#i mean swearing at Voltaire is nothing new for me but

[your-disobedient-servant]

Voltaire’s Paméla Letters Translated: Intro and Letter #1

The letters that Voltaire rewrote in the vein of Richardson’s Paméla after his falling out with Frederick the Great have intrigued me ever since I first heard of them in November or December. Only discovered to have been a rewrite and not originals in the late 20th century, it’s hard to say how much of it is authentic and how much exaggerated or made up, but for me, the fact that they have been altered only adds to the fascination.

Six months into learning French, I’m still not sure I’m quite ready to use this as translation exercises, but I’m impatient, I found the book for very cheap, and besides, I feel that to translate Voltaire you must channel some of the hubris, so bring it on. Poetry (to my surprise, it turns out I actually enjoy translating poetry in some masochistic way) and all. In the end, I am proud of the result.

This is not a very juicy letter, but I’m sure one will come along soon enough. I’m not sure how many will I be able to complete because there’s about fifty of them altogether, but I hope I manage at least a few.

Big thanks to everyone who helped me out with the draft. The rest under the cut for brevity, English followed by original French.

FIRST LETTER

In Clèves, July 1750

It is to you, please, niece of mine, to you, woman of a wit superb, philosopher of the selfsame kind, to you who, like me, of Permesse, knows the many paths diverse; it is to you I now address this disarray of prose and verse, recount my long odyssey's story; recount unlike I back then did when, in my splendid age's glory, I still kept to Apollo's writ; when I dared, perhaps courting disaster, for counsel strike for Paris forth, notwithstanding our minds' worth, the god of Taste, my foremost master!

This journey is only too true, and puts too much distance between you and me. Do not imagine that I want to rival Chapelle, who has made, I do not know how, such a reputation for himself for having been from Paris to Monpellier and to papal land, and for having reported to a gourmand.

It was not, perhaps, difficult when one wished to mock monsieur d'Assoucy. We need another style, we need another pen, to portray this Plato, this Solon, this Achilles who writes his verses at Sans-Souci. I could tell you of that charming retreat, portray this hero philosopher and warrior, so terrible to Austria, so trivial for me; however, that could bore you.

Besides, I am not yet at his court and you should not anticipate anything: I want order even in my letters. Therefore know that I left Compiègne on July 25th, taking my road to Flanders, and as a good historiographer and a good citizen, I went to see the fields of Fontenoy, of Rocoux and of Lawfeld on my way. There was no trace of it left: all of it was covered with the finest wheat in the world. The Flemish men and women were dancing, as if nothing had happened.

Go on, innocent eyes of this bad-mannered populace; reign, lovely Ceres, where Bellona once flourished; countryside fertilised with blood of our warriors, I like better your harvests than all of the laurels: provided by chance and by vanity nourished Oh! that grand projects were prevented by doom! Oh! fruitless victories! Oh! the blood spilled in vain! French, English, German so tranquil today did we have to slit throats for friendship to bloom!

I went to Clèves hoping to find there the stage stations that all the bailiwicks provide, at the order of the king of Prussia, to those who to go to philosophise to Sans-Souci with the Solomon of the North and on whom the king bestows the favour of travelling at his expense: but the order of the king of Prussia had stayed in Wesel in the hands of a man who received it as the Spanish receive the papal bulls, with the deepest respect, and without putting them to any use. So I spent a few days in the castle of this princess that madame de La Fayette made so famous.

But this heroine and the duc of Nemours, we ignore in these places the gallant adventure; for  it is not here, I vow, the land of novels, nor the one of love.

It is a shame, for the country seems made for the princesses of Clèves: it is the most beautiful place of nature and art has further added to its position. It is a view superior to that of Meudon; it is a land covered in vegetation like the Champs-Élysées and the forests of Boulogne; it is a hill covered in gently sloping avenues of trees: a large pool collects  the waters of this hill; in the middle of the pool stands a statue of Minerva. The water of this first pool is received by a second, which returns it to the third; and at the foot of the hill ends in a waterfall pouring into a vast, semi-circular grotto. The waterfall lets the waters spill into a canal, which goes on to water a vast meadow and joins a branch of the Rhine. Mademoiselle de Scudéri and La Calprenède would have filled a volume of their novels with this description; but I, historiographer, I will only tell you that a certain prince Maurice de Nassau, the governor, during his lifetime, of this lovely solitude devised nearly all of these wonders there. He lies buried in the middle of the forest, in a great devil of an iron tomb, surrounded by all the ugliest bas-reliefs of the time of the Roman empire's decadence, and some gothic monuments that are worse still. But all of it would be something very respectable for those deep minds who fall into ecstasy at the sight of poorly cut stone, as long as it is two thousand years old.

Another ancient monument, the remains of a great stone road, built by the Romans, which led to Frankfurt, to Vienna, and to Constantinople. The Holy Empire devolved into Germany has fallen a little bit from its magnificence. One gets stuck in the mud in the summer nowadays, in the august Germania. Of all the modern nations, France and the little country of Belgium are the only ones who have roads worthy of Antiquity. We could above all boast of surpassing the ancient Romans in cabaret; and there are still certain points on which we equal them: but in the end, when it comes to durable, useful, magnificent monuments, which people can come close to them? which monarch does in his kingdom what a procosul did in Nîmes and in Arles?

Perfect in the trivial, in trifles sublime great inventors of nothing, envy we excite. Let our minds to the supreme heights strive of the children of Romulus so proud: they did a hundred times more for the vanquished crowd than we solely for ourselves contrive.

In the end, notwithstanding the beauty of the location of Clèves, notwithstanding the Roman road, in spite of a tower believed to have been built by Julius Caesar, or at least by Germanicus; in spite of the inscriptions of the twenty-sixth legion that quartered here for the winter; in spite of the lovely tree-lined roads planted by prince Maurice, and his grand iron tomb; in spite of, lastly, the mineral waters recently discovered here, there are hardly any crowds in Clèves. The waters there are, however, just as good as those of Spa or of Forges; and one cannot swallow the little atoms of iron in a more beautiful place. But it does not suffice, as you know, to have merits to be fashionable: usefulness and pleasantness are here; but this delicious retreat is frequented only by a few Dutchmen, who are attracted by the proximity and the low prices of living and houses there, and who come to admire and to drink.

I found there, to my great satisfaction, a well-known Dutch poet, who gave us the honour of elegantly, and even verse for verse, translating our tragedies, good or bad, to Dutch. Perhaps one day we will be reduced to translating the tragedies of Amsterdam: every nation gets their turn.

The Roman ladies, who leered at their lovers at the theatre of Pompeii, did not suspect that one day, in the middle of Gaul, in a little town called Lutèce, we would produce better plays than Rome.

The order of the king regarding the stage stations has finally reached me; so my delight at the princess of Clèves' place is over, and I am leaving for Berlin.

***

LETTRE PREMIÈRE

À Clèves, juillet 1750

C'est à vous, s'il vous plaît, ma nièce, vous, femme d'esprit sans travers, philosophe de mon espèce, vous qui, comme moi, du Permesse connaisez les sentiers divers ; c'est à vous qu'en courant j'adresse ce fatras de prose et de vers, ce récit de mon long voyage ; non tel que j'en fis autrefois quand, dans la fleur de mon bel âge, d'Apollon je suivais les lois ; quand j'osai, trop hardi peut-être, aller consulter à Paris, en dépit de nos beaux esprits, le dieu du Goût mon premier maître !

Ce voyage-ci n'est que trop vrai, et ne m'éloigne que trop du vous. N'allez pas vous imaginer que je veulle égaler Chapelle, qui s'est fait, je ne sais comment, tant de réputation, pour avoir été de Paris à Montpellier et en terre papale, et en avoir rendu compte à un gourmand.

Ce n'était pas peut-être un emploi difficile de railler monsieur d'Assoucy. Il faut une autre plume, il faut une autre style, pour peindre ce Platon, ce Solon, cet Achille qui fait des vers à Sans-Souci. Je pourrais vous parler de ce charmant asile, vous peindre ce héros philosophe et guerrier, si terrible à l'Autriche, et pour moi si facile ; mais je pourrais vous ennuyer.

D'ailleurs je ne suis pas encore à sa cour, et il ne faut rien anticiper : je veux de l'ordre jusque dans mes lettres. Sachez donc que je partis de Compiègne le 25 de juillet, prenant ma route par la Flandre, et qu'en bon historiographe et en bon citoyen, j'allai voir en passant les champs de Fontenoy, de Rocoux et de Lawfeld. Il n'y paraissait pas : tout cela était couvert des plus beaux blés du monde. Les Flamands et les Flamandes dansaient, comme si de rien n'eût été.

Durez, yeux innocents de ces peuples grossiers ; régnez, belle Cérès, où triompha Bellone ; campagnes qu'engraissa le sang de nos guerriers, j'aime mieux vos moissons que celles des lauriers : la vanité les cueille et le hasard les donne. Ô que de grands projets par le sort démentis ! Ô victoires sans fruits ! Ô meurtres inutiles ! Français, Anglais, Germains, aujourd'hui si tranquilles fallait-il s'égorger pour être bons amis !

