#IM SO EXITED FOR CHAOS THEORY | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sirius · 5 years

Text

Young gods Part 7

Pairing: Sirius Black x Reader, Remus Lupin x Reader, Regulus Black x Reader

Warnings: Graphic description of blood, swearing, suicide mention, scars, alcohol abuse.

Word Count: 7077

A/N: ugh so it took me so long to frickin find a good enough video to gif but do you think i could find one??? so the above gif is not mine. ANyway, im hoping to post more regularly now, and im going to try work on other stuff apart from young gods and chaos theory. just to mix it up, y’know? anyway, here we go. Be aware that toward the end, there is graphic description of blood and suicide mention. thank you for your messages and comments etc i really love reading them!

***

Chapter Seven: Be Alright or Wish You Were Here

The living room of Ashton Manor is oppressively, unbearably quiet.

The silence stretches and settles over you like a bad omen, ringing in your ears ominously as you stand in front of Regulus, in front of Walburga and Orion Black, and Thea and all you can muster is a very faint, very broken...

“I don’t understand.”

Because you don’t. You don’t understand how you can go from kissing Remus Lupin on a Ferris Wheel to becoming engaged to Regulus Black in a matter of hours.

But you suppose that’s how fate works; in ways that no one can understand.

“I don’t expect you to understand,” Grandmama Thea coos, softly, “Not yet, anyway.”

Somewhere behind you, Remus Lupin gives a cold, derisive scoff, “With all due respect, Mrs Ashton, But are you really going to force (Y/N) to marry the boy who attacked your granddaughter.”

Regulus narrows a cold glare on Remus, “I didn’t attack her.”

“My apologies,” Remus snips, sardonically, not sounding apologetic at all, “Does ‘betrayed’ sound better to you?”

Walburga Black arches a sharp, black eyebrow and corrects Remus in a smooth, honeyed voice, “I don’t see how this concerns you, boy. This is between the Ashton’s and the Blacks.”

A beat of icy silence, thick with condescension and frustration, lapses between everyone in the room. You glance at Remus, just in time to catch him frown and avert his gaze, lips pressing together.

“Of course,” Remus mutters, sourly, “I’ll be...waiting outside, then.”

Panic fills the ridges of your rib cage, stomach twisting into a piercing knot of apprehension and resentment as you squeeze his hand in a desperate, pleading attempt to keep him close. But Remus flashes a small smile, one that droops at its edges, like he had intended for it to be reassuring but couldn’t quite muster up the energy to make it convincing. He untangles his fingers from yours and leaves, footsteps creaking on the wood panelling of the floorboards.

When the door closes shut, Walburga straightens, stiffening her spine and raising her chin. Her eyes glint like light bouncing off the tip of a steel blade.

“Right, as I was saying,” she drawls, ominously casual, the faint edge of her French accent clipping her words, “We’ll need to organise the announcement dinner as soon as possible. Perhaps on New Years Eve.”

“Good,” Grandmama Thea nods, “I’ll make all the arrangements.”

“No,” Walburga snips, “I will. We’ll host it at our home. I insist.”

Thea cocks an eyebrow, expression neutral and masked, “Fine.”

A flicker of a smile flits across Walburga’s painted, red lips, “Excellent. Once we’ve made the announcement, we can begin planning the engagement party.”

“It’ll have to be after the school year has ended,” Grandmama Thea states, sternly.

Walburga’s expression freezes, posture steeled, “You do know what that will mean...for us...for you.”

“I understand perfectly,” Grandmama Thea snips in a tone that can not be argued with, “But I will not put my granddaughter's education on hold. She will be an independent, educated woman before she is any man's wife.”

Walburga drums her long, slender fingers on her lap, “Of course. I believe it was you who once said that a woman with beauty can bend a man around her finger, but a woman with intelligence can hold the entire world in her hands.”

Grandmama Thea takes a sip of sherry, swallowing more than just alcohol, “I’m glad you understand.”

Walburga stands, running her elegant, jewelled hands down the front of her dress, “In the meantime, I will begin preparations for the announcement dinner.”

“Excuse me,” you snap, irritation prickling across your scalp, leaking into your voice, “But I still have no idea what’s going on.”

Walburga shoots you an icy, sharp glare, heavy with judgment and disdain and boring into you like the merciless tip of a drill. There is no kindness or warmth in her eyes, like staring into the gaping mouth of a collapsing, white hole. They’re the type of eyes that could destroy an entire army if she wanted to.

“I expect you to be on time,” she orders, coldly, “My son's future wife must always be punctual, polite, well-dressed and composed.”

“Of course,” your grandmother gives a thin smile, mimicking Walburga and rising from the settee, “We’ll be there and we will be on time. I’ll see you out.”

Thea walks gracefully past you, leading Walburga out of the room. Walburga glides behind your grandmother with practised grace. She doesn’t look at you when she passes, wrinkling her nose as though you were a bad smell, chin held high and shoulders squared.

Regulus trails behind her sheepishly, eyes on the floor as though he were a weary dog on a steel leash being tugged along by a ruthless owner. Your teeth clamp down on to the velvety flesh of your inner cheek, nails digging into the smooth skin of your palms. The metre or so that briefly separates you as he passes to get to the door feels far too close for comfort and you take a step back, breath lodged behind your tonsils.

It’s then that you register a scrutinising gaze, unfamiliar and careful and burning into the side of your skull. Studying you, like you’re a squirming wreck of a specimen pinned beneath the glaring, relentless glass of a microscope. Reading you, like a foreign language has been scrawled onto your skin. You don’t turn to look, barely managing to suppress the shiver that attempts to crawl down your spine.

“You’re not what I expected,” comes the husky voice of Orion Black. He doesn’t sound surprised or disappointed but intrigued.

“And what were you expecting, Sir?” You ask, nails burying themselves further into your clammy palms as you finally turn to look at him.

You wish you hadn’t.

Orion is more handsome up close, the razor-sharp lines and edges of his face accentuated in the firelight, composed and cool, a hostile curiosity lurking beneath the dark, clear depths of his colourless eyes.

“Not you,” He responds, coldly, in a snarl not unlike the low growl of thunder “Regardless, I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”

With that, he stalks away from you and exits the room, his presence leaving behind a haunting feeling of dread, like the shivering whisper of vengeful ghosts. You swallow the scream of frustration and fear climbing up the length of your throat.

The floor begins to sway beneath your feet, fault lines colliding beneath the thick crust of the earth and you feel your knees buckle before you drop onto the soft, moss-green cushioning of a settee, burying your face in your hands.

This had to be a test of loyalty, patience, endurance. A hoax carefully crafted by Dumbledore to bend you to your limits. Your chest feels brittle, breath fragile and jagged as bile and fear and malice slosh together in your lower belly, burning through your gut like acid, puttering around at the back of your throat, bitter on your tongue.

“You must have a lot of questions.”

You jump, heart leaping into your throat. The willowy figure of Grandmama Thea stands in the doorway, casting sharp shadows across the floor.

“That’s the understatement of the year,” you breathe, voice trembling.

Grandmama Thea crosses the room and sits by your side, her presence infusing the air with her expensive, floral perfume. She grasps your hand in hers, giving it a comforting squeeze.

“This is really happening, isn’t it?” You ask voice barely a whisper on your lips.

Grandmama Thea nods forlornly, “Yes, my sweet.”

You swallow thickly, steeling your spine and resisting the urge to dissolve into a sobbing mess.

“Why?”

Grandmama Thea casts her gaze to the flickering fire, “I suppose it starts with your father, Nicholas. He was supposed to marry Walburga, you see. The Ashton bloodline is a dying breed, riddled with blood curses and scandals and all sorts of dark secrets that would make the Devil shudder. So, to continue what was left of the Ashton legacy, I signed a legal contract with Pollux Black, Walburga’s father, that stated that when Nicholas came of age, he would marry Walburga and produce suitable heirs. It seemed like a smart match on paper; two firstborns from prestigious wizarding families joining together to continue the legacy and break the incestral tradition that is so prevelent in pureblood families. Only...”

Grandmama Thea breaks off, a wry smile flitting across her lips.

“I didn’t take into account how much of a rascal your father could be. He said Walburga was an ‘arrogant bitch with a thirty-inch iron wand jammed up her ass’ and he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with her. I didn’t realise he’d already given his heart to someone else - you’re mother - a bright muggleborn witch he met while at Hogwarts. So, when he turned seventeen, he ran off with your mother and eloped.”

Your grandmother fiddles with her gold wedding band anxiously, a pained expression crossing her face.

“The thing is, a legal contract is binding, (Y/N). It demands repayment if it’s not fulfilled, and it demands a high price. It would have cursed him if it weren’t for my intervention...”

Your grandmother begins unbuttoning her silky, cream blouse, revealing several long, thick scars stitched into her smooth skin, starting at her sternum.

“What-?” You gasp, aghast. Your grandmother drapes her elegant, slender fingers over yours again.

“A mothers love for her child can be so profound, it can conquer anything, even death.”

Grandmama Thea drags your hand away from your lap and trails your cold fingers over the ridges of her scars, from her sternum to her naval, “Count them.”

Your brows knit together as you count them, touch ghosting over her skin. You bite your lip when you reach the last scar, understanding.

“Thirteen,” you murmur, realisation dawning on you, “For each year that the contract wasn’t fulfilled.”

Your grandmama Thea nods, “Every year, on the fifth of August, the day your father was supposed to marry Walburga, I would receive a new scar and the pain would worsen. Though the scar would heal, the pain would remain, like the wound was being unstitched every single day. But the pain was worth your father’s happiness, for if he had fulfilled the contract, I wouldn’t have had you.”

Thea sighs sadly, dropping her gaze as she pinches the pendant on her necklace, “I still couldn’t save him...my sweet boy. I couldn’t save him from-from those savages, those monsters.” Thea’s eyes flash with something deadly, something unfamiliar, cold and cruel. She composes herself, reining in her anger and straightening her spine, “The curse is lifted for now, but I would still prefer that searing pain I felt every day for thirteen years than the pain that your father’s death has left behind. There’s no greater sorrow for a parent, to bury their child...”

Thea trails off, fighting back tears, one hand running across her lower belly. Your heart aches, throbs like an open wound. You sense her hesitation, hedging across the tip of her soft lips that are usually always curved into the smile you love so dearly.

“For now...?” You prompt and your Grandmama exhales a shaky sigh, buttoning up her blouse again.

“The contract is still binding,” she explains, “It still requires two firstborns from the Black and Ashton family to marry and produce heirs when both have come of age. It was supposed to be Sirius but since he’s disowned, the contract doesn’t consider him the first born Black.”

You huff a mirthless, bitter laugh at that, the irony of the situation not lost to you. If Sirius hadn’t been disowned, you would have been in an arranged marriage with the boy you had been infatuated with for so many years, the dreams you had once entertained during the haze of your blind obsession with him finally coming true.

Your breath freezes when realisation suddenly dawns on you, veins crystallising and blood running cold, “You said before that-that Regulus and I have to...produce heirs?”

Your grandmother nods sadly, lips turning into a sad, thin frown, “Yes, dear. I’m working to get that changed, but I can’t guarantee anything.”

Your stomach curls in on itself, twisting into a clenched fist. You don’t think you could even look Regulus in the eye, let alone touch him.

“I-I can’t do this,” you breathe, voice rattling on your quivering lips, “I can’t-I can’t marry him. I can’t...have sex with him, or raise children with him, after what he did to me...”

Your Grandmama Thea nods slowly. Her eyes glisten with unshed tears as she holds her warm hand to your cheek.

“I would do it again,” she murmurs, softly, “If it means your happiness, I would take all the pain in the world for you, my dear. It’s my fault you’re in this position.”

You shake your head quickly, eyes welling with tears, “No. I would never let you do that. We’ll...we’ll sort something out.”

Your eyes drift to your grandmothers sternum, where her scars lay hidden beneath her blouse. How could your father be so selfish? Grandmama Thea had endured thirteen years of constant pain, and yet he was happily cruising through life with his pretty wife and blushing baby girl. Disdain suddenly floods through you, hot and prickly.

“You mustn’t blame your father,” Thea says, as though she had read your mind, “I should never have expected that much from him.”

A strange expression flickers across Thea’s face as she gives you a look so full of hidden meaning, you think you must be imagining it, “I’m-I’m not the woman you think I am.”

You frown at her, “What do you mean?”

