DE CLERMONT.

ind. BALDWIN of All Souls.

[balldwin]

# 𝐁𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐃𝐖𝐈𝐍  /  power. grief. legacy. indie writing blog for 𝐁𝐀𝐋𝐃𝐖𝐈𝐍 𝐃𝐄 𝐂𝐋𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐓 of All Souls / ADOW.  tv show and book based. canon divergent.  mutuals only. est. february 2021.  written by mara.  affiliated with @softersinned​

personal blogs, please do not interact.

LINKS: carrd   /   prompts   /   pint. board   /   promo

[balldwin]

hello hi, i've decided to place all of my blogs on indefinite hiatus, except for baldwin (will probably delete a bunch of them, too, because i obviously cannot handle ANY of them lol). anyway, i'm in the process of revamping, aka moving him to a new blog, so expect me to just randomly follow you in the next couple of days.

[captain-flint]

The crew has commuted your sentences by the narrowest of margins. You will both be transported back to Nassau, at which point you will be removed from this ship permanently and without severance. There’ll be no further negotiation on the matter.

[theoptia]

“Under this iron rain Of fire and steel and blood”

— Jacques Prévert, from “Barbara” tr. Lawerence Ferlingbetti

[z-onnewende]

[captain-flint]

Charles Vane and the animals he commands have until sunrise tomorrow to vacate that fort or so help me God… I will rain holy hell down upon him.

[13thwitch]

i am what you designed me to be. i am your blade.

(you cannot now complain if you also feel the hurt.)

rowan mayfair fielding, of amc's immortals universe. show based. highly triggering content. affiliated with @jarviinen & @pasdiable. ©

[take2intotheshower]

Mark Antony: The People’s Tribune

(Rome - Season 1) (Part A)

[zegalba]

“Lilith” by A. J Hamilton

[kafkasdiariies]

Venice, c. 1877. William Merritt Chase (American, 1849–1916)

[adrasteiax]

“She was destruction given form and purpose. Hers was an elegant savagery—”

— Rachel Vincent, Menagerie (via wanheda)

[geryone]

Duende, Tracy K. Smith

[edenmemes]

house of the dragon starters

ep1 - 10 .

