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flightfoot · 3 years

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Perspective From Another Timeline

Thanks to my betas @steelblaidd and Izzybusy!

I ADORE @buggachat new Bakery Enemies AU. This idea just kept on swirling through my head, I had to write it! This is set between parts 13 and 14, so after Adrien meets Alya and Nino but before Marinette starts sympathizing with him. AO3

---------

“You okay?”

Alya shook her head, trying to clear it. “I’ll be fine. I’ve weathered worse than that - we both have.”

Nino grinned at her. “True that.”

Alya smiled at him fondly, remembering Heroes Day. It was a bittersweet memory, with her having been turned against Nino and them both being akumatized.

But they had fought to protect each other as best they could. She’d seen Prime Queen’s footage, how Carapace had struggled to get her to fight against Dark Cupid’s magic, how he’d only given into despair after she’d given into akumatization.

“What did that blast do to us?” Nino wondered. “Everyone else the akuma blasted just disappeared. Why’re we still here?”

Alya’s brow furrowed. “I dunno… hold on, let me check to see whether any new info on the akuma’s been uploaded.”

Pulling out her phone, she tapped on the Akuma News Alert app.

An error message popped up, telling her that she had no internet connection.

Puzzled, Alya checked her phone’s other settings.

No wifi - no wifi even recognized, much less connectable - no cell service, no connection to the outside world at all.

She glanced over at Nino. “Hey, you got any signal?”

Taking out his own phone, he quickly checked his connection. He shook his head. “Not a single bar.”

Frowning, Alya looked around. “Maybe all the cell towers were taken out?”

Everything looked intact though, no sign of any destruction at all.

Something else caught Alya’s eye. “Hey Nino, what time should it be?”

Nino blinked. “Well I mean lunch just started so it should be a little past noon-”

He glanced around, noticing the long shadows and the pinkish-orange of the evening sky.

“-which it clearly is not anymore,” he concluded.

Great. “Guess Ladybug and Chat Noir must’ve taken a while to defeat the akuma,” she said, putting her phone away. “Hopefully my parents aren’t too worried. They like me to text them just after an akuma attack, but right now…?” she gestured to her pocket.

“My folks aren’t as worried,” Nino said. “But they still expect me back home before the sun goes down. They’ll be getting nervous soon.”

Alya let out a small sigh. “So much for playing Super Penguino together.”

“Hmmm…” Nino’s eyes gleamed. “You know… it’s not night just yet. And I’m sure my parents would understand if I was a few minutes late because I grabbed a bite to eat.”

Grabbed a bite to eat? What was Nino hinting at…?

Alya looked around at their location more closely.

Wait… that blast seemed to have carried them to that one park, the one near-

Alya grinned. “I think my parents will forgive me for not calling in if I bring them fresh-baked treats from the best bakery in Paris.”

---

*ring ring*

The scent of freshly baked bread wafted through the store.

Instantly Alya felt her shoulders loosen up, releasing tension she didn’t even know she’d had. There was just something so warm and comforting about the bakery.

Of course, a lot of that was due to the people running it. Good luck finding more friendly, caring people than Marinette’s parents. Sabine often checked up on anyone who seemed to be struggling or upset (and ready to protect them if they were - Alya had seen the video of the time a TV crew decided to invade Marinette’s privacy), and Tom was basically a giant teddy bear in human form.

But neither of them were manning the counter today.

Instead a young woman stared back at them.

A very familiar-looking young woman.

“Marinette?” Alya asked cautiously.

The woman stared at her for a minute. “Alya?” she finally asked. “What happened to you?” She paled. “Did a new supervillain attack? Is that why you and Nino are younger?”

Huh. Weirdly scared reaction from Marinette. They’d all gotten used to supervillains by now. She’d expect an older Marinette to take them in stride even more than the current Marinette.

Hm… an older Marinette, a different time of day, and Marinette not seeming to know about the latest akuma attack?

“Marinette… what year is it?”

Marinette blinked for a moment. Her eyes widened.

Seemed Marinette understood what she was getting at.

She told Alya the date.

Her hunch was right. “We’re in the future,” Alya breathed.

A wicked grin slowly spread over her face.

Five years was a long time. A lot of things could have happened. A lot of information could’ve come to light.

Like Hawkmoth’s identity.

Or more information on the Miraculous.

But most importantly right now-

She leaned in close to Marinette, making sure to keep her voice down, just in case someone else was around in the back. “So did you ever get together with a certain blond-haired, green-eyed model?”

“Uh… what?” Marinette asked, looking puzzled.

Alya snapped her fingers. “Adrien. Did you and Adrien finally get together? Ooooh, if you did you’ve GOTTA tell me how the confession went! Or, no, wait, don’t tell me, I want to get the deets at the time. Just let me know how long I’ve got to wait, girl!”

Marinette just stared at her, slack-jawed. “Adrien… like ADRIEN AGRESTE?!” she said, her volume rising with every word.

Alya’s eyebrows flew up. “Um… yes…?”

She’d thought that Marinette would be glowing about finally getting together with her crush, or dejected about still not being able to spit out what she wanted to say to him, downcast over him rejecting her, or maybe even infuriated because he mistreated her and they subsequently broke up.

(The last one was VERY unlikely though. After the Felix debacle, she’d learned to have a bit more faith in Adrien’s good nature.)

Shock at the concept of dating him? Not something she’d anticipated.

Footsteps echoed from behind Marinette.

So one of Marinette’s parents must’ve been in the back-

Adrien popped his head around the corner.

Seemed both he AND Marinette had aged well.

Not that Adrien looked all that different. Taller, definitely, maybe with slightly messier hair and… were those earrings? They looked good on him.

“Hey dude!” Nino waved at his best friend. “What’s up?”

“Uh…” Adrien said, scratching the back of his neck.

“WOW those outfits really take the years off, huh?” Marinette said loudly, shoving them out the door. “Make you look smaller than usual. Well we better go talk about plans later okaybye-”

She promptly slammed the door behind them, physically pushing them away from the bakery.

After Marinette had dragged them a good distance away, Alya finally got over her shock, turning around and glaring at her. “What was that about?!” she asked Marinette indignantly, hands on her hips. “You know me, I wasn’t going to spill anything to him. That’s why I was talking so quietly! Why’d you have to do that?!”

Nino frowned, seeming more concerned than annoyed. “Adrien looked really hurt by that. Not cool.”

“There’s nothing to spill!” Marinette protested, gesticulating wildly. “I only met him for the first time two days ago!”

*record scratch*

Two-

Two DAYS ago?!

Ok, hold up.

“Adrien joined our collège class the day after I did! He sits in front of you in class! What’re you TALKING about?!”

“Uh… no…?” Marinette tilted her head to the side, befuddled. “I think I would remember that, even if it was a few years back.”

Alya let out a bark of laughter. “Yeah, no kidding. He would be uh, difficult for you to forget. Heck, even if your memory was erased, you’ve got so much stuff revolving around him, I couldn’t see that lasting long.”

Marinette blushed. “Why do you think I have a crush on him?! He’s HAWKMOTH’S SON!”

“WHAT?!” Alya and Nino yelled in unison.

“Ladybug and Chat Noir defeated Hawkmoth a couple years ago,” Marinette explained, pulling out her phone.

A moment later she held it up, showing a blog post from the Ladyblog.

Oooh, that’s a nice graphical design. I’ll have to look into updating my site, Alya thought.

Turning her attention to the picture, she squinted. “Hey, can you enlarge the photo?” She asked.

Marinette complied, enlarging it and turning her phone sideways, letting it fill the entire screen.

Gabriel Agreste being led away in handcuffs by the police, with Ladybug and Chat Noir in the background. Ladybug looked satisfied, with maybe a twinge of melancholy, but Chat Noir…

He stared vacantly ahead, seemingly not focused on anyone or anything, a smile on his face - but the most forced one she’d ever seen.

“What’s wrong with Chat Noir?”

Marinette frowned, looking troubled. “I don’t know. He seemed really, really upset when Hawkmoth was defeated. It was a tough battle, bad enough that neither of them have returned since, but that doesn’t explain why-”

She trailed off, lost in thought.

A moment later she looked up, meeting Alya’s eyes.

Immediately she waved her hands around, trying to ward off… something. “I- I mean, that’s what I read on the Ladyblog and what I could piece together from video footage, it’s not like I was there, NOPE. I was huddled in my room the entire time. Not like I have any insight into what Chat Noir was acting like during the battle, not beyond what any other civilian would know! That would be ridiculous, utterly ridiculous!” she let out a few forced guffaws.

Alya’s eyebrows flew up.

O...Kay…?

Maybe Marinette had been following Ladybug and Chat Noir during the final battle and hadn’t wanted anyone to know? She’d wondered whether Marinette might have a thing for Chat Noir, but her crush on Adrien dwarfed any feelings she might have had for him. Plus it’s not like Marinette would actually know Chat Noir, unlike Adrien.

Thinking about Adrien…

“He must’ve been devastated,” she murmured. Marinette looked at her questioningly. “Adrien, I mean,” Alya clarified. “Having your father turn out to be a terrorist? I can’t even imagine.”

Marinette buried her face in her hands. “Not you TOO,” she said, her voice muffled.

Nino slowly started edging his way behind Marinette.

“What’s your problem with Adrien?” Alya asked. “Did he do something?”

Marinette glanced away. “Not… exactly… I just… I’m afraid that it might all be an act. That he might’ve been helping Hawkmoth secretly, and… and even if he wasn’t before, that he might just be biding his time, waiting until he figures out who Ladybug and Chat Noir and then BAM!” she slammed her fist down on her other hand. “He takes them out, steals all the Miraculous, frees his father and rules Paris FOREVER!”

Alya reached out towards Marinette tentatively. She collapsed into Alya’s arms.

Hugging her tightly, she sang a soft nonsense song, rubbing small circles in Marinette’s back.

She’d done this a few other times since she’d met Marinette, though she’d never thought she’d do it underneath these circumstances.

Whatever these circumstances actually were.

Did everyone have amnesia or…?

“Do you have any big memory gaps?” Alya asked once Marinette’s breathing had calmed down. “Especially from five years ago?”

Marinette shook her head.

She’d shelve that theory for now then. More likely it was…

“An alternate timeline, huh?” Alya said.

Marinette looked up at her questioningly.

“That’s what I think this is,” Alya explained. “I WAS thinking that maybe there’d been some sort of mass amnesia, but if you don’t have any memory gaps - and trust me girl, with how involved you were with Adrien, there WOULD be memory gaps - that seems unlikely. I’m betting this is some sort of alternate universe, one where Adrien never got to go to school.”

“I still don’t get why you think there’s something between me and Adrien!” Marinette said. “I mean sure, he’s pretty, but did I really fall for him just for that?”

Alya shook her head. “Actually, you hated him at first. Chloe’d been bragging about how he was her friend, and with that on top of you catching him trying to remove the gum Chloe’d planted on your seat and mistaking it for him PLANTING the gum… well… both of us just assumed he was a spoiled rich bully, just like Chloe. Luckily that turned out not to be the case.”

“How’d that misunderstanding get cleared up?” Marinette asked. “And how did your Marinette jump from that to crushing on him?”

Alya grinned. Marinette had ranted about this moment to her SO. MANY. TIMES.

“School let out later that day. It was raining and Marinette had forgotten her umbrella, so she hung back a moment, long enough for Adrien to approach her. At first she looked away from him, not wanting to acknowledge his greeting. But then he told you - told her I mean - that he hadn’t done it, promised that he’d just been trying to take it off with such sincerity that she had no choice but to believe it. He opened up to her, even though she’d been shunning him just moments ago. And finally he gave her his umbrella, just because he could. Because it was the kind thing to do. She’s been a goner ever since.”

The Marinette in her arms looked away. “I can see why she might have developed a crush on him. But I still dunno whether I trust him.”

“I don’t know whether I have anything that could convince you on that,” Alya admitted, “especially since this is probably a different timeline, and for all I know he could be evil here. Just make sure that you’re judging him on his own merits, okay? Not who he’s associated with. Not his fault he has so many crappy people in his life.”

“I’ll… take it under consideration,” Marinette said reluctantly.

Marinette looked from side to side. “Where’d Nino go?”

“Oh, he snuck back into the bakery several minutes ago.”

“WHAT?!”

---

Nino opened the door to the bakery, letting out a small sigh of relief. He really wanted to check in on his best friend, and judging by Marinette’s behavior, she wasn’t exactly keen on him or Alya chatting with Adrien.

Thinking back on what he’d just heard, he frowned.

He wished he could say that he’d never have suspected that Gabriel was Hawkmoth.

That he didn’t think Adrien’s old man could ever be capable of such evil.

But he knew better.

The guy threatened to withdraw Adrien from school and isolate him from everyone else at the drop of a hat, paid little attention to his son when he was at home, and was a very negative influence on his life in general. He might have been grieving, but… so was Adrien. He needed the only parent he had left.

And instead Gabriel had chosen to respond by becoming a supervillain and terrorizing Paris, endangering his own son in the process.

He really wished he’d gotten to hit Hawkmoth with his turtle shield more. At least he got to relish the smack he got in.

“You’re back!”

Nino looked towards the voice.

Adrien walked closer to him, a tentative grin on his face. “I didn’t think you’d return so soon!”

“I had to come back to talk to my best friend,” Nino said.

“Best friend?” Adrien asked, blank-faced.

Oh, right. According to Marinette, Adrien hadn’t joined their class. She hadn’t even met Adrien until recently.

Had some sort of memory-wiping akuma attacked? Wouldn’t have been the first time.

“Do you know who I am?” Nino asked, pointing at himself.

Adrien rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh… well I know you’re friends with the Ladyblogger and Marinette, and… sorry, that’s it.”

He looked really apologetic, like a dog who’d ripped up a bunch of toilet paper and acted guilty about it once caught.

Hm. If it had been a memory-erasing akuma, maybe he could jog Adrien’s memory…?

And even if it wasn’t, he wanted to let Adrien know that someplace, somewhere, people cared about him. If Marinette’s reaction to him was any indication, he’d need that reassurance. Being looked at with suspicion, having people run from you just because of who your dad was, thinking that you might’ve been involved in his crimes… he couldn’t imagine.

“You joined our class the day after Hawkmoth first attacked,” Nino told him, pulling out his phone.