Thea opens her mouth to answer, but at that moment, the door flies open and your friends stream into the room, rushing to your side.

“Remus told us what happened,” James says, looking sympathetic.

“She can’t marry him,” Kaitlyn snaps, eyes narrowing on your Grandmama, “He-he doesn’t deserve her. Besides, she’s already in a relationship!”

“The contract demands a legal marriage,” Grandmama Thea says, voice warm and filled with a subtle suggestion, “The contract doesn’t require you to love each other...”

You blink at your Grandmama, “Are you suggesting that I have an affair?”

Thea flashes a mischievous smile, eyes glittering as she flicks a gaze between you and Remus. You and Remus glance at each other and your cheeks glow at the suggestion.

“I said no such thing,” she murmurs, though her eyes dance with that familiar light, one you’d seen in your father.

“So, when is this all happening.”

Sirius’ voice sounds from the doorway and your gaze follows the sound of his voice, finding him leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed. His biceps bulge beneath his shirt, teasing a glimpse of strong muscle and smooth skin.

“We haven’t set a date yet,” Thea answers, thumb brushing against her wedding ring, “But it’ll be after (Y/N) graduates.”

“That’s two years from now,” you murmur, “I thought Regulus said we’d be married this time next year?”

“I bought you some time,” Thea explains, softly squeezing your hand, “I want you to have as much freedom as possible.”

Your eyes prick with tears as she runs her thumb across your palm.

“Carpe Diem,” Sirius drawls, pushing himself off the door frame and sauntering into the room, “Sieze the day.”

“Exactly,” James says, grinning, “We’ll make sure you enjoy every second of freedom before Walburga and Orion Black suck it all up.”

“(Y/N) shouldn’t have to marry him in the first place!” Kaitlyn snaps, jaw clicking shut, “She shouldn’t have to marry anyone!”

Thea’s expression pinches into a wince, thumb tapping a nervous staccato onto her wedding band. Glancing at you, she rises from her seat gracefully, as though she were entertaining guests and catches your eye.

“I think I’ll retire to my bed,” she sighs, palms smoothing out the wrinkles in her skirt, “You are all welcome to stay as long as you like and make yourselves at home.”

With a final, loving glance at you, Thea whirls around and leaves, the click of her heels against the marble flooring echoing through the mansion. You sigh as you listen to her steps stretch into silence before glancing at Remus.

“I think it’s time that I show you all that treehouse.”

***

Everything is much easier, more funnier, less painful when you’re drunk.

You notice this as you explain everything that your grandmother had told you, how there was a curse placed on the contract, how your father had risked it all to elope and have you. You even parroted back what your father had told Grandmama Thea about Walburga, much to the amusement of Sirius and James. With the aid of liquid courage, everything seems to pour out of you, like ink spilling across parchment.

“I’m caught between a rock and a hard place,” you sigh, trying not to slur your words together, “If I marry Regulus, I’m trapped in a marriage I don’t want to be in with the person who betrayed me to become a death eater. But if I don’t marry Regulus, it’ll curse both me and my Grandma...” you trail a shaky finger down your sternum, to just beneath your navel, thinking of your grandmothers scars “All because my dad wanted to be selfish.”

“Was it selfish, though?” Sirius asks, back pressed against the wooden wall of your treehouse, “He was brave enough to run off with your mother, and because he did, you’re here.”

“But he hurt my grandma.”

“She tried to force him into marrying that dragon of a woman.”

“Because she thought she was doing the right thing!” You snap, coldly, “Grandmama Thea said that the Ashton family line is a ‘dying breed, riddled with blood curses and secrets’ and she’s right! my grandad died before I was born, my dad is dead, my Aunt ran off to America to escape her problems, my Uncle is in the psychiatric ward of St Mungos because he’s a drug addict hallucinating shadow monsters and masked men and my grandma...she thought she was doing the right thing by protecting the Ashton legacy.”

Sirius regards you with an unexpectedly cool measure of detachment, arms crossed over his chest, “The irony of it is, if - when - you marry Regulus, the Ashton line ends. You’ll become a Black, unless your Uncle gets better and settles down. The Ashton line has already ended.”

“(Y/N) is collateral damage,” Kaitlyn pipes up from the corner, her nails scraping across the cool, clear glass of her vodka bottle, “It’s not about the blood line anymore, it’s about fulfilling some dumb, misogynistic contract.”

James scoffs, taking a swig of tequila and wincing as it scorches his throat, “This is so fucked up.”

Remus hums in agreement, draping a careless arm across your shoulders. His fingertips graze the nape of your neck, a warm whisper of contact that you welcome with a small shudder. He taps the knob of your shoulder with his thumb absentmindedly, contemplatively silent, warm against your side.

“We were thinking,” James begins, tone infectiously lazy and deliberate, “It’s about time that you got your tattoo. Both of you.”

Kaitlyn bolts upright, blinking rapidly, “What?”

James and Sirius exchange a look, “We think you’ve earned your tattoos.”

You and Kaitlyn glance at each other, unsure of whether James will deliver the punch line or not. The following silence is answer enough, and Kaitlyn slumps back against the wall, a smile tracing the curve of her lips.

“Now?” She asks and James responds with a nod.

“If that’s what you want.”

You turn to Remus, expression uncertain, and he offers you a gentle, reassuring smile, “It doesn’t hurt.”

Tugging down on the collar of his shirt, Remus brandishes his Phoenix tattoo, which is perched just above a long scar on his left breast plate. Your fingers ghost across his skin, feather-light and cool, and Remus covers his hand over yours, splaying your fingers across his chest. His heartbeat hums beneath your palm, steady and sure, a rhythm dedicated to you.

“How do we get our tattoo?” Kaitlyn asks, mildly intrigued, her eyes darting between James and Sirius. James throws a nod toward Sirius.

“Sirius carries around a special quill. He tattoos it onto your skin.”

Kaitlyn stiffens at first, then visibly recoils, as though the idea of Sirius touching her could physically slap her, “No way...not Sirius...”

Sirius barks a laugh, mouth tilting into a lopsided, dodgy sort of grin, “What? You don’t want to get up close and personal?”

Kaitlyn shakes her head, almost like she’s tempted to say something, but doesn’t. Instead, she folds her hands over her chest mulishly, protectively, not meeting Sirius’ eye.

James gives her a careless, easy, smile, eyes glittering like he’s amused - which he is - and cocks a brow.

“What is it that you hate so much about Sirius?” James asks, lazily cracking his knuckles one at a time.

Kaitlyn freezes, tucking a thick chunk of hair behind her ear, “He’s a bully, a sleaze and a womaniser who thinks women are just pieces of property in his monopoly.”

Sirius shrugs, “First of all, that’s not true. I don’t think women are property, I think women are women, and that alone means they are already superior to men. I just happen to enjoy worshipping their bodies during sexual inter course,” Kaitlyn crinkles her nose and Sirius’ eyes flash as he continues, “But that didn’t stop you, did it love?”

Kaitlyn glares dangerously at Sirius, whose grin bends smugly, triumphantly, like he’s just won a first prize in a verbal spar.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Peter snaps, and Sirius slants a devilish glance at Kaitlyn.

“It’s doesn’t mean what you think it does,” Sirius answers, calmly, “So you don’t have to get defensive about it.”

“I wasn’t being defensive,” Peter snaps, defensively.

Sirius snorts a gravelly laugh, “Sure you weren’t.”

Peter frowns, face flushed from more than just the alcohol. He opens his mouth to argue further, but James hurriedly intervenes.

“So what about you, (Y/N)? Do you want to officially become a member of the Order?”

You consider James measuredly, reflecting on the past hour, the past few days, the past week. Imagining an extremely morbid future of fake smiles and resigned laughter and ostentatious ballgowns and the destructive glare of Walburga and the wiltering presence of Orion, how they would love to see you choke and splutter as they fit a diamond noose around your neck, squeeze the air out of your lungs, sink their claws into your flesh and tear out every nerve in your body until all that is left is a shell, a carbon-copy of their son, because that’s exactly what they did to him, what they do. They expect other people to shrivel beneath their scrutiny, crumble to ash in their presence.

You think about how Walburga would squirm if she knew that her ‘sons future wife’ had a tattoo sketched by her own disowned, embarrassment of a son, and...

You smile.

“Yeah,” you say, confidently, “Alright.”

Sirius grins wickedly, climbing to his feet.

“Alright, Ashton. Where do you want your tattoo?”

For whatever reason, Grandmama Thea floats to the forefront of your mind, the anguish that had filled out every corner of her expression, her grief and her scars, faded mementos threaded into the lining of her skin, permenant reminders of a shattered past that she can’t quite escape from.

“On my sternum,” you reply, gently shrugging Remus’ arm off and standing. Your fingers outline a path through the barrier of your clothes, imagining the Phoenix stretching it’s wings across your ribcage, connecting your ribs together, “Right here.”

You point at the small triangle between your breasts. Sirius follows your fingers as though you were outlining a map, and then he coughs, his nostrils flaring, the tips of his ears pinking.

“You do realise you’ll have to take off your - um - your bra.”

In your peripherals, you catch the lines in Remus’ body tense. He’s holding himself preternaturally still, his posture stiff, like he's steeling himself for a fight.

“Y-Yes,” you murmur, cheeks burning, “Regardless, I want it on my sternum.”

Sirius’ expression cycles through a range of emotions you can barely keep up with; surprise, curiosity, a little bit impressed, a little bit fascinated, and then they seem to fuse together into a smirk that reminds you of a patient serpent ready to strike.

“You continue to surprise me, Doll,” Sirius drawls, dipping into the inner pocket of his jacket and retrieving a white-feathered quill.

You glance back at Remus, catching his eye and gulping at how blue they are, deep, swirling shades of Prussian blue that reminds you of staring into the deepest, darkest parts of the ocean, the parts that hide sunken ships and age-old secrets.

Remus climbs to his feet and presses a tender kiss to your forehead, “I’ll give you some privacy.”

You arch up onto the tips of your toes and capture his lips in a searing kiss, throwing your arms around his neck to pull him close. He tastes of vodka and smells like fresh rain and your head spins, lips breaking into a smile against his.

“See you soon,” you murmur, softly, pecking his lips one last time.

Remus smiles when he breaks away, joining James, Kaitlyn and Peter who idle outside on the wooden balcony.

“Well,” Sirius begins, “You’ll need to - erm - take your coat and shirt off.”

“Right,” you murmur, lacing the hem of your shirt between your fingertips.

Sirius turns, giving you privacy as you shrug off your coat, pull your shirt over your head, and bend your arms behind your back to unclasp your bra. You kick your clothes to the corner of the treehouse, covering your breasts with the clammy palms of your hand, skin puckering against the cold, winter air and repressing the shiver that tries to scale down your spine.

“Okay,” you say in a shaky breath, a spluttering nest of nervous energy glowing in your lower belly, wallowing with the scorching heat of the alcohol, warming you up despite the cold, and then the floorboards creak and Sirius shifts, turning around to face you and he-

He blinks.

Once.

Twice.

Again.

And then, he coughs, clears his throat, his grip on the quill tightening then slackening then tightening.

“Alright,” he mutters, steeling himself, “Sit - ah - sit on that chair and I’ll - I’ll begin.”

You wordlessly obey Sirius, dropping onto the seat nearby, watching as Sirius advances. He grabs another empty chair and drags it in front of you, settling onto it and then sliding it closer, surveying the delicate skin between your breasts.

Sirius taps your thighs and nudges them apart, scooting closer, eliminating any distance between you. The sudden contact making you jump.

“Sorry,” He chortles and your cheeks flush with embarrassment when you realise you could practically slide onto his lap.

Tentatively, Sirius raises his fingers and you bite down on a gasp, shocked at how warm his touch is as his fingertips skate across your cool skin.

After tying his hair back into a small bun on his head, Sirius taps the tip of the quill against his knee and the feather changes colour, vibrant shades of orange and red and yellow shooting through the silky white.

“This is going to tickle,” he says, glancing up at you and meeting your eyes. You nod, confidently at first, insistant.

Sirius raises the quill and pricks your skin, quickly and deliberately, and a burst of orange blossoms beneath your skin. You gape down at the small fleck of orange, forming like a petal beneath your skin.

A peculiar sort of silence rings out between the two of you as Sirius concentrates, the tight prickle around your sternum lapsing into a dancing tickle stitching itself across your skin.

