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flightfoot · 2 months ago

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How Alya's mistreated by the saltdom and the writers

I've written this for the @yall-hate-kids-tourney, but figured that I'd publish it on my own tumblr as well for an easy reference point for others who want to illustrate how badly Alya's been treated - mostly by the fandom, but she's been somewhat screwed over by the writing as well. I've written it so that even people who have never heard of Miraculous before can understand my problems with the way Alya's often depicted, and I will probably use this essay for that purpose repeatedly in the future. It's over 4500 words, so buckle up!

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The amount of hatred Alya gets in the fandom is absolutely insane. There are over 800 fics tagged with "Alya Cesaire Bashing", and that's just the ones that actually TAG it - many of them either use a a non-canonical tag or just take their demonization of her as canon. It's not just that a lot of fics bash her either, but that the fics that bash her are disproportionately popular. If you go through the "Miraculous Ladybug" tag on AO3 and sort by kudos, I'd say around a third of the top 500 most popular fics use this gross caricature of her in order to justify inflicting some sort of insane punishment on her, or at least replacing her with "better" friends and leaving her to wail in despair.

Basically, Alya is the best friend of the main character, Marinette. She's really into superheroes and aims to be a reporter someday, to the point that the first time a supervillain cropped up in the series, she immediately got out her bike and cycled after him so that she could be there when a superhero showed up to fight him (Lois Lane would be proud). She runs a blog called the "Ladyblog" which reports on what the superheroes are doing, and sometimes makes some fun videos, like about the most impressive feats of one of the superheroes.

More relevantly though, she acts as Marinette's support a lot of the time, often being the one to push her to confess her feelings to Adrien, to help her with plans she comes up with, to talk things out with if she's having trouble processing something, and trying to act as the voice of reason if Marinette's gotten to into her own head. It can sometimes head into Black Best Friend territory of having her mostly stick around to support her bestie, but she DOES get a decent amount of screentime and focus at least.

Then the first episode of season 3 aired, and the fandom went BALLISTIC.

This character, Lila, debuted back at the end of season 1 as being this attention-seeking liar who pretended that she knew a lot more famous people than she actually did, including being best friends with Ladybug. Alya, being a naive 14-year-old, believed her and put Lila's interview on her blog. Since Marinette IS Ladybug, she knew this was not true, though she was initially more freaked out about the possibility that Adrien (the boy she has a crush on) would find her supposedly amazing life to be entrancing and that Lila would steal Adrien away from her, to the point that she actively wanted to stop Lila and Adrien from spending time together to prevent Adrien from falling for her.

Fast-forward to Chameleon, the first episode of season 3, and Lila's back and lying some more, this time about having Tinnitus (which would mean that she needs to sit at the front of class, next to Adrien). The class has a whole seating rearrangement in order to accommodate the move, and because some of them just wanted to change seats. Since Marinette was late that day, she didn't get to give input, so she wound up sitting alone at the back of the class, instead of next to Alya like she usually did. She's upset by this, but can't prove that Lila doesn't actually have the disability (she doesn't even have evidence that Lila doesn't have hearing problems, it's just that her story of how she supposedly got the disability is suspect), so she puts up with it for the class period.

Then lunch time rolls around and Marinette tells Alya and Alya's boyfriend, Nino, that Lila's a lying liar who lies. Alya asks why Marinette hates her so much, since she barely knows Lila (this isn't the first time that Marinette's nitpicked at Lila's stories, but she's never actually managed to prove that Lila's lying, Lila's good at coming up with explanations for any hole Marinette exposes in her tales). Marinette tells her how, after Lila first arrived at school, she followed her and Adrien, eavesdropped on them, and then saw Ladybug show up and tear into Lila for not knowing her. (Presumably that's what she says, the episode skipped past her actual recounting of what she saw). Alya and Nino are more concerned with the fact that she stalked Lila and Adrien, with Alya also being skeptical that what she heard might have been out-of-context, given how common out-of-context eavesdropping is in fiction for causing issues, with Alya saying, "A good reporter always verifies her sources. Can you prove she doesn't actually know Ladybug?"

Since Marinette can't actually prove anything without revealing that she's Ladybug, she decides that the sane and reasonable thing to do is to throw a wadded up napkin at Lila while she's eating lunch, and when she catches it (Lila's pretending to have a sprained wrist), to loudly declare that she obviously doesn't have a sprained wrist. Lila quickly pretends that catching it did actually hurt, the classmates Lila was sitting with scold Marinette for hurting her, and then Marinette goes off to seethe in a bathroom, where Lila finds her and threatens to turn her friends against her if she continues trying to expose her lies.

Then at the end of the episode, Adrien goes to sit with Marinette at the back of the class to keep her company, the teacher thinks that Marinette ALSO has hearing issues so she's brought back to the front (and away from Adrien again), Lila pretends that her hearing has been fixed so she can sit at the back with Adrien, and Alya spots that Marinette looks miserable about sitting alone at the front, so she chooses to sit next to Marinette to keep her company and everyone ends up going back to their old places, except that Lila's sitting at the back of the class now.

And that's it. That is, for the most part, what kicked off the entire Alya hatred and demonization onslaught. While there ARE more things that happening in following episodes, they have a pretty small effect on the demonization Alya's put through, almost all of it is derived from Chameleon and hasn't changed much since then.

So for starters, in fanfics Alya is often made to ditch Marinette constantly to hang out with Lila instead. This never happens. She's often exasperated when Marinette starts talking about how Lila is awful and points out that she doesn't have proof of that, but she doesn't avoid Marinette, and the closest she ever comes to hanging out with Lila outside of class events is when she called Lila over to babysit hers and Nino's younger siblings when Marinette canceled at the last minute.

But most Alya-bashing fics don't just leave it there. Oh no. If you look through a bunch of the most popular Miraculous fics, you'll see Alya made out to be some sort of ringleader for the class in bullying Marinette, hitting her, pinching her, poisoning her, destroying her things, saying nasty, heinous things to her, the works, and inciting the rest of the class to do the same, sometimes to the point that even LILA is shocked at her cruelty. Usually in these cases, Chloe, who is canonically the class bully (and Marinette's bully in particular) is inexplicably Marinette's primary protector against the eeeeeevil Alya, becoming Marinette's best friend and support and basically taking on Alya's canon role and some of her personality traits, despite the fact that canonically, Chloe's as susceptible to Lila's lies as anyone else, and that in season 5 Chloe actually became Lila's partner in crime in trying to hurt Marinette in particular. (I don't like how Chloe's treated in canon, but that's a different story).

I've never even seen any justification given for why Alya's so frequently made to be outright violent or cruel towards Marinette, it's just widely accepted in fiction now, even with nothing pointing to her ever being malicious like that. There ARE other things Alya canonically does that I see her taken to task over though, but that fall apart when you examine them.

One of the biggest offenders is criticism towards Alya over how she handles babysitting. In Christmaster, Alya and Nino pick up Nino's little brother after Marinette babysits him for them while they're on a date, in Timetagger, Marinette's slated to babysit for them while they're on a date but cancels at the last minute, so they call Lila over instead, and then in Simple Man, Marinette books herself to babysit Alya's and Nino's younger siblings and the daughter of one's of her mom's friends, a little girl named Manon, all at the same time.

Alya receives heavy criticism for not paying Marinette for her babysitting, for having Marinette babysit for her secretly behind her parents' back without their knowledge, and for pressuring Marinette to babysit for her even though Marinette's so busy.

A few problems with this.

1. We see babysitting happen several times, sometimes with Alya helping Marinette with babysitting Manon and sometimes with Marinette just babysitting Manon without anyone else's involvement. At no point is payment brought up, and yet the absence of such a discussion is only ever used to demonize Alya.

2. There is no evidence that the babysitting Marinette does for Alya's sake is done behind her parents' back, the only thing pointing to that is a lack of Alya ever flat-out saying that she has her parents' permission to have Marinette babysit for her, but there's no evidence of sneaking around. MARINETTE, however, DOES canonically ditch her babysitting duties by having Alya babysit for her without the parent's knowledge. In Prime Queen, Marinette accidentally double books herself to do an interview as Ladybug at the same time that she's supposed to be babysitting Manon, so she calls Alya over to watch the interview with her, lies to her that she's just gonna go downstairs for a few minutes to talk with her parents and for Alya to please watch over Manon while she does that, and then leaves to do the interview while Alya watches over Manon the whole time. Nadja definitely didn't know that this happened, because she was surprised and worried when Alya and Manon called in during the interview with Marinette nowhere to be seen. In addition to this, in Simpleman, Marinette foists off all the children she's babysitting onto her grandpa against his will so that she can run off and help with Adrien's photoshoot after he calls her. The people demonizing Alya for supposedly having Marinette babysit for her secretly are not upset about the examples of Marinette canonically doing these things.

3. Of the three times that Marinette has, to date, been scheduled to babysit for Alya's sake (Christmaster, Timetagger, and Simpleman), for Christmaster she spent the next several hours after finishing with babysitting making Adrien's 50th birthday present (he's currently 14 years old), so I wouldn't say she was pressed for time, for Timetagger, she literally called Alya at the last minute to say she was too busy to babysit and Alya said it was no biggie and made other arrangements, and for Simpleman, Alya offered to cancel her date and take care of her younger siblings herself the instant she saw that Marinette was already babysitting Manon, and Marinette told her to go ahead and go on her date and that she'd look after her siblings.

So clearly, the people clutching their pearls about how horribly irresponsibly Alya is handling babysitting and how she's wronging Marinette in the process don't actually care about babysitting ethics here, because otherwise, Marinette would be getting the brunt of the hatred, not Alya. Despite this, I've seen a fair number of posts in the past tearing into Alya's babysitting for the reasons I already gave, and a bunch of fics that make it so that Alya pressures and guilt-trips Marinette into babysitting for her when she's struggling to keep up with all her work, only to have her parents find out and be horrified by how Alya's lied to them about who's been doing the babysitting and that Alya's been getting an increased allowance because of that, so they pay Marinette out of Alya's allowance and ground her, take away privileges, just have this be used as an excuse to punish Alya for supposedly wronging Marinette.

And then there's the subcategory of Alya demonization towards her for putting up Lila's interview on her blog without verifying that Lila was telling the truth. Admittedly, this was foolish, but she's 14. Retractions exist for a reason. And yet, fics frequently have her reputation be completely destroyed because she put up one interview that had a false statement by the interviewee in it, and sometimes even to be completely blacklisted from ever being a journalist in the future, things that are completely insane and would have even the most storied and well-respected of reporters be unable to ever get a job.

She also frequently gets demonized and bashed for "believing Lila over Marinette". My major issue with this: what she's specifically believing Lila over Marinette for is on the topic of "is Lila an awful person". I don't think it's unreasonable to have a higher standard of proof for believing that someone is an awful person than for believing that your friend might just have some biased interpretations. Alya thinks that Marinette doesn't like Lila mostly because Lila has hit on Adrien, Marinette's crush, before. This isn't unreasonable considering that Marinette's first reaction to Lila is to freak out about her stealing Adrien away, and that when this other girl, Kagami, started hanging out with Adrien, she freaked out about that too. Specifically, she called a meeting of all her female friends to try and stop Kagami and Adrien from going away together to London for the weekend in Backwarder, helped Chloe in trying to get Kagami covered in food at a fancy red carpet movie opening in order to drive her away and steal her seat next to Adrien for the movie, and when she and Kagami were paired up for a "friend-making game" where the goal was to locate where Adrien was in Paris and the prize was to spend time with him, she pretended to genuinely want to be Kagami's friend so she could sabotage both of them and prevent Kagami from spending time with Adrien. So it's not like the belief that Marinette might be unfairly biased against Lila because she's made moves on Adrien is an unfair assumption.

In addition to that, on the occasions when Lila HAS tried to frame Marinette for something, Alya hasn't believed it, or hasn't been shown to believe it at least. In Ladybug, Lila tries to frame Marinette for cheating on a test, for stealing a necklace from her, and for knocking her down the stairs. Despite the evidence Lila planted, Alya doesn't believe it and investigates to try and find out what really happened. She doesn't uncover any solid proof, but she still believes in Marinette. She doesn't believe that Marinette's assumption that Lila's behind this is necessarily correct, since Marinette's leaping to that without presenting proof, but she doesn't believe that Marinette's the culprit either. And in the two following cases when Marinette's framed, Alya never actually gets a chance to say what she believes after the accusation is made against Marinette.

