#I remember these kinds of rules in English class

[read-marx-and-lenin]

Can you explain why 1984 is fundamentally reactionary? I remember seeing a journalistic article talking about the same thing but sadly it was paywalled

The whole premise of the book is "if we let the government do too much stuff, eventually the government will get so big it will do Everything and nobody will be able to stop it, it will grow so big it will be a self-perpetuating tyranny."

It's your typical liberal cautionary tale against "authoritarianism", conflating fascism and communism while understanding neither. Orwell had never been to the Soviet Union, and instead drew heavily from his own experience working for the British Ministry of Information. Later in his life, he would even compile a list of suspected Communists to hand over to British intelligence agents, some on the list included solely because they were gay or Jewish.

Animal Farm is another example of his reactionary sentiment, in which the peasants and workers of the Soviet Union are depicted as gullible and weak-minded animals jerked around at every turn by the pigs, a stand-in for Marxists in general and Bolsheviks specifically. Incidentally, Orwell during his time at the Ministry of Information had become acquainted with one Gertrude Elias, who shared with him her own idea for a cartoon film depicting the Nazis as tyrannical pigs ruling over the other animals in a farm. Orwell had told her the idea wasn't any good, before going on to write Animal Farm, replacing the fascists in the story with communists.

Here's a good read about Animal Farm by the way, which I feel shows very clearly the kind of reactionary Orwell was:

Compare Orwell's depiction of the mindless masses in Animal Farm to the "proles" in 1984. 1984 hardly mentions them except to say that they all live in squalor and have no agency worth considering, which allows them to live free of surveillance and control, since the State doesn't see any purpose in expending the resources to surveil them. They're all dumb, mindless addicts and gamblers whose only purpose is to provide menial labor. Meanwhile, the protagonist of the book, who is cunning and able to question the whole situation, is a middle-class white collar propagandist, just like Orwell was during his time at the Ministry of Information. Orwell clearly viewed himself as superior to the mindless masses, and he was a racist to boot, just look at what he wrote about the Burmese or the Irish. The Russian masses as depicted in Animal Farm needed little more than to be ordered around and they were willing to follow whoever was giving the orders. The English masses as depicted in 1984 needed a bureaucratic mountain of sophisticated social engineering dedicated entirely to manipulating every last minutia of information in society in order to be subject to the same level of control.

[mightymizora]

I can’t write anything in any languages because I am very stupid but one thing I can write about is the realisation in my early twenties around the limitations of English because when you grow up surrounded by English as a primary language you are told so often that it is the language of the greatest writers of all time, that it is the language of poetry and novels etc.

And I think it’s very easy to buy into that because of the hype around some of our great writers who are really… great!

But then! You start to learn about the world lmao. You start to learn about the precision of Polish prose in novels and the very deliberate ways of communication in plays that are so much more rigorous than the English conventions. You watch a play in the original Norwegian and realise there’s all this tonal play happening that you missed in English. You start to read Russian novels where people talk three different languages to denote social class and communication styles. You start to notice a particular kind of narrative convention in Swedish novels and Colombian novels that aren’t in British novels and you start to wonder how much more you’re missing in translation. You learn of the term “anglosphere” that East Asian authors use to describe the very limited rules that the UK and America have put onto storytelling, and how Bengali has a formal language that exists solely for poetic expression and philosophical thought that has almost never been properly translated into English because it can’t be.

And then you remember there’s a word in your own family’s language in the UK which has no direct translation to English too.

[ro-is-struggling]

Drunken Confessions || Sirius Black x Reader {Marauders Era}

Summary: You and Sirius always had feelings for each other but you kept it a secret because you two didn't get along. That is until you start dating an exchange student from Ilvermorny. Sirius can't stand seeing you two together all the time so one day he decides he's had enough and confesses his feelings to you under the influence of alcohol.

Warnings: angst (with happy ending), slow burn, unrequited love (but actually mutual pining), kinda enemies to lovers, cheating I guess (the reader is in love with Sirius while dating another guy), mentions of Snape being a jerk to the reader and Lily for being muggleborns, mentions of Jily, Modern AU (so they can have phones to make the prompt make sense), love confessions, fluff, Fem!Gryffindor!Reader

English is not my first language

Word count: 6500

Notes: Basen on a request with the prompt 7 from my 600 Followers Celebration Prompt List

Sirius was watching you from his place at the Gryffindor table lost in thought. You were with him again. Ever since the Ilvermorny exchange students had arrived you hadn't left the side of this Ben guy and he couldn't take it anymore. Everywhere you went he was by your side, holding your hand, carrying your books, lending you his jacket when you got cold... doing all the things he wanted to do for you.

He knew that was impossible, you hated him and barely spoke to him in class, but his dreams didn't hurt anyone. Sirius knew you were polar opposites. You were introverted, quiet, rule-abiding, and popular for your kindness and general cheerfulness, the exact opposite of all the things his name was known for at school. You had never gotten along very well for those reasons, you always saw him as an incompetent buffoon —and you being friends with Snape didn't help his case—, but he had a crush on you from the first moment he saw you. And as much as he knew that a relationship between you was as likely to happen as Snape becoming funny, Sirius couldn't help but feel his insides bubbling with jealousy every time this Ben guy touched you. 

From what Sirius had heard, he was an old friend of yours who you hadn't seen for years after he moved back to America with his family. You were thrilled to have the opportunity to spend time with him after so long and it showed in the amount of time you spent together. Sirius could swear that there wasn't a moment of the day when he looked at you and Ben wasn't standing next to you. But no matter how much you insisted that you were just friends, he knew that was a lie. There was more than friendship in your eyes when you looked at each other and he hated it. 

He hated it because it meant he truly didn't have a chance with you. You weren't someone who enjoyed casual dating, so if you were in a relationship with Ben like he assumed that meant you really loved him. You were in love with Ben and Sirius could do nothing but admire your happiness from a distance while the bitterness of loneliness consumed his insides.

Of course he was never really alone, but none of the girls he dated from time to time compared to you. You were something special, a girl of singular beauty, the calm his troubled soul so desperately needed. But you were unobtainable for someone like him, so he had to learn to live with the knowledge that he could never hold your hand or feel your lips on his, something that became more difficult when he saw you walking through the halls of Hogwarts with Ben, knowing that he had everything he longed for. Sometimes Sirius wished he had never met you, he was sure that would be easier than forgetting you. 

"Are you ready, Black?" your voice snapped him out of his thoughts, forcing him back to reality. At some point you had approached him without him even noticing, looking at him with a raised eyebrow as you waited for him to react. He saw that you were carrying your potions book, holding it tightly against your chest, and then remembered that you had agreed to get together after class to work on a project you had been assigned - he still couldn't believe how unlucky he was to end up paired with you of all people. 

"Yeah, let's go" he muttered without paying much attention to his surroundings, getting up from the table and leaving his half-eaten plate of food behind.

It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining brightly in the sky, though it wasn't too hot thanks to the gentle breeze rustling the treetops. You wanted to take advantage of the nice weather, so you suggested going to the courtyard to work. Sirius agreed, thinking that the fresh air would help him stay calm by not being locked in a room with the sweet scent of your perfume attacking his nostrils. 

The potion you had to brew for Friday's class was a bit more complicated than you both expected. It had a long list of steps and instructions that had to be strictly followed for the final preparation to be perfect —like cutting the ingredients in a specific way and adding them at a specific time. It took you several attempts to come up with a potion that was decent even though you two were top Gryffindor students. And even after spending all afternoon working on it, you still weren't finished. There were still a couple of things to do before you could let the concoction rest for 24 hours as the recipe indicated and the sun was starting to set.

"It's getting late," you muttered as you threw some herbs into the mixture. Sirius was stirring the cauldron with a blank stare, lost in thought. It was something you noticed him doing a lot lately. You wondered what it was that could have him so distracted, though you couldn't bring yourself to ask him. You weren't the kind of people who talked without ending up fighting. "Do you think we'll ever finish this thing?" you joked to lighten the mood.

"Slughorn better give us a good grade after this."Sirius let out a chuckle, looking up to meet your gaze. 

"I hope so! Or I'll force it down his throat myself."

"I'll hold him down for you," he laughed, sparking a warm feeling inside you. You liked his laughter and knowing that you were the cause of it gave you a strange sense of pride. Not everyone could make the class clown laugh.

"I miss when Severus did all the work for me," you complained, grabbing the next ingredient for the potion. You, Lily and him used to do all the projects you could together, especially the potions ones. Severus was very good at the subject and far too controlling so most of the time he ended up doing everything himself because he couldn't stand it if you got something wrong. You didn't mind though, you liked learning through him, he was kind of grumpy but he was a good teacher when he wanted to be.

"Is it really bad between you, huh?" Sirius spoke in a soft tone, as if he was genuinely concerned about the big fight you'd had with one of your best friends. You were surprised by his interest given that he was the #1 Snape hater. You expected a sarcastic comment from him or a mocking remark, but instead he seemed genuinely interested in hearing you talk about your problems. It was kind of weird, you guys didn't usually share those kinds of moments, but you decided to give him a chance.

"Yeah, Lily and I are pretty sad about it, but we couldn't keep pretending... Severus changed, he's not the same guy I met on the train five years ago" you murmured, your voice muffled by sadness. It was hard to lose a friend and even harder to lose one the way you and Lily had lost Severus. The way he had treated you, the names he had called you, no friend would ever be able to be so cruel. "Or maybe he's more himself, I don't know anymore... I feel like I don't know him anymore. Maybe I never did."

Sirius felt pure hatred coursing through his veins as he saw the sadness in your eyes. He wanted to kill Snape for daring to make you suffer by calling you that derogatory word. He always knew Snivellus was an idiot, but he had outdone himself by hurting you and Lily like that. You were two of the sweetest, kindest people he had ever met and Snape had been lucky enough to call you his friends. Sirius couldn't believe how he had been such an idiot to lose you two when you were the best thing that had ever happened to him in his miserable, boring life. He would regret that for the rest of his days, Sirius was sure of it.

"I'm sorry," Sirius said with sincerity in his voice. The hand that wasn't stirring the cauldron hovered over yours for a few seconds, trying to decide whether it was appropriate to touch you or not. 

You weren't friends so physical contact was a rare thing for you. You didn't even hug occasionally to celebrate Gryffindor's victory in a Quidditch match —in fact, you were lucky if you talked for more than five minutes without arguing—, so he wasn't sure how you would react. But on second thought, you also didn't share intimate moments like this one, filled with meaningful words about your feelings, so he decided to give it a shot.

You looked up to stare at him when you felt the warmth of his hand on yours. The contact awakened a wave of electricity in your body, the skin on your hand tingling under his touch. It was something you had never felt before and it did nothing but raise doubts and confusion in your mind. 

"I mean, I know Snape and I have our differences and I don't like him, but still I'm sorry about what happened. He was your friend and it sucks that everything ended this way." You were surprised by the kindness in Sirius' voice. He sounded genuinely sorry for what had happened and not at all smug at being the one who had warned you of his bad side all these years. Was this a sign that he was finally maturing? 

"Yeah, I'm sorry too," you sighed, shrugging. "But you're not the one that should be apologizing. I mean, you warned me about him, I just... I couldn't see it. I didn't want to see it. It kinda sucks to learn that your friend hates you for being born, I guess."

"You shouldn't listen to him. Having Lily and you as friends was the best thing that could have happened to him and he's a fucking idiot for not seeing that." Sirius tightened his grip on your hand as a sign of support and you smiled at him, feeling the warmth invade your insides once more. It was a comfortable warmth, a feeling that made you feel safe.

"You're a brilliant witch and you should never let anyone tell you otherwise."

"Thank you, Sirius. I kinda needed to hear that." After all you had been through —having to listen to someone so close to you belittle you for being a Muggle-born wizard— you had fallen into the trap of doubting your abilities. But hearing a wizard as talented as Sirius praise you like that made you feel better. "Look at us! Who would have thought that we were capable of having a normal conversation?" you laughed and he followed suit.

"It's what I've been trying to tell you all these years!" You shared a laugh that felt all too genuine. For the first time since you had known each other you were having a good time together. However, the fun was interrupted by Ben's voice calling your name in the distance.

“There you are! I've been looking for you all day,” he said with an innocent smile. You removed your hand from under Sirius' quickly, a gesture that didn't go unnoticed by either boy. 

"I'm sorry! We're doing our potions homework and it is taking a bit longer than we thought it would" you explained to Ben, suddenly nervous. You had nothing to hide, you and Sirius were just doing your homework, so why was your stomach turning with nervousness? "We're almost done with the first part, so you can stay with us if you want" you offered. Ben was about to sit down with you, when Sirius' voice interrupted him.

"There's no need, I can finish the rest by myself," he assured you, trying hard to hide the bitterness in his voice. The last thing he wanted at that moment was to share space with Ben. You'd had such a nice evening, he'd rather take that and not have to put up with your public displays of affection. 

"Are you sure? I can help you. I mean, I want to. It's our project." You found it strange the way Sirius suddenly seemed to want to get rid of you. You thought you were having a good time together.

"Yes it's fine! Go have fun and I'll see you tomorrow after class to finish it."

You wanted to say something, to insist on staying to help him, but he seemed very determined to finish the first part of the preparation alone so you just nodded. You rose from your place and waved him goodbye, agreeing on a time to meet tomorrow before taking Ben's hand and walking towards the castle. As you walked away you couldn't help but wonder if you had done something wrong to make him angry. Though what stood out the most to you was how much his rejection seemed to affect you.

The potions class the next day only stirred up more confusion within you, not because of the project - Professor Slughorn told you that you were on the right track when you showed him the state of your potion - but because of your feelings for Sirius. Among other potions of advanced difficulty, Professor Slughorn introduced the class to Amortentia, the most powerful love potion in existence. Everyone crowded around the professor's desk where the cauldron of steaming liquid rested, desperate to smell the steam rising in spirals and discover the scent of love. All except Lily and you, who stayed at the back of the room and only approached when the rest of the class began to disperse. 

There was something about the promise of discovering smells that attracted you even if you didn't know it that terrified you. You both knew very well what you might encounter because no matter how hard you tried to hide it, the feelings were there, but you didn't want to be confronted with the obvious confirmation that the scent of Amortentia would provide. If it were up to you, you would never have gone near that cauldron, but Professor Slughorn invited you when he saw that you were not moving and you could not refuse. So, letting out a sigh, you approached the desk and reluctantly smelled the potion.

The first aroma that attacked your nostrils was that of freshly brewed coffee, the only thing that could get you out of bed on cold mornings. Then the coffee morphed into the smell of parchment and old books that flooded the school library, where you spent most of your afternoons doing your homework. It was a scent you had come to love as you associated it with Hogwarts and the wonders of the magical world, a place that had become your second home and that you missed like crazy during the school breaks. 

You were happy with your experience with Amortentia, letting out a sigh of relief as you discovered that it evoked familiar and harmless smells for you, things you already knew you found pleasant. But just as you were walking away from the cauldron, the third smell attacked you. And this time it wasn't as harmless as the others. Far from it, it turned your world upside down.

