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ickle-ronniekins · 3 years

Text

black & white

request: from nonnie: ASDFGhjkl. Why are your fics so CUTE? 😭 Can I request a cute and cheesy George proposing to the fem!reader—and they’re wedding? 💜

desc: a love story unfolded via a timeline of events and colors. based on the song ‘black and white’ by niall horan

pairing: george x fem!reader

word count: 5.5k

warning(s): lil bit of angst, alcohol, some sexual content if you squint but it stops before things ~heat up~

A/N: this is just pure fluff. may or may not have cried at the cheesiness. idk. i’m a cheesy gal. can’t help it. i’m in love with a fictional character. sorry i went a tad overboard with this. also let’s pretend ~voldy~ doesn’t exist in this k? reminder that my requests are currently closed, i am merely working through the requests already in my inbox. i do not give permission for my work to be posted on any other platform.

Red

Red, hot fury swept through your bones as you watched him laugh hysterically alongside his brother. You balled your fists together, ready to throw a punch, but you knew your mum would lock you in your room until you were forty years of age if you even thought of throwing hands.

George Weasley was a pretentious little git. It was bad enough that he was your neighbour and you had to see him and his equally annoying twin in the village nearly every day, but what made it even worse was that for whatever reason, he’d chosen you to be on the receiving end of all of his pranks. His mother, Molly, was not for it -- she often gave her sons a solid tongue lashing, but it clearly never made an impact, for each and every day they were back to their normal mischief, seeking out ways to make you shake with anger.

“Weasley!” you squeaked as he and his brother ran back across the field toward their home. You loathed the idea of being in the same school as him in just two years time. At least here, at home, you could escape to your own house and your own room, far away from the boy who teasingly threw a red paint balloon all over you and your new dress. But at school, well -- the castle was only so big, wasn’t it? You weren’t sure how far away from him you’d be able to get.

You watched as he and Fred ran away, their giggles echoing through the air on top of the hill. You looked down at your ruined dress and screamed. You reckoned you’d never be able to love the colour red ever again -- not when it had ruined your beautiful purple dress, and especially when it was the colour of his annoying, messy hair.

Yellow

“I’m really sorry.”

He was standing across from you in the field. You thought about telling him that you needed to take four showers in order to get all of the red paint from your hair, and that your dress was permanently stained, but instead you folded your arms across your chest and huffed a bit. Not even magic could salvage it.

“I promise, I mean it,” he squeaked, as if he could read your mind. He seemed sincere, but he was always getting into all types of trouble, wasn’t he? Perhaps he was as good a liar as he was a pranker.

You kicked at the dirt, unsure of what to say. “You ruined my dress.”

“I know, I’m really sorry,” he said again, “it was all Freddie’s doing! I know he normally takes charge of pranks, but blimey, I told him it wasn’t a good idea.”

You arched your eyebrows up in surprise. “You did?”

“Yeah,” George told you. The wind ruffled the leaves on the tree next to you both, and you watched him tentatively as a big smile split his face. He wandered over to the tree trunk and picked at the flowers that were growing at the base. Then he turned around, marched right over to you, and handed them to you.

Yellow dandelions. You peered down at them, and then looked up at him in surprise. This wouldn’t fix your dress, but he was trying, at least. You noticed the dimples that appeared on his cheeks when he smiled. “Pretty flowers for a pretty girl.”

You couldn’t help it; you blushed and looked toward the ground. You picked a bit at the flowers and met George’s gaze once again. “You still owe me, Weasley.”

You both heard Molly calling him for dinner. “Okay, mum!” he called back, his voice echoing against the wind. He turned back toward you. “Promise. I owe you. I also promise to kick Fred’s arse since it was his idea anyway.”

A squeak of a giggle emitted from your lips and you watched as George Weasley skipped all the way home.

Blue

All of Ravenclaw house erupted into cheers as the colours of the Great Hall changed to celebrate the momentous occasion of your house winning the Quidditch Cup. It had been a neck to neck match against Gryffindor, but had you not caught the snitch before Harry, they would have had it in the bag for the third year in a row.

“At the risk of sounding like I’m pro Ravenclaw, I’ve got to say, you guys put up a great match,” you whirled around in the crowd and saw George standing in front of you. He had his hands in his pockets and he shrugged, clearly upset at a Gryffindor loss, but at least they hadn’t lost to Slytherin, right? “You really are a wicked Seeker.”

“Thanks, Weasley,” you said triumphantly, both pleased with yourself for winning but also feeling a little bit guilty for beating Gryffindor.

“When did you get so good anyway?”

“Hmm,” you placed your hand to your chin and pretended to be deep in thought, “do you mean, how did I get to be so incredible? I don’t have an answer for you, truthfully, reckon I was just born with it.”

Students filtered around you both, and you watched him laugh as blue confetti fell around the both of you and the rest of the Great Hall. Personally you thought it was a little much, but the captain had insisted. You met George’s gaze again though, and rolled your eyes.

“Oi, mate,” you heard Fred call. He reached his twin and threw an arm around his shoulders, “what’re you doing over here, conversing with the enemy?” You rolled your eyes yet again, something you found yourself doing quite often with the two of them, and Fred just grinned obnoxiously at you. “Only joking, Y/N. I suppose if anyone had to beat us, we’re glad it’s Ravenclaw. But if you repeat that, we’ll deny it, I swear to Merlin.”

“My lips are sealed, Freddie.”

You bid them both adieu before turning back to your house, celebrating and clinking your goblets of pumpkin juice together, and through the yelps and the cheers, you missed George say to Fred that he actually quite liked the way the Great Hall looked, all decorated in blue.

Orange

“How about you get to work on the ground Unicorn horn, and I’ll try and get this water crystalized?” you offered.

Today’s lesson was to brew the Oculus Potion, in the event any of you ever needed to restore someone’s sight. In an attempt to separate them, Snape had paired George with you and Fred with another Ravenclaw who didn’t look happy at all at the prospect of having him as her partner. You peered over the cauldron at George and said, “No worries. We’ve only got thirteen steps. I reckon if we keep at this without any distractions, we’ll be finished before the rest of class.”

“Better get cracking, then,” George replied.

The two of you worked in comfortable silence; you tensed a few times when Snape meandered by your table, peering down into your cauldron and scoffing, for you were certain that an attempt at any type of potion would never live up to his unrealistic expectations of two sixteen-year-olds.

A little while later, you realized that the heat emitting from all of the cauldrons was making the entire classroom incredibly warm. “Blimey, could he open a bloody window, or something?” you asked, ignoring the fact that there were absolutely no windows in the dungeons. George laughed and continued to add the crystalized water into your cauldron as you pulled your sweater over your head, leaving you in your white button down and blue and grey tie. You pulled your hair back off of your neck and said, “Alright, be sure to only add the water until it turns indigo, George.”

The poor lad hadn’t been paying attention, because your potion was far past indigo at this point. In fact, it looked as though it had turned a deep, navy blue, bordering on black, as George peered at you with soft eyes and continued to pour in the crystalized water, not realizing that he was messing up your carefully brewed potion. A snapping noise pulled him from his thoughts, and a slight explosion erupted from your cauldron and caused black smoke to cover George’s face and hair.

Most of the class began to laugh, but Snape angrily shushed them and sauntered over to the two of you, clearly giddy beyond belief that he was able to deduct points from both of your houses for causing such a ruckus in his precious dungeons. George wiped a bit of the soot from his forehead as you poured in the antidote and giggled.

“Merlin, I’m sorry -- didn’t mean to get points taken from your house.”

“Eh, it was bound to happen sooner or later.. don’t worry about it. Look! Good as new,” you clapped your hands together as the potion turned to the desired shade of orange before the final two steps. You met George’s look through the orange haze over your cauldron and asked him, “What had you so distracted anyway, Weasley?”

“Oh, erm -- nothing,” he replied a bit quickly. It didn’t go unnoticed how he’d stumbled over his words and immediately went back to looking rather intently at the directions. You bit back a smile and looked back down at yours too, unable to rid yourself of the nerves bubbling up inside of you as George looked up once again, stealing glances at you through the orange mist as nerves overtook him, too.

Green

“You had no right to do that! What the bloody hell were you thinking?”

George was standing across from you on the empty dance floor; the Yule Ball had ended abruptly and each and every student had filtered from the Great Hall and back to their respective dormitories, per the teachers. The two of you had managed to stay somehow, now more than ten feet away; you looked at one another with envy as a dramatic scene unfurled between you both.

The entire night had been nothing but a dream, up until that one dance. You’d waltzed in, your light green dress swaying beautifully near your ankles, your hand wrapped around your date’s arm. You waved to your friends, who stood with their respective dates as well, and promised yourself you’d catch up with them at the end of the night when you’d undoubtedly have stories to tell them of the most magical evening of your life.

Except that wasn’t how it worked out, had it?

“He was all over you!” George called, and you noticed how prominent the veins in his hands were when he threw them up in the air. “You said no, didn’t you? He asked you to come back to his dorm and you’d said no. Did you expect me to stand there and do nothing when he grabbed your wrists and tried to pull you there?”

George was right. You had said no, and truthfully, the way your date had grabbed you and attempted to drag you back to his room had really frightened you. You reckoned it was the firewhisky he’d drunk earlier that evening -- he wasn’t violent or anything, but he seemed desperate to get you there. All George had done was step in and stand up for you, so why on earth should you be angry at him?

You didn’t want to give George the satisfaction of letting him know that he was right. You were mad at him for other reasons, anyway. It should’ve been you that he asked to the ball, not that other disturbingly annoying Beauxbatons girl. It’s like he’d picked her particularly because he knew her annoying, bubbly personality and thick French accent would get right under your skin.

You softened a bit as you took a deep breath. “I appreciate what you did, George, but it wasn’t your place. I can take care of myself. He nearly knocked you right out!”

George winced at your words and brought a hand to his black and blue eye. He hadn’t even had the time to grab some ice and place it to the injury, and it was now rather swollen. “I don’t care if he knocked me to the bloody ground, I wasn’t going to let him do that to you!”

You couldn’t help it; anger took you over and you were saying things you shouldn’t have before you could second guess yourself. ��Well you know what, George? Perhaps he wouldn’t have had the chance to try anything with me if you’d just bloody asked me to the ball first instead of that stuffy Beauxbatons girl!”

You knew your words hurt him, but you didn’t care. He looked as though he’d gotten the wind knocked out of him; he stepped backward and faltered a bit. His breathing became heavy and irregular. “You already had your date when I asked her, Y/N -- don’t you dare try and pin this on me.”

He was right, yet again. You couldn’t help it. Big, fat tears were falling down your face now and you reckoned you wouldn’t be able to salvage the rest of the hideousness that was this evening. You wiped your tears with the back of your hand and noticed the smears of black mascara and eyeliner on your skin. He inched forward now and opened his arms, but you backed away, still not ready to show him any affection.

You were being a git, but the truth was, you’d waited until the very last possible second for George to ask you to the ball. So when he didn’t, you begrudgingly agreed to the Hufflepuff who’d stepped forward and asked you himself. And as you walked swiftly passed George and up the steps to your common room, you realized that though you’d said yes, your heart had been with the Weasley boy you so adored the entire evening.

In truth, what he’d done was brave and full of love and passion. But you were still filled with hurt.

The green monster of jealousy that you’d felt when you’d watched him dance with his date was such a vice, but you just couldn’t help how you felt.

You left George alone in the desolate Great Hall as he let his head fall into his hands, pushing down his fury and tears.

Grey

You hadn’t gone back to him, that boy from the Yule Ball. You thought about it, but you figured you’d spare George more anger.

He’d approached you, your date, the day afterwards, apologizing profusely for his behaviour and how embarrassed he was at the whole ordeal. He’d asked you for lunch, only if you were okay, and you politely declined. “Friends,” you’d said, and he smiled pitifully, but gratefully, and took your hand in his to shake it.

It was so stupid, wasn’t it? Fighting with George over this. So he hadn’t asked you to the Yule Ball, so what? It wasn’t the end all, be all, was it? And he’d stood up for you, hadn’t he? When things had gotten a little out of control. He hadn’t been your date, but he had been your saviour.

It had only been a week since the dance and you two hadn’t said a word to one another. Fred had begged you too. “Come on, Y/N, you know he’s real sorry. Can’t you just forgive him? Blimey, it’s a right difficult thing to do, splitting my time between you both.”

You merely pressed your lips together and huffed. “He can come apologize to me himself, Fred. He doesn’t need you to do it for him.”

But later that afternoon, you figured, why wait? This whole thing was so dramatic and stupid. And so after rereading the same page eight times due to your lack of concentration, you jumped up from your chair in the Ravenclaw common room and made way toward the Great Hall, as fast as your legs could carry you. You were just going to tell him exactly that -- that this entire thing was dumb, and that you were thankful for him, and that bloody hell, you missed him. Perhaps it was a bit dramatic -- it had only been six days, right? You couldn’t help it. You missed him. You missed him a lot.

The thought of finally speaking to him after a very dramatic week apart made your heart flutter, and a very wide smile split your face just as you were about to round the last bend before the Great Hall.

And then you saw it. Them. Tucked away in a corner near a deserted classroom -- tangled together, George’s hands on her waist, hers in his long red hair. Her lips nearly on his. Smiling, giggling. Kissing him.

That bloody annoying Beauxbatons girl.

You stopped short and nearly tripped over your own two feet. You opened your mouth to speak but just let your mouth tremble in silence as you watched them snog one another. Her laugh was so painfully sugary sweet, you felt as though you’d like to rip your own hair out.

You were surprised how quickly the sight of them had sent your heart plummeting into your stomach. Somewhere in the few moments when you stood there in shock, your vision had become blurry and your face had become wet. You wiped at it with your sweater sleeve and sniffled quietly so they wouldn’t hear you. You spun on your heel and sped back toward your common room, wondering what the bloody hell had come over you when you thought of apologizing to him. You just wanted to get back to your dorm. Or perhaps back to your house in Ottery St. Catchpole. Stupid, silly girl you were.

If only you knew that George had spotted you before you’d left and froze solid in the spot he was standing, ignoring the forwardness of the Beauxbatons girl attached to his arm, his heart and mind chasing you all the way home.

Purple

The Ravenclaw common room was completely empty except for you. You always did this, though -- each and every year, you were always the last to finish packing. Not because you were a procrastinator, but because you hated admitting to yourself that another year was over, and you were another year closer to impending graduation.

Someone popped through the door and said your name softly. You turned and saw George standing there with a small smile on his face. “Hey,” he said, “train’s here. You almost ready to go?”

You groaned and looked back down at your trunk, now fully packed. “If I’ve got to be.” You felt like an absolute idiot that those few words brought tears to your eyes so easily. “Oi, here I go again.”

George laughed lightly and pulled you into a hug. “We’ll be back in no time, you’ll see again how quickly the summer holidays go.”

“But George, it’s our last year!” you cried. And then you took a deep breath to calm yourself down, because you didn’t fancy the idea of boarding the train with smudged makeup and a red nose. “Anyway, shall we?”

When you grabbed your trunk and headed toward the door, George gently took your hand in his and turned you around. “I’ve got something for you actually.”

You wiggled your eyebrows at him and clapped your hands together. “A present? It’s not even my birthday.”

But then you wondered if it was actually a present he wanted to give you, because he took your other hand in his and squeezed them, a serious look on his face. Your features twisted into that of confusion, and you’d be lying if you said that your heartbeat didn’t increase at the sight of him looking at you so earnestly. “What is it?”

“I’ve been a real git this year. Specifically, the Yule Ball. And a little while after that.”

You laughed and playfully shoved him. Though you still felt the sting of those few weeks, you two had managed to patch things up. He hadn’t lasted that long with that Beauxbatons girl anyway. “George, we’ve been over this, c’mon -- you were only doing what you thought was right. I’ve forgiven you, you know.”

“I know,” he smiled, and you could tell that he was equally as glad as you were that you two had placed that argument behind you. But what you two hadn’t touched on since then was what you’d said to him in a fit of fury: Perhaps he wouldn’t have had the chance to try anything with me if you’d just bloody asked me to the ball first instead of that stuffy Beauxbatons girl!

Of course he’d wanted to ask you. He’d wanted to ask you more than anything in the entire world, but each and every time he’d opened his mouth to say something, he couldn’t. Bloody nerves, and all that. Then he went and acted like a prat, making you cry, and he vowed to himself that he’d never make you cry again, unless it were happy tears.

“I realized I’ve never properly made it up to you -- not asking you to the the Yule Ball in the first place, and that time when we were nine.”

You raised your eyebrows suspiciously. “When we were nine? What the bloody hell happened when we were nine?”

And then he pulled from his pocket the most beautiful lavender pendant you ever did see. The circular stone was outlined in the same silver as the chain, and the sun flooding in from the windows made it sparkle more than anything you’d ever seen in your life. Your breath caught in your throat and you looked back and forth from the necklace to George, and back again.

“I ruined your purple dress, remember?” he asked you. He laughed a bit, probably thinking about the ridiculous way you’d looked with red paint splattered all over you. You couldn’t believe he remembered that. “Now, it’s not a dress, but seeing as we’ve grown up a bit since then, I reckoned you’d prefer something a little nicer.” He swallowed over a lump in his throat before continuing. “I never fancied her, you know. That girl from Beauxbatons. I just...” he trailed off, searching for words he couldn’t seem to muster up. You wondered if he could hear the dramatic thump of your heart, beating loudly in the heavy silence. “It doesn’t matter. It was you I wanted to be with that night, and long after. I still do.”

Then he brushed aside your hair and placed the pendant around your neck. You peered at him through blurry vision, and surprised yourself that you were now crying due to the tenderness of his touch and the emotion in his gift and not that you two were about the board the train and leave school, no longer the same two people you were just a few moments ago.

You did the only thing you could think of and you threw your arms around his neck and kissed him. You felt his shock, but it took him only mere milliseconds before he was kissing you back. In truth, you’d been wondering what it would feel like to kiss him -- the taste of him, the feel of your limbs entangled together, exactly how high your heart would soar. It was exactly the way first kisses were meant to be -- slow, and easy, and warm, the way it’s supposed to feel after having swam all day long -- your body limp and muscles de-tensing. You moulded perfectly with him, and when gravity (or rather, the first signal of the train’s departure) pulled you from one another, he peered at you with such affection that you felt as though you might explode.

You grabbed the pendant and held in gently in between your fingers, already having memorized the outline of the silver and the different shades of purple within it. “I am so bloody happy you threw red paint at me that day, Weasley.”

He laughed haughtily, throwing his head back before swinging an arm around your waist and pulling your trunk toward the exit of the Ravenclaw common room. “Merlin, me too.”

White

You were sitting at your kitchen table, ignoring the massive amount of work in front of you to admire your other hard work. Your cozy little flat looked just as you always imagined it would, with the added bonus of your boyfriend in the corner of the front entrance, fixing a loose coat hanger on the wall.

