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raaorqtpbpdy · 1 year ago

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Brotherhood (1)

Directly following the events of Double Helix, Danny enrolls in Bayville High school and joins the Brotherhood of Mutants. He's not sure if they actually believe he's a ghost and not a mutant, but at least they don't care enough to challenge him on it, and that's good enough for him.

Written for @crossoverdanuary Week 2024, Day 5: The Owl House X-Men Evolution | Shell

I have seen exactly two episodes of The Owl House, and that was like four years ago or something, so I was not confident in my ability to write a crossover for it.

The one word prompt doesn't actually appear until the second chapter, but I tried to work in a theme of both Danny and Wanda "coming out of their shell" throughout the fic. You can also read it on AO3.

Chapter 1: Halfway House

[Warnings for mild violence and mentions of mental health issues]

Danny never realized how much of a pain in the ass it was to enroll in school by himself. Jazz really deserved a lot more credit for dealing with all the stuff their parents forgot to do. It was so much paperwork. Nevertheless, with some effort, Danny got himself enrolled in Bayville High and slipped right in under the radar. Since his human form didn't stand out, he just showed up on his first day and figured things out from there.

Just like he'd suspected, there were several mutants at the school, meaning none of the other students picked up on Danny's weird vibes.

The guy who never took off his stupid sunglasses and the German kid whose hands were in a permanent Vulcan salute were perfect camouflage. At least, they helped him hide from the normal students. The mutant students picked up on him within the first week.

"Hey, new kid!" A group of students cornered Danny at his locker while he was switching out his books before heading to lunch.

He recognized most of them from his classes, Lance, Pietro, and a kid everyone called Toad, but Danny didn't know his real name. There was also a huge guy with a blond Mohawk who was about the same size and Danny's dad, maybe even a few inches taller. Danny had seen him around school, since he was kind of hard to miss, but didn't have any classes with him, and so didn't know his name.

"Can I help you?" Danny asked.

"You're a mutant, aren't you?" Lance asked him.

"No. What's it to you?" Danny responded.

"We're called the Brotherhood of Mutants," Pietro explained. "Or just the Brotherhood for short. We've seen what you can do and we want you to join us."

"Unless you're already one of the X-Men," the big guy said. "You're not, are you?"

"Of course he's not. We would know if he was!" Pietro snapped. "So, what do you say?"

"Join you?" Danny raised an eyebrow and gave them a skeptical frown. "What exactly would that entail?"

"Oh it's great!" Toad told him. "You get to live at the board house where there's no rules, fight the X-Men... I mean... we always get our butts kicked, but it's still cool!"

"Free room and board is enticing," Danny admitted.

He was currently squatting in a for-sale home and only getting away with it because he was already gone for school before the first tour of the day and he thought of locks as more of a suggestion than a rule.

"But I don't join just any mutant group that offers me an invitation. What are your actual beliefs, your goals? What do you stand for?"

"Uhh...." Toad put a finger to his lip thoughtfully. "You know what, I don't really know."

"We stand for ourselves," Lance told him, pushing Toad aside. "Because when it comes down to it, nobody else will, and we freaks gotta stick together. You in or what? 'Cause we ain't gonna waste our time with you any longer than we have to."

Lance extended a hand to Danny, and Danny just looked at it for a long moment before accepting the handshake.

"I'm in," Danny agreed.

These guys seemed like dicks, to be honest, but their ideals aligned with his a whole lot better than professor goodie two-shoes. Plus, maybe it was just a coincidence or an accident, but they hadn't actually called him a mutant. They'd asked if he was, but hadn't pushed when he said no, not like that stupid professor had.

"Great," Lance said. "I'll pick you up in my jeep after school, but be on time because I'm not waiting for you."

"Oh, by the way, Tabitha's part of our group, too," Pietro told him. "You may know her as Boom Boom. Hope you don't mind if there's a girl in the house."

"Why would I mind?" Danny asked.

Pietro didn't answer, just sped away.

After school, he waited by what he assumed was Lance's jeep. It was the muddiest jeep in the school lot, so he was only guessing, but he was pretty sure. He ended up being right, and Lance drove them all to the Brotherhood's boarding house. The place was a disaster area, and a complete mess. There were still a couple of free rooms, but Danny opted to lay claim to the attic and moved one of the free beds up there.

"Why would you want the creepy old attic?" asked the big guy, whom everyone called Blob.

"Because, a haunted attic is objectively cooler and spookier than haunted bedroom," Danny told him matter-of-factly. "I'm not gonna be some lame bedroom ghost. What am I, an eight-year-old girl whose depressed mother drowned her in a bathtub? No! I'm a science experiment gone wrong. Besides, this place doesn't have a basement, so I have to settle for the next best thing."

"Oh... I guess that makes sense," Blob said, though he was scratching his head.

"Uh, no," Pietro disagreed. "It doesn't. This new guy is a straight up weirdo."

"So's Toad and we let him stick around," said Tabitha, climbing the stairs to drop off her backpack before heading out again to meet the X-girls at the mall. "At least Danny showers."

"Hey! I shower!" Toad argued indignantly. "I shower every month!"

—

"There's a new mutant at school. The Brotherhood just recruited him yesterday. Should we have invited him to join the Institute instead, Professor?" Jean asked.

She and some of the other X-Men had noticed that the new kid who'd just enrolled in their high-school had strange powers. He was pretty sneaky with them, and none of them could seem to figure out exactly what they were, so they'd just been keeping an eye on him. But now, he'd started hanging out with the Brotherhood mutants, so Jean had convinced the others to bring it up to Professor X for guidance.

"He might still change his mind," she continued. "He doesn't seem like a bad guy. I saw him turn invisible to avoid a group of jerks at school seeing him walk past."

"What?" Scott asked, quirking his eyebrows at her. "Invisibility? But I saw him use a power just like Kitty's to open his locker when it jammed."

"Like, no way!" Kitty argued. "The guy's totally a telekinetic!"

"Maybe he can replicate powers, then?" Rogue suggested. "Because I'm pretty sure I saw him trip Duncan on a patch of ice when he was being a douche."

"Hmm... interesting," Professor X said thoughtfully. "What was this boy's name, did you say?"

"Oh, no I didn't, it's Danny Fenton," Jean answered.

The professor's eyes widened in recognition.

"Do you know him, Professor?"

"Indeed," he confirmed, steepling his fingers as he considered his memories of the boy. "Daniel Fenton is a mutant with an incredibly powerful and versatile set of abilities, notably similar to the abilities ghosts are thought to have—flight, invisibility, intangibility, the ability to create cold spots, move objects telekinetically, and warp electrical fields, among others.

"I first met him at a mental care institution for mutants where I perform regular evaluations on their younger patients," he explained further. "Because of his particular range of powers, Danny is under the delusion that he actually is a ghost, rather than a mutant, and as such, he believes that he cannot die, which causes him to sometimes be reckless with his own life. It also upsets him severely to have his delusion challenged by others.

"I was informed of him escaping from the institution, not long ago, but I never would have expected him to come here. I'm even more surprised that he would be willing to align himself with a mutant group. He always showed clear disdain when I mentioned my school to him, and even more so when I tried to imply that he was truly a mutant, rather than a ghost."

"Sounds like Danny will end up being a powerful enemy," Scott said.

"Indeed," the professor agreed. "He's one of the most powerful mutants I know of, and to make matters worse, he has a tendency to lose control over his powers when you do or say anything to upset him."

"So basically, don't try to argue with him about being a ghost," Rogue surmised. "That about cover it?"

"For a start," Professor X said. "You'd also do well not to get in a debate with him about ideals, he's rather... passionate about his."

"I take it he doesn't agree with yours?" Scott guessed.

"You're quite correct," the professor confirmed. "You would all do well not to engage with him. Offering to let him join the institute at this juncture would no doubt end poorly. Best to leave him alone for now. But keep an eye on him. He could be dangerous."

"Understood, Professor."

—

"So, Lance," Danny crossed his legs and floated in the air by the couch in a way that he knew unsettled the rest of the Brotherhood, which of course meant he thought it was dreadfully funny, "care to explain the rumbling this morning? I'm pretty sure Bayville isn't on any fault lines."

"Kitty asked him to the dance," Toad answered for him, making mocking kissy faces at him.

Lance shoved his face away, but all five of them had already devolved into teasing Lance mercilessly.

"Stuff it, Toad. It's not a big deal," he said.

Danny snickered at him as the teasing continued, Tabitha seating herself on the arm of Lance's chair and leaning into his personal space to ask if Kitty was gonna be his girlfriend while he sat there with a resigned expression on his face.

"We wouldn't be caught dead at that stupid dance!" Blob declared, and Danny laughed even harder.

"Really Freddy?" Tabitha asked, tapping her finger on his nose with a teasing pout. "Aw, that's too bad. 'Cause I was thinking of askin' you."

"U-uh... you were?" Blob asked dumbly.

"Yeah, but if you don't wanna go..." she raised her arms as if giving up on the idea.

"Ooh! Ask me! I'll go!" Toad volunteered, jumping up and down with his hands raised.

"Pathetic," scoffed Pietro, always pretending he was too cool for the rest of them, like he wasn't sprawled out of the same greased stained couch the rest of them sat on.

"Hey, speedy." Tabitha turned to him and put her hands on her hips. "You think you're too good for me?" she asked, leaning down to him with laughter on her voice."

"Nah, you just couldn't keep up with me," Pietro explained. "I mean, I can keep four girls busy dancing at the same time." He did a lap around the room at super-speed to prove his point. "Ha!"

"What about you, cold spot?" she asked Danny.

"You're nice and all," he said with a light-hearted smirk, "but I'm only interested in people who don't know I'm alive, don't want me alive, or have actively tried to kill me in the past, whether or not they succeeded doesn't matter though."

"Is that so?"

Tabitha tossed one of her little bombs in his lap, but he turned intangible and let it blow up on the floor below him.

"Now that that's settled, let's all go! And show that school how to party!" She whooped and just like that, everyone was on board, even Lance seemed happy about it, although admittedly, Danny still wasn't really interested in going. A school dance sounded like a really boring way to spend his evening, and he didn't even have a suit.

Luckily, Danny found some nicer clothes in a box in the attic. They were a little big, but they'd do.

And like that, the Brotherhood all went to the school dance. Pietro actually showed up arm-in-arm-et-cetera with four different girls.

Danny wasn't much for dancing, but in the end, the dance was a lot more exciting than he'd thought it would be. That kind of thing happened when weird little dinosaurs tore up the dance floor—literally.

He was thrown off for a moment when one of them jumped at a girl and went right through her, thinking maybe the creature was some kind of ghost. But then a table went right through her too, and he made the connection. The girl was Lance's date, meaning she must've been Kitty, who was a mutant. Intangibility had to be her mutant ability. It was a good one, came in handy a lot. Good for her.

They looked scary, but the creatures weren't too hard to take down, especially not once Danny got his hands on one and could sense it was from another dimension. He'd never had much luck making portals before, but it was easier to send stuff back where it came from than it was for things to be in dimensions where they didn't belong, and after almost dying a second time, he finally managed to send one of the creatures back to its own dimension.

"How did you do that?" shouted the guy who always wore sunglasses—and after seeing him lift them to shoot lasers out of his eyes, Danny finally understood why.

"Uh... luck, mostly!" he answered.

Danny was getting the chance to see a lot of their abilities for the first time tonight. That red-headed girl had telekinesis. The German kid teleported away with his date after Lance ripped up the gym floor to corral the creature back Danny's way. These kids seemed to be pretty powerful.

Now that the gym was basically evacuated, it was just Danny, the mutants, and one more monster.

"Can you do it again?" Lance asked.

"Are you kidding? I barely did it the first time!"

While they were arguing, the creature forced its way into the hall.

"Shit! We better go after it!"

The remaining Brotherhood members and X-men left the gym, chasing after it. Down the hall, they ran into a guy Danny didn't recognize, but the X-men called him Forge, and he was carrying a strange device.

"Whatever that thing is, don't point it at me!" Danny said when he saw where Forge was aiming it, albeit probably unintentionally, and he stepped aside, out of the blast zone.

"It's a portal maker," said Forge. "It'll send them back to the dimension they came from."

"In that case, definitely don't point it at me," Danny said.

"My scans indicate traces in the gym."

"I already took care of the one in the gym, sent it back myself," Danny said. "We need to get the one that ran down the hall." Much to Danny's relief, Forge didn't question him, and instead, they all got back to running.

By the time they found the one that got away, Tabitha, Blob, and Toad had already taken care of it, and were sitting on it to keep it down.

"Hey, I recognize that thing!" Toad remarked, pointing to Forge's portal-maker.

"I modified to to sent these things back to the dimension they came from," Forge explained. "Everyone step back."

The three of them were more than happy to do so. The creature barely had time to get to its feet before it got zapped back home.

"That should be all of them," Forge said. "My sensors aren't picking up anymore traces from that dimension."

"Thank the Ancients," Danny said, half-sarcastically. "Does this kinda stuff happen a lot around you guys? Cause I may have to rethink my membership."

"You'd be more than welcome at the Xavier Institute," Scott started to say, only to get elbowed by Jean.

"He doesn't want to join Institute," Jean hissed. "Remember what the professor said?"

"Yeah, sorry, but she's right," Danny said. "Professor Xavier and I don't exactly see eye-to-eye. It was fun fighting monsters with you, but I'm gonna stick with the brotherhood. See ya around."

They two groups parted ways, The X-Men to their institute and the Brotherhood to their board house.

"I didn't know you knew Professor X," Tabitha said as they headed toward Lance's jeep. "How'd you meet him."

"At a mental institution," Danny answered, trying to keep his voice casual.

The casual tone did not prevent the rest of them form turning to stare at him when they stopped at a red light.

"It's nothing you guys have to worry about," he assured them. "I'm not crazy. It was just a misunderstanding."

"Some misunderstanding," Lance scoffed. "Let me guess, it was the ghost thing, right?"

"Are you really gonna go there?" Danny asked, his tone warning.

"Ha! No," Lance replied. "You may be a ghost, but I don't plan on joining you any time soon."

"Good call," Danny said.

He had no idea if these Brotherhood folks actually believed he was a ghost, or if they were just playing along, but it didn't actually matter. They respected him enough not to call him delusional, and that made them better than the X-Men and their fearless leader.

#dp #danny phantom #x men evolution #x men #dp x x men evolution #fic #things i wrote #crossover #dp crossover #crossover danuary week 2024 #crossover danuary week #double helix #brotherhood #sequel

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brigitahills · 2 years ago

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NT LIVE: Fleabag Encore, 2023

10/10

Yesterday, on the 17th of June, at 6 pm, my mum and I went to go watch a screening of Pheobe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag; the popcorn I ate was cheddar cheese flavoured, making me feel worthy of my British citizenship, which I accompanied with a black americano as I had been clubbing the night before and was running off of 2 hours of precious sleep. Like many people, I watched the TV show Fleabag religiously, again and again, in times of discomfort for support and also times of boredom for some top-quality content leading me to develop a deep love for this woman, both Waller-Bridge as a writer and performer and Fleabag as a character as she expresses what many spend their whole lives trying to conceal, exploring shame and hidden emotions in a way that people had been yearning for yet never wanted to take a step towards themselves.

It feels wrong being a 19-year-old with next to no writing experience reviewing and ranting about my opinions on works done by incredibly talented professionals. Yet, still, we all have to start somewhere, so here we go…

Waller-Bridge’s one-woman performance was nothing short of incredible; as a gen z kid whose attention span grows shorter by the second day, I was worried that sitting there for an hour and a half watching one woman speak with a chair as her only prop would begin to bore me yet as the play started and progressed I found myself so entranced by her over-exaggerated facial expressions and ability to create a whole new scene and character by the tone of voice and incredible impressions of types of people that we all face in our lives such as a man she meets on the tube who is given the nickname of ‘rodent’ which is in reference to his tiny mouth yet also speaks of his sleazy behaviour of bad yet overly confident flirting and demanding of more and more nude photos from Fleabag herself.

