#And your 1940s attitude

[scoobysnakz]

1940’s hubby miguel who is confused when you start complaining about being bored. he offers different things for you to bake him, different colours of jumpers he wouldn’t mind you knitting but you ignore them all. you just mope around the house now. not in the sense that you’re upset, just fed up. he does like how clingy it’s made you, though.

you don’t leave him alone now, arm constantly linked with his as you trace his knuckles with his thumb. he practically has to peel you off when the two of you go to work.

1940’s hubby miguel who suddenly realises what’s wrong when he offers to turn the tv on one evening when the two of you are snuggling on the sofa and you just push him back into his seat.

“nothing good on,” you mumble into his arm as you pull yourself closer to him again.

“haven’t even turned it on yet, doll,” he points out.

“i just know, migs.”

he smiles at that, finding amusement in your aloof attitude. his thick arm scoops you in close to him and nuzzles his head into your hair, breathing in the sweet scent of you.

“it’s got that nasty man all over it,” you whine, clearly annoyed that this prick is everywhere that you look.

1940’s hubby miguel who feels so guilty that his plan backfired. he never once thought that you would suddenly hate the news or even throw away the little badge from the spider-man fan club you so proudly founded.

he just wanted to have some innocent fun with his special girl, give her the best present ever and no it’s all ruined.

1940’s hubby miguel who decides to make it up to you. he goes out as spider-man again, coincidentally bumping into the stubborn mrs ohara.

“fancy seeing you again,” he grins down at you, hands proudly holding the car door open for you.

your nose crinkles in disgust at the site of him, distaste colouring your expression as you push him out of the way. try to anyway.

the absolute unit of a man stays put, feet firmly grounded on the grey pavement.

“what is it?” you huff, not even bothering to look his way.

“want to apologise,” he coos, voice irritatingly sweet, you only like it when miguel uses that voice with you, otherwise it just sounds condescending, “that was no way to treat a lady as wonderful as yourself.”

one of your eyebrows quirks at his bold statement. “i know.”

“can i make it up to you?” he presses on, “take you out to dinner? write your name in webbing from the empire state?”

you scoff at him, clearly unamused by his antics. “i don’t care if you stop the entire planet spinning, the only man i care for is my migs.”

1940’s hubby miguel who wants to smash everything in site. once again, his plan went shit side up and his wife hates spider-man even more.

it’s his fault for being so cocky and acting the way he normally would around her, not the way a distinguished hero should.

how badly he wants to make it right, make you love spider-man again, get all excited when he comes in tv, get to see that adorable scowl when he teases you about having a little crush.

1940’s hubby miguel who realises the only way to fix this is to reveal his biggest secret.

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[moonlit-imagines]

Wade’s New Friend

Wade Wilson x reader

warnings:

a/n: 💕

prompt: anonymous: “I would like to request a story where teen!reader x Wade Wilson/Deadpool (platonically OFC). Where the reader was already in the ice box when Wade and Russel show up. Her powers are super dangerous (you can pick them) and all the prisoners just kinda leave her alone cus they’re low key scared of her. Anyway, maybe like Russel decides to talk to her, which leads to her and Wade talking, and he just thinks she’s a good kid.”

You sat quietly at your empty table in the cafeteria of the Ice Box—which, to an unsuspecting observer would look like you were just a lonely little kid who didn’t fit in with all the scary criminals you were surrounded by. Obviously, you were scared and miserable, keeping your head down and you picked apart your food with a plastic fork.

“Wonder what they’re in for.” Russell comments to Wade, who felt like he was in the same boat. Or at least wished he was since Russell was still sitting with him.

“Poor, poor kid. You know, Russ, you should go over there and make a friend. It’d be good for you on account of the fact you’re a little orphan boy. You probably have a lot in common.” Wade rambled endlessly until Russell felt pressure to get up and walk away, feeling maybe this was a chance to make a new friend. Soon after, you were disturbed at your table when an unfamiliar boy sat across from you.

"Hi!" Russell greeted with a surprisingly chipper attitude. "I'm Russell, just got here today." "Thats nice." You bluntly replied.

"And you are..?" He tried to ask politely.

"Y/N." Another short answer from you. You peered over at the horribly scarred man staring at you two from another table and thought it weird, possibly that they knew why you were here and were looking for some kind of alliance or something. "Why are you sitting with me?"

"I don't know, you looked lonely." He replied honestly. "You're the only other person my age, I thought we could be friends."

"'Friends' don't really happen here." You responded, poking at you food with your fork, you'd lost your appetite as you were disturbed by this uninvited guest at your otherwise empty table. "We're all the same, but very different. I want nothing to do with you or anyone else here." Before Russell could respond, you waved him away and saw the scarred man roll his eyes and look away. The young boy wandered back to his former table--obviously defeated--and soon after, his scarred friend was at your table instead.

"Really? Way to hurt the kid's feelings. What'd he do to you?" Wade asked, almost mockingly.

"You guys really can't take 'no' for an answer." You shoved you tray forward and stormed off, which would piss off most, but you put a smile on his face. "Well, Russ," Wade started when he returned, "I think we made a friend."

taglist: @locke-writes // @randomawesomeperson102 // @captainshazamerica // @dindjarinsspouse // @summersimmerus // @simp-legend // @nekoannie-chan // @groovy-lady // @deanzboyfriend // @mr-mxyzptlk-1940 //

[themalhambird]

Whiteman’s  lounging with a whisky, looking comfortably casual in a pair of chinos and a t-shirt—blazer combination. He might be taken for any young, up-and-coming London professional out for a drink to celebrate the long weekend. Hillinghead, by contrast, looks like he should be at a wedding- the man’s in a three piece suit and the most complexly knotted tie she’s ever seen.  Still, Shahara’s hardly going to judge him for feeling more comfortable completely covered up and the man is (she still can’t really wrap her head around this) a Victorian. He’s got a pint of beer in front of him, though it doesn’t look like he’s touched it. 

She takes the first of the two empty seats at their table, her coke sloshing over the side of the glass as she sits, and remarks: “You two found your way around alright then?”

Whiteman sniffs sharply and half shrugs. “Fine. Nice to see the place not bombed to bits and rationing over.”

“It’s so- loud,” Hillinghead murmurs. “And crowded, and it smells-”

“It’s always smelled,” Whiteman interjects. “What, was it all roses in your time? I don’t believe that.”

“No,” Hillinghead stresses. “But it is- more.” he rubs the bridge of his nose.  “Have you heard from-” He freezes, staring at something just over Whiteman’s shoulder. Shahara can read a shift in to flight-or-fight posture easily and from the way he’s suddenly more alert, Whiteman’s clocked that something’s got Hilinghead spooked as well.

“Problem?” he asks quietly, in his clipped, cockney accent; a half-strangled vowel slips from Hillinghead’s throat and Shahara turns to see what he’s looking at. There’s two men enjoying what’s clearly a date, holding hands and locking lips. Shahara sighs internally, bracing herself for a slew of Victorian attitudes- “Yeah,” she says, a little sarcastically- Hillinghead’s knuckles have gone white, he’s clenching his fist so hard. The gold of his wedding band stands stark against it. “That’s allowed, nowadays- we don’t care.” 

“Hm?” Whiteman glances around- there’s a moment where Shahara thinks she’s gonna have to deal with 1940s attitudes as well, but Whiteman turns back, uninterested. “Fair enough.” he starts patting himself down, like he’s looking for something in his pockets. 

“They can-” Hillinghead murmurs. “I could…” He swipes for the beer and downs a quarter of the pint in one. Now Whiteman looks interested, he pauses his search, leans right forward and says, smirking, “Detective Inspector Hillinghead. Do you have a fancy man?”

Hillinghead sputters and brings down the glass. “Are you twelve?” he demands, something of the outraged parent seeping into his tone as– he’s blushing, Shahara realises. He’s actually blushing. 

“Are you-?” She asks, leaning forward, and she knows it’s rude and none of her business, but still. “Are you gay?” The wedding ring. “Bi?”she suggests, as a follow up, and then: “Do you have a boyfriend?”

“I- what? I-” he looks back at the couple, then grabs his beer again. “I have- I have a- I have Henry,” he downs more of the beer. “It-it would be nice, to- to not…” he trails off, his eyes drifting away from both of them.

“See, I’ve always been a bachelor- a bachelor bachelor, not a confirmed bachelor, myself, but I - fuck, I left my cigars and my lighter in the other jacket-”

“Language,” Hilinghead reprimands at the same time as Shahara says: “You can’t smoke in here anyway.”

Whiteman drops his elbow to the table and points at her. “You what?”

“No smoking in public places, it’s banned.”

Whiteman flops back in his seat and grabs for his whisky. “The future is bollocks.” he drains the glass and slams it down. “Good whisky though. So. While we wait for Maplewood to join us….Hillinghead can kiss blokes, and I can’t smoke in a pub. What else should we know about this 2023, then…?”

[obessedwithfictionalmen]

Until you come back home pt.2

John Egan X Female! Reader

Summary: Y/n received a letter from Bucky, but it was enough to push her into madness...

Warning: Obsessive love disorder/ mental institution/ electric shock/ freezing bath/ 1940s asylum treatments/ use of Y/n/

Word count: 1.9k

When Harry Crosby came in her room with his letter, she couldn’t believe it. She was going crazy without him. Harry had to argue with the Colonel that she was still sane and still able to do her work, even though it was a lie. She snatched the envelope from his hands and quickly opened it. ‘’Told you he wasn’t dead, Croz, I was right’’ she said, smiling.

My darling Y/n,

I hope you’re doing well; I’ve read every single letter you sent to me. I miss you like crazy, say thank you to Crosby for me, I know he’s taking good care of you, and I’m grateful for it. I’m going crazy too, you know, I miss you so much. I miss everything about you, the conditions are awful here; we only eat potatoes and the other day, we have to kill a cat to eat its meat. It was disgusting, the mattress is so uncomfortable, my back hurts, and I can’t sleep well without you. On a good note, Buck is alive, and he’s here at this camp. That helps a little, but I’m still going crazy. I’m going to try and come back to you, in the meantime, I’ve sent you my necklace, it’s in the envelope, it’s not much but I hope it helps you. I think about you all the time, I’ve started to do the same thing as you, calling your name, until I come back home. I’m driving the guys crazy, but I don’t care. It keeps me sane. We have to keep hoping, I feel that we’re going to see each other again, and when we do, we’re going to get married, and we’re going to live together. I love you, my darling, so much it drives me crazy. Until I come back home; Y/n, Y/n, Y/n…

She hugged the letter before showing it to Crosby. Something in her eyes wasn’t right, something changed. The last bit of her sanity evaporated with the letter, she opened the envelope, taking the necklace and putting it around her neck. ‘’We’re going to get married, Croz’’ she giggled maniacally. ‘’Y/n are you okay?’’ he asked, very concerned with his best friend’s attitude. ‘’Bucky, Bucky, Bucky’’ she kept calling his name, over and over again. ‘’You’re scaring me! Are you okay?’’ he raised his voice. ‘’Never better, Croz’’ she smiled. It pained him, but he had to place her somewhere, she didn’t look okay, and frankly, Crosby was afraid that she would hurt herself, and others. So that night, he went to talk to Colonel Harding, and then, went to his desk, to write a letter.

When Bucky saw that the letter he got was not from Y/n, he was confused. When he saw that it was from Harry Crosby, he was worried. He quickly opened the envelope to see why his girlfriend wasn’t writing to him.

