazes longingly at the exquisite brocade, then glances back at the surface of the dressing table. Sapphires Aegon gifted her gleam up at her.

She clenches her teeth, furious, and shoves the gems off the table. She stands and turns, glaring at Lyanna and Visenya.

“I will not…” She snaps. Her aunt groans.

“Sansa, you’re a direwolf. You’re a Stark. You must be fierce and strong. I will not let you hide yourself away like--”

“---No!” Sansa shouts again. The whole chamber falls silent. Never once has she raised her voice to anyone, let alone the queen. “I am a wolf! But I am not some doll for you to dress up and parade out. I will not wear the gown of a wedding that shall not be, I will not wear his sapphires. Send my regular maids in and get out.”

Lyanna stares at her, alarmed. “Niece…”

“---I assure you, Aunt Lyanna, you will see me at court, and I will appear every inch a Stark. Now leave.”

~_~_~_~_~_~

She has the gown, the sapphires, and every other bauble Aegon ever gifted her sent to his new bride. When she enters the throne room, she does not need to glitter. She wears an ivory silk with grey velvet trim, with a posey of blue winter roses pinned to her bodice. They match the crown of blossoms atop her head. Yet more of the flowers are pinned to Lady’s collar. She dons no jewels. What need does she have for them when she is literally leading a wolf the size of a horse? The gown is simple, but it shows off her figure better than anything else in her wardrobe, and she never fails to make heads turn when she wears it.

Sansa meets every pitying eye with a smile, and she climbs the dais to take her usual place with her cousins, Visenya and Lyarra. She is still the queen’s niece and lady-in-waiting. The place is still hers.

The king, however, has other plans. He gazes at her appraisingly, and gestures for her to come over to him. Sansa stands before the Iron Throne and curtseys. King Rhaegar surprises her by taking her hands in his. Their eyes meet. His are kind.

“My Sweet Niece, you are very brave. My most profound apologies.”

“You are too kind, Your Grace,” Sansa replies modestly.

Before he can say another word, however, one of the heralds announces the Prince and Princess of Dragonstone, and Sansa hurries to her place.

Aegon and his new bride are escorted by guards. Princess Daena wears the very costume Lyanna intended for Sansa: the gown, the sapphires. Both of them look thoroughly pleased with themselves.

Sansa doesn’t hesitate to meet Aegon’s violet eyes. She does not flinch, though she wishes to. Just seeing him is painful. Seeing the obvious glee with which he presents his new bride is worse. What had Sansa done to make him want to hurt her so?

The two of them kneel before the throne, and for once, King Rhaegar doesn’t immediately gesture for them to rise. Instead, he looks down at his son and new good-daughter with a sad resignation.

“Aegon of House Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone and Lady Daena Valeryon of Driftmark, you are found guilty of entering into an unlawful union, of a violation of sacred vows made before Gods and Men, and endangering the succession, security, and stability of the Iron Throne. Your elopement has not only violated the orders of your king, but done grievous insult to our allies and dishonored a good lady of high birth and morals. In so doing, you have endangered the very peace that the Seven Kingdoms have worked so hard to achieve and severely undermined our most holy relationship with our good vassals. You’ve dishonored your position, you’ve dishonored our people, you’ve dishonored your suitors, you’ve dishonored your Houses, and you’ve dishonored yourselves. Tell me, what do you have to say for yourself, my son?”

Aegon looks up at his father and smiles. “I only followed precedent, Your Grace.”

King Rhaegar rises, incensed. “A precedent of reigniting a war that nearly destroyed our dynasty? A precedent of dishonor?”

“If that is how you see it, Father. I bow to your judgment.”

The throne room erupts in whispers. This is dangerous. Aegon has only managed to place his father’s hypocrisy front and center. He’s trapped the king.

Rhaegar looks at his eldest son sadly and walks down from the dais. He stands over his kneeling son and raises him up. “You’re right, my son. For too long, I have placed the burden of my mistakes on you. I did everything I accuse you of to your mother and her House, and more. And in my efforts to rectify my mistakes, I forced you into my atonement. You don’t deserve that. I violated custom and honor to do as I wished, and the consequences should be mine to shoulder alone. Though I maintain that my queen is blameless in all of this, Elia’s memory deserves better than to have the same injustice done her be rewarded and to have her son forced to bear the responsibility for it. You deserve the same freedom she did, my son. And even though you’ve chosen to emulate the crime I did your mother, you still don’t deserve to endure the consequences of them. I’m sorry, Aegon. All I ask, however, is that you show remorse to the one you did harm.”

Aegon smiles, nods, and turns toward the dais, looking right at Sansa. “My dear Lady of House Stark, I cannot begin to rectify the harm I’ve done you. If there was any way I might spare your heart, I would. You are a lady of the finest qualities, as gracious as you are beautiful, and any man would be lucky to have you. Please know, it was not any failing of yours that prompted my actions, but my own weakness and the fact that I lost my heart to another. I am unworthy of you, My Lady. I know it. I dare not assume your forgiveness, but I humbly beg for it nonetheless.”

He smirks throughout this little speech. Every smug word is yet another blow, another confirmation that he never loved her, that he’d fooled her.

But what does it truly matter? The king has forgiven him. And she’ll never truly escape this humiliation. She will spend the rest of her life the jilted, unwanted woman, expected to serve Prince Aegon and Princess Daena, and later King Aegon and Queen Daena. This will follow her forever.

She’ll still make an excellent match, of course. Her family will have to be appeased, and part of that will be ensuring she have a bright future. But she’ll still always be the subject of the man who purposely broke her heart. But she’s not going to wilt away. She’s not going to give Aegon the reaction he’s clearly looking for.

Sansa forces a smile to her face, eliciting gasps from the court. “Prince Aegon, I wish you and your new princess every happiness.”

She alights from the dais, moving towards the newlywed, leading Lady to walk beside her. Aegon’s smile falls from his lips, and both he and his new bride look frightened. The throne room rumbles with shock and speculation.

Daena does indeed have purple eyes and silver-gold hair, but her looks end there. She’s got a plain, spotted face. Sansa can’t tell if that makes this better or worse.

Sansa moves before them, stops, and curtseys. She even kisses Princess Daena’s new sapphire ring, and smiles up at her replacement.

“You’ll have to get your royal husband to replace the stones with amethysts to better match your eyes, My Princess,” Sansa says sweetly, “And hopefully you’ll be able to alter the gown to better suit your own origins.”

Both Aegon and Daena go stony-faced. The jewels are sapphires, a precious stone, to match Sansa’s eyes. And the gown Daena wears is basically a giant Stark tapestry. They’d presented themselves to the court draped in a giant tribute to the House Aegon meant to insult, and brought attention to the fact that his new princess would have to downgrade to semi-precious stones in order to free herself of Sansa’s cast-offs and achieve the same personal touch the gift originally had.

King Rhaegar shocks Sansa by taking her hand. “It seems Lyanna’s niece takes after the best parts of Elia more than her own son. Now, Aegon, as I promised, you’ve made amends. And thus, I free you to live the life you want.”

The wildly speculating hall comes to a sudden silence. Sansa’s heart freezes.

“F-Father?”

“Aegon of House Targaryen,” Rhaegar announces, “I hereby release you from the seat of Dragonstone, the inheritance of the Iron Throne, and all other burdens of leadership and rule of our family name. You are freed from the line of succession and all pertaining duties and responsibilities, as are your future heirs, and you shall henceforth be known as Lord Aegon, Prince of the Blood, with an honored place at court and a fair income to accompany your new rank. You are free to do as you wish with your life.”

