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chvrrycola · 3 months

Text

NCT AS CLASSMATES

word count | 4.3k

warnings | food mentions in johnny, doyoung, jaehyun, xiaojun's

now playing . . . marigold by aimyon

AN // this is only ot20 because i still know nothing about nct wish, and apologies if they're similar 20 is still a lot to write 😭

nct masterlist

ᡣ𐭩 moon taeil

i think taeil would have had a somewhat turbulent experience with school when he was younger

but honestly now that he was able to study what he wanted and sit with who he wanted it was different

like he’d really love school and the relative freedom he had now

it’s just a shame that school didn’t love him so much

he’s not a bad student by any means

he’d be really driven and would know when to put his head down and just try and get through all the practise problems he’d been given

but then he’d compare them to the mark scheme and realise that he had only gotten 2 out of the 20 he had spent the afternoon on

so he decided to get some help

and he goes to his trusty best friend (you) for a hand

unfortunately you’re in the same boat

and had been just about to pick up the phone and call him when you got his text

but it turns out that the 3 you got were different from the 2 he got right

so you start with that

him explaining his answers and you talking him through yours

and a few epiphanies start to come here and there

and in the end you’re leaving the library with a total of 7 correct answers between you and the promise of meeting back there tomorrow

determined to reach double digits at the very least

ᡣ𐭩 johnny suh

yknow those people who are just the best for stressful situations

yeah johnny is one of them

like he’s always super calm and level-headed whenever you’re going mad about deadlines and midterms and whatever other drama is happening on campus

but he never allows himself to make it seem like you’re overreacting

he makes it very clear that he is, in fact, underreacting

and then reminds you that you know what you’re doing and you’re def gonna ace whatever test you’ve got that day

offering to do whatever he can to ease your workload

from ordering you coffee to your apartment

to quizzing you on your content

to picking up your laundry from the cleaners because your todo list is a mile long

and even though he’s pretty popular and sociable in general

he’d always make the time to help you out if you needed it

despite the fact that his calming energy is in high demand during exam season

he can just fit everybody else around your schedule

cos you’re his no.1 priority <3

ᡣ𐭩 lee taeyong

taeyong is

without a doubt

the best seat mate you could ever ask for

and classmate in general

or just friend in general let’s be real

especially for classes you don’t like or ones where the teacher is really frustrating

like he would be getting up extra early to buy your coffee from the place you like on the other side of town just to bring it to you

and giving you updates on all his fish whenever the lecture got boring

and studying with you whenever and wherever

(plus letting you fall asleep on his shoulder when you eventually got on the bus back home)

and no matter how many times you asked him how you could repay him he would always just brush it off

saying that making you smile was enough to get him through the hours upon hours of required classes

but your friendship is pretty symbiotic

like you guys always split your topics so you can do practise essays and study guides individually and then share them

and you’re always the first pair to finish every single shared project because you just fit right into each other’s lives like clockwork

ᡣ𐭩 nakamoto yuta

he’d be so popular, everybody knows him

cos he’s just friendly and helpful and flirty with everybody

like you two would be walking down the corridor and he’d see one of your professors struggling to open the door to her office with all her files in hand

so he’d rush over, insisting on taking the files in and putting them down on her desk

and you could’ve sworn you saw him winking as he was telling her that there was no need to thank him

it wasn’t like he was tryna chat her up though

he was just like that with everybody

but it meant a lot of people (your own age) had the fattest crushes on him

and it wasn’t like he was hiding from them either

you’d see him on the football pitches as you were walking to class each morning

always with a small crowd of adoring fans trying to hide that they were watching him warm up

even though they’d all start whispering any time he ran over to the path as he saw you passing

taking your hand to squeeze it as he wished you a good day

he never realised what he was doing though

or how many people were watching

he’d definitely enjoy it once you pointed it out to him though

starting to stroke your hair or kiss you on the cheek

not knowing whose reaction he savoured more

whether it was the gasps of the girls hiding their faces in their books

or your scoffing and spluttering as he pulled you into another sweaty hug

ᡣ𐭩 qian kun

v intimidating at first

i mean he had such a studious aura and he seemed to smart and no-nonsense

so when your friend beckoned you over to sit next to her

in a seat that also happened to be right next to kun

you were very nervous that he’d secretly be getting really sick of your whispers

but you didn’t get so much as a side eye

in fact, when you were talking to your friend about whether she got the last point on the slide

he tapped you on the shoulder, apologising for intruding as he showed you his notes

and omg was it helpful knowing you could rely on him whenever

cos he was actually really nice and generous and had absolutely no problem with giving you and your friend a hand

so naturally you guys start sitting together more often

and then he starts spending evenings with you guys as well

which nobody has a problem with cos he’s a really good cook too ??

and it practically becomes ritual for everybody to gather in your tiny apartment on a friday for a huge debrief

and kun always sits down on your left

just like he was when you first met :)

ᡣ𐭩 kim doyoung

takes a while for you to get to know him cos he mainly hangs out with the same people

but then after a while a mutual friend mentions that doyoung is like really good at the class you’ve been bombing

so you ask him to pass your number on and try to see if he’d be okay with helping you out

and then you meet up with him in a cafe one weekend and he’s like super nice? and funny??

and also really chill about helping you like doesn’t even ask for anything in return

but when you recommend you meet up in a cafe once a week which you’ll pay for he’s not gonna say no

the first time he does ask for the most expensive thing on the menu

which wasn’t even nice and you could see he was grimacing after every sip

so he abandons that joke immediately and just sticks with the simple stuff

meanwhile you’re grades are soaring

like never been this high in your life, what is this sorcery kinda thing

and then at the end of the semester you’re picking your next classes and you text him

and find out you won’t be doing any of the same ones?? :(

but he tells you you should still text him anytime

and he’d be happy to take you to a cafe one time when you can order the most extravagant thing they have to offer

ᡣ𐭩 ten lee

always passing notes

like just constantly writes little messages and distributes them to half the people in your class

cos he’s just naturally everybody’s best friend from day one somehow

but he always thinks he’s super smooth with it and the teachers have no idea

which they do but they let him off cos he gets the work done

what they don’t know is that it’s really you who’s getting the work done

and his only contribution is the early mornings when he arrives in the library to find you waiting at the table you always sit at

your notebook already open to the homework that he had a week to complete but still slipped his mind

and he puts his head down and expertly rewords all of your carefully thought out answers

you know you probably shouldn’t help him cheat but how can you say no to him

and he promises he’ll start working on the next assignment as soon as it’s given

ᡣ𐭩 jung jaehyun

okay so maybe you had been a little bit obsessed with jaehyun since your first class with him

cos he sat next to you and was all smiley and friendly from the get go

and you spent the entire lecture trying to think of something witty to say that would win him over

and he’d go ‘hahaha y/n you’re the best we should get married’

or something like that at least

even though you hadn’t even told him your name yet

and you also couldn’t pluck up the courage to say anything before the lecture was over

and then next thing you knew he was getting up from his seat :”(

but then it came to your attention that he needed a biology tutor

which could’ve been more convenient since you barely knew anything about biology

but you were willing to put in the hours

cramming before you were supposed to be talking him through concepts

he didn’t seem entirely convinced by your credentials

but he did think it was cute of you

and he suggested that maybe the next time you meet up you do so over a coffee rather than over a diagram of a dead frog

ᡣ𐭩 dong sicheng

your biggest hype man for real

buys you cakes and presents whenever you do a test, no matter whether your results were good or bad

cos you got through it and that’s what matters

loves sitting next to you in class

mostly so that he can give you a high five each time you make a contribution

and play pictionary with you when your lecture gets boring

he’s good at pictionary though so it works

but then you have to both try to not get too excited when you get the answer because you don’t want to attract attention

he also takes your movie nights extremely seriously

if he turns up at your house on a friday night and you’ve still got your study stuff out

there’s genuinely quite a high risk that he’s gonna throw them in the trash

movie nights are a sacred time to relax and forget about your academic woes

even now that you’ve watched everything on netflix that’s even remotely good and your stuck on predictable thrillers and nauseating romcoms

they all seem alright when you have sicheng’s head resting on your shoulder anyway

ᡣ𐭩 kim jungwoo

not the most focused in class let’s say

don’t get me wrong he always understands everything and is completely up to date even with the optional readings and stuff that nobody else ever bothers with

but in class he just has better things to do

it’s probably something to do with the fact that the two of you live on opposite sides of the campus and don’t get to hang out that much

but from the second you walk in the lecture theatre jungwoo is dragging you to the back of the hall, gossip already tumbling from his lips

like he will not stop

you never figure out where he gets all his intel, or how he remembers the names of all the people who are involved in these stories

cos every time he tells you you always end up getting the sister of the girlfriend and the ex of the boyfriend’s best friend’s brother mixed up

but he patiently goes back to the beginning and establishes who will become central characters in these soap-style stories

because he insists this is all absolutely need-to-know stuff

after a while you tell him that you’re gonna have to start studying together because how does he always get As while you’re scraping Cs because you can never pay attention in class

but those study sessions always just end up descending into incessant gossip too

but at least he can now explain it all to you when you’re not in class, so you finally get the chance to actually listen to your professors

ᡣ𐭩 mark lee

you never thought that sitting with mark would bother you

you guys had been friends since your first week

if anything it was more surprising that you had gone that long without having sat next to him before

and he was pretty much an ideal seatmate

except for his incessant habit of asking questions about every slide

whispering them all to you under his breath as if you have any idea why mint makes your mouth cold

or whether flies get annoyed by the sound of their own buzzing

occasionally he catches your teacher’s attention and she asks him to share what was so important with that class

which leads to him sheepishly announcing that he was just curious about whether pythagoras was married

which he obviously struggles to live down

especially after one of your classmates ((haechan)) suggested this curiosity was somehow related to his own unrequited love for a certain ancient greek mathematician

and even though you knew it was mean,, you sorta hoped the embarrassment would encourage him to keep his questions to himself

but apparently nothing could keep him from asking his burning question about whether bats have the capacity to love

ᡣ𐭩 xiaojun

xiaojun is the best for the classes you have together

but he’s honestly even better when you don’t have the same schedule

because it allows him to spend the hour running around campus putting together a nice lunch for you so you don’t forget to eat

you obviously try to do as much as you can for him as well

both because you want to make his college experience as easy as possible too

but also because you’re determined to never let him feel unappreciated

cos he always just goes so out of his way to keep you happy and stress-free

(or as much as is within his power)

like he literally just exists a step ahead of you

he took a photo of your timetable the day you got it

so now he knows when you need to wake up each day

and he calls you whenever it gets to 8:50 and you still haven’t texted him

which you never thank him for in the moment but you rly appreciate in the long run ofc

he also checks the exam schedules for both his classes and yours

which he doesn’t tell you about

and you only learn he had done it when you see him waiting outside the exam hall before one of your finals

even though it’s 9am

and it’s december

you can literally see his breath as he waves at you from the bench where he had been waiting for god knows how long

ᡣ𐭩 hendery

your friends all initially offered you their sympathy when your teacher told you to go and sit next to hendery

not because he was mean or had a bad reputation or anything

but he was quiet

like doesn’t say a word in lessons, even when you’re told to discuss concepts

and you were grateful for their consideration

because even in that one hour long lesson you had felt the silence thick between you

it didn’t take you too long to get used to it, and you felt yourself adapting to a more solitary learning style, which was no bad thing

but then one day, you’re just sitting trying not to zone out as you get talked through the same exact topic you’ve all understood for weeks

and you hear shuffling beside you as hendery leans over, before quietly saying ‘someone call the explanation police, this guy’s a shoo-in for their new recruit’

safe to say you’re pretty shocked

unsure whether you should lead with your shock at his finally speaking to you after weeks of silence

or with a critique of that awful ‘joke’

so you just stare at him silently, watching as he starts trying to suppress a chuckle

‘okay maybe that wasn’t the best way to break the ice, but y’know, always good to set the bar low’

you didn’t mean to embarrass him, and as he started turning away to look back at his notes, you decided to show a little solidarity

‘someone call the joke police, cos you are one’

he stopped awkwardly avoiding your gaze then, but the second your eyes met you both had to look away to stop yourselves from laughing out loud

ᡣ𐭩 huang renjun

it was always impossible to miss renjun coming into the room

because it always disrupted your classes

your professor would have just gotten started with the lecture

and then the door would burst open unceremoniously

with renjun standing panting behind it

everybody knew he wasn’t doing it to cause trouble

and the closer you guys got the more surprised you were by his lack of punctuality

because he was always so on it with everything else

he was basically always the first in your class to submit assignments

and everything from the way he folded his clothes to his love of minimalist architecture gave the impression that he was distinctly on his shit

but for whatever reason he was just allergic to getting to class on time

to be honest though,,

you wouldn’t be mad at your teachers if they had been hoping he wouldn’t show up

cos it would’ve made their jobs a lot easier

renjun was not the type to allow any new ideas to enter his brain unquestioned

and he’d be sat next to you

quietly tutting and shaking his head as he took notes

forcing you to hold in your laughter as he murmured to himself

‘i just don’t know if i buy it’

