#you literally couldn't do any self-examination to save your life

[andrei-ulmeyda-official]

Since pride month is coming up, I just want to remind people while I’m still here, since this asswipe has given me a great example to point angrily at:

THE LGBTQ ““COMMUNITY”“ DOES NOT CARE ABOUT YOU.

You are a tool for political convenience and nothing else. You will be cast aside the moment you attempt to do anything outside the “social outcast who throws bricks through cop car windows“ mold they have decided all Self-Respecting LGBT People must be. Any attempt to act like a decent human being and not validate every homophobic trope ever is “respectability politics”, which is apparently bad now because our modern political climate now romanticizes being an obstructive asshole as The Only Real Way for you to get your rights. They will treat you as second class and turn off their human sympathy towards you because you voted the wrong way, which makes you the equivalent to a battered woman with stockholm syndrome in the eyes of people like this (because they legitimately think you are so easily manipulated that they can insult both you and domestic violence survivors at once without you noticing)

These people are crabs in a bucket. They don’t want you engaging in “respectability politics” because then there’s a chance you might leave the ever-present misery circlejerk of “Everyone hates us and wants us to die.” The addictive rush of victimhood is so strong that these people will sabotage each other to see it continue. That’s why they continue to promote actual pedophilia and violence, they want to be as socially outcast as possible. They don’t want to be accepted because to them that’s “respectability politics” and it means they lose because they no longer have the absolute right to complain about how horribly oppressed they are and continue feeding the vicious cycle of misery.

And of course, stepping outside this orthodoxy means you deserve everything bad that happens to you, and the people who claim to support you will pull out all the fashionable sociopathy to justify why you deserve it, in a way that resembles people who unironically use “She asked for it” as an argument. Because again, THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU. You are nothing more than a resource for political gain, and when you are no longer politically efficient (ie, you desire to coexist with straight people ever at all or vote for anyone to the right of Bernie) you are tossed aside.

Fuck’s sake, at least homophobes tell me they hate me to my face, they don’t try to gaslight me into thinking they Really Know What’s Best for me and that I’m just a dumb brainwashed fag for not toeing their party line. At least I can just tell them to fuck off and I don’t have to spend several minutes carefully dissecting their attempts to obfuscate their own lack of humanity.

I am begging all gay people to recognize that you owe these people absolutely nothing. None of these sociopaths on tumblr have fought for your rights in any meaningful way. The Log Cabin repubs have done more than these fucks ever will, and that’s saying something. Do not let them control the conversation or speak on your behalf. You are not a human being in their eyes, you are a tool, and once you no longer work, you’ll be thrown out.

And to you, guy I am pointing at: Shame on you. I genuinely hope something terrible happens to you, and a bunch of losers online clap and jeer and cackle about how you deserved it for voting the wrong way. I know it won’t cause you to do any actual fucking self-examination, but it’d at least be a fitting karmic punishment.

Gay Republicans who have fought for acceptance within the Texas GOP over the past three decades told The Texas Tribune progress has been excruciatingly slow. Many of them have left the party, even as the number of Log Cabin Republicans in Texas continues to grow.

In June 1998, a group of gay and lesbian conservatives, pushing for greater representation at the Texas Republican Party convention in Fort Worth, found themselves in a frightening clash with members of their own party.

Members of the Log Cabin Republicans were protesting at the gathering of party faithful after a state GOP official made offensive comments comparing the group to the Ku Klux Klan and pedophiles. The group was also protesting the rejection of their request to host a booth at the convention — the second time in a row they’d been denied — where they hoped to share information about their organization.

Counterprotesters surrounded the Log Cabin members, wielding signs with homophobic slurs and phrases like “The Gay Life = AIDS Then Hell.” They pushed and spat and shoved their fingers in the faces of the gay Republicans.

[femme-xx-fatale]

Just Hold Me For Now

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Warnings: Mentions of self harm, depression, attempted suicide, poor body image, and swearing.

Word Count: 1.2k

A/N: I haven't published any fanfics in literally years, but I've really been inspired to start writing again lately, so constructive criticism is welcome but please be kind!! I'm still quite rusty haha <33 Also, I would love to take writing requests :))

Also, my intention is not to romanticize depression, self harm, etc., I have genuinely tried to write this is a way that doesn't glorify any of that, but having gone through a similar experience, this was very healing to write.