Hello Bucky,

Sorry for not being Y/n. I appreciate your kind words in her letters, I tried to look after her in the best way possible, but after your letter, she’s gone mad. And I don’t mean it lightly, I was afraid for her security, I thought she was going to hurt herself and others on the base. That’s why Colonel and I found it better to send her away, where she can get the help she needs. I wasn’t happy doing it, I felt really bad, but trust me, she needed it. The psychiatrist told me she has an obsessive love disorder. It is easy to cure, but it’s going to be hard. She will still be in love with you because I can tell she truly cares about you. The problem is she’s obsessed with you. She can’t live with the idea of you being dead or injured. She can have self-destructive behavior, so that’s why we decided to send her away. I visited her often. The first weeks were hard, but today marks the second month she’s been there, and I can tell she’s improving. I hope you’re okay, I’m going to try to keep you updated on her progress.

Harry Crosby

They put her into a mental institute. He couldn’t believe it, she wasn’t crazy, she was in love. Even if it made him angry, he understood why he did it. Bucky was just hoping that she was okay, and that they weren’t torturing her.

Electrical shock, that’s how they were ‘curing’ her, by electrocuting her. They also put her into an ice bath. But the doctor said she was getting better at first, she fought the guards, but by the time she did her fifth treatment, she grew tried of fighting them, so she stopped. Today was important for her, she was going to be evaluated by the psychiatrist and he was going to determine if she could get out of here, she needed to be on her best behavior. When guards came in her room, she was sat on her bed, ready to be escorted to his office. When she entered the room, she was nervous, her hands were shaking, and she felt like she was going to throw up. ‘’Hello Y/n, how are you today?’’ Dr. Phillips asked. She cleared her throat before speaking. ‘’Hi Dr. Phillips, I’m quite well, how are you?’’ she spoke nervously. He pressed his elbow in his desk, looking at his notes before responding. ‘’Good, thank you. So do you know why you’re here today?’’ she nodded and gulped. ‘’You’re going to tell me if I’m crazy or not’’ she whispered. Dr. Phillips laughed. ‘’Oh, Y/n, you’re not crazy, who told you that?’’ he laughed. He did, multiple times as he gave her shocks. ‘’Trevor did’’ she lied, Trevor was her only friend here, he was here because he could hear voices. Trevor claimed that he was blessed by the gods. ‘’Y/n, I’m the one that can say if you’re crazy or not, and from what I’m seeing in your file, you’re not crazy anymore’’ she shifted in her seat. She fixed her hair, looking at the ground. She couldn’t look at Dr. Phillips in the eyes, she was scared of him. ‘’Can I, uh, can I, g-g-get out?’’ she stuttered, whispering. She was afraid that he was going to give her an ice bath. ‘’Yes! That’s why I wanted to see you, I wanted to tell you the good news myself, your friend, Harry Crosby, is waiting for you in the lobby.’’ Dr. Phillips exclaimed.

His feet were bouncing on the ground, he couldn’t wait to see her. Harry Crosby got a call yesterday, saying that Y/n was going to be released. When the door opened, he saw her. She looked weak, fragile and tired, what the hell did they do to her. She was skinny, did they feed her? Her cheeks were hollow, and she had purple circles under her eyes. But when Y/n saw her best friend, she smiled, that was the first real smile she had in weeks. ‘’Crosby!’’ she exclaimed, walking towards him. ‘’Hey you! It’s so good to see you!’’ he exclaimed, trying not to show his concern in front of the doctor. ‘’She’s all good and ready to go home, take good care of her.’’ Dr. Phillips patted her back, but she flinched.

The second they were inside the Jeep, Harry drove far away from this place, he was going fast. ‘’Are you okay? What did they do to you?’’ he asked, concerned. Y/n turned to look at her friend. ‘’They cured me’’ she simply said. He sputtered. ‘’Do you still love him?’’ he asked, scared of her answer. ‘’I think so’’ her gaze was empty, it wasn’t normal, something was off.

Gale Cleven escaped, he managed to escape and now he was back on the base. He looked for Y/n, Bucky asked him to go check on her. He knew she had been in a mental institute, but when he saw her, getting out of Crosby’s Jeep, he felt sick. It wasn’t the Y/n he knew, who was this woman. She was walking towards him, smiling, but her eyes were numb. ‘’Gale! How are you?’’ she asked him, smiling. ‘’I’m good, Y/n, how are you, you look hungry’’ he stated, seeing how thin she was. ‘’I’m well, but I am hungry, can we go eat?’’ her tone was monotone, like a robot. It was like her brain was fried. ‘’I gotta go, please can you try to get information on what happened there’’ Harry whispered in Buck’s ear, he nodded as they both walked towards the cafeteria. Since it wasn’t the rush, the cafeteria wasn’t crowded.

She took a bite of the food and smiled. ‘’It’s good?’’ Buck asked. She nodded. ‘’Very, I only ate porridge and bread’’ she admitted, unknowingly. ‘’You look better, Y/n, what did they give you?’’ he asked, hiding his concerns. ‘’Stuff’’ she took another bite of her food. ‘’What kind of stuff?’’ he asked. She zoned out, she thought about the shocks and the freezing water on her skin, her eyes filled with tears. ‘’Baths and a painful treatment’’ she mumbled, but Gale understood every word.

When Bucky came back on the base, he couldn’t wait to see his girlfriend, but Harry Crosby stopped him. ‘’Bucky, wait, we have to tell you something’’ he grabbed his arm. ‘’What Cros?’’ he asked, annoyed that he couldn’t see his girl. He tilts his head to tell him to go into another room. The Colonel was leaning against the table, Gale was seated on a chair, Harry closed the door and offered Bucky a chair. ‘’Major, I would sit down if I were you’’ Colonel Harding ordered. Bucky was confused, what the hell was going on, where was his girlfriend. ‘’Where’s Y/n?’’ he asked. ‘’She’s in her room, but she’s different, Bucky. That place changed her’’ Buck started. ‘’How could they change her?’’ he chuckled nervously. ‘’I didn’t know what kind of treatment they were administering her, but she told Buck everything’’ Crosby started. Bucky looked at his friend, he had his head down. ‘’Electrical shock, ice baths, steam baths, they gave her shock, they almost fried her brain. They fed her porridge and bread; they wouldn’t let her sleep’’ he explained. John Egan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘’H-how’s that legal?’’ he exclaimed, nervously. ‘’But the problem is, the treatments worked, but we don’t know how she’ll react to you being there, Major’’ Harding explained.

Y/n was sitting on her bed, reading the letters she missed when she was away. She heard a knock, and she turned around. There he was Bucky was in front of her. She got up from the bed and smiled. ‘’You’re alive?’’ she choked up on emotions. ‘’I am, darling’’ he said, cautiously, not wanting to trigger anything. ‘’You’re real?’’ she asked. He nodded, she carefully walked up to him, she took his hand, she was making sure he was real. His hand was warm, and his skin was soft. Her eyes filled with happy tears as she looked at him. He gently put his hand on her cheek, wiping away the tear with his thumb. ‘’I love you so much’’ she breathed out, before hugging him. In his arms, every shock, every bath and every torture went away. He was back, she was hugging him, he was real. ‘’You came back home’’ she cried out. ‘’Told you I was coming back, darling’’ he softly whispered in her ear. ‘’Never leave me again.’’ She pleaded. ‘’Never, darling. Because I don’t wanna live forever if my life is not with you’’

[batbabydamian]

DC April 2024 Solicitations - Comics Featuring Damian! 🦇

BATMAN AND ROBIN #8

4/9/24

Written by Joshua Williamson

Art and Cover by Simone Di Meo

Variant Covers: Kael Ngu, Ejikure, Jim Lee, Nikola Čižmešija (1:25)

As Batman finds himself in the clutches of a new cult that worships Man-Bat, Robin continues his own investigation into his High School's connections to Shush! Can the father and son dynamic duo uncover Man-Bat and Shush's master plans before Gotham pays the price?!

WONDER WOMAN #6

4/16/24

Written by Tom King

Art by Daniel Sampere and Belén Ortega

Variant Covers: Julian Totino Tedesco, Pablo Villalobos, Joshua “Sway” Swaby (1:25)

Wonder Woman vs. The Sovereign! After being captured by a team of villains, Diana finds herself at the mercy of the scariest of them all. Unbeknownst to our hero, the Sovereign has been pulling her strings since the very beginning of our tale, and now it's time for her to see the world his way as she falls under the influence of the Lasso of Lies! Plus, Trinity visits the past and unexpectedly changes the future!

NIGHTWING #113/Legacy #300

4/16/2024

Written by Tom Taylor

Art by Various

Variant Covers: Bruno Redondo (original cover+1:25), Dan Mora, Jim Lee (Artist Spotlight), Jamal Campbell, Serg Acuna

Since the 1940's, you've seen him go from acrobat to orphan; from Dick Grayson to Robin; from Robin to Nightwing. You've seen him work alongside the universe's most powerful heroes, against existence's most sinister villains. You have seen Dick Grayson do so many things, but now, in his 300th issue, you will see him.. well, you'll just have to pick up the issue and find out. Join us for this legacy 300 milestone!

*DC’S SPRING BREAKOUT!

*Cover feature - Damian hang gliding in the bg :)

4/30/2024

Written by Meghan Fitzmartin, Cameron Chittok, Joey Esposito, Morgan Hampton, Patrick R. Young, Tom Krajewski, Mike Barr, and more!

Art by Kenya Danino, Vasco Georgiev, Paul Pellietier, Nico Bascuñan, and more!

Cover by John Timms

Variant Covers by Dan Mora

Spring has sprung! Flowers are blooming, bees are buzzing, Harley is breaking King Shark out of Belle Reve prison. all is right in the DCU as both heroes and villains face all sorts of different spring breaks. Breaking out of a coffin? Lex Luthor has that covered. Spring break training? Send in Superman! Breaking out of your shell? Batman and Mr. Freeze explore that possibility through a connection in their shared past. Breaking down a worthy adversary? Katana and her sword of souls might just be able to tackle that. And it wouldn't be a spring break without a Teen Titans beach trip! All these and more in DC's Spring Breakout! -eight breakout stories to put a spring in your step (is there a zit breakout story? You'll have to read to find out!)

TEEN TITANS: STARFIRE

7/2/2024

Written by Kami Garcia

Art by Gabriel Picolo

Kori Anders' summer job at a ritzy Santa Monica beach club is fun, but she doesn't care about keeping up with the current trends, and she's not interested in rushing around to all the parties. She'd rather explore her inexplicable draw to the stars or hang out with her new friend, Victor Stone. Her sister, Kira, on the other hand, is the most popular girl around. With the hottest clothes, an even hotter boyfriend (the Tate Fairweather), and a take-no-prisoners attitude, she's Kori's opposite in every way. Their summer heats up when Tate's uncle asks the girls to participate in an EDS study his pharmaceutical company is running. During treatment, Kori develops some strange powers she never had before...and she might not be the only one. Can Kori persuade her sister to trust her before it's too late? And when a carload of teens with their own powers come looking for her to warn her about a creepy stalker, she'll learn that trust is a two-way street!

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

While I agree with most of your posts

I think bringing up grammar in song writing is just kinda weird

Like as long as a song isn't as egregiously grammatically incorrect as 'I'll do what I should have did' (thank you deacon blue) it just isn't a relevant criticism?