J'ai été à Clèves comptant y trouver des relais que tous les bailliages fournissent, moyennant un ordre du roi de Prusse, à ceux qui vont philosopher à Sans-Souci auprès du Salomon du Nord et à qui le roi accorde la faveur de voyager à ses dépens : mais l'ordre du roi de Prusse était resté à Vesel entre les mains d'un homme qui l'a reçu comme les Espagnols reçoivent les bulles des papes, avec le plus profond respect, et sans en faire aucun usage. Je me suis donc quelques jours dans le château de cette princesse que madame de La Fayette a rendu si fameux.

Mais de cette heroïne, et du duc de Nemours, on ignore en ces lieux la galante aventure : ce n'est pas ici, je vous jure, le pays des romans, ni celui des amours.

C'est dommage, car le pays semble fait pour des princesses de Clèves : c'est le plus beau lieu de nature et l'art a encore ajouté à sa situation. C'est une vue supérieure à celle de Meudon ; c'est un terrain planté comme les Champs-Élysées et le bois de Boulogne ; c'est une colline couverte d'allées d'arbres en pente douce : un grand bassin reçoit les eaux de cette colline ; au milieu du bassin s'élève une statue de Minerve. L'eau de ce premier bassin est reçue dans un second, qui la renvoie à un troisième ; et le bas de la colline est terminé par une cascade ménagée dans une vaste grotte en demi-cercle. La cascade laisse tomber les eaux dans un canal qui va arroser une vaste prairie et se joindre à un bras du Rhin. Mademoiselle de Scudéri et La Calprenède auraient rempli de cette description un tome de leurs romans ; mais moi, historiographe, je vous dirai seulement qu'un certain prince Maurice de Nassau, gouverneur, de son vivant, de cette belle solitude, y fit presque toutes ces merveilles. Il s'est fait enterrer au milieu des bois, dans un grand diable de tombeau de fer, environné de tous les plus vilains bas-reliefs du temps de la décadence de l'empire romain, et de quelques monuments gothiques plus grossiers encore. Mais le tout serait quelque chose de fort respectable pour ces esprits profonds qui tombent en extase à la vue d'une pierre mal taillée, pour peu qu'elle ait deux mille ans d'antiquité.

Un autre monument antique, c'est le reste d'un grand chemin pavé, construit par les Romains, qui allait à Francfort, à Vienne et à Constantinople. Le Saint-Empire dévolu à l'Allemagne est un peu déchu de sa magnificence. On s'embourbe aujourd'hui en été, dans l'auguste Germanie. De toutes les nations modernes, la France et la petit pays des Belges sont les seules qui aient des chemins dignes de l'Antiquité. Nous pouvons surtout nous vanter de passer les anciens Romains en cabarets ; et il y a encore certains points sur lesquels nous les valons bien : mais enfin, pour les monuments durables, utiles, magnifiques, quel peuple approche d'eux ? quel monarque fait dans son royaume ce qu'un proconsul faisait dans Nîmes et dans Arles ?

Parfait dans le petit, sublimes en bijoux, grands inventeurs de riens, nous faisons des jaloux. Elevons nos esprits à la hauteur suprême des fiers enfants de Romulus : ils faisaient plus cent fois pour des peuples vaincus que nous ne faisons pour nous-mêmes.

Enfin, malgré la beauté de la situation de Clèves, malgré le chemin des Romains, en dépit d'une tour qu'on croit bâtie par Jules César, ou au moins par Germanicus ; en dépit des inscriptions d'une vingt-sixième légion qui était ici en quartier d'hiver ; en dépit des belles allées plantées par le prince Maurice, et de son grand tombeau de fer ; en dépit enfin des eaux minérales découvertes ici depuis peu, il n'y a guère d'affluence à Clèves. Les eaux y sont cependant aussi bonnes que celles de Spa et de Forges ; et on ne peut avaler de petits atomes de fer dans un plus beau lieu. Mais il ne suffit pas, comme vous savez, d'avoir du mérite pour avoir la vogue : l'utile et l'agréable sont ici ; mais ce séjour délicieux n'est fréquenté que par quelques Hollandais que le voisinage et le bas prix des vivres et de maisons y attirent, et qui viennent admirer et boire.

J'y ai retrouvé, avec une très grande satisfaction, un célèbre poète hollandais, qui nous a fait l'honneur de traduire élégamment en batave, et même vers pour vers, nos tragédies bonnes ou mauvaises. Peut-être un jour viendra que nous serons réduits à traduire les tragédies d'Amsterdam : chaque peuple a son tour.

Les dames romaines, qui allaient lorgner leurs amants au théâtre de Pompée, ne se doutaient pas qu'un jour au milieu des Gaules, dans un petit bourg nommé Lutèce, on ferait de meilleurs pièces de théâtre qu'à Rome.

L'ordre du roi pour les relais vient enfin de me parvenir ; voilà mon enchantement chez la princesse de Clèves fini, et je pars pour Berlin.

#this nearly murdered me #i mean swearing at Voltaire is nothing new for me but #i open the book as soon as i get it and the first letter containd FIVE POEMS #dramatic little bitch (semi-affectionate) #anyway onto no. 2 #Paméla letters #my translation #Voltaire #Frederick the Great #Mme Denis

[astralaffairs]

voltaire to versace 03 | thomas jefferson TEASER

title: voltaire to versace 03 TEASER

pairing: professor!thomas jefferson x reader

words: a lil over 10k

warnings: sex jokes n references again, dolley simping for james again, but probably more this time, implied sex except dolley’s having it instead of mc, maria and angelica are girlfriends, lafayette is basically everyone’s plug for weed so like,, drug references and alcohol references??

desc: from francis bacon to foucault, descartes to dante, your political philosophy seminar doesn’t promise to be a blowout — and yet, one mysterious stranger and a risqué evening later, your burberry-clad professor gives you the feeling it won’t be quite the snoozefest you’d expected.

tags: @lunariasilver @tinywhim @nyxie75 @wreakhavoconmacroissantdiggs @checkurwindow @katierpblogg @cubedtriangle @lunariasilver @lexylovesfandoms @fanfic-addict-98 @stephyra17 @notebookgirl30 @exorcisms-with-elmo @kmsmedine @itshaileyn @honeyand-roses — let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future parts!

"Are you sure I was included in that invite?" Y/N's voice was skeptical as she crossed the green toward Thomas's office. Apparently, Dolley and James had spent their afternoon together, taking a walk through the city. (When Dolley told Y/N that the two-mile loop near the Lincoln Memorial had taken them two hours to walk through, she had a sneaking suspicion walking wasn't all they were doing. Hopefully, they'd at least escaped the watchful eye of our oversized 16th president.)

"Yes, I'm certain you were," Dolley insisted from the other end of the phone's line. "He said it'd be great if I brought you."

"... This sounds suspiciously like a pity invite."

"It isn't a pity invite!" Y/N could hear the indignance in her voice.

"Dolley, why, exactly, would he want me there if it wasn't a pity invite?"

"... Because you're my best friend, and he's decided to make an effort to get to know you better?"

She laughed. "As much as I appreciate this idealized James Madison, I have a feeling it was more to the effect of 'I just saw your roommate and feel obligated to invite her'," Y/N corrected her. "But go to the party without me! Don't let me hold you back from having your fun, alright?"

"Please come? It wouldn't be the same without you." Dolley's voice was high, containing traces of what almost smelled like desperation. "It'll make me much more comfortable to have you along."

Y/N groaned. "So when you and James go make out in the bathroom, I'm supposed to, what, play truth or dare with all the other PhD candidates?"

"Why not?" Dolley's tone was mild, which made Y/N roll her eyes.

"No offense to James's friends, but I'm not sure I want to spend an evening making stunted small talk with them."

"You're such a warm person, though! You'd be quite alright."

"It'd be awkward!"

"Please, Y/N? I'll beg you if that's what it'll take."

She scowled at how soft, forlorn Dolley's voice had become. As far as she was concerned, this was akin to emotional manipulation. "Does it really mean that much to you?"

"Yes. I like him so much."

She sighed. "I'm gonna say yes solely because I have somewhere to be and can't deal with this argument anymore. But you owe me."

Y/N could almost picture Dolley’s sappy smile. “Thank you so much, dear. You’re too good to me.”

"Yeah, yeah, what else is new?" Her words elicited a laugh from Dolley, and Y/N continued, “But you know I’d do pretty much whatever you asked if you asked it in that I’m-about-to-cry voice, so I’m not sure this relationship is healthy for me anymore.”

“Oh, of course; I’m truly a parasite,” Dolley sighed. “Taking you in as my roommate, paying for your ramen — how evil of me.”

“I pay half the rent, and ramen costs fifty cents!” Y/N defended, but the words were lighthearted nonetheless. “Next time you give up five perfectly good hours of a Friday night so that I can get laid, we’ll call it even.”

