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thebluespirit83 · 3 years

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debunking pro-snape/anti-james arguments and putting it on the internet because clearly i hate myself. buckle up. this is gonna be a VERY long post. im ready for the amount of hate i will get; im willing to take one for the team.

1. james forced lily into dating/marrying/etc him

this literally never happened? because its almost as if lily is her own person who is able to stand up for herself-

“I wouldn’t go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid,” said Lily.

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!” Lily shouted. She had her own wand out now. James and Sirius eyed it warily.

She turned on her heel and hurried away [from james].

-and so she would not allow someone to walk all over her. its almost as if james (canonically) matured as a person, and she appreciated this, realised he was a good person and got feelings for him? because james’ only negative traits were that he was conceited and a show off. people are able to mature and grow from these things! james did this! he did not ‘force’ lily to go out with him!

2. james and the other marauders bullied snape

you know what, i cant even disagree with this one. you’re right - they did bully him. but lets look a little bit at the context.

sirius and james were both upper class, naive white rich boys. they are idiots. they were both stupid smart teenagers!! they were popular! and while this does not excuse the gross bullying snape was subject to-

Pink soap bubbles streamed from Snape’s mouth at once; the froth was covering his lips, making him gag, choking him

Several people watching laughed; Snape was clearly unpopular ... Snape was trying to get up, but the jinx was still operating on him; he was struggling, as though bound by invisible ropes.

-it (unfortunately) makes sense with context. james and sirius also stopped bullying people, and even expressed discomfort/regret with the way they acted-

“I’m not proud of it,” said Sirius quickly.

“Of course he was a bit of an idiot!” said Sirius bracingly, “we were all idiots!

[sirius talking to remus] you made us feel ashamed of ourselves sometimes

A lot of people are idiots at the age of fifteen. He grew out of it.

-when they were younger! i’d also like to point out these little lines i noticed when i was finding quotes for my argument which snape stans like to ignore:

James and Snape hated each other from the moment they set eyes on each other

I mean, he [snape] never lost an opportunity to curse James

there was a flash of light and a gash appeared on the side of James’s face, spattering his robes with blood

wow, look at that. the hate they felt for each other was mutual! snape also jinxed james! but oh wait - james was the one who matured! snape was the one who bullied his son twenty years later because he looked like james!

3. snape didnt abuse the kids at hogwarts

here’s a real argument i saw when looking through some pro-snape posts: ‘snape wasn’t an abuser, because abusers don’t let their victims retaliate, but snape did let the kids talk back to him’

what. the. fuck?!

this is the dictionary.com definition of abuse: ‘to treat in a harmful, injurious, or offensive way’ or ‘to speak insultingly, harshly, and unjustly to or about’. i’m pretty sure snape did both of these things-

“I don’t need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!”

“So,” said Snape, gripping Harry’s arm so tightly Harry’s hand was starting to feel numb.

Snape threw Harry from him with all his might.

[hermione’s teeth] "I see no difference."

‘Idiot boy!’ snarled Snape [at neville]

-on multiple occasions. i’d also like to remind you guys that neville’s worst fear is SNAPE?! his TEACHER, a figure that is supposed to be there for emotional and educational support is his worst fear in this entire world?! above the woman who drove his parents to insanity? over failure, over his abusive grandmother, over everything? his teacher? and for the pro-snaper that used this quote-

Nearly everyone laughed. Even Neville grinned apologetically.

-to claim that it was a joke, it isn’t a joke. because when snape came out of that cupboard, he was terrified. yes, it’s an embarrassing thing to have as your boggart, but the point is is that it is. he is terrified of that man.

4. james only joined the order because his wife was a muggleborn and he ‘had to’

this is just factually incorrect. james had been sticking up for muggleborn rights since he was in school, far before he started dating or even became friends with lily:

“Apologize to Evans!” James roared at Snape, his wand pointed threateningly at him.

“I’d NEVER call you a - you-know-what!”

so this is literally not true!! plus, at least he did join the order, whatever his reasons where (which were canonically good). snape didnt join the order. snape was friends with someone who suffered discrimination in society, and instead of using his privilege to help her and support her, he joined a group that was set on murdering people like her. when james had a friend who underwent oppression (remus/lycanthropy) you know what he did? he illegally became an animagus.

5. snape had to be a death eater to survive at hogwarts as he roomed with blood supremacists

this is the shittiest excuse i have ever seen in my entire life. as a poc, this comment really reminds me of the argument ‘i was raised in a racist white household! i cant control my beliefs!’

you can always control your beliefs. i understand not going on big rants about blood inequality in front of a bunch of supremacists, and i understand wanting to blend and fit in (especially because he was unpopular and needed the support the slytherin boys provided), but i will never understand then becoming an active member of the group yourself. he got the dark mark. he helped voldemort. he was a death eater, and a proud one at that! no-one forced him to join. this argument literally makes my blood boil.

6. snape had a lot of trauma from being raised in an abusive household

okay? so did sirius. so did neville. luna was bullied at school, just like snape. harry lived in an abusive household. did any of those people bully children? did any of those people join a blood supremacist group? and dont get me wrong, im not calling any of these people perfect - they all had a lot of flaws - but none of them hurt another people to the extreme that snape did.

7. snape saved the trio’s lives many times

this is the absolute bare minimum. ‘oh wow, he didnt let harry die!! what a king! he should be respected and praised! we should excuse all of his other actions because he didnt let people die <3′

8. snape is not a perfect person, he also did good that many people overlook

you’re right, snape did do some good things in his life. but unfortunately, for me and many others, doing a couple of good things doesnt excuse all of the shitty, abusive things he did too. we’re not ignoring them - we just dont think they’re good enough reasons to forgive him.

‘but james and sirius hurt others! you ignore all the bad things they did in favour of the good!’ you do the same thing with snape, first of all. second, they did a lot of good stuff. james’ and sirius’ only crimes were being annoying. for being a bit of a dick, conceited, knew they were hot and were a bit entitled. while these things are annoying as fuck, they were also stupid teens that eventually grew out of their behaviour and became better people. not perfect! better. while snape just stayed bitter at the marauders, long after their deaths, and even took his anger out on an innocent child.

9. people only hate snape because he was poc and queer coded

as a poc and queer person, please stop. this is a very bad excuse. being poc and queer (which im pretty sure he isnt, but anyway) doesnt excuse you from your actions. plus, a huge amount of harry potter readers are poc and lgbtq. why would they hate snape for those reasons?!

so thats all i got for today. im not gonna go into a deep snily/jily thing because i literally cannot be bothered. anyway im done. i need to go revise, i’ve already spent long enough on this.

#i wanted to put this in the pro snape tag #but i will be slandered so much if i do #hate on me if you want i dont care #harry potter #the marauders #james potter #pro james potter #sirius black #remus lupin #peter pettigrew #anti severus snape #long rant #lily evans #jily #flowerpott #anti snily #wolfstar

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attanoempire · 2 years

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Sun Venus Saturn Uranus

Sun - Ah now we get to the hard ones, I see. I'm patient, I have good control of my emotions most of the time, I'm loyal sometimes to a fault (though not without lines), I'm tall, and... I have very nice calves. Bit weak toward the end but we got there.

Venus - Passionate, caring, intelligent, witty. I like someone with a strong personality, a protective streak, and who isn't afraid to be passionately weird and show it. I also have some preferences that lean toward shorter and more homicidal women. What can I say, even with a sub, there being at least some possibility she stabs me is hot.

Saturn - Trying my best not to just answer "everything" lmao.

For real though, I have some pretty glaring weaknesses. Hypervigilance has me always reading hostility or problems where there are none and then doomspiraling about it, and on the flipside also means I'm basically immune to all but the most direct advances. Low intuitive empathy means I often struggle conceptualizing viewpoints too far from my own. Lacking executive function is hell in general but also specifically makes academia a waking nightmare (get on your fucking meds Ira). I have a bevy of troubles reading people socially that leads to an occasional bad habit of treating people like puzzles to be solved/fixed instead of, y'know, people, because they're easier to understand that way.

Outside shit that's more directly informed by trauma or mental illness, my memory is just also hot garbage, I have some impressively terrible luck, and related but separate to that I have the worst timing of anyone I have ever known. If there is a wrong time to walk into a room, check my messages, do something, or to NOT do any of those, you can be damn sure I'll stumble into it flawlessly.

Hm. Might be telling that I have two paragraphs and could go on about my flaws but struggle to conceptualize five bullet points I like about myself. Oop.

Uranus - Oh boy, we could be here all day, but let me just speedrun some of the changes I would enact if given supreme dictatorial power.

Scale back luxury production, appropriate most billionaire wealth and put them on trial, ensure food/water/housing/internet is universally available to everyone before allowing anyone to have so much as a winter cabin, abolish profit-driven capitalism and fiduciary duty and corporations as we know them, instead implement a similar system to allow people to contribute to projects they believe in/are qualified for, prevent generational accumulation of power via currency/possessions, aggressively expand the schooling system until classrooms are more like 1:5-10 instead of 1:25-35, make post-secondary education freely available, make mental health checkups a routine universal procedure and aggressively expand mental health resources, abolish the prison-industrial system in favour of tremendous spending on restorative and reformative justice (and either low-pop prison or exile for the unreformable, I guess?)

Just, y'know, to name a couple of things. I think at a more cultural level we also really need to address concepts like parenthood, sexuality, and religion.

We've been changing slowly but coasting a lot on "the ways things were done" for far too long. The US still makes laws based on the assumed views of people from the 1700s and a 2000 year old religion, we still think people should have absolute dominion over their child-rearing as long as they don't physically abuse the kid, and murder is PG but a penis is so taboo you rarely even see it in R-rated films.

But yeah no living in this world is great I love going to work and paying my taxes while wars rage and the earth burns.

#ira answers #oop got a little talkative with this one #thank you for all the good questions!

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tepkunset · 4 years

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@avatarfandompolice is a blog that likes to misuse progressive language in attempt to make ignorant, racist posts sound more intelligent than they are. While most of their blog consists of arguing about ‘zutara,’ (which I recently learned is a ship name for Zuko and Katara from an anon), there is also a large number of posts and reblogs under the premise of being “hot takes” on how unfair it is to address racism in fandom and in media.

Avatarfandompolice is very sensitive about people pointing out that Avatar: The Last Airbender is not, in fact, flawless. That a show made by two white men featuring Asian and Indigenous characters and influences is fully capable of getting things wrong. That their western colonial views are influences all on their own, and it shows. Rather than listen to fans of colour point out things like these posts for example: [Link] [Link] [Link], avatarfandompolice has decided that such things must simply be fake, and has made multiple posts complaining it. This is not just regular ignorance, this is wilful ignorance. The dismissal of critique simply because they cannot fathom not everyone being able to handle the amount of issues they are freely educating others on, or people holding the ability to like something overall while also pointing out where it could be better.

It is my firm belief that you should never absorb media with an uncritical eye. If this was the case, if people just accepted everything given to them, then we would never see any progress. We need to be able to look back at something and say here’s what we did right, and here’s what we need to do better with.

The argument that A:TLA was made in 2012 and therefore should not be analyzed with a modern understanding of the world is downright hilarious, too. As if we aren’t taught to write literature analysis on books and plays that are centuries old in school. In particular regards to the whole cop thing... if anyone reading this seriously thinks that hate and fear of the police is just a 2020 trend, you can meet me in the pit. I was four years old when I learned how terrifying cops are. If your experiences differ, let me tell you that does not make them universal. And as for all the 20-somethings talking about it today, well, gentle reminder that as said by avatarfandompolice right here, the show aired in 2012. Little 10-year-old kids don’t have social media, (at least I hope they don’t,) and unless they grew up experiencing first-hand police terror, probably were not aware of it at that age. I do not know why avatarfandompolice insults people's ability to grow and learn. I can only guess it’s jealously from their lack of ability to do so.

Now let’s address their defences of whitewashing, which is easily the most backwards reaching I’ve seen on this issue in a while. Primarily their defence relies on four repetitive “points” —

Fake minuscule percentages to downplay the high prevalence and extremity of whitewashing in the fandom

Deflecting the addressing of whitewashing with rapid-fire fake scenarios and claims of “reverse racism” / “blackwashing”

Claiming whitewashing isn’t real because people only care about it with Katara

Claiming that calling out whitewashing in fandom is wrong because it hurts artists

I have only so much as dipped my toes into the A:TLA fandom, and even I have seen a lot of whitewashed fan art. If you do an image search for fan art, I guarantee within the first couple rows of results, there will be in the absolute least, a few examples. The idea of these artworks not substantially lightening skin is also just plain inaccurate. Just from a quick Google search, this is literally the first result for ‘Avatar The Last Airbender Katara fan art’:

Avatarfandompolice is also hyper-focused on the lightening of skin, and seems to be under the impression that this is the only component of whitewashing. I come to this conclusion because when someone pointed out the equal prevalence of depicting these characters of colour with Western European features instead of their actual eyes, noses, etc., they rip a giant turd out of their ass and scrawl the words “but stereotyping” over it. No, not all Asian peoples and Indigenous peoples look the same. The original poster made no such claim of this at all. Avatarfandompolice jumped to this conclusion all on their own... (which really says a lot in itself). It is entirely unrelated to the point. The point being the erasure of how these characters look, in favour of giving them whiter features. And guess what? This does hurt. But I’ll get to that below.

The lack of understanding of whitewashing is on full display when avatarfandompolice talks about “blackwashing”; the idea that colouring characters with darker skin is just like whitewashing. Firstly, there is no such thing as “blackwashing.” “Blackwashing,” “brownwashing,” etc. does not exist because it is a false equivalency to whitewashing. It is a false equivalency to whitewashing because white people are not even in the slightest loosing representation when a white character is re-imagined as a racial minority, whereas when racial minorities are re-imagined as white people, they are taking away from what is already very little representation for us. If we lived in a world where the statistics of representation were not so drastically disproportionate, then there would be something to talk about. But if you are really wanting to support equality, you should focus on equitably supporting those who actually need it, not white people. As for specifically depicting characters like Sokka and Katara with darker skin than what they have in the show, the same applies, (so long as it’s not racebending them as we really shouldn’t be taking representation away from each other, and the artist avatarfandompolice ridicules above has done no such thing,) because colourism also exists within nonwhite communities as well.

As for the fake questions about cosplaying, the answer is really simple: Cosplay however you want, but don’t make pretending to be a different race part of your cosplay. If you want to cosplay Katara, you can do it without painting your skin darker, aka brownface. If you want to cosplay Zuko, you can do it without editing yourself to look East Asian, aka digital yellowface. The racist history behind this is an internet search away, but I suppose that is too difficult for avatarfandompolice to do.

Avatarfandompolice has made multiple claims that people must not really care about whitewashing if they only call it out for Katara. It is laughable at best, and sad at worst, that this is the conclusion they come to, and not the fact that unfortunately Katara just happens to be subjected to more whitewashing than other characters. I assume this is from a mix of her popularity as well as being a WOC and not MOC. This is not to say that whitewashing does not exist with male characters—not in the slightest. Half the images on this “10 fan art pictures of Sokka that are just the best” list from CBR are whitewashed. Only that across fandoms, whitewashing is more prevalent in female characters, by my observations at least.

Finally—and this one pisses me off the most—avatarfandompolice claims that whitewashing is no big deal, but calling out whitewashing is too harmful to justify. How fucking dare you put the feelings of artists who can’t handle critique of their work (that they publicly share) over fans of colour, who are constantly subjected to seeing our identities and looks not being worth respecting. As if it doesn’t imprint on your mind from a very young age how only villains ever have your facial features, because they’re ugly and I guess that means you’re ugly. As if there is something wrong with you. As if respecting you is regarded as extra effort, and not just common courtesy.

Whitewashing is a form of colourism, which is a form of racism. It is the favouritism, unconscious or not, of white features and the erasure of visible characters of colour. It is not fandom drama. It is not being too lazy to focus on “real issues” because it is part of a real issue. It is yet another part of why fandom spaces are so uninviting to POC. We live in a society that favours lighter skin. Corporations make fortunes from selling products to bleach your skin, products to contour your features away or go as far as surgery, all to meet beauty standards set by and influenced by white colonizers. That does not exist in A:TLA, and that’s called refreshing escapism. But it’s hard to escape that when the fandom constantly reminds you otherwise. It is a perfect example of how the classic “just let people enjoy things” complaint is nothing but disguised racism, because it’s only ever said regarding white fans’ enjoyment, at the expense of fans of colour.

None of the characters in A:TLA are white. Redesigning them and recolouring them as if they are, be it out of accident or intent is wrong. If you get called out for it, apologize, learn from the experience and do better going forward. You’ll also improve your art this way.

Beyond excusing whitewashing, avatarfandompolice has overt racist posts as well. A Black fan said they like to headcanon Katara as being partially Black; “I swear Katara was a sister. Im convinced there ain't no way she didn't have some black in her.” Avatarfandompolice jumps in saying “She's literally an Inuit but ok” as if being an Inuk person means Katara can’t possibly also be Black. The OP never claimed Katara was not Indigenous, simply that they also saw her as Black. Black Indigenous peoples exist. Black Inuk peoples exist. It is overtly anti-Black to say otherwise. But what even is the point of talking to avatarfandompolice about that? You know, you would think in trying to put such a front up of caring about the Inuit, they would do the most basic learning of the proper grammatical use of Inuit and Inuk. (As is the case with a great many Indigenous Nations, Inuit is both the Nation and plural. Inuk is singular. “An Inuit” / “Inuits” as avatarfandompolice has used just makes their dressed-up racism all the more pathetic. It’s similar to as if you said “Chinas” instead of “Chinese”.)

But all this is nothing, nothing compared to the worst post I had the displeasure of seeing. In a single post, avatarfandompolice manages to squeeze in insult against low income people, Mexican people, Jewish people, and Black people in a mockery of financial help posts. Absolutely disgusting, childish behaviour from a place of privilege. As someone who has had no option but to make such a post before, more than once, let me fucking tell you that the embarrassment and desperation when in that situation is unparalleled. It is not done lightly. It is done when you are at the last resort of having nothing but hope that the combined generosity of others will be enough to save you and your family. And what adds a whole other level to the odiousness of avatarfandompolice’s post is that they specifically targeting low income minorities to boot. Because we’re all poor beggars, right?

