#its me! the guy who never wins! riddled with guilt always!

[stagenameouroborus]

something something how to leave quiet notes telling your friends that youre not quite okay but you're fine and dealing with it. wait a minute this isnt google. anyway

[robinrunsfiction]

That Promptly Turned To Dust

Pairing: Frank Iero x Female Reader Rating: General Requested By: @glittercupcakes-and-squats​ who provided the prompts Word Count: 2,700 Author’s Note: Like dudes, I just got home from work, I haven’t even taken my jacket off yet. My new MCR shirt is still sitting in the package waiting to be opened, but NO, it must wait, as I have impatient readers who have already read this who are waiting for this to post

ENJOY THE ANGST

Life on the road was never easy, especially for an up and coming band. It was even more tough on the people who worked for them. But it was exactly the kind of work (YN) loved to do. The fast pace, the travel, the new faces every day were exciting to her. Maybe one day she would want to settle down, but not yet. For now, she had a life to live and that meant finding herself in the middle of the United States, Nebraska to be specific, watching Garden of Woe open for My Chemical Romance.

(YN) grew up with the lead singer, Liam. She went to school with them, and since (YN) always acted like the mom of band, she was a natural to hire as their assistant. Off the buzz generated by their debut album, they were hired to open for My Chem. It was amazing to see them play every night to huge crowds, winning so many of them over with their music.

But by far the best part of the tour was the camaraderie between the bands. My Chem was huge, having just released The Black Parade, but they welcomed the smaller band with open arms. (YN) appreciated the time she got to spend hanging out with these incredible musicians backstage and in the busses between shows.

That's where (YN) met Frank. She knew she was a sucker for a guy with tattoos that could play guitar, but when she saw him perform live for the first time, it was like she had been struck by lightning. What she didn't know was that Frank was putting even more into his performance because he was hoping that she would notice him.

He saw (YN) at the first tour meeting and was instantly interested. He could tell by the way she was taking notes and asking questions that she was smart in addition to being pretty. When he saw the merch Garden of Woe was selling, he was impressed by how cool it was, and then even more impressed to hear (YN) designed it. He knew he had to get her attention somehow.

The next day when they arrived for the second show of the tour, Frank finally worked up the nerve to go talk to her. He found her during a quiet moment while Garden of Woe was doing their sound check, and she was organizing their dressing room.

“Hi,” he said, causing her to almost jump out of her skin.

“Oh my god, you scared the shit out of me!” (YN) exclaimed, clutching her chest. “Sorry, hi Frank, what can I help you with?”

“Sorry,” he laughed nervously. “I was just wondering if you wanted to maybe grab a drink or something some time between shows.”

“Oh! Yea, that would be really cool, I'd love to,” she smiled.

“Then it’s a date,” he said running his hand through his hair.

“It’s a date,” she replied, smile growing even larger.

~

Frank had never fallen so hard or so fast for a girl before. He felt like he could open up to her and be honest in ways he never had with someone before. Luckily for him, the feeling was mutual.

(YN) found that Frank was more than tattoos and amazing guitar playing; he was caring and kind. From the way he nervously took her hand when they were walking back to the busses after their first date, to the way he tenderly caressed her cheek before leaning in and kissing her for the first time, to the way his hands held her close on the nights he snuck onto the Garden of Woe bus, and the first time they slept together in a hotel room with a view of the Rocky Mountains, he was everything to her.

They spent time hanging out with their friends, cracking jokes, and having fun, but when they were alone, they were making quiet promises to each other. They both had damage, bad past relationships, shitty experiences, but they were putting all that behind them to be something better together.

(YN) opened her eyes in a hotel room somewhere in Arizona, or maybe New Mexico, it was a blur at this point, and found Frank smiling softly at her. He had paid Ray $20 to avoid the room for a few hours so they could have some privacy.

“Sorry I dozed off after we…,” she trailed off with a sleepy smile.

“Don’t worry, I love you so much, I'm happy just being near you,” Frank said. The words rolled off his tongue so easily he didn’t even realize what he had said.

“You love me?”

Frank’s cheeks grew red, knowing what he had let slip, but he decided to own it. “Yea, I really do. I hope its not too soon to say, but I feel like we could really last.”

(YN) grinned and then buried her face against his bare shoulder. “I love you too,” she replied when she finally looked up at him.

~

“(YN) don’t you have your own bus to ride on?” Bob asked when he spotted (YN) and Frank sitting together on the couch.

“Don’t you have your own business to mind?” Frank retorted.

“They don’t need me on the bus constantly. It’s not like I wipe their butts for them,” (YN) laughed.

“Hey guess what?” Ray said walking up to the front of the bus. “Jake is gonna come out for the show tonight! He said he’s got a couple people, we should get them passes so we can hang.”

“Sounds good to me,” Gerard agreed. “I haven’t seen him in years.”

“Wonder who he’s bringing?” Mikey asked.

“No idea,” Ray replied.

The rest of the ride to the venue was filled with the usual talk before the show. Both bands hurried inside and got settled into their dressing rooms.

(YN) had to run to grab some things for Garden of Woe, when she heard voices she didn’t recognize coming from the My Chem dressing room. She poked her head in and saw a couple of girls and a guy that she assumed to be Jake.

“Hey babe,” Frank said when he spotted her in the doorway, hurrying over and shutting the door behind him. “I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t know who Jake was bringing today, and I used to date one of those girls in there, Emily.”

“Oh,” (YN) was surprised. “Umm, why?”

Frank shrugged. “I dunno. But I wanna introduce you to Jake, he's awesome.”

“Sure,” (YN) replied, not entirely convinced she wanted to walk into that room.

Frank took her hand and gave her a smile before walking in with her. “Hey guys, this is (YN), (YN) this is Jake, Emily, and Becky.”

(YN) nodded and smiled while saying hello to them. “I'd love to stay and hang out but I gotta get this stuff to my band, I'll see you later,” she said turning to Frank as he leaned in and gave her a kiss before leaving with a wave to everyone.

The band and their friends went back to socializing, but Frank felt like he had eyes on him. After ignoring the feeling as long as he could, he glanced up and noticed Emily was looking at him, and then getting up and coming over to him.

“Frank, why didn’t you tell me you had a girlfriend?”

“Because I don’t tell you anything,” he replied, annoyed.

“She's cute. I want to be happy for you, but I can’t. I want to smile but I can’t."

“That's your problem,” Frank muttered.

“Is it?” Emily asked.

~

(YN) sighed as she carried the box of merch Garden of Woe signed back to the merch booth at the front of the venue. As she hurried down the hall, she realized she was approaching the dressing room where Frank was hanging out. She slowed down, planning to wave at Frank, or whoever’s eye she could catch.

But what she saw made her gasp and in a moment her heart broke in two. She adjusted her grip on the box and started running down the hall, hoping no one would see her crying.

~

Frank had dumped Emily years before. She was clingy and not a very interesting person. He knew his friends were still friends with her, but he was annoyed that they agreed to bring her along to the show.

He had been dismissing everything she said, but he could still feel her eyes on him. Frank turned to look at her, eyes narrowed, ready to tell her to get lost once and for all, when suddenly she was coming at him, grabbing his face and pulling his lips to hers.

Frank panicked and pushed back at Emily. “What the fuck was that?!” He snapped, jumping up.

“Just taking back what’s mine,” she replied coyly.

“Stay the fuck away from me,” he muttered before leaving the room.

~

(YN) dropped off the box then hurried back down the hall. She had to get out of there, hide, leave, something. She glanced up and saw Ray coming her way. She looked down again, hoping he didn’t notice her.

"Please don't see me crying," (YN) muttered, wiping furiously at the tears streaking down her cheeks as she sniffled.

"Oh shit, (YN) are you ok?" Ray asked once he got close enough to see her face.

"Yea, no, I'm fucking fantastic," (YN) said rolling her eyes.

"What happened?" Ray asked pulling her in for a hug.

"I don't want to create problems with your band."

"Wait, did one of the guys do something to you? Was it Bob? One of the roadies?"

"No," she sniffled and weighed what she was about to say in her mind but decided to come out with it. "I saw Frank kissing Emily."

Ray's eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "No, that isn't right. He is crazy about you! There's no way he would just throw that all away on her! He dumped her!"

(YN) shrugged. "I saw what I saw. I just wanna get back to work tonight, and then I'm gonna catch the next flight home tomorrow. I'll just tell them I had a family emergency." With that, she hurried into the Garden of Woe dressing room, where she hid the rest of the night.

~

The next afternoon when the tour rolled into town, (YN) stood outside the arena waiting for the taxi she called to come pick her up, her bag at her feet. She warily looked at the darkening clouds above her and thought how well they matched her mood: utterly heartbroken. No one questioned her family emergency story until word finally reached Frank.

"That's bullshit," Frank muttered when he heard (YN) was leaving. He had been riddled with guilt since Emily kissed him, and he had a feeling the reason (YN) was leaving was related. She had been avoiding him and he couldn't think of any other reason why she would. He immediately started asking around if anyone knew where (YN) was until one of the roadies said he saw her heading toward the side of the arena, behind the busses.

Frank ran outside, first checking the busses, before hurrying outside the back fence surrounding the arena property. Then he spotted her, shoulders slouched in defeat, picking at her nails absentmindedly, waiting for her ride.

"(YN)!" He called and she looked up. Even from a distance he could see the tears in her eyes. "Why didn’t you tell me you had a family emergency?" He asked as he ran up.

"It’s no one's business but mine," she replied coldly.

"(YN), don't lie," he replied, calling her bluff.

"You first," she snapped back.

Frank let his head hang, running his hand through his hair. "I know what you said about being cheated on before, but it wasn't what it looked like. Emily caught me off guard. She kissed me and I pushed her off! I didn't kiss her back! Please (YN), I was going to tell you, but you've been avoiding me, and now you're trying to leave," he said dejectedly.

"I'm not trying to leave Frank, I am leaving." As if on cue, the dark clouds overhead opened up and a cold rain started to fall on the pair.

"(YN), don't go," Frank pleaded. "We can go talk inside."

"I don't want to talk to you Frank!" She shouted back. "We were gonna be something, we were gonna last! Now I just want to hate you!"

"(YN) don't say that," Frank's voice cracked and he was thankful for the rain, hiding the tears now streaming down his face as well.

Seeing Frank breaking down put a crack into the ice that had surrounded her heart. "Tell me you know what's it's like to have a broken heart."

"I do now," he replied, looking up at her. "I want you to stay, but if you can't, just know I'm so sorry that you had to see that, that it even happened. And that I'll still love you."

With that Frank turned and went back into the arena. He pulled off his wet t shirt and pulled on a sweatshirt but left the hood up so no one could see his face. Everyone knew something was wrong And they expected him to be sad (YN) was leaving, but the level of sulking was unexpected.

"Hey, you ok?" Gerard asked after they were done.

"Leave me alone," Frank grumbled as he pushed past him and stalked to the dressing room.

"Hey, Frank," he didn't stop when he heard Liam calling behind him. "Frank!"

"What?" He barked at the singer when he finally turned around.

"You know (YN) is like a sister to me, so I checked in with her family to see if there is anything I could do to help with the emergency, and they didn't even know she was coming home. So what did you do to her?"

"Fuck you," Frank snapped back, shoving Liam. "I didn't even do anything and now the best person in my fucking life is gone!"

Frank stormed past Liam and out of the arena. He ran back to the spot where (YN) had been waiting, but it was empty. He slowly walked back to the bus, not even caring that his sweatshirt was getting soaked. All he wanted was to get some peace and quiet in his bunk before he'd get called on stage. He didn't want to perform. He didn't want to be in front of a crowd. He wanted (YN) here for him to wrap his arms around, to hold close, to tell her how much he loves her. He walked up the stairs into the bus and pushed back the hood on his sweatshirt and noticed a light was on. He groaned internally and looked up to see who was invading his so badly needed privacy.

"(YN)," he gasped.

"I don't want to go, I don't want to hate you. I want to tell you how much I love you, even if it hurts," she said, her voice cracking. “I just hated so badly the idea of you leaving me that I just decided to leave first,” she said wiping away another tear.

"I never want to hurt you ever again," he replied just as quietly, as if speaking louder than a whisper would cause something to break. “I love you more than anything.”

Frank took a step toward her and tentatively reached out his hand, taking hers. When she didn’t pull away, he took another step toward her and she wrapped her arms around him, sobs shuddering through her body as he held her close.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so so sorry,” he kept whispering as he pressed kisses against her wet hair. He couldn’t help the tears that were falling from his own eyes.

Soon (YN)’s sobs began to quiet, and she pulled back to look up at Frank. “This has been like the worst 24 hours of my life,” she said with a sad laugh.

“Me too,” he replied. “But you’re gonna stay, right? We're gonna figure it out?”

“Yea, I wanna be right here,” she answered before looking up at him. Words failing him, he leaned down and pressed his lips against hers and held her tight.

[popcultureoverdosed]

Big Order. Big Trainwreck

Being made from the creator of the utter monstrosity that is future diary, big order was bound to fail from the start. It's hard to find a writer who fails so hard at telling a story without any form of self-awareness. It's even more badly written than future diary but thankfully less annoying. The anime adaptation only expands on the flaws by adding new scenes that are even worse than what happened in the manga. This is what happens when you hire the creator of Boku no Pico( I'm dead serious) to write the script.

To be fair, the series did have the potential to be good. Eiji accidentally caused the apocalypse ( through a dumbly worded wish) and he has to cope with it as well as having to take care of his sister. Could've been a nice character-driven drama but nope The first episode/chapter was strong but things just go downhill from there.

The story lets the audience know early on that this is a post-apocalyptic setting but it barely plays a factor here. Characters still go to school and use their phones without any problem. Apparently, there's still enough resources to maintain government building and internet service. You'd only know that the city went through a disaster because of the generic scenery of destroyed buildings. Our protagonist is Eiji Hoshimiya, a sullen teen who's riddled with the guilt of causing the great disaster while having to look after his ill sister. How did he cause this great disaster? Some random mystical little girl called daisy appeared before him and granted his wish to save the world, which she somehow interpreted as destroying it.

He lives the normal high school life until he meets a transfer student named character named Rin. She invites herself to his apartment and kidnaps Sena as revenge for her dead parents. While her wanting to get revenge on Eiji after her parents died in the apocalypse is an interesting goal that's her all there is to her character. She acts angry and homicidal towards Eiji whenever she's not having forced as hell ship tease moments with him.  Their fight introduces the concept of orders, a blatant copy of the stand abilities form JoJo that represents the user's inner desires. Rin can use flames to heal from anything and Eiji can manipulate anything within a given radius. The aftermath of the battle results in Eiji accidentally ordering Rin to marry him and him getting drafted in a mysterious political organization called the group of ten.

What follows is a half baked story of political warfare as the group of ten use Eiji to gain dominance over Japan. Your manga is off to a great start when the main characters of nationalistic terrorists.