Adrien shook his head, looking confused. “Uh… no? I wanted to, I REALLY wanted to go to school, but Father-”

He cut himself off, looking away.

“Marinette said the same thing,” Nino told him. “That you hadn’t enrolled in our class, that she’d only met you recently. I don't know what that’s about, whether everyone’s memories were wiped, or an akuma messed with the past, or what.”

Come on, come on, where was it- ah!

He clicked on a photo, one taken a few months ago, holding his phone up so his friend could get a better look.

Adrien squinted for a moment. His eyes widened. “That’s-!”

Nino nodded. “Our class photo. The official one, anyway.” He chuckled. “I liked our unofficial ones better.” Swiping to the side, he showed the new ones the class had taken at the park.

Adrien’s jaw dropped more with every new photo. He let out an involuntary bark of laughter at the one of himself, Nino, Kim, and Juleka posing. “I- I always wanted to mess around like that at photoshoots,” Adrien said. His voice trembled slightly. “But I wouldn’t be able to get away with it. And that’s mostly fun when you can share it with friends, at least share the picture, and I- I couldn’t. Chloe wouldn’t have appreciated it, and L-”

He cut himself off, shaking his head.

“Luka?” Nino asked.

He didn’t know why Adrien would know Luka and not anybody else, but he seemed the most likely option.

“Uh…” Adrien scratched the back of his neck, looking away.

Hm, he’d have to see if he had- ah!

“You played in Kitty Section too, with Luka, Rose, Ivan, and Juleka.” Nino explained, clicking on the video.

Adrien’s hands shook as Nino handed him the phone, watching the mini-concert.

“I- I was allowed to- I got to-” Adrien’s voice quavered.

“Not at first.” Nino grimaced, remembering how bummed Adrien had sounded when he called him. “Your old man said that Agrestes were soloists, and that we were all bad influences.”

“HE was the bad influence,” Adrien said. A current of anger, of venom ran through his voice that Nino had never heard before.

“Well I already knew that, even before finding out he was Hawkmoth,” Nino said, making a face. “Dude needed to chill out.”

Adrien snorted. “If he had any ‘chill’ he wouldn’t have decided that becoming a supervillain was the best way to heal my mother.”

Oh.

So THAT was why Gabriel had done it.

He’d just thought it was standard ‘I’m an asshole and want to rule the world while being a jackass to everyone in my life’ behavior.

(He still wasn’t going to rule out that being a factor.)

Nino put a hand on Adrien’s shoulder sympathetically. “At least he’s gone now and you’re free, right?”

“Right,” Adrien said. He didn’t meet Nino’s eyes.

“Not you TOO,” Marinette had said, burying her face in her hands.

As if she found it exasperating that Alya sympathized with Adrien. As if she had expected differently.

Those worries she’d voiced as Nino had been tiptoeing away, about Adrien helping Hawkmoth, about him lying in wait, biding his time… Marinette probably wasn’t the only one to have that concern. And with Adrien’s face being as well-known as it was...

“You AREN’T free, are you?” Nino asked, eyes wide.

Adrien sighed. “I was as surprised as everyone else when I found out who Hawkmoth was. That someone who’s caused that much harm, that much trauma to this city, lived in my own house.” He clenched his fists, digging into his jean’s fabric. “I could barely believe it… no… I didn’t WANT to believe it.”

He took a deep breath, steadying himself. “I- I only remember snippets from right after his arrest. The police chief talking to me. Riding back to the station. It’s all a blur. Everything felt like I was processing it underwater. It was all so blurry and muffled. Even- even then, though, I could feel everyone’s accusing stares.” “I understand why, don’t get me wrong,” he cut in hurriedly. “Who wouldn’t be suspicious of the son of the terrorist who’s been making everyone’s life miserable for the past four years?” Adrien almost panted with exertion, his eyes wild. “And- and it was happening in my own house! Underneath my nose! I should have KNOWN! I could’ve stopped this!”

Reaching out, Nino pulled his friend into a hug.

Adrien stiffened for a moment, before melting into his embrace.

“It’s his fault, not yours,” Nino murmured. “Remember that, dude. He was the adult. He was your parent. Your ONLY remaining parent. I’ve met the guy. And I’ve heard you talk about what he’s like. If you had investigated more?” Nino shuddered, thinking about the disproportionate punishments the bastard had enacted. “And knowing he was HAWKMOTH on top of that? I’m kinda glad you didn’t. Yeah, maybe you could’ve ended things sooner. Or maybe he would’ve hurt you more before you had the chance. I’m just glad you survived.”

“I-” Adrien’s throat sounded tight. “I’m- I’m glad I survived too.”

They stood there for a moment, Nino feeling Adrien’s breath go in-and-out, his heartbeat racing, until it gradually started to slow.

*ring ring*

Adrien and Nino broke up their hug just as Marinette burst through the door, Alya on her heels. She skidded to a halt in front of Adrien - but not quite in time, sending her careening towards the floor.

She never made contact.

“Woah!” Adrien shouted, catching her in his arms.

Nino detected a hint of pink to Marinette’s cheeks before she abruptly sprang to her feet.

“So, uh,” Marinette said awkwardly. “I’m guessing Nino talked to you about some stuff. I mean, of course he talked to you about stuff, because that’s what talking is about. What- what I mean is, what were you two talking about?”

“I wanted to show him how much we care about him,” Nino told her. “Especially since with this… amnesia?”

“I think it’s an alternate timeline,” Alya said.

“Especially since in this timeline,” Nino continued, “it really doesn’t seem like he had anyone.”

“I had a couple other friends,” Adrien told him quietly, giving a melancholic smile. “But I lost contact with them right after Hawkmoth’s defeat.”

Noticing Nino’s frown, he hastily added, “they didn’t abandon me or anything! They were online friends. One moved somewhere without internet reception, and the other... we never knew each other’s names. But we talked all the time. We chatted, laughed, defeated villains together…”

“In the video games we played, of course!” he added after a moment. He chuckled fondly. “We played as a team. Together, we were unstoppable, no matter what our opponent threw at us.”

Adrien swallowed. “But in the aftermath of Hawkmoth’s defeat, with all the turmoil, with everything that happened… I lost my means of contacting her. I- I don’t know whether I’ll ever get to see her again.”

“We’d promised to meet up after Hawkmoth’s defeat,” Adrien said. His voice cracked. “That- that once it was safer in Paris, we’d finally tell our names.”

His eyes dropped to the ground. “Instead, we lost each other. Maybe for good.”

“I know what that’s like,” Marinette said. She sounded strangely distant. “I had a friend like that too. I cared about him. A lot. Maybe… maybe even as more than a friend.” She said the last part haltingly, as if she’d only just admitted it to herself. “He- he wanted to know who I was. For me to know who he was. But- but I couldn’t do that. Not in Hawkmoth’s Paris. I already cared for him so much it ached. If I was closer to him than that- if I’d accepted his rose- I’m- I’m afraid Hawkmoth might’ve used the strength of those feelings against me. That I could’ve gotten akumatized, or he might’ve, and if we knew who each other was, knew WHERE the other one was… I just… I couldn’t accept that we might be sent to hurt each other.”

“We talked while the final battle was raging,” she continued. “He seemed really upset, more angry than I’ve ever seen him before, but… also kind of sad. I wanted to know what was wrong, but there wasn’t really time to press him. And after that battle he just… disappeared. I knew there was going to be some sort of disruption, but- but I’d thought we’d have more time to talk beforehand, that we’d be able to exchange new contact information. We were cut off before we had the chance.”

“I- I think of him every day,” she said quietly. “Wondering how he’s doing. He was always so positive, no matter what life threw at us. I hope that wherever he is, whatever he’s doing, he hasn’t lost that positivity, that optimism, the ability to see the best in the world and in others.”

“I’m sure he’d be happy to know you cared for him so much,” Adrien said, giving her a warm smile.

Marinette blinked, giving herself a small shake. She turned to Alya. “I dunno whether you’ll remember any of this after the Ladybug in your time restores anything, but on the off-chance you do, is there anything you need to know?”

“Oh!” Alya pulled up some footage. “You told me who Hawkmoth was, but what about Mayura?”

“Mayura?”

“Who?”

Alya snapped her fingers. “You know, the Peacock Miraculous wielder, the one summoning the sentimonsters! Did she not exist in this universe?”

She pulled up part of the fight against Mayura, the sentimonster Ladybug, and Hawkmoth.

The video ended, she took another glance at Marinette and Adrien.

Marinette seemed to be in shock, staring straight ahead.

Adrien frowned, thinking. “I’d wondered for a long time how Father managed to hide his supervillain activities from Nathalie, considering she was around him most of the time. I thought maybe she was just really good at never asking questions.”

He grimaced. “Looking at that? I’m betting she didn’t ask questions because she already knew the answers.”

“You think Mayura’s Nathalie?” Alya questioned.

He nodded. “Unless something’s different in your universe. My father doesn’t have a lot of associates, and the way he acted around Mayura there, how he was willing to pass up a chance to fight Ladybug for her Miraculous in exchange for catching her… the only people I can think of who he’d do that for are my mother and Nathalie, and mom…” he trailed off.

“I- I didn’t even think about that,” Marinette said guiltily. “I remember reading something about Gabriel having a secretary, but I didn’t think about her much beyond that.”

“Maybe you could ask this universe’s Alya to post something on the Ladyblog, telling Ladybug and Chat Noir she has a lead on who Mayura is?” Alya said. “I mean, I know they haven’t shown up in ages, but maybe that’s just because they haven’t had reason to.”

Marinette winced. “I… really don’t think that’s it… plus Ladybug and Chat Noir never said that someone was helping Hawkmoth. Mayura never appeared, at least in public. I don’t know what we can do about this right now, especially without proof. Maybe if Ladybug and Chat Noir appeared, but…”

She sounded doubtful. Alya was beginning to think that the final battle was even worse than Marinette had alluded to.

She hesitated a moment, before turning to Adrien. “I- I think I owe you an apology. I thought you might’ve been helping Hawkmoth, but… well… I was just judging you by who your dad was. You’ve been nothing but sweet and kind.”

Adrien smiled at her, though it was slightly strained. “It’s fine. I’m used to it. A lot of people in this city have suffered at Hawkmoth’s hands. I don’t blame them for being scared, or angry at any reminders of him.”

“That doesn’t make it RIGHT,” Marinette said heatedly.

Nino nodded. “Dude just because something’s done to you it doesn’t mean it’s justified, or that it shouldn’t be made better. Like with your old man forbidding parties. I didn’t let that stop me from bribing your bodyguard into letting me and the other guys throw a party at your place for you!”

He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “It kinda escalated though. I think half the guys at Paris were partying in your room by the end!”

Alya gave Nino a sideways look. “And ONLY the guys because they ditched us girls while we were planting trees with a lame excuse. Seriously if you’d said you wanted to throw a party for Adrien while his dad was away, you could’ve just told us!”

Nino winced. “Yeah, my bad. At least we got to have fun there for a while before the akuma attack.”

“Akuma attack?” Adrien asked, eyes wide. “But I thought you said Father was gone!”

“He was- OOOOOOOH.”

“Yeeaaaah I don’t think he was actually gone,” Alya said. “You threw a ‘secret’ party in Hawkmoth’s house, WHILE he was still at home.”

Adrien gaped at Nino. “How’re you not DEAD?!”

Nino chuckled. “Lucky I guess?”

*twinkle twinkle*

A familiar red mass flew towards Alya and Nino.

Adrien’s eyes widened.

“Behind the portrait!” he blurted out, just as the two of them were enveloped by the ladybugs, spiriting them off to whence they came.

It was silent for a moment.

“Do you think they heard?” Adrien asked Marinette.

“I hope so,” she said, looking off in the direction the ladybugs flew.

She turned to him. “I was planning on setting up some hang out time with Alya and Nino later this week. If you’re not busy… would you like to join?”

His smile told her everything she needed to know.

#bakery enemies au #ml fanfic #miraculous ladybug #adrien agreste #alya cesaire #nino lahiffe #marinette dupain cheng #buggachat

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fatliberation · 3 years

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I’m Abandoning Body Positivity and Here’s Why

In short: it’s fatphobic.

“A rallying cry for a shift in societal norms has now become the skinny girl’s reassurance that she isn’t really fat. Fatness, through this lens of ‘body positivity’, remains the worst thing a person can be.” (Kayleigh Donaldson)

• • •

I have always had a lot of conflicting opinions about the body positivity movement, but it’s much more widely known (and accepted, go figure) than the fat liberation movement, so I often used the two terms interchangeably in conversation about anti-fatness. But the longer I’ve been following the body positivity movement, the more I’ve realized how much it has strayed from its fat lib origins. It has been hijacked; deluded to center thin, able, white, socially acceptable bodies.

Bopo’s origins are undoubtedly grounded in fat liberation. The fat activists of the 1960s paved the way for the shred of size acceptance we see in media today, initially protesting the discrimination and lack of access to equal opportunities for fat people specifically. This early movement highlighted the abuse, mental health struggles, malpractice in the medical field, and called for equal pay, equal access, equal respect, an end to fatphobic structures and ideas. It saddens me that it hasn’t made much progress in those regards.

Today, the #bopo movement encapsulates more the idea of loving your own body versus ensuring that individuals regardless of their weight and appearance are given equal opportunities in the workplace, schools, fashion and media. Somehow those demands never made it outside of the ‘taboo’ category, and privileged people would much more readily accept the warm and fuzzy, sugar-coated message of “love yourself!” But as @yrfatfriend once said, this idea reduces fat people’s struggles to a problem of mindset, rather than a product of external oppressors that need to be abolished in order for fat people to live freely.

That generalized statement, “love yourself,” is how a movement started by fat people for the rights of fat people was diluted so much, it now serves a thin model on Instagram posting about how she has a tummy roll and cellulite on her thighs - then getting praised for loving her body despite *gasp!* its minor resemblance to a fat body.

