#series: order of the outcasts | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

angelicyouth · 3 months

Text

Proscenium

⇢ pairing(s): multiple x newkid!reader

⇢ genre: identity reveal ; the stick of truth + the fractured but whole AU

⇢ synopsis: ❝The beginning of the new school year reveals to your friends that you were never a boy like they've always believed you to be, but a girl—and that you have been one the entire time that you've known them.❞

⇢ warning: recreational drug use

⇢ [AO3 link] ; [series masterlist]

⇢ note: this picks up years after the two video games that this AU takes place in (the flashbacks in this story are canon to the games) but can be read with no prior knowledge of them! :)

At thirteen years old, hormones slowly crept up into one’s life until puberty suddenly hit everyone all at once and all too fast. It was in the 8th grade that everyone came back from summer vacation different—what was once baby fat and ambiguous soft edges turned into more defined features and deeper voices. The appearance of girls altered in a way that could only be described as more developed, filling out in areas that they just didn’t used to.

Mr. Garrison decided that with this fresh transition into the beginning of their teenage years, that it would be a swell idea to teach his students about the notion of responsibility and of all the things that encompass it. This led to everyone sitting on the well-worn yet soft material of the fabric that adorns the chairs in the theater belonging to the town’s local middle school.

“Class, settle down now. I want all of you to know that before we begin, each and every one of you are talented. It may not be catered for the skills needed to succeed in theater, like singing or dancing. But don’t be ashamed of trying your best because I’ll find a job for every single one of you. Costume design, stagehand, the set—they’re just as important as the actors, you hear me?” The older man says in reassurance at his heightened stance on the wooden stage, looking at the sea of students that had varying degrees of uncertainty and excitement on their faces.

With these tentative first steps into their young adulthood, everyone was feeling lingering traces of insecurity and confusion. It was the start of the years where the children of South Park were trying to explore themselves as individuals—trying to find out who they are and where they truly belonged.

As such, it was also the time where they often felt too ‘cool’ to try hard in order to fit in with the rest of their peers. Everyone just wanted to belong, to not be labeled as an outcast. This was driven by certain people being naturally blessed by mother nature, their hormones making them conventionally attractive whereas some were struggling with artificial things for societal standards such as the condition of their skin or the metal bulk of their braces.

It was the awkward stage of life where people were more self conscious, more self aware of how they looked and how they spoke—who they hung out with and what their interests were. This was the beginning of when people started paying closer attention to their sexuality, to the genders of the members that each person found themselves attracted to.

It was also the beginning of when the boys started paying closer attention to Y/N L/N.

See, you had always hung out with the boys, often forgoing the likes of Wendy Testaburger or Bebe Stevens. Not because you didn’t like the group of girls in class (because they were still your dear friends, never forgetting to extend a personal invite to you for lunch on the weekends or to trips to the mall), but more so because the guys had claimed you first. They’re all you’ve ever known since the fourth grade—from when you were still the new kid to now, they’ve always been a constant presence both during school and after.

You were there when the boys decided to dedicate their free time to live action role-playing games, like superheroes or fantasy. During the nights that were spent finding scrap fabric to put together and painting props for when they donned their multicolored costumes and created super aliases. Or when the Kingdom of Kupa Keep was at war with The Elves for the wooden relic that once possessed the control of the whole entire universe.

The thing was, living in a mountain town like South Park meant that people typically adorned multiple, thick layers of material to help insulate themselves against the freezing temperatures. You, of course, weren’t an exception to the weather as you didn’t grow up here like the rest of your friends, which meant that you always kept either your hood up or wore a hat to keep yourself warm.

Granted, you didn’t find out until later on that your parents were actively trying to hide your identity from the government, but this inadvertently assisted in everyone misgendering you. It also didn’t help that you were silent in nature and therefore never bothered to correct anyone, but on the other hand, this earned you the fond nickname of ‘Douchebag’ and the boys never quite realizing that you were not a boy, but a girl.

・ ─ ・ ⋯ ・ ─ ⊹ ♡₊˚๑

You were late for the first day of the school year, rushing to rip off all of the paper tags attached to the new clothing your mother bought for you when she realized how quickly you outgrew your wardrobe during the summer. Unsteadily hopping around on one foot with a toothbrush wedged into your mouth, you finally got a leg through the soft material of the skirt that you were going to wear for the day.

Discreetly trying to open the heavy double doors leading to the school’s auditorium proves to be futile as everyone casts their bored eyes towards the disturbance at the back of the room. Keeping your head lowered in an attempt to stay hidden, your legs rush to bring your body to where your group of friends were sitting.

“Uh, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Cartman arrogantly calls out when your body lands onto an unoccupied seat near him, your eyes rolling as you lay your backpack on the floor beside your feet.

“Aye! I’m fucking talking to you!” The larger teen yells in indignation when you continue to ignore him, his face heating up in anger when the guys begin to snicker behind their hands.

Heaving his body up, Cartman leans closer to you to roughly yank the hood off of your head to identify the current bane of his existence. This, however, leads him to be swept in confusion as the rest of the guys similarly halt their vocal amusement. “Who the fuck..?”

“Y/N—are you here? You’re up next to audition.” Garrison calls out, the boys quickly whipping their heads when they see you haul your form up to begin your ascent to the stage.

“What the fuck are you doing?! N/N’s not some lame pussy bitch!”

A tired sigh resounds from the older teacher’s mouth because it was way too early to be dealing with this shit. “Eric, Y/N has been a girl for the past four years that she’s been living in South Park. Nothing has changed except for your attention to details.”

“Wh—no he isn’t!” He sputters.

The guys stare at you in varying levels of disbelief and confusion, watching as you tuck visibly soft strands of hair behind your ear while Mr. Garrison passes you a script. Not only are you wearing a damn skirt (which the boys greedily eye as they showcase your long and smooth legs), but your jacket is unzipped for the first time that they’ve met you (in your haste to get ready, your scrambled brain forgot to properly zip it all the way up).

Due to this, they could see the way that the fabric of your top hugs your developing curves in all of the right places—cinching the delicate slopes of your waist and allowing them to see the growing but still notable bust that your outerwear has never revealed. It is then that their admittedly slow brains catches them up on the long lashes that gently kisses the red skin of your still cold cheeks everytime that you blink and how under the fluorescents of the stage lights, the pretty pink of your plump lips are further accentuated to slicked perfection.

“... Douchebag..?” Butters hesitatingly calls out, his voice meek in the sudden revelation of information on their long-time friend.

Busy reading the ink running along the script within your hands, the boys become shocked to muteness when your head lifts up in attention to the sound of your nickname. Your head tilts to the side in question when no one speaks, your disinterested eyes patiently waiting for the verbal reason that they called you.

“No fucking way.” They all seem to chorus because…

… When in the hell did the notoriously mute member of their group become so hot?

・ ─ ・ ⋯ ・ ─ ⊹ ♡₊˚๑

“I call dibs!” Clyde yells out as soon as the boys step just one foot onto the cold linoleum that covers the hallway’s floors when the last class before the lunch period is dismissed.

“Wh—you can’t fucking do that!” Kenny indignantly cries out, the blonde angrily pushing his parka’s hood back so that he can properly argue.

“Yeah, I can! Wanna know why?” The brunette smugly continues, his arms crossed in self satisfaction for speaking up first as all the guys glare at him.

“Well, I’m super handsome and insanely funny! I play sports so my hot bod is just as amazing as my smile and I’m clearly so generous and kind and nice since I’m giving you assholes multiple reasons instead of one!” He childishly finishes off, a cheeky grin stretching wide on his face even as Kenny grabs him by the collars of his letterman jacket to roughly slam him against the metal surface of the nearest locker.

“What?!” The blonde screams into his face in frustration.

“That’s fucking lame, dude. If you think N/N is going to settle for some shallow, narcissistic asshole then there’s no point of claiming her first.” Stan angrily spits out, the skin in between his eyebrows furrowed and his fingers fidgeting with the spark wheel of his lighter as he lazily leans beside where Clyde and Kenny are trying to throttle each other.

“Says the self proclaimed rizzler who gets an upset twummy wummy when a cute girl so much as looks in your direction, barf breath.” Kenny mocks in a baby voice, the blonde halting in his attempted murder as his brunette victim begins to obnoxiously laugh at his quip.

“Oh gee fellas… Well if it’s first come first serve, then I guess I’ll be getting this one. See ya!” Butters quickly tries to walk away from the group before Craig grabs him by the neckline of his sweater, effectively choking the blonde until he stops.

“And how the hell does that make any sense?” The taller ravenette asks, an eyebrow condescendingly quirked up and his fist unwillingly to let go lest the blonde tries to pull a fast one again.

“Wuh—well because! I’m the first person that met her, don’tcha fellers remember? I was the one to bring her to Kupa Keep when she first moved in so I’m her oldest and dearest buddy!” Everyone stops walking as they display unamused looks on their faces at the explanation, causing the captured teen to nervously rub his knuckles together at their joined silence.

Kyle rolls his eyes and crosses his arms, “Yeah—by like, 5 minutes! And I don’t think you should be proud of that encounter because you were getting your ass handed to you when she met you.”

“And what’s wrong with that? N/N is strong and fearless and kind—why, she’s simply a bajillion times more noble for rescuing me when she didn’t even know me! That’s more than you fellas with your constant teasing, and you’ve all known me since we were babies!” The blonde pouts as he soothingly rubs the front of his now tender neck when Craig finally lets go.

Cartman deeply sighs, bringing a hand up to smooth the crease in between his eyebrows. “Just shut the fuck up, Butters. Y/N’s not here for you to suck her apparently non-existent dick, you fucking kiss ass.”

“You guys are acting like a bunch of stupid virgins.” Craig is expressionless as they reach the back of the school where the loading bay is, the chullo-wearing teen leaning against the wall as he leisurely watches Kenny plop down on the asphalt and pull a bong out of his backpack.

“Says you! Why do you even care?! I thought you liked it up the ass, you goddamn cocksucker!” Cartman is quick to yell, shoving both his hands in his jacket’s pockets to generate more warmth against the freezing Colorado air.

“Nyah! We like girls, t-too!” Tweek says, glancing at his ex-boyfriend as the ravenette flashes a vulgar middle finger that he annoyingly sticks into the larger teen's irritated face.

“Now that’s just fucking greedy.” The brunette scoffs, roughly pushing Craig’s arm away as the ravenette savagely snickers.

“That’s rich coming from the selfish fatass who can eat three times his weight in one sitting. Wouldn’t want N/N to suffocate on a date with you when you can’t see her over your huge fucking double chin and accidentally sit on her.” Kyle snarks as he rolls his eyes while Stan wheezes and mimics having a makeshift double chin by angling his head as low as it can against his collarbones to make the skin bulge.

Cartman loudly retorts as he roughly pushes away the ravenette’s laughing face, “It’s funny you say that when you have a fat bitch mom yourself, Kahl! Tell me: did she keep pushing even when you were already out of her gaping pussy because she couldn’t see you over her saggy fucking tits?!”

“All of you are greedy assholes! You guys can’t be good bros just this once and let me have this one?” Clyde pouts, the brunette sliding his back down against the wall until he’s seated on top of the gritty surface of his skateboard.

“No.” Everyone simultaneously deadpans.

“Blah blah blah—okay, now who wants to say grace before I light this baby up?” Kenny smirks up at the guys as he packs a bowl, Stan snorting a laugh as he pushes the blonde on the arm when he hands him his lighter.

“You know, it doesn’t really matter who calls dibs when it’s Y/N who gets to decide who she wants to be with. You can’t force her into anything just because we’ve found out that she’s been a girl this whole entire time. She’s not an object for us to claim.” Kyle resolutely states when it doesn’t seem like a decision will be (peacefully) made, causing the redhead to resort to logic and sense.

“He’s got a point.” Tolkien mutters, the only one not fighting over you as he texts his long-time girlfriend Nichole Daniels.

“Oh, shut the hell up with your unicorns and rainbows pussy talk, you stupid fucking Jew! You’re only saying that sappy shit because you know that she won’t pick you even if you did get dibs!” Cartman retorts before dramatically pinching his nose when Kenny rips the bong and obnoxiously exhales the smoke into the brunette’s face.

“Aw, sick! Your low quality shit stinks!”

“Mmm, I think that’s just your upper lip that you’re smelling, fat boy. You do know that if you’re not properly dusting the crumbs off of your greasy mouth after every meal, the food will eventually go bad and rot.” The blonde lazily grins as he hands Craig the bong.

“Look, all I’m saying is that it’d be best to just give her to me. Isn’t it less embarrassing for you guys if Y/N chooses me because I have dibs as opposed to her rejecting all of you, only to still like me because you’re all just ugly and boring?” Clyde pouts up at the guys, his body swaying from side to side as he rolls his skateboard in one place.

“Sorry Donovan—but I’m not letting a fine piece of ass like Y/N go without a fight, even if I have to fight a bro for her.” Kenny says as he leisurely watches Stan cough after taking a fat rip from the smoking device.

“Didn’t think you were the type to work for it, McWhoredick. With all the easy people you usually go for on the daily, I don’t think it’d be cool for you to just hit it and quit it like you usually do.” Craig straightens up from his previously laid back slouch against the wall, his clenched jaw slightly lifting up as he looks down at Kenny from his heightened stance.

The blonde takes that as a challenge as he stands up from the floor, his hands quick to shoot out and roughly shove at the ravenette. “You’re a fucking bastard, you know that? Fuck you. I wouldn’t do that shit to Y/N.”

A hand grabs the material of Kenny’s parka at his elbow to stop the altercation from escalating even further, Tweek’s other hand tightly clutching onto the buttons of his top in anxiety. “I-I don’t know, dude… She’s our best friend, you know? That’d be really fucked up.”

Kenny rips his arm away from the other blonde and eyes every single person in the group with no trace of his usual carefree stance. “Seriously? Well I think it’s fucked up that you guys suddenly have feelings for her just because it’s been revealed that she’s actually a girl.”

And when no one says anything, the blonde scoffs. “I’ve always flirted with her since we were kids. Sure, I might have covered it up by passing it off as a lighthearted joke so that she couldn’t outright reject me, but it doesn’t make whatever I said to her less true.”

Kenny continues, “And I may be a ‘whore’ but I’m not a messy bitch who’d carelessly do shit like that with someone in our own damn friend group, especially to someone who means so much to me like Y/N. But let it be known: I was always transparent with how I felt and how cute I thought she was even when I thought she was a boy.”

And he was right—your earliest memories of being new in South Park were, naturally, of meeting new people. And when you talked to Karen McCormick for the first time during a day of playing your group’s fantasy game, she had told you right off the bat:

“Oh, hey! You’re the new kid! My sister, the princess, texted me about you. She thinks you’re cute.”

“That’s… That isn’t true.” Stan hesitantly speaks up once the silence seemed to stretch on.

The area of skin between his eyebrows are furrowed as he looks away from the group to avoid looking at anyone's reaction to his words. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket and his teeth lightly nips away at his bottom lip in notable distress.

Kyle is visibly surprised at this revelation, “…Stan?”

The ravenette still doesn’t look over at his best friend or at anyone in the group, deeming the sight of the school’s janitor emptying out the trash a more interesting sight as he continues, “I uh—there was a time when I felt guilty. I thought I only liked girls but then I started seeing Y/N differently. It freaked me out because I was always into Wendy, y’know?”

Stan nervously mumbles, “I don’t know when it happened or how, but it was like I suddenly started noticing everything she did. My eyes kept automatically looking for her: to see her reaction when someone said or did something—if I could catch a glimpse of her rare smile or hear her quiet laughter. Even if there was nothing to see, I just liked to know that she was there and that she was okay.”

“No, I… I get it. Me too, actually.” Now it’s Stan’s turn to look shocked when he finally looks over at Kyle, the redhead sporting a madly growing blush as his hand shyly rubs the back of his neck at his confession.

“What?! Yeah, right! Quit dickriding by copying your little boyfriend just to make him jealous!” Cartman yells out in disbelief.

“Shut the fuck up! It was…,” Kyle takes a moment to carefully think of the right term to eloquently express his feelings. “Confusing, right?”

He feels somewhat relieved and comforted when Stan silently nods in agreement, the gesture reassuring him and validating his experience as he feels more encouraged to speak up. “I didn’t know if the lines between platonic and romantic feelings were beginning to blur. I couldn’t tell if I was just mixing them up together or something but after some time, I figured that it didn’t matter because it was Y/N. And so, I was just satisfied as long as I had her by my side, even if it was as a friend.”

It’s quiet for a moment as everyone thinks to themselves, the air somber with only the sounds of the janitor rolling away the trash can being heard as he walks back into the warmth of the school building. The double door loudly closes behind him, blocking out the noise of students inside talking as silence once again pervades the area.

“Well, all this talk about feelings and shit is amazing and not in the least bit boring but I’ve never been confused with how I felt since I already knew I swung both ways. I’m only doing something about it now because you fuckers are going to go for her and like hell am I just going to let that happen without trying.” Craig interrupts, his eyes lingering on Tweek to let him know that he wasn’t afraid to make his ex his rival in this endeavor either.

“Yeah, cause we all know she’s only going to settle for one of you poor bastards if her first choice isn’t pursuing her.” Clyde boasts, his chest proudly puffed out as he points one of his thumbs at his smiling visage to indicate that he was the aforementioned 'first choice'.

Craig snickers at his unbridled confidence as he shoves the brunette and leans over to snatch the glass bong out of Stan’s hands to take another hit. As he lights the bowl, Kenny pushes the taller teen’s face away to inhale the smoke instead.

Cartman scoffs as he snarks the group, “You guys are a bunch of fucking simps. Did your feelings make all of you lame-o pussies? Or did all of your periods somehow sync up today?”

“Some friends we are—we never even noticed such a big thing about someone we claim to fucking like.” Stan bitterly laughs, forcing the guys to remember the small comments they ignorantly made to you when you were still kids:

Cartman: You know, you have kind of pretty hair for a boy. You better not be a hippie or something.

Jimmy: I thought feminine-looking guys went out of style in the 80’s, but the new kids pulling it off.

Clyde: You kind of have big raisins for a boy, New Kid.

Scott: I’ve never seen a boy with such soft skin, what’s your secret?

Butters: Hey, Butthole. Anyone tell you for a boy you’re kinda pretty?

Kenny: You kind of remind me of my sister—I have this weird urge to protect you.

Stan: You know, for a boy you’re kind of feminine New Kid.

Kyle: There’s nothing wrong with a boy being feminine, be true to yourself.

“How are you guys so sure that she even likes boys? You were wrong about her gender and you could be wrong about this too.” Wendy slyly says to the pondering group as she passes by, Bebe giggling at her companion’s words as the boys snap out of their reminiscing.

Before they walk away too far, the female blonde decides to further antagonize the guys as she sticks out a tongue at them. “Didn’t ya know? Wendy knew that Y/N was a girl since the day that she moved in and you stupid boys didn’t!”

Cartman’s mouth drops open as everyone watches the two walk away in disbelief, “That fucking bitch.”

・ ─ ・ ⋯ ・ ─ ⊹ ♡₊˚๑

“Sorry for keeping you from lunch, Douchebag! Ah, my bad. Can I still call you that or..?” Scott Malkinson says as he blushes in embarrassment (and for seeing the entirety of your newly revealed face up close for the first time), his hand going up to rub at the brown tufts of hair at the back of his head.

“I mean, no problem if you’re not comfortable with it or have always disliked it! You probably wouldn’t want to go by Buttlord and stuff anymore too…” He nervously mumbles to himself.

You just offer a small nod as your eyes soften around the edges, your hands busy with stapling the packet of papers holding the directions for your two-person research essay for your science class before handing it to him. There didn’t seem to be a point in pulling up your hood anymore (reminiscent of the way Kenny often did) when the boys finally figured out you were a girl.

