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adorerdraco · 5 years ago

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Not My Type (Like You) ✧ Draco x Reader

Request: you should like do a one shot or even another mini series about amortentia/love potions in general. i’d soooo read that

AU SEVENTH YEAR WHERE VOLDY NEVER CAME BACK <3 f**k that mf !

italics are for flashbacks <3 i love them if you couldn’t tell

Warnings: mean!draco, cursing, more mature themes/ideas, little bit of spice towards the end teehee but not too much bc idk how to write smut to save my life

Words: 4.5K

A/N: I saw a tiktok that kinda inspired this and i couldn’t get the idea out of my heaaaad if anyone knows which one im talking ab send it my way so i can show !!!! ALSO I LOVE THIS ONESHOT I LOVE DRACO AND I AM IN MY FEELINGS this might be my new favoriteeeee

Draco Malfoy was insufferable.

The Prince of Slytherin was unbearable for many reasons, things you've been taking notice of since your first year at Hogwarts when you accidentally had the ”pleasure” of interacting with him when he called you stupid in a class for reciting a spell incorrectly. That day, a hostility blossomed. A hostility that ensued nothing but teasing, mocking, and criticizing that would sometimes go too far and you'd both have to be pulled away from each other by your friends’ before either of you said anything excessively harsh that had no return.

You often felt like Malfoy sought you out to bother you and only for that. You could be sitting in the Quad with friends, conversing and laughing like nothing in the world mattered, and a few minutes later you'd be hurling insults towards the blond across the courtyard after he would yell something infuriating to you with that smug smirk on his face and his goons laughing wildly beside him as if he just said the most hilarious thing they've ever heard.

On the days you’d ignore him, not having the patience or the energy to deal with him, he would still somehow find a way to push your buttons. Little things here and there like passing you in the corridors and tugging at the ends of your hair gingerly like a child but enough to tick you off or sending you notes from across the class in the form a small fluttering bird with a lousy drawing of you usually with a message along the lines of, “Y/L/N, hopefully, this note finds itself in the nest of hair you have today xx DM.”

In all honesty, there wasn’t a day you didn’t encounter Draco and it’s been that way for seven long years. Neither of you ever gotten tired of mildly or spitefully bullying each other and neither of you ever dreamed of stopping. He was one of the few constants in your daily life, and you in his. It was like you both lived on annoying the other, and in the midst of all the chaos that you brought to one another; there was a small, teeny, tiny acquaintance - not that either of you would ever admit it. You may have noticed it the time you bet each other ten galleons for who would win in the Triwizard Tournament your fourth year and he bet on Viktor Krum while you on Cedric Diggory. (he’s very much alive i refuse to think otherwise.)

“So you’re telling me, your mother is the reason why you’re not at Durmstrang,” you scoffed. “This whole time I could have been saved four years of headaches.”

“You’re just jealous some of us have more opportunities than others,” he snarks back pompously. “Unlike you, I hardly believe you would be graceful enough to even be considered admission into Beauxbatons.”

You had gone to see the last task of the competition just like the rest of the schools, all packed tightly onto the stands and watching carefully the exit of the maze. Naturally, you had arrived with your own friend groups, but somewhere during the time of sitting there and even being a few rows behind the blond and his minions, the two of you had met in the middle bench after he was trying to prove something wrong to you.

When Cedric appeared back in front of the stands with the glowing Triwizard cup held high over his head in victory and every Hogwarts student loudly celebrating, you had jumped up from your seat and shook wildly an irked Draco beside you. He roughly shrugged your hands off his stiff shoulder, looking up at you with a sneer that you met with a bright beaming smile.

“Pay up, Malfoy!” You held out your hand towards him, opening and closing your fingers to receive the bet money. “I believe it was ten galleons you owe me.”

He begrudgingly reached into his coat pocket and fished out the coins, counting them defeatedly before tossing them into your palm. “What a waste of galleons.”

“Hey, you made the bet,” you reminded him with a still very bright smile. You shoved the money into your pockets, keeping one of the gold coins in between your fingers, and gave him a small hair ruffle that he harshly recoiled from before you turned to jump back up towards the level of stands your friends were originally sitting at.

“Were you really sitting with Malfoy this whole time?” One of your friends questioned when you reached them, a goading smirk on his face.

“Ooooh, she definitely was,” another friend piped up, wiggling her eyebrows. “They’re obsessed with each other.”

“Shut up,” you smack her arm casually, showing the pair the one gold galleon you were holding. “We are not. I was only sitting with him to get my bet money.”

“Sure,” they drawled in unison, sniggering when you threw your head back in annoyance.

You looked down the rows to see the mop of white hair you just sent into disarray. He was slowly descending the stairs of the stands with Crabbe and Goyle following closely behind him. Almost as if he felt your eyes on his back, he turned back to look at you, his cold gray eyes gazing into yours. It was like everything around you went quiet, the only thing in your focus was him and all you could do was stare back. It wasn’t until your friends started stifling laughter and whispering “aww’s” that you snapped out of the short-lived and odd few second trance you were in. He waited for you to do something before he turned back around, and you did - by holding up both hands; the one golden galleon on your left and your middle finger on your right, grinning to yourself when he rolled his eyes throwing you the finger right back before he finally disappeared into the mob of people below.

You were briskly walking down the corridors, books held tightly to your chest with your friend at your side while you made your way to Advanced Potions with Slughorn after Snape finally made his way into the DADA position. It was an easy class, potions being something you had a knack for and it gave you enough leisure to mess with your “favorite” Slytherin who shared it with you.

“Look there goes your boyfriend,” your friend teases, elbowing your upper arm roughly and nodding her head down towards the hall to the tall blond appearing around the corner and entering swiftly into the class.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” you hiss. “I’m tired of everyone saying that. I hate him and he hates me, end of story.”

“You know when you say you hate him, it just sounds like the opposite,” she says tauntingly. “Besides, hate is a strong word and very misplaced. Maybe, it’s just years of built-up tension that both of you have been too nervous to do anything about.”

“Tension? Yeah, I want to strangle him,” you laugh to yourself at the thought.

“Not that tension, idiot,” she shakes her head, “I mean sexual tension...clearly.”

You gave her a horrified look mixed between being disgusted and being offended. You held your hand over your mouth and pretended to gag as dramatically as you could. “I am appalled that you would even say that. I would rather be locked in a room with Filch and Peeves and hear them argue and fight all day than to be with Malfoy like that.”

“Come on, think about it,” she encourages, stopping the two of you a little ways away from the classroom. “You guys 'hate' each other?” She finger quotes the hate, looking at you with a raised eyebrow. “When you hate someone, you don’t go out of your way to talk to them every day.”

“It’s not like that,” you wave a hand dismissively. “Also, this isn’t a cliche, this is real life. We hate each other, that is all there is to it.”

You picked up the walk again, your friend to following behind you while letting out a deep and exhausted sigh. You couldn’t help but think about what she said, sure, perhaps at one point you thought Draco was attractive with his bright silver hair, his glittering gray eyes, his little button nose that he would crinkle up every other word he spoke in his charming haughty voice, or the way he’d tower over you in the middle of a conversation gone wrong and he’d be talking lowly to you but all you’d be able to focus on was the sweet scent of apples and cologne that radiated off of him.

“No,” you whispered almost silently to yourself, forcing yourself out of your thoughts and shaking your head from side to side as if it was going to get the image out of your head. He was mean, disrespectful, arrogant, and insulted you daily - even if you both laughed about it or gave props for the perfect jabs.

The first thing your eyes landed on when you walked into the dingy Potions classroom was Draco, his focus trained on the ceiling as if he was deep in thought. Just as his eyes were about to flicker down towards you, and sensing that he was about to, you quickly avoided his gaze and concentrated onto Slughorn who was waiting patiently by his desk with a bubbling cauldron for you and your friend to join the crowd in front of him.

“Great! Now that we’re all here,” Slughorn began excitedly, fixing the sleeves of his robes as he grabbed the ladle in the cauldron and began stirring it while continuing his lecture.

You were trying to listen, capturing only the professor’s last sentence as he called on someone who raised their hand. All attention was thrown out the window when you realized Draco was standing near said classmate, a look of annoyance suddenly clouding his features when his pale eyes met yours.

“What?” He mouthed. You ignored him, trying to turn your concentration back onto Slughorn but nothing he was saying made sense, and right as you caught a word you did understand, a shuffling and an abrupt arm knocking into yours threw you right back out of the loop.

“Watch it,” you snap hushedly when you notice who it is. “Why are you over here?”

“I can’t say hello to my number one fan?” He whispers back, snickering slightly when you scoffed quietly.

“Fan? Says the one who shoved his way through the crowd to come over here,” you grumble, crossing your arms.

“I hardly shoved,” he mutters. “I only moved because I couldn’t see Slughorn from where I was standing. Not everything’s about you.”

“Really? Because to me, it seemed like you came over here for my attention.”

He let out a breathy chuckle, a patronizing smile making its way onto his face. The type of typical boy smile where his mouth is half agape with his tongue smoothing over his teeth as he stared off across the room with his fingertips rubbing thoughtfully against his jawline as he thought of what to say. You stood still as he bent down, nearing his mouth towards your ear and whispering hotly, “you wish, darling.”

Slughorn sent everyone to their paired tables, and as everyone began moving and Draco sauntered off away from you, you stood stuck there, shocked with the lingering chills that were sent down your spine from your archnemesis’ comment.

“I told you, you’re into each other,” your friend sang expectantly from behind you, grabbing onto your sleeve and directing the two of you towards your table.

You were working peacefully at your workspace, cutting up, peeling, and crushing the ingredients that your friend was sliding across the surface to you. In the table behind you was where Draco was working annoyingly quiet, tossing the stripped stems of the roses at you that you had to peel, tiny thorns pricking at your ankles through your socks since the bigger thorns had been taken off for the potion. As payback, you would throw back loose extra pearl dust you ground up, giggling tauntingly when he would frown at you for getting the coarse white powder all over his Italian leather shoes and most definitely inside of them as well.

When you, and seemingly the rest of the class, had finally thrown in all the ingredients and the potion promptly finished brewing, beautiful clouds of white and pink smoke began rising from the cauldrons, each one having a lovely scent of first; freshly pressed high-priced linens, then a faint smell of a brand new racing broom out of a box with a freshly polished wood handle that then quickly transformed into a sweet harvest of apples, green specifically, and finally...

“Ugh, gross,” you pinched your nostrils closed, turning your body around and sending a scowl towards Draco’s way. “Malfoy, we get it, your cologne is expensive, now stop spraying it. I was smelling all these wonderful things and you ruined it.”

He arched an eyebrow at you, looking at you as if you were crazy. “Are you mad? I didn’t spray anything, I think you’ve finally lost it.”

“Well you laid it on too heavy this morning then, it reeks in here.”

“You’re one to talk, Y/L/N. Did you bathe yourself in that dreadful perfume you wear just now? And that ghastly lip shiner thing you use,” He sneers, crinkling up his nose. “I can’t even think straight, I might vomit.”

