☆ Round One!

[jsmn_kink]

Welcome to the first round of the Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Kink Meme at jsmn_kinkmeme!

Below are some basic guidelines to get started. Please make sure you also check out our complete Rules & Guidelines to minimise any confusion.

Guidelines:
■ Anonymously comment with your request – a character/pairing/nthsome, and a kink or prompt.
■ Only one prompt per post.
■ Fillers please link your fills in the Fills Post!
■ Have fun! :)

Keep in mind:
■ Any kinks welcomed!
■ The fill/request does not need to be sexual or porny.
■ Multiple fills are allowed.
■ Fills can be any sort of creative work: fic, art, song, photomanip, etc.
■ Beware of spoilers! Prompters and requesters are encouraged to warn for spoilers, but this rule is not enforced.
■ Warning for non-con, dub-con, abuse, slurs/language, and other potentially disturbing subjects is encouraged but be aware we do not enforce this.

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Comments

Childermass/Vinculus/Segundus

[(Anonymous)]

How? Why? Magic, most probably. Every body doing every thing, no surprize.

Re: Childermass/Vinculus/Segundus

[(Anonymous)]

I second this!

Flora Greysteel/Emma Pole

[(Anonymous)]

Impassioned competition for Mrs Strange's attention transforms to something else entirely.

Re: Flora Greysteel/Emma Pole

[(Anonymous)]

Ohgod, yes!!!

Segundus/Honeyfoot, domesticity

[(Anonymous)]

Please.

Re: Segundus/Honeyfoot, domesticity

[(Anonymous)]

SECONDED SO HARD YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW

Childermass teaches Segundus how to read the Cards of Marseilles

[(Anonymous)]

Segundus experiences a premonition of sorts when he visits Starecross for the first time (in the book at least) - he sees a vision of Lady Pole divided between faerie and the house.

So maybe he has talent in that direction, and at some point Childermass finds out and teaches him how to read the Cards.

Could be gen but I say why waste an excellent opportunity for these two to end up fucking/in love/doing gay magic and getting a cat together?

Re: Childermass teaches Segundus how to read the Cards of Marseilles

[(Anonymous)]

Why indeed.

Starecross/Hurtfew, maybe Segundus/Childermass

[(Anonymous)]

Building are described very eloquently in JSMN, for example:

Houses, like people, are apt to become rather eccentric if left too much on their own; this house was the architectural equivalent of an old gentleman in a worn dressing-gown and torn slippers, who got up and went to bed at odd times of day, and who kept up a continual conversation with friends no one else could see.

So. Houses are magically alive and can have long-distance relationships? And something is going on between Starecross and Hurtfew Abbey.

Bonus if Starecross is very cross when Hurtfew vanishes into darkness, and its equivalent of stress-eating ice-cream is setting up Segundus and Childermass.

Re: Starecross/Hurtfew, maybe Segundus/Childermass

[(Anonymous)]

Amazing

Anyone, sex magic

[(Anonymous)]

Any situation with actual sex magic from actual sex magic books being used, but preferably if it results in some transgression of the rigid class structure, to the merriment and betterment of all.

Re: Anyone, sex magic

[(Anonymous)]

and thus was born my sudden urge to fill this using Strange's pupils. Because they would stumble on a book of sex magic. And they would attempt one of the spells from it in an effort to impress Mr Strange. And they would have quite a few class issues to work out.

Damn this prompt.

Arabella meets Grant for the first time

[(Anonymous)]

While I do not recall the circumstances of the book, I've been rewatching the series, and there must have been a moment when Grant and DeLancey knocked upon the Strange's door and had to explain that Jonathan Strange just sort of DISAPPEARED INTO A MIRROR and did not come back out.

Can SOMEONE please write how this went down? Are there weird jealous moments? Is there an overall attitude of CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS GUY? (Are there three- or four-way sexytimes later on?)

OP out

Re: Arabella meets Grant for the first time

[(Anonymous)]

Here for Arabella/Grant, since Grant is like substitute spouse without all the extra super features for Strange.

Doubles/doppelgangers, anyone

[(Anonymous)]

So by magic, one of the characters manages to create an exact double of him (or her)self or of someone close to him/her. So now there are two of this character running around.

Can be gen, humor, smutty. I prefer gen, since a double would create a lot of confusion (especially if said character is unaware that there is a double of him/her going around) and potential for lots of humor.