The color drains from Aegon’s handsome face. “You… You can’t do this… House Martell…”

“House Martell are still our kin,” Rhaegar replies, “Bonds which are compounded by the union between our brother Viserys and their Princess Arianne. Meanwhile, the Houses Stark, Tully, and Arryn require appeasement. Your brother fills the Stark role, but the ties to the Tullys and Arryns are not guaranteed. At least, not until the proper blood ties are secured.”

“You… You can’t….”

“Yes, Aegon, I can. Don’t worry, you will always have a place at court, if you wish. You and your new bride are of course expected to remain here until Jon arrives and you’ve sworn the proper vows to him. And I will expect you to attend the wedding, as well, and show Lady Sansa the same honor she’s shown you. But after that… Whatever you wish… The world is your oyster. You’re a free man.”

Sansa absorbs the full impact of these words, and everything they mean. She tries not to shake.

Aegon and his new wife begin to howl and curse, but Sansa takes no satisfaction in their fury. Rhaegar orders court done with, and has his son and new good-daughter escorted out. The lords and ladies file out, and Rhaegar turns to Sansa with a sad smile. Aunt Lyanna, grinning from ear to ear, joins them at once.

“You’re to be our daughter after all, Lady Sansa,” King Rhaegar says with a strained, affected warmth. He grips her hand tightly.

Sansa swallows. “Please, Your Graces, I am flattered, but there’s no need for you to do such things on my account.”

“Come now, my lady,” Rhaegar tells her, “I thought you always wanted to be queen.”

The combination of Aegon’s betrayal and observing her aunt for nearly half a decade have made her reconsider. “It isn’t about that, I---”

She just wants to be free of this place, the halls in which Aegon kissed her lips, made her a thousand promises, and broke her heart. The walls built on deceit. She wants to go home, to people who truly loved her.

“---You’ll make a wonderful queen. Probably a far better one than myself,” Lyanna says, letting out a bark of laughter, “You’re made to be one. The perfect lady since age three, as your parents always said.”

“And after all these years, I can hardly let you go, can I? Who will I play duets with?” Rhaegar asks.

“My son isn’t like Aegon, Sansa,” Lyanna tells her, “He’s honest, honorable, and dutiful. He’s like your father. He even looks a bit like Ned.”

Sansa doesn’t want someone like her father, she wants her father.

“Jonny’s a sweetheart!”

Sansa nearly jumps at the sound of Lyarra’s voice. She looks behind her. Both princesses stand there, smiling eagerly. When did they get there?

She feels sick, oh so sick. She hasn’t seen Jon face to face since she was three.

But that’s never mattered, has it? She’s allowed her feelings for Aegon to keep her oblivious all this time. Sansa was never here as family. She’s a hostage. She’s always been a hostage. She was sent here to marry Rhaegar’s heir and secure the loyalties of all of her kin. And she’s going to do that, whether she wants to or not. The political capital she comes with is more important than anything to them. It’s what keeps them in power. And Rhaegar is willing to disown his own son for it.

“I… I suppose I could meet my cousin.”

Her aunt and uncle lean back, pleased.

“We’ve already summoned Jon back to court. He’s due to arrive in three short weeks,” Lyanna says, “In the meantime, though, why don’t we order you a new trousseau?”

~_~_~_~_~_~_~

Jon:

“She’s very beautiful,” Sam remarks.

Jon looks at his foster brother, incredulous. He and the ill-favored Tarly son recline in the sumptuous chambers Lord Varner gave the prince. When they arrived at the Roseroad Keep that afternoon, the lord presented Jon with a package from the Red Keep along with the accommodations. It turned out to be a miniature of his new bride-to-be, his cousin, Sansa Stark.

Jon can’t help but wonder, looking down at painted ivory, if this bauble belonged to Aegon a few weeks ago. How many more of his hand-me-downs should he expect? Jon’s already been granted his title, his inheritance, his bride…

The portrait does indeed depict a stunning young woman, with flowing auburn hair, big, blue eyes, creamy skin, high cheekbones, and bow-shaped lips. But Jon has rarely come across a portrait of a highborn maiden that doesn’t possess these same attributes, even if the supposed subject had spots and a lazy eye. That Lady Sansa is pretty, Jon doesn’t doubt, his mother has been saying as much in her letters for years. But he doubts his cousin in the porcelain-doll-goddess this miniature promises.

Not that he cares too much about that. Mother also said Lady Sansa is frivolous, a “perfect lady”, who didn’t care to take advantage of the freedoms offered to her and learn to fight. Mother complained often that Lady Sansa was content to adhere to the rigid, dull lifestyle of a highborn maid, more interested in fashion than adventure. That she fell madly in love with Aegon, and ignored all of his mother’s warnings about him. That she loved silk dresses, handsome knights, songs of romance, and shiny baubles, and that she loathed the sight of blood.

Of course, the moment Aegon threw his birthright aside like a bag of dung, the queen’s descriptions of Lady Sansa became more favorable. Her beauty and virtue were stressed, and Mother assured Jon that the lady “learned her lesson” after being jilted. That she enjoys hawking and has a lovely voice, that she’s “an ideal queen.”

Jon, the unwanted prince, has never desired an “ideal queen” and he’s not sure he wants one now. He’s always preferred girls like his mother and sisters: athletic, unconventional, ready to ride and joust and spar with him.

His cousin is a sweet, if spoiled girl, and he knows she’s blameless in all of this, but not only is she by all accounts a ninny, but even in their scant correspondence over the years he’s detected a certain reticence from her.

Of course, that hardly makes her any different from almost everyone else. Until a few weeks ago, Jon was the family embarrassment, the prince that the king would rather everyone forget. The product of the king’s insults to House Martell, the ashes of Robert’s Rebellion. Too male to be as unthreatening as his sisters, too questionable to be a valuable bargaining chip. Even his legitimacy was questioned. Father had shipped him off to Horn Hill when he was eight, and mostly ignored him since.

Jon is hardly pleased to suddenly find himself the favored son and heir. Sam has always been more a brother to him than Aegon ever was, and Jon made peace with his status a while back. He’d learned not to pin his self-worth on a father and kingdom that didn’t want him and embrace the freedom that being the second son afforded him. Besides, court was a cesspool of deceit and corruption. Why should Jon want any part of that when he could gain his knighthood and use his name and income to forge his own path?

Until, of course, Aegon went and ruined everything.

Now Aegon has the freedom (not that the spoiled tit probably appreciated it), and Jon is saddled with all the responsibility, dragged back to the court of the father that never wanted him, to marry a stranger who will spend the rest of her life comparing him to his fancy, handsome half-brother.

Sure, his mother might be thrilled with this development, but for Jon, it means a life of being the second choice.

Jon holds the miniature down to the eye-level of Ghost, his direwolf. “What do you think, Old Friend?” He asks, “Do we like her?”

The direwolf wags his massive tail in reply.

“Is that for her, or your littermate?” The image depicted Lady Sansa sitting beside her own direwolf, from the same litter Ghost came from. At least that will be interesting. Though the fact that Sansa named her wolf “Lady” is worthy of an eyeroll.

Ghost cocks his head, which could mean anything.

“You should send her something,” Sam suggests.

“There’s no time to have my portrait done,” Jon responds, taking a sip from his tankard of ale.

“Obviously. But you said she like pretty things, right? Send her a piece of jewelry. A necklace or bracelet or something. Maybe something with sapphires, to match her eyes.”

“How am I supposed to get sapphires?” Jon asks.

“You were saving up your pocket money for a new set of blades, remember? But your parents already sent you all the new things you could want. So why don’t you use the money?”

Jon frowns. A good point. Jon had worked hard to earn and save up that gold, only for all of his new princely trappings to arrive just as he was about to reach his goal, rendering the two-year-effort more or less pointless. Something must be done with the gold, he supposes.