Just... the amount of demonization towards Alya TO THIS DAY, often for things she NEVER EVEN FREAKING DID, is absolutely insane. Even over 5 years since Chameleon aired, fics with Alya being made into this malicious, awful bully so that Marinette can get some new friends to publicly denounce her, get her arrested, or otherwise be punished are frequently on the front page of the most recently updated fics on AO3, and are often some of the most popular ones. If you go to "Fandom-Specific plot" on Tvtropes, saltfics like these have multiple files going through all the common salt tropes. When looking through fics, I frequently search for Alya's name because she's often the first person to be unfairly demonized, so if she's safe, then everyone likely is.

I suspect that racism plays a major factor in this. It doesn't make sense that Alya's often painted as being a violent, malicious bully and leader in getting the rest of the class to physically hurt and terrorize Marinette, I haven't even seen analysis arguing that she'd do that... but it tracks with the "Black Brute" archetype. This becomes even more obvious with Chloe, who's white and canonically DOES do some of this stuff, taking on Alya's canon role and some of her personality traits in these sorts of stories.

Then there's the standard Alya's held to for how she handles her blog. It's way higher than anyone would hold real-world reporters to, much less 14-year-olds. But it makes sense if you factor racial bias into account, and how Alya, being Black, is going to be held to a higher standard than anyone else, and be punished more for failing to meet that standard.

For things like the babysitting double standard, it makes no sense if you're actually looking at the stated criticism, given that the same criticism isn't leveled at Marinette... but it makes perfect sense if you're going off the assumption that Alya, as Marinette's Black Best Friend, is supposed to solely function as her support and that she's simply fulfilling her duties by always being there for her when needed, including for babysitting, but that if Marinette ever attempts to repay in kind, then Alya's being unfair towards her because Alya's obligated to always support Marinette, but that relationship is supposed to be a one-way street. Alya is supposed to function as Marinette's support, never the other way around.

And as for the way Alya's demonized for asking for evidence before believing that Lila's lying, well... again, Alya's expected to act as Marinette's support, and her "failing" that in any way, even if it makes sense from her point of view, is viewed as a betrayal. She's supposed to be loyal to Marinette, and only to Marinette, not to think for herself or to have multiple other friends or values that she needs to weigh. And anything that she does to go against that "justifies" Marinette intentionally trying to hurt and punish her for failing to live up to her role.

In conclusion, the way Alya's treated by the salt side of the fandom is grossly unfair, often has little connection with anything she canonically did, and has some gross racist implications, and is likely at least partially spurred on by racism, especially with how common and popular it still is to this day.

Addendum: How Alya is screwed over by the writers.

While Alya is primarily screwed over by the fanbase, there are some aspects of the writing that exacerbate her ill treatment. In season 4, Marinette confesses her secret identity to Alya, letting her know that she is Ladybug. Despite now knowing why Marinette was so convinced that Lila wasn't friends with Ladybug, and that Lila's interview stating that she's best friends with Ladybug is a lie, the subject just... never comes up, even when Lila starts being important again. It's not that Alya's ignoring what Lila lying on those subjects means, it's more like the writers just completely forgot that Lila told those particular lies, since Marinette doesn't bring them up either. This creates an inconsistency with the fanbase, who really, really, REALLY haven't forgotten those lies.

There ARE ways to explain this - Lila lying about being friends with Ladybug in order to try to boost her reputation, especially when she's the new girl, isn't really all that heinous. Marinette lies a lot as well, even if you don't count lies told to protect her secret identity or other "necessary" lies, sometimes out of embarrassment, sometimes to to try and prevent someone's feelings from getting hurt, and sometimes because she thinks it's the fastest, easiest, or most certain way to get the outcome she wants. And yet, even though Marinette lies a lot, she's not ostracized for that since it's usually not for malicious reasons - foolish reasons at times, but rarely malicious. It would make sense that Lila too, wouldn't be thought too badly of for merely lying in an attempt to make friends.

None of that actually comes up though. Alya later, in Confrontation, states that, "Marinette, you know we'll always believe you. But every time you've accused Lila, there's been no evidence. And at worst, it was just a misunderstanding." Marinette doesn't say anything about the previous times Lila has been proven to lie, so it seems like either it was decided offscreen that the more understandable lies she's told don't matter, or that the writers just plain forgot about them.

There were other opportunities created by Alya knowing Marinette's identity that were ignored. Alya concludes that Adrien backing up Marinette's statement that Lila's bad news was just due to him wanting to defend his girlfriend. This is also a bit of a writing flaw, while wanting to back up his girlfriend's stance IS a decent reason for Adrien to be biased against Lila, this is Adrien we're talking about here. He's nice and understanding to a fault, and is known for giving people the benefit of the doubt and second chances. It makes far less sense to believe that he'd believe the worst of Lila, even if Marinette does, than it does for Marinette to be biased against Lila. That being said, Adrien wouldn't have been present for Lila's more indisputable threats and statements directed against Marinette, so he can't actually verify for sure whether or not there could've been some misunderstanding.

There WAS, however, someone who was always with Marinette, and who could actually back up Marinette's statements more definitively.

Tikki. She was present for every threat Lila made, for everything she ever claimed. While it's possible that both Tikki and Marinette may have misunderstood Lila in the same way, it's far less likely, especially since Tikki would have had different biases from Marinette. Tikki could be an important witness. Yet that never comes up, is never proposed, because that would end the plotline too quickly.

Alya was also screwed over in the immediate aftermath of Lila being exposed, though not by the writers per se? There was a short scene planned after Lila's exposed where Alya apologizes for not believing Marinette about Lila being a liar and generally an awful person, we've even got leaked footage of it, but it appears that it was cut somewhere between being written and voice acted, and the episode being aired.

All of this only really affects detailed arguments about how well (or poorly) Alya's story arc with Lila was handled, its affect on the actual fanfiction produced about Chameleon salt was minimal, I saw no change in its frequency, severity, or general handling of the characters with any season after season 3. I highly doubt that even the changes I suggested here would have done much to persuade the saltdom against Ron the Death Eatering Alya, especially since a lot of the hatred against her has so little to do with the show.

There IS some hatred thrown at Alya for non-Lila related reasons - well, reasons that aren't DIRECTLY Lila related, most of that hatred still stems from people hating her for Chameleon stuff and then retroactively justifying it by looking back at other things she did that irked them. The most common one (that actually has some sort of argument to it, not the "Alya's a horrible babysitter and is abusing her friendship with Marinette" nonsense I listed in the main essay) is that Alya's pushy about getting Marinette together with Adrien.

This is more a product of Alya's usual role in the story than anything. I mentioned in the main essay how Alya sometimes falls into "Black Best Friend" territory, and this is one of the biggest examples. One of her most common roles throughout the series is as the person who pushes Marinette to actually confess to Adrien, to hang out with him, to pursue her romantic desires even with her anxiety holding her back, and to be honest with herself during the times when she's trying to deny her feelings for him. She's Marinette's sounding board whenever she's having an anxiety spiral about... actually, just about anything, and acts as the voice of reason when Marinette gets in her own head too much.

Thus, Alya sets Marinette and Adrien to end up somewhere alone together, or tries to push her to talk to him, or to be honest during the times when she tries to "move on" from Adrien by denying that she still has feelings for him (which is blatantly untrue). She IS okay with Marinette dating someone else though, if she honestly seems to want to do that. She had no problem with her dating Luka, for instance. She DID protest Marinette's seemingly sudden interest in Chat Noir, but that was mostly because Marinette seemed to be grabbing at her new attraction as an attempt to run away from her feelings for Adrien, something that Tikki ALSO noted.

That's another thing - Alya's the character who's most frequently thrown into this role, but she's not the only one, nor even the most extreme one. A new character that was introduced for the Miraculous New York Special, Jess, observed how Adrien and Marinette acted around each other, and decided to try to get them to confess their love by faking a supervillain attack on them, with the supervillain kidnapping anyone that no one loves in order to compel Marinette to FINALLY confess to Adrien. (Alya thought it was stupid, but agreed to help since it might actually work). When Marinette, Adrien, Luka, and Kagami went out to the wax museum together, Luka intentionally locked Adrien and Marinette in a room together so that Marinette would stop running away and would be forced to talk to Adrien. Marinette is written in such a way that other characters are compelled to meddle in her lovelife, because otherwise she'll continue making her own extreme plans and pining away, but never actually confess her feelings.

So while Alya could be said to be "pushy" to an extent, it's mostly for Marinette's benefit. I would like if this was a less frequent role for Alya - I think it does her a disservice, since it locks her firmly into Marinette's orbit rather than emphasizing who Alya is as her own character. Most of the hatred towards Alya for this is tied up in "Die For Our Ship" being directed at Adrien though, with Adrien bashers hating that Alya's trying to set Marinette up with what they see as an inferior option. Ironically enough, while Alya's role in this situation is one of the primary examples in the show of her being treated by the writers as a "Black Best Friend" who exists to serve Marinette's character, it's actually one of the cases where I think racism is a pretty minor part of the hatred by the fanbase over it, since I think that's mostly motivated by hatred towards the Lovesquare.

In conclusion (again), there is an issue with the writers bending Alya's character in order to tell a particular story, particularly a Marinette-centered story, while ignoring how little sense that makes with what happened earlier on in the plotline, or how it centralizes Alya's role and character around Marinette in ways that exacerbate already existing writing patterns in media.

#alya cesaire #ml analysis #ml fandom salt #miraculous ladybug

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raisans-art · 9 months ago

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Tomorrow 👀

Coming April…

23rd?

———

I have been working on a fic for months and months.

It is not done yet.

But I do want to start posting it on April 23rd so it can be perfectly relevant. The timing is right :)

Oh to finally post my favorite fic. Y’all are done for now

Enjoy

#excuse me while i try not to get sick with stress or excitement or both #sorry if this seems like a disproportionate amount of hyke build up #im just really excited cuz I really like this fic #so i mean its Tumblr yall have to fuckin deal with me being insane about my own work #squeezes emmet tightly im going to ruin him emotionally 5ever #btw hey did y'all notice the additional wrinkles i added to Emmet as the lineup progresses?#i love subtle changes that imply so much :)#anyway see ya tomorrow

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familiarscars · 29 days ago

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Lost In Control | Bad Omens | CHAPTER 19

adult content | minors do NOT interact.

⋆ 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆. Bad Omens X ex-girlfriend and singer!Reader.

⋆ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒. You and Noah had a difficult ending, but you still need to support each other for the band.

⋆ 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆(𝐒). melancholy, ex-boyfriends, difficult relationships, alcohol abuse, swearing, drug addiction, violence.

It's okay to not agree with the characters' attitudes during the fic. It's good to remember that the story is fiction from the author's sick mind, and of course they will make dubious decisions according to my fantasies. Nothing is done to be compared to reality.

California, August 24, 2020.

Twenty minutes until the band's final performance of the year, and you'd finally be on vacation.

The air circulated better in your lungs when you remembered that you’d finally get to rest after an intense and seemingly endless string of album promotions and tours. Maybe you could even travel to a new country or perhaps visit a distant beach where not a single human soul roamed.

But when you remembered this required a plane ride, you immediately gave up, deciding that staying home and not stepping foot outside until the return to the stage next year was the better choice. The idea of relaxing in a distant place felt as impossible as the notion of taking a real vacation. You needed to come to terms with your reality.

“Can we say this phase of the band has been a real success? We’ve seen you at more festivals and opening for bigger metal names, which should mean you're reaching a broader audience, right?” the interviewer asked, holding the microphone close to your face.

“That depends on what success means to you,” your voice came out sharp, maybe a little too pointed. “Being at a lot of festivals and opening for more shows than in our last phase doesn’t mean success to me. That audience definitely isn’t ours when we’re placed in spaces disproportionate to our style. They’re not here to see us and couldn’t care less about getting to know us.”

“Looking at it that way, you’re right, especially considering the last incident at a recent festival. That crowd wasn’t ready to embrace a different musical style, and you paid the price for that.”

Your head nodded slowly as she agreed with your point. At the last festival in Florida, which she referenced, you had to endure an overwhelming amount of criticism from the audience simply for replacing a major band they actually wanted to see.

