TokyoPewPew

♡♢ 𝚅𝙰𝙼𝙿𝙸𝚁𝙴: 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙼𝙰𝚂𝚀𝚄𝙴𝚁𝙰𝙳𝙴 — 𝕯𝖊𝖆𝖉 𝕸𝖔𝖓𝖊𝖞 ♤♧

Next up: solo posts from Connie, Caroline, and possibly Vince.

Female looking for male or female partner. 18+

@TideTypedWrong

♡♢ 𝚅𝙰𝙼𝙿𝙸𝚁𝙴: 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙼𝙰𝚂𝚀𝚄𝙴𝚁𝙰𝙳𝙴 — 𝕯𝖊𝖆𝖉 𝕸𝖔𝖓𝖊𝖞 ♤♧

@KittenLord Great post Bubson. Sam has a lovely voice and I enjoy your sparse, economical prose also.

Festive's 1x1 Search

Blood Upon The Crown {1910s-esque Historical-Fantasy}

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_____________________________________ ───────────༒︎༻♱༺༒︎─────────── A N D A S T H E S U L F E R A N D A S T H E S U L F E R H U N G I N T H E A I R H U N G I N T H E A I R ──────────༒︎༻♱༺༒︎────────── 𝙱 𝙻 𝙾 𝙾 𝙳 𝚄 𝙿 𝙾 𝙽 𝙱 𝙻 𝙾 𝙾 𝙳 𝚄 𝙿 𝙾 𝙽 𝔗 ℌ 𝔈 ℭ ℜ 𝔒 𝔚 𝔑 𝔗 ℌ 𝔈 ℭ ℜ 𝔒 𝔚 𝔑 ──────────༒︎༻♱༺༒︎────────── T H E Y H E A R L D E D I T A S T H E T H E Y H E A R L D E D I T A S T H E " W A R T O E N D W A R S" " W A R T O E N D W A R S" ───────────༒︎༻♱༺༒︎─────────── ───────────༒︎༻♱༺༒︎─────────── ───────────༒︎༻♱༺༒︎─────────── ───────────༒︎༻♱༺༒︎───────────