Nothing about the story or characters stood out. Things just happen and the audience is given no reason to care. How is it even possible to make a cast of superpowered individuals as boring as a brick wall? At least the cast of future diary could envoke emotion in me even if it was mostly annoyance. The only names here I remember are Eiji, Rin, and Sena and none of them are interesting at all. These people are just archetypes and tools used to move the garbage plot forward. There's a character called Daisy who's essentially a goddess but nobody questions her existence and her purpose is very poorly defined. Another character is Iyo who gets pregnant when Eiji touches her ears and tries to rape him in the anime cause she fell in love with his basic bland unseasoned chicken personality in a heartbeat. Said attempted rape never gets mentioned again after it happens. Not only is it offensively bad but if the genders were reversed, I'm sure male Iyo would be portrayed as a villain so seeing her get off scot-free is annoying. The creator's sexism resulted in writing females who only exist to pine after the basic male lead.

                                        Is this shit for real?

The anime also thought it was a good idea to add disgusting incest subtext that wasn't in the manga. Eiji and Sena have an implied sex scene and the show wants viewers to think they're in love. This was nothing more than the director and scriptwriter pleasuring themselves seeing as how said incest does absolutely nothing to develop the two and is never referenced again. Again, the lack of self-awareness and sexism is crazy.

Readers aren't given good explanations on character motivation at all. I read the manga and watched the anime but I still don't understand the reasoning behind most of these characters. A few people wanna take over the world and that's about it. Why has no one made a wish to undo the great destruction? Daisy grants wishes to random people and not one of them at least thought of restoring the world? When nobody has any solid motives or decent personalities, the plot will bomb. The story wouldn't have been this bad if the writer didn't try to make it complex. I would much rather have read a JoJo Esque battle shonen than this poor excuse of a story. At least then it would've been popcorn entertainment.

The most positive thing about the series was the stands er- I mean -orders. Many people complained that the powers were too op( they're not) and were confusing. One person even called Eiji one of the strongest characters in fiction which honestly made me laugh. Op powers are good when handled well but everything is shit here. There's also the music composed by Call Evan. It made wonderful use of jazz and "Dominate", Eiji's theme song is far too good for what this show deserves.

Eiji can control the environment and people around his perimeter with little restrictions yet he always gets his ass kicked. There are hundreds of ways he can win any given battle and he fails to use any of them. He can condense the air to make a shield but rarely uses that ability and never uses it to suffocate his enemies. He never commands enemies to attack themselves. To make it even worse, his power is a weakened form of his maximum potential and in the manga, he can fuse with other orders to get even stronger. Even then he still gets his ass handed to him😶😑🙄. The sheer lack of creativity from both the creator and character is just marvelous. How is it even possible to be this incompetent?

The other characters are no better. The leader guy of the has a rip-off order of kumagawa misogi's all fiction from medaka box. Fact from fiction ( even the names are similar) lets him negate events from reality. Unlike kumagawa who marvelously screws over the main cast from his manga with his ability, the leader guy doesn't advance the plot at all and does not have any noteworthy battles. You also have a guy who can atomize anything, a girl who shoots lasers, a man who can brainwash others and a terrorist who controls rocks. Besides the terrorist chick, none of these people use their abilities in innovative ways. The writer could've taken lessons from JoJo, one-piece and even law of Ueki( so underrated) when it comes to writing superpowers.

The endings of both anime and manga are around just as bad but the manga might be even worse. The anime has an inconclusive ending where the world no longer hates Eiji and he just goes to school. That's it. The climactic battle was him using the full power of his order to manipulate abstract concepts to create a world where Sena can be happy. I'm sure the writers didn't intend for Eiji's last order to be as op as I just described but it Is. He wishes for something abstract and it comes true which implies he would be able to manipulate other concepts. And yet, he doesn't do anything about the run-down world he lives in. For a post-apocalyptic setting, the apocalyptic event barely had any influence on the characters or plot.

The manga comes up with a dumbass plot twist that Sena was the one who caused the great destruction and Eiji was just covering up for her. She turns evil and tries to destroy the world cause she's evil. Eiji refuses to let anyone kill the potential mass murderer and constantly protects her. Did I mention Rin and Eiji and kinda low key dating at this point? Eiji faces sena in an anticlimactic battle followed by a 1-year time skip where their current fate is unknown. And people thought Naruto had a bad ending..... With how abrupt and lazily put together the ending was, I can't tell if the manga was canceled or the creator lost interest. Both options seem highly likely.

                             That’s his sister by the way. Cause incest was exactly what this show needed

With its bland characters, a nonsensical plot and poorly thought out powers, big order is a  clusterfuck of a show that continues to fade into obscurity. Even having a big name creator wasn't enough to keep it within the public eye. I was hoping for a so bad it's a good experience but this was just hot garbage. I give it a 4/10 for its bland character, muddy plot and terribly written romance. It only gets a four because the music and powers were pretty cool.

[fxckingfinan]

Riddle Me This (2/?)

Pairing: Detective!Bucky x Detective!Reader

Summary: Reader is a Detective along side her partner Bucky Barnes, stuck on a case that ends up a little more than they bargained for. She never expected a normal Tuesday to turn into months of consuming work. She never expected to be the target of a riddle obsessed serial killer, and she sure as hell never expected to fall in love in the midst.

Word Count: 2080

Warnings: A couple swear words here and there, again slight graphic detail of wound and blood, idk bad writing

A/N: Let me me know if you guys enjoyed this, feedback is always welcomed!

Previous | Next

Bucky and Y/n were sat in the small diner on 5th street, stuffing themselves full of burgers, fries and shakes to their hearts content. Casual conversation carried on between the two like it always does, except this time Bucky noticed Y/n wasn’t fully in the conversation. Which is true, she wasn’t. She was off in her own world, and the only thoughts going through her head were those of questioning. What the hell was the answer to that riddle, and why was it left? It wasn’t unusual to find weird things at a crime scene but this sure as hell was new. 

“What’s goin on in that head of yours sweet cheeks?” He questioned through a mouth full of fries before washing it down with the vanilla shake in front of him. 

She let out a frustrated sigh in response before rubbing her forehead. Not quite sure if she should tell him or blow it off and say she just needed a nap. This could be a random occurrence and she could be blowing it out of proportion, or it could mean so much more. 

“I don’t know Buck, something just doesn’t seem right about this one.” Lying, but at the same time not lying. Y/n didn’t want to give him the full scoop until she was able to grasp onto even the slightest idea. 

“What, the case today?”

“Yeah. I mean you saw it yourself, it was just weird. It’s like a ghost who also just so happens to be an expert on anatomy decided it was a good day for murder. It was too clean” At this point she was even more frustrated. Having to deal with this stupid riddle at the same time of having no direction was especially discouraging on this summery Tuesday. 

“I know, but until further notice there’s nothing to look into. Our job is done until we get another call.” Bucky’s voice softened on its own record, “Just don’t think about it too much. Are you sure that’s all that’s botherin’ you?” 

“Yeah that’s all.” He was her best friend. She felt guilt settle uncomfortably in her chest after lying to him, but she just couldn’t bring herself to tell him about the paper she was currently messing with in her pocket. At this point in time it was meaningless. Just a piece of paper with words. Words that for some reason rattled Y/n’s bones to the core. 

Just words. 

Before she even realized a week had gone by, bringing her back to yet another summer Tuesday on the job. Bucky had brought the two of them coffee for their day of casual duty, driving around in the souped up undercover company vehicle given to them. Y/n had forgotten about the piece of paper within the first few days, leaving it to collect dust in the drawer of her desk back in the office. She had never been one for riddles, so when she was unable to solve it she tossed it in along side the other miscellaneous sheets she somehow accumulated over the last couple of years. 

“All I’m sayin is if you wanna run with the wolves you have to haul ass!” Bucky was off on some sort of tangent, causing a boisterous laugh to erupt from Y/n’s chest. Apparently a couple days ago, one of the officers on duty had questioned his authority and skills, and if anyone knows him they know how huge of a mistake that was. 

“Alright big guy take a breather.” Y/n let her hand clap down on his shoulder, giving it a gentle rub as her laugh simmered down to a few giggles. He couldn’t help but let a small smile take over his lips as he watched her shake her head at him. Rolling his eyes he gently took her hand in his tossing it off his shoulder jokingly. 

“Yeah, yeah drink your coffee cupcake.” He begrudgingly followed his own statement just as she had, sipping his coffee as he moved his eyes to survey the parking lot they were currently stopped in. Static could be heard over the radio causing both heads to snap towards it, smiles instantly wiped off of the detectives faces. 

“We’ve got a 10-54 on South of Bunker looking for units to respond.”

“10-8, were on it.” Bucky was the first to react, speaking into his transmitter clearly before shifting the car into gear and tearing out of the parking lot. Y/n crossed her arms before settling into the seat. 

“I never really get used to the consistency of crime here.” She thought out loud drawing a half chuckle from her partner.  

“Well you better start, it’s only been about five years right?” Sarcasm dripped heavily off his voice as she shot a hard glance his way. 

“Watch it dick head.” She growled, “And actually, it’s been seven.”

Bucky’s driving was erratic through the streets of Brooklyn, a clear attempt to get to work as fast as safely possible. He wasn’t exactly a bad driver but he definitely wasn’t winning any awards with his skills. Y/n like to call it evasive, and she was especially grateful that their shared vehicle came with more than one ‘oh shit’ handle. Though she couldn’t quite knock him for his driving as hers to be completely honest wasn’t any better. 

“Y’know one of these days you should let me drive the car.” She slid her sunglasses to the top of her head as she waited for Bucky to round the front of the car.

“Not a chance sugar, drivers seat is for the big boys only.” He didn’t want to admit to her the real reason he never let her drive was because sometimes the seatbelt didn’t fully click together and he’d be dammed if they were to get into an accident with her driving. 

“Way to be a misogynistic asshole Buck.” Y/n scoffed, annoyance coating her tongue so heavily she could practically taste the bitterness. She didn’t give Bucky any time to respond as she started up towards the apartment, following the steady flow of police officers to find where she should be. 

“I’m not being misogynistic.” He yelled after her, throwing his arms into the air before mumbling under his breath as he jogged to catch up to her, “God dammit Bucky.” 

When he finally did catch up to her they walked in side by side, his game face quickly slipping over as he approached the scene. 

“What do we have Rogers?” His hands found refuge in the pocket of his slacks while waiting for a response. 

“Good to see you two again. Female, 27, no known family or friends, no forced entry, not even a spec of DNA from the perp.”  Steve’s arms were crossed in front of him as he spoke, his left eyebrow flicking up towards the end. 

“Similar to last Tuesday.” Y/n concluded, more to herself than those around her. An unreadable expression covered her features. “ You think it’s our same guy?”

“Too early to tell.” The captain sighed, gesturing the two towards the body. “Why don’t you take a look and tell me what you think.” 

The two detectives approached the body together, following the same routine of latex gloves before assessing the victim. Y/n looked over the body slowly, eyebrows scrunched together as she tried to pinpoint the cause of death. She let her hands slip into the messy hair in an attempt to turn the head. A small crunching sound reached her ears, and as she pulled her hand back slowly her breath caught in her throat. A scrap of paper laid delicately in her hands. Small words could be seen typed out onto it, just like the last piece she had initially forgotten about. 

“What do you have there?” 

She jumped slightly, her fist closing around the paper tightly as she shoved it in the pocket of her denim jacket. 

“Jesus! Nothing Bucky, just trying to move the head around. Have you found anything?” Her lie flowed smoothly in an attempt to divert attention. She waited for him to say something. Anything. Wishing so badly that he didn’t catch her slip up. Her wish was granted as he turned his head pointing to a slit in her jeans, just on the inside of the victims upper thigh. She looked closer, realizing it was closer to the victims groin area. Blood stained the already dark colored denim, turning it into an ugly almost black color. 

“No fuckin way. Is that-” She mumbled, her eyes meeting Bucky’s in a knowing look. Nodding in silent agreement he opens his mouth to speak lowly. 

“Femoral artery.” 

“This has to be our same guy!” Y/n exclaimed, shooting up from her crouched position. She quickly looped her arm through Bucky’s, tugging him upwards in encouragement to get him to stand as well. Yanking him again to get him to walk at a brisk pace with her. 

“Jesus short stack, I’m coming!” 

“Just because I’m shorter than you does not mean I’m short. Hurry your ass up.” They approached the captain like a tidal wave, stopping abruptly in front of him. 

“Cap it’s our same guy, it has to be! We’ve got a serial killer on our hands.” Her voice held a child like giddiness to it, and if anyone were to look into their conversation they would think she was crazy getting this excited over a serial killer. 

“Hey quiet down do you wanna cause a riot?” Steve hissed in a low voice, “It is way too early to determine a serial killer. Two victims is not enough, do you want the press crawling all over here.” His eyes were intense as he stared down his two best detectives. 

Confusion, and albeit annoyance, flashed across Y/n’s face. She too squinted her eyes as she looked at her friend in front of her.

“What? Cap-“ She stuttered, baffled by how he was treating this. It was their job to call this kind of stuff out. It was their job to keep the public safe, and she sure as hell was going to keep that oath until the day she died. 

“No buts about it. This isn’t a serial killer until I say it is.” 

“With all due respect Steve-” Bucky cut in, anger bubbling in his veins at how dismissive his friend was being. Plus you always have to have your partners back, right? 

“No I’m in charge here and I say no. Stop being dramatic and get back to the station. That’s an order.” The captains lip curled into a snarl, close to how a dog would try and intimidate another animal. 

Y/n’s blood pressure rose as the captain continued talking. Her hands clenched so hard she could feel her nails digging into the soft skin of her palms. Blood surely rising to the surface of the wounds she was making. With a red face she quickly whipped around, stalking out of the building. Uncaring if Bucky was following her or not. She’d never slammed a door harder in her life. 

“Who does he think he is. Fucking asshole. ‘I’m in charge’.” Y/n flared her nostrils quoting him, her cheeks burning as bright as the anger she was feeling. Eyes quickly flickered to Bucky who had just hopped into the drivers seat ready to high tail it out of there. “Can you believe him? Y’know I didn’t realize with the title of captain you had to be a massive dick head. Just, a colossal asshole. ‘That’s an order’? Well, he can shove that order right along with my foot up his-”

“Okay!” Chuckles flowed freely from Bucky’s mouth, quickly cutting them short at the incredulous look he was gaining from his partner. 

“You know I’d support you to the ends of the earth on anything angel cakes, but why are you so passionate about this one?” Y/n’s lips sealed shut, unsure of what to say next. She hadn’t told him about the riddles, and in all honesty she had forgotten about the second one already. She hadn’t even looked at what the words read yet. Thoughts whirred in her head, surely Bucky could be trusted right? Thats a dumb question, of course he can be trusted. Her gaze faltered as she broke the intense eye contact they were making. Biting the inside of her lip as she wrung her hands. Closing her eyes as she took a deep breath, she began to speak.

“I have something to tell you.”