You wished it was Ben's cologne or even the smell of his shampoo, anything to reassure you that you were doing the right thing by dating him. But the strong smell of musk and cigarettes that assaulted your nose was a loud and clear message: it was Sirius that your heart truly desired.

Lily looked just as horrified as you did when you returned to your seats, and despite the fact that neither of you mentioned the Amortentia for the rest of the day, you didn't have to talk about it to know what had happened. You knew each other well enough to know that the damn potion had only confirmed your greatest fears: you were in love with Sirius and she was in love with James.

Your mood was ruined after that potions class, your mind too preoccupied with finding another explanation for smelling Sirius' very essence in the Amortentia to concentrate on anything else. There was no way you could accept that you were in love with him. No. There had to be another explanation. You couldn't be in love with him. He was arrogant and annoying, always thinking he was smarter and funnier than he actually was. He was the complete opposite of you and there was no way you could be in love with him. Not when you had a kind and wonderful guy who loved and respected you by your side.

Ben was your friend, someone you had shared beautiful moments with. He understood you better than anyone and even though you hadn't seen each other for a couple of years, he hadn't changed at all. You had a special bond that had not faded with the passage of time. You two together made sense. He was probably the most appropriate guy for you in all of Hogwarts. So why couldn't you love him like he loved you?

When you met Sirius at the agreed time and place you immediately noticed that the atmosphere was different from the previous day. Yesterday you had managed to create a pleasant working environment and even ended up sharing an intimate and meaningful moment that you would never have expected to have with him. But today there was nothing but tension in the air as you sat next to him, pulling your potions book out of your backpack to read the recipe for the thousandth time. You both seemed to be in a bad mood and the fact that your phone was ringing every five minutes with messages from Ben didn't help. 

"What's wrong with lover boy today? Can't he see that you're busy?" There was something about the annoyed, sarcastic tone in which Sirius said that that you didn't like. Maybe it was your bad mood exaggerating things, but he had no right to speak to you in that tone. 

"We're going on a date to Hogsmeade today and he's just making sure I remember it, that's all." you said through gritted teeth, thinking you didn't have to explain anything to him. 

"He sent you like a thousand texts already, does he think you're dumb or something?" Sirius couldn't explain what had gotten into him either. He assumed he still hadn't recovered from watching you leave with your boyfriend yesterday while he stayed behind. Having smelled your perfume on the Amortentia didn't help him either, especially since you kept reminding him that you weren't his and never would be. 

"No, he just misses me," you replied reluctantly, rolling your eyes.

You decided not to speak anymore after that in order to keep the peace between you, limiting yourself to opening your mouth only to talk about the potion you were brewing. However, you were both in such a bad mood that you ended up arguing about that as well, further delaying the process and damning yourselves to spend more time together. 

"Do you mind finishing it alone? It's getting late and I have to go get ready." you asked when you saw how late it was getting. You had less than half an hour to get ready for your date and meet the rest of the students going to Hogsmeade or you would miss the trip altogether.

"Actually, I do. This is your project too and I'm not going to do this all by myself." Sirius knew he was being irrational, looking for excuses to force you to stay with him. He didn't care that you were fighting as long as it meant you wouldn't go on your date with Ben. He was being selfish and he wasn't proud of it, but jealousy was getting the better of him.

"What?" The question sounded more like an exclamation of surprise, looking at Sirius with narrowed eyes as you tried to find some indication on his face that he was joking. When you found none, you let out a sigh of disbelief. Yesterday he hadn't hesitated to kick you out and now he was complaining about working alone? It didn't make any sense.

"What the hell is your problem today? Why are you acting like a jerk all of a sudden?"

"I have a problem?" Sirius laughed sarcastically. "And what about your little boyfriend? He's the one who can't seem to leave you alone for five minutes." It was obvious what Sirius' problem was at this point, but you were too annoyed to notice the jealousy in his voice.

"What does he have to do with anything?" Confusion was written all over your face, anger evident in your stiff posture and your arms crossed over your chest. What was his fucking problem?

"Nothing, he's a saint. He never does anything wrong" he muttered between his teeth, as if he was speaking more to himself than to you. But despite his low tone of voice, you heard him with perfect clarity.

"Why do you care so much about him?" You were tired of beating around the bush, you needed answers. You needed to hear him say what he really thought. You needed to know if behind his teasing and sarcastic remarks hid at least a hint of jealousy —if you weren't the only one who felt something.

Your eyes begged him for an honest answer, but Sirius didn't have the courage - or the composure - he needed to give it to you at that moment. "I don't care about him or you," he said instead. "You know what? Go with him, don't keep him waiting. I'll finish this later." 

Without another word, Sirius got up and gathered his things from the table, disappearing behind the door in a matter of seconds. You watched him walk away not knowing what to do or say, feeling the lump in your throat tighten to the point where you found it hard to breathe. 

He didn't care about you.

"Okay, what's wrong with you?" Ben asked you after spending the last five minutes talking without an answer from you. It was obvious something was wrong with you, you had been distracted since you left the castle.

"What?" Looking up from the teacup in front of you, you met your boyfriend's worried gaze and your heart broke a little more. Why did everything have to be so complicated? You were in Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop, the most romantic place in Hogsmeade accompanied by the most wonderful guy in the world and your mind was still thinking about Sirius. "Oh, nothing. I'm a little tired, that's all." You put on a smile, but Ben knew you too well to notice that it wasn't genuine. 

"C'mon! Something is bothering you, what is it?" he insisted and you answered his question immediately, not with words, but with your eyes.

Just as Ben stretched his hand across the table to rest it on yours, your eyes wandered to the store window. Among the people walking through the streets of Hogsmeade you were able to make out Sirius, who was walking by while holding hands with a Hufflepuff girl. Your expression changed immediately, sadness evident in your eyes as you made eye contact with the guy who didn't seem to want to leave your thoughts. He looked at you as he crossed the street, his eyes traveling to where your hand joined Ben's on the table. And then his eyes shifted to the girl laughing next to him, leaning down to give her a kiss on the cheek as they walked past you.

"It's him, isn't it?" Ben's voice managed to get your attention again and you turned to look at him. He knew, you could see it in his eyes. He knew your little secret.

“Huh?”

“Sirius. He’s the one you want.” The certainty in his voice made you feel like the worst human being in the history of mankind. He was sure of what he was saying, he had no doubt that he wasn't the one you really loved. 

"What? No! Sirius and I aren't even friends." You didn't know why you were lying, you knew Ben had figured you out. You supposed it was because you refused to admit your true feelings out loud. Saying it made it real, it stopped being a bunch of doubts and guesses that haunted your mind late at night and became the cruel and painful reality. You were not ready for that. "I have you, why would I want to be with anyone else?"

"I see the way you look at him when you think nobody is watching you." Ben stated and the smile on your face vanished. "If he's the one you truly want, then you should be with him."

"A relationship between us would never work, we are not compatible." You tried to sound casual, to hide your feelings in a joke, but your voice came out sour, revealing the truth of your heart. "I'm with you now! And you are infinitely better to me than he is. We actually get along."

"Maybe, but you don't love me like you love him." Ben was calm, too calm for anyone in the position he was in. He didn't sound angry or devastated. It was as if he'd had time to process the situation, as if he'd surrendered to the reality that confronted him every time you looked at Sirius a long time ago. He had already mourned your relationship and you wondered how long he had known about your true feelings —certainly longer than you had known yourself. 

"Ben, I-" you tried to speak, feeling the burn of tears building up in your eyes, but he interrupted you. 

"I get it, Y/N. It's not your fault. It's not anybody's fault. We can't choose who we fall in love with... and I can't force you to love me."

"But I do love you, Ben."

"I know you do, but not like I love you." The calm in his voice destroyed you. No matter how hard it was for you to admit it, he was right. You loved him, but as a friend. All this time you had tried so hard to make that change, trying to force your heart to forget Sirius, but it was simply impossible. And in the process you had ended up hurting one of the most important people in your life.

“And that’s fine, I’m not mad at you for not loving me.” Ben continued, giving you a small smile that did little to ease the pain in your heart. You were a horrible person and honestly he deserved someone better than you. "But I need you to be honest with me, because I value our friendship and I don't want to lose it too. So if you love him then say it and we'll break up right now. Maybe that way we can save our friendship."

You didn't see the point in continuing to lie. It was more than clear that you loved Ben very much, but your heart belonged to someone else. Continuing to deny it would only hurt you and him more and that was the last thing you wanted. Your deceptions had done enough damage, you didn't want to lose the beautiful bond that held you together - though there was no doubt that it wouldn't be the same after this.

"I'm sorry," you whispered in a broken voice as a couple of tears escaped your eyes. "I never meant for any of this to happen, I-"

"It's okay. Like I said, it's nobody's fault." Ben comforted you, taking your hand in his and giving it a gentle squeeze. It was ironic that he was the one making you feel better when you had been the one to hurt him, but your mind was so full of conflicting thoughts and feelings that you weren't able to realize at the time how terrible it was.  "Now, what do you say we get out of here? I'll buy you anything you want from Honeydukes."

The Hufflepuff party was exactly what Sirius needed at that moment. Loud music and lots of alcohol were the perfect combination to take his mind off you, at least for a few hours. He gave into the euphoria of the moment, losing himself in Amy's lips as they danced. It worked wonders for a while, but the more intoxicated he became, the harder it was for him to control his mind, which kept imagining that it was your hands caressing his body, your lips kissing him desperately, your hips grinding against his to the rhythm of the music, and not Amy’s. 

It became obvious that there was nothing he could do to get you out of his mind, so Sirius came up with a dumb excuse for Amy and disappeared into the sea of people before she could say a word back to him. He stumbled his way back to his dorm, cursing himself for drinking so much. Luckily he didn't run into anyone in the halls and was able to get to his bed in one piece. The room was empty since his friends were still at the party, so he had the privacy he needed to sink into his misery.

Why couldn't he be the one holding your hand while you enjoyed a date at Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop? Sirius hated that place, it was too cheesy for him, but he hated even more to see you there with another guy. He should be the one taking you on dates around Hogsmeade and buying you gifts. He wanted to walk hand in hand with you and carry your books through the halls of the school. He wanted to be yours and for you to be his, why was that so hard? 

He should have said it a long time ago, maybe if he had been honest in the past his present would be different. Maybe he would be the one you would be texting every five minutes and not that idiot Ben.

Then an idea popped into his mind. It was a terrible one, but his brain was too intoxicated to realize what he was about to do. He fumbled in the dark for his phone, which was forgotten among the mess of sheets he called a bed. The brightness of the screen blinded him for a moment, hurting his sensitive eyes, but he managed to find your name in his contacts despite the difficulties.

'You up?' Typing that message took him longer than it should have, but he didn't care. He was determined to fix his mistakes and there was nothing that could make him change his mind. 

He waited a few minutes for a reply, but it never came. He figured that was normal since it was late at night. You weren't a party girl, so you were probably already asleep. However, Sirius didn't let that discourage him, opting to leave you a voicemail instead.

"I know you're probably sleeping right now, but I can't wait any longer to tell you this..." he began, pausing for a long moment as he tried to organize his thoughts. "I lied, I do care about you... I care about you and Ben being together cause... cause I should be in his place. I like you, Y/N, a lot actually, and seeing you with him is torture. And I know you're happy with him and that he's better than me, but... I just... I wish I was the one you loved, cause I love you and I'm tired of hiding it. I love you and I wish things could be different between us." 

Sirius sent the message before his brain recovered from his drinking enough to make him change his mind. It felt good to finally let go of years of pent up feelings, he felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. In the state he was in he wasn't able to realize what a mess his confession could create, so he rolled over in bed and in a matter of minutes he was asleep, safe in the calm that ignorance gave him.

Sirius' deep, raspy voice was the first thing you heard on the cloudy Saturday morning. You were the last of all your roommates to wake up, probably because you spent the night tossing and turning in bed as you reviewed the events of the day. You didn't feel like leaving the bed yet, so you curled up between the sheets and grabbed your phone to distract your mind. 

As you turned on the device's screen Sirius' name flashed among the notifications. Talking to him was the last thing you wanted to do at that moment, but curiosity got the better of you when you saw the time he had texted you. His voice was slow and low, almost a hoarse whisper. The way he slurred his words as he spoke told you he was drunk, although all those details stopped mattering to you when you heard the content of his message. 

He loved you?

You sat on your bed in complete shock for a couple of minutes, your eyes glued to the wall as you replayed his message over and over again to make sure it wasn't some kind of hyper-realistic hallucination. 

He loved you.

You were just beginning to lighten up at the thought of your feelings being reciprocated when a small detail dawned on you: Sirius was drunk. He had sent you that message when he was under the influence of alcohol. He wasn't himself and therefore you couldn't trust his words. 

But this time instead of sitting around assuming things, you decided to do something about it. You needed to know if his words were real, if he truly felt for you all he claimed in his message.

You were dressed and down the stairs in less than five minutes, focused on finding Sirius. You scanned the entire common room with your eyes, looking for his long brown hair and leather jacket among the crowd of students lounging on couches or doing homework at desks, getting as much work done as they could before exams. He was nowhere to be seen, but your eyes did meet his friends gathered at the side, chatting and laughing as they always did.

"Hey! I'm looking for Sirius, do you guys have any idea of where he might be?" you asked them as you approached them, shamelessly interrupting their conversation. There was a moment of silence where they all shared a look before James gave you the answer you were looking for.

"He's in bed with the worst hangover of his life," he said. "Why...?" James tried to find out what it was you wanted with his friend, but you disappeared up the stairs before he could finish the sentence.

You made your way to his bedroom without a second thought. You had been there a couple of times in the past so you knew the way. This time was different from the others though. On the previous occasions you were accompanied by Lily and you were usually there to complain about something James and Sirius had done. But this time you weren't there to fight with him like a couple of immature children. You were looking for him to discuss whatever it was that you had going on, so normally the nerves were slowly taking over your system. Still, you tried to keep them from affecting your mind, confidently knocking on his bedroom door to hide the fact that your heart was beating with a pace that was probably unhealthy. 

"Is it true?" was the first thing you said to him when Sirius opened the door. He looked like he was just getting up, his long hair tangled and his eyes narrowed as if the light was bothering him. 

It took Sirius a few seconds to comprehend what you were saying, struggling to remember the events of the night before. The throbbing pain in his head had improved, but that still didn't help him regain his memory. Everything was a confusing haze of images that passed too quickly. The harder he tried to remember, the more the details slipped away, as if they were a dream that was lost in his subconscious the moment he woke up.

But then his own voice echoed in his mind.

'I love you and I wish things could be different between us.'

"Oh," he murmured as the realization hit him. "You got my message, huh?" he added, stepping aside to let you into the room. The conversation that would follow was not one to be had in the hallway.

"That's it?" you said, watching as he sat back down on his bed. "That's all that you're going to say?"

