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bakerstreet2023-11-02 06:34 pm
hellboi) wrote in bakerstreet2023-11-02 06:34 pm
Arranged Marriage AU supremacy
Marriage for love is a such a modern concept. In the past, marriage was
recognised as a social contract. Unions were entered into for many
reasons: to obtain property, to unite families, to carry on a bloodline,
et cetera. Whatever the reason, congratulations, you're getting married!
How to Play:
Post with your character | fandom | and any preferences.
Be sure to mention any scenarios you are interested or not interested in playing.
Tag Others.
Be awesome to each other.
Have fun!
POSSIBLE REASONS:
STATION: You come from a royal, noble, or otherwise distinguished family who has chosen a suitable spouse for you.
FEUD: You are being married to put an end to the bitter enmity between your two families.
ECONOMICS: Your economic state and/or your station will improve through the union, though one of you may be marrying down.
EMPIRE: You and your spouse are merging your businesses and/or property to create something more influential or profitable.
TRIBUTE: You have been offered as a gift or appeasement, alternately you're the spoils of war.
BLOODLINE: Carrying on your distinguished family name has fallen to you and the equally well-bred spouse of your family's selection.
DISAPPROVAL: Your marriage has been arranged to keep you away from the person with whom you truly wish to be.
POSSIBLE SCENARIOS
FIRST MEETING: This is the very first time you're meeting your future spouse.
COURTSHIP: To get to know each other and encourage affection, your family has approved of you going on dates.
ENGAGEMENT PARTY: Be it a huge, formal affair or a small, intimate get together, you're celebrating (or pretending).
WEDDING DAY: The big day!
RECEPTION: The big party!
WEDDING NIGHT: Every meme needs a smut prompt, right?
HONEYMOON: Where will you go with your new spouse and what will you do there?
Maedhros | the silmarillion | ota
Shalom | Path to Nowhere | OTA, F/F preferred
and any potential Rahu's running around.]Arslan | Heroic Legend of Arslan | OTA
Wulf Frecasson | Lord of the Rings
christine delacroix | original character
All important info is here, but I'm happy to AU her into any world. ]
Albert de Morcerf | Gankutsuou
ciel phantomhive | kuroshitsuji
integra hellsing / hellsing
kallian tabris | dragon age
bix caleen || andor || ota
dan heng ( honkai: star rail ) OTA
he's a dutiful, but generally stoic ruler whose only joy are the battles and wars he gets to fight against hordes of enemies (he has a Normal Relationship with destruction stemming from his more draconic instincts, wdym). chances are he views an arranged marriage with the same general dispassion and/or disdain if it's done for political reasons... alternatively if he's given someone as tribute (a commoner from the luofu? a noble/royal from another country as a peace offering?), depending on their attitude he'd either a) have to break them in in any way you find compelling (gently or non-gently); or b) protect them from the insanity of bureaucracy and other stupid ruling-related BS, especially if they're the sunshine to his grump.
personality-wise, dan heng is a little cold, but very responsible. he's also very, very weak to shows of kindness. if you're into any other scenarios, let me know! i'm also open to turning this into a more long-standing psl if the interest arises. disclaimer that i may not be the quickest tagger, though. ]
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i'm not too familiar with his world, but having read your basic info post, it seems he comes from a commoner sort of background...? i'm kind of thinking of a bridal offering scenario from thivir's people, but i'm definitely open to other scenarios you might have in mind! ]
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but honestly, i was thinking much the same - bridal offering as maybe a means of peace. i know plenty about star rail so i can easily fit theo into whatever scenario. ]
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i can jive with that. if it works with your worldbuilding, if the wood was aligned with yaoshi / the abundance, we could easily say they were at war with the xianzhou. and perhaps because of their connection with abundance, the offered bride is given to the high elder because they have to watch over the roots of the ambrosial arbour?
would theo have been chosen to represent his people? i'm good with any arrangement you'd prefer, i just thought it'd be funny if it wasn't supposed to be him, necessarily, but the imbibitor lunae picks him among all the offered traditional brides because he's a Warrior. ahahahaha... ]
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but i do like this idea of theo not being originally one of the brides. maybe he had been brought along as protection initially? ]
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and a little sparring session makes him all, "yes. i'll court that one to marriage." haha!
