Banished

you can only reblog this today

A Day of Fallen Night mild spoilers:

I want to talk about Wulf and his pov + Old English Literature.

What we know:

The Kingdom of Hroth is largely a Scandinavian/Nordic inspired country.

In Priory, Inys is roughly equivalent to the English Elizabethan/Tudor era (the 1450s- 1500s). Fallen Night takes place 500 years prior. What era was England in in the early 1000s? The (end of) the Anglo-Saxon era.

While Inys during Fallen Night is definitely not set in an Anglo-Saxon era, I feel like there are definite motifs and similarities. The Hrothi used to raid Inys, but stopped after the marriage of Sabran and Barholdt. Wulf uses a saxe knife. The fens and monsters resemble those of Old English epics.

Aside the Anglo-Saxon & Scandinavian influences, I want to talk about the references to Old English literature:

Firstly, Samatha Shannon introduces Part 3 with a quote from the Old English (fragmented) poem, Wulf and Eadwacer.

it is:

wulf is on iege, ic on oþerre. / fæst is þæt eglond, fenne biworpen… / Ungelice is us

This roughly translates to: Wulf is on one island. I am on another. Fast is that island set among the fens....We are apart.

Now, Wulf and Eadwacer is a notoriously difficult poem to translate and make sense of, for those of us who have studied Old English. It appears to be from the pov of a woman lamenting over the separation of a male person she loves (typically interpreted as a husband/lover, but it doesn't have to be) referencing an on-going violent event in the background. And! there a line about a child being left in the woods with a wolf.

But I think Shannon does something so neat here and she changes the meaning to fit for Tunuva and Wulf, and bases so much of Tunuva and Wulf's relationship/story on this small poem fragment!!

Secondly, during a titular scene with Wulf washing up on a beach, Wulf is called the seafarer. "By dawn, the lights had disappeared, and the seafarer was still alive" (pg 396). This is obviously a direct call to the Old English poem, The Seafarer. It's a melancholic, elegiac poem concerned with life and death, about a seafarer on a cold, wintery beach mourning the loss of his comrades. Sound familiar?

I just love this little attention to detail concerning Wulf and Fallen Night. Samantha Shannon is a brilliant, brilliant woman

Motion Sickness

jason todd x fem!reader

aka jason makes you cry after a fight

warnings: angst with comfort

“Jason—”

He waves you off immediately, “No, I’m not your problem, okay?”

Your arms drop, “You’re not a problem at all, that’s not what I’m saying—”

“Then what are you saying?” he challenges. 

You almost bite your tongue but then decide against it, “I’m saying you’re being an asshole right now just because I tried to help.”

He’s angry and you’re someplace in between desperate and tired, but you push on, hoping you’ll be able to solve this without an extended argument. To little avail though, apparently. 

A tense exhale from him, “I don’t need your help, I don’t know how I can make it any clearer.”

“It’s not about needing it—”

“No, it’s about wanting it. I don’t want your fucking help,” he snaps. “I’m grown, I can handle my problems myself.”

You drop your hands to your sides, “Then what am I doing here, Jason?”

“I don’t know!” You can literally see the regret sweep over his face but he lets the moment consume him and the words linger anyways. 

You know he doesn’t always think before he talks, especially when he’s mad. You’ve seen it plenty when he’s fighting with his family. This is the first time it’s shown up with you though, and while you know it’s not coming from a place of genuinity—it still really fucking stung. 

Far from being in your control, tears slip out, more at his tone than his words, and you remove your gaze in favor of the linoleum tiles. He says nothing as you start to cry, which only makes the heat of the moment worsen. 

“Okay,” You take a deep breath, pursing your lips. “You need to go away.”

There’s a long, hard moment of silence, but ultimately he doesn’t fight you on it, only exhales harshly and slams the door on his way out.

The resulting reverberation of the apartment has your shoulders shaking, tears falling onto your shirt.  

You and Jason don’t fight often but when you do it’s usually about insecurities and fears coming forward. He’d been having a bad night to start with and all you wanted to do was make him feel better but he wasn’t willing to talk to you or let you do anything for him. He gets selfishly selfless like that, but you know why.

You know him, in and out. You could’ve anticipated this—you should’ve. You should’ve approached the topic more sensitively. And it’s not his fault, his life has taught him that it’s safer to believe that other people don’t have his best interest. You know that. 