[myheroaizawashota]

[okay sorry these have taken me SO long to get into the grove of again, but have no fear! Why? Because I AM HERE! Also my tumblr draft box has taken a minor crap on its self and is for some reason coding things in HTML code when I go to write the request, so cute. We love that here! @gal-with-pastels Sorry it took so long but better late then never 😅😅]

Growing up with a quirk like yours was one of the most challenging things in the world. Aside from the fear you held for your own power, there was the constant torment and anguish that came along with your peers words as they taunted you for the villainous nature of you’re quirk. You never understood how a group of children could be so cruel, you never hurt anyone, nor did you plan to use this quirk for ill intent. You feared the power you held just as much as they did, and what people fear and don’t understand they tend to beat and exile. Growing up was hard, you learned a valuable lesson, it was easier to claim you were quirkless than to allow anyone else to ever know the power you held. While you always wanted to be a hero, you never accomplished the goal, who would want a hero like yourself anyway.

By the time you reached adulthood, the memories of your past seemed less familiar. Hardly anyone knew about the quirk you held, which played in your favor tremendously. While you never did become the hero you craved to be, you found other ways to help, and other ways to be close to that world. Taking a more behind the scenes route allowed you to mingle and meet all the hero’s you admired all through your younger years, and as chance had it, the love of your life. Never had you expected to meet such big league heros, though working at the top of the best hero agency in japan certainly helped with that. You could still remember the first time you were lucky enough to meet All Might. He was....everything the world pictured him to be and then some. He was charming and devilishly handsome with words that could make the muscles in your legs turn weak and gelatinous. That ever present smile of his could send your heart pounding a mile a minute whenever he casted it your way, blessing your day with it’s mere existence. It smacked you like a bag of bricks to the face when the number one pro hero admitted his feelings for you later down the road. Eventually the two of you dove head first in love, sharing little secrets and loving moments as your relationship progressed along. You’d even come to know the truth behind the muscles, the polar opposite of the well known symbol of peace. Though, through all the truths the two of you shared, you were never able to bring yourself to tell your lover about the curse that was your quirk. It was the only secret you kept from him, and it ate away at you.

As you walked along the dull lit streets of you’re neighborhood, arms threaded around one of Yagi’s, you couldn’t help but feel an ominous presence near by. Clinging yourself closer to your love, he couldn’t help but tilt his head, the proud smile he paraded around in fading to a look of confusion. “Abnormally clingy tonight darling?” He chuckled, the sound of his laughter spinning your fear into nothing but pleasant emotions.

You couldn’t help the smile that twitched across your lips, your eyes casted down as you tried to fight and ignore it. “I’m sorry Yagi, I’m just a little cold is all.” You couldn’t help the sigh that passed your lips. Truthfully, you were sighing at your own inability to be honest with the man. While he told you nothing but the truth throughout the years, all you ever did was with hold the truth from him and tell an endless series of white lies.

You were pulled from the self scolding lecture you’d been having with yourself in your head when you felt Toshinori’s thick muscular arm slither out from between both of yours. Confused, you watched as the overly inflated man you called you’re significant other began to unzip the jacket that hung tightly around his body, he draping the fabric around your shoulders. Leaning in he pressed a small kiss to the tip of your nose, his hallowesd eyes shining as they met with yours. “Well, were a few blocks from home, so hopefully this will help until we get there.”

You couldn’t help the guilt that riddled its way across your features as your hands tugged the jacket closer around your body. “A-actually it’s not just the chilly air bothering me Toshinori....I...can’t shake the feeling we’re being followed.” You whisper softly, moving closer to his side once more.

The edges of his lips twinged as he struggled to maintain his famous smile. He didn’t want to mention anything and freak you out, but he did as well sense the same dark presence that you did. Often nights he chose to walk the streets with you in his true form, but he was thankful when something inside his body told him to walk you home as All Might tonight. His massive palm moved to wrap around your hand, “everything will be fine, because I am her-“

Before he could finish the sentence however, a pair of unfamiliar arms wrapped tightly around your neck and head. You felt your chest tighten, as the dirt stained hands of the villain clasped over your mouth, his lips right at your ear as his eyes made contact with your lover. “Because what? You are here? Ha don’t make me laugh.” Forcefully, the villain tugged your body back, his eyes menacingly rolling your body over, tightening his hold on your neck as he grinned watching the smile began to fade off the pro hero’s face. “I almost didn’t recognize you walking around with such a pretty pet glued to your arm. I’ve got to admit All Might, i didn’t take you as the romantic type of guy.” The monster of a man laughed, he shaking you in his arms, causing your breathing to hitch for a moment. “Why don’t you and I play a little bit and maybe if you win I’ll let your little play thing go”

Toshinori was furious with how low this man would stoop just to get in some cheap shots as a way to boost his ego. Lips curling in disgust the pro hero agreed to the villains terms. “Let her go, and I will fight you.”

Your eyes shot with fear and panic watching as the horror before you unfolded. No, no! He couldn’t fight this villain, with your blood quirk you could feel the power the man restraining you held. Admittedly he was stronger than yagi was these days. Fighting with this man would certainly end his career if not his life! You frantically squirmed in the mans arms trying to warm the love of your life to disengage, but to your dismay all you got in return was a brave smile.

The man restraining your movements gave a low laugh, he uncovering your mouth to grab st your face, he squeezing your cheeks in on hand as he inspected you. “I think I’ll keep her for myself, nothing sounds better than kicking your ass and taking something away from you.” The villain purred moving to let his hands run over your body.

In defiance you let your leg extend out, meeting with your perpetrators shin, your snorting the snot from the back of your throat to lob into the others face. “Over my dead body!” You snapped back.

Growling the villain let his hands drop to your throat, constricting your air way furiously, his free hand moving to wipe your spit from his eyes. “I can arrange that!”

Struggling to breath you moved to pry his fingers off your throat, gasping as you failed. Your only relief was when Yagis fist collided with the mans face, causing him to drop your body to the pavement. You didn’t remember much else after that. The lack of oxygen to your brain was just enough to render you unconscious for the moment.

When you finally came to you, your brain felt hazy. You would have thought you were dreaming if it hadn’t been for the sight your eyes met with. You struggled to push yourself up on your elbows, eyes burning with tears when you saw your lovers body weakly struggling to hold himself upright. Clouds of smoke and steam began to rise from his shoulders, you knowing that he’d reached his limits. Horrified, you watched as the villain lunged to place the final blow onto yagi’s chin. You tried to scream out to stop the action, but your voice was to horse to scream. Doing the only thing you could do, for the first time in years you activated your quirk.

The pro hero had flinched in preparation to take the mans final blow, his heart pounding in his chest when the assailants body suddenly stopped in front of him. What was this about? The villain stood gasping as his body twisted in pain, he falling to his knees. With shaking hands, you clenched your first, causing the man under your hold to scream out in agony. “S-stop.....” you pushed out, earning the look of the bruised and bloodied hero.

You couldn’t tell if the look he was giving you was one of horror or one of disappointment, but regardless you couldn’t stand to make eye contact with him. Once the authorities arrived and the disaster was handled, you and toshinori continued your walk home in an awkward silence. You knew a lecture would be coming from the other, but you didn’t know when. Unable to hold his form any longer, the two of you made a detour into a nearby alley way. His muscles vanished and his body shriveled, a series of coughs ripples through his body. Those normally bright blue eyes that gazed at you with nothing but admiration suddenly staring back coldly. “I think you have some explaining to do Y/N....”

With a quivering lip, you looked down at the ground, moving to wrap an arm around your significant others torso, supporting his weight effortlessly. “I know....let’s get you home and cleaned up first. Then I promise I’ll tell you the truth. The whole truth....”

[sinfvlsovls]

LEVI BOHAN : AN INTRODUCTION.

( theo james, thirty, male, he/him )  — whoa, was that LEVI ISAAC BOHAN i just saw at HARRIMOND STATE PARK? i’ve seen them around town before, they’ve been here for 11 MONTHS. from what i’ve heard, they work for the DELUCA family. for a DEATH DEALER, they’ve been known to be -CYNICAL and -TEMPERAMENTAL, but can also be +ASTUTE and +DEBONAIR. i hope they don’t cause too much trouble!

* insert matthew mcconaughey voice here. * alright alright alright!!! s’up angel faces? ‘tis i, your friendly neighbourhood loser chrissie and boy am i excited to be here among all you talented souls! anyways, i’m gonna attempt to piece together some semblance of an introduction here but forgive me if it’s rubbish ( or waaay too rambly ), i’m the worst ever. you should know, i’m utter plot trash and a major sucker for all of the angst so put the two together and i’m totally there but honestly, throw any plot at me and i will welcome it with open arms. the best place to reach me is on discord ( nep#1610 ) so consider yourselves officially invited to spam me with plots and head canons please and thank you!!! 

THE BASICS.

NAME: Levi Isaac Bohan. AGE: Thirty. GENDER: Cisgender Male. NATIONALITY: British. ORIENTATION: Heterosexual. OCCUPATION: Death Dealer. AFFILIATION: The DeLuca Family. 

THE PERSONA.

The only sentiment that could be expressed about Levi is that of his debonair haughtiness; the perfect balance of an eloquently confident intellect all wrapped up in an artfully sarcastic and impulsively reckless man. Yet there remains a concealed element to him, one he’s perfectly mastered the art of hiding beneath the surface. Ones initial opinion of Levi might be that he appears shallow, the kind of person who is self-absorbed, caring about himself only. To those on the outside looking in, Levi might seem somewhat superficial. That all there is to him is his satirical tongue, aloof nature and a permanent subtle smirk etched into the corner of his mouth. Although on the surface he appears to be a carbon copy of every brooding, mysterious man, adorning all-black attire who drives a jet-black 1963 Corvette Stingray, deep down there is more substance contained within. Despite his suave manner and borderline sarcastic flirtations, deep down, Levi remains the same man who adored his wife.

There is no doubt that Levi carries an air of mystery around him which is further amplified by his lack of opening up or exposing his emotions. Equally, there is no denying that he is incredibly talented at wearing a mask to conceal his feelings 99% of the time. In spite of his volatile tendencies and underneath his sarcastic and cocky demeanour, Levi has a big heart and possesses the capacity to care for a select few people, those he will put before himself; which is rare yet remains to exist inside the crevices of his puzzling persona. This is an element of his persona he’d rather keep in the shadows as he believes it displays weakness and he’d hate for anybody to exploit his Achilles heel. One could say that the attire Levi selects, the facade he plasters on every day is just an act to cover up the fact he is a well-mannered, old-fashioned man who has never been able to shake the wistfulness and memories of past eras from his soul. Where he may come across at times as an indifferent character, Levi is extremely ambitious, always feeling the need to prove himself; a man who is highly skilled and equally as intelligent as he is adept at the majority of things he puts his mind to.

On the flip side of the arrogant and mocking element within, there also lies a segment of Levi that can be extremely persuasive; the portion of him that is aware of his looks which he exploits for his benefit. He knows just how to turn on the charm and talk his way out of situations. His evasive and pretentious attitude can make him seem cocky and unfeeling but as soon as he begins caring for someone, he transforms into an entire polar opposite version of himself. But this is a rarity and so he usually fails to become attached enough to someone to change. Although this vulnerable, caring side of Levi exists, it is important to remember that buried deep down underneath his abundance of angst, Levi’s core is that of a smart ass with a sense of humour. The ease of narcissism and offhand sardonic quips accompanied by a roguish simper the basis of his character.

When he is alone and his flawlessly fashioned charm crumbles to the ground beneath him, the reality of his situation and past decisions kick in, becoming a myriad of memories; a plethora of emotions that overwhelm him to an excessive extent. It is in those vulnerable moments when Levi reaches for the only cures he believes might one day work. The comforting warmth of alcohol burning his throat or the draw of a strong cigarette filling his lungs is what he uses to aid his relentless thoughts; to hush the ghosts that consistently haunt the deepest, darkest cracks of his restless mind. Of course, his actions throughout his life have provided him with more than enough damage, much more than alcohol or nicotine could ever give him. Such catastrophes caused by his self, those are the cause of his burdened soul.

THE HISTORY.

For the most part, Levi’s upbringing had been altogether a positive one. He experienced a sheltered life where he wanted for nothing. His family held a very secured position in society with his father being a renowned criminal lawyer and his mother being a neurosurgeon. It would be safe to say Levi had a lot to live up to.

Growing up a lot was expected of Levi and his future had pretty much been mapped out for him by his parents. Levi didn't mind all that much but his younger years weren't entirely his own. 

Eventually, after Levi had obtained a law degree, he began working alongside his father. Naturally, his father had been proud of his son, going as far as even changing his firm’s name to Bohan & Son.

All in all, Levi had a pleasant life and he often wondered how things could get any better for him. Then along came Olivia, a beautiful woman who immediately captured Levi’s heart at the age of twenty-three.

Eventually, the two wound up married. Those blessed three years Levi spent with Olivia are what the man now clings onto desperately for he knows he’ll never feel happiness like it ever again. 

Levi was twenty-seven when Olivia was murdered. Levi had arrived at their home to find his wife lying in a pool of her own blood and it was clear to the man who was responsible. After he had successfully managed to win a case against a notorious member of a drug cartel, a man known to have committed many atrocities, murder included, that was the moment a target had been placed on not only his head but that of everyone he cared about.

Levi had been warned the guy wasn't to be messed with, he was advised by his father against taking the case in the first place. He can still recall his father urging him that the man had connections and the likelihood of them gunning for him was extremely probable. But the case was massive and some selfish part of Levi wanted to prove he was worth his salt, to advance his career. For a small moment, he didn't care about anything else but putting the man behind bars. It had taken a hell of a lot for the police to get their hands on him so the media coverage was colossal as was the sudden interest in Levi. It was short-sighted and to this day, the biggest regret Levi has. That one night had cost Levi everything he held dear in life and it was something he would never forgive himself for. 

With a deep-rooted rage and an overwhelming thirst for revenge, to see blood spilt, Levi set out on a mission he was determined to accomplish. It had taken him many months and sure, it was risky as hell but somehow, maybe through divine intervention, he managed to pull it off. He managed to hunt down and put down the man who killed his wife. It made him sick to his stomach and when the reality slapped him in the face that he was definitely on a hit list, he had no choice but to run. 

With blood-stained hands and a guilt-ridden heart, Levi fled London; an overwhelming sense of hollowness riddling his chest. It felt as though the organ itself had been carved straight out of its confines, that it no longer existed.

Unable to live with himself, Levi moved around a lot in the following years, looking over his shoulder, until he eventually wound up in New York almost a year ago. Presumably dead to all who mattered to him, Levi remained a desolate and hopeless man, scarcely more than a shadow on the streets of Manhattan. 

For the first few months of his residing in New York, Levi spent his days alone in the bars, drinking himself into a stupor and his nights running wild, getting into fist-fights, drawing blood if some unfortunate soul crossed his path. He had a lot of anger. A lot.

