#˚:✧｡• julie

[vgilantee]

dear devoted delicate {xavier thorpe}

xavier thorpe x reader

requested: by my beloved julie @websterss <3

words: 2.2k

a/n: the reader is an outcast of an unknown type, but not a werewolf. i love werewolves, but because of some of the setup, it's gotta be a non-werewolf reader. also i went a little off-prompt but it's still the same in essence, and all the important bits are included, just shuffled up a little. oh and yes the title is a line from the song older, but i used it mostly because dear is a sweet petname, and butterflies have delicate wings. i think i'm clever. oh and if you're new here, i hate writing dialogue and it shows in this also if you want to see some really cool drawings of poisonous plants, send me an ask (please) because one of my favourite things ever are vintage botanical drawings (this will make sense in a minute dw)

warnings: n/a. just some sweetness. there is swearing though so idk if that counts as a warning

pronouns: she/her (maybe she/they? i can't remember if i threw in a 'they' lmao)

Once a month - sometimes twice if you were incredibly unlucky - you were kicked out of your room for two days while your roommate had a handful of her younger cousins over. 

Before Nevermore, you loved the full moon. Now you had a love-hate relationship. You still loved the moon itself, but you never enjoyed showing up at your friend’s dorm, backpack over your shoulder and sleeping bag tucked under your arm, sheepishly asking if you could once again sleep on their floor. You could, in theory, go back to your room to sleep as your roommate and cousins wouldn’t be there, instead transformed into wolves and galavanting around the woods. But in your second month at Nevermore, you did that, and woke up to a room full of the less-than-dressed human werewolves, some of whom had chosen your bed to curl up on, with you still in it. Never again. 

Full moons on the weekend were the worst. With no classes to occupy your time, you often found yourself moving from place to place around campus to find somewhere you could hide out before getting bored and moving on. 

Xavier watched as you jogged past the archery field, headphones in and running shoes muddied. It wasn’t unusual to see you go past during club practice, though you tended to avoid it after a downpour. He’d asked you about it once, after seeing you in the library one rainy Saturday afternoon.

“My room already smells like wet dog at the best of times, I’m not going to add to that.” Your voice was light with humour; you adored Sofi and she always made sure to not bring in any smells with her. But the comment stuck with Xavier and the next time you were sat next to each other in Torture through History, he sketched out a wolf before moving his hand to bring it out of the page. You giggled quietly as the ashen wolf shook itself, small flecks mimicking water coming off, then curled up next to your hand. You had smiled down at it fondly as it fell asleep before dissolving into charcoal dust, leaving a light smudge on your hand. Xavier watched you and pretended not to notice the warmth that came to his face as you looked up at him, the fond look still in your eyes. 

“Xavier, are you going to take your shot? Or you just going to keep staring at ‘em?” He shot up a middle finger over his shoulder before turning to follow its movement to see his club mates smirking over at him. 

After ducking into Ash’s room to change into more comfortable clothes, you make your way down to the library. Ash was generally the most reliable for having space on their floor for you to crash, the thin roll-out mattress a permanent feature in the beanbag corner of the dorm. 

On your way, you detour to your room to kick your muddy runners under your bed, though not before making an ‘I’m watching you’ motion toward a curled-up Sofi with a smile. 

It wasn’t uncommon for couples to be hidden away in the library, especially not on an overcast weekend. But the Grimmstone library was the only library on campus that held an original copy of an 1800s toxic botany encyclopaedia. 

After a few false turns with quick apologies to the interrupted couples, you finally found the right - and luckily empty - aisle. With your forefinger running gently along the worn spines, you made your way down the rows of books, glancing at the names of authors until you found the one you were looking for. 

After carefully sliding the hardcover book off the shelf - nearly dropping it as the loose plastic dust cover slipped - you sat down at one of the desks lining the centre of the room and began flicking through. You flicked the book to the back, finger running down the yellowed page until you reached the name you were looking for: aconitum.

----

“Big scary werewolf and you’re afraid of a little butterfly?” You laughed as you wandered into Plant Toxicology with Sofi. 

“It flew right into my face!” She waved her free hand in front of her, mimicking the butterfly’s movements. 

“And you squealed!” As you laughed, Sofi gently hip-checked you, nudging you toward your usual desk, before laughing with a shake of her head and walking toward her own. You nodded hello to Yoko as you sat beside her. 

“Alight, class. Group paper time.” The sounds of groans and heads hitting tables bounced around the room. “I know, I know. Now, rows one and three, turn around and give a little wave to your partner.”

----

You were hours early to meet your study buddy, but it was a non-issue. The time alone allowed you to make meticulous notes on the plant before worrying about formatting them into a presentable paper. 

