picturethat (
picturethat) wrote in
bakerstreet2018-12-01 10:32 pm
Entry tags:
Nice day for a white wedding
![]() The Marriage Consummation Meme a smut meme |
The wedding bells have rung - or the correct sacrifices have been made, depending on your culture. Whatever the case may be, you're married now, and the night is yours. However, there is one expectation on you: it's time to consummate the marriage. Whether you're in love, in this marriage because it was arranged, or absolutely in hate with your new spouse, you're with them now. Have you two been intimate before this, or is your first time...with them or first time period? Do you know what you want and are you full of lust, or do you have no clue what's going on? Maybe you even have to seduce your partner who wants nothing to do with this! ...or, most forbidden of all, you're not the one getting married to this person. You just have to be with them on their wedding night, because you want them no matter what!
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belle ❀ beauty and the beast (2017) → f/m
some characters/things i'd be ridiculously into but are not required.
my pref rundown to avoid tl;dr. )
Elizabeth Bennet | Pride and Prejudice | F/M
Alric of House Caelegart | OC | M/F
Re: Alric of House Caelegart | OC | M/F
no subject
no subject
So, Zhenya here doesn't have a nice backstory on her journal like Alric does just yet, but I can give you the cliffs notes right here.
Zhenya is a Tiefling, which is a race of people from D&D. I took her appearance from the D&D canon, but most of her world and background are of my own making. In my world, Tieflings call themselves "Fiendborn" because their species was literally created by Fiends, or demons. Legend says that long ago 14 Fiends, all of them aspects of Asmodeus himself, came to Earth to choose followers from among the mortal people. They chose a tribe of nomadic humans to make their own. Each of the 14 Fiends fathered children with the 14 priestesses of the tribe, and direct descendants of those Fiends and priestesses are still considered nobility among the modern Fiendborn. Zhenya is from one of those noble families.
Zhenya's own backstory starts when her mother, Zhenuun Drugaala, married Prince Chuulga Inhada, the brother of the Fiendborn Emperor. Chuulga Inhada was much younger than the Emperor, but he was also much craftier and considered that he would be a better Emperor. Not long before Zhenuun gave birth to Zhenya, Chuulga staged a massive coup. This involved not only overthrowing and killing the Emperor, but also murdering all of his close family and allies. Since all 14 noble Fiendborn families have been intermarrying for the last several thousand years, this meant killing off most of the nobility in general. Hundreds of Fiendborn nobles were killed; this included Zhenuun's entire family, who were close with the old Emperor. Zhenuun was understandably upset with her husband, so much so that as soon as she had given birth to Zhenya, she left the Emperor's court forever. She subsequently began a long and successful career in the underground resistance to Chuulga's regime, raising Zhenya among fellow revolutionaries.
Zhenya's childhood was very unusual because of this. While most noble Fiendborn children are raised in palaces or on country estates, isolated from the rest of society and surrounded only by other nobles, Zhenya grew up in the heart of the Fiendborn Empire's capital city among common people. These were middle class, educated people for the most part, rather than the poorest and most vulnerable Fiendborn, but Zhenya still sees herself as a fighter on behalf of The People because of this association. She was made aware of her noble heritage from an early age and was taught many of the manners and customs of the court by her mother, but only in the most complete secrecy.
When Zhenya was 15, Zhenuun was finally arrested by the Emperor's guard and imprisoned. Being a former wife to the Emperor did not earn her mercy; she was quickly executed. Zhenya, naturally, became more devoted to resistance against her father the Emperor than ever before. She had fallen in by now with the leaders of the resistance movement, which included both commoners and one or two other noble people living in secrecy. She lived with them now, or when they were unavailable she lived entirely on her own. She spent her life organizing the growing number of people unhappy with Chuulga Inhada's reign and slowly infiltrating his court herself.
The resistance plans changed quite suddenly when Zhenya was 17. Out from the savage Steppe lands came a mysterious refugee named Kailaan Inhada. He'd been sent to the capital by his own mother, who had recently died of illness. He revealed himself to be the son of the old Emperor, the very last survivor of his family and the only heir to his throne. He had been in hiding on the Steppe all his life, but he was intent upon securing the throne. Zhenya and other members of the resistance threw their support wholeheartedly behind this true heir as soon as they could verify who he was. They taught him their political views and did their best to mold him into a person who might make a better Emperor than Chuulga Inhada.