“So, why the sternum?” Sirius asks, the tip of his tongue poking out between his lips.

You jut your chin at him, remembering the fluttering Phoenix perched on the left side of his ribs, “Why did you get yours on your ribs?”

Sirius’ lips curl, red velvet peeling back to give you a glimpse of even, white teeth, “You going to answer every question I have about you with another question?”

You shrug, “Depends. Will you?”

The sharp, needle-like point of the quill pauses, hesitates. Sirius licks his lips, “Only if there’s something I’m trying to hide.”

You roll your eyes, irritation climbing up the base of your skull, “Why does there have to be someone with something to hide? Why do I have to have a reason?”

“Because girls like you don’t just do things without calculating every single possibility first,” Sirius explains, eyes narrowing on yours, “It’s one of the reasons why Remus is so fond of you.”

You cock a defensive eyebrow, “Girls like me?”

Sirius flashes a wicked grin, “I mean no offence.”

The pin-prick tickle of the quill resumes, brushing between your breasts. Sirius licks his lips again.

A fragile sort of silence begins to stretch, tense and deep and thick between you and Sirius as he concentrates. You stare at the shadowed figures crowded on the balcony, laughing and chatting. You can see Remus hovering near the door, stealing glances at you from the doorframe.

“So,” you begin, slowly, shattering the silence, “I didn’t realise you were into art.”

Sirius shrugs, “I enjoy the occasional sketch here and there.”

You nod, a grin teasing your lips, “I wonder where Dumbledore got his tattoo done?”

Sirius splutters between a snort of laughter and a gurgle of disgust, “The senior members of the Order don’t have tattoos. It’s just us kids that wanted them.”

“Naturally.”

“Though I’m pretty sure that if Dumbledore wanted a tat, he’d be a lower-back kind of guy.”

“Yeah?” You giggle, brows raised, “How can you be so sure?”

“I just know these things,” Sirius chortles and you both share a moment of laughter.

It feels good to dissolve into something warm and comforting after such a challenging evening. You take a long moment to study Sirius, the way his smile fades as his laughter dwindles and how his eyes glitter. Finally, after silent deliberation, you dig your teeth into your bottom lip and sigh.

“The curse from the contract...” you begin, catching Sirius’ attention, “...it left permanent marks on my grandma. For every year that my dad wasn’t married to Walburga, it gave her a new scar. She was in a constant state of pain, every day of her life, for thirteen years. The first scar formed across her sternum, right...” you gesture to where Sirius is currently etching the Phoenix into your skin.

Sirius glances at you, his expression unreadable, even to you. He seems to be somewhere between contemplative and sympathetic.

“Anyway,” you continue, after a brief pause, “I - um - I chose my sternum because I wanted a physical way to remember why I’m doing this and who I’m doing this for.”

“And who are you doing this for?” Sirius asks, the tip of his elegantly long finger tapping out something unfamiliar on your thigh, as though in morse code.

“For my Grandma,” you answer, simply, “I’m doing this for her.”

Sirius arches a sharp brow, quill hovering.

“Nah,” he says, shaking his head pensively, “You can’t do it for other people. People are...people can change. Even the people you trust, the people you love the most...they can change.”

Your brows pinch together at his words, slanting him a disbelieving glance, “Not my grandmama. She’s-she’s never changed.”

Sirius hums, low and non-committal. After another lingering silence, Sirius leans forward, so close you think he’s going to press a kiss to your skin, and exhales, breath hot and melting away the coolness lingering on your skin.

Something flutters beneath your skin, wings stretching and shuddering. You stare down at the Phoenix nestled comfortably between your breasts, her black eyes blinking to life.

“Alright, Ashton,” he grins, leaning back in his seat to admire his work, “You’re an official member of the Order!”

You laugh on impulse, a grin cracking across your lips in awe.

“Here’s how it works,” Sirius begins, plucking his wand from his back pocket, “Press your wand against her to bind them, so she’ll only answer to your wand.”

Sirius pulls off his own shirt to demonstrate. Sweeping your gaze hastily past the plane of rippling muscles of Sirius body, you notice that Sirius’ Phoenix is different to yours and Remus’ and even your own, and admire the attention to detail and uniqueness Sirius has given each one.

“After that,” Sirius continues, “If we need to meet, she’ll alert you. You’ll feel a warmth like sticking your hands near the fire when we need to convene. You’ll also be able to disguise her by tapping her three times with your wand. Try it when you’ve got your bra on.”

Sirius wheels around to give you privacy as you reach for your bra and clip it on. And after retrieving your wand, you follow Sirius’ instructions, tapping the tip against your Phoenix, who glows gold as she binds herself to you. True to Sirius’ words, when you tap three times in precise movements, she vanishes, though you can still feel her beneath your skin, emitting warmth like a sun captured within the furnace between your breasts.

You tap your wand against her and she reappears, a startling splash of screaming colour against your skin.

“Thank you, Sirius,” you beam as you slide into your coat. Sirius turns back toward you, eyes like liquid steel bleeding into azure blue depths.

“No problem,” he shrugs, his smirk a little crooked, “As I said, you continue to surprise me, Doll.”

Some part of you doesn’t believe him but another part of you, another part that knows better, thinks that maybe it’s true.

(It is, and that terrifies him)

***

October 31st 1979

Ashton Manor

***

This is the part of the story that Althea Ashton never tells. She keeps it hidden from the world, bottled up in a jar and held close to her heart. And maybe that makes her selfish, but as she watches her young family play in the gardens of Ashton Manor, Thea reasons that she doesn’t mind being called selfish for once.

The sun is a large, amber diamond in the sky, spilling golden light onto the lush, green gardens and catching on the gemstones on Nicholas’ crown. He’d spent all afternoon on that crown, charming it to make the plastic look real. He‘s always been clever with charms, clever with anything that involves logic and reason, and Nick has always encouraged that in his children, especially in his eldest son. Thea allows herself to smile, feeling her heart swell beneath her floral sundress. If Nicholas asked for it, Thea would give him the sun.

Beside him, Delilah beams as she unsheathes her wooden sword and pins her father to the ground with the tip. She’s only seven, but she’s proving to be the most cunning out of her siblings. Thea can already see it; Delilah Ashton, Conquerer of Men, Conquerer of the World. She’s already piecing the building blocks of her empire together, brick by brick.

“I’ve got you, you wicked dragon!” Delilah cries, triumphantly, as Nick pretends to surrender beneath her, “Now, release the princess!”

“Never!” Nick growls, glancing at Thea and giving his signature wink. A ribbon of blood trickles over his Adam’s apple. Thea frowns.

That’s not right...

Nicholas pounces on his father, “Delilah, go get the princess! I’ll hold the dragon down!”

Delilah nods dutifully and sprints past her father, running toward ‘Princess Logan’. He’s still too young to understand what’s going on, but he seems to be enjoying himself, fascinated with a butterfly perched on a large dandelion. Little Logan, the softest of his siblings, gentle and considerate and generous with his love. The world outside can be so poisonous, but Thea believes her little Logan will be the antidote that will cure everything he touches.

Thea sighs, closes her eyes, soaking in the moment. The summer breeze, honeyed and warm, caresses her cheeks and carries the sound of laughter and joy and...a baby’s cry?

Her mind is playing tricks on her, she reasons. There’s no baby here, not anymore.

Thea sighs, listening to Nicholas’ laugh. She’ll never share these moments with anyone, not even if they paid her to. These are just for Thea, a private viewing only she and her family can indulge in. She wants this to last forever, to freeze it in time.

“Funny how time can play games with us.”

Thea freezes.

No, no, no, no, no.

She doesn’t want to open her eyes, afraid of what she’ll see. But she knows she has to, she must, because he’s here, the ghost from her past, playing tricks with her mind. The baby’s cry becomes louder, more insistent. She pushes it to the back of her mind.

No, no, no.

Thea opens her eyes.

Paris lies on his side beside her, as handsome as a daydream, playing with something in his hand. He looks exactly as he did in school, like time hasn’t touched him at all.

Thea’s family hasn’t seen him yet. She should tell them to run, to escape into the woods surrounding the grounds while they have a chance, but she knows they won’t get far.

“Why are you still here?” Thea snarls, glaring at him, “I’ve told you to go.”

“I can’t,” he says, sitting up and leaning into her, “As long as I’m still in here, I’ll never go.”

Paris places a hand on her heart, feeling the way it pounds for him as he trails kisses along her shoulder, up her neck. Thea hates the way her spine melts like a stick of butter beneath his touch.

“A beautiful memory, by the way,” he whispers into her ear, “I wonder if they know the truth?”

Thea’s eyes widen as his teeth tug on her ear.

“No one can know,” she snaps, gripping the hem of her dress, “No one.”

“Of course,” He murmurs, voice hot and silky against her ear, “It’ll be our little secret, my sweet Queen.”

Paris breathes in the scent of her hair, hand trailing up her shoulder and gently wrapping around the elegant curve of her neck.

“I bet Dear Nick never does anything like this,” he growls, giving her neck a squeeze, “He doesn’t fuck you the way I did.”

“Nick has given me a life,” Thea breathes, voice trembling on her lips, “He’s given me a home and children to fill it. All you gave me was bruises and regrets.”

He hums, “But you loved it, didn’t you? You loved being my queen.”

Paris’ other hand runs up her leg, fingers dancing across her thigh, dipping into her panties. Thea gasps, pleasure and guilt mingling like firewhiskey in thick, hot blood.

“Maybe,” She breathes, her grip on her dress tightening until her knuckles go white, “But I hate what you did to me.”

Paris laughs, a low rumble in his chest as he worships her body, “You know that’s not true. Just like you know that you killed them.”

Thea’s breath catches in her throat, heart freezing, blood crystallising. The baby’s cries turn to screams.

“Wh-What do you mean?”

He chuckles darkly, his fingers spiraling as his other hand moves up her swan-like neck, “You haven’t taken your eyes off me, my Queen. So how do you know where your family is?”

Thea’s eyes widen as he grips her jaw and crashes his lips onto hers, forcing her into a searing kiss. Memories flood her consciousness, memories of their time in Hogwarts, where they had ruled as King and Queen of their own little Underworld. Thea whimpers, struggling to break away, to find her family and protect them, but Hades’ hold on her is too strong, and when she finally wrenches herself free, he’s gone, as suddenly as he appeared. Instead, she finds herself standing in her husband’s study, completely alone.

Thea’s eyes well with tears as she realises where she is in time, the part of the story that everyone knows. Heart hammering, she slowly turns around, cold blood pulsing through her veins and a distant, menacing sense of dread crawling up her spine.

In front of her, the body of her eldest son, Nicholas, lies dauntingly still, too cold and too stiff for an eleven-year-old, skin and flesh torn to shreds, exposing quivering nerves and cracked bones. Blood pools beneath him, she can almost hear it screaming for her.

The muscles in Thea’s legs feel like lead as she runs toward him, dropping by his side, feeling the way his blood soaks into her sundress and stains her forever. Thea begins to sob, clutching her sons lifeless body, cradling her little boy in her arms. She can taste his blood on her tongue, smell the strong, metallic tang and feel the way it curdles in her hands, sticking to her hair.

“Look what you’ve done,” croaks her husband, gravelly and strained, like he’d forced the words out with great difficulty.

Slowly, Thea pulls herself away from her son and turns toward her husband, who looms over her. The trickle of blood that she’d seen earlier in her daydream is now a torrent of red, streaming down the front of his shirt from where he’d sliced his own throat open. Nick nods at his son, and Thea turns back Nicholas’s mauled body, so small in her arms.

What she sees stills her pounding heart, raises the hair on the back of her neck.

Instead of seeing Nicholas, Thea see’s her granddaughter, motionless, split open and bleeding liquid life into her arms.

And Thea-

Thea screams.

Thea screams until she breaks through the clouds of her nightmare and she’s sitting upright in her bed, throat corse and lungs aching. She doesn’t see the shadowed figure slip away into the night, or feel the ghostly whisper of warmth lingering on the sheets beside her. All Thea can feel is cold dread, like a winter she’s never known, and amongst the chaos that rains down around her, Thea can only think of one thing.

“I killed her,” Thea rasps, as her loyal house elves rush into her room “She’s dead. (Y/N) is dead.”