ᡣ𐭩 lee jeno

you first sat down next to jeno on your first day cos he looked kinda smart

i mean he was wearing glasses and everybody knows glasses = smart no ??

so you assumed you could maybe get off a little easy with how much you had to do

but that plan failed

miserably

first of all,, it seems that glasses do not give you any real upper hand in terms of smarts

and you and jeno were basically flying blind together throughout all your lectures

also, speaking of blind

jeno also had the amazing ability of forgetting his glasses almost every. single. day.

so not only did you not understand anything

you had to spend all your time leant over towards him, reading out everything written on each slide

everything your lecturers wrote up onto the blackboard

he always felt pretty guilty about it

but apparently never enough to put in the extra effort to actually remember to bring his glasses to class

ᡣ𐭩 lee donghyuck

textbook class clown (!!)

like this man is always looking for a punchline

and he wants everyone to know he’s told a joke whenever he does

so he’s like looking around the room trying to see if anyone heard and is laughing

but then he assumes it was too quiet cos everyone’s just focused on the class?

so he keeps delivering oneliners that make less and less sense and are just getting louder

because isn’t it so crazy that nobody can hear him??

and the people in the seats around him are all just trying to hold their laughter because this is like a performance at this point

and of course you’re the first one to crack

but you think you should’ve allowed yourself to laugh sooner because he looks so happy when you finally do

and he decides then and there that you guys are gonna be besties now

which you didn’t realise was the deal but no complaints

ᡣ𐭩 na jaemin

you were pleased when jaemin came and sat down next to you in your first lecture of the new school year

you had had a few classes with him before and he always kept things interesting

making jokes and asking deliberately obscure questions in an attempt to drain lesson time on things that everybody knew wouldn’t be coming up on your finals

you hadn’t realised that his easy-going attitude was so incompatible with complicated classes though

as soon as the content started getting trickier jaemin’s continuous stream of jokes began to become a less than welcome distraction

you felt bad about telling him to be quiet

because you did really appreciate his effort to make the classes more engaging for both of you

but you eventually needed to focus so much that you had to get him to stop

and while he mock-sulked for the rest of that lecture

the arm that he swung over your shoulder as you left and went to get lunch assured you that there were absolutely no hard feelings

but his jokeless silence in lessons lasted a lot longer than you had anticipated

it was only when your teacher was talking you through how different minerals could be used as fertiliser that he cracked

‘fertiliser...? i hardly know her’

ᡣ𐭩 yangyang

yangyang is definitely,,,

hard to miss

whether it’s the whispered conversations that always seem to carry from whichever corner of the lecture theatre he’s sitting in

or the raucous laughter that bursts through the silence of your cohort at random intervals

he never allows his presence to remain unknown for longer than a day after the semester begins

all that being said, you had never actually met the man

until the fateful day when you woke up late and had to find a seat near the back

which you didn’t mind too much, and naturally just proceeded to make your notes as you always did

and you were just skimming the notes you had made while doing the readings to consolidate a concept

when a precisely made paper aeroplane sailed through the air and crashed right into the nape of your neck

the immediate gasp from behind you was easy to recognise given your experience of yangyang’s voice interrupting your lessons

but honestly,,, you hadn’t expected him to be so apologetic

like full on getting out of his seat and going to the end of the row just to shuffle past all the people sitting alongside you

until he eventually reached the seat next to yours where he spent the remaining 20 minutes of the lecture telling you he felt rly bad and he hadn’t expected it to actually hit somebody

and he was being so kind that you didn’t have the heart to tell him that his repeated apologies were far more distracting than the plane itself had been

but you still allowed him to buy you a coffee once the lecture was over

just because you knew he felt bad though,, definitely no other reason 👀

ᡣ𐭩 zhong chenle

already besties fr

like y’all pick the classes that work for the both of you cos it’s always more engaging with the other around

and you can split your workload + be together for projects + all that good stuff

but mayhaps you were a wee bit too loud the last time you had professor yoo

cos the second you get into her class for the new semester she’s politely suggesting that you might prefer to sit with new people this time around

and aside from muttering about her under his breath chenle is pretty compliant

so you guys sit on opposite sides of the class

him slumping into one of the back seats by the window

so he can wistfully stare into the courtyard and think about all the hilarious jokes he’d be telling you if your professor wasn’t so boring smh

but after a week and too many coffee shop rants for you to remember he finally figures out what to do

and the next time you’re in that class

actually getting work done for once but chenle doesn’t need to know that

you keep getting that one notification sound that is only for airdrops

so you check your phone and lo and behold,, it’s a screenshot of a note chenle has clearly just written

which you barely even have the chance to read before a new one pings onto your phone

and before you know it you’re getting a running commentary sent to you

which he admittedly could’ve done way more subtly

considering he’s so pleased with half of his jokes he starts laughing before he’s even sent them

and it’s not like there’s any mistaking which corner of the room the laughter is coming from

ᡣ𐭩 park jisung

okay no bc he’s so sweet

like he’d be the best classmate

always follows your lead in lessons and stuff

like lets you put your head down and work when you’re trying to focus

but also makes you laugh and will lean over to explain stuff if you’re not getting it straight away

not that he finds the classes the easiest himself

but he just wants to make school the littlest bit less painful for you if he can :”)

i feel like his handwriting is rly messy most of the time?

but if you look through his notes you can see which days you were sick and had to miss class

because suddenly his handwriting is perfect and all the information is arranged really neatly and coherently

because he doesn’t want you to stress out about missing content so he always makes his notes super easy to understand so you can go through them and get yourself up to date as soon as you’re feeling better

#nct #nct dream #nct 127 #wayv #nct u #nct scenarios #nct imagines #nct reactions #nct headcanons #nct dream x reader #nct dream fluff #nct dream imagines #nct dream scenarios #nct x reader #nct 127 fluff #nct 127 scenarios #nct 127 x reader #nct 127 imagines

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letteredlettered · 9 months

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Hi Im sure you answered this already but i sadly cant find it: how did end up shipping or rather writing drarry fics?

I've actually been asked quite a few times why I ship H/D. I never answer, because it's complicated and long and I have an essay on the subject, so I'll answer the 'how' question without addressing the 'why'.

Once upon a time, the internet was becoming a thing that people used regularly. The news kept talking about how the youths of the day were "surfing the 'net" and this was going to be the new normal. As usual, I could not identify with the 'youths of the day,' even though I was one. What could possibly be of interest to me on the internet? Reading books was far better than talking to other people. Then one day in my senior year of high school it dawned on me that you could possibly talk to other people about books, something I had never done before, as I didn't know anyone but my parents and brothers who ever read for fun, and my parents and brothers did not like to read things like Jane Austen. What if there were people on the 'net who liked Jane Austen??? Seemed fake, but I gave it a try.

The first Jane Austen website I found was Republic of Pemberley, which hosted something they called "Bits of Ivory." Through the "Ramble" board on Republic of Pemberley, I found out that there were "Bits of Ivory" elsewhere. It was called fanfic and hosted on fanfic.net.

Almost all of it that I was introduced to was Harry Potter fic, as HP was the megafandom of the time, and my Sense and Sensibility friend was obsessed with Snape, mainly because of Alan Rickman. I was also obsessed with Snape, though I must say that even though I had been obsessed with Alan Rickman since 1995, I never did like his casting as Snape and still don't. Anyway, I ended up getting interested in Snape/Hermione fic, and continued to be interested on and off for over the next five years.

I should pause at this moment to say that I had been writing fanfic since the fourth grade. I didn't know it was called fic. I didn't know other people did it. It never occurred to me to share it. When I found "Bits of Ivory" it actually took me a while to process that the stories there were in a similar vein to the stories I had been writing all my life, stories based on fiction by other people. It was just so wild to me that anyone would share that stuff, as though other people would want to read the different endings that they came up with, the self-inserts and the cross-overs they came up with.

I should also take this moment to say that I didn't really have slash ships. I was aware that slash existed, and I thought it was great. Sirius/Remus was a background ship everywhere at the time, and even though I didn't really see it in canon and wasn't terribly interested in it, I thought it was a nice thing. And when I started getting into X-Men through Wolverine/Rogue, it seemed obvious to me that Professor X and Magneto had a past sexual relationship. I, in fact, had an original story that I'd started writing in eleventh grade that had similar tension between two male characters, and the idea that they were in love and unable to have sex about it explained so much. And I wrote more original stories in college that were gay.

I think my problem was that the canons I was consuming were quite straight, and while I wasn't obsessed with writing canon-compliant fics, I was (and still am, to some extent) obsessed with writing characters who were true to canon. At the time sexuality seemed some kind of immutable thing to me that was deeply a part of who a character was. Also, sex to me was very Other; it meant something really deep and serious about you that obliterated other things you were. For instance, I was frustrated with all the Frodo/Sam porn, because I felt it obliterated their beautiful friendship and made their relationship about sex and being gay rather than the deep pure bond of friendship. So I was maybe kind of homophobic and confused.

Then I fell in love with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and while that canon has a lot of heteronormativity, it not only has a character who thought she was straight who realizes she's gay, it also has vampires who have lived for centuries and who have broken every kind of social norm that exists. It seemed silly to me to assume that Spike or Angel were straight, which is how I began shipping Spike/Angel, which is how I got absolutely obsessed with slash. It was so liberating to write porn where the power dynamic wasn't influenced by centuries of patriarchy! It was so liberating to write porn where I didn't have to think about my own anatomy or gender or position in a sexual dynamic! It was so liberating to write porn with a bunch of dicks!

Having discovered slash, I turned back to ye olde faithful fandom, which had ten billion fics about everything. I'm not sure I even tried Sirius/Remus, because I was still so uninterested in it, but now I read all the Snape slash, the majority of which seemed to be Harry/Snape. The thing is, I don't ship Harry/Snape. It can be very hot! But while the porn is fine and some of the stories are fun, these are not two people that I want to live happily ever after. I just think that the power dynamic between them, the history they have, and the personalities they are do not make me want to imagine them as a couple with a happy marriage who occasionally have the friends over for games of Quidditch and Exploding Snap. And while I like queer complicated, angsty stories, I also like a happy ending in a semi-heteronormative sense, especially for Harry Potter, who really seems to want one. So, I started looking for other Harry Potter slash.

I knew that Harry/Draco was a juggernaut pairing, but I just hated Draco Malfoy so much. I honestly could not stand him. I used to go about saying that I hated him not only as a person (like, I also hated Snape as a person; he's a dick, and he's cruel to children! But he's a great character) but as a character. I just didn't like the function he played in the narrative. I like big, dramatic rivalries and evil vs good; meanwhile, Draco Malfoy is a little worm. So I kept thinking about reading HP slash, but resisting.

Then, one day, I was sleeping on the couch, and woke up suddenly with the idea that Draco Malfoy could be reformed. He could be sorry for all the shitty things he's done! He could be really apologetic! He could be really trying to make up for his past, and Harry could find this truly beautiful, and they could have sex about it!

Surprisingly, it was hard to find fic about this. For some reason, in most of the fic, it was Harry having to earn Malfoy's approval, instead of the other way around, which I found absolutely bonkers. But I eventually found Eclipse, by Mijan, which was just what I wanted. Then I was obsessed and was reading every Harry/Draco fic I could find.

Eventually, I even read the ones in which Harry was a cad and Draco Malfoy was a perfect snowflake who never did anything wrong. And then I started finding fics that really emphasized that Draco had a very different point of view of what happened, which showed that he really had no way to understand who Harry was, or what Harry had been through. In these fics, Harry had to do some work to understand Draco, which is what really sold me on the pairing. I still want fics in which Draco has to do a lot of heavy lifting to address his past and deal with the hurt he has caused and the violence of his previously genocidal outlook, but I love it when Harry, too, has to adjust. After saving the world and losing most people he loves and protecting the innocent and doing his exhausted little best to be honest and righteous and true, Harry Potter still has to do work, again, to overcome his past and find a peaceful life. And that's what made me start writing Harry/Draco, the end.

#harry potter #draco malfoy

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homunculus-argument · 2 years

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I don’t think native english-speakers in non-european countries really grasp how everyday needing to speak a second or a third language is in Europe. Languages are a school subject as much as biology and math, nobody really just goes out of their way to independently decide “hmm, I must learn a second language” and just goes on to download duolingo and be self-taught in spanish (okay, some people do, but that’s not the usual and standard way that people learn). The town I live in is historically bilingual - used to be majority swedish-speakers but now it’s about 50-50 as far as I know, and a generation ago you couldn’t really get by without speaking both. The books at the local library are mixed into the shelves, finnish and swedish ones on the same shelves, and sometimes there’s no copy of some book in both languages because it’s assumed that everyone speaks both on a passable level, at least enough to understand a book they really want to read.

I’ve had natively swedish-speaking schoolmates in nursing school who have struggled to write essays in finnish because despite of being fluently bilingual in speech, their whole education until this point has been in swedish, and they’ve never really needed to write proper written finnish - which is a distinct different type of finnish than spoken finnish.

The only native finns under 30 that I know that personally say they don’t speak any other language than finnish usually mean that they understand swedish and english badly, and aren’t confident in speaking it. Usually someone only speaking finnish is a clue that they’ve got some language-related learning disability. “I don’t speak english” is a similar statement as “I can’t do math”. There’s a problem of young chronically online finns losing vocabulary in finnish because they use english so much online that they’re not as practised in their native language.