Look. Pretty much everyone has insecurities about their bodies, especially those of us who belong to marginalized groups. If you don’t have body issues, you’re a privileged miracle, but our beauty-obsessed society has conditioned us to want to look a certain way, and if we have any features that the western beauty standard considers as “flaws,” yeah! We feel bad about it! So it’s not surprising that people who feel bad about themselves would want to hop on a movement that says ‘hey, you’re beautiful as you are!’ That’s a message everyone would like to hear. Any person who has once thought of themselves as less than beautiful now feels that this movement is theirs. And everyone has insecurities, so everyone feels entitled to the safe space. And when a space made for a minority includes the majority, the cycle happens again and the majority oppresses the minority. What I’m trying to explain here is that thin people now feel a sense of ownership over body positive spaces.

Regardless of how badly thin people feel about their bodies, they still experience thin privilege. They can sit down in a theater or an airplane without even thinking about it, they can eat in front of others without judgement, they can go the doctor with a problem and actually have it fixed right away, they can find cute clothes in their size with ease, they do not suffer from assumptions of laziness/failure based on stereotype, they see their body type represented everywhere in media, the list goes on and on. They do not face discrimination based off of the size of their body.

Yet diet culture and fatphobia affects everyone, and of course thin people do still feel bad about the little fat they have on their bodies. But the failure to examine WHY they feel bad about it, is what perpetuates fatphobia within the bopo movement. They’re labeled “brave” for showing a pinch of chub, yet fail to address what makes it so acceptably daring, and how damaging it is to people who are shamed for living in fat bodies. Much like the rest of society, thin body positivity is still driven by the fear of fat, and does nothing to dismantle fatphobia within structures or within themselves.

Evette Dionne sums it up perfectly in her article, “The Fragility of Body Positivity: How a Radical Movement Lost Its Way.”

“The body-positive media economy centers these affirming, empowering, let-me-pinch-a-fat-roll-to-show-how-much-I-love-myself stories while failing to actually challenge institutions to stop discriminating against fat people. More importantly, most of those stories center thin, white, cisgender, heterosexual women who have co-opted the movement to build their brands. Rutter has labeled this erasure ‘Socially Acceptable Body Positivity.’

“On social media, it actually gets worse for fat bodies: We’re not just being erased from body positivity, fat women are being actively vilified. Health has become the stick with which to beat fat people with [sic], and the benchmark for whether body positivity should include someone” (Dionne).

Ah, yes. The medicalization of fat bodies, and the moralization of health. I’ve ranted about this before. Countless comments on posts of big women that say stuff like “I’m all for body positivity, but this is just unhealthy and it shouldn’t be celebrated.” I’ve heard writer/activist Aubrey Gordon once say that body positivity has become something like a shield for anti-fatness. It’s anti-fatness that has been repackaged as empowerment. It’s a striking double-standard. Fat people are told to be comfortable in their bodies (as if that’s what’s going to fix things) but in turn are punished when they’re okay with being fat. Make it make sense.

Since thin people feel a sense of ownership over body positive spaces, and they get to hide behind “health” when they are picking and choosing who can and cannot be body positive, they base it off of who looks the most socially acceptable. And I’m sure they aren’t consciously picking and choosing, it comes from implicit bias. But the socially acceptable bodies they center are small to medium fat, with an hourglass shape. They have shaped a new beauty standard specifically FOR FAT PEOPLE. (Have you ever seen a plus sized model with neck fat?? I’m genuinely asking because I have yet to find one!) The bopo movement works to exclude and silence people who are on the largest end of the weight spectrum.

Speaking of exclusion, let’s talk about fashion for a minute.

For some reason, (COUGH COUGH CAPITALISM) body positivity is largely centered around fashion. And surprise surprise, it’s still not inclusive to fat people. Fashion companies get a pat on the back for expanding their sizing two sizes up from what they previously offered, when they are still leaving out larger fat people completely. In general, clothing companies charge more for clothes with more fabric, so people who need the largest sizes are left high and dry. It’s next to impossible to find affordable clothes that also look nice. Fashion piggybacks on the bopo movement as a marketing tactic, and exploits the very bodies it claims to be serving. (Need I mention the time Urban Outfitters used a "curvy” model to sell a size it doesn’t even carry?)

The movement also works to exclude and silence fat Black activists.

In her article, “The Body Positivity Movement Both Takes From and Erases Fat Black Women” Donyae Coles explains how both white people and thin celebrities such as Jameela Jamil profit from the movement that Black women built.

“Since long before blogging was a thing, fat Black women have been vocal about body acceptance, with women like Sharon Quinn and Marie Denee, or the work of Sonya Renee Taylor with The Body Is Not An Apology. We’ve been out here, and we’re still here, but the overwhelming face of the movement is white and thin because the mainstream still craves it, and white and thin people have no problem with profiting off the work of fat, non-white bodies.”

“There is a persistent belief that when thin and/or white people enter the body positive realm and begin to repeat the messages that Black women have been saying for years in some cases, when they imitate the labor that Black women have already put in that we should be thankful that they are “boosting” our message. This completely ignores the fact that in doing so they are profiting off of that labor. They are gaining the notoriety, the mark of an expert in something they learned from an ignored Black woman” (Coles).

My next essay will go into detail about this and illuminate key figures who paved the way for body acceptance in communities of color.

The true purpose of this movement has gotten completely lost. So where the fuck do we go from here?

We break up with it, and run back to the faithful ex our parents disapproved of. We go back to the roots of the fat liberation movement, carved out for us by the fat feminists, the queer fat activists, the fat Black community, and the allies it began with. Everything they have preached since the 1960s and 70s is one hundred percent applicable today. We get educated. We examine diet culture through a capitalist lens. We tackle thin, white-supremacist systems and weight based discrimination, as well as internalized bias. We challenge our healthcare workers to unlearn their bias, treat, and support fat patients accordingly. We make our homes and spaces accessible and welcoming to people of any size, or any (dis)ability. “We must first protect and uplift people in marginalized bodies, only then can we mandate self-love” (Gordon).

Think about it. In the face of discrimination, mistreatment, and emotional abuse, we as a society are telling fat people to love their bodies, when we should be putting our energy toward removing those fatphobic ideas and structures so that fat people can live in a world that doesn’t require them to feel bad about their bodies. It’s like hitting someone with a rock and telling them not to bruise!

While learning to love and care for the body that you’re in is important, I think that body positivity also fails in teaching that because it puts even more emphasis on beauty. Instead of saying, “you don’t have to be ‘beautiful’ to be loved and appreciated,” its main lesson is that “all bodies are beautiful.” We live in a society obsessed with appearance, and it is irresponsible to ignore the hierarchy of beauty standards that exist in every space. Although it should be relative, “beautiful” has been given a meaning. And that meaning is thin, abled, symmetric, and eurocentric.

Beauty and ugliness are irrelevant, made-up constructs. People will always be drawn to you no matter what, so you deserve to exist in your body without struggling to conform to an impossible and bigoted standard. Love and accept your body for YOURSELF AND NO ONE ELSE, because you do not exist to please the eyes of other people. That’s what I wish we were teaching instead. Radical self acceptance!

As of today, the ultimate message of the body positivity movement is: Love your body “despite its imperfections.” Or people with “perfect and imperfect bodies both deserve love.” As long as we are upholding the notion that there IS a perfect body that looks a certain way, and every body that falls outside of that category is imperfect, we are upholding white supremacy, eugenics, anti-fatness, and ableism.

#body positivity #bopo #body posi #body positive #body acceptance #fat acceptance #fat activism #fat liberation #anti fatness #anti blackness #anti fat bias #lookism #beauty standards #self acceptance

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megsironthrone · 3 years

Text

You’re Not Bad

Based on this request: hiiii 🥺 Can i request one for Jaime Lannister? They met before but it’s Maybe in S8, when he’s at Winterfell he’s feeling really crappy and wondering if he should just like sacrifice himself or something...she talks him out of it and after the battle with the white walkers is over, he asks her why she doesn’t see him as a bad person and she tells him he’s not? ✌🏼Thank you

Here you are! *Familiar Characters are NOT mine!*

Warnings: Angst, violence? platonic fluff and it’s short

Pairings/Characters: Jaime Lannister x fem!reader(platonic), Mentions of Tyrion and Brienne

Jaime couldn't understand it. Since coming to Winterfell, he'd been treated like a pariah by everyone except Tyrion, Brienne, and you. Tyrion and Brienne he could understand, but you were the mystery. One that Jaime would have loved to solve in his younger days. Before everything went to the Seven Hells. Nothing helped him feel good about his situation though. Not until the night before the battle against the White Walkers.

Jaime was sitting on his own, nursing a goblet of ale. He wasn't particularly fond of the drink, but it was something to do. "Why are you by yourself?" a voice asked. Jaime wasn't surprised when he saw you moving to sit next to him. "You should be with your loved ones." Jaime scoffed a little. "So should you." You muttered something under your breath and sat down fully.

"Why are you over here, Jaime? You should be with us." Jaime sighed. "I was thinking," he admitted, "About tomorrow and my future, if I have one. I'm not a good man, Y/N. I've done things I'm certainly not proud of. Things that have cost me the people I loved. Who knows how much more damage I could cause if I survive this battle. I was considering the option of sacrifice. To appease the Walkers and make amends."

"No." That one word took Jaime back. It was forceful without drawing attention to the two of you. "No, Jaime. That won't solve anything. You know that. There are other ways to make amends." Jaime sighed. "I know, but I can't think of them." You gave him a smile. "Think on it, Jaime. And please, don't do anything rash. I expect to see you after the battle." You stood and gave his shoulder a squeeze before leaning down and whispering in his ear, "I believe in you, Jaime Lannister."

After the battle, Jaime could feel his muscles protesting every time he moved, but he didn't care. He had seen that Tyrion was fine and so was Brienne. But he hadn't found you yet. He searched through the crowd and the bodies. He looked everywhere he could think of. It wasn't until he made it to the gates of Winterfell that he found you.

"Looking for something?" Jaime whirled around to face you and couldn't fight the smile that spread across his lips. "You're alive." You grinned back at him. "And so are you. I'm glad to see you took my advice." Jaime chuckled a little, but it was cut short when he felt your arms wrap around him. He froze for a moment before returning the gesture. You'd never hugged him before. Maybe it was just the relief of the battle being over. He wasn't going to question it now.

It wasn't until the victory feast that Jaime had a chance to talk to you about everything. He'd been able to breathe and think and wonder what made you so different. Why didn't you treat him like everyone else did? He needed to know and he knew the only way would be to ask you.

You sat down next to him with a smile on your face as Tyrion, Podrick, and Brienne played some sort of drinking game. "Is Tyrion winning or losing?" Jaime chuckled under his breath. "Both, I believe." You laughed and shook your head fondly. Jaime watched you for a moment, unsure of how to approach the subject. Fortunately for him, you were fairly observant.

"Is there something you wanted to ask me, Jaime?" He blinked in surprise, but nodded slowly. "Yes. Why? Last night…why did you try so hard to convince me not to give up?" You smiled at him, but he could see tears in your eyes. "Why is it that you, of all people, don’t see me as a villain when most of my family-most of Westeros does?" he continued.

"You're not bad, Jaime. I never thought you were. Whatever it was you did, you did for a reason. To protect yourself, your family, your home. Brienne told me what happened with The Mad King," you said, leaning in to whisper. You didn't want Daenerys to hear. "Jaime, you are not a bad man. You are one of the most courageous men I know. I know that most people have no love for Lannisters, but I'm not one of them. I hope to be able to at least call you my friend."

You reached over and placed your hand on his arm and gave it a small squeeze. Jaime placed his flesh hand on top of your, meeting your gaze with a smile. "I think we would be great friends, Y/N." You returned the grin and raised your goblet that was in your other hand to him. "To new friends?" Jaime took his hand from yours and grabbed his goblet. "New friends." You leaned in and kissed his cheek before the two of you tuned back in to Tyrion's drinking game, joining in on the laughter and celebrations.

(a/n: I hope you like it!)

Forever Tags: @fizzyxcustard @brewsthespirit-blog @etherealpotter @line-viper @frozenhuntress67 @cd1242 @gruffle1 @smalltownbigheart @igotmadskills

Jaime Lannister Tags: @faith-in-dean

#george r.r. martin #game of thrones #jaime lannister #jaime lannister x reader #jaime x reader

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anarcho-smarmyism · 3 years

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How would prison abolition deal with murderers, serial killers, paedophiles, torturers,kkk members,neo-Nazis and terrorists? Some people are a legit danger and cannot be allowed to roam society.

So I didn’t answer this at the time, because the anon who sent it is almost definitely the racist troll sending me shit I’m not going to publish (so like uhhh bear that in mind lmao), but I’ve blocked them now and it’s been a few days, so hopefully they’ve fucked off by now. Plus, I’ve been thinking about this question a LOT since before I received it. It’s a question that I think most people have about the concept of prison abolition and reparative justice, and not everyone with these concerns is asking in bad faith. Besides which, with the recent attempted coup and the way it looks like people who participated are actually going to face legal consequences for it (which alone was somewhat surprising to me tbh), I’ve been seeing a lot of leftists discoursing over whether it’s morally okay and intellectually consistent to be happy about cops beating up, killing, and arresting KKK members and Neo-Nazis, so it is now actually topical! Under the cut due to long response~

So the first thing I want to point out, is that literally every single one of the groups of “legit dangers who cannot be allowed to roam society”, are already out there right now. In our current “justice” system, it’s common knowledge that monsters often get off on a technicality, or because they just have the money to throw lawyer after lawyer at the charges, or because they outright bribe someone, or countless other ways to get around the law. You can look on my own literal tumblr blog and watch me argue with grown ass adults who will bold faced admit to consuming child porn with half-assed excuses, and you’ll find more open pedophiles on sites like twitter, reddit, or 4chan, or porn sites where “teen” is usually one of the most popular categories. Besides which, have you ever looked at the average sentences for convicted rapists, wife beaters, or pedophiles, as compared with the sentences for getting caught selling drugs? In middle school I had to walk a mile or two to get to school through a neighborhood we’d been warned had a convicted pedophile in it, who had just been released after less than 15 years. In that same city, I heard a story about a woman shooting and killing her rapist, and prosecutors were discussing giving her the death penalty for it (she was bragging and laughing about it on video, it was definitely premeditated, but still). Have you ever looked at the statistics of how many rapists and abusers aren’t reported, or if they are reported aren’t prosecuted, or if they are are prosecuted with a slap on the wrist (remember Brock Turner????) Also I notice how you didn’t even mention domestic abusers or rapists in your list of people who need to be locked up lolololol shows where your priorities vis a vis “public safety are I’m sorry, but the system just does not work the way you think it does, the we are taught it does.