“Sapphires?” Jon asks. Sam nods.

“Like her eyes. In all the best romantic stories and poems, a lady’s eyes are mentioned. You can have it sent ahead. It may break the ice. And she did send you something…”

“Fine. We’ll head down to the market tomorrow before we leave.”

Sam helps him select two sapphire cuffs the next morning. “You should write a note.”

Jon isn’t much of a writer. And he’s not sure what to say. But he does it.

These sapphires are the exact color of your eyes.

Jon can barely remember the layout of the Red Keep, it’s been so long. Ten years, more than half his life. His mother’s letters tell him what to expect. Aegon will be there, probably plotting to poison him, because Father insists that the old crown prince pay homage to the new one. To make sure the whole thing is as awkward as possible, Aegon’s new wife will be there as well.

The Dornish courtiers are none too pleased, but Mother says that they blame Aegon as much as they do the Starks, and that many lords and ladies from the Northern Alliance Kingdoms--- the North, Vale, and Riverlands-- will be there to support them. He’ll be allowed to keep Ghost close by most of the time, since Sansa was permitted to keep Lady. As long as he made sure the wolf behaved, he’d be fine.

He’ll be watched and judged constantly, even by the Stark faction, who will want to make sure their lady is happy following her humiliation. Thousands of eyes will look to find fault with him and declare him an unfit prince.

No pressure, really. With every step closer to King’s Landing, Jon feels the apprehension grow heavier. He doesn’t want this. They don’t want him. So why, why is this happening?

I’ll be keeping Mother safe, he reminds himself. Lyanna Stark was never going to flourish under Aegon VI. But with her son as king, her future is assured. So there’s that.

When they’re at the City Border, his retinue is stopped, and servants swarm around him, pushing him into a tent and the bathtub within said tent, coming at him with scissors and razors and perfumes and silks. Before Jon is fully aware of what has occurred, he’s sitting atop his horse again in black and scarlet brocade, his beard trimmed and perfumed, his normally-unruly curls cut and slicked back, a ruby-studded chain dangling across his chest, and shod in boots shiny enough to render his reflection from the stirrups. Even Ghost has acquired a new collar and a very confused expression.

He looks down at Madrick, his Master of the Guard. “I suppose I’m finally fit to be seen?”

“Indeed,” Madrick confirms before calling for the gates to be opened. He hands Jon a sack of coins.

“What are these for?”

“The beggars.”

Jon isn’t prepared for the roar that erupts from the crowded streets when he rides in. He’s not prepared to hear his name being called, or for anyone to appear happy to see him. He’s not prepared for the children on their father’s shoulders, reaching their chubby arms out to him. He’s not prepared for the thin, hungry-looking men, women, and urchins to run into his path. Sam has to elbow him in the stomach for him to remember to throw the coins. He’s not prepared to see grey and white direwolf banners amidst the Targaryen flags, or for children to point to Ghost in delight rather than terror. He’s not prepared for the pretty maidens who blush when he looks their way.

The tidal wave of adulation follows him the closer he gets to the Red Keep. By the time those gates open, he’s almost forgotten a lifetime of being the unwanted prince.

The court is assembled on a marble dais, his family at the very front. His sisters and Aunt Daenerys wave at the sight of him, delighted. But it’s his mother’s eyes he finds first: the Stark-grey irises. She grins at him, and he can see the pride there. It warms his heart even more than the crowds.

But then, of course, there’s the King.

My father, Jon reminds himself. He has to do that sometimes. Rhaegar Targaryen has always seemed more his mother’s husband and his king than his father. Even when Jon lived with his family, the king had little time for him. The only remotely father-like warmth Jon ever received was from Ser Barristan Selmy, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. Jon looks for the old knight among the crowd, and both men smile upon catching one another’s eyes.

Then, of course, there’s Aegon. Jon feels his older brother’s eyes on him well before he meets that purple gaze. Jon’s hands ball into fists when he beholds his brother. You did this, Jon wants to shout at him, You did this, so don’t you dare hate me for it.

Jon glances at the silver-haired young woman at Aegon’s side. She wears a matching look of loathing, but it’s easily the most remarkable thing about her face. He scans the lines for a sign of his new betrothed, but finds nothing.

Jon dismounts and approaches his family carefully. He has to get this just right.

He walks up the steps, and drops into a kneel seven steps down from his father’s feet.

“My King,” he recites, “It is my honor to come before you.”

All of a sudden, there is a gloved hand under his chin, pushing his gaze upward into a pair of affectionate violet eyes.

“My son!” Rhaegar cries in a tone that makes Jon wonder who he’s speaking to. “My Jon!”

Now he’s being embraced, pulled to his father’s broad, silk-clad chest. Thoroughly confused, the young prince looks into the king’s eyes, half expecting the man to shed tears.

Rhaegar releases him and scans his from head to toe. “You’ve become a fine man, my son,” the king declares, “I couldn’t be prouder.”

“Neither can I. Now, may I please also embrace our son?” Lyanna Stark snipes, though with a smiles on her face and tears glistening at the corners of her eyes. Her hug is warmer and tighter than Rhaegar’s, and Jon returns it gratefully.

“I’ve missed you,” he whispers to her.

“I’ve missed you,” she replies.

Jon embraces his sisters and aunt affectionately, truly thrilled to see them. His Aunt Daenerys is more beautiful than ever, Visenya looks like she could take on an army, and Lyarra is his mother in miniature.

When Aegon comes to shake his hand, the two brothers end up battling for control, trying desperately to make the other give in. It’s not until Lady Daena clears her throat that Aegon lets go and introduces his new wife. Jon kisses her cheek and greets her as ‘Sister.’

She has no chance to reply when the king steps forward and clears his throat. There’s suddenly a cloaked, hooded figure on his arm.

“And now, my son, the person that perhaps, you’ve been most eager to meet,” Rhaegar declares pompously as he reaches for the hood, “Allow me to present the Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell.”

The hood falls and Jon finds himself speechless.

She’s not as pretty as the miniature. She’s prettier. She’s utterly stunning. Up until now, the most beautiful woman Jon has ever seen is Margaery Tyrell, the doe-eyed daughter of the Lord of Highgarden. But even Lady Margaery pales in comparison to the woman before him.

The deep blue of her eyes are like an ocean, and Jon almost feels like he’s drowning in them. Her creamy skin makes his fingers shake with the urge to stroke it. Her hair is a river of silken fire. Strawberry-colored lips frame a dazzling smile.

She drifts into a curtsey dainty and graceful enough to set his teeth on edge. He expects a high-pitched, girlish voice. But when she greets him, it’s with a low, husky, velvet-like tone.

Jon swallows heavily. He can’t tell which is worse: the lump in his throat, or the one stirring in his pants.

She’s for him?

He looks her up and down, amazed, absolutely undone---

---Until his eyes find her wrists.

Her bare wrists. Elegant, slender, and uncovered by the cuffs he spent two years of pocket money on.

Indignation takes over. This is the first time they’ve met. He’d sent her the product of two years of squiring for Randyll fucking Tarly, and she couldn’t even be bothered to wear them?

He observes her perfect smile again. It’s too perfect. It’s fixed. And he realizes that those blue eyes of hers don’t sparkle with a matching joy. She’s not happy to meet him, she’s playing a part.

If anything, now that he observes her more carefully, she looks like she’s been frozen in place, and is in pain, almost.

Jon tries to calm himself. Perhaps the package simply didn’t arrive. He’s jumping to conclusions. He takes a deep breath and presses her knuckles to his lips.

“Sweet Cousin, it is my honor to meet you. I’d been told to expect a beauty, but nothing could have prepared me for this.”