***

@amelya5567 @hylianhighlander @lousimusician @littlewriter55 @jackie-houston @sirius-lysad @marauderskeeper @royalmaknae @yllwtaxi @trumpettay @lilaccoveredteapot @evyiione @swim-deep-or-die @pugsandcuddles @tamosbien @xrosegoldwolfx @clockworkherondale @dude-whatawave @avipshamitra @saturnaah @reimiwritrs @tchalland @mckjnnon @lucifersnipnips @reducto-bitch @bluskai @socialheartbreak @heliopvth @who-said @mhftrs @bwayorbust @whimsicalangels1234 @eleatheirin @bernadineisreborn @madeofstarsdust @siriuswitches @qrangr @mixedupsammy @gryffinclxw @steph-fowlie @funkycoldlatina @acciorinn @fallern618 @writingcroissant @cinnamonbees @wanderlust-travler @expellimarvelous @writing-for-a-chance

214 notes · View notes

chockfullofsecrets · 6 years

Text

Class 1-A vs. Tickle Might: Part 2

Rating: Gen

Summary: ...title is really the best explanation I can offer

Word Count: ~3.2k

A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who’s reading these and leaving me feedback, and to @gigglingknight for proofreading :) This brings us to nine students down and... quite a few still to go. Let me know what you think!

<<Part 1 :: Part 2.5>>

While it was difficult to track a villain through a crowded city, there was usually some kind of trail to follow: explosions, destruction, screaming. Things became even easier when the villain was running to something –an exit, perhaps.

However, this exercise required All Might to track down twenty teenagers that were trying their absolute hardest to hide and wait him out. He was going to need a little more than just his observational skills.

A little more, it turned out, was an app on his phone attached to the training ground’s security cameras – a simple map that showed a red dot in every location where detection algorithms noticed a humanoid form. Cheating, perhaps, but he and Aizawa had agreed that it might be necessary.

He fished the device out of a pocket on his skintight suit, squinting at the tiny screen. Several dots in his vicinity, and – ah, five or six of them clustered together in the same building. Definitely a good place to start the next phase of his attack.

The mockup of an office building was windowless, pale concrete glittering in the daylight. Starting on the first floor and working his way up was the obvious plan; anyone on the higher floors would be trapped unless they could sneak past him.

He momentarily considered entering through the front door, then remembered that he was playing a villain and knocked his way through a wall instead. “I AM HERE, READY TO CONQUER MY OPPONENTS!”

The room was empty save young Ojiro, who backpedaled frantically as one of All Might’s hands came perilously close to grabbing him. The boy skidded to a stop in the opposite corner, feet planting firmly as his arms came up in a defensive stance.

All Might crossed his arms and stared him down. “Young Ojiro! I’m glad I found you!” he boomed cheerily, then winced as the look in his student’s eyes teetered on the edge of outright panic. “That’s an excellent stance!” he complimented, a little softer.

Ojiro blinked at him. “Ah, thanks?”

The boy’s tail twitched as All Might drew closer. He held up a conciliatory hand. “Just taking a closer look. Feet turned to avoid any buffeting from the front, yet positioned to spring easily to either side, tail used as a counterweight… it appears very sturdy!”

He grinned as Ojiro flushed a little under his praise, still watching warily for a potential attack. “Uh… are we going to…”

“Fight? Only if you don’t wish to surrender first, young hero.”

Ojiro shifted his feet, smiling a little. “I’ll take my chances!”

All Might feinted forwards, expecting a sideways dodge. Instead, Ojiro dropped straight to the ground. Rolling forwards, he wrapped his tail around All Might’s leg and tugged. The hero tumbled backwards, but with his quick reflexes he clapped his legs together and trapped Ojiro’s tail between them.

Now they were both on the floor. Ojiro made a swift move towards the pressure point on All Might’s left knee, but his wrist was quickly caught in his opponent’s massive grip.

“Young hero, it’s very unwise to get tangled up with someone who has a longer reach,” he tutted. For example, I could do this!” He reached out, barely stretching his free arm, and scampered his fingers up Ojiro’s vulnerable ribcage.

The boy snickered, eyes widening. “W-wait… this is…”

“You see,” he continued, drilling his finger into the soft side within his reach and watching triumphantly as Ojiro was overtaken by giggles, “I have some knowledge of pressure points too.”

Ojiro squirmed like an eel as he tried frantically to separate himself from All Might, his free hand slapping at the ground. The room was filled with his laughter, rebounding off the concrete walls, but – there. Another giggle, much higher pitched.

All Might raised his head and looked around. Nobody. “I take it we have a certain invisible student with us?”

The higher-pitched giggling stopped. Ojiro, whose side was still being mercilessly tickled, choked out, “Tooru! Yohohou were s-supposed to attack stehehealthily!”

“Sorry, sorry, the two of you just look funny! I’m helping!”

A pair of invisible hands started to pry All Might’s right hand off Ojiro’s wrist finger by finger. “The other hand, Tooru!” Ojiro pleaded, still trying to worm away from the invading digits of his left.

“I need both hands for this,” she chirped. “C’mon, you can hold out for a bit longer. A little laughing never hurt anyone!”

“It tihihickles!”

“Okay, okay!” Something smacked against All Might’s other hand – Hagakure’s foot, most likely. “Don’t be mean, sensei! Shoo!”

He laughed, pausing his attack to wrap his hand around her ankle. “A noble sentiment, young hero, but you’ve put yourself in danger now!”

“No!” It was chaos for a few seconds – Hagakure trying to pry her leg free, Ojiro giving a mighty tug with his captured tail. He wouldn’t be able to contain both of them this way.

Hagakure was the more valuable target; she didn’t show up on any of the cameras and would be much harder to find if he let her go now. He released Ojiro and rolled to his knees, casting a hand in front of him to find the girl’s waist and pull her down. Ojiro, gasping, pulled his tail free and climbed to his feet, stumbling for the exit. “Tooru, let’s run!”

“Ojiro, help!” Hagakure yelped, facedown on the floor. “He got me!”

The boy wavered for a moment, still in range for an attack, then turned back to the door. “I’ll get help from the others upstairs; just hold on!”

His indecision would cost him. All Might managed to pin Hagakure with a knee pressed gently into the small of her back, and, both hands free, grabbed Ojiro’s tail and sent him sprawling with a decisive pull. “Hah! Two heroes captured!”

“And no hands to tickle them with, villain,” Ojiro growled, bending double and latching onto All Might’s free arm. “Gotcha!”

“I’m willing to work with what I have!” proclaimed All Might, turning to Hagakure and dragging Ojiro with him.

“Wait, wait! Not that!” Hagakure squeaked. Evidently she had her head turned to watch the both of them, and as the tuft of Ojiro’s tail drew closer to her she knew what was coming.

Squealing, loud and unrestrained, filled the room as All Might lightly dusted the end of Ojiro’s tail over Hagakure’s unprotected back and sides. “Nohoho! Go away, go away!”

“Sorry,” Ojiro called, laughing despite himself. “Didn’t you say a little laughing was okay?”

“Shut uhuhup! Why is your tahail so soft!”

At that affront, Ojiro reached out to tweak her side. “Don’t be mean!”

“Ahahaha! Not both of you! I surrender!” she squawked. All Might lifted his knee to let her get away, but they could both still hear her heaving for breath. “Ha… man, this exercise is different than I thought.”

“A valiant effort nonetheless, young Hagakure!” he praised. “Your stealth makes it nearly impossible to attack when you’re not forced to engage with your opponent.”

Footsteps crossed the room, and Hagakure’s shoes and gloves appeared from behind a corner. “Thank you, sensei!” She started to put them on. “That was kind of fun! I didn’t know Ojiro’s tail could tickle that bad!”

“Neither did I, my girl! A lucky occurrence on my part.” He turned suddenly to the owner of said tail, still clinging to his arm. “Now, what shall I do with you?”

Ojiro was already grinning nervously as his friend skipped over. “Try his tail, All Might-sensei! Kaminari messes with it in class sometimes, and he always freaks out!”

“Tooru, come on!” Ojiro protested.

“You didn’t save me!” she retorted, gloves on hips. “Actually, you were helping him!”

“Hah, a rivalry!” All Might grinned. “My girl, would you care to demonstrate?”

Hagakure took hold of a struggling Ojiro’s tail, gloved fingers scratching lightly into the tuft of hair at the end. “You’d expect that it would feel good, like when you get your head scratched, but I think it just tickles him a lot!”

“And what do you think, young Ojiro?”

Ojiro didn’t answer, but his collapse into helpless cackling proved her theory correct. She let her teacher take over, helpfully rubbing her friend’s shivering back as he laughed himself silly. By the time he called for mercy, there were tears welling up in the corners of his eyes.

They helped him sit up. “You’re both… so mean…” he panted.

“Don’t you feel less stressed now that you don’t have to worry about All Might-sensei destroying you in combat, though?” Hagakure asked.

“Heh, I guess so.” Ojiro ran his sleeve across his face. “Thanks for not killing us!”

All Might chuckled. “You’re welcome, my boy. Go to the exit, you two, and enjoy your summer break!”

They left through the hole in the wall; he headed for the stairwell, sure that some of his students were still in the building.

He wasn’t expecting to find four of them right there in the hallway.

Sero, Aoyama, Shoji, and Tokoyami were all rooted to the ground in the dimly lit corridor, apparently halfway though a rushed evacuation. They stared up at him like he’d just melted from the shadows, and in return he graced them with a brightly villainous smile. “Ah, more young heroes. And you’ve even lined yourselves up for me!”

“Merde,” Aoyama hissed, an octave above his already high voice, and that broke the spell.

“Run!” Sero shouted, shoving them all to the door, and the five of them spilled out into the daylight on each other’s heels.

The four boys were still huddled together, backing away from his imposing figure. Sero, in front, looked wildly around. “Aoyama, get out of here! You and Dark Shadow can’t fight in the same space!” When the shiny-surfaced boy failed to move, he slung some tape around his waist and, with a grunt of effort, sent him sailing up to the nearest rooftop.

“Not so fast!” All Might sprang forward to grab the tape-slinging boy – one arm around his waist, the other moving to grab the tape before it could disconnect. Aoyama wailed in surprise as a sharp tug sent him tumbling back down into the fray.

He grinned at them both. “You’re right, young Sero! It’s a definite advantage for me to have Aoyama here. And you really should stop slinging your teammates into the air without any regard for your own safety.” He deftly bound Sero up with the still-dangling length of tape –“don’t get yourself tied in knots, my boy, I’ll be right back for you” – and carried Aoyama with him as he turned to face his two remaining opponents.

Shoji and Tokoyami were running, Dark Shadow unfurled behind them. Even with a wriggling Aoyama hoisted over his shoulder, it took him about five seconds to catch up to them. Dark Shadow squawked an alarm, and the two students spun around. Shoji leaned down, whispering something into his friend’s ear, and Tokoyami nodded sharply in response as he held a hand up. “Dark Shadow, shield us!”

The shadow folded in and around, encasing the two in a bubble of swirling black with two flashing red eyes. “A defensive move, huh?” All Might stopped a few feet in front of the enclosure, lowering Aoyama to the ground. “Young Aoyama, I think we both know what’s going to happen next.”

The boy was hugging himself over his armor, a desperate attempt at protection. “I won’t let you use my amazingly bright twinkling to get to Tokoyami!”

All Might rocked back on his heels, considering. “Well… you could surrender, if you don’t want to take that chance.”

“I don’t want to do that either!”

“In that case…” He wormed a finger into one of the gaps in Aoyama’s ostentatious torso armor, jerking back in surprise as even that slight brush against his belly produced a reluctant squeal and a bolt of blue energy from the boy’s navel laser. “My boy, I don’t think you’re in much of a position to bargain.” Seeing his student’s expression sour in disappointment, he leaned in and patted him gently on the head. “Besides, helping me out wouldn’t be something to regret. Don’t you think that those two could use some more, ah, enthusiasm?”

Aoyama beamed at that. He really was very bright; All Might almost felt the need to squint when confronted with his blinding white teeth. “Of course! Even a failure on my part will bring sparkles to the eyes of my classmates!”

“Exactly! Well, my boy, let’s see just how brightly you can twinkle!” Aoyama’s armor was loose enough to wriggle his fingers underneath, and the mere action of doing so was enough to send him into cascading squeals of laughter while creating his own little light show. “Hm… perhaps a little calibration…” He rolled his student over a little, aiming the random flashes of his laser roughly at Dark Shadow, who began to writhe under the sparkling assault.