Even the song writer you respect most probably doesn't write their songs like an essay they can lose marks for. And that's a good thing! Songs would be a lot worse if writers were worrying about these things

It's just such a bizarre thing to bring up- and unfortunately it kinda makes your other points look less valid because it comes across as weird and petty and like you'll drag Swift for anything (Plus obsessions with 'correct' grammar is just rooted in abliesm, classism and racism- so yeah not a good look)

Plus bringing up your literature degree... like you never studied poetry? Which famously plays with grammar and sentence structure? Like that's inherent to the genre and while very little of TTPD is poetic, lyrics are still most similar to poems then they are to essays or journal articles

Sorry you just really hit a nerve here cos it's just such a ridiculous thing to bring up.

Okay, yes people don't write songs like essay's. However, they often still use determinable grammar rules in art.  

You are keying into the difference between prescriptive and descriptive grammar rules. 

The prescriptive rules are ones that you are most likely to find first listed in dictionaries or textbooks. Descriptive grammar rules contend with the dialectal differences and slang. In either case, rules and stipulations or exceptions are noted in various linguistic analysis of the demographic's dialect. Both subgroups of grammar are consistently evolving as the use of the English language changes over time.  

Before I move on, I just want to say that I am well-aware of the deep history surrounding the debates on proper grammar. These debates, of course stem, from sociohistorical issues surrounding class, race, and ableist attitudes. You are correct. However, the academic conversation on grammar and linguistics has advanced dramatically into the subdivision of grammar-practices with respect to dialectal and cultural differences. I judge Taylor Swift's grammar as similar to my own, since she claims to be from my “neck of the woods.” Thus, I feel it is entirely appropriate for me to throw metaphorical tomatoes at her.  

 In the juncture of this difference on prescriptive and descriptive, I want to make that point that people who utilize the difference well often take prescriptive rules and bend them to fit their specific thematic point, thus the lyric forms to its set of descriptive grammar rules. These artists do it with such finesse and precision, unlike Taylor Swift, that it’s nearly awe-inspiring.  

For instance, Kendrick Lamar uses many AAVE typical syntactical structures to make his music personalized art. He won a Pulitzer for it. Take, as an example, the intro to his song “Humble” in which he writes, “Nobody pray for me / It been that day for me” (2017). This is not grammatically correct according to the prescriptive grammar rules laid out in the 1940’s. However, linguistic scholars do not operate on so strict a pendulum anymore. Notice, too, that Lamar is not actually breaking any grammatical rules, only playing with the purpose and form of his syntax, when we take into account the dialectical intention with which he uses “it been” as a poignant use of the past participle form of the verb “to be.” Thus, the simple sentence of “it is” changes into the “it been” as a subjective call first to his cultural dialect and to the thematic gesture of the song. As the phrase “it been” leaves out the helping verb “have” which would put the phrase into present progressive tense should it be present; however, it’s noticeable absence as a stiff detraction from prescriptive grammar rules, focuses Lamar’s thematic point on moving the audience to mediate on the past as it intrudes on the present time. His use of language discrepancy between prescriptive and descriptive rules focuses recognition on his dialectal culture and on his main thematic point as it hinges on making sure to notice where you’ve been in life in order to stay humble and live with authenticity. He is a masterclass on descriptive grammar being used in such a beautifully artistic way that I am damn near in tears for his music.  

Okay, moving onto to your point about poetry not being grammatically correct. You are quite wrong here, because poetry "plays" with syntax but it does not throw the rules out. Much like the example I laid out above, poetry does the same thing wherein it plays with prescriptive grammar in a thoughtful way that often ties into the moral or theme of the work. Poetry centers on a different form of syntactical methodology... yes, you are right. However, the emphasis is still on the necessity of understanding grammar structures like poetic feet, meter, rhyme scheme (etc). It's not a free-for-all. The best poets of the last 6 centuries have been some with the most linguistically precise sentence structure that I've ever read. I can give you examples, but if I do that this answer will become a million words long.  

I am, however, sorry to have struck a nerve or come-off like a know-it-all. I was only expressing my frustration that Taylor Swift is apparently one of the biggest artists in the world and she doesn't even bother to ask a friend if the meaning of her phrases gets lost in excessively languishing grammatical structures. For instance, in her song “Chloe or Sam or Marcus or Whatever” she is stacking so many phrases hinging on coordinating conjunctions that the meaning of the phrase itself loses any poignant message. She writes:

Named Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus And I just watched it happen As the decade would play us for fools And you saw my bones out with somebody new Who seemed like he would've bullied you in school And you just watched it happen (Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus).

In this stanza alone there are 6 coordinating conjunctions stacked together, interspersed with additional prepositional phrases and 2 extra relative clauses. It is the most egregious run-on sentence I have ever seen published before. I've seen better, cleaner prose in the work I've graded from High School freshmen. Not only could she have said it in less words, but the way she is writing it makes it drag on and on. The meaning gets lost, and any emotional impact is shut down because people get lost in the wordiness.

It’s a failure on her part, and it’s clear how just writing a run on sentence with no meaning is so much different than the way that someone like Lamar is masterfully arranging language to fit his purpose.  It's offensive that she gets to make a million-billion dollars off so little effort. 

Sorry, I wrote you an essay, but I am so incredibly passionate about writing. Also, I’ve been listening to Lamar a lot today because of his recent diss track, and it just reminded about how much of a lyrical genius he is. Sorry, I detoured into a rant about how cool he is too. And I need people to understand that I am not critiquing Swift because I need to dunk on someone in order to bolster my own sense of self-worth. I just want better mainstream art, and I want people to have better, stronger art with which to engage.  

I did not mean to hurt your feelings.  You are quite right that obsession with "proper" grammar is bullshit; however, I am not looking for some old fashioned "proper" nonsense. I want people to write like Lamar, with intelligence and passion while he bends the notions of grammar, not like Taylor Swift with obvious run-on obfuscated and stupid phrases.

edit: Also, good writers do actually worry about grammar. It has to do with illocutionary forces behind the phrases. The best among us knows the language inside and out, and that is why they are the best writers.

Edit 2: Also, I've been thinking about this, but what do you think literary and poetry critics do? You say it's bizarre to critique Taylor Swift’s poor grasp of the English language? Of course, I'm critiquing that... she's the one who calls herself a writer. I don't go around checking everyone's grammar, but if you call yourself a "good" writer and a poet, obviously expect people to analyze the words on the page.

[it-was-too-cold-always]

Always Read the Fine Print Chapter 1

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Who actually reads all the terms and conditions? After mindlessly checking a box years ago, our Reader unintentionally agrees to be part of a scientific study to create super soldier babies. To make matters worse, her fellow test subject is the brooding and intimidating Bucky Barnes.

Warnings: arranged marriage, eventual smut, lots of angst

A genetic test for antidepressants. That's what got you into this mess. When the paperwork asked if you wanted to use your data to "contribute to future studies," you thought sure, whatever I can do to help. Little did you realize that those studies had absolutely nothing to do with antidepressants. What you also didn't realize is that little box you checked was legally binding.

It was a completely boring Wednesday when you received a fancy letter with the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo inviting you to participate in "a scientific study that could change the future." Get some bloodwork done, maybe answer a few questionnaires, what more could they need from you? In hindsight, you should've questioned why they'd need you to fly you out just for that. But the fact that the study was from S.H.I.E.L.D. made you giddy - yes, you were a major Captain America fan. In fact, growing up you've done several school projects on Captain America and the Howling Commandos. You always thought his right hand man, James Buchanan Barnes, was the most handsome of the group, and of course your friends gave you plenty of shit for having a crush on a guy from the 1940s. So yes, you were very much excited to go.

Once your plane landed, you were taken right to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. Damn, this study really must be a big deal. You were escorted to a small room with no windows. There was a round table with four chairs, a very fake-looking plant, and some nondescript art hanging on the walls. For being such an impressive building, this room was mediocre at best. You sat in a chair facing the door, anxiously wringing your hands and trying to dispel nervous energy. Right as you let your mind start to wander, a man in a suit walked through the door and greeted you. He held a locked briefcase that he set gently on the table. Sitting across from you, he opened the briefcase and pulled out a folder stuffed with papers. His nonchalant attitude calmed you down. Just some boring paperwork, you thought, nothing crazy. The first packet he pulled out looked familiar - it was the paperwork from the genetic testing you did years ago. You saw your signature at the bottom of the page. Then he pulled out other packets of paper and set a pen in front of you. You were trying to gather what it might be by the questions he was asking, but you were still clueless. Do you have a history of seizures? Are you or could you be pregnant? Do you have asthma? High blood pressure? Those are so generic it could be anything. He started flipping through the pages and pointing to where you needed to sign. Did you ask why? Nope. Did you question it at any moment? Absolutely not. You signed all over those documents and never considered that it wouldn't be in your best interest. Once you were done, you were escorted into an exam room. This is what you were expecting. They did a physical and some lab work and asked even more questions. They told you to get dressed and a car will take you to your hotel room. They'd give me a call tomorrow when the results come in, and we'll go from there. Easy enough, I can spend the rest of the day to myself. The anxiety of what tomorrow could bring was eating you up, but you willed yourself to go to a local restaurant and walk around. This was partially a vacation, after all.

The next morning, you got up early. You contemplated sleeping in, putting your phone on loud so you don't miss their call, but your nerves got the best of you. You showered, got dressed, put on some makeup, and headed down to the lobby for complementary breakfast. By the time you were done eating, it was 9 AM. Still no call. Give them time, you thought. You headed back up to your room and decided to read your book. Lame, you're in a new city and reading in a hotel room, but what if they called? You had to be ready. Just as you were really getting into your book, your phone rang. You jumped from the sudden noise in your quiet room. Quickly calming yourself, you answered the phone. The results were in, and a car would be at your hotel in 15 minutes. Finally, the wait was over.

Unlike the last time, you were escorted to a room with giant windows overlooking the city. You once again sat across the table to face the door, mentally preparing yourself for whatever came next. Nothing exciting, it's literally going to be more paperwork, you told yourself. Stop hyping yourself up over nothing. Once again, a man in a suit walked through the door. This one seemed just as indifferent as the last one.

"The results came back, and we're quite impressed. You're the perfect candidate for our study. In fact, you're the only one in this group of recruits that match our criteria. You've been cleared to move forward," the man said.

That's good, right? You inquired about the next steps, which again seemed vague. You were told that you'd get to meet your fellow candidate and get acquainted, and the experiment can begin shortly after. But then he started saying things that made you realize you made a horrible mistake: "potential for a viable pregnancy" and "genetics that could withstand the serum" were the only two you heard, after that you couldn't pay attention. What the fuck. What the actual fuck.

Your spiraling thoughts were interrupted by two men walking through the door. They helped you out of your chair and lead you down the hall to a room that already had people inside. You were too dazed to actually look at who was in the room, you just sat down in the chair that was pulled out for you. At one point you realized someone had asked you a question.

"Sorry, what?"

"Have you been briefed about your duties in this study?' It was a tight-lipped woman standing at the head of the table.

"I think so," was the only response your little brain could spit out.

"Perfect, I believe Barnes has some stipulations regarding details of this experiment. Shall we discuss them?"

You snapped out of your daze and looked at the people sitting across from you. Holy shit. Bucky Barnes was staring right at you.

Chapter 2

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hi! I’ve noticed these days that my writing is struggling between sounding very formal and proper versus sounding casual. On one hand, I’ll have a sentence that looks like it came straight out of a 1940s British series, but two lines later there’s some casual dialogue that’s closer to an American teen novel. I grew up with both types of books tbh, so maybe that’s why? How do I stabilize my writing style and make it a little more consistent? Thank you!

Stabilizing Voice in Writing

There are three types of "voice" that play a role in how your writing sounds... authorial voice, narrative voice, and character voice.