After two more years the chance for a second coup came. Ongoing wars with human kingdoms had driven the Emperor to conscript more people to the Fiendborn army than ever, but all of the troops were sent far from the city to the battlefront. The Emperor's personal guard was constantly on the lookout for members of the resistance, but their numbers had dwindled as more young people had joined the army. Then one night, Chuulga Inhada's eldest son and heir was murdered by a group of his younger sons: his own propensity for killing off siblings had apparently been passed on to his children. The news was made public immediately because the murder had taken place outside of the palace. In the ensuing chaos, Zhenya Drugaala and the other members of the resistance took control of the palace and killed Chuulga Inhada. As expected, Kailaan Inhada took back his father's throne.
And now Kailaan Inhada is Emperor and he has a lot more to worry about than a group of underground freedom fighters. He has his kingdom to worry about - and the wars that they are fighting. He's intent upon making peace with other kingdoms instead of trying to conquer new territory, and this means forming alliances. Unfortunately for Zhenya, he's decided that he needs a close personal ally - and a keen political mind - to represent his interests in the court of the humans, the greatest threat to the Empire. This ally would has to live with the humans, far from home and far from any other Fiendborn. Zhenya is learning the hard way that even after complete victory, someone always has to sacrifice everything for the greater good.
...Which, if you're interested, might be where human prince Alric comes in. Sound interesting to you?
no subject
I can see a number of places to tie things together! In particular, Alric likely would have spent the last couple of years traveling the world, visiting friendly (or at least amicable) nations on an extended quest to win tokens of goodwill from neighboring sovereigns. If Chuulga was especially aggressive, particularly toward Kaitheny, in comparison to his predecessors, it's very possibly Kaitheny would have refused to recognize his sovereignty (something to which other diplomatic details could have contributed, as well). With that in mind, Alric might have paid his diplomatic respects at Chuulga's court (if he was even welcome there at all) but refused to interfere in internal Fiendborn affairs. Exactly how all that plays out really depends on the Fiendborn empire's diplomatic protocols and who they were formally at war with or only informally hostile with, etc, etc.
But, whether he was able to visit the court or not, he could also have arranged a secret meeting with Kailaan, possibly brokered by Zhenya (since it sounds like she was as a lieutenant of the resistance at the time) to get a sense of where Kaitheny would stand with respect to the newcomer, and depending on the impressions he picked up. He could maybe have made some guarantees at least regarding diplomatic relations, and possibly even clandestine Kaithenian assistance, if Kaitheny found Chuulga distasteful/threatening enough. It's not how Alric or his father likes to do things, but there are limits to their idealism.
At any rate, I'm assuming that would be how he and Zhenya first meet, and he might visit again with a Kaithenian delegation at Kailaan's coronation. I don't really know how she is yet, obviously, so I'm not sure if it would be more likely that they were attracted on their own, or that a match was arranged for them, or what makes more sense to you.
The one snag I'm not 100% sure how to resolve is that Kaitheny at least likes to tell itself that it's a Holy Empire and all Pure and Not Demonic and so on, including more than a little bit of human chauvinism. Many members of the Kaithenian nobility are already extremely twitchy about Alric and his mother, so if he brought home a Tiefling without a great reason, it's hard to imagine them not flipping out, never mind actually advising the match. So I'm pondering what political situation would make a Kaitheny-Fiendborn Empire alliance pressing enough that the Kaithenian nobility would restrain themselves to only moderate outrage.
Maybe if there's some other shared threat--like the Fiendborn Empire not merely falling into Kailaan's hands, but fragmenting, with Chuulga's other heirs still holding enough power to be a serious threat, and maybe allying with some other nasty powers? There's a country basically run by vampires in Alric's setting, for example, and I could see exiled would-be-heirs doing something truly reckless involving demonic pacts to secure greater power, etc. Let me know your thoughts!]
no subject
Let's see, first of all, about Alric visiting Chuulga Inhada during his reign and meeting Zhenya that way: that's a cool idea, I hadn't thought of that. I guess before you decide if Alric could have visited the Fiendborn Empire during Chuulga Inhada's time, I'd better give you some sense of its internal policies and foreign relations.