The success of Fleabag can be credited to the raw nature of the one-woman show. Fleabag talks to us, the audience, directly and informally, like we're having a gossip with our friends, having a debrief of the past year of our lives. As much as I love the TV adaptation of Fleabag, the live performance hit my emotions so much harder and deeper because of the intimacy of the performance, not having someone hiding how they truly feel about themselves and those around them, although is desired by most of us we hardly ever get to experience it. Waller-Bridge creates a level of relatability that is unmatched in the entertainment world. Fleabag is here to show and express emotions that were usually too scared or intimidated to talk about, it's so simple, yet the way that Waller-bridge has written and performed this story captivates whoever lays their eyes on it can't help but fall in love with the storytelling as it makes you feel free, understood and seen.

Overall, I wish I could have written a more well-balanced piece and included some flaws, but I have found none; I love Pheobe Waller-Bridge, I love Fleabag, and I genuinely feel lucky to have been able to watch the show, even if it was a recording, at The Arts Picturehouse Cambridge and not the actual live performance at the National Theatre itself if you ever have the chance to see this one-woman show you should really go for it, it's nowhere near a waste of time and money.

#fleabag #pheobe waller bridge #play #one woman show #fleabag era #review #visual arts #theatre #cinema

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steveskafte · 6 months ago

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FOR COLD HEARTS When I was a kid, one of my biggest questions was: "Why are adults so cold?" Most children feel everything close to the surface, without any learned behaviors to bury their emotions – and I was even more raw than most. As likely to cry as laugh, be loud and confident, or drift into an anxious silence. I made myself a promise not to get any better at hiding what I felt, which naturally made my teens and twenties an especially chaotic experience. But it's left me as someone living up to the role of a dreamer, loving passionately, and pushing through life with a wide-open heart. On the way, the passing lives of my peers showed me how that coldness could happen. Bitterness had a lot to do with it. Putting high expectations on people, society, and economy. Plans that never came true, hopes dashed that left them disappointed. They turned that disappointment into disconnection, letting their joy grow dull and sharpening their anger. It got easy for them to rant about some slight depicted in the news, but hard to spend as much effort talking about a friend they loved or beautiful song they just heard. Everyday adventures weren't really worth it anymore. They started believing that hiking a stream or visiting a new town wouldn't make a real change, and so traded away their evenings and weekends for big trips only. So they got boring – it's inevitable when you're bored. Though that can still be a legitimate state of being if you're honest about it. But instead of openly expressing apathy, even when it's obvious to all observing, we hide because we're worried what it says of us. There's a fear of not being attractive and compelling. We feel the need to project an external excitement, long past our ability to live up to it. I'd rather people be full-on open about their laziness. Sure, a slob might be off-putting to most, but they're being more genuine than the ones who constantly complain as a mask for cold hearts. I'd rather someone who laughs in the face of expectation and admits they've stopped caring – at least there's hope. A liar with no love left will never win out. July 22, 2024 St. Croix Cove, Nova Scotia Year 17, Day 6098 of my daily journal.

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darlingofdots · 4 years ago

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Which is a list of reasons that I believe Harrow and Gideon will get a Happy For Now, at least:

it’s thematically set up this way. GtN was about the two of them figuring out how not to hate each other, HtN is Harrow rejecting a world without Gideon with every fibre of her being and starting to learn that love is not acquisitive, as Ianthe says, and that sacrificing herself for Gideon the way Gideon did for her isn’t the right way, either. HtN was not Harrow’s journey through the stages of grief, culminating in acceptance, it is Harrow refusing to accept that the choice presented to them at the end of GtN – the choice of Lyctorhood or death – was the only choice available. HtN is all about choices, from the false one God gives her when he says she can be his Saint or return to the Ninth despite the latter being impossible, the choice to lock her memory of Gideon away to protect her soul, to the final decision whether to stay in the River and fade or return to her body and complete the Lyctoral process. In her letter to herself, pre-homebrew lobotomy Harrow says ‘Look upon me as a Harrowhark who was handed the first genuine choice of our lives’. Gideon didn’t think she had a choice when she died for Harrow and Harrow didn’t think she had a choice when she consumed Gideon’s soul, because the universe/God/the narrative did not present an option other than Death. Everything in GtN said ‘this is how it has to be’ and HtN is Harrow saying ‘not if I get a say’. Thematically, the only way this story can be concluded is by the two of them getting to decide what the options are, and I don’t see either of them not choosing to be with the other.

The bubble sequences in HtN allow characters who were wronged in GtN to make their voice heard. The reader comes out of GtN sad, and frustrated, and probably finding it all quite unfair, and then we get to see some of the characters who were unfairly killed again and this time, they have agency and power over their situation. I’d say Dulcie is the strongest example of this: she was killed off without a thought, off-screen, but in HtN she gets to be a person who gets to actively participates in her own narrative. I choose to read this as a continuation of the theme about choices and inevitability; just because the narrative/the universe/God treated you unfairly before doesn’t mean you won’t get to have your say.

The pieces are all there. I would say at this point it’s established that there is a way to achieve perfect Lyctorhood in which the cavalier doesn’t have to be consumed, namely because:

a) in chapter 33 of HtN, Camilla’s previously dark brown eyes are ‘neither grey nor brown but both’, a mixture of her own and Palamedes’ eye colours, which we have established is a ‘symptom’ of the bond between souls that occurs in Lyctorhood, and Palamedes’ reaction to Harrow showing up in his bubble suggests he’d figured out how to do it, made provisions for him and Camilla to do it, and fully expected Harrow to do the same

b) the whole Gideon Prime/Pyrrha situation which suggests an albeit imperfect version of the Lyctoral process can occur in which both souls survive (this is most like what Harrow ended up doing to herself, I’d say)

c) Augustine and Mercy’s theories about God’s connection with Alecto, including the eye switcheroo, sounds very plausible to me, and God pretty much admitted that the reason he killed Samael was that Anastasia was too close to achieving perfect Lyctorhood and he couldn’t risk the others either finding out that it would have been an option and resenting him for the deaths of their cavaliers (fair) or figuring out where he actually got his power from

So here’s a way for Harrow and Gideon to both be alive, fuelling each other’s power (I’d say for the final showdown against God but that’s mostly unfounded). It has also been established that Gideon’s really hard to kill: she didn’t die of the nerve gas on the Ninth and the siphoning challenge, which Palamedes calculated would leave most cavs who weren’t bred to be human batteries with brain damage at least, just knocked her out for a couple of hours. And on top of that, we know for a fact that Blood of Eden took Gideon’s body from Canaan House because it wasn’t there when the Cohort arrived and Mercy saw it. If you put all these pieces together, that looks to me like it’s setting up Gideon returning to her own body and achieving perfect Lyctorhood (which I would say symbolises perfect cooperation, perfect togetherness, perfect partnership) with Harrow. Camilla’s actions in HtN also indicate to me that she is confident she can somehow restore Palamedes in some capacity, as long as the bone she restored has his soul attached to it, and the fact that Harrow transforms the bit of skull into a hand because ‘he specifically requested movement’ suggests that there’s something to it. Admittedly Palamedes is a revenant at this point and we’ve been told they don’t really tend to stick around for too long and usually lose cohesion of spirit eventually, but I’m willing to discard that in this instance because Harrow also said he’d be mad already after eight months in the river, and she was clearly impressed by the way he’d ‘preserved’ himself in the bubble on the Riverbank. The parallels to Gideon’s soul being stored away in a kind of bubble in Harrow’s memory are, in my opinion, too strong to ignore.

Tamsyn Muir does not strike me as the kind of person who writer spend two books setting up the bond, the relationship between two characters the way Gideon and Harrow have been set up only to go ‘lol no’ at the end of it.

Bringing all of this together – obviously most of what I’ve said is ‘just’ foreshadowing and doesn’t mean it’ll actually happen this way. But there’s an awful lot of foreshadowing in both GtN and HtN, ranging from subtle to fiendishly subtle, and it’s the kind where the reader gets to a big reveal and either goes ‘oooh I was right, I knew x would happen because of y and z’ or, alternatively, spends their first reread gleefully pointing at bits of dialogue and cackling ‘Tamsyn Muir, you legend, I should have known’. It is not the kind of foreshadowing that leads the reader down one path only to go ‘ha, idiot, you really thought you knew where this was going’. Of course, sometimes you don’t know where she’s going (especially if you’re like me and just accept the wildest shit on face value the first time around), but it’s still all there if you know where to look. I think when people say they’re scared of Gideon and Harrow not being endgame or the whole trilogy just leading up to tragedy, it’s because the ‘ha, gotcha’ attitude to foreshadowing has become more prevalent in the last couple of years despite being really frustrating for audiences and, in my own opinion, not really Good Writing. Yes, the ending of GtN was a punch in the stomach, and I understand that people might not be so ready to trust the series after that. But you can’t really read HtN, which, again, is a complete and utter rejection of the ending of GtN and instead sees Harrow accepting help and care and advice from others and starting to grow into a more whole person who does not try to do everything by herself because that’s the only life she knows, and not see that bleak tragedy is not where this is going.

#the locked tomb #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #harrow the ninth spoilers #jo rambles #the people's tomb #i was going to put a readmore after the first point but i can't figure out how to anymore?#anyway #have 1.3k of my Thoughts #i want to say 'this is baseless speculation'#but actually i almost have a masters degree in this stuff so i will not #because we're confident in our abilities this years kids

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father-time-and-baby-new-year · 4 years ago

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OFF WITH YOUR HEAD

PART 2 OF HEADS WILL ROLL

SYNOPSIS: Whenever school is in session, Eren will just keep finding new places to corner you.

PAIRING: BULLY! EREN x FEM! READER

DEDICATED TO: you guys, always you guys.

WARNINGS: unedited, slight dubcon, groping, degradation, bullying,

WORD COUNT: 2.4K

Gooooood Morning Paradis Birds! Remember to give a big round of applause to the football team for clutching the victory against reigning champion Marley High! We stay undefeated thanks to our excellent and hardworking team. Special shoutout to Captain Eren Yeager for guiding the team to another flawless victory-

You're half-heartedly paying attention to class, sleepily listening to the school announcements over the speaker until the mention of his name douses you like a shock of ice-cold water.

You can't catch the rest of the announcement because your class erupts into cheer, enthusiastically clapping their hands for the boy of the hour.

The only one not joining is you.

Eren's smile is brighter than 100 kilowatts. In the back of your mind, you wonder where he learned to smile like that. When his emotions became so practiced.

Mr.Berner tries to calm the kids down, especially Sasha who bangs on her desks and howls, creating even more hype and ruckus. The class, now in a chattier mode, excitedly breaks into little conversations.

"Man, thank god. That school is so pretentious, I'm glad we finally have something over them."

"Jeez, I know our team was good, but it's this good-?"

"-Bro, year of XXXX is stacked as fuck. It's literally never been this stacked before. We have a whole team of prodigies, it's insane-especially Eren. "

"Yepp. My dad went to Paradis too and he said shit like this never happened during his time. The academic comps were one thing, but these footballs wins? We're being put on the fucking map."

The announcements are still going on, but it's hard to hear over the noise. You're only able to catch the tail end, a useless tidbit about the word of the day.

pre·mo·ni·tion a strong feeling that something is about to happen, especially something unpleasant. Here is an example: "She had a premonition of imminent disaster" Have a good day folks, hope it's free of any premonitions!

Overhearing the unceasing praise of the boy who pinched your thighs until they bruise blue and purple was a little painful-but you were used to it. After all, he's putting Paradis on the map. Whatever the fuck that means.

While you didn't love sharing this class with him, he was seated far across the room and surrounded by a gaggle of friends. You might as well have been invisible, the way he did not acknowledge you. Maybe you should treat it as a small mercy.

Unwittingly, your eyelids grow heavy. You're sitting in the back of the class, no one would notice if you took a little nap right? Assured by the fact no one will notice, you lower your head into your folded arms and let your thoughts float.

You dream of vaguely nothing but shadows of smiles, tufts of dark hair, and the smell of the wind at sea until a noise confined to the shape of your name breaks the harmony.

"[y/n?]"

You startle awake with pairs of eyes piercing their gazes at you. Swallowing thickly, you apologize to Mr.Berner who looks worried. He's a good teacher, and one of your favorites.

"I'm sorry Mr.Berner. I had a migraine so I laid my head down." You lie smoothly, with more grace than you knew you were capable of. Course, you could have just said you were taking an unprompted nap, but that would disappoint your lovely teacher.

He sighs, "Guess that can't be helped then. Go to the nurse ok?"

Bingo. The nurse was an understanding lady, she'd let you sleep the rest of the period off. You nod, and start to gather your materials, relieved the class' attention on you was beginning to dwindle.

"Wait, Mr.Berner, let me take her. What if she gets disoriented and falls in the hall?"

Fuuuuck. You should have known. You should have expected this because attached to the request dripping with faux concern was none other than the precious jewel of the kingdom. Eren's intrusion makes your peers perk up again at the scene unfolding in front of them.

You smile, lips tightly pressed, "I'll be fine. I don't want to distract anyone from the lesson and it's a short walk-

"It's still potentially dangerous.", Your teacher interrupts, pinching the bridge of the nose, "And while I'm completely surprised by Eren's sudden streak of altruism, he's right. Something could happen. He'll take you there safely."

A very convenient streak of altruism, all right. You think it over in your head, yeah the nurses' office is right down the hall, and once you're there, he'll leave. Sure, he'll taunt you but you can handle a few minutes worth of cruelty.

It's awkward getting up, and walking in front of the class while Eren props the door open like a gentleman. You know what a sharp contrast it must look like, you and him, you cowering into yourself, not meeting any eyes while he stands tall and confident.

"Do you have everything?" His tone is one of reassurance, and for the barest of the moments, feels too familiar. You know he's not being genuine right now, and for the first time, you question if he was genuine back then.

"You can hold onto my arm if you're too dizzy to walk." He says as you guys slip out of the classroom, purposefully a little too loudly. You hear coos from girls and a stray "She's so lucky!"

He must have heard it too, because he lowers his head to whisper into your ear, "Yeah, very lucky, aren't you?" Wisps of dark hair tickle your cheeks. You see the glint of tiny silver hoops and wonder when he had gotten his ears pierced. The illusion breaks and the performative charming prince's reassuring smile is replaced by a sneer.

"Didn't know you could lie like that, by the way. Some good girl you are if you're trying to ditch class like this." Fingers dig deep into your waist as he drags you along the empty hallway that seems to stretch on for miles.

Your breath gets stuck in your throat, "How did you know I was lying?"

Viridian eyes narrow, "I've seen you get migraines before." There's a knock on your heart. As if realizing he was talking about something far away ago, a vindictive edge laces into words pouring out of his mouth, "I bet you wanted this to happen, didn't you? Wanted to get us all alone."

He's trying to get a rise out of you, that much is obvious. So you ignore him to the best of your ability.

...which quickly proved to be futile, as you suddenly find your arm pinned to your back, and your front facing the nearest walls.

"I asked you a fucking question bitch." He's practically growling, "Fucking answer me."

If there was a world record for the shortest temper, best believe Eren Yeager will have collected that accolade too. He's getting too worked up, and you could definitely feel his harness poking the back on your ass, as he grinds into you.

You manage to crane your neck, wanting to have your face shoved into the wall, and then venomously spit out, "You're not looking for answers. You just want me to repeat whatever you think is true."

This position brings back flashbacks to the library when he caged you in against the bookshelves, and like then, he spins you around to face him quite abruptly.

His smile is full of sharp teeth, "No. I know I'm right."

You don't respond. He moves in closer, his breath fanning on your earlobes. Your body can't help but let an involuntary shudder, and you close your eyes, not wanting to see his pleased grin or the way the fluorescent light makes his hoops gleam like silver bullets.

