#anyway. post worded vaguely enough that you can imagine it’s about like. starting a law firm with someone you don’t know

[fiercestpurpose]

I love when two people who like are mostly indifferent to each other make a promise to always be there for each other and come to love each other completely. I love the idea that love is a choice that you make.

[jungkxook]

—moonstruck. (m)

⟶ pairing: taehyung x reader

⟶ genre: werewolf!taehyung au / arranged marriage au / smut with a sprinkle of fluff

⟶ words: 7,421

⟶ rating: 18+

⟶ summary: in hindsight, being friends with a pack of werewolves and, thus, suddenly being thrown into a world of supernatural furries and other inhuman beings isn’t something you would recommend but it was too late to back out now, especially when you consider the fact that apparently you’re now being “hunted” and the only way to save you is to be mated with taehyung. whatever that means.

⟶ warnings: multiple smut scenes, first time (virgin!taehyung), clumsy sex, soft and gentle sex, sort of rough sex, all the sex, cunnilingus, riding, hair pulling, knotting, buckets of cum, biting kink, slight impregnation kink, unprotected sex, creampie

⟶ disclaimer: first fic back after a long hiatus and i’m suddenly v nervous to post this!! also this is shamelessly and 100% inspired by an episode of the show outlander (to be exact, the wedding episode). i couldn’t help myself!! 

“Are you serious right now?”

In hindsight, being friends with a pack of werewolves and, thus, suddenly being thrown into a world of supernatural furries and other inhuman beings isn’t something you would recommend but it was too late to back out now, especially when you consider the fact that apparently you’re now being “hunted.” Whatever that means.

Had you heard yourself speak a year ago before meeting Taehyung and having your life turned upside down, you would have surely thought you were insane, and you would have definitely thought Taehyung is insane, and the rest of his friends who are, subsequently, now yours ━ each of whom are all currently splayed out before you in Namjoon’s spacious country-side home with similar grave looks staring back at you.

“Dead serious,” Hoseok takes the liberty of breaking the odd silence saturating the kitchen. He’s made it a point to be on time for once, which you consider great and all if it wasn’t basically to dispute your current death sentence. “Always thought Jaebum’s pack were sons of bitches ━ glad to know it’s still true.”

“Hoseok,” Yoongi scolds. “Be a little more compassionate.”

“Am I wrong?” Hoseok refutes.

From off to the side, Jimin pushes himself forward with a frustrated groan, shaking his head. “Tae, I told you this was a dumb fucking idea ━ bringing Y/N into the pack━”

“I didn’t think this would happen,” Taehyung protests hotly. He’s leaning against the wall somewhere behind you, arms crossed over his chest and a deep frown darkening his face.

“How could you not think this would happen?” Jungkook retorts bitterly.

“Shut up, Jungkook.”

“She’s a human,” Jungkook says. “Jaebum wants her gone, but if he were to get his hands on her, then who knows what could happen━”

“I said shut up, Jungkook,” Taehyung snarls, an odd vehement tone dripping from his every word that is out of the place for the usually tranquil boy. Jungkook’s mouth clamps shut at once, though you suspect it’s not to do with defeat more so than because he’s the newest addition to the pack and, while Namjoon is their leader (or Alpha, as you’ve heard being thrown around before), Taehyung was something of a second-in-command. You could only imagine the consequences of crossing either Namjoon or Taehyung within the pack.

“Hold on a second,�� You try to sputter for air, lungs wheezing. Your mind has since been spinning, struggling to keep up. At first you thought they were joking when they had told you, but now you were beginning to understand the severity at the very least. “I’m being hunted? Why?”

Now, Namjoon looks from Taehyung, then to you, and back again. Taehyung hesitates to answer at first, and Jungkook scowls. “Well, tell her, Tae. You dragged her into this mess. She deserves to hear it from you.”

As you twist in your seat to look up at Taehyung, your eyes locking briefly with his, the boy grimaces and then has to look away. He takes a deep breath before responding. “Okay, look. You know that pack I told you about? Jaebum’s?”

You nod, though the memory is vague. You’ve heard the name in passing before, but you could only gather that there was some sort of animosity between his and Taehyung’s pack.

“He found out about you, and I don’t know how,” Taehyung explains. “And now he wants you gone, and he’ll do anything to see it through.”

You blink once, dumbfounded. Terrified, even. Taehyung can certainly hear it in your voice and it makes him flinch again, as if being striked across the face. “Why?”

“Because you’re not one of us,” Taehyung says. “Because you’re human. When I first told you about us, I was risking everything. It’s uncommon for one of us to bring a human into the pack just because, and often even frowned upon. There’s a fear you’ll expose us to the human world or the hunters. Jaebum’s threatening to start war if we don’t deal with this situation ourselves.”

It’s only then that the dread begins to creep upon you, chilling you to the bone. “Deal with it… how?”

“The ultimatum is either kill you ourselves, or give you over to Jaebum to deal with, as a sort of peace offering,” Namjoon says carefully.

“Which probably also results in death,” Hoseok points out morbidly.

Jin scoffs. “Or worse.”

“Is there any option that doesn’t result in death?” You ask warily. At this, the group falls silent once more.

“Well, there is one.” Namjoon glances fleetingly around at his brethren, then sighs. “You become one of us.”

“I━” You stammer, face suddenly hot. “You mean, like, a werewolf?”

“I mean, a wedding.”

“A wedding?” You gasp. “How is that going to save me?”

“Not a wedding like you think,” Namjoon says. “More of a bonding. A handfasting. Right now, as a human, you’re vulnerable and exposed. We have no claim over you. But if you become one of us ━ without being turned ━ then Jaebum shouldn’t be able to touch you.”

Slowly, you begin to piece together the fragment of your dilemma. “Marry who?”

A beat of silence passes amongst the group in which time you spot Namjoon nod in the direction of Taehyung’s figure beyond you, a wordless yet clear gesture. Suddenly, a stubborn warmth of a blush pinches at your cheeks. You wonder if they can notice, if Taehyung can notice. You start, “Taehyung━?”

“He offered to be the one,” Namjoon says. “And Jaebum knows Taehyung’s role in the pack. If he knows you’re mated to Tae, Jaebum would be absolutely insane to try and come for you. It’s the only way, Y/N, and it ensures your safety.”

“Marrying Taehyung?” You ask shrilly, voice dangerously thin. “How is marrying Taehyung going to ensure my safety?”

“It’s not just a marriage,” Jimin explains.

But of course you already know this, werewolf laws a strange and intricate jumble of rules that you’ve long since grown accustomed to. When he speaks next, you already know it’s much more than a marriage; and, when he speaks next, you fear you’ve already had your fate decided for you.

“It’s not just a marriage,” Namjoon repeats, matter-of-fact, “because we’re making you Taehyung’s mate.”

“You didn’t have to do this.”

You try not to think about it. Admittedly, marrying your friend who you have only known for a year isn’t something you had been expecting. But, as Namjoon had explained it, it wasn’t necessarily a legal unification between you and Taehyung, though you suppose it’s as valid now as any marriage with the ritualistic handfasting ceremony making it official. That, and you favoured living to see another day instead of becoming a werewolf’s next meal or ripped to shreds by one.

Only a day after your conversation with the boys of Taehyung’s pack, you’ve come to your ultimate decision which has led you to where you are now, returning to Namjoon’s home for a wedding. Your wedding. You hadn’t very long to decide your own fate anyway, with the boys grimly warning you it was now or never. But you trust them, despite this crazed ludicrous situation you find yourself in ━ and you trust Taehyung more than anything, your friendship with him having quickly blossomed into something so sincerely profound over the year that you’ve known him.

If you’re being honest, Namjoon’s pack had at least made an effort for the occasion because despite how unconventional it is, it was still a celebration. A celebration for your marriage, and a celebration for their hopeful victory over Jaebum. Still, the underlying threat of the evening remains, made more prevalent by the fact that it was required to invite at least another pack (of which you’ve met the leader, Jisoo, a handful of times before) as witnesses. It’s a simple ceremony too, quaint and cute if you weren’t clinging to life. You had made it a point to dress up, digging a pretty white dress from the depths of your closet with flowing butterfly-like sleeves; Taehyung had forgone a suit but was still handsomely dressed too, leaving you to feel like less of an idiot. Namjoon had officiated it, standing before you and Taehyung as you held one another’s hand, wrapped delicately in ribbon, listening to the vows being proclaimed that talked about true love, and the passion and yearning involved.

When the handfasting finally draws to a close, you’re shoved into a room alone with Taehyung for a moment of privacy by Hoseok, who can be heard quipping wolfishly, “Get it over with quick!” before vanishing behind the closed door. You wager he’s left to join with the rest of the festivities outside where, no doubt, every werewolf is currently drinking themselves blind.

Finally alone with Taehyung, a saturated silence fills the air that has you wringing your hands anxiously in front of you. You sit on the edge of the bed in the center of the room. “What other choice was there, Tae?”

Taehyung takes a moment to respond, and even he knows the thought is a useless one when it crosses his mind before voicing it aloud. “We could have ran away.”

“How far would we get?” You sigh. Still, the sorrow earnest in his voice and riddling his face is enough to make you look up at him sympathetically. “I’m no use to you if Jaebum or someone worse finds us by ourselves. Besides, the boys need you.”

“No, you need me,” Taehyung insists. “Jungkook’s right. I dragged you and the pack into this mess. It’s my responsibility to fix this.”

He drags his feet towards the bed, then flops down onto his back on the mattress. A troubled groan punctuates the air, and you sneak a glance behind you to see him rubbing warily at his eyes.

You decide now would be the best time to ask the one question that has been on your mind since the night before when you were sitting in Namjoon’s kitchen to discuss Jaebum’s scorn. “Is that why… Is that why you offered to be my mate?”

“Yes,” Taehyung admits meekly. “Sort of. Think we’d all rather it be me than Joon, anyway.”

You don’t argue with this. The reasons as to why it had to be Taehyung satisfied you well enough. That, and aside from having befriended the pack over the months, you’re much closer to Taehyung than you are with the others.

“So…” You trail off, clearing your throat. At this point, you’re simply speaking for the sake of filling the void. “What now?”

Taehyung shrugs. He looks around the room. “Nothing.”

“Well, what did Hoseok mean just now? Get what over with?”

“Erm━” Taehyung opens his mouth, as if preparing to explain, then decides otherwise. “It’s nothing.”

“Taehyung, we literally just got married and you’re already keeping secrets from me,” You retort. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” he insists. “It’s just that… Well…” He sits up from the bed, meeting your curious gaze. “This was essentially a mating, and every mating needs to be seen through to the end to be considered valid. The pack can tell when it’s… uh… done.”

Oh.

Now it hits you. It’s the way he awkwardly trails off, hand ruffling through his long locks, that has you immediately understanding what he’s trying to imply. You gawk upward at him. “Are you asking me to sleep with you?”

Suddenly, Taehyung looks flustered and he shakes his head frantically. “I mean, they expect it, but I would never force it on you.” Then, he straightens up, as if captivated by a newfound confidence. The smallest of smirks dances upon his lips that you don’t miss. “Besides, I never said it had to be between you and me. As long as they can sense it, I’d say your hand would do just fine instead ━ but you have all night for that.”

“Oh my god.”

The smirk widens into a devious look now. “You said you wanted honesty.”

As he dissolves into a fit of stifled chuckles, you scowl but you wager it’s mostly an attempt to hide the frazzled look on your face. Then, hurrying to change the topic, ask, “Is every mating like that then?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung admits. “If two mates want to stay together forever, they complete the process with marking, usually by a bite. It strengthens the mating bond.”

Taehyung notices you squirm in your spot, crossing your knee over the other and squeezing your thighs together. He can sense you’re uncomfortable, understandably with your current situation, but can’t quite pinpoint what else seems to make you sit so rigidly.

“What was it like for you?” He decides to ask. “The handfasting?”

The question takes you by surprise, though his sincere intrigue makes you smile smally to yourself. “I’ve never experienced anything like that before, but it was… It was nice.” You think back to nearly an hour ago, and the way Taehyung had looked standing before you. While you were marrying him out of necessity, there was something candidly beautiful about the entire ceremony. At the very least, you were glad it had been with Taehyung of all people. “Can I be honest with you, Tae?”

“Of course,” Taehyung says. “At this point, you can pretty much tell me anything. Don’t think anything’s as shocking as coming out as a werewolf.”

An innocent giggle bubbles at your throat. Suddenly, you look sheepish. “I might have had one too many glasses of wine before coming.”

“Ah.” Despite the interested hum of noise, he looks genuinely entertained. “So you’re drunk?”

“Not quite. Pleasantly buzzed,” You say. “Well, can you blame me? The occasion called for it considering a bunch of wolves want to kill me and I’m being arranged into a marriage.”

“So you don’t remember anything about your own wedding?”

You pull a face, though Taehyung gathers it’s because of the blunt mention of the word. “I do. Just… not all of it. Some things are clearer than others, but I think that’s mostly because I was nervous.”

“I remember every moment,” Taehyung muses thoughtfully. “I remember seeing you there, in your dress, and everything felt right despite it all.” His stare hardens in that moment, as if probed by the harsh reminder of the reasoning behind the night in the first place. “You know I’ll do anything to keep you safe, right? We haven’t had time to sit back and talk it over but you really do mean the world to me.”

A muffled groan eclipses your lips. You dig the heels of your palms against your eyes as you bemoan, “Don’t say those kinds of things, Tae.”

“Why?”

“Because… Because…” Your eyes shoot open, though suddenly you refuse to meet his curious wandering gaze.

But Taehyung doesn’t even need you to finish your thought. You wonder if it’s one of the many keen abilities possessed by these shapeshifters or if it’s simply a Taehyung thing, being that he’s quickly become one of your closest friends over the year that you’ve known him.  

“You’re still nervous,” he hums as delicately as possible. It’s not an accusation, but a simple fact of the matter. He pushes himself to sit on the edge of the bed beside you, leaving an appropriate amount of space between the two of you. “Are you nervous because of me?”

“No.”

“That’s a lie,” Taehyung snorts. When you don’t respond immediately, a small inkling of a doubt makes him question apprehensively, “Are you scared of me then? I wouldn’t blame you, especially after everything that’s been going on━”

“What?” You finally turn to look at him, a look of incredulousness contorting your face. “No! No, I’m not scared of you, Tae. I could never be scared of you.” You don’t dare turn to face him, instead keeping your eyes fixed on your hands as you continue. “You make me nervous, but not in a bad way. Does that make any sense?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it does.” When you chance a look at him, you find him smiling softly to himself. “It’s the same way I felt when I saw you earlier tonight.”

Your heart quickens in pace against your chest, and you’re almost positive he can surely hear it. Now, you finally lift your timid stare to meet his pensive look, and you have to bite back the smile that threatens to form on your face. He looks distracted, though not in a way where his mind is elsewhere entirely; instead, he seems besotted, dark eyes shimmering gently, and there’s a palpable shift of energy in the atmosphere.

Without even realizing it, the pair of you begin to gravitate towards one another, leaning in close enough to shorten the distance between the two of you. You pause, lingering near enough to feel his warm breath fanning against your neck. He can’t help himself, and reaches out with his hand to brush his fingers along your shoulder to the base of your throat, sending chills down your spine. His hand comes to rest against your neck, fingers stretching outward to cradle the back of your head. He guides you toward him this time, closer and closer.

“Taehyung…” You whisper.

He stops at once, clamps his mouth shut and squeezes his eyes closed. His restraint seems to be not without labour, judging by the sobering small shake of his head, and the way he leans his forehead against yours, tendons in his jaw fluttering as he clenches his teeth. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t.”

“I want you to.”

He’s startled when you’re the one that moves first, catching his lips onto yours. He’s unmoving at first, basking in the feel and taste of your mouth smoothing over his. It’s slow, steady, but then he’s craning his neck to deepen the kiss and something feverish overtakes the both of you. You clamber onto his lap at once, swinging one leg over his and settling back onto him, your dress bunching up at your thighs. He’s taken aback for a moment, though his hands instinctively come to grip at your waist and you try not to focus on how large and warm they feel, burning against the material of your dress. In fact, every inch of him radiates a thermal energy that is both comforting and excites you. You chase his lips, yearning for another kiss, but he hesitates at the last moment, jerking his head away. He doesn’t move very far at first, then he drops his head into the crook of your neck. His nose burrows against the base of your throat, his lips brushing against your skin as he moves along your neck to your shoulder, then back again. You can tell he’s holding himself back, not quite allowing himself to enjoy this. To enjoy you.

“You said we have all night, didn’t you?” You rasp. “So why not start now?”

“I also said it didn’t have to be between you and me if you didn’t want it to be.” Taehyung finds his voice at long last, however hoarse it may be. You’re already driving him crazy, just by your smell alone. “Are you sure? You said you wanted honesty, so be honest with me, Y/N. Don’t just say it’s because it has to be done. I don’t want you to regret anything.”

“Well, don’t you want this?” You question.

“Fuck, yes.” He groans against your neck. Something feral seems to stir within him, and you can feel his canines bare against your skin. “But only if you do.”

You aren’t quite sure what seems to possess you all of a sudden. He’s intoxicating, you think. Your hands tug at his hair now, desperation wearing your own voice thin. “Yes, Tae. Please. I want you inside me so badly.”

Finally, he presses his mouth against your throat, tonguing hot open-mouthed kisses there. His grip tightens around your waist, tugging you harder against him, and the feeling of him growing harder against your inner thigh in a matter of seconds has you both enraptured by a newfound heated ferocity.

Grasping at a moment of clarity, you ask meekly, “Isn’t this your first time?”

“Is it that obvious?”

You want to tell him anything but, the way his hands and lips move across you an indicator of that. “I thought you wolves are all about sex. Don’t you, like, go into heat or something?”

It’s a feeble attempt at a snarky joke, judging by the way your lips unfurl into a languid smirk. “Typically. But I never wanted sex for the sake of fucking. The boys make fun of me all the time for it.”

You snicker, but the delightful noise is lost in a simper as he continues to kiss upward to the underside of your jaw. He grips tightly at your waist and moves, shifting the two of you around, until your back is splayed out on the edge of the bed and he’s hovering directly over you.

“Taehyung…” He grunts in response, though you don’t blame him for not responding. The way his cock bulges against your core now, the way you press your hips up into his instinctively, is enough to drive you insane, let alone the boy. Still, you manage to rasp, “Tae, just don’t bite me. Promise me.”

“I won’t,” he assures, though now he certainly seems preoccupied. He inhales deeply, nostrils flaring, and whines aloud, “God, I can already smell you. So fucking good.”

His head falls into the crook of your neck as his hips dig harshly into yours in a way that makes you aware of what his words seem to mean. Slick arousal already begins to form between your legs, pooling into a mess on your underwear that has you squirming beneath him. The thought of him being able to smell you makes your face heat, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He kisses down to your collarbones, then, without warning, flips you over at once. Rough hands grasp at your waist, pulling you to your knees and your ass off the edge of the bed. As he fumbles to tear your panties from your hips, then lifts the skirt of your dress up with one hand, he hurries to undo his belt and the button of his pants with the other.

“Wait, Tae━” You gasp. Before he can push himself into you, you heave yourself up with your hands and twist just enough to place your palm above his waist on his abdomen, stopping him in his place. “What are you doing?”

“What’s wrong?” he asks, brows creasing with concern. “Isn’t this how it’s done? I’m not totally helpless.”

You bite back your abrupt grin, swallowing your amusement when you realize he’s genuinely confused. It’s hard to grasp how he can look so innocent even despite his leaking cock still in his hand. “Well, yeah, but not always.”

“I just thought it was like how dogs go at it, y’know?” Taehyung says. “The guys all seem to say so anyway.”

You can’t help it now when this newfound information has you keeling over with laughter. You’re fortunate he doesn’t seem offended by your delight, instead grinning sheepishly to himself as he watches you wipe tears away from your eyes.

“What?” he asks promptly, and then as if to nudge you back to reality, tightens his grip on your waist and yanks you towards him gingerly. Pressing his front flush against your back, he catches your ear lobe between his teeth and nibbles on it.

“Then I feel sorry for their mates,” You manage to choke out. “It’s not bad, but I want to be able to see you the first time around. It’s better that way. More intimate.”

You squirm out from beneath him, turning to face him properly. Still sprawled out before him, you prop yourself up on your elbow and then reach out with your other hand to grab at his face and pull him down to you.

“Noted,” he hums into your mouth. “Anything else I should know?”

“Nothing that I can think of at the moment,” You admit, though maybe that’s simply because your mind is spinning at the sight of his length.

He’s much, much bigger than you imagined, tip irritated and swollen red already, glistening with precum as he swipes his palm over himself a handful of times. You hike your dress up further around your waist as he guides himself towards you.

“Stop me if it hurts,” he says.

You nod, though you trust him well enough to know he’ll treat you right in the best way possible. As he pushes the tip of his length against your folds and into you, your reactions are almost immediate. He ceases above you, face scrunching up at the feeling of your slickness around him. You notice his furrowed brows, the way he bares his teeth. A guttural growl sounds deep within his chest that has you shuddering in anticipation.

“Oh, fuck,” he moans. “You’re so fucking wet. You take me so well, baby. I don’t think I’ll last long.”

“Don’t care,” You whimper. “Just wanna feel you.”

He pushes himself in further, slowly and carefully, inch-by-inch, in just a way that has the both of you feeling how he stretches you open every single step of the way. You wonder how much further you can go until he’s stopping, bottoming out within you. He sputters for air, collapsing against your chest entirely as you fall back onto the bed. He waits just enough for you to adjust to the girth of his weight in you, then rolls his hips into yours. Then again, and again, until he’s grinding into you with such measured and deep strokes that you melt beneath him entirely. You kick your legs up to wrap around his waist, head lolling back at the feeling of his mouth sucking against your throat.

“I’m gonna━” His voice splinters off then into an abrupt cry. “Fuck, I’m gonna cum━”

He’s quick to dissolve into shambles, grunting and moaning every time you clench around him and every thrust of his hips. Just when you think you’ve lost yourself to the moment, he cums much faster than you thought and entirely unexpected for him too, in hot waves that have you still writhing beneath him. When he’s spent, his weight falls slack against you, crushing you beneath him but in a comforting manner. It’s silently peaceful for a few moments as he settles, heart thundering in his chest and against yours. Your fingers smooth over his sweaty long locks, scratching at his head. Then━

“That was terrible, wasn’t it?” he mutters wretchedly.

“Not terrible,” You confess. “What was that? Three minutes, top? For your first time, I’m honestly surprised you lasted more than a minute.”

“Fuck off.” His fingers poke at your sides teasingly as you burst out into laughter. He lifts his head to meet yours, perhaps a little embarrassed. “Don’t tell the guys. They’ll never let me live it down.”

“Doesn’t matter,” You hum, tracing your finger down to his lips. “We can practice whenever you want. I’ll make you into a lover so good, you’ll want me to brag to them.”

“Practice, huh?” His eyes sparkle mischievously. He pulls himself from your core and you hiss at the sudden loss, tugging at his chest as if to keep him close to you but he seems to have other plans. “Why stop now?”

You watch him curiously. “Easy there, boy. Don’t wear yourself out.”

“Well, I have to make it up to you,” he points out. “Especially on your wedding night. It’s only fair. What kind of lousy mate would I be to call it a night without having you cum on my face?”

“Romantic.” You roll your eyes but you marvel at the way you had shuddered at the word only moments ago and now, under such a different circumstance, the way he utters it makes your heart flutter in your chest. “Is this the first time you’ve eaten a girl out?”

“I said I was a virgin,” he says. Your eyes stay trained on the boy as he shifts himself further down your body to wedge himself between your thighs, throwing one leg over his shoulder. He kisses at your navel, then down to your core. He takes his time as he reaches out with his fingers to swipe at your folds, admiring the way his cum leaks from you; then, with his forefinger, he wipes at a stray bead of his arousal and pushes it back into your cunt slowly. The simple action is enough to have your back arching off the bed, hands flying out to brace yourself by gripping at his hair. “I never said I didn’t know how to please a woman elsewhere.”

“Enlighten me.”

“Gladly.”

He sinks lower to your core and out of sight, leaving hot open mouthed kisses along the way. His finger never once leaves its spot within you, and instead is joined by another that spreads you wide in absence of his cock.