So, the first thing about how I've envisioned the Fiendborn Empire is that it's got a very, very rocky history with its neighbors. This is due to the nature of Fiendborn religion and culture. The Fiendborn religion centers on its main god, Asmodeus, who is said to have chosen the Fiendborn people as followers out of all of the people in the world. This inevitably means that all other people were not chosen - they were not deemed worthy. Because of this throughout the first couple thousand years of Fiendborn history all of those who were not Fiendborn were considered a fundamentally lesser beings, particularly humans. Humans were not allowed into the Fiendborn Empire at all except as slaves and prisoners of war, of which there were often many - the Fiendborn Empire is an Empire because its early rulers constantly waged war to conquer human lands. Special occasions in the ancient Fiendborn Empire used to be marked by the sacrifice of a human, preferably a high-born one, on the altar of Asmodeus. Things aren't like that in the modern Empire, of course, and officially humans are supposed to be considered equal in every way to the Fiendborn. But unofficially, the ancient prejudices are still strongly believed - most Fiendborn people don't really see humans as, well, people quite like they are. Refugees from human kingdoms will sometimes come through the Empire to escape war in their own lands, but they very rarely settle there. Because of all this, the Fiendborn Empire remains very homogeneous - there aren’t many people who aren't Fiendborn in the Fiendborn Empire.
Of course, as I mentioned, the official policy for the last few hundred years has not been to wage war on humans. These are modern times, after all, and the world is more interconnected than it used to be. Every country needs allies to get anything done, and the Fiendborn Empire is no exception. For quite a long time this has meant trying to forge good relations between the Empire and its close neighbors, which are mostly human or multiracial kingdoms. It’s been an uphill battle to establish large-scale trade or political alliances with anyone else given the Empire’s history, and the Fiendborn people’s general outlook on humans has not inspired a great amount of trust from human-ruled countries. But by this point in history - or at least by 21 years before this point in history - the Empire had succeeded in establishing decent relations with most of its neighbors.
And then Chuulga Inhada ascended to power, and during his militaristic regime a great deal of this progress was lost. Chuulga had been a general in the Empire’s standing army before he’d ever had designs on becoming Emperor, so most of his experience had been military rather than diplomatic. The coup that he eventually led against his older brother, Kaiga Inhada, was backed by the army - so as Emperor much of his focus was on fulfilling the army’s wishes. Furthermore, most of his personal friends and allies were fellow military leaders, and it was these men that he made into his advisors after killing off the majority of Fiendborn nobility who would have otherwise filled such roles. All of this led to an aggressive, nationalist regime that broke trade agreements, refused to honor old alliances with other kingdoms, and eventually declared war on several of its neighbors in order to gain access to their sea trade routes. These wars and the smaller fights that have broken out because of them have been going on for about fifteen years by now, and they are the wars that the new Emperor Kailaan is working to end.
So, that’s a bit of background on how the Fiendborn Empire’s foreign relations have been. Do you think Alric might have gone to Chuulga Inhada’s court anyway? Depending on how you want to play it, Kaitheny can still have had decent enough relations with the Empire even during Chuulga’s reign, as long as it never got between Chuulga and something he wanted. He could also have come to the Empire in order to try and save an alliance that was in danger of falling apart, or perhaps to try and stop a different alliance from forming - I can imagine Chuulga trying to form some kind of relationship with the vampire kingdom you mentioned, for example. If he did come to the court of Chuulga Inhada, he’d probably have been able to meet Zhenya directly, although he probably couldn’t have met any other member of the resistance without sneaking out of the castle and sticking out like a sore, very human thumb in the capital city. Still, that could definitely work! She was posing as a servant during her time in the palace, so she’d probably have made sure that she was one of the people serving the Kaithenian diplomats in order to observe their prince.
