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shuinami · 1 year ago

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I appreciate OP for making the first bit of advice in this post to point to Patois as a Londoner and a fellow tired person.

To add: Hobie uses a mix of MLE and Cockney, the MLE (Multi-cultural London English) is a slight anachronism (it would’ve just becoming a thing when Hobie was a teenager) but it’s the truth, he does not use Patois in the way someone from Jamaica/Windrush Gen would use it because the inclusion of MLE slang is a Daniel Kaluuya touch and Kaluuya is a Ugandan descended millennial, not a Windrush gen Jamaican.

MLE is just how black British Londoners tend to speak. It sounds like Patois because MLE comes from Patois but it’s not, hence why it’s associated with all black British people, including the African diaspora, and not just Jamaicans.

I’ve said it in a post before but the mix of the accents is really deliberate. I can’t personally give good advice as to how much someone should implement the MLE because I’m an MLE speaker so I tend to just write as I, my friends and family would speak 😅 But the cockney, in my opinion, tends to be more jarring since it’s becoming kind of dated which, on one hand, is perfect for a character from the 70s but, on the other, it means that people in general nowadays, including Hobie in the film, don’t really use it as much as they probably used to, so reference is harder to come by.

(more info about London slang/accents under the cut here too lol)

I’m speaking as a black person, maybe cockney slang is more popular amongst white people but I can’t say I’ve ever heard people use it so much to the point that I needed to look it up. There’s some more popular everyday sayings that we still use now like “telling porkies” and I’ve definitely heard “I ain’t got a scooby doo” a few times, although apparently cockney speakers tend to just say scooby.

Cockney comes from East London, Camden is in North West and quite near central. Idk where Hobie grew up exactly but if he’s not from East London (i.e. he’s not actually “a” Cockney), he probably doesn’t use that much of the slang phrases, despite the accent, which rings true for a lot of Londoners. Posh/rich/snobby people use Received Pronunciation (RP), most Londoners use Estuary English which is a varying mix of RP and Cockney. Cockney is spoken mostly by working class people and MLE is mostly spoken by people of colour. If you watch videos from the 70s, however, you probably aren’t going to hear any Jamaican Londoners who use MLE because the Jamaican Diaspora had basically just touched down, so most either had a Jamaican accent, spoke Estuary English or spoke Cockney.

Hobie’s accent is not a typical one. It’s not unrealistic though, as some people do have unique accents, that’s just life.

Anyways, for that reason, it’s going to be hard to get Hobie’s accent, especially the cockney aspect, to feel totally natural so, for me, as much as I might feel a way, I appreciate anyone who’s trying their best to keep it authentic 🤎

Also, re: what the OP said about Northern accents and slang, that’s probably the most jarring in comparison to anything I just mentioned because a lot of Londoners (and I’m assuming other southerners) don’t understand or are surprised by Northern slang.

Annnd also, “(my) love”, “darling” and “babe” are often used in an platonic way in the U.K., most commonly between people of different genders & women to women, cishet men to cishet men not really cause of toxic masculinity and yada yada, but yeah. Of course they’re often used as romantic terms of endearment, they’re quite weak. “Gorgeous” I think is the most British and sincere term of endearment for a significant other (although again, often used platonically women to women). Also, most people don’t use "baby" as a term of endearment because it sounds kind of silly/awkward (to us) in our accent.

okay okay bit random but as a british person (yes im admitting to this) who lives around people who speak like hobie brown

PLEASE STOP WRITING HOBIE'S ACCENT LIKE HE'S HARRY STYLES 😭😭😭😭

(pls read below the cut)

you do not need to add an apostrophe every 2 sounds and make his speech unreadable we know he has an accent....

use it in moderation . a few sounds omitted are fine but please. you do not need to be doing 4D chess trying to portray every little quirk of his speech

a lot of the times if you over-do the accent it doesn't even sound right when you read it out? (to me it reads like an american or northern accent usually)

trust me we know how he sounds

OKAY OKAY bit of cultural trivia if you want to use slang you're probably gonna be looking at jamaican patois slang

not every piece of jamaican patois slang is commonly used and use varies depending on area but it's predominantly found in london (esp south london) and areas like camden (where hobie is from)

but even then hobie doesn't use a lot of it in ATSV the only thing i can remember him saying is "mandem" and he tends to use other phrases like "man" and "my guy" to refer to others he's close with

generally i don't see it very necessary to use a lot of patois slang because hobie also seems to dial down his accent when speaking to people who aren't from his universe (my reasoning anyway)

his accent is actually very subtle compared to what i've seen irl

hobie is very witty and tends to speaks fast with a lot of filler words like "yeah?" and "alright?" and you wanna focus on things like word order and structure (for example the word "I" tends to be missing a lot so "i went to the cinema" would just be "went to the cinema" etc etc)

im not the best at writing hobie either and i wish he got more screentime but focus on capturing his personality rather than his accent pls

he's a teenager from a deprived area NOT A WHITE BRITISH HEARTHROB PLEASE STOP WRI'IN 'IM LI' 'ARRY BLOODY STOILES

sincerely a brit who really loves hobie but not so much the attempts at his accent

will reblog or edit with any other thoughts i have about this id appreciate any other british people's input too

#s/o all my Londoners #hobie brown #across the spiderverse

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utau-bowl · 3 years ago

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Lance Lazor 5.0 CV English Review

Hello again, catching up on requests since a lot of them have gone unnoticed for some time. Thanks to everyone for being so patient.

This review was requested anonymously, but as is usual for requests on here was likely made by the UTAU’s creator. Support them on patreon or look at the song Database to get caught up with Lance.

*Art by Pink Squirel Games

Hear a Sample of Lance Lazor CV English

Bio

Gender: Genderfluid Age: varies (16-23) Image colors: Orange, Yellow

Lance is upbeat, energetic and easygoing. Lance tends to be a blank slate with very few defining characteristics. Lance is an alto, with some banks sounding a bit more masculine and others sounding a bit more feminine. Lance presents in all manners, though usually without a binder.

Official Site

Lance has a website hosted on Weebly. Here is the link for the English CV vice directly, which can be downloaded on mediafire or itch.io. The voicebank is about 44 MB in size, but has no generated frq files. Since it uses a short CV reclist, it won’t take long to generate these frqs.

First Impressions

Lance has a soft and gentle voice with an American accent and an androgynous range. I made some USTs myself for this review and found they sounded way better in mezzo range despite being labeled an alto.

Configuration

You did not read the title wrong, yes CV English exists. It’s used to preserve the accents of British UTAU creators accurately. Sometimes VCCV and Arpasing Americanize the voice, which makes the UTAU not resemble the voice actor. Since Lance’s voice actor doesn’t appear to be British, it is an interesting choice to make. The reason why seems to be because Lance’s voicer is new to UTAU and didn’t want to record 300+ samples for CVVC or VCCV. This is not a voicebank that can be plug and played with your existing USTs. But if you’re using English UTAU, you probably already knew that didn��t ya? ;) The samples are overall very quiet and in lower ranges, Lance tends to not sound as good. It is difficult to find a resampler that sounds good with them. They do have a bit of a generic TTS voice, but it has quite a bit of charm in the same way old Microsoft synths tend to.

The recordings are supposed to be short, however some of the CV syllables are a bit too short and the vowels are pronounced strangely. Especially the “@” syllables, that phoneme is meant to sound like the “o” in cot but often sounds quite different for Lance.

While making USTs, I found it quite inconvenient that there are no VC endings, so creating English words that end in consonants requires either using an end consonant or stretching it out into the next note. CV English took a lot for me to get used to, so if I’m just using it wrong, that’s on me. But it is difficult to make english words without being able to use vowels that have consonant endings attached. There are consonant clusters like br and fl, but these are intended to go in front of words, not between.

My recommended flags: H30Y100E20F3B0g-2

My recommended resamplers: EFB-GT, doppeltler

Final Thoughts

Lance is great first attempt at an UTAU. Making USTs with them is very fun and a nice way to dip your toes into English UTAU. Their design is also very cute and iconic.

Got any other UTAUs you want me to review? Send an ask!

#utau #utauloid #review #requested review #utau review #lance lazor #english #request

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readersperspective · 5 years ago

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Writing Advice Bilingual Characters

As some of you (who read my reviews) already might have noticed, I am bilingual myself. Sadly, multilingual people do not get represented well a lot in media, so yeah... some advice for writing them. It will certainly not capture every aspect of being bilingual, but it might give you a first idea.

There are different ways to be multilingual.

People who grew up with more than one native language will almost certainly speak all of them fluently. Most of them have two (their parents’ language and their country’s language, or the language of one parent and of the other) but I also know a family where the children grew up with four native languages (the mother speaks Portuguese, the father Italian, they talk to each other in English, and live in Germany, where the children grew up)

Some people speak two or more languages, but cannot write all of them - especially when the alphabets are not the same, for example English and Russian or Arabic. This affects mostly children of immigrants.

Some people can read and write a language quite well, but are not good at speaking or listening comprehension. Those people often learned the language at school with a bad teacher or by themselves with books and apps.

Some people, again mostly children and grandchildren of immigrants, can read and understand a language, but don’t speak it. Mostly, the parents decided to not teach the child the language, and they learned it themselves by listening to their parents talk to relatives.

Confidence can play a big role in this. I understand the dialect of my grandparents without a problem, but I would never try to speak it. I can’t even imagine forming those words with my mouth, and it would sound terrible.

People who learnt a language at school can reach completely different levels of that language. I started learning English at age 6 and am completely fluent by now. Other people in my class barely understand more than easy conversations in English.

Most people will do their very best to hide their accents.

If the person is not a native speaker, but fluent in a language, their accent will be a mix of whatever they can find at the moment. Media is a big influence in that.

Since I watch more British than American TV, my accent sounds a bit british, too. When I watched “Call the Midwife”, I often even unconciously copy the accent of Laura Main. I don’t know why her, but my brain just liked it, I guess.

Also, we will use words, phrases and sentence structures from so many different sources.

People who learnt English through the internet (aka most of the younger generation) will have problems to not use swear words when actually being in Great Britain or America. They just do not have the weight for us, since on the internet they get used all the time.

I have never in my whole live heard a multilingual person switch languages mid-sentence on accident.

We will do it on purpose, though, if the other part of the conversation understands both languages.

Also, we will maybe say the word in another language if we forget the meaning.

Multilingual people that are not natives in the language they usually use in their day-to-day life (immigrants, for example) will often count and calculate in their native language. For example at a restaurant where they calculate the price in their head, they will probably do it in their native language.

Conversations with multiple multilingual people can be very different.

If one person only understands one language, they will probably try to include that person by speaking the language they share. I can say from experience, though, that if eight native Germans that have varying levels of English language skills will sit together with one introverted Turkish person with medium English language skills, they will go back to German quite often. It’s not nice, but sadly natural.

In general, people will try to speak in their native language if possible. You can take two people that share a native language and also both speak English and let them walk around in London - they will probably speak their native language, no matter how well they speak English.

Multilingual people that share multiple languages will switch on purpose when they feel like they can express their thoughts better in the other language.

Many languages have taken words from English.

Especially young people take a lot of English filler words and phrases (or insults) and put them into their native language. “Help, mein Deutschlehrer überfordert uns mit Hausaufgaben, like, what the fuck, glaubt der wir haben nichts besseres zu tun?” Is a sentence you would absolutely hear from a German student.

Many young people that don’t live in Great Britain or America will not use these words and phrases around their parents. First of all, our parents often do not speak English as well as we do, but more importantly, our parents do not like us using English instead of ur native language.

Many professions nowadays have an English name, I don’t know why. What used to be a Hausmeister is now a Facility Manager. The longer the English phrase for your profession, the more likely you will not be taken serious by older people.

Once you have more than one native language, you learn new languages more easily, for some reason. I know a girl that speaks 7 languages, at age 20, 5 of them fluently.

"You speak English quite well” or phrases like that said by a native speaker can be the best compliment ever, or more uncomfortable than nice.

When you are translating for your family and hear that sentence, it is super nice.

When you are only speaking English, that sentence indicates that your accent is still heavy. You do not pass as a native speaker.

When you are a native speaker, that sentence is just weird.

You can indentify the people that learnt a language through reading by giving them words that are pronounced untypically.

For years I thought “precious” (a word that is heavily used on the internet, especially in fan communities, but not that much in school) was pronounces pree-ci-ous. I was shocked when I heard it for the first time.

There are situations where even quite fluent non-native speakers will not be able to understand or talk in their second language.

The first few minutes after standing up (although that can change when the person is really fluent)

When they are in great pain

When they are in great fear

When they are under great stress

Sometimes even when they did not use that language in the last few days

Translating in realtime is terribly hard and will fuck your head. When I was on holiday with my parents, I often had to read the information signs in museums or at sights for them and translate. It’s easier when you first read the text and then summarise it in another language, but trying to translate it sentence by sentence is painful and you will question your abilities in both languages.

This gets just more horrible when under pressure. While we were in England, a visibly stressed young woman came to us and asked us if we had 5 pounds, she had lost some money she needed to take the train back home. I repeated her sentence to my father. In English.

Also sorry to the poor worker at McDonalds who I talked English to while speaking German to my English exchange student.

People abroad will absolutely become friends with every person that they hear speaking their language. While being in London, we overheard a man talking to his son in German about taking a photo, and I immediately asked (in German) if I should take a photo of both of them together. We talked for fifteen minutes after that, even though we had never met before.

On that note, in tourist citys the people that try to sell things to tourists usually speak a lot of languages enough to say things like “Oh, I speak a bit of [language], too, but not well. Didn’t pay enough attention in school. You look like nice people.” Makes it so easy to sell things.

Idioms are literally hell. Best example has been in the news currently, with Greta Thunberg literally translating a Swedish idiom in a tweet not realising that “putting someone against a wall” means something totally different in English.

Idioms will be hell for you as a writer, too, though, as long as you do not fluently speak both of the languages or at least one of them is fictional, because it’s quite easy to mess up if you use idioms that jus aren’t normally used by people speaking that language.

Bilingual puns are amazing, but sadly rare.

Those are the things I thought of first... Maybe you can find some ideas or inspiration there for your characters, too. The best thing of course is to let someone proof-read your character if you are uncertain, but this hopefully already helped you a bit!

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theboombutton · 3 years ago

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Please say more about aspirated medial stops, I was talking with my brother in law the other day about how we (Californians) don't say t's in the middle of words and I'm really curious about why that is and if this is a universal thing in all accents of English now

Disclaimer: I do have a Bachelor's in linguistics, but I got it more than a decade ago so it is possible that some of the information in this post will be misremembered or out of date.

tl;dr

Knowing how to pronounce t in different locations in different dialects is a nightmare. Old-fashioned British Received Pronunciation pronounced t in the middle of words, but there's a UK language drift called T-glottalization in which ts except at the start of words are often being replaced with glottal stops? It's really obvious in lower-status dialects but it's been creeping into RP as well.

American English usually does a weird muscle flex called a "flap" or a "tap" that's something like a really short d, or a single roll of a rolled r. I think there are some UK dialects that use this tap as well.

I belieeeeeve that Indian English usually pronounces word-medial ts, but I haven't run an actual analysis on the applicable coworkers' speech because that'd be kind of creepy?

No idea about Australia or New Zealand.

As far as I know, there's no special reason why these particular drifts are happening. Linguistic drift and accent shifts are just something that happens with living languages. If anything, we have immensely slowed the natural process of language change through the invention and widespread teaching of standardized writing.

Glossary

Sorry, I tried doing this without a glossary but I kept having to do weird info cul-de-sacs to explain myself. I've ordered them according to approximately when they'll come up?

lol I failed so hard at this, about halfway through the post I started using words without putting them in the glossary first and man idk I've been working on this post for 4 hours now and I don't want to go back through and put definitions for some of this shit, sorry

Phoneme - A single language sound, as it is stored in your brain. Represented with slashes around it, e.g. /t/.

Phone - A language sound as it actually comes out of your mouth. Represented with square brackets around it, e.g. [t].

Phonology - The study of speech sounds, from internal representation to external expression, but not including the study of how they are physically created in the mouth (that's phonetics). Not to be confused with phrenology, the racist pseudoscience of head shape.

Word - Can have a few different meanings in a linguistic context. In this post, will usually refer to either a lexeme or a phonological word. You should be able to tell from the context.

Phonological Word - What you probably think of when you think of a "word." A unit of speech that you could naturally pause on either side of, but could not naturally pause inside.

Lexeme/Semantic Word - A single phonological word and its attached meaning; or, phrase of multiple phonological words, which holds a meaning which is different than the sum of its parts. For example, "Carry the bucket" is not a single lexeme; but "Kick the bucket" is.

Voiced/Voiceless - A sound is voiced if you use your vocal cords to make it, and voiceless if you don't.

Stop - Also called a plosive. A stop is a kind of consonant you make by stopping all air flow. The stops English uses are p, b, t, d, k, g, and the glottal stop.

Aspiration - A puff of air following a sound, usually a voiceless stop. In phonetic notation, it is indicated by a superscript h following the consonant, like [pʰ].

IPA - International Phonetic Alphabet. A standard set of symbols based on the Roman alphabet and used to refer to roughly the same sounds regardless of language.

Glottal stop - A stop which is performed not by your tongue, as in most stops, but by your vocal cords. Think of the word "Uh-oh" - the way you completely stop airflow after the "Uh" instead of just letting it flow into the "oh." That's a glottal stop.

Praat - An audio analysis program tailored specifically for viewing waveforms of speech sounds.

INFODUMP TIME

So the thing about saying words is that the ideas of sounds that you have in your head ("phonemes") don't translate one-to-one to the sounds that come out of your mouth ("phones"); and the ways that these sounds get modified vary between different dialects.

Please keep in mind that when you try to speak slowly or clearly, the sounds that you make change. Linguists are primarily interested in natural speech patterns, not what we do when we're trying to enunciate.

Tater-Tot

Let's take the lexeme tater-tot, because it's the first word I can think of that has all 3 of the major weird things that /t/ does that vary by dialect.