All in all, for someone who prides themselves in calling others ignorant, avatarfandompolice has to be one of the most obtuse fandom blogs I have ever scrolled through. They are as vile as they are pathetic, and my sincere sympathy for anyone who has been unfortunate enough to interact with them. It has been a while since I so strongly recommend blocking someone.

#avatarfandompolice #atla #atla fandom #racism #whitewashing #long post #fit for a queue

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epinosicc · 3 years

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This is going to be quite chaotic, but this is something I wrote late one stormy July night about my life this far and how I’ve realized my problems

Okay it’s around midnight where I’m at so it’s time to rant instead of sleeping because I’m a minor and I have ✨issues✨

I tend to think more than what’s probably considered healthy, mostly because I do t have people to talk to. Don’t get me wrong, I have friends, but I don’t know what they’re doing and I don’t want to burden them with my stupid problems. So like any sane person I write my problems on the internet.

I usually think about the weird things when it’s raining. It’s something about the sound and feeling of rain that makes me more content, which makes me think. Now, I don’t have any big problems by any means. I’m simply figuring myself and my life out.

First of all, my previously mentioned friends. I trust them, of course, but at the same time I don’t. And like many who think to much and have a strange amount of self-awareness, I think I know why that is. When I first started going to school, I was confident. I’d already had friends before and thought I knew how to make new ones. The problem with that is that said friends did not go to my school, so I was alone. Until I met my first two friends. They were very nice to me, we played together and got along. The thing that I started noticing though was that if me and one of them arrived at school around the same time and out third friend wasn’t there yet we’d get along great, but as soon as that third friend arrived I’d get ditched in favour of them. And that would obviously hurt me. But we resolved it (not really) and things were going fine. But that experience stuck with me. It was my first taste of loneliness and abandonment (dramatic much?) and it made me doubt myself. I thought that maybe, just maybe, there was something about me that they didn’t like.

Now jump ahead about two years and I was alone Every. Single. Recess. (Oh shit it storming outside right now and some thunder sounded like a bomb) Obviously this only made me feel worse about myself. I just remember being so desperate for some sort of connection with someone. And I got one. I started talking to this person, I’ll call them Bird, and we got along great. Pretty soon Bird was my best and we spent a lot of our time together. I was still sort of friends with the two other people, at least during lessons, and sometimes during recess, but not that much otherwise.

Jump ahead a bit more, another year or so, and my class changed. At my school my class and another (same age as us) we’re combined into one. In this class that we were combined with there were a few new people, one of whom stuck out. Mostly because they didn’t like me, and they weren’t exactly discreet in letting me know. They never said so to my face, but they made it quite clear in how they acted towards me. This also made me feel bad. Is there really something so wrong with me that others couldn’t help but dislike me for it? Can I fix it? What do it that makes me different? (At the current point in my life I’m fairly certain I know what it is so yeah. Fun)

Now, I’d always cared a fair bit about school. I was taught that education was important, and if I was going to spend hours at school I might as well use that time for something, be it academically of socially. So when those around me started caring less about their education and more about things such as appearance and social hierarchy and relationships, I was confused. Why would they just not care? HOW could they just not care? Now, I’m not saying that any of the previous things are necessarily bad things to care about. In fact, ist great! Being invested in your social life and how others view you can be nurturing and make you feel fulfilled. But too much of anything can be bad. Letting yourself care about only those things can be harmful in more ways than one. I’ve never particularly cared about those things; I don’t like dressing up or making myself look good for others. I don’t value others validation of my appearance. What I didn’t notice was that as I believed these thoughts, I started eating less.

But things are still pretty chill. I still struggle with what’s wrong and what makes me different, but that’s fine. I’m pretty sure everyone goes through that at some point in our lives. But now I’m starting to find some answers. I don’t really care much for my appearance or style, I like academic things, I’m starting to fall behind in my social development, people are becoming more bold in stating their opinions, people are more hateful and spread misinformation etc etc (there’s a fucking mosquito who won’t leave me alone fuck off please). And at this point I’m more invested in the online world. But the international online world, not my national online world if that makes sense. English isn’t my first language but I learned it from the internet/YouTube and it’s basically my second language at this point. I learned English for English content creators, and I continued following them, not the ones relevant in my home/country. So I was and still am kind of out of the loop on current influencer events here in the North. This ties in with what I thought to be the answer to my questions: the LGBTQIA+ Community.

I started finding creators from the LGBT+ and I related to them and their stories. But I didn’t think I was one of them. People at school were not afraid to boldly proclaim that being LGBTQ+ was wrong and bad and strange. That there was something inherently rotten about such people. Now, did I agree with that? No. But I let it influence to the point were I thought that others being LBGTQ+ was fine, but me being that wasn’t. I wasn’t aloud to be one of them because there wasn’t supposed to be something wrong with me. But there was something, in the back of my mind, some part of me that knew. That knew who I am and that being me was fine. Too bad that voice wasn’t loud enough.

I still had Bird with me. Granted, they also had other friends, but they still stayed by my side. And they didn’t change like others did. My two first friends are people I also grew closer to at this time. I put our “situation” behind me and ignored it. It was a new chapter of my life, one where thing were changing in the right direction. Too bad I wasn’t too good at reading maps.

At this point I’m in sixth (6th) grade, the worst grade/period/time of my life thus far. After summer break people had changed a lot. Not just socially, but physically as well. We started to mature, we were lite tiny birds, looking out of the nest and thinking about how to take flight and reach above the branches of expectations and reach the clouds of ambition. But some of us didn’t. We didn’t want to start using our wings. At most we took a little peek out of our nest and divided that was enough for now. We began to grow frightened of others and their strange ideas of leaving what we knew was safe. I’m We for those wondering.

I started struggling with anxiety, I couldn’t stand in front of people without being scared and had a few panic attacks during presentations. People would look at me weirdly and I grew paranoid of what was wrong with me. At this point I started eating even less, resigning myself to one potion per meal, and no snacks, sometimes skipping lunch. Once again some of my friends that I had at this point started drifting away from me but now the rest, and I started trusting them even less. I can’t help but think that they’re only pitying me, that they’re going to leave and that they do thing behind my back. There was also someone else who had a big influence on me.

I, along with Bird started hanging around this person, we’ll call them Pen. They were sort of new, they’d always been in our class but had been living abroad for eight (8) months and had just come back. At first things were great. Bird, Pen and I were our own little trio of friends. But soon a change occurred. Pen started getting more clingy, staying uncomfortably close at times and never staying out of our personal space. Bird ended up taking the initiative with one of our other mutual friends and had long talk with Pen which sort of ended their friendship. At first they’d all handled it alone but then Pen involved their parents and thing went downhill. But I wasn’t part of it. Which made Pen hang on to me even more. I could never get away from them, it always felt like they were breathing down my neck. I didn’t tell them this though, they just lost two friends and they must be hurt from it, seeking comfort from someone they still considered a friend. I was uncomfortable, but I felt bad for them, so I continued being around them. Something my teachers had realized at this point was that I tend to take responsibility for other and their actions, and told me that I should try to relax and talk to them as I had seemingly started to become overwhelmed. But I don’t tell others my problems so I didn’t take their help. This kind of escalated a bit next grade.

Grade seven (7) was not my best year but also not my worst. I spent summer break reflecting and thinking, and started to value myself a bit more. I started hanging out with friends more often (usually Bird), and started unintentionally ignoring Pen. Though sometimes, I think it was intentional, as the very thought of Pen at this point made me anxious and uneasy. I thought I could simply let Pen hang around with me, and then let them get their own new friend group. I didn’t want them to only hang around me, it was honestly a bit scary how much I dreaded being around them. The feeling that something was off or wrong around them wouldn’t go away. They didn’t leave me though. No; I became their sole friend whom they refused to leave. In seventh (7th) grade our class was split, with me and Bird being in different classes. I had some friends in my new class though andere became a group. I thought I could nudge Pen to become part of this group. Except that Pen didn’t interact or contribute to the relationship. They weren’t social enough with the group to become part of it, standing in the group only to follow me. And my teachers noticed this and spoke to me. I told them how I was uncomfortable around Pen, and how I would like to not have to sit close to them next time we switched we seats (done every few weeks or so). Teachers agreed. But didn’t follow through. They sat me Right. Next. To. Pen. I confronted them about this. They lied to me. Their reasoning was that one of Pen’s parents had told the teachers how Pen only felt comfortable around me, and that they would like for us to be together at school as much as possible.

I was horrified at this - I couldn’t be held responsible for another students comfort, grades and social life! They basically put all the responsibilities of the teachers - making sure students felt comfortable, helping with schoolwork when needed, making sure the student had friends in the class - on me! I was basically supposed to play friend, teacher and class for Pen! I honestly couldn’t believe it, and told my friends. They told me they understood completely - they could see how emotionally and mentally exhausted I was from taking care of Pen, studying, after school activities and being around people that they were concerned about my well being. They, too, had tried to get Pen to become part of the group, but when only one person is taking care of the ship you can’t expect it to sail. They also felt uncomfortable around Pen. My anxiety only got worse because of this, and I started becoming paranoid that Pen was always watching me, either through my phone or my windows. I could not get myself to relax, not even when totally alone, something I’ve always enjoyed and felt comfortable with.

And at the end of grade seven (7), it happened. I found out that Pen was switching schools. I feel guilty admitting it, but I felt so relieved and free when I found out. Finally, I thought, finally I would get some privacy. All of my other friends are aware of my boundaries: don’t touch me unless I’m ready and aware of it, give me some space, don’t force me to talk when I’m anxious etc. They know, respect and treat me well, and in turn I treat them well and respect their boundaries, but Pen didn’t seem to understand that no, I don’t want you to stand so close to me that I can literally feel you body heat.

So grade eight (8) rolls around and I so does a certain unspecified virus. We therefore had to have school online. For me this was a blessing. I don’t enjoy being around people for too long and I don’t ever want to deal with my classmates bs. The teachers even commented on several occasions that I seemed much happier, which I was considering I didn’t have someone constantly breathing down my neck. And now I start to drift away from Bird. I always considered Bird my absolute closest friend. Almost like a sibling. And now we were drifting apart. We both started walking our own paths, still close together but different in so many ways. We’re still friends to this day, but I don’t think our friendship is going to last until we’re adults anymore. It’s sort of sad, but it is natural. We are both starting to forge our own paths in life, our own docks from which we will eventually set sail from to explore the limitless blue beyond that is life. And one day we might even meet again on some distant island, reconnecting and sharing stories of calm blue oceans to storming black waters. But that will happen with time. For now, I’m content finding materials for my dock with my group of friends, sharing ideas for designs and unfinished blueprints of a distant future. I’m content staring at that great far away horizon painted in the colors of pink, magenta and blue, watching the clouds of today’s events and feeling the winds of tomorrow’s surprises whilst thinking of what one day might be.

TL;DR: I rant about my life and somehow become a poet at the end.

End note - I still struggle with trust and anxiety. I don’t have problems with how my body looks anymore and I don’t confine myself to strict diets and eating schedules. Part of me feels guilty about my situation with Pen, and one part of me feels relieved and happy that I don’t have to deal with them anymore. I’m smart enough and self aware enough to realize my problems and their causes, and I have the tools to craft my solutions. I’m doing good, and know how to keep doing good, at least for a little while more.

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boop-le-snoot · 4 years

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PARTY FAVOURS | CHAPTER 19

First time reader click here

Summary+TWs: We're talking serious feelings here, okay? Reader, you're literally emotionally illiterate. You also have PTSD, which is finally addressed - kinda. Bruce does his best. And he also knows how to kiss... But y'all know that if you read my ramblings about lucid dreaming/shifting/whatever... Chile-, anyways...

My phone kept buzzing and I ignored it until Bruce declared it was time to take a break and review the results. Whilst the man was typing up the data on a nearby StarkPad, I fought the sudden influx of messages that I received from haters and supporters alike after Tony decided on tweeting a reply that could be interpreted in an alarming variety of ways. It was a smart move, I'll admit, but a fucking bother for me nonetheless.

Disabling my DMs and dealing with a follower increase in the thousands wasn't hard; I didn't consider myself a problematic asshole and didn't need to be afraid of "exposure". The parties I went to - I doubted there was any blackmail material in there and the few nudes I'd sent over the years were always face-less. As a gen Z, I knew my internet safety.

The trolls didn't bother me either. It was more sad than annoying, people shitting on others for clout. Iron Man stans were witty, at least, if jealous. I must admit I've never considered the influx of popularity I would experience should I publicly out myself as a friend of Tony's. Girlfriend? Intern? Science child? Whatever cover story he was going to feed the press worked for me, as long as I still got the hugs, the kisses, the dick and the attention.

"Tony..." Bruce groaned, evidently done with the data processing, had to have opened his social media to see his own skyrocketing popularity.

"Yeah, our Tony is being a Tony again," I chuckled, having reset my social media settings so my phone wouldn't constantly beep, vibrate and bother me. School was going to be fun.

Bruce shook his head, fond, coming over to my side of the lab after removing his own hazmat suit. His eyes shiny with newfound knowledge and hair turned adorably fluffy in the confines of the head covering. He was smiling softly. "Food?"

"Sure."

We chewed our sandwiches in silence for a moment, each of us lost in our thoughts.

"I still can't believe Tony told everyone on Twitter you're his girlfriend, usually he keeps this stuff private or schedules a fancy press conference," Bruce's tone was thoughtful.

I raised an eyebrow. "Is that what it was? Seemed ambiguous to me..." I trailed off, confused.

"He worded it like that on purpose, I mean, you're still in high school," The scientist was confident in his words. "But I know Tony. I'm a hundred percent sure that he meant exactly that. Aren't you?"

Shock flooded me. Suddenly, I understood I completely misread the situation. "Um, no? I thought we were, y'know, just fucking. We never defined our relationship and we're definitely not exclusive." I said, chewing on my lip. "You make a valid argument, I'm a high school student and he's a grown ass man that does grown man stuff. Putting aside the fact that he could have anybody in the world so why would he choose me?" I was rambling, thinking out loud. Discussing my feelings has never my strong forte. "It would be stupid to impose monogamy on such a complex man like Tony. Downright idiotic to expect a genius to confine to social norms just because it suits others." I finished with a wave of my hand. Another bubble of thought that had festered within me for the longest time. I felt relieved, finally voicing it out loud. A weight had been lifted off my shoulders, a weight I wasn't previously consciously aware of.

Bruce was watching me intently, with an unreadable expression that held the tiniest bit of awe, admiration perhaps. The silence that followed was unnerving. I fidgeted with my hands, not really knowing where to put them or where to look.

"You know," He took off his glasses, fiddling them in his hands. "I'm not going to sugar coat it. For the longest time, I thought you were going to inadvertently hurt him when you get bored with whatever you've got going on. I respect you, don't misunderstand me, but you are young. Now, I've changed my mind. You've changed my mind," He punctuated his statement with his hand on mine, grasping it. "I think you managed to understand him in a way most people can't. Or don't want to. Understand and accept him in a way that some of us can't even after years of working and living side by side with him." Bruce's gentle fingers skimmed along the top of my palm.

"I don't always understand Tony but I do accept him," I agreed. "Because Tony is a great man."

"I think you're in love with him," Bruce said, absolutely having ignored my previous statement. Just like that, point blank, he pushed to the surface the very feelings I got so good at ignoring. There was no rest for me in this place.

My heart fluttered, picking up the pace. I kept my mouth shut, not trusting it whatsoever. My thoughts became akin to panicked hares, jumping and zigzagging aimlessly in my skull. I didn't see the point in defending myself because the scientist had pointed out the obvious.

Bruce looked at me, softly, warmly. "And don't think we haven't noticed the rise in team morale. The improvement not only in communication, but on the battlefield, too. It's easier to entrust your back to someone with whom you've shared a laugh and a drink the previous night. You're the glue that keeps us together."

Something warm and wet was on my cheeks. I stared at our clasped hands, his words echoing in my head over and over and over. The moment I realized I was crying, I willed myself to stop and failed spectacularly - only more salty fluid streamed down, some of it getting in my nose, on my lips. The sleepless nights were making me unstable.

It took a single sniffle for Bruce to pick me up and wrap up in his kind embrace. I didn't resist, tucking my face into the crook of his neck, holding onto the back of his lab coat, inhaling the smell of his skin and chemicals. It was familiar, calming. Minutes ticked by with me slowly leaking the tension out of my body.

"He loves you, too, maybe he just doesn't realize it yet." Bruce whispered into my hair. "I've never seen Tony so happy, even with Pepper. You are special and you are loved."

There was something unsaid, I felt it. It hung in the ear, it burned the tips of my ears, stood sharp on the tip of my tongue. "I love you too, Bwucie-bear," I whispered into the space between his ear and his jaw. His arms tightened around me.

The man placed several chaste kisses in my hair, running a palm over my back. In moments like these, the crush for him, the very crush that got out of control, blossomed fully into a deep sense of respect and admiration. He made me feel safe. He said all the right words at the right time.

Drowsiness overtook me. As usual, any worries and anxieties I had evaporated, once Banner had his arms around me, shielding me from the world. I didn't forbid myself this time: delicately, my hand slipped through the man's soft messy curls, eliciting a contented sigh.

"You haven't been sleeping well," He more stated than asked.

I had no choice but to nod. "Clint keeps dying in my dreams. Or even worse, he doesn't, he just suffers, endlessly, painfully." I admitted.

Bruce flinched under me, tensing. My face was in between his hands in a second, the scientist sternly looking into my eyes. "Why didn't you say anything? All of us assumed you were okay after what happened." He looked - angry. Not Hulk-out pissed but Bruce-pissed, which equalled a kicked-puppy look seasoned with a great pinch of disappointment.

"I am okay." I lied, shamelessly. "It's getting better. That's why I want to have a party - relax a little, dance, socialize. I don't think Tony would let me go on my own so I figured I can convince him to throw one here." I looked away. It was better for everyone if I dealt with my own problems - they were superheroes, not babysitters.

Bruce frowned. "Why wouldn't Tony let you go?"

"Because of that one time I snorted coke," I rolled my eyes at Bruce's naiveté, leaving the less obvious parts unsaid. Tony knew exactly what I was going to do once I got free reign, he considered it destructive and told me so himself. Admittedly, he had a point but still... I wished I'd been given a choice.

