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chudleycanonficfest · 3 years

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Day 28, Post #1 by @floreatcastellumposts

Title: The Argument Author/Artist: FloreatCastellum Pairing: Gen Prompt: “Siblings: The only enemy you can’t live without” -Anonymous Rating: T Trigger Warning(s) (if any): Mild language

When he was a child, Ron had sometimes sat secretly on the stairs, feet in slippers too big for him, teddy tucked under his arm, listening to the goings on in the kitchen. Often his sister or a brother or two would be with him. This was especially the case when there was an argument, because they were a nosy bunch of kids, and they would grin gleefully at one another as they heard their mother roar over some issue, like when Bill came home with his first tattoo, or Charlie had done something dangerous like climb on the roof, or the many, many, many things that Fred and George had done. They would gather on the stairs and snigger and delight in their siblings being in trouble - that it wasn't them, and usually it was over something hilarious too.

Today was quite different. The stairs were narrow, so Ginny was pressed right up against him, but she was gripping hold of his arm too. Behind them, Fred and George sat in grim, stony silence, their knees occasionally knocking the back of Ron's head, but, remarkably, none of them were squabbling.

'Is it so hard to just be happy for me?' Percy was bellowing, and that in itself was unusual, because it was never Percy in trouble.

'It's not about that,' Dad was bellowing back, 'are you so naive? Are you really so foolish-?' This was unusual too, because it wasn't usually Dad bellowing.

'Percy... Percy, we're just worried, we're just concerned...' Mum was sobbing. This was unusual, because she usually had a bit more fight in her, not this desperate pleading.

'You're so cynical, the pair of you-'

'We're realistic! You've been promoted well above your grade before the dust has settled on the inquiry-'

'STOP BRINGING UP THE INQUIRY!' Percy sounded quite deranged; the ferocity of his voice made Ginny jump slightly, and grip Ron's arm harder. 'That - wasn't - my - fault! That was the point of it! That PROVED I wasn't to blame, I was acquitted-'

'Yes, and we were delighted,' said Dad, and to Ron's astonishment, his words sounded bitingly sarcastic, 'but even so, you have to see that mass scandal is not usually a precursor to promotion!'

'He SAW something in me!'

'Yes, he did! He saw a potential spy! On our family - on Dumbledore-'

Percy let out a maniacal laugh, forced and sneering and sanctimonious, it made Ron wince as he heard it. 'And you say I'm arrogant?'

'We've never said you were arrogant-' Mum tried to chip in desperately, but Percy continued talking over her.

'You think you're important enough to warrant the Minister for Magic spying on you? You think he considers you in the same circle as Dumbledore? More to the point, you think Dumbledore truly respects the likes of you?'

'Fudge has been going round making it more than clear that anyone who supports Dumbledore can clear out their desks-'

'Utter rot-'

'-He knows I'm friendly with him, he knows I have advised the school on muggleborn inte-'

'No one cares!' Percy screamed. 'No one cares about that stuff! You're ludicrous!'

'Ludicrous?' Dad echoed, with an uncharacteristic scoff to his voice.

'Ludicrous! Not everything is a conspiracy, not everything has an anti-muggle agenda - I know what this is really about, you're embarrassed that your own son is rising above you, is succeeding where you haven't-'

'Percy!' Mum's gasp was so clear that Ron could easily imagine her hand leaping to her chest.

'I've had to struggle against your lousy reputation ever since I started! Do you know how embarrassing it is? Do you know what it's like having people ask if I'm related to the muggle-mad Weasley on Level Two-'

'That's enough,' said Dad coldly.

'I lie to them, d'you know that? I tell them we're only distantly related.'

'What the fuck?' Ron heard one of the twins whisper behind them. 'Is he serious?'

'I never imagined I had raised you to be so small-minded-' Dad was spitting back.

'It's baffling that you raised me at all! You, who has no ambition, no sense, no idea of how ridiculous you come across with your obsession with muggles - is it any wonder you've always been passed over for promotion-'

'-Because of bigotry!'

'-Any wonder you've left your children to grow up in poverty? To be humiliated by the failures of their father?'

'Stop it! Percy, stop it!' Mum was wailing, and whether it was Fred or George directly behind him Ron didn't know, but their knee was trembling against the back of his head.

'It's not failure, it's a matter of principle and integrity!' Dad roared back. 'There are more important things than gold, that's what we've always-'

'You are deluded! You are so blinded by your persecution complex, by your victimhood, that you cannot be happy for your son!' Percy’s voice was hoarse and raw, whether from tears or overexertion, Ron wasn’t sure. 'You can't bear to see him succeed where you failed! To see him make something of himself!'

'Why would I be happy watching my son be manipulated and used? Make no mistake, Percy - this is no achievement, this is Fudge playing you as a puppet - if you're ashamed of your background, that's your prerogative, but there's no denying this family is known to be close to Dumbledore and Harry, and Fudge is waging a vendetta against-'

‘You’re an idiot to run around with Dumbledore!’ snapped Percy. ‘He’s heading for trouble - gone completely power mad the last few years - you know full well his glory days are over. You’ll end up going down with him-’

‘Fudge is fighting a campaign against Dumbledore when he should be-’

‘I know where my loyalties lie, and it is not with my old teacher! It is with my employer, the leader of my government, with people who look at the facts!’

‘The facts are that Harry-’

'Yes - Harry - here we go,' snapped Percy. 'You rank the word of a child above the expert testimonies and mountains of evidence brought up by the inquiry, above your own boss - no wonder he thinks you're cracked. You’re determined to see conspiracy everywhere-’

‘How can you say that? You saw the aftermath of what happened, you saw him-’

‘I saw the actual dead boy, I saw Diggory!’ snapped Percy. ‘Think what his family is going through, their child’s death being used as a political quaffle-’

‘That is Fudge’s doing! That is his choice! He has chosen to make a mockery of Diggory, to disregard Harry-'

‘To question the story of a teenager,’ corrected Percy. His tone was cold and quiet, the kind of sanctimonious "I'm being the grown up here, actually" patience that Ron found unbearably aggravating. ‘The only evidence is his word, it’s not unreasonable to question a witness. In fact, it’s a perfectly standard part of due process.’