The poor shadow disappeared into Tokoyami’s chest with an empty fizzle, and almost immediately Aoyama giggled out his surrender. “Mission… accomplished…” he wheezed into the ground. “Prepare for the sparkle of life to overtake you, Shoji and Tokoyami!”

With one last congratulatory pat to the boy’s head and a reminder to leave the training ground, All Might stood and turned to face his next victims, both of whom were backing slowly away from him. “Ah, you two have come back to the light! Who should I take on first!”

“You protected us admirably, Tokoyami,” Shoji said, stepping forward. All six of his arms were wrapped around himself. “If you run now, maybe Dark Shadow can still recover.”

“A noble effort indeed,” All Might agreed, wrapping a friendly arm around Shoji’s wide shoulders and pulling him aside. “Not even trying to mount a defense, huh? You seem very nervous.”

Even with his ever-present mask, it was easy to see Shoji’s jaw work as he decided what to say. “All Might-sensei, I – well, I have six arms.”

“And six armpits,” All Might said, nodding companionably. Shoji’s face was slowly reddening. “If I had six hands, I would definitely take advantage of that.”

“No one has six hands. Except me.”

“Exactly. Even I just have the two, so really there’s nothing to worry about! Just relax! You can surrender whenever it becomes too much.”

Shoji’s arms loosened a little from their death grip around his torso, and he took advantage of the opportunity to pull the uppermost pair above the boy’s head and pin them in one of his hands. A menacing wiggle of his fingers caused Shoji to freeze in place, strangled giggles already making their way out through his mask. “I – Ihih’m – pretty, uh, pretty ticklish, so I don’t think I’ll last very long.”

“That’s fine, my boy! Now, I know the mask will hide it, but I hope you’ll give me your brightest smile anyways!” He softly stroked the membrane between Shoji’s first and second pair of arms, inwardly cheering as the boy squeezed his eyes closed and dissolved into laughter.

“Ehehehe! I’m smiling, I’m smihihiling!”

“Excellent! But can you smile… bigger?”

A foray directly into the hollows separating Shoji’s arms proved that he could, as evidenced by a ticklish scream and several flailing pairs of arms. “AhahHASTOPSTOPPLEHEHEASE!”

Shoji used the sudden freedom of his hands to bury his face in four of them. All Might, trying not to laugh at his embarrassment, drew him into an engulfing hug. “It’s all right! Aizawa-sensei and I weren’t expecting anyone to be immune to my battle techniques, and you were very brave in defending your friend!” The boy nodded sheepishly into his chest, and he sent him on his way with one last squeeze.

Perhaps he’d handle young Sero next. He peered down the street, looking for the restrained boy, and noticed with some chagrin that only a pile of sticky material remained. Really, he should have expected him to be able to break free of his own tape. Regrettable, but surely he’d be able to find him later.

He turned just in time to be barraged by Dark Shadow, back to nearly full strength. “Ah, young Tokoyami! You’ve recovered!”

“I have,” the boy conceded, bowing his head. “Not in time to rescue Shoji, but that doesn’t mean Dark Shadow and I won’t try our best.”

“I would expect nothing less from you, my boy,” All Might declared, and was immediately forced into a wrestling match with Dark Shadow as the feathered entity tried to swallow his head whole.

The shadow was corporeal, to an extent, and after a brief struggle he managed to get a grip on the thing’s neck and force it back a bit. On a hunch, he buried his hands in what would have been neck fingers and wriggled them around a little.

Dark Shadow snapped at him unhelpfully. More telling was Tokoyami’s reaction – under the assault on his shadow, he flinched and let out a sound that was nearly a chirp, his hand twitching towards his neck.

“You two really are connected, I see. Tell me, can your Dark Shadow feel this?” He dug in a little more enthusiastically, and this time the disembodied head seemed to show a bit more of a reaction, shivering furiously in his grip.

“He can,” Tokoyami conceded through gritted teeth. “Although it – heh – it seems he’s passing most of it on to me.”

“Good bird,” he commented, and tickled it under its chin until, squawking in silent hilarity, it melted from his grasp and tucked itself neatly back into Tokoyami. Said student was shaking slightly on his feet, the occasional snicker trickling from his beak, but he managed to raise his head and look All Might firmly in the eye as he approached.

All Might poked him in the stomach, curious to see the reaction. When that produced another flinch, he moved onto carelessly scribbling over the boy’s belly and ribs, feeling the muscles strain as Tokoyami fought to maintain his composure while staying completely still. “H-how – the embodiment of darkness does not normally – giggle.”

“Your Dark Shadow? It does seem to have a mind of its own sometimes. Maybe it likes the tickling.” A particularly good squeeze to Tokoyami’s side had him folding in on himself, beaked head dipping sharply as if to hide the laugh that slipped out. “At any rate, you have more ticklish spots than it does, but maybe the two of you share one in particular.”

He gently tilted Tokoyami’s head back up and scratched under his chin, cooing to himself as the boy’s eyes fluttered closed and he made that chirping sound again. “Ah, is that what your laugh sounds like?” He tried the tickling again – his ribs, his belly, the silky feathers at the back of his neck. Tokoyami fared much worse this time, arms flying up to push at the attacking hands as he continued to chirp, the occasional recognizable laugh coming out as well. “There it is! Tickle tickle tickle – don’t be embarrassed, my boy, it sounds quite nice!”

Tokoyami was in a pile on the ground before he admitted defeat, leaning weakly into his teacher’s side as he giggled breathlessly. All Might rubbed his back, mentally calculating how much time had passed and wondering if he had time to walk his student to the exit.

It was then that the sensation came over him. The scuff of a foot against gravel, some sixth sense from decades of hero work, all of it assembled unconsciously in his brain to alert him.

Someone was watching them.

He looked up, wary, and there it was – a pair of mismatched eyes looking coolly back.

#bnha #my fic #class 1a vs tickle might #tickling #chocfic

91 notes · View notes

starlightsoulwriting · 6 years

Text

Chaos Theory - Chapter Three

A/N: a.skdjfg;.ewukojhdP:SLK iM SCREAMING YOU GUYS

I'm just really excited about this story and pacing myself is really difficult when I have more than one chapter ready but like I know I need to do that in order to keep consistent updates. I'm also trying to get a job so like wish me luck with that! Let me know what you think! Am I being too cryptic? too obvious? too slow? I need some help lol.

Masterlist

Crossposted on AO3

Chapter Three: Sphinx

11:23 PM

Liana didn’t have to wait long before she was able to see the advancing swarm of androids from over a mile straight down the street, white ants getting ever closer. By the time they would reach the entrance of Recall Center 5, every human would have long since cleared out of the area, prompted to leave by the news and emergency alerts. The block was already nearly deserted, but now even the national guard and SWAT had to clear out. She would be free to move without Perkins fucking things up (again). She stood from her crouch behind the concrete rails and grabbed her things before launching down the fire escape, the cold metal burning even through her fleece-lined gloves.

The National Gaurd had already cleared away all the bodies, leaving the street blue and her soul hollow, knowing her friends had been thrown away like common trash. Stupid Perkins, stupid president. Ruined everything. Her fist curled, nails sharp enough to feel through the leather and heat bloomed in her chest, her brows furrowing. She grit her teeth, before closing her eyes and collecting herself.

Breathe in… Hold… Breathe out…

Focus.

There’s no use dwelling on what’s already done.

Opening her eyes, she then moved to lean against one of the buildings, rummaging around in her bag, wading through the brick-a-brack in search of what she needed. It’s showtime. She just hoped her words of advice to Connor had confused him enough so he would believe her - or at least build some trust. There was no way this would work if he refused to listen. At least he was a deviant now.

A shudder ran up her spine as memories flashed at the thought of Connor’s less than pleasant machine personality. Liana could still feel the echo of mechanical hands tighten around her throat. Fuck. She smashed her balled fist against the brick behind her.

Deep Breath. Refocus.

You’re safe.

She resumed her search, heartbeat more erratic than it was just a minute ago. She finally found what she was looking for in her bag, though, and she was thankful for the distraction. She pulled out two items from her canvas duffel, a smile tugging at her lips despite the swell of nerves and anger in her stomach. Months of work and it all came down to this next few minutes. She was in the home stretch. - if this worked.

If one looked at the two items in her possession, they wouldn’t seem like anything special. Of course, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Underneath, there was previously unheard of technology hiding. They were designed in every way to blend in, just like her duffel bag was. The silver “watch” in her hand had taken considerably more time to perfect than the canvas sack, however - cramming all the same components into a much smaller package was an obstacle befitting a Genius Grant Laureate such as herself. And she had done it, eventually, after months of chugging unhealthy amounts of coffee.

Her colleagues would be so impressed when she finally got the chance to show it off.

The other object was more discreet - a thin, clear, silicone disc about the size of a dime. If looked at closely, thousands and thousands of tiny circuits could be seen, capable of holding several petabytes of code. The code had been the hard part, actually - the memory disc was a standard piece of equipment for Android Techs looking to temporarily add new code to their charge. All they had to do was press it on the androids temple, opposite their LED, and it would be integrated into their systems.

The hard part of Liana’s job had not only been finding the RK800 model’s base codes, but also working with her software team to actually make a dependable subroutine. The AI techs at Cyberlife did not make her life easy, and while that was their job, Liana couldn’t help but hold a grudge against the coding team for making her take longer than she should’ve.

Although, time-wise, the only thing at stake was Liana’s ever-thinning sanity.

All she needed to do now was to get Connor to wear them and then the rest would follow.

The truth is self-evident, if one is able to remember it.

Connor saw her waiting long before they were in speaking distance. The warehouse androids got there first, swarming the street around Liana, pulling down the barriers of the Recall Center and setting their brethren free. The sound of crunching metal was music to her ears. She leaned back on the brick, trying to appear as casual and non-threatening as possible.

Connor, however, had other ideas, and stalked towards her, head down, eyes dark and fists loosely clenched at his side. Boy was he pissed.

He was always unhappy to see her after Markus died.

“Where are the others? What happened?” He was using his interrogation voice, deliberately standing too close, looming over her smaller frame to intimidate an answer out of her. So much for that whole trusting her thing Liana was hoping for. She took a deep breath, trying to remind herself that this was Connor, and she gently pushed him away with one hand. While he was displeased, he took the hint and withdrew slightly, thank fuck. He made her nervous when he was like that. Her lungs burned again with bad memories.

She rung her hands together and steeled her nerves. “Perkins shot them. I was keeping watch on the roof,” She couldn’t meet his eyes, the intensity in his stare too much for her right then. “Even with warning, there were too many soldiers for them. Josh told me to stay put even if something went wrong. Figured if they were dying I shouldn’t go with them.” Josh was unnerved by the thought of someone dying for a cause not their own, even if they were willing. Plus, she really disliked being shot, so she didn’t exactly insist. Besides, the mission was more important than Jericho at this point, unfortunately.

Connor wasn’t any happier with her, but he understood the logic all too well, and knowing Markus and Josh, it was as likely an explanation as any.

“And how did you know what would happen at Cyberlife tower? How do I know you’re not working for them?”

Liana barked out a very inappropriate laugh despite herself. “‘Cus they fucking shot me!” She shook her head, sighing. “More than once, actually.” She looked back at Connor, guessing correctly that he would be wearing a bewildered expression. “They kinda suck.” Liana shrugged at her understatement. “Although, I have found out a thing or two in my campaign against the evil corporate overlords.” She held up the Silicon coding chip. “For one thing, I know that the Amanda program still has a direct link to your head, and since they know you’re working against them, they are going to try to hack you.” She looked him dead in the (very nice looking) eyes just so he would understand how serious she was - how much hinged on him believing her. He was wary enough of the company that she hoped he would believe her. “Now, you could take the chance to find Kamski’s emergency exit from the Zen Garden Program, or you can take this.”

She took his hand in hers and placed the chip in his palm. “It deactivates the Amanda AI, so even if Cyberlife tries to make a connection it won't go through. You don’t have to trust me on this but…” she looked at her watch. 11:29 PM. “You have three minutes until they try to take over your program and assume control of the android rebellion. You can comb through that program in less than a few seconds to see if I’m telling the truth.”