I didn’t go out of my way to become a polyglot who Speaks Six Languages, I picked french, russian and spanish in school because languages were easier for me than STEM subjects, and I’ve already forgotten most of what I learned. If I were to go out of my way to decide to start learning a non-germanic, non-latin language now, without school, I’d have no idea where to start nor would I ever become fluent in them. As a matter of fact, all I know how to say in any other ones than finnish, swedish or english are “I don’t speak [language] very well, I only understand it poorly.” It’s a school subject I learned and have forgotten most about.

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autistic-ben-tennyson · 2 months

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A rant about Jedi Stans from an ex-Jedi fangirl

After some time I've had to reflect on my own behavior as well as my time in the pro Jedi fandom, I decided it's time to call this shit out. Some people take it really personal if someone criticized your favorite characters or their beliefs. Ironically, you all act more like the Sith than the Jedi with how obsessive you can be and insisting any criticism is equal to wanting genocide.

I'm going to start by saying I was in the pro jedi fandom for a few months. Truth be told, I was using it as an outlet for some of my anger issues with my hate towards Anakin, seeing him as similar to a lot of people I've had to deal with. Some of it was wanting more followers and fear of being disliked by the majority. I would pick fights with Anakin fans and was a bit of an asshole and I apologize for that. I still don't like him but no longer HATE him. Seeing how fandoms treat abuse victims who aren't perfect angels like Shinji Ikari or Lapis Lazuli has caused me to loosen up a bit. Many Jedi stans would probably hate those characters for not being “perfect” victims. In retrospect, this wasn't a good community for me. It was very puritanical and I often felt like I was wrong for enjoying media that went against the beliefs Jedi Stans put on a pedestal. Three of my favorite ships (Madohomu, Reishin and Hodaka x Hina) involve "burning the world for one person" and I felt like I couldn't talk about them without being a hypocrite. That and me agreeing less and less with Luca's beliefs pushed me to leave.

It's fine to enjoy a fictional character and defend them if you feel that they're being unfairly criticized. I've done it myself and have written essays defending my faves. The problem is that Jedi stans don't know when to stop. So many are quick to compare the Jedi to minority religions or marginalized groups as a shield against criticism, not recognizing how insulting that can be. Jewish, asian and aroace people are the ones normally used due to the Jedi beliefs being based off Eastern religions as well as Judaism as well as some aroace people identifying with the Jedi.

One thing I noticed about Jedi stans is their similarities to Jumblr which is full of religious chauvinism reworded to sound progressive. Many of them talk about how the Jedi shouldn't have to change their traditions with the times or to accommodate a few individuals like Anakin or Ahsoka. This can be similar to how a lot of people are quick to defend minority religions from outside criticism based on how they were treated by Christian colonists or missionaries. The problem is that this can veer right into ableist or queerphobic territory. You know who else believe that their religion shouldn't have to change with the times to accommodate people? Conservative Christians who hate being told to be affirming of LGBTQ people. Also, schools and parents/guardians do have a responsibility to accommodate kids with disabilities, mental health issues or trauma, even if it may be inconvenient or force you to bend the rules. Claiming they need to just suck it up is honestly disgusting.

This was all a big reason for why I left this garbage pit of a fandom. While there are some who hate the Jedi because they stan the empire or think people need 50s nuclear families to live fulfilling lives, not everyone does that. Believe it or not, some people have faced abuse and bigotry under Judaism and Buddhism. People can also criticize how Lucas presented their beliefs as some Buddhists think he didn't do a good job. Libsoftiktok is a vile transphobe, an Orthodox Jew and her beliefs are said to be fairly common in her community. Many people of color identify with the clones and dislike how even the nicer Jedi treated them. When Obi Wan told Anakin, "It's okay to have romantic feelings, but you must let them pass," that hits different for queer people who have been told similar things from "polite" homophobes. Some queer people do choose celibacy like Side B christians which is fine as long as they don't treat it as a moral failure to want a relationship. There are many neurodivergent people who don't like the Jedi beliefs as they hit close to home. Lucas may have not intended to come off as ableist but the Jedi did with their beliefs about negative emotions. To some people, platitudes like "just let go" aren't helpful and treating it as bad for not living up to those principles is gross.

I deleted the post, but a while back I made a post asking a popular pro jedi blogger their views on adoption since they claimed Anakin not viewing the Jedi as his "found family" was a moral failure. I found their response to be tone deaf and insulting. I responded in a decent way of course, but felt a bit judged and unhappy for wanting to know my birth mother. Adoptees are another set of people this fandom is insensitive and gross to. The Kenobi series I find insulting for that reason too, having Leia be a foil for Anakin and Obi Wan romanticize his recruitment as a child.

Jedi fans are also shitty to those with religious trauma and who faced abuse. Accusing anyone who criticizes the Jedi of projecting their issues with Christianity while simultaneously talking like conservatives as shown above. Tumblr in general has a weird habit of treating religion as if it’s either conservative evangelicalism, liberal reform Judaism and some vague pagan or eastern spirituality with little nuance. Some Jedi stans really come from a place of privilege. Claiming "they can just leave" is insulting to real religious abuse survivors who were raised with harmful beliefs like creationism or homophobia. I'm no antitheist but treating non christian religion as inherently progressive dismisses a lot of people's experiences.

Let's be real, the writing in this franchise was always a bit sloppy. Lucas's issue was wanting to simultaneously create both a black-and-white morality tale for kids based on the fairy tales and serials he grew up and a deep socio-political commentary about the Vietnam and Iraq wars which required some morally grey themes. Thus, along with his terrible dialogue that made the characters seem unlikable, is why the fandom is so divided over whether he intended people to agree with the prequel Jedi.

To wrap this up, I found the pro jedi fandom to be a terrible experience. It was a mix of faux progressivism mixed with fear of judgement for disagreeing. I ended up editing a post I made, and eventually deleted, comparing Yoda with Garnet from SU because I included a tiny bit of criticism and didn't want to get backlash. As long as it’s not gross or bigoted criticism of your favorite characters isn't the end of the world. People don't have to like George Lucas or his beliefs and put them on a pedestal. I feel like the fandom's worship of George comes in response to OT purists who claimed he "raped their childhoods" but there's fair criticism to be made. Just like how not everyone who criticizes Disney SW or any Disney media in general is an "anti woke" grifter. To the pro jedi fans reading this, here's a suggestion. Just block and ignore people, write an essay if you feel it's important, but don't act like an entitled bully if a blog or even a SW writer disagrees with the Jedi, interprets the story differently or criticizes your favorite characters.

#toxic fandom #star wars #anti jedi #Jedi critical #fandom ableism #star wars fandom #why I left this fandom #rant #essay #star wars the clone wars #pro jedi #posting this here too because this needs to stop #tw homophobia #George Lucas critical #obi wan kenobi series #fandom politics #adoptee #obi wan kenobi

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youthofpandas · 8 months

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Emil Sinclair & Frau Eva

A consistent problem I’ve run into while discussing the novel Demian is the rejection of Emil’s relationship with Eva in favor and treating it as if it is nothing but a tool to analyze the relationship that he shares with Demian. People treat his feelings towards Eva as fake, imagined, and entirely as misplaced affections that he holds towards Demian and become quite defensive when told that isn’t the case in the actual text of the book. I’m no stranger to interpreting things in ways that don’t quite match canon, especially when they make me uncomfortable, and it is clear to me that discomfort or even disgust is how a lot of people view this relationship as given the age gap between them and the general preference for seeing Emil with Demian instead of Eva. I have no problems with that aspect of this little debate, discomfort is more than allowed and I’m not writing this to force people into liking the idea of their relationship.

What I am writing this for, and what I do find a problem with, is the way that people attempt to force an erasure of this aspect of the book and will accuse people of misreading the novel when acknowledging its existence. To say that someone does not understand the book or Emil’s character because they made reference to his love for Eva or his general affinity for mature women just seems to signal that there is a confusion of what the book actually says. Emil does love Eva and it is not misplaced love for Demian. From the moment he dreams of her to the moment Demian passes a kiss from his mother to Emil, Emil loves her. (That doesn’t mean he doesn’t also love Demian, by the way, but this post/essay isn’t about that, so I won’t be dwelling on the feelings he holds for Demian).

This is not going to be a complete, in-depth look at her character and role in the story and will instead simply focus on the actual relationship Emil has with her throughout the story and the ways that the novel sets up their relationship and makes it explicitly clear what sort of relationship exists between them. I feel it has been a massive disservice to her character to view her as nothing more than a woman getting in the way of a relationship or as if all of the quite beautiful descriptions of her person and effect on Emil are inconsequential and/or imagined, so I hope that this does some justice to Hesse’s work.

All quotes taken from the translation of the novel done by W. J. Strachan.

To begin, I will actually be talking about Max Demian himself, because Eva can be understood through son as he acts as a bit of a proto-Eva in Emil's life. They have a similar appearance, as it is often noted, they both bear the ‘sign’, they are deeply linked to Emil’s personal growth and relationship with the world, so to get a full grasp of his relationship with Eva it is also important to look at how he sees Demian and the key overlaps between them. So, let's look at one of the descriptions Emil writes of his dear friend.

This remarkable boy seemed older than he looked; he did not in fact seem like a boy at all. He moved among us more childish members of the school strangely mature, like a man, or rather a gentleman. He was not popular; he took no part in games, still less in the general rough and tumble and it was only the firm self-confident tone he adapted in his attitude towards the masters that won him favour with the other boys. He was called Max Demian.

Note how it focuses on his age and maturity, even though he is literally a couple years older than Emil, spiritually, thematically, he is older than even that. He is like a man, an adult. Here's a similar passage from another moment where Emil describes his friend:

I saw Demian's face and remarked that it was not a boy's face but a man's and then I saw, or rather became aware, that it was not really the face of a man either; it had something different about it, almost a feminine element. And for the time being his face seemed neither masculine nor childish, neither old nor young but a hundred years old, almost timeless and bearing the mark of other periods of history than our own.

Once again we see that he is more than a child, Demian is aged, grown, but not old nor young. In contrast to Emil who is youthful and immature, someone who has not yet begun his true journey. Here we also see a hint at there being a feminine element to Demian. Demian represents not just the fact that he is mature and capable of leading Emil through the spiritual journey he so longs for, but that he is not limited to just one world. He is not stuck in the dichotomy of light and dark, of masculine and feminine, of age and youth, he is both and neither.

Continuing the subject of maturity, we can take a look at the moment we share with Alfons Beck, a relationship that Emil describes with "we seemed to have a perfect understanding of each other" and, while a character who does not stay around long, acts as a mentor in the way he teaches Emil to grow up when it concerns sexuality and affections. It isn't long after this moment that Emil begins his venture into the world of darkness and almost loses himself to indulgence and excess of drinking and what have you, but it is clear from the later scenes with Knauer that Emil retains this personal growth surrounding sex and desire.

I heard amazing things; things I would not have thought possible were trotted out as part of everyday reality and seemed quite normal. Alfons Beck had already gained experience of women in his less than eighteen years of life. He had learned, for example, that girls were only out for flirtation and attention, which was all very agreeable but not the real thing. There was more chance of that with mature women. They were much more reasonable. You could talk with Frau Jaggelt who kept the stationer's shop, and a book could not contain all the various goings-on behind her counter. I sat there spell-bound and stupefied. Certainly I could never have loved Frau Jaggelt - but nevertheless it was terrific. There seemed to be hidden springs as least for my seniors, whose existence had never suspected. It all had a false ring about it, a more ordinary and insignificant flavour than love should have, in my opinion, but at all events it was life and adventure and I was sitting next to someone who had actually experienced it and to whom it seemed a normal thing.

By the end of this talk, Emil feels like a boy listening to a man. He understands that in this area he is behind, yet still is drawn to it. Alfons Beck is here, quite clearly, setting up and building upon the themes of maturity, especially that of women. This is very important seeing how it is one of the first times he is so explicit about his feelings regarding sexuality, and it is not by accident that this conversation regards mature, older women.

Another element here is that Emil points out that he finds more passing encounters, attraction without the intent to form a significant relationship, to be not founded in love - or at least the type of love he desires. I point this out because it establishes the idea that the types of relationships and attraction Emil is most interested in are ones that are serious and lasting. Quick, temporary connections excite him, intrigue him, because of course they do, he is a young man away from home and free to explore the world for the first time in his life and he has wants and desires. But, as we will see in his actions towards Eva later on, what he is most interested in a more true kind of love.

I'm going to hop straight to the painting next, as it is the real start of his relationship with Eva. There's a lot with the painting that I don't believe needs to be quoted directly so I've chosen a description of his realization of who it reminds him of.

Then one morning when I awoke from one of these dreams, I suddenly recognized it. It looked so fantastically familiar and seemed to call out my name. It appeared to know me as a mother, as if its eyes had been fixed on me all my life. I stared at the picture with beating heart, the close, brown hair, the half-feminine mouth, the strong forehead with its strange brightness-which it had assumed of its own accord-and I realized that my recognition, my rediscovery and knowledge of it were becoming more and more a reality.