If you don’t think that would work, we can always say that Alric hasn’t been to the Empire before, but is doing so now that there’s a new Emperor on the throne. If this was the case, we could even say that Kaitheny is one of the nations that has been at war with the Fiendborn Empire and Alric is hoping to negotiate a truce. That would probably change the tone of his and Zhenya’s first meeting, but it could work if you wanted to play it that way. They could probably get married to help secure a lasting peace.
Of course, if none of that works for you then I’m always happy to change things around. I’ve got a backstory and world built around my characters to contextualize them, but I can change them to help suit whatever story we want to build, as well!
As to the idea that Kaitheny and the Fiendborn Empire have extremely different alignments, I think that could be something really interesting to play out! I imagine that the Fiendborn are definitely what people from a country that sees itself as Good and Holy would consider "Unholy" because of their worship of Asmodeus. But of course the Fiendborn don't see themselves as Unholy - they were just chosen to be the followers of a god that other people fear. If they were asked why they followed a god like Asmodeus, most Fiendborn would probably point out that gods who are considered "good" are just as brutal as Asmodeus can be. And of course, after bringing home a Fiendborn bride Alric would probably have the unenviable job of explaining to his relatives and his subjects that just because a country is "Unholy", it doesn't mean that they can't form political alliances in the name of peace. Does that sound like something you might like to play out?
Anywho I see I've rambled for... quite a long time myself. Tell me what you think!]
I see your rambling and raise you another TLDR XD
Kaitheny's recent political history has been a bit rocky, as well. The Empire's about 800 years old by Alric's time, starting out as a military dictatorship, and while it tried to make itself more legitimate since then, old trends of conquest and aspirations to match and overtake the grandeur of legendary past empires kept coming up through its history. For the last 200 years or so, the royal family had been the second Praeclarus dynasty, which oversaw both the greatest period of expansion (~200-150 years ago) and the greatest reversals of fortune (~100-50 years ago) in the latter half of the Empire's history. The second-to-last Praeclarus Emperor, Claudius II (ruled from 48 years ago until 14 years ago), and his father, Caelestis VII (72 years ago-48 years ago), both had pretty steady hands and helped to stabilize the Empire's borders. Basically, they ruthlessly bullied and threatened and skirmished everyone who crossed them, but avoided over-reaching with far-flung missions of conquest.
Claudius II's son Marcus IV was a nutbar (enough that he came to be known colloquially as Mad King Mark), and he completely undermined the steady-if-not-exactly-friendly foreign relations and military situation that his predecessors had established. He simultaneously sparked far larger wars while also weakening Kaitheny's standing; instead of skirmishes to make a point, he sparked bitter, back-and-forth battles. During his father's illness, he acted as regent starting 14 years ago, then had himself crowned 11 years ago... until he was deposed and executed just 2 years later for having poisoned and murdered his father for the throne.
The point of all this being, 21 years ago, Chuulga would have had credible reasons to think Kaitheny's border was ripe for the taking and Kaiga was just too chicken to go for it--and instead wind up in a seven-year-long stalemate of skirmishes, followed by five years of indecisive, viciously brutal exchanges, with a rival superpower.
Now--nine years ago, Alric's grandfather Marius stepped in not as Emperor but as Regent. He was actually Claudius II's older brother, but had ran off so he wouldn't have to deal with Court nonsense. His son Dieter, Alric's father, had drawn Imperial attention as a young man for his heroic deeds, which led to Claudius II discovering Marius hiding out in the countryside and forcing him to accept at least a Duchy (which he passed off to Dieter so he could go back to playing with swords). Since he was known to the Court, respected basically everywhere as a swordmaster as someone level-headed and serious, he was brought in as Regent to get things on an even keel while his son Dieter came up to speed on Imperial politics. He stayed Regent for 3 years, until Alric's father took over, 6 years ago, and began a concentrated campaign of repairing Kaitheny's diplomatic and military positions.
So after 12 years of bitter fighting that went nowhere, Chuulga's childish prince nemesis on the Kaithenian throne and demoralized but furious soldiers on the front lines, would have been replaced with a no-nonsense, practically legendary swordsman who had the military's absolute trust and restored sanity at the border, followed by a young but renowned knight looking to patch up foreign relations if possible. Basically, a perfect opportunity to save face and make at least symbolic diplomatic overtures. Since the quest Alric undertook to earn his knighthood was mainly diplomatic, it would be natural for him to go and try to smooth over the frayed relationship with Chuulga's court--even if the diplomatic relationship was still a bit tense.