“You are much too kind, My Prince,” she says quietly, “You’re even more handsome than I’d been told.”

There’s something to her tone, and undercurrent, that sets Jon on edge. If he didn’t know any better, he’d guess she was mocking him somehow.

“But not as handsome as some, I suppose,” he replies, watching her carefully.

“As handsome as I could have hoped.”

That was definitely a charged remark. And Jon sees it, clear as day. I didn’t want you.

I didn’t want you, either, he thinks, And neither did he. Everyone files into the palace, and Jon takes the opportunity to quietly inquire to his betrothed if she received his gift.

“I did,” she replies, “Thank you. It was very kind.”

“I wasn’t sure,” he stresses as they follow his parents through the entry hall, “When I saw your wrists, I feared their delivery had been delayed. It would be a great shame, as I had very much hoped to see the sapphires, considering the expense.”

Her nose actually wrinkles. “Perhaps you’d rather see me wearing a necklace made of coins, if expense is so important to you.”

“Not everyone can drop a pound of gold to buy a lady jewels,” Jon says, “I know things are different at court, but generally, people have to work for their money.”

“Hardly something you’ll have to worry about, I think,” Sansa responds, “You’re clearly happy to try and buy your way into anything that isn’t handed to you.”

Randyll Tarly is a hard-nosed, thin-lipped, cruel, miserly son of a bitch. Ever since Jon set foot at Horn Hill, Lord Tarly made it clear how much of a burden it was to take in “the half-bastard”. Nothing Jon did was ever good enough for the man, especially after Jon dared to befriend and defend Lord Tarly loathed older son, Sam. Jon’s adolescence had been characterized by his guardian’s determination to teach him “humility” and to be a “real soldier.” The man hadn’t even granted Jon his knighthood, despite the years of service and skill Jon had displayed. No, that came from Garlan Tyrell. And even after that, the man had Jon, an anointed knight, mucking the stables and polishing his boots like a lowly squire, all to be paid an absolute pittance.

It took two years for Jon to save up his “wages” (which, given they came from the royal treasury anyways, were more rightfully his now that he’d reached manhood than they were Lord Randyll’s) to acquire gold that most squires were paid in a year. He’d spent that two years all to buy her those bracelets, as it turned out, rather than the blade set he’d wanted. Two years of serving a man who only seemed to find joy in flogging his servants for sneezing in his presence.

He’d practically had to pry every copper penny out of Tarly’s fists.

“Handed to him”, indeed.

“I’m sorry for thinking of you,” he retorts, furious, “I had hoped you’d like them. Perhaps you prefer diamonds. But I thought sapphires might---”

“---Match my eyes?” She interrupts, “Next time, save your gold. I have an entire lockbox of sapphires, courtesy of my last intended. Sure, none of them resemble literal shackles, but it’s a bit on the nose, don’t you think?”

Jon gapes at her, utterly floored by this pronouncement of spoiled entitlement. “May I remind you,” he hisses, “That I am to be your husband and your king.”

“I don’t need to be reminded of that, I assure you. I know my place.”

“Do you?” He asks, baffled. Mother always said that despite everything, Sansa was sweet. This girl is a monster.

“Oh, yes. My place is wherever I’m put. I’m a good little pawn. I’m just not half as stupid as you all hoped.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t even worry about it,” she replies, pausing to greet a courtier and smile her courtly smile, “I’ll spread my legs, give you sons, manage your court, and charm your vassals. I won’t trouble you or get in the way of your dalliances as long as you show some discretion. I’ll be the perfect queen. I believe in doing my duty. It’s what’s best for Westeros. I’d just prefer it if you don’t assume that I don’t know what this is. I’m to be your queen, not your fool.”

Seven Hells. “No wonder---”

But he stops himself before he says the rest. Not that it matters, he can tell by the look in her eyes that she knows exactly what he almost said.

She says nothing, merely greets and charms the lords and ladies around them until at long last, they’re free to settle in. Before she departs, however, she hisses through clenched teeth. “I’ll never forget.”

~_~_~_~_~_~

His first morning in the Red Keep, he is woken by a delivery. Two guards carry a steel-bound lockbox into his solar and open it before him. Jon is nearly blinded by the cerulean glare of its contents.

There’s a note is curly, angelic script.

This should prove more than enough to compensate for the expense of my new shackles. To ensure that you receive a fair price, I’ve enclosed certificates of appraisal for each piece and a list of merchants who will not cheat you. This should be enough to swell your coffers admirably.

Well- “Earned”,

Lady Sansa Stark.

It’s an absurd amount of sapphires. Apparently, Aegon isn’t too imaginative.

Jon instructs his men to pawn them at once, finding it uncomfortable to look upon the small fortune his betrothed sent a moment longer. He ends up using portions of the revenue to send her gifts. She returns them.

He soon learns that his bride hosts sewing circles and small banquets in the Maidenvault. She avoids him, and show little concern as to whether or not he notices. He does.

So does his mother, who is none too pleased.

“If you don’t make her happy, you’re going to spend the entirety of your reign with half the Lords Paramount breathing down your neck,” his mother informs him, “And I can only buy you so much confidence from the Northern faction. The Tullys and Arryns aren’t going to be happy if their lady is miserable. The last time a royal bride was miserable, there was a rebellion. House Targaryen was nearly toppled. And trust me, the Martells are desperate for means to undermine you. You want to sit the Iron Throne with the Seven Kingdoms united behind you, or you’ll end up like your father, basing every decision on pleasing his unruly vassals.”

“How can I make her happy when nothing pleases her?” Jon asks. “I’ve sent her flowers, jewelry, fabric, all the things you said she likes.”

“Jon,” his mother cups his cheek, “Aegon showered her with gifts, too. You’re a good man, give her that instead of things.”

He invites her to take lunch with him. She reschedules four times until finally giving in. He makes sure all her favorites await her on his balcony, and tries to look handsome for her.

She arrives wearing green silk and that fixed smile of hers. Jon sends the servants away and serves her himself.

The direwolves, at least, get along, tails wagging madly as they rush to greet each other.

Jon swallows. “I hear you’ve practically founded your own little court within the Maidenvault.”

“I felt it kind to offer a place for the ladies of the court who prefer silk and songs to sweat and saddle-sores,” she replies, playing with her food, “I hesitated to organize things before, as I didn’t want to presume or step on Her Grace’s toes, so to speak.”

“But now…?”

She actually snorts. “Now? What does it matter, now? I’m not going anywhere, and your mother is going to have everything she wants, so I may as well.”

Jon’s eyes narrow. The tone with which she speaks of his mother irritates him, but something holds him back to full-blown fury. There’s a resignation to the way she speaks that is so, so sad.

“I know Her Grace and you have your differences.”

“She thinks I’m a useless, frivolous fool, and always has. She wishes I were my sister, Arya. A proper Northern lass. I’ve been a disappointment to her ever since I arrived,” Sansa interrupts, “I’m sure she’s recounted what a weak, love-struck ninny I am several times. I ignored the warnings of my own blood to fall for a duplicitous prat because he was supposed to be the prince from my dreams. I’ve learned my lesson, better than she expected. But it doesn’t matter now. Her son will be king, her position is secure, and she doesn’t have to worry. I’m still here to secure your family’s position, and I’ll cover all the duties she’s always hated as well. Despite her frustrations with me, Jon, she’s better off with me than with Arya, I assure you.”

Jon stares, eyes wide. He had no idea. “She’s… She’s a good woman.”