Let's start with the word-initial t. Phonologically there are actually two word-initial t's in tater-tot, the one at the beginning of 'tater,' and the one at the beginning of 'tot.' This is because "tater-tot" is two phonological words despite being one semantic word.

In American and British English, we aspirate our word-initial voiceless stops if they're immediately followed by a vowel, which means we pronounce /p/, /t/, and /k/ as [pʰ], [tʰ] and [kʰ] respectively if they're the first sound in a word (and immediately followed by a vowel). This means we add in a little puff of air following the consonant if it's the first sound in the word. In Indian English, they don't do this - a word-initial /t/ is pronounced [t], without the extra puff of air. To American & British English speakers it can almost sound like they're saying [d], because we're not used to hearing a word-initial /t/ without aspiration.

Next we've got a word-medial t, the second t of "tater." Here, Indian and British RP English speakers pronounce it as a plain [t], with no aspiration. American English speakers pronounce it as what's called a tap or a flap, which is sort of like a half-formed [d] but is actually more like a single roll of a rolled r - and so its IPA symbol is [ɾ]. And many less prestigious British dialects, including Cockney and I believe Scouse, replace it with a glottal stop, with IPA symbol [ʔ].

And our final t is the word-final t of tot. This is a tricky one to peel apart. English generally doesn't release word-final stops - that is, you put your tongue in the correct place to stop airflow to create the stop, but you never actually move your tongue out of the way to "release" the airflow you stopped. So the easy read on the word-final t's pronunciation is that it's [t̚], an unreleased t. However, in many dialects and situations /t/ is replaced with or co-articulated with a glottal stop - for example, after an [n] or an [m], /t/ is almost always pronounced as [ʔ] in English. But unreleased stops after an oral vowel are difficult to tell apart, and if the tongue is in t position while the glottis cuts off airflow - I genuinely don't know.

Tuck/Stuck

These are good for a comparison between an aspirated [tʰ] and an unaspirated [t]. In American English, tuck is [tʰʌk] and stuck is [stʌk].

Truck

American English does weird things with syllable-initial /tr/.

I want to introduce you to the "sh" symbol, ʃ. ʃ is a voiceless postalveolar fricative, which means it's created by air rushing through a narrow space when your tongue is behind the alveolar ridge. Incidentally, when you move your tongue from [t] position to [ɹ̠] position (ɹ̠ being the symbol for the version of non-rolled r that most English dialects use), it will naturally create the ʃ sound as it moves.

We have a special letter combination to the phonemic /tʃ/ in English. It's "ch". As in "change."

You almost certainly pronounce "truck" as [tʃɹ̠ʌk] "chruck" and just don't notice.

So what's going on with Martin?

So first off, Jonny is probably wrong about how the Archivist says "Martin." Complete deletion of the r in that position is standard in RP. I haven't fed The Magnus Archives into Praat or anything, so it's possible he's letting a hint of a rhotic accent bleed in to the Archivist's RP - but I really doubt it.

This isn't unusual! It's very common for people's internal concept of what sounds they mean to make, to get in the way of them accurately identifying what sounds they're actually making. No one thinks they've ever said "chruck" until you point it out to them.

I would probably transcribe the Archivist saying "Martin" as [mɑ:tɪn].

Jonny's attempt at saying "Martin" in an American accent was something more like [mɑ˞ɹ̠tʰɪn]. He did a good job of rhoticizing the vowel, but in his focus on the r completely messed up the second syllable.

I'd transcribe my own pronunciation of "Martin" as something like [mɑ˞ɹ̠ʔn]. It's been my observation that t-glottalization in American English is especially common when adjacent to nasals - and if there's one thing American English likes, it's syllabifying liquids in word-final syllables.

OK I've run out of steam now

This was fun. Sorry about the declining quality of explanation. Please feel free to ask more if you dare to reignite the flames of infodump

#infodump #linguistics #the letter t #phonology #english phonology #english dialects #dialects of english #ask button #ask boombutton #ask theboombutton #jonny sims

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badb1tchbokuto · 4 years ago

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Ch. 2 Alone, Together - Miya Atsumu x You

chapter 1: here

(crossposted on ao3)

warnings: mild smut, alcohol, mentions of time skip

wc: 3.7k

As if you had sensed his worries, your eyes flutter open. “You okay?” You groggily whisper. Knowing he’s on borrowed time, he scoots down to level his face with yours and kisses you deeply. “Yeah baby, no worries.” He breathily responds as your hands begin to wander from his chiseled abdomen to his navel and down to the tufts of hair trailing to his boxer briefs.

At this point Atsumu knows he’s completely, utterly, royally fucked.

⳾⑅❀⑅❀⑅❀⑅❀⑅❀⑅⳾

Atsumu tried. He really, really did.

Standing on the tiny kitchenette of his shared hotel suite with Bokkun(who was off spending time with Akaashi), he hangs up the phone after a long Facetime session with Samu guiding him on how to make the best onigiri and miso soup.

It really shouldn’t have taken that long. All he had to do was wash the rice, pop it into the mini rice cooker stowed in the counter, cut some fresh tuna, sear the rest, then assemble it all into balls along with the seasoning, condiments and nori.

He’d know how to make miso soup even if he was blindfolded. All he had to do was mix in the ingredients he bought on a small pot of water. Dashi, miso paste, diced silken tofu, sliced green onions, some more nori, all dropped in at different times and simmered to get the perfect taste. Plus, this was one of the first dishes their ma taught them how to make before he and Samu moved away.

Really, it should have been a breeze. He’d made onigiris for himself countless of times before, admittedly nowhere near as tasty as the ones Osamu makes, but they were still edible.

This time, however, it had to delicious. Mouthwatering, perfect.

For the umpteenth time, Atsumu is picking off the nori on the last rice ball, wrapping and rewrapping, then wrapping again because the nori just wasn’t hugging the rice in a fashion uniform to the seven others arranged in front of him.

“Why does it look so weird??” He frustrates.

Atsumu’s mind replays, yet again, to your shared conversation at the club. Specifically to the part where he realizes he didn’t really know how to talk about himself outside of volleyball. He surmises at this; a gnawing, alarming thought of wondering whether he really knew himself at all.

Three hours ago...

“How do I usually describe myself?” He repeatedly thinks as he wanders down the seemingly endless aisles of Isetan’s Depa-Chika, scouring for the exact brands of ingredients Samu instructed him to buy.

Lost somewhere in the frozen food section, Atsumu pushes a half filled cart in reverie. He resolves then and there to get to know himself, whatever that means or entails. Not just so he can talk to you or anyone new for that matter, but honestly more so to know how to articulate to himself who he really is in private. Without the cameras flashing, without the people buzzing, without having to watch himself through others’ incredibly varied perceptions of him, without using his brother or his friends and teammates as a crutch, however difficult or impossible that seems.

He takes his time at the store, tediously combing the shelves for a special kind of mirin Osamu swears by, then proceeds to have an internal debate whether he should choose chutoro or otoro (he chooses otoro, the fattiest and therefore the tastiest in his opinion), his supposedly quick trip to the grocery store devouring more than an hour of his time.

It is now 7:15pm.

You’re supposed to arrive in fifteen minutes, but Atsumu still hadn’t even showered, hadn’t even cleaned up the kitchen, hadn’t even finished wrapping that last stubborn rice ball.

The hotel phone rings and Atsumu panics.

It’s the concierge alerting him of your arrival. Sending you up, Atsumu races around the small space in a haste, swiping the counter and dining table with disinfectant, racing to throw empty packages into the bin.

The doorbell rings and Atsumu is sweating.

He’s an athlete for fuck’s sake, why did running around for less than a minute knock his breath out like that?

“I’m coming!” He yells, or tries to. What comes out is a cracked, high pitched attempt, sounding much like a prepubescent boy going through rapid hormonal changes. He cringes, mortified.

Atsumu hears you trying to stifle a giggle.

He clears his throat, repeats in his signature silky voice, then runs to open the door.

You’re smiling sheepishly, the tip of your nose frosty from the autumn chill, all bundled up in a casual outfit that somehow knocks Atsumu’s breath out.

“My share of dinner!” You announce, arms stretched out with a box of wagashi and a bottle of nigori sake.

“Yer’ so frickin cute,” he dotes. He can’t help himself, he snakes an arm on your waist and pulls you in for a gentle kiss.

“Yer’ early, missed me that much already?” He whispers teasingly on your lips.

You laugh as you kiss him back, gently patting his cheek as a response before pulling away. Funny how it seems like he’s the one who missed you that much...

Atsumu sneakily sniffs his shirt as you take off your shoes at the genkan.

“Oh no...” Not musty, but he reeks of kitchen smoke, aburi tuna and dried sweat.

“Need ta’ shower real quick.”

“Oh sorry, want me to come back in a bit?”

He digresses. “No no. Gimme a minute, come in and get comfy.”

He excuses himself, leaving you in the kitchen as he rushes to the bathroom.

You look around the hotel suite, kitchenette roughly cleaned, flecks of nori and furikake smattering the floor but otherwise spotless. The cramped countertop had a steaming pot laid next to a row of neatly arranged onigiri on two plates, decorated with vegetables jaggedly cut in what you assume are attempts at flower patterns.

It’s a simple dinner, you know. But you still can’t help but be impressed that Atsumu put in that much effort, that much care in making you a homemade dinner. On your first date no less.

You smile, butterflies fluttering in your belly at the thought that this callous, reckless, stupidly tall and handsome man is being domestic just for you.

Pulling out your phone, you send a quick text to Kaori and Yukie, gushing over how cute Atsumu is and even sending them a quick snapshot of the onigiri he plated with special care. “Get it!!!” Kaori enthusiastically replies. “Send a ‘1’ by midnight if it’s good and give us a play by play tomorrow. ‘2’ if we need to fake an emergency asap!” Yukie responds, ever the more calculating but motherly one.

As Atsumu massages purple shampoo on his tresses, he elucidates a fact about him he already knows is true on court that he supposes could be said the same of him off it.

1. Miya Atsumu is a perfectionist.

He practices for hours daily to hone his craft, has been doing so since the fourth grade really. At first just to spite Samu, but then he just suddenly fell in love with volleyball.

To Atsumu, nothing short of absolute perfection qualifies when it comes to dedicating himself to the things he cares about. It is through this philosophy that he is now one of Asia’s top setters, that he’s certain anyone who can’t receive his set is a scrub; a roaring confidence gained from knowing he puts his all to whatever he chooses to set his mind to, whether that’s volleyball or cooking dinner for a very cute girl he finds himself wanting to impress and spend more time with.

He frowns upon remembering that one of the onigiris he made is lopsided, that he didn’t even have time to shower and properly clean up before you arrived, that the atmosphere you walked in on your first official date with Miya Atsumu the perfectionist, wasn’t, well...perfect.

He thinks about this as he readies himself, spraying on the woodsy, smoky vanilla perfume he swore you wore when you first met. He usually reserves the scent for special occasions, but he believes that this counts as one.

Atsumu finds you in the kitchen, fixated on trying to salvage the onigiri he was having trouble wrapping earlier.

He leans over your shoulder, and though your nerves are in haywire and the butterflies in your stomach seem to keep multiplying, you instinctually lean back into him. Atsumu smiles as he drapes his arms around you from behind, thumbs brushing up and down the bare sliver of skin on your hip.

Your mind is a blur, every thought suddenly jumbled and incoherent. All that’s left is you anticipating, thrilling where Atsumu will move his fingers next on your heating body. Dropping his head on your shoulder and finally getting a closer whiff of your sexy scent, he whispers teasingly close to your ear.

“Sorry for the wait, ya’ ready to fall in love with me?”

You swiftly turn around and pull him into a deep kiss as an answer.

——

By the time you’ve moved to sit at small table by the kitchen, your lips are sweetly swollen and your clothes are wrinkled. Atsumu is panting, hair even more tousled and a small love bite is beginning to bloom on his right collarbone.

You stare at him, mesmerized at how he seems to look even more gorgeous unkempt.

“Why don’t cha take a picture babe, it’ll last longer.” He smirks then sticks his tongue out to pose, ego inflating at catching you ogling him.

You quip. “Sure, can I take naked ones after?”

“Aww, you’re so polite. Whatta’ good girl. You don’t need to ask. I’ll gladly give them to you for free, even throw in a lil show if ya want.” He leans closer, resting his head on his flexed, chiseled propped arm, smirking a little more mischievously as he gazes at you in challenge.

You can almost see his ego rapidly inflating like a balloon, and naturally, you kind of want to pop it.

In your best faux posh British accent, you offer. “A most forthcoming and lucrative offer mister Miya. What do you say I start and manage an OnlyFans account for you?”

You giggle uncontrollably as the look on his face changes instantly from confidence to confusion.

Brows furrowed and lips formed into a tiny pout, he concludes. “It’s a good thing yer so cute, yer a weirdo.”

You laugh, snorting a little. Atsumu chuckles at this, finding your little quirk amusing and rather irresistible.

“Keep the accent though, it’s kinda hot.” You kick him under the table and continue to banter as you both set up the table.

Atsumu watches expectantly as you take the first sip of the miso broth. The soup is delicious, and as soon as you tell him this he visibly relaxes.

The onigiris’ fillings however, are inconsistent. On the first one, the filling oozes out whenever you take a bite. On another, there’s barely any tuna and a ton of furikake. You decide to spare him your criticisms and just enjoy the meal he so graciously prepared.

Still, your heart just feels so damn full.

You make sure to repeatedly compliment Atsumu on his cooking to show appreciation for his efforts, the first time anyone has ever cooked for you on a date and the first time he(and not his pro-chef brother! Ha!) has ever been acknowledged for his culinary efforts.

Dinner is pleasant, both of you exchanging stories of varied life experiences.

You talk about the places you’ve lived in, your childhood, life in university. Atsumu actively listens, enchanted with how different your upbringing was in comparison to his, especially since he’d forgone college and went pro immediately after being scouted in high school. Despite the stark differences, he asks a ton of questions; some in confusion as he asks you to clarify or talk about certain details you purposely leave out.

You notice that he’s very observant, so you casually comment it.

Atsumu decides then that yes, it’s true. He makes a mental note to add this to the little list he’s crafting in his head about who he is.

2. Miya Atsumu is observant.

He thinks that you literally could have told him he was a seaweed and he would have agreed just because he is so transfixed by your mere presence and voice, but he knows this to be true on court for him as well. How else would he sync up with his spikers? How else would he know which serve to use and how to to angle his sets best? Through thorough studying and keen awareness of his teammates’ likes, dislikes, mannerisms and ticks, he is able to turn a seemingly mismatched chaotic group like the Black Jackals into synchronized raging monsters, dancing to a tune in which he is the lone orchestrator.

Atsumu is earnest in asking you questions about your life; his genuine interest coaxing you to share seemingly inconsequential details you intentionally initially skip over, snippets of your upbringing you thought were too boring to even mention, some too painful to share. Hesitantly at first, then comfortably as Atsumu intently listens. You don’t know why he takes a keen interest in you to that degree, but you come to learn that Atsumu is transparent and rather straightforward. He asks because he wants to know.

You relax, feeling touched and appreciated as you realize that he seems to just want to know every little thing about you, even the parts of you that you think are boring, unimportant or unworthy.

The conversation shifts to more light hearted topics as you both begin to indulge on the dessert and sake you brought.

Feeding you half of a red bean wagashi he swears is the best one, Atsumu continues to tell you about shenanigans from his volleyball team, particularly the initiation ritual of being ambushed to sing a full song at one’s first team dinner with a hot pink wireless karaoke mic on full blast.

“Bokkun, Omi, and Shoyou weren’t even there yet and I didn’t know anyone my age since they were all older than me.. I was only eighteen! They told me I couldn’t eat dinner and had to sit in a different table if I didn’t do it.. and I had 10 seconds to pick a song! A western one at that because Adriah and Oliver had to understand too and they didn’t speak Japanese then..”

Imagining a younger Atsumu with a bad dye job nervously trying to think of a song to sing out loud in public, you laugh as he describes in detail how awkward the whole ordeal was. You wonder if any of the older members have a video of this, making sure to ask Meian if you ever have the opportunity to see the team again.

He recounts how shameless Bokuto and Hinata were when they had to do it, with Bokuto even doing an encore with a dance routine that resulted in them being banned from a restaurant in Kyoto. You’re both dying of laughter as he wheezes out how Sakusa almost gave up his career upon realizing he had to do it as well. Thankfully his team sort of pitied him and let him sing to a small izakaya in Sendai instead of the mega hotel restaurants they usually celebrate in.

As the night progresses, you and Atsumu end up sitting side by side, legs touching due to the close proximity of your chairs, holding hands, and sharing sweet sake flavored kisses in between laughs.

After some time, the kisses start to linger, becoming more heated. It’s when you subtly lick Atsumu’s tongue then slowly bite and suck on his full lower lip that he loses control and pulls you into his lap. Straddling him, you keep one hand on his chest to steady yourself as you move your other hand to brush his soft hair out of his face. “You’re so beautiful.” You whisper as you stare into his half lidded hazel eyes before leaning in to kiss him.

Atsumu flushes at this. It’s the first time he’s been called beautiful. Handsome? Sure. Sexy? Even more often. But beautiful? It feels intimate, leaving him vulnerable and exposed in a way that seems to transcend the physical. He revels in this as he lavishes you with open mouthed kisses, starting from just below your ear and moving down your neck, his wet lips ghosting over the hollow of your throat to just above your cleavage. You mewl, aching to feel more of him, subconsciously grinding your hips on his lap where you can feel him bulging out of his sweatpants.

Atsumu moves one of his hands from your waist, brushing his large knuckles up your torso until it reaches the underside of your breasts. You notice that despite his kisses growing more desperate and him feeling fully erect under you, he hasn’t made a move to further the heavy petting. Respecting his boundaries, you ask. “Everything okay? We don’t have to go all the way if you’re uncomfortable.”

“Oh fuck.. sorry, yea, I’m good.” He kisses your lips again as his hands rub up and down your bare sides, your sweater having ridden up a while ago. “Trust me, I want you. So bad. I’m just tryin' to hold myself back for once.”

“Huh? Why?”