Bonus for using the phrase, "Oh dear lord, there's two of them."

Re: Doubles/doppelgangers, anyone

[(Anonymous)]

If it's Arabella Strange, there's additional 'not again' humour...

Secret kink for Norrell, redivivus

[(Anonymous)]

What about Norrell having a kink he finds embarrassingly hot, and is too nervous to admit to until coaxed? Then (Strange or Childermass or whoever) try it and he loves it (although wouldn't be surprised if he then gets sulky and graceless and won't admit to liking it. Because Norrell.)

Since putting this up on the thread as a very vague thing led to it dying on its arse (and I'm one of relatively few writing smut with Norrell), let's give it a different twist:

You, dear audience, write me one-line possible kinks as comments on this, and then either I or somebody else will write at least one of them up.

Re: Secret kink for Norrell, redivivus

[(Anonymous)]

My immediate thought is Strange shoving him up against the wall in the finale. Maybe Norrell develops a desperate desire for Strange to fuck him up against the wall?

Lascelles/Drawlight (book versions) - hopeless desperate love

[(Anonymous)]

Break my heart. Drawlight hopelessly in love with Lascelles but Lascelles just using him as a pretty toy and taking advantage of him.

Re: Lascelles/Drawlight (book versions) - hopeless desperate love

[(Anonymous)]

This is pretty much my headcanon. Someone please write. Will read. Much need.

Childermass/Segundus, Dragon Age AU

[(Anonymous)]

Is it time for crazy AUs already?
Childermass as Templar and Segundus as Circle's Mage or basically anything with these two in Thedas, pretty please!

Re: Childermass/Segundus, Dragon Age AU

[(Anonymous)]

As crazy AU's go, I'm absolutely for this one. Oh yes. With added Zebras flirting and Alistar-sass hopefully.

Jonathan/Arabella bdsm

[(Anonymous)]

Feel free to go modern au with this one if you want, but I reckon they'd be kinky as anything. Dom!arabella and sub!jonathan, please! If pegging is involved, even better.

Re: Jonathan/Arabella bdsm

[(Anonymous)]

ABSOLUTELY

Childermass/Norrell, emotional hurt/comfort

[(Anonymous)]

ok, something happened at work that I'm still squirming around in humiliation about, so I'd like something nice.

Norrell is haunted by something he feels ashamed about, and he can't keep it to himself any longer. Either an AU where he actually tells Childermass about what he did to Lady Pole, or something of your own invention - I'd prefer it be something he did not that was done to him.

And Childermass of course makes it better - not downplaying that it was bad, but it can still be lived through, it's not something that should be an albatross.

Could be Strange/Norrell if that's your ship.

Re: Childermass/Norrell, emotional hurt/comfort

[(Anonymous)]

Aw OP even though I can't write anything for you today, I hope you get a fill/feel better soon!

Peninsular!voyeur Strange - Grant/De Lancey

[(Anonymous)]

Strange happens upon a blissfully oblivious Grant and De Lancey going at it like hammer and tongs. Obviously he can't just walk away. Would love to see his reactions going from shock to rationalising and then eventually realising a few truths about himself.

Re: Peninsular!voyeur Strange - Grant/De Lancey

[(Anonymous)]

Ohhhhh goddddd yes

Tall dark English soldier at the windmill crushing on Merlin

[(Anonymous)]

That tall dark soldier has a crush on Merlin, and after Jeremy's death, is always on hand to run errands and help him out. Merlin is oblivious to his attentions, obviously thinking he is just being helpful (he's used to having a servant, after all).

Grant intervenes and sorts it all out, without Merlin noticing anything at all.

Would adore to see this from Grant and the soldier's POV, rather than from Strange's.

Re: Tall dark English soldier at the windmill crushing on Merlin

[(Anonymous)]

Poor fellow...
(YES PLEASE! Grant's POV seems especially yummy.)

Lord Byron/Fairy of Byronic disposition

[(Anonymous)]

Byron probably learned his Byronic expressions and profile from some one from faerieland. So, a tryst between Byron and a fairy that is 200% more Byronic than him. Byron is smitten and emulated the brooding aesthetic to the max hereafter.

Re: Lord Byron/Fairy of Byronic disposition

[(Anonymous)]

I lack words for how much I want this.