"I'll talk to him," Bruce nodded firmly. "That's not acceptable. He can't forbid you from making mistakes and learning from them."

He was met with my shrug. No excitement came from me regarding this particular turn of conversation. I was drained, limbs like jello, thoughts sluggish. My face was drooping.

"Let's get you to bed," Banner stood up with me wrapped around him. "You need a nap."

"No," I protested. If I went to sleep now, only Satan knew at what ungodly hour I would wake up.

"Yes, Princess," Bruce smirked. I wiggled uncomfortably - when he went all caretaker like, my ovaries wreaked havoc on my body and brain. My thoughts weren't appropriate if Bruce wanted me to see him as a father figure. The signals he was sending were mixed. People around me did that a lot and I wasn't sure how to act so I usually just went with the flow. I decided to do the very same thing in that particular moment.

Curiosity sparked within me, tightly interwoven with the deep longing that settled below my collarbones whenever Tony or one of the others wasn't sitting next to me or talking my ear off. I've almost forgotten how it was to be alone with my thoughts. The maze of my very own self was becoming unfamiliar territory. Alarming.

I allowed Bruce to help me shed my shoes and outer layer of clothing, shivering in the coolness of my room. Despite being a frequent visitor, I still had a 'guest' room in the tower - I mostly stayed at Tony's or Wanda's anyways. During our sleepovers neither me nor the witch minded sharing her enormous bed, to be fair, we could have fit at least two more people in it besides us. Tony took care of his own - all the tower's residents had their apartments furnished with the best stuff.

"Sleep now, Princess," Bruce chastised, tucking a blanket around me, having noticed an earbud in my ear and my smartphone in my hand. I had hoped to kill some time online, damn well knowing sleep wouldn't come easy.

"I don't think I can fall asleep, Bruce," I admitted, looking away. There was just so much going on. My brain wouldn't shut up and if I couldn't drown out the cacophony by being productive, I'd troll the internet, as usual.

Banner sighed, coming to sit next to me, leaning against the headboard. Gently running his fingers through my hair, brushing the outside of his palm against my cheek. "How do you usually deal with this?"

Involuntarily, my eyelashes fluttered. "Tony does most of the work," I admitted coyly. The engineer had a whole arsenal of tricks up his sleeve - sexy and exhausting tricks.

"I see," Bruce muttered, thoughtfully.

I opened my eyes to see him looking down at me with a look I haven't seen before. The usual mildly absent, slightly anxious face he wore was replaced by something I could only describe as hurt envy, like a kid looking at their schoolmate who had all the newest, coolest toys. I used to be on the receiving end of that look far too often and I hated it.

I hid my face against his leg, rubbing my cheek on the raspy corduroy fabric of his pants. "Got any good ideas of your own?" I wondered lowly, thinking about what in the world possessed Bruce to wear corduroy trousers on a semi-casual day, in the twenty-first century.

"Only bad ideas," He replied in a matching low tone. His soft fingertips relocated to my nape, goosebumps rising down my back.

"Humour me," I grinned against his leg.

Bruce was quiet for a moment, the sound of his thinking screaming louder than any words could have done. Knowing the scientist so closely, I found out he was full of surprises - bolder than he appeared outwardly and competitive to a boot. He thought he had a lot to prove to himself and by extension, to others. The unknown, the mystery dangling in front of my nose was exhilarating, trepidation addictive. It took me away from the chaos in my mind.

A gentle grasp on my chin had me turning to look upwards, Bruce's face flushed and focused on my own, open and trusting. He needed to see the obvious, that I trusted him to take care of me. He pulled and I followed, sitting up on my elbows, coming up to his shoulder level, our faces inches apart, enveloped in the unique, intense scent of his herbal tea. It was a tart, strong smell and it suited his quiet but passionate character.

Once, twice, I caught my eyes sliding to his plump lips. They looked far too appealing in this position. I usually strategically stayed away from positions so compromising, fearing the very thing that I'd already let happen, however this time the atmosphere was different. We stood on ambiguous grounds, waiting for Bruce to make a decision.

The man wasn't stupid, he saw the way I looked at him. The nightmares and inability to take a break from life put a significant dent in my resolve to keep a distance between us, romantically - I could have settled even for a pity kiss, a pity fuck. Anything to put my brain on pause.

His lips were softer than I had imagined. Skilled, too, he easily steered the kiss into the shallow waters of our combined longing.

With Tony, it was like an avalanche. Tony ran hot like Peterbilt engines, hard and fast, almost angry in his race for satisfaction. Tony was a man that was used to getting whatever he wanted and it became plainly obvious when we fucked.

Bruce was the opposite. He savoured the kiss, losing himself in a way that could almost be described as delicate. Bruce was humming, softly, as we tasted each other, holding the left side of my face with careful fingertips. Almost as if he was afraid to break me. The feel of his skin on mine was soothing in a way that made me sigh and relax even further.

"Wanna make you feel good." His voice had dropped, gone husky, but his breathing held even. He must know all about self-control.

"Yeah," I was ready to agree with whatever the fuck he was offering. My eyelids remained shut.

THE TAG LIST IS NOW OPEN! @another-stark-sub @mostly-marvel-musings @vozit @littlegasps @pilloclock @shereadsinquiet @downeyreads @hermione-grangers-wife @individualistfem @sleep-i-ness @capbrie @lillsxd @agustdowney @dee-vn @justanotherblonde23 @fanngirl19 @persephonehemingway @softie-socks @schemefrenzy @letsby @cutenessloading @romeo-the-cactus @jelly-fishy-babie

PS. Letsby, please don't combust. The underwear is coming off in the next chapter. 😶

#bruce banner x you #bruce banner x reader #bruce banner fluff #bruce banner x y/n #tony stark x y/n #tony stark x you #tony stark x reader #stephen strange x y/n #stephen strange x you #stephen strange x reader #party favours #bun writes

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legends-live-in-memories · 4 years

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I Have Too Many Opinions. ep. 1

lmao. i got encouragement to post my opinions on fandom things and now i want to make a miniseries doing just that. so here i am. doing just that.

im putting it under the cut cuz this was 4 whole pages including the disclaimer. yes i put a disclaimer and i explain why.

Anyways, here is the first piece in what inevitably will become fandom info dump, this time on thomas astruc’s writing on miraculous ladybug. but only some of my opinions cuz we would be here all day otherwise.

So… a disclaimer before I begin…

I do not hate Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir (yes i'm using their government name). I am quite a fan of the show actually despite its faults. I am also older than the intended audience but was obviously younger when the show first aired which is how my interest was piqued (the fact that its been 6 years and only 3 seasons says more about the show than me being a fan for that amount of time but also i never want to rush content creators cuz they're doing their best) and due to my age, there will be inherent bias in my approach of what i'm about to say as there is in EVERY opinion. The fact that it is an opinion should imply the presence of bias but most people tend to lack the critical thinking skills required to draw that conclusion ANYWAYS…

If I did hate the show I would not have this blog nor would I be even writing this because i tend to not give more than 2 seconds of thought to things i actively dislike (some of yall should give this a try) and i'm allowed to like things that are designed for an audience that i was originally a part of but grew out of. (I don't suddenly stop liking things because I'm older despite what many younger fans seem to believe about older audiences. I also don't need to be ‘allowed’ to do anything cuz i wasn't asking for permission anyways.)

This will not be character bashing, astruc bashing nor fandom bashing cuz, again, that would imply i hate any of those elements and if i did, i would not dedicate brainpower to them. Analyses and criticisms of media are fun and engaging and required if you wish to produce good enjoyable content. Now most of this should be already assumed and self-explanatory but people on the internet like to play morality roulette roll dice on purity culture and I rather have documentation that I am in fact not bullying fictional 14 year olds or a grown man. But alas, people get trigger happy whenever someone has less than 1000000% positive opinions on something they like and will throw out words they can't define (gaslight, baiting, toxic, problematic, gatekeep etc) in an attempt to defend their blind devotion,

which is not needed, if you like something you never have to defend it, even if i don't like it. If you respond to anything I post saying you disagree with me, I will not argue with you. I won't debate back and forth and try to convince you that the things you like are wrong. Unless you are being absolutely tone deaf to what i'm saying, you wont get a negative reaction from me. So don't try to fish for a fight. Please. I got metaphorical hands for days and I'm mean, you don't want me hurting your feelings on the internet. Do yourself the favour. Difference of opinion is how we get diversification in media and is inherently a good thing. Now that that's out of the way, please don't ever let me have to say that again. I beg.

Now onto the fun stuff

I didn't know what I wanted as a first topic so my trusty internet friend @moonlitceleste suggested astruc’s writing…

AND BOI do i got some opinions on ole tommy boi. Again I don't hate the dude. In fact, he has worked on a few shows that had defined my childhood, including but not limited to W.I.T.C.H. (all eps available on youtube for those interested, 2 seasons, general fun time all around).

So I don't think he’s scum of the earth but I do think his approach to writing mlb specifically has more misses than hits.

The first big miss is that he has no idea how to write 14 year old girls. At all. Almost every girl he has ever written feels like some terrible archetype built entirely for marketability and childish projection and pubescent self-insert (kind of). He has never been a 14 year old girl. I have. In fact when the show first aired, I WAS around the (assumed) age of the mlb characters. The behaviour he passes off as quirky or awkward or just the character’s genuine personality tend to perpetuate harmful stereotypes of teen girls found in the media and are never actually addressed as harmful. they just get swept under the rug. Marinette’s exuberant collage of teen heart throb model boi Adrien Agreste and her very painful almost fan worship she has of him (which flip flops like a paper sandal in the rain) being portrayed as a cute school girl crush uwu, Chloe being the y7 Regina George, Alya being the token best friend of colour with her ‘sassy’ personality (i want y'all to imagine me eyerolling so hard i bust a vessel in my eye), Kagami being the very damaging Perfect Asian Child stereotype. And before y'all get on your dusty soap box and defend going on about “BUT IT'S FOR CHILDREN”,,,, know this.

i don’t give a solid fuck.

Not one.

Children arent stupid. Children are always going to remember the richy bitchy blonde who bullies the art kid, and the big kid, and the shy kid, and the non white kids, and was only nice to her equally rich white friend who she probably had a crush on or was only ever civil to her equally white lapdog. They're going to remember the half asian girl who was never allowed to actually be asian or the only black girl who existed solely as a soundboard for enabling bad habits or chastising the main character for the same habits she enables in the first place (boi aint THAT a topic for later). Like do i really need to explain that alya chastising marinette for taking max’s spot in gamer just to play with adrien rings absolutely hollow when she actively encourages her to sabotage the contest she’s in just so Kagami doesn't win?? Like I don't have to explain that right?? Again kids arent stupid and its quite something that Mari gets chastised for proving herself the best video game player regardless of her intentions just cuz it comes at the expense of max’s feelings/ego but is actively encouraged to sabotage not only kagami but herself by extension cuz kagami is ‘competition.’ Adrien is not a trophy to be won. And no I don't expect 14 yrs old to be perfect and to always make good decisions but these decisions are never addressed as being bad decisions. they get swept under the rug cuz those decisions were necessary for the ‘plot’ but astruc can barely keep characterization consistent and his characters suffer for it and it's the same children you preach are watching it that suffer as well. Cuz guess what? I KNOW 14 yr olds aren't like that cuz i've been there done that (this is the last time i'm saying that i promise) so I know astruc is just metaphorically throwing darts to figure out who says and does what without consideration for pre established personalities to drive the stalemate plot along. The same kids you say are watching this don't know that that's not how preteens work and will absorb and internalize those dynamics like baking soda and vinegar. Cata-fucking-strophically.

And I haven't even gotten to the boys yet. Which honestly doesn't require much explanation anyways cuz they suffer the same fate as the girls. Tired archetypes with nothing to give them life. Nino falls into Adrien’s person of colour token best friend who dates the female lead’s person of colour token best friend so they can have cute double dates uwu. Except the plot goes nowhere and we have no inclination of romantic development beyond moments that only act to actively convince me to anti ship the lovesquare (i don't want to do that so i self indulge in fanon that actually cares about the characters and plot. may i interest you in True Sight on AO3?). Max is the residential nerd but it doesn't matter (cuz he and everyone are dumbed down for the sake of ‘plot’), kim is the sports jock (which interestingly subverts the asian comedic relief stereotype but only barely) and luka is cute older guy ™ that wears black nail polish and is in a band. The point of all this is to say there is no depth in the characters. It's especially blatantly obvious with the characters astruc doesn't like (chloe). Again, it being a show for kids is not an excuse to be absolved of putting effort into the characters you make.

This is one of the biggest misses astruc has. I haven't even gone into all the nuances of this particular miss. And i havent gone into how that works against him in the plot either. Mostly because the plot itself hasn't gone anywhere and partially because I wanted to go into the plot (or lack thereof) separately as its own miss.

AND BOI is it a miss.

SO home boy astruc wanted to reap the benefits of a serial show with ‘engaging’ plot without putting in any of the work to make a linear storyline and relying on the episodic format for, again, marketability. You can't have the best of both worlds, you are not Avatar: The Last Airbender. Which btw has a lot less episodes and a desired end goal that didn't involve top dollar. Legend of Korra did but that's not the point and it had its failings with that too. I challenge you, tell me how many episodes actually contribute towards a plot point or introduce new thematic elements to the show? Can you name them? I can and I'm going to include the plot points that moved the story in some direction if only temporarily. Yes only temporarily for some of these and i will explain later. (if you're in the server you already saw this list *wink*)

25/26. Origins- self explanatory, the beginning of the story,

24. Volpina- introduction of the grimoire and Master Fu (kind of) and no, Lila is not a plot point,

28. The Collector- proper introduction of Master Fu,

37. Sapotis- introduction of Rena Rouge,

41. Syren- introduction of new aquatic power ups,

44. Anansi- introduction of Carapace,

47. Frozer- introduction of new ice power ups,

48/49. Style Queen- introduction of Queen Bee,

51/52. Heroes’ Day- introduction of Mayura and mass akumatization,

66. Startrain- introduction of Pegasus,

67. Kwami Buster- Marinette wears multiple miraculouses,

68. Feast- backstory as to how the miraculouses were lost,

69. Ikari Gozen- introduction of Ryuko,

70. Timetagger- introduction of Bunnyx,

71. Party Crasher- introduction of Roi Singe and Viperion,

73. Chat Blanc- alternate timeline that essentially means nothing but got a reaction out of fans anyways (myself included)

77/78. Love Eater/Battle of Miraculous- Marinette becomes guardian and other heroes lose their miraculous,

New York Special- other heroes exist and there is an American miraculous box,

That's 21 episodes. 21 out of a heaping 78 plus 2 specials. Everything else was just your typical akuma of the day episode and everything that happened outside that had no lasting consequences on the plot thanks to the miraculous status quo. Was it entertaining to watch Lila stir the plot of the class dynamic? Hell yeah. Too bad it meant nothing by the end of the episode cuz we were struck with miraculous status quo. She literally doesn't appear again until Heroes Day. that is from episodes 25 all the way to 51, she means nothing and yet she is treated with the severity of a b-villain/rival thing. She means nothing by the end of Volpina if I'm being honest. She is only relevant for 20 mins of episode time she’s in then it's back to magic status quo that undoes any shift in dynamics and relationships. It's like Spongebob who can't get his driver’s license. The worst part is I actually like Lila and I wish the story treated her with the seriousness we as an audience are expected to treat her with. Despite being painfully inconsequential by the end of each of the 3?? 4?? episodes she’s in, it's entertaining to watch a character create drama just because.

Too bad it means nothing.

Astruc is constantly building up suspense to something ‘important’ only for it to not deliver and fans are constantly having the rug pulled out from under us. Oblivio teased us with a reveal only that gets undone cuz memory akuma. Chat Blanc teased us with romantic development but that gets undone cuz time travel bullshit. Feast introduced more miraculous lore and the history of the guardians but that means nothing by the next episode or ever (i'm not including any reference to the season 4 trailer cuz i've been around the block a few times and im familiar with this lil dancy dance). Heroes Day teased us with a possible future team of heroes but that gets undone in Battle of Miraculous cuz ????? why?? (here's why; astruc was having a jolly ole time letting us know how irredeemable Chloe is at the expense of shooting his own stagnant plot in the foot. Again, discussion for later.)

Too bad anything that slightly swerves off course from the akuma of the day gets undone or ignored. Too bad nothing has any lasting consequence. I mean, if anything did, the episodes would have had a consistent order and release schedule so im not scrambling to watch the leaked ep in Portuguese or something while the french dub is two episodes behind while the english version hasnt even been dubbed. I really wonder how he plans to conclude the show when he’s so afraid to step out of the corner he painted himself in.

Again, not going into nuances. If you want you can ask for more specifics (i doubt anyone would) but this is really just a slightly detailed general overview of my opinions on astruc’s writing.

I was going to include another miss in his approach to this show but imma save that for another time.

How’s that for a ‘first’ post?

