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nouvellevqgue · 4 months

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ii. i love springsteen, faded blue jeans, tennessee whiskey

pairing: lando norris x reader

summary: you know you'd always love him just like you love your whiskey and jeans.

a/n: i know i know, but it's been sitting in my draft for veryyy long. so let's give em a shot, shall we?

₊˚⊹౨ৎ ⋆｡✦˚‎

yourusername

liked by logansargeant, sydneysweeney, dualipa, and 571,483 more

yourusername back view? check.

view all 13,597 comments...

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username (late) halloween costume of the year

yourusername

liked by maxverstappen1, landonorris, and 359,102 more

yourusername betty and whiskey🥃👠

view all 9,556 comments...

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charles_leclerc when i'm literally RIGHT HERE

yourusername

liked by daniel3.jpg, lilymhe, alex_albon, and 729,851 more

yourusername eyes to eyes.

view all 59,126 comments...

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yourusername ...i should put it on early

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⤷ landonorris both

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⤷ danielricciardo do it to him next time if he posted about alex

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landonorris

liked by maxfewtrell, pierregasly, yourusername, and 459,101 more

landonorris love you forever more 💕

👤: maxfewtrell, yourusername

view all 9,588 comments...

username they finally tagged max‼️‼️

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⤷ maxfewtrell nah, i dropped the camera earlier

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⤷ username idk how but why is donatella is on lando's page

⤷ gigihadid probably because of y/n tag🤷🏼‍♀️

⤷ username why is her comment is just like that?

⤷ gigihadid that's normal

landonorris

liked by yourusername, mclaren, racerbia and 546,101 more

landonorris before/after

view all 7,460 comments...

landonorris no comment about the hat okay

⤷ pierregasly i just want to do it

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⤷ landonorris what about no

yourusername he found it

⤷ pierregasly good info

username is the hat says sex?

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⤷ landonorris lie

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yourusername added to their story!

caption: 🧡🧡🧡

carlossainz55 replied to your story!

: since when did he dressed up like that

yourusername

: since he decided it's too hot to leave his trousers at home

carlossainz55

: 🤦🏻🤦🏻🤦🏻

lando.jpg

liked by yourusername, carlossainz55, and 299,740 others

lando.jpg night's out

view all 1,680 comments...

username THE HAND PLACEMENT??????🥴😵‍💫🫨

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⤷ maxfewtrell imagine of how i feel during that time😔😔

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yourusername

liked by maxfewtrell, landonorris, and 281,776 others

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view all 7,193 comments...

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lando.jpg

liked by charles_leclerc, estebanocon, and 322,809 others

lando.jpg weekend

👤: charles_leclerc, yourusername

view all 12,721 comments...

charles_leclerc real glad i'm tagged

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yourusername added to their story!

landonorris added to their story!

#✶!#lando norris x y/n #lando norris x reader #lando norris x you #lando norris imagine #lando norris fanfic #lando norris smau #lando norris fluff #f1 x you #f1 imagines #f1 x reader #f1 imagine #f1 fanfic #f1 smau

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afatlotofchance · 8 months

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The Traditional "Burst-your-Gut" European Calendar

The Traditional Burst-Your-Gut European Calendar!

One of my various subjects of interest includes holidays and festivals – mostly of folkloric nature. And Europe is certainly filled to the brim with them, ranging from remnants of religions of Antiquity, to neo-pagan recreation of holidays that maybe never existed, passing by “folk-Christian” celebrations taking back Christian rituals to a more… “pagan” flavor).

And given one of my other big passions is weight gain and stuffing, I thought why not ally the two? More specifically, the idea behind this whole research was inspired by this joke running around of the “weight gain season” in the United-States, centered around the most fattening holidays of the calendar, all piled up at the end of the year: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, an infernal group that ruins everybody’s figure and prompts some slimming down New Year resolutions. A Franco-Chinese famous Youtuber talked of a similar alignment, in videos covering his weight gain and successful diets – he explained that he almost got “destroyed” at the beginning of one of his diet by the cumulation of Christmas, New Year celebrations AND Chinese New Year meals.

All of that made me think about how there are these alignments and series of very-fattening, stuff-your-face holidays, and as I was doing research on old French society, and European folklore, and old England, and whatnot, I collected information, elements and other stuff here and there that explained the origin of these “fattening festivals” as well as presented to me the existence of an entire year-system centered around basically gorging yourself on given dates. I already evoked this briefly in my previous posts, but I want to fully and completely talk about this subject here. And this is why this post is called “The Traditional Burst-Your-Gut European Calendar”. I will focus here mainly on medieval and Renaissance Europe, when this “fattening calendar” was created – and while this exact system was modified and changed past Renaissance and into modern age, the very reason we have today collections of fattening holidays is the existence of this ancient year division and celebration system.

This can be just your random informative post about European culture and history. It can be an inspiration if you want to write gaining stories or make fat art inspired by some folkloric or medieval stuff, I don’t know. You might also completely skip it if you want – I know very well people in the kink circles aren’t here to read crash-courses about medieval society. But hey, I like to talk about “scholarly” things while also talking about fattening up and intense stuffing, so, here I go!

[Oh yes and due to being more familiar with England and France of all European country, with a handful infos about Scandinavia and Germany thrown into the mix, I will focus mostly on Western Europe – though when we talk of European holidays and folklore, they tend to also apply, in variations, to Eastern European countries.]

I) Fat Tuesday, Blubbery Easter, and the diet Christians will NOT stick to

Chubby Easter, Gorging Christmas – and the binging-duality of old timey Europe

One of the “fattening holidays” most American tend to be familiar with, but often without knowing that it is a “fattening holiday” is the famous Mardi Gras. If you are from the USA, Mardi Gras will be for you the New-Orleans celebration – and it is quite interesting that Mardi Gras is so strongly associated with this city, where everybody who stays even just for a week gains at minimum five pounds thanks to how rich and fatty (but delicious) the food is. New-Orleans is one of those cities where you can get overweight pretty quickly if you are not careful, and it is quite fitting that its most famous celebration is actually going by a French name meaning… “Fat Tuesday”. Yep, the glamorous Mardi Gras just means “Fat Tuesday”.

You see, the Mardi Gras celebration originally comes from France (obviously), even though it was celebrated as “Fat Tuesday” or “Pancake Tuesday” in English-speaking countries. Fat Tuesday itself comes from the Carnival season, and the Carnival season comes from Lent, and Lent comes from Easter. So let’s start with Easter. Easter is part of those Christian holidays that were so widespread, so famous and so common they became secular, non-religious holidays shared by everybody (and massively commercialized by Americans). Easter is this springtime celebration of bunnies leaving chocolate eggs everywhere – and while not one of the “great fattening holidays” of America like Thanksgiving, it still gained there a strong “put on pounds” tradition, thanks to an overabundance of chocolate, candy, and dishes such as the Easter ham. But before all that, Easter was one of the two massive holidays of Catholicism, and by “massive” I mean, when it came to the religious calendar, there’s this two behemoth that are Easter and Christmas and form the two poles of the Christian year. Easter being the celebration of the resurrection of the Christ, while Christmas is the birth of Jesus.

A very important note before going forward: the calendar I will speak about here, the calendar by which most Western Europe worked during medieval and Renaissance times, is what we commonly refer to as “agro-liturgical calendar”. Aka it is an hybrid calendar that mixes the liturgical calendar, the year of the liturgy, the various religious celebrations and Christian holidays (since Christianity was the main religion dominating and shaping all Europe at the time, with Catholicism being ESPECIALLY dominant and present, so we’ll go with this flavor of Christian, Protestants can go away), and the agricultural calendar, aka the “natural year”, the various celebrations and holidays related to the seasonal changes and the fieldwork and the farmer’s life. The latter calendar was the one with the strongest “pagan” flavors, since it kept alive traditions and superstitions inherited from ancient religions and forgotten mythologies – and as the two mixed in everyday life, they forged this new “folk-Christian” calendar that was the basis of European culture and beliefs.

So, Easter. Easter was this big, big, very important event. And to prepare yourself for Easter, you need to be REALLY clean and pure, and to help you with that, a thing was invented – a thing commemorating the forty days Jesus Christ spent alone in the desert with no other company than the Devil trying to tempt him into turning rocks into bread, or whatever. This thing is called “Lent”, and it is a BIG European thing (in French “le Carême”). Lent was a forty-days long sequence preceding Easter, and during Lent you had to go on a very strict diet. A diet of everything. You had to limit your meals and food intake drastically so as to fast, but you also were prohibited from having any sex, in fact weddings were forbidden during Lent. It was a time where you just shut down your body and refuse all pleasures whatsoever – this is why in France an old-fashioned expression was “face de Carême”, “face of Lent”, to designate someone who liked skinny and pale. And if Lent was to help you prepare Easter, you were given an additional time period before that to prepare yourself for Lent, a little thing called Shrovetide. Except, where the Church planned for Shrovetide to be all spiritual preparation and good little planning for forty days of nothing in your plate, things got… a little wild.

Shrovetide became the time of the Carnival. THE original Carnival, the Carnival season, a time of wild amusement, savage fun, of misrule and chaos where everybody drank and sang and made dirty jokes and put on offensive disguises. People understood that Shrovetide was the last time they could have any kind of fun before Lent began, and so they went WILD with crazy parties, forming the Carnival time. And the last day of the Shrovetide, the last day before Lent began, Shrove Tuesday, became Fat Tuesday – Mardi Gras. The “fat” part comes from the fact that during Shrovetide/Carnival, people didn’t just ate, they GORGED. Given they wouldn’t be able to eat much for a very long time, people did excessive feasts and over-ate merrily as much as they could, especially on Fat Tuesday, which was a true belly-busting day. One of the specific parts of Lent was that any food deemed too “rich” was forbidden, so it meant that all meat, and all fat-related food (like butter, eggs or pastries) were prohibited during Lent. As a result, during the Carnival, fat was in every plate, and you had tons of greasy meats and deep-fried pastries and so on – hence the “Fat” part of “Fat Tuesday”. Shrovetide became really all about putting on pounds before the “forced hibernation” of Lent. In fact, the more common name of Shrovetide was “Fat Week” or “The Seven Fat Days”, as “Fat Tuesday” was merely the last of the “fat” days, preceded by Fat Monday, Fat Sunday, Fat Saturday, etc…

In return, the same way people got wild before Lent, before also got wild AFTER Lent. If you think Easter is a sinful feast of food today, oh boy, you can’t imagine what it was before! As the Easter celebrations rolled in, people could once again eat all their meat and all their fat and all their pastries, and so Easter was yet again a feast of large meals – though, due to the very religious nature of Easter, it never ended up being as debauched and revelry-prone as Carnival/Fat Tuesday. But it was still a day all about eating a lot of the best and most fattening food.

What is quite funny is that, even though Lent was harshly respected during the Middle-Ages, by the Renaissance (at least in France, I don’t know for other countries), people got a bit more lenient towards it, and decided to had one more “Carnival day” to “break down” Lent into two, so it would be a bit more bearable. So, right in the middle of the forty days, a celebration called “Mi-Carême”, “Half-Lent”, was created, which was a twin of Fat Tuesday, right in the middle of Lent. Officially, the explanation was that on Fat Tuesday men tended to do a lot of favors, gifts and promises to women, and so Half-Lent was created so that women could return them the favors (and indeed in France, the Mi-Carême celebrations are dominated by female figures and female participants), but researchers agree that the true reason Mid-Lent was created was probably because, since eggs turned bad beyond twenty days, people realized they couldn’t stock them before Lent and reuse them by Easter, and to avoid ending up with a bunch of wasted rotten egg, came up with this holiday.

The most interesting thing for us, however, is that it means that traditionally, Lent was actually a time where you had to feast and gorge yourself on greasy and fatty food three times in a row – before Lent, mid-Lent and after Lent. To tell you about the strong presence of the Carnival vs Lent in European spirits, I will direct you towards a very recurring motif throughout medieval and Renaissance art: a motif known as the “Battle of Lent and Carnival” or “The Fight between Lent and Fat Tuesday”. These paintings and drawings typically embody Carnival or Fat Tuesday as a male and fat, jolly, chaotic, drunkard entity, while Lent becomes a female, skinny, elderly and austere figure. One of the most famous variations of this theme was done by Pieter Brueghel the Elder: it is his painting, “The Battle of Carnival and Lent” (in French it has such a nice tone, Carnaval et Carême). At the forefront of this painting you can see the two embodiments, the obese, red-faced Carnival riding a beer barrel and holding a food-covered spear, opposing the thin and sickly Lent on an uncomfortable chair. Behind Carnival, bizarrely-attired and strangely-masked fools come out from an inn, while behind Lent dark nuns walk out of the shadow of a church, surrounded by hungry beggars and children. All is told.

II) Chubby Christmas, winter weight, and the binging-duality of old Europe

I talked before of how Easter was alongside Christmas one of the two big holidays of the European Christian calendar. Well then, let’s talk about Christmas!

Christmas which truly formed with Easter a complete parallel back in the days. Birth and rebirth, one for the “bright” season, summery part of the year, the other for the “dark” and wintery half of the year, AND both preceded by a time of preparation. Lent for Easter, Advent for Christmas… Let’s stick to Advent. Nowadays, we all know the “Advent Calendar”, which is about having a little chocolate or candy every day of the December month until the fateful 25th. The Advent period became a period of waiting-and-snacking. Interestingly enough, this couldn’t be further from what the Advent originally was. While everybody in Europe still remembers Lent, because it was still in practice up to the 20th century, people actually completely forgot that there was a twin to Lent… a winter Lent, a Nativity fasting, and this was the Advent.

Yep, the Advent was originally a forty-days period of full abstinence of all bodily pleasures (so no sex, and lot of fasting) to prepare yourself for Christmas. And do you know what this meant? It meant that, just like with Lent, people went NUTS and gluttonous at both ends of the Advent. The gluttonous nature of Christmas in old Europe stayed prevalent still until today. Good old jolly Santa Claus is the inheritor of the overweight, paunchy giant Father Christmas. Up to the 19th century there were caricatures and illustrations of fat people gorging on enormous Christmas meals. Even today Christmas is one of the most dreaded periods for people who want to stay slim or lose weight, as it is all about eating enormous feasts. So people did went wild once the Advent was over.

But what about before the Advent? Was there some “fattening holiday” equivalent to Mardi Gras? Well, technically yes, even though it isn’t very well-known today. It was the holiday (or feast day) of saint Martin. Aka, Martinmas. Also known sometimes as the “Old Halloween”. Martinmas, the day of saint Martin, was a celebration that corresponded to the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. As a result, it mixed the unconscious need to put on pounds for the dark season with the typical festivities of any “harvest festival”. Martinmas was mostly celebrated in England and in Germanic countries of Europe, and it involved 1) tasting the new wine of the season (and getting drunk on it), 2) feasting on the nicely fattened up and recently slaughtered cattle (in Germanic countries, the main course of Martinmas is Martin’s fattened and roasted goose, whereas in England it is rather Martin’s greasy beef) and 3) giving lots of treats, cakes, nuts and apples to children. The latter part is why Martinmas was called “Old Halloween”, because it was a Christianized form of many Halloween traditions – kids wandered with lanterns made out of beets, and saint Martin was supposed to give them lots of candies and sweets in exchange.

What is much more interesting, in relation to Christmas, is the fact that the Christmas belly-bursting did NOT stop at just Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Oh, no! Ever heard of the “Twelve Days of Christmas”? Yeah, well it wasn’t just about giving gifts to someone you like and singing silly songs. Oh no. The Twelve Days of Christmas were a full festival to themselves (and in European folklore you will find many ghosts, monsters, fairies and spirits manifesting themselves during the “Twelve Nights”, considered magical and supernatural) – and in England especially, the Twelve Days were supposed to be all around feasting, merriment and fun, a Carnival-time under the command of the Lord of Misrule. Beginning with Christmas Eve, each day was about more dancing and singing, more drinking, and especially more eating, until it all culminated into the Twelfth Night. Nowadays, the Twelfth Night is mostly known in Christian countries as the Epiphany – you know, Epiphany? The Feast of the Wise Men? The Day of the Three Kings? The holiday where three old men supposedly gave gifts to baby Jesus, and where people eat a special cake and the one who bites onto a little statue is crowned king or queen of the day? That’s the one. Well originally it was basically the wintery equivalent of Mardi Gras, and the culmination of the Twelve Days. The Epiphany “Christmasy” connotations can still be found in Spanish-speaking countries – in Spain for example, the Epiphany is actually the local “Christmas” and the time where people stuff themselves on large meals and pound-putting pastries, while kids receive gifts from supernatural elderly male figures. To use a literary reference, the famous play “Twelfth Night” by Shakespeare has a character designed to embody the spirit of the Twelve Days: Sir Toby Belch, an eccentric, comical and hedonistic man all about making jokes, drinking and eating (hence his name), and truly being a living “Lord of Misrule”.

But if you think the Christmas season ends with the Epiphany, think again! The Epiphany is merely the end of the intense festivities of the Twelve Days (or Twelve Nights). The actual Christmas season, or Christmastide, only comes to a stop much later, to a day that is commonly known as Candlemas. Candlemas is technically supposed to be the Christian holiday of “Jesus being presented at the Temple”, but in truth, let’s be honest, it was just a cover-up by the Church in an attempt to bury the pagan festivities around this time (the Roman Lupercalia, the Celtic Imbolc, and others). Candlemas is not very well-known in the English world today, but it is still a very famous holiday in French-speaking countries, as the Chandeleur, and it does has its food theme, since Chandeleur is the official day of eating crêpes (a French dish that Americans insulting translate as “pancakes” even though crêpes are completely different).

So, in conclusion we have a true duality in this year. On one side, you have the “Lent season”, with the Fat Days of Shrovetide, and Fat Tuesday, as an opening, and the Easter feasts as a closing (plus the Mid-Lent) ; on the other, you have the whole Christmas season, from Saint Martin’s Day, to the Twelve Nights, to the Epiphany and Candlemas. Between those two intense periods alternating between extreme fasting and binging overeating, life returned to a “regular” rhythm. But here’s the twist: the Church was quite intelligent, and didn’t chose to have Lent and the Advent at just any random dates, oh no!

Lent and the Advent, as forty-days periods of fasting, actually corresponded to the times of the year where the food stocks were at their lowest, and there was no new harvest in sight. It was during those specific times (mid February to March ; and November to mid-December) that famines were the most likely to actually appear. As a result, the Church placed these fasting periods there, choosing carefully the times where people would suffer the most from hunger and lack, but giving them an actual reason and a sense of holiness for their starvation. Of course, the result was far from perfect, given it resulted in the very unhealthy behavior of starving yourself forty days between two week-long sessions of overeating, but old times were never healthy to begin with…

III) Other food seasons

Beyond those two “gorging times”, were there other “belly-bursting seasons” in this calendar?

Well… Not really. Usually the three main poles when it came to folkloric and social celebrations in old Europe were the springtime celebrations (Easter for example, but also May Day), the winter celebrations (Christmas and New Year) and the midsummer celebrations (Midsummer, Midsummer’s Eve, Walpurgis Night, etc…). While we saw above that two of these poles had their overeating (springtime and winter), the Midsummer celebrations never really were much about eating… They were more about dancing in the wilds, drinking a lot of alcohol, jumping over bonfires, picking up magical herbs, fearing witchcraft, and the like. In the Christian calendar, there is also a third very important era, beyond the Easter-centric and Christmas-centric periods – it is the time slot beginning with the Feast of the Annunciation, and ending with the Pentecost. But again, there was no big food-focus there, so we’ll put that aside.