Zipping open his backpack, you patiently watch as Scott tucks away the report’s instructions for safekeeping in a folder before he offers you a bashful smile. He softly knocks a fist into your arm, “Hey. I really am sorry for misgendering you this whole time. Girl or boy, you’ll always be my trusty sidekick. Right, superpal?”

“Woah there, Malkinson! You’re not tryna pull a fast one on our girl when we aren’t looking, are ya?” Your attention shifts at the sound of Clyde’s voice, an arm being thrown over your shoulders as he protectively pushes you against his body. “You sly dog, you!”

From your peripherals, you see the other guys walking to catch up to where you are as Stan locks an arm around your science partner's neck to put him into a headlock and roughly tousle his hair. You disinterestedly look away when Kenny comes up to you with a wide smile, the blonde reaching an arm out to dap you up in greeting as per usual.

However, instead of stepping back after your half hug, he pulls on your interlocked hands to take you out of Clyde’s clutches and keeps you against his chest. Kenny’s larger hands slowly settles themselves against the curves of your waist as he presses his smile against the column of your neck.

“Missed me, beautiful?” He says, his lips evoking a cacophony of goosebumps as they ever so slightly skim against the soft expanse of your skin after every word.

“Knock it off, bastard. She doesn’t need your rank breath and your dirty hands on her.” Craig angrily mutters out as he pulls you away, only for a pair of arms to sneak around your waist from behind before someone’s chin plants itself onto one of your shoulders.

Kenny scoffs, obnoxiously trying to put said hands onto the taller ravenette’s face. “Your poor people stereotypes don’t do anything to hurt me, Craigory baby!”

Your face is as expressionless as always as you turn to identify your newest captor, a pout on Butters’ face. “That’s not fair Ken, and you know it!”

“Hey, you assholes said it yourselves: I’m always like this. So I’m not quite sure what you’re accusing me of, Butters. Unless you’re projecting your own ulterior motives onto lil’ old me?” Kenny has a lazy smile on his attractive face as he crosses his arms behind his head.

You don’t get to lean your body into Butters’ hold for too long before you feel someone’s hand sneak into the crook of your arm, trying to pull you out of your surrounding warmth. When you see that it’s Tweek fidgeting by your side, you place a reassuring hand on his own as you assume that his anxieties are getting out of control and needed comfort.

“Ngh! Y-you all need to leave her alone!” He yells, swiftly turning over his hand so that he can interlock your fingers together.

“Don’t be nice to him, Douchebag! He’s just faking it so that you’ll feel bad! The whole ‘liking it up the ass’ thing? It was all a FUCKING ACT!” Cartman indignantly shouts as he tries to separate your hands from each other, the blonde barista trying his hardest to not let go.

“Fuck you, ack! It just d-didn’t work out between us!” Tweek defends himself as he tries to bite the brunette’s unrelenting hands off.

“I can see why! Neither one of you have pussies. As I said already: you’re a bunch of fake homos who did it for money and attention!” Cartman yells before he loudly yelps from the blonde’s teeth finally breaking through his skin.

“Sick, dude. You might want to get tested for HIV… Or rabies.” Kyle grimaces as he watches Tweek hurriedly spit into the nearest trash can.

“And don’t be an ignorant piece of shit, fatass. You can still be a girl and not have a vagina.” The redhead continues while crossing his arms.

“Meh meh meh.” Cartman mocks in a high pitched voice to which Kyle just stares back unamused, “Shut the fuck up, god! You’re talking to someone who was fucking transginger before! Of course I fucking know that! And have some goddamn tact next time, asshole—I was going through a lot of shit so it was a dark time for me back then!”

"Wh—You brought up you being transgender yourself, dumbass!"

Tolkien tiredly sighs at everything going on before handing Tweek his hydro flask to gargle its contents, a frenzied mantra of oh god’s being repeated between mouthfuls of water. He soothingly pats the blonde on the back as the barista bends over, hysterically heaving in panic while Kenny watches and cackles in amusement.

“Yeah, Y/N. You have an unnatural allegiance to losers.” Stan side eyes the two as he finally lets go of Scott, the brunette yelling out hasty goodbyes in order to escape the apparent arguing and to fix his messed up hair.

“Which is exactly why she keeps you around, Stanley.” Craig is quick to snark while he roughly pulls Cartman away from trying to get even with Tweek.

“Not true!” He yells.

Craig stares blankly at the protesting ravenette, “Uh-huh… Staniel, tell me: what medications are you on again?”

“For my depression? Uhh, Lexapro. I think. Why?”

“I think they need to switch you to the stronger shit or rediagnose you because right now, you’re being fucking delusional. We smoked the same shit just now so I know it’s not whatever strain Kenny has that’s fucking you up.” Craig dismisses, using his height to his advantage as he condescendingly pats Stan hard on the back of his neck and causes him to stumble.

“Oh fuck you—“

Kenny impatiently interrupts, the blonde pulling you away. “As much as I love me some fucking, let’s just go to lunch already! You guys can bitch all you want in the cafeteria—I’m hungry!”

“You’re always hungry though, poor ass.” Cartman mumbles as everyone starts to move.

“Fuck you, I’m stoned.”

・ ─ ・ ⋯ ・ ─ ⊹ ♡₊˚๑

The lunch room is as noisy as ever from where you stand, your disinterested eyes looking around while your arms get recklessly tugged back and forth. You don’t pay any mind to the curious stares of any passerby and those sitting near your standing position as you’ve already grown used to the unwarranted attention your friends always seem to attract from their antics.

“N/N is sitting with me!” Clyde yells out to which the brunette emphasizes with a pull on the arm of yours that he's tightly hugging to his chest.

“She sat next to you yesterday when we went out and got pizza for lunch, you greedy asshole!” Kenny argues back as he resolutely plants his feet against the cafeteria floor, not budging from where your hands are intertwined.

“Not fair—I haven’t sat next to my buddy all week when we've eaten.” Butters pouts from where he stands in front of you as his hands grab hold of your jacket and his fingers mindlessly fiddles with the zipper of it.

With one last tug, Kenny guides you over to the group's designated table before the other two can react and offers a solution. “Here: my princess can just sit on my lap so that the both of you crybabies can still sit next to her.”

The blonde demonstrates by settling you over his thighs before he tightly locks his arms around your waist, sending a cheeky smile over your shoulder at the flabbergasted blonde and brunette still standing up. “There! Problem solved. Fuck, I’m a genius.”

Kyle rolls his eyes as he takes your tray of food in his unoccupied hand and places it on the table between his own and Stan’s, causing Kenny to pout when you stand up to sit where your lunch is. Once sat, you watch as the ushanka-wearing teen opens up the plastic holding your utensils before he hands you your spork.

“Y/N.” You blankly turn your head away from your food to face Clyde.

The brunette leans over the table to wipe a smidge of sauce that was left on your face with his thumb, his finger lingering at the edge of your lips. “You got something on your pretty face.”

Your eyes dart towards his finger when he pulls away to show you the hint of food he wiped off before you lean forward to lick it off of his finger for him. Clyde’s grin stretches impossibly wide across his face at your welcomed action, both of his elbows planting themselves on top of the table that he was still laying his stomach over as he cups his cheeks with his hands and brings his legs up to delightedly kick them back and forth like a lovesick schoolgirl.

“Fucking knock it off, Clyde!” The brunette yelps out of his daze when Craig grabs one of his swinging feet to roughly yank him off of the table.

“Dude.” Stan forlornly stares at his knocked over can of soda, the carbonated liquid thankfully spilling onto the floor and not on anyone’s clothes.

“You’re a fucking try-hard, you know that?!” Cartman yells as he fumbles to catch his opened pack of snacky cakes before they fall onto the dirty cafeteria floor from the other brunette’s actions.

Clyde is unable to verbally defend himself against the larger teen as he tries to hold his hand as close to his chest as possible while fending off Kenny with the other. While he gently cradles his appendage to his body, the blonde tries to get the prized finger to himself for a chance at an indirect kiss.

“Talk about desperate. You beg for sex like you beg for food, McCormick.” Craig mumbles as everyone watches the fighting pair in a mixture of disgust and disappointment.

“Wuh-what’s going on, fellas?” Jimmy asks as he takes a seat besides a stressed out Tolkien, the teen irritatedly rubbing his temples with his eyes closed to soothe the quickly growing headache he was developing.

“Jimmy! Finally, someone sane. I’m going crazy—they keep fighting over Y/N.”

“Competition? F-f-for what? They say girls love someone funny and I’ve already made Y/N laugh the most in the past!” The brunette proudly boasts before Tolkien bemoans the loss of who he thought was his only ally.

It's only the first day of school, the wealthy teen thinks to himself in dread as he begins to wonder if he should start sitting with Timmy instead.

・ ─ ・ ⋯ ・ ─ ⊹ ♡₊˚๑

Taking a sip of your chilled juice makes you slightly shiver, causing Stan to notice from his close proximity to you. Dusting off his hands together to take away any remnants of crumbs leftover from his brownie, the ravenette reaches over to zip your jacket up after he deems his hands clean enough to not leave a stain.

From the next seat over, Craig notices the interaction and what caused it so he takes it upon himself to place his beloved chullo on the top of your head. He reaches across from the front of Stan’s chest and in result, roughly pushes him away (he almost falls ass first out of the bench he's sitting on) as he takes care to ensure that both of your ears are properly covered.

The taller teen simply smirks when the ravenette glares at him for one-upping him—Craig’s hat providing additional warmth and even displaying a mark of possession that simply zipping up your outerwear couldn’t provide for other students to see. Their silent but heated stare-off gets interrupted when someone uses the earflaps from Craig’s chullo to forcibly turn your head to another direction.

“Douchebag, come over to mine after school. My mom got me that new video game we were talking about last week and you’d be a stupid loser to not be one of the first people in town to play it.” Cartman demands after he lets go of the soft material to resume devouring his lunch.

“No can do, fatfuck. Y/N already promised to go to my house so that we can do homework together.” Kyle interrupts with a self-satisfied grin on his face that only serves to make the brunette loudly slam his hands on the surface of the table in anger.

“Ooo, group study session at Kyle’s house after school?” Butters perks up at his own suggestion, an innocent grin adorning his face as he looks at everyone at the table for confirmation.

“Fuck you, I didn’t invite any of you bastards over except for her.”

“Ditch them, babe—Karen misses you! Why don’t you come over to my house instead so you can visit her?” Kenny jumps at the opportunity to speak up first after Kyle’s dismissal over Butters' self-invitation.

The boys see you visibly perk up as you straighten your back at the mention of the blonde’s younger sister, making Craig furrow his eyebrows together. “Fuck off. If there’s anyone that Y/N wants to see the most, it’s Stripe.”

Stan immediately scoffs as he pushes around his vegetables with his spork, the ravenette mumbling under his breath as his chin rests on his open palm. “I mean, at least he’s not using his own sibling as a cheap way to get her to visit. Not like I can do the same when I only have a bitch older sister at home.”

“Oh! How about a pet play date then! I can bring Rex!” Clyde excitedly contributes to Craig’s words, only for the ravenette to glare at him when they make eye contact.

"Wait, then I can bring Sparky—"

Kyle interrupts Stan before the conversation can escalate even further, “No! I already told my ma that Y/N is coming over so she’s making extra dinner.”

“Then there’s enough food for all of us to come over tonight.” Cartman says around a mouthful of chicken with an air of finality.

“That’d add another 30 servings on just you alone. So no, fatass, there isn’t enough food for you in my house or even in the whole entire goddamn grocery store that can satisfy the endless void that’s your fucking stomach.” Kyle argues back as his face contorts in disgust at the brunette’s lack of decorum at the lunch table, his hands quickly shooting out to shield both his and your lunch from any spit or stray bits of food.

“Aye!”

You patiently wait for him to take his hand away from where it’s hovering protectively over your tray but as you do, you get distracted from their bickering when Butters holds out a spoonful of his fruit cup. “Here, little buddy! I know how much you like this combination.”

Your eyes soften around the edges in thanks as you lean forward to eat it directly out of his spork, the blonde’s hand kindly waiting for you to chew before he pulls the utensil away and continues to eat his snack.

“Ack!” Tweek hurriedly fumbles to pour out a cup of still-warm coffee from his metal tumbler, his eyebrows furrowing in intense concentration as he tries to reign in his shaking hands to bring the portable cup up to your face for a sip without spilling.

Clyde watches in disbelief as you bring your body as close as you can from your seat at the table to drink the blonde’s offering, causing him to hurry with sticking a cheesy poof halfway into his mouth. “Here, N/N! Have some of this!”

Kyle’s eyes widen when he sees you starting to lean your face forward in the brunette’s direction, his hands shooting out to stop you from moving any further to give the brunette an opportunity for a kiss. “Y/N! No, goddammit!”

You blankly stare at the teen for interrupting before something moves in your peripherals, your eyes darting to the side to see Craig patiently holding out a chip towards you. As you turn your body towards his, he pulls it away from your face at the very last second.

“Sit next to me in class and I’ll give you a piece.” He smirks when you nod before taking a bite of the proffered snack out of his hand.

Kenny overhears and bitterly tsk’s to himself before placing a hand across the table with his palm facing up, his fingers wiggling as he also attempts to gain your favor through food. Your head cocks to the side at the action before you obediently place your hand on top of his, the blonde interlocking your fingers together as he brightly smiles at his success.

“Good girl.” He gently coos at you as he feeds you a piece of his cookie, his cerulean orbs watching you in endearment when you chew the dessert before he gives your linked appendages a soft squeeze.

Once eaten, the blonde uses his now unoccupied hand to pet the top of your head to which Stan sneers at. “Quit it, dude. She’s not one of your pet rats for you to coddle.”

“And what about me?! You fuckers never share any food whenever I ask!” Cartman slams both of his hands down onto the surface of the table (again), causing all of its seated occupants to roll their eyes as they settle their rattling cans of soda and water bottles from tipping over.

“You’re spouting bullshit—I’ve offered you food before.” Craig disinterestedly says as he takes the rest of Kenny’s cookie to prevent him from feeding you again and shoves it all in his mouth in one go.

“Only when you’ve dropped it on purpose and told me to eat it from the fucking floor if I wanted it so badly, you bastard!”

The ravenette merely shrugs, not seeing a fault in his actions as he pushes away the raging blonde trying to punch him. “Same thing. Bitches can’t be choosers or however that saying goes.”

At his words, the edges of your lips unconsciously quirk up into a small smile. It’s like Hell freezes over as everyone stops whatever they’re doing to get a glimpse of a sight so rare to see from your usually blank face.

“Quick! Take a picture! Take a fucking picture!” Clyde yelps at Kenny's demand as his hands fumble in their haste to rip his cellphone out of his jacket’s pocket.

You wonder to yourself why you’ve maintained the façade of being a boy when the dangers of the government trying to find you stopped being a threat so long ago. Maybe, you’ve unconsciously been trying to continue the lie because the person everyone thought you were when you were the "male Y/N" was the one that your friends already found themselves loving and enjoyed being around.

And who would take such a risky chance at changing such a beautiful thing like the precious friendship that this dysfunctional group of boys brought you?

But with the way that everyone is acting after the initial nerve-racking reveal of your true identity from this morning, you find it silly that you ever thought for a second that you might have disappointed your friends with who you really were. Because right now, as you see everyone around the table watching you with eyes that look at you as if you held the whole entire universe in just the palm of your small hands, you let yourself know that there was nothing to ever worry about.

At this thought, your smile slowly widens until a full set of pearly white teeth makes their appearance and a beautiful hue of pink paints the apples of your cheeks. This seemingly knocks any incoming words from leaving the boy's mouths as they watch in stunned silence.

You giggle over the din of chattering students in the cafeteria, causing the guys to lean even closer than before to hear the melodic sound of your rare laughter. “It’s beggars can’t be choosers, dumbfuck.”

a/n: ((i truly tried writing jimmy as a love interest because duh, it's not team craig without him!! but for the life of me, i cannot write him in fics & i really don't know why **sobs**))

547 notes · View notes

ewanmitchellcrumbs · 6 months

Text

The Golden Ratio - Part One

Pairing: Michael Gavey (Saltburn) x f!reader Warnings: Derogatory language, angst, mentions of parental death, mentions of infidelity. Word count: ~4.5k

Chapter summary: Her relationship strains under the pressure of long distance, though she has her classmate, Michael, to help distract from the worst of it. Series masterlist.

Author's note: For @assortedseaglass. No tag list. Please follow @ewanmitchellcrumbs and turn on post notifications. Community labels are for cops.

She is sweaty and exasperated as she drags her suitcase over the cobbles of Holywell Street. One of the already precariously wonky wheels had finally given up the ghost and broken off as she’d dragged it up the stairs of Oxford train station, making the fifteen minute walk to her accommodation more tiring than it needed to be.

But she was here, finally. Oxford University.

Her dad had sold the car to make sure she had money to live on until her student loan and maintenance grant had been paid to her. He didn’t want her taking a part time job to make ends meet, she’d worked hard to earn her place here, her focus should be on her studies. Coming from a low income family meant she had qualified for the maximum amount for both maintenance loan and grant, but her first set of application forms had been misplaced by Student Finance, so she’d had to send in a second set, meaning there would be a delay with her first payment.

An unfortunate consequence of her dad not having a car is that she’d had to get the train to London Victoria, a tube to Paddington, then another train to Oxford. But it is not the fact that she is seemingly the only student whose parents aren’t obstructing the pavements with their cars in order to drop them off that makes her feel like an outcast, there is something deeper, more sinister feeling.

She sees it as she struggles to get her bag across the lawn of the Halls, people grouped in little clusters, as though they’ve been friends forever. They dress in Juicy Couture velour tracksuit bottoms and brand name Ugg Boots, while she wears her mum’s old Dr. Martens and a tartan skirt she’d bought in a charity shop for one pound fifty. She doesn’t fit in. She feels she may as well wear the word “poor” across her forehead like a scarlet letter.

Having checked in at the Porters’ Lodge and been given directions to the accommodation, it’s lonely as she unpacks her things, her room feeling empty and quiet. The only sounds are muffled talking and laughter coming through the closed window from outside. She feels lonelier still when she pulls out the framed photo of her and Rich. They’re both smiling, his arms wrapped around her waist as she leans her head against his. It had felt like their relationship would last forever when that picture was taken. That seemed like much less of a possibility over the last couple of weeks.

She had met Rich at the beginning of sixth form. Having attended Chatham Grammar School for Girls, she had decided to stay on there to do her A levels. The mathematics department was decent, and she had heard Russell Group universities were more likely to consider applications that came from grammar schools. Rich had transferred over from Robert Napier School. Where she was shy, quiet and reserved, he was lively, outgoing and sociable. His zest for life had shone a bright light on an existence that was, for her, otherwise dull and grey.

They were an unlikely pairing. She was logical, analytical and studied maths and physics. Rich was creative, free spirited and guided by emotion. He studied art and music. They had been together for two years and she had thought he was the one. But then it came time for UCAS applications, and where she had applied to Oxford, Cambridge and York, Rich had applied to Leeds, Brighton and Glasgow. It seemed that no matter where they were accepted, they were destined to be apart.

When she had received an unconditional offer from Oxford she had been elated, however, the crushing devastation upon hearing Rich had been accepted into The Glasgow School of Art with a conditional offer had quickly dulled her excitement.

She had never felt like an outsider or a loner when she was with Rich. Basking in his sunny disposition had felt effortless, she never felt alone. He was going to take all of that away, and she was unsure of how to cope with it.

“We’ll make it work long distance, don’t worry,” he’d told her, and she’d believed him.