Fair enough, situations like that happened frequently in the music world, but it seemed deliberate that Gerard kept pushing you into unpleasant, unsuitable situations just for the thrill of easy money and stuffing your schedules to keep his ridiculous scheme running.

He didn’t even bother to read contracts or check if the working conditions were remotely decent.

“But that’s the price you pay when the person managing the band and booking our gigs values money above all else,” you said with a tight smile, shrugging. “We can die on stage repeating the same formula for years, playing in tiny venues and festivals that go against what we believe in and even alienate us from our real audience, but that will never measure whether the band has truly succeeded. Because it was never about quantity.”

“Do you think social media reach could change that?”

“Maybe, but it’s not something we have control over. We could blow up on a social network tomorrow with a generic song that takes less than ten minutes to produce, but if we’re still tied to someone who cares less about us than we do about ourselves because we’re just a smokescreen to cover up label problems, the issues will remain the same.”

“Wow!” the interviewer gasped slightly, her eyes widening. You couldn’t deny she had been kind and professional since she insisted this interview should solely feature the band’s female voice—a rare occurrence for you. “It’s important to know that, as a key band member, you think this way. We go to the shows and listen to the music without knowing half of what goes on behind the scenes. That’s sad.”

“Our biggest responsibility is handling our own mess without letting it spill over to the audience. You deserve to enjoy the art we create especially for you, and we’ll take care of the rest—just that.” You smiled, blowing a kiss toward the camera. “See you next time!”

You skipped back to the dressing room, certain it wouldn’t be long before Gerard stormed through the door to choke you out over your statements in the interview. He knew full well you disagreed with his management style, and you made it more evident every day as you counted down the days to free yourself from the one thing that still bound you: the contract.

In your mind, the more you defied him and eroded his dignity in front of the media, the sooner he’d give up using you as his captive.

Huffing until your lips trembled, you stood before the mirror, retouching anything out of place in your makeup. Your fingers pressed the compact powder under your eyes and a bit over your nose. You didn’t usually warm up and found it unnecessary, but at most, you’d breathe deeply a few times, holding the air in before releasing it, eyes closed.

You had a good boyfriend who loved you, a happy home you’d always dreamed of sharing with him, talent, a career, fans who followed you, and real friends who cared about you. Yet there was still this growing hollowness in the pit of your stomach, whispering constantly that none of it was enough.

You didn’t deserve any of this.

The room was partially lit, with only the faint glow of a lamp in the corner casting shadows on the walls of the dressing room. You were making the final touches to your makeup, the muffled sound of the opening band echoing in the background. The usual pre-show nerves were almost comforting.

Suddenly, the door creaked as it opened. Without turning around, you sighed, keeping your tone nonchalant.

“Sorry, but I’m not seeing any fans right now.”

There was no immediate reply, just the sound of soft footsteps crossing the carpet.

“I said I’m not—” You stopped when a chill ran down your spine. The sensation was instant, an invisible weight pressing on your chest, making the air feel heavier.

“Is that how you treat family now, doll?” The raspy, familiar voice froze you to the core.

You turned slowly, as if your mind was trying to delay the inevitable. When your eyes finally landed on the figure emerging from the shadows, your throat went dry, and the lipstick you were holding slipped from your hand.

“You...” Your voice was trembling, barely more than a whisper.

Seth took another step forward, the shadows dancing across his face partially hidden by a cap. His smile was as cold as his words.

“Oh, yes, doll. It’s me. I missed you.”

You stood frozen, unable to move a muscle. Your heart pounded so hard it echoed in your ears, and the air became harder to draw in. Your hands started to shake, buried memories struggling to resurface.

He stepped closer, his sarcastic tone dripping with menace.

“After everything we went through together, you acted like an ungrateful little bitch, handing me over to the cops with all those lies. Did you really think you could rat me out and then just go on tour with your band like we didn’t have unfinished business?”

“No…” You breathed as you tried to back away. “This place is full of security watching the band members, and if you take another step, I’ll make a scene.”

When he reached out to grab you, you stepped back, but your legs felt like lead.

“Then scream, doll! Scream!” He laughed.

You moved quickly, darting through the small gap he left to run toward the door. But with a single stride, Seth reached your torso and threw you to the floor, pinning you down as he straddled you. Your air was cut off, and before you could scream, he silenced you with a punch to the side of your face, making your head loll to the side.

“Listen here, doll,” he growled, grabbing your face with one hand and covering your mouth with the other, forcing you to look at him. “I really ought to kill you, but luckily for you, I got out of your little stunt. So, I’ll just punish you for being a stupid bitch!”

Your heart was pounding so fiercely it felt like it might burst from your chest. Sweat ran down your spine like a stream, and all you wanted was to scream until your organs trembled, but something held you back. A moment of desperation made you avert your gaze, your eyes widening, and in a desperate impulse, your teeth sank into the flesh of his hand covering your mouth, hard enough for the metallic taste to flood your palate.

He growled in pain, yanking his hand away abruptly. The momentary distraction was enough for you to wriggle free and stumble to your feet.

Your heart was still racing uncontrollably, and your eyes darted around frantically for an escape, anything to get you away from him. But he recovered quickly, his gaze darkened with fury, rage fueled by the pain.

“You think you’re stronger than me?” he sneered venomously, wiping the blood from his hand on his shirt. “You haven’t changed at all. Still the same weak, broken little girl.”

His words were like knives, cutting straight to your core. Your breathing was erratic, and your knees threatened to buckle at any moment. Seth opened his mouth to say more, but his words were cut off when a furious blur grabbed him by the collar, yanking him away from you.

“I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but I’m about to kill you for laying a hand on her.”

Seth laughed as he tried to break free, but Noah slammed him against the wall with enough force to make a dull thud echo through the room. That was all it took to unleash a flurry of punches that made Seth retaliate with one that struck Noah’s face, but Noah seemed fueled by pure rage. Within seconds, the two were exchanging fierce blows amidst growls, toppling chairs and scattering makeup and clothes across the floor.

Your stepfather seemed at a disadvantage as Noah blocked his arm to prevent him from striking. Through the haze clouding your vision, you could see all of Noah’s anger pouring out on that damned man, whose face became unrecognizable from the sheer amount of blood streaming down.

You stood still, hands trembling and eyes fixed on his face, as if frozen in time. Everything around you seemed like a blur. The sounds of the fight, the muffled screams, the thudding of fists meeting flesh—all of it felt distant.

Your whole body shook, a mix of fear and memory. It was as if you'd been transported back in time, the same sense of helplessness washing over you.

Finally, the sound of hurried footsteps broke into the dressing room—members of the crew rushing in to separate the two. Seth was forcibly dragged away, still trying to fight with a sneering expression, but Noah kept glaring at him with eyes full of hatred, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

“We’ll see each other soon. Don’t forget, I’m a big fan of the band, doll,” Seth said as he was dragged down the hallway, while you tried to cover your ears.

Noah wiped the blood from his lip with the back of his hand, turning his gaze back to you. His face softened instantly when he noticed your state.

“Hey,” he called, his voice quieter now as he knelt in front of you. His restless, gleaming eyes assessed the situation on your face and carefully passed over the bruise on your cheekbone. “Sorry for losing control like that, but when I walked in and saw he’d hurt you, I just…”

You didn’t want to hear more, cutting him off by throwing yourself into his lap, desperately seeking his embrace. Noah sighed and pulled you into his arms, cradling you gently. He rested his lips on the top of your head, pressing a lingering kiss there.

He was never violent, had never even raised his voice to you in all these years together. You knew that for something to have triggered his primal instincts like this, it meant he truly cared.

“Who was he?” he asked, running his thumb along the side of your arm.

“Seth.” You barely mustered the strength to respond, the name slipping out. “My mom’s boyfriend.”

“Why didn’t I know he existed?” As pointed as the question was, he sounded only curious. “And why the hell did he show up like that?”

“I thought I’d buried that part of my life when I left Richmond. I didn’t want to remember where I came from, much less what drove me to leave that house.”

“I don’t recall you ever mentioning your home, and now I understand why,” he said, his voice heavy with regret.

“To me, he died the day I turned him in to the police, just hours before we officially moved to Los Angeles.”

You had no idea he’d been out there beyond the voices in your head and the delusions that made you think you’d seen him somewhere. You had believed it was just your mind sabotaging you, but he had remained silent all these years, simply tracking your steps.

“He found out what I did and was trying to punish me for it. Sorry for never bringing this up before—I’ve always tried to forget that part of my life, and it took me longer than it should’ve to report what he did,” you said, your voice breaking as you bit your lip and clung to Noah tighter. “First, I had to learn on my own that I wasn’t the defective piece in the factory.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he murmured, pressing another kiss to the top of your head. “You don’t have to go into it if you don’t feel comfortable. I’ll never stop thinking you’re the bravest woman I know because of this.”

The subtle brush of his lips on the tip of your nose made you crack a brief smile. No matter what dirty lies your mind tried to plant to ruin the moment, they couldn’t steal the feeling of being truly safe without having to fight to survive alone.

“20 seconds until you’re onstage.” A deep voice interrupted sharply, drawing your attention to the door.

“We’re not performing tonight,” Noah declared. “She’s hurt, and she’s just been through a lot.”

“20 seconds until you’re onstage,” Gerard repeated, pounding on the door again. “Jolly and Ruffilo are already starting the intro, and I won’t tolerate delays when this counts as a direct breach of contract with the event’s producers!”

“Did you hear what I said?” Noah turned to him over his shoulder, his tone hardening. “Neither of us is in the right headspace to perform!”

Slowly, you pulled away from Noah’s embrace and got to your feet with a tired sigh. This might be the first time he’d have to deal with Gerard’s true nature so blatantly, but you were used to swallowing your problems and getting to work.

Gerard entered the room with slow steps and stopped in front of him, waiting until he also stood.

“I remember saying I didn’t care if you two were screwing around as long as it didn’t interfere with your work,” he said, stroking his chin. “But I feel like that agreement is being broken when you can’t even hide on stage that you were trying to kill each other in the dressing room.”

“But…” Noah tried to argue, but Gerard cut him off.

“I don’t care what you were doing!” He pointed a finger for emphasis. “But both of you are going to find a way to cover that up on your faces, and for every second you delay, I’m docking it from your pay at the end of the month.”

With those harsh words, he turned and left the room. The intro of the first song was already playing faintly in the distance, and you and Noah exchanged glances for a few seconds. It didn’t really matter what either of you wanted or whether the situation was fair.

You never believed much in justice anyway.

The adrenaline from the stage was still coursing through your veins as you walked backstage, an almost electric energy pulsing through every movement, and the vibration of the crowd still echoed in your ears, drowning out everything around you, including the shadow that approached almost imperceptibly.

"Good job today," the man said casually, with a friendly smile that could fool anyone. Before you could react, he slipped something small and discreet into the palm of your hand.

You froze for a second, but the euphoria of the moment seemed to justify the gesture. It wasn’t as if it were something new. Still, as you glanced at the small package, your throat went dry.

"Thanks," you murmured softly, trying not to draw attention.

Your steps quickened toward the dressing room, and the sound of the boys' voices grew more distant as you moved away. As soon as you entered the small space, you heard the door slam shut behind you, and, like a furious storm, Noah advanced, snatching what was in your hand.

He held the package at eye level, his gaze fixed on you as if trying to solve an impossible puzzle.

"What is this?" he asked, his voice as sharp as a blade.

You tried to respond, but the knot in your throat held you back.

"I asked you what the fuck this is!" he yelled, throwing the package onto the nearby table. The small object slid across the surface and stopped right in your line of sight.

"It’s..." you stammered, scratching the back of your neck and pulling at some strands of hair. "It’s nothing important."

"Nothing important?" he repeated, incredulous. "Are you kidding me?"

"Of course not."

"Is this why you’ve been acting weird?" he pressed.

You averted your gaze, unable to look at him, but he wasn’t going to let it go.

"You lied to me," he continued, anger spilling from every word. "You made me believe you were just nervous, that there was too much going on at once. You made me believe it was all about the music, about the show, about me... But it’s this?"

He pointed at the package as if it were something vile.

"When did we start hiding things from each other like we don’t live under the same roof? When did you become someone I don’t know, someone who has a life parallel to the one you show me every day?"

"Stop, Noah!" you shouted back, finally finding the strength to speak, clutching the sides of your head. "You’re doing this again, and I don’t need you managing my life like I’m your responsibility!"