Never in your life did you imagine that things could be as perfect as this.

You couldn’t help but wonder if it would be a flat you two would share one day.

You got up and brought with you his half empty glass of wine and handed it to him. Gratefully he took it and sipped before pressing a feather light kiss to your forehead. But then you gently traced his jawline with your finger, down his neck, across his collar bone until he followed your move and leaned in to kiss you. It was soft and chaste and everything like your first one had been. But as the alcohol worked its way through your veins, you found yourself pressing yourself harder against him.

A moan of content escaped him as you bit down on his lip and slipped your hands underneath his shirt, hands pressed against his chest. Unashamedly, you pulled him toward your bedroom, and he placed his empty wine glass next to yours on the table as he kicked the door closed.

The two of you fell backwards onto the bed in an entanglement of limbs. He hovered above you, dropping down a bit to press light kisses to your neck, in between your collarbones, behind your ears, against your jawline. You so desperately wanted to feel his weight on top of you, and so you yanked him firmly against you and kissed him in a way that there was no aching way that he wouldn’t be able to tell exactly what you wanted.

He began to undo the buttons on your shirt, taking time to press kisses into your chest at the exposed places before he stopped himself and gently ran his hands across your hips, and then your cheek. His voice was merely a whisper in the deafening silence, “Are you sure?”

He gazed at you with such tenderness and love that you knew he’d stop, if you’d asked him to. He wouldn’t go another inch further if you weren’t ready. And for you, that was more than enough.

“I’m sure.”

He sucked in a breath and dipped down to press lips to yours gently before continuing to make light work of your clothes. He explored every inch of you, and the sensation of his lips gently grazing your skin caused you to arch your back in pleasure. You could feel him smiling against you, wildly in love, handling you with such care as if you were a tiny glass figure he was afraid of breaking. He held you so delicately and worked his way through each and every single one of your wants with slow and gentle hands.

You’d known it was love with him; maybe not consciously, but you’d known it long before now. Love, filled with intensity and desire and longing, in its most vulnerable and fragile form -- pure, and blinding white.

Pink

The summer air wafted in through the open window in the kitchen, and you listened to Mrs. Weasley hum some Muggle song as she set the table for dessert. You placed the finishing touches on the lemon meringue pie you baked, special because it was George’s favourite and Mrs. Weasley had insisted.

You had to admit, he’d always had the outside exterior of a tough guy, but owning a business did absolute wonders for his confidence. You noticed the way he stood up a little straighter, smiled a little bigger, and most of all, just how much he gushed about all the plans you two would be able to act on, now that you were both making income of your own.

“Merlin’s beard, Y/N, you’ve absolutely knocked it out of the park with this pie, if I do say so myself.” Arthur’s praise was nothing short of wonderful; you felt the tips of your ears turn pink at his compliments. By the way Ron slouched back in his chair, looking rather chuffed indeed, you could tell he felt the same exact way. Especially when he reached for the last piece, but Hermione slapped his hand away.

“Oh my!” Molly yelped suddenly. You jumped in surprise in your seat. “Oh, Georgie dear, would you mind wandering into the field before dark? I’d love some wildflowers for the table,”

“Sure thing, mum.” George replied before turning to you and squeezing your hand. “Want to tag along?”

You said, “Of course” at the exact same time Ron said “I’ll come along too, I could use a good walk” and if you hadn’t been so focused on George’s tender gaze, you almost would’ve missed Fred silently hissing at Ron and Hermione slapping his hand yet again. “On second thought,” Ron swallowed thickly, “I’d better stay here and help you clean up, mum.”

“Atta boy, Ronniekins,” Molly said. To you and George, she continued, “You two better get going -- not long now before it turns dark!”

George stood and pulled you to your feet. “You coming, love?”

“I go where you go.”

About twenty minutes later, as the setting sun had blended with the light purples and pinks of the sky, you’d found yourself with a rather beautiful bouquet of wildflowers for Molly. You turned to George, who was leaning against the tree and smiling at you, and asked, “Shall we get going darling? Don’t want to be too late. I reckon your mum will come out here searching for us if we spend an evening among the stars.”

“Doesn’t sound like too bad of an idea, actually.” His grin deepened, and then he said, “you’re lucky I don’t have any pranks up my sleeve right now.”

You look up at the tree and recognized the place where he’d infuriated you all those long years ago. You rolled your eyes and shook your head before twirling in your dress. “I am lucky. I was able to get a new dress after the one you so lovingly ruined. Though I will admit -- I wasn’t all that big of a fan of those puffy sleeves. This one’s much more adult.”

George arched his eyebrow in surprise before wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you close. “Oh yes it is.”

You slapped him playfully and pointed your finger at him. “Alright you prat, calm yourself, you’ll have to wait until we get back to our flat for any funny business.”

But then you realized, as George’s features turned from mischievous to genuine within the matter of seconds, that there was definitely more pressing matters than funny business on his mind.

And then he was telling you how he’d only teased you back then because he’d found you so bloody cute, and how he should’ve asked you to the Yule Ball and regretted every single day that he didn’t, and how he’d never met anyone who could play Quidditch quite as well as you, and how bloody happy he’d been when you’d kissed him that day in the Ravenclaw common room. And then knelt down and he asked it, the words you’d imagined since you were a little girl, strung together with such fondness and emotion and tenderness that you weren’t quite sure how you were standing upright.

You’d already begun to nod quickly through your tears before he finished, but would he really be George Weasley if he didn’t tease you, just a little? “Say yes,” he laughed, “say yes and marry me and be my wife for as long as you’ll have me.”

He slid the ring onto your finger and kissed you and picked you up and whirled you around in the field and held you gently in his arms as though you were a precious glass figurine and he was doing everything in his power to hold you delicately.

“Yes. I say yes.”

Black & White

You asked, When did you first know?

And he answered, I always knew.

You both ran back up the aisle, your white dress fluttering around your ankles, his black suit hugging the curves of his arms, and into the field and away from the party, momentarily, to celebrate your first moments as husband and wife in the place where he’d figured it all out.

He’d known since that afternoon when he’d handed you those yellow dandelions that he would bring you back here one day, to ask you to be his wife. He’d known, in the Ravenclaw common room when he gave you that purple pendant, still dangling from your neck, that one day he’d also give you a ring. He’d known, all those long years ago, that he wanted to marry you, and that you would say yes, when he’d finally ask.

And now, in front of your friends and family, he’d vowed to love you -- love in it’s purest and simplest form, love -- with all it’s sentiment and emotion and vulnerability. He vowed to love you and only you for the rest of his life.

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#george weasley #fred weasley #fred and george weasley #weasley twins #george weasley reader insert #george weasley x reader #george weasley x you #george weasley fanfic #george weasley fanfiction #george weasley imagine #george weasley imagines #weasley twins fanfic #weasley twins fanfiction #weasley twins imagine #weasley twins imagines #hp fanfic #hp fanfiction #hp imagines

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earthbased · 3 years

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Making Your Own Correspondences for Plants

Disclaimer: This post is about magical and spiritual use, not medical, and medical use is mentioned only for historical examples. Don’t mess around with medicine unless you know what you’re doing, or consult someone who does. I’ve previously written about where the majority of magical plant correspondences tend to come from in modern pagan & witchcraft sites and books. If you decide to DIY some or all of your correspondences, how you do it will depend on what your beliefs and practices are. Some things to consider:

Do you believe the magical properties are already in the plants, are unchangeable, and need to be discovered? Or that they depend on your beliefs and associations?

Do you value individuality and personal significance, or having shared lore with your community and culture? Or both?

Do you value the process of relationship-building with a plant or spirit?

Do you value receiving lore through ancestry or lineage? Does it matter to you how old it is?

I’m going to delve deeper into 3 main sources: existing lore, physical characteristics and the plant itself.

===1. Building upon existing lore===

Learning the history and folklore of a plant, even if it doesn’t have existing magical uses, is likely to give you ideas and a deeper understanding. Some potential sources of lore: recorded folklore and common names, oral tradition, fairytales and nursery rhymes, etymology, flower meanings, appearances in mythology, appearances in well-known books or poems, pop culture and fiction.

Whether or not you want to think about it, the greater story of your practice includes the story of your lore and how it came to you. Oftentimes that story involves violence, theft, deception and ridicule. BIPOC have written at length about cultural appropriation [link, link, link, link] & cultural genocide as one of the ongoing harms of colonisation and racism. If you’re not part of a culture that traditionally stewards a certain plant or body of lore, listening to (whether literally hearing or by other means) and respecting those people’s voices is your ongoing responsibility when engaging with it. Navigating these issues as a member of an oppressing group often involves ambiguity and discomfort. This is also part of the path. Remember that we’re blessed to have the opportunity to listen to these voices today. Others did not survive.

Practical uses, both modern and historical often include medicine, but there’s much more, e.g. thorny plants’ association with protection - not only because the thorns protect the plant itself, but because thorny hedges have been grown in many times and places to deter large animals or trespassers from crossing a fence. More recently, I suspect the modern-day association of lemon with cleaning products has led to its current use in magical cleansing. In any case plenty of common correspondences have arisen fairly recently from modern-day uses. Whether you place special value upon ancient or pre-modern lore is up to you. The reasons behind old magical lore were often related to practical use, so I see it as a continued tradition.

===2. Looking at physical characteristics===

What you see depends on how you look (and think). Many plants have heart, star or crescent-shaped leaves. What do these things mean to you? A crescent usually reminds me of the moon but you could also see it as a claw or a smile, two things with very different connotations. Sympathetic magic (a phrase from anthropology) is the idea that things can magically affect each other based on their similarities. But beyond the obvious, there are also symbolic meanings. Many unrelated trees across the world happen to have dark red oozing sap, often earning them a name like "bloodwood". A straightforward use of sympathetic magic would mean it can affect blood, e.g. to stop bleeding. But symbolically, blood often means vitality, death, birth or rebirth, so that oozy tree could be thought to represent any of those things too. Learning observable facts about a plant can be a rich source of inspiration and understanding. Some things to consider: habitat, place of origin, endangered or invasive status, the wild form of a domesticated plant, gardening information, close relatives, lifecycle and seasonal cycle, and parts of interest (leaves, roots, flowers, seeds). For example, a plant well known for its flowers could have something interesting about its seeds which are usually overlooked. The internet is a bountiful source of information, as are books. Your local community likely includes many people who might be willing to pass on their knowledge, for example in local gardening or nature enthusiast clubs, nurseries, environmental groups, and cultural organisations.

You can apply a traditional method of Western astrology to make brand new correspondences to use for sympathetic magic, even with plants that have never been used this way before. This involves comparing the physical qualities of plants (shape, colour, smell, texture etc) with a list of qualities associated with each planetary energy. You might pick one or two features that stand out and concentrate on those. The planet it matches best is considered its ruling planet and will determine its magical application. It's possible for different parts of a plant to have different ruling planets, but not necessary. Common references for planetary qualities include Renaissance philosopher HC Agrippa and famous herbalist Nicholas Culpeper, but your associations may differ, or come from another system of astrology entirely. In any case, once the plant is connected to the planet, it’s also connected to everything else the planet represents. For example, if I determined that a herb in my garden had Venusian qualities, I’d consider it useful for any magic involving love, beauty, harmony or comfort. By a similar process you can assign herbs to a list of deities, zodiac signs, tarot cards, or whatever you want.

===3. Asking the plant itself===

What this looks like depends on your personal beliefs and practices. It might mean asking an individual plant or a spirit representing the whole species. It may involve trance or ritual, or be as simple as listening inwardly for an internal voice in your thoughts. Will you seek out a living plant, contact it through its dried leaves, invoke its spirit into your space or meet it in a non-physical plane? Additionally, not all communication is about sound and words. Among humans some languages are signed and some people communicate with picture boards. Images, emotion, gesture, touch, music and body language are things to consider.

In some belief systems listening to plants may be interpreted more metaphorically, involving intuition or imagination. Using intuition-enabling practices such as dream work or trance may help you to connect your accumulated knowledge to a spiritual or magical meaning. Imagination and roleplay is also a way of gaining a new perspective, such as the deep ecology practice of a psychodrama called the Council of All Beings (note that the original form was heavily influenced by misappropriated Native American practices and stereotypes).

“What [something/someone] is telling me” is a phrase that can be used literally or figuratively in English. In other languages, especially Indigenous ones, such a distinction may not exist. This use of grammar can reflect a way of thinking and relating that considers humans as one part of a whole. If you were raised in a colonial mindset, asking the plant about its correspondences (whatever form that takes) and considering the plant’s priorities can be a way of challenging that mindset by reframing the interaction as one between two beings, rather than a human acting on a passive object. To me this way of thinking invites respect and reciprocity. How you can act upon that is a topic for another post, or maybe another author.

#advanced witchcraft #green witchcraft #paganism #magical correspondences #witchcraft #magick #Herbal magick #herbal magic #wicca

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delusion-of-negation · 3 years

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top 10 (ish) ridiculous or annoying FAQs:

(click at your own discretion)

1) "kids today rely on others to do everything"

ah yes, damn those participation trophies! if it wasn't for them my hands wouldn't be fucked, and I wouldn't need people to write for me. but seriously, stop reading boomer comics, and go outside to meet some actual young people.

2) "sus that a non-american says mom"

yeah, because it's clearly the superior version, and I'm not too patriotic to concede a defeat.

3) "sweaty, the victims of abuse by catholics are real people, stop appropriating their pain just because you want to hate catholics; plus teachers abuse people just as often anyway"

so firstly, I don't hate anybody. and secondly, regarding the fact that victims really do exist, [insert "of course I know him, he's me" meme here]; although I don't often talk much about the abuse I went through or what my religious beliefs are. but, more importantly, statements like "survivors are people" can be phrased like "some people are survivors", and when you're unable to act according to the latter (like when you don't even consider that somebody might be one) then you display a failure to recognise the former - you're projecting; a survivor can't be appropriating their own pain, but you can be appropriating it to silence one. and thirdly, teachers do abuse - the problem isn't and has never been purely religion, rather that abuse is often done by somebody in a position of trust, power, and familiarity; and that the lack of a global minimum enables totally legal abuse on top of the illegal stuff. people with access and respect have more opportunity to abuse than those without, and that goes for teachers too. but, once again, you can be appropriating the pain of survivors to deflect and silence people. please remember this before you say that shit.

4) "get help/therapy"

way ahead of you - years ahead of you. but it's not magic - people who say this often act as if you'll start behaving differently overnight. not only are some things simply beyond the ability of talking therapy to completely rectify, it also takes time and has to be selective. you've got to pick your priorities, and that's definitely not whatever ship or joke you're mad at me about today. therapy is a slow, arduous process that can't guarantee results - it isn't "anti-recovery" to recognise that, it's honesty. while I've been in therapy for a long time, it is not necessarily going to change whatever you don't like about me - whether that's because it can't, because my focus now is on more important or urgent things, or because I don't want to change that.

5a) "tell your family you ship incest, see how that goes; normal people find it disgusting"

actually, some know, and they're fine with it. in fact, one prefers sibling pairings in fiction to all other dynamics because, to paraphrase, "it's a deeper level of messed up co-dependence". so unfortunately for you, my remaining family (by which I mean those not dead or cut out of my life after abuse and so forth) actually are able to distinguish between fiction and reality. plus, my reasoning for caring if they find it gross or not pertains only to recommending books and such - their opinions do not dictate my tastes.

5b) "don't sexualise/appropriate incestuous abuse" and "I bet you enjoyed being raped" and other attempts to upset me over 5a

firstly, as I've already said here, survivors can't be appropriating ourselves. in addition, you're not owed people's history or trauma - it's not okay to require people's personal information, or else you'll send anon hate and accusations of appropriation. secondly, I'm not sexualising our abuse (not just because I write horror, and so a lot of my writing is intended to be creepy, not sexy); these stories aren't about us, they're not us at all. entire dynamics/people (fictional or otherwise) aren't all going to be applicable to us or identical to us, just because they have something in common with us; they're not us and they're not accountable to us. thirdly, the fact that people send this stuff (attempting to trigger people's trauma over ships) is so much more worrying to me than somebody making our communal imaginary friends kiss. you're trying to hurt people. and finally, to the "I bet you enjoyed it" crowd (if you're at all serious): do you think you'd enjoy being in a real zombie apocalypse, alone, afraid, and really at risk of being eaten alive? a fictional scenario does not feel remotely the same as a real one. this isn't rocket science - things that look like you aren't you; fiction isn't reality; don't send anon hate. (edit: comparable "just leave me alone, I'm not hurting anyone" sentiments for yandere stuff, and anything else you decide I'm naughty for.)

6) "you'll be sent off to do manual labour once your communist revolution happens"

while I don't know why people think that I'm a communist, a dictatorial regime probably isn't going to want me to do manual labour. they're more likely to just shoot me; I'm useless and a liability. call me crazy, but something tells me that "ah yes, we shall give ze deranged cripple ze power tools" isn't the communist position.

7a) "they/them can't be singular pronouns"

yes they can, and they're used as such in both shakespeare and the bible. but you don't have to say this - I'm also okay with he/him, so you could've just used those and chilled out. also, do I look like somebody who views the rules of grammar as fully immutable and imperative?

7b) "enbies/aros/pan/etc aren't valid"

do you really think that you're going to change any hearts or minds by putting that in my ask box or under my funny maymays? chill out, it's not worth the effort - you could be planning a party (in minecraft) and having fun instead. it isn't worth my time to rant at everybody who's saying something isn't valid, updating how I'm explaining it as my opinions grow and general discourse around it evolves; I'm just who I am, somebody else is who they are - why bicker in presumptuous ways about if that's enough? it ultimately is valid, in my opinion, but that isn't an invitation to keep demanding that I debate. (edit: old posts of mine probably don't phrase things incredibly, on this or anything... I tried.)

8) "what are your politics?"

my politics are informed first and foremost by the knowledge that I'm not cut out to be some kind of leader - I don't want to be the guy who tells everyone else what to do, I just offer what seem to me like valid criticisms of how we are doing things now, and general pointers on the values and ethics that I would prefer to move towards. things like individual freedom, taking the most pacifist route where possible, trying not to give excessive power to small groups of people (governments or corporations), helping those in need even when they're not palatable, and letting me suck loads of dicks. but please refrain from decreeing me something - there's not enough information in what I said, so you'll just be filling in the blanks with assumptions. (edit: workplace democracy seems cool to me; benefits are good; fair fines and taxes; and the "sperm makes you loopy" saga: 1, 2, 3, and 4.)

9) "you're a narcissist"

no, I don't meet the diagnostic criteria. joking on the internet that you're hot doesn't make a person a narcissist. the fact that I've chosen to keep my actual self-esteem issues to myself is not proof that they don't exist - you're just not entitled to that information about me. but it's also not narcissism to really like how you look. (edit: don't throw labels around carelessly too.)