❝ try not to look too relieved. ❞ ❝ did you sleep? how long? ❞ ❝ no king has ever lived that hasn’t had to forfeit the lives of a few to protect the many. ❞ ❝ i don’t need mothering. ❞ ❝ it is our fate, i think, to crave always what is given to another. ❞ ❝ you’re safe with me, i swear it. ❞ ❝ to elude a storm, you can either sail into it or around it. but you must never await its coming. ❞ ❝ i have only ever defended you. ❞ ❝ i’ve always thought of you and i as having been made from the same cloth. ❞ ❝ you will address me as “your grace” or i will have my guard cut out your tongue. ❞ ❝ i’d rather serve as a knight and ride to battle and glory. ❞ ❝ you’re always like this when you’re worried. disagreeable. ❞ ❝ i like this position. it’s quite comfortable. ❞ ❝ how sweetly the fox speaks when it’s been cornered by hounds. ❞ ❝ we haven’t spoke much…since… ❞ ❝ i do not wish to rule over a kingdom of ash and bone. ❞ ❝ i was never much of a dancer. ❞ ❝ do you want me to kill him? ❞ ❝ i’m asking with you to come with me…away from all of this. ❞ ❝ come, eat. fortify yourself for the journey. ❞ ❝ you swore to protect me. ❞ ❝ what will they say of me when the histories are written? ❞ ❝ it’s the only thing i have to my fucking name! ❞ ❝ look what my life became without you. a droll tragedy. ❞ ❝ strive to restore whatever scrap of honor you have left. ❞ ❝ our worth is not given. it must be made. ❞ ❝ it pleases me to hear you say this. that i am not alone in my grief. ❞ ❝ if you mean to elicit some anger from me, you should know that you’re failing. ❞ ❝ it bothers you, does it not? ❞ ❝ the realm owes you a great debt. ❞ ❝ all i wanted was for someone to say that they were sorry for what happened to me. ❞ ❝ we must all mourn in our own way. ❞ ❝ do you have a specific course of action to propose? ❞ ❝ we’re both people who have had to cut our own way through the world. ❞ ❝ were that to happen, losses would be incalculable. ❞ ❝ it was not my intent to make offense. ❞ ❝ when steel is drawn, a fair match isn’t something anyone should expect. ❞ ❝ i find i have…few friends lately. ❞ ❝ we don’t belong here. ❞ ❝ i only want to help you. ❞ ❝ you cannot believe such gossip. ❞ ❝ just get out. leave me at once. ❞ ❝ to have every young knight and lord fawning over you…what a misery. ❞ ❝ you’ve been much alone these past few years. alone and angry. ❞ ❝ the road ahead is uncertain, but the end is clear. ❞ ❝ you’re young. you will learn. ❞ ❝ this is just what i need…a little adventure. ❞ ❝ care for some company? ❞ ❝ what is this brief mortal life…if not the pursuit of legacy? ❞ ❝ the wise sailor flees the storm as it gathers. ❞ ❝ you are a plague…sent to destroy me. ❞ ❝ for one night, i wish to be free of the burdens of my inheritance. ❞ ❝ do you wish to hear my opinion on the matter? ❞ ❝ i’ve been alone. you abandoned me. ❞ ❝ i’ve decided to remain here and read instead. ❞ ❝ if there were another path…one that led to freedom…would you take it? ❞ ❝ we should be free to speak our minds to one another. ❞ ❝ everything i’ve given you, you’ve thrown back in my face. ❞ ❝ answer me. it’s important. ❞ ❝ do you never long for home? ❞ ❝ i know you’ve never seen true battle. ❞ ❝ your heart is even darker than i thought. ❞ ❝ you think yourself a cunning person. your plans are obvious. ❞ ❝ you never were one to stay idle. ❞ ❝ do not speak of this again. ❞ ❝ they whisper about me in the corridors. ❞ ❝ am i your prisoner? ❞ ❝ have the decency to look grateful. do you know what has been done to give you this day? ❞ ❝ love…is a downfall. ❞ ❝ we’re free to do as we please. ❞ ❝ you will make a fearsome knight. ❞ ❝ just take my arm, at the least. ❞ ❝ it seems the gods have been especially cruel to you. ❞ ❝ i will be a stranger when we meet again. ❞ ❝ you dare put hands on me? ❞ ❝ you look so much like your mother in certain lights. ❞ ❝ i have no shortage of allies. ❞ ❝ who gives a fuck what some lord thinks? ❞ ❝ take your fucking hands off me. ❞ ❝ a certain insolence runs in the family. ❞ ❝ meat without wine is a sin. ❞ ❝ i gave up the idea of wearing a crown generations ago. ❞ ❝ are you…are you hurt? ❞ ❝ reluctance to murder is not a weakness. ❞ ❝ exhausting, isn’t it? hiding beneath the cloak of your own righteousness. ❞ ❝ we have nothing in common. ❞ ❝ you deserve better than what i have been. ❞ ❝ you are an honorable man with a good heart. it’s a rare thing. ❞ ❝ i promise you, in time, you and i together will prevail. ❞ ❝ life has, i know, disappointed you. ❞ ❝ if a king isn’t feared, he is powerless. ❞ ❝ i’d rather ride alone. ❞ ❝ be careful. one could take your words for treason. ❞ ❝ i’ve never seen that side of you…i even doubted its existence. ❞ ❝ i will have the truth of what happened. now. ❞ ❝ do you wish to know your death? ❞ ❝ if we don’t mind our own histories, it will do the same to us. ❞ ❝ i believe you were made to wear the crown. ❞ ❝ we are turning back, all right? ❞ ❝ everyone’s staring at us. ❞ ❝ i would say it’s nice to be home, but i scarcely recognize it. ❞ ❝ most of my years have been spent living in terror. ❞ ❝ all that i have, i owe to you. ❞ ❝ i’ve wondered many an hour what your purpose was in coming here. ❞ ❝ what can either of us know of ruling a kingdom? ❞ ❝ does the promise of war excite you? ❞ ❝ none of this is a game. and yet you treat it like one. ❞ ❝ a matter has arisen that requires your attention. ❞ ❝ night time, you might not be so lucky. ❞ ❝ i have no wish to rule! no taste for duty! i am not suited. ❞ ❝ you flee what other men die seeking. ❞ ❝ i endured it for as long as i could. ❞ ❝ we don’t choose our destiny. it chooses us. ❞ ❝ it is ill luck to look upon the face of death. ❞ ❝ you’ve already found enough trouble today. ❞ ❝ who might you be running from, now? ❞ ❝ i am yours and you are mine. ❞ ❝ i will not have blood shed beneath my roof. ❞ ❝ we are closer to gods than to men. ❞ ❝ you shouldn’t do this alone. let us help you. ❞ ❝ that war is not mine to begin. ❞ ❝ it has been so long since we were granted the joy of your presence. ❞ ❝ how could you allow such a thing to happen? ❞ ❝ do not allow your temper to guide your judgement. ❞ ❝ now they see you as you are. ❞ ❝ do you want to know the truth of it? i was frightened. ❞ ❝ you desire not to be free, but to make a window in the wall of your prison. ❞ ❝ you are wiser than i believed you to be. ❞ ❝ i speak the truth. and you know it. ❞ ❝ hope is the fool’s ally. ❞ ❝ while i like your support, i do not need it. ❞ ❝ go to your chambers. you have said enough. ❞ ❝ i thought i wanted it, but the burden is a heavy one. ❞ ❝ i understand you’ve found yourself in some trouble. ❞