What I can add however to this calendar is a certain focus given to harvest celebrations and harvest festivals. For example, let’s take a little look at the “quarter days”. In the British Isles, the year was usually regulated around four important celebrations. These are a leftover of the four main Celtic holidays, which were Imbolc, Beltaine, Lughnasad and Samhain, but it was all Christianized and the result goes as such: Lady Day (the feast of the Annunciation), Midsummer Day, Michaelmas and Christmas. At least, that’s the English version – in Scotland they rather go, Martinmas, Candlemas, Whitsunday (Pentecost) and Lammas. The Scottish divide does recut onto a secondary system to the English one, called the “cross-quarter days”, aka four intercalary celebrations to be placed between the four quarter days. These are Candlemas, May Day, Lammas and All Hallows.

Long story short, what am I trying to say with all that? Well I am trying to say that there is a sort of additional period of food-and-eating related celebrations around the “end of the harvest”, the “closure of the harvest season”. Basically, harvest festivals. I talked about Martinmas before, which was indeed a feast marking the end of the harvest and the opening of winter – but in the same line of thought, the holiday of Michaelmas can be evoked. Michaelmas, originally the day of Saint Michael, aka Archangel Michael, was then extended as the day of “Michael, Raphael and Gabriel”, or as the “day of Archangels” or as the “day of Michael and all the Angels”. All in all, for the Church it is an angel-celebrating day, but in a more down-to-earth approach, it was a harvest festival, marking the end of the harvest. As a result, Michaelmas in the British Isles for example is a day where you eat a roasted goose, special bannock cakes, big heaps of blackberry pies, lots of nuts, and all sorts of other goodies to make a rich and heavy meal celebrating your efforts in the fields. To Martinmas and Michaelmas I will add a third tradition, a purely English celebration: Lammas, also known as the Loaf Mass Day, which is another harvest festival, this time supposed to celebrate the “first fruits” of the harvest, as well as the “first loaf”. Whereas Michaelmas marks the end of the harvest, and Martinmas the arrival of the dark wintery season, Lammas is all about people starting to reap what they sow, and it opens a “season of plenty and abundance” (Lammas is in the beginning of August, while Michaelmas is in September and Martinmas early November). So, technically speaking, there is a sort of “harvest festival” season that could be added to our belly-filling calendar.

And of course, this season overlaps with another series of holidays I have to mention, and that I briefly talked about above: Allhallowstide. Aka, the Hallows celebrations, of which the most famous to this day is without a doubt Halloween. Halloween, All Hallows’ Eve, aka the Eve of All Saints Day, needs no presentation as THE holiday of candies and sugary treats, as well as of apple and pumpkin based foods. What people tend to forget is that in Europe, the Halloween candies were associated with another cake-filled day. I am not speaking of All Hallows/All Saints Day, because there wasn’t much to say there, but I am speaking about All Souls Day, happening on the 2nd of November (right after All Hallows Day). All Souls Day is the European “ancestor” of the South-and-Central American Day of the Dead, for example, as it is a Catholic holiday all about celebrating the dead and visiting graveyards. But All Souls Day had a specific tradition confused and fused with the trick-or-treating of Halloween, called “souling”. It was originally about giving special “soul cakes” to the poor and the beggars, so that they would pray for the souls of those stuck in purgatory (or something like that), but it then became more of a trick-or-treat situation where kids performed songs and entertainment for people, in exchange for good amounts of yummy soul cakes to eat. Not really “belly-bursting”, but it deserves a mention alongside Halloween (and Martinmas) as this time of the year, at the beginning of November, where kids end up overstuffed with candy and sweets.

In fact, it is very interesting to note that while the Carnival is attached to the Lent season, and the Twelve Days of Christmas have a Carnival-nature to them, in some countries and regions of Europe, the Carnival is not a beginning of the year matter, but rather an END of the year matter, and thus they can actually start at either All Hallows Day, or around Martinmas, turning these November/Autumn holidays into masked revelries and belly-bursting debaucheries, just like the rest…

What is a quite interesting, and will serve as my conclusion here, is that the two main opposite Carnival seasons, the Lent one and Christmas one, actually form only one big season in some time eras and countries. Because you see… Some chose to have the Carnival season start at Candlemas. Meaning that right as the Christmas season ends, people threw themselves into the mad parties of the Carnival in prevision of Fat Tuesday… Imagine, stuffing yourself all throughout autumn to spring, only resting for a brief summer and beginning it all over again. Of course we have to forget the whole nasty things of the past such as the famines of old – but just extrapolating those celebrations and literal feast days, and projecting them onto a new, gaining-designed calendar…

Hey, that’s something I might do for fun!

#weight gain #fat #fatness #stuffing #fat calendar #whenever i do one of these posts it is always extremely hard to tag them properly

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foolishlovers · 6 months

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do you have any good omens fic recommendations for halloween as well? thank you :)

yes, for sure, i've read a few with halloween/ supernatural themes!! depending on how much time you have, i've sorted them by word count.

Hereditary enemies (T, 1k) by doomed_spectacles

What to do when one meets one's hereditary enemy on a wall? For this vampire and this werewolf, the answer is flirt. Clearly. The moonlight shone on the wolf — now man — as his mane was transformed into long red hair that fell down his back in loose waves. The rest of his fur receded from view, leaving his body bare and pale. Unlike his companions wreaking havoc on the humans below, this werewolf was able to take on an altogether more appealing appearance. “Well, that went down like a lead balloon,” the werewolf said, once he was seated on the wall.

(werewolf! crowley, vampire! aziraphale, meet-cute)

Halloween Haze (T, 1.6k) by fleurofthecourt

Crowley and Aziraphale agree to take Warlock Trick or Treating in his American cousins’ neighborhood; there’s just one problem: Crowley’s caught a cold from Warlock.

(costumes, a bit of family time with warlock and aziraphale taking care of sick! crowley)

This is Halloween (quite literally) (not rated, 2.7k) by Excalipurr

Armageddon has been left behind and Anathema is having a Halloween party.

(post s1, crowley wears a ridiculous costume for aziraphale, pining and love confessions)

Finders Keepers (T, 2.7k) by angelsnuffbox

Each encounter with Crowley left him breathless, but they had never ventured into anything more than those chance encounters. That was until today, on the night of their corporate halloween party, with Aziraphale asking for his help and Crowley actively following him around - in matching costumes, no less. Aziraphale would be so thrilled were he not filled with anxiety over his current predicament. Oh dear, he would never hear the end of it from Michael if he didn't find that dumb sword.

(human au, co-workers pining for each other, fluff)

Grave Reflections (M, 3k) by TawnyOwl95

Crowley doesn’t really approve of Aziraphale’s Halloween tradition, but it is an excuse for a picnic. At midnight. In a graveyard. Still, they are the scariest things out tonight? Aren't they?

(post-apocalypse, picnic in a graveyard, scarf sharing, creepy atmosphere)

For Life (E, 10k) by TawnyOwl95

It’s a certain time of the month and Aziraphale isn’t feeling well. Fortunately Crowley is there to provide chicken soup, and anything else an anxious werewolf might need.

(human au, werewolf! aziraphale, hurt/comfort)

The Summoning (M, 15k) by AppleSeeds

Aziraphale's horrible university housemates convince him to accompany them to an old, supposedly haunted, abbey on Halloween. He's not worried about ghosts, Aziraphale is pretty sure they don't really exist, but when his housemates send him into the toilets alone to perform a ritual that's intended to summon a demon, Aziraphale can't help but be afraid. Surely it's not that easy though. Surely a demon won't just appear because he asked it to? Will it?

(human au, anxious! aziraphale, comforting! crowley)

Dark Corners (M, 22k) by AppleSeeds

Aziraphale accompanies his friend Tracy to a Halloween event, a storytelling tour of a spooky Victorian castle, where Aziraphale gets rather flustered after unwittingly attracting the attention of the actor portraying the mysterious castle owner, Lord Anthony. Unsure how to properly respond to keep up the banter the actor is trying to engage him in, Aziraphale ends up taking things too far and worries that he's ruined the performance. When he seeks out the actor afterwards to apologise, Aziraphale finds him to be a great deal sweeter and lovelier than the intimidating character he was playing.

(human au, vampire themes, actor! crowley, lots of banter and teasing)

Legacies (M, 45k) by AppleSeeds

Crowley is excited to be spending the whole weekend in a creepy old Georgian mansion, and even more so once he meets the mansion's enigmatic resident curator, Aziraphale. Crowley takes every opportunity he can to spend time with Aziraphale, who seems to be very receptive to Crowley's attention and attempts to flirt with him. Their conversations prompt Crowley to reflect on what he really wants from life, leaving him with the intention of finally pursuing his dreams… if he can just make it out of the mansion in one piece, that is, after a series of mysterious occurrences reveal the presence of a malevolent force at work.

(human au, curator! aziraphale, haunted mansion, philosophical questions, lots of softness)

#i've read so many good omens fics these last few months i have so many recs to share #pls dont be shy u can always ask me for recs!!#would love to talk more about fics with all of you!! <3 #fic rec #good omens fics #good omens #foolish recs

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whyisthebreadbleeding · 7 months

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Just friends. That was all.

Didn’t stop him from picking out his favorite pair of undies - pale blue polka-dots with a bit of sweetheart lace.

Black panties? Well, that just means you’re a slut!

“Ow, ow ow—” Nikky wiggled slightly, trying to get his arm through the strap so he could uncatch the other strap, or lace or whatever, from one of the pins keeping his hot curlers in. One, two — the brunette huffed softly — free! — let the straps settle on his shoulder, smoothing it down he—

...It was on backwards. He scrunched his nose and crossed his eyes before he glared at the mirror. Nikky wiggled the silk slip up to his shoulders, turned it around the right way before shrugging his arms through the straps. Soft white fluttering against pale skin. He took a half step to the right, twiring to face the vanity. Grab a bobby pin just before the song ended. All his makeup was sitting in a celluloid tray next to his ipod; the candles burning - vanilla, and something bourbon julep iced tea - necklaces hanging from the decorative knob on the mirror; (but that was all costume jewelry, the expensive pieces were in the vault—)

The things he didn’t want to look at.

Nikky hummed softly, settling down for a half moment to finish touching up his foundation. He wasn’t going to use lead - he didn’t care much for products marketed to vampires at all. That left him with a blend of covergirl and some halloween clown paint. ← him if he expected anything out of today.

He wasn’t as pale as cousin Dorian

It was just an invite for … coffee? 'Dude' had suggested ice cream, though, and he wasn’t really sure why…? But he was kinda looking forward now to pistachio. Damn. Not that that mattered to him. It wasn’t a date-date. A - friend-date. Even if ‘dude’ was kinda (pretty) hot (no he wasn’t gonna ask what sort of nickname that was, he wasn’t even American). Tall, dark, mysterious. Ugh. He just needed friends, that’s all. He couldn’t keep bugging poor Honey for company, even if he felt a tug of guilt not texting as often as he should. Friends. Non-murderous buddies. Purebloods had weird fucking ideas of ‘fun’, and he was more than happy to talk to literally anyone else. Where the fuck was his eyeliner pencil—?

But if he had to be honest with himself, he knew he was still kinda-sorta-really hung up on Ahmed. That ‘don’t text me again’ remained a shrine on his phone, untouched. ‘I want a man by my side, I hate that ‘Fatima’ - that’s all you do is hide!’ … No lipstick. That’d be coming on too strong. Gloss was fine for these sorts of occasions, right..? Maybe coral?

Dating sucked.

Making friends — sucked. He didn’t want to do more than lunch with his work colleagues, and he so did not want to go back to school right now or try to force himself into those cliques or whatever. (Right side looked pretty even to the left and he was pretty alright with that.) He reached into his drawer and fished out a pair of nylons, taking a moment to tug them on (god, fucking, claws).

He wasn’t going to apologize. Not to the girl he’d almost punched at the club the other night after her boyfriend bought him a drink. Not to the poor guy he’d almost accosted at the campus (Seriously?). Not to cousin Feliks for fucking existing. Not to Edmund fucking Rockefeller and his stupid white teeth and his equally stupid, punchable face and the two weeks the spent in San Salvadore on the Côte d'Azur. Or his mum for borrowing her card for that trip and lying to her about why he needed it. Her cold demeanor lately said enough.

The dhampir leaned back against the chair, letting his attention meander back to the mirror (damn fine). ..What else was he going to do, sleep for another week? Summer just started — he leaned back slightly, but the music was the only thing he could hear. Merri and mum were (probably) sleeping still. He kept his potions in the false bottom drawer and maybe he could argue, these things keep him functioning.

The things he didn’t want to deal with.

Nikky contemplated his reflection for a moment, his vision glazing over slightly … something he was forgetting. Or — whatever. It mustn’t be that important. Mum wasn’t gonna be happy if he left without letting her know, but it was whatever, whatever, whatever.

He reached up and started pulling the pins out, tossing them into a creepy ceramic fruit dish (the jewelry holder had been a gift but it’d felt more like a threat—); carefully unspooling the curlers from his hair (shame on you ♪) ..and setting them back in their holder. It took a while; spritz with setting spray, gently brush out each curl, spritz again. But the soft halo of deep black framing his face was worth it.

Besides, ‘dude’ said he wanted to talk about plants. Mum had taught him in the first place; and he felt pretty confident in figuring out what the mage(?) wanted. It was kinda sweet. …He was probably straight as all get out. They always were. Probably had a nice girlfriend, too. Damn, Aphrodite. He plucked a gold chain from another dish, a moment to fiddle with the clasp - a single ruby star settling between his collar bones. Nikky pushed back from the table, shrugging the yellow dress over his shoulders. Didn’t stop him from choosing a summery print, a floral pattern on the skirt piece. He’d gotten this in Honolulu when he— when —

So Friday night, Holy Ghost, take me to your level — show me the one I need the most, I need the most,

Nikky closed his eyes as he fiddled with the buttons, swaying slightly to the music. One foot in, two steps back.

“..Wish I knew you when I was young — could have got so high; now we’re here it’s been so long; two strangers in the bright light—”

He fluffed his inky locks out and fiddled with the dress collar a moment before he glanced back at the mirror, shoulders sinking slightly.

Ah. Whatever.

Ready? Ready.

Cardigan, clutch, keys - blow the candle out, turn off his ipod. Phone? Phone. Nikky darted out the door, shutting it quietly behind him.

He’d return a moment later to grab a pair of white kitten heels from his closet before finally heading out.(x)

#vignette #Nikky #mostly #Linda #Merri #my asshole vampires #vampires #nikky's character arc is fucking wild and i will not elaborate

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workscounselingcenter · 2 years

Text

What’s Scary About Therapy

Hello there. My name is Shelby, and I am one of the counselors here at the Works Counseling Center. Fall is here, the leaves are changing, and Halloween is just a few short weeks away. Let’s check in. How are you? Have you thought about going to counseling recently? Are you already there? Since you clicked on this blog post, maybe fear is holding you back from getting started or digging deeper with your therapist. That’s okay. Being afraid of counseling is pretty common. Today, I want to address some of the fears that you may experience as a current client, or as someone considering getting started. Let’s dig in.

Some Fears You May Be Experiencing:

1. What if my therapist judges me?

Going to counseling is vulnerable, and vulnerability can be scary. Oftentimes when we seek counseling, we are challenged to talk about things that we don’t usually share easily. We come to process and work through thoughts and behaviors that commonly bring about uncomfortable feelings of embarrassment, anger, guilt or shame. It is possible that you have already judged yourself…a lot. You are not looking to be judged anymore. American psychologist, Carl Rogers, believed that a therapist needed to embody three qualities for therapy to be effective: 1.

Congruence, 2. Unconditional positive regard, and 3. Accurate empathy. Your therapist is a part of your team; the voice in your head that is judging your every move? May not be…

2. What if it’s too much and I can’t handle it?

Sometimes we are afraid that if we start counseling, we will unearth something that we can’t handle. We fear that sitting in our emotions and sifting through our “stuff” will be too unbearable, and that we are better off avoiding the discomfort. The truth is, if you are considering or are already in counseling, you are probably already existing in discomfort. The difference is, it is a discomfort that you know. Your therapist can work alongside you to help you identify and practice adaptive coping skills to use when you feel like it’s too much. Part of your therapist’s job is to help you safely navigate those uncomfortable experiences, and to support you when you are getting out of your window of tolerance so that you can regulate.

3. What if I can’t afford it?

At the Works Counseling Center, we pride ourselves on making therapy more accessible. We are currently paneled with Cigna and accepting some insurance policies. We also offer reduced rate and sliding scale payment options, and intern sessions at significantly reduced rates. If cost is something you’re afraid of, we hear you. The cost of your mental health is greater, and we want to support you on your journey to wellness. If you are interested in reduced cost services and want to know more about your options, feel free to reach out.

#Scary #Therapy

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betelguwuse · 3 years

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I’m starting to think maybe I don’t want to get married. Hypothetically I’d love to be in a godly marriage with a man who respects me and sees me as the person that God does (and not only me but women as a whole), but realistically do christian men like that even exist? Mainstream christianity, especially gender discourse, is so watered down and twisted into something that’s more political than biblical. I feel like this is gonna piss off both the christians and feminists, even though I’m both (though some might say I’m not a real feminist, whatever idc lol). Might also tag as Side B because I feel like this is also maybe a Side B mood? But here goes.

Color coded by vague topic, bolded so it’s easier to read.

Like I recently heard of a pastor being criticized for saying it’s a woman’s duty to look good for her husband, and the boomer conservatives were acting like criticisms of this pastor was the end of christianity. There’s no way “looking good” in a biblical sense was anything more than basic hygiene, nowhere near the beauty standards of today; and that is if the idea of looking good for your husband is even in the bible. These people siding with the pastor were saying that any woman who doesn’t shave or hide her “flaws” with makeup or basically completely embody the tradwife meme are bad wives. Like what the literal hell.

Honestly the entire tradwife aesthetic seems to be the goal for a lot of young christian couples, when it’s not inherently biblical. I used to be into it myself because heck yeah staying home, housekeeping, taking care of children, and wearing cute flowery dresses sounds like a dream. But my goals aren’t universal! Some women don’t want kids. Some women want to work. Good and God-honoring women of the bible didn’t all have kids and stay home. I mean the timeline of the bible spans so long, so yeah maybe there were times when most women did. But that doesn’t mean women who didn’t were bad wives or lesser women. Not to mention there’s such a blurred line currently between cute tradwife lifestyle and creeps who fetishize the idea of a traditional (and by traditional they mean submissive) wife. Gross.

Another thing too many christian men do is say women can’t be in any position of power in the church. There is the whole specific issue of whether or not women should be the highest up actual pastor of the church, and I don’t know enough about that whole debate to validate or debunk it, but I’m not talking about that specifically here. Aside from that one position, a lot of christians think women can only teach other women and girls but not guys, even like literal child boys. That’s so weird, like imagine thinking a little boy has more authority than, or even equal to, a grown woman? Couldn’t be me. And this whole idea comes from an out of context “I do not permit women to speak in the church” from a regular human guy. And the reason he said this was that the women around him were spreading heresy. I still think it’s flawed logic to exclude all women from speaking in that situation just because most of them were wrong, but again, this wasn’t a command from God. This was just a guy recording his church experience and doing his flawed human best to manage it. Various women throughout the actual bible outside of this one leader’s timeline held positions of power in various churches. And modern day american christian men think biblical womanhood is all about subservience? Bro what bible are you reading?

I just want to make it clear that these are all just generalizations, but having been in various actual biblical communities and conservative christian communities, I can kinda pick up on the general sexist behaviors of the latter. But unfortunately in today’s political climate more and more young christians are only being exposed to political opinions that are surface level americanized good christian morals, but not actually biblical.