One calloused finger flicks your nipple, "Do you want to know why I'm right?"

At your lack of response, the dark-haired boy rolls your nipple in between his fingers before pinching it painfully, eliciting a small whimper out of your fuckable lips. "N-no", you answer finally. You're wearing your thinnest bra because of the seasonal heat, and you can't help but regret that decision right now. The fact he's only paying attention to one of your nipples is driving you insane. Not that you want it, but you're so fucking sensitive right now. You struggle in his hold, causing him to hold you tighter, and by now his nails were probably embedded into your skin.

He chuckles at your honesty, rewarding you with a thick stripe of his tongue over the collared shirt of your uniform making you gasp. Did he just-, over your shirt too-, you look down and see a very visible wet spot.

Taking advantage of your distracted state, a eager hand snakes under your skirt until it settles in the middle of your panties. He licks your earlobe before speaking, his voice like ice under your heels.

"You were so fucking wet that day in the library while saying you hated me the entire time," he pauses as his fingers scissor you through your panties, as if to drive the message home, "About as wet as you are right now."

There's a wet spot there too, also caused by him. You crush your eyes shut, "Eren...please just take me to the nurse." You're not even struggling anymore, holding onto him out of your own accord, worried that if you don't hold onto anything-you'd fall on your knees.

The very headache you lied about having seemed not so non-existent after all.

Eren hooks his arms under the plush of your thighs, "Yeah. Of course, that's what I came to do, right?"

You had hoped you'd be granted a reprieve in the nurses' office but you'd forgotten that luck was never really in your favor. Because while you guys had entered the squeaky-clean office, the nurse was nowhere in sight.

Instead, a note sat on her desk in unassuming frilly cursive that Eren read with glee.

Sorry students! Minor emergency to take care of, and I'll be back by the middle of the next period. If you're badly hurt, see Mr.Ackerman in room 203. If not, just sit tight! Feel free to take up the beds.

Thank you,

Ms.Ral

Eren had turned to you with shining green eyes, "Since no one's here, I guess I'll have to keep you company. Don't want you to hurt yourself."

There was something claustrophobic about how Eren stood in front of the door as if to signify to get out of here, you had to get through him.

"Maybe I can get Mr.Ackerman..."

Eren's sudden bout of laughter makes you wince and retreat inside of yourself, "For what? A fake headache? You really wanna inconvenience him like that? Mr.Ackerman?"

You take slow steps backward until the back of your knees hit the school bed, making you stumble as you clumsily take a seat. Eren's been marching forward with every retreating step you took, and it's no surprise when he pushes you down the bed, strong hands on the side of your head, while his muscular legs force your thighs apart so he can settle himself in between.

"We have some time to kill, you know." Strands of dark hair fall into his eyes, and without thinking, you reach upwards to brush them aside.

He grips your wrist before you make it that far, nearly gritting out a "What are you doing?"

You just stare, not really knowing why that was your impulse either. Finally, you mouth out, "I want you to leave Eren."

The grip on your wrist is tighter than ever, and you very well know that you're going to have new finger-shaped bruises before the old ones even finish healing.

"And I want to stay." He punctuates each word slowly, and all you can think is how being pinned to a bed is much less painful than having the hard surface of wood digging onto your back.

You're fully aware of the heat in your core, and having Eren on top of you doesn't make this it any easier because fuck, he is attractive. Maddeningly so. And maybe you want him to go away so bad because you're afraid that if his fingers are caught inside of you, you'll thank him for it.

As if reading your mind, he lets go of your wrist (making a mental note of your sluggish movements and slipping resistance) and massages your warm hole from your panties.

"Eren please" You grit out. He merely chuckles, "What are you asking for, whore?"

You could feel tears threatening to fall. This was so embarrassing. Did you want this? Yes, yes. yes, yes. You were so wet right now and had enough of the teasing.

He alternated his kneading from slow and soft to fast and rough, and you couldn't help but let out the prettiest little moans Eren's ever heard. Since you lose all pretenses of resistance, his other hand roughly brushes against your hardened nipples, straining against the fabric of your shirt.

Okay, he decided. He's going to make you beg.

"Beg." It's announced like a command, and while you hear it, you don't really register it because your hips are busy chasing the heat, and it's all too much of an utter disappointment when his long thin fingers leave.

"I said beg slut."

"Eren, please, please. I need you so bad." You're blubbering and you don't care. You just want his pretty fingers to shove aside your panties and rub against your folds. You think back to the library, how wet you were, how the stupid fucking phone call from his coach interrupted him pumping his fingers inside of you. And you didn't know if you were happy or mad he left. But now, all you crave is the blissful wave of pleasure- the very pleasure he's been denying you.

Eren looks down at you, green eyes scrutinizing. After a long while of what it seems to be him just staring, he wipes his fingers on your skirt, brushes back his hair with a wayward hand.

"Looks like I should head back to class. See you later."

Too numb to say anything, you watch him leave with a smirk on his face. When you're sure he's walked away, you curl into yourself and cry.

#attack on titan fanfiction #eren x y/n #tw dubcon #bully eren yeager #bullying #toxic eren #yandere eren x reader #eren x reader

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madaboutmunson · 2 years ago

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The Reflex - Goody Two-Shoes

Part 1 of 8

With an original character, set in 1984, at Hawkins High

Characters mentioned: OC, Steve Harrington, Tommy, Robin Buckley, Eddie Munson

Warnings: Mild bullying, Some swearing, some gross out humor, mentions and references too a specimen dissection but nothing overly graphic.

"And don't forget you'll need to finish the next two chapters for next week. Again, not a big ask, so I'm expecting it to be done. Ok, Mr Harrington?"

Two students snap their heads towards the teacher at the same time. One boy was adorned in a trendy sweatshirt and jeans with a glorious head of hair. The other was a bespectacled girl with dark brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, a stark contrast to her pale skin, wearing a blouse and sweater paired with some looser-fitting jeans.

The girl immediately realises her error as the class erupts with laughter. " Feeling ok there, Mr Harrington?" Tommy mocks her with glee.

The girl nervously gulps, pressing her usual full lips together in a tight line, and nods as if to shoulder the joke. Then, looking to the floor, she leaves the class and doesn't raise her head again to look until she is safely outside of it.

This was the problem with being a bit of a daydreamer and having a similar surname to one of the most well-known people in school. She thought to herself, opening her locker to grab her lunch.

Thora Harriton was a girl who once was a kid with a wild imagination, who for most of her life was unapologetically herself, that is, until she got here. High School.

She hadn't chosen to come here. It was just where she had to go due to the move. Thora would definitely not have chosen to be in the same class year as Steve Harrington if she had known the toll a few hearing mistakes would take on her confidence.

Everything about her school day was crafted to a tee. Not for perfection, understand, but more for the ability to be invisible. Don't wear anything too fashionable or bright or dark and absolutely no creases. Make sure your hair is tidy but not too styled. Don't wear makeup, but make sure your skin is perfect and your eyebrows neat. Do not personalise anything. If something needs to be covered, find a generic striped covering. Keep your stationary plain uninteresting.

A list of things to keep herself safe because although she had been mocked at the end of class, she'd soon blend in with the crowd, and Tommy and his goons would quickly forget all about her.

The only person that knew she had any personality at all was Robin. Who's presence, Thora knew, was just the other side of her locker door.

"Sorry, you can't jump scare me this time, Rob. I can see you" she smiled, closing the door gently, "Hi!" She smiled at her friend.

Robin scowled and pouted a little, "I was sure I'd got it right this time" She sighed and changed into a more positive stance, "How has your morning been?" Robin asks as they walk and talk towards the cafeteria.

"Well, it was going fine, but then I was just lost in my thoughts, and it happened again" Thora cringes and grimaces at Robin.

Robin mirrors her facial expression in solidarity, "That bad, huh?".

Robin gives Thora a gentle arm bump, "They'll forget soon enough. You know they don't have 2 brain cells between the whole basketball team".

She smiles up at Thora, trying and succeeding in making her laugh.

"I know you're right. It just sucks. I nearly made it a whole week, you know?" Thora's smile half twisted into one of regret.

"Well, we're on our way to the Colosseum...I mean cafeteria now...who knows what entertainment awaits us. A new couple? A breakup? An impromptu sing-along or cheer? A tabletop tirade? I know that's one of your favourites," she says, pumping her eyebrows up and down at Thora and then shrugs. "Or maybe even some fisticuffs?" She says, balling her fists up in front of her pretending to fight the air.

Thora giggles quietly, "Robin, what would I do without you? You are honestly my ray of sunshine in this place", and secretly gives Robin's elbow a pinch. It was their little thing.

Robin laughed and flinched away, "Yeah, well, if you could let double T know what a catch I am, that would be really great" she smiled.

Smiling wide at Robin, Thora says, "You know for a fact, if I thought she was definitely interested in that, I wouldn't hesitate to tell her how wonderful you are, Rob."

Robin nods knowingly, "I hear ya," she says as they walk into the cafeteria to their usual spot at the end of the band table.

"Look, all I'm saying is we stand a better chance of getting 'Angel' accepted than 'Like a Virgin' as a band. We aren't singing the lyrics, but the title matters. Someone has to announce the piece," Gregory says emphatically.

"But like a virgin is much easier to recognise instrumentally, and besides, we can have some of the brass play the main vocal line. People love that", Patricia fires back.

Vickie shakes her head, "I can't see them going for either. Honestly, it's too modern for them. We're better off picking something more '70s."

"No, the '70s are over. It's a new decade. A new lease of life, and with it, new music. I mean, I also love older music. Especially Bowie, The Beatles, The Stones, The Doors, and Led Zeppelin, but imagine how wild a young crowd would go for an instrumental Madonna Medley? It would be so rad!!" Robin interjects as you both sit down

Thora admired Robin's passion so much. In fact, sometimes, she was a little jealous of it. Thora supposed she could be like that if she really wanted, but it would undo all her hard work.

Thora heard the familiar slam of hands on a table from a different table in the cafeteria. Robin shot Thora a knowing smirk, mouthing "Tabletop tirade" at her.

Thora rolled her eyes at Robin but, in all honesty, always looked forward to these little displays that Eddie "The Freak" Munson would put on at lunchtime.

He'd obviously overheard the conversation band was having as his tirade began on the topic of music.

"That's right, time is moving on, and legends are being left by the wayside because they don't have a tiny movie for their songs. Well, you know what, they don't need them. They don't need to dance around in revealing outfits to sell you a song because their music has reeeeal substance," he thunders, strutting up and down the hellfire table.

He leaps down from the table, pointing at the newly formed party/John Hughes kids, "And the more you little ingrates sit on your backsides waiting for music to be pumped in through your eyes. The more great music the rest of us have to miss out on." He bellows at them through cupped hands

He spins around, pointing directly into an unsuspecting science kid's face, "Why? You ask", he says theatrically, putting his arm around the kid, but they shrug him off, "Well, I'll tell ya..."

Thora feels a nudge from under the table from Robin, who whispers, "Bet you wished you'd joined science club now, huh?"

Thora looked around nervously in case anyone overheard, "Robin!" She said quietly through gritted teeth, which caused her laughter to boom around the cafeteria. Thora quickly launches over to cover her mouth, but it's too late.

The trained great-white-shark-type stare of Eddie Munson was upon both of them. They'd interrupted him, unintentionally, but still. All Thora can think to do, is to put her hands up in front of her shoulders, in a small surrender and avoid his eyes, keeping absolutely quiet.

"Aw, looks like it's a bad day for Mr Harrington. Now she angered The Freak," Tommy shouts out to a ripple of laughter. Thora bites her lip, looks down at the table, and just tries her best to ignore it.

Although Thora didn't get away with it entirely, she'd never been happier to hear Tommy's voice. Because if there was anything Eddie Munson relished more than the sound of his own voice, it was the sound of his own voice tearing apart a Jock's ego.

Eddie gives Thora and Robin one last look before heading over to annihilate some Jock pride.

"Shit, I'm so sorry," Robin says sincerely, reaching her hand over to Thora's and squeezing it.

Thora smiles back, "It wasn't your fault Rob. In fact, it's the fault of everything else in the school apart from you."

Robin, pleased with not being a source of misery for Thora, attempted to cheer her up. "What do you even see in that guy anyway?" she whispers, gesturing at Eddie.

Thora could list a few superficial reasons but decides to go for something Robin would appreciate, a theory.

Thora leans over so she can whisper without incurring the wrath of your favourite public speaker. "I heard the people you find attractive have similar aspects to you," Thora says, forcing Robin to turn and observe Eddie.

"Nah, I don't see it." She whispers, unconvinced.

"Remember my hair the morning after the slumber party?" Thora says, trying to jog her memory.

"Oh shit yeah. I'm just so used to seeing it all restrained like this" Robin reaches over and removes Thora's glasses. "Oh, those void-like eyes too. Absolutely made for one another," she says sarcastically.

"It's a good job, you're my only close friend. Otherwise, I would just straight up abandon you for the solitude of my car right now," Thora says half seriously.

"I would love to see you try to get to the doors, past the object of your affection and your tormentors," she says, tilting her head and teasing Thora.

"He's not the object of my affection. You made me choose someone from school, alright? He's just the best of a bad bunch, ok? Truth or dare has a lot to answer for," Thora says, trying to hide her embarrassment.

"What about Harrington?" Robin inquires.

Thora purses her lips and frowns a little at Robin, "Are you serious, right now? Harrington? The bane of my existence?!"

Robin tries to hide her smile but fails, "See this, this is why we're friends. We must be the only two girls in school that don't have a thing for that dumb, sasquatch, messy eater", she shudders.

"As your friend, I will fully support you in your statements. However, as someone who frequently gets teased by others, I'm sure he's not all bad. I mean, he doesn't go out of his way to stop his friends from teasing me, but at least he doesn't join in. He probably doesn't even know double T exists," Thora says supportively.

Robin slowly slides down in her chair until most of her is under the table, "Somehow, that makes it all seem infinitely worse."

Thora looks down at her lunch pail, grabs a homemade cookie, and breaks it in two. "For your pain", she fakes a pout of sympathy, offering it over to Robin, who magically is snapped out of her mood and snatches it.

Thora double-checks her schedule, "Oooh, double biology after lunch. Today could be the day," Thora says gruesomely. Tearing apart her part of the chewy cookie and devouring it, making eye contact with Robin the whole time.

"I am not dissecting anything. They can't make me!" Robin says, thinking twice about eating her half of the cookie now.

"Don't worry, Rob, I got you covered. You can shut your eyes until I have it all neatly pinned out, ok?" Thora says reassuringly. It wasn't that Thora was cruel or a gorehound. She just really wanted to be a veterinary surgeon, and these small tasks were an opportunity to test her skills and mettle.

They while away the remainder of lunch debating the pros and cons of contemporary music being used ta pep rallies with the rest of the band table. Until the bell sounds, and they head over to the science block together.

Thora speed walks ahead of Robin to grab the aisle seat, "Hey, I normally sit there!" She complains.

"Who do you think they are gonna pass the creature to?" Thora gives her a know-it-all smile and raises her eyebrows. Then, gesturing at the board at the front of the class with a crude diagram of a frog. Finally, forcing Robin to concede and sit in the seat between Thora and the bench next to them.

"As if guts weren't enough, I have to potentially suffer one of my peers too?" She whines, slumping her head onto her folded arms.

Thora neatly lays out all her plain stationary for class, absent-mindedly saying, "No one has sat there all term, Rob. I should know. You're fine. Honestly"

The room slowly fills. As the teacher enters, they are met with a flurry of notes to be excused from the class. The teacher rolls their eyes. You can't help but notice most of them are sports and rich kids. They get handed a paper diagram and get sent to the library.

"For the rest of you, you have a set of detailed instructions. Please read them carefully. The lab techs will bring you your specimen and tool kit. Please use one of the lab coats and sets of goggles provided, and I cannot emphasise this enough...the specimens must stay in their tray, and though I shouldn't have to say this, I will. That tray should remain in the classroom and not venture elsewhere on the property." The teacher says it like I was a script they were bored of reciting, and walks around the class passing out instructions.