People who make this argument always act like the systems we have now are efficient and nigh on flawless when it comes to “not letting dangerous people roam society”, but it isn’t and it can’t be and it never will be. That very fact ought to be enough to shake your faith in the idea that society will become a nonstop Purge of indiscriminate violence if everyone who’s committed a sufficiently despicable act of violence isn’t locked up for the rest of their lives -but you might say, “okay, but those are flukes, the system still works because most of the people who are “a danger to society” are usually locked up.” I’m not completely sold that that’s even true (have you ever heard of the opportunities cops had to bring in serial killers and murderers, who just didn’t care enough to try? Jeffrey Dahmer is a good example of this), but I’ll assume it is to move on to my next point.

Even if we assumed that the system as we have it, worked flawlessly as designed, that doesn’t change the fact that a lot of the categories mentioned here are people that are actively running the very systems that this rhetoric is defending. It’s well-documented that American white supremacists of various stripes have infiltrated law enforcement and the military for the express purpose of not just “roaming free”, but getting to exert the power of the State over people of color. Cops and soldiers kill people all the time, and not only are they not penalized, they’re celebrated for it. Agents of the State fucking torture people all the time, and I don’t just mean Guantanamo Bay or war crimes by soldiers; cops have been caught on camera spraying protesters with pepper spray and beating them once they’ve already been handcuffed or while they’re chained to trees or whatever -not because they think they “need” to, because they want to, and they know they’ll get away with it. Cops also systematically torture people in prison with solitary confinement. Heads of state drop bombs on civilians for “politically motivated reasons”, they do all kinds of shit that would be called “terrorism” if anybody but a State did it; and people might disapprove, but they don’t (generally) claim that the politicians and generals who made that call are “a danger to society” that need to get life in prison. If you genuinely believe that whether these acts of violence are “legal” or not changes whether they’re okay, or that a person who engages in illegal violence is “dangerous” but people who engage in legal violence aren’t... I’m honestly not even going to try to refute that here lol, prison abolition is level 5 shit and you’re at level -1, study how authoritarianism in general works before trying to understand prison abolition (not trying to be a dick here, it’s what i would tell my younger self when I believed the same thing).

It simply does not hold up to rational scrutiny to believe that society will collapse into an orgy of violence and mayhem if we abolish prison (or that we’ll have to resort to medieval punishments instead??? lol funny take i remember from some racist troll or other over the years), when those dangers are already present (and in some cases widely celebrated as “heroes” and given the power to indiscriminately brutalize “acceptable targets” with the State’s monopoly on violence) under the current system.

The next thing people need to understand is that contrary to popular belief and despite how counterintuitive it sounds, even the brutality of our current prison system is not an effective deterrent to crime (linked a Guardian article that looks like it has some good info on this, but I recommend a book called Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice by Adam Benforado for more information). Let me say that again: the threat of prison has been empirically shown to be INEFFECTIVE as a deterrent to crime. Do you really think that a serial killer or someone who wants to blow up a building full of people is going to be more likely to follow the law for fear of prison, than regular people doing regular people crimes like selling drugs or getting into drunk fights that go too far?

I don’t think anyone is actually willing to argue that prison “rehabilitates” anyone, or does anything besides make regular criminals into angrier, more antisocial, more desperate criminals with more criminal connections and less options for any kind of a legitimate living, so I’m just going to point out that having such a large prison population arguably creates more people who have shitty lives of poverty and are surrounded by people who are in and out of prison. It’s not like that “makes” anybody into a serial killer, but I feel like you’d have to willfully ignorant to act like it’s not a factor in increasing violent crime in affected community.

So, I’ve so far argued that prison is an ineffective solution to the problems it claims to exist in order to solve, and that in many cases, it actually makes the problems that lead to these sorts of dangerous people (”regular” murderers and the radicalization of Neo-Nazis and KKK members in particular, I think) becoming dangerous, or at least more dangerous, in the first place. What I haven’t done, is talk about what I believe is the real core of the issue when it comes to prison abolition: nobody wants to fucking peacefully rehabilitate these people. I am arguing for a system that would handle these people basically as gently as possible, with the goal of releasing them back into society eventually, and I still believe these things mostly intellectually, not emotionally. I don’t want the men who sexually assaulted me and/or my loved ones to get off scot free (they did, of course, but that’s beside the point), much less serial killers or Nazis, and I’m not about to get on my high horse about wanting revenge on people who’ve committed these kinds of atrocities. The reason I’m a prison abolitionist in spite of these feelings is that I do not believe the desire for revenge, for punishment for punishment’s own sake, is an impulse we should indulge when creating social and political infrastructures that have ultimate power over millions of lives. In the words of someone talking about abolishing the death penalty, the question isn’t “do they deserve to die”, the question is “do we deserve to kill”; and here, the question is not “does anyone deserve to be imprisoned in this system”, the question is “do we deserve to brutalize people in this way for virtually zero practical benefits to our society”. What any person “deserves” is a subjective moral and philosophical question, one that no conceivable human justice system could ever actually answer. We as a society need to build alternatives to prison (and police!) that can actually address these problems, actually prevent the conditions that create and enable monsters, and actually rehabilitate (to whatever extent that is possible) criminals -even the ones we, personally, despise. Any long-term incarceration that may end up being 100% required should be designed to reduce the suffering of the person in it, no matter how despicable of a person they are. Trying to solve “the problem of evil” instead of trying to create a more functional and just society is a fool’s errand that can only lead to more evil existing, in the end.

At the end of the day, the “irredeemable” people you listed off as justifications for the continuing existence of prison, are only a tiny fraction of the people in prison, even the ones with life sentences. A full understanding of the horror and oppression the prison industrial complex enacts on the people in it and their communities (and how the system is designed to make a profit off of human suffering and death) is something you’ll have to read some actual books about in order to acquire. However, I don’t think it’s controversial to say that any horror we as a society deem “acceptable” to do to the worst of the worst, will also be done to regular criminals, as well as to innocent people who are wrongly imprisoned. Any brutality you design with a serial killer in mind WILL eventually be a punishment for a petty thief or drug dealer or sex worker, or a person who didn’t commit the crime they were incarcerated for. Is it really worth it? Is it really, really worth all the misery and oppression prison causes, to satiate our sense of justice? I don’t believe that it is. I believe that we have a responsibility both to the incarcerated and to their communities to base our policies and institutions on actually solving these societal problems however we can, and leaving our “eye for an eye” mentality in the dark ages where it belongs.

If you are interested in prison abolition as a concept, I can recommend some good books on it. You also need to understand that concept of “reparative justice”, which I’ve alluded to here but not really explained because OH MY GOD THIS POST IS TOO LONG ALREADY. Short explanation of it is that it aims to repair the harm done by the crime and rehabilitate the criminal through through therapy and trying to get them to actually understand what they’ve done and empathize with who they’ve hurt, while also providing therapy and resources to the victim of the crime (when it’s something violent and the reparation can’t just be “give them their money back plus extra for damages” or something). The point is not to satiate anybody’s sense of justice or revenge, but to proactively try to solve the problem the crime has caused and prevent the offender from doing it again. It would need to work in conjunction with the abolition of police (and replacement with better infrastructure for the few things cops do that we actually need done) and various other social programs and measures to prevent the circumstances that lead to crime. This sounds like a long shot because it is, but just because it hasn’t been done on a wide scale before doesn’t mean it can’t be, and just because it will be difficult doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing.

#prison #prison abolition #reparative justice #anarchist #anarchism #prison industrial complex #asks #anonymous

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a-queer-seminarian · 4 years

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I am trying to read more theology and I would love to know what texts have been most important to you? I am not a super academic person so things that are modestly accessible would be great, but also I am trying to push myself to read more challenging texts! ty so much!

Oooh what a fun question -- I’ve offered people book recs before, but never one that’s specifically the texts that have been most important to me.

To start, i recommend my #books tag on my other blog for way more books than the ones I’ll list here -- not every post in that tag is relevant to your question here, but some are. Here’s a list of the posts that are relevant to your request -- you’ll see that on most of them, I note how accessible vs academic or dense a text seemed to me.

a list of recs for theology that’s helpful in this 2020 climate of pandemic and protest.

a list of recs for books about being queer and Christian

And now for a list of theological texts that have been most important to me -- deeply impacting how I read the Bible, how I relate to God or to other humans or to creation, etc.:

The basics

I have to include Christian Doctrine by Shirley Guthrie on this list...

simply because it was the first book I read when trying to figure out what Reformed Protestants believe after growing up Catholic. It’s actually a fairly easy read -- it’s longish, and not like the most riveting book you’ve ever read, but dang it has great stuff in it. It made me way more excited to enter the PC(USA) denomination than I’d been before reading it -- before, I felt like i was mainly running from the crappy parts of the Roman Catholic Church; after reading it, i realized i could also be running to the beautiful parts of Reformed theology!

But yeah, if you’re looking for a book that helps solidify in your mind concepts like the Trinity, or sin, or divine inspiration....this is a great book for that! (Assuming you want to learn about those things from a(n LGBT affirming) Reformed Protestant lens.

If you wanna read tons of excerpts from this text before deciding whether you want to read the whole thing, I posted a lot of passages from it in this tag over here.

Inspired by Rachel Held Evans

this is the best book I can think of for non-academics who want to learn about reading the Bible in a way that confronts rather than ignores/accepts its more disturbing passages.

If you need help figuring out how to read the Bible without a fundamentalist / literalist lens, this is the book for you.

Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others by Barbara Brown Taylor

Very important if you want to practice a Christianity that doesn’t pit you against people of other (or no) faiths -- and very easy to read

Books that helped me develop a liberationist + queer + disabled theology

Justin Tanis’ book Transgendered was super important to me when i was first getting into trans theology...

However, the language in it isn’t particularly accessible -- it’s not horribly dense but I would now recommend OtherWise Christian by Chris Paige instead. Paige quotes from Tanis -- and many other foundational trans theologians! -- and does a great job of making their scholarly language a lot more accessible to non-academics. Ach yeah, OtherWise Christian is what you wanna read to get deep into the academia of trans theology without having to wade through the denser older books yourself.

If you do want to read some of Tanis’ book, you can read my fave chapters as pdfs here.

I’d also recommend Austen Hartke’s Transgender and Christian YouTube channel and my website blessedarethebinarybreakers.com for more trans theology presented in simpler language!

Disability: The Inclusive Church Resource by John M. Hull

Nancy Eiseland’s The Disabled God is also, like, foundational to a lot of disability theology but it’s not the easiest read. The last two chapters are the best part in my opinion.

For more great resources on disability theology, including some of my own writing (which is, I hope, easy to read), see this Google Doc i compiled once and also my disability theology tag.

Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman.

It’s a bit more academic / written more formally than some of the books on here cuz it’s older, but it’s also short and if you can get through even just the first two or three chapters you’ll have absorbed material that i promise you’ll be thinking about for a long, long time to come.

God of the Oppressed by James Cone

So foundational. Another classic by him is The Cross and the Lynching Tree. These books are both more academic but yeah, foundational stuff.

The only full text I’ve read by Gustavo Gutiérrez is On Job but I’ve read a lot of excerpts from other stuff by him...

You’ve gotta read at least a little bit of this guy to help you understand liberation theology as it originated in Latin America. Unfortunately, I do think he’s much more academic so not an “easy” read at all -- you could try to find other authors who sum up his ideas and works and offer fundamental excerpts in his own words, if you try to dig into something he’s written and find it too tough

But yeah, his book On Job in particular really helped me start figuring out “theodicy” -- the question of why there is suffering in the world / what God’s role in suffering is. But I had a lot of trouble figuring out what Gutiérrez was saying at a lot of points in the book, and I’ve been reading academic texts for like a decade now!! So if you try to read it and find it’s just too much, don’t feel bad. I only was able to get a real handle on this book after discussing it in a seminary classroom with a teacher helping us.

If you wander through my #theodicy tag, you’ll find my own understandings of suffering as shaped by On Job without having to read the book yourself! You also might like Everything Happens by Kate Bowler for a great look on suffering.

Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God by Kaitlin B. Curtice (progressive Christian + citizen of the Potawatomi nation)

This book is truly incredible in that its language invites you in and reads like a devotional while making powerful statements about settler colonialism and assimilation and stuff. So so so good.

When it comes to books that have deeply enriched, like, my “personal” prayer life / relationship with God:

Learning to Walk in the Dark and An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor (Episcopal background)

This author’s books are all so easy to read, and so so so full of wisdom. If you want your theology served to you in a less “so this is theology” kind of way and more of a devotional kind of way, this is the author for you.

Also she’s super popular among non-academics and academics alike so it’s easy to find people to discuss her work with!

An Altar in the World is about finding God outside of church, in the everyday, in the “secular”...

Learning to Walk in the Dark is about forming a faith that can survive and actually nourish you during the struggles of life (as opposed to what she calls a “full solar Christianity”)

A Tree Full of Angels by Sister Macrina Wiederkehr (Catholic nun)

this one is a little bit more formal in style, but not bad if you read it like i did, which was as a devotional where i’d only read a section or two each evening. It focuses on finding the divine in the most mundane of things -- see here for some posts sharing short excerpts from it.

Wow this got long....sorry about that! And if you were hoping for more shorter works, like articles instead of whole books, let me know and I can dig through my seminary stuff and share my faves!

#wellofloneliness #recs #books #theology #about me #list

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evandearest · 3 years

Text

The Garden of Eden | Part I: Cycles

Pairing: James March x reader (you) | ~Part: (1/4)~

Summary (Part One): Life with James March involved has had many cycles. In a time long ago, you once flourished. But things don’t always stay the same forever, do they? Will James find his way back to you?

Warnings (in this part): physical / mental / verbal abuse (child and adult), violence, graphic descriptions of murder / blood, dark themes, heartbreak, extreme emotional grief, just overall dark. avoid if any of the aforementioned is triggering.

Word count: 2,223

IMPORTANT Notes: Hello! I’m so excited to start this series that @etoile-writings requested that I can hardly type fast enough! lol. I really hope that I can do this justice!