“I wanted to take my time.” He gently pecks your forehead, then your nose, and then back to your lips. He does this while looking at you eye to eye, a stark contrast to the steamy make out session you were just having. Atsumu’s gaze becomes smoldering as his eyes move to your lips again. “I don’t know why, but I just know I’ll get addicted to ya’.”

You grab the wrist that’s placed on your waist, unfurling his long, elegant fingers. Atsumu is watching you in intense curiosity as you take his pointer and middle digits, pulling them up slowly to your mouth and sucking, all while looking up at him. Instantly, Atsumu groans and you’re positive you can feel his member twitch against your crotch.

You release his fingers with a pop, then lick the length slowly, gaze never leaving his as his focus struggles in anticipation of what you'll do next.

You guide his digits by dragging them from your exposed torso and up to the curves of your breasts to your hardening buds straining your lace bralette, his wet fingers leaving a slight translucent trail of saliva on the expanse of your stomach. Before Atsumu can twist his fingers to pay attention to your nipples, you hold his wrist and move the fingers down your torso, pushing past the elastic waistband of your pants. With your hand over his, you splay his saliva coated fingers against your dampening underwear, stroking your mound before resting the two fingers over your labia, coaxing your slick slit to open. Atsumu’s pupils are dilated, his breathing heavy and his other hand gripping your hips so tightly you can feel bruises starting to form as he tries his best to control himself.

“I’m afraid time is the one thing we both can’t afford Atsumu. But please, have me. Fuck me. Take your fill.”

It’s all the confirmation he needs as he moves your panties aside, circling his fingers on your throbbing clit before sliding them seamlessly inside your tight, soft walls.

It’s not until much, much later, after you’ve had sex in the kitchen, then on his bed, then in the bathroom as you both intended to clean up, then finally cuddling back in his bed before falling asleep that Atsumu remembers the rest of what you said right before he lost all coherent thought.

Why can’t we afford time? Why don’t we have the time? Surely you’re both busy with your careers, but you’re someone he finds himself liking more and more. And now that you’re here, with your head on his chest, one arm wrapped around his bare torso and one leg intertwined with his, he thinks that this feels too good, too perfect, to not keep chasing, and he’ll be damned if he didn’t make time for more moments like tonight.

As his thoughts lull him to sleep, he remembers why time is beyond both of your control.

He's only in Tokyo for volleyball - for the league match they just won and now to train with the Olympic team for an upcoming friendly match in Shanghai. You’re here temporarily too, on a project with a definitive deadline that will not only mark the end of your stay in the country, but signal the end of you seeing him. Possibly forever.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

At this point, Atsumu knows he’s completely, utterly, royally fucked.

You’re both on borrowed time, but now that he’s had a taste of what it’s like to spend time with you, to be inside you, to just be with you, he knows that this growing hunger for you is insatiable. He thinks then that he finally understands Samu when he rambles about gradually getting hungrier and hungrier when watching others eat. His appetite for volleyball had always been there, like second skin and breathing. But for the longest time he didn't realize that seeing lovers around him display genuine affection towards each other(from his ma and pa, Bokuto and Akaashi, Meian and his wife, Aran and his high school sweetheart), all build bonds that can only truly be forged by sharing and accepting each other's hopes, dreams, and vulnerabilities, is something that he was growing hungrier and hungrier for without even noticing. Up until he met you that is. As you pull away from his lips and begin to slowly kiss down his body, following the trail of where your hands have just wandered, he thinks, “fuck it.”

Just as he became a setter even though he initially intended to be a spiker, just as he chose to be a professional athlete instead of following a safe path to success in university, just as he contorts and bends over his body in random, sometimes painful ways to make sure his spikers have the best sets, and just as he adjusts and twists routined plays in order to beat opponents, he knows then.

3. Miya Atsumu is a risk taker.

He’d been luckily winning his gambles so far, it’s about time he try his luck in love.

#Miya Atsumu x you #miya atsumu x reader #miya atsumu x y/n #atsumu x reader #atsumu x you #atsumu x y/n #miya atsumu x female reader #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x you #hq x reader #hq x you #haikyuu fic #hq fics #miya atsumu #atsumu #thanks for reading!

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drawlfoy · 5 years ago

Text

The Wonders of Ohio P.5

masterlist (check here for parts 1-4!) request guidelines

pairing: draco x reader

request: from 14 year old me babey

warnings: cringe, mentions of drug use, mentions of sex, language, and just bad writing

summary: y/n is in her senior year of high school when she is asked to take on an exchange student from britain that’s a little...different. this is NOT a nonmagic AU. draco is still a wizard and this will become and integral part of the story shortly.

a/n: heyyyy everyone. i graduated from high school this week and i’m posting this as my happy-one-year-to-me. as some of you may know, i posted my very first fic on this day a year ago. i’m really happy to see how i’ve grown since and i’m so lucky to have shared this with all of you. anyways, nittygritty--

this part is really the last slow exposition chapter. chapters 6 on will be a whole whirlwind beginning with homecoming and i hope that you guys are willing to stick around. i promise itll be worth the wait. y/n is going to get the story arc of a lifetime and also please do not hate heather she is just going through it ok

anywayssssssss

tags tags tags @gruffle1 @missmulti @cleopatera @hahaboop @accio-rogers @geeksareunique @eltanin-malfoy @war-sword @cams-lynn @itsivyberry @ayo-cowbelly @nerd-domland @erisdogwood @loveissupernatural

word count: 4.6k (;))

song recs:

strawberry blonde -- mitski

in your neighbors garden -- mimi bay

wishes -- beach house

ode to artifice -- samia

pink in the night -- mitski

enjoy <3

The seatbelt buckle scorched the side of Y/N’s exposed neck as she turned to face the disheveled blonde in the passenger seat.

“Do I need to teach you to set an alarm?”

Draco let out a huff. “Stop. Do you have a….a comb, or a brush, or something here?” His hands looked abnormally fidgety. Their actions were shaky, varying from patting his pockets to running through his hair. He seemed more and more frustrated each time his hands left his pockets empty.

How curious Y/N thought as she racked her brain for any remembrance of putting a brush in her car. It was always a mess, and she honestly couldn’t blame Draco for assuming that anything could be in there.

“I don’t think there’s one here,” said Y/N, trying to sound at least a little sympathetic despite the fact that his tardiness had them 10 minutes late. “You can look around if you want, king.”

“What’d you call me?” His voice was suddenly sharp and awake.

Y/N rolled her eyes so hard that she thought they’d get stuck in the back of her head. “You don’t--ok. It’s a joke. You can call guys here that.”

“And it means that I’m…?”

“It means I’m acknowledging that you exist, I guess. It’s not like it has a strict negative or positive connotation. Like, I can say ‘Ok king’ to any man telling me something and it can either be sarcastic, or it can be because I don’t know what else to say and just want to let him know I heard him.”

Draco’s eyes looked a tad glazed over when Y/N dared a glance in his direction.

“I know it’s confusing. I’m sorry. I’ll try and ease you into the world of American slang.”

He granted her a little “uh-huh” before opening up the glovebox with great difficulty and rummaging through the mess. Y/N would’ve felt more embarrassed about the tampon that fell on the ground in the process if he seemed like he actually knew what it was.

Her attention turned back to the road as Draco continued to sift through things. Y/N couldn’t help but wonder if there was anything embarrassing hidden away in the corners of her car--after all, it hadn’t been organized since the beginning of summer--and decided that it was better to pretend it wasn’t happening.

It wasn’t the eerie silence that eventually prompted her to turn to look his direction--no, it was the weird energy in the car, like the feeling right before a thunderstorm. All the hair raised on her arms, and she shivered...but it was stifling hot in the car.

“Oh, did you find a brush?” she asked. His hair laid as perfectly as always, but his hands were lying shaking in his lap, palms to the sky. No hairbrush was in sight.

“Er... “ He was paler than usual, which was quite the feat for someone who looked like a ream of paper. “No. Just remembered a trick my father taught me.”

She tensed at the mention of his father--the very first time Draco had done so. “Oh. Okay. Glad you got it figured out, king.”

Her voice lightened on the last word, hoping she could coax a little smile out of him.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Ok.”

oOo

There were many things Y/N thought she understood, but Draco Malfoy being in her Physics C class was not one of them. She took pity and sat next to him as he fumbled his way through the first lecture. His notes, while neat, were littered with crossed out portions and question marks.

You do know there’s an eraser on your pencil, right? she jotted on a note that she sent his way. His brow furrowed and he seemed to tap at the end of the eraser for just a few moments before deciding otherwise and xing out another practice problem he’d done incorrectly. Symbols that she’d never seen before were scattered all throughout his notes.

Maybe the UK kids just learn stuff differently.

By the time that Physics came to an end, Y/N was eager to get away from the storm cloud that was brewing over Draco’s perfectly smoothed and infuriatingly pretty moonbeam colored hair. The amount of attention he was getting from all the other girls made Y/N want to jump off a cliff--suddenly everyone was her “best friend” “just wanting to check up on what happened over summer”. She was grateful to see the face of Lizzy, grinning and looking mischievous during their break period.

“You must be Draco,” said the redhead, a glint in her eyes. He looked a little scared.

“Er...yeah.”

“Mind giving us some privacy? Y/N and I have some urgent matters to discuss,” she continued, looking him up and down. Y/N attempted to ignore the twist in her gut as she watched him swallow and nod, turning away to go brood elsewhere. Once he was out of sight, Lizzy grabbed her arm and yanked her into the girl’s bathroom.

“It’s so funny how he’s following you around like a lost puppy,” Lizzy said. “Also, he’s gorgeous. If you don’t at least try to get some of that, then I’m never trusting your judgement again.”

“But, Li-”

“The boy’s a fucking walking Wattpad story cover. Dark, tragic past, unbelievably sharp jawline, rich parents, exotic accent....honestly, Y/N, I don’t know what else you could want.”

“Mom literally called him my host brother,” said Y/N. The bathroom was starting to smell suspiciously like cotton candy. “That’s wrong. On so many levels.”

“But you’re not related!”

“But it’s gross! And predatory! The kid doesn’t even know how to do basic algebra! I’m all he has!”

Lizzy’s eyebrow found its new home in the middle of her forehead. “You’ve gone absolutely batty if you think that every girl cursed with attraction to men in Cincinnati wouldn’t jump his skin at the chance. Use your head, queenie. He’s not alone. Shoot your shot.”

Y/N opened her mouth to serve back a retort--that was definitely there, thank you very much--but decided against it once she realized that the bathroom had become dead silent. “Um...maybe we can go over this later.” She flickered her eyes over to the line behind them that was now intently hanging on their every word. “I forgot I had to talk to the counselor.”

Lizzy was smirking as they exited the bathroom and began the search for Draco. It didn’t take long--the circle comprised of Heather and her friends was more than enough of a giveaway that he was about.

“Draco, sorry to make you wait,” Y/N called out. It took all her effort to abstain from cringing as her voice rang out across the group. Heather turned to send her a big smile.

“Hey Y/N! You didn’t tell me that Draco was from London!”

“He’s not,” she responded. “He’s from Wiltshire.”

“Wiltshire. Of course. That’s what I meant.”

Draco’s smile was tense as he looked down at Heather--who stood roughly 4 inches below him--but he was smiling, and that wasn’t something that Y/N was on the receiving end of frequently. She didn’t know whether to be offended or relieved.

“I’m sure. Break’s almost over, Draco. I can show you where the English department is before the time is up.”

He paused, looking down at the blonde grinning up at him. “Er, actually, Heather already offered to show me around for the rest of the day.”

“Yeah, for sure. I’ll see you in French.”

Y/N was shocked at the sheer amount of jealousy that rose up in her throat as she turned away and made her way to Art History---the only class Y/N and Draco didn’t share. The walk was strange. Being in solitude after having a gloomy British boy attached to her hip was understandably eerie. Because that’s all it was. Adjustment. Nothing else.

She settled in at a table full of her friends, namely Sylvia. The tall girl was always a bit whimsical, but Y/N found that she was a breath of fresh air compared to everyone else. It made sense that Sylvia would take Art History--her dark academic inspired aura and the perpetually hot mug of black coffee just screamed history nut.

“How’s your new brother?” she asked after the teacher had taken attendance. “I say that because I haven’t heard his name yet.”

“Ick, it’s gross to think of him as my brother,” Y/N responded. “And I know! We need to catch up. I’m sorry about not talking to you for a bit. The time difference was a bit weird during your trip.”

“It’s ok, I get it. I was away on family business, anyways. I didn’t expect you to spend your days staying up until the wee hours of the night to tell me all about your exchange student. Anyways. His name?”

“You’re gonna scream when you hear it, Vie,” she said. “Draco Malfoy. It’s so posh. You have no idea. It definitely suits him, though. He’s very...You good?”

Sylvia’s olive toned face looked a bit paler than usual. “Yeah. Yeah, I just remembered that I forgot to take the trash out this morning. I’ll have to text my mom about it.” She adjusted the wool cardigan that hung around her shoulders and came up looking composed. “Draco, huh? His parents must hate him.”

“At the very least! He’s so rude. And uptight. I can’t tell if it’s just a Brit thing or if it’s because he’s an asshole.”

Sylvia laughed. “I mean, when I was there over the summer, it was a different culture for sure. We’re by far louder. But I didn’t meet many mean ones. You must’ve just got a bad apple, then.”

“I guess so. He is pret--”

“Ladies, is there something you’d like to share with the rest of the class?”

“No, Mrs. Jensen,” Sylvia and Y/N said in unison.

oOo

“Thoughts, king?”

“I told you not to call me that.” Draco glared at her as he tried to open the passenger side door to find that it was locked tight. “Unlock? Please?”

“And I told you not to get cozy with ASB kids, yet here we are,” said Y/N as she slotted the key into the lock and turned.

“What’s it to you?”

“Nothing. I’m just looking out for you.” She slammed the door shut and threw her bag in the bag. The line of traffic to get out of the school was long and stuffy, and she was eager to just get it over with.

The wait was so hot that Draco peeled off his stupid formalish jacket that was on thin ice of being called a blazer and probably worth more than her car. Y/N tried to look away as his hair became slightly ruffled, but she couldn’t pry her eyes away. It was endearing, almost, how someone who could look so posh and serious could have ruffly hair--and hair that naturally light, too. She had asked him one night if it was dyed, and he scowled at her and told her the grammatically correct term was dead, and that his hair was alive, just like the rest of him, thank you very much. She dropped it.

Y/N finally rolled down her window after the AC simply refused to satisfy her, and the wind was a nice reminder to keep in her own lane. Draco was beautiful. There was no other way to put it. He had a feel of power to him, like he was capable of anything but just held it back. But he was just as inaccessible as he was pretty, and there was nothing she could do about that.

“Y/N?” He asked after a few moments of sitting in silence. “What’s Homecoming?”

“Who told you about that?”

“Heather. She asked if I had a date. Is that like a ball here?”

“She asked you if you had a date on the first day?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck. ASB kids never do sleep, huh.”

“What?”

“Homecoming isn’t a ball. It’s like a...an…” Y/N paused as she saw Draco raise his eyebrows. “It’s, like, uh….Well I guess it is like a ball. An American one, though. Way less extravagant. It’s an excuse to get dressed up and run around the city. There technically is a dance, and all the ASB kids have to go, but literally no one else does but the underclassmen. Normally I go out with my friends and a date to somewhere fun and take pictures. And then get trashed afterwards.”

“Classy,” said Draco. “I think you can go now.”

A honk behind her emphasized his point as the space in between her and the car in front widened substantially.

“Thanks. Anyways, it’s not really a big deal. I’d suggest not going with Heather so you can skip out on the dance portion. Or if you want to go with her, get her to come with us into Cincinnati because I am not going to spend my last homecoming watching a grind circle.”

“A...what circle? And I don’t want to go with her.”

The relief Y/N felt was embarrassing. “Um...better if you don’t worry about it. You have a long time to figure it out anyways.”

He seemed satisfied with that answer, propping his elbow up on the center console. The pristine button up he was wearing had ridden up, exposing the pale skin and the bottom of the tattoo she had seen a hint of earlier. “Do you have a date?”

“Um. No, not yet. I don’t think anyone except for couples do yet. We have until the end of this month to figure it out, so I’m not too worried about it.”

He nodded as Y/N’s car finally left the school parking lot and began picking up speed.

“I’m assuming you had balls? At your posh boarding school?”

“Er…” Draco ran his hand through his hair, ruffling it further. “We only had one. It was when I was 14. We called it the Yule Ball.”

“Why only one?”

“It was for a special occasion. We had two other schools join us as well. It was quite a good time.”

“So every student only has one ball in their lifetime?”

“Of course not. Some of us--the ones from old families--have events like that regularly.”

“I’m sorry if this is overstepping my bounds,” began Y/N, noticing how he tensed up, “So you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. But, I’m just wondering, what is your family like?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like are they nice?”

“Oh.” The line in his forehead relaxed. “No. They wouldn’t like you.”

“Glad to hear it,” she said. “Do you like them?”

She heard the breath hitch in his throat. “I don’t know anymore.”

“I’m sure it’s hard to think about it when you feel like they’ve just shipped you off without anyone,” she added. “I’m really sorry, Draco. I know I’ve been a bit mean to you. I know that I’ll never be able to understand what you’re going through right now.”

The slight smile that spread across his face would’ve knocked her to her knees if she wasn’t already sitting down. “It’s okay. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

The silence that awaited them for the rest of the journey was comfortable.

oOo

School began to pick up the pace after the first few days. Y/N got into the swing of homework and her extracurricular workload. Draco was having a bit more difficulty, she presumed, but he’d never admit to it. She took pity one evening and gave him her laptop opened to a Khan Academy tab for Physics and was pleased to see that he showed up to class the next day with completed homework. He asked to borrow her laptop on a much more frequent basis after that.