You were standing in front of the full length mirror in your bedroom, tears dripping down your cheeks as you examined your reflection in the glass. You were wearing a pair of black, Nike shorts that stopped at your upper thighs, and an oversized, grey tee shirt that had definitely belonged to your boyfriend at one point. Your hair was thrown up into a messy bun, and your skin felt especially clean and soft, mainly due to the fact that you had just finished a long shower.

One detail about you, however, stood out from the rest. Long, deep scars covered some parts of your body, and god did you hate them. The way they looked running up your arms and thighs like steps on a ladder disgusted you, and brought old feelings of shame and regret up to the surface once again. How could anyone even love you?

The scars were old, you hadn't cut yourself for a few months now. It had been long enough, in fact, that though they had once seemed forever red and angry, they were now turning white with age. That didn't change the fact that they were horrible reminders of dark times, reminders you couldn't possibly get rid of.

As you looked at those dreadful scars, you remembered vividly the day that your boyfriend, Peter Parker, had demanded that you never hurt yourself again. You had been sitting in a bed at the hospital, with Peter crying and begging you to never hurt yourself again as he held you close to him. He had held you so tightly it seemed to you that he was afraid of you slipping away forever, even if the worst had already been avoided. The night before you had landed in the sterile hospital room, he had found you passed out in this very room, in a puddle of your own blood. The blood stains on the carpet came out, but it still hurt to look at the carpet, knowing where you were that night. Before then, he hadn't known you struggled with self-harm, and he was stunned at the news. He was terrified to loose the love of his life. He almost did, honestly. If he had taken even a few minutes longer to find you, then you would've slipped away forever. But he was really your superhero, and he saved you that night.

He had always told you that night would never leave his memory. You guessed that finding you like that, not even knowing you were unhappy, must've been horrible for him, and a pang of guilt hit you in the chest. You definitely weren't thinking about cutting again now, but the sight of the irreversible scars was depressing, and the embarrassment and shame of it all definitely wasn't going away anytime soon. Even though some of your close friends and family knew about your trip to the hospital, and must've assumed you had scars, you still always wore long sleeves and pants in front of them. Even with Tom you felt shy having him be able to see them, but you tried not to worry too much about it with him. Sometimes, you couldn't help getting eaten up with insecurity over it, though.

As you tried to calm all of the insecurities within your mind, your crying slowed, leaving you looking slightly disheveled due to your outburst of tears. You slowly felt the raised lines on your left arm, your fingertips being overly delicate, because you remembered exactly how much they used to hurt.

Suddenly, you heard the sound of your bedroom window being swung open, breaking through your thoughts, Instinctively, you reached for a hoodie that was crumpled up in the chair next to you. Unfortunately, you weren't quick enough, and the person entered the room before you could hide your arms.

"Y/N?" Peter asked awkwardly, somehow sensing that this was possibly a bad time. He'd gotten into the habit of coming in through your bedroom window, as your parents didn't exactly enjoy the idea of your boyfriend spending late nights with you.

Before you could even speak, his eyes drifted towards your uncovered arms, so you crossed them awkwardly across your chest. "Shit, Peter! You scared me!" You yelled, kicking him lightly on the shin with your foot.

"I didn't mean to scare you..." he mumbled awkwardly, eyes still glued to your forearms, but eventually traveling up to your face. You knew he noticed you'd been crying. How could he not, with your tear-stained cheeks and puffy eyes? He hesitated for a minute before saying anything, but eventually pointed out the obvious.

"Were you crying?" He asked, and you sighed, knowing he wouldn't let you lie your way out of this one.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Peter, you'll be surprised to hear this, but actually, its none of your business," you replied sassily, catching a glimpse of your red eyes and tear stained cheeks in the mirror as you spoke.

"Drop the attitude, I'm only trying to help, Y/N," He reminded you, not unkindly, but seriously. "Let me be here for you, please baby."

"I'm just upset," you relented after a few seconds of silence, wiping at your eyes with the back of your hand.

"As if I hadn't guessed that," Peter replied, rolling his eyes a little. "Let me see your arms a minute." The second he said that, you crossed your arms around yourself even more tightly.

"Well, they're right here," you muttered.