_______________________________________________________________________ ────────────────────────༒︎༻♱༺༒︎──────────────────────── C O N C E P T C O N C E P T ───────────────────༒︎༻ Aalegra was an old land, wherein mountains weathered and eroded to that of the stature of hills stood, where the ground was wrought by agriculturalists of days past, fed and watched as men rose into kings, and kings rose into emperors, and as empires fell into republics. Such was a land that had seen the shattering of bone and the ripping sinew, whereupon flint-tipped spears had evolved into swords which fell with the import of a strange power that brought only more blood upon Aalegra's shores. It was but a land of many firsts, yet many lasts. For within Aalegra’s lands, peace was only but a rarity as man raged on. For centuries, it burned. Like a constant draft upon a flame, it flared and sparked. Brother had slain brother, father had fought son; those who stood as the same people were pitted against each other in a battle of greed for even but the smallest piece of fertile land. Yet, in the now, the flame has laid dormant as yet another pile of coals. With the turn of the century, peace found its place, and with the turn of the year, it will mark a decade of prosperity. Though like many flames, even the smallest of sparks can turn into an inferno. As machines capable of killing from above are released into the skies, and vehicles with the strength of boulders are retrieved fresh off the assembly line, deaths smoking signal has never been so clear. Once again, blood has stained the crown. ───────────────────༒︎༻♱༺༒︎─────────────────── P R E M I S E P R E M I S E ───────────────────༒︎༻ “Dear Recipient: You have been cordially invited by the imperial family of Caezenov to the 5th semi-annual turn of the year ball.” Peace upon Aalegra is a brittle one, held together by a loosely woven web of loophole-riddled treaties and alliances hidden behind closed doors. The ball hosted by the Caezenov Empire every other year stands as a testament to this peace upon the land, one where the rulers scattered across Aalegra can come together in celebration of this period of growth. This year, in particular, is a special one: it is the first turn of the decade, 10 years since the start of this new century. Given such a monument year has arrived, almost all families of prominence have been afforded an invitation to the celebrations, including those in lands the Caezenave had once shattered. As Kings, Dukes, Prime Ministers, consuls, and more arrive, other forces lurk in the back. Rumors which has been disregarded as hearsay of reactionaries on the prowl spread in the back alleys of the city as more and more aristocracy flood within. For on such a grand night of peace, who would dare to spark the fire? ───────────────────༒︎༻♱༺༒︎─────────────────── P O S T S C R I P T U M P O S T S C R I P T U M ───────────────────༒︎༻ Ah, historical fantasy, don't you just love it? The setting of this story will be around a European-esque continent on the brink of its own First World War. Caezenov Empire is a relatively new power upon the lands, yet in their strides to consolidate their aggressive expansion has continued to pile beyond it's limits. Like a burgeoning mass, it presses against the thin layer of film that holds the flimsy peace in place. Doscen hide in wait in Caezenov lands as they sniped and fragmented what used to be their homeland, as their new rulers bend the knee to the emperor. The Conderation still keeps a watchful eye on the Caezenovs despite the rot that is consuming them from the inside. It is a period similar to that of the 1910s, radios and cars are breaking into prominent use, and gone are the days of swords and shields, as now planes rule the air and tanks roam the land. Electrification grows as the world inches closer to modernization. The idea is that at the ball, the family of the emperor is to be slain, which will send him down a war path that his country may not survive. It is a setting that I see can be played out in many ways; that of us playing nobility from the Doscen region, who are now are the forefront of the emperor's fury and must band together in a seemingly futile attempt to save their lands from an attack they had not initiated, or the we could play as the rebels fighting against a power that burned their towns and forced out their people, or even as figures within the empire itself, navigating the political landscape that was brought on by the war and the emperor who has fallen into a mad state. There are a myriad of directions to explore, even those outside the empire itself and in the confederation and its allies against the empire. I would love to build out this world with someone and explore the potential nuances of such a setting. Let me know, thank you! ────────────────────────༒︎༻♱༺༒︎────────────────────────

@Festive

how dare you wait until i'm in five rps to post this

i actually hate these kinds of people who i ask are interested in my roleplays

Most people on this site have interest checks up, whether in one subforum or a multitude of them. Lurking these, and reading their IC posts also, one can get a pretty good sense of each individual's tastes via genre, influences, writing style.

Doing this isn't just a courtesy; it's efficiency. Every roleplay has a target audience, and it is impossible for one single RP to have a target audience of "everyone." In other words, it cannot possibly appeal to people who write one-liners and those who write passages long enough to fill whole book chapters, those who want wish-fulfillment and those who want literary realism, those those who want chill slice-of-life and those who want actiony grimdark.......et cetera. Diametrically opposed tastes and interests mean your RP, once you've decided what its core premise is about and who it wants to impress, will always alienate some people. Which is not as bad a thing as it sounds—it means your game has already self-selected for players likelier to remain invested throughout and actually see your story through to its natural conclusion, because they were already interested in other games like it.

Speaking for myself, a quick glance at my posts lays my interests pretty bare at this point. I write an easy, breezy couple thousand words per post, and mostly in Low Fantasy, pseudo-historical-ish type secondary settings. But with various writing partners and across other accounts/communities I've also dabbled in a few specific cyberpunk, milsim, gothic/vampire, high fantasy, and anime SoL subgenres. With the exception of that last one, one can safely infer that I like high-concept but relatively grounded and [historically/scientifically] plausible speculative fiction. That is my flavor profile.

So the first reason I did not reply to your PM is that the core premise intrinsically does not interest me.

The second reason is that you could (and, tbh, should) have known that, had you tried. If you had respected people and valued their time, you would've already done your research. Thus, you would've already known who such a plot idea would interest and who it wouldn't, and furnished the PM list accordingly. Thus, you would've only reached out to members of your target audience, and not dozens and dozens of users indiscriminately. It didn't take a PhD to see that you hadn't done this, because I, for one, haven't posted in the Free section and/or written one-liner replies in the better part of two decades—since when I was your age, in fact—and certainly not on this year-old account. And since you obviously hadn't bothered to read my interest checks or really, put any effort at all into understanding my tastes before reaching out, it stood to reason that you didn't really respect my time, nor care about getting to know me before you tried to throw me into your cast of wacky and colorful characters.