He let out a bitter laugh, running his hands through his hair—a gesture you recognized as a sign of extreme frustration.

"You don’t get it, do you?" he said, his voice now lower but still charged with intensity. "I care about you! I care about everything we’ve built together, and now it feels like we’re not even on the same page, but you always said we were!"

He stopped, the words seeming to choke him.

"I’m not going to stand by and watch this happen."

You tried to respond, but the guilt and weight of emotions were overwhelming. Deep down, you knew he was right. But admitting it was something you weren’t ready to do.

The words came out like a desperate sob, broken and repetitive. "I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, forgive me."

You knew each syllable carried a torment that felt impossible to express, yet they spilled out between sobs. Your eyes met his, and it was like looking into a mirror of pain. Noah’s eyes were brimming with tears, his face flushed with a mix of anger and deep sadness you never wanted to see in him—especially because of you.

He stepped back, as if he needed distance to breathe, but you couldn’t let him go. Without thinking, you stepped forward and grabbed his hand. Your touch, though trembling, had the power to disarm him. You felt his shoulders gradually relax, his furrowed brows softening. Still, the hurt remained there, etched in every line of his face.

This was what you hated—hated so much. Having to show him the darkest parts of yourself, the ones you did everything to hide. Noah didn’t deserve this.

He was good, so good.

You not.

"You’re absolutely right, my love," you said in a weak voice, almost a whisper. "I was nervous; I thought it was the better choice… But this was never about you. Not when it’s by your side that my noisy mind finds a little silence."

As you spoke, your fingers sought his damp cheeks, carefully tracing the lines of his pain. He yielded, the rigidity in his expression giving way to exhausted weariness, and he rested his forehead against yours. There, in the small space between you, your breaths began to intertwine until they became one rhythm.

Noah closed his eyes as he felt the tip of your nose brush against his.

"I’ll never do this again," you promised, your voice choked. "I’ll never use it again. I’ll never lose myself like this, but I need you not to leave me alone when I only have you."

He remained silent for what felt like an eternity. When he finally spoke, it was with an almost inaudible whisper, yet it carried the weight of the world.

"If you’re feeling bad about something, if your past still hurts, if you feel like you don’t belong where you are now… then share it with me. Let it hurt me, but don’t do this to yourself." He paused, his voice breaking in the midst of his confession. "I love you so much, little storm, and I would never treat you this way."

Your heart clenched with a new pain, a guilt that seemed intent on suffocating you. You loved him more than anything, but was this what love did? It placed you in front of yourself, forcing you to face your flaws?

"I know. I know. I know." You repeated, the words falling like rain as you held his face in both hands. "I love you, my love, and I’ll never hurt you like this again."

He opened his eyes, now filled with a painful hope.

"Promise?"

That word clenched your throat tightly. You couldn’t lie to him anymore. Not after this.

"I promise," you replied, your voice low but firm.

And, for a moment, as your eyes remained locked on his, you almost believed you could keep that promise.

⭑ @collisionofyourkissmakesitsohard ; @iluvmewwwww75 ; @anarchydomainglory ; @foliosgirl ; @lma1986 ; @chey-h ; @supersquirrel1996 ; @zozaline ; @just-randomm-stuff

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soupbitch-moneybitch · 1 year ago

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something i really love about david jenkins' school of doing whatever the fuck you want when writing fiction is that it's given writers a lot more confidence to write things they'd otherwise be too nervous to write. there seems to be a disproportionate amount of really weird, niche ofmd fanfics compared to other fandoms (which i adore! no hate!), and i think part of it is that people are less worried about making all the details perfect. like, we have people who are like, "i've always been interested in 19th century coal production and would love to write a fic that takes place during that era, but what if i can't do it justice because i haven't done enough research??" but now you can just be like "i went to the david jenkins' school of doing whatever the fuck you want, so if there are inaccuracies no there are not 😊"

i just think it's really cool, that people can be more creative and daring now because they don't have to worry about getting every little thing right. if your gay pirate show can make absolutely no sense, so can your fanfic. and that translates to your short stories, or novels, or poetry, or artwork

idk. it's more than just a silly pirate show. it's important. it impacts people's art in a serious way, and that's neat as hell

we're all honorary doctorate students to the david jenkins' school of doing whatever the fuck you want, so let's make weird art, fam✌🏽

#david jenkins #blackbonnet #our flag means death #ofmd #diz says words

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essentiallyleaf · 1 year ago

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day 10. hate sex. with. nana.

472 words.

tags.

kinktober ‘23, idol x male reader, hate sex, degradation, ass play, rimming, anything else that i’m missing?, this started as a brat taming fic in my mind, but honestly, you don’t tame shit in this one, dialogue only, basically improv, i know the pic is clashing, i just kinda like it that way.

notes.

meant for this to be a decent amount longer, but i am emotionally spent from answering an ask that i felt was much more important than all of this. i need to look at pokemon sleeping adorably now. unsurely, leaf.

“Ach-ptoo!”

“Don’t you dare touch me back there, boy”

“Oh, shut up, you were begging for me to fuck you in the ass just three days ago! Now stay still for a second”

“Mmmmmgh-yeahh”

“It’s just my thumb and you’re already mewling, you little bunny slut”

“Nnngh- I’ll choke you as soon as you let me ride”

“And, enlighten me, why would I do that?”

“Because you fucking love it, you idiotic dick with legs!”

“You’d be too busy cumming on my dick, and you know that”

“Fuh- Wanna bet?”

“You ever been to Vegas? Because you seem to be into purposefully losing money”

“Who said I was talking about money?”

“What are you suggesting, then?”

“I ride you, and whoever cums first gives the other five minutes”

“Five minutes?”

“To do what the other wants with them. Mmmmhh- Deal?”

“Deal. Straddle me”

“You have no idea what you just put yourself into”

“Can’t wait to find out”

“Mmmmhhh, can you even handle cumming twice in the span of five minutes?”

“I could handle anything. But I’m afraid you’re not gonna get to find out”

“Oh, such a powerful man”

“You’re the one who’s moaning here”

“Yeah, wanna join?”

“Aaaahh, fucking, slow down!”

“Already begging?”

“We haven’t even started, as far as I’m concerned”

“Really? Cause by the way you’re gripping onto that pillow, most would disagree”

“Mmmmgh- You have no idea”

“What? It seems to me, that I know a lot of things. Nnngh. I know you love how I’m riding you, I know you’ll come before me, and I know you’re a weak man, who only takes bets because his disproportionate ego can’t fathom the idea of a girl, and a smaller girl nonetheless, having him beg for mercy!”

“Mmmmgwaaaahhh, aaah, ah… aah…”

“Pathetic”

“...”

“Fucking pathetic little boy, you came in, how long was that, even?”

“Fuh- You sex-addicted bitch…”

“Heh. You don’t deserve any of this”

“...”

“Now lay still, legs up”

“What?”

“Fucking, bend your legs and pull them up to your chest! Is that hard to understand?”

“Why? Just, choke me and let’s get this over with!”

“Hmph. You came, moaning like a whore, and now you’re trying to run away with your tail between your legs? You wanna get away with a pair of tiny hands around your neck? You don’t have a clue, do you? Honestly, that’s just cute. You’re a cute little bitch, that’s what you are. Now, for the last time, your fucking legs. Up.”

“What do you wanna do?”

“This”

“Gwaaaahhh- Not your tongue there! Jesus Christ, fuck!”

“...”

“Please. Please. Mmmmggghh- Please, just beat my dick. Just, destroy it. Fuckkk- I’ll take anything”

“...”

“Whore, you whore. You bunny devil whore. Fuckinggg- You will see. You have no idea what- I’ll breaknngggaaaahh. Aaaahh. AAAAAAHHHHMMMMHHHFUH-”

“...”

“Honestly, felt like a punishment for me, more than anything”

footnotes.

i hope you have a great day today. especially, leaf.

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static-symphony-fm · 9 months ago

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you are in love (true love)

now playing: you are in love (taylor's version)

pairing: magnus chase x fem! reader

word count: 1.9k

summary: 5 people who knew magnus was in love with you before you did + 1 sword

an: FIRST FANFIC LETS FUCKING GOOOOO this took so long to write! I love how I accidentally made it blue themed even though that's magnus's least favorite colour 😭 its ok we all know he's canonically a 1989 girly

fun fact i actually took the first picture! i shit you not I was on a road trip with my family READING MAGNUS CHASE and I look up and see THAT SIGN and i SCRAMBLED to take a picture

content/ warnings: 5+1 things, background blitzstone bcs c'mon they're basically canon, shitty writing, kissing ooo spooky, magnus being a simp, there actually isn't a whole lot of reader in this x reader fic, minor allusions to sex stuff, a lot of swearing, weird use of perspective, i was trying to go for third person limited but magnus is the one it's limited to not reader? but reader is referred to using second person? sorry if it's confusing.

1. samirah al-abbas

if someone had told magnus a year ago that in a couple month’s time, meeting for coffee weekly with one of his best friends and not getting kicked out of the overpriced coffee shop was going to be the most normal thing in his life, he wouldn’t have believed them. probably would have flipped them off, too, and stole their wallet as he walked away. but he’d like to think that he was a changed man, seeing as he was, in fact, in a hipster café in boston, trying not to make fun of all the fancy menu options. like, seriously? who orders a dragon fruit, pomegranate, and kale smoothie?

he realized he’d been thinking for too long and returned his attention to samirah, sitting across from him and discussing wedding plans for her upcoming marriage to amir as she sipped her latte. he noticed the way her eyes seemed to get brighter, and her entire body language conveyed how excited she was as she talked about him. magnus had a fleeting thought about how good it must feel to love someone so unconditionally like that, and have them love you back just as much.

as if reading his mind, samirah finished her sentence and studied him, tilting her head as she seemed lost in thought, peering at him like he was a calculus problem she couldn’t quite figure out.

after a few seconds, magnus broke the silence.

“alright, it’s getting weird. why’re you looking at me like that?”

samirah snapped out of it, focusing on what he was saying.

“nothing, just… do you think you’ll ever get married?”

jeez, that was a loaded question. magnus narrowly avoided choking on his black coffee, swallowing and burning his throat before answering.

“sam, i’m dead.”

“so? people get married in valhalla all the time. i have been to a very disproportionate amount of weddings in the two years i worked there.”

“yeah? how many of those end in divorce?”

samirah took a long drink of her coffee, swallowing it slowly as she responded.

“forever is a very long time, and no relationship is perfect, but wouldn’t it be better to have someone to spend that time with?”

“…i guess.” magnus accepted, lost in thought. truthfully, samirah was right, like always. if circumstances were different, if he hadn’t died at sixteen, he could imagine himself getting married. settling down. living in a cabin in the forest with two kids.

a thought came into his mind, entirely of its own accord, of doing all of that with you. your laugh, your soft hair, the way your lips curled up and your eyes widened when you smile. you’d probably be a great mom.

whoa, what the hell? he should definitely not be thinking about getting married to his friend, what the fuck? that is not normal.

he pushed the weird thought out of his mind as best he could, gulping his coffee and focusing on the burning in his throat and not what he was just thinking. samirah had gone back to talking about amir, and magnus was not going to think about marrying you any longer.

2. alex fierro

after nearly getting his head cut off by alex’s garrote for the third time that day, magnus needed a break. alex had decided that magnus needed to learn to fight without the help of jack, and it wasn't going too well for him. he collapsed on the bench next to alex, chugging half a bottle of water before even taking a breath. alex rolled her eyes.

“it’s not that hard, you just aren’t fast enough.”

magnus managed to control himself and not say a snarky comment back, but it was a close call. instead, he ignored her, staring straight ahead and not engaging. unfortunately, you were in his direct line of sight, sparring with mallory only a few metres away. alex picked up on this quickly, nudging his side.

“you like watching y/n fight, huh?” she teased, smirking. damn, why did she have to be so perceptive?

“what? no. shut up.” magnus replied quickly, trying to hide his blush. “i mean… she’s a good fighter. not like i like her or anything like that.”

“mhm. suuuure you don’t.” alex replied, definitely not believing him. fuck.

“i’m telling the truth!” magnus protested. god, how was arguing with alex harder than physically fighting her?

“yeah. did you see her necklace today? pretty, right?”