Ron’s growing anger was now twisted with a kind of lurching dread. The snide little comments in the Daily Prophet, which they had all blustered and raged and gasped in revolted disdain at over breakfasts for the past week, suddenly felt sinister. As he thought about it, Percy had never joined in… had always been silent…

‘Percy…’ said Mum, so faintly that, as one, Ron, Ginny, Fred and George all leaned forward to listen. ‘Percy, surely you… surely you believe him? Surely you can’t believe he deserves what they’re saying about him? He’s just a child - it’s like the whole world’s forgotten that he’s just a child.’

'Yes, he's just a child - so why should he be the centre of everything?' Percy demanded. 'Why should he shape our family? Impact our careers?'

'Percy… if you had seen him in the hospital wing, if you had looked into his eyes…'

'Mr Fudge was not convinced,' said Percy, as though that settled the matter.

‘Has he asked you about Harry?’ Dad asked abruptly. Beside Ron, Ginny was shaking. ‘Casually?’

‘I - no more than is to be expected when you have someone famous living under your roof-’

‘What did he ask? What did you say?’

They heard a brief, thick silence, and a sharp exhale of air. ‘He… he’s not relevant to this discussion. This is beyond - this isn’t the issue - the only evidence is his word, as I said-’

‘You don’t believe him.’ Dad’s voice was blank, stunned, quiet. ‘You… you know that boy, Percy.’

‘You don’t believe in me,’ said Percy, and Ron could hear his tears now, the slight thickness to his voice, the sniffs between words. ‘You’d rather believe in some ludicrous conspiracy theory from a teenager who thinks he sees You-Know-Who around every corner than believe that your own son might have worked hard, might be talented, might deserve his career. You’d really think so little of me.’

‘That’s not it. That’s not it at all,’ Dad said quietly, and Mum was crying loudly. ‘We just-’

‘I don’t care!’ said Percy harshly. ‘I don’t care what you think! Not any more! Years I’ve put up with it, years! I’m going - I’m gone - I don’t want to see either of you again - you’ve made it clear that you don’t have my interests at heart, this was your choice-’

‘What do you mean?’ Mum shrieked, and they could hear the scraping of chairs being moved aside, thundering footsteps, Mum begging-

The door was thrust open, and Percy stood for a moment in the hallway, looking up at the four of them sitting on the stairs. His expression was unreadable. Tear tracks shone from beneath his horn-rimmed glasses, and his mouth was a thin, grim line.

‘Move,’ he told them.

‘You’re being a right bellend,’ said Fred at once.

‘MOVE!’

They did not, and Mum had come running after Percy, hanging desperately onto his arm though he tried to shake her off. ‘Come on, Perce,’ she pleaded. ‘Come and sit down, let’s all cool off and talk about this-’

‘Get out of my way,’ Percy told his siblings once more, and now Ron stood.

‘Harry’s part of our family,’ he blurted out furiously.

‘He’s not, Ron,’ Percy growled. ‘He’s your friend, that doesn’t mean everything he says is right - move out my way.’

‘How can you say that!’ Ginny demanded. ‘What’s wrong with you? How can you say all these horrible things?’

Percy started climbing the stairs, pushing Ron aside and stepping over Ginny, furiously struggling past Fred and George who immediately made their bodies as big and awkward and gangling as they could imagine, shouting colourful insults at him as he pushed past and thundered up to his room.

‘He just needs to calm down,’ Mum was squeaking. ‘Go - go to your rooms, let me and Dad talk to him-’

‘No chance!’

‘I haven’t said my piece yet!’

He returned just a few moments later, carrying a bulging bag with a jumper sleeve trailing out, a little line of abandoned socks and a pair of underwear left on the stairs. ‘I’m going to stay with friends,’ he said.

‘You haven't got any,’ goaded George.

‘Be quiet, George!’ Mum wailed. ‘Percy-’

‘Then I’m getting my own place, I’m not staying here anymore - I’m not letting you all drag me down with you. If you’re all going to be traitors to the Ministry I’m going to make sure everyone’s well aware that I don’t belong to this family any more-’

‘You do, Percy, you do - you’ll always be my son-’ Mum’s words were barely audible beneath her crying. Percy pushed past her, and stormed towards the door.

‘Percy!’ Ron shouted, and to his surprise, Percy turned and looked at him.

Ron could not find the words for his contempt, could not find an insult strong enough, could not decide what to do with the rage that was coursing through him. All he could hope was that Percy could feel it in his cold, hard stare. ‘How could you?’

Percy said nothing, simply looked back for a moment, and then turned his back and strode swiftly to the door. Mum was running after him, and though they heard the ear-splitting crack of disapparation, she stood in the doorway shouting his name.

Dad had not followed, and with a creak, Ginny rose beside Ron and descended the last few stairs. She peered through the doorway to the kitchen. ‘Dad?’

Ron heard a splutter, and then dry, heaving sobs. Ginny vanished into the kitchen. Behind him, Fred and George were muttering mutinously, swearing and cursing.

‘What’s he playing at?’

‘He’s an idiot. A big-headed, pompous, ridiculous idiot, we’ve always said it, we were right.’

‘Who does he think he is? Does he really think that promotion is normal? Does he honestly think he’s that extraordinary?’

‘Moron…’

Ron’s jaw was aching from gritting his teeth so hard, his heart was trying to break through his ribcage and go after Percy to beat him.

‘Do you really think he meant that stuff he said to Dad?’ George said. ‘It’s just…’

‘I bet he does, the git,’ said Fred. ‘I bet he really does pretend he’s not part of the family. He’s ashamed of us. Slimy, brown-nosing prick…’

‘All that stuff about poverty? So uncalled for.’

‘That’s it, really, isn’t it? He’s a greedy arsehole.’

‘Well, he’s certainly written himself out of the will now, hasn’t he?’

‘He won’t care, nothing for him to inherit anyway, apparently.’

That prickling, heated anger was back - his very ears were hot with it, he wouldn’t be surprised if steam had been bursting out of them. The memory of Harry, pale and shaken in the hospital wing, his hands gripping Mum’s robes as she hugged him, was lingering in his mind. ‘Did you hear all that crap about Harry? Did you hear what he was saying about him? Harry!’

‘Yeah,’ muttered George. ‘Pillock.’

‘Why would he say that? What the bloody hell is going on with him? He’s gone bonkers. When did he turn into such a - a -’ He still could not quite find a word strong enough.

‘Berk?’ suggested George.

‘Something along those lines…’

‘Easier than admitting he’s horrible, selfish, idiot snob, I suppose,’ said Fred.