Connor’s LED went solid yellow for a few seconds, his expression blank and eyes glazing over as he processed the information. When he finished, it flashed red for a moment, before returning to a calming, stable blue. He pressed the code to his temple, letting it deactivate the proper AI subroutines. Liana smiled. Step One: complete. His gaze was focused as he searched her face, confused. “How… do you know all this, Lieutenant?”

Aw, the poor thing was used to knowing everything. She crossed her arms and leaned back on the wall, head resting on the brick so she could look at him properly. “You should just call me Liana. Hank and I won't know which one of us you're talking to if you call us both ‘Lieutenant’ all the time,” she gave a soft laugh. Connor was so formal all the time. “but as for me knowing things I shouldn’t? You should be able to figure that out on your own in a few hours, actually. If I told you right now there’s no way in hell you’d believe me, babe.” His LED blipped red again, but Liana wasn’t sure if it was because of confusion or being called ‘babe’ - from her experience, though, it was probably the pet name.

“You said the same thing at the church - that I wouldn’t believe the truth. I assure you, I’m running very low on explanations for how you know all this. I would be glad for any reasoning, however absurd.”

His expression had been steadily softening throughout the conversation until it reached the familiar puppy-dog look that Liana had sorely missed. It had been a while since she’s seen it in earnest. A bloom of warmth spread through her chest and she held back a smile, wary of confusing the poor android further. “Nah, Con, you’ll see for yourself what’s up. Meet me at the café down the block from the station. 9 o’clock on the morning of November 6th, alright? I’ll explain everything to you then.”

Connor’s LED flickered between red and yellow, and he shook his head. “That’s an entire year away, Lieu- Liana.” She just smiled at the use of her name, ignoring his protest, and presented Connor with the silver watch from her bag. Initiate step two.

“Congratulations on saving the day, Connor. I know you don’t need this to tell time, but I want you to have it. As thanks for putting the Cyberlife suits in their place.”

Connor stared at the gift, yellow blinking LED punctuating the ever-increasing silence between them. But slowly, he reached his hand out and took the watch, clipping it carefully around his left wrist. “Thank you. I’ve never received a gift before.” His voice was soft and Liana had to hold herself back again from hugging him. It was almost too much for her heart to handle.

Breathe in.

Breath out.

Focus.

She smiled gently, finishing the conversation. “I’m glad to give it, Con,” She turned her attention to the androids milling about around them and let out a chuckle. “You should probably talk to them, though, too.” He held her gaze for a moment longer, and turned away.

Suddenly, the spell over the two was broken, and Connor was back among the sea of robots around them. Step Two: complete.

As she watched him take the stage and begin his speech to the mass of machines, the clock turned over.

11:36 PM

and then they were both gone

Tags: @rk800downloading

#dbh #detroit become human #dbh connor #dbh oc #detroit become human connor #chaos theory #dbh connorxOC #oc #connor #chaptered #drama #sci-fi

4 notes · View notes

comfortscripts · 3 years

Note

Can I please ask for a Star Wars a LOTR ship? I am 5’1, with an athletic build, tanned brown skin, dark brown eyes, and medium length wavy black hair always tied up. My pronouns are She/Her. I’d like to be shipped with a guy. I’m an INTP-A. I am a very sarcastic person and have a witty sense of humor. I’m quite the cunning and clever person as well. I tend to thrive on my own and am very much a lone wolf. Im very content with living in my own world in my brain and forgetting the existence of reality. That however doesn’t mean I’m quiet. When it comes to a topic I’m interested I sort of have a light bulb moment and take charge of the group, being very elaborate. I always speak my mind in such situations. However, to everyone I am quite blunt and won't sugarcoat my opinions. I do find it very hard to trust people and tend to shy away from deep feelings either being oblivious to them or pretending they don’t exist. I usually only open up those true feelings if I’ve been friends with you for ages and trust you. Saying that I have very few friends, I’m talking like four that I can talk too without feeling out of place or bored with small talk conversation. I’m a digital artist, with a passion for video game design, filmmaking and cgi/visual effects. I adore anything to do with art and technology. I love rpg video games. I’m also a massive and I mean massive sci-fi geek. I can probably quote Doctor Who, Star Trek and Star Wars in my sleep. I love true crime, theoretical physics/astronomy, and conspiracy theories as well. I also adore working out, especially kickboxing and weight lifting. Thanks!!

I live for the details so thank you so much for giving me stuff to work with! Quoting Star Wars is never a bad thing

Star Wars

Luke Skywalker

This might sound odd but I think you remind him of Han but more attractive and less annoying

The sarcasm, the honesty and the lone wolf vibe you have is very Han

Luke would probably be intimidated by you at first

Avoids being alone with you because lets be honest, he has no skills when it comes to girls

At one point you two are alone in a cabin on the millennium falcon and he says something stupid like "you know, there are estimated 2 trillion galaxies?'

As soon as the words leave his mouth, he is praying that the exit hatch sucks him out

But when he sees your eyes light up before you start a full on speech about theories regarding galaxies

Luke Skywalker becomes a complete admirer of you

Smart, beautiful, funny and badass. He needs to man up and ask you out

Han now deems that cabin 'Cupid' because it made Luke realise you were meant for him

Also helping Luke adapt to living a more isolated life because he won’t be used to not having at least 3 other people around

Lord of The Rings

Haldir of Lórien

Okay, weird one but hear me out

Haldir isn’t exactly someone who does humour

His honesty tends to be cut-throat and sometimes rude

So when walk in with your sarcasm and wits, he is confused

This relationship requires a lot of explanations from your side

And a lot of the time, you try and get him to be honest in a nicer way

Let’s say for this you are human

Going into battle whilst being Haldir’s love is difficult

He would be against you fighting in the first place but I feel that you would anyways

Haldir feeling the need to be constantly near you…just in case

But at some point he loses you in the chaos

All hell breaks loose in his head

Elves are quite composed but he is on the brink of a meltdown

That is until he sees you taking on (and defeating) more enemies than some of the best elven fighters were

Just the way your hair is flowing from your ponytail and how your skin glistens with sweat, if he could marry you like that, he would

After the battle is over, he apologises for underestimating you but admits that seeing you in battle was very hot

#ship

0 notes

isaacathom · 4 years

Text

one interesting thing i found in SB is that for its mythology, which is, Woof, the original bad guy was the fire god, not the dark one. so, passing forward to EC, Ryaris was the one who went rogue first, and then Dalace went down afterwards. And there’s the fact that the act which got her branded as a villain is specifically called a betrayal. of who?

my memory of most of the EC lore is fuzzy, but I know that Ryaris couldnt have betrayed, say, her direct elemental counterpart in the water goddess Caliyo, because she’s the one who, after the Second Event, broke Ryaris’ seal early. While that could just be a whole lot of forgiveness and an understanding of how their elements coexist, it’s more likely that Caliyo was not the one wronged by Ryaris’ actions originally. This is compared to what I later had down for EC, which is that Dalace had been bad from the word go and that Ryaris only became involved in the Second Event by trying to free her. fun!

So then the Q becomes what did Ryaris do, and who did she betray? The likely answer is she betrayed Losa, the goddess of Light. the reasons for doing so are, complicated? and have their routes in the way the elements all interact. cause the 4 standard elements are basically neutral towards eachother because while they can cancel eachother out short term, they have a ~relationship~ thats important. like, the air goddess Xen can blow out Ryaris’ flames, but her air is also responsible for flames growing in the first place, and the fires consume that air. You follow? But light and dark have a way more complicated relationship that leaves Dalace especially feeling wronged, because where light is present, dark cannot exist. dark cannot overpower light rawly, yknow? i have diagrams in my head which explain this sort of. point being, dark and light are not friend.

and that complexity extends to how the 4 elements interact w/ light and dark. Ryaris as a fire goddess mostly has vague beef with Losa, because fire creates light, doesn’t it? and light, when concentrated, can create fire. The two cannot destroy each other, their actions only fuel the other. so while in theory, on paper, theyre allies, in practice they set eachother off extremely easily. they just are not compatible personalities, their elemental dynamic personified.

which makes it easy to imagine that Ryaris, pissed off to no end by Losa’s holier than thou attitude, etc etc, decides to fuck with her. And thus, betrayal. An important aspect of this is that Ryaris was not sealed away by the gods alone, but also by a human on their side. that the conflict that spilled out from Ryaris’ actions impacted the human world in some way. So it was a very direct betrayal, going back on her word, doing what she was told not to do. Something that, even if some of her fellow gods thought the rule was bad, had to acknowledge that Ryaris had broken it. yknow. centrism. because the other gods don’t side with Ryaris. Even Dalace, who fucking loathes Losa, remains neutral. which she regrets, hence the Second Event.

So Losa tells Ryaris not to do something, Ryaris decides fuck you asshole, I’m going to do that anyway and even more, and thus, Chaos. It could lean a vague prometheus angle, like that Losa in her ~divine wisdom~ decided to impose some restriction upon humans, and Ryaris broke it. cause Losa is a hell of an individual generally, consider she decided of her own accord that she was gonna be the ‘keeper of lost souls’, like she ust. decided that. without input. and without letting anyone else even go ‘actually id like to keep the ghosts of the people who lived in my world with me, or give them a choice’ nope! Losa knows best! She’s presumably the oldest, or second oldest depending on your opinion of whether the Void is ‘dark’ or just ‘blank’.

Ryaris isn’t the oldest, obvs, or even the oldest of the elemental quartet due to fire requiring fuel (which supposes that Xen is the oldest, followed by either Ryaris or Elra the earth goddess, or possibly even that Ryaris is flat out the youngest if it goes Xen>Elra>Caliyo>Ryaris, with earth requiring water to make the like, carbon fuel, right). but the fact her power creates light lends a degree of authority. She’s in a very unique position as a goddess in that respect, since she can technically create two elements. so even though she’s either the 1st or 3rd youngest, she has that going for her. it fuels smth in her. that ability to stand up to Losa and say ‘no, fuck you’.

Maybe it does even tie into the ghost thing, or the general inability for souls and mortals to change realms (excepting all souls going to Losa’s realm). Maybe Ryaris breaks that barrier down. Maybe she creates the first portals, opens those floodgates that even Losa can’t really close. Which is even a bit of, idk, sorta dramatic irony since her creating portals directly leads to a lot of things that bring about her defeat in the Third Event (specifically Skye being a Very Weird Light Boy, Will being a Very Weird Dark Boy, and Violet being her literal lost daughter, lmao). But its also neat because in SB the method of weakening the seals was to create portals, which sorta punctured holes in the space. whch is pretty neat.

so Losa makes a decision that mortals have to stay on their world only and that when they die theyre souls come to stay in hers. While this sorta annoys all of them (who died and made her queen, whats the point of all these worlds if they cant interact, etc), Ryaris is the one who decides to act. She visits Losa’s light world full of ghosts on false pretenses (delivering some wayward souls, perhaps), sneaks in somewhere, and basically burns a hole in the fabric of space to create a portal between light world and Earth. Ryaris’ reasoning for doing this is sorta weird, but any important part of it is that with the change Losa made, only two worlds have no native inhabitants - Ryaris’ fire world, and Dalace’s dark world. To be clear, Ryaris isn’t bitter, because she made a conscious decision to not put like, sophonts on the fire world. she likes the quiet. But Ryaris likes the idea of visitors, of creating a place where people can come to see her and stay for a short while. And Losa’s decided that she literally cannot do that, and that the only people who can visit her are runaway souls (rough crowd) and the other gods. And they’re busy! Busy people! Ryaris likes the idea of the freedom of movement, probably because as a fire goddess, fire likes to just. Expand. It’s great.

so she lies to losa’s face, creates a portal, and then allie fucking oops outta there. excellent. things escalate from there as mortals start following ryaris’ example and making portals, thats the floodgates. Then Losa and co go ham, a pseudo war starts, and then eventually Ryaris gets sealed in her realm and barred from using the portals out of it. but now portals are there, and losa’s pisssssed.

dalace remains neutral in the First Event because even though she hates Losa and is against her just, by default, she’s also not... really allies with Ryaris? The enemy of my enemy is my friend, sure, but Ryaris is, as said earlier, in a very unique elemental position in that her element, fire, creates light. Dalace hates light. and so, unable to reconcile her loathing of Losa with her dislike of Ryaris, she exits the conflict and probably mopes in the dark world for its duration. The other goddesses are either neutral or side with Losa. fun times! Caliyo likely sides with Losa, but even at the early stage she regrets it. However she’s actually unable to break the first seal because it was made using, im pretty sure a water mage? I don’t honestly know if I kept track of what elements Talae and Silver were, but they were i think water and air, respectively? idk. It might make more sense if Talae is air ad Silver is water, because then Caliyo as water goddess can sorta.. ‘revoke’ Silver’s part of the seal on Ryaris after take 2. yea. i think that works.

so then the idea is that while Caliyo feels guilty because she actually agrees with Ryaris and the elemental counterpart relationship is Fun, Dalace feels guilty because she ‘let Losa win’. and spends the next few centuries weakening Ryaris’ seal so that they can get revenge. And Ryaris is down for revenge! And down for support! So she teams up with Dalace, they break her out, and cause chaos again. This time there’s no principle behind it. its just flipping the bird at losa. so while the first time around its like, Losa+Caliyo+idk, Elra, vs Ryaris, second time its Losa+Caliyo+Elra+Xen vs Ryaris+Dalace. And they get beaten and both get sealed.