But then he had actually gone to Glasgow. Fresher’s week in Glasgow started a week earlier than it did in Oxford, so Rich had moved away first. It didn’t take long for the texts and phone calls to dry up into nothing. She had heard from him once in the last few days.

She sighs as she slides up the screen of her beaten up Nokia. Still nothing. She had text to let him know she was leaving for Oxford today and he couldn’t even be bothered to reply. She knows it’s his first week at university and he’s likely busy and having fun, but how was long distance going to work if they never actually spoke to each other?

Despite the loftiness of the dining hall, it feels stuffy as she moves through it later that evening, taking a seat at a long table crowded with other students. She had hoped that the Fresher’s welcome dinner would be an opportunity to make friends, but everyone seems to be deep in conversation already. The chatter hums loudly like white noise, until it comes to a sudden stop.

“FUCKIN’ ASK ME A SUM THEN!”

She turns, mouth agape, to look at the pair of boys sitting a few places up from her. One is darked haired and seems nervous and uncomfortable, shifting awkwardly in his seat. The other is blonde, an angry, intense expression on his face, shadows cast across it from the lamplight on the table, as he stares in wide eyed anticipation. It was him who had shouted, clearly.

“Four hundred and twenty three times seventy eight,” the dark haired boy asks quietly.

Instantly his friend replies, without missing a beat, “thirty two thousand, nine hundred and ninety four.”

Involuntarily her eyes widen in surprise. She sits there and does the calculation in her head, though much more slowly than he had.

Carry the two, eight times two is sixteen, plus two is eighteen, carry the one…he’s right. How is it possible that he came to that answer so quickly?

When her gaze lifts he is looking at her, observing her doing the working out in her head. He holds her stare, a smirk curving the corners of his mouth. He knows she knows he is right, and it’s clear he feels smug about it.

Quickly looking away, she reaches for her water glass, wanting something, anything, to distract her. There was something about the way he looked at her that made her feel uneasy.

God, I hope I don’t have any classes with him.

She holds her timetable for the week in her hands as she moves her way through the corridors towards the lecture hall the following morning. The first week looks to be fairly light touch, with an introductory lecture for each of the courses; algebra, analysis, probability and statistics, geometry, dynamics and multivariable calculus. Today is the introduction to analysis, and she is excited to study under the tutelage of Professor Helen Byrne. Her research focuses on the development and analysis of mathematical and computational models that describe biomedical systems, with particular application to the growth and treatment of solid tumours, wound healing and tissue engineering. Professor Byrne is someone she has admired within the field for as long as she can remember, and she is very much looking forward to her tutorials with her.

Her excitement fades when she enters the lecture hall and immediately sees the angry guy from the previous evening.

Just my luck.

The only available seat is next to him, so she sits down, dropping her bag to the floor by her feet.

A hand extends out towards her in her peripheral vision, taking her by surprise and she turns in her seat towards it, shrinking back slightly.

He seems utterly unperturbed by her reaction, keeping his arm extended. “I’m Michael Gavey.”

She blinks, regaining her composure as she leans forward, shaking his hand and introducing herself in return. His palm is clammy against her own, and she can still feel it there even after having let go and wiped her hand on her jeans.

“I saw you last night,” he says matter of factly, pulling his arm back and resting his elbow on the desk in front of him.

“Oh, yeah,” she says with a tight smile, nodding, “so you and your mate…is that like a party trick or something?”

“No, no party trick,” he says with a demure smile. “I’m a genius.”

She forces herself to laugh politely, assuming he’s making a joke, but she stops, her brow furrowing slightly when she sees he doesn’t share in the humour. He’s being serious.

Opening her mouth to ask a follow up question, she’s interrupted as Professor Byrne sweeps into the room. Her and Michael both face forward in their seats as she introduces herself to the class.

Over the next hour they are given an introduction to the course and what to expect in their first year, including an overview of the papers they will need to write and examinations that will be sat. She pays rapt attention, scribbling furious notes, until the lecture begins to wrap up.

“As it’s the first week, I will go easy on assignment setting,” Professor Byrne tells them all, “but there will be an assignment nonetheless.”

A loud, collective groan echoes around the lecture hall. Her and Michael are the only two not to join in.

“Now, now, settle down,” she chastises, “it’ll be fun. I’m sure you’re all aware of the Fibonacci Sequence, a series of numbers where each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers. Mathematically we can describe this as–”

She turns and scrawls xn= xn-1 + xn-2 on the chalkboard, before facing the students again.

“--I’d like you all to find an example of the Fibonacci Sequence in real life and present it back to the class during next week’s lecture. You’re to work in pairs, so buddy up, and see you all next week.”

Professor Byrne places the chalk back on the desk before striding back out of the lecture hall. The room is instantly a buzz with chatter, as people move between seats to find a partner.

She stays rooted in place, suddenly wishing Rich was here. It’s in moments like these that he flourishes, allowing her to take a backseat as he effortlessly navigates them through social interactions. Instead, she is alone and the space around her feels bigger and scarier with every moment that passes.

It’s only when she turns her head that she notices Michael has yet to move too. Gathering all the courage she can muster, she clears her throat and speaks to him.

“So…er…did you wanna partner up for this thing then?”

“I don’t like to work with others,” he says matter of factly, keeping his gaze fixed ahead.

“I’m not exactly thrilled about it either,” she says with a sigh, “but for this assignment we have to.”

“You’ve picked me because I’m a genius. You’ll expect me to do all the work while you get pissed with your mates.”

He fixes her with an accusatory stare, and she feels the heat of anger prickle her skin.

“Haven’t got any mates,” she mutters darkly.

He observes her for a few moments, elbow propped on the desk, jaw resting against his fist, and she fidgets self consciously in her seat. No wonder the other boy from last night had looked so uncomfortable. It feels like he’s studying her.

“Let’s go to the library,” he says simply, standing and picking up his bag.

“So, you’re a genius?” She asks, opening her notebook once they’re seated opposite each other at a table in the library, nervously tapping her pencil against the page.

“Hmm,” Michael nods, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his index finger, “I don’t even like maths, really. I can just…do it. Anything. In my head.”

She’s struck by how blunt he is, sucking in a breath as she considers what to say next. There is something so disarming about him, she gets the sense he’s analysing her every word and action.

“Right,” she begins, “so, er, for this assignment I was thinking about how Leonardo Fibonacci used rabbits to prove his theory. One hundred and forty four pairs of rabbits can be produced from a single pair of rabbits in a year, based on the sequence.”

“That’s fucking stupid,” Michael replies with a sigh.

“What?” She asks irritably, annoyed by his dismissal.

“What are you expecting us to do, go to a pet shop and buy rabbits? We’ve only got a week to do the assignment, we need to be more practical.”

She rolls her eyes. “I was using that as an example, not saying we do that exactly! Come on then, genius, what’s your suggestion?”

“Spirals,” he says with a slight shrug. He leans across, placing the tips of his fingers on her notebook and sliding it towards himself, before picking up her pencil. “There is a special relationship between the Fibonacci numbers and the Golden Ratio, a ration that describes when a line is divided into two parts and the longer part - A - divided by the smaller part - B - is equal to the sum of A + B divided by A, which both equal one point six one eight. This is represented by the Greek letter,” he stops to scribble a φ on the pad. “The ratio of any two successive Fibonacci Numbers approximates the Golden Ratio value.” He stops again, scrawling 1.6180339887 on the page. The bigger the pair of Fibonacci numbers, the closer the approximation. From there, we can calculate what's called the golden spiral, or a logarithmic spiral whose growth factor equals the golden ratio.”

She is stunned into a silence for a moment, a combination of his audacity to simply take her belongings, and awe at the rapidity with which his mind works. Collecting herself, she blinks a few times, looking up into his eyes.

They’re so blue.

“So…er…how do you propose we present this data back to the class?”

“A simple table is sufficient, look–”

His hand moves rapidly over the page, a complete table there on the paper when he drops the pencil into the gutter of the notebook and sits back in his chair.

“We present that,” he tells her, his eyes fixed on the page. “Using the values of the sequence as the edge length of squares arranged in the table, a spiral is generated.”

She leans over, sliding the notebook back to her side of the table, marvelling silently at his work. He is fascinating to watch. He’s right, he can just do maths.

“It’s good,” she says, eye flitting up to meet his, “solid. But it’s fucking boring.”

This time it’s his turn to be annoyed. “What?” He asks, eyes narrowing.

“Everyone is going to present something like this, because it’s easy,” she explains, “Don’t you want to stand out to Professor Byrne? We should do something outside of the box.”

“Hmm. Go on then, what are you thinking?” He rests his cheek against his fist, leaning against the table as he stares at her.

She feels herself grow warm under his scrutiny.

Does he always have to be so bloody intense?

“There are loads of examples of Fibonacci numbers appearing in nature. We could look for some? Flowers, perhaps.”

“I’ve got hayfever,” Michael states simply.

She sighs.

Of course you do.

“Then we’ll get you some Piriton! Come on, there are studies that show seed heads, pinecones, fruits and vegetables all displaying spiral patterns that when counted express Fibonacci numbers. This fits perfectly with the brief of the assignment and will leave a lasting impression.”

He moves his hand away from his face, resting his arm flat on the table and quietly drumming his fingers against it for a few moments. “Alright then,” he finally concedes.

“Great,” she grins excitedly, tearing out a page from her notebook and writing on it hurriedly. “Here’s my number, so we can meet up to work on it, and also my Hotmail address, in case MSN works better for you.”

He huffs through his nose as he takes the paper from her, a soft laugh escaping him. “The countess at hotmail dot co dot uk,” he reads with amusement, “very droll.”

“Shut up,” she grins back, “I made that in secondary school. Thought it was funny.”

Back in her room that evening, she’s excited to see she has a text from Rich, finally.

Hope ur enjoying it. Having so much fun here!

She sighs, throwing her phone down on the bed side table. No kisses, not even an “I love you”.

Watching out of the window, she sees the giggling groups of students making their way out into town, readying themselves to spend the night drinking, making friends and having fun. Just like Rich is doing, not giving her a second thought, while she stays cooped up in her room without a friend in the world.

Suspicion nags at her, so she turns on her laptop, loading up MySpace. Rich takes number one place on her top eight friends, and she clicks on his profile. It looks much the same as it always does, but she decides to snoop further, clicking into his friends list. She can see he has recently friended a girl named Sophie.

Sophie is pretty, bright pink streaks in her hair, and a nose ring. Exactly Rich’s type. Her most recently uploaded photos are of groups of people, clearly all taken during Fresher’s week. A pit forms in her stomach as she sees that in almost all of them Sophie and Rich have their arms around each other. Worse still, Rich occupies space eight in Sophie’s top friends.

She closes the browser, blinking back tears. Surely, she is just being paranoid. They’re just friends. Friends have photos together, and it was normal that he would make new ones when he went away to uni.

Opening MSN Messenger, she hovers over Rich’s username. Unsurprisingly, he’s offline, he always is these days. She smiles when an add request from [email protected] pops up. Of course he’d have Tau, the mathematical constant, in his Hotmail address. She clicks accept and he immediately appears in her online contacts. Looks like he isn’t out tonight either.

Double clicking his username, she chuckles to herself upon seeing his display picture is of Pythagoras. Such a dweeb.

“Want to work on our assignment tomorrow?” She types to him.

Barely a few seconds pass before she sees him typing back. “Yes. When?”

“We could meet at the Water Meadow at lunch time?”

“See you then.”

Straight to the point, no idle chit chat. She shakes her head and closes the messenger window, though finds herself strangely excited by the thought of seeing him tomorrow. She reasons that it’s because Michael is the closest thing she has had to a friend since arriving at Oxford.

She visits the nearby Tesco Express the following day, buying a meal deal for each of them and a packet of hayfever tablets for Michael. She has no idea of what Michael even likes, so plays it safe by buying a bottle of Oasis, a Crunchie bar and a ham and cheese sandwich for them both.

At precisely noon, Michael stands at the entrance to the Water Meadow waiting for her. She smiles as she looks at his t-shirt; maroon with a diagram of a circle on a gradient with a downwards acceleration of 9.81 meters per second, with the slogan “that’s how I roll”. A mechanics pun.

“Like your shirt,” she says as she approaches him.

He grins. “Thought you might, considering your email address.”

She averts her gaze. There is something about the fact that he’d thought of her when he’d chosen what to wear today that makes her tummy flutter.

Stop it. You’ve got Rich. Michael’s weird!

“I got you some hayfever tablets,” she tells him as they start to walk along the pathway that’s flanked by green space on either side. “Do you wanna have lunch first and then start looking for flowers?”

They settle, cross legged on the grass, Michael already having taken one of the tablets, chased with half a bottle of Oasis, and she spreads out the food between them.

She watches in fascination as his eyes widen at the sight of the Crunchie bars, snatching one up and tearing off the wrapper. Her mouth falls open slightly as she sees him hold it sideways, biting into it from the side, before devouring each of the pieces it inevitably breaks into.

“You like Crunchie bars then?” She asks, a little grossed out, but curious nonetheless.

He swallows, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Mother didn’t allow me to have sweets growing up, bad for your teeth, she said.”

She nods, a feeling over pity replacing the disgust that had roiled her stomach just seconds ago.

“So, is it your mum that pushed you into studying maths?” She asks, fiddling with the lid of her drink bottle.

“Sort of,” he says. “Mother never married, but she wanted a child. She used a sperm donor - a physicist, apparently - and was artificially inseminated to have me. She was thrilled when I showed a natural aptitude for maths, and has always encouraged me. It’s why I do it, why I accepted the scholarship, to make her proud. She’s been through so much to have me, it’s the least I owe her.”

Her face falls, a feeling of sadness overwhelming her, making her heart ache for Michael. There is something so tragic about the fact that he has lived his entire life adhering to the expectations of the person who had created him for their own selfish want of a child.

“What about you then?” He asks. “The bank of mummy and daddy paying for you to be here?”

She shakes her head. “I earned my place, just like you did, with straight As, though I don’t have a scholarship. Have had to take out loans to cover the cost. It’s just me and dad since mum passed away.”

“Oh,” Michael says, blinking rapidly, obviously surprised. “Apologies, I’d assumed a pretty girl like you would be the same as the rest of the vapid cunts studying here, if you can call it studying.”

She hums in acknowledgement, considering his words, turning her own Crunchie bar around in her fingers, focusing on the way the foil wrapper slides against her skin. His compliment makes her heart beat more rapidly, even if it is backhanded. “Like I said yesterday, I’ve got no mates. It was always Rich that was better at that sort of thing.”

“Rich?” Michael asks curiously, cocking his head.

“My boyfriend. He’s at uni in Glasgow.”

“Three hundred and sixty two point nine miles,” Michael states simply.

“Pardon?”

“That’s the distance between Oxford and Glasgow,” he explains, as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “How are you planning to make a relationship work with that sort of distance?”

“We’re doing long distance,” she argues, feeling herself growing defensive, scowling at him.

“Yeah, I bet that’s gonna work out great,” he scoffs, eyes widening, clearly mocking her.

“The Glasgow School of Art was the best choice for Rich to study what he wants to,” she retorts.

A grin spreads across his face. “Art?! I suppose you should be grateful he’s hundreds of miles away then, he sounds like a moron.”

She huffs, hurriedly shoving her things back into her bag. “Let’s just look for these fucking flowers and get this over with.”

The pair work for the rest of the afternoon in silence, the atmosphere is tense and angry, but they are productive nevertheless, settling on a patch of sunflowers to use for the assignment.

They look at the spirals of seeds in the center of the sunflowers and observe patterns curving left and right. Counting these spirals, their total is a Fibonacci number. They then divide the spirals into those pointed left and right to get two consecutive Fibonacci numbers.

Cutting down a couple of sunflower heads to use as examples, Michael also makes a diagram in his notes for them to present with their findings.

She feels satisfied by the time they part ways, but an uneasy feeling has settled over her that has dread gnawing into her gut as she thinks about Michael’s criticism of her and Rich’s long distance relationship.

Unsurprised to see she has no missed calls or texts from him when she goes back to her room, she opens up her laptop and logs back onto MySpace. This time when she looks at Rich’s profile her blood runs cold as she sees that Sophie now occupies space number three in his top friends. He’d had time to log on and change the position of a girl he’d met a couple of weeks ago, but couldn’t be bothered to send her a single message?

Before she can stop herself, she’s pulling out her phone and calling his number. She doesn’t care if this wastes all of her credit, she needs answers.

It rings for ages, and she anticipates being sent to voicemail, until he eventually answers, sounding breathless and distracted.

“H-hello?”

“Rich, it’s me,” she says quietly.

There’s a pause before he answers. “Oh…how’s my little nerd? Everything okay?”

She ignores the familiarity, keeping her tone neutral. “I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to be honest with me.”

Not giving him an opportunity to respond, she pushes on. “Has something happened between you and this Sophie girl I’ve seen you on Myspace with?”

Another pause, except this time she hears him inhale a deep breath. “I was going to tell you when we came home for Christmas break. It felt wrong to break up with you over the phone.”

It feels as though the bottom of her world has been ripped away, her heart twisting painfully as her vision blurs with tears. She swallows thickly, anger bubbling alongside her devastation, so that her tone is venomous when she replies “So, you were just gonna keep stringing me along for two months, so you could look like a good guy?!”

“Babe, no, I didn’t mean for this to happen, I just–”

“You’re a piece of shit,” she cuts him off, “fuck you!”

She hangs up, chucking her phone down onto the bed, and immediately bursts into tears, holding her head in her hands as hot tears stream down her face, her shoulders shaking as her nose grows snotty.

Two years. Two fucking years and he’d chucked it all away for someone he’d known for two weeks.

She walks towards the sink in her room, looking into the mirror and sighing at her reflection. Her eyes are red and puffy, she looks a mess. Splashing cold water onto her face to rid herself of the worst of it, she then flops down onto her bed, opening her laptop.

Immediately she is met with her MSN chat window with Michael from the previous evening. He’s online.

Without thinking, she types out a message to him.

“Do you have any alcohol?”

Within seconds he’s typing a response.

“Would you like me to have alcohol?”

#michael gavey x reader #michael gavey x you #michael gavey x y/n #michael gavey imagine #michael gavey smut #michael gavey angst #michael gavey #michael gavey saltburn #saltburn michael gavey #ewan mitchell #saltburn #michael gavey fan fiction #michael gavey fanfiction #michael gavey fanfic #michael gavey fan fic #saltburn fanfiction #saltburn fan fiction #saltburn fan fic #saltburn fanfic

598 notes · View notes

rnelodyy · 1 year

Text

The Owl House And Restorative Justice

At the end of Season 1 of The Owl House, it is revealed that Lilith, the main overarching antagonist of that season, was the one to curse her sister Eda, one of the protagonists, to win a tournament when they were teenagers. This information causes Eda to fly into a screaming rage and attack Lilith, and understandably so.

Eda’s curse is essentially a chronic illness, one that, in Eda’s own words, has ruined her life, being the reason she’s considered a social outcast and why, before meeting King and Luz, she hadn’t gotten close to anyone in years. In season 2, it’s revealed that the curse is why she pushed away her partner Raine to the point that they broke it off with her, and that during a particularly bad flareup, she accidentally maimed her own father, leaving him half blind and with permanent nerve damage to his hands, making him unable to continue working as a Palisman carver. The curse has ruled Eda’s life for decades now, so to Eda, this is the ultimate betrayal.

In the first episode of Season 2, Lilith has defected from the Emperor’s Coven, split the curse between Eda and herself to mitigate the symptoms for her sister, and has moved in with Eda at the Owl House. While Lilith herself still feels guilty and feels she has to make it up to Eda, everyone else, Eda included, has seemingly either forgiven her or chosen to look past it. Eda even makes fun of her for feeling bad about cursing her, and Lilith’s guilt is seemingly absent for the rest of the series.