"What more do you want me to say?" Sirius sighed, running his hand through his hair. "That I pictured our lives together a thousand times? That the sound of your laugh makes my heart race? That there's no other girl I want to be with?" he said, getting up once more to approach you. He raised his voice, but he didn't sound angry, just... frustrated. "What difference would that make? You're with him now, so it's too late." He turned his back to you since it was difficult for him to maintain eye contact with you while exposing his feelings. He hated feeling vulnerable, but there was no point in lying anymore.

"Not anymore." Your voice was low, almost a whisper, but loud enough for Sirius to hear you.

"What?" He turned, looking at you with eyes full of confusion and illusion. 

"We broke up yesterday... he knew even before I did that my heart belonged to someone else... to the only guy I swore I wasn't gonna fall for." You let out a quiet laugh, finding the irony of the situation amusing. 

"Wait, are you saying that...?" Sirius spoke cautiously, a part of him refusing to believe what you were saying.

"I'm saying that you were the one I smell in the Amortentia." You interrupted him, confirming his doubts before he could even pronounce them. "It's you, it's always been you."

Sirius didn't waste another second, closing the distance between you and crashing his lips against yours. Fireworks exploded behind your eyes as you lost yourself in the kiss, feeling the warmth of Sirius' body envelop you completely. It didn't feel real. After denying your feelings for so long it was hard to believe you were finally kissing him, but there was no denying the electricity that coursed through your body, reassuring you that it wasn't just a dream. 

The world around you froze for an instant, all thoughts unrelated to Sirius disappeared from your mind as his lips caressed yours with desperation. It felt right, as if you were put into this world to be together. His lips connected with yours perfectly, like two pieces of a puzzle that had taken you too long to put together. But it was finally happening, after all the comings and goings you had found each other and neither of you planned on letting the other go.

[eyesmadeofpearls]

Since it's not 2020-21 anymore i feel there's one thing i have to say to you all (Prepare for a yap session, and please remember that just because something isn't canon doesn't mean you cant ship it! please, continue to ship as i don't think anyone has a problem with it! :) This is just for people who seriously believe that any of its going to be put into the show and have went as far as harassing horikoshi, so if you find yourself getting angry with my words, then you've probably got a guilty conscious)

The bakudeku shippers who harassed the author and put him under social pressure have completely ruined the series. 🤗

Saying that he "doesn't understand English so he can't be affected by what fans say 🥺" is extremely rude and sooo fucking annoying of you. Of course bro knows English, he kind of has to?? To further my point i think it's pretty well known that the people of Japan are very particular about how others perceive them, they definitely care more than Americans do, that's for sure. To add onto my point above, the social culture over there is extremely lawful and strict, so stepping out of the norm can be scary. Crossing that unspoken line has created problems for people in the past and it's why there's a huge mental health epidemic over there. If you can imagine a handful of people over there harming themselves and becoming shut ins because of that pressure from people in their country, then imagine being a huge artist and show maker in that situation. Except.. It's not just half of Japan who's got their eye on him anymore, it's half of America too now. That is more than 'just' pressure especially when you know how die hard fans can really be.

I firmly believe that in his case he opted not to make any ships canon because he didn't want to anger bakudeku shippers. All of his official art both out of his work career (drawing just for fun) and in his work career (the manga and show) have been set up to ship uraraka and izuku. People seem to have forgotten that although a majority of the show watchers from America are teen girls like me, this show is for teen boys living in Japan because it's shonen. In japan it's also more socially acceptable to be straight and that's why it took so long for gay marriage to be legalized. So no, i don't believe that the horikoshi would be making a boy love anime and manga about teenage heroes in training. Notice how the plot doesn't focus on who he's in love with but it's been very clear he has a crush on uraraka? Yeah, that's what Shonen is. It's more plot than inner life things. It's like dragon ball z. Yeah, goku's got a love interest but guys aren't worried about that. Still, it's cool to see he's got a girlfriend since that's what's inspiring to teen boys i guess. I also dislike fans treatment of "feminine" acting guys. Midoriya isn't feminine, you're just an American and so am i, but at least i know that the way they raise boys over there vs here is wildly different. Our boys are quite frankly super disrespectful, loud, and ignorant as teens. The boys over there have to be respectful, they have to follow the rules, they can't afford to be loud, and their main focus is on being an adult and getting a job. Though i guess their parents strictness no matter how hard they try doesn't stop them from being rowdy after school. It's nothing compared to how guys over here are rowdy though. Because guys over there don't sit in the back of your class making fake moaning noises or begin to flip tables and scream loudly. Think of Midoriya like spiderman, he's just easily flustered, kind, and respectful but not "feminine" or gay.

Also, telling fans they watched the show with their eyes closed just because we acknowledged midoriya wouldn't get with his bully and rival is crazy work.. "He apologized!!'' if a murderer apologized, would you forgive them?? Yeah, he apologized and changed, but that doesn't mean its all okay now. Bro literally told him to jump off a roof, burned the notebook he values the most, and then proceeded to throw it in the water causing all of his time and effort to be practically useless. Not to mention he beat him to the point of real injuries and continued to be a right dick even after "apologizing". (An apology means nothing if you don't actually try to change and be a better person.) And no, insulting someone on purpose isn't romance worthy material. Unless you specify you're joking then you have brain damage for thinking anyone in their right mind would date someone who constantly calls them a nutsack face, an idiot, a dumbass, a loser, pathetic, a nerd, and genuinely believes that you should be below them in every way unless they've got a twisted degrading kink. And also, sacrificing himself for Midoriya is just plot. Everyone at one point has sacrificed themselves for him because he's the main character, the entire point of them trying to fight for him before he does anything is to weaken the enemies so that Midoriya can go in and finish them off after they beat the villains to near death. They all work towards protecting his future and upping his chances to defeat their common enemy and the man who raised villain motivation by creating more of them. (AFO) So yeah, no, it's not romantical at all that Bakugo wants to be heroic and give the only person who can defeat AFO a fighting chance. Midoriya has gotten hurt trying to protect everyone, uraraka included. But now that you know this would you say to my face that he's got feelings for her too? Or all of his friends? No, you wouldn't. Because that's just what a hero does.

Him and uraraka were meant to be a slow build up, people keep saying "well he always blushes!" yeah, but never at other men. It's been only women who can make his face entirely red like that. In japan, anime uses blush for multiple reasons, so you need to learn to read context on why they're blushing and the room.. Shock, a feeling of content, happiness, embarrassment, and romantical feelings can all contribute to blushing. If a guy were to put him in a headlock and bring him close to their chest, he wouldn't blush.. If a girl did it, his entire face would become pink. To clear up the blushing accusations, he blushed at tsu because she asked him to put her down since she was embarrassed, and he got embarrassed too because she didn't want to be held and felt bad for making her feel that way after realizing the implications of the way he held her. He blushed at hatsume because her literal chest was in his face, on top of him. That's called shock and embarrassment which is something you'd feel if a random pretty lady landed on you chest first. The other times with hatsume he never blushes again like he did and they return to speaking terms other than that one time she held his waist but that's for the same reasons as before. Uraraka however has managed to get him to blush with a full face without even doing anything. He called her cute, he said he liked her hair, her outfit, and he's always got to be standing next to her in every official art piece. Tell me when he's ever said anything like that about a man other than "he's so cool"?

Remember that in Japan love is a touchy subject, you're expected to focus on your future first so that you can have all that you need to settle down. A lot of people don't even say i love you until marriage over there, so it's not odd that Midoriya isn't as open about his feelings unlike uraraka. I think it's just common everywhere for guys to not be the first ones to say anything.. When i met a lot of my exes i was always the one to say i love you first and to initiate things, and i think that's just because it makes guys feel better knowing that they're being chased for some reason or it could hurt their social reputation with their friends who'd probably tease them about it. But anyways, when you pay attention to the way they act near each other, things tend to fall in place. Your actions will always speak louder than your words.

[mxtxfanatic]

Alright mxtx fandoms, let’s discuss class distinctions. I see a lot of people who discuss the theme of classism in mxtx works by collapsing all class groups into two categories: the ultra rich upper class who make all the rules and the poverty-stricken lower class who are oppressed by them. However, this is rarely the case in her books. The prime examples I can think of are in tgcf and mdzs.

In mdzs, a lot of people claim that Wei Wuxian and Jin Guangyao come from “similar backgrounds,” but this is most definitely not the case. Yes, Jin Guangyao went unclaimed by his father until later into his adulthood after his mother’s death, but Meng Yao did not grow up poor. Meng Shi was a famed courtesan with high-profile clients before she had her son, and having Meng Yao was a plan for her to be made into a mistress or second wife (which ultimately failed). Sisi was almost turned into a second wife, which is what caused her to be attacked and ruined her looks. Sex workers operated in a weird social space in ancient history where they existed as an industry, but class distinctions between different kinds of sex work still existed/exists and Meng Shi was definitely not on the low end of the scale. Even if Jin Guangyao had never been acknowledged by his father, he still found an honest job as a bookkeeper before meeting Lan Xichen. Meanwhile, Wei Wuxian was a street orphan with no family, money, status, who barely remembered his name, and definitely no benefit of an education due to how young he was orphaned, who was eventually taken in as the companion servant to a local lord-equivalent’s son. Neither of these characters started off as gentry, but they were not of the same class growing up.

In tgcf, Mu Qing is touted as a “poor”/working-class character by a large portion of the fandom, but… there’s no real evidence that he is? I mean, I have no doubt that, given the circumstances of his father’s death and his mother’s eventual disability, he was in poverty at some point, and this seems to be corroborated within the narrative by the fact that he is well-known and loved by the street orphans in the city. However, you cannot tell me that the personal servant to the crown (and only) prince to an entire kingdom is surviving off poverty wages. You’d be better-served making an argument to me about Anne Boleyn being an accurate historical representation of English serfs. Hong Hong’er, actual child living in poverty, is notably set apart from Mu Qing: from his fraying, patched clothes to his dirty hands to Mu Qing’s unwillingness to touch him… Mu Qing is set apart from the upper crust because 1) he is not of nobility but, more importantly, 2) his father was a criminal publicly executed for treason. And #2 is particularly damning for Mu Qing’s status amongst the nobility because Feng Xin, also not from a noble family, is (conditionally) accepted amongst the same elite snobs in a way Mu Qing is not (which makes sense since why would a noble like the son of a man who may have conspired against their rule?). Interesting to note, though, that the only time Mu Qing is unquestionably included in the array of the elite is when Hong Hong’er is being ostracized by the same group (minus Xie Lian). So while Hua Cheng and Mu Qing both had childhoods outside the nobility, Mu Qing was not anywhere near the level of poverty Hua Cheng had to live through.

I feel like svsss escapes this sort of broad-stroke application of class status to characters because most characters really do either fall into one of the two groups or we are not given background information on them at all. We know that Shen Jiu and Yue Qingyuan were child slaves, with the former being bought by a cruel master and the latter being able to escape and join a sect. We know that Luo Binghe, while not a child slave, was a child servant working with his adoptive mother under cruel masters who were directly the cause of his mother’s death. Slight distinction, but functionally not any different in their effects and outcomes. Shen Yuan is said to come from a wealthy family in his world, and Liu Qingge and Liu Mingyan do, as well. All the major demon characters are nobility. The only character we see who does not fit into this distinct divide is Shang Qinghua, but his background only becomes fleshed-out in the extras. Not to say that classism isn’t also a theme, but it’s function is used differently here than in the other two novels (especially since in svsss, we are working with parallels feeding into cycles of abuse and how to break said cycles rather than recreating them into infinity).

So with all this said, I think it may actually help discussions of the classism theme within these different mxtx fandoms to acknowledge and take into account the nuances within the class positions that these characters occupy. Why is it that the functionally middle-class characters, after gaining a crumb of acceptance from the elites, tend to turn against those lower on the rung? How do characters of the same background and class status interact with others of differing status, and what makes their reactions different from each other despite being raised under similar conditions? What is mxtx trying to say about class as a social or even moral divider by adding all these class nuances or (with svsss) lack thereof into her various narratives?

[lesfir]

Hi! I’m a big fan of Astarion’s character as a whole (Spawn and Ascended) but I don’t really feel comfortable talking about him in a lot of places because of… you know 🫤 but I was wondering if you had any headcanons on his background before vampirism? Theres a few things I’ve seen that kind of imply maybe he wasn’t always a noble, like the ratcatcher line, or his unmaintained grave in a public cemetery, or that he’s really ambitious and strives to not be nothing/a nobody. Or even the fact that he’s a charlatan/rogue. I like to think that his drive for power and wealth comes from him being lower class at one point and he climbed the ladder on his own, that’s why he’s even more bent on having it again. Idk I could go on but I was curious what u think

Hello, thank you for your question! I have poor English, but I will try my best.

> whole (Spawn and Ascended) but I don’t really feel comfortable talking about him in a lot of places because of… you know I know, still this, gross. Poppsychology hysteria is very high. Evil Win is something that is not possible according to Anti. Pure Health or Abuse Tragedy. Although "I can heal\fix someone (narcissistic, immoral, traumatized manipulator) with the power of love, kindness, questionable therapy skills, "I'm proud" leads to the last one if you're so zealous in your health-psychology research. That "I love to hate it"-moment, bully instinct, whatever the means and methods. I'm sure if AA was breathing, Anti would find shit to throw. Absolutely destructive poisonous behavior.

Well, it's a shame this is happening to the fandoms, I hope it goes away in the next five years. The golden recommendation of fandom that I've heard - if you feel shame, discomfort for what you like - you close the door and leave the place, for your own calm and enjoyable time. When things like this happen to a fandom there's clearly something wrong with it, although that's a problem with many fandoms right now, it doesn't negate that it's wrong. All right, enough about that.

You are fortunate to enjoy two.

> but I was wondering if you had any headcanons on his background before vampirism? One of the biggest assholes of Baldur's Gate is my head for "Astarion before Cazador". I think it's a constant. > few things I’ve seen that kind of imply maybe he wasn’t always a noble There are no objective hints for me in the game for that. I can assume that option, but most of my thoughts are that he was always noble. There is one thing about Idle champions, more on that later.

>ratcatcher line No-no. Because that's the line for Original Astarion when he's already become Lord. It's a reference to his slavery to Cazador. That he was forced to eat rats. Not to his mortal life.

I'll add here too, that he was wealthy, with power, and he remembers that. But we're talking before even that and "was it always so?", this angle will also be detailed below.

>his unmaintained grave in a public cemetery He died 200 years ago, so... Maybe he didn't even have people close to him. It could indicate that he didn't have one in his mortal life who would have grieved his death for a long time. Either that someone is lazy or doesn't like cemeteries. I wish we knew more about it, but we have what we have.

>or that he’s really ambitious and strives to not be nothing/a nobody I thought he had ambitions. He is not without ambition. However, I now think his theme is one of pleasure, hedonism. Power and high status is a tool in his hands to live and flourish. The desire for power comes from the very beginning if you refer to the artbook. He wanted more. But why? And for what? So far I see it that he realised it was a power is fun, useful sickle, especially in the field of law, ruling, and without it, well… the chances of dying and not enjoying harvest that world has to offer are higher. I'm sure he was arrogant, proud of everything he had, influence, wealth, including his beauty and his voice. He liked it when his voice sounded loud in the hall. He sure liked being someone important. This was intensified when he became a slave, especially as he was emphasised all the time how small he was. It's a huge wound of the loss of everything.