Levi used to be destined for greatness, a brilliant, bright-eyed boy and now he was the man people avoided, crossing the road to get to the other side of the street. He no longer cared about much at all. It no longer mattered how much he had loved Olivia, nor did it matter if his father spent the majority of his remaining existence wondering where his son had disappeared to. 

As Levi continued to spiral, a gradual loathing toward himself settled deep within the crevices of his darkened mind. In the end, Levi was left in the dark, alone; broken and believing himself to be worthless and undeserving.

At least, that was until the DeLucas came along and offered him a job. Well, that's what Levi prefers to refer to his line of 'work' as. Outright calling himself a murderer was far too excessive for his taste. 

At first, admittedly, Levi had been sceptical about the proposition until he figured he already had blood on his hands and it would never dry; there was already a black mark on his soul, no point in caring now. 

Initially, Levi thought that taking the life of another human for the second time would have the same effect as it did the first time but when the guilt he expected never came, he realised he felt nothing. Emptiness, even. It was at that moment Levi accepted that he was capable of doing bad things and he was capable of doing them well.

These days, Levi is a shell of the man he used to be in those blissful years with his family. At one point in his life, Levi firmly believed he would have his happily ever after, but when his chance at happiness had come knocking, a cruel twist of fate had to snatch that away from him. Nowadays he has resigned himself to the reality that contentment is never going to be an emotion he will feel in his heart again. 

Levi is closed off and secluded for the most part. He is mysterious, full of rage and self-loathing and holds everyone in his life at arm’s length, afraid to let them in; only permitting people to see what he wants them to see and know what he wants them to know. 

EXTRAS.

For further information, I have a stats page HERE. I also made a Pinterest board for Levi ( because I’m a sucker for the aesthetics, sue me ) so you can check that out HERE. As for wanted connections and potential plots, I’m working on a page for that but here are some I’d absolutely love:

Fellow assassins ( people he knows who share the same line of work as him; could be DeLuca or O’Hara affiliated. ) A clash of personalities ( someone who challenges or disagrees with him and he returns the favour although they could be friends or enemies. ) Former flings/hookups ( again, can be affiliated with any family and could be angsty or chill. ) Confidant/best pal ( I mean, he doesn’t really do the whole best friends thing but everybody needs a friend, right? ) Friend-ish ( people he can actually tolerate and stand to be around for more than 5 minutes without wanting to either punch them in the face or stab himself in the eye with a fork. ) Drinking buddy ( pretty self-explanatory; the man’s got issues so booze is his friend and who wants to drink alone? )

Give me all of the connections from friends, frenemies, enemies, rivals and everything else in between. Added bonus if there's angst or drama. If you have anything in mind feel free to throw it at me, I’m open to the majority of things and have zero triggers so come at me bro.

[ruthlessribbons]

The Martyr

Chapter 6: Useless

Also on Ao3

Hey guys! Sorry I'm late with this update... life has been, so so fun.

This was chapter was a little more difficult for me to write so I hope you guys enjoy it!

“Cat? Cat Noir!” called a voice.

Cat Noir’s eyes slowly opened, searching for the voice that was summoning him. His vision was blurry and his head was pounding but he thought he could make out the image of Ladybug crouched over him, face riddled with concern.

What happened? Cat thought.

As his vision cleared, he looked around to see bystanders all throughout the street, watching as Ladybug crouched over him, trying to wake him up.

“Cat are you okay?” Ladybug asked, helping him to sit up.

“Of course, M’Lady,” Cat replied, rubbing the back of his head. “Just trying to remember what happened. What happened to the Akuma?”

Before Ladybug could answer they heard the sound of camera’s going off, taking photos of the scene in front of them. Ladybug frowned, pulling Cat to his feet.

“Let’s go somewhere private first,” she insisted.

Cat Nodded, and followed as she jumped to the rooftops, quickly finding a quite place in an alleyway about a block away from the Cafe.

Landing in the alleyway, Cat turned to Ladybug, who wore a stone-like expression on her face.

“So, what happened?” Cat asked again.

“Half way through the fight,” Ladybug began, looking down towards to ground. “The Akuma threw a car each at the both of us, and instead of saving yourself, you extended your baton to push me out of the way, letting yourself get crushed under the car that was thrown at you.”

That’s right, Cat thought. I didn’t have a choice.

Ladybug was still recovering from being thrown across the street by the Akuma, and wasn’t going to be able to react in time to avoid the car. He was too far away to reach her himself but Cat’s baton had incredible extension speed. He was lucky that his baton reached her when it did, otherwise Ladybug may have been taken out of the fight, which would have been bad for all of Paris.

“Well at least it ended well,” Cat said. “That could have been a wreck.”

Ladybug’s eyes shot up, staring Cat Noir down with an icy glare that could cause even the bravest of heroes to tremble in fear.

“M’Lady—”

“Don’t you ‘M’Lady’ me Cat,” Ladybug spat.

“What?” Cat said, taken aback.

“I thought you may have died!” she exclaimed. “That car hit you with such force that I thought I may have actually lost you this time!”

“Ladybug, you know I’m not going anywhere,” Cat assured her, reaching out to her.

“That’s not the point Cat!” she said, batting his hand awar. “Every time this happens you make it out like its no big deal. Like it’s a joke!”

“I don’t think it’s a –”

“Do you think I like watching you take hit after hit? Do you think I enjoy having to fight Akuma’s on my own? How many more times are you going to recklessly sacrifice yourself for me?”

“I’m just—”

“I just don’t understand why you don’t look after yourself more. Why you always have to throw yourself between me and any type of danger.”

“Ladybug calm down—”

“Do NOT tell me to calm down Cat. I was afraid you had actually died this time. Do you know what it would do to me if I had lost you? Do you?”

Cat Noir stared at her, dumfounded and unable to form a response as tears welled up in her eyes. Guilt flooded through him as he took in the weight of her words.

“I’m sorry M’Lady,” he said softly.

“Sorry? That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” she replied coldly, after a few moments of silence. “That’s your response to what you put me through?”

“I’m just trying to protect you,” Cat said calmly.

“Well if you spent less time recklessly sacrificing yourself then maybe I wouldn’t understand why half of Paris believes that you’re just a useless liability!” she yelled.

Cat froze, watching as her hands shot up to her mouth, fully aware of what she had just said. Cat’s expression slowly turned blank, careful to hide any emotion, as regret fully enveloped Ladybug’s eyes.

“You think I don’t know what the people of Paris think?” Cat asked softly.

Ladybug took a step back, afraid of the sudden change in Cat's demeanor.

“I hear what they say, know what they think,” Cat continued, an iciness creeping into his voice. “I know they just see me as just some stupid sidekick who either gets in the way or offers no help.”

“Cat—”

“I know that many of them think that Rena, Carapace or even Queen Bee would make a better partner than me. Hell, I have heard that so often that it’s made me question myself sometimes.”

Cat watched Ladybug’s lips quiver as her gaze drifted towards the ground, feeling the full weight of Cat’s words.

“The only thing that kept me believing that I was right for this job, was that I thought that you at least believed in me Ladybug,” Cat said.

“But I do—”

“Then why would you say that!?” Cat snapped, no longer able to contain his emotions.

“I didn’t mean to say that,” Ladybug pleaded. “I was just upset and I—”

“Couldn’t keep it in anymore?”

“No! I just don’t understand why you risk so much to protect me!”

“Because I have to!”

“Don’t let your feelings for me cloud your judgement Cat.”

Cat Noir blinked, taking a step back, offended by by her comment.

“Don’t insult me,” he whispered. “This has nothing to do with how I feel.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, the fire returning to her voice. “Because I see no other reason that you would constantly endanger yourself.”

“Because if Paris loses you, then that’s it! We lose!” he yelled. “Paris needs you! Without you there is no cure to reverse the damage. Without you we can’t cleanse the Akuma. Without you Hawkmoth wins. Every risk I take is to ensure that that never happens!”

Cat paused for a moment, watching as his words sunk in.

“You’re right,” he continued. “Half of Paris thinks I’m a liability. So, if I was lost, Paris would survive. Paris would move on. Hell, Paris might not even notice. But you? Paris needs you. It needs Ladybug. You’re their symbol of hope. And my job is to ensure that Paris never has to go through that.”

“Cat—”

“All I can do is destroy. I can’t fix things like you can. I can’t even inspire people the way you can. So maybe you’re right. Maybe I am just a useless liability. But at least I can stop Paris from having to endure a future that doesn’t involve you.”

Ladybug opened her mouth to respond but was cut off by the familiar beeping of her earrings, warning her that she was going to transform back soon.

“Well I guess that my cue,” Cat said softly, turning to leave.

“Cat wait!” Ladybug said, grabbing his arm.

Cat froze, waiting for her to speak, but not daring to look at her.

“Do you think I would be able to survive if you were gone?” she asked softly. “Don’t you think I would notice?”

“I always thou--,” he started to reply, hesitating. 

Ladybug took a step closer, hoping to get through to him.

“I don't know anymore.” he sighed, still refusing to look at her. “I just... maybe you are better off without me."

Pulling his arm free, he launched himself onto the rooftops, leaving Ladybug standing there alone.

Marinette had transformed back shortly after Cat Noir had left the alleyway. She had stood there for almost 40 minutes afterwards, waiting, half hoping he would come back, knowing deep down though, that he wouldn't.

Great job Marinette, she thought. You just hurt your best friend.

“Cat Noir will be okay,” Tikki said, flying up in front of Marinette’s face.

“I’m not so sure about that this time Tikki,” Marinette replied, still fighting back tears.

“He’s a tough kid,” Tikki assured her. “He’ll get through this.”

“I can’t believe I said that to him,” Marinette said, falling to her knees and burying her face in her hands.

“You didn’t mean to,” replied Tikki, flying down to meet her gaze.

“I made him think I didn’t have faith in him!” Marinette exclaimed. “He’s my partner and he thinks that I don’t believe in him!”

“You were upset, and scared at the thought of losing him. We all say things we don’t mean when we are upset.”

“But now he thinks I'm better off without him...”

“Then show him that its not true. He just needs some time to cool down, and when he does, you can show him. Show him how much he means to you. How much you need him."

Marinette looked up at Tikki, who was smiling sweetly and confidently at her. It was enough for Marinette to work up a smile in response. Nodding at Tikki, she stood up when she heard a ping from her phone indicating she had received a text. Quickly checking her phone, she realized it was from Adrien.

Adrien: Marinette, where are you? Are you Okay?

Marinette panicked as she realized that Adrien must have come back to look for her. She quickly typed her response.

Marinette: Adrien! When the Akuma was defeated I came out to look for you!

Adrien: Thank god you’re okay. I am back at the Cafe and I was hoping we could finish our day?

Marinette: Of Course! I’m just glad that you’re safe. Be right there!

Marinette made a B-line back to the Cafe, finding Adrien waiting at the front. Upon seeing Marinette he quickly walked over to her and embraced her in tight hug, causing Marinette’s face to blush.

“Don’t scare me like that Mari,” he said, pulling back.

“Scare you?” she said. “You’re the one who ran out into the middle of an Akuma attack to find help!”

“Yeah sorry,” Adrien said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just felt like I had to do something.”

Marinette smiled softly at the brave boy in front of her. Studying his face though, she felt like something was off. What was hiding behind his expression? Was that… pain?

“Hey Adrien,” Marinette began. “Are you okay? You seem a little upset?”

���Of course! I’m fine!” he said, a little louder than Marinette was expecting. Marinette frowned, more worried than before.

“Adrien, did something happen?” she asked, stepping closer to him.

“I promise, everything is fine,” he replied, taking her hand. “I’m just glad your safe.”

Marinette, still unsure, smiled sweetly back at Adrien, who squeezed her hand reassuringly.

“Okay,” she said. “Just know that I am always here if you need to talk. No matter what it is.”

“Thanks Mari,” Adrien said. “Shall we head back inside?”

“Let’s,” she replied.

Heading back inside, Marinette and Adrien enjoyed the rest of their day, free of any Akuma attacks. Marinette was proud of how well she held together, especially considering how much of a mess she normally was around Adrien. It had been getting easier to talk to him over the years though, and the thought of having coffee with him still sent her mind through a loop. Just the chance to spend time with him was more than she could have asked for. Despite all that though, she couldn’t help but think about Cat Noir, wondering if he was okay. Adrien picked up on this a few times, asking if something was bothering her whenever her mind would drift to Cat, but Marinette would just say she was still shaken by the events earlier. After a couple of hours at the Café, they went for a stroll around the park near her bakery, smiling and laughing at all the children playing and falling over each other. Despite everything that had happened earlier, the day had ended well, and as it got dark, they parted with a hug and a promise to meet up again soon.

“What a day!” Marinette exclaimed, falling onto her bed.

I had been about an hour since she had parted with Adrien for the day, and after freshening up and changing into her Pyjamas, she was relieved to finally have a chance to rest her head. It had been a very eventful day after all.

“Did you at least enjoy your time with Adrien?” Tikki asked.

“Of course! It was like a dream to spend so much time with him!” Marinette said excitedly.

“And you even managed to talk coherently!” Tikki teased giggling.

“Oh, ha ha Tikki,” Marinette said rolling her eyes, a smile on her face.

Marinette turned on the T.V. to check the news, when she frowned, remembering back to the Akuma attack from earlier.

“I just hope Cat Noir is okay,” she murmured.

“Trust me, he’ll be okay,” Tikki said, hugging Marinette’s face.

“I hope you’re right,” Marinette sighed.

It was at that moment that she heard a knocking on the trapdoor to her balcony. Tikki quickly flew off into her hiding place as Marinette climbed the ladder, slowly opening the trap door, to see a familiar black cat staring down at her, a weary yes pleading expression on his face.

“Hey Princess, mind if I come in?”

[clarkesrifle]

Firewhisky Tears - Penny Haywood x Reader

Summary; Penny and the reader have been at odds for years now. However, after a bad encounter with Merula Snyde leaves you bloodied and defeated, you figure out that Penny Haywood isn’t as bad as you once thought.

Word Count; 2,561 words

Warnings; Some references to abuse in the household, underage drinking, some nudity however is completely SFW

A/N; Hi! This is my first time writing on this blog, and I am so excited to interact with everyone. Thank you so much for giving me a chance, and I hope that you enjoy my one-shot. This could eventually turn into a series if you guys like it. I take requests for any sort of story, and as of right now this story is unedited, so forgive any mistakes if there are any. I wrote this at four in the morning. This is my first Penny Haywood fic/imagine

Penny Haywood was absolutely, annoyingly, bloody perfect, and you hated her for it.

Everyone adored the blonde, even the fucking birds stopped to chirp at her. Her smile could earn more points than any immaculate potion you brewed or spell you performed, and it made your blood boil. Your family took your failures even harder.

Your father meant well, perhaps. But that didn’t change the fact that you flinch whenever a sudden noise reverberates in the air. Your family name had long since been disgraced with your family’s involvement with the Dark Lord - although your services had not come willingly, it had not stopped the ministry from stripping your father of his wand.