10a) "kin list?"

the fabric of the universe, a zombie, dionysus, maned wolf/arctic fox hybrid, a comedian, big gay, big rock, ambiguously partial insincerity. (edit: kin list may or may not be incomplete.)

10b) "kin isn't valid/that's just being insane"

haven't we established that I'm deranged, and that sending stuff like this on anon is simply a waste of your precious time? besides, I do not care if it's invalid or insane - it's fun, I'm happy. (edit: see 7b for my opinion on sending me yet another ask with "that's invalid" in it; I'm not in the mood to discuss the nature of validity.)

bonus: "it gets better" and "trigger list?"

as I've said before, things just don't always get better for everyone - sometimes things can't be cured or even treated, sometimes they kill you; in some cases it could get better if not for a blockade or lack of time. the world is messy. it needs to be more normalised to reassure or comfort people without relying on saying that their issue will get better or be cured. it does suck to be this ill, but it also sucks to be made out to be a lazy pessimist, just because I have the audacity to not play along. and as for the trigger list, I don't like providing people with an easily accessed list of ways to hurt my feelings or harm me - upsetting me is supposed to be challenging, and thus rewarding. if you want a cheat sheet then you're out of luck, I'm afraid.

bonus #2: "FAQ stands for frequently asked questions, it doesn't need that s at the end!"

yeah, I know, I just enjoy chaos and disarray.

bonus #3 (edit): "what are your disabilities and how exactly are they incurable and/or deadly?"

again, I don't tell the internet everything about me, especially when it poses a risk, especially not as an easily accessible list for you to refer back to whenever you feel inclined to hurt my feelings. that is understandably a sore subject. (edit: that includes physical health issues btw.)

bonus #4 (edit): "so we shouldn't be critical?"

if it wasn't clear from my answer about politics or my post in general, you can have opinions about things, and you can voice that. it's just not realistic to exist at extremes: to think that you alone should dictate what exists in fiction, or to think that people shouldn't be expressing disdain or criticism of any calibur. say how you feel about things, that's fine, but it's also fine if people find that they don't value your input. plus we're all flawed, we can all be hypocritical from time to time, we all get bitchy, and we all make mistakes, or even knowingly fuck things up. that's important to keep in mind, whether we're talking about the one being criticised or the one doing the criticising - poor choices of words, imperfect tone, or contradictory ideas are inevitably going to happen occasionally.

congrats on reaching the end! if you have, at any point, said one of these to me, you owe a hug to your nearest loved one (once it's safe).

edit: might add more links/bonus points in the future when I think of things, but it's late now. (sorry for links where prior notes in the thread have my old url, that may get a tad confusing; also, not all links are my blog or my op, since it is to illustrate points/vibes, not to self-promo.)

#don't take life too seriously #nobody gets out alive anyway #tw abuse mention #tw csa mention #tw incest mention #tw for any tws I missed #idk why I did this

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wiypt-writes · 3 years

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Stark Spangled Banner

Ch32: The Impossible Choice. Part 2: One Which Crumbles From Within

Summary: Katie faces an impossible choice- her husband or her brother.

Warnings: Bad language, angst

Pairing: Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark

A/N: Wonderful edit again from @angrybirdcr

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. I do not own any characters in this series bar Katie Stark and the other OCs. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

Chapter 32 Part 1

Stark Spangled Banner Masterlist // Main Masterlist

Katie had no idea how long she sat waiting, lost in her thoughts and worries but eventually she heard a shuffling noise and spun round to see Steve supporting Bucky who was missing his metal arm. Both men were bloodied, battered, but alive.

“Where’s Tony?” She asked as she stood up, looking at Steve.

Steve took a deep breath, “In there. It got out of hand but he’s okay.” Katie immediately headed to the door of the bunker.

“Katie, he won’t listen.” Steve shook his head sadly as he called after her. “This…it’s too far gone to fix.

“I have to try Steve, he’s my brother.”

She left the sentence hanging, not looking back as she moved back into the bunker. She had to try and talk him round, make him understand this was what Zemo wanted. It was the last chance to try and sort all of this out. If she couldn’t then there was no way Steve could go back. No way he would go back.

And she was going to lose one of them.

“Tony.” She spoke gently, walking towards where he was sat, back against a wall in the depth of the concrete building.

“You know, when Rogers asked for your hand in marriage I couldn’t have been happier. Finally you’d met someone that treat you well, looked after you. Now, I wish he’d never come out of that fucking iceberg.” He snarled up at her.

Katie took a deep breath. “You’re upset, I get that.”

“Really? You do?” Sarcasm dripping off every word as Tony glared at her. “That’s good because I thought for a moment you were missing the point.”

“What is the point, Tony? Do you think for one minute that I like what happened to our Parents?”

“How long have you known?” he looked at her.

“Since we took SHIELD and Hydra down.” She bowed her head.

“Two years?!” his voice rang round the cavern. “You knew for Two fucking years?” “I didn’t know for certain it was him until yesterday, I swear.” She took a deep breath “But Steve is right. It wasn’t Bucky that did it. It was the Winter Soldier.”

“Oh God, he’s brainwashed you as well.” Tony groaned, banging his head against the wall. “That man murdered our parents!”

“HYDRA murdered our parents.”

“BUT HE DID IT!” Tony yelled, “And whilst that mind control is in there he’s a danger and he needs to be dealt with.”

“He needs help.”

Tony laughed, scornfully “Frankly if you believe that, you’re the one that needs help.”

“We both know what it’s like to be tortured, to have your dignity stripped from you in a way people cannot possibly imagine.” Katie swallowed, turning to her brother “And for us it was weeks Tony, fucking weeks. He endured it for seventy damned years.” “He killed our mom!” Tony screamed. “And he saved my life!” Katie yelled back, her voice cracking. “The Winter Soldier did those things, not Bucky Barnes. Tone, this is tearing me in two. I can’t choose between you, I can’t do it!” “You already chose.” “No, I didn’t. I did what I thought was right. Not just the Accords but coming here. And you know it was right too, deep down or you wouldn’t be here either. You saw those soldiers in there, it could have been so much different.” Tony snorted. “For once in your life just admit you’d follow Rogers anywhere.” Katie shook her head, sniffing slightly as her eyes misted over “You’re my brother, my father even, and I love you so much, but he is my husband and I love him too. What am I supposed to do, huh? Tell me?” Tony looked at her, and turned away. He felt betrayed, by them both. But as much as he hated what she had done, he loved his sister beyond belief and he knew no matter what happened here there would be no winners. If she stayed her heart would break at losing Steve and she would end up inside that shit hole pokey until some agreement or deal was done.

And if she left, she might be free, but then he would lose her.

But Tony knew the thing that would break her the most was having to make that choice, a choice between a life on the run with Rogers, or being with him. He couldn’t see her go through that, he couldn’t see her miserable and without the man she loved, and who clearly loved her, despite the fact he might be an asshole. There was nothing else to do, Tony had to make the choice for her.

And moreover he knew he had to be the one to lose.

"I don’t even wanna look at you right now.” His voice cracked and he turned away. “Get lost, go on.” “And go where?” Her voice was strained. "Wherever your precious Captain is running to. And you best run fast. Because if Ross gets hold of you, you’re both gonna be in that pokey with the rest of them and I’ll make sure Rogers never sees the light of day again.” “And me?” Her eyes were wet with tears as she looked at him. “You went against the accords.” He shrugged, unable to meet her eye “Maybe they could get you a double cell.” Katie felt her heart breaking. Her brother, the man who had been there all her life, was actively pushing her away. This is what it had come to. But just as she was about to argue, try and see they could get a way through this, he delivered the final blow. “You know, I’m glad mom and dad ain’t here to see this, because they’d be so ashamed of you.” Tony took a deep breath before he delivered the blow he knew would kill her, and he was going to hate himself for it. “Hell, I’m ashamed of you.” That. That there, was the moment Katie felt her heartbreak. “Tony.” Her voice cracked “Tell me you don’t mean that.” “I mean every word.” Tony lied, forcing himself to look at her. He didn’t mean any of it, he was beyond proud of her, how strong she was. But he knew, this was the only way she could be spared the agony of a shitty choice.

With a shaking sob Katie stood up and began to walk across the cavern slowly, giving Tony a chance to stop her but he didn’t. As she reached the start of the corridor she stopped, taking a deep breath and turned back to look at him through her tears.

“Me not telling you about mom and dad was a mistake. But I did it to save you from all this, save you from hurting because I figured you’d seen enough over the past goodness knows how long.” She shrugged, wiping her face. “I’m so sorry Tony.”

He looked away, not meeting her eyes because he couldn’t. “Just go.”

She walked from the cavern as calmly as she could. Once she was out of site she began to sprint, wanting nothing more than the comfort of Steve. She was that wrapped up in her thoughts, twice she took a wrong turn and hit a dead end, screaming in frustration, before eventually, after what seemed like a lifetime she burst out into the snow before collapsing onto the floor, a loud agonising wail erupting from her chest.

“Katie?” Steve saw his girl fall to her knees, the noise she made chilled him to the bones. He sprinted straight towards her, ignoring the aching all over his body from the blows he had taken over the past three days or so. He dropped besides her “Honey?”

Katie took a deep breath before she looked up at Steve unable to voice her emotions or explain what happened. She simply bowed her head again and shook it. Steve sighed and placed an arm round her shoulder “Come on.”

With his help she rose to her feet, looking round. There was no sign of T’Challa. Zemo or Bucky.

“Where is everyone?” She sniffed, sliding her arm around Steve’s waist, more for support than anything else.

“T’Challa left about two minutes ago. He’s taken Zemo to the United Nations.” Steve answered as they trudged through the snow.

“Least Bucky’s in the clear.”

“He’s not.” Steve sighed “Even if he’s proven not guilty they’ll want to lock him up, especially whilst HYDRA are in his mind.” He stopped at the bottom of the ramp to the jet and turned to face her, taking a deep breath as he knew this was it. The point at which she was going to have to make a decision on what she did next, and his heart was breaking for her.

“T’Challa has offered to help. He’s given me the coordinates to Wakanda and says he has someone there who could assist in fixing whatever it is Hydra did to Buck’s mind.”

“If the UN catch on he’s harbouring him it’ll cause even more trouble.” “I know, which is why they can’t find out.” Steve looked at her. “T’Challa is going to tell the UN that we’re all here so they can send a craft out to pick everyone up. Then the cover story is that in the meantime Bucky and I escaped, and no one knows where we have gone.”

“Think they’ll buy it?” She asked, ignoring for a moment the fact that he had said Bucky and I, not Bucky and us.

“They’ve no reason not to.”

“And he really thinks he can help him?”

Steve nodded. “So that’s the plan. Take Bucky and lay low for a while, at least until I can figure out what to do next”

He paused for a moment and then looked up the ramp before taking a deep breath and looking at her.

“I didn’t want any of this to happen” he sighed, “and if you don’t want to come I’ll understand.” He took a deep breath, as he grabbed both of her hands, the tears swimming in his eyes. “I don’t ever want to force you to make a choice so whatever you do decide, I’ll understand, I just want you to know that I love you, I’ll always love you.”

Katie looked up at him, his last words were barely audible above his choked back sob. She knew Steve was going to run, and that he wouldn’t settle being behind bars, but he was offering her a way out, a chance to stay with Tony. Her husband had never, not once through this entire situation pressured her to take his side. And she hadn’t taken his side, she had done what she believed was the right thing. But now, when it came down to it, there was simply no choice for her to make. Tony hated her, the Accords had finished the Avengers, Ross would make sure she was locked away…and the thought of Steve not being with her broke her more than anything.

There was nothing else left for her to do but go.

Her eyes misted over as she looked up at the man who was her world, her everything. “I can’t stay.” She whispered “Not without you. Please don’t leave me.”

“Leave you?” His voice cracked and he pulled her into his chest, hard, hands pressed at the base of her back and her head as she fisted her hands into the dirty material of his uniform. “Never, Doll.”

“Then get me out of here.” She pulled back to look up at him, gently using her thumbs to wipe away the tears on his face that had run down below the line of his helmet.

“Are you sure?” He had to ask again. “Because if we do this, there’s no going back. You might be able to sort things with Tony if you stay.” “When I’m locked up in prison?” She shook her head “What’s the point in that. Besides, we both know that you wouldn’t stand for it. You’d break me out in a week.”

He gave her a soft smile, she was right. He would. She leaned up to place a soft kiss on his lips before she turned and strode up the ramp into the jet, wiping her eyes and putting her weapons away silently. Steve followed her in and she turned to look at him when she spotted Bucky who was looking significantly worse for wear sat on one of the seats.

“You okay?” she said gently. He looked up and swallowed.

“I’m sorry, I really am.” His voice cracked and his head hung again.

“I know.” She shrugged sadly as she headed over to cockpit.

Steve settled in the pilot seat just in front of her, removing his helmet and punching in some co-ordinates. Moments later the jet was airborne.

“Auto-pilot locked. ETA 4.5 hours” Katie muttered, reading the computer before she stood up and dropped her hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Think it’s about time I patched you boys up.”

“Start with Buck.” Steve instructed gently, standing up “He’s worse than I am.”

She moved to the back of the jet and began rummaging in the first aid boxes gathering various things before she told Bucky to sit on the gurney in the medi-bay area of the jet.

“This is probably gonna sting a little.” She bit her lip as she began to wipe gently at the various cuts and bruises on Bucky’s face. If it hurt he didn’t give any outward signs that it did. She then moved to the back of his head, clearing up a nasty gash from where he had taken a hit and, once that was done, she checked his arm. There was no new wound, but his metal arm had been removed just below the shoulder blade, leaving the metal socket intact.

“Does it hurt?” She asked him gently.

“No.”

She looked at Steve, shrugging as if to say that she had done the best she could and he nodded, looking at Bucky.

“Why don’t you rest?” He nodded over to the seats. “We’ve got a while before we arrive and I doubt any of us had much sleep last night.”

“You guys certainly didn’t.” Bucky said slyly as he stood up. Katie shared a look with Steve who she was amused to see had flushed from the neck upwards, the patches of his face that weren’t dirty were now a bright crimson.

“Walls in hotel rooms are thin.” Bucky continued, grunting slightly as he dropped into one of the seats, leaning back and closing his eyes.

Katie bit her lip as Steve sat down on the stretcher, same place Bucky had sat before. She studied his weary face and noticed that there was a huge bruise forming on his right cheek and a smaller abrasion on his left. His nose had at some point been bleeding and there was a split in his lip, but all in all his helmet had saved him for the most, as he was nowhere near as bad as Bucky. She gently wiped at his face, as tenderly as she could to avoid hurting him. She cleaned off the dirt, dried blood and then the cut above his eye, before moving to the one on his lip. As she touched it with the antiseptic wipe he hissed slightly.

“Stop being a baby.”

Steve opened his eyes and simply watched his wife’s face intensely. Her eyes were red rimmed from her crying and he couldn’t help but wonder what Tony had said to her when she had gone back in. But he knew she would tell him when she was ready. Eventually she finished and dropped the wipe she had been using into the dish to her right, and he placed both his hands on her hips and pulled her closer to him, so that she was stood in between his legs.

“I love you so much.” He whispered gently. She brought her hand up to brush across his now clean but bruised face and sighed.

“I know.” She dropped a soft kiss onto his lips, careful not to aggravate any cuts further. He would heal fast, he always did. In a few days there would be no evidence of any of these.

From over in the corner of the jet there came a soft groan “Get a room. Preferably not next to mine.”

*****

It was three hours into the journey before Katie finally told Steve everything. What Tony had said, how he had told her to leave, and that he was ashamed of her, and Steve’s heart broke for her as she cried again, her tears falling to his shoulder as he sat and simply held her before insisting she also took some rest. He knew what Tony had said was bullshit, the man was ridiculously proud of his sister, and he found himself understanding why he had done it. To save her from an impossible choice. Tony was as selfless as the next person where his sister was involved.

About forty-five minutes or so later, when Katie was fast asleep, Bucky woke up and he noticed Steve was sat in the seat at the front, simply staring out of the window.

“Got anything to drink?” He asked, and Steve’s head snapped round.

“Should be some water in the fridge, hang on…” “I lost my arm Punk, not my legs.” Bucky grumbled, heading over to where Steve was directing.

“Glad to see your attitude is still as bad as ever.” Steve raised an eyebrow as Bucky threw a bottle to him which he caught in his right hand.

“Yeah well, there are somethings even being brainwashed can’t get rid of.” Bucky sighed as he headed over to the seat by Steve. Clasping the bottle in his knees he worked the top off with his right hand and took a deep swig.

“Do you really think they can do it? You know, get whatever Hydra put in my head out?”

“T’Challa seems to think so.” Steve nodded, looking at his friend.

“Well, perhaps when he has we can catch up properly.” Bucky’s voice was wistful.

”Like old times huh?” Steve smiled, a twinkle in his eye.

Bucky grinned, before he grew serious again. “You know I did think about finding you, but…”

Steve looked at him for a moment and then leaned forward slightly. “How much do you remember?”

Bucky sighed, “I remember most things, about my life that is, but at first it was just a big jumble. That’s why I wrote it all down.”

The two men fell silent again, Steve full of his own guilt again for not going back for him that day he fell from the train. He could have spared him all of this.

“How did you do it?” Bucky asked suddenly, making Steve look back at him “Wake up seventy years in the future and just carry on?” “Katie.” Steve answered instantly, not even needing to think about it. “I came out of the ice, I’d lost everyone I knew, had no idea what to do, but then she turned up. Almost like it was meant to be.”

“I thought Steve Rogers didn’t believe in fate?” Bucky teased “What was it you used to say? You make your own luck?” Steve chuckled “I didn’t, I mean I don’t really, but whatever it was be it fate, luck, circumstance, hell, I’m just glad it happened.” He trailed off, before he carried on. “You know, I loved Peggy but that was nothing to what I feel for Katie. I can’t imagine being without her.”

Bucky looked at his friend, smiling. He had always known that when Steve found the right dame he would fall hard and fast, and it was clear he had. After all of his bad luck before the war, it was nice to see the man so happy and loved. But Bucky wasn’t going to let it lie without the chance to tease his friend. He grinned and looked at him, a cheeky smile spreading across his weary face.

“Yeah she’s pretty hot too. How did a punk like you manage to pull a gal like that?” “Buck!” Steve groaned exasperatedly as Bucky laughed.

“I’m just playing with you Stevie. I’m glad you found someone.” He smiled gently. “Just gutted I wasn’t at the wedding, well properly anyway. You looked happy though when you came out of the church.”

“I was. And I wish you could have been there properly too pal.” Steve’s voice taking on a teasing tone “But Sam made a pretty good substitute best man.”

