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imagine-a-fangirl · 3 years

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A/n: Welcome to my first bridgerton fanfic, which will eventually become an anthony bridgerton x female! reader fanfic. This is a bit of an introduction chapter, so it will get better I promise The ton, the high society of London. If you were someone who mattered you were a part of it. The young ladies that came out into society all had the same goal in mind, marry the one person who can give you the best live, with love only being a small part in those arrangements.

Your family had moved away from London after the passing of your mother. Your father couldn’t cope with the memories London held and decided to move towards the Netherlands. He went back every so often for business and travelled around a lot, giving you and your brothers all the freedom you would never have had in London. You had come out into society a couple years back already, your father needed to handle some business in London and took you with him. That way you could be presented at court and he could take you to the debutant ball before travelling back to the Netherlands. He wanted you to be out in society, just so you could have gotten married if there had been any eligible men. But there you were returning to London, joining society and the ton for real this time.

“It will be alright.” Thomas tried to calm your nerves while he helped you out of the carriage. Your father still had to arrive in London, meaning your brothers escorted you to your first ball of the season. You didn’t really mind, this way you could get used to the pressure of the ton again without your father constantly watching over you.

As the oldest Thomas always felt the urge to support and protect you, and he saw it as his duty to find you someone who suited you perfectly. Nicholas on the other hand was more easy going, he looked out for you as well but he was always open to let you try new things. Both of them were the reason you had been able to do things a lady would never be able to do otherwise.

The three of you walked into the ballroom, heads of many men turning your way. You knew they were mostly just curious, especially the slightly older men who had yet to marry. A new woman your age was rare but here you were. “You remember any of these men?” You asked Thomas

“Some of them, old friends. Not sure if they are the right suitors." He answered honestly

“We will figure out who is for you.” Nicholas

After an hour of introductions, catching up with old friends and even a dance you noticed no other than the Duke of Hastings joining the room. “Will you excuse me for a moment?” You excused yourself from your current company and quickly made your way through the crowd. “Your Grace!” you greeted your old friend before quickly making a small curtesy as was expected of you.

“Lady y/n, have they finally convinced you to join society?” Simon returned the curtesy “Convinced is a big word your Grace, forced me comes closer.” You tried to brush it off with a joke "Well I'm sure there are a lot of eligible gentlemen that are glad you did." He had already noticed multiple men looking your way. "How wonderful." You answered sarcastically. “To what does the ton owe the pleasure of a visit from its newest Duke?” “I was forced to be here as well.” “I didn’t know it was possible for a Duke to be forced into doing anything.” “Tell that to Lady Danbury, she doesn’t take no for answer.” “She can be very convincing.” You agreed. “At least we will be able to suffer together, shall we go for a walk around the room.” He suggested “It would be my pleasure, your Grace.” You said before linking your arm and walking with him. Your walk mostly consisted of him telling what he came to do and the fact that you were forced to search a husband. That was until your conversation was harshly interrupted by a man. “Basset? Basset!”

“Bridgerton!” Simon excitedly greeted his friend as he let go of you.

“Come here old friend, I heard news about your father.” It only then seemed to hit the man what that meant for Simons name “Hastings, for ever more known as the Duke of Hastings.”

You observed the gentleman as they continued their conversation, your mother had been friends with the viscountess when you were little, but your mother often kept you away from the boys. She felt like you were already influenced greatly by your brothers and didn’t want others to do the same. Because of that you couldn’t immediately point out if this was either the Viscount you were looking at or Benedict. The man’s eye fell on you and you made a small curtesy, which he returned with a bow of his head. Before turning back to Simon “I can see you are occupied right now. So we should properly get together, I expect to see you at our club then.”

“Indeed, evening Bridgerton.” Simon bid his goodbyes to his friend and continued his walk with you “Was that Benedict or the Viscount?” You asked Simon “That was The Viscount, Anthony. You know the Bridgertons?” “My mother was friends with the Viscountess, but I didn’t go as often as she or my brothers. To many men to influence me. “That certainly made a difference.” You shook your head “Is your father escorting you this evening?” “No Thomas and Nicholas are, father will arrive in London in three days.” “You don’t seem to excited for that?” Simon noticed your change in mood “It’s not that I’m not excited to see him, but I just hope he doesn’t expect me to be married at the end of the season.” “You know he probably will.” “That is what I am afraid of.” You agreed. “Let’s go the other way.” Simon suddenly said, softly pushing you in a different direction then you were walking.

“Lady y/n, how wonderful to see you finally joining society. Haven’t you grown in a beautiful young woman.” “To late.” Simon whispered, causing you to let a small chuckle escape. “Thank you, Lady Danbury.” You curtsied as you got your act together again “It’s so wonderful to see you, how have you been?" “I’ve been wonderful dear. I see you’ve already met the Duke.” Lady Danbury seemed a bit too happy with herself “The Duke and I have actually known each other for a couple years.” “Have you now?” It wasn’t often Lady Danbury wasn’t aware of everything that happened within society and it seemed she wasn’t too happy about it.

“We have, we met in France actually.” Simon told her.

“Very well, then is there a reason we haven’t seen the two of you on the dance floor yet?”

“Let’s not get to far ahead of ourselves.” Simon insisted. After some small talk you excused yourself to go find your brothers again “I’ll see you around Lady y/n.” Simon told you.

At one point during the evening you were caught in a dull conversation with Lord Berbrooke. Every time Lord Berbrooke came a little closer you took a small step back, keeping your distance until you bumped into the woman behind you. “I am so sorry.”

“That is quite alright, dear.” The woman smiled, she seemed very familiar but you couldn’t quite place her. Lord Berbrooke kept continuing his one sided conversation with you and you kept looking around the room for an escape. When you spotted Simon again in a corner, observing the room and you as well. “Ask me to dance.” You mouthed towards Simon to get him to save you. You were lucky enough he understood you and he paced towards the two of you.

“Lord Berbrooke may I interrupt?

“Your Grace, of course.” Lord Berbrooke seemed caught off guard that the duke wanted to join his conversation and Simon used the moment to turn his attention to you.

“Lady y/n would you care for a dance?

“Of course your Grace.” He held out his hand which you happily accepted “Thank you for saving me.” You whispered once out of hearing distance.

“You owe me one, a big one.”

“I’ll keep that in mind the next time you are distressed by a mother.”

“I’m holding you to that.”

As the music started the two of you moved across the room as if you had never done anything else. “For someone who doesn’t dance, you are quite skilled your Grace.” y/n grinned

“Do you want me to return you to Lord Berbrooke or will you stop the teasing.”

“I’ll be stopping the teasing at once your Grace.” You laughed

“Thank you.” When the set ended Simon guided you off the floor, the furthest away from Nigel and escorted you back to your brothers.

“I heard of the presence of the Duke of Hastings, I did not expect him to act on my sister so soon.” Thomas joked when he saw the two of you walking over.

“Only saving her from some unwanted suitor.” He held his hands up in defense before greeting Thomas.

“I didn’t expect anything else from her old friend. Was lord Berbrooke bothering you?”

“He was.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him.” Thomas promised you.

“Thank you.”

“Before I forget I ran into Lady Bridgerton, she invited us for dinner with her family.” Thomas informed you “I already accepted her invitation, if that’s alright with you.”

“I’m sure we will have a lot of catching up to do with them.” You agreed The rest of the evening consisted of more dancing, conversations and introductions. Simon stayed close to the three of you most of the evening, as it gave him an easy excuse not to converse with other. And you caught the eye of many more men. You were even re introduced to three members of the Birdgerton family. As soon as Thomas had done that you knew the familiar woman you had bumped into earlier that night, had been Lady Bridgerton herself. You apologized once more for bumping into her earlier, but she played it off with a joke. Your re introduction to the Bridgerton family resulted in a dance with both Benedict and Colin. Where dancing with the other men made you slightly nervous, dancing with them felt familiar. Just as your dance with Simon had, it was as if you never done anything else. It had only been your first evening back into society, everything in you told you this could be an interesting season.

#bridgerton x reader #imagine anthony bridgerton #anthony bridgerton imagine #anthony bridgerton x reader #anthony bridgerton #bridgerton imagine #imagine bridgerton

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bl-garbage · 4 years

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i’m not over Gaya sa Pelikula episode 5. the sheer layers of storytelling we have, and i know you all have pointed them out. long post incoming:

employed foreshadowing in the two horror stories and the events that later followed. from the story of the nurse seeing the cadaver in his own closet to Vlad seeing the photo of a young Karl, now a grown man and so different from the child he once was; and from the man looking at his own self holding his own heart, to Karl holding his own heart as he looked at himself in the mirror. these are not horror stories -- they are real. in the next episode, we will find the consequences of these actions.

the brownout as a device. do we not tell our stories in the dark? queer people have long been used to telling stories in this familiar place. they do not dare to tell it under the sun, for all of the world to see because stories like theirs are resented just for being. this drinking session in the dark, when no one is around and anyone else is out of earshot, that is when stories so honest, so brutal and unabashedly true, are released. this scene was beautiful and cathartic.

anna is no plot device. she’s a beautiful, multilayered, flawed character. who would have thought anna was a mom? i know i’m surprised. and yet the writer did not leave her be only to be a friend for comedic purposes. she was there to tell her own story, like everyone else does. she has agency as a woman, and for an 8-episode series that bills itself as a BL series it is really commendable to grasp the complexity of all its characters, not let them be tossed aside. and you know what? Vlad even shined in this scene. women and queer people have long stood side by side, aware and empathic of their fundamental disadvantages in society. the queer struggle is rooted in the victories of the feminist struggle, after all, and in this scene we zoom in on just how that takes form, even in the simplest of ways. just look at how Vlad immediately accepts anna’s story, and does not even judge her.

the effortless gender sensitivity. the episode does its best to quash stigmas in the queer community itself. when Karl said, for instance, that In fairness, Vlad, you’re not obviously effeminate, Vlad was quite quick to correct him, and here we see an innocent Karl simply accepting his mistake, saying sorry, and intently listening when Vlad goes on to explain where he went wrong. in that moment we were all anna, smiling in sheer excitement that this kind of thing casually happens, for is that not what queer people fear at time? that even when you know better and want to correct other people for their mistakes, you'd still second guess yourself or choose if it's even okay or perhpas you're imposing your own ideals on another person. yet, Gaya sa Pelikula does away with that and shows that, ihdeed, ignorance is not cured by anger, but education. what Karl said is a common microaggression against the queer community that unfortunately, many shows (BLs, even) fall prey to. Gaya sa Pelikula is not only good plot-wise, but it is also careful to weigh its options of which important lessons it needs to impart. it is proof that BL shows shouldn’t be just for entertainment; they must advance change.

from the dark, to the blinding light. the rather smooth transition from Karl having to teach Vlad and Vlad even stepping on Karl, with Karl taking the lead; and then, to the prom they had in their minds: beautiful, well-lit, but only for them. a dream come true for Vlad—for any queer person deprived of the simple joys, of something as simple as the privilege to dance. the hope of things getting better.

Karl took the lead at first, but then Vlad did. in the beginning, it was Karl who led a reticent Vlad to the prom dance; yet, when they donned the suits and danced in the light, the roles changed. Vlad was taking the lead. it was as though, when Karl opened up to Vlad and practically told him, ‘it’s okay to be yourself with me,’ that gave Vlad the license to really be himself, be confident and free to express what he felt, share what he knew. note that during the transition, Vlad was at first so surprised by the lights! he did not know that things could turn out so good for him and Karl, and yet it was halpening. so he was so confident, leading Karl in the dance, to make Karl feel what he feels. he even said, “simplehan na lang natin (let’s make things simple).” i find meaning in that, too: see, Vlad has known himself to be gay since high school, but here we have Karl who does not even begin to question for himself who and what he is. Vlad knows this. he even sang, ever so softly into Karl’s ears, as if to say that it’s okay if you're only beginning your journey now. things are discovered, one step at a time.

in the end, karl was smiling. confused, but happy. holding his heart, beating so loud, karl does not know what to feel. is that not the experience of every queer person? to know that, perhaps for the first time ever, things are “different” from what they've been conditioned to believe? and yet the most confusing thing is that it feels good and freeing and warm. in the dark, when no one is around, Karl felt his heart, saw his own reflection, and even though he does not admit it yet, Karl knows he is happy. this is the true turning point of the story. i am quite sure we'll experience the sadness next episode, so be sure to be ready.

i am just so overwhelmed by Gaya sa Pelikula. it is not only aesthetically beautiful, but is also filled with nuances that i am not afraid to look more into it. perhaps i have been too saturated with a lot of just fun, but really nonsensical BLs, that i almost forgot that those shouldn’t be the standard. instead, we deserve ones that truly cater to our needs, tell our stories, and make a shot for things going to be better. to be sure, Gaya sa Pelikula was written by a queer screenplay writer himself, which only confirms the need for more stories told by queer people, for queer people.

Gaya sa Pelikula does what others are not doing. and so much more.

there are three more episodes, but i have no doubt that it will turn out excellent, far exceeding yet again my already high expectations.

in the aftermath of episode 5, i hark back to what juan miguel severo, the show’s writer and producer, had promised: “We will take back our story!”

and, indeed, through this episode, he proves that he already has.

#gaya sa pelikula #gayasapelikulaep05 #ian pangilinan #paolo pangilinan #bl series #juan miguel severo #screenplay #things are just so good and i'm not even afraid that we only have 3 episodes left!!!!!!!#i just believe in it #that it will be so good #that i'll be satisfied with 8 episodes

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jesslockwood · 3 years

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rakes | chapter two

pairing: regency!Harrison Osterfield x regency!reader

words: 2.1k

warnings: bridgerton s1 spoilers, swearing, mentions of sex

a/n: this took me forever to write because i wrote the ending ish and I have even the whole end part planned out lmao. now I just need to write up to it lmao.

Please Reblog and Like if you enjoy!

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You awoke startled, sweaty, and with tears streaming down your face. It had been from a nightmare, of your first season’s debut. You knew that things could not go as horribly wrong that night did, yet, you were afraid deep down it might.

You could never forget the piercing scream that rang through your body as you watched helplessly, your worst unknown nightmare becoming real in front of you, and being able to do nothing for your parents.

After sitting in your bed for what seemed like hours, you decided to get dressed at the start making a list of what you had to do in haste to get ready for the season’s rush.

There was so much to do and so little time, so you knew one worry could be put at ease if you planned it all out. At least then your mind would hopefully quiet down the thoughts in your head.

Sitting near the window with it open, you watched the sunrise, wondering how your dear William was doing. You had left hastily, not even with a goodbye to him. It was too painful to be in Grosvenor square where all your fondest memories had been with your deceased parents. He was of course in those fond memories, yet it was too painful as you saw your father in him, and the man he became because of your father being a parental figure to him.

You wondered how he was handling being the earl, especially without the guidance or help of anyone. Especially since your presence is missing. You wrote to him all the time, yet he had no return address to send it to so you knew not much of how your dearest sibling was doing.

You knew not much of duty of being a man and running an estate and the burden weighed on society of being an earl, yet you knew the pressures and gossip and betrayal all too much so you knew it could not have been easy.

You only wished as much that you could have stayed for William, yet you knew your body would not let you stay as the fear would crawl into your bones, rotting you into some sort of insane spinster.

You stretched your body out after sitting for too long on the uncomfortable chair, deciding it was time to head on out- “the earlier the better”- you thought.

As soon as you stepped out into the hall you had turned, and collided with a strong torso, almost falling to the ground. Strong arms had caught you before you took a nasty spill.

“Pardon me-” you whispered quietly, as you then realized the close proximity of you and the man that had caught you, his face very close to your own.

He looked disheveled slightly, with his golden locks out of place slightly, and a small amount of dusting of freckles that adorned his face. His icy blue eyes had been staring into yours, almost too cold to even look into, yet you felt a sense of curiosity to capture the color of them in your mind. You also had noticed the closeness of your bodies in this very moment, almost too scandalous to even think of in society’s ton.

“Apologies, Miss.,” he said with a slightly crooked smile that could make any woman melt at this moment.

He helped you regain your balance on your own two feet, before heading towards the stairs, giving you a lopsided smile again, nodding at you, and went downstairs.

You were almost too stunned to move from the interaction. You had never been as close as that to a man in your life. It gave you a small chill down your spine, even thinking about him, the mystery man.

You were pulled out of your thoughts when your maid, Lucy, was walking out of the adjacent room to yours.

“Madam, shall I fetch the carriage?” she asks you politely, suddenly snapping you out of your entranced state.

“Yes, we should get going.”

Arriving at the Bridgeton home was, interesting to say the least, in a good way. It had been around noon, after your stop at the modiste, picking up dresses for the most -well- dreaded season, and you had been welcomed by most of the Bridgerton ladies in the drawing-room, embraced by Violet, asking for your time heading to their home. It was quite a shock as the chaos yet love could be felt in the room, as whom you were assuming the two youngest were arguing of some hair ribbon, and two of the other elder brothers of Daphne’s were in some heated debate about god knows what, and one sister was writing in a journal of some sort as the other played the pianoforte.

“Welcome dear, to our home. I apologize in advance for the chaos, we are getting ready for Elosie’s first season, and our masquerade ball.”

“No need to apologize, Lady Bridgerton. Thank you for letting me stay until William gets in tomorrow. I just couldn’t stay in the house alone.”

“Please call me Violet! And any friend of my family is welcome here. Children, This is Lady Y/L/N.”

“If I am to call you Violet I insist you all call me Y/n” she smiles warmly towards you, “Eloise, could you please show Y/n to her room, I’m sure she is but tired from her journey.”

She comes out of her trance of writing responding to her mother, “Of course Mama.”

As you walk out of the drawing-room with her she looks as if she’s in deep thought.

“I have so many questions to ask of you! How were you able to travel? I only thought men such as my brother could do so, yet here you are!”

“Well when my parents passed, I just- well, couldn’t stay here, so I ventured off with what my bro- erm, cousin, William had given to me. I went to visit some other cousins in France and had gone off to other parts of Europe. It was better than I had ever imagined. But now my duty is to my family, and the adventure has stopped, for now at least.”

You had stopped walking when you reached a door, that you assumed was your room.

“That is incredible, I shall wait to ask more of you, later on of course.”

“Why don’t you show me the grounds and I shall tell you more, right now, and you can tell me about yourself, Eloise.”

Her face lit up.

“I would quite enjoy that!”

After walking around their grounds, you had sat on the swings on a tree, telling her all about your adventures, and she told you about herself and even told you quite a bit about Lady Whistledown and her venture in trying to find the writer behind the pen. It had been a few hours, probably nearing dinner time, but you felt at ease with Eloise. At least, you knew you had a friend in her, that hated society almost as much as you,

“I cannot believe you went in the ocean on the beach! Most ladies here would assume it unlady-like!”

“Well, I am especially not one for lady-like behavior! Especially structured by vicious mamas!” you both laugh together at that comment. Oh how you both knew of the shocking behavior of the ton’s mamas.

“I believe we should head in now, Dinner will soon be ready, and I can only assume you are starving since we only had biscuits earlier.”