“Do you know how hard it is to focus on anything other than your beautiful cunt?” he asks, voice low and sultry. “From the moment I could smell you, I wanted a taste.”

His tongue probes against your clit, the wet muscle a sudden startle that has you slackening against him. He flicks it back and forth, mouth wrapping around the bundle of nerves and sucking hard. A moan threatens to fall from your lips but an intrusive thought crossing your mind has you swallowing it with much difficulty.

“Can’t the boys hear us from down there?” You ask. You wonder how the celebration for your “wedding” has unfolded over the night without you or Taehyung there, or if they even notice your prolonged absence.

“No.” His voice is a deep mumble, rattling you from your core outward. “We learn how to tune out sounds nearby unless we really want to pay attention. The new ones struggle a bit, though.”

He curls his fingers inside you, stretching them upward. You pant, “Isn’t Jungkook still new?”

You can feel his smirk unfurling against you even before he pokes his head up to look at you with devious, hooded eyes. “Yeah, well, it’s a bit of a hazing process.”

You hardly have time to register the thought, though it doesn’t matter much. You’re far too overwhelmed by the way Taehyung is making you feel to even care. He drops his mouth from your clit to your folds, tongue swirling against your aching core. He laps at your cunt like a mangy dog as his fingers continue to work within you. The further he burrows into you, the harder his nose digs against your clit and sends you over the edge. You try to hold on just a little longer but your core is already achingly sensitive from when his length had made it home.

“Cum for me,” he murmurs. “Don’t hold back, baby. Let me taste you.”

Fingers twisting in his hair, he growls roughly against you, basking in the way you mewl and moan his name. Time seems to blur and, before you know it, you’ve reached your high. You’re embarrassingly wet, soaking his chin and nose which glistens with a mixture of yours and his arousal. Taehyung doesn’t hold back, instead licking you clean of every last drop, a muffled moan of content emitting from him.

“So good,” he says. “All mine.”

When he finally pulls away from you, he licks at his lips as if not quite finished with your every taste. From where he sits, you’re an entire mess, brows scrunched in concentration, teeth tugging at your lower lip. Needy hands yank at his hair and he obliges, kissing his way up your body to meet your mouth. His tongue pokes through to lav at your lips and wedges itself beyond, and you suck delightfully at the taste of you and him mingling on it. His own hands caress your body, bringing you back down from your high gradually but you can still feel his straining dick against your thigh and it invigorates you even further despite the beginning hints of exhaustion starting to creep upon you.

“Want more,” Taehyung growls with a newfound intensity, catching you off guard. “Need your cunt. M’gonna make it mine. Need to make you mine. Gonna fill you with my cum till you’re bursting with my pups, how does that sound?”

Mind spinning, you nod eagerly at the thought. Your words form in the shape of a moan. “Yes, please.”

“Gotta get this dress off first,” he mutters, greedy palms wandering up beneath the hem of your dress.

You scurry to obey, helping him slide the dress off your arms and toss it away on the floor. He’s more than pleased to see that you had decided to forgo wearing a bra earlier in the day, and reaches out at once to grasp at your perked breasts in his large palm. He buries his face into your chest, catching one of your nipples between his teeth. He busies himself by marking your chest red with small nibbles until you grow impatient, tugging at the shirt he’s still wearing. He’s quick to oblige, shedding himself of his clothes; then, his nails are digging viciously into your hips as he flips the two of you over with incredible ease.

“Sit on my cock,” he snarls into your ear. “Need to feel you again.”

Legs weak from your past orgasm and the huskiness of his voice, you sidle onto his lap, tossing one thigh over his. He sits up to join you and helps push himself past your folds, though you finish by settling back on his length carefully until you’re filled to the brim. Despite already knowing what to expect from the first time around, you still shudder at the feeling, mouth unhinging as you roll your hips leisurely against his. He hardly strays from your body, instead continuing to kiss between the valley of your breasts and up to the underside of your jaw and back again. Fingers poke and prod at your body as they follow his lips, then grasp at your ass to push you closer to him each time you grind against him.

Just when you begin grinding against him in a new angle that makes you moan into his ear, a sudden noise startles the both of you but only just. It takes you both a moment to register it’s the sound of knocking on the other side of the bedroom door (that you can’t remember if Taehyung had locked, because you certainly hadn’t), followed by Jimin’s familiar voice. “Joon said he wanted us to check in on you!”

Taehyung immediately groans into your neck out of frustration, though you suspect it’s because your pace starts to stutter and not because of his bothersome friends.

“Taehyung,” You bite at your lip in an attempt to hide your moans. You tug at his hair, as if to portray what your words fail to do, but he can hear it plainly riddling your voice. The concern, and the sudden shyness, as if fearing Jimin may walk in. But part of you is thrilled at the thought, and judging by the way your unabashed cry of glee slips from your lips without much hiding is proof of that. “Oh, Tae━”

“Shit,” Taehyung’s muffled grunts of pleasure and the way his hips continue to dig into yours to meet your efforts makes you aware Jimin is the least of his current troubles. “Fucking hell━ Don’t stop.”

“Are you guys okay in there?” Now comes Hoseok’s voice, a little faint but undeniably there. Can they hear you? Do they care? They must know what’s happening beyond the door.

“They’re doing it on purpose. Fucking idiots,” Taehyung snarls as he slams his hips up into yours. A contented whimper falls from your mouth, and you cling to him tighter as you quicken your pace. Taehyung grabs at your chin, forcing you to keep your eyes fixed on him despite wandering to the door. “Look at you fucking yourself on me still even with them listening. Such a good girl, huh? So desperate for my cock, aren’t you? Gonna breed so well.”

You think Hoseok and Jimin give up and leave at some point, though you don’t recall when. Instead, in the next moment, something primitive seems to awaken in Taehyung once more and he’s shoving you onto your back on the bed. Kneeling before you, he pummels his hips into yours again and again until you’re only crying his name.

“Mine. All mine,” he growls. “Wanna feel you cum on my cock.”

So wearied from your first high, you tumble easily to your second, coming undone in a matter of seconds, spurred on by the lewd wet noises of his length thrusting into you.

“That’s it, baby,” he mutters, basking in the sound of your moans. “Fuck━ Let them all know who you belong to━”

But just when you think Taehyung has reached his own orgasm ━ sputtering for air and crescendoing in moans of your names, panting hot breath into your ear as he leans against your chest ━ he doesn’t. His thrusts become desperate and sloppy, bordering on frantic, that the soreness between your legs begins to burn. It’s an amalgamation of stubborn yet bearable pain and something harshly pleasant that has your head lolling back.

“What’s wrong?” You moan, blindly tugging at his hair. “Taehyung?”

“I can’t━” He cries out. “I can’t━ I’m so fucking hard, it hurts. I don’t know what’s wrong━”

Confused yet too tired to keep up, you reach out to smooth your fingers across his back. “It’s okay. Just let go, baby. Cum for me, Tae. Please.”

“I’m trying,” he chokes out. “I just can’t━”

Your mind works in a haze to understand what’s happening, but through it all you’re able to discern one reasonable thought. What had Taehyung said about matings and bonds? Aside from the obvious of sleeping with a mate, he had said that typically certain bonds require marking. But he had also said that marking proved to be almost irreversible, resulting in a connection so close that a pair of mates would be together forever. It was a troublesome concept to think about, especially when considering you didn’t think you were a fit match for Taehyung if only because you’re human.

But is that what he needed? The physical strain he puts himself under now to reach his high is almost unbearable to watch. So, you settle on a whim of a decision and conclude that you won’t think of any consequences until after the fact, only wanting to see the poor boy in relief.

“Tae,” You whisper. “What if you bite me?”

“I won’t,” Taehyung says through gritted teeth. His pace has slowed as he slumps against your chest in nearing defeat. “You told me not to.”

“I don’t care,” You retort. “Just bite me.”

He hesitates, lifting his gaze to look at you. When he sees your earnest zeal, he grimaces as if despising that this is his only option. Still, the look of relief that crosses his face is undeniably there. He presses his mouth against your throat, lips brushing faintly against your flesh as he grazes the smooth expanse for a spot, sharp canines poking against you. You brace yourself for the bite, though the pain isn’t as bad as you had thought. A sharp jolt runs down your spine as he sinks his teeth into your skin, and his reaction is immediate, crumbling into pitiful moans of glory.

“Fuck!” he wails. With one final slam of his hips into yours, he finally reaches his high and it’s unlike anything you have felt before. As if he begins to swell within you, his length pulsates as he cums in you to the point where you can’t help but feel so full. It overflows and leaks from your core and onto the sheets, a sticky mess that lingers even long after he’s done. Your mouth pops open at the foreign feeling, whimpering his name.

“I’m sorry,” he flinches. “I’m sorry, does it hurt?”

“No,” You manage to say. “It just… It feels so good━”

He sluggishly rides out the rest of his high until you both physically can’t take anymore. When he hears you hiss his name in a soft reminder, he apologizes once more. Then, as the room falls oddly silent, he slumps against you. He lavs his tongue over the fresh mark on your neck, the gentle motion alleviating the sting left behind. As Taehyung settles finally, he shifts his head to look up at you. You note the faint yellow hue lingering in his eyes, fading now.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “We might have to stay like this for a while.”

“Can’t say I’m mad about that,” You croon sleepily. “You better draw me a bath after this.”

He laughs, rubbing gentle circles against your hips. “Of course. I’ll do anything for you.”

You believe him wholeheartedly when he says it, smiling against his mouth when he leans in for a kiss. His tender wandering hands over your body does wonders in calming your shrill heart, the stretch between your legs, and the bite on your neck. He nuzzles his face into your collarbones, the tip of his nose tickling against you. As your fingers rake through his hair and scratch at his head, he mewls in content.

“Is it always like that?” You ask through a stifled yawn. “You had so much energy, I could barely keep up.”

“No,” he admits groggily. “It’s only like that when you’re mated with someone.”

“What does that even mean anyway?” You ask. “To be mated with someone?”

“Well, it’s━ It’s not really a conscious decision. It sort of just happens,” Taehyung says. “It’s a connection. You gravitate towards one another. You can’t live without the other. We call it imprinting. Sometimes you’re mated to a person who doesn’t even want you, but those are rare instances.”

“So we’re the exception?”

“I thought we were,” Taehyung trails off now. He finally lifts his head to look at you, perhaps a little embarrassed. “I━ Well━ All of this, and especially the bite, doesn’t just happen ━ and definitely not with humans.”

“Oh.” You blush now, face warming under the boy’s introspective stare. “So you’re saying we’re…”

“I always thought there was a connection, but I didn’t think it meant this,” Taehyung murmurs to himself. “As crazy as it sounds, I think we were meant to be.”

“So the bite…”

You don’t finish your thought, instead already having pieced it together in your mind. It does sound crazy, but even you have felt it before. A strange connection to Taehyung, far more exceptional than simply having feelings for him. And the bite is what draws it all together, proving his point and your previous speculations about some sort of affection between the two of you.  

“Are you starting to regret this now?” Taehyung asks sheepishly, a weak attempt at a joke to what he had asked you earlier in the night.  

He braces himself, as if waiting for your outburst of annoyance or anger. To push him off of you and leave forever. But you do neither, instead reaching out to grasp at his face in both of your hands. You delicately lift his head, meeting his docile stare, entirely and utterly bewitched by him.

“No,” You say earnestly. “I couldn’t have asked for a better night.” A smile forms on his face, innocent and ardent in nature. “I’m just wondering how I’ll hide the mark.”

“I think there’s little to hide now after tonight,” Taehyung grins wolfishly. “Especially with the boys.” 

He quivers with laughter at the sight of your scowling face and fingers poking at his sides. As he settles, he leans into your ear to hum, “I’ll make it up to you. Everything. Jaebum, the bite, the boys. But I think you should rest now. We’ll deal with all of that later.”

You don’t argue with that. You’ve already begun to fight the beginnings of sleep, eyelids drooping and itching with a need to just close them ━ and with Taehyung’s arms wrapped around you, his body emitting a pleasurable heat, you decide there’s no place else you’d rather be, moonstruck and in love.

⟶ All rights reserved to © jungkxook. I do not allow reposting, translating, or any sort of modifying and reuploading of my work.

⟶ Feedback is always appreciated!

[cloudy-minded-idiot]

closing time

pairing: Natasha Romanoff x female reader (kinda?)

warning: mentions of blood, a probably very inaccurate description of a wound being treated (lemme know if I should add anything else)

word count: around 3,000

a/n: wrote this before bed last night and edited it this morning. feedback would be appreciated, just pls don’t be too hard on me, since it’s the first fic i’m posting on here. i have a vague idea for a second part if anyone’s interested.

summary: a wounded stranger stumbles into your life one night, and you find yourself helping her out despite your better instincts.

next part

It was a slow night for a change. The last customer had left half an hour ago. An elderly man who had only bought two packs of cigarettes and some strawberry mint gum to go along with it. He was a regular, came in at least once a week, always bought the same thing. The kind of customer you enjoyed after a long day: quiet and quick to leave.  

You were all set to lock up for the day. All you could do now was wait for your shift to actually be over. A difficult thing for someone who was inherently impatient and had nothing to distract herself with. Your phone had died halfway through the day, and you had finished your book sometime around lunch. Any other night, you would at least have your co-worker or your boss to chat with, but Mr. Douglas had left early today. Something about his in-laws coming to visit. You hadn't question it.

A glance at the clock. Ten more minutes. With a sigh, you closed your eyes, just listening to the ticking sound. For a while, you counted along. It was calming. Almost enough to lull you to sleep. Not that that took a lot, you were pretty tired after all. You had long lost track of the seconds gone by when, in between the rhythmical tik-tok, a  shrill bell chimed. The one above the entrance you knew all too well.  

You had to suppress an annoyed sigh. Last-minute customers.

Whatever complaint you had on your mind was quickly replaced by utter shock when you opened your eyes. In, through the drugstore-door, staggered a woman with fiery red hair, covered head to toe in dirt. Bruises lined her face, and she kept one hand pressed to her abdomen in a futile attempt to stop blood from seeping out of a wound. Little droplets fell to the floor despite her efforts, marking her path to the counter.  

"Holy shit!" you breathed out, eyes probably wide as saucers. You continued dumbly, "I think you need to see a doctor."

An understatement, to be sure. If her sickly pale complexion was anything to go by, she was sure to keel over sooner rather than later.

The redhead shook her head determinedly, a pain-stricken look on her face.  

"No doctor. No hospital. Just need some medical supplies," her remark was accompanied by her slamming crumpled dollar bills on the counter.

"O-kay," you said slowly, leaving the counter and taking her by the elbow, "I'll get you your supplies, but you seriously need to sit down."  

You opened the door to the break room, guiding her to a chair that she more or less collapsed onto. She winced in pain, and you stayed a moment to make sure she was all set before hurrying back out. In a frenzy, you jogged along the shelves, mentally trying to create a list of supplies she could need. Rubbing alcohol, a first aid kit, scissors, tweezers. You also grabbed some painkillers and a bottle of water on your way back.  

Dumping all the supplies on the round wooden lunch table, you watched her nervously as she started to cut off parts of her shirt to get better access to the wound. Almost instinctively, you grabbed the trash can holding it out for her to dump the blood-soaked fabric into.  

"Water," she croaked out in between painful gasps, "Need to…rinse the wound." 

Mutely, you nodded. Rummaging through the cabinet of the small old-fashioned kitchen counter until you found a big bowl and filled it up. Dipping a towel into the lukewarm water, you knelt in front of the woman.  

"Let me do it. You need to save your strength."

She looked like she wanted to object, but, in the end, she gave you a curt nod. There was a lot of blood. You did your best not to irritate the wound too much. By the time you were finished, the water itself was a deep crimson. She had closed her eyes, sweat covering her brow. She grabbed you by the sleeve of your shirt when you tried to stand up, holding you in place.  

"Now with alcohol," she told you. Your eyes flickered to the bottle on the table.

You hesitate. Swallowing the lump in your throat.

"Are you sure?"

"Do it," the redhead commanded, eyes still closed. She let go of your arm then, returning hers to the armrest of the chair. Her fingers left behind bloody prints.  

You obeyed her order, wincing along with her in sympathy as you pressed the alcohol-drenched cloth to her wound. You could only imagine how much it must sting. Her grip on the armrests tightened until her knuckles turned white. When you were done, she inspected the wound, eyes narrowed to see in the dim light of the fluorescent lamps. A long silence stretched between you two. She looked up, meeting your gaze for the first time. Her eyes were a mix of greens with little specks of grey thrown in. Under different circumstances, you might have admired them a little longer. They were quite beautiful.

"Can you sew?"  

You nod slowly, sensing where she was going with this and not liking it one bit.  

It took a while to find sewing supplies. Taking deep breaths, you willed your hands to stop shaking and followed her murmured instructions. Put on latex gloves, sterilize the needle and thread. She sounded very calm as she explained how to make the first stitch, didn't even flinch when the needle pricked her skin. It helped calm you down a little.  

By the time you cut off the excess thread, you found yourself unable to recall doing any of the other stitches. The rush of the moment made the procedure seem to pass faster than it probably did in reality. She eyed your handiwork for a moment before giving a small nod of approval, a faint, exhausted smile tugging at her lips.  

“Not bad for a rookie.”  

“Thanks,” you breathed out, already preoccupied with sifting through the first aid kit.

Wrapping the wound was much more your forte. The redhead leaned back in the chair once you finished, washing some painkillers down with a big gulp from the water bottle. With the adrenaline wearing down, you felt as exhausted as she looked. Leaning back against the table leg, you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding, your body relaxing as your apprehension lessened little by little.

You took a couple of moments to mentally catch up to what just happened, processing the sheer craziness of it all. Your brain was brimming with questions. Who was she?  Who hurt her? Why didn’t she get professional help? They were on the tip of your tongue. But the woman passed out before you had the chance to ask her anything.  

With tremulous hands, you cleaned the store for the second time that evening, wiping up blood from the floor, the chair, and the table. You discarded the rags with the rest of the used supplies. All the while, you checked on her multiple times, unable to shake the fear she might die right then and there. She looked unnaturally pale, but her pulse continued to drum rhythmically, her chest kept rising and falling with every breath she took.  

What now? Should you call the cops? The hospital? She seemed pretty set on not getting any authorities involved. Perhaps with good reason?  

You resolved to find out tomorrow, hoping you would not grow to regret it. Slinging one of her arms over your shoulder, you lifted her up and carried her bridal style, mindful of her injury. She wasn't too heavy, but you still were glad you had had the foresight to park your car nearby. After making sure she was safely strapped into the passenger seat, you went back and finally closed up the shop.

________________________________________________________________

The next morning, you were woken up by some clattering sounds coming from your living room. With a groan, you forced yourself out of your bed and stumbled through the door into the next room. The redhead was walking around in the dim light, rummaging through your drawers and dropping things left and right. You watched, for a moment, too perplexed to say anything as you rubbed your eyes tiredly.

“Shouldn’t you be resting or something?” you ask, voice rough from sleep. It was still way too early to be awake. You had thought the pain killers would help her sleep for a couple of hours more. Looks like you were wrong.

“Later,” she muttered just loud enough for you to hear. Crouching down, she opened the bottom drawer of the tv cabinet and pulled out some DVDs you had stored there, only pausing to look at the title of one of them with a smirk.

“Is this not a kids' movie?”

You had no idea what she was looking at, but you crossed your arms, feeling a bit offended anyway. Blame your lack of sleep for making you a little sensitive.

“Do you make it a habit to judge the movie taste of people who were gracious enough to let you stay in their home overnight?”

The woman didn’t answer verbally, just put the movie back and closed the drawer again. She turned to face you, her expression turning serious all of a sudden as if only now remembering where she was and how she got here in the first place. She looked apprehensive, taking a couple of steps in your direction.

“Does anyone else know I’m here?” her voice conveyed a sense of urgency, eyes staring into yours imploringly. Confused, you just shook your head. 

Her shoulders relaxed a little.

“Good,” she nodded, her attention already returning to her little scavenger hunt.

The redhead walked across the room, sifting through your kitchen cabinet next.

You sighed, picking up a couple of things she had knocked over in the living room and putting them back in their proper place. Every few seconds, you would glance at her from afar. She was still wearing the outfit she had on when she came into the drugstore. With her unconscious, you hadn’t seen any way of getting her into some new clothes, at least not without possibly irritating her wound or waking her up. She could surely use something clean to wear. Her current attire was dirtied and bloody, not to mention that her shirt now looked like a makeshift crop top since she had cut off parts of it last night.

“You know, if you just told me what you’re looking for you wouldn’t have to make such a mess of my apartment,” you winced as one of your spice shakers fell out of the cupboard and landed on the stove just as you finished speaking. Luckily, nothing broke.

The woman paused mid-motion, still on her tiptoes, body halfway turned towards you.  

“A radio. An old one preferably.”

Frowning, you picked up and folded the blanket she had discarded on the floor in front of your couch.  

“What for?”

The redhead eyed you for a moment, hesitant and unsure whether you could be trusted. In the end, she kept quiet, ruling against explaining herself. You reluctantly accepted her decision, tossing the folded blanket back on the couch cushion in resignation.

“I should have an old radio alarm clock somewhere in my wardrobe. Will that do?”  

It took you a couple of minutes to find the old thing, hidden away in the very back of your closet, underneath some clothes you hadn’t worn in forever. When you returned to the living room, your visitor was leaning against the kitchen isle, nibbling on one of your pop tarts which she abandoned as soon as she saw you. Eagerly she took the alarm clock off your hands, acknowledging you with a grateful nod. The redhead sat down on the couch, plugging the device into the closest outlet. 

You more or less kept an eye on her while you made yourself some coffee, but you had no idea what she was doing. To you, it looked like she was just fiddling with the controls, only static and a couple of high-pitched sounds filling the living room. It was grating on your nerves, but you made no comment. By the time she finished and turned the radio off again, you were already on your second cup.  

“Are you expecting any visitors in the next couple of days?” she asked casually, sidling up next to you in the kitchen.

 You raised an eyebrow, placing your empty cup in the sink.

“No. Why?”

“I need a place to lay low until Tuesday.”  

“Lay low?” you parroted, “What for? Who are you hiding from?”

Subconsciously, she glanced down at her bandaged wound, and you followed her gaze, slow realization coming over you.  

“Did they do that to you? Did they hurt you?” you asked more softly. She only shook her head in confirmation, “Then why not just go to the police? I’m sure they can help you better than I c-"  

“No,” she cut you off immediately, gripping your wrists tightly in both her hands as if to physically keep you from taking your phone and calling the cops. This only made you grow more concerned.

“No. We can’t go to the police. It’s not safe,” she loosened her grip on you a little.

 Your eyebrows were drawn together as you thought about what she said.

“Why would it not be safe? Unless...,” you swallowed as a possibility crossed your mind, “Are you in trouble? Did you do something illegal?”  

When she didn’t immediatley deny your statement, you started to jump to conclusions, your voice rising with panic.

“Oh, shit! You did. What was it? Were you in a fight? Did you kill someone? Holy shi- Does helping you make me an accomplice? Am I harboring a criminal in my ho-”

She cut off your rant by slapping a hand over your mouth, thus muffling your words.

“Be quiet, your neighbors might hear,” she hissed, gaze darting to the door, almost like she expected someone to burst through it. 

Your eyes were wide in fear, but you listened to her, your heart racing. She slowly removed her hand, giving you a warning look as though she feared you would start talking again. You didn’t.

“I’m not a criminal,” she told you earnestly, “I am, however, on the run, so I would appreciate your discretion.”

“On the run from whom?”

The question was no more than a whisper, too scared to raise the volume of your voice. She held your gaze for a moment before shaking her head.

“I’m afraid that’s classified.”

“Classified,” you repeated, incredulous, “So let me get this straight. You show up at my job, bleeding all over the place and telling me not to call the authorities. I help you out, let you crash at my place and you, in return, wake me up at an ungodly hour, make a big mess of my living room, imply that you might have done something illegal, and expect me to let you stay here until Tuesday without getting any information whatsoever?”  

“I know this isn’t fair...,” she admitted, and you laugh humorlessly.

“Not fair? I would be crazy to agree without at least having an idea what I’m getting myself into.”

The redhead nodded in agreement, looking away guiltily, teeth biting down on her lips. She seemed genuinely beat down, something even you, as a stranger, could tell was foreign to her. Oddly enough, you felt bad, although you knew, realistically, that you had done nothing wrong.

