#I didn’t put things I plan to read that are like. ongoing projects for me | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

she-posts-nerdy-stuff · 9 months ago

Text

Don't Go Blindly Into the Dark

Summary:

To hide that he can't read, Jan Van Eck has been forcing his son to pretend he's blind since he was eight years old. Wylan is now attending Ketterdam University, and meeting Jesper Fahey may very well be about to change his life. But is he safe to tell Jesper the truth? And what will Jesper say if he does?

Jesper is struggling to weigh up his life in the Barrel and his life at the University of Ketterdam, and there's a good chance that his growing debt is about to make the decision for him. He hasn't attended class consecutively for months, but maybe that will change when his newest project includes partnering up with Wylan Van Eck. But can he really leave the Barrel behind him? And how long can he keep up the pretence of who he thinks Wylan wants him to be?

Content warnings for this chapter: weapons, ptsd references, implied violence

Tags: @justalunaticfangirl @lunarthecorvus

If anyone else would like to be tagged let me know :)

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55445686/chapters/140852350

Chapter 5 - Kaz

“It can’t be a coincidence,”

Kaz mused over Nina’s words for a moment, the cogs in his mind turning slowly to put the pieces together. It definitely didn’t feel like a coincidence. But Kaz tended to follow a strict practice of believing nothing was a coincidence. He’d told Inej that once, and she’d nodded wisely.

“Fate has plans for us all,”

She’d been sitting on his windowsill, watching the rain running down the glass. She began to trace one with her fingertip, and he followed it with his eyes. Kaz frowned. He’d left the door open, because it was raining and he didn’t want her to open the window, but for some reason he was suddenly compelled to push it shut. Like there was something here that should be hidden, that he didn’t want to entertain the possibility of anyone else ever bearing witness to. He flexed his fingers and gripped his cane tighter, refusing to move.

“Suddenly, I believe in coincidences again,”

Inej looked at him for a moment, then back to the rain.

But it seemed very unlikely that Nina landing a strange job on the Geldstraat right before this job started was a coincidence. Kaz didn’t know what it added up to yet, but he would figure it out.

“Well, anyway,” said Nina, “I spoke to Feliks, all good for the job. He’s not thrilled about it though,”

“Of course he’s not,” said Kaz.

“He said you’ll owe him for the lost income,”

That would be more concerning if Feliks didn’t already owe Kaz money. And anyway he wasn’t really paying attention to that; mind still whirring away trying to solve the puzzle of Nina’s job on the Geldstraat last night. Not a coincidence. No such thing as a coincidence. No such thing as fate either, but Kaz really shouldn’t be thinking about that right now.

“Did they want you to go routinely? At the Geldstraat?”

Nina bit her lip.

“He said it could be an ongoing offer, if I wanted it. But he also said he lost an indentured Healer recently, if he gets someone else I don’t see him forking out any extra cash for the pleasure of my company,”

“When you say lost…?”

Nina grimaced.

“Concerningly vague,”

Kaz wasn’t surprised. He nodded.

“Alright, I’ll look into it. If this ends up being an ongoing job for you it might be good for intel. Inej is at the Crow Club, tell her to get a bag together - I want you at the university tonight,”

“Tonight? Kaz, you said two days, I have clients-”

“They’ll wait,”

“Kaz-”

“Update Inej. I need to talk to the old man,”

Nina huffed a little, but she turned on her heel and went on her way. Kaz watched the empty doorway for a moment before he slowly stood up - his leg was wreaking havoc today, and he leant heavily against his cane to find his balance. He was going to be vulnerable without the Wraith for a time, and now she was vanishing slightly earlier than expected. He’d set up a communication line but it still felt dangerous not to have her close by, gathering secrets.

“I’m not sure I’m following,” she’d admitted last night, when they were discussing the plan.

It was before word had come from Nina and she’d left to follow her to the Geldstraat. They sat in Kaz’s office at the Crow Club - the door was closed and the room had no window, but they needed privacy and there wasn’t much Kaz could do about that. He watched Inej, wondering if they would need to step outside, but she seemed fine perched cross-legged on a chair, posture perfect, hands planted on her knees. Kaz found himself studying the tiny movements in her fingers, the occasional movement of her boots against her knee as she shuffled her feet. He bought her the boots the night they came back to the Slat, because he was an idiot and he hadn’t brought anything with him for her to wear. She’d traipsed after him all the way from the very North of West Stave to the very South of East still dressed in those ridiculous purple silks, completely barefoot. It hadn’t helped the whispers amongst the Dregs about what he’d hired her for.

“What connection does any of this have?” she asked, beginning to drum her fingers against her knees.

“It’s about forming the connections,” he’d told her, “Just focus on getting close to the mark - or let Nina get close and follow suit. Then we can discuss what comes next,”

Kaz’s leg screamed at him all the way down the stairs, only quieting slightly when he began to cross the ground floor of the Slat towards Per Haskell’s office. The Slat was nothing special to look at - actually it was ugly as hell to look at, with its faded, faintly mossy eaves, the wonky boards at the front that made it look like it was leaning on the buildings either side of it for support, and the fact that it probably was leaning on them but the boards just accentuated it - but nothing had come as close to feeling like home to Kaz as the Slat did since he’d arrived in Ketterdam and his entire world was slowly pried from his weak little childish hands. That was what this city did; took everything from you. And this is what you did to survive it: demand something in return. Scrape and claw and bleed your way through the Labyrinth until you didn’t just defeat the monster at its centre, you became it. Kaz Brekker, Dirtyhands, the Bastard of the Barrel. He wasn’t quite there yet, on the very top, but he would be. He would taste the monster’s flesh, and embrace the city as his own. The Labyrinth was meant to be a prison, but if you played your cards right you could own it. And Kaz never sat down to a card game he couldn’t win.

“Enter,” came the gruff, muffled response from Per Haskell to Kaz’s sharp, single knock on the door.

It sounded like he’d already been drinking, and when the door was open the smell alone confirmed it. Kaz fought the urge to grimace, keeping his face a cool, flat mask as he closed the door behind him. There was a window in this room and for a strange, ridiculous moment Kaz almost moved to open it. He needed to get his head on straight - the Wraith wasn’t even here, and if she had been then she could open a damn window herself if she wanted to.

“Kaz, my boy,”

Haskell gestured for him to take a seat, and Kaz’s leg was putting up such a protest that for once he took up the offer.

“Sir,” he said, nodding.

Haskell grunted. He was playing with one of his little ships in a bottle things again, and for a moment just let Kaz stew whilst he drove his focus into rearranging one of the tiny pieces. Kaz didn’t get the appeal of these little models but they were popular to display in merchant houses, to sit on desks or mantelpieces like the homeowner was waiting for your gaze to linger on it just a second too long so that he could tell you a long story about it and how it’s an exact replica of a ship he, in fact, owns himself. There were two half-constructed ones sitting on Haskell’s desk that he’d given up on over the last few months, and Kaz watched the man’s meaty, and slightly shaking, fingers fumble over the details of his newest one, feeling unsurprised that he’d never been successful at finishing any. After a minute had passed Haskell sighed and plunked the thing carelessly against the table, then picked up his glass and downed the last few drops before all but slamming it back down. Kaz flexed his fingers over the crow’s head of his cane, tightening his grip.

“Brandy?” asked Haskell, as he began to pour himself another glass.

Kaz abstained.

“Alright,” the old man breathed, taking a sip before he continued: “What trouble are you here to tell me this time, then?”

What could Kaz tell him by way of trouble? That Jesper Fahey abandoned his security shift without telling anyone where he was, only for the Wraith to drag him back five hours later from a Dime Lions club? That Nina Zenik had been sent to the Geldstraat to complete a highly suspicious Tailoring job that might have had something to do with the job Kaz had been planning for so long? All he said was:

“I need Nina and Inej to start the job earlier than I thought,”

Haskell frowned.

“How long will they be gone?”

“I don’t know yet, but it’s all under control. You’ll get your twenty percent,”

Haskell’s jaw twitched. It always got on his nerves when Kaz didn’t tell him what a job was, but that wasn’t part of their agreement. And besides, Kaz didn’t want to spread the details of his plans to too many people - everything in Ketterdam leaked.

“You can’t just take my Heartrender and my best spider without telling me h-”

“They’re not yours,”

“Well they ain’t yours,” growled Haskell.

“That isn’t what I meant,”

He groaned loudly and performatively, shaking his head.

“Don’t go getting righteous on me now, boy. I want them back here within the month, at minimum,”

Kaz pursed his lips.

“I’ll try to arrange that,”

“You see that you do,”

“Yes, sir,”

Haskell snorted, but Kaz knew he lapped up every stupid politeness he gave him. He liked to think of himself as the patriarch of a large, criminally-inclined family, but everyone knew it was Kaz who did the real work. It was more of a formality for Kaz to ever tell him anything at all.

“The Black Tips are still edging away at Fifth Harbour; pushing their luck,” he said, watching Haskell run a ringer along the rim of his glass, “We should move quickly if we want to re-establish our dominance,”

Haskell waved a hand dismissively through the air,

“A mere dog yapping at our heels. Monitor the situation, if things are any worse in a few months time we can organise a parlay,”

The man really was an idiot. Kaz nodded.

“Yes, sir,”

By the time Kaz left the office, disgruntled and impatient, Nina was back at the Slat.

“Where’s Inej?”

“Upstairs getting her stuff,” Nina said, nodding vaguely towards the stairs, “You really not going to tell us anything at all?”

Kaz sighed.

“When you get to the University, go straight to the office opposite the Boeksplein; it’s 24 hour, and they should be expecting you. You just arrived from Ravka - private journey, pepper it in because the tourist ferries don’t arrive this late - and there should be transfer papers waiting in your name. They might kick up a fuss about you being early, accommodation-wise, but-”

“But we’re two young rich girls from Ravka, it’s the middle of the night, we’re exhausted from travelling, and we’ve nowhere else to go,” Nina finished in a falsely distressed voice, winking at him, “I think I can manage that,”

“Good,” he handed her a thin stack of kruge, “That’s a month’s salary in advance, if it takes longer I’ll give you more but if it’s shorter I’ll need it back,”

She narrowed her eyes.

“This is your money? Not the Dregs��?”

He shrugged. He had to pay her somehow.

“Thank you, Kaz,”

“You won’t be any use to me if you run out of cash and starve,”

Nina sighed, tucking the notes into her pocket.

“Well thank you anyway,”

29 notes · View notes

artbyblastweave · 2 years ago

Text

Gideon The Ninth Liveread, Chapter 18

Teacher’s order at the end of the last chapter to bring the bodies up isn’t followed by a jump cut to the parlor scene, as it easily could have been; instead, we get some insight into the logistics of getting two mutilated corpses and an unresponsive cavalier up a narrow ladder. The physical comedy implied by the process of getting Colum up the ladder is good bathos, but the fact that this takes them over an hour seems salient; whatever boogeyman Teacher was afraid of had over an hour in which to attack prone targets. And it didn’t show up for the hours on end that the houses spent attempting necromantic workings. My inclination is that either Teacher is feigning ignorance in order to scupper the investigation, or Teacher is genuinely afraid of something that still lies dormant and is projecting his longstanding anxieties onto the first blank crisis that presents itself.

Corona is very casually cited as one of the Colum liftees, alongside Gideon, which I feel like reading into a little. A quick runthrough of who’s even left reminded me that Corona actually is one of the most physically capable people remaining at Canaan house- Magnus being dead, Colum being in his state, Pro being attached to Dulcinea at the Hip, the teens being pubescent, Babs being mildly eaten…. Corona is, like, one of the taller/stronger people in the assemblage, right? But this gives off the vibe of a task that you’d assume, from her social butterfly persona, that she’d get someone else to do. And she’s doing it in her nightie, as well. I pegged her and her sister coming down in the skimpy nighties as… not a head game, exactly, but part of their attention to presentation. This is not body-hauling attire. But she switches modes without hesitation, with only one word of textual acknowledgement that she’s the one who knuckled down. She actually spends a good bit of time in this chapter abruptly cutting the bullshit and knuckling down to try and address the situation at hand. I’m starting to like Corona.

The Second House were the ones to run and get Teacher. I’m reiterating my initial read on them; they’re there to keep up with the Joneses, with limited investment in the trial outcome or their own path to ascension through it. The Necro/Cav pair are barely visually delineated from each other, in contrast to basically every other dyad. They are not Of Necromancy, beyond its utility; they are Of The Military. They have limited respect for Teacher’s religious edicts about lines of communication off-world, and while it’s difficult to tell how much stock any of these people put in the theology vs how much they’re going along to get along, it’s telling that they lead the push to undermine the foremost religious authority in deference to military authority.

As an aside, I’m well-versed enough in this series via tumblr osmosis to know that the Emperor is, like, very much all that, and his personal power eclipses and obviates what any other house could hope to bring to the table, so usurpation as a goal is unlikely. Adherence to his religion is less like a matter of doctrine and more like acknowledging the sun’s ongoing contribution to the ecosystem. But inter-house infighting isn’t unheard of; the Eighth has it out for the Ninth, after all. I wonder if we’re witnessing an internal fracture between the military dynasty and the hardline religious elements of the empire; if this attempt by the Second to call things off and bring in reinforcements isn’t JUST a practical plan but is also them finally making the kind of power grab they actually know how to make.

“A Second captain don’t outrank a Third official.” Wait. Is Naberius supposed to have, like, a genteel southern drawl? Also, interesting that this is where Ianthe chooses to intercede on his behalf. “Prince Tern, if you please.” The Third does circle the wagons against outside threats.

Alright, Key ownership rundown. The Sixth has a key, Dulcinea’s gambit using Pro to brute-force check all the doors apparently netted her a key. It turns out that both mine and Harrow’s suspicions were correct; Silas did cue Abigail and Magnus in on the facility, using both the rationale that they aren’t NOT supposed to work together, but also under the rationale that the hated Ninth can’t be allowed to be the only ones with access to the facility. Unfortunate that Harrow does have someone ready and willing to validate her paranoia.

The exchange between Silas and Dulcinea is fascinating. Silas clearly likes Dulcinea; everybody does. When he finds out it was the Seventh Cavalier who put him out, he seemingly takes this in stride, and he’s unwilling to sic Colum on Dulcinea… but he is willing to have Colum duel Pro, which Dulcinea (and Gideon, by extension) gets predictably up in arms about. Dulcinea and Silas run parallel in that they’re both radically reliant on their cavalier to get anything useful done, more so than any other necromancer we’ve seen; Silas requires Colum for soul siphoning and general henchman work, while Dulcinea uses Pro as a caretaker and mobility device. Silas is significantly more, uh, cavalier about imperiling Colum over petty bullshit than Dulcinea is; the charitable read is that Dulcinea’s reliance on Pro gives her a significantly greater appreciation for him. The uncharitable read is that anything happens to Pro, she’s going to be in a pickle; he’s already saved her ass once by putting Silas out, and the crisis has barely started.

Coronabeth puts her foot down; “The Golden Butterfly was gone.” Her rousing speech noticeably gets everybody moving in the direction of productive action- The Second Cav passive-aggressively entertaining Teacher’s theory, Isaac committing to hunting a monster if it exists, with Palamedes putting on the brakes on his enthusiasm with a commitment to a scientific autopsy, an implied deference to Coronabeth’s call for unity, and a (not unreasonable!) entertainment of the possibility there really is a horde of vengeful ghosts in play. He even folds in Harrow and Silas’s dispute by making it clear that collaboration on the murder issue isn’t incompatible with continuing to compete in the lyctor trials. Third House’s hat, so to speak, is that they’re the rulers and governers- but Sixth house were previously mentioned to be the house with policy wonks, and there’s a synergy there! Palamedes knows how to align himself with Corona for maximum productive effect.

Ianthe admits to being in possession of the last key, distressing both Babs (who she took the key from) and Corona, who expected to be privy to this information. Something I find interesting about this is that Ianthe is pretty clearly a Machiavellian operator; if nothing else, she had the key, and kept that fact to herself. But! When it comes down to it, she’s also willing to come clean and put her cards on the table in a crisis situation. She was in the trenches necromancing right along everyone else; there are parallels here be drawn here to her sister’s willingness to drop the butterfly routine in the name of getting the situation under control. On the other hand, it’s also possible that this is a rehearsed ruse; Ianthe, as the obvious evil Twin, publicly taking the fall by positioning herself as the only one from Third House who hypothetically could have had access to the facility at the time of the murders. This is conceivable even if the Third genuinely have nothing to do with it; an implementation of a general strategy they’ve worked out amongst themselves, painting Ianthe as the heel in contrast to the Great Golden Butterfly, establishing the narrative that Coronabeth doesn’t have complete control over what Ianthe does. Campy Wickedness as a cultivated affect, overlaying a subtler, realer scheming nature. “Ianthe is a Vriska,” “Ianthe is Rancid,” all these no-context Ianthe posts have got me going full Charlie Kelly over here.

The meeting adjourns. Palamedes works off Coronabeth’s cue to lead all interested parties to the freezer, including the Second and Seventh houses. Gideon chalks this up to Seventh Houses broadly morbid tendencies, but it also strikes me as likely that Dulcinea might have applicable medical knowledge as an outgrowth of constantly dealing with her condition, or at a minimum could effectively rubber-duck for Pal while he talks out the implications aloud. Second House I’m assuming are along for the ride because they realize they live in a universe where they have to at least begrudgingly entertain the ghost thing, but they want to be in the room concurrently with any autopsy that might reach “ghost murder” as its conclusion, to make sure there’s no funny business going on.