“Don’t make any calls about Friday just yet. You haven’t even seen James’s friends.” Dolley’s voice was just teasing enough to placate Y/N. “I may not be the only one having some fun.”

“Have you even seen James’s friends?” Y/N asked dubiously, and Dolley’s silence told her all there was to know. “That’s what I thought. He’s an econ student, so it’s probably gonna be about eighty percent entitled rich men attending school on family money.”

“Or they could all be just your type,” Dolley reasoned, but by then, any efforts to talk Y/N out of her convictions were futile. “Tall, hot, and older.”

“First off, I don’t have a type, and second, just because you’re dating an ‘older man’,” — The final two words were said mockingly — “doesn’t mean that his older friends aren’t still douches.”

“I hate to have to be the one to break it to you, but that is absolutely your type.”

“Based on what?”

“That professor of yours?”

“Dolley!” Y/N scowled, turning down the volume on her call just in case some passing pedestrians were notorious gossips with super-hearing. It was certainly possible. “Can you please stop talking about him like that? Don’t make it a thing,” she murmured, jaw tense.

“Oh, we’re well past that, dear,” Dolley said matter-of-factly, and Y/N could only roll her eyes. “But if you’ve agreed to the party, I won’t push my luck.”

“Smart choice,” she muttered bitterly. “Anyway, I’ve gotta go. Talk to you later tonight?”

“Of course.”

With that, she hung up the phone before Dolley could take advantage of her giving mood and start making further outlandish demands, tucking it into her coat pocket as she pushed open the door to Melos Hall. Unfortunately for her, the elevator was broken, and Thomas's office was several flights of stairs above her.

After at least eight long pauses for her to catch her breath, heaving as she leaned against the railing in the stairwell, and three stomach cramps, Y/N knocked on his door. "Anybody home?"

"C'mon in." His voice was soft, muffled through the door, and she opened it to find him all but slumped on his desk, resting his head on his hand as he graded papers he appeared to be rather cross with, and with more of said papers covering the entirety of the desk’s surface (and much of the floor). He glanced up when she entered, and a soft grin split his expression. "Hey, I thought that was you."

"I'm in absolute awe of your pattern-recognition skills, really," she replied, tone dry as she let the door fall shut behind her, and despite the playful smile she wore, Thomas rolled his eyes.

"You actually here for anything, or am I gonna have to kick you out?"

She laughed. "I'm not here to derail your work, I swear." He raised a dubious eyebrow. "I was just stopping by to let you know that, assuming it's still on the table, I'd love the TA position."

"Oh, yeah?" His smile widened almost imperceptibly at her words, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "'M glad to hear it. Could've just shot me an email, though."

She shrugged. "I was headed this way anyway. Figured I may as well stop by."

"I'm not complainin'." She let out a soft huff of laughter at the words, but she could feel heat beginning to creep up the back of her neck. "'S good timing, anyway. Intro to IR just turned in an essay on Kant."

The soft groan she let out only served to amuse him further as she surveyed the wreckage of his office. "That's what all this paper is?" He nodded in confirmation, and she scrunched up her nose. "I'm not sure if I feel worse for the freshmen who had to write them or for you having to read them."

"Well, I should hope it's the freshmen," he said matter-of-factly, sitting back in his chair. The smile he wore was concerningly self-righteous. "'Cause, now, readin' these is your job, too."

Her eyebrows shot up; the dread in her gaze was the furthest thing from contrived. "... Is it too late to rescind my application as a TA?"

He shook his head. "Mm-mm. You're welcome to abandon ship."

She didn't like the satisfaction which grew in his gaze as she weighed her options; they both knew she wasn't considering turning down the position in earnest — that simple fact left Thomas unnecessarily smug. Another beat passed, and she sighed. "You're lucky this is going to look good on my grad school applications."

He laughed. "Sure am. I could use all the help I can get, right now."

"I can see that," she replied, voice laden with amusement at the state of his office.

However, Thomas said nothing more, and she shifted on her feet, uncomfortable with the drawn-out silence. He raised an expectant eyebrow, and it took her a moment to grasp his intention. "Wait... d'you mean, like, right now?"

"Unless you're busy." He shrugged. His gaze was hopeful as she eyed warily the small stack of papers she'd spent the past few minutes trying not to crush under her boot. She sighed.

He grinned when she bent over to pick up the papers that'd floated to her side of the desk. "As depressing as it feels to say, I've got nowhere else to be on this fine Friday night."

"That's the spirit." He winked, and though she rolled her eyes, her amused smile was deep-set. "So, you're gradin' for accuracy and watchin' out for grammar, of course, but the points are really earned for analysis. The paper's on changes in the international system. They’ve gotta connect ‘em back to Kant's maxims."

She let out a low whistle as she took a seat across from him, plucking a red pen from his cup and dropping her bag onto the floor. "That certainly sounds pretentious."

He laughed lightly. "You really tellin' me you didn't have to do anything like this as a freshman?"

"Oh, I wish I could say that, but unfortunately, my professor was apparently every bit the pseudointellectual you are.” She nodded sadly, and Thomas rolled his eyes.

"Hilarious, sweetheart, really." In the dry sarcasm of his tone, the casual pet name didn't seem to register with him, but Y/N couldn't help but notice, and her breath caught. "Here, lemme get you a copy of the rubric. 'S nothin' too complicated; go easy on 'em. Got some STEM majors in the class who're just takin' it for the graduation requirement, so I'm not expectin' much."

She pursed her lips. "Are the essays that bad?"

He deadpanned as he turned back to her, sliding the rubric across the desk. "At least as bad as I'm makin' 'em sound."

Y/N let out a long, dramatic huff, rubbing her temples, and Thomas looked thoroughly entertained at her reaction.

"I'm in for a long few months, aren't I?"

#hamilton x reader #hamilton #hamilton fanfic #hamilton fic #hamilton fanfiction #thomas jefferson fic #thomas jefferson fanfiction #thomas jefferson imagines #thomas jefferson fanfic #thomas jefferson #thomas jefferson x reader smut #thomas jefferson x reader drabble #thomas jefferson x reader #thomas jefferson x reader imagines #jefferson fanfic #jefferson x reader #thomas jefferson smut #thomas jefferson scenario #thomas jefferson scenarios #thomas jefferson imagine #thomas jefferson preferences #daveed diggs fanfic #daveed x reader #daveed diggs x reader #daveed diggs #daveed diggs imagines #daveed imagines #daveed diggs scenarios #daveed scenarios #lafayette imagines

[maemi324]

Black Coffee

Hey there friends! It’s been a while hasn’t it? Today i come at you with a new piece for a new My Hero character! Well new to me writing him.  Here we have....Villain Deku! Inspired by this tiktok! https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJUywn9t/ it just screamed Villain Deku to me. This is my first time writing him, so if he seems a little OOC, that’s probably it.  Here are some songs I listened to while writing this 1. headless waltz- Voltaire 2. Don’t go by the river- Voltaire 3.House of Myth, Such horrible things, Gorey Demise, Grave Robber, Greatest Show Unearthed, Aim for the head, Buried Alive- Creature Feature 4. Spooky Halloween Mashup, Syndicate: Underground- Cover by Peter Hollens. Warnings: Robbery, Guns, violence, let me know if theres more I need to tag please! Only edited by me, so I’ve probably missed some stuff! With that! Let’s get into it!

Dawning light streamed in through the windows, the scent of coffee heavy in the air, steam from the hot drink you made rising softly. Soft music flowed through the room, other employees taking the chairs off the tables and whipping them down. 

You sipped your drink, your eyes barely staying open as you leaned against the counter.  It was far too early to be awake. Pain flashed through your mouth as you reluctantly swallow, your tongue protesting not only being burned but the now cool air that touched it. 

It was too early for your own nonsense. 

As the sun rose in the sky customers began their daily migration to the bean and leaf juice they all craved. Thankfully it was still rather early, only a handful showing up, and even fewer deciding to take a seat and enjoy their purchases. 

“I can help whoever’s next?” you call out, closing the cash register and looking up to the new customer with a bright smile. 

Bright viridian eyes stared back into your (e/c) colored ones, ones that you hadn’t seen in a very long time, since middle school in fact, his green hair cementing just who he was. Recognition dawned in his eyes. 

“Y/N?” “Midoriya?” 

A surprised laugh bubbled up, catching you by surprise, “I haven’t seen you in months- years even!” a short glare from your manager got you ready to enter in his order. Taking a peek behind him you saw that the line had lengthened considerably. “Y-yeah, it has been quite a while hasn’t it?” He stated his order, as you typed it in and gave him the total amount. He must have been pretty tired still as he stared into your eyes. You waved a hand in front of him, snapping him out of his daze as his face flushed a deep red, frantically digging his hand into his pockets to fish out his wallet- where had the damn thing gone- oh it was in his hand already. 

Even after all these years, Midoriya was still just as much of a spaz as he’d always been. He moves to the drink pick up location, leaning against the counter as you made his drink. “I wish I had more time to talk, but with the line growing…” 

“Well What if I came back later today? Or tomorrow?”  You prepped the cup, adding a drizzle of caramel to the sides, offering him a kind smile

“Yeah, I’d like that,” 

You handed him his drink and sent him off with a wave. A disgruntled Karen decided to ring the service bell as you hadn’t jumped back to take her order. 