The routine they settled into had her heart leaping into her chest almost constantly--they’d eat breakfast together at the table, Y/N would try to ignore how pretty he looked across the table as they shared a pot of black tea (earl grey, which Y/N was thrilled to learn was his favorite as well), they’d get in the car, she’d write him notes in physics to help him (even though he never asked, he always smile and give a little shake of his head before unfolding them and intently staring at her writing), they’d drive home together and bitch about their French teacher, he’d retire to his room and do whatever pretty blonde Brits do in the afternoon, they’d meet unexpectedly at the same time in the late evening to have a final cup of tea, and then they’d go to bed and do it all over again.

It was difficult for her to admit, but Y/N was falling very quickly for Draco. It was gross, and wrong, and manipulative, and completely against the code of conduct for exchange families, but she couldn’t help but spend her days fantasizing about how his gold-spun hair would feel as she ran her fingers through it or how gently she’d trace her fingers around the tattoo on the soft flesh of his forearm…

But Y/N knew those thoughts weren’t right. And they would go away. Eventually.

“How’s it going?” Sylvia asked, effectively snapping her out of her thoughts. The Art History sub told them to go into independent study, whatever that meant. Y/N was not very good at either of those words.

“Pretty good. I can’t believe it’s been 3 weeks already,” she said. “It’s gonna be Halloween before we know it.”

“I can’t fucking waitttt,” said Sylvia. “I’m gonna be Wednesday Addams.”

“Again?”

“What else would I be? I get a new high collared black dress every year. It’d be a shame if it were going to go to waste. What are you gonna be?”

“One of the thousands of students finishing their UChicago ED app hours before the deadline.”

“You’re kidding. Can’t you just finish it the day before?”

“Where’s the fun in that? And, plus, I don’t have an idea as cool as Wednesday.”

Sylvia smirked as she opened up her planner and began to jot down something. “How’s Draco doing? I haven’t seen much of him lately. It seems like he never hangs out with us at break anymore.”

“Yeah, I ended up getting him connected with the Physics teacher. He’s getting tutored now. He thinks it’s all bullshit, but I don’t want to be the reason he doesn’t get into a good school.”

“Is that all you care about?” She smiled at Y/N. “Lizzy was telling me that you’re interested in him.”

“First of all, keep your voice down. Second of all, I’m not supposed to be, so I’m not.” Y/N hoped that the edge in her voice was convincing enough.

Her friend raised her eyebrows so dramatically that her glasses nearly slipped off her nose. “Y/N, who’s gonna hear about it. You guys are both going away at the end of the year anyways, and I’m sure he’s not going to be writing to his dear mum about his love life. If it’s consensual, there’s nothing wrong with it. I think it’d be good for both of you.”

“I see that, but let’s put me in his shoes right now.” Y/N shuffled in her seat and clasped her hands. “I’m rich. I’m British. I’m very hot. My parents throw extravagant balls for me and I kiss pretty girls that say water like ‘wota’. I’ve spent my life in silk and I only drink the finest teas. My family is so important that I had to be shipped off halfway across the world just to be safe. And now my incredibly expensive life has reached a peak because I’m sleeping with a random girl in Ohio that has run approximately 4 stop signs since I’ve met her.”

“You’re sleeping with Draco?”

Y/N turned to see Lauren, a wide-eyed, obnoxious, but well meaning girl staring at her. She heard Sylvia stifle a laugh behind her. “No. I was kidding.” The smile that she followed with was awkward and showed way too many teeth.

“Oh, okay,” said Lauren. “Do you know if he likes anyone?”

Sylvia’s smirk widened.

“No, actually, he’s a pretty private guy.” Y/N sent her another tense smile, and Lauren finally turned away.

“Jealous, huh?”

“Shut up, Vie. You know I wouldn’t go for him. Even if I had the chance.”

She just raised an eyebrow and smiled.

The afternoon brought its own set of struggles. Their French teacher had blown up at another student who had been caught cheating on their last test, and it was all Y/N could do but hold back her snickers until they were out in the parking lot.

“I can’t believe they still managed to conjugate their cheat sheet wrong.” Y/N was gasping for breath as she unlocked the car door and threw her stuff inside. Draco was watching from the passenger seat, his lips in a soft upturn. “Can you imagine? Oh my god.”

He just shook his head and turned to look out the window, but she could see the smile slowly stretching across his face. “Ridiculous. You could totally tell Monsieur enjoyed it, too. I bet he gets off on making kids like Joey cry.”

“I had a teacher like that,” he started. “He was a Poti-a chemistry teacher.”

“Oh? Did he ever attack you?”

“No. He liked me. Family friends and all.”

“Ah. I almost forgot that your family was rich and influential. Thanks for the reminder.” She reached across and lightly punched his shoulder. His smile, though still remaining, seemed to shrink. “Hey, what’s that in your bag?”

Y/N motioned to the cardstock peeking out of his nondescript black backpack that always seemed to fit more than it was meant to. She could make out a few words written in what looked like a bright red sharpie--something that did not exactly scream Draco Malfoy aesthetic.

He froze up. “Er. It’s from Heather. I think she called it a Homecoming ask?”

Y/N’s throat dried up to the point that no words would willingly make the climb from her diaphragm to her tongue; instead, she settled for giving him a little nod and what she hoped was a convincing smile.

“I told her I’d think about it,” he continued. “I remember you saying that the school dances sucked. So I let her know that I wasn’t sure yet.”

She nodded again. “Super cool. You can do whatever you want, though. You can come with my group if you��d like, but you’re welcome to go with Heather’s.”

“What? So you aren’t coming with me if I go with Heather?”

“Fuck no, dude. I don’t hate her, but I would way prefer to spend a night with my friends than some girl from my French class that only talks to me because she thinks you’re hot.”

The expression Draco made reminded Y/N that he would never get comfortable with American girls calling him hot. “Ok. Have you found a date yet?”

“Chad from Econ asked me yesterday.”

“Is that why my seat was covered in glitter?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you going with him?” Draco’s hand was clenched tight in a fist in his lap.

“I think so,” said Y/N, steeling herself and deciding to just go for it. “But, of course, if you asked me I would say no to Chad. Just out of principle. I am supposed to be your tour guide, after all.”

The only parts of him moving were the few stray wisps of his hair being pushed around by the AC going.

“But that’d be weird. I’d only expect you to take that up if you really didn’t want to go to the dance itself.” She swallowed and pulled out onto the main street, putting distance between them and the school. He was silent for a few moments. The quiet, normally comfortable between them, was stifling and strange. She pretended to ignore the way he was fiddling with his cuffs.

“Yeah, it could be,” was all he said before slumping against the window and closing his eyes.

Mrs. Y/L/N was sitting at the head of the coffee table when the two arrived home, carding between a stack of letters in front of her. The mug of something--probably that new decaf blend she hadn’t stopped raving about--was sitting lopsided on a coaster, just barely about to topple off the edge. She looked like she hadn’t moved for hours, the novel she had been previously reading sat face down to preserve the spot next to her no doubt lukewarm drink.

“Hey Mom,” Y/N said as she set her keys down. “Anything good?”

She looked up, her expression morphing from startled to happy. “Other than the college brochures? Nothing, except...hm, what’s this?”

Her well manicured hand pulled at a crimson envelope, with sloping writing that seemed to shimmer in the light.

To the Y/L/N Family, it read. The loopiness of the writing looked like it wiggled at the ends, but that had to be a trick of the light. It was dim in the kitchen during afternoons, after all.

“It looks cool, open it u--”

“No!”

Draco’s voice had never sounded so loud as it did then as he lunged across the kitchen, snatching it out of her mother’s hand and clutching it to his chest. “Er, it’s for me. I recognize the handwriting.”

“Cool, see you later,” said Y/N. She was up the stairs and slamming her door before either of her housemates could say another word. After the horrible embarrassment that was technically Draco’s rejection, she needed to be alone.

Even burying her face into her pillow and squeezing her eyes shut didn’t keep the scenes from their car ride at bay. She had been so stupid, so stupid. Why did she even think he wanted that? He was her brother, after all. Oh god, does he think we’re all from Alabama or something?

She wallowed for a few more mournful minutes before deciding that she had to pick herself up and handle it like an adult. After all, she was going to be 18 in just a few months. There was no excuse for her to act like a child anymore. And, plus, it wasn’t like she couldn’t just play this off as a pity invite. Yes,that’s what she’d frame this as if he ever asked her about it again. She felt bad for him was all it was.

Once satisfied with her internal dialogue, she rolled out of bed and made for the foyer where her bag was still on the table. She’d first walk on Legos barefoot before she had to let a stupid boy--especially one that didn’t know how to turn on their shower and had to ask for her help every time--come between her and her 4.0. Never.

Her thoughts were cut short, however, when she heard a new sound from his side of the hallway. She froze, listening closely.

Draco was crying.

#draco x reader #draco malfoy x reader #draco imagine #draco malfoy imagine #draco malfoy #draco #draco x you #draco x y/n #draco malfoy x you #draco malfoy fanfiction #draco lucius malfoy #draco x oc #draco malfoy x oc

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dweemeister · 4 years ago

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Elmer Gantry (1960)

Upon the publication Sinclair Lewis’ novel Elmer Gantry in 1927, an eruption of outrage ensued. The novel, a Juvenalian satire of evangelical Christianity in the United States, drew invectives from evangelical groups and high praise from literary circles. Despite its popularity among American readers, Elmer Gantry’s content long prevented American studio executives from even considering the film adaptation rights. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), from 1934 until 1968, enforced the Hays Code, a guideline for censorship, on all films made by the major American studios for theatrical release. Here is what the Hays Code says on religion – this section was never amended for the entirety of the Code’s existence:

No film or episode may throw ridicule on any religious faith.

Ministers of religion in their character as ministers of religion should not be used as comic characters or as villains.

Ceremonies of any definite religion should be carefully and respectfully handled.

The 1960 film adaptation of Elmer Gantry, released by United Artists (UA), directed and written by Richard Brooks, and featuring one of Burt Lancaster’s most electric performances of his career, violates the second and third part of this section and, arguably, the first as well. By the late 1950s and early ‘60s, enforcement of the Code was beginning to wither – boundary-pushing non-American films (which were exempt from the Code), television, and evolving behavioral and cultural norms in the United States contributed to its eventual demise. One of the beneficiaries was undoubtedly Brooks, whose output around this time – including Blackboard Jungle (1955), The Professionals (1966), and In Cold Blood (1967) – reflects the relaxing standards of Hollywood’s self-imposed censorship. Of the films Brooks made in this period, Elmer Gantry might be the most complete, excoriating, and cinematic.

Elmer Gantry (Lancaster) is a garrulous, ruthless, and ambitious con man who invokes Scripture to hock whatever he is selling. His shtick is effective, as his energetic sermonizing tends to break down the resistance of most. One day, curious about a traveling evangelist tent show passing through town, he encounters Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons). Gantry, taken by Sister Sharon’s virginal piousness and her fairness, convinces Sister Sharon’s assistant, Sister Rachel (Patti Page), to join their traveling group. Sister Sharon is impressed by Gantry’s – or “Brother Gantry” – orations, and she adjusts her own sermons to complement his. Where Gantry decries the congregants as sinners, Sister Sharon promises salvation through repentance. As time passes, Gantry’s presence in this itinerant ministry becomes the talk of the Midwest and Great Plains. Sister Sharon and Gantry begin to attract new congregants and onlookers’ horror, alike. The sermons become increasingly theatrical, writes the cynical big-city newspaper reporter Jim Lefferts (Arthur Kennedy), who is torn by his admiration of Gantry’s façade and his revulsion for hucksterism. Meanwhile, sex worker Lulu Bains (Shirley Jones) – who once knew Gantry when he was aiming to become a minister – is about to make an unexpected reentry into his life.

Character actors round out the cast of this motion picture, including Dean Jagger as Sister Sharon’s manager, Bill Morgan; Edward Andrews as businessman George F. Babbitt; and John McIntire and Hugh Marlowe as two reverends. Rex Ingram (1936’s The Green Pastures, 1940’s The Thief of Bagdad) cameos in an uncredited appearance as the preacher of a black congregation.

Elmer Gantry never feels like a 146-minute movie, as it moves through its scenes with fervorous pace thanks to some excellent performances and crisp filmmaking (more on both later). Brooks’ adaptation covers less than a quarter of Sinclair Lewis’ novel – Lewis allows its plot to unfold over the course of several years – and takes liberties in deleting or rearranging characters and plot points to fit neatly in a movie adaptation. Like the novel itself, Brooks’ adaptation ends without clear moral or narrative resolution – albeit at an earlier point in the novel. The character of Lulu Bains does not reappear in Lewis’ novel until after the events depicted in the film. To provide Elmer Gantry, the character, with the immoral backstory lost on a moviegoer unfamiliar with the novel, Brooks integrates Lulu into this film adaptation. On a surface level, that appears to deprive Lulu of her own characterization, agency, and backstory, but Brooks allows the character (and Shirley Jones) the space to portray and develop her complicated feelings – a stew of trauma, bitterness, and love – for her current life station and towards Elmer Gantry.

Reverential low-angled shots from cinematographer John Alton (1951’s An American in Paris, 1958’s The Brothers Karamazov) during the revivals make Sister Sharon’s tent seem cavernous, a fabric cathedral without need of stained glass, marble statues, flying buttresses. Looking slightly upwards at Sister Sharon’s of Elmer’s faces (at times with a Dutch angle), the film elevates the two above the masses listening intently on what they have to say, imbuing their scenes with striking imagery that draws the viewer’s attention. The decision to shoot the film in the 1.66:1 screen aspect ratio – wider than the Academy standard, but not as much as the widescreen standard sweeping through American filmmaking at the time – constricts the audience’s peripheral vision, forcing one’s focus on the speaker’s body language, rather than any miscellaneous activity occurring behind or to the side of the speaker.

As for the speakers or, should we say, actors, there are stupendous performances across the ensemble. For his turn as the eponymous lead, Burt Lancaster, known for his vigorous performances, provides Elmer Gantry with vigor aplenty. Modeling his performance off of the behavior of baseball outfielder-turned-evangelist Billy Sunday, Lancaster struts around the tent during revival meetings, his upper body animated in conversation and salesmanship outside those meetings. Even in stillness, Lancaster’s physicality swaggers, brimming with euphoria – his most private moments abound in sexuality molded by what his character might call the love of God. Even Lancaster’s haircut appears to be defying gravity more than usual in Elmer Gantry. The sweat on his brow, within the 1:66:1 frame, feels as if it is about to seep through the camera. As he delivers his lines, Lancaster masters the complicated beat – accelerating with certain turns of phrases and strategic pauses for emphasis – and wildly varying volume of Elmer’s sermons. “Love is like the morning and the evening stars,” he intones as Gantry (that is his signature quote), somehow making us believe in such bromides and other simplifications he sells to the revival’s attendees.

Jean Simmons, as Sister Sharon Falconer, is a clear-eyed minister who nevertheless falls – or, perhaps, “seduced” – for Brother Elmer’s pontifications. In her own way, Sister Sharon Falconer is as ruthless as the man who wheedles his way into her company. Simmons, retaining her British accent, speaks like a patrician but, as Sister Sharon, reminds all that even the poor, the downtrodden, the sightless, the hard-of-hearing can know the munificence of Christ. So different is she from Gantry that when the latter begins to aggressively court her, the scene elicits squirms. Not because the scene is poorly acted, but that Simmons and Lancaster (with assistance from Brooks’ screenplay) have developed their characters so masterfully that Elmer’s pretense-free seduction feels straight from an Old Testament story that invariably incurs God’s wrath. Their characters convince themselves of their mutual love, even though Gantry is probably incapable of loving and Sister Sharon cannot view love outside how she might interpret it through the Bible.

In the aisles or the congregation’s peanut gallery are Arthur Kennedy and Shirley Jones. For Kennedy, as the reporter Jim Lefferts, this is a dress rehearsal for the similar but more biting role of Jackson Bentley in David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Like Bentley was to T.E. Lawrence, Lefferts views the work of Elmer Gantry and Sister Sharon with a cynical lens but, to some degree, each finds a professional need for the other. As Lulu, Shirley Jones crackles with a sexuality essentially nonexistent in American movies at this time. Upon Lulu’s introduction, she tells her fellow sex workers her past experiences with the minister now stealing newspaper headlines:

LULU BAINES: He got to howlin’ “Repent! Repent!” and I got to moanin’ “Save me! Save me!” and the first thing I know he rammed the fear of God into me so fast I never heard my old man’s footsteps!

With this suggestive language that would never have been tolerated by the MPAA a few years earlier, Jones delivers her lines with shamelessness, slightly colored by a modicum of romantic trauma that reveals itself later. Jones is not in Elmer Gantry long, but her presence, her character’s raw contradictions deepen the tragedies that seem to follow those entranced by a former seminary student now returning to preaching his idea of gospel.

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André Previn’s unsettled score to Elmer Gantry leans heavily on brass dissonance and rhythmically complex string runs in the few instances where there is no dialogue or diegetic music. Though not used often, Previn’s music lays bare Gantry’s motivations of lust and profit, a man devoid of internal meaning and one who craves sensation. There are moments throughout the score where it seems like a Coplandesque Americana sound is begging to burst free. But Previn, more than capable of composing such music and considering the narrative to this adaptation, knows better than to let those tendencies escape. The raving strings and blaring brass bury melodicism, which is left for the jazzy interludes that accompany Lulu’s scenes (jazz at this time was considered scandalous by many Americans). Previn’s score might not suit those longing for free-flowing motifs, but the technical skill required to play, let alone accomplish the musical phrasing he intends, some of the passages he writes for Elmer Gantry are stunning.

Earlier in this write-up in reference to the Hays Code, I mentioned that Elmer Gantry villainizes and makes comic characters out of religious figures, in addition to portraying the events at Sister Sharon’s revivals as debauched, deceitful. But does Elmer Gantry “throw ridicule on… religious faith”? Probably not, although those who despise religious belief in and of itself might disagree. Given Sister Sharon’s modesty and her less-fiery diction early in the film, probably not. Brooks does not expand upon what Sister Sharon’s congregation looked or sounded like in the months of years before Elmer Gantry’s arrival. Instead, Brooks’ movie targets individuals seeking to make economic and personal empires of organized religion – and Elmer Gantry, whose ravenous pursuit for money and women, is the man to defile Sister Sharon’s ministry. Only once he ingratiates himself to Sister Sharon, Gantry begins to emphasize what sounds suspiciously close to the “prosperity gospel”, which broadly states that faith in God and religious donations will lead to material wealth and physical wellbeing. The prosperity gospel is not scriptural. But it is a central tenant of numerous evangelical traditions.