‘Money’s always been an issue, but blaming Dad like that is just…’

‘Nasty,’ said Ron, simply.

‘You can make money without completely selling out and betraying your family,’ said Fred seriously. ‘You can do it and keep your integrity.’

‘He’s acting like we weren’t fed enough,’ said George spitefully. ‘Percy didn’t even get that many hand-me-downs, really - Mum and Dad were doing all right before they were hit with twins, and we all know Ginny was probably unexpected.’

‘Was she?’ said Ron distractedly.

‘Are you joking, you were only about eight months old, who picks then to decide to have another baby?’

‘Mum.’

‘Fair.’

‘Anyway,’ said Fred, ‘Percy’s not exactly been hard done by, not really. He’s just always been ashamed we’re not as well-heeled as his smarmy new colleagues at the Ministry.’

‘It’s childish,’ said Ron, who was feeling another lurch of guilt as he thought back on the previous year. ‘It’s really petty…’

‘We’ve all wished the family was better off now and then,’ said George fairly. ‘Who wouldn’t? But that was a seriously low blow. God, poor Dad,' he added, his voice lowering further. 'I'm glad Ginny's gone in to comfort him, I don't even know where to begin.'

‘Do you think he’s really gone for good?’ asked Ron.

‘Hope so,’ said Fred viciously. ‘Hey - one less mouth to feed now, maybe the family’ll be better off.’

'You know what else,' Ron said sharply, his brain whirring, 'did you hear him dodging Dad's question about what he's said about Harry? Good thing he's buggered off before we go to the Order Headquarters, isn't it? Who knows what he would have blabbered about?'

Fred was looking at him as though in a new light. 'You know what, Ronniekins, that is a really excellent and disturbing point. You're a bit of a bright spark at times, aren't you?'

'Brighter than Percy,' Ron muttered.

#chudleycanonficfest2021 #HP fest #submission #tw: mild language

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ezrasarm · 4 years

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take what’s broken, make it whole

[ day 4 | angstageddon masterlist ]

pairing: Marcus Pike x reader

summary: Love. It’s messy and confusing. It’s painful yet thrilling. It’s also absolutely terrifying. But maybe what you need is someone to brave your fears with you.

warnings: mild angst, hurt/comfort, fear of commitment/relationships

"a/n”: THIS WAS WRITTEN BY THE WICKEDLY TALENTED @chaotic-noceur!!! I am posting it here with permission from the original author. Please go check out her posts and give them some love!

Actual a/n: this piece hits very close to home for all 3 of us so we hope it could bring you the same sort of comfort that it did us 💕💕- @chaotic-noceur

credits: shout out to my loves @din-damn-djarin and @ezrasarm for beta reading and being absolute sweethearts about me being a disaster! very loose references to Come Home With Me from Hadestown. - @chaotic-noceur

Gif by @pedropascalito

The whispers of Special Agent Marcus Pike’s failed love affairs had spread like wildfire as soon as his transfer had been confirmed. Men and women alike were eager to meet the broken man who had fallen too hard, too fast. Instead, they were met with gentle smiles and a loving heart.

If the rumours were true, they did nothing to explain the hidden glimmer of hope in his eyes. If the office gossip held any weight, it did nothing to explain the deep-seated warmth in his aura. If the hearsay was anything more than it claimed to be, it did everything to explain the masked sadness that threatened his every move.

He wasn’t like any man you’ve met. You watched him with quiet curiosity.

Several weeks later, you had found yourself partnered with the office enigma. Within a month, the pair of you had fallen into a comfortable routine of early morning coffee trips and late-night takeout meals.

There was something about him that made you want to let down your guard, to unveil the parts of you that were fractured and broken. But he didn’t need to know of the pieces of you that weren’t quite whole.

So you lie.

You lie when he asks the difficult questions. You lie when he nudges at the splintered fragments. You lie as you have been trained to do all those years ago.

Your little traditions, if you could even call them that, had slowly wound their way into becoming an integral part of your day. You hadn’t even realised just how habitual they had become until he’d left for an undercover mission.

In the early days of his departure, you’d catch yourself flicking through delivery menus before remembering that your partner wasn’t there. You’d find yourself instinctively making the turn to his apartment on your way to work. You’d send him messages of things he’d find funny only to be met with a mocking grey tick.

You missed him. And you couldn’t explain why.

●●●●

This wasn’t his first undercover mission, but this one felt different… and he couldn’t explain why.

As the mission progressed, the desire to call you and talk to you about everything and nothing grew with every passing day. He’d catch himself longing for your occasional Starbucks trips where you’d conspire about the poorly spelt names on your cups. He’d find himself missing the way you’d laugh at all his jokes, no matter how bad. He saw your face in the crowd of strangers even though he knew you weren’t there.

He missed you. And he couldn’t explain why.

When he’s reunited with you once again, he thinks he’s figured it out. The more time the two of you spend together, the more he's convinced that there's something between the two of you. He’s hesitant to put a label on it, after everything he’s been through. Still, he knows it isn’t nothing. It’s unlike anything he’s ever felt before and he wants to pursue it. But he needs his instincts to be right this time. He’s not ready to face the alternative.

So, he pushes his feelings away. He shoves them into the darkest corners of his mind where its destructive claws can shred them like they had his dreams.

Months go by before thoughts of his feelings for you resurface. He catches you doodling on a napkin with the straw from your drink and he can’t help but fall. Deep down, he knows that it’s a bad idea, but there’s an affectionate lilt to your smile that makes his heart falter and he knows he’s in trouble.

You’re stowing pieces of evidence into their respective locations when he’s overcome with an overwhelming urge to tell you how he feels. He isn’t sure if it's the lack of sleep or the residual successful-arrest adrenaline that makes him throw caution to the wind, but he pops the question before his sudden spur of confidence leaves him. Your shoulders tense as you turn to look at him, eyebrows raised in shock.

“I-what?” you stammered, uncertain if you’d misheard him.

“I asked if you’d like to get dinner sometime?” He feels his heart hammering against his chest. “If you don’t want to, it’s cool, we’re cool.” He raises his arms in defence. “But what we have-” he takes a step closer as he gestures to the space between you, “this feels...different.” He lets his arms fall and he crosses his fingers behind his back.

He doesn’t consider himself a religious man. But in the here and now, he’s praying to anything out there listening that the answer he gets is a yes.