SO. I'd suggest that maybe Alric did visit Chuulga's court to test the water, make nice, try to earn a token of goodwill, etc... but perhaps he could have been approached for a secret meeting, rather than sneaking out, himself. Especially if the Chuulga's court would be inclined to not take him very seriously as a potential center of espionage, since he is generally very paladin-y and earnest. That's where I'm thinking of Zhenya, undercover at Court, having made arrangements--playing double agent and getting herself assigned to "spy" on him, or convincing whoever was supposed to observe Alric that they had better things to do with their time, whatever. She could even have started out by (subtly) questioning Alric on why Kaitheny wanted friendlier diplomatic relations with Chuulga's court, to feel out his intentions before introducing him to Kailaan.
Another thought: could it be that even after Kailaan's coronation, some of the Fiendborn nobility/military harbor hostility toward Kaitheny, and vice-versa, as a motivation for the two Courts (or at least the two Emperors' trusted advisers) feeling some kind of arranged marriage would be valuable?]
no subject
Yes, I like the idea that Kaitheny and the Fiendborn Empire have been fighting for a while. It sounds like we both picture Chuulga Inhada starting the war by trying to send his army into Kaitheny by force, leading the aging/sickening Claudius II to fight back. The fighting would come to a stalemate with no land lost or won by either side for seven years. Then Marcus IV declares himself regent and Chuulga Inhada sees a new opportunity for victory over a new and clearly impulsive nemesis - but Marcus responds in kind. The fighting erupts again, this time with more aggression from both sides, causing the border between the two empires to wobble constantly as each army gains and loses land by the day. Finally Marcus is executed and is replaced by Marius, who is a much steadier leader, and just three years later by Dieter who is similarly steady. I have a question here - do you think the lead-up to Marcus being deposed would have caused enough confusion to seriously weaken his army? And did the question of succession come before or after his execution - was there a crisis and scramble to drag Marius and Dieter to court, or were they already ready to take power by the time Marcus was officially deposed and executed? I ask this to get a good sense of whether Chuulga's army - though they were tired and seriously demoralized by now, I imagine - might have made strides to finally get into Kaitheny before Marius took control, before being summarily pushed back again during Marius's regency.
I agree that this would be a good time from Kaitheny's point of view for Alric to come in and try to make nice so that maybe the stupid war could end. Initially I wasn't sure that Chuulga Inhada would allow Alric to come into the country for anything but to declare surrender, though, because at this point nothing's changed from his perspective except that he's going to have to fight against smarter leadership once again. But upon further thought, I think I might have come up with a few scenarios that would make him more likely to at least entertain the idea of a Kaithenian nobility coming to his court. First, he might be lead to believe that Alric is coming to talk surrender, especially if his army has made headway into Kaitheny during the time Marcus was being deposed and/or in more recent times during the turnover from Marius to Dieter. He'll probably want to kick Alric out as soon as he finds out that he is not offering surrender, but before that happens he'd probably have enough time to meet Zhenya. Second, it could be that Chuulga wants nothing to do with diplomatic talks from Kaitheny, but his advisers convince him that he needs to learn more about this new Emperor and his family before trying to fight him the same way they fought Marcus (and unsuccessfully fought Marius). And third, maybe Chuulga believes that Alric is not coming to offer complete surrender, but instead to offer free passage for Fiendborn traders through Kaitheny and to the sea - since access to sea trade is supposedly his reason for going to war with Kaitheny in the first place. He'd be willing to talk for a bit longer if he thought that was Alric's aim. Of course, in all of these scenarios Alric would have to be aware that he's visiting a highly hostile court and that he needs to watch his step. Do any of those options sound okay?