“Wait, you had Seagull as your best man?” Bucky’s tone was indignant.

“He’s a good friend.” Steve paused again, before he took a deep breath. “You know I haven’t thanked you yet for saving her life.” He nodded over to where Katie was curled up in a seat under a blanket “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been there.” “Right time right place.” Bucky shrugged “You know, I didn’t recognise her at first, just heard all this screaming and, well she was in a bad way.” “I know.” Steve dropped his head. “They…they hurt her.” Bucky didn’t need to ask what they had done to her. He could imagine.

“She’s okay now though, right?”

“Physically yeah.” Steve nodded “Mentally, well, she still has nightmares sometimes but don’t we all? She’s strong though, way stronger than me.”

“I dunno from the noises I heard last night you seemed to be pretty strong.” Bucky quipped and Steve groaned

“Sorry, our walls at the compound are soundproof so…” He offered an explanation, blushing again.

“Yeah, well the first time we just kinda ignored it but then when you started again an hour later, then again, well, frankly it was a little gross.”

“Guess we just got a bit carried away.” Steve felt the heat spread up his neck.

“Sam said you were showing off.” Bucky smirked causing Steve to snort. “You got some stamina, bud, I’ll give you that.”

“Something we both thank Dr Erskine for on a regular basis.” Steve shot back cheekily and Bucky barked out a laugh.

At that point the alert on the cockpit started to go and Katie sat up, rubbing her eyes as the noise roused her. Steve shot her a smile, pretty sure he was still blushing, and then turned to look at the dials on the cockpit

“Hey.” She approached the front, dropping her hand to Bucky’s shoulder as she pressed a soft kiss to Steve’s head. “We here?”

“I think so.” Steve frowned, “The co-ords are telling me to drop to 2600, heading 0-3-0…only…”

Katie looked ahead, it was nothing but a thicket of what looked like jungle.

“You trust T’Challa?” she asked, settling in a seat behind him.

“Yeah.”

“Then do it.” She said simply, looking at him like he was an idiot.

Bucky smirked slightly and Steve rolled his eyes, but obeyed all the same. They passed through the trees as they simply disappeared, like a computer image and they were left with the skyline of a beautiful city. Katie let out the breath I hadn’t even realised she had been holding.

“What the fuck?” Bucky whispered, and Steve laughed in agreement.

*****

They were welcomed by T’Challa’s Mother, younger Sister Suri and a few members of his King’s Guard. T’Challa was on his way back from the UN and wouldn’t be back for an hour or so, so in the mean time they were given something to eat and a place to clean up, Katie taking her time in the scalding hot shower in their luxurious suite. Steve had stayed with Bucky and she was glad, as she broke down once more thinking about Tony, wondering where he was. Once she had cried all the tears she had left to cry, she dried off and crawled into the bed passing out almost immediately. She didn’t feel Steve climb in besides her later on that night. He stayed awake for a lot longer than she did, having spent the evening with T’Challa who had filled him in on what the UN had said. Tony was home okay, he knew that much, and the authorities had accepted T’CHalla’s explanation, essentially meaning he, Katie and Bucky were outlaws. For once in his life he had no idea what to do next, and the guilt at dragging her into this was eating him up. With a sigh he wrapped his arms around her, pulled her close and drifted into an uneasy sleep.

The next day felt slightly more positive. After breakfast Suri took Bucky into her lab for a scan on his brain. Bucky had worried that going into a scanner would remind him of the machine Hydra used and could bring out the Winter Soldier again, but Suri had simply smiled and shook her head, before using what looked like a beaded bracelet to perform the scan.

Now she stood over a tablet looking at the image.

“Your mind has been fighting this the whole time.” she said tapping a few places on the tablet and bringing up a hologram image of Bucky’s brain for them all to see. She pointed to a bright, pink line which snaked all over the image “That’s what they put in there but it hasn’t melded properly, which I suspect is why you required constant…how to put this…recalibration I suppose.” she pondered something before she turned to look at the soldier and smiled. “I can fix this.”

“Really?” Bucky said, his head jerking up as he looked at her, his eyes shining.

“I may have to engineer something new equipment wise, and it could take me a few months to do it- but it is reversible.” She nodded, voice oozing with confidence as she looked at the scans of Bucky’s brain on the screen

“How?” Bucky frowned, hardly daring to believe what she was saying. He would be free…

“I can cut it out.” she said, like it was something she did every day. “Like I say, it has not melded to your brain. Think of it as foreign object, not a part of you, and all foreign objects can be removed.“

Katie squeezed Steve’s hand as Steve let out a loud breath as he looked up at the ceiling. Bucky was going to be ok. He glanced down at his wife who smiled at him, as they both turned to see Bucky’s eyes were wet as he wiped tears off his face. Suri dropped a hand to his shoulder.

“You won’t have to live with this anymore, Sergeant Barnes.” she said to him.

Bucky looked at her, then to Steve before his face crumpled and in a stride Steve had closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around his friend in a brotherly hug as Bucky sat on the bench, unable to believe that he was going to be free, finally free from Hydra. Katie watched the two of them as T’Challa gently squeezed her shoulder as he and Suri made to leave the room. She followed them, pausing in the doorway to turn to look at the two men, Steve stepping back from Bucky to look down at him as he wiped at his face, a teary smile crossing his features.

It had cost them everything, but at least there was something good going to come out of it all.

**** Chapter 33

**Original Posting**

#stark spangled banner #steve rogers #Katie Stark #steve rogers x ofc #steve rogers x original female character #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers fic #mcu #mcu fanfic #chris evans #chris evans characters

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multi-fandom-imagine · 3 years

Text

It's Not Just Make Believe || David Milton ||

Request:

artlovingbre asked:

A David x reader where the 1692 version of the reader was condemned by Carver for refusing to be with him because she loves David and when the present group is being sent back to 1692, the present version of the reader manages to save David from his execution and he is brought to the present, and when he meets the present version of the reader, he starts to fall in love with the reader again. I just find David so adorable ❤🥺 he deserves so much more attention.

A/n: I am writing this while watching Beyond Belief: Fact Or Fiction.

Also it is now 1am...I am so sorry if this sucks.

Pairings: Daniel x OC{- Sister to the reader }, David x Reader.

1692.

Dying....that was something you never thought would happen so soon. You’d always had hoped it would be when you were old, in bed with the man you loved surrounded by your children and grandchildren.

Not like this, with your arms tied behind your back to a wooden beam. You tensed as Carver walked up to you, gripping a flaming torch.

“I give you one last chance...marry me...and I will make this go away.” It was satisfying spitting in the mans face, seeing the anger flash across his face brought a small flicker of joy.

“I’d rather die than marry you.”

Holding your head up high you were not going to give the man the satisfaction of hearing your pain screams. You watched as Tabitha clutched a screaming Mary though it pained you to see David’s face. The man you loved, closing your eyes a blissful smile formed on your face as Caver dropped the torch the wood beneath your feet.

You did not feel any pain, nor did you scream. The only sound’s that rang out in the woods that night were of your loved ones begging them to stop the fire.

Though David’s heart nearly stopped when he heard your voice one last time.

“In another life time my love.”

2020

“God...I am going to die with out seeing your sister again.”

Wrinkling your nose you let out a sigh patting Daniel’s shoulder. “At least we’re in a church.”

The man let out a snort as you two slowly walked up to the bell tower. “That doesn’t really help knowing that thing is outside.”

“Don’t forget the little girl.”You chimed in.

Daniel let out a groan as you both finally reached the top only for the door to slam shut. A scream escaped your throat as Daniel reached for you and soon you were both pulled back into another time.

You could feel air leaving your lungs as you looked into a man that looked so similar to Daniel yet he seemed so different. Looking at him, you felt a strange feeling in your chest.

The man seemed to feel the same way judging by the emotions that moved across his face.

Why did your heart ache for a man you didn’t even know, for someone that was from a completely different time. You felt your stomach clench watching the man named Carver push Daniel’s double towards the open window and soon he was falling. Not thinking of your actions you and Daniel rushed forward. You both were grabbing onto the rope, ignoring the burn you both tried to lift the man.

“Come on y/n....we almost got him up.”

Gritting your teeth you watched as one of the guards cut the rope holding the wrist, it only took a moment as you snatched his hand.Ignoring the feeling of your shoulder being dislocated, ignoring the shocked gasp’s around you, the only thing that mattered at the moment was saving his life and in return saving the life of your sisters boyfriend.

Though it felt like hours, it was only moments that it took for you and Daniel to pull the man up as he scrambled away from the window, everything was chaotic but Mary she knelt down next to you. Playing her small hand over yours. “Take care of my brother....please.”

Then, just as Daniel’s double grasped your hand, a bright light engulfed the room. Everything was normal, everything but the man from a completely different time laying by your feet.

“Did we do that?!”

Turning to Daniel you gave the man a crooked smile. “I think we did...come on...let’s move him. It’s not safe here.”

You were happy Daniel was by your side to explain everything that had happened. To explain why their was an unconscious man laying on the ground, the man who looked so similar to Daniel.

“So this is Daniel’s double?”

“Yup.”

“And you both saved him.”

“Yup.”

Taylor let out a groan rubbing the bridge of her nose. “This shit is giving me a headache.”

Letting out a sigh you watched as the double start to stir and soon you found yourself explaining everything to the man.

“I do not understand.”

Frowning, you glanced at the group at least they were giving you privacy. “I know...it’s hard to wrap your head around it.”

“You look so much like her.”

“Who?”

“My...the woman I loved...the woman I lost...it is like I am looking at a double.” Frowning you bit your tongue, your fingers clutching the sleeves of your sweater.

“I’m sorry David.” Though in the back of your mind you wanted to tell him that you were back.

“You have nothing to apologize for but can you please give me a moment...I am still doing my best to understand all of this.”

A few months have passed since the incident, none of you spoke of what happened in that little town. It’s not like anyone was going to believe you and as for David, Daniel came up with the excuse of the look a like being a cousin that is going to stay with him.

David did his best to try an fit in but everything was foreign to him so you were the one to help him a long. You did not blame Daniel, for everything that had happened to him you knew he wanted to spend as much time with your sister as he could.

“Come on David..you can come out now.”

“I look foolish.”

“You looked foolish in your old clothes now come out.” Over the last few months you and the young man had become closer, he stopped thinking of you has his lost love and you were starting to feel something more.

Watching the door open your eyes went wide seeing the man, he looked more handsome even though you did not think that was possible. He was wearing black pants along with a pair of boots, the sweater looked good on him too and his hair....it looked so soft, so floofy?

“Well...” Clearing out your throat, you could feel your cheeks grow warm. “I think you look handsome.”

With his own cheeks flushing he took a few steps forward then gently grasped your hand. “I want to thank you y/n...for not only saving my life but for giving me another reason to find love.”

You could feel your heart hammering away, was he confessing his feelings to you.

“David.” Biting your lip you were trying to sort out your own feelings as you felt the man give your hand a soft squeeze.

“I am sorry if I frightened you...I did not.”

Cutting him off with a laugh you stepped closer to him, your arms slowly wrapping around his neck.

“I love you too David.” Standing on your toes you pressed your lips against his as the man eagerly kissed you back.

“I am home.”

#the dark pictures anthology #the dark pictures little hope #little hope #supermassive games #David Milton #david milton x reader #little hope David Milton #reader insert #female reader #drabble #drabbles

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bingleycharles · 4 years

Text

First off, I don’t spend a lot of time on tumblr any more, and this blog was mainly meant to be a reference blog for wuxia/xianxia genre, which has been my favorite genre for a long time. My main intention was to provide some information that might be helpful (I think MDZS becoming so popular so quickly due to the tv drama came a bit unexpected to us who have loved the novel for a long time) and not really engage much beyond that. But, the more time I spend here, the more I feel that some things need to be said.

There’s been a lot of talk about the MDZS novel dubcon/noncon elements and I definitely had no intention of engaging with that to any extent, but the mentality of this particular group of people (and I use that term generously because it’s mainly the mentality of extremely sheltered children) on tumblr is so unbelievably wild that someone needs to say something, and I guess that’s going to be me. I am going to warn people in advance, that I am going to make no attempts to be nice about this, because after some of the discussions I’ve seen recently, even if niceness was deserved, I certainly am no longer capable of it.

Now that the disclaimer is in place, let’s talk a bit about where this hatred for mxtx and her sex scenes comes from.

1. People who believe that nothing problematic should exist in fiction, because nothing problematic should exist in the world.

Sometimes, this is based on a simple inability to recognize how fiction and real world are not, in fact, the same thing, and this inability can be more commonly found among those too young to understand complex subjects (see great majority of the above children, who have already caused a great deal of damage to vulnerable communities by misusing and misrepresenting terms like pedophilia, incest, etc, etc). More often however, it is based on the inability to understand how real word and fiction are actually related, an inability that is unfortunately found among many people who should be considered adults. It is a fundamental misunderstanding of both, rooted in a belief that real world problems exist because they are normalized in fiction (but not all world problems because no one is trying to get rid of murder mysteries, just the icky problems they don’t actually wanna think about or do anything to solve, but would still like to never see again. All this while simultaneously getting to say “well, I’m against incest in fiction so that’s my contribution to the issue,” so they can then feel good about themselves).

This belief, by the way, that real world problems exist because they are normalized in fiction, has been proven as a false narrative many times, but like “Bible says all gay people are evil” or “climate change isn’t real” doctrines, it refuses to die even when faced with facts. “Fiction does not exist in a vacuum” they keep saying, as if those capable of critical thinking have not addressed this subject so many times, that you could practically walk your way across the Pacific Ocean on their responses alone. The real world problems do not exist because someone once wrote them down in a piece of fiction, and that should be abundantly clear to us all. Instead, problematic subjects exist in fiction precisely because they existed in the real world first, and we, the human beings, find writing things down to be one of the many ways we process information, problematic or otherwise.

There is also an insistence on seeing every piece of fiction as an instruction manual for “bad things,” and honestly, I don’t know what happens in these people’s heads, nor do I want to. Again, according to them, any underage fiction is an instructional manual for a possible pedophile, but tens of thousands of murder mysteries are just entertainment. If you read/write underage fiction, you must be a pedophile, but by the same logic, if you read/write bloody murder mysteries, this logic either doesn’t apply, or murder is just fine. So inevitably we go back to the fact that a lot of these issues are only raised by people who just don’t think anything they personally find “icky” should exist, and that’s rooted mostly in white privilege (and we’ll get to the white minority individuals later) and ethnocentricity (and we’ll get to that in a minute too). Basically, when I hear “people will learn that rape is okay from fiction,” I automatically think you’re either extremely immature or extremely ignorant, or both. Please take a psychology/sociology class or seven, throw in Moral Development 101 in the mix, and get back to me in like ten years, when we can both try and have an adult conversation. In the meantime, arguing against this is like arguing with climate change deniers. More likely to make me dumber than them smarter.

In short, you will never be able to get rid of problematic fiction, because you will never make the world not problematic, nor will stopping the people who choose to reflect their problematic world in writing fiction accomplish absolutely anything, except them having no way to process their reality, and you being considered an immature child (which most people who think like this already are, so no news there, let’s move on).

2. They believe things are problematic because they believe that their particular experiences are common to everyone else. If they see it as problematic, then everyone else should to see it that way too.

This should be self-explanatory, and a thousand of these discussions have been held in the past, by people more eloquent than myself, about every subject from rape fantasies and bondage (go back a few years to 50 shades), to experiences that are unique to specific minority groups, like trans individuals, refugees, rape survivors, those with disabilities, multi-national and multi-racial individuals, and so on and so forth. Even among the hundreds and hundreds of these vulnerable groups of individuals, there are hundreds of different subgroups, whose experiences are all wildly different, wildly subjective, and all completely valid to them, regardless of how they differ.

None of us have the ability to understand each and every one of those unique experiences. At best, we may be able to somewhat understand a few people who have had similar experiences, but our opinions on a variety of subjects have been shaped by the smallest differences in those experiences, and are likely to never be exactly the same.

What I’m saying is this: the little white girl from Iowa, regardless of her minority status as disabled/lesbian/bi/queer female, will never understand what drives a young/disabled/queer/multiracial/2nd gen. immigrant girl, to write 55k of rape fantasy fiction between two multiracial men, and she doesn’t have to understand it. Neither her disability nor her queerness should give her a single iota of moral high ground over the other individual, or vice versa. Her personal understanding of what is morally right or wrong in fiction does not give her the right (nor should it ever) to pass judgment on anyone else’s experiences, or their method for processing those experiences. There is no sensitive way I can say this, so I’m not even gonna try. You don’t get to be automatically right because you’re gay, disabled, or a minority of any kind. Like, I know this is uncomfortable to hear, but people around here often use their status to invalidate others and to get them not to engage in any type of discussion that would prove their opinions wrong. I’m literally watching children on tumblr going, “I don’t need to know about oppression, I’m gay,” like holy shit. The only oppression you know is your own. That’s it. Please tone down the arrogance and realize you’re not alone in the world, minority or not.

I get that if you were raped, you may never want to see rape in fiction. But in the same vein, there exist people who were raped, and want to see rape in fiction. I get that you’re gay and offended by certain type of fiction, but there are also people who are gay and prefer the same type of fiction you find offensive. This is exactly when words like “pedophile” and “incest” get thrown around a lot, for things that in no way meet the definition. Because there is no factual or valid argument that exists here, and people are browbeating other people by saying “Well, I’m gay and oppressed and I just don’t like it so it has to be wrong.” But when the dissenter is also gay and oppressed, and you have to admit that based on the status you’ve used to validate yourself, you also have to admit that their opinion is as valid as yours, then the only fallback is to point a finger and say that there must be something wrong with them. “Well, your opinion is not valid because you read underage fiction so you’re a pedophile,” and this is literally what keeps happening over and over again.

At the root of all this is a twisted, sick belief, that those who process their issues and their problematic environments in the morally pure and acceptable way are the only valid voices in every community, and that everyone else’s experiences are immediately invalidated by default. It’s a pretty fucking gross rhetoric, and it’s been going on here on tumblr for a very long time now, but it’s only gotten worse, and it’s especially prevalent among the new influx of mdzs “fans.”

3. They believe things are problematic because their culture considers them problematic, and they have no concept of the fact that theirs is not the only culture in the world.

This is particularly nasty proclivity, commonly found in Western consumers of fiction. The Western audiences like to think themselves enlightened, despite the fact that most Eastern cultures have carpets in their government buildings older than the entire Western culture, system of law, morality codes, or their Constitutions. This is mostly true of U.S. in particular because their ethnocentrism keeps self-validating itself through ignorance, poor education, and other evils of capitalism. But it’s also true of other white European consumers of fiction, who have a long history of colonialism to thank for their continuous insistence that their morality is more enlightened than everyone else’s (oh, the irony of that). But not to go too far from the subject at hand, if I had a dollar every time a white girl from United States said “Ew, this rape scene this Chinese author wrote is really gross and I find it to be offensive to my entire existence,” I could pretty much overthrow the entire capitalist system that produced this ethnocentric fucking nonsense in the first place.