#mlb #opinions my guy opinions #i dont wanna tag this as salt #but mlb criticisms and analyses #IHTMO #the hashtag for this series #thomas astruc #miraculous fandom #miraculous ladybug #miraculous: tales of ladybug and cat noir #yes the government name again #come get yall juice #miraculous

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iampikachuhearmeroar · 3 years

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y’know the wildest thing still to happen to me on this hellsite was my first experience of sexting, sans nudes, that was done in front of at least 250-500 followers because of those horny anons i had in early 2013 when i was 17. instead of being exposed to it on my phone privately with a partner at that age, it was done publicly for the internet to see lmao. i remember begging the anons to stop and “come off anon” because i was “losing followers” at the time too bc i was so insecure about my follower count lmao. and then yeah when they came off anon they were both 28 years old.

to write the responses, i just consulted cosmo mag sex pages for ideas hoping that the anons would like the options i chose. in one i detailed doing anal- a sex act i hadn’t even done yet irl- let alone every other thing i suggested in them (head, idek long, drawn out foreplay, some stupid fancy sex moves that cosmo was all like “use these moves to spice up your sex life 🔥🔥”, sex in a bath, i’m pretty sure i had some lines about tying or handcuffing them to a bed (????) etc etc etc)….

when again, i had never even done any of those above sex acts in real life. i was a naive teen who was incredibly shy in regards towards her love life because she’d “never been kissed” and had never had the “hot emo boyfriend whose in a band and is covered in tattoos” she’d always wanted, let alone even a boyfriend that she had actually fucking liked (ie clear braces boy, for like a month in year 9/2010 vs the popular boys that made fun of her, that she always had unrequited crushes on)…. hell, my blog title when i first started on here in 2011 was “the perfect epitome of being forever alone” because of these very reasons. but here she was, writing explicit sex acts to strangers like she knew what the fuck she was doing, to an audience of 250-500 people- and then to fucking grown ass men in inboxes. i was just parroting the shit i’d read in cosmo (both sex advice and sometimes excerpts of erotica/“sexy, steamy reads” they had some months) and also heard repeatedly in the porn that my high school stalker/creeper at public school loved to show (harass) me with to flirt with me, whenever we were alone together at school in 2012/2013.

like you could tell how naive i was….. because i used ridiculous lines like “like a gentleman entranced, you lead me to the bath for our next foray” and dumbass prose-y things like that. because what the fuck does that even mean 😂😅????

and this is why i think minors should be careful with their online experiences. like yeah, you could say that i wasn’t a minor anymore- more of a “young adult”- who should of made the smart decision to not engage with these anons. but i was a kid. i thought it was fun. and when the dudes came off anon, i thought to myself “it’s not like i’m ever gonna meet them if i ever go to the US or puerto rico at any point. it’s not like that they’ll ever recognise me in person or ever reach out to me again in the future. i might as well do it.” and i did eventually end up ignoring the guys in my inbox, due to my mental health kinda plummeting from the middle til the end of 2013 because of my end of high school exams and stuff… and also the puerto rican guy’s infamously inappropriate “hot PE teacher fucks HOT female high school student in the girls change room showers” fantasy which fucking disgusted me, when he full well knew that i was STILL IN high school.

and obviously again, there’s the point about using the “block” button function. but as i’ve stated several times over my years on here, back in my early days of tumblr, i never wanted to block or unfollow people (even if they were trash like these two men), because it seemed so “mean” and “final”. obvs now i have no qualms about blocking people, and actively encourage younger people on here to use the block button with reckless abandon towards creepy people or people who can hurt them in some way. but to high school teenage me, the whole “using the block button” thing seemed to go against me being a “nice girl/person” so i never used it, no matter which social media platform i was on.

this is why i’m hella scared for young teen girls on tik tok wanting to have onlyfans accounts: because it’s where they’ll be exposed to ACTUAL CREEPS AND PREDATORS incredibly quickly; all because they can make money off selling images of just their feet or eventually their body….. depending on what these creepy strangers demand from them….. and they’ll feel like they’ll have to do it…. but to do it before you even start experimenting properly with relationships and sex is even worse. like. yeah. i’ve admitted before that i originally started this tumblr to possibly post nudes, to see if i’d get the positive feedback that i so desperately wanted/craved from the boys in my year at catholic school- eg. to be called “sexy”, “hot”, “fuckable” possibly “beautiful”- like some of the so called “popular girls” got on their hella basic bikini photos back then (like i remember one girl i knew ended up with like 500 likes and a fair amount of comments on one of her bikini pics and i was INCREDIBLY BITTER because not even a pic of me with a nice outfit on, my hair done and makeup on could EVER get those numbers, let alone even break over the double digits).

but i decided posting nudes or other explicit images on here was an absolute no go, because i realised that i never wanted people that i knew digging up barely clothed/naked pics of me and sending them to me all like “hey, is this you?” and then possibly mocking me, all because i would’ve been dumb enough to put my face in them probably at the time. now when i take nudes and send them, i never show my face. because i know now, that even in relationships, your partner can use nude pics as leverage for arguments or to abuse you in such a way that they’ll upload your pics without your knowledge to god knows where on the internet probably as a way to get back at you in a horrible breakup.

this is what i sincerely hope some young girls who ever contemplate starting onlyfans accounts take some time SERIOUSLY CONSIDER. please know that if you share shit on onlyfans, it can shared and re-shared (i think idek how OF works tbh) to god knows who- and eventually end up in the hands of people you know. i don’t fucking care if it’s a “good way to make money!” or if people think that im trying to stop teen girls from being “girl bosses” and the other dumb as fuck internet memes you want to throw at me. because this shit isn’t “haha internet meme funny” material. it’s some fucking serious stuff. and also, i’m not saying “don’t become a sex worker when you’re older” or whatever either. you’re free to make that choice when you’re in your 20s (no i even mean 17-19 year olds in this post as “young teen girls”- sorry you’re basically kids to me at almost 26). just please consider where the fuck your stuff can be shared to. who it can end up being shared with or to.

this is why i was so fucking adamant with my infamous old follower mr adelaide fuckboy/MAF that i personally would NOT consider becoming a camgirl for him or just generally… because i had no idea where the fuck my images or videos would end up. and do you know the places i’d never want them to fucking be??? in the hands of my high school stalker/creeper. in the hands of those two 28yo men from 2013 (who’d now be in there late 30s or early 40s). i absolutely don’t want them in the hands the mid-to-late 20s and early 30s men that that girl i met at public school in 2012 who was pissed that i didn’t believe that were “adults” because we were finally over the legal age of consent (16) in our state of australia, and so we were apparently fine to “fuck” literal grown ass men because “just fuck them and they’ll be nice to you!!” which i knew was fucking bullshit.

i absolutely don’t fucking want explicit videos/images of me ending up in “why the fuck won’t you let me give you “sex lessons” in the back of my car as a “favour” and as payment for teaching you how to drive you stupid, stuck up & frigid, virgin bitch!?” guy’s hands from 2014 (when i was 18/19 at the time and he was 25… he ended up being the first person of many i’d EVER block on social media lol). or i don't want them in the hands of those weird early 20s dudes (one of which was trying to set me up with his friend) who hit on me at 16/17 (2012) who were angry that i didn’t like and watch porn as much as they did…. and who promptly asked me at the end of their period of harassing of me: “do you know any sluts we could add?” because i kept refusing their suggestions etc.

hell, quite frankly i don’t even want them to go to mr adelaide fuckboy/MAF either, but the very few and far between nudes that i sent on snapchat to him back in 2016 are some nudes that i’d rather forget lmao. hell. i don’t even know if MAF ever deleted my nudes or shared them somewhere else or not, after he fucking wheedled them out of me with “i’ve followed you for 4 years, don’t be a shit! you owe me nudes!” so he’d just shut the fuck up about my social life decisions and leave me the fuck alone.

i don’t want ANY ONE of the guys i mentioned above to get their hands on photos of minors either…. because i definitely know my hs stalker/creeper would… because his fave “make her jealous” tactic that he’s always used on me is that “hey…. i’m dating a *insert teenage girl’s age here*! be fucking jealous that you don’t fucking have me and feel guilty that you won’t fuck me like this girl does!!!” just like he did in 2015, when i ran into him on the home from uni… when i turned 20 the next week and he turned 20 that december. at that time it was a 14yo girl he used as an example of him “dating”/“fucking” to make me jealous. instead, i was completely and utterly fucking disgusted. like any fucking sane and normal human being would/should be at that horrible age gap. that is literally a fucking child that he was fucking grooming. and we were literal adults. back the fuck away.

just please. PLEASE CONSIDER the types of people that trawl these kinds of sites and their intentions. please consider that you are young. very fucking young. you literally DO NOT need to upload nudes to the internet because it’s apparently a “lucrative” business. fuck the jokey “boss babe” rhetoric around it all the way to fucking hell.

because if you’re a minor: i do not want you to have your first experience of sexting or sending explicit images literally in front of god knows how many total strangers for the whole world to see (okay i know only fans is like subscriber/follower based or whatever. but i don’t care)…… even when you (depending how good you are with relationships etc) haven’t reached the common supposed milestones of your “first boyfriend/girlfriend/partner” or “first kiss” or have even “lost your virginity” (which isn’t real anyway- don’t buy this fucking bullshit)…. just like i stupidly did with my exposure to sexting here on my tumblr back in 2013. these people don’t/won’t give a flying fuck about your privacy or safety. they don’t/won’t give a fuck about your boundaries either.

please don’t possibly scar yourself for life, just because you’re being told that it’s a quick & convenient way to make some money for weirdos on the depths of the internet. you will regret it in future. just like i do now with mine. it should’ve been something personal between me and and a guy i trusted and liked at the time. not to some random 250-500 random strangers on this hellsite (okay the notes on these posts were literally single digits or non-existent, but still… and also some of my irl friends who had tumblr saw these posts as well) for a show….. and then privately with two 28yo literal grown ass men…. who should’ve been fucking hitting on women their own goddamned age and in their own countries and NOT a 17yo high school KID (at the time) from australia; who, now in her 20s, needs therapy to sort this shit out lmao. mind you they both reeled me in with the “you’re so mature for your age” bullshit line…. which i fell for a little bit, even if it did make me feel kinda gross at the time, too. don’t fall for that bullshit either.

#life #about me #shut up ilona #relationships i guess #internet stuff #this went in a bigger direction that i thought it would lmao #but anyway

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leesuhyo · 4 years

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Let’s talk about trauma.

(TW for trauma, obviously)

My parents always tell me how I was a quirky and cheerful child when I was little. Now the quirkiness is only there when I fake it.

I started school at the age of three. Kindergarten was fun, people there was okay. Sometimes they were mean, but it’s fine. I was happy. My teachers were nice.

Timeskip to primary school at six. Initially, I thought people would be the same, since it was the same school and all of my kindergarten friends were there. I thought the teachers would be nice.

They were not.

You learn quickly to not step out of line, because there would be consequences. If you even whisper in the corridors after assembly, detention for you. If you were even late to school for a minute, you stand next to the stairwell where the whole school gets to look at who is late, even though most people don’t. If you made a mistake, the teacher stands you outside the staffroom, and yells so loudly people in the upper and lower floors could hear.

Public humiliation was the most common form of punishment. It wasn’t encouraged, but girls can be mean at that age. Gradually peer pressure usually sets the norm.

If you don’t have a ‘friend group’ you’re weird.

Soon you learn to avert people’s eyes, even if they don’t have ill intentions.

You learn to jump whenever a teacher walks too close to you while lining up, because they scrutinise you, and drag whoever’s talking out and give them a severe scolding.

You learn to run to school, desperately trying not to be late because even if you were late due to traffic, you were still punished

You learn to fit into the norms, painfully, because your peers laugh at you if you don’t.

You learn to mistake even light-hearted teasing as scolding, because it usually starts that way. They ask you a rhetoric question, and it spirals into yelling.

You learn.

And that’s how the trauma sets in.

Secondary school at twelve. Pretty much nothing changed, except there is more homework, and more classes. More teachers to take note of, who to avoid and who to curry favour with. You learn to manipulate teachers to your favour, until you’re their favourite student. Even though you hate their subject.

You then learn more about the world. But not the right way, because this is a Catholic school. You learn that homosexuality is a sin. That mental illnesses exist, but they’re bad. That the internet is dangerous. That swearing is bad. And so on.

You also learn that boys are weird, because this was a girl’s school and there were no men, except for male teachers. Your classmates say all sorts of strange things about boys. They’re weird, but they’re cute. Going to after-school tutorial classes with students from that boys’ school down that road makes you feel weird, and you feel instinctively defensive despite them not looking at you.

Sixteen. First year of public exams. You sleep at 2am, drag yourself out of bed at 7am to arrive at school at 8am. You’re tired all the time, but your peers are tired all the time too. I slept at 1am. Oh yeah? Well I slept at 2am. The continued toxic cycle of bad habits.

The only source of happiness around you comes from your favourite singer, because back then you’re struggling to find friends after your best friend transferred schools due to her depression. You try to write down a list of reasons of why you liked him to remember how to feel. Ew, what are you doing? 100 reasons why I like ____? That’s so creepy. You stay silent, turn a new page, and continue writing stories to drown out the maths lecture going on.

You start healing a little when you were sixteen. You start to get angry at social issues, and managed to find your own group of misfits who doesn’t want to follow the norm. You start to feel at home at your drama group, where you applied for, out of a leap of faith.

Do you want to study overseas?

Seventeen. Your mother suggested for you to study overseas, and you don’t want to, because you only just found your friends. But you don’t have a choice, because your old school doesn’t have the only subject you’re good at. You found out later through a scolding in the corridor by the headmistress that in fact, they did have that subject after you applied for it, and you’re a traitor for ‘betraying the school’s trust’.

Seventeen. You start studying at a new school in another country twelve hours’ flight from home, a new environment. And you’re panicking because you had arrived two weeks late and everyone has friends. You throw yourself into your schoolwork to distract yourself from the creeping depression, and stay close to the teachers. You avoid your classmates, girls who seemed so much confident of themselves and boys. Suddenly your determined plan to make a new role for yourself seem insignificant.

And then one of the girls started approaching you. You feel wary because your past experience taught you girls cannot be trusted. But she was friendly, and you decided to get a little closer. Nonetheless, your only trusted figure is your house parent, who is so kind as to stay behind every night to listen to your crying and ranting.

Halfway through the year. Your older cousin, an established and popular prefect at the school, became one of your topic starters and you decided to let your guard down a little. You’re still wary of the group of girls who were first introduced to you though, because they wear makeup, they were interested in fashion, they were girly and popular, people your past experience had taught not to associate with.

(You also learn that the teachers are nice. They aren’t strict authority figures, and were bewildered why you didn’t go to them for help when you needed it, because you learnt to keep quiet and just power your way through things. You slowly learn to stop flinching at a raised voice, and even found your teachers for insignificant things. Staying behind to talk about his favourite book, for example.)

Christmas came, and you became reluctant to leave the school to your parents. After Christmas break though, you were reluctant to go back to the school because you had no friends. Nonetheless you went back, and made new friends in the year above you. You slowly grow back into the community and even laughed with your new friends.

And then your house parent told you she’s changing jobs. You cried a lot, but she promised to write. She tells you to seek out one of the school nurses. You did. To this day she’s still your confidant.

Then coronavirus struck. Your closest friend decided not to go back, because her parents were afraid of her staying in a high-risk country. You throw yourself into prepping for your university applications, because that’s the only goal in front of you now.

It was announced prefects were being chosen. In your old school leadership positions were widely sought after and considered a badge of honour, so you try to take on as many as possible. The teachers told you it was a bad idea, but you did it anyways. It was only later you realised, the responsibility attached was more than the honour it gives.

(You weren’t chosen for prefect, but it was okay. The teacher was biased anyways)

September 2020. Coronavirus is still an issue, but you decided to go back to school. You were still afraid, but you had friends ( - acquaintances, really) and a few valuable leadership positions that gives you a purpose. You steel yourself anyways, because the dormitory you were about to move into don’t have any of your old friends.

October 2020. You have new friends. You managed to piece your life together, and for the first time, you actually have a decent social life. But beneath the facade, you’re still afraid. You’re still nervous. You’re still afraid of getting close to people, because what if they abandon you?

But it didn’t matter. You’re healing.

#trauma #childhood trauma #depression #anxiety #mental illness #Mental health #mental health awareness #social anxiety #mental disorders #this went on so long and i'm sorry

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laurawritesandgames · 4 years

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Title: Objections

Fandom: Beetlejuice (Musical)

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Beetlejuice/Adam/Barbara, Charles/Delia

Prompt: Wedding

Content Warning: Set during coronavirus pandemic

Summary: It’s Delia and Charles’s wedding day. The Maitland-Deetz household tries to keep their irreverent demon from spoiling the big day. Little do they know it’s not Beetlejuice they need to worry about….

It had taken ten minutes, but Barbara was finally satisfied with Delia’s lashes. “There. I think we’ve got it.” She moved aside to let Delia see herself in the mirror.

Barbara had put her hair and makeup skills to the test and helped Delia out on her wedding day. Why invite over a makeup artist and hair stylist during a pandemic if you didn’t have to?

Delia examined her reflection and beamed. “It’s perfect.”

That was being kind. It wasn’t exactly one of the dramatic looks on Delia’s wedding Pinterest board. More dramatic makeup would’ve suited her dress better. Ordered from Italy, her dress was a gold ballgown with dramatic tiered tulle flounces on the skirt and a deep V neckline. The gold in the dress played off the gold accents in Delia’s bright orange hair, which was in romantic waves down her back. It was daring and sweet all at once.

When the pandemic hit, the household had talked about postponing her and Charles’s wedding. But Charles’s parents were old-fashioned, and since Delia and Charles wanted to try for a baby right away, they decided to have a virtual wedding instead.

“I can’t thank you enough, Barbara.”

“I’m not letting you do your own hair and makeup on your big day!” She gestured to the laptop. “Now go show the girls.” Her bridesmaids were eagerly awaiting drinking mimosas and celebrating Delia’s look. Barbara had met them at Delia’s virtual bachelorette party, though, of course, they hadn’t known Barbara was there. The bachelorette party had also been rather subdued, considering Delia’s usual standards. She, Barbara and the bridesmaids had streamed both Magic Mike movies, ate popcorn and drank champagne. What else could you do in a pandemic? “I’ll go check on the preparations.”

Delia’s phone, face down on the makeup table, buzzed again. Someone had been texting her all morning, and Delia had been ignoring them. Her gaze flicked to the phone, jaw tightening before she looked back into the mirror.

Barbara gestured to the phone. “I can grab that for you, too.”

A hint of a frown worked its way between Delia’s brows. A moment later, her expression relaxed, and she waved the suggestion away. “I’m fine, darling. I’ve been getting so many robotexts lately. You know, you could stay and have a drink. You’re a bridesmaid too, dear!”

“Oh, it’s nothing. I like keeping busy!” And if I bump something or the camera catches me drinking a mimosa, the focus is definitely not going to be on the bride. Barbara excused herself and went downstairs.

The walls of the living/dining room were decorated with curled gold ribbons and champagne-coloured tulle banners beneath the crown molding. The ghosts and Beetlejuice had moved all the furniture—quite easily, with telekinesis—and added two rows of four chairs on either side of an elegant pale gray runner. The rug led the eye to the laptop, set up on a crystal-laden table where the officiant would’ve stood, and the pale-wood wedding arch wrapped in the same champagne tulle. Everything looked perfect.

Adam, Beetlejuice, and Lydia, the family’s impromptu wedding photographer/videographer, were gathered around a photo album. It took Barbara a second to recognize it.

“Aww, our wedding album!” She joined the group, resting her head on Adam’s shoulder. He kissed her temple, pulling her closer with both arms. The book continued floating in mid-air.