thaaaat said, we could write that first time they could be alone without other people around for this thread? i'm also down for just tossing them closer to the wedding or even after the wedding, whatever you prefer. ]
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tenkuubashi shou | tokyo aliens
edelgard von hresvelg | fire emblem: three houses/hopes
I may also be interested in a jamjar setting where our characters are paired off soon after arrival and have to deal with that. let's discuss! ]
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i think it'd be fun to kick things off at the wedding + maybe there's an attack on the reception right after they tie the knot, so they get a chance to fight side by side? maybe they know of each other (nyx has been sent along with the diplomatic party and not very subtley zoned out/looked bored af during negotiations) but neither have seen the other in action before. ]
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lol I'm 100% into the reception getting attacked though. so they probably like sat in negotiations with a group, maybe had a superficial conversation or two, and in the middle of the post-wedding feast edelgard's given word that a drop ship or two has been sighted? I don't mind writing the starter if that works for you but if you've got something you want to run with that's also cool! ]
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It was a cushy assignment, heading security for the Lucian delegation to the Adrestian Empire, and that's precisely why Nyx had hated every moment of it. By all rights, he should be out there on the front lines, leading his men and fellow Glaives, taking down as many of those mechanical bastards as he can. He doesn't understand why the Commander had sent him, of all people, to a foreign country to play babysitter to a gaggle of snake-tongued, soft-handed politicians while they talk mealy-mouthed around the dirty business of war.
Though at least the nobles of FĂłdlan don't seem as sheltered from the realities of the battlefield as some of the ones at home, nestled within the powerful barrier of the great Wall of Lucis and kept safe by the sacrifice of Her soldiers.
He'd spent the last three weeks stone-faced and stiff in the presence of nobility and diplomats, listening to not a word of the negotiations and speaking brusquely only when spoken to - and the rest of the time chatting up servants, peeling potatoes with cooks, pumping bellows for the blacksmiths, bothering Imperial soldiers to spar and train, flirting left and right, and generally making enough of a nuisance of himself that the Lucian ambassador had acquired a distinct furrow in her brow every time she looked his way. Petty, maybe, but Nyx was happy to take what small victories he could - next time, you'll know better than to bring me along.
When the topic of marriage had come up, he'd been standing unobtrusively behind the ambassador, daydreaming about bringing down one of those damned Nif airships. When his name had come up - well, Nyx had visibly choked, and then stood there wide-eyed and frozen like a stunned animal, his mind a void of white noise and jumbled confusion as tongued flapped and hands clasped in agreement and a chorus of voices rose and came to accord, every eye in the room upon him.
He'd never had a chance to protest. His King had already agreed, and Nyx knows his duty. What was there to say?
And now... here he stands, stone-faced and frozen again in the side chambers leading up to the cathedral, a servant fussing over him on either side. Done up like some prancing courtier, stuffed into a suit of stifling black brocade dripping with delicate links of silver chain. The cloth pulls tight over his shoulders and chest, and there's an ominous creak when he tries to roll an arm. One wrong move and he'd probably pop a seam. Nyx hadn't let them comb out his braids or remove his blades - he might be sworn to Lucis' service, might be insulting his high-and-mighty Imperial bride to be, might be getting elevated to Imperial Consort or Royal Husband or whatever ridiculous title was being bestowed upon him- Nyx doesn't care. They wouldn't strip the soldier from him, nor his Galahdian heritage.
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There is one mantra Edelgard has repeated to herself over and over throughout this unsettling process: Adrestia needs stability. One war isn't so far behind her and another threatens. No stranger to the concept of political marriages, she finds that the prospect of entering one of her own still chafes.
One late-night discussion with Hubert, her most trusted advisor, led to him suggesting a handful of people, including himself, who she could offer as a middleman to the Kingdom of Lucis, all of them friends who fought beside her in the last war. Friends who will certainly do so again. Having a new enemy means they may once again be risking their lives at her side and under her command; she can't help but feel distaste at the idea of telling them who to join their lives to as well.