Even on top of that, even if a man knows of these biblical misconceptions, we live in a society. Like we’re constantly exposed to women’s sexualization, and it’s pretty impossible to escape that. I don’t want to spend my life with someone who’s grown up in a world where women are seen as weak, objects, pleasure machines, etc. And yeah we can unlearn these biases (honestly I hate the word unlearn but I can’t think of a substitute rn), but it feels like a hassle to casually figure out whether a guy can make an effort to understand what women go through, and if I were to just bring it up I’d scare them away. And that’s not to say I’m some perfect person who’s never sexualized men, we are all sinners after all and we live in a fallen world etc etc. But a whole society where women are so objectified that it’s normal for little boys to be watching porn, that just doesn’t really happen with little girls. I can’t speak for all women, but when I started seeing men sexually it was in my late teens when I realized like ‘oh I can sexualize men too? wild. ok I’m an adult lemme check it out’. Still sinful, but not ingrained in me from porn ads as a kid the way most young boys have been since like the creation of the internet.

Even the men currently in my life who genuinely want what’s best for me are so incredibly misogynistic it’s baffling. My male family members see any woman who breaks an imaginary dress code or ideology is some kind of deviant. I just want to make it clear that this is MY family and I’M the only one who gets to complain about them. We all love each other here even if the males are horribly wrong.

So I shaved my head for halloween and my dad could barely look at me, not because he was exactly mad or anything but just because I looked ugly to him. He always says ‘close the windows in your apartment because men will spy on you changing’ but after my hair was gone he was all ‘actually don’t bother because nobody will look at you looking like that’ like wow I wasn’t aware men only sexualized women for their hair. Like you really think a gross creeper is gonna be turned off by a fully naked oblivious vulnerable woman just because she’s bald? That’s not how any of this works. And just today my sister was watching a goth youtuber egirl or something, I didn’t see her makeup but my dad said stuff like ‘ew why does she look like that, maybe it’d be cool as a costume but how is she going to get a job’. Like, I’m not one to go ‘women don’t wear makeup for men’ (because most women who only use makeup to hide their insecurities and follow beauty standards very much just do it so they don’t get backlash from others, if not directly to please men), but when it’s a fun crazy look that’s not meant to be pretty, I’m all for that shit and generally I hate when men lose respect for a woman just for wearing something they don’t like. Like fashion isn’t real and your appearance should be as costumey or weird as you want without people losing respect for you. Also like...do men know that makeup isn’t permanent?? Like if she wanted a job that required no makeup she could easily wipe her face off and get one?? Not only that, but people can work from home and/or be self employed. Maybe youtube itself was this girl’s job. Who the hell cares man. And the worst thing here is my brother outright said one time “the root cause of feminism is pride”. B r u h. And this was back when I considered myself an anti-feminist, even then I knew that feminism started for good reason and I was absolutely furious. I think I kept it to myself like a coward lol, but if anyone said that to me now I’d tear them apart. In a debate I mean, not like literal violence.

Tldr: I’m not trying to say men are inherently more evil because there’s evil in everyone, but the way it takes shape in men in most societies is so insidious and inescapable. I love my family and guy friends, but I don’t want to deal with one in a romantic/sexual relationship because I don’t know if even the most educated and goodest christian boi in this world can see me as a true equal. It sucks because I want sex and children, but when the mainstream idea of hetero sex is female submission, it just makes me shrivel up and contemplate becoming a nun. I’m not even catholic. But even nuns are sexualized and degraded in coomer’s disgusting brains. In conclusion I’m going feral and starting my own woman-only church in the woods let’s go ladies.

#christianity #biblical womanhood #christian woman #christian feminism #feminism #side b #side b christian

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toriwakes · 3 years

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Chrysanthemums [Draco Malfoy x Potter!Reader]

summary: you’ve lived in america for the past 15 years of your life. then, everything changed with one letter.

content warnings: very light cursing. some angst (?)

a/n: omg hi!! officially my second request, im so excited to share!! i know it’s SUUUUPER long but bars with me? i’m so proud of it and i’d actually love to do a mini series w this so lmk what u all think! ty for the request @peneflop !

everyone in america knew about harry potter. even though voldemort was a criminal in another country, americans felt just as worried. when the news got out, everyone was all over you. ‘(y/n) potter! are you related to him?’ you didn’t know the answer. but it was most likely not, right?

you sat next to your best friends, wishing them a good morning. “want to go pick up the mail?” lena asked. you nodded. the three of you walked down the halls, giggling and gossiping. “what’re you doing for halloween, (y/n)?” gina asked. you shrugged. “dunno. probably nothing. why?” she let out a dramatic gasp. “you’ve gotta come to this party! please don’t miss it, it’s gonna be amazing!” you laughed at her and turned the corner, entering the mail room. “i’ll think about it.” she made a face and you all separated to open your mail boxes. you flipped through your letters- nothing special. then something caught your eye. a parchment envelope with a burgundy wax seal. “guys?” your two friends rushed over. “what?” the said in unison. with a shaky hand, you lifted up the letter. “holy.” “shit.”

it was settled. you were moving to london and going to hogwarts. you were not keen on the idea at all, but the albus dumbledore demanded you be there. no witch could just say no. right now you were at the station, watching as hundreds of witches and wizards staggered around. “why’d you have to go before halloween?” gina sighed. you pouted. “i’ll write to you both once a week. i’ll tell you everything.” “yeah, you better!” lena teased. then you were met with anna. anna was your care taker. she wasn’t related to you but she cared for you since you didn’t have any connections to your family. you were told that your parents died in a car crash and they were both only children, so you had no aunts or uncles. poor circumstances, but that was your life. “i’m gonna miss you.” you said it quickly, afraid you may cry if you spoke too slow. “i’ll miss you too.” she was already crying. “now go, everyones already on.” you hugged them and waved goodbye before boarding the train.

you didn’t know anyone here. you shuffled to the back of the train and tried not to make yourself stand out too much. you walked back as far as you could and found yourself in a dark section of the train with empty booths. you smiled and sat down, pulling out your book that you brought along. you were daydreaming of lena and gina when you heard footsteps. when you shifted your gaze to the doorway, you jaw almost dropped. a tall (yet skinny) pale boy stood there. he along with two beefy men didn’t pay any mind to you. you hoped they wouldn’t notice you, but you were the only one there, it was unlikely they wouldn’t. they actually all got situated and you thought you were in the clear- until someone else came in. “i saw the saint on the way in. almost puked.” a brunette girl in all black clothes joked. they all laughed. “how was everyone’s- oh?” she saw you. the three boys looked at you, eyebrows furrowed. “hello, i’ve never seen you.” she spoke softly and say in front of you. “yeah. i’m new, it’s nice to meet you.” you stuck out your hand for a handshake. “american? that’s cute. i’m pansy.” she took your hand and you smiled. “pansy, that’s a pretty name. like the flower?” she didn’t say anything. you cleared your throat awkwardly. “i’m (y/n).” she smiled as a response. “would you three stop being so rude? introduce yourselves!” she was referring to the three boys. the blonde one stood up first. “malfoy.” he said curtly. you gave him a friendly smile. he didn’t return it. “goyle. that’s crabbe. he doesn’t talk much.” crabbe gave you a smile that you gladly returned. “come sit with us.”

for the next hour or so you bonded with your three new friends. pansy did most of the talking, goyle occasionally dropping in. draco didn’t speak too much but you could tell he was listening. every time he did, however, your ears got hot and you felt warm. he was very cute, but you didn’t know him like that. “the trolly is passing. (y/n), if i gave you some galleons would you get us some snacks? anything is fine.” you nodded, but were mildly confused. what the fuck are galleons? “pansy, she’s american. she doesn’t know what galleons are.” draco said. “oh- that’s right. go with her then.” pansy suggested. you took the gold coins from pansy and stood, draco following you. “hello! anything from the trolly?” the kind old woman asked. you picked out the thinks that look the nicest, draco talking the coins from your hand and giving them to the woman. you ignored the race in your heart when his hand touched yours. “did you get that?” he asked. you nodded. “you don’t speak too much, do you.” it wasn’t really a question. as you were about to answer, you made eye contact with a boy with very round glasses. could it be harry? draco noticed this and ushered you forward. “don’t talk to him.” just wait till they found out about your last name...

the students piled into the great hall, which was huge and rather beautiful. gather headmaster, who you recognized as professor dumbledore rose and spoke a few words. then, he made eye contact with you. “let the sorting ceremony begin!” you shuffled in with all the first years feeling awkward. the upper class man gave you strange looks- they must’ve thought you were daft. finally, you heard your name. “(y/n) potter?” you heard gasps in every direction. you stepped forward and sat on the stool. then, you felt the hat on your head. your hands were sweating.“another potter, eh? same qualities as the first yes... but where to put you?” everyone seemed to be on the edge of their seats. the 7 minutes that had passed felt like 10 hours. then, you heard a small voice in your head. this voice wasn’t yours. “what’ll it be then? gryffinor or slytherin?’ you blinked. ‘just put me where you think i’ll exceed.’ you don’t know how, but you felt the sorting hat smirk. “SLYTHERIN!” the hat boomed. a mixture of gasps and cheers erupted. the witch who sorted you pointed to the direction of the house decorated in green and silver- you beamed when you saw pansy. you sat next to her and she embraced you into a hug. “bloody hell, you didn’t tell me you were a potter! you don’t remember anything from that night, do you?” draco didn’t say anything. “what do you mean?” you asked. now they all just looked at you weird. “do you actually not know what happened?” draco asked. you shook your head. “(y/n)...almost a decade ago, voldemort killed your parents. you and harry survived, you’re the only two that have ever lived after getting hit with the killing curse.” hearing all of this was almost too much to handle. so you did have a family? it wasn’t a car crash? your brother is the chosen one? “how? how did no one know?” pansy looked at you with pity. “you two were separated as infants. no one knew what you looked like. besides, for some reason you don’t have the scar like he does.” pansy said while moving your hair out of your face. scar? like the one on your chest? you didn’t mention it, but you wondered if that was what she meant. “we’ll treat you all the same. don’t you fret.” pansy smiled. “thank merlin she’s not a gryffindor though.” goyle commented. everyone laughed. “what’s wrong with the gryffindors?” draco eyed the table behind you. “they’re a bunch of snobs. think they’re so much better than everyone because they’ve got potter on their side, well guess what? now so do we.” you hummed and turned around. harry was gazing at you already.

that night you found a tie, a sweater, some slytherin robes and a little slytherin flag in your dorm. if harry was a gryffinor, shouldn’t you also be? you shook your head from the thought- you’re done second guessing yourself. to take your mind off it, you pulled out your stationary and began to write to your best friends back in america. boy did you have some things to share...

officially 3 weeeks till halloween. your friends were sending you letter about how excited they were, but you were bummed. you didn’t tell them that your parents died on halloween, you knew it would kill the fun for them. you smiled at the letter and the cute picture of them attached. you pinned it to the cork board- right next to the slytherin flag. you smiled to yourself and grabbed your school bag, existing the dorms and heading into the common rooms. your friends seemed to be waiting for you. “finally! i’m starved, let’s go.” pansy linked arms with you and led you out, hiding you to the great hall. the stares you used to revive everywhere faded. it was like you were always there. “what classes do you all have today?” you questioned, biting into your bagel. “astronomy, potions, transfiguration and defense. you?” draco asked. you and draco finally became formal friends. you owed it all to the many classes you shared together and pansy’s constant pestering. “the same. i just gave potions first.” everyone dove into conversation about their school schedule, followed by how much they hated it. you laughed every now and then but your mind was somewhere else. you had harry in a few classes today. you and him haven’t talked at hall, surprisingly. you were simply too intimidated to do so. “(y/n)!” goyle was calling you. “yeah?” “i said we better get going. if your first class is potions, you don’t want to be late.” you simply nodded and headed with your group to your classes. everyone broke off to their classes as you walked around the castle, but you noticed that draco stuck with you. “i thought you had astronomy?” you only asked once he was outside your classroom. “i do.” “then why are you here?” you never really noticed how much taller draco was than you. “i just wanted to make sure you got here safe. if that not what friends do?” you cocked a brow. “you never walk me to my classes. “bloody hell, im sorry i won’t do it again!” he said quickly. you chuckled. “that’s more like it.” at that, you entered class and he walked away. there was something about him...

“pay attention mrs.granger.” you felt like rolling your eyes at your professor. he was always finding a reason to kick on the gryffindors. however when snape saw nearly everyone was struggling, he huffed and raised his hands to gain the class’s attention. “alright. split into groups of two and finish the potion. do not pair with someone from your house.” everyone shuffled around- harry was looking at you. you acted first, picking up your books and moving to harry’s desk. “hi.” you said. “hello.” he responded. you two worked silently but used teamwork. you ready him instructions while he acted out. “wow, we’re doing way better than i thought we would’ve.” you gave him a curious look. “not that i didn’t think you’d do good, i meant-“ you cut him off by laughing. “you really are my brother aren’t you?” he went quiet. “about that.” you moved your head up to look at him. “i guess we should talk about it.” he nodded in agreement. snape approached your table. “since you two like to do a lot of chatting, we’ll test your potion. snape stuck a dropper in the potion and poured it onto a round item covered in warts. slowly but surely, the warts popped away. “perhaps you’re not as incompetent as i thought.” was all he said before leaving the cauldron and dismissing you both.

you and harry spent the rest of potions and a bit of lunch sitting outside, talking about life and everything you missed out on. “so when you were thirteen- you blew up our aunt?” harry laughed harder at the memory. “harry! there you are.” hermione and ron showed up behind him. “oh- hey guys. wanna sit?” hermione gave you an uncomfortable look. “i’d love to, but i need to speak to you alone harry.” just in cue, you heard your best friends voice. “(y/n)!” you turned around and saw pansy as well as draco. “it’s fine, i have to go anyway. see you later.” you hugged your brother and you both split off. “finally talked to him?” pansy questioned. “yeah. it felt good.” she smiled as a response and the three of you settled on hanging out near the lank for the remainder of lunch. you didn’t catch it, but draco smiled at your happiness.

one week till halloween. you were more upset than happy, but harry wasn’t too effected, but he’s known the truth for 4 years. you found out last month. since it was a weekend, the hogwarts students were roaming about, chatting about their plans for the big night. your friends apologized to you, explaining that they all had detention early morning with mcgonagall. well- all but one. draco walked up to you in the common room and sat beside you. over the past month you and draco became even closer than before. you found yourself having a lot of alone time with him, learning new things about the boy every time. the more you learned a the more interested you became, and before you knew it; you were slowly falling for draco malfoy.

“hey.” you chimed. “do you want to go for a walk?” he said after a minute of silence. you noticed he wasn’t making eye contact with you. you set down your book slowly. finally he looked at you, curious why you were taking so long to answer. “are you bloody deaf? i asked if you wanted to go for a walk.” you giggled while nodding. “yes-yes, i just love hearing how sassy you get. cmon.” you left first and you could hear draco mumbling something along the lines of ‘i’m not sassy...’ under his breath. you thought he was adorable.

the two of you ended up at the lake. it became a usual hangout spot for you and your friends. you did things like talk the day away, finish homework and especially practice magic here. there was a small patch of flowers in the grass- that’s how you identified your spot. as you and draco relaxed you flicked your wand, a flower now blooming in your hand. “..you love that spell.” he said, interrupting his last sentence. you looked at him, moving your body so that you were facing him. “guess i do.” you hummed softly, leaning forward to tuck the chrysanthemum behind his ear. he looked at you like you had three heads- was he not used to kind gestures? “that looks nice next to your hair.” you commented. his confused gaze stuck. you ignored it and continued swishing your wand, anxious that you may have done something wrong. just then, draco let out a sigh. “goddamnit.” he sounded defeated. “what’s wrong?” you asked. he finally looked at you normally, but this time he looked sad. “you. this is all your fault, you know that? i’m supposed to be this cold hearted, asshole type of guy. i wasn’t going to let myself get soft for some girl, especially an american.” you had no idea where he was going with this. the more he spoke, the more nervous you got. is he saying he doesn’t want to be friends? “but you’re so kind, and smart. you care so much about your friends and those you love. how could i not like you? and you being gorgeous is just a bonus...” you could not believe what you were hearing. was he admitting to having feelings for you? the silence scared him, so you spoke up. “are you saying what i think you’re saying?” he winced. “bloody hell, i’m saying i like you, you dimwit!” so you were right. “well..i like you too, draco?” he widened his eyes and tilted his head as if to say, ‘really?’ “yes, you dimwit.” you mocked. he chuckled and pulled out his wand. “hold out your hands and close your eyes.” you did as he asked, feeling something sprout in your palms. “open.” when you did, what appeared to be a flower crown (made up from chrysanthemums) rested in your hands. you gasped from joy, lifting it up so you could get a better look at it. “i love it.” you spoke. “(y/n)...would you ever consider being my girlfriend?” you felt time stop. draco really wanted you to be his girlfriend. “yes!” you said happily. he beamed back at you, looked at the flower-clad ground and smiling even brighter. “cool.” he chuckled. “cool.” you responded.

a few days later when you finally got the chance, you ran to your dorm to write to lena and gina. they were gonna flip! just as you planted the wax seal, you heard screaming coming from outside your door. there was pansy, bursting in and hugging you. “you’re dating draco?! oh my god!” she squealed. you laughed at the excitement. “yes! it’s amazing isn’t it?” you said. “yes! oh i’m so excited, my two best friends- dating!!!” pansy smiled greatly. “i’m going to the owlery, would you-“ “DRACO! take your girlfriend to the owlery!” you shook your head at pansy, bidding her goodbye and leaving with draco.