You let out a weary sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose. Curse your empathetic heart.

“Three conditions,” you conceded, making her look at you in surprise. Holding up a finger, you started your list.  

“One. No more throwing my stuff around. If you need something, ask. I don’t want to have to clean up after you.”  

She nods, having the decency to actually look sorry this time. You put up a second finger.

“Two. You tell me your name. Doesn’t have to be your full name or even your real name if that’s a secret or whatever," you added with an indifferent shrug, "I just want something other to call you than ‘hey you’.”

“What’s the third condition?” she prompted, not commenting on the second one.

“You promise me that you’re not the bad guy in this situation and that helping you won’t land me in trouble somehow.”  

The redhead cocked her head to the side, an almost fascinated expression on her face.

“How would you know I’m telling the truth?”

“I don’t,” you countered without hesitation, “I’m just gonna have to trust your word here. Just as you will have to trust mine that I’ll keep your presence here a secret.”  

For a moment, she regarded you with some indescribable emotion on her face before nodding in concession. Letting go of the one wrist she was still holding, she took a step back. Caught up in the moment, you hadn’t even realized how close you were standing. Thinking about it now made your face heat up for some reason. The redhead raised one hand as though she was about to take an official oath. She held your gaze unwaveringly as she spoke.

“I promise you, that I will not make a mess in your home anymore. And I solemnly swear that you won’t get in trouble for helping me in any way whatsoever.”

Something about her demeanor told you she wasn’t lying. You shake your head satisfied, a small but relieved smile taking over, some of the tension and apprehension leaving your body. She smiled tentatively in return, extending her hand to you in greeting.

“The name’s Natasha.”

Glancing at her proffered hand, you took it and gave it a small shake.

“Nice to officially meet you, Natasha.”

[revolutionary-demosthenes]

John Laurens’s ideal Republic has yet to be realized... in 2020

So I was reading through John Laurens’s June 16th 1776 letter to Francis Kinloch.  This letter is mostly known for its particularly vengeful and aggressive passages, such as Laurens’s closing of “as Sincerely as a Republican can be to a Royalist” and “I hate the Name of King.”

But as I read through it, something else kept popping out at me... how much Laurens expresses ideas still considered “radical” now. And how much his ideas of what the American Republic would look like still have yet to be realized. In the post I’ll go through the relevant passages in the letter, and talk about them a bit. (And note that whenever I quote the letter, I’m quoting it from the transcription on @john-laurens‘s blog here, and there’s also a microfilm version online if you’d like to see the actual letter.)

The context for the letter: Kinloch sent Laurens a letter, which based on the points Laurens seems to be refuting in this letter, was essentially pro-monarchy arguments and refutation of Republics. (I can’t find the full letter, only the closing and opening.) The letter from Kinloch was also the one where he “ended things” with Laurens, probably leading to the abnormally aggressive and much less affectionate tone in Laurens’s return letter.

Anyway! The first part in the letter I want to talk about is as follows: 

“If you mean by Mediocrity, the Government of a Man’s Passions, the continual Sacrifice of private Interest to public Good from which kind of Conduct, a Happiness which Riches cannot give, results to the Individual, and Strength and Grandeur are ensur’d to the State, I agree with you that it is required in the Government to which I give the preference_”

“Sacrifice of private interest to public good” why did this man fucking die why why why again ties into Laurens’s detestation of wealth inequality, but also tells us that he was thinking about this in a broader sense as well. He, or at least the form of government he preferred, valued the “public Good” over “private interests.” 

“...a Happiness which Riches cannot give...” is not quite like Laurens’s other wealth equality statements. He is not saying that wealth should be equalized-- he is pointing out that it takes more than money to be happy. But again, the context of this means Laurens is also saying that a republic would bring happiness from things other than money-- and Laurens does seem to be implying that it is a greater happiness than that derived from “Riches.”

This, in particular, is very interesting to look at, because of course Laurens was very rich. And especially at the time, money was believed to be where happiness, or at least ease of life, came from. But here’s John Laurens, son of Henry Laurens, declaring that there is a “Happiness which Riches cannot give.” 

This is total and complete speculation, but I also wonder if this hints a bit at Laurens’s mental state at the time, which, judging by this letter even, was probably not great. Even if he did not mean this in a conscious way, perhaps this was partly Laurens expressing frustration over people assuming his life was perfect because he was rich. Laurens was incredibly privileged in his lifetime, but at this time his younger brother had died recently, his boyfriend had just broken up with him, and of course having had a gay relationship must have been incredibly stressful and I would guess Laurens had many very conflicting feelings over it. This is probably reading way too much into this. Main point: Laurens did not, unlike many others, believe that money was the key to happiness. This passage actually seems to imply Laurens thought happiness was greater when not derived from wealth.

“...under a Republican Government there is the fullest Scope for Ambition directed in it’s proper Channel, in the only Channel in which it ought to be allowed, I mean for the Advancement of Public Good_ need I desire you for proof to turn to the Histories of Ancient Republics_ no_ your Memory will present to you Instances enough of Men vying with each other in the glorious Service of their Country and receiving distinguished Marks of Approbation from her_ Does this noble Emulation, or it’s consequent pure Rewards, shock the Spirit of Democracy_ no_ but the Ambition of acquiring greater Riches than the rest of ones fellow Citizens, the establishing that odious Inequality of Fortunes, Source of Luxury and Wretchedness in Society_ or that of usurping more power than the Laws allow_ such pernicious Ambition shocks the equitable Spirit of a Republic and the Selfish Enemy to his Country, in whose Conduct it appears, must fall under the wholsome Rigour of the Law_”

Well, firstly and most clearly, this is yet another example of Laurens expressing wishes for the equalization of wealth. I take especial pleasure in his labeling the inequality of wealth “odious,” a word which is defined as “extremely unpleasant; repulsive.” This is probably the most vehement criticism of the inequality of wealth Laurens ever expressed. 

And then there’s the bit that hits the hardest. (For me, anyhow.) “[The ambition] of usurping more power than the Laws allow_ such pernicious Ambition shocks the equitable Spirit of a Republic and the Selfish Enemy to his Country, in whose Conduct it appears, must fall under the wholsome Rigour of the Law_” And this is quite plain, and pretty simple. John Laurens did not believe anyone in the new American government should seek or obtain more power than the laws explicitly dictated. This could even imply that Laurens did not believe anyone should even want to have more power than was lawful. And that makes me think he’s been turning in his grave for about the past... four years.

“To be confounded with Tradesmen, and mean Mechanics, you add, would give pain to Men of Education and feeling_ I know not how a Man of Education and Talents would be lost undistinguished in an ignorant Herd, unless by his own Neglect_ for he has it in his power to do his Country more eminent and essential Service, and thereby entitles himself to more signal Rewards_ these Rewards I grant you are not calculated to enrich the Individual and introduce all the odious and destructive Consequences of Riches_ but they are fully satisfactory to a Virtuous Mind_ surely no virtuous philosophic Mind will take Offence that the useful industrious part of the Community, should have their persons and properties equally protected with those of the most enlighten’d Men...”

So this does have some not-so-great things in it, like the usage of “ignorant Herd” to describe tradesmen, and, for that matter, that woman are not mentioned at all. And I would guess that Laurens was not including enslaved people here.

But again, Laurens is expressing an idea that still has yet to really be in place in modern America-- that the working class and the richer and/or more educated people “should have their persons and properties equally protected” under law, I would guess. Of course, Laurens does not go as far as to suggest that perhaps they should educate poorer people, but I feel it is still pretty significant he still is essentially implying that the rich and the poor should have equal protections in the new government. I mean, that’s applicable in the modern healthcare debate, in college and student debt debates, in the wealth tax debate, and in the crusade for criminal justice reform. (And I am 100% sure that Laurens would have approved of a wealth tax.)

And tying into that, in the above paragraph there is again a truly vicious attack on being rich. “these Rewards I grant you are not calculated to enrich the Individual and introduce all the odious and destructive Consequences of Riches...” This brings up two points but I’ll talk about the riches one first. So again, Laurens uses the word “odious...” but this time it is not to describe the inequality of wealth, but “riches” themselves! Like, Laurens really was against himself! He implies here that money will only lead to trouble! I’m really wondering if something specific happened to spark this, because many times in this letter Laurens has just completely rejected lots of money as being any sort of good... and he was... really rich. Like, this totally seems to be Laurens implying he’d be happier without so much money, so I wonder what was making him feel that way? Was it a guilt thing? Did he feel that it was causing him to be excessive? Was he upset that he was rich via his father? Or that the slave trade was where nearly all the money came from? 

And then the second point Laurens brings up here is that the “Rewards” (which is pretty vague... I’m not sure precisely what he’s referring to here.) “are not calculated to enrich the Individual...” So again, being more broad and implying that most things should benefit the entire community rather than a single person. As you can see from the full sentence above, Laurens connects the “wealth inequality” and “private interest” points here. Based on context, Laurens could be talking about serving in the army here, which would definitely fit. And if that is the case, it brings up another question: if Laurens believed that serving in the army was tied into wealth equality and was a way to favor the public over the private, could that have been part of Laurens’s motivation to join the army? But perhaps he also believed it would compensate for his privledge.

This letter is the most complete picture I know of of what Laurens really did dream of for the New Republic. It makes the tragedy of his death even more profound. If Laurens could have convinced other people to go for some of these ideas, they could literally be written into the constitution. Imagine if even just one of the values Laurens expresses here had simply been the norm of the American Republic from the start. Even if these conversations were happening this early in our history. 

I truly believe that in some ways Laurens could have been the Founding Father we desperately needed in the earliest days of our country-- the one who was not in it for the power, who believed in the strict rule of law, abhorred the abuse of power, who believed in economic equality, and was a fierce advocate of the then-radical idea of abolition. 

[devourer--of--books]

Callis was Gavaldon’s first witch gynecologist and here’s why

Okay so, in this post we’ll be discussing topics such as sex, contraception, and some religion in the context of it being used as a mean to control people sexually. 

If you’re younger than 13, honestly, this post isn’t for you. 

If you’re unlucky, like me, and your school didn't give you proper sex ed, I beg you to ask someone about it. Your older sibling, your mom, someone, okay? Ask google. It’s important stuff you need to know.

First of all, for composure’s sake, let’s all pretend I didn’t start thinking of this due to me writing a smut fic. At 4am, on my tablet notes. On my defense, tho, there’s an astonishing lack of E-rated fics on this fandom and someone ought do it, okay? Moving on.

So, where shall we start?

Let’s get context out of the way, welcome to my analyses, the actual headcanons are here, I promise, let me just bore you to death first:

The SGE book series overall is set in fantasy fairytale land (The Endless Woods), with the exception of Gavaldon, aka, the reader village. Due to this, there’s not really a time period liking the SGE world to ours, neither can it be presumed by the world building, as Soman mixes traditional medieval elements  with modern elements, which I know bothers some of you too, it ain’t just me, but nevermind that right now.

The point is, the arguments I’m making on this post are based on aspects mentioned in the books, but I’m also going to draw some information from the real world.

A big chunk of the first two books rely on the world the existence of a patriarchal structure in that world, as do some plot points during the rest of the series, but if I were to dive into that we’d be here all night. Talking about the Endless Woods social structure is very complicated, specially with the ‘no labels in the woods’ stuff combined with the misogyny. It’s messy. 

Thankfully for this post, we’ll only go into Gavaldon, because I feel things there are more… explicit (pun intended).

So here’s what we know of Gavaldon’s social structure pre-book 1:

It’s a decent sized village with no official government. There’s no political figure of power, such as prince or a mayor, as they eventually get in QFG. There also doesn’t seem to be an actual economic class distinction between the people of Gavaldon, other than mentions of beggars (pretty sure it’s just one tho, but I might be wrong). Everyone works and trades amongst themselves, with people having more or less the same things (except for Callis and Agatha, due to them being social outcasts). 

Who has power in Gavaldon?

The Elders Council. They make the laws, they are respected, they have influence, and therefore they have power. These dudes stopped people from selling food to Stefan’s family during book 2, and threatened his new family in front of everybody during book 3. And everyone in Gavaldon loved that man. Why are they powerful tho?

Power is born out of inequality. If you have what we have not, we follow where you lead. Gavaldon has no nobles and no bourgeoisie. Geez, I wonder which powerful class we’re missing.

The clergy.

Personally, I hold no love for the church. I’m an atheist, but, as this post is about SGE and not religion, I’ll try to be as neutral as possible, as the point is not to offend or disrespect anyone. When I mention ‘religion’ or ‘clergy’ from this point on, I’m talking about religion as an Institution. As in the Medieval Catholic Church (which if you don’t agree was at least kind of very evil, I don’t know if I want you reading my posts anyway, so feel free to leave).

Most likely, the members of Elders Council of Galvadon were linked to its Church, whatever religion they may have. I can’t see any reason why they would have so much influence otherwise. Who appoints new men to the positions once one of them dies? I’m gonna guess the remaining members of the Council. 

And no one said anything? For centuries. Okay. Corruption? Never heard of her.

Also, burning unmarried women as a way to solve problems claiming they were witches? Wonder where I’ve seen this before.

The fact they’re men, should get mentioned too, just in case you forgot. I bet there are women just as old and wise, if not wiser than the members of the council. Hm, wow why they’re not part of the council.

This hypothesis ties in with the fact that the education given to the kids is limited to the local school, which, given the lack of government and simplicity of work relations, is probably funded by the clergy. We don’t see any proof of this, but again, if we’re comparing Galvadon to a medieval village, it would make sense.

What is even taught at this school? Math and whatever language they speak there, sure, but like they have little to no history that we know of, geography would be pointless, there are no foreign languages, science who, and with these clowns running the village I’ll bet there is no philosophy or social studies and... Doesn’t matter, let’s not do this right now.

Callis briefly mentioned that all girls in Galvadon must marry before the end of their school education, or they are deemed witches. The Elders Council even chooses the matches, in case those aren’t naturally formed or if they disagree with pre-existing ones. These kids are what,15,16, maybe younger?

(this makes me so mad, you have no idea-)

ANYWAY. They form these child marriages, for... look I’m gonna presume is because of population reposition. They need an average of 2 kids per couple or they’ll have more people dying than people being born. Let’s just presume it’s because of this because if it’s because of some tradition stuff I’ll scream, okay?

Maybe they have a low life expectancy in Gavaldon (which is another evidence for the case that the elders are part of the clergy, they probably don’t work, so they live longer). 

So have them teenage girls poping them babies, I guess.

Also, a miracle they have survived this long, because the genetic pool for Gavaldon must be the worst ever, everyone is related to everyone, ew. At least, in theory, there would be no STIs.

In theory.

Ahem… During the middle ages, all forms of birth control tended to be frowned upon, at least here on the west, including coitus interruptus (aka, pull out method), (tho it depends of who was the pope at the time, some of them were cool with this one if you already had too many kids and was like super poor), because sex was supposed to be about procreating, so a marriage with no kids was ‘pointless’. 

(hear me raging in the background, this context is stressing me out, i just wanna get to the headcanons-)

We can assume this view is probably compatible with the Elders Council mindset, as they are marrying CHILDREN. 

If there were any available contraceptive methods, you can bet they weren’t teaching this stuff at school. They probably have no sex ed, and if they do, it’s going to be just about periods and vague stuff. Gotta love them church schools (I never went to one, officially, but honestly, I live in Brazil, what even is Secular State).

(“Don’t have sex before marriage, you’re gonna get pregnant and die”, - one of the teachers at the Galvadon school at some point, I bet)

Let me also mention that there is an specific Gavaldon law that states that if a girl is pregnant she is going to marry the boy who knocked her up. Which, specially in Vanessa’s case, makes no f-ing sense. Could she prove it was Stefan’s? Did she sent it to a DNA lab? If Stefan was the Elders favorite why would they not take his word?

I digress, let’s say Stefan didn’t deny sleeping with her and only said he was under a spell, which, hm, how dumb do you have to be to do that, it’s lying 101, Stefan c’mon, but okay, you do you.

So they are probably super “moral” in Galvadon. You know, the kind of moral who just swipes stuff under the rug. Like, yeah, Stefan you’re now doomed to marrying Vanessa, but ain’t nobody gonna say a thing if you cheat on her as long as you don’t do it during plain daylight.

(The amount of closeted gays in Gavaldon is probably astronomical, can you imagine?)

And then you have Callis. Whom I think is probably responsible for the introduction of birth control in Gavaldon. We have arrived at the headcanons. Hear me out:

After Stefan saved Callis, she was deemed a witch. She’s a ‘witch’ doctor for the town. Only the most desperate of people seek her out. 

That means she normally wouldn’t get a lot of patients. Like, Idk about you, but Gavaldon doesn’t seem big enough for her to have people looking for her everyday. And she probably had to feed Agatha somehow.

But, while her being a doctor for normal diseases wasn’t really working all that well, everyone knew she had a hand in Vanessa’s miracle child. So ‘infertile’ women and women who had been getting sickly during pregnancies start looking for her, asking for her to help them. 

Callis obviously doesn’t use her magic, but as she can’t say she used magic for Vanessa, she gives them generally good advice about herbs and stuff they can add to their food to make it ‘more likely’, aka stuff that reduces stress, telling them how to eat better, stuff they should avoid, etc. She’s no big expert, but at least in the Endless Woods they had sex ed and she was witch, she just knows stuff.

So she becomes this sort of witch gynecologist for Gavaldon’s desperate women.

It works for a while, but then people eventually share these tips amongst themselves to avoid going to see her. Then, it’s back to slightly starving herself so baby Agatha could eat.

One day, a teenage girl arrives at her doorstep in the middle of the night, trading food for her help. If she could ‘make people more fertile’, she could surely make them miscarriage. Maybe this girl got pregnant by sleeping with someone the elders didn’t aprove for her to marry, maybe it was something else a bit darker, but we won’t talk about how that could be common, given you could literally force someone to marry you if they had your child.

Callis panics, because she wasn't ‘making anyone more fertile’ really, she was making them healthier and therefore more likely to have a healthy kid. If she were to tell her to do the reverse of what she told the others, not only it wouldn’t work, but it would actually harm the girl’s health.

At first she’s like, “I can’t help you…”, but then she hears baby Agatha crying, poor thing, so hungry all the time. So Callis decides, “you know what, might as well”.

There’s probably many potions made with magic one could take to not have a baby in the Woods. Even ones that cause abortions with no side effects or danger to the woman. But there also more natural ways, ones that maybe aren’t 100% effective, but would work, tho it had some side effects.

So Callis, makes her a potion to take. For real life comparisons, let’s say she used Queen Anne’s Lace, which works a bit like Plan B. The girl is thankful, and goes on her way.

Soon enough, everybody knows Callis can do these potions. You have girls sneaking to Graves Hill in the middle of the night to get help in exchange for food and while the elders know something is fishy, they can’t do much anything about it. They ask Callis what is up with that and she’s like ‘nope, just ya know, helping them have babies, plan b who’.

She tries to introduce a variation of the potion, one that acts as birth control, because it would stop people from being irresponsable all the time, but the Plan B one is the one every girl wants, because well, it’s easier. You can be unsafe and then take a potion and it’s fine. Soon, it’s not just girls. There’s full grown women there too, who should really know better.

She is pissed, so she says she won’t make them any more potions unless people stop being so careless.

Someone tries to make a knock-off potion, but it ends tragically, because people don’t really know what Callis puts in it. And well… you know what looks a bit like Queen Anne’s Lace?

F-ing Water Hemlock, that’s what.

After that incident, people listen to Callis when it came to ingesting stuff. And thus, birth control culture is born in Gavaldon. Other people started trying out other things to avoid dealing with Callis, like animal-based condoms, pull-out method and inserting acacia gum into your vagina before you had sex,but she had a good clientele overall.

The Elders? Pissed. But since they couldn’t just prove this was her fault, they just kept on hating on her from a distance.

After Agatha has her first period, Callis sits her down and pretty much gives her the talk. Agatha doesn’t really see a point to it, boys are gross, but she listens nonetheless. 

Callis gives Agatha the best sex ed homeclass ever, you can bet she will teach her correct anatomy, debunk myths the school told her about both periods and her own body and even promised her to teach her how to make the birth control potion once she got older.

Again Agatha doesn’t see a point, but okay.

When Agatha comes home with Tedros, years later tho. Callis is... worried.

She tries to ask Agatha if she’s being safe but her daughter just... stops functioning. Blushing like crazy. 

 (“We just kissed, like, once, mom.”)

That being said… Callis doesn’t live long enough to teach her how to make the potion.

So when Tedros and Agatha’s relationship starts to progress (hm… if you wanna read something about it, maybe wait a couple of days, I might or my might not have a sin fic in the works, it wouldn’t be one of my posts if it had no self-promotion, I’m my own sponsor after all) she’s unsure of who to ask about this.

And it makes her extra sad about her mother’s death, so that’s great.

I honestly don’t know who she would ask. If you have any ideas, please tell me. Because I’m kind of inclined to think that maybe Merlin might have predicted this and handed a recipe to her as a semi-joke, but idk. Maybe Uma?

But yes, Callis was totally Gavaldon’s first witch gynecologist. And after they made Stefan mayor, I want people to remember her for the absolute legend she was, okay?

[star-anise]

I would enjoy it greatly if you would rant about the White People Smile thing, because ever since that post, I've noticed how much I do it

Okay this one is gonna be a deep dive.

For the uninitiated, I’m explaining why white people do what they do. This refers less to the actual amalgamated experiences of every person with pale skin and European descent ever, and more the aspirational model of whiteness held up as the cultural ideal in former British colonies.The gap between these two concepts is left for the audience as an instructive lesson on how useful racial stereotypes are in predicting the experiences and behaviour of individual people of that race.

Previously, while explaining why guest towels are often not meant to be used by guests, I dipped into the white propensity to never let someone know when they’re making a mistake–to smile awkwardly and say nothing when a person is being rude or offensive–before going back to talking about the unique properties of linen and terrycloth. This is a further look at the subject.

So, I can’t explain this for every person ever. And I’m gonna take a different tack than I normally would, which would normally be to talk about trauma and the fight/flight/freeze response to stress. Instead, I’m going to talk about my research into the cultural moment centuries ago when this response started to be advocated, and how connecting to long-lost European martial arts helped me unlearn this response.

Tl;dr it emerged as an alternative to stabbing people

I said once that I was a frustrated medievalist, fitting in my history education around other concerns, and therefore ended up studying, more than anything else, how the middle ages disappeared? This is one of those cases–the only vaguely relevant history class I could get into that semester was  Early Modern England, which focused on the Tudor and Stuart dynasties, 1485-1649. That’s the period right after the Middle Ages are said to have “ended” in Britain.

At the time I was also very active in the Society for Creative Anachronism, a living history group. I did rapier fencing, using the long, light swords that were intended specifically for person-to-person combat in civilian settings. They’re duelling swords, at a time the duel was becoming a separate institution from the battlefield. They were used in Spain, Italy, and France earlier, but this time period was about when they became popular in England, so I decided to use the class as a lens to study duelling in England. My prof was very receptive to this, partly because it meant he had one student whose papers weren’t about the political machinations of someone named Thomas and/or Cromwell.

So, duelling is an inherently aristocratic system. To understand it, you have to understand that “privilege” literally means “privi lege”, Latin for “private law”. It meant that the laws that applied to nobles were different from laws that applied to commoners. Commoners were not generally allowed to carry weapons or kill people; if the average commoner killed somebody, he would be tried for murder before a jury of his peers and executed for murder. But the nobility fell under the privilege of the sword; they were the class of society whose job it was to carry weapons and kill people, police and army by hereditary right. Nobles were judged by juries of their peers, other nobles; other nobles accepted that sometimes they were 100% correct in killing people. And if you’re like, “Whoa that’s fucked up, it’s like police deciding if a police officer was right to kill a civilian,” DING GOLD STAR FOR YOU. It’s why Robin Hood, the anti-aristocratic hero whose archenemy was a sheriff, is such a popular folk figure in England.

So nobles could kill commoners without serious consequences, and nobles were also allowed to kill other nobles, so long as they followed a code of combat known as chivalry. That included things like: Don’t attack someone who’s unarmed or defenceless; don’t attack from behind or without warning; bow to him before you begin fighting; blah blah blah blah. They were always more ideals than realities during times of war, but when artillery showed up on northern European battlefields in the 1400s, they became deeply impractical in warfare.  (Redacted: detailed explanation of why this is.) The ideal of a fair fight between matched foes stuck around in the duel, but it became a civil affair, not a military strategy.