“Lip shiner? It’s called lip balm, you prat,” you retort, crossing your arms angrily. “Either way, I haven’t used or sprayed anything either so-”

“For Merlin’s sake!” Your friend suddenly exasperated loudly from beside you making you briskly whirl around to look at her, a look of pure annoyance etched onto her face. “Are you two really that daft? Honestly? Have you been paying attention to anything other than each other? For instance, the potion we just made?”

This gained the attention of your classmates around you in the surrounding tables, turning their heads slightly but not obviously with small knowing smirks on their faces while they snickered quietly and listened. It was soundless as you reached towards the book in front of your friend, pulling it painstakingly slow towards you in fear of the words that were written on the open page.

“Amortentia,” you muttered glumly as you read the page, pushing it away from you dejectedly as everything began to click.

“The reason you’re both smelling each other is because you’re what the other desires and is attracted to. Wow, what a revelation! As if the whole school didn’t already know.”

You were afraid to turn around. You could feel the cold and hard pair of eyes burning holes onto your back and the immediate amount of whispers and giggles of the people around you. Luckily, Slughorn was busy at the other end of the room, working diligently with another pair of students who managed to mess up their potion.

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Draco announces finally.

“What’s so ridiculous about it?” You questioned, your heart falling to the pit of your stomach when you turned again and took notice of the way his lips were curling upwards as if it was the most disgusting thing he could have ever heard.

“Think about it, Y/L/N,” he deadpans. “Why would I ever desire someone like you?”

There had been occasions over the years when you were in this situation. None as drastic and as revealing, but there would be times when friends and others would poke fun and say the exact same thing your friend told you earlier. The usual, “they got the hots for each other!” and you would always brush it off and joke about how you could never, and he’d do the same. It was always amongst laughs and jokes, but as you looked at the Slytherin in front of you - there wasn’t a hint of amusement on his hardened face.

“Piss off, Malfoy,” you seethed, biting down hard on your lip to refrain from lashing out either in tears or in insults, you couldn’t decide. “If I’m so revolting, leave me alone from now on, I mean it.”

“I never said that,” he argues. “You’re just simply not my type.”

For some eerie, awful reason, the words tore into you like a sharpened knife going easily through butter. You were used to his insults, his mocking, his comments about your appearances - but this hurt, and you couldn’t explain why. You thought, for a second, possibly, that maybe your friend was right. Maybe there was a hidden attraction you had for the platinum blond that you buried deep away and one that he had for you. There was no way that was the case now, not at all.

And for the first time in your life, you couldn’t be more sure of a simple little fact.

You hated him.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

You don’t know how long you spent sitting in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, back against the cold tiled wall with your knees brought up to your chest. Your friends had tried to console you after the public rejection and humiliation, but their words only made you feel worse. You felt silly for being so bothered about being rejected by Malfoy, he wasn’t exactly someone you fancied, to begin with.

After dinner, you went off the grid and found yourself where you’re now sitting. The ghostly girl flew restlessly around you, popping out of her stall now and then to chat but then going back into her abyss of nothing when she learned you were still upset. You noticed it made her a little too pleased, considering the fact it was always her who was miserably wailing about her problems in the bathroom. She tried to hide it and let you talk to her about how you felt, but she gave terrible advice most of the time.

“Well, if it was me, I would have never started fancying someone who was mean to me,” she mumbled. “Like when Paul Wighorn made fun of my hair for a whole year and laughed when I cried. I hated his guts then and I still do now.”

She had a point, but she was also Myrtle. Nothing about the overly dramatic ghost made sense.

“I don’t fancy him, It’s just weird,” you trail off. “I can’t imagine a day without him, even if he is a complete arse. We always joked about how we hated each other, but I didn’t think he actually meant it, I guess.”

“I think you do fancy him, though,” she whispers knowingly in your ear, making you flinch from her cold draft. “Stop denying it, it’ll only keep making you feel worse. Amortentia doesn’t lie, silly. Maybe when you drink it, but before that, all real feelings are there, whether you know it or not.”

You sat quietly, taking in her words before something came crashing down onto you like a wall of bricks.

“I suppose that means he’ll have to stop denying it too,” she adds thoughtfully.

“Myrtle,” you rush to get up, smoothing your hair down profusely and fixing the wrinkles in your clothes. “You’re a genius.”

“I am?” She asks excitedly. “What did I say?”

You waved her off, giving her another thank you before rushing out of the bathroom and into the empty corridors. You were trying to go back to your dorm to sleep, hoping that when tomorrow came you would be bold enough to confront the Slytherin Prince but it was thirty minutes past curfew, something you didn’t notice until you were bustling down the steps in a rush and came face to face with the man of the hour himself doing his Prefect patrolling duties.

“Go to your dorm, Y/L/N,” he sneers. “I’ll take away house points, don’t test me,”

“I don’t believe you.”

“That I’ll take away house points? Watch me. Five-”

“No, you twat,” you groan, swatting his arm with your hand. “I don’t believe that I’m not your type.”

He stayed wordless for a moment, biting the inside of his cheeks and clenching his jaw as he peered down at you from his lanky height. “Why not?”

“Because I didn’t think you were my type until the amortentia made me aware of it,” you answer quietly. “Actually, my friend had a hand in it, but it was mostly the potion.”

Silence, again. Still and deadly. You could hear the large clocks around the school tick and tock, the hundreds of paintings snoring peacefully or chattering quietly. You avoided looking up at the boy in front of you, all of a sudden feeling small under his gaze until you felt cold fingers brush against your cheekbone and then softly through your hair causing you to finally look up into the soft wandering almost blue eyes.

“I didn’t find out with the amortentia,” he muttered almost reluctantly as if it was the most difficult thing he had to reveal. “I’ve known I’ve liked you for a while.”

“How long is a while?” You curiously wonder aloud.

“I’m not telling,” he smirks. “Perhaps you’ll figure it out one day.”

Both hands came up to rest on your cheeks, slightly cold but soft and tender. It sent chills throughout your body as he took a step closer to you and then closer, backing you carefully into the diagonally ascending stone wall that went in the direction of the stairs. Your breathing was getting uneven, you noticed the way you accidentally switched to manually forcing yourself to inhale and exhale normally when he leaned down with his face now being mere centimeters from yours. It was torture, having your eyes closed and feeling the way his nose was brushing against yours, minty breath warm against your lips as he ghosted over them with his. He was so close, you smelt everything that was in the damn potion that got you here. It sent flutters of warmth down your body, trickling down and seeping deeply into every bone in your body as if this is was the remedy its been needing. This is what you’ve been missing.

When you finally felt a soft pair of lips being pressed into yours, it felt almost unreal that you were there. It was awkward the first couple of seconds, both of you wondering how in the world had you gotten yourselves in this position, but after you relaxed and he found his Prince of Slytherin confidence - it was magic. His lips moved languidly against yours, affectionately and full of longing. He kept his hands on your cheeks, still timid to move anywhere else while you kept yours resting lightly on his sides. It scared you a little, how fast and how easily you melted into each other, like if this was something you’ve been doing with him for years rather than torment the other for laughs.

You hated the feeling when he pulled away, a gust of freezing castle air passing through the space between you and cooling your lips and face from his contact. His hands dropped down to his sides and he looked down at you with a small smile, a teeny bit smug, but happy. You wanted to feel the same way, but a question still loomed over your head, overpowering the giddiness you were vividly feeling.

“Why did you lie earlier?” You question softly, directing your gaze to the floor. “In class, I mean.”

He thought about his answer for a second, sighing deeply when he realized he had to uncover more truths about himself to you. You took a mental observation at that, he didn’t like to talk about feelings. “You didn’t say anything. Didn’t even look at me. I thought I’d beat you to it and reject you before you could reject me.”

“What made you think I’d reject you?” You coaxed. “Other than the fact that I made you a sworn enemy at eleven.”

“Exactly that,” he laughed lightly. “You’re unpredictable, Y/N.”

You smiled to yourself at the realization that he finally used your first name. “So are you, Draco.”

“Not really,” he grins. “Like in just a few moments, for example, I’m going to start snogging you.”

You opened your mouth to encourage him but shut it quickly when he closed the space between the two of you again, this time much closer than he was before. He was flush against you, and when you say you could feel everything; you could feel everything. You were almost begging for him to lean down and kiss you again by the time you felt his hands on you again, running delicately around the exposed skin of your hips when your shirt hiked up an inch on accident. He leaned down again, and with the advantage of his lowered height, you let your hands slide up his arms, biceps, and ultimately the nape of his neck where your fingers continued up into his hair. The breathiest gasp escaped his throat as you tugged at the ends gently, smirking to yourself when he closed his eyes in delight at the touch.

His lips came down onto your fast this time and hastily, pressing himself impossibly closer into you. You could feel his grip tighten against your hips, his hold moving upwards onto your waist as he continued to kiss you fervently. His teeth bit down softly on your bottom lip and you wasted no time in parting them slightly for his tongue to meet yours. You tugged at the platinum strands of hair again, feeling triumphant when a low groaning sound emitted from his throat at the sensation as he tilted his head to deepen the kiss further.

You knew you were done for when one of his hands slowly slid up your upper body, stopping first at your collarbones with warm fingertips fluttering over the skin, before he moved it upwards completely and he now had his large hand wrapped comfortably around your neck. You gasped in delight into the kiss, a swarm of butterflies going directly to your lower stomach as he squeezed against the artery in your neck meticulously, the coldness from his Malfoy family crest ring only adding fuel to the fire. He tore his mouth away from yours with his hand still clutched firmly around your throat and you were almost sent into orbit with the look he was giving you. A look filled with desire, adoration, and intensity - his pale gray eyes were much darker, almost a dark blue that resembled the starry night sky on a summer night.

Lips reattached themselves roughly and feverishly against your jawline, peppering long and tender kisses all the way towards your ear and then down towards your collarbones where he was beginning to undo the rest of the top buttons of your school dress shirt. You felt him smile against your hot skin when you’d writhe underneath him, emitting weak whimpers that you couldn’t hold back that he ended up having to clasp a free hand over your mouth as he whispered into your ear to stay quiet.

It didn’t matter that you were in the middle of a poorly lit corridor where anyone could walk past and see the frenzy that was unfolding, nor did it matter to Draco that his Prefect duties were long forgotten. Your friend was right, and everyone else for that matter; it wasn’t hate you felt for the blond at all, it was years and years of a craving and a hidden yearning packed with displaced tension.

And now, you were both exactly where you wanted to be; together.

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inkandpen22 · 4 years ago

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Cuppa Tea, Cuppa Tea

Request: The first request is that the reader kinda is yawning a bit, but "oh, it's fine, I'm just studying a bit harder" but they're either lying and doing a bunch of work deep into the night (maybe translating old books or something) or it's insomnia, or actually studying til 4:00am or something (lots of "ors" I'm so sorry) and of course spike finds out and is like "I'm supposed to be the nocturnal one??" And I had a brief thought of somehow the reader being tricked to drink sleepy time tea or something that will make them sleep as much as they need, but idk if that would be weird 🤔 but anyway, I hope that made sense ^^;

Pairing: Spike x gender neutral reader

Warnings: swearing

Word Count: 1.3k

Summary: Y/N is at Spike’s studying for a chemistry exam when Spike starts to worry for them.