“Obsessed with sunflowers much?” grumbled an unimpressed Beetlejuice.

“I guess so,” Adam said. “My family’s farm had a little sunflower patch. That kinda became our thing.”

“Love the mason jars,” Lydia commented.

“Hey, those were the big thing in 2009,” Barbara said. She supposed their wedding had followed a lot of popular trends: an outdoor barn wedding, lots of tea lights in mason jars, and even a photo booth. But they’d managed to be ahead of the curve on a few things. “Remember our party favours, sweetie?” she asked Adam. “They were little terrariums in stemless wineglasses.”

Adam grinned and squeezed the arm around her waist. “They were tied with ribbons that said ‘Thank you very ‘mulch’ for coming to our wedding!’”

Lydia chuckled; Beetlejuice rolled his eyes.

“Don’t encourage that,” the demon said to his friend. He continued scowling at the wedding album, but Lydia seemed happy to keep looking at the photos.

The most pages they turned, the more Barbara’s mood slid closer to Beetlejuice’s. All those photos were full of friends and family she couldn’t see anymore. Most of her friends’ Facebooks or Instagrams were private, so she couldn’t even do any light internet stalking unless she wanted to log into her old accounts and confuse everyone. Was Lisa still going back to school to get her Masters, or had the pandemic put that on hold? Was Alison still having issues with her mother-in-law? Barbara had no idea. Dead women didn’t have friends. Not to mention her family….

But a wedding was no time to be sad. She pasted a smile on her face and even managed a few cute wedding stories.

“Remember when your uncle Eddy tried to drink his wedding favour?” she asked Adam, who chuckled. “He almost choked on a succulent!”

“But he kept trying to drink from it! Three times!” Adam chuckled. A moment later, his smile faltered. “Probably because he’s a massive alcoholic.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.” That story wasn’t quite as cute as she remembered. “So, um, why don’t we do a last-minute check? Make sure we’ve got everything.”

“All right,” Lydia said. She took the photo album from midair and put it away, frowning slightly. “This is probably going to be the nicest moment I have today, so thanks for that.”

Barbara and Adam shared a worried look. Lydia was deeply ambivalent about her father marrying another woman only six months after her mother died. Lydia had used that fact to extract a lot of concessions about the wedding: Delia had let her wear a black dress and take photographs on her analogue camera instead of a digital camera.

“C’mon, kid!” Beetlejuice said. “Just wait ‘til I get the party started!” He blew a party favour, and sparkly beetles flew behind him.

While Lydia rolled her eyes fondly at her friend, Barbara and Adam shared another worried look. The young woman went upstairs to get changed.

Barbara turned to Beetlejuice. “I just wanted to remind you about your promise, Beetlejuice. I know it’d probably be very funny to interrupt the ceremony. Maybe Lydia would even appreciate it. But this day means a lot to Delia and Charles. They’ve found each other through a lot of pain and hardship, and they deserve a fun, special memory.”

Beetlejuice waved her words away. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don’t know this about me yet, but I love a good party. And people can finally see me! Well, only people here, but whatever. Why would I mess that up and have everybody pissed at me? I’m here for the fun and the food, baby.”

As much as Barbara wanted to believe him, she suspected that the only reason he didn’t have a disruption planned was because of Lydia’s innate goodness, not his own.

“I noticed you didn’t love us going through the wedding album, buddy,” Adam said. “Is everything okay?”

He shrugged. “It just…it looked nice. Your wedding.” He glanced between Barbara and Adam, loudly announcing, “None of that boring-ass shit at our wedding, okay?”

Barbara tried not to look too surprised—Beetlejuice loved shocking them. “Noted. But it’s also not going to be jump scares every minute, or a projector that reveals everyone’s darkest fears, or some kind of Saw situation.”

Beetlejuice’s eyebrows rose. “I was just thinking there’d be singing cockroaches and banners made of bats, but those are way better! You wanna plan it, baby?”

“I said ‘not.’ It’s not going to be any of those things. Did you even hear that part?”

He darted in close and kissed her lips. “Eh, we’ll find a compromise that works for all of us. We’re all about that life, right?” His neck stretched cartoonishly to kiss Adam on the lips as well. Then he poofed away in a cloud of smoke.

After a few moments, Adam said, “Did he just ask us to marry him?”

“I think it was a joke proposal. You know him. If he really wanted to propose, there’d be a lot more pizzazz. And possibly dead bodies.”

“Right, of course.”

“Would you have said yes if he’d been serious?” Barbara asked, curious.

“Things between the three of us have been going pretty well, but I don’t think I’m ready to jump into another marriage quite yet. And you?”

It was exactly what she’d expected from Adam. They’d changed since their deaths—six months later, their afterlives involved parenthood, isolation from friends and family, a lot more free time, and a polyamorous relationship. But it was nice when she could guess what he was thinking. Not everything had changed. “The same. Maybe in a few years or so.”

Before the ceremony, Charles and Lydia stayed in the living room, helping older relatives log on to Zoom and greeting people as they logged in. Charles was wearing a pale grey tuxedo with a metallic grey tie and pocket square. Lydia looked like an elegant classic Hollywood starlet with a goth twist: her black lace gown had a subtle skull pattern to it, barely visible unless the light hit it just right. Her onyx choker and bracelets looked like thorny vines going up her pale arms and encircling her neck. On her head was a raven fascinator with golden bead eyes, her one concession to the wedding colours.

The laptop screen filled up with squares of happy, smiling faces. Everyone had dressed up for the occasion, wearing suits and dresses.

“Betcha most of them are wearing sweat pants,” Beetlejuice said.

“Well, hopefully we’ll never find out,” Barbara replied. The three of them were sitting on the white chairs on either side of the aisle. Most people watching this meeting online probably assumed these chairs were only there for symmetry. As far as they knew, Lydia was the only other person physically at this wedding.

Despite her earlier claim, Lydia was smiling and chatting with Charles’s parents and, to Barbara’s surprise, Emily’s mother. Coming to your son-in-law’s wedding six months after your daughter’s death must have been hard, but if there were any issues, Barbara didn’t see them, and she wasn’t about to eavesdrop on a family moment.

Emily was sick for years. I suppose her family had a lot of time to mourn her. She thought about her parents and her sister at her own funeral. What had that been like?

Lydia took video of Delia coming down the stairs to the bridal chorus, played on speakers set up throughout the room, then put the video camera on a tripod so she could participate in the ceremony.

“I want to thank everyone for joining us today,” the officiant said. “In lieu of wedding gifts, the bride and groom have asked that you donate to the Rural Connecticut Preservation Society. I’m pleased to share that we’ve raised $10,000, which will be donated after the wedding.”

If Charles had had any reservations about donating to a charity dedicated to stopping housing development in rural Connecticut, which directly impacted his career, he hadn’t brought it up during the wedding’s planning stages. Lydia had suggested the charity, after all.

Everyone applauded.

“We will now bless the rings,” the officiant said.

Lydia took out the rings, held them both tightly in her hands, and whispered her blessing into her clenched fists. She smiled mischievously at Charles.

“I suppose if they burst into flame, we’ll know Mom disapproves.”

There were a few awkward chuckles from the assembled, none louder than Delia’s. “That’s my darling, unique stepdaughter for you! Oh, Lydia, you’re so funny!”

In a mocking, little-girl voice, Lydia replied, “I appreciate the compliment, my dearest stepmother.”

Barbara and Adam made sure that they were holding Beetlejuice’s hands so he couldn’t raise them.

The demon scoffed. “You know, I don’t need my hands to do ghost magic? I could just set the rings on fire with my mind.”

“Do not—”

“I wasn’t gonna! Jeez.”

With a theatrical flourish, Lydia showed off the rings to the laptop camera. Barbara half-expected them to be Netherworld green, but they were normal. “My blessing has been spoken. Please speak your blessings now.” Ideally, everyone would’ve been able to touch the rings and speak their blessings in private.

After a pause, Delia’s father spoke first, and others followed. The wedding program had provided a few sample blessings, but people were free to write their own. Delia’s mother began crying halfway through hers.

“Save something for the wedding speech, Amanda,” her father joked. He reminded Barbara of her own dad.

Barbara and Adam gave their own blessings. “Delia and Charles, we wish you health, happiness and love as you start your new life together,” they said, touching the rings, making sure not to brush Lydia’s hands.

Beetlejuice had declined to take part in “New Age bullshittery,” so he remained hovering over his seat.

The rest of the wedding was more traditional, probably to appease Charles’s parents. Barbara’s mind wandered. She and Adam had come so far, hadn’t they? She held Adam’s hand lightly, running her thumb up and down his palm—rather, she did until Beetlejuice forced his way between the two of them and sat on both of their laps.

“Poor baby, no one was paying attention to you,” she cooed into his ear.

“It’s the worst,” he agreed. She ran her fingers through his spikey green hair. Adam gave him some attention by resting his head on Beetlejuice’s shoulder. That seemed to do the trick—he sighed and relaxed.

Readings were read, vows were said, and rings were exchanged. Charles’s vows were simple and straightforward—too curt for Barbara’s tastes—but Delia’s were long enough for them both. Barbara fought the urge to check the time. She felt like Delia had been going for 10 minutes.

Delia actually appeared to be wrapping up when “I object!” sounded over the laptop’s speakers.

A square popped up on Zoom, revealing that the speaker was a tanned older man with more salt than pepper in his hair and bright white teeth. He had a faint accent that Barbara couldn’t place. She’d never seen him on any of Delia’s photos or social media.

Delia made a few choking noises in the back of her throat, the colour draining from her face.

Charles glared at the screen. “You,” he spat out.

Clutching Charles like a lifeline, Delia drew herself up as tall as she could. “Jeremy, log off immediately! I don’t know how you got my number or how you got this link, but get out, you narcissistic psychopath! You don’t get to be a part of my life, not after what you did!”

“Delia, my love, I know you still feel something for me—“

‘My love’? This can’t be the ex-husband, can it? Years ago, Delia’s ex had sailed away to Rome with the secretary he’d been cheating on her with.

“Hey,” Beetlejuice whispered, “I never possessed someone over the internet before. Maybe if we all work together, we can do it?”

Jeremy had opened his mouth to speak again. If ghostly powers could stop this disaster, they had to try. Barbara grabbed Beetlejuice’s and Adam’s hands and held them out to the laptop screen.

“—and I—” Jeremy continued. His gaze abruptly unfocused. Barbara tried to force words into his mouth.

“I’m so sorry!” he said, just as she’d scripted. “I’m going to log off and…and…and throw myself into a dumpster like the piece of trash I am.”

She hadn’t told him to say that. Barbara glanced at Beetlejuice, who grinned back at her.

“And then,” Jeremy continued, “I’m gonna take my toenail clippings, and my belly button lint, put them in a blender, take a shit in that blender, start the blender, and pour myself a shit-shake. It’s my regular Saturday morning routine, baby!”

Lydia rushed forward and tapped a few keys. His square vanished from the screen.

“I blocked him,” she said.

“Thank you, stepdaughter.” Delia sniffled, and Charles handed her a Kleenex from his suit pocket.

As Delia struggled to compose herself, Barbara whispered, “A poop-shake? Really, Beetlejuice?”

“It was Adam!” He couldn’t even keep a straight face, and chortled. “Okay, you caught me. Hey, I had to make sure he’d never be able to look these people in the eye again.”

Delia glared at the laptop screen. “Lydia, darling, explain to me how you set this event up again.”

“I set it as a private Zoom event. Everyone involved in the ceremony had to have a link and a password.”

“So,” Delia said, “who gave my ex-husband—who, I’d just like to remind everyone, is a cheating bastard—the link and the password?”

Slowly, one of Delia’s aunts raised her hand, her face bright pink behind her makeup.

“Millie!” Delia’s mom exclaimed.

“Mom!” shrieked one of Delia’s cousins.

Most people on the Zoom call started shouting at once. It took a few minutes to hear Aunt Millie’s explanation.

“I had no idea he was going to object,” she squeaked. “But he was such a big part of our lives for such a long time, and I thought he deserved to at least see the ceremony….”

“Aunt Millie,” Delia said, “you are no longer welcome!”

“Of—of course. I’m so sorry, Delia.” Aunt Millie took out her glasses and peered at the screen. “Er, which button do I…?”

Lydia took care of it, and banned her.

“And everyone thought I’d use my ghost powers for evil,” Beetlejuice boasted. “Look at me, doing good deeds! Being a goddamn hero!”

Barbara would’ve responded, but poor Delia sagged against Charles, tears running down her face. She tried to speak, but only managed a quiet sob.

“We’re going to take a break,” Lydia said quickly, turning back to the laptop. “See you in 10 minutes, everyone.” She muted them and closed the laptop.

Beetlejuice waved his hand to grab Delia’s attention, grinning broadly. “Thought I’d mention that if you know where he lives I could teleport to his location and, well, cause a little havoc.”

“Do we need to go over the house rules?” Barbara asked. ‘No Murdering’ was the first one.

“No murdering, this time! Just a little non-fatal revenge.”

Delia hesitated for a moment, then shook her head. “No, thank you.”

“Non-fatal?” Lydia asked Beetlejuice. “Are you sure? Our wedding did set a precedent for murder….”

Beetlejuice chuckled, and the two fistbumped.

After a moment, the demon frowned. “Wait, should I fistbump you for murdering me?”

“You already completed the ‘bump—you can’t take it back now,” Lydia said.

“Shit, you’re right.”

Delia stared at the living room, lips quivering. “Maybe…maybe this is a sign. The universe must not want me to get married again!”

Beetlejuice floated over. “Delia! Signs don’t exist. Trust me, I’d know! There is no heaven, no hell, no meaning to anything! The universe is cold, distant, and uncaring. It’s basically my mom,” he joked. “But the point is—it doesn’t care what you want, and nothing you say or do can affect it.

“Besides, girl!” Beetlejuice leaned in. “Chuck is rich as fuck. Lock him down!”

Charles glared at him before turning back to Delia. “I still want to get married to you, Delia.”

“Are you sure?” She blew into her Kleenex before continuing. “There are women who…who don’t have ex-husbands that ruin their weddings and—and make a scene in front of all their friends and family….”

“Delia,” Barbara said quietly, “you’re not the first person to date an asshole. I mean, look at me and Adam.”

Beetlejuice appreciated the burn, even if it was at his own expense—he cackled over Delia’s tepid chuckle.

“Don’t blame yourself for what just happened,” Barbara continued.

Delia whimpered into her Kleenex. Charles stroked her hair lightly.

“Delia,” he said, “I stood in front of our friends and family and told them how you were the brightest light in my darkest time. I meant every word of it. Nothing will change that. I love you.” He kissed her so deeply that Barbara looked away to give them some privacy.

When they were done, Lydia cleared her throat. “I’ll go get the digital camera so we can adjust the photos faster. That way you won’t have to worry about your makeup looking perfect.” She began to set her analog camera down.

Delia shook her head. “No—you said this was your artistic vision, and I won’t see it compromised.”

Lydia looked surprised. “Oh.” Her smile was small but sincere. “Thanks, Delia.”

Delia took this as an invitation to hug her stepdaughter. Lydia rolled her eyes, but patted her shoulder and didn’t pull away.

“Besides,” Delia added, “this camera was your mother’s gift to you, and I don’t want her coming back from the Netherworld to tell me off.”

Beetlejuice facepalmed. “That is not how the Netherworld works! That’s not how any of it works.”

“Well, it couldn’t hurt to make sure, could it?” Delia stepped back. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just fix my face.”

“I can help,” Barbara said, and Delia nodded.

Once they were upstairs, Delia collapsed in her makeup chair, sighing heavily.

“I actually thought it was going to go well,” she commented. “That I’d have one beautiful day even in the midst of the world’s ugliness. I was so stupid. Nothing ever goes right for me.”

Barbara reached out to pat Delia’s shoulder before stopping herself. When Delia looked confused, she explained, “Lydia said touching me or Adam is like touching an ice cube tray straight from the freezer.”

“I don’t mind.”

Hesitantly, Barbara touched Delia’s shoulder. It was the first time she’d touched a living person other than Lydia in months, and hugs from a 16-year-old girl she didn’t know that well were rare. The older woman shivered but didn’t pull away.

“Lydia’s not wrong,” Delia admitted. She put her hand over Barbara’s, squeezing slightly. “But a hand offered in friendship should never be refused. You know, it’s been almost four months since I last touched someone who wasn’t Charles.”

“Hopefully this coronavirus pandemic will end soon.”

“I’ve been saying healing prayers twice a day.”

Barbara wasn’t sure they’d be effective, but healing prayers were more than most of America’s leaders were doing. At least Delia was listening to the science and wearing a mask when she went outside. She’d grown so much in the short time Barbara had known her.

Barbara missed her friends from when she was alive. That was natural. But she couldn’t let her loss keep her from recognizing that she’d made a friend after death, too.

“Thanks, Delia,” Barbara said. “Not just for the healing prayers, but for everything. Having two ghostly housemates and a demon would be a lot for some people, but you’ve taken it in stride.”

Delia chuckled. “I once lived in a commune of 200 people. Living off the land, growing our own food…and digging our own toilets.” She wrinkled her nose, then chuckled. “You three are a walk in the park compared to that!”

“If there’s anything you need from me or Adam, please let us know. We don’t want to trouble you or Charles.”

Delia opened and closed her mouth. After a moment, she said, “Well….I suppose I do have a rather personal question….”

“Shoot.”

“Beetlejuice—is he actually good in the bedroom?”

Barbara giggled. “He is. He’s had millennia to think about what he’d do if he ever had sexual partners again. He’s very…inventive.”

“I’ll admit, I’m surprised. He doesn’t seem the type to be concerned with another’s pleasure.”

“Oh, there’s definitely times he forgets. But then we get to teach him. Ahem. Now,” she nodded to the mirror, “let’s get your makeup touched up.”

Barbara wouldn’t ever be hungry or thirsty again, but the stuffed butternut squash was delicious. Delia and Charles had deferred to Barbara and Adam’s local expertise when they planned the menu at their wedding dinner. Adam knew most of the farms the vegetables had come from.

The Deetzes had said goodbye to all their guests, and the family was eating their wedding dinner in the dining room.