He says after this that it resembles Demian, it was not his features exactly but there is no mistaking the fact that it was ultimately Demian's face. A motherly, matured woman version of Demian. This will later be seen to be the same description he gives Eva, even beyond the fact that he explicitly states that it is her as I'll quote later.

The effects this painting have on him are, as we all know, quite extreme and trigger many contradictory feelings within him. It is obvious that he worships it, he puts it on the wall in a way he can look at the face first thing in the morning, the same way one would look at a lover in bed upon waking up, he cries over it and clearly experiences intense lust and attraction towards the figure depicted in it. He also finds these feelings towards it revolting and terrifying, and would sometimes call it a devil and a murderer. At this point in the story, he still has lingering shame for these sorts of desires, even if he has begun to embrace them in some ways, he hasn’t fully overcome his belief that the world is separated in two halves and as a result views many things in extremes of both the most beautiful parts of the world of the light and the worst of the tempting world of darkness.

But for full context on this painting, we also need to look at the dream in which its subject appeared in, the most important dream of his life that he dreamed of night after night.

This dream, the most important and enduring of my life, followed this pattern: I was on my way to my parents' home and over the main entrance the heraldic bird gleamed gold on an azure ground. My mother walked towards me but when I entered and she was about to kiss me, it was no longer she but a form I had never set eyes on, tall and strong with a look of Max Demian and my painted portrait - yet it was somehow different and despite the robust frame, very feminine. The form drew me to itself and enveloped me in a deep, shuddering embrace. My feelings were a mixture of ecstasy and horror, the embrace was at once an act of worship and a crime. The form that embraced me had something about it of both my mother and my friend Demian and also this embrace violated every sense of religious awe, yet it was bliss. Sometimes I awoke out of this dream with a feeling of ecstasy, sometimes in mortal fear and with a tortured conscience as if I had committed some terrible sin.

Here we see Emil's most important dream: one where he is filled with ecstasy when embracing a figure that is a sort of halfway point between his mother and his friend. I'm going to share another passage from later, when he sees Frau Eva for the first time since childhood.

Sensing my interest in them, she took me into the house, looked out a leather album and showed me a photograph of Demian's mother. I could hardly remember her but now that I had the small photograph before me my heart stood still. It was the picture of my dreams. There she was, the tall, almost masculine figure, looking like her son, but with maternal traits, traits of severity and deep passion, beautiful and alluring, beautiful and unapproachable, daimon and mother, fate and lover. There was no mistaking her! The discovery that my dream image existed on this earth affected me like some fantastic miracle! So there was a woman who looked like that, who bore the features of my destiny! Where was she? Where? And she was Demian's mother!

So, this figure he dreams about, the figure he paints? It is Frau Eva. And we see here that, much like how her son is described as feminine, she is described as masculine. She also is inherently full of contrasts: daimon and mother, beautiful and unapproachable. Frau Eva and Demian follow the same pattern of being opposing natures who exist in one, the deconstruction of the binary and embracing something that is less easy to categorize. They embody the same ideals as Abraxas, of Emil's dreams.

Speaking of Abraxas and Frau Eva, here is his proper introduction to her as an adult.

With eyes moistened with tears I gazed at my painting, absorbed in my reflections. Then my glance dropped. Under the picture of the bird in the opened door stood a tall woman in a dark dress. It was she. I was unable to utter a word. From a face that resembled her son's, timeless and ageless and full of inward strength, the beautiful, dignified woman gave me a friendly smile. Her gaze was fulfillment, her greeting a homecoming. Silently I stretched out my hands towards her. She took them both in her warm. firm hands. "You are Sinclair. I recognized you at once. Welcome!" Her voice was deep and warm. I drank it up like sweet wine. And now I looked up and into her quiet face, the black unfathomable eyes, at her fresh, ripe lips, the open, queenly brow that bore the 'sign.' "How glad I am!" I said and kissed her hands. "I believe I have been on my way here the whole of my life and now I have reached home at last." She gave a motherly smile.

Eva makes her entrance quite literally alongside the painting of Abraxas Emil painted not long after he put a name to the face of the painting he made of her. He describes this as reaching home, incredibly important to him after he has been feeling so outcast from the home he grew up in. And he loves her deep voice, her quiet face that resembles her son's, and her friendly, motherly smile.

Eva and Abraxas, the god he worships and adores, are linked beings. This all builds on to the Demian and Cain, Eva and Eve connections. Eve the mother of both Cain the murderer and Abel the victim, Eve the woman born of God who spoke to the Devil and committed the first sin (which to bearer's of the Sign was surely not a sin), is now properly linked to Abraxas and it all feeds quite well into a similar theme. Eva is mother and she is home.

Eva is the origin of Demian, an embodiment of his ideals with even more maturity, she created the one who created Emil in a manner of speaking. She truly represents a world that is not divided into light and darkness, the very world that Emil chases after and wishes to believe in. It only makes sense, then, that he would find her so attractive and want her, desire her. By this point, so late into the novel, Emil is quite grown up, literally and spiritually, compared to the young, lost boy he was at the start. He has accepted sexual desires, accepted the world is complex and rejected many of the beliefs he held as a child, and he wants Eva the way any grown man might.

But, of course as we established earlier, Emil wants more than a passing encounter fueled by lust. He wants a real kind of love. And when he has gotten to know her and understand her as a real person rather than just a figure in his dreams, he writes the following, detailed, heavily romantic, filled with yearning and love passage:

On many occasions I believed that it was not really just her as a person, whom I yearned for with all my being, but that she existed as an outward symbol of my inner self and her sole purpose was to lead me more deeply into myself. Things she said often sounded like replies from my unconscious mind to burning questions which tormented me. There were other moments when as I sat beside her I was consumed with sensual desire and kissed objects which she had touched. And little by little sensual and transcendental love, reality and symbol mingled together. As I thought about her in my room at home in tranquil absorption, I felt her hand in mine and her lips touching my lips. Or I would be conscious of her presence, look into her face, speak with her and hear her voice, not knowing whether she was real or a dream. I began to realize how one can be possessed of a lasting and immortal love. I would gain knowledge of a new religion from my reading, and it would give me the same feeling as a kiss from Eva. She stroked my hair and smiled with all her warm affection, and I had the same feeling as when I took a step forward in knowledge of my inner self. Her person embraced everything that was significant and fateful for me. She could be transformed into each one of my thoughts and each of my thoughts could be transformed into her.

This paragraph here always sticks with me, the way his love transcends reality. It mirrors the way that Demian's existence is questionably real, that the moments he shared with the Demian family are somewhere fundamentally between imagined and real. Does she kiss him or is it imagined? It hardly matters, because reality and symbol are mixing together and becoming one and the same. These are his manifestations, these are his calls to the world to make his love true. And that love is so true in his heart he can hardly tell when it is real.

Also I just want to point out how cute he is when he's in love... kissing the things that belong to her, linking his learning and his growth as a person to her. It is similar to his behavior with Beatrice, in that this woman is helping inspire him to improve upon himself, but now it is not the desperate clutch to an unknown figure as a guiding light he can never speak to, it is a woman who pulls answers from his own mind, a woman who exists as a symbol of his inner self. Frau Eva, again just like Demian, is an extension of Emil's self and soul.

Alright, so I have now established Emil's feelings towards Frau Eva, but what of her feelings towards him? This following passage comes immediately after the one before

When I arrived back at H-- I stayed away from her for two days in order to savour this security and independence from her physical presence. I had dreams too in which my union with her was consummated in a symbolic act. She was a star and I was a star on my way to her, and we met and mutually attracted, remained together and circled round each other blissfully in all eternity to the accompaniment of the music of the spheres. I told her this dream on my first visit on returning. "It is a lovely dream," she said quietly, "Make it true!"

Emil tells her that he had a dream of the two of them in which they consummated their union (which, just to make this abundantly clear, means having sex. there is no getting around that fact) through a symbolic act of entwining around each other for all of eternity and Frau Eva tells him to make it true. She tells him, explicitly, that this dream he has of them making love is lovely and that he should work on making it happen in reality. This is of course a further extension of her trying to help Emil manifest a kind of mutual attraction between them through his extended longing and deep, honest desires. While she does not currently reciprocate the romantic affections he has for her, she is clear about being open to the idea of that one day being the case.

Let's also look at this bit, which is mostly about Sinclair's affections towards her but provides a bit of a conclusion to this theme of manifesting her love.

One day this foreboding came over me with such force that my love for Eva flared up suddenly and caused me great pain. My God, what a short time I had left; soon I should no longer be seeing her, no longer hearing her good, assured step about the house, no longer finding her flowers on my table! And what had I achieved? I had luxuriated in dreams and comfort instead of winning her, instead of struggling for her and clasping her to me forever! Everything she had told me about true love came back to me, a kindred stirring, admonitory messages, and as many gentle promises and words of encouragement, too, perhaps; and what had I made out of it all? Nothing. I stood in the middle of the room, summoned my whole conscious being and thought of Eva. I wanted to gather all the power of my soul in order to make her aware of my love and attract her to me. She must come; she must long for my embrace, my kisses must tremble on her ripe lips.

Emil is realizing that despite her encouragements and his continued love for her, he has never truly spent the energy required to make his love reciprocated. These things, him wanting her be his forever, him wanting to kiss her so much that he shakes, to attract her to him so that she desires him in the same way that he does her... those are the things Eva wanted him to manifest. Now, this also makes it clear that for as much time as they spent together (the book mentions that Max was out for long stretches of time, leaving Emil alone with Eva for the majority of his days there), they did not get to do any of the things he wanted so passionately AND that she had still be encouraging him to manifest this.

And does she get this message? Yes! She does, only there is The War starting and so she does not go herself to him, but she does tell him that she heard his appeal and to do it again if he should ever need her.

Now, let's talk about the ending of the book, about the kiss.

"And there is something else. Frau Eva said that if things ever went badly with you, I was to pass on a kiss from her which she gave me … Close your eyes, Sinclair." I closed my eyes in obedience. I felt the brush of a kiss on my lips on which there was a bead of blood that never seemed to diminish. Then I fell asleep.

Demian (who is made clear to be a hallucination or a purely spiritual being at this moment, regardless of what you believe his regular appearances are that of a real actual boy or a reflection of Emil's self or a mixture of the two. in this scene he is a dream-like being existing from Emil's mind here to help conclude the narrative) passes on a kiss that his mother gave to him. Eva wanted to give this kiss to Emil after all of those appeals he made for her love, and uses Demian as a vessel to give this to him.

Now I am absolutely not here to deny any sort of queerness in this moment, in the fact that it is not Eva herself who appears but rather Max. What I am trying to say is that Eva and Max are linked people, especially in the mind of Emil, and therefore it makes thematic sense for the boy who had introduced him to the world of the enlightened and to the woman he would come to love to be here in this quiet, scary moment and pass on a message from his mother. I am trying to say that denying that this kiss is even the slightest bit from Eva and 100% Max's moment is ignoring her entire character and a large, large portion of Emil's.

I could’ve gone on for longer, I skipped over the story she tells Emil of the man in love with a star and how that star eventually came to love him in return and how Frau Eva is his star. His last description of her before leaving for the war is about the myriad of stars glowing in the night sky and it is quite romantic, but I feel getting into the star symbolism in Demian would double the length of this and her feelings towards him cannot get any clearer than the part where she encourages consummating their union, which itself is still linked to the star story. This was all done taking passages I remembered off the top of my head and not a full reread of the book, but I feel like this does more than enough to explain my point.

In conclusion: never tell me again that I misunderstood the 1919 novel Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth by Hermann Hesse because I joked about how Emil is into MILFs. He is.

#hermann hesse #demian 1919 #demian #emil sinclair #frau eva #demian (1919)

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ilooklikeaburntchickenugget · 11 months

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Puck Yourself

A/N: Hey y'all I know it's been a hot second since I've published anything but I've had this completed in my drafts for a few weeks now. I was planning on trying to get multiple parts to this all out at once but I've had a lot of essays due recently and continue to have quite a few due so oh well. Gotta prioritize school over this. But this AU is based off of the Lucky Charms series by drabblewithfrannybarnes. I love that series so much it's honestly one of my comfort ones I go back to a lot so yeah. Here's my own kinda take on what I think a similar college hockey AU would look like with Ari, throwing in the wild card of being Bucky Barnes' younger sister. Pairing: College Hockey!Ari Levinson x College Hockey!Bucky Barnes Younger Sister F!Reader Word count: 6,180 words Wanings: Swearing, strong moments of angers, mentions of sex

Summary: Meeting the stereotypical player, hockey boy Ari was exactly what you expected. Until you actually talk and realize he might not be all that bad. The problem is, Bucky things otherwise.

Bucky had finally convinced you to come up and see him.

It had taken well over a year, multiple breaks, and a hell of a lot of conniving on his part to finally get you to visit him. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to see your brother, or his school, you just didn’t really want to stay at a house full of college hockey boys. It sounded like a complete nightmare, and as you sat in your car mentally preparing to deal with it, you seriously questioned why you had agreed to this.

But your protective, occasional pain in your ass, best friend of a brother Bucky had an air mattress set up for your for two days, had agreed to pay for gas and food, and had solemnly swore to your parents to look out for you at all times. It was pretty believable, especially considering his physical size and demeanor.