A/N: sorry for the delay!!! This was so easy to write because honestly it’s relatable. Enjoy X

Masterlist

The words on the page start to blend and nothing makes sense anymore. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to process the words I'm staring at here. I have to pass this chemistry exam. I'm not even a chem major, stupid general education classes. I hear Spike move about behind me while his Passions episode comes to an end. Being one of the token full-fledge humans in the Scooby Gang means I'm sometimes dropped off at Spike's for safekeeping. Lately, there's a water demon terrorizing Sunnydale, so I've been instructed to come straight here after classes. Yet, Spike insists on meeting me right after the lecture. He went about finding out my course schedule so he can be thereafter my last class. Since I finish when the sun is still out, he has to use the tunnels on campus. He's the definition of smothering.

"Y/N, you need to go to bed," he advises, appearing beside the crypt I'm set upon.

My notes and textbook are laid perfectly on the crypt to study.

"Five more minutes," I yawn.

The candlelight is starting to radiate enough heat to feel it. They've been going all afternoon and well into the evening. Its light is starting to burn my eyes.

"You said that twenty minutes ago," Spike sighs, kneeling next to me.

"Oh bet, I thought it was only ten," I check my watch for the time.

Spike huffs in annoyance and snatches my textbook away.

"Hey!" I reach for the pages, but he moves it away.

"I'm so supposed to be the nocturnal one! Not you!" He reminds me with a fuss.

"Ever heard of insomnia?" I sass.

"It's not healthy," he preaches, setting my textbook down.

"Nor is being undead. That's a little pot calling the kettle black," I shrug while I reopen my book to the proper page.

"The more tired you get the more annoying you are," he grumbles, tossing his head back dramatically with a sigh.

"Dope," I nod with narrowed eyes.

"I hate you," Spike growls.

"Love to hear it," I mutter subconsciously as I continue reading.

"Ugh, oh my g-"

Absentmindedly, I read the chapter on proper chemical mixing. I can't even read the periodic table, how am I supposed to remember all of this?

I start to sing a familiar tune under my breath without much thought. "Oh say can you see by the dawn's-"

"Stop!" Suddenly, Spike's hand is covering my mouth. "Stop while you're ahead!"

"I was just getting started." My voice is muffled by his hand.

Spike slips his hand around and brings up the other to make me stare into his eyes.

"You're getting delusional!" He accuses.

"What's life without a little bad trip? Adds some spice," I dismiss carelessly.

"You're psychotic," he determines

"Says the serial killer," I shrug.

"You're! Losing! It!" He emphasizes.

"You! Eat! People!" I fire back mockingly.

"I need to so I can exist. You don't need to study to exist," he takes my textbook away again and strolls away.

"I need to so I can get a good job," I reason.

"Industrial America is overrated," he declares monotonously.

"You're also an old English man," I grumble.

"Yeah, so I know a few things," he smirks proudly.

"You never took school seriously?" I climb down from the crypt to fetch my book from him.

"Well... I went if that's what you mean. I had a rather expensive education," Spike describes vaguely.

I reach for my textbook and take it back civilly. "A White, upper-middle-class, during the Victorian Era, given a well-to-do private education? Well, color me shocked!"

"I can hardly stand you when you get in this mood. You need sleep," he rolls his eyes annoyedly.

"I hardly tolerate you every moment of every day. I need coffee," I correct.

"I will kill you," he threatens as per usual.

"Oh yes, bring me the sweet release," I grumble as I head back to my spot.

"You sicken me, you know that?" Spike questions sarcastically.

"Glad to hear it," I laugh humorlessly.

"Normally, people aren't so keen on being threatened," he reminds.

"Fair enough, granted I'm not 'normal,'" I form quotation marks with my fingers.

"Clearly," he mumbles.

"'Clearly,'" I mock his voice. "You even sound old!"

"I'm only one hundred and twenty-six!" He states, yet again, this week.

"Oh my goodness! You're right! My bad! You're practically a new spring chicken! Now get out there young one, and seize the day!" I tease.

"I'm going to make you a cup of tea," Spike declares, heading over to his make-shift kitchen. In reality, it's an electric kettle he plugs into an extension cord that's connected to somewhere outside.

"Coffee," I request, returning to my reading.

"Tea! You don't need any more coffee," he ridicules.

"You're depressing," I insult under my breath.

After a short time, Spike returns with a mug. I've managed to get through the last paragraph I've been struggling with.

"Here," he hands the white porcelain object to me.

The warmth of the mug contrasts the cold of my hands.

"What kind," I ask as I go to sip it.

"Green," he nods.

"Oo, so you are giving me caffeine," I wiggle my brows right as the liquid hits my lips.

"Only to shut you up," he sighs.

"Always the charmer," I wink.

After a moment of consideration and pondering, I can determine that this is good tea. Spike stands around waiting for my approval.

"This is nice, what brand is it?" I go in for another sip.

"An old one my mother used to use, been around for a while," he stammers.

"Lovely, thank you."

I compliment and he grumbles some response. ______________________ The sound of a distant lawnmower wakes me up in a jolt. I gasp for air, having been so deeply asleep that I hardly felt alive. I must've been more exhausted than I originally comprehended. My blurry vision adjusts to my surroundings and I'm tucked into a bed, but not my own. No, I know this bed. I've seen it before. The bright red sheets are hard to forget. Spike.

"What the-" I scream, "Spike!"

The bleach blonde vampy appears from behind a pillar across the room.

"Yes, Pet?" He says slyly, as though it's just any other morning.

"You asshole!" I curse at him as I hurry to get up.

"Feel refreshed?" He smirks.

"Did you drug me?" I come to the realization as I stand up that I don't remember falling asleep or getting into Spike's bed.

"Eh, somewhat," he explains vaguely. "I gave you camomile tea and maybe crushed up some melatonin in it."

My jaw drops, "you're insane!"

"Knocked you out like a bloody babe," he snickers, taking a seat on the edge of the bed.

"What time is it?!" I shake my wrist to my watch.

"Noon," Spike answers before I have the chance to check.

My eyes go wide as the harsh reality that I'm late to my class sinks in.

"Shit! Shit!" I rush to gather my things. "Fuck me! I have my test in thirty minutes!"

Spike strolls about casually around me, not giving two shits.

"You'll be fine," he assures calmly. "The sleep will help."

"It better!" I growl at the vamp.

"I'll pick you up after your class. We'll get coffee," he suggests with a smug expression.

"You don't drink coffee," I glare as I pack up my backpack.

"Damn straight, but you do. My treat," he offers.

"Oh, so kind!" I remark sarcastically as I struggle to slip my arms through my backpack and get my shoes on at the same time.

"Have fun!" He waves as I head to the door. "Good luck!"

"Fuck you!" I bid farewell as I slam the tomb door behind me.

"Coffee!" He shouts from inside as I stroll away. "Four o'clock! I'll pick you up!"

"Okay! Fine! Fine!" I yell in agreement, despite everything that just happened.

God, I hate to love him.

__________________________

Masterlist

Tags: @mx-pibbles

#spuffy #spike x buffy #spike fanfic #spikexreader #spike #buffy summers #buffy the vampire slayer #buffy the vampire slayer imagine

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katatonicimpression · 3 years ago

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The wort part about Monet boosting some Algerian royal lineage that doesn't exist or could possibly matter (since there's nothing that could back it up) is that she could literally be boosting about something which has concrete evidence: She's a St Croix, a French family from the Languedoc in the Middle Ages which were BIG TIME NOBLES. Like how can you be this dense to miss this kind of opportunity which you yourself set up by giving her that last name??

I mean... don't they do that?

Cartier is definitely old money. He's not just rich, he's posh af. Let's face it, not just anyone becomes an ambassador.

In terms of lineage and royal lines, I don't see how it would be particularly important. It's a long time ago and it's France, so not like she's inheriting a title or anything. But in terms of the French side of Monet's family being upper class, it's there.

St. Croix family history under the cut:

Who have we got?

This is Louis St. Croix, a wealthy French diplomat and Cartier's father:

His wife Lenore, a mutant who died:

She's not Cartier's mother. Bearing in mind Cartier looks like this:

Except that one time he looked like this:

But considering that his children look like this:

We can write the 2013 x-men panel off as an anomaly. Cartier is Black, so we can assume that his unnamed mother is also Black. Other than this, we know nothing about the second Madame St. Croix. Personally I hope she's having a good one somewhere.

What else do we know about this family?

Well, like you said, we've got some medieval French Catholics to consider. But it's really the more recent (post-revolution) history that really makes a difference here and that's all colonial era stuff and.... honestly idk if I have it in me to speculate about that. Let's just say that they're stupidly rich, they're posh, and they have been for a long time.

We know that while the family name is clearly Christian (literally "holy cross"), Monet and her siblings were raised Muslim by their mum.

We also know that somebody in the family history has done business with Azazel. This could possibly refer to Marius or someone from way back when.

Anything else to add?

Why, yes! Fan wikis are a useful tool and a super impressive thing that people put together for free but wow are they bad sometimes.

Anything more relevant to the original ask?

So, yeah kind of. The thing about "Algerian royalty" can kind of be explained in universe by it just being a silly historical anecdote that Jamila told, but then Monet and the twins took it super seriously because a) they're self-important and b) they miss their mum and mythologise her.

But the real world explanation is that they wanted a short hand for "fancy and noble" and didn't do their research.

But the French side of her family feels a lot more realistic to me. The writing gets the point across. They're old money. They're posh af. They're probably a nightmare to be around.

I personally am not that interested in seeing Monet's ancient family history explored further for a few reasons:

I personally don't like lineage & family legacy stories all that much.

Not super into the optics of delving deeper into the white Christian ancestors of the Black Muslim character. Not guaranteed to be bad or anything, it just feels like it could go pretty yikes pretty fast.

Most importantly, WE STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO PENANCE. Monet, Claudette and Nicole are all suddenly able to transform into Penance out of the blue and we have no idea what happened to the girl herself?!?!? This is the story I want for Monet. I want them to go back to just after M-Plate 2.0, unpack that whole thing properly. Show me more of her living family, her sisters and her home. And ffs tell me what happened to that poor demon child. There's a story there just begging to be written.

So yeah, I see what you mean about a potential missed opportunity. But on the grand list of missed opportunities with this character, it's not that high up for me.

#kind of just highjacked this ask to just go off on one #cartier st. croix

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bisluthq · 4 years ago

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I think Olivia might be interesting in a few years when she develops a stronger artistic voice. Right now it feels like she has a couple of Lorde and Paramore songs but not as good as either.

So see Lorde, much like Taylor, was able to tap into something reaaaaally interesting. Like Tennis Court spoke to being a teenage girl in a really profound way. It wasn’t a pastiche of other artists Ella liked, and lyrically it was fucking clever. “It’s a new art form showing people how little we care” is a BRILLIANT lyric that fucking encapsulates being 16. It’s a song about trying to be cool and like acting like you’re not invested but actually you... fucking are because you’re a teenage girl. Royals encapsulates being middle - or even tbh upper middle - class teens and I love that line about the “we count our dollars on the train to the paaarty” because, again, that’s a feeling many of us have had. It’s that feeling when you’re wanting to be like your fantasy but you’re, you know, a normal teenager counting up how much money you have to spend on illicit booze at this party you’re going to.