You can see how being spoken to like that—not as a prospective friend and writing partner but as an item on a checklist—another faceless door in some door-to-door sales route—might deter some from taking such an inquiry seriously.

In summary, every game, just like any artwork or piece of media, has a target audience. Knowing your target audience before you pitch the game will result in fewer rejections, more synergy in players/cast, and hopefully, less frustrating times for everyone, including you.

Hope this helps

ᛢ 𝕳𝖔𝖓𝖔𝖗𝖌𝖚𝖆𝖗𝖉, 𝔬𝔯, 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔓𝔯𝔦𝔠𝔢 𝔬𝔣 𝔇𝔲𝔱𝔶 ᛢ

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<sup>𝕴n bygone days—in crueler days—Hladekný and the Kuratorium and all the rest of them would have pressganged poor Herr Schöst to the very front of this preposterous little parade. "Who better?" they would wheedle, as if empty flatteries filled his belly; filled the lamps of his tenement; as if, swallowed like a spoonful of laudanum, they should calm the song strumming from the ruin of his leg—"indeed, who better? And besides, they who are the future of the Empire should meet their teacher sooner than late, do you not agree?" So away he'd go, compliantly dragging himself up one staircase and down the next, away to the furthest corners of the longest fields used for drilling and shooting and riding, up into the pigeon-eyries of the tallest mock-towers. The classroom the canteen the barracks the parlors the lecture halls. And behind him would march the halfscore, only some of them attentive and curious, only some asking him the same fatuous questions as the ten before them had once asked three years past, and the ten before them, and on, and on. Names, dates, small, vapid disparities in the paintings versus how their rich fathers and fancy tutors had once described the subjects thus depicted. And with every step the nerves would scream, the joints would pop, the ligaments would pluck, each of these a voice in a symphony of suffering. And click-click-drag, click-click-drag, the same demeaning tempo which accompanied him everywhere, the barber's, the opera. And in the end, wearied of his pace and spent of all their patience, their attentions wandering the ceiling as he trudged them to and fro, the ten would learn nothing anyway; arriving late to class the next day, bursting from the lips with excuses and apology, having retained none of his directions, none his warnings on how best to traverse the Academy's many labyrinths. Labyrinths whose shortcuts and beelines he himself had learned better than anyone (the briefness of his walks depending on it).

Thank the Champions for tenure—Schöst remarked.

The last of his charge having said his piece, and made his noble exit—a commons boy by the name of Dauncey Heathhill, all brimming with fierce moxie from his silvery-blond head to his watery grey eyes down to his chore-hardened hands—Schöst had beaten a hasty retreat in short order behind the lad; as hasty as his faculties permitted, at the least. Through the immense, polished doors, beneath the benches. There he lingered for a time, haunting the shadows of that particular vomitorium, a glint from his cane the only intimation of his being there. He observed from afar as the others paid young Herr Heathhill little mind; and, of those who did, with no small dose of silent, seething contempt. Schöst watched as the boy feigned either ignorance or apathy, hoping to convince the others—as he had convinced himself—of his own vicious independence. Quite standard fare, in all, for a sheepdog nesting among wolves.

A good few of the professor's charge had managed already to surprise him, however. Einsbück: all the decency and airs he had come to expect from such a lovely little thing, and yet her haughtiness poisoning these virtues by less than half. They would all be flocking to her soon, sheltering under her graces: the girls for morale and assurance; the rest for affectations and flatteries. Schöst noted her well. He would have to place her where the others could not so comfortably fall in step with her whims.