In short, there are many individuals in the West, who might be minorities in their general community, but have no concept or understanding of other cultures, other minority communities, or other individuals that have life experiences drastically different from their own, so they judge everything they see from their own perspective, because it is the only perspective they have, and unfortunately, it’s a pretty narrow one. There is an important lesson to be learned here, and it’s the one I’ve already mentioned above:

Being queer, or being any kind of a minority, does not automatically save you from being ignorant, being ethnocentric, being unable to understand other people’s experiences (minority or otherwise), and it most certainly does not mean that your queer culture is the only right queer culture in the world. If you doubt my words, I highly suggest consulting some native-Chinese male queer individuals, who have also read that rape scene by that Chinese author who has upset you so much that you can’t stop crying about it (although it wasn’t written for you, and you were under no obligation to read it), and maybe ask them what they think, since their opinion is the only one even close to being relevant to this particular conversation. I guarantee that their answers will shock and amaze you, and you may even learn a thing or two along the way.

(And if you immediate answer isn’t that their opinions will all be wildly different as well because them all being native-Chinese male queer individuals still doesn’t mean they’re all the same fucking person [because hello? China has 56 ethnic groups alone] and that each and every one of them is a unique individual with a unique perspective based on their particular upbringing, social environment, sexuality, etc, etc, then you’re fucking missing the point, please go back up to the beginning and try again).

In the end, the answer to never having to see anything that upsets you is pretty simple and straight forward. If it’s bothersome, do not engage. If you don’t understand something, if it seems alien to your experience, if your very existence feels utterly repulsed by it, consider the fact that it was probably not written for you in the first place, and simply remove yourself from its presence.

Do not assume that you know why it was written, do not assume it is a personal attack against your existence, do not assume that you understand (or ever could) the culture that gave it birth, the history that formed it, or the shared experiences of those who happen to like it. Do not assume that you are the authority on problematic when it comes to anyone else’s work except your own, because you are a unique individual, your moral beliefs and expectations are your own, and no one else is required to share them. The world does not have a common morality, and if it did, it certainly wouldn’t be a common morality of a white girl on fucking tumblr who isn’t gonna take an intercultural competence class unless she’s in her fourth year of college, and even then, the exact privilege that allowed her to take that class is gonna make it pretty unlikely that she’ll understand it. It’s a tough life I know, but you’ll get over it tolerably well I’m sure.

In the simplest words possible, please try and turn a mirror towards your own propensity to think that your viewpoint is superior to all others, quit making excuses that amount to your particular minority status somehow making you immune to rampant cultural ignorance, because it’s literally been centuries of this bullshit from white colonialists countries for the rest of the world, and everyone is pretty fucking sick of it.

People are simply asking you not to be a dick to other unique individuals on the sole basis of the fact that you are incapable of processing their world, their culture, or their experiences, in the same exact way that they have, and frankly, it’s really not a lot to ask.

#mdzs #mxtx #mo dao zu shi #racism #ethnocentrism #xenophobia #white privilege #cultural ignorance

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littlesliceofmarvel · 4 years

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Manipulating a God | chpt. five

Synopsis: Trying to break the information out of Loki during the attack of 2012 wasn’t exactly the easiest task, but it was a challenge you were willing to take head on. So, what happened when a master manipulator tried to get information from the God of Mischief?

Series warnings: Swearing, mentions of violence, blood, and gore

Pairings: Stark!Reader x Loki

A/N: I am so happy to be back writing on here. I apologize for the unannounced hiatus, I was dealing with personal issues and couldn’t find the motivation to write, but I am back and stronger than ever! I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and may all of your 2020 wishes come true! Much love. xoxox

PS. There is a major storyline/timeline change here but don’t worry, it’ll match up with the movie timeline soon enough!

I know this chapter is shorter, but the next one will be a lot of fun!

For the millionth time that morning, Fury repeated the same question, “What did Loki say again? Give me the quote.”

Groaning and throwing your head back (also for the millionth time) you replied the same way you had all morning, “He said ‘the power I could find here on Earth is beyond anything your human brain can comprehend.’ Word for word - ish.”

Fury placed the pencil under his chin as if he were contemplating the meaning of life and all existence, looking down at the notepad in front of him which only had that one exact quote written, no other details or clues or even doodles scribbled anywhere else on the small lined paper. For about half an hour, the two of you had been sitting here discussing what the God of Mischief had said, but nowhere nearer to deciphering anything. Thor, who was currently your best hope in this grand old mystery, was off paying his dear brother a visit in the meantime but hadn’t actually spoken to you all day so he was of no help thus far.

In the half an hour you had been meeting with Fury, you had downed about eight coffees and your mind was having trouble staying focused on just the one quote, the meaning of it practically lost to you with the amount of caffeine flowing through your bloodstream. Your hands slightly shaking, eyes feeling fuzzy, you tried your best to keep focused and find any ideas flowing around your imaginative mind that could help out. But, in all honesty, you were blank.

Of course, you barely had any knowledge of ‘Outer Space’ in the first place, having only recently come in contact with your first-ever ‘aliens’ this week - and they were both nothing like you had expected from reading sci-fi and watching Star Trek. And that right there was the extent of your knowledge.

“What if he’s looking for someone powerful? Instead of something,” Fury thought out loud, mumbling to himself as he started tapping the pencil to his chin. Mumbling a silent agreement, you let out a dramatic sigh as you continued sinking into your chair, bored of the endless circle of conversation that continued feeling pointless to you. No point had been proven and nothing could be confirmed or denied since Fury’s space knowledge didn’t seem to exceed your own.

“God, pick yourself up a little bit, Stark,” Fury spoke in disappointment at your slouched figure, “You’re worse than a seven-year old child after you’ve had your coffee.”

Chuckling at his comment, you sat properly in your chair, straightening your back like a stiff board and intertwining your fingers on the glass table like a posture-perfect model, “Is this better, Corporal Fury?”

“Y/N, I’m not messing around here, the fate of our planet is kind of resting in your hands.”

Joking around was kind of your thing — you were a Stark after all. You knew that sometimes it got in the way when trying to hold a serious conversation (like right now), but there was nothing that could stop you from blurting out sarcastic or witty comments when people were relying on you for important answers.

You leaned towards him, a gentle smile on your lips, “I know, Fury, I’m just trying to bring some light to this dark situation.”

Fury nodded slowly, pointing down to the empty notepad in front of him, “Then try to shed some light on this.”

Dropping your smile, you pulled the notepad in front of you, staring blankly at the meaningless quote in front of you, “Have we ever considered that maybe Loki’s just messing with our minds? After all, that’s what he’s known for. This could just be an empty threat.”

“It’s not.”

Thor decided to make his entrance at the right time, arms crossed and a frown etched upon his bearded face — clearly, he had just come back from meeting Loki. He sauntered slowly over to the table and my eyes didn’t leave his figure. Something about the way he was standing gave me a feeling he was about to give us some information regarding what we’d been sitting in here discussing.

“Care to spill the beans, Thor?”

“Sorry? Spill beans? I do not under—”

“You don’t understand, yeah, I know. Just tell us what you think Loki means,” your patience was starting to wear thin with the Gods and their mysterious way of speaking. Still leaning over the table to direct your full attention to the blond hunk, you tensed your shoulders as you prepared for any kind of answer.

“There’s this belief on Asgard, and most of the universe, really, that there are these things called the Infinity Stones,” Thor spoke, treading carefully as if detonating a bomb. The words meant nothing to you, and he seemed to notice this as he began to elaborate.

“There are six Infinity Stones, and they’re the most powerful things in existence. One is in Loki’s sceptre, and as you see, it’s been able to turn a few of your best men into what you have called ‘flying monkeys.’ They are dangerous and if in the wrong hands, can create catastrophic events throughout our knowable universe.”

Letting the knowledge sink in as if you were listening to science fiction theories, you pressed Thor to go on, “What’s that got to do with us?”

Thor grimaced, as if the answer tasted bitter rolling off his tongue, “He believes that they are here on Earth. If these stones got into Loki’s hands, it would be the end of your life here on this planet.”

You processed this sudden turn of events, sitting silently as you plotted a way to prevent Loki from getting these so-called Infinity Stones, even though you strongly doubted something so powerful would be casually sitting on your planet without your knowledge, “On Earth? Seriously? Out of all the planets and solar systems and shit, why would they be here? Don’t you think we’d know about them?”

“You only just found out about them, and you’re not a regular person. So, no, you wouldn’t know about them. Especially if they’re safe.” Although you had just met the rock-solid God, you could sniff the honesty coming off of him as if you’d known him for years.

Sitting back in your chair as if hit by a literal brick wall of information, you turned to Fury, “What the fuckin’ hell do we do now?”

Fury raised his eyebrow, thinking over the scenarios in his head, “We plan a meeting and discuss. I’m going to gather the team. We meet in fifteen minutes.”

And without another word, Fury left you in deafening silence with Thor.

- - -

Within fifteen minutes, Fury stuck true to his word, and the rest of the Avengers had groggily piled into the room. Thor explained the Infinity Stone situation and how they worked, even talking once more about Loki’s sceptre — which apparently homed the ‘Mind Stone.’ That explains the mind control.

“Has he mentioned the Infinity Stones to you, Y/N?” Tony asked, sarcasm laced in his voice almost in disbelief of the turn of events.

“Nope,” I replied casually, popping the P, “I haven’t really spoken to him much, so maybe next time I’ll try to bring it up, I dunno.”

“No — no, we can’t let Loki know that we know,” Thor’s eyes widened as if a lightbulb went off in his head, “If he finds out we’re onto him, he can very easily cause irreversible damage. I mean, I’ve never seen Loki willingly sit in a cage like this, it’s probably a part of his plan. So, we keep our mouths closed and let events unfold, I’d say.”

“Let events unfold?” Fury spoke up, “We are not letting that psychopath sit back and live his little life in that cage as if it were freakin’ Disneyland. Y/N, you’re going back in there for conversation. Find out the location of the Infinity Stones and his plan with them.”

I ran a hand through my hair, sitting upright with a tight smile, “Fury, I hate to disagree with you, but... I disagree with you. Look, Thor’s right, we can’t let him know we’re onto him about this because he can easily just... get out of here, or call his little backup boys or something. I’ll go talk to him and try my best to get everything that I can from him, but I doubt he’ll give in that easily,” I let out a sigh, trying my best to ignore the looks that everyone was giving me, “Just, give me a few days.”

And that’s exactly what Fury did.

Sitting face to face with Loki got less intimidating every time I did it. Probably because he looked sicker every time I saw him. Not that he was any less captivating — his blue eyes held numerous mysterious emotions and the smirk on his lips proved that he had secrets I wanted to know, but the fact that he looked as if his entire life was crumbling before his eyes made me feel like my job might just get a little easier.

“You’re back,” Loki smirked at me as I walked into the room. For the first time in about three days, I wasn’t wearing a tactical suit — meaning I didn’t feel as on edge, my body finally getting to experience comfort. My y/h/c hair flowed loosely down my shoulders and rested on my plain white t-shirt which was tucked into a tight pair of jeans.

“Yeah, hi,” I smiled, my mind replaying what Nat and I discussed this morning.

Be kind to him. Understand him. Relate to him.

Relating to Loki might be the toughest challenge out of the three, but my mind was witty enough to come up with something that made sense.

“I’ve persuaded them to let you eat if you want,” I smiled, looking down at the brown paper bag in my hand and held it out, “I’ve got a bagel and a hashbrown. I don’t know if you even eat, but this is good shit in my opinion.”

“I do not want it, but I appreciate the effort, Y/N.”

The way my name rolled off his tongue sent shivers down my spine, and I mentally smacked myself for focusing on it. He sat in the corner of the cell, leaning against the glass wall with his green cloak wrapped around him. His eyes looked more sunken in than last time I saw him and a part of me felt bad knowing he was probably losing his mind in here.

“If ever you do need anything, though, you can ask me — I know how to get my way with these people,” I smiled at him as kindly as I could, sitting down in the small chair in front of the glass.

He chuckled, eyes raking over my body quickly before locking back with mine, “Change of heart from our last conversation, wouldn’t you say?”

Now it was my turn to laugh slightly, remembering the last time I spoke to him and how different the encounter was, “Doesn’t change the fact that you will do as I say, but, I am human and I do have feelings. I’m not too good at the ‘being mean’ part. Even though I act like it.” That was totally a lie — I could slam and call out people in an instant — but I needed to play the role of a sweetheart if I wanted to get him to believe I had good intentions.

“You don’t seem like someone who has trouble being mean,” Loki scoffed, shrugging his shoulders backwards.

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” I raised an eyebrow at him, glaring him down as best as I could.

“Decipher it however you want,” he leaned his head backwards and gave me a weak smile. Something about him looked incredibly off and as much as it seemed like he was faking it for help, a tiny sliver of my mind told me he was being genuine and he needed help.

“Uh, so, how have you been?” I tried to strike up a casual conversation, still trying to figure out a way to pop the Infinity Stones in.

He gave me a quizzical look, “Just peachy. What do you think? I’m bored.”

I smiled down at the ground, an idea popping into my head, “Well, what if we played a game? To get to know each other? Like, Never Have I Ever or 20 questions?”

Loki rolled his eyes, “No, thank you. You seem incredibly boring.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” I scoffed, flicking a strand of my hair over my shoulder, “I’m bored too, this will give me something to do.”

Loki’s eyes flickered with an idea, and as he opened his mouth I knew I’d regret giving him the option to play.

“What do I get out of this?” He smirked coyly, crossing his arms over his chest.

Rolling my eyes, I pointed to the brown bag on the floor, “Food, duh.” There was nothing else I could possibly offer Loki — nothing that was good, anyways. I knew he’d ask to set him free, but that was not an option in anyone’s books.

“Not good enough, princess,” he shook his eyes, eyes playfully tracing my figure.

“Well,” I began, “You also get me as a friend!”

The playful smile disappeared from his face, “Oh, yeah, that’s totally what I want.”

“Stop being a bitch, Loki, and just ask me a question.”

He placed his fingers on his chin as if pondering the situation for a moment before his eyes lit up and he shot me a toothy grin, the dark ideas swirling around his mind ready to break free from their cages. Was I going to regret this? Yeah, probably. Was I going to back down? No.

“Fine, let’s play.”

Taglist

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@dapperappleton @what-a-fantasy @the-girl-of-many-fandoms1414 @brighteyedmichelle @leasly @cassiopeia-barrow @jay-the-mothafuckin-gay @themusingsofmany @bambamwolf87 @thefandomzoneisdangerous @cyberskeletonhandsbat @ultracarpediemfan @vgirl-10123 @bangvateez @leximills666 @littleredstarfish @blue-spider-official @benji-booxx @gorgeousgodzilla @what-a-fantasy @hello-lemons @yandereforyou @godhateskyleigh

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jeremys-blogs · 4 years

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The Owl House: Season One Overview

When Owl House first crept onto my radar, back when the first teaser trailer came out, I admittedly didn't think much of it. I thought it had a neat aesthetic and I was confident it would have its appeal, but at the time I just felt that it was one of those shows I might watch once or twice, like, but then not think about again. Then new information started coming my way, most notably that Alex Hirsch, the creator of my all-time favourite Disney show was going to be one of the voices. Now that definitely caught my interest, even more so when I started seeing other notable names attached to the project, like the always-awesome Wendie Malick. So I decided then and there that this was starting to shape up as something special, and that I was going to keep a close eye on it. And I'm definitely glad I did, because the Owl House has proven itself to be a true gem of a cartoon, with characters, animation and stories that haven't engaged and enthralled me this much since the days of Gravity Falls, and that's saying something. With its first season over, and having thoroughly impressed me in doing so, I decided it might be worth me saying just how well this show has fared thus far.

Now, the story of a youth who goes to a magical world and overcomes dangers and adventure is by no means a new idea in fiction. Heck, Disney themselves did that exact premise not so long before Owl House, with Amphibia. But I've always been of the belief that just because an idea is old doesn't meant it can't still be good if you do something interesting with it. Maybe put a new spin on it or explore the idea in ways others haven't. Does Owl House do this? Yes, I'd say it does. We've all heard of magical worlds, but probably not one made from the corpse of an ancient titan. We've all seen stories of witches, but likely not an entire race of them who do magic in the way these ones do. We've seen schools of magic, but again it isn't probably not the kind we see here, if only because of how casual everyone is about danger. There's lots of things here in the Owl House that has been done before, but interesting twists coupled with bizarre and unfamiliar character and background designs certainly help to make it stand out. In fact, I'd call this the least conventional conventional fantasy story ever put out there, if that actually makes any sense. Probably not, but hey, it's the best way I can think to describe it.

Characters are, as always, the biggest draw of any show for me, and luckily the Owl House has a plethora of great ones to offer me. Luz is a fine central heroine and immediately endeared herself to me in her first appearance with her wide-eyed enthusiasm and boundless love for both life in general and the fantastic in particular. However, what I loved about her introduction is that they made it clear that she has a lot of learning to do before her story is finished. She may be the typical oddball who doesn't fit in with her world, but the show doesn't shy away from the fact that she was a disruptive and often dangerous influence back there, particularly to the other kids. And in the episodes following that we see her make mistakes that get others in a lot of bad situations. Normally this would put me off a character pretty quickly, but the show remedies this well by not only having Luz be a very caring and well-meaning person, but also showing her be willing to do whatever it takes to make up for the errors she makes. And that, coupled with her general energy and optimism, makes her a very likeable main character for the show.

Eda and King, voiced by the aforementioned Wendie Malick and Alex Hirsch respectively, also do a great job of impressing me as characters. Firstly, we have Eda, an "outcast and proud of it" type of mentor with a rebellious streak that dwarfs even that which Luz herself had back in the human world. Now, having a mentor who's on the bad side of the law isn't new, but Malick brings a really fun energy to this character, with her snark being easily one of the most entertaining things about the show overall. But she gives her greater depth beyond just being a sarcastic mentor, as Eda is shown to be someone with her own struggles, her own pains, that draw you in and fascinate you in a way you might never have expected from her time in just that first episode. King likewise proves to be a character with many layers to him. Introduced as a demon who has fallen from power and constantly trying to regain that position, he often proves to be a great source of comedy, but also shows himself as capable of warming up to Luz and others and being genuinely caring towards them. These two have both proved to be great otherworldly characters, and ideal companions for Luz during her time in the Boiling Isles.