You both get up stretching your legs lightly, before heading indoors.

You felt warmth sitting at the dinner table, though not typical, it felt like they truly loved each other, and actually enjoyed each other as a family, something you had longed for from your own family, especially for William’s sake.

William had never felt like he belonged in your family, at least not fully. The warmth you and your parents tried to give to him almost did not get through his thick skull, that you had accepted him as an esteemed member of the family. You had always wondered if it was because his true father never accepted him until he needed him to fulfill his wants.

“So, Y/n are you excited for the season?” Anthony cuts through his current conversation, to include you.

“Probably something of the sort. I am quite intrigued to see how people have changed.”

“Well, most have not, especially the men.”

You laughed slightly at that.

“Well do tell whom to stay away from.” you joke.

“If you have not read the most recent lady Whistledown I assume you don’t know.”

“I’m not quite sure I’ve ever heard of a Lady Whistledown?” you question, curiosity getting to the best of you.

“Lady Whistledown is a gossip writer, under a pen name, whom, however, mentions people in the ton in name, by name in full.” Eloise cuts in.

You raise a brow quizzically. That was unheard of.

“She mentions you in her most recent edition” Hyacinth mentions, before going back to throwing peas strategically when her mother wasn’t looking at her brother Gregory.

“I’m sure Eloise has it if she hasn’t already shown you.” now you were fully intrigued. There was truly only one main thing you thought the writer could write about.

“She wrote about Lord Holland today, and might I say he is pretty dreamy.” Francesca pipes up, before earnings glare from Anthony and a kick from Eloise.

“Ow!”

“If I didn’t do it, Anthony would have and he kicks harder.”

You giggle at the family’s interactions. You only hoped you could have one as close as the Bridgertons.

“I see we are quite the entertainment for our guest tonight. I guess there’s no need for Eloise to get on the pianoforte. God knows I’m in motion for that.” Benedict adds before earning a kick from Eloise as well.

“Ow!”

“Back to the topic at hand, I’d stay away from Benedict for certain.” Eloise says, which erupts you five into a fit of giggles, before getting your end of the table gets a hard stare-down from Violet, almost as if to say ‘behave’.

“So I'm assuming other than Daphne missing, the letter C, Colin, must be the one travelling? Daph did mention he would be writing me asking about the best places to travel.”

“Yes, Colin is the one travelling, but was the letter system too obvious of whom is which?” Benedict asks in an amused manner.

“I think it’s adorable, and if you must know I find it orderly.”

“Don’t tell my mother that, or she won’t stop talking about how ‘Lady Y/n complimented her naming system’.” Benedict jokes.

You laugh before you see Eloise bringing out what you assumed was the gossip sheet. She hands it to you before you read it over, turning slightly pale at the mentions of your family so intimately.

Harrison had made it into town earlier that afternoon, only to be wondering why Mama’s, and Ladies alike- married or not- had been whispering and pointing at him. On the other hand, he had been met with a warm embrace from his wonderful sister Charlotte, and loving Mother, Phil, only to be dragged by Charlotte for her to tell him to read the latest Lady Whistledown, a woman he knew he hadn’t heard of, nevertheless thought he’d fucked.

He however listened to his sister and her worry, before being shell-shocked by what was on the page.

“Charlotte what the hell is this? And who the hell wrote it?"

“Lady Whistledown is but the biggest anonymous gossip columnist, and everyone reads it. Haz what am I to do if no suitors show interest when I am eligible for marriage? What if I end up a spinster?!”

“Char, I won’t let that happen I promise you.”

Harrison was determined to make sure charlotte never had to worry. She was the most lovely of any woman on the market and he would make sure she had a shot.

“Wait Osterfield, you’re saying, you’ll Woo whoever is the most desired by the queen and marry her?” Tom askes very confusedly as to what sparked this in his bestfriend.

“Yes Tom, That is my plan,” Harrison replies before taking a sip of his drink again.

The two men had reunited at the Bridgerton’s gentleman club, talking over Harrison’s not so genius plan, according to Tom.

“Do you know how many mamas loathe even the sight of you right now? Especially because of Lady Whistledown.” Harrison’s face scrunches up, cringing at that.

“Yes, I know already. But if I can just get in the good graces of Lady Whistledown, then I know any mama will turn around! maybe if I form an attachment with someone she might see that I’m serious about marrying. Don’t you have that cousin? Zendaya?”

“That’s a terrible idea, Harrison. Also, Zendaya is now going to be under my care according to my mother. She told her father, who is ill, I’d watch out for her during the season to find her a suitable husband.”

Harrison gets a mischievous, conniving look on his face as the gears turn in his brain. “I said suitable Haz! Her father would have a heart attack if you came near her!”

“Fine, but can you at least convince her to show interest in me to the other ladies? So I can find a wife?”

Tom rolls his eyes before downing his drink mentally hating the idea, but agreeing to try for his almost brother, even if he didn’t think he’d find a wife.

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#harrison osterfield #harrison osterfield x reader #harrison osterfield fanfic #harrison osterfeild imagine #harrison osterfield x y/n #harrison osterfield fanfiction #tom holland #zendaya #bridgerton #brigerton fanfic #bridgerton fanfiction #anthony bridgerton #benedict bridgerton #eloise bridgerton

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fallin-4-ya · 3 years

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The Follies and Vices of You

cedric diggory x reader- part iv of series

based off the novel and film ‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Jane Austen

summary: Being the beloved sister of the incredibly wealthy Mr. Potter, you felt no need to rush into marriage. But one day, when you come to meet a new acquaintance, the proud Mr. Diggory, your views of love and follies change.

warnings: a bit of angst & tension! (gif is not mine, credit to owner!)

part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v

‘Maybe it’s that I find it hard to forgive the follies and vices of others, or their offenses against me. My good opinion, once lost, is lost forever.’ -Jane Austen

The month of January passed dreadfully slow, as you waited for something interesting to happen. As the snow fell softly onto the ground, thoughts wondered through your head rapidly, most of them involving Mr. Diggory. In fact, he occupied your mind most days. How dreadfully awkward that poor man is, you pondered, and yet how confident. His character never made sense to you, as awfully as he appeared on the outside, you could tell there was much beneath his many layers. But your thoughts were soon interrupted by a knock on the door, it was the post.

‘From Miss Ginerva, Miss Y/N.’ You smiled and nodded thankfully. Excited, you ripped the letter open and the inside read,

My Dearest Miss Y/N, I hope my letter find you very well. How dreadful these past few days have been, for all of this snow has made me think of nothing besides summer time. I was invited to stay at my brother Bill’s until the end February; Miss Hermione Granger will be attending alongside me, to encourage sisterly bonding. I am sorry to hear that Mr. Malfoy has resided back to his home up north, but I do hope that he continues to write you such pretty verses. I shall be home before the flowers bloom. Be well.

Much love, Ginerva

You sighed thinking of how even more boring the next few months would be without the company of a most dear friend.

Now that Mr. Malfoy was sent back home, the house was quieter than ever. Between Harry managing the estate, Sirius writing business proposals and Mr. Lupin locked up in the library; you felt most unentertained and gittery. Letters began being sent to you the day after he left, expressing a fondness for you, which kept your boredom to a minimum. You thought long about the letters exchanged between you and Mr. Malfoy; Ginny was certainly right in saying the verses were beautiful. She also urged you that there would soon be a proposal on the line if he kept with the letters, though you secretly hoped it wouldn't be anytime soon.

The next evening, to much of your excitement, you were joined by Mr. Fred and George Weasley for dinner, who were in the company of nobody other than Mr. Diggory. Reaching a hand out for each of the Weasley men, they took it graciously planting a kiss upon it. Extending out to Mr. Diggory as well, he ignored your gesture and simply bowed in your direction. After the questionable gesture from the latter of the men, you lead them to the dining room, where the rest of your family awaited.

The evening was going splendidly, much laughter and wide smiles reigned. That was, until a letter arrived addressed to you from Mr. Malfoy. You excused yourself from the table, to retire to the parlor to read it.

Blushing profusely and smiling at the beautiful verses addressed to you, unaware of the floorboards that creaked viciously behind; you sat on the armchair nearest the window of the parlor. You heard a throat clear at the doorway and shot your head up.

‘Mr. Diggory! I am so sorry, I mustn’t have heard of your following.’ Humming to yourself, you gazed out the window, ‘I do love this time of the year, Mr. Diggory. The snow is nothing short of lovely.’

‘Yes, Miss Potter, I do agree that the snow is very beautiful but I must interject and beckon you about some-‘

‘He’s thought to propose, you know. Mr. Malfoy that is. Quite strange, isn’t it; how young girls go to young women with only a proposal.’ You unknowingly interrupted in your dream state.

‘Miss Potter, I truly cannot help but to interject; however, there is a matter of urgency I’d like to discuss.’ Mr. Diggory huffed. Being pulled out of your trance, patience grew thin, you turned your head and snapped, ‘What is it, Mr. Diggory, that you feel so inclined to interrupt me for?’

‘Its addressing Mr. Malfoy. You see I am afraid I must interject on a most sensitive discussion topic.’

‘If you have anything negative to say about Mr. Malfoy, I must urge you that I'm the last person who would be inclined to hear it! And if you have some here to ruin my evening, I am afraid I won’t allow it.’

With that you grabbed your coat and trekked out into the falling snow. Footsteps not far behind you, you sped up; unwilling, or rather unwanting of hearing what anybody had to say. The crunching of snow only following you farther, as you followed the angelic pathway to the stone pavilion in the graden. You threw your back against the wall, sighing out deeply. Without a moment of peace Mr. Diggory entered your presence.

‘You cannot marry him’

You were taken aback by his sudden bluntness. Exasperated by his cultivated occurrence of strange actions you cocked your head at him.

‘May I ask you why, Mr. Diggory?’

‘The Malfoy family is least cordial, completely unattached and deranged from society. They are completely unsuitable for a family such as yours.’

‘A family such as mine?! Have you come here to separate an engagement or to insult my family, Mr. Diggory? Or rather, does your sudden interest in my affairs have anything to do with your dislike towards Mr. Malfoy; because believe me, Mr. Diggory, I know well of your disputes with the poor gentleman and will not stop an engagement from happening due to your pride and arrogance.’

‘No, Miss Potter! You know perfectly well that I find your family most respectable. I just find their family uncommony stiff for your reckless behavior.’

‘Reckless behavior! How dare you insult not only my upkeeping but a personality of another. Have you forgotten the follies and vices of you, Mr. Diggory? For who are you to judge another?’

‘Miss Y/N, has it ever occurred to you that you may be too harsh on me or perhaps my light on you may have been caused by the misjudgment of one’s character? I beg of you to enlighten me on why you find me the most disagreeable man.’

‘Well then, I beg you, Mr. Diggory, why you wish to separate a young couple who have grown quite fond of each other?’

‘Because I love you.’

There was a lull and Mr. Diggory halted. ‘I love you most ardently and I could not have you go another day more without you knowing of the likeness I have for you.’

You stood in silence, snow falling ever so godly on you both, speechless. Words clouded your mind, and you wanted to scream, and cry, and love, and erupt all at the same time. But rather than doing any of them, you looked back on him with a haze in your eyes.

‘I would not marry you if you were the last man in the world.’ You said walking away, allowing a tear slip silently from your face.

The next day there was a knock on your bedroom door early in the morning. Mr. Diggory walked in humbled and shy, ‘Miss Y/N, I’ve come to leave this for you. I hope you do me the honor to read it. Thank you much for your time.’

You had not even reached his gaze, for he spoke for too quickly and you were far too angry. Staring at the enveloped with a tear stained face for nearly an hour, you decided to open it.

Dear Miss Potter,

I hope my letter finds you in good health. I do not wish to impose on you again what I have said last night; for I am writing to you today not to remind you of said words, but rather converse upon the accusations you have brought upon me. I urge you that everything in this letter is the truth and have many to testify upon it.

Mr. Draco Malfoy and I had been connected since infancy, for his father, Lucius, and mine worked exceptionally close together. However, as Mr. Malfoy grew he became reckless; he gambled a large portion of his father’s money away and took no responsibilities seriously. Soon thereafter, his father wrote him out of his will, leaving nothing to his son. Mr. Malfoy became desperate for an inheritance; my father later offered him a job which he begrudgingly took. However, not more than seven months of work, he confessed a most passionate love to my sister. It did not take long for us to realize that he was only after her fortune for she was to inherit seven thousand pound a year. She was thirteen at the time and utterly heartbroken.

When my sister had gotten sick mere months later, my mother and I moved to London alongside her to get the best medical help. Unable to access our money without my father present, Mr. Lucius graciously lent us the sum of the bills. Unfortunately, my sister passed with just two months of treatment; she was truly a remarkable young woman. After the mourning, we paid what was due back to the Malfoy family; but for Mr. Draco Malfoy it was not enough. He hounded me for more money; knowing his dispositions I had given him the sum of his ask in hopes that he would become something of himself. He gambled the money away in two weeks. After that, I refused to give him anymore money, cutting him off for good.

Miss Y/N, I am terribly sorry to force the burden of the truth onto you, but I just felt that you ought to know. Please do keep the affairs containing my sister private, as I believe it be a disgrace to her memory to attach her name to one like his. Thank you for the time we have shared.

Yours, Mr. Cedric Diggory

(author’s note: oh my goodness! end of part 4!!! ending on a bit of a cliff hanger... i can't wait for you all to read the final chapter, which will be out soon! as always, let me know if you’d like to be part of this tag list! thank you as always for reading!)

tag list: @freddieweasleyswife @truly-insatiable @annasdani @mullthingsoverinthehotwater

#Harry Potter #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter headcanon #cedric diggory #cedric diggory x reader #cedric diggory x you #ginny weasley #fred weasley #george weasley #Draco Malfoy #Ron Weasley #hermione granger #pride and predujice #jane austen #draco malfoy x reader #sirius black #remus lupin

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airiustide · 4 years

Text

forever young. forever you.

chapter 2/day 2: counterpart

A/N: sorry for posting on tumblr late, work kept me. but here it is, chapter 2. Thank you all for the lovely comments and @zutara-was-robbed for her amazing idea vomiting that helped make this fic possible and her ability to make me laugh.

Summary: After reunion comes joy- at least Katara had hoped. When she finally has the opportunity to confront the stranger, she learns a devastating secret that weights heavy on her heart and soul.

also posted on: AO3

“Speak what we feel, and not what we ought to say. Well, I’m forever young, and you're forever you.” -We are Life by Emarosa

She wasn’t crazy. She hoped.

Katara wants to confront the man in black out in the open, only that would prove to be futile if it really happened to be who she thought it was. No doubt, he would run upon seeing her again like her first day here. She had no evidence it was Zuko but he looked at her, and when he did it was clear that he recognized her.

It took about a week before he crossed her, unnoticed to him. He was taller, much taller. His clothes did not hide his muscle definition and she can tell he was intensively active. Much different from the seventeen-year-old buy she knew but there was no mistaking those eyes.

Once she picked up on his routine, Katara was quick to follow, utilizing every chance between meeting Lotus members and rest to make it just an inch closer to Zuko. She stopped every so feet each time, afraid he might pick up on her stalking- other than the off chance of her being wrong weighing in her mind. No point in turning back now , Katara thought, I am officially labeled a creeper .

It was the same every night. He came out just as the sky turned night, stealthy moving in the dark, through alleyways and barely traveled streets. She remains anonymous as well, choosing clothes colored in dark blue and tying her hair in a low ponytail. He appears from behind an abandoned building again, silently prowling through the streets. This time, he’s not making his usual destination. Katara curses when he stops abruptly a quarter mile from his usual path and turns his head slowly over his shoulder.

Katara stills, biting her lip to hold back anticipated breathing and willing her pounding heart to cease beating in her ears. He’s hesitant for only a moment, facing forward again and slipping into the alley. Katara, darts after him, stopping at the corner. Shock flushed her face. He’s gone!

Cement trickles from above and she barely misses the figure swinging onto the rooftop. Blue eyes widen, shocked to find the stranger peering down at her. In the dark his golden gaze seemed to mock her. Come get me, if you dare, they read. Katara always enjoyed a good challenge.

*** He’s running ahead of her, hoping from rooftop to rooftop. It felt like they were in sync, the way they ran through the night, his movements as flawless as a languid waterbender. The moon was on her side tonight, providing her the much needed energy to keep up with him. The excitement of it all sang in her blood, heightening her adrenaline.

Katara wanted to laugh with childish delight. Lift a hand out to the sky and feel the wind wisp between her fingers. Never mind that she was chasing after a unknown man but something told her he wasn’t intent on harming her.

She halts gracefully in her tracks when he jumps from one of the rooftops, sliding across a tarp and swinging on the structure holding it up just before he lands on his feet. Katara makes a disappointed groan, knowing this was the end of their game. Instead, she stays on his tracks via rooftop, afraid that if she took the time to crawl down, she might lose him.

She crouches low, cursing herself more than ever. How had she not realized she had wondered into enemy territory. Ozai Society members occupied this area, having scouted here the week before with the White Lotus under guise.

The man made two raps on the door across the street from where Katara hid, a sharp one thrice, then another two. The door cracks open and Katara can’t make out their voices. The man in black removes his glove and lifts the sleeve of his right arm to reveal a symbol tattooed right below his palm.

She wanted to kick herself. This wasn’t Zuko after all, and she had exposed herself to the enemy. Regardless, she was already here and decided to scope out what was taking place, at least, settling on leaving before the stranger or anyone else decided to come out of the house.

An hour went by, and no one’s left or entered. She’ll have to return home and let the White Lotus know her findings, on top of admitting that she followed an enemy without their knowledge. La, she was in for a scolding. Katara kicks the dust under her feet, preparing for a running start.

“Leaving so soon.” A raspy voice brought her to an abrupt stop.

Katara narrows her eyes, examining the figure carefully approaching her in the dark, contemplating whether to take off or use the opportunity to question the man; though it might turn into a physical confrontation, she was ready for both. “Are you going to make it worth my while if I decided to stay?” She inquires, crossing her arms over her chest.

Amusement flickered in those gold eyes, but he doesn’t reply to her question. “Not very smart coming here.” He tells her.

Katara smiles behind the cloth covering her nose and mouth. That voice, so distinct and so much like him. “ Yet, here you are.” She retorts.

“This isn’t a joke.” He dismisses her playful attitude. “You need to return home.”

“I’m not going back to the inn.” Katara argued, hurt that he was pushing her away without an explanation off the bat. “At least...at least tell me you’re doing okay.”

He shakes his head. “Not the inn. Go home, Katara.”

“No!” She yells, closing the fists at her side. Zuko was stubborn but Katara was even more so. She had him here, she couldn’t stand the idea of him disappearing again.,Her voice carried in the dark, and both of them heard chatter below. A group flooded the street, muttering suspicions. Humiliation and worry colored Katara’s face.

“Damn.” Zuko groaned, snatching Katara by the elbow. “We gotta leave.”