The dark-haired girl with the porridgey-thick accent—the Märzener—many such figures had traveled beneath the wrought-iron gates through the years, all manner of trembling, stuttering wrecks, reluctant and terrified. Schöst had seen them come and go by the dozens: pawns to the wills and wishes of others, most oft; not driven to water by some deep, innate thirst all their own but herded there like so many dutiful fillies. Most had flunked, the fires around them burning hotter than the fire within. But this—such an intense, severe Melancholy, always guarded and measured, always skirting and shrinking—such anomalies as this he had seldom encountered. Frankly, he wondered how such people as Frau du Guillarmes received acceptance letters at all. How had not one single member of the secretariat wondered whether a person who can hardly crush a beetle, hardly ask for another mug of beer at supper, might one day find it within herself to send a company of men downhill into flintlock and cannon fire? And how had Guillarmes herself not protested, absconded, tantrummed her way to freedom in the weeks it took to process her application? No matter, remarked the professor—she had arrived, and once she had arrived there were but three ways to leave, each less pleasant than the last.

Still, whence that sudden burst of courage atop the dais?

It accomplished fairly little, all told—the crowd, restless and squirming up there in the unpadded benches, had hardly stirred at the address—and it hardly diverted Guillarmes's fate, shouldst expulsion await therein—yet Schöst could not dislodge the feeling that he had misjudged this girl at first appraisal. That he'd beheld a dried-up riverbed and assumed it lifeless; that he'd mistaken the sluggish creep of a lava flow for hard, cold stone. There was an energy to this one; a potential Schöst hoped to measure, and galvanize, and drag from its dormancy. She might even prove to be the best pick for this year's—well. He paused a moment, cautioned himself against too eager a verdict. The first test had a way of banishing his predispositions.

Ahead the children continued to pat each other by the backs, hiss to each other their little assurances. Already they settled into the expected coteries: girls separating from young men, commoners and minor lordlings distancing themselves from certain family names, the ones which loomed over their own, their shadows long and broad and inescapable. Foam rising, lees sinking; precisely as the natural structure ordained. Dauncey Heathhill also watched young Hloþhilde, also intrigued—or perhaps perturbed—by the spectacle which had preceded his own; but he remained staunch in his solitude, and so did not care to confront it.

After affording the children one moment's repose, Frau Wiezlern—sweet, merciful Frau Wiezlern—offered them, the ten, a comfortable falsehood, and awayed them toward the first landmark of the tour. They obeyed with perfect graces, and good thing, too; the vomitorium reverberated with the last enunciations of the final speech, and the walls and ceiling and even the heel-smoothed flagstones began to rumble with the crash of one last applause, humming through the architecture. That was his cue; the time had arrived for Schöst to make his escape before the out-flooding throngs washed away with him. So for the first-and-thousandth time he click-click-dragged himself away from the amphitheatre, up the shallow slope of the vomitorium, toward the portrait hall. Click-click-drag. And he had very nearly slipped away behind the assembly which was to be his charge for the next three years, nearly eluded all scrutinies, when the Barbroeck boy crossed the threshold.

A moment's recognition glinted from the boy's winsome features: that the secretary had deceived him—had deceived all of them—yes—but powerless was this before the far-greater discomfort, that he was watched. Weighed and measured upon some scale he did not yet know how to tilt. For Herr Schöst's moody glower remained as impenetrable as fog, as unflinching as stone, and it had the most effervescent effect of annealing young Roelo likewise, drawing from the depths of him some vinegary recalcitrance.

Ere long something had devolved in the airs of this place; the encounter had alchemized from mere insipid happenstance into a kind of contest: a trial of wills—the raging strength of the sea crashing against the immensity of the shore, two beasts corded-necked and antler-locked, two blades seized and sparking. What proved two stubborn spirits by each refusing to retreat from this, a battle unspoken and yet most intimately understood, insignificant yet all-consuming? Schöst had his suspicions—about the both of them. But the rumbling of the crowd grew louder; the humming of the flagstones all the more unignorable; deferring to his powers of authority, Herr Professor (still not diverting his gaze—not for a moment) nodded his head once aside, urging the boy in the direction of his peers. And only after lingering one moment more—proving, in that insolent way, that no one told Roelo of House Barbroeck what to do—no one save for Roelo himself—he stalked away to catch the others.