As you parked your car in front of the house that still had red solo cups littered out front, a random hole in the yard, and just screamed “testosterone” at the top of it’s lungs you seriously began to reconsider everything. Right now, you could have been in your apartment in the city with your friends and roommates planning on a night out while you were on break. But instead, you were about to enter the only thing worst than a frat house: a college hockey teams house.

“Y/N/N!” You heard a shout as you opened the trunk of your car. You looked over to see your brother standing on the porch, with a smile, beginning to jog towards you. As soon as he reached you he engulfed you in a big hug that made you feel as if you were being swallowed whole.

“Hey Buck,” You replied, hugging him back. “Missed me?”“You know it,” He smiled back, going ahead to grab your bag from the car. You only had your backpack hanging off one shoulder, Bucky carrying the rest. He made it look so easy, like the suitcase was a small bag of groceries.

As you entered the house, the same aroma of every party you had been to flooded your nose. Except no one was actually here. You gave Bucky a look which he quickly read as disgust of sorts, “I promise I cleaned my room.”“Uh huh,” You replied looking around the place. There was no particular order to the couches, and literally no other furniture other than the four of them. The leather was worn and you were sure sticky by now. The floor managed also to be sticky, not shocking given who lived here. There were a couple framed photos on the wall of teams both present and past but that was about it.

“I promise, the actual living room for us is upstairs,” He told you, leading you that way. “The downstairs is really just for parties.”“I could tell, Buck.” You replied, crossing your arms as you began walking up the large stairs. “Why did I even agree to come here?” You questioned out loud. You knew Bucky rolled his eyes even though you were behind him.

“Because you love me oh so dearly,” He stated, you scoffed. “But seriously, I’ve visited your school like five times and you’re only a second year. You’ve been here once.”“Okay, well I live closer to home, in a city with stuff to do, and you were with mom and dad.”“There’s plenty of stuff to do here,” He argued back, fumbling with the key in his hand to open the door to his room.

“Mhm, like stare at the corn fields.” Now he actually rolled his eyes and you saw it. “And I’ve been here more than once! For all your championship games last year, and the year before.”“Those don’t count,” He explained, entering his room as you followed behind him. “School wasn’t happening.”“Okay, whatever.” You sighed, sitting down on his bed and placing your backpack on the floor. He hadn’t lied, he had actually cleaned his room. It did smelled like a can of Febreeze had been violated and died in there, but it was much better than downstairs. A subtle knock came ringing at his door. “Hey Sam!” You smiled up at him as he walked in, giving you a big smile back.

“There’s my favorite sibling of any player.” He said. You stood up, allowing him to give you a hug as well. “How’re you? How was the drive?”“Fine and fine.” You replied, sitting back on the bed as Bucky began making room in his closet for your stuff.

“Ya know, you’re a real trooper for staying here.” Sam pointed out, leaning against one of Bucky’s wall. You both looked at him, as he now stood with a large shrug.

“See, I told you!” You said to Bucky, “Be grateful.”“I was grateful you’re here, but I’m becoming less by the second.” He said eyeing you. You scoffed.

“If you ever need a break, you know where my room is-“ Sam began but Bucky was quick to interrupt him.

“No, there will never be a moment in time where Y/N is in your room with you alone, or anyone else’s for that matter.” Bucky stated pointing firmly at Sam. “I already went over this with everyone.”“Hey, out of every other guy in this house need I remind you I’m the most trustworthy with your younger sister?” Sam replied, with his hands up in a sort of surrender offering.

“Yeah, but still.” Bucky said, going back to clearing out part of his closet. “If Rogers were here he would be the most trustworthy.”

You missed Steve, but he was away visiting family this weekend. Besides, he had been a second brother to you your whole life, so it wasn’t as if you wouldn’t see him again. As soon as Christmas break rolled around he would be at your family’s house for a day or two to celebrate.“Damn, might as well rub salt in that wound.” Sam sighed, “Anyways, let me know if any of the guys here try to play any games.” Sam said, now looking at you. His hands were on his hips, his face now straight and serious. You nodded.

“Now you’re on my side for once?” Bucky fired at Sam.

“When it comes to your younger sister in a house full of guys that are borderline animals around any attractive girl? Yes.” Sam replied confidently. “All I’m saying is you only have so much power here, Barnes. You’re up against guys the same size and mindset as you. You’re gonna need as much backup as you can get with this one.”

So far all the guys here had been overwhelming nice. Maybe the dual threat of Bucky and Sam scared them off of you, but a part of you at least hoped they were just this naturally respectful to women (somehow, though, you did doubt that hopefulness). They wanted to talk to you about your school, what you were studying, how it was growing up with Bucky.

“So you’re the brains, huh?” One of the guys asked, leaning against the counter practically chugging a Gatorade bottle of water down.

“I guess,” You shrugged with a smile.

“That was how we grew up,” Bucky was quick to interject, finishing up one of his assignments at the counter. “She was always the smart one, I was the sporty one.”

You actually secretly praised your parents for raising you that way so there really was no competition for who was better. Each of you were good at your own things, and helped each other with the other. You always helped Bucky with homework (and still did), while Bucky helped you train to pass the one basic P.E. test you had to take.

You were munching on a bowl of chips some of the guys had set out for you, continuing to talk when the back door opened. “You comes back for once without a girl, huh?” Sam questioned from where he stood next to you.

It was pretty hard to ignore the absolute unit that walked in the door. He was a tank of a person, in the best way possible. Incredibly muscular, tall. At least 6’6, maybe closer to 6’7. His presence towered over the room of hockey boys, which was something you never knew could happen. His auburn brown hair was slicked back, the ends falling just under his ears. A beard covered his jawline, one which you imagined was incredibly defined and sculpted to perfection.

He set down his backpack which looked regular sized for him, but comically large on the floor. He turned to Sam, and in turn his eyes quickly met yours. They were a crystal blue, a color so prominent you figured his eyes must have been bleach white underneath to let such a color be seen. “Who’s this?” He asked, pointing to you and looking back to Sam. His face seemed a bit confused out of everything, with a hint of being pleasantly surprised.

“Y/N,” Sam commented, popping a chip in his mouth with a quick crunch and swallow. “Bucky’s sister. Younger sister.” he clarified.

“Ah,” He replied, approaching you with a smile that could make a line of 100 women pass out. “Name’s Ari. Ari Levinson.” He said, sticking his hand out. You took it and gave it a shake, one that you could tell dwarfed his typical shake but he went with it.

You had heard about Ari Levinson. Plenty of times from following a couple of the guys’ Instagrams and the hockey teams official one. He was a third year, like your brother. He was a star of sorts on the team, had already been picked up by a NHL team the year prior. But from what Bucky had mentioned, his parents had convinced him to stay the full four years to get his degree. And with good enough lawyers, they had convinced whatever team he was heading to to let him finish out his school and immediately hop into the sport professionally after he had a degree with his name on it.

“Y/N,” You replied. “Barnes, if that wasn’t already implied.” He gave a small chuckle.

“Yeah, I could tell.” He told you, leaning against the counter on the other side. “You two look a lot alike.”“Yeah, we got that all the time as kids.” You told him.

“I bet,” He said, his eyes trailing you up and down more slowly than what you felt was typical friendliness. You suddenly became a bit conscious at the leggings you were wearing and the fact his eyes had lingered a tad bit longer on your thighs. “The black hair suits you better though, especially for those beautiful eyes. Never seen ones like ‘em.”“Levinson really-“ Sam began but you interjected.

“I bet that’s what you tell all your girls, huh?” You replied with a smirk. The group of guys still sitting at the counter choked on their drinks as their eyes widened. You could feel Sam smiling from next to you.

“Haha, very funny.” Ari replied, a bit more stern this time. “It has a 100% pass rate though.”“Change it to 99,” You shot back, “Welcome to the bottom 1%.” This again resulted in dead silence around the room. Ari gave you a smile.

“I’ll get to you eventually, beautiful.” He said, standing back up fully.

“Gonna have to get through Bucky to do that.” You replied.

“Is that a challenge?” Ari smirked down at you, biting his bottom lip. “I love a good challenge, sweetheart.”

“More of a factual statement,” You said, leaning on the counter towards him. “I would say more an impossibility.”“We’ll see about that,” Ari said, grabbing his bag of the floor and swinging it over his shoulder. “I’ll see you soon, baby doll.” He added with a smile and wink before he departed down the hall and towards the stairs.

“Is he always like that?” You turned to Sam with a look of slight disgust. But Sam looked a little more worried than that.

“Kinda,” He replied, “Just not that persistent.”

“Oh?”“Means he actually wants to get to you,” Sam explained, “We won’t let him. But don’t tell Bucky, yet at least. Not sure Ari’s ego can protect him from your brother’s fist.”

You had actually frequented parties back at your last school. So standing here now on a Friday night with a red solo cup in your hand filled with mystery seltzer didn’t feel all that foreign. The only difference this time, however, was that you didn’t have your traditional friend group surrounding you. Instead you were talking to the occasional one or two guys on the team who would inevitably find a girl to their liking to go and coerce into their bed. Then when they left and you got bored of standing in the corner alone, you would go and bother Bucky who was going between working behind the bar and talking to his girlfriend, Natasha. If Bucky was too busy you went and talked to Nat and her friends, who were incredibly sweet and gracious with you even though you constantly felt like an intrusion.

“You need something?” Your brother asked, craning his neck back to see you. His front was facing a line of girls waiting for their fixing of cheap beer he was pouring into cups. You shook your head. “Bored again?” You nodded. “Why don’t you go talk to Nat? She loves talking to you.” You rolled your eyes.

“I feel like an intrusion, Bucky.” You replied, now standing next to him and taking a sip of your drink. “Like I know her friends are only a year older than me but it feels different.” Bucky huffed, handing the girl in front of him another drink.

“You can always head up to my room if you want.” You nodded hoping that was the answer he would give.

He quickly dug in his back jean pockets for his keys, fishing them out and handing them to you. “Just lock the door behind you, okay?” He asked and you nodded. “And I’ll text you when I’m on my way up. Don’t answer the door for anyone that knocks.” You nodded again, thanking him and making your way back through the crowded bodies tucked shoulder to shoulder with one another.

Thankfully the guy guarding the stairs recognized you as you held up Bucky’s key. He smiled with a nod, letting you by and away from the extremely crowded dance floor and blaring music.

As you walked down the hall you could hear laughter from a few of the rooms, and most definitely fucking from others. You rounded the corner to where Bucky’s room was, stopping at the end where his room stood and placing the key in the fob. As you twisted it to the side, you couldn’t help but to overhear another door down the hall opening. You looked up briefly, to see Ari standing there arms crossed as he leant on the trim of the door.

A drop dead gorgeous brunette girl walked out. She looked young, easily a freshman. You questioned if she was even that or maybe a senior in high school with a repeated excuse as to why she didn’t have a student card of valid ID with date of birth, but insisting she was 18. She was slim, a size four around the waist on a bloated day for her. She managed to have great boobs, and beautiful long hair. She could’ve been mistaken for a model for all you knew.

He gave her a signature smile, she asked him if he would call her.

“Of course, sweetheart.” He said but you could hear the emptiness in that from a mile away.

She gave him a kiss on the cheek and ran off down the stairs, her hair slightly frizzy and makeup now ever so smudged. You sighed to yourself. How nice it must be to casually get guys like that and have the nativity to not know A. He would never call you back and B. He would pretend he had never met you even if you saw him again. Your attachment issues could never.

You pushed the door open, stepping one foot in when your name was called. “Y/N, right?” You heard someone approaching. You looked up to see Ari standing maybe four feet away. You nodded. “What’re you doing up here, all alone?” He asked and you shrugged.

“Bored.”“There’s a party going on downstairs, you know that right?” He asked with a smile and light laugh. You nodded.

“Parties aren’t fun unless your at least three shots in and surrounded by people you actually know, and like.” You replied, “I am in none of those situations right now.” He gave a tight smile and nod. “You seem to be having fun.” You motioned back down the hall to his door. He let out a hearty laugh.

“Wanna take some guesses?” He asked, taking a few steps closer to you so now you were within a foot of each other. He towered over you, arms crossed leaning against the wall.

“Not really, no.” You said in all honestly. He raised an eyebrow in question. “I mean, I don’t really do that stuff. I wouldn’t really have a clue.”“What, like sex?”“Yeah, and in turn hookups.” You replied. You were giving away way too much information right now. You blamed it on the few drinks in your system.

“You’re too pretty to have not had sex yet.” You scoffed.

“Please,” You nearly laughed, “I’m a six on a good day and I’ve come to terms with that. You just got with an eleven on a bad day. Don’t talk to me about that.” You replied, having had enough of this conversation and heading into Bucky’s room, before you could fully close the door though his hand was on it.

“Were you an ugly kid?” He asked, but as soon as the words left his mouth a face of regret took over.“What the fuck did you just ask me?” You looked at him confused as hell, hand still on the door and moving to slam it. He held that attempt back to.