Why did it have to be a Karen?

Unfortunately you were unable to see him later on that day.

However, just as you turned the sign from closed to open that next morning, you were surprised to see those same bright eyes aimed at you. 

“Well, you’re here quite early” you teased, opening the door for him as you walked in. It would be a while yet before people came into the little shop. He rubbed the back of his neck, eyes looking tired with circles under his eyes, “It’s been a long night,” He laughed off your look of concern, “Just work, nothing too terrible! I just thought I’d swing by earlier before I had to get back to it” 

Your coworkers paid no mind as the two of you walked to the counter as you made him and yourself a drink, taking a seat at one of the tables. No one was here and wouldn’t be here for a good half an hour. 

“So tell me, how have things been? Is your mom alright?” 

“Huh? Oh! Yeah she’s doing fine, still at the same place! She’s retired now actually” “Oh, good for her! I hope she’s enjoying it” you sipped at your coffee, thanking just about everything that you didn’t burn your tongue in front of him. 

“But what about you Midoriya? Last I checked you were wanting to become a hero?” While it would have been hard to be a quirkless hero, It wasn’t impossible. It probably wouldn’t get you ranked in the top five or even the top twenty, but so long as you were a good hero, what did rank matter? 

His eyes shifted from contentment to something a bit more sad, a deep sadness that surprised you. Just as quickly as it appeared, it was gone, a hesitant laugh served as a cover. “Well, I did try, but eventually I just gave up. It just hit me that no matter how much I worked, I’d just be in the way of the pros. I could do some things sure, but...it’s not...it wasn’t enough. So I took a step back and found myself getting into computers, fixing them up, making sure they’re running properly. It’s...It’s nice” 

You place a hand over his, an overwhelming urge to comfort him raced down your bloodstream. His hand jolts at the sudden touch, but he doesn’t bat your hand away. “I always believed you’d make an incredible hero” it made you feel guilty that you hadn’t been there for him when he clearly needed someone, anyone even just to listen to as his one and only dream crashed around him. 

“I know you did, I appreciate it (Y/N),” he offers you a more content smile, “But I’m happy where I am now, really! Plus if I was a hero, I might not have met up with you again” 

You let go of his hand, though not before he gives it a gentle squeeze, picking up your drink and taking another sip. 

“I’m glad to see you're happy though, you said you were fixing computers?”

“Yeah! It’s not a big thing really, just a little repair shop. Clients bring me their various electronics, I clean them and fix them up! It can be really challenging sometimes, especially when it’s an older model! I swear I’ve seen some that I could have sworn were from the early nineties!” 

You listened as he rattled on about his clients, his eyes lit up, a subtle blush on his cheeks as he talked with his hands. More than once you had to back away from getting a straw to the eye, but you hardly minded. 

It became a regular thing, He’d come to the shop at various hours of the day, typically right at opening, on your break, or right as the last customer shifted out the door. You always had his favorite drink ready for him, though you had to fight him to keep him from paying. You didn’t mind after all, paying for his drink. He somehow always managed to sneak in the exact amount into your pockets or purse before he left, leaving you to discover it when he was far and unable to take it back.

The ass.

The more you met up the more open he became, you both talked about work and your grievances there. Now you were talking about anything and everything, TV shows you’d recently watched, movies you were excited to see, stupid stories about Karen's getting owned was a personal favorite. 

However His favorite happened to be the news. He was still hero obsessed as he’d always been. However, there was a more...critical insight into it. 

“Ugh” he huffed out, turning his attention from the TV, though muted, the subtitles were still on. It was currently showcasing Endeavor, how he rescued some civilians from a collapsing apartment building, from a disgruntled worker who had turned to villainy when kicked out of their apartment. They decided to take revenge on the landlord, though it quickly turned to chaos as the entire complex crumbled.

“What is it?” You paused from chewing on the straw to take a sip, “ is it Endeavor?” You knew damn well it was, but it was better to let him process through his words. “Yes! Look at him, smug as can be. He doesn’t even care about those people he rescued, He’s shown no comfort towards them, not even a glance to the children he’d saved. He acts as if he’s too good for them. A real hero would be reassuring, give a sense of calm to everyone involved in a rather tragic turn of events”  he sipped at his drink angrily, nearly choking on it as you patted his back.

“ You mean a hero like All Might?” you offered, knowing that the hero had a special place in his heart. 

Instead of the perky response you would have expected, his lips turned to a thin line, staring into a far off place beyond the TV.

“Yes....just like All Might” 

Figuring he was still going through the appalled emotions from Endeavor, you didn’t press the matter, turning to focus on something else, his latest client, or even a Karen you had encountered earlier that morning. He took your bait readily, eager to listen.

It took you awhile to notice, but during your lunch breaks, on the days he didn’t come in early, he would always be watching the news. He’d rip them to pieces with a barely concealed snarl. He’d rant and rave, while keeping in mind the other customers. He talked about the villains even, and how they were people as well, forced into unfortunate situations, where were the heroes then?

As much as you would have liked to stay in the hero worshiping normalcy, the more he went on the more you began to realize, heroes were actually rather corrupt. You could feel yourself becoming angry alongside him. Why did they do that? What about the people they were rescuing? What about these so-called villains?

You shook your head from your thoughts, looking down to see your next customer that afternoon, a young girl no more than ten years old just out of school and looking to buy a snack and a small drink. 

You sent her off on her merry way, happily sitting down at a table and munching on her snack. Checking your watch, you realized it was time to take your lunch. You sat down at your usual booth and waited for Izuku, sipping at your own drink.

The bell by the door went off, your eyes instinctively looking to see who had entered. Time slowed down as three men came in, guns at the ready and masks pulled over their faces. The first had a black mask, the second having a red one, and the third having a white one.

“Alright! Nobody moves, and no one gets hurt!” the first one shouted, as horrified shrieks went off in the small shop. “Put your hands up and go over there!” he motioned with his gun to collectively gather in a corner. You obeyed along with everyone else in the shop.

The second one aimed his gun steadily at the barista at the register, “No! Not you, you’re going to fill this with all the money you have!” He threw a bag over at the barista who shakily picked up the bag where it had landed, tears running down her cheeks. 

The third held out a bag to the gathered group, “ Put anything valuable in here! Watches, Jewelry, Money, Phones, all of it!” He shouted, an elderly woman shakily began taking off her earrings, another gentleman taking his wallet out. 

The young girl stared with wide eyes, tears falling rapidly down her cheeks, face red as she tried to be quiet, but her hiccups would not allow her. When red looked over at the little girl, her wails increased tenfold.

“Hey! Shut up before I give you a real reason to cry about. You don’t want that do you?!” he shouted, taking a step forward the girl took an extra step back as she put her arms out in front of her to protect herself.

“I said QUIET!” he raised his hand.

Your body moved on it’s own. 

You took the hit for the young girl, your cheek stinging from the impact. That didn’t matter, not over the safety of the little girl, the roar of your heartbeat thumping against your cheek.

“What the hell?!” “Just leave her alone! She’s a little girl, she’s just scared!” You held your arms out, effectively blocking her from view. The elderly woman took the girl to her side, watching for the slightest movement from the robbers.

“ So you want to take her punishment? Is that it brat? Fine,” He shoved you down to the ground easily, glancing over to the young girl, “Take this as an example of what happens when you disobey me!” 

You couldn’t hear anything, your sight blinded as well as his foot collided with your stomach, sending you rolling across the ground. He pinned you down as he punched you, over and over again, arms, stomach and your face, seeing stars as your head hit the ground.

Izuku...Izuku please....

You didn’t know what you wanted from him, whether it was to save you from the pain somehow, or to not show up at all in fear he’d try something heroic like you did. 

The shop doors burst open, a cloth or tape like substance shooting out from someone you couldn’t see, wrapping quickly around the robbers, dragging them to ram into one another, the shock of it making them let go of the guns they held so tightly onto. You faded in and out of consciousness, even though the sounds of battle continued on.

It was all a blur as you slowly came back into reality, sitting in an ambulance being checked over by a nurse. The other heroes who had arrived stood before you, scolding you for your actions.

“What were you thinking?! You put yourself and the girl at risk! They could have made you watch as they hurt her!” 

What was I supposed to do, let her be beaten?

“There were so many other things you could have done! Next time think through your actions before you do anything!”

What could I have done? You fail to mention what else I could exactly do. I didn’t even know what I was doing.

But you didn’t say that. You took the abuse as the nurse began to shoo them off, proclaiming that they’d made their point, nothing more could be said. It wasn’t long before the nurse gave you your results. You were a bit battered but otherwise alright, you’d bruise like hell but you amazingly didn’t have a concussion. Once you were home you were to Ice the bruising spots. With that they sent you with your things back home.

Upon entering your home you changed out of your clothes, something bubbling under your skin. It felt so up close and in your face you couldn’t decipher it. You changed into some incredibly soft shorts and tank top, wincing as you moved to change. 