The response to this was… Less than stellar, shall we say. A lot of people were angry, saying Lilith got away with her crimes without even a slap on the wrist, and that Eda’s forgiveness of her was far too sudden.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this kind of critique. Amity spent years bullying Willow after her parents forced her to break off their friendship, and when she began trying to mend that relationship, the response from fans was that Willow should have been a lot more angry at Amity, and that they went back to being besties far too soon. I’ve even seen this criticism leveled at Hunter for the things he did while working for Belos, at Vee for impersonating Luz for months to trick her mother, and at Luz for hiding the fact that she helped Philip find the Collector from her friends. And it does seem strange for the show to keep tripping on this same point again and again.

Except, it’s not really. Because I think that, when viewing this show from a different angle, those supposed flaws are actually symptoms of something very important to understand – The Owl House operates on a system of crime and punishment that is very different from our world’s.

More specifically, our world mostly utilizes retributive justice. The world of The Owl House utilizes restorative justice.

So first, what do those terms mean? Broadly, they’re two different forms of handling interpersonal disputes, or dealing with crime.

Retributive justice is the one our current justice system uses, where the focus is primarily on punishing the perpetrator. Retributive justice can mean detention, suspension, expulsion, jail time, monetary fines, some kinds of community service, exile, or in more severe cases, corporal punishment or the death penalty. It’s the lens most people view the world through, where if someone hurts you, hurting them back is the correct response.

Restorative justice is a very different approach, where you instead focus on helping the victim recover from what happened, and rehabilitating the perpetrator to prevent this from happening again. Restorative justice can look like verbal or written apologies, monetary compensation for costs and trauma, therapy for both victim and perpetrator, education for the perpetrator, mediation between victim and perpetrator, a restraining order, etc.

When viewed through a retributive lens, The Owl House lets its characters get away with a lot of shit. Lilith cursing Eda, Hunter rounding up Palismen knowing they’ll be killed, Amity tormenting Willow for years, it’s all stuff that, in a retributive environment, they should be punished for, and they’re just not. Eda is only genuinely angry at Lilith for two scenes, Amity and Willow fix their relationship very quickly once Amity starts making amends, and Hunter isn’t punished at all.

However, I believe the story of The Owl House is best viewed not through a retributive lens, but through a restorative lens.

Let’s look at the Lilith-example again. Lilith’s offense was cursing Eda, which she did because she wanted to win a spot in the Emperor’s Coven. Knowing Eda was better than her, she cast a curse on her, thinking it would only last for a day. But when the time came, Eda forfeited the match, soon after which she transformed into the Owl Beast and was pelted with rocks until she ran. The curse turned out to be very permanent, and Lilith spent the next 20 years trying to fix her mistake by working for Belos to try to capture Eda, since he promised to heal her curse.

However, when she finally succeeded, Belos went back on his promise. Instead of healing Eda, he ordered her to be publicly executed. When Lilith protested, Belos essentially told her to shut up, that it was the Titan’s will, and left her there.

So, having realized her method of fixing her mistake has gone real bad, Lilith sneaks down to the Conformatorium to free Eda herself, but arrives too late and finds Luz instead. After a brief fight they end up teaming up, and Lilith leads Luz to the elevator, but they are captured by Belos and Lilith is thrown into the cage with Eda. There, she restores Eda’s partially petrified body, and after fleeing with her, Luz and King, uses a spell to split Eda’s curse evenly between their two bodies.

From a restorative justice point of view, Lilith has done pretty much everything she reasonably could do to fix things. She’s denounced the Emperor’s Coven, returned Owlbert to Luz, helped Luz find the elevator to the execution platform, saved Eda from petrification, apologized to Eda, and while there’s no way for her to cure Eda’s curse entirely, she took on half of the curse at great expense to her own health, in order to ease Eda’s symptoms.

Eda isn’t angry anymore because in her eyes, Lilith has already fixed things with her. Punishing her more at this point is pointless. What more could Lilith do, really? What other lessons could she learn? The only thing that punishment would bring at this point would be more suffering.

Let’s look at another example: Amity and Willow.

Amity’s offense was breaking off her friendship with Willow because she was a late-bloomer, bullying her for years, and allowing her friends to do so too. Willow is left with horrible self-esteem issues because of this, and combined with her failing grades, turned her into a horribly shy and withdrawn wallflower (no pun intended). After she’s moved to the plant track she starts actually getting better, but Amity and Boscha especially continue to torment her. While Amity’s bullying of Willow does peter out over time, Willow is clearly still extremely resentful of her. In an attempt to make Willow forget their friendship, Amity accidentally sets most of Willow’s memories on fire, leaving her confused, amnesiac, and unable to grasp basic concepts like that chairs are for sitting in.

Luz pushed Amity into fixing Willow’s brain by going into her mind together and piecing her memories back together. There, the Inner Willow revealed what happened to Luz and the audience.

At this point, Amity shows her that her parents were actually the ones who forced her to end the friendship because they didn’t think Willow was a suitably powerful or influential friend, threatening to make sure Willow would never get accepted into Hexside if Amity didn’t force her to leave. Amity then apologizes to Willow for going along with it, and for the bullying, and vows to make sure her friends never mess with Willow again.

Willow accepts her apology, but also makes it clear that, while it’s a start, she’s not yet ready to accept Amity in her life again. Restorative justice has not been fully attained, because to Willow, Amity hasn’t fixed everything – Boscha and her squad are still bullying her, and still consider Amity one of them. This changes two episodes later, when Amity tells Boscha to grow the fuck up when she starts bullying Willow again, and joins her and Luz’s Grudgby team despite her personal issues to get Boscha to back off. Willow doesn’t make a grand gesture of forgiveness in this episode, but it is after this point where the two become comfortable around eachother again.

Did Willow forgive Amity too quickly for years of trauma? Maybe. If she had chosen to continue keeping Amity at a distance I certainly wouldn’t have blamed her. But in the end, Amity fixed the mess she caused as best she could, and has proven herself to want to be a better person, to want to be Willow’s friend again. She worked hard to prove herself to be a person worth trusting, and Willow decided to give that trust a chance again.

And while they did become friends again, that friendship was clearly still affected by what happened, which led to bumps that the two of them had to work through. Like in Labyrinth Runners, where Amity’s overprotectiveness over Willow makes Willow feel like Amity thinks she’s incompetent, and still only sees her as the helpless person she used to be.

Willow continuing to be mad at Amity and punishing her for what she did wouldn’t be an unreasonable reaction, but it wouldn’t have fixed anything. It would certainly have an impact on Amity, seeing her former best friend rejecting her attempts to make up for what she did, but the hurt on both sides would have continued festering, because deep down, Willow missed Amity too.

In Hunter’s case, there’s the question of whether he can even be held responsible for his actions. The Palisman-kidnapping in specific was explicitly done under duress – if he failed he would face verbal and physical abuse, and be threatened with his nightmare scenario: getting thrown out of the Emperor’s Coven.

And that’s not an empty threat either. Hunter has no magic, and Belos has drilled it into him that witches without magic have no future. Without the Emperor’s Coven, his only future prospects would be starving to death on the streets or wasting away in prison. Either way, Hunter would be alone, without family or friends, without a job or job prospects, without anyone to turn to for help. Any child would be terrified of that. Hunter wasn’t always acting on direct orders – in fact he defied direct orders to stay in his room in Eclipse Lake to go look for Titan’s Blood, and then again in Hollow Mind to arrest the rebels. But he made those choices based on the idea that Belos wouldn’t want him if he was a failure, and that he needed a chance to prove that he could still be useful.

And contrary to popular belief, Hunter does know right from wrong. He has a very strong moral compass, he’s just been forced to ignore it in favor of doing whatever the Emperor wants. To shut up that little voice telling him he’s doing the wrong thing, he uses what’s called a thought-terminating cliche, a statement that feels so fundamentally true that the argument need not continue. In Hunter’s case, that statement is “It’s for the greater good.” Sure, kidnapping his new friends and abducting Palismen to feed to the Emperor and threatening someone who’s been nothing but kind to him to take the portal key from her girlfriend and justifying terrorism makes his stomach feel like he swallowed a cactus and saying it out loud makes him sound like a horrible person – but it’s for the greater good. He’s doing it to serve Belos, and Belos knows what’s best.

So by the time Hunter is out of active danger and able to rest and recover from what happened to him… what would further punishment accomplish? He already knows that he did fucked up shit while working for the EC, and he’s proven time and time again that while he’s not fighting for Belos’s approval, he’s actually a genuinely kind-hearted kid. Punishing him now would likely cause him to react very poorly, because he’s been at the wrong end of that stick so often that he’s developed severe PTSD because of it.

And if you think restorative justice is still in order – Hunter is currently hyperfixated on making sure Belos can never hurt anyone again, and for the long term, he has expressed that he wants to become a Palisman carver when he grows up. While it won’t bring back the Palismen that were killed, it will help the current Palisman population recover and reintroduce Palismen to witches who may have had to give up theirs.

When viewed through this lens, the writing of The Owl House starts to make more sense. As a show, it is extremely forgiving towards its characters – they’re still held accountable for their actions, but as long as they’re willing to grow and learn and fix the damage they caused, they are very quickly forgiven.

However, I do understand why these writing choices can be… controversial, so to say. Because it doesn’t feel very satisfying, does it? When someone hurts you on purpose, your first impulse would be to try to hurt them back, that’s just how people work.

That’s the hardest thing to come to terms with when you become an advocate for prison abolition for example – you’re not just arguing for freeing a guy who got 5 years because a cop found weed in his pockets, you’re arguing for the release, and most importantly, the humanity of some of the most vile, disgusting people this planet has ever produced. Even now, when someone commits a truly awful crime and gets sent to prison for life, my first thought is “Good, I hope they rot in there.” But that’s not justice. That’s just revenge. And revenge is not something we as a society should want to build our justice system on.

It’s not satisfying to see Lilith go from using Luz as a human shield in her fight against Eda to sleeping on the couch in Eda’s house within 2 episodes. It’s not satisfying to see Willow let Amity back into her life when Amity has hurt her so badly before, or to see Hunter become romantically involved with Willow after he literally abducted her the first time they met. But that satisfaction isn’t really the point. Revenge is satisfying in the moment, but an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, and if someone shows a genuine willingness to change, it’s often better to give them a chance to.

However, my final point is about what happens when this approach fails. Because not everyone is willing to change. Some people, when faced with the consequences of their actions, decide to dig their heels in and refuse to admit fault, or blame the victim(s), or use those same thought-terminating cliches that Hunter used to justify their actions, “I was just following orders” being a big one.

And thus, we come to Belos.

If Belos showed a willingness to change, a genuine one, not an attempt at manipulation, should he be given the chance to? That vengeful part of me is VERY empathetically saying no. But logically, reasonably, he should be given that chance, if only because he’s a human being and no human being deserves to be mistreated. That doesn’t mean his victims are obligated to forgive him or be around him again, in fact I think that, for the sake of Hunter’s mental health, Belos should stay as far away from him as humanly possible. But he should be given the chance to start over, to truly better himself and do something good with the rest of his life.

But Belos isn’t willing to change.

Belos is a product of a bad environment and grew up with a cult-like mentality and hatred for witches that he had to adopt for his own safety. It’s hard to break out of that mentality, but not impossible. Case in point: Caleb. The tragedy of Belos’s character to me is that he had so many chances to change, so many people to help him make that leap, but all of the people who offered him that help ended up dead by his hands because he couldn’t handle the idea that he may have been wrong.

At this point, Belos is stuck. Changing would mean not only giving up on his life’s work, but acknowledging to himself that everything he’s done, mutilating his body, killing his brother, slaughtering thousands and installing himself as God-Emperor of a population he despises more than anything in order to facilitate a genocide, was completely pointless.

He can’t admit that to himself. Especially the thing about Caleb’s death. He’s sunk-cost-fallacied himself so far into a corner that all he can really do when faced with opposing viewpoints is dig his heels in even deeper and lash out in a rage at anyone who challenges him. Even now, when his body is literally falling apart at the seams, he’s still trying to commit witch-genocide, because it’s all he has.

Restorative justice doesn’t work in this case, because the perpetrator needs to be receptive to it. Logically you would assume the show would default to retributive justice, and characters like Willow and Camila do take a very vengeful glee in imagining themselves beating the snot out of Belos. But right now, the primary motivation of the Hexsquad and Hunter in particular when it comes to Belos is to end the threat he poses. As long as Belos is alive and free, he will continue to hurt and kill people, and if he can’t be talked down, he needs to be either contained or killed to prevent him from causing more harm.

The Owl House provides, in my opinion, a very nuanced take on restorative justice. It shows how it works in action, how different situations impact what it looks like, and what happens when it’s simply not an option. It’s not the most satisfying story to tell your audience, because when someone hurts our babies we want them to suffer, no matter how sorry they say they are. But in this case, I think that sacrificing that bit of audience comfort is worth it to tell the story like this.

#the owl house #the owl house meta #toh meta #toh lilith #toh amity #toh hunter #toh belos

3K notes · View notes

dragonsbluee · 1 month

Text

I'm trying to count how many times Hiccup is captured/kidnapped throughout both series, the movies and the short films, so here's my criteria:

Any time he is unwillingly moved from one location to another by a dragon, viking or other character.

This includes any dragons picking him up and flying off somewhere, even if he is okay with it later.

This does not include when Toothless/his friends drag him off to show him something.

Any situation that prompted the dragon riders to rescue him.

Any plans that involved him giving himself up or joining up with a villain/antagonist.

This does not include the time he and Dagur were trapped on that island together.

Any time he is tied up and led somewhere or locked up/held in place with a guard.

Here is the list of situations I have compiled in (hopefully) chronological order:

HTTYD

Congratulations, no captures or kidnappings.

GIFT OF THE NIGHT FURY

When Meatlug (accidentally) brings Hiccup along to the Rookery.

RIDERS OF BERK

S1E6 - Hiccup gets taken to Dragon Island.

S1E16 - Hiccup is captured by the Outcasts on their island.

S1E19 - Alvin Captures Hiccup and Toothless at the "Isle of Night".

DEFENDERS OF BERK

S1E20 - Hiccup gives himself up to Dagur as part of his plan with Alvin.

RACE TO THE EDGE

S1E1 - the Dragon Riders get captured by Daugr on a hunter ship.

S1E7 -The twins put him in prison (this one's just here because I think it's funny).

S2E6 - The Dragon Hunters capture him.

S2E11 - The Dragon Riders get captured trying to save the Skrill.

S3E1 - Hiccup is captured by Dragon Hunters while trapped on an island with Dagur.

S3E8 - Hiccup and Toothless get caught in a Dragon Hunter Trap and are kidnapped and forced to participate in dragon fights.

S3E12 - Viggo captures all the Dragon Riders at the auction.

S3E13 - The Defenders of the Wing capture the Dragon Riders.

S4E3 - First Hiccup is caught by Amos and Berthel.

S4E3 - Then he's caught by Savage.

S4E3 - Then Krogan gets him after Throk saves him.

S4E3 - Ryker captures him for the tiniest bit right before the riders arrive.

S4E10 - Hiccup is caught with Ruffnut when he tries to rescue her from Viggo's trap. Unlike the other traps, he needs the other dragon riders to rescue them.

S5E2 - The Sandbuster captures Hiccup and Snotlout.

S6E8 - Viggo hands Hiccup over to Krogan as part of their plan.

HTTYD 2

Valka kidnaps Hiccup and Toothless.

HTTYD 3

Grimmel captures the dragon riders.

HOMECOMING

Once again, no captures of kidnappings

Up For Debate:

There are a few situations which technically fit the criteria, but I'm not sure if they fit considering the context of the show:

S5E5 - the riders are stuck on Vanaheim, guarded by the Sentinels. (Rtte)

S1E3 - This is a technicality, but when Hiccup joins up with Dagur to keep him away from the other dragons. (Dob)

EDIT: I forgot that even though my criteria says that the time Dagur and Hiccup are trapped on that island together (S3E1 of RTTE) doesn't count, because he is joining up with an (at the time) antagonist, there is a moment when Hiccup is captured by Dragon Hunters near the end of the episode.

After careful discussion (aka me ranting at my roommate) S4E10 of RTTE is also moving from "up for debate" to the official list. These changes are reflected above.

This brings our official count to 22 captures/kidnappings!

Honestly, the hardest part about this was finding the distinction between being captured or being trapped and what I wanted to count. When Hiccup isn't captured, he spends a lot of time in traps.

#httyd #how to train your dragon #hiccup and toothless #hiccup haddock #Listen he gets captured/kidnapped an absurd amount #I just wanted to tally it up #race to the edge #defenders of berk #riders of berk #Someone who has read the comics please let me know if he gets captured in those #it's hilarious every time though #dragon riders #how to train your dragon 2 #httyd thw #shoutout to S4E3 of rtte for inspiring this #hiccup has four main moods: captured trapped kidnapped or nerd #whump i guess

180 notes · View notes

mrtwizz · 1 year

Text

Snow On The Beach W.A. [Part One]

Pairing: Wednesday Addams x Fem Reader slow burn series

Warnings: canon violence, it’s slow burn, reader likes bees, unedited

Word count: 6.7

Summary: Y/n takes a small liking to the new girl who allegedly killed two normies at her old school.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three

It was a usual Sunday in Enid’s dorm room, her and Y/n were doing their weekend assignments that they put off for last minute. Later Enid had plans to redo Y/n’s nails as they had chipped last week when she smashed her hand in a drawer. She even made a mental note to ask her new roommate if she wanted hers done, just in case she warmed up to the pair quicker than expected.

The door to the room opened, both Enid and Y/n looked up to see who had entered. Y/n sat up from her lying position on Enid’s bed to see that it was Principle Weems and the new girl. Y/n stands up while Enid squeals and jumps up from her position at her desk, “Howdy, roomie!”

“Wednesday, this is Enid Sinclair, and Y/n L/n.” Weems introduced the three, as Y/n moved to stand next to Enid.

Wednesday said nothing as she took in the room she stood in, and the girls in front of her. The blonde, Enid, was wearing the purple pinstripe uniforms. While the other one wasn’t, or at least it wasn’t the proper uniform. Where Enid’s went down to her shins, Y/n’s stopped above her knees. She also didn’t have the matching jacket.

“Are you feeling okay? You look a little pale.” Enid points out.

The new girl, Wednesday, looks horrified.

“Wednesday always looks half-dead.” The man behind her says, presumably her father.

“Oh,” Enid says in a soft whisper, and outstretches her arms, “welcome to Ophelia Hall.” She moves forward to embrace Wednesday, who promptly moves backwards to avoid the interaction. “Not a hugger, got it.”

“Please excuse Wednesday, she’s allergic to color.” Her mother says, and grimaces as if there's stories to tell about how they found that out.

“Oh wow, what happens to you?” Enid questions.

In a flat tone, Wednesday speaks for the first time, “I break out into hives, and then the flesh peels off my bones.”

“Luckily, we’ve ordered a special uniform. Enid, Y/n, please take Wednesday to the registrar's office, to pick it up along with her schedule. Give her a tour along the way.” Weems smiles.

The blonde werewolf does a little happy dance while Wednesday turns to face her parents, who’s faces fall at the look their daughter gives them. She quickly walked past the two of them out into the hall where Enid and Y/n happily followed, Enid skipping as she did so.

Enid begins her history lesson on the place, “Built to educate people like us,” She was walking backwards as she spoke to maintain eye contact with Wednesday.

“Freaks, outcasts, monsters,” Y/n filled in, walking beside her.

“You can save the sanitized sales pitch,” Wednesday said, looking around as she stopped in front of Enid and Y/n, “I don’t plan on staying here for long.”