Hobbling into the portrait hall proper, Schöst took a moment to survey. But the amphitheatre by then was ejecting the first of the crowds in coursing rivers down the vomitoria, and as for the northern passage, of Roelo—the speedy thing—only spectres and shadows remained. So the good professor, sensing the coming of the tides, rucked himself to the stair. Braced himself against the wall, careful not to disturb the sacred dust lain across the paintings and busts and cameos in sheets. And towed himself, grimacingly, to the next floor, away to the nearest skybridge.

His march would not see him returned to Classroom E until the Academy's great belltower had chimed the hour's end; it, and the dozens and hundreds of lesser clocks scattered across the grounds, all in diffuse, discordant harmony. Classroom corners and coat pockets. (Nearly three hours of speeches, and ritual, and pomp. Brennicus's beard.) But acting remarkably unconcerned with the dew-sweat beaded at his neck, the clamminess at his brow, the great many throes shocking up into his hip and down into his sorry, screaming knee, Schöst allowed himself only the single repose, done discreetly and with some hurry: a rummaging down into his doctor's-bag, a retrieval of glass and bottle thereof, a generous pour, a toss down his gullet. And with the brandy sugarcoating his tongue, and singeing his throat, and sending warmth creeping out from the pit of his stomach, conditions had improved; he could set himself to his task.

He settled at his desk (he and his chair creaking in solidarity), gathered the dossiers, scraped out the clots from the nib of his pen. Unrolled, uncorked, trimmed, dipped. Outside the birch trees wavered in a breeze which did not quite reach the innards of the stodgy classroom through the windows; a few finches flitted among the branches, chasing each other.

When Schöst, at ritual's end, had written every name, and scattered over them a three-fingered pinch of pounce, he took to them his pen-knife, slicing them out from the page, having them, then, in a tidy little pile of ribbons. Into two columns he arranged these names across his desk (the wood already crisscrossed with dozens of such cuts). He already had some idea of who should lead each team, at the least.

It was only then, of course, consumed by this esoteric exercise—peering down at one column ever-so-slightly longer than the other—that he noticed the unevenness. The discrepancy. The mistake.

"Eleven?" he murmured aloud. Not once in its hundred years had Ansbourg Imperial Command Academy admitted more than the allotted share of freshmen. That was fifty students a year—ten to a class—no more and no fewer. Not only mere tradition hinged on this arrangement but an air of exclusivity; the school's very prestige as the finest and most rigorous in all Laachtalia. A paltry fifty per year out of sixty million subjects; hundreds of thousands of whom were young, fit, and eligible.

Schöst paused. Who had Hladekný, the most conservative man he knew, ignored tradition to hurry past the bursars?

Unless...

Which of these eleven students had somehow cheated his way in?</sup>

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Another roleplayer?! In this economy?! On a roleplaying site?!

@Thorne Coral Welcome to the Guild, and here's to a happy Friday

𝕳𝖔𝖓𝖔𝖗𝖌𝖚𝖆𝖗𝖉: a Dark Academic, Gothic, (Pseudo-)Historical Interest Check [FxM or FxF]

i would be interested if your still willing to do this.^^

@teenangstlife

Good evening. I do not roleplay with minors. Thank you for your interest and may your writing partners always reply on time.

ᛢ 𝕳𝖔𝖓𝖔𝖗𝖌𝖚𝖆𝖗𝖉, 𝔬𝔯, 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔓𝔯𝔦𝔠𝔢 𝔬𝔣 𝔇𝔲𝔱𝔶 ᛢ

𝖉 𝖚 𝕲 𝖚 𝖎 𝖑 𝖑 𝖆 𝖗 𝖒 𝖊 𝖘
𝖉 𝖚 𝕲 𝖚 𝖎 𝖑 𝖑 𝖆 𝖗 𝖒 𝖊 𝖘

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^{(Hloþhilde du Guillarmes)}