At this point Ryaris decides that while she stands by her original decision to create portals, she doesn’t stand by the attempt at revenge, and she accepts being sealed as a consequence. Dalace, of course, does not. After time passes, Caliyo comes to visit Ryaris and see hows she’s doing (with Caliyo having fully forgiven her for the first thing, bc that wasnt Caliyo’s problem), and after deciding she’s appropriately sorry for what she did with Dalace’s help, leaves and weakens the seal, and some time later Ryaris is able to leave, whereupon she decides to visit the world she tried to destroy in the guise of a mortal to see whats up, whereupon she falls in love with and later marries Evelyn Nis, and the Story Persisteth.

the reason they went for fucking over the central world (earth, i guess) rather than losa’s world directly was the fact that the two of the, Ryaris and Dalace, can’t fucking touch the place. Dalace can barely even go there, fucks sake, she cant destroy it. And if Ryaris tries, it won’t work, because of the fire makes light thing. So you settle for the next best thing - the neutral world none of the goddesses rule directly, but which Losa has a great deal of influence over, because Fuck Losa.

presumably dalace’s current plan is to be a bit sneakier, and rather than appearing and trying to destroy everything, she basically wants the trick all the people into destroying it themselves, through war and so on. and so a lot fo subterfuge, and stuff. which is WHY Ryaris kidnaps Chase and Akian D’Lore - she’s ransoming the shit out of Sparklr Fountain and provoking them into accusing all their neighbours and vague enemies of being responsible. Quartai’s probably on that list which is fun. Lot happening. :)

#story blogging #anyway suddenly EC has been solved #presumably the way to end the conflict overall is a) reveal to humanity who is behind their woes (Dalace primarily)#and b) convince Dalace to stop destroying the lives of innocent people and *win them over* rather than killing them #and also c) convince Losa to take a fucking. break. chill out. stop being a pain in the ass. its possible! she can do it it! she just wont

0 notes

krystalhillard2-blog · 6 years

Text

Do No Evil Runescape Quest Guide Part Two, Ape Atoll And Banana Trail

Finally, blitzers can cast the level 82 Ancient Magic attack, and barragers cast the 94 Ancient Magic encounter. You should have at least two of either of such pker types on your team. These characters will help freeze the other guy and pull out tons of damage. The good thing about barragers is their capability to attack multiple players at once with one cast, for example freezing plenty of people at exactly the same time while also doing great amount of damage. In the cosmic room, operate here is your chance machine to a cutscene of the robot unlocking the chaos room. Now put a primed bar on device. Operate the drawing machine to establish a cosmic bar, draining runecrafting energy. Exit to lobby. Well im telling you right now, hardly any of those websites are make-believe. What i found reall cool is that you can literally sell your RSGP towards the website. Where do choice they get thier huge inventory of RSGP? its from players that provde the website. I'm a merchant account company. for every mill i sell them i get 50 mere cents. if i were to trade them 300m i would get 150$ put directly into my paypal account. Originally that was just in theory, until i tested everything they told me when i first established. Over the phone, I contacted considered one of the owners of something and learned everything i want to discover about starting. So wouldn't you Runescape guide want these accounts. Well come and claim your own one proper. Maybe your friends play or have played it before mainly because has over 100 Million people registered as indicated by Runescape( Jagex ). Maybe they would appreciate the account, and they can forever cherish you their particular heart. There is a lot of new runescape players complaining their low-level and runescape gold-lacking, because from low-level to high level, furthermore need lots of time, in addition need huge of runescape money. Do you want to reach a dangerous in a short period? Do anything to be a millionaire in runescape within 10 units? Just come to RSorder! We have cheapest runescape gold old school runescape gold with safe and fast delivery, or you can choose cheap rs gold (https://murraynewman.webnode.com/l/rs-gold-and-also-because-of-which-rs-gold-service-providers-are-increasing-in-number) runescape power leveling to get a advanced level in awhile. RSorder is your best substitute for easy your gameplay, as well as never disappoint you! In the cosmic room, operate the drawing machine to a cutscene of the robot unlocking the chaos room. Now put a primed bar on gear. Operate the drawing machine to earn a cosmic bar, draining runecrafting energy. Exit to vestibule. We receive the price of oldschool RS Gold seriously the most reasonable. We have encounter of selling old school RS Gp for years, and we provide all forms of services for customers. For example, our company offers the latest news of gold, fast delivery of old school rs money and such like. If are usually hurried to obtain gold, you can come towards the store and receive the best services. Receive a career from the actual Board (Quick or Large). Quick jobs have a reduced plank requirement old school runescape gold, while yielding less routine. Large jobs require more, and therefore yield more experience. Making superior armor saves having in order to purchase full torva, pernix, or virtus. Although there is no money actually made, the RuneScape player learns how to wear great deal armor without other compared with the cost of repair when it degrades. A cutscene ensues where the RuneScape player is obtained from there to talk to Golrie's mother, Golrana in Tree Gnome small town. Now the RuneScape player has to meet Golrana north from the observatory from where the Runescape guide hill giants are. A good way is teleport ring of dueling castle wars and run north. But Mining pays off in the end. Beginning at level 85 Mining, can perform mine the coveted Rune Ore (Sells for around 13k). At level 99 you possess a much better chance to get the ore than in case you are eighty-five. With 10 to 30 people pking together, it would be hard maintain order and organization. Signs and symptoms your clan is too large to operate as a specific pking team, a good Rune tip would be to put into two groups, but lay in the same world. Much more positive do this, you can cover more ground in need of people to fight, while also have a backup from the same world to help you along if there happens to be large rush from a more impressive clan. Runescape Store is a web site for Runescape player to old school runescape powerleveling,runescape gold,money,GP and item,old school runescape gold, offering millions in cheap Runescape money at our low prices with free delivery to your personal Runescape story. All of our Runescape money, gold and items are collected without money cheats or hackers. Sound up to date? No one must be give away their username or password, but are actually many many different people more than a Internet regarding ages and surprisingly numerous more want think that actually do not understand benefits of of internet privacy. And the who how to play Runescape and want to know quick method to get ahead do not realize is actually important to to late that their attempts have actually put both of them further back, many to be able to start all over again.

0 notes

samanthasroberts · 6 years

Text

Dangerous idiots: how the liberal media elite failed working-class Americans

Trump supporters are not the caricatures journalists depict and native Kansan Sarah Smarsh sets out to correct what newsrooms get wrong

Last March, my 71-year-old grandmother, Betty, waited in line for three hours to caucus for Bernie Sanders. The wait to be able to cast her first-ever vote in a primary election was punishing, but nothing could have deterred her. Betty a white woman who left school after ninth grade, had her first child at age 16 and spent much of her life in severe poverty wanted to vote.

So she waited with busted knees that once stood on factory lines. She waited with smoking-induced emphysema and the false teeth shes had since her late 20s both markers of our class. She waited with a womb that in the 1960s, before Roe v Wade, she paid a stranger to thrust a wire hanger inside after she discovered she was pregnant by a man shed fled after he broke her jaw.

Betty worked for many years as a probation officer for the state judicial system in Wichita, Kansas, keeping tabs on men who had murdered and raped. As a result, its hard to faze her, but she has pronounced Republican candidate Donald Trump a sociopath whose mouth overloads his ass.

No one loathes Trump who suggested women should be punished for having abortions, who said hateful things about groups of people she has loved and worked alongside since childhood, whose pomp and indecency offends her modest, midwestern sensibility more than she.

Yet, it is white working-class people like Betty who have become a particular fixation among the chattering class during this election: what is this angry beast, and why does it support Trump?

Not so poor: Trump voters are middle class

Hard numbers complicate, if not roundly dismiss, the oft-regurgitated theory that income or education levels predict Trump support, or that working-class whites support him disproportionately. Last month, results of 87,000 interviews conducted by Gallup showed that those who liked Trump were under no more economic distress or immigration-related anxiety than those who opposed him.

According to the study, his supporters didnt have lower incomes or higher unemployment levels than other Americans. Income data misses a lot; those with healthy earnings might also have negative wealth or downward mobility. But respondents overall werent clinging to jobs perceived to be endangered. Surprisingly, a Gallup researcher wrote, there appears to be no link whatsoever between exposure to trade competition and support for nationalist policies in America, as embodied by the Trump campaign.

Earlier this year, primary exit polls revealed that Trump voters were, in fact, more affluent than most Americans, with a median household income of $72,000 higher than that of Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders supporters. Forty-four percent of them had college degrees, well above the national average of 33% among whites or 29% overall. In January, political scientist Matthew MacWilliams reported findings that a penchant for authoritarianism not income, education, gender, age or race predicted Trump support.

These facts havent stopped pundits and journalists from pushing story after story about the white working classs giddy embrace of a bloviating demagogue.

In seeking to explain Trumps appeal, proportionate media coverage would require more stories about the racism and misogyny among white Trump supporters in tony suburbs. Or, if were examining economically driven bitterness among the working class, stories about the Democratic lawmakers who in recent decades ended welfare as we knew it, hopped in the sack with Wall Street and forgot American labor in their global trade agreements.

But, for national media outlets comprised largely of middle- and upper-class liberals, that would mean looking their own class in the face.

The faces journalists do train the cameras on hateful ones screaming sexist vitriol next to Confederate flags must receive coverage but do not speak for the communities I know well. That the media industry ignored my home for so long left a vacuum of understanding in which the first glimpse of an economically downtrodden white is presumed to represent the whole.

Part of the current glimpse is JD Vance, author of the bestselling new memoir Hillbilly Elegy. A successful attorney who had a precariously middle-class upbringing in an Ohio steel town, Vance wrote of the chaos that can haunt a family with generational memory of deep poverty. A conservative who says he wont vote for Trump, Vance speculates about why working-class whites will: cultural anxiety that arises when opioid overdose kills your friends and the political establishment has proven it will throw you under the bus. While his theories may hold up in some corners, in interviews coastal media members have repeatedly asked Vance to speak for the entire white working class.

His interviewers and reviewers often seem relieved to find someone with ownership on the topic whose ideas in large part confirm their own. The New York Times election podcast The Run-Up said Vances memoir doubles as a cultural anthropology of the white underclass that has flocked to the Republican presidential nominees candidacy. (The Times teased its review of the book with the tweet: Want to know more about the people who fueled the rise of Donald Trump?)

While Vance happens to have roots in Kentucky mining country, most downtrodden whites are not conservative male Protestants from Appalachia. That sometimes seems the only concept of them that the American consciousness can contain: tucked away in a remote mountain shanty like a coal-dust-covered ghost, as though white poverty isnt always right in front of us, swiping our credit cards at a Target in Denver or asking for cash on a Los Angeles sidewalk.

One-dimensional stereotypes fester where journalism fails to tread. The last time I saw my native class receive substantial focus, before now, was over 20 years ago not in the news but on the television show Roseanne, the fictional storylines of which remain more accurate than the musings of comfortable commentators in New York studios.

Countless images of working-class progressives, including women such as Betty, are thus rendered invisible by a ratings-fixated media that covers elections as horse races and seeks sensational b-roll.

This media paradigm created the tale of a divided America red v blue in which the 42% of Kansans who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 are meaningless.

This year, more Kansans caucused for Bernie Sanders than for Donald Trump a newsworthy point I never saw noted in national press, who perhaps couldnt fathom that flyover country might contain millions of Americans more progressive than their Clinton strongholds.