And, just as it did when she launched her first war, it feels both weak and cruel to ask any of them to do what she is unwilling to do herself.
Nyx Ulric was not someone she imagined having suggested at all. He barely seemed to pay attention during negotiations, he quickly developed a reputation for challenging her men, and she began to wonder if she and Hubert were the only people in a mile radius who he hadn't flirted with. He may be a trusted general with the experience she would prefer to have at her side on a battlefield when facing off with a mechanical army but is he intelligent as well as brave? Is he as capable of empathy as bloodshed? Offering him as an option was either a favor, given his supposed military experience, or the Kingdom's way of testing a young emperor. The fact that he cared not at all about their diplomatic discussions until his name was mentioned isn't inspiring, to say the least.
But something about the genuine surprise on his face in the moment is promising, in a way. A surprise marriage to someone who probably hasn't even imagined trying to manipulate her is preferable to the dozen silver-tongued proposals she's received within the last two years from nobles jockeying for favor, especially since her upcoming reforms mean Adrestian nobles will no longer be the exclusive club they've maintained for years.
Many are excited about the emperor taking a husband, regardless of the reason. Some are not, his rumored lack of noble upbringing something that would have been a scandal in her father's day and yet another sign of changing times.
Hubert is among those distinctly unexcited, although his concerns are simply her security and well-being. "It isn't too late to have Ferdinand stand in," he deadpans in a low voice before the ceremony begins and she smiles for the first time in forty-eight hours straight. A small tight smile but undeniably present as she assures him that the show will go on. This is nothing she can't manage.
That smile is more or less gone as she walks alone down the aisle in white silk and lace, her pale hair crowned with a garland of white and red flowers. She refused a sweeping train in favor of being able to move more freely but it's still the most elegant dress she's ever worn. When Nyx emerges and she finds herself face to face with him in front of the archbishop, she realizes she wasn't sure what she expected from him. Ceremonial armor? The truth is that he looks... nice.
If a bit like someone's beloved pet forced into a tiny vest when he wants to run around freely. She isn't entirely without empathy but her vows are said in a firm clear voice, her eyes on his, and it isn't quite a performance -- their vows are a promise that require no deeper feeling from her -- but it may be plain that she is aware of the eyes on her and how her own outward certainty affects her people.
And may affect the party from Lucis as well.
At the end of the ceremony, as they're pronounced married, she steps forward to close the space between them and rises on her toes to meet him in the traditional kiss. It's her first since she was a teenager but surely this is too formal and compulsory for that to be obvious.
kougyoku ren | magi | ota
Cassandra de Rolo | Critical Role
nami | one piece
ada pearce | oc
economics; engagement party
[ The man standing beside her is facing the crowd while wearing a smirk, but he's speaking quietly to her. The noted playboy and dashing adventurer Julian De Abbrixio also happens to be the heir to a cattle empire and has been the goal of many mothers wanting to attach their daughter to him. These woman now only just manage to hold back sneers as they clap politely for the couple presented to them by Julian's father. Once the congratulations die down, Vincenzo De Abbrixio gives them leave to enjoy the party and the rest of their evening. At that, Julian turns towards her and claps his hands together. ]
Now that all the boring parts are out of the way, shall we dance?
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His voice at her side jars her out of her self-imposed reverie, and Ada glances up to meet his gaze with her own, trying to school her expression into something less trepidatious than she feels. ]
Yes, I suppose that would be the proper thing to do. [ Proper, in that he should sweep her into his arms before they take a turn across the dance floor — with everyone watching. Only, suddenly, she feels rather nervous about the prospect. What if she accidentally steps on his toe? ]
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I hardly ever do the proper thing. But dancing can be delightful. Let's give it a go, shall we?
[ Offering her his arm, he makes to move them onto the dance floor where others are already starting to gather as the first song is performed by a group of musicians. ]
And we can make wild assumptions about one another based on our dancing skills or lack thereof. Won't that be fun?