A tray with a splayed-out frog lands on the desk with a small thud. Robin looks curiously over Thora's shoulder down at the tray and makes a retching sound in Thora's ear. "I'll get the lab coats and goggles", Robin offers in both an eager and disgusted tone.

Thora neatly arranged the desk and reads over the instructions. Whilst waiting for Robin to return.

The class door is swung open with a thud, "Who is ready to gut some frogs??! I know I am", an unmistakable voice echoes around the class. Thora's eyes latch onto the figure, projecting it immediately.

"Mr Munson, glad to see you finally decided to grace us with your presence," the teacher says tight-mouthed, shoving the instructions into his chest.

Part 2

#eddie munson #stranger things #eddiemunson #eddie stranger things #eddie the freak munson #stranger things fanfiction #eddie munson fanfic #fanfiction #eddie x oc #romance #Spotify

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sk1fanfiction · 4 years ago

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the many faces of tom riddle, part 4

-attachment, orphanages, and yet more child psych: time to add yet another voice to the void-

FULL DISCLAIMER THAT THIS IS JUST MY OPINION OF A CHARACTER WHO DOESN’T HAVE THE STRONGEST CANON CHARACTERIZATION, AND THUS ALL THIS IS BASED ON MY CONCEPTUALIZATION.

I'm going to be super biased, because my favorite portrayal of Tom Riddle is actually Hero Fiennes-Tiffin as eleven-year-old Tom Riddle, in HBP and I get to chat about child psych in this one, sooo here we go.

First of all, I’m just so impressed that a kid could bring that much depth to such a complex character.

This is the portrayal, I feel, that brings us closest to Tom’s character. Yes, Coulson’s brought us pretty close, but by fifth year, the mask was on.

We don't really get to see Tom looking afraid very often, but it's fear that rules his life, so it's really poignant in our first (chronologically) introduction, he looks absolutely terrified.

The void being the fandom's loud opinions on a certain headmaster. I wouldn't call myself pro-Dumbledore, but I'm certainly not anti-Dumbledore, either. (Agnostic-Dumbledore??)

Since I'm not of the anti-Dumbledore persuasion, I decided to poke around in the tags and see what the arguments were, so I don't make comments out of ignorance.

Most of the tag seems to be more directed towards his treatment of Harry and Sirius, but a few people mentioned that Dumbledore should have treated Tom with ‘exceptional kindness’ and tried to ‘rehabilitate’ him.

As I said in Parts 2 and 3, I am 100% in favor of helping a traumatized kid learn to cope, and I don’t think Tom Riddle was solidly on the Path to Evil (TM) at birth, or even at eleven. Not even at fifteen.

Could unconditional love and kindness have helped Tom Riddle enough for the rise of Lord Voldemort to never happen? Possibly, but...

Yes, I'm about to drag up that Carl Jung quote, again.

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”

The problem with this is that if you’re going to blame Dumbledore for this, you also have to blame every other adult in Tom’s life: his headmaster, Dippet, his Head of House, Slughorn, his ‘caretakers’ at the orphanage, Mrs. Cole and Martha, and possibly more. In fact, if we're going to blame any adult, let's blame Merope for r*ping and abusing Tom Riddle Senior, and having a kid she wasn't intending to take care of.

Furthermore, you cannot possibly hold anyone but Tom accountable for the murders he committed. (I should not have to sit here and explain why cold-blooded murder is wrong.) And if you like Tom Riddle's character, insinuating that his actions are completely at the whim of others is just a bit condescending towards him. He's not an automaton or a marionette, he's a very intelligent human being with a functioning brain, and at sixteen is fully capable of moral reasoning and critical analysis.

I've heard the theories about Dumbledore setting the Potters up to die, and I'm not going to discuss their validity right now; but he didn't put a wand in Tom's hand and force him to kill anyone. Tom did it all of his own accord.

And while yes, I have enormous sympathy for what happened to Tom as a child, at some point, he decided to murder Myrtle Warren, and that is where I lose my sympathy. Experiencing trauma does not give you the right to inflict harm on others. Yes, Tom was failed, but then, he spectacularly failed himself.

We also have no idea how Dumbledore treated Tom as a student.

In the movies, it’s Dumbledore who tells Tom he has to go back to the orphanage, but in the books, it’s Dippet. We know that Slughorn spent a lot of time around Tom at Slug Club and such, yet I don’t really see people clamoring for his head.

I regard the sentiment that Dumbledore turned Tom Riddle into Lord Voldemort with a lot of skepticism.

But let's hear from the character himself -- his impression of eleven-year-old Tom Riddle.

“Did I know that I had just met the most dangerous Dark wizard of all time?” said Dumbledore. “No, I had no idea that he was to grow up to be what he is. However, I was certainly intrigued by him. I returned to Hogwarts intending to keep an eye upon him, something I should have done in any case, given that he was alone and friendless, but which, already, I felt I ought to do for others’ sake as much as his."

Now, assuming that Dumbledore's telling the truth, I'm not seeing something glaringly wrong with this. No, he hasn't pigeonholed Tom as evil, yes, I'd be intrigued, too, and it's a very good idea to keep an eye on Tom, for his own sake.

“At Hogwarts,” Dumbledore went on, “we teach you not only to use magic, but to control it. You have — inadvertently, I am sure — been using your powers in a way that is neither taught nor tolerated at our school."

Again, it seems like he's at least somewhat sympathetic towards Tom, and is willing to at least give him a chance.

More evidence (again, assuming Dumbledore is a reliable narrator):

Harry: “Didn’t you tell them [the other professors], sir, what he’d been like when you met him at the orphanage?” Dumbledore: “No, I did not. Though he had shown no hint of remorse, it was possible that he felt sorry for how he had behaved before and was resolved to turn over a fresh leaf. I chose to give him that chance.”

Now, I think Dumbledore is pretty awful with kids, but I don't think that's malicious. Yeah, it's a flaw, but perfect people don't exist, and perfect characters are dead boring. I am not saying that he definitely handled Tom's case well, I'm just saying that there's little evidence that Dumbledore, however shaken and scandalized, wrote him off as 'evil snake boy.'

It's also worth taking into account that it's 1938, and the attitudes towards mental health back then.

Why is Tom looking at Dumbledore like that, anyway? Why is he so scared? What has he possibly been threatened with or heard whispers of?

"'Professor'?" repeated Riddle. He looked wary. "Is that like 'doctor'? What are you here for? Did she get you in to have a look at me?"

"I don't believe you," said Riddle. "She wants me looked at, doesn't she? Tell the truth!"

"You can't kid me! The asylum, that's where you're from, isn't it? 'Professor,' yes, of course -- well, I'm not going, see? That old cat's the one who should be in the asylum. I never did anything to little Amy Benson or Dennis Bishop, and you can ask them, they'll tell you!

Tom keeps insisting he's not mad until Dumbledore finally manages to calm him down.

I'm really upset this wasn't in the movie, because it's important context. Instead we got these throwaway cutscenes of some knick-knacks relating to the Cave he's got lying around, but I just would have preferred to see him freaking out like he does in the book.

There was extreme stigma and prejudice towards mental illness.

'Lunatic asylums,' as they were called in Tom's time, were terrible places. In the 1930s and 40s, he could look forward to being 'treated' with induced convulsions, via metrazol, insulin, electroshock, and malaria injections. And if he stuck around long enough, he could even look forward to a lobotomy!

So, if you think Dumbledore was judgmental towards Tom, imagine how flat-out prejudiced whatever doctors or 'experts' Mrs. Cole might have gotten in to 'look at him' must have been!

Moving on to the next few shots, he is sitting down and hunched over as if expecting punishment or at least some kind of bad news, Dumbledore is mostly out of the frame. He’s trapped visually, by Dumbledore on one side, and a wall on the other, because he’s still very much afraid. uncomfortable, as he tells Dumbledore a secret that he fears could get him committed to an asylum (which were fucking horrible places, as I said).

It brings to the scene that miserable sense of isolation and loneliness to that has defined Tom’s entire life up to that point (and, partially due to his own bad choices, continues to define it).

And, when Dumbledore accepts it, his posture changes. he becomes more confident and more at ease, as he describes the... utilities of his magical abilities.

"All sorts," breathed Riddle. A flush of excitement was rising up his neck into his hollow cheeks; he looked fevered. "I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to."

Riddle lifted his head. His face was transfigured: There was a wild happiness upon it, yet for some reason it did not make him better looking; on the contrary, his finely carved features seemed somehow rougher, his expression almost bestial.

I do think Harry, our narrator, is being a tad bit judgmental here. Magic is probably the only thing that brings Tom happiness in his grey, lonely world, and when I was Tom's age and being bullied, if I had magic powers, you'd better believe that I'd (a) be bloody ecstatic about it (b) use them. And, like Tom, I can't honestly say that I can't imagine getting a bit carried-away with it. Unfortunately, we can't all be as inherently good and kindhearted as Harry.

Reading HBP again, as a 'mature' person, it almost seems like the reader is being prompted to see Tom as evil just because he's got 'weird' facial expressions.

So... uh...

Nope, let's judge Tom on his actions, not looks of 'wild happiness.'

To his great surprise, however, Dumbledore drew his wand from an inside pocket of his suit jacket, pointed it at the shabby wardrobe in the corner, and gave the wand a casual flick. The wardrobe burst into flames. Riddle jumped to his feet; Harry could hardly blame him for howling in shock and rage; all his worldly possessions must be in there. But even as Riddle rounded on Dumbledore, the flames vanished, leaving the wardrobe completely undamaged.

Okay, one thing I dislike is Tom's lack of emotional affect when Dumbledore burned the wardrobe, in the books, he jumped up and started screaming, instead of looking passively (in shock, perhaps?) at the fire. Incidentally, I can't really tell if he's impressed or in shock, to be honest. I think they really tried to make Tom 'creepier' in the movie.

This is one of the incidents where Dumbledore's inability to deal with children crops up.

I think he was trying to teach Tom that magic can be dangerous, and he wouldn't like it to be used against him, but burning the wardrobe that contains everything he owns was a terrible move on Dumbledore's part. Tom already has very limited trust in other people, and now, he's not going to trust Dumbledore at all -- now, he's put Tom on the defensive/offensive for the rest of their interaction, and perhaps for the rest of their teacher-student relationship.

Riddle stared from the wardrobe to Dumbledore; then, his expression greedy, he pointed at the wand. "Where can I get one of them?"

"Where do you buy spellbooks?" interrupted Riddle, who had taken the heavy money bag without thanking Dumbledore, and was now examining a fat gold Galleon.

But I'm not surprised Tom is 'greedy.' He's grown up in an environment where if he wants something, whether that's affection, food, money, toys, he's got to take it. There's no one looking after his needs specifically. I'm not surprised that he's a thief and a hoarder, and I don't think that counts as a moral failing necessarily, and more of a maladaptive way of seeking comfort. It would be bizarre if he came out of Wool's Orphanage a complete saint.

Additionally, I think given that the Gaunt family has a history of 'mental instability,' Tom is a sensitive child, and the trauma of growing up institutionalized and possibly being treated badly due to his magical abilities or personality disorder deeply affected him.

And there are points where it seems that Dumbledore is quick to judge Tom.

"He was already using magic against other people, to frighten, to punish, to control."

"Yes, indeed; a rare ability, and one supposedly connected with the Dark Arts, although as we know, there are Parselmouths among the great and the good too. In fact, his ability to speak to serpents did not make me nearly as uneasy as his obvious instincts for cruelty, secrecy, and domination."

"I trust that you also noticed that Tom Riddle was already highly self-sufficient, secretive, and, apparently, friendless?..."

And while this is all empirically true, these are (a) a product of Tom's harsh environment, and (b) do not necessarily make him evil. But the point remains that child psych didn't exist as a field of its own, and psychology as a proper science was in its infancy, so I'd be shocked if Dumbledore was insightful about Tom's situation.

But I've gone a ton of paragraphs without citing anything, so I've got to rectify that.

Let's talk about Harry Harlow's monkey experiments in the 1950-70s.

If you're not a fan of animal research, since I know some people are uncomfortable with it, feel free to scroll past.

Here's the TL;DR: Children need to be hugged and shown affection too, not just fed and clothed, please don't leave babies to 'cry out' and ignore their needs because it's backwards and fucking inhumane. HUG AND COMFORT AND CODDLE CHILDREN AND SPOIL THEM WITH AFFECTION!

I will put more red writing when the section is over.

This is still an interesting experiment to have in mind while we explore the whole 'no one taught Tom Riddle how to love' thing and whether or not it's actually a good argument.

Andddd let's go all the way back to the initial 1958 experiment, featured in Harlow's paper, the Nature of Love. (If you're familiar with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, him and Harlow actually collaborated for a time).

To give you an idea of our starting point, until Harlow's experiment, which happened twenty years after Dumbledore meets Tom for the first time, no one in science had really been interested in studying love and affection.

"Psychologists, at least psychologists who write textbooks, not only show no interest in the origin and development of love or affection, but they seem to be unaware of its very existence."

I'm going to link some videos of Harry Harlow showing the actual experiment, which animal rights activists would probably consider 'horrifying.' It's nothing gory or anything, but if you are particularly soft-hearted (and I do not mean that as an insult), be warned. It's mostly just baby monkeys being very upset and Harlow discussing it in a callous manner. Yes, today it would be considered unethical, but it's still incredibly important work and if you think you can handle it, I would recommend watching at least the first one to get an idea of how dramatic this effect is.

Dependency when frightened

The full experiment

The TL;DW:

This experiment was conducted with rhesus macaques; they're still used in psychology/neuroscience research when you want very human-like subjects, because they are very intelligent (unnervingly so, actually). I'd say that adult ones remind me of a three-year old child.

Harlow separated newborn monkeys from their mothers, and cared for their physical needs. They had ample nutrition, bedding, warmth, et cetera. However, the researchers noticed that the monkeys:

(a) were absolutely miserable. And not just that, but although all their physical needs were taken care of, they weren't surviving well past the first few days of life. (This has also been documented in human babies, and it's called failure to thrive and I'll talk about it a bit later).

(b) showed a strong attachment to the gauze pads used to cover the floor, and decided to investigate.

So, they decided to provide a surrogate 'mother.' Two, actually. Mother #1 was basically a heated fuzzy doll that was nice for the monkeys to cuddle with. Mother #2 was the same, but not fuzzy and made of wire. Both provided milk. The result? The monkeys spent all their time cuddling and feeding from the fuzzy 'mother.' Perhaps not surprising.

What Harlow decided next, is that one of the hallmarks being attached to your caregiver is seeking hugs and reassurance from them when frightened. So, when the monkeys were presented with something scary, they'd go straight to the cloth mother and ignore the wire one. Not only that, but when placed in an unfamiliar environment, if the cloth mother was present, the monkeys would be much calmer.

In a follow-up experiment, Harlow decided to see if there was some sort of sensitive period by introducing both 'mothers' to monkeys who had been raised in isolation for 250 days. Guess what?

The initial reaction of the monkeys to the alterations was one of extreme disturbance. All the infants screamed violently and made repeated attempts to escape the cage whenever the door was opened. They kept a maximum distance from the mother surrogates and exhibited a considerable amount of rocking and crouching behavior, indicative of emotionality.

Yikes. So, at first Harlow thought that they'd passed some kind of sensitive period for socialization. But after a day or two they calmed down and started chilling out with the cloth mother like the other monkeys did. But here's a weird thing:

That the control monkeys develop affection or love for the cloth mother when she is introduced into the cage at 250 days of age cannot be questioned. There is every reason to believe, however, that this interval of delay depresses the intensity of the affectional response below that of the infant monkeys that were surrogate-mothered from birth onward

All these things... attachment, affection, love, seeking comfort ... are mostly learned behaviours.