Pal, conspicuously, stops to have a word with Harrow. Harrow is characteristically concerning; her singlemindedness (on display in full force at the end of the chapter!) is poorly suited to such a radical shift in the circumstances. She’s the least willing to change her focus during the meeting beyond what’s necessary to avoid getting fingered as the murderer, and Pal’s word might very well be words of warning or reprobation that he had the tact not to deliver in front of the peanut gallery.

The scene with Silas starting the process of bringing back Colum is interesting; I think that Silas’s utmost confidence in Colum’s ability to make it back is the first time we see any expression of regard from Silas towards his Cav, and while it’s a strong endorsement of Colum’s capabilities, it’s part and parcel with the extent to which Silas is taking Colum for granted. Earlier I drew parallels between the necro/cav dynamics of the Seventh and Eighth houses, but there’s also a strong parallel between the Eighth and Ninth houses- each with a zealous, thoroughly stick-assed Necromancer , each of whom are paired at the hip with a Cav with a stoic demeanor and a frosty-and-best attitude towards their Necro. This line of thought is causing me to re-evaluate the lens through which Gideon has been assessing Eighth house; no Necro/Cav pairing is remotely Normal About It, but Eighth and Ninth have some parallels in their dysfunction. The key difference being that Silas routinely, habitually makes use of his Cav, and Gideon’s beef with Harrow is at least partly informed by the fact that, up until very recently, Harrow gave her absolutely no opportunity to be of use. Colum represents the path not taken, the grass that’s greener, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Gideon pays so much attention to the Colum situation right before Harrow shows up to drag her off towards another once-longed-for stint as an accomplice. Is Harrow’s attention an improvement in her circumstances, or has she this whole time unwittingly been dodging Colum’s sorry lot?

The sequence with Jeannemary is heartbreaking. They’ve hit the hero-worship beat a couple times now, the idea that she’s looking up to/admiring/(crushing on?) Gideon. It’s interesting that the “Bad Teen,” up till now an irksome background presence, is the one to finally break Gideon’s composure in a semi-public, not-technically-a-live-emergency setting- quietly and quickly enough that the illusion is probably still largely intact, but it’s a significant break! Also significant is Jeannemary’s insight into a suspicious detail nobody else seems to have touched on in the meeting; Abigail specialized in Ghost magic. Jeannemary’s love of Abigail means that her awareness of this fact cashes out as a belief that Abigail should have been able to defeat a ghostly threat regardless of magnitude. But the unstated second truth is that whoever or whatever killed Abigail, simultaneously got rid of the necromancer best suited to the necromantic forensic work everyone else was struggling with in the last chapter. This doesn’t feel like a coincidence.

Harrow’s barreling forward on the heels of Colum’s return to the land of the living feels like a great for-want-of-a-nail moment, and another example of Harrow’s too-clever-by-half tendencies snipping a thread that she really, really should have followed up on. Jeannemary has an important insight here! If Colum had been seventeen minutes late instead of fifteen, Harrow might have limped into the middle of a very illuminating exchange.

In closing, I’m pretty sure we’re looking at two memes in one here. Harrow’s “I’m sick of these people” bit reads to me like a reference to Dr. Manhattan’s, “I tire of Earth. These people” monologue and the resultant meme panel. “An admirable attempt at comedy in these trying times” reads like a reference to the Egg bit from It’s Always Sunny. Bonus points because the specific Dr. Manhattan line that I believe is being referenced here comes during his myopic dark night of the soul, where he’s conflating his own depression with the true meaning of the universe and letting his heartfelt belief that he already knows everything important blinker him to some important fucking details he hasn’t noticed. Just like how Harrow is overlooking potentially massively important information in her rush to capitalize on her perceived information advantage. Assuming I’m correct that this is a reference and not just random apophenia, this is, like, sliding past the point of mere pop-cultural meme reference into the realm of meaningful literary allusion. Which is a real good way to integrate your meme references! Nothing there just to convey that you’re hip and with it, everything acting as a character beat or a thematic vector. I’m going to go right ahead and adopt a hardline policy of treating every apparent meme reference as an indicator of deliberate thematic depth, and there is absolutely no way that this might potentially cause me to spill over 500 words of ink over something that just turns out to be a vaguely similar sentence construction to another work.

172 notes · View notes

raayllum · 8 months ago

Note

too many bangers to just do one little blurb, so here's a few of my favorite excerpts from the chapter that absolutely destroyed me

"...the dam bursting of every time she’d been frightened or hungry by herself, every time she’d wondered if she’d ever make it back to Katolis or see anyone she loved again, and the persistent pulsing push in her mind, constantly telling her that she didn’t deserve to."

"'You are not a burden,” he continued. 'And even if you are, I want to carry you. You don’t have to be good enough, Rayla. There is no invisible standard you have to meet. You don’t have to be perfect to be perfect. You are not responsible for other people’s choices, and you don’t have to pay the prices for their mistakes. You don’t have to pay the price for your choices and mistakes.'"

"'You are a person and you deserve to be here without having to constantly be hurting yourself to earn it. You don't have to justify your existence by punishing yourself for it. You deserve to just be. To live and exist and be loved. Unconditionally.'"

chapter 7 man.... lives were changed. as someone who has the absolutely hardest time describing feelings--especially something as complex and messy as depression and suicidal thoughts feel--you just absolutely blew me away. and THEN to just put therapists across the globe to shame with the literal most perfect affirmations of all time? when i said this chapter destroyed me i forgot to mention that it also healed me. this is classic literature. this fic should be required reading in schools. shakespeare and my therapist are rolling in their respective graves

I have a lot of Rayla feelings in Ch7: at the end of the tunnel in particular tbh so I'll break them down here in regards to what went into the passages above.

To begin with, I'm so glad this part of the fic resonated with you. This isn't the last time we'll be addressing Rayla's mental health but it is one of the more prominent, as idk how anyone can watch s1-s4 + TTM and not take away that... she's not Doing Well, to say the least. I was definitely thinking about quotes from the show's writers with "Rayla can sometimes default to 'hurting myself is clearly a good, because I'm taking it away from someone else'" to heart.

I've written this discussion and affirmation scene in other fics, and explored Rayla's mental health before (probably most notably "say the winds won't change on us," "i care if i am guilty," and "i hope you die (i hope we both die)") but given that fanon s6 is such a big ambitious project I wanted to make sure I was getting it right in particular, here. While I've never experienced Rayla's forms of self loathing myself / to the same severity, I have quite a few people in my life that I deeply cherish who have, or in ongoing struggles with it, and I've been Callum here more than a few times.

I think a lot about how Rayla rarely allows to let two things matter if one of those things is herself ("Don't worry about my hand now; the egg is all that matters") when the boys are perfectly capable at holding space for multiple concerns, including themselves, in most instances. Rayla leaving in TTM is just the most extreme version of that, and I think the way Rayla will exceptionalize herself in a negative way—everyone else deserves good nice things / second chances / happiness except her, for Some Reason ("Your plan was fine! [...] You should cut yourself a break. Everyone messes up sometimes, or in my case, all the times [...] That shouldn't have mattered; I had a job to do")—is like... relatable for a Lot of people even when they don't also have symptoms of PTSD/depression/passive suicidal ideation.

Like Rayla was not safe or happy when she was away, and it would not surprise me at all if, while I don't think canon will necessarily touch on any of this as intensely as I have, I do think we'll get something of her having a hard time of her talking about how she suffered in favour of wanting to talk about how she made Callum suffer, for obvious reasons. Which is exactly why she left in the first place (s4 my beloved)

With all that out of the way I wanted to set up her breakdown accordingly:

You have the chapter title which is a reference to the literal tunnel they exit, and an Orpheus and Eurydice reference, while also very much being about Rayla finding the light at the end of her tunnel regarding her mental health

"I was a coward. I was weak." ("My parents aren't really dead, but I wish they were! They're cowards" / "It was the same problem every time. Hesitation, sympathy, distraction… all just weakness in a different mask.")

And then we see Callum shift to the heart of it, which is that her letter and mission was basically suicide and she knew it, and still won't really acknowledge it out loud or why it was Okay for her to do that but not for Callum to come with her, because she feels Inherently Unworthy and that there's something fundamentally broken with her, which has been pretty clear in canon for a while tbh.

With that in mind, I wanted to take Callum's viewpoint and affirmation a step further. I always say that the first step in therapy is learning to assume that no one is mad or annoyed with you at all times. The second step is learning that it's Okay even if someone is mad or upset with you. I think Rayla fears being a burden or more trouble than she's worth so much, and I think Callum at this point (in fic / canon, 5x01 you beautiful episode) has progressed to the point of like...

Rayla's not going to believe that she's not a burden, and sometimes people are burdens, shit happens, life is hard. What's most affirming for her to hear is that he wants her and loves her even if/when she IS a burden. It cuts right through all the bullshit and fear to the "you think you're terrible and awful and unworthy" and go "so what if you are? I still want you" and there's just not a lot of places for self loathing to go after that point. Like it's still there, but it can't grow to be as intensive, I find.

It's also written in mind from Callum's perspective because I've said this before, but Rayla is not an Easy person to love. Like feeling love for her is easy — she's warm and funny and kind — but she's not easy to love in terms of getting her to accept and rely on love. She's incredibly secretive and has a lot of hyper-independence as a result of her trauma and survivor's guilt, and Callum — especially post-s4 / 4x09 — has fully accepted all of this. Even if Rayla doesn't change, he's there. He knows this is not going to be an easy climb for either of them, but it's worth it to him, because it's her.

At the same time, Callum in canon has always been good at not making Rayla dependent on him ("You're too good to feel this bad about yourself. I know that, and you should know that" / "But it's your choice. No one else's" / "No, I meant what I said. You don't have to justify or explain anything to me") and emphasizing that she can and should want to get better and treat herself better for herself. So I really wanted to capture that vibe here. Rayla feels unworthy of his love, to an extent, yes, but it's also far more about her life and how routinely she puts what she wants on the back-burner... like, Rayla is a character who's always gone looking for redemption, and often times rightfully so! But I am very excited for her to realize there's nothing she has to Redeem herself for, there's nothing she has to earn or pay a price or suffer for in order to get to be Happy on the other end or put herself first for once. She deserves to just get to exist and live and be happy about that, y'know?

And I think Rayla also fundamentally wants those things, as she states at the beginning of the chapter, “I want to see the sun again first" before she'll let Callum heal her. Because you can only save someone who wants to be saved, and you can only save them so far if they want to save themselves, too, and that starts with you, that you have to want it. You have to want to live and love yourself.

Cause everyone deserves to. They really, really do.

And I just have a lot of feelings about fics / things / anything where Rayla goes "I don't want to be broken. Maybe I never was. And I want to live" because like. Yeah

#tdp rayla #fic: teach me how to name the bigger light #thanks for asking #mental health #m4rs-ex3 #long post #there's a reason i refer to rayla as 'guilt complex since birth' to my friends tbh

10 notes · View notes

summercourtship · 1 year ago

Text

stay to burn (only to drown instead): chapter five: sanity in the honeymoon phase [part II]

masterpost | ao3 link

jonathan crane x reader; bruce wayne x reader; edward nashton x reader | warnings: canon typical violence, sexual content | word count: 4937 words

DISCLAIMER: these chapters are not meant to be read alone. not every chapter has content for one of the three pairings listed. this is an ongoing fanfiction that I am cross-posting here on tumblr, not a series of one-shots.

chapter one | previous part

You woke up the next morning, somehow with Jonathan still beside you sleeping soundly, a newfound clarity in your thoughts. Like your mind had organized all of your thoughts while you slept and in doing so created a plan.

Snatching a T-shirt off the floor, you pulled it on as you left your bed. You gently opened the door, glancing backwards to make sure you hadn’t bothered him. But before you left, you grabbed your bookbag, needing something from inside it but not wanting to rummage through it with Jonathan still asleep.

The apartment was cold, the chill morning air seeping in through the cracks between your door and the floor, from in between window panes. Throwing a glare at the apparently useless radiator in the corner, you grabbed a worn cardigan off of your couch. You slipped it over your still tired limbs before sitting at your kitchen-catch-all table, moving the empty take out bag to the other side. You’d throw it out later.

Reaching into your bag, you pull out a pen and notepad- the notepad, the one you’d had glued to your hand all through the Riddler’s crime spree last year. Flipping to a blank page in the notepad, you wrote at the top of the page, in all capital letters, EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT THE SCARECROW.

Skipping down a line you began scribbling some bullet points of what you knew about the criminal. It wasn’t much yet, but you were confident in your ability to find more information. For fun, of course. Targets Pharmaceuticals and chemical manufacturers- drugs? Out of public eye- motives unknown-- FIND OUT SOMEHOW?? Burlap scarecrow mask-- why?? What symbolism? Fear?

As you sat, staring at your minuscule list, trying to think of anything else that was applicable, the bedroom door opened again. Jonathan crept out, pausing when he saw you at the table. You wondered what he thought you’d be doing when he left the bed.

“What are you doing?” His voice was husky from his sleep, the lowered timbre of his voice sending a bolt of electricity over your skin. He moved closer, peering over your shoulder. You didn’t bother covering up your notepad.

“Just writing.” You slowly looked back over your shoulder at him, smiling softly before turning back to your work. “Things I need to get out of my head.”

“About the Scarecrow?” He cleared his throat quietly.

“Mmhmm.”

You didn’t know where this research- because that’s what you intended for this to become- would go. At the worst, you’d chalk it up as personal practice, a pet project. It would sit gathering dust in a folder, tucked away in a drawer like your other abandoned project.

You didn’t even allow yourself to consider what the research would be at best. It was barely an idea, anyway, dreamt up by your unconscious mind. Something to keep your mind occupied when you weren’t trying to finish your schoolwork.

“And this doesn’t have anything to do with what you were talking about last night?”

“I’m not becoming a vigilante if that’s what you’re asking me.” Cringing inwardly, you sighed. “I have no dreams about heroism, personally. You could say I’m just engaging in current events.”

Investigating. That’s the word for what you wanted to do.

“You should be careful where you stick your nose.”

An involuntary chill ran down your spine at his warning. He’s just looking out for you, you thought. But still, you shrugged the chill away, putting your pen down and slipping off the chair. You fitted yourself between Jonathan and the table where he had left just enough space for your body.

You could worry about the Scarecrow finding out about your investigation when it was more than words in a notepad. At that moment, you were more interested in Jonathan.

“And why is that?”

He was toying with a loose string on your cardigan, again throwing you that wry smile before he responded.

“Curiosity killed the cat.” You smiled back at his use of the tired cliche.

“But satisfaction brought it back.”

The kiss started gentle this time, a delicate joining of your mouths. But Jonathan soon leaned against you, his open mouth coaxing your own wider as he pressed you backwards. You threw a hand backwards, grabbing for purchase against the table and landing on your notebook. Involuntarily you clench your hand, crumbling your notes about the Scarecrow in your desperation to steady yourself against Jonathan.

Your hand traveled down his body, brushing over his slowly hardening length in his pants. He groaned against your mouth as you rubbed the heel of your hand against him, smiling into the kiss until he grabbed your wrist and pulled your hand away, holding it by your side.

“If I didn’t have somewhere to be, I’d fuck you on this table, right now.” He muttered in your ear, his voice low and grinding.

“Then don’t go.”

“I have to.” With what seems to be incredible self-control, he pulls away from you. His eyes are dark, pupils blown. He was still as hungry as he had been last night.

If you were more confident in your abilities to seduce a man, even one that was two inches away from taking you on your kitchen table, you would’ve pouted. Made yourself irresistible so that he wouldn’t leave you, aroused and waited. But you still had an inkling of insecurity that kept you from pulling that trick out of the bag, so you let him step away from you with a sigh.

“When can we see-”

“I’ll be out of town this weekend, and have a pretty busy next week. But the week after is spring break so we can do something then.”

“Alright.” You did your best to hide your disappointment.

“Are you going to be okay, today?”

“I still have a class today, you know.” You sighed, thinking about the cipher assignment you still needed to complete for your intelligence history class. “I’ll be fine. I’m beginning to think I didn’t even see anything last night. Maybe I just… imagined it. I was really tired from the library so it makes sense.”

A brief moment of confusion flickered across his face before it disappeared behind his composed mask again.

“Hallucinations aren’t good, either.”

You don’t tell him that it wouldn’t be the first time that you’d seen someone who wasn’t there, that day of the mayor’s remembrance ceremony flashing in your mind. But even though you’d said you imagined seeing the Scarecrow, you didn’t actually think it. You just didn’t want Jonathan to worry about you. It had been an impulsive lie, born from guilt at seeing his face mired with concern.

“I’m all good, trust me.” You looked down at your hand, the notes crumpled on the table before slowly turning back to him. “If you don’t want me to look into the Scarecrow, I won’t.”

Again, you were lying. You fully intended on gathering as much information on the Scarecrow as you could before he was caught, essentially heading up your own personal investigation into Gotham’s newest masked weirdo.

You’re sure that he didn’t quite believe this lie either but he didn’t call you out on it. You were only lying to get him to stop worrying about you, to stop thinking that you were intending on going out and hunting the criminal down.

Of course you weren’t going to. For one, as far as you or anyone else knew, he’d just committed a few robberies and frightened a few citizens (yourself included). For another, you weren’t exactly the type of person who could survive hunting someone else down.

You would leave that to Batman.

The week leading up to spring break was busy, though not because of work or even the few midterms you had to take or essays you had to turn in.