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[ She's willing to make that light concession, even as she gently slides her arm through his, her fingers curving slightly against the sleeve of his jacket as he leads them out — and all the while, trying not to think about how many eyes are on them at this very moment.
Still, there's something in his manner that prompts a wider smile from her, a subtle duck of her head, a faint flush of pink across her cheekbones, before her gaze flicks up to his again and she decides to venture a bolder reply. ]
Have you made any wild assumptions about me thus far, sir?
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[ He absolutely has not, but he's nothing if not spontaneous. ]
I assume you eat spinach but not asparagus, you always put your right stocking on first and... [ He gives a dramatic pause but it's really to think up a third thing. ] you can touch the tip of your tongue to the end of your nose. How have I done?
[ There's a proud look on his face as he stops them and turns towards her to start the dance. ]
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Well...
[ She offers a dramatic pause, but she's also thinking back on what he's guessed about her. ]
Asparagus certainly isn't my favorite. You're actually correct pertaining to the stockings, and... [ She decides to be bold, even if she can already picture her mother's eyes widening in horror from across the ballroom, and scrunches up her face so she can touch her tongue to the tip of her nose, right there in front of him, but stops before she dissolves into giggles entirely. ] I cannot believe I just demonstrated that for you.
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I am most honored that you did!
[ He moves to take her hand in his to start the dance, so charmed by her that he doesn't know or care if anyone has seen what she just did. ]
I now know my assumptions truly have merit, and that I am a very good guesser.
[ Throwing a wink her way, he adds: ]
Now go on: it's your turn to make guesses about me.
daemon targaryen | house of the dragon
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i hope you were expecting a novel bc you're getting one i guess
What, after all, is there to fear? She is the Lady of the Shield-Arm, sister to the King, last shieldmaiden of Rohan, beloved and proud. She has stood in the face of terror and death, defiant to the last, and prevailed. She owes no shame and no doubt. Even far from home, and perhaps never to return, she is herself. That is enough to rally behind.
And it is not wholly a terrible thing, that she is far from home. For so long, Meduseld was a prison, if a beloved one; the shadow of her past will not easily lift from its walls. If there is a small voice that whispers that she has only exchanged it for another prison, whose stone walls lack the warmth of wood and thatch... well. She is used to silencing such voices, in the face of duty.
She cannot protect Rohan with spear and shield, as Éomer does, as she once wished so dearly to do. Her arm has healed better than expected from the Witch-King's blow, but it will always be weak, her flank never well-protected. Battle, then, was a brief and surprisingly ugly dream: the only remnant is the scars. But she can protect Rohan, all the same; place herself in her people's service in the way more often expected of a maid; win not renown but alliance and security. She does not relish the thought, but she sees her duty clearly enough, and she has never allowed herself to fear duty.
So she is not afraid.
Call it anxious, rather; a tension that seizes her not unlike the fraught anticipation she felt before the charge; a fluttering in her chest and a prickling at the nape of her neck. Rarely has she felt so uncertain of herself. Rarely has she had cause to.
She has been spared the full humiliation, at least. She would have borne it, if she must, with her head held as high as possible - but that would not have been half as high as she would like, and while she still will not admit to fearing it, she will grant that shame is something she does not stomach well. A thing which, gladly, Éomer understands as well as she does; which is why, when their negotiations reached the point of discussing the wedding itself, he put his foot down. The ceremony might be done in whatever manner their people deemed fit; but there would be no public, bawdy bedding, one way or the other. The Targaryen lord could take her to bed in Rohirric fashion, or he take her not at all.
Admittedly, Rohirric fashion is something of a loose concept, in this case. Weddings in the Mark are a wholly different affair, not least because longer courtship is expected; and it is properly the father of the bride who escorts her from the feast to await her husband. But Éowyn's father has, of course, been dead some twenty years; and Théoden, who was the nearest to it, lies hundreds of miles away with simbelmynë growing on his barrow; so it was her brother who took her hand and drew her away from the celebration, who kissed her cheeks and embraced her and wept a little, with a look she could swear she last saw him wear in the Houses of Healing.