You had met him, once.

A handsome and charming face covered the horror that was Tom Riddle, who appraised you and said that someday, you would be a fierce witch and an asset to his side. Even then, as a tot, you hadn’t wanted anything to do with the man but the look in his eyes made it feel as though he could read every thought that crossed your mind.

And then He had fallen. Defeated by a babe and you sighed a breath of relief. Maybe there was nothing to fear after all — perhaps he was all bark but none of the bite. As soon as you thought your greatest nightmare was long gone, the trials began.

Your father had been lucky enough to stay out of Azkaban, the wizarding prison that was not above torturing it’s residents, but was completely emasculated by being forced to watch his trusty wand snapped to pieces. It was the worst thing a wizard could go through, it was almost akin to losing a limb.

He had quickly grown more and more angry. The patriarch often took his frustration out on your mother, but Gods forbid whenever his fury was pointed towards you. He grew obsessed with the idea of bringing back the glory to your family name, and the only person that ever stood in front of making him proud, was a certain blonde.

Merula Snyde had been particularly cruel this year. In the six years you’ve been at Hogwarts, yourself and Merula had a tempestuous relationship, with ups and downs more dramatic than a Quidditch match. You had to admit, she was a worthy adversary. You both forced each other to be better at dueling and constantly winded up in the hospital wing  because of the other, but even she was more tolerable than Penny Haywood.

Today you found yourself bloodied and broken, but you opted out of visiting Madam Pomfrey (as much as you enjoyed her company, you did fancy winning the cup this year, and Felix had already gotten onto you enough for losing points in Potions that morning).

Instead, you smuggled the bottle of Firewhisky gifted to you by Bill the previous year for your birthday into the Prefect bathroom. Your father had nodded his head towards you and gave the slightest smile — the first you’d seen in years — when he had seen the golden badge arrive with Hjordis, your owl. Ever since getting your first taste of affection, you craved more, and you couldn’t do that by constantly getting in trouble with your superiors.

“Again, Ma’am?” Boris the Bewildered looked to you with a small look of pity. The stone statue moved freely, looking down at the girl who looked so small now. You sneer, tears pricking your eyes as you look back up at the man.

You motion to Boris’ hands. “Judge once you figure out how to put on gloves, sir.” The stone gloves were backwards, on the wrong hand. You had hoped to wipe the look of sadness from his face, but it only made him feel worse for you.

“In dueling, such as in life, there is not always a need to be on the attack.” His voice was soft, so soft and kind that you forced yourself to look away from him in guilt. “It is perfectly okay to cast a defense, be it mental…” he paused, and gently poked next to the gash on your forehead. “or physical.”

A moment passed and you heard Boris shift back into his still state. You breathed again,  and quickly shuffled inside the bathroom and closed the door.

Click, went the lock and you pressed your back against the wooden door. The bathroom was ridiculously large with a bath that looked more like a swimming pool than a place to wash. One side was lined with multiple stalls, directly across from it was a long mirror that covered floor to roof. Finally, the wall opposite from the door could be charmed to look like any environment that the user wanted.

Unceremoniously you removed your shoes and threw them on the marble floor behind you as you walked towards the bath, flinching as your bare toes touched the cold. The taps (there had to be hundreds of them) confused you the first time you came into the Prefect bathroom, but now you found yourself at least somewhat comfortable with the jewel-top taps. You leaned down and turned the clear jewel and watched as water poured out. You could vaguely remember Rowan telling you that the water is charmed to always be the perfect temperature depending on the person.

And right now, that meant that the water was so hot the steam made your shirt stick to your body within minutes.

Loosening your green tie, you moved onto the purple gem, turning it and watching as a series of bubbles filled the water and floated upwards onto the ceiling before popping. With a flick of your wand, lit candles appeared around the room and the lights turned completely off, so that the only source of light were the candles that hovered in the air.

The shirt was next to go and you pulled your hair up into a bun to keep it from getting wet. The shirt, which had been white just hours before, had bright splotches of blood covering it. Pulling the Firewhisky out from your pant line, you placed it down onto the marble.

The green gem. The smell of vanilla and pine trees fill the room quickly and tears flow freely. Pain ebbed in more now as adrenaline left your system and it was getting harder to move. The rest of your uniform came off gently as you winced and groaned and slowly slipped yourself into the hot water, which filled the tub to its capacity and the taps shut off without so much as a squeak.

The soap burned your wounds but eventually it faded into a slight sting. Your muscles, which Merula had cleverly frozen with a body-bind jinx, were stiff and sore and relaxed in the water. You sat on the seat of the bath, which made it so that the tops of your shoulders were above the bubbles and exposed to the cold air.

It was too much. The pressure from your father, the desperation the please him…you almost couldn’t breathe. So instead, you uncap the liquor and take a large swig.

Were your tears from the burning of the whisky or the pressures of your life?

It didn’t matter.

You didn’t care.

You were so lost in your thoughts and drowning in the fiery taste of alcohol that at least made you feel something that you —

“It’s never good to drink on an empty stomach,” a delicate voice called. Quickly you turned around, subconsciously covering the parts of your body that weren’t even visible in the first place. Before you, watching you with curious blue eyes, was the girl that made your stresses even worse, Penny Haywood.

“I thought I had locked the door,” you say without any emotion, placing the bottle back on the floor. Penny nodded, pushing her back off of the wall and coming closer to you. She pulled off her shoes and dipped her toes into the bath.

“You had,” she confirmed, and looked towards the enchanted wall. You had made it look like a beautiful forest, the green on the leaves so vibrant that it calmed you. A deer slowly walked across the wall, bending down into a stream and sipping for a moment. “Interesting,” she said.

“What is?” You didn’t even look at her.

“I didn’t think someone that could be so volatile had a quiet side.” Penny teased, chuckling at you. You simply shrugged in response, picking up your bottle and taking a small sip this time. And then, after a moment of consideration, she held out the glass for Penny to take.

The blonde looked surprised at the gesture. You look at her, taking in her soft expression and laughed gently. Bitterly, you mumbled, “Even the daughters of former death eaters are raised to have manners.”

Penny scoffed. “It’s not that.” She attempted to reassure you. “It’s just…” she took a moment to consider her words. “you haven’t exactly extended a kindness to me in these past six years.” If you didn’t know any better, you might have thought that there was a small tinge of sadness in her voice.

Of course there isn’t, you scoffed.

“Then why spy on me whilst I bathe? Hardly took you for the peeping type.” You teased, a small crooked smile crossing your face as you nudged her knee with your shoulder. Penny snorted, and mumbled something under her breath that almost sounded like you wish. But she took the firewhisky nonetheless, and perhaps it was the alcohol running through your blood, but you found yourself especially aware of how her fingertips lightly grazed your knuckles as she grabbed the glass.

Definitely the alcohol.

Much to your astonishment, Penny took a hearty swig before placing the bottle down to the right of her.

“I followed you,” she started, leaning down onto the ground. “because you were hurt. How was I supposed to know you were coming in to take a bath? You hadn’t brought any spare clothes, just a bottle of liquor and a trail of blood behind you.”

You let out a hmm. “The door was locked, Haywood.” You looked at her again with a smirk on your face as it dawned on you. “You care.”

Penny kicked at the water and splashed you. “Hardly,” she crossed her arms. “I could still dock points for drinking on campus, you know.” She sat up and looked at you with slight humor in her eyes. An awkward silence enveloped the two girls and it almost felt like the conversation had reached an awkward end.

You almost expect to hear the door open and close when Penny stands up, but surprisingly, she returns with a conjured rag in hand. Whispering a barely audible Come here, Penny steps completely into the bath, sitting on the ledge with you.

“Your clothes…” you almost pitifully whisper, making a bright smile cross Penny’s face.

Fuck.

Even her smile is perfect.

Dipping the white rag into the bath, Penny carefully pressed the cloth to your forehead and you couldn’t help but wince. You pull your legs up to your chest gently, suddenly thankful for deciding to add bubbles tonight.

You couldn’t help but notice how focused she looked right now. Her tongue lightly pushed past her lips and stuck out. Bright blue orbs were staring intently at your forehead, and you couldn’t help but think, Were her eyes always so pretty?

“Why are you helping me?” The words barely pass your lips, but Penny hears them nonetheless and pauses.

A beat passes.

“I don’t know.” Penny dips the bloodied cloth back into the water and returned to cleaning your wounds. “But I do know that you don’t deserve the pain.”

You scoff. “I don’t have pain.”

“Then why do you cry when you think no one sees?” Suddenly you grow angry. She doesn’t know you, who does she think she is?

Why is she so right? Your anger quickly dissipates and now you’re left alone with a pretty girl sitting in a bath with you, a girl you’re supposed to hate. “I envy you.” You finally speak again after a silent moment. This surprises her.

“Everything comes so easy for you,” you say. But you don’t sound angry. You sound defeated. “Everyone loves you, you’re the top of every class.” Resting your chin on your knees, you can’t even look Penny in the face anymore. “My father…hates me because of you.” You hate to admit it, but it’s true. It hurts to say, because despite all of his failings, you love him. “All he wants is for me to make a name for myself, for our family…to get rid of our association with the Dark Lord. And then you come along and make it impossible. Being top of my class means nothing if I tie with someone else.”

You speak faster and faster to the point where it becomes hard to breathe, tears run down your face and everything hurts and you can feel your stomach clench because all you want is to be a good daughter but —

She kisses you.

And just as soon as her lips were on yours, she pulls away, and almost subconsciously you try to follow her before you pull back again. Your face turns completely red.

“Oh,” is all you can say.

“You were having a panic attack.” Penny looked just as confused as you do.

“Oh.”

“Was that your first kiss?” She asked you.

Bewildered and even more embarrassed, your face turns maroon. “Well, gee, was it that obvious?” You almost laugh at how awkward you feel and bury your face in your hands.

Penny laughs aloud, you can’t even stop yourself from thinking about just how beautiful it sounds. “No, it’s just…I’ve never seen you have a boyfriend…” a pause, a hesitation. “or a girlfriend?” Penny almost sounds hopeful here.

You look up and shrug. You hadn’t had the time, and although it did sometimes bother you that you had only a handful of friends, your busy schedule hadn’t allowed you to do anything about it. “Never had the time.”

“Well,” now Penny sounds awkward. “How would you like to be friends with me?”

Another beat. In the six years as classmates, this was the first time you had ever seen the most popular girl in your year be nervous. You smile. Genuinely smile. “I’d like that, Haywood.” She nods gently, and like she had when she first made herself known, she pushed herself up and, instead of coming towards you, she walks away this time.

Shoes in one hand, the bottom half of her dripping water onto the floor, she pauses at the door. “Goodnight.”

“Night,” you say. “And Penny? Don’t think that just because we’re friends now means that I’m gonna go easy on you in class now. I’ll still match you point for point.”

Throwing her head back with laughter, her face practically lights up the whole room. “I wouldn’t expect it any other way.”

And then the door closes and you’re alone again.

But instead of feeling so lonely, your lips are on fire and tingling. There is no sadness in the air, but the feeling of a new beginning. You touch your lips and laugh.

Penny Haywood is absolutely, annoyingly, bloody perfect.

And pretty soon, you would love her for it.

[palmburnt-a-blog]

TRUE DETECTIVE (SEASON ONE) STARTERS. send a sentence or send ✉ for a random starter. some trigger warnings apply. continued under the cut. change as needed.

kind of a strange guy, huh?

don’t be assholes. you want to hear this or not?

you know, i’ve seen all the different types.

we all fit a certain category.

i was just a regular-type dude with a big-ass dick.

a smart guy who’s steady is hard to find. 

i’d offer you a seat, but uh...

past a certain age, a man without a family can be a bad thing.

this is gonna happen again. or it’s happened before.

you get that from one of your books?

listen, this is a stupid time to mention this, but you got to come to dinner.

there’s nothing i can do about it. maybe not today. maybe not tomorrow. 

i’m gonna have a drink.

people out here, it's like they don't even know the outside world exists.

might as well be living on the fucking moon.

can i ask you something? you’re a christian, yeah?

i believe that people shouldn’t talk about this kind of shit at work.

look, i'd consider myself a realist, all right, but in philosophical terms, i'm what's called a pessimist.

i’m bad at parties.

i think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution.

huh. that sounds god-fucking-awful, ___.

i wouldn’t go around spouting that shit if i was you. 

people around here don’t think that way. i don’t think that way.

so what’s the point of getting out of bed in the morning?

i get a bad taste in my mouth out here.

i got an idea. let’s make the car a place of silent reflection from now on.

what should i bring for dinner?

when you’re at my house, i want you to chill the fuck out.

i'm not some kind of maniac, all right? i mean, for fuck's sake.

fuck that prick.

we'll lake two large long Island iced teas, please.

what kind of tits does she have?

you get pills pretty easy?

this place is like somebody's memory of the town, and the memory's fading.

stop saying shit like that. it’s unprofessional.

you get any sleep last night?

i don’t sleep. i just dream.

you believe in ghosts?

i'm gonna have to call a little timeout, make a beer run.

why is this so important to you all of a sudden?

she was high. fucked up.

what the hell? you can barely stand up.

i don't drink 'cause I've had trouble with it before.

have some more coffee and just try to make 10 minutes of conversation.

people change, relationships change.

i believe that shit leads to cancer.

then start asking the right fucking questions.

back then, i'd sleep and i'd lay awake thinking about women.

sorry. i drift sometimes when i’ve had a few.

that’s why i like to drink alone.

i get these headaches. they’re like storms.

you know, there was a time that men didn't air their bullshit to the world.

she sounds sad.

vision is meaning. meaning is historical.

days like lost dogs. goes on like that.

i can be hard to live with.

i don’t mean to, but i can be critical.

sometimes i think i'm just not good for people, you know, that it's not good for them to be around me.

i know who i am. 

i’ve hardly had anything to drink.

i have a surprise for you.

you’re very naughty.

you have the right to remain silent.

you’re kinda strange. like you might be dangerous.

i can’t meet a nice man at home.

that hurts me when you speak to me in a passive-aggressive way.

yeah, you just want your cake and to eat it, too.

how good is cake if you can’t eat it?

you're wearing the same clothes as you did yesterday.

think we got started on the wrong foot there.

such holy bullshit from you.

it's a woman's body, ain't it? a woman's choice.

girls walk this earth all the time screwing for free. now, why is it you add business to the mix, and boys like you can't stand the thought?

things like that didn't happen these parts when i was young. people said "ma'am" and "sir."

i think that you need to get your cable fixed and stop confusing me with your soap operas.

old men die, and the world keeps spinning.

i come home, the one place where there's supposed to be peace and calm, and you throw this shit.

it's supposed to be what i want, it's supposed to help me.

we do help you! all the goddamn time!

you used to not be such a chicken shit, i swear.

isn't that a beautiful way to go out?

how many ways are there for me to say, "shut the fuck up"?

what do you think the average IQ of this group is, huh?

can you see texas up there on your high horse?