***

So this is where he’s been hiding? The apartment wasn’t exactly rundown but it certainly wasn’t spacious either. It was decent as decent could get. A single bed, a small table and a washroom fit for one. A bed was posted at the far side of the wall, opposite the door, right next to a large window. You could see the town far out in the woods beyond it.

Katara wasn’t ready to remove her disguise, watching Zuko intently as he quietly closed the door behind them and had yet to reveal himself. The air between them thickeded, from the tiny room or their awkwardness, Katara couldn’t tell which. Four years had gone by since the last time they’d seen each other.

Zuko only stares. From behind his shaggy hair, he looks mysterious, ominous, dangerous. For all she knew, he could have very well become those things, four years can change a person.

“You working for the White Lotus?”

He blinks, taking what feels like forever to reply. He shakes his head.

“You’re doing this alone.” Katara guessed, more of a statement than a question, rather.

“Yes.” He tells her.

Katara licks her lips, nervous now that she truly knew it was her missing friend. “Are you the one who’s been anonymously sending tips to the White Lotus.”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve spent all four years infiltrating the Ozai Society? Because you knew your Uncle and Koji were their new target?”

“Yes.”

“...Your Uncle misses you.”

“Don’t.” He says sternly, eyes darting sharply at Katara. “I should’ve taken you to the inn.”

Katara doesn’t know why but that hurt more than she thought. Zuko was known to push people away but he was flat out trying to get rid of her. If she hadn’t lured those members out, he might have left her without a second thought.

Changing the subject, Zuko announces he’ll make them tea, finally removing the mask from his face and revealing paler than normal skin. Being away from the Fire Nation must have made it so.

Feeling more relaxed in his presence, Katara takes a seat on the bed, studying the place, though there wasn’t much. Zuko kept it simple, probably in case there was risk of his true identity being revealed. Or he cared little for anything other than necessities.

She was anxious to know the reason behind him leaving, a million questions hanging on the tip of her tongue. Katara knows if she blurted out a single inquiry, he’ll shut her out immediately. Zuko comes back with their tea in two wooden cups, sitting beside her and taking a quiet sip of his cup.

Katara does the same before proclaiming. “I’ve missed you too.” Hoping it wouldn’t make him retreat.

A furious blush colors Zuko cheeks, his hard features softening. He looks away, clearing his throat and Katara notices his Adam's apple bob. She blushes too, aware just how much he had grown.

“I-I missed you. All of you; Aang, Sokka, Toph. It’s been hard…” He admits.

Progress? She only hoped. “Really?” Katara soothes, hesitantly reaching out to enclose his hand with hers. Zuko doesn’t shake her away.

“Come back.” Katara whispers softly. “After this, come back with me. If not to the Fire Nation, there’s always a place for you in Republic City. Aang can-”

He slips from her grasp, standing on his feet and trudging across the room. Zuko slumps against the wall, crossing his arms and shaking his head. “There’s no place for me. Go, Katara. Back to Republic City, back to Aang.”

“And what will happen if I leave, after you and the White Lotus take down the Ozai Society?” She wasn’t going to leave, of course.

Zuki shrugs. “Why do you care?”

“Because you have family who are worried about you. Iroh is going out of his mind, concerned about what happened to you, he’s not the same.” And because I want you back , she wanted to say, burrowing down her confession.

“I’m doing this for my Uncle.” Zuko clarified.

“No, you're being selfish and doing things on your own again. Keeping everyone who loves you at arm's length, telling yourself you’re protecting them, when in fact you’re only hurting them-

“Stop!”

“You stop!” She promised herself she’d keep her cool, she promised herself she would give Zuko the much needed time to come around. That flew out the window real fast. “When will you grow the hell up! I swear, I thought you matured after joining Aang but silly me for thinking that you’ve evolved from the childish, egocentric, spoiled prince-” She was on her feet, flying at him. Katara couldn’t contain the outrage, the audacity at how he lacked any consideration.

“I said, stop .” Zuko seethed, cuffing her wrists and pressing them to her chest.

“Not until you fix this! Not until you make things right by everyone who has been worried sick about you!”

“It’s none of your damn business!” He shouted, releasing her wrists and reeling back.

Katara’s left speechless. It doesn’t hit her that a single tear escapes down her cheek until her vision is blurred and a ball forms in her throat. She swallows, the ache failing to subside, and she turns away from Zuko in a daze.

Inhaling sharply, Katara regains her composure, wiping the stray tear with the palm of her hand. “I’m worried about you.”

There’s a moment of dead silence, beating darkly in the room. The weight came down heavy on Katara’s limbs like chains. She can hear Zuko’s feet shuffle on the wooden floor, a slow creak like that of a desperate cry. Then he sighs, footsteps retreating to the front door.

“Don’t be.”

***

She didn’t know when he returned. Dreary, swollen eyes fluttered open to the aura of his presence right next to the bed she borrowed. The inn was across town and the thought of leaving didn’t sit right with her, aside from the exhaustion of their discourse last night.

She sits up quietly, looking over his slumped figure; a mere shadow in a darkened room. Zuko’s hands were clasped together, elbows to knees and his forehead pressed to his fists. He seems to be asleep, until...

“I thought I had a purpose.” Zuko broke the silence. “I had so much to offer at the time, now that I had found my way. You, uncle, aang, everyone...you all gave me a reason to push forward. And though it took me so long to change, to finally realize the man I needed- no, wanted to be, in the end the universe decided I still wasn’t worthy enough.” He paused, Zuko’s breath shook with every attempt to gather himself. “I was so happy. I didn’t deserve it but I was so happy to have met you all. My only regret was that I didn’t make you part of my life sooner, that I didn’t make things right with my Uncle sooner, that I didn’t take the opportunity to truly examine my bad behavior early on in life and make better decisions- because then I’d have more of those precious moments to hold onto.”

Katara doesn’t like this. He’s pouring his heart out but she doesn’t like where this is going. A black hole formed in the pit of her stomach, noting the way Zuko clung roughly to the front of his tunic, at the very center where the evidence of his sacrifice lied. She doesn’t want to meet his eyes when he finally turns his gaze to her. She doesn’t want the memory of those amber eyes glossed with fear and sadness staring back at her with utter defeat.

Please, Yue . Katara prays.

“Katara,” He says softly. Any other time she would have loved to hear him call her name so softly- like a flutter kissing her cheek- but not like this, never like this. “I’m dying.”

#zutara #day 2 #counterpart #zutara week #zutara week 2020 #fanfiction #zutara fanfiction

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jj-ktae · 4 years

Text

Papers, I

Title : Papers Pairing : Park Jinyoung x Fem!Reader Genre : Victorian Era, Romance, Fluff, Angst, smut-ish, Words : 3076 Summary : In the merciless 1850′s, Park Jinyoung finds solace in tiny pieces of paper and their owner.

Will be updated every Wednesday at 9 p.m CEST.

Prologue ➳ II, III,

Jinyoung wouldn’t call himself lucky. He doesn’t believe in such subjective things and his mind only sees things from a direct perspective. He knows a writer should be less down-on-earth, but he finds it hard to be laid back when everything is so harsh around him.

He doesn’t even know why he assumes he has to think like a writer.

It’s probably because it is the only future he can foresee.

He receives an answer to each notes he leaves behind him. The conversation is casual but Jinyoung finds it more stimulating than any other mundanities. He is tired of having to avoid the other students and being ignored. It might be what the etiquette is about, but neither him nor his friends will ever understand the difference between two similar human beings.

They all blame it on the lack of education at the orphanage. It’s true that things were hard and revolved around beating up kids more than functional education but Jinyoung doesn’t get how it makes him unworthy of picking up a classmate’s handkerchief to give it back to him.

Jackson hates every minute of these moments. He hates how he has to stare at the ground or keep quiet when he hears the others talk about them like they carry the plague. Jaebeom ignores the whole situation, his introvert side taking the upper hand now while he would end up in nasty fights back then at the orphanage.

This is exactly why he enjoys the candid answers he gets. He starts wondering who the person is, what they do, where they live. He doesn’t say much about himself; he knows enough to shut his mouth on the part where he is an orphan. Maybe the other one will stop answering, maybe he will have to deal yet again with that social difference.

So cowardly he calls himself a literature student, a writer wannabe who lives in the rich part of the city. He writes no name after his notes, and he gets none in return. While he interacts with The art student, he begins his own narrative. It builds up slowly, with steady steps about the encounter of two people and lost pieces of paper. He starts again and again, never satisfied until he gets a note that offers more answers to his own interrogations. Jinyoung ends up imagining so many scenarios that it almost turns him crazy but for the very first time in his damned life he feels alive, eaten by something that isn’t hatred.

He even forgets about his surroundings and it feels like heaven.

“Did they tell you about themselves?” Jaebeom barely questions him about it. He understood one thing about Jinyoung, and it doesn’t involve explicit talk. “You seem to be….vivid, these days.”

Jinyoung looks up from his old notebook, his brow furrowed as the sun blinds his vision. They never stop outside, they barely let themselves feel vulnerable outside of their home. Society is about showing the bright things and they aren’t part of the jewels of the country. “I didn’t ask,” he says, closing the book with careful hands. “If I try, I will have to do the same.”

“Fair enough,” his friend answers, yawning so wide he receives curious glances from the other students. “You don’t want them to know who you are, but don’t you want to know who you’re talking to?”

“I do,” Jinyoung chuckles, “but it doesn’t matter. I get answers, so it is enough for me.”

Jaebeom leans against the wall, smiling when he sees two young students greet each other with stupid bows and fake smiles. “How do you think we would be living if our parents were still alive?”

It makes Jinyoung sigh way too loudly. “I don’t think about such things. It’s not like we can change anything.”

Jackson’s loud voice startles the whole tiny garden, putting it to silence as everyone stares at the sweaty boy. “Am I late?” He pants.

Jinyoung looks around, doing his best to ignore the soft yet sharp comments ringing into his head.

“Let’s go.” Is all he says before getting up and escaping as fast as he can toward the classroom.

He finds the anticipation of a new note way too stimulating.

A woman.

It’s a young woman.

Jinyoung didn’t expect the person to be a young lady. He barely comes across any at this tiny school. It’s a small academy of literature and arts, it has nothing to do with the big and horribly expensive schools of the city. It has its standards though and it’s filled with young people, fancy and fitting perfectly.

It changes everything. There are a thousand things you can’t say and do around a lady, so there must be the same rules for writing. Jinyoung takes his own piece of paper and coughs, not sure why his handwriting becomes so neat.

“A girl ?” Jackson’s voice startles him as his ideas vanish yet again. His friend observes the piece of paper, lips pursed. “aren’t they...not supposed to do such things?”

Jinyoung nods, surprise still visible on his usually neutral features. “These hold no face, it is only paper and ink. She must think of me as one of notables’ son and it gave her courage.”

His friend scoffs, “Does this even help you?” he whispers, letting the paper fall softly on the table.

Jinyoung doesn’t answer.

It does.

He thinks for a minute before picking the note. It’s nothing but small talk, nothing important but he reads it over and over again.

I am an only child and I have no plans for the future. I just end up coming here and on a not so hectic day I found your note. I have to say it is not common for a young lady to do such tricks…

Tricks. Is this how they call it, in the mundane world ? Maybe it’s a distraction for you, something you do because you’re not allowed to. It’s probably the only thrill you get on a boring day and Jinyoung understood you fully.

He starts writing when his brain summons him to stop overthinking things again.

I understand. I am an only child too, but my comrades are like brothers to me. Never did I think that I would get an answer initially and judging from the way you present yourself, I would have put my guess on a fellow gentleman. I suppose boredom makes us do the unthinkable.Tell me more about your week next time and as insignificant as it will likely be, I will let you know about mine.

Jinyoung doesn’t need to ask as Jackson offers his chewing-gum silently with a wink. He puts it tight against the wood before crossing his arms.

A gentleman.

He is a man.

You pick up the note with shaky hands, not believing what you just read. You thought it was a lady, someone who was bored and needed distraction. It is not behaviour for a gentleman, as bored as he can be. You are not supposed to interact with them and considering the situation, you are not to interact with anyone.

Answering would mean not following proper etiquette, and you’ve transgressed a few rules already.

Still, he seems to be puzzled, as if eager to know more about a lady who would be daring enough to do such things. There is no harm in continuing and he has no clue about who you are exactly. The lack of interactions between you and the rest of the people assures a certain hideout.

He will never know. He must never know.

You look around, the silence evident and deafening. Each answer is a risk you’re not sure you’re willing to take.

As you pick up a forgotten piece of paper and rip a corner, you pray for tranquillity.

You will probably be disappointed as I’m afraid nothing exciting happened so far. It is repetitive, filled with night and day. I come and I go in silence, avoiding society. I don’t loath my surroundings but I fear the dexterity of social gatherings. I might not be cut for such a delicate exercise. I stay away, running when I can and watching when I have to -

Maybe it’s too personal. He shouldn’t guess anything, especially not your hatred toward your own self.

“Y/N! If anyone sees you we will be in trouble!” The high-pitched voice makes you nod, your eyes meeting the worried features of your friend’s face.

“I’m almost done!”

- I act like i am complaining but be assured that I enjoy life as far it can take me. I had a busy day filled with nothing worth sharing. I will probably let you know if anything exciting occurred in my next note, if you are still inclined to keep the exchange. Do not forget to let me know about your week as you promised.

You use the same gum to hide the note - and you hope he doesn’t notice it, before getting up and leaving.

“You will be the end of me, Y/N.” Your friend whispers angrily as you leave the classroom. She is fidgeting with worry as her eyes wander the corridor.

“Nothing will happen to us. No one is here at such a time. I made sure no one finds the note, Vivi.” You try to appease her fear by throwing an arm around her shoulder but she hushes you, an upset smile appearing when you start laughing.

“If someone were to see the way we behave…” She shakes her head before stopping in front of the door. “As soon as we get there, I want to see the note!”

Vivienne is a good person. She is the neighbour’s daughter and your lives have always been as entwined as they could be. Her smile is contagious but she takes things too seriously.

Well, you’re probably the one not caring enough.

You open the building’s door and hook and arm around hers before rushing back home. You don’t let go of the tiny piece of paper.

Vivienne takes the notes from your hand as soon as you enter your room. She follows you like she always do every week. Today is the day you always come back late so she stays with you.

She reads it with dreamy eyes before letting it fall on your bed. Her position change as she can finally be herself.

“A Gentleman ? Y/N, does he know ? I thought you were entertaining another stupid young mistress. I cannot believe such a thing is happening. He should never-

“Never know who I am. I know.” You finish with a sigh before jumping on your bed. “He doesn’t say who he is either, so nothing will happen. He seems so bored and serious.” You laugh when Vivienne unties her tight dress.

“He is a rich literature student living in the city, what good is it to do such unholy things, especially with a lady?” She wonders, taking a deep breath when the air finally enters her constricted lungs. “It has always been a game, to them.”

“Drop it, Vivi. We know enough about etiquette to understand it is not made for us. It must be entertaining for him to know that a young lady of good education can interact with a gentleman with no worry. I don’t find it shocking in any other circumstances; we both know it isn’t a crime to talk with a gentleman but they don’t. I’m more worried about the gossip and what i will lose if anyone discovers what I have been doing.”

It is true. You talk with the kids in your neighbourhood every day. The young boys here are friendly, if not more caring than any other boys. You are not used to follow etiquette as it isn’t needed; you know it only because it is necessary to survive and remain. Speaking loudly, laugh, sing, fight, eat messily, hug, all of this is normal life and you can’t imagine it being forbidden.

“Boring. They must be so boring.” Vivienne concludes, her voice dying and another one shaking you both.

“Time for dinner!”

Jinyoung finds it unusual. He never anticipates a class. Creative Writing is interesting when it doesn’t involve endless talking. He hates it when he has to lock his brain into his head and listen to whatever happens and it often happens.

But today he is eager to enter the class and hopefully discover an answer. He ignores Jackson and Jaebeom’s witty remarks about how a Lady has taken an interest in him and merely answers. She must be too bored and in need of something thrilling. It is the way they live.

He pulls the paper from under the table as soon as he takes a seat. He doesn’t even try to hide anything.

“You should be careful. You will be in trouble if they start meddling in your business.” Jaebeom taps his pen on the table rapidly before glancing toward the professor. “She will be, too.”

What trouble could she get? Money is enough to make your way out of trouble. Trouble is for people like us, Jinyoung wants to answer.

Instead he nods before opening the note.

It sounds different this time. He was expecting lines of useless tea gatherings and uninteresting chatting but he finds more depth than he thought he would have. She seems lost and far from the acts of the Upper class. Jinyoung doesn’t quite understand why would anyone not enjoy living among the rich in such hard times so he gets puzzled as to what he could answer.

He wants to say he hates the rich, he wants to yell at whoever deemed it good to let people behind to they own misery. He cannot speak though, his tongue is tied and his soul gone with the promise of a disturbed future.

A wave a melancholy hit him and against better judgment, he keeps the answer neutral, like nothing is triggering him.

On this we do agree. I am myself not fond of such games. I stay evasive when needed and watch my surroundings. This is why writing heals more than it is supposed to - it is not surprising for a literature student, you may think. I am afraid my days aren’t exciting either. I am working on a piece that I will have to submit to my teacher so it takes most of my time. Considering the amount of stimulation I receive, I can say it is not going smoothly.

Jinyoung stops when he thinks about how ridiculous it is to act like someone he isn’t. What the hell should he feel ashamed of what he is?

So his last sentence hits the papers way faster than intended. He hopes to find excitement, he believes it is to get a better view for his works but in fact he wants to disturb. He wants to pique, if not face to face, then on papers it will be.

ps : If I may ask, what do you think about the rich? Please do not fear of my reaction and do not answer if such questions disturb your tranquillity.

He snorts at himself before sticking the paper again. Why would he even care about disturbing the empty life of the powerful?

When class ends he leaves, furious at no one and nothing but filled with a rage to change the balance. He will not end like this.

“What I think about the rich?” You ask yourself, crouched behind the table.

It is ridiculous, why would anyone ask such a question? You start to panic when you imagine the probability of being discovered. Speaking badly of them would be ill-mannered, but no one would ever be able to tell it is you who wrote those words.

You are not even supposed to know how to write.

Vivienne is busy next to you, her dirty dress swiping the floor with every step.

You grab a piece of paper you had previously taken with you and try to find an answer.

Before you can think you start writing messily, like someone is watching from behind.

If you don’t mind, you can share the subject of your writing with me. I see we both fancy peacefulness-

You stop, not in the mood to act like you want to know more.

About your question, I don’t know what it is that you mean but I would say that they are the essence of our society. Their intelligence is building the country and our wealth is nothing to be ashamed of. If you mean to put it in confrontation with the poor, I would say they do nothing but maintain an order which every peaceful monarchy should have. The rich have the knowledge and power and it is what it is. It is natural for humanity to place its bets on the survival of the fittest.

You feel nauseous as you finish the paper. It is probably what he wants to read so you wrote whatever would please a rich person. It is disgusting and untrue but there is only so little you can do without rising doubt in the mind of this young gentleman.