Your breath hitches at his sudden outburst. The wishful twinge in his voice and hopeful glimmer in his eyes makes your heart clench in your chest. It baffles you that a man with his experience was still so willing to wear his heart on his sleeve. You almost admire that about him. Almost.

“That’s- I-” you clear your throat awkwardly as you search for the right words. “I’m flattered Marcus, but I’m not really looking for anything right now.” Your voice grows quieter with each word, as though the strength of your voice would lessen the force of your words.

You watch in silent agony as the corners of his eyes dip downwards at the rejection. The way he forces a smile to hide the wave of disappointment that crashes into him makes your stomach churn. It takes all your self-control not to reach out for him, to take back your words and spare him the pain. But you can’t do that to him. You can’t give him false hope for a future you don’t want.

For as long as you’ve known him, he’s never shied away from questions about his past. He’d told you about his failed marriage, the broken engagement and everything in between. He’d told you about the life he had wanted and the future he’d pictured. It was the fairytale life that every child dreamt of having.

Every child except you.

You don’t know what exactly it is that you want, but you know one thing. Marriage? Starting a family? That's not you. It never has been and it never will be. The future that Marcus so desperately wants, the happily-ever-after that he’s risked so much for… it’s never going to be something you can give him.

So you push him away. You push him away even when every fibre of your body screams for you to pull him close, to take the pain away. You push him away because he deserves someone who can make all his dreams come true. Someone who isn’t broken like you...

“I’m sorry. You’re a great guy Marcus and I’m sure-” You take a hesitant step towards him but stop in your tracks when he withdraws from you.

“No, no. Don’t be. It’s fine. Like I said, we’re cool. I- I understand.” And he does. He understands perfectly well. He understands that sometimes he comes off a little too strong, but it’s only because he wants to believe in true love. He understands that it’s wishful to think that he deserves another chance at love, that there is such a thing as soulmates. He understands that no matter how hard he tries, he never seems to be good enough.

In the months that follow his initial confession, his affections for you only seem to grow despite his best efforts. He knows that continuing down this path would only lead to more hurt. But in the moments when he thinks no one is looking, he allows himself to fall a little harder.

Why? He does not know. But he knows the following are true: you’re the person he wants to go on aimless adventures with because it isn’t about the destination but the journey. You’re the person whom he wants to be held by when the days are long and the night is dark. You’re the person that he wants to be able to call home. You’re the only person that’s ever made him feel so alive.

Little did he know, you felt the same way too.

You’re both sharing a box of ‘case-closed pizza’ while he tells you about this young artist he’d discovered online. There’s a softness in your eyes that sparks a fire in his gut. Something nags at him to ask you just one more time. He pushes the thought away. He knows it’s a stupid idea. But then you’re laughing at something he says and the question leaves his mouth before his brain can stop it.

“Give me a chance,” he says. “Please? Just one date.” You blink at him a few times, dumbfounded. He’s preparing an apology when you speak up.

“Marcus-” he hates the way you say his name like it’s a melody, “listen, I- I don’t-” you huff in frustration. You contemplate your options in your mind. He deserves to know the truth. You want him to know the truth. You just didn’t think it’d be this hard to say out loud.

“It’s okay. I’m sorry I asked…” The defeat in his voice makes your stomach turn.

“It’s not you. I just- Well, okay it’s kind of you but it's mostly me.” You falter. “It’s definitely me.” You force yourself to look into his eyes before declaring what you’ve been afraid to say.

“The life that you picture in your future? The one where you’re happily married, maybe a couple of kids who drive you insane but-” you exhale sharply, masking your scoff, “you wouldn’t have it any other way because the love of your life is there with you? That’s not something I-” He’s looking at you with so much love and you have no idea what to do with it. It takes everything in you to not look away.

“That’s not something I want, ever. I don’t see myself getting married, or having kids, or -” you purse your lips as the thought occurs to you, “or loving someone so much that even when they break my heart, I want to hold them close in my arms so they can never leave.” Tears prick at your eyes and your voice falls to a whisper when you say, “I don’t know how to love and be loved back and the thought of it, I-” you gaze falls onto the half-empty box on the table. You can’t look him in the eyes when you admit it out loud for the first time, can’t look him in the eyes as you admit it to yourself.

“I’m terrified, Marcus.”

A lone tear rolls down your cheek and he brings a shaky hand up to wipe it away gently. He almost laughs at the irony. The man who loved too much is in love with one who loved too little. There’s a pain in his chest that feels almost like someone had driven a knife through his heart and twisted.

“I’m scared too,” his voice is soft as he speaks, as if he’s afraid that you’ll shatter at the sound. “I’ve let my heart be beaten, bruised and broken more times than I care to admit.” He sighs as he takes his hand in yours. “That life you think I picture? Maybe that’s what I wanted once but that's not who I am anymore.” He shakes his head gently as he tugs at your hand, drawing your gaze up to meet his. “After Teresa, I swore I’d never let anyone in again. I didn’t think I would survive the pain, but then you walked into my life and,” he gives you a crooked smile as he whispers, “something about you made me want to love again. So, if you’ll have me,” he brings his other hand up to cup your cheek, “it’d be an honour to have my heart broken by you.”

Tears are streaming openly down your face at his declaration. It never occurred to you that he was afraid too. He’d seemed so.. carefree. Despite all the heartbreak, he’d found the courage to put himself out there one more time, to let himself love one more time. It occurs to you then that maybe what you admire about him most wasn’t his ability to make you laugh when you felt like crying. Or the way he always knew when you needed a hug. It was that he made you want to look fear in the eye and say ‘not anymore’.

Slowly, you let your head fall into a nod. “I promise to be gentle.” He chuckles softly and he pulls you into his chest. You melt into his embrace and relish in his warmth. You feel a hopeful smile tug at the corner of your lip and you bury further into him.

Maybe part of loving means being afraid, together.

[ angstageddon masterlist | chaotic-noceur’s masterlist ]

——angstageddon tag list

@din-damn-djarin @chaotic-noceur @chaoticspaceidiot @engineeredfiction @pedropascalito @dreamgirl-67 @hillarymurray4 @wille-zarr @oloreaa @this-cat-is-dea @marydjarin @roxypeanut @cryptkeepersoul @mrschiltoncat @agirllovespasta @wickedfrsgrl @dindisneydjarin @opheliaelysia @aeryntheofficial @adikaofmandalore @goldafterglow @yespolkadotkitty @chibi-liz05 @scarlettvonsass @rpcvliz @cinewhore @basura2319 @theravenreads @mxndoscyarika @jaime1110 @f0rever15elf @pancakepike @phoenixhalliwell @ahopelessromanticwritersworld

#marcus pike x reader #marcus pike #the mentalist #angstageddon #angst week

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sortinghatchats · 4 years

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The Sorting Hat Chats

“The Basics”

The basic structure of the sortinghatchats system is that you aren’t just sorted into one House, but into two tiers of Houses: Primary and Secondary.