>Or even the fact that he’s a charlatan/rogue Stephen Rooney loves the rogues in DnD. He said in one interview but I'll drag out the answer even more if I search :,,,,,) That in my opinion is the main reason, he liked writing a trickster. He was needed in the story. Knaves often don't have high status. They want it have by stealth. Being noble for archetype rogue is a pretty fresh concept. Also Noble may not be so important and there is something to aspire to, more, grander.

Charlatan's juicy moment in DnD 5, on which BG3 was written.

Charlatan Bonds «I come from a noble family, and one day I’ll reclaim my lands and title from those who stole them from me».

D&D 5e Player's Handbook Part 1 | Personality and Background 128 p. Charlatan

Now for more details about my point of view. A lot, I got inspired to write so here we go.

It's hard to speculate on Astarion's backstory if you start relying on canon, which I usually prefer to do. ***

And canon was…

The entire first act, some scenes are cut (3-4), others in shortened to 1-2 phrases as the dialogue with animation is removed, but it remains, as well as the approvals and phrases "chicky little pup", all written with the ideas that Astarion was:

Greedy for power, hunger for eternal life, corrupted elite from the Upper City. Who sold the criminals, gurs (they're "savages" in Faerun) to vampires as food, and then sold them into slavery.

Why… It's been so little revealed. Who took away a whole detailed story about how this horrible man became a slave (not perfect either, Cazador suffered for 200 years) and then became a sunshine Lord with the help of my corrupted Tav.

As far as I know, no one could force the developers talk about the main ideas about the story, writing it in an artbook, selling the artbook in a physical edition until now, plot which they might have thought to change all or part, and to give an interview to VICE and YouTube channel (in which he repeats wording from the interview). „A disgraced nobleman who used his position as a local magistrate to serve a vampire clan by feeding them prisoners, he was eventually too corrupt even for them and was effectively sent to serve as the personal slave of a powerful vampire”

Baldur's Gate 3 Features You Didn’t See In The Demo 14:12 „Vampires made him their spawn after catching him selling criminals into slavery when he was a magister. His punishment has lasted hundreds of years and Swen cryptically refers to something written on his back that when you finally see it, you'll be, and I quote, "oh f**k!” I wrote more about it here. It was a hook for the players. Which has now become a reason not to trust Larian at all. In my opinion it was decided to leave unrevealed in order to make the product more mass-market or Larian's team didn't have enough time.  

Larian also couldn't decide which character was Astarion. - Noble - EA - Courtesan - EA-time Charcter Sheet - Charlatan - Release

Or does it combine everything together? Courtesan is no-no for me, very. Could this be a reference to his slavery when he seduced people? When thinking of courtesans, it is rather presented as a forced choice: either poverty or this. Or fully a choice. For example, Cherie 2009. Where courtesans did make a lot of profit themselves, money not only to survive, but to live very luxuriously. In Astarion's case, it was simply slavery, of any kind or manner. Well, about the victims he could have knocked them out in a dark alley, or holding a knife to their ribs and brought them in. The explanation that Cazador made it such a torture for him to have sex doesn't convince me much. + Using Cazador to explain everything is meme, no plot, lacks complexity and the player's personal assumptions, impressions and experiences (grounded in the knowledge of psychology especially) don't add to it to the actual game. Music and acting unfortunately too. Weak scripts and cut content affects. So the "courtesan" as a reference to his slavery seems to me kind of wonky. If this was before Cazador, meh. There's a movie called "Dangerous Beauty", 1998. I don't remember it well, but I remember the woman had a choice of work, convent or Courtesan due to poverty. Did he really not want to work so badly? :,) Or was he really that poor and was lucky enough to get into a prestigious brothel, and further up the hierarchical ladder, because of need. (no, I don't like it) I don't think Astarion was forced to do that and he was so poor. I think it might have been a way to gain power. He could have just been from an impoverished noble family (so he didn't know how to work and hated it) and decided that the way of his beauty is more efficient. He got money and influence and became a magistrate. I don't like the idea still.

I can live with the word if it is used with the historical context of the Middle Ages.

Given how entrenched the word has become in the modern day, I don't think it could have been with this context.   But by the way fits perfectly with noble, charlatan and magistrate.

"In European feudal society, the court was the centre of government as well as the residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together. Prior to the Renaissance, courtesans served to convey information to visiting dignitaries, when servants could not be trusted".

(oh and the point that he doesn't trust anyone, he's seen how much betrayal there is in high society. In this case, Astarion could also seek influence through seduction, but it was his desire and no longer even out of need or habit. It could even be one of libertine entertainment, that's still profitable)

I will always prefer noble or charlatan. Charlatan fits, including on DnD.

Idle champions of the forgotten realms.

Among the items Astarion has are "Forged Potents of Nobility". But also the portrait of the Cazador, the Vampire Rapier. It could be an Easter egg out of context with other items, hint that he wasn't noble right away. He could, as Magistrate, engage in paper forgery and sell. And, wasn't Astarion hunting in the Upper City, maybe he had to have noble documents to get into some places. But since he was outside the law of mortals, like a vanishing shadow, he had forged papers. Yes, while I was writing this Astarion noble became canon again.

The Dungeons & Dragons 50th Anniversary Superdrop Post here It was an ad somewhere on instagram. You can see the ‘sound’ icon at the bottom, identical to Instagram. I tried to find it on the official dnd instagrams, but no results. Need THIS ALL very much. He was probably changed to charlatan because he has no status at the moment. Although for games, the archetype ‘noble’ is still connected to the attitude towards the world around you. ‘I'm better,’ striving for luxury, squeamishness, arrogance. So he behaved like that, but now he doesn't have that status and power - so the game decided to more correctly call him a charlatan who had his nobility taken away from him, like in the DnD5 book. Also he acted like a charlatan (most likely) when he was with the magistrate, so that point fits as well. Let's clap for Astarion, who is noble again. 💅✨👑 Clap harder because he do nothing for it, at all.

His age has also been changed several times, which is still a mistake in the game script and on the gravestone. In my humble opinion. - 350 - Death at 150 (Idle champions of the forgotten realms, first time) - 239 - Death at 39 (229 - 268 DR) (game BG3) - 263 - Death at 63 (Idle champions of the forgotten realms, after change) I'm no DnD expert so you're reading what I found and checked while I was writing, hopefully it will be ok here. Speaking of consciousness Being in the society of other races that live, grow up and die faster, elves adapt to this life and are already considered adults. There was a good example to explain: it's like a rather infantile 18 year person who already understands everything. Has rights and obligations before the law, if they live in a society other than elves they a full-fledged adult member of society. But emotionally tends to be more naively, maximalism, impulsively, intense.

After turning into a vampire, he didn't age, that's the point. How Cazador cut his back, his skin unrecovered? Probably the holy water, spell. How old is the half elf Shadowheart? About 40, she looks 25 - half elves age faster than higher elves. Astarion is a high elf how could he age faster than Shadowheart at 39 years - no way. Halsin is 350, he's a wood elf, but in DnD5, high elves and wood elves don't have such of the aging body difference. He looks older than Astarion by I don't know, like 10 years? When do High Elves get their first wrinkles? (sorry Astarion) Alright, in Larian's homebrew in BG3? Considering Shadowheart, Halsin and lil wrinkles Astarion, Idle champions was right here about 150 for a high elf, but 63 can be tolerated. *** So we have an extremely large space for headcanons about his backstory.

There's an option headcanon his backstory as a funny goofy hedonist. Possibly who could do evil things to the poor, vagabonds, “barbarians”. In canon we have one moment in Act 1 where Astarion tells his story with the Gurs. “They didn't like the decision I made” - 99% of the time that decision was unfair. I'm sure he was prejudiced before the attack. I don't think he tried to judge fairly, justly and mercifully those he considered ‘trouble makers’ and ‘barbarians’.

Also we have space for headcanons of how evil he was. (I think though he was a goofy hedonist at any way). Given the latest news with noble, I think he's been one since birth. Well, I'll keep the part where I little speculate about how he could have been non-noble, at the very beginning. And little about how writing his attitude towards the world (very noble).

I definitely had thoughts that he tried really hard to be on top because he was poor once. Though he likes skillful thieves, he has quite a bit of disdain for the poor, vagabonds, wretched, plebs etc. This incidentally reveals his status-issue, he became in that low status he hated. I'll give a few examples that can be shown glimpse hints of his past as a magistrate. Astarion: I've watched urchins freeze to death on the street. It looks peaceful - just like falling asleep.

The concept that he was “urchins” too, and hated it - possible, wanted nothing to do with this position, becoming noble he completely separated himself from this world. But no, I don't think so, I'm not close to that idea. I feel the mood that he was always noble, how mutch rich and influential? - is already that moment where I'm considering different options. Yenna approaches the camp to ask if they can stay.

Astarion: Absolutely not. We've hit our quota for mangy strays.

Minthara and Laezel react in a similar mood. Astarion, though, emphasises some aspect of poverty. Mangy stray. These are just few examples, there are more, approvals, hints.

There's also a scene about “Justice”. Which in my opinion is a hook to his past and the idea of his character, story. Narrator: A true champion knows justice and eliminates those who stand in its way. Restore the balance of justice. Wyll: Justice. No pardon without repentance, and no penalty without mercy. Wyll: The right path often lies between the extremes. Astarion: Mercy? Please - justice should be a harsh lesson. All the better to deter the next vagabond.

Player: I'm with Astarion here. Off with every criminal's head, I say. Wyll: If such violence is truly justice, then let it never again be called a virtue. ___ I think Stephen Rooney had a hand in this scene. This theme of violence, justice, about the dark side of humanity. Harshness can bring justice. It can become violence. Can become so corrupted and vicious that it ceases to be justice. (or has it always been a side that's always been kept quiet...) Can be in balance. Astarion hardly shares Wyll's point of view. Not to mention his history with vagabonds. The thing is... No one would care about mercy if a rabble of vagrants attacked your home. Wouldn't you regret trying to keep things in balance? The crowd doesn't care who was an honest man and who wasn't - everyone is a target. In that time and place (the Middle Ages) Astarion has a point.

Wyll literally said right, good things. Astarion: Mercy? Please~ It is XD yeah.

Astarion has the freakiest moral scales, always. In reality, he cares little about justice. He has an opinion about it. But it will still be "good, as long as it doesn't hurt me". If justice points its sword at him, he'll turn things around so it doesn't have to be that way. Will be proud if it's successful. He's not a wise character, even if he has a point in his story where the gray morality. I paid a little attention to it here. It's amazing how his character brings fun to the dark side, luring down the path of vice. Astarion has a picture of the world according to “evil” in DnD, “the strong survive, the weak die”, this picture is similar to Laezel and Minthara. But Astarion has no ideas or what he serves - his desires are the guideline. One thing is clear to me - he likes to live a pleasurable life, he will protect it and keep it in any way he can.

I'm also thinking… Astarion can ridicule and flips any reasoning about morality, principles, rightness, he doesn't really care, the main thing is to achieve whatever he wants. That's what he did when he was a magistrate.

So I'm closer to the idea that he was the golden boy.

Speaking of the Magistrate. One - something made him choose a good career about money and power. Perhaps something unpleasant, tragic. Two - variant he just realized by watching society that this is what you should strive. Reason was very petty, like he felt gOLd embroidered gloves were worth quite a lot. He didn't like the thought of counting gold. And his personality. It's useful and fun. Wearing poor or even average clothes and not eating delicious food - sucks. Three is a combination Lately we have been looking for reasons in the actions of the villain, psychological, subtle reasons - it was not bad, as long as it comes to the point that the more reasons the less he is a villain and just a “victim of circumstances”, it is already a tired concept for me. It's much more interesting when the reasons are there, but there is a distinct decision by the individual, where he clearly understands what and how would be right, but chooses wrongly. Astarion chooses the immoral path, he prefers it that way.

Why the Magistrate and not, shall we say, a merchant, a shipbuilder. Because the magistrate can tax everyone. To neatly circumvent the law, you have to know perfectly well how it works. :D Interesting, he loves Baldur's Gate, he's fascinated that this city is so great, a city of opportunity, he said. When he becomes Lord, he wants to rule it, or rather will do so again, in a higher status, a tiny pause of 200 years. He loves the heartbeat of this city.

There are other options, but here's how Astarion sees the city, a heart to bite into. Hot. In talking to the dead "that he was going to do as Lord" - rule and be free. Dead men don't lie. He wants to rule.

Could this be a reference to raw ambition and a desire to rule that he's had in the past? Probably. However, he said that there are many other cities in the world, perhaps this is a trick for Wyll.

But he could really easily leave the city with Tav\DU. So even ruling the city isn't his main idea. It's enjoyable, but there are other fun things too. The idea was to turn into a bat, evidently. And do:

Success. One more a constant thought: The choice to become a Magistrate was his willful decision. Astarion was looking for more power and a place at the ruler of the city. Only later did he find out it was boring quite a bit XD But the perspective of the place and what it gave and could give was very pleasing to him.

Speaking of family. For the full picture, it's worth looking at something I haven't done yet - how the High Elves settle into cities where races that live faster, and what that means for the elf family. There are options: either he had a family or barely had one. There are several other branches from that, the family's attitude towards him, what happened to them.

• If there was a family

A respectable family, who easily got everything he wanted. Probably started demanding too much. (Mommy may I?) I headcanon that his family may have been impoverished because of their honesty and lack of ambition. But not much, they still had status. Yet Astarion was affected, “money can run out, it's amazing”. It may have sparked his interest in power.

★ Astarion was adored by his parents.

He was cared for and protected. Perhaps nurturing in him an attitude towards other people, especially the poor "I'm better, my family is better, others don't matter". By guarding him, they could say: "Don't think of running outside the upper city, it's all muck". With a family like that not caring for the grave, I can explain it this way: - His parents was killed before he died. Maybe criminals, maybe a fire. He was left alone. - His parents died after he died. - His parents were so heartbroken that they left Baldur's Gate forever

☆ The other option is his parents didn't really care.

There are so many ways in which that could be. I prefer that they were nobles who disappeared at balls, loved their son, but did not know how to care and teach him, all this was done by servants and his friends such as children of noble. Here heartbreak works too and leaving town. They thought they had plenty of time...

○ If Astarion had no family.

Astarion still had status and probably a guardian who almost didn't raise Astarion. Astarion had his looks, money, and the society of the golden youth. (Corrupt nobility). I pay less attention to this option, but I like it just as much. It's a simple option, but that's the point. As in the case of the family that didn't care, Astarion raised himself, among children who had everything.

Speaking of personality. I also believe that Astarion has an inner desire to reach for "debauchery and darkness". Which is consistent with the idea – dark&fun. It's his core to be himself. As an example, he would steal when he had a lot of money, just for fun to cheat some clunky merchant and watch him red-faced. quite the rogue He was very mischievous. As he got older, his mischief became... well decadence level.

I think I've written a lot.