Yeah, you know him in and out, but he knows you in and out, too. He knows you’ve shown him nothing but kindness and generosity since the day you met and you’ve reinforced a thousand times how safe you are for him. But if he still can’t trust you to care about him, then what are you doing here?

You let yourself fall back onto the arm of the couch, huffing in defeat. 

It’s nearing two in the morning when Dick awakens, the bandages across his abdomen digging into his skin uncomfortably. He sits up, bedsheet pooling around his waist. The ache of the bruising pushes him towards his old bedroom door before he’s even fully coherent, narrowly missing shouldering the door frame as he passes through.

He’s still half asleep as he thumps down the staircase, cold hands stuffed in the pocket of his sweatshirt. He’s so out of it in his blind search for painkillers, that he nearly misses the large shadowed figure huddled up on the couch.

Dick stills, blinking warily.

“What’re you doing here?”

His younger brother says nothing, only continues to stew in the shadows, staring at the rug.

As his eyes adjust, Dick takes in his appearance: messy hair, tired eyes, only clad in a t-shirt and sweatpants.

He rubs his eyes, approaching with measured steps, “What happened?”

Jason remains silent for a long minute before grunting out, “Got in a fight.”

Dick nods slowly, shuffling forward a little more to sit on the far end of the couch. 

“What’d you do?”

Jason doesn’t have it in him to comment on how his brother immediately knew he was the issue. It just makes the entire thing hurt even worse. Instead, he tells the truth. 

“Be myself.”

Dick says nothing, 

When the silence persists, Jason elaborates, even though it’s the last thing he wants to admit to.

“I made her cry,” he says, voice below even a whisper. He hates it and he hates himself for leaving you when he knew he’d hurt you.

Dick nods, not saying anything. He’s definitely been there before, though he’s not nearly as volatile as Jason can be, so he can imagine how this likely played out. In any case, Jason has never responded well to being pushed to talk about his feelings so Dick lets him get there in his own time.

He’s half expecting to end up with no results at all, but Jason pipes up after a minute, voice broken.

“I don’t know what she wants me to do,” he rasps.

Dick takes a deep breath, adjusting his posture. “When girls are mad you give them space but when they’re sad you definitely don’t. Is she sad or mad?”

Jason exhales desperately.

“Both, I think.”

Dick nods, understanding.

“Then go home.”

Jason shakes his head, defeated. “She told me to leave. She doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“What did you say?”

He huffs, not wanting to bring the memory back up. “I basically told her to fuck off.”

“Yeah,” Dick drawls. “I wouldn’t let that simmer.”

Jason’s head snaps over to him. “She’ll break up with me?”

“No, I don’t—” Dick pauses, thinking over his words. “It’ll be fine. Just go home.”

Despite taking the long route on the way to the manor, Jason sped back home on his bike, now unwilling to leave you alone for another second longer than he had to. 

He creeps through the front door of your apartment, proud and only a little hurt that you’d remembered to lock it. 

The apartment’s mostly quiet, nothing but a lamp lighting up the front half. He can hear the shower running from where he stands, the waterfall noise awfully muffled from behind the closed bathroom door.

He bolts the door behind him, pushing forward towards the hallway. He approaches the bathroom door, noticing how there’s no light flooding out from underneath.

“Baby?” Jason calls it out quietly, like he’s scared to commit to alerting you of his presence.

He hears no response, but he knows you heard him. He knows you heard him in the same way that he knows you’re sitting on the shower floor, curled in on yourself under the sensory relief that the pouring water brings. He doesn’t know how, he just does.

So he leans against the door, listening closely, and calls out again, “Can I come in?”

There’s a solid ten seconds of silence before you respond, just barely audible over the cascade of water.

“Not right now.”

Your volume has him wincing, saddened and embarrassed that he’s the one that made you feel like this.

He reluctantly walks back to the bedroom with heavy shoulders, thudding his weight down on the mattress. He sits half folded over himself for the next ten minutes, thinking only of you, sitting alone in the shower with your thoughts.

He perks up considerably when he hears the water shut off, and after several long minutes, you emerge from the bathroom, towel wrapped around your middle.

He stands up when you enter the bedroom, hands stiff and awkward at his sides. You barely look at him, having trouble willing yourself to do more than glance. 

Your eyes fall downward, your lips pursing. You instinctually move to clutching the towel tighter around you, more than anything because you don’t know what to do with your hands. 