i think it's safe to say that nobody here's gonna be splitting the atom, ___.

if the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then, brother, that person is a piece of shit.

people are so goddamn frail, they'd rather put a coin in a wishing well than buy dinner.

for a guy who sees no point in existence, you sure fret about it an awful lot.

at least i'm not racing to a red light.

surely this is all for me. me me me. i’m so fucking important.

you’re obsessive.

people incapable of guilt usually do have a good time.

you know the real difference between you and me? denial.

people get better. that’s the thing. i think i am better.

what the hell do you think you're doing, man, at my house when i'm not here?

why is there all this space between us, ___?

it's like i'm that coyote in the cartoons. like I'm running off a cliff, and if i don't look down and keep running, i might be fine. but i think i'm all fucked up.

i don't wanna marry you. that's my whole point. it's just run its course.

you don't have to fall in love at first sight, you know.

you think a man can love two women at once? i mean, be in love with them?

i don't think that man can love. at least not the way that he means.

do you wonder ever if you're a bad man?

the world needs bad men.

who walks that fucking slow?

hey, ___? we're not gonna give you the oscar no matter how hard you try.

you're funny, ___-- the shit you get soft about.

you philandering fucking asshole.

you need to respect me, ___.

leave her alone, you fuckin' asshole.

you lying fuck. you stupid, lying fuck.

i don't give a shit about your goddamn feelings. you need to get out of our lives, ___.

i am calmly discussing a private matter with my wife!

i love you, honey, and i ain't givin' up.

listen, ___, one more time. it's none of my fuckin' business.

i got to straighten out things with the family.

every time i think you hit a ceiling, you just keep raising the bar.

you are like the michael jordan of being a son of a bitch.

the stakes ain't that high anyway. i get found, i take a bullet to the head.

i look dead, motherfucker?

easy, motherfucker. easy.

time is a flat circle.

someone once told me time is a flat circle, where everything we've ever done or will do, we're gonna do over and over and over again.

i'm back. i'm begging. i'll keep begging. i'll go to my grave begging you.

oh, but everybody's guilty.

you know the good years when you're in them.

you might notice it sometimes. this feeling like life has slipped through your fingers. like the future's behind you. like it's always been behind you.

you know, i cleaned up, but maybe i didn't change. not the way i needed to.

infidelity is one kind of sin. but my true failure was inattention.

what the fuck is wrong with you? huh? or is this one of those things that i'll never understand?

___, open the door. open the door, ___.

___, it's just you and me.

you're making it too complicated. you're creating a maze for yourself that you ain't never gonna get out of.

and that is the terrible and secret fate of all life.

___ deserved to die, ___. that was justice.

i, uh i didn't mean no disrespect.

y'all want to step out a bit, take some air?

i think that you're a little angry right now.

you telling me how i feel? that's patronizing.

man's game charges a man's price. take that away from this if nothing else.

in a former life, i used to exhaust myself navigating crude men who thought they were clever, so ask your questions or i'm leaving.

i knew ___ to be a good man, so i can't imagine what i can offer.

all my life, i wanted to be nearer to god.

i ain't been too heroic of late.

god gave us these flaws, and something i learned-- he doesn't see them as flaws.

if you get the opportunity, you should kill yourself.

don't get up my ass - just 'cause you ain't gettin' any.

no, buddy, without me there is no you.

i've been thinking. i think i want you to fuck me in my ass.

i'm the person least in need of counseling in this entire fuckin' state.

you know, people that give me advice, i reckon they're talking to themselves.

you don't know the half of it.

do it. do it!

get your fucking hands off me. coward.

stay down, ___.

fuck him. i ain't his pal.

i quit.

yeah, fuck this. fuck this world, man.

you two fucked each other up pretty good.

buy you a beer?

actually, why don’t you buy me a beer?

you look like you’re doing alright.

i think you don't look particularly healthy, listening to you talk.

i don't dwell in the past.

i'm not interested in whatever it is you think you owe me.

we left something undone. we got to fix it.

if you were drowning, i'd throw you a fucking barbell.

i don't know who he is. i don't know where he is.

did you come here to say goodbye?

my life's been a circle of violence and degradation long as i can remember.

my family's been here a long, long time.

you know, she couldn't have used you, you didn't want some.

there you go. everybody's got a choice.

you never liked being judged.

look, as sentient meat, however illusory our identities are, we craft those identities by making value judgments. everybody judges, all the time.

you speak in riddles to me, white man.

what happened to my head, it's not something that gets better.

ah, he cut me pretty good, ___.

it ain’t bad. it ain’t bad.

are you watching me sleep?

don't ever change, man.

i believe "no shit" is the proper response to that observation.

well, once, there was only dark. if you ask me, the light's winning.

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Educating Vitae

by Shim

Monday, 18 January 2016

In which choices are explored, people do things they know to be bad, blood is unhelpfully like sex, and there are altogether too many types of vampire.~

I must apologise firstly for the title, and secondly for not incorporating any song titles from Meat Loaf into this article. I already spent too long writing it.

So, only six years late, I finally finished reading Vampire Academy.

It’s quite fun. I originally wrote "really fun", but reflection on the social plot has made me a bit less enthusiastic.

The following will contain enormous amounts of spoilers, including big plot-type revelations. I should also point out that the book includes self-harm, and I will briefly mention it but not go into detail.

On Protagonists and Viewpoints

So the book is a little ambiguous about its nature. Let me cite some of the back blurb here.

Lissa Dragomir is a mortal vampire. She must be protected at all times from the fiercest and most dangerous vampires of all - the ones who will never die. Rose Hathaway is Lissa's best friend - and her bodyguard. Now, after two years of illicit freedom, they've been dragged back inside the iron gates of St. Vladimir's Academy. The girls must survive a world of forbidden romances, a ruthless social scene and terrifying night-time rituals. But above all, they must never let their guard down, lest the immortal vampires take Lissa - forever...

Huh. I don’t think I’ve seen a single night-time ritual. How misleading.

But never mind that! The point is, in this blurb and the early stages of the book, it’s not entirely clear who’s the protagonist (as discussed originally in

The Text Factor: Halloween Special: Girl Books for Girls

). The description kicks off with Lissa, and she’s the vampire, and the one affected by most of the weird events of the book. However, our viewpoint character is always Rose.

I wondered for a while whether this was going to be a dual-protagonist book with a single viewpoint character; due to blood bond shenanigans, Rose sporadically ends up in Lissa’s mind, which is a handy way to convey key information. That would have been interesting.

As the story progressed, though, I increasingly got the feeling that Lissa is more of a plot point (albeit a nicely characterised one) than a protagonist in her own right. Her early interactions with Christian, and her special status, suggest that her experiences might be the main focus of the book, with Rose there for support, observation and a bit of romance on the side. However, it soon becomes clear that Rose’s experiences are going to be much more narratively important than Lissa’s.

Introduction to the Vampire

There’s quite a lot of vampire stuff to introduce, especially for those of us not familiar with it. I’ve not idea how closely it fits folklorific ideas of vampires. However, the broad-strokes picture we get of how vampire society works seems to fit together in its own rather bizarre way. The relationship between moroi

[1]

, dhampir

[2]

and humans is clearly unhealthy, particularly their utterly hypocritical view of the people they depend on for blood.

However, Mead is careful to weave in some explanations for this. Not only are the ‘feeders’ providing food, which tends to dehumanise them; they do so willingly and eagerly, because of the intoxicating nature of vampiric saliva, making them into addicts. Society doesn’t respect addicts, so it’s easier to accept this situation. Moreover, Rose calls out the hypocrisy in the situation explicitly, while still allowing shades of it to slip into her own attitudes and words. Knowing something’s morally dubious isn’t an easy route to resolving it, after all.

They were well cared for and given all the comforts they could need. But at the heart of it, they were drug users, addicts to Moroi saliva and the rush it offered with each bite. The Moroi - and guardians - looked down on this dependency, even though the Moroi couldn't have survived otherwise unless they took blood by force. Hypocrisy at its finest.

This trait of allowing grey complexities into Rose’s voice is one of the things that pleased me about the book. Rose is quite perceptive about wrongs, injustices and ambiguities, but Mead hasn’t written her as some righteous, crusading heroine. In fact, the book is riddled with her weaknesses. You might even argue that one of the themes of the book (and, I suspect, the series) is morality, boundaries of acceptability, and the strength and opportunity to make moral choices. Let’s see if I can make a case for that.

Choices and Morality

One of the first things that happens in the book is a feeding; Rose’s vampire, Lissa, needs blood from her. This introduces the intoxication aspect, but it’s only later that we learn how unacceptable – dirty, perverted, unthinkable – this is in vampire society. However, it’s a decision they made to keep Lissa alive, and one that’s left Rose with a mild addiction.

Soon after they return to school, Rose walks into a classroom to find two high-status kids tormenting a poor kid, magically blowing his papers around the room. In many books this would be a teaching point, where Rose or Lissa stepped in to deliver justice and demonstrate their righteousness. Here, nobody does a thing.

My instincts urged me to do something, maybe go smack one of the air users. But I couldn’t pick a fight with everyone who annoyed me, and certainly not a group of royals – especially when Lissa needed to stay off their radar. So I could only give them a look of disgust as I walked to my desk.

And then the narrative moves on to another part of the plot. Although Lissa is technically high-status, and both were once socially powerful, the school has moved on in their absence. Now, the rumours about their escape – and soon about a series of associated events – greatly complicate their attempts to blend back in.

Similarly, Rose frequently does things that aren’t particularly nice, or good, or sensible. As the story is told from her viewpoint, we even hear her acknowledging these issues. She still does them, though. It’s very human.

Some tiny, tiny part of me was starting to feel sorry for Christian. It was only a tiny part, though, and very easy to ignore...

And later on:

"...between stealing [her boyfriend] and spreading those stories about her parents, you guys really picked the best ways to make her suffer. Nice work." The smallest pang of guilt lurched inside of her. "I still think you're lying." "I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a lair. That's your department. And Rose's." "We don't-" "Exaggerate stories about people's families? Say that you hate me? Pretend to be friends with people you think are stupid? Date a guy you don't like?"

All of the above accusations are, of course, entirely accurate.

A feud erupts between Rose, Lissa and another girl called Mia, apparently at Mia’s instigation. Still, both sides are determined to utterly crush their rival and exact painful revenge, which means immense suffering for both parties as their most private secrets are turned into playground gossip by the other side. It’s mutually-assured destruction, basically.

Another important decision involves Lissa’s vampiric powers. We learn early on that Lissa has some compulsion abilities, and gradually discover that she can influence both humans and vampires, which is highly unusual. When their social standing is destroyed by revelations of blood sharing, a furious Lissa resolves to use those abilities to forcibly change people’s opinions of them, catching them one by one and altering their feelings by magic. This does indeed allow them to gradually regain acceptability in the school, but Rose is deeply uncomfortable about it, with good reason.

Finally, there’s Natalie. Poor Natalie.

Natalie is the daughter of a powerful vampire, Dashikov, and she just wants to be loved. Throughout the book, she seeks social validation, but it’s made clear that above all, she wants her father’s affection, and doesn’t quite get enough. This poisonous little worm is enough to turn her into a pawn for him, and his total carelessness about her really reinforced how unpleasant he is. From spying on her friends for his sake, she’s eventually pushed into leaving mutilated animals around in an attempt to make Lissa reveal her healing powers.

Finally, when her father is captured, she takes the ultimate step of becoming a Strigoi, murdering one of the teachers to gain the power to break him out. It fails, and her death is another trivial loss in his quest for power. Once again, out come those Themes I mentioned.

Natalie breaks the bounds of friendship in the hopes of winning validation from her father, and what she’s prepared to do for his sake pushes her into the final betrayal of her friends and her entire species. Although apparently happy, she doesn’t have the willpower to withstand his influence and refrain from doing wrong on his behalf. Dashikov betrayed his duties as a father by turning Natalie into a pawn for his own sake, and manipulating her love to force her into immoral acts. This contrasts with Dimitri, who as a child defeated his vampiric father to defend his mother, and now bursts in to help Rose defeat her one-time friend.

Although Natalie was only ever a minor character, looking back, you can see hints of what’s going on in the way she casually teases out information and hangs around Lissa. I did feel genuinely sorry for her, and I was sorry to see she just got killed off at the climax. On the other hand, stories where the bad guys just hang around indefinitely can drag.

Knowing what’s best for you

It strikes me that throughout the book, I don’t think Lissa ever actually asks Rose for anything. Partly this is perhaps just habitual expectation that Rose will be there, but I feel that part of it is that Rose projects her own ideas about what Lissa needs onto her charge. The mental bond that lets her literally see through Lissa’s eyes and experience her thoughts surely doesn’t help. We never see Lissa’s side at first hand.

This is shown up most flagrantly when she intervenes to block what she sees as an unhealthy friendship blooming between high-status Lissa and the local brooding loner, Christian, whose parents were killed after going rogue and hunting other vampires. Lissa finds his company soothing and there’s a sympathetic spark between them.

Rose, who is unusually bound up in social games for a contemporary heroine, is horrified at the thought of Lissa associating with this outcast, and repeatedly takes her to task. Between her prejudice and his rather erratic behaviour, things spiral until Rose intervenes, actively lying to Christian to separate them. Naturally, both Lissa and Christian think the other party has wronged them, and things become progressively worse. She does become guilty, though, and eventually she’s forced to admit that she was in the wrong.

Nonetheless, Lissa’s story throughout the book is one of having her best interests decided and controlled by other people. Her escape from the school turns out to have been at Rose’s instigation and with no warning; they’re forcibly returned to the school; Rose patrols her friendships and tries to dictate her social interactions; and eventually, Dashikov steps in to capture her in the hopes of curing his terminal illness. Even this he tries to frame as being good for her, providing an escape from the problems caused by her unique magical abilities.

The problems are, essentially, mental illness. For some reason not yet explained, Lissa's abilities not only lead to her mental bond with Rose, but also to extremely distressing mental episodes. Her coping mechanism for this is the self-harm I mentioned above, and there are a couple of explicit scenes, including first-person perspective courtesy of Rose's bond. Her eventual hospitalisation after a particularly bad episode causes yet more social waves, but also kicks us over from the social plot to the Dashikov plot that seems likely to be the overarching arc of the series.

Interestingly, I don’t think Christian ever does this. One of the things that seems to make him a suitable friend is that he’s fully prepared to leave Lissa alone. In their first encounter he simply extends a tenuous offer of conversation, making no attempt to force it, and he gives her plenty of space. When Rose tells him that Lissa doesn’t actually want him around, he immediately pulls back (causing both plenty of grief).

He does approximately set someone on fire to end a spiteful conversation about Lissa and Rose, but in fairness it’s purely a distraction and he doesn’t really get a chance to ask whether they’d like any help. Although he also clearly thinks it’s really funny. It's sort of reminiscent of the earlier scene with the boy being bullied, only this time the observer does decide to step in and face the consequences.