“she’s not even wearing a neck- fuck.” magnus said instantly, before catching himself.

“go to hell.” he swore, glaring at alex, who was grinning at him in a way that reminded him a little too much of her mother.

“you first.”

3 + 4. blitzen & hearthstone

“magnus? magnus?”

a pale hand reached in front of magnus face, waving and then snapping its fingers, bringing him back to reality. he blinked and looked around at hearth and blitz, sitting across from him in the dining room of the chase space. hearth took his hand back to sign finally, raising his eyebrows sarcastically.

“your head’s way up in the clouds, kid.” blitz remarked, drumming his short, well manicured fingernails on the table, his silver engagement ring glinting. he was right. magnus definitely was pretty out of it lately.

probably thinking about y/n, hearth signed. jeez, why did every conversation he had have to be about you? and no, he most certainly was not thinking about you and your pretty eyes and your delicate hands and the way your ass looked in those jeans you were wearing yesterday… jesus fucking christ, he needed to stop.

he buried his face in his hands and groaned loudly, then raised his head back up so hearth could read his lips, hoping that his blush wasn’t as visible as it felt.

“i am not thinking about her.” he lied through his teeth.

“there’s nothing wrong with having a crush, you know.”

ugh, why did they have to act so much like his dads?

“i don’t have a crush!”

“kid, you’re a terrible liar. everyone can see the way you stare at that girl. now remember, if you’re doing anything intimate, you gotta use protection…”

that’s it. magnus couldn’t stand up from the table fast enough

“nope! this conversation is ending right now. good talk!”

5. annabeth chase

magnus and annabeth had been walking around new york for the past three hours, trying to make up for the ten years spent apart. annabeth had shown him her favorite library, and pointed out a bunch of cool architecture in nearby buildings, with a promise to show him and his friends camp half-blood in the summer.

they were currently taking a break, stopping for lunch at a falafel place that wasn’t quite as good as fadlan’s, but it was still falafel. magnus was enjoying listening to annabeth talk about her architecture projects– she was taking online classes to prepare for the higher level of new rome university’s program.

magnus loved listening to her talk about things he didn’t understand. as a child he’d always thought she was a genius, the way she always solved puzzles and math problems easily. ten years later, that theory still held up, hearing her go on about a bunch of terms he didn’t understand.

“sorry, i’m probably boring you to tears. you wanna talk about something else?”

annabeth offered.

“no, it’s fine… i really don’t have a lot going on.” magnus replied, smiling politely.

“come on. there’s gotta be something interesting.” an idea seemed to come to annabeth.

“you have a crush on anybody?”

magnus swallowed.

“no.”

but he was too slow. those steel gray eyes that matched his own were locked on him like a hawk, or maybe an owl.

“yes, you do. come on. spill!”

magnus stayed silent. he was not telling his cousin about his crushes, but those metallic eyes stayed locked on him. he eventually gave up. annabeth could be scary when she wanted to be.

“fine. fine. her name’s y/n…”

+1. jack

it was movie night at the chase space. was magnus ever gonna stop calling it that? no. it was cool. shut up. the credits were rolling on some disney movie that alex had insisted on, and everyone else was slowly but surely making their way to their rooms, yawning as they said their good nights. you had been sitting next to magnus on the couch the whole time, and suffice it to say that he had had some trouble concentrating on the film.

it was just you and him, you in your nirvana t-shirt and gray sweat shorts, and in that moment, he decided to tell you.

you got up to leave, waving at him, and in a feat of bravery so incredible it would be studied by historians for centuries to come, magnus managed to work up the nerve to speak up.

“hey, uh, can i talk to you for a sec?”

“sure? what’s up?” you asked as you sat back down.

jesus, what had he gotten himself into? it’s ok, magnus, you got this. you beat loki in a flyting. you can talk to a pretty girl.

“uh, i was just thinking… i just…” off to a great start, aren’t we? fuck off, voice in his head. he can do this. he took a deep breath.

“i really like you. you're gorgeous and funny and so insanely smart. i’m an atheist but i’m praying to god you feel the same way. will you be my girlfriend?”

you bit your lip, breaking eye contact as you looked off into the distance. fuck. you were gonna say no and then he was never gonna be able to talk to you again and he was gonna have to change his name and move to canada…

“can i kiss you?”

what.

there were a million things magnus expected you to say, but that was none of them. he managed to stutter out a simple “please…” and then you leaned forward and your lips were on his and magnus chase died.

this felt more like the end of his life than being knocked off a burning bridge and drowning did. his heart was beating a million times a second, and he seemed to have forgotten how breathing worked. your lips were softer than anything he’d ever felt before.

he managed to reciprocate a little, mostly acting on instinct, and all he could think about was how astronomically better this was than jackie molotov in the seventh grade.

what was he supposed to do with his hands? he was pretty sure that keeping them at his side was the wrong answer, so he moved one to your waist and the other one to the back of your neck, tangling it gently in your soft hair as his lips moved against yours.

gods, he could have stayed like that until ragnarök, but his stupid sword had to ruin the moment. jack started buzzing on his neck sleepily, seeming to have been woken up ungraciously. he hoped that you couldn’t feel it, but that was pretty unlikely, considering how close you were to him. jeez, he was blushing more and more every time he thought about that.

eventually, you pulled away, smiling a little.

“good night, magnus.”

he nodded, unable to form words, and managed to stand up and walk back to his room, wide eyed, operating on autopilot. he walked into his room and immediately collapsed backwards onto the bed, staring at the ceiling without blinking, completely still. not a thought passed through his mind for at least ten minutes, till he finally was able to reach up and pull jack’s pendant off of his necklace.

“dude, what happened to blades before babes!?!”

#magnus chase x reader #d.j. robin's corner! 💐🎧🎙📻#magnus chase #percy jackson #magnus chase and the gods of asgard #percy jackson x reader

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forasecondtherewedwon · 6 months ago

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I'm dying for a My Lady Jane fic of Stan Dudley doing things to try and get Frances Grey's attention. Just progressively more bold, more ridiculous, and more unhinged as he tries to get her to admit she likes him.

Yeah, this needed to happen. Good call. Thank you for the prompt!!

So, Hey, Check Me Out

Fandom: My Lady Jane Pairing: Stan x Frances Rating: T Word Count: 4837

Summary: The kingdom may be in turmoil, but so is the heart of one Stan Dudley! Kicked out of Frances Grey's bed before he's ever actually gotten into it, Stan's had enough. He embarks on a courtship designed to make the woman of his dreams truly see him for the first time, learning, along the way, that he's someone worth seeing.

When Stan Dudley was naught but a knee-high, flaxen-haired lad, his mummy and daddy would take him and his big brother Guildford to summer fairs. (This was before his happy childhood went tits-up and he cried in his nanny's arms while the wooden box he had been told contained his dearly departed and freshly embalmed mummy was shovelled over with mounds of uncaring earth. How he had wailed!) Anyway, he particularly enjoyed the puppet shows. He loved the bright fabric of the puppets' costumes, their gibbering voices, and the way they would spring up out of nowhere to make surprising announcements or play dirty tricks!

Despite his mummy's death, his brother being sent away, and what seems to him the disproportionately unfair amount of bullshit that's come his way since, Stan has never forgotten those puppets with their happy or sad painted grimaces (he could never tell). This is very fortunate, as their inspiration now stands him in good stead with the first real goal he's ever set himself: making Lady Frances Grey fall utterly in love with him.

Taking a page from the puppets' book (what a silly thought—puppets can't read!), Stan bedecks himself in colourful doublet and hose, then proceeds to pop up throughout Frances's day.

"This is a surprise," his lady love tells him when he accosts her at the juncture of two palace corridors.

"Yes! It's meant to be," he replies eagerly.

But then she turns away.

The same thing happens when he inserts himself into her routine twice more that day, and four more times the next: Stan gets the attention he desires with every fibre of his being, but only for as long as it takes for Frances to spot him, adopt an exhausted sort of expression, and turn away as though he's not even there. It's rather disheartening.

Fortunately, the sensation of being disheartened slips right off Stan Dudley like water off a swan's backside.

The thing is that he learned Frances's schedule. Now, an outsider might not expect the Queen's mother to have a schedule. After all, what is she? Not an official adviser or politician, not a servant or lady-in-waiting. In Stan's mind, Frances is capable of any of that—all of it!—but he's aware that, to others, Frances is just a particularly privileged, live-in member of the court. Alas, those people do not know dear Frances as he does. His clever vixen of a sometime-lover keeps herself as busy as a bee. (Coincidentally, tasting the output from the royal hives to ensure the highest standards of quality for the Queen's table is something Frances does at 10:00am sharp, every Wednesday.)

It was quite easy; Stan followed her around (at a respectful distance), watched her every move (respectfully), and committed it all to memory. He didn't take notes, of course. He isn't some sort of deranged stalker.

Thanks to the diligent study he's made of her movements, Stan is able to continue popping up in the places he knows she'll be, just exactly when he knows she'll be in them! The scheme is satisfying and effective... until the sweet lady begins altering the schedule to avoid him. But, ha HA! Stan bests her once more in this charming game they play; the erratic schedule is simply too annoying to Frances, who finds it impossible to get anything done, forced to structure her day around Stan's madness (madness? Perplexingly, it's the word he overhears her maidservants using) instead of completing her tasks at the most logical times. It turns out that the most defiant thing she can do is stick to the original schedule, which absolutely suits Stan down to the ground. Tremendous!

The great misfortune of his life (recently) is that putting himself in Frances's path is not and never has been enough—except that first night at Guildford and Jane's wedding; nothing makes sparks fly like a fistful of greasy meat and the chance to observe a blood relation's between-the-sheets tumble. No, now he must command her attention. He must compel her. He must engage her. Frances is so hot and cold in her carnal desire for him that Stan knows he cannot rely on something as novel as a decorative codpiece. (Though, should he maybe try... no. That time has passed.) She must at last be taught a difficult lesson: Stan Dudley is more than his penis!

—

He begins his war of rose-scented attrition in the evening. Frances can't flee from his dinner conversation without being horribly rude. Besides, the venison pie is not to be missed. Stan has to pull quite a few strings to get next to her (one is tied to the back of the chair meant for Margaret, and he earns a vicious look when her bottom strikes the flagstones), but he manages it.

"Do you like wine?" he inquires in a seductive tone.

Frances turns to him, expression already sour as though she expected to be irritated by the exchange. Wounding!

"Of course I like wine," she says. "Everyone likes wine."

"Oh, you slay me with your wit, Frances! Then I must tell you, I know of this spectacular vineyard in Italia and I've written, asking for a shipment."

Frances looks almost impressed.

"You're importing Italian wine? I shall look forward to—"

"So sorry," Stan chuckles self-deprecatingly. "Actually, no. I'm importing the grapes used to make the wine."

"The grapes? But why?"

"I'm so pleased you asked," Stan all but purrs, leaning in close to Frances for the big reveal. "It's so I can crush the grapes for your wine with my own feet! Doesn't that sound— Frances?"

Against all his expectations, and certainly contrary to good manners, she rises from her chair and, after a slight curtsy to Jane as she excuses herself, fucks right off out of the dining hall. Shocking, shocking behaviour! Stan is saying as much under his breath, having half-risen as he debates chasing after her, when vengeful Margaret kicks at his chair leg with all her might to send him sprawling.

"Yes, I suppose that's fair," he conceeds.

Margaret condescends to reach down and shake hands to prove their quarrel is done and there will be no hard feelings going forward.

—

Stan's next attempt is a do-over of something he tried before. That time, it was an unmitigated, meteoric failure which ended in Frances rejecting his proposal of marriage, and rubbing additional salt in the wound by telling him he's "just not husband material." He's since forgiven her her harsh words (she could not have meant them to be quite so brutal, his dove), and he's learned something besides. Reflecting, Stan was able to isolate a trio of criticisms from what Frances said to him: she does not appreciate grand gestures (maybe he should write back and cancel the import of foreign grapes), the nonsense about him not being husband material, and that she doubted his sincerity. She had the nerve, in fact, to tell him that he doesn't love her. Clearly, what's needed is a tasteful demonstration of his resolve, doing everything he did before almost exactly the same.

And so, he will serenade her once more.