Delia had been going to give out the crystals on either side of the laptop as wedding favours—the stones were mostly rose quartz, moonstone and a pale white stone called selenite. But after Jeremy’s arrival, she said she needed to cleanse the crystals. “I’m going to give them a few lunar cycles, just to be safe.”

Barbara nodded, pretending she understood what that meant. “Adam, Beetlejuice and I are dead. We’ve got nothing but time!”

“I just want to thank everyone again for your hard work,” Delia said, smiling at them. “Lydia, for your photographic eye and leading the blessing. Barbara, for the hair, makeup, decorating and emotional support. Adam, for sending out all the emails and doing the tech support. All the ghosts, for intervening when a certain someone decided to crash the party.”

“It was mostly me,” Beetlejuice said. Barbara rolled her eyes at Adam, who chuckled.

“He is the ghost with the most,” Adam said, making Beetlejuice grin.

“My mistake—thank you, Beetlejuice. Thank you all for being part of one of the most important days of our lives. Thank you for being our family.”

Barbara sniffled a bit as she and Adam applauded the speech.

“I got the happy couple some extra gifts,” Beetlejuice said. “For the wedding night.”

“I’m going into another room,” Lydia announced abruptly, setting her plate down. “Another house. Another life.”

As she left, Beetlejuice grinned. “We’re rated PG-13, guys! It’s just rose petals on the bed and some boozy chocolates. Figured you two have your own toys—”

Lydia started singing loudly as she covered her ears, taking the stairs three at a time to get away.

Barbara tried to figure out what he had in mind. “These rose petals won’t become spiders, will they?”

“They’re totally normally and boring, if you must know. I ordered them off Amazon.”

“How?” Adam asked. “You have no money.”

“I typed in Chuck’s credit card, duh.”

“What?” Charles snapped.

Barbara and Adam sighed. Beetlejuice’s morality was a never-ending project that was not without its consequences.

Not for the first time, Barbara reflected that it was a good thing the Maitlands loved working on projects together.

After the wedding dinner, as Barbara, Adam and Beetlejuice were cleaning up, Lydia came downstairs. She was carrying another photo album and wearing a glum expression. She’d changed out of her party dress, and was wearing a comfy hoodie and sweat pants—all black, of course.

“Got a sec?” she asked quietly.

“Of course, sweetheart,” Barbara said.

Lydia showed them a photo—a younger Emily Deetz on a younger Charles’s lap, grinning at the camera in a fancy restaurant.

“My mom and dad’s wedding wasn’t like today’s. There wasn’t any structure. It was just a big party at one of the best restaurants in New York, followed by wandering the city with all their friends and family. They stopped in at dingy bars to listen to live music, they caught a comedy show, they walked through Times Square at two in the morning. They almost got mugged! Mom was hard core like that. Daddy attracts dramatic weddings, doesn’t he?” she joked.

Her smile dropped a second later. “And Daddy looks just as happy here as he did today. I was photographing him and Delia the whole time. I’d know.”

“So,” Beetlejuice said, “the big takeaway here is that Chuck is in love with the women he gets married to?”

Lydia chuckled sadly. “Something like that. I mean, one of them was a woman he met in college, while the other was his employee…. But who cares about things like abuses of power when it’s true love? Daddy and Delia keep trying to make me comfortable with their love story, but how can I be? If it were any other situation, I’d be blasting Daddy online as he stars in the latest MeToo scandal, right?”

Barbara nodded. “You’re right. It’s pretty rare for a story like Delia and Charles’s to end this way. You sound like you’re carrying a lot, Lydia. Do you want to sit and—”

“No, thanks. I just wanted to whine for a bit. Delia’s family seem nice, at least. Except for Aunt Millie, obviously.” She closed the photo album in a short, frustrated gesture. “Well, goodnight, guys.”

“Do you mind if we check in with you tomorrow?” Barbara said. “See how you’re feeling?” Sixteen was such a tough age—particularly when your father was remarrying.

“If you want.” She shrugged, as if she really didn’t care, but her small smile made Barbara hopeful that she’d made the right decision. The only thing more difficult than being a teenager was parenting a teenager she’d just met a few months ago.

Beetlejuice was frowning as Lydia left. “Guys, we gotta help Lyds!” He was nothing if not loyal. “We should break Chuck and Delia up, right?” He leaned in to Adam. “I got the perfect way to do it. You know how Delia thinks Emily can come back from the Netherworld?” Beetlejuice became Emily Deetz for a moment, still with a few mossy patches and green hair. “Well, what if she can? And then we tell Delia to GTFO!”

That he was asking them instead of just doing it was a pretty good sign.

“Well, Bug,” Adam said, “think about it—if Lydia didn’t want this wedding to happen, she could’ve objected herself. Or asked her father not to get married to Delia.”

Beetlejuice became his usual self again, looking disappointed. “Oh. Right. Didn’t think of that.”

“She’s an intelligent, sensitive young woman with complicated feelings about a complicated issue,” Barbara said. “I think the best way to help her is to listen to her without judgement.”

“Why is the right way always the most boring way?” Beetlejuice said, sighing.

Barbara knew how to get him happy again. “Now,” she said, running her hand along his shoulder, “why don’t we finish up and go upstairs? After all this work for everyone else, we deserve some…ah, quality time together.”

Beetlejuice fistpumped and chortled. “Yes! Unfortunately, because of this fic’s rating, we gotta cut it off here. I just wanna let everyone know, it’s gonna be freakin’ awesome—'cuz I’m awesome, baby.”

Barbara had no idea what he was talking about, as usual. Adam kissed her cheek, and they went back to the dishes.

#beetlelandsweek2020 #Beetlejuice #beetlejuice musical #adam maitland #barbara maitland #beetlejuice x adam x barbara

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nxrthmizu · 4 years

Text

-Lordbug, Robin and Kitty Noir- Chapter Thirteen: In Which The Fun(d) Begins!

---

/Part One//Part Twelve/

---

A week after the initial MDC debut was the weeks in which a few things would take place. A few small tests that later contributed to the overall marks of their exams would be given, and there was going to be the school’s first fundraiser of the year.

Each class or club would need to create a booth of some sort, selling whatever they wanted- And the money earned would contribute to whatever sort of trip they could afford from their earnings.

Now, it was a common thing for Marinette to get extra commissions from the other classes during this time. Theatre club needed someone to do costumes, some other classes that were selling goods needed some posters, and the student council would sometimes ask for Marinette to help organise the event due to her great organisation skill. Numerous people needed things from her- And the great thing was, unlike her class, these people understood that her effort couldn’t just be brushed off as a mere ‘favour’.

Due to this, Marinette felt really, really excited for the first fundraiser of that year. She was free! She no longer had to work her ass off for the fundraising of her class- Since they had personally told her so. This was how it went:

“What are we going to do this year?” Rose asked curiously, her eyes beaming with excitement at the thought of the fundraiser- And more importantly, the trip it would later contribute to.

“A bake sale, obviously.” Alya announced as a matter-of-factly. “That’s what we always do for the first fundraiser.” The girl turned to Lila with a bright grin. “You’ll see, Lila, this’ll be very fun! And by the end of the year, we can always go to great places- Last year we went to New York!”

Lila’s eyes glimmered greedily as she listened to Alya’s wild recounts of the places they went before. Then she caught the eye of a particular bluenette who was sitting at the end of the class. Her heart darkened at the thought of the trio going to a trip with them- She wasn’t going to let them off that easily.

“You know, Alya, I’m really excited for the first fundraiser.” Lila begin, pouting. “But I’m afraid the three of them really don’t like me and because of that they might not help during the bake sale, and they might mess everything up!” She whimpered sympathetically. “I really don’t want the whole class to lose their trip just because some people are uncooperative with me.”

The class murmured in agreement, some of the students going to comfort Lila and some other students sending sharp glares at the three at the back of the classroom. Damian and Chloe both shrugged the glares off, being used to being disliked, while Marinette just pursed her lips and continued sketching in her sketchbook. The glares were plain out ignored.

“You don’t have to help out for the fundraisers this year.” Alya spat out acidly. “But you won’t be coming for the yearly trip either.”

Damian shared a look with Chloe as Marinette continued to ignore the class and sketch. “Sure.” He shrugged. “I don’t mind.” He really didn’t- Marinette had informed him that if the class kicked them out of the fundraiser, she had already secured a place for the three of them in the art-drama club alliance. They would be fundraising with another group of their own, and they would go on a separate trip.

“Where should we go this year?” Rose asked dreamily, thinking of the magnificent trips they had in past years.

Alya opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again as she searched for a cool place to go in her mind. “Um...” She fumbled with her words. “What about...” She looked around desperately, looking for any sort of idea.

“You know, that looks like it was inspired by Gotham’s gargoyles.” Damian murmured at the back of the room, pointing at one of the sketches on the page. Marinette giggled.

“That’s right! I based it off some pictures I found on the internet.” She told him, Chloe humming as she peered at the page.

Alya snapped her fingers, grinning triumphantly like it was her own idea. “Let’s go to Gotham this year!”

The class cheered in excitement, and of course Lila didn’t let the opportunity escape.

“That’s great! We could go meet my childhood friend, Damian Wayne!” Lila smiled happily. “He used to like me, you know?”

The class fawned the liar once again as the three at the back sighed and ignored the commotion. “Seriously, do any of them have brains?” Chloe scoffed, narrowing her eyes at the idiots that were their classmates. Damian Wayne was actually in their class- And the blonde had just met Bruce Wayne a week ago.

Damian leaned back into his chair, snorting and feeling glad that he had been kicked out of the class fundraiser. “Obviously not.”

A knock on the door interrupted the fawning session. Annoyance lined Lila’s eyes for whoever disrupted her moment. A brown-haired girl peered in, eyes brightening when she spotted the bluenette at the back. “Sorry, could I see Marinette please?”

The bluenette looked up, smiling at the sight of her fellow student. “Tara!” She skipped down the steps of the classroom, avoiding her classmates gracefully, landing at the front of the door, where Tara was patiently waiting. The brown-haired girl gestured for Marinette to lean closer and whispered something in her ear- Something that made Marinette’s eyes light up. “Damian! Chloe!” She called her friends, her giddiness making fury boil in Lila’s heart. The two friends of the bluenette sighed tiredly at each other before joining their excited sunshine friend at the front of the room, both passing by their classmates with a cool aura.

Tara eyed the two suspiciously. “You sure you trust them, Mari?” She whispered in the bluenette’s ear, making Damian growl defensively.

Marinette nodded surely, grinning at her friends. “Positive.”

And so the four students left the classroom, leaving the classmates in rumbling confusion and Lila in boiling anger.

---

“So, what’s this all about?” Chloe raised an eyebrow, demanding an explanation from the bluenette. Damian hummed, already having guessed that it was about the art-drama club alliance.

“Well, I sort of guessed that Lila would kick us out of the fundraiser, so I talked to the presidents of the art and drama clubs, and we decided to start out own fundraiser!” Marinette grinned. “We’ll get to go on our own trip during summer break, too.”

“And with Mari planning, we’re going to have the best trip ever!” Tara exclaimed, grinning from ear-to-ear. “It’s going to be awesome!”

The bluenette smiled. “Chloe’s a pretty good planner, too! She was class president before I was.”

Tara made a face. “And now that Alya is class president, I hear? Well, I couldn’t care less- But the greatest thing is you finally left that class! Gosh, Mari, they were just taking advantage of you. This year’s trip is going to be so! Awesome!” The brown-haired girl jumped in excitement, pushing the door open to the art room, where a few other students had already gathered. “Alright, guys! I told you all that we’d have some good news to tell today- Marinette’s joining us!” Tara looked at the blonde and the green-eyed boy behind Marinette. “And her friends, too.”

The students in the room cheered and clapped, delighted that the school’s best artist and planner had decided to join their little gang.

“Introduce yourselves.” Marinette told her friends with a grin. “Come on!”

Chloe rolled her eyes. “Chloe Bourgeois.”

Damian sighed exasperatedly. “Damian Wa-Fu.”

Tara furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. “Damian Wafu?”

“Damian Fu.” He cleared his throat, ignoring the sniffled laughs of the two girls behind him.

“RIght...” Tara nodded. “Anyway, I’m Tara, president of the art club, and here we have members of the drama club. Thanks to Marinette, we’ve called an alliance, and we’ll go on a trip together during summer holidays with our shared earnings.”

“I’m Madeline, president of the drama club.” A blonde girl introduced, hopping down from one of the cardboard boxes that were piling at the back of the room. “Alright, since everyone’s here, we’re confirming that no one else will be joining or leaving this group until the fundraiser’s all over.”

Tara nodded, looking at her art club members- The students all nodded and gave thumbs up.

“Okay, so here’s the plan.” Marinette stepped forward, taking a deep breath. “We’re going to run the usual fundraising events- Bake sales, car wash, maybe a fun fair or two, and maybe, just maybe we might have a little fashion show, since your presidents both asked for it.” The bluenette grinned at the drama and art club presidents, both of which smiled sheepishly.

“But while we run the usual funding events, we’ll also be preparing for the grand finale.” Tara paused for dramatic effect before announcing loudly: “A play!”

Madeline nodded. “We’re still getting the script together,” She gestured at the two script writers belonging to the drama club. “And once that’s done, the art club will start putting together sets, backgrounds, costumes, props and all that sort. We’ll also have people from the art club running lighting and backstage stuff while the drama club performs onstage.”

Damian hummed. “Sounds interesting.”

Tara nodded her thanks at his interest, smiling at the fact the cold-looking boy had offered his opinion. “Does everyone understand?”

The art and drama club chorused their ‘yeses’, excitement filling the air with the thought of the play at the end of the year. “That’s great! I’m going to need everyone to come up here and put their phone numbers on this paper, we’re going to create a group chat.” Marinette announced, borrowing a piece of paper and pen from a nearby art student.

The club members swarmed forward, scrambling around to write their names and phone numbers. “Once you’re done, return to your classes. Tomorrow we’ll be meeting here again to discuss the audition dates for the drama club and the roles for the art club.” Madeline yelled over the noise. “Meeting dismissed!”

Chloe crossed her arms angrily at the bluenette. “You planned this, and you didn’t tell me?” The girl basically screeched at her bluenette friend, who held her hands up in surrender sheepishly.

“Sorry.” Marinette apologised. “It was kind of a we-planned-it-last-night thing.”

“Then why does he know?” Chloe pointed an accusing finger at Damian, who shrugged.

“I called her last night.” He said nonchalantly.

---

After Chloe had calmed down, she talked to the script writers of the drama club, requesting for a copy of the script, which they happily gave. She made (surprisingly) little criticism, but she requested for them to make a few changes here and there. Damian hung around near Marinette, who was patiently telling everyone to write their phone numbers and names. When all the art and drama club members had filed out, both Damian and Chloe scribbled their phone numbers of the paper, which was then kept by Marinette.

“Alright!” The bluenette smiled, patting the paper which was in her jeans pocket. “Shall we get back to class?”

---

/Part Fourteen/

---

:D I updated! My online classes are killing me, tho. :( Anyway, here’s a chapter! Till next time!

Tag list! @yin-390@mysteriouslyswimmingfan-blo-blog@constancetruggle@the-navistar-carol@never-neverland@rayray384 @mystery-5-5 @black-streak@bluerosette23@seraphichana @you-will-never-know-how-i-think@mikantsume@graduatedmelon@thebookwormfairy@crazylittlemunchkin@shizukiryuu@screamingtofillthevoid@serenacross200@zestyzealot@redscarlet95@roseinbloom02 @beautym3@resignedcatservant@sizzling-fairy-oil@tinybrie @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry@lunar-wolf-warrior@northernbluetongue@dannyelric301 @daminett4life@loysydark@sparkle9510@erick-rose99-stuff@nataladriana9@maya-custodios-dionach @myazael @sassakitty @clumsy-owl-4178 @emootaku-666 @moonlightstar64 @r0sebutch @maggiecc12 @gaeasun@miss-mysterys-blog@bluefyoto94 @sam-spectra @toodaloo-kangaroo @queenmj10

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elfandomdelpandicornioyeldorito · 3 years

Text

Chapter 4. Epiphany (Willow Series)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Valentina Rivera (OC)

Word count: 1478

Trigger Warning: angst. Language, emotional distress and problems, mentions of anxiety, insecurities and love advises.

Disclaimer: I don’t own any Marvel character, only the Original Characters are mine. English is not my mother tongue.

General Masterlist - Willow Series Masterlist- Abuelita Rivera Spanish Lesson- The Val Playlist

Gifts and pictures aren’t mine

Around three months, that was the amount of time that Valentina had spent outside her magical hut, her grace time was over, her vacations finally ended, she needed to get back on track with school, research and family calls.

Fortunately, Mr. Mkanthama stayed in Wakanda with them, being their research tutor and professor, but was also able to find a way to put them in one of the Wakandan Universities as the first exchange students, so they can keep studying.

Her research mates were mad when she came back to the apartment in the city, they claim that she was a bad friend for leaving in the name of her mental health, it turn out that they weren’t the good friends that she believed, all of them left as soon as they could, renting other places with their money as far away from her, and applying the ice law, Valentina was completely alone this time, but it wasn’t the first time someone did that to her.

"Sure you are fine? You stay the whole day since the start of the semester in this auditorium listening to me" Mr.Mkanthama walks up until reaching Val, in the last row, eating an instant soup and working on some assignment in her laptop.

"The rest of the people I came with are acting like children because I left like four months for the sake of health, and I don’t want to stay at the apartment with my thoughts, that shit is dangerous"

"Language"

"Sorry"

"What are you working on?" the man sits in the space next to her

"Happy you ask. Well, the last class we discussed about sentient weapons and your assignment is about when and how there exists a line between a sentient weapon and an intelligent weapon, right?" the man nods" Well, intelligent weapons needs from algorithms that at the same time learn the social abilities from the internet, what they mimic is not natural and doesn’t look natural but, we have sentient weapons like The Vision, and along all this time since its creation we all can see how much socially has involved and is capable to also be emphatic, and that’s the key, the ability to understand and respond to people's emotions, sentient weapons are capable of learn without being connected to the internet, they learn like a child, and that makes them almost humans. So, the discussion now is if we need laws or legal responsibilities for the sentient weapons. Why? Well, if they can learn and develop the same sense of ethics and values as a human, that means that they have hundred percent of right over their bodies and can choose if they want to be turned into weapons or not"

"So, you are trying to develop the same rights and responsibilities that people have in sentient weapons even if they are weapons?"