Your Primary House defines WHY you do things.

Your Secondary defines HOW.

To build this system, we’ve drawn on the Sorting Hat’s songs, general HP canon, extracanonical data (ex. interviews with JKR)… and then extrapolated.

People are complex– for joy or for utility, due to social pressure or careless recreation, people often use the reasoning or methods of Houses that aren’t their Primary or Secondary. We call this “modeling” or “performing” a house and we will explain it in greater detail later. These additional layers help us capture some complexities in characters that we couldn’t get using Primary and Secondary alone. People can vary hugely in how they embody their Houses; in this system, Aang, the heroic pacifist protagonist from Avatar the Last Airbender, shares most of his Houses with HP’s Lord Voldemort.

The way you decide which Houses are yours is not necessarily by looking at what you do, but at what would make you proudest and most content if you were strong enough to do it. Your sorting is what you want to be and what you believe you should do, whether or not you actually live up to it. That’s how people like Peter Pettigrew can end up in Gryffindor.

PRIMARIES

Your Primary is your why. It’s your motivations, your values, and the way you frame the world around you. It’s how and what you prioritize, and what you weigh most heavily when making your decisions. People often also assume that others share those priorities. A common response to our system is “but you must oversort into Gryffindor/Slytherin/Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff–everyone has that type of morality, deep down!”

Gryffindor Primaries trust their moral intuitions and have a need and a drive to live by them. They feel what’s right in their gut, and that matters and guides them. If they don’t listen to and act on that, it feels immoral.

We call Gryffindor morality “felt” but that doesn’t mean they’re all impetuous, emotional hellions. Gryffindors can still be intelligent, deliberate creatures who weigh their decisions and moralities carefully. Reasoning, intellectualizing and debate can be support for a Gryffindor’s felt morality– but those things can never make a fully satisfying morality in themselves. Some things are just wrong, no matter what pretty words you use to explain them.

Ravenclaw Primaries have a constructed system that they test their decisions against before they feel comfortable calling something right. This system might be constructed by them, or it might have been taught to them as children, or it might have been discovered by them some point later in life. But it gives them a way to frame the world and a confidence in their ability to interact with it morally.

Ravenclaws do not lack an intuitive sense of morality or gut feeling about things, but they distrust those instincts and have a need to ignore or to dig down deep and dissect those internal moral impulses. Living within their built moral system is as important to a Ravenclaw as to a Gryffindor; it’s the source of the morality that differs between them–what they trust.

Hufflepuff Primaries value people–all people. They value community, they bond to groups (rather than solely individuals), and they make their decisions off of who is in the most need and who is the most vulnerable and who they can help. They value fairness because every person is a person and feel best when they give everyone that fair chance. Even directly wronged, a Hufflepuff will often give someone a second (or fifth) chance.

This doesn’t mean all Hufflepuffs are inherently tolerant human beings, any more than all Gryffindors are inherently good, moral creatures. Hufflepuffs tend to believe that all people deserve some type of kindness, decency, or consideration from them–but they can define “person” however they want, excluding individuals or even whole groups.

Slytherin Primaries are fiercely loyal to the people they care for most. Slytherin is the place where “you’ll make your real friends”– they prioritize individual loyalties and find their moral core in protecting and caring for the people they are closest to.

Slytherin’s reputation for ambition comes from the visibility of this promotion of the self and their important people– ambition is something you can find in all four Houses; Slytherin’s is just the one that looks most obviously selfish.

Because their morality system of “me and mine first” is fairly narrow in scope, Slytherins often construct a secondary morality system to deal with situations that are not addressed by their loyalty system.

SECONDARIES

Your Secondary is your how. It’s how you approach the world as a person interacting with it, and how you make your way. It’s how you problem-solve. It’s not necessarily what you’re best at, or even what’s the most useful to you, but about what skills and methods you value as being intrinsic to you. Do you improvise, do you plan? Do you work on something a little bit every day? Do you charge into the fray and tell people exactly what’s on your mind? What do you do? How would you describe the way you meet the world?

Note: the term “Secondary” is not meant to imply that how you do things is any less important than why (the Primary House). It’s simply the way our terminology fell out and we’re too lazy to change it. The importance of motivations v. methods is a personal sliding scale– it’s perfectly valid for a person to identify with their Secondary House over their Primary. (When drawing from canonical sources, we assumed each character likely was in a House that matched to either their Primary or their Secondary. For instance, Harry is in Gryffindor for his heroic Gryffindor Primary, but Ginny Weasley is there for her brash and bold Gryffindor Secondary.)

Gryffindor Secondaries charge. They meet the world head-on and challenge it to do its worst. Gryffindor Secondaries are honest, brash, and bold in pursuit of things they care about. Known for their bravery, it is almost a moral matter to stay true to themselves in any situation that they’re in.

Ravenclaw Secondaries plan. They collect information, they strategize. They have tools. They run hypotheticals and try to plan ahead for things that might come up. They build things (of varying degrees of practicality and actual usefulness) that they can use later– whether that’s an emergency supply pack, a vast knowledge of Renaissance artistic techniques and supplies, or a series of lists and contingency plans. They feel less at home in improvisation and more comfortable planning ahead and taking the time to be prepared.

Hufflepuff Secondaries toil. Their strength comes from their consistency and the integrity of their method. They’re our hard workers. They build habits and systems for themselves and accomplish things by keeping at them. They have a steadiness that can make them the lynchpin (though not usually the leader) of a community. While stereotyped as liking people and being kind (and this version is perhaps a common reality), a Hufflepuff secondary can also easily be a caustic, introverted misanthrope who runs on hard work alone.

Slytherin Secondaries improvise. They are the most adaptive secondary, finding their strength in responding quickly to whatever a situation throws at them. They improvise differently than the Gryffindor Secondary, far more likely to try coming at situations from different angles than to try strong-arming them. They might describe themselves as having different “faces” for different people and different situations, dropping them and being just themselves only when they’re relaxing or feel safe.