Like I could actually do a whole speech on Lorde’s debut because idk personally it speaks to me in a way that Fearless fucking wishes but I think because it’s more about ~feelings~ you have in high school and less about ~boys~ which just... wasn’t really my vibe sorry. I don’t think that makes it a better album than Fearless necessarily but ya I love it.

And I think again what makes it so fucking good is it speaks to emotions and moments and concocts vignettes that we can feel like we’ve been through. “We live in cities you'll never see on screen” is a good lyric because, again, it speaks to that desperation for media acknowledgement one feels as a teenager and it... says “yeah it’s okay we won’t have this” on main.

So far Olivia R’s not had an original thought and she’s much too artificial and manufactured to lean into clever or original thoughts she is having. Which is fine, again, like it’s real dope she’s that ambitious and that determined to be kween bee, but like I’m also not going to act like she’s some kind of lyrical genius because if she is we’ve yet to see it. So far it’s her dragging her queer ex for needing therapy lmao which is... a choice and certainly not like “wow we’ve all been there” because you know some of us are that ex who needs the therapy.

#nat talks olivia r #nat talks lorde #Anonymous

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khiphop-discussions · 4 years ago

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whats ur opinion on rappers these days coming from silver spoon backgrounds? honestly it irks me just as much to see rich highschoolers get signed to labels for their trendy raps its like seeing idol rappers take their place in the khiphop scene, i know khiphop isnt revolved around the struggle as much as the origin of hiphop is but it just doesnt sit right with me, especially seeing that vid of the h1gher kids talking bout their childhood next to those black kids their age just made me realize

(anon from before) and seeing the amount of bias against underground rappers w no background in the industry in shows like hsr and smtm just solidified this thought, its crazy how the first seasons of those shows gave benefits to actual struggling rappers, now we have rich kids clowning on tv, ceo's auditioning and they get the attention over the rappers trying to make ends meet. honestly i get why rapheads and casual fans in korea get nicknamed ''8th grader syndrome'' now, its not real or raw

The thing about Khiphop, is that it's different socioeconomic wise. MULTIPLE people in Khiphop come from privileged if not just regular middle class families. Quite a few of them are college educated. Many more went to fancy high schools at least, even if they didn't attend college or they dropped out of school.

In the US, this is the opposite. I feel like only a handful come from the middle class (lower and "middle" middle class tbh) and there's pretty much NONE (that I know of) who come from affluent or well off families.

Even those "struggling" rappers are not necessarily "struggling" they are just struggling in MUSIC! SMTM2 literally had a contestant that was a corporate worker at Mnet or CJ E&M (can't remember which). Also, Basick had a corporate job as well so I'm assuming he has some type of degree.

I feel like in Korea it's somewhat of a privilege to be able to to do rap. Whereas in the US it's considered something you do to "make it out the hood". The way out of poverty in Korea is probably going to university and getting a corporate type job. In the US (at least for Black people) it's becoming an athlete or entertainer. (Not to say Black people don't look at college/university as a way to make it out of poverty but I'm just alluding to things people commonly say in rap/hip-hop songs as well as a few popular memes).

I'm not saying there isn't more economically disadvantaged people in Khiphop cause there is. Kid Milli, (allegedly*) Changmo, Dok2 (probably the MOST economically disadvantaged I've heard of) all struggled economically even BEFORE adulthood. Specifying WHEN a rapper "struggled" is important. Because being a poor young adult is not the same as growing up poor or starting from the bottom to me LOL. A lot of rappers who are "poor" and struggling in KHH right now, I suspect its because they left home specifically to be rappers but their parents would definitely give them an allowance and/or let them live at home if they went out looking for work or went to college. Some even would still support them if they are rappers/entertainers lol. (NOTE: Some of the rappers probably left home due to a bad relationship with parents though. So I'd argue that that counts as being disadvantaged "for real").

All that said, I personally don't really mind. I don't feel like struggle has to be an inherent part of making hip-hop. At least not at this point in it's evolution. The thing that bothers me is when people FAKE a struggle. Like why are rappers from the good parts of town and/or who went to fancy high schools or colleges faking like they struggled so much and they are so "hood" and "ghetto"? LOL

*allegedly because I don't 100% believe a kid who was doing piano lessons and competitions since he was 5 was all that disadvantaged. Sounds like middle to upper class type shit. But since he may have been middle class and everyone else upper, he may have FELT like he was economically challenged even if he wasn't actually LOL. Maybe he was on scholarships/grants? Or maybe his parents scraped up what little money they could to make sure he could still do music? IDK

#asks

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stray-tori · 4 years ago

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TPN S02E07 Initial Thoughts (anime-only)

[ Reaction Vid with friends ]

I knew about two things in this episode, but that aside, all new stuff for me! I don’t know if it’s because it’s anime-original but quite frankly I don’t want to know. Somehow I’ve convinced myself I won’t care if I know things, but seeing it all unfold is still different - I still WISH i was more blind, obviously, but yeah. I just wish they had more runtime still to cover the final stretch because I do really want to relish this far longer, especially now that I only know like 2 things, one of which likely won’t be relevant in the anime-route.

BUT OH WELL, enough meta emotions. Onto the mess that is my thoughts in my tiny brain trying to comprehend all those factors and making sense of everything.

. Norman’s plan

I find it interesting that Mujika and Sonju are the thing that bothers Norman specifically. Ray asks “so they kept the power for themselves” in regards to the nobles, which to me means they have it (they did eat them). So aren’t they a risk too? Since Norman worries about Mujika using it to give the degenerated demons their bodies back -- though the nobles might not do that since it’d make the folk emancipated. But like, if you have no folk left, there’s nothing to control either...

So my guess why Mujika/Sonju are a bigger risk are:

they’re more unpredictable and might be quicker to counter-act his efforts with their ability

Norman knows WHERE the nobles are and (I’m guessing) has a plan to deal with them - he DOESN’T know where Mujika is so she’s riskier since she’s evading his view of the chessboard quite literally.

I do think I shouldn’t have to read between the lines like that - what’s Norman’s plan with the nobles? Does the drug really not work on them? If so, how will they get rid of them? To be fair, he seems very certain that eliminating Mujika and Sonju won’t be a big problem; so it’s likely that he’d proceed the same way with the nobles (probably lambda squad) - but I would have liked if that very valid concern had come up in the discussion of the plan.

His “safer” plan literally

doesn’t affect the nobles (who might be a small group but still); which goes unaddressed by him. I don’t think he’s not aware of it, since later in the discussion, the thing that bothers him about Emma saying to just get rid of the nobles and the farm humans ISN’T to get rid of them, what he considers implausible is using the noble’s blood / ONLY killing THEM and not all the demons. At least in my opinion.

human enemies (though they might get caught up in the wild demon chaos I guess)

the world will literally be riddled with wild demons for a good while. How is that any safer? I guess he’ll bring everyone to his hideout that was referenced (where he hides all the kids he broke out) and that will be protected from wild demons either by infrastructure or the humans inside -- I guess viewed from that perspective, it does sound like a pretty “safe” plan if it’s just enough of a “fortress” sort of deal.

His plan IS however more “concrete”. Going to the human world is risky because

the gatekeeper, whatever he is. But like, can he just leave the guardian be all the way underground? is that how it works? Won’t he have to get rid of him eventually?

they could be followed there. they could destroy the gate, however that would doom everyone still over there and who knows if the demons could just break the separation in rage.

they could be unwelcome by the humans on the other side. Either because they somehow profit off of the demon world’s human farms or because the humans over there fear the end of the promise and therefore scramble to send them back. idk if they could take an army of children but it’d be a risk for sure, especially if it implies that they would be constantly chased no matter where they go. A life on the run seems unfavorable (but I’d find that super interesting tbh, arc in the human world??).

andit isn’t going to GF (since he agreed to Emma going back for the others in ep6) that concerns him (imo) but actually just the gatekeeper and the risk of the human world that they don’t know about. Norman does know the effect his drug has on demons, because he’s SEEN it. Eliminating the demons is the more concrete option because if there's no demons, there's no-one to restart the cycle or to follow them or to do whatever. Even if nobody needs humans, that's no gurantee nobody will start farming humans again (see the high class, after all).

So I do think he makes sense there, but I also think it’s a bit of stubbornness and pride too.

there's too many factors and my brian is small.

. the dil-emma

Those slight confusions aside, it’s a good dilemma and I relish in it. Nobody could blame them if they did it, but Emma does have a point - do the lower ranks of society hold the blame for what the rich do? - in fact the nobles take all the quality food, leaving their other demons to starve and deform in the lower ranks, even though they don't need it. Did the two demons molded by the system they live in, who just wanted to save literal kids, deserve to die...? The class/capitalism allegory basically writes itself-

Emma is going hard on the parallels and emphasizing with them being living creatures just like them -- and I agree, honestly. Would it be fair to eradicate all of humanity just because the high class / corporations are damning the planet? (some would say yes but YKNOW)

I think Emma has a lot less footing right now -- the upper ranks have all the power, who says it’ll work this time even if they try to turn every demon? Who says they won’t be like the nobles or literally Sonju, one of their “friends” However, I don’t think Emma is being stupid - her concerns are valid. She’s not just doing it for Sonju and Mujika. Though, I still think it’d be interesting if Emma had to change her ideology, not method, this time but... I’m curious how it’ll go.

Tbh I think what it's gonna go for is the middle ground: escape to human world and hope that Sonju and Mujika will help the lower ranks of society and hopefully not be killed. But then again, Sonju wants to eat humans so rip

If they want to ensure some more power to Sonju and Mujika, then 1) flee to human world and kill nobles and farm administration in the process (likely included in part since the gate is in GF) and 2) then hope that demons will just accept their new found peace of not having to chase after humans and just chill in their world.

They probably also can't take every human, so there's always the risk of the cycle just starting anew (especially since as Norman said, some humans also act in self-interest. I'm curious what exactly that self-interest is, aside from getting to live peacefully potentially but even that sounds kind of like a not that epic thing in demon society. unless there's a small village for humans they've deemed worthy and are just throwing there, like what they promised Isabella - or it's just going to the human world I guess WHO KNOWS). and while I did touch upon a sort of "grey" ending for TPN where our group is safe but who knows about the rest, I am actually really curious if that's what they're going for or not. It feels like no matter what I consider something doesn't work out or doesn't feel right.