"Yes and no, if they are able to think by their own with no web trends or biased ideology they can chose the moment in which they want to stop being weapons"

"You are open a philosophical debate here"

"You know it's me when this kind of subject appears" they both laugh.

At the end, as always, Val felt confident about what she was writing, but once again alone with her inside voice, she wasn’t feeling that confident of her life decisions.

It was 2pm when Val arrived at her silent apartment, tired and with her head thinking in thousands of things and nothing at the same time. She climbs to her bed, with the cellphone in her hands and headphones on, when the call finally comes, she answers.

"Hola abuela" she greeted over the phone

"Suenas como mierda" Valentina chuckles" Espero que sea por algo bueno"

Valentina sighs.

"Kind of. I have a question for you"

"Tell me"

"How do I know that I fell in love?"

"Well, I have a checklist."She takes a pause" you feel comfortable with that person? Do you like to spend time with him? Do you like to share what you like with him? Do you think about him when you are not close to him?"

"All of them are yes"

"Then yes, you are in love, mija"

"What happens when I kiss that person in a stupid impulse?"

"¿Qué hiciste qué? ¿Como que besaste en un impulso? ¿qué piensas? ¿Cómo pasa eso?" the voice of her aunt Gloria suddenly appears, that moment she knew she was screwed.

" I was leaving town, the town i met him, but i never told him why i was leaving… and i felt so nervous of being that close to him that i kissed him with no warning… and then left…"

On the other side of the phone, Val was able to hear her aunts, her grandma, and even her brother Miguel, all of them arguing about how stupid she was in not telling him that she liked him, that she would love something with him.

If she had only told him the truth, she wouldn't feel so broken and devastated to leave him, and possibly not see him anymore …

She didn't know who took the phone and walked away from the crowd until that person spoke.

"Hey, I heard, how are you actually feeling? " Val heard the voice of Miguel.

"Honestly? Very high in anxiety, i shouldn't had to kiss him that way"

"How do you feel when you two are close?"

"Is nice, he listens… like for real, he notices the details of the stories. I feel peace close to him, but also I feel nervous because I don't want to screw it. I think of him 24/7…"

"That, that is love, so do yourself a favour, the next time you see him, you tell him what you feel for him"

Valentina suddenly feels guilt, Bucky was healing, what if she just made the process or the wound worse? What happens if he just was polite? What if he felt uncomfortable around her with the kiss?

"Migue… i don't know…"

"No, you know. Think of mom, she always said that tienes que agarrar el toro por los cuernos, yes? Then do that, tell him the moment you got the chance, and if he doesn't feels the same, the ones that lose is him"

Tears began to fall from her eyes, and suddenly she felt overwhelmed, anxious. She wanted to get back home, to travel back in time and speak with her mom about Bucky and what she felt, to put an end to all her questions.

Question. All in Buckys head since he was defreeze and since the departure of Valentina are questions.

His head was in a stormy cloud asking himself if he was the reason why Val left with no explanation or goodbye, if she somehow found his past and now left because was scared, or because she hated him for who he was and the things he did. Bucky still wasn’t able to understand one thing, and that was the kiss. She kissed him, they both kissed like flustered catholic teenagers one night before she left, did he surpass some line and didn’t know?

It was another day doing farm work, under the strong sun and the impossible heat, the man looked in the direction of the hut, which was now empty. He felt something in his heart when she didn't arrive at 4pm like before, he also felt disappointed when he turned around believing that he listened to her voice but she was nowhere to be found. That was his routine now. Wanting her company and finding nothing at the end, and that hurts deep in his chest. He felt something similar before Wakanda, when he was a HYDRA fugitive, wanting and craving for company, a silent cry for help but finding nothing more than his intrusive thoughts at the end of the day.

Time just pass, day or night, it felt the same for him, a tasteless routine: go to sleep, wake up in the middle of the night surrounded by his thoughts and nightmares, staying in bed watching his surroundings, stepping out of the bed early, farm work, eat, going to bed again. He even forgot how much time has passed since he was all alone by himself with no happiness or light in it.

He felt like a coward, unable to let his feelings show to the women that never accused him for his past, saying that he loved her was too early, but he indeed felt something, something that he didn’t feel since a lot of years ago and that was love.

The only different thing that day was the arrival of T’Challa and Okoye, the king placed a safety box on the bales of hay, in it, his new arm, he knew what that meant.

"Where 's the fight?" he finally asks.

Tag: @pinkpondofasgard @invisibleanonymousmonsters @dance-dreamer @americasmarauders @autumn-and-rain

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes x original female character #bucky barnes x oc #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x latina

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angelofthequeers · 4 years

Text

Not a Good Look: Chapter 7

@thequeenofpotatoeunicornss @lady-charinette @elmokingkong tagged as requested :)

Chapter 6 | AO3 link

Disclaimer: I don’t own ML.

Thanks to everyone who’s enjoyed this fic! It was just a little something I had to get out because of this whole quarantine crap…and then I misplaced my brain cell and picked my presentation topics with the same due week as my essays, so this was a welcome break from four assessments at once.

Because I got a few queries about Gabriel hearing the conversation after he was Venomed and realising that Adrien is Chat: considering that the driver in 'Queen Wasp' was delirious and didn't know what the heck was going on, I see Venom as freezing all the senses and basically making you black out. So no, he doesn't have a clue what happened after he was Venomed.

Also, you'll notice that I don't actually mention Emilie at all. That's because the investigation's still ongoing and they'd have to know to look behind the painting, let alone the combination to it, and they won't have that without Gabriel telling them or without some good tech if they did suspect it in the first place. Unlike in 'Hold Me', it's only been a few days since the takedown, not a few weeks, and Adrien doesn't have the knowledge about Emilie and the secret lair here that he did in 'Hold Me' when Gabriel physically showed him, so he can't go and tell any of the authorities. Just figured I'd throw that in before people start asking XD

“I can’t believe it!” Alya throws her hands up and almost steps onto the road in front of a speeding car, which honks furiously at her as it passes. “All that evidence against Lila and you’re not letting me air it?”

“Hawkmoth is fair game,” Marinette says. “And they’ll probably use the footage in court to prove that he was grooming an underage girl. But if you air that footage, you’re giving her a free ticket out. She’ll have solid proof that she was being manipulated by Mr Agreste. And honestly…Adrien’s right. Sure, we can expose her over the internet, but what then? It follows her everywhere she goes. She’s got no chance of ever growing past this evil, self-absorbed phase that she’s in because it’ll haunt her for the rest of her life.”

“That’s surprisingly mature for someone whose life was almost ruined by said phase,” Alya mutters.

“You think I’m happy about this?” Marinette says. “I want nothing more than to throw all her lies in her face and cackle like a witch about it. But I don’t want to sink to that kind of person. Being her for five minutes, even though it was an illusion…it made me pity her. She’ll do anything for her fifteen minutes of fame, even if she has to make deals with creepy old men who try to intimidate her, and she’ll squash anyone who gets in her way. And honestly? That’s just sad. I’m the one with true friends. I’m the one who’ll still be standing when the dust settles. Not her. I told her I had faith in my friends and look where we ended up.”

Alya reaches over and rests the back of her hand on Marinette’s forehead. “Are you sure we got the Butterfly and Peacock on Wednesday night?” she says. “You sure there’s not an akuma that’s making you say this stuff? Or that you’re not a sentimonster?”

“Oh, ha, ha,” Marinette says, rolling her eyes. “And besides, the police may or may not have told Ladybug that they were arresting Lila yesterday for colluding with a terrorist, since there’s enough doubt in the footage of me as her to at least claim that she had a clue that he was Hawkmoth. And even though she’ll most likely wriggle her way out of it because that proof’s not a hundred percent solid, at least she won’t be playing everyone like a puppet anymore. There’ll be just enough doubt that they’ll start to question her and then her lies will just…fall. And it’ll kill her more to have no attention than to even have bad attention.”

Alya blinks at her. “No, seriously, who are you and what have you done with Marinette? I know there’s no way you’d come up with that all by yourself.”

“Okay, fine!” Marinette crosses her arms. “Tikki talked me down from going ballistic last night, and Adrien, Kagami, and I had a good talk about what to do about her.”

“I knew it!” Alya says, jabbing Marinette in the chest. “That’s way more complex than your single brain cell can handle!”

“Excuse me?” Marinette splutters. “How dare you? I’m the saviour of Paris! You have my posters in your room!”

“And I’m also your best friend, so I’m allowed to ruthlessly roast you,” Alya says smugly. “Too bad, so sad.”

Sure enough, as Marinette had predicted, Lila’s at school today and is holding court in the classroom, strategically sobbing into her hands when Marinette and Alya enter the room.

“Oh, Marinette! Alya! I’m so glad you’re here!” Lila cries. “Marinette, I’m so sorry for everything I’ve done to you! I never wanted to hurt you but, well, Mr Agreste took advantage of my lying disorder and our natural rivalry and he – he –” She sniffles and blows her nose, and Marinette resists the incredibly strong urge to roll her eyes at the theatrics. “He manipulated me! He promised me modelling contracts and favours and that I could spend time with Adrien, since I had a crush on him, and – and oh my gosh, I feel so dirty!”

“It’s okay, Lila,” Rose says soothingly, patting her on the back. “He took advantage of you. It’s nothing to be ashamed of!”

“I always knew that Mr Agreste was a dirty old man,” Alix growls. “On top of being a shitty father and a supervillain!”

“I mean, we were all used by him as akumas,” Chloé scoffs, delicately touching up her mascara in her compact mirror. “You’re nothing special, Rossi. And Adrikins is staying at my hotel now, so which of us ended up winning, hmm?”

“Well, we might never be friends, but I forgive you for everything you’ve done,” Marinette says as everyone glares at Chloé. Kind of rich of Chloé to say that, considering what she’d done as Miracle Queen, but no one actually remembers that, so…oh well. “And I’m…sorry for the way I treated you. I should have believed you about your disabilities even if you didn’t have that lying disorder.”

As much as it pains her to do so, this apology is necessary. As Tikki and Adrien had pointed out, their classmates had in fact been in the right to believe Lila about her disabilities instead of forcing her to prove every little thing, and Marinette had wilted when Tikki had asked her to remember how she’s felt whenever anyone’s doubted her claim of being autistic because she “seems normal enough” and demanded that she provide evidence. But Marinette’s not apologising for or excusing Lila’s evil manipulations and every other lie of hers, especially the ones that got her expelled, and Tikki and Adrien had thankfully taken her side on that point.

“Oh, of course I forgive you!” Lila says dramatically. “And I agree! Even if we never end up being friends, I’d much rather be on friendly terms than unfriendly!”

“So, what happens now?” Sabrina says. “My father told me that you were arrested yesterday!”

Lila’s face falls. “Oh, yes, they had to arrest me for colluding with a terrorist, but it’s all a formality and I’m sure to be let off in the trial! Especially since their only evidence is some footage of me talking to Mr Agreste that’s clearly doctored, since I’ve got an airtight alibi, and Alya’s interview of me that she had to get as more evidence against him! Ladybug had to summon an illusion of me to trick Mr Agreste into confessing, of course, and I was so scared that he would take it out on me if our plan failed, but I’m fully prepared to give media statements, even if Ladybug can’t confirm or deny that we were working together for my safety…”

Marinette’s eye twitches as Lila spins some tale about the grand plan that she’d been part of to take down Gabriel Agreste. But, to her surprise, their classmates aren’t falling over themselves to ooh and ahh at her story. They’re not calling her out, of course, but they’re just…losing interest the longer she talks about herself. Huh. That’s never happened before.

“What’s going on?” Marinette turns to whisper to Ivan. “You don’t believe her?”

Ivan shrugs. “She’s got a lying disorder. She can’t help it. Not gonna be mean for something she can’t help but…yeah, I don’t believe Ladybug would use a civilian like that.”

“I pity her, honestly,” Nathaniel pipes up from behind Ivan. “But I’m also kind of wondering what else she’s lied about, especially if Mr Agreste made her. Even if she wasn’t doing it to screw us over…she was still lying to us.”

Marinette could sing to the heavens. Finally, someone’s using their brain! It might not be immediate, but Lila’s downfall is just around the corner, and honestly? Marinette had been telling the truth earlier; all she can feel right now is pity for when Lila’s eventually left alone, surrounded by nothing but her lies as her empire crumbles around her. And honestly, maybe fading into obscurity like that is a worse punishment for Lila than being targeted and called out, since that would still be giving her the attention that she craves. But this? This is nothing.

Although Marinette keeps an absent eye on the door for Adrien’s entrance, she’s not expecting to see him, since she already knows that he’s not coming to school today as well. Not that she can blame him, really, after the whole “Hawkmoth exposed” thing that Alya had posted on the Ladyblog that’s generated so much traffic that poor Alya can’t even check up on it since it keeps crashing (much to her gleeful annoyance). Marinette doesn’t think that anyone will accuse him of being in league with Hawkmoth but, well, it’s inevitable that there’ll be some dicks who pull the whole “like father, like son” crap, so it makes sense that he wouldn’t want to expose himself to that.

However, that doesn’t stop her from making a beeline for Le Grand Paris after school, where Adrien and his bodyguard are staying temporarily since the mansion’s now considered a crime scene. It’s so…weird. Hawkmoth and Mayura have been taken down and Adrien’s life has been utterly turned on its head and shaken some more, yet the sun still casts its weak rays down on Marinette’s back. The pigeons still coo and rustle their wings, with Mr Ramier no doubt nearby. The cars still zoom past, leaving acrid trails in their wake. The world just…keeps on keeping on, with no regard to the massive shock that’s turned people’s lives upside-down. All these people – these animals – they won’t know, they won’t care, what she and her friends have had to go through, being used like pawns in a chess game and giving up so much for the greater good, in ways that will stay with them forever –

“Marinette!” Warm hands grab her by the shoulders and a pair of brown eyes root her to the spot, grounding her so that she doesn’t float away from everything that’s currently assaulting her brain. She lets out a shuddering gasp and slumps forward, allowing the person to fully embrace her, and she buries her nose in the damp skin of their neck and inhales sweat and sharp deodorant, along with the faintest traces of what smells like some kind of incense.

“Kagami,” she croaks and digs her fingers into the back of Kagami’s blazer. “Why? What did Adrien do to deserve this? What did we do to deserve this? Lila – Mr Agreste – am I really that bad that they teamed up to break me –”

“What they did to you isn’t a punishment for anything,” Kagami says, firm but soft at the same time. “They colluded like that because they’re awful people.”

“But the way I treated you and – and stalked Adrien – I stole his phone, I followed him around, I tried to sabotage you with Chloé at the movie event because I was jealous – it’s been bothering me but I didn’t – it didn’t hit – not until now, when I realised how Mr Agreste and Lila treated him like – like a toy –”

“Marinette –”

“Why do you even like me? Why does Adrien like me? He said I’m good but I’m not. I’ve done bad things and it’s like – everyone acts like me being Ladybug makes me a saint but I’m not, I’m just a teenage girl and I can’t cope, I can’t do this –”

“Yes, you can.” Kagami undoes Marinette’s pigtails so that she can run her fingers through Marinette’s hair, stroking it in a rhythmic pattern that hypnotises Marinette into a blurry trance. “Hawkmoth and Mayura are dealt with. I’m here to talk to Adrien, just as you are, and we’ll figure it out, okay? We always will. And I can’t say that I haven’t acted jealously before either, because I definitely clung to Adrien to make a point to you and Chloé at the movie premiere, so you’re not a bad person just because you did a few bad things. And your flaws don’t mean that Adrien was lying when he said that you’re a brilliant girl. I wouldn’t have feelings for you if you were anything less than extraordinary. Why do you think I like Adrien?”

“God – I’m a mess –”

“It’s okay. I moved us to an alleyway, so no one will see. And now that there aren’t any more akumas, you deserve this, Marinette. It’s okay.”

Dimly, Marinette registers her legs caving underneath her as she sobs into Kagami’s shoulder and clutches fistfuls of the other girl’s blazer, finally exorcising everything she’s had to keep bottled up for fear of akumatisation, because Kagami’s right: now that there aren’t any akumas, there’s no threat for expressing her emotions, and it’s so good to be able to just break down like this, rather than having to suppress everything and paste on a smile for the greater good. She almost jumps out of her skin when someone leans against her back and wraps their arms around her from behind, but then she gets a whiff of their musky, earthy smell and she melts into their embrace because it’s Adrien; it’s her kitty, and he’ll always be there for her no matter what.

“Wow, you weren’t lying when you said she was a mess,” Adrien murmurs, his voice distorted as though they’re underwater. “What brought it on?”

“I don’t know what triggered it, but I believe the underlying cause is not being able to express any of this with Hawkmoth around. She just…exploded.”

The voices turn to a dull buzz after that as Marinette gasps in air and her tears finally start to die down. The next time she’s able to discern individual words, it’s Adrien talking to her as she finally stops crying and just slumps against Kagami with her eyes closed and her limbs like lead weights.

“It’s okay, Marinette,” he’s saying. “I forgive you for stealing my phone and following me and Lila home and everything else. And Kagami forgives you for trying to embarrass her.”

“But why?” Marinette croaks. “It’s not normal. I’m not normal. Why don’t you h-hate me? I’m a creep.”

“After what Hawkmoth and Lila did, you still think you’re a creep?” Adrien says. He gently pulls her back, detaching her from Kagami, and he pulls her into his lap and tangles his fingers in her hair, his warm breath ghosting across the top of her head. Through her blurry eyes, Marinette sees Kagami snuggling up to Adrien’s side and pulling Marinette’s legs into her lap while she rests her head on Adrien’s shoulder. “I said I forgive you, bugaboo, not that you didn’t do anything wrong. So, you know, that means that I know you messed up and I’m okay with it. It’s not like I’ve never made mistakes either.”

Somehow, it’s the admission that yeah, she’d screwed up, but he forgives her for it, that manages to calm Marinette down the rest of the way; if he’d tried to excuse her actions and brush them off as her never doing anything wrong, that probably would’ve just brought on a fresh emotional meltdown. She sags against Adrien and closes her eyes, allowing the last of her meltdown to seep out of her and into the world around them, and when Kagami shifts under her legs, she acts purely on instinct and wraps her legs around Kagami to pull her closer.