But the Journey Continues…

These four basic Primary and Secondary houses are summarized starting places that we use as a basis for further discussion. What are some ways this gets complicated?

A Gryffindor Primary values morality and action, yes– but the moralities of individual Gryffindors vary intensely. They can range from selfless service to dictatorial world domination to confident self-interest.

Hufflepuff Primaries can be cruel, considering only a sparse few to be included in their definition of “people”; or terrifyingly condescending, deciding that they “know best” and are obligated to enforce that best on others.

“Cold, calculating, logical” Ravenclaw Primaries can build systems that are warm and empathetic, or creative and artistic, or fiercely passionate.

Slytherin Primaries, selfish and small, can become loyal to so many people they look like a kindly Hufflepuff; or, so long as their people are safe, a Slytherin might bury themselves in selfless outward moralities, crusading for a cause.

The Secondaries have their own range of possibilities outside the traditional “stereotypes.” A Gryffindor Secondary can be shy, quiet, and reserved– but their stubbornness (however quiet it is) and their devotion to honesty and forthrightness still earns them a place in that sorting.

A Ravenclaw secondary might hate school, learning, and reading, preferring to gather physical and practical knowledge and excelling that way. You can have Ravenclaw secondaries with learning disorders, memory problems, scatterbrained tendencies– the important thing is that they value and find strength in the idea and act of preparation and gathering knowledge, skills, or tools in advance.

A Hufflepuff Secondary can hate people, scorn displays of kindness, and keep their nose tactiturnly to the grindstone– a different Hufflepuff Secondary might be a warm and gregarious friend, offering smiles to strangers. It is consistency, fairness, and hard work that make the House, not their reputation for niceness. Hard work comes in many forms.

Here are a few ways a Slytherin Secondary can appear to others: obviously slimy; so clumsy that their maneuverings just come out cute; sharp as an axe but so much easier to conceal; bluntly honest until backed up against a wall, when they turn into smoke and vanish; adaptable in ways that put everyone in a room at ease; a tireless trickster who delights in playing (or toying) with people. At the end of the day, a Slytherin Secondary defines themselves by their reactivity, creativity, and ability to change– it doesn’t matter what they are changing to, or from, or why.

BURNT PRIMARIES

In addition to the diversity within each Primary, we also have something we call “burning.” A burned House happens when one of the four Primaries loses something intrinsically stabilizing to their system without losing their feeling of how important their original priorities are. This can come from trauma, disillusionment, exhaustion, or just… life. To a “burned” Primary, unburned members of the same House often look childish, naive, or just annoying.

Burned Gryffindor Primaries are Gryffindors who have lost their faith in their internal moral compass. Doing what is right is still just as important, but they don’t know how to know what’s right. To an outside observer, burned Gryffindor Primaries often look more stable and calm than unburned Gryffindors, but this is a deeply unsettling thing to be on the inside of. Many burned Gryffs will find a new system to adopt and live by–but this new system is never as comfortable, satisfying, and natural as their original system.

Corie Halsing from Summers at Castle Auburn, Peggy Carter (who latches onto her somewhat glorified idea of Steve’s “better” Gryffindor Primary) from Agent Carter, and Zoe and Shepherd Book from Firefly are all examples of Burned Gryffindors.

Burned Ravenclaw Primaries have not lost their belief in their morality system– reviewing, discounting, and changing their moral system is often a common and casual Ravenclaw activity. Burned Ravenclaws have lost faith in their ability to build or find a system of truth. Sent into a spiral by realizations of the impossibility of objectivity, or by finding an irresolvable contradiction in their current system, they “fall.” This is the least sustainable of the Burned Primaries, and Burned Ravenclaws don’t tend to stay Burned for long, usually finding a new system.

Some examples of Burned Ravenclaws who stay fallen are Javert from Les Mis (who commits suicide once he Falls) and Bruce Banner from the Avengers (first movie). Jemma from Agents of SHIELD is a Ravenclaw Primary who does find a new system, but spends a good portion of the second season Burned– once a curiosity-driven scientist, the deaths of her friends drive her toward a new system of fear and xenophobic caution.

Burned Hufflepuff Primaries have decided that it’s too hard, impractical, or ultimately futile to care about everyone, and so they have shrunk their circle by changing it from a system that defaults with “I care about you” to a system that says “I cannot care about everyone, so I only care about my people.” It has switched from a basically inclusionary system to a basically exclusionary system.

Burned Puffs look a lot like Slytherin Primaries in this way except that a Burned Puff wants to care about the whole world. They wish they could, but they just can’t. This exclusion of others feels wrong and even evil (burned Houses often consider themselves “bad people”), but the world is an unjust place and you have to try to live in it.

Mal from Firefly and Dean Winchester from Supernatural are both examples of Burned Puff Primaries.

Burned Slytherin Primaries have gone from an inner circle of a few to an inner circle of one (their own self). They have decided that having any people is no longer an option. They’re worried about those people getting hurt or they’re worried about losing those people and being hurt themselves. This character type is often the Ice Queen or portrayed as ruthless, chilly, apathetic, or selfish. With no driving moral forces but their own needs and desires, these people are often cast as villains. Sometimes, Burned Slytherins even burn so far as to kick themselves out of their inner circle, and then don’t even have their own ambitions to guide them.

Jeff Winger from Community, a Burned Slytherin of the first type, struggles to attach to even the friends he makes in the study group. Many of his character plot-lines focus on his fears of abandonment and exclusion, and self-interest is what he’s always able to fall back on.

Can Secondaries Burn?

Secondaries “burn” differently than Primaries. While with a Primary (see above) each House burns in a different way, fully burned Secondaries all look fairly similar. (When they’re still in the process of or partially “burnt,” you can still see hints of the original Secondary to give you a clue).

Secondaries are about methods; a burned Secondary happens when the methods stop mattering. An exhausted or extremely disillusioned person might stop having a preference toward their methods and just do whatever seems the most likely to finish things quickly or effectively. A person with a burned Secondary will use any tactics, from any Secondary, and find joy and comfort in none of them. It might be because their old methods began to seem useless and flawed, or because they somehow lost the strength and confidence to use those old tactics.

When we first meet Bucky Barnes in The Winter Soldier, his brainwashing and intense mission focus has burned his Secondary. He doesn’t care how he gets the job done so long as the job gets done. Helena from Orphan Black, another brainwashed killer, also displays the burned Secondary.