“Why not?” Enid asks.

“This was my parents’ idea,” Wednesday looked at something behind Y/n’s shoulder, “Oh look, there’s my mother smirking at me”

Y/n moves her head to look at the picture Wednesday was looking at, “They’ve been looking for any excuse to send me here. It’s all a part of their nefarious,” Once more the raven haired girl turns back to Y/n and Enid,”yet completely obvious plan.” Enid’s tone is a stark contrast to Wednesday’s plain and flat one, “What plan?”

“To turn me into a version of themselves.”

Enid and Y/n grimace, “In that case, perhaps you can clear something up.” Enid begins to lead her tour once more, “Rumor’s been swirling around that you killed a kid at your old school, and your parents pulled strings to get you off.”

“Actually, it was two kids, but who’s counting?” Wednesday quickens her pace.

Enid falters for a moment and stands still, where Y/n quickens to keep up with the girl. Soon they make their way outside, and Y/n places her sunglasses over her eyes.

“Welcome to the quad,” Enid stretches her arms out for dramatics.

“It’s a pentagon.” Wednesday observes the awful name choice for the courtyard.

“The whole snarky goth girl thing might have worked at your normie school, but here things are different.” If anyone else had been speaking, Y/n’s tone might have come off condescending, but it was cheery and meant to give some sort of light to the situation.

“Let me give you a rundown on Nevermore’s social scene.” Enid turns to Wednesday and then begins to walk off again.

“I’m not interested in participating in tribal adolescent cliches.”

“Well then use it to fill your obviously bottomless pit of disdain,” Enid begins, “there are many flavors of outcasts here.”

“There are the four main cliques,” She counts off on her fingers, “Fangs, Furs, Stoners and scales.”

“Those are the Fangs, aka Vampires. Some of them have literally been here for decades.” Y/n explains.

“That bunch of knuckleheads are Furs, aka werewolves. Like me!” Enid says, “Full moons get pretty loud around here, that’s when Furs wolf out.”

“I suggest you pick up a pair of noise-canceling headphones.” Y/n says in a joking manner, but both know it's not a joke.

Wednesday ignores her comment and looks at the group around the fountain, “I’m assuming Scales are sirens.”

“You catch on quick.And that girl, ” Enid points to one of the sirens, “Bianca Barclay, is the closest thing Nevermore has to Royalty.”

Y/n smiles at the implication, “She’s my roommate, and you will soon be happy Enid is your roommate and not Bianca.”

Enid ignores the comment, “She used to date our resident tortured artist, Xavier Thorpe. But they broke up at the beginning of the semester. Reason unknown.” “Fascinating.” Wednesday says in a cold tone.

“I know right!” Enid went on, “My blog is like, the number one source for Nevermore gossip.”

“Yo, Enid, Y/n! You’re not gonna believe the dirt I heard about your new roommate!” Enid’s crush, Ajax, approached.

Y/n rolled her eyes from beside Enid and turned to face Ajax, who went on about the rumors, “She eats human flesh. Totally chowed down on that kid she murdered. You better watch your back.”

Enid stepped aside to reveal Wednesday, “Quite the contrary, I actually fillet the bodies of my victims. Then feed them to my menagerie of pets.”

Y/n silently wondered if Wednesday found enjoyment in making others squirm at the details of her alleged killings.

Enid’s tone is as cheery as ever, “Ajax, this is my new roommate, Wednesday.”

“Woah, you’re in black and white.” The gorgon boy looked the new girl up and down. “Like a living Instagram filter.”

“Ignore him, gorgons spend way too much time getting stoned.” Y/n stated as Enid turned Ajax away. She turned back to Y/n and Wednesday, “He’s cute, but clueless.” “Clueless? Yes, cute? Still up for debate.” Y/n breathed out a laugh.

“Shut up,” Enid gave Y/n a small shove, “anyways, it’s a small school. There wasn’t a lot online about you. You really should get on Insta, Snapchat, and TikTok.”

“I find social media to be a soul-sucking void of meaningless affirmation.” Wednesday turned back around, leaving Enid defeated.

The three finally made it to the office to get Wednesday's schedule and uniform. They then parted for her to say her goodbyes to her family.

Later that night when Enid and Y/n made their way back to Enid’s room they were shocked by the sight they saw. Wednesday was crouched down in front of the window peeling off the stickers that gave the room a colorful shine.

“What the hell did you do to my room?” Enid demands as she marches into the room.

Y/n carefully shut the door behind her, standing and observing the two of them.

“Dividing our room equally.” Wednesday says as she stands up, “Looks like a rainbow vomited on your side.”

“I-” Enid tries to spit something out.

“Silence would be appreciated, this is my writing time.” Wednesday sits down in front of an old-timey typewriter and pulls up the sleeves of her black zip-up.

“Your writing time?” Enid asks, still having not moved from the middle of the room.

“I devote an hour a day to my novel. Perhaps if you did the same, your blog might be coherent. I’ve read serial killer diaries with better punctuation.” Wednesday’s hands look to not know what to do with themselves for just a moment.

Y/n made her way over to Enid’s bed to sit with all of the stuffed animals on the bed, she grabbed one of them and placed it in her lap as she did so.

“I write in my voice! It’s my truth. It’s what my followers love.” Enid defends her blog.

Wednesday turns to face Enid, “Your followers are clearly imbeciles.” She pushes off the desk chair and walks toward the girl, “They respond to your stories with stupid little pictures.”

Enid scoffs, “You mean emojis? It’s how people express their feelings. I realize that’s a foreign concept for you.”

“When I look at you, the following emojis come to mind. Rope, shovel, hole.” Wednesday pauses a little after each one for dramatic effect, “By the way, there’s two D’s in Addams. If you’re going to gossip about me, at least spell my name correctly.”

Enid ignores her and puts on some bubble-gum pop music, and begins to dance, making Wednesday’s head snap in her direction.

“Turn that off,”

Enid ignores her and continues to dance in a taunting manner.

Wednesday huffs and walks over to the colorful girl, “This is your final warning.”

Enid makes a noise that is supposed to sound like a growl, that makes Y/n laugh from over on the bed, but instead comes out playful as she bears her manicured claws. Wednesday eyes the claws.

“Don’t mess with me.” It comes out as a genuine threat, just because Enid is all cute and rainbows doesn’t mean she couldn't be dangerous if she wanted to be. “This kitty’s got claws, and I’m not afraid to use them.”

The door opens, “Good evening, girls. Sorry about the mud.” Enid hides her hands behind her back and Y/n stops fidgeting with the stuffed toy in her lap to look at who opened the door. All three girls look at Ms. Thornhill.

“I wanted to make sure that Wednesday was settling in. Is this a bad time?” She asks, it’s a rhetorical question.

“Most definitely.” Y/n speaks for the first time since her and Enid entered the room.

All heads snap to the girl sitting in Enid’s bed, Enid and Wednesday had both forgotten she was there.

Ms Thornhill decides to ignore her comment and introduces herself, “I’m your dorm mom, Apologies I wasn’t here to greet you when you arrived. I trust Enid, and Y/n apparently, have given you the old Nevermore welcome.”

“They’ve been smothering me in hospitality, I hope to return the favor. In her sleep.” Wednesday speaks, everyone hopes it's a joke but nobody is sure.

“Well, here’s a little welcoming gift from my conservatory.” She smiles as she hands Wednesday a black dahlia flower. “I try to match a flower with each of my girls, and when I read your personal statement in your application, I immediately thought of this one.”

“The black dahlia,” Wednesday looks at the flower.

“Oh you know it?” Ms Thornhill questions.

“Of course. It’s named after my favorite unsolved murder.” There’s a moment of silence, “Thank you.”

“Okey-dokey. Before I leave, I want to go over a few house rules. Lights off at ten, no loud music, and no boys, ever.” She emphasizes the last part, making Y/n snicker.

“Do you have something to share, Y/n?” Ms Thornhill looks over.

“No, no.” Y/n smothers her smile in the plush toy in her hands.

“What’s the story about going into the local town?” Wednesday asks.

“Passes to Jericho are a privilege, not a right. It’s a brisk twenty-five minute walk, or there’s a shuttle on the weekends. The locals are a tad bit wary about the Nevermore kids. So please, don’t go making any waves, or perpetuating any outcast stereotypes. That means keep your claws to yourself,” She turns to Enid first, then to Wednesday, “and no smothering people in their sleep.”

“Are we clear?” She waits for any objections, “Great talk!”

Ms Thornhill leaves with a wave.

“Anywho, Enid, can you fix my nails?” Y/n whines at the blonde the moment the door closes, and moves to grab her favorite colors of nail polish.

The next day goes without incident, Enid and Y/n do their thing and Wednesday does hers.

“Could be worse.” Y/n comments as Enid complains.

“How? She could be a deranged murderer? Oh wait!” Enid is exasperated.

“I call her bluff.” Y/n says as they make their way out of the library and to Enid’s dorm.

“Why do we never go to your room again?” Enid asks.

“Because Bianca? Duh.” Y/n feigns annoyance, she truly didn’t have anything against Bianca. The two were kind of friends, or at least Y/n considered her a friend.

As they open the door they hear music coming from Enid’s balcony, the two cross the room and step through the window as the song ends.

“How the hell did you get that oversized violin out the window?” Enid questions.

“It’s a cello.” Y/n mumbles before seeing the hand sitting on the music stand.

“I had an extra hand.” Wednesday says, not bothering to look at the girls behind her or the appendage waving at them.

“Woah.” Enid grimaces.

“Where’s the rest of him?” Y/n asks.

“It’s one of the great Addams family mysteries.” Wednesday replies, placing the bow on the stand.

The hand drops from the stand with a thump and walks away. If that’s what you can call it.

In the distance the three can hear the Furs howling out.

“Why aren’t you wolfing out?” Wednesday looks at Enid.

Y/n frowns at Enid’s body language, knowing how she felt about not being able to wolf out yet.

“Cause I can’t,” She turns and looks at Wednesday and flashes her claws, “it’s all I got.”

She walks over to the edge of the balcony and Y/n moves to stand next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders while Enid rests her head on the other girl’s shoulder.

“My mom says some wolves are late bloomers, but I’ve been to the best Lycanologist. I had to fly to Milwaukee, can you believe it?”

Wednesday made her way over to the pair.

“Yeah, she says there’s a chance I may never…you know.”

“What happens then?” Wednesday stood on the other side of Y/n.

“I’d become a lone wolf.” Enid’s voice cracks at the thought.

“Sound’s perfect.” Wednesday says, clearly not reading the room.

“Are you kidding me? My life would actually be officially over.” Wednesday looks over at them, “I’d be kicked out of my family pack, with no prospect of finding a mate.”

“I’m failing to see the problem here.” Wednesday voices.

“I could die alone!” The blonde exclaims, horrified.

“We all die alone, Enid.” Wednesday states, as if it’s a known fact,

“I will never leave you Enid.” Y/n comforts.

“You really suck at this, Wednesday.” Enid utters and her voice cracks again, “Cheering people up.” She begins to cry.

Wednesday turns to Enid and Y/n, “Why are you crying?”

“Because I’m upset!” She moves her head from Y/n’s shoulder to look at the other girl, “Haven’t you ever cried? Or are you above that too?”

“I was six years old,” Wednesday began, “I took my pet scorpion, Nero, out for his afternoon stroll, and we were ambushed. They wondered what kind of freak would have a scorpion for a pet. Two of them held me down and made me watch,” She paused, “while the others ran Nero over until…” She trailed off.

“It was snowing when I buried what was left of him. I cried my little black heart out, but tears don’t fix anything. So I vowed to never do it again.” Wednesday finished and Furs began to howl once more.

“Your secret’s safe with us,” Enid said.

“Still think you’re weird as shit though.” Y/n added to lighten the mood.

“The feeling is incredibly mutual.” Wednesday looked over, “how would you like your single room back? You just need to show me how to use your computer.”

Y/n and Enid look at each other and get set on explaining to Wednesday on how to use technology. Wednesday then sends Thing off to the normie boy she met, Tyler.

The next few days go by with nothing remarkable happening, Enid and Y/n do their shenanigans, sometimes resulting in death threats from Wednesday. While the Addams girl continues working on her novel or playing the cello.

At the festival, Wednesday is a stark contrast from the other two girls she stands with. Both girls in varying shades of pinks, while she is wearing black and white. Maybe Ajax had a point…

“You seriously are going to get into a strange boy's car?” Y/n asks as they stare at the normie boy and his father.

“I mean, are you sure you can trust that normie?” Enid backs her friend up.

“I trust that I can handle myself.” Wednesday spoke, none of the three ever taking their eyes off the sheriff and his son.

The sheriff finally walks away from Tyler and Enid turns to face Wednesday, “Well, good luck and safe travels.”

Enid moves to try and hug Wednesday, who immediately shuffled back, resulting in her bumping into Y/n.

“Still not a hugger, got it.” Enid says and walks off, Y/n following behind.

For the next few hours Y/n and Enid play dumb carnival games and ride rides. They end up bumping into Yoko and some of their vampire friends.

Yoko and Enid were talking and something caught Y/n’s eye. It was Wednesday running after someone into the forest. Y/n pondered whether to follow and see what the commotion was, and after a moment she decided it was worth her while.

She quickly followed Wednesday and the boy, keeping a distance.

Suddenly Wednesday and the other figure stopped, “Rowan, wait.”

“What do you want?” Rowan growled out, “Why are you following me?”

“I don’t have time to explain, but you’re in danger.” Wednesday said.

Y/n hid herself behind a clump of trees, suddenly cursing the bright pink skirt she wore. The pair talked too quietly for Y/n to hear what was being said.

Then suddenly Wednesday’s body was being lifted into the air and thrown against a tree by Rowan’s telekinesis. Y/n gasped and she hoped Rowan didn’t hear, but it appeared Wednesday did. She looked right into Y/n’s eyes before they returned to Rowan’s.

“You’re the one who’s in danger.” Rowan says, an outstretched hand holding the girl up.

“What are you doing?” Wednesday asks, sounding frantic.

“Saving everyone from you.” Rowan responds, “I have to kill you.”

“The gargoyle, that was you?” Wednesday’s already wide eyes appear to widen, “It’s always the quiet ones.”

A paper flies up to the girl's face, “The girl in the picture, that’s you.”

Wednesday seems appalled, “You want to kill me because of some picture?”

“My mother drew that picture, twenty-five years ago, when she was a student at Nevermore.” Rowan’s voice seems rushed, “She was a powerful seer. Told me about it before she died.”

“Rowan, put me down.” Wednesday demands, once more sounding panicked.

“No! My mother said it was my destiny to stop this girl if she ever came to Nevermore.” Rowan sounds like a whining child who’s toy was taken, “Because she will destroy the school, and everyone in it.”

Rowan tightens his hold on Wednesday, who struggles against the tree.

“Rowan,” Y/n shouts, finally getting her whereabouts to step out from behind the tree.

The boy turns his head but doesn’t have time to respond when a growl comes from nowhere, and a creature unlike one Y/n had ever seen before grabs Rowan by his green zip up. The monster smashes the boy to the ground and Y/n is certain she heard a crack as Rowan screamed.

Wednesday crumbled down from the tree with a thud and watched as Rowan was torn to shreds. Blood splashed everywhere as the monster slashed through the boy. The monster looked at Wednesday and ran off, running by Y/n without giving the girl a second thought.

Y/n rushed to the bloodied body of Rowan, she knew the boy didn’t have a chance of living but checked his pulse anyways. Wednesday looked to the sky as something fell from above, it was the page torn from a book, and it landed on Rowan’s slice open chest. Wednesday picked it up before Y/n could get a good look at it.

As the two left the scene Y/n felt sick, and if she had anything in her stomach she would have thrown it back up.

Wednesday finally spoke, “Do not speak of this to anyone, not even Enid. If the cops ask any questions, let me speak.”

Y/n drew in a shaky breath, “Okay.”

Y/n woke the next morning to her alarm in her own room, her and Bianca danced around each other as they got ready. Their room wasn’t nearly as separated as Enid and Wednesday’s was and they constantly left things on the others’ side. They knew each other well enough to be considered friends but didn’t hang out besides when in their dorm. Y/n knew all about Bianca and Xavier’s relationship, and why it had ended.

The two knew almost every secret about one another, Y/n knew about Bianca’s past and vice versa.

The two went their separate ways for classes, and halfway through Y/n’s first lesson Principal Weems came in to ask to take Y/n out. When she left the class, the sheriff and Wednesday were both there.

“How could you miss a dead body?” Wednesday asked the man.

“‘Cause it wasn’t there?” The sheriff responded, “No footprints, no blood, no sign of a struggle. Nothing, nada.”

Suddenly all of last night's events flooded Y/n’s mind. “That’s impossible, I watched him be ripped apart, I saw Rowan’s chest cavity.”

Wednesday gritted her teeth, but showed no sign of…well anything.

“My search party looked all night.” He responded, as if that was supposed to clear everything he is claiming.

“Well, your search party must have left their seeing-eye dogs at home, I saw that monster kill Rowan.” Wednesday said as they walked up the stairs.

“Get a good look at this monster thing?” Sheriff asked accusingly.

“It didn’t stick around for a chat, maybe I’ll invite him for tea next time. Get a few pictures with him.” Y/n spoke angrily as she looked back at the man and Wednesday, as she stomps up the stairs to accentuate her anger.

“Maybe it was one of your classmates.” The Sheriff said, looking around.

That was the final straw for Y/n who stopped dead in her tracks and spun around to face the man, “Okay what the hell are you doing here then? Because it clearly isn’t to gather any leads, piss poor detective work to already have a bias.” “I don’t care, because I’ve got three other bodies in the morgue right now. Hikers, just ripped apart in the woods.” Sheriff says.

Weems interrupts, “The mayor said those were bear attacks.” “Yeah well the mayor and I disagree on that.” The sheriff responds.

Weems has one hand on her hip and the other leaning against the railing, “So you automatically assume that it’s a Nevermore student? Even when there’s no evidence that a crime has even been committed.”

“I’m sorry, I forgot, you only teach the good outcasts here. Right?” Sheriff accuses.

Weems sighs as cocks her head at him giving him a look, and her energy changes. They make their way to her office. The older lady sits down behind her desk. Wednesday and Y/n stand in front of it.

“My guess is that Rowan ran away. State troopers have put out an alert and I’ve contacted his family. They haven’t heard from him either.” “Dead people are notoriously bad at returning calls.” Wednesday retorts.

Y/n stifles a laugh at her comment as the Sheriff sits down in one of the chairs.

“What were you two doing out in the woods with him, Ms Addams, L/n?” The two girls turn to face the man speaking.

“We heard a noise in the forest, and I went to investigate. I told Y/n to stay back, but she insisted I don’t go alone. That’s when we stumbled upon the attack.” Wednesday lies through her teeth.

“Then what happened?” The sheriff asks.

Wednesday continues her narrative , “Then we ran into Y/n’s roommate, Bianca Barclay. I told her to go get help. Next thing I remember, I was waking up in my dorm.”

“And just to be clear, this monster wasn’t a bear attack? Or some other wild animal?” His tone isn’t intrigue, it's condescending.

“I’ve hibernated with grizzlies,” Wednesday states,”I know the difference.”

Y/n wants to question this, but knows it's not the time nor place. Wednesday Addams was a mystery to all, and an open book to none. And Y/n wanted nothing more than to know more about the girl in all black.

“Is this all true, Ms L/n?” Sheriff asks, turning to face Y/n.

“All I remember is Rowan’s mangled body and then everything is blank after that.” Y/n corroborates Wednesday's version of events.

“There you have it Sheriff, I think the girls are done now.” Weems speaks as she stands up.