“Just this, thanks.” You placed the new, fresh notepad on the office supply store’s counter, watching as the teenage girl working the cash register popped her gum and lazily rang it up.

You’d bought a notepad for the Riddler. It only made sense to give yourself a fresh start for the Scarecrow. Because even though your initial notetaking session had been interrupted, you had the strangest desire to figure out the Scarecrow before everyone else.

But you weren’t planning on doing anything reckless. Nothing at all like what Jonathan had said that night. It was just research, after all. You had no dreams of heroism, no desire to become a vigilante or even do anything with the information you’d find. You were just going to write down some headlines, scour Gotham social media, keep an eye out for anything weird. Nothing that required you from leaving the safety of your home.

You would be smarter, this time.

You’re sure of it.

But maybe you were just kidding yourself.

If you had gone to college in a small town with a population of 80% college students, you probably would’ve noticed the absence of people during spring break. The streets would be practically empty, the stores like ghost towns.

But in a city of Gotham’s size, three-quarters of the student body leaving for tropical destinations or to return to a safer home for the week did nothing to relieve the claustrophobic population. Crowds still swelled the streets, the constant honking and screeching of cars still reached you from stories above it all.

Not like you would have really noticed, laying on top of Jonathan’s lithe body, breathing in his scent for the third day in a row, tracing random patterns on his chest. The first few days of your spring break had been bliss, tangling your limbs with his, mixing your breaths together for hours on end.

You both had other things to be doing. Yet the idea of separating from one another was blasphemous. And, as you had quickly learned, Jonathan would not stop until he was completely satisfied, though his desire was apparently insatiable.

Eventually, you would have to free yourself from his hold, escape from his bedroom back into the real world. You had school work to do, shifts down at the store to attend. But they were so easy to forget when his mouth traced open kisses along your body, when he was able to set your body alight with a flame you hadn’t known existed inside of you.

Slowly, you sat up, running a hand over your hair. You could feel Jonathan’s eyes on you but he made no moves, simply content to watch you.

Pulling the comforter back, you placed your feet on the cool floor, not bothering to grab a blanket as you left the bedroom. Jonathan didn’t follow or call after you.

You grabbed your work bag- which was what you had intended on working on when you’d come over to his apartment three days ago but had been quickly distracted by Jonathan’s fingers and tongue. And you had stayed distracted, too enraptured by his attention to focus on anything else.

Instead of sitting at his table to get your work done, you walked back into the bedroom and settled on the bed with your papers. You could feel him watching you as you pulled out the first paper and a red pen, beginning to grade.

You remained like that for a few minutes before you heard him moving around behind you. He pressed a kiss to the nape of your neck, and you could sense the smile he pressed against your skin, the curve of his lips stinging until he pulled away. He rested his head on your shoulder, looking down at the work you were doing. The work he could, technically, be helping you with.

“I am trying-” You threw a glance back at him, unable to stop the smile that crept onto your face, “to grade the assignment that you had due the class before break!”

He hummed, seemingly nonchalant, but you knew that he would be disappointed if you slacked off. Even if the reason was his own warmth beckoning to you from behind, a constant temptation to drag you away from the work you had to get done.

“I’ll take you down to Arkham tomorrow.” It wasn’t a question and it was barely a suggestion. There were no if that’s cool with you-s from him.

You put your red pen down, turning to look at him fully, your eyes roaming around his face.

“Are you sure?” It was redundant. If he was uncertain, if he was ever uncertain about anything, he wouldn’t bother telling you he was doing it. If you knew nothing else about him, it was that he was not the type to act when he was unsure.

He nodded, slow, his eyes dragging down your own face to your lips. You knew what the look on his face meant but you still put a hand on his shoulder to keep him at bay.

“I need to finish grading this.”

“It’s Tuesday, you have time.” It was a whisper against your lips, his hands moving to pull you closer to him from the waist.

“Hmm. I’m going to an asylum tomorrow, so I’m not sure if I’ll be available to work on it in the future.” But as you said it, you moved to straddle his thighs, linking your arms around his shoulders. You figured if you joked about heading down to Arkham, you’d forget to be nervous when it came down to it in the morning.

“Well, I know one of the doctors who works there. Maybe he can help you out.” Smiling at his response, you grinded down against his cock, which was quickly becoming hard from your sudden bout of attention.

You leaned backwards, grabbing your work and tossing it off of the bed, not caring when the papers scattered around his room.

“Oh, I’m sure he can.”

It was funny, you think, that the sky should decide to be bright and beautiful on the day you were visiting the darkest building of Gotham City. The waves crashed upon the rocks below as Jonathan’s car rolled through the main gates, gorgeous yet horrifying trees lining the drive to the main building. From your understanding, there were a few different buildings on Arkham's campus, including the old mansion and botanical garden. That was something the general public could come up and visit, situated far enough on the other side of the island that there was enough space to separate it from the asylum.

Staring out the window as the building slowly came into view through the trees, you fiddled with the visitor’s pass Jonathan had given you before you’d climbed in his car thirty minutes ago. Thankfully, it was labeled as RESTRICTED ACCESS, meaning he couldn’t take you into any questionable corners just for the sake of taking you there.

You should be flattered, you think. He wanted to show you his other workplace, let you see another side of his world.

But really, you were just nervous that this was going to somehow go completely wrong. You’re not sure if you’ve ever heard of anything going right at the asylum, which was a dark blot on the city’s already dark canvas.

Arkham Asylum loomed over you like a giant, its gothic visage intimidating even in broad daylight. Maybe moreso, seeing that all the horrific elements of the asylum you saw in photographs weren’t due to nighttime shadows and rain. It was just what the buildings looked like, their entire presence spine-chilling. Worse when you considered who was locked up inside, perpetrators of some of Gotham’s worst crimes.

Finally, Jonathan pulled into his parking space, which was nestled behind the building.

You were torn between wanting to yank the seatbelt off of you, eager to get the visit over with, or to lock yourself inside so you didn’t have to leave the safety of the car. As you got out of the car, you looked over the roof to Jonathan.

“And you’re sure I’m allowed to just… visit? This isn’t just a trick to somehow admit me?”

Jonathan just hummed from your side, but you’re sure that your constant questions on the subject were becoming annoying. “I wouldn’t have brought you if it wasn’t allowed.” He began walking towards the door, briefly looking back at you. “And you’re not insane.”

“Thank you for the reassurance.” You responded dryly, fingers toying with the strap of your purse like someone would appear out of nowhere to snatch it from you.

You began the short walk across the wet parking lot, the smell of damp pavement and grass heavy in the air. Despite what you had expected, you heard nothing from inside the building. No screaming or shouting, no alarms or blaring announcements. It was absolutely silent, the only sound you could hear was birds chirping and waves hitting the lower rocks. And that was somehow worse than if you had heard everything that was going on inside the stone walls.

Jonathan pushed the door open, holding it aside as you stepped into the building before he followed you in, firmly closing the door behind you. It latched with finality and you took a deep breath, willing your nerves to calm down.

You were officially inside Arkham Asylum.

The entry room was small, a metal detector preceding the doorway into the next room, a guard sitting in a chair by a table with a radio that was playing a loop of guards calling in. Faintly, you could smell anti-bacterial spray underneath the overpowering scent of something sweet and floral from the air freshener on the table. A security camera was mounted in the corner, aimed directly at you. You looked at it for a moment before wrenching your vision away, allowing yourself to be escorted through the metal detector with little flourish.

“I’m not going to meet any of the inmates, right?” You whispered after grabbing your bag from the plastic box they’d put it in as you’d gone through the door.

“No.” He smiled wryly before he spoke again. “Not unless there’s a breakout just as we get in there.”

“Please don’t even joke about that.” It was a well known secret that Arkham was prone to the occasional bout of hemorrhaging its inmates but you really didn’t want to witness it first hand. It was nerve racking enough when you were in the city and got the alert on your phone, you didn’t fancy being stuck on the island while an escape was happening.

“I’ll just take you to my office, show you around the visiting areas… nothing that’s too restricted.”

“I would hope not, my visitor’s card isn’t good for that.”

“I’ve told you. People don’t say no to me.” He pushed open another door, this time leading you into a dimly lit hallway. “If I wanted to take you somewhere, I would find a way.”

Jonathan’s tour of Arkham consisted of nothing more than walking through hallways and pointing out various points of interest. The door that led to the cells, the door that led to the rec rooms, the door that led to the intensive treatment wing, the door that led to the medical wing. Oh, look, a window that overlooked the exercise yard where there were a few orange and white clad inmates shuffling around, if they were moving at all. That’s a change in scenery.

“Why did you want to bring me here, anyway?” You asked as you walked down another hall that was identical to every other one you’d been brought down. Most of the hallways were lined with dated tile, bars over any windows and cracks in the flooring. Lights were yellowed and flickering, dust and dirt gathered in the corners. His only response was a non-committal noise from the back of his throat. He was saved from further questioning when he stopped by an archway that led into a small room with an empty desk and two doors leading off of it. He brought you to one of them, a non obtrusive wooden door. His name was on the plaque that was attached to the door, followed by his credentials.

Pulling out his keys, he unlocked the door, revealing his office.

His office in Arkham was pretty similar to his office in the university, a dark wood desk sitting in between two large windows overlooking the asylum grounds and, in the distance, Gotham’s skyline.

“I have another one, in the basement. For obvious reasons, I will not be taking you down there.”

You looked at him from where you’d been observing a framed painting on the opposite side of the room from him.

“Why do you need two offices?”

“It’s a large asylum. Sometimes it's easier to keep patient’s records closer to where they’re kept in the building than here. And this office is better for visitors. The other one doesn’t have windows, which makes it well suited for sessions with the inmates.”

“Why-” But he quickly moved on, not letting you ask what he meant by his comment. From what you’d heard, direct sunlight was good for those struggling with their mental health, was it not? But, then again, you weren’t the one with a doctorate. You didn’t even have your bachelor’s, what do you know?

“The windows are nice, aren’t they?” You moved across the office to look out the windows, which were covered by half opened blinds which filtered the light into small lines across the room. His office, it seemed, overlooked the river, offering a decent view of the city. You knew that he was just pointing them out because he wanted to distract you from the question you’d wanted to ask. But you indulged him anyway.

“The view is good.” You moved away from the window but instead stepped right into Jonathan, who had moved to stand directly behind you. You adjusted your position slightly, allowing yourself to lean backwards into Jonathan’s body.

Then his hands were on your hips, brushing over the modest shirt you were wearing. For a brief moment, you regret wearing it, wishing you had instead worn something else, something more revealing or tantalizing. Then you remembered that you’d picked it out in the morning, knowing you were being smart by covering yourself up for the day’s visit. It wasn’t a club. It was a hospital.

With this in mind, you stepped away from him. Don’t fuck in his office, you reminded yourself. And when you turned and saw the familiar hungry look in Jonathan’s eyes that you’d been trying to sate for the past week, you simply ignored it. You knew that if he really wanted to bend you over and take you there, he would do it. But it looked like he also knew it wasn’t smart to try anything, because he simply took a deep breath and turned, leading you outside of his office again.

But instead of continuing back into the hallway, he stopped in the small room that connected Jonathan’s and another’s office to the hall. The desk that you’d noticed earlier was the only real furnishing in the room, but there was a dead plant in the corner. Nothing much to look at.

“Here is what I really wanted you to see.”

You craned your neck around his body, trying to see what he was looking at. You certainly couldn’t see it from where you were standing. But even when you looked around him, there was nothing else in the room. You looked at him, meeting his eyes before he pointedly looked at the desk.

The empty desk that was pushed against a wall. Its surface was covered in illegible etchings and it had clearly seen better days, the metal legs splotched with rust and the wood discolored.

You stared at it for a moment before looking back up at him, not getting the joke. But he was already looking at you and your breath stuttered before you caught it again, swallowing the sudden lump of nervousness that had sprung up in your throat.

“You brought me here to look at a desk?”

“The asylum has recently decided that I needed, or deserved, a… secretary. Receptionist. Assistant. Whatever you want to call it.” He prattled off the different names for the same job. Your heart skipped a beat as you realized what he meant by telling you this but you needed him to ask you.

“And you’re telling me this because…?”

“Don’t be stupid.” He admonished, so quickly after you’d finished speaking that for a moment you thought you imagined it. Heat blossomed in your cheeks and you’re not sure if your reaction was entirely because you were embarrassed at being chided like a child. “You’ve proven yourself a good assistant. You hate your current job. Come work with me here.”

You pursed your lips, a litany of questions springing up in your mind at his suggestion. Some completely rational questions, like what is the pay and what exactly would my duties be, and some a bit less rational.

“Would you be my boss, then?”

“Of sorts but not quite.” He leaned against the desk, which groaned slightly from just the light amount of pressure he was putting on it. If you accepted the job, you decided, you would need a different desk than the one in front of you. “Your superior, of course.”

How many different power dynamics did Jonathan want the two of you to be arranged in? You were almost tempted to ask if he wanted to also be your psychiatrist, just to get that one off the table as well.

“Does this count as an interview?”

“This is a job offer.”

“I’d at least want to finish the semester before starting up here.”

“That’s-” He put his hand on the small of your back, leading you back into the hallway and away from his office and your potential desk, “-fine.”

He began to lead you back through the maze of hallways he had taken you down when you’d arrived, clearly signaling that the tour was over.

“Is there anything else you’re interested in seeing?”

“I don’t think so.” You smiled, wanting him to see that you appreciated him taking the effort to show you around the asylum, that you weren’t just trying to get out of here as quickly as possible. You were still confused as to why he had brought you into the asylum to offer the job instead of doing it over dinner like any normal person would.

But, you thought, if you accept the job offer, you’d be coming up here all the time. So maybe it was to get a brief feel for the asylum before you accepted or denied him?

“Not unless you can show me the records room.” You laughed to show that you were joking, that you knew that no civilian would ever be allowed anywhere near the records of Arkham. Not to protect the patients, of course, but rather to protect the asylum and any of its secrets.

If you accept the job, you might get to go down there one day…

He pushed open the doors, leading you into the next hallway. He wasn’t speaking now, obviously content to take you out of the building and back home- he’d done what he came for. But maybe, you think while trying not to linger on the thought, instead of taking you back to your place, you’d go back to his apartment and you’d spend the rest of the day under his worship.

In the hallway next to the one you were walking down, separated from yours with a half-wall and row of windows, a line of inmates were being escorted in the opposite direction.

Don’t look, your mind whispered. But like there was something else you couldn’t quite hear beckoning you, you slowly turned your head just as an inmate on the other side of the glass raised his.

A startled gasp broke away from you, your eyes now locked on the very real figure of the man who had occupied your thoughts for the past year and a half. But where you would have expected to fall into your usual symptoms of anxiety upon seeing him, you almost felt disappointed. Like you were walking past an exhibit at a museum, realizing that the thing you had built up so much in your head was really, horribly… mundane. The man you had been so afraid of, had nightmares about, was just a man. A round-faced, almost boyish looking man, hair limp and lifeless, his clear glasses cracked on the left pane. But behind the glasses, his eyes were bright and intelligent, narrowed slightly at you as he examined you much like you were observing him.

Your foot moves, stuttering against the linoleum floor briefly, like it wanted you to step closer to the glass, to get a closer look at Edward Nashton.

It wasn’t until Jonathan called your name, clearly not seeing what had happened, that you tore your eyes away from the inmate’s and practically ran down the hallway, your visitor card swinging on your neck. Your heart was racing, yes. Not because of seeing the Riddler in the flesh, but because the moment had felt… intimate and the idea of someone- Jonathan, especially- seeing it was somehow mortifying.

But if you had turned around at any point in your dash down the hallway, back to the safety that Jonathan’s proximity lent to you, you would’ve seen that he was still watching you, only turning when you were completely out of the hallway, the door swinging shut behind you.

#stbotdi #jonathan crane x reader #jonathan crane #my writing #my fic #batman x reader

30 notes · View notes

curmudggeon · 3 years ago

Text

Southern Hope (Arthur Morgan x Female Reader)

❝ If by any chance...in another lifetime, we happen to see each other again, I'll come and find you. And I'll make you fall in love with me, over and over again ❞

In which romance novelist, Mary-Beth under the pen name of Leslie Dupont, writes a coming of age love story based on her favourite gang members in the past, You and Arthur.

Trigger Warnings; Violence | Blood | Angst | Sexual Intentions

A/N: This is a project I've been working on for quite a while. I had the idea in mind when I had the chance to experience the musical composition of Aaron Copland's quintessential American Dream, 'Appalachian Spring' -one of my favourite pieces with such a beautiful storyline. And I wanted to retell it in the form of a book that is available on my Wattpad (ongoing) for you to enjoy from Mary-Beth's POV. I hope you show love to this book as much as I loved writing it. Have a sneak peek at the prologue!

Read on Wattpad here for more chapters to come!

PROLOGUE

Leslie Dupont; Mary-Beth Gaskill

Lemoyne, Saint Denis

November 1907

“Mademoiselle Dupont, we expect your next manuscript to be submitted by next summer. Now is not the time to be reminiscing.”

Here we go again

Mary-Beth sighed as her editor, Céline Laurent, had warned her once more for not meeting the deadline to her books. She was in a crucial position in her life. After her debut as a romance novelist, The Lady of The Manor was an instant best-seller across the country. It was the kind of thing she specializes in, silly ol’ romances.

“I promise you, I’ll get it done by then.” Or maybe, at least not for now. She shouldn't have promised something she couldn’t keep, especially in the meantime.