“In her own way, yes. She was just a girl when your father stole her heart and won a war for her. She loves him and you madly. But she’s not a girl anymore. And as much as she loves your father, she hates being queen. She’s stuck. And for the last eighteen years she’s carried the guilt of the war, of Elia and Brandon and our grandfather. And she’ll do anything to make sure she’s not the undoing of the man she loves. All the while, being terrified of the man she helped raise, the living reminder of all her youthful impulses wrought. But now her son will be king, and the Seven Kingdoms will stay intact. I’m here, silly, stupid, and weak, maybe, but with all the right connections to bind the rupture her love story caused. Here I am, the daughter of enough fallen enemies, to be married off and save her from all the consequences, heartbroken or not, I’m here. I always will be.”

Jon feels bile rise from his stomach. It terrifies him. Sansa isn’t stupid. Sansa isn’t stupid at all.

He wants to defend his mother, but he has no argument. “I’m sure she cares for you---”

“---I don’t think she’s heartless. I’m sure she pities me. And it’s not her fault that I let Aegon break my heart. She tried to warn me. But I’m still a worthy sacrifice. And your mother has at least been more honest with me than the rest. Everyone, even my parents, were happy to let me believe the lie. I told you, Jon. I know my place. Your family taught it to me. I came here thinking I was the heroine of a song. But I’m a hostage. I’m a literal peace offering.”

“So am I,” Jon replies bitterly.

There’s an awkward pause.

“It’s not the same,” she states, finally.

“No,” he admits, “It isn’t.”

He feels unclean, as if he’s just committed some sort of crime, and he’s staring into the eyes of his victim. But he’s not sure how to apologize or fix it, because he can’t identify exactly what crime he’s committed. He just knows he’s party to this, whether he wishes to be or not.

“You’re going to treat me well, Jon. Because I’m the key to half of Westeros. I know my place. Every bit of it. You need me to keep my family in check. It’ll only become more important with each passing year. So you’re going to give me a place at the table. You’ll be discreet with any infidelities. You won’t keep my children from me. You won’t hurt me, or force yourself on me, or be cruel. You will show me every inch of honor, respect, and credit I am due. I will have a say in every major decision made. I will do my duty and show you respect, honor, and give you my full support. I will bear your children. I will not bear any other man’s bastards. I will charm your vassals and placate my kin. I will reach out to the Martells. I will mend your clothes and your wounds. I will aid you in matters of state. After I’ve born you an heir and a suitable amount of spares, I will be discreet in any liaisons and keep myself from conceiving another man’s child. I will devote myself to the success of your reign and the preservation of our family. And we will both be honest with one another. Is that fair?”

He doesn’t like the bit about the other men. Not one bit.

“No,” he says, fists clenched, “That isn’t fair at all. It’s not fair to you, or to me. It’s not fair to anyone. Why should I have to go looking to other women to find happiness? Why should you have to sacrifice your body to a man you barely know, then restrict yourself? Why should either of us have to build our life together through leverage and threats? Use our families, who, let’s face it, don’t care a wit about us, or at least not as much as they should, to control each other?”

“Because there isn’t an alternative. These are the roles we were born into. And the people of this country need us to fill those roles.”

“No.” Jon shakes his head. “They don’t need that. Jaehaerys the Wise and Good Queen Alysanne loved each other…”

“You can run off and marry for love if you like, Jon. But they’ll just pass the crown to Viserys, and the realm will suffer for it. Your uncle is an utter shit, but at least his marriage secures Dorne.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Jon snaps, rising to his feet and beginning to pace. “I’m marrying you, that’s set in stone. But why should we go into this merely tolerating each other?”

“Because your brother left me broken, Jon. I don’t have a proper heart to give anymore.”

He stops short. “No, I don’t accept that. Aegon is a dog turd. He’s not capable of such a thing. He hurt you, but he couldn’t possibly ruin you. You’re a… You’re you, and he’s just something you stepped in.”

She actually giggles at that. “You think that, maybe, but he… I loved him, Jon.”

“You loved what you thought he was. Because everyone wanted you to feel that way. You were a child when you met him, like my mother was. But you’re not a child anymore. You see so much else, Sansa. Surely you see that.” He walks over to her and kneels by her side, looking into her eyes. “See me. I’m not Aegon. I don’t want to use you, or hurt you, or lie to you. I don’t give a shit about the Iron Throne, or your family. I’d happily see that stupid metal chair melted down and run away to the East. I’d run away with you, if you like. They are trying to force us into things we don’t want. But one thing I think I want is you, if you’ll have me. I’ll take you, and leave everything else.”

“Why, though?” She asks. “Why do you want me?”

“Because you’re beautiful, clever, and just as angry as I am. And you care, Sansa. You are ready to resign yourself to bondage because you want to help others. That’s… That’s incredible.”

“I’m not clever, I’m frivolous and weak. Your mother--”

“You’re just as defiant in your frivolity as my mother is in her armor. If she can’t see that, it’s her loss,” he grins, “If you were really as weak as she claims, you’d have dropped everything and done whatever you can to please her. Instead, you started your own court. That’s inspiring. I didn’t want to be king, but if you wish, I’d like to be king to a queen like that.”

His stomach sinks a bit. He feels like an idiot, and he isn’t even sure what he’s saying, though he means every word. But Sansa’s given no indication that she wants him.

He supposes that’s not too surprising. She’s beautiful. He’s the second choice.

Jon pulls away, embarrassed. He’s made a fool of himself. She’ll never respect him. Maybe if he’s lucky, she’ll pity him.

“You’re sweet,” she says, “A good man.”

Jon cringes. Sweet. That’s something women say about puppies and babies.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “About the bracelets. I just felt so trapped and I was so angry with myself for letting him charm me. And I felt like everyone thought I was stupid enough to fall for it all again… I didn’t want to be bought or tricked. I didn’t want them to be right about me. I was scared.”

“I did it because a friend suggested it,” Jon confesses, “I just looked for whatever had the biggest stones. It didn’t occur to me that they looked like shackles. But I didn’t care. I sent them because I thought you’d be charmed by something shiny. So you weren’t entirely wrong. I got so angry because I’d been saving up before… well… Father sent for me. And I spent the savings on them. But it’s stupid, because as much as I cared, I didn’t care to spend it on something I cared about. It’s… It’s strange, really. I worked so hard, and cared so much about the work I did, then dropped all that work on something I didn’t care to even think about.”

She sighs. “I know what you mean. I spent months working on my wedding dress. But when it was finished, I sent it off to Daena. Can you believe that?”

Sansa utters a bitter laugh. She closes her eyes and leans back in her chair. “I’m not going to run away with you, Jon. There are a lot of people who would suffer if Westeros falls apart, people who are blameless in all this. Our families think we belong to them, but we don’t. We belong to the people that depend on their lords to do their duty. And honestly… I’ve spent my whole life preparing to be queen. It’s all I know. And frankly, I barely know you.”

He turns away, stomach sinking. She’s right, of course. They’re stuck.

“...But I’m willing to stay with you…”

He turns around, heart rising. She smiles at him.

“I know this isn’t the life you expected,” she says gently, “But I’m willing to help you through it. I’m willing to try. Maybe we could fall in love. I’d like to.”

#Jonsa #Jon x Sansa #Salty Teens #rhaegar wins au

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dfroza · 5 years

Text

we need True illumination.

we need Light to see our way that leads the heart “Home”

to be in Love (eternally so)

and we need rebirth from the past (tense) to be born (inside, Anew) and to come to view life through baptism eyes, which is only possible in Light of the Son who we read about in Today’s chapter of the New Testament in the ancient book of Luke:

Jesus was becoming more and more popular, and the crowds swelled wherever He went. He wasn’t impressed.

Jesus: This generation is evil. These people are seeking signs and spectacles, but I’m not going to play their game. The only sign they will be given is the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.