Over.

Orphanages, institutionalized childcare, and why affection is a need, not an extra.

His face is lit the exact same was as Coulson’s was in COS (half-light, half-dark), and I said I was going to talk about this in Part 3. I think perhaps it's intended to make Fiennes-Tiffin look more evil or menacing, but I'm going to quite deliberately misinterpret it.

Now, for some context, Dumbledore has just (kind of) burned his wardrobe, ratted out his stealing habit, and (in the books only, they really took a pair of scissors to this scene) told him he needs to go apologize and return everything and Dumbledore will know if he doesn't, and, well, Tom's not exactly a happy bugger about it.

But interestingly, in the books, this is when we start to see Tom's 'persona,' aka his mask, start to come into play. Whereas before, he was screaming, howling, and generally freaking out, here, he starts to hide his emotions -- in essence, obscure his true self under a shadow. So this scene is really the reverse of Coulson's in COS.

And perhaps I'm reading wayyy too much into this, but I can't help but notice that Coulson's hair is parted opposite to Fiennes-Tiffin's, and the opposite sides of their faces are shadowed, too.

Riddle threw Dumbledore a long, clear, calculating look. "Yes, I suppose so, sir," he said finally, in an expressionless voice.

Riddle did not look remotely abashed; he was still staring coldly and appraisingly at Dumbledore. At last he said in a colorless voice, "Yes, sir."

Here's an article from The Atlantic on Romanian orphanages in the 1980s, when the dictator, Ceausescu, basically forced people to have as many children as possible and funnel them into institutionalized 'childcare', and it's absolutely heartbreaking.

There's not a whole lot of information out there on British orphanages in the 30s' and 40s', but given that people back then thought you just had to keep children on a strict schedule and feed them, it wouldn't have a whole lot better.

The only thing I've found is this, and it's not super promising.

The most important study informing the criteria for contemporary nosologies, was a study by Barbara Tizard and her colleagues of young children being raised in residential nurseries in London (Tizard, 1977). These nurseries had lower child to caregiver ratios than many previous studies of institutionalized children. Also, the children were raised in mixed aged groups and had adequate books and toys available. Nevertheless, caregivers were explicitly discouraged from forming attachments to the children in their care.

Here's a fairly recent paper that I think gives a good summary: Link

Here, they describe the responses to the Strange Situation test (which tests a child's attachment to their caregiver).

We found that 100% of the community sample received a score of “5,” indicating fully formed attachments, whereas only 3% of the infants living in institutions demonstrated fully formed attachments. The remaining 97% showed absent, incomplete, or odd and abnormal attachment behaviors.

Bowlby and Ainsworth, who did the initial study, thought that children would always attach to their caregivers, regardless of neglect or abuse. But some infants don't attach (discussed along with RAD in Part 2).

Here's a really good review paper on attachment disorders in currently or formerly institutionalized children : Link

Core features of RAD in young children include the absence of focused attachment behaviors directed towards a preferred caregiver, failure to seek and respond to comforting when distressed, reduced social and emotional reciprocity, and disturbances of emotion regulation, including reduced positive affect and unexplained fearfulness or irritability.

Which all sounds a lot like Tom in this scene. The paper also discusses neurological effects, like atypical EEG power distribution (aka brain waves), which can correlate with 'indiscriminate' behavior and poor inhibitory control; which makes sense for a kid who, oh, I don't know, hung another kid's rabbit because they were angry.

Furthermore...

...those children with more prolonged institutional rearing showed reduced amygdala discrimination and more indiscriminate behavior.

This again, makes a ton of sense for Tom's psychological profile, because the amygdala (which is part of the limbic system, which regulates emotions) plays a major role in fear, anger, anxiety, and aggression, especially with respect to learning, motivation and memory.

So, I agree completely that Tom needed a lot of help, especially given the fact that he spent eleven years in an orphanage (longer than the Bucharest study I was referring to), and Dumbledore wasn't exactly understanding of his situation, and probably didn't realise what a dramatic effect the orphanage had on Tom, and given the way he talks to Tom, probably treated him as if he were a kid who grew up in a healthy environment.

In case you are still unconvinced that hugging is that important, there's a famous 1944 study conducted on 40 newborn human infants to see what would happen if their physical needs (fed, bathed, diapers changed) were provided for with no affection. The study had to be stopped because half the babies died after four months. Affection leads to the production of hormones and boosts the immune system, which increases survival, and that is why we hug children and babies should not be in orphanages. They are supposed to be hugged, all the time. I can't find the citation right now, I'll add it later if I find it.

But I think it's vastly unrealistic to say that Dumbledore, who grew up during the Victorian Era, would have any grasp of this and I don't think he was actively malicious towards Tom.

Was Tom Riddle failed by institutional childcare? Absolutely.

Were the adults in his life oblivious to his situation? Probably.

Do the shitty things that happened to Tom excuse the murders he committed, and are they anyone's fault but his own? No. At the end of the day, Tom made all the wrong choices.

And, for what it's worth, I think (film) Dumbledore (although he expresses the same sentiment in more words in the books) wishes he could go back in time and have helped Tom.

"Draco. Years ago, I knew a boy, who made all the wrong choices. Please, let me help you."

#tom riddle #the many faces of #tom marvolo riddle #character analysis #character study #albus dumbledore

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master-sass-blast · 3 years ago

Note

How old do you imagine Piotr to be in the Deadpool movie verse?

Okay, I will answer your question properly, but first: my theory on how we identify the age of characters relative to our own ages! :D

(I don't have any research or psychological/sociological evidence to support this btw; this is just me blathering based on trends I notice in fandom and things I've noticed in myself. DO NOT TAKE IT AS GOSPEL pls and thanx.)

So, I personally believe that when we don't know the age of a character and we don't have context clues -do they have a family/spouse/kids/etc of their own, how long have they been working at the job they have, what kind of job do they work, what hobbies to they do in canon, etc-to guide us, we tend to closely estimate a character's age to our own. I think it partially because a lot of us in fandom/fanfic use fandom/fanfic to process our own experiences (and traumas), and having a character close to our age lets us do that. I also think that when we're attracted to a character that isn't given a set age or context clues for that age, we put them close to our own age (kink/specific dynamic fics not withstanding) because it makes the fantasy of being with that character more realistic and/or attainable. (Case in point: the number of Arcane fans that were caught off guard by Sevika being in her 40s.)

I think I was around 21 when I started writing the CHC. As such, I headcanoned Piotr at being in his early to mid twenties, so as to match my vision for a Reader insert I could relate to. And, as far as the CHC is concerned, Piotr is on the younger side. The Reader comes to the Institute at the age of 18, and I envision her being there for a bit before she and Piotr get together. I can't necessarily put a precise number on it because I didn't make a timeline for this series (which has come back to bite me in the ass multiple times, but oh well). However, I'd estimate it to be at least a year before they got together. As such, CHC Piotr is only a year or two older than the Reader (the same age gap that my husband and I have) so that things aren't... weird.

If we're only exclusively considering the movie? Mmmm, it's a hard one. I'm inclined to say he's at least in his thirties. I don't think a twenty-something year old would be given total mentorship of a teenager -especially since Piotr comes to America at the age of nineteen in the comics; it'd be a very short turn around time for him to learn how to master his mutation, have experience with conflict deescalation, learn English well enough to communicate effectively, and serve with the X-Men long enough that they're confident in his abilities to guide a young student appropriately. I think for that alone, he's at least in his early thirties.

I could see him being forty, even. I mean, who else would eat fucking Grape Nuts? That's an old man move if I've ever seen one.

#sass answers #piotr rasputin #welcome to my theory on how we identify with characters #i have done no research #i am literally pulling this out of my ass #also welcome to the logistical nightmare that is the chc #this is why i don't have a timeline of all the fics in chronological order #i'm making all this shit up #on account of my adhd #i have no concept of time #god especially when it comes to romantic relationships #i was friends with my husband for two years before i even realized i liked him #i have no idea what the proper timeline for a relationship is #like #people knowing they want to kiss each other within a month?#impossible #which is why i think i'm also demi-romantic but that's another topic for another day #also i have a multichap fic idea for divorcee reader and widower piotr #and then both being in their 40s/50s #feel free to ask if you ever want me to scream about it

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cavariously · 4 years ago

Text

[Trying my hand at a fan fiction.

I love to write but I have never done anything like this before, so all feedback would be extremely appreciated (Grammer, Plot, Characters etc.).

I love Tokyo Ghoul so I really hope I don't fuck this up 😅. A big thank you to anyone who reads this ❤️]

Caution: Agressive Swearing, Offensive Language, Graphic Violence.

Notes: Takes place post end of TG:re, Reapers = Marshall version of Doves.

1. Crow - 24

City lights and the rushing motions of the landscape turn the 24th ward into a blinding and blaring circus. Humans. They crawl through this city with the assurance that they will be here tomorrow. They will be here a year from now. They will be here forever. They are the only lifeform with this assurance. All other creatures in this world live with the knowledge that their making it to the next moment is a fifty fifty

It is certainly a miracle that they last, noticing absolutely nothing at all. They don't see the effects that the fumes of their veichles have on the planet that they grip so tightly to. They can't begin to recognise that they are being continually watched and targeted by devices that could wipe them from the face of said Earth in less than zero. They don't even notice the apex predictor observing them from less than a mile above.

Humans simply move from one spot to another, only stopping to cause irrevocable disaster and reduce their surroundings to less than ash, and then move on to the next target. Someone said that humans are Parasites, and although it may be naive to believe this was wholly correct, it would be complete ignorance to dismiss it entirely. Ghouls do not indulge in such ignorance. Parasite is an apt description for a human, from the perspective of a ghoul, that and food.

The figure stands tall, wind rushing rapidly through their tied up hair. They can smell the putrescence of man-kind as they go about their sweaty and arrogant business. They would laugh if it wasn't so tragic. What do humans amount to? They are greedy and bloody bags of meat that fight and hate more than any other being, yet they are allowed to multiply and just be. It could be argued that ghouls are the same as humans in this aspect, but most abide by the one meal a month agreement, even though this arrangement can be hell for some. Unlike humans, who see violence as their God given right, when ghouls fight, it is rarely for anything other than survival. Perhaps this view doesn't take all ghouls into account, but all humans gorge themselves on everything, and fight for any fucking reason they want.

Twenty years ago, a disaster was meant to end this disparity. For the first time ever, ghouls and humans fought together to save the world they shared from the monster that had been designated 'DRAGON'. The defeating of this enemy was meant to end in equality, where ghouls and humans shared the world equally. Scientific leaps had been made. Synthetic meats that ghouls could eat, so they wouldn't have to harm humans. The corpse of Dragon even lead to dramatic advancements in the medical field. Humans were now benefiting from ghoul DNA, as it allowed them to combat most illnesses and increase their lifespan somewhat. After all that ghouls had done for them, weren't humans grateful? No. Ten years, then ghouls were back to being vile creatures to be hunted, and were forced back to living in the sewers. The deaths of so many perfectly good and innocent ghouls, just so that humanity could screw them all over again. What a funny tragedy.

Another figure appeared from the shadows, stepping in line with their comrade. Neither looking at the other, they both silently watched the ferris-wheel turn round and round. A world that they saw as rightfully theirs. They were hungry for it and they would have it. No matter the cost. In fact, the more human casualties... the better.

"Are you ready to go?" the newcomer asked, never taking their attention away from everything below.

"Yeah. Any longer and I might have to eat you."

"Like you could" came the cold, arrogant response.

"Just because you got five inches on me now, doesn't mean I can't still beat your ass Da..."

"Don't fucking call me that. While we're out here you call me Kuma and I call you... Blindfold, or Eyeless. Something like that." Even though his response had been quick and sharp, neither his tone nor his concentration had wavered.

"Eyeless" they conceded.

"Fine, Eyeless it is. Just don't go shouting our real names out in public. You're enough of a liability as it is without giving our fucking identities away."

Eyeless finally turned to look at their brother. They couldn't help feeling a pang of nostalgia. He had been so small once, constantly hanging onto their shoulders and making paper birds that he place all over their home. Those memories hurt, especially when they remembered what came after. He used to smile so much and now he's a moody little shit. They'd never been like that at fourteen, they thought smugly.

"Fine. Let's go KUMA before I rip your snarky head off." With that final retort, Eyeless turned and stepped off of the roof.

Kuma watched them drop six stories, landing with grace and poise. Why were they always so aggravating? Maybe he was jealous of their natural ability, or perhaps they were just a pain in the ass to be related to. With a sigh and a wandering look to the night sky, he followed suit.

* * *

The Marshalls finished up disposing of the ghoul. Bikakus are a pain in the ass Haruto thought, but it's better than a Ukaku. Haruto loved the fact that he was an intimidating figure. The ghoul had basically shat itself as soon as it had seen his large muscular frame, and cruel bearded face. The black trench coat they wore, that often announced the end for ghouls, probably didn't hurt either. He nudged the face of the corpse with his foot. He reckoned it wouldn't even be worth removing his Kakahou to get a new quinque. Taking into account the short amount of time it had taken him and Kenji to bypass his defences and cut him through the middle, he was a B rated ghoul maximum.

"Right, time we get back" Haruto sighed.

"Mhm" Kenji agreed. He never said much.

"Did you bring the body bag? You never know, you might be able to upgrade that piece of shit you call a quinque." Haruto laughed loudly. He loved taking the piss out of Kenji, especially when he knew his only retort woukd be 'mhm'.

As expected, Kenji responded with a grumbling "Mhm", and moved towards the body.

Haruto, turned to walk away, lighting a cigarette and beginning to inhale deeply. That Kenji was going to marry his sister. What's he gonna say when the priest asks him if he takes her to be his lawfully wedded wife? Mhm. Haruto chuckled to himself. All in all Kenji was a good guy, and one hell of a Marshall. He could use that crappy Ukaku quinque pretty damn well, even if it did come from a C rated ghoul. Kenji also took Haruto's kids to the beach when he and Mrs Haruto wanted a quiet weekend. He might be an ugly fucker with next to no hair, and a face that made you want to split him down the middle, but he was clean and sometimes smelt nice. Yeah, Kenji could marry his sister if he wanted. She could do a hell of a lot worse.

A loud splatter sounded out behind Haruto. He spun on his heels, instincts flaring immediately into action. Where the fuck was Kenji? Where his partner had been attempting to fit the ghoul into the black bag, there was now the cut in half corpse of his future brother in law, fallen to the sides with a blindfolded figure standing in the middle. His entire being twitched in anticipation of this thing making a move to kill him, but all it did was leasurly bend down and scoop something up from the gore beneath. As the creature straightened up, he saw that it was simply sucking on one of Kenji's bloody fingers. To others, this might signify a psychotic animal, but to a seasoned Marshall, this was a confident and calculating killer plain and simple. A powerful one at that. Their clothes were indistinctive; clad in thin black leather and fabric, however, their mask was a completely different story. Almost the entirety of its face was covered. Its mouth had a tight black fabric wrapped over it, with a skeletal smile that would open, revealing the snaking pink tongue underneath. The huge back leather collar surrounding it could be zipped up to hide all but the eyes from the world. Not that the eyes could be seen either. A bone white blindfold shut them off from view. Foreign symbols were drawn in deep black on either side, with the a closed eye taking centre stage. Although it was just a drawing, that closed eye was unearving, as if the lack of sight heightened its ability to see, instead of impeding it.

Now this was a ghoul. Just by its sheer presence Haruto could tell this one was rated A, or more likely >S. Haruto couldn't deny to himself that he was intimidated, but he was a senior Marshall, and always backed himself in a one on one. He looked down at his fallen partner and gulped. First things first, get into this guys head. Haruto scanned the ghoul, looking for weaknesses that he could exploit verbally. If he was lucky, the reaction could lead to him obtaining an edge. He noticed that this ghoul was slight in stature, maybe five foot five all told.

"You wanna end up like this other piece of shit, you fucking dwarf."