And then he left, too, and now she is alone; stripped of the heavy embroidery of gown and cloak, with nothing but herself. But she is herself, still, and if she trembles a little, it is only because the clinging shift she wears is too thin for the evening. She is not afraid.
Nor, she tells herself, is she self-conscious. She is a beautiful woman, tall and slender and fine-featured, and he could ask for no fairer bride; nor does she need his approval to know that she is fair. It is only by chance that, taking down her hair, she has arranged it so that the long golden sheaf of it falls across her left shoulder, only by chance that this arrangement hides the knotted scars at her elbow and wrist, the slight misshapenness of her ribs on that side. She is not ashamed of her scars, ugly as they are. It is only that they should not be the first thing to greet him.
Nor is she embarrassed by her near-nakedness, and the thought of what the night brings. Apprehensive, perhaps, as a maid is bound to be apprehensive, but not embarrassed. Not self-conscious. Not afraid.
She is relieved, though, to hear him approaching. She can be patient, but there is a kind of torture in waiting. She exhales as the door opens, drawing herself up to her full height, and arranging her features into a smile that is welcoming enough, even if there in no warmth in her eyes. Warmth is not where she excels.
"My lord. I had begun to think you were having second thoughts."
eats it in one bite
Daemon has no high opinion of the kingdom of Rohan, crags of stone and rough buildings of thatched straw and wood perched atop them, and all of it stinking of horse. Perhaps that is the dragon in him, to see Rohan for what would make it burn quickest. Caraxes could reduce the whole sprawl of it to embers with one breath. The woman herself he had heard of, recognised by name, though Viserys had been keen to emphasise her beauty, her skill in battle, and how similar they may well be. The beauty he cannot deny, having seen it for himself; her skill, from what he has been told, likewise. But he has been married to a firebrand once before – Viserys had told him at the time that he and Rhea were alike enough that love might well come to them. Love never came. Love is not the point.
It matters little that they insisted on shirking the bedding. He's never had much taste for the ritual of it himself; what happens between a man and a woman on their wedding night is for them to decide, especially in a case like this, where the match serves political ends above all else. Rhaenyra will bear children, many of them, who will take Dragonstone and Driftmark; Viserys and his Hightower brood have the rest of the kingdom to split between them, if he ever repeals his decision to name Rhaenyra as his heir. Children are an obligation, but not one to which Daemon is particularly beholden. He would be happy never to have a child, never to have such a burden on his mind and his coffers.
So it comes to pass that they are alone, Daemon and his new wife. The ceremony and subsequent festivities were quicker than Viserys might have liked, but after the bloody scuffle before Rhaenyra's nuptials, it seems that his brother didn't want to leave an open opportunity for any more swords to be drawn. Daemon, his white-blonde hair still cropped short as a matter of practicality, dressed in the black and gold finery that befits his station and house, finds her waiting for him in a state of near-undress. There is a remoteness to the look she gives him, but he doesn't mind; for all the fire in his blood, Daemon Targaryen is more than familiar with a little bit of ice.
"I've barely had time to form first thoughts, never mind second." For his part, he makes no move to undress as he leans against a stone column, one hand on his hip, though he also does not bother to hide his open scrutiny. It's to be expected.
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But, in doing so, she feels a sick lurch in her stomach, and this, she will grant, is fear. Some part of her - some romantic, song-drunk remnant of girlhood, which has somehow survived the shattering of shield and arm and dreams - had still clung gamely to the half-realised idea that, once alone, the distance would close itself; that, even if the marriage is hollow politics, they would at once fall in love and her own loneliness might be alleviated, at least for the moment. A stupid thought, and she knew it for one at once, which is why she would not have admitted it even to herself; and yet, with its loss, the sudden threat looms larger.
I fear neither pain nor death, she had said to Aragorn, once; I fear a cage. She does not fear Daemon, or what he could do to her; but she fears what he could choose not to do. The thought of a lifetime holding her tongue, until she fades away to nothing.
Foolish, all of it. A foolish hope, and a foolish despair on a single sentence's weight; and neither matter, for neither can change what has already been set in stone. They are married. All the rest can only be dealt with as it comes.