“who are you sending this to?” draco questioned as you attached the letter to the owls leg. “my friends back in america.” you stared as the owl flew away, farther and father, until it was out of sight. suddenly you felt a hand wrap around your waist- draco was looking at you with heart eyes. “what?” you laughed. “you’re just...really gorgeous.” you blushed hard. you didn’t even notice that you were staring at draco’s lips- and he was staring back. you both leaned in closer and one of his plate hands cupped your cheek. “can i kiss you?” he whispered so quietly you weren’t even sure you heard it. still, you nodded and he closed the gap. his lips were as soft as clouds, fitting like a missing puzzle piece with yours. you could’ve stayed like that forever; just you and him. but all good things must come to an end, right? “(y/n)?” the voice of your brother alarmed you, making you break away from draco. “potter.” draco spat. “get away from her!” harry ran to pull you away from him, standing in front of you as if draco was going to hurt you. “harry what are you doing?” you whined, moving him out of the way so now you were in between the boys. the way the two boys looked at each other- you knew there was some history you haven’t discovered. “protecting you? you don’t know what he could’ve brought you up here for!” draco looked at you; he was extremely annoyed. “harry, draco’s my boyfriend. i’m fine..” harry’s mouth hung open, eyes flickering from you to draco and back again. “potter, is there a problem?” draco asked in his usual sassy voice. “let’s see; you’re dating my sister, why would we have a problem malfoy?” shit.

harry stormed away out of rage. the walk back to the common rooms was silent. your head was too full to talk. you had just reconnected with harry, were you going to ruin it all just by being with draco? you really likes the blonde, but was he worth ruining your new founded family? “what are you thinking about?” he spoke finally. you snapped out of your gaze, shaking your head. “nothing.” “no, i know you’re thinking. you get all quiet when you think.” he knew you well, which made you feel a little better. “i think harry’s mad at me. i just met him and he already hates me.” draco cupped your cheeks, making you look at him. “listen to me- he does not hate you. you’re his sister, his only family. he couldn’t hate you.” you smiled in his hands. you told him you’d meet him back in the common room later. you had to find harry.

you walked around the castle for what felt like an hour, finally finding him in an empty classroom on the third floor. you entered silently. he was sitting on a desk with his back facing you. “hi.” you choked out. harry turned around and said nothing when he saw you. you took it upon yourself to sit next to him. “harry-“ “do you like him? like, actually like him?” you thought about it for a moment. you considered lying, maybe that’ll make him hate you less. but you knew he’d eventually find out and it’s only make things worse. “yeah. i do.” harry put his face in his hands. “not only are you a slytherin but you’re dating my sworn enemy.” he shook his head and laughed while saying it. “hey!” you said while playfully shoving him. the laughter died and you sat in sad silence again. “i don’t me being with draco to mess up our relationship.” harry but his lip in thought. “is there anything i could do to make it up to you?” you pleaded. an idea popped into your head. you pulled out your wand and swished it- a flower wreath following. “chrysanthemums?” harry asked, taking the wreath into his hands. you smiled. “yeah.” he put the wreath on his head as a joke, but it brushed some of his hair out of his forehead on the way. “i meant to ask you about the scar.” “what about it?” he said. you moves your shirt down, exposing the lightning bolt scar on your chest. “blimey.” he looked very shocked. “i don’t really know what this means.” you whispered. harry shook his head, implying he didn’t either. “are we alright then?” harry fidgeted with the wreath. it dawned upon him that no- he couldn’t stay mad at you. you’re the only family he has left. “i guess.”

over the next week you magras to patch things up with harry and draco well enough to celebrate halloween in peace. the feast was ravishing. you ate so many sweets that you couldn’t imagine having back in america. as per usual you sat with the slytherins- but something was telling you u that you should be with harry. so without a second though you turned to draco, “what do you think of eating with harry?” he almost spit out his pumpkin juice. “you brother hates me (y/n), you know that.” he knew you were going to get your way, but he was trying to convince you not to. your mind was made up. “he’ll have to deal with it.” let’s just say gryffindor wasn’t too fond of having slytherins at their table.

being draco’s girlfriend was a blessing. he showered you with gifts, affection, appreciation. you couldn’t ask for a better boyfriend. there was never a time where you doubted his feelings for you. now was one of them. you two were in his dorm, listening to the soft, low music coming from his record player. you were both just gazing at the ceiling while wrapped in each other’s arms. it’s not that you didn’t love lazy days with draco- you certainly did. you just really wanted to do something right now. “draco?” you finally said. “hmm?” you loved when he responded with a hum. you couldn’t explain why, but it made you go all fuzzy inside. “i wanna do something fun,” you flipped over so you were hovering above him now. he scrunched his brows. “like what?” you thought about it. what could two, 15 year olds do at one in the morning? “wanna sneak into the kitchens?” he burst out in laughter. you wanted to ask him what was so funny, but with a smile like that? you had to laugh with him. “alright- alright. let’s go.” so that’s how you two ended up there, pajamas and all. everything would’ve gone fine if draco would’ve just worn shoes. “bloody hell!” he screamed, dropping all the snacks. draco stubbed his toe on a nearby cart, and of course he had to be dramatic about it. “draco hush!-“ but it was too late. the lights turned on and the house elves caught you, immediately reporting to filch.

you never wished draco wasn’t such a diva more than right now. your saturday was being stolen by detention. even though you were with him, the detention was being watched by snape and you weren’t risking it again. you checked the clock; still two hours? god, you were gonna be here forever if something didn’t happen- “professor!” it was dolores umbridge, dressed in all pink, stumbling through the door. “yes, professor?” snape sneered. she straightened herself up and spoke in her high voice, “there are difficulties with some gryffindor student i could use some assistance with.” she said. “is there anyone else you can ask? i’m preoccupied at the moment..” she giggled. “yes, but i’m sure these students will listen to you.” umbridge looked at you and draco, obviously noticing the green color on your robes. “besides. i’m sure they’ve learned their lesson- haven’t you, children?” you both nodded frantically. “you’re dismissed.” you and draco shot up, not asking any questions and only daring to speak once they were both out of ear shot. “you’re an idiot, you know that?” you told him, playfully (but not really) shoving him to the side. he took your hand and put it in his, smirking to himself more than at you. “‘m your idiot.” rolled your eyes at the blonde. he really was.

before you knew it, the school year was passing by. you and harry were going to america along with some other friends to visit your home. ron was a nervous reck on the plane, not understanding why muggles put themselves through this torture. finally the four of you landed, slowly but surely making it through security and such. that’s when you spotted your two best friends- from miles away, at that. you ran towards them at full speed, almost toppling then over when you embraced them. “i missed you so much!” lena shouted. “i missed you too! god i have so many stories- oh! i need to introduce you to some people!” you face palmed, completely forgetting about your guests. “this-“ you grabbed harry’s arm and shoved him in front of you. “-is harry.” your friends gave you the exact same look; ‘is he..?’ you nodded. “erm- pleasure to meet you. i’m her brother.” both their eyes went wide, and they both hopped on him. “anna is going to go crazy! two potters- wow! she’s already had enough with toria let me tell you-“ “gina!” you scolded. she just laughed. “ah yes, this is ron, he hated me when i first met him.” ron threw his arms up. “you’re a slytherin, what’d you expect?” you hit him in the head as a response. you also ignored how lena ogled ron. then, you felt your boyfriends long arm snake around your waste and press a chaste kiss to your head. “it’s not as bad as i thought it’d be here.” he commented. “and this my dear friends; is draco. my boyfriend.” draco smiled kindly and held out his hand. they both shook it. harry rolled his eyes in annoyance. then you saw her. “anna!” you’ve done a lot of screaming today, you noticed. harry showed up behind you, tapping you on the shoulder. “who’s that?”

harry almost cried when he found out he had a guardian. he had told you about sirius, but he sadly passed away. it’s like he was getting a second chance. anna took you all home in her van (ron getting even more nervous now). right now, all of you sat in anna’s back yard. “did you learn anything cool over there? new spells?” gina inquired. you smirked, pulling out your wand and preforming the spell you’ve mastered this school year.

“chrysanthemums?”

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wishfullyeternal · 4 years

Text

Spencer Reid x Reader Pt 1- Hurt

Words- 2,703

Warnings- WARNING graphic depiction of violence, language, reader almost gets raped, if you are triggered by any of these things I strongly reccomend you go to another one of my stories.

A/N- I usually don’t write this graphic of stuff but I was feeling kinda angsty. This is my first criminal minds fanfic and I’m working on a request for one right now, as always requests are open and I’m always down to write something new. Love you lovlies!

Your relationship was perfect, and the spark was more like a firework. You loved him, his name was Noah, and you had met him shortly after taking the job at the BAU. Your life was finally starting to turn around. Things were going great, you had a well-paying job, friends, and even a nice apartment. Of course, things were beginning to change as they usually did, Noah became more distant, yet more controlling at the same time. He always texted you asking where you were, even though you had told him you were on the jet towards Los Angeles. He argued with you more and more, always accusing you of lying about where you were and cheating on you with the "boys" who always followed you around. No amount of explaining could persuade him that they were coworkers, and nothing else. He even randomly went through your apartment when you were gone, looking for something to start an argument. You knew it was bad, and you knew that you should've broken up with him long ago, but the love was still there. You thought you could fix him, make him believe you, but nothing worked. You remember the first time it happened, right before you were called into a case. "You!" He sneered, looking down at you, "I knew it!" He was holding something, you tried to keep him calm, "Honey, what is it?" You said quietly, hoping he would mirror you, he didn't. "You cheating BITCH!" He screamed the last word and you shrank down, trying to show him that you were no danger to him. He held up a picture of Spencer Reid, your coworker. He had given it to you because you joked about him never leaving your side. Hotch had put you and him together constantly on cases, so he gave you it to remind you that he was never leaving. A nice gesture, but you laughed at the face he was making. "I'm not cheating, that's my coworker, Noah, I promise. I would never do that to you." He didn't believe you, and that's when he slapped you. You stepped back and held your hand to your cheek, the skin burning. "Please don't hurt me," You whispered, you tried to reason with yourself. You were an FBI agent, the strongest of the strong, you had a gun for god's sake. You could run and tackle serial killers, rapists, but you were scared of your boyfriend? "You deserve it, you lying slut. You're probably sleeping with him, huh, you're cheating on the only person who would treat you right. You should be ashamed." You tried to slip by him, to distance yourself but he grabbed you. He pushed you to the ground and stood above you. You were silent, you ran out of things to say, this wasn't like a hostage situation. You knew him, you loved him. He sneered at you, "Get up," You did and stood up, facing him. "You deserve punishment for what you've done," He stepped towards you and you tried to reason with him. "Noah, I'm not cheating, it's just a coworker! I promise!" He didn't even stop to listen to you, instead, he looked down at you and grabbed your midsection, he squeezed hard and threw you across the room. It wasn't hard because of his strength. He then left quickly and you heard his car squealing across the road. You hit your head pretty hard and your ribcage was most likely bruised. You didn't tell anyone because you were supposed to be strong and maybe, just maybe, he was having a bad day. Climbing into bed you winced and thought about him again. You managed to fall asleep only when your cat had climbed into bed. It was unlike him, he usually slept on the couch or in his own kitty hideout, you had a feeling he sensed something was wrong. Waking up the next morning you felt a stinging pain in your side along with a reddened face. You pushed all the thoughts from yesterday behind and put on some makeup and went to work. Once you had arrived the team welcomed you like usual. You smiled at them and went to your desk. "What's up," You turned to see Spencer Reid, one of your best friends on the team, you smiled at him and said, "Nothin' much, how about you genius?" He smirked and started to talk rapidly about the approaching date of Halloween, his favorite holiday. After boring you with the facts and specifics of how Halloween was a strictly only American holiday (with a few exceptions of course) with roots in paganism and other 'witchy' beliefs," You started to listen but then began to drift off, reminding yourself of yesterday night and wondering what you did wrong. Reid touched your shoulder and you flinched, "Sorry, you seemed spaced out... Is everything okay?" He said, you looked at him and flashed him a quick smile. "Yeah, I'm good!" He squinted his eyes, almost knowing something was wrong but shrugged and went back to his desk. You looked over to your computer to see mounds of paperwork as usual, after a case everything had to be documented, and you didn't mind it. It was a mindless task and you could this about anything that was on your mind. It was Noah, you couldn't get him out of your head, no matter how much you shook your head trying to get him out, thinking about something else. He would crawl back in, like a bug constantly flying around your face. You recounted the events of last night, going through each and every moment, trying to figure out, well profile, how he was moving and what his intentions were. You were snapped out of your thoughts yet again when Reid came over again, "Hey, you're leaving an ink stain on your paper..." You looked down and realized you hadn't moved your pen and ink was starting to spread across the paper, you quickly took it off and tried to wipe the excess ink off, you instead smeared it more. Now it was all over your hand. You looked down and took a deep breath. This was not the time to be thinking, you had work to do. "Don't worry," Reid said, "I'll print you off another one, go wash your hands." You got up and went to the bathroom to wash off the ink that was starting to dry. You looked at the black ink washing down the drain and struggled to keep your thoughts straight. You scrubbed the rest of it off, only leaving a little stain on your hand. Drying them you managed to keep Noah out of your thoughts. Coming back to your desk you saw that there was a new piece of paper, Reid was sitting on the edge of your desk as well. He gave you a quick smile and when you sat down he spoke softly. "Hey, is everything okay? You don't usually get this spaced out," You shook your head, "I'm fine, just a little frazzled, I didn't get much sleep last night." You grabbed a different pen and began to work on the paper while talking to Reid. He touched your shoulder and you managed to keep your flinch unnoticeable. You looked at him, "You know, you can talk to me. I'm not just a genius boy, I'll listen." You smiled at him and said, "Thank you, Reid, I appreciate it." He smiled and went back to his desk. You spent the rest of the day doing paperwork and carrying on meaningless conversations with the team. You managed to finish all of the paperwork right before closing time. Everyone else had gone home except Reid and Hotch. You turned off your computer and organized your stuff, rubbing your eyes and yawning you got your stuff and went to walk to the glass doors before you heard an all too familiar voice. "Hey, wait!" Reid walked towards you with his satchel around him, you smiled at him and let him speak, "Hey uh, do you mind if I walk you to your car?" You questioned him, "Why, genius boy?" You snickered, Reid rubbed the back of his neck and answered, "Uh, I just wanna make sure you get home safe I guess," You laughed, "Thanks, I appreciate it, genius," You both went down the elevator in comfortable silence, he finally broke it when you both were walking down the hallway to the parking lot. "Are you sure you're okay?" You shook your head and chuckled softly, "Yeah, I'm fine, why are you so worried?" Reid answered quickly, "I don't know, gut feeling I guess." You made fun of him, "Spencer Reid, getting a gut feeling? Didn't know that existed." You play pushed him and he laughed, "Hey, I'm not totally robotic!" You both laughed on the way to your cars, you waved goodbye and got into your car smiling. Everything was going to be okay, as long as you had the genius boy Reid at your side. Getting home, your door was unlocked. This was extremely unlike you, ever since working for the BAU, you kept yourself secure, locking doors and windows every time you left. You grabbed your gun out of its holster and pointed it towards the door, you opened it quickly scanning the room from left to right. Always left because of the way the door opened, therefore you could detect any dangers before they had a chance to hurt you. You saw the sight of Noah, sitting smugly in the red loveseat you had been given by Penelope when you first moved. You put your gun away and breathed out. "Noah, I could've shot you. Warn me when you're coming over please." He only smiled, then took out his phone. "So, you've been talking to this Reid man..." You furrowed your brows, "What?" He shoved his phone in your face, "Him!" He swiped through pictures of you and Reid today, from the window of the office, and from the parking lot, you both laughing. "Noah, he's just my coworker," He began to rip into you, "Just a coworker and yet you laugh and play fight him, and he's constantly at your desk. You cheating slut!" You had just put away your badge and gun before he ran at you, tackling you to the ground. "Noah! What the fuck!" You tried to get him off of you but his large frame kept you down. He laid on your legs and pinned your arms down. He looked at you and smiled. "Admit it, you cheating whore!" You yelled at him, trying to reason, "Noah! He's my coworker! We're friends! That's it, please... Let go of me!" He pushed down on your arms tighter and whispered in your ear, "You lying bitch," He lessened his grip and you took the chance to aim a punch to his face, unfazed, his smile quickly faded. You managed to get up but not before he bear-hugged you. You writhed around, trying to get out of his grasp. He lifted you off the ground and you desperately kicked around, flailing as much as you could. He gripped you tighter and threw you on the bed. He locked the door but you managed to get up in time, you ran at him to punch him but instead was met with a punch straight to the stomach. The wind was knocked out of your chest and you fell to the ground, you gasped for air whilst trying to get off the ground. When you put your hands to the floor to raise yourself up you felt Noah on top of you again, this time he had a tie that he must have brought with him. He managed to tie your hands together, tight. You yelled at him some more. "What the fuck Noah! Let me go!" He shushed you and said quietly, "You're getting what you deserve," You widened your eyes, knowing exactly what he was going to do. "Noah, please don't..." You looked at him but he showed no emotion, you hadn't noticed it before, maybe it was the love that clouded it. But he showed absolutely no remorse, a classic psychopath, and his inflated self-worth....Narcissist. "Oh my god," You whispered, your boyfriend was a Narcissistic Psychopath. Noah put his hand over your mouth and lifted you onto the bed. You kicked and screamed but was only muffled by his hand. He quietly scolded you. "Don't fucking kick me," He looked like he was going to say something else but stopped. He reached out of his pocket and you were met with duct tape. You knew what was about to happen. You knew what he was about to do. You had to get out of this. You racked your head, trying to think of something, anything that would get you out of this. You realized that he was occupied with trying to break off a piece of the duct tape when you kicked him in the chest, hard. As hard as you could. He fell to the ground but unfortunately was still conscious. Running across the room you ran out the door and with your still tied hands managed to run straight out the door and into your car. The tie began to loosen as you tugged on it and you managed to get one hand out of it. Looking towards you back you found Noah running straight to your car. You started the engine quickly and locked the doors. You knew he was going to take no time to break the windows to try and get to you. You backed out of the parking space and speeded out the parking lot. You saw him get into his car and you managed to speed through lights, luckily there weren't many cars out this late. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck," You repeated over and over again, you kept checking your rearview mirror but didn't see his car. You breathed normally for the first time in what seemed was forever. You drove fast but diligently, looking behind you to see if Noah was there. Once you slowed down you realized that you had to go somewhere. It was late, and the only person you knew had such a sleep schedule was the infamous Reid. He lived closest and you made your way to his apartment. You had been there once because Emily had wanted you to give him a gift. You parked and went for your gun but realized you left it at home. "Fuck," You whispered, Noah could've had your gun. Luckily he didn't know where Reid lived so you quickly buzzed in. Reid heard your panicked voice and let you in immediately. You ran to his room and knocked on it frantically. He opened it and he looked you over quickly. Disheveled clothes and hair, tie around one of your hands, knotted, breathing uneven, bruises on your arm. You hugged him, so tight. He hugged you back just as tight. You began to cry into his shoulder. How could this happen to you? You were supposed to be strong, a warrior, a fucking FBI agent, not a victim. You couldn't be a victim. Reid whispered quietly, "It's okay, it's okay. You're safe. I'm right here..." He led you to the couch. "He doesn't know where you are, does he?" You shook your head, wiping the tears from your face. "It's okay, here. Let's take this off." You let him grasp your wrist while he took off the tie. He laid it on his coffee table and motioned for you to come closer. "It's okay, I've got you." You cuddled on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. He kept saying sweet nothings, running his hands through your hair. "It's okay, you're okay. You're safe. It's going to be okay, shh." You closed your eyes and after a while you were tired. Tired of crying, just so tired. You moved your head to get more comfortable and let your breathing become even. Right before you fell asleep Reid said softly, barely enough to hear. "You're okay, I love you, you know that..."

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blackvelvetwriteson · 3 years

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Hi, could I get a one shot fem! black reader x Kakashi, please? (can be nsfw or fluff, it's your choice)

Hey there! Thank you for the request 🥺🥺 I had a bit of a roadblock with this one simply because I couldn’t think of a prompt, BUT I eventually thought ‘why not write about the holidays’ so I got into a groove with it! Once I got into it, it was a really fun write! I hope that this is what you expected and/or lives up to your expectations!

𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐁𝐋𝐔𝐄𝐒

( ~ Kakashi Hatake x Black Female Reader Insert ~ )

GENRE: Fluffy Fluff!

FANDOM: Naruto Shippuden

TRIGGER WARNINGS: There really are none for today, it’s pretty fluffy for today!

SUMMARY: Reader-Chan wants to celebrate the holiday season this year because she never got to, but she doesn’t necessarily know how to approach Kakashi about it since he never celebrates the holidays (or ever even heard of them for that matter.

WORD COUNT: 4303

(Headers are mine, but the art inside of them are not! Please don’t steal or repost without credit!)

For some reason, you were in an incredibly festive mood this time around. Maybe it was something about how the gilded sunlight made yours and Kakashi’s home feel more… Well, home-y. Maybe it was the remnants of your food that you’d made earlier for your lunch still lingering around the house, or the kids of the village running around outside of your windows, whether subliminally training or not undeterminable, reminding you of your youth. Time had gone by so fast, and already you’d been in Japan for about two years and a half. You already knew that, in general, the people of the area didn’t celebrate Halloween, and actually it was a week AFTER Halloween would’ve taken place in America, but something about today… Something about today made your festive bone quiver and you decided to do SOMETHING to celebrate.

Since you’d picked up on the shinobi not celebrating American holidays like you were used to, you avoided asking Kakashi about it. Come to think of it, he never really did anything you were accustomed to besides the staring thing; and when you got together he tried to give you food related nicknames. You had to sit down and explain to him why it wasn’t okay and why it made you uncomfortable and then he thoroughly apologized and left it at that. He didn’t really have any nicknames for you, and from research you found that most women in Japan (and men) only go by their given names with -chan/san at the end which was cute, but if everyone had to call you that then it’d lose meaning and it wouldn’t be as cute.