"Can you cooperate and actually hold them out for me so I don't have to make you?" He asked, even though you knew full well that if your answer was 'no', he would leave it at that. Even though he didn't always act like it, he did respect you completely. Normally, you loved his persistence and sassy attitude, but today, it was much less appreciated. You hesitated a moment before finally holding them out to him. He grabbed your hands up in his bigger, stronger ones carefully, rubbing his thumbs gently over the nearest scars, close to your wrist bone.

"Y/N..." He trailed off, and you thought you caught him tearing up. "You know I love you so much, right baby?" You felt yourself tearing up again.

It didn't take long for you to end up wrapped up in his arms, your legs around his waist as he held you close to his chest.

"How can you stand me?" You whispered after a few moments of quiet that only the crickets and soft breeze outside your window interrupted. You said it so quietly, that you didn't know if Peter had even heard you.

"What do you mean, babygirl?" he asked quietly, genuinely confused. You buried your face further into the crook of his neck before responding.

"I don't know... I just... You know so many pretty girls, but here I am. My scars are so ugly, they make me so ugly," you said, fighting back sobs the loud sobs that begged to be released from your throat. Tears were flowing freely from your cheeks, though.

"What? Y/N! You're like the prettiest girl I know," he said, not quite sure exactly what to say, but knowing he loved you and thought you were absolutely beautiful. "Listen babe, I mean it. You're so pretty and your scars don't make me see you any differently!! Like you're gorgeous and beautiful and just so damn pretty babe, like I don't even know how I pulled you-" You shushed Peter, cutting him off, but now you were smiling through your tears. You were feeling much better than you had before, and thanked him.

"I love you too baby," you smiled, kissing him gently.

[beclynn-herondale]

hi! ❤ hope you are well, i'm so happy to know you liked my last robert analysis. it feels very safe and nice to write about him to you, so it makes me really glad that you're enjoying too. forgive me, it took me a while to write this one!

between the points you mentioned, what you said you think about his trauma got my attention first. what you think is right, and i thought it would be a good idea to help you with your conclusions if i explained robert's trauma in details.

to examine it closely, i separate robert's childhood trauma into three parts. i guess we could say he had three different childhood traumas. you probably remember it generally: rune experience, parents, and discrimination. each one was deeply connected to the others but had a different effect in some ways.

1- rune experience: it's kinda hard to people to understand what happened because its horribleness was complex. i'll try to summarize. it was robert's 12th birthday. first of all, robert was being burned alive non-stop. he wasn't having his flesh burned, he was something like "burning inside." how intense the pain was: it consumed his entire being, he lost the ability to think, the pain blocked any thought or memory he could have, so robert didn't know who he was, where he was or what was happening, because all his body/mind/soul were processing was the extreme pain. it was mortal pain, it was supposed to kill robert, he was supposed to die consumed but the burning pain. but it didn't. somehow, while he hadn't the ability to think or feel anything but pain, he had strenght to stay alive in pain instead of die. he was enduring something people shouldn't be able to survive to. in his state where his sould/mind was enduring differently of his body, there were demons, and they tortured robert physically and verbally. then, his family members appeared to him, basically saying he was worthless and should die. he really was supposed to be dead by then, and he could see it, he literally could see hell right waiting for him to finally expire. but it didn't happen. somehow he endured it. now, all of this, lasted one entire month. it's actually hard to imagine someone somehow enduring this for one entire month. i don't think any other character had to endure something like this, except maybe annabel. it's the worse i ever saw happen to a tsc character, it was an entire month. (it's very depressing how nobody could ever understand robert cuz no one else around survived something like this. annabel was tortured, buried alive and then painfully ressurrected, and went literally insane because of it.)

this had multiple consequences to robert. physically, he took a while to recover, but then it was stated his body was fine. the effects were mostly mental. after receiving his first rune, robert was supposed to continue his training, but he couldn't. other kids of his age were evolving their training, while he was doing nothing about it. he both hadn't the energy and couldn't do it, cuz he was afraid of steeles. something perfectly logical since a steele caused that month of agony. you know he eventually managed to learn to use steeles to be an actual shadowhunter. but it wasn't all.