. the gates (and the human world)

I wish we would have known about gates existing prior to this episode. We never found out WHAT is at the location (just have Exposition James mention it). I understand why the pen only showed one - it’s implied the humans had a base there and of course you’d want to send escapees there and not into a farm’s gate but I think there should have still been a side note in the pen that it’s a gate?? Like clearly the farm already knows about gates if their farm is directly above it, right?? so why try to keep it secret pff-

is the implication that the highest humans are actually from the human side or how can I imagine that?? Is it actually not that rare for some humans to exist on both sides if they’re just high rank enough. A gate has no point if nobody can pass - but I guess maybe it’s just under the farm to protect it? Since you already have all those systems for the farm’s kids, why not double-utilize it as a safeguard.

why are there gates to begin with. I wonder if it's science or if that was a backdoor to the deal - but why would you even need that? I guess for human materials.

But it can’t be that nobody can cross, because I’m assuming the tech/food comes from the human world since we haven’t seen non-human farms that would provide for the farms. And if nobody can cross, deliveries will be hard...? So I’M CONFUSED.

. Nor “I just did a few tests” man

YES ANGST but also NO, BABY

Norman just loves them so much and he's running out of time >:”0 of course he'd want to go with the plan he's been cooking up. if he's not there he can't save them!

And he’s always been like that, too, as the episode very very clearly points out several times haha. He tricked them in s1 too. He might be more drastic in his methods, but he also admitted to originally only planning to escape with the two of them and he also admitted he suspected Ray first and he thought about cutting Ray off at first before he talked to Emma -- so even the more cold side isn’t all that surprising. He might also be dissociating a bit, tbh.

But it’s also so tragic,,, He thinks he can’t give them the future Emma wanted without a sacrifice. The problem just is that it was a forced sacrifice because Norman lied to them and said he'd work with them to ensure he escapes too but then didn't. He gave up and forced his defeat on the others, because he thought that it was the safer option than taking more risks (which is happening now too lol).

I also wonder if aside from just... trying to save them until he can’t anymore, a part of his motivation in pushing them away (”isn’t it tough?” - “no”) is that he won’t burden them with his turmoil. He’s their savior right? He can’t falter. If he does, Emma and Ray will just become more stubborn about stopping him. It’ll make it harder for them. Maybe it’s better if they dislike him than worrying. Maybe it’d also make Emma hate herself less if he plays the bad guy...

those are my thoughts, anyway.

. Some drug thoughts

Assumptions:

it has to be applicable large scale

I assume the lances in the demon’s body are just there to immobilize it, and not to inject. there are those bulging parts around the entry points, but we did see that also happening when Ray shot the demon eye, so I’m assuming it’s simply their reaction to bodily harm/wounds.

plus, if they have to throw 50 spears into every demon to get the drug to work that's one hell of an inefficient plan

Based on how a lot of the demon dynamics work over food, I’m assuming it’d be something like mixing it into their drinking water, but that might leave some out of they notice. (do they even drink water?)

maybe it’s also just it getting into bodily contact. that would be convenient.

also why would you want a demon in your basement that just seems risky pff

. other random things I liked

the Gilda and Emma headbump was so cute sdfudhdsjsd

Lani and Thoma mentioning the migrating birds during their tower watch and that then later coming back when the kids think about where they could be was nice!

I think her involving everyone again is a nice nod to the season's theme, including the whole putting “faith” in them. Norman doesn’t trust them with his plan. I think the bigger problem isn’t that he won’t trust Emma’s plan, because he’s not wrong to object to it, but he should still rely on his family and let them help with the plan instead of deciding it all himself. He doesn't have to literally sacrifice himself for it, again. There is the "don't burden everything by yourself" message of the season, with Emma inviting Gilda and Ray prompting Don to come with them too (probably because they realized it’d be weird to rant about Norman doing everything alone and then doing the same pff-). I think that's what they're going for, that when they work together, he won't have to suffer so much. Even if the plan doesn't change much, he should still rely on them. it is however true that they don't have that much to offer in terms of a long-term solution right now, so that's unfortunate. But we'll see what finding Mujika will bring :3

The gate being in GF ties up the story really well for this weird 2 seasons abridged. i can kinda see what they're going for with the middle arcs missing, which definitely hurts overall but I think it makes the whole thing a little more streamlined in terms of themes and coming back to what s1 was about, quite literally. they just stumbled in the execution (hard, sometimes)

The seizures :((( they’re all so broken, they need HUGS

that "what makes you so nervous?" remark from Ray and also the squad being like "we don't have long left" as the lead up to Norman’s seizure was. so good.

Norman’s seizure scene. The far shot, the blood, the “sorry” I’M EMO-

Norman’s soft “be careful” to Emma and Ray, showing that softer side again :<

Also Ray's reaction to "the gate is in gf" is just a mood haha

THE SHIPMENT PARALLELS! the sounds, grabbing his hand this time when he had to take hers during his shipment AHHH-

. other random things I didn’t like

why is Norman not taking the GF kids to his location I am confusion. MAYBE the room they're in (the building just looks like that room and the basement stuff but idk) wouldn't be big enough to comfortably live there or maybe he's too absorbed and doesn't want his siblings to find out about their seizures (which would be more likely to happen if they lived around him) and his brutal experiments (they do always somehow find every little thing in a place haha), but I feel like taking them there would still be better overall. He literally has no way of knowing if something does happen to them. I guess it could be argued he trusts them enough to be able to handle it, but if he's doing it all for them (and probably some trauma to be honest), he definitely should be more concerned and have brought them or at least let one of the lambda kids stay with them.

My friends and I literally everytime they left for food, we already were like "great, leave the kids alone". I feel like in that case it's going a bit for the whole "putting trust in each other" angle but I still feel it's kind of questionable to leave them on their own too.

Overall, I think things add up but I think that’s bc I’m a) very forgiving and b) often just slap a somewhat likely/good-will explanation on things and accept that for now. It’s good for my enjoyment but it might make me seem delusional but I DO THINK that i shouldn’t have to read between the lines this much for the non-mystery elements.

the deal makes no sense from Emma’s POV, what’s her goal? Hoping Mujika’s intel and knowledge about demon society will be of help and convince Norman not to do it? but she already made it a condition to not annihilate the demons if she brings them, so I guess she just wants to give her plan a chance - but I’m not sure what she thinks Norman would see in that plan. I guess he wants to kill them because they’re unpredictable, but if he was to hold his word, their unpredictable nature wouldn’t matter since he can’t annihilate the demons anymore anyway based on his agreement (which he intends to break of course but LIKE FROM EMMA’S PERSPECTIVE. BABY WHAT YOU DOING).

So yeah... I’m definitely enjoying the ride. I can see its faults, i’m not delusional, but the base elements are interesting to think about and coming up with some explanations that make sense is also fun - though I wish there was a bit more canon ground / “connecting the dots” experience to it.

I hope I can continue to have fun with the show until it ends, at the very least. Content is content, I’m to tpn-brain-rotted pfff-

#tpn s2 #tpn anime #tpn anime spoilers #tpn anime-only #tpn theory #tori talks #tori has opinions

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thedreadvampy · 5 years ago

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So this was sent to me by @atiredpan weeks ago when the White Jon conversation was very live and I'm posting it (belatedly) with their blessing (they didn't want to put it up publicly and have it seem like an attack which I really very much appreciate but wouldn't have minded) and I percolated for a few days and then got very busy for a few weeks. Response follows.

So I feel weird about how I'm responding to this stuff, I'm launching rapidly into taking about/explaining my own experience in a way I'm worried maybe comes across as a direct comparison. It kind of feels like I'm talking in a way that's like brushing off your experience and saying OK BUT HERE'S WHY I'M RIGHT and that's not what I'm trying to do, it's just that there's not much I can usefully add to what you've said - you know your experience better than I do, and I'm not gonna go around trying to read into it or reexplain it. So I'm going to talk about where I am/have been coming from, but not with the intention of countering your points, all of which I think really resonate.

First off, the post where I was like "Jon is white and if you disagree you're Wrong" was, unreservedly, just a shitty post and I'm not suprised it upset a lot of people. I'm really very sorry about that, it was thoughtlessly written and pretty stupidly posted.

I totally get that my whiteness has fed into how I hced Jon (and as I think I've said before I saw Jon a certain way well before I engaged with any fanworks, just as you did). There's a lot of reasons I imagined Jon as white from pretty early on, a non-negligible one of which was like...That's Jonny. This is a podcast by Jonny, about a character with the same name and mannerisms as Jonny, and Jonny is extremely white. It would have felt weird, when I was listening to TMA as a Friend Podcast, to stick a brown face onto what at least appeared at the time to basically be a self-insert character of my white friend. Now that's a really personal thing informed less by the story and more by the circumstances under which I've interacted with it, but it certainly laid a baseline. I didn't really have a clear mental picture of Jon (or most of the characters) for a looooooong time (for an artist I'm really not a very visual thinker) but I had a few sort of mental sketches (Jon is short white balding and awkward, Martin is tall biracial and scruffy Basira is fat and somali Melanie is my friend from work etc) which I developed a long time before I encountered fanworks.

I saw the alienation you mentioned and I connected it to class and gender, not race, because I’ve met a lot of cis men, white and otherwise, who interpolate trauma, class insecurity, insecurity about their own abilities, and so on into withdrawal, denial and snappiness. So for me I had an interpretation of that element of his personality which was pretty much race-neutral, and then I had these existing cues leading me to assuming he was white (largely that Jonny is white, but also wee stuff in the story that...it’s not like anything substantial enough to remember, let alone justify, but there were certainly interactions that pinged whiteness for me personally)

There are actually iirc a few throwaway references to Jon being promoted above more qualified candidates throughout (or at least I thought I knew that before s5), but the time I decided I thought White Jon was an obvious conclusion was of course the conversation where Sasha expresses frustration about it. and the context of that conclusion (at least as far as I can see) wasn't "people of colour can only exist in subservient positions/defined by oppression" but was informed by two things that were going on with my life around the time that episode aired

I had been having several conversations with friends of mine (and largely friends of Jonny's) who work in London in the museums/archiving sector and who are the only women of colour in whole departments or even whole museums, and who experience so little career mobility compared to their less-qualified white counterparts (we're talking about women graduating top of their class at Oxbridge with anthropology or library science masters and stellar original research, with a decade or more of impeccable work experience and acting up, being left in internship and low-grade positions, while white men who "fit the culture" but have 0 museums experience sail into upper management positions and then stay there until they retire). So I'd come almost directly from these conversations into what to me sounded like exactly the same gripe in TMA.

I'd been at that point working for about a year and a half on co-coordinating the anti-oppression committee in my workplace, which was a very Good Progressive Activist Charity with Good Lefty Principles, and over the course of experience sharing and discussions both with colleagues of colour and along lines of wealth, disability, class etc, I was very much confronted with the realisation of how much 'being adequately qualified' meant different things for middle-class good-university white men vs much more highly skilled and hardworking women of colour or people of different class and wealth backgrounds. Obviously I'd known that before in principle, but not really having been in Salaried Workplaces (as opposed to like. service and retail hourlies) I hadn’t got so up close and personal with it. So that was also very fresh in my mind, this like...big substantial experience of how Good, Well-Meaning, Caring, Thoughtful, Woke white men just........did not need to think about this. at all. and were startled and discomforted to face it. and that this was also true of most white middle-class women. and these conversations were really carved down the middle between white middle-class European women saying ‘this is such a surprise when we have such an equitable hiring policy and diverse staff, that there’s this gender gap’ and women of colour in the room wearily saying ‘yeah, there’s a gender gap, there’s always a gender gap and it is always a racialised gender gap’ so yeah I was definitely thinking about the intersection between being passed over at work because of gender and because of race.