Even still, though, you decided that today would be the day that you participated in the festivities of the holiday season that, in America, would be fast approaching. The only question for you was who you were going to dress up as and suddenly a thought formed in your head as you popped up from the couch and scurried to your guys’s room. You’d dress up as your hero, your boyfriend Hatake Kakashi! He wouldn’t expect it, you’d be able to see how everything fits, AND it’d be cute- at least you thought- and it’d give you something to do so that the crisp, perfect day didn’t go to waste.

You sifted through the closet with eager eyes as you hummed softly, some of your curls coming loose and falling down by your face, your dark brown beautiful eyes twinkling as you pulled out the parts to the outfit he wore from day to day, your eyebrows knitting a little as one corner of your lip lifted a little. “This man, so help me black Jesus,” you whisper softly noticing how much heftier your wardrobe was than his. He had the same outfit to go over about 5 or 5 times, black sweatpants, black shorts, and 3 different headbands all crushed, neatly, together on one side of the closet while your clothing took up the other half. You shook your head and closed the door with your hip once you were sure you had everything you needed for your little plan. You looked it over excitedly, your slender auburn fingers contrasting almost perfectly against the colors of his uniform. “Damn… I never noticed that till now,” you laugh softly as you remove your shirt and start to pull on articles of the outfit, trying to mimic exactly how you saw Kakashi wear his so you didn’t accidentally disrespect him. Of course he only had 2 masks and a shirt with a mask that you’d sewn onto it, and you decided not to mess with any of it. You didn’t want to hide your face at all whatsoever, especially behind masks that might’ve well have been your boyfriend’s comfort items. You had pretty much everything on, the worn out navy blue bringing everything together, the green brightening your pretty almost black eyes. You giggle softly as you look in the mirror and decide to do something with your hair before it dried completely- you’d taken a shower only 30 minutes prior and your hair was a little damp. You scurry off to the bathroom with the bandage and garter in one hand, your yellow hair pik in the other. You looked extremely excited, for once taking a moment to completely love and indulge in yourself. Being in an area where your existence was offensive to others to suddenly going to a place where absolutely nobody looked even close to you was an extreme shift, but Kakashi made it okay, literally brawling with anybody that so much as looked at you the wrong way. You had a small bit of tummy, but he loved that about you; and it’s not like it slowed you down any, made you unreliable, or made you any less attractive than you were. In fact, to some people it wasn’t even really noticeable unless you were wearing certain things. You also had to drop the American style and adopt the Japanese locale and honestly, while that was a HUGE shift, Kakashi helped with that too. Sometimes you’d get yourself in trouble with how you spoke though; that American lingo that’d been generationally passed down to you finding its way showing up and showing out, especially when someone wanted to make fun of your hair, or your physique and compare you to the other local girls, most noticeably Ten-Ten, Lady Tsunade, Sakura, and Hinata. They argued that the more pale girls were more attractive; because you could play in their hair and you wouldn’t have to worry about one slowing you down- at which remarks you stuck the shit talkers to a tree with your kunai for hours after you thoroughly cussed them out and ribbed them a little, telling Kakashi what’d happened so he could go cut them down. On the flip side, the kids absolutely adored you and loved when you were out so they could play tag or ask you unnecessary questions or get some treats from you.

You quick-washed your hair in the sink and started to blow-dry it deciding that you’d give yourself an at home blowout so that you could complete the look. Being the multitasker you were born into being, you found something to prop the blowdryer up while you piked your hair out quickly, smiling as you watched your hair fluff up, watching your coils straighten and then get bigger until it couldn’t anymore. Then it hit you; Kakashi hadn’t seen your hair blown out except once and that was while you were braiding it back and his eyes were fixated on your fingers as he wondered how a person could do that. At this point, your hair was halfway done, and while you let the tool dry your hair even more, you attempted to wrap the bandage around your thigh and it only BARELY made it, your thigh utterly choked in the process. You looked down at your leg and then pensively looked at the garter and decided that wouldn’t fit around your leg and you let out a frustrated sigh. “That man, is fine as fuck, but why he built like a bean pole,” you huff quietly as you let the bandage loose from trapping your thigh before your mind wandered to him. “…. Aight so maybe he got a LITTLE bit of muscle, but we aint talkin’ about that right now,” you laugh softly before looking at your phone seeing that he sent you a text signifying that he was on his way back from training for the day and that he was fine. You smiled cheerily at your text and tilted your head some at yourself, using your pik to fluff your hair out more before you scurried back to your guys’s room and snatched one of his spare headbands up, securing it quickly and tactfully. You looked at yourself in the mirror, your hands coming up and sliding into the arm holes of his navy green vest. You turned to one side, then to the next, then finally you looked at yourself from a front profile and your eyes glistened a little. “You’re… so heroic,” you mumbled under your breath before you heard some clatter coming from outside of the room.

“Oh right… You can do that,” you say as you open the door and watch him freeze completely in his spot, his eyes slowly raking over you from head to toe then back up again, his stoic expression unchanging from what you could tell. “H-Heyy… Honey,” you smile nervously as you wave with one of your gloved hands. He walked towards you and slipped one side of the headband over one of your eyes and then he stifled a soft grunt under his breath.

“It’s Kakashi. We’ve talked about this,” he said softly before he looked over his shoulders, his hands sliding in his pockets again as his back straightened out some. “….Why are you wearing my clothes,” he asked with a slight edge to his voice, meanwhile you were still frozen in place, your legs starting to quiver some. You didn’t know why he was being so cold to you and it made you just a little insecure. “Particularly… Those,” he said as he stared at the wall below the TV you both had, his legs crossed as he leaned back into the couch.

“Damn so you not gonna say ‘hi.’ Or ‘I missed you,’ or nothin’ like that hm? Well… My bad, I guess I’ll just go take it off,” you say softly, the spirit of the day becoming crushed. He mused softly and his head only tilted a small bit. He didn’t even look at you and you noticed this. The whole time you were here… The whole time you were together the only thing you wanted was his eyes on you and his praises. You were struggling and it was on you for the most part because you hadn’t reached out to him for help. He was a real big one for “say what you mean or need,” or something like that. You LOVED the idea behind the last stretch of the year; the days designated for giving thanks, hanging out with the ones you love, amazing food, and gifts, and movies, and music. All of it… But having come from where you had, you never really had good times or a good chance to make memories. Now that you were old enough to have someone of your own and actually be able to create memories, you wanted to… But instead you’d been trying to force it out of your life to make your man happy, however you weren’t having it anymore. You just didn’t know how to bring it up.

“Mm.. What’s-“

Before he could even finish speaking, you’d vanished back into your guys’s room and shut the door behind you. He sat back in the seat and he let out a low drawn out breath and then stood up. Within one second he vanished from the living room and appeared right in front of you with his arms crossed.

“I asked why you were wearing my clothes, not that you had to take them off,” he said as he looked blandly at your hurt expression. “And I was trying to ask what was up with you,” he said as he reached one hand out and gently tipped your head up, his free hand reaching for where your bangs covered your eye but then he stopped as he usually did and he tilted his head some. “May I?” He spoke from behind his mask. You push his hand out of the way and move your hair out of your face by yourself, your sharp eyes peering into his. This time his eyebrows rose a bit more noticeably and usual and he waited for you to talk so he could listen, his hands now in his pockets.

“Yknow… I’ve tried to work what is normal to me out of my system… And when I was younger, that would’ve been… Easier. But now, it’s not… Kakashi, when you don’t look at me it makes me feel undesirable… Because nobody else looks at me unless they’re making fun of how flat and wide my features are… or how damn burnt I look even though this is my natural skin tone! I just… Want you to call me your baby once in awhile damnit! I want to call you *mine* and not just… Ka-ka-shi. Everybody calls you that… And… I get jealous when I see the other people hanging out with you, the cooler people with the sharingan variants, or the cool eyes and the people with the slim builds, or the people with the advanced shinobi skills that are greater than mi-“ You hadn’t noticed that while you were talking, Kakashi pulled his mask down, then you were interrupted with a kiss. It was a soft, but soulful kiss; the kind where one of his gloved hands had you by the chin and the other by the back of your head. The kind where you could feel his body heat completely wrapping you up. The kind where you felt his trembling breath break his completely calm composure. Your hands were gently pressed against the back of his arms, one of your hands at his elbow as he pulled away and allowed his eyes to slowly open. His shadow was cast down onto you and you saw his eyes squint a little, his smile hidden by the mask he’d pulled back up after the kiss. On the other hand, your eyes were wide and your lips were barely parted, your eyes glistening as you looked over his mostly hidden smile. Your knees buckled under you and he helped make sure you didn’t fall, his chest pressed against yours.

“You done?” He asked as he helped you stand upright again. You were dazed just staring at your man and he smirked a little as he pulled his mask down again still standing close to you. “I see… You want everyone to know that you’re mine and vice versa? That’s it? That’s why you’re wearing my clothes today…? You want me to… Call you mine? Right?” He spoke quietly, he was ONLY talking to you, his deep voice getting a little more hoarse as he continued to drone on, his hands on your hips pulling you closer to him, his intense gaze still cast into your eyes. You swallow hard and nibble the inside of your cheek. “You want you to call you my baby? My beautiful, perfect baby girl? Hm? Is that why you’re acting out? Or… You want me to show you that I care more, right? Maybe… You want me to make dinner once? Or bring you flowers? Or watch you train? Or… Cheer you on? Right? Perhaps tease you a little… Or hold you this close all the time?”

You nod slowly and then look away already knowing what this was sort of leading up to but his slender fingers forced your gaze back on him.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you, baby,” he said softly as he tilted his head a little. “If you wanted that… Why didn’t you just say so? I can’t read minds… And I’m still relatively new to this whole… Romance scene,” he said softly as he gently stroked your cheek with his thumb. “You know this. I’m a little… Dense? I’m not sure if that’s the proper word. But…. You’re just… Ugh… I didn’t know that me hanging around people made you jealous- perhaps it’s in my best interest to just tell you how much you mean to me all of the time. You’d want that too, right? I know you would,” he said softly as his fingers gently trailed up your back. “Or… Maybe you want to have a little bit more sex? Is that apart of it?” The question made your eyes wide, skin burn with an invisible blush, and your jaw drop a little. He let out a hollow laugh in turn, gently pushing your jaw up to close your mouth with the tips of his fingers. “Baby steps. I got it. For now, let me just say this: You’re beautiful… All of your scars, curves, marks and all. Those coffee colored eyes of yours are so much more… Stupefying than any sharingan I have seen and will ever see…. The little spark they get when you’re determined, or that soft glisten when you get embarrassed,” he said as he looked over your whole face. “Your body… Your whole body… Is amazing… You don’t have to be slim to be an amazing shinobi; and so help me, my beautiful queen,” he says softly as he leans down so he’s eye level with you. “If you ever discredit yourself like that again, I’ll work you out so that you’re not able to move for the next week. You’re right on the fast track to be a fine shinobi- possibly even the greatest at that. Well… Not greater than me, but that’s another story and another conversation,” he said quietly as you were pushed back onto your bed while he stood over you. “Are those idiots getting into your head again?” His eyebrows furrowed a little as his hands slipped back into his pockets.

Finally you were able to find your words again and you crossed your legs out of habit. “Y-Yeah… For… Like… The past 3 weeks they’ve been telling me that I’m too slow… Or I’m too… Wide… Or making fun of me and my eyes, or making fun of how dark I am… Or making fun of my hair! My damn hair! It hurts… A lot… And we’re together, but I don’t want to be known as that abnormal girl that calls on her boyfriend every time she needs saving. I got it… Aight? I can handle that… But… That’s why I need YOUR praises…. To validate me I guess… I already know I’m THAT… girl… But I want to hear it from you… I want you,” you mumbled softly. “And the reason I’m dressed up like this is because I’m dressed up for Halloween- In America it’s a day where people dress up and do their makeup and hair and have fun at parties or go trick or treating to get candy and stuff! I’ve always loved it despite not being able to… Participate much,” you say softly as you rub your arm. “I dunno, I guess I just wanted to celebrate the holiday season this year- even if we never do it again, I at least want one memory of a great holiday season with mine… With you,” you say softly. He listens to everything you say with an opaque grin on his face.

“If that’s what you wanted, then why didn’t you just say that?” He said softly as he climbed over you, his hips barely resting in your lap as your heart skipped a beat. He pushed you to lay down on the bed and his hands rested right by your head, your eyes peering up at him with a soft grin rested on your face.

“I-I d-didn’t w-want to get told no… I d-didn’t want to… Bother you with something that seemed so insignificant… I didn’t want you to think of me as weak,” you say softly as he gently kisses your neck. You shuddered a little and bit your lip as you tilt your head up some.

“Well now’s your hot seat,” he huffed quietly against your neck. “Tell me what you want, tell me everything you want, and I’ll do it until you tell me that you don’t want it anymore,” he said as he looked back into your eyes, your hands rested against his chest as you thought for a moment before speaking again. “W-Well… I want you to call me your baby and vice versa… Or come up with a nickname or something… I want you to watch me train and root for me, I want you to let everyone know who I belong to, but allow me to show who you belong to, too… I want you to tease me and hold me close… Everywhere… I want you to go on dates with me and do holiday stuff with me… I want you to make me feel wanted and loved… I just fucking want *you* Kakashi…” you say softly as you look up at him. Upon gazing, you notice that his expression had soften significantly, and the hold he had on you was more protective than ever. “A-And I guess more s-sex would be cool,” you say softly and he chuckles quietly in return. You reach one of your hands up and gently cup his face, your thumb gently caressing his cheek. “You know… You should smile more… You’re quite handsome when you do… Well I mean you’re fine as hell either way, but I like it when you smile… And laugh like that…” you say softly as he leans his head into your hand a little more. He kisses your clothed palm and smiles just for you and suddenly you took on a breathless expression, your eyes halfway open as he blushed a little and you just took this moment to adore him, everything about him. “That’s what you want from me? Okay,” he said softly before moving to pin your hand weakly to the bed above you, his eyes both gazing into yours- well as much as he could anyway seeing as your hair practically swallowed your face leaving your bottom half of your face exposed for him. You could see him just fine, he just couldn’t see you… And for the moment that was fine. His gentle lips pressed against yours from above and your eyes fluttered shut as usual when this happened. You felt a little touch starved because he didn’t like contact very much, but he was warming up to it a little more. You wrapped one of your arms around his waist and pulled him closer, and then the two of you melted into each other on the bed in a fit of grunts, deep, passionate, soft kisses, dulcet giggles coming from the both of you, his hand wandering up your waist up the natural curve of your body as yours tried to find where his clothing allowed you access to his skin. You found it, your warm fingers contrasting against his lukewarm skin. He jolted a little and let out a groan before looking at you again, nibbling your lip gently before he pulled away. “You’re amazing,” he whispered quietly and breathlessly against your lips as you tried to control your breathing again.

“Says one of the most notable and historic ninja warriors of all time,” you say with a soft chuckle, moving your hair out of your face so you could look at him and so he could look at you.

“You know… Paths like that carry plenty of… Skeletons in the closet, right?” He said softly as his gaze intensified only a little bit.

“Yeah, and? You still made it… Everyone looks up to you… You’ve killed people and seen plenty of your own killed… And people that couldn’t handle it… Y’know… But, Kakashi Hatake,” you say softly as you turn his head back towards you and your own expression hardens a little. “No matter what, I’ll still love you like the day that I met you… Just like that day you first came to protect.. Well the other person- after they were bullying me… After you checked to make sure I was okay… Baby I love you, and as long as you love me too, I’m gonna be on your side. I’m your woman- I’m your queen, right? A queen needs her partner in royalty, and this house is our kingdom. You’re my king, and unapologetically mine… And I’m the same for you,” you say quietly as you sit up and smile a little. “I know you haven’t been sleeping, Kashi,” you say softly as you gently kiss his lips. “I’m not a super heavy sleeper… You’re safe now, though,” you say softly as you run your fingers through his hair. “Let me go make dinner tonight and… C-Can I decorate?” You whispered softly, expecting a no as you turned and gently pushed him to make him lay on the bed and he chuckled softly, gently grabbing your hand.

“If decorations are what you want, then I don’t have a problem with it,” he said softly, kissing the back of your hand gently. Your skin burned with an invisible flush and you pulled the covers up on him, trying to make the room just a little more homey so that he could sleep better.

“I… Wow… Um… Okay,” you say softly, lighting a candle and setting it on the nightstand, standing in the doorway. “I d-don’t know if I said this already, but I’m gonna make a hot pot for dinner… And I’ll go see if there are any pumpkins in the area… I’ll make us some pumpkin bread and make some cookies for the kids,” you say with a beaming smile, looking at your sleepy man who was already cuddling a pillow on his way to sleep. He admired your soothing voice, able to relax for the first time in a long time, and how the golden sun gave you a gilded glow that made your skin twinkle and your eyes illuminate the room. He had never felt so lucky to have someone as good as you to him, and that was the last thing he saw- or thought- before he slipped off into dreamland and you disappeared behind the door to excitedly start dinner.

#black velvet x naruto #requested writes #kakashi hatake #kakashi hatake fluff #kakashi x you #kakashi x reader #kakashi x black reader #kakashi x black female reader #kakashi hatake x female reader #black velvet asks #jenesis answers

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geralehane · 3 years

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an unlikely cupid

Raven and Clarke get drunk and accidentally summon Lexa the old and powerful deity who's also hopelessly, helplessly gay.

or, the one where Lexa and Clarke live happily ever after.

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If Clarke has ever learned anything in life, it would be two things. One: most ideas Raven comes up with are surprisingly idiotic, considering her brilliance. Two: Drunk Clarke never agrees with anything Sober Clarke thinks, and Raven’s ideas being idiotic is not an exception.

In fact, Drunk Clarke loves Raven’s ideas. Which is exactly how the two of them find themselves in their dorm at two-fifty five in the morning, spilling whiskey all over a wooden board Raven found in her grandma’s attic last weekend.

A wooden Ouija board, to be precise.

Sober Clarke told Raven to burn it down. Drunk Clarke giggles and snatches it from her hands, eagerly looking it over. “How do we know it works?”

“Fuck if I know,” is her answer as Raven takes a huge swig straight from the bottle, wincing at the strong burn. “We place our fingers on this small thing and hope for the best.”

“That’s what she said,” Clarke hiccups. “You ready? We ready?”

Raven’s enthusiastic nod and the splash of whiskey from the bottle notify her that everyone is more than ready. “Alright,” Clarke says. “Wait, why are we doing this, again?”

“Cause Halloween, man,” Raven loudly lets her know, nodding at her own words.

“Oh.” Clarke thinks for a minute. “True.” She squints at the board. “Is it okay that we spilled whiskey on it?”

Raven nods.

“Is it okay if I lick it off?”

Raven nods again.

So Clarke does. She drools a little on it, right in the center, but she’s too drunk to care, so she simply wipes it away.

“Hot,” her friend comments with a wide, sloppy grin. “Okay. Gimme those sausages, Griffin.”

“Hey!” Clarke makes two fists, hiding her fingers. “Fuck you. They are not sausages. They are magnificent.”

“As someone who bangs chicks, you’d think you’d learn to appreciate the gift from gods.”

“I’d trade them for a girlfriend,” Clarke says. “Or Cheetos. I’m hungry.”

“Quit dicking around and let’s do this.”

Clarke doesn’t voice another that’s what she said, but she makes damn sure Raven gets her train of thought when she waggles her eyebrows at her.

All Lexa wanted was to come back to her plane of existence and climb in a bathtub. That’s literally all she wanted. She doesn’t even particularly cares if there’s going to be water in it. She just likes the concept. Sometimes, humans have the best ideas.