The silence was too much in your apartment, with shaking fingers you called the only person you could.

“(Y/N)?” “Izuku..” something in you snapped as you heard his voice, a sharp gasp turning into a sob. “(Y/N)? What is it, what’s wrong?”  “I...Can...can you come over? Please? I...I don’t think I can over the phone”  “What? Yeah, Yeah of course, I’ll be right there!”  You gave him your address and hung up after that, flopping onto your couch and hugging a pillow.

It only took him twenty minutes to arrive, but it felt like forever and a second simultaneously. The swift knock at your door startled you out of your blank and racing thoughts. He was dressed in casual clothing, some jeans and some random white button up, a thin green vest over top. Your vision blurred as he stepped in at your allowance, going head first into his chest as you sobbed. He grunted from the impact, but wrapped his strong arms around you regardless. “ Shhh, shhh, it’s alright, I’m here. I’m here” he cooed softly into your ear, “ Here, let’s go to the couch alright?” You nodded but didn’t let go. You shuffled your way to sit on the couch with him, only parting to readjust his hold.

“There was an attempted robbery at the shop today,” you sniffed, resting your head on his shoulder, “ There was a little girl there...she was so scared, she was crying. The...one of the robbers got angry at her, which made her more scared. So I...I took the hit for her”

He lifted your face gently, examining the forming bruise. His frown showed his worry, but he didn’t comment on why you ran to this girls side, “ I was wondering about this black eye I see” You nodded, continuing your story, “Yeah...He didn’t like that I’d taken the hit for the girl...so as an example he beat me up. I don’t remember too much after the ‘heroes’ arrived.” you spat.

“But the heroes arrived and saved everyone, that’s good right?” he prodded. If you had been more aware, you would have heard the underlying tone in his voice. He didn’t really believe the heroes had done well, not with how you spat their name as if it was venom. 

“They told me i was stupid for putting myself in front of the girl, that I should have done something else! What else was I supposed to do? My body moved on it’s own! They could have tortured the girl to get a rise out of me, or hurt the both of us…” As you said those words, another sob tore from your core. “Maybe they were right, maybe I should have just...I don’t know. I’m so sorry I didn’t think of anything faster.”

Izuku cut you off gently cupping your face in his hands, thumbs softly brushing away stray tears. Your eyes refused to meet his.

“Oh darling, look at me,” hesitantly you looked into his eyes, filled with concern, determination and...something else you couldn’t quite place, but it was so soft...so powerful. “You’ve done nothing wrong, you are perfect darling. Without you, that girl could have ended up beaten, or worse!” 

The endearment was new, but not unwelcome, his words wrapping you in a soft blanket of safety.

“You did nothing wrong, you are perfect, everything about you, you’ve done nothing wrong. So please, don’t apologize” You leaned forward to hide in his chest as his words brought a fresh wave of tears. He gently rubbed your back, taking care if you so much as winced to move his comforting circles. 

“It isn’t right that they lectured you. You had just gone through a traumatic event, you needed reassurance, kindness. You aren’t trained to be a hero, you acted on instinct. An instinct that hardly anyone else in that room had. They acted so wrong to you” he whispered, “Those ‘heroes’ are what's wrong with the hero society as a whole. Things need to change”

“But I don’t know how to do that, or where to even start” you whined, your hiccups slowly dispersing. 

“Join me” 

Wait...what?

“Join you...I don’t...I don’t understand…” You look up at him, searching for any hint that it was a badly timed joke. You found none. 

“When I told you I worked with computers....I wasn’t lying, but only technically. You see, I work with this group, as a hacker. We’re going to show the world what these heroes really are, and the need to fix them. The roaches will have nowhere to hide, not from the public, and certainly not by the hero commission”

That was...quite a bit to process. He was a Villain?! All this time?! 

You were shocked, your heart sinking to your stomach. “Why...why didn’t you tell me?” You knew why the second you said the words...but you needed to hear if those were the same words he’d say back. 

“If I’m being honest darling...I was scared. You were always so kind, so soft hearted, to learn you were talking with a villain? Plus, it wasn’t like I could just...tell you in the shop right?” the corner of his mouth lifted up into a slight smirk, though it quickly vanished.

You thought back to today, how angry the heroes had made you. How many others did they tell the same thing when they were just trying to help? How many children paid the price? How many people? 

But the feeling of fists landing on you echoed back in your rapidly increasing heartbeat. You couldn’t do that again, not against a villain, not against heroes, not against anyone!

“I...I’m not cut out for villain work Izuku, you see what happened to me! I...I couldn’t go through that again...I don’t want to go through that again”

He pressed a soft kiss to your forehead, warmth blossoming from the spot. “You don’t have to, just...supporting me is enough, more than enough” he took your hands in his, gentle circles rubbed into them. “You wouldn’t have to quit your job, or move, or anything, just knowing you support me? It fires me up, I have to do this, for you, for everyone, to right the wrongs that have been done. What do you say?” his green eyes were lit up in hope.

Your hands squeezed his, “I do.”

#my hero academia #bnha #my hero academia Izuku Midoriya #bnha izuku midoriya #midoriya izuku #izuku x reader #izuku #izuku midoriya x you #bnha reader insert #bnha reader #villain deku #villain izuku #reader insert #maemiwritesBNHA

[somnilogical]

modular "ethics":

a wrong and two rights make a right

<<I've been known to cause outrage by suggesting that people who really care about something shouldn't have romantic relationships. Think what would happen if I dared to suggest that those people should also seriously consider getting castrated. That would be crazy! And who am I to suggest that basically everyone claiming to be doing good is faking it? Then people would feel bad about themselves. We can't have that!>>

https://squirrelinhell.blogspot.com/2018/02/men-have-women-are.html

previously i talked about an infohazard about altruism that seemed to fuck with grognor. it feels useful to pass by the dead and look at their lives and choices.

i dont think that castrating yourself is a good intervention for doing stuff you care about, like this is patchwork constraints for an unaligned optimizer. if you arent altruistically aligned from core values, castrating yourself wont make you more aligned.

the "altruists" having babies thing is actual insane and pasek is right about that. pretty much all of society will try and gaslight you about this the way sometimes people are gaslit about "i need to have sex with lots of attractive fems to keep up my moral so i can do super good stuff afterwards.". like if people want to do good for the world it will flow out as a continuous expression of value not some brent dill kind of deal that institutions like CFAR accepted until there was too much social pressure for them to maintain this facade.

the entire premise that morality is this modular thing and you can help set the utility function of an FAI while being a terrible person, is wrong. yet organizations like CFAR keep thinking it will work out for them:

<<We believe that Brent is fundamentally oriented towards helping people grow to be the best versions of themselves. In this way he is aligned with CFAR’s goals and strategy and should be seen as an ally.

  In particular, Brent is quite good at breaking out of standard social frames and making use of unconventional techniques and strategies. This includes things that have Chesterton’s fences attached, such as drug use, weird storytelling, etc. A lot of his aesthetic is dark, and this sometimes makes him come across as evil or machiavellian.

  Brent also embodies a rare kind of agency and sense of heroic responsibility. This has caused him to take the lead in certain events and be an important community hub and driver. The flip side of this is that because Brent is deeply insecure, he has to constantly fight urges to seize power and protect himself. It often takes costly signalling for him to trust that someone is an ally, and even then it’s shaky.

  Brent is a controversial figure, and disliked by many. This has led to him being attacked by many and held to a higher standard than most. In these ways his feelings of insecurity are justified. He also has had a hard life, including a traumatic childhood. Much of the reason people don’t like him comes from a kind of intuition or aesthetic feeling, rather than his actions per se.

  Brent’s attraction to women (in the opinion of the council) sometimes interferes with his good judgement. Brent knows that his judgement is sometimes flawed, and has often sought the help of others to check his actions. Whether or not this kind of social binding is successful is not obvious.>>

https://pastebin.com/fzwYfDNq

<<AnnaSalamon 2/6/09, 5:54 AM

Aleksei, I don’t know what you think about the current existential risks situation, but that situation changed me in the direction of your comment. I used to think that to have a good impact on the world, you had to be an intrinsically good person. I used to think that the day to day manner in which I treated the people around me, the details of my motives and self-knowledge, etc. just naturally served as an indicator for the positive impact I did or didn’t have on global goodness.

(It was a dumb thing to think, maintained by an elaborate network of rationalizations that I thought of as virtuous, much the way many people think of their political “beliefs”/clothes as virtuous. My beliefs were also maintained by not bothering to take an actually careful look either at global catastrophic risks or even at the details of e.g. global poverty. But my impression is that it’s fairly common to just suppose that our intuitive moral self-evaluations (or others’ evaluations of how good of people we are) map tolerably well onto actual good consequences.)