the first rune is something normal that happens to all shadowhunters, and it's mostly something good. the way it was horrible to robert in a way no one could have expected, made robert develop extreme anxiety; because the worst happened to him triggered by something common. so while doing common things, robert would be always scared and anxious, thinking about the worst of the worst that could happen. while it wasn't much notable to other people, it harmed his development and behavior a lot, consequently harming his self-steem, cuz he couldn't do things right, he was always worried and overthinking everything.

to compensate it, robert became somebody who worked on two extremes: he was always overthinking everything, except in battle. in battle he wasn't what we define as brave i guess. he was fearless. valentine is the one who helped robert to achieve that. (we know his actual motivations, this isn't important now) the mental process valentine taught him was: robert's inherent fear and anxiety made him fail, and that made him despise himself (that's something robert does a lot for countless reasons). robert should not only embrace the fury he felt against himself, but it should dominate him, and he use its intensity to block his fear. then basically, robert should do a mental form of self harm, letting the strenght of his hate for himself take his mind and use this strenght to control his actions. robert's fury leading his actions, not his fear and anxiety. as expected with this process, robert then was able to engage in normal shadowhunter activities, but fearless when it came to physical risk. logically this would be very dangerous, but we can imagine how useful it was for valentine to have on his team a warrior like this who was such a big and strong man and centainly could take a lot of physical damage and pain (and i guess it shouldn't be any doubt that being so tough helped robert a lot to survive through the years). we know it was because of this robert felt he owed loyalty to valentine.

2- parents: first, something kinda interesting is that robert had other relatives and they were there when robert's first rune was made. we are informed that his state during that month of agony was a scandal and robert's parents were the ones being absurd. so we can assume his other relatives had nothing to do with it. another strong evidence is robert naming two of his children with names from his family, what indicates he didn't saw his entire family negatively. now his parents... let's never forget what happened to robert was supposed to kill him on incredible intense pain. andrew and phoebe deliberately let their child to die in pain so he wouldn't be a mundane. i personally classify them between the worst shadowhunters parents along with céline's, annabel's, valentine and tatiana.

after robert woke up, they (or anyone else) never cared to ask robert how he felt. all they wanted was to make everything seem normal, without caring about how robert was taking it. they never showed any regret about what they've done: they did the opposite of that, telling robert right on his face what they did and how they were sure that it was totally worth it to make him go through that to not be a mundane. it hurt (and traumatized) robert a lot.

love from parents and relatives is supposed to be the first love someone gets. and robert didn't have that. if his parents showed love to him on his first years alive, it never mattered because these two traumas mentioned made robert forget anything about his parents from before his first rune. he couldn't ever remember them as actual parental figures of love. the only parents he remembered and recognized were the ones who left him to endure that, looked proud of it and never cared about its effects on him afterwards. as far as it counted, robert lived a loveless childhood. as i mentioned, andrew and phoebe wanted everything to be as normal possible, so they just acted as robert's parents as if anything happened, but it was pointless and felt cold. after knowing what they did to him (what they let happen to him), knowing that they didn't actually love him as their child, robert couldn't have a bond with them, he couldn't even be comfortable around them. it's described that their presence was what intensified robert's loneliness the most. so he didn't spend much time around them, he stayed in his room.

without his parents' love, robert's first experience with love was when he was 13 years old, with michael. it was setting a standard of love to him, with the long-term consequences afterwards being devastating. (i guess someone could even connect robert not recognizing his parents affection with his future performance of fatherhood, but that would be mostly guessing and i rather work with things i can prove. another good guess i think would be connecting his loveless childhood to how robert during his teenagehood had messy limits between his love for michael and his affection for maryse and didn't know how to handle or recognize it. i mean mostly things like, if michael was robert's best friend/parabatai and maryse his romantic partner and probably future wife, why did robert see maryse and women in general as a threat to michael's place in his life and their parabatai and best friend relationship? he saw valentine having a parabatai he loved and a girlfriend he wanted to get married to, and still freaked out about a woman as his wife replacing michael who was his parabatai, what didn't make any sense. i know people joke about robert being "clueless" about michael but it isn't much funny with this context. finally, another guess would be connecting robert's discovery that his parents' love for him was faulty through they letting him hurt to his beliefs that what he did to michael proved his love for michael was faulty. you can deliberate about all of these conjectures if you want).