If he wants someone to flatter his pride, then so be it.

It has always been that way.

The notes get shorter after that. You are not sure whether you did something wrong or not, but the answers get colder and colder. There are still here though, every weeks and with the same beautifully written letters.

You answer, even though it is nothing but wind in an empty shell.

Jinyoung doesn’t know what he was expecting. He knew from the start who he would be corresponding with and it is no surprise.

It is after one class that the story gets blurred.

He is about to leave when the professor interrupts them.

“Starting next week we will gather in the main amphitheatre. This room is only used for creative writing and in spite of how inspiring I think it is, it will no longer be used in this way.”

Jinyoung freezes, his notebook almost falling.

While Jaebeom and Jackson are leaving, he speaks, startling them.

“Sir, no other lessons are being held here?” He looks vivid.

The teacher is as disturbed as the rest of the class. “No, it hasn’t been used by anyone else in the past five years.”

162 notes · View notes

byunsbobobu · 4 years

Text

Blood Promise [Chapter 2]

Vampire Baekhyun AU

Pairing; Twin Baekhyun/BaekBaëk/ Alana

Genre; vampire/ fantasy AU

Warnings; angst, fluff, language, mentions of blood, slight teasing

Word Count: 3702

Prologue: Chapter 1:

Vampires falling in love with humans was forbidden. That is until 18-year-old Alana Davis moves to town and attends the new boarding school; Hallows Boarding School. Unaware that vampires exist and that the school is home to both Vampires and humans. On one late night Alana stumbles upon two brooding and mysterious twin brothers, but little did she know they would soon change her life. Will it be for the worse or the better?

** AUTHORS NOTE; Hii, here is the newest chapter update of Blood Promise. I hope you enjoy. Let me know if you would like to be tagged in future chapter updates ;)***

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Two weeks later]

It was Friday. The end of the week and the beginning of the weekend, and I couldn’t be more excited to just relax in my room, and binge watch some of my favorite shows. I just wanted to throw on my favorite silk pajamas with a tub of ice cream placed in my lap and just enjoy my sweet, sweet time alone. It was approaching 4pm in the evening, and I had decided to go to the library for a couple hours to study for my medieval literature class, after class. Chanyeol and Sehun ended up coming with me to study for our class we had together at the library. I thought about how I’ve grown surprisingly close to the two boys in such a short time. They were always goofing around whenever they were around me, but I didn’t really mind. Although, Sehun can really get on my nerves sometimes.

We were now seated by a large window in a wide and longish table near the back corner of the library, so that nobody would come up to bother us as we studied. The weather outside today was rainy and gloomy. The gray clouds covered the sky, as rain petals fell from the sky hitting my window. All that can be heard in the library is the sound of rain and the faint sound of the air conditioner blowing down. Staring outside your window now, you were beginning to get lost in the rain; you had your headphones in your ear. You were listening to some soft tunes hoping that it would help me relax and get my mind off certain things, so that I could concentrate better on my studies.

Getting back to writing down my notes from today’s class into my notebook; I was currently in the middle of a song when all of a sudden I feel the right bud of my headphones being pulled out from my ear. “What the fuck Sehun” I curse at him; keeping my voice low because were still in the library and I didn’t want to drag any attention to ourselves. “Why’d you do that for?” I asked, annoyance written all over my face. Chanyeol sitting in front of you in the table chuckles plopping the book he was reading down on the table. “C’mon Sehun.. leave Alana alone she’s clearly in her zone.” He spoke. You were glad you had a friend like Chanyeol. At least he helped keep Sehun from annoying you too much. “Thank you, Chanyeol” You smiled up at him. “At least you have some kind of decadency” you said in a sarcastic tone turning your head to your right looking over at Sehun who had a smug smile upon his face. You roll your eyes at him. “Oooh! Lighten up Alana.” He says. “You’re always so uptight, and I was getting bored just sitting here watching you guys study.” Sehun now laughing in between his sentences as he sees the scowl reaction of being bothered on my face. His hands were clutching to his stomach, as he continued to laugh at your face. Sehun runs his fingers through his shiny black hair tilting his head back a bit; eyes crinkling on the sides of his face. “Whatever” I tell him, a slight smile appearing on my face now. Quickly trying to focus back on my notes in front of me I pick up my pencil and begin to write. Moments later I hear Chanyeol clearing his throat. Looking up from my notes yet again, eyebrows raised, I placed my pencil back down on the desk seeming to notice Chanyeol who looks like he wants to get something off his chest. Sighing you speak; “Spit it out.” I tell him. Letting out a deep breath he speaks, “To be fair.. Sehun’s right. You’re always so uptight and tense.” Scoffing.

“I am not uptight” I say defensively crossing my arms against my chest pouting.

“I just have a lot on my mind lately.” I admit to them. “Like what?” Sehun joins into the conversation, grabbing my pencil playing with it. Rolling your eyes,

I could tell that he was interested in what’s been distracting my thoughts lately.

“Just stuff… nothing you need to worry about.” I spit out rather quickly averting my gaze from both their stares. Although, something really was on your mind, and it was bothering you to a great extent, but you didn’t want to tell them just yet.

It’s been two weeks now since what happened outside my uncle’s office late at night. I just couldn’t stop myself thinking about what I had seen that night. It’s like its embedded itself deep into my brain, and that’s all I’ve been thinking about lately. All that ran through my mind was them. Their gorgeous yet dangerous faces. It all happened so fast. Recalling back to that night once more I remember seeing Baekhyun and Baëkhyun in a hidden corner behind the school walls with what looked like, blood all over their hands. They didn’t even seem fazed, by the fact you had found them. I remember hearing faint whispering from afar which was what peaked my curiosity to follow their voices in the first place. I had no idea I would end up finding them outside, so late at night. I remembered how intimidating they were from when I was back in my uncle’s office. First with Baekhyun, and then with Baëkhyun. I remember feeling paralyzed under their strong gaze. I shivered when I remembered the way they both stared at me when they realized I had caught them in such a suspicious act. Unfazed and unbothered. Even if it was just for a second it still was able to give me goosebumps. I couldn’t help but shiver a little Chanyeol and Sehun both noticing. Why were they out so late? Didn’t Chanyeol and Sehun say that your uncle didn’t allow students out of their rooms past dusk? Were they students from Night Class? What was your uncle doing talking to them, so late at night? My mind was just spinning with unanswered questions.

Snapping out of my trance state. I turn my head towards both Chanyeol and Sehun. Sensing something was up they both looked at me curiously. “What’s wrong Alana?” Chanyeol asked. Wanting to know more about the Night Class students I asked him. “You remember how on my first day of class you guys brought up the subject on the Night Class students, and all that stuff?” I began. “Y-yeahh” Chanyeol stutters nervous about where this was going. “Why did something happen? Did you see someone from Night Class?” He asked worry and curiosity laced in his voice. Unlike Chanyeol, Sehun was quiet. Surprised he hadn’t said anything, I remember he was the one who had told me about the Night Class students, and how they were freaks of nature. I really didn’t want to make them worry about me and my problems on behalf of the Byun twins.

“No, I just want to know more about them.” I tell them, hoping they would give me the answers I was looking to hear. Sehun then suddenly put his arm around my shoulders pulling me into his chest. “Listen Alana, don’t worry too much about them. They are practically ghosts at this school.” He said with a smile on his face. “But you said that no one has ever seen students from the Night Class right?” I ask him, Chanyeol now listening in. “You said they were freaks of nature.” Sehun lets out a deep chuckle; “You really don’t let anything slip past you, do you Alana.”

“Please Sehun” you looked at him with pleading eyes begging him to tell you more.

Chanyeol sighs. “We think that the Night Class is some sort of secret society” Chanyeol begins to explain. “But we don’t really know’ since we’ve never seen one of them” He finishes.

“I heard from a couple people in my economy class that the Night Class students are into some pretty dark shit” Sehun joins in.

“What do you mean, by “Dark shit”” you ask.

“Well that’s what we don’t know” Chanyeol shrugs.

“We’ve never seen any of them to tell you that remember..” Sehun reminds me with a slight smile on his face. “They don’t like to interact with Day Class students. They like to stay hidden from us.”

“It’s rare for a student from Day Class to come across students from Night Class. Especially since Headmaster Dae doesn’t allow us coming out of our rooms after a certain time at night.” Chanyeol finishes

“I wonder why?” a frown forming on my face. My mind wanders back to the Byun brothers. if I wasn’t curious enough about them before then I definitely was now. Was it just some lucky coincidence that I out of all people in this school happened to run into not one, but two potential students from Night Class on my first day of attending Hallows Boarding School?

“Do you think my uncle, or must I say headmaster know about what goes on during the Night Class?” I ask them. Sehun soon detaches his arm from around your shoulder and leans back on his chair.

“Oh yeah, for sure” they both speak at the same time, and this causes me to freeze in my seat. Noticing your state of panic, they say “But you shouldn’t worry” Chanyeol says. “Whatever they do during their time together, I’m sure your uncle’s just keeping them in check, so that they won’t cause any sorts of trouble.” Chanyeol says while Sehun starts patting your back gently comforting your nerves. Clearing his throat Sehun speaks.

“Anyways, it’s getting late we should be getting back to our rooms now.” They both smile. “Wouldn’t want to be yelled at by the headmaster” Sehun continue. Dropping his head Chanyeol begins to laugh, his eye slightly closed, and the sides of his eyes crinkling. Shaking his head “Sehun’s a little afraid of Headmaster Dae” a smug look on his face. “You weren’t supposed to tell her that.” Sehun nudges Chanyeol on the shoulder across the table. “Now she’s going to think I’m some kind of wimp.” Giggling I rub Sehun’s back. “It’s okay Sehun, I know my uncle can be a little strict sometimes.” I smile up at him. Soon agreeing with Sehun, Chanyeol and Sehun both stand up from their seats throwing their books into their bookbags and sling it over one shoulder. Making his way around the table Chanyeol’s tall form comes up behind me. “Don’t stay out too late Alana”

patting your shoulder, both of them mumble their final goodbye’s as you watch them walk towards the entrance of the library. Turning back my head from looking a smile still plastered across my face, I quickly put my headphones back in my ears and resume writing down the rest of my notes hoping to finish soon.

__________________________________________________________________

It was now a quarter to eight, and you had just finished writing down all your notes from your class. Slightly pissed at how many slides your teacher assigned. It was already dark outside. All you could see now was the moon’s light up in the sky as it casted through the window into the library. The lights in the library were dimmed down, and only a couple were turned on. The librarian had left around 7pm, in which she had to turn down some of the lights in the room, leaving me alone. Making note to myself to stop staying out so late I quickly get up from my chair. Fixing my uniform and clutching my books to my chest I start to walk towards the entrance of the library. You were exhausted and you just couldn’t wait to get back to your room and run yourself a hot bath.

Almost reaching the door I suddenly freeze in my spot; eyes wide when I see two familiar figures walking towards the library. I prayed that they weren’t thinking of coming in here. It was them. Starting to panic; knowing they would eventually see me in here, I quickly looked directly down to the ground my books still pressed against my chest hoping to avoid talking to them. I began to feel the palms of my hands sweat. My heart was racing, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Still with my head down making my way towards the door I stop dead in my tracks when I hear the sound of the doors of the library opening and closing shortly after.

“Well, well… look who we have here.” Baekhyun’s eyes scanning down your figure. Already familiar with Baekhyun’s voice, I knew it was him who had just spoken.

“If it isn’t Alana” He began. “Jongdae’s precious little niece” feeling brave you slowly lift your head to meet their faces. My breath hitches. Heart beating even faster, palms sweating even more. They were BOTH standing right in front of me. Baëkhyun was just staring at me with his cold soulless eyes which seemed to hold no remorse or compassion in them at all. Baëkhyun hasn’t said a word since they both arrived. He just continues to watch me carefully.

“We’ve been hoping to see you again.” Baekhyun speaks after a moment of silence. That stupid smirk back on his gorgeous face. I quickly scanned them over. Baekhyun was wearing what looked like the school’s uniform. He wore a gray suit. His suit was unbuttoned so you were able to see he was wearing a white turtleneck underneath. He was so broad you thought to yourself. You couldn’t help, but stare at him in awe, but also in fear. He paired his outfit with expensive black dress shoes, and some accessories which in this case were a couple rings around his slender fingers. His raven black hair was messily styled, his bangs falling over his face a bit, but not too much because I was still able to see his forehead peeking through. I hadn’t noticed this last time, but you seem to notice a pair of dangly earrings hanging on his right ear. On the other hand, Baëkhyun was not wearing his school uniform. I could tell, by how Baëkhyun acts that he wasn’t the type to follow school rules that often. Baëkhyun’s silver white hair was styled a little differently than today than when you first saw him. His hair was styled so that you could see an undercut. His bangs falling to one side of his face, exposing his forehead in a comma-shaped style. Baëkhyun wore a black turtleneck shirt, a necklace dangling down his chest and a pair of black leather pants that squeezed his thighs deliciously. I couldn’t help my eyes from wandering between the two of them, but just look at them. They were extremely gorgeous. Between their soft milky skin, their pink lips, their piercing eyes, and the way they dressed, it was impossible for you not to become affected by them in some way.

Noticing that you had been staring at them Baekhyun finally speaks “What’s the matter Alana? Cat got your tongue?” He chuckles.

“S-sorry” you make out past your lips.

Baekhyun smiles down at your tiny form leaning down so that you both were now staring into his each other’s eyes. I quickly avert my gaze form his and look over to Baëkhyun who was still watching my every move. I felt so small under his gaze.

Feeling like he was judging me. Baëkhyun was standing in a straight posture, his arms in front of him hands holding his wrists. Realizing that you had been staring at Baëkhyun, Baekhyun turns his head around to meet Baëkhyun’s face and he smirks.

Standing up straight; Baekhyun fixes himself and gestures you to take a seat in the chair beside you. “Why don’t we sit down and have a little chat princess?” Baekhyun says tilting his head to the side as he now watches me fidget under both their gazes. Nervously I begin to pull on the sleeves of my school uniform playing with them. Nodding my head, I slowly push the chair out from under the table and take a seat, as he had just instructed me to do. Just as I sat down Baekhyun comes right after me and sits right beside me. As for Baëkhyun, he slowly pulls out the chair from where he was standing a few feet away from you and sits down.

“Sorry” Baekhyun speaks again.

“My brother isn’t the very talkative type” He smirks down at you.

I gulp. They were making you so nervous. Here you were with the two guys you had seen two weeks ago with blood on their hands, and all you could focus on was the way they were looking at you, and how they were making you feel at this very moment, all thoughts I once had about them in my head gone.

“Soo.. Alana” Baekhyun starts.

“We know you saw us that night, and we just wanted to clear some things up, He says while taking a piece of my hair in his fingers and twirling it. “and we want explain to you what you might’ve saw that night” He says.

I stutter “I-I won’t say anything” I make out past my lips. Fear written all over my face,

“I don’t even know what I saw exactly” you continue. “I-It was dark.”

Baekhyun chuckles. “Aww.. your cute. I like you” He states. I’m now seated facing forward on the table hands in my lap as you look over at Baëkhyun as he continues to watch me and Baekhyun interact. I suddenly feel the cold sensation of Baekhyun’s hand as his left hand makes contact with my left cheek as he slides his hand down my face in a slow and teasing manner. His hands were soft against my skin.

“We know you wouldn’t say anything princess” Baekhyun continues.

“I just want to explain to you what me and my brother are.”

That seemed to get your attention, and Baekhyun could tell by how your eyes lit up at his words.

Still smirking he laughs. “I know you’ve probably been thinking about us, wondering about what happened that night, and what we are, am I wrong?” He asks already knowing your answer.

Still facing Baëkhyun. Body frozen in its spot on the chair. I felt paralyzed. Putting his arms around your shoulder Baekhyun leans into you. His nose teasingly taking a whiff of my sweet scene. My heart was beating like hammers in my chest. The pulse on my neck tempting Baekhyun to an extreme. You whimper from the slightest touch of his lips grazing your skin. His lips now coming in contact with my ear he whispers, “You smell so..” he pauses, eyes closed as he inhales my scent. Baekhyun’s hair tickling the insides of my neck, he shortly exhales a deep breath “Sweet” just like I remembered his lips ghosting my ear.

“W-what are you guys?” voice trembling in fear and something else I can’t quite put a finger on.

“I know about the Night Class”

“About your secret society”

“What is my uncle’s business with you guys” I continue to ask trying to sound the least bit unaffected as Baekhyun continues to tease me.

Baekhyun was about to answer when someone else’s voice cut through the now silent room of the library. My heart skipped and I gasped. Baekhyun chuckles into your ear causing goosebumps to rise up my skin.

“You really are a curious little one” Baëkhyun spoke.

“It’s no secret society sweetheart.” Baëkhyun continues.

His tone cold and intimidating. Baekhyun eventually pulls away from my neck watching his brother approach me, as Baëkhyun now stands in front of me on the other side of the table. The only thing blocking us being the long desk. Watching him with my curious eyes not leaving his broad form, your breathing ragged now. Placing his palms flat on the table he leans down in front of me. Our faces so close to each other I can feel his breath on my cheek. Eyes scanning down my face he licks his lips hungrily

“It’s a class for Vampires” he says with no remorse in his voice.

“Vampires aren’t real” I make out past my lips. They both chuckle.

“Ooh, they are very real indeed Alana” Baëkhyun continues.

And you’re in a library all alone with TWO vampires” He continues a sadistic laugh escaping his lip as Baekhyun moves back to whisper in your ear.

“You realize Alana” Baekhyun begins speaking into your ear.

“If we wanted too” His hot breath on my skin causing me to stir in my seat again.

Baëkhyun this time trading in his cold expression; now displaying a smirk across his face.

“We could drain you of your blood right here.” Baekhyun says into your ear.

I slowly being to cry. Tears threatening to fall down your cheek. Your lips quivering

“P-Please don’t” you beg. You didn’t want to die like this.

“I’ll do anything” I tell them. Eyes closed now, as Baëkhyun just stares me down with the same sadistic smirk enjoying seeing you squirm. Opening your eyes slowly you feel Baekhyun’s lips press softly to your neck. Still looking at Baëkhyun his eyes dark now, but also filled with what looked like lust as you feel Baekhyun’s hands coming to wrap around your throat lightly, tilting your neck so that you were exposed to his mouth, so that Baëkhyun could see what his brother was doing. You gasp when you feel his lips make contact with the beating pulse on your neck licking a strip up your neck, then planting a kissing to the area very gently that you end up letting out a small whine escape from your lips.

“We’re not going to hurt you Alana. We just want to have some fun with you.” Baekhyun says sending chills down your spine, as he continues to place feather light kisses to my now sensitive neck. Subconsciously arching my neck more for him.

Now it’s Baëkhyun’s turn to speak again.

“Besides..” He pauses.

“Your uncle owes us for what he’s done….”

“What have I just gotten myself into” I wondered as I was seated in the middle of the library with two dangerous predators. One kissing my neck, and the other watching as I began to give into temptation with each passing minute…….