Finally, I think that no matter what happens with Alric and Chuulga Inhada's talks, Chuulga won't pull his troops out. I'd imagine that the two armies would be fighting up until the day of Chuulga's assassination, if that's okay with you. It's his constant warring that leads to his dwindling popularity and gives Kailaan an opening to seize power, after all. I would think that one of the first things on Kailaan's to-do list once he becomes Emperor is to figure out how to pull out of Kaitheny without looking like he's cowardly or quick to surrender in front of his new subjects. Along with, as you said, the fact that the Fiendborn are likely to be very hostile toward Kaitheny for killing their troops during war, I imagine that this would make it very hard to pull out of war gracefully and without angering his people. So, I'd think that this would be a very good reason for Alric and Zhenya to marry - it would at least start to force peace between the two countries. Does that work for you?
....And of course I couldn't be succinct. We are both utter TL;DR-ers.
no subject
I think we agree on that border war history! I'd say the Kaithenian army was definitely weakening toward the end of Marcus' reign, but it had gone through cycles throughout his rulership as he drew resources away for some nutso fight he wanted to pick elsewhere, but then added new, increasingly awful weapons and tactics at the border to repel the newest Fiendborn counter-attack. For example, one of the military advances he oversaw was basically FF6-style Magitek, industrializing magic principles into weaponry... ...with predictably really bad environmental effects as the weapons drained and disrupted local magical energy and/or consumed local spirits for power. One of his early experiments involved capturing the mortal avatar of one of the gods of another nation, and hooking them up to a magi-tech armor as a power battery. So, the kind of things international treaties would have outlawed except that they were so obviously bad, awful, atrocious ideas that no one else was really trying to do them anyway.
Especially since it's pretty well known among scholars that depleting magical energy and destroying the local spirit-ecology is basically how demons spread, in their setting. Not just "people with horns and an inclination toward bad attitudes" demons, but "literally here to devour the essence of all things and reduce the world to nothingness" demons. Asmodeus may be an edgelord and out for domination, but I don't think even he wants the world to be consumed by Lovecraftian Things From Beyond.
As to the Kaithenian court, my thinking is that a few upper-tier nobles contacted Marius to ensure his availability before they actually had Marcus deposed, and Marius became regent within a matter of days of Marcus being taken into custody. He wasn't actually executed until about a year later, but he didn't exactly have a lot of friends eager to fight for him, by that point. Chuulga's army could have gained a bit of ground in the first few days of confusion until news of the situation reached the border, but Marius is sort of a living legend as a swordsman and leader, so even before the implementation of a new strategy, just the rumor of his Regency would be a huge morale boost for Kaithenian troops.
For Alric's visit, I could see some mix of those possibilities. Kaitheny is nearly as strong a trade power as it is a military power, and sea access is one of their big things, as well as being geographically central enough that nearly everyone has to either go through them, traverse several mountain ranges, or sail all the way around a continent, so the third point makes sense as one of Chuulga's interests; and with Dieter's relatively soft-touch approach to diplomacy, it wouldn't be unreasonable for Chuulga to think Kaitheny's leadership is, if not necessarily looking to surrender, meek enough to negotiate highly favorable terms. Growing up where he did, and mostly seeing the mutually aggressive approach of Claudius II followed by the erratic failure/ferocity mix of Marcus IV, he might be a bit confused at the play-nice-but-hit-hard diplomacy of the Caelegart dynasty. I could see him allowing the visit partly just to figure out what the hell Kaitheny is playing at now after a few years of relative quiet and what he'd probably see as mixed messages (i.e. "ffs do they want to fight or don't they?!") at the border. Either way, Alric would be up front that he can't make any absolute promises, but he can certainly help open negotiations.
For the rest, yeah, that makes sense. Alric's in no position to arrange more than a short-term armistice, and if something flares at the border, that could break down instantly, all the more so if Chuulga just gets impatient or wants to test Kaitheny's resolve or whatever. And yeah I can see that working on the Kaithenian side. The whole court doesn't have to like it, but it's a good enough reason for most of the court (even if they don't really like demonic-looking people) to decide it's better than rejecting the offer and starting a whole new war. ...she might not have a fun time at the Kaithenian court, but that's another barrel of fish!
...anything else to discuss for setup, or should we actually start a scene..? XD
no subject
And yep, it sounds like we've got everything worked out. I think it's time to start a scene! Do you want to do their first meeting as a couple before the wedding? Or should they reunite at their wedding itself? I'm happy to write a starter, unless you really want to start!
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