The notes you made were messy, quick dot points from the encyclopaedia that could make into a decent assessment. The paper was only short anyway, the first report of the semester that was more of a benchmark than a large percentage of your grade. 

Headphones in, it wasn’t long until you found yourself with your feet up on the seat and book resting open on your thighs, reaching around your bent knees to occasionally take notes. 

You were in the middle of triple-checking the spelling of a latin nomenclature when a flit of grey out the corner of your eye caught your attention. But as you turned your head to see what it was, all you could see was another couple darting down an aisle, whispering to each other. You shook your head with an amused exhale before turning back to your note-taking. 

Just as you leaned forward to take a note, you saw the grey again. But this time, instead of a moment at the side of your vision, the grey moved in front of you just long enough to make out the shape of a butterfly before it landed on the tip of your nose. 

Cross-eyed to stare at the charcoal insect, you pulled out the headphones slowly, trying not to disturb it. You knew it wasn’t real, recognising the trademark sketch lines of Xavier’s art. 

Another pair of butterflies began to flutter in front of you, bouncing off of each other with tiny plumes of dust. You let out a small giggle and the bug on your nose darted away, flying right into the other two where all three of them exploded into a shower of dark powder onto the desk. Once the last of the dust landed, you turned quickly to look over your shoulders, dropping your feet to the floor, trying to find the artist.

You met Xavier’s eye as he folded his sketchbook closed in his right hand. His head was tilted with a smile as he made his way toward you, backpack slung over his shoulder. 

“Howdy, howdy partner.” You wriggled your fingers to wave as he pulled out the chair beside you, dropping down and letting his bag fall to the floor. As he did, you noticed that Xavier’s pulled-back hair was a messy damp, the kind that comes with being caught in the rain. 

“Started the fun without me.” He gestured lazily to your notebook and the two thick library books in front of you (at some point during your research you wandered back to the shelf and found a second book with information on the deadly plant).

“Wanted to make you jealous, of course.” You shot him a wink with a small giggle, turning back to your book just in time to miss the tips of Xavier’s ears go pink. “The butterflies were definitely a welcome distraction though,” you thanked, turning in your chair to face him fully, “I felt like I was going cross-eyed staring at these pages.” 

“I’m happy to distract.” Xavier sent you a dopey smile and raised one hand to flatten down flyaways, and you bit the inside of your lip while ignoring the warmth that grew on your face. In your attempt to break eye-contact and hopefully get rid of the blush, your gaze flicked down to his mouth and caught him licking his lips. 

Almost in sync, you and Xavier looked away from each other and as you looked over at the textbook, you heard him clear his throat. 

“Okay, so,” Xavier broke the silence after a moment, “what have you got so far?”

You quickly delved into giving him a rundown of the notes you had made so far, explaining ideas you had come up with for it. However, you made a point of not looking up at him. It was a little awkward at times, where you would catch yourself beginning to look at him but quickly found a drawing of the purple flower far too important to not look over at. 

Neither of you noticed that the sun had set until the howls of classmates made their way from this distance, the sound causing both of you to turn and look out the window. 

“Shit, I didn’t realise how late it had gotten.” During the week, there was an 8pm curfew, but over the weekend library hours were extended and they were a little more lenient with the time you had to be back at your dorm giving you until midnight to be back. There was just one downside to being in the library late.

“Oh my god we missed dinner.” Xavier sounded devastated at the realisation, and you looked over to see him with the back of his hand pressed dramatically to his forehead. 

“You hungry?” It wasn’t long past dinnertime, but because of the routine that came with living at Nevermore, you knew the answer would be yes. “I may or may not have some snacks hidden in my dorm.” He perked up, and though he would never tell, he was more than a little excited to be spending more time alone with you.

---

Xavier sat awkwardly on your bed as you kicked off your shoes and began to pull a box out from under your bed. Pushing some heavy clothing out of the way, you pulled out a bag of chips and a couple of packets of sweets. 

“It’s not really a dinner, but it’s food.” You showed him the food you had stashed, offering it weakly. Xavier scooched himself onto the floor, patting the space beside him and you sat yourself down cross-legged. 

As Xavier pulled open the chip bag, you sent Ash a message saying you might be over late, but would try to be as quiet as possible. They sent back a thumbs up, and you shoved away your phone just in time for the chips to be held out in front of you.

Between the sweets and bag of chips, you and Xavier managed to talk about anything that came to mind as time quickly moved by. During your time, both of you got more relaxed, losing any vague semblance of good posture and leaned against the side of your bed. And maybe closer to each other, but only maybe. 

Xavier pulled his sketchbook out of his backpack and leaned forward, listening to you talk as he drew. He hid his sketchbook from you as you tried leaning over him, giggling into his ear as you did. 