Okay okay so. Why did duels happen? More than anything, they were about honour, prestige, and respect. Nobles had a certain way they expected to be treated, a code of politeness and manners with which people had to treat them. A commoner who failed to treat them this way could be punished with limited ability to resist, but other nobles had to be treated according to the same chivalric values of the fair fight. They had to be challenged to a duel.

So duels occurred over all kinds of shit. Failing to give someone precedence or jostling them in the door; having an affair with somebody’s wife; insulting someone’s favourite religious figure; behaving in an unchivalric manner; accusing someone else of behaving in an unchivalric manner; anything. People could make tutting sounds over duels being fought for the stupidest shit, but that didn’t necessarily stop them from being fought.

So the duel and the culture of politeness were really intertwined. You were polite to people because if you weren’t, they could stab you and get away with it. It’s funny how the word “gentle” started out a thousand years ago meaning someone from a particular lineage, how that lineage was the only people with social permission to perpetuate huge amounts of violence, but now means restraint from violence–but that’s what happened. A lot of courtly manners among the nobility were really like… intense high-stakes peace negotiations with everyone, all the time. 

So like, imagine current Tumblr callout culture, except if somebody called you out, you had to let them try to kill you.

Many monarchs of this era HATED duelling culture. Countries like England and France had histories of war between nobles and the Crown, so the Crown hated their nobility being really strong powerful military leaders. Powerful nobility had the pesky tendency of refusing to obey monarchs they didn’t like, or even kicking them off the throne. This pushed those monarchies towards a principle of absolute royal authority over which nothing and no one had precedence. Privilege, so far as these monarchs were concerned, ought to belong to the CROWN, and then people the Crown specifically deputized. You can’t just have people running all over and killing each other whenever they wanted! So the monarchs all started, slowly, to place restrictions on duelling and noble privilege, trying to consolidate that power.

Part of how that was done in Britain specifically was to reach out to the common people. Well, the rich common people. The merchant class. You may also know them as the bourgeoisie. One of the ways the monarchs of this era got extra money their nobles didn’t want them to have was by selling rights to colonial enterprise and writs of nobility. If you had enough money, you could become a baronet! Or own land in Ireland! Or go trade fur in North America! Which led to the social mobility I’ve mentioned before–while the crown was squeezing down the rights of the nobility, it was also opening up to the concept of common people becoming nobles. 

Here’s the thing about European racism: In places where there weren’t as many people of colour around to be racist at? They just narrowed down their concept of race. Nobles genuinely believed they constituted a separate race of people from commoners, and that they were physically different and genetically superior to common people. So this kind of class mobility was an existential threat. How can someone with no noble blood become a marquis?!

(Spoiler: In previous centuries there had been much more class mobility, before the medieval concept of “nobility” fully formed, so it was in fact as bullshit as most other racial constructs. And as the noble/common divide blurred, race had to be defined in more comprehensive ways: English against the inferior Irish, until the Irish could be assimilated into whiteness and defined in opposition to black Africans. When there have in fact been black English people for as long as there has been an England. Really truly honestly, race is constructed bullshit.)

Anyway, when the British Crown prohibited duelling in the 17th century, they tried to justify it by saying to their nobles: Hey look, here are all these commoners dressing and acting like you! And duelling like you! How droll! Don’t they look ridiculous and stupid, fighting over the littlest thing? Wouldn’t you say duelling is a little gauche? A little bourgeois?  You wouldn’t treat them like your equals, as though they deserved to be treated with the rules of chivalry, would you? No, that would be silly.

So in former times, if someone breached the standards of politeness, they’d be called out and expected to apologize or fight. But now, calling someone out would be affording them noble status when they didn’t merit the racial construct of nobility. And also, like I said before–if a commoner who was trying to break into high society made a mistake, and people pointed it out to them, then they’d learn to correct that mistake and fit in better. And then they might MARRY a noble, and DILUTE the BLOODLINES and POLLUTE the shades of PEMBERLY and MASS HYSTERIA, CATS AND DOGS LIVING TOGETHER.

So now, the nobility slowly came to believe that ~taking the high road~ was the better response: Refuse to dignify bad manners with a response, just let the awkward silence hang there so everyone can see how badly-behaved they were. Well-bred people will just know the secret unwritten rules of society. Then you can quietly exclude the rubes from your parties without ever letting them know they’re being excluded. And anyway, if you did duel someone, you’d have to do it in dead secret and if you actually did kill them, you might have to flee the country or else the Crown would arrest you and try you for murder and it’s not nice to get your dwindling noble privilege rubbed in your face.

So that’s the birth of the British response of “When someone fucks up, smile, look constipated, and say nothing.” It was especially strong in noblewomen, who wouldn’t be able to duel anyway, so might as well make a brave face of the only option that feels possible. By the time Jane Austen was writing in the late 1700s and early 1800s, society was leaning further and further to “true politeness means never expressing disapproval of someone else’s bad behaviour.” Partly because pointing out someone’s lapse in manners came to mean you thought they were stupid and hadn’t been properly enculturated into your class, which was of course the worst thing ever.

Across the centuries, the threads holding all the pieces together have rotted, so we forget why we define politeness this way; it’s just The Way Things Are Done. It’s just #verybritishproblems. It’s just the lower-class belief that if someone offends or insults you, you should punch them in the nose; it’s just the anxious privileged liberal belief that violence is wrong and we should just wring our hands about it. The most aware I’ve seen people from former colonies be on the topic is Australians, who know that they don’t subscribe as much to British manners and ideals because they were a prison colony, largely settled by poor people who got there by breaking the rules.

My grandmother, born 1929, totally aspired to that level of class and gentility, even though she was raised dirt poor; being a white settler in Canada meant that theoretically, if you worked hard and went to church and improved yourself through cleanliness and education, you could join the new ruling class. She aspired to the heights of Calgarian society, for whatever that was worth. And she has this specific way of sucking her breath in that means “Oh GOD, granddaughter, you have just something TERRIBLY gauche. Think about everything you are doing, wearing, and being at this moment, and magically intuit which of them is incorrect!” She’s also the one who made my mom learn to do pulled-thread embroidery, and taught me how to lay a place setting of silverware for a four-course meal, and basically strove to turn herself into a living model of aspirational whiteness. When my mom and I go into family therapy, we usually end up talking about how much we want to reject her ideals.

How did I unlearn this?

I am not a good fencer. I love the idea of swordfighting, but in addition to my weakness and disability, I have a really timid posture and way of moving. When I was a kid, I made it a game to see if, by turning sideways or flattening myself against a wall, I could navigate through a crowd quickly without ever needing anyone to move or notice I was there.  I really connected with the idea of Arya, in Game of Thrones, learning how to be a silent ghost, learning to catch cats. 

Then, in fencing, I had to learn entirely new responses. I’ve traditionally flinched and frozen when physically threatened; now I had to train myself to assess an incoming threat and fend it off. I had to learn to stand upright, to hold my core strong and solid, to respond to an attack and then to attack in return. It’s really physical, and in turn, really emotional. When I’ve taught teenage girls in turn, I’ve had to ease them through the process of laughing in discomfort when they land a hit on someone, crying when they hit someone out of fear and shame because they’re not supposed to DO that. Those are stages I’ve had to go through as well. I was pretty affected by a book I acquired through SCA channels, The Armored Rose, about the experiences of modern women learning to do historical combat. It’s a feminist analysis and it felt true to me, but now, a few decades later, I think it’s not really about “women” so much as “people who have been socialized to never be violent”–there are a lot of men I’ve taught who have been just as likely to freeze, who needed to overcome emotional hesitation before responding assertively, and women who had no hesitation at all.

But one lesson that really left an impression on me was learning from a doña, an acknowledged master of the form, who was helping me fine-tune the way I held myself when I fought. “Pull in your core,” she said, encouraging me to bunch my muscles up so that when I uncoiled it would be even more powerful and positive. “Hold a little bit of ferocity. You gotta be a little mad at your opponent.”

“Anger gets in the way of clear thinking,” my usual teacher, an older man, said.

“Too much, yeah,” she said. “But in the women I’ve taught, the problem is usually not enough anger, not too much.”

I can still call that feeling up very clearly–legs tense and coiled, body held upright, ready to respond to an attack with a counterattack of my own. IIt felt good. I loved fencing, loved the sense of accomplishment I got learning how to respond to attacks and defeat them.

As a child and teenager I was hideously socially anxious, and had been bullied for most of my life. When people were socially aggressive towards me, it was incredibly hard not to just freeze up. Fighting back was impolite. Resistance was futile. I would either physically or metaphorically tuck myself into a ball and wait for them to stop hitting me, get bored and go away. In my late teens and early twenties I started getting medication and therapy to deal with my problems, and that meant learning to be socially assertive. To say, “No, you didn’t hear me right, what I really meant was–” and “No, I’d rather not go,” and “Excuse me, I’d like to be included in this discussion.” And a lot of the time, when I did that, I could physically feel the scrape of another sword against mine as a ghost in my mind. I’d put my feet into a fencer’s position before difficult conversations, to give me courage.

And after writing my final paper on duelling, I thought a lot about what it would be like to live in a duelling culture. How weird, how foreign would it be, to believe that somebody else deserved to die for treating me badly? How did you summon up enough anger to fight someone for insulting you? What kind of emotion would be necessary to drive a real sword into them, and not a blunted one? 

What would it be like if I treated myself like someone whose feelings and experiences mattered, whose integrity was worth defending?

I mean, it was not a quick, easy, or complete fix. Years after, I’d still do things like get assaulted and take a year before telling anyone about it because the guy who assaulted me was friends with all my friends and I didn’t want to make them choose a side. But as much as I did change, that was how. And that enabled me to have richer relationships with a lot of different people. Before, people would hurt me without knowing it, and never know why I was later too scared of them to talk. I took a long time to trust people, to feel comfortable enough to connect with them. That fragility made it hard for me to help people, to do the kind of jobs that I wanted. The sturdier I got, the better at defending my boundaries and expressing myself, the wider the array of people I could talk with, get to know. 

And since what I really wanted was to be a therapist focused on complex trauma, and a huge proportion of the people with complex trauma in Alberta are First Nations, Métis, and Inuit, that put me in situations where we had to talk about colonization and decolonization, and people started to ask me, “Hey, white girl, why do white people have so much stuff in their houses you’re not allowed to touch or use? Why are white people like this?” and could explain social niceties like “Yeah, this is a weird random thing white people do that seems really rude or stupid to you? But if you’re applying to a job and want a white person to hire you, they’ll judge you for not paying attention to it.”

I also learned, later, as training for a job, another form of martial art. Specifically, nonviolent martial arts–what to use when an impaired or intoxicated person attacks you, and you want to defend yourself without harming them, and how to render them safe if they’re hurting themselves. That job left me alone for 48 hours with teenagers with serious behavioural problems, who would do things like flail their hands in the direction of my face when I was helping them with basic hygiene. 

They didn’t mean to hurt me, and it wasn’t aggressive, but still, their nails would sometimes draw blood and it frequently left me feeling frightened and angry, because I’d been physically hurt. And it’s actually really hard to convince your monkey hindbrain that they didn’t intend to hurt you, to make that adrenaline and fear go away. It made it really hard to care for them when I didn’t feel safe, because it was hard to summon up compassion, gentleness, and empathy with my heart going a hundred miles an hour. So that training helped a lot. After that, I could catch and deflect their hands before I risked getting hurt. We could have a better relationship because I felt confident and safe around them. 

It’s filed in my brain next to the time I was playing with my nephew when he was a toddler, when I discovered that he stopped blithely using me as a climbing post when I said “Ow!” when he stepped on my boob. Once I let myself vocalize pain, he realized that he was causing me pain. He asked me about it, and when I said that it hurt me when he stepped on me, he apologized, gave me a hug to make it better, and played more gently after that. He hadn’t realized he hurt me; letting him know when he was too hard let him know how to be kind to me.

Those two are physical memories I call to mind when I’m dealing with someone who’s really upset and lashing out at me: sometimes the kindest thing you can to for someone else is deny them the ability to hurt you. To let them know the effect they’re having on you, so they can stop.

Okay. Dive’s over. I just felt my ears pop.

[flechxtte]

muse  playlist .

post 3 - 5 songs that remind you of your muse. repost, don’t reblog.

Getting Scared -- Imogen Heap

The only times of my life The sun was meant to shine for me You made it pour down, pour down with tears of rain And dug my pride with a knife Encaged by your obsession with me Time for some mental torture and screams of justified pain So you're gonna chase me now, boy? Yeah you're gonna corner me now, boy? You think you're gonna threaten me now, boy? Well, somehow I don't think so Yeah you're gonna stamp me down now, boy? Yeah you're gonna crush me down now, boy? You think you're gonna threaten me now, boy? Well, somehow I don't think so

so let’s start this off with some young (either child or teen) shen’s revenge fantasies, which would have been fairly vague and. well, with a suitably vague target/range, as well, bc no one person has consistently mistreated or abused him thinking emoji

unfortunately, his entitlement and anger isn’t focused exactly on any one individual or even group of people, it’s scattered about to encompass Everyone. this means that he’d have been moved to react violently (and feel justified in it) when young if he only felt threatened or ridiculed, no matter the truth of the situation

Jumper -- Third Eye Blind

I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend You could cut ties with all the lies that you've been living in And if you do not want to see me again I would understand, I would understand The angry boy a bit too insane Icing over a secret pain You know you don't belong You're the first to fight, you're way too loud You're the flash of light on a burial shroud [...] I never thought it would come to this And I, I want you to know Everyone's got to face down the demons Maybe today, you could put the past away

ngl this song brings me to tears on bad days jfkf;a but anYWAY. i think the reason this reminds me of shen is fairly self-explanatory tbh :o tho i will admit i do often think of it as po speaking to him for some reason. there’s actually a few songs like that in my shen playlist, now i think about it

Seein’ Red -- Unwritten Law

Don't think you'll have to see my face again Don't have much time for sympathy 'Cause it never happened to me You're feeling blue now I think you bit off more than you could chew [...] I confess I don't know what to make from all this mess Don't have much time for sympathy But it never happened to me You're feeling down now I don't know where I'll be when you come around And now it's time to make a choice And all I wanna hear is your voice... 

whispers that ‘you’re feeling blue now’ part i imagine is shen on some level toward the soothsayer at some point during the movie. probably like right after she realizes he can’t be swayed near the end of their last scene together 6^6;

and also ‘i don’t know where i’ll be when you come around’ just. gives me Thoughts tbh lies down

actually, this song in general is one i kinda see shen and the soothsayer switching on and off with-- some lines make me think of her trying to get through to him (there’s even a line specifically saying ‘and what i’d do to get through to you’) while others remind me more of shen thinking about the soothsayer’s words and such _(´ཀ`」 ∠)_

Animal -- Sir Chloe

Shoulda known better, I tried to stay cool. You were telling me I’m such a fool to say no. Number one. Make me behave like an animal Make me behave like an animal. I’m asking nicely, give me what I want. I’ll ask politely, give me what I want.

so as you probably guessed this is here mostly bc of those last two lines. that’s it i got nothing else i’m a simple creature ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿

Vide Noir -- Lord Huron

Many evils have I enjoyed Prowling the night raising hell with the boys Getting high on a pure, black void I am only an aimless soul Heading into a pure, black void So what if I'm living out past the edge? So what if I never come back again? Where can you go when it’s all in your head? These are the last words that I ever said Where can you go when it’s all in your head?

and here we have arrived at the One i have specifically for main verse shen, which is probably in all honesty the most depressing, soul crushing verse i have the more i think on it ᘓ( ᐛ )ᘕ why did i think that was a good idea

anywho-- ‘i am only an aimless soul’ ‘so what if i never come back again’ ‘where can you go when it’s all in your head’ :chinhands:

the idea of shen feeling in some deep part of himself that no one would really mourn much if he simply disappeared hurts me, but mostly bc gDI SHEN the soothsayer is RIGHT THERE, but i like the idea that while he does believe she’d miss him (since she’s shown this reaction before when he does disappear and when he first just about came back from the dead), he also on some level feels that she’d get on fine enough eventually. considering their current situation, she might even be better off

and a small bonus instrumental one

What Must Be Done -- Nick Cave & Warren Ellis

feels very ‘The Inevitable Ending of Undoing’-esque, which is probably made more evident to me by the title

[antiquecompass]

Ficlet: Chains of Love

Forgot to post this over here, but a tiny LAHL Xicheng Valentine’s Day Ficlet, featuring siblings, paper chains, and other chains.

In many ways having his brother living in his ridiculous historical mansion not even thirty minutes away made Jiang Cheng’s life easier. In other ways it made it an absolute goddamned burden. Like now, when his brother decided to waltz into the Jiang Industries Pittsfield Location, right into Jiang Cheng’s office, to find him doing his best to be a supportive partner and help construct the ridiculous amounts of red, white, and pink paper chains for all the Lan Academy elementary school Valentine Day parties.

Jiang Cheng didn’t even have a chance to duck and hide as Wei Ying quickly snapped an entire series of photos.

“I’m sending these to everyone I know,” Wei Ying said.

“Get the fuck out of my building,” Jiang Cheng said, throwing one of his many glue sticks at his brother’s head.

“How in the hell did Xichen,” he picked up one of the finished chains, “rope you into this one? Chain you into Arts and Crafts hell? Ensnare you into--”

“You can stop at any time,” Jiang Cheng said.

“Fair,” Wei Ying agreed. “Still--how?”

“Have you seen his disappointed face?” Jiang Cheng asked.

Wei Ying shuddered. “Enough said.” He sat down, dropping a paper bag with a large grease stain in the middle of the table. “I brought you curly fries because I was writing about a character eating curly fries, and then I needed some for myself, and then I thought of you, sitting here in Pittsfield, probably trying to eat all that damn trail mix--”

“The trail mix is good.”

“And I simply had to save you,” Wei Ying said. He took a stack of the pre-cut strips and a glue stick and started working. “Isn’t this something the PTA is supposed to do? Parent volunteers?”

Jiang Cheng sighed. “You know most of the kids at Lan Academy are boarders, right? Very few of them, unless they are Lans, are day school students.”

Wei Ying made a face. “Sucks,” he said. “They’re little kids.”

“Which is why the teachers, volunteers, and older students help, but with the increased attendance numbers, they needed even more help this year.”

“They’re going to need a new building soon. I can’t imagine the Lans want classroom trailers on their properties.”

Jiang Cheng did not say a damn word.

“Oh, what the fuck did you do?” Wei Ying asked.

“It’s a charitable donation,” Jiang Cheng said.

“You bought Xichen a friggin’ building?”

“Donated,” Jiang Cheng corrected.

“And I assume Jiang Industries will be doing the construction as well? At a discounted price? Who’s the architect? One of Xiao Xingchen’s brothers?”

Jiang Cheng tried to focus on getting the paper chains perfectly even.

“How’re those business ethics going for you?” Wei Ying asked.

Now that was a step too far. He glared at his brother. “This will be the sixteenth time Jiang Industries has donated a building and its workforce to a school. This is the first time it’s in the family, so to speak, and since no one seems bothered about my business ethics paying for their Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins, or Pats tickets, I don’t want to hear a single fucking word about helping put a much-needed building up at the school so personally connected to our family. And it’s my money that’s the bulk of the donation, not Jiang Industries, not the Jiang Foundation, mine.”

When Great-grandfather Yu passed, he left them all sizable inheritances, but Jiang Cheng had wound up with the bulk of it. The only instruction had been to use it to further good in the world. Jiang Cheng had been sitting on the majority of the money, letting it gain interest, since he was fourteen.

Xichen was determined to open up Lan Academy as much as possible to all students who could live-up to their academic standards. He was determined to do it, even if it meant the majority of the students would be scholarship kids. He was determined to make Lan Academy the premier school for the local kids and families, so they’d have a chance at a truly world-class education. He was determined, but the Academy simply didn’t have the facilities for such a swell in numbers, and if left to the board, a new building wouldn't be seen until Lan Sizhui was ready to retire as headmaster.

So, Jiang Cheng made a decision.

Wei Ying laughed. “Look who just won Boyfriend of the Century.” He threw a completed paper chain at Jiang Cheng’s head. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Xichen. Here’s the plan for a brand-new school building and the check to pay for it.”

“I wasn’t planning on bringing it up until the next Board Meeting when I can publicly hand over the donation and give them the proposal,” Jiang Cheng said.

“So, then what did you get him for Valentine’s Day?”

“A new set of his fancy water color paints and brushes,” Jiang Cheng said. “He was running out.”

He’d also adorned his person with a little surprise for Xichen that his brother was never, ever finding out about, but that wasn’t any of Wei Ying’s business anyway, nor was he saving it for Valentine's Day.

Wei Ying sighed. “How can you be so pragmatic and so romantic at the same time? You leave me in utter despair sometimes, little brother.”

“The feeling is absolutely mutual,” Jiang Cheng said.

“No flowers?”

“You know how he feels about plants that aren’t in pots and I can’t keep giving him orchids. We’re running out of room,” Jiang Cheng said. “Some of us don’t have our own greenhouses.

“Don’t be jealous. And technically Lan Xichen sort of owns the Lan Academy greenhouses,” Wei Ying said. “What about candy?” he asked.

“I already get him artisan fair-trade chocolate truffles or fudge once a week,” Jiang Cheng said. "Twice if it's a bad week."

Wei Ying sighed as he completed another paper chain. “And you both prefer dinner at home, so that’s out as well.”

“You’re the same as me,” Jiang Cheng said. “What are your plans outside of shuffling your kid off on Molly for the night?”

“Molly volunteered to host a sleepover,” Wei Ying corrected. He grinned as yet another paper chain joined the pile, a distracted Wei Ying always somehow a very productive Wei Ying. “And, yes, my plans are an empty house and a dinner at home. Do you really want to know more than that? Are some pointers needed? Some help? Some advice? Xichen did just turn forty.”

It was absolutely beneath Jiang Cheng, as the CEO of his company, as a grown-ass man himself, to start a slap-fight with his older brother, but he felt that it was completely warranted at that moment.

**********

Jiang Cheng always felt a little wary of Lan Academy at night. The beautiful architecture during the day took on a sinister turn in the dark, the angles of the floodlights and campus street lamps changing the welcoming walkways into paths that made you hurry along quickly, afraid of what could be hiding in the woods, or coming down from the mountains in the shadows of the night.

He should not be this freaked out carrying a tub full of construction paper chains and various others Valentine’s Day decor to an elementary school, but this part of the campus was the oldest part, and the shadows cast by the building’s spires were long.

“You going to stand there or are you going to come inside?”

Jiang Cheng had never been so happy to see Lan Jia in his life. The woman intimidated the hell out of him, had that same vague commanding authority as his mother, and was one of Lan Xichen’s closest family elders.

She was also a fencing expert and he had no doubt, if giving the inclination, she could knock him out cold with some fancy footwork and a foil.

“He give you the disappointed, ‘I believe the children are our future’ speech too?” Jia asked as the door banged shut behind them.

Jiang Cheng nodded. “And then the whole, ‘you know it’s not one of those holidays they can go home for’ bit too,” he said.

Lan Jia laughed. “I take it you’re going to be baking some cupcakes as well?”

There was an entire counter in their kitchen stuffed full with boxed cake mix and the kitchen table was already being assembled into a workstation. He’d be spending every night for the next week working on the damn batches, even though Lan Xichen had an entire culinary department at his disposal. He’d asked, and Jiang Cheng couldn’t say no, so this week he’d help decorate all the damn classrooms and then he’d start baking all the damn cupcakes and decorating them too, and having to ask his sister to ask his brother-in-law for his damn good strawberry cheese cream flavored frosting.

The things he did for the man he loved.

Lan Jia pointed down the hall. “He’s in the kindergarten classroom.”

“Of course he is,” Jiang Cheng said.

Lan Jia laughed as she gave him a little shove.

The kindergartners were the only true full day-students of Lan Academy. They didn’t accept any boarding students unless they were old enough for first grade, but that didn’t mean the youngest of Lan Academy’s student body were going to be left out of the festivities.