This garnered absolutely nothing.

Haruto couldn't take it much longer. This creature continued to lapp at the guts of his dead partner, that were splattered over its fingers. It obviously didn't give a shit what it looked like to others. It reminded him of a cat, publically cleaning its fur and genitals with no concern for the world. It was fucking reveling in its feast, and it made Haruto's blood boil.

"You killed an innocent man. He was gonna have a family and you ripped him apart. You monsters have no fucking souls and you all belong in hell. That's where I'm gonna send you. I'm a fucking senior Marshall you stupid shit. You have no clue how badly you've fucked up."

Again, the ghoul made no sign of changing emotion, continuing to dip its fingers in Kenji and take its time eating. Haruto knew he needed something else to get into its head so he scanned again. 'Shit' he thought, as the ghost of a smile passed over his lips. The majority of its body was covered in black that mostly obscured its shape, however, his keen eyes saw that although its grey hair was tied up, it was probably quite long when undone. At its chest area, although it was probably bound, there was the hint of a slightly tented structure. The hardest one to spot was the hips. Despite them being covered by black leather shorts, those hips were a tad too wide to be a man's.

"Alright you sick fuck. I'M A COMMIN FOR YA!"

With one last drive to uncover more courage, Haruto raised his Kokaku quinque and lept towards the ghoul.

"I'M GONNA FUCK YOU UP FOR KENJI... YOU BITCH!"

As Haruto closed the distance with extreme speed, to less than two meters, the shadow of another figure dropped from the sky, landing directly next to the first. Haruto skidded to a halt, taken aback by the new masked creature. This one was certainly taller, and its face was covered by a red, horned mask. It was only as his attention slipped completely that he realised his final mistake. For the first time, the blindfolded ghoul smiled widely, the skeletal mouth parting to reveal massive bloody teeth.

The next thing Haruto knew was that he was laying down on the ground, face to the sky. His neck was warm and dripping wet. He raised his hands to his throat as the oxygen escaped his body, feeling the deep gash that was releasing his blood. The ghouls started conversing.

"Which one you want?" the first asked the newcomer.

"I don't care. You killed 'em both so you choose" the other responded dispondantly.

"Well, you're the growing boy so you take the ghoul and the first Reaper."

"Damn, well fuck me if you ain't the best big sister" uttered the male ghoul sarcastically, as he casually walked over to Kenji and the dead ghoul. "Why you taking you're mask off you sicko? The guys not even dead yet."

"I like it when they watch me" the female ghoul giggled.

Haruto saw the shadow of something passing over his head. "Ken...Ke..ji" Haruto gasped.

Suddenly, from below him came a the same giggle. "Awww dude, I think these guys were close."

"Eyeless, eat the fucker and let's go" came the voice of the male.

"Hey buddy boy, look at me will you" said the female from his feet.

Haruto craned his neck, scared of what he might see, but thinking 'fuck it' to himself. What's did he have to be afraid of, he's already dead. When he finally focused on the face he was confused. She was chewing on a leg. His leg. When the fuck did she get her dirty hands on that? When she'd finished on his leg, licking the tips of her fingers with delight, she bent down and hovered over him. Eyeless? That's what the other one had called her, but that wasn't true at all. Now that her blindfold was off he could see the entirety of her murderous giddy face.

"You're very funny" she said. "Innocent man. Gonna have a family. Its really fucking funny."

The last thing Haruto would ever see would be a testimony to her names innacuracy. Staring at him excitedly was one grey eye, so remarkably human looking it was weird. The other eye was a pool of darkness... with a violent, blood red pupil that seemed to be trying to force its way out of its black prison. She snapped up the rest of him.

"Sicko..."

End

#tokyo ghoul #manga edit #ken keneki #touka kirishima

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dapper-ships-herself · 5 years ago

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@dokiqx @raudrfox2

The answer changes a bit depending on the s/i, so I'm gonna start with more general and like personal and then go into my s/is.

Dazai and I both, let's say wrestle with certain feelings about life and the world around us. When it feels like you're adrift and very little matters, it helps a great deal to have someone to ground you, and that's Dazai and I for each other. When the world is cruel, we can reach out our hands and feel the warmth, and through that feel safe and real. Neither of us are used to letting ourselves be fully vulnerable to the people around us, we're always masking something, maybe not for entirely the same reasons, but we are. Our relationship is when we both let those walls fall bit by bit, letting go of fear and trepidation. He never even thought he could feel real love before, both of us had thought we weren't worthy of it.

And Dazai is a genius, he's amazing and confident in his abilities, he can see straight through pretty much anyone, so I think why would he even want me, I'm so boring and predictable, I'm not a fan of taking risks and putting myself out there. But Dazai sees all my good qualities, he appreciates my strong empathy and my compassion, he sees how even though I struggle with my own worth I put so much worth into the lives around me, and I have a fun way of thinking about a lot of things, I'm creative bright even when I think I'm not. I become like a fresh, sunny spring day for his soul. And Dazai, his hands are so stained and his mind so jaded, even as he works to redeem himself and be on the side that saves people, he thinks there's too much darkness to ever truly be washed away. But I know that even though he's done a lot of bad, what matters most is what he's doing now; he's trying so hard to be good, to move away from the darkness that only acted as a negative feedback loop for him, that was never good for a boy with a mind like his. He is actively trying to be a good man, and I remind him of that. Neither of us are ever going to be perfect, but that's fine when we're together through our flaws. And through it all, we help each other see the beautiful things to live for.

Okay, now let's go into some specifics for the s/is.

ADA! Gillian has been through some pretty deep trauma with the loss of her little sister when they were kids, and at the time she thought she'd never ever recover from that and stay in the emotionless darkness forever, but with the help of Fukuzawa and Ranpo and the other agency members, she was able to heal. Despite the guilt and trauma that still sticks to her, how easy it would be to write the world off as simply cruel and uncaring, that's not her style. She loves the world, she loves the people in it, she knows that there's darkness but that only means that the rest of them should try their hardest to spread as much love and compassion as they can to balance that out. To Dazai, her unwavering light is strange but so calming. She's so strong in her determination to protect her family and everyone and everything that needs saving, it really touches something in him. She teaches him that it's okay, that they deserve to laugh and love and live, and she helps show him how to actively view the world for it's good parts. Even if someday it's hard, some days she's sad and can't forget the past, some days she tries very hard to push away the anger that festers in her at the unfairness that abounds, she still tries and now they can stand by each other's sides and try together. And he also knows what it's like to suffer and lose the one person who's most important, and he helps her confront the guilt that still clings to her, in fact that's something mutual. And she also, even though she accepts and appreciates her ability for how it lets her help people, it's also an ability that takes away a person's free will and can cause a lot of destruction, and she is afraid of the inherent evilness of it, and though Dazai respects how she's made the concious choice to only use it to help people, he sees her fear and helps her accept it.

Mafia! Gillian and Dazai probably have the most complicated relationship of all. Neither really wanted friends or saw the use of them, but they became each other's first real friend after he joins the mafia. They connect and resonate in a much stronger and more natural way than either were really prepared for; and then they were part of the quartet with Ango and Oda too, and she loved them all. She could be quoted as saying the three of them were probably the only things keeping her sane in the Port Mafia. And then she went away on a mission for a few weeks, no contact with her friends, and suddenly that little slice of joy she had was shattered, Oda was killed, Ango had been a double agent the whole time, and Dazai had abandoned her without so much as a good bye, much less and explanation. It sent her to a dark place for a while. She wanted to hate Dazai, and she certainly felt bitter, but she couldn't bring herself to hate him; how could she, really. She disliked being in the Port Mafia, but not only does she feel she'd have no where else to go, that if she left she'd be leaving her father, Ougai, aka the only person who's ever seen to genuinely want her around and stay that way, but her ability is literally to control darkness and too much light literally causes her pain and discomfort, it's clear to her that she was born to forever stay in the world of darkness and never be able to stand in the light. When she and Dazai eventually meet again four years after he left the mafia, there's a lot of complicated feelings too work through. She's bitter and angry and can't understand why he'd leave her like that if their friendship really meant anything; Dazai thought it was the right move at the time, he justified it to himself by reasoning that he knew she felt chained to the mafia and he had to leave quickly and cleanly in order to successfully rid himself of his dark past, he couldn't risk waiting for her to come back from her mission and having to convince her. But, really, he was afraid. After all, he's convinced that everything he desires will slip through his fingers the moment he obtains it. If he tried to hold on to the happiness she brought him and selfishly took her with him, he'd only bring her ruin some other way, and he wasn't deserving of her. He genuinely does regret it though, and it's not easy for him to admit that he was wrong but he knows that this is one instance where he was so terribly wrong. They have to work through these feelings in order to get anywhere, and she also has to realize that she does have the capability to step into the light, which she does partially with Dazai's help. There's a lot of fighting through the bullshit to finally be together.

Jekyll! Gillian takes the stuff mentioned earlier about always masking some part of ourselves to the extreme. Her ability, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, literally manifests her jaded view of the world into a physical creature of chaos, aka Hyde. And she rejects Hyde hardcore, that's why she's so unstable, destructive, and difficult to control, as well as hates her in return. She puts on the sugariest of sweet faces to try and mask this darkness, but Dazai is able to see it. He recognizes her mask easily, because he's basically doing the exact same thing. Eventually, after a lot of plot haha, they're able to help each other let go of their facades a bit and better accept themselves for who they are. They find this kinship in each other that honestly makes it easier for them to let go of their guards at least a little bit. They both hold a lot of jaded darkness with themselves, and they've both done some pretty terrible things and dirtied their hands, him in the mafia and her in the Order of the Clocktower, and they were both able to break away from that to try and become better people, and that's really nice for them to be able to relate to each other.

Circus! Gillian is, true to the name of her troupe the Circus of the Disillusioned, disillusioned about much of the world. It's dirty and cruel and not on your side. But, the circus always promoted family, the whole reason Voltaire formed the troupe was to attempt to not lay there and accept their wretched fate, that they as humans should try and create at least small pockets of a world more right and colorful. And this ideal stays with her. So yeah, they're both not huge fans of the world, but she has a more innate desire to change that, and she believes it's the duty of humans to fight through and not back away from the world through means like suicide (does that make sense? Trying to word it properly). So she actually is pretty, hm, disgusted is too strong of a word to use, she clashes a lot with Dazai's suicidal jokes. And she's too tsundere and jaded herself to outright be all flowery ~I will help you~, but that sort of discussion is a theme between them early on. Their abilities are foils for each other as well, Dazai is an ability nullifier, she's an ability amplifier, and that sort of reflects their views too.

Guild! Gillian at first seems to have the most innocent view of the world, after all she's rich and spoiled by her father, Francis. And she acts rather carefree too, like someone who's always been secure and never known difficulty. But she has known pain, and there's more than a naive rich girl beneath the surface. She's cunning and knows how to read people, she's been trained in the art of business since she was a child and had it drilled into her that you must never roll over for the world. She's also been taught that she's the daughter of the great Fitzgerald, which means she's meant for greatness too, and she hides it from her father but that's left her with a desperation to prove herself and live up to a great big shadow. But she's genuinely kind too, she loves the world for it's flaws and wants to support the people in it. So yeah, they're ways of thinking clash a bit, but at the same time they work perfectly in other aspects. At first, it's more like he's interested in her for the sort of contradictions she poses, but he starts to genuinely respect her and admire how she chooses to see kindness and work for it, how she takes things in to her own hands to make the world she sees in her mind real. And she respects him for his intellect and eventually for his resolve once she learns of his past. And respect is pretty much the bud that will bloom into love.

There's a lot of fighting to find the light in the dark and acceptance of ourselves.

I hope this was all coherent and not to rambly ha.

#self ship #selfship #self shipping #selfshipping #self insert #dapper answers #dazian #dapper inserts #dapper inserts: ada #dapper inserts: mafia #dapper inserts: jekyll #dapper inserts: circus #dapper inserts: guild

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punkscowardschampions · 4 years ago