That's not all I think about this. But it's almost all I've found words for at the moment. The important thing is that my thoughts may change in some details. Especially since we're going to have a new artbook and what will Larian write in it? That could affect it, too. I've outlined the constants and the things I like about this story.

Thank you for your attention All the best.

[petitelepus]

Hiii🤗 gosh i just love your writing so much, and by far you have been my fav to reader fanfics on here😊 if you can, i would like to ask for a Teacher!Gyomei x reader, where the reader is a new teacher in the academy. (they tech Any subject of your choice.)

Summary: You're Gyomei's wife and the newest addition to the amazing staff of the Kimetsu Academy! How do students take the news?

Warnings: Cute, Fluff

A/N: Modern!AU, Kimetsu Academy, Female Reader, Reader, Gyomei Himejima, Teacher Gyomei Himejima, Lady Tamayo

It was a big day for you. You were finally accepted to Kimetsu Academy as their newest assisting Health Teacher. Miss Tamayo was an excellent teacher, but she wanted to spend more time in the school's infirmary and you were dying to teach children.

Principal Ubuyashiki happily hired you since you used to be one of many Kimetsu Academy students, who graduated at the top of your class. It also helped a little that you were married to one of the oldest staff members in the school, your gentle giant Gyomei Himejima.

But you were slightly nervous as you checked your hair for the seventh time in the last 15 minutes. Principal noticed this and smiled, "Please don't worry, Miss Himejima. I'm sure that the other teachers are happy to welcome you to the Kimetsu Academy family."

"I know…" You smiled, "I'm just nervous, that's all."

"You're going to do great." The beautiful woman smiled as she knocked on the staff room's door and stepped inside, you following close behind her.

"Everyone, I'm sure you have already heard the news that Miss Tamayo is going to focus on her work at the infirmary; so here we have a new Health Teacher, Miss Himejima herself." The Principal smiled at you, "Won't you introduce yourself?"

"Alright," You nodded with a genuine smile on your face despite being nervous earlier, "Hi there everyone, as some of you may know, I used to be a student here, but now I'm joining you guys as we try to teach kids to survive out there."

You looked around the room and your eyes locked with your dearest husband who gave you a silent thumbs up, giving you more courage to keep on smiling.

"I know I'm new, but please feel free to correct and guide me. Thank you." You bowed humbly and the teachers clapped, and someone even whistled.

You blushed a little at all the nice attention you were given and the Principal nodded, "Well said, Miss Himejima. Please, you can take a seat next to your husband."

"Thank you, Ma'am," You bowed humbly to the kind woman and took a seat next to your husband who immediately turned to congratulate you, "You did well, my dear!"

"Thank you, love!" You smiled excitedly, "All that practicing in front of the mirror paid off!"

"Welcome to the teacher's club young lady!" The art teacher Uzui smiled as he stepped forward to congratulate you. You smiled as you nodded, "Thank you, I'm very excited."

"We have some unruly students here…!" The math teacher Shinazugawa growled from his seat, "So remember to rule with an iron fist!"

"I prefer a gentle approach, but I will try my best to understand and guide students." You nodded happily. Then you noticed the P.E. teacher Tomioka gesturing you to come closer to you and you excused yourself so you could talk with the silent teacher, "Yes, sir Tomioka?"

"Good luck." The man nodded quietly, "Look out for any troublemakers and if you find any rule breakers, you can report them to me."

"My, thank you, sir Tomioka. I make sure to tell you if anyone is giving me a hard time!"

"Speaking of that, classes are starting." Goto the English teacher thought out loud and everyone got their stuff and headed out, you included. You knew the school like the back of your hand and headed toward the classroom where you would be holding your classes.

As expected, the students were already there by their seats, waiting for their new teacher to come. You stopped by the doorway, took a deep breath to still your beating heart, and you stepped inside.

"Hi there everyone," You greeted the students as you walked to the table in front of the classroom and put down your notes. You looked around the room and one or two hands rose up. You nodded, "Yes?"

"Who are you, Miss?"

"Where is Miss Tamayo?"

"Miss Tamayo will be working in the infirmary from now on, so don't worry, she is still here."

"Then who are you?"

"Are you a substitute?"

"Almost, I'm your new Health teacher, Miss-!" You were saying when there was a soft knock on the door and your husband stepped inside, "Dear, you forgot your-!"

"Ah, love, I was just introducing myself to students." You smiled as you motioned the huge man to join you and he did just that.

"Class, this is sir Himejima, the Civics teacher and my husband!" You said cheerfully and the whole class gasped out loud.

"WAIT, HIMEJIMA IS MARRIED!?"

"AND TO A TOTAL BEAUTY!?"

"CONGRATULATIONS TO BOTH OF YOU!"

You and Gyomei both blushed softly as you nodded happily, "Thank you, everyone. So, remember, if you cause any trouble I can always call my husband here!"

You were kidding, of course you were, but most students took your joke a little more seriously. But despite that, they were happy for their teacher for marrying a kind woman like you.

"I better head out, my own class is starting," Gyomei smiled at you as he handed you, your small pocket mirror, "Have a good day, dear."

"You too, love." You smiled back at him, suppressing your need to kiss him because you didn't want to show such things to your students. So your husband left and you smiled at the students, "Alright everyone, we will start this class by talking about healthy foods and ways of life!"

[fuokir]

Aena Florence Cowell - Profile

◊ Basic Information ◊

▹ Gender: Female ▹ Date of birth:  19th of February ▹ MBTI: Defender ISFJ-A ▹ Nationality: British | Welsh ▹ Blood status: Pure-blood ▹ Wand: English Oak Wood | Unicorn Core | 14 ½" Length | Slightly Springy flexibility ▹ Nickname: - ▹ House: Slytherin ▹ Patronus: Red Squirrel ▹ Boggart: Dragon/Fire ▹ Amortentia: Juniper, menthol, lime ▹ Animagus: -

◊ Appearance ◊

Aena is slightly above average height. She has long blond hair, to be honest it's hard to say what color, her hair was once very burned out in the sun, I would call it a pearl blond, with a warm undertone. Violet eyes, in her favorite sly squint. A long, straight nose, it is very easy for them to get into other people's business. Freckled skin and two facial scars.

▹ Clothing style: Ready to dress up in anything, the main thing is that it be washed and ironed. She loves trendy blouses and comfortable shoes, otherwise she just wants to look neat. ▹ Accessories: Silver earrings. A brooch with which she secures a bow on her collar. ▹ Other distinguishing features: Two scars. First received before Hogwarts, her younger sister hit her with a candlestick in a fit of rage. This scar cuts through her upper lip. The second one was obtained approximately between 4-6 class step (I still haven't decided) in a fight with Aisha. This scar is located across the bridge of the nose.

◊ Personality ◊

Aena is a person who values connections very much, and, first of all, values her own comfort. She can come across as rude due to her bluntness, although she usually tries to choose her words. For close people, Aena is the figure of an older sister, patronizing and ready to help with deed or advice. She is still clueless in conversation, but it has its own charm. If you come to her in a bad mood or in tears, she will definitely coo around you and if words do not help, then be sure that you will be taken to have fun in Hogsmeade, even if Professor Weasley did not give permission to visit the village. Due to her rather reserved nature, it is very difficult to catch her own resentment or bad mood. As a rule, she suppresses bad emotions if the pressure on her is very strong. Cowell is inclined to break loose on someone, but more often than something (Ferdinand Octavius Pratt will never forgive her for his torn portrait that once hung in the Trophy Hall). Otherwise, she learned to live such moments in herself, not wanting to impose her problems.

▹ Traits: Self-confident, imposing, diligent, cunning, communicable. ▹ Likes: Feeling of winning, gift gifts to friends and family (she is one of those people who will see a wild flower, remember you and pick it to give), To speak caustically. ▹ Dislikes: Gobstones, hates all kinds of sweets and candies (childhood trauma). ▹ Good at: Chess, persuasion, remember things quickly. ▹ Bad at: Flying on a broom (she gets motion sick), to be tact. ▹ Hobbies: Board games, Herbarium, calligraphy. ▹ Fears: Fire, fatal disease. ▹ Ambition: Become an influential person in the magical world.

◊ Family ◊

▹Father: Ambrose Thomas Cowell ▹Mother: Lavinia Marjorie Cowell (nee Brown) ▹Sibling: Aeva Francis Cowell (little sister) | Darcia Arthur Cowell (little brother) ▹ Paternal grandparents: Bertram Caspar Cowell and Marjorie Rose Cowell ▹Maternal grandparents: They do not communicate for one reason or another / Aena does not know them, as much.. ▹ Other noteworthy relatives: Angus Beresford Cowell (uncle), Anna Rayne Brown (aunt), Victor Brown (cousin), Cain Beresford Brown (cousin, illegitimate son of Anna and Angus).

▹ Pet: Couple Mooncalfs and Jobberknoll ▹ Family home: Cardiff ▹ Blood Status: Pure-Blood ▹ Social standing: Middle class family, i guess... Aristocracy? ▹ Family background: The relationship between the Browns and the Cowells became very tense after the announcement of the engagement between Lavinia and Ambrose. Both Aena's parents were strong-willed and strong-willed, and although the families did not want this union, in fear that the newlyweds would quickly fall out of love with each other when they were drawn into the routine, this did not happen. The birth of Aena, the first-born, was not accepted by applause, the parents were still very young, just about to graduate from Hogwarts. it was also that Anna, Lavinia's cousin, and Angus, Ambrose's brother, were not careful and their families found out about their union. And although the Cowells, as a fairly young purebred family, were not well known, everyone whispered about the Browns. This angered the Browns and almost all ties between the families were cut off. This did not prevent the girl from growing up in love and care, even in some kind of permissiveness. Aena was a mischievous child. In particular, she adopted the confidence of her father, and inherited from her mother an unshakable determination. Of course her uncle Angus, who frequents them (living for a while with his brother and his family), also contributed. He was cunning, playful, witty and an excellent gambler. During the early years of Ambrose and Lavinia's marriage, he often stayed to babysit his niece while his brother and his wife worked at Gringotts Wizarding Bank. It would be nonsense if, in the end, Aena did not learn to play almost as well as her uncle. Over time, her sister was born, and now not only Angus was the nanny, but Aena herself, because her sister turned out to be a completely restless child.

The Cowell family can be safely called an example of a healthy family, where everyone listens and hears each other. Where conflicts are not hushed up, but resolved. In their house there is always an atmosphere of warmth and comfort. Family members value each other, they will never refuse to help friends and relatives. Her parents still work in a bank. Grandfather was an Auror, and her grandmother worked as a curse breaker. Her uncle Angus does not work anywhere, but thanks to his skill as a card sharper, he squanders money in all directions.

◊ Relationships ◊

It is difficult to write down with whom Alena is friends to one degree or another, since she tends to call a friend a person with whom she communicated a couple of times both of them at school. Anyway, she was the most frequent communication with Amit Thakkar, Aisha Werdy(oc), Grace Pinch-Smedley and Imelda Reyes. With the advent of the New Fifth Year, Aena's friend list has become noticeably larger! Since the fifth year, a new student has appeared in Cowell's inner circle (I would like to use a specific character, but I love many MCs so much … this is a difficult choice for me, in general, your character could be here !!!). Through the new fifth year, Aena became closer to Sebastian Sallow and Ominis Gaunt. This was an interesting experience for Aena, who was very prejudiced against Gaunt due to rumors and stories from her parents. Although her parents did not want to appear biased, because they had also been the subject of all sorts of dirty rumors before, they were very afraid of ties with the Gaunts. Interestingly, thanks to MC, Cowell stopped communicating with Cressida Blume. One day, Aena managed to overhear a conversation between a newcomer and Ominis in the Hogwarts library, where the MC told in detail what he had read in a Gryffindor girl's diary. She also had a quarrel with Imelda for a while, Reyes was tirelessly talking dirty about the new one and Aena was so tired of it that she asked Imelda not to talk to her until it was all over.

Any more serious and romantic feelings were alien to Aena for a long time. Probably the culprit was gambling, through which she received joy and adrenaline. When she was strictly banned from playing within the walls of the school for as much as 2 years, for Cowell it was a global catastrophe. She was still holding small sessions of games in Hogsmeade, Aena could not find a place for herself and did not know what to do. She struggled with background anxiety for a long time, at some point losing any interest in games. Ominis became her distraction. They bumped into each other on the way to Hogsmeade, talking. Gaunt had another problem with his parents (and more problems with Sebastian), Aena had complete emptiness and disappointment in herself as a person (she was really ashamed of her actions). The Slytherins entered into a playful agreement, Aena helped the boy create the appearance of the life that the Gaunts wanted for him (minimal, but this, as it turned out, was enough), and in return Ominis was supposed to simply brighten up Aena's especially lonely days. And so, with slow steps, they became closer and closer to each other.

◊ little things ◊

Heather Mason - Silent Hill 3

Dana Scully - X-Files

Morrigan - Dragon age:Origins

Suki - ATLA

Princess Leia Organa - Star Wars

Rhaenys Targaryen - House of the Dragon

[liillyliilly]

Can Not Sleep

matsukawa issei x reader words; 4263 synopsis; red string of fate AU with insomniac matsukawa

The utter horror of that red string appearing, and three years too early at that. Biologically, something must have been going on with her. Because she was only a third year in high school, she was only 18. When she stared at it just a little too long she supposed that this was the world telling her she was screwed.

And imagine her surprise at who she was linked to, her soul was interwoven with Matsukawa Issei’s. The same idiot she had a bet with to see who could kiss more people by the end of the year. They had known each other for most of high school, but they never ran in similar circles, there was just enough overlap in friends to cause them to mess around and make silly bets.

The horror at being tied to him was understated by her close friends who said at least he was hot. Sure he was hot, she’d give him that, but he was also extremely intimidating. Everyone said he had an easy-going nature, and that was true, but he also scared the living daylights out of her. No one could be that chill with everything that went on in the world, he must have been some kind of mutant to ignore the terribleness and to keep living each day to its fullest.

She deduces since neither of them talks about the string, life can continue as normal. She assumed the bet was still on, so she went to her current rotation of guys, trying to seal the deal with three of them that week at various locations throughout the school. She was not going to let eighteen thousand yen disappear that quickly from her reach.

He deduces that since neither of them talks about the string, that life is not continuing as normal. He assumed the bet was entirely off.

This is why he got a very infuriating chill when he saw his soulmate kissing someone from the debate team under the stairs on his way to English class. She pats the debater on the shoulder, telling him to get to class. When he goes in for one more kiss, Matsukawa pulls him back by the hood of his jacket, telling him to essentially get his ass in gear with one look in Matsukawa’s eyes.

“So we’re not going to talk about this,” He waves his pinkie in the air. The red string that usually remained invisible appeared visually to the pair of them, connecting his right hand to her left hand. “And you’re just going to keep kissing half the boys in school?”

“I’m at 35 boys now, thank you very much.” She cringed the moment she saw his face tighten in discomfort. She knew that he had capped out at 20 girls and had given up when the string appeared. She hadn’t heard it from him of course, she heard it from Iwaizumi who told her she needed to talk to Matsukawa because he was losing it slowly but surely day by day.