Authorial voice is your writing style as an author. In many ways, it's your "writer personality." It's what makes your writing distinctive from another writer's. While authorial voice tends to be consistent across all stories, it will evolve with time and may even change slightly for particular projects--especially when crossing genres. Authorial voice includes things like how much/little description you use, how simple or ornate that description is, how you use word play, and the types of words you use. Narrative voice is the "voice/voices" with which the story is told. This is made up of point-of-view (the perspective from which the story is told, for example, first-person or third-person limited), as well as your writing style and use of language. Anything the narrator says falls under narrative voice.

Character voice is the way a character's personality comes through in the things they think and say. It includes things like whether they're concise or wordy when they speak, slang and catchphrases, quirks of speech like saying "um" or "uh" a lot, how their attitude is reflected in what they think and say, accent, and the kinds of words they use.

When you have a first-person narrator, narrative voice and character voice are combined, because the character's voice IS the narrative voice.

So, there are several quick exercises you can do if you want to stabilize the voice in your writing:

1 - Do a little analysis of your own writing style (so far). Remember: writing style is something that evolves over time, so you might not have a fully established writing style yet, but you should be able to look at what you write and start to see some patterns. In your case in particular, do you gravitate more toward formal speech than casual speech? Can you think of any writers whose style matches what you'd like your writing style to be? Try reading more of their books, or read a chapter an analyze the writing style to see what you can mimic.

2 - Think about the narrator of your story... Even if it's a third-person omniscient, faceless narrator, it can still help to assign a sort of mental picture for who this person might be and who they're telling the story to. Is this someone who experienced it telling the story in third-person long after the fact, with 20/20 hindsight, to someone who might be interested? Is this a god who watched it all unfold and is retelling the tale to an audience of other gods? Is it an old grizzled storyteller telling the story to a rapt audience around a campfire? Try to choose something that makes sense as far as who might be telling this story, who they're telling it to, and why. It's not that you're including this as part of the story, but rather as a sort of placeholder for your brain any time you're in narrator mode. If you can slip into this narrator's shoes as you write the narrator parts, it sometimes helps you "get into character" and stick with a consistent, relevant narrative voice.

3 - Establish character voice... Character voice does have an impact on narrative voice, even if the story isn't told in first-person. In third-person stories, who the characters are can tell you a lot about who your narrator might be (so it might help to do this step before #2 above...) For example, if your characters do happen to be a bunch of 1940s Brits, you can start to think about who they are and what they experience to figure out who the narrator might be. In this case, it probably wouldn't make sense for the narrator to be a god telling the story to other gods (as that feels too mystical for this narrator), but a grizzled storyteller recounting the tale around a campfire might make sense.

If your story's being told in second-person (You walked to the window... Like a Choose Your Own Adventure) or first-person (I walked to the window...) character voice relates even more to narrative voice, because in second-person, even though the narrator is not the POV character, the narration is still being filtered through the POV character's personality, knowledge, and experiences. And in first-person, the narrator IS the POV character, so the narrative voice and character voice are one and the same.

By doing these exercises, you can start to hone each of these voices to find some stability. Happy writing!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[too-antigonish]

That Thing You Didn’t Talk About, Let Alone Do Back Then #237: Divorce

It seems like quite a few of us have recently rewatched Degüello and it hit each of us in different ways. I was particularly struck by this scene between Thursday and Win where she tells him she’s finally gone so far as to see a solicitor about a divorce….

Of course the divorce never happens and the Thursdays’ marriage makes it all the way through Series 9 and hopefully beyond. It’s easy, though, for people today to underestimate what a huge deal this would have been in the early 70’s. It was a time when divorce was still firmly in the category of “disreputable” in a way that I think is hard to understand for those who didn’t live through that era or who haven’t been exposed to a lot of period media. I’ve had a number of conversations with people who equate it with divorce today and just don’t seem to grasp how shameful and isolating it could be only a few decades back.

That goes doubly so for the 1940’s or 50’s when Morse’s parents would have been divorced. In one of his interviews with D.M. Barcroft, Russ Lewis says of Morse’s parents’ divorce:

“But then – and I can only speak to the early 60s and 70s – so one must multiply that by an order of magnitude for the 40s/early 50s when Cyril and Endeavour’s mum went their separate ways – the social stigma then around divorce was unimaginable. For Endeavour, it would have been whispers in the playground – looks and nods in the street. A certain pursed-lips reserve in the butchers when he went shopping with his mother – as if people feared contagion. Divorce. Unmarried pregnancy. Two sides of the same coin. The fear of being found wanting and becoming an outcast from the tribe. People moved away. They left one part of the country for another to escape the disapproval and stigma.”

Today in Europe and the U.S. divorce is mostly seen as an unfortunate but necessary option. It’s the choice you make when a marriage is irrevocably damaged. That attitude while common, however, is so very recent. Definitely in the 1970s and even well into the 80s, it’s not an overstatement to say that divorce was often a literally terrifying prospect for people. Why?

Religious: 

Marriage is sacred: It was still the subject of strong religious taboos in many places. Marriage had long been seen as a sacrament—an agreement not just between you and your partner but with God as well. There were no take-backs, no do-overs. Divorce wasn’t just ending a broken relationship. It was selfishly putting your own personal desires above a sacred vow to God. 

Because marriage is always good, you must be bad: And in a moral catch-22—because marriage was just always so sacred and good—whatever unsolvable problem you were dealing with must really be because of you. It must be because you…lusted after someone else…Because you couldn’t be a good enough wife to keep your husband’s eyes from roaming…Because you weren’t a patient enough husband to “put up”  with your wife’s constant abuse... Somehow, it had to be your fault. 

Cultural:

Divorce is always selfish: Culturally, divorce was often regarded not with compassion but with contempt. It was seen as a fundamentally self-centered act. And that’s without even getting into the issue of “the children.” 

The Children: At the time, children were pretty much always regarded as irreparably emotionally damaged by divorce and sometimes even seen as tainted morally by their parents’ actions. This was seen as outweighing any damage caused by parents in an abusive or toxic marriage.

Legal:

Advent of no-fault: While the social stigma of divorce to a certain degree stemmed from the religious stigma (divorced people were seen as somewhat wicked for the “sin” of divorce), much of the taint stemmed from the process itself. There was no such thing as completely “no fault” divorce until remarkably recently. From my quick-and-dirty research: The first U.S. state to have no-fault was California in 1970. New York became the last state in 2010. The UK started to allow no-fault (but only after 2-5 year periods of separation) in 1969 but only waived extended waiting periods in 2020.

Prior to no-fault: Prior to no-fault, however, divorce essentially meant that at least one spouse had to accuse the other of an offense (a “fault”). The acceptable list of offenses in most western countries included a grab-bag of morally-loaded “grounds” such as desertion, cruelty, insanity, adultery, homosexuality, drunkenness, etc. 

Public declaration: Typically the parties involved were required by law to proclaim their accusations in a very public manner—often both in court and via publication of the information as a legal notice in local newspapers. And finally, for the divorce to “go through,” someone had to essentially be found guilty of said offense. 

Social:

Everybody knows: In practical terms, this meant that your neighbors—or the parents of your children’s friends—or your boss—all of them knew that your husband had left you for someone else or that your wife had a drinking problem or whatever else you or your spouse had decided to tell the court.

An example: My grandmother’s parents divorced in the 1940s in the U.S.—an era where divorce was very rare. It was highly traumatic for my grandmother—especially when the local newspaper had to publish the legal notice and mixed up which spouse had “deserted” the other. She and her mother were no longer seen as acceptable company for many of their neighbors. Many of the parents of my grandmother’s friends would no longer allow their children to associate with her. She lived well into her 90s and even then would still occasionally talk about the experience.

Economic:

Many women had no money or skills: None of that even begins to touch on what the economic implications of divorce used to be. These were usually couples where the wife had either never been employed or had only been employed briefly before marriage. She would rarely have marketable skills and even if she did, any options for childcare while she worked would be limited—unless she had family or friends willing to pitch in for free. Divorce—especially prior to the 1980s—almost always meant a life of struggle—if not a life in out and out poverty—for the women and children involved.

There is of course more, but I’ll stop there. Needless to say, Win and Fred divorcing would have been a very big deal. Morse’s parents divorcing when he was a child would have been a very, very big deal.

I always though it was unfortunate that the only time they really touched on the topic of divorce with Morse was in Scherzo—and then in a fairly superficial way. It would have been a hugely significant part of his childhood and a major influence on the man he became.

[trashogram]

What do you think the Patrol's nicknames for you would be? Personally I think Smartass favours old fashioned 1940s Brooklyn, New York ones like "dollface" and "angel-face" while Greasy goes for Latin Spanish, Puerto Rican ones like "mamí" "chiquita" "bonita" etc. He also does the kissing up the arm routine ala Gomez Addams while Smartass prefers privacy with his partner, but he'll happily "cohort" (escort) you places by letting you take his arm which is pretty funny considering how much taller you are than him.

100% I agree w those nicknames from them. I actually like the idea of Smartass calling Reader ‘Cookie’ and ‘Kid’. It’s like silly but also a bit demeaning, sort of in-line with his bossy persona and attitude initially, and belies a growing fondness. Grease def lays it on thick no matter what he calls you. Probably says your given name with a lot of… passion, as well lol

Stupid would probably call you ‘Lady’ or even ‘Ma’am’ and Wheezy would use ‘Doll’ maybe?

I also think Psycho would call you ‘Bunny’. Another 40s endearment but also denoting his crazed weasel tendencies.

How dare you put it in my head of Smarty ‘cohorting’ us around while he’s like 3ft tall 😂 That’s so flippin’ cute omg — any of the weasels walking around with you arm-in-arm, or even just hand-in-hand, is too much for me that’s adorable ahhhhhhh

[skyriderwednesday]

So George, huh? This is the first time we meet her, as she was Off Somewhere for hours when her cousins and their parents arrived and seemingly snuck into the house after everyone else went to bed (she's eleven, btw).

Anyway, here we have her first line of dialogue being "No. I'm not Georgina.", and then her saying "I hate being a girl. I won't be."

Then we have some very 1940s gender attitudes, but then for the first time we see that being perceived as a boy makes George extremely happy.

Also the extremely relatable Gender Experience of cutting your hair off without your parents' permission, and thinking that everybody must hate being their assigned gender.

[cantsayidont]

August 1940. Perhaps the most important Superman story never published: In the summer of 1940, Jerry Siegel wrote a complete script for a 26-page Superman epic (the length of two normal Superman stories of this period) in which Superman is weakened by a passing meteor of radioactive metal from the destroyed planet Krypton, here called "K-Metal." That alone would have been noteworthy, but that's far from all. Later in the story, Superman reveals his true identity to the survivors of a mine cave-in, including Lois Lane!

The other three witnesses are subsequently killed, but Lois now knows the truth. She and Superman then have the following conversation:

LOIS: Now I begin to see. Your attitude of cowardliness as Clark Kent-- It was just a screen to keep the world from learning who you really are! But there's one thing I must know: Was your--er--affection for me, in your role as Clark, also a pretense? SUPERMAN: THAT was the genuine article, Lois! LOIS: How foolish you were not to let me in on the secret! You should have known you could trust me! Why-- Don't you realize-- I might even be of great help to you? SUPERMAN: You're right! There were many times when I could have used the assistance of a confederate. Why didn't I think of it before? LOIS: Then it's settled! We're to be--partners! SUPERMAN: Yes -- partners!