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Bea & Fraze

Bea: What are you going to wear to Ro's birthday? Fraze: Pick whatever you like for this fantasy where I'm going Bea: You have to Bea: you have no excuse not to Fraze: I don't need an excuse now that I'm too big for my ma, or da come to that, to drag me anywhere Fraze: I don't wanna, I don't have to, end of Bea: It's still family regardless of anyone's ability to literally make you Bea: anyway, she needs the numbers Fraze: I don't hear her begging Bea: She's not about to, is she Bea: you know what she's like Fraze: And you know where to find me when you've had enough of what she's like Bea: Well if you must know I don't think I'll bother to come back either then Bea: why should I make any effort Fraze: 'Cause you had a solid enough argument there with the family obligation bullshit, even if you lost it with the part about keeping numbers up Bea: Joe isn't coming, you aren't Bea: so fuck it, clearly Fraze: She ain't our sister, she's yours Bea: Seriously Fraze: Come on Fraze: I know you didn't expect a different answer Bea: You know literally nothing Bea: How can I lecture her about being part of this family if that's how you feel Bea: and how can I expect her to feel like a part of it if she isn't, apparently, for fuck's sake Fraze: She is with the rest of them, don't start Fraze: How can I act like it's all that black and white when the only thing that is, is how I feel about you? Fraze: we've been over it Bea: You can't pick and choose Bea: that's not how this is meant to work Fraze: Well it's too fucking late Fraze: I already did Bea: Great, so she gets to be right Bea: fantastic, thanks Fraze: What do you want me to do? I can't unlove you Fraze: I have tried, like Bea: Have you? Fraze: What was most of our childhood if not that? Bea: This isn't relevant Bea: I need someone there Fraze: You asked, I gave you an answer Fraze: she's got Ali and Tommy, that other one he used to dance with Bea: Because I can ask any of them what she was like and get an honest answer Bea: there's a divide, you said it Fraze: You'll get a brutally honest answer off ma if that's what you want Bea: I want you to do this one thing for me Fraze: is that as nice as you're gonna ask? Bea: I'm not playing games Bea: I'm not in the mood Fraze: Christ's sake Fraze: alright then Bea: Thanks Fraze: whatever, I'll do it for the pleasure of you owing me Bea: you can check my calendar to cash that in Fraze: give me a chance to check my own first, Red Bea: I assume you have a handle on your own schedule Fraze: I ain't never been able to stop your assumptions Bea: You should be grateful I'm giving you that props Fraze: Oh cheers Bea: You're welcome Fraze: yeah, open arms at this party Bea: I doubt she's got a candle for you Bea: you'll avoid that Fraze: Jesus Bea: Yep Fraze: I ain't going to church, fuck that Bea: I think only Ali is doing that anyway Fraze: gutted she still ain't getting sainted for her patience Bea: Pretty sure you have to be dead for years before they get 'round to it Fraze: Trust you to know that, babe Bea: It's common knowledge Bea: Teresa was an exception Fraze: common knowledge to cunts thinking that far ahead Fraze: let me get to grips with my fucking uni schedule Bea: You gave yourself away Fraze: you wish Bea: I'll take my props away now Bea: You've been back nearly a month Fraze: And I've had fuck all to do, it ain't Cambs Bea: All the more time to work out your schedule Fraze: Worry about your own Bea: I am Fraze: You gave yourself away there Bea: Ha Fraze: you're not in the mood, I heard you the first time Bea: Good Bea: I'll leave you to it then Fraze: Alright Bea: [Skippity skip?] Fraze: [makes sense] Bea: [okay, turn up with ya BFF as a hot ass mess to this stale ass party] Fraze: [he'd be shook and fuming in equal measure, imagine his face please] Bea: [aren't we all tbh like join Ro at that table lol] Fraze: You could've said something Bea: I posted on my stories Fraze: Like I said Bea: It wasn't planned Fraze: And it ain't the longest plane ride but you had enough time to tell me you were coming Fraze: it becomes a plan once you've bought a ticket, like Bea: Hardly, it's not like it sells out, or there isn't one an hour later if it does Bea: we turned up, end of Fraze: You know what I mean Fraze: I turned up here for you, the least you could've done was said I didn't have to Bea: I'm late, so I did need you here Fraze: what's his excuse? Bea: ? Fraze: Why do you need him here? Bea: He suggested I come Bea: I still wasn't sure Fraze: hand holding then Fraze: how sweet Bea: Fuck off Bea: She's my sister, I should be here, regardless of how unwelcome I am or want to be Fraze: gladly Fraze: and yeah, no shit, I told you that Bea: It's not an original concept Bea: is this all the people that showed or have people left? Fraze: I'll be the first out the door Bea: Tragic Fraze: What else did you expect? Bea: She was making such a fuss I thought perhaps she'd put a bit more effort in this time Fraze: only setting yourself up with that kind of thinking, babe Bea: More her problem than mine Fraze: Yours if you care Bea: Whatever you're trying to imply with that is stupid either way Fraze: I'm not implying anything, I said it in a dead straightforward manner Bea: Either that I do or don't care Fraze: I know you care, you wouldn't be here if you didn't Bea: If I cared I would have just showed up Fraze: you have Bea: Not before telling her I wouldn't and having an argument so Fraze: Exactly, you didn't have to and you still did Fraze: she ain't gonna appreciate it and it weren't easy for you in any sense Fraze: so you care and you're fucked by it, end of Bea: Nah Fraze: Yeah Bea: I literally just wanted to piss her off but alright Fraze: that's an added bonus Bea: If you like, Fraze Fraze: it ain't about me Fraze: but you can have pissing me off too if you like Bea: Why would you be pissed off at me Fraze: Think it through like you reckon you ain't fuck all else Bea: You were meant to be here regardless Bea: and now you can go Bea: nothing lost Fraze: it's nothing to do with any of that Bea: I'm not in the mood for guessing games either Bea: tell me or don't Fraze: Forget it Bea: Alright Bea: enjoy the rest of your evening then Fraze: I'll take my odds of that over yours Bea: I'll survive Fraze: I know Fraze: my offer still stands though Bea: I'm just here to see Ro Fraze: You're leaving tomorrow then? Bea: tonight by the looks of this Fraze: Yeah Fraze: I doubt it'll be a late one Bea: Surprised she's still here honestly Fraze: I'm surprised any of this went ahead in the first place Bea: Sure she's been planning it since her last Fraze: don't mean she wouldn't cry off it on the night Bea: You can go tell her you're proud of her if you want Fraze: fuck off Bea: 😏 Fraze: [IRL 😏 at her] Bea: [LOOK back] Fraze: [always gotta return a LOOK] Bea: [but go get a drink with Bronson, obviously] Fraze: [go get your own because you're fuming at that and also I need a reason for you not to leave thank you] Bea: [you can force Tommy to dance with you and dance with Bronson] Fraze: [just like 👀😒 downing this drink haha] Fraze: [we both know he's eventually cutting in though there's only so much looking on either of them can take] Bea: [saying something about not dancing with Fearghal and Rocky yet like wait ya turn but 😏 again] Fraze: [we're having this moment ™ because this party is too dry to deal with] Bea: [you wanna see some romance hen] Fraze: [giving Laoise's brother ideas and the confidence to 💋 with their energy LOL] Bea: [I snorted, oh lord] Fraze: [like we said before, going from that long summer to nothing when they're back at uni would be a killer so the vibe is strong] Bea: [excuse us everyone that'll be awkward to see for you] Fraze: [I hope y'all are busy having your own fun and in Ro's case getting smooched so] Bea: [y'all be trying anyway, God bless] Fraze: [mcvickers having their own dance because they don't wanna be here either, awww] Bea: [das cute] Fraze: [we should've given Laoise a little sister for Rocky to have a childhood romance with, that would've been so cute cos the fams hate each other] Fraze: [maybe there can be a girl at the caravan park cos always there with his bff Carly] Bea: [I like that idea, v cute] Fraze: [look at me getting derailed as per] Bea: [my bubba] Fraze: [go get another drink and calm down a shade please boy] Bea: [you could get away with this extraness if it wasn't such a dry party alas hensss, I should probaby think about what present you're throwing at Ro] Fraze: Do you want me to tell you I'm proud of you then or what? Bea: For what? Fraze: Doing the dance rounds, how well you wrapped that gift, take your pick Bea: I don't think that'll make me feel any better, but you go ahead if it will you Fraze: Nah, not really Bea: Don't bother then Fraze: consider it not done Bea: Then we're all happy Fraze: No need to take the bullshit that far Bea: That's what her happy face looks like Fraze: Christ Bea: Told you it was tragic Fraze: I didn't dispute it Bea: Do you know the neighbour kids name? Fraze: Is that a trick question? Bea: Um, no Bea: I want to look him up Fraze: 'Course I fucking don't Bea: 🙄 you're so helpful Bea: bet you know the sister's name Fraze: don't be placing bets about me and girls my sister's age Bea: Lighten up it's not like she's a kid Fraze: She was Ali's friend when she was a kid, hardly a turn on seeing her trying to catch frogs or cast spells Fraze: but cheers for your permission Bea: Unlike our sisters, respectively, I'm sure she's grown up some since then Fraze: Like I said, don't bet on it Bea: Whatever, I don't wanna fuck her Fraze: Me either Bea: Cool Fraze: [go and do your theft of the church wine boy because this party is still not it] Bea: [go find him but under the guise/that's not a total lie doe of needing a fucking break] Fraze: [have another moment in that confined space] Bea: [drink that nasty wine, not even asking just taking it] Fraze: [letting it happen cos she needs it more than you tbh] Bea: [swigging way too much of the blood of christ before passing it back with a shrug like whoops, so soz] Fraze: [giving her a look like steady on like this wasn't your idea] Bea: ['you act like you come up with every plan' ref-ing to doing this as kids, obvs] Fraze: ['I do' that's a barefaced lie sir] Bea: [scoffs like oh please] Fraze: [scoffs himself to show what he thinks of her ideas in reference to this messy uni era that he's acting like she's solely responsible for] Bea: [takes the bottle back like if you're gonna be like that] Fraze: [takes it off her so he can actually get some] Bea: ['you did not have all the good ideas'] Fraze: ['Alright, you can credit him one for bringing you'] Bea: ['I thought you reckoned that was your idea too'] Fraze: ['Point is, it weren't yours'] Bea: [🙄 'I'm fine with being here not being my idea, tah'] Fraze: ['Unlike me being here' like there you go another bad idea] Bea: ['doesn't bother me' like unlucky] Fraze: ['You came to find me, not the other way round, babe'] Bea: ['I came to get away from everyone else, there's a difference'] Fraze: [looks around like there's loads of places to do that which is true cos there's literally no-one at this party] Bea: ['if you want me to go, say it'] Fraze: ['If I did, I would'] Bea: [a look like shut up then] Fraze: [shakes his head in an affectionate way like fuck knows why I want you around] Bea: [just like likewise with her everything] Fraze: [offers her a 🚬 like they're not indoors in the tiny priest cupboard] Bea: ['a way to get more guests' like when the firemen show Fraze: [a fearghal style big lol 'see, I'm full of good ideas'] Bea: [can't help but smile even if we're like mhmm] Fraze: [smiling because we made her smile, it's a lil moment] Bea: ['why haven't you left?' but soft not like accusatory or like get out] Fraze: [looking at her like you know why and we're stealing her words ''if you want me to go, say it' in a tone which obvs makes it clear that's not what we want] Bea: [says nothing to say it all] Fraze: [turn that look into a LOOK boy] Bea: ['why are you mad at me?' whilst casually getting on his lap to make sure he can't be] Fraze: ['why did you have to bring him here?' but everyone knows he's not that mad anymore because she's literally in here with you sir, priorities] Bea: ['see what you'd do' like we're joking but not not true either, just tracing all his features with your finger right now like it's been FOREVER since you saw each other] Fraze: [There's a time and a place' like I'm not gonna beat the shit out of him at this fam function even though I want to but also please don't bring him to fam functions ever again thank you] Bea: ['Maybe I didn't feel like being alone'] Fraze: ['You're not' pulling her even closer to him for emphasis] Bea: [a NOISE like 'scuse me 'not now'] Fraze: ['you're not alone ever' could sound creepy but we mean it in a loving and supportive way] Bea: [a look like we both know that's not true] Fraze: [a look like we both know it's always gonna be me and you, no matter what] Bea: [shakes head like that's not what I mean/the point] Fraze: [softly cups her face so they have all the eye contact like I mean it but you can still tell me what you mean] Bea: ['if we weren't ever alone, none of this would be happening'] Fraze: ['I don't regret that this is' like we're joking about being in this priest cupboard having a throwback moment but we're also saying that we're glad she's here and glad of any time we have rn so] Bea: [shaking our head and breaking eye contact as we get off him] Fraze: ['Shit's always gonna happen, we can't stop it' you can't save anyone vibes 'I only know one way that comes close, like'] Bea: ['what's that then?' but we're already not listening properly and getting up to go] Fraze: [a KISS to stop her in her tracks because it's that, like they are stopping time for a sec] Bea: [have your moment lads enjoy it been a long time coming] Fraze: [literally would feel like it's been forever anyway and even moreso because they are both having a shit time rn] Bea: [you can't get carried away, I vote the fun people at this party start playing hide and seek so you gotta break it up hens] Fraze: [I love that because I would suggest murder in the dark cos spooky girl energy but Ro's scared of the dark so we can't until she has left] Bea: [lol it's so against your everything to be scared of the dark that amuses me] Fraze: [she would play hide and seek though if only to get away from her bf] Bea: [so lowkey everyone will be playing therefore you must play lol] Fraze: [literally because Rocky, Ali and Carly have probably made mcvickers play by ganging up on them haha] Bea: [the entire guestlist hen, everyone else would be down, soz baze looooooooooooooooooollllllllllll] Fraze: [he's so just staying in this priest cupboard and we all know it] Bea: [such an obvious place boy you'll be seeking so soon, you better go find Bronson hun] Fraze: [likewise will just go for a 🚬 when he's supposed to be finding people because we're playing under duress] Bea: [we know you don't need to keep this close a watch on him like he'll be down but you know, moment gone here] Fraze: [good luck acting like you're not fuming that she went straight to him even though staying with you wasn't really an option] Bea: [this should be made into/they should play a different team game and be on opposite teams 'cos so competitive] Fraze: [always a mood so I 100% agree] Bea: [like idk what but take it way too seriously when no one else is lol] Fraze: [literally does not matter because like you said nobody else cares and you two are just on your bullshit, who should we say wins?] Bea: [i think firstly it's who gets Ro] Fraze: [he should because we don't need a beeline brawl] Bea: [you can have Rocky then Bea as they are equally as big a handicap so that's fair] Fraze: [lbr nobody is as big a handicap as Ro but he can have Ali who's great at everything to balance that out] Bea: [then she should have Tommy and Carly and he should have Bronson and Kayne] Bea: [Meena go where you like lol] Fraze: [he will be THRILLED to have Bronson on his team lol] Bea: [ha I know, like did that so you have some decent peeps but also for the awks] Fraze: [please don't brawl lads we can't be having that] Bea: [focus on winning, Fraze probably should] Fraze: [yeah otherwise he'll sulk haha] Bea: [and he already is so that would be rude] Fraze: [true enough] Bea: congrats Fraze: Say it like you mean it Bea: I don't so you know Bea: forced sportsmanship is all you're getting Fraze: come on, babe Bea: shut up Fraze: Don't be a sore loser Bea: you're so annoying Fraze: Nah, that was the team I had Bea: like mine was any better Fraze: Like you wouldn't rather have your sister, who you reckon you're just here to see, and your boyfriend Bea: I've seen her Bea: if you're hoping for a reunion beyond that, I'd stop Fraze: If you reckon that's even crossed my mind, you're losing your touch at more than kid's party games Bea: I'm saying I reckon that was a poor attempt at a dig, is all Fraze: you started it, like Bea: did I fuck Fraze: what else do you call that piss poor attempt at a congrats? Bea: sportsmanship Bea: I told you Fraze: Bullshit Bea: 🙄 fine, don't accept it Fraze: I don't Bea: so don't Fraze: Alright Bea: [drinking moodily like 😒] Fraze: [go for a smoke and calm down boy] Bea: [thank the lord this shit show is winding down, reminds me] Bea: Did Ro and Ali just walk past you? Fraze: Yeah, she said she's taking her home Bea: Wow Bea: I thought they were getting air, or some other stupid thing for another stupid ritual Bea: is she for real Fraze: Are you really that surprised? Bea: Pissed off and surprised aren't the same thing Bea: she actually got me to fly out Bea: for this Fraze: Do you want me to go after 'em? They only just went past Bea: No Bea: it's her party to ditch Fraze: at least you can too now though Bea: yeah, I really fancy the airport right now Bea: never mind getting back to Cambs just in time for rush hour Bea: fuck this Fraze: Then don't go to the airport Bea: This has been a massive waste of time Fraze: Cheers Bea: Come on Bea: you didn't want to come either Fraze: when I thought you weren't Bea: no, and before Fraze: Come on Bea: find you when I was done, if I recall Fraze: whatever, that's not the same as you shitting over all my attempts to make this bearable for you Bea: because you tried really hard to do that Fraze: obviously not hard enough, yeah? Bea: You said it, not me Fraze: Fuck's sake Fraze: forget it Bea: Done Fraze: Grand Bea: ['cos what you really need is to go out and get messier, lol, so rude not even gonna help everyone else clean up this shitshow] Fraze: [we all know he ain't staying to help either soz lads] Bea: [lol @ everyone else doing that work] Fraze: [do you wanna skip to later when they are both messier or go straight to the aftermath of this if she's going to the hotel?] Bea: [I vote still go home 'cos wasted enough money coming here it isn't like student funds goes that far Ro, gotta save for xmas too] Fraze: [honestly legit Ro you rude hoe] Bea: [we don't even need to be getting a travelodge honey, the sofa can stay so yes, we can skip] Fraze: [oh the joys, you messy bitches, so tempted to have him bring someone back for the drama] Bea: [that would kick off big time 'cos he's not allowed people at theirs 'cos it's their bed and she'd have to burn it lol, but he could not come back for drama but less than that if you wanna] Fraze: [good idea we don't wanna cause Bea to have a breakdown] Bea: [like I assumed you didn't wanna go that far lmao] Fraze: [I'm not that evil] Bea: you got your keys Fraze: I don't need 'em Bea: you aren't here, I had to go in and get some PJs Fraze: you don't need my permission to go in your own room Bea: I know, but I know you aren't back yet, is my point Fraze: By the time I am ma or da will be up, was my point Bea: alright Bea: I'm locking the backdoor too, as we're in the lounge Fraze: Don't be stupid Fraze: there's an empty bed, there's no point you sleeping on the sofa Bea: I've not slept in worse places Bea: it'd be rude to leave him on his own Fraze: and you wouldn't wanna be rude to him Bea: obviously not Fraze: obviously not Bea: How gone are you? Jesus Bea: well I've told you, so don't come through waking everybody up later Fraze: I've told you I won't Bea: you don't need my permission Fraze: I'm not asking for it Bea: then go do whatever you're doing Fraze: We can't even talk now Fraze: this plan of yours is fucking epic, like Bea: If you wanted to talk right now, you wouldn't be wherever the fuck you are Fraze: Nah, if you wanted to talk I wouldn't be Bea: 'cos that makes any sense Fraze: you couldn't leave fast enough, how else do you want me to take that? Bea: that wasn't about you Fraze: I never said it was, I said you don't want to talk to me Bea: would I have specifically taken a flight to come talk to you, when I'll be back for Christmas in a month? no, probably not Bea: that hardly means I don't want to talk to you Fraze: Do it then Bea: that's how conversation works now Bea: you demand it, I jump at the chance? Fraze: at least I'm making demands Bea: really Bea: how's that working out for you? Fraze: as well as the opposite is for you Bea: I don't want to talk to you, apparently Bea: nothing to not demand Fraze: you reckon you apparently do, there's loads to demand Bea: yeah, 'cos talking in circles with you right now is really thrilling Fraze: Thank Christ you've got him to talk to Bea: he's asleep Fraze: that makes sense if fuck all else does Fraze: 'course you'd leave it til then to say anything to me Bea: because I was going to go to bed and wanted to lock the door Bea: it's not anything more or less than that Fraze: so go to bed Bea: yeah, you aren't telling me what to do Fraze: I'm telling you to do yourself a favour Bea: you say what you like Bea: I don't care Fraze: I don't need your permission for that either Bea: then say something worth hearing or piss off and leave me alone Fraze: I meant what I fucking said, I don't wanna leave you alone Bea: Well good job because I am Bea: and no one has said fuck all to me today about it Bea: not even my sister Fraze: I'm sorry Bea: Yeah Bea: you've got loads to say? bullshit Fraze: There's fuck all I can say about this, we both know that Bea: No, there's fuck all you want to say about it Bea: 'cos no one wants to talk about it, so I don't get to regardless of if I might Fraze: Don't Fraze: you know me better than that Bea: Well why ain't you then? Bea: you're the one banging on about it, as if you've actually tried Fraze: I don't wanna be the cunt backing you into a corner and I know you better than to reckon that'd work Bea: This is working amazing then, alright Fraze: Well I reckoned you'd eventually come to me, more fool me Fraze: shit's changed Bea: Right, 'cos you made it so obvious you were up for talking Bea: saying you weren't coming Bea: it's encouraging, my mistake there Fraze: It should be obvious that you can talk to me about anything Bea: When Bea: you aren't here now either Fraze: whenever Fraze: you know nothing's more important than you Bea: okay Fraze: Say it like you believe me Bea: I can't Fraze: Bea Bea: I'm sorry Fraze: Don't Bea: you said things have changed Fraze: 'Cause they clearly fucking have Bea: They were bound to, I suppose Fraze: you could've warned me if you knew that Bea: What do you think taking a break was Bea: for you to figure out what you wanted Fraze: Don't blame me, I know what I fucking want Bea: Do you? Fraze: nothing's changed for me Bea: you can say that Bea: but this all points to the opposite, doesn't it Fraze: Bullshit Bea: You aren't here, we can't even talk Bea: nothing's the same now Fraze: What did you expect me to do? You pissed off with him, there weren't no invite going spare Bea: because you're an arsehole to him, I drag him here for the shittest party ever and then make you two have an even worse night out? what would be the point of that? Fraze: I'm not gonna cosy up to him, you do enough of that for the both of us Bea: I get it, you don't like him, that's why you weren't invited Fraze: You brought him, knowing I don't fucking like him, don't make me the cunt Bea: I'm allowed friends, no matter if you like them or not Fraze: we're both allowed to do whatever the hell we like, I ain't forgotten the rules Bea: as I'm not fucking him, the rules have nothing to do with it Bea: I never told you to not hang out with your mates Fraze: I'm not telling you what to do either, I'm telling you why I ain't there Bea: that's ridiculous Fraze: Fuck you Bea: it is, for Christ's sake Bea: he's asleep on the sofa not fucking me on our bed Fraze: you don't believe me, why should I believe you? Fraze: it's ridiculous that you brought him here in the first place Bea: I'd have time to be messaging you Bea: you're just being stupid now Bea: how is it ridiculous? Fraze: You've already made me look stupid Fraze: did it make you feel any better? Bea: To who, your brother, my sister? Bea: I couldn't be on my own today Bea: I tried and I couldn't, that's all it is Fraze: You don't need him, you've got me Bea: I'm not meant to come to you for everything, I'm meant to give you space Bea: give each other Bea: that's what this whole thing is about Fraze: this whole thing is bullshit Fraze: and even if I reckoned it was a good idea I'm not just gonna pretend your parents didn't die today to go fuck a Trinity student Fraze: there's a time and a place, like I said Bea: Fine Bea: well he's here now, what do you want me to do about it? Bea: I can't send him home Fraze: There's fuck all you can do, other than don't lock me out Bea: I knew you didn't have your keys Fraze: you do still know me then, yeah? Bea: If you hadn't forgot, you'd have lost them Bea: should probably change the locks, honestly Fraze: if you don't keep me out, I'll keep any robbing cunts out Bea: I'm not going to lock you out Bea: you don't need to promise heroics Fraze: I know you can't sleep, I'd be a new level of callous bastard if I gave you anything else to worry about Bea: it'd be a distraction Bea: doubt your parents would appreciate it though Fraze: Well I can easily give you one of them Bea: not that you rate yourself or anything Fraze: it starts with me, yeah, no fucker else is volunteering to sing my praises right now Bea: Poor boy Fraze: Don't rub it in how skint I am as well Bea: well you and me both Bea: be eating plain rice when I get back Bea: at least your ma makes sure you have decent food still Fraze: I'll send you something to put on it Fraze: or something to drown your sorrows with Bea: where do you think all my money goes, like Fraze: you and me both, babe Fraze: these Trinity girls aren't cheap dates, like Bea: My sympathy can only extend so far Fraze: the night off from it is appreciated enough Bea: uhuh Fraze: you don't believe me, I heard you the first time Bea: it was never part of the deal that we had to talk about it Fraze: I know Bea: so I don't want to Fraze: I'm shutting up and coming in Bea: Good Fraze: come and have a drink Bea: [does, of course] Fraze: [giving her the bottle for the mems of Jesus blood and always] Bea: [take a big swig like you need to remotely lol 'thank you' with sincerity at last] Fraze: [shamelessly checking her out in whatever pjs she's wearing obvs, though I vote she's wearing at least one item that belongs to him so he's like 😏 and gently pulls on whatever it is like that's mine without saying so out loud] Bea: [deffo, and has done it without even noticing so it's like oh, raising a brow like you want it back?] Fraze: [yassssss because they are that coupley goodbye but he shakes his head because looks better on her anyway and takes the bottle instead] Bea: [even though it would've been ages since you did that it's just habit, shrugs like 😏 your loss] Fraze: [such a LOOK of course] Bea: ['where'd you go?' like where did you go drink, not WHERE WERE YOU vibes] Fraze: [telling her the name of somewhere studenty with his own shrug, I like to imagine he's like casually getting ready for bed here also as a habit because it doesn't feel awkward to just get topless or whatever] Bea: [casual face of disdain but 'makes sense'] Fraze: ['nothing happened' because even though she said she didn't wanna talk about it and neither do you, you want her to know that and you're drunk enough to just say it] Bea: ['doesn't matter if it did' blatant lie but okay] Fraze: [a look because we know it's a blatant lie but we're coming to put our arms around her cos it's been such a shit day] Bea: [big sighs] Fraze: [just having a snuggle and it will forever fuck me up cos he's so tol and she's so smol] Bea: [OG tol and smol, we mumbling into his chest like scuse you what you saying] Fraze: [she's like me and Clove, failing to thrive honey, so if you think he's not cradling her like a little Clovey you'd be incorrect] Bea: [just have this moment of softness, gotta allow it] Fraze: [very deserved and needed] Bea: ['this is such bullshit' like true but specifics where] Fraze: ['I know' because you don't need specifics cos everything is for you too like you literally thought she was slipping away from you same as Joe did and you've realised you hate uni it wasn't just 1st year being crap] Bea: [that must happen so much 'cos allegedly everyone hates 1st year but then it just carries on like oh] Fraze: [it really does happen a lot hence he's like well shit it's not that and I don't actually wanna be doing this] Bea: ['there's fuck all to do, is there?'] Fraze: [repositioning however necessary for eye contact because there's always something they can do, that's like their entire mantra and we don't need to express that with words] Bea: [gestures like ugh I know that but seriously, right now, this has been hard since this time last year] Fraze: ['if you wanna throw all these bullshit rules out, tell me' like ldr exists babe we don't have to get randoms involved] Bea: [shakes his head 'it's about what's right and needs to be done'] Fraze: [kisses her like you can't tell me this isn't right gal] Bea: her* scuse me Bea: [going in on that kiss, not just so we don't have to sort this out but you know lollollol] Fraze: [likewise allowing it and not only from the standpoint that we need them to be messy and struggling for a while yet but also because he would] Bea: [deal with some of this tension hens] Fraze: [it's the first real chance you've had so I'm not gonna stop you] Bea: [it'd be silly to say it wouldn't happen so we cannot sorry] Fraze: [exactly] Bea: [okay, so obviously we're falling asleep together and equally as obviously you still have to be back asap for school etc so you're probably leaving early AM, not just for the drama of it lol] Fraze: [makes sense but I vote he brings you breakfast in bed before Bronson wakes up because 1. cute 2. you don't have to deal with Ro who's always up ridiculously early lurking and he remembered what you said about eating rice when you get back] Bea: [you've probably not had breakfast in a thousand years so that's a novelty] Fraze: [like it probably wouldn't be good cos he'd accidentally burn the toast or whatever thanks to how messy they were last night but the romantic gesture has been attempted] Bea: [tis the thought that counts henny] Fraze: [my thoughts exactly, just trying to look after her but keep it casual so she's not 😒] Bea: [we can't get too mad over some toast, even if we'd probably try not to eat it at first like g2g] Fraze: [gal you know he can keep you in that bed, don't test him] Bea: [or do, depending how much time you've left yourselves lol] Fraze: [mhmmm] Bea: [either way, you're leaving and you're gonna be folorn] Fraze: [literally would take all his willpower to not just come with you cos uni sucks but as you've not talking about it yet and can't really have the convo now that ain't happening hun] Bea: [soz babe, not at that realisation for a while yet but you did a good job sowing seeds] Fraze: [didn't wanna go too heavy handed with it because not gonna trump dead parents but like it is happening so] Bea: [you wanna end this here or do a bit of aftermath] Fraze: [I think we've covered a lot so tbh unless there's anything we want to specifically address in the aftermath it's probably good]