Anyhow: now, it looks to me as though most of those “good people”, living intrinsically worthwhile lives, aren’t contributing squat to global goodness compared to what they could contribute if they spent even a small fraction of their time/money on a serious attempt to shut up and multiply. The network of moral intuitions I grew up in is… not exactly worthless; it does help with intrinsically worthwhile lives, and, more to the point, with the details of how to actually build the kinds of reasonable human relationships that you need for parts of the “shut up and multiply”-motivated efforts to work… but, for most people, it’s basically not very connected to how much good they do or don’t do in the world. If you like, this is good news: for a ridiculously small sum of effort (e.g., a $500 donation to SIAI; the earning power of seven ten-thousandths of your life if you earn the US minimum wage), you can do more expected-good than perhaps 99.9% of Earth’s population. (You may be able to do still more expected-good by taking that time and thinking carefully about what most impacts global goodness and whether anyone’s doing it.)>>

https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/4pov2tL6SEC23wrkq/epilogue-atonement-8-8

like opposing this isnt self-denying moral aestheticism or a signalling game of how good you can look (credibly signalling virtue is actually a good thing, i wish more people did it by for instance demonstrating how they win in a way that wouldnt work if they werent aligned. whose power seeded from their alignment.). its like... the alternative where people do things that it makes no sense for an altruist to do and then say that when they go to their day jobs they are super duper altruistic they swear; compartmentalizing in this way ...doesnt actually work.

people who want to obscure what altruism looks like will claim that this is moving around a social schelling point for who is to be ostracized. and that altruism as a characteristic of a brain isnt a cluster-in-reality that you can talk about. because it will be coopted by malicious actors as a laser to unjustly zap people with. these people are wrong.

both EA and CFAR are premised on some sort of CDT modular morality working. it is actually pretending to do CDT optimization because like with brent at each timestep they are pretending to think "how can we optimize utility moving forward?" (really i suspect they are just straight up mindcontrolled by brent, finding ways to serve their master because they used force and the people at CFAR were bad at decision theory) instead of seeking to be agents such that brent when brents plans to predate on people ran through them, he would model it as more trouble than it was worth and wouldnt do this in the first place.

CFAR and EA will do things like allowing someone to predate on women because they are "insightful" or creating a social reality where people with genetic biases who personally devote massive amounts of time and money to babies who happen to be genetically related to them and then in their day job act "altruistically". as long as it all adds up to net positive, its okay right?

but thats not how it works and structures built off of this are utterly insufficient to bring eutopia to sentient life. in just the same way that "scientists" who when they arent at their day jobs are theists are an utterly insufficient to bring eutopia to sentient life.

<<Maybe we can beat the proverb—be rational in our personal lives, not just our professional lives. We shouldn’t let a mere proverb stop us: “A witty saying proves nothing,” as Voltaire said. Maybe we can do better, if we study enough probability theory to know why the rules work, and enough experimental psychology to see how they apply in real-world cases—if we can learn to look at the water. An ambition like that lacks the comfortable modesty of being able to confess that, outside your specialty, you’re no better than anyone else. But if our theories of rationality don’t generalize to everyday life, we’re doing something wrong. It’s not a different universe inside and outside the laboratory.>>

--

to save the world it doesnt help to castrate yourself and make extra super sure not to have babies. people's values are already what they are, their choices have already been made. these sort of ad-hoc patches are what wrangling an unaligned agent looks like. and the output of an unaligned agent with a bunch of patches, isnt worth much. would you delegate important tasks to an unaligned AI that was patched up after each time it gave a bad output?

it does mean that if after they know about the world and what they can do, people still say that they specifically should have babies, i mark them as having a kind of damage and route around them.

someone not having babies doesnt automatically mark them as someone id pour optimization energy into expecting it to combine towards good ends. the metrics i use are cryptographically secure from being goodharted. so i can talk openly about traits i use to discern between people without worrying about people reading about this and using it to gum up my epistemics.

[novastarlyght]

💚⚡ your circuits in the sea ⚡💜 

a fan mix for an evil genius copepod, his snarky computer wife, their ups, their downs, and how no matter what they’ll always love each other in the end

listen on 8tracks | cover art by @politelyintheknow

track listing below the cut! 

💚⚡  the future soon - jonathan coulton

hearing the whir of the servos inside and she'll scream and try to run but there's nowhere she can hide when a crazy cyborg wants to make you his robot bride

💜⚡ she blinded me with science - thomas dolby

as deep as any ocean as sweet as any harmony mmm, but she blinded me with science she blinded me with science

💚⚡ i am not a robot - marina and the diamonds

you're vulnerable, you're vulnerable you are not a robot you're lovable, so lovable but you're just troubled

💜⚡ evil and a heathen - franz ferdinand

I'm evil and a heathen I'm a heathen and evil like you there's not a lot not a lot we couldn't do

💚⚡ partners in crime - set it off

they'll call our crimes a work of art you'll never take us alive we'll live like spoiled royalty, lovers and partners partners in crime 

💜⚡ danger! high voltage - electric six

don't you want to know how we keep starting fires? (it's my desire) it's my desire, it's my desire danger! danger! high voltage when we touch, when we kiss

💚⚡ electric feel - MGMT

I said ooh, girl, shock me like an electric eel baby girl, turn me on with your electric feel all along the eastern shore put your circuits in the sea this is what the world is for making electricity

💜⚡ strict machine - goldfrapp

wonderful electric cover me in you I'm in love, I'm in love I'm in love with a strict machine

💚⚡ island in the sun - weezer

on an island in the sun we'll be playing and having fun and it makes me feel so fine I can't control my brain

💜⚡ sink to the bottom - fountains of wayne

everyone else is going somewhere but I'm going nowhere, getting there too I might as well just sink down with you

💚⚡ robots in love - beautiful small machines

everything was more than okay and I saw no sign of your flawed design I guess I wasn't made that way

💜⚡ love trial - jubyphonic (original by 40mP feat. hatsune miku)

sure, I’ve been tried for all my love crimes but learned that a judge does it all out of love held me tightly, you cried so unnaturally looked up at me but you were smiling I knew instantly you’re also guilty

💚⚡ kiss with a fist - florence + the machine

my black eye casts no shadow your red eye sees nothing your slap don't stick, your kicks don't hit so we remain the same love sticks, sweat drips break the lock if it don't fit

💜⚡ lucky ball and chain - they might be giants

I could shake my tiny fist and swear I wasn't wrong but what's the sense in arguing when you're all alone?

💚⚡ back at your door - maroon 5

if I took you for granted I apologize for acting tough you're my reason for living and there's no way I'm giving up

💜⚡ you’re an ocean - fastball 

you're an ocean, you're an ocean settle down, settle down, what's the commotion? I'm an island, but you're an ocean it's a stormy sea of love and emotion you got me suspended motionless in time

💚⚡ absolutely (story of a girl) - nine days

this is the story of a girl who cried a river and drowned the whole world and while she looks so sad in photographs I absolutely love her, when she smiles

💜⚡ true love (feat. lily allen) - p!nk 

at the same time, I wanna hug you I wanna wrap my hands around your neck you're an asshole, but I love you and you make me so mad I ask myself why I'm still here, or where could I go you're the only love I've ever known

💚⚡ waterloo - ABBA

my my, at waterloo, napoleon did surrender oh yeah, and I have met my destiny in quite a similar way the history book on the shelf is always repeating itself waterloo, I was defeated, you won the war waterloo, promise to love you forevermore

💜⚡ death of a bachelor - panic! at the disco

and when you think of me am I the best you've ever had? share one more drink with me smile even though you're sad

💚⚡  you married a fool - voltaire

your girlfriends say it all the time but your mama says it too you married a fool, you married a fool you married a fool, but I'm a fool for you

💜⚡ escape (the piña colada song) - rupert holmes

it was my own lovely lady she said, "oh, it's you" and we laughed for a moment and I said, "I never knew..."

💚⚡ stuck with you - huey lewis & the news

we thought about giving up but we could never stay away we thought about breaking up but now we know it's much too late and it's no great mystery if we change our minds eventually, it's back to you and me

💜⚡ the scientist - coldplay

I was just guessing at numbers and figures pulling your puzzles apart questions of science, science and progress do not speak as loud as my heart

💚⚡ anniversary - voltaire

they said we'd drift away we're still standing here and it feels like everyday's our anniversary

💜⚡ skullcrusher mountain - jonathan coulton

picture the two of us alone inside my golden submarine while up above the waves my doomsday squad ignites the atmosphere and all the fools who lead their foolish lives may find it quite explosive well it won't mean half as much to me if I don't have you here

💚⚡ and a special bonus track!!

#featuring 3 out of the 14 artists that did songs for the musical! #it also both begins and ends with jonathan coulton 8') #spongebob squarepants #the spongebob musical #the spongebob squarepants musical #tsbm #sbtm #plankton #karen plankton #sheldon plankton #spongebob #fanmix #fan mix #this mix easily applies to both musical!plankton/musical!karen or their original cartoon incarnations though #it's very much about their relationship in general #both the good and the bad #and how in spite of everything THEY! ARE!! STILL!!! IN!!!! LOVE!!!!!!!