44 notes · View notes

sparklingpax · 4 years

Text

Tales From Iacon - Part 2: Intentions

A/N:

-Part one can be found here and I also have a wattpad where I’m posting updates as well as other stories! (user is @/kunixjiro)

-Idk if this was an appropriate title for this part but the idea was that they both had their own intentions and well....you can see how it turned out.

-Sorry if this is badly written (and for any typos, mistakes, weird phrasings, etc)

-Also sorry that this is long af O//O’’

-This part isn’t so fluffy ^^’’ But dw I promise I’ll resolve everything in time....anyway, hopefully nothing got too ooc or anything! Enjoy!! <3

///

It was no secret that Megatronus was a gladiator.

He was not ashamed or afraid to admit his purpose—to kill both beast and bot alike.

For the entertainment of the crowds, and in accordance with Cybertron’s corrupt caste system.

Such a life was a choice he’d made long ago, when he rose up from the mines and cast away the life of a meaningless energon miner. With it, he’d cast away a name given to him—a name which held no meaning anyway.

D-16 was no more—he was Megatronus now.

///

The wild cheering of the crowds invigorated Megatronus, fueling his drive to utterly mutilate the monster hulking before him. All he could think of was the desire to fight stronger and harder than ever before—to show off his power so he could bask in the glory of the hundreds all around calling his name.

“Megatronus! Megatronus! Megatronus!”

The deafening roar of the onlookers filled his audio receptors, causing Megatronus to grin wildly, and the injured monster to bellow in terror. It stumbled forward hastily, only for Megatronus to dodge and deal another blow with his sword. Much to the delight of the crowd, the beast cried out in pain and reared up to attack Megatronus again.

There was no fear as Megatronus gazed into the black eyes of the beast, lit only with primal rage. They bored into him for only a moment before it shook its head and charged.

Call my name! Call it louder—shout it to the skies, Cybertronians!

He stood in battle stance, breathing hard but not yet tired. Bright lights all around blazed down on his plating, making the grey and burgundy glow as silver and red. His optics were alight with a wild look, as if he knew the battle was over and victory was in his very grasp.

Megatronus tossed away his shield, gripping the hilt of his sword tighter. He released a savage cry and charged right at the monster. Screams of excitements and fear sounded from every angle as he neared the gaping jaws of his opponent.

The gladiator swung the sword and neatly sliced off half of the grey tongue that greedily reached out at him. The monster instantly recoiled, writhing in pain. Blue blood sprayed everywhere. The warm, sticky liquid showered Megatronus as he slid the weapon into its holder at his hip.

He paid no mind to it, for he had known the tongue would bleed the most.

Megatronus took a running leap off the dirt and landed on the back of the beast. With his own servos, he grabbed its snout and yanked it towards him, bending its neck backwards to injure it further. It tried to swing him off, but Megatronus stabbed his sword into its body. The crowd collectively shrieked with anticipation upon seeing the legs of the monster buckle beneath him.

Before it could scream in pain again, he vaulted off its body to the side, twisting its neck with a fatal, sickening crack. There was a brief, abrupt silence while the monster moaned more quietly, attempting to move. It crumpled inward with a low huff.

A pool of energon gushed out from its wounds, soiling the ground around it as Megatronus backed away to watch it die. He grinned with pure delight—breathing heavily, limbs quivering with exhaustion—at his work. Only seconds later, the beast went totally limp.

It was done.

The volume of the crowd was loud enough to sound as if the whole of Cybertron had packed into the small stadium.

Megatronus was victorious again.

He felt pride and joy rush through him as he raised his sword and cried out to the masses before him.

“I AM MEGATRONUS, KING OF THE PITS OF KAON!!!”

“Megatronus! Megatronus! Megatronus! Megatronus! ”

“I AM LIVING PROOF THAT ONE DECIDES HIS OWN DESTINY!!”

Hundreds packed together in the seats raised their servos and shouted as loud as they could, amazed by the skill of the gladiator before them, and filled with inspiration. Megatronus felt something warm in his spark, for he knew Orion was one of the many voices.

There was no disputing it now, D-16 was truly no more.

///

Outside the arena’s seating, there was a dimly lit, blue corridor. Various clumps of bots milled around there. Some were making their way out from the seats, conversating excitedly about the fighting, or were making their way back in. Others stayed outside for whatever reason they had. A quiet murmuring filled the space, contrasting greatly from the deafening roar of the arena.

Orion Pax had his back up against the wall, breathing hard. He tried to steady his breath, attempting to erase the images of the brutal murdering of that beast from his mind.

He had never seen anything so violent in his whole life.

Orion couldn’t bear it a second longer, hearing the crowd cheer hungrily for the monster to suffer more, and chanting all the louder for its death. All of it had felt so…wrong. For a second, he had wondered if everyone in there had lost their senses. Surely a society of civilized people wouldn’t bee chanting for the death of a living, breathing creature? Or will it to be tortured?

And yet…they were.

He had slipped out to regain himself a little, and decided he’d return to his place when the act was finished. At least, if Orion didn’t watch some of the real fight, he’d see the aftermath. After all, Megatronus had invited Orion as a…somewhat esteemed guest. It was only fair that Orion, too, should raise his voice to cheer his friend on.

I’m here for Megatronus.

I’m here because he invited me.

I’m…here to…support him….

His stomach turned upon thoughts of what he was doing to the creature at the moment. He heard a loud roar of pain and the noise of the crowd increased greatly. Orion shook his head and slid down to a sitting position.

�� I’ll…I’ll wait here until it sounds like it’s over…or else….I just might purge…

///

“So then, Soundwave,” Megatronus shook hands with the quiet mech and nodded. “I’ll be off. I’m meeting someone now. We can speak again tomorrow, if you like.”

Soundwave nodded, then turned and left. Megatronus watched him go, interest dancing vaguely in his gaze.

What an interesting bot, being so quiet and yet saying so much.

The gladiator was suddenly hit with a wave of exhaustion, and it seemed the adrenaline that had pushed him through the fight was finally fading. With a small grunt, Megatronus stumbled and fell against the corridor’s wall for support. To Megatronus’ frustration, his legs were tremoring a little. He let out a sigh, straightening again after a moment with a small wince.

I suppose I…expended a bit too much of my energy today…

He still felt pride and joy in his victory.

Even still, all my efforts were worth it. I stand alive once more.

“Good evening, Megatronus!”

Orion’s voice reached Megatronus before he sighted his friend at the other end of the corridor. Orion picked up pace and jogged down the hall to meet him.

Megatronus immediately felt his exhaustion dissipate.

Orion had seen the fight!

He was eager to know what Orion had thought of it all. He knew it Orion’s first time seeing something as graphic and epic as this.

But more than that, Megatronus was eager to know what Orion thought of him. Battle brought out his truest form, and that form was Megatronus’ greatest pride. Having somewhat of an ego, Megatronus knew that deep down, all he needed to keep going was some sort of praise.

After all, who wouldn’t? Validation is a beautiful thing, especially in one’s own art.

“Orion, it brought me much joy to know you could make it tonight!” He and Orion shook servos and greeted one another, then started slowly back up the hall so they could leave the building. Megatronus continued, “How unfortunate you could not have seen me last week, when I, with great fervor, slayed—”

He paused, sensing Orion tense up next to him and look away.

Odd.

“Never mind. Anyway, you are usually too busy with your studies or your work. How is it that you came tonight?” Orion sighed.

“My apologies. I hope to be a master archivist one day, and full commitment to my studies is essential for me to reach that goal.” He looked up at the sky speckled with thousands of stars and smiled. Shifting his gaze to Megatronus, who was listening intently, he nodded. “I did get time off tonight, though. I have Alpha Trion to thank for that.”

Megatronus patted him on the back.

They continued through the quiet streets of Kaon—well, the backstreets, to be specific. Megatronus knew how ugly the main streets could get with all the crazy bots running around at night. He wanted no part in it tonight as long as Orion was with him.

And Orion is no fighter.

“Megatronus, uhm…” Orion’s voice jolted him out of his thoughts. He looked a little nervous. He fiddled with his fingers for a moment before taking a deep breath. “I…I hope you can be patient with me.”

“What?”

“You might feel offended.” Orion tried elaborating. Megatronus, however, was not following. “I am only asking that if you are mad, that you don’t take it out on someone else…or that you can understand what my reasoning was.”

Offended? It made little sense. Yet his friend remained tense, and would not meet his gaze. Megatronus immediately felt guilty. Have I said something wrong?

“Orion, I do not understand what it is you refer to!” He picked up his pace, trying to think of changing the subject. He so desperately wanted to know about what Orion had thought of his battle with the monster!

“About the fight tonight…” Orion’s gaze dropped to the ground and he halted. Megatronus, who had walked a few paces ahead, stopped and turned. Oh, he read my mind. How funny; I was just about to ask!

“Listen, Orion, whatever it is, I’m sure it’s not—”

“I had to leave halfway through the fight. I…” He slowly lifted his gaze to meet his friend’s. As he’d suspected, the beginnings of frustration had already begun to spark into it. He mustered all his confidence to finish. “I waited in the hall because I couldn’t take anymore of the violence…or the bloodthirsty crowd. It…did not feel right at all.”

An uncomfortable silence weighed on the pair.

At last, Megatronus turned away and sighed quietly, breaking the silence. Orion felt guilt and embarrassment to the depths of his spark. He opened his mouth to say more, then thought it better not to. He figured Megatronus would have something to say to him.

“So…that’s it?” Disappointment was fully evident in his voice, causing Orion’s spark to twist more. Megatronus turned back to his friend and moved closer. His hands were folded behind his back. Orion swallowed.

My intentions were to be honest, but I fear I have taken an imprudent course of action…

Orion decided not to voice the thought. Instead, he quietly responded, “Yes.”

“I would be lying if I didn’t tell you that I’m…very hurt, Orion.” Megatronus kept his voice level as he gazed into the archivist’s eyes, yet Orion could still hear dejection in its tone.

He realized he had to fix this.

But how? What do I say? Orion Pax, you foolish child!! He scorned himself internally.

“I am sorry, Megatronus. I understand that words will do no good, but for the moments I was there, your courage in the face of the beast was admirable.” Megatronus looked away. Indignance and annoyance welled up inside him.

He’s probably making it up.

“And that is the honest truth.”

Orion looked earnest.

He also looked and sounded guilty.

Is it? Or are you telling me what I want to hear? Why did you come if you knew you couldn’t stand violence and a crowd’s wildness? Orion, you anger me…or rather…

Megatronus then remembered his friend’s quiet plea for peace and patience beforehand. To lash out at him would wound their friendship forever, and give Orion the wrong impression of Megatronus. All that aside, Megatronus realized he…felt no anger towards his friend. The heated emotions faded, quickly replaced by pangs of rejection.

…such is my fate, being a lower-caste bot raised in blood, darkness and cold steel. Of course Orion does not find it beautiful, and I should not have forced him to witness such things.

It seemed they would have to allow time to do its work.

Megatronus began to walk away, saying nothing more. Orion called after him, but received no reply. His friend disappeared into the shadows of the night, leaving Orion feeling guilty and ashamed.

I won the battle, but I now feel…defeat.

Megatronus felt exhaustion creep back into his limbs.

///

On his way out of the city, Orion paid no attention to the tranquil, moonlit nature around him. He was instead lost in thought.

Had I said nothing, I’d have lied.

He shook his head.

I can’t lie. I won’t lie. I know it would have come out eventually, and he would still be hurt.

A pang of sadness twisted his spark again.

Why couldn’t I bear it even for his sake? It is because I do not understand it that I fear it, I know. But...it is his joy...his art....and I was not there for him.

As he reached a train station, Orion still did not have any real thoughts in mind as he punched in the location for his ticket.

When the train arrived, Orion boarded and sat by the window.

I realize now that my intentions were faulted. It would have been better to stay quiet, becuase then I would not have hurt him.

He closed his eyes.

Time will have to heal this wound.

24 notes · View notes

darknessisafriend · 5 years

Text

Since the beginning

Pairing: Arthur/Joker x Reader

Warning: rough sex, bloodplay and very long fic XD

Prompt: Where the Reader has been in a relationship since before his decent into madness and she is at the apartment when Arthur is on the Murray Franklin Show. She watches the whole thing and is terrified, too scared to even move. When she does find the strength, she decides to pack everything and get the hell out of Dodge. Then, as she finishes and is getting ready to leave, Arthur comes home. He manages to escape the cops and comes back to get her? He's still post-car accident. He has blood all over and his makeup still on. Arthur is all creepy and everything as he tries to get the reader to go with him, saying "you love me, don't you?" And all that shit. In the end, the reader submits, and they have rough-ish sex?

You have more empathy than most people, not very talkative, introvert and nervous in crowded places, you always saw details and noticed thing others didn´t see. The homeless grandma, trying to sell little knitted objects to have food, a warm and safe place to spend the night; the sexually harassed student in the subway not daring to move or say anything, that nobody see or feign not to see. You often thought that it´s probably because people don´t see you either that you notice these details.

You had recently graduated from university but you couldn´t find a job related to your background, and you had your student loan to pay back. You wondered, `what’s the point of studying for this kind of result? ´, so you took the first job you found, cashier at a porn cinema. Most of the time it was ok, but as you worked on the night shift, you could meet pervs, asking you to do all sorts of things as if working at a porn cinema included prostitution; you didn´t feel safe either when your shift ended at 5:00 am, it was still dark outside, most of the streets were desert, except for some criminals, you were just lucky nothing had happened to you yet.

You met Arthur in the streets, the day when he got beaten up; you were passing by, going to work. Your boss had asked you to do extra hours, you couldn´t refuse it, you will be able to buy yourself warm clothes for winter. It was going to be quite a long day; it was around 3pm when you approached from your place of work. You were looking to the ground while walking, lost in your thoughts. Suddenly on your left your heard muffled noises, to realize it sounded like a mix of punches and groans. As you turned you head in the direction of the sounds, you saw a group of kids running, leaving someone lying still on the floor. `Shit´ you thought as you started to walk rapidly towards the victim. The man was dressed as a clown, breathing rapidly, curved into a ball, his sign broken into pieces. He slowly moved onto his back, making his prank flower throw a spurt of water, as if he was trying to cheer himself up. He quailed as he saw you approaching; he probably expected another series of beating. Poor man, you crouch down, your hands in front of you.

“I mean no harm” you told him as softly as you could, giving him a reassuring smile.

“I´m Y/N, what´s your name?” you asked him, he looked at you in the eyes, like you were an alien, what happened to him to end up so surprised by such question?

“I´m Ar…Arthur …” he stuttered; his voice broken. He sounded like such a sweet guy. You could feel anger rise in your chest, why did everyone were so mean these days? But now wasn’t the time to get pissed.

“Arthur, are you okay? Can you move?” you asked him, extending your hand for him to take. He seemed to hesitate as if it was another sick joke. You gave him an encouraging smile. He gently took your hand, you squeezed it reassuringly.

“I´m alright” he answered, still looking at you, wonder filling his blue eyes, they were one of the most beautiful you had ever seen. You helped him stand up, he rolled his right shoulder, he probably took a heavy punch there, and one of his legs seemed to hurt him as well. He was about to bend to reach the pieces of his sign, you were faster than him.

“No, don’t worry, I´ll pick it up for you” you added, gathering them, and giving them to Arthur. He was throwing you quick glances.

“Thank you, Y/N, I´m… I´m sorry to bother you…” he said with a guilty tone, looking on the ground. You automatically reach for his gloved hand.

“You didn’t! Wasn´t gonna leave you like this. Nobody deserves to be treated like that, believe me” You said with a smile. He seemed awestruck; your heart skipped a beat as a small shy smile formed on his lips. You will arrive late at work this day but it didn´t matter, for the first time you had met love.

And it was love at first sight. Only a few days after meeting him, you were dating. You liked your relationship with him, the both of you took things slow, there was not rush, for now kisses, cuddles and holding hands was all you needed from each other. Arthur, was perfect for you, he was not afraid to have fun, just like you; it was nice to share this with someone, because most of your friends and family would often tell you to stop having fun the way you did because `it´s not of your age anymore, dreaming is for children not adults´. Your imagination was the only place where you were happy, until Arthur entered your life.

His life wasn´t easy either, worse than yours, but you were there to support him, make him smile and laugh; laugh of fun and joy unlike his condition which was painful and caused him to be rejected even more by society. When he had one of those laughter outbreaks, you would hold him, caressing his back, whispering soothing words in his ear. You were doing your best to share moments with him, comfort him after a bad day where people would be rude to him, making fun of him.

“I hope my death makes more cents than my life” you had read out loud one day, as you leaned over his shoulder, you chuckled, wrapping your arms around him, your chin resting on his shoulder, kissing his jaw. “I like that one, but please don´t die too soon”, you added, it made him smile, he kissed your hand “As long as you love me, no chance” he had answered sweetly.

Days went on happily. One day, as he came back from work, he had told you he carried a gun with him, he knew he wasn’t supposed to but a colleague of his, Randall, had insisted, telling him it was essential to keep him safe. It was a nice gesture of him, it could at least serve a dissuasion if some thugs were to attack Arthur.

And unfortunately, you didn’t have much time to see each other during the week as you mostly worked at night, but you did your best. Over the weeks, you started to bring some of your belongings to his apartment to spend more time with him. You would spend your day sleeping on his couch, to be woken up by his kisses as he came back from work and you had to start your night shift. Despite his exhaustion, he always insisted on escorting you to work to make sure you were safe. To this point, you could say that you were living with him more than at your home. His mother Penny was very nice but very sick. And Arthur had so much weight on his shoulders, sacrificing his own health for her, so when you could, you insisted on helping them financially. Sometimes you would accompany him to watch stand-up comedy and honestly you didn’t understand how people could laugh to such sexist and stupid jokes, it was nothing like Arthur’s dark and sophisticated humor, which you absolutely loved.

Despite the happy moments you shared with him, life continued to push him down. Just like this day you’d remember your entire life. He left for work, all excited because his gig was to happen in a children hospital, he loved kids so much, and they loved him too, never mocked him in anyway. You had a day off, staying at your flat, preparing yourself for a date night with him. However, when he came knocking at your door that night, he was panting, his nose bleeding, his hair disheveled. He had told you everything, how he got fired whereas he didn’t do anything wrong but carry something to protect himself; then how he got beaten up by those assholes, and he shot them. It was self-defense, these jerks only got what they deserved, you had told Arthur. He had come to you, knowing you’d be there for him. You will cover him, and support him. It was also the night were the both of you made love for the first time, as a sign of trust and love you had for each other.

You learned how to hate Wayne, when the next day, all he had to say was that the less fortunate people in this city, were stupid, not able to make decisions of their own, clowns that needed guidance from some fucking rich guy like him. It made you happy that people were reacting to this and were supporting Arthur, maybe that’s what Gotham’s need after all.

Still, since that day, Arthur changed, he was different; it felt like he wasn’t sharing everything with you. One night, he came back from therapy more upset than usual, angry even. “Arthur, you know you can talk to me, right?”, but that night, he didn’t.