Like Oral Roberts, Billy Graham, and the Falwell family, Elmer Gantry is the byproduct of the United States’ Third Great Awakening, which also resulted in Prohibition and the State of Tennessee’s decision to prosecute John Thomas Scopes for teaching human evolution in a public school. Sinclair Lewis, like Richard Brooks and his cast for Elmer Gantry, warn of profiteering “prophets” that remain a fixture of American life. From the mid-1950s to the mid-‘60s, the major Hollywood studios were prioritizing epic movies such as Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956), William Wyler’s Ben-Hur (1959), and George Stevens’ The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) – spectaculars intended to check the perceived threat of television to moviegoing. A film like Elmer Gantry that disparages religious ministers – even unethical, villainous ones – released during this time was nothing less than a landmark. Adapting a work by one of the great American writers of the twentieth century, Richard Brooks, with no small assistance from a cast topped by Burt Lancaster, results in a venomous film including one of the great characters of American film history. The book is almost a century old and the film is just past its sixtieth anniversary, but Elmer Gantry’s power endures. Elmer Gantry’s dialectic continues, even with evangelical Christianity akin to the homilies of Elmer Gantry supposedly on the wane.

My rating: 10/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Elmer Gantry is the one hundred and sixty-fourth feature-length or short film I have rated a ten on imdb. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

#Elmer Gantry #Richard Brooks #Burt Lancaster #Jean Simmons #Arthur Kennedy #Shirley Jones #Dean Jagger #Patti Page #Edward Andrews #Sinclair Lewis #John Alton #Andre Previn #TCM #31 Days of Oscar #My Movie Odyssey

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puzzling-investigations · 4 years ago

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Drowsy’s Guide to Germans - Part One

Hello everyone!

My name is Drowsy, this is my AA and PL sideblog, and this is a rediculous series I’m starting.

Stuff like this is not amongst my usual repertoire, but I’ve seen enough of people writing/dubbing/acting out German characters (in various fandoms) with bad German to decide an actual German should step in and do some talking and explaining. As Ace Attorney is one of the fandoms where people have multiple German-speaking characers with the possibility to converse, I decided to apply the post to this fandom (I could’ve also applied it to Overwatch, but somehow people really don’t feel like letting Mercy and Reinhardt talk German to one another).

In this multiple-part series, I will cover the following:

Different Germans (speaking English) and pronunciation advice for each (so mostly (voice) acting advice)

Things to watch when using German lingo (pronunciation/grammar bs) and terms of endearment/nicknames

Fun things about German (naming) culture you can include/watch out for.

Who is and isn’t German in AA, of the characters with “German” names, and to which degree they are.

Fun pronunciation/grammar/writing things

The sections will flow into each other a lot, I think. Most of this advice applies to any German characters you write, so you can use this for other fandoms/media, too. The first part begins under the “Read more”.

- Best of luck, Drowsy

Part 1: Different Germans (speaking English) and pronunciation advice for each

This section could probably use some additions, so if anybody wants to make them, please feel free to reblog and add!

Exhibit 1A: The International

In general, modern-day Germans usually learn English at school and have this lightly-accented pronunciation that is almost flawless, but there’s just something... Wrong. Something unplaceable yet absolutely German about it. Most English teachers here talk like this, although some lean in one or the other accentual direction (usually British or American).

The International has had a lot of exposure to the English language and also knows most of the pronunciations if he’s familiar with the word/related words. They might have grown up with someone who speaks English or be otherwise close to someone who speaks, if they didn’t learn at school.

If you find yourself dubbing/writing an International, be careful to keep your own and the character’s accent and neutral. Unless they’re “quirky” they won’t use random German words except for when they can’t remember the proper word. They’ll make an effort to speak English as well as possible as to not hinder the native speakers around them. If the character gets angry or excited, you can perhaps loosen that decree a little. Here’s the best sounds/grammar mistake to do it with:

- “Th” in any way, shape or form that isn’t “t”-sounding. Germans have a big problem with the “th” in “birthday”, which often turns out as “birs-stay”, a cause of much distress for me in primary school and kindergarten, where I would aggressively put weight on “th” and yell at people who should know better.7

- Idioms and figures of speech: Many of these overlap in German and English, but some are quite different. For example:

“to stand in a queue” is “to stand snake” in German. - Just beause you speak the language well, it doesn’t mean that you know all the idioms and figures of speech.

“to brush one’s teeth” is “to clean one’s teeth” in German. As a bilingual, this is a stupid little mix-up I often make, along with “to blow one’s nose”, which I turn into “to clean one’s nose” (I’ve done this in both languages).

Exhibit 1B: The Stereotype

This is your classical, Bond villain-esque German accent. Lots of “zat”, “ve”, and “neeeeiinn!” will be featured in their speech.

This German is probably more on the old side and has either has/had horrible English teachers, no exposure to the language whatsoever, is making an effort to learn but are only going off reading or a mix of some or all of the three.

But these Germans can have varying degrees of skill with English grammar and vocabulary, which almost allows for sub-sections in this “article” – one might have read a lot of English books and studied grammar and vocabulary, but has never actually talked to a native speaker before. They other has heard native speakers before but just cannot/will not adjust their pronunciation because they cannot see how it differs from what they heard or believe they know how to pronounce stuff properly, because they are ‘hashtag better zan yoo’.

Exhibit 1C: The near-native speaker

They grew up/spent a lot of time talking English with a native speaker/hearing them speak. They might be better at speaking the language, but may have problems with English writing as they’ve learned by the hearsay. If you’re doing such a character, let them make spelling mistakes. They’ll make mistakes when reading stuff out loud, possibly repeating the word in the correct pronunciation once they’ve recognised it from its written form.

Exhibit 1D: The bilingual

This German is almost the same as the near-native and the International, but with one difference: They have an accent from within the English-speaking world and make no mistakes in pronuncitation or grammar, only perhaps in some of the less ovious spellings - like any English speaker. They’ll have no problems reading out loud (unless they have social anxiety or dislexia, I guess). But they will be victim of the classic bilingual pitfalls - forgetting random, often mundane words, using words from one language in the other with said other language’s grammar, the likes.

For example: My older brother has been described as “A German trying to sound British”, but is also slightly Amarican-sounding due to spending years of study in the States.

So, perhaps, he could fall under the “Interntional” category, but his correctness and lack of proper German accent make him unviable. - He does not have to try to speak/write/read proper English, unlike the Internation and the near-native, because he already does.

On the other hand, I have been described as sounding very British. This is mostly due to me getting more exposure the language thanks to a bilingual friend I met in 7th gade with whom I did and still do speak English on a regular basis. My sisters are very much a mix. My eldest sounds posh and very much like a speech sample from an Oxford Dictionary, the other is rather uplacable. We all cannot fall under categories 1A or 1C because we never “learned” English - we just spoke it and learned it at the same time as German, not being exposed to actual “bad” English until several years later.

#ace attorney #german #writing advice #and by someone who is tired of exaggerated German accents bc most Germans don't talk like that #a friendly advice columnn by somebody who has read Liebling in all lowercase letters too many times

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devourer--of--books · 5 years ago

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tagatha dating simulator au

- It’s sunday night and local college student, Agatha, hasn’t sleep in two days, practically glued to her chair at the library, trying to absorb the maximum of information she possibly could before finals on monday morning.

- Sitting across from her is her roommate and best friend, Sophie, who doesn’t seem nearly as concerned, playing a game on her phone. Mostly because she already failed half of her courses and is considering dropping out of college to pursue a modeling career, why try at this point-

- Agatha appreciates that Sophie is keeping her company, she really does, but even if her friend was using headphones, Agatha can still hear the background music and the voice actors very clearly. That on its own was distracting enough, but it was always the same lines, with the background music looping as Sophie restarted the game prologue over and over again.

- Around the fifth time she hears the app-staring-exclamation ‘milady!’ her eye starts twitching.

- By the twelfth she slams her book shut, earning herself a glare from all the remaining students in the library.

- “How terrible do you have to be at a game to not be able to get through the prologue?” she whisper-shouts, taking the sit beside Sophie, looking at the screen.

- “That’s not the problem,” her friend defends, proceeding to explain the game.

- Trial by Tale is a recently released dating simulator that has managed to gather a cult-like following. The game was praised for its diverse range of LIs, well-written routes, stellar voice acting, high-quality art style and a beautiful soundtrack. It was apparently highly addicting as well, as Agatha had never seen Sophie be that invested in... any game... like, ever.

- Basically, the main character was transported inside a fairytale-fantasy-like world, where they were introduced as a ‘reader’ to compete in the ‘trial by tale’, a inter-worldly tournament, set up by a mysterious entity (a magical pen known as ‘the storian’), in which the winner would be granted an unconditional wish.

- “Original,” Agatha snorts.

- “Can you just shut up and listen?”

- During the prologue, the main character meets most of the main LIs and according to the player’s decisions, the game would put them into a specific route, based on affection levels with each datatable character.

- There were about thirty bad endings for the casual route (where the player either made stupid choices or didn’t gather enough affection with any LI), ranging from mildly sad to terribly gory. Then, each route had five early bad endings, that could happen during the trial, resulting in the main character’s death.

- If the player managed to win the tournament with the LI, bargaining with the storian for the survival of two competitors, then two new endings would be unlocked: a normal ending, in which the reader would wish to go home and a happy ending, in which the reader wished to remain forever in the fairytale world living happily ever after with their partner.

- “And that’s where it gets weird,” Sophie pauses, opening up the Trial By Tale wiki page. “Every single LI has a walkthrough and seven possible endings.”

- She shows Agatha a bunch of characters, offering some commentary on their personalities and backstories. Then, she pauses at the last. "All but one." The character is the prettiest, if not a bit too perfect. ‘Tedros of Camelot’, it says on the top of his page, his basic info and biography listed to the side, but it’s full of gaps, blanks and ‘???’s. It was mentioned that he was a dateable character, yet no walkthrough was provided.

- “Why doesn’t it say anything? Has he not been released?”

- “No one has managed to get his route so far, but according to the game developers, it’s possible. We don’t even know what his voice sounds like.”

- “And you think you will because…?”

- “I’m me. I’m getting Tedros’ route even if it’s the last thing I’ll do.”

- Agatha decides to leave her be, going back to the books, while asking for her to at least lower the volume.

- An hour or so goes by until Sophie grows hungry and decides to leave the library, going back to the dorm. After that, Agatha finally manages to concentrate, and time goes by in a flash.

- In fact, it passes so quickly that she’s not even sure what time it was. When did everyone leave?

- Her phone is dead and the clock on the wall is frozen at midnight. Probably broken, Agatha decides. It couldn’t be midnight, the lights were still on, the library closed at 10:30pm sharp and no one came to kick her out. She was tired, but she wasn’t deaf. She calls for the librarian.

- All the lights turn off at once. She’d be lying if she said it didn’t freak her out a bit.

- Then, she notices a blue glow from under the table. Please don’t let it be a demon.

- It’s a smartphone, with a bedazzled case, a loading blue screen emitting the light. Trial By Tale’s soundtrack starts to play and soon enough the words appear. Touch anywhere to start. That was Sophie’s phone. Which would be fine and normal and okay if Agatha wasn’t pretty sure Sophie left with it.

- The music starts to loop, and Agatha uses the light to guide her to the entrance, only to find it locked. Every other exit was blocked as well. Ha. Funny.

- Eventually, she surrenders, clicking on the screen, trying to close the app. The last thing she hears is ‘milady!’ and everything turns black as she feels the floor disappear from under her feet, her consciousness fading as she fell into an abyss of darkness.

- She wakes up lying on grass, near a gate, the words Trial By Tale engraved on top of it.

- She pinches herself, feeling it sting as she stared at the gate, pinching harder and harder to the point she nearly screamed in pain. The gate was still there. Agatha focus on her senses. She’s never able to smell things on her dreams.

- This place smells like dirt, pines, dried blood and iron.

- It’s a dream, she tries to convince herself. Very vivid dream, but it’s a dream.

- A bunch of floating text appears in front of her: Welcome, competitors!

- The storian tells Agatha everything Sophie already told her: it’s a tournament, in which 40 teens from different fairytale kingdoms, including the reader world, must compete amongst themselves for survival during 24 hours. You could pair up with someone, forming an alliance, but there could only be one winner. Then, the world froze, turning black and white, three options appearing in thin air:

A: I’m a boy

B: I’m a girl

C: I’m neither/both/something else.

- Agatha experiments. The text didn’t respond to her voice or gestures; she had to touch it. B. They disappeared up in smoke, being replaced by a new choice:

A: climb over the gate early

B: go in as soon as the gong goes off

C: run into the woods

- All of those sound horrible, she’ll hang around here, thank you very much.

- Agatha decides to pick B, because it sounded the least likely to get her killed. Tapping the option, color returns and more texts appears, telling her the rest of the rules. Apparently, all forms of magic and weapons were allowed, as it was a tournament to the death.

- Well, she had neither a weapon nor any magic, geez, things were certainly looking up.

- A gong can be heard and Agatha waits for her legs to magically move according to her choice.

- They don’t.

- She debates on staying put for a few minutes, maybe way too many, but then she remembers: casual route endings vary from mildly sad to terribly gory. Agatha doesn’t wanna find out which one she’d get by sticking around.

- Her future now depends on her romancing one of these pieces of code. Thankfully, it was just a dream, right?

- Inside the arena (?), she gets some other choices, which Agatha uses to her advantage, trying to figure out which LI she was going for and how to win them over.

- Hort, according to her friend, was the easiest to please and the most boring of them all. Nicola was efficient and Sophie had managed to unlock her happy ending without a walkthrough. Aric was a psycho, and so was Japeth. Don’t pick Rhian, her friend had warned. Anadil was a hard one to guess without the walkthough, Hester was super hot and Agatha’s type but that could go very wrong (clearly her type wasn’t working out, as she was painfully single) and-

- Is that Japeth or Rhian? She can’t tell, but he’s coming her way.

A: introduce yourself

B: try to kill him

C: hide behind the rock

- She chooses C, but climbs a tree instead, because he surely would be able to see her behind the rock, was he blind or something?

- “You sure are taking your time choosing,” a voice whispers from the branch above her, nearly giving her a heart attack, “...first time player maybe? Or just dumb?”

- Tedros, the mysterious character, was looking down at her, resting on a higher branch.

- Agatha glares at him before blurting: “You’re shorter than you look on your CG.”

- He chokes. “You can hear me?”

- “Why are you british?” she notices the accent, given how different it sounded from all the other voice actors.

- “I’m bi,” he frowns at her in offended confusion.

- (The himbo energy in this bus is astronomical.)

- They bicker a bit and Japeth grows suspicious of the hushed conversation, nearing the tree. Tedros asks for her help taking him down. Agatha is like, sure, whatever at this point, just trying to forget that Tedros broke the fourth wall. It’s a dream, don’t overthink too much.

- She distracts Japeth, and Tedros tries to ambush him, but it backfires horribly, resulting in Tedros now being a few seconds away from dying a very very painful death.

A: run away

B: ally yourself with Japeth

- Agatha hesitates over option A, convincing herself that Tedros wasn’t a real person. He was a just a character in a game. But while the entire world is black and white waiting for her answer, she swears his eyes remain icy blue.

- Trick of the light?

- She presses A but throws herself towards Japeth, colliding with him. Agatha ends up being stabbed in the arm, but otherwise fine, which is more than Japeth can say, as he fell into a conveniently located black hole. That hurt like a bitch, how is this a dream?

- Tedros is shook.

- “What did you do? How did you even-” he eyes the blood in her arm. “You’re bleeding!” Tedros rips his shirt to wrap it around the wound, and Agatha does her best not to stare at him while he tends to the wound.

- A blue ribbon in the sky tells Agatha she is now on Tedros’ route. A ribbon they can both read.

- “That’s… troublesome.”

- “What, is your route cursed or something?”

- “...”

- “It’s totally cursed, isn’t it?”

- They argue a bunch and Agatha tries to ditch him but ends up almost dying twice. Tedros saves her, and insists that since he accidentally gave her his route, he’ll help her stay alive for as long as he can.

- Together they figure out that Agatha’s ability to disobey the game choices might be able to uncurse his route, hopefully sending her home by the end and resetting the game as it was meant to be, allowing people play his route.

- Agatha is pretty sure Tedros is not telling her something, but she kinda does owns him her life now (“2x1, sucks to suck, reader.”) and he offered to share some of his food and hiding spot with her. Doesn’t hurt that he clearly knew how to fight and had a big sword, while Agatha had.... free will and nothing else apparently???

- They end up talking over fruits and water (we love a healthy king) in a cave and Agatha finds out basically every other character’s backstory, learning a ton about the context of these trials as well as what the game felt like for the characters.

- According to Tedros, every other character was doomed to repeat the same route and actions following the reader’s choices, only to lose all memories by the end, as the game reseted. They were all blissfully ignorant of the fact that this was, in fact, a dating simulator. All of them but Tedros. When Agatha asks him why, he closes off:

- “Every single character has a core wish they want fulfilled. It can be the same wish every time, or it can change once your route resets. My original wish contradicted the memory reset, so no one has been able to play my route at all. And if no one plays, I can’t reset. If you go home and the game resets, I’ll make a different wish and my route should be fixed for good.”

- Agatha doesn’t ask what he wished for and he doesn’t tell her either; it feels like way too personal of a question for strangers eating berries in a cave.

- She does ask him what his new wish will be, though.

- “I’ll restore my kingdom back to its former glory,” he starts, a certain sadness in his eyes. “They deserve a prince who doesn’t waste time wishing for-” Tedros interrupts himself, telling her about his kingdom instead.

- Agatha knows he’s related to King Arthur due to his name on the Trial By Tale wiki, but she’s surprised that he actually gives her that info willingly. He is indeed the prince of Camelot, but his mother abandoned the palace when he was nine and then his father died a few years later, sending the kingdom into despair and disgrace.