𝖕 𝖗 𝖔 𝖋 𝖎 𝖑 𝖊 𝖕 𝖗 𝖔 𝖋 𝖎 𝖑 𝖊 _________________________________________________________ Though obedient, dutiful, and attentive to a fault, none of these qualities have ever seemed to improve "Tilly's" situation any. She's the spare—her sister the heir—and the sooner she accepts this is all the sooner she could one day, maybe, know peace. Tilly has never asked whether her father ever truly loved her; not for any lack of wondering, but for fear of the answer. She knows her mother loved her terribly, but mother is dead now—has been for years—maddened in her scarce and restless sleep by the Dreaming Fevers. A few wetnurses who doted on her when she was a babe-girl, maybe a scullery maid or two she had once presumed to call friend, but now there is no one. Only an elder sister who looks down on her with pity, and the man who strikes them equally and utterly powerless beneath his well-laid plans—their purpose, their roles, all pre-ordained before they'd ever had any say. Perhaps before they'd ever been born at all. No wonder the younger sister, neglected and ignored (save for when she is being chided), has recessed so deeply into herself, speaking only when spoken to, moving so quietly as to startle those she passes. Where grooming and rulership have made her sister Helgeða headstrong, willful, and self-assured, years of obsequiousness have turned Tilly to jelly, a slippery, pliant thing, aiming at all times to anticipate the appetites of others, sense their wraths and retributions, and appease these ere they have ever had the chance to arise. A creature which shrinks away into shadows; a creature easily controlled, easily used. Whisper a few false promises into her eager ear, promises of affection and adoration and praise, and she becomes alike to wet clay in the hand. Offer her friendship (real or feigned), and for that friend she would burn the world. 'Tis no secret that her father loathes this fawning complacency, but who else but he could be to blame for it?—when he and all his droughts of passion are the very reason the younger Guillarmes sister so dearly thirsts—for appraisal, for judgment, for consideration, for any kind of regard whatever, no matter how it might condescend to her. Still, in his hard and unyielding wisdom he did not see the role he had played in breeding into the creature the very same weakness he resented, so he gave her, as no heir at all, but nonetheless his daughter, a choice most cruel: to do him, and all his forebears, no dishonor, she could become a magistrate, a prioress, or a soldier. And so on June the 27th, 594 Imperial, Hloþhilde of House Guillarmes chose the sword.

𝖕 𝖔 𝖗 𝖙 𝖗 𝖆 𝖎 𝖙 𝖕 𝖔 𝖗 𝖙 𝖗 𝖆 𝖎 𝖙 _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________

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^{(Helgeða du Guillarmes)}

𝖕 𝖗 𝖔 𝖋 𝖎 𝖑 𝖊 𝖕 𝖗 𝖔 𝖋 𝖎 𝖑 𝖊 _________________________________________________________ A charming and affable girl from the start, all her life "Hellie" blossomed where her baby sister withered, dared where the latter cautioned, smiled where the other sulked. The wherefore, of course, is not lost on her: she had every access to their family's opportunities and assets, their manservants' fondness, and, seemingly, the sheer luck and good fortune which could only have been scraped straight from the marrow of their long-dead gods—for Hellie comes as caustically witty as her father, as beautiful as her mother, and in all, effortlessly captivating. Any plump rosebush, pruned and watered and bee-visited, would flourish where wilts its brittle and shaded cousin. Their mother loved her, as deeply and truly as she loved all her children (every miscarry, every infant taken by the pox), but their father—their father dragged Hellie to every gala, every court, glinting all the while in tooth and eye ("My lord," he would say, "prithee meet my daughter, Helgeða")—and of this she despised every moment. Not for the injustice of the sisters' circumstance (though it was certainly unjust) but for its insincerity did she loathe and dread the thought of a life wasted politicking. She had wanted, once, longer ago than she cares to recall, to be a singer, and yet father permitted singing only when entertaining certain guests; guests, he would say, "of the correct temperament for song," lest a child's chirping shouldst irritate and avert. So when very few of father's friends fell into that jovial mood, and those who did were all covetous old lechers with vile ideas slithering across their thoughts the way wrong notes slither between the staffs on the page, less interested in the melodies than the pretty mouth whence they spilled, Hellie stopped singing. One year, not so many years ago, a new fashion swept through the courts of Laachtalia, and all the sudden the upper classes, but especially young, wealthy débutantes, were seen all over the empire trading the lustre of their jewels for smooth, dull jet, their silvers and moon-golds for pewter or arsenical bronze, all their garishness for funereal black. Walking down a city road, the unaware observer could have sworn one of the emperor's sons or perhaps a prince-elector had died, for the state of dress throughout the city, and every city, forespoke of a populace ordered into mourning; but when the gazettes called the new style infinitely slimming and august, or purported it to bestow on the rakish young a dignity and elegance seen nowhere else across all their ranks (except, mayhap, the opera houses), father fell right in. And Hellie, for her turn, while selling off her favorite tailcoats, pretended she had all her life detested color. And on and on and on. Tilly will never understand what it's like to be the favorite; because deep in the yearning twinkle of her gaze as it crosses the room, she still envies. It's Hellie who knows best that there's nothing about her to envy whatever. Ah—but it may be 'tis for the best. If Tilly ever offered it, Hellie would switch with her in an instant. A dangerous thought, when there is the prosperity (a meager one, but prosperity all the same) of an earldom to think of. Duty comes first, and Hellie's sister has sacrificed quite enough already, she reckons. 'Tis work best left to those with ever more to give...