It makes his heart break to see you so out of comfort around him—because of him—so he gives you the benefit of privacy, turning around so you can get dressed. It kills him to do it, makes him feel like he’s just some stranger in your life rather than him. But he supposes that he deserves to feel like that right now. 

Whether or not you wanted him to turn around goes unsaid, he can only hear the quiet shuffling of you putting clothes on.

He waits until the movement stops, after he hears the squeak of the bed springs and the faint sound of the sheets being pulled up.

He turns around again with a silent sigh, taking in the sight of you laying in bed, back turned to him.  

He approaches slowly, stopping just before his knees hit the mattress. He notices quickly that the t-shirt you’d chosen was one of your own. He frowns.  

“Sweetheart. Can I touch you?” His voice is soft and low, like he’s trying to coax you back out to him.

It takes a long few moments, but you nod.

He sits down on the bed, still hesitant to go through with it.

“Will you turn over?”

An even longer pause and you’re flipping over to face him. You don’t make eye contact, only look blankly past him. Your blinks are heavy, and even in the dark, he can see that your eyes are still bloodshot. 

He brushes your hair back, his fingers feather-light against you, like he’s scared to touch you too harshly. Like he’s touching porcelain.

He lets you hold the silence for a while, reasoning with himself that you’ll talk when you’re ready.

You let it go on longer than he’d hoped, past the point of him knowing what to do with it. He’d hoped you’d yell at him. He can take that, he knows he can. He can see plainly that you’re thinking deeply and wants more than anything for you to say it, scream it if you have to. 

He knows he deserves it and he frankly would take anything over the silence. But then again, he doesn’t deserve the reprieve, does he? No, but he’s not strong enough to deny himself the chance to hear your voice.

“Say it,” he urges. “Please.”

Your fingers tap against the bed sheets for a moment before you sit up, almost defeated. 

You face him, taking a breath and relenting. “I don’t like that you said that to me.”

He nods, brow deep. “Me neither.”

Your shoulders sag at that, and you feel stuck in the moment. You feel guilty too but you don’t know if you should. He didn’t mean it, you know that, and they weren’t his words, really. But the snap of his voice when he’d said it and the look on his face—it made you feel terrible. It still does.

You look awkwardly to the left, feeling heavily spectated by him and so hyper-conscious of all of your movements. The downturn of your lips gives way to burning in your eyes and before you can do anything about it, tears are spilling out. 

Jason sees it immediately, his head lulling helplessly. 

“Oh, baby. Please don’t cry, please.”

But that only makes it worse, the tears falling faster and heavier at his soft tone.

He forgoes asking permission and pulls you directly into his chest, a firm hand on the back of your head. It’s what you needed though, to be close to him right now.

“I’m sorry. I’m really fucking sorry, baby—” he murmurs against your hair, pressing a rough kiss as he holds you tighter.

You shake your head, sniffling. “It’s okay, Jay.”

“No, it’s not.”

That sentiment lingers for several minutes, as he holds you cheek to chest and rubs soothing patterns into your hair.

It’s not long before you’re able to fully relax against him, his touch feeling nothing short of therapeutic. Your breathing eventually levels out back to baseline and your thoughts start to find peace amongst themselves.

When you’re ready, you sit back from him, letting him see your face again.                    

He visibly winces as he scans over the tears on your cheeks, how they’re starting to stain.

You’re still upset, a little, but not nearly as much as you’re sure your face is conveying. 

“It’s okay,” you tell him, wiping your eyes with your sleeve.

He shakes his head, “If I ever say something like that to you again, hit me. I’m serious.”

You drop your hand onto your lap, tilting your head at him with a serious look. “I’m not going to hit you—”

“Then break up with me. Don’t ever let somebody talk to you like that, especially not me.”

His voice is hard and you can tell the impact of his words have every bit of weight intended.

Your mouth closes and you waver unsure of where to go with that. Your gaze falls down to where your hands lie discarded on your lap and there’s a palpable shift to the air in the room.

“Hey.” He pushes your chin up to make you look at him, “Listen to me. You’re the love of my life. You hear me? I’m supposed to take care of you, make you happy. I don’t…I can’t talk to you like that. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Your eyes flicker back and forth across each others and you can see the genuine sincerity etched plainly across his face.

He processes the comprehension across your own before his jaw tenses for a moment and he adds, “Nobody’s gonna talk to you like that, much less me. Yes?” 

You start to nod slowly and he mirrors you until he’s convinced of your belief in the statement. 