The request was: juxtaposition - (noun) the fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect. AND true love over a forced marriage + lots of fun ideas, such as flowers. Read on my blog for more if you want. I also suck at summaries but I thought I’d give it a try.

Speaking of flowers, I just wanted to say specifically to the requester: I didn’t just pick white roses because they are my personal favorite, but also because of their symbolism to the reader character. White roses symbolize purity, innocence, and youthfulness, associating with young love and eternal loyalty, and can also symbolize a new beginning and everlasting love. Just wanted to say that because I found it very interesting and symbolic!

SO... I have a few notes before we begin. 1) This is set before James died, approximately the year 1926. Since this is a fan-fictional story, the events are slightly warped from the show. The main plot of the show still flows, but this is kind of worked in, in a way. So the plot of the show doesn’t really change all that much. The second thing 2) a lot of things in this story will become clear as I post more parts. There will be more flashbacks and the plot will expand drastically. This is pretty much just an introduction. Just wanted to put that out there. And 3) I plan to do four parts, but that may be subject to change.

Some things never change.

That you had found to be true. The cycle of life was incredible. The lessons in life you were meant to learn were imprinted into your being by repetitious events that were sometimes out of your control. You knew that too well.

People had always told you, “God works in mysterious ways.” It hadn’t been so apparent to you until you had experienced that mystery yourself. It seemed that your life had entered its second cycle. It seemed that you had lived this exact moment once before.

Your head was pounding, a moan sounding when his fist collided into your side again. You kept your arms up in defense, as it was the only thing stopping him from hitting your face. That hurt much worse, and it was harder to hide. Explaining to your neighbors why there are bruises on your face was the last thing you would need. You’d already done it last time this had happened. Of course, you hadn’t expected this to happen again. You’d put too much faith into your husband. A wretched sob left your burning throat, your face soaking wet with tears.

“Please stop,” you pleaded, whimpering, while your husband Robert laughed.

“Maybe next time you should just keep your mouth shut,” he spat, sighing as he rubbed his knuckles. A fleeting memory flashed before your eyes.

“Maybe next time you should just keep your mouth shut!”

“I-I’m sorry!” you cried, clutching your jaw as you scrambled across the floor.

“Yeah, of course you are now,” the old man said maliciously, towering over your small frame. He laughed, shaking his head. “You think in vain of yourself. You can’t believe that a man would ever want a woman who talked to him like that. You believe that because you’re so innocent people will treat you as such.” He squatted down in front of you, his face getting closer to yours. “Well, I have something you need to know, young girl. Most of us humans don’t really care about others.” He chuckled again, standing up. “We’re all in it for ourselves.” He shook his head. His fist pulled back again, and you gasped, throwing your arms over your head.

“Leave her alone!”

James came racing into the room, his hands pushing his father’s fist away before it hit you. He shoved him back, and you watched in amazement. You couldn’t believe that he stood up to his father. Just moments before, as he had told you of the abuse, he had been shaking at even the thought of his father hitting him.

That’s what had led you into the conversation in the first place. When James had told you of how his father had been treating him since he was seven years old to now, at almost eighteen, you couldn’t help yourself. You’d thought that confrontation would stop him, or maybe he would realize how wrong it was if you had showed him. You were wrong, and now here you were, your favorite floral blouse torn, your jaw aching from the impact of his father’s hit.

You were wrong, and now James was in another bad situation. You stared at James, wondering why he would ever step in. Why he would ever step in when he knew what his father would do.

“You stupid boy!” The old man yelled, his fist striking James’ face. “Do you just like being beat? Don’t tell me it’s because you love this naïve girl!” James’ glare burned holes into his father’s face, his jaw set firmly.

It clicked behind your eyes. He loved you. He stepped in because he was protecting you, because he didn’t want you to experience what he had.

His father chuckled as he looked between the two of you; James now standing beside your form on the floor. He shook his head, and left the room without another word, although he slammed the door. You jumped at the loud impact, scurrying to stand beside James. There was a moment of silence before you spoke.

“James,” you whispered, studying his face. He didn’t say anything, but you knew he was listening. “Do you believe him? Are all people really that selfish?”

James still remained silent, but that was enough of an answer for you. You simply couldn’t accept that. You couldn’t accept that all people only cared about themselves. Not when you had seen it for yourself, firsthand with James and your family, or even the kindness of strangers.

But you were wrong again. Your own father had proved that to you when he had you married off to Robert Williams for money. It opened your eyes, and only then had you seen everything that people did just to get what they wanted. And now you know that the only person who ever cared about you was James. And you were ripped away from him just before you were able to begin a life with him, all because your father didn’t believe he would be able to take care of you. You’d never even known he cared so much about James’ wealth, or lack thereof.

For a while, that hadn’t been the end of it. You’d still think about James in your every waking moments. Sure, you’d settled into your new life with your new husband. At first, you had even gotten along with one another. You learned how to accept what you had, keep your spirit, and be as grateful as you could for simple things such as safety. But that changed too. The problem arose at the topic of children. To you, the thought of having a child with Robert made you sick to your stomach. You just didn’t want to fake it with him, but you didn’t know how to tell him that. You couldn’t give and raise a child with a man you didn’t love. You supposed it was because you still had hope that you’d see James again. For many years, he had believed your excuses, until he had grew tired of you pushing it off. That’s where the anger and violence had begun. So you ran.

At the very moment that you read about James in the newspaper, you ran. You ran straight to his luxurious brand new hotel. You couldn’t believe it. You couldn’t believe that poor boy you’d left behind all those years ago had turned into such a successful man. You’d just hoped that he still loved you like you loved him; that he hadn’t forgotten about you.

But once again, as life repeats, you were wrong. James’ life was nothing you ever could have imagined. He’d built his hotel from scratch, and that was after he had clawed his way up the chain of command. He was filthy rich, living life in the most prosperous way imaginable, his power undeniable. You were in awe. If only your father could see him now. If only he’d seen what you had in James all those years ago when he had first began his journey to being a self-made man.

But wealth wasn’t the only thing that had changed. James obviously didn’t love you anymore. How could he, when he had a new wife? Elizabeth was her name. She seemed lovely, and it was wrong of you to assume he would never move on from you. Even if you’d never moved on from him.

So you stayed. You had no choice but to at this point. You had no where else to turn, no where else to go, no real life of your own. Just memories of a life long ago to hold onto.

You wept as you curled in on yourself. Your husband stood there, his breathing heavy as he glared at you with the anger of a thousand hurricanes in his eyes.

“You were the biggest mistake of my life,” he snarled, an expression of disappointment settling on his face. “A wife that won’t even give me children.” He scoffed and chuckled dryly. “What a pathetic joke.”

“I’m sorry,” you whispered. You cupped your hands over your face, sniffling.

“Stop saying that!” He suddenly boomed, his fist raising once again. You shouted out in protest at the incoming attack, bracing yourself for the pain.

At what seemed to be the most perfect timing, a knock sounded at the front door.

Robert froze in his place, his fist hovering in mid-air. You sighed in relief, pushing yourself further into the wall, balled up in a fetal position on the floor. He turned, shooting a hesitant look back at you, before slowly making his way to answer the door.

The door handle jiggled as he opened it, and although you couldn’t see, you listened intently from your position in the living room.

“Hello,” Robert greeted whomever was on the other side of the door. “May I help you?”

“Greetings, sir,” replied the voice of a man. You froze. You could’ve sworn you knew that voice. But it couldn’t be.

“Yeah?” said your husband.

“Would it happen that a woman by the name of ‘Y/F/N Y/L/N’ resides here?” said the man. You let out a breath. It was him. It was James.

Robert paused, and you began contemplating revealing yourself.

“She’s busy,” Robert rushed out nervously.

There was another pause, this time from James.

“I’m not sure you’re telling the truth, sir,” said James. “You seem to be quite flustered.”

“She- she can’t come right now,” Robert demanded, “she’s busy. Come another time.”

You panicked. He was going to make him leave! This was your only chance!

“Help!” you shouted, before even having time to think about it.

Before you knew it, the man you had dreamed of for so many years was standing before you. You gasped as your eyes met his, the same dark brown framed by his sharp masculine features. It was as if you had seen the sun after years in the dark. Your eyes took in his features before shifting to look at the object in his hands. A bouquet of white roses lay clasped between his hands; your flowers. He had remembered. He really had come back for you. Finally, you had your James again.

“What is the meaning of this?” Robert shouted as he followed quickly behind James. James’ head turned slowly to look at the man, his jaw locking firmly as his eyes settled on him.

“How about,” James clicked his tongue, pausing for a mere second, “you explain the meaning of this.” He gestured toward you, his head turning to briefly look at you again. Robert crossed his arms.

“I don’t think I’m inclined to tell you anything,” he said, a look of resentment taking over his expression. “In fact, I think you should see your way out.” James stared at the man for a moment before his lips upturned into a small smirk.

“Of course,” he grinned, his accent drawing the words out. Your heart skipped a beat as he slowly began walking towards the hallway to the front door. No, you thought. He couldn’t leave. You thought he had come back for you. He couldn’t leave you, not when you needed him the most. Not when you’d waited this long.

Just as your hopes had almost been crushed, James spun around. What happened next was hard to process immediately. Blood suddenly covered James’ face and chest, spurting out from Robert’s throat as James’ knife slid smoothly across, the skin slicing like butter. James stood, a look of satisfaction on his face, his eyes settling upon yours. A flicker of what seemed like doubt rushed across his face as you grew silent, your eyes wide and innocent as you stared at him, digesting what had just happened.

“James?” you whispered.

“Yes, dear?” he said smoothly, his jaw moving back and forth slowly as he worked it nervously. You climbed to your feet, padding over to him softly. Your hand slowly came up to rest upon his cheek, thumb softly gliding over the bone there, the blood on his face smearing with the movement. Your other hand gently grabbed the roses from his hands, glancing down at them adoringly, your lips curling into a smile.

“Darling,” James said hesitantly, eyebrows furrowing, “I apologize if I’ve frightened you.” You smiled up at him.

“No,” you said reassuringly. “No, quite the opposite.” You paused, studying James’ handsome features. You leaned in slowly, your breaths mingling. “You’ve freed me.” It was a whisper, barely audible, but at your close proximity, you knew he could hear. You could feel the warmth of his body so close to yours as you moved closer and closer. Your lips met in a passionate kiss, James arms enveloping you, the world seeming to align once more.

It seemed as if you had no worries, no hardships; that all of your anxieties had magically disappeared with his kiss. He’d reset your life. He’d given you everything you wanted just by being in yours. All those years that you had waited for him seemed worth it. All of your blind devotion seemed worth it. James had finally, finally come back to you.

All those people had been right: God did work in mysterious ways. And in that moment, you decided James was your meant to be; your heaven on Earth; your purpose of being. Or further... he was your God.

---

Series Masterlist: The Garden of Eden Series

Main Masterlist

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canchewread · 3 years

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Editor’s note: this post is part of the Recommended Reading series here on Can’t You Read; an ongoing and evolving feature that combines an easy to swipe info-graphic, a short journal, and a link to an important related discussion I’d like to share with readers.

A Culture of Predation Can’t Stop Fascist Pig Violence

In the wake of the frankly surprising (but extremely welcome) guilty verdicts in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, I’ve tried very hard to reign in my cynicism. After all, the conviction of a cop for murder “in the line of duty,” let alone a white cop who murdered an African American man with an impoverished background, is about as common as a goddamn unicorn fart, and on that account alone the verdict is worth commemorating, if not necessarily celebrating.

While it would be unspeakably obtuse to suggest that the verdict represented some sort of positive justice, it’s also undeniable that many feel this moment may indeed be a starting point; a chance to at least begin to imagine what a positive justice for African Americans might look like. In particular numerous observers have pointed to the very public crumbling of the proverbial “blue wall” of silence, the fact that Chauvin’s fellow police officers passionately testified against him with the whole world watching, as a positive omen for the future of police reform.

Unfortunately I (and many other observers) have doubts about this position. I don’t mean to be a downer, but the truth is that nobody, not even immunized murderpigs and their commanders, can justify the horrifying video of Chauvin mindlessly executing George Floyd over the course of nine and a half minutes. Faced with the choice of openly embracing their own “little Eichmanns” in front of an outraged public, the Blue Meanies decided that ultimately it wasn’t worth protecting a fuck up like Derek Chauvin. The cost, both to his fellow thug cops, and the profession of policing as a whole, would simply have been too damn high to justify the reward.

The sad and horrifying truth here is that if Derek Chauvin had simply shot George Floyd, instead of casually kneeling on his neck for almost ten minutes, he’d probably be a free man today; just like so many cracker murderpigs before him. Furthermore, even this smallest of concessions probably wouldn’t have happened without months of nationwide protests conducted under a state of constant assault by violent, openly rioting police officers. That last reality is certainly not lost on fascists and neoliberal authoritarians; why else do you think reactionary lawmakers are rushing to pass legislation that criminalizes mass protest against racialized police violence?

Still, you can’t blame folks for hoping; hope can be a good thing if it gives you the strength and courage to continue a seemingly impossible fight for actual justice. Perhaps some long day from now we will look back on this moment and say “and the conviction of Derek Chauvin was the point when the wave ultimately broke, and the tide of cracker police violence finally rolled back” - even if it’s clear that these convictions, by themselves, do not have the power to enact the change we so desperately need.

Where I can and will find fault however, is with those deluded and disingenuous souls who have used this moment to once again champion the doomed cause of police reform; blithely ignorant or willfully oblivious to the fact that police reforms already failed to prevent the murder of George Floyd, and so many others like him. The bald truth is that the current establishment movement towards police reform is about maintaining the power and funding of the very same violent uniformed thugs who’re murdering poor people on behalf of the capitalist state in the first place; that’s why nobody is talking about removing qualified immunity for police officers, and that’s why even some cops themselves are coming around to the idea of reform at this late a date. In many ways, the real importance of the movement to “Defund the Police” is that the mere threat of taking away the sweet filthy ducats that pay murderpig salaries has already shifted the carceral establishment’s position towards bargaining; albeit, in bad faith.

The road to neofeudalist hell is paved with dark intentions however, and what establishment reformers, even and perhaps especially those who’re prepared to acknowledge the fundamentally racialized aspects of police violence, aren’t prepared to discuss in the open is the nature and purpose of policing itself in a capitalist society. There is no public examination of why it is that we keep hiring folks who turn out to be violent white supremacists to be police; and there certainly will be no discussion about the ways class relationships intersect with race through the designed function of racialized policing.