[softersinned]

@balldwin said: kissing them to shut them up

"I just think if a man ever interrupted me with a kiss I'd strangle him."

Hardly a romantic thing to announce, particularly on what she thinks might be a first date. Then again, is it a first date, really, given that they live together? That they're a solid year into a relationship that neither one of them (that's a lie, it was her the whole time) admitted was a relationship? A relationship which, for months now, has been largely exclusive, beyond the occasional date the other ruined as some sort of fucked up courting ritual? They've lived together for a few years now. They've ended up in bed more times than either one of them could dream of counting, whether for sex or sleep, and are so intensely intimate with one another even in the most casual interactions that when they finally, finally started calling this what it is (again, it was Astoria failing to be honest about it in the first place), several friends exchanged money in what was, apparently, a particularly lively betting pool.

But she's nervous. Honestly and truly nervous, the kind of nervous that has her forgetting that they have known each other for years, loved each other for years. It's not even really a date, if you qualify a date as a planned outing: they'd made dinner plans that had fallen apart when they both ended up studying late and missing their reservation, and so they'd picked up food to bring home with them. The empty plastic containers are sitting in the sink to be dealt with later; they'd parted to brush their teeth, only to look tiredly at the clock on his side of the bed and tumble onto the mattress in clothes that said comfortable more than sexy. And they'd been too exhausted to do anything after that besides turn on the television and flip idly through the channels until they found something worth having on in the background while they talked.

It's the strangest thing. She could talk to him for hours without getting bored; she's never once wished she was somewhere else when she was with him, always preferring his company to solitude no matter how much she'd like to get away from the world. Years of friendship and cohabiting haven't dulled her enthusiasm to be with him, to share every detail of her day and hear every detail of his. He fascinates her, he thrills her, and if she could she would gladly spend every waking hour as his rapt audience.