Everything is giving her a headache that day. It’s like the whole universe with every world in it have decided to band together against her. Well. That’s Halloween for her. Despite it becoming a largely commercial holiday, no one cancelled Samhain just because humans decided they wanted to be a Joker once a year.

Vile creature, that man – and she says that as someone who’s viewed as demonic. She’s not actually a demon – that’s common misconception. She’s just an old goddess. Humans know a lot of her names, and none of them can even begin to imagine that she’s the one behind those faces, portrayed grim, evil, and, most offensively, male.

Lexa sighs. Her Hades days were certainly the most fun, but the tale’s been twisted so much she’s not sure she enjoys those memories quite in the same way. Oh well. Samhain is almost over. She can finally kick back and relax in a hot tub and maybe open up a bottle of ambrosia she saved for a special occasion. And what could be more special than a night of self-care?

Now, Lexa never considered herself particularly lucky. Mostly because Luck and her had a brief affair that did not end well, and she’s been mildly cursed ever since. Nothing she can’t live with, of course – but just a tad inconvenient. She’s certainly learned to cherish small blessings. That’s why, when she feels a tell-tale tug in her gut before being hurled back to a dimension she’s just left, she’s not even surprised. She simply whispers a quick thank you that she hasn’t taken her clothes off yet.

With that, she sighs and lets herself be whisked away back to Earth, wondering with scientific curiosity who could have possibly found out the summoning spell.

“I’m pretty sure you’re doing it wrong.”

“This seems like a ‘that’s what she said’ moment, but I assure you, she’s never said that.”

Raven blinks. Reaches for the bottle and pouts when she finds it empty. “Who is she, anyway?”

“Fuck if I know,” Clarke repeats Raven’s words from earlier. “And I’m not doing anything wrong. You’re supposed to move this thing,” she gestures to the heart-shaped piece of wood, with a hole in the middle of it that she looks through at Raven.

“Maybe there’s an instruction or something,” Raven mutters, grabbing the planchette. Clarke resists and tugs it back, resulting in Raven’s forehead colliding with her mouth. Hard.

“Shit!” Clarke exclaims when a droplet of blood falls onto the board from her now-split lip. “Raven, what the fuck?”

Her friend only shrugs apologetically. Not even apologetically. In fact, she doesn’t even shrug. “You’re doing it wrong,” she says.

“I do everything right,” Clarke argues, taking the planchette back. “Sit and watch. And prepare for an I told you so.”

Lexa blinks when the spinning finally stops and she’s rematerialized in what appears to be a room in a college dormitory. That alone surprises her more than anything that’s happened today. Surely, a college student couldn’t have known all the steps necessary to complete a ritual.

“…prepare for an I told you so,” she catches and turns in the direction of the voice, squinting. English. American English, to be exact. Things are taking an interesting turn. She was expecting a bunch of men unsatisfied with life and recent feminist movement. Not two drunk college girls.

She comes closer to get a better look at them, and no, she’s definitely not prepared for what she sees. And what she sees is an angel. An actual angel with a bloody lip and unfocused gaze and a strong alcoholic smell. An angel with blonde tresses and bluest eyes.

Lexa can’t stop herself from letting out the smallest, softest gasp.

She’s immensely grateful for her ability to be invisible.

She’s frozen in place, eyes taking in every inch of the girl’s body when that same voice – and oh, what a voice it is! – addresses the room, husky and low. “Is anyone here with us?”

Lexa takes a deep breath, rubs her suddenly cold hands, and hesitantly steps forward, placing her own fingers on the wooden planchette and shakily dragging it to the word “yes”.

“Raven!” Clarke yelps, jumping from the board. “Raven, I did it!”

Raven, however, does not share her enthusiasm. “Yeah,” she says blankly. “I saw you move it.”

“No, see, see,” with fast slurred speech and disheveled hair, Clarke more closely resembles a maniac than a bright daughter of two respected surgeons. “I didn’t – Raven,” she gasps, happy she finally gets a good reason to pause for a dramatic effect. “I didn’t move it,” she finishes in a loud whisper.

Raven stares at her. And stares. And stares some more before she starts to chuckle, slowly at first. Soon, it escalated into a continuous giggling. “Sure, Clarke,” she manages to say. “I believe you.”

“But I’m telling the truth!” Clarke gets suddenly upset. Why doesn’t Raven believe her?

“And I’m marrying Finn tomorrow. Get real, Griff.” The planchette hits Raven’s forehead as soon as she’s finished talking.

“See!”

Clarke’s triumphant yell pales in contrast with Raven’s terrified scream.

That is very, very loud. Lexa does not like loud.

Unless Clarke likes loud. Then she loves loud.

Right now, however, it’s starting to become a little extreme. So she sighs and waves her hand, silencing the girl whose name is Raven. She has to admit – watching her try to scream silently is mildly amusing.

But then it scares Clarke, too. “Who’s here? Who’s doing this?”

She sighs again. Then, she makes her voice audible so that Clarke can hear you. “You have noting to fear. My name is Lexa. I will give your friend her voice back, but only if she promises not to scream.”

After Raven’s rigorous nodding, Lexa waves her hand again, and the girl coughs, eyes wide and expression sober. “Who – who are you?!”

“Oh,” Lexa says, because she hasn’t really thought things this far. “I have many names and positions. I believe you know me as the devil, but I promise you, I’m vastly different from that portrayal.”

Raven blinks. “Did she just say she’s Satan?”

“I think so,” Clarke whispers back, and Lexa freezes again, watching the way she presses her lips together. How is she so beautiful?

“Does Satan really expect me to believe she’s, what, nice?”

“Well, yes,” Lexa speaks up. “That would be a polite thing to do.”

“Oh hell no,” Raven says. “I don’t play with demons,” she announces, despite the fact that it’s exactly what she’s been doing for the past half an hour. “If you’re nice, tell us how to get rid of you.”

Now it’s Lexa’s turn to blink. “I’m afraid that’s not possible,” she says apologetically. Then her eyes widen with realization. “Oh! You meant get me to leave this room?”

“Yeah. Exactly. How do we do that?”

“Oh, you – you don’t. I can come and go as I please now. That’s the whole point of the summoning spell.”

Clarke and Raven look at each other, eyes wide. “The what now?!”

So turns out that while Luck and Lexa are not exactly pals, Fate definitely favors her. Through a series of events that they can’t exactly deem either fortunate or unfortunate just yet, Clarke and Raven manage to accidentally summon one of the most powerful beings known to man. And that being just happens to fall head over heels for Clarke.

Raven finds it weird. Clarke finds it sweet. And Fate – well, Fate doesn’t find it impossible.

“Lexa, dear,” she mumbles around a thin cigarette while Lexa broods all over her realm, having just come back from Earth after yet another night with Clarke, full of talking and laughing and soft unspoken confessions on both ends. “Just take some time off and spend a life with that girl. She’ll join you after it’s over anyway. What’s seventy years to you? A blink of an eye. Besides, have you forgotten how fun it is to grow old?”

So Lexa sighs, fishes the best outfit she has out of her memory, and goes back to earth wearing her corporeal form and a pale blue oxford shirt with sleeves rolled up. She faintly recalls Clarke liking that.

In hindsight, waiting for Clarke in her room might not have been her best idea, but can she be blamed, really? She got used to it. She just kinda forgot she wasn’t visible all previous times she’s been there.

Clarke walks through her door a moment later, eyes on her phone. “Lexa, I’m home!” she calls out, not looking up as she kicks her shoes off. “You here? Le- Jesus fucking Christ!”

Lexa never particularly liked the man, but the profanity still makes her wince. “Hello, Clarke.”

“Holy shit,” Clarke exhales, pressing a hand to her chest and bending to retrieve her phone that fell out of her grip when she jumped in fright upon finding a stranger sitting on her bed. “Who are you? Damn it, Raven. I told her to always let me kno- wait a minute.” She stops, blinking. “I know that voice.”

Lexa feels her lips stretch in a smile. It’s an incredible feeling. “Hello, Clarke.” She repeats, rising to her feet and offering her a giant bouquet she retrieves from thin air.

“Oh God,” Clarke whispers, rapidly blinking sudden tears away. “Lexa. Oh my God.”

“Well, technically, yes,” Lexa says, “but we can skip the formalities.”

Clarke’s warm, solid body slams into hers next, and she huffs in surprise, falling down on Clarke’s bed with the girl on top of her, clinging to her. “Lexa,” Clarke sobs. “You’re here. It’s you. You’re here.”

“Yes,” she confirms. “I’m here. It’s me.”

Clarke’s lips on hers feel better than anything she’s ever experienced, and she’s been around for a little longer than eternity. “I can’t believe I’m holding you in my arms,” Clarke whispers when they part, breathing ragged. “You’re so real. So warm, too. Is that – is that how you really look like?”

“Yes,” she gives another affirmative. “I’m not wearing someone’s body. We’ve been over this.”

“I know,” Clarke chuckles. “I’m just checking.”

She trails a finger down Lexa’s cheek, slow and tender. Lexa sees the unspoken question in her eyes. She answers with no hesitation. “I’m here to stay. For as long as you want me.”

“Then that means you’re stuck with me forever.”

Lexa laughs. “Wouldn’t have it any other way. Although I do believe it’s the other way around. Clarke, I…” she swallows, and Clarke smoothes her thumb over the skin of her throat where it bobs. “If you ever decide to end our – this, I’ll understand. But I’m afraid I’m a little different.”

“Lexa,” Clarke coos, shushing her. She’s still roaming her hands all over her body, and it’s way less sexual than it sounds. She’s simply feeling Lexa. And Lexa’s completely okay with that. “When I said forever, I knew who I was talking to you. It’s not just a word anymore.” She leans in, pressing another kiss to Lexa’s lips. “For us, it’s a reality.”

Lexa’s heart soars when she says ‘for us.’ It jumps and stops and restarts, beating so fast she’s afraid it’ll jump out of her chest.

“A reality,” she whispers. “I like the sound of that.”

“And I like your face.” Clarke squints. “You didn’t tell me you were this hot.”

“I’ve exited for millions of years, Clarke,” Lexa reminds her. “I do not have an opinion on beauty, because it is as made up as it is subjective.”

“A concept can’t be made up and subjective at the same time.”

“Let me correct myself, then. I used to think it was made up.” Her smile grows. “Then I met you.”

“You’re so getting lucky tonight, I hope you know that.” Soft lips capture hers, and Lexa gloats.

Suck on this, Luck.

#clexa #femslash #wlw fic #halloween #spooktober femslash #hi yall im reposting my older halloween-y fics that i haven't posted to tumblr enjoy

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thewindsofsong · 3 years

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get to know me

tagged by @xcziel. Took me a few days, but I finally just sat down at my computer and got to it.

name: my internet name is thewindsofsong. I also go by windy. I don’t give my rl name to anyone i haven’t met irl because I am technically internet old and trust no one with personal information

pronouns: she/her

Break so this isn't super long and annoying to get past

star sign: aries but I don’t really know what that means because I don’t follow astrology at all

height: 5'4"

time: 9:42

birthday: 4/10, but sometimes i say 4/13 because thats two unlucky numbers in one birthday

nationality: american

fave bands/groups/solo artists: Hozier, Florence and the Machine, Mitsuki, Liu Chang are the ones that come to mind right now. There’s more, but those tent to be the artists I come back to a lot. Neutral Milk Hotel is old and gone and only listened to when the mood is right

song stuck in your head: Highland cathedral because of a tiktok atm. A bunch of people sang different notes and layered on top of each other to sound like bagpipes. It was pretty awesome.

last movie you watched:Rurouni Kenshin! The 2012 live action movie!! Currently one of the organizers for a weekly watch party that happens in the dmbj discord server. Its been a lot of fun watching movies with everyone there every week!!!

last show you binged: Does Moonfall Echo count? I technically binged it, but the whole series is also like a hour a most and I watched half of it on my lunch break today

when you created your blog: some time in early 2012 i think?

the last thing you googled:月陨回声 - would it surprise anyone to know that thats the original Chinese title for Moonfall Echo? No? No one? ok….

other blogs: twoscats. I sent all the cute animal things there and then watch them on worse days.

why i chose my url: I was young and knew that i liked music and that my favorite element was air. One day the winds of song came into my head and it has been my online handle ever since.

how many people are you following: 140 which is actually a lot for me. I should go through and do some pruning… I usually keep it down to around 100. I curate my tumblr experience a lot and I credit it to being the reason why its been as positive as it has been.

how many followers do you have: 675, but my blog is also suuuuuper old so the majority of them are probably inactive blogs that are just hanging around.

average hours of sleep:6-7. I’ve tried to sleep more than that but it just doens’t happen easily. I tent to wake up super early and have a hard time falling asleep again

lucky numbers: multiples of 3 and 13

instruments: marimba. Used to play it back in high school and just loved the sound of it. Also have a lot of great memories playing in both marching band and drumline.

what i'm currently wearing: halloween pjs. They’re very comfy and Halloween is great and deserves more than just one month ok?

dream job: housewife/artisanal soap maker. Let me do nothing but focus on keeping a clean house, cooking new foods, occasionally making and selling fantastic handmade soaps! I could binge all the dramas! Write all the fanfics!! DO ALL THE THINGS!!! But alas, I live in a capitalist hellscape and must work to contribute to bills. I think I’m doing close to the next best thing which is working from home atm tho.

dream trip: all expense paid trip across japan during a non busy season. My Japanese is bad and suuupeer informal because I absorbed it all from watching 15ish years of anime, but it's workable.

fave food: right now the first thing that comes to mind is a great breakfast sandwich.

top three fictional universe you'd like to live in: star trek times? Where capitalism has been abolished and things are pretty great? Ummmmm beyond that, maybe Natsume Yuujincho universe because interesting things can happen, but they aren’t world ending. Spirits exist and sometimes they form heartbreaking connections to mortals, but they're still so beautiful! Third might be idk, dmbj world so long as I never enter a tomb? Hearing about Wu Xie’s disastrous adventures could be fun

last song: That wasn’t the tiktok one? Probably Golden Sands sung by Liu Chang

last stream: I watched a bit of Liu Chang’s 4/28 stream that got uploaded to youtube. I do not have a problem, don’t judge me.

currently reading: Cats Paw by Merinnan & xantissa for like the 16th time. I don’t really read books and i’ve never really taken the time to examine why, but with fics like theirs, I never really saw a reason to try and go into reading random books that I don’t know or characters that I don’t already have a connection to.

currently watching: Moonfall Echo. I’ll probably be rewatching it a few times because I can. Its so weird. I don’t understand how they’re actually making this work with everything else? And apparently A Chinese Ghost Story is a part of this somehow?

what is antipoetry to you: Absolutely no idea. I had to analyse a bunch of poetry back in high school, but that was a long time ago. Is antipoetry just prose?

currently craving: takoyaki lowkey allllllllll the damn time. I actually have a takoyaki pan, but making takoyaki takes so much work. I usually just make pancake balls and drench them in syrup.

#some more random about me things #yes i'm high key obsessed with liu chang #its not a problem yet because i haven't figured out how to send all my money to him

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forthegothicheroine · 3 years

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Quarant-ween movie #19: American Scary

I’ve found my dream job at last.

While many people of my generation only know horror hosts from their depictions in media after the fact (Vampira in Ed Wood, Elvira’s movie, perhaps the incessantly cackling Crypt Keeper) they were a big deal back in the day, and still exist on local public access stations and horror conventions. To kill time on the air (and sometimes to compensate for the low quality of a movie), they would introduce the horror movies their channel could afford rights to show, and perhaps do a skit or two in between commercial breaks. They also existed in radio and comic book form, but cheap tv seems to have been where they really flourished. They themselves were the draw, moreso than the films they showed- they joked, they chewed the scenery, they wore outrageous costumes. Little kids loved them, stoner college kids loved them, whole families would come running into the tv room when they heard the voice coming from the screen.

American Scary is a documentary about the horror host phenomenon, featuring many of the hosts themselves reminiscing (including Neil Gaiman, who apparently hosted a Fox horror movie special.) We see lots of talking heads in outlandish makeup recalling who their personal role models were and speculating on the future of the archetype. Naturally, my favorite interviewee was Joel Hodgeson, creator of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a twist on the horror host format which featured a whole cast of science fiction-themed hosts who interacted with the movie while it was playing, not just during breaks.

From the brief clips we see, the actual humor of these horror hosts varies wildly (it’s sometimes pretty played-out shtick, but Svengoolie actually seems pretty funny!) It wasn’t just about making jokes, though- hosts and fans recall that the character’s interruptions both served the purpose of providing the viewer with a friend to watch the movies with, and of breaking up the tension and reminding any children watching that it’s all just a show. Plenty of horror movie reviewers exist on youtube today, even ones with characters, but this was entirely its own type of para-social relationship. Will we ever see a real resurgence? In today’s constantly-shifting media landscape, I couldn’t possibly guess.

American Scary isn’t a terribly in-depth documentary or academic cultural review, but it’s a charming overview of a once-common type of performance. Several of the hosts talked about how their job was to celebrate Halloween every week, and who can argue with that philosophy? We want our heroes, our villains, and we also want the occasional living cartoon ghoul. Invite them into your home once again, if only for the length of a single movie.