And like any truly great ensemble piece, Owl House provides plenty of other wonderful characters to enjoy over the course of the show. Hootly, the titular Owl House himself, is a truly entertaining comic relief character, and Hirsch, who voices him as well as King, clearly has a lot of fun in bringing just general random comedy into the mix. Luz's friends at school, Willow and Gus, are as endearing as her, proving supportive and just generally likeable kids that it's always a pleasure to see, with Willow in particular having some real standout moments in the show. And then we have Amity Blight, and here's a character who really does showcase a lot of what makes this story wonderful. Someone who appears as one thing, in this case a quintessential school bully character, and then gets revealed to have far more to her than we might have ever expected. And her growing close relationship to Luz has shown to be one of the most interesting things about the Owl House thus far, at least to me. I could probably write a whole essay on that relationship, and trust me, I have plans to, but for now just know that she, along with the rest of the recurring cast, have shown themselves to be a real delight to watch.

The stories in this show, in a similar vein to Gravity Falls, follow a sort of quasi-serialized format. There will definitely be hints of something larger and ominous building up in the background, with reference and mentions of things happening that we never get to see, but for the most part the show largely seems content to have episodic stories. But there will be interconnectedness there too, as some episodes will come about as a direct result of things established in prior episodes, such as Willow's past friendship to Amity, or Eda trying to get Luz enrolled at Hexside. And I've always had a fondness for that kind of storytelling. Sure, fully serialized stories that tell big, sweeping epics are all well and good, but smaller and more self-contained outings have always just appealed to me more, especially since it always seems that Owl House has character interactions be at the forefront of its priorities. I could honestly just watch an episode of three or more of these recurring characters just hanging out and talking to each other and be completely satisfied with it. But of course, there's the big end-of-season arc, and without spoiling things it definitely upped the seriousness, drama and stakes of the show. There had been risk and danger before, but that finale absolutely took it to eleven, which was fine for me, given how the rest of the show had been.

The Owl House, like any genuinely great show, has a number of themes and big ideas it wants to explore, and above all there seems to be the recurring idea of the individual vs society. Who a person is and what they want to do vs the needs of everyone and needing to be more like the rest of the group. And what strikes me as interesting about this show's take on it is that it doesn't seem to want to demonize one side or another. Throughout the story we're shown both the ups and downs of both sides, and Luz herself even states in the episode "Covention" that she wants to make up her own mind rather than simply blindly follow Eda's stance on individualism as the true right way, which is a nice change of pace for shows like this. The coven system, for instance, restricts all but specific types of magic in those who join, yet by refusing to join Eda has been driven to outcast status, often struggling to get the things she needs, like her elixir. Luz is a free spirit who is drawn to Eda's wildcard mentoring, yet also has a desire to learn from the structured style of Hexside. Granted, the finale does put the society side in a far more negative light, but the show did try a more nuanced approach to the argument than I was expecting, which I really do admire about it.

Overall, I'd say the Owl House is off to a fantastic start. Is it good enough to usurp Gravity Falls as my personal favourite Disney show? Well, it's still a bit early to make that decision, as well as a bit unfair. The show isn't finished yet, so it's entirely possible that the second season might not live up to the standard set by the first. But, as far as that first season goes, I'd say I'm pretty hopeful about it. The characters, the world, the stories it's given me have been hugely engaging so far, and as long as the people making it stick to those things that made this show good in their second year, I have every confidence that they can make it just as good, if not better. It's a fantasy show that does a lot to veer away from what a lot of other stories in that genre typically try to do. It's characters are layered and grow with every passing episode, and by the time this season was over I was even tempted to call some of this cast among the best characters any Disney property has ever shown me, which is some pretty high praise. A first impressions go, the Owl House has definitely done a fine job, and I thoroughly look forward to seeing what Dana Terrace and the rest of the crew do when it eventually returns to us 🥰

#essay #writing #disney #the owl house #my stuff #luz noceda #eda the owl lady #review

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happymeishappylife · 3 years

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Movie I Watched in 2020

I brought back my Friday Night Movie Nights, where I would watch movies every Friday Night as a way to relax after the work week. Because of that I got to see a lot great films, a lot of diverse films, and listen to some great stories. Here’s the list, with a special review of my top 10:

1. Klaus

Christmas may have passed, but that honestly doesn’t matter. I watched this movie in May and balled my eyes out at just how beautiful a message this movie delivered. It was magical not because of how it tied into the holiday, but by how it was able to paint such a beautiful character arc and journey. I highly recommend this if you want to be reminded of your own potential and the joy of being kind.

2. Taare Zameen Par

Another movie where I cried my eyes out. I know that certain issues are felt around the world, but I’ve never seen how other countries deal with them and this movie did so in both heartbreaking ways and overwhelming hearfelt ways. The story involves a boy who is dyslectic and how he can’t preform in a regular school or to his families views and so gets sent to a boarding school to help him, but it absolutely wrecks him until they hire an art teacher who not only gets through to him, but understands him because he too has dyslexia. It’s one of the more impressive bollywood movies I’ve ever seen.

3. The Breadwinner

A hard and yet amazing tale of courage from a young girl who wants nothing more than to help her family. Understanding what is going on in parts of the world that are not your own is why movies and stories can be so powerful and watching Parvana risk her life to help feed her family after her father gets imprisoned is just that.

4. Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure

An older film, but there is a reason why its so beloved: It’s absolutely hysterical and such a fun time. My parents and I watched this virtually together and laughed so hard. Bill and Ted may be goofy high school boys who don’t pronounce names correctly, but the fact they can gather up so many historical figures for their report and learn something from the little time they spent travelling through time, is impressive. Good to know that telephone booths and boxes are the way to time travel.

5. Train to Busan

For years, Philip Defranco praised this movie and told his audience several times to watch it. Well I finally listened and realized he was right. This movie is fantastic and Korea not only perfected a zombie movie, but gave it heart to the point where I nearly wanted to cry at the end. Because this movie has so much depth beyond just killing zombies, it gets lifted beyond its genre to be just a great movie.

6. V for Vendetta

“Remember, remember, the fourth of November.” It’s funny that I happened to watch this movie for the first time now, in the year 2020 with a plague set about the world because that’s the setting for the movie. And with a corrupted authoritative government, the tale to fight back and fight for justice rings true louder than ever before.

7. Miss Virginia

What would you do to make sure your child could get the education they deserved? Because Virginia Walden is an amazing woman who found resources and allies to not only get her son into a better school, but helped a lot of families get their children scholarships in the DC area. This is a fictionalized story of course, but the fact that Virginia did in fact fight so hard is powerful even if the circumstances are difficult to handle. We need better education in the states. Especially for our low income and minority neighborhoods which means dismantling the racial injustice sewn into our systems.

8. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Another fictionalized account of a true story, but truly what an incredible human being is William Kamkwamba. Seeing how his family and his village is destroyed by lack of rain and have been left to starve, he cleverly figures out a way to bring irrigation to his farm and change their outcome. He does this after he gets kicked out of school for not having enough money to pay the fees by simply reading about it in a magazine he finds in the school library and figuring out the rest. It’s brilliant and inspiring.

9. Song of the Sea

A magical and absolutely stunning animated film that tells the tale of a family who has lost much, but has been gifted by the life of a selkie who can help save the mystical world around them. But as Ben still struggles with the death of his mother, he is reluctant to help his sister save the day until he seas what she can do, even if she can’t speak. Its sad at times, but the beauty is in the way it weaves its Irish tales and beliefs into such a wonderful story makes for a good movie.

10. 37 Seconds

Seeing what people can do when they believe in themselves and find people who believe in them, is powerful. Watching Yuma shake off the overprotection of her mother in pursuit to be a great manga artist, we see that while she may have cerebral palsy, she is still capable of living her life on her own. Plus she finds new friends who don’t treat her disability as the main thing about her and allow her to live and have her own adventures for the first time. Its hard at times. It’s funny. And it’s a reminder that people are people no matter what struggles they are living through.

Other Movies I watched this year:

11. Your Name

12. Pachamama

13. Wonder Woman 1984

14. The Lego Movie 2

15. Burlesque

16. Poltergeist

17. Enola Homes

18. The Cabin in the Woods

19. Get Out

20. Ip Man 4

21. Kabi Kushi Kabhi Gham

21. The Twins Effect 2

22. Roma

23. The Impossible

24. Moonlight

25. The Grudge

26. Self/Less

27. A Silent Voice

28. See You Yesterday

29. Jupiter Ascending

30. Salt

31. A Quiet Place

32. Atlantics

33. Insidious

34. Moonlight

35. All Day and a Night

36. Code 8

37. Rim of the World

38. The Lobster

Plus the movies I rewatched this year:

Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie

Cardcaptor Sakura: The Sealed Card

How to Train Your Dragon

#2020 rewind #Movies I watched in 2020

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 4 years

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Psycho Analysis: DIO

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Finally. After leaving this sitting in my drafts for a year, I’m finally going to tackle the big one, the man, the myth, the legend that is Dio Brando, or as he would be known at the height of his power… DIO.

DIO is one of anime and manga’s most famous antagonists, and quite frankly it isn’t too hard to see why. The guy is flamboyant, dramatic, oozes sexual charisma, and is just in general a formidable foe. He’s everything an evil vampire should be. But more than that, he’s everything a great antagonist in general should be. He’s hammy, he’s deliciously evil, he’s overly-dramatic... other villains wish they could be as delightfully extra as DIO. And even on top of all that, he continued affecting the series and pop culture long after he bit the dust.

Motivation/Goals: DIO simply starts as a selfish man who wants the sort of life he feels he is owed; to this end, he goes out of his way to screw Jonathan Joestar out of his perfect life and make him miserable while supplanting him as the golden boy in the eyes of the Joestar patriarch and become the sole inheritor of his fortune. But as time goes on and Jonathan begins to unravel Dio’s schemes, he utilizes an ancient stone mask to become a powerful vampire, and shifts his goal from merely inheriting a fortune to conquering the world. Even a silly thing like decapitation doesn’t stop him; after Jonathan ends up beheading him, he simply attaches his head onto Jonathan’s corpse and after many decades returns more powerful than ever to create the ideal world: one where he reigns supreme with the power of The World to squash all opposition.

Frankly, DIO’s motivations are incredibly standard supervillain stuff, but it’s the way he does things to achieve his goals that make them cool. Much like every great villain in the series, DIO is incapable of going a single moment without doing something either flamboyant or awesome, and much like everyone in the series he often combines the two. This is the man who figured the best way to kill a guy is to drop a steamroller on him and decided becoming a vampire was the logical response to being cornered by the police, so it stands to reason that no matter what he does he would do it with the over-the-top style of the series he hails from.

Performance: Anime voice actor extraordinaire Patrick Seitz voices DIO, and he makes him just as insane, over-the-top, and hammy as you would expect from a vampire who dresses like he had the raw essence of the 1980s injected into his veins.

Final Fate: DIO made one very simple mistake in the midst of all his scheming during the events of Stardust Crusaders: he pissed Jotaro off. It did not end well for the vampire. However, even after his death, DIO’s influence continues to effect the series in numerous ways, particularly Vento Aureo and Stone Ocean, both arcs that deal with characters that have strong ties to the man himself. Even Diamond is Unbreakable would not have happened the way it did if not for him.

Best Scene: The entire final battle with Jotaro is one of the defining moments of the whole series, but considering it takes up several episodes it would be cheating to put it here; if this were the OVA from the 90s, where his fight took up only about eleven minutes, I’d cheat and put it here. But there is a truly iconic moment that stands out even among a battle filled with standout moments: Dio, finally tired of Jotaro’s crap, decides he’s going to “roll all over” him, and drops a steamroller on his head in stopped time.

Best Quote: Are you kidding? Everything out of this man’s mouth becomes a meme. I truly cannot single out one single line from the man to say is his best. EVERYTHING he says is awesome, especially his quotes when he pulls off his super move in Heritage for the Future.

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Final Thoughts & Score: DIO is fascinating because he actually changes and adapts as time goes on. At the start, as a human, he is a bratty, monstrous, self-serving young man, one who was quick to blame his actions on his upbringing under his cruel father Dario. After Jonathan befriends Speedwagon and catches on to Dio’s scheming though, Dio’s justifications fall apart, and so Dio rejects his humanity, becoming a vampire who plays with his power like a child plays with his toys on Christmas. He begins to revel in his evil, and fully embraces his inhuman nature.

Then after his first defeat, Dio changes even more, becoming more self-aware of his limitations. Stardust Crusaders in particular shows that he has outgrown his immature belief of humanity’s inferiority to vampires; he has far more human followers in that arc, and it is even revealed in later arcs he sired quite a few children with human women. Still, with that in mind, it is quite apparent that he still views himself as the peak lifeform. He’s a lot more cautious and manipulative this time around as he heals and becomes accustomed to his new body. and while he is obviously dangerous, until the very end his role is far more passive.

Of course, once he finally gains the blood of a Joestar, he goes off the deep end, and his old persona rises again only far more mad than ever before, with his contempt for humanity, massive ego, and overwhelming arrogance inflating to the point that his defiance leads directly into his ultimate downfall. And it’s not like this was missing prior; these traits were very much present before he drained Joseph. But when he thought his victory was assured, he dropped all pretense and revealed his true colors.

The one thing true of DIO across all of his appearances is that he is charming, he is cunning, and he’s not a force to be taken lightly. It’s so interesting that he gets such a noticeable character arc that goes across several storylines and even expands long after he is killed. His staying power and the depth of his personality transcending his lifetime is just another element that adds onto the staying power of his character.

DIO is one of the most enjoyable anime antagonists ever made. The fact that he acts as an overarching villain for nearly the entire series, with his presence being felt even in the three parts directly after his death, is a testament to just how depraved and powerful DIO was. It’s so easy to see why DIO is so wildly popular; on top of being a powerful formidable threat, he just oozes style and charisma, with every little thing he does being the sort of insane over-the-top craziness you could want out of the series.

11/10 is the obvious score for DIO. He’s easily one of the best vampires in all of fiction, and definitely one of the coolest. The fact that even through all the craziness surrounding him, he had a well-defined character arc and managed to effect so much after his death just manages to make him one of the more successful villains out there, even if only inadvertently. The manga has already shown us all the pain that’s to come from DIO’s actions, so when it’s finally animated it will only further solidify DIO’s ranking as one of the best villains ever crafted. And that’s not even getting into his playable outings in games such as All-Star Battle and Heritage for the Future, the latter being one of his most iconic appearances ever and the source of dozens of his most famous memes. He’s such a prominent figure in popular culture that you may have seen something inspired by him without even realizing it; I was aware of many of his iconic quotes years before I ever comprehended what JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure was thanks to memes and videos online.

The fact that even through the hamminess DIO is just an unrepentantly evil bastard is incredible. He dresses like an 80s pop star, he gloats like a petty schoolchild, he’s extremely dramatic, and yet he is one of the cruelest, most evil villains ever created. He killed a dog just because he got rightfully beaten down, made a mother eat her own baby, forced a senator to run over innocent bystanders, blasted a hole through Kakyoin, and relished in every single one of those actions. And even from beyond the grave, DIO’s dark shadow still plagued the Joestar’s. Evil such as DIO just never dies, and I certainly wouldn’t want it any other way.

Before we go… All together now:

#Psycho Analysis #DIO #Dio Brando #JoJo's Bizarre Adventure #Patrick Seitz

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horrorkingdom · 3 years

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Promises

I was one of those frail, sickly children for the vast majority of my early years. I was constantly being shuffled from physician to physician with one ailment or another; asthma, perpetual tonsillitis, severe allergies to everything. You name it I dealt with it at one point or another growing up. This meant that I spent a great deal of my formative years at home, in bed, miserably sick and more than a bit morose. There was an upside to this however, my father would often take time out of work to sit in my bedroom and read to me.

Some of my fondest memories as a child involved my father sitting in a chair next to my bed with one science fiction novel or another spread across his lap. I can’t count how many days were spent in such a fashion. I look back on it now and can’t help but smile when I picture that large man with his bushy beard, reading those thick novels to take my mind away from whatever was ailing me at the time. I was fortunate to come from a very loving home. My mother and father were extremely doting and focused all of their collective time and energy on raising their only son. I was particularly close to my father. We’ve all heard the old adage about Daddy’s girls and Momma’s boys, but that simply wasn’t the case in my experience.

Of course, every boy views his father as some larger than life, lantern jawed superhero, and I was no exception. My father was an enormous man, maybe six foot two and well over 250 pounds. He was an intimidating figure, and my childhood friends would often remark on just how large he was. He had very intense grayish blue eyes, brown hair that was slowly receding, and a thick red beard. But as intimidating as he may have appeared his demeanor, especially towards me, was always so calm and relaxed. He never once raised his voice within earshot, nor did I ever witness him use that great bulk of his to bully or intimidate. He was a kind soul, and spent all of his time letting his only son know just how much he was loved. He’d spend hours of his evenings after work in my room, sitting on the floor playing with my toys. I can’t help but chuckle when I picture that large man sitting cross legged on the floor with whatever superhero or mutant turtle I was interested in at that point. He even kept a small journal of all the funny little things I’d say and do, with some of his own musings remarking on just how quickly I was growing. I recall years later, when I was a man myself, reading that journal and being moved to tears by how deeply this man loved me.

Now my father was not a particularly religious man, in fact, if I had to peg his beliefs I’d say he was atheistic now that I have a grasp of such things. This was in direct conflict with how he was raised. He’d grown up in a very small town in North Carolina and was brought up in a very strict southern Baptist family. He remarked in the journal, just days after my birth, about how he found the Bible to be even more preposterous now that he had a child of his own. In particular the story of Isaac and Abraham did not sit well with my father. He couldn’t imagine any scenario in which he’d be willing to sacrifice his only son to some voice in his head. He was a very straightforward “logic and reason” type of guy. In addition to religion he absolutely abhorred superstitions and myths he made several comments about being leery of anyone that claimed to believe in aliens or ghost stories. Now he never made these statements to me directly he wanted me to come to my own conclusions regarding religion, superstition and the paranormal. But he did jot down all of these thoughts in that journal of his with the intention of giving me this book when I became a man myself. Unfortunately he never did get that opportunity.

As you can imagine, his death had a devastating impact on the course of my life. I remember vividly my mother coming into my room with tears and makeup streaming down her face. She cradled me in her arms and for the longest time simply rocked back and forth while sobbing silently to herself. Eventually she pulled herself together enough to tell me that my father’s small pickup truck had been struck on his drive home from work. The other vehicle involved was a semi, being driven by a man with too little sleep and too much alcohol in his system. He didn’t even know that he’d been involved in an accident until the officer responding to the crash pulled him from the wreckage of his own vehicle.

I was in shock, I was beyond consoling and honestly, I was furious. I was only five or six when my father passed, and in my mind all I could focus on was the fact that my dad had broken his promise. He would say to me, as he tucked me in at night, that I was his favorite thing in the world and he would always be there to make certain I was safe. It was repeated so often, night after night, that it almost became a mantra of his. But he made that promise and now he wouldn’t be around to keep it.