English mirrormakers/John Uskglass, sort of

[(Anonymous)]

What happens to mirrormakers after all mirrors get broken? Is there a mirrormakers' guild? do they know about the King's roads? are all mirrormakers secret followers of the Raven King? is there some mirror magic initiation ritual to make mirrors? a sex ritual? a devotion ritual?

tl;dr mirrors. magic.

Re: English mirrormakers/John Uskglass, sort of

[(Anonymous)]

Prompter, I think I love you.

Maria Absalom/John Uskglass

[(Anonymous)]

Great magicians, great magic, great sex.

Re: Maria Absalom/John Uskglass

[(Anonymous)]

Yes please! Perhaps they had a tryst when she was younger, and she let the Shadow House go to ruin in her old age in the hope of summoning him back?

Arabella Strange/Jonathan Strange/Maria Absalom

[(Anonymous)]

So, Jonathan and Bell were having a picnic while he summoned the spirit of Lady Absalom, and it seemed quite the cherished past-time. Imagine a great merriment enjoyed by all, as the spirit of the dead magician, a living magician, and magician's wife partake of eggs and ham and frolic in the barn. Finally, without interruptions from Segundus and the like.

Or maybe with an interruption from Segundus, but then he is cordially invited to participate.

Childermass /& Drawlight, bathing

[(Anonymous)]

Drawlight is making himself at home at Mr Norrell's house, since he's behind his rent and avoiding his own rather poor lodgings. Ordering and taking a bath in one of the guestrooms is the outside of enough, and Childermass must at least make him sensible of having taken a liberty. Naked slippery funtimes might ensue.

Re: Childermass /& Drawlight, bathing

[(Anonymous)]

OP: Er, book!Drawlight, or a certain someone might murder me for wasting a prompt.

Drawlight's human/fairy ancestors

[(Anonymous)]

If Drawlight has a wee bit of fairy heritage in him, how did it come about? Who was the fairy ancestor, how did it happen? This calls for a Clarke-style footnote.

Absolutely any combination of Drawlight!ancestors welcome - human (great-grand-)father, fairy mother, vice versa, mpreg...

The Fairy Ancestry of Christopher Drawlight (1/2)

[(Anonymous)]

Part I: The Poacher, the Crossroads and the Doe-Eyed Lady

In recent years, scholars of magical history have been surprised to discover that of all of the figureheads who helped set in motion the revival of English magic at the turn of the century, Christopher Drawlight was the person with the most magical bloodline. Considering Mr Drawlight did not, as far as can be discerned, exhibit any sign of either magical aptitude or interest in learning the magical arts, many have come to the conclusion that he did not himself know of his own fairy ancestry.

Indeed, his unusual surname, which appears to have been adopted as an alias by his great-great-great-great grandfather, William Drawlight (born William Beam, 1617), has aided scholars in tracing his more recent London-based ancestry, and they have since further followed one line of his family tree back to the fourteenth century, to a Lincolnshire peasant farmer named Robert atte-Wode (b. c1360).

However, the story that has interested us the most begins at the end of the sixteenth century, in a small village in Nottinghamshire called Redwell, which no longer exists.

It involves a descendent of Robert atte-Wode, a self-described poacher by the name of either Thomas Wulnoth or Walnut, (b. 1572, the spelling of his surname varies throughout the record) who in the 1590s claimed to have had an encounter with a fairy, who went on to bear his child.

The story, as told to the parson of the church at Redwell and later recorded in The Book of Redwell (currently housed in a private collection in the village of Alverton) recounts Thomas leaving his home to go poaching on the night of a full moon. Thomas had been travelling along a road through the dense woodland to the north of Redwell when, at a lonely crossroads, he spotted a beautiful doe. As a poacher, his usual instinct would be to fire at the deer, but something stayed his hand. Instead, entranced, he left the road and followed the doe into the wood. He could not recall how long they traversed through the trees when suddenly he lost sight of the animal. Realising he was lost, he stumbled into a nearby clearing, which, much to his great surprised, was lit by golden light and inhabited by a beautiful woman, who told him that she had specifically chosen him to be her lover that night. Apparently happy to oblige, Thomas acquiesced to her wishes. After their encounter, the lady disappeared and, unusually drowsy, Thomas fell asleep in the lady's bower in the clearing, only awakening to find himself back at the moonlit crossroads. He could not recall anything of the fairy's appearance, save for her having strikingly beautiful dark eyes, such that he commonly referred to her as "the doe-eyed lady".