“Actually, I would like to speak to Sheriff Galpin,” One of Wednesday’s eyebrow quirks, and if Y/n hadn’t been watching her so intensely she would have missed it, “Alone.”

“I’m not sure I can allow that.” Weems says.

“I’m sure I could take her down to the station, and get a formal statement. But I’ll also need Y/n’s.” Galpin smirks for a millisecond, “Yeah let’s go.”

“Fine, you have five minutes. And everything is off the record.” Weems says, walking from her desk, “Play nice, or I will call the mayor.” She threatens and leaves the room.

Y/n leans against the desk as the two argue.

The door opens, “Sheriff, you’re gonna want to see this.” It opens further and there is Rowan, in the same outfit he was wearing last night. The same zip up that was soaked in his blood last night is suddenly void of any grime. The button up that had been torn apart, whole again. But more importantly, Rowan was alive unlike how the two had left him the night prior.

“No, that’s fucking absurd. No, absolutely not.” Y/n says and leaves the room, not believing her eyes.

Y/n makes her way outside to where she knew Enid was, the pair hadn’t spoken much this week. Then Y/n spots Wednesday in one of the corridors.

“Hey Wednesday, wanna come see Enid with me? Looks like you could use some sunshine and fresh air.” Y/n says in a joking manner.

Wednesday said nothing as she began walking alongside Y/n. Before they step outside, Y/n pulls her sunglasses from her bag and puts them on her eyes. They were unlike the other vampires, they were unique and possibly designers. But Wednesday didn’t know the brand.

“Ladies, come on! Let’s work on those teeth.” Enid’s cheery voice was comforting for Y/n to hear, “More scowl. This kitty is taking no prisoners. If Bianca Barclay wins again this year, I will literally scratch my own eyes out!”

“I would pay money to see that.” Wednesday says, and Enid turns around with a hop and squeals.

“Howdy, roomie! I’m so glad you decided to stay.” Enid smiles.

Wednesday’s arms are crossed firmly around her middle, “I thought you wanted your single room back.”

“Full disclosure, I don’t like living solo. Why do you think Y/n’s in our room all the time? And Thing gives a killer neck massage.” Enid confesses, “So why the change of heart?”

“I refuse to play the role of a pawn in someone else’s corrupt game.”

“You mean Rowan?” Enid says, her cheery tone never ceasing.

“We witnessed his murder, Enid.” Y/n responds.

“It’s just, we all saw him this morning.” Enid explains, “Very much, like, not dead.”

“I know.” Wednesday says, uncrossing her arms, “Which leads me to believe I’ve been losing my mind.” She shrugs her shoulders and gives a defeated look, “It’s not nearly as fun as I had anticipated.”

“Shared delusions, they get you, I’m telling ya.” Y/n adds.

“You are Nevermore’s gossip queen, what’s Rowan’s story?” Wednesday asks.

“Other than being a weird loner? Uh, no offense.” Enid quickly adds.

“None taken.” Wednesday responds, the tiniest smile pulls at her lips for a moment.

“Xavier Thorpe’s his roommate, you know if you had a cell phone you could just text him and ask him. Why didn’t you ask Y/n?” Enid turns to yell at Yoko before either could answer, “Flare those whiskers! The Poe Cup droops for no one.”

Y/n laughs at Enid’s dramatics.

“What is the Poe Cup anyway?” Wednesday asks.

“Only my entire reason for living right now.” Enid breathes out, “Part canoe race, part foot race, no rules. Each canoe has to pick an Edgar Allan Poe short story for inspiration. You could grab a brush. Ms Thorhill’s just ordered pizza, want to take a stab at being social?"

“I do like stabbing.” Wednesday responds and looks around, “The social part, not so much. Besides, it will cut into my writing time.”

“No worries, as long as you’re with Y/n on the lakeside cheering us to victory on race day!” Enid exclaims.

Wednesday says nothing, “Or you can just glare uncomfortably, whatever works for you.” Y/n turns to Wednesday and gives her a playful wink.

The girl dressed in all black turns without a word and goes back inside, presumably to her dorm.

After a bit Y/n realizes she left her favorite top in Enid’s room and decides that she immediately needs it.

“Right now?” Enid asks.

“Yes Enid, right now. Or else I will forget about it or even worse, I won’t be able to focus on anything except for my top and I will mess up your canoe.” Y/n explains, really she was just getting bored and the sun began to irritate the exposed skin of her legs. But she did have a shirt that was left in Enid’s room.

“Okay, yes go.” Enid instructs, sending the vampire on her merry way.

When she arrives at Enid and Wednesday's dorm she can hear the distinct tapping of Wednesday on the typewriter. The girl doesn’t give Y/n a glance or even stop her typing when she enters.

Y/n pays no mind to her or Thing as she goes to look for her shirt. Until suddenly the typing stops and Wednesday stands up from her desk.

“Come with me, we need to go find Rowan.” Wednesday demands, and Y/n was too afraid to ask what for or to deny her. She simply stood from where she was sitting on the floor, and followed Wednesday.

After searching the school for a good hour, Y/n spoke up, “Maybe we should go ask Weems…”

Quickly the pair make their way to Weems' office for the second time that day.

“We need to speak with Rowan, and we can’t find him.” Wednesday had been speaking for both of them a lot lately Y/n notes.

“It won’t be possible, I’m afraid. He’s been expelled.” Weems doesn’t look up from her laptop.

“For what?” Y/n asks.

“Never you mind. He’ll be on the first train out this afternoon. What were you doing out in the woods with him in the first place?” Weems finally looks up from her work.

“We told you already.” Wednesday regurgitates the same lie from this morning, “We heard a noise, I went to investigate. And Y/n didn’t want me going alone.”

Weems scoffs, “That excuse might have placated the sheriff, but you can’t fool me. You had a psychic vision, didn’t you?”

Wednesday’s gaze shifts, “I realized you might be having them when we passed by the accident, and you knew that poor farmer had broken his neck. Your mother started having visions around your age. They were notoriously unreliable, and dangerous. I remember at first, she thought she might be losing her mind. Have you spoken to her about them? Clearly the person withholding information here is you.”

“May I go now?” Wednesday asks.

Y/n thinks that Wednesday may be feeling uncomfortable with what Weems has said, but Wednesday is harder to read than most people. She keeps her cards close to her.

“Not until you’ve picked your extracurricular activity. We want our students to be well rounded.” Weems attitude takes a whirlwind change.

“I’d prefer to remain sharp-edged.” Wednesday crosses her arms.

“I took the liberty of putting together a list of clubs that have openings.” Weems slides a list on the desk.

“How thoughtful.” Wednesday looks down.

“You need to have picked one by the end of the day. I’ll be keeping my eye on you, no doubt you’ll find something that tickles your fancy.” Weems says.

“The last person who tickled me lost a finger.” Wednesday said, moving to pick up the list.

The two quickly leave the room to where Thing is waiting for them.

“Weems is clearly trying to keep tabs on me. Keep an eye on Rowan.” Wednesday speaks to the appendage, “Don’t let your fingers out of his sight.”

The three part ways, Thing going to Rowan, Wednesday to find an extracurricular to check out, and Y/n to go to the bee hive with Eugene.

“Where have you been?” Eugene asks as Y/n enters the little shack.

“I was busy,” Y/n responds, putting on the hat and net that keeps the bees from her face. She never wore the full suit, claiming that the bees wouldn’t hurt her as long as she didn’t harm them.

Y/n worked in the shed and glanced out the window to see a figure Y/n had begun to know all too well made its way towards them.

“Are you interested in the ancient art of beekeeping?” Eugene asks Wednesday, who turns around to face the boy.

“Eugene, Eugene Ottinger.” He sticks out a gloved hand, “Founder and president of the Nevermore’s Hummers.”

Wednesday shook his hand, “Wednesday, Wednesday Addams. Am I late or is it only you?”

“Y/n L/n is in the shed, but it’s only the two of us. The hive life isn’t for everyone.” Eugene responded, “Most kids are afraid of venomous insects. Are you willing to feel the sting?”

Eugene leads Wednesday into the shed to get her a suit.

“Y/n, this is Wednesday Addams.” Eugene introduced.

Y/n smiled coyly, “So I’ve heard, we keep meeting.”

“Great.” Eugene says, handing Wednesday a suit and leaving the shack.

The white is a stark contrast to Wednesday’s usual attire, “Why don’t you wear the suit?” Wednesday asks.

“They won’t sting you as long as you don’t give them reason to. I’m not afraid of them.” Y/n says, fond of the bees.

Wednesday opens the door and goes back outside to where Eugene waits, as he talks she inspects the gloves.

“Bees have been producing honey in the same way for a hundred-fifty million years. They’re nature's perfect community. All working together to achieve a common goal.” Eugene goes on about bee facts.

Y/n spots Thing off to the side between two hives, she didn’t know what he was trying to tell Wednesday but she assumed it was important. Y/n’s gaze shifts to Eugene before Wednesday wanders off.

“Nothing personal buddy, she disappears a lot.” Y/n reassures the boy as he sighs defeated.

The next day during Ms Thornhill’s Wednesday is scolding Thing who was hidden behind a plant. Enid gossiped about this or that, while Y/n was in her own little world.

“I see you finally made a friend.” BIanca teases Wednesday, “Even if it is a plant.”

“I go for quality over quantity.” Wednesday retorts, causing Bianca to roll her eyes and sit down.

Y/n sat in her usual seat, only this time Enid didn’t sit next to her. Wednesday did, Enid shrugged and sat next to Yoko.

“Wednesday, we are thrilled to have you join us on our journey into the world of carnivorous plants. Now,” Ms Thornhill turned to address the class, “who can tell us the name of this beauty?”

“Dendrophylax lindenii.” Wednesday responds without a second thought.

“Other known as a ghost orchid.” Bianca says.

“First discovered on the Isle of Wight in 1854.” Wednesday recites from memory.

“Wednesday, perhaps you can identify the ghost orchid’s greatest qualities.” Ms Thornhill suggested.

“Resilience and adaptability.” She says, “It’s able to thrive in even the most hostile environments.”

“But its mere presence can change the ecosystem,” Bianca butts in, “causing the established plants to reject it.”

Wednesday responds, “Usually because the native species is allowed to thrive, unchecked.”

Y/n can’t help but wonder if this was actually about plants as she stared at Wednesday’s side profile. The girl beside her was textbook weird, but she was undeniably beautiful, something about her drew Y/n in.

“Nothing a weed wacker couldn’t fix.” Wednesday continues.

“You can most certainly try.” Bianca says in a faux sweet tone.

“This is definitely not about flowers.” Y/n says to no one in particular, and changes her focus to her notebook.

For the remainder of the lesson, she doodles in the margins of her notebook paper. She even doodles a small cat on Wednesday’s paper, who feels an unsettling fondness for the girl sitting beside her.

Y/n sat on the grass next to Enid as she painted on the canoe, Wednesday approached the pair.

“I have to go back to the woods. But Weems has been circling me like a vulture circling a carcass.” Wednesday says, standing over Y/n, addressing Enid.

“And you want to return to the scene of a crime that didn't happen? Enid asks, not looking away from her artwork.

“I have beekeeping club this afternoon, I need you as a decoy.” Wednesday explains.

“Sorry, two strikes.” Enid scrunches up her nose, “I’m busy, and bees totally creep me out.”

“Why don’t you ask Thing?” Y/n asks, tilting her head to look at Wednesday who looks down at her.

“Oh you can’t because he’s mad at you.” Enid says before Wednesday can speak.

“Why’s he mad? He’s the one who screwed up with Rowan.” Wednesday questions.

“All I know is that we spent an hour giving each other manis, and he really opened up. He feels like you don’t respect him as a person.” Enid explains.

“Well technically, he is only a hand.” Wednesday looks at Enid.

“Wednesday!” Y/n scolds from the ground.

“He’s your family! And he would do anything for you. Go apologize and I’ll reconsider helping you.” Enid suggests as Wednesday walks off to, presumably, find the appendage.

“You gave Thing a mani, but not me?” Y/n suddenly asked.

“We talked about you too, you have grown very fond of Wednesday Addams.” Enid says.

“What?” Y/n asks, feigning confusion.

“You have a crush on Wednesday.” Enid repeats in a sing-songy voice.

“Shut up, I will drain you of all of your blood.” Y/n threatens.

Y/n didn’t know what about Wednesday drew her in so much, maybe it was her dark eyes, or the way she said whatever was on her mind not caring about what others thought. What she didn’t know was that Wednesday was having an internal battle of her own about the same feelings.

#wednesday addams x reader #wednesday addams #enid sinclair #wednesday #wednesday 2022 #wednesday x reader #midnights wip fics #midnights fics #mine #wednesday addams x fem reader #wednesday series #wednesday netflix #wednesday imagines #wednesday show

2K notes · View notes

bebx · 7 months

Note

what other guys?!!!!

Is Loki jealous?

spoilers for loki series season 2 episode 1

skssksksk I mean all jokes aside, I believe loki was just teasing mobius because he could tell mobius deadass forgot his time with o.b. except that he came here to ask for a favor 400 years ago and never paid a visit again until now (but was too polite to admit it / didn’t want to hurt o.b.’s feelings) in that scene.

that being said, I do believe loki can definitely get jealous, especially with all his issues growing up where he’s always an outcast one, always having to seek approval in order to make himself seen. so I think if mobius were to show a new variant — who was in the position loki used to be in, aka an inmate — the same attention he showed loki when loki first got to the tva, we’d definitely see a jealous loki there.

286 notes · View notes

starsworldd · 1 year

Text

8𝚝𝚑, 9𝚝𝚑 𝚊𝚗𝚍 10𝚝𝚑 𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 (𝚠𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚎 𝚜𝚒𝚐𝚗𝚜)

this series will be broken up into 3 posts since this is a pretty large topic

i also want to give a disclaimer: this is a relatively new and experimental topic for me so i apologize in advance if my takes or observations don’t resonate as well as other my posts <3

•·.·''·.·••·.·''·.·••·.·''·.·••·.·''·.·•

aries rising: ⚡️

scorpio 8th house - you fear(ed) and/or struggled with things regarding destruction, inheritance, death, self-transformation, and jealousy. this could also mean that you struggled with obsession of some sort.

saggitarius 9th house - how did you cope with the destruction? traveling, philosophy, learning, going outside of your comfort zone/people, religion, teaching, and truth might’ve been things that helped you

capricorn 10th house - how did you ultimately establish yourself in the world with these things? with the destruction and now with your beliefs, you use these things to become a responsible, reliable, independent person who can make their own bounds and rules; basically being your own boss hehe

taurus rising: 💖

saggitarius 8th house - this might indicate someone who struggled with beliefs or struggled to access optimism, branching out of topics/people outside of those in their comfort zone

capricorn 9th house - establishing boundaries, rules, learning from authority figures, (in context, this may be more prevalent to college/university?) becoming self-reliable, and working hard in order to access your beliefs, faith, expansion, and optimism

aquarius 10th house - you establish yourself as someone who can go beyond what is conventional; you distinguish yourself as someone who can make breakthroughs and create new paths for humanity. from having traumatic events regarding optimism and opportunity to becoming a person who is KNOWN as the opportunity and progress

gemini rising: 🫧

capricorn 8th house - fear or trauma surrounding themes of authority, structure, rules, and boundaries. maybe it was hard for you to access your ambition and your own structures and boundaries if that makes sense?

aquarius 9th house - how did you cope with these traumas? social media may have opened your doors, maybe creating your own way of doing things instead of those imposed by others was your way of getting by. helping others, making new friends and connections + humanitarian efforts may have also been a significant part of your uplifting

pisces 10th house - you may be known as an artist of some kind; you may make yourself known as an elusive type of person. you strive to be known as an accepting, all-loving, artistic person who is full of endless creativity and compassion for others with no boundaries or rules. you went from fearing rules to realizing you don’t need rules <3

cancer rising: 💫

aquarius 8th house - definitely scared of being an outcast or being weird. scared of being singled out/embarrassing or had trouble accessing and accepting the part of yourself that actually makes you cool and unique

pisces 9th house - maybe you used art or music as a way to help you. religion is definitely possible here i think. learning how to be more compassionate and accepting of all the mysterious and weird things and people out there is ultimately your way of helping yourself out of this difficult time; less judgement more compassion <3

aries 10th house - now that you’ve learned to accept yourself for all the things that you are, you radiate confidence and self-assertion. you are a trail-blazer!!! you make yourself known as someone who goes after what they want and isn’t afraid of being unapologetically themselves. truly an inspiration :)

thank you for reading! let me know if you like this series or not :>

620 notes · View notes

sebbyisland · 9 months

Note

This is a weird question but you have good vibes so do you know any good shoujos for beginners? If you dont then just delete this lol

OH this is the best question i have ever received! Thank you! I hope this can be a helpful resource for you or anyone else interested in getting into shojo!!!

I’m gonna define “Good Beginner Shojo” as stories with an interesting premise, strong narrative(? this is VERY subjective sorry?), and also lacks some of the more squicky/uncomfortable tropes: predatory romantic relationships, borderline sexual assault as flirting, or incest**. This list is split between short and long series. I’ll also try to keep the genres diverse! These are all stories I’ve personally read/watched and are popular enough that they’ve been officially translated in different languages.

Good Shojo for Beginners, Short Term Investment

Princess Tutu: A dark fairy-tale-esque anime about a young girl who studies ballet in the day and fights demons at night using ballet + emotional intelligence. The deeper plot is that the entire cast are treated like puppets by a grand and elusive storymaster, and they all must struggle to escape being doomed by the narrative. There’s a lot of references to Swan Lake, the girl keeps getting turned into a duck, many emotions are felt. Complete, one anime season.

From Me to You: shy young girl is a social outcast due to misunderstandings that blew out of proportion. She receives an olive branch from a boy in her class and this gives her the confidence to start making friends and support herself!! The aforementioned boy is also her love interest and is endearingly too flustered to make a move. high school drama ensues. Two anime seasons, manga complete ~120 chapters.

Magic Knight Rayearth: three girls get transported to a fantasy world and have to learn to work together in giant magic mecha suits order to rescue a trapped princess + save the world. They make friends along the way as they try to fight monsters. One anime season, manga complete ~30 chapters.

Kase-san: sapphic high school romance with a jock girl and gardener girl who plants flowers near her practice field… they are both kinda shy and build up confidence as their bond gets deeper. it’s just 100% fluff. anime OVA and complete manga, ~15 chapters, there's also a sequel-series though

Library Wars: what it says on the tin. militant librarians fight the government to stop book censorship. the story follows a soldier in training: a reckless young woman who dreams of meeting the "prince" who inspired her to take up arms to protect books. this is more of an action-comedy than a political drama, so don't expect too much from the plot, but it's fun to watch our failgirl get put into situations. one anime season, 73 chapter manga, live action movie. you'll be okay just watching the anime but obvi the manga expands more on the characters + world building.

Orange: high school girl receives letters from her future self that tell her that a boy from her friend group is planning on committing suicide. She works with her friends to prevent this from happening, but things are definitely more complicated than they seem. An emotional drama, discussion of mental health including depression and suicidal thoughts. It’s a really heartfelt series. One anime season, ~38 chapter manga. (originally published in a shoujo magazine, then switched to seinen probably for marketing reasons.*)

In the Clear Moonlit Dusk: Masculine studious girl feels distant from her classmates who idolize her as a “prince,” but then she catches the attention of the local sparkly bad boy “prince.” An innocent, fluffy high school romance about a prince and her prince. SO many sparkly anime eyes, if that's you're thing. It’s a simple plot, but I enjoy the execution a lot. Ongoing, currently ~27 chapters

Tokyo Mew Mew: Captain Planet but magical girl. group of teen girls get accidentally infused with the DNA of endangered animal species + magic and transform into a hero squad to fight aliens trying to destroy earth's resources! Their cover for their secret headquarters is a maid café, where they all work part time. Manga complete ~30 chapters, anime adaption complete + one season of anime reboot.