In lieu of such coverage, media makers cast the white working class as a monolith and imply an old, treacherous story convenient to capitalism: that the poor are dangerous idiots.

Poor whiteness and poor character

The two-fold myth about the white working class that they are to blame for Trumps rise, and that those among them who support him for the worst reasons exemplify the rest takes flight on the wings of moral superiority affluent Americans often pin upon themselves.

I have never seen them flap so insistently as in todays election commentary, where notions of poor whiteness and poor character are routinely conflated.

In an election piece last March in the National Review, writer Kevin Williamsons assessment of poor white voters among whom mortality rates have sharply risen in recent decades expressed what many conservatives and liberals alike may well believe when he observed that communities ravaged by oxycodone use deserve to die.

The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles, Williamson wrote. Donald Trumps speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin.

For confirmation that this point is lost on most reporters, not just conservative provocateurs, look no further than a recent Washington Post series that explored spiking death rates among rural white women by fixating on their smoking habits and graphically detailing the haggard face and embalming processes of their corpses. Imagine wealthy white woman examined thusly after their deaths. The outrage among family and friends with the education, time, and agency to write letters to the editor would have been deafening.

A sentiment that I care for even less than contempt or degradation is their tender cousin: pity.

In a recent op-ed headlined Dignity and Sadness in the Working Class, David Brooks told of a laid-off Kentucky metal worker he met. On his last day, the man left to rows of cheering coworkers a moment I read as triumphant, but that Brooks declared pitiable. How hard the man worked for so little, how great his skills and how dwindling their value, Brooks pointed out, for people he said radiate the residual sadness of the lonely heart.

Im hard-pressed to think of a worse slight than the media figures who have disregarded the embattled white working class for decades now beseeching the country to have sympathy for them. We dont need their analysis, and we sure dont need their tears. What we need is to have our stories told, preferably by someone who can walk into a factory without his own guilt fogging his glasses.

One such journalist, Alexander Zaitchik, spent several months on the road in six states getting to know white working-class people who do support Trump. His goal for the resulting new book, The Gilded Rage, was to convey the human complexity that daily news misses. Zaitchik wrote that his mission arose from frustration with hot takes written by people living several time zones and income brackets away from their subjects.

Zaitchik wisely described those he met as a blue-collar middle class mostly white people who have worked hard and lost a lot, whether in the market crash of 2008 or the manufacturing layoffs of recent decades. He found that their motivations overwhelmingly started with economics and ended with economics. The anger he observed was pointed up, not down at those who forgot them when global trade deals were negotiated, not at minority groups.

Meanwhile, the racism and nationalism that surely exist among them also exist among Democrats and higher socioeconomic strata. A poll conducted last spring by Reuters found that a third of questioned Democrats supported a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. In another, by YouGov, 45% of polled Democrats reported holding an unfavorable view of Islam, with almost no fluctuation based on household income. Those who wont vote for Trump are not necessarily paragons of virtue, while the rest are easily scapegoated as the countrys moral scourge.

When Hillary Clinton recently declared half of Trump supporters a basket of deplorables, Zaitchik told another reporter, the language could be read as another way of saying white-trash bin. Clinton quickly apologized for the comment, the context of which contained compassion for many Trump voters. But making such generalizations at a $6m fundraiser in downtown New York City, at which some attendees paid $50,000 for a seat, recalled for me scenes from the television political satire Veep in which powerful Washington figures discuss normals with distaste behind closed doors.

The DeBruce Grain elevator. Federal safety inspectors had not visited it for 16 years when an explosion ripped through the half-mile long structure, killing seven workers. Photograph: Cliff Schiappa/AP

When we talked, Zaitchik mentioned HBO talk-show host Bill Maher, who he pointed out basically makes eugenics-level arguments about anyone who votes for Donald Trump having congenital defects. You would never get away with talking that way about any other group of people and still have a TV show.

Maher is, perhaps, the pinnacle of classist smugness. In the summer of 1998, when I was 17 and just out of high school, I worked at a grain elevator during the wheat harvest. An elevator 50 miles east in Haysville, Kansas, exploded (grain dust is highly combustible), killing seven workers. The accident rattled my community and reminded us about the physical dangers my family and I often faced as farmers.

I kept going to work like everyone else and, after a long day weighing wheat trucks and hauling heavy sacks of feed in and out of the mill, liked to watch Politically Incorrect, the ABC show Maher hosted then. With the search for one of the killed workers bodies still under way, Maher joked, as I recall, that the people should check their loaves of Wonder Bread.

That moment was perhaps my first reckoning with the hard truth that, throughout my life, I would politically identify with the same people who often insult the place I am from.

Such derision is so pervasive that its often imperceptible to the economically privileged. Those who write, discuss, and publish newspapers, books, and magazines with best intentions sometimes offend with obliviousness.

Many people recommended to me the bestselling new history book White Trash, for instance, without registering that its title is a slur that refers to me and the people I love as garbage. My happy relief that someone set out to tell this ignored thread of our shared past was squashed by my wincing every time I saw it on my shelf, so much so that I finally took the book jacket off. Incredibly, promotional copy for the book commits precisely the elitist shaming Isenberg is out to expose: (the book) takes on our comforting myths about equality, uncovering the crucial legacy of the ever-present, always embarrassing if occasionally entertaining poor white trash.

The book itself is more sensitively wrought and imparts facts that one hopes would dismantle popular use of its titular term. But even Isenberg cant escape our classist frameworks.

When On the Media host Brooke Gladstone asked Isenberg, earlier this year, to address long-held perceptions of poor whites as bigots, the author described a conundrum:They do subscribe to certain views that are undoubtedly racist, and you cant mask it and pretend that its not there. It is very much a part of their thinking.

Entertain a parallel broad statement about any other disenfranchised group, and you might begin to see how rudimentary class discussion is for this relatively young country that long believed itself to be free of castes. Isenberg has sniffed out the hypocrisy in play, though.

The other problem is when people want to blame poor whites for being the only racist in the room, she told Gladstone. as if theyre more racist than everyone else.

That problem is rooted in the notion that higher class means higher integrity. As journalist Lorraine Berry wrote last month, The story remains that only the ignorant would be racist. Racism disappears with education were told. As the first from my family to hold degrees, I assure you that none of us had to go to college to learn basic human decency.

Berry points out that Ivy-League-minted Republicans shepherded the rise of the alt-right. Indeed, it was not poor whites not even white Republicans who passed legislation bent on preserving segregation, or who watched the Confederate flag raised outside state capitols for decades to come.

It wasnt poor whites who criminalized blackness by way of marijuana laws and the war on drugs.

Nor was it poor whites who conjured the specter of the black welfare queen.

These points should not minimize the horrors of racism at the lowest economic rungs of society, but remind us that those horrors reside at the top in different forms and with more terrible power.

Among reporters and commentators this election cycle, then, a steady finger ought be pointed at whites with economic leverage: social conservatives who donate to Trumps campaign while being too civilized to attend a political rally and yell what they really believe.

Mainstream media is set up to fail the ordinary American

Based on Trumps campaign rhetoric and available data, it appears that most of his voters this November will be people who are getting by well enough but who think of themselves as victims.

One thing the media misses is that a great portion of the white working class would align with any sense before victimhood. Right now they are clocking in and out of work, sorting their grocery coupons, raising their children to respect others, and avoiding political news coverage.

Barack Obama, a black man formed by the black experience, often cites his maternal lineage in the white working class. A lot of whats shaped me came from my grandparents who grew up on the prairie in Kansas, he wrote this month to mark a White House forum on rural issues.

Last year, talking with author Marilynne Robinson for the New York Review of Books, Obama lamented common misconceptions of small-town middle America, for which he has a sort of reverence. Theres this huge gap between how folks go about their daily lives and how we talk about our common life and our political life, he said, naming one cause as the filters that stand between ordinary people who are busy getting by and complicated policy debates.

Im very encouraged when I meet people in their environments, Obama told Robinson. Somehow it gets distilled at the national political level in ways that arent always as encouraging.

To be sure, one discouraging distillation the caricature of the hate-spewing white male Trump voter with grease on his jeans is a real person of sorts. There were one or two in my town: the good ol boy who menaces those with less power than himself running people of color out of town with the threat of violence, denigrating women, shooting BB guns at stray cats for fun. They are who Trump would be if hed been born where I was.

Media fascination with the hateful white Trump voter fuels the theory, now in fashion, that bigotry is the only explanation for supporting him. Certainly, financial struggle does not predict a soft spot for Trump, as cash-strapped people of color who face the threat of his racism and xenophobia, and who resoundingly reject him, by all available measures can attest. However, one imagines that elite white liberals who maintain an air of ethical grandness this election season would have a harder time thinking globally about trade and immigration if it were their factory job that was lost and their community that was decimated.

Affluent analysts who oppose Trump, though, have a way of taking a systemic view when examining social woes but viewing their place on the political continuum as a triumph of individual character. Most of them presumably inherited their political bent, just like most of those in red America did. If you were handed liberalism, give yourself no pats on the back for your vote against Trump.

Spare, too, the condescending argument that disaffected Democrats who joined Republican ranks in recent decades are voting against their own best interests, undemocratic in its implication that a large swath of America isnt mentally fit to cast a ballot.

Whoever remains on Trumps side as stories concerning his treatment of women, racism and other dangers continue to unfurl gets no pass from me for any reason. They are capable of voting, and they own their decisions. Lets be aware of our class biases, though, as we discern who they are.

Journalist? Then the chances are youre not blue collar

A recent print-edition New York Times cutline described a Kentucky man:

Mitch Hedges, who farms cattle and welds coal-mining equipment. He expects to lose his job in six months, but does not support Mr Trump, who he says is an idiot.

This made me cheer for the rare spotlight on a member of the white working class who doesnt support Trump. It also made me laugh one cant farm cattle. One farms crops, and one raises livestock. Its sometimes hard for a journalist who has done both to take the New York Times seriously.

The main reason that national media outlets have a blind spot in matters of class is the lack of socioeconomic diversity within their ranks. Few people born to deprivation end up working in newsrooms or publishing books. So few, in fact, that this former laborer has found cause to shift her entire writing career to talk specifically about class in a wealth-privileged industry, much as journalists of color find themselves talking about race in a whiteness-privileged one.

This isnt to say that one must reside among a given group or place to do it justice, of course, as good muckrakers and commentators have shown for the past century and beyond. See On the Medias fine new series on poverty, the second episode of which includes Gladstones reflection that the poor are no more monolithic than the rest of us.

I know journalists to be hard-working people who want to get the story right, and Im resistant to rote condemnations of the media. The classism of cable-news hosts merely reflects the classism of privileged America in general. Its everywhere, from tweets describing Trump voters as inbred hillbillies to a Democratic campaign platform that didnt bother with a specific anti-poverty platform until a month out from the general election.

The economic trench between reporter and reported on has never been more hazardous than at this moment of historic wealth disparity, though, when stories focus more often on the stock market than on people who own no stocks. American journalism has been willfully obtuse about the grievances on Main Streets for decades surely a factor in digging the hole of resentment that Trumps venom now fills. That the term populism has become a pejorative among prominent liberal commentators should give us great pause. A journalism that embodies the plutocracy its supposed to critique has failed its watchdog duty and lost the respect of people who call bullshit when they see it.

One such person was my late grandfather, Arnie. Men like Trump sometimes drove expensive vehicles up the gravel driveway of our Kansas farmhouse looking to do some sort of business. Grandpa would recognize them as liars and thieves, treat them kindly, and send them packing. If you shook their hands, after they left Grandpa would laugh and say, Better count your fingers.

In a world in which the Bettys and Arnies of the world have little voice, those who enjoy a platform from which to speak might examine their hearts and minds before stepping onto the soap box.

If you would stereotype a group of people by presuming to guess their politics or deeming them inferior to yourself say, the ones who worked third shift on a Boeing floor while others flew to Mexico during spring break; the ones who mopped a McDonalds bathroom while others argued about the minimum wage on Twitter; the ones who cleaned out their lockers at a defunct Pabst factory while others drank craft beer at trendy bars; the ones who came back from the Middle East in caskets while others wrote op-eds about foreign policy then consider that you might have more in common with Trump than you would like to admit.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/dangerous-idiots-how-the-liberal-media-elite-failed-working-class-americans/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/01/05/dangerous-idiots-how-the-liberal-media-elite-failed-working-class-americans/

0 notes