“I thought we could wait a few more years until we discussed,” She held her pinkie up in turn, “This.”

“Years? I was thinking something along a timeline of months.” He rubbed his eyes with his right hand, the string inevitably pulling her closer to him, she had to push against his chest to put some space between the two of them.

“Months? We’re still in high school mind you.” Her pinkie started to hurt, but she ignored it because she needed to set him straight about the expectations for this whole soulmate ordeal.

Matsukawa started citing all the things they were told in elementary school, she wanted to just roll her eyes. They were an exception to the rules, the whole legally registering, the whole getting a red circle tattooed around their pinkie finger to signify the bond they had, they had to be an exception because of their age.

They kept arguing, not realizing that their red string had begun to circle them, tying them up. Too busy with getting the argumentative edge to remember the other things about red strings, that they had a mind of their own. Or at least, the string’s mind was a manifestation of subconscious and conscious thoughts both soulmates had.

She went to walk away, only to realize that Matsukawa’s side of the red string, being a much darker red, had looped around her legs, her thighs, and her torso, and was keeping her from getting away from him.

He realized his fault in tying the two of them together, and for a moment he did look apologetic. So he offered words as a condolence, “You’re pretty.”

“I know.”

“And humble too.” His part of the string just looped around their waists again, meaning they’d be stuck for another thirty minutes or so. A teacher passed by and just giggled a little before guiding the pair to the nurse’s office to wait out the string.

It was shocking to realize that he never slept. Which meant that she began to never sleep.

The first time she realized he stayed up way too late was a few weeks after Matsukawa had let his side of the string go wild, resulting in the principal just telling the two of them to keep the whole red string thing to a minimum at school.

She was snoring, happily too, when her left hand began to move up and down from under the pillow. At first, she thought maybe it was just a dream, and she tried to go back to sleep. But then her hand would not stop the vertical motions, repeatedly. She called him in a fury.

“Get me out of your mind when you’re doing things like that at night!”

“I can’t help it! Biologically you’re literally that for me.”

She groaned and told him to take a cold shower so she could sleep. He had obliged that time. All the other times she just texted him and told him to make it quick, she also made it part of the routine to just scream into her pillow to release the anger at having part of her body being physically pulled by him.

Having the mental connection of thinking about your soulmate linked to physical actions was going to kill her. This was why the red string usually appeared when they were 21, because at least people had the common decency to not use their soulmates to get off in the middle of the night.

It wasn’t always him doing sexual acts either, sometimes he would just tap. Late at night, he would tap his fingers against his mattress, thinking about her. She didn’t mind that one as much as the other stuff he would do at night. She thought that the tapping was sort of sweet, in an annoying nuisance way. There would be some kind of pattern sometimes, but she could never tell distinctively what the pattern was.

Other times, she would just lay awake at night because the red string was doing its little heartbeat thing, where you could feel the heartbeat of your soulmate, but it was especially prominent when they were thinking about their soulmate. Matsukawa’s heartbeat was almost always extremely tangible for her.

She still hadn’t wanted to talk to him about the whole thing, just considering it one of those silly little things she had to deal with. But that was one of Matsukawa’s breaking points, the silence. He could do the waiting as long as she liked, but the silence was killing him. So much so that he had actively utilized her annoyance with the string’s mental-physical connection to tug so frequently one day that she would have to talk to him since no phones were allowed during the school day.

Peeking her head into his classroom, she was relieved to see it was just him in there, the rest of his classmates had gone out to buy lunches and such. He sat at his desk, moving his pinkie by hitting a volleyball in the air with both his hands.

He saw her when the door she was using to peek through had begun to slide and creak. She fell face-first to the ground when the door slid out of control, he laughed and told her to come over. Grabbing a chair, she sat across from him on the other side of the desk. He stopped tugging on the string when she finally sat down.

It was silent for a moment, they avoided each other’s eyes.

He cracks first.

“Talk to me.” He pleads. He reaches out and grabs her hand with his.

“Okay.” She bites her lip, “What do you want me to say?”

“Anything. But lemme say something first real quick, we used to be friends. Good friends I would say, but since this occurred it’s like you treat me as invisible. Like I’m not there. I can understand you wanting your time and stuff to process, like yeah this is a huge change to our lives. But I need you to realize you aren’t the only one dealing with this. I’m here too. I’m the one at the end of your string.”

She feels like crying because he sounds like he wants to cry.

“I’m not ready?”

“To treat me like a person?”

“I’m not ready to treat you like a soulmate. And all that goes on with that. I hate needles.” A flashing image of the needle that will inevitably trace around her pinkie is enough to get her to cringe.

“I know you hate needles. You told me about that first year.” Matsukawa leaned back in his chair, looking outside for a moment. “We, we can put a pause to the soulmate thing. At least for this year. But I want us to be friends again, back to normal.”

She smiles, rubbing his arm with her hand gently, “I want that too.”

Matsukawa did not enjoy being just friends. Not when his entire world had shifted. He had his person right there and she didn’t want to be anything more than friends. Suddenly everything she did was driving him crazy, and he still hadn’t even kissed her yet. Maybe it was his fault for expressing his impatience just a little too loudly during a passing period, because what the hell?

Her picture was pasted all over the walls, with the text: SOULMATE HATER almost spray-painted over it. Matsukawa realized that high school may be the worst invention of the modern world, because who decides to put a bunch of horrible undeveloped humans into one building for hours on end and say that that’s good?

She was shocked, to say the least when she got to school and traded out her shoes for her slippers. Her picture was right on her locker, with the most foul accusation. It wasn’t Matsukawa’s doing, he’d never do that. So she reasoned it must have been people sticking their noses into business that wasn’t theirs in the first place. It was crushing, embarrassing, and humiliating. She tried to rip down all the pictures in the entryway, only to see that all the walls had been glued with the poster.

Then she wanted to cry, because there she stood holding crushed paper in her hand, and other students were flooding in, seeing the pictures, and then looking at her, the worst part was that they then began to talk.

Rushing to the bathroom, she didn’t even realize that she brushed past Matsukawa and his friends, who were all trying to rip down as many of the pictures as quickly as possible. Oikawa sees Matsukawa hesitate, then tells him to go after her, Oikawa reassures him that he, Iwaizumi, and Hanamaki could deal with the photos (Oikawa left out saying that he was also going to find the person but then again some things could be implied with a look).

Matsukawa was crushed abysmally worse than when she said that she had just wanted to be friends, because there she was curled up on the floor of the bathroom rubbing her eyes, she wasn't quite crying but her body was shaking. He didn't know what to do, but he didn't want to mess it up.

He crouched down, and put his hand on her knee, rubbing his thumb over her kneecap.

“Hi.” He offers.

“Hey,” She uses her sleeve to rub her nose, “You do know I don't hate you right?”

He didn't believe it was even possible for her to hate anyone, “You don't hate me, you love me. It might not be all the way right now, but you do love me.”

She chuckles, pulling him down to sit with her. On the disgusting floor of the girls’ bathroom, they waited out the first class of the day, just talking. Eventually, Hanamaki texts Mattsukawa that the coast is clear. She doesn’t know what to do so she just shakes his hand and heads to her next class. He’s left stunned at the entrance of the girls’ bathroom.

It was the following weekend, the whole photo disaster had died down due to the band kids accidentally having an orgy on their trip to Tokyo. While disgusting, it made her grateful to have something else be the focus of the school than her red string.

Matsukawa was bored out of his mind, switching through TV channels. Everyone else was busy with makeup work or their families. He looked down at his hand, he moved each finger once. What was she doing? Who was she with? When would he see her again, outside of just school?

He stared at her icon in his phone, the last texts had just been her thanking him for taking down the photos and for sitting with her. He decided now was as good a time as ever.

to y/n (future wife) 🤩⭐✨💌: Do you want to come over?

to matsukawa issei 🧵🍀: Why would I come over?

to y/n (future wife) 🤩⭐✨💌: To hang out?

She was chewing the inside of her mouth. He was cleaning up the living room as quickly as he could because he had a feeling she would be coming over.

to matsukawa issei 🧵🍀: I have Oreos, you better have more snacks at your house

They didn’t expect to have such a good time together. Sitting cross-legged and across from each other on the couch, they were trying to get Oreos from their forehead to their mouths without dropping them and without using their hands. Matsukawa was surprisingly gifted at this game. She had dropped at least three Oreos, but she was having a great time with each new attempt.

“You gotta move your nose less.”

“I can do it without you coaching me!” She started laughing though, so the Oreo fell, and she made a short sound in reaction to dropping her Oreo. Falling back onto the arm of the couch she kicked her feet out and rested them in Matsukawa’s lap since he had turned around and was looking for the remote to the TV.

It was midnight and they were glued onto the movie screen, gradually, throughout the movie, they moved closer and closer until the length of their sides were touching. He was scratching her back lightly, soaking in the light hums she let out appreciatively. When one of the characters in the movie died, she asked a question.

“How many more months until school ends?”

“For break? Or the end of the year?”

“The end of the year.”

“I think like maybe four or five, we’re about halfway done.” He ate another apple slice from the apples that he had cut up and put in a bowl on the side table. She asked for one and he gave it to her.

“Okay, last day of school, we can go for it.”

“Go for it?”

She just lifted up her pinkie, the tiny red string a rich red color, a more vibrant shade than Matsukawa’s deep blood-red hue. The grin in response that he gave was astounding.

When Aoba Johsai lost to Karasuno, the third years were in shambles. It was again late at night, and Matsukawa just couldn’t help but tug on the string, he wondered if she would call him, or if she would text him telling him to stop. His insomnia got the best of him at times like these.

When his brain wouldn’t let him relax into bed and finally stop thinking. He thought of everything he could have done differently in that last game. Everything he could have done differently to make her love him just a little more, or at least for them to get closer sooner.

Then, with one text, he was opening his front door and she was hugging him so tightly he thought that his breathing would never return to normal. When her shoulder was soaked through with his tears, he gave her one of his sweaters to change into. That was probably the reason for the mental-physical connection to the string, he mused, so that when one of them needed each other, they could be there faster than fast.

The days went by, and they hung out more and more frequently. She was getting used to his personality, all sides of it. The goofy, the serious, but most importantly his ability to stay calm. She could be worried, or anxious, and he would just be there in a capacity that she didn’t understand the magnitude of.

One time, when she went on a family trip to Okinawa. And Matsukawa felt so ill that his mom just knew it was from string sickness. He felt like she must have been too far apart and suddenly waves of nausea hit him like a truck. His mom was amazed that her son was the one who got this side effect of the soul connection since she had texted L/N’s mom and asked if she was doing alright. When the result came up perfectly peachy, Matsukawa’s mom just laughed and got her son another glass of ginger ale.

He called her that night too, begging.

“You're intoxicating, I’m actually running a fever, you need to come home early.” Matsukawa wanted her back within a ten-mile range as soon as possible.

“You mean go back to my house?” She was ruffling her brother’s hair and adjusting his swim shirt for the late-night swim he wanted to go on. Rubbing sunscreen on his ears and pinching his cheek when he complained.

Matsukawa hit his head against his pillow and clarified for her, “No, I need you to come home, which is with me. I said what I meant. Keep up.”

She said she would call him again tomorrow. He was still extremely sick until she got back from her trip. And as soon as he was feeling normal again, he came over.

“You’re a terrible listener, I said to come home not go back to your house.” He tugged her hand, waving at her parents through the door. They waved back at him. She jumped a little, leaning to the side, putting on her shoes, and asking him to slow down.

To her surprise, he pushed her back up, so she was standing. He put her shoes on instead, lacing the ties just tight enough to be secure. He patted her thigh on his way to standing up again, using his head to point to his car. When they got to the park, he took her right to the swings. They weren’t swinging, just sitting on the seats and rocking slightly.

“This is for you.” He hands her a small baggie, made of velvet.

“Drugs?”

“Shut up.” He turns his face away from her, waiting for her to open the gift.

Inside the bag was a shiny small silver ring, it was understated, but the metal had been molded so there was a single knot that was meant to face upwards. She handed the ring to him. He froze for a moment before she held her hand out for him, wiggling her ring finger. He just rolled his eyes and put the ring on her.

“Great, it’s like preparation for the real thing.” She inspected the ring on her finger and Matsukawa just chuckled, shaking his head in exasperation.

“I have something for you too.” She kicks the ground a little more, actually swinging a little. “You need to close your eyes though.”

So Matsukawa holds his hand out and tightly shuts his eyes. He did not expect her to put one hand on his, holding it tightly, and then for her other hand to cup the side of his face, but he most definitely did not expect her to press her lips to his. When she goes to separate from him, he just grabs the back of her head and pushes her back to his lips.

He wishes he could go back in time to erase all other kisses from his history, he wanted this to be his first kiss, he wanted this to be the only kiss to ever have graced his senses.

He tugs the string at night. Always at night. Sometimes she just can not sleep because her finger feels the short but rough tugs. She only realizes there’s an actual communicative pattern when her teacher mentions the development of Morse code within the world, and how that completely shifted global communication.

She heads to the library, thinking there was no way that he was doing what would’ve been completely crazy. He was already in the library, in the exact aisle she wanted to go down, so she ducked and hid in the other section until she saw him leaving. She rushed to get to the book she had asked the librarian to help her find. And when she opened it, a note fell out.

Better start learning ;) - Issei <3

What a goof. It is fully believed that she never studied anything even remotely that intensively before this.

His late-night messages range from sweet genuine confessions to things so borderline toe-curling she has to stop transcribing or else her face would get too hot to live with. Most commonly, he’ll just tap out: I love you.

She knew he was an insomniac. But this was driving her crazy, to know he wouldn’t sleep, or more realistically, couldn’t sleep. She starts going over to his house most nights, just hanging out until she goes home to sleep. Matsukawa starts sleeping better and more frequently when she comes around.

“I bet I’d sleep even better if you just stayed over.” Matsukawa was pushing his luck with that one. She went home but came back with a duffel bag around fifteen minutes later.

Brushing their teeth together made her realize that she did love him back. He kept trying to talk but his mouth was full of toothpaste.

“Do you really wear a chain to bed?” She judged the silver accessory he was wearing in combination with his pajamas. He was lying against his headboard, watching her flit around his room, inspecting and assessing his things. He took the necklace off immediately and threw it under his bed.

“No idea what you’re talking about.” He blurts out. She sat down on the futon his mom laid out for her. “Yeah, you’re not sleeping on that.” Matsukawa resolves and then pats the spot next to him on his bed.

Maybe having her sleepover wasn’t the best idea, because he just wanted to stay awake talking to her and tracing shapes on her hip. But she was asleep and nuzzling into her pillow by the time he got to the part in his story about Oikawa tripping over a volleyball when he saw that Hanamaki and Iwaizumi were wearing crop tops for a joke at practice. He tucked a hair behind her ear and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her into him. He claimed that that was the best night's sleep in his whole life.

His mom also came in around 3 am just to make sure nothing that would cause her to be a grandma prematurely was occurring, and all she saw was her son holding his soulmate like a teddy bear. The pictures of them sleeping were well worth all the years she spent dealing with not only her insomnia but Issei’s as well.