“I’ll take your word for that, if you don’t meet the deadline by then. Y’know what will happen to your contract, Leslie.” Céline stood at the door frame of Mary-Beth’s office with hands on her hips and raised eyebrows.

She knew exactly what she had meant. In fact, she knew the consequences on the back of her head when she first signed that contract with her publishing company. Two more books were requested of her. Or else she would be evicted of her apartment and be forced to live along the streets of Saint Denis for the rest of her life. A life of luxury slipping between her fingers.

“Yes, ma’am,” Mary-Beth disclaimed, the moment her editor slammed the door as she left her office. Heaving yet another exaggerated sigh, she crosses her arms on the grand rosewood desk, flopping her head on top of it. “What am I going to do now…” She murmured into the crevice of her arms.

Mary-Beth was in the middle of a major writer’s block for a few months now. She lost sight of that imaginative space of hers, consisting of the most swoon-worthy romances to the picture-perfect life she portrayed through her characters. A part of Mary-Beth that her readers absolutely adored. But, her head was now a clouded space of everlasting void. It was difficult for Mary-Beth to come into terms of writing again, but she couldn’t quite identify what had put her into this position.

Once she gathered the courage to write again, it all came crashing down like violent tidal waves when she came face to the daunting blank page of nothingness —almost drowning her.

It was as simple as that. Come to work, have a cup of tea, sit down, and a blank page.

Every. Damn. Time.

Maybe it was because she was already nearing her mid-thirties, and she hasn’t found someone to sweep her off her feet. Maybe it was when she first held Tilly’s baby that she found the need to be a mother someday. Maybe it was the overwhelming response towards her writing, she felt the need to hide away into an abyss. Or maybe she couldn’t stop thinking about the time she had come across John again after so many years that the memories just come flooding back.

Or maybe, just, maybe. It was because it’s November.

The most dreaded time of the year. November, in which the seemingly fearsome Van der Linde gang had officially broken up. Guns were fired, ties were broken and deaths were grieved. An unforgettable, painful memory.

She would often think about campfire songs, the girls and, Miss Grimshaw’s constant nagging about undone chores. Oh, how best of friends Céline and Miss Grimshaw would have been if she had heard Mary-Beth had been slacking again. It was her coping mechanism, think more about the good times to get rid of the bad ones.

Mary-Beth remembered when she took in her hands at being a matchmaker. Prancing around the camp, she would eye her two best contenders. You and Arthur.

She knew from the start when you had laid your eyes on each other for the first time, she could see through the inexplicable connection in between. You were both extremely awkward when it came to small-talk or addressing each other as you walked by across camp. However, it never stopped Arthur to come to camp as soon as he could just so he could see you, even just for a second.

The conversation would often start with Arthur while on his way to Dutch’s tent,

“Hey,”

“Hey.”

“I’ll leave you to it then.”

“Yea sure…”

—and that would be it.

At the same time, every single day, at the course of sunset.

You poor socially inept fools.

Mary-Beth, Tilly, and Karen would always see the interaction happen in the middle of their afternoon chores. Grinning from ear to ear. They would elbow each other whenever there was something different about the correspondence.

One time, you would walk past him, suddenly kissing him on the cheek and scurrying away.

Arthur would stop in his tracks, stunned, with a hand-over where your kiss tingled on his skin. Then he would look back at you as you laid down, smiling to yourself against a tree with a book in your hands. And Dutch would yell his name, knocking him out of his stupor before he noticed he was staring for a little too long.

The girls would start applauding for your heroic performance, it was like a groundbreaking plot twist Mary-Beth couldn’t wait to write about when the idea came into mind.

The both of you were like a walking excruciating slow, slow-burn romance novel. That was when Mary-Beth would cue in her entrance as matchmaker as soon as the interaction slowly died down. Your story had to have a happily ever after in her book.

She would pester you and Arthur separately, mentioning each other’s names and slipping in hints of romantic intentions from the other side so the both of you can address whatever this relationship was.

Mary-Beth knew it was a mission accomplished the night Sean was rescued back to Horseshoe Overlook. When she stood aside of the camp watching Dutch and Molly ballroom dancing into the moonlight, she caught a glimpse of you and Arthur behind them. Running into the woods, hand in hand, giggling to yourselves like prepubescent teenagers.

After that night, it was a considered job well done when your chance encounters slowly turned into planned ones. He would take you on dates, and you would show him affection like nobody’s business. A perfect couple, your American dream.

Until it became a nightmare.

And Arthur had passed,

your Arthur.

Ever since then, Mary-Beth wondered what had happened to you. Were you still alive after all these years? She couldn’t imagine how hard you must be coping with the news. Or what if you didn’t know at all? Even when she asked John and Tilly, they said you disappeared that night he passed.

Not even a single trace. Where were you?

Mary-Beth dismissed the thought out of her head, lifting her head away from the desk. She had to let go of these memories for her own well-being. For what seemed like yesterday were merely years ago. But it couldn’t have hurt to reminisce just a bit, for old times sake.

The story of You and Arthur was unwritten, left to collect dust from the lack of content. The perfect example of a sepia-tinted photograph, forgotten. Mary-Beth believed the both of you deserved something much more than a devastating ending. She wasn’t as ruthless as the other authors she had met that held an iron fist when killing off their characters. Mary-Beth wasn’t like that.

And the idea came to mind. She was a romance novelist for a reason; to fulfil all the possibilities for the unconditional love you shared.

And so Mary-Beth picked up her beautiful fountain pen,

She began to write on the great desk in her quiet room.

To write the most beautiful story of the century,

You and Arthur. Arthur and you.

A perfect couple. The American Dream.

A life that could have been so much more,

A life to remember…

274 notes · View notes

jiminrings · 4 years ago

Note

yoongi grills stem koo’s ass <3

cold senior!y/n x stem major!koo masterlist :D

stem koo wants to explain himself and yoongi may not want to listen

"hyeji's never packed you a sandwich before?"

jungkook pales at the mention, mouth drying when he sees yoongi bring up the soft smile that doesn't comfort him at all

“the one that’s all knuckle?”

oh my god

IS THIS A RIDDLE????

yoongi tilts his head in amusement when this pathetic excuse for your past crush is calculating what he just said in his mind

what is a sandwich that’s all knuckle?? but it doesn’t even rhyme!!

aren’t riddles sUPPOSED to rhyme????

jungkook’s more than well-versed in stem-related problems that are just rephrased 237 times over and over so that it wouldn’t be as easy to solve

he can solve that!!!

but this!!! :O his mind is short-circuiting pls do not approach him

“hm?” yoongi’s smile patronizes him further and puts him on the spot, straightening his figure and jungkook’s quick to stop him from coming back inside your dorm

“i want to-“

“i asked you — have you ever had a knuckle sandwich?”

yoongi enunciates with so much clarity that kook finds his mind blanking, tripping over his words he hasn’t even formed yet

“i-is it-...” he stalls, trying to rack his mind for the bread he’s not sure he’s ever even heard of in his life, “i-is it like, a pork thing? uhm, t-the pig’s knuckle? and then you put it between, uhm, bread?”

,,,, laughable

jungkook’s supposed to be smart, isn’t he? or atleast that’s what yoongi thinks he’s supposed to be

lmao he would’ve laughed at the boy’s poor attempts if only he wasn’t furious at him

he’s dumb but not the endearing kind ://

“no,” yoongi drawls out, pretending to fish something out from his pocket

jungkook watches in intrigue, thinking that yoongi’s reaching for his phone to show him a picture of what it looks like

the hypothetical situation in jungkook’s mind is clearly not the one that happens

jungkook SHRIEKS as he stumbles on his heels backward — crystal clear to him that yoongi was not looking for his phone, but instead balling his fist and him being the receiving end

almost the receiving end

yoongi almost sucker-punches jungkook in a blink, fist literally a millimeter away from his nose and the only thing he could see at the moment is red

... red and jungkook’s wide eyes that have never carried this much fear up until now

“that’s a knuckle sandwich, kid. would’ve fed it to you if only y/n isn’t in the room right behind me.”

holy fuck

his heart is beating right against his ribcage and that shouldn’t be possible, fists closing upon themselves nervously as he tries to soothe his thumb so his mind relaxes

spoiler alert: it doesn’t work

jungkook’s mind is all over the place, even more rattled than it was when he takes a text without studying (he was so low he got a 98), but the only thing that’s clear is that you’re behind this door

“yoongi — mister yoongi, please. i-i need to explain myself, and if only you let me try, i can!! i swear. i’m not forcing you but-...”

there he is again

jungkook’s only been in his sight for like two minutes but his eyes are already sore

“why are you even here?” he scowls and even if the younger boy’s taller than him, every bit of his posture and demeanor at the bite of his words scream small, “why go all this length for someone you stomped on today, then have the gall to be a crybaby about it?”

he's speechless and it only serves him right, looking at his mudded-up converse and trying to focus on anything besides the guilt within

"m-my explanation," jungkook mutters, hands behind his back as if he's being scolded, “will you tell y/n?”

yoongi releases an agitated breath at him muttering your name

he dOESN'T get to say your name!! no!!! not after what he did to you

“i’m not concerned about you. what i decide to do or not, has nothing to do with whatever you say right now.”

kook solemnly nods, and even if yoongi's much harsher in your words compared to yours, the gravity of yours with him not being related to you cuts deeper

there's nothing else he could care about, actually

jungkook follows campus curfews to a T and would come home two hours earlier in the rare event that he goes somewhere

but now, he couldn't care less when the dorm master could just be there any second and he'd pass a hall monitor like usual

for the whole day, you were the only one that occupied his mind

"i know hyeji isn’t the one."

god, it was clear as day

he'll be the first one to admit that he can't read people very well, but he knew from the start that it's probably not hyeji who's been packing his lunchboxes

jungkook sometimes takes attendance in behalf of the professor because as much as he's shy, he's also a teacher's pet

the classes she shared with hyeji? she wasn't present everyday for the whole duration of two weeks, and how could it be that she still managed to make him a lunchbox if she wasn't present in the campus at all?

there was a probability that it could've been her, but it was so low that it sat right next to improbable

"i-i entertained the possibility briefly that she was, but then nothing was making sense the more i thought about it."

jungkook sometimes also checks papers because his professors trust him enough and he has perfect scores anyway, so he uses his own as his answer key

"i needed to interview y/n for an assignment, a-and a signature above a name was needed and it was just so familiar."

the moment he racks his head for hyeji's writing, it seemed fAR from the writing on the sticky notes on the lunchboxes

"then she seemed mad at me, but when i went to her on the field to try and confront her-" jungkook pauses and almost whispers the next part, the shame on his skin starting to seep into his bones, "she told me that we weren't related for me to feel hurt about it."

yoongi clenches his jaw, a pressure forming on the center of his eyebrows because he knows where this is leading

"a-and i thought it was hyeji again."

jungkook can't bring himself to be elated that it's been you the whole time because he might be a little too late; a little too late when he's already subjected you to the heartbreak you didn't deserve

"i-i didn’t know what clicked in my mind but i was just so hurt that-"

that's the fiNAL straw for yoongi

this has been him trying to keep his anger at bay the whole time, but this one!! this one he can't just accept

"you are a fucking asshole. honestly."

jungkook slightly winces with the sudden cussing, but it barely scratches the surface

"you think you’re the only one hurt? tell that to me who’s never seen y/n cry so hard before — or even cry at all."

his explanation wasn't an excuse and he knows it, but nonetheless, it tears him apart

"i’m sorry."

his lips quiver and he's trying sO hard not to cry in front of his senior, but yoongi doesn't feel even the slightest remorse for the kid

"i don’t care. you don’t apologize to me; you apologize to y/n. whether she forgives you or not, which for the record i don’t think she should, you cannot take back what you said."

if what jungkook said was eVER said to yoongi, given that he had the same circumstances as you did, he wouldn't know how to bounce back at all

it's a pain he doesn't wish to feel and he could only helplessly look at you who's trying to navigate it

perhaps you don't even plan to navigate it — knowing you, you're just gonna sail through it all to the point you're not giving yourself enough time to even realize that you already are

it was the same cycle of trying to move on without grieving through it properly that it hurts yoongi and seokjin and the tiny amount of people around you

"grovel at her feet. cry her an ocean. commit penitence. whatever you wanna come up with, no matter what, you do not make my y/n feel like she isn’t deserving of love."

you're family and yoongi goes above and beyond for family.

"i don’t care if you make up. i don’t care if you don’t. all i know is that in any other place besides outside the room she sleeps in, i’d hurt you like you hurt her."

jungkook almost wishes that yoongi punches him now and he won't even try to dodge it

"i deserve it."

"you do."

they whole-heartedly agree and it's the only time that yoongi can get behind jungkook's words

"i’m always gonna be on y/n’s side, kid."

there's no other way around it and as much as you know it or not, you've cemented your position in yoongi's heart unknowingly

"the only way that i’m gonna be on yours is when you’ve earned my utmost respect," he can't even see when that happens, crossing his arms across his chest, "and you don’t."

jungkook's tears are falling to the floor but they don't get on his cheeks, the sudden set of footsteps coming from his side making his head straighten and wipe his eyes immediately

he's the only one alarmed and he spares yoongi a glance, then to said person

yeah right that couldn't have been you :((

the guy who's approaching doesn't stop walking and he looks like.... he's uh,,, coming to where he's exactly standing????

he seems oddly familiar though

“oh, taehyung!"

where did he hear that name before??

taehyung stands at the same height as jungkook, maybe a centimeter or two taller, but he just couldn't stop looking at him from the corner of his eyes

yoongi's oblivious to jungkook's ongoing deduction, immediately engulfing taehyung in conversation

"y/n’s already asleep. i could do her part of the project-“

he offers because he recalls that right, you told him that taehyung's coming over to finish your shared project of a business plan late tonight

uhhhhh you're kinda zooted and going through it rOUGH so yoongi doesn't mind doing your contribution for you

“yoongi!! oh no man, it’s not what i came here for," he leans for a side hug, eyes landing on jungkook to drop a polite smile to acknowledge him

jungkook only slightly bows, confused but even more intrigued because he heard your name in the conversation

"i just uh, i just saw y/n crying while i was on my way home awhile ago, and i didn’t get to ask why, but i felt bad, so i came by to drop some cookies.”

taehyung continues talking and it leaves yoongi and jungkook stunned, but he only focuses his attention on the former

“you looked like a hazelnut cookie kind of guy, so i baked some too!! is y/n allergic to peanuts? i put some too in a separate container in case she is.”

yoongi laughs and they go from there

IT'S LIKE JUNGKOOK ISN'T EVEN HERE!!!!

baby he's here he's nOT a hallucination!!!!

despite the fact that he's sticking out like and (unacknowledged) sore thumb, no one makes a move to take the conversation elsewhere

“thanks, tae. damn, you did all this yourself?”

yoongi whistles when he takes the tupperware opening it and almost watering at the sight

he doesn't mind baking cookies for you in case you wake up hungry, but taehyung really just did himself a nice favor without knowing it

he smiles softly, eyes narrowing in intrigue now that he realizes

"taehyung. no offense, but you’ve only interacted with y/n like once and it’s only for a project. why would you bake her uhhh 28 cookies?”

hehe

“35, actually :D”

tae interjects, waving him off when yoongi's jaw drops even further

“yeah, i know. i just felt so sorry for her — i’m not related to y/n but i just felt like i wanted to make her feel better.”

jungkook's jaw locks at this, his breathing becoming shaky all over again, fists balled this time

“it’s like,, economics!! i don’t actually know, maybe??? i’m in visual arts. y/n took over my part for me when i was sick-“

".... so you made her 30 cookies."

taehyung's the personification of a golden retriever and now that he thinks about it, jungkook reckons seeing him more than a handful of times

he laughs deeply at yoongi's rebutt and it may be in unfortunate timing that jungkook realizes he kNOWS him

he's in the same year!! he's the one that takes the portraits for the school paper and it's always his name in the credits

"good night, yoongs. hug y/n for me. tell her i'll take over her part, no questions asked."

taehyung walks away and he's perfectly content even if he didn't get to give you the cookies like jungkook thought he would

"night, taehyung."

yoongi looks at the retreating figure briefly, then looks at jungkook pointedly

he doesn't realize that he's still budging and listened on an entire conversation, dropping his head when yoongi points to the elevator

"bye, jungkook."

"good night, yoongi."

he feels hesitant to leave but it's probably for the better, putting his hands in his pockets still not enough to make his hands stop trembling

kook stops at the middle of his walking, turning his head to look back at yoongi whose mouth already has crumbs

"c-can i see y/n tomorrow?"

"i'm not her dad."

jungkook nods somberly, leaving it at that while his bulk of emotions consume him

he thinks all about the ways he could attempt to make it up to you, a million ideas in his head but his head doesn't hurt

his nose twitches at the lingering scent the cookies left, annoyed at the persistent smell and perhaps the boy that brought them

jungkook's never really liked cookies.

#WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN NEXT :O PLACE UR BETS BESTIES #stem koo #jungkook imagine #jungkook imagines #jungkook oneshot #jungkook drabble #jungkook x reader #jungkook x y/n #jungkook au #jungkook angst #jungkook angst imagine #jungkook scenario

455 notes · View notes

lunaekalenda · 3 years ago

Note

🌼‘s Summary for Eren and Fem!Reader request: Eren wakes up to the sounds of Y/N crying and learned that her family had to cancel their vacation plans due to the ongoing virus pandemic (Eren was also bummed out that he was unable to visit his parents, Mikasa, and Armin because of the same reasons and they urged him and Y/N to stay home just to be safe). Then, Eren wrapped Y/N in his naked body to comfort her until he hatched an idea before asking Y/N to wait in bed until he returns (part 1)

hi! of course!! i hope you like it, honey! sorry for all the waiting!!

end of the request: (Part 2 of request) and has Y/N to listen to music or read a book in his absence. After Eren returns to Y/N, he had Y/N close her eyes while he carried her outside to the flower meadow near their home. Once they reached the meadow, Eren places a flower crown on Y/N before having her open her eyes. After Y/N opened her eyes, she sees that Eren is still naked except for the eucalyptus crown on his head and sees that Eren set up a little flower festival for the both of them along with a picnic basket of food he set down and Eren commented that the flower crown on her head matched her f/c nightgown she’s still wearing. Then Y/N began to cry with happiness and embraces him before they enjoy their little festival activities in the meadow. Finally, while watching the clouds in the sky together, Eren cradled Y/N in his arms and hummed/sang Isabellas Lullaby (I see him singing AmaLees version of the song) before falling asleep and napping on his still bare shoulder. Eren proposes Y/N to marry him before the end of the flower festival request? Could you add that part in as part of the one-shot?

························································································································

eren x fem!reader

w: nudity

You put the phone in your little table again, tears falling fast from your eyes. You turn around. Eren is still sleeping, his calm breath making his chest raise quietly. You put your head on his neck crook, tears still falling silently, wanting to feel your boyfriend next to you, getting a little comfort from him. He moves a little.

“Y/N?” he asks. His voice isn’t more than a sleepy whisper and his arms are now around your waist, getting you closer to him. “Are you crying, love?” he asks. He can hear your quiet sobs, feel your irregular breathing against his body. “What happened?” his tone is still low, but the sweetness on his voice is clear.

“I can’t visit my family this summer.” you say, on a whisper. Tears are falling again. He caresses your hair with soft movements.

“They did approve the mobility law, hm?” It was just a project, but it seems like it’s now a reality. You feel Eren’s skin against yours while he attracts you closer, your face against his chest, his lips giving you sweet kisses on the top of your hair. You enjoy his proximity, one of your hands resting near your head, giving his chest some caresses. Then, he has an idea.

“Love, could you wait here for me a second?” he asks. You look at him, your eyes still swollen because of crying. You nod.

“Where are you going?” you ask while he gets up, his naked body receiving the first golden rays. He just smiles, giving you a near manga and kissing your lips before going out to the corridor.

While you read, Eren doesn’t make a sound, as if he was missing. Maybe he is on the little field you have at home. Since you bought a house on the countryside, your house has a really big parcel, where you have some flowers and plants. While he’s away, you’re able to end some manga volumes, really enjoying the story, when you hear his voice.

“Close your eyes, love.” he asks. You do so, always having that blind faith on him. He enters the room, and you feel his proximity. “I’m going to take you in my arms, okay?” he asks. You nod and feel how he sneaks a hand under your knees, the other having your back. “Don’t open them until I tell you, please” he asks. You nod, your body searching proximity with his. He leaves you on something that feels like a blanket. You can hear birds and feel the sun on your skin. A little pressure on your head, as if Eren placed something on it. “Open them.” he asks.

You take a minute to adapt your eyes to the sudden light, analyzing where you are. You’re in the flower camp, sitting near the lilacs. His head is now adorned with an eucalyptus crown, the only thing on his body. He has his hands behind his body, hiding something. He takes a little picnic basket, putting it on the floor. Then, you see around you. A blanket under your body, with some plates and the picnic, and Eren by your side, smiling at you while he opens the basket.

“Eren, what’s this?” you ask, amazed. The sun makes his skin smoother and his eyes greener, his smile as beautiful as always.

“It’s just a little festival. Just for the two of us.” Then, you’re aware of the low music playing on the background, really calming and relaxing beats sound from his phone. He gives you a plate with fruit, looking at your head. You look at your reflection on the phone. A flower crown is on your hair.

“Eren, this is...”

“You look beautiful.” he says, simply. “And a lot more now that you’re smiling.” Your eyes became full of tears after your boyfriend’s words, and that made you jump into his arms, your head on the crook of his neck, smelling that sweet scent Eren always has. He wraps your body with his arms, putting you even closer to him. “Thanks, Eren.” you say.

“I didn’t want to see you sad because you couldn’t go to that trip. So I decided to make our vacations special.” he says. “I prepared a lot of things to do.”

And he did. From a sweet karaoke, a fun game about guessing drawings and the projection of a film on the wall of your house to teaching you how to make flower crowns. Now, he’s kissing you softly, your legs tangled while his hands explore your back. He doesn’t rush, he kisses you slowly, as if he wanted to make this moment eternal, and you’re thankful for it. He parts. It’s almost night, some stars appearing on the sky. He looks at them and you look at him. He takes something from the basket. You thought you ended the food.

“See, you’re the woman of my dreams. The only one that understands me with just a sight, the only one that makes me feel good with just a smile. I’m sure you’re the girl of my life and i will love you forever. And you don’t know how immensely happy I’ll be if you accept that love.” he takes a little ring from the picnic basket. Your eyes began to drop tears. “Would you marry me?” he asks. You nod, incapable of talking, while he slides the ring on your finger. He hugs you and you kiss him, so happy. You’re gonna marry him.

You’re gonna marry the love of your life.

You’re still between his arms, some minutes later, his lips leaving sweet kisses on your body while you caress the wrist near your chest. Eren starts to hum a song, something you know but you can’t recognize. He starts to sing quietly.

“Let me sing a lullaby

As you close your eyes”

The song enters your ears softly and you feel Eren’s hands caressing your hair. You snuggle against him.

“And as you're drifting off to sleep

How I hope that the dreams that you find are bright

Love, can we meet again soon in the bluest of skies?

Where a tomorrow waits for you and I

So hold me tight one more time”

Your eyes are now closed as he feels your calm breath. He caresses you as he smiles, the ring on your finger shining with the moonlight. He feels so empty, so good and warm. He’ll be your husband. He can’t wait.

“I’ll make you happy, y/n. I promise.”

#aot x reader #aot fluff #aot fic #aot fanfiction #aot scenario #snk x reader #snk fluff #snk headcanons #snk fic #eren x reader #eren jaeger #snk eren #eren aot #eren x you #eren x y/n #eren comfort #eren jeager x reader #eren jaeger fluff #eren jeager x you

84 notes · View notes

heloisedaphnebrightmore · 4 years ago

Text

All your fault [Sirius Black x Reader] - Requested

Title: All your fault Pairing: Sirius Black x Gryffindor!Reader Word count: 1.9k Published: 16 February, 2021 Author: Heloise Daphne Brightmore Summary: Sirius’ boredom causes you to end up in detention. Or so you think, but he has a different perspective on the events and you clearly can’t find the golden middle. Request: [x] I have combined two requests. One from Tumblr and one from Wattpad. I took the liberty to change some things, but overall it’s the same.

“Hey Talented! Could you write a Sirius x Gryffindor!reader where the reader is jock with intense emotions and a chaser in Quidditch team? Also Is exceptionally talented at DADA and that make sirius jealous and turned-on too? please?” - @marauders-hogwarts

“Hey, I was just reading your marauders x reader one shots and I had an idea for one. Could you pls make one where Sirius gets into an argument with you and at the end grabs your hand to turn you around and abruptly smashes his lips against yours and asks you to be his girl. And the next day he comes up to you and tell you that ther is something wrong with your hand untill he picks it up and puts his own hand in yours and says that's better. Please? Thanks so much. I am a huge fan of your work.” - @Tamarakyra [Wattpad]

Harry Potter Characters Masterlist | Masterlists

If you enjoy my stories, please consider donating and supporting me on Ko-fi. Of course, it’s completely your choice, I will continue updating for free anyway :) Thank you <3

Sirius Black had never been one to question things. He was very stubborn much to his professors’ dismay. Doing what he wanted regardless of consequences has become his personal motto. Swaying him seemed impossible, he always knew what he wanted, how he wanted it and when he wanted it.

However, on a rainy dull Saturday afternoon as he was watching you up in the air, flying across the quidditch pitch on your broomstick, your hair flat against your face, your uniform drenched in water, your eyes covered with a pair of goggles, something has changed within him. For a mere moment he felt as if time had stopped as you screamed at James for not being able to catch the snitch and win against Ravenclaw. His eyes focused only on you, even forgetting about the ongoing match.

The way you sat on your broomstick leaning forward to speed up, the way you tucked the quaffle under your arm and secured it, the sheer amount of energy you projected and the bold tone you used against his best friend all hit him right in the chest, forcing him to fall back onto the bench of the bleachers. He didn’t know where his sudden feelings came from, but the unexpected warmness filling him up from the inside made him smile at the simple sight of you. From then on, he knew the friendship you had has become more on his side.

You sat right beside Sirius at Defence Against the Dark Arts, doodling on the parchment in front of you as he kept nudging you, trying to get your attention.

“What now?” you asked for the 10th time in the past 10 minutes. “Perhaps you could focus more on the lesson. You need it more than I do,” you hissed angrily, feeling fed up with his childish behaviour.

“I’m bored,” he whined in a silent whisper.

“I can see that,” you scoffed as you drew another random pattern on your paper. Closing out the lesson, you focused completely on your drawing, finding it more interesting than whatever your professor was talking about. That was until Sirius started nudging you again.

“What now?” you hissed in anger, slightly raising your voice, but you quickly silenced yourself as you looked around, every pair of eyes focusing on you, including your professor’s. “I’m so sorry,” you apologised, hunching your back, trying to hide away from embarrassment.

“Since you have already graced us with your attention, why don’t you answer the question?” he asked in a pompous tone, clearly trying to make you feel even more awkward. However, as the new teacher, he couldn’t have known about your exceptional knowledge and talent on the subject. It took you a good second to recall the memory from the darkest and deepest part of your mind, before you were ready to answer.

“The Tongue-tying curse prevents people from being able to form a coherent sentence, therefore stopping them from being able to incantate further spells. Although Langlock its sibling curse also prevents people from being able to speak, in this spell’s case the tongue sticks to the roof of the mouth, whilst when using Silencio it causes the victim to be temporarily muted,” you explained proudly. The professor didn’t compliment you, nor did he scold you. He offered you a deadpan expression and cleared his throat.

Sirius snickered beside you with a proud grin across his face, knowing the professor didn’t expect your reply. Years ago, he would have told you off for being a know it all, but now he found it comical. He didn’t know if it was because his feelings had changed or because it was you who did it, but in the end it didn’t matter. You could have done anything and he would have supported you like a loyal puppy. At times he couldn’t even believe how easily affected he was by you.

“Khm- smartass,” you heard a cough from the side as Evan Rosier was trying to cover his words in an obvious manner. You were not one to let others walk over you nor did you plan to be one in that moment. You felt anger bubbling up inside you, the boy’s mere presence irritating you.

“Let me show the spell in practice, professor,” you grinned proudly as he turned around with a shocked expression across his face, ready to stop you in mid-spell. However, he was slower than he wished to be and before he could have said anything, the word left your lips. “Silencio,” you lifted your hand and pointed your wand at the boy, watching as he grabbed his throat, desperately trying to speak, gaping like a fish, but no words leaving his mouth.

Sirius watched as the scenario unfolded in front of him. His initial surprise quickly disappeared as he saw a smirk appear across your face, pure pride taking over your stance. He always admired your can-do attitude and bold personality, possibly one of the reasons you have been such good friends. He wasn’t lacking any of those personality traits, but when he saw you standing up for yourself, being strong and independent, it just drove him crazy. It made him feel like there was an invisible string between the two of you, pulling him closer and closer to you.

Since he realised his own feelings for you, he was watching every little move of yours, trying to protect you from everything and anything that could possibly hurt you. But before he could ever intervene and show you how much he cared for you, you took care of it, proving once again how independent you were. He didn’t mind though, he loved the strength you harboured, he just wished to be able to show you that you could rely on him.

You watched as the professor rushed up to Rosier, pulling his wand out of the inner pocket of his robe and quickly using the counter spell on him, before rushing up to your table, his index finger pointing right between your eyes. “Detention! How dare you? Detention after classes!” he shouted at you, veins popping on the side of his neck and temple, his face turning red in anger. If he had time, he would have probably embarrassed you in front of the whole class, but as the bell rang, indicating the end of your class, he had no choice, but to let you go.

Quickly collecting your belongings, you hurried out of the classroom with Sirius right behind you, calling your name relentlessly as you were about to cross the Courtyard.

“What do you want?” you asked angrily as you halted. You didn’t want to sound rude, being around Sirius was the highlight of your day, but at that moment he was a pain in your backside.

“Woah, calm down,” he gestured with his hands, but if anything, it made you angrier.

“Calm down? Calm down? It was all your fault to begin with. If you didn’t nag me about being bored, I would have kept drawing and kept my mouth shut. But you just couldn’t find anything better to do so you decided to get on my nerves and now of course it’s me who has to go to detention,” you rambled, annoyed, trying to take deep breaths to calm yourself.

“Okay, I accept that I was nagging you, but I didn’t curse my classmate,” he scoffed with a hidden smile in the corner of his lips.

“It’s not funny! If you didn’t nag me, the professor wouldn’t have questioned me, which means Rosier would have never insulted me, hence the reason you are at fault,” you groaned as you turned around and started walking away.

“Hey, stop already,” he whined, but you didn’t halt your steps, if anything, you sped up. “I’m sorry,” he tried to break the ice, but it seemed to just fire you up even more. You turned on your heel, stopping right in front of the boy.

“Sorry? That’s it? You just have to say sorry and I’m supposed to forget about it?” you scoffed in disbelief. “You must be joking,” you looked up at him in clear astonishment, but after seemingly waiting for an eternity Sirius still didn’t reply.

He wanted to, he was about to defend himself, but as he watched you getting worked up about such a minor issue, at least minor for him, he could only think about how adorable you looked when you were upset. Not that he ever wanted to see you angry or sad, but for some reason it just caught his eyes that instead of being threatening, you seemed as if you were slightly pouting.

You groaned, annoyed as the silence grew between the two of you and a small smile started appearing on Sirius’ face. “I hate you!” you shouted at him as you left him behind, stomping across the Courtyard, heavy and loud steps following you.

“Do you?” he shouted after you, silently chuckling, finding your behaviour quite funny and somewhat cute.

“I do!” you replied sulking, your steps becoming quicker.

Sirius couldn’t just let you walk away, he jogged after you and grabbed your wrist, halting your steps, pulling you back against his chest. For a second even the air stuck in your lungs as you realised how close you were to him, his breath fanning your face, his pink lips almost touching yours. You were completely engulfed by his aura, his warm hold on your wrist sending shivers through your body as his other arm sneaked around your waist.

You could swear he felt your dangerously racing heart against his chest, your lips quivering in anticipation, wanting nothing but to feel his mouth on yours. As if he could read your mind, he leaned closer and closed the gap between the two of you, kissing you slowly, sensually. You expected him to be slightly aggressive, maybe dominating, but his kiss was more passionate, gentle instead, causing you a delightful surprise.

“Why?” you breathed against his lips as you parted, your eyes still closed, completely lost in the moment.

“Because I wanted to do it for a long time,” he whispered.

“Why would you?” you chuckled awkwardly. He was always your closest friend and now that you kissed, knowing the friendship you have had was gone, you didn’t know what to do.

“Do I really need to say it?” he scratched the back of his neck, pulling a face, feeling embarrassed about the words you waited for so impatiently.

“If you don’t say it out loud, how do you expect me to understand?” you questioned, and Sirius knew how right you were.

“I- khm,” he cleared his throat awkwardly. “I- I have liked you for a while,” his words were silent and unsure, making you question it.

“Are you sure?” you asked, making him feel even more awkward.

“Of course, I’m,” he groaned, slightly sulking. “It’s just not easy to say.”

“Is it easier if I say I like you too?” you giggled happily, watching as his embarrassed expression slowly changed into a proud grin.

“I knew it, I felt it,” he chuckled happily, earning a deadpan look from you as you slapped his chest gently, before your lips curved into a small smile.

“Right, you did,” you scoffed as you peeled his hands off you and started walking to your next class with a hidden smile in the corner of your lips.

“Wait, wait,” he called after you as he tried to catch up to you.

“What now?” you asked, rolling your eyes as Sirius joined beside you.

“There’s something wrong with your hand,” he stated with a deep frown. You looked down at your hand, lifting it up, looking at it curiously, turning it up and down, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

“What do you mean? It seems alright to me,” you replied in confusion, but you couldn’t take a closer look at it as Sirius took it in his hand, interlocking your fingers.

“Now, it’s better,” he grinned playfully, making you giggle.

“Sirius Orion Black, you have a horrible sense of humour,” you scoffed, but you couldn’t fool him. He knew his little joke made you happy and even if it didn’t, the warm feeling of each other's touch, your small hands engulfed by his big palm made up for his silly joke.