Good Shojo for Beginners, Long Term Investment

Yona of the Dawn: historic fantasy setting, coming of age for a naive young princess who grows into a capable leader by abandoning her sheltered life within palace walls for…plot reasons (major spoiler in 1st chapter LOL). there’s a slow but thorough exploration of the political issues in her kingdom, i would say the world-building is an unexpected strength of the story. She’s supported by her hot magical anime boy harem, but the story emphasizes found family dynamics over the romcom. there’s still a primary love interest established early on, it’s just VERY slow burn. one anime season, manga ongoing 300+ chapters

Kageki Shojo!!: Follow the adventures of an all-girls vocational school to train to become members of the historic Kouka all-girls musical theater troupe, where women play roles for all genders. The protagonist is a girl who grew up watching Kouka performances and never lost her sense of childlike wonder. Theater doesn’t come naturally for her, but she’s also very talented. Fun cast, lightly discusses social issues as they come up with sincerity and care. Very reminiscent of 80s shojo. One anime season, Ongoing manga 90+ chapters

My Love Mix-Up! what if there was an ACTUAL high school love triangle. boy likes girl who likes a different boy, but that boy is interested in the aforementioned boy. what if this was all a misunderstanding and actually boy and girl like the same boy. what if that was also a misunderstanding. have you ever been a dumbass high school student trying your best. protagonist is bi king. 120~ chapters, no anime, but a live action show.

Ouran High School Host Club: ah yes a classic romcom. girl gets a scholarship to an elite high school and accidentally falls into debt on her first day to the school host club (boys who professionally flirt with girls during lunch). To pay off her debt, she pretends to be a guy at school so she can work as a host. The comedy is a blend of making fun of shojo tropes and the disaster personalities that make up the supporting cast. it's funnier the more shojo you have read/watched before this one. one anime season, 200+ chapters, complete

BL Metamorphosis: elderly widow accidentally reads a BL manga and gets invested, she bonds with a high school girl who works at the bookstore about it. Very cute parallels between her late husband and the fictional love story. Depicts fandom culture without normalizing the creepy and invasive BL fan behavior. Reminds me a lot of spending time with my grandma, which makes me want to cry.~90 chapters.

Sailor Moon: I know i know everyone is going to tell you this but it's actually a classic for a reason. (Sapphic!!!) magical girls traveling across space and time? Fighting evil with the power of friendship and love? Cute character designs? It's a good time. Protagonist is a total brat (normal 14yr old!!!!) AND a good hero. I'm putting this last because I wanted the other stories to have a chance, but it's honestly so good like please. There technically an inappropriate age gap relationship but it's like the disney movie Tangled where you don't realize it until you literally look up their ages. 150+ chapters, complete.

**When I first read shojo, I was a very young child, basically the target audience, but there are things I read as a child that would make me feel a bit disgusted to read now. Knowing this, I want people who are new to shojo to make informed decisions. There are problematic tropes present in MANY well loved stories--and they are well-loved for a reason!!! These complexities are part of reading and enjoying fiction. I've excluded some of my all-time favorite stories from my childhood thanks to the criteria I set as good "beginner" shojo--but I also don't want to contribute to a world that divides stories as "problematic" and "unproblematic" as if such a binary exists. Ultimately, this list is just based on my PERSONAL taste, what I deem more comfortable to read than other stories, so I can't guarantee that you'll have the same experience. I can't even promise I would have the same experience re-reading some of these, since the stuff that made me comfortable/uncomfortable in the past has changed in the present. It's all very subjective. That's why I'm intentionally specific about the tropes I've excluded. Note that this doesn't mean the stories listed are not littered with their own flaws. I hope this disclaimer didn't seem too excessive, haha.

246 notes · View notes

cissyenthusiast010155 · 1 year

Text

Pomegranate Lips Ch 1: Morning Cup of Black & Blush ~Sub!Larissa Weems xFem Fallen Angel!Reader

New series! Pomegranate lips, Fallen Angel/Demon reader- Larissa falling for teacher!reader; also like a point that appearances aren’t reality, that reader isn’t necessarily evil…

Link to Part 2… & Part 3

Mommy…Master List

Prompt-List

Warnings: sub!larissa, demon!reader, more to come

Beginnings of a series…

Enjoy (;

Larissa had gone to the Weathervane like any other morning to grab her regular, like any morning.

This time with 2 shots of espresso because she had just found out that Morticia Addams’ daughter would be joining Nevermore in the upcoming semester…

She was waiting for her coffee, when someone entered the shop.

Clicking of heels, confident walk, and dark pomegranate lips…

Larissa felt magnetically attracted to the mysterious woman who had just entered the coffee shop. She wasn’t from Jericho, that Larissa could be sure of…

Swaying hips, light aura, yet a seemingly dark soul lurking underneath…

Larissa gulped. She didn’t get intimidated often but damn…

“I’d like a coffee please. Black.” you ordered at the register.

Dark color scheme, authoritative voice, oddly outcast like…

You walked over to the pick up side of the counter where your eyes raked over a tall, poised, blonde woman. Aesthetic almost completely opposite from your own…

Yet… you couldn’t shake the feeling that your souls were flipped. She appeared dark and dominant when her soul screamed light and soft…

“You must be new to Jericho.” Larissa matter of factly stated, trying to keep her voice steady and her legs from the slightest tremble.

A light smirk graced your lips, making Larissa’s stomach roll over, “Just stopping in.” you told her.

“Really? Where are you headed?”

“Hell.” you said with a wink and a flash of a wicked smile.

“You’re an outcast?” Larissa asked, becoming more and more entrenched in this conversation.

“Excuse me?” You quipped back.

Larissa’s face went red.

“No, sorry let me explain.” Larissa quickly tried to recover from her slip of words, which you find absolutely amusing, “My name is Larissa Weems and I run a school called Nevermore, which is for outcasts- outcasts meaning people who aren’t fully human…”

“Ah I see…” you mused, “Well then, Larissa…” you played with her name in her mouth, you decided at that moment that you wanted to keep it in there…

“I am indeed an outcast. Daughter of Lilith, Y/N Black.” you said with a smirk as you observed Larissa having absolutely forgotten about your coffee.

“Your coffee.” You indicated to the counter, watching her blush in embarrassment at having forgotten.

“Ah yes…! Well Ms. Black, If you are interested, we could always use another teacher at Nevermore.” Larissa said, cheeks flushed, hoping to dear god that you’d say yes…

“What’s in it for me?” you purred, already ready to pounce on the idea, to pounce on the marvelous woman in front of you…

This caught Larissa even more off guard. “Um… I’m sorry…?” She almost chocked on her coffee at your comment.

You stepped into her personal space, and lowered your tone, “How about…” you mused, while tracing the neck outline of Larissa’s dress, “A coffee date with the principal of Nevermore?”

Larissa gulped yet again.

“Staff relationships are…” Larissa was trying desperately to keep herself together, “they are frowned upon…”

You grinned, Larissa staring at your luscious deep red lips, “Well… I’ve never been one for following the rules…” you quipped back.

Larissa breath faltered, your presence was doing worlds to her…

“Ok then. If you come work at Nevermore, I’ll agree to one coffee date.”

“Excellent.” You purred and left with your coffee and wink towards the mess of a woman you were leaving behind.

Larissa looked at her coffee and saw a number scribbled onto it with a winking face. She blushed again.