3- discrimination: before his first rune, robert had other kids to play with, but he wouldn't remember much of it. yeah, we can say robert doesn't remember anything about how he was treated by people before his first rune. robert doesn't know a life without trauma.

since what happened to robert was a political scandal, with everyone trying to save robert and his parents wanting him to keep his painful and mortal rune, what happened to him was kind of general knowledge. then, no kid wanted to play or train with him. at first he was still recovering, but then he couldn't move foward because he didn't have anyone. he didn't want to be around his parents' coldness and no one else wanted to be around him, quite literally. other people would be around him only when being forced, and then would stay the most distant of him possible, to never get physically close of him, as if to not catch a disease. this is absolutely dreadful to a child.

being treated like this hurt and traumatized robert terribly. being around any one was horrible, so he spent most of the time hidden in his room. not being able to improve on anything because of his fears and anxiety and not having anyone to train with or even to socialize with, and basically never being able to move on about what happened, robert hated to be alive and wished to be dead, wished the rune had killed him as it should have, because he thought no death could be worse than his life, so be dead would be better. this state of mind dured an entire year before michael came around. a lot of damage had been done by then.

being treated like he was "sick" and ostracized left a huge psychological wound on him. to him, discrimination was one of the worst things ever, for something that was never his fault and he never choose to.

(one may think that if robert hates discrimination, it doesn't make sense to him to dislike downworlders, but it actually does. all robert wanted was to be a normal shadowhunter, and he had deeper reasons than most to be passionate about being one. disliking downworlders would be an ideal average shadowhunter thing to do. but robert was far from ignorant. he didn't think downworlders were animals or demons and was far more inclined to defend downworlder segregation than downworlder extermination. of course segregation is something horrible in general and should never be defended, but with downworlders being different sub-species, it wasn't as absurd as the extermination valentine defended, and robert being actually smart and open minded, we know he actually changed his beliefs).

now, to him, one being discriminated by their peers was one of the worst things that could happen, and the perspective of being discriminated terrified and triggered robert deeply. we know the perspective of homosexuality freaks robert out because of the discrimination, marginalization and "anormality" experience that comes with it (and robert is a 60s kid and shadowhunter society is a conservative mess, so it would naturally seem so much more taboo to him), what scared him deeply. we see him getting extremely anxious over himself, michael and alec about the perspective of homophobic discrimination.

robert only started training with runes after his 14th birthday. his training was late, and between his 12th and 14th birthdays, half of the time was extremely traumatizing, the other half he spent most with michael (who helped him a lot about everything). but still, it was a very big share of his childhood-teenagehood and he didn't have the feeling or normality. everything i said about his anxiety over shadowhunting, specially over runes, applied intensely during his entire teenagehood, but robert went to the academy with michael where he was having normal training and final got to socialize a little. he loved so much to feel a little normal. he still felt like a weak and useless trash, but at least he was doing normal shadowhunting things and living like a teenager. the problem was: he wanted to live his entire teenagehood, and he just couldn't do that. training is supposed to end when shadowhunters are 18 years old. robert would stay at the academy until he was 19, and still didn't seem enough. while he was older than his fellows, he felt far less mature. much of his development time had been lost, and he would never get it back. in this context, it made very sense to robert's girlfriend be a younger girl and his admiration for a younger boy (valentine), and there were jokes about him being old, but what bothered robert the most was that he should soon live an adult man average life with wife and kids, when his perspective of life was being with michael in the academy. we also know how that went... and he married maryse when he was about 21/22 years old and maryse about 19.

forgive me for any grammar mistakes. i think this summary can help a lot! at least i hope it's useful to you or anyone else who read it! writing it was very thoughtful (and it's really a huge joy for me to explain things about robert, if you haven't guessed) and i hope to start working on my next ask soon

xoxo, take care of yourself, kind fellow ☺ thank you for your attention

First of all,. I'm sorry for getting to this late.

Second, I don't think I need to add anything. This is written very well, and gave me a deeper understanding.

And I am once again saying: let Shadowhunters get help with their trauma 😭

Also, TSC has a lot of bad parents. But it sadly represents real life 😔

Thank you for taking the time to write this out. I enjoyed reading it. And I agree with a lot that was said.

[lost-eternity]

Matchup requests: CLOSED

Matchup request for: anonymous 

Okie dokie. I match you with...