Notes: If you enjoyed reading this little piece, please don’t forget to leave a like, comment and/or reblog. Your opinion matters and gives us motivation. Thank you ^^

If you enjoy my stories, please consider donating and supporting me on Ko-fi. Of course, it’s completely your choice, I will continue updating for free anyway :) Thank you <3

Harry Potter general taglist:

@awritingtree @chloer1275 @emmaev @haphazardhufflepuff @inkhearthes @pregnant-piggy @anchy-bananchy @sreidswhore @levylovegood @fific7 @harrypotter289 @moatsnow @pandaxnienke @nebulablakemurphy @sarcasticallywitty15 @iliveiloveiwrite @acuunaa @nuttytani @audreythehufflepuff @the-unmanaged-mischief @mesmerisedangel @crowleysqueenofhell @justmesadgirl @montsepliego @iamninaanna @hahee154hq @emilianamason @theincredibledeadlyviper @bruxa0007 @pxroxide-prinxcesss @naviation-xx

Harry Potter - Sirius Black taglist:

@msmb @aspiringsloth20

#sirius x reader #sirius black x reader #sirius black x reader fanfiction #sirius black x reader one shot #sirius black x reader imagine #sirius x reader imagine #sirius x reader one shot #sirius x reader fanfiction #sirius black #sirius black one shot #sirius black imagine #sirius black fanfiction #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter

394 notes · View notes

whentherewerebicycles · 3 years ago

Text

I’m reading this and am enjoying it a lot. it’s interesting to think about the areas of my life where I was given an unusually high degree of autonomy vs. those where my parents did a lot of things for me / didn’t trust me with autonomy (or were unwilling to let me suffer logical consequences). in public school I spent a lot of time basically doing independent self-designed coursework in the humanities from fourth grade onwards—obviously I had a teacher who was checking on me periodically, but between the gifted program + having a few teachers who regularly let me skip the in class work and do my own thing in a separate room, I had a huge degree of latitude over what I studied and how I studied it. and then it was like, having demonstrated that I could handle it, people just gave me even more freedom in high school, where I was allowed to do all kinds of independent study courses or design my own assignments in regular classes. apart from paying for an SAT class, my parents were also totally hands off with the college process and I m did all my own research, made my own plan, and wrote all my own stuff without any of the ‘coaching’ I think kids are pushed towards these days. and when I needed to take a year off in the middle of college they were worried about it but supportive and didn’t force me to keep going, and that year turned out to be hugely important both as necessary time to decompress & as a year that sent me in the direction of a PhD instead of some other career path. I feel like when it came to academics adults provided guidance when necessary but largely left it to me to make decisions about what I wanted/cared about, and trusted that those decisions would be thoughtful and well-researched.

but then lol the other side of my life is like... my ongoing struggles with keeping my house in any kind of order, my lack of conscientiousness and my disorganization (I slowly improve at this but it is such a struggle for me), my struggles to do things like meet deadlines or pay bills on time (queen of the late fees sigh), my inability to prioritize basic life maintenance tasks, my ability to totally ignore a slowly deteriorating environment until it’s like, Really Really Bad, etc. and I can 100% see the roots of those issues in my childhood, where my mom would write notes for me to excuse me for being late to school (thus reinforcing that there weren’t real consequences for not doing things on time), or would drive up to school to bring me homework I’d forgotten, or would let me wriggle out of commitments I’d made because I had some academics-related excuse, or would stay up late helping me finish some science project I’d procrastinated on too long, etc etc.

all of those gestures 100000% came from a place of love and a place of like, not wanting me to make mistakes that might jeopardize my Bright Future in any way. and also I think they all got folded into my family’s extremely well-established narrative for me, which is that I am the Absentminded Professor who is very booksmart but completely lacks common sense or the ability to handle small daily tasks! idk basically I think what happened was I just strongly internalized the idea that if I dilly dally long enough someone else will pick up the slack eventually, or like, if I put off paying that bill long enlightened somebody will eventually find my credit card and my login info and do it for me. I mean now I’m older and got to spend my 20s suffering the logical consequences of my actions, so I’ve slowly gotten better at some of those things. but it’s definitely something I’ve had to learn and am still having to learn in ways that are frustrating to be dealing with in my early 30s. I often have felt like I’m curiously lopsided in that regard—very ahead in some areas, and very behind or very ‘young for my age’ in other areas, especially anything to do with practical life management stuff. and I feel like this book is giving me a framework for thinking about why that is, and maybe how I can continue to work to bring myself up to speed in certain areas. also I am just learning things for parenting my own kids! though as I ‘fix’ things in my own parenting history, I can’t wait to see what other currently unforeseeable mistakes I will make as a parent that my children will one day be journaling about in their early 30s (‘my mom did X and that’s why I’m like this!!’) 😂

#long post

20 notes · View notes

joezworld · 4 years ago

Note

📁

Specifically, any headcanons of the Sodor Engines interacting with the internet, or the internet in general?

For some reason, I’d imagine that podcasts and the like are popular among vehicles in general.

That is a question that I've been working on for some time - because I'm workshopping my own Tornado headcanon (and boy oh boy does she use the internet a lot) - but I have some ideas for the Sodor engines as well:

Henry is probably the most "plugged in" engine on the island, weirdly enough. One of his drivers gave him an iPod back in the early 2000s, and kindly preloaded it with a bunch of torrented music.

BTW, that works because all the engines are now equipped with automatic train warning systems, and the little on-board computer has a USB port - as a nice side effect it allows music players to work with the engines in the same way as bone-conducting headphones do. The computer also acts as some kind of computer interface, which I am not going to explain how that works because Jesus Christ I don’t know how it does either.

Henry has managed to upgrade his iPod a few times since thanks to hand-me-down units from NWR staff, so he eventually got his buffers on a wifi-enabled iPod Touch and now downloads new music from the station wifi. He does listen to podcasts, but as every other engine will tell you, you could show Henry ten thousand new and exciting songs from the best artists in the world, and his top ten played songs are still going to be Genesis, Phil Collins, and Yes. Bear considers it a win that he managed to convince Henry to regularly listen to Rush after a mere twenty years of convincing.

Mavis and Daisy listen to a very interesting program called The News, because as stated elsewhere, they invest a shitload of money and need to be on top of things. Thomas and Percy wish that Daisy would use headphones or something similar to that, instead of listening to Bloomberg TV at loud volumes in the middle of the night. Toby frankly doesn’t mind, as it’s very nice to be kept up-to-date on the outside world.

In a move that surprises no-one, Bill and Ben have a podcast where they talk about whatever they think about at that moment - usually horse-racing, investing, and clay mining. As such, they have a wide audience, almost none of whom know that they’re that Bill and Ben, as their podcast is audio-only.

In an also unsurprising move, Edward and BoCo have been made very much aware that Bill and Ben have a podcast, but are still unsure as to what the hell a podcast is, despite being frequent guests on it.

Of the main line diesels, only Bear has shown any real interest in the internet, and was immediately put in charge of the Amazon Alexa when a unit was installed in the diesel shed. He also has an iPod that he got for Christmas a few years back. (The NWR has a very good personal electronics recycling program called give it to Henry, he’ll make use it.)

Bear does listen to podcasts as well as music, but his choices are so insufferably boring that even Henry refuses to listen to them. (I don’t really listen to podcasts - despite making one - so insert the most boring podcast you can think of here.)

As for other internet uses...

Gordon is very up-to-date on the newest social media trends - somehow - but only really cares when he is involved. He won’t admit it, but he’s been trying to figure out how to work a camera/selfie stick for some time so he can start up his own Instagram account. So far he has been unsuccessful, but one day he will manage it.

James has had an ongoing feud with his own Wikipedia page for about a decade now. The article sourced most of its information about his construction off of some out-of-print book about the L&Y. The book in question is accurate about James’ class, but not James himself - as he was a prototype engine. There’s no other primary sources available, so the very dedicated Wikipedia mod who created the page won’t change it - no matter how much James complains that he was there! He knows what happened!

Every now and again a TTTE fan blog/tumblr will make a post about hypothetical “ships” of the Sodor engines. Most of the time it’s shipping the core characters like Gordon and Henry, much to Gordon’s bafflement and Henry’s amusement!

Only one blog (a ttte fan tumblr by the curious name of @mean-scarlet-deceiver ) has gotten it right. Henry actually reached out to congratulate this blogger, but was unfortunately mistaken for a very dedicated roleplay account.

James is very annoyed by these blogs, as they have never once correctly guessed who he is “shipped” with! He has tried several times to be seen in public with Delta, but these events have never gone as planned - the “best” instance is when Edward rolled by at exactly the wrong moment, leading to months of speculation that JamesxEdward was the ship to look out for!

Thomas, being a generally oblivious sort of engine, was totally unaware of the online fan community around the TV show until he started getting actively harassed by vloggers and Instagrammers in the early 2010s. He’s fine with it now, but it was a deeply unusual experience for most of 2012.

Toby has developed an unexpectedly popular following on social media following his collab with Stormzy. His official twitter is huge now, with over a million followers, even if he has no idea what to do with it. He posts rarely, but usually manages to make an incredible post when he does.

No-one is sure who told Oliver what a “fan-production” is, but if you manage to get ahold of him for any period of time and ask him nicely, he will lend his voice to your TTTE fan-project, so long as it isn’t about [INSERT TERRIBLE SOCIAL/POLITICAL VIEW(S) HERE]. This means that he has 100% voiced dramatic readings of NSFW Fanfics before, which is always an absolute riot to spring on people unannounced.

There is a series of slice-of-life TTTE fanfics on Ao3 that have been written with such accuracy and innate railway knowledge that people are sure it was written by a Sodor engine, but nobody knows which one.

The Culdee Fell Railway has very active Instagram, Twitter and YouTube accounts, with all of the engines and coaches showing up regularly. It’s about the closest any of the railways on Sodor have come to what those outside the UK would call “normal locomotive social media”.

The Skarloey Railway has social media accounts too, but they don’t really feature the engines in any meaningful way, instead being used as a normal service announcements page.

The SR is a real working railway that doesn’t rely on tourism money as much as the others do, so they get a bit of a pass here.

The Arlesdale Railway has Twitter and YouTube, which didn’t usually get a lot of hits until 2020, when Ivan and Amanda Farrier started badgering the staff to make some videos just to alleviate some boredom. So far the most popular videos on the channel are a front-mounted camera video of the entire line slow-tv style, Bert explaining how steam engines work, and a video of Mike complaining about Justin Bieber for a solid half-hour.

That’s about it as far as Sodor goes, but before we’re done, I want to take a moment to talk about Tornado, because I have some fun ideas for her...

First of all, we need to establish that Tornado is very young. Her construction only started in late 90′s, and she was steamed to life in 2000, putting her firmly into the “Zoomer” category. Add in the fact that she was built by a bunch of old men who didn’t really know how to treat a new engine, and she was raised much more like a human than a locomotive - I’ll get to this much more in the proper Tornado Headcanon post, but what this means here is that when social media started being a thing in the mid-to-late 2000′s, the people at the A1 Trust decided that they needed a young person to run things like Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace... and, well, Tornado was the youngest person in the trust by a large margin.

I should state here that in the rest of the world, locomotives are on the internet at roughly the same level as humans are, so there’s plenty of equipment to connect a phone/computer/camera to an engine - being English, the A1 Trust didn’t know how common it was, but they managed to get it up and running just the same.

So Tornado has very quickly become attuned to the internet, just like any other teenager would. (yes, let’s let that settle into our minds for a moment - Tornado is barely old enough to drink in the US!) Quite naturally that means that she knows social media inside and out, and is actually quite a proficient social media manager for the trust, managing all of their social pages. More than one person who has complained about the trust on twitter has unknowingly been complaining to Tornado herself!

“On the internet, nobody knows that you’re a dog Engine”.

Tornado has her own personal social media accounts too, but most/all of the time she gets mistaken for a very dedicated role-player, as the general perception of British Locomotives is that they don’t tweet. This has resulted in some amazing reactions from podcast hosts (because, as you might expect, Tornado is very knowledgeable about steam traction in the 21st century, and tweets about it often, so train podcasts want to talk to her) when she gets invited onto video calls, turns on her webcam, and is met with screams from people who suddenly realize that her profile picture is accurate.

By far the best instance of this is when she was invited onto a video call with a railfan podcast. She was at the NRM at the time and managed to convince them to let her use their Skype setup. A wide-angle lens was needed because she was on the turntable in the Great Hall, so that podcast quickly got sidetracked when her webcam was turned on and revealed Tornado, with Mallard, Evening Star, City of Truro, and Green Arrow visible behind her. Whatever the original topic was quickly got thrown out in favor of a 2-hour Q&A with some of the most famous engines in the UK.

#ask response #the internet #ttte thomas #ttte toby #ttte bill and ben #ttte gordon #ttte daisy #ttte mavis #ttte henry #ttte bear #ttte oliver #tornado #nrm #trains using the internet #ttte #sodor #sodor shenangians #the formatting on this one is super fucked up and i can't figure out how to fix it - sorry

97 notes · View notes

kohakhearts · 3 years ago

Text

i’d like to address a few things about my posting here and my fics because it’s been weighing on my mind for a while and i’ve been having a difficult time deciding how i want to move forward. i know a lot of people have followed me for harry potter content, and that i’ve got a lot of ongoing hp fanworks. so i’m going to talk about what i’m planning to do about these things under the cut. my feelings on this are complicated and i’ve been trying to figure them out for, honestly, years now. thank you for following me and engaging with my content through this time. i’m very thankful for the people i’ve met and for the readers who’ve reached out to me with kind words!

i’ve talked about this before, but i haven’t liked jkr for a long long time. i started to see a lot of her shit when i was ~14. in fact, i got into some tumblr discourse about it from time to time LMAO. so, for me, “separating the art and artist” happened a long time ago (in quotes because that’s not actually possible to do). it’s the reason why i never bothered to support tcc. i read portions of online, but mostly didn’t care about it and had no interest in buying or seeing it. same with the fb movies. the more things she posted on pottermore, the more i ignored them. now, i still find some value as a fic writer in a lot of the lore presented in these things - that’s uh...what the fandom wiki is for, frankly. lmao. from a 10-year-old who worshipped this woman to a very bitter lgbtq teen within only a few years - now, at 21, i have spent most of my time ignoring her. although, i will say, it used to be a big goal of mine to be blocked by her on twitter. unfortunately, i didn’t become active on twitter until about 5 years ago, and she wasn’t very active anymore until she started spewing her terf shit. now, i just don’t want to put her on my trans friends’ timelines. so i don’t really engage, because i think we need to just ignore her. she’s like a kid having a temper tantrum. except i won’t move the metaphorical furniture out of the way for her because i don’t give a shit if she hurts herself, so to speak.

anyway, that’s the big point for me. i don’t want my trans friends to have to see her or her creations or anything. i don’t want to put them in a position where they’ll see me, someone they care about, giving unfettered praise to her (ok, in all fairness, i’ve probably never done this; i can’t ever talk about harry potter without also mentioning how much it fucking sucks, because it does. but that’s not enough) when she is actively trying to get them killed. because that’s what it is. it is violence. plain and simple.

i love harry potter. it’s such an important series to me, and there are a lot of reasons why. i wouldn’t be the writer i am now without it. i wouldn’t have met a lot of my friends. i would have missed out on a lot of important self-reflection i’ve done through these books and my transformative works. this isn’t going to change just because the author is a horrible person who created a...horrifically racist world. there are a lot of lgbtq+ hp fans out there, and i do want to support those people above all else. but at the end of the day, i’m also not willing to sacrifice the happiness i gain from creating my content when i genuinely don’t think it will make a difference whatsoever. actually, i think i can make a better statement if i continue to update my fics. just because i can’t deplatform her doesn’t mean i have to deplatform myself.

so, at the risk of looking like a performative POS, i will continue to post fic. maybe someday i’ll write oneshots again, but for now at least i’m just looking at my big projects. after the ones i’m currently working on, i can’t say whether or not there will be more, but i think it’s unlikely there will be. honestly? creating new works from scratch just isn’t as fun anymore. i’ve gotten most of what i needed/wanted out of the series, and that’s enough for me. i have a lot of guilt about creating for it at all. so i’ll continue to post, but you will never see me post a chapter without something in the notes about jkr’s rancid views. every time i post a new chapter of something, i will donate some amount to a uk-based trans organization. whether that will be a set amount or will be x dollars per x thousand words, i’m not sure yet, and it will depend on my own financial situation. because i’m a student, and unemployed, and i still have at least 2 years of school left. and i will encourage my readers to match my donations whenever possible.

as for my tumblr, well...i think it’s hard, because without personally knowing every single person in the fandom, you can’t really say which hp fans are in support of her and which ones aren’t. so i don’t really want to continue to let hp have such a large presence on my blog. i’ll probably still rb gifsets and fanartfrom time to time, but i am 100% willing to trigger tag anything related to hp and i probably won’t be making any more gifsets myself, or at least significantly fewer of them. i’m still willing to take requests for hp gifsets and fics. in the future, if people wanted it, i would be willing to do hp requests like a sort of charity drive - you pay $1+ to a trans org, i’ll accordingly match with like 100 words/$1 or 1 gif/$1 or something like that. if any other hp content creators are interested in organizing something like that somewhat en masse, let me know because i’m not really “in” the fandom anymore so my reach is quite limited lmao but i’ve done a fair bit of fundraising work irl and i would be more than happy to organize.

with all that said, you’ll notice i’ve been very inactive/haven’t been updating much in the past year-ish. part of that is that i’m busy with school. the bigger part is that my mental health has crashed and burned. i’m not in a great place and i’m endeavouring to not talk about it as much as possible because that’s something i need to be able to do for my own healing process. i’m doing a lot of therapy, but i haven’t really been able to write. i’ve been focussing on other projects trying to get my voice back and everything. don’t know how long it will take before i get back into my ongoing fics and novels, but it will happen eventually. thank you for your patience and understanding. i really hope this process will serve to make me a better storyteller in the end.

that’s kind of all i’ve got to say here. i’m willing to discuss anything i’ve mentioned if people have questions or are feeling conflicted themselves. wishing you all the very best. take care <3

#jk rowling tw //#harry potter #hp tw //#taylor.txt

5 notes · View notes

ryqoshay · 3 years ago

Text

Putting on Hairs

Primary Pairing: NicoMaki Words: 877 Rating: G, probably, mild T at best AU: Werewolf (possibly others?)