He told no one of what had happened at first, but frequented the crossroads often in the hope of seeing the lady again. At the point of giving up, nine months later, Thomas was surprised to spot the beautiful doe once more. Following it eagerly to the clearing, he discovered, instead of the lady, a baby girl lying there, in swaddling cloths. Guessing the child's parentage, he brought the girl back to his home and raised her with the help of his widowed mother. The child as she grew appeared human, except she had the same exceptionally beautiful dark eyes as her mother, and there seemed always to be something of a faint golden light about her, as if her skin glowed with the light of a setting sun. Because of this radiance, her grandmother named her Lucy.

Part II: The Half-Fairy Daughter, The Cunning Woman and the Murderer

Thomas Wulnoth (or Walnut) and his mother, were not popular with the other inhabitants of Redwell, chiefly due to Thomas's repeated poaching in the woods to the north of the village. Poaching is commonly defined as illegal hunting on someone else's land. However, in the case of Redwell, the woods in which Thomas hunted were not legally owned by any person in England. It was widely believed that it was a fairy wood and that no Englishman must disturb it or hunt in it lest it anger the fair folk. The villagers of Redwell even went as far as to refuse to name the wood, claiming it was not their place to give a name to land that did not belong to them. To this day, the woodland has no local name.

Thomas was believed to have disturbed the wood through his poaching and was ostracised by many in the village for that reason, as was his mother for continuing to associate with him. However, no villager could find it in his or her heart to dislike the girl Lucy, who was forever witty, frolicsome, and mischievous, but easily forgiven by them because of her grace and charm.

As well as the story recounted by Thomas to the parson, the Book of Redwell contains information regarding an allegation of theft made by the village's "cunning woman" (healer and midwife), Alice Hernshaw, against Thomas. Thomas was ordered to pay compensation for stealing a hen belonging to Mrs Hernshaw, but he refused to pay on the grounds that he was not guilty of the theft.

Mrs Hernshaw was greatly angered, claiming she had proof that he was the thief, and when he still refused to admit culpability, she is said to have placed a curse upon him. Allegedly, during a loud argument in the marketplace, she espied Thomas's daughter Lucy dance past, as the girl played with the other village children. Mrs Hernshaw looked Thomas in the eye and told him: "Your line will end where it began, in the wood".

Thomas took this as a threat to his daughter, and denounced Mrs Hernshaw as a witch. The entire case was brought before the assizes at Nottingham, in which Thomas was ordered to pay compensation to Mrs Hernshaw, while claims that she was a witch and had cursed him were thrown out when none of the villagers of Redwell could be made to testify that they had heard her curse him, or indeed anyone before. One witness even went so far as to suggest that if the words had been uttered (and she was adamant that they had not been), they sounded far more like a prophecy than a curse, and were therefore not punishable by law. (According to the Book of Redwell, Alice Hernshaw was much loved by the inhabitants of Redwell and had attended many of the women of the village in childbed, as well as healing many ill people of the parish, young and old, which may explain the amount of loyalty shown to her.)

The ostracism of Thomas Wulnoth continued until his death in 1615, of causes unknown. Meanwhile Lucy, by all accounts, grew into a beautiful young woman and was much sought after by the young men of the village, despite her father having died too poverty-stricken to have provided her with an inheritance or dowry. A young carpenter named William "Billy" Beam eventually won Lucy's hand and they were married, according to the parish register, in 1616, and had a son, also named William, born in 1617. However, married life for the couple was unhappy: it appears that Billy was a jealous husband, constantly afraid that his beautiful wife was catching the eye of the local men and making him a cuckold. Lucy was angered by his accusations and denied them, but was frequently confined to the house by him nonetheless. In addition to reports of jealous behaviour on the one side, and flirtatious behaviour on the other, it was alleged that Lucy did not much enjoy the usual aspects of running a household as a married woman and was averse to all the menial tasks: the cooking, cleaning, washing and sweeping that are expected of a wife, which caused her husband no end of consternation. Moreover, Billy himself accused her of having no maternal feeling to speak of, neglecting their son and leaving Billy himself in in charge of watching young William more often than not.

Matters between the couple appear to have reached a head during the May Day celebrations of 1622, a full account of which appears in the village book. During the celebrations, Lucy was crowned the "May Queen" by the village elders, despite that nominal title usually being reserved for unmarried women. During the dance around the maypole, Lucy took the arm of several different men of the village, as is customary, but while the dance was still proceeding, her husband Billy stormed into the throng, ripped the garland of flowers from Lucy's head and dragged her back to their cottage. Nobody in the village saw her again.