Despite the pro-police propaganda you’ve been fed all your life to suggest otherwise, the vast majority of what police actually do in America is to protect the wealth, property, and feelings of affluent white people and the corporations they own. Far from solving major crimes and preventing violence, modern policing in the Pig Empire revolves around nuisance violations, so-called broken windows policing, and other methods of harassing poor people for minor infractions of the law; remember, the police encounter that lead to the murder of George Floyd started over the purchase of cigarettes and a dodgy twenty dollar bill. The reason murderpigs can get away with violently assaulting protestors and journalists who threaten the established order is because that is precisely what they’re being paid to do, and indeed what their predecessors before them have always been paid to do.

On the surface, this class and capitalism analysis may appear to create a tension with the narrative that white supremacy and racism are also driving the crisis of police violence, but that’s really just about the same old establishment spin. As I’ve discussed in numerous prior essays, you simply cannot separate capitalism from white supremacy, or even racism, because bigoted ideas are propagated and spread for the specific purpose of marking out certain marginalized groups for exploitation and highly-lucrative (for some) repression.

Do you want to know what systemic racism in policing really looks like? It looks like hiring murderpigs to repress the poor, knowing full well that due to centuries of slavery and exploitation, the nonwhite and particularly African American population will be vastly overrepresented in the targeted communities. It looks like a supposedly colorblind war on drugs, the ongoing use of demonstratively racist stop and frisk practices, and expanded powers for your community’s “gang squad” in pretty much any neighborhood that just happens to be predominantly Black. It looks like literally profiting from these practices in ways that are sometimes extremely brazen and obvious, but sometimes hidden from everyday sight; even if they’re hardly much of a secret. The fact that the police are ultimately enforcers for the capitalist ruling class, also makes them enforcers of the white supremacist order that capitalism is so dependent upon in our society; there is no contradiction involved here.

Look; you don’t get rid of fascist murderpigs and white supremacists in law enforcement by throwing more money at nazi cops. Joe Biden can summon up all the pretty words he likes, but you can’t address the racialized nature of police violence without fundamentally altering either the racialized nature of inequality in American life, or the very purpose of policing in our society; and he’s sure as shit not talking about doing any of that at all. Thus, no matter how surprised and hopeful I am after the Chauvin guilty verdicts, that sense of positivity is ultimately tempered by the realization that “nothing will fundamentally change” - and that includes cracker thug pigs executing unarmed Black men on camera.

Although they might finally be better than openly fascist Republicans, the Democrats still don’t have answers to the problem of racialized police violence because ultimately, they don’t have answers to the crisis of capitalism itself. It’s not a question of reform or changing the law; murder is already illegal, even if you’re a white cop. Inequality, and the security force violence necessary to maintain it, is a festering sore inside the American body politic, and there are indeed consequences for essentially ignoring a crisis now so obvious and enraging to the public at large.

What kind of consequences? Well, let’s ask researcher and professor Temitope Oriola who provides one terrifying answer in the public journal, The Conversation:

“The United States is at Risk of an Armed Anti-Police Insurgency“ by Temitope Oriola

Or, you know, we could just abolish the murderpigs first; your call really - but don’t expect Palooka Joe to be much help, either way.

- nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

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honestsycrets · 4 years

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Keep It a Secret | [Ivar x Reader]

❛ pairing | modern!ivar x christian!reader

❛ type | drabble

❛ summary | you’ve made a promise to stay abstinent. but... maybe he knows a way around that.

❛ request | For the plus size event can I get ivar and reader in bed cuddling and making out maybe a little smutty like fingering and a handjob or blowjob (isa)

❛ warnings | religious themes, sinning, err-- nsfw, ivar being a poop.

❛ sy’s notes | gif to @bonniebird.

You made a promise.

A solemn promise to hold out until marriage. In an ideal world, you would have fallen in love with a good Christian. A god-fearing man who knew nothing but faith, love, and respect for your god. So you don’t know how you ended here: you’ve never been so exposed before a man. In nothing but a silken slip, you ran your fingers over the trim of your dress, inching it down, snipping away the ties to your divine promise as you lay in his bed. His sheets feel like thorns of sin; he drags open-mouthed kisses over your neck.

He’s a wall of a man, toned and perfect, gliding his fingers over your wide, rippling curves. The tease of his mouth over your neck aggravates you. Tongue gliding, his teeth close onto a blotchy, two-day old mark. Pulling, he tugs your soft neck and manipulates his fingers to free your breast. His lips span from one to another, suckling your nipple wet and hot.

“Ivar,” you gasp, but can’t ignore that infernal heat that burns like tribulation. Your attention snatches toward his flicking hand over his shaft pumped on the adrenaline from bringing you here-- into his bed. “Ivar wait,”

It was your choice to come here with him and as he so often mocked, he always knew it would happen. You tug his dark hair, lifting his head. He pops off of your nipple with a pop. Then, swirling in interest, his soft blue eyes look at you. There’s a faint glimmer from the cross, golden and soft, resting between your breasts, forgotten by the sinful boy between your legs. His hands knock your blessed thick thighs apart.

“What is it?” He buys time, running small kisses over soft, pillowy flesh, worshipping kisses down your belly, toward your virginal hearth. You snatch his head, slipping his name again, and it’s hard for you to breathe words to stop him.

“I promised. You know I can’t,” you remind him, minding your promise to your god, as if it were more tangible than to the man before you, flicking his fist over his engorged length. He bites past the bitterness on his tongue, eyes softening, and though this has happened too many times, he accepts it again. In his own way.

“Why not? It’s not my cock.”

“You know I… I can’t,” you add, ignoring the fact that he’s moving too fast to account for, toward your cunt. Your fingers flicker, caught by the gentle way he spreads you with the hand once on your cunt, full of consideration.

“--and not on my tongue. Look. Fingers,” he slides his way into your folds, smearing the plentiful wetness over your thighs, then returns to your warmth. Your hips glide, pushing down onto his broad fingers for the friction.

“I’m not asking for your virginity, sweet,” he says, abruptly gentle, teasingly soft. “Let me in.”

You let loose a heavy breath you didn’t know you were holding, opening your legs wide apart, and pan your eyes over his expanse. His long hair dangles over you, nearly brushing his broad nose against yours, cheeks painted pink with exertion. He supports himself on a quivering arm, twitching in the cool air, waiting for a response. You linger on his full lips and lean up to kiss him with lips snuffed from protest.

“Okay,” you take his lonely length into your palm, marveling at the softness of it. He twitches against your soft hand, and you almost giggle against his lips, at the feeling of it. It’s strange, to have him here, between your quivering fingers. “It feels so… strange.”

“Glad to know.” His cheeks flush with blood-- and you kiss him again. He all but collapses upon you, working his hand over your slit, swirling his fingers forward. There’s guilt there, building in the back of your mind, knowing that this isn’t what your promise to god was for. That you were meant to wait until marriage. Wait for that special one.

So much waiting for a man that was already there, breath catching and puffing in exertion, dipping a finger carefully inside of your body. The rough intrusion leaves your back in an arch, tightening and whining, sensitive and overworked.

“Faster,” he guides you along. You squeeze him, eliciting a small moan. His head turns down against your shoulder. The fight for your own religion has gone, eviscerated into ashes before him. Ivar grinds his hand in fluid strokes as if he’s done this before, and you don’t want to ask if he had, for the strange creeping jealousy.

His thumb strokes parts of you that you never knew you had, and when he pushes down on your small nub, your hips lurch forward into his hand. Whimpers leave his mouth, and you have no idea what you’re doing, flicking and jerking, crashing underneath him. Tighter, slower, he asks-- a huff on his breath.

But you’re lost under the harshness of pleasure pounding through your legs, short-lived, but so strong that you wail through his room, your hand tense and useless. In its place Ivar sets his hand over yours, guiding you to finish him, and you do-- because your dress, thrown up over your hips, is suddenly damp and wet and soaked by his seed. Ivar brings his hand up at last, thrusting himself to the side of you, cooling off there for seconds, or minutes, or hours.

“Do you think he’ll be mad?” you ask, reaching over him for his shirt. Ivar perks his eyebrow, then realizes what you mean. Your god, that’s what you mean. The man of chastity and all things good and peaceful.

“Probably,” Ivar laughs, deep from his chest. “But you’re still a virgin, aren’t you?”

“I think?” you wipe his seed from your slip, and it’s wrong, but you tell yourself its right. Something that felt so warm, and made you feel so bonded to Ivar, how could it be bad? Ivar slips his arm under your shoulders, shrugging.

“Then you didn’t break your promise.”

@artxfuck@flowers-in-your-hayr @tephi101 @alicedopey @supernaturalvikingwhore @tootie-fruity @titty-teetee @queen-see-ya-in-valhalla @ethereallysimple @deathbyarabbit @deathbyarabbit @readsalot73 @natalie-rdr @lol-haha-joke @lisinfleur @hissouthernprincess @marvelousse @dangerous-like-a-loaded-pistol @vikingsmania @wish-i-was-a-mermaid @lif3snotouttogetyou @gruffle1 @cris101071 @gold-dragon-slayer @babypink224221 @wonderwoman292 @naaladareia @beyond-the-ashes @generic-fangirl @chinduda @laketaj24, @peaceisadirtyword, @ly–canthrope @cris101071 @daughterofthenight117 @unassumingviking @ladyofsoa, @inforapound @winchesterwife27 @feyrearcheron44@readsalot73 @squirrelacorngliterfarts @gold-dragon-slayer @medievalfangirl @sallydelys @bluearchersstuff @affectionrabbitt @whatamood13 @notyouraveragegirl17 @igetcarriedawaywithyou @unacceptabletatertots @ivarandersen @stra-vage @tgrrose @cookies186 @learninglemni-blog @theleeshanotlouise @soiproclaim @msmorganforever @fireangel1978

#ivar x reader #Ivar/Reader #ivar the boneless/reader #ivar imagines #Ivar the Boneless imagines #vikings imagine #ivar the boneless x reader #vikings imagines #vikings/reader

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minervacasterly · 4 years

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First Protestant King of England, Henry VIII or Edward VI? (And why Edward VI's reign was no less important than his father's)

It is important to dispell myths about the most popular English dynasty, so I decided to briefly take on this topic. A common misconception until recent decades is that Henry VIII was the first Protestant King. In reality, it was his son who was the first true Protestant King of England. I’ve written about this before on my blog, building upon the research by great scholars like Chris Skidmore, Loach, and the short introduction to his reign by Kyra Cornelius Kramer. Besides taking after his father in intellect, Edward VI was fairly concerned with the state of the church of England but unlike his old man, he thought that the time had come to make it into the first true Protestant church of England, agreeing to the issuing of the book of common prayer and a revision of it two years later. Edward VI also frowned upon improper clothing. He loved to dance and watch sports, but didn’t think t0 was a good idea to indulge in these frivolities since the Evangelicals believed that this was a gateway to moral decay. (Don’t you just love those who interpret the will of god so good, that they conveniently forget about the passages where their savior rails against the rich and so on?) Edward’s actions had consequences and these, like the contributions of his reign, are often brushed aside in favor of his more famous father and sisters. One of them, was a rebellion in the North and his half-sister’s resistance to his new laws that forbade people to hear the Mass and forced the new English service on everyone. Long story short … lots of people hung, punished and lots of enemies that his councilors (who as always since people couldn’t point fingers at the king unless they had a sick death wish of some sort) were blamed and were punished for during his half-sister’s reign. Some of you might be pointing out that since Henry VIII was excommunicated and labeled a heretic by most of Christendom, that technically he was a Protestant king but no, seriously, he wasn’t. Henry was, despite these labels, still a practicing Catholic. He agreed to Gardiner’s articles of faith that criticized the church and validated his claim as supreme head of the Anglican Church, and God’s representative on Earth, and surrounded himself by obvious Reformists, but other than that, he forcefully kept everyone in line. Catholics who practiced the Mass or adhered to his new rules while still being loyal to their beliefs were tolerated, but if they pulled a ‘Thomas More’ where they denied the king’s supremacy or insulted one of his beloved wives (before he got tired of them, that is) then yes, off to the block with them!

As for Protestants … Ever heard of Anne Askew? She defended Henry’s actions, she thought he was some kind of Moses as his last wife -Kathryn Parr whom she was closely associated with- would paint him as in her two books (primarily in ‘Lamentations of a Sinner’) and then she defied her husband and Henry’s establishment, pushing for a more Evangelist agenda, and what happened? Oh nothing big … she just got tortured and then burned. As long as you played Henry’s sycophant you were fine. There is also a spiritual aspect that ties into his megalomania. As Henry became more obsessed with securing his dynasty, his focus on spiritual matters also grew. By the end of his reign, nobody could predict what the king would say or how he would act so everyone walked a fine line when they discussed important subjects. Kathryn Parr is one of them who learned this lesson early on during their marriage. If it weren’t for gentleness, and the friendship she established among prominent ladies in her household, her accusers would’ve succeeded in convincing Henry VIII that she was a heretic. She would’ve had a sham trial like Anne Boleyn and then beheaded or worse, burned like Anne Aske. Luckily for Kathryn Parr, she was one step ahead of them. Humbling herself before her lord and husband, she told him that she never intended to change his religious views but just challenged him as people did at the beginning of his reign, so he could stir her towards the right path since she was a woman and these things were too complicated for her to fathom, let alone choose on her own. She lived and continued to be a major influence on future Protestant leaders, such as Jane Grey, Elizabeth I and of course, Edward VI.

Edward VI was greatly influenced by his beloved stepmother’s religiosity and mourned her deeply. He referred to her as his mother. Kathryn encouraged his passion for books and aided his Protestant tutors in stirring him towards their faith, ensuring that he’d become the king they’d all be waiting for, that would transform England into a fully Protestant nation.