It isn't quite so easy, however. After returning to Metropolis, Lois tells Clark, "I just remembered how long you've secretly been laughing at me! I don't like to be laughed at, Clark Kent-- But-- I'll assist you… Only for the good of humanity, however!"

Most of the art for this story was completed, or nearly completed, by Joe Shuster's shop artists before National-DC pulled the plug. The exact reasons are now unknown, although the most likely explanation is that the story just seemed like too much of a shift in the established dynamics of the Superman strip, which was by then running in newspapers and on the radio as well as in the comics. K-Metal, renamed Kryptonite, resurfaced in a 1943 radio storyline, which borrows some elements from this script, but Kryptonite wouldn't appear in the comics until 1949, and it wouldn't be until decades later that Lois Lane really and truly learned the secret.

For background on this story, see Mark Waid's article in ALTER EGO #26 (July 2003). The Superman Through the Ages website has a nearly complete recreation of the full story, done by modern artists (in color) based on the surviving pages of original art and Siegel's script, which Waid had carefully retyped using the same kind of typewriter Siegel used.

[blankdblank]

Brother Dearest 1950's Masterlist

Book 2 Summary :

New decade, new dangers. What's Battle Bunny to do when the very sun is being blot out of the ever darkening sky? Help will be called for, and in swoops the outrage on excuse of attitude. Will she save the world or let it be torn to bits? The ever lingering question. One answered by a printed comic by her very hand, ‘Remember, if you are going to call me a Hero, Heroes fall, Heroes bleed, Heroes fail.’

Once the weapon to end all bloodshed now could very well be posed to be one to stir up the war to end our world as we know it. The Mother of all Monsters is called to testify, and you bet your boots the whole world will be listening to what she has to say.

1950

1. New Years

2. Mr Pastasauce

3. Spare Pennies

4. Highest Bidder

5. OWLgebra Favored Math For Birds

6. Six Moot Years and the Most Admirable of Hobbits

7. Uranus Rang Thirteen Times to Say Something Something Science

8.

... Continued story off book link below ...

Brother Dearest 1940's - Book One Masterlist

[dinoplantsghost]

pairing: Tom Riddle x fem! original character

warning(s): tom is a warning in itself, 1940s: time-accurate prejudice, violence: t0rture (Cruciatus Curse), teenage behavior: drama and language, mentions of weed

word count: ~6383

Disclaimer: I have a huge google doc that holds all of my drafts and I'm quite literally just copypasting everything, so if there are any typos/errors, no there isn't!! :)

-- this chapter is so goofy, i've been holding off posting this one because of a summer assignment that i just finished

Chapter List

Plans, Delusions, and Yappers [5]

“Look, she’s back at it again.”

“She’s embarrassing me, she needs to stop…”

Miles, with a teasing smile, patted Orion’s back as the boy pressed his forehead against the wooden table, his cousin’s scratchy voice digging into everyone’s ears as she attempted to intimidate the new girl after class. 

It was 16:45. DADA had finished 15 minutes ago, and students were left with about an hour and a half before their last class of the evening. While it was implemented for students to catch up on work, many used it to talk amongst themselves in the classroom. 

Orion’s cousin, Walburga Black, had a reputation for screaming. She had many suitors, as well as many enemies—ones that she made herself with her bad attitude. Orion explained it as her parents’ coddling her since birth. One thing she was known for was her obsession with the boys she fancied—with Tom Riddle being her ultimate infatuation. 

It wasn’t surprising, though. Many girls had attempted to win the boy over. Letters, boxes of chocolates, even love potions were sent to him on the daily, annoying his followers whenever they would find a new object at the foot of their dorm entrance. A common theory is that Tom wasn’t attracted to girls at all, but of course anyone who voiced that opinion would be left with scratches on their face by infuriated, hormone-driven girls. 

“I heard how you hurt Tom,” Whined Walburga, arms crossed as she stood in front of a startled Saoirse. “I heard he could have died! What do you have to say for yourself?” 

“Well, he didn’t die,” Saoirse shrugged. “He’s right there. I’m sure he can take care of himself, whatever your name is.” 

Pointing to the boy in one of the higher rows, Saoirse went back to writing notes, until Walburga snatched the parchment from underneath, her quill digging into the pulp and ripping a tear in the middle. 

“He could have,” she cried. “And my name is Walburga! Walburga Black!” 

As the girl spit in Saoirse’s face, garnering the attention of the entire class—Professor Merrythought was long gone in her office—the boys in the upper rows watched with intrigue. 

“Why is she yelling,” Orion groaned, on the verge of ripping his black locks off his scalp. “I don’t want to write to my Mum again, Yule Break is going to be filled with gossip and I hate it.” 

“Speaking of writing,” Miles said, turning to lean in close to Tom. “I wrote to my mother, like you asked. I got the same results; she knows nothing. She’s getting irritated by it, so I don’t think I should be asking her anything anytime soon.” 

Tom huffed, his nostrils flaring as he glanced up from his book. “Then help Abraxas and Orion with their task.” He uttered, drooping his head back down away from the rest of the world. 

Miles caught his words on his tongue, hands waving as he looked at the other two in question. Abraxas pressed his lips together in a line, gathering all his energy before standing up. “I have an idea about what he wants.” He sighed, pulling Orion and Miles with him as they walked down the steps between the rows of seats. 

“Tom said to keep her close,” Abraxas said. “And I assume he means to befriend her. He doesn’t make sense sometimes.” 

“Tell me about it.” Miles nodded; his eyes wide. “He’s literally been asking me to do the same thing for months, and he thinks Merlin is going to bless us with a different answer; he’s just lucky my Mum likes him.” 

“He never gives me anything to do,” Orion said quietly. “It makes me wonder if he likes me at all; I don’t know what I’m doing in the Inner Circle. Last night was the first thing I’ve been tasked with in a while–and we didn’t find a bloody thing.” 

The three boys stood behind Walburga’s own posse. “Well, you’re our orator; we’re putting your smooth talking to work, mate.” Abraxas said. 

“We’re all orators; we’re blue-blooded, ‘Brax.” Sassed Orion.

Waving a hand, Abraxas coughed in his fist before shoving the girls to the side, Miles doing the same with a happy smile on his two-tones lips. “Excuse me, ladies, hot men coming through.” 

“What do you three want?” Walburga asked, hands on her hips as she glared at her cousin and his friends. 

“Cousin, you need to stop with these dramatic debacles,” Orion frowned. “I don’t want to write to my mother again; you’re embarrassing.” 

Walburga scoffed. “You wouldn’t understand; you’ve never been in love.” She made a face, her eyes scanning the three boys in front of her. “Unless you’re here to save the girl. Surely not, right?” 

“No,” he stiffened. “Why would that cross your mind, that’s not—look, just stop yelling. Tom doesn’t need someone to ‘stand up for him’ if that’s what you think you’re doing.” 

Miles and Abraxas nodded. “Yeah, and to be honest, Tom doesn’t like you at all—he thinks you’re annoying.” The boy with dark skin said, happy to see the hurt look on the girl’s face. 

“You’re wrong, I’ve been getting to him! Just the other day, I made him flustered by the way I caressed his arm.” 

The boys coughed. That was the night of their first meeting of the week. He hated the way she touched him. He came into the Room of Requirement with a green, sickly face.

“That’s not what happened.” Laughed Miles. “But anyways, we’re done talking to you.” He pushed Walburga to the side, unaware of his strength as she fell to the ground. 

“Saoirse,” Abraxas said, getting the attention of the girl with blue hair. “Do you happen to have the notes from today’s lesson? Miles and Eloise were bothering the rest of us during class.” 

The bespectacled girl looked up, “Why don’t you ask for notes from Riddle? Aren’t you friends with him?” 

Before Abraxas got a word out, Orion blurted out: “Yes, but he’s been in a bad mood lately. We just thought we’d ask you since word’s been going around that you have really good marks.” 

“Also,” sang Miles. “A friend of ours has what we like to call a ‘crush’ on you. The boy with the pepper hair and glasses—the nerdy one.” 

Following the finger Lestrange held out, Saoirse turned around to see the boy in question with his head down, a quill of black tufts wiggling around with each letter and word he wrote. Sensing the pairs of eyes staring in his direction, he looked up, his blue orbs locking with her jade ones before his cheeks turned pink. 

“Why does he want to crush me?” Saoirse asked, concern on her face as the three Slytherins in front of her laughed. 

“No, what Miles meant is that Patrick likes you,” explained Abraxas. “He wants to get to know you, with the intention of starting a romantic relationship rather than a platonic friendship.” 

Scratching her head, Saoirse cursed mentally at how confusing English euphemisms and idioms were. “I could talk to him,” she said boldly. “A boy’s never been interested in me; I want to know what that’s like.” 

As the girl stood up to pack up her belongings, the boys stood with open mouths. They didn’t expect her to go along with it. Miles was only joking, after all. “You, you want to talk to him, right now?” Miles asked, leaning against the backs of the two boys in front of him. “That’s nice of you and all, but I don’t think that’s necessary—”

“No, I want to,” she said, putting on her crossover satchel. “You can lead the way up the stairs.” 

The boys led in silence, throwing each other glances as the girl followed them from behind. 

As they made their way to the top, the others in the group did a double take, with Eloise yelling out in surprise for a moment. “What is this,” he cried. “How did you get the pretty girl here? Did she finally realize how amazing I am—wait where is she going?” He frowned, gasping when he watched the girl tap Patrick on the shoulder. 

“Excuse me,” she said quietly. “Your friends told me that—I apologize if I say this incorrectly—you have a crush on me. I would like to entertain your feelings.” 

Patrick, his scribbles coming to a halt as he looked up to see sparkling jade in his vision. Her looks were a fresh breeze among the muddle beauties in west Europe. Like the moon, only a lucky few truly understood the beauty she held. However, unlike the moon, her beauty was her own, not something that is borrowed from another source. Patrick would spend all his time staring at the moon if he could. Seeing Saoirse made him appreciate Astronomy class a bit more. 

“Who told you I fancied you?” He mumbled, his fast heart stopping the moment he heard the laughter of Miles, Abraxas, and Eloise, with Louis and Orion smiling as well. 

“That Lestrange boy told me,” Saoirse said, her lip wavering in a smile. “But I came here on my own accord; I don’t usually see eyes like yours. They’re pretty—like the ocean.” 

Meanwhile, Eloise was punching Miles on the arm as Patrick moved his belongings to the floor to make room for the girl to sit next to him. “How could you do this to me?” He cried. “I can’t be losing her to that nerd—all he ever talks about are those books he has, he’s going to bore her to death!” 

“I don’t think so,” Louis laughed. “Look; they’re both smiling at his book. It sucks to be you, Avery.” 

“You can’t be saying anything,” huffed Eloise. “Especially since you don’t get any girls. At this rate, I’m starting to think you’re one of those homosexuals or something.” 

Before Louis could get a word out, Eloise left the group to join his other Slytherin friends on the other side of the room. “I’m sure he’s just joking, man,” Orion said. “You know how he is; don’t let it get to you. His pride is a wee, fragile thing.” 

Nodding, Rosier smiled at his friends tight-lipped, silently appreciating the way Miles patted his back. 

“They wouldn’t get it at all,” muttered the curly haired boy. “You’re a good guy; Cassius is just too dumb to realize it. It’ll get through his thick, empty head eventually.” 

Louis sighed, tugging at the elastic in his hair. “Yeah, sure.” He ran a hand through his yellow strands. “Cassius doesn’t even like guys, anyways, Miles, who are we joking?”