Nico di Angelo, the put-upon son of Hades in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians and Heroes of Olympus novels, burns his Secondary over the course of the books. His Hufflepuff Primary survives grief, betrayal, loneliness, kidnapping, starvation, and mistrust– his Primary still drives him to help those in need. It is his Secondary that takes the damage as Nico rapidly loses any preference to method and just exhaustedly gets the job done. (His interactions with Reyna in the final book suggest Nico, with the help of friends, might be able to recuperate his burned Secondary into something more capable of joy.)

Even though from the outside most Burned Secondaries will look the same to a reader or outside observer, it’s important to note that from the inside, the experience will be fairly different. A Burned Hufflepuff Secondary is going to wish for, want, and grate at different things than a Burned Gryffindor Secondary. Even though both will tend to do “whatever it takes” to survive or achieve their goals, different things are going to bother them more, satisfy them more, or bring them hope.

A note:

Our system is based on the Harry Potter canonical sorting system, especially in the way that it is defined by choice. You can go up to the Hat and sit down and hear it say that you would do well in Slytherin, but if you would rather be in Gryffindor, then you’re a Gryffindor. That’s something we very intentionally keep as a defining point of our system because of how much respect we have for it, both as a facet of life and as a defining motif of Harry Potter. If someone is a Hufflepuff Primary, Ravenclaw Secondary, but identifies as a Slytherin– then, as far as we’re concerned, they’re a Slytherin.

Another Way of Looking at Things

Above we’ve given you a set of brief descriptions of each Primary and Secondary (burned and unburned). Here we’re going to talk about a few ways we group and differentiate between each House. We’ve found looking at the system this way helps when trying to understand where a person or character might fall on it.

Splitting Up the Primaries

Idealist v. Loyalist

Ravenclaw and Gryffindor Primaries are the Idealists; Hufflepuff and Slytherin Primaries are the Loyalists.

Idealists focus on concepts and truths and what is right and what is good. They are big picture thinkers and have moral drives that closest to what we think of when we think of typical moral drives: this is right because the most people benefit, this is wrong because people get hurt, this is gray so we have to look at the specifics. There is a system of rights and wrongs and in betweens and those things all matter.

Loyalists care about people. Whether it’s a few people or a whole world of people, at the center of their moral system is to do what is best for those people.

Decided v. Intuitive

Hufflepuff and Gryffindor are our Intuitive houses; Ravenclaw and Slytherin are our Decided houses.

Here, the Intuitive houses place an importance on the gut instinct. People are people and that matters, they might say. When asked why, they’re most likely to respond “because of course it does.” The Intuitive houses are united by the moral fire and righteous passion of characters like Mal from Firefly, Steve Rogers, Katara, and Harry Potter.

Intuitive Houses are perfectly capable of questioning, doubting, defying, and changing their beliefs– but they are at their most content and joyous when they are in a situation where they feel able to act on what they think is right without wavering or hesitating.

Decided houses still have gut instincts toward morality, but have constructed systems that they use outside that first intuition.

Ravenclaws are likely to step back and question their gut and, most importantly, place more value on the answer they get from questioning it than on the gut instinct itself. The feeling that drives “of course people matter” is valid, but it’s not enough for a Ravenclaw Primary. Ravenclaws will build their system and test it against examples and logic; or adopt a trusted ally, culture, or religion’s system wholesale and trust that above their own heart. Going with their gut against their reason makes them feel guilty the same way a Gryffindor going against their gut to do the “smart” thing would feel like a sell-out.

A Slytherin’s base morality (roughly: “me and mine first”) is a very Intuitive thing, so why do we call them Decided? That basic morality of their people mattering leaves a lot of gaps in interacting with the world. Different Slytherins deal with those gaps in different ways– sometimes by ignoring them and sometimes by constructing them. Sometimes a Slytherin will adopt a system that looks like one of the other Primaries, living by that other morality unless something threatens one of their people. Because this external system is an important part of how many Slytherins interact with the world, they are included as a “Decided” House.

Also, Slytherin Primaries “choose” their prioritized loved ones in a way that Hufflepuffs don’t. While that Slytherin loyalty is often very passionate, it’s also something that is decided on.

There are some hard corner cases in drawing all these lines (for example, what happens when an idealist’s “right” is a loyalist’s people-first system?) and we will talk more about how to differentiate those in the individual Primary posts.

Internal v. External

Gryffindor Primaries and Slytherin Primaries are the Internal Primaries. Their morality derives from inside themselves-- from a Gryffindor’s “gut” or moral compass, or from a Slytherin Primary’s love and valuing of their self and closest people. External influence won’t sway them when they know they’re right. These can be really valuable and powerful primaries when you’re up against gaslighting, corrupt authorities, or external pressures.

Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff are the External Primaries. When what they FEEL contradicts with their external moral inputs (things they’ve learned, things they see in front of them, input from trusted advisers or communities), then they feel obligated to ignore that “little voice inside” for the sake of what’s actually good and true. Being moral isn’t about making the choice that makes you feel good. It’s about making the choice that’s good.

Splitting the Secondaries

Builders v. Improvisers

In the Secondaries, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw are the Builders; Slytherin and Gryffindor Secondaries are the Improvisers.

Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws build. Pushed into hard situations, it is what they already have achieved and brought with them that helps them most. Ravenclaw secondaries make tools to do the things they need, to do the things that delight them, to defend against the things they fear. Hufflepuff Secondaries make themselves into people who can do the things they need, to do the things that delight them, and to defend against the things they fear.

Hufflepuffs toil and work hard at what they want to accomplish and build up a system that is powerful because it is built on sturdy integrity. People trust them to show up, because they always do. They move along at a steady pace: the tortoise to the improviser’s hare. This can look like community building, being the reliable friend who’s always there when you need someone. It can also look like the hard-working student who studies hard and gets all of their work done thoroughly. If a Hufflepuff Secondary cuts a corner then it’s because the corner shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

Ravenclaws data-collect. They build systems and hypotheticals and plan out contingency plans for their plans. They like knowing what they’re getting into before they go into a situation, and while they might still be good at improvising, they don’t prefer it.