He rubs calm circles into your thighs as you both sit with the conversation, the light sounds of each others breaths the only sound heard. This silence isn’t the same as it was before though, it’s safer, more comfortable. It’s familiar, if not weighted.  

“I love you,” you tell him quietly.

His eyebrows furrow like his heart was just shattered. 

“I love you too, baby. So much.”

🦟 if you don't reblog things i'm actively sending bad vibes your way 🦟 and maybe also a plague

reblog to give your headache to elon musk instead

it's fascinating how beautiful the world becomes when I'm with her, the soft flow of her hair, her crescent moon shaped lips, her eyes that could put the stars to shame, everything is beautiful, beautiful, just beautiful, she is.

it hurts to be something

its worse to be nothing with you.

(promise by laufey)

thinking about soft!boyfriend steve. who grabs whatever inanimate object is closest to him and sings a silly little song into it whenever you’re sad just to see you break into a smile. who bundles you up in the coziest scarf he owns at the slightest inclination that you’re cold, he keeps it in the trunk of his car for you just in case. steve, who cuts off your self deprecating speech with a head spinning spearmint flavoured kiss because he adores you so incredibly much, and he knows that no words he could ever say would speak louder at that particular moment. steve, who reaches up wordlessly with a veiny hand to grab anything off the top shelf before you can even lean onto your tip toes. steve, who’s crafted from stardust, donning constellations made up of moles and freckles, scattered across his sun kissed complexion for you to trace, kiss, and memorize. steve is the act of selflessly switching ice creams or even sandwiches with you when you end up not liking yours. a rosy flush never fails to adorn his cheeks the day after, when you sweetly drop off coffee and baked goods at family video for him and robin to share as a thank you. steve is the colour of sunshine. paisley, warm and illuminating. steve is the epitome of lovesick when you laugh a bit too loud, knowing that you learned to shed your fear of doing so after you told him an ex of yours loathed it. he would give anything to hear you laugh like that every time. steve is the type of boyfriend who twirls you with his arms wrapped tightly around your waistline after spending fifteen minutes apart from you. who goes helplessly weak in the knees when you kiss him, because every time feels like the first time with you. who fiddles with the hem of your clothing, a lock of your hair, your dainty jewellery, anything to be closer to you while you speak to him. who reads with you from behind your shoulder, and quietly kisses the crook of your neck to let you know that you can turn the page. who promptly kneels onto the floor in front of you no matter where you are before fixing your shoelace or heel strap when he notices it’s come undone, much to your appreciative embarrassment. who lifts you up onto the nearest surface before he protectively bandages your wounds no matter how small, even if it was just a little scrape from when you clumsily banged into one of the cupboards, placing a tender kiss to the area after he ensures the edges of the plaster are smooth, wiping away your tears if any. steve, who feels the garden of his chest bloom with fresh wildflowers every time you say you love him, because he knows that you mean it, he can feel it, also because you’re so endearingly bad at telling even the whitest of lies. he drifts off to sleep whenever you play with his silky hair at the end of a long day, your manicured fingers gently scratching his scalp as he leans into the safety of being taken care of. steve is sticky lipgloss coated kisses on the cheek, intertwined fingers, dusky almond toned eyes brimmed with infatuation, fresh linen scented lullabies, bottled springtime, bouquets of your favourite flowers at any hour, stray flowers picked by you innocently placed behind his ears or braided through his hair. unbeknownst to the both of you, you’ve each started your own flower pressing journals, preserving every single petal that you’ve ever received from the other. steve is confidently mispronounced words that have you rolling in giggles and falling for him impossibly harder. he’s rose water scented love letters, time capsule polaroids of you in every nook of his burgundy bmw despite max saying that it looks like a shrine, slow dancing tipsily as dinner cooks on the stove, teary eyes at animal shelter commercials between bubblegum dramas, stolen kisses in broad daylight, absentmindedly humming along to the radio on the drive to lovers lake, fleeting confessions in the purple dawn. finally, steve is the schoolgirl type of love that has you twirling and daydreaming airily before opening your window for him when he sneaks into your childhood bedroom. lovestruck forever.

*soft!boyfriend stevie owns my ♡*

BOYS NIGHT, 15th March, Senate! bring your own booze! remember what happens in the senate stays in the senate ;). BOYS NIGHT BOYS NIGHT BOYS NIGHT

Did I ever tell you, I’ve got a thing for brunettes?

FLYNN RIDER - STEVE HARRINGTON