Undertaker!

You are absolutely fine, dear. My form is about thrice as long so I totally get it. Besides, This way I have more to go on. Anyways, I can already tell that we would get along so well, pffft.

It honestly took me all of 5 seconds of reading this to decide your ship, I hope you enjoy it. 

Power couple right here

I mean, seriously 

There is no hell you wouldn't raise

I hope you don't mind getting your hands dirty, though 

But my goodness, no one is safe from the two of you

Your humour, dark and inappropriate as it may be, is right up Undertaker's ally. You can send him howling with laughter with a single offhand remark or retort. 

Most of the time, I would ship someone with chaotic energy with someone who is more calm and level headed but honestly, Undertaker is the exception to this rule

He would genuinely get on the nerves or anyone who can't match his level of chaos

But ooooh boy would he be able to keep pace with you.

The constant playful bickering would be extremely amusing to watch, not that any of you would get any work done 

The two of you would be too buzzed on caffeine and laughing until your guts hurt

Every night at his place is more like a sleepover

So many go there more sparingly. You both technically need sleep.

Also pet names!

You two would have the weirdest pet names for each other

"Undie"

"Death goddess" (Undertaker has a cruel sense of irony)

This is the only instance where the pet name "Boo" is acceptable 

~

Undertaker would be able to see right through your dirty, airhead façade, if only because he puts on the same one.

It piques his interests. "What is she hiding?"

The first time you saw one of his "guests", he assumed that you would be off put by her presence as most were. 

She was a young female, brutally mugged on the street, her corpse left to rot when the thief accidentally killed her. At least, that is what he thought. 

You, on the other hand, did not seem even the slightest fazed.

He actually looked a little disappointed. "What? No screaming? I love the sound of my goddess mewling." Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge. 

You kinda look at him incredulously.  "It's a dead body. What is it going to do, get up and chase me?"

The smirk on his face was slightly alarming. "Maybe..."

Okay that was a little bit... worrisome. 

Regardless, Undertaker concluded that she resisted her mugger and he slashed her throat, killing her before running off

Of course, you saw a completely different story and pointed out something that slipped his notice entirely. But of course, you would be grinning from ear to ear and speaking in a light-hearted and airy tone as you loom over a gruesome maimed corpse. "No, no, the multiple lacerations to the jugular could not have been the cause of death. Notice how there is little to no blood-clotting and the edges of the wound appear singed. The injury was cauterized and simultaneously inflicted. And since blood loss, not asphyxiation, is the primary COD on slitting one's throat, this could not have been the killing strike."

A little bit taken aback, an exuberant laugh bubbled from Undertaker's lips. He was impressed.

To use a heated knife meant the killer, whoever it may be, did so on purpose with the intent on keeping her alive long enough to torture her. 

Hmm...

~

You two probably met in the weirdest fashion

You were in the city, heading to get a fitting for your newest corset when you heard someone shrieking.  

It took you a few moments to register that it wasn't exactly shrieking that you heard- rather maniacal laughter. 

Pausing, you noticed a group of individuals clustering around a shop labeled "undertakers". If their clothes were anything to go by, these people were nobles. 

A woman dressed from head to toe in scarlet held a pale, unworked hand to her lips.

Beside her a kid slightly taller than you on the account of the wooden heels he wore on the back of his shoes looked quite ticked off. 

It was quite an interesting collection of individuals. Besides. What would nobility be doing WAITING outside an Undertaker shop? They usually had other people waiting on them, rarely was it the other way around.

On second thought,  who in the world had the guile and lack of self-preservation skills to make nobility wait?

The door creaked open as a raven haired man stepped outside, looking all too pleased with himself.

While you couldn't ignore the handsome curve of his face, his smug expression told you all you needed to know regarding the sheer levels of impudence and egotism surrounding this individual 

Those wine russet eyes opened, directing a firey stare at you, boring into your own gaze. 

You held his eye contact for a moment then turned on your heels and continued on your little errand. 

The rest of the nobility seemed to finally be allowed in the shop

~

On your way back from the fitting, you decided to stop by this Undertaker's to try and find out the reason for the things you witnessed. Those nobles seemed to be long gone so you were safe as you stepped inside.