Jiang Cheng lingered at the doorway as he watched Xichen at work. He was almost done, the kindergarten classroom being one of the smallest on campus, but Jiang Cheng could see the perfectionist part of Xichen coming out, adjusting, and re-adjusting the various hanging hearts from the ceiling.

“If you get this picky about it, we’re never going to finish all the classrooms,” Jiang Cheng said.

Xichen turned to him with a wide smile. He nodded in agreement before folding up his stepladder. “I can always fix it tomorrow,” he said.

“It’s perfect,” Jiang Cheng said.

Xichen shrugged. “For now, I suppose.” He leaned down and kissed Jiang Cheng, sweet and quick. “Hello, my love.”

Jiang Cheng shifted the plastic tub in his arms and kissed Xichen again. “Hi,” he said. “So, where to?”

“Anna’s classroom for you,” Xichen said. “I’ll be in Scott’s room.”

Jiang Cheng laughed low. “Don’t trust yourself alone in a room with me?”

“In that sweater?” Xichen asked, referring to their shared favorite cream-colored sweater Jiang Cheng had grabbed after his post-workout shower. “Never,” he said.

“The headmaster of Lan Academy incapable of controlling himself? Whatever would your uncle say?”

“Shameless.”

Jiang Cheng turned around to find Lan Jingyi laughing at them from behind a veritable mountain of balloons, Ouyang Zizhen and Lan Sizhui with him.

“Your imitation is getting better,” Jiang Cheng said.

“Thanks,” Lan Jingyi said. He turned to Xichen. “We’ve got about a hundred balloons done already. Should we put them up now or keep them in groups?”

“In groups,” Xichen said. “There should be some weights in there to keep them tied down.”

Jingyj gave them a salute before the boys disappeared.

**********

Jiang Cheng was decorating his final classroom of the night, hanging the last paper chain and the last bit of streamers, when familiar arms wrapped around him tight and teeth nipped at the skin behind his ear.

“Really? That’s what does it for you now? The smell of construction paper and glue? The hamster wheel squeaking in the background? Pressing me up against the Percy Jackson bookshelf?” Jiang Cheng asked as he leaned into Xichen’s arms.

“Hmm, or it could just be you, wearing my sweater, smelling like my cologne,” Xichen said.

“My sweater first,” Jiang Cheng said.

Xichen laughed, his fingers sliding under the fabric to rest on Jiang Cheng’s stomach. He made a confused sound and leaned forward to inspect the paper chain above them. “Is that--is that glitter glue?”

Leave it to his brother to ruin the moment even when he wasn’t actually present.

“So, my brother dropped by today. He decided my glue sticks were too basic and then bought out, what I’m guessing, was CVS’ entire stock of glitter glue.”

“Festive,” Xichen said. His fingers slid further up Jiang Cheng’s stomach until they stopped and Xichen’s entire body froze.

Jiang Cheng grinned with the oh-so-familiar rush of rendering Lan Xichen stock still and speechless. It was nice to know he could still do that after nearly six years together.

“Is that?” Xichen’s voice stuttered as his long fingers encountered the first chain fringe hanging between Jiang Cheng’s nipple rings. “Is that?” he asked again.

“Is it?” Jiang Cheng asked. He gasped as Xichen’s fingers wrapped around the closest chain and tugged.

Xichen made an inhuman sound and Jiang Cheng grinned again.

“So, happy early Valentine’s Day,” he said. “I decided to stick with the chain theme.”

“Get in the car,” Xichen said. “Now. Please. I can’t--not--this is a classroom for fifth graders.”

“No one told you to get handsy on school property,” Jiang Cheng said, even though he damn well knew how Xichen got when he wore this sweater.

“Car. Now.” Xichen kissed him again, tugging Jiang Cheng’s bottom lip between his teeth and giving it a little nip. “Please,” he finished.

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” Jiang Cheng said.

[a-very-fond-farewell]

The forbidden crack! Untamed prompts: 24/?

Role-reversed!AU (Song[Xiao]Xue): “Love at First Sight”

[villain!SL/investigator!XY]

[title is from a Kylie Minogue’ song and from nowhere else fight me]

[so. me is embarrassed to say this but. the idea comes from an Italian movie of the late 90’s.]

[which is to say that: (1) Italian comedies are rarely my thing bc they are (pardon my French, I don’t feel like switch to Italian rn) problematique most of the times; (2) it’s been 10 or so years since I last saw this particular movie and even if at the time I liked it I was probably sixteen at the time so... not the best judge also my memory is shit for actual plot points; (3) internalized homophobia runs in the Italian film industry; (4) it deals with criminal gangs and, even if the movie makes fun of them, it is still a sore topic in my country so... I’m not gonna go in detail for this ficlet. it is, in fact, just a prompt; (5) also there is a cop character and... well, I changed it into a private investigator bc fuck it; (6) ignore me, I’m emotional tonight.]

*

Married off. Him. To a lovely girl, for sure, but with a penchant for pickpocketing and letting her mouth run at the most inconvenient of times. The wedding is in six months. Song Lan has to laugh at that.

But Mother has been almost too complacent with him for the longest time, allowing him to play his games and get it on with too many women for him to care to keep track of. He may or may not have disrespected some of them and their powerful families in the past for being a serial womanizer. There’s a logic behind it, of course, but since his eye surgery he cannot seem to remember what that could have possibly been at the time.

The worst of all being that he doesn’t remember why he ever found women attractive in the first place. People of the Baixue Clan tried to cheer him up to no avail for months. They took him to brothels, called in his favorite rent-girls, tipped them extra, brought him out of town on vacation to distract him, but... nothing.

He feels like crying sometimes. He’s done. Broken. Nobody will ever take him seriously anymore now that he’s nothing but his mommy’s boy. Forget for a minute that his mother is keeping the entire Yi City in check by enforcing her law on other clans. Let alone that her word has ruled over rascals and rogue hotheads for decades just by letting them hear her name. BaoShan Sanren would have not forgiven him for turning down the daughter of a competing family, that’s for sure.

Sometimes Song Lan looks down at himself, dressed in ridiculously flashy buttondowns open at the collar, with black jackets and fitting trousers, embezzled shoes on his long feet... and he wants to shriek. He hates everything about himself and he doesn’t know where to start. He doesn’t recognize himself anymore, almost as if his mind had changed about everything he believed to know.

At least he can see again. That should be enough, right?

*

It should have seen it fucking coming, Xue Yang knows this much.

A bullet to the heart would have hurt him less, but it’s been a year since his husband’s death and he’s done. He’s fucking done. Throwing himself away like that, recklessly accepting new cases one after the other just because. He’s got nothing to come home for anyway.

But as he disinfects the slash of a dagger on his shoulder, he wonders if there’s more to life than this. A dirty bathroom where he and his husband used to shave in the morning together before work. A stuffy apartment filled with unwanted memories. Mold on the ceiling, laughter rising to the sky every night before Xiao XingChen died. Before everything else left with him.

Xue Yang flinches when the alcohol stings badly on the cut and he chugs some vodka down for good measure as he prepares to stitch the gaping wound back together. The flame scorches the needle until it becomes almost white and he wonders, not for the first time, how it would feel to just... stop. He cried so much he doesn’t have tears left anymore.

The last time he saw his husband’s beautiful face it was at the morgue, where a dispassionate woman in white had asked him to confirm his identity. She asked him if he had formally agreed to put his husband’s name on the list of organ donors. He refused in the beginning... and then thought about it. About what his righteous husband would have wanted him to do.

Letting go of him –of any part of him, really– so soon tore him apart.

Since there was nothing left of Xiao XingChen, it was just right for not a single thing of Xue Yang to be left in his wake as well.

Well, aside from the pain. But that was to be expected after all.

He had never deserved anything but pain in his life.

Fuck that. Fuck that shit.

*

Mother asked him to look for a mole in the group, but he found a mere nobody snooping around in their area instead. Searching for what, he doesn’t know. But, as he crowds the other man in a dark alley behind the secret entry of their club, Song Lan cannot help himself from staring.

The laundromat from where their regular patrons usually enter to play is open 24/7, the flickering light coming from its open door casting just... the loveliest shadows on the younger man’s face. He’s shorter, much shorter than him. Possibly in his early thirties. Dressed nicely with a gun pointed at Song Lan... but he doesn’t care.

It’s almost as if something has fallen back in its original place and Song Lan is filled with elation. He has never felt more relieved or happy in his life. It feels like a second chance at life, an opportunity he doesn’t want to let slide through his fingers this time around.

He grasps the other man’s hand holding the gun and directs it upwards in a swift move. A bullet cuts through the air as he pushes the shorter man up to the laundromat window, neon lights dancing on Song Lan’s face. Soon people from the club will rush to his aid, knowing full well that he’s out looking for a snitch. He doesn’t have time, so he takes a good look at the person at his mercy.

He knows him.

And he falls in love, immediately.

*

The shot still rings in his ear, the gun burning in his outstretched hand, now caught in a vicious grasp. Xue Yang flinches as he looks up and gets ready to defend himself. He was just following a useless son of a bitch lying to his wife about not playing cards and losing all of their money. He would have never thought it would turn so bad so soon. Usually he gets away quickly enough, running for his life as usual...

...but this is different.

His gaze meets Xiao XingChen’s eyes and he freezes on the spot. He would recognize them anywhere, the same glassy quality to them, the same softness around them. Nothing makes sense anymore.

Because the one in front of him looks nothing like his husband.

And yet he knows him.

He knows what it feels to be looked with fondness and longing by one Xiao XingChen.

Fuck, he missed that.

He missed that so much.

*

[additional nonsense under the cut, bc. I am me]

[the original movie is a comedy, but I saw this post while I was writing the prompt and now it’s a fucking urban-noir kind of deal baby!]

[am I procrastinating another ficlet (slowly turning into a 20k monster bc I’m stupid) by writing this prompt instead? no. what are you talking about?]

[i wanted SL to have a family, but I had no idea what the people at the Temple would have looked like or acted around him, so I imagined BaoShan Sanren hoarding children as she goes (which is canon anyway) but she’s a villain in this bc I’m an asshole.]

[SL is the only one of her children to have an actual father, hence he’s the only one with a last name different from Sanren (which I know is a title but let. me. live. *kissy face* :* :* :* many thanks.]

[I offer Lan QiRen as a tribute for fatherhood, even if I know SL’s surname is written like “mist”, while the Lan Sect is named after the character for “blue”. but let me dream.]

[also I just like the idea of SL’s auntie or big sister being WWX’s mother for no other reason that this is a silly prompt and I need to fill these additional notes with something vaguely resembling a plot.]

[if you want another role-reversed!au check this other (wangxian) prompt of mine. then check all the others and have fun.]

[in the movie there was a scene where the widower runs on a horse to save the man he (begrudgingly) has come to care about from his wedding.]

[for the majority if not the entirety of the movie the widower sees something of his dead wife in the criminal (who received the wife’s eyes through transplant) and denies any attraction to him until the end... even if he runs away with him.]

[the criminal has changed since the transplant and became somewhat a decent person. in the end he runs away with the widower.]

[I wanted actual romance, not plausible deniability, thanks. hence this stupid prompt someone might like, maybe.]

[if you write something based on this prompt (the most angsty or hurt/comfort-y the better, but also fluff or *coughs*smut*coughs* is good) send me an ask. I want to read it! :D]

ok now I go back to my 20k-and-counting monster fic. bye!!

[maluminspace]

Lone Wolf

Genre: Angst/Drama/Fluff

Pairings: Michael Clifford/reader

Word Count: 2882

Requested: by @clffrd for spooky!sos 2019

Trigger Warnings: violence/zombies/apocalypse/fainting/brief references to death

A/N: Effy, this concept ended me! I hope you enjoy this 💖

________________________________________________________________

It wasn’t much, but it was safe. That had been Michael’s view on his little storm shelter since the day he’d claimed it as his own. It’d only been a couple of months post-apocalypse when he’d stumbled across ‘his’ abandoned farmland.

The farm itself had already been destroyed when he’d stumbled across it but the little bunker was all he’d needed anyway. Throughout the year that followed the outbreak, Michael had fashioned the little storm shelter into something resembling a home. He’d filled it with essential supplies and weapons as well as few little comforting touches such as a couple of posters of games and movies he’d used to love.

Michael had always been somewhat of a ‘lone wolf’. He’d become estranged from his family long before the flesh eating disease destroyed the vast majority of humanity. He’d never been that good at making friends either, therefore his lack of human contact since the apocalypse, was nothing new to him.

Much to his dismay; a few months after Michael had claimed his bunker, a little group of survivors had set up camp just a couple of miles away. Their hulking vehicles and sprawling barricades ruined his view of the lake and he hated knowing that a bunch of strangers were so close to him and his little patch of land.

They’d rolled past the farm in their convoy of beaten up old camper vans about six months after the virus had hit. Michael had half hoped they’d all keep going but they’d deemed this particular patch of countryside too good to leave. 

He couldn’t blame them really. The clear streams and the huge lake, the sweeping hills and easy access to a bunch of little towns (which were still the best places to find certain types of supplies), all less than a day’s hike away, made this a pretty good place to call home these days.

Despite all of his reservations about the campers, Michael had decided to introduce himself very early on and make sure that they understood his boundaries. To his utter amazement, the other survivors had respected his wishes without hesitation. 

He’d been suspicious at the time, that the group were just biding their time - waiting for him to let his guard down so that they could dispose of him. It’d never happened, though. The worst thing they’d ever done is try to invite him into their ranks, which was just about a forgivable offence in Michael’s opinion.

Having lived alongside them for nearly a year, Michael had sort of grown used to their presence. It was almost comforting to look out over their camp sometimes. He also knew that they checked in on him occasionally, which was quite handy if ever there was bad weather or something that could potentially cause something to block the entrance to his bunker - at least he knew he wouldn’t be trapped in there for too long before someone noticed something was amiss.

The only thing that scared Michael now, was how much he was willing to rely on them. He didn’t want to be tied down to them but he was worried he was heading that way. 

To prove that he could still survive when he was entirely alone, Michael decided to take a long hike to a little town further afield than the ones he usually went to when he needed supplies. He knew it was a risk; he hadn’t made this particular journey more than a couple of times. Getting lost was a huge possibility and could easily result in a whole bunch of terrifying consequences.

This was something Michael had to do, though. If he was scared of making this journey, he’d already become too dependent on others. 

He managed to push back the niggling doubts that he had as he gathered up his supplies. It was important to travel light for this hike because some of the terrain was nothing short of punishing. A heavy backpack would be more of hinderance than anything else.

After packing just a few food items; his large water flask and a single blanket, Michael grabbed his trusted machete and stepped out of his bunker. 

The sun was barely peaking over the horizon when Michael stepped outside and locked up his bunker. The lingering chill from the night before meant that he could see his breath in little wisps in front of him, as he went over his mental checklist. 

Once he was sure that he was as prepared as he could possibly be, Michael stored his weapon in his belt and set off towards the woods. 

***

You’d fought your way out of hundreds of scrapes and killed countless zombies in your bid for survival thus far. You’d never have imagined that you’d ever need rescuing by a complete stranger.

That’s exactly what’d happened though.

You’d been travelling alone for weeks - ever since the group of survivors you’d been with since the outbreak, had been scattered after a huge attack on the camp you’d built together.

Maybe it was loneliness or perhaps it could have been because of malnutrition or dehydration, but whatever the reason, you’d started making silly mistakes. It was one such error that lead to you becoming trapped in the back of one of the thousands of broken down vehicles littering the highway you were wondering down. 

You’d always known you should run and not hide from the undead. Fatigue had started to set into every inch of you, though. You knew that you wouldn’t be able to outrun the corpses tonight. Crawling into the back of a rusting van had seemed like your only option. You’d barricaded the doors as best you could with the few items that had been left in the vehicle.

Of course, the heap of useless metal became surrounded within minutes. The unnatural grunting and the terrifying sound of rotting fingers clawing at the outside of the van would be the last things you heard before you were eaten alive. That was the only conceivable outcome of this situation.

You’d basically accepted your fate by the time you heard something that gave you the tiniest hope of survival. The unmistakable sounds of a living, breathing human being fighting the corpses outside the van reached your ears and you felt relieved tears beginning to sting your eyes. 

After a few minutes the noises of fighting stopped and heavy footsteps made their way hesitantly towards the van. Despite your relief at being safe from the zombies now, you knew that there were a lot of people that used their new freedom from law and civilised society for evil purposes.

As the door of the van creaked open you cursed yourself again for getting yourself cornered like this. You were in no position or condition to fight, if this person wanted to hurt you, they wouldn’t have a very difficult job on their hands.

Clutching your weapons out of habit more than anything, you fixed your gaze on the dark figure that emerged through the small gap that your barricade would allow the van doors to make.

“Is someone in there?” 

The voice sounded kind of rough like it hadn’t been used much in a long time.

“There’s more corpses nearby, I don’t think it’s safe for you to stay here.” The man explained, keeping his voice low to avoid detection. “If you’re hurt, I can help you but we can’t stay here for long, unless you want to be a zombie snack.”

Trusting this man seemed like your best hope for survival. You also couldn’t deny the fact that you’d missed human company more than you can say. 

You inched closer to the doors, pulling aside your barricade just enough to squeeze out of the van. 

In the pale moonlight, the man that had saved you looked like some sort of angel. His pale skin and fluffy sandy hair gave him an air of softness that was the total opposite to the toughness suggested by his heavy boots, bloodstained clothes, machete and the stern expression on his handsome face.

“Can you walk?” He asked, as you staggered out onto the road.

Your head was kind of spinning with a weird mix of exhaustion, relief and adrenaline. Still, it was hard not to take in the details of the scene you were faced with. The broken bodies of the zombies that would have certainly killed you a moment ago, lay motionless at the stranger’s feet.

“Just about.” You replied, unable to take your eyes off of the man in front of you. Thank you for helping I...” you faltered, dizziness overwhelming you for moment.

Before you could fully recover, the mysterious man hooked your arm around his neck as he gripped you steadily around the waist. He set of at a speed that you couldn’t quite match in your weakened state. 

You weren’t sure how long you were practically carried by the stranger. The ordeal back at the van had drained the last of your energy and you were struggling to remain conscious.

Vaguely aware that the stranger was comforting you with promises of safety and water, you tried your hardest to stay awake.

You failed.

***

Michael took care of you for two whole days. Supplying you with food, water and protection until your strength started to return to you. 

He’d discovered a little abandoned cabin in the woods lining the road he’d found you on. Most of the tiny building had been stripped of useful items but a ragged old sofa and some musty blankets had remained. It wasn’t ideal but it’d been enough to keep you relatively comfortable during in your recovery.

Michael had intended upon helping you find another group as soon as you were strong enough to walk again. He’d always helped people that needed it, human decency was the only thing he really had to offer alongside his skills with a machete. That was where his involvement with other people usually ended, though.

Somehow it felt different with you. 

From the moment you’d stumbled out of that rusting van, Michael had seen something in you that he’d never noticed in anyone else. 

Having been a loner for pretty much as long as he could remember, it was difficult for Michael to place his feelings for you. All that he knew was, the thought of leaving you hurt.

Between your frequent napping, Michael had learnt a lot about you. Besides the things you’d told him verbally, he was good at reading people. He knew by the way you always kept your weapons close that you were a smart fighter. The way you moved as your strength returned, told him that you were a confident person and the definition in your arm and leg muscles showed a degree of physicality that suggested you’d be tough to beat in a fight.

The thing that Michael found most intriguing about you, though, was the way you opened up to him and treated him with warmth as opposed to the cold, suspicion or indifference he was usually met with. 

What he didn’t realise was that your reaction to him was entirely out of character. You’d always been notoriously hard to get along with and since the apocalypse, you’d become dangerously suspicious of everyone... Everyone except the pretty green eyed man that had saved your life.

As your third day together dawned, Michael found himself struggling to accept that it was time to start heading back. He knew he had to find you somewhere safe to live, but for the first time in his entire life, the thought of being alone again wasn’t so appealing. 

As much as he’d hate to admit it, Michael was enjoying your company. He’d already told you things that he’d never planned on sharing out loud with anyone, let alone someone he’d known for such a short space of time. There was plenty more he wished to discuss with you, too.

“So today’s the day we start moving, huh?” You asked, a nervous tone creeping into your voice. “I bet you’re excited to get rid of me so you can head home, huh?”

Michael wanted to laugh it off but he couldn’t deny the sadness that spread through him at the very thought of not having you around anymore. It was odd to him; feeling so much for someone, especially someone who was still pretty much a stranger to him. 

His many conflicting feelings prevented Michael from responding to you. Pretending not to hear you seemed preferable to whatever his answer would be. 

When he remained silent, your heart sank a little as you assumed it was his way of confirming your suggestion. You scrambled to your feet and slid your knife into your belt before picking up your trusted baseball bat from the floor near the sofa. “I’m good to go on alone, if you’re that eager to be by yourself again.” You said, a note of steeliness in your tone that betrayed how hurt you felt by the fact he didn’t care for you as much as you’d hoped.

Michael’s eyes snapped up to meet yours, his expression almost frightened. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you travel alone yet.” He replied finally. “I’d rather we stayed together for a bit longer, until you’re back at full strength.”

“Thanks for taking care of me, but I don’t want to be a burden to you anymore.” You explained, that hurt tone in your voice refusing to disappear fully.

“You’re not a burden!” Michael replied, scrambling to his feet before stepping closer to you. “I promised to keep you safe and I won’t feel like I’ve fulfilled that until you’ve found a new home. You just don’t strike me as a wonderer.”

Despite the obvious effort Michael put into choosing words that suggested he was doing this out of a sense of duty, you noticed the hint of sadness in his pretty green eyes and the way his fingers twitched nervously as though he didn’t know what to do with them.

“I think I could survive on my own.” You argue lightly, the doubt that Michael didn’t care for you in some way, dwindling by the second. “Maybe you’ve inspired me... maybe I could be a lone wolf, just like you.”

You’d meant it as a joke, not expecting to deepen the sadness in Michael’s eyes to an almost heartbreaking capacity. He tried to hide it but failed miserably as tears started to threaten to fall down his cheeks.

“I wouldn’t recommend it.” He sniffed, trying to hide his emotion by tilting his face downwards, allowing his long fringe to shield his eyes from you. “I think you’d be better off within a group.”

Against your better judgement, you stepped closer to Michael, reaching up to cradle his cheek gently. There’s a moment of eye contact, so charged with different emotions, that they threatened to overwhelm you. Having an attraction towards someone was a luxury you’d thought had died along aside everything else when the world had ended. It seemed dangerous and almost unnatural to crave someone the way you were starting to crave Michael. “You can admit it if you want me to stay with you, Michael. I’m quite a catch, not bad at fighting either.” You aimed for a humorous tone, giving yourself an out if Michael hated the thought of being with you for longer than he had to be.

Some of the tension leaked out of Michael’s face as he pressed his cheek into your hold, his eyelids sliding shut gently. “You can do better than me.” He replied quietly. “I’m not good with people... I only know how to take care of myself.”

You let out a soft chuckle before placing a lingering kiss to his jaw. “You’ve taken care of me.” You argued. “I wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for you.”

Michael opened his eyes to meet your gaze and there was a split second that you thought he might kiss you but he seemed to second guess himself as his cheeks filled with colour and he took a step away from you. “I have a feeling you’d have found a way out.” He smiled awkwardly. “You seem like the type of person that the world can’t do without these days.”

The simple compliment filled your heart with joy as a smile curled your lips. “You mentioned the little group of survivors that live close to you.” You offer brightly, “do you think they’d take me in?”

Michael shrugged but there was a hopeful glint in his eyes. “I don’t see why not.”

“That’d be the perfect solution, wouldn’t it?” You asked, smirking a tiny bit. “I could come and visit you whenever you wanted...”

“I’d like that.” Michael replied with a genuine smile. “I think it’s about time I started welcoming guests to my little bunker.”

You pouted as you took his hand, intertwining your fingers with his. “Not too many guests, I hope... I’d kinda like you to myself sometimes.”

He squeezed your fingers gently to show that he was happy with contact but didn’t acknowledge it in any other way. That didn’t matter, though, it felt right and Michael seemed to agree, that’s all that mattered.