“No I mean- shit, not like that.” He pleaded, one foot in the one the other out to prevent any other tries at closing the door. You rolled your eyes at him. “I mean- I was one. And it took me a while to realize that I got better looking as I got older, and now I can sleep with gorgeous women and feel like an equal to them.”

You looked at him with complete and utter disbelief. There was no way this Greek God of a man was seriously telling you how it feels to be attractive enough to sleep with whoever you want. Especially considering your struggle to find a halfway decent guy to call your first boyfriend, and your virginity that was still hidden deep somewhere in you. “Alright, nice talk, champ. That’s enough for tonight.” You said trying to close the door but his body blocking it. “If you don’t move I’m going to yell bloody murder.”“Uh huh, I would like to see that.”“You really want Bucky and Sam to come up and deal with you?” You asked, this time with a dead serious tone and expression. “Oh, and Steve when he gets back.” Ari took a long, hard look at you before backing away.

“Okay, fine. I was trying to start a conversation and fucked up. I’m sorry for implying you were an ugly kid.” He said with a sigh, standing outside the door still.

You had every right to slam it in his face, in fact you thought you should’ve. But he did seem genuinely apologetic, and for a guy that seemed as douchey as him, you assumed that took a lot of effort.

“Fine, I forgive you.” You replied.

“Thank you,” He said back, leaning on the doorway again. “Listen, I know you don’t want to do anything given your- situation.”“Watch it.” You wanted, motioning to the door as you silently implied your ability to slam it right in his face at any given moment. “But, would you like to chill out with me?” He asked, “Someone’s gonna come knocking on Barnes door soon enough begging to fuck in there and I don’t want you to have to fend for yourself in that situation.” He explained, “I’ll strip my sheets now, I have a chair you can sit on and a TV in there. We can just listen to music, chill. I don’t care if you want to sit on your phone the whole time and ignore me. Hell, I’ll give you a charger. But you are a teammates sibling, and I want to know you’re okay.”

So Ari Levinson now cared about you? The same dude you flirted in front of the majority of the team today, who just walked out with a model-level girl he would never talk to again? And he was worried about you right now, and seemed at least halfway genuine? You sighed.

“Fine,” You said, closing the door behind you and re-locking it. “But no funny business.”“None,” He swore, giving you firm eye contact. “I swear.”“Good,” You nodded at him, “And I will not be sitting on your bed regardless of the sheet situation.”“Aw honey, it wasn’t like I actually fucked her.” He explained, “She just sucked me off.” You gave a fake gagging sound.

“I think I would rather jump off the balcony here than get on my knees for you.” You replied. He gave you a smile.

“Eh, you would be surprised.”

Ari was shockingly… normal. He was actually just a chill guy with good music taste. That shocked you the most. He admitted a lot of his playlist was filled with modern rap because that’s what a lot of the guys listened to but he preferred 80s and 90s rock and alternative. It was what he had grown up listening to with his parents and something you quickly bonded over.

You had begun to talk a bit about relationships. He had opened up with how he had broken up with his long term girlfriend six months prior and was still reeling from a chunk of the effect and realizing how surface level the entire relationship felt. He also added how hook ups were easier. No commitment, he could focus on hockey and school.

“What about you?” He asked, “What lucky guys have been with you?” You scoffed.

“I’ve talked to a couple guys,” You explained, “But nothing really serious. I got my first kiss, date, all that stuff out of the way senior year of high school before college. First going beyond first base in freshman year. Talked to a guy long term last semester but it didn’t really work. I’m just kinda waiting for the right person but I also know I’m too ambitious for my own good when it comes to relationships.”“Oh, how so?” He asked, leaning on his bed as you sat in his swivel chair by his desk.

“I just- I focus so much on school and extracurriculars that I don’t really have time for a boyfriend. I want one, but I also am not great at talking to guys either. Flirting is my worst enemy.” You said, “My last kiss was over a year ago.” He nodded slightly, almost in a sympathetic way.

“I don’t think you’re the problem.” He mentioned next, looking over at where you sat. “I mean, you really are stunning. You’re incredibly smart. Bucky always tells us how much of a hard worker you are, and how you go out and are a social butterfly. Just- at our age, not many guys are looking for commitment. And it sucks for girls like you but give it a few years.” You groaned, throwing your head back.

“Everyone says that and I’m so sick of it.” You told him, “But then I look at Bucky, and he and Nat have been going strong for over a year now.”

“Bucky is also a really special guy,” Ari mentioned, “Listen, he and I aren’t all that close but everyone on the team is close to an extent. We travel together, play together, practice together, get meals together- hell we live together. And he really is a great guy. You’re very lucky to have him as a brother.”“I know,” You replied with a tight smile, “He’s one of my best friends and I’m very grateful to have someone like that who’s just built in to my life.”

“He really looks up to you, ya know.” Ari said, smiling at you. “Even though you’re younger he’s always bragging about your accomplishments and how smart you are. I mean, you are going to an amazing school. I remember when you got in he was practically jumping up and down and telling everyone.” You smiled to yourself knowing that you reacted the same way when he got into his dream school for hockey. “You’re really special, Y/N. And don’t ever let a guy, especially one like me, take that from you or tell you otherwise.”

“Thanks Ari.” You replied, smiling up at him. “You know you’re not as tough as you seem. You should let some more people see it sometimes.”“I only let people I really, really like past that part of me.” He said, “There aren’t many.”

Just as he finished saying that a string of absolute banging punches came at the door. “Shit.” He murmured, getting up.

You backed away on the chair as Ari opened up the door to reveal a seething and red Bucky. “Why the fuck is she in here?” He demanded, pushing Ari back. Despite Ari having at least a couple inches on Bucky, he nearly fell back onto his bed having to catch himself in midair.

“Barnes we didn’t do anything-““Shut the fuck up!” He yelled, Sam now rushing into the room. He tried to grab Bucky by the arms but was thrown off with ease and went tumbling back almost falling into the door.

Bucky through all his rage and might managed to get Ari pinned up against the nearest wall, his hands in fists around the collar of his shirt. “If you fucking touched her-“You had had enough of his behavior, getting up and marching over to stand right behind him. “Bucky, he didn’t dot anything. We didn’t do anything.” You clarified. Bucky looked back at you, face scrunched in pure anger, loosening his grip only a bit on Ari. “I swear, you know I wouldn’t do anything. I haven’t. Let alone with one of your teammates.”

It took Bucky a second to realize what you were saying, but as soon as he did he let go of Ari. “Look at her again, and you’re dead.” He said, firmly pointing to Ari who was still against the wall with his finger in his face. Ari couldn’t even respond before Bucky was dragging you out by your upper arm and back to his room.

You had gotten a very stern talking to that night about the dangers of Ari. Bucky was still fuming, but at least he had kept his voice down to a not-yelling level. It didn’t help all that much that you were fighting back some, because at this point you were arguing to a brick wall. But at least you were able to clarify that nothing had actually happened, and Bucky seemed to believe you. But that wouldn’t stop him from trying to keep Ari as far away from you as possible.

It was their Saturday game where you found yourself sitting next to Nat in this cold arena. You had learned over the many years of attending Bucky’s hockey games how to layer and do it properly. Leggings were always a go-to, with a team t-shirt as well. Bucky had let you borrow a quarter-zip he had from last year with your last name embroidered into the top left corner. It’s size made it incredibly cozy and warm, especially right now. Nat was in his jersey, and had every right to be. Wearing a guy’s jersey was girlfriend code, not younger sister code.

The two of you were watching them practice a bit before the game. Bucky would give you two the occasional smile, you would do it back. What you didn’t expect, however, were the occasional but very prominent glances over at you by Ari.

“So, you and Levinson?” Nat asked from next to you. Her tone of voice indicated her genuine curiosity, non-judgmental, and ‘I won’t tell Bucky’ attitude of girl code. But your eyes couldn’t help themselves as they gave a roll. “Oh c’mon, there’s at least chemistry there.”“Uh huh,” You sarcastically replied, still watching Bucky glide across the ice. All these guys made it look too damn easy. “There’s nothing between Ari and I, really.”“You do know everyone heard about Buck’s little show down with him, over you, right?” She asked next. You groaned in frustration.

“It wasn’t even that!” You fired back, “I literally hung out with him for like an hour or two. That was it. Nothing else. I’m a virgin, Nat, you know that. I’m not going to just give that away to a guy like Ari.” You replied. She gave a tight smile in defeat.

“All I was going to say is Ari really isn’t that bad.” She replied. You looked over at her with a face scrunched in confusion. “He had a long term girlfriend. Like a solid two years. Treated her like a princess, really. Paid for everything, showed her off at every game like she was the trophy. Hell, he even posted her on his Instagram. An Instagram that has been a valley on emptiness since high school.” She crossed her arms, her own eyes now looking at them. “Listen, don’t tell Bucky I said this, ever, but if he offers you his number or anything… I would take it.”

You didn’t have long to think about what she had just said when the buzzer went off announcing the game had started. All the guys went back to their bench, taking their respective spots and fumbling with their mouth guards. You gave a deep sigh.

The game started and was going well in their favor. This was by no means shocking, this lineup happened to be one of the best teams in the country this year at the college level. You watched Bucky strategically on defense, a perfect fit for him. He always knew when he needed to get aggressive and not, a strength not many of these guys had at quite the same level he did. You and Nat gave each other a high five and a cheer every time he successful blocked an opposing member from even getting close to their goalie, or when he flawlessly recovered a failed attempt at a shot back to an offensive player.

When the final buzzer rang, the boys were up by four points. The all gave each other small hugs on the ice, walking off a moment later with smiles and walking back to the locker room. You and Nat walked over to their side of the ice, patiently waiting a good distance down from the locker room. This allowed for crew to come in and out and start cleaning up after the game with the already crowded hallway.

It took 20 or so minutes for Bucky to come out first with Sam by his side. You gave them both big smiles as they came up to you and hugged you. “Thanks for coming out, Little Barnes.” Sam said, letting you go from a powerful hug.

“No problem,” You smiled up at him, “I love watching you guys play. It’s very fun to see men want to shove each other with some class over a rubber puck.” Bucky rolled his eyes.

“You did great.” Nat smiled, leaning onto Bucky’s arm as he gave her a kiss on the top of the head.

“You ready to head out?” Sam turned to Bucky and asked him. He nodded. “Wanna come with?” He turned back to you. Before you could even respond, Bucky was speaking.“She’s coming,” He said matter-of-factly. “And don’t even try and worry about getting in underage, we know everyone there. It won’t be a problem.”

“Are you actually gonna let me drink?” Was your next question.

“Don’t act like you don’t do it every weekend,” He replied, starting his walk towards the door with Nat under his arm. “I see your Instagram stories.”

You rolled your eyes and followed right behind, Sam next to you. “Can I use the bathroom real quick?” You asked, all of them nodded.

“We’ll meet you at the car, you know where it is right?” Sam asked and you nodded, jogging off to the side area where the bathrooms were.

As you walked back out, still shaking your hands a little to let them air dry more, you looked over to see Ari standing about fifteen feet down, surrounded by a group of three girls nonetheless. He had that signature smirk on his face that would make any girl really believe he was falling in love with them when all he wanted was a solid fuck and a quick goodbye.

All three of them giggled in sync at whatever he was saying, one of them getting closer to him every couple of seconds. He was just a woman magnet, and while you didn’t blame any of those girls for finding him attractive, their desperation was a bit embarrassing.

You chose not to think much of it, walking off and towards the front door of the arena to walk out and find Sam’s truck. Just before you approached the door, you heard someone call your name. You knew better than to turn around, but your instinct kicked in without any thought. And there stood Ari Levinson.

“Hey,” He said, standing there for a moment as if you were going to continue a conversation you hadn’t even started, “Uh, thanks for coming out.”“I was here for Bucky.” You quickly replied, pointing to the last name on your sweater.

“Well, I mean- yeah I knew that-““It’s what you tell every girl that comes to these games, right?” You said with a tight smile, “I saw you talking to your groupies back there.” He took a sigh to himself, looking down at the floor for a moment with his arms crossed over his chest. His hair fell a bit beyond his ears and over his forehead, him having to push it back as soon as he looked at you again.

“I really hate how you read me like an open book.”“I’m an English major, what can I say.” You immediately replied, letting him have a quick second to respond, and a quick second he left empty. You started to walk towards the door. “I gotta go, Buck’s waiting for me-“

“Can I get your number?” He asked next. You turned around to face him again with a confused look on your face. “Please?” You sighed out loud.

“For what exactly?” You asked. “I have nothing you want. I’m not going to have sex with you, or suck your dick for that matter.”“I don’t want you for sex and you know that.” He semi-aggressively stated, “I just- need someone to talk to sometimes. And you seem to be really good at listening and advice and all that stuff.”“Really?” You asked, even more confused than before. He nodded. “I’m not a therapist Ari.” He groaned out loud, letting his head fall back in frustration.

“I know just-“ He started, now approaching you and leaning down to whisper something. “Listen, I like you. More than other girls. I want to get your number to know you better, ya know, talk?”

“Could you say it louder for the people in back?” You smiled at him as he let out a very hearty sigh. “Fine, I give up-““Just give me your phone.” You said, sticking your hand out. He gave you a look of slight disbelief. “I will give you my number.” He quickly dug the device out of his sweatpants pocket and handed it over. As soon as you typed it in, you handed it back.