It was Edward who began to force religious codes on his people in a way that hadn’t been done before. His father cracked on religious houses on the basis of cleansing them from corruption and because of their disloyalty, and open defiance against his supremacy; but Edward made things worse. The monasteries that were sold to his father’s noblemen left many people begging on the streets while forcing others to adapt to their new environment. When people could no longer handle it, they rose up in open rebellion and like in his father’s time, these were brutally squashed. But here is where it gets interesting … Whereas Henry VIII is blamed for all the evils of his reign, Edward VI is not and the reason for this? He was a kid, don’t be so mean. Leave the poor tot alone. Fact: Edward VI died at the age of fifteen and by renaissance standards, he was not a little boy anymore. Even if he hadn’t come of age, he was not an innocent boy anymore who was oblivious to the world around him. In fact. When Edward VI found out that his uncle had been executed, he was like ‘meh … okay’. And sure, Thomas Seymour was a brash individual who thought he could get away with everything but even after he tried to kidnap his nephew, to act in such a manner and for an uncle who was married to your favorite stepmother and someone you claimed to be your favorite relative, that’s pretty cold. But it gets better. After Edward VI finally got rid of his tedious uncle and his irritating set of rules, Edward wrote in his diary (showing no emotion at all) that the former lord Protector died and that was that. Getting rid of Edward Seymour probably made the little critter sigh in relief because out of all his uncles, the Lord Protector was the one who always reminded him of his duties and responsibilities, not to mention all those rules and not letting him be king! How unfair! And then there was also that issue about the rebellions. Edward VI saw these people as traitors and agreed with Northumberland that they should be dealt with immediately but his uncle didn’t think that was wise, which was why people called him the ‘good Duke’ because they saw him as a friend of the people. Now that he was out of the way, his kingdom would not have to suffer any more dissenting voices, nor any threats of isolation or future skirmishes with Scotland. Edward VI was fully committed to the Protestant cause but convinced by Northumberland, he realized that he would not go far if he did not have any allies. And the whole campaign in Scotland had gone awfully wrong and with Mary, Queen of Scots in France, the only way to neutralize that threat was making an alliance with that country, betrothing him to Henri II and Catherine de Medici’s daughter, Elizabeth Valois. Sadly, Edward VI did not live to marry her or do more for the Evangelicals. He died and before he did, he wrote a paper called “my device for the succession” which became the basis to disinherit his sisters in favor of their cousin, Jane Grey. That opened a can of worms that could have easily escalated into another civil war like the wars of the roses but thankfully for everyone involved it didn’t and his sister won her crown fair and square. But as with every Tudor, once her sister became Queen, she began to make good use of the propaganda machine to portray her sibling as a puppet of Northumberland and other evil lords who had corrupted him and turned him against her. Why was this done? Same reason why people who rebelled against their kings often pointed their fingers at their councilors -because doing so against an anointed king meant that they were upsetting the natural order. It was only in extreme cases, when someone had enough support and belonged to a different dynasty, that they would point it directly at them. Edward belonged to the same dynasty as Mary, and a dynasty divided was bad business for everyone, especially for the first Queen Regnant of England who had inherited a divided country.

Mary I also did something else and that was appropriating some of Edward VI’s religious achievements in an effort to make Catholicism appealing to those who were still unsure whether or not they wanted to return to the church or side with the various groups within the Protestant movement. Sections from the book of the common prayer were added to a new set of prayers in Latin and English, and adapted in a way that didn’t contradict church doctrine. During his reign, Edward encouraged many poets and artists to express themselves. These would reenact passages from the bible, or create allegorical paintings that depicted Edward as England’s messiah, and all those who followed him as true Christians as opposed to the decadent Catholics who were portrayed as heathens.

Edward’s religious reformation became the basis for Elizabeth I’s reign who continued with many of these reforms. Although she did not go as far as Edward or his chosen heiress, Jane Grey, would have liked. Elizabeth I was far more pragmatic, recognizing that if she wanted to rule over a divided country she had to maintain some of the older traditions or else, she’d risk losing everything she had. Unlike her siblings, Elizabeth I wasn’t thought of as legitimate by many of her Christian peers. Ideological purity was a luxury that she couldn’t afford and in any case, she did not want because many Evangelicals didn’t like the idea of the supremacy of kings (or queens). Nevertheless, Elizabeth I built her religious establishment upon her brother’s by issuing a new revision of the book of common prayer and encouraging artists and poets to create works that extolled the Anglican Church and the Tudor Dynasty.

#Edward VI #Henry VIII #English History #English Reformation #dailytudors

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lilytriestoexist · 4 years

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R0wan? More like Row(neck)beard

This is all @bleeding-star-heart ‘s fault (tumblr refuses to let me tag this one blog for some reason, sigh), they challenged me to do this and I can’t turn down a challenge. Alas, I have no art skills, but I am marginally better at writing, so here is my contribution to the great Uglification of YA Book Boyfriends/Bad Boys movement.

Warning, it gets a bit NSFW at one point because R0wan is ~horny~. It’s not explicit or anything, and since we’ve all read Sarah Janet’s atrocious sex scenes, I assume it won’t be a big deal, but in case it is, here’s a warning.

Rowan had a problem.

He bit his lip and glanced behind him, through the ajar door of their bedroom, where Aelin’s slim form was outlined by the rise and fall of glossy silk, the sheets brought up to her chin as she tipped her head back against the pillow, hair a golden halo around her. In sleep, the sharpness in her face seemed to ease, accentuating her youth. Gods, she was so young. And already she was set to change the world. It was the greatest honour in the world to be by her side as she did so.

Only...would he be by her side? Would he be there, watching as the gilded crown was set onto her hair, watching as she turned to face the adoring masses, watching as she fulfilled her destiny and ruled as queen? He eyed the mirror, running hasty hands through his white hair, tracing the smooth, hairless jut of his jaw. Eternity was a long time, far longer than any one person could truly comprehend. And people had a tendency to grow, to change. He couldn’t guarantee that he and Aelin would change together. He couldn’t rule out the possibility of one day waking up and realising he no longer recognised the female laying beside him.

Ideas crowded his mind, ways to keep Aelin alert, to keep her wanting him and to keep him wanting her. He considered shifting his body parts, perhaps acquiring Fenrys’s hair or Dorian’s eyes or Lorcan’s physique, but dismissed that thought almost immediately, a shudder running up his spine. Tapping his foot against the cool bathroom floor, he stared into the eyes of his mirrored self. His hand drifted up to trace the words and symbols inked across one half of his face, a habit he had embraced as the years had flown by. It was calming, to let the quick instinct in his fingers take over, letting his brain rest. They slowly traveled downwards, framing the outline of his throat, the protruding lump, the cords of his neck.

And suddenly, he had a thought.

He examined the smooth, tan expanse of his neck, pressing his palms against the warm curve, pinching and pulling his skin. He’d cut his hair short before, shedding long white locks in favour of a shorter, more low maintenance haircut, but he had no idea of knowing if that would hold Aelin’s favour for any longer. What if she didn’t even like short hair? Rowan worried at his full bottom lip and, before he could overthink and hesitate any longer, ran a single index finger up his neck, from the tip of his sharp collarbones to the centre of his chin, and willed his magic to follow his unspoken command.

It was instantaneous, the growth of hair, following the path his finger had laid out for it. White strands began blooming from beneath his skin, shooting upwards to about an inch long before halting. He swept his finger from side to side, expanding the single line of hair, until it was a thick, healthy bush of white, encompassing the entirety of his neck. When he pressed his hand into the beard, it was a strange, fluffy sensation, but it filled him with inexplicable warmth. The corners of his lips stretched upwards as he surveyed the finished look, admiring the beard that now swallowed his neck and was beginning to creep up over his jaw.

Aelin can’t possibly say no to this, he thought, striking a few poses and positively grinning with pride at his new feature. His whole body was tingling with anticipation as he walked back to their bedroom, a bounce in his step as he bent over and gently shook Aelin awake. With any luck, they’d be entwined beneath the sheets within minutes, and he swallowed as images filled his head of the wonders his neckbeard could do when his mouth devoured her, what kind of pleasure it could bring his mate when he buried himself inside her.

“Aelin,” he whispered as her lips began to part. “Aelin, wake up.” His fingers trembled with excitement as he used his free hand to stroke the neat bush of his beard.

“Rowan?” she asked, arms coming up to stretch out the fatigue as a yawn escaped her lips. Her eyes opened, and he smiled as she took in the change.

The smile dropped from his lips when she let out an ear-splitting scream.

“Aelin!” he yelped as she practically flung herself out of bed and to the other side of the room. “What are you doing? What’s gotten into you?”

“What’s gotten into me?!” she screeched, pointing a single shaking finger at his exquisite, beautiful neckbeard. “Rowan, what in the name of the Gods has gotten into you?”

“This is my neckbeard!” he snapped, affronted. “Are you implying something, oh great Queen of Terrasen?”

“I’m not implying something, I’m stating it outright,” she shot back. “That neckbeard is the most gruesome and atrocious thing I’ve ever had the misfortune of seeing. I wish Maeve were here to gouge out my eyes so that I would at least not have to continue seeing that monstrosity on your neck. I would not mind if Erawan came and obliterated you into smithereens, because at least your Gods-awful neckbeard would be removed from this forsaken world.”

Rowan flinched with every harsh insult Aelin hurled at him. “It’s not that bad,” he protested, hugging his arms around his chest and dipping his chin, nestling it in the comforting cushion of his neckbeard. “You don’t have to be so mean about it, anyway. A simple ‘I don’t like it’ would have sufficed.”

“I don’t like it doesn’t even begin to describe my feelings about that...thing,” Aelin deadpanned. Her hand came up, fingers curling, and a flame bloomed from the pale skin of her palm. “Rowan, this is for your own good.”

And then she threw it.

On instinct, his hands flew up and the air in the room jumped to his aid, swirling into currents of manipulated wind in front of him and extinguishing the fire his mate had just thrown at him. The brief flash of overpowering heat in his face told him just how close it had been, and he stroked his neckbeard, reassuring himself of its survival.

“I...you just threw fire at me.” Fear, anger, hurt, and a myriad of other emotions warred in his voice.

“It’s like I said,” Aelin replied, shoulders rising in a shrug. “It’s for your own good.”

He shook his head and took her in, the long hair tumbling down her back and front in loose golden waves, the smug upwards tilt of her chin, the eyes he had loved so much staring back at him without a hint of remorse. She had tried to burn his neckbeard, his most valued asset and prized possession, had tried to incinerate it, and did not care in the slightest.

Rowan had always feared a gradual deterioration of their relationship. Hadn’t he said not so long ago that one day he might wake up and not recognise the female next to him? It just hadn’t occurred to him that the day he had been dreading might come quicker than he’d expected. He looked at Aelin, his mate, his wife, and saw nothing he could love.

“No,” he said, and Aelin’s eyes narrowed.

“No, what?” There was a sharp, low note of warning in her voice.

“It’s not for my own good,” Rowan said, burying his fingers in his neckbeard. “You’re not for my own good, Aelin.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “You’re just tired, Rowan,” she said, easy smile gracing her lips. “Come back to bed. We’ll sort it all out later in the day. And we can do other things as well, after that.” Aelin smoothed down the skirt of her short nightgown and winked.

Usually, that would’ve sent him diving straight into bed. But now, he looked at her slim waist, long legs, and suggestive smirk, and felt only the faintest stirrings of what used to be a wildfire.

“You’re not good for me, Aelin,” he repeated.

Her eyes darkened. “Come back to bed, Rowan,” she said, kindness draining from her voice and replaced with pure steel. He shook his head, and she sighed. “Remember, I love you. I’m doing this for you.” Her hands began to rise, flames beginning to pour from her palms.

“I’m doing this for me, too.” A single, massive gust of wind shattered the yellow-stained glass of their window and he dove for the opening, avoiding the fireball blazing in his direction and shifting into his hawk form. In a piece of glass, he could see thick white fluff underneath his beak, and found solace in the fact that his beloved neckbeard was with him wherever he chose to go.

“Rowan Whitethorn, get back here this instant!” Aelin shouted, and he could feel the approaching warmth behind him. Rowan served to the side, wings outstretched. He could feel the coolness of the air caressing his feathers.

Aelin continued yelling, but her voice grew fainter and fainter as he soared into the distance. He had no idea where he was going, where he could even go, but all he cared about was putting distance between himself and the woman who he’d risked his life for, given his heart to, wanted to swear his existence to. What a fool he had been, to love such a person.

He flew, and then he ran, and he did not look back. And when he faltered, when he stared at his shaking hands and dared to consider returning, he only needed to find a mirror and stare at the thriving forest of hair beneath his chin. His faithful neckbeard, who gave him strength, who showed him nothing but love and loyalty.

And against all odds, Rowan Whitethorn and his neckbeard lived happily ever after.

#anti rowan #anti rowan whitethorn #rowan with a neckbeard #rowan whitethorn with a neckbeard #um...idk man

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sometimeswritingsometimesdying · 4 years

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dreaming in gold

aka the one where i vent furiously through my favorite character

a/n: i wrote this after receiving some ~bad news~, and lately i’ve been having a weird relationship with religion, so enjoy? also, i know my experience with religion is not the one everyone has so just know this portrays religion (christianity, more specifically) in a morally-grey/good way since it’s been taken from my own personal experience. Also @ people who know me irl and follow this blog: i told u u didn’t want to see me post my fics. i TOLD u

warnings: death of a parent, implied homophobia (sorta), implied alcohol/drug abuse, lots of religion and religious imagery, illness mentions, blood mention, this is set in what i imagine is the late 80s but idk really u chose

pairing: moceit

wc: 1.8 k

Summary: patton looks for closure and he isn’t sure why

ao3

also thank u @pheonix-inside for beta reading this for me :)

He stood there, in front of the doors, hands jammed into the pockets of his coat and nose scrunched up. It was the middle of january, and the streets were mellow and sad, with few people roaming around them, a sharp, cutting wind accompanying them with each step.

And there, in front of the large, wooden doors, at seven pm tight, stood Patton A. Moore. He Didn't even know why he was doing this. He didn’t have to do this. But he’d gone out for an evening walk, as he’d taken up to doing, and his eyes had fallen on the local church’s doors.

He wasn’t a religious man. Maybe he had been, as a kid, when all it took in his head to talk to Him was a simple “hey, god?”, but he’d given up faith a long time ago, when life got hectic and his mind was clouded.

No, Patton Moore was not a religious man.

He didn’t question it, didn’t question his motive, didn’t question the reason he had felt a draw towards the doors. He was going to walk away and not think twice about it.