The point about Tim is interesting because I think for me what’s getting lost is that I don’t think Jon is entitled as like...a Character Trait. He’s not like...Toxic Masculinity Man. He is very anxious about boundaries and about his own capacity to do harm. But it has to be pointed out to him where he’s doing harm. He doesn’t notice where he’s been unfairly advantaged, and that’s to me much more reflective of most people’s relationship to white or male entitlement.

As I say, that exchange with Tim and Sasha cemented the Jon Is White hc in my head specifically because it was so reflective of conversations I had had with women of colour working in similar workplaces, about white men, usually about white men they generally liked or at least didn’t have beef with beyond their unfair advantages.

It seems odd to me to frame ‘bitching about your boss on your friend’s behalf to make her feel better’ as more similar to white entitlement/white privilege than any of that tbh? That’s just...being friends with someone?

Anyway I recognise that it’s not white entitlement to accept a job. Obviously it’s not, it’s just sensible under the circumstances, you get lucky and you grab it. For me my sense of Jon as white-because-of-this is not “he took a job he shouldn’t have taken,” it’s more about his obliviousness to the impact he has on others, and also primarily how people react to him. The interaction between Sasha and Tim is saturated with the of course it would be him I mentioned above, but even before that he walks through the world not expecting to have to think about anything but his conscious decisions, and he’s caught aback when people see him as out of place or as having power above his station.

I think it’s impossible to extricate ‘this is where my head was at’ from that interpretation, and also like obviously my own whiteness is a big factor. And not just my own personal whiteness but the place I grew up (which was 98.3% white) and the world which reflects back whiteness. So this is in no way intended as a bolshy This Is The Correct Headcanon the way my Bad Post was bc examining it I’m like...yeah I mean this is about how I personally interpreted this based on where I was at at the time. But I do feel like there’s some communication gap in what it is about this unqualified promotion thing that pinged me - it’s not that All Bosses Must Be White And All Brown People Must Be Downtrod, it’s something quite specific about the tone and tenor of the interactions around the getting-a-job.

But also? Idk. Kind of unrelatedly, and people obviously should feel free to disagree with me on this, it feels kind of off to frame this as defaulting to a white Jon? I sort of think that my idea of Jon as white is very much not ‘white until proven otherwise’ - part of the reason for my original strident tone was that I felt that I was being expected to drop a headcanon I had for specific reasons and default to the fanon version of Jon without actually having any reason other than ‘this is how the community thinks he should look,’ and without really understanding anything about what that means, and while obviously defaulting to a non-white headcanon isn’t like...entrenched in the way that defaulting to a white headcanon is, it does seem to me like this is perhaps part of why white fans slap brown skin onto a character without thinking into what that means or why they’re doing it.

The thing I’m struggling with as regards my personal headcanon here is that I could decide to only ever draw Jon as Fanon Jon, but it wouldn’t be because I had strong reasons to see him that way, it wouldn’t be the same as why you see Jon as brown, or why I see like...Melanie as Indian, it would literally be Default To Standard in a way it isn’t for you. And I don’t feel that I have Defaulted To Whiteness, or where I have it is for reasons specifically to do with Jon (I visualised Jon as white because I visualised him as Jonny, who is white), not because I think every character is White Until Proven Otherwise. Like, my reasons for understanding Jon as white may be bad reasons, but they are reasons, not post-hoc excuses (I can’t like...prove that. but I know it to be true at least on a conscious level). I didn’t go Oh Jon Is White Because Everyone Is Unless I Have Reason To Think They Aren’t, Hooray, Here Is A Post-Hoc Justification For Why It Isn’t Racist To Think That. So while I am totally on board with the idea that it may be shitty, harmful or poorly thought through to hc Jon as white, I’m not sure I can fully see it in myself as being default. But I do understand that that isn’t necessarily what came across in my original short post.

Honestly, the reason I took issue with Fanon Jon and Fanon Martin in such a bolshy way in the first place was that I didn’t get why these characters were universally seen as Asian and white, respectively, and had such strong and consistent fanon images, when none of the other characters did, and when I was seeing people drawing people like Sasha and Melanie and Tim as white way more when in my mind there was no reason to assume they were white. On an emotional level I guess I think either there’s Fanon As Lore, or there’s no fanon (and I prefer the latter) and my discomfort came from the place that the one character I absolutely saw as coded as white in the core cast had this one really specific Ambiguously Brown Fanon Look (which from what I’d seen at the time didn’t seem to be like...backed with anything or coming from any personal interpretation for most of the white fans I was seeing on like Twitter and Tumblr) but white headcanons are everywhere for characters like Melanie or Sasha or Georgie, who seemed to me to be unambiguously people of colour, or characters like Tim or Martin (who could perfectly reasonably be people of colour and who I hc as Rroma and biracial respectively)? I don’t know, it’s difficult to express, but I find it frustrating.

#tma #White Jon #idk sorry to post this so separate from the rest of the conversation I have been Busy

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sokkable · 5 years ago

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Last week I shared how for the last two years I have attended a school with past/present notable alumni including billionaires, actors, and politicians. People are highly requesting me to reveal tea from my school so here’s the post. Obviously I could be wrong about certain details, this is just what I’ve heard through the grapevine:

*Also if you go to this school, please don’t reveal what school this is because lmao I want to be anonymous lol

At my school there are different groups of kids. There’s the popular local rich kids (rich as in multimillionaires to billionaires), I am not in the PLRK group and there’s a lot of tea within that group that I don’t know about. Apparently a lot of them are related (like cousins idk to what degree though) and the people in that group hook up a lot though to my knowledge the ones who are related don’t hook up. These kids also go on to attend Ivy League schools BTW.

There’s also the popular foreign kids group (some are upper middle class, some are the children of teachers, some have their tuition paid by the company their parents work for). The PFK group are also heavy partiers (they go to the clubs and house parties and their parents are chill with it). I am not in this group either but I know theres A LOT of tea.

There are other groups as well however they don’t have notable tea LMAO.

Stories:

There was this guy we’ll call him Liam. Liam was new to the school and made it into the PFK group. However about a month or two in, he said something ill-mannered to another PFK (I have no idea what he said). Then that kid hired someone to beat Liam up (keep in mind that Liam himself had diplomatic immunity, and really shouldn’t have been touched at all). Liam ended up chipping his front tooth in the fight and he was ostracized from the PFK group.

Another kid, we’ll call him Noah, was also in the PFK group. He may have been a drug dealer as well though I am fuzzy on the details. He had beef with people from the PLRK group. So the PLRK guys all agreed to stay sober (no drugs) for a few months, knowing that Noah was still taking drugs. Then those guys planted drugs in pill form in Noah’s backpack and went to the Vice Principal and ratted him out on having drugs on him. Noah was immediately expelled from school and deported back to his home country of England. Noah’s parents were teachers at the school and continued to teach even after Noah left.

I was in my English class and this really kind girl sat next to me and we became friends fairly quickly. She was so genuine and friendly and normal that I never really spent a lot of time thinking about her background. It wasn’t until maybe halfway through the year when I found out that she is part of one of the richest families on the continent. It was honestly really shocking because I always expected billionaires to entitled and snobby but she really is the opposite. She invited me and another girl to her house for her birthday and I remember feeling so out of place because her house is like a piece of art and I’m trash lmao. Moral of the story ig: don’t judge a book by its cover

One of my best friends’s parents are filmmakers and own a production company and they’ve made high budget movies. My friend took film during her upperclassmen years and she also inherited the genes to make amazing movies because her short films are wonderful. She made a short film starring her aunt (who is an actress with millions of followers on instagram) and my friend submitted it to film festivals and ended up getting to travel overseas to meet other young filmmakers.

Last year I took dance and I met this girl and it turns out she’s an aspiring/already successful singer. She was on The Voice Kids (of the country I live in) and got pretty far in the competition and now she has a big following on social media, has original music out, and got to perform at a music festival recently.

I don’t have a list of all the big alumni that attended this school (I only have what the internet tells me) and a very prominent TV actress that 90% of y’all would recognize attended this school for like 12 years which is wild. She never visited though :/. I was also part of my school’s film club and the supervisor told me that people who have worked with like Rihanna and Steven Spielberg graduated from this school and they judge our short films for our school’s film festival.

OOF, my school had this very very very prominent scandal that happened when I was in middle school. This scandal was so big that it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that all principals and superintendents from around the world heard about it. This scandal left like half a dozen people in federal prison.

It’s a tradition for seniors from my school to vacation at this nice island (think Fiji, Tahiti, Bora Bora) during spring break by themselves without parent supervision. This trip was hyped up so much and people were so excited to go, people had already bought their tickets, rented their villas, and were in the midst of getting their fake ID’s when coronavirus happened so obviously the trip was cancelled. I’m still salty not gonna lie.

Ummmmmm, there’s more tea but I’ve been writing this for almost an hour and I’m tired so I’m gonna stop here. But this was like a sneak peak at my school. I want to be clear tho: I really am not rich and I don’t have any famous relatives and there are no politicians in my fam. My only flex in life is that I dmed Dante Basco once and he replied

#i hope yalls satisfied #dksafljdkasfjdsakfasd

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keplercryptids · 5 years ago

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nonfiction LGBTQ+ books i read this year

i read a lot this year, and a good chunk of it was LGBTQ+ nonfiction. so i thought it might be nice to list what i read. as a note, many of these books deal with LGBTQ history in the United States. too often, mainstream US-centric LGBTQ texts focus on white middle-class cisgender folks, though I’ve done my best to balance that as much as possible with other perspectives. (that being said, if you got ‘em, i would LOVE book recommendations that tackle worldwide/non-white LGBTQ issues!)

Accessibility notes: Given the nature of the genre, there’s a lot of intense discussion re: homophobia and transphobia. Basically every book listed covers those things to some extent, and I’ve specified where there’s additional potentially triggering content. (If you have specific questions about triggers, please let me know!) also, some of these books are on the academic side. I’ve done my best to note when a book was very academic or when I found it to be more readable. (full disclosure on that note: I’m a college grad and voracious reader without any reading-specific learning disabilities, so my opinion may be different than yours!) as a final note, I was able to access most of these as e-books/audiobooks through my local library. I live in a major metropolitan area, if that gives you any idea of how easy it’ll be for you to find these books. I’ve noted when a book was more difficult to get my hands on.

History

Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940 by George Chauncey. As the title suggests, this book focuses on gay male communities in NYC pre-World War 2. Even with that limited scope, this is an important read to better understand gay male history in the early 20th century. Gay communities thrived in the early 1900s and this snapshot of that is really wonderful. This is definitely more of an academic read, but I highly recommend it. while it definitely focuses on white middle-class gay men, there was more discussion of poor and/or gay men of color than i had actually expected, so that’s nice. (CW for rape and sexual assault, homophobic violence and medicalization of homosexuality.)