She tries not to blush under his scrutiny, and largely succeeds. It helps, she finds, to keep her chin and her eyes raised, and pretend that she is not quite so exposed as she is. It helps more to find something to do, so that she need not stand like a statue for him to examine; so, when it is clear he does not intend to make the first move, she draws in a long breath through her nose, and moves to pour a glass of wine. Where she is uncertain of herself, it is easier to fall back on old manners and old habits. It is easier to approach him with a familiar purpose, holding out the wine as though to welcome an honoured guest to her hall.
It is an act of submission, to an extent, but there is nothing submissive in her. If that did not show already in their short acquaintance, it is clear enough in the steadiness of her gaze, her eyes refusing to lower even if her cheeks are flushed. She holds the cup in both hands, and, so doing, bares a little more of the livid scarring on her pale arm.
"Drink, then, and form your thoughts." She cannot quite keep the sharpness from her tone, stung pride turning what is intended as an invitation into an order. The words feel foreign on her tongue - are foreign - and that brings another pang as it suddenly strikes her that her own language has no place here. "We have nothing but time, now."
Alas! for time has never been her friend.
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"You shouldn't make time sound like such a punishment." He has a sip of wine, and since it was graciously offered to him, he has no intentions of sharing the cup. If she has trouble smoothing the sharp edges of her tone, then Daemon is facing the same issue with his amusement, thin and lofty and entirely clear in his voice. He doesn't mean to patronize, but this is not his first marriage and she is not his first wife, however much these things are intended to last forever.
"You must know how fickle it can be. How easily stolen." Daemon is no stranger to scars; a sliver of pinkish skin edges up his neck and down under his collar too, marking the beginning of mottled burn scars across his chest and arm. Cup in one hand, he reaches out with the other, intending to brush her hair back over her shoulder and reveal the scars that have taken possession of her arm.
itp: no honey that's just ptsd
Her discomfort is well-covered, but not entirely hidden, even when she forces herself to relax. There is a darker colour in her cheeks, and a gleam of something like anger in her eyes - though it is not immediately clear that it is anger at herself for flinching, not at him. Her good hand, lowering back to her side, flexes against the tension of it.
"Do not tell me what I must know." No pretence of submission at all, now: only the jut of her jaw and a look that expects - perhaps hopes - to be answered with anger. Anger is a familiar thing. Anger would be a more comfortable reaction than laughter. "Warriors have time stolen from them, in battles that turn on a moment and campaigns that take them far from home and hearth; and yet all that stolen time is heaped upon those who must await them, and when women have given all our lives in waiting, still you say to us that time is no punishment. You do not know how punishing, how sharp, in how great a surfeit time can be. Do not lecture me on time, Lord Daemon, until you have outlived yours."
what if i dug this thread out of obscurity almost 2 years later
It won't do him any good to antagonise her, though he's beginning to suspect that's not a difficult feat to achieve. He could point out that women die before their time in droves in childbed, his own goodsister Aemma being one of many of these tragedies; that is the battleground of most women, and a poor lot in life it is, when a screaming babe is placed above her in worth. But he suspects she would only think of it as more of a lecture. And in any case, it's all terribly beside the point. In her words he can almost taste the bitterness of her continued existence over what she must have assumed would be the foregone conclusion of a noble death.
"Am I permitted questions, my lady, or shall I stand quiet while you seethe?"
then i would be delighted?
"I am not seething," she says instead, rather acidly. "I am telling you how matters stand, that is all." It is not a particularly convincing disavowal - but it seems true to her, if to no-one else. Compared to the anger she held inside herself until the war was over, compared to how she has felt at times with greater justification, she is not seething, or angry at all. She is something far worse than angry: she is awkward, and since the war, she seems to find it more and more difficult to retreat into that dignified, seething silence which used to be her armour. It is especially hard under these circumstances, and when he keeps laughing at her.
She clears her throat, and tosses her hair back - a movement which bares her damaged arm fully, which is a kind of confrontation with herself, a do not be so silly as to think it can be hidden. Her lips press together, her brow arching a little. "As for questions, I could scarcely prevent them. But I will answer them, yes."