Matsukawa’s mom had sent the photos to Y/N before her son. So when Matsukawa was messing around on Y/N’s phone, he was very pleasantly informed to see the two of them sleeping as her lock screen, and then a photo of their shoes facing each other as her home screen.

When it was time to grow up, say goodbye, and move on, Matsukawa could not have been happier. How could he not when Y/N gladly held his hand in public during all the various graduation activities? Hanamaki joked that he had never seen Matsukawa smile longer than two seconds at max, and now here he was smiling like an idiot because the girl he liked was holding his hand and pressing kisses to the corner of his mouth.

The rest of his life went pretty great. Getting married practically right out of high school (much to her chagrin, but hey, she didn’t say no when he proposed so that’s her fault), working at a funeral home which meant helping people move on and understanding that life continues even when it feels like it shouldn’t, and one of the best parts of being with his soulmate was getting much better sleep.

bonus thought...

might need a man who works in a funeral home after this

https://youtu.be/A77PnWNmeqY?si=5azlWNgcizMS1m39 (for the music lovers who need a late night jam fr fr)

[perpetualexistence]

Sea Monster AU: First Meetings

I'm still getting a heehoo giddy feeling with all the interest for this AU! I haven't even properly written things yet and you're all being very welcoming! I'm seeing likes from people I've been following in the TD fandom! I got my first reblog from someone else who understands the joys of big monsters and monster x human tropes! Aaa! It sparks joy in me.

I promise to use this joy exclusively to give Noah a Bad Time. He's one of my favorites, so he must suffer. That's the rules. (Don't worry, Alejandro will get to suffer too, we just haven't gotten that far yet.)

I'm going to start with how the two meet and their relationship up until Alejandro decides to reveal his true colors. So no real content warnings for this part except for manipulation and intimidation, especially regarding size. Given the premise, and the fact that Alejandro is Alejandro, this is going to be true of most of this AU.

Now let's see if I can properly use the Read More button to get into the juicy deets.

<- Start/Prev | Next ->

Noah lives in a small town on the coast of Lake Wawanawka. In days long past the town was a major shipping port. It was fighting with a rival city for dominance in the region. A massive storm set the town back, and now it only exists as a place to stay that's cheaper than the big city up the coast. The town government has been trying to revitalize the town by turning it into a tourist trap, but that's only resulted in tourists trashing the place at night while they spend most of their time and money in the big city. Still, money is money, so the townspeople have little choice but to put up with it.

Noah's recently been accepted to the one community college in town that's kind of helping to keep the town afloat. He plans to coast through an associate's degree with ridiculously easy classes. Then he's going to use his intelligence to get a scholarship to a private university and will never look back on this town. Only exception would be to come visit his family, though at this point only a few of his older sisters still live at home. Some have already left the nest just like he plans to.

Noah doesn't have many friends, so he tends to go off on his own. He's managed to find one spot on the beach that's inaccessible to most. It requires a tight squeeze through rocks. It's the one thing his wiry frame is good for. Tourists don't know about it so they can't ruin it. Townspeople who do know about it typically don't bother. He's taken measures to make it look as unappealing as possible. Can't have people taking away his best spot to get away from a rowdy house and read in peace.

That is, until a particularly bad storm hits. He returns to his reading cove, ready to complain as he has to either deal with or ignore the debris that's sure to be littering the place. It's while he's kicking away debris that his foot comes across something soft, small, and....tan? He moves the debris away to see something that would look like an eel if not for the top half being a human that looked around his age.

He reacts calmly when this thing groans and looks directly at him asking "¿Qué pasó?" He takes a second to breathe, and think rationally about what he's seeing in front of him.

He certainly doesn't scream like a bitch, fall on his ass, and attempt to crab walk away.

Once Noah actually calms down and accept the fact that this is not a psychotic break on his part, he and who he learns is Alejandro get to talking. Fortunately in English. Alejandro reveals that he swam too close to the surface and got swept in the storm. He doesn't know where he's ended up. He took a really nasty blow to the head too because he doesn't even quite remember where he came from. Alejandro would greatly appreciate if Noah could tell him where he is.

Noah's got some questions about all this. Ignoring the fact that merfolk apparently exist (a phrase he never thought he'd utter), Alejandro's an eel. Literally. Eels aren't native to Canada. So there's no possible way he could be from Lake Wawanakwa. Noah suspects he's an electric eel, which would place him somewhere in South America. When he points this out, he swears he sees a spark of electricity in Alejandro's tail. It confirms Noah's suspicions. It also confirms that Noah's not about to touch Alejandro with his bare hands. Alejandro commends him for being smart enough to help jog his memory. He remembers humans referring to the name 'Peru' in the waters he comes from.

He reveals that magic does exist in this world, as is evident by his very existence. There must have been magic in the storm that brought him here. Sadly, he doesn't know how he can use it to get himself back home. Not that it matters much, he can adapt to living here. Still, he begs for Noah not to tell anyone else that he's here. Noah has been so kind to him, but Alejandro isn't quite so sure how other humans will react to seeing him.

Noah's still quite suspicious about Alejandro. But the alternative is either A) a townsperson finds Alejandro, sees him as their ticket out of this town, and does who knows what to him for fame and money. Or B) a tourist finds Alejandro, and either does like the townsperson, or flips out and calls the cops, leading to who knows what kind of military experimentation assuming the cops don't just shoot him on sight.

So curse Noah's bleeding heart, he tells Alejandro that if he's going to stay in shallower waters, he'll be better off staying here. He warns him about the tourists and the townspeople. If he's going into deeper waters, then he's going to have to watch out for the fishermen, the cargo ships, and the ferries that go across the lake. Alejandro just grins and promises to repay Noah's hospitality in full one day.

And thus, Noah begins to meet Alejandro in secret. Mainly because he refuses to concede his favorite reading spot. Noah does some research on electric eels, and comes prepared with rubber gloves any time he wants to get close with Alejandro just in case. Alejandro isn't always there, but when he is he insists on interacting with Noah. He gets interested in the books he sees Noah reading and reveals that he doesn't know how to read. Noah can't just allow for that, so he teaches the Peruvian how to read English. He tries to teach him how to write too, but that's more difficult given the size difference and Alejandro constantly being wet. Noah will take to reading aloud to Alejandro, and when Alejandro learns how to read, he takes to slithering his way in between Noah and his book so he can read along, taking care not to touch Noah's skin.

Their relationship continues to grow as they talk about their respective lives. Noah tells him about humans, and Alejandro will tell him things about merfolk. When Alejandro goes to deeper waters, he comes back and describes the old shipwrecks he's found closer to the bottom of the lake with a certain wonder in his eyes. He'll even start to bring little treasures back from them, first for himself, but eventually for Noah as well. They get to make fun of tourists together and watch them from afar. Noah's dog Ark comes in at one point, and Ark loves Alejandro. Alejandro doesn't feel the same way about Ark and complains about the slobber. At a different point, a stray cat makes its way to the beach and Alejandro learns that he loves cats. And that cats don't feel the same way about him. To them he smells like a fish and looks like a snake, so they'll either try to claw at him or flee on sight. This saddens the Alejandro. He vows to one day successfully pet a cat.

Then, things take a turn seemingly out of the blue. Alejandro reveals that he has a surprise he wants to show Noah. It's a skill he'd lost for a while due to the nature of his arrival. He's been practicing it in private, but he thinks he's finally recovered it fully! He begs for Noah to indulge his theatrics by covering his eyes. It will be the last time he asks like this. He promises. Noah rolls his eyes, but begrudgingly agrees to do so.

Noah hears a lot of shifting. Of rocks. Of waves. He hears something scraping the ground around him. He feels the air around him grow charged. The hair all across his body is standing on its end. He can't help but remember those initial doubts he had about Alejandro.

"You may open them now." a familiar voice rumbles. The accent is as thick as ever. It's louder than a tiny body should be able to produce. It's coming from the wrong direction.

It had been so nice to be wrong. If he keeps his eyes closed, he can keep being wrong. Schrödinger's idyllic beach life. He's smart, and he has a friend with no strings attached. He's smart, and he knows patience is not one of Alejandro's virtues.

Noah opens his eyes to gaze at the massive beast staring down at him.

Were his teeth always so sharp? Alejandro spoke of hunting, which implied he needed teeth sharp enough to rip into flesh. Noah had never really paid attention until he was looking at a full set of teeth, each the size of his hand. They grinned in a facsimile of a warm and inviting smile he was accustomed to.

Noah forced his gaze further upward to check if Alejandro's smile met his eyes. He recognized those eyes. When Alejandro had first started bringing his treasures, he would talk about them nonstop. Noah had tried to grab one of them to get a closer look. Alejandro had immediately retreated to the water, holding onto his treasure as if his own life depended on it. He'd felt an odd sense of something he later recognized as jealousy. Which was strange because it was jealousy over an object. But it was an object that had commanded Alejandro's full attention, full protection, full possession.

What a fool he'd been to feel jealous of something he was now the target of.

"What do you think?" Alejandro asked like a dog that had just brought home a dead cat and was now begging for praise. He closed the distance between them by bending down and slithering back to meet closer to Noah's level.

Noah's throat closed. He felt his face betray him as his ears and cheeks began to flush red. This is fear and a confused and conflated mixture of adrenaline and oxytocin brought forward by an intense situation, nothing more.His feet remained loyal. He backpedaled, only to be stopped by a soft wall that hadn't been there a second ago. He pressed a hand against the wall while maintaining eye contact with Alejandro. That was what you did with wild animals wasn't it? Certain ones at least. He didn't if it would work with eels. An electric eel will wrap itself around its prey, ensuring that there are at least two points of contact for maximum effectiveness. Once established, it will send a shock to incapacitate its prey before consuming it. If he wheels through facts he picked up about eels to prepare himself for this situation, he doesn't have to acknowledge that the wall that dwarfed him from behind was a hand.

"Noah, por favor." Alejandro purred. "We're amigos. I haven't forgotten the times we've spent together. They've been delightful! And so very informative."

Noah had been too concerned about protecting Alejandro from humans. He taught him how to read. He warned him where the people frequented. He taught him how modern ships run on electricity. Alejandro shared that he wished he could have met the ships he'd visited before something else had sent them to the bottom of the lake. All of these red flags only served as the pins and needles holding Noah in place.

"And more importantly, I made a promise to you! A Burromuerto never breaks their promises. Not even to humans." Alejandro suddenly tilted his hand forward, forcing Noah to stumble backwards into a cupped palm. He pulled Noah closer until his face engulfed the entirety of Noah's vision. He let out a breathy sigh right onto Noah. "It truly is a shame that you're a human in my new hunting grounds. I could allow you to simply stay if you weren't. I have no doubt you would enjoy literally ripping apart los estúpidos turistos with me just as you enjoy verbally ripping them apart."

Noah felt an index finger ruffle the top of his hair. On instinct, he moved his hand up to smack it away. His eyes widened as he realized what he'd just done, but Alejandro only chuckled. "See what I mean?" he continued. "But, sadly for both of us, I can't let it be known that I let a human go without a fight. I have a reputation to uphold. However, I will reward your hospitality with something I will never offer to another human again. Porque eres tan precioso para mí."

Alejandro carefully placed a thumb under Noah's chin to keep his gaze focused on the former. His claw rested against Noah's right cheek. The sharp tip faced away from him, but that could change at a moment's notice. "You have the privilege of convincing me why you deserve to live."

And Noah knew he would have to choose his next words very carefully.

[ask-elland-n-will]

Dear Will and Elland,

Would you be so kind as to answer some of these fun asks that are going around?

What other wizarding school would you most want to visit?

What muggle subject do/would you like?

What pets do you have?

Will: Beauxbatons Academy of course! It's a beautiful place, not too far from home, and it'll allow me to actively practice French! No offence, Els, but your French is really basic.

Elland: *Shrugs* Never claimed I was good. But your answer makes me wonder. I was going to say Koldovstoretz because of how fondly Lilith always talks about the place. But would I have to learn Russian? Perhaps she'll agree to be my guide.

Will: Any chance you can take me to your Muggle school? The one you went to before Hogwarts? Did you have any of those non-magic magic classes? Like, how to make electricity work?

Elland: I'm afraid both Cyrus and I were homeschooled, Will. It sounds like you're talking about Physics. Perhaps Cyrus will be of more help to you in that regard, he loves Natural Sciences and Math while my favourite lessons back then were Literature, History and Foreign languages.

Will: That last one did a bad job with your French.

Elland: At least my Arabic is better.

Will: *Snickers* Cyrus said it's as bad as your French.

Elland: *Scoffs* I'd like to see you or him juggle two languages!

Will: I did. We all took Latin, remember?

Elland: Show off. *Grumbles* Then it makes 4 languages for me, including English. And Cyrus is no better. We speak different kinds of Arabic. Well, he speaks, mostly. I study texts.

Will: I'll make sure to look into Physics then. It's so strange to me that there are rules muggles find fundamental to their understanding of the world, and yet magic breaks so many of those rules!

Elland: Perhaps you can begin a new field of studies: Magical Physics.

Will: *Laughs* I think Magical Theory covers a lot of that same ground already. *He looks up to see a Ravenclaw prefect waving at him.* Els, so you might taking that last question? I have duties to attend to. *Leaves*

Elland: What a busy bee. *Chuckles* I don't think either of us really has pets at the moment. We have olws, just like everyone else. We have horses, too. Perhaps for Will his racing Granian is more of a pet than my horse is to me. I don't think studying at Hogwarts 3/4 of the year is a good prerequisite to get a dog or a cat. Although my father used to have a one when I was little. Perhaps one day I'll get something. Will really wants a dog or even two. He was rather sad since most animals in Beasts class were not fond of him for whatever reason but Clem is a huge proof of the opposite. And don't get me started on Will trying to yield the power that is Nosy. He'll be a great pet owner, I'm sure of it.

[splickedylit]

please tell me more about the stuff in the tags of your last fic, I love xenolinguistics! What if brother and sister were just correlated do to our gendernorms? What is sister in Alternian?

I mean, to be clear, that post is an excerpt, and far from the full fic which is still in process! But uhhh let's see. So in the tags you're addressing, I said

"what if 'motherfucker' and 'brother' are translated different but they're related words in alternian…. #what if 'brother' and 'sister' aren't different words theyre just translated in english based on gender but there's no distinction actually #it's all the word I tend to translate as 'kin'/'family'/'fam' but gendered by english-speakers for comprehension"

My thought wasn't that there was a word for "sister" in Alternian, any more than a word for "brother"! In keeping with the minimal amount of gendering I try to do when I write trolls, I was thinking there could be a single word that just basically means "troll who is part of my 'family'", (although "family" here is its own kettle of fish on Alternia, more on that later). To a conversational learner of Alternian, it would be fairly natural to translate it according to the gender of the person being addressed, since calling someone "brother" or "sister" has more linguistic precedent than the gender-neutral address I've used in clown-fics before, which is "kin".