So where did it go? Why was it that the second she thought of this as a date, a real date, an official date, their first date, the butterflies she usually felt in her stomach turned into a tempest? She's curled up beside him as per usual, her legs thrown over his lap and one of his hands on her thigh, fingers just barely under the hem of his own shirt (one of a number she's "borrowed" to sleep in), the other in her hair, twisting copper curls around his fingers. Arsenic and Old Lace is far enough in that she really should have a better understanding of the plot, but she's never seen it before now, and she's so magnificently distracted by everything about him from the smell of his soap to the angle of his jaw to the soft fabric of the worn shirt he'd slipped into that the majority of the film has absolutely refused to take root in her awareness. It's a classic, he'd said, when she asked him to stop at this channel. It's a mystery, she'll have to confess later, when he asks how she liked it, because I could not focus if my life depended on it.

The silence feels awkward more than easy, mostly of her own making, though Baldwin seems as cool as ever. Is he reading her mind again? Somehow aware that she needs the stability? She blurts it out, reduced to commentary on what's happening immediately on the screen, and Priscilla Lane breathes out a passionate oh, Mortimer! as Baldwin's eyes meet hers, an amused smile playing at his lips.

"I see." His tone is serious, even grave, but there's mischief in his eyes. God, she loves it when he looks like that. She could write poetry about that particular expression, though she's really never been much for poetry. (Well, the writing of it. She's a sucker for Yeats.) "So if we're mid-argument I shouldn't cut you off like that?"

"Absolutely not. Not unless you're into choking."

He laughs, tightens his grip on her thigh, fingers firm enough that she thinks they might leave a bruise. The very thought has her dizzy with desire and utterly euphoric, and it takes her a moment to process his next words. "Even if you're being annoying?"

"I," she informs him haughtily, though her tone is perhaps a bit too breathless for her to expect him to take her seriously, "am never annoying. I am a delight."

"And if you're wrong?"

"I'm wrong even less often than I'm annoying."

His smile becomes wicked. Teasingly, he tugs at her hair, just hard enough to get her attention and leave her with her toes curling and her eyes wide. "I didn't expect you to discourage me from kissing you," he tells her, and she clears her throat twice before she can manage sound.

"I have important things to say," she tries faintly, mostly because he's dragging his teeth over his lower lip and it's frankly a wonder she can manage anything when she's focusing this much on his mouth.

"Extremely important," Baldwin agrees, voice dropping, his tone shifting from light to what she can only describe as smoldering. This is what the romance novelists are always going on about. "And if I want you to shut up so I can hear what's happening in the movie we're supposed to be watching?"

She's barely managing a whisper at this stage. All those butterflies are beating their wings against her ribcage and she's almost light-headed with want, the awkwardness melting into something infinitely more natural for her. "I think we could probably make an exception," she breathes, "so long as—"

And as instructed he kisses her, the hand in her hair tightening and the hand on her thigh guiding her down to press against the bed and pin beneath him. She responds at once, arching up against him and bending her knees to bracket his hips between her thighs. When his lips move to her jaw, her throat, she lets out a strangled, wordless sound, and a high-pitched whine follows when he bites sharply at the juncture of her neck.

"Here's an idea," she gasps, "we could forget the movie entirely—"

"Astoria." His lips move against her skin, breath hot, voice vibrating. "Shut up."

All nervousness is gone when she answers him. "Make me."

The movie is forgotten quickly enough. And, for the record, she's not quiet at all.

[softersinned]

A reminder that Connor Roy was interested in politics at a very young age!

"That's the one who announced his campaign by inviting the government to arrest him, right?" (They melt into each other the way they always do, Astoria's hands on Baldwin's shoulders sliding down to rest against his chest while she leans forward to read over his shoulder.)

"His own family is endorsing an actual fascist over him." (Diana. New to the table. Here for the holiday. Trying not to talk about the elopement while Matthew drinks her coffee.) "I mean, that's got to say something about him."

"Besides that he's—" (Matthew is trying to be delicate, in a way he rarely is, no doubt for his new bride's benefit.) "—odd?"

"I believe the word you're looking for is insane." (Stasia, from across the dining room, peering out the window at a neighbor walking a new dog.)

"Family should support family even if they're insane." (Philippe, disapproving, in a way only Philippe can be.)