Since neither Jacob nor Ralf would have set Ralf on fire, it sort of made the culprit obvious. The fact that Christian was laughing hysterically sort of gave it away too.

Coming back to my point, though, I do think his willingness to just let her be herself – tied in to his own solitude and need to just be himself – is a strong point in his favour. When he realises she’s been self-harming, he twigs immediately, says nothing, and just exudes a kind of supportiveness that Lissa finds very comforting. He’s also smart enough to realise she’s been mesmerising everyone to restore their social standing, which is another point in his favour. Admittedly, he thinks it’s hot, rather than an alarming abuse of a power she shouldn’t even have, but then he is a teenager, and she is canonically doing nothing harmful with it, so the narrative’s always going to be on her side.

What I’m saying is, basically, I liked Christian as a character. I thought he was a well-constructed love interest, even though we mostly only see him in brief glimpses through Lissa’s eyes, as he doesn’t let his guard down as much around Rose. To some extent he comes across as the conscience of the story, reminding Rose and Lissa of their moral failings.

In fact (if I can be astonishingly pseud for a moment) you could almost posit him as a jester; his outsider status, total lack of social power and uncaring badass lonerism means he can speak truth to power (and set people on fire) with impunity, having very little to lose. He's also positioned to observe the other students without much personal involvement, and thus to comment on them.

I found Dimitri appealing as well. Mead did a good job of building the connections between him and Rose – they have similar mindsets, a strong sense of dedication, they feel somewhat isolated, and they’re very physical people. In both cases, they bring an outsider perspective that gives rise to mild contempt for some aspects of vampiric society; a sort of flipside to Christian's status as scion of a family fallen to the strigoi.

Yet they’re not entirely the same. There are clear differences in upbringing: she was raised by the school and indoctrinated from birth to become a model guardian like her mother; he was raised in a tight-knit community of blood-donors. Age also creates a distinction: I can see Rose eventually maturing into a more measured person, though probably still less reserved than Dimitri.

The older lover thing is a trope, and being a trope it isn’t quite as problematic as a 17-24 relationship would seem to me in real life. Rose has also been surviving in the real world for two years, so she’s a bit more savvy than her years. I was pleased that Dimitri, and to some extent Rose, recognised and tried to deal with these issues. As well as the simple age barrier, school rules, and his pastoral responsibility towards her, there are some professional complications.

One odd observation: given how Dimitri is presented as a consummate professional, he completely misses a massive and glaring clue that something suspicious is going on, and the narrative skips right over it.

"Well, it was a hell of a lot better than the last one they tried" "Last one?" "Yeah. In Chicago. With the pack of psi-hounds." "This was the first time we found you. In Portland." "Um. I don't think I imagined psi-hounds. Who else could have sent them? They only answer to moroi. Maybe no-one told you about it." "Maybe," he said dismissively. I could tell by his face he didn't believe that.

It's not very clear to me whether this is supposed to mean "he decided Rose was making it up" or "he was deeply suspicious and pretending not to be". Either way, nothing seems to suggest that anyone actually follows up on this obviously suspicious point, even though it ties strongly into the conclusion of the story.

Changing Minds

It’s maybe worth noting that this offers one of the more accurate portrayals of manipulation and social dynamics I remember seeing. Everyone involved is aware that what they’re dealing with is say-so, rumour and gossip, and quite harmful gossip at that, but they nevertheless either spread it or at least allow it to influence their behaviour. First Lissa, and then Rose, know the other’s desire for revenge is excessive, but they don’t seriously intervene and eventually both are committed to destroying Mia (we never get to see Mia’s side, sadly).

This isn’t just about bitchy girls, either. The boys in the story don’t come out too well. Several are happy to spread damaging lies about girls to get some attention, or even to be bribed with sex. There’s petty bullying, and Lissa and Rose are regularly targets of leering remarks and speculation on their relationship. Even the nicer named boys, Mason and Christian, are hot-tempered and use violence to defend Rose and Lissa from bullying. Only Dimitri, Rose’s smoking-hot combat instructor, escapes most of this – and as a 24-year old, he’s presumably matured more than the others, though he does have one aggressive confrontation with a student.

The school principal is interesting in the little we see of her. Rose views her quite clearly as despotic and arbitrary, but I don’t think the text quite supports that. She is quite harsh with Rose and Lissa, but then she has very good reason: they have committed a serious breach of rules by running away for two full years, causing enormous trouble and worry for a lot of other people. They also appear to be habitual troublemakers (lots of illegal parties and midnight escapades) and smashed up another student’s bedroom before leaving. Of course she’s going to be strict.

Moreover, this isn’t just normal school strictness; the vampires face the very real threat of strigoi hunting them down. In the absence of a very good explanation, which the girls don’t dare to give, severe punishment is inevitable and appropriate. She does intend to expel Rose before Dimitri intervenes, but then again, she’s prepared to change her mind when he agrees to take her in hand. I thought she was pretty well-done as a character.

Social Protagonists

On that social games point – my observation (from an admittedly limited subset of reading) is that the majority of protagonists in contemporary literature, particularly literature aimed at younger people, don’t really dabble in social politics. Many are bookish nerds, particularly on the more fantastical end of the literary spectrum. Many others are simply everyteenagers; they’re averagely attractive (at least in theory), averagely clever, have an average number of friends, and so on. I can only remember seeing high-status people in more literary books, or that high-society flavour of romance a la Jilly Cooper. Historical novels seem much readier to star nobles and the socially-influential, possibly because those are the bits of history that sound most fun.

As such, it was interesting to see a story whose protagonists were enthusiastic participants in the social scene. I was a little disappointed to realise that that was going to be strictly past tense; I suppose it does make sense for things to have changed in their absence, including their own feelings. Mostly, though, I imagine the narrative called for them to have to make new friends and not have very much support, because most of this volume is about that social uncertainty, and how it leaves them vulnerable.

Oh Sole Mia

Mia was actually the aspect of the book that I thought was weakest. I liked the fact that there was an apparently-arbitrary rivalry between these girls, and was quite sympathetic to Mia. Truth be told, I still am. We learn that her family are very low-status and she’s managed to work her way into more influential circles – another example of boundary-crossing, as this seems to be viewed in much the same way as social climbing in 1950s Britain, but seems quite reasonable to me.

Later it’s revealed that the reason for the feud is her appalling treatment by Lissa’s deceased brother, which Lissa is naturally reluctant to believe (as quoted above). Again, the brother made bad choices and harmed Mia both personally and socially in the process. However, Lissa loved and had faith in her brother, and it's difficult for her to accept that he was not only in the wrong, but actively wronged someone else. The fact that she's currently in a serious feud with Mia naturally makes that even harder.

I felt like both sides were being realistically angry and vindictive, but both were also understandable and sympathetic in their motivations. Although Mia technically starts the feud, she's clearly on the defensive from the start, responding to what seems an invasion of her social territory from someone she hates both as a royal and as the sister of her horrible ex.

Later on, though, the authorial voice turns violently against Mia. She becomes increasingly desperate in the face of the nobility closing ranks against her (which is quite understandable), and resorts to trying to get Rose’s help after a fall-out between her and Lissa. This is a sort of unpardonable sin in narrative terms, trying to create a betrayal between friends, and she’s quite explicitly painted as dangerous and ruthless. Of course, this is all in Rose’s voice, but it also felt fairly clear that this was the reality.

Worse is to come, though; it turns out that Mia spread rumours by offering sexual favours to a couple of bragging lads, while in a steady relationship with someone she’s apparently devoted to. This is the point where the narrative switches from nasty-but-somewhat-understandable to, it seemed to me, depicting her as genuinely obsessive and (in Rose’s words) “well into sociopath territory”. It’s not the actions specifically, so much as how far she’s willing to push boundaries in pursuit of revenge. Rose, on the other hand, is the Sexy Spice half of the Rose-Lissa pair, but the text is careful to emphasise early on that she hasn’t had sex, despite all the kissing and “semi-nakedness” that’s brought up regularly.

The problem is, though, that this leaves us with an antagonist who is flat-chested (highlighted very early on), short, relatively unpopular (until she started dating Lissa’s royal ex, apparently), working-class, and promiscuous, who is also portrayed as nasty and sociopathic. I feel like the conflation of those things is a bit unnecessary – I’d rather hoped to see the end of Bad Common Girl when I stopped reading Enid Blyton. She’s left to contrast with a conventionally-attractive, athletic, popular, high-status party-girl heroine who’s conveniently balanced between “sexy” and “virgin”.

This increasing vilification of Mia helpfully means that Rose and Lissa never have to really reconsider their own actions or question their consciences. In fact, the final flare of this plot in the book involves Mia making yet more bitchy remarks while Lissa is in hospital, and Rose punching her in the face. The uberplot kicks off while she's under lock and key, awaiting punishment. Narratively, Mia is placed firmly in the wrong, and I think that's a shame.

Weirdly, in some ways I actually felt more sympathetic to Mia than to Rose. She’s got plenty of issues, but she had been very badly treated by Lissa’s brother, and had fought had to overcome the major social disadvantages of her background in a prejudiced society, only to have that stripped away by the sudden return of Lissa and Rose.

To a large extent I also felt she was treated badly by the narrative, with Mead making an apparently conscious decision to make her a nasty piece of work and piling sexual condemnation on top of that. I’d have liked to see an antagonist who was just someone whose interests constantly clash with the protagonist, and I feel that would have worked well, given how Rose is constantly presented as flawed.

The Sex Talk

Awkwardly, I think the book is framing a lot of the social stuff around sex. I don’t know much about the sociology or literary issues here, so apologies for the aspects I will undoubtedly miss. Essentially, there’s a slightly weird thing where blood is sometimes a sort of metaphor for sex, except there’s also sex. You know?

People who provide blood to vampires are popularly called “blood whores”, which seems to be completely acceptable terminology – the only alternative, “feeders”, isn’t much better. I’m a bit surprised there doesn’t seem to be a single official or neutral term in use, even if teenagers don’t use it. The characters conflate these with the dhampir communities who raise children, creating an impression that non-guardian dhampirs (mostly women) are basically just sources of blood or sex or both for moroi. It’s not entirely clear how accurate this is in the setting.

The entire blood-sharing issue, which is the cause of Lissa and Rose’s fall from grace, is explicitly depicted as both “dirty” and strongly associated with kinky sex. The rumours spread about them claim that Rose has been sleeping around while allowing vampire boys to drink her blood - which is, predictably, treated as only being icky on her side, because sexism.

I mean, it makes some sense. I can see that in a world where “people you feed on” is an actual thing, then taboos would quite likely arise on also having sex with those people, and that all sorts of baggage would build around this.

The awkwardness here is that half their social redemption comes from proving (well, getting those same accusers to declare) that it’s all lies and Rose never actually had sex with anybody, let alone allowed them to drink her blood (the issue of Lissa is allowed to drop). The second half comes from revealing that, while Rose hasn’t been having sex, Mia has, which makes her the slutty one, so ner ner na ner ner. More or less.

It’s all fairly believable behaviour-wise... no, wait. The responses of the teenagers to these various bits of gossip and scandal are sadly believable, though Mia’s behaviour specifically was pretty hard to credit as plausible. At the same time I found it uncomfortable, because these attitudes were also bundled with Mia being quite clearly the spiteful antagonist and also presented as somewhat unstable, and the fact that she specifically uses sex as a lever to get boys to lie on her behalf.

Broadly speaking, you end up with a situation where Our Heroine is vindicated and approved because she wasn’t having sex, whereas Our Antagonist is condemned because she was having sex. This is, bizarrely, true even though Rose and Lissa actually were doing the blood-sharing that’s the biggest part of the taboo, whereas Mia just had sex.

It’s also a bit strange that as far as I can tell, the two boys who spread vicious lies about Rose in exchange for sex are perfectly happy to admit it and don’t seem to expect any consequences. Sexual mores are messed up, but in my experience flagrant lying tends to cause social backlash – and more so considering that the targets of the lies, Lissa and Rose, were social bigshots whose popularity is now restored. As far as I can tell, they agree to come clean under threats from one of Rose’s friends, but I didn’t find it entirely convincing. It felt a bit like the writer just needed to wrap this arc up now to start introducing the series plot.

It wasn’t a huge problem for me or anything, but this Rose-vs-Mia arc is the biggest arc of the book (it’s a series, so the main plot only just gets a look in), so it seemed a shame it had this awkward aspect to it. I feel like just dropping the sex aspect and having the scandal built purely around blood-sharing would have been both neater and stronger, as well as less problematic. As it was I didn’t feel like this arc was very well written.

The end bit

I feel like I should have some kind of conclusion here, but I don't really. I'm not sure whether I'll read any more of the series; I thought some of what it was doing was quite interesting, but I've noticed how much hmming and hawing I'm doing here, especially over poor Mia. The fact that I'm even thinking "poor Mia" is perhaps an indication that this series isn't for me.

I must also confess that I've got limited tolerance for plots along the lines of "you alone have the one special magic long thought lost or legendary, which will be the key to saving the universe".

On the other hand, I liked the bits of it that weren't about Mia, and maybe with the uberplot kicking off, that won't be much of an issue? I dunno. I've got plenty more to read right now. But perhaps, as with

Fallen

, now that I've worked out what the series is doing I've got what I need.

[1]

“Vampires” who are, as far as I can tell, essentially human wizards who drink blood but not in a bad way you guys, and also don’t like sunlight. They don’t seem to be superhuman other than some elemental magic.

[2]

Half-vampires who are basically Buffy as far as I can tell, but get brought up to be fanatically loyal to their vampiric masters and dedicate themselves to either protecting moroi from attack by the strigoi

[3]

, or being “blood whores” because… why not, as far as I can tell. Maybe it’s hard to get social security numbers when your parent was a vampire? Your dad, I mean. Dhampirs are basically all the bastard offspring of horny male moroi who wanted to get some curvy human female action, because moroi are always pale, thin and flat-chested.

Canonically, the dhampirs do all this to ensure the survival of their species, which is to say, their hybrid. Given the reality of dhampir life, I’m not sure why. Basically this seems to boil down to accepting a brutal life of either dedicating yourself to being elite bodyguards for feeble moroi and under constant risk of death, or being junkie blood sources for moroi and at constant risk of abuse, or breeding the next generation of dhampirs – in order to ensure that you can have descendants who have the same kind of lives.)

[3]

Vampires who are canonically evil because they kill their victims, although I get the feeling they’re mostly bad because they feed on moroi specifically to be honest. Also their bite turns people into more strigoi. They’re presented as being incarnations of predatory evil, but from the one strigoi we meet in the book, they come across as a mixture of Character In Goth Makeup and

Character In Evil Voice

. Basically these seem to be the Buffy Vampires of the setting – basically just like they always were, except faster, stronger, more metal, cooler and probably sexier.Themes:

Books

,

Young Adult / Children

,

Horror

,

Text Factor Halloween Special

,

Romance

~

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~Comments (

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Bill

at 17:25 on 2016-01-18

The girls must survive a world of forbidden romances, a ruthless social scene and terrifying night-time rituals. But above all, they must never let their guard down, lest the immortal vampires take Lissa - forever...