The queen of Ethiopia will stand to condemn the people of this generation on the day of judgment. She, an outsider, came from so far away to hear the wisdom given to Solomon, but now, something greater than Solomon is here: how are the people of this generation responding?

Similarly, the people of Nineveh will stand to condemn the people of this generation on the day of judgment. They, outsiders, responded and changed because of the preaching of Jonah, but now, something greater than Jonah is here: how are the people of this generation responding?

You need a light to see. Only an idiot would light a lamp and then put it beneath the floor or under a bucket. No, any intelligent person would put the lamp on a table so everyone who comes in the house can see. Listen, your eye, your outlook, the way you see is your lamp. If your way of seeing is functioning well, then your whole life will be enlightened. But if your way of seeing is darkened, then your life will be a dark, dark place. So be careful, people, because your light may be malfunctioning. If your outlook is good, then your whole life will be bright, with no shadowy corners, as when a radiant lamp brightens your home.

A Pharisee interrupted His speech with an invitation to dinner. Jesus accepted the invitation and took His place at his table. The Pharisee was offended that Jesus didn’t perform the ceremonial handwashing before eating—something Pharisees were fastidious about doing.

Jesus: You Pharisees are a walking contradiction. You are so concerned about external things—like someone who washes the outside of a cup and bowl but never cleans the inside, which is what counts! Beneath your fastidious exterior is a mess of extortion and filth.

You guys don’t get it. Did the potter make the outside but not the inside too? If you were full of goodness within, you could overflow with generosity from within, and if you did that, everything would be clean for you.

Woe to you, Pharisees! Judgment will come on you! You are fastidious about tithing—keeping account of every little leaf of mint and herb—but you neglect what really matters: justice and the love of God! If you’d get straight on what really matters, then your fastidiousness about little things would be worth something.

Woe to you, Pharisees! Judgment will come on you! What you really love is having people fawn over you when you take the seat of honor in the synagogue or when you are greeted in the public market.

Wake up! See what you’ve become! Woe to you; you’re like a field full of unmarked graves. People walk on the field and have no idea of the corruption that’s a few inches beneath their feet.

Scholar (sitting at Jesus’ table): Rabbi, if You insult the Pharisees, then You insult us too.

Jesus: Well, now that you mention it, watch out, all you religious scholars! Judgment will come on you too! You load other people down with unbearable burdens of rules and regulations, but you don’t lift a finger to help others. Woe to you; you don’t fool anybody! You seem very religious—honoring the prophets by building them elaborate memorial tombs. Come to think of it, that’s very fitting, since you’re so much like the people who killed the prophets! They killed the prophets; you build their tombs—you’re all in the same family business!

This is why the Wisdom of God said, “I will send these people My prophets and emissaries, and these people will kill and persecute many of them.” As a result, this generation will be held accountable for the blood of all the prophets shed from the very beginning of time, from Abel’s blood to Zechariah’s blood, who was killed in the temple itself between the altar and the holy place. I’m serious: this generation will be held accountable.

So, religious scholars, judgment will come on you! You’re supposed to be teachers, unlocking the door of knowledge and guiding people through it. But the fact is, you’ve never even passed through the doorway yourselves. You’ve taken the key, left the door locked tight, and stood in the way of everyone who sought entry.

After that dinner, things were never the same. The religious scholars and Pharisees put constant pressure on Jesus, trying to trap Him and trick Him into saying things they could use to bring Him down.

The Book of Luke, Chapter 11:29-54 (The Voice)

to be accompanied by lines of wisdom from Today’s chapter of Proverbs about our words and conduct while here in this world:

My beloved child, when your heart is full of wisdom,

my heart is full of gladness.

And when you speak anointed words,

we are speaking mouth to mouth!

Don’t allow the actions of evil men

to cause you to burn with anger.

Instead, burn with unrelenting passion

as you worship God in holy awe.

Your future is bright and filled with a living hope

that will never fade away.

As you listen to me, my beloved child,

you will grow in wisdom and your heart

will be drawn into understanding,

which will empower you to make right decisions.

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 23:15-19 (The Passion Translation)

and with this, the reading of Today’s Psalms all by King David that speak of trusting in God amidst wrongful accusations:

[Psalm 23]

The Good Shepherd

David’s poetic praise to God

The Lord is my best friend and my shepherd.

I always have more than enough.

He offers a resting place for me in his luxurious love.

His tracks take me to an oasis of peace, the quiet brook of bliss.

That’s where he restores and revives my life.

He opens before me pathways to God’s pleasure

and leads me along in his footsteps of righteousness

so that I can bring honor to his name.

Lord, even when your path takes me through

the valley of deepest darkness,

fear will never conquer me, for you already have!

You remain close to me and lead me through it all the way.

Your authority is my strength and my peace.

The comfort of your love takes away my fear.

I’ll never be lonely, for you are near.

You become my delicious feast

even when my enemies dare to fight.

You anoint me with the fragrance of your Holy Spirit;

you give me all I can drink of you until my heart overflows.

So why would I fear the future?

For your goodness and love pursue me all the days of my life.

Then afterward, when my life is through,

I’ll return to your glorious presence to be forever with you!

The Book of Psalms, Poem 23 (The Passion Translation)

[Psalm 62]

Unshakable Faith

To the Pure and Shining One

King David’s melody of love’s celebration

I stand silently to listen for the one I love,

waiting as long as it takes for the Lord to rescue me.

For God alone has become my Savior.

He alone is my safe place;

his wrap-around presence always protects me.

For he is my champion defender;

there’s no risk of failure with God.

So why would I let worry paralyze me,

even when troubles multiply around me?

But look at these who want me dead,

shouting their vicious threats at me!

The moment they discover my weakness

they all begin plotting to take me down.

Liars, hypocrites, with nothing good to say.

All of their energies are spent

on moving me from this exalted place.

Pause in his presence

I am standing in absolute stillness, silent before the one I love,

waiting as long as it takes for him to rescue me.

Only God is my Savior, and he will not fail me.

For he alone is my safe place.

His wrap-around presence always protects me

as my champion defender.

There’s no risk of failure with God!

So why would I let worry paralyze me,

even when troubles multiply around me?

God’s glory is all around me!

His wrap-around presence is all I need,

for the Lord is my Savior, my hero, and my life-giving strength.

Join me, everyone! Trust only in God every moment!

Tell him all your troubles and pour out your heart-longings to him.

Believe me when I tell you—he will help you!

Pause in his presence

Before God all the people of the earth, high or low,

are like smoke that disappears,

like a vapor that quickly vanishes away.

Compared to God they’re nothing but vanity, nothing at all!

The wealth of the world is nothing to God.

So if your wealth increases, don’t be boastful or

put your trust in your money.

And don’t you think for a moment that

you can get away with stealing by overcharging others

just to get more for yourself!

God said to me once and for all,

“All the strength and power you need flows from me!”

And again I heard it clearly said,

“All the love you need is found in me!”

And it’s true that you repay people for what they do.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 62 (The Passion Translation)

[Psalm 27]

Fearless Faith

David’s poetic praise to God before he was anointed king

The Lord is my revelation-light to guide me along the way;

he’s the source of my salvation to defend me every day.

I fear no one!

I’ll never turn back and run from you, Lord;

surround and protect me.

When evil ones come to destroy me,

they will be the ones who turn back.

My heart will not be afraid even if an army rises to attack.

I know that you are there for me, so I will not be shaken.

Here’s the one thing I crave from God,

the one thing I seek above all else:

I want the privilege of living with him every moment in his house,

finding the sweet loveliness of his face,

filled with awe, delighting in his glory and grace.

I want to live my life so close to him

that he takes pleasure in my every prayer.

In his shelter in the day of trouble, that’s where you’ll find me,

for he hides me there in his holiness.