"Would you endorse me if I ran for president?" (Freyja, sitting on the table rather than at the table.)

(Verin, shoving her sister's leg with enough force to nearly send her toppling over:) "Fuck, no."

"Bitch." (Said without heat.)

"Fuckwit." (Said without malice.)

"Should we be getting involved at all? Making a donation?" (Matthew pretends he cares about the business, sometimes.)

"Why would our endorsement matter?" (Verin, scathing.) "We're not American."

"And we're forgetting the part where he's insane." (Stasia, given up on trying to get a better glimpse of the dog.)

"Given how Americans handle their own elections, perhaps they could use a better influence." (Ysabeau, dry, sipping her espresso.)

(Baldwin presses a kiss to his wife's wrist before allowing her to release him. Once she's sitting he's tugging her chair closer.) "I think that was the justification for inviting Russian—"

"—intervention?" (Philippe, amused, in a way only Philippe can be.)

"—sabotage?" (Diana, friendly neighborhood American.)

(Astoria leans into her husband again.) "We should look into making some discreet donations to whoever the Democratic nominee is."

"The liberals in that country are as bad as the conservatives." (Ysabeau's distinctly French disdain grows ever stronger. This may be aimed at the friendly neighborhood American, who is certainly too clever to rise to the bait.)

"Sure." (Scathing, dripping with venom: the friendly neighborhood American is neither too clever or all that friendly. Freyja suddenly looks interested in her new sister-in-law for the first time since being introduced.) "One party is actively trying to destroy any hint of human rights while the other is spineless and ineffective, but they're the same."

"Liberals care about the corporate bottom line as much as conservatives." (Verin sneaks a glance at Baldwin, forever prepared for their competitions, determined to win an endorsement of her own.) "Astoria might have a point."

"Practically speaking, our options are to hope for the best and then make a public statement on valuing freedom of the press in our American chapters when we've done nothing to protect it, or to get involved quietly enough that it doesn't draw too much attention, but loudly enough that we can prove it." (Astoria offers Verin a rare smile. She does have a point, thank you very much.)

"Can we go one meal without talking about the business?" (Is Matthew just sore that nobody's paying much attention to him?)

"Any blow to the Roys is worth pursuing." (Baldwin does what must be done: ignores his brother.)

"I don't see how you expect Mum or Verin or Astoria to girlboss under those conditions." (Freyja, bored again.) "And during Women's History Month, too. I thought you were a feminist, Matt."

"Text Alain. Have him look into our options. Find a liberal candidate who's friendly to businesses." (Philippe makes a valiant effort to put an end to it.)

"Has Connor Roy actually come out with a platform?" (Diana makes a valiant effort to get something useful out of the conversation.)

"Not being a fascist simply isn't enough?" (Ysabeau, still disdainful.)

"Mum, I don't see how you expect Diana to girlboss under these conditions." (Freyja, grinning.)

(Astoria catches Baldwin's hand in her own, raises a coffee cup with her other hand, inclines her head towards Diana.) "Welcome to the family."

[terpsikeraunos]

latin words for snakes

anguis: a serpent, snake; esp. in fable as an emblem: of terror, the snaky head of Medusa; of rage, the serpent-girdle of Tisiphone; of art and wisdom, the serpent-team of Medea

aspis: the asp, viper

coluber: a serpent, snake; of the Hydra; of Medusa; of Allecto

draco: a sort of serpent, a dragon; name of a constellation; in eccl. Lat., the Serpent, the Devil

hydrus: a water-serpent, serpent; or Hydros, the constellation of the Waterserpent, called also Anguis and Hydra

serpens: participle of serpo, a creeping thing, creeper, crawler, snake, serpent 

vipera: adder, snake, serpent, in gen.,—prov.: “in sinu viperam habere,” Cic. Har. Resp. 24, 50: “viperam nutricare sub alā,” to nourish a viper in one’s bosom

[campcowboy]

I'm not like my father I'm worse