“Come on, man, don’t say that,” stressed his friend. “That’s some weird brain you have, Louis. My gut tells me that Cassius feels some type of way for you—something definitely not friendly in any way; he calls you Rose for Merlin’s sake, that means something, yeah?” 

At the mention of the nickname, Louis’ cheeks turned pink. “I guess so, but he only says that because we’re best friends. We knew each other before we could walk.” 

Miles scoffed. “No one else gets to call him Cass’, and he gets mad whenever we try to call you Rose. Don’t be dumb, Louis.”

Orion leaned back, throwing himself into the conversation again. “Hey, did we ever figure out what her blood status is? I would hate Patrick to fancy her if she weren’t a Pureblood.” 

The other two looked at each other, the previous conversation vanishing the moment someone else joined their exchange. “Does that really matter,” Miles asked. “I thought we were going to—you know—after we got what we needed from her.” 

“I thought that was a last resort type of thing, was it not?” Louis said, his confusion synonymous with his friends’. 

Plans never went well with the Knights of Walpurgis. Even before Tom joined their group—when they were younger and much more naïve. Whenever they would hang out, they could never consolidate their plans for the day, and it eventually left them stuck in a garden or in a forest behind the manor they were at for the time being. 

Orion sighed, looking back to Patrick and Saoirse, who were happily chatting away about whatever the boy had in his book. “Merlin’s balls, we’re fucked.”

 ┌────── ⋆☆⋆ ──────┐

23:47 - Astronomy

The night was sparkling as usual, the wind chipping away at Patrick’s lungs every time his chest would take in a breath. Somehow, for whatever reason, Professor Jensen paired him up with Saoirse. He had to stand next to the girl for three hours until class ended at 1:00. Patrick was sure he was going to die by the end of it.

“I’ve never seen these constellations before,” Saoirse muttered, her eye pressed against the telescope. “This star is usually connected to this star—the Rigel. We call it Heike-boshi; it represents the war between two clashing families.” 

Patrick could only nod, his mind too drunk on the scent of jasmine and sandalwood drowning his nose. “Well, we call that star Betelguese,” he cleared his throat, his stomach flipping as he moved closer to write down on the chart they were given. “The red one; it connects to Alnilam and Bellatrix. We call that constellation Orion’s Belt.” 

Saoirse made a sound of wonder, removing her face from the telescope to rub the red circle around her eye. “When I was younger, my mother used to tell me stories about the stars.”

Patrick smiled, taking the telescope from her to look at the stars on his own. “What’s your family like? I’m sure they’re wonderful, considering how great you turned out.” 

“That’s an overstatement,” blushed Saoirse. “I don’t really talk to my parents all that much anymore. I haven’t gotten a letter from them since I started school; Mahoutokoro usually takes children in at the age of eleven, but some join as early as seven. The only letter I’ve gotten from them was when I got expelled, and that was only a couple of days ago.” 

The boy frowned, setting the telescope to the side as he looked over to the girl. “That’s really brutal,” he adjusted his glasses, “Why don’t they talk to you? Is it a magic thing? I know that some Muggleborns and Half-bloods don’t talk to their parents for religious reasons.” 

“No, that’s not it; I’m a Pureblood. I never knew why they stopped talking to me. It never crossed my mind to ask, actually.” 

“Well, whatever the reason, I think it’s good you don’t have them in your life; it wouldn’t be fun having people who don’t like you micromanaging your every move and whatnot.” 

Saoirse laughed, “Are you speaking from experience?” 

Her laugh made Patrick’s stomach explode. “A little bit,” He shrugged. “Being a Pureblood in Europe is kind of brutal, especially since my family is part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight; it’s some elitist group and it’s not worth knowing in my opinion. You have to present yourself in a certain fashion; know this, be discouraged from that. It’s all a bunch of rubbish, really…” 

Saoirse nodded. She opened her mouth to respond, but the professor announced that class was about to end. “It doesn’t feel like we’ve been here for three hours.” She muttered. 

“Time goes by faster when you’re enjoying yourself.” Patrick said, his frames covering the dust of pink and red on his skin. 

As they packed up, picking up pens and other instruments, their hands brushed against each other every now and then, almost purposefully. For once Patrick didn’t mind that his friends dragged him into their shenanigans. 

“Hey, Quidditch season started not too long ago,” he started, adjusting his satchel on his shoulder. “I was wondering if you wanted to watch the first match with me? It’s on the first Saturday of November; it’s Slytherin vs. Hufflepuff, and even though I’m not on the team, I know enough to teach you the rules.” 

Saoirse smiled, nodding at the boy. “Sure, I’d like that.” 

As the two departed, Patrick left the girl with weak legs, his heart beating out of his chest. Fumbling to clean his fogged up glasses, a pair of Oxford shoes filled his blurry vision. Looking up, he recognized the fuzzy figure as Tom. 

“Nott,” he said, a frown apparent on his face the moment Patirck put his glasses back on. “Walk with me.” 

The commute back to the Slytherin common room was quiet, Patrick’s heart still beating out of his chest out of fear rather than anxiety. 

“What did the girl say to you?” Tom asked. 

A breath fell from his nose as he replied, “She’s a Pureblood, and she doesn’t have a good relationship with her parents; that’s all she told me. I was going to ask about spells, but class ended not long before.” 

Tom nodded. “Despite that information being useless, you obtained more than the other three, and Avery who is supposedly infatuated with her; good job.” 

Patrick fumbled a ‘thank you’ from his thin lips, unfamiliar with the boy’s praise. Tom left him by the Slytherin entrance in the dungeons, turning the corner to begin his Prefect rounds for the night. 

Heaving out a large sigh, the Austrian entered the common room, his feet dragging him up the left staircase that wrapped around the humongous statue of Salazar Slytherin in the middle of the room. Opening the door to his shared dorm, he rubbed his tired eyes and kicked his shoes off, his satchel falling to the floor before he fell to his duvet. He groaned, gaining the attention of the three boys he’s shared a dorm with for the last four years: Orion, Miles, and Eloise. 

“You okay, mate?” Miles asked, his body lounged on the carpet near his bed. 

“I think I asked Saoirse on a date,” he mumbled, his neck and ears steaming and his cheeks burning red. “And she said yes…” 

Eloise, who was playing Wizards Chess with Orion, gripped the board before slamming his castle into the offensive position. “You’re joking,” he yelled. “You have to be bloody joking, Patrick—how?”

“I don’t know, it just slipped out of my mouth; I asked her to watch the opening Quidditch game with me that’s in two weeks—I’m fucking screwed!” 

Orion laughed, unable to focus on the chess game in front of him. “And what did Tom think about that? Is he mad that you’re having fun with her?” 

Patrick sat up, his peppered hair a mess and his glasses toppled on his nose. “I forgot to mention that part to him; I only told him that she said she was Pureblood and that she doesn’t like her mum and dad.” 

“She’s a Pureblood?” Miles gasped, his chin propped in his palm and his feet swaying in the air behind him. “Oh, you got lucky, Patrick; I’m so proud of you!” 

“I’m not,” scowled Eloise. “This bastard doesn’t even know how to dress for a date—a date that’s a school Quidditch match, mind you!” 

His face was as red as his hair, his hand haphazardly throwing his pawn away. Orion shrugged, using this to take the game and gain an easy check. “I don’t know why you’re so offended, El’,” he said. “You don’t actually like Saoirse, do you?” 

“Well—no,” he scoffed. “But I haven’t had a girl in a while and Patrick single handedly gained the prettiest one I’ve seen since Gemma Nettles from Gryffindor.” 

“Gemma Nettles graduated two years ago.” Miles commented, to which Eloise cried out dramatically in response. 

“Exactly!”

 ┌────── ⋆☆⋆ ──────┐

The following two weeks passed by, each day causing more and more butterflies to develop in Patrick’s stomach. He lost sleep, tossing and turning at the endless possibilities for disasters to take place at the game. His glasses could be crooked, the Quaffle could fly and hit his face, hit her face; Hell, a bloody Bludger could come and hit both of them!

Every time he saw her during class, he hated it. He never met a girl as academic as she was, not in the way others were at Hogwarts; she was different. He was lucky he only saw her a few times throughout the week. Astronomy class had to be his favorite, though. Professor Jensen, bless that man, decided to keep the pairs permanent for the rest of the school year, meaning he had three hours of Saoirse to himself, for four days out of the entire week. 

Of course, Tom would ruin it the moment class was over, demanding for a ‘status report’ as he always called it. Truth be told, Patrick had been avoiding the questions he needed to ask her; he lied to Tom, saying that Saoirse was very tight-lipped and would always change the subject. She always had something interesting to say, whether it be something Patrick already knew or something new entirely; he just loved hearing her talk. 

Her voice; it was probably Patrick’s favorite thing about her. Whenever she would speak in her mother tongue, trying to teach Patrick some things in their spare time, she was like a siren. She would lure him in with her voice, her melodic tones as she kept her voice down to a mere whisper, tingles teasing his back and his ears. 

Her lips were pretty too, in his mind. They were very plush and pink; it always reminded him of a bunny’s nose. For once, he wondered what it would feel like to have them pressed against his. 

He found himself thinking about her almost obsessively with how he started to pick up romance books for the sake of imagining her in those scenarios. He had to hide those books under his pillow, of course, as he wouldn’t see the light of day if his friends ever found him reading about a domestic life and two cats. 

When Sunday finally came, the first of November, he balanced on the balls of his feet as he waited near the Ravenclaw Tower, the bronze eagle head keeping him company on the door. Even with all the winter clothing he had on, he felt a cold sweat coming. He was a nervous wreck, to say the very least. 

‘What if she sees stains on my clothes?’ He whined, a frown on his face as he watched people in blue leave the tower one by one. 

Finally, after what seemed like an hour, Saoirse’s voice hit his ears, like a feather bouncing on a fluffed up pillow. “Sorry, I didn’t expect it to be this cold; I had to change into something warmer.”

Looking down at the shorter girl, he was glad the cold had something to do with his flushed cheeks. Her face was covered up with her blue and bronze scarf, a puffball situated on the top of her head from her winter beret. Her hair, brighter than any blue she was wearing, was in disarray underneath all the yarn. 

“Are you okay? You look like you’re suffocating under all that clothing, Schatzi.” He smiled, his fingers finding their way to her beret to readjust it on her head. 

His mother always told him that women liked having special names specifically for them; he recalled how often her face got red whenever his father called her sein hase. He always liked how German terms sounded over English ones. 

“Schatzi,” Saoirse echoed, her accent jumbling her voice as she tilted her head to the side. “What does that mean?” 

Patrick shook his head, too embarrassed to explain now that he had the confidence to say it to her face. “It’s nothing, Saoirse; don’t worry about it.” 

Being the courteous boy he was raised to be, he offered an arm, his smile growing when Saoirse took it. “In Quidditch, there are two teams with seven players each.” He explained, leading Saoirse out the castle and down to the Quidditch pitch in the grass. “There are three Chasers, two Beaters, one Keeper, and one Seeker. Chasers focus on a ball that’s called a Quaffle, and the Keeper has to make sure it doesn’t go into their team’s goals. The Beaters focus on the Bludger; it’s a mean ball that attacks the Chasers. And finally, the Seeker has to look for the Snitch. If the Seeker catches the Snitch, the game ends and their team gets one-hundred-and-fifty points.” 

Saoirse nodded, her eyes squinting as the heavy winds chilled her skin. “I think I know that game, Japan has a National Quidditch team, I believe.” 

“Really? That’d be good to mention to my friends—most of them are on Slytherin’s team. Orion is the captain and Keeper, Cassius and Louis are the Beaters, Abraxas and Miles are Chasers, and Eloise is the Seeker.”