He has smuggled me into his secret place,

where I’m kept safe and secure—

out of reach from all my enemies.

Triumphant now, I’ll bring him my offerings of praise,

singing and shouting with ecstatic joy!

Yes, listen and you can hear

the fanfare of my shouts of praise to the Lord!

God, hear my cry. Show me your grace.

Show me mercy, and send the help I need!

Lord, when you said to me, “Seek my face,”

my inner being responded,

“I’m seeking your face with all my heart.”

So don’t hide yourself, Lord, when I come to find you.

You’re the God of my salvation;

how can you reject your servant in anger?

You’ve been my only hope,

so don’t forsake me now when I need you!

My father and mother abandoned me. I’m like an orphan!

But you took me in and made me yours.

Now teach me all about your ways and tell me what to do.

Make it clear for me to understand,

for I am surrounded by waiting enemies.

Don’t let them defeat me, Lord.

You can’t let me fall into their clutches!

They keep accusing me of things I’ve never done

while they plot evil against me.

Yet I totally trust you to rescue me one more time,

so that I can see once again how good you are while I’m still alive!

Here’s what I’ve learned through it all:

Don’t give up; don’t be impatient;

be entwined as one with the Lord.

Be brave and courageous, and never lose hope.

Yes, keep on waiting—for he will never disappoint you!

The Book of Psalms, Poem 27 (The Passion Translation)

and Psalm 27 repeated in The Message:

A David Psalm

Light, space, zest—

that’s God!

So, with him on my side I’m fearless,

afraid of no one and nothing.

When vandal hordes ride down

ready to eat me alive,

Those bullies and toughs

fall flat on their faces.

When besieged,

I’m calm as a baby.

When all hell breaks loose,

I’m collected and cool.

I’m asking God for one thing,

only one thing:

To live with him in his house

my whole life long.

I’ll contemplate his beauty;

I’ll study at his feet.

That’s the only quiet, secure place

in a noisy world,

The perfect getaway,

far from the buzz of traffic.

God holds me head and shoulders

above all who try to pull me down.

I’m headed for his place to offer anthems

that will raise the roof!

Already I’m singing God-songs;

I’m making music to God.

Listen, God, I’m calling at the top of my lungs:

“Be good to me! Answer me!”

When my heart whispered, “Seek God,”

my whole being replied,

“I’m seeking him!”

Don’t hide from me now!

You’ve always been right there for me;

don’t turn your back on me now.

Don’t throw me out, don’t abandon me;

you’ve always kept the door open.

My father and mother walked out and left me,

but God took me in.

Point me down your highway, God;

direct me along a well-lighted street;

show my enemies whose side you’re on.

Don’t throw me to the dogs,

those liars who are out to get me,

filling the air with their threats.

I’m sure now I’ll see God’s goodness

in the exuberant earth.

Stay with God!

Take heart. Don’t quit.

I’ll say it again:

Stay with God.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 27 (The Message)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for Saturday, november 23 of ‘19, the 62nd day of Autumn and day 327 of the year:

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rose-of-pollux · 7 years

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The Jack o’ the Lantern Affair (MFU fic), part 1/5

Part 1 of my annual Halloween fic!

Title: The Jack o’ the Lantern Affair Rating: PG13 (for action/danger) Chapter summary: When a struggle with THRUSH over an old book of scary lore releases the spirit of legendary trickster Stingy Jack, Jack chooses Napoleon and Illya as his adversaries and challenges them to out-trick him. But Illya wants no part of it, and Napoleon has no idea what he’s up against--and their inability to stop Jack could result in dire consequences. Notes: This version of the fic (cross-posted to AO3) is slash-implied; if you prefer reading gen, there is a gen version on ff.net, but I can’t link to it with tumblr’s linking restrictions.

Act I: It Took Place in a New York Cemetery

“Am I the only one who finds it awkward to be having a gunfight in a cemetery?” Illya muttered, as he and Napoleon sought cover behind a mausoleum against a pair of THRUSHies. “It seems so disrespectful to the dead.”

“You’re not alone; if I could move this fight, I would,” Napoleon said. “But THRUSH were the ones who fired on us—and we didn’t tell them to come here.”

“We did instigate the fight, trying to obtain that stolen book from them,” Illya admitted. “We still need to obtain it.” He dodged a THRUSH bullet and winced as it deflected against the mausoleum wall, causing a slight nick in the stone, and he cast a quick apology to the occupants of the mausoleum.

“A book that ancient looks like it’ll fall apart before we’re through with this fight,” Napoleon mused. “There must be something coded in there—why else would they be after a beat-up, old volume?”

“It could have some sort of value as an antiquity; perhaps they wish to sell it to obtain funds for some nefarious project.”

“Also possible,” Napoleon agreed. “But, whatever it is, they want the book, so we need to get it from them.”

He sent a well-aimed tranquilizer dart at one of the two THRUSHies, knocking the gun out of his hand and sending it into the shadows of some headstones. The unfortunate THRUSH agent’s companion, seeing that he was now a liability, proceeded to strike him on the back with the handle of his gun, took the old book from him, and bolted, expecting Napoleon and Illya to detain the unconscious one.

“Cuff that one,” Napoleon instructed Illya, indicating the fallen THRUSHie.

He took off after the fleeing one, taking a straight path and vaulting over a few headstones until he was able to tranquilize the other one. The other THRUSHie sunk to the ground, and the book landed on the grass behind him. Napoleon put a pair of handcuffs on him before picking up the book.

It was battered and used, by the looks of it, and it smelled of age. There was no title on the cover, and Napoleon was surprised to see the entire book written in ink as he paged through it. The ink was still readable, but based on the age of the book, it was safe to assume that there was no code in it.

“What’s verdict on the book?” Illya asked, as he dragged his prisoner over.

“Antiquity,” Napoleon said. “It’s a strange book—full of spooky poems and rhymes. See, look—even this little note on the first page… ‘To the one who finds this book, either place it down or take a look. As you speak it, you will unfurl beings from another world.’ What a find, considering Halloween is tomorrow!”

“THRUSH wanted to steal a book of Halloween rhymes? What sort of price would that even fetch?” Illya scoffed.

“That’s anyone’s guess,” Napoleon said, paging through it again. “We’ll send this down to evidence, and they’ll figure out what it is and what it’s worth--”

They ducked instinctively as more shots rang out.

“It’s worth plenty to them,” Illya observed, as three more THRUSHies now approached them.

The two partners each grabbed a prisoner, Napoleon also holding onto the old book as Illya once again sought refuge behind the mausoleum. Napoleon muttered as a battered page from the book fell out, floating across the cemetery as the breeze carried it away. He momentarily considered going after it, but a narrow miss from a THRUSH bullet and a shout of alarm from Illya made him think better of it, and he retreated behind the mausoleum along with his partner.

“I’m beginning to doubt the antiquity value of this book if it’s falling apart like that,” Napoleon muttered.

“…They’re chasing after the page!” Illya said, marveling as the three new THRUSHies stopped firing at them and did just that.

Napoleon shrugged and tranquilized two of the three THRUSHies; the third one launched himself at the page, missing Napoleon’s third tranquilizer. As Napoleon approached, trying to aim again, he heard the THRUSHie mutter something as he read from the page--

“‘Speak this if you wish to play my game, and I will appear when you say my name: I, the one, who tricked the Devil back: Jack ‘o the Lantern, known as Stingy Jack.’”

Napoleon was suddenly thrown off of his feet by a large gust of wind as he had approached the THRUSHie, sending him flying away several feet; the THRUSHie also was sent flying. The page also landed beside Napoleon, showing a drawing of a shadow-cloaked man holding a turnip carved into a lantern.