“When do you leave?”“Tomorrow.”“Of course.” He sighed, pocketing his phone again. “You got any time to see me?”“What? For a date?”“Yeah, exactly that.” He replied, “We can do what you want. Coffee, lunch, I don’t care.” “A coffee is fine.” You said back, “I’m leaving at 10. Meet me at 10:30 somewhere?”“I’ll text you the details.”

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cursedvibes · 6 months

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I went on @epickiya722 blog and ranted all about how I think that the womanizer characterisation of Gojo by the fandom does not make sense. The points I gave to why this man can not even be in one relationship were:

Trust issues. Gojo does not trust a lot of people due to being the target of assassination attempt since his birth.

Self isolation. He does not feel like others truly understand him or can relate to him. So, he does not truly give himself the opportunity to be close to anyone.

I could go in more detail but I already saturated, the previous blogger ask and I do not want to trigger a hypefixation that will make me write a 2000 words essay on " Gojo got no hoes: this man has a negative rizz".

Also, I'm new to the fandom, so my interpretation could be lacking a lot of elements from the manga.

What do you think? (This is a bait for you to write a loooooooooooooooooooong answer)

I forgot to add. I don't think that most Jujutsu Sorcerers are in the mental headspace to be in a relationship with all the things they have to deal with. Maybe if it is for politics, as in getting married to someone because of their abilities and how it can be beneficial for your clan.

Well, I wouldn't really say I'm an expert on Gojo, but he's definitely not a womanizer. The only reason this is even such a popular perception of his character is because of some misinterpretation of a comment Gege made before Hidden Inventory started, where they said Gojo wears sunglasses when meeting girls/a girl (Riko). And I guess fans assume because they think Gojo is hot, he must be swimming in pussy. In canon, most people seemed to be turned off by his personality and status though. Yuuta (guy who still runs around with the replica of the girl who made a pinky swear with him in elementary school) even teases him about how ridiculous him having a significant other is. Gege said that at least when they were teenagers, Geto was the more popular one. Can't say I understand that because the guy seemed like an absolute bore and always looked down on the people he considers weak just like Gojo. Gojo was being straight-forward about it and not pretending he's a nicer person than he actually is, which I can respect much more than Geto's slimy attitude.

I agree that a big problem for Gojo is the self-isolation he puts on himself that comes with being considered The Strongest. People might be intimidated, but fundamentally there is nothing keeping him from forming close relationships with others once he knows them better. He sees himself as entirely removed from others and not even having/being the same existence.

He is the one who put himself up there and who thinks that only someone on a similar pedestal like Sukuna or previously Geto could understand him because he considers them separate from other humans and closer to himself. The label "The Strongest" is a necessity for him to think he could ever form a truly equal relationship with someone. That way he is very similar to Kashimo and Yorozu, also people who tried to teach Sukuna about love and desperately tried to relate to him because they thought he was the only person who could understand them (he doesn't and he isn't) and that way they only managed to close themselves off to people who could've actually helped them.

Vulnerability also plays into it to an extent because it's no coincidence that Gojo has his Limitless on almost constantly. The thing is, to form a real personal bond with others and have a close relationship with them, he needs to make himself vulnerable and also step down from the pedestal he put himself on to meet them at eye-level. You see that very well with how Takaba and Kenjaku's fight ended. Kenjaku also used to separate themselves from others for safety reasons, suspicion and just general habit. They craved friendship, but had trouble forming the truly equal relationship friendship requires for them. In the end, Kenjaku allowed themselves to fully engage with and get involved with Takaba and that vulnerability led to their death, but it also made them happy and as they said, was one of the best moments in their long life because it fulfilled the base wish/desire that was behind all the wild experiments and merging of people and curses and whatnot.

You could say Gojo is similar and had a similar death in that he was made vulnerable, but it wasn't so much that he stepped down from his pedestal to connect with the people who were already trying to reach him and cared about him, instead he made himself vulnerable by antagonizing someone who also stands on a different pedestal. He doesn't lower his guard, he seeks out someone who could overcome it by force. Unfortunately, that person doesn't actually care about him. If he had tried to connect more with the people already next to him, he might've been happier or more emotionally fulfilled, even if that means he would have to give up his strength or lower his defence. Instead of making children into weapons in hopes of some of them also climbing on that pedestal, he could've left his. There is pressure for him to be in that high position, no question, but he is the one who separates his existence and status as a living being from others. He would've needed to unlearn that thinking first.

All in all, the last thing you said in the second ask is most important. Sorcerers, especially the ones at Jujutsu Tech, generally just don't have romantic relationships or close relationships in general. Not the type the "womanizer Gojo" people are thinking about at least. Gege avoids talking about couples, but the only sorcerers who might be in a relationship are Kirara and Hakari and they aren't part of Jujutsu Tech anymore. Yaga is divorced and we don't know anything about the others except that most of them are very lonely and depressed. Some sorcerers, particularly those in the big clans, are married, but they don't seem that happy. Maki's parents don't look like they love each other or have any joy in their life really. So if we go by canon, no sorcerer is in a committed and/or loving relationship as far as we know (like I said even Hakari & Kirara are up in the air), which makes sense because most of them will soon die anyway. Maybe some of them have sex on the side, but probably more as coping mechanism. With how hung-up Gojo is on Geto aka the closest relationship he had in his life, I don't see Gojo being one of them. Not saying he's crying into his pillow 24/7, but getting close enough for sex with others seems difficult. Plus, ideally the other person also has to like him enough to agree to do it with him and finding someone like that isn't easy either.

tldr: I agree "Gojo got no hoes: this man has negative rizz"

#asks #jjk spoilers

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dittomander · 5 months

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What are your thoughts on Isabel becoming Royal Inventor? I know inventing is Isabel’s hobby, but when somebody is titled as “Royal” then that implies that they work for the Royal family. But Isabel is not only part of the royal family, but she is heir presumptive. If Elena dies or abdicates without children, then the throne will pass to Isabel. Isabel’s arc was about learning to become a ruler like Elena. So why make her Royal Inventor, if she could potentially become ruler of Avalor one day?

Narratively speaking, I think it actually makes perfect sense. For starters, while there are certainly themes of leadership in some of Isabel's episodes, I'd argue that her arc is less about becoming a "ruler like Elena" and more about her becoming a leader unlike Elena.

(True to form, long-winded essay below the cut.)

Isabel starts the show as a clingy little kid - from her perspective, she just lost her parents, and she doesn't understand that her sister's new responsibilities mean that she can't spend as much time with her as she used to. A lot of her episodes involve her learning to act independently of Elena. She must develop and defend her own identity, even as she reckons with the limitations of her age.

She goes to school for the first time in "Crystal in the Rough" and struggles to make friends her own age, so she smothers her own identity and tries to just fit in instead. She has to learn to be herself and rely on her own strengths - her skills with math, science, and invention. This episode also gives Isabel her own friend group, independent from Elena and the other amigos. Later, in "Science Unfair", she has to learn to rely on those friends for help. Her sister gives her some advice, but ultimately, she and her new friends finish their project themselves.

Later still in "Class Act", Isabel has to learn to recover from her own mistakes and work with even more people outside of her family, to the point where she's able to teach Elena a lesson about working with difficult personalities in "Norberg Peace Prize". By "Shooting Stars", she's totally confident in her role as a scientist and her ability to give directions related to that role. And in Isa's final focus episode, "Heart of the Jaguar", Elena is literally taken from her, and she must learn to stand up for herself and solve her problems entirely alone.

But even as she learns to become a more independent and confident leader in her own right, she has to deal with the fact that she is still fundamentally Different from her sister. At first, this is largely framed as a function of her age. In "Blockheads" and "Three Jaquins and Princess", she is ignored and doubted because of her youth, though it's her knowledge and ingenuity that solve the problems of the day.

Still, she tries to be one of the "big kids", and in "Sister of Invention", she makes her plea again to be treated as an adult and seen as part of the team. She's ultimately allowed to join the amigos, but it's not because they see her as being like them. In fact, they explicitly say that Isabel can't do what they do... but that they can't do what she does, either. She's allowed to work with them because of her inventions and mathematical skills - that is, because of her differences.

(Arguably, "Science Unfair" has a similar conclusion. Isabel is invited to go to college - that is, invited to join a group of adults - specifically because of her skills with science. Beyond just being her hobby, those skills are at the core of her identity, and they are what tie her to being recognized as a grown-up.)

The point is hammered in further in "Team Isa", where Cristina outright tells her that "you're not Elena and you never will be." Isabel was trying to be a "leader like Elena" and failed, only succeeding when she utilized her and her friends' own unique skills instead of trying to just be like her sister. Isabel and Elena have distinct skill sets, and episodes like "A Gecko's Tale" and "The Family Treasure" emphasize this. Their differing skills allow them to complement each other and give them opportunities to learn, but throughout the show, it's made clear that they are not each other and cannot fully fill each other's roles.

Because again, it's not just that Isa can't do exactly what Elena does. It's also that Elena can't do what Isa does. She tries to handle invention plans in "Sugar Rush", but it only adds to her anxieties, and at the end of the episode, she hands the responsibility off to Isabel, the expert. Elena has to learn to delegate what she can't handle herself.

That's what the Royal Inventor title means. It's respect for Isabel's unique skills. It's an acknowledgement that she's a part of the team. And it's not an act of subordination, but rather a delegation of authority.

So the narrative comes together there. Isabel has gone from a clingy little kid that would hide her interests to fit in to a confident young lady that knows where her skills lie and can be trusted with the responsibility to use them for the kingdom's benefit.

The promotion scene at the end of "Coronation Day" exists primarily for these narrative reasons rather than for making perfect logical sense in-universe. It's meant to showcase how the character arcs have developed - most of them fall apart if you put them under the slightest bit of realistic scrutiny - but if we do want to look at them through that logical, in-universe lens, then frankly, Isabel's promotion probably makes the most sense.

There is a precedent of members of the royal family still working for the royal family. Esteban was chancellor for most of the show and both he and the abuelos were on the Grand Council. None of those three may have had a claim to the throne like Isabel could, but even her claim is pretty meaningless at this point in the timeline.

The only reason Elena had any governing authority as Crown Princess was because there was Literally No Other Ruler at the time. Current heir or not, Isabel won't actually be expected to lead the kingdom unless something happens to Elena, and if Elena ever has kids, then Isa's practically off the roster entirely. So... what's a princess to do in the meantime? Being named Royal Inventor gives her a degree of authority within Elena's court that she may never have otherwise and gives her something to do for the kingdom other than wait around until Elena dies. It's even a job that's in her wheelhouse.

Besides, if Elena does die or abdicate, it's not like being Royal Inventor now somehow cancels out Isa's ability to rule later. Presumably, she'd just ditch the title when she took the throne.

#elena of avalor #eoa #isabel castillo flores #eoa analysis #ditto answers #thank you for your patience with these asks #i'm gonna start working through them this week

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kafus · 3 months

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pasting a ramble i did on discord of analysis/conjecture/headcanons about liko's home life/upbringing, with strong likodot flavor in the latter half as usual, nearly verbatim because i think i worded it pretty much perfectly the first time while relaying my thoughts to friends... just edited for easier reading slightly

liko doesn’t canonically show attachment issues or abandonment worries really, but i headcanon her with some of that because like. parents busy all the time. not a lot of people in her life and the ones that are, aka mainly her caretakers (she's implied to not really have friends at the start of the show) don’t communicate with her great or are sometimes unavailable for stretches of time.

it makes a lot of sense to me that canonically the brave asagi feels like home so quickly to her. because it’s stable. the same people are always there, she literally lives with them on an airship. but like. they're stable adult figures that aren’t disappearing for periods of time, and friede’s forgetfulness aside (lighthearted), people who communicate with her better. this does wonders for her bdjdjdsk

i also think her selflessness to point of fault could tie in with this, like blaming herself for situations and shrugging off her own feelings (she often doesn’t even notice when she herself is upset/moody on multiple occasions!!) could have been a habit developed from this very thing. she loves her parents and doesn’t want to have to view them as absent or being poor at communication so everything is her fault. she doesn’t want to be pointing blame or to cause problems when people are home or things are good so she dissociates away her own feelings and is very polite and considerate of anything that comes up.

i say all this because i think it’d be an interesting way to spin liko’s character who is already interesting. but also i got to thinking about this manifesting in her relationship with dot down the line. cause like adult figures are one thing but also friends and hell having a girlfriend is kind of different. and dot does actually get busy sometimes because she is still working as gurumin on top of schoolwork (this is headcanons for vaguely what a couple years from now as of HZ053 at the time of writing might look like or something. dot going to more normal schooling similar to how liko has been, on top of still being gurumin)

this starts sparking anxiety in liko but first she shoves it down and acts like it’s fine. and then it starts slipping through the cracks. cue comedy of her being like WHY AM I THINKING CRAZY THINGS LIKE “I WANT TO INTERRUPT GURUMIN VIDEO EDITING TO HANG OUT WHO HAVE I BECOME WHAT SORT OF GURUMIN FAN AM I AHHHH also i don't want to be clingy to dot she likes her independent space...”

still, her response is to be like no it's fine, i have to be fine with this, i'm just acting crazy, dot has literally never done anything to warrant me feeling like this, i am being a bad girlfriend. and dot notices this in her demeanor and is like hey what's wrong? and liko’s like What!

anyway they talk it out and come to some sort of middle ground where of course dot still needs to be alone sometimes either to focus or to just have alone time in general. she’s not gonna let liko derail into a worsening spiral of clinginess. but! she is going to reassure her that it’s fine!

and also cue liko sometimes being able to hang out quietly in her room doing her own thing like lying in dot’s bed on her phone while dot video edits... also way more self indulgent, extremely “this is so not canon but i am a shipper let me live” imagery: dot managing her gurumin socials on her phone in her bed with one hand and liko lying on her bed partially on her lap like a lapcat while dot pets her hair with the other hand. in this essay i will

thanks for coming to my ted talk i've been rotating this in my brain for weeks

#likodot #dotliko #guruminshipping #horizons #kiki was here #kiki.txt #i have many more thoughts on the brain but i wanted to get this specific one out first #also im tagging it bc I FEEL VERY STRONGLY..