After my father’s death my mother was unable to afford the small three bedroom home nestled in the foothills of the mountains that I’d grown up in. We were forced to move to an older, run down part of town and needless to say it was just another factor contributing to the overwhelming sense of loss I was dealing with at the time. I hated the town, I hated the new school that I was required to attend when my health permitted, but most of all I hated our new home and the empty feeling it seemed to exude without my father’s presence. He’d never lived in that house, those walls had never heard that big guttural laugh of his, or sat idly by as he read to me during one of my many tilts with sickness. The house was a source of anxiety for me in those days. It was old, built sometime in the 1920’s my mother had told me. It was ancient, it was cold and everything about it seemed to be in a constant state of disrepair. The white paint was chipping in numerous spots on the exterior; the hardwood floors were warped and pockmarked throughout, even the grass outside remained a dismal brown year round.

The house only had two small bedrooms, a bathroom, a tiny dated kitchen and a musty little living room that seemed to be an afterthought in the builder’s original designs. I loathed that house; the floors creaked as everything settled at night, the windows were so old and grimy that they permitted very little light. My room was situated in the very back of the home and was so small that I had just enough room for my twin bed and a little dresser.

We’d been in the house for about six weeks when I started noticing some odd things happening, especially at night. I would come home from school to find that my bed, which had been made that morning, was in complete disarray. The clothes in my closet would sometimes be strewn across my room, much to my mother’s disapproval, and other small things like doors and windows seemingly opening and closing of their own volition. But the first truly unnerving occurrence that I can recall was just after my mom had tucked me in one night. I was staring at the ceiling, trying to decide if the water stain above my bed resembled a dog or something a bit more equestrian. I was beginning to nod off, catching myself closing my eye lids for a bit longer than was required to blink. My thoughts were slowly spiraling towards something that were closer to dreams when I heard a small scratching sound coming from the foot of my bed. At that time my bed was nestled in the corner of the room parallel to the doorway on one side and opposite my small closet that was a few feet from the foot board of the bed. I dismissed the sound as one of the many unexplained noises the house emitted at night and began drifting once more when I heard the noise again. This time it was louder and unmistakable as scratching, it was with a bit more purpose it seemed. I held my breath, closed my eyes, and focused all of my attention on deciphering that sound.

This time when it happened it was definitely louder and seemed to have a rhythm to it that just couldn’t be naturally occurring. It was almost like Morse code, like the scratching was meant to convey some kind of message. I got the feeling that it wasn’t trying to say “Ship in distress” or anything as mundane or typical as that. I can’t explain why, but the sound began to make me very uneasy as though it were malevolent in nature. The hair on the back of my neck began to rise without prompting and I found myself pulling the cover closer and closer to my chin. It would stop sporadically and then begin again with more fervor each time and always that same rhythm, scratch, scratch, scratch followed by a short pause and then scratch, scratch. I was frozen, completely fixated on this noise, but unable to call out to my mother whose bedroom was on the other side of the wall.

My mouth was dry and I was constantly moving my tongue around, swallowing to force something resembling moisture back into my mouth. Suddenly the scratching stopped, mid-sequence this time, and was replaced by the rattling of the closet doors. The closet was that old accordion style sliding type, with the wooden slats. I was amazed that the sound hadn’t prompted my mother to come in and see why I was out of bed. The rattling became more insistent, violent even, and that’s when I rediscovered the ability to scream. I yelled at the capacity my little lungs would permit until my room was flooded with light and I could make out my mother’s silhouette in the doorway.

“What’s wrong honey, what is it?” concern evident in my mother’s sleepy voice. I sat up in bed never taking my eyes off of the closet doors. “There’s someone in there mommy, in…in the closet”. She blinked a few times to clear the remaining fuzziness that sleep offers from her eyes and walked over to the closet. She flung the doors apart with a horrid screeching sound, and when it was clear that no boogeyman was immediately apparent, began shuffling the clothes hanging from the rod to show me there was no occupant. “See sweetheart, there’s no one in here it was just a bad dream”.

She closed the doors again crossed the hardwood floor and arranged herself at the foot of my bed. “It’s no surprise that you’re having nightmares son, considering…considering all that’s happened recently.” She patted my leg, and then reached up to smooth my disheveled hair. “I promise you, there’s no one in there”, she said. I was finally able to peel my attention away from the closet and meet her eyes, “I know there was” I said “there were some weird scratching noises and then the doors started to shake.” She stifled a yawn behind her fist and then patted my cheek as she rose from the edge of my bed. “Just a dream son, there’s no one in there, and there’s no one in the house but us.” “Now please, try to get some sleep, you have to go to school tomorrow and you don’t want to be nodding off in class.” She crossed the room and told me she loved me before she turned my bedroom light back off. I heard her mattress springs sigh as she got back into her bed and I laid down again myself.

I maneuvered myself as close to the wall and headboard as I could manage, pulled the cover up to my nose, and shut my eyes with such force that they squeezed tears down my cheeks. I tried to control my breathing and focus everything my sense of hearing had to offer for that sound. My heart was pounding so loudly in my ears that I barely heard the first scratch when the noise came again. I stopped breathing all together and waited for the next series of scratches to begin again. The minutes dragged by but the sound did not come again and at some point I fell into a rather fitful stage of sleep that was accompanied by nightmares.

Over the coming weeks the sound would come and go. There didn’t seem to be any pattern to it at all. There would be several nights in a row with absolutely nothing unusual occurring and then there would come a night when the scratching would start up as soon as I began to drift off and last until I screamed for my mother. This became something of a pattern, I wouldn’t say I became accustomed to it, but I knew that on those nights when the scratching started that all I had to do was yell for my mom and after she came in to take a look around I’d finally be able to sleep.

It had been three or four nights since the last time I’d heard the rhythmic scratching. I’d managed to fall asleep that night without event, maybe I’d been lulled into some false sense of security as it’d been several nights since the last “closet incident”. It was about 1 or so in the morning when I awoke with a start. I had fallen asleep on top of my covers and as soon as I became aware of being conscious I wrestled with trying to crawl underneath them. After much effort, I was finally able to get underneath the comfort and security of my sheets when I began to wonder what exactly had stirred me from the throngs of sleep. It was a cloudy night, so the limited amount of light permitted through my bedroom window was at an absolute minimum that night. I controlled my breathing, listening for that ominous sound and forced my eyes to scan the bedroom. And that’s when I saw it. Standing at the foot of my bed, in front of my slowly deteriorating closet doors was a very large form. It was so dark that I couldn’t make out whether this thing, this being, was facing my direction or not.

I couldn’t move, I couldn’t scream, I could barely even draw breath. All of my attention was on that form at the foot of my bed, I couldn’t look away, it’s as if my eye lids were taped open and I was forced that look in that direction. The form never moved, never even shifted from foot to foot. It simply stood there, massive and dark and seeming to fill the whole room. There was no scratching sound, no rattling of the closet doors, just this form standing stoically in the middle of my room. Amazingly I fell asleep. I can’t begin to imagine how that came to be. I just know that one minute I’m fixated with every fiber of my being on this figure in my room, and the next minute I’m opening my eyes to sunlight trickling in through my window and birds chirping outside as they went about their daily activities. What’s even more amazing is that I didn’t awake with that sense of terror that I’d grown accustomed to after a run in with the scratching sound, I even felt rested for the first time in months. This same thing happened again several times over the next couple of nights. I found myself waking in the middle of the night only to be confronted by the image of that large silent form at the foot of my bed. Again there was no scratching sound or rattling closet doors, just this figure standing there a few feet away. I never worked up the courage to yell for my mother or try to get a closer look at this shadow like form. I still wasn’t even certain if it was facing in my direction on the nights this occurred. I even began to wonder if perhaps this thing standing in my room at night had simply tired of causing a ruckus in my closet and accepted my presence in the house.

The next few weeks went by without anything of note occurring. I ate breakfast, went to school, came home and then went to bed. My health had hit a relative high point during that period of time and I was attending school on a regular basis for the first time in memory. At some point I even befriended one of the boys a few houses down and spent my evenings playing video games and the like at his house. I went to bed absolutely exhausted each night and woke the next morning well rested and looking forward to what the day might hold. I began to discount those terrifying events that had occurred in my room in the weeks prior as nothing more than my imagination.

My mother had taken on more hours at the furniture factory where she worked to help pay off some of the debt that accrued after my father’s death. On the nights she worked late I was to spend my evenings over at my new friend Ryan’s house until she returned home. I didn’t like to see my mother so tired from all of the extra work she was putting in, but I did enjoy getting to hang out with my friend and his rather expansive collection of video games (a luxury my mother simply couldn’t provide for me at the time). This routine of staying with Ryan’s family until my mother got off of work lasted for several weeks until my mother had an accident at work. She broke several bones in her right hand and wrist and was unable to work at all for the next few months, let alone pick up extra hours. She was obviously dismayed because just as it seemed our lives had begun to take on the normalcy that everyone expects, some unforeseen event once again caused that pattern to veer off course. She received some pretty heavy duty pain medication along with the cast on her arm and retired to bed early the night of her accident. I was permitted to watch television after I’d completed my homework, and then I went to bed myself after my favorite cartoons went off,

I’d been in bed for about half an hour, listening to the unusual sounds of my mother’s snoring from the next room when I thought I heard that all too familiar scratching sound from my closet. Initially I tried to ignore it, going so far as to covering my head with my pillow and forcing myself to sleep. After a few minutes I realized that this wasn’t working, the scratching sound never abated and only seemed to increase in tempo as the minutes passed. I was more angry than frightened at this point. It had been many weeks since the last time I’d had to deal with this and I’d begun to hope that it had stopped altogether.

After a few more minutes I finally came to the decision that I would open the closet door myself and finally put my mind at ease. It had to be a rat or something, there had to be some explanation and I was determined to find out. I pushed the cover towards the foot of my bed and began moving my feet towards the floor. As soon as my bare feet made contact with the cold hardwood the scratching sound ceased all together and was replaced with the violent shaking of the closet door. I let out an involuntary yelp as it had been a long time since I’d heard that sound, and I’d never seen it be so violent. The closet doors were rattling around with such force that I was afraid they would tear loose from their hinges. I lifted my feet back into bed and worked up the courage to begin yelling for my mother. “Mom…Mom please come here” I yelled with as much volume as I could muster. No response, not even the slightest break in her snoring, she was out cold. I yelled again and again, but to no avail. The moment I began yelling the shaking of the closet doors had ceased, as they usually do in this situation.

But my yelling wasn’t followed by the sound of my mother’s footsteps this time, and the doors began shaking once again. I didn’t know what to do, I was far too scared to get up and make a mad dash for my mother’s room, but my fearful screams seemed to have no effect. I began to sob, I’d reached a breaking point and I couldn’t help but pull my knees up to my chest and whimper. Suddenly the doors quit their frantic dance, they just stopped shaking altogether. I managed to lift my face from the protection of my knees and to my horror I saw the closet doors begin to slide apart. No more scratching, no more rattling, I was finally going to come face to face with my tormentor.

The doors finally opened all the way and I could see now that my clothes and the darkness within were shifting. I could just make out a hand part the clothes on the rack and felt bile rise in my stomach as I realized the skin on that hand was absolutely putrid. Gray and mottled and I now became aware of the most horrific stench I’d ever encountered. I wanted to spring from my bed and through my window, or pull the cover over my head and will this nightmare away. But I was completely transfixed, rooted in place, I couldn’t budge a muscle. I could now make out a torso in the space that my clothes once occupied it was covered in that same rotting flesh as the hand of course. Next, and most terrifying, I could make out two pools of absolute darkness that constituted the eyes on this nightmare. They were sunk down deep into the sockets of its face and were completely void of any emotion that I could discern. Just two black pits of emptiness. The creature had finally emerged from behind my shirts and jackets hanging from my closet rack.

It paused for a moment at the entrance to the closet, and seemed to size up the room. It was tall and impossibly skinny, almost to the point of being emaciated. The fingers and toes ended in long black ragged nails, nails that were almost talon like. Bits and pieces of flesh were missing over various parts of the creature’s body. I could clearly make out what appeared to be ribs in its torso, and the yellowing bone of one elbow. It had a few tufts of jet black hair protruding from its grotesque and bulbous head. Its mouth was wide and filled with small rows of teeth that came to points so sharp they looked like they’d been filed. Its nose was two little slits with absolutely no protrusion that I could discern.

It just stood in the doorway of my closet, smiling at me with those little sharp teeth and that unnaturally wide mouth. It stared at me as if it was trying to convey that it had all the time in the world and intended to drag out whatever horror was about to visit me. Suddenly the creature jerked its head to the side and seemed to sniff the air with that horrible little nose. The sniffing became more frantic and the creature kept jerking its head from side to side as if it’d caught a scent it wasn’t fond of and was trying to ascertain exactly where this odor was originating. That’s when I noticed movement from my peripheral, I was able to tear my eyes away from this monstrosity long enough to look to the corner of my room where I’d seen the sudden movement. And there, standing just feet away from me was that large dark ominous form.

It seemed even more massive than it had in previous encounters, and it also seemed to be radiating an intense anger. To my amazement this anger did not seem to be directed towards me, but at the creature now standing in front of my closet. The creature let out a hiss and then a sound akin to a whimper and took a step back when it noticed the large form standing in the corner of the room. I looked back at this dark figure standing so very close now, and for the first time I could make out distinguishing features. I realized that before this form had stood with its back to me on those nights it had appeared in my room, because now I could clearly make out a face, a face that was covered in course red hair. I could now see that this figure was a very large man with pale white skin and a receding hair line. But the most noticeable feature were the intense grayish blue eyes that I could make out even in the darkness of my room. Those eyes left the monster in my closet for just a moment and made contact with my own. This great big man standing in the center of my room, this great big man that I thought I would never see again, he smiled and then winked at me.

And with a burst of movement that my eyes could barely track he dove into the beast, driving it back into the depths of my closet, while the doors closed on them both. I sat on the edge of my bed, with tears in my eyes, and my mind racing to process what it had just witnessed. I finally broke my stupor long enough to race to my mother’s room and wake her. After a few moments of frantic shaking on my part, she finally swam to the surface of consciousness. When my face came into focus she immediately sat up out of bed and took me in her arms. “What is it sweetheart, what’s going on?” At this point I had begun to sob uncontrollably as she rocked me back and forth in her arms. I pulled myself together long enough to say “He kept his promise…he said he would always be there for me and he meant it”. My mother tried to get me to explain, but I just continued to cry into her shoulder as she rocked me back and forth. At some point I managed to fall asleep with my mother whispering words of comfort until I drifted off.

I never did hear another odd sound from my closet after that night, or any other part of the house for that matter. From that point forward things returned to normal and I felt as though a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders, I’d received some form of closure from the events that took place that night. I also knew that no matter what obstacles I might face in the years ahead, I would always have someone looking over my shoulder, ever ready to fulfill a promise made to a small sickly child.

Credit – lastofthefreecompanies@yahoo.

#creepy photo #creepypasta

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softlunars · 5 years

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cross one’s heart.

60 things ; things you said with clenched fists. — lee felix ; stray kids

gang au — gang leader!felix x reader

requested: [yes!]

you were well aware of the dark world you were thrust into — being involved with the leader of one of the most influential gangs in seoul. it never bothered you much; your fiancé had ordered protection to surround you at all hours of the day. nothing life-threatening has happened to you yet, hence you had no worries about the security of your life.

you met felix in high school. he was the resident “troublemaker.” the stench of cigarette smoke followed him everywhere - jokes would often circulate around the school about how “you could find him by following the smell of smoke. he reeks of it - wherever the smoke is, felix is.”

bruises were constantly blooming across his skin, as if he mindlessly jumped into fights every minute he was awake. he was quiet, mysterious - a carbon copy of the cliches you encountered in teen fiction books. felix lee was the embodiment of rebellion. the complete opposite of you.

if you were put on a graph, with the extremities of the graph labeled “high school prodigy” and “high school nightmare” respectively, you and felix would have millions of miles separating you two. this simple fact is the reasoning behind everyone’s shock when you two became a couple in the final year of high school.

the rebel and class president. what a cliche.

initially, you were oblivious to the criminal activity your then-boyfriend participated in. felix hid it well - you had to give him credit for that. on days he came home late, new bruises forming on his cheekbones, a dozen flowers would be your first sight. the bright arrangements distracted you - albeit momentarily - from the black eye reappearing, the cut above his eyebrow that released drops of blood; all the damage felix’s activities gave him as recompense. this didn’t last long, as you watched your boyfriend arrive home limping; as you watched him cradle his left arm close to his chest; as you watched the cuts on his face multiply in numbers.

felix knew he couldn’t keep his secret forever. it was only a matter of time until you would force it out of him. he was right. he knew he was right. one night, when he arrived home, blood staining his shirt around his stomach, you couldn’t keep yourself under rein.

he watched as you blew up, listened as your voice became hoarse from screaming, grimaced as tears began to fall from your eyes. he hated seeing you like this. seeing you so frustrated, so upset, so scared. it ate felix up that night. only when you started walking away, did he open his pandora’s box for you to see.

you were scared beyond belief when you listened to the horrors of your boyfriend’s “second life.” the worst circumstances started invading your thoughts as he continued to reveal everything to you. he could die. he could lose his life in the middle of an alleyway, and you wouldn’t know until some random stranger came to inform you at four in the morning. you were scared. not for yourself, but for felix.

when you expressed this to him, his eyes widened in shock. he had expected you to leave him on the spot, abandon him for the sake of your own safety. that would’ve been easier for the man to digest. hearing you tell him you were scared for him, scared something would happen to him, clutched his heart so tight he thought it would explode. you were staying. the last thing felix ever expected you to do.

you witnessed your boyfriend, who later became your fiance, rise through the ranks of his gang. you witnessed him become the leader of a substantial amount of people. you witnessed some evil acts - which hadn’t left your memories - that he committed.

you witnessed all of that and more. yet you still decided to stay.

this inevitably caused arguments. an abundance of them. felix would come home from another tiring day, his stature slouched, and you would begin to fret over him. of course, he’d let you, but when you began to pry, ask him why he looked so defeated - felix would erupt.

he hated the fact that he involved you in this - this mess of a thing he called his life. there was a reason he tried so desperately to keep his two realms separate. felix never wanted to see you hurt. he never wanted to be forced to bargain for your life. he never wanted to come home to an upturned house and a note asking for ransom - or it would be your life to pay. he never wanted any of that.

he watched his friends go through those moments. the stress that followed them until they set their loved one free. the dark circles that deepened under their eyes because they refused to sleep until their loved one came back. the aggressive temper they adopted. on rare occasions, he watched his friends break down, lose touch with reality, when they learned they were too late.