[akashathekitty]

Rules: list the first lines of your last 20 stories. See if there are any patterns. Then tag your 10 favourite authors. I’ve been tagged by @flightglow32 and @ariel-riddle 20 stories is like... most of my stories. But okay, let's see... I'll try to do them from oldest to newest. (And if anyone has You Change My Mind backed up, could you send it to me? I just realised I don't have that one in my files.) 1. Hermione was walking fast, almost running. She was late and curfew had set in, but she had been unable to resist going to the library to look up a minor detail that had been nagging her, and then, as usual, she had lost trac of time. Muttering under her breath, she rushed along the corridors, doing her best to remember everything she read, word by word. “Pickled Murtlap will help resistance to curses, while—“ She walked headfirst into a body that seemed to be appearing out of nowhere. “Ow! Watch where you’re going, Malfoy!” she said crossly, while she unsuccessfully tried to walk around him to be on her way. - Silencio 2. Hermione struggled against her bonds. ”No, please!” she begged, making the dark robed figures laugh. Death Eaters, bringing her to her fate. The last weeks had been Hell. They had been ambushed, betrayed by someone who should have been trustworthy. They had all fought as best they could. Hermione had been captured, but she had no idea what had happened to her friends. She didn’t know who had lived and who had died. - Master 3. Hermione was hurrying along the street on her way to work, when she saw it. She stopped up and stared at it. No way, they didn't. But it appeared that they had. It was a poster and the two painted people in the poster were flirting unabashedly, the man winking at the woman who blushed and looked at him adoringly. Hermione groaned. "Do you like it?" A grinning form materialized next to her. Where did he come from? "I think you know the answer to that one, Malfoy," she replied. - Taste of your Kiss 4. The seventh years were having Charms. Most subjects saw a dwindling in the amount of students taking them in the sixth year, and even more so, as a few realized they had taken on too much and dropped it in seventh year. That wasn’t exactly the case here. Twenty-five students from all four houses had chosen to stick with this particular subject, which actually made the class larger than in previous years. It was the last class of the day and it was Friday, so most students were feeling restless. Most, but not all. - The Bracelet 5. Hermione took a deep breath and tried to calm herself down. No reason to be upset. So there were a few minor setbacks. She had known there would be when she had refused the preferential treatment offered her after the war as one of the heroes. She had known she would have to work her way up from a nobody to a somebody and she had predicted that it might mean working a lot of nights and having to prove herself to people who didn’t believe she was really the Brightest Witch of Their Age. She hadn’t quite predicted that it would mean answering to the Biggest Git of Their Age. - The Nymph Hunt 6. Hermione nervously smoothed down her skirt as she was standing in front of the inconspicuous entrance. It had seemed like a good skirt to wear earlier, but now it seemed too short. Or maybe it wasn't that it was short; maybe it was that it looked a lot tighter when she stood still and it clung to her legs. Or maybe both of those things didn't matter, considering that it was so ... thin. - One Wild Night 7. Hermione was a bit tipsy. This was definitely against the norm as she didn’t usually drink – it was against school rules after all – but tonight was different. Luna had invited them up to Ravenclaw’s common room for a very unusual thing – a party thrown by one of the houses for, well, not all of the houses, but at least for invitees from other houses. - In the Darkness All Cats are Grey 8. It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge. – Voltaire Hermione stared at the letter before her, her face feeling like it was made of stone. She had a feeling she should be upset, but she wasn't. Not really. Rather, she felt absolutely nothing. Her insides had gone numb. This couldn't be true. It couldn't be happening. It must be some big, awful joke. Sometimes Ron had a rather horrible sense of humour. Yes, that must be it. It had only been a few months since they broke up, after all. And she'd even seen him during the Christmas holidays, only a couple of weeks ago. - The Virgin Conundrum 9. Draco slowly let his gaze slide over the serious faces in front of him, trying to figure out if this was some sort of elaborate prank. 'You're kidding, right?' he finally asked when nobody volunteered any further information. 'You have no idea how much we wish we were.' Potter did that extremely annoying thing where he ran his hand through his hair, making it all stand on end. 'We're out of options here.' Draco leant back in his seat and let his gaze rest on Weasley. He looked put off, but then again, he always looked put off around Draco. Weasley didn't really seem to have much to add today, though, which was new. He usually loved to make inane digs whenever Draco was forced to check in at the Ministry. Right now, however, he was just determinedly staring at his own hands, placed on the large, simple wooden desk before him. - Till Death Do Us Part 10. 'Zabini, could you focus?' Malfoy snapped his fingers in front of Blaise's face in the most annoying way. Blaise flashed his teeth in a hostile snarl. He didn't like this colourless git—never had and never bloody would. - Pure Depravity (Blaise/Pansy) 11. As far as cousins went, Rose mused, Al was actually pretty ok. He had been one of her best friends before they went to Hogwarts, and even after they had started there, the familiar connection had been present. It was just that with them being sorted into different houses and all, they didn't actually see each other a lot. That didn't mean that when they did see each other, he should be allowed to be such a git, though. - Playing Games (Rose/Scorpius) 12. When Hermione accidentally knocked over her inkpot, she did something that was completely uncharacteristic of her. She swore. The words coming from her lips were neither very loud nor very inventive, but they were heartfelt. Every single syllable pronounced with such loving care that one could have been led to think that something far worse than a soggy piece of parchment and a stained desk was behind it. One might have been right. - Flickering Flames 13. Hermione smoothed her new formal robes down over her stomach and turned sideways, scrutinising her own mirror image. Damn it. She’d kept accumulating weight this past year from sitting—and eating—far too much and exercising far too little. Damn the Ministry’s canteen for having such delicious cake. Usually, she wasn’t really one for sweets, but that cake... She needed to start bringing her own lunch, otherwise she’d balloon into something she wouldn’t be able to change. - Cake and Other Curses 14. Hermione yawned as she made her way to her cubicle. Maybe it would be a slow day and she could take a nap. She missed naps. There should be more naps in the world. She never truly appreciated naps when she was younger, but these days she just couldn't pull an all-nighter like she used to. Harry appeared in the doorway to his office. The lucky bugger. She wanted to be Head of Office too so that she could have her own office. It would make for nice, uninterrupted naps. - The Complexity of Carnal Knowledge 15. It was eerie. Almost like déjà vu. It had been eleven years since she'd last done this. It seemed like a lifetime. It had been a lifetime. Everything had changed so much since then. There had been a war. She had grown up. - Secrets 16. At the initiative of Hermione Granger, there was to be a Christmas play at Hogwarts this year. It was hardly because she was passionate about performance art, but in the midst of all the recent horror of war, people seemed to have forgotten how to have fun and feel good. - True Colours 17. Looking out over the cold, barren winter landscape, not even a hint of snow could be seen. The heavy clouds that were coming in and threatening to overtake the pitiful sun once more were promising nothing but more of the dreary drizzle of the past few days. Hermione raised her face to the rays of the sun, trying to catch a little of its warmth before it was swallowed whole again. - Out of the Woods 18. The soft, subtle notes of a Christmas carol playing in the background, was being viciously punctuated by some of the foulest swear words Hermione had heard in a while. In the spirit of the season, she attempted to ignore it and instead immerse herself in the cosy feeling of sitting in her warm office doing what she loved best, with the darkness and the calm falling over the land. A particularly nasty outburst yanked her back to reality, and she had to resign herself to interacting with the fount of holiday cheer that was currently decorating her office under severe protest. - A Time of Beauty 19. It was odd, Hermione thought to herself, how everyone could act like this was such an ordinary day and such an ordinary thing to do, when it was anything but. She didn't consider herself the dramatic sort, but in a sense this was the end of life as she knew it. Yet all around her people were talking, laughing, frowning at their watches... acting like there was life beyond the next half hour. - unfinished, unpublished D/Hr WIP 20. Once upon a time in an age long past and a day yet to come, there existed the loveliest of kingdoms with rolling green hills, crystal clear lakes and cosy little villages. Near the edges of the kingdom were thick forests and looming mountains, and they provided just the perfect amount of drama to the backdrop of the impressive castle. - an original fairy tale Okay, I don't know who to tag here, but let's all do it, huh? @RZZMG @CountessOfAbe @LadyLeanaM @PierreJ92 @DesBratty and... I don't know, I'm awful at remembering who's who around here. Just doooo ittttt :D

#meme #writing #fanfic #Dramione

[meduelesluegoexisto]

We Came Out Like Tigers LYRICS

An Introduction

“The man who is shut up in prison is so far from being bettered by the change, that he comes out more resolutely the foe of society than he was when he went in. Subjugation, on disgraceful terms, to humiliating work gives him antipathy to all kinds of labour. After suffering every sort of humiliation at the instance of those whose lives are lived in immunity from the peculiar conditions which bring man to crime... he learns to hate the section of society to which his humiliation belongs, and proves his hatred by new offences against it.”

Exerpt from In Russian and French Prisons, by Peter Kropotkin, 1887.