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flightfoot · 2 months

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Hey, do you have any good recommendations for Lukadrigaminette or Julerose fics? Mostly canon-compliant. No fantasy or western AUs, but stuff like Adrien never going to school is fine.

Yeah sure, I've got some stuff for you!

The Quartet's Duet by timeandspace_lord

In which Kagami and Luka attempt to get two idiots to fall in love. Instead, four idiots realize they were already in love. Based a lot on Determination and Wishmaker specifically. ~~~ It was only a matter of time, he told himself. Sooner or later they’d stumble into the same secret he had and realize they were made for each other. And if they needed a helping hand to get there, a conductor for the symphony of their lives together, he was more than happy to take on that role. Kagami nodded firmly. She’d known that Marinette was Adrien’s true target from the beginning, but it had taken longer for her to get over her own jealousy and realize that the other girl was also the correct target. Now that she no longer had blinders on, it was obvious the two were meant to be together. If she could help them realize it, so much the better.

---

Hold Me By Both Hands by @angelofthequeers

“I know he said never to take you back,” Plagg mutters. “But he’d change his tune if he knew.” He looks Adrien straight in the eye and, more serious than Adrien’s ever seen him before, says, “There’s someone you gotta meet. He’s been looking for that book for ages.” How differently might the events of season 2 have gone if Adrien had also known of Master Fu from the start?

Honestly, I think this is one of the best ML fics EVER, and I've read a LOT of ML fics. It's a re-imagining of seasons 2 and 3, with Lila sticking around the whole time, lots of discussion and growth of all the major players in the fic, and some truly amazing character arcs. It features what I consider the BEST Chloe redemption arc to date, with looking at where she started in the early seasons and having her actually figure out reasons why she wants to be better, and what that looks like. If you've watched The Good Place, it's like that.

I wrote a 26,000 word essay analyzing the various subplots in the fic, that's how intricate it is.

---

holding onto the memory of you by @fruitdragon1a

For MLB Femslash February 24! Day 10: Juleka/Rose 'hold', 'dress' Juleka and Rose are on the métro when something happens to Rose.

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You’ll be the prince and I’ll be the princess by @mexicancat-girl

With Team Miraculous now full-time holders, Ladybug has them patrolling in pairs like her and Chat Noir. New partners Pigella and Purple Tigress get along phenomenally, their easy banter and similar wavelengths making working with each other a joy in and out of combat. But sometimes Tigress is surprised just how close she is with her partner. Sometimes she tries not to feel too guilty thinking about it.

There’s some nice Julerose here! I love them kinda getting into a lovesquare with each other, though it’s not as much of a problem as it is in canon since it’s reciprocal in every relationship and they’re both down for a poly. It’s fun, and I love the “Luka attempting to woo some of his love interests” plot going on in the background XD.

---

Everything I need by @coffeebanana

When Ladybug asks Pigella to care for her injured teammate, she wants to refuse. She's not the best person for the job, and she's not sure if Purple Tigress even likes her. But Ladybug insists, so Pigella fights through her fear and tends to Tigress' injury. It doesn't make things any easier that Tigress keeps reminding her of Juleka.

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Ink, Skin, and Hearts by EpicNerd

For Rose and Juleka, the topic of soulmates is surprisingly a difficult one.

---

I hope these catch your fancy (especially Hold Me By Both Hands, that fic is a must-read).

#ask #ml fanfic rec #miraculous ladybug #lukadrigaminette #julerose #luka couffaine #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #kagami tsurugi #juleka couffaine #rose lavillant

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life-is-unreal · 2 months

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Watching from afar {Twisted Wonderland x Reader}

(Also published on Wattpad and Quotev, maybe ao3?) (the plot is similar but not the same) (updates=???) (shit grammar)

Prologue 0.1 - Mirror, Mirror On The Wall

"I swear to god, if there's another essay due today." You hissed, tapping away on your computer.

"I can't believe he set three essays without even telling us in class. Like bitch- WHAT THE FUCK THERE'S TWO MORE?"

You threw a slipper across the room, resisting the urge to chuck the computer, "It's expensive, it's expensive... I can't afford shit right now." You muttered, your hand clawing on your scalp.

"Brrrrrrringgggggggg. Briiiiiiiiiiiiing."

The sound of your phone ringing sounded heavenly compared to your ten hour grind on finishing all your essays due tomorrow.

"Hellllo?"

"Hey Y/N! You wanna go to the amusement park that just opened up near school? By the way, 'no' isn't acceptable. I'm at your house so head down bitch."

"Annnnd she hung up."

You sighed. At least you had a reason to tell your parents on why you failed, you could blame everything on your dearest friend Marie.

"Heeyyyyy Marie." You slipped into the uber, shoving your best friend away as she tried to tackle you into a hug.

"Girlie, you look like those ghosts. Of course, you look as beautiful as ever but still." Marie flicked your forehead.

"Girl. I legit had to do three fucking essays in a day and there's two that I haven't done yet."

"...Wait. I have the same classes as you rightttt?"

You snorted, your half dead expression going away as the smile vanished on Marie's face. What's that saying? Smiles don't disappear, they just move to someone else's face.

"WE HAVE FIVE FUCKING ESSAYS DUE TOMORROW? SCUSE MOI?"

You clamped your hand over her mouth, pushing her down, "Bitch, we're in a fucking uber."

"Keugh, keugh. I mean, I can cancel the ride and send you guys back?" The uber driver said awkwardly.

"Sorry man, it's fine. My parent's have like, no hope on my studies so I'll be fine." Marie muttered, her soul sucked away from her body.

"Um. We're here now?" The uber driver, keeping his eyes straight ahead tapped the window.

"Uh, yeah haha. Uh, Y/N get your ass off. Let's go." Marie laughed awkwardly, pinching you hardly.

"Bitch what the fuck." You whisper-yelled in her ear.

"Shush, this shit awkward as fuck, now pretend you have a stomach ache." Marie elbowed your stomach hardly.

"ASFTEGHWGEU WTF?" You screeched, almost flinging her hand off you when you clutched your stomach in pain.

"Sorry girly pop, take one for the team y'know. SORRY MATE, MY FRIEND HERE SEEMS TO HAVE SOME STOMACHE PROBLEMS! GOTTA DASH!" Marie took hold of your hoodie and almost yeeted you towards the direction of the entrance.

"Bitch you owe me a popsicle." You snarled when the two of you had gotten inside.

"Heeeeey, I bought your ticket! It was hella expensive you know!" She whined, using her puppy eyes.

"I- eugh. Let's go then." The thing about Marie was that although she could be a hella insensitive and bitchy person, she was probably one of the top five best looking people in the school and other than being a bit two-faced she was a person with great personality, that is when she isn't bitchy and overly clingy.

You and Marie's friendship began when she moved in to your neighborhood and the moment they moved in, it was made very clear that Marie's family was absolutely loaded. The first time you met was in high school. You had moved in a few months prior so the two of you began chatting as the two of you were the only 'new faces'.

Marie's problems shined through quite quickly when the two became more and more popular. You had gotten popular through brains and pretty looks whilst Marie had gotten popular because of her down right stunning looks.

Halfway through the first school year together, Marie had became friends with everyone under the 'popular' tag. You being her one and only "bestie" had hear all her remarks on other people.

"OMG Y/N, you know Sarah? The blondie? Like she's literally sooo toxic to her friends and everyone. Like bitch called me 'bestie' like noooo. Her? To be delulu enough to think that she's my bestie? Fuck no! Why would I want some ugly, stuck up, two faced bitch being my bestie. Girly pop, stick with me more. I don't want people like her bothering me."

"Hey bestiiiieeee. Did you see what happened in the cafeteria today? That new boy. That nerd. No? Eughhhhh, why don't you know any of the latest gossip??? Anyways, he got his ass whooped by one of the upperclassmen because he was talking to ThEiR GiRl. Like how cringgge is that shit?"

You had compared Marie to Regina from Mean Girls before but you decided that it didn't fit Marie that well. Marie was just as popular, just as two faced. But there was one thing for sure, she wasn't a total bitch.

"Y/N! You wanna hang out today??? Pleeeeeaseee, you know that you're my only bestieeee. Come onnn. Let's go shopping, and yeaaaah I know you're broke and all that but that's why you need a rich bestie right? There you have the all so wonderful and fantastic me!"

"Y/N! Guess what! You know those bitchy girls from Year 12? I called some of my ahem, friends. Don't worry, they won't pick on you any more! Ain't I just succcch a wonderful person. By the way! It's your birthday this week right? I'm bought you that limited edition bag from that store you were eyeing. Uhhh, don't mind the price. You don't need to know about that. Ehe!"

Marie was clingy for sure and she gets angry easily contrary to how she acts in front of the popular people. She never gets angry because of you but you could see when she starts to get annoyed. She always gets annoyed when you hang too close to other people which is probably one of her toxic traits but you were pretty much fine with that as you found that she was fine with most people as long as they don't start calling you "Bestie".

There was also, one thing that Marie entrusted to you, and only you. Her deepest, darkest secret.

"Hey! Y/N! You listening to me?" Marie frowned, flicking your forehead. "You're zoning out again!"

"My baddddd. What you saying again?" You rubbed your fore head. Yeah, Marie's strength was also quite good.

"You wanna go to that mirror thingamajiggy room?"

"The what? Never mind. Let's go." You blinked wearily.

"Did you actually grind for ten hours for those essays? It's not- Eugh. You being your top student. Your the fav student, they won't fail you as long you give a good enough reason you know?" Marie ruffled your hair.

Hmmmm. Marie grew a few centimeters again. You sighed, you and your unmoving height.

You let the taller girl drag you through the crowd until you've reached the Hall of Mirrors, or as Marie calls it, the "mirror thingamajiggy room".

"Y/N girly pop. Stay here for a second. I think I saw those ice cream trucks nearby, I'll get some scoops, don't wander off like you always do. I'm not finding you for two hours again like what happened last year." Marie tapped your forehead. "You listening? I- Why do I even bother?" She rubbed her temples. "Stay put!" she called out, jogging towards the ice cream truck as she was hidden by the flowing visitors.

"What did she say?" You muttered. You removed your blue tooth headphones.

"Whatever, she probably went to the toilet or something." You raised your eyes, glancing at the entrance. For some reason, there was a smaller tent that had no queues next to the gigantic crowd going to the Hall of Mirrors.

You glanced weirdly at the bustling crowd. "They all blind or smth?"

Looking down at the weight that was leaning on your leg you rolled your eyes, "Marie really left her bag for me to carry." You slung her tote on your shoulder before trudging towards the little tent that was pretty much hidden in the shadows.

"Cold nights be like." You grumbled in annoyance, "What the hell did she put in her bag for it to be this heavy man? Gold?"

Ah, my lovely Lord,

"Sound effects? Seriously man?" You raised your brows as you entered the tent.

The noble and beautiful flower of evil,

You are the most beautiful, number one in this world.

"Whyyyyy. Thank you." You yawned sleepily. "Why am I here again?"

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the most..."

"For thee, guided by the Mirror of Darkness," You read off from the plaque in front of the mirror in the center.

Follow thy heart and take the hand of the one reflected in the mirror.

"Yoooo, these effects are kinda cool." You leaned forward, seeing black mist forming in the mirror.

Flames that turn even stars into ashes,

Ice that imprison even time,

Great tree that swallow even the sky,

"How poetic. I would applaud if this was in English class."

Don't be afraid of the power of darkness,

Come now, show your power.

Mine, theirs, and yours,

Your brows furrowed slightly as you felt yourself walking towards the largest mirror.

"Am I so sleepy that my brain and my body ain't working together. I've done that before I mean..." You wondered out loud.

There's only little time left for us.

Do not let go of that hand, at all costs.

Your sleepy eyes widened when your hand, completely out of control, started to reach for the hand that was appearing in the mirror.

"Marie? Are you doing this shit?" You screamed, at this volume, people outside would surely hear you and start rushing in right?

"Marie?" Your voice faltered.

"I- should've waited for Marie..." You whispered, your consciousness fading away as the hand in the mirror grasped yours...

"Marie...find...me"

To be continued...

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