“Looks like Ladybug never skipped leg day,” Adrien says when Marinette pulls Kagami to lean back against her. Although Marinette can’t see him, she just knows that he’s wearing that shit-eating grin that Chat Noir always has, so she punishes him by elbowing him gently in the gut. “Meowch!”

“So, I’m guessing this means we’re…a thing?” Marinette says. Her voice cracks halfway through her sentence, like she’s a teenage boy in the middle of puberty, but thankfully, neither person around her calls her out on it.

“I’m happy with that if we take it slow and don’t jump straight into the deep end,” Adrien says. “It’s pretty lonely in the hotel, but hopefully Gorilla or Nino’s mother gets custody of me soon. I don’t know who they’re leaning towards. And after what just happened…well, if both of you want to give me kitty cuddles, I won’t say no. And, uh…I have to confess. One of the times I messed up as Aspik was because I…couldn’t stop staring at Multimouse’s butt. So, uh, I think that beats out any creepy things you’ve done.”

The shock of hearing Adrien confess to looking at her butt like he’s a little kitten confessing to being naughty jolts a laugh out of Marinette, and then she’s sagging against Adrien in a fit of piercing laughter as tears roll down her face. Alya had been right the other night. What the hell is wrong with them? How did they end up in a two-person love square that turned into a tangled polygon when Kagami had entered the room?

“Then it’s official.” Kagami laces her fingers with a hysterical Marinette’s and rests their hands on her stomach. “I have a tentative boyfriend and a girlfriend. But Adrien has a moral obligation to punch anyone who makes any disgusting remarks about him having “two girls”.”

“You act like I wasn’t gonna do that anyway,” Adrien grumbles. “I’ll also throw in an additional punch if they ask you two to make out with each other.”

“Our hero,” Marinette tries to say dryly, but the effect is ruined when she chokes it out in the middle of the hiccups of her dying laughter. “Whatever would we do without you?”

“Well, your life would be –”

“No, wait, don’t finish that sentence. I know you’ll make a pun out of it somehow and then I’ll be forced to punch you for it.”

“Aww,” Adrien whines, while Kagami snorts. “But that’s half my charm!”

“Getting punched? I agree,” Kagami says innocently. Adrien whines again and Marinette can’t help but laugh again and realise that, while navigating the territory of having two partners at the same time won’t be easy, the extra support is probably exactly what she needs right now. With her two partners and her two best friends by her side, there’s nothing the five of them can’t do; especially with no more supervillain terrorising Paris and no more attention-seeking teenage girl trying to ruin everyone else’s lives.

It really hadn’t been a good look for either of them after all.

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macattackp · 5 years

Text

Lies Chronically Ill/Injured People Tell Themselves:

1. I Am a Burden Who Only Takes From Others and Can Never Give Back

We all have things that we feel we SHOULD be able to provide. As a guy, it KILLS me that I can’t do things like shovel the driveway, help carry heavy items, or have a job that could make me a breadwinner for someone.

Don’t undersell what you do bring though! For one thing, chronically ill/injured people tend to be masters of empathy, not to mention we get pretty knowledgeable on the medical system. If you aren’t... don’t fret over it! If you can’t do something, then don’t! Focus on what you CAN do instead!

2. I Am Undeserving of Love Because Who Would Take on a Burden Like Me?

This one is another huge struggle for a lot of people. I know as a guy, I feel the added pressure of being worthless if I can’t provide financially for a girl. (No matter how progressive people may be, this progressiveness tends to vanish when their daughters’ well being are concerned), but I know just as many girls who say the same things.

“How can someone love me when I just am stuck in bed all day?” “Why would someone choose me if I could never have kids?” “Who would choose a spouse who may not be able to have sex?”

Look. I’ll be honest, I have no wise advice on this one as to find someone who is willing to support you on your struggles. Nor can I be dense and say “You’re just misreading people!” because let’s admit it... our lives are tough and there are many who would choose not to join us.... what I can say though... is I have had friends who had chronic illnesses. Some could never have sex. Some would require tons of medical expenses. Some were missing limbs or body parts. One was even pretty much guaranteed to die before she turned 30.... And they ended up getting married, and loved, and supported. I don’t know what the future holds for you, but I do know it IS possible! So don’t put yourself down or give up hope!

3. I Have to Work Harder to Keep Up With Everyone or Else I Will be a Failure!

This world has a main road, but that main road has a lot of cracks... and there are probably more people in this world who have fallen through the cracks, than walk on the main road. But we feel like everyone in this world is on the main road because once people fall through the cracks they tend to be overlooked even though there are so many of them.

It is not fair, nor is it doable to be expected to keep up with others when you are carrying a different burden. We have the Paralympics for a reason. Would you ask a man with one leg to race against the Olympic sprinters? Would you ask someone carrying a massive boulder to outrun someone without one?

And in all honesty, it is not always as cut and dry as “Accept you’ll get 4th or 5th place.” Our world tends to try to put us on rails. We make everything systematic and anything that doesn’t fit within our metrics is considered broken. We often judge people more by their process than their results! But the way laid out by others as the “Right way” isn’t always the only or even the best way!

Learn how YOUR body works! I was a horrible student in school until I finally gave up relying on teachers and just studied the way I enjoyed it. I figured at that point “As long as I pass, what else matters.” but had the added surprise when I jumped from a 60′s-70′s student at best to my lowest grade being a 94! It doesn’t always work out this well, but your body is yours. No one else can tell you how it works. Learn from what people have done in the past but look for the way YOU work best! When you look back you realize, none of the biggest world changers really ever lived their lives by the book anyways!

4. I Have To Get Better So I Can Have a Life!

To an extent, this makes sense. Without energy, or finances, and with a schedule stuffed to the gills with doctors appointments meaning you can never go far from home... it is hard to feel like there is really much you can do... but... at the same time....

YOU ARE ALIVE NOW!

You may not have the finances to do what you want. You may not have the social life that you enjoy. You may not have an overabundance of time or energy... But you are alive RIGHT now! You are allowed to live!

Write that book you always wanted! Learn a new language! Cook yourself a big meal! You may tell yourself “BUT I HAVE SO MUCH OTHER STUFF I SHOULD BE FOCUSING ON INSTEAD!”

Look! That stuff will be there whether you focus on it 24/7 or 12/5! Don’t let it get out of hand, but if you aren’t going to be able to solve it by worrying about it more then don’t! Spend your time doing things that will revitalize you, help you grow, and give you some interesting stories to tell once this is all over!

5. I Am Not Allowed to Be Happy or Have Fun Until I Am Better!

This one is a tough one as it ties into our impostor syndrome. That horrible feeling that we get every time we start to enjoy ourselves or smile in public of “Oh no! What if people assume I’ve been faking this whole time?!?!?!”

You are allowed to laugh. You are allowed to smile. You are allowed to have good things happen to you. Yeesh, there is no time in life that it is more important to have happy moments than through hardships!

Being happy or enjoying yourself from time to time through hardships isn’t a sign that your hardships were never that hard. It is a sign that you are fighting forward. That you aren’t letting this take over your life. And plus, as human beings we NEED hope and happiness... we die both mentally and physically without it

6. There is No Future After This

This is one that I personally struggle with... if we count the 6 years of trauma as a kid that originally gave me PTSD, and these last 7+ years of pushing as hard as I can only to fail harder and harder (including these last 2.5 years that have been giving me a whole new layer of trauma on top of my previous trauma) I’m reaching the point where more than half my life has been going through miserable, destructive times where I lose most things that matter to me and find myself alone at the start again in a dark place. It is hard... honestly... Anyone who follows my account and sees my tagless venting posts know that there are more than enough times I question why I even try anymore when I don’t even know what’s left of me...

But there was a movie I watched a while ago... another cheesy hallmark movie, but it was a good one as far as hallmark movies go. I remember they had this one line in it that really stuck with me.

“I’ve lost everything 3-4 times now! It’s the perfect place to start!”

Now I’m not as optimistic as that ambitious old man from the movie was... but I do know this.... You never know what life can hold. The same way you can lose everything that matters to you in a year, I’ve seen people gain more than they ever thought possible in a week. Not to say we are all about to win the lottery or by some miracle wake up completely healed of all afflictions... but I do believe that if it was possible to have things go this bad, it is also possible for things to go much better.

And let’s admit it. You might be thinking “Oh! But I’m not strong enough to make it happen!” and you’d be right... you aren’t. But honestly who is? We live in a world where tons of people succeed or fail... and very few I can say “earned it.”

Life IS unfair, but if it wasn’t, we’d all be dead! What we really get upset about is that it seems to be more unfair in some peoples’ favour than our own. But life is tough. The fact that any of us live is a miracle in itself. Don’t limit what the future holds for you based on what you feel you’re able to do. You aren’t a static person, and this world doesn’t rise or fall on your shoulders either! (even though it feels like that most mornings). Give it your best with what you’ve got every day, and realize even if each day feels like a year, this is still only a season of life. Personally I want to fight and survive long enough to see a day where this all seems like it was worth it!

7. I Will Never Be Self Sufficient!

The lie in this one isn’t that you will be self sufficient! The lie is that people assume ANYONE is self sufficient!

Look. Do you see people growing their own food? Even if they do, do they grow their own fertilizer? Even if they do, did they build their house from scratch, their car, their fridge, do all their electrical work, never once look up anything on the internet?!?!?! No!

We are NOT a self sufficient species. From the minute we are born we NEED people just to stay alive let alone to succeed! So you have to rely on people in a way you don’t see others needing to rely on people! Does an electrician complain that he needs to call someone to fix the backed up pipes when the plumber doesn’t??? No! That would be stupid! And to try and fix it on his own would be stupider!

You are ALLOWED to rely on others. You are ALLOWED to ask for help. This doesn’t make you any less of a person! This makes you human!

8. I’m Not Worth It . . .

This is something I struggled with even before I realized just how much was stacked against me from the start... I remember one time, someone very precious to me sat down in front of me and for 15 minutes she said nothing else but “YOU ARE WORTHY!” She repeated it over and over again in different ways, not letting me talk and refusing to say anything else until I finally just accepted that I maybe was. Times change, and she may not be around to say that anymore, but those words still stick with me, and that moment still pops in my head every time I am feeling really down on myself like a planted warrior to fight against my internal self doubt...

There are many things in our lives that make us feel worthless.... “I messed up and hurt them.” “I have a lot of health concerns.” “I am not attractive.” “I have a perverted mind.” “I don’t fit with what society says I should be.” “My parents/people who I care about said I wasn’t good enough.” The list goes on... but YOU ARE WORTHY!

“But I don’t deserve to be happy!” YOU DO!

“But I don’t deserve anyone to put up with me.” YOU DO!

“But I don’t deserve a happy life” YOU DO!

“But I don’t deserve a second chance.” YOU DO!

Whatever you’re worried about

Whatever is bugging you

Whatever lies are bouncing around in your head right now saying you should just disappear and stop being a bother to others

YOU

ARE

WORTHY!

Don’t let anyone or anything tell you otherwise, LEAST of all yourself!

I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you’re going through. I don’t know what you’ve done or haven’t done.... but I can tell you this right now. You are a one of a kind beautiful life. You are allowed to exist in this world, you are allowed to flourish, you are allowed to enjoy your time with it and interact with others. What’s more, you aren’t just put up with, you are NEEDED! Because there is only one of you out there, and this world needs you. Treat yourself well, and let yourself know just how valuable you are. You are you, and that is beautiful!

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minsugapie · 5 years

Text

Mary’s Song: part 1a (1426) - Is this Jungkook?

• • • • • •

Jeon Jungkook wasn’t just your anime-loving, manga-drawing, hair-pulling, ex-neighbour. You hadn’t even spoken to him since he had moved away. But the world worked in funny ways because...

He was probably the reason you were still alive.

• • • • • •

“And our daddies used to joke about the two of us

Growing up and fallin' in love

And our mamas smiled, and rolled their eyes

And said, "Oh, my, my, my”

• • • • • •

previous // current // next

masterlist

• • • • • •

Tags : @minhyuksfatgf @igotarmyofarohas @dixonsbugaboo @thealexalcala @salty-for-suga @worshiphoseok @okaysoplshelpme @jeonlovers

• • • • • •

HEY this isn’t the greatest but it gives us the basic background of y/n so yeah please enjoy 🥺

• • • • • •

Your boyfriend had finally gone to work.

You quickly went to the hall closet where you’d set a small duffle bag behind the Christmas decorations. Daily, you’d put an item of clothing and some sort of supply needed, so he wouldn’t notice. Today was the day when you’d leave with only a three full outfits, a brush and your toothbrush. On a piece of paper, you wrote down the numbers of all the important contacts on your phone, also writing down the number of an old friend which your mother made you write down in case you needed something.

This wasn’t the first time that you’d wanted to run away from him, but it was the first time you’d had the courage to actually go through with it. It was actually the 5th. The first and second times were similar situations —he’d gotten physically aggressive with you. The third time was was when he’d started tracking you and monitoring your phone. The fourth time had been after he admitted to seeing other women after work because you weren’t enough to keep him satisfied. And the fifth time, which happened a week ago, was after he’d forced you to have sex with him when you’d clearly not wanted to. It was the final straw for you. You’d been saving up some cash ever since the first time you’d thought of leaving him.

You couldn’t tell your mom what was going on, at least not right now. She loved Nic, and you didn’t want her to leave her business and help you out. Nic had proved himself to be a dangerous man, and she couldn’t do anything in case he hurt them to get to her. You were sure that he was going to go after you. So after leaving your phone connected to it’s charger beside the bed, you locked the door, slipping the key into your money pouch in case you ever needed to come home.

You tried to avoid all the neighbours as you walk out of your apartment building, not wanting him to see any interaction on the security cameras. When the only thing that you met was the cat, you walked to a specifically selected hair salon that you knew were cash only and didn’t have public security candles nearby. You asked for them to as quickly and efficiently change your hair.

Once your hair was shorter and the complete opposite colour, you made your way to the train station and hopped on the first train to the city in which you knew the old friend whose number you had lived.

You wore a cap and a mask, covering your face as much as possible from any cameras at the train station. Paranoia took over as you started regretting what you were doing. Nic was a cop. He had to have ways to find you, and you wanted to lessen the chance of being followed by him.

You found a payphone a few blocks from the train station, wanting to call someone as soon as possible, slightly debating whether you actually wanted to. Did you want to bring him into this? He could end up getting hurt if he helped you…that is if he was willing to help you out.

You’d known him a lifetime ago; you’d taken baths together; you’d been each other’s first kisses. With that kind of history, it wasn’t foolish for you to think that he would at least let you crash at his place.

Besides, Nic knew nothing about him because Jungkook graduated before you started dating —and you never told Nic about him. Taking out the paper with the number written, you put a quarter in the payphone and hesitantly dialled the number.

It took a few rings and your almost hanging up before it was picked up. “Hello?”

“Is this Jungkook?”

“Uh, yeah, who’s asking?” His voice was deeper than it had been the last time you’d heard it. Of course, your mom and his still spoke daily and you got word about him, but that was it.

A wave of regret went through you, and you changed your mind, “You know what, Bun, just forget it. This was a bad idea…” You hadn’t meant for the old nickname to slip but it you couldn’t help it. You used to call him Bunny Boy when teasing him and then it gradually shortened to Bun. You hadn’t used it in years, since he’d moved away, so you were surprised that it came out so easily.

“Y/N?”

“Uh yeah,” you answered, putting a hand over your eyes because you knew you couldn’t hang up now.

“It’s been so long! How are you?” He sounded excited to talk to you again. However, there was an underlying scepticism behind his voice.

You cleared your throat, getting ready to answer his question in a whisper. “Listen, can I ask for a favour? I’ll tell you why later but can I crash on your couch for a few days?”

“Where are you? I’ll come pick you up,” he immediately replied. Jungkook was always such a kind person and did whatever he could to help the people that he loved. Even after all this time, he hadn’t changed.

• • • • • •

You were surprised when he pulled up beside the payphone in a nice car. When Jungkook had left, he hadn’t had the most secure plans, but it seemed like he’d made a decent living for himself so far.

You got into the passenger seat after taking a look at your surroundings, making sure nobody was looking at you or following you. You barely had your seatbelt on, and he was already speeding up. You took a good look at him —he’d only gotten better looking with time. Equally cute and hot, you didn’t have to wonder how you’d once held a heart-wrenching crush on him.

“So are you going to tell me what this favour is all about? I thought you were living with your boyfriend…” Jungkook asked, only taking his eyes off the road for a second to look at you.

Taking a deep breath, you vaguely explained, “I’m in a toxic and unhealthy relationship so I ran away.” You couldn’t tell him the whole story. After all, you hadn’t seen him since before you even started dating your boyfriend.

“Well, in the case, you’re absolutely able to stay until you figure this out,” he finally replied as he pulled into the parking garage for his apartment. When you were awkwardly standing beside each other in the elevator, he added, “I should let you know that I have two roommates and we all have a large internet following so they make videos in the apartment sometimes.”

“I don’t know really anything about the internet anymore, but as long as I stay out of it, then it should be fine,” you whispered, shying away from the hallway security cameras as you waited for him to unlock the door.

After Jungkook opened the door for you, you waited to see the roommates, but it was quiet. The thing you immediately saw was the bright red couch that you b-lined for since you knew it was going to be your bed. You put down the small bag down beside the couch and sat.

Jungkook sat beside you, and it was awkward. The apartment was silent while you sat with perfect posture, looking at your hands in your lap. “So do you still draw?”

Jungkook cracked a smile at your question. “A little, I guess. I do some graphic design from time to time and I’m creating a webtoon that’s pretty popular.”

“Oh, geez! So the answer is a yes then?”

Jungkook looked away and stood. “Uh, yeah, so I should go work on it…”

You got the feeling that he didn’t want to be around you at the moment, but honestly, it didn’t affect you that much. That last time you’d spoken to each other had been a mess, and you were constantly at odds since you’d both gotten into high school.

At this point, you were honestly just grateful for his generosity. After he closed himself into his room, you took a deep breath and took in your surroundings. It seemed cozy enough, a point that was proven when it only took you 5 minutes to fall into a deeper and more comfortable sleep in a long time.

You didn’t have to worry; you didn’t have to be scared.

Jungkook, who you’d once considered your knight in shining armour, was only meters away.

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