𝖕 𝖔 𝖗 𝖙 𝖗 𝖆 𝖎 𝖙 𝖕 𝖔 𝖗 𝖙 𝖗 𝖆 𝖎 𝖙 _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________

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^{(Grinault-Pôntëfors du Guillarmes)}

𝖕 𝖗 𝖔 𝖋 𝖎 𝖑 𝖊 𝖕 𝖗 𝖔 𝖋 𝖎 𝖑 𝖊 _________________________________________________________ Everything he gilds he gilds in pinchbeck; his every surface a veneer like a derelict hôtel, or the hand-crafted facets of a glass gemstone; done everywhere and always in mimicry of a palace's majesty, a sapphire's brilliance. A pretender through and through is he, even though he sits his house seat legitimately; an artifice, though he is flesh and blood like any other. This is a man who, upon the birth of his two daughters, issued not one thought to the sweat at his goodwife's brow, the labor of her breathing, the blood, the feces. He cannot even admit (not truthfully) to the abject dignity of having wondered what to name them. Oh, his thoughts resided on names, 'tis true enough—but not how melodic their syllables, or auspicious their meanings; rather, what reverence those names should stir in the peerage, and what awe in the commons. In the end he would deign to bestow upon his children, one after the other, the names of Nērunnian warrior-queens, that as women grown they should command more authority and respect wheresoever in the heartlands they one day traveled, from Pfalz-Dräven to the Free Cities. They would find better husbands that way, enjoy the fondness of their more instructors, take more pride in themselves. They would, in a word, seem "more Laachtalian." His every uttering he weighs and measures, drop by painstaking drop; every tic, every habit carefully cultivated in service to the counterfeit which is his personage. Have his friends and confidants (of which there are, most assuredly, few) even met the man behind the mask? Had his wife, Agalind, before her death? Has anyone? Even his daughters, those forlorn, long-neglected daughters, struggle to recall a time when he was merry with laughter and drink, or wallowing in sorrow, or swept away, rudderless, on any one of the terrible, beautiful raptures which make a man a man. Which make him more than his own homunculus, shambling empty-hearted along from plot to plot, obeying with all his life some design beyond his understanding. The rumor which prevails among the manservants goes that after, in very brisk succession, losing first his elderly father to an execution by hanging, and then his wife to that horrific, soul-eating disease, the lord of Rodon succumbed to some delusion dictating that he could have saved either or both of them if he had only been wiser, wealthier—in some tangible measure, more powerful. But no matter. Grief, jealousy, hate, madness—all bevels on the same blade. A blade which has cut at this lowly noble family for as long as anyone alive has known.

𝖕 𝖔 𝖗 𝖙 𝖗 𝖆 𝖎 𝖙 𝖕 𝖔 𝖗 𝖙 𝖗 𝖆 𝖎 𝖙 _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________

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