- (“That’s rough, buddy.”)

- To lighten the mood, she decides to tell him about ‘the reader world’.

- “To exist in your world might be something then,” he smiles, “I mean, beats hanging around here. You said you have a machine that can play music anytime you want?”

- Tedros is fascinated with everything and asks her about all sorts of stuff, like about politics, lgbtqa+ rights, tik tok, food, the economy, school and fashion trends. Also, memes, lots of memes.

- They spend like 8 hours straight hidden in a cave, just talking, bickering and actually having a lot of fun. The lack of choices even makes her forget she was still in a game.

- Tedros notices how tired she looks and offers to keep watch while she sleeps.

A: say no as a joke

B: outright refuse

- Agatha taps A.

- “Sure, do you mind if I lean on you though?”

- Is this like a date or are we like doing my route and you’re sleeping on my arm platonically? Tedros is shook, part 2.

- Agatha tries not to fall asleep, but she does take a nap, leaning on his shoulder. Surprisingly enough, an hour later she’s still alive, but her head was now on his lap and he was petting her hair.

- “Hi.”

A: get up

B: kiss him

- She doesn’t wanna get up, but she doesn’t really feel like kissing him would be appropriate for the moment. She presses B, yet remains still for next few minutes. Tedros looks a bit disappointed, as if he was waiting for her.

- “Aren’t you going to kiss me?”

- “Do you want me to?”

- He doesn’t reply immediately, running his fingers through her hair. “Everyone wants to kiss me. I’m hot, I’m a prince and I’m rich.”

- “You’re gonna need to do better than that to get me to kiss you,” Agatha tells him. “If we survive this I’ll kiss you once, just before we unlock your normal ending and I go home. For a CG.”

- “But then I won’t remember it at all.”

- The comment makes her nervous. Once this is over and Tedros gets his route unlocked, he’s gonna be just another character. He’ll say things like that to everyone. Agatha has to chastise herself for growing attached to a video game character. He’s not real. He wasn’t yours to begin with, you’ve known him for less than a day. Get a grip.

- They stay in silence until another gong goes off, the storian’s text showing up in the air: “12 hours left. Only 10 competitors remain.”

A: stay in the cave

B: leave

- Agatha chooses B and they head out of the cave to see who else was alive, just in time to not be crushed under heavy rocks. Strangely they don’t bump into anyone. What they do run into, though, is a bunch of traps and creatures meant to randomly eliminate competitors. Great.

- Somehow, Agatha always chooses the right option and alters her actions just enough to save them at the last minute. Is she a pro-gamer? One can only marvel at how lucky she’s been getting in this game. No, but like, really, is she? Tedros is impressed.

- At the 6 hour mark, there’s 4 people left, including the two of them. He’s been eyeing Agatha weirdly and she doesn’t know what to think of it because she liked hanging out with him, but at the same time, he is a piece of code.

- There’s like, a dramatic confrontation with the other two competitors, which turn out to be Aric and Hester, not as a pair, but as individuals, and it ends up working out in Tedros and Agatha’s favor, as those two end up murdering each othe while Tedros and Agatha have the advantage of teamwork. It’s a great action sequence, but if you’ve read this far, I’m pretty sure you’re not here for the action.

- Anyway, the storian appears, but unlike the other routes, instead of giving Agatha the opportunity to bargain for them both to survive, her options are:

A: kill Tedros

B: kill Tedros

- Agatha doesn’t tap either. She stays still, glaring at the pen while the world remained black and white.

- Then, the entire arena starts to shake, the game glitching as Tedros moves, his colors fading in and out, his expression tortured, as if just smiling at her was painful, his eyes glowing unnaturally blue. “Let’s get you home,” he mouths, before stabbing himself with his own sword, falling to the floor as the colors returned for good.

- Agatha couldn’t breathe, kneeling beside him.

- “To meet someone who’d love me for me,” he admits, bleeding out into the ground, a single tear running down his face. “That was my original wish. And then I met you.”

- She kisses him on the lips, and as you know, true love’s kiss breaks every spell, heals every wound and transcends the limits of storytelling.

- Tedros’ chest is slowly healing, but just as he gets stronger, Agatha grows weaker, starting to disappear through his fingers in rays of lights, back to the reader’s world, leaving a lonely prince by himself in a bloody arena with a magical pen.

- “Unconditional wish for the winner, hm?”

- Back at the library, Agatha wakes up with a snap, falling off her chair.

- The clock on the wall reads 10pm and the few students left at the library glare at her. She hurries to gather her things in her arms, going back to her dorm trying to make sense of what just happened. It was all a dream. It had to be because her arm is intact. She has been running on too much caffeine, finals start the next morning, she was stressed, that’s all.

- Sophie is still playing the game once Agatha arrives at the dorm, and as soon as she walks in, her friend tells her the news:

- “See, darling, I told you I’d get Chaddick’s route eventually!”

- Chaddick’s route?

- Agatha doesn’t even reply, going straight to bed, still haunted. That night, she has no dreams of handsome boys in caves, neither does she dream of blue-eyed princes bleeding out.

- Monday afternoon, though, a distracted Agatha is walking back to her dorm after taking her exams, when she bumps into someone, nearly knocking her over. She is about to yell at the stranger when her voice gets caught on her throat.

- “To exist in your world might be something,” the familiar stranger smiles at her, “I mean, I’m Tedros Pendragon, nice to meet you.”

#school for good and evil #The School for Good and Evil #sge #agatha x tedros #Tagatha #tedros of camelot #Agatha of camelot #Agatha of Woods Beyond

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amariaamaris · 4 years ago

Text

Of Grief and Realm Jumping

This idea randomly popped in my head and I felt that I had to write it down! Don’t worry I am still working on writing the second part to Bennett’s Saviors! The whole premise of this is that I thought of instead of Wanda Maximoff staying with the Avengers after her brother Pietro is killed in Age of Ultron. Her abilities/magic go haywire and send her to a different realm where the Vampire Diaries and the Originals story is. You know... so that when the whole Captain America v. Iron man thing happens a young woman (who is in over her head) isn’t pulled into it! Anyway, without further ado, I hope you enjoy this! Let me know if you want another part or a snapshot of something that Wanda could come across while in Mystic Falls (and maybe New Orleans?).

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Wanda Maximoff felt the moment her twin died, the moment her other half left the world. The heart wrenching scream that came out of her led to the red energy of her powers to destroy every single minion robot of Ultron; including Ultron himself. What Wanda didn’t notice in her all-consuming grief of losing her twin was that her magic came rushing back to her as fast and violent as it came out of her. Instead of hurting or killing her though, it teleported her and her brother out of the area; not just the area, but the realm.

It brought them both to a town called Mystic Falls in the state Virginia. Wanda’s magic easily slips back inside of her and leaves her sobbing over her twins body. Having no idea that she isn’t even in the correct realm, but rain is pouring out of the sky as a storm rips through that atmosphere and Wanda doesn’t care to know. She doesn’t care to know where she is or that the people she had just gotten to know would not be there with her.

Wanda doesn’t care because she just lost her twin and the sky is crying and screaming in grief and fury with her. She doesn’t care that she is in the middle of the road with her dead twin and she doesn’t care when a certain sheriffs car screeches to a stop right in front of her. With the headlights spotlighting her and her grief.

Wanda barely pays attention to the fact that the female sheriff is on the radio calling for backup and an ambulance. She doesn’t pay attention to the out of place british accents from a certain original family questioning why there are police and an ambulance vehicle(s) outside of their home. She only comes to when there are people in uniform trying to rip her brother from her.

Wanda’s mind goes straight to HYDRA and her fight or flight instinct come up hard and fast. Although, she isn’t thinking straight so it doesn’t even occur to her to use her abilities. All it seems that she is able to do is kick an scream and clutch to her brothers body as tightly as she can.

Wanda can vaguely hear a males voice say, “Bloody hell...” and then that same voice “Back the hell off Nik, can’t you see the girl needs help? Not people surrounding her and her loved one. Give her some space!” Wanda hears what sounds like a bit of a scuffle, “Bloody idiots, the girl is obviously grieving! Leave her be.”

She tunes out after that and continues to cradle Pietro and brush his hair as she quietly sings in her mother tongue. Wanda doesn’t even realize that she is slowly rocking herself and Pietro’s body back and forth. She hazily takes notice of her surroundings when she hears, “Come on darling, your in shock. I promise you that they’ll take good care of your brother. You just have to let him go.” Kol carefully puts his arms around her body.

Wanda hazily realizes that yes, she is in shock. She also realizes that any strength or fight that she had has completely left her being like her twin has left her. That thought causes a fresh wave a tears to run down her face.

So, Wanda allows for the mysterious british man to pick her up and carry her towards what looks to be a mansion. Wanda can vaguely hear people protesting the man carrying her away from the scene. They are quickly stopped by people that she is guessing are the mans family members. She allows her eyes to close as she feels the shock overtake her body and shivers of the icy cold rain hitting to her very core.

Wanda can feel the exhaustion of using so much of her energy in the battle and her grief over losing her brother finally pull at her. Wanda’s awareness becomes less and less. Although she is aware of being wrapped up in a towel, the movement stopping, and the warmth of the man holding her along with the heat of a roaring fire wrapping her up. She allows for her body to shut down and sleep, as her mind slowly goes dark, all she hears is the crackling fire, the mans breath, and his steady heartbeat.

Kol looks up from the young woman after taking notice of her state of rest. He raises a brow upon seeing his siblings standing in front of him with Liz Forbes right behind them. Right as Kol goes to open his mouth to tell Sheriff Forbes off. She stops him by raising her hand and slipping between two of his siblings to the front.

“I’m not here to arrest the poor girl, in fact I’m planning on letting her rest. She looks like she could desperately need it... It looks like she’s been through hell and back. I just wanted to ask that once she is awake and ready that you call me so that I can ask her some questions about everything.” With that Liz Forbes, sheriff, mother, an all around caring person. Turns and leaves; her words seem to hang in the air between all of the silent siblings.

Kol allows his eyes to fall back to the red haired young woman and takes notice that she is no longer shivering from the cold. So, he cradles her as he stands; getting her to a comfortable bed is the only thing on his mind. “Kol, where are you taking her?” Kol stops in his movements and rolls his eyes as he turns to face Finn.

“Dear brother, if you think I’m going to harm her... I’m not. I figured that she would be more comfortable in a bed. So, I’m taking her to my room to rest.” Elijah raises a brow and puts one hand in his pocket. “I didn’t realize that we didn’t have enough guest rooms to put her in one...?”

Kol scoffs on his brother and can feel his control slip as his vampiric face comes forward for a split second as his annoyance gives way to anger. It causes his siblings to tense up. “She’s staying in my room where I can make sure that she rests. I’m not going to do anything harmful to her. I thought all of you knew me better than that.” Kol shakes his head and then turns away, hoping that his siblings didn’t see the hurt in his eyes at them constantly thinking the worst of him. He makes sure that he is gone before any of them can say anything.

Kol’s siblings all have varying frowns of worry and disappointment in themselves on their faces. Elijah eventually lets out a deep sigh and disappears, leaving Rebekah, Klaus, and Finn to their own devises. Klaus speeds off to his art room, Finn leaves for the library, and Rebekah heads for Kol’s room; knowing that the young woman would feel better knowing that it was another woman that changed her clothing.

Rebekah quietly knocks on Kol’s door and then walks in without waiting for an answer. “Okay brother, out. I’m going to change her clothes so that she can at least know that she still has her modesty.” Kol doesn’t even bother to argue her words, in fact he looks relieved that she was taking this part over for him. He quickly kisses Rebekah’s cheek and then he is gone. Rebekah quietly snickers to herself at his reaction.

She takes notice that Kol at picked out his own clothing for the young woman to wear (sweatpants and a random long-sleeved dress shirt). Rebekah allows herself an eye roll even as a soft smile graces her lips at her brothers willingness to care for the random young woman. Rebekah moves as quickly and as respectfully as she can to change her clothing. When she’s done, Rebekah gently tucks the young woman into Kol’s bed and quietly closes the door behind her as she leaves.

As Rebekah heads to her room Kol is walking by and she gives him a nod to let him know that he’s good to enter his room again. When he enters, the almost full moon along with the light coming through the cracked doorway to the bathroom are the only things lighting the room.

Kol pushes out a breath while shoving a hand through his hair. Now that the young woman is resting safely... he feels aimless; he doesn’t know what to do himself. As he studies the young woman, his lips twitch as he takes notice of the fact that Bekah had covered the pillow with a towel (seeing as how the young woman’s hair is still sopping wet). Which reminds him of the fact that he desperately needs to shower, seeing as how he is still wet from the downpour that came out of nowhere.

As he comes out of the bathroom freshly showered he shakes out his hair and sneaks a glance at the young woman; making sure he didn’t wake her. He takes notice that she’s in a different position, curled around herself with her head buried in the covers. He can only see her red hair and part of her body, the rest is swallowed by the covers.

Kol shakes his head and decides to start a fire in the fireplace that seems to be in every single bedroom. Once he is satisfied with the warmth coming from the fireplace, Kol allows himself to sit down on one of the sofas. He knows that he is going to have to settle in for a long night.

-----------

When it finally comes around to 5 AM Kol is pacing as quietly as he can with his eyes firmly on the red haired woman. She’s still sleeping peacefully and she is still curled in on herself, but her face is now showing. Kol can’t stop himself from getting agitated, he just wants her to wake up so that him and his family can get the story behind her appearing in the middle of the road with a dead body (of which he assumes is her brother).

His agitation also brings up his blood lust which helps nothing. Kol lets out a quiet snarl and practically rips his hand through his hair, then he’s gone from the room. Before he knows it, he’s in their kitchen ripping through four blood bags. “Brother, what’s causing you to act like a newly turned vampire?”

Kol glances to Finn as he tosses the used blood bags into the garbage as he gives him a sarcastic smile. “Whatever do you mean Finn? There is nothing causing me to act like a newly turned vampire... as you put it.” Finn just stares at Kol and Kol stares back. He hates when Finn gives him this look; it’s the same look Finn gives all of his siblings. It’s this look that has - without fail - made each and every one of his siblings spill whatever it is that is bothering them; it surprisingly works on Nik too.

“Well, brother... if you must know, I’m just a tad irritated with the waiting came for the young woman in my room to finally awaken. So that we can all figure out what the bloody hell she is doing here. With her clutching a dead body to her no less. And why it is that a violent storm ripped through the sky... Causing people’s possessions to be thrashed.”

Finn just quietly listens as he slowly nods, agreeing with what Kol is saying. Although, he continues to study him. “There is something else... isn’t there brother?” His words cause Kol to make eye contact with Finn once again and Kol curses when he notices the realization in Finn’s eyes. “The smell of her is testing you... Isn’t it? There is no shame in struggling with control brother. It is rare that we have ever completely lost control of ourselves. It is even more rare that we ever come across people that just the smell of them cause a struggle in control.”

Kol can’t stop the scoff from escaping him; out of all of the siblings, Kol struggled the most. Not just because his magic was ripped from him in the transition, but because he didn’t want to put the work into truly exercising restraint and learning control. “Finn is right Kol, it happens to all of us.” Kol looks to Elijah when his voice pulls him out of his thoughts. He studies his expression for a few moments before he nods; only when he sees that Elijah is not lying.

A hand landing on his shoulder causes him to look to Nik. “When there are people like that... that test our restraint it also causes us to become extremely possessive over them. Which would explain why you weren’t happy about the idea of putting the young woman in one of the guest rooms.”

Understanding and realization dawns on Kol’s face... but confusion quickly takes over. “Then how the bloody hell are you two,” Kol waves his hand between Nik and Elijah. “sharing the little witch?” Kol makes equal space between himself and his three brothers as mischievousness lights his eyes. “While we are on the subject, why is it that Bonnie Bennett is even okay with the sharing? At least the witch isn’t like those doppelgänger bitches.” A scoff escapes him, “Ruining bonds between brothers the moment they spread their legs for one of them.”

Klaus lets out a huffed laugh, while Finn rolls his eyes and leaves the room, and Elijah lets out a long suffering sigh and adjusts one of his cuff links. “And he is back to being the Kol we all know and love.” Kol just laughs, “Oh, come now Elijah, I really am quite curious. If what Nik says is right, how is it that you two haven’t been at each others throats?”

Klaus’s lips twitch, “Okay brother, I’ll humor you - not that I believe you’ll end up having to share the young woman with anyone. When a vampire or werewolf comes across a person that smells in the way that the woman does to you and Bonnie does to us. They can be seen as - for lack of a better word for it or explanation - the other half meant for you. Obviously it would be a different feeling and reaction for wolves than it is for vampires. Since, it brings up the blood lust. Before you ask, yes it gets easier to deal with. It will eventually get to the point where you don’t have the blood lust effecting you from her smell.” Kol allows the information to sink in as he stares off into space.

Klaus and Elijah exchange looks, the can’t remember in their long lives a moment when Kol has ever looked as serious as he is right in this moment. “We’ll leave you to think brother.” Elijah quietly says, getting a mindless nod from Kol. Both Elijah and Klaus are gone by the time Kol stops his nod. Kol doesn’t know how long he’s been standing in the kitchen, completely still, and lost in his own mind thinking through the information given. It’s 8:30 AM when Kol finally comes back to himself and glances at the time. He decides to make his way to his room to see if the young woman is awake.

When Kol gets to his room door he pauses and listens for the young woman’s breath, heartbeat, and hopefully movement. He takes notice first of her elevated heartrate and hear faster breathing pattern. He can hear her slowly trying to shift off of the bed. He knocks on the door softly to announce his presence, he hears her suck in a breath and go still. The her hesitant, almost silent voice, “He- hello?” He takes her response as an invitation to open the door and walk in.

Kol quietly closes the door behind him, but makes sure that she notices that it stays unlocked. They both take a moment to study each other; Kol can’t help but notice how heartbreakingly beautiful she looks, with her red hair tumbling down her shoulders, his clothing practically swallowing her, her eyes slightly red from her crying, and very faint tear tracks on her face.