Life went back to normal. He had decided to do his first stand up comedy, you wouldn’t miss for any reason. He had entered the stage smiling, but the laughter attack came, you just wanted to stand up and soothe him, but you knew he wouldn’t want that, because he wants to perform; he just had to get through this outbreak first. So, you smiled encouragingly, hoping that between his gasps for air, he would see you and that it would help him. And he did, it gave him the strength to push past his nervousness, and he was good, very good, each of his jokes made you laugh, even though you knew them by heart. As he finished the show, and people were clapping, you hurried backstage, and greeted him with a passionate kiss.

“I’m so proud of you, you were the best” you had told him between kisses. The lovemaking after that had been incredible, passionate; Arthur was becoming more confident taking the lead, you liked it and did not hesitate to tell him how good he was. You probably had an impact for sure, but you didn’t know he wasn’t taking his medication anymore and that had deeper impact on him. The following days he continued his show every night, despite how much you wanted to be there you couldn’t, still working at night.

One particular day, you went to see him and Penny, but he wasn’t there, and his mother was in a worst emotional state than usual, cops were there, what was going on? and then everything happened fast, Arthur was still missing. Until the ambulance came.

As the doctors took Penny to reanimation, you were waiting outside with Arthur; he was pacing back and forth, anxious.

“Arthur! Come sit here please.” He seemed to come out of his trance, and sat next to you, you passed one arm around his shoulders.

“She´s gonna be alright, they´re going to take good care of her.”

As they brought her in a room, the doctors explained she had a stroke, the both of you stayed by her side.

“Arthur, where were you? What happened? Looked like a fight happened there” You asked him, keeping your voice down, he looked to the opposite of you.

“Nothin´, just went for a walk.” He answered tiredly.

“Arthur…why aren´t you telling me the truth? You´re lucky that I was passing by to talk to you, I found her unconscious with those cops…”

“I don´t wanna talk about it Y/N…” his tone final, you sighed, you felt hurt that he didn´t trust you enough to share whatever happened.

“I´m gonna get a coffee, want one?” you asked him, standing up, he nodded, you gave him a kiss on his temple and went to the cafeteria.

The following days got worse, you just felt Arthur slip away from you, and you simply didn´t know what to do, except to be there for him. When Penny died you were there too, for the burial he wore a red costume, smoking a cigarette; that´s when you saw him smile in front of the grave, a big smile, this disturbed you, was it some kind of nervous reaction? Then, he flicked the cigarette onto the tomb making you gasp.

“Good, now let´s get out of here.” He said on a joyful tone, walking away, he is showing no signs of caring about his mother´s death, he looks happy.

“What´s wrong with you?!” you exclaimed, maybe it was his way of coping with the shock of her death, but it wasn´t a reason to show her disrespect.

“Nothing´s wrong with me!” he yelled, pointing a finger at you. You froze; it was the first time that he raised his voice on you.

“I´ll just leave you alone for now. You know where to find me…” You answered, swallowing down, trying to suppress the tears prickling into your eyes, it´s probably for the best that you give him some space. He doesn´t even try to go after you. So, you went back to your place, `I guess I´ll be spending the rest of the week alone…´.

You were truly worried for him, he was behaving strange for the past weeks, and for some reason he refused to open up to you; you feared that he was really going crazy and that he would end up harming himself.

Two days passed, without any news from him, this was eating you up. You were so used to his presence. Today you had to go outside to run some errands. As you opened the door, you spotted something on the floor, a bunch of synthetic flowers and an envelope. You instantly recognized it was from Arthur, he had showed you his magic tricks where he would pull out these flowers. This made you smile; you took both item and retreated back in your apartment, excited to read the letter.

My love,

I´m sorry for my behavior last day,

Please be at my flat for Murray Franklin show, you will watch me on TV, I was invited!

You´re going to like it, it´s going to be so much fun!

Never forget that I love you,

Arthur

Your excitement slightly came down when you finished reading the letter. You had seen the video, you were with him when Murray played his video on TV and mocked him. Arthur was devastated this day, he cried for hours, the only thing that made him happy had betrayed him. If he was going there naively, thinking that people will be nice to him or that Murray will show him sympathy for everything that has happened to him in the past few weeks, he was wrong. If only you had money to afford a ticket for the show, you would have joined him right away. You prepared yourself to go to his place, there was 2 hours left before the show, you had time to buy what you needed to cook dinner, he surely will need it after the show.

On the way to his place, you felt nervous, people outside were getting excited, wearing clown mask or paint, felt like seeing Arthur´s `Carnival´ clown on every face. You totally supported this upbringing, you simply hoped this wouldn´t end in a blood bath, you didn´t want anyone to be killed, this could not legitimate your fight.

As you entered his apartment, you realized that it was a mess, for some reason, the food and compartments of the fridge were thrown out. You noticed that the doorframe of the living room was damaged like something had violently hit it, several times. You assumed that he had been very disturbed by his mother’s death and he took out his anger and helplessness on the flat itself.

You hoped that being at his place will enable the two of you to talk at open hearts, you wanted to know how he felt, what happened…

As you finished setting the table, you sat legs crossed on the couch, wrapped in Arthur plaid, holding a mug of hot cocoa. You were feeling a mix of excitement and pride to see your lover on this show, it was his dream after all; but you also felt scared because knew that he was certainly invited for the wrong reasons, and this was going to break him even more.

The protest was getting stronger outside, you could hear people screaming, and chanting slogans; from time to time you were hearing firecrackers exploding, and well you hoped it was firecrackers.

“You gotta see our next guest…” that’s Arthur! He was going to appear on TV!

“I’m pretty sure this guy could use a doc”. You winced at his mockery, Arthur wasn’t even there that they were already making fun of him. To make things worse they showed the video again, “bastards, you’re only showing his laughter attack.” You said to the TV already irritated. Your mind goes to your lover watching this backstage…

“Joker!” You hear Murray calling. A figure comes out dancing, that’s Arthur?! He’s spiraling, confident, shaking the hand of Murray like he sees him every day. ‘Why is he wearing his makeup?’ He has a very flashing costume similar to the one he had for Penny’s burial. You had to admit that it suit him very well, it reflected his personality. Then he kisses the doctor, ‘wait what!?’, you can’t believe it your eyes, almost dropping your mug, it’s so passionate and…provocative, the crowd is cheering.

As he sits down, the camera zooms on his face, he is beautiful like this, he even looks younger; despite the weirdness of the situation, you can’t help but feel pride at knowing him, he is being so brave in this moment. He pauses, Murray asks him if his ok “Yeah, this is exactly how I imagined it”. You smile at this, it was his dream to be invited on the show.

The interview starts, Murray refers to his look, Arthur cleverly answers almost mocking himself “I’m just trying to make people laugh”

“And how’s that going for you” replies Murray mockingly making the public laugh, Arthur’s reaction was also laugh like one of those he has during a laughter attack, but it feels forced, ‘was he mocking himself?’ you wondered, slightly frowning at the scene.

“Wanna tell us a joke?” the public is cheering “Yeaah?” ask Arthur, you can tell he’s excited, he has a bright smile, he’s even playful as he gets out his book of jokes, now was the time to show them his talent.

“You got a book? A book of jokes” the public his laughing, ‘fucker’ Arthur goes through the pages, he seems lost in it “Take your time got all night” another mockery from Murray.

“Ok, here’s one, knock knock.” He’s smiling like he’s eager to hear people laugh at his joke.

“And you had to look that up?” comments Murray, the public and guest burst into laughing, mocking him once again, you find yourself pleading for them to stop this free nastiness. The smile Arthur had since the beginning faded, his mask of confidence is cracking, he adds “I wanted to get it right”, you are starting to feel uncomfortable, how can people watch this and mock his situation.

“Knock, knock” repeats Arthur. “Who’s there?” asks Murray.

“It’s the police mam, your son has been hit by a drunk driver, he’s dead” Finishes Arthur, chuckling, the public is outraged, you’re surprised, you never heard this one and for once, it wasn’t funny.

Arthur apologizes “Yeah, I’m sorry it’s just, you know it’s been a rough few weeks Murray”, he chuckles again, you can tell it’s nervous.

“Ever since…I killed those 3 Wall Street guys” he says looking at the crowd, you froze, why is he confessing! ‘He didn’t plan on coming back home’ you start thinking, maybe all that happened is too much and he wants end it, you see it in his eye, he ‘s speaking like it’s something surreal that happened, you start bouncing your leg, ashamed that you weren’t enough to help him get through all this.

“There’s not punchline, it’s not a joke” the public is dead silent.

“You’re serious aren’t you, you’re telling you killed these 3 young men on the subway? And why should we believe you?” investigates Murray, ‘why aren’t they stopping the live?’ you wonder.

“I got nothing left to lose…nothing can hurt me anymore… my life is nothing but a comedy” he said smiling, but you can tell by his eyes and the way he moves that he is suffering, not far from crying actually, you pinch your lips together, your eyes watering ‘what about me?’.

“Let me get this straight, you think killing those guys is funny?” asks Murray.

“I do, and I’m tired of pretending it’s not, comedy is subjective Murray, you know what they say ‘all of you, the systems that knows so much, you decide what’s right or wrong, the same way you decide what’s funne-eh! or not” You can feel Arthur growing tired of hearing about those guys, those exposed as martyrs whereas they were the criminals who abused him. You know he’s right.

“Ok…I think, I might understand you did this to…start a movement, to become a symbol?”

Arthur scoffed “Come on Murray, do I look like the kind of clown to start a movement? I killed those guys because they were awful” he clenches his jaw. ‘tell them Arthur, tell them what they did to you!’

“Everybody is awful these days, it’s enough to make anyone crazy” he sounds bitter, eyes filled with hate.

“Ok, that’s it, so you’re crazy, that’s your defense? For killing 3 young men?” Arthur smiles again.

“No, they couldn’t carry a tune to save their lives” he says mockingly, somehow doing a reference how people treated him because they don’t like his jokes. The crowd gasps. Arthur lets out an exasperated moan “Oooh, why is everyone so upset about these guys. If it was me dying on the sidewalk, you’d walk right over me! I pass you everyday you don’t notice me! But these guys because, what Thomas Wayne would cry about them on TV!” He is starting to lose his temper; his eyes are wet.

“You have problem with Thomas Wayne?” Murray keeps pushing him.

“Yes, I do…have you seen what it’s like out there MurRAY? Do you actually leave the studio? Everybody just yells and scream at each other, nobody is civil anymore! Nobody thinks what it’s like to be the other guy…you think that men like Thomas Wayne ever think what it’s like to be someone like me? To be somebody but themselves? They don’t! They think we’ll just sit there and take it like good little boys! That we won’t werewolf and go wild!” Adds Arthur angrily. Despite being dead worried for him, you can’t help but nod, because it’s what’s happens every goddamn day of your life.

“You finished? I mean there’s so much self-pity Arthur, you sound like you’re making an excuse for killing those young men, not everybody and I’ll tell you this not everyone is awful.” You huffed, probably the only smart thing Murray said today. Arthur shot him a deadly glare, squeezing his lips together, he’s was betrayed by Murray, he hated him now.

“You’re awful Murray”

“Me? I’m awful? Yeah and how am I awful?” was Murray so stupid that he didn’t realize the harm he’s done?!

“Playing my video, inviting me on the show, you just wanted to make fun of me, you’re just like the rest of them.” Arthur growled, keeping eye contact with the host.

“You don’t know the first thing about me pal, look what happened because of what you did, what it lead to, there are riots out there, two police men are in critical condition, someone was killed today” You took a deep breath, Murray was being way too provocative right now, he shouldn’t, you feel Arthur is close to break, you feel he could do anything; he laughs.

“Someone was killed today because of what you did” Joker scratched the back of his head, you know he does that when he’s under strong stress.

“I know! How about another joke Murray?” ‘Shit, he’s not gonna make it’

“What do you get, when you cross, a mentally ill loner, with a society that abandons him and treats him LIKE TRASH! I’LL TELL YOU WHAT YOU GET!” his voice broke making you tear up, “YOU GET WHAT YOU FUCKING DESERVE!”.

Then, there’s a loud bang, it takes you several seconds to realize what just happened, he shot Murray, he’s bouncing his legs, he laughs, you understood better than anyone else how Arthur felt but why did he killed him, it’s not, it can’t be the solution! Right? He gets up and shoots him once again, this makes your blood run cold, you don’t recognize the man you love, your Arthur. He comes towards the camera, looking directly into it “Goodnight…and always remember, that’s…” the show cuts.

You lay your head on the back of the couch, passing a hand though your hair. You feel like shit, for being the closest person to him and not having been able to protect him ‘no I wasn’t part of this, I didn’t make him like this, fuck that’s my fault’.

You stayed in front of the TV for what seemed an eternity, everything had happened so fast, you are staring into emptiness. What now? You had just witnessed the person you cared the most about, give into madness, kill someone out of anger; this wasn’t self-defense anymore. He had become uncontrollable. You’re blaming it all on yourself, your breathing is starting to become frantic, and you feel a panic attack rising, kicking the plaid out of your shoulders, you try to calm yourself ‘I’m not worthy of him I failed him’ it’s so hard to breath, you can only hear the heavy beats of your heart ‘why did I leave him alone, I should have skipped work, been there for him, even if he didn’t want me to’. Then a darker thought crosses your mind ‘Is he going to kill me because I didn’t see how bad he was doing? he loves me right?’ you want to say yes but your instinct is screaming the contrary ‘what if he told me to come here to make it easier for him to kill me?’

“I have to leave.” You to say to yourself. You quickly got up, looking around. You need to pack up things you had brought here, the police doesn’t have to know.

You hear in the background the news repeating the same thing over and over again, Arthur heartbreaking words, that he was arrested.

You enter the bedroom, looking for a book you gave to Penny. From the corner of your eyes you spotted one of Arthur´s cardigan, you took it in your trembling hands, burying your head in it, inhaling his scent; you burst into tears, hugging the piece of clothing. You love him so much, now you lost him. Taking the cardigan with you, tears continue to run freely as you gather your things. You go back to the living room, to get some of your clothes in the closet.

“What the…!” you scream, falling to the floor. In front of you lies the corpse of a man, a pair of scissors in his eye, blood everywhere, you frantically crawl away from this horror `I have to get out of here! ´, getting back up you take your bags, and run to the door.

As you opened the door, you came face to face with him, `shit he´s supposed to be under arrest! ´. He was panting like he ran to come here and get you, drops of sweat were prickling on his temples. The first thing you see is blood, his face covered by his own blood coming from the gash on his forehead and his mouth, the painted smile is different, darker, you realized it´s made with his blood. He laughs openly, pupils dilated, he´s excited like a kid on a fair.

“Wasn´t I amazing?! Y/N come, see outside!” He reaches for your hand, you take a few steps back, you´re searching his eyes, trying to find Arthur in this man, you´re scared, your heart beats widely. His laugh dies immediately, he doesn´t understand, why aren´t you jumping in his arms? Then, he sees the bags you’re holding, were you leaving him!?

“Y/N what are you doing?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous. He walks inside, closing the door and leaning on it. You were trapped.

“Arthur…there´s…there´s a dead body in the closet…” you say with a trembling voice, finding the strength to look at him in the eyes, he chuckles passing a hand through his green locks, marching to you.

“Yep, that´s Randall, I wasn´t gonna leave him the middle of the room, could have used your help to move him by way.” You couldn´t believe it. Was that the only thing that bothered him?

“That´s all you have to say? You can´t just kill…Arthur you can´t do that!” you whimpered frantically agitating your hands around.

“Oh, come on Y/N you´re freaking out, besides he deserved it” he muttered, pouting like a child being scolded. You throw your hands in the air and let out an exasperated noise, tears started to run down on your face again, this was too much to handle.

“Just let me go please.” You pleaded softly. To this, his head abruptly shot back up.

“No, you´re not leaving me…you´re not leaving me!” he groaned almost shouting. He angrily took out a cigarette, lighting it and taking a quick drag. He returned his attention to you, pointing his cigarette at you.

“You love me don´t you?” this destabilize you, you weren’t expecting this question. Still you already knew the answer.

“I do Arthur b…”

“But what? You loved me out of pity, to satisfy your need to help those beneath you? You seemed to like me recently! But no, you actually prefer poor pathetic Arthur huh!” he cut you off, losing his temper. His words hurt you, what if he was right, no he wasn’t…

“I didn’t mean for this to happen!” you whined. If only you could fix him, bring back the man you knew. “We didn´t have much but we still had something” you add, wiping away the wetness of your face with the back of your sleeve.

“I´m doing this for you, wouldn´t you want to be free, not struggle, have more than this?” he asserted, looking at you intensely. You don’t answer, looking at your feet, of course you would like it.

“Don´t you want me to be happy, don´t you want us to be happy?” he prompted irritably. You shake your head “Of course I want you to be happy, but killing like this is not…”

“Don´t say that, you covered me for those 3 guys remember? what did you say? `Assholes like them deserve to be shot´. The others hurt me too, I am the victim here.” His voice breaking, his eyes watery, he’s standing at arm’s length to you. You frown, you don’t know what to say, because he’s making sense…

“Tell me how it made you feel hmm?” he pushed, circling around you.

“Proud…” you fretted, still not meeting his eyes.

“Louder Y/N” you startled at his raised voice.

“Proud! You were finally fighting back against the world.” You add, shivering at your own confession. You heard him chuckle as he came to stand in front of you, slightly bending to meet your lowered head.

“You said Randall deserved to die for what he did to me” he dramatically gesture his arms in the direction of the closet. “You did well, there’s nothing wrong with that baby…you said Murray, didn´t have the right to mock me, that you hoped something bad happened to him, wish granted…” he claimed. You don´t move, trembling, you don´t dare to look at him in the eyes, he is so right, you’re feeling angry, how could you be so blind?

“Don’t act so shocked, I know you liked it, this whole show your giving me, it´s a comedy, you´re just too scared to admit it, to become what you´ve always been, deep down you were like this since the beginning, you were just suppressing it.”

He pushes you strongly against the wall, arms next to your head, blocking any chance of escape. He´s very close to you, his nose brushing against yours.

“Tell me you didn´t like to see me shoot Murray” He seized your chin, forcing you to meet his eyes. He’s grinning like he already knows the answer. He doesn´t need to know that right now, so you try to find as much conviction as you can.

“I hated it.” You dared. He chuckles darkly.

“Liar” He purred, leaning in to kiss you. You don´t like what he is saying about you, you feel naked. You bite his lip; licking yours, you taste his blood, salty, throwing him a dark look. He laughs “oh you, I like it when you´re wild like that, you know what they say, truth will set you free but first it will piss you off.” You answer with a sneer. His face is deadly serious.

“Now…you made me upset Y/N, don´t you deserve to be punished?” He buries his fingers in your hair, this makes you gulp, even though you’re still scared, another feeling emerges in your chest, excitement, anticipation…it´s wrong you shouldn’t feel this…

“I do deserve it Arthur…” his grip on your hair tightens, his eyes growing darker.

“Arthur’s dead, call me Joker.”