#quarantween #horror movies #american scary #mst3k

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surveys-at-your-service · 3 years

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Survey #387

“today i woke up, & i hate myself”

What common problem have you never experienced? The loss of a close family member (that doesn't include pets). Alternatively, what's an uncommon problem you have experienced? Homelessness. Do you know anyone who opposes marriage equality? I sure do. What was the last thing you got really emotional about? Meerkat Manor: Rise of the Dynasty premiering. What's the longest amount of time you've been ill for? I don't really know. I don't get sick a lot at all. Who is your closest male friend? Girt. Do you know anyone who hunts for meat? Sadly. I say "sadly" because it's not like they need it. Have you ever lived with a boyfriend/girlfriend? Yes, although I wasn't a technical resident. I was there all the time, though. What do you wash dishes with? Sponge, scrub brush, rag, something else? A sponge. Is there anything you prefer to do the old-fashioned way? There's probably something, but I can't think of anything. Do you put your glasses and mugs right side up or upside down on the cabinet shelf? Upside-down. What was the worst part of your childhood? My parents fighting. Have you ever seen a high school relationship last long-term? (like 10+yrs) Yeah. Do you know any cancer survivors? Quite a few. Leftover pizza for breakfast... yay or nay? Good shit, man. Do you personally know anyone who's a psychopath or sociopath? I don't think so. What is your most used kitchen appliance? Lately, it's been the apple slicer. I've been on a real apple slices + peanut butter kick lately. What is something that you would personally like to be remembered for? For being a caring person towards all living things. Have you ever been diagnosed as clinically depressed before? Yes. Do you like bowling? Yeah, it's fun. Do you own binoculars or nonoculars? What do you use them for? No. Do you ever wish you had a telescope on the roof or attic to stargaze? Yeah, that'd be cool. Have you ever had to deal with someone close to you going off to war? No, thankfully. Who do you feel you have the most in common with? Sara, easily. Who in your life causes you the most stress or negative feelings? My damn self lmao. Have you ever had a teacher that also taught your parents? No. My parents didn't grow up in NC. What’s one thing that people definitely CAN’T count on you for? To remember like... anything. What about something they definitely can count on you for? Someone to listen to encourage them. What’s one food that you want to try but haven’t yet? I've always thought macaroons look good. Do you have anything planned for the summer? No. Do you walk fast or slow? Slow. Would you consider yourself an adrenaline junkie? No. What is a common slang word from where you live? Plural "you" does not exist. It's "y'all," lol. What’s the scariest thing you’ve accidentally found on the internet? *shrug* Probably something as a kid, going on those sketchy websites with loads of games and stuff. Thinking of every Halloween costume you’ve had, which one was the most creative? I don't think I've had any creative costumes for Halloween. What’s one random city you want to visit? It's not exactly "random" as it's a popular location, but anyway, I would love to visit Venice. What subjects do you or did you get the worst grades in? Math. When was the last time you ate cake and what type of cake was it? That's a good question, actually. Maybe my niece's birthday in February? I don't remember what kind of cake it was. Do you have photos to go with all of the contacts in your phone? No; I don't have any. Do you like snowy winter days or do you prefer rainy days? SNOWY! Name 3 things you find most beautiful in nature: Mountains, large waterfalls, and desert dunes in the wind. If you could ask one person one questions and get a completely honest answer who would it be and what would you ask? Jason. I'd ask if he thought I was emotionally abusive. What is your favorite winter activity? Building snowmen. Who is the greatest singer who is no longer living? Freddie Mercury. What is your idea of heaven? I don't know, really... I have to ask myself IS there a heaven in eternity? Living forever just... doesn't appeal to me. "Living" is an odd word to use there, but hopefully you get it. Existing on and on and on and on seems like it'd just be a drag, but at the same time I do like the thought of feeling relentlessly happy and peaceful with my loved ones. I guess that would be my definition of it, if it does exist. What’s one of the scariest things you’ve ever done? ODed. Have you ever watched the Superbowl all the way through? Just once, on my 16th birthday because I was at Jason's place and all of his family was watching it. I had absolutely zero interest, but we wanted to hang with the family. If you had to move to another country, where would you move? Canada. Do you watch American Horror Story? I haven't in years. It was Jason's and my first "show," and the first season was excellent. I lost interest in the second one, honestly. I'd be up for watching other seasons, though. How many relationships have you been in this year? None. What's your favorite cereal? Probably Cinnamon Toast Crunch. That's also the only cereal where I can happily drink the milk afterwards. Twitter or Facebook? Facebook. Do you like to paint your nails? No. What's the coolest place you've ever been to? Disney World, probably. Have you ever punched anyone? No. What's something you wish you knew how to do? Cook. :/ I really need to make an effort to learn. It'd be great to not rely on a microwave for the rest of my life. What's a celebrity that everyone likes but you don't? *shrug* What food do you eat the most? Probably bread in some form or another. That really needs to stop. Green or purple grapes? Either one, but they have to be firm. I cannooooooot with soft grapes. Have you ever cried over a text? Yeah. What's the background of your phone of? My lock screen is this pretty, simplistic periwinkle color with "work on you for you" written on it. It's one I plan on keeping for probably a long time because I connect to it so deeply with my stupid damn head frequently demanding I have to improve "for Jason" to prove him wrong. Which is a very unhealthy mindset to have, I know. My home screen is a cute lil Mark edit someone made with a very similar pale blue background, so my phone is just currently an #aesthetic. Do you have a Snapchat? No. What's your favorite sports team? (if you like sports)? I don't like sports, but I'm biased towards the Carolina Hurricanes hockey team because of my dad. Last thing you ate? I had Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast. Do you take a lot of selfies? Definitely not. I just hate how I look so much; it takes way too much effort for me to get an "acceptable" one. Do you prefer strawberries or cherries? Strawberries. I hate cherries. How many hours of sleep did you get last night? Maybe like, three. -_- Our A/C is still out, and it was like, 87 in the house last night. It was impossible to sleep. Do you listen to music daily? Not EVERY day, but usually. Biggest insecurity? My weight. Do you play video games? Not as much as I used to. I'd probably play way more if I actually had a PS4 + the games I'm DYING to have. Do you consider yourself lazy? "Yes, but a lot of it is also health related for my lack of energy and motivation." <<<< This for me as well. What recently made you laugh? I was watching a bit of The Nanny with Mom yesterday. We love that show. Do you like gummy bears? Yep. What was the last song you listened to? I'm randomly hooked on "My Nocturnal Serenade" by YOHIO. Like, I've known the song for a long time, but NOW I'm bingeing it???? Describe your mom with one word. Selfless. What's the biggest turn-off? Probably being misogynistic. But being a cocky ass is definitely high up there, too. What fish scares you the most? Mfkng whale sharks terrify me. How do you feel about snails? They're cuties!!! What's your favorite app? Pokemon GO. Would you rather time travel into the past or future? The future, to see what's coming. I feel like you could come back with some pretty valuable information. What is the saddest song you've ever heard? I think "Terrible Things" by Mayday Parade has to come on top. What insect do you hate the most? I was reminded that stag beetles exist last night, and omfg those. Well, "hate" is the wrong word, really, I'm just terrified of them. Would you ever have a wild animal as a pet if possible? I 110% want to rescue an opossum, emphasis on "rescue." I'm not plucking one from the wild or anything like that. I would be in HEAVEN raising one of those angels. Are there any decorations that makes you happy? (lights, candles, plants..) I love those beds decorated with fairy lights, and just Christmas lights in general. Halloween and Christmas decor tend to give me sparks of happiness when I see 'em. Does race matter to you when it comes to dating? Not at all for me. When was the last time you painted something? Not since I was still in school and took a Painting course. When was the last time you really felt alive, and what were you doing? I have NO idea. What is one question you would like an answer to? Why the worst things tend to happen to good people. Name one favorite thing to do with kids while babysitting. I don't babysit, but if I was to be in charge of a kid, I'd love to teach them to play video games from my childhood. Playing Pokemon with my niece and nephew is always a blast, ahhhh. Name one flavor you like. Strawberry is pretty consistent. Name one thing you are hoping for. Venus' new terrarium soon... big sigh. I can't for the life of me find one that's a reasonable price and also adequately sized. I'm willing to put the rest of my cash into it, but Mom is helping, so I can't just buy the first one I see. Then I'd need more substrate, I seriously want a temperature gun and hygrometer, a cool hide, sticks and stuff for cover... It's going to be expensive, but I want Venus to have a truly proper environment she can thrive in. Write the name of one of your imaginary friends from when you were younger. Oddly enough, I can't remember the imaginary wolf that was my "friend." I say "oddly" because his whole idea was important to me as a weird-ass kid. Name one girl's name that starts with a "J" that you like. "Justine." Name one boy's name that starts with a "J" that you like. Maybe "Jaxson." Have you ever been kissed? Yeah. Have you ever feared that you would be killed? It's never been like, a fear I actively worry about. I just acknowledge it's always a possibility for anyone. What is the last great opportunity you missed? This was quite a while ago by now, but I'd say by dropping out of school, I really let photography opportunities slip since I became the newspaper photographer...

#survey #surveys #questions #lyrics: ''under the graveyard'' by ozzy osbourne

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justamusicpodcast · 3 years

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Episode 6 out today!

We’re talking about Blues music

Transcript under the cut

Sup, I’m Laura Cousineau and welcome to Just A Music Podcast, where I, Laura Cousineau, tell you about some music history, how it relates to the world around us, and hopefully, introduce you to some new tunes. This show is theoretically for everyone but I will swear and when it comes down to it and sometimes we may need to talk about some sensitive topics so ur weeuns might wanna sit this one out.

And boi unless you’ve had that talk with ur kids about systemic racism you might wanna let them sit this one out because we’re gonna be touching on a bunch of terrible racist shit this week Because we’re gonna be talking about the Blues and various different type of blues musics. I’m actually really excited to talk about it too because blues, as you guys will find out in the future is kinda the basis for a lot of other, what one might consider more modern, genres of American popular musics. So this one’s gonna be important for ur earholes and ur brainholes. Just like last time I will be airing a sensitive content warning for some graphic descriptions of violence and I will put the time stamps in the description for y’all for when that starts and ends.

First though, I wanna issue an apology for being away so long, I tend to work on this podcast in my free time, and currently I’ve had none of that what so ever. It just so happened that October worked out this year that it was thanksgiving and my birthday and then a bunch of big projects due then Halloween and now I’m working on my fucking thesis proposal, I’m actually recording this episode at 1:35 am on a Saturday night/Sunday morning, so needless to say all this in combination with trying to deal with my depression hasn’t been a cake walk but we’re making it work. I will likely run up against a similar time issue during the first couple weeks of December because that’s when all my final papers are due. After that thought I should have smooth sailing for about a month. I wanted to make sure I had an episode out this week because as I think… well everyone… is aware the American election took place this week and understandably people were stressed as shit about that. So I think we could all use a little music right now.

Ok so Like all fuckin things we need to know where blues came from. Now blues is actually a lot older than a lot of people are gonna be expecting, like really damn old. Like pretty much everything in academia (and I mean EVERYTHING, at least in the humanities), the dates are contested, but it seems that the blues, or at least what began as the blues, started in and around the 1860s. For those who didn’t listen to last week’s episode on slave songs, spirituals, and gospel, or just those who don’t know their American history too too well, the 1860s marks a very important time for black people, many of which at that time had been enslaved, because in 1865 the thirteenth amendment was amended into the American constitution. For those who aren’t aware, the thirteenth amendment as stated by the national archives of the United States of America reads as such: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

Now this of course was fantastic news of course! And for some people, this might be where you think oppression in the Americas ends for Black people but you would be incredibly wrong! Because this is the period where we see the start of a phenomenon referred to as sharecropping. Sharecropping or crop sharing as it’s known otherwise is considered part of what we historians sometimes refer to as the Jim Crow economy of the American South after the civil war. But what is Jim crow economy, what did it come from, why is it bad, why is sharecropping bad, how does any of this relate to the blues? Well lucky for u lil turnips imma tell ya.

Jim Crow culture is something that I imagine most North Americans will have even the most basic knowledge of but for those that don’t the name Jim Crow as applied to economy, laws, and any other part of American culture during these time periods refers to sets of crazy fucking racist laws written and unwritten that kept black people subjugated under the whims of the government as well as their fellow white countrymen. The term Jim crow itself is reference to a song often featured in the supremely racist minstrel shows of the mid to late 1800s and early 1900s referred to as “Jump Jim Crow” in which a white man in black-face sings in a parody centric dialect about the life of a charicaturishly uneducated back-woodsy Black man named, you fuckin guessed it, Jim Crow. The significance of the Crow being that it was a pejorative term for black individuals which can actually dated back to the early mid 1700s. Now I wanna preface the excerpt of it with the fact that I’m uncomfortable listening to this, I understand if others are too. The thing is that acknowledging these uncomfortable things and knowing about them is necessary in order to understand the type of historical impact that they had. “So laura, you must obviously support statues being raised to commemorate things like slavery and secessionism!” Absolutely not. Where statues and monuments exist to praise the efforts of individuals, the listening to and learning about songs in a teaching context like this very podcast are meant to educate. Statues commemorating culture surrounding one of the worst atrocities to have taken place on American soil should never have been erected in the first place let alone celebrated. One is meant to celebrate while the other is to educate because one is a historical primary source that lets us think critically about the history, the other is a tertiary celebration. The purpose of listening to a clip like this is then to educate and understand a piece of actually history, not to replicate and enjoy. The version of the song that I have is sung without the charicaturish accent but uses the original words but with all that in mind here’s a bit of Jump Jim Crow:

In terms of laws I’m sure just about everyone knows separate drinking fountains and schools but this really permeated pretty much every sphere of life for Black peoples especially those in the south. I say especially those in the south but not exclusively those in the south because racial segregation, although not as supported by law but more socially, also existed in the Northern States as well as in Canada. Anecdotally, my mother grew up in a suburb of Cleveland Ohio, she remembers going into Cleveland when she was a kid when Cleveland was still a very racially segregated city, Black peoples lived in, shopped in, and attended schools in certain areas of the city and white people in other’s. My grandmother who was also raised in the area even remembers Black people having separate lunch counters if any at all in some of the larger department stores in the area.

It might also be handy when I mention the south to actually talk about what the south and particularly the deep south is for y’all outside of America. So when we talk about the south we are talking about a geographically bounded area just not the area that one might think of by looking at a map because where you might be thinking like ah just take the country and cut it in half, and the bottom half is the south that wouldn’t be correct. So, from the United States Census Bureau itself the south we’re talking about is Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. Now some who live in the surrounding areas such as Kansas might also consider themselves as being from the “south” somewhat culturally but those states previously listed as the official ones. When we talk about the DEEP SOUTH however, that range closes a little more, and that would mainly just include Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, and sometimes Texas and Florida due to their involvement as part of the confederate states of America, meaning states that were on the south side of the civil war.

Also briefly just so we’re clear, again this is for those people who didn’t receive the best education on Slavery and the Civil War in general but to be clear, the civil war was fought over primarily states rights to use and perpetuate slavery. The common narrative you hear a lot in protests by those on the right, who would like to uphold the institutions set out by their forefathers in the creation of the abominable act, is that the civil war was primarily fought over states rights. What they then so often forget to elaborate is that those rights were perceived as the right to govern themselves independently so that they may still be able to employ slave labour in the operation of their economies and also to expand further westward to continue and be able to use slavery out in those areas as well.

The reason that we hear about these Jim Crow laws particularly in the South is because where the Northern states and Canada did have (and still continues to have) some violent racist issues, the Jim Crow south was specifically really bad. And I mean fucking abominable. Though Black people were free from being directly owned, society at large and all it’s trappings found new ways to oppress them. This started with Black Codes which were individual state law codes that dictated where Black peoples could move, for how long they could stay, restricted their rights to vote (or made it extremely difficult to vote via poll taxes, literacy tests, etc), as well as where they could work, and in some cases even if their children could be taken away from them on the basis labour needs. So I really can’t drive home the point enough of how much life sucked for Black peoples under Jim Crow laws and economy in the southern states, to call it any less than abominable would seem to understate it in a major way. In the 1880s Jim Crow laws hadn’t started to be rolled into large southern cities yet so many Black peoples were inclined to move into them because life was actually slightly easier for a short while. White people being offended and upset at this, because “how dare a black person just try to live their lives in my good white pure Christian neighborhood,” then fully supported Jim crow laws being rolled out to remove them from areas where white people would normally interact with them. This included but was not limited to, barring them from public parks entirely, having entirely different theaters at one point and then segregated theaters after a while with separate entrances based on your race, restaurants, bus and train stations, water fountains, restrooms, most building entrances in general, elevators, amusement park ticket windows, public schools, phone booths, hospitals, asylums, jails, elderly care homes and even fucking cemeteries. Of course being treated as diseased subhuman parasites is never enough for the racism machine that is the public conscious at this time so there was also a lot of violence both systematic and grassroots that accompanied this era.

And here’s where I’m going to have to issue a sensitive content warning because I’m about to describe some truly heinous shit in a whole second. So by violence, I mean very public and very culturally accepted violence, similar to what we’re seeing more and more of in the states again. As many will know now in the light of the many many many police shootings of unarmed, unthreatening black people in the states, the police traditionally haven’t been on the side of black citizens. This is due to a number of reasons, for one, on the most basic of levels the police serve to protect the interests of those in power, in our case that means the property and lives of middle to upper class (mostly) white Americans. The natural extension of this is that many police forces in the states, especially in Southern states started out as slave catching forces bringing back runaway enslaved people to their owners. So as time progressed and Black peoples became a “free” population this still meant protecting mainly middle to upper class white people from the “threat” of black people. This was enforced in a number of ways, such as arresting black individuals found breaking these rules, framing black people for crimes committed by others and arresting them for population suppression, and turning a blind eye to the grassroots violence perpetrated by non-black citizens, which very often were white citizens. An example of just straight up police brutality can be found in the case of Isaac Woodard JR. who was viciously beaten by police only hours after being honorably discharged from the fucking military on February 12 1946. The bus driver driving Woodard and some of his fellow soldiers called the police after Woodard asked the bus driver if there might be time for him to use the restroom as they approached a rest stop. When the police arrived, the bus driver accused Woodard of drinking in the back of the bus and he was hauled off, dragged into an alley and beaten with nighsticks. That night he was thrown in the town jail, by morning he had been beaten so severely he was left permanently blind in both eyes.

And that grassroots violence is just as nasty, really fucking nasty. The violence could be perpetrated for things as small as being in the wrong place at the wrong time, entering a white neighbourhood, “talking back to” the wrong person. Since black men have always been are still to some degree subject to the stereotype that they are all sex incensed monsters, being left alone in a room with a white woman could be enough to incite violence against them. In the Mississippi delta during the season where share cropping debts were settled up, there was a sharp uptick in violence against and killings of black people. If you were white, because let’s be real here some white people definitely were on the side of their oppressed countrymen, you could be hung on the basis of being an N-word lover, which could range from being found to being in a romantic/sexual relationship with a person of colour, to just being fucking friends with them. The violence was often varied too, where kidnapping and hanging someone either with or without brutalizing them first (also known as a lynching) is the form most commonly associated with Jim Crow era violence less extreme but still horrible harassment could perpetuate in any form. Mississippi had the highest amount of lynchings from 1882-1968 with 581. You might think that is a low number but first, similarily to when we were talking about slavery in the last episode, 1 lynching is too fucking many, and secondly these are only the ones that were officially recorded. Since lynchings didn’t always happen in broad daylight and since law enforcement really didn’t care about Black individuals, there were almost certainly more that happened that just never were recorded. Georgia was second with 531, and Texas was third with 493. 79% of lynching happened in the South. So as I said before though, lynching was not the only form though, beatings were also entirely all too common forms of violence perpetrated against blackf people to make them scared and thus more compliant. A good example of this is the case of Emmet Till a 14 year old boy who made the mistake of playfully flirting with a white woman, who was beaten nearly to death, had one of his eyes gouged out, was then shot in the head, and tied to some cotton mill equipment before his body was thrown in a river. This wasn’t even that long ago, the beating happened on the 28th of August 1955.

THE next parts are also gonna be not great but there wont be anymore descriptions of graphic violence, so I’m calling an end to the sensitive content warning. So the then how does sharecropping play into all this and what does it have to do with the blues (we’re getting there babes I promise.) So as I explained previously, sharecropping was a part of the Jim Crow economic era. It was part of the era of reconstruction meaning the period of rebuilding after the civil war. How it worked was that let’s say for a second, come with me into the theater of the mind for a second, take a seat, close your eyes, take a deep breath, Ok so lets imagine for a second you’re a farmer in the south, the civil war has kinda left you in a spot, if you’re black, you’re starting off without an awful lot, you don’t have any generational wealth you don’t have property likely aside from maybe a relatively small plot of land (but this was uncommon,) you probably didn’t have much if any equipment because that would have been way too expensive, and the land you may have had may have been of shitty quality. So what could you do to earn yourself a living?! Well you would go to a landowner, and ask him rather kindly if you might be able to work the land they lived on in exchange for some of the profits of the crops that you would produce. The landowner would provide you with the tools, seed, housing, land, store credits at local shops in order to subsist offa for food and other supplies and sometimes a mule in order to help you work the land seeing as motorized machinery was still few and far between in the united states at this point. The issue of this system is that how much you receive for you labour, the cut that you actually get from selling crops, that you grew with ur own backbreaking labour, is more or less decided by your landowner. And as I mentioned last episode, those who’ve ever had to rely on the benevolence of a boss for any period of time knows that this shit ain’t gonna cut it. So often you would end up underpaid, underfed, and in a debt hole that lasted as long as you did. If it sounds like legal slavery that’s kinda because it was. You would basically remain in indentured servitude to the landowner for as long as you were a part of this system. Like don’t get me wrong there were people who managed to not be a part of it but it was an incredibly largescale problem.