“Who’s the other Chaser?” Saoirse asked.

“Some seventh year. Orion will have to hold tryouts for that position next time—that is, if the guys keep their positions into our sixth year.” 

When the pair made it to the stands, Patrick made it his mission to have an iron grip on the girl’s hand, afraid of losing her in the tough crowds of Slytherin as they yelled across to the students in yellow who were equally as passionate and loyal to their respective team. Patrick led Saoirse through the green, eventually moving to wrap his arm around her as they navigated towards a certain spot the boy was trying to find. 

“There you are,” Patrick said, sighing as he sat down next to his fellow bookworm. “I was worried you got so bored of the game that you decided to sit this one out, Riddle.” 

Saoirse looked on with surprised eyes to see Tom sitting in the stands, his usual pout evident amongst the loud cheers and swears of his peers. When he looked up from his book, he looked equally surprised to see her holding Patrick’s hand. 

“What are you doing here?” He asked. 

“Patrick asked me to join him for the evening. What are you doing here?” She asked, returning his question as she sat close to the Austrian boy. 

“Riddle has to be at every game, to make sure people don’t go crazy in the stands.” Patrick explained. 

“Good evening, ladies and gents’,” yelled a voice, the crowds screaming at the top of their lungs. “Welcome to the first Quiddtich match of 1942! My name is Tracy Mayfield—fifth year Ravenclaw—and today I am accompanied by my good buddy, a seventh year Hufflepuff—one of the very few Americans on campus—give it up for: Eugene Griffin!”

“Good evening, everyone! I hope you’re all doing mighty fine on this very windy day. With us, we of course have mister Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore! A long name for an awfully old man—hm? ‘Just get on with the match’? Okay!”

Saoirse, recognizing those names, tugged on Patrick’s sleeve. “I know those two boys; they checked up on me when I was in the Hospital Wing a couple weeks ago.” 

“Really? Even that Eugene guy?” Patrick frowned. “I heard bad things about him—my friend, Eren, said that he’s kind of on ‘active duty’—promiscuous, if you will. He’s not someone you should be around, and that includes whoever he’s friends with.” 

“Tracy was really nice, though, and so was Ava-Lynn from Gryffindor.” Argued Saoirse. 

“People aren’t always what they seem, mein schatzi.” 

The girl pouted, her shoulders sagging as she huffed. Turning back to the field, she held onto her beret as stripes of green and gray filled her vision. 

“There they are folks,” yelled Tracy. “The Slytherin Quidditch team, and their leader Orion Black! Always so poised and quiet, that boy.” 

Eugene screamed, his lanky figure almost halfway off the spectator’s tower. “And there’s my house’s team, led by the absolute beauty of a girl, Annabeth Clearwater! You know folks, Tracy and I made a nasty bet for this match—20 Galleons is a lot for me, guys, please win!” 

In his microphone, Eugene coughed. “Fuck—Professor don’t elbow me like that…yeah, yeah, it’s not gambling, sir, I promise. I don’t even know what gambling is! No, I don’t use it for weed—why, do you have some?” 

The game blitzed past Saoirse, the impact of the teams’ brooms whipping by the stands causing her to hide her face in Patrick’s arm the entire time—not that he minded. Luckily she was able to keep a mental image of the game with Tracy and Eugene’s commentary, along with Patrick’s since the other boys would get off topic, especially Eugene.

Within the next hour, the two teams were neck-and-neck, with Hufflepuff having 20 more points than the snake team, who was at 190 points. With the high energy swirling around the pitch, both Patrick and Saoirse were on their feet, hands clasped against one another as they yelled and complained every time someone on Slytherin’s team gained a foul of some sort. 

Tom, on the other hand, held his book in rigid fingers, his knuckles white with fury every time he was bumped in the back or shoulder. It especially didn’t help since Patrick, someone he knew—or at the very least thought he knew—was quiet, now wasting his voice on a stupid bloody game, with a stupid bloody girl. 

He knew he lied; he knew Patrick wasn’t telling him everything Saoirse told him. The boy wasn’t the best liar in all honesty. Despite the valuable information the girl held, she wasn’t worth losing a follower over. All of this goopy, lovey-dovey feelings his researcher had developed was turning his sharp mind into mush. Tom would be having a conversation with Patrick soon enough. 

“Oh, and there you have it, folks! Slytherin wins with three-hundred-and-thirty points!” Yelled Tracy, his voice wavering as he was shaken by his tall friend beside him. “Suck it, Eugene, I won the bet—no, we don’t get to split, you stupid piece of—”

“We won!” Laughed Saoirse, her glasses lopsided as she jumped to wrap her arms around Patrick’s neck in a fit of emotions. 

His nose was engulfed in her jasmine and sandalwood scent, slowly but surely buried itself in cerulean strands of hair. “Yeah, we won,” he chuckled, his hand going to her upper back. “You have a lot of Slytherin pride to be a Ravenclaw, you know.” 

“I don’t think I would mind being a snake.” Muttered Saoirse, pulling away from their embrace, much to Patrick’s disappointment. 

As the two made their way down the stands, with Tom dragging his feet in tow, they congratulated the Slytherin team on winning the first game, a sign of good luck for the rest of the season. 

For once, Saoirse enjoyed being around loud people, despite how sweaty they were when they pulled her into the group hug they shared. In all of her life, she never laughed this much before; Mahoutokoro was never a place for laughter, after all. 

The group made their way to the locker rooms, with Eloise, Miles, Abraxas—and to Saoirse’s surprise, Orion, all sang boisterously with their arms hooked together as they skipped their way across the field. 

“Saoirse,” a voice said, the figure tapping on the girl’s shoulder. “I need to talk to you for a second.” 

Turning around, Saoirse looked up to see Eugene staring down at her. 

“You can talk to her later, she’s busy.” Said Patrick, his eyebrows set in a scrunch as he pulled Saoirse gently by the wrist. 

“Please, I just need to ask a question—it’s about Ava-Lynn.” 

“Patrick,” Saoirse said softly. “I think I’ll be fine, don’t worry; I’ll find you later, okay?” 

With a smile, the girl slipped out of the boy’s grasp, walking back out into the middle of the field to speak to the Hufflepuff. 

“Have you spoken to Lee lately,” Eugene asked. “I kind of got into an argument with her a week ago, and I haven’t seen her since.” He sighed, his hand disappearing behind his neck. 

The two sat down in the grass, the cold sending chills up Saoirse’s body as the dew drops made contact with her shins. 

“Usually I would talk to Tracy about this, but he talks to her frequently so…but basically she led me on, I have no other ways to describe it other than that. For weeks, I put everything into her—into us, what we could have been; I was just waiting on her, and I’m just starting to unpack it now. It hurts—she hurt me; she put me through so much, just for it to end in a few words. I did everything for her; she said she loved me multiple times, too, but then she had the gall to tell me that she ‘didn’t want this outcome’ like I was the one who said we couldn’t be together.

“And I would sit there, plead with her; tell her everyday why I loved her, why I thought she was so unbelievably amazing in every aspect. I just…I put so much time and energy into her for weeks, for someone who I thought loved me, to someone who actively said they loved me. And I would have been fine if we were still friends, but she had the nerve to make me go through all of that just to tell me, ‘I’m not going to talk to you anymore.’ Like, who the fuck are you? I did nothing but make you comfortable and safe and you want to leave me in the dust? I never want to be spoken like that ever again, just for someone to say ‘I don’t want you in my life anymore.’” 

Saoirse sat stunned in the grass. She was never close to Eugene, she had only known him for about two weeks, after all. He seemed so sad, his lanky body almost collapsing in on itself as he held his head in his hands. She couldn’t tell if he was crying or not, but she wouldn’t be surprised if he was weeping into his palms at the moment. 

She didn’t know how to comfort him, let alone comfort someone in general. After all, Patrick was the only boy who’s shown any genuine interest in her; Saoirse had never experienced heartbreak of any sort before. 

“Well,” she coughed. “It’ll all pass, won’t it? I don’t know you all that well yet, but, maybe it’s for the best. People come and go, and only the people that truly matter in your life will stay. It’ll be a slow process, I’m sure, but eventually you’ll be a brand new person with a brand new perspective. Always focus on yourself, Eugene; never pour your energy into people who don’t want it, especially now that you know she doesn’t want it.” 

The boy, silent, muddled over her words, his tongue pressing against the inside of his cheek. “I guess so,” he sighed, “and I’m sorry for pouring all of this onto you—you barely know me, like you said.” He laughed, though without any humor left in his tone. 

“That’s okay, stuff happens.” Saoirse shrugged. 

“Why are you so nice? I would be so annoyed if I were in your position.” 

“I guess I’m just nosy, but I’m not annoyed at all. You seem like a good guy to talk to, and I’m sorry you’re going through a hard time right now. It must be difficult to keep to yourself. I’m really flattered that you feel comfortable enough to tell me this.” 

Eugene gave her an upside-down smile, his downturned eyes blinking wet tears away as he sniffled. “Thank you, Saoirse.”

───────────

The boys each plopped onto a nearby cushion in their dorm, bodies complaining as they ached and begged for a soothing touch. 

“I’m so exhausted,” Eloise coughed. “That ice bath didn't do a thing, I could barely walk here.”

A knock was heard from the door, “Hello, room service!”

In the entrance stood Cassius, with Abraxas and Louis all in comfortable clothes, their hair cascading down to their shoulders. Tom, as the others expected, strutted in with his robes rippling behind him, a hardened look on his features as he walked up to Patrick. 

The boy, currently on his back and staring at the ceiling in thought, was thrown into a world of knives and needles as the Slytherin Heir used the Cruciatus curse. 

“You really think you had me fooled,” drawled Tom, the other boys stumbling in a line as they witnessed their friend seizing up in the comfort of his own duvet, sweat dripping down his temple as his glasses fell to the side of his head. “That girl is turning your brain into pulp; you need to focus on your objectives—your loyalty to me and me only.” 

“I am focusing on my tasks,” Yelled Patrick, blue eyes wild with fear and anger. “I’m getting information from her, and I’m keeping her close—which wasn’t something I was supposed to be doing, by the way! Abraxas and Orion were supposed to be doing that, not me!” 

“Don’t talk back to me!” Tom chastised. He jabbed his wand to the boy, the curse stabbing into every inch of his skin and twisting into his guts. 

“My Lord,” Abraxas stuttered, taking a brave step forward. “Patrick is doing all he can—”

Tom craned his head in the blond’s direction, his lips set in a thin line as he flicked his wand. The Knights fell to the ground, their already exhausted bodies pleading for a blissful death as they met the same fate at Patrick.

“I think all of you are forgetting our mission.” He seethed, lifting the curse, but only just. 

The boys were silent, now nothing but limp figures—puppets for Tom to manipulate at his every whim. 

“That girl,” he muttered. “Is a threat to us getting to the Chamber—I cannot have her alive while I do all that I can for us— for our livelihoods!” 

He paced around on the carpet, his heavy step echoing with the pulsating aches of their heads. “I have done so much for you, and this is how you repay me? Running off to snog a girl, wasting time with a pointless and outrageous sport; it’s pathetic…” 

With a quick flip of his pale wrist, Tom had fifteen minutes before Astronomy class. He straightened his robes, a hand running through his sculpted hair before turning his focus back to the shivering young aristocrats on the ground. 

“I do believe I have enough time to stress the importance of my words.”