“Are you here for mass?” he turned his head to his left, finding a priest opening one of the side doors with a warming smile. “It was over about twenty minutes ago but i’m sure you’ll find what you need anyway.”

Patton looked at the man in silence, about to refuse his offer, but he was shivering slightly out there, and there was a warm lighting coming from inside that door, and beyond whatever reasoning he could give himself- he nodded and thanked Father and walked straight in.

The church was, as most churches he remembered, rather grand. The marble and the gold and the paintings- the statues and the candles and the organ- it all pulled together a rather magnificent scene.

Above it all, the smell hit him most. The old smell of dust and benches and perfume that reminded him of the many afternoons spent with his father, sitting in the very front row of those seats. The light from the streetlamps filtered in through the glass mosaics, casting colorful shadows across the floors.

It was inviting. Loving, almost.

He took a seat in the second to last row, close enough to the doors for a light and chilly wind to nip at his scalp. It seemed to be reminding him of how much he wasn’t meant to be here.

He tapped his feet nervously, staring at the cross that hung in the apses of the church. It was weird. Everything was too familiar and yet too estranged and out of touch for him to understand. He was feeling, feeling something akin to devotion, perhaps. Was this what people described as devotion? A feeling of grandeur and confusion upon such a place? Upon such a scene?

What was there to be devout about when the candles people had so dearly lit up would only be burnt out by the end of the night? Perhaps everything, perhaps nothing. He didn’t know, but then again he hadn’t known as a kid, and perhaps that’s when we learn most about feelings like these.

Soft steps caught his attention as the same priest that had opened the door for him walked down the aisle to his particular row of seats. The man stared at him as he stared at his feet.

“What is it exactly that you’re here for?” Patton shrugged, playing with his wedding ring. It hadn’t been a legal wedding, perhaps. It was, after all, illegal still, but to him it had felt just about real enough. Enough for them, at least. He heard the sliding of Father’s robe as the man slid onto the bench.

“Are you a religious man, son?” Patton blinked. No, he wasn’t. But he was here, wasn’t he? He didn’t own a rosary, but did he believe in god?

Well why else would everything happen? Fate? No, no, not fate, not destiny. Love then-

He shrugged. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Father nodded thoughtfully.

“What about your father?” Patton raised an eyebrow, hoping not to be noticed. “You can tell a lot about a person when you know their father.” Father said, evidently noticing Patton’s skepticism. “Was your father a devout man?”

“He was-” Patton paused, playing with the ring on his finger. “He was, but he was a sinner too.” he stopped and chuckled, rubbing the bridge of his nose. What’s he doing? He’s a thirty year old man sitting in an empty church for the first time in a decade. He wasn’t meant to be here.

And yet.

“He drank. He smoked. All the usual sins, still came to mass.” he tilted his head. “You know?”

Father just looked ahead. He nodded and smiled. “I expect you followed in his footsteps?”

Patton observed him, nervously playing with the golden band on his ring finger. “Yes and no. I didn’t turn out particularly devout-”

“Yet you’re here,” Paton sighed and nodded, moving around in his seat.

“And yet i’m here.” Father tilted his head. “I don’t know- I don’t know why i’m here. Why am I here?” he asked, more to himself and the room than anyone, or anything else.

Father took a while to answer, but the air was just about warming up Patton’s hands and Patton thought nothing of it.

“Sometimes we wander into places asking for answers to questions we don’t know-” the man paused. “That we don’t know we even need to ask.”

They fell into silence after that. The good meter and a half that divided them seemed to only become more and more unrecoverable as time progressed, and as moments turned to seconds and as seconds turned to minutes.

The silence was deafening. It was all too reminiscent of a hospital room and Patton’s hands were getting cold again.

“You- you talk to god, correct?” he asked, through a trembling voice and a whisper.

Father turned to look at him, posture ever so inclined. “In short, yes, but it’s not-”

“Just- tell me one thing,” Patton said, faulting on his usually so polite manners. “Why him?” he took a shuddering breath. “Why him of all people? Why him? And why now of all times?” he chewed on his lip and shrugged, helpless. “Does god have an answer to that? He makes all of this happen,” he paused, looking down at his hands, lying limp in his lap. “doesn’t He?”

He heard no response, he heard no response for a long, long time.

“When did it happen?” A short humorless chuckle escaped him.

“So there is no answer?” No response. He looked up at the ceiling, observing the alfresco that popped out between golden arcs. “This morning. My brother called me.” he shrugged and smiled a sour, bitter smile. “My father he- started feeling ill and coughing up blood and-” he felt his eyes start to water and he could feel his cheeks reddening. “and they- they called an ambulance but there wasn’t much they could do and- and i wasn’t there.”

He shook his head as he felt a tear roll down his face. He wiped at his eyes with his sleeves until Father handed him a handkerchief. He took it, albeit rather reluctantly and held it in his hands, playing with the edge of it. It had him focusing on something, as he tugged on the string and folded and unfolded the piece of cloth.

“I wasn’t there.” he raised his hand to gesticulate and then let it fall. “I wasn’t there. My brother was. I wasn’t.” he shrugged, his voice slowly turning back to normal from the small whisper it had fallen into. “I told him to go to hell eight years ago, and I never looked back. I never spoke to him again.” he took up a sudden interest in the footrest on the bench in front of him, as he avoided eye contact with the only other person in the room. “Sort of ironic that now I'm here of all places, huh?” Patton paused for a moment, took a deep breath. He raised his eyes and looked around him- at the statues and the crosses and the alfrescos and the rows upon rows of empty seats. It was familiar. Old and familiar and all too loving.

Father stared ahead, a conflicted expression on his face.

“You asked me why He would let this happen,” he said, all at once. Patton nodded, although he wasn’t being asked anything. “You asked me why He would let this happen and, in complete honesty, the answer is a rather morbid one.” he paused. “If there is an answer at all, that is.”

“Well then,” Patton smiled tight lipped. “Enlighten me?”

“Perhaps it’s what you needed and He was simply helping you through it,” Patton was about to open his mouth to protest, but Father held up his hand in a stopping motion. “What i mean, is that you’re here now, aren’t you? In a way, you’ve reconnected with your father.” Patton pulled his coat tighter around himself, although his hands were warm. He supposes that he did. Maybe. He wasn’t so sure, but, then again, he wasn’t sure about anything right then and there.

And they shared a silence, then. A silence that was filled with the smell of perfume and benches and old scrolls and a golden lighting that found its way in from outside and the texture of the dark wooden seats. Father smiled at him, that weird, familiar smile that felt all too loving to show to a man like him. The bells rung out.

Eight pm.

He heard a soft “Patton” when he closed the door behind him. It took him longer than normal to take off his coat and his scarf, feeling Janus’s eyes on him as he worked through the motions. He'd always done them in a breeze but lately they felt so heavy.

He turned around, his eyes landing on his husband leaning in the doorway, in all his pajama-pants-and-t-shirt glory. He wasn’t smiling, not a sympathetic or a ‘everything-will-be-alright!’ smile either. He was frowning, the deep kind of frown that made lines appear on his face and his eyes darker.

Patton walked up to him and kissed his cheek. They stood there for a few minutes more, Janus stroking his hand and Patton intently staring at his shoes.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, making Janus snort and shake his head.

“I should be asking you that,” he said, interlocking their fingers. Patton half-smiled at him.

“I’m-I’m,” Patton paused. “I’m something. I went to church,” he added hastily. Janus tilted his head.

“And did that help?” Patton smiled, shaking his head.

He walked past Janus, slipping his other hand into his husband’s and heading to the bedroom. “Let’s just get some sleep.”

He dreamed about something golden.

#sanders sides #ts fic #patton sanders #janus sanders #moceit #does the Father dude count as an oc? idk #hmdfaksfhdaslk there's more of an explanation in the notes on ao3 if u want to but yea #i'm good now dw #death tw #religion tw #blood mention tw #illness tw #hmmmm enjoy yall!!!! and don't give me pity please i really am alright #N writes

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living-in-the-state-of-dreaming · 4 years

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Mary Saotome Dating headcannons? I'm gonna be honest, i've never seen any headcannon about her and i'm just curious 'bout what u write xD

Unfortunately all the Kakegurui characters don’t have much content in terms of head cannon's and scenarios. x_x I w a s going to send the link to this other blog that does or did really good Kakegurui content but it seems that they’ve cleared out their blog. x_x

Also, I know I may very well sound like a broken record with this, but I. Am. Very. V e r y. Sorry x_x My inspiration to write has been all over the place, but I’m trying to get back on track.

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Dating Mary Saotome: Headcanons.

There’s no beating around the bush here. Given that Mary is the Tsundere of Kakegurui, it is extremely unlikely that she will be the first to confess to you, as we all know, she wears that poker face well, and this is no exception.

True to her Tsundere demeanor when it comes to romance, it will be entirely up to you to confess to her, as it will take something big to happen for Mary to confess to you; it will also be up to you to notice the reactions that she will give and that goes from you giving her a compliment, are sweet and kind to her, or if you give her a hug or hold her hand. Her initial reaction will be to brush it off, but due to how flustered you have now made her, it will make it very difficult for her, and very noticeable for you.

In fact, if you hold her hand in public on purpose, she will likely begin to protest against it, but the blush on her cheeks and how she will be unable to meet your gaze will prove that she doesn’t dislike it as much as she claims.

While Mary will not openly admit to enjoying spending all this time with you like this, the fact she won’t refuse it either will bring it to light in sense, as well as how she is far more open and herself with you, then she is with others; instead of relying on that honeycomb sweet facade.

As aloof as she may appear to others, that is not the case with you at all and the way she does not wear this facade around you will give away how much she trusts you; but the thing that will give it away the most, is not only the genuine sweetness and kindness that she will show to you, how she will be there for you if you need her, or the genuine and soft smiles that she will give you; how protective she will slowly begin to become over you will be the most prominent thing.

Before you both had even begun dating, she had made it clear that no one was allowed to pick on you but her and that fact is still valid, but you know she doesn’t mean any harm with her teasing. If someone challenges you to a gamble her reactions can go two different ways. If you are a skilled gambler, then she will trust in your skill and have faith in you, while watching the gamble from the sidelines while knowing that you have this handled if the challenger’s gambling skill is average at best.

However, if it’s against a highly skilled gambler like one of the Student Council members, the Momobami clan, herself, or the Student Council, then if she can she will suggest playing a game that uses team players and if that is not possible, she will do everything in her power, while asking Yumeko, Ryota, and Itsuki, to help you prepare. Of course, she will try to convince you to change your mind about this gamble if she believes that you are way over your head with accepting the challenge-- she doesn’t want you becoming a house pet and going through the same hell that she went through if you lose and go into debt after all-- but if you are truly set on doing this; she’ll still be entirely against her it; she’ll completely understand and make sure that she does all she can for you to ensure you win.

She understands your resolve and determination after all, as well as your courage to not back down even if the odds are not with you and it’s one of the things that she admires about you. Your drive mixes with her own, pushing hers on like a match and it only makes her that much more determined to see you attain victory in this gamble.

In terms of dates and places you both will go on dates, Mary is a young woman who has elegant tastes, as well as quite the sweet tooth; something that you had quickly taken notice of when you had seen what she had been eating as a snack while you both had been enjoying each other's company. With you being the one more honest about your enjoyment of her company.

You both were at one of the cafe’s that she had suggested you go, and one that she also seemed to hold in high regard; you had just got done with the cake slices that you both ordered when you noticed a little bit of cake at the corner of her lips. Having been about to wipe it off herself with the napkin that she had been given with her slice of cake, the blonde had just been seconds away from wiping it off. That is until you told her to wait for a light smile, while gently grabbing her hand that was holding the napkin.

Naturally, this caused her to look at you confused “ What? I was just wiping it off. “ “ I know, but...Just let me do it instead okay? “ “ Huh? What are you talking- “ noticing you lean a little closer to her, your face suddenly being very close to her own, a faint pink instantly comes to her cheeks, but when you’re finger gently wipes off the small dab of icing and cake, only for it to briefly pass through your lips as you licked off the dab only to give a brief lick of your lips at the flavor had her cheeks turning. Scarlet. “ W-What the hell is wrong with you?? W-We’re in public, you know! A-And who gives you the right to do something like that anyway? “ “ Well, we are dating, aren’t we? “

For just a moment, at how blunt your question comes across, her eyes will widen for a brief moment, before shyly averting to the side moments before she gives a “ Well I...I guess so. “

If you let her, Mary will spoil you rotten and the cake and other things that she will happily shout you; at the cafes and such that you both will go to is just one of the things that she will spoil you with. Not too obnoxious degrees of course, but in ways that will prove her affection towards you, since she knows for a fact that she is not the best at expressing hers when it comes to you; however if you insist on paying she’ll let you while secretly appreciating the sweet gesture of you.

If it’s your birthday or a special day like Valentines Day, don’t be surprised if you find one of two presents in your locker, inside both of the presents will be either one of these A) Something you mentioned that you’d been wanting for a while; or B) that she noticed you eyeing up while you both had been out shopping. For Valentine's, a bag full of chocolate-related things that she knows you like and chances are she would’ve likely bought them from the cafe that you had liked the best. She tried to make you something once and it went so bad that it still embarrasses her every time you tease her about it, but you didn’t mind, you were just touched that she would go so far as to try.

Aside from the cafe’s though, Mary will never admit this out loud to you, but she does enjoy spending time at your house with you, or you at hers, watching a movie, even if it’s one that she’s already seen, or a show that you both like, while your arm rests around her, or her waist. However, her favorite days or nights with you are when you both play a card game like Go Fish or Snap; while making ridiculous bets and dares as ‘ punishments’ if the other loses after the best of three. The dares and punishments being so silly and funny that they’ve made both you and Mary laugh so many times; before pictures and recordings that only the two of you will see are saved onto both of your phones as prized memories.

Do not believe her lies. When everything finally winds down and you both are worn out and ready to sleep; take the initiative and cuddle her, she may blush but a smile, though light, will come to her cheeks while she lets her softer and vulnerable side show more before letting herself and her head rest against you.

#kakegurui #mary saotome #headcannons #Fluffyness #I'm ALIVE! x_x #Mary Saotome x Reader #gender netural reader #Non Yandere

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