It’s important to note that this wasn’t just a black phenomenon either, white tenants of sharecroppers existed and in incredibly large numbers as well. By 1900, 36 percent of all white farmers in Mississippi were either tenant farmers or sharecroppers (by comparison, 85 percent of all black farmers in 1900 did not own the land they farmed). This all sucks for various reasons but like partially because there was this whole other plan proposed that after the war, all the land that had been seized from slave owners would have been divvied up to the newly freed slave populations. It was colloquially known as the 40 acres and a mule plan but yeah unfortunately never happened cause fuckin president Andrew Johnson was like ”WELL AKSHULLY SWEATY I THINK THE LAND SHOULD GO BACK TO SLAVE OWNERS BECAUSE UHHHHHH” AND THEN IT DID AND THEN WE ENDED UP WITH SHARE CROPPING. But anyway that’s sharecropping. And of course I could go onto describe how all of this still affects black people in the united states and how the effects of systematic racism are still being felt generations later but… we’re gonna save that for a different episode. FOR NOW THOUGH, WHY IS THIS ALL IMPORTANT, WHY DID I TAKE ROUGHLY 3000 WORDS TO TELL YOU GUYS ABOUT THE HORRORS OF RECONSTRUCTION ERA SOUTH!? Well because we’re talking about the blues, and what does it mean when you have the blues, it means that you’re sad as hell, given all that I’ve just described to you is it no wonder that the blues emerged as the soundtrack to the lives these people lived?

So then what is blues? Well as I mentioned last time, blues sort of develops out of the field holler/spiritual tradition. A fair amount of field hollers, a type of work song that enslaved peoples would sing in fields while they were doing their work, were about regular ass things for regular ass peoples; this dude stole my girl, im gonna find me a girl to love, life sucks and im gonna sing about it, life doesn’t suck so much but I’m still gonna sing about it. Blues then tended to explore more themes related to the sadder points of those stories but in similar ways and styles. So where did blues come from specifically, what makes it a different genre than a field holler or a spiritual, and that’s a great question so let’s get in it.

Let’s say for a second you went through a real shitty period in your life, you significant other named steve dumped you, your pet armadillo, also named steve, died, ur mom (also coincidentally named steve) has taken away your showering privileges, you’ve forgotten how to speak ur native language and to top it all off you just burnt your gotdamn mac and cheese. You spiral into a deep situational depression that lasts quite a little while. During this time you listen to one album on repeat just over and over again, you know it all inside out and backwards and diagonal, you know every instrumental part by heart, you’ve got the lyrics tattooed on your ass, the whole 9 yards. And then you start working your way out of it, slowly but steadily the days start getting brighter, you move out of your abusive mother’s house, you find a new partner or get comfortable being single, you appropriately morn the loss of ur pet armadillo, hell you even learn to make a better mac and cheese, things aren’t all fixed, and life isn’t breezes and cakes but it is ever so slightly easier than it was before, at least you have ur freedom right? BUT NOW, everytime you listen to one of those songs from that album it mentally brings you back to the way things used to be and it’s not great. Well that’s kinda what happened with blues music but, ya know, infinitely worse. Essentially, black people wanted a new sound to accompany this new life and so they fuckin made it and it’s great.

The similarities of blues to field hollers and spirituals are relatively easy enough to hear if you know where to look which isn’t really surprising given that blues is the evolution of it. For example the basic structure stayed pretty similar, simple rhyming schemes, simple harmonies, melismatic vocal structures in places, and many times the lyrics were often very similar to those forms before them. But it goes even further than that! Most of the early blues melodies were directly derived from their spiritual predecessors. So for some comparison here’s some songs, first one is gonna be a field holler, next one is gonna be a spiritual, and then the last one is gonna be a blues song mmk? And here we go:

AND ACTUALLY YOU KNOW WHAT WAIT, JUST CAUSE IM FUCKIN, OOO BABE, OK, SO WHEN I WAS RESARCHING THIS FUCKING EPISODE I WAS TRYING TO FIND GOOD AUDIO CLIPS TO USE, AND LEMME TELL YA MAN YOU WOULDN’T THINK SPIRITUALS WOULD FUCKIN EXIST OUTSIDE THE LIBRARY OF FUCKING CONGRESS CAUSE APPARENTLY THEY HAVE A GODDAMN STRANGLEHOLD ON ALL BLACK SPIRITUALS EVER RECORDED BY THE LOMAX’S. The thing is is that fuckin copyright at least in the states is supposed to run out 75 years after the death of the recorder or fucking owner of the rights, which it certainly has been for Alan Fucking Lomax BUT NOOOOOOO, I HAVE TO NEARLY PURCHASE A GODDAMN CD IN ORDER TO GET YOU GUYS A FUCKING ACCURATE REPRESENTATION OF MUSIC THAT CAME OUT LIKE 100 YEARS AGO. To be clear I refuse to buy anything for this podcast other than my recording equipment, but man researching this podcast is big joab hours, god just keeps fuckin testing me. Just slap my ass and call me a pickle, ok, rage is over, time for songs:

These freed populations wanted a new music, a music that fit their current situation better, that didn’t rely on the imagery of the past in order to get across the situation they were in. And so that’s what blues did, it was a new sound for a new era and even more importantly it was a sound entirely their own. Whereas field hollers and various other types of music sung by enslaved peoples were by definition their invention, many of them still borrowed heavily from the dominant cultures of their oppressors, and so in creating blues what they had was something they could 100% call their own. Even if they didn’t own the land they worked/lived on, and had few rights to the crops they sewed and reaped, they did have blues, and that’s something beautiful.

But when does it become a thing, like when does blues start becoming a thing? And that’s a hard part. Like any cultural phenomenon it’s hard to fuckin say, there’s some accounts that say 1865 like the fuckin second the civil war ended, then there’s some that attribute it to the 1920s. Most of the sources I’ve looked at put it around 1890-1910. It originates unsurprisingly in and around the Mississippi Delta Region and East Texas where you have a lot of farmland and thus a lot of poor folks just trying to scratch out a living for themselves. AND SO THE BLUES BECOMES A THING AND IT’S COOL AS HELL AND IT DEVELOPS IN SO MANY DIFFERENT WAYS! And I’m sorry that I’m not gonna get enough time to do every subgenre of blues, but we’re gonna look at 3 of the big regions or subgenres of blues.

So blues first of all have all those things that I mentioned before simple rhyming schemes, like ABAB or ABCC, simple harmonies, Call and response is definitely a thing that still happens in this specific style, but then they also have blues notes, for those who missed the last episode, blues notes are notes within a standard scale that are “bent” (or at least that’s how they were initially described.) These notes are lowered by a semitone making the overall colour of the sound a bit darker and more… emotional, sad? Like we ascribe emotions to the way things sound and that might be western centric, I’m actually gonna have to look into it later, but for western listeners we’re gonna read the emotion in these tones as sad. So the notes specifically are lowered the 3rd 5th and 7th degrees of a regular scale. I’m going to play you guys an example of blues scale in just a second but the guy playing the example is using the pentatonic version of the scale meaning only 5 notes of it.

In terms of instruments the most standard you’re going to find in any blues band is at it’s most basic one guitar and a person singing. You could even make an argument that just singing could be blues if you’re using a blues scale but usually there will at least a guitar and one dude singing. The rest of the intstruments are gonna depend on the region you’re playing from. So remember the moaning thing I mentioned last time? The moaning style vocals? Not pioneered by but made popular by a man that went by Blind Lemon Jefferson? This one:

Well he falls under the Mississippi/Texas type of blues which we’re gonna call texasippi. It differs from other types of blues in the united states for a couple reasons but one of them is that moaning style of vocals, in other parts of the country the style where the blues vocals function similarly to other styles of singing, clean and clear, no moaning. Another cool thing that texasippi blues also does is they incorporate a lot of metal into the way they play their guitars. Not like the heavy screamy kind that’s come to be MY fave, but like actual metal objects! How they incorporate this is through the strings of the guitar specifically causing a little extra twangy buzzing when the strings resonate but also a sort of pleasing screech when they’re shifted up and down the strings like this:

but what did they use to make this sound? Well just about anything small enough and metal you could thread between the strings or held against them while playing, this coulda been bottle caps, pocket knives, silverware. Remember, we’re still talking about a type of music that was very much being played by people without very much or no money, so you’re using what you can to make it. Nowadays you can purchase wee cylanders made of glass or metal that go over ur fingers that you press up against the strings to create the desired effect. In addition to this, something that’s pretty regional to the blues in this area is the harmonica. I’m assuming most of you know about the harmonica and have heard it but for those who don’t, the harmonica is a squanky reed instrument that you play with your mouth. I would tell you the physics of how it works but fuck if I ever studied physics. Basically when you blow in it, it vibrates the reed and makes a note depending on the holes you blow into, and when you suck air in it, it makes other sounds! They can be very very large or very very small thus changing how low or high the sound is respectively. They were invented somewhere in the early 1800s in Germany we think and they sound something like this:

How were harmonicas introduced into blues music? Well turns out, much like some of the other instruments we’ll see in a hot minute, harmonicas were often carried by soldiers during the American civil war, even President Abraham Lincoln himself was reported to have carried a harmonica with him in his coat pocket and would play it as he “found it comforting.” Thing about the harmonica was that it was relatively easy to make and it was extremely cheap to buy in comparison to other instruments at the time, even better was that you really didn’t need lessons to figure out how to make it sound good. So during the reconstruction period, as industrialization rapidized in America, and harmonicas became more available, and previous soldiers reminisced about the songs they heard played in their camps during the civil war, more and more people started picking up the harmonica. And so poor southern americans were able to incorporate the instrument into this new music they were developing like this:

Also I would big time recommend just watching the video for that song, dudes just sittin there legit just suckin on his harmonica at some point, that’s what I fucking call dedication bud. The cool part about blues from the texasippi way is then during the great migration, the phenomenon that I mentioned last episode, where black southerners just start heading northwards, is that the blues travels with them too. Just briefly on the great migration, remember all the shitty stuff I discussed earlier, the lack of work, sharecropping, lynching and what have you? That’s why the great migration takes place. Basically black people all around the south are going jesus fucking christ shit sucks let’s get out of here and find somewhere better to be, and so they do, and about 6 MILLION Black Americans head north to where it’s… better. I mean there’s definitely still racism and all sorts of jim crow era laws and practices up north but it is still some degree better than the south. So this great migration is how texasippi blues music then comes to be transplanted into Chicago, and turns into Chicago blues.

“BUT LAURA” YOU SAY, UR HANDS CLENCHED INTO FISTS AT UR SIDES, “IF TEXASIPPI BLUES IS THE SAME AS THE ONES IN CHICAGO THEN HOW’RE THEY DIFFERENT!?” YOU CRY WITH TEARS FORMING AT THE SIDES OF YOUR EYES. And you’re right b, they are the same so why are they different? Well ya gotta remember that time does funny stuff to music similarly as it does with language and just abut anything else, things change over time, AND, things get invented over time. And time as we’re moving into now is like 30s and 40s era. So in the case of Chicago blues we get the additives of the piano, which has been around for some time but people are now just being able to put into their blues music due to becoming more financially stable, BUT WE ALSO GET THE COOL NEW INVENTION OF THE ELECTRIC GUITAR. Now there is some speculation over the invention of most things throughout history, for example, y’all might be familiar of Thomas Edison not actually inventing the lightbulb and being a bit of a dick about things, so when I talk about inventors of things, unless otherwise stated, please take it with some amount of a grain of salt. So Paul H Tutmarc may have been the first person to invent the first electric guitar when he managed, by some feat of science, which I will not explain because science is for wizards and freeks and while I am both of those I am not at all qualified or able to explain it, but essentially he managed to electrify a Hawaiian guitar! He supposedly invented this sometime in the 1930s. Here’s an example of what that sounds like:

Very Spongebobby… spongeboblike…spongebobesque… so EITHERWAY the electric guitar, as well as the electric bass is invented and so those are then infused into Chicago blues. In some cases you will also get the addition of drums and saxophone, but it is the electrified elements as well as the piano that really characterize the biggest difference between Chicago blues and texasippi blues. Overall, it sounds like this:

Something you also probably heard in there was just the level of intensity, the volume or what I’m gonna call the perceived volume, is louder. Whereas the songs of the texasippi blues is a little softer, quieter, very much just dude and his guitar volume, Chicago blues is gonna sound a little louder and a little more intense at most times. This is due to blues clubs becoming a big thing during this time period. And why shouldn’t they? In diaspora communities, that is communities consisting of people from a similar ethnic or national background, you often get patterns of similar settlement. So in our case, when Black Americans started moving northward, they would often settle in similar communities or move into similar communities based off of their ethnicity. Afterall you wanna be able to live in places where people understand your experience. There’s also the element of racism of course, homeowners associations making it hard for Black folk to move into white neighbourhoods and of course school segregation which didn’t end until the 1954. So while in some cases there was def an element of wanting to feel safe in a community of people who understand you, there’s also a big ol element of racism as there pretty much always is when we talk about anything. Seriously ur gonna be surprised at how far reaching and fucking just convoluted and stupid racism is, especially when we get into like Europeans being racist against other Europeans. So since we have all these people moving up north they need to be entertained, we all need entertainment after-all, but lo and behold! They can’t go to white clubs in a lot of cases because fucking racism (unless you are a performer in which case sometimes you can go to white clubs but only to perform, I’m gonna get more into that when we have our jazz episode.) So we start having blues clubs and because they’re a club and there’s drinking and talking and what not, often these songs tend to be a little louder or more rowdy to compensate.

On the other end of the country we also have my favorite flavour of blues which is the New Orleans blues. I’m definitely 100 percent biased when I say this but why does everything in New Orleans just sound better? If I had to guess it’s the multiculturalism and thus people bringing in tonnes of different ideas, but it’s hard to quantify awesome so we’re just gonna leave it there. BUT YEAH so we have texasippi blues that travels down the river (cause things rarely travel up a river) and hits New Orleans. But again, if we’re talking about the same style of blues then what makes it different? A lot hunny, a lot. So as we talked about in our last episode there’s a lot of different cultural elements at play in Louisianna culminating in some cool ass musical styles and changes. It’s also absolutely something we’re gonna talk about when we go back and do the Jazz episode cause lord knows New Orleans jazz is just as fuckin hot and dangerous (like serious lemme just go fuckin hangout with you guys down there, that’s all I want, musical tour of louisianna) I will say though that the line between jazz and blues does tend to get a little blurry though when we’re talking about New Orleans Blues so just hold onto ur femurs there yall and strap in.

So New orleans blues is different from other types of blues again by incorporating horns and piano into the music, most notably this will be the trumpet cause trumpets after the civil war just kinda leached out into the general public and since people got used to them in that capacity they became sorta naturally engrained into the soundscape of the music of the area. “but laura doesn’t Chicago also have horns?!” and ur right man they absolutely do, but there’s even more. So where texasippi blues relies on a rather standard rhythms in most cases, the New Orleans Blues scene takes from some of that different heritage and combines Caribbean inspired or based rhythms. We can find a good example of the inspiration for those rhythms in another genre of music that was popular at the same time, Calypso. Calypso is a genre of music which we will look more in depth in the future but just really generally for now it is popular in the Caribbean as well as certain parts, South America (particularly Venezuela), Mexico, and of course New Orleans during this time. It is usually up-beat and relies a lot on emphasizing the offbeat, and these are all things that we hear being incorporated into New Orleans blues during the time. So when we hear blues from New Orleans, one of the things we can usually use to tell the difference is merely just the upbeat tempo of things and slightly more rhythmically complex manner in which it existed. In fact Blues in New Orleans was so fuckin different it actually started what we know of as R&B or rhythm and blues which sounds like this:

Just a quick detour, I fuckin love like, blues and jazz names. The Man I played just there was Roy Brown but man the names really take off on occasion my personal favorite being Guitar Slim Jr., but we also got Fats domino (sometimes just known as fats, or the fat man), we god fuckin Professor Longhair, we got a dude who just goes by the name sugar boy, like… guys…. What happened to nicknames like that, I wanna walk around and when people see me comin at a distance they just point and go oh lord here comes swamp papa, like, that’s livin man, I dunno what to tell you but that’s absolutely livin.

Anyhow, what ur gonna notice, or maybe you didn’t notice but I’m gonna tell you and you can go back and notice is that blues, (along with jazz but we’re gonna get to that) as it goes on and evolves starts sounding a lot like early rock and roll music, and that doesn’t happen by coincidence. Also you’re probably noticing that blues at least as far as it goes for the Chicago variety and the New Orleans variety we talked about, sound a hell of a lot like Jazz and again we’ll get more into the specifics later. The thing is when we talk about invention, whether it be music, or physical things, or even sometimes schools of thought and ideas is that things get borrowed and changed and moulded into something else by other people. Hell the phenomenon of something being invented in multiple different places at the same time is so common enough that it even has a name, it’s called multiple discovery. Generally people in North America prefer a more black and white “this thing was developed at this time and this place by this person because definitive reason definitive reason definitive reason.” Because we have this weird sense of individuality and crediting individuals with discovery as opposed to a group or the society itself as maybe it should more rightly be. This means that in our endless want to categorize and systematize and ize all these things, particularly things like music, it gets sorta difficult to discern what is what and why and how. Of course we’ve already seen this with spirituals and gospel, and now we’ve seen it with blues/jazz/and early rock.

I just wanted to bring it up sooner than later because, especially as we move into more modern north American Genres, and honestly genres from various other places throughout the world. I wanted to bring this up now before we go any further in this podcast because as we get into more modern genres and hell maybe even with this episode I imagine I might get some rather angry mail from elitests who will smash their foreheads on the keyboard in absolute blind fuckin dismay and rage accusing me of putting the wrong genre lables on the wrong songs. The thing is though, like most art, or definitions in life, things are salient. Just because music fits one genre doesn’t mean it only fits within that genre, in the case of the Rhythm and Blues song by Roy brown that I played earlier, while it is definitely Rhythm and Blues there’s also gonna be other people who strongly consider that Rock and Roll. And that’s alright! Music doesn’t have to rigidly fit into one genre, we give things genre titles or group things into genres to help more easily understand their histories and identify other things that sound like it! All music is going to have variation, and in the case of rhythm and blues, a style of blues that very much informs early rock, you’re going to have cross roads like that. So instead of getting defensive, maybe take some time to think about how cool it is that music exists on an ever evolving spectrum.

So with that, that’s all for just a music podcast this week, I hope you’ve heard something new, and I hope you’ve heard something that you like. If you haven’t there’s always next time where we’re actually gonna do something a little different. Next time we’re gonna look at the Minstrel show which I’m subtitling right now, “why we don’t wear black face.” In the meantime, though if one of y’all would like to suggest a topic I would love nothing more than to answer your musical questions or talk about topics that interest you guys in music. Feel free to drop me a line at [email protected]

List of Music: Jump Jim Crow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjIXWRG09Qk

Belton Sutherland's field holler (1978) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CPJwt14d5E&list=PLAyuUbD3Cdhxx__cTlFDrkxxKiYllrYwJ&index=2

Wash Dennis & Charlie Sims - Lead Me To The Rock - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmPqmLovNms&list=PLAyuUbD3Cdhxx__cTlFDrkxxKiYllrYwJ&index=4

Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell - How Long Has That Evening Train Been Gone - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEw0ek2BhJE

Blind Lemon Jefferson – Black Snake Moan - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3yd-c91ww8

Mississippi Fred McDowell - You gotta move - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtlVSedpIRU&feature=emb_logo

Red River Valley -Traditional - Harmonica solo by Kyong H. Lee - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKM4bn4kS-0

Sonny Boy Williamson - Keep it to Yourself - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtRxJDb3vlw

Paul Tutmarc performs - My Tane - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUOms5y6cmI

Buddy Guy - First Time I Met The Blues - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1jruvTBleY

Roy Brown - Mighty Mighty Man - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhp8jMykAVg

Technical Clip I used: PianoPig (on youtube) - Minor Pentatonic vs Blues Scale https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwz0b-At1ys

#music #music podcast #podcast #just a music podcast #music history

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