“I deserve it…Joker” you repeat, the name feels strange on your tongue. The clown release an excited breath, he’s smiling.

His mouth goes to your neck, nibbling your skin, sucking it to leave hickeys; then his mouth goes right under your ear, his warm breath gives you goosebumps.

“I am going to fuck you. I’m going to fuck you so hard, and it’s going to hurt.” He purrs into your ear, slightly biting your ear lobe, your heartbeat increases.

His other hand slides across your body to go between your legs, caressing you over your clothes, applying more pressure from time to time, you can already feel the need for more rising. And you want to touch him too, your hands go on his torso, he immediately pushes them away, smashing painfully your arm on the wall, blocking your hand above your head.

“Did I say you could touch me?” he groans, he stops touching you. The hand that was in your hair goes to your throat right below your jaw, he squeezes, not much, just enough for you to feel it, his mouth crashes against yours in a painful kiss, his tongue sucking yours. It feels good, being under his mercy, you can taste is blood again, metallic, delectable. You like his passion, his new-found confidence when he kisses you. As he run out of air, panting, his mouth a few inches from yours he orders “Face down on the couch. Now.” He’s dangerous but you want to push it, because you’re starting to like it, you want to see how far it can go, defy him, so you just smile, a sweet smile but your eyes are provocative.

“You’re going to regret that sweetheart.” He chuckles menacing, he yanks you on the couch with a force you never suspected. Before you can react, you’re facing him, he’s onto you now, sitting on your hips, straddling your legs with his, holding your arms above your head with one hand, he kisses your neck again but this time hard, he stops at your most sensitive spot, making you gasp as he increases the pressure of his teeth, a sharp pain spreads in your neck as you realized he’s biting you, you moan, it hurts but you never thought you’d like it this way. You can feel a few drops of blood coming out of the bite, then his tongue, smooth and warm, hungrily licking the liquid, soothing.

Then, he looks at you, laughing loudly, “You like that don’t you”. You can feel blush creep on your cheeks, you want this to continue. You nod to him. Out of his pocket he takes a knife, your breathing increases, wondering what he was going to do with this knife. Still looking at you, he slowly slides the knife under your shirt, the cold of the blade making you jump. He clicks his tongue, ordering you to stay still. The blade continue its way until it reaches the top of your shirt, you feel the tip of the knife tickling your chin; in one sharp motion, Joker pushed the knife back to him, tearing up your cheap clothes. He does the same with your bra but this time he’s almost considerate like a craftsman working on his sculpture.

“So fucking pretty”, he flattered looking down on your exposed breast. Releasing your hands and setting the knife aside, he takes off his jacket and throws it away. Now he slowly opens each button of his shirt, taking pleasure in seeing you hypnotized, your eyes hungry. But impatience is growing in you, you want to play too. As soon as the last button is off, you quickly sat back, taking him by surprise, yanking him beneath you, kissing him hard and messy, caressing his naked torso.

You lift your head looking at him in the eyes, you can tell he’s intrigued. Your hand comes to slowly caress his cheek, a small grin appears on your face as you think about what you’re about to do. Then, you slap him with all the strength you have, he groans ready to return the favor “That´s for pushing me out the other day” you cooed, finishing with a grin. He burst into laughing, you shut him up by smashing your lips against his, his moans muffled in your mouth.

Taking advantage that you´re distracted, he makes the both of you tumble off the couch, your back and head landing hard on the floor, his hands go to your pants, taking it off, you help him by lifting your hips and pushing the clothes out of your legs. You can feel his erection hard against his fabric rubbing along your spot. His hand slides along your body to arrive to clit, he’s being teasing circling around your lips, alternating the pace but never going directly to your soft spot, gosh you hate him right now, you can’t help but move your hips to lead to more satisfaction. “shush, don’t think that I’ll give you satisfaction just yet…”

His mouth goes to your jaw, your chin and never to your mouth, your craving for him to kiss you, feeling his tongue play with yours. He gradually increases his attention between your legs, finally taking care of your sweet spot, even sliding fingers in your wet pussy. You can feel yourself coming close, closing your eyes, your whole-body trembling. But then Joker stops his marvelous work, your body twitches, looking for more, you were so close. He giggles at your state.

“I’m going to remind you exactly who you belong to”. He whispers, nibbling your nipples, sucking them, tightening his teeth around their tip.

“Then mark me” you find yourself asking, panting. You were always his, time to make it official. You see him reach for the knife, planting kisses on your chest, he chooses the area below your left breast. As he applies pressure, you feel the blade piercing your skin, slowly sliding like dancing on your body, he is carving his name in your flesh, you close your eyes, biting your lip, the soft burning is relieving, forgetting your frustration. Your mind follow your senses, first the J, then O, K is making you wince a little, more painful, E, finally R, you release a shaky breath, satisfied by the sensations it gives you.

The clown collects some of the dripping blood on his fingers, licking them with his tongue, then putting them in his mouth, tasting you one more time, closing his eyes in delight. His fingers dance once again on your sensitive marks, almost burning. He accumulates more blood on his thumbs, and lay them on the corners of your mouth, painting a smile on your face. You want to kiss him so bad, you straighten yourself to reach his lips, griping his hair roughly. But this time the kiss is tender and longing.

“Scar me; I am yours as much as your mine.” He asks you against your lips, his pupils dilated, he’s looking at you intensely, determined and serious.

You position yourself to be sitting on his lap, you take the blade, his hands are resting on your hips, caressing your butt cheeks, you brush your lips against his torso, posing wet kisses on his collarbone, yes, the perfect spot. Gently you engrave your name, he closes his eyes, rejecting his head back, softly moaning your name. It looks perfect, your name on his skin, until the end.

When you’re finished, he lays you down, a devilish smile appearing on his lips. Unbuttoning his pants, he lets out his throbbing erection, you gulp in anticipation. In a sharp movement of his hips, he penetrates you, making you gasp of pleasure, your frustration surging back.

Then, his hands are in your hair, yanking them so tightly. You arch your back underneath him. He gets hold of your bottom lip and bites it, hard; you drag your nails even deeper in his shoulder blades, trying to leave marks for him to wince tomorrow. His thrusts inside of you are fast, hard, violent, his breath coming in big ragged gasps. You wrap your legs around him, gripping his hair, pushing him further and deeper into you, you bite his lobe as you breathe and moan of pleasure in his ear.

“You belong to me you get it?” he groans, his voice husky, reinforcing his statement by rough thrust, making you cry out.

“Y…yes Joker…” you manage to articulate, you were coming close again, this time he doesn’t stop, increasing his speed, his fingers gripping your thighs.

“I’m gonna come, fuck…” he moans is head buried in the rook of your neck, muffling his groans of pleasure, you reach climax before him already overstimulated, your body jolting, he follows you a few seconds after, breathless, he collapses on you, his head resting on your breast. The both of you are laying like that for a couple of minutes, trying to gain back your senses. ‘Well that was something’ is the first thing that comes to your mind, making you giggle, you kiss the top of his head.

“We can’t stay here…” you say after a while. His answer comes out as a sleepy groan, you smile, he already had a plan, for the first time you felt free, free of the world, of your own rules, and happy.

#joker #joaquin phoenix #arthur fleck #arthur fleck x reader #joker x reader

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redrobin-detective · 4 years

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Random Quirkless Pro Hero Deku facts

- Pro Hero Izuku has a lot of weaponry on him at all times but he’s personally a big fan of knives. He’s usually got at least 5 or 6 on him at all times in all different sizes. He likes them because they’re multi-use, intimidating and, in the hands of a skilled wielder (like Izuku definitely is) can end fights without permanent damage. His favorite knife is the one he stole off of Stain to Iida’s dismay but its just a really good knife okay, Tenya, nothing personal.

- Todoroki is rescue hero working at Froppy’s agency in Nara (kind of the middle of nowhere). He doesn’t really get involved in the big villain battles unless he’s caught up in them, does no marketing for himself, rarely takes interviews, does his best to just be another hero... and yet he’s #20 in the charts. He is the highest ranked rescue hero who goes out of his way to avoid the spotlight and he doesn’t know why he’s so highly ranked. This is because he doesn’t understand the overwhelming power of THIRSTY fans.

- Izuku and Katsuki have a very special relationship. They read each other so well, are a well-oiled, scarily efficient team in battle. Outside of that, they’re disasters. Due to past experiences with ‘friendly spars’ that have gotten out of control they need a minimum of 2 babysitters pro heroes to spot them and be in a qualified facility before they go at it (which they don’t always do). Most every time they meet up they’ve got to rough house a bit to everyone’s horror. Bakugou will get loud and indignant if you call them friends but then rant for 30 minutes on why Deku is one of the best damn heroes he’s ever known.

- Speaking of which, on an operations level Izuku and Katsuki are much better separated than partnered. Kiri much more approachable and adds a sense of balance to Bakugou which is why he’s #1 not long after Izuku leaves. Izuku/Katsuki together were terrifying but a little bit too chaotic? They egged each other on where Kiri calms Bakugou down and Izuku forced to be “in charge” (as composed to constantly competing with Bakugou) of others also makes him less reckless. They’re still a brutally efficient combo but they’ve both agreed that separation really helped them grow.

- Gran Torino went senile not long after Izuku graduated Yuuei having fulfilled his promise to both Nana and Toshi and couldn’t fight any more. Izuku took care of him the best he can and put the old hero up in a luxurious old age home, he visited once a week watching more and more of his mentor slip away. He died when Izuku was still working at Two Hero with Bakugou and it was one of his incentives for leaving the agency and forming One For All.

- Shinsou ended up in the Hero course during their second year, but he went to 1B. Still maintained a good relationship with Izuku and the 1C gang. After graduation, he was surprised when Yaoyorozu offered him a position at her agency. He works there mainly in intelligence gathering, interrogation and general agency management. He still does field work but not nearly to the extent of other heroes.

- Shinsou and Izuku are the lowest ranked in their grade, Shinsou being in the 90s while Izuku is in the high 70s. Izuku will never let his friend forget that he, quirkless and hated by the system, is higher ranked than Shinsou. Its really because Shinsou is kind of a reclusive hero only known because he works at such a prestigious agency. If and when Shinsou decides to make an effort at his popularity it’s all over for Izuku. Until then, Izuku will lord it over him.

- As for the 1C gang, Patrick moved back to America right after graduation. He’s doing odds and ends, still trying to figure out what he wants to do. Does frequent calls/visits to Japan to visit his high school friends. Korudo did end up working his father’s company but on his own terms, donates a lot to Izuku’s AFO foundation. Izuku probably sees Taketsu the most, she’s a quirk lawyer and works with Izuku professionally in terms of quirk advocacy and advancement.

- Hero Names: Bakugou - Kacchan, Todoroki - stays as Shouto, Aoyoma - Lumiere, Shinsou - Hypnos

- As soon as he graduated, Izuku moved into All Might’s old apartment because he couldn’t stand to sell it. He left it almost identical only converting the back study and pretty much living out of boxes the first few years. He’s very, very slowly taking down All Might’s things and putting up his own but each change involves a lot of struggle and crying, but it feels like healing. In addition, Toshi was able to change his will before dying so Izuku inherited an insane amount of money from All Might’s estate. He couldn’t spend it all in his lifetime if he tried. He mostly keeps it away but donates a lot of it to AFO and other charities.

- Deku is a fan favorite as far submissive ships go. In every fan pairing he’s put in (and there are some wild one out there) he is the delicate, submissive quirkless partner. When asked on it, 1A just comments “have you ever actually seen Deku??” still the trope persists. Popular fan pairings are Bakudeku, Shoudeku, Iideku and Uradeku.

- The Class has varying ways of referring to one another, most of them feel comfortable calling each other by their first names but almost all continue to call Iida by his surname (except Ochako and Izuku when he’s feeling annoyed/sappy). Izuku and Katsuki have a whole language of names within the names they call each other, all you should know is that if you hear Izuku say “Bakugou” or Katsuki “Izu-chan” you better run like hell.

- Midoriya Hisashi was officially killed halfway through Izuku’s Third Year in a villian attack at his office in America. Inko was distraught but Izuku really couldn’t bring himself to mourn a man he never knew (and was already exhausted still grieving for All Might). Inko and Izuku got a sizable payout from it, ensuring Inko will be able to live comfortably for the rest of her life. Izuku never touched the money, relying first on All Might’s money then his own when he had to. ((Most people know I’m pretty ham for DFO so let me say this, on paper “Midoriya Hisashi” was killed it’s up to you if someone else is still around)

- While OFA doesn’t have any permanent staff, it does have heroes who frequently work there. It started this way because Izuku couldn’t get any heroes to permanently attach and kept it up once he realized the versatility it gave him. Shouto and Uravity usually do at least one or two stints a year. Pretty much all of the unattached heroes of 1A have worked with Deku multiple times (even a few attached, Ingenium surprising everyone by leaving his agency for a month to work with his old friend). Lemillion does it when his schedule allows and a few veteran heroes like Present Mic and Cementoss have done work there as well. And while Number One Kacchan hasn’t officially worked at One For All, he and Red Riot partner do enough inter-agency work that they kind of have.

- Over the years OFA acquired the respect of many heroes but there’s still assholes who refuse to take orders from a quirkless man. Now officially Deku has no problems with those who do not wish to work with him, it’s well within their rights. However, he’ll usually slyly make it known that people have turned down offers from him or spoke against him. And suddenly those bigoted heroes find they’re getting less support from those connected to Deku (a number that grows bigger by the year). There are less team-ups, less chance of being voted for hero titles, more whispers about how a hero being quirkist in this age is so old-fashioned and not cool. The heroes are like ??? how the hell did this happen while Deku sits there and smiles, not having lifted a finger. He’s a kind man but a vindictive one for sure.

- Izuku named his foundation after All For One, the villain who terrorized Japan and ultimately killed All Might, purely out of spite. While Izuku never confronted him in this universe, he knows the villain is still out there. The AFO Foundation took a name that was once feared and turned it into something that could bring people hope. He wanted to tell all the wannabe criminals who would recognize the name that Izuku knows and he’s not afraid. Also he still considers it his duty as AM’s successor to stop him so the Foundation is two middle fingers up to AFO as a challenge.

- Rikimaru-shishou (Izuku and later Shinsou’s martial arts teacher in TLWA) has mostly retired from teaching, only taking a few students here and there. Izuku still keeps in contact when possible, meeting up for a friendly spar when he can squeeze it in. Most of the students Daiki takes these days are kids Izuku recommends with puppy dog eyes.

-Mirio and Izuku end up developing a pretty good relationship. It starts when Izuku tries to intern with Nighteye in his first year and it’s pretty ugly. Nighteye refuses to take him but some, not all, of the Izuku/OFA/Mirio situation comes out. Mirio is very disturbed that his mentor was grooming him to be All Might 2 and kind of separates from Sir and takes Izuku’s side. Really excited by Deku’s vision for a better hero society and they have a big/lil brother relationship. Is super okay when Izuku takes the SoP title from him, like Izuku not bothered with rankings but he knows how important it is to his bro.

- So good news first, Mirio and Tamaki are long term partners and adopt a little girl, Koharu, who has a ‘villainous’ quirk and was abandoned by her family. Mirio being on paternity leave is one of the factors that allows Izuku to take the SoP away from him. So uh bad news, Eri was never recovered during TLWA version of the Overhaul arc. Don’t ask me exact details cause I don’t know lol but Izuku wasn’t really involved and Overhaul and few of his men managed to flee Japan with Eri and haven’t been found since. Mirio and Tamaki both took the loss to heart which is why they wanted to try and pay back that mistake. They’re both great dads though.

- Due to being so outrageously busy during their first year as Pros, Bakugou forgot to maintain a regular haircut schedule so it started to grow out. Izuku and some others commented that the longer hair looked good on him. It got to the point where it was getting in the way so he ties it back in a little tail that looks like a little explosion. That, and his permanent facial scruff, make him a very attractive hero but his personality still leaves a lot to be desired.

#fic: the long way around #fic: rise up and hear the bells #idk why Im keeping this #hopefully this fills in a few holes #and creates some new ones lol #quirkless deku

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hannahwaterman · 3 years

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Type and Language 1 - Choosing a quote, planning my project, brainstorming.

Selecting a quote for this briefing was something I tried to get done very quickly so that I could begin making work fast. At first I thought of doing the following quote by Bill Hicks:

“The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly colored, and it's very loud, and it's fun for a while. Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, "Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, "Hey, don't worry; don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride." And we … kill those people. "Shut him up! I've got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real." It's just a ride. But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok … But it doesn't matter, because it's just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.”

It’s very long, but I think it’s a very beautiful and well meaning piece of spoken word. Bill Hicks was a comedian-philosopher, and he was a very influential person in the formative years of my life from about 10 years old onwards. Definitely too young to be listening to Bill Hicks, but hey - his words really stuck with me and I think this quote is a very important one in my life.

I thought I could do something funny like this quote from Come Dine With Me:

Dear Lord, what a sad little life, Jane. You ruined my night, completely, so you could have the money, but I hope now you spend it on getting some lessons in grace and decorum because you have all the grace of a reversing dump truck without any tyres on.

But ultimately, I didn’t have faith that I would really be able to get excited about it!

I finally settled for this quote by Robert Sapolsky, a human behavioural biologist:

I am not worried if scientists go and explain everything. This is for a very simple reason: an impala sprinting across the Savannah can be reduced to biomechanics, and Bach can be reduced to counterpoint, yet that does not decrease one iota our ability to shiver as we experience impalas leaping or Bach thundering. We can only gain and grow with each discovery that there is structure underlying the most accessible levels of things that fill us with awe. But there is an even stronger reason why I am not afraid that scientists will inadvertently go and explain everything--it will never happen. While in certain realms, it may prove to be the case that science can explain anything, it will never explain everything. As should be obvious after all these pages, as part of the scientific process, for every question answered, a dozen newer ones are generated. And they are usually far more puzzling, more challenging than than the prior problems. This was stated wonderfully in a quote by a geneticist named Haldane earlier in the century: "Life is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." We will never have our flames extinguished by knowledge. The purpose of science is not to cure us of our sense of mystery and wonder, but to constantly reinvent and reinvigorate it.

It’s very long, so I chose from it the most effecting and important sentences, and I was left with the following.

I am not worried if scientists go and explain everything. It will never happen. It will never explain everything. As part of the scientific process, for every question answered, a dozen newer ones are generated. And they are usually far more puzzling, more challenging than than the prior problems. Life is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine. We will never have our flames extinguished by knowledge. The purpose of science is not to cure us of our sense of mystery and wonder, but to constantly reinvent and reinvigorate it.

Robert Sapolsky lectures on human behaviour, taking information from many different scientific avenues, including biology, endocrinology, sociology, criminology, neuroscience, etc, to build a massive and complex picture of why it is humans behave the way we do, looking at our behaviour through multiple lenses and disciplines, and combining them in order to answer some of the biggest philosophical questions, including questions about free will, about love, about hatred and forgiveness and family.