You let your body flop onto the ground beside him, staring up leaning on your hand as he readjusted how he was sitting to keep hiding what he was drawing from you. Then he tucked his pencil behind his ear and held his hand above the page. 

Lifting up with a rain of dust, a dozen small butterflies began to flit around your room. They bounced off each other, spinning in circles as they danced.

Much like the interruption of howls earlier in the evening, you are brought back into reality by the buzzing of your phone against the hardwood floor. 

“I don’t mean to stop you from whatever you’re doing,” Ash skipped the greeting as you answer the call, “but if you’re sleeping here tonight you might want to think about showing up soon.” 

“Hello to you too.” Sitting up properly, you watched Xavier as he turned on his phone screen and showed you the time, and you widened your eyes. “Oh fuck. Okay, thanks, Ash. Be there soon.” Xavier stood first, offering you a hand to pull you up which you happily took pretending not to notice the way he squeezed your hand shortly when you stood.

“I can walk you over if you want.” You were already shaking your head at the offer, knowing that you would be cutting it thin getting to Ash’s dorm and Xavier’s dorm house was in the opposite direction.

“No, it’s okay. I don’t want to be the reason you get in trouble.” He held the door open for you, leaning on the outer frame. As he pulled it shut his arm brushed your side. 

There was a beat of silence as neither of you wanted to move. Although you had spent the night hanging out, the softness in that moment was different and not something you wanted to break.

Steeling yourself for a moment, you darted forward and kissed Xavier on the cheek, turning and beginning to walk away before you could see how he reacted. 

Xavier watched as you moved quickly away, his cheeks and ears pink, He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times trying to figure out how to react. Once you disappeared around the corner, he let out a breath and sheepishly smiled to himself.

comments and reblogs are appreciated! as are asks about the fic!

rambles, feel free to ignore: this fic isn't… okay so i hold myself to very high standards which is a problem with my brain and things, and i need to stop doing that because i end up giving up on things that aren't perfect instead of appreciating that i have made something and it's mine and from my brain. again, a problem i need to sort out. but all this being said!! by my self-imposed standards this isn't amazing, and really i'm posting it as a "here! it's done! take it before i take it back and destroy it!" and that's only happening because it was a request from a mutual.

tl;dr: these rambles are more to say that i like this fic, and i'm happy enough with it, but my standards are so high that i don't think it's good enough. which is a common thing with creatives and just know that what you make is good because it's yours and you made it, and that's all that matters!

[lovebugcody]

Hi bby 😊🙃🙃

hi angel bby!! <3

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[bumblebeebats]

OP turned off reblogs so this is my post now. Behold, the "Objective quality vs. degree of ferality" scale

Here are a few of my own personal datapoints:

[thatstheproblemwithnapkinman]

*screams*

HAPPY FUCKING PRIDE

ASEXUAL AND AROMANTIC PEOPLE EXIST AND ARE PART OF THE COMMUNITY

NOW GO BE MENACES TO SOCIETY

[ofswordsandpens]

idk why people get super pedantic about the movie logic in Home Alone and start and try to pick it apart, because like, its a Christmas movie about a child accidentally being left home alone, the premise isn't exactly asking us to suspend our disbelief that much, and yet nearly every single "gotcha" question I see people bring up about this film is literally answered within the first 15 minutes :/

[fancyhandsbakery]

Keep your eyes on Palestine. We know the illegal occupation launches attacks when Western media is distracted.

[batshaped]

encounter i had yesterday

after my gay tortoise wedding crasher experience i feel like there's a nonzero chance that tony's handler will see this somehow im sorry if i didn't remember what you looked like accurately, i was distracted by your shirt and the cutest puppy i ever saw in my life

[sweet4ngell]

[journalofsolitude]

Morgan Harper Nichols’ ‘Let July be July’

[vgilantee]

CHAR MY LOVE THIS IS LONG AND I'M SORRY LMFAO. this is my one fic idea/series that I really needed to tell a second person about.

So I thought of this reincarnation idea but it's treated like a curse or just a curse or spell placed on the reader

so I've been reading the ACOTAR series and was inspired to write this. To debrief you a bit about the book...In the book, everyone has a mate and sometimes the bond snaps for one while it takes longer for the other person to feel it, anyway, in this case, Azriel (the love of my life jk, a book character) has always longed for a mate and thought he finally found it with Elain (a character in the book) but he finds it in the reader and he then is so happy to start his life with her but then a sudden mishap happens and she dies, and then another couple years pass (in the series he's like 500 something but looks like he's in his twenties Imfao) and each couple years he has to relive the snap of the bond and experiences the reader to die each time, every time the reader comes back she doesn't remember him sadly and dawns a whole entirely different personality and look, whether it's on the run, homeless, happy, miserable, you name it.