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zeitgeniesser · 2 years ago

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nemeses are good

a wise old instagram post once told me: when you are annoyed at someone, how much of yourself do you see in them?

Boom. Gotteem. But forreal, I'm here for the spice, and the spikes, and the spite. Nemeses are good, baby. Find yourself a dark kermit. Let darkest timeline Abed show you who you really are, and who you really can be. And don't look too hard, they are aplenty in the mundane.

~~~~~~~~~~

Here's the proof. Today at the Y, a prim rose-haired, nails-shellacked, nose ringed, queer-spectrum-ass-punk-ass-White kid pulled his lil tank top wearing punk ass up to the court where I had just put the finishing touches on a W and called next. Sensing something a little unusually electric, and competitively aroused by the princeling interloper, I jumped at the opportunity.

That's the stage setting, but first, some necessary backdrop:

For starters you gotta know I'm pretty decent at basketball. I'm YMCA good anyways. I'll let you place me on your own mental spectrum from amputated dachshund to LeBron.

Second: real recognize real. If you're discerning, you can measure a guy's rote ability pretty fuckin quick. And this dude was busy checking boxes. Legit handle. In-and-out dribble. Drag step. NBA range. Surprising bounce. Quickness. 5'8'' sure, but dangly earrings spoke for his confidence. And beneath the geniality, the high-fives, the lobe-to-lobe smile an icy and unmistakable competitive glimmer.

Third: it takes one to know one. Sure, I don't take it quite the distance as this fuck, but I'm standing there as the only other earringed, tank-topped, big-cheesin, skinny ass, punk ass Whiteboy in the gym. And I also don't like to lose. And certainly not under these circumstances. I get off on being the gangly charming hipster who's also capable of stacking Ws. This is a -- I want to have my cake and eat it in front of you moment. A howdy partner, this town ain't big enough for the two of us moment. That type of shit. I could go on.

~~~~~~~~~~

So the game gets going. He's got his crew, I've got mine. It's not the perfect matchup but we end up guarding each other. I'm a sucker for a little narrative, a little juice, a dose of rivalry. It's conspicuously even. He's quicker, I'm taller. I post his ass up for a bucket. He hits a drag step fallaway on me. I choke out: "nice shot." I block him. He hits a deep three. I hit a deep three. ...

Between the fireworks there's a subtler tug of war happening. A clash of souls. A battle between light and dark. Smug and smugger. Alt and hip and cool and chill and good-at-basketball.

This is about who can win, yes, but it's really about who can win with the most stylistic nonchalance. Because in this flamboyant swashbuckle there is also a particular mantle of cool detachment at stake. The coveted victory that does not debase our personal brands. Brands built on years of breezy Golden Child achievement, "smart-smart" rep, effortless charm, chummy leadership (but NOT the bro-ey Crab Goyle & Malfoy variety), and against-the-grain visual affect. Grimy competitiveness certainly does not comport. But neither does getting run off the floor.

So what will the tone be? The urgency? The physicality of this dance? We let each other know in little ways. He sets an off ball screen on the first play. Daps up a teammate and drops some hoops jargon. "Good weak side rotation. Clean dive." Behavior that to the naked eye looks like nothing, but to a fellow shark sends a signal: I know what I'm doing and I really don't want to lose. Not so fast pal, from the jump I'm on him. Pushing slightly and not so slightly, hand on his ribcage, hard box outs. I'm telling him, I'm bigger than you are and you're gonna have to earn your points today. When he scores on me, even my "nice shot" is loaded. Motherfuckers don't get easy buckets on me because I'm good at basketball. There's a wintry respect in the air.

And then it breaks. We're all knotted up and it's late in the game. Little dude on their team goes up for a rebound. I go up for the same rebound. We both come down with it, four hands on one ball. I call jump. In pickup hoops you can call jump when two fellas are grappling for the ball. Usually stops things from getting messy. Gives possession to the team that didn't start with it. That would've been us. I knew that. Of course I did.

And so did he. I look over, his eyes are blazing through the thin curtains of his usual smug smolder, the cold steel of his septum piercing red with indignity. Seeing no legal challenge, but mad as hell, he storms forward, grabs the ball and proclaims "I'll shoot for it." In pickup hoops this is the equivalent of invoking trial by combat. No matter how sacrosanct the rule in question, you can always opt to leave it in the hands of the basketball Gods.

Well not really. You're fucked if you can't shoot.

He can though, and he drills it. Small recompense. Everyone and their grandma knows what just happened. Just like that, the mirage was shattered.

Salty ass motherfucker. Competitive slimeball. Two faced diva. And the worst yet: tasteless. Among the regular degular hooper crowd there's a special disdain reserved for frequent foul callers (and frequent foulers, which can lead to some dicey situations). Those who lace it up learn to understand the informal glue, the communal decorum, the unwritten expectations, the honor that holds together such a psychosomatic blob of sweat and ego. Beneath the aggression and chirping and competition there's a bond of good faith. Break it, and you might manage to mortgage the L for the asterisk. But the cost is steep.

The interloper had proven himself willing to engage in such a Faustian Verhandlung. In doing so, he exposed himself as worse than competitive. Competitive is a vice we can live with. One we can manage and trim and take for walks out on the basketball court so it doesn't shit all over our amygdala's carpets. But competition must make peace with the sour taste of defeat, the roommate who's existence it might prefer to ignore. And the landlord, your psyche, would do well to acknowledge even their more rowdy, less outwardly presentable tenants.

Which brings this boomerang home. I'm not always proud of my achievement complex, or competitiveness, or high horse but I do well to acknowledge it. Play whack-a-mole and it escapes in geysers of unbearable smugness in victory, and saltily gritted teeth in defeat. Of course, I can always run. Until the universe drops another hint. This kid on the court, this prima-fuckin-donna jabronie fauntleroy schmetterling showed me a mirror and I didn't like it. I don't want to fly so close to the sun, I want to sit in my fuckin swamp water snatching balls out the passing lane with my crocodile jaws, desperately and unashamedly hunting for a win and already at peace with a loss.

#nemesis #story #psychology

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