You can get Ravenclaw Secondaries who look like Hermione, who studies and can tell you the important (and less important) details from Hogwarts: A History, but you can also have creative Ravenclaw Secondaries who thrive on allowing themselves room for flexibility. You can have painters who, when they studied color, studied all of color until they understood not just which colors work well together, but why they work well together; gardeners for whom looking up how to care for the individual plants in their garden isn’t enough, so they dive head-first into plant biology and soak up all the information they can. When a problem comes up later in painting, in gardening, in life– they can pull something pre-made or pre-learned out of their mental (or physical) pockets and put it to use.

As Improvisers, Slytherin and Gryffindor Secondaries feel best prepared for something when they jump into the middle of it and start reacting to the situation. Going in with a plan can sometimes mess them up.

Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games is a great example of a Gryffindor Secondary who needs to improvise: when they gave her scripts to make her inspiring, they fell flat. Her heart wasn’t in them because they felt contrived and disingenuous. When she stepped up lead, when she did inspire, it was spurred on from her gut, taken from the moment, and filled with real feeling. She couldn’t fake it and she couldn’t plan or predict it.

Likewise, a Slytherin Secondary dodges and maneuvers, not charging like a Gryffindor Secondary but changing. They read things moment to moment and meet opportunities head-on. If a Slytherin Secondary goes in with a plan, they might miss an opening that they would have been able to grab ahold of and use to make their point. Remove their ability to be flexible in the moment and they’ll sometimes go so far as to stare blankly at you. Jeff Winger from Community is a good example of this: given time to plan something out he won’t, because he knows that he’s most likely to get what he wants if he just jumps into the action and gives an inspiring (and manipulative) speech at the last moment.

Situational v. Inspirational

Gryffindor and Hufflepuff Secondaries are the Inspirational Secondaries. Their greatest strengths often lie in the effects they have on others. This is not always true nor is it the sole truth of these Houses– but it’s a common and useful tendency between them.

To a degree this is best summed up by the idea of trustworthiness. The forthright presence of a Gryffindor Secondary, sure, secure, and living on their sleeve, tends to inspire in others a desire to follow or believe in them. When they plow forward with their charging improvisational Secondary, Gryffindors often find people following behind them or opening doors in front of them. There can be something so inherently honest about a Gryffindor Secondary that inspires trust.

Gryffindor Secondaries have a tendency to sway even unwilling others to their goals. As leaders by example, or excellent and often unaware speech givers, the certainty with which a Gryffindor Secondary moves can inspire others to believe what they believe. Katniss Everdeen’s unasked for and powerful status as the Mockingjay, a symbol of social change and revolution, is an example of this; so are the unasked-for armies that form around Keladry of Mindelan in the Protector of the Small books. Gryffindor Secondaries are often unaware of the changes they are causing in the hearts and lives around them, though some learn to turn it to their (or the world’s) advantage.

Hufflepuff Secondaries, too, fall into this phenomenon of trustworthiness. There is less of a tendency to follow them to death and mayhem, but more of a tendency to believe them when they speak or ask for favors. Gryffindor Secondaries tend to light people up and make them want to be better– Hufflepuff Secondaries, often background characters even in their own lives, tend to make people feel safe. They’re likely to get secrets, to be allowed places they shouldn’t be, and to thoughtlessly be handed responsibility, powers, and favors. This is a very quiet power and one that can be used for either good or evil.

Even the taciturn misanthrope Hufflepuff Secondary we keep bringing up (they exist!) can have this effect–they are less likely to have powerful loyal communities form around them in quiet support, but they’re likely to be someone who everyone just knows you can rely on. Even unlikeable Hufflepuff Secondaries tend to be relied upon heavily, trusted to get things done– even if their quiet contributions are being overlooked and belittled by people who only understand flashy kinds of power.

Slytherin and Ravenclaw Secondaries are the Situational Secondaries. Situational secondaries tend to excel inside of certain types of situations, rather than succeeding because of an ability to call for aid or inspire those around them. They are at their best in situations that are suited to their skill sets, and are less affected by the larger context the situation takes place in. They would have similar levels of competence in a room filled with their peers as they would in a room filled with strangers.

A Ravenclaw’s core strength of drawing on previous knowledge and a Slytherin’s of adapting to situations both rely on that individual’s skillset. While they can draw on support from the people around them, that’s not where most of their advantage in a situation is going to come from. Support from the people around them is unlikely to be the deciding factor in most everyday situations because that support would not add compatibility to a single person’s adaptation skills, or to a Ravenclaw’s knowledge base.

And while the “inspirational” Hufflepuff Secondary builds things through consistency, creating communities and influential reputations, a Ravenclaw Secondary builds things internally– lists and knowledge and well-vetted strategies. These things only grow more complicated and more likely to prompt disagreement when the thoughts and plans of other people are added into the mix.

Similarly, a Slytherin Secondary has neither the benefits of community that the Hufflepuff Secondary has, nor the ability to inspire that the Gryffindor Secondary has. They are more likely to look like lone wolves, whether because they intentionally present as competent and confident enough to not need help, or because it’s hard for the people around them (especially those who aren’t Slytherin Secondaries themselves) to keep up with their quick shifts and flexible, ever-changing methods.

One of the few places where you do get a Slytherin Secondary who is helped by the people around them is when you have two skilled Slytherin Secondaries who either already know each other or who have compatible methods. That can result in a kind of double-teaming of the situation, with quips layered with information and nudges toward strategy that can leave the people around them both unsure of exactly what’s going on, and swayed toward certain plans of action without being altogether sure why.

Solid v Fluid

Hufflepuff and Slytherin Secondary are our fluid secondaries. They will become whatever is needed to fit the space they are in-- to keep the peace, to win their goal, to stay safe they will change who they are and how they act.

Hufflepuff Secondaries have to “feel it” “all the way down” for this transformation to work for them. This ability may come from empathy, altering their mind and point of view to “see through” the eyes of whoever they’re interacting with. It’s genuine-- in the moment-- but it’s flexible and dependent on context.

Slytherin Secondaries are more likely to just be “code switching,” changing up their mannerism and presentation to fit a new space. They don’t have a need to “mean it” or to feel the emotions they are expressing all the way down to their toes. They act, transform, change.

Gryffindor and Ravenclaw are both more static and more stable. They don’t “transform” the way the fluid secondaries do. With Gryffindor Secondaries, this has to do with their need to be authentically themselves. They lose a lot of power -- and a lot of satisfaction and comfort -- by not allowing themselves to genuinely react and be.

Ravenclaw Secondaries are strongest in areas they’ve already learned, prepared, studied, or experienced