God, that woman was going to be her unraveling…

~~~

Part 2 right here 😏

And Part 3 here…

Larissa Weems Masterlist

647 notes · View notes

cleopheanne · 19 days

Text

Ashlesha, "to entwine, the coiling, the embrace "

The power to inflict and remove poison

Ashlesha nakshatra main deity is Shesha, the snake king, it is also associated with the coiled snakes of the kundlini, naga, the cup of hygia, the hydra.

The serpent symbolism is very proeminent in ashlesha and it's the reason of it's association with medecine, the sacred feminine (also the cat) and so many other occult subjects omg.

I find that the path of ashlesha natives consists of transforming poison into medicine. Many of these people had to endure great abuse at the hands of others : they were poisoned. However to free themselves, they have to transform it into medecine, find a way for it to benefit them in order for the poison to heal them instead of killing them, similar to the way the venom of the snake can kill but also heal.

Marylin Monroe, Tina Turner, Lana del Rey, The movie "Precious" are all great examples of this reality, as Hidden octave indicated in their video on ashlesha.

PS: Doing research on Bharani and it's relation to ancient godesses led me to all of the others outcast nakshatras: bharani, ashlesha, vishakha and Shravana. (so Claire was right). I think that I'm going to do a series on these 4 nakshatras and how they relate ultimatly to these ancient times where goddesses were the start of everything. So I'm gonna need some time to reorgarnize all of my informations in a more coherent manner. 🥲😗

53 notes · View notes

emeraldspiral · 10 months

Text

Invader Zim is a queer show, this is an indisputable fact.

The entire Irken race is canonically aroace.

Even among the Irken race where being aroace is the equivalent of being straight, Zim is still queer. He is in the closet and in deep denial about wanting relationships the rest of his species consider abnormal, like parental love and friendship. He is constantly insisting that “Invaders need no one” but we all see him keeping GIR around even though he messes up his plans more than he helps, or squeezing the cold unfeeling robot arm, or programming Clembrane to think that Dib loves Zim, or in the comics insisting that Prisoner #777 is his friend.

Within the show’s subtext, the main premise is two people who don’t fit in with their respective societies desperately craving recognition and acceptance.

Zim represents the closeted, repressed queer experience. He wears a disguise in public and is constantly putting on performative displays of normalcy and denying that the parts of himself that deviate from social norms exist. Dib meanwhile, is openly “different” and enduring the struggles of not being accepted, respected, or understood, particularly by his family. Part of Zim’s public masking often includes piling on the ridicule Dib deals with in order to deflect attention from his own “abnormality”, which rarely works and only makes it more acceptable for people to shit on both of them.

Literally the first time Zim and Dib meet, Dib identifies Zim on sight and tries to out him, only to get called out on being prejudiced himself. Zim hates Dib for trying to expose and endanger him. But to Dib, Zim is indisputable evidence that he isn’t crazy for believing what he believes and its the rest of the ignorant world who refuse to see the truth who are wrong. Zim’s existence validates Dib’s.

Certain episodes make this theme almost explicit.

In the unfinished episode Mopiness of Doom, Dib pretends to be something he’s not in order to fit in and enjoys the social benefits for awhile but ultimately becomes depressed and realizes he can’t find true happiness without being his authentic self. The subtext isn’t even subtle here, they straight up code Zim and Dib’s unhappiness with their separation like a romantic break-up, ending in a reconciliation that confirms that they feel attachment toward each other.

But that wouldn’t be the first time Zim did an entire episode with gay subtext. The very next episode after Nightmare Begins is Bestest Friend, a story that begins with Zim attempting to dissuade speculation about his single status by recruiting a beard. A beard who happens to be another boy wearing a rainbow shirt, who is part of a group of outcasts. Keef is even explicitly stated by GIR to “love” Zim. In Return of Keef not only is he still crazy about Zim, he becomes fixated on Dib as well, and becomes so excited about the two of them hugging he explodes. That’s the true power of finding solidarity with other gays.

Keef would not be Zim’s only beard in the series either. With Tak, it’s barely even subtext, he straight up dated a girl to "pass” at Skool, not knowing she was doing the same thing.

The show is so gay it’s literally the precursor to Steven Universe. Baby Rebecca Sugar looked at the show, saw the obvious implications of Irken society and Zim’s existence, and then grew up and made her own show based around the idea of unpacking all of that and making the queer subtext explicit text.

#invader zim #zadr #zadf #zim #dib #dib membrane #happy pride month #i don't care if it's july #pride month is the whole summer

374 notes · View notes

almacambiondaughterofsaleos · 10 months

Text

I Am Beginning To Think Stolas Should Have Stuck To His Pilot Personality

youtube

Where he’s actually depicted as an evil demon rather than a misunderstood sadboy who can’t do anything wrong according to the narrative. He also somewhat ties into the business itself by ordering personal hits on people and although he lusts after Blitzo he actually knew what this type of relationship was actually about. He also felt more dominant and actually in control of things. He actually gives more of an aura of an ancient being with great experience instead of the millennial like parent. This version of Stolas felt like a real demon lord instead of a pathetic crybaby who just calls himself a demon and again enforces this world takes place in hell.

Also what was his associates he was talking about. I wonder if in the pilot verse he would have more of a social life among the elites instead of feeling outcasted by Goetia society. He seemed to just be apart of the Goetia social life but still strained from his wife. He could have just been as classist and snobby like his wife, but made an exception for Blitzo because he find him so seduective. I think in some ways it would have been more interesting and again focus more stories on maybe the Goetia secretly doing requests to have people assassinated in the real world. Again so much potential lost.

Again I feel that there was a lot of lost menace from Stolas once it became a series. It’s a feature with this series which is not actually going all the way through with emphasizing these people live in hell. Vivizpop wants to make it palatable who consume this and just want to make hell as just another magical place when it’s supposed to be a place of torment and suffering. It again really robbed us of really good fulfillment out of this series and the product has suffered. And in my opinion, I feel pilot Stolas would have been greater than what we have now.

#stolas #stolas pilot #pilot stolas #helluva boss critical #helluva boss criticism #helluva boss critique #vivziepop critical #vivziepop critique #vivziepop criticism

196 notes · View notes

lady-pug · 11 months

Text

The Bet

Summary: Dustin cannot believe Eddie “The Freak” Munson has a girlfriend (as pretty as Galadriel, no less), and the boys seem to think the same. Max and Robin disagree, arguing that Eddie is, in fact, a catch. They decide to settle things once and for all through a bet.

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Reader

Word count: 4,9k

Warnings: cursing

Notes: I'm absolutely in love with this one, it's honestly my pride and joy (at least so far). The idea for this one came to me during an Invertebrates class (should I have be paying more attention to the class? probably, but I did end up doing well overall in that subject, so). If you spot any mistakes, please feel free to warn me and I'll correct it right away, and feedback is always welcome and appreciated. I hope you truly enjoy this story.

This is part of a series, but most parts can be read as standalones (so far they are published in cronological order, but this will change).

Reader is female, but no physical descriptions provided (other than being gorgeous, that is!)

Next part | Masterlist | Read on AO3

“I call bullshit.”

“Dustin!” El exclaimed.

“There’s no fucking way you have a girlfriend!”

“Dustin.” El gritted her teeth “Don’t be mean.”

“What? I’m just saying” Dustin explained, completely unphased “that out of all the people sitting on this table, he is the least likely to have a girlfriend.”

“The same has been said about you and yet…” Max smirked in that sardonic way of hers, making the others laugh.

“Do not bring Suzie-poo into this!” the boy rolled his eyes, but his shoulders tensed in embarrassment.

Lunch time at Hawkins High was never a quiet affair. More often than not someone, most likely someone from their usual table (even more often than not that someone was Eddie), would be doing something rambunctious that would attract the attention of every other student in the cafeteria. They had all learned to ignore it and fully embraced their nerd/outcast situation, almost always wearing their Hellfire Club t-shirts. Today, Dustin was the one drawing attention to them, fervorously denying what he had just been told.

“Come on, people.” he opened his arms, gesturing around the table “Let’s face it. Other than Mike, Lucas and I, who already have girlfriends, the most probable person here to get a girl would definitely be Robin.”

“Ouch, Henderson,” Steve punched the boy next to him on the shoulder, with a little more force than necessary “uncalled for. And besides, all she does all day is mope about Vickie, without ever making a move.”

“Uh, actually” Robin piped up “I just asked Vickie out, we’re gonna watch Letter to Brezhnev this weekend.”

Steve groaned, while Dustin’s face conveyed something akin to ‘I told ya’.

“Actually, Eddie, I’ve been meaning to ask, if this whole thing between me and Vickie does work out, can I bring her to one of our sessions?”

“Be my guest.” the man, who was currently being talked about as if he wasn’t even there, answered, his smile never weavering.

“Guys, we’re losing focus here.” Dustin clapped his hands “Let’s get back to the matter at hand: Eddie, your so called girlfriend.”

“What about her?”

“Tell us more about her.”

Eddie’s smile grew impossibly bigger.

“She’s everything my humble heart could ever ask for.”

“Humble, yeah, right.” Steve scoffed, earning him a slap on the back of the head from Robin.

“She is immeasurably intelligent, infinitely kind and would never hesitate to help those in need. Not to mention, she is the most beautiful creature to have ever walked this Earth.”

“How beautiful are we talking?” Lucas asked.

“Galadriel level of beauty.”

A bunch of ‘wow’s and even an impressed whistle, courtesy of Robin herself, sounded from the group.

“What does that even mean?” asked Steve. Dustin narrowed his eyes at the older boy and didn’t even bother with an answer, before addressing his DM again.

"Bullshit! What’s her name?”

Eddie’s once dreamy smile turned mischievous.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Dustin scoffed.

“There is our answer. You are making her up.”

“No, I’m not.” Eddie said, a strange calmness in his voice.

“Yes, you are.”

“Why would I make her up?”

“I dunno, you are our DM, you literally come up with the most creative stories as a hobby, which, might I add, might as well be your side job at this point!”

“Why have you never introduced her to us?” Eleven asked, only slightly offended that her new friend hadn’t deemed them worthy of knowing the inner mechanisms of his private life.

Some people shook their heads in agreement.

“She works at the time of our campaigns.”

“How convenient.” Lucas exclaimed.

“If you really want to meet her so badly I’ll bring her around some day.” Eddie shrugged.

"How about this?” Dustin lowered his voice conspiratorially “10 bucks she’s made up and you’re bullshitting all of us.”

“Dustin!” Max hissed.

“I’m in.” Lucas said.

“Lucas!”

“Guys, don’t you think this is a little… cruel? Making a bet at someone’s expense?” El hesitantly pointed out.

Everyone looked in Eddie’s direction at the head of the table, whose face didn’t give anything away.

“Nah.” all the boys, excluding Will and surprisingly including Eddie, said.

“I’m with Dustin.” Mike said, to which El glared at him “What? Easiest money I’ll ever make in my life.”

“Make it 20 that not only she’s real, but she’s also gorgeous.” Robin chimed in.

“Thank you Buckley.” Eddie bowed his head at her.

“Seriously?” Steve almost shouted.

“What, Eddie is a pretty nice guy. If I wasn’t into…” she trailed off, glaring at Steve next to her as he mouthed the word ‘boobies’ “other things,” she emphasized “I’d definitely date him.”

“You are so on, Rob.” Steve indeed shouted this time “You’re going down.”

“El?” Mike asked his girlfriend.

“I don’t know. I’m not really comfortable doing this.”

“Me neither.” Will agreed.

“I’m with Robin on this one.” it was Max's turn to say.

“Alright!” Eddie grabbed a pencil and a rumpled sheet of paper (math’s homework, they noted) “It’s two against four: Buckley and Mayfield vs Harrington, Henderson, Sinclair and Wheeler. Should I mark 20 bucks for everyone?”

The boys, who originally opened the bet at $10 each, all agreed.

“So that makes the final prize a total of… $120.” he eyed all the people on the table with a mysterious grin, his voice morphing into the one he used while performing as Dungeon Master during their campaigns “Do you, my mighty Fellowship, accept this challenge?”

Everyone looked at Dustin, the one who had come up with all that mess, to seal their next step. He stood up and extended his hand for Eddie to shake.

“Hell yeah.”

“I’m telling you, there is absolutely no way in this world, and in the Upside Down, that Eddie is telling the truth.”

Dustin was leading the group around downtown Hawkins on their way to the movie theater for a showing of Top Gun.

“Dustin, man, don’t you think this is going a little too far?” Will asked, a worried look crossing his features.

“I mean, why does he feel the need to lie to us like that?” Lucas interrupted “Not having a girlfriend is not something to be ashamed of.”

“Tell that to Steve.” Dustin smirked, high fiving his buddies, to which El, Will and Max rolled their eyes.

“Maybe because he isn’t lying?” Max said, crossing her arms, annoyed “Has that ever crossed your minds? And that maybe he hasn’t introduced her because you are simply too immature to handle it?”

Mike, Lucas and especially Dustin had the decency to look sheepish for a fraction of a second before diving right back on their shenanigans.

“I mean who in their right minds would date Eddie of all people?” Dustin changed the subject, making Max wave her arms incredulously, giving up.

“Why is it so hard to believe someone might be interested in Eddie?” El asked, half trying to defend her friend and half genuinely curious.

“Well, for one he’s an outcast.” Lucas said.

“So are we all.” Max retorted.

“He’s a freak with a very peculiar set of interests.” Mike gave his input.

“That doesn’t really mean anything, we all enjoy D&D and rock music as well.”

“And he’s on his way to have to do the senior year for the fourth time.” Dustin finished.

“Oh, come on, give the guy a break!” Max snapped “You know what he went through this year, it kinda makes sense that school wasn't his top priority.”

El nodded, agreeing.

“Besides” she said, a tilt to her head indicating she actually meant it “Eddie is a really nice guy and anyone would be lucky to date him.”

“Would you?”

“Would I what?”

“Date Eddie.” Mike told her “Would either of you date Eddie given the chance.”

Eleven and Max shared a look, not even hesitating before they answered.

“Yes.”

“Absolutely.”

“What?!” the boys asked in disbelief.

“He’s a really nice guy!” Max said, linking arms with El.

“He’s really funny.” El complemented, adding a skip to their step.

“And he’s pretty good looking.”

“His hair is cool.”

“And have you seen his tattoos?”

“He’s bitchin’.” El finished, smiling.

Mike and Lucas looked at each other, only slightly worried, while Dustin scoffed, shaking his head in disappointment.

Arriving at the theater, they went to buy the tickets.

“Okay, let’s entertain this crazy idea for a second and say she is real.” Dustin simply couldn’t let the subject go “What do you guys think she’s like?”

“Like him to some degree, otherwise they wouldn’t be together.” Lucas rushed in “They have to have a lot in common.”

After a moment of silence Mike spoke up.

“I could see Eden dating him.”

“Eden?” Dustin asked, perplexed “Suzie’s older sister? When did you- you know what? I don’t even wanna know.”

“But she’s dating Argyle now.” Will pointed out.

“True.”

They finally arrived at the snack booth, a familiar face behind the counter that they knew pretty well.

“Hey, look who it is! My favorite person in the whole world!” Dustin called your name very enthusiastically, a gigantic, very dramatic smile plastered on his face while he leaned his forearm over the counter “Whats up?”

“Flattery will get you nowhere, Henderson.” you rolled your eyes, already used to the boy’s behavior.

“But why?” he whined, head thrown back dramatically “You always give El an extra piece of candy every single time, how come she’s your favorite?”

“Whaaat? I do no such thing.” you retorted, sending a conspiratory wink in El's way “Even suggesting that is an offense to my honor.”

“Ugh, I’m so sorry, miss ‘do-no-wrong.”

You giggled. No matter how much it seemed to annoy you, you absolutely loved those kids and would do everything for them.

“Same as always?”

“You know us too well.” Mike answered.

While you went about preparing the kids’ snacks, they (read Dustin, Mike and Lucas) quickly created a game out of people watching, much to the annoyance of the rest of the group.

“What about her?” Lucas pointed out a girl, plain clothes and nothing truly remarkable about her appearance.

“Nah, they don’t seem like they really match.” Mike countered back before pointing to a stuck up looking girl who seemed annoyed to just exist “How about that one?”

The other boys looked the girl up and down before shaking their heads.

Dustin perked up when his eyes landed on someone coming out of a showing of Poltergeist II.

“What about her?!” he pointed out a woman in darker clothes, excitement lacing his voice “She seems like she would be perfect for him. Look, she even likes horror films!”

Max rolled her eyes so hard they almost popped out of the sockets.

“If he was interested in older women he would be drooling over Mike’s mom.” the corner of her lips lifted in a tiny smirk “How did you describe her? ‘Smoking hot like chicken wings’?”

Mike’s face turned red as he turned to face Dustin.

“What did you say about my mom?!” his next move would have surely resulted in an immeasurable amount of pain for Dustin (and probably a trip to the hospital) had you not intervened at that very moment.

“Alright! Here you go.” you started putting the snacks over the counter “Three large popcorns, one with extra butter, two large sodas, two medium sodas,” you then proceeded to hand the items one by one “Blue Raspberry Airheads for Will, Cry Baby Tears for Max, Gummi Bears for Lucas, Licorice Rockies for Dustin, Watermelon and Cherry Nerds for Mike and last, but not least, a packet of Spree for El.”

As you were sliding the packet towards El, the girl noted that you had given her a Caramello bar, hidden under the other candy. That had been something you had been doing ever since she had first stopped by the theater you work at; she had been mesmerized at the assortment of sweets on display and simply could not choose one. You had overheard her telling her boyfriend that she had never tried any of those, and you had made it your life’s mission to give her as much candy as you could without getting busted by your boss just so she could figure out her favorite kind. So far, nothing had beaten Spree. She smiled at you, grateful for what you’ve been doing for her.

“Hey!” Dustin also seemed to have noticed the interaction “I saw that!”

You and El looked at each other, suppressing a smile.

“Saw what?” Eleven asked, a deadpan look on her face that only made Dustin more exasperated.

After paying and balancing all their food, the kids started heading towards the movie rooms. As they were walking away you called after them.

“Good luck trying to defeat Lareth the Beautiful!” you waved and then added under your breath so they could not hear from the distance “You’re gonna need it.”

“Thanks!” they all responded in unison, not giving it a second though.

After a moment of playful banter, Eleven decided to address something that had been on her mind since they got to the movie theater.

“What about her?”

The others shot her a confused look.

“What about who?” Will asked.

She nodded her head back at the counter where you were wiping out fallen kernels and elaborated, though it ended up sounding more like a question.

“As Eddie’s girlfriend?”

The boys who were in on the bet looked at each other before bursting out in hysterical laughter.

“Her?!” Lucas sputtered out “Dating Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson?! Seriously El?”

“Little Miss Perfect, Goodie-Two-Shoes over there?” Dustin added “Who works at the nursing home during the week and volunteers at the animal shelter every other weekend?!”

“There is no way!” Mike doubled over.

“Never in a million years!”

“Absolutely not!”

El looked towards Will and Max for support, who only shrugged, as if having given up discussing the subject. But she didn’t miss the quiet look of agreement she saw crossing their faces.

On the other side of town, a similar conversation would take place only a few hours later.

“I’m telling you, Rob” Steve said, placing a recently returned copy of The Empire Strikes Back in its respective place on the shelf “if I can’t keep a girl interested in me for more than a week, there’s no way Munson has a girlfriend!”

Robin hummed, rearranging the collection of Planet of the Apes in the correct order.

“That’s not saying much, you know that, right?” she snickered.

He rolled his eyes at what she was implying.

“Let the guy be, Steve.” she moved on to the next row “If he says he has a girlfriend, then he has a girlfriend. I don’t know why it’s so hard to believe that.”

“We go to the same school as him, right? I don’t know if you noticed but girls aren’t exactly throwing themselves at him.”

“I don’t know if you noticed, dingus, but he’s almost three years older than us. He’s supposed to have graduated by now. I’m pretty sure his girlfriend was in his original class or something.”

“But we were freshmen when he was a junior!” he threw his arms up “I’m pretty sure we would have noticed if he started getting cozy with someone!”

“Steve,” the girl gave him a sad, almost resentful smile “you didn’t even notice me before we started working together last year. You only had eyes for Nancy.”

Steve was quiet, for he knew she was right.

“That and you let those two dickheads Tommy and Carol infiltrate your mind and hypnotize you into becoming a jock!” she tried lighting up the mood, knowing she had hit a sensitive spot for him, which seemed to work as he chuckled.

Their bonding was interrupted by the sound of the little bell over the door, signaling a new client had just come in. Robin started the whole customer service speech while walking slowly towards the counter.

“Hi, welcome to Family Video, how may we help you?” she stopped short once she realized it was you “Hi! Oh my god, I haven’t seen you in a while, how are you?”

“Hey, Robin! I’ve been good, a little busy but what’s new?” both of you giggled, Robin with a bit more flare than necessary.

Steve watched the interaction with a strange kind of fascination.

“What can I get for you today?”

“Let’s see…” you tapped your chin, deep in thought before asking with a hopeful tone “Is Lady and The Tramp available?”

“I got it!” Steve typed it down on the computer “Lucky for you, m’lady, it is.”

Robin stared at him as if he had grown a second head while he retrieved the tape.

“Can I get a second one? I really wanted to watch The Three Caballeros, but I think it’s kind of mandatory to watch Saludos Amigos first.”

The girl checked in and sure enough, it was available. While she checked you out, Steve was busy putting your tapes in a bag.

“Make sure to drop by more often.” Robin said “It’s been so long, we have to catch up eventually!”

“Yeah, come hang out with us sometime!” Steve added, immediately wincing at his own lack of subtleness.

“Will do.” you waved at them and walked out of the store.

Robin slowly turned towards her friend.

“What was that?”

“I don’t know! I kind of panicked!” he rubbed a hand over his face “Who was that anyway?”

“Duh,” Robin stated your name “only the smartest, sweetest and most beautiful girl in school in forever? Straight A’s, always super nice to everyone, incredibly well dressed, kind of a nerd, but no one gave her too much of a hard time?”

Steve continued to stare blankly at her. She sighed, giving up.

“I had the biggest crush on her in sophomore year while she tutored me in math, but she left the following year and I almost flunked without her help.”

Steve shrugged, not really remembering you at all.

“Now that I come to think of it, she used to hang out with Eddie quite a lot back then.”

“No!” he stared at the door you had recently left through “Do you think…?”

“I don’t know!” she shrugged, a seemingly victorious smile spreading across her face “Maybe?”

They stood in silence for a second.

“There is no way a girl as sweet and as hot as her would be interested in Munson of all people!”

“Come on, Steve, that’s so mean!”

Almost a month had passed since that fateful lunch break. Lucas and Mike eventually settled down and forgot about the whole ordeal, but Steve and, especially, Dustin were relentless. Everyday they would bring up the subject of Eddie’s girl, to the point where the other members of Hellfire Club were starting to get annoyed.

“So, Eddie,” Dustin started accusingly, “where is that imaginary girlfriend of yours today?”

Everyone groaned.

“How many times do I have to tell you this?” Eddie rolled his eyes and rubbed both hands down his cheeks “She’s working!”

“At night? In the middle of the week?” Steve added, suspicion is his voice.

“She’s fresh off training so she gets the worst shifts.” Eddie explained, getting kind of tired of the matter.

“Hey, Steve?”

“Yeah, Henderson?”

“You know what that sounds to me?”

“What?”

“A bullshit excuse!” Dustin shouted, pointing his finger in Eddie’s face.

“Uhm excuse me.” a voice sounded from the end of the table “If you two old ladies have finished your daily 3 pm gossip over the window, can we go back to the game? How are we supposed to defeat Lareth if all you do is bicker all day long?!” Erica, who occasionally joined the party if she didn’t have too much homework, piped up, annoyed.

Dustin mumbled, clearly not done talking about it, when an idea struck him all of a sudden, making him punch the table, rattling all of the metal figurines.

“What the fuck was that for, Dustin?!” Max asked, startled, a look of angered surprise on her face that matched that of almost everyone there.

“S-sorry.” he answered, only slightly embarrassed “I-I’m just- excited to maybe finally defeat Lareth?”

He winced, not sounding the least bit convincing even to himself, but the others seemed to have bought it for now.

After the game, in which they hadn’t, in fact, managed to defeat Lareth the Beautiful and frankly almost got all killed trying to do so, Dustin pulled Erica aside, out of earshot from the others, especially Eddie.

“What do you want?” she hissed.

“I need a favor.”

“What makes you think I’d help you?” she crossed her arms petulantly.

“Please?”

She sighed and nodded for him to go on.

“I need you to spy on Eddie for me.”

“Uh, why?”

“We have a bet. He says he has a girlfriend, I think it’s bullshit. Steve, Mike and Lucas agree with me, while Robin and Max, the fools, think this girl is actually real.”

“And what do you need me for?”

“Follow him around, I don’t know. He would never suspect, you’re not part of the bet. Just try and prove that he’s actually lying to all of us”

She thought for a long moment.

“What’s in it for me?”

“What?” he squeaked.

“What’s in it for me?” she repeated with a smug expression “What do I get out of helping you?”

Dustin sighed.

“You can keep my share.”

Erica’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped open.

“Honestly? At this point I just want to prove I’m right. Join in, make the total amount larger and you can keep both yours and my share of it.”

She extended a hand for him to shake.

“It’s a pleasure doing business with you.” and she skipped away to catch up with Lucas.

Dustin hadn’t heard from Erica since their conversation and his faith in her was beginning to waver. A couple more weeks went by before the girl finally joined the Club once more.

“Eddie.” was the first thing she said the minute she sat down in front of the board game “I heard there is a bet of sorts going around.”

“Yes there is, Sinclair the Second.” the man answered and, having a feeling where the conversation was going, grabbed the paper he previously wrote all the names (and it looked somehow even more crumpled than before).

“I’d like to join in.” she said, a large grin on her face.

“It’s $20 per person-” Eddie started explaining before she cut him off.

“Actually I’d like to add 30 bucks.” she said decisively.

Most people around the table looked at each other, impressed and apprehensive at the same time. Dustin on the other hand, nodded victoriously towards his buddies.

“Alright, I have to admit you’re bold, Sinclair the Second.” Eddie did the math “So that increases the final prize to $150. Which side are you joining?”

Erica looked towards Dustin, who discreetly nodded at her.

“I think she’s real.”

Dustin’s jaw dropped.

“Wh-aat?!” his voice cracked from surprise.

“I just don’t see why Eddie would lie, that’s all.” she shrugged nonchalantly.

Dustin shot her a murderous look while Eddie scribbled down her name alongside Max and Robin’s.

“That sure is a good thing. Because she was just talking about requesting to change shifts with a coworker who’s said something about wanting to take more care of his cat during the day.” Eddie finished writing with a flurish “So you might get to meet her pretty soon.”

“Yeah, right.” Lucas snickered, which prompted an elbow to his ribs from Max.

The game proceeded without much hitch after that. After the fiasco that was trying to defeat Lareth the Beautiful the last time everyone was a little apprehensive in trying to take him out again, that was, if they could even find where he lived. But, in a move of sheer luck, Eleven managed to figure out his hideout after scoring 17 while searching an abandoned moathouse. Now all they had to do was attack.

“But I must warn you, my fellow adventurers,” Eddie spoke, his low voice smooth and mysterious while his eyes roamed the face of everyone in the room “every action has consequences. Think through before you strike, for you might not come out of this alive.”

El, who had been feeling brave after a succession of favorably high rolls (which may or may not have had something to do with her powers when she felt she was going to score too low, but you’d never get that out of her as long as she lived), decided to speak up.

“I say we go for it.” everyone stared at her wide eyed “What? We had a lot of time to prepare, everyone has their health full and all their best weapons… we already lost once, what’s the worst that could happen?”

“She’s right.” Lucas agreed, grabbing the dice “Who wants to start?”

“I will.” Steve decided “I’m the weakest of us all, that way if something happens to me you still have a chance to escape and get stronger.”

“No, Steve.” Robin argued.

“No one gets left behind.” Max concluded “I’ll go first.”

“No, I will.” Mike tried ripping the dice out of Max’s hands.

“Come on, let me go first.” El tried to speak, but suddenly the metal doors squaked open, silencing everyone in the room.

Shyly, someone poked their head inside.

“Hey!” you spoke from your place by the door “I hope I’m not too late?”

Eddie practically jumped out of his throne.

“Sweetheart!” he boomed, opening his arms “You are just in time! They are just about to face Lareth the Beautiful.”

“Again?” you asked, fully stepping inside the room.

“For good this time.” he answered with a mirthful smirk. “What are you doing here?”

“Mrs. Johnson let me off earlier from the nursing home. I managed to swap shifts with Mateo, so now I can come to your campaigns!”

Walking closer to the table, everyone gawked at your sudden appearance. You stopped beside the DM’s throne, but Eddie was quick to pull you sideways into his lap, where you landed giggling like a maniac. Turning your head over your shoulder, you pressed a light peck on his lips.

“No way…” Lucas gaped, shaking his head.

“Yes way.” Max retorted, nodding mesmerized.

“Hah!” Robin slapped both her hands on the table, pointing a finger at Steve in front of her.

Confused, you stared at Eddie, whose smile has never looked more smug.

“What is going on?”

“It is you?!” Dustin stood up so quickly his chair scraped on the floor before tumbling backwards onto the floor.

“Is what me?”

“You’re his girlfriend?” Steve started in awe, feeling a tiny pang of hurt on his chest.

“Uh, yeah.” you nodded, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“How?” Mike all but shouted, Eleven smiling triumphantly at his side.

You and Eddie shared a look.

“You know, Wheeler,” Eddie started, smirking “when two people love each other-”

His speech was interrupted by a chorus of repeated ‘woah’s, Steve rushing to cover Erica’s years, Robin doing the same for El, all the while you chuckled at your boyfriend’s antics .

“There are children here, man.” Steve hissed.

“No, I mean it.” Dustin shook his head in disbelief “Why are you dating him ?”

“I told you would never believe me.” Eddie explained.

Your laughter turned into a dreamy smile.

“Eddie is such a sweetheart. He’s charming, he makes me laugh. And I know I can always count on him no matter what. I know he’ll always be there for me.” you beamed softly at him, before turning back to the party, a playful grin on your face “And it doesn’t hurt that he’s incredibly attractive.”

Dustin made a gagging noise while Eddie playfully flicked his hair over his shoulder.

“I mean, who could resist my witful charms, Henderson?”

Erica turned towards her brother, Dustin, Mike and Steve, a proud look on her face.

“Pay up, losers.” she made a come hither motion with her hand “I believe the four of you owe us $50 for each of us.”

She high-fived Robin and Max.

Dustin stared at her, a look of betrayal taking over his features.

“You agreed you’d help me.” he accused.

“No” she said matter-of-factly “I agreed to spy on Eddie for you. And I did.”

Eddie let out a fake gasp, holding an offended hand over his heart.

“You asked Sinclair the Second to spy on me?!”

Dustin held a hand up.

“That’s besides the point.” he turned back to Erica “What happened?”

“I spied on him, just like you asked. And what I found was the both of them” she nodded her head in your direction, where you were still draped over your boyfriend’s legs “being all lovey-dovey with one another. Y’all are just too dumb to see it.”

Dustin shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it.

“Now that we’ve gotten this out of the way” Eddie’s voice suddenly shifted to the one he used as Dungeon Master “are you ready to take on Lareth the Beautiful once and for all?”

Everyone around the table shouted words of agreement and encouragement, including you. Dustin quickly grabbed the dice, ready to go first. He raised his arms, hands cupped around the dice, and started shaking them. Every member of the club, and now you, stared at him in anticipation, before he hesitated.

“Seriously, though, what do you see in him?”

“Dustin!”

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x female!reader #eddie munson x f!reader #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson fanfic #dustin handerson being a little shit #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things fanfic

214 notes · View notes