Two out of three ain't bad

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Shim

at 18:31 on 2016-01-18

Two out of three ain't bad

I... how did I miss that? *facepalm*

Also I just realised this cover is different to mine (probably the US edition?) and although it's the exact same photo, mine is very pale with black hair and red lips (classically vampiric), whereas the above is pinkish with... brown hair, I think?

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Robinson L

at 15:00 on 2016-05-24I checked this one and its sequels out, along with

Fallen

and

The Morganville Vampires

after the TeXt Factor Halloween special. I read the final book, book 6, a year or two ago, and I recently started listening to the spin-off

Bloodlines

series on audiobook. So, I obviously liked it—quite fun on the whole, with occasional forays into really fun. I'd put the series somewhere above

Fallen

, but below

The Morganville Vampires

in terms of my enjoyment/appreciation.

(I also encouraged one of my sisters to read the first book, and while she enjoyed it, she loathed Lissa and all the Moroi, because she considered them useless in their dependence upon the dhampir guardians.)

I broadly agree with your case for the themes the book explores, and I'd definitely say it carries over to the rest of the series—and the first two spin-off books, at least. Interestingly enough, despite dealing with these fairly weighty issues in a moderately intelligent manner, the books still come across to me as light beach reading; I still haven't worked out whether I think that works towards their favor or against it.

Book 2—where my sister bailed on the series—is a downgrade in quality from the first, as there's less stuff going on through most of it. However, it rallies at the end with an exciting climax, and one which redress one of my major disappointments with the climax to the first.

Book 3 is a return to form, and a solid addition to the series.

Book 4 is, in my opinion, the best of the lot: here we see Rose's internal struggle at its most intense, and Rose herself at her very lowest point in the series. I said the books feel like beach reading, but there was a point about two thirds of the way through the fourth book which got me right in the heart, and I was impressed with the depth of emotional reaction Mead managed to evoke. Plus, the Lissa subplot was pretty cool, and the resolution was both awesome and unexpected.

Book 5 like Book 3, is a really solid addition to the series, though it feels like a bit of a downgrade coming off the high of Book 4. Still, it's got a lot going for it, and while the big plot points themselves aren't to surprising, I wasn't expecting when or how they would play out.

Book 6 was a little disappointing, not because it did anything really bad, just that it wasn't quite as exciting as I would have liked from the final installment. While I like that the climax doesn't revolve around a big fight with an Arc Villain for the series, I could have done with something a

little

more epic. Plus, the villain turned out to be a very likable character I'd pegged early on as being either a villain or a victim, because they didn't fit into any other story slot. Just when I was beginning to think this was just a cool supporting character, it's revealed that person was a villain after all. Sigh.

I agree with you about Natalie, poor thing.

As I recall, the school principal is, indeed, a strict but ultimately reasonable authority figure throughout the series, whom Rose misreads because Rose's and Lissa's behavior often brings out the “strict” part of her character. Actually, that's a bit of a running theme in the series.

From what I remember of the first book, Mia does degenerate from understandable antagonist to Designated Villain, part of which involves her engaging in sex to influence someone else's behavior—rather than for love, in contrast to both Rose and Lissa* over the course of the books—and that's not good. It's probably no big spoiler to reveal that Mia is rehabilitated later in the series, but as I recall, it's a case of a reformed villain rather than both sides admitting they shared the blame equally.

*I think Lissa slept with her then-boyfriend—Mia's current boyfriend—before the events of the book because she was young and horny, which is still more “legitimate” than sleeping with someone because so they'll help you out in your evil scheme.

I also felt like the series as a whole has a disappointing lack of follow-through regarding some of the more unpleasant aspects of Moroi society. The hypocrisy over feeders (I think that

is

the common parlance “neutral” term) is brought up at times, but nobody ever really tries to do anything to resolve it, so the overall message comes across as a helpless shrug, “too bad, what'cha gonna do?”

Furthermore, the books never really acknowledge how immensely f*cking scary the Moroi's compulsion magic is, and how, in a more realistic universe, even well meaning people like Lissa would probably wind up using it for much more destructive purposes than undermining their rivals' popularity; kind of like a miniature version of the One Ring. (One character in the

Bloodlines

novels is suitably freaked by it, but this is explicitly depicted as part of their irrational distrust of Moroi and magic in general. Not once so far have we seen how easily compulsion could be abused to disastrous effect. I know Robert Jordan had a lot of flaws as a writer, but his characters knew to treat that kind of power with the respect and suspicion it deserves.)

The Moroi's institutional aristocracy and monarchy (even if it's a constitutional monarchy) also strikes me as pretty disturbing, but no one even suggests there might be something wrong with that one.

I think Mead does a better job of keeping Rose's faults and flaws as a character foregrounded, even with Rose providing first person narration the whole time, while still keeping her a likable character. One of the fascinating things in the later books is the way Rose gets into relationships which we know because of narrative convention are never going to work out, and which she has some misgivings over, but which she talks herself into anyway, sometimes multiple times, and the boy in question is so enamored of her that he keeps holding out the hope she'll commit to him for real. It's very unfair of Rose, and depicted as such, but also as completely understandable given what she's going though. It's like a total deconstruction of the Evil Girlfriend Who Toys With Innocent Boys' Emotions archetype, without ever hitting you over the head with what it's doing. (Indeed, I could be prepared to believe Richelle Mead didn't set out to explode this stereotype at all, and just happened to do so in the course of writing about a young woman caught up in an Epic Tragic Romance trying as best she can to navigate a swathe of feelings and emotions which she doesn't fully understand.)

The older lover thing is a trope, and being a trope it isn’t quite as problematic as a 17-24 relationship would seem to me in real life.

Me too—although on the other hand, one of the best matched couples I know got together at ages 17 and 30, and they're still going strong 8 years later. Funny old world.

On a tangential note, it's really weird to consider that I'm now several years older than Dimitri in the books. The way he acts, I guess I always tend to think of him as being in his early 30s, rather than early 20s.

I must also confess that I've got limited tolerance for plots along the lines of "you alone have the one special magic long thought lost or legendary, which will be the key to saving the universe".

For what it's worth, we meet a couple of other spirit users over the course of the series. Also, while Lissa's magic is, indeed, critical to the plot, it is not the key to saving the universe, as that's not really what the books are about.

We learn a lot more about Strigoi in later books, too, and they do indeed come across a lot like Buffy-esque Vampires: pretty much the same personalities, and they seem to have some sort of feelings for other people, and yet still somehow evil and uncaring, and the juxtaposition of the two is about as awkward as you would expect. (I fantasized while reading those sections that the Moroi and the Guardians might just be mistaken, and Strigoi, while alien and with very different priorities, might not be actually evil and uncaring. No such luck, sadly.)

If you do decide you want to continue reading the series, don't get attached to the psi-hounds. They get dropped so completely in later books that I was shocked to see them when the film version of the first book came out, as I'd literally forgotten they existed.

[storiesnstormsinmyhead-blog]

What is my illness

Care For The Ones Who Don’t Care

“Owww”, my fingers feel bruised and numb as they smack against furniture. I lay back and close my eyes, nausea sways  behind my lids and I lurch up. Staring around feels even worse but at least it surpasses the need to hurl. My head is nothing but fog and everytime I try to move my body involuntarily thrashes. What did I drink… I Don’t actually remember. Panic sweeps across my body quick and cold. Laughter filters through the stairs above my head, people having fun. I curl up on myself despite my disgusting stomach and a sob rises up in my parched throat. Parched, I need water… I don’t want to suffer the headache again. Headache… pain.. Fuck. “You go to hard, I’m afraid one day you’ll smoke a bit of herb then the next day you’ll be shooting up in a crack house.” Well maybe he was right, I go to hard, and now I’m alone and scared. More rough sobs shake my body and I start convulsing. Gripping my shoulders I fight the sick feeling in my stomach. There is no one I want, no one I can trust… Nobody cares. Wait... that’s a lie, Jill cares. She loves me, she’s trying to take care of me tonight in her own way, in the only ways she knows how to.

“Hey”, I jump at the knock at the door. “It’s me”, me who, “I brought you some gatorade and a sandwich.” A hand reaches through the door and hands me a plate. My stiff fingers almost drop it. I fight the tears and make my voice sound normal.

“Thank you.”

“No problem. Tell us if you need anything else?”

“Yeah thanks…” The door shuts and he leaves. I put the sandwich on top of the shelf and melt down into the mattress. Why do I do that? How do I go from sobbing and cracking apart to stone faced and put together. Can’t I just breakdown, is it okay to cry like a baby in front of people.

“You’re so manipulative, please stop crying.” Am I toxic. My head pounds and tears just start coming. Is it really so toxic to want to feel something, to not be okay all the time.

“He’s just so depressed I can’t deal with it.” “I can’t deal with you when you’re sad, it brings me down.” Tears dry up as words echo through my brain, words that have been spoken to me or about people I relate to. Words said about people who are just grasping to find something to hold onto. My life doesn’t have meaning, what am I living for? Everyday, school, work, working and saving for a future I don’t even think I will be alive for. In all honesty I don’t think I will live long, may be a few more years, but there’s nothing nailing me down, one day I’ll just decide I don’t want to crash again. My fingers scrabble and I bring out a small piece of metal.

My hands shakily open the safety pin, it’s like they don’t belong to me. It descends. It really doesn’t hurt. My whole body is to turbulent, it’s no longer mine so I don’t feel the pain. Slash after slash until I’m done, I feel it again, I feel something. Finally the tears come back. I hiccup and just bleed them out. The heaving brings up my dinner and bile rises in my throat. I barely make it to the barf bag. When I am done I cover my cuts, open the closet door, and make my way upstairs to face everyone. Drying my face off I simply ask, “Where do I put this..?” In the morning no one would know what had happened, they wouldn’t even guess. That is the way I want it, because how would they deal with it. They could say they were sorry they left me alone, they could say many things, but I don’t want them to feel the guilt. I never asked for help so how would they know I needed it. How would they know how lonely I was, and how hopeless I felt. I would watch my own back and take care of myself.

How in the name of everything is that taking care of myself? You may ask me. I could respond in many concerning ways but I will explain instead. Taking care of myself has many different definitions. It could be anything from eating right and working out today to doing my homework tomorrow and staying alive tonight. No I’m not being dramatic when I say staying alive, I mean it. Some days it’s all I can do to eat and sleep. Other days I can maintain two jobs, a social presence, and school. That is the nature of the beast. This beast in called depression, coupled with the dry winds of anxiety they tango in my head. Some people call it crazy, call me dramatic, maybe I am being dramatic. I can never tell. Is it okay to speak your mind and be honest about just wanting to die. Or should I shut up and pretend to be okay for the rest of my life? I don’t think I give enough fucks to shut up for my whole life. I will give people the option to walk away without guilt but if they stand by me they are consenting to seeing some shit. “It won’t be pretty, it won’t be nice.” I don’t remember where those words are from, probably some song I’ve blasted my hearing away with. My demons don’t define me but I am not going to pretend they don’t exist. People say I’m a lot to handle, guys quickly become disinterested when they realize how insane I can be, but I will not change to make it easier on them or anyone. I will continue being myself.

I mentioned before defining self care, self care is when I make something of myself, when I do something to make my day more livable and make me more strong. Often it is healthy food and hydration paired with a steady workout regimen. Making sure I don’t procrastinate to long to stave off stress. Keeping a decently clean living environment, not bottling up too much. Living each day case by case and making each day worth living. Surrounding myself with people I find to be more genuine and relatable, and when it gets bad just putting my hair into a messy bun, plugging in some death metal or hard rock, chugging my coffee and dealing with it. I don’t do that cleanse stuff, I won’t diss dieting or cleanses, but I don’t see a reason to put myself through more pain. I live on the fine line of comfort and productive. Too much comfort I get bored and depressed. Too much stuff to do and I shut down.

A good outline of self care is:

Workout a little every day you feel like it, not everyday and if it is painful you haven  taken it too far.

Eat healthily but don’t be afraid to indulge, eat your veggies and fruit but also treat yourself to quality sugar, just not too much.

Start everyday with a big breakfast and the small comforts, you’ll get to busy to indulge later.

Sleep 7 hrs a night at least.

Make goals.

Find little things to get excited about everyday.

Make sure you study and do your work.

Work a job you kinda like.

Live in the now, don’t think about the future.

Give someone a reason to smile everyday, don’t be pushy but trust me, making other people happy can do wonders when you can’t become happy yourself.

Self care is not a solid thing, it is a lifestyle, self care varies person to person, every answer is correct except the ones that are detrimental to one's health like drugs and alcohol. For instance my self care includes running and drawing while someone elses many include music and long walks. Often self care consists on several things, coping methods, exercise, self expression, and social aspects. Surrounding yourself with the right type of people is just as important as being able to express how you feel. When I am at my best is when I have poured my feelings out constructively and am having stress free fun. Self care is the ability to take care of yourself and not needing other people to baby you. At the same time one cannot be afraid to ask for help when it really is necessary, building a community of people who will give you hugs and advice while understanding where you’re coming from is key to staying sane often.

All in all I have learned that no matter what I’m feeling and no matter how far down the rabbit hole I’ve fallen there is always tomorrow. I have learned not to fear everything. I have learned to accept myself and not to change for anyone. I have learned to discard people's delusions of who I am and not care how many people dislike me, I am me and I do not exist to please them. At the same time I am no asshole, I won’t guilt them for not wanting to get on this train. I will respect people's boundaries and treat them with respect. I take no shit but I also give no shit. I have learned how to find the beauty in every nightmare and gained a desire to show people the light streaming through the top of the tunnel. Depression is a genetic condition for me but I can live with it. Everyday can be gloriously beautiful even if I am under pressure. Even when I am crying in the car at midnight speeding down the road to nowhere in particular, just because I can’t actually cry in front of people. I can find joy in singing my heart out to the music blasting on my stereo and comfort in the songs I’ve heard again and again.

Life is hard for everyone, life sometimes makes me want to leave it, but through learning how to care for myself I have come to peace with myself. I have found how to make it more beautiful and I wouldn’t change myself for the world. I wouldn't switch skins with anyone or take any cocktail of chemicals meant to make my life easier. I won’t feel sorry for myself because there is nothing to be sorry about. I am stronger because of this illness. I am more resilient and a more understanding person. I can help people because I have seen every shitty side of the coin, I can use my meager power to save lives and bring them out of the dark they are stuck in. I am going to dedicate my life to it actually. If I survive long enough I aim to save lives by helping people realize they are truly understood. I aim to listen and advise and be educated well enough to truly help them. Until then I will power through and live life to its fullest. Everyday will be riddled with successes and I will win every fight against myself no matter how hard I have to go. As my ex stated, yes I go hard, but you have to when you’re fighting to feel alive everyday. I go hard in the sense I live, I don’t participate in things that kill me inside, I don’t intend to let the illness win.