----------

Author’s Note: It’s AU August, which is something in which I’ve not often participated, but adore the idea. Recently, @lonelypond tagged me to choose a prompt, which resulted in this lovely work. At least I assume it’s lovely based on the author’s prior work; I haven’t had a chance to read it, but intend to do so later today.

Anyway, the list has been simmering in the back of my mind for a few days. And I had a silly idea for a Cryptid Theater prompt as I walked to the kitchen for some water after waking up wa~y to early this morning. Then I couldn’t stop thinking about it and couldn’t get back to sleep. So I got back up and wrote this. And here is the sleep deprived, decaffeinated result.

Notes edited with credit to @daily-nicotine

----------

“I can’t believe you would do this to me!” Nico fumed as she paced around the dressing room.

“Whatever do you mean, Nicocchi?” Nozomi inquired innocently.

“Don’t play coy with me!” Nico paused to point. “You recommended this… this circus to me!”

“I did.” Nozomi confirmed. “As your agent, I thought this role would suit my client perfectly.”

“You mean you saw an opportunity to make fun of me.” Nico growled back.

Nozomi donned a hurt expression. “You don’t like the production?”

“It’s a joke!” Nico declared. “The whole thing is one big joke! I mean of course it is. A show about werewolves titled ‘Putting on Hairs’?! What else could it possibly be but a horrible, B-rate comedy? Or tragedy more like.”

“I thought the title was amusing.” Nozomi admitted.

“Ughn!” Nico threw up her hands and started pacing again. “This was supposed to be my breakout role! But instead, I’m stuck quipping about knees bending the wrong way during transformation! I mean that’s not even true!”

“You would know.”

“Of course, I would know! That’s my point!” Nico shook her head. “You would think nobody in this whole production has ever met an actual werewolf. Or anything else for that matter. I mean of course real vampires don’t sparkle. Gods, I hate Hollywood.”

“Well, you’re not exactly admitting everything to everyone yourself, now are you.” Nozomi pointed out.

“That’s not the point.”

“Oh?”

“I can’t work like this.”

“Mm?”

“This whole thing is a mockery of who I am.” Nico groused. “And don’t even get me started on that spoiled brat of a costar.”

“I thought she was nice.”

“Nice?! Did we meet the same person?”

“She’s also quite talented.”

“Well yeah, she’d have to be to get into a school like Waseda. Unless her mommy and daddy just bought her way into that place.”

“Money may have secured her enrollment,” Nozomi conceded “and her family’s influence certainly made connections for obtaining roles like this. But I’ve done my research, her skills are her own.”

“Well maybe she should just take my role and I can get out of this whole ordeal.”

“I’d say give it a chance. Give her a chance.” Nozomi pulled something out of her shirt. “I have a feeling good things are coming.”

“You and your cards.” Nico rolled her eyes. “Put that away. And button up. Geez.” As she was about to make another round, her gaze found one of the outfits that was to be fitted for her. “Oh, and have you seen this mess?” She paused to hold up the garment. “Where did they find this? It looks like a kindergartener’s first arts and crafts project.” She tugged at a tuft of fur. “Seriously, Teen Wolf had better material for crying out loud.”

Heating up again, Nico stomped the first few steps in her circle. For her part, Nozomi watched in calm amusement, waiting for what she knew would eventually occur.

Sure enough, the strap of Nico’s top slipped off as her shoulders narrowed. Then her skirt began to slide. However, the actress was too lost in her tantrum to notice. Of course, having done this very routine dozens of times before, Nico subconsciously stepped out of everything as if it was part of her plan. Within moments, the young woman had shrunk down entirely and what was left prancing was a pretty little Pomeranian.

Nozomi held back a chortle as the fluffball yapped away, still not having noticed her transformation.

A knock sounded at the door.

That startled Nico into realizing her state and she scampered behind a chair to hide.

“Come in Maki-chan.” Nozomi called.

“How… did you know it was me?” A young redhead asked, slowly opening the door.

Nozomi merely smiled in return.

Maki raised an eyebrow but didn’t press the issue. “Anyway, I thought I heard… barking?”

Now Nozomi laughed. “Maki-chan has good ears. Do you like dogs?”

Maki tilted her head with confusion. “I don’t dislike them.” She responded. “But I was hoping to ask Yazawa-san something about our roles? Is she here?”

“As if you don’t already know.” Nozomi smirked.

“What do you…”

“You can come out, Nicocchi.” Nozomi called. “Maki-chan’s here to talk.”

“What are you…”

Nozomi moved around the chair, stooped and scooped up the dog from behind it. Nico immediately began to growl and nipped at the arms holding her.

“Here you go.” Nozomi held out the fuzzy football toward Maki.

“Eh?” Maki balked.

Nozomi sighed. “I know you’re both actresses, good ones at that, but you can stop pretending you didn’t already sense each other.”

Nico stopped squirming and let herself be handed off to a still somewhat reluctant Maki.

“But, you’re… not like me…” Maki leaned in a little toward Nozomi “or her.” She indicated Nico.

“Nope. I’m not.” Nozomi nodded.

“Then how…?”

“I have my ways.”

“Hrm…”

“Anyway, I’ll let you two have your chat.” Nozomi slipped past Maki but paused in the doorway. “Oh, Nicocchi won’t be able to change back until she calms down a bit. Perhaps try sitting with her in your lap and petting her?”

“Buweehh?” Maki almost dropped Nico.

Nozomi giggled and was gone, leaving behind a flummoxed Maki to figure out how to talk with her apparent cryptid costar.

----------

Author’s Note Continued: So there we have it. It may feel like an introduction to something bigger, but for the time being, I’m calling this one and done. Maybe someday I’ll come back and expand on this with cheesy tropes and Hollywood mockery, but I have far too much of a backlog of ideas that I want to write for my current ongoing projects.

Also, the idea for Pomeranian Nico is shamelessly stolen from... someone I follow on Tumblr.* I’m about to pass out in my chair, so I’ll have to search for that later, but preemptive thanks to the individual who posted about that months ago.

And finally, no, I did not decide what type of cryptid or monster or whatever Maki is. Maybe she’s another werewolf. Maybe she’s a vampire. I dunno, and honestly, it’s not important for the sake of this little bit. Whatever she is, I hope Nozomi made it clear that she and Nico can sense that neither are normal humans, so she’s not spilling their secrets here; they already know. And Nozomi herself is... Nozomi; probably a witch or some other spiritual/magical/whatever human type.

Edit: *lonelypond located the original post for Pomeranian Nico, or woofnic as she is adorably tagged. Thank you lonelypond for the link and thank you daily-nicotine for the wonderful art and inspiration.

#NicoMaki #AU August #Nishikino Maki #Yazawa Nico #Toujou Nozomi #Love Live #fanfic

25 notes · View notes

with-love-anu · 4 years ago

Text

I don’t like you

Pairing: James Potter x Slytherin!Reader

Summary: James and you hate each other and have the biggest prank war

Warnings: Swearing, pranks.

Word Count: 2,718

You let out a groan, squeezing your nose shut at the smell of dung bombs. Coughing, you rushed out of the room and the Slytherin dorms seeing a familiar messy black haired boy run away laughing. Your eyes pricked with tears at the awful smell and your throat felt raw. You saw your friends run out too. Taking in a deep breath, you tried to control yourself. You were done, so freaking done. This was the third time the same week that Potter and the elder Black brother had pranked you all. Except they weren’t funny anymore. That’s what pranks are supposed to be, right? Something you could laugh and enjoy at? You looked at Elodie clenching her eyes shut at the sensation. You had a plan. You knew it was crazy. But when did that ever stop you? You had never talked to James. But it was very much clear that he did not like the Slytherins. Not even a bit.

***

James woke up with a groan, smelling something flowery all around him. He yawed, ignoring the strange smell, getting up. He had transfiguration, charms and astronomy that day. Thankfully nothing with the snakes. He got out of the shower, opening his wardrobe for clothes seeing Sirius groggily go into the bathroom. Remus was asleep, that owl. Always last minute yet, never late. His eyes widened and he blinked. Everything was green? He took out all his clothes haphazardly, panicking on seeing them all dark green with silver accents. A note fell down at his feet and he picked it up with a frown.

“Dearest Marauders,

Take this beautiful gift of green robes from me. I know not all of you deserved this, but then again, didn’t feel like anyone of you should be left behind. I know how much you love us, Slytherins. Why not showcase it?

With love,

(Y/n) (Y/l/n)”

“SIRIUS!!! Remus!!!” he called out.

“What?” snapped Sirius from the washroom and Remus didn’t even move from his bed just letting out a grunt in response.

“Sirius get your ass here! And Remus wake up or I’ll kick you” he said stalking towards the bathroom as Sirius came out with a toothbrush in his hand. James shoved the letter to his face as he started reading aloud, eyes widening with word. Remus got up suddenly looking at his friends with wide eyes, rushing to his own wardrobe groaning on looking at the vivid green colours and the strong stench of flowers. Sirius however, started crackling.

“WHAT?” James bellowed.

“Well, the sarcasm is…” He snorted before he saw James frown. James shook his head as Remus glared at them both.

“This. Has. A. Strong. One. Week. Dye. It wouldn’t remove before the expected time. Why should I suffer for all the things you two do?”

“And I am not suffering?” James quipped back as Remus just shook his head, huffing and went back to his bed. James looked at Sirius who didn’t look worried at all.

“Aren’t you worried?” James asked, as Sirius shrugged.

“I look great in everything.” He said making James want to punch him.

He dressed up quickly, dashing out of the dorm towards the great hall. Ignoring the looks of the students around and the snickers he looked for you amidst the Slytherin table. He stalked towards you as you finally noticed him.

“(Y/n) why the hell did you do this?”

“Now, that’s not a way to talk about the gift I gave you. I worked hard, you know?” you said batting your eyelashes as he scowled at you.

“You. Slytherins. Are. The. Best. Thing. To. Walk. On. This. Planet.” He shouted as his eyes widened. He put his hands over his mouth as people around you looked at him.

“Merlin! You put a speaking charm on me didn’t you?”

“Well, I thought you needed some help with words.”

James growled jumping up and down in annoyance. You tried not to laugh. Really did. But the corners of your mouth turned up anyways. He looked like an idiot. You giggled as he turned towards you. His cheeks reddened.

“I don’t like you.” He said in a squeaky voice.

“I don’t like you.” You retaliated.

He hated himself for thinking that you looked adorable when you laughed. He wanted to beat himself. No. He wouldn’t. He knew what he would do. He would just prank you instead. He gave you a sickening sweet smile in return, walking back to his own table.

***

You rushed out of the bathroom angrily. Your skin was green. Green. Elodie looked at you with wide eyes.

“What happened?” she asked as you huffed.

“I don’t know, okay? I was in the shower and after using soap, my skin turned freaking green!” you hissed as Elodie tried to calm you. You handed her a small paper and she started to read it.

“Dear (Y/n),

A gift from me, to showcase your pride for your house. You could thank me later.

James.

P.S. This gift in no way means I’ve started liking you. I don’t.”

“James. James did this. That bastard!” you said, wanting to scream as Elodie rubbed your back.

“Well, it’s just hands and legs…”

“I’M GONNA GET HIM BACK. JUST WATCH ME.”

You smirked. You knew just what you were gonna do. James started a fight with the wrong person. You didn’t like him. At all.

***

James stalked towards you angrily as you tried to keep a straight face. You knew what was coming. And you couldn’t help but smile.

“Wow. Real mature of you, (Y/n)!” he said in a baby’s voice as you tried not to crackle. He sounded like he was saying everything through his nose.

“Well, one of us had to be, right?”

“Yeah. And giving me the baby voice makes you the adult.”

“I’d think so, yes.” You said brushing his hair. They were surprisingly soft. His eyes narrowed at you.

“I don’t like you.” He said as you raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t like you.” You said laughing.

***

You adjusted your cap as you heard a whistle behind you. You turned to see James. Of course, it was him.

“I like your cap.” He said smirking.

“Geez. Thank you. Just bought it.” You said through gritted teeth.

“I wonder how it would look on me.” He said as your eyes widened.

“Sorry, not gonna let you borrow it.” You hissed and he laughed.

“What if I just…” he said coming closer as you took a step back, glaring at him in warning. Not that he took it. He snatched the cap from your head as the long white hair fell down.

“James. Give it back.” You threatened, as he put it on his head.

“Nope.” He said as he started running away.

“James!” you shouted chasing him.

Students of Hogwarts saw the two of you with wide eyes. A white haired, ghostlike girl chasing after James as he laughed. This had been ongoing for a long time and people wondered who would win. Some said James, since he had been doing it forever, some (Y/n) since she was a Slytherin. Some just shook their head wishing they would just shag already and get this over with. No one however, had the guts to raise their opinions out loud, lest they would get involved in the prank.

***

“James. This doesn’t go in. We have to stir it first.” You said calmly.

“Why don’t you do it then? Miss know it all.” He said as you looked at him fiercely. Slughorn had paired the two of you together for the next project and it couldn’t be more of a disaster.

“Well, I would, if you let me!” you said taking over the pot. James looked at you as you took a few breaths and slowly made the potion, muttering for ingredients from him every now and then. The potion started coming out just as it was supposed to. He stared at you as you hummed and worked slowly and efficiently. You looked cute like that. Bending over your book, murmuring things to yourself and making the potion. A few strands of hair fell out from the bun you’d put up. His face heated up as you caught him watching you. Lucky he could blame it on the heat.

“Could you cut some beetroots for me?” you asked as he nodded, getting to work. You two finished up with the potion fairly quickly after that.

“So, library at 4?” you asked as he nodded and turned to leave. You looked at his retreating figure, thinking, maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.

And he wasn’t. The more you got to know him, the more you believed in it. You two still constantly teased each other; there was no doubt in that. Even pranked each other ever so often. But they became more and more lighthearted, something you both would crackle over. There was something different about James.

He didn’t look at you with hatred now. Come to think of it, when was it ever ‘hate’? But there was something soft about the way he gazed at you now. Gentle and almost loving? He changed his views on Slytherins, he really did even if it was just a little. It warmed you, when he for once, acknowledged the Slytherin boy to be better at potions than him. It was a start. You had started to notice other things about him too. His goofy nature, his smile which seemed to light up everything around, his eyes that sparkled with mischief. Your heart fluttered when he complimented you. You had long given up trying to beat it down. Nothing worked, ever. Was it really that bad though? Liking James?

***

You were going to the library with a skip in your step. As you turned the corner, you saw James talking to Lily. Way too close to be friends. Something inside you turned and your smile dropped. You had forgotten how he was crazy about the red-head. You stomach twisted up in knots as you saw them both. The feelings you were ignoring for so long crashed on you, drowning you. You turned, walking away.

“Oi (Y/n)!!!” James called out to you as you walked faster not wanting to talk to him. It didn’t work, James ran to catch up with you.

“Where are you going?” he asked reaching up to you.

“I was going to the library, but you seemed to be busy with Evans so I decided not to disturb the two of you.” You huffed, not knowing how to control the anger which was just seemed to burst out.

“Hey! We were just talking for a moment okay? I want us to complete the project first.” He said softly, furrowing his brows. Why were you so angry at him?

You let out a dry laugh.

“Of course you want to finish the project. You want to get away from me as soon as possible, don’t you? Because you don’t like me.” You huffed as James felt his heart fall. He gritted his teeth. Of course you still thought that.

“Yeah. I don’t like you.” He hissed. “So let’s complete the project, shall we? To get rid of each other?”

You looked away. You wanted him to tell you otherwise, you wanted him to reassure you that the two of you were something, anything. Friends, companions, anything but this. But of course he didn’t consider you anything.

“Yeah, sure.”

***

The study session was tense. The two of you never worked quietly. There were always jokes, laughs and talks between the two of you. James had regretted his words as soon as they came out of his mouth. He gulped, seeing your expression fall as you let out a robotic yes. You hadn’t looked at him since. It was killing him. He didn’t know how to break the bubble he had himself created. He hated seeing you closing off to him.

You sighed looking at the last lines you’d written. You looked at the time. It had been two hours.

“I think we should stop. There are just two pages left, we can do them tomorrow and then you’ll be free.” You said packing up your things. James opened and closed his mouth as you picked up your bag.

“(Y/n), listen!” he said as you turned towards him.

“I didn’t mean to-“ James said as you sighed cutting him off.

“James. It’s okay. I-“ you took a deep breath trying not to break. “understand. You don’t like me, I don’t like you. We are stuck together for some time. You don’t have to apologise.”

James sucked in a breath. No.

“But-“

“(Y/n)!!! There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you.” You turned to see Elodie. You looked at James, whose eyes were pleading you to stop. You couldn’t. You left the library, walking towards your friend. James stood there watching your back. Why did he feel like he was losing everything?

He grudgingly walked back to the common room, your thoughts plaguing him. Someone called for him. He turned to see Lily catch up to him.

“James, I was wondering, maybe we could sneak out for some butterbeers. It’s so cold and snowing too.”

James took a deep breath. He wasn’t in the mood for anything.

“Not today, Lily. I’m tired.”