In the last testimony of Billy Beam, before he was hanged, he maintained that he had not killed his wife. Instead, he claimed that he and Lucy had fought, as husbands and wives often do, but that during the disagreement, his wife had told him that she had "had enough of him" and was going to "return to her people, the trees", something she had never said before. She then ran out of their cottage towards the wood. Billy went after her, grabbing his pistol on the way out "for protection" (he claimed) and keeping his wife in sight to see that she came to no harm, for he was convinced she was suffering from a fit of madness. He said that he followed her at a distance until they reached a crossroads, at which point he fired a warning shot in the air, to "scare her into coming home". Instead, he said that Lucy ran into the woods and when he followed her, all he could see was a doe leaping into the distance, and no sign of his wife. He searched the wood all through the next few days, despite the village prohibition on disturbing the land of the fair folk, but never found her. After a few days it became impossible to continue to conceal his wife's disappearance, Lucy having been exceedingly popular, and the people of Redwell began to recall the events of May Day, the shouting that they had overheard coming from the Beam's cottage, and later a single gunshot from the direction of the wood. Billy claimed that he was telling the truth, that his wife had vanished in the woods, but neither the villagers nor the courts believed him.

Despite the absence of a body, Billy Beam was found guilty of murdering his wife, and eventually hanged at Nottingham gaol in January 1623, proclaiming his innocence to the end. The child of Lucy and Billy Beam, William Beam was therefore orphaned, and given over to his aunt, Anne Sturridge, to raise, as his great-grandmother and grandfather had by then both died. Anne was the older sister of Billy, had six children of her own to raise and had vocally disapproved of Billy's marriage to Lucy Wulnoth. It was clear she did not much care for this new addition to her family, who looked so much like his mother with his otherworldly fine dark eyes and a very slight hint of a golden radiance about his skin (although allegedly much less so than that of his mother). He did not resemble his father, and Mrs Sturridge was said to have very often remarked that he could not be her brother's child. By most accounts, he was not treated kindly by his extended family.

The Book of Redwell records that in 1631, just before his fourteenth birthday, young William Beam ran away from his aunt's house and did not return. That is the last record scholars have found of an ancestor of Christopher Drawlight living in Redwell.

Within twenty years of William Beam leaving the village, the population of Redwell had reduced by more than a half, and by the year 1700, Redwell was reportedly abandoned. Nobody could explain the relatively sudden exodus of the inhabitants, who one after another decided to move to pastures new. However, visitors and sightseers to the place often remarked on the dense trees that grew all through the village, encroaching on herb gardens and vegetable patches, growing from kitchen floors through rooftops and up chimneys. People who had passed through Redwell years before could not recall the village having been built amongst oaks and beeches and elms, and yet the trees that were there appeared so tall that they must have been there for a great many years.

The parson was the last villager to leave Redwell: he carried with him many important records and documents, including the village book, which eventually found its way to the church at Alverton and thence into the private collection.

English magic/French magic

[(Anonymous)]

Is there magic in other countries? And if English magic is a clever narrative device for exploring class, race, gender and masculinity, what notions and systemic criteria can, say French magic rely upon? Was French magic killed during the revolution, or vice versa? is Napoleon restoring or killing it, or importing some kind of Italian magic? What is the relationship between different magic systems?

Alternatively, if that is too much to fill, some French magician following Napoleon warding off the bad dreams Norrel sends him. And grumbling all the time.

Re: English magic/French magic

[(Anonymous)]

I want to have babies with this prompt!

Black Joan/Maria Absalom

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe Black Joan is such an excellent thief and thief manager because she has great friends in high magical places.

Re: Black Joan/Maria Absalom

[(Anonymous)]

:O
I love Black Joan so this is intruiging.

Arabella Strange/Gentleman with thistle-down hair

[(Anonymous)]

Some variation/exploration of their meeting at the Poles', or just some straight up identity porn bodice-ripping shenanigans where there's some delightful impropriety and she doesn't realise who he is.

Re: Arabella Strange/Gentleman with thistle-down hair

[(Anonymous)]

Agreed. Yes. Very much. Seconded.

Countess Albrizzi/anyone

[(Anonymous)]

Either Isabella Teotoch/Count Giuseppe Albrizzi or Isabella/her first husband, or someone else entirely. Something involving her cultural, artistic, and intelligent interests.