Like any suitor who knows the odds might be against them and that it's therefore pretty critical to await the ideal circumstances, Stan takes his time picking just the right moment. He takes almost four hours. Then, bursting with urgency and armed with his lute, he slips into Frances's chambers. He's elected to pounce at night this time, and is pleased to see Katherine and Margaret are elsewhere. He shuts the door through which he entered so softly that Frances, seated doing needlepoint with her back to the doors, doesn't immediately notice his presence. Stan alerts her to it with a soft strum across his strings.

Frances jolts and twists round to fix her eyes upon him, which is when Stan throws her a reassuring wink. Her face says, Stan Dudley, why didn't you knock? His replies, Because you would have opened the door only to slam it closed again at the sight of my lute, you slippery thing!

Knowing he has not a second to lose, Stan clutches his lute like the lover he hopes Frances will again become hereafter, launching into the sweet melody he has composed for the occasion. He closes his eyes to ignore the rolling of Frances's and croons the first poignant lines to cover the sound of her objections. He hears her rise, but continues to sing. It's not until he feels her near him that he opens his eyes to deliver the rousing chorus:

"For I'm just Stan!" he belts. "Anyone else would see a man! Is it God's will for me to live and die the one unmarried Dudley? I'm just Stan! When I said, "Wife," she turned and ran. What will it take for her to see the lord behind these chords and marry me?"

"OUT!" Frances shouts above the sound of his moxie, of his pain. "I told you once already! You're only embarrassing us both!"

At that, Stan's expression softens.

"You do care," he interprets hopefully.

But then Frances is attempting to snatch the lute from his grasp, so he's forced to retreat. He contemplates persisting, picking up where he left off even with these heavy doors between them, or even returning to the spot in the courtyard from which he sang up at her window the first time. It's with a sigh that he admits to himself that, though he gave it two good attempts, he will not woo his love through song. Frances must just hate music. It's horribly sad for her, and, in lieu of his melody, she has his sympathies.

Unexpectedly, she is the reason his despair over this latest failed attempt to win her is quick to subside; the next day, before she spies him trailing behind her, lovelorn, he hears her humming the chorus.

—

With cautious optimism, Stan decides to proceed. He has a long list of tactics that he routinely reviews, adding on and scratching out with a zealous quill. The one he selects this time will require a little help to pull off.

His clever sister-in-law's court is positively crammed full of all the people who claim to know best regarding what to do about Ethians and national defence and tariffs and things of that nature, but upon his request, she invites some other types to court—artistic types. Stan narrows his eyes in competitive suspicion at the musicians before making the acquaintance of the painters. The second most important thing when commissioning artwork, Stan decides, is to peruse samples of the artist's work, but the most important thing is to find someone you think you'll be able to tolerate for the length of time it will take to sit for your portrait.

For it is a portrait Stan commissions. He selects his brush-twirling, paint-daubing fellow from the bunch and makes an appointment with him for a time when Frances is doing something particularly boring that he doesn't mind missing. In practically no time flat, the artist captures Stan in miniature. All his handsome features are accounted for. There! Would an unserious man commission a portrait of his own tiny face? Would someone who isn't "husband material" come up with such a thoughtful gift as having that miniature framed in a locket and left on the vanity of his heart's desire? No note accompanies his gift; he wants her to wonder about the gold locket's provenance, to drape it about her lovely neck as a mysterious token from an admirer.

When he comes upon her as she perambulates about the palace grounds, the gleam of gold immediately catches his eye. Stan tries to neither stare nor look too smug that Frances selected his quiet gift from amongst her many valuable baubles. He's burning with curiosity over whether she has yet unclasped the locket and studied the painted face within. It's a curiosity he doesn't hide well. By the by, he's very bad at cards.

"What are you looking at?" Frances asks, assessing him squarely.

Stan shoots his gaze skyward in a dramatic and ultimately ineffectual attempt at innocence. But his eyes were on the locket, and she knows it. With the blend of fear and horniness his precious Frances so consistently inspires in him, Stan watches her unclasp the locket and find the miniature concealed therein.

To his great delight and considerable relief, Frances laughs to discover his painted features.

"It's me!" Stan announces unnecessarily. "A fair likeness, wouldn't you say?"

"You had this made for me?"

"I hoped you might wear it close to your..." Stan chokes back the word "heart" and opts for one Frances might find more palatable, more descriptive of the narrow parameters she's placed on their relationship. "...breasts."

She glances up from the miniature, smirking.

"Alright," she says. "You may visit my chambers. But no lute."

—

Though he agreed to her terms without debate, Stan dislikes them. He feels undervalued by them, or perhaps incorrectly valued. He knows exactly what Frances has in mind: he'll come, she'll come, and then he'll be discarded once again. She is persistent, his pussycat, in treating him as a walking erection, useful for one thing only. He does so like to be useful to her in that way, but when they caressed each other's bodies that first time, he never imagined what he was experiencing was the furthest Frances ever planned for their encounters to go. It leaves him feeling slightly empty. He's always thought there would be more to love, since love it most definitely is.

Katherine catches him moping.

"You don't have to let her hurt you," she says, intuiting that her mother is the subject of his thoughts. "You have a choice. Not all of us are so lucky."

"She's still anti-William then? Goodness, that's a shame. You make an awfully cute couple."

Katherine gives him a half-smile. "Thanks, Stan."

"Even when she is cruel," Stan sulks, thoughts back on Frances, "I want her still."

"That's ridiculous." When he casts wounded eyes her way, Katherine sighs and takes pity. "You should stand up for yourself. If she still treats you like nothing after you've told her you know you're worth something, maybe you should think about ending it."

"Ending it? What, taking my own life?"

"Your infatuation with her."

"Oh." He considers this, not for the first time, but the first at someone else's prompting. It really is so much harder to end a relationship, he feels, when you get on with your girlfriend's family, and he knows, as difficult as Katherine's words are to hear, that she's trying to do him a good turn. "You know, she's invited me back to her bed."

"I neither knew nor wanted to know that."

"Makes it rather more challenging to be strong when she's on her knees—"

Katherine puts her hands up to stop him. "That's— Yes. Alright, Stan. Please, no details."

"I just wish I had some way of being strong in the moment, so that I might keep a clear head," he laments, dropping his chin into his hand.

She contemplates him a moment, then grins and says, "Come with me."

—

That night, Stan arrives at Frances's chambers empty-handed, but not unprotected. Thanks to Katherine, he has a trick up his sleeve—or rather, down his breeches. It could be, though, that he won't even need it. Perhaps, when Frances answers the door, the pair of them can sit down and have a real conversation about their feelings, then decide together if and how they want this relationship to progress in a way that does justice to each equal participant's expectations, needs, and five-year plan. Stan exhales a quick, readying breath and knocks.

The speed with which his darling Frances answers the door tattles on her longing for him. Though she may act aloof when they are in company, it serves her not! What she truly desires, what she pines for, is Stan Dudley: singer of songs, sitter for portraits, hero of the hour.

"My love!" he exclaims, closing the door swiftly behind him. "How I have—"

"Yes, Stan, nice to see you too," Frances says distractedly. Her gaze is fixed low as she throws open her dressing robe and flings it away. "Quickly now, breeches only, don't bother with the rest. I had thought you would be prompter."

In a huff worsened by the fact that Frances takes no notice of it, Stan thinks, Fine. He proceeds to do as she instructs. He sits in the chair she points to (god forbid he take her on the bed, like a real lover ought!), and unfastens his breeches like she tells him too. But he doesn't lower his drawers. No, he waits as Frances approaches, hikes the hem of her nightdress, and prepares to sit astride his lap. She stops with one knee braced on the chair.

"What's that?" she asks.

"What's it look like?"

"I can't bloody read it, Stanley. Get up."

This part might have felt a bit more rebellious, he reflects, if he hadn't sat down. She'd have seen the message clearly, straight off. Instead, he understands her difficulty; you can tell they're letters, but the words are rendered illegible by how the fabric gathers while he's seated.

Frances takes a step back and Stanley rises with dignity to display the message he decided upon—the message which his ally, Katherine, then embroidered onto the front of his underwear.

"'Mine eyes art up here,'" Frances reads out, then scoffs, shooting him a scornful glance. "Now, really, Stanley."

"Well, they are," he retorts. "And it's about time you took note of them! Or anything else up here!" He waves a hand next to his head. "My brain, for instance! I am a person, Frances, not merely a pleasure object!"

Frances sighs like she is deeply disappointed in him, and it doesn't feel good. Actually, it feels end-of-the-world levels of awful, especially when Stan is standing there in doublet and drawers, his breeches a sad, puffy pool upon the floor. He ought to have painted the message on a placard of some kind, or written it on a scroll he might have swept from inside his doublet with a flourish. With some fucking panache! In hindsight, delivering a message while half-undressed does slightly diminish its verve. But he must stand tall, breeches or no!

"What is it?" she asks tiredly, fixing the neck of her nightdress where it's slipped off her shoulder.

"I've just told you!" His shoulders sag a little. "Weren't you listening?"

"You're complaining that I don't want to fuck your brain," Frances summarizes dispassionately.

"I'm complaining that you don't LOVE ME, Frances!"

She appears confused by this.

"But I never have," she points out. She certainly is looking at his face now, assessing him as she questions, "Did you expect that to change?"

"Yes!" Stan cries out desperately. He yearns to approach her, to take her hands between his, but he must resist. "Yes, of course I did! I do!"

"Even when I told you otherwise? Really, how foolish." She chuckles.

Because he somehow believes she can't possibly make him feel worse than he now does, he battles on.

"Then consider me a fool for love, Frances, and consider that sort of fool a fool it's damn well worth being!"

"Though perhaps not worth me having," Frances replies cuttingly. "Do you forget, Stan, that I don't need you? You offer no political protection, no money—"

"I offer you more than those things! I am devoted, optimistic, kind to Katherine and Margaret—the latter perhaps on pain of death... Most importantly, I love you, Frances! I love you whether you will hear it or no."

"I don't believe in love!" Frances suddenly snaps, making Stan jerk back. "Not in a marriage, let alone whatever this is! Love is only in songs, and songs are lies composed by people with too much time on their hands."

"But I—"

"Yes, I know you did, you idiot. I was standing there when you sang it at me."

"But you enjoyed it!" Stan accuses.

"I did not!"

Bad luck her—he knows she's lying, and he says as much: "That isn't true. I heard you humming it. And if that's a lie, then how do you expect me to believe the rest of what you've said?"

"I will not coddle you," Frances states, striding up to him until they're almost nose to nose while she glares. "I have been nothing but honest—"

"I recommend that you be honest with yourself! Hmph!"

With that, Stan turns away from her. He grabs his breeches from the floor and redresses in an angry rush. Meanwhile, Frances just stands there, watching him with her arms crossed. She's so beautiful, so imposing. Gosh, he'd really like to... but no! Stan grits his teeth and heads for the door. Without looking back, he says, "The locket looks lovely, by the way. Noticed you're still wearing it."

—

It's misery without her. What's the good of living in a palace if you can't even enjoy the tapestries and the sumptuous suppers and saying, "You missed a spot," to a guard after inspecting the patchy shine on his armour? All the colour has gone out of Stan's world. It's as though the curtains are parted on the theatre, but the puppets lie limp upon the stage.

Of course, she's easy to avoid. Because he knows Frances's schedule, there's little possibility of them bumping into one another. His days are suddenly wide open. He dedicates his new free time to openly weeping in the corridors and, in a weak moment, attempting to sneak into Frances's chambers to pilfer some small item to remember her by. Maybe even the locket he gave her, because he's sure she isn't wearing it anymore. Unfortunately, this pathetic mission is foiled by her door being locked. Just like her heart! More weeping follows.

He's sure he's being pitied by those who care to notice his suffering, but he refuses to speak about it. He only wants to speak to Frances. But he doesn't. But he does.

The only time he can't avoid her is during family mealtimes. Then, he declines to take the pains he once did to sit near her. He remains next to his father, who will say a low-effort comfort phrase like "There, there," and even that will sometimes set Stan off, forcing him to excuse himself for more sobbing against the unfeeling stones which echo his grief right back to him (and sometimes to people at the opposite end of the corridor—the accoustics are terribly odd).

Stan knows there are things afoot at the palace, that larger wheels turn around him—him, the forgotten cog. And yet he seems to be essential for nothing. When he had Frances, well, he knew he was wanted, and exactly what for. How is he supposed to figure out which side of the Division Laws issue he's meant to be on, which side of the political aisle, when he can't even tell where he stands with Frances? He misses her. He can't help it. Mealtime glimpses will not sustain him.