Credit(s): Dividing banner (^^^) by Chen Lu (1436 - 1449) - "Plum Blossoms in Moonlight" scroll painting; sourced through Pinterest

[gin-juice-tonic]

convinced that you were somehow secretly alive in the 60s/70s. what sort of secret historical resources and/or time machines are you using to expand your knowledge of decades past

Ha ha, I dont feel I do a particularly great job, but I always find myself getting into googling sprees when I just wanted to post about something simple. I'm always checking if x thing was invented yet, or popularized yet, and I end up learning a lot of new things... So I would say the best way to expand your knowledge is to ask a question about One thing, and let the research take you around in circles to answers you didnt ask for.

I talked more under here but it got long. Im putting it under a read more and bolding key words like an ace attorney game.

As for specific resources I've looked at... hm... I've gone through a lot of the old sears catalogs. There's websites out there that have ones dating all the way back from 1940 to 2017. That can give you ideas about (some) styles of clothes and furniture popular at the time. There's also websites dedicated to explaining certain decades of american fashion. Sometimes I read old popular science magazines, mainly because google books has every single one of them archived and available to read for free...

Youtube has a lot of videos of old advertisements, those are good ways to both get into some pop culture and see societal attitudes. I've watched a lot of infomercials and employee training videos for stan in particular lol. If you have specific places you want to know about you can search for videos of them. Tourism videos work well if its a famous area, if not some people upload their home movies onto youtube as well.

If you really want to, you can read books (or skim books) that were written, or had been popular to read around the time. Or advice/guide books for specific occupations. Biographies of people of different ages are great as well to learn about what life was like more in a daily way...

This is long, so I'm just going to list some things now. Blogs dedicated to histories of certain things (music, sports, gay history, 5 string banjos, columbo, whatever!), TV shows and Movies from the time period you were interested in, old comics, redditors who want to post old photos of their favorite old hangouts, and lastly, you could also just talk to older people. I've bothered my parents asking about disco, I've bothered asking my grandma about pads in the 1950s. Most people like to reminisce or complain about things from their youth lol...

oh. And I almost forgot. I've used Cassell's Dictionary of Slang a few times. Usually just to check if a phrase that I want to use existed yet. But then in the course of my search I end up finding something I think is funny

[saintsenara]

I am literally so stressed right now since school is starting up again. I was just scrolling through your posts and I absolutely adore your opinions and thoughts. If you’re still up to the ships asks, I have a few.

For some reason, I have been thinking about age-gap relationships that wouldn’t be quite possible…and added with my love of Severus Snape… 👀👀

Abraxas Malfoy/Severus Snape - I don’t know if you’ve done Lucius/Severus but I just took it a generation back.

Romulus Augustus Lestrange/Severus Snape - I remember you mentioning in Scylla and Charybdis that the two were kindred spirits (?) since they were both killed by Voldemort.

Bellatrix Lestrange/Severus Snape - maybe a bunch of sexual tension during missions? Bellatrix’s attitude toward Severus was mainly suspicion but I feel like she meant it in a ha-ha-I’m-jealous-you’re-the-favorite way, not in a oh-wait-he-actually-is-a-traitor way.

Marlene McKinnon/Severus Snape - I love your take that she was a seasoned veteran in the First Wizarding War. It never made sense to me that everyone in the First Order were all children. Majority, maybe. But all of them being Gryffindors and out-of-school never stuck to me.

Frank Longbottom/Severus Snape - I’ve read a few works for this and I like the few takes there are.

And I already know your thoughts on Lord Voldemort/Severus Snape (it’s a favorite).

I’ve also been thinking about time-travel fix-it’s in general too. How do you think Severus would react if he found himself in Tom Riddle’s era? There’s the take on him being older and aware and absolutely done with his life, and Lord Voldemort (few years out of school or maybe in his 30s to level the age in a way) whose intrigued by the sour man (and maybe gets impressed by his knowledge of the Dark Arts?). Then there’s also student Severus meeting student Tom and getting further radicalized by this young handsome man. There’s so many to explore but at this point, if I don’t get my head out of this rabbit hole, I may never be able to pass school. 😭😭

This turned out to be longer than expected, but I love reading your posts! It’s always so entertaining, especially with your interpretation of Severus Snape. I can rarely ever talk about Severus without being attacked by Marauders fans online.

thank you very much for the ask, pal! i hope this term goes well for you - and that your extremely chic recent interest in snape-related age gap relationships endures.

let's see what we have here...

abraxas malfoy/severus snape romulus lestrange/severus snape

i'm going to take these two together - since romulus is an original character who exists nowhere other than my own head - because they occupy essentially the same role in relation to snape.

i've written before about how i really like the idea of voldemort having three distinct impacts across three separate generations - the knights of walpurgis/the original death eaters, who know the proto-voldemort of the 1940s and 1950s, with his muggle name and his retail job; these men's sons, who know the unassailably powerful voldemort of the 1970s; and these men's sons, who know the paranoid and volatile voldemort of the 1990s.

so you have abraxas - lucius - draco in each of those categories [or, romulus - rodolphus - n/a...]

snape is - of course - part of lucius and rodolphus' generation, and the voldemort he encounters when he becomes a death eater is the unstoppable political force who appears to be made of pure magic - which, naturally, makes snapemort have a very different power dynamic to something like tombraxas.

but it's also clear that snape is someone voldemort takes an interest in because he recognises so much of his former self in him - the slightly feral vibes, the poverty, the disappointing muggle father, the feeling of being an outcast surrounded by posh kids and the desire to bend those same kids to your will.

this is the reason for voldemort arranging things in scylla and charybdis so that snape can lord it over mulciber and avery, and it's also the reason why he's so insistent that abraxas and romulus [and other senior death eaters he knew at school] are nice to him - he's basically enjoying reliving his youth by, once again, making his minions obey someone who is technically their social inferior.

snape lacks the teenage tom riddle's charm [and looks], of course, which means that there's far more condescension inherent in any relationship - platonic or otherwise - that either of these two would have with him than there was in their early relationship with voldemort.

but they also have a fondness for spindly lads with an obsession with magic and regional accents, which means that i'm sure that something can come out of the fireside chats voldemort's compelling them to have with snape while they're forced to host him in their houses...

bellatrix lestrange/severus snape

i am very, very fond of this as a pairing - and, indeed, have something in the works on the topic - and bellatrix's rampant jealousy of snape is exactly why.

one of my preferred ways of exploring snape's position within the death eaters is to think of him as voldemort's exception in terms of social class - that is, that he is the only marked death eater who doesn't come from an elite, quasi-aristocratic background; and that voldemort's supporters who are from lower social classes are kept, like fenrir greyback in the rank-and-file and not permitted to take the mark.

[this is why, in my writing, i always make the carrows a similar level of posh to the malfoys and lestranges - canonically they're rather one-note working-class stereotypes, but i don't think this makes sense given what we know about voldemort's structuring of his organisation during the first war. it's also why i think that peter pettigrew doesn't receive a dark mark until he returns to voldemort post-prisoner of azkaban.]

bellatrix - on the other hand - is voldemort's exception in terms of gender [and another thing i'm wedded to thinking is that alecto carrow also doesn't receive the dark mark until the second war.]

these means, of course, that both she and snape depend on voldemort's favour - especially in the first war, when he still trusts his death eaters sufficiently highly to delegate things to them - much more than the elite male death eaters do.

i think it's reasonable to assume, for example, that rodolphus may object to his wife behaving in a way which defies the gendered conventions elite pureblood women are clearly subject to - and that it's only voldemort's authority that prevents him voicing an objection publicly. or that lucius malfoy - like sirius - conceives of snape as his "lapdog", and it's only voldemort's authority which forces him to treat him as a peer.

which means, of course, that snape and bellatrix are in competition with each other for voldemort's attention in ways which the other death eaters never have to be - which explains their vibe in canon, in which bellatrix finds snape's elevation in voldemort's good books after she falls from grace after the cock-up in the department of mysteries so infuriating.

[it also gives a really interesting dimension to her being completely fucking right about snape's loyalties, but being in the wrong position in voldemort's eyes for her opinion to be trusted by him. you just know she was pissed when she got to the afterlife.]

and - from a shipping perspective - having to be constantly jealous of and obsessed with each other is a very effective way of lighting a spark...

marlene mckinnon/severus snape

i do always like snape with an older woman, because i think it fits his whole vibe, so he goes very nicely with my preferred vision of marlene as a fifty-year-old hard-nosed ministry bitch who fucking loathes mad-eye moody.

the meet-cute? well, spies have to have handlers, don't they? dumbledore passing over his new turncoat death eater to one of his senior lieutenants - particularly given the fact that she's unlikely to be thrilled about this - is something i can get on board with.

frank longbottom/severus snape

frank and alice are other ones i don't enjoy seeing written as part of the marauders' generation - for them to be well-established aurors by the time the lestranges attack them, i think it's reasonable to assume that they're around molly and arthur's age [that is, around ten years old than snape et al.]

so i think we're repeating the same scenario as above - frank needs to debrief the order's new spy. if you know what i mean...

time-travelling snape!

i think that the teenage tom riddle would fucking hate the teenage snape, to be honest. the teen snape we meet in canon is someone who really obviously refuses to play along with the social conventions which govern an institution as elite as hogwarts - and he clearly stands out more for his grubby, feral demeanour, his uncouth manners, his way of speaking, and his refusal to be deferential to his social superiors than he does for his name and blood-status.

[indeed, he's one of the only really visibly working-class students we ever meet in canon - to the extent that i am increasingly convinced that hogwarts is a selective school...]

the young voldemort, in contrast, happily plays along with these social conventions for his own ends - simpering through slug club meetings and sending slughorn pineapple and doing all he can to be viewed as a suitable candidate for head boy, in order both to provide a cover for his wrongdoing and as a way to soothe the chip on his shoulder by beating the posh at their own game.

he's going to think snape's as common as muck, and snape's going to think he's a pretentious cunt.

a post-1981 snape going back in time and finding himself entangled with the young-adult voldemort, in contrast, i think could be rather compelling. it's very interesting that the teenage voldemort's willingness to play-act a fondness for the class system doesn't extend to being prepared to grit his teeth and suffer through a ministry internship slughorn procures for him - and his decision to go off and work in a shop has a slightly bolshy "fuck you, sir" side to it we don't otherwise really see from him.

this voldemort would, i think, be slightly more open to snape's whole vibe, and they could get cracking on all the things which make snapemort a hot ship - the shared love of magical experimentation, the dubious morality, the fact that voldemort's clearly responsible for snape's aesthetic, and so on - several decades early.

one question, though, is whether snape would know who he was.

i go back and forth on how widely voldemort's birth name is known - and whether it's ever connected to him following his return to britain in the mid-1960s.

on the one hand, i think dumbledore's secrecy surrounding it is nonsensical - a substantial proportion of the death eaters were clearly at school with voldemort, and those who weren't are still usually related to these men in some way [i always think, for example, that it's much more plausible to assume that the diary horcrux was given to abraxas malfoy, and that lucius was well aware that his father and voldemort had been at school together] - but on the other, i do wonder whether snape, who comes into voldemort's orbit as - as i've said - an exception would be made privy to the information about voldemort's background which was probably an open secret among the elite male death eaters.

[which also provides an explanation for why bellatrix is so shocked to hear harry say voldemort's a half-blood in order of the phoenix, while lucius malfoy doesn't bat an eyelid.]

which is to say, i am much more taken by the idea of snape - destroyed with grief over lily's death - rocketing backwards three decades, landing in the knockturn alley of 1951, and having no idea until he's in far too deep who the softly-spoken shop-boy who offers him a cuppa will turn out to be...