He is one of the biggest influences on my outlook towards life and my trauma and mental health recovery, because not only are his teachings grounded in extremely interesting research and knowledge, but they are able to explain and open up discussions some of the most confusing and difficult parts of the human experience. Sex, love, violence, free will, tribalism, trauma, fear - Sapolsky tackles all of these terrifying and wonderful parts of our lives with such grace and poise and intelligence - his lectures have coloured my world with a newfound respect for myself and those around me.

He delivers this quote or similar at the end of one of his books and in his lecture series, to help clear up some of the biggest fears that people have of scientific knowledge, and it is a sentiment that I hold very dear to my heart. We should not fear advancement and knowledge. It can only enrich our lives, and a better understanding of myself as not just another person in society, but my very own series of complex and intricate biological mechanisms, has completely enriched my life.

I began by experimenting with very basic black and white type designs on Procreate on my iPad. I tend to jump straight into making before I do research, or much thinking at all, because it is often the case that I can come up with some very raw, messy, and interesting visual ideas. The first few attempts I have at a task like this can really inform where my project will go, what I would like to work on over the duration of the project, and what techniques will or won’t help me.

I often start projects in black and white because it is a very basic and simple building block foundation for the shapes in the work, and makes it so that more complex parts of a visual identity can be added later, giving me more time to think about colours and textures before going ahead with them.

I had fun warping text like this - it makes the writing mysterious and mostly illegible. It did not yet communicate effectively, however, and I had a talk with Sarah to better discuss where to go with this project.

Sarah told me to really think about WHO said the text, and WHY. To ask questions about WHAT I am trying to convey. How will I bring the message of the words to life? How can I use type to emphasise and better explain the language being spoken? How can I use typography as not just a fun image, but a visual tool to really hammer home the intent behind the words being spoken?

Sarah advised me to sketch out “how to quote acts”, how it moves and it feels. Also to question, how do I want people to react to this type?

With this higher level of specificity, I was able to think much more clearly about the task at hand. My plan now was to take certain important words from my quote, and do visual research surrounding them. To really give this project a microscopic view to begin with, I am going to focus on smaller fractions of the text, to begin to build up a catalogue of how those words really feel, act, and speak to a reader. I need to bring into question, how can I communicate better using type? How can I make somebody listen with my typography? How can I use my skillset as a designer to translate information into something visually consumable and interesting to look at?

Once I’ve done visual research and sketches focusing on the very zoomed in parts of this quote, I am going to try to visualise those in context of Sapolsky’s life and teachings. He started off his practice as a field scientist, living amongst primates, and studying their movements. He went on to combine this knowledge with laboratory work, studying hormones and neurodevelopment in rats and analysing other studies. He now, on top of all of this, lectures at Stanford, and has written multiple books on the subject of human and animal behaviour, for the casual reader and scientist alike.

How can I represent Sapolsky’s life with design? Can I start off the quote as rough and messy and dusty and animalistic, representing the time he spent amongst apes in the jungle - then developing it into something very neat, tidy and clinical like his lab studies are? Can I make 2 different designs to represent these, then overlay them? Use colours to represent the two different stages of his practice? Can I make this into a screenprint? A series of 2 or 3 posters?

Or could I make a typographic mural to go on the wall at Stanford or another institute of science? A series of posters? A small book or leaflet? An animation? Who am I aiming it at? Over the next few days I am going to collate visual research and express it as a series of typographic works.

#type and language #typography #agp500

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yellingmetatron · 3 years

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I Just Need to Get This Out (Political Content Warning)

Now more than ever, I am going to be avoiding politics on Tumblr. This is, with any luck, the last political post I will make on my blogs. It is meant to serve as an explanation of why I’m going to be a lot less tolerant of political content on roleplaying blogs. TL;DR, I don’t fit in on the right or left and I’m fucking tired of seeing politics everywhere. I deal with it at work, and I deal with it at home. I don’t want to deal with it here. I’m going to start unfollowing people when I see it. That doesn’t mean our friendship is over, it doesn’t mean we can’t RP. But I’m so tired of it all. If you want the long explanation, keep reading.

From about middleschool to shortly before the election of the current president I considered myself an ardent conservative. Listing out a lot of my positions, this might have seemed not to be the case: I’m not religious (try as I might to be so). I’m pro-LGTBQ+. I’ve always been a proud member of what Rush Limbaugh used to call the Wetland Gestapo. I think anthropogenic climate change is a real thing. I want pot legalized. I think military interventionism is a mistake in all but the rarest situations (granted this is a more recent position). I think the welfare state is necessary and in places ought to be expanded. I am enthusiastic about multiculturalism. On the other hand, I am pro-religion despite not being religious, and feel religious conservatives shouldn’t be compelled to violate their own religious beliefs as long as it’s not hurting anyone (and my definition of ‘not hurting anyone’ seems to be a bit broader than most progressives). While I’m not anti-union, I think that unions can be corrupt as any other institution, particularly at a national level, and that the Left is too inclined to overlook that. I’m solidly pro Second Amendment. I consider illegal immigration a bad thing (mostly because it’s an excuse to exploit the poor and undocumented). I think “states’ rights” is not just a dogwhistle term for racists, but something that really does need to be taken into account given the way the American republic works. I could have expanded the above to paragraphs, but they’re already ungainly and, I’m sure, a pain to read through. Where am I going with all this? Well, first I wanted to establish that I COULD consider myself “an ardent conservative” while holding a lot of varied opinions (like literally everyone on the planet has). Secondly, I want to establish that I hold all of the above views, and have for some time, while bearing a specific label—right winger. I’ve ended up rejecting that label, and rejecting what for want of a better term I’ll call “the conservative movement”, but my positions haven’t changed. And, most importantly, stopping thinking of myself as a conservative DOES NOT mean I’ve come to think of myself as a progressive. Let me try to tell a story. I’m decent at stories. Metamun in middle school and high school was a lonely creature. He was sick a lot, and pretty socially awkward, although he could make up for it by being funny and knowing some trivia. But he mostly kept to himself. Since being on the bus made him sick (it was at a time of life when people experimented with scents that screwed him up at close quarters) usually his dad picked him up after school. That’s where Metamun picked up his politics, those drives home with dad. Dad listened to a lot of Rush Limbaugh, and so Metamun did too. Metamun was already sort of inclined to conservatism—he had a pessimistic view of the world, distrusting the US government and feeling that people ought to be able to protect themselves (i.e. own guns). Rush did not convert Metamun, but he did affirm Metamun. He didn’t usually say anything that seemed greatly outrageous to Metamun. (Mark that “usually”.) Now, as Metamun was living in suburban New England, it happened that conservative politics did not go unchallenged as they might have, say, farther south. To Metamun it seemed as though he was in a tiny minority, especially where authority figures were concerned. Looking back he’d realize this wasn’t the case— particularly not in terms of his actual views. But remember, Metamun didn’t get out much. And furthermore, although he considered himself conservative, he found he usually didn’t like the company of conservatives— they tended to be less interested in the things he was, like books and acting. So most of his friends and acquaintances tended to be, if not self-identified progressives, at least the kind of people who sneered at conservatives and made the obligatory comparisons of Bush II to Hitler. Because that was who Metamun dealt with day-to-day, he was left with the impression that this was the norm for the society he lived in. Most of what was on TV, with the exceptions of Fox News and South Park, seemed to confirm this. And so Metamun became genuinely terrified of people learning that he was not like the majority. Being homebound so often, Metamun spent a lot of time online. That did nothing to lessen his terror. Lonely as he was, Metamun went looking for conservative blogs. Pajamas Media was the big one, but there were plenty of smaller ones. One important thing he learned was that post 9/11, there were a lot of people who sort of fit his description—socially liberal, but mistrustful of leftist politics for various reasons. Ex-leftists. Neo-Cons.

One important factor was patriotism: It seemed like all progressives genuinely hated the United States on principal. Unflattering and quite often spurious comparisons to other countries seemed to abound on the Left. One of Metamun’s new acquaintances explicitly wrote on their blog that they’d always wondered how the Right “co-opted” patriotism before concluding the Left simply threw it away. This acquaintance, a gay Seattleite, would be a touchstone for Metamun’s sense of political self for some time. During the Tea Party era, the Right genuinely felt more fun and open than the Left. Metamun still felt like an underdog, but also like he was part of a ragtag resistance movement with real emotional bonds. And yet, even with all that, his prime political emotion was fear. (Mark the recurrent theme of fear.) Some of you might see the shape of this narrative and guess that Metamun was fed a steady diet of paranoia by nasty wingnuts. Yes and no. The conservative blogosphere was a scary place—it told him that his basic values were under constant assault. That some of the “basic values” in the package were not actually his was beside the point, because Metamun just generally hated the thought of State force being used to coerce people into violating their own principals. Metamun was happy to fight for values that were not his own, on that account. It did bother him, sometimes, the assumptions conservatives made, but by this time he had gotten used to thinking of himself as a minority, so the majority being different wasn't so jarring. Of course there would be a few differences of opinion. But the Right accepted those differences in the way that surely the Left would not. And he knew that this was true, because he’d seen it with his own eyes. The Left was VICIOUS to conservatives, sometimes in a very personal way. In some ways, sick and often absent though he was, Metamun still got the basic high school experience as he watched insults and worse fly fast and thick. Leftists expressed GLEE at any conservative misfortune. They made absolutely insane comparisons between conservative pundits and Nazis. “Republican” was a punchline to very cruel (and sometimes racist and sexist) jokes. Sometimes they seemed to outright lie. Metamun remembered a novelty song about Satan claim he was “in all Rush Limbaugh’s rants”, and Metamun KNEW that was untrue because he’d been listening to Rush for years and couldn’t recall the man even referencing scripture outside of holidays. Metamun heard people casually cite Glenn Beck as routinely opposing gay marriage when Metamun had heard the man himself arguing that the government shouldn’t even be involved with marriage (and thus that it couldn’t compel churches to validate gay marriages, sure, but that seemed a separate issue). But it was watching his conservative friends’ comments sections and twitter feed that solidified the image of progressive-as-persecutor. It was blatantly apparent that these people hadn’t come to engage, they just wanted to take potshots. Ad hominem abounded, total lack of reading comprehension was displayed, and just general delight in cruelty was rampant. He was particularly appalled by the treatment of minority conservatives, who received all sorts of abuse based on race, sex, and orientation. Something that stuck with Metamun for years was watching conservative women get rape threats, death threats, and admonitions to kill themselves. One of his best friends got such an admonition in response to mentioning on twitter it was her birthday. That was it. Nothing political. Just excitement for a special, personal day. And none of his Leftist friends seemed to understand what their own wing was doing. They talked about the Right doing such things, which baffled him—he’d never seen anything like that, or, if he did, it was only once or twice and never anybody HIS friends actually associated with. Every movement has a few bad apples, right? (Mark the irony.) It didn’t help that once, depressed, Metamun DID admit on twitter that he was a conservative, and moreover that he was afraid people would stop being his friends over that. He promptly lost two friends. When he asked a third friend if they could please ask if he’d been unfollowed on purpose, they said they’d do it. And then THEY never talked to him again, even when he reached out. He was convinced the only reason he didn’t lose everybody was that they hadn’t all seen the tweets—he deleted them quickly. So there Metamun was: Lonely, convinced that even if he didn’t line up perfectly with conservatism that at least conservatives accepted him, and very angry at the Other Tribe that was so cruel and callous to him and his friends. But he was starting to grow up, and as he did he began noticing certain discrepancies. Now and then the movement that was supposed to have a Big Tent felt oddly crowded. People sometimes rubbed each other the wrong way. Metamun particularly hated it when the term RINO got thrown around, because he was all too aware that might apply to someone like him. Then there was the lack of nuance. He slowly came to realize people on both sides of the aisle would sometimes use “nuanced” as a snide insult. When the Dalai Lama described himself as anti-capitalist Metamun was disappointed, but understood (and also His Holiness was on record as saying when someone’s shooting at you it’s reasonable to shoot back, which Metamun thought made up for a lot). He did not expect certain conservatives to not only sneer at His Holinesses “nuanced” relationship with capitalism (accepting material support to fight against Mao) but actually accused him of being a PRC puppet. What? Hadn’t they read anything about the man’s life? Or his own writings? Yes, he’d tried to work with Mao, but that fell through because Mao hated religion unequivocally—how could any religious leader work with that? Why were they jumping to such insane conclusions? This wasn’t what conservatives were supposed to do! There were a thousand other cracks in the façade, but two stand out. First, Metamun admitted to a dear friend, full of apprehension, that he voted for Mitt Romney. And not only did she not cut him out of her life, she explained WHY she wouldn’t do that. Metamun was elated but also very confused—this wasn’t how the script in his head went. He was admitting this because the pain of keeping a secret was too much, and he fully expected to pay a price for that. He was (and remains) a drama-addled moron that way. He was also a creature who put a lot of stock in narrative, and this narrative was nothing like he expected. Next, Metamun himself cut two friends out of his life over politics—years apart, but the number is important. The first hurt, but felt very justified. The second haunted him. Metamun was easily haunted, but by this point he’d started really struggling with intrusive thoughts. Around and around they went in his head, and although there was extreme, maddening monotony, now and then he’d see angles he’d missed before. The number was important. Two friends he’d definitely lost (he was never really sure of the third). Two friends he’d rejected. Why did he reject them? Because he figured they’d hate him if they knew he didn’t agree with them. He figured they had made their positions so strident that it was just inevitable that they would cut him out if he didn’t cut them out first. And he realized, stupidly, after years of realizing nothing, that maybe that’s exactly how the people who left him had felt. Oh, perhaps they didn’t. But what if they did? What did that say about what, ultimately, they had in common? We’re getting closer to the present, so I’m going to start talking about myself in first person again. I recognize this version of myself more easily. As time went by I grew more and more jaded with American conservatism, but I still thought of myself as a conservative. A lot of people were like that, children of the Tea Parties who had thought that the Right was the only alternative to all the abhorrent things we saw on the Left. But familiarity breeds contempt, and soon we were well acquainted with abhorrent things on the Right. It seemed as if there was a rot spreading, something that had started as a speck and was now growing. The spirit of fellow feeling was starting to evaporate. There were a few things going on, but by this point I was barely paying attention to any of them. I hadn’t looked at a conservative blog in years. I didn’t listen to Rush. The fracture of American conservatism could probably be better documented by someone who still gives a damn, but we all know what was the final crack in the glass. Donald Trump’s candidacy split the Right seemingly overnight, and not neatly down the middle. The big question is, of course “love him or hate him”, but even people who don’t go to those extremes get caught up in the animosity. This, really, was when I couldn’t call myself a conservative anymore—no, not because his election was an indictment of conservatism, but because as the jagged rift grew, I suddenly realized that literally everything that scared me about the Left was present in the Right, both the MAGAheads and the Never Trumpers. All the bile. All the cruelty. All the callous disregard for our shared humanity. All the absurd stereotyping and reductionism. Everything I’d seen on the Left that made me feel that the Right, imperfect as it was, was my only refuge, was suddenly EVERYWHERE, from quarters I’d thought were safe. A lot of my conservative friends were hit even harder than I was; a few people desperately tried to reconcile people who had once laughed and dined together, but were now swearing never to speak again, or worse, verbally assaulting each other on a daily basis. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This was not the way we were supposed to work.And then, at last, I realized that the only reason I was just seeing all this awfulness NOW was because it hadn’t been directed at me and mine in the past. And here we come to the main point I want to impress on everybody who’s bothered to read this far: My short-sightedness was in no way unique. We always try to show our best face to our friends—and to our Tribe. We are thoughtful and considerate of people on our side. We roll our eyes at the people on our fringe—silly things, aren’t they? Imagine someone taking them seriously. Our enemies do not see our best face. They see our war face. We fight them tooth and nail. We exult in their defeats, which become our triumphs—somehow. And we see this horrible, poisonous crest at the top of their wave that threatens to engulf everything—their fringe. A leftist is not going to be threatened and insulted for being a rightist—at least not consistently outside of “purity” arguments. A leftist will be more cognizant of the threat posed by rightist fringes, because those fringes are not attacking the Right, per se. And you know, this goes for all conflict. You don’t see a problem as clearly if it’s not directly shoved in your face every day. And you will become convinced that the problems that ARE shoved in your face every day are the only ones really getting worked up about, because everything else seems so ephemeral. I read people scoff at their own fringes—“Oh, nobody REALLY believes that stuff, and people who complain about it are just showing their white fragility/race baiting/gay agenda/whatever the key phrase to stop critical thought is in a given situation”. Guess what? Those fringes are constantly needling at the other side. THEY are what is representative of your tribe to the Other Tribe. They are loud, and they are cruel, and ignoring them because the other guys “deserve it” or you hope “now they’ll know how it feels” is fucking insane. And yes, one of the reasons the Other Tribe sees it so often is that they go looking for it, but they go looking for it BECAUSE THEY ARE AFRAID OF IT and they want to make sure they know what it’s up to. The only thing worse than seeing the devil is losing sight of the devil. I’m no longer a conservative because that ideology is poisoned by hate. But I didn’t become a progressive, because that ideology is also poisoned by hate. Or maybe both ideologies have actually been abandoned, and now we just have two flavors of hate in opposition to each other. Please believe me, I do not WANT to be apolitical. Everybody hates the apolitical—we don’t even like ourselves much. And anyway, I’m one of nature’s conformists; I like belonging to a group. But at this point committing to ANY political movement feels like I would be sacrificing my integrity. And I would not want to be part of a movement that accepts people without integrity. I call myself a localist these days. Something risk analyst Nassim Nicholas Taleb came up with. Keep power close to the ground, don’t try to manage everything from the top down, resist interventionism in communities where you don’t have skin in the game. Not aiming for a world without blowups, but keeping them at a smaller scale than we currently experience. Forget fussing over socialism and capitalism; both are bad at large scales. Both can work together at smaller scales. The false dichotomy is a tool of tyrants. I want my country to get better. But that’s not going to happen until people admit there are malicious, corrupting forces even in their own Tribes. It’s not all the Other Tribe’s fault. I still see people I love treating other people I love as subhuman. And when I point this out, tentatively, people nod their heads and tell me I’m correct and then go back to thoughtless hatred. What I want people to understand, please, is that I want nothing to do with political mass movements. It’s all about different flavors of hatred. It’s all about hurting people. It’s all about hypocrisy and cruelty. Fuck it. I am going to try to be a good person without hitching my ego to too many abstractions. I am going to try to make the world around me a more pleasant place, and I am going to do that without giving a fuck about whatever sacred cows the Left Tribe and Right Tribe are busy genuflecting to. So. I’m going to work harder not to deal with it here.

#out of voice #this is really just a personal political essay #it's not funny and it's not thought provoking #i've just been sitting on it for years #i don't fit in any political clique and i no longer have any desire to do so #block this tag if you don't want to see politics #update: maybe i just won't come back to tumblr #but this would be a decent epitaph

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jeff-stillcoolasazombie · 4 years

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The Waiter and the Hotel Heiress- Chapter 2

a Kristanna and Eloise at Christmastime crossover event!

Length: 2741 words

Rating: K+