“Napoleon!” Illya exclaimed, running over to him. “Napoleon, are you alright?”

“I’m okay…” he said, as Illya helped him up. “But what was that!? It was like a tiny tornado whipped up right around me!”

“It was me,” a voice said.

The two looked back at the book, staring as the shadow-cloaked man with the turnip-lantern floated a few feet above them, holding the struggling THRUSHie who summoned him by the ankle, dangling him above the ground.

“What is that?” Illya snarled. “Have we been drugged by THRUSH!?”

“…Would we be seeing the same hallucination if we were both drugged?” Napoleon wondered aloud, confused. He groaned, looking at the book in his hand and the page at his feet. “This… This isn’t an old book about spooky poems and rhymes, is it?”

“Not at all, my good man,” the being responded. “’Tis a book that can open a doorway to another world—a world where I was trapped, but now, thanks to you and your little squabble, I am free. Jack is the name.”

“…Stingy Jack,” Napoleon realized. “Ok, no… This… This isn’t happening. Illya, you’re right; we’re both seeing things.”

“Rest assured, Mr. Solo,” Jack. “’Tis quite real. You see, I had tricked Ol’ Scratch twice in me lifetime—made him promise he could never claim my soul. Heaven didn’t want me, and Ol’ Scratch said he couldn’t go back on his word. I wandered aimlessly, tricking all I encountered, until the Devil trapped me in that other world. A loophole—he could not claim me, yet there was no agreement about whether or not he could do that.”

“And so now, you are free, and you are going to wander around aimlessly again?” Illya said. “Very well, do so and do not trouble us.”

“I will not be cast aside and forgotten!” Jack snarled at him. “No longer will I wander aimlessly—this world will answer to me now--!”

BANG.

Napoleon, taking advantage of Jack’s monologue, had fired his Special at him, but the tranquilizer dart phased right through him.

“My dear Mr. Solo,” Jack tutted. “I could have told you that you would not be able to stop me that way. I was going to let you be, but you need to be taught a lesson. And so, I will use you as an instrument in my plan.”

“You will not touch him,” Illya said, coldly. “I do not know who you or what you are—everything logical says that you should not exist. But no matter what you are, you will not lay a hand on my partner.”

“So defensive of your lover. How intriguing. Perhaps I can use both of you,” Jack mused. “Very well, Gentlemen, the die is cast—if you can outwit me before the first sunrise after All Hallow’s Eve, I will admit defeat.”

“We do not have to accept this challenge of yours!” scoffed Illya. “We did not summon you!”

“You do not,” Jack agreed. He glanced at the THRUSHie he was holding. “But he does. He was the one who set me free. …Unless you wish to take my challenge in his stead, the world will have to depend on him!” He gave the THRUSHie a shake, and the man began to whimper and plead to be let down.

“Then let it depend on him!” Illya fumed, unfeeling. “Come, Napoleon; this does not concern us! THRUSH summoned him, so this is their problem! Let them pay the price for meddling!”

“As much as I want to,” Napoleon said. “It’s in our job description to clean up THRUSH’s messes.”

“Not for things like this…” Illya said. “…Whatever this is! What is the worst that can happen?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know!” Jack sneered. “Most of that book really is idle lore and poetry, but some of them are actual spells that open the gateway to the world where I was banished. Who knows what I can do with the knowledge of those spells?”

Napoleon scowled.

“He is trying to bait you,” Illya said. “Leave him be, Napoleon; this is not our fight. Once he is done making a nuisance of himself, he will go away.”

“…Do you really believe that?” Napoleon asked.

Illya looked at him, helplessly.

“Whether I do or not believe that, I do know that I do not want anything to happen to you. Napoleon, I love you, and the last time we dealt with something unexplainable, I nearly lost you forever.” The Russian’s heart twisted in his chest as he recalled the time Napoleon had been possessed. It pained him to admit it, but he was afraid—afraid of having to face things he couldn’t explain with rational logic, and afraid of what those things could do to his beloved Napoleon. “Napoleon… You do not have to take up the call for every little thing that goes wrong, especially when it is… something like this.”

Napoleon understood what Illya was trying to say. Illya still had trouble believing in things he couldn’t explain, and after their past experiences with such things, Napoleon certainly couldn’t blame him for it.

“I love you, too, Illya,” he said. “You know that. But I have this feeling that Jack isn’t going to stop acting out until we do something about it—or at least, if I do.” Napoleon looked back at Jack, and he let out a yelp as Jack began hoisting up the panicking THRUSHie he was holding even higher into the air. “Hey! Hey! You put him down right now!” He caught his choice of words. “Gently!”

Jack giggled.

“I don’t feel so inclined to release this fellow,” Jack mused. “I’ll find some use for him—the other one, too. …Or, how about a deal, eh? You give me the book for this fellow here?”

“Shut up,” Napoleon grumbled, flipping through the book, looking for something that would help. “Okay, hopefully this will work to send him back—Illya, get ready to catch that THRUSHie after I do this.”

Illya wasn’t so sure; Jack looked more smug rather than concerned about going back to a realm where he’d been imprisoned.

“Napoleon, wait…” he said. “Napoleon, please, don’t do this—let’s just walk away--”

“Look, he wants the book so that we can’t use it to send him back—so that’s just what we’ve got to do. We put an end to this, and nobody gets hurt.” Napoleon cleared his throat. “‘Where the foulest trickster’s once escaped, that door will open once again—a world that is the perfect prison, full of darkness and of pain.’”

Though the sky was clear, a crack of thunder filled the air as a dark, shadowy portal appeared in the sky beside Jack. Napoleon glanced up at him in triumph, but his look soon switched to one of sheer horror as, instead of Jack being pulled into the portal, a hoard of agonized-looking spirits burst forth from the portal.

“Napoleon!” Illya yelled.

“…Did I mention that some of those verses were written by myself?” Jack said, grinning down at them. “Failsafes.”

“Napoleon, he tricked us!” Illya fumed.

“No, he tricked me,” Napoleon said. He began to page through the book again. “I think we have to figure out which are the real verses and which ones are by him; that’s the key to this whole thing.”

“Napoleon—!” Illya cried.

“You should have listened to your lover, Mr. Solo!” Jack taunted, as now ambulatory skeletons emerged from the portal, walking across the cemetery.

“That isn’t even possible!” Illya fumed. “Bones cannot move without musculature! It is basic anatomy!”

“Never mind that—we have to close the portal!” Napoleon said. “Ah… Okay, here… ‘An easy answer to a problem posed; that which was opened is now closed.’”

To his immense relief, the portal closed, but it did nothing to stop the spirits and skeletons that were already loose; as Jack cackled, flying off while dragging the screaming THRUSHie he was carrying, the other tranquilized THRUSHies were being carted off by the creatures, as well. And the skeletons were advancing upon Napoleon and Illya, as well.

“Napoleon, we must run!” Illya said.

“But the other THRUSHies--”

“Forget them!” Illya said. He let out a shout as a wailing spirit dove at them from the sky, and, desperate, he tackled Napoleon out of the way. The book went flying out of Napoleon’s hands.

“No!”

Napoleon made a grab for the book, but one of the skeletons seized it first, leering at him with its empty eyes.

“Leave it!” Illya ordered, pulling his partner to his feet and practically dragging him out of the cemetery.

Seeing no practical way to retrieve the book, Napoleon had no choice but to go along with Illya, wishing he had listened to his partner and not attempted to play Jack’s twisted game, which had only made everything worse.

“Oh, Illya…” he sighed. “What have I done…?”

#Napoleon Solo #Illya Kuryakin #napollya #the man from uncle #mfu fic #The Jack o' the Lantern Affair

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