Queering the Color Line: Race and the Invention of Homosexuality in American Culture by Siobhan B. Somerville. Finally, a book about queer history that actually talks about black people! I was expecting more of a history book, whereas this was more of a critique of specific novels, plays and movies of the early 1900s and was way more focused than i was expecting. don’t get me wrong, I majored in English lit so i’m super into that kind of analysis as well, it just wasn’t as far-reaching as I would have liked. Also, it’s very academic. (Only the print version was available at my library.) (CW for racism, mentions of slavery.)

Transgender History by Susan Striker. This book describes itself as an “approachable introductory text” to transgender history in the US, which I agree with. It’s a pretty short read given the enormity of the topic, so it doesn’t go into much detail about specific groups or events, but imo it’s a good introduction. Especially interesting to me was the information about where and when TERF ideology began. Academic but on the easier-to-read side. (CW for transphobia, gross TERF rhetoric, brief mentions of the AIDS crisis, police violence.)

Gay Revolution by Lillian Faderman. okay so, I gave this 1 star. it’s probably a good book if you know absolutely nothing about US LGBTQ history and want an intro, but a review on goodreads said that it should be called Gay Assimilation instead and i completely agree. Faderman focuses on white middle-to-upper class gay and lesbian assimilationists, often at the expense of radical queer and trans people of color. The latter is hardly mentioned at all, which is ridiculous given trans folks’ contributions to the LGBTQ movement. When radical people ARE mentioned, it’s often in a disparaging way, or in a way that positions the radicals as too extreme. Faderman constantly repeats the refrain that the fight for LGBT rights was “just like what black people did for their rights” without any addendum about why that is...not a good take. There’s no meaningful discussion of race, class or intersectionality. She lauds Obama as a hero for the gays and there’s a ton (I mean a TON) of content about how military acceptance + gay marriage = we won, or whatever. anyway, i wasn’t a fan, although many of the events and organizations discussed in this book are important to know just from a factual basis. (CW for all the stuff I mentioned, plus police violence, medicalization of homosexuality. it’s also fucking LONG so i recommend the audiobook, lol.)

Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States by Joey L. Mogul, Andrea J. Ritchie, and Kay Whitlock. This is “a searing examination of queer experiences--as ‘suspects,’ defendants, prisoners, and survivors of crime.” A frequently upsetting but super important read about how LGBTQ identities have been policed in the past, and currently are policed today. i wish there was more focus on trans folks, but other than that it’s a solid read. (CW for all the things you’d expect a book about policing and imprisoning LGBTQ folks to include: police and institutionalized violence, sexual assault, transphobia, homophobia.)

Stonewall by Martin Duberman. This book follows the lives and activism of six LGBTQ folks before, during and after the Stonewall riots. Note: Stonewall itself is only discussed in one chapter about 2/3 of the way through, the rest of the book dedicated to the six individuals’ lives and activism up to and after that point. It’s a history book with a strong narrative focus that I found to be a fairly accessible read. (CW for minors engaging in sex work and sexual predation by adults, sexual and domestic violence, police violence, drug and alcohol abuse, mentions of suicide.)

And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts. This is a HEAVY but really important read about the AIDS epidemic in the US, tracking the disease and the political/cultural response from about 1980-1985. It’s journalistic nonfiction, so although it’s a very long book I found it easier to read than more academic-y books. the only thing i really disliked was how the book demonized “Patient Zero” in quite unfair ways, but it was originally published in ‘87 so that explains part of it. I want to stress again that it’s heavy, as you’d expect a book about thousands of deaths to be. (CW: oh boy where to start. Graphic descriptions of disease/death, graphic descriptions of sex, medical neglect, republican nonsense.)

Memoirs, essays, etc

Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme edited by Ivan E. Coyote. i felt mixed about this one! i appreciated the different perspectives regarding gender and desire, especially since this anthology contains a lot of essays by people who came of age in the 60s-80s (so there’s a historical bent too). but some of the essays feel dated, at best, and offensive at worst. there was more than one instance of TERF-y ideology thrown in. probably 1/4 of the essays were really really great, and i’d still recommend reading it in order to form your own opinions--also, imo it’s useful to see where TERF ideology comes from. this book was harder to find, and i had to order a print version through interlibrary loan. (CW for a few TERFy essays. i read this earlier in the year so it’s possible i’m forgetting some other triggers, sorry!)

Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation by (editors) Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman. Serving as a follow-up of sorts to Bornstein’s Gender Outlaw, this is a collection of narratives by transgender and gender-nonconforming folks. While not “history” in a technical sense, many of the writers are 30+ and give a wide array of LGBTQ+ experiences, past and present, that are important. I didn’t agree with every single viewpoint, of course, duh! But some of the essays were really powerful and overall it’s a good read. (CW for one essay about eating disorders, some outdated language/reclaimed slurs as to be expected--language is one of the main themes of the collection actually so the “outdatedness” is important.)

S/He by Minnie Bruce Pratt. A memoir published in 1995, focusing on Minnie’s life, marriage, gender identity, eventual coming out and relationship with Leslie Feinberg. i really enjoyed this one. it was beautifully written. there are many erotic elements to this memoir so keep that in mind. also was a little harder to get, and i had to order a print version via interlibrary loan. (i read this awhile ago and can’t remember specific triggers, sorry! if anyone knows of some, please let me know.)

I’m Afraid of Men by Vivek Shraya. A memoir by a trans woman ruminating on masculinity. it’s beautiful and very short (truly more of a longform essay), so it’s a good one if you don’t have the attention span/time for longer books. (CW for sexism, harassment, transphobia.)

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde. god, this memoir is gorgeous and is one of my favorite books of the year. it chronicles Audre’s childhood in Harlem and her coming-of-age in the 1950s as a lesbian. ultimately, this is a book about love and that resonates throughout every page. idk can you tell i loved this book so much??? (CW for child abuse, sexual assault, a friend’s suicide, racism.)

We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir by Samra Habib. suuuuch a good book! Samra writes about her life as she and her family arrive in Canada as refugees from Pakistan in her early childhood, onto her life today as a queer Muslim woman of color, photographer and activist. beautifully written and just such an important perspective. Only the print version was available at my library. (CW for child sexual assault, a suicide attempt and suicidal ideation, non-graphic mentions of domestic violence, racism and sexism.)

Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kababe. this is a beautifully illustrated graphic novel memoir about the author’s journey of discovering eir identity as queer. i related to a lot of it, which was great on a personal level, but i also think it could be a great educational tool for those wanting to know more about gender queerness (especially for those who prefer graphic novels!) (CW for gender dysphoria, descriptions of gynecological exams, imagery of blood and a couple pages depicting being impaled, some nudity, vomit.)

#lgbtq history #lgbtq #book recs #lgbtq books #lgbtq nonfiction #booktalk #queer history #queer

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bulletballetarchive1 · 4 years ago

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@tcpimpabutterfly said : ✩—Travis & Delores 🙈

Okay so this is a novel.

Disagreements:

Who is more likely to raise their voice? Travis, specifically if he’s having an episode. Delores usually doesn’t raise her voice unless she’s finally reached the end of her temper. Who threatens to leave but never actually does? Travis will go drive his taxi if he’s heated, so it’s him who ‘never really leaves.’ Who actually keeps their word and leaves? Delores -- did it once! They weren’t a couple anymore. 😰 Who trashes the house? Leave Travis alone in his utter anguish and see what happens. Do either of them get physical? Travis has never hit Delores and Delores has never laid a hand on Travis. Thought of it once. But changed her mind. How often do they argue/disagree? When they’re young, it’s not untypical for them to disagree. I mean, we have quite a few threads where Travis is open about his thoughts on people and society and all of that, and Delores is like “I don’t think that’s right at all” and gives her perspective on it which, of course, he doesn’t agree with because he’s rooted in his stubborn, gloomy thoughts. To be honest, Delores never gets angry during these disputes, she’s very calm and willing to hear his perspective. But eventually she comes to realize it’s sad and that it shows no one has ever properly loved Travis before. Their more passionate arguments come from Delores being worried about Travis’s insomnia, paranoia, if he’s taking his meds!! And these are even MORE reoccurring later in their relationship and cause their initial breakup. Who is the first to apologize? Depending on the sort of argument that was had, it’s both of them. Sometimes it was Travis who got out of line, sometimes it was Delores who got out of line and deep down...they know who started it first.

Sex:

Who is on top? Sometimes Delores rides him. Sometimes Travis is at the bottom because it's a nice view Who is on the bottom? ^^ Who has the strangest desires? I don’t know what Travis be watching in those porn theatres. I also don’t care to know. Any kinks? 😠 like I said Travis be watching porn and I don’t care to know what it is. Who’s dominant in bed? Technically Travis. Is head ever in the equation? Yes. If so, who is better at performing it? Travis is good. Delores gets steadily better over the course of their relationship because she asks him what he likes. She really wanted to please him. Ever had sex in public? Nah, they got a little handsy in a taxi cab but they didn’t get too far. Delores deserved better than a crusty cab. Who moans the most? Delores. Who leaves the most marks? Travis. Who screams the loudest? Delores if it's rough. Who is the more experienced of the two? I feel like they were both a little inexperienced when they got together, Delores had already had sex. She wasn’t a virgin, but they were not good experiences. Later, she and Travis broke up and she got with some upper class dude, then got with Sal...then got a new gangster...so technically Delores. Do they ‘fuck’ or ‘make love’? 😤 they’re deeply in love so they make love. Or somethin’ like that. Rough or soft? Dependent. How long do they usually last? 30-45 minutes. 😒 Might be less when they have children living in the house, though. Is protection used? It’s incorporated, yes. Even though Delores actually doesn’t like condoms. Does it ever get boring? Early on, Delores eventually thought it was boring because she was trying to be classy and hold back with certain curiosities she was having with like, roleplaying and sex in front of a mirror. There were also things in these cheesy books that she read about and fantasized about, but was too shy to say anything. Eventually she opened up, and everything was okay. Where is the strangest place they’d have sex? A motel. 😲😲 Also, Delores found Travis’s original apartment pretty strange lmao. It was a place she did not want to have sex at because she thought it would be ‘regretful’ afterwards.