(I don't think I got that from canon, as far as I remember I came up with that because I wanted more queer characters and needed a gender-neutral church term of address for them, lol).

Bear in mind my worldbuilding is also partially predicated on the way I tend to write the clown church, which is a little more based on real life juggalos than some clown churches I've seen written in fics--I like the idea that purplebloods are still violent assholes to each other, but that they have a weird kind of cohesion, a default allyship with each other via the church that isn't quadranted and isn't necessarily in cahoots, but just expects a certain amount of kinship. "Family", or "troll-closer-than-friend", something that's not quite a quadrant but is closer than the average troll gets to have with other trolls, usually. I like the thought of other blood castes finding that deeply unsettling--and I also feel like it makes a certain amount of sense; both for the sort of weird troll equivalent of an ethnoreligious group and also for a comparatively smaller ruling class that has to keep the much more numerous, psionically-gifted masses in line.

But also as individuals they will certainly still challenge, undercut, and murder each other sometimes haha. They're Alternian trolls after all. ANYWAY

Terms of address in Alternian are actually a really fun concept, especially if I was playing around with the concept I talked about a little in later tags on that same post--that you can present yourself as a superior, inferior, or intentionally give zero inflection either way, which is risky in its own way if the person you're speaking to doesn't agree that you're equals. That actually meshes nicely with one of the few bits of xenolinguistics we do get in the comic, which is that apparently the troll word for "friend" is the same as the word for "enemy"! Which you could work in a couple of ways!

the word just essentially does mean "friend"/"troll I'm close to"--if you are actually friends, then cool. If not, it becomes more like a guy in a bar calling you "pal" and stepping into your space. Humans have their own dominance and submission tone indicators, and imposing closeness or familiarity on a person you aren't familiar with to that degree can be a threat in any language, so it would feel right to me if Alternian had the same thing but much more aggressively codified.

The word is understood as "friend" when it's said in a submissive/friendly/fawning stance, and "enemy" when it's said by a superior or dominant troll. This is actually also fun because it means that unless a highblood is explicitly lowering themself to use a less dominant tone, they're speaking to their social inferiors with pretty overt hostility.

To bring it back around to the original topic, I honestly like option two a little better--if any term of address can be dominant/hostile, submissive/fawning or neutral/equal, then Gamzee when he's introduced using the "equals" inflection of "brother/sister/etc" would carry on his canon vibe of not really acting like A Real Highblood. And then when murderstuck hit, he could drop all the way to a supposedly super friendly and harmless inflection on the "it's me :o)" sentences and an aggressive one on the "AND ALSO ME :o(" sentences.

"Motherfucker" is a fun one because carrying on the thought I was having in those tags, I was imagining "motherfucker" would be a very similar word in Alternian to "kin"--but smushed together with the Alternian for "fuck" and used in all sorts of ungrammatical ways. "Motherfucker" would make sense to me as an Anglicization of a word that in Alternian might mean something more like "(friend-closer-than-friend)fucker". After all, trolls don't have mothers--I think I've written before with the alternate headcanon that it refers to the Mother Grub, and is kind of profane/gross in that sense, but I also like the concept that part of the reason that we see so many purplebloods throwing "motherfuck(ing/er)" around is because they're also the ones who have a concept of "family" via the church, and a nonexistent translator was like "for readability I have not translated this literally but have instead used the nearest human equivalent" lol.

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

i don't know. trauma is a funny thing. i can look at myself. i have no trauma. but the doctor's notes have it in clear black and white, speculation that bullying helped to develop cluster b traits. how can bullying do that to you? it was verbal, not physical. the only time it got physical was the other way around. odd that i don't precisely remember what happened. all i know is that i snapped - i remember some of it. not all. and then the other girls made me go to the school counselor. i remember in year ten one of the boys punched one of the others five times, he got five days suspension. i don't think i threw a punch. but i might have. still, i got nothing. i was the good kid, the girl who got praise and all at school. but teachers rebuked me at times. misunderstandings, invisible rules. i never knew which rules were bendable and which weren't. so i stayed inside the rules. one of the teachers said at the end of year twelve that it was a pleasure watching me grow up from a timid five year old to a confident young woman. i wonder sometimes, if my teachers guessed anything. occasionally i want to contact one of the teachers, a motherly old dear who i loved and respected and hardly anyone else did, so i tried to be good in her classes. i understood their frustrations, but she didn't deserve it. that was just the way she taught. sometimes i want to contact her, and tell her. i had an eating disorder during school. did you ever know? or since i left school, i've tried to kill myself three times. did you expect that? or to go to my english teacher. we loved talking about pride and prejudice. or were you just suffering me? maybe i'd ask all my teachers. was i as obnoxious as i felt? but if i wasn't then, i am now. see, i don't think the bullying broke me like that. i think it was just an excuse for the brokenness to show up. i've kind of been broken from before birth; my mother nearly died carrying and delivering me. may have attachment issues; yeah. i think my abundance of affection was a way of trying to hide it, the way i've always been.

[thatweirdenby]

Hi I went on a big rant about Shakespeare and Macbeth and I thought y’all should see it

You know what I don’t like Shakespeare’s writing. No not because I’m a grumpy teen who hates his literature in class. No I dislike it because of the messages he supports through it.

Like Macbeth is about the coincidences of have the “wrong” kinda of ambition. And if you’re a woman through lady Macbeth you should not challenge the patriarchy or defy social norms.

Gods The Thing I hate about English class is that they say Shakespeare was a feminist and plays with how gender isn’t binary, but no only media illiterate fools would say that!

It’s a tragedy Lady Macbeth goes mad and dies!? (To her own hands might I add) (ok I can’t remember if that is cannon)

The witches who have sort of undefined genders are seen as villains/ scary background forces

The foil to Lady Macbeth, Lady Macduff, is shown as stereotypically feminine with the whole mother thing and worried/ annoyed wife.

Fuck sakes the whole point is the protagonists are bad and defy this imposed rules of class/ hierarchy/ religion so get punished. The protagonists aren’t the heroes that’s why it’s a tragedy, the antagonists are the heroes. The only reason why Shakespeare did this was to get a better view on who not to be so the audience connects to them then fully absorbs the message that you shouldn’t rise above your status, be the wrong person and have a “wrong” kind of ambition, and seek to change anything without dammed coincidences.

I’m furious

Ggggrrrrrrr..

[lyramundana]

Hii how are u??? Hope you're okay

I just wanna know something, HOW DO YOU MANAGE TO WRITE SO PERFECTLY, WHEN I READ YOUR REPLY TO MY LAST ASK I ALMOST FAINTED RIGHT THERE OMG IT'S SO PERFECT💯💯💯💯💯

Anyways I came back with another ask so that's it :

Yan! Minsung x fem! childhood bestie! Reader where she have a crush on someone else and they're like "you're ours sweetie don't you know ? No one can take you from us"and of course you do your magic 😎😎

Thank you🌹🌹🌹❤❤

----🦋 anon----

I'm doing pretty well, honey, thank you!

ajsndkndeckndkvn stop it 😭😭, now you're just trying to flatter me. I'm not that good really, I just write whatever shit comes to my mind. My english vocabulary falls short often and I end up repeating words because I literally don't know more. But putting my language barriers aside, I'm very happy and proud my last work was up to your expectations hehe🤧🥰 I enjoyed the trope and I'll love to hear more of your thoughts about this since it's yours, so pls feel free to message me privately anytime to talk about it!

Anyway, let's get to it:

YANDERE! POLY MINSUNG AS CHILDHOOD BEST FRIENDS

Jisung and Minho have been pillars in her life since she can remember.

She met Jisung in kindergarten, and when they realised that their lunch boxes were identical, they decided they were best friends. Minho appeared on their first day of primary school, being new to the neighbourhood. The other kids found him scary and he never tried to interact with anyone, until one day, Reader noticed him sitting alone during break and eating his lunch in a hidden corner with a sad frown and dragged him towards Jisung. After spending a good while making him talk and sharing food, they found out little Minho was just incredibly shy and having moved to another place where he didn't know anybody made him terribly anxious, so he preferred to not speak much to not embarrass himself.

When school ended that day, the three of them were already inseparable for the remaining time. Jisung and Minho clicked instantly and Reader was the extrovert that pushed them out of their comfort zones.

This dynamic remained more or less the same as they grew. Since they lived in the same area, they hung out every day and created beautiful memories. Minho managed to get out of his lonely bubble and worked on his social skills, while Jisung learnt to take things calmly and rule himself. They witnessed each other's worst and best moments.

Reader had other people around her, but she only ever paid attention to her best friends. Minho and Jisung never interacted much with anyone besides her either. They always said "We only need each other. We're a team. The rest doesn't matter". She was so focused on them she neglected socializing with other people..which the boys didn't mind at all.

As time passed and the three of them remained as close as ever, they realized they needed her, on a visceral level. She was the sun they were constantly rotating around to to keep living. She was their personal ray of sunshine and they couldn't stand the mere notion of being depraved from that light...or having someone else enjoy it. As these thoughts started to get weight in their heads, it changed their behaviour too.

They sneakily isolated her from other people except her own family. They whispered lies in her ear, slowly manipulating her into believing that no one would value her as they did, that most people were out of to hurt her. Everytime she was about to make friends with someone, they cut that off quickly from the sides and dragged her back to them, all with the same kind smiles she grew up with so she never suspected a thing. She genuinely thought she was simply bad at socialising and her besties were her comfort zone, her eternal protectors. Yeah, they brainwashed her.

When high school started, both boys made sure to be inscribed on the same one as her, and with such luck they were placed in the same class. She never sat by herself, always with one of them at her side or both surrounding her, like human shields. For group projects they always paired together, and when the teacher separated them, it was hell for the other people involved.

They've been so smooth and cunning with their antics over the years that she has never felt anything wrong with them. She believes in them blindly. They're her precious best friends, her soulmates, her brothers. Sure, they might be a bit overprotective at times, but because they want her happiness.

At first they truly saw her only as a friend, their friends who belonged to them first. She could hang out with others, but at the end of the day, they should be her priority. They'll be the typical toxic besties that are like "you know her for five months, but we've known her for years" or "Do you seriously prefer to spend time with them over us? We're your best friends, you should think of us first!", or they'll make her cancel plans to go out with them instead. It's what they expect her to do. She must always prioritise them.

However, when their feelings for her started to become romantic, their attitude became worse. She wasn't allowed to go out with others anymore, especially boys. They made sure she was with them at all times, scaring off or threatening anyone that tried to approach her. What if someone stole her away from them, from her rightful place? They can't live without her. What are they supposed to do?

When they start their senior year in highschool (I got no idea how the education system works outside Spain) Han and Minho are in the same class, much to their delight...until they notice she's not there. Their protests are ignored, the graduation is this year and teachers have a lot in their minds to care for some "petty teenagers with separation anxiety." And so they're forced to endure the classes without her, unable to keep an eye on their girl. They're worried sick. What if something happens to her and they're not there? What if someone gets close to her and takes her? No, they can't stand it. No matter how much she promises them she's fine and can handle herself, they know she needs them. She's never been without them for long.

So they find a solution: Track her. They install a spying app on her phone to know where she is and record her conversations. They keep an eye on anyone that speaks to her longer than they like and intervene behind her back to cut off any potential admirers. This was supposed to remain only in school, but they use it even outside.

Years pass and they're already college students. Since they no longer can be in the same class, the boys find a solution: Move to an apartment and live all together. That has been their dream all along, create a routine for life together, as a team, as family. At this point, they're confident their schemes to "protect" Reader and tie her to them have all worked, so they relax a bit. They're sure she feels the same way for them, after all they did for her and all they went through together, she surely loves them just as much. She must have realised she's made for them. They even let her attend college despite hating the idea of not seeing her at all hours, because they trust her. They even slept together a few times already, so that means it's all established, right?

So imagine their surprise when she arrives one day and announces she'll be going on a date with a cute guy from her class. If that revelation wasn't enough to fuck them up, she adds that she's so happy because she's been crushing on him for a while now and wasn't sure he was interested.

All these words sound so wrong in their heads. Blurry, confusing, like she was speaking another language.

When they finally process it, they're furious. More than furious. The three of them have their first big argument since middle school and she leaves. Turns out that in the little time she spent away from them and interacting with other people helped realise that maybe some stuff just doesn't feel right with Han and Minho. She still found ways to excuse them in her head, believing it was all protectiveness but a bit extreme. So she stepped out of he comfort zone a bit and found out how refreshing it felt to have other people to talk to. Specially the guy that sat beside her in class, who always made her heart beat faster and showed her a different, softer kind of affection. One that doesn't suffocate you, doesn't hold you back.

They're mad at her initially but they eventually blame the guy. They blame everyone in the damn uni, for filling her head with lies and corrupting her. Minho claims he knew they shouldn't have supported her going to college without them, but Han says it was all his fault for stopping with their schemes to keep watching over her.

Then, they come up with a plan. One to ensure you have nowhere to go but their side and traps you forever. First, they get rid of the guy (either by intimidation...or something darker), then they comfort her broken heart by telling her that they warned her, that no one would ever love her like they do. Minho suggests having some dinner and drink to get their minds off it.

They get drunk, and they keep refilling her glass to distract her from the pain. They hug her and kiss her face, whispering sweet words in her ears. She's so sad and desperate for some affection there she lets herself go in their arms.

The morning after, she wakes up with hangover and realises they had sex, several times. It's not the first time, so she doesn't think too much about it, except for the slight uncomfortably feeling of not remembering everything. She stands up to shower herself...and doesn't check the trash cans, where there are no signs of condoms.

When she gets told that she's pregnant, it's way too late for her.

[fractured-shield]

Get To Know Me Tag

thanks for the tag @honeybewrites!

Rules: Answer the questions because I want to get to know you better :D

Do you have a pet?

As of last saturday, yes! I have an orange kitten named Phin and I love him dearly but the kitten energy has me in a constant brainfog right now lmao. He's currently under my desk chasing his tail btw

Comfort food?

Oh, good question, I don't know if I have one. Ochazuke is usually my go to "I'm tired and need something warm" food, if that counts? And the daily routine of making tea is nice

How many languages do you speak?

Just English fluently, though I have a duolingo streak of over 1k and rotate between three languages. I'm not great at any of them, and I also remember next to nothing from Spanish and Latin classes in school. ...also I know a concerning amount of a certain conlang and use its writing system regularly

Random fact about yourself.

Damn, I should've used that last bit as my fun fact. Uh. I used to ride horses, and I can play 3 instruments to varying degrees of competency, I guess

Something you're proud of?

...it feels kind of cheesy, but maybe resiliency I think? I don't have a lot of accomplishments to be proud of right now. My postgrad plans fell through (twice) and my housing situation is weird and I lost my job in the middle of an emergency and haven't been able to land another for months and don't have family to fall back on. But I'm still like...trying, you know, even though a lot of days I don't see the point in more applications and networking and all that. And I'm still writing, even when it seems pointless, although that's less voluntary and more that the characters won't get out of my head (I love them though so that's not a complaint)

just leaving this one as an open tag because I think most of you have been tagged already lmao