I don't if I should start it with her dying at a young age and then he meets her through each phase of growing up or have that he loses her during one of the best moments of his life??? I'm going with losing her during the best moment of his life.

Anyway continuing on...so losing her wrecks him and during some years, Azriel doesn't even want to make the attempt to seek her out because he knows his time with her is very limited, like after a he keeps seeing her alive again and again, he starts to realize what's happening, anyway, sometimes his brothers are the ones to tell him that's she's passed and he doesn't have to assume so since he feels her die each time, but he slowly loses himself even more and also refuses to have children with her when she comes back into his life because he can't fathom the idea of being left with a child and then having the reader not remember who their son/daughter is.

She dies the same day on each night. different ways, I want to incorporate that she speaks her fate in the air and so each time she dies it's from something she joked about. Also as a way to make it more angsty, like she'll be a kind soul who faces death in not-so-drastic measures, rather her death is based on what she says before it happens than it being at the hands of someone else.

I have more but I'll keep the rest to myself so that it doesn't spoil the story.

so i haven't read acotar (i will eventually, but i need to reorganise my books/library before i buy any more books) so my ramble are based only on everything i've gleamed from this

so is she going to be reborn and meet him at around the same time? like she's the same age when he finds her again? or is it jason-todd-type? where she is the same being (?) as azriel where she physically looks 20s but is actually 500+. but she dies and is either necromancy-ed back to life, or because of the curse she crawls her way out of her grave? but because of her death she doesn't remember who she was (i am feral for jason digging himself out of his grave, as much as i love the lazarus pit)

oh but i love the idea that he loves her but cannot bring himself to build a life with her! and speaking her death into existance; words have powers and the idea that words are spells!

and why has she been cursed?! was it her? was it an ancestor? juicy juicy juicy

[lovebugcody]

PEOPLE I WANNA KNOW BETTER

Tagged by @websterss

LAST SONG? Juliette by slush puppy (I have been listening to my discovery weekly and it's the most recent song I had on in the car)

FAVOURITE COLOUR? very specific shades of pink

CURRENTLY WATCHING? sex education. finally watching the final season

LAST MOVIE? uhhhhh I think it was "you're so not invited to my bat mitzva" ? I don't really watch movies at the moment honestly

SWEET/SPICY/SAVORY? sour lollies, mildly spicy dinner, savoury lunches. I don't really do sweet honestly

RELATIONSHIP STATUS? Single but delusional and taken by fictional men <- I just stole this straight from Julie because I'm dating commander cody in my head lmaoooo

CURRENT OBSESSIONS? star wars. I'm suffering rot of the extreme kind for the clone wars era specifically.

LAST THING YOU GOOGLED? pretty sure it was something for work. or lungfish. me and ash were talking about it and I spiralled into looking into them

no pressure tags for new moots: @commander-sunshine @rain-on-kamino @freesia-writes

[dumpsterf11re]

[cakemadeofbacon]

Don’t let the assassination attempt take away attention from the massacres happening in Palestine more than three hundred people were martyred today

[malorisaurus]

[northgazaupdates]

Heartbreaking news out of north Gaza today

We write to inform you that renowned journalist Ismail Al-Ghoul and cameraman Ramy El-Rifi of Al-Jazeera were murdered just a few hours ago by the occupation. They were going out to document the scene of another bombing attack, when they were deliberately targeted by the occupation. Footage provided by journalist Osama Al-Ashi in the immediate aftermath of the attack shows that Ismail and Ramy were murdered with targeted precision weaponry, meaning the occupation watched them, waited for them, and executed them in cold blood (warning: graphic footage).

Ismail and Ramy have been documenting the genocide at immense personal cost since the 7th of October 2023. They were previously kidnapped and tortured by the occupation, but survived and continued to remain in north Gaza and document crimes against humanity. They have had many narrow escapes, and today, the occupation was finally successful in its illegal goal of assassinating these prominent journalists.

When western journalists hand-wave their suppression of the IOF’s atrocities in Gaza by claiming no journalists are “allowed” in to report, remember these men. Remind them of these men. These men who lost friends and loved ones, who suffered immensely, and yet chose to remain and continue documenting the genocide against their people. They join the ranks of more than 150 Gazan journalists who were murdered by the occupation to hide its crimes and retaliate for speaking the truth.

حسبنا الله و نعم الوكيل

أنا لله و أنا اليه رجعون

God suffices us and he is the best disposer of affairs. We belong to God and to Him we shall return.

Keep fighting for Gaza. Don’t stop talking about north Gaza.