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Tag list: @clffrd @byxthexway @afuckingunicornn @lukesahoy @thrillchaser @moonchildsblack @calumbbyyy @h0tsos @valentinelrh @sexgodashton @megz1985 @stonedahlia @myfalsedevotion @aulxna @honeyedlashton @tea4sykes

[blatherkatt]

i just started reading your blumenthal kids reunionfic and i LOVE IT! Its so good and so full of potential and angst and I LOVE IT!!!💞💞💞 The way you write Eodwulf is soooo good hes such a mess and so gay help him. and Astrid Omg... I cant wait for more of her i checked out some of your posts on here and shes just great??? You've clearly put a lot of thought into them with the child designs and stuff, did you have any major inspo for the two of them like songs or other characters and stuff???

hey tumblr dont…delete part of my answer what the heck

anyway!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH,,, ed ( @tactfulgrimalkin ) is the one doing the actual writing but we plan everything together and i edit and do artwork so he deserves lots of love for the great writing…i dont remember what else i had here before tumblr deleted it so i hope thats the gist of it 

eodwulf is a gay disaster of a bastard man and astrid is SO fun and im SO GLAD UR EXCITED TOO BECAUSE WE SURE ARE

anyway you just opened pandora’s box and i’m very sorry for the length of the rest of this answer but here we go prepare for some cursed content necessary to answer that question ( | ) w ( | ) it was a Wild Ride getting these two characters to where they are boy howdy 

so the thing is in order to explain how we created these characters i actually have to get into the origins of the fic on the whole because the two are inextricably linked, and also, the origins of this fic are incredibly cursed and you can send all ur hatemail right here go on blast us we’re ready 

but we were talking about caleb and how we’re both excited for whenever astrid and eodwulf turn up, and the thought came up for basically the rough skeleton of that scene in chapter 2: 

“hey how messed up would it be if instead of them both hunting him down like we’re expecting…one of them comes in with a huge savior complex and sincerely thinks he’s delusional and should still be in the asylum, how MESSED UP would that be” 

…and then shortly after that, this happened 

thats the cursed part dont say i didnt warn u but listen you know we’re right

also that pic of caduceus didnt exist back then i went back and got this screenshot just to share the curse with you all

ANYWAY

in classic us format we got carried away and eodwulf got slotted into the role of that scene in chapter two and his character was largely developed around that scene, like, what kind of person would still be clinging to caleb after all this time to that degree to make that happen? and what was come up with was an extremely avoidant person clinging to a fantasy version of things wherein they don’t have to fight

(eodwulf was developed into a Person before astrid, i should note at this point, and ed did most of that developing; i took point on astrid later on)

but around this time i went “screw it im gonna do some concept art we’re both in too deep now” so here’s some of that for u guys 

started with them all as teens and did a couple sketches as well as one of baby (well. teen. so baby) caleb/bren/we were calling him felix at the time as some of u probably already know 

first draft had astrid with longer hair than eodwulf lmao check this out 

flipped the hair length on those two which was for the best because at the time we were imagining eodwulf as a bit more mischevious which is another thing that got reversed over time now astrids the prankster and eodwulfs the overworked mom friend because bren takes astrid’s ideas and makes them SO MUCH WORSE but he still looks better with longer hair and then i played around w/ colors for a while and wound up w/ this

voila, the initial kid concepts, to which subtle yet vital changes were  made after time. if any of you are curious about if im frustrated that that’s still the best i’ve ever drawn eodwulf’s nose the answer is yes. yes i am. 

astrid’s hair is not messy enough, theres not enough freckles, and she does not look ready to fight the entire world for a dare. 0/10. 

anyway then i did adult versions which look WAY OFF NOW LMAO 

eodwulf with way too much beard, looking far too messy when he ought to look very clean so that he can hide how much of a disaster he actually is, and also a glimpse into the very boring Ice Queen/Heartless Bitch we vaguely had astrid as to start with. even more out of character tho is the earring, astrid as she is today would absolutely never tolerate an earring unless she absolutely had to, girl’s got sensory issues but she didn’t back then. ALSO STILL NOT ENOUGH FRECKLE 

anyWHO a while after this it was decided that eodwulf has ADHD, something both the authors have a whole lot of lmao, and that was the point where ed REALLY took off and developing eodwulf went out of control and we both went Well I Guess We’re Gonna Have To Write This At Some Point Now

and with that happening is when developing astrid took more priority i think, because man, at that point in the game she came way too close to that really  annoying trope that shows up in fanfic a lot wherein The Girl is A Bitch who is Getting In The Way Of ~*The Yaois*~ and thats like, thats bad. we knew from the outset we were absolutely not setting this up as a love triangle because we both hate those but even w/ her having no romantic relationship to either of the two, like…she was kind of just There and the one who was most loyal to trent (the only thing of her original characterization that really stuck, honestly) and sooo boring???? 

so like, and i say this honestly, i managed to COMPLETELY FORGET that “reverse sasuke” cursed comment from the beginning of all this and STILL go “well what if we made her more like caleb’s rival that’d be fun” 

and that’s how astrid sorta wound up accidentally morphing into the Scrappy Underdog of this anime trio and calling her a naruto analogue is extremely cursed but also not inaccurate tbh 

started out with the concept of her popping into bren’s window because she heard they were doing magic and wanted to learn it too and evolved from there; we decided that she was gonna be neurodivergent too but, hilariously, initially that she was “the best at pretending to be neurotypical” (WE COMPLETELY REVERSED THAT AND IT IS FOR THE BETTER. SHE’S SO MUCH MORE FUN NOW) and made her also autistic because it one meant she could be like SAME HAT at bren really hard which’d make her feel more like part of the group instead of just the odd one out, and two because it fits with the whole rivals thing

branching off of that we made her just. INCREDIBLY direct. like. astrid’s thought process is “how can i accomplish what i want accomplished with the smallest number of steps? what are the consequences of doing it this way? do i give a shit? no? im gonna do that.” 

(which is why she climbed a tree to get into bren’s attic instead of using the door because that way she just completely skipped having to convince his mom to let her in)

i cant get into it much here because so many spoilers and we’re gonna explore it all, but like, astrid’s backstory turned into this exploration of the intersection of sexism and ableism especially as applied to a medieval-esque society in which the word “autism” doesn’t even EXIST and in which a convenient double standard exists Right There in the form of bren and like,, its gonna be good guys im excited for it 

as far as characters tho she does also have just a touch of Vimes from discworld to her, albeit like, she’s lawful evil to his lawful good, but she’s got the same tendency to stick REALLY FIERCELY to the rules that she thinks are important, even when they inconvenience her, even if it’d be so much easier to bend them just this once 

and for songs i cannot link like any astrid songs because they all might accidentally give away so much BUT I CAN LINK AN EODWULF SONG 

this one was HUGE for him 

uhhhh i think that’s everything i can think of that we can say right now unfortunately so i’ll end this with a comparison to the current teen designs we have now that are being used in the actual fic, even tho im not fond of how bren came out in this picture, but like, for the sake of comparison 

lets see how far we’ve come 

I N C R E A S E    F R E C K L E 

[ecto-american]

Like Father Like Daughter

Summary: "I don't wanna!" Maddie's heart stopped as her granddaughter's annoyed, narrowed eyes flashed a brilliant glowing green at her before the girl returned her attention back to the TV. "Sweetheart, what was that?"

Rating: K+

Inspiration: It's just a plot bunny I had for a while.

Pairings: JackxMaddie, JazzxOC, DannyxWhoever. I had a specific ship in mind, but I left it purposefully vague so you can picture him as being with whichever DP lady you'd like.

Warnings: Contains fanchild OCs for JazzxOC and DannyxWhoever

Other Notes: It’s originally on AO3, along with a second chapter that I’ll post at another time, but I wanna go ahead and just begin crossposting some stuff. I’m planning a companion piece of sorts to this so might as well spam it everywhere I can.

Other Notes: I'm not really all that good with kids. Dawn's age is just kind of vague, but she's not in school yet. Probably around 4ish? I think you start kindergarten at 5. But also to be specifically clear, Danny's wife in this fanfiction DOES know his secret.

Maddie heard the child making car noises to herself as she moved the toy car along the carpet. She smiled, glancing up from the invention she was tinkering with, a relatively harmless little gadget, just a new and improved version of a ghost detector, to see Dawn crawling a bit on her knees to reach another toy from the toy box in the living room. She opened the lid, reaching deep inside.

"What are you getting into, sunshine?" Maddie teasingly asked. The little girl glanced behind her to flash a grin at her grandmother, black hair sticking out every which way. This was despite the girl's mother having dropped her off earlier with her hair pulled back in a neat ponytail. She still had the ponytail, but her hair just seemed to want to constantly stand up on end in a permanent cow lick.

"Vroom vroom," she replied, and she held up a toy airplane that she had retrieved.

She sunk to her knees again, making soft engine noises to herself as she 'drove' the plane around on the floor. Maddie smiled, and she began to eagerly screw the last bit of the ghost gadget together before standing up. She moved to put it on a shelf, out of reach of curious little hands. The invention was essentially done anyway, just in need of some testing, which would wait. Maddie sat down on the floor.

Dawn's bright eyes lit up in excitement, and she eagerly made the plane take off, hurriedly crawling towards her grandmother. Maddie opened her arms and allowed for the girl to 'crash' into her in an explosion of giggles, happily settling in on her lap.

"Uh oh, crash landing," Maddie told her, and she picked up a fire truck. "Here comes the fire department to help!"

"Grandpa would help!" Dawn added, and she wiggled to grab another toy car, one Jack had made of the Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle. Maddie smiled.

"Yup, grandpa would come to make sure ghosts didn't crash the plane," Maddie replied. Dawn wiggled out of her lap and onto the floor, reaching to grab another car to come assist with the plane crash. The home was pleasantly silent as the two played.

Wednesday mornings were a special time for Maddie, where she got to be alone with Dawn, and she cherished them. On Wednesday mornings, Maddie would never understand quite how it even began, Jack would go golfing with Vlad before picking up their youngest grandson from morning kindergarten, who would join them until the other grandsons trickled in from their various after school activities. The Fenton grandparents often had a full house until their children came to pick up the grandkids. Dawn wasn't due to be enrolled in school until next year, nor eligible for any activities just yet. Had he been home, the Jack would be on the floor with her and Dawn, playing with their only granddaughter and Danny's only child.

Maddie gave a small chuckle to herself at Jazz's brief jealousy when Danny and his wife found out that they were having a little girl. Jazz had five very energetic boys, and Maddie knew this energy had no limits first-handed. One of the best perks of working from home was the luxury of being able to spend a lot of quality time with her children growing up, and now, she got to watch her grandchildren grow up first hand. Well, Jazz's boys anyway.

"Mom, I'm just not sure," Danny had said defensively. He seemed uncomfortable with the idea Maddie had proposed.

"She wants to go back to work in the future, and we already keep the boys," Maddie replied with a frown. "Danny, it's not any problem to leave Dawn with us while you two work. We don't mind."

"It's not that," Danny was so hesitant. Her son was resting in his living room, laying down on the couch, a four month old Dawn sleeping happily on his chest while Maddie sat in the armchair nearby. "I-I-I, just, you know. It may not be safe for her. You and dad are so active in the lab, what if you accidentally spill something on her?"

Maddie tried to not take it too personally. She remembered life as a first time parent. Danny had already grown incredibly overprotective of his little girl. Even now, he kept a protective hand on Dawn's back to keep her in place, as if the infant was going to suddenly float away.

"We wash our hands religiously, and what would it matter anyway? She's human, even if, somehow, something got onto her, she'd be perfectly fine. Any and all chemicals and liquids and gadgets we have only target and harm ghosts," Maddie lightly argued. Danny flinched, and she noticed that Danny's hand gripped Dawn's onesie, anxiously. "Danny we'd never let her into the lab anyway, and we've been keeping everything down there anyway. You know how nosy the boys are. They get into everything."

"Uh...just...let me think about it. And we both have to talk about it, ya know?"

Maddie shook her head, giving a light eyeroll at the memory. Danny was so overprotective of Dawn. It was endearing, but honestly. She dreaded to see him when Dawn became a teenager. It had taken nearly two years, much convincing and a lot of promises before Danny and his wife caved, allowing Grandpa and Grandma Fenton to keep Dawn while her parents went to work during the day. It hurt a little that Danny seemed so hesitant to let his own parents keep Dawn, especially when there was not nearly as much of a fuss when the other side of Dawn's family got to see and keep her. Jack had assured her that Danny was just worried because they had such a dangerous profession, while Danny's in-laws had a much more relaxed job. Maddie had agreed, despite her heart and gut telling her it was something else.

She forced herself to put aside those thoughts as she noticed Dawn going to grab another toy from the box, this time a spaceship toy. The girl seemed to take intense fascination over it, and she sat down next to the toy box to intensely inspect the toy. It was a new addition to the toy box, Danny's when he was a kid, and Maddie gave a soft smile. She was definitely Danny's little girl.

From the couch, Maddie heard a familiar text tone. She reached out to grab her cellphone with her fingertips, pulling it closer to view the message that she was already so accustomed to getting. A message from Danny, on his lunch break, asking her how Dawn was doing. Could her son be more over-protective?

Sure enough, there it was. Hey mom, love you. How's Dawn? Maddie rolled her eyes, and she sent back the same old, same old text. Hey sweetie, Dawn's doing good. Love you too, have a good day.

She put her phone on the coffee table, glancing at Dawn.

"Your daddy's silly," she informed her, earning giggles from Dawn.

"Daddy fell out of a tree yesterday," Dawn told her. Maddie frowned. This never came up in conversation with Danny.

"Is he okay?" Dawn stared blankly at her. "Did Daddy get hurt?"

"No," she replied. "He missed the ground."

Maddie thought little of the statement. Dawn often said odd things. She brought it up to Jazz, who was quick to say that sometimes kids just said weird stuff that didn't make sense. Dawn's mother defended the words. Maddie had a few memories of Jazz and Danny saying odd things, as well as some of their childhood playmates, and so she brushed it off. Dawn had quite the active imagination as it stood.

She spoke often of a ghost that haunted their home, describing her as a white haired ghost that was Danny Phantom's cloned cousin. Whenever Maddie or Jack showed discomfort, Dawn was always quick to clarify that she was a good ghost, and that she played fun games with Dawn. There was also a ghost puppy that Dawn often spoke of that protected her when she felt scared by becoming a huge dog like Clifford the big red dog only he was green, as well as a giant white, fuzzy ghost with a really, really cold ice hand that often made it snow just for her. There was a pretty princess ghost that turned into a dragon that would take her and her dad on magical trips to really, really old timey-times and who let her be a princess for a day once, trying on her crown and letting her sit in the royal chair. Another fuzzy ghost, this time black that she couldn't quite understand, but who was always very sweet to her and let her pet him. Dawn often reported that he was soft, and while he had sharp claws, he had never cut her, not even on accident.

Danny and his wife insisted it was the overactive imagination, and the grandparents soon agreed. A very active, if odd, imagination. It worried Maddie that Dawn seemed to think so positively of ghosts.

"Why was he in a tree?" she asked. Dawn giggled.

"Hiding from Mommy!" Maddie let out a small chuckle herself. That sounded about right. She glanced at the clock. 11:20am.

"Crash Nebula will be on in ten minutes," Maddie told her. "If you'd like to watch it, you need to pick up the toys you played with today."

Dawn's nose scrunched up, lower lip sticking out in annoyance at the idea of cleaning up, the expression being almost an identical mirror to Danny when he was her age. She looked around at all the toys she had dragged out over the course of the morning.

"I don't wanna," she whined.

"Too bad," Maddie's voice became firm. "If you'd like to switch activities, you have to clean up from your last one."

"Can I do it after?" Her lower lip stuck out further, and Dawn's eyes grew sad. A puppy dog attack, and Maddie gave a small smile.

"Then it'll never get done," she replied, tone light. She was used to the age old game of dealing with kids, and she stood up. "I'm going to go to the lab to put my own activity away." Maddie gestured to the invention she had put on the shelf. "When I come back, I expect to see all the toys put away."

Maddie picked up her invention, and she went down into the lab, closing the door behind her to prevent Dawn from wandering down. She began to put away the tools she had brought upstairs with her, as well as the invention in a proper place. Maddie picked up an ecto-gun Jack had been working on earlier, examining it to see the progress. She'd love to bring it upstairs and show Dawn, but she knew Danny would lose his mind. He had been very insistent on Dawn staying out of the lab, her daughter-in-law too.

She'd never understand that. Jazz's boys came into the lab regularly, with Jack or Maddie supervising of course. The boys had even helped with simple invention tweaking and tinkering. The Fenton grandparents even had the absolute cutest photo that Danny, ironically, had taken of Jazz's oldest mimicking Jack exactly. Jack was working on the Specter Speeder, using a wrench to tighten a bolt, and his oldest grandson was using a plastic toy wrench on his toy Specter Speeder (again, another toy Jack had created for the grandkids).

Maddie was a bit heartbroken that Danny wanted to deny Dawn the precious gift of science, engineering and family ghost hunting secrets that she and Jack had to offer. Her daughter-in-law seemed conflicted, wanting Dawn to have the experiences but also heavily mirroring Danny's worries, incredibly concerned when Jack had initially brought up that he was going to get the simple blueprints together to begin a small ghost tracker building project with Dawn, just like he had with all of Jazz's boys. Nothing they hadn't done before with a grandchild. But it freaked the parents out.

She sighed. Maybe when Dawn was a bit older. Or maybe at the next family dinner, she'd bring it up to Danny. There was nothing in the lab for him to be afraid of Dawn getting. Everything down there effected ghosts, and only ghosts. Anything that would be harmful to a human, such as some of the chemicals and gasses needed for some of the more biological side of ghost hunting and testing, was always locked away under key in a cabinet. Always had, always was. No exceptions. It was a safety rule Jack and Maddie took seriously.

Hell, Danny himself grew up practically being an active participant in the lab. Yes, as he hit his teen years, some of the inventions began to target him. They were just glitches in the system, and they only ever targeted their son. Maybe he was afraid of a similar malfunction? But he was never in any true danger. The inventions, the lab, the OP center, it'd only harm ghosts. Danny knew this by heart.

Perhaps if she could get Dawn excited about it, Danny would cave. He did nearly anything and everything to make his special little sunshine happy. Maddie clearly remembered her son swearing up and down a storm as he struggled to put a background playground set of sorts together (with Ryuu, Jazz's husband, and Tucker's eventual help). Dawn was always so eager to play helper whenever Jack or Maddie needed a hand repairing the kitchen sink or the TV, an electronic toy or the Fenton RV. With her imagination focused on ghosts and the interest in repairing, she had the Fenton ghost hunting spirit in her. Maddie could just feel it.

The idea cheered her up, and Maddie finished tidying up before going upstairs to check on Dawn. She heard the TV playing, the familiar cartoon theme song playing. She entered the living room, frowning.

"Dawn," Maddie scolded, putting her hands on her hips. Dawn glanced over her shoulder at her grandmother in annoyance, scowling. "I thought I asked you to put away the toys before you began watching TV?"

"I don't wanna!" Maddie's heart stopped as her granddaughter's annoyed, narrowed eyes flashed a brilliant glowing green at her before the girl returned her attention back to the TV.

"Sweetheart, what was that?"

Dawn's head snapped towards her with wide, thankfully baby blue, eyes. Maddie wondered if her eyes were playing tricks on her. She was getting a bit up there in age-no. No. She knew what she saw.

"What?" Dawn asked.

"Your eyes," Maddie said. Her entire demeanor shifted, and she was puzzled. Dawn looked guilty, as if she was caught stealing some of Jack's fudge (again).

"I'm watching Crash Nebula," was all Dawn said, and she turned her attention to the TV. Maddie shook herself out of her shock. Eye color change or not, Dawn still did not do as asked. Maddie strolled over to the TV, pressing the power button. Dawn's eyes grew wide. "Grandma!"

"Dawn, I asked you to pick up the toys ten minutes ago," Maddie reminded her. Dawn's eyes narrowed at her, giving an angry grumble. Maddie's heart skipped a beat as the girl's eyes flashed green again in her frustration. The look on her face was so familiar, but it wasn't an expression she ever remembered Danny giving her. It was eerily familiar yet not.

"I wanna watch Crash Nebula!" she argued. Maddie frowned.

"You may watch it after you clean up," she told her. Dawn's face scrunched up again, and her lower lip trembled. Maddie gave a soft sigh, anticipating the temper tantrum to follow.

As expected, the ghost hunter soon had an angry, tearful grandchild laying on the floor face down, screaming and crying. Maddie paid it no attention, simply sitting on the couch and waiting. Surprisingly, Jazz was the one almost infamous for her temper tantrums, and Maddie always found that letting it pass worked best. She sat back, watching Dawn cry and kick her legs angrily at the air. Her hands were clenched in fists, but she held them still as she bawled. Maddie squinted. Was...she glowing?

Dawn was. She had a faint glow to her, and Maddie sat up straighter, leaning in. Was it a glow, or was it just the lighting? She did have the curtains open wide to let in light. Maddie couldn't tell, and she stood up to walk over. Dawn had calmed down by now, and there was no glow, assuming one had been present to begin with. The girl simply laid on the ground now, sniffling unhappily.

"Are you finished?" Maddie asked. Dawn just nodded. "Are you ready to pick up your toys?" Dawn shook her head no. "Then I think it's time out time." Dawn's lower lip trembled, and more tears poured. Maddie used her hand to lightly nudge her into standing up, which Dawn did very slowly and reluctantly.

Maddie gestured to the small step stool in the corner that had been unceremoniously placed there years ago when the first grandchild temper tantrum had happened, and never removed. Dawn dragged herself over to it, and as soon as she sat down, she began to cry again. Maddie sighed sympathetically. She hated punishing any of the grandkids.

"I'm going to go get started on lunch," she told Dawn. Dawn sniffled, giving a nod. Maddie stole a glance as she went to the kitchen.

From her spot at the counter, she could see Dawn. The girl was sitting still, sniffling and beginning to get upset hiccups. Lunch was just going to be a simple sandwich and chips, and Maddie broke out the needed ingredients, keeping Dawn within eye and earshot. She tore her eyes away from Dawn for less than a second, to assure she was scraping jelly properly from the jar, but she froze when she saw...an empty step stool.

"Dawn?" Maddie called out, both as a warning but also initial panic beginning to set in.

"Yes?" her voice came from the living room. It sounded like she was still in the corner, but Maddie didn't see her.

"Dawn, where are you?"

"I'm sitting!"

Maddie frowned.

"I don't see you!"

"I'm sitting!" the voice was desperate and whining, louder and more insistent.

"Where are you sitting?" Maddie asked. She tried to keep her voice calm and level, but inside, she was angry and confused. Where was she?

"On the stool!" Dawn insisted.

Maddie's eyes scanned for any signs that Dawn had gotten up and moved. Her eyes drifted over to the couch and chair, and they went back to the stool. She jumped when she saw a familiar, teary-eyed girl sitting on the stool. She put her hand to her chest. Her heart was going crazy. Maddie knew for a fact that Dawn was not sitting in the stool a few moments ago.

"Honey, what happened?" Maddie tried to keep the accusatory tone out of her voice, and she did, but she knew she sounded a bit panicked.

"I didn't move!" Dawn cried out, lower lip trembling.

Dawn was never a liar. She was almost honest to a fault, and she had never, to Maddie's knowledge anyway, lied to her before. She was a good kid, a very sweet kid. Maddie didn't know what to believe. She knew she didn't see Dawn just a moment ago. She was almost afraid to leave Dawn alone in the living room again.

"Sunshine, why don't you come help me finish making lunch?" she asked. Dawn seemed to brighten up at the idea of leaving time out early.

"Okay!" she agreed, and the girl's sour mood seemed to lift.

Maddie kept a close eye on Dawn, but nothing else happened. As normal, lunch was served and ate. As normal, Dawn offered to help clean up. As normal, Maddie got the message that Jack had finished his golf game (having lost by a long shot but as normal, he had fun hanging out with his best friend and was on his way home soon with Dawn's cousin). It was too normal now, and Maddie couldn't help but wonder what happened in the living room.

After cleaning up from lunch, Dawn was finally willing to pick up and put away the toys.

"Do you want to watch Crash Nebula on Netflix now?" Maddie offered, and Dawn's eyes lit up, thankfully still blue.

"Yes please!" she chirped, and Maddie handed her the remote. She already knew how to work Netflix, and within moments, Dawn found the familiar icon of her favorite show and began an episode. Maddie smiled, leaning over to kiss her temple, earning a small giggle.