Family:

Do your muses plan on having children/or have children? while Melissa was unplanned, Cecilia was planned. It was just a whole different experience going on. When they’re young, the idea of having kids with Travis kind of intimidates Delores because he’s so troubled and the old ladies she hangs around don’t help matters any by asking questions like, “would your children be proud of a taxi driver? would he really be able to provide for them?” If so, how many children do your muses want/have? They have two and they think it’s a nice number! Well, that and Delores hated dealing with Melissa’s jealousy when Cecilia was born. She worried about Cece having the same disdain for baby three, so that wasn’t happening. Who is the favorite parent? Delores and Melissa have a VERY strong bond, even when she’s scolded her! And while Cecilia loves her mom, she gravitates towards Travis. This is because Delores was ALWAYS getting on Cece for something and idk, she was just always fascinated with her busy dad. Who is the authoritative parent? Delores. Those girls had chores and responsibilities and most importantly, manners. She never hit them or anything, but her scolding and manner of discipline could be saddening for two children. Who is more likely to allow the children to have a day off school? Travis. Who lets the children indulge in sweets and junk food when the other isn’t around? Also Travis, but then again he could be sleeping when Cece decides to raid the kitchen for snacks. Who turns up to extra curricular activities to support their children? Delores, all the time! Who goes to parent teacher interviews? Delores, and she gets Travis to dress up for it too. Who changes the diapers? Delores. Who gets up in the middle of the night to feed the baby? Travis can be working at night, so there’s always the chance it could be Delores who was feeding the baby. With Cecilia things were different, he was feeding her more, but still Delores was the primary caretaker. Who spends the most time with the children? Delores! Even during the summer she has taken the girls to work with her. They didn’t have to sit in the ballet studio, though. They were free to wander the building and see what other creative/artsy things were going on. Who packs their lunch boxes? Both. Who gives their children ‘the talk’? Travis and Delores did it together, but they were stressed out doing it. 😔 With Melissa, it was difficult but things went according to plan. With Cecilia it was extra uncomfortable because she HATED the atmosphere of sit downs. (and of course, in the aftermath, she asked how did ferrets have babies. then she asked why was the bird and the bees called that? How did birds have babies? How did bees have babies? They were mentally exhausted) Who cleans up after the kids? Delores, though she tries to teach them to clean up after themselves. Who worries the most? They both worry for similar reasons. I mean, Travis knows about how young girls can be coerced into sex work and Delores - well, she becomes a mama bear at the slightest threat. Who are the children more likely to learn their first swear word from? I want to say Travis, but I’m also going to say neither. Cece in particular heard it from her favorite, beloved alcoholic teacher! The woman spilled her coffee and said, “For fuck’s sakes.” Afterwards, Cece said it at home when Slink was misbehaving and Delores gasped.

Affection:

Who likes to cuddle? Both! But Delores especially. She likes feeling tended to. Who is the little spoon? Delores likes being the little spoon, but there are many, many moments where its she who has her arms around Travis. Humming something to soothe him. Who gets naughty in the most inappropriate of places? They're not going to fuck in a diner or nothing, so I'm going to say neither. Who struggles to keep their hands to themself? Delores, sometimes. Travis, usually. How long can they cuddle until one becomes uncomfortable? Hours upon hours until they have something to do. Who gives the most kisses? Delores initiates them. What is their favorite non-sexual activity? Laying side by side, talking and all that. Where is their favorite place to cuddle? Couch or bed. Delores was sure to get Travis a better bed than the one he had in his apartment whenever they’re living together. Who is more likely to playfully grope the other? Delores when she's being sly. How often do they get time to themselves? Usually all the time they get to themselves is at the early hours of the morning. Or sometime at night when the kids are sleeping.

Sleeping:

Who snores? Travis, but its pretty soft. If both do, who snores the loudest? I said they're soft. Do they share a bed or sleep separately? They share a bed. Even if that motel room had two beds, they would still choose to be side by side. If they sleep together, do they cozy up together or lay far apart? Cozy up together. Who talks in their sleep? Neither. What do they wear to bed? :/ Delores has so many cute nightwear, or lingere. Travis ain't got nothing special. Are either of your muses insomniacs? Fuckin Travis. Can sleeping pills be found by the bedside? Yes. For Travis. Delores contemplated taking some while pregnant because her anxiety would surface at night, but he convinced her not to. Do they wrap their limbs around each other or just lay side by side? Varies, but usually their limbs intertwine. It's almost subconsciously! Who wakes up with bed hair? Travis. Who wakes up first? Delores. Who prepares breakfast in bed for the other? ...Delores because on the real? she just wants to make him so, so happy. What is their favorite sleeping position? Delores likes to be in his arms in some form or fashion. Who hogs the sheets? Delores. Do they set an alarm each night? Delores has one - and she feels bad about it because it can take Travis so long to sleep before it goes off. Can a television be found in their bedroom? When they're older, yes. But it's only local channels. It’s a room where Delores can escape her daughters and watch television in peace, but unfortunately Cecilia enjoys being in there when Melissa is hogging up the living room tv. Who has nightmares? Travis! Delores too when they're on the run! Who has ridiculous dreams? Both. Who sprawls out and takes up most of the bed? Travis. Who makes the bed? Delores. Also she feels that a clean bedroom has a positive psychological effect on others, so she makes sure Travis can come home to a proper bedroom just for him. What time is bed time? So, Delores falls asleep before Travis even comes home which can be at 10 pm. Then ultimately he arrives back at a very late hour and Delores wakes up for awhile. Tries to get him to go to bed. They stay up forever until sleep finally takes hold. When they're older, Delores is trying to sleep by 10/11 pm and doesn't wait up for him as much anymore because she's so worn out. Any routines/rituals before bed? Delores does too much before bed, I'm just going to say that. Who’s the grumpiest when they wake up? Travis, especially if he had just fallen asleep.

Work:

Who is the busiest? They both are, just in different ways! Who rakes in the highest income? Okay so I actually went to google for this question. Annually, ballet instructors can make $32,000 while taxi drivers make $26,453. So Delores makes more lmao Are any of your muses unemployed? Nope Who takes the most sick days? Delores, I think. Travis can’t stand to be sick and do nothing. Who is more likely to turn up late to work? On default, it’s Delores. But she still aims to be prompt. If it’s anyone keeping her late, it’s Cecilia who had to tag along for whatever reason. Who sucks up to their boss? Neither. What are their jobs? So Travis drives taxis and when they were first together, Delores was a ballerina. She was doing very well for herself until they killed her abusive boyfriend and had to go on the run. Her whole career in New York went down the drain.🤐 Once she and Travis became very settled and felt like they could live a normal life, Delores decided to become a ballet instructor. Had to put that skill to use somewhere. Who stresses the most? They both equally stress. Travis is out here seeing the worst of the worst of humanity while Delores has to be a second mother to girls of varying ages. Hearing, “I think I’m pregnant, should I have an abortion???” “I’m being abused by my family/boyfriend,” all sorts of stuff she has to help out with! Do your muses enjoy or despise their careers/occupations? I think that Travis has mixed feelings for his occupation, while Delores believes that the pros of her job outweigh the cons. She gets to see young girls be themselves and be free even at the price of knowing their personal business. 😌 She doesn’t know if she would still be doing this if life played out different though. Are your muses financially stable? They’re doin’ okay.

Home:

Who does the washing? Delores. Who takes out the trash? All of them, at one point or another. Who does the ironing? Delores, but sometimes Travis will have to iron his own attire. Who does the cooking? Delores. Who is more likely to burn the house down just trying? That damn Travis. Who is messier? That DAMN Travis. Who leaves the toilet roll empty? Travis. Who leaves their dirty clothes on the floor? Travis -- would, if Delores didn't make him learn from the error of his ways. Who forgets to flush the toilet? Travis, initially in their relationship because he wasn't use to living with someone. Who is the prankster around the house? Slink the Bandit who has nearly killed Delores and was nearly killed by Travis. Who loses the car keys when it comes time to go somewhere? Delores. Who mows the lawn? Travis. Who answers the telephone? Anybody, really. Who does the vacuuming? Both. Who does the groceries? Both, but usually Delores as she remembers to purchase the essential things that are nutritious! Who takes the longest to shower? Delores. Who spends the most time in the bathroom? Delores.....Melissa. and Cecilia.

Miscellaneous:

Is money a problem? Admittedly, Delores has never been in a financial situation like the one she is in with Travis (when they're all settled that is) because her family is filled with criminals and they always had cash. But she's so in love with him and happy that they're just alive that she doesn't consider money to be an issue. How many cars do they own? One. Not counting Travis's taxi. Do they own their home or do they rent? Own. Eventually. I can imagine that before Cecilia was born, and they finally got out that motel, Travis and Delores managed to rent a decent house that served its purpose. Do they live near the coast or deep in the countryside? Nope. Do they live in the city or in the country? City! There's people to drive around! Do they enjoy their surroundings? Technically? Delores misses New York a lot, but she also has a lot of hate for New York due to their previous experiences. What’s their song? Vikki Carr's cover of Strangers In The Night, also I'll Be Seeing You by Billie Holliday. What do they do when they’re away from each other? Work...Delores handles the children. Gossips with her friends/goes out to lunch with them. Where did they first meet? In his taxi cab. How did they first meet? Delores was leaving a party that she had felt very isolated at. She was also intoxicated. She came into his cab, sat in the backseat...then talked about how lonely she was and spilled her heart out. After that Travis was always present, and she got attached, although she worried about him one day stalking and murdering her. Who spends the most money when out shopping? Delores. God knows she has dug into bill money to get Melissa or Cecilia beautiful dresses for special occasions/holidays. Who’s more likely to flash their assets? Delores technically because she believes you are what you wear and that affects how people see you. Who finds it amusing when the other trips over? This question is trifling. Any mental issues? Travis has a ton of 'em. Who’s terrified of bugs? Delores! Who kills the spiders around the house? Travis. Their favorite place? Together. In their home. Away from people, where they can be themselves. Who pays the bills? Delores handles a lot of that. Do they have any fears for their future? Delores fears Travis engaging in violence. Just as she has worried about him being in so much despair that he kills himself. She just always worries about his wellbeing. Who’s more likely to surprise the other with a fancy dinner? I feel like Travis would, if/when he had the money. While Delores is inclined to do that for him at the house, because she wants him to be happy. Who uses up all of the hot water? Delores. Who’s the tallest? Travis because Delores is only 5'4. Who’s more likely to just randomly hop into the shower with the other? Delores. “Innocently.” Who wanders around in their underwear? A childless Delores, if she is feeling particularly sly. Who sings the loudest when singing along to the radio? Travis ain't tryna embarrass himself and neither is Delores. What do they tease each other about? Travis has teased Delores about how she is tense during their daughter’s school photos that she paid good money for. she trusts Melissa to look perfect but Cecilia? She doesn't know. She never knows. And the certain reactions (or gasps) Delores has had looking at Cece's awful photos have caused Travis some great memories. Delores has teased Travis about small things, like whether he'll be able to tie a tie or if she needs his help. Who is more likely to cringe at the other’s fashion sense at times? Delores when Travis's jacket begins to fall apart and he still wears it. Honestly she's the type of wife/gf who's like, "why aren't you wearing the shirt I bought you?" Do they have mutual friends? Delores always knows June from when they were young girls in ballet class together, but I feel like she would just get on Travis's nerves. But even with that said, June made the vow that she would ensure no harm came to Melissa [or Cecilia] when they came to New York. Who crushed first? I'ma say Travis. Delores thought he was cute in his own, messy way, but she thought nothing of it. Any alcohol or substance related problems? I'm going to say no because Travis should probably be taking his pills more than he is. Who is more likely to stumble home, drunk, at 3am? what's travis doing drinking and driving ON THE JOB?? I'm going to say neither. And even if it happened, they'd be together on like a date night. Who swears the most? Travis on default.

#RE. / DELORES & TRAVIS.#tcpimpabutterfly #boom!

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