Events conspire to keep them apart. At first apart because, for once, it is he who cannot tolerate the sight of her; she has duped his pig-headed, horse-bodied brother into going off to his death with one of the Ethians who came to Jane's lovely coronation banquet. Not much later, apart because the whole kingdom seems to be going that way, like one big breakup with the crown a-teeter at the place where the ground has split. It's chaos. Stan frequently wishes Frances's crime were a forgivable one so that they might have each other while the world goes to hell, but that's impossible. There is no clemency for sending to his death the big brother who once sat beside him before cavorting puppets. They buried the same mother.

The revelation that Guildford is alive is too short-lived. He is missing, presumed dead one moment, then there inside the safe house with Stan and their father the next, then gone again, bravely determined to rescue his wife, who's about to die—definite, not presumed. Stan feels like a fraud and a cad next to this display of loyalty. How did he ever leave Frances! How did he ever mistrust her! Actually, there are very good answeres for both of those questions, but since Stan's best plan at his own romantic reunion starts with drinking rather a lot, the circumstances of their rift grow fuzzy. He only knows he needs her. He will go to her at once!

He will go to her when the opportunity presents itself!

In the end, he goes to her plated in armour, while the bonfire burns and bird-people swoop from the sky, while (Queen?) Mary shrieks and Guildford's gallops disappear into the night as he takes Jane to safety, just as he vowed he would. In the smoke and the sound, Stan finds Frances. She appears astounded to see him. He was hoping for impressed, so it's a bit of a let-down, but at least he's had an effect. She's underestimated him for the last time!

Ideally, Stan would like to take Frances in his arms and plant such a kiss upon those lips as all who bear witness are changed, and peace spreads throughout the kingdom. Regrettably, it's bad timing. He ushers Frances, Katherine, and Margaret away instead, protecting them while they wend their way through the conflict. There isn't time to say much. He finds them horses—one for Frances, another for Katherine and Margaret to share—and gives a promise that he and his father won't be far behind. What else would they do? See the fight out to the end? Preposterous! They may be heroic now, but they aren't die-for-the-cause dunces. While sticking around long enough might get Stan extra glory, it would also doubtlessly get him executed. There may be salvagable logs from Guildford's fire, and that basket they put down to catch Jane's head? Not yet sodden with the blood of a beheading.

Stan knows the Greys will be returning to the palace. He mounts up, intending to follow them.

"The safe house, Stan," his father tells him, but Stan shakes his head. "Stanley, you cannot go back to the palace. Frances and the girls may be safe there, depending on how things shake out, but you, my boy, are the brother of an Ethian. You are no special favourite of Mary's. You have no bargaining chip! If you were caught—"

"I must go," Stan interrupts. He gives his father a heartfelt nod. "I hope to see you anon."

And Stan rides. Apparently not as well as the Greys, with whom he never catches up, but he rides with battle at his back and hope before him. He doesn't feel like a jilted lover or a second son or a superfluous courtier, just Stan. As the son rises, it feels like a damn good day to be Stan.

—

He sheds his armour—clanking, tripping—on the way from the stables to Frances's chambers. The corridors are empty of guards, all rallied to Mary's side in London. Even if they were here, Stan believes he'd barrel straight through their crossed pike shafts; he's caught up in his own perpetual motion, unable to stop or slow. There's only Frances and the distance between them. When he reaches her doors, he throws them wide instead of knocking.

She turns and sees him, she sees him and says, "You love me."

"You believe me now?"

Frances nods, seeming almost speechless until she says, "Yes."

Cocking an eyebrow, Stan swaggers towards her. "Anything else to say?"

"I don't love you," Frances begins, "but I like you, Stan. I really do." And from her bosom, she extracts the locket he gave her, letting it rest against her bodice. "See?"

It isn't the utter besottedness he's dreamed about. It isn't the legendary romance of Lancelot and Guinevere, or hell, even the surprisingly successful arranged marriage of Guildford and Jane. But Frances is finally being honest with them both, and her heart has told her that he, Stanley Dudley, is pretty darn alright. He's enough.

"I do see," he says, placing his hands on her waist. "And I'd love to see it be the only thing you're wearing."

Frances smirks in understanding. "I have missed you, you know."

He bites the air playfully in her direction, and Frances hums in anticipation, tipping her face up towards his.

"Ah!" He halts her. "I have one condition."

"Yes?"

"The bed this time, Frances. I've more than earned it."

She studies him coolly. "I believe you have."

At last, Stan kisses her, holds the tempestuous force of her in his arms. The outside world is in shambles, but his inner world is a haven. He is Frances's lover. He is a child, skipping towards the fair.

#my writing #My Lady Jane #MLJ #My Lady Jane fic #Frances Grey #Stan Dudley #Frances x Stan #...Stances?#Franley?

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lord-squiggletits · 2 months ago

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Your Tarn posts make me think about him more

He's a victim but he has so many victims himself, but the person that he is, that cause those victims, was delibrately cultivated. Tarn of the DJD was intentional, and that worse somehow

I have to ask, what do you think it would look like if Tarn, somehow & for whatever reason, decided to take the road of healing, to put whatever pieces of himself back together

YEAH I THINK SO FUCKING MUCH ABOUT THAT, even from my first MTMTE read when I didn't care much about him as a blorbo, I thought it was crazily compelling how Tarn was at once an absolute terrifying monster but also the most pathetic, sad little bully boy in an oversized body at the same time akldjlfksd. Like, you look at Tarn and the horrible shit he did to Pharma, all the victims of the DJD, Skids, the alt. Lost Light, etc and he seems like a completely unstoppable force. Then you actually look behind the mask and Tarn's just so... incredibly short-sighted, blindly worships, really volatile and thoughtless, and ultimately gets his shit rocked by Megatron in what's basically a no-contest loss. It feels really bad like... how can it be that someone so pathetic was able to cause so much destruction before he was put down? In the ideal world, you want to believe that shitty, weak people are powerless, but it turns out that sometimes shitty, weak people can actually be in positions of power (in terms of hierarchy, physical might, politics, etc) and when they do they can hurt an incredibly disproportionate amount of people compared to their actual strength of character as a person. As an example, pre-insanity/mania Pharma was so obviously a better person than Tarn, but look how that ended up: this absolute prodigy of a doctor, next in line to be CMO, a normal good Autobot in all accounts. Gets completely wrecked and turned into a mentally ill, insane asshole that loses everything and everyone he ever valued, and Tarn literally never even thinks about him again. God.

As to how I'd handle Tarn healing arc...

The short answer: I actually want to write about Tarn taking a road of healing, heel-face turn arc in the Pen Pals Tarnma AU I've talked about occasionally on this blog/in asks! So... when I post that fic, literally just (gestures at the whole thing)

The long answer:

If canon-divergent, it'd be Dying of the Light but Tarn and co. stop fighting Megatron bc of how pathetic he is. The DJD basically merge forces with Deathsaurus' Decepticons, and they make a sort of neo-Decepticon movement fighting the Galactic Council/Black Rock Consortia. Tarn isn't really a better person morally speaking (yknow the hating organics and wanting conquest thing), but he'd definitely be put on a path where he divorces his sense of self from Megatron and focuses more on his group of comrades: he finds meaning from a collective rather than from worshiping an individual as a god, and Tarn experiences healing from that fact bc instead of a fucked up grooming/parasocial relationship with a distant, uncaring leader, he's actually having real, tangible bonds with people who are equal to him and love and respect him. So, probably still really fanatical to his ideals, but he's a fanatic who loves his comrades as much as he loves his cause.

In a nonspecified AU, let's say during the war with Decepticon Megatron, I think the only way Tarn could get better would be if Megatron got better and then took the time/care to make Tarn better along with him. Unfortunately, Tarn has been manipulated in such a way that Megatron is literally his entire axis of morality/purpose/etc, and I think he doesn't have enough agency and independence to start healing except unless Megatron says "shittiest of my sons, why don't you deradicalize and maybe you'll calm down." It'd basically take Megatron un-grooming Tarn first, and then for Tarn to get some kind of purpose/relationship outside of him for Tarn to regain the independence he had as Damus, which would then allow him to pull the rest of the way from Megatron and go his own way. (Incidentally, this is what happens in the Pen Pals AU)

In a scenario that I don't even know how it'd happen but I desperately want it to happen: Optimus "I can fix him" Prime and Tarn are forced to work together in some capacity which leads to a slowburn mending of their relationship. Not like Tarn becomes an Autobot, or goes back to being Damus, but like... idk, Optimus is the one to deradicalize Tarn and make him realize that Megatron manipulated the shit out of him. Somehow. I would really like these two to interact so badly, and for Tarn to also have a mentor/paternal-esque relationship with someone besides Megatron. (This also happens in Pen Pals AU ldskfjlsd I told you that fic was the true Tarn Redemption Story dlksfjlsdsf)

#squiggle answers #tarn

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yall-hate-kids-tourney · 7 days ago

Text

Alya Cesaire (Miraculous Ladybug) vs. Courtney (Total Drama)

Y'all Hate Kids: Screwed By The Writers

Propaganda below the cut

Alya Cesaire (Miraculous Ladybug)

cw racism

"The amount of hatred Alya gets in the fandom is absolutely insane. There are over 800 fics tagged with ""Alya Cesaire Bashing"", and that's just the ones that actually TAG it - many of them either use a a non-canonical tag or just take their demonization of her as canon. It's not just that a lot of fics bash her either, but that the fics that bash her are disproportionately popular. If you go through the ""Miraculous Ladybug"" tag on AO3 and sort by kudos, I'd say around a third of the top 500 most popular fics use this gross caricature of her in order to justify inflicting some sort of insane punishment on her, or at least replacing her with ""better"" friends and leaving her to wail in despair.

Basically, Alya is the best friend of the main character, Marinette. She's really into superheroes and aims to be a reporter someday, to the point that the first time a supervillain cropped up in the series, she immediately got out her bike and cycled after him so that she could be there when a superhero showed up to fight him (Lois Lane would be proud). She runs a blog called the ""Ladyblog"" which reports on what the superheroes are doing, and sometimes makes some fun videos, like about the most impressive feats of one of the superheroes.

Then the first episode of season 3 aired, and the fandom went BALLISTIC.

Then lunch time rolls around and Marinette tells Alya and Alya's boyfriend, Nino, that Lila's a lying liar who lies. Alya asks why Marinette hates her so much, since she barely knows Lila (this isn't the first time that Marinette's nitpicked at Lila's stories, but she's never actually managed to prove that Lila's lying, Lila's good at coming up with explanations for any hole Marinette exposes in her tales). Marinette tells her how, after Lila first arrived at school, she followed her and Adrien, eavesdropped on them, and then saw Ladybug show up and tear into Lila for not knowing her. (Presumably that's what she says, the episode skipped past her actual recounting of what she saw). Alya and Nino are more concerned with the fact that she stalked Lila and Adrien, with Alya also being skeptical that what she heard might have been out-of-context, given how common out-of-context eavesdropping is in fiction for causing issues, with Alya saying, ""A good reporter always verifies her sources. Can you prove she doesn't actually know Ladybug?""

A few problems with this.

She also frequently gets demonized and bashed for ""believing Lila over Marinette"". My major issue with this: what she's specifically believing Lila over Marinette for is on the topic of ""is Lila an awful person"". I don't think it's unreasonable to have a higher standard of proof for believing that someone is an awful person than for believing that your friend might just have some biased interpretations. Alya thinks that Marinette doesn't like Lila mostly because Lila has hit on Adrien, Marinette's crush, before. This isn't unreasonable considering that Marinette's first reaction to Lila is to freak out about her stealing Adrien away, and that when this other girl, Kagami, started hanging out with Adrien, she freaked out about that too. Specifically, she called a meeting of all her female friends to try and stop Kagami and Adrien from going away together to London for the weekend in Backwarder, helped Chloe in trying to get Kagami covered in food at a fancy red carpet movie opening in order to drive her away and steal her seat next to Adrien for the movie, and when she and Kagami were paired up for a ""friend-making game"" where the goal was to locate where Adrien was in Paris and the prize was to spend time with him, she pretended to genuinely want to be Kagami's friend so she could sabotage both of them and prevent Kagami from spending time with Adrien. So it's not like the belief that Marinette might be unfairly biased against Lila because she's made moves on Adrien is an unfair assumption.