"Grandma's going to go get something from the lab real quick," Maddie spoke up. Dawn just nodded in response, already engrossed in her activity.

Maddie disappeared down into the lab, heart and head pounding anxiously as she tried to process what exactly happened. She knew Dawn was there. But then she wasn't. Of course, it would be logical to just assume that her granddaughter had gotten up and out of time out. Kids did that all the time. But to disappear from view and return as quickly and suddenly as she had...Maddie wasn't buying it.

She shook her head, picking up the detector she had been working on earlier, also plucking a few small tools before bringing it upstairs with her. Maddie didn't want to be blind to the obvious. Her granddaughter simply had discovered lying and was doing so to do. She couldn't get caught up in the nonsensical details.

Maddie returned to see her granddaughter in the exact same spot on the floor as she had left, eyes glued to the TV.

She settled into her seat, glancing at the clock. Jack would be home in less than a half hour or so. Maddie hummed lightly to herself, turning on the invention to begin testing. The display lit up, and it began to slowly load. Soon, the main menu popped up, and Maddie began to fiddle with the options and controls she had programmed. For now, she just wanted to assure that the controls worked at the basic level, that the options all showed up and that the settings could be adjusted, that the screens lit up and that the mapping system worked as needed.

She frowned as she noticed that it was detecting a nearby ghost, as indicated by the dark green outline that was designed to alert if a ghost was within a selected radius, the default being a ten foot. Was it glitching already? How could a ghost be nearby without her noticing?

Curiosity caused her to go into an option that gave the exact location of the ghost in question. The device should be able to scan a ghost and read their ectoplasmic signature, which would give the quick answers one would need if a ghost was nearby. Was it safe, how dangerous, who was it, etc.

Her heart froze, and she sat up straight as it told her a ghost was very, very close to her, barely three feet away. Which meant it was close to her granddaughter. It had to be a malfunction. It couldn't be within three feet of her without her noticing. Maddie went to check the information the device picked up on the supposed ghost.

Name: Unknown

Age: Unknown, est existence: 1wk

Pwr lvl: ERROR 412

Misc: ERROR 412

Maddie's breath caught in her throat. Error 412 simply meant that there was a lack of ectoplasmic sampling to get a proper reading. But with a ghost supposedly so close? She was on high alert, and she put her hand on her hip, where an ectogun was always there, just in case. As well as the Fenton lipstick. With one hand searching for the exact pinpointed location, she stared at it in disbelief as it told her that the ghost was two point six feet in front of her, sitting in the same spot as her granddaughter.

"Dawn?" Maddie spoke up, voice almost trembling a bit in worry. Dawn scowled, twisting to look at her, and for what felt like the hundredth time that day, Maddie's heart skipped a beat.

"What!?" came the cranky voice of her granddaughter, who was glaring at her with annoyed, bright green and glowing eyes. Maddie recognized the scowl. It was the same kind of scowl and glare she saw Phantom wear all the time towards her, and those eyes were a perfectly replica of his.

[maskydoo-old]

Nightmare Neighbors 6

(I’m writing out scripts for upcoming storytime style youtube videos, and posting what I have here. Note that this is a true story. Feedback is welcome.)

Nightmare Neighbors 6 draft

Imagine the angriest crazies you’ve ever met online. Now imagine they know where you live. Now imagine, they routinely hang around near your house, waiting to catch you outside and alone.

Somehow, my life next to Loony and Toony Feckwad was like living right next to the worst kind of Youtube comments section.

And there’s no simple block function.

Now, I’ve been using the made-up names for these people throughout the telling of this story so far, but during these events, I didn’t actually know these people’s names.

I figured at this point, since I was getting the law involved, I really should find out.

Also, I told my boss about what happened, and he told the higher ups at the company. They decided for security reasons to preemptively ban the two crazies from the premises, and needed names and identifying photos so the guards could deny them entry if they ever showed up at my work.

But. Like. It’s not like I could just ask them their names anymore.

So what can I do?

The obvious option was to do a public records search by looking up their address. I got names… but… I wasn’t entirely 100% totally certain it was really them.

I didn’t know how trustworthy the information on shady-looking public records sites would be, and I didn’t want to accidentally give the police, and eventually the court, the wrong people’s names.

I was especially confused since multiple surnames came up for Loony, and I wasn’t sure if they were different people who happened to have the same first name, or if Loony really did change her surname that many times. (It turned out to be the latter.)

So. To Facebook. I couldn’t find a profile for Toony, but I did find Loony. Good enough, now I could confirm their identities.

That was all I wanted to do. I didn’t care to go through her information, and I certainly didn’t want to contact her. I wanted as little to do with her as possible, which was partly why I waited this long to even find out their names.

I was about to click away when… I noticed something. Right to the top of her profile there were several unhinged posts that were clearly about me.

For starters, she was convinced I was stalking her Facebook, and had been for some time. These posts were deranged rants that were clearly meant to call me out, and included lines like:

“I know you’re reading this, stalker!”

I mean… now I was reading it, but these posts went back weeks, months. What the hell, lady? She thought I cared to see her facebook, but that was the first time I ever looked her up.

She even had one that was taunting me for not getting to have her husband and how she’s a special beautiful wife.

She… just has no grasp on reality at all. Imagine being mercilessly harassed by crazy people over a situation that only ever existed in their head.  

In her posts, she also ranted about how I was calling her from hidden numbers. Anytime she got a call, it was absolutely me. It MUST have been.

I don’t. I don’t think I have to tell you I obviously never called these people. I’m a millennial. I can barely be bothered to call people I actually like. I order pizza through apps just to avoid speaking to a human.

But that’s not all I was accused of. In a more recent post, she insisted that I had some habit of driving slowly past her house with binoculars.

Ummm…

I live next door to her. I drive in this neighborhood because… I live here. But I funny enough, I don’t drive past her house. I don’t need to. My house is on the corner.

And what would I need binoculars for? Their house is only a few yards from the road. Even if I wanted to watch them… I wouldn’t need binoculars for it. And I would think driving at the same time would be pretty difficult.

I don’t think I even own any binoculars.

And what a weird thing to complain about when they are literally the ones watching me. They watch me from their windows, they stand outside in the dark waiting for me to get home from work. And apparently that’s OK.

Lady. Lady. Lady…. lady. Lady. Do you live in your own little world?

I guess she just assumed that since she was so obsessed with me, I must be obsessed with her.

That’s… that’s not how anything works.

I know in an previous video I called out Toony as a viewer,  

(replay joke)

But that was obviously a JOKE. I don’t expect him to ever actually watch this. And I don’t expect he’d have the self-awareness to recognize himself if he did.

But Loony, Loony really thought I had nothing better to do stalk her, or at leas that’s what she was claiming to think on Facebook for whatever relatives of hers that would see it.

I have no idea why she wrote those things. It could be she was just lying for attention, just making it up out of nothing. For what reason, I have no idea.

Or It could be that she was truly delusional, and genuinely believed her own words. It’s possible she was suffering from very real paranoia.

I think the difference between her paranoia and mine is that I actually did have crazy, hostile neighbors.

Whereas Luna had a neighbor who wanted nothing to do with her. I’d be happy to pretend she didn’t exist. If she and Toony ever quit their nonsense, that would be the end of it.

Yet here she was, pretending it was the other way around.

Now. I don’t really care about the unflattering and untrue things she was saying about me on her page. They were absolutely insane, yes, but were not really harassment like standing around in the dark screaming at me when I get home. It’s her page. She can write what she wants. I don’t have to read it.

What I did care about though were the references she kept making in her rants to the day I’d ‘get what was coming to me.’ She said multiple vague threatening sounding things along those lines in a number of her posts about me.

So, yeah… I was right about this pattern of escalation. This nutjob clearly intended to do me harm eventually. As she said herself, it was only a matter of time.

To make matters worse is her Facebook friends and family believed her, and wanted involved. Maybe they’re similarly crazy people, or maybe they were actually decent folks but, since they only had her crazy words to go on, got a very wrong impression of the actual situation.

Either way, this was really concerning when a number of these people left comment son her rants, offering to come ‘deal with me,’ and asking Loony for my information, my name, where I lived.

Ok, so that angry internet strangers at my house metaphor I used earlier had a strong chance of becoming a lot more real than I thought. There were now strangers volunteering to physically come to my home to physically punish me for things the Feckwads were making up.

This is bad. This is real bad.

I didn’t know what to do. I was completely sickened by what I saw. I knew I never wanted look at her page again. I just wanted to close the page and never think of it again.

But… forgetting what I saw wouldn’t make it go away. The danger still existed.

And now it wasn’t just the neighbors I had to worry about. This witch has and an army of flying monkeys to send at me. Any random stranger on the block could have been with Loony and I had no way of knowing.

At this point in my life, I was already dealing with a lot of problems. And I really, really, really did not need this.

I was now alone most of the year, with my boyfriend away at work in another country. I didn’t really have any friends or family nearby. Not much of a social life to speak of. Even at work I was largely isolated. Being a security guard, I was often the only person in the entire building.

My only regular human contact was decidedly negative, which made me withdraw more.

It was like when you burn your hand, you don’t want to reach out again.

And now even had to worry about random strangers at my door.

As I mentioned before, my work schedule was inhuman. I’d work morning, day, and night shift all within the span of a week. Sometimes, these would be 12-hour shifts with only 8-hours off in between. I never had a consistent sleep times.

And when I tried to sleep, I was kept awake by daytime noises, just the unease of being alone, and by having unstable neighbors who liked to sneak around near my house at night.

The work schedule and lack of sleep weren’t great for my grades. I was, of and on, taking classes full time. Or, I was trying to, but concentration was hard. I ended up getting sick and as a result of everything, failed an important class.

My dog got sick, needing medication multiple times per day. Then my cat got sick, and needed emergency surgery. I’d drag myself half asleep to vet appointments, try to find ways to make medication times fit work hours, setting alarms to wake myself up in the few hours I could sleep to give meds, and worried constantly about how I was going to pay for it all.

I spent most of my time indoors. The construction of our homes was very much not in my favor. The way they were designed, the neighbors could easily see from their windows when I was outside. Their bedroom window had a clear view over my fence and into my back yard. And their kitchen widow could see my driveway, so they always knew when I came or left. If they saw me outside, they’d shout from their windows or even come outside to confront me.

But my windows minded their own business. I couldn’t see their property from inside my house they way they could see mine. So I had no way of knowing if they were out there until I was already out my door. I had no way of avoiding them.

So I just. Stayed inside. I was exhausted anyway.

That garden project I wanted to start? Not happening now that my yard isn’t a relaxing place to be anymore.

My dog wants to play, but she’ll have to settle for chasing the ball inside.

The grass is getting long, but I can only manage a section at a time before I’m interrupted.

Eventually, it got hard to find the motivation to do much of anything at all. I hardly even saw the sun anymore.

I’m not saying that the neighbors alone pushed me to seriously google symptoms of depression. They weren’t that powerful, and I wouldn’t want to give them too much credit. I probably would have been feeling generally pretty low anyway.

But they were an extra source of stress that I did not need on top of everything else, and contributed to making my existing troubles worse.

I mush have looked pretty pathetic. I don’t care much for malls, but I dragged myself to one one day, and I wasn’t even sure why. I guess I just wanted to be away from my house. I bought a pair of pants I didn’t need just to justify the trip. This cashier, I didn’t even know her, came around the corner and hugged me. I didn’t tell her anything, but I guess she just knew I needed it.

I should be able to feel safe in my home, but this was stolen from me. I worried about what might come next. Maybe they’d damage my property. Maybe they’d hurt my dogs. Maybe they’d attack me in my driveway or break into my home. Maybe they’d send a stranger after me.

I couldn’t know.

But what I did know, is that I couldn’t live with this. No. I wouldn't live like this. I refused.

Time for a plan.

[balioc]

Talkin’ About Outsiders

Riffing on my recent post:

If you wanted to keep something like the traditional D&D Great Wheel cosmology, and you wanted all the planes on the Wheel and all the various alignment-oriented races of outsiders to be cool and thematic and not-shoehorned-in, what would it look like?  Let’s give it a shot.  Maybe this will be useful someday, if I ever run a planar-savvy D&D campaign.  Or if you do.

Guiding Principles:

* All groups of outsiders should feel narratively resonant.  Players should have an intuitive sense of what they’re about, what role they would play in heroic fantasy stories, etc.  We want to avoid “oh yeah, those guys over in that corner, because of course there have to be some guys over in that corner.”

* Outsiders should feel otherworldly and mystical, like the spirits they are, not like Another Race of Monsters that’s been jammed into a planar role by fiat. 

* Outsiders should strongly reflect their associated alignment, but, like, in a cool way. 

I’m also going to be working with my own personal gut-level sense of how the alignment grid “should” work on a cosmic scale, which suggests that the “corner planes” -- LG, CG, LE, and CE -- are going to be the strongest, most magical, most populated, etc.  In a metaphysical sense, a strong good/evil commitment and a strong law/chaos commitment reinforce each other rather than diluting each other.  In a demographic sense, while in fact the plurality of mortals are TN due to vacillation or apathy, most noteworthy mortals with plane-defining levels of soul power have corner alignments.  In a pragmatic storycrafting sense, three of those four corners are way cooler and better-developed than anything else on the Wheel, so we should probably run with that.  The upshot is that the NG, NE, LN, and CN outsiders can and should be constructed such that they just have less impact on the universe overall.  The in-betweeny planes...well, they’re afterthoughts, we’ll get to them (briefly) but can ignore them for now.

OK.  Diving in:

Chaotic evil demons from the Abyss and lawful evil devils from Hell are being kept, more or less intact.  They’ve gotten more attention than any other planar races, by like an order of magnitude; they’ve got lots of existing lore and monster-design that people know and love; it would be a crime to throw that stuff away.  Fluff should probably try to present them with a somewhat more-philosophical, less-Flanderizing spin than they usually get.  The conceptual heart of demon-ness isn’t “graaaargh kill smash consume defile” (even if that is a popular instantiation), it’s something like “literally nothing matters except my desire and my vision.”  Similarly, devils would benefit from a little less “we’re all legalistic treacherous assholes” (even if many of them are) and a little more “the order of the universe is legitimate, the infernal hierarchy is legitimate, we follow the rules but we play to win.”  But fundamentally these are the creatures you know and love, don’t fix what ain’t broke. 

Neutral evil yugoloths can stay, too, more or less.  They’ve gotten a fair amount of good monster design too, and they’re popular, although I confess that I have no idea why.  A race of fiendish mercenaries who manipulate and prolong the Blood War?  Sure, why not?  I do want to give them a bit more character, though, and not the inexplicable apocalypse-obsessed death-spirit thing from Pathfinder.  Rather: as I understand it, neutral evil as an alignment is mostly about pure selfishness.  It’s not hard to capture the idea of “selfishness” in spiritual cosmic form -- that’s the gaki, the hungry ghost.  Yugoloths should be driven by intense insatiable cravings, presumably with each kind having a different general category of craving.  This will do a lot to define their politics internal and external, the means of treating with them, etc.  (Also, to be clear, “daemon” as an importantly-separate thing from “demon” is very silly and I have no truck with it.)

The collective term for demons, devils, and yugoloths is of course “fiends.”

The lawful neutral outsider race has already been covered in my previous post: that’s the fae.  Inhumanly perfect spirits obsessed with rules, oaths, codes-of-honor, etc.  Dangerous, and certainly not benevolent, but also not inimical to the flourishing of mortals in the way that fiends are.  Hard to understand, as all outsiders must on some level be, but probably easier to deal with than any other spirits if you know the right codes and protocols.  Probably we play down the “capricious nature spirit” thing and play up the bit where they have courts, monarchs, diplomatic ties to Heaven and Hell, etc.

The chaotic neutral race should be...well, something better than the slaadi, that’s for sure.  “They’re infinitely variable and unpredictable, except that they’re all magic frogs who speak in word salad.”  Gee.  Useful for storytelling, that.  I don’t have any super-brilliant ideas here (and am open to suggestions), but I have what I believe to be a good-enough idea: genies.  Proud, wild, tempestuous spirits who treasure their own freedom and dignity above all else.  Binding them can be a road to great power, since they’ll do pretty much anything to escape, but it’s also unbelievably risky.  You can make up some cute lore about their anarchic ad-hoc anything-goes society. 

I’d like to use “angels” as the collective term for good-aligned outsiders, the equivalent of “fiends.”  We could go with “celestials,” I guess, but it’s awkward that the LG plane specifically is (sometimes) called Celestia, and really “angels” has a connotative punch like nothing else. 

Lawful good gets archons.  Yay archons.  Tiered choirs, divine armies, holy holy holy, the whole shebang.  The fluff for these guys could stand to be fleshed out some -- as far as I know it hasn’t been touched since the 3.5e Book of Exalted Deeds, and that version was kinda lame -- but there’s like infinite amounts of Christian angelology lore on which to draw, so I’m not worried.

Neutral good needs something better than guardinals, since “benevolent animal dudes” really had no spiritual resonance at all.  Fortunately we can do some conceptual repurposing here. I think we can just grab the beings that D&D currently calls “angels,” start calling them all “devas” -- even the planetars and solars, which I guess become “planetary devas” and “solar devas” -- and stick them all in NG.  No one really uses them as all-purpose divine servants anyway, as far as I can tell.  They are beings of pure benevolence, protectors and guardians and healers, etc. etc.  Possibly we call the NG plane “Celestia,” to fit with the celestial-objects theme of the devas, and just go with “Heaven” for the LG plane.

And then we come to chaotic good, which is definitely the hardest row to hoe.  CG has a very important spot on the Great Wheel, the CG outsiders need to have something akin to the narrative power of the demons and devils and archons, and...I just don’t think there’s any pre-existing thing that fits the bill.  “Chaotic good” is not the kind of idea that has been traditionally associated with mighty spiritual mysteries, which is probably why all the existing CG outsider races suck so much.  (Seriously, as far as I can tell, it’s always either “we’re elf knights who fight for freedom! but, like, planar!” or “uh, we’re spirits of art and beauty, I guess, sorta?”) We’re going to have to develop these guys from scratch. 

Rather than trying to come up with an “archetypically CG outlook” or something, I think it would make sense to start with an image of their world and society.  This is a good, lovely, beneficent version of the Abyss.  This is a place of tremendous diversity, where outsider lords carve out their own domains according to their own idiosyncratic specifications.  Which means you have, like, a million conflicting little paradises each defined by its own vision.  (But not, like, at war, the way demon lords always are, we’re all very Good here.  Just...different from each other.)  It probably adds up to a sort of hipster’s-vision-of-the-big-city vibe.  You imagine a race of cosmic Manic Pixie Dream Girls, essentially, always flowing into and out of each other’s circles, descending to the Prime Material Plane in order to experience delights / inspire greatness / find adoring mortal fans who will validate their coolness. 

I think it would be a mistake to give these guys a single strong visual theme, the way that the guardinals are “animal people” and the eladrin are “pretty elves.”  They’re a menagerie of weird-but-beautiful monsters, the way that demons are a menagerie of weird-but-ugly monsters.  The race needs a name, but right now I don’t have a good one.

For true neutral outsiders, I think we can just go with elementals and call it a day.  They’re mindless!  They do as they’re commanded, unless they don’t, in which case they have incredibly simplistic urges like “burn” or “flow!” 

The in-between planes -- y’know, Gehenna, the Beastlands, Acheron, etc. -- are cool, in some vague theoretical sense, and I don’t think we should scrap them entirely.  But I also think it’s a mistake to try and give them their own full-fledged native outsider races, to pretend that they’re going to have the same depth of inherent character as the main eight outer planes, etc.  Instead, I suspect it’s best to use them as divine domains.  Because they don’t have powerful native outsider races, they’ve all been taken over by gods.  Exactly which gods live on which ones is a matter of your particular setting’s theology, but it makes a lot of intuitive sense to say “these are the places where you’d expect to find gods by default, a god who lives on one of the main eight planes is doing something kinda weird and probably has a close relationship with the local outsiders.”

[fucktheoryquestions]

On The Economics of Higher Education

I would like to ask you a question I've been thinking of for a while, if you have the time. I have just started my PhD in Anthropology in University of Helsinki, and I have been involved in quite a few student campaigns against university reforms (of neoliberal kind). Yet still all our universities are public institutions, there are no tuition fees and all students receive student allowance, so our situation is quite different than in, say, UK and US. I've been able to study two majors without acquiring any debt, which is quite common here. My question is: Do you think university system that is publicly funded and free for all students (and adjunct staff is payed comparatively well) still has some of the irredeemable qualities that you describe in your critique of US elite universities? Best wishes, Viljami Kankaanpää-Kukkonen

Hi, I appreciate the question, thanks for letting me respond publicly so I don’t have to answer it more than once.  

Before I answer your question let me say what perspective I’m speaking from.  I’ve been in the US for 10 years.  My involvement in American academia was mostly at private institutions on the East Coast, though I took a few seminars and spent time at Rutgers and CUNY, as well. Before that, I did my undergraduate education in Berlin at the Free University.  I was in the last generation of students at the FU who graduated with a traditional German Magister degree; even before I graduated, the FU began to implement the accords of the Bologna Process, which aimed to unify educational standards across the EU and which led to a splitting of the Magister degree into American-style BA and MA programs.  I haven’t been involved in European academia in the past 10 years.  My “data” consists in 10-year-old experience with the German system; extensive 10-year-old familiarity with the British and French systems; and passing 10-year-old acquaintance with the Italian and Dutch systems.  I’m sure that higher education in Europe has changed a great deal in the past 10 years in response to the pressures and forces you describe as “neoliberal,” so take everything I say in light of these ongoing developments.  

Very simply put:  the more “Americanized” an educational system becomes, the more its structure and consequences will resemble the structure and consequences of the American education system.  The most distinctive feature of the American university system is its exorbitant cost, and its relation to debt and hence to the labor market.  So the shortest answer I can give you is No, a free or cheap university system does not share all the dangerous implications of the American system.  That said, the disciplinary and organizational nature of the European system is very similar to the American system and growing more so.  I don’t think humans are “rational actors,” but I do think we constantly perform conscious or unconscious cost/benefit analysis, and I think it’s easy to see why the cost of an American higher education is much greater than the cost of a European higher education, not only in dollars but also in anxiety, in preparation, and in non-academic lifestyle commitments required to access and survive the university. The higher the cost of attending a European university becomes, the more that system will resemble the American one 

That’s the short answer, and anyone who’s reading this can feel free to stop reading here; the rest of this post is just an elaboration.  

Your e-mail mentions “other countries” generally, but I’m not comfortable speaking about countries I don’t know enough about. I’ve met and studied with and read papers by academics from all over the world, and I know some vague stories, but that’s not the same thing as having concrete knowledge of economic relations, so I’m going to localize the rest of my response and frame it as a comparison between the American and the European systems with which I’m familiar.  

* 

A free university system cannot engage the same socio-economic relation to the labor market and to personal debt that the American university system currently engages.  The difference has to do with a different relation of the institution to the state and to private capital, as well as to the job market and to relations of labor and production more generally.  For these reasons, I consider the European university less irredeemable and pernicious than the American one.  

It shares many of the same features and problems, especially on the inside of the institution and in the production of knowledge, but I think the social role of the university is less compromised and dangerous and I think European universities could be improved more easily than American ones – for now. As we’ve already noted, the twin ideologies of privatization and austerity are pushing hard to “Americanize” higher education in Europe and elsewhere.  The more successful these efforts are, the more irredeemable the university becomes.

Before I continue, please note that while I’m less critical of the European university system, I’m not holding it up as an ideal or a model or ignoring its very real problems.  For example, I discuss the non-academic (vocational/professional) higher education system in many European countries as opening up more paths to financial stability than are available in the US.  I stand behind that claim, but I’m also very aware that the parallel higher education systems in Europe have a classist function and a classist history, serving mostly to route upper and upper-middle class students to universities and poorer students to vocational schools.  I’m also keenly aware that I went to university in a city (Berlin) that has more Turkish residents than Ankara, but I can count on one hand the number of Turkish students that sat in seminar rooms with me at that university. Etc., etc.  This is not an encomium to the European higher ed system, it’s just a description of some crucial differences.  