Wanda is to busy being wary of him, confused as to where she is, and wanting to know where her twin is to really look at the man standing in front of her. Her eyes flicker around the room, looking to the door he entered from, then to the windows, to him, then looking around the room again. As she shifts a bit she feels different material - softer material than what she is used to - brush against her skin. She takes notice that they seem to completely swallow her she allows the sleeve of the shirt to cover her hand as she raises it to her face. As she carefully brushes wisps of hair away from her face she catches the scent that clings to the material and a shiver goes up her spine.

Wanda’s eyes flicker back to the man standing in front of her as he watches her curiously. Kol can’t stop the pride that he feels rush through him at her response to his scent. He could tell that she thought she hid her reaction, but he noticed. He can also tell that she is uncomfortable with the silence and even though he could spend the rest of the time just watching her... he decides to put her out of her discomfort. “My name is Kol Mikaelson, I can promise you that no one here will harm you. I can also explain to you what I know about you being here. You most likely know more about it than me. Care to tell me your name darling?”

Kol’s lips twitch at her body jolting towards him in reaction to his voice (he just barely hides his joy at her reaction). He watches as she hesitantly goes to say something and pauses. Then she tries again, “I’m Wanda.... Maximoff.” He watches as her eyes fall from his to her lap as she fidgets with the sleeves of the shirt. “I don’t really know what I’m doing here... or where here is. You probably won’t even believe me if I tell you...”

Kol can’t stop the twinge of worry that touches him as he watches and listens to her. But he doesn’t move toward her in worry of scaring h- Wanda. When her hair falls to curtain her face, Kol watches as her body harshly jerks. Causing him to take a step forward. “What... what happened to my hair? I-- it wasn’t this color before...? I...”

Kol furrows his brows as her breathing picks up and her movement become broken and jerky. His eyes widen as he realizes that Wanda is having a panic attack. He assumes that everything that must have happened to her is coming to a head and causing this. He doesn’t know if doing what he is about to do will help or if it will make it worse, but he wants to try. He move toward Wanda and quickly pulls her into his lap and cradles her. “Calm down darling, you’re okay.” Kol unconsciously runs one of his hands softly through her hair and tightens his hold. “Breathe lass, we’ll figure it all out, just breathe.”

Wanda’s response to to grab his one arm that is wrapped around her and curl into him. Eventually her breathing evens out a bit, but neither move away from each other. A small smile makes its way onto Kol’s face when he feels Wanda (his Wanda) actually clutch onto him tighter; while burrowing closer to him.

Wanda knows that she shouldn’t be trusting the man - Kol - so easily, but right now she needs someone to help ground her. To help comfort her and seeing as how her twin brother won’t be here to do it anymo-. Wanda finds herself choking on a sob as tears rush to her eyes and her hands clench so hard on Kol’s arm that her knuckles go white. with the pressure.

Kol takes notice of her violent and fast change in state of being and frowns, but before he can ask what’s wrong... Wanda’s cracking voice fills the room before he can open his mouth. “He’s gone... my twin brother - Pietro - is gone. He’s gone and I couldn’t stop it! I wasn’t there for him when he needed me, I wa--”

Kol cuddles her closer and softly shushes Wanda as he carefully moves them both to a more comfortable position. When Wanda finally quiets into a restless sleep, Kol pushes out a breath, shaken with how much her pain affected him and presses his eyes tightly closed. Trying to ignore the answering tears that wanted to come out at his other half's tears. The silence that filled the room once everything fully quieted... was full of the dead, the left unsaid, and the questions left unanswered.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope you guys liked it! I tried to keep as close to what I perceive/observe of the characters; their emotions, thoughts, dynamics with others, etc. I hope I did them justice! Let me know what you think and if you’d want a second part or a one-shot of something specific with Wanda’s time with the Mikaelson family. Constructive criticism is always welcome! Have a wonderful morning/day/evening/night!

Peace, Love, and Joy!

#kol mikaelson #klaus mikaelson #elijah mikaelson #rebekah mikaelson #finn mikaelson #wanda maximoff #realm change #non canon #marvel #the vampire diaries #the originals

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siriusblacktothefuture · 4 years ago

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I get so irrationally rightfully upset every time people give historical/old school people English accents in media

First of all, English isnt even that old of a language. In comparison to almost every other language in Europe, it's one of the youngest around. Romance (Frech, Spanish, Italian, Romanian), Brittanic (Welsh, Cornish, Breton), and Gaelic (Scottish, Irish, and Manx) are all AT LEAST 500-600 years older than the first whiff of English. It's not even fully an off shoot of OG Germanic (which is pretty damn old), its like a second generation of it. So having Roman's in your action movie with English accents makes me want to scream every time I hear it. I long for a day when I get Italian accents in a gladiator/Roman conquest movie, but it will never come

The second reason I get pissed is the inherent weird bias of it all. You always hear the main protagonists in these historical fiction films have posh southern English accents while their rivals have thicker, differing accents to make them sound "barbaric." Theres a huge history of the English not only refusing to hire actors with thick 'less posh' accents, but also using different accents as a way to show someone's economic status. Eastern and Northern English accent = dumb, low income character. Actors with Welsh, Irish, or Scottish accents are always asked to either do posh English or, if they're 'lucky,' they get asked to tone down their natural voice. So in these historical pieces, I get infuriated because like 9/10, the posh accent doesn't even fit the region or time the piece it's about, but it's being used as a status symbol for the audience. "Oh the ones with the fancy accent have to be good because they have money and are smart."

Its left over imperialist bullshit is what it is, and in sick of it!

If you're making Romans, give them Italian accents, its gonna sound the closest modern equivalent to Latin! If you're making Vikings, make them have Norwegian/Swedish accents! If Celts, check which area of the British islands/Northern Europe your characters are from and make them have regional accents! FOR FUCKS SAKE LET PEOPLE HAVE CORRECT AND VARYING ACCENTS!!!

*This isnt even delving into non-European cases. I know theres a whole load of bullshit surrounding that too, but I don't know enough specifics off the top of my head to get into that on this post

#personal #just screaming into the abyss

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tamorasky · 4 years ago

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Rise to Me Chapter 7 - January 1947

Summary: 1947. It had been nearly four years since she had received a letter from her sister. Now with the end of the war and her impending wedding, Anna Rendelle is more determined than ever to find her sister.

1943. All her life Elsa Rendelle had been told to be good, know her place and to marry well. When an opportunity arises to make something of herself, finding herself in Occupied France as a part of a larger network of secret agents.

Rating: Mature

Relationships: Anna/Kristoff, Elsa/Honeymaren, Anna/Hans (Briefly)

AO3

It feels odd not wearing her engagement ring underneath her black suede gloves, nor carrying her purse, but Anna remained firm to leave all her valuables at home, save for a few coins in her coat pocket.

Her gaze remains forward, firm not to make eye contact with any of the beggars on the street or the men calling out to her. She had lied to Gerda this morning when she left the house, knowing the Norwegian woman would have a fit if she learned Anna was going to Spitalfields this afternoon.

She hadn’t even brought a piece of paper with the address written down, ensuring her pockets are bare if she is to be accosted. Walking through the crowded street, Anna repeats the address in her head over and over again, ensuring she will not forget it. Her memory has never been reliable.

Even as she walks down the street, Anna feels as if she should know this area as she walks along Thrawl Street. Much to her annoyance, the sidewalk ceases at the bend, causing the young woman to walk along the road surrounded by brick structures.

Anna shoves her hands into her green coat pockets, her fingers brushing against the satin inside as she approaches Flower and Dean Walk. She’s slightly uncomfortable by the idea of walking down the quiet street as if anything could jump out at her at any moment. But continues down the road, nonetheless.

She glances behind her periodically to remain aware of her surroundings as she searches for house number 37. It is the last of the rowhouses on the block before the street turns into a courtyard surrounded by other brick houses. These Victorian neighbourhoods always unnerved Anna.

Anna lifts the brass knocker as she approaches the door, which slips from her hand, causing the brass to hit against the door louder than she intended. She steps back from the house with wide eyes, worried about how the disturbance will be perceived, especially for a man who lived in such a place.

Jumping at the sound of the door opening, Anna tucks her hands behind her back as her heart pounds in her ears. A man emerges from the house, ducking slightly as he walks through the short doorframe.

He wears a plain cotton t-shirt and brass-coloured trousers with a green coat in his grasp. His blonde hair is ragged and unkempt as his beard is. The man raises a brow at her, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Can I help you?” He asks, his foreign accent resounding through Anna’s bones as she stares at the man standing at least three inches taller than herself. She opens her mouth to speak, but no words come out, trying desperately to say something as the man is growingly frustrated with her.

“Bjorgman,” She manages to say, closing her eyes at how dim she must sound to him. “That…is…I mean. Shit.”

The American man can’t help but chuckle at this awkward British woman standing on his doorstep, shaking his head. “You wanna try that again?”

“Yes, I’m looking for a Kristopher Bjorgman.” Anna sighs, thankful she is finally making sense. Convinced it is this neighbourhood that is having an effect on her.

“Um…” The man glances behind himself momentarily, then back to the woman, glancing at her up and down. “He isn’t home.”

“Oh, well…might you have any idea of when he’ll be back? You see, it’s about this letter I have, well, a letter that was actually sent to my fiancé from Washington. He’s American, you see and has been helping me with some things…an-”

“He probably won’t be back for some time.” The man cuts her off, shutting the door behind him as he places on a coat which resembles Hans’ military one; the same olive-green colour but shorter in style with the buttons covered by a front panel with an insignia of an eagle sewn on the shoulder.

“Oh, I see. Well, might I leave my information? You see, I don’t often get into this part of town, and my landlady will have the skin off my back if she ever found out I came here.” Anna explains, trying desperately not to be awkward as Hans always teased her about being.

The man runs a hand through his hair with a sigh. “Yeah, just leave your name and phone number where he can reach you at.” He reaches into his pocket, presumably for a piece of paper and a pen.

“Perfect! So my name is Anna Rendelle, and I can be reached at…” She trails off, noticing the man isn’t writing any this down but pulls out a cigarette and lighter instead. He lights the cigarette, taking a drag of it as he stares down at the woman.

“Alright, Anna Rendelle. I’ll tell him you came by.” The blonde nods, taking a step forward towards the street. Abruptly the wooden door swings open once again, revealing a short elderly lady with a red shawl wrapped around her shoulders.

“Mr. Bjorgman,” She calls, stopping the blonde man in his tracks. Slowly, he turns to face the older woman with a grimace. “May I inquire when you might pay your rent for last month…and this month.”

“I’ll umm…yes. I will have that to you soon, Mrs. Anderson.” The man, apparently the vary man Anna had been searching for, responds.

“You better. The food for that mutt of yours isn’t cheap.” The white-haired woman places her hands on her wide hips.

“Yes, ma’am. I will have this and last month’s rent soon.” He bows his head, avoiding eye contact with the young woman standing before him.

“When Kristoff?” The older woman snaps as the young man turns from her.

He holds up his hand with his index finger extended. “Soon, Mrs. Anderson.”

“It better be!” The older woman shouts at the young man, who was walking away, before she glances back to Anna sternly. “Who are you then?” Anna opens her mouth to speak but doesn’t, instead her gaze going back to the man making his way down Flower and Dean Walk.

“Hey!” She yells after him, racing to catch up with the tall man. As she comes to stand next to him, her pace remains increased to match his stride. “Mr. Bjorgman, my name is Anna Rendelle, and I was hoping to speak to you about a matter regarding my sister.”

“I don’t know anyone by the name Rendelle.” He curtly responds, turning left onto Thrawl Street.

“No, I’m sure you don’t. But I believe we may have a common interest in this particular instance.”

“What? Is your sister a part of a country club that needs someone to work the grounds? Because I can assure you, I’m not interested.” He responds, raising a brow at the young woman as they turn right onto Commercial Street.

“W-wait what? No, I m-mean my sister has gone missing.” Anna explains as they cross the street.

He stops in front of a corner building, huffing as he throws away his cigarette. “I’m sorry to hear that, but I can’t help you.” Without another word, he disappears into the building, stepping through the glass and wood door.

Anna follows him, only to stop in front of the door for a moment, collecting her thoughts before pushing into the building. The Ten Bells pub had seen better days, the establishment’s wooden interior worn, and the stairs to the second floor blocked off by several chairs.

Mr. Bjorgman sits at the wooden bar on a tall barstool. She marches towards him, her brows knitted together, and her mouth pressed into a thin line as she climbs on the barstool next to him.

“Listen, I need you to take me across the channel.” She states. Trying to remain firm in her resolve while squaring her shoulders, attempting to look strong and confident.

Kristoff sighs, finally glancing at the young woman. He hadn’t expected her to follow him into the pub. “And why would I do that?”

“I heard from Frederick Westergaard about you. That you’re also looking for someone.” Anna explains, wishing she had brought her purse to show him the letters.

He visibly stiffens at that, eagerly reaching the beer the bartender places in front of him and takes a sip. A vein visible shows on his forehead as he places down his pint. “I think you have the wrong man.”

“My sister went missing during the war, I-I don’t know when. I think sometime in 1943, I’ve been looking for her since then. Last I heard is she was enlisted with something called the Special Operatives Executive.” Her fingers brush against the rough wood of the bar. He finally looks at her, turning slightly to face her as he pulls out another cigarette. “I need to find her before I leave for the United States with my fiancé.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He responds, his honey-brown eyes boring into her blue ones. “But I can’t help you.”

Anna stares at him, carefully examining his features, noticing the way his eyes crease as he apologizes. She recognizes that look all too well. “Who did you lose?”

“Doesn’t matter.” He takes another sip of his beer. “Listen, even if you can get across the channel, it doesn’t change the fact that she could be anywhere in Belgium, Germany or France.”

“The ferries have been operating across the channel again. There won’t be an issue with that.” Anna shrugs, shaking her head as the gray-haired bartender offers her a drink.

“And your fiancé? How does he feel about you going off on this wild goose chase?” Kristoff raises a brow questioningly as he takes a drag from his smoke, exhaling away from her.

“Hans is…supportive.” She drags out her words, not having told Hans about her plans to travel to the continent. “He’s been helping me with finding her.”

“So why doesn’t he take you to the continent?”

“H-he’s busy with work, you know and trying to make travel arrangements back to the States. I couldn’t possibly bother him with this stuff.” She excuses, increasingly becoming frustrated with the stranger.

“Sounds like a real knight in shining armour.” He rolls his eyes, finishing his beer and ashing his cigarette.

“You know what?” Anna slips from the stool, her heels hitting against the floor as she narrows her eyes at the stranger. “I don’t need this. I can find my sister by myself; I have been doing it for four years now, and I don’t need your help.”

Kristoff shrugs, his brows lifting slightly as he takes a sip of the freshly poured pint in front of him. “Fine.”

“Fine!” Anna retorts, uncaring if she sounded like an insolent child as her mouth purses, “You may be satisfied sitting here like a sad drunk all day wondering what happened to your person, but I’m not. Good day sir.”

“No. Wait. Stop.” Kristoff calls sarcastically, his eyes focused forward on the mirror behind the bar. For a moment, Anna does stop to turn and look at him but observes he is unbothered by her words or her leaving.

She rolls her eyes in frustration while spinning on her heel, stomping towards the door before pushing through onto the street. The young woman walks quickly to the closest bus stop, not wanting to remain in this awful neighbourhood any longer.

Anna wishes she had refused to take Kathryn’s shift the next evening, her mood still soured by her interaction with him from the other day. She had never understood the stereotype of the “rude American” until meeting Mr. Bjorgman. Certain she would tell Hans about all of it when they meet for dinner tomorrow night.

Throughout her entire shift, Anna is fuming, trying desperately not to be short with customers or Mrs. Steiner when her supervisor scolds her for the run in her stockings. The very run Anna had fixed a week ago in the same pair of stockings. It was inevitable, she would have to buy a new pair.

Groaning in frustration as she glances at the gold clock on the wall, noting that she only had 40 minutes left of her shift. She decided at that moment that she needs a drink after work, tired of everything the last couple of days had thrown at her. As she stands in the department store, Anna decides not to think about it, in fear of bursting into tears on the sales floor.

Instead, she smiles at customers and discusses her wedding with her swooning co-workers in her spare time. After 4 years, she had perfected, pretending everything is fine in her life. As Anna smiles and jokes with Mary, a familiar voice resounds through the salesfloor, instantly souring her mood once again.

She huffs in frustration, blowing her bangs out of her eyes before turning towards the department store entrance. The blond man stands at the front makeup counter, wearing the same clothes from that afternoon and still looking ragged. It surprises her that the security guard isn’t following him through the store as he meanders, looking a little lost through it all.

He slinks through the salesfloor. His gaze searches every makeup counter until they finally fall onto her. As he awkwardly makes his way past customers, Anna watches as he apologizes to the various women he accidentally brushes against.

Kristoff stands at the makeup counter Anna is occupying, drumming his fingers against the glass case as he carefully thinks over what to say.

“Can I help you?” Anna snaps quietly, feeling bad for a moment as she sounds harsher than intended.

“Yeah, I uh…” He scratches the back of his head awkwardly, not making eye contact with the young woman. “I came to apologize.”

“Did you?” Anna inquires, cocking a brow as she crosses her arms. She cannot bring herself to believe him quite yet, as he had yet to make eye contact with her.

“Yes!” He barks, frustrated by this woman’s pride. Kristoff takes a deep breath to calm himself. “It was brought to my attention that I was a real asshole yesterday.”

“Really?” Anna responds flatly. “And what gave you such an idea?”

“I-It doesn’t matter. I just wanted to come here to apologize…and to talk.” His gaze drifts to the glass case, focusing on his hands.

Anna’s gaze drifts away from Kristoff for a moment, noticing Mrs. Steiner staring at the two of them with interest. “Meet me at The Clarence pub in about 30 minutes.”

“What?” Kristoff questions, his brows furrowed in response.

“Have a drink while you wait.” Her eyes dart back to Mrs. Steiner to see the older woman inching close. Anna plasters on her best fake smile at the young man as she uncrosses her arms. “Yes, sir, as I mentioned before, you’ll find cookware on the third floor.”