if anything happened to you, felix knew he would turn out worse than his friends had. he knew he’d lose his life, if it meant you kept yours. he knew all of this and so much more. the only thing that made sense in his mind was to keep you as far away from his criminal life as possible. when you finally figured out the reason behind felix’s late nights, the injuries that seemed to appear out of nowhere, why he’d bring flowers home every time he arrived later than usual - he almost lost his mind.

your safety wasn’t a guarantee anymore. your life wasn’t a guarantee anymore.

after that, felix wouldn’t let you leave the house without some sort of protection — a guard, pepper spray, some sort of weapon he taught you to handle. anything. the thought of losing you that became a reality made him paranoid beyond reasonable bounds. felix was already responsible for the hundreds of members under his gang. if losing the men that cycled in and out of his affiliation pained his heart, losing you would crush it.

this particular day, felix’s greatest fear almost sprung to life.

you ventured outside of the house, wishing only to take a walk around the streets of seoul. your fiancé already left for the day, parting from you with a promise to come back safely. you were left alone — something that usually never bothered you much. today, though, you felt like you were being choked by the looming silence at home. even your attempts to make some noise — playing music, singing loudly off key, everything — proved useless in lessening your restlessness.

hence, you took it upon yourself to relieve yourself from your stir-craziness. you grabbed a small knife, one that could easily be concealed, and a handgun to hide in the band of your jeans. this became a reflex, as felix constantly made you arm yourself before going somewhere. “you need protection, angel. especially when i, or any of my men, can’t be by your side.”

when you stepped into the blazing summer heat, swiftly finding your way to the nearest shopping district, you expected the day to pass smoothly without any bumps.

in retrospect, you should’ve watched your surroundings more closely. the crowded place you found yourself in was “under control” of a gang with a vengeance aimed at felix’s.

it was no secret that the notorious gang leader had a soft spot for you; every gang in seoul took quick notice of this as soon as he rose to take the title of gang leader. you were bookmarked. even when you were unaware of the gang activity surrounding you, rival gangs took it upon themselves to figure out who you were. felix knew this would happen as soon as he ascended to the “throne.” which only solidified his attempts at keeping his two worlds as far apart from each other as he could.

the universe worked against you today, as you found yourself trying to reach home quicker. while you were browsing a small pop-up shop, some men that you’d never been acquainted with had approached you. you knew something was up as they began to circle around you.

you were able to make an escape by shooting a blank into the air. the distance from your house seemed farther than it ever had before as you sprinted away.

by the time you slammed the door of your home behind you, you could barely catch your breath. this was the first actual time members of a rival gang approached you with intentions to hold you hostage. you’d be lying if you said it hadn’t shaken you up.

soon after you arrived home, the click of the front door echoed in your ears as felix walked into your shared space. someone alerted him of the crisis you were briefly part of, which sent the man into a frenzy, leading him to get home as soon as he could. fuck, he knew this was going to happen. he fucking knew.

felix approached you, and he felt his heart twist at your shaking form. “you’re okay, angel?”

you moved your head to stare blankly at your fiancé. “yeah — they got close, kinda. i got outta there though.” the empty laugh that followed your voice made anger and sadness rise up his throat.

“i told you, you would’ve been safer if you left.” he wasn’t lying; felix tried to convince you, on several occasions, to leave him before you got tangled up in his “fucked up life.” you never listened.

“stop saying that. i stayed ‘cause i love you, ‘lix.” your gaze hardened as you continued to look at him. his constant remarks about how you’d be safer without him, frankly, pissed you off. you stayed by his side for a reason.

“am i wrong though, (y/n)? you almost got kidnapped, for crying out loud! who knows how that could’ve ended?” felix’s voice began to gain volume. these arguments always worked him up quickly, and now that something almost happened to you, he couldn’t stop his anger from bubbling out.

“but it didn’t happen, ‘lix! i’m alive! i’m here, i’m breathing, i’m okay!”

“what if it wasn’t okay, (y/n)? what if you got fucking kidnapped and tied up? what if you got tortured because i couldn’t cough up some goddamn money? what if you fucking died before i got to you? what about that?!”

your glance dropped down to see your fiancé’s fists clenched, his fingernails digging into his palms. you reached over to grab one of his fists, putting both of your hands over it as you tried to gather your thoughts.

“that all… that all could’ve happened, sweetheart. anything could’ve happened. but it didn’t. nothing happened.”

“i know you’re scared that, one day, i’m gonna end up being held against you as some sort of ransom. and… i know it can happen. but we’ve been together for how long now, ‘lixie? three years. nothing’s happened.”

you watched as felix’s eyelids fluttered shut, as he exhaled a breath that he — you guessed — wasn’t aware he was holding. when his eyes opened again, meeting your gaze, his demeanor shifted. the man’s shoulders slouched, and his head slightly dropped down. his hands were still in the shape of fists, but his strength was slowly dissipating, leaving his hands to open up limply.

“i’m just scared… i don’t want anything to happen to you.” tears began to sting at your eyes as you took in felix’s broken tone. you lifted the hand you held up to your lips, placing a gentle kiss on the top of it.

“i’ll keep learning how to protect myself. and i won’t let anything happen to me, okay, ‘lixie? i swear, cross my heart.” his eyes moved to look at his hand cradled in yours.

“cross your heart?”

“cross my heart.”

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marginalgloss · 5 years

Text

the name of the door

‘Every move I send out begins with the same word: You. When I first wrote most of them, so long ago now that it’s incredible to think of it, I had in my mind only a single player, and of course he looked almost exactly like me: not me as I am now, but as I was before the accident. Young and fresh and frightened, and in need of refuge from the world. I was building myself a home on an imaginary planet. I hadn’t considered, then, how big the world was; how many people lived there, how different their lives were from mine. The infinite number of planets spinning in space. I have since traveled great distances, and my sense of the vast oceans of people down here on the Earth, how they drift, is keener. But you, back then, was a singular noun for me, or, at best, a theoretical plural awaiting proof.’

Wolf in White Van is a difficult novel to summarise. I knew next to nothing about its author, John Darnielle, before I began reading. I was aware that he’s a fairly popular musician, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard one of his songs. Being a famous songwriter can cover all kinds of sins in novelistic terms. But by the time I finished the book I felt as though I had been through one of the most solipsistic and forbidding novels I’d read in some time. I don’t mean ‘forbidding’ in the sense of difficulty: the language is mostly quite plain, and the plot is not complicated. I mean that there is something about this novel which looms large over the imagination. It is haunting in its implications.

The book is written from the perspective of Sean, a middle-aged man who suffers from a severe facial deformity that has him living a reclusive life. It will be some time before we learn the cause of his injury. Sean makes his living by running a play-by-mail game of his own invention called Trace Italian. (The name comes from ‘trace italienne’, a certain kind of renaissance fort intended to resist cannon fire. There is much else that seems fortress-like about Sean.) This game takes place in a post-apocalyptic version of America; players write to Sean describing their moves, much like in any other role-playing game, and he writes back with the results. Somehow the player subscriptions pay well enough to keep him going.

Trace Italian isn’t improvised: every ‘move’ in the game has been charted in advance, meticulously documented in a series of filing cabinets. It is effectively a labyrinthine concept novel, through which players move over the course of days, months, years. Nobody can ever see it all except Sean, and in this respect it is unlike any other book, any other game. For as long as he lives it is inviolable; a perfect private universe where every threat can be contained, every secret can be secured. There are places in it only Sean knows about:

‘…Charts and notebooks lie open around the corpse in a constellation; if you marked its points and drew a line connecting them, you’d have a shape that would later help open a door deep within the Trace, but nobody will ever notice this, or learn the name of the door, which you have to say when you open it or you end up in a blind corridor that traps you for at least four turns, which would probably outrage any players who made it that far. But who knows. What it would be like to make it that far is sheer conjecture…’

The most appealing part of the novel is its detailed portrait of fandom in the pre-internet era. We see how the young Sean was captivated by the genre science fiction and fantasy of the times. Mainstream references like Star Trek and Star Wars take a back seat here — it is all about Friz Leiber, the Gor novels, and weird VHS-era movies like Krull. It’s about finding inspiration in the album art for obscure prog-metal bands, and writing to adverts in magazines to order a cassette tape of music inspired by the Conan books by Robert E. Howard.

Some of this is the same tone that Stranger Things leant on — kids playing Dungeons and Dragons in the era of the Satanic Panic — but there is something altogether more obscure and threatening going on here. Stranger Things is exciting because of the sense of togetherness engendered by D&D, whereas Sean’s hobbies only serve to lead him further into himself. He never falls in with a gang of like-minded kids, so he becomes a Dungeon Master unto himself. Eventually, under his influence, a young couple go on an adventure through the Trace Italian. They think they are on the trail of something important, much like those kids in the Netflix series. But it doesn’t end well for them.

There aren’t many characters in this novel outside of Sean. The inside of his head is a bleak, violent place, surreal and unpredictable and paranoid compared to the controlled world of the Trace:

‘There was a small, strange moment during which I had this feeling that someone was filming me, which was ridiculous, but it was that specific—“there’s a camera on me”—and then some hard ancient pushed-down thing, a thing I’d felt or thought or feared a long time ago, something I’d since managed to sheathe in an imaginary scabbard inside myself, erupted through its casing like a bursting cyst. I had to really struggle to recover. Something was dislodging itself, as from a cavern inside my body or brain, and this situation seemed so divorced from waking reality that my own dimensions lost their power to persuade. I craned my great head and saw all that yellow-brown plastic catch the light, little pills glinting like ammunition, and then my brain went to work, juggling and generating several internal voices at once: someone’s filming this; this isn’t real; whoever Sean is, it’s not who I think he is; all the details I think I know about things are lies; somebody is trying to see what I’ll do when I run across these bottles; this is a test but there won’t be any grade later; the tape is rolling but I’m never going to see the tape. It is a terrible thing to feel trapped within a movie whose plot twists are senseless.’

Like the players of his game, the reader only exists in the world Sean has created for us. The effect is compelling, and claustrophobic. Sean’s narrative is intense and evocative. He is specific and articulate in his writing, but almost silent in his social life. His thoughts are frantic, anxious, self-perpetuating machinations; we are given very little idea of how he is perceived by society at large. There are moments of contempt and of friendship, but they’re only brief islands of contact in a sea of loneliness.

It is some time before it becomes evident what Wolf in White Van is really about. The story pivots around two big questions: what happened to Sean’s face? And what happened to that couple on their adventure? But even when the reader is told the facts of those matters, they may not understand the implications. Certainly Sean has no answers for us. There is something forlorn about his world. He writes beautifully, and the reader will likely think him a good person because they can see into his heart and his mind; but there’s a sense that he is somehow beyond help — not because of his disfigurement, but because of his isolation. He is a prisoner inside a game of his own making. And as the pages go on it seems increasingly clear that he will never get out.

We are accustomed, in novels and films like this, to another party breaking through to the narrator. Something will happen to shake them through their desperation so that their evident state of insecurity doesn’t become all-consuming. They might fall in love. Perhaps there will be a reconciliation, or an epiphany. But that never happens here. The only connections made in Sean’s world are brief and incidental, but the pain from discord resonates below all that. By the end it feels as though the world around the narrator has grown smaller and smaller, draped in a perpetual shroud, while his inner life has expanded out of all knowable proportions; the effect is mesmeric, and terrifying.

‘…I remember my anger at hearing my real dreams spoken out loud by someone else’s uncomprehending voice. “Number five, sonic hearing,” she said. “Number four, marauder. Number three, power of flight. Number two, money lender. Number one, true vision.” Some of the other kids shot laughing looks at one another. It was horrible. People talk sometimes about standing up for what they believe in, but when I hear people talk like that, it seems like they might as well be talking about time travel, or shape-changing at will. I felt righteousness clotting in my throat, hot acid: the other kids were suppressing laughter and exchanging glances; the whole thing was so funny to them they had to punch their thighs to keep from cackling out loud. None of them had actually made a true list like mine, I thought, though this was conjecture…I remember this scene because it was embarrassing to live through it, and because remembering it is a way of knowing that I am half-true to my beliefs when the time comes. I sit silently defending them and I don’t sell them out, but I put on a face that lets people think I’m on the winning team, that I’m laughing along with them instead of just standing among them. I save the best parts for myself and savor them in silence. Number three, power of flight. Number four, marauder. Enough vision to really see something. A stack of gold coins and a ledger. People want all kinds of things out of life, I knew early on. People with certain sorts of ambitions are safe in the Trace.’

#books #wolf in white van #john darnielle

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girlmeetsliv3 · 5 years

Text

Paradiso: Ten

Trigger Warning: This story depicts an abusive & toxic relationship, as well as psychological, emotional, and physical abuse. This story is pure fiction and is not based on a person or event. None of the actions taken by the character represent the individual member or bangtan.

Hope you enjoy!

Truth be told you were never blessed with the momentary haziness that comes from waking up from a deep sleep. Sure, you took a second to absorb things, but it was never like you forgot the circumstances you were in or didn’t recall what had occurred the previous night. Even your dreams you could perfectly remember almost as if you were still actively dreaming. Most may consider this a blessing, but to you: it was just another way in which the universe sought to torture you. How you hoped that momentary ignorance would take place when you woke up from your haunting dreams. To forget even if just for a second would have given your body the break it so desperately required… not a chance. For when you woke up it was drenched in sweat and the twisted smile of two little boys etched into your brain; along with all the trauma you had gone through the previous night.

Human conscious, and subconscious for that matter, are very powerful things which have led to the evolution from chimps to the modern man; and occasionally the devolution of moral high ground we pride ourselves in owning. That which separates us from beasts. It is in the phrase mind over matter that all this rings true for the human brain is capable of anything. In it lies the key to the creation of the most beautiful, intricate, and wonderful aspects of life – as well as the opposite. Due to this one might assume that its power is unparalleled, and it is invincible - wrong. There must always be a balance…

A slight tune could be heard coming from beyond the door, the little of the music you could hear was quite pleasing: a funky dance-pop sort of song. It was one meant to inspire happiness and a sort of carpe diem behavior; all you could feel was dread and vomit beginning to crawl its way up your esophagus. Despite how horrible the feeling and taste was you swallowed it back down and began to take deep breaths, that was preferable to the reaction Hoseok might have if his sheets were ruined. Eventually, you would have to leave the bed and the room, but the fact that there was something separating the two of you, even if it was something as miscellaneous as a door meant everything. So long as he was out there, and you were in here, then you were safe.

To say you were terrified of him would be an understatement, but the fear had changed. Whilst in the basement he had simply been a beast: a horrid creature that acted out on instinct will little remorse for his actions. That had instilled physical fear in you. You feared his reactions, his anger, the ways in which he could hurt you or possibly kill you. A game of cat and mouse, in a sense. However, after his bedtime story, you feared him: his eyes, his thoughts, his words, everything thing that was left unsaid. Before he could only physically hurt you, but now he was inside your head. You could almost sense him in there; waiting and observing for the perfect moment. Instead of simply killing you, he would break you; something a million physical deaths could not compare to. Now you were the fly entrapped in a spider’s web as it slowly inched closer to you – almost tauntingly – the outcome was certain.

“Jagi~” Hoseok stood right in front of you with concern reflecting in the way his eyebrows were furrowed and there was a slight pout in his lips, which could also be heard through his voice. It snapped you out of the breakdown you were about to have and once your attention focused entirely on him that gorgeous smile appeared. “You had me worried there for a second. Thought I lost you.” Ha, you wish. You smiled sheepishly and cast your eyes down in an attempt not to meet his. He grabbed your forearm lightly and tugged you out from under the covers leading you to the kitchen.

Breakfast had been served and it looked like something out of a magazine or one of those cooking shows. You couldn’t even speak as he pulled open the chair to the left of his and pushed you into the seat cushion. The gesture seemed chivalrous until he pushed the chair into the point where it was crashing against your ribs – making it difficult to move properly. He then sat comfortably in his chair and began to serve both of you breakfast, though your arms were working well he insisted on feeding you – almost like a child.

“How’d you sleep last night?”

“Good.”

“You were moving a lot I noticed.”

“I’m a restless sleeper.”

He laughed, “No, you sleep like the dead. Did you have a bad dream?”

“Kinda.”

“What was it about?”

“Nothing too special; I was just outside playing in the garden.”

“That doesn’t sound like a bad dream to me, what happened next?”

“I was just walking around when I noticed something…”

Hoseok met your eyes as he chewed the meat, it was a silent encouragement to continue.

“A bush full of flowers.” Your tone was satirically happy now and it did not go unnoticed.

“What kind of flowers, Jagi?” A warning.

You did not heed it. “Oh, you know a bunch of them: snapdragons, marigolds, orange mocks, the likes…”

“What a peculiar assortment of flowers –“

“Yes, I thought so too.” You nodded.

“Is that all you dreamt of?!” His tone was calm, but you could sense his anger threatening to spill at any moment.

“Honestly, I don’t remember the rest.”

There was a pause, a silence, desperately waiting to be filled. Both of you knew what was going to happen next, only who would take the first step.

“I had a dream too, Jagi.”

“What about?”

“Comparisons.”

“Comparisons?”

“Yeah, you know, our constant need as humans to compare ourselves to others: other people, other things, other beings. To men, women, beasts; anything really.”

“I don’t get it…”

“It's simple really. Everyone wants to be the superior being, the only way to do that is to assess our strengths and weaknesses. But no one is ever honest with themselves, so we simply look towards other people for guidance; on what to do and what to not do. Sure it can be mundane things, but where it gets interesting is when we begin to compare ideologies and beliefs.”

“Hobi –”

“For example, one might look to compare the beliefs of a human with that of a beast. Constantly we tell ourselves how much better and more advanced we are than them – I think it’s the opposite. They can’t help what they are it's all they know, but us, we’re the worst thing that ever happened. We know better – but we don’t give a flying fuck. Isn’t that crazy?”

What did I do?

Hoseok stood up from the chair, the screeching of the wooden chair on the marble floor ringing loudly in your head. You watched him the way a cornered prey watches the predator: anticipating the strike. He walked towards one of the kitchen drawers and opened it, extracting a manila folder from inside. “What I find weird though isn’t those kinds of comparisons, it’s the lies we feed to ourselves whenever we go through a bump in the road: someone out there has it worse. I used to ridicule people who thought like that, but now I guess it makes sense. Someone does always have it worse.”

The manila folder was thrown in front of you and though you hesitated to look inside, you knew he wasn’t going to stop until you did. This is the moment previously mentioned: where the power of the mind comes into question. For despite all the modifications it had faced throughout all of known and unknown human history, despite being able to access the realm of the possibility – it can be destroyed by the contents in a cheap manila folder.

#bts #yandere #yanderebts #dark #bts fanfic #btsau #bts jhope #jeon hoseok #bts x reader #jhope #jhope x reader #kpop #fancfiction

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