There are at least three major differences between the American and the European higher education systems:   

·      Debt

·      Non-academic higher education

·      Public system only vs. public/private dual system

I’ll expand on all these, but first we can observe that despite a profound difference in the economic relations in which the university is embedded, a fascinating aspect of the question is that there is fairly little difference between higher education systems in terms of content and style.  You find the same plodding, obfuscatory writing; the same laborious processes of peer review; the same behind-the-scenes politicking and reputation-based privilege; the same interests and questions, though often with different approaches or angles; and most importantly, the same canon of concepts and thinkers and disciplines.  This fact reinforces my belief that the discourse of the university performs a similar organizing social function (what Gramsci describes as “traditional” intellectual activity) everywhere, regardless of the specific hegemonic structure it’s serving or upholding.  In this context, it’s worth distinguishing a critique of the university as an institution embedded in a specific economy from a critique of the discourses produced in the institution.  These aren’t separate questions:  there’s only one economy.  But these questions operate in different registers, because the critique of the production of knowledge goes all the way back to Plato and beyond while the critique of the university’s current economic entanglements can’t go beyond the material history of those entanglements while remaining in any way immanent.  

Back to the three big differences I listed.

Debt is the biggest one, by far.  

I graduated from a European university debt-free. I paid registration fees every semester and I had to house and feed myself, but I didn’t have to pay exorbitant tuition fees.  I certainly didn’t have to take out a loan at the age of 18 that would follow me the rest of my life.  This difference is the single most important difference, because it doesn’t just change other relations, it changes the weight of other relations.  A damaging situation is bad; a damaging situation is 100 times worse if you have no way of getting out of it or putting it behind you.  

If you’re German and you get into a university and you find it utterly unbearable and traumatizing, you can just leave. You’ve spent some time, you might disappoint yourself or other people, but you’re not in debt, your parents didn’t spend $80,000.  If you’re 20 years old and you’ve already signed the loan papers and you’re $80,000 in debt already after just 4 semesters, you’re going to think really fucking hard about starting over in a different program, or leaving school to do something non-academic.  You’re much more likely to stay on a path you’re not happy with.  And even if you do make the choice to leave, that debt can still follow you around the rest of your life unless you manage to adjust very effectively to a highly profitable new career path.  If you spent $160,000 on a law degree from Yale then start practicing law and discover you absolutely hate it, you’re probably going to practice law for a few years anyway because otherwise you’re changing careers $160,000 in debt (that’s one hundred and sixty THOUSAND dollars).  Minimum wage in Connecticut is currently $10.10 dollars an hour 

Maybe this isn’t the case any more, but 15 years ago in much of Europe, you could decide academia wasn’t for you, leave the university, and get a job in a restaurant that would pay all your bills. In other words, you could shift gears to a much lower-pressure lifestyle without serious consequences.  But imagine if you have serious student debt and you have $500 deducted from your salary each month?  Suddenly you have earn more, even if you want a low-key lifestyle; you take on another job, or you find a job that’s higher-pressure even though you want to shift gears or whatever.  

The costs of debt – in labor, in health, in anxiety – are enormous.  In this way, there is a much tighter and more vicious link between higher education and the labor market in American than in Europe.  There’s no other way to put it – the structure and pressures of the American system mean that Americans have to work, constantly, grindingly, in a way that many (not all) Europeans just don’t have to and honestly can’t understand.  The American system presents a double bind:  either you are bound to the labor market by debt because you did go to school, or you’re bound to the labor market by necessity because you didn’t go to school and are locked out of higher-paying jobs.  The American university system is locked into the economy in a way that presents three options only:  serve the system at the top; serve the system at the bottom; or succeed against all odds by being truly exceptional and carving out a space for yourself alongside the system or breaking into it in an unexpected way. There are very few paths to genuine economic prosperity that don’t run through the university system somehow.  

The situation in the US hasn’t always been so dire; it got bad under Reagan and has been getting worse ever since.  For a couple of decades after World War II, the G.I. Bill and a flood of money to universities made public higher education really affordable in the U.S. for many people.  In the ‘60s or ‘70s in the U.S. (so I’m told, I wasn’t here), you could flip burgers for three months during the summer and save up enough money for a year’s tuition at a good state school if you were an in-state student; I doubt that’s still the case anywhere in the U.S., and certainly not at the more prestigious state schools.    

Now that the American “middle class” has effectively vanished, we can see what role the university had in making that class disappear.  An absolutely crucial element in that process was the defunding of public universities at the state and federal level, which led to massive tuition hikes that have made tuition at the most prestigious public universities almost as high as those at prestigious private ones.  Capitalism played a major role in that process, because university pass their costs on to students by framing the rising costs as the availability of additional features, from trendy new disciplines to massive, ridiculous sports facilities.  This is a “client-centered” approach to education that directly prioritizes students who can afford to pay.  Basically, America no longer has a state-sponsored, debt-free path to prosperity, which Europe still does…for now.  Defunding of universities and tuition hikes are the changes that will most quickly introduce debt as a decisive factor and bring the European system in line with the American one, with massive implications for the entire economy, not just for academia in some isolated, abstract way.  Keeping the European university system free or at least cheap is unspeakably important and probably impossible at this point.  

The relation between the education system and the labor market is also different in that many European countries have vocational or professional higher education that isn’t academic.  That’s the second big difference.  Craft and trade apprenticeships represent an important bloc that has no equivalent in the US, where most internships are professional position you get after you do a BA, and not instead of doing a BA (not always, but often).  There are often but not always alternatives to university-style education in Europe.  German interns (Auszubildende, or Azubis) are usually paid and can access no-interest government loans to support themselves when they aren’t.  Many people I knew in Germany in the 2000s finished an academic Magister degree and then went on to do an Ausbildung in a completely different area (sound design, lighting tech, theater management) which then became their actual career.  Here again the major difference is debt – you don’t need to take on massive debt to study nursing or hotel management in much of Europe – but there is also a difference in the need for critique of the institution.  Simply put, if there are effective non-academic paths to prosperity, academics have less of an ethical obligation to critique and correct their institutions, and the institution has less of an exclusive onus to fight against inequality.  If we consider “university students” as a socio-political bloc, that bloc is much more massive, diverse, and complex in the United States than it would be in much of Europe.  

Third – and this too is linked closely to the question of debt rather than separate from it – a major difference between the US and Europe is the long-standing existence in America of extremely wealthy private universities.  In Europe until recently there weren’t many private institutions of higher education. This was changing rapidly even while I was still there, and I’m sure it’s gotten worse.  However, it will take a long time before new institutions acquire the prestige and surplus capital which American private universities already have.  

The brilliant scheme of the American private university is that it took up the model and the rhetoric of the European, post-Enlightenment liberal university, but without sharing or adopting its economic model, which is that of a state-operated and –funded institution. The American private university is a European liberal shell over a fundamentally different economic motor, which is basically a massive private endowment of religious origin.  The biggest American universities weren’t started to train scholars, they were started to train preachers; in this, they had more to do with the medieval canon school than with the post-Enlightenment liberal university. These universities acquired private wealth and land in the manner of traditional Catholic institutions, not in the manner of liberal European universities; now, centuries later, these institutions are basically giant pools of privately-held capital which have an enormous impact on the education, labor, leadership, scholarship, and values of the United States and, indeed, the world, but without any of the regulations that state-funded and –controlled institutions have to endure.  These institutions are first and foremost corporate brands and wealth managers; they only teach students incidentally, as a kind of favor to the rich whose money they manage, but despite this they exert an enormous and unhealthy influence on higher education all over the world.  For decades, the public university system in the US has worked extremely vigorously to imitate the private model, where instead the American public should have demanded the divestment of property from private universities, or at least an end to their tax-exempt status.  

The impact of these institutions can scarcely be overestimated, but they are only the keystone of a vast system that all works together to produce and enforce inequality in the United States.  Because the university is an instrument of hegemony and because capitalist hegemony always depends on inequality, the university under capitalism will always be in some ways an instrument and an enforcer of inequality.  This statement is always true, but for that reason also fairly banal, because it doesn’t engage with any actual, specific material relations.  The difference – as of now – is in the degree to which the entire system interlocks to trap and control the individual.  Simply put, because in Europe there is less systemic inequality, less poverty, and more options for non-academic upward mobility (not many, but more than in the U.S.), the effect of the European university can’t be considered as pernicious and total as the effect of the American university. That doesn’t mean there isn’t much to correct and improve, it just means that capitalism has long tended to workshop its oppressions in the Americas first and then exported them elsewhere.   

European systems, which have traditionally been national or nationalized, tended to have a single centralized application system and held rigidly to unitary standards of admission and education across the national system, even if certain schools had a better “name” or were more popular. But even before I left Germany, there were already efforts to declare certain universities in the national system “centers of excellence” and to pump money into those places.  A major symptom of Americanization is the establishment of a corporate institutional hierarchy, often based equally on actual funding and on institutional PR, between universities in the public system.  This idealistic appeal to merit and excellence justifies budgetary inequalities which in turn serve both to defund “less excellent” disciplines and to center education on the interests of funders and not students.  Here too a “client-centered” corporate approach claims to serve students but is actually a pretense for increasing inequalities between them, and here too the same conclusion follows as above:  the more tiered and hierarchical the national European systems become, the more inequalities will emerge that resemble those of the American system.  

 Another big difference between the US and Europe traditionally has been a much higher European emphasis on the humanities and “human sciences.”  Scientists have always looked down on poets, but until fairly recently in Europe, it was equally the case the poets had the opportunity to publicly and emphatically look down on scientists.  When I first lived in Germany as a teenager, I remember regularly seeing literary critics, poets, screenwriters, and other kinds of art and humanities people on TV, in panel discussions (broadcast on daytime network television!) and in newspapers. This too had begun to change by the time I left Germany, and I’m sure it has gotten worse.  There’s a reciprocal pressure between intellectuals and institutions devaluing the humanities and the general public devaluing the humanities; as humanities programs disappear from the university humanities programming disappears from mass media.  A primary ideological function of the university in modern society is to tell people what’s important and what counts as real knowledge.  There are direct and significant consequences to the logic of quantification and its Four Horsemen, S, T, E, and M.  Global warming would be easier to fight if so many people weren’t convinced life is impossible without tech, for example.  These societal ideological formations don’t begin or end with the university, but they are upheld by it, promoted by it, and routed through it.  Consider for example the ways in which STEM professions are dependent on corporations in a way that many humanities jobs aren’t.  You can be a high school teacher pretty much anywhere if you speak the language; good luck being a freelance molecular biologist and crowdsourcing a lab. There are material and economic and personal consequences to ideological formations, that’s the whole point of enforcing an ideology, whether consciously or not.  Here too it’s a question of degree; we already see the process happening. How far will you let it go?  You often hear administrators tell you that the emphasis on STEM comes from students, who just don’t care about literature the way they used to.  In my experience, this is nonsense.  The proportion of humanities-oriented students and science-oriented students in the average classroom doesn’t change; what changes is the number of students who feel pressured or obligated to try and be science people when they’d rather be studying literature.  That is my experience only, I haven’t done any studies.  

The importance of fighting to keep European higher education free and accessible doesn’t rest on some liberal ideals of education and equality, but on the very real functions that higher education plays in the general economy, and in the relations of labor and production that express that economy.  The European university often serves the interests of industry and private capital, but it is an arm of the state and transmits the values of the state and is susceptible to the pressures of private capital roughly to the same degree that the state itself is.  But in America, the leading universities are expressions and instruments of private capital.  They are inseparable from it, and they serve as instruments with which private capital applies pressure to the state, rather than as an apparatus of the state on which private capital applies pressure. 

At the moment, the differing economic and social relations within which it is embedded make the European university less broken and less harmful than the American university, and with more potential for reparative change.  But even as American global hegemony collapses, economic “Americanization” is on the rise everywhere.  How far it will go, and what traditional institutions are destroyed or altered in the process, remains to be seen.  

[galimatios]

finally, an overview ramble of fortuna

thread here

—

anyway ftf au is self care. i'll post a thread about it to get my mind off things working title- fear thy fortune, i actually hate it but like, idk, maybe i'll rename it to just "fortuna" for now since that least that's vaguely more Aesthetic high fantasy but like, a blend of asiatic and catholic aesthetics, think gothic architecture, cathedrals, but also golden temples, just, lots of gold in general in the midst of pristine ivory, pearls, roman pillars, dramatic archways and incense i am talking REALLY dramatic archways. the main cathedral inspo?

it's actually more of a complex of several HUGE cathedrals— a maze, actually. the governing body stays in the frontmost building but there's so much more, parts of it sectioned off

but outside the main cathedral, you have a few temples here and there that are part of a popular alternative religion— see, the main religion of this country believes heavily in predetermination, while this alt religion believes in the exchange of karma and fate naturally the theocracy forbids this but in practice it's.. quite corrupt and some officials even go to these places themselves to "buy/trade/sell" their own karma as if it was goods/currency at these temples, priests/monks facilitate the exchange sorta like brokers they perform the exchange for a small fee, and the bigger the karmic change the larger the fee the fee is not paid to /them/ though— it's paid to, i suppose their patron pantheon? i haven't thought this out too much but it's most likely a polytheistic religion in which invoking a particular god/goddess is necessary to facilitate a specific karmic change regardless. these exchanges are very popular, though not every exchange is granted. it more or less depends on the whimsy of the invoked god nevertheless, it's successful enough to be notable, and as the numbers of followers of this particular religion grow, the more the main theocracy feels threatened so they've started to persecute those who follow it, though not entirely because— well. there's an ulterior motive at play here that only the highest of the high council is aware of. those at the very top of the theocracy are actively using these persecutions to generate karmic energy. the more unjust suffering, the faster this karmic energy accumulates so many, many innocent people are killed for this purpose, and those at the top of the theocracy are actually in cahoots with a few temple leaders as well. it might even be the case that they're one in the same— just two branches purposely created for this reason and why is this energy being generated? to feed the "one true god king" this religion of predetermination relies on the myth of one all-powerful god-king that rules the land. it's a brutal and unforgiving religion the idea of penance and pain are heavily tied together, and pain is proof of penance. to suffer in the name of the god-king is to be pious. in exchange, those who follow this religion hope to be good enough to earn a place in heaven i mean. it's very heavily catholic. but like, With Magic. it turns out there's a method to convert karmic energy into a force that can be used at will, just like magic. and the leaders of this religion use it to enforce this theocracy and also play up this idea that they're Holy/granted these gifts by the god-king but in actuality, the god-king... doesn't really exist. at least not in the form people expect. it's not a higher being, it's not even a person— it's a huge golden mandala embedded with jewels crafted with karmic essence distilled into a physical form kind of like— a mix of these, but completely made of metal with slots for gemstones— and it is fucking HUGE. at least a story tall, if not more.

karmic energy usually adheres to a law of equal exchange— you know, what comes around goes around

but in the face of extreme unjust suffering, that energy has nowhere to go— and it lingers at locations, in people, until something happens to balance it out (be it doing a good deed, a blessing, etc) so the high council actually harvests this untapped potential energy theoretically you can do the same with immense unwarranted good fortune, but that's a little trickier since in order to "harvest" the energy, you kind of have to... kill the person? which sorta negates that good fortune in a way, therefore making the action moot i'm sure there's a way that makes sense within the constructs of the universe but it's not Entirely relevant rn so. shrug. either way, negative karma gets distilled, placed into this mandala, and that provides malleable magic energy to the high council additionally, bestowing gifts of the jewels placed into the mandala will grant a person the ability to use magic as well, whether they know about the mechanics behind it or not this is mostly done for people in the theocratic order, but also princes/princesses— these people are chosen via prophecy as "candidates" for the next "god-king"— who is only known as a figurehead and is never seen, because the public's been told they've "ascended" to a higher realm so basically princes/princesses are chosen to duke it out battle royale style fighting for the right to become the next god-king... and they receive preferential treatment for this reason which. is mostly brainwashing and torture disguised as "penance" and piety. the same goes for knights, which are also chosen and paired up with these candidates knights tend to come from horrible situations, so-called "saved" and essentially given to candidates as, well. gifts! they're objects baby! taught to follow their candidates every order. yes. it's extremely unhealthy! That Is The Plan, Though the entire goal of the candidate/prince system is to essentially create the major components of the mandala by, literally investing suffering into specific individuals. this method isn't the only way to produce these components, but it's the easiest to control and after all that fighting, when a candidate/knight pair comes out on top, they're chosen to ascend— the highest possible honor— which. is death! you gotta die baby! the other dead candidate pairs are also utilized for the mandala components each time a major component is added, the magic capabilities of the council increase— i wouldn't be surprised if some fuck was trying to become god-king by continuously adding to this mandala but you can only have so much suffering in one artifact before something happens that "something" is largely the events of fortuna, where a prophecy deems a young boy to death because it is foreseen that he will destroy the system/commit mass murder— confirmed thru the appearance of an unholy birthmark (so they say) he is burned at the stake, but there's something odd about his remains— they don't fully burn the way they're supposed to. in fact, it mixes in with the ashes of other victims and becomes... a pulsating black mass a natural-born curse, or otherwise known as a miracle this pulsating mass is actually a naturally-made version of the large mandala components. it has the ability to convert karmic energy into tangible change— or in other words, It Does Magic but it's... not malleable. it defies the will of others this black mass is locked away, as it cannot be destroyed and bad things keep happening around it. and over time, it takes shape and gains a voice— the souls of the remains of the victims all merge together into a collective consciousness, including that of the boy's pretty soon, it begins to speak, saying it will enact a "miracle" in exchange for a high enough price the temple priests are charged with keeping this monstrosity while also utilizing it as another one of their services— just, very special i imagine their ability to divert karmic energy is useful in keeping the miracle's negativity from affecting others too much, which is why it's kept at the temple and one young boy grows up being this thing's caretaker it's the twin brother of the boy that was originally burned! his name is yonah. which is just, an au jonah with a y. either way, because of his connection to his twin (named august), he can exert more control over the miracle. he's dubbed the gatekeeper, because. that is literally what he does. he simply guards the door to the room containing the miracle, processes requests to see it, and... that is his job. he volunteered for it, fully knowing his brother was in there he wanted to be close to his brother, even in this... weird state of non-death. and jonah is able to enter the room with no adverse side effect— he talks to the miracle, sees, feels, understands that its existence is a state of constant pain it's similar to being like, a pmmm witch in that you continuously relive your trauma while you feed on the offerings of others— the wishes the miracle grants in exchange for a high price and with each offering, it gets ... bigger, more powerful, but still trapped the miracle does not have a will of its own, simply acting in its nature as defined by the karmic laws of this universe— as a naturally made conduit of karma to reality. it feeds and grows bigger not because it wants to, but because it is law it's kind of the karmic equivalent of a black hole in a sense, and the god-king mandala is similar. it draws energy towards it— but where it differs is that it converts it into tangible change. normally this would spell disaster, with all that negative energy but since the mandala is man-made, the high council members managed to control this energy and use it to create whatever change they want the miracle does not operate like that since it's natural, hence the high price paid for its wish granting there are ways to neutralize a miracle— and in the distant past, these things were called curses— not miracles —because they're essentially giant monkey paws that curse you with Suck but the methods to remove them were lost to time after years and years of tending to this miracle though, yonah... finally snaps. he can't handle the its suffering anymore. far too empathetic for his own good, he enters the miracle's room himself and enacts his own exchange take his life, he said, use it. anything to ease the suffering— the first time anyone's made a wish for the miracle itself, rather than themself this kind of selfless offering defies the nature of the miracle, plus august's soul is still in there. So Weird Stuff Happens remember that prophecy august was killed for? yeah. well. yonah's offering allowed august's personality to surface as dominant, and since they're genetically identical, he also... assumes control of yonah's body guess who's back bitches! anyway. he's older now and he remembers the years and years of trauma he's had to experience, both his own and the others' within the miracle— they all merge into one. when august declares revenge, it's not just for him— it's everyone and so august, with the magic of the miracle now under his control, basically goes on a rampage and fulfills the prophecy he was originally killed for. he also personally invades the cathedral and slaughters the high council himself! so now we're entering post-fortuna material, which is another concept/story in of itself, but same timeline same universe, just years in the future august declares himself the true god-king and decides to harness the mandala for himself he basically just. does whatever the hell he wants, completely capricious with no rhyme or reason— not out of sheer malice, but because the pain he contains from all the victims demands it. all that negative energy finally being released outwardly but once the country is reduced to a barren, desolate land, when his work is finally done and revenge complete, he's just... hollow. and he lives a hollow existence high on top of that cathedral. he can't die, he's not even really alive the humans he chose as his own personal court also can't die, and over time they've become more or less inhuman, twisted by the negative energy that runs rampant through the land it's a court that must be put out of its misery august's life is tied to the mandala as well, because... the mandala is, actually what caused the entire plotline of fortuna to start with. although the god-king was always a made-up figure, in a way, it became something real, just different in execution despite everything, karmic laws are still in play. the high council may have circumvented them for quite a while, but you cannot defy the laws of nature so, law demanded that retribution be paid for the suffering of those souls in the mandala. august was that retribution and because he is technically an extension of the mandala himself, his magic can't destroy it. even though his work is technically done (like, the country is In Ruins) he can't be released to finally die either so he essentially is just waiting for someone to finish him off anyway, the plotline of post-fortuna material (needs a name? fortunata? idk) essentially is some dark souls type shit where an outsider comes to finally vanquish the god-king and lay to rest the court he's kept different ways to do that though i kind of brainstorm stuff about it in this thread but it's pretty messy if i do go a gamedev route, different actions allow you to "save" these court members and the king

i think. honestly the only true way to save this entire country is to plant the seeds of goodness by doing good things... by taking a pacifist route to properly restore balance and bring peace to these different souls fortuna/nata is very much about trauma and healing or rather, cycles of pain that perpetuate. breaking cycles. a large bit of inspo comes from the concept/imagery of the wheel of fortune tarot that is why the mandala is A Mandala— it's a wheel. a circle, a cycle to truly free the country, it's not about slaying the sitting god-king, august— but the mandala itself, in a way the "true" god-king. destroy the mandala, free the souls, end the cycle, break the wheel i have NO idea how the protag will do this, but it's something with fire i think. i think the protag. will attempt to exchange fates with the mandala. going back to the concept of a miracle, but this time.. a true miracle, not a curse that's called a miracle. like, an actual miracle the protag is only one person, but i believe... this wish is enough to enact the karmic law just so that the mandala finally— cracks with the protag probably committing self immolation, offering their life to set these others free and with that, a martyr is born, and so begins a process of healing the mandala is broken and those souls inside it can finally rest. august can die, his court can... be humans again. and i guess they become the first followers of a new religion based on mercy and selflessness i like the concept of fire here as a destructive force (the burnings) but also cleansing, healing... like, the burning of offerings, the burning of incense, the cremation of bodies. but also the idea of a phoenix rising again from the ashes i think... the protag does not die. but instead , burning themself on the mandala actually merges the protag with the souls of those inside it. and they're still suffering, but... now the protag can tell them it's okay now, no one's going to hurt them anymore so protag's reborn, very phoenix-like... god i need to actually make an oc for this character bc they're becoming too developed but now protag has insight and MAYBE magic themself. i wonder if this is the birth of like, the TRUE TRUE god-king of this country? like. a Good one i have to think more on this concept bc i love the idea of cycles... i do want to leave fortunata on an uplifting note tho so i have to leave enough hope that goodness will come but also, this new religion is... kinder, merciful. do good unto others. golden rule it still operates on karmic law, of course, you can't Change physics, but i think the framing of it as a force of good rather than evil... is important. like a testament to how hope is a force to be reckoned with, that it IS tangible to believe in it instead of predetermination and the idea of penance and pain, it's important to forgive oneself, to do good, and help others... if you do wrong, you do good to balance it out. still penance, but minus the self hate. and i guess, in buddhist-inspired fashion, the ultimate goal / teaching of this religion is to "break" the cycle of suffering. and helping others break their own cycles. it does different from buddhism in that it doesn't teach that existence itself is suffering or rather, even if it does, the average person can work to break it by accumulating enough good karma to "break" their own cycles across different lives and finally reach some nirvana-equivalent so, different from buddhist monastic practice anyway. i think i managed to cover all of the big details. there's a few other loose threads, like details about the candidates/knights, individual characters, but that's... basically the gist of the entire universe and plot god. i FINALLY wrote it out. holy shit