It was black. Pitch black. A peal of deranged laughter echoed from the abyssal chasm within. 

You remained unnerved as you folded your arms and gazed across the room with steadfast resolve 

Something nudged against your foot looking down, through the shaft of light that shone through the door frame, you were able to spot a literal skeleton hand on your foot

You quickly kicked it off and appeared even more incredulous 

Whoever had been trying to scare you appeared to give up

The candles flickered back to life and you spotted a grey-haired man, swathed in a black coat, lackadaisically stretched across an examination table. His silver mane tapered into a thick fringe which completely obscured his features save for the cheshire grin that seemed to be a permanent fixture on his face. "My. It's not often that I get two customers in one day..." he purred ominously 

"Yeah. About that. What was with those nobles earlier?"

He chuckled and pressed a clawed finger to his lips. "A gentleman never kisses and tells."

You just kinda looked at him like ???

It really wasn't your business what this Undertaker and that butler were doing in here alone as everyone else waited outside but wasn't that a bit-

The thunderous laughter that burst from Undertaker's chest told you that he was joking

How he managed to do so with a straight face was beyond comprehension. But perhaps he found your genuine consideration of his sentence to be amusing.

You two end up striking a deal. And it was a weird one. Undertaker would tell you what the nobles were doing and in return you would have to get a fitting for a coffin. 

He lamented that it was not his usual payment but "The little Earl is being so stubborn, he refuses to let me fit him. You are just as tiny. I think you will do wonderfully."

Like "uhhh? Thank you?"

It's not every day you get a chance to be fitted for your future coffin. 

So you allow him to take measurements 

His fingers ghosting against your skin as he does so, sending goose-flesh pricking across your arm

Once he is finished, he divulges all he can, which only seems to confuse you more.

Nobles who solve murders? Isn't that the Yard's job. What are nobles doing getting involved. Half of them have never cleaned a single dish in their life, how can anyone expect them to catch a killer.

The Undertaker watched you with a smirk equal parts knowing and amused. He just loves seeing you think things through and figure them out. 

Meanwhile,  you caught on to his mannerisms. He knew more than he was letting on. But you doubted he would tell you more.

Thanking him for his service, you headed out.

You barely made it a block when you were jumped by someone.

A shadow

Strong arms pinned you to a wall, you tried to call for help but the soft leather of a gloved hand clamped over your mouth. You were left to stare into those same burning russet eyes for the second time that day.

The boy from earlier, taking a step out from behind his attack butler crossed his arms. You noticed the eyepatch he wore, but did not have the mind to question it. You were currently pinned to a wall, your mind was a bit preoccupied

"Why are you following us?" The kid demanded

You rolled your eyes and looked back at him before angrily gesturing to the mildly irritating hand over your mouth.

The kid looked just as irritated. "Sebastian."

The butler needed no further command. He removed his hand but kept you constrained in place. 

You appraised the pair warily. 'So, the butler's name is Sebastian... heh. More like Sebastard'

You were also smart enough to know that if they were investigating such a high profile case like Jack the Ripper, they were probably into some pretty shady stuff. If they were speaking with Undertaker, then they had connections to the Underworld. After all, every dead body killed in the underworld usually makes its way to the Undertaker at some point or another. It was quite brilliant, actually. 

The boy looked impatient so you answered truthfully.  Albeit carefully. You were wondering what a bunch of nobles would be waiting for and wanted to meet the person who had the nerve to keep them waiting.

The kid seemed somewhat satisfied with your answer, if not entirely indignant towards it. You had a feeling that you chose your words well because he appeared to agree with what you were saying. He obviously did not like the Undertaker. 

Sebastian- sorry, Sebastard, on the other hand, did not appear all too convinced. But he seemed to have gauged that you were not a threat and decided not to voice his concerns.

You were let off with a stern lecture about meddling in "Phantomhive" affairs. 

Dodged a bullet on that one

Still. The revealment of his surname only brought more confusion upon you. Phantomhive was a KID'S toy company.  Why is the head of a kid's brand investment murder?

The more you looked into it, the less it started making sense 

And that sent you down a spiraling trail that eventually lead you back to the Undertaker 

Whether or not you return to him as a friend or one of his "guests" is completely up to you and how careful you walk this dangerous tightrope

Oooh, ominous. Thank you for request, dear.