In addition to that, on the occasions when Lila HAS tried to frame Marinette for something, Alya hasn't believed it, or hasn't been shown to believe it at least. In Ladybug Lila tries to frame Marinette for cheating on a test, for stealing a necklace from her, and for knocking her down the stairs. Despite the evidence Lila planted, Alya doesn't believe it and investigates to try and find out what really happened. She doesn't uncover any solid proof, but she still believes in Marinette. She doesn't believe that Marinette's assumption that Lila's behind this is necessarily correct, since Marinette's leaping to that without presenting proof, but she doesn't believe that Marinette's the culprit either. And in the two following cases when Marinette's framed, Alya never actually gets a chance to say what she believes after the accusation is made against Marinette.

Just... the amount of demonization towards Alya TO THIS DAY, often for things she NEVER EVEN FREAKING DID, is absolutely insane. Even over 5 years since Chameleon aired, fics with Alya being made into this malicious, awful bully so that Marinette can get some new friends to publicly denounce her, get her arrested, or otherwise be punished are frequently on the front page of the most recently updated fics on AO3, and are often some of the most popular ones. If you go to ""Fandom-Specific plot"" on Tvtropes, saltfics like these have multiple files going through all the common salt tropes. When looking through fics, I frequently search for Alya's name because she's often the first person to be unfairly demonized, so if she's safe, then everyone likely is.

I suspect that racism plays a major factor in this. It doesn't make sense that Alya's often painted as being a violent, malicious bully and leader in getting the rest of the class to physically hurt and terrorize Marinette, I haven't even seen analysis arguing that she'd do that... but it tracks with the ""Black Brute"" archetype. This becomes even more obvious with Chloe, who's white and canonically DOES do some of this stuff, taking on Alya's canon role and some of her personality traits in these sorts of stories.

And as for the way Alya's demonized for asking for evidence before believing that Lila's lying, well... again, Alya's expected to act as Marinette's support, and her ""failing"" that in any way, even if it makes sense from her point of view, is viewed as a betrayal. She's supposed to be loyal to Marinette, and only to Marinette, not to think for herself or to have multiple other friends or values that she needs to weigh. And anything that she does to go against that ""justifies"" Marinette intentionally trying to hurt and punish her for failing to live up to her role.

"(Note: This is an addendum to my earlier essay about the fandom's mistreatment of Alya. Here, I'm focusing more on how the writers' treatment of her helped to exacerbate that, since I saw that this version of the tournament had more of a focus on that. Please add this on at the end of my previous essay).

There ARE ways to explain this - Lila lying about being friends with Ladybug in order to try to boost her reputation, especially when she's the new girl, isn't really all that heinous. Marinette lies a lot as well, even if you don't count lies told to protect her secret identity or other ""necessary"" lies, sometimes out of embarrassment, sometimes to to try and prevent someone's feelings from getting hurt, and sometimes because she thinks it's the fastest, easiest, or most certain way to get the outcome she wants. And yet, even though Marinette lies a lot, she's not ostracized for that since it's usually not for malicious reasons - foolish reasons at times, but rarely malicious. It would make sense that Lila too, wouldn't be thought too badly of for merely lying in an attempt to make friends.

None of that actually comes up though. Alya later, in Confrontation, states that, ""Marinette, you know we'll always believe you. But every time you've accused Lila, there's been no evidence. And at worst, it was just a misunderstanding."" Marinette doesn't say anything about the previous times Lila has been proven to lie, so it seems like either it was decided offscreen that the more understandable lies she's told don't matter, or that the writers just plain forgot about them.

There WAS, however, someone who was always with Marinette, and who could actually back up Marinette's statements more definitively.

There IS some hatred thrown at Alya for non-Lila related reasons - well, reasons that aren't DIRECTLY Lila related, most of that hatred still stems from people hating her for Chameleon stuff and then retroactively justifying it by looking back at other things she did that irked them. The most common one (that actually has some sort of argument to it, not the ""Alya's a horrible babysitter and is abusing her friendship with Marinette"" nonsense I listed in the main essay) is that Alya's pushy about getting Marinette together with Adrien.

This is more a product of Alya's usual role in the story than anything. I mentioned in the main essay how Alya sometimes falls into ""Black Best Friend"" territory, and this is one of the biggest examples. One of her most common roles throughout the series is as the person who pushes Marinette to actually confess to Adrien, to hang out with him, to pursue her romantic desires even with her anxiety holding her back, and to be honest with herself during the times when she's trying to deny her feelings for him. She's Marinette's sounding board whenever she's having an anxiety spiral about... actually, just about anything, and acts as the voice of reason when Marinette gets in her own head too much.

Thus, Alya sets Marinette and Adrien to end up somewhere alone together, or tries to push her to talk to him, or to be honest during the times when she tries to ""move on"" from Adrien by denying that she still has feelings for him (which is blatantly untrue). She IS okay with Marinette dating someone else though, if she honestly seems to want to do that. She had no problem with her dating Luka, for instance. She DID protest Marinette's seemingly sudden interest in Chat Noir, but that was mostly because Marinette seemed to be grabbing at her new attraction as an attempt to run away from her feelings for Adrien, something that Tikki ALSO noted.

So while Alya could be said to be ""pushy"" to an extent, it's mostly for Marinette's benefit. I would like if this was a less frequent role for Alya - I think it does her a disservice, since it locks her firmly into Marinette's orbit rather than emphasizing who Alya is as her own character. Most of the hatred towards Alya for this is tied up in ""Die For Our Ship"" being directed at Adrien though, with Adrien bashers hating that Alya's trying to set Marinette up with what they see as an inferior option. Ironically enough, while Alya's role in this situation is one of the primary examples in the show of her being treated by the writers as a ""Black Best Friend"" who exists to serve Marinette's character, it's actually one of the cases where I think racism is a pretty minor part of the hatred by the fanbase over it, since I think that's mostly motivated by hatred towards the Lovesquare.

Courtney (Total Drama)

She starts off a bit bossy and slightly entitled. She tries to take charge of her team and flaunting mediocre accomplishments as if they make a perfect resume. She's a rules girl that's too uptight and needs to loosen up. Her character arc in season one is too loosen up. Then cracks start to show at the end of season special she seems as bossy as she used to and a little uncaring of her boyfriend. In season two these traits get worse. The writers make her willing to break any rule to get her way and keep control. She threatens straight up murder casually to get an advantage. Her bossy attitude and need to be in total control gets worse. She sees the people closest to her as nothing but tools. All this for the sake of drama and never ending love triangles.

#yall hate kids tourney #screwed by the writers #round 1b #miraculous ladybug #alya cesaire #Total Drama Island #Total Drama Action #Total Drama World Tour #Total Drama All stars #cw racism

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eraofkalki · 4 months ago

Text

𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓

Pairings: None

Summary: Little Diavolo (not) very intimidatingly coerces Barbatos into becoming his butler.

Warnings: None.

A/N: This is purely my take on it with the little amount of information we have. It may not be canon compliant in case I missed out on something (I'm not caught up with the story so I'm going off of spoilers) or if the devs reveal the details of it after the release of this fic.

Sometimes small things make a large impact; or at least, that is what they say.

You could wield mastery over the very fabric of time; its unnervingly merciless passage, swift and linear to others, could simply be a complex sea to you--or perhaps, a not very complex bowl of soup. Despite that, there could still be moments, emotions, beings that...elude your understanding.

Having witnessed the ebb and flow of all components of this murky concept of existence that very few were even close to somewhat comprehending, one might expect a demon like Barbatos to be unfazed at best at the sight before him. Yet...sometimes, small things could make a large impact.

The "small thing" there being a little royal demon child, barely five feet tall, holding the heavy key to the room the both of them were locked in with endearing determination, not realising how the key looked comically disproportionate in his tiny hands. His unwaveringly resolute eyes bore into Barbatos's own coolly amused ones like two pools of molten gold. Diavolo, wasn't it? Did he hope to hold him captive?

To stand his ground and ask perhaps the most powerful demon to be bound to him for eternity...

I'm not letting you out of this room until you promise to be my loyal steward. For the rest of your life.

"You are certainly...fierce." Barbatos said it with every ounce of honesty. "Unwordly, but fierce."

It was true, everything about him was; his vivid eyes, his fiery hair, his intense ambitions...what kind of strength could he possess once he grows up? Will his goals be as fierce as him, even then? How would it be if Barbatos stayed to see?

"I--" Diavolo started, attempting to keep his voice sounding steady. "I told you; if you don't do it, I won't let you out."

However domineering he believed he seemed, all Barbatos could see was an adorable, trembling, whiny child. The adult demon pondered for a moment, taking in the flickering flames of the sole fire lamp in the chambers; its orange light illuminating the little boy in front of him, making him even more radiant. Akin to a sun, Barbatos felt, even though it would be one of the strangest thoughts to have about the future ruler of the Devildom, where there is eternal moonlight.

"If I agree, what is there for me to gain?"

"Gain...?" Diavolo turned the question around in his head for a bit, and his amber eyes lit up in triumph, as if suddenly remembering something. "I have something that you'd want. I won't give it to you, though. Not unless you say yes." He slyly smiled at the look of vague confusion on the other demon's face.

"So..." He slowly started pacing around the room as if to build suspense. "Do you know about Mount Infernal?"

"Of course I do." Barbatos responded, not expecting that question. "I told you about it."

"Well, you know about any particular type of...plants there? That might interest you?"

"If you are referring to the Tartarean tea plantation, then yes. Again, I believe I was the one who mentioned it to you?"

"Yes you were." Diavolo flashed yet another smile as if his supposedly genius plan had already succeeded. "What if I told you that I have those very tea leaves with me?"

"...The Tartarean tea leaves?" Barbatos asked, his mind wiped blank of any idea as to how to react. "You're saying that you procured them, by crossing all the six levels of the Infernal forest?"

"I mean, not me, obviously. But I do have them, yes." He elaborated, "I had father request for them, as a reward for passing my Devildom History test. I had to force him alot, so if you don't agree..." When he realised that his façade of tenacity was beginning to crack, he quickly reverted back to his 'extremely intimidating' self. "O-of course you'll agree! If you don't, I won't let you out and you won't be able to ever get your hands on those tea leaves."

"That is a rather enticing proposal," Barbatos admitted.

It was something that Diavolo didn't know, but he had been wondering as to how to get his hands on the very object he was being offered. The fundamental making of a demon was that--to covet, covet, and covet; when the objects of your desire lands in front of you, you shed all reason and reach for it however you can. In such a situation, it was only expected that he would...reach for what it was he desired, however trivial it may be; then, perhaps, not care for the contract it came with.

He could justify whatever he said and did afterwards as his most primal instincts coming into play. But he knew, and only he knew, that maybe a miniscule piece of his heart did not mind fulfilling his end of the deal. Not simply because of what he gained, but because...he wanted to, almost. Maybe Barbatos wished to see this little boy grow into a force to be reckoned with. Maybe he will grow to cause destruction and chaos across Devildom and derive joy from seeing demons in their most primeval state. Or maybe he will spread resplendence and joy. Maybe he will be fair and just.

Maybe he will be none of those things, but Barbatos wished to see.

He kneeled down to meet Diavolo's eyes which held doubt thinly veiled by confidence.

"From this moment..." The fire lamp suddenly seemed to blaze for a fleeting moment, before dangerously flickering as the entire room seemed to go in and out of darkness. The lamps went out.

"Wh-wh--?" Diavolo almost cowered, sensing immense power in the air. A kind he has never felt before. His father's power felt overwhelming, pulsating, and it burned; but this felt...silent. Restrained, but chilling...cold. "What is happening?!"

"I shall be your loyal steward."

The still, olive eyes piercing into Diavolo's seemed to grow a sickly green in the dark. The temperature dropped.

"I will serve you, for as long as you wish. All I am, body and soul, shall be under your command..."

Diavolo inhaled sharply as the lamps came to life again, burning with more vigour than ever before. The formerly absent heat caught up to him, spreading across his body with overwhelming intensity.

"...Young Master."

#don't mind the names i had to come up with something lol #vee writes #please be nice or whatever it's my first time on here #obey me diavolo #obey me barbatos #obey me nightbringer #obey me

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