Kristoff stares at the young woman as if she had lost her mind at that moment, trying to understand what the hell she is talking about. Her eyes rapidly shift from him toward her supervisor, causing him to glance over his shoulder to understand what is happening.

“Ah, yes. Well, thank you for all your help.” Kristoff responds somewhat stiffly before turning away from Anna, shoving his hands back into his coat pockets as he walks toward the door. Anna huffs that he doesn’t move towards the elevators to keep up their charade.

Panic instills in her as Mrs. Steiner stands in front of her, glaring at the girl coldly. “What did that customer want?”

“I’m not sure,” Anna shrugs, noting the look of disdain on her supervisor’s features. “He came in asking for a lipstick that would make his girlfriend look like Gene Tierney. I started showing him some samples, and then he asked about cookware. Then he just left.”

“Hmm…how odd.” Mrs. Steiner comments, her gaze not leaving Anna for an instant.

“It really was.” Anna nods, her fingers playing with the cuffs of her forest green collared dress. She learned not to play with the pussy bow on this dress around her supervisor, who would snap at her for fidgeting.

Without a response, Mrs. Steiner glances down, her nose wrinkling in disgust. “Clean your counter in the last 20 minutes of your shift.”

Anna stares at her supervisor in confusion as the older woman strides away from her. She had cleaned the glass earlier this morning. The young woman looks down to the glass, only to find finger smudges from where Kristoff had stood.

She huffs in frustration. He really isn’t making this easy on her.

Anna could hardly wait to leave work once her shift had finished. Rushing towards the lady’s breakroom to grab her coat and purse. She huffs upon leaving the department store to find it is raining, she had forgotten her umbrella at home. Quickly, Anna races down the street towards The Clarence, not caring if her braids were unravelling.

As she reaches the pub, Anna pauses outside the building in the rain, catching a glimpse of herself in the door’s glass. Her eye makeup is slightly smudged from the rain, and her lipstick clinging to the creases in her lips. Her auburn hair now in loose brains and whisps of her hair sticking to her cheeks.

Pushing open the door, Anna steps into the building in her wet clothes, shivering as warmth begins to overtake her body. She glances around the bar, spotting Kristoff in the same spot she had sat with Olaf only a week ago. Her gaze focused on the man; Anna moves through the crowd.

He already has a dark beer in front of him, nursing it while he waits. Anna occupies the seat across from him without a word, shrugging her wet green coat from her shoulders as he watches her.

Her dress’s cuffs are wet, causing the young woman to unclasp the cuffs and roll them up to her elbows. She wonders what this man in front of her must think of her looking a mess. A server quickly rushes to their side.

“Can I get you anything?” The young woman asks, not bothering to take out the pad of paper in her apron pocket.

“Could I get a pint of Newcastle?” Anna asks, feeling awkward as she orders. She never ordered beer anymore since she started to see Hans. It felt unladylike for her to do so.

The server nods with a polite smile before turning to Kristoff. “How are you still doing?”

“I’m good, thanks.” Kristoff offers a polite smile back, his face falling as the server walks away from their table. It falls silent between them once again. Before Kristoff mutters, just barely above a whisper. “You’re right.”

Anna stares at the young man, initially shocked. A smile crosses her features as she flutters her eyelashes innocently, cupping her hand against her ear. “I’m sorry. What was that? I couldn’t hear you over the crowd.”

Kristoff rolls his eyes, glancing around the pub with only two other men in the room. “You were right!”

Anna sits back in her chair, cockily, crossing her arms over her chest as her smirk grows. “Well, I’m glad to see you can be reasonable, at least some of the time. Maybe I should’ve found you at the dingy pub yesterday.”

“The bar isn’t dingy it’s just…historical.” He shrugs. The server places the pint in front of Anna before moving onto the other table without another word.

“I felt like I was going to be murdered in it,” Anna states, using both hands to pick up the heavy pint glass to take a sip from it. A small smile ghosts over his features at her comment, which makes Anna pause for a moment. If he were to trim his beard and hair, actually take care of himself, she could understand why one might find the man in front of her to be quite handsome.

“You would have been fine.” He responds, taking a sip of his beer.

“That’s easy for you to say. You’re a giant yank!” Anna exclaims. “Any person in that neighbourhood wouldn’t dare to pick a fight with you.” “I really think you’re over-exaggerating.” Kristoff pulls a cigarette out of his pocket, lighting it before inhaling. He reaches over the table with the pack of smokes, offering her one.

“No thank you, I don’t smoke.” Anna refuses, her finger twitching at the urge. Smoking was a habit of hers, which is in the past now; she hadn’t smoked since she worked in the factory during the war.

Kristoff nods, exhaling the smoke away from Anna. Silence falls between the pair once again. The sound of glasses clinking against one another echoes throughout the pub as the bartender puts them away. She suppresses the urge to bite her nails with a sigh, drumming her fingers against the table.

The man sighs, taking another sip of his beer. The pint glass thuds against the table as he places it down, his eyes meeting hers once again.

“Why did you ask me here? I assume it has to do with my attempt to reach out to you the other day” Anna inquires, unable to take the silence any longer.

“It is…” Kristoff sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ve been searching for…someone since the war ended, and I haven’t gotten anywhere.” His eyes drop to the table, staring at the wooden surface dolefully.

Anna stares at the man across from her. A very different man from the one earlier this evening and the other day. She wonders if perhaps that man who poked fun at her and drinks away his days in the pub is somehow a person who tries to forget. Someone, just like herself.

“I know how you must be feeling.” She nods, her fingers brushing away the condensation away from the pint glass. “I-I’ve been searching for her four years now. Every time it felt like I gained an inch, I went back one foot.”

Kristoff slowly glances up at her. “I gave up. My letter to the Pentagon last year was my last attempt, but then everything was classified.”

“Yet you stayed in England?” Anna inquires without thinking. He goes quiet, avoiding eye-contact with the young woman. She feels a twinge of guilt from unable to control her impulses. It was something her father and mother always scolded her for, recalling her mother nearly shouting at her after an incident.

You need to learn to think before you act, Anna Margaret Rendelle.

Even as an adult, those words rang true. As she opens her mouth to apologize, but Kristoff simply nods in response as he takes another drag of his cigarette. “Yeah…I did. Just in case I heard anything about her.”

“Who was she?” Anna can’t help but ask, placing her elbows on the table and cradling her chin in her hands. She wonders if he is searching for his lover, Anna always had loved romance. It was something Elsa used to tease her about a lot, back when they were close.

Kristoff finishes his beer, placing the glass loudly on the table and exhales loudly. “It doesn’t matter.” His entire demeanour changes with that, as if pulling himself away from how he feels about this. “What documents do you have to help your search?”

“Oh! Umm…” Anna trails off, unprepared for that question as she grabs her purse. Pulling out the envelope from her bag and sliding it across the table. Kristoff opens the folder, glancing over the documents. “I was given a copy of my sister’s enlistment forms. It says she parachuted into France near Arras.”

“Alright, here is what I suggest. We’ll drive to Folkstone an-”

“I don’t have a car.” Anna blurts.

“Just listen, I do.” Kristoff calmly explains, closing the folder with the documents. “From there, we’ll take the ferry across the channel to Le Havre.”

She stares at him, a small smile crossing her features. He had come to the pub with a plan. No one had ever gotten this far with planning her search. “And where would you propose we go to next?”

“From Le Havre, we’ll drive to Arras…and I guess…just hope someone knows something.” Kristoff sits back in his chair, sliding the documents back to Anna as he crosses his arms over his broad chest.

Anna glances down at Kristoff’s empty glass and her nearly empty one. She stands from the table with her hands on her surface. “What are you drinking? I’ll buy us the next round.”

“Guinness draught,” Kristoff responds, smiling up at the young woman. Anna nods, tapping the table twice with her right hand before meandering towards the bar. It is going to be a long night.

Author’s Note: I apologize for any bad edited, I'm so tired but so excited about this chapter!!

Also, Kristoff will get less confrontational over time!

I kinda went down a rabbit hole with the geography for this, but basically like Dean and Flower Walk, and Thrawl were like the worst crime streets in London during the victorian era. And Ten Bells is an actual historical pub in the neighbourhood.

#kristanna #elsamaren #anna #elsa #kristoff #honeymaren #Rise to Me #frozen #WWII au

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alphaofdarkness · 4 years ago

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not me here for the oc ask ! can't wait to answer the ones you asked me, tomorrow i have my exam and then i shall live again haha ! but now i'll ask you 1, 2, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 31 — i know, it is a lot ( you don't have to do them all 💕) , but i really want to know something more about your wonderful babies and Dany ofc ! I missed her sm during this semi-hiatus 🤧💕💕💕 hope you're doing fine, sending you lots of love 💞💕💘

@carmenio Edgy!! 🥺 so happy to hear from you! ✨ I love these kinds of asks, especially on my many, many OC babies! I hope these answers are good and interesting to thee! I’ll present more info on Dany to some way, some how cause I love her 😭💖

I have gone and included the other questions you asked as well! 🤗 Let’s dive in! 😳

1. Gone and Answered Here ! UwU

2. Do you have a personal favorite among your OCs?

Personal favorite is often shown in the one I draw the most lol, which for a long time was Danielle LWW, but just because she was also my wolfsona at the time. After I made my own personal one I think I went onto Sam for a good while, also eventually going to Dany from Bsd!

So a tie between two beautiful girls, Sam is definitely my favorite LWW Oc, she is just precious and the one I hold the most and most always feel terrible and bad when I put her through it TM.

Also Dany is my self insert, U//w//U, she has definitely allowed me to slowly self love and allow me to appreciate myself, especially the parts of me I didn’t think to much about or consider so appealing, I think? She has definitely been changing gradually into more of myself since I first came up with her almost 2 years ago! Watch me slowly knock her down to my height of 4′9″, let her have her 3 inches for another year maybe lol.

My dearest Atsushi agrees lol ✨🐯

17. Any OC OTPs?

👀 lol yesss~ so many and so many crack ships too, which I'll answer next 😂

I’ll just go on and list them off, plenty more of them but~:

DanyJay

SoraYama

LidiaTom

AlikLucy

IsabelleKayla

AlexanderIsabelle

DarkwolfmonJatomon

JatamonRaiwolfmon

EarthamonHounmon

HumaamonWolverimon

And lastly TakaSam is the one I have definitely drawn and thought of the most! They are the top OTP and just best trope of Childhood Friends to Lovers trope, also filling in that trope of Oblivious to both of them but everyone else 🙄. While SoraYama may have been the OG Couple in my story, my love and warmth for TakaSam is unmatched TwT.

It is wild cause I always draw anguish between them as could-have-been-lovers-had-it-not-been-for-death, but recently been drawing them purely happy and content. Total sweethearts, the love everyone wants, excluding possibility of being old friends or not!

18. Any OC crackships?

L o l, I never seem to focus on the main couples because of this specific thing.

I’ll again just go off in list an maybe add a trope or something to get an idea of them:

DanyYama: Rivals, Constantly arguing, and can be petty as heck, but oh the potential and just possibility of opening up after the traumaTM 👀 also the couple that is always in your face about being in a relationship.

DanySora: Sparing partners, the sass and stubbornness, BiPan solidarity 👀

DanyLidia: Pure, wholesome, best friends and so much hugging and lifting from the tol to smol, the nature love vibes

SamJay: Wholesome, soft, healing together from traumaTM, protectiveness, also their Digimon were lovers and married in their previous life, what does that make us? 😳

SamDany: Mostly sibling-like relationship, but damn they have that Sun and Moon tropes?! How can you not possibly ship them!

SamLula: Shy and Confident, Bisexual/Lesbian solidarity 💕✨

JaySora: Opposite of the DanyYama tropes, why are our partners constantly arguing, can they please stop, pure and soft together.

DanyTaka: Digimon Au specifically, Oh you and I are the voice of the revolution? We are rallying up the troops together? Oh boi my Digimon feels love for yours, am I falling for you or are we falling together? Depression buddies but also each others hope and spirit boost ;;w;;

Any of the Warriors with the Sins: A whole lo t of mess, and just not healthy ... but I can already seen fandom people sayin g otherwise~

LustWrath: Spicy, no strings attached kind of deal.

WrathEnvy: ...Oof um, not healthy, kind of manipulative, we are devils there is nothing but toxic vibes.

PrideWrath: Rulers, King and Queen vibes, Yeah we are toxic for each other, f*** off.

19. Introduce an OC that means a lot to you (and explain why)

Definitely Darkwolfmon! I am sure I explained in the first question why, but again I consider her to be that other half of me, the part of me I never discovered or the parts that essentially fill in the gaps within me. She is my precious partner Digimon and has honestly come a long, long way since I first created her. I believe sometime in 2009-2010, so almost 11-12 years since. She was the first ever OC of mine and is one I hold closest too in my heart.

For the longest time, even too now, I have always wanted her to just manifest at my side. Go on this journey of life together. While she might not be physically here like my child-self would want, she is still in my stories, my imagination, my inspirational drive. I think that is definitely more than enough, I don't know where or who I would be without having created her. I probably wouldn’t have a whole tale of OC’s and stories to tell if it wasn't for her.

I am more than grateful and thankful that I am who I am because of this lovely Oc of mine. I can only hope to have her at my side for the rest of my days!

20. Do any of your OCs sing? If they sing, care to share more details (headcanon voice, what kind of songs they like etc)?

Most, if not all, my OC’s can sing! Their voices and tones vary, to which I cannot give a straight answer on how I headcanon most of their voices right now ^^; I will say that Danielle has a British accent to her voice as well as Spanish speak, and Sora has a Russian accent to her voice, so may be just lightly deep, but not to much.

I will definitely go with my Bsd Oc/Self Insert Danielle Mika Mason, however! Because I have gone and done a thing on how she would speak in her Japanese and English Dub! Other than me also being her voice, her Japanese VA would be Yui Ishikawa, same VA of the queen herself, Mikasa 💕 English VA would be Barrett Wilbert Weed, with an English accent, good Veronica from the Heathers! You can have a listen to her here in this post!

Dany is meek when it comes to her singing, she will often be caught humming and softly singing something, but quickly tends to stop around others. She is often back and forth with how she sounds and often shuts down when she hears someone she considers better than her. She just needs some encouragement and a gentle push from someone she really cares about. When she does feel the push and genuineness from someone she will sing her heart out. But of course prefers to sing for only that one special person~ can ya guess~ 🐯

31. Pick one OC of yours and explain what their tumblr blog would be like (what they reblog, layout, anything really).

Oh boi! I literally have moodboards to add to this! I pick Samantha, or Sam!

She would totes have a Tumblr blog, and Instagram! You always look forward to see what she post and just feel an instant calmness and warmth when you see it! She is always tagging her things appropriately, a soft and warm spring like layout that is shades of yellows, golds, orange, white; an occasional blue and teal as well! She would reblog anything of her aesthetic, golds, yellows, dance and ballet related things (may even post videos or poses of herself in practice and dance related things), cafe shops, sweets and desserts, warm night lights, cats, lots and lots of cats and felines of all shapes and sizes! Her best friend/boyfriend, Takaru always cameos in her stories and posts 💖

She would also reblog or spread awareness of any issues happening in the world, marking them and making her own voice heard as well. In spur moments, you may see her not tag things, but will likely go back to name things accordingly. She would also reblog anything of Bi Pride too!

28. Your most dangerous OC?

Hmmm,,, my most dangerous Oc, I am taking the notion that they are just plain dangerous and likely of evil intent in their actions. Because plenty of my Oc’s on their own are dangerous in their own right, such as the Legendary Wolf Warriors, who have a great power at their paws. They can be destructive in their actions if they lose control or use it for the wrong intentions, which they wouldn't do of their free will.

I will say Danielle and Sam are the strongest of the seven, because of their powers of Darkness and Light, respectively. Their souls created the others, so the other Warrior’s power does not match theirs. They can definitely be lethal together if used for the wrong reasons or if they are under the control of a Human or Deadly Sin.

Which leads me to say that the most dangerous of my OC’s with the worst intentions and evil thought processes that makes them dangerous is likely the Deadly Soul Sin Pride, or Mikka Penelope King/Pride as her solid name goes.

She is definitely the most sinister of the seven sins, even worse than Wrath, who you may figure would be the worst. She has a calculating mind and is very precise in her actions and ways of manipulation. She has a poison within her veins that is just as deadly, capable of blinding others or even killing without remorse or care. While she may be a ghost like entity in my stories, a person/digimon holder in my Digimon College Au, she has enough power to influence people to fall under pride and vanity in the most dangerous level possible, heck even possess them if she wishes. That makes her stronger, as well as the other sins. Does not matter if she is dead or fades away for a while, her influence remains and if it does, than she can exist for a long as she desires.

48. OC who is a perfect cinnamon roll, too good for this world, too pure

Lol I saw cinnamon roll and instantly had a list of ocs ready, honestly any child OC I have is instantly a cinnamon roll and to good and put for this world, please treat them all kindly!

Current top Oc’s that come to mind are Haruko Mason-Nakajima, along with their nameless sister/pup! They are the sweetest babies ever and love them so much. Too good and pure, especially nameless pup with her love for tigers; she wants to grow up and be like her sibling and papa 🥺🥰 You can see the post on them here!

Next up is my precious flamey boi named Alik Azure Mizuhara! A next gen. LWW, son of Sora and Yamato! A little sightless boi with the softest heart and warmest empathy for others. Very much like his mother in likeness and pure curiosity of the world’s secrets and tales. His father worries for him a lot, but gradually learns to trust in his ability to guide himself. Don’t worry too much about him, he is very smart and knows how to care and guide himself!

Thank you so much for the time and questions you asked me Edgy! I had so much fun with these and gave me a chance to gush about my dearest OC’s! I do hope you find them of interest! 🤗🥺🥰

May your day be beautiful and amazing!! 🥰✨💖

#alpha's art #alpha howls #oc ask questions!#long post #the legendary wolf warriors #bungou stray dogs #bsd oc #danielle mika mason #carmenio #edgy is passing by... ✨

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