“Oh. I meant it as a date, you know?” Lily said hopefully as he looked at her. He didn’t he feel the butterflies he used to. He had started getting them for someone else, someone far better. It wasn’t Lily he wanted. It was always an infatuation he felt for her. He wanted (Y/n). He wasn’t so sure about anything else. He shook his head. It was now or never.

“Lily, I’m sorry, I can’t.” he said, rushing towards the dungeons.

Running through the corridors, he saw, it was in fact snowing. He shook his head sprinting forward. He stopped suddenly as someone caught his eye. It was you. You were standing out in the snow, looking at the sky. He moved towards you, your back to him, conjuring a snowball. He threw it at you as your eyes widened in shock and you jumped, turning towards him.

“What now James?” you snapped.

He conjured up yet another ball and threw it at you. Your eyes widened as you glared at him.

“I wanted to say something.” He said as you conjured up a ball and threw at him in response. He hissed at the icy sensation.

“Then say it.”

“I don’t want to get rid of you.” He said throwing a snowball at you as your teeth clattered at the sensation. You threw a snowball in return glaring at him.

“Then stop acting like you do.”

He threw yet another ball at you.

“You make me act like that.” He said as you threw a huge one in response.

“I make you act like an idiot?”

“Yes. You drive me crazy!” he said throwing some snow at you as you grunted.

“Then why don’t you leave me alone?” you huffed as he threw yet another ball at you, making you cough and splutter.

“Because I can’t.”

“Why?” you asked throwing a ball at him.

“Because I can’t leave the best thing that happened to me.” He said as you stopped. You looked at him with wide eyes, stalking towards him. You poked his chest with every word you spoke.

“I’M. THE. BEST. THING. THAT. HAPPENED. TO. YOU??? WHAT. IS. THIS? SOME. KIND. OF. PRANK? YOU. DON’T. LIKE. ME.” You said huffing as he just took your hand away and cupped your cheek with his other one, leaning in and kissing you. It was short. You stared at him as you pulled away.

“I promise those are the truest words I’ve ever said.” He whispered as you looked at him and pulled to kiss him again. He sighed against it, pulling you closer by your waist and you tangled your hands in his locks. He moaned a little feeling your warm mouth against his. As you both pulled back breathless he placed his forehead along yours.

“For the record, I still don’t like you.” He said as you giggled.

“I don’t like you either.” You whispered back smiling.

A/N: This is based on the ship request I did long ago for @im-a-writer-right. Can be found here.

#james #james potter #james x reader #james potter x reader #james x y/n #james potter x y/n #the marauders #marauders #marauders x reader #hp #harry potter #Anu writes

375 notes · View notes

waitimcomingtoo · 5 years ago

Note

Before anything, I want you to know that your stories are amazing and unique. I've read all of them and love each one so, so much! Would you write a Soulmate AU with either Tom or Peter? Maybe like same tattoo in the same place, and they only found out because one of them accidentally saw the others naked 😂

Mockingbird

Pairing: Soulmate!AU Tom Holland x Reader

Synopsis: a mixup in the bathroom leads you to accidentally seeing Toms soulmate tattoo

Warnings: nudity? Nothing is described but the word “butt” is used so

Authors note: thank you @clara-licht ! This inspired me so much that I wrote it all in one sitting and I’m really proud of it. I hope you like it and thank you for reading my work!

Masterlist

Dating didn’t really exist in a world where soulmates were born with matching tattoos. It was seen as taboo to date anyone else before you found your soulmate. You always respected the rules and kept as eye out for the tattoo that matched yours, but even the impracticality of it all couldn’t stop you from developing a crush on your best friend, Tom Holland.

You never asked where his tattoo was or what it looked like, partially out of respect and partially out of fear that it wouldn’t match yours. The fear didn’t keep you from wondering what his was. You’d seen him shirtless plenty of times, so you knew it wasn’t anywhere on his top half. You’d seen him in shorts as well, so it couldn’t be in his legs. You’d been friends with Tom long enough to feel like you would’ve at least caught a glimpse of it, but you never did.

Until one day.

You and Tom had gone swimming in your pool and he told you he was gonna shower before you grabbed something to eat. Assuming he’d be in your bathroom for a while, you picked up your copy of To Kill a Mockingbird and sat on the couch to read it. After around twenty minutes, the lemonade you’d been drinking hit you and you really had to pee. You put your book down and went to the nearest bathroom.

As soon as you opened the door, your eyes landed on your naked best friend facing away from you. More importantly, they landed on the small tattoo of a bird on his left, uh, cheek.

“Ah! Naked!” You screamed, completely forgetting that Tom said he was gonna be in the shower.

“Ah! Y/n!” Tom whipped around with his hands covering himself.

“Ah! Leaving!” You shut the door in a haste and pressed your back against it. You clamped a hand over your mouth as you slid down the door, hot tears spilling onto your cheeks. You never put much thought into what or where Toms soulmate tattoo was, but the jarring and unexpected discovery of it made your heart shatter for one reason:

It didn’t match yours.

He had a bird, and you didn’t. That meant there was some girl out there with the exact same tattoo that was going to end up with the man you loved. You buried your face in your hands as silent sobs left your body. It caught you so off guard that you couldn’t move from in front of the door. After a while, you heard the shower turn off and you scrambled to your feet. You ran back into the living room and picked up your book, pretending to read as you waiting for Tom to come in. You ended up staring at the same page for seven minutes until Tom walked into the room with an awkward clearing of his throat.

“Hey, champ.” He addressed you.

“Hi, sport.” You said without looking up from the book. He sat down on the opposite side of the couch and the room went silent.

“How are you?” He said to break the silence.

“A little traumatized, but otherwise I’m doing all right.” You replied, never looking at him. You held the book up a little higher so he couldn’t see the tears threatening to fall.

“You didn’t see the old web shooter, right?” He blurted after another beat of silence and you shut the book with a hard thud.

“No.” You stared straight ahead.

“Or my jat?” He asked. This time, you looked at him. His curls were damp and his face was red, two things you’d normally find adorable. But Tom didn’t look the same to you. He went from being someone who could potentially be your soulmate to someone who you knew wasn’t your soulmate, and that changed how you viewed him. Unable to look at him any longer without crying, you looked away.

“Your what?” You asked quietly.

“My jat.” He repeated.

“What’s a jat?” You asked as you pretended to look at your nails.

“It’s slang.” He shrugged.

“For?” You asked.

“Fat ass.” He mumbled as if he were ashamed. You would normally laugh, but you felt numb at that point.

“No. I didn’t see that either. Most likely because you don’t have one.” You tried to act normal. Tom cracked a smile, having noticed your indifference.

“Tumblr would disagree.” He said a little too proudly.

“Well they haven’t seen you like I have.” You practically snapped at him. You felt bad, especially since he had no idea why you were upset.

“Are you okay?” He finally asked and you wanted to scream.

“Fine.” You said coldly, picking the book back up.

“Are you hungry?” He tried to change the subject.

“No.” You muttered.

“Now I know something’s wrong.” He half heartedly laughed.

“Nothing wrong, Tom.” Your anger began to rise.

“You’re not even looking at me.” He said, a little hurt.

“I’ve seen enough of you today.” You replied.

“Y/n.” He said, leaning forward and placing a hand on your knee.

“Tom.” You stared him right in the eye as you pushed his hand off.

“You’re acting off. Are you sure you‘re okay?” He looked you up and down, wishing you’d tell him what was upsetting you so he could fix it.

“I’m fine.” You repeated, flipping to the next page dramatically even though you didn’t read anything.

“And you didn’t see anything?” He inquired.

“No.” You said firmly as your throat tightened. “I didn’t see anything.”

You avoided Tom for the next few weeks. You gave him lame excuses that you had work or school to get out of seeing him. You knew it wasn’t fair just as much as you knew it wasn’t his fault, but you couldn’t bear to face him. You could not bear the reality that he wasn’t your soulmate. If he wasn’t, then what was the point? Why give him all your time and energy if he was destined to be with another girl? You spent the four weeks apart crying and trying to fall out of love with him. He was never yours to lose, but it still hurt like hell. Your beating heart was replaced by a dull ache. You didn’t want a different soulmate. You didn’t want to someday attend the wedding of Tom and his. Even if the universe intended for you two to end up with different people, you still yearned for him. It was unfathomable to you that your heart was made to beat for someone other than Tom. You didn’t want it too.

Maybe the universe was wrong.

After four weeks of not seeing each other, he pulled up to your house, unannounced. When he didn’t get out of the car, you went outside to see him. With your heart in your throat, you knocked on his window. He rolled it down and stared at you stone faced.

“Hey.” You said awkwardly.

“I wasn’t even sure if you still lived here.” He replied in a flat tone.

“I do.” You offered weakly.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” He stated as he looked at you sadly in the eyes.

“I’ve been busy.” You lied.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” He repeated in a more final tone. You didn’t say anything for a while and he sighed.

“Get in the car.” He nodded towards the passenger seat.

“Where are we going?” You asked.

“I don’t know.” He said sincerely. “Please, just get in.”

You got in and drove silently to an empty park. Tom parked the car in an open area where you could see the stars. He didn’t ask you why you were avoiding him. He instead began to tell you about how he’d been the past four weeks and about his next project. The conversation was normal, and you slowly warned up to him and spoke like everything was normal. You sat in the car and just talked for hours, until the sun started to rise.

“Truth or dare?” He continued your ongoing game.

“Lets go dare.” You shrugged sleepily.

“I dare you to wear my jacket for the rest of our time together.” He said as if it’d been something he had been thinking about for a while.

“What? Why?” You asked at the absurd request.

“Because I dared you too.” He replied as he handed you his jacket.

“Okay.” You said skeptically as you slid his jacket on over your tank top. “Truth or dare?”

“Truth.” He nodded.

“Whats your biggest secret?” You asked as you took a sip of his water bottle.

“Oof. I don’t know if I can tell you.” He laughed to himself.

“You can’t tell me? We tell each other everything.” You shoved him a little.

“But this is embarrassing.” He told you.

“Please?” You tilted your head to the side. He stared at you for a moment, as if decided what he should do, then shook his head.

“No, I can’t. No one can ever know. Only Haz knows right now and I plan on keeping it that way.” He said definitely.

“What? That makes me want to know even more.” You whined.

“No, because if I tell you, then I have to show you. And I’m not showing you. No way.” Tom shook his head.

“Show me what?” You inquired.

“My tattoo.” He said.

“I already know about the one on your foot.” You answered, disappointed that the secret was something you already knew about.

“No. It’s a different one.” He said to your surprise.

“You have another secret tattoo?” You sat up in your seat. “Now you have to show me.”

“I can’t. I physically can’t.” He stressed.

“Why not?” Now you were really curious.

“Because it’s on my asscheek!” Tom shouted. “There! Are you happy? I have a tattoo on my butt. That’s it. That’s the secret.”

“You have a tattoo on your butt.” You repeated as the gears in your head began to turn.

“Yes, we’ve established that.” Tom said, a little annoyed.

“Of a bird.” You continued.

“Yes, we’ve established th-“ Tom cut himself off and looked at you incredulously. “How did you know that?”

“Remember that one time I walked in on you in the bathroom and said I didn’t see you naked?” You asked as your heart began to race, the fire of hope returning.

“Yeah.” Tom remembered.

“I saw you naked.” You admitted. Tom was silent for a moment as the shock of your confession went through him.

“Should I apologize? I feel like I should apologize.” He broke the silence.

“You don’t have too. It was my fault.” You told him.

“Is that why you’ve been acting different? Because you saw my juicy dumper- ah I mean, butt?” He tried to lighten the mood and you laughed a little.

“Yeah. I mean, no. It’s not that I saw your butt.” You sighed, not ready for the impending conversation. “It’s that I saw your tattoo.”

“And that made you distance yourself from me?” Tom asked in confusion.

“Yes.” You nodded, feeling guilty that he noticed your purposeful avoidance.

“Why?” He asked sadly.

“Because I don’t have the same one.” You choked out as you looked him tearfully in the eyes. “I can’t imagine loving someone else the way I love you. Since the beginning, I thought it’d be us. I thought it would be you and I in the long run. But when I saw your soulmate tattoo and realized I didn’t have the same one, I couldn’t face you anymore. I couldn’t act like it didn’t kill me that my soulmate is someone other than you. Or that there’s a girl out there with a bird on her butt, and she gets to end up with you. I couldn’t do that.”

“Darling.” Tom said softly and put a hand on your knee.

“Don’t. There’s nothing you can say right now.” You pushed his hand off and stared out the window.

“It kills me too.” He said after a few minutes of silence. You looked back at him and saw that he was crying.

“What?” You asked.

“It kills me too. Why do you think I made you put on my jacket? Do you know how hard it is to be around you when you wear things like that? Sleeveless shirts that show off that lotus tattoo on your arm?” He said in a quivering voice. “I despise that tattoo. It kills me to see it.”

“Why?” You inquired.

“Because I don’t have it.” Toms voice broke as he yelled. “And it’s a painful reminder that I will never be with you every time I see it.”

The car went silent for a while as Tom let out a fear tears.

“It’s a mockingbird, by the way.” He said between sniffles.

“What?” You asked.

“My tattoo. We were hanging out one night a few years ago and you took your jacket off, you just had a tank top on underneath. I got sick to my stomach when I saw that tattoo for the first time.” Tom shook his head with disdain. “I left your house and got drunk at some bar because I couldn’t handle the fact that you were gonna end up with somebody that wasn’t me. The upstairs doubled as a tattoo parlor and Haz dared me to get one and I agreed. I couldn’t think of anything to get, but then I thought of you and your smell and your smile and your favorite book-“

“-To Kill a Mockingbird.” You interjected.

“Yeah. So I got that. A mockingbird. I didn’t want it to affect my career so I got it in a place no one could see. I just needed to feel a different kind of pain that night than the one I was already feeling.” He said in the most heartbreaking tome you’d ever heard him use.

“That’s not your soulmate tattoo?” You whispered in disbelief. You’d been torn apart over it for weeks just to find out he’d gotten the tattoo done himself.

“No. It’s not.” Tom said as he stared out the window. You could see tears rolled down his eyes in the reflection.

“That’s not mine either.” You said, suddenly desperate for him to know the truth.

“What?” He turned around to face you, a flicking gleam of hope in his eyes.

“I got the lotus for my eighteenth birthday because it’s my moms favorite flower. I forget it’s there so I never talk about it.” You told him. “And you never asked.”

“I tried my hardest to forget about it. I couldn’t be around you otherwise.” Tom admitted as he subconsciously examined all your exposed skin for your actual soulmate tattoo.

“That’s exactly why I haven’t been able to be around you recently.” You told him the truth and he looked at you with a distinct sadness.

“I had no idea.” He said apologetically.

“Me either.” You said, half relieved and half dreading the next question. “Then what is your soulmate tattoo?”

“What if it doesn’t match yours?” Tom knew what you were really looking for. Now that your feelings for each other were admitted, there was so much more at stake.

“What if it does?” You touched his face with light fingertips.

“Are you still gonna love me if I’m promised to someone else?” He practically begged.

“I’m always gonna love you.” You leaned in closer and said with determination. Tom cracked a smile that quickly faded.

“It could be written in the stars that I belong with another girl.” He feared.

“Then we make our own constellation.” You promised him. That was enough to convince him as he gave you a swift nod.

“Are you sure?” He asked one last time.

“Just tell me.” You said, ready to accept whatever your fate was.

“It’s a little tree on my inner thigh.” He said slowly.

“An olive tree?” You asked.

“Yea, how did you…” Tom trailed off as you lifted your skirt to reveal a delicate olive tree on your inner thigh. Tom stared at the tattoo for a minute before looking up at you. Your chest heaved with nervous breaths as you met his tear filled eyes. Without another word, you lunged for each other and kissed with sweet devotion.

After you fell sleep that night, Tom snuck into the bathroom with a sharpie. He skillfully drew a little olive tree on his inner thigh and made a mental note to get it tattooed there for real. The day you’d gone swimming, also known as the day you saw Toms tattoo, Tom had seen the little olive tree on your inner thigh. Even though it crushed him that his soulmate tattoo was a mockingbird and didn’t match yours, he wasn’t going to let it stop him from being with you.

Maybe the universe got it wrong.

He was so sure his soulmate was you, why else would his tattoo be a reference to your favorite book? So he decided to lie. He’d tell you the mockingbird tattoo was a drunk mistake. He’d tell you he also had an olive tree. He’d tell you you were his soulmate. He’d tell you anything to make sure you never found out the truth. And most of all, he’d hope and pray he never came across a girl with a mockingbird tattoo.

Part two

Tag List 🏷

@maybemona @foreverxholland @writing-for-hours-on-end @lavender-writer @captainmandeestudent17 @whatareyouhidingpeter @takenbyheartstrings @ultrunning @imyourliquor-youremypoison @theolwebshooter @andreasworlsboring101 @guksmyfav @waiting-to-be-myself @letsloveimagines @peterparkoure @a-villain-vying-for-attention @justcallmehitgirl @averyfosterthoughts @jackiehollanderr @tiny-friggin-human @celestial-skylines @loveat2am @mara-twins @iamaunicorn4704 @delicately-important-trash @mjspxrker @spideygirl2003 @the-crazy-fanfictionist @kii-mii @maryjanee23 @spacebitch2 @vgiselle @geeksareunique @emmamarshmellow

#tom holland x you #tom holland x reader #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland fluff #tom holland angst #tom holland soulmate au #peter parker x reader #peter parker x y/n #peter parker x you #iron man #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker imagine #tom holland imagine #soulmate!au #tom holland x soulmate!reader

1K notes · View notes