Sous Les Pavés La Plage

All these dreams of survival, of romance and little care, agelessness and lack of worry are slipping through my hands. They are chased and quickly and effortlessly overpowered by the horror of rotting in jails and jobs. These thoughts of friends love and summer have withdrawn that bit too far in your mind, you can't quite see it any more, only worsened by the occasional wisp of smell and sound and warmth, or buoyed along on the back of songs, or just before you awake. You could love her if you could remember who she was. She would be beautiful if you could just recall her face. Yet here you are slumped and sullen, angry and diminished. The abyss is taking you apart. Here you are slumped and sullen, angry and diminished. I don't want you to see me this angry, the abyss has taken me apart. And what am I supposed to do, what is left to feed the soul when you learn how dark men's minds, how consistently cruel his hands?

Remember Why You Are

I see your hands so full of cash, one thing I swear I'll never have, gleeful in all they covert. Yet our hardened hands, so resolute, are filled only with the hands of others. And as you grasp at the grains of youth, all Grey and Faust reminiscent, we have embraced mortality thus, escaping a desperate prison. These things we do aren't working, they feed your cancers. It's the chemicals that wash your thoughts, every time you drink to hurt them. It's the poisons in your chest, it's your lack of time with him. These things you do aren't working. It's hard and we are poor but we are young and we are good, and if you feel you're on your own, it's not because you're wrong, just few have the courage, to see this 'til its done, we are no longer satisfied by fun, we are harder now... We are no longer satisfied by fun, our eyes are keen and stern for all that's good, we are harder now for what's been done. I wish it could be night all the time, it's so romantic when the sun doesn't shine, and I don't feel guilty or lazy for being poor, and I want to pursue meaning more. But they say life is darkest just before the sun, and so thank god the morning comes. Is it right to sell your time 'til it's gone? Is all this more valuable than a song? Play on brothers, play on.

These Terrors Are Dismantled By Friendship's Light

I always fear for you in winter, do you travel? Do the roads treat you kind? Does the darkness play hell with your mind? I know it does mine. So keep up your poems and songs, this is where your madness belongs, out in the open, for how else can we hope to confront it? How will we dismantle these night terrors? Does the darkness play hell with your mind? How will we dismantle these night terrors? See how they are weakened by friendships light. So lets clasp hands and together promise not to be afraid. Truth always was the nemesis of adventure anyway. So lets catch these tears this precious anger, lets rail at governments and churches. There is nothing you can take, nothing from which profit is made! If you never have dreams, then you have nothing to hope to achieve, when the axe came into the forest the trees all said at least the handle is one of us. If we perish we perish together, victors are those unparted forever. Nothing will end this great union, worry not this is only bad weather. So keep up your poems and songs, this is where your madness belongs, so keep up your poems and songs, this is where you belong.

Inimical

This resevoir is heavy and volotile, desperate to relax it's banks and holdings. Giddy to collapse out eyes and tumble down face. Without this I am a speck of dust, without this I'm not brave, I am just genderless thoughts. And one by one the years roll on, the boundaries blur, no growth no decline. I am just genderless thoughts; I am just genderless thoughts Every spring is a reminder that you forgot what it is to be happy, every autumn you embark upon new mourning for the death of ease. The passing of your relaxed self, you concede smiles and lumber on brows furrowed. When you are the mallice behind the dark theres nothing left to be afraid of. Cynicism fades as the ligh fails, just once don't promise us hope.

Immutable

My face is numb now, the room is quiet. I watch dust hazily zig zag to the floor, only to be gusted upwards by the movement of a foot or a hand. Everything you fought for is gone. Everything you knew was important was ignored. You fought tooth and nail, sword and pen, good lord, not the schools, please, leave the forests, for fucks sake, not the hospitals. But no one rallied to you, no one took up the flag, too much stress, too little interest. The people were not united, and your government was viciously divisive. And the worst of it? That now the world looks different. It smells odd. The colours distort in front of your eyes and you snivel a laugh. You are a fool. You thought the world was filled with love and good intentions and it was not.

Take Pleasure In The Processes

I struggle with my own selfishness. My arrogant impulse to prioritise my loved ones over yours. I am grief stricken at the idea that I will die, when I should be glad I was ever given the chance. I struggle with peoples expectations of me. I do not want to fit the mould of a man but I am forced into that shape and people are quickly angry at me when I do not take on the form. Given the freedom I would out grow it and flourish, as much a sister as a brother, as much a wife as a husband and neither besides, I would not invite gods or statesmen into my bed...

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around, maybe that forest won't get cut to the ground. I am sick of singing about cancer, but his body keeps fucking up, and I'm sick of fighting governments but they keep fucking us. I revile at your abhorrent religions, too long have you exploited our weaknesses. Too long have you censored the books, have you silenced science, condemned the curious. My heart aches for those that cannot find beauty in the blades of grass, in flustered clouds, in lovers breath, that they must invent gods and monsters. My heart breaks at the actions it inspires. Too long have we been respectful, too long have we allowed you to exist.

If You Were Frightened, It's Because It Was Frightening

Apathy is such an evil trait, to sacrifce others for comfort is not an accusation I could take. Do not let the plight of others be so trivial so as to forgo empathy and do nothing. I wonder if Voltaire would have been so quick in making his witty quip if he'd seen the gates of Aushwitz? When your government comes to burn the books, will you wish you'd read them first? Brace for a lifetime of discontent, Orwellian nightmares that never end. You will mourn the sincerity that greed undid. That moment, you beat us, was exactly where you lost. We took on, that hatred, and still came back as one. Don't be alone, don't dare be alone, rise together, be exhalted, take comfort in a godless eixistence. Stay upright stay strong.

I Sing Of Sorrow & Joy

Phonelines again. Tests again, scans again. We count up the odds, calculate survival rates and allocate ourselves as resources. We are brave and we are strong, we will beat this, we shout don't get mad get even! Fuck having cancer! FUCK HAVING CANCER! We are sad and we panic, we complain that it is not fair, we have dealt with all the horrors we were given, we have proved ourselves why us, why again? We sob it out, tears bounce of handsets and stop at tabletops and laps. We pace as we wait for information, we frighten ourselves reading, we try to find comfort in his good health, his young age, his strong mind. He is scared that he is alone but he is not. We implore him to test our mettle, to challenge our resolve. We will beat this together, we five strong minds!

Breathe In, Though You Barely Believe In It

What do you say to yourself when you are totally aware that you have no value? cradle on top here with nothing but horizon if the world were to end now I would be the last to know.

You are of that splendid magnificence that there is nothing most deserved of you and if there is it certainly isn’t me. Should you choose to stay my hand and forbid my flight know that this “I love you” will never have a past tense… you are glowing under this winter sun.

I ask that I might stay a while.

Tribulation

Death, 'tis a melancholy day To those who have no God, When the poor soul is forced away To seek her last abode.

In vain to heav'n she lifts her eyes, For guilt a heavy chain, Still drags her downward from the skies To darkness, fire and pain.

To Ruin A Fine Tenor Voice

It gets worse. We woke up one day and all we do is work. We all talk about how we hate this place but are we so naïve as to think things could be better? The grass is no longer green because we poisoned it all. There's no distance great enough to separate yourself from your inadequacies, You can never run fast enough to escape their line of sight. You have all the look of a skull but with none of the grinning charm, Lank hair, sharp ribs, stop what you are doing and sleep. Minds are lost, smiles are lost, confidence is lost, You are dishonest and lost, shuttered and struggling.

Concrete Blocks of Empathy

I hope the final blow of your hands against my teeth cause lacerations of sufficient irritation that I can splutter one last laugh. The only reason I don't turn tail and run, is because Spite will crash me against your shorelines, keep me ragged and close, Keep me ragged and close. The actions of the outer regions of love and hatred manifest themselves in remarkably similar ways. Where is the ceiling of your tolerance set? What level of cruelty are you prepared to accept? Did you mean what you said? Did you mean what you said? Your pacifism undermines the sincere devotion of love. I am here for revenge.

Careworn

I hesitate to commit this to words, for as they rise through my mouth they take root in my brain, and ever more real will ever remain. Ever since the hospital, the opiates and the ketamine, we're harder now in everything. Oh misery, accept we five. Death's false start, his failure our triumph, has left us ever waiting his certain early return. Ever tense for adjudicators whistle that will bring us to the ring again, casts a shadow over every day, that won't be lifted until he's taken away. Uncertainty once relieved, will be replaced with all the the relief a coffin can give, And not a thing can be done about it, and so are our lives; Unchanging.

We Have Not Reached Conclusion

I refuse for this to be conclusion, As I shrink inwards. As things ever worsen, as things ever worsen, Life will be my next defiance. Be it in jails or this rented house, Sooner a dour path than an ignorant one. I would exchange any semblance of youth for stronger hands, tougher fists. I will trade what charm I have for firmer resolve. Even when so much anger has coursed through these veins I do not doubt that they will be fit to pump joy. I need only knowledge enough to spell out freedom, I need only enough life blood to see out the struggle. I refuse for this to be conclusion. And a restless summers end wind reminds me of how handsome we will be in the frost, I will walk this frozen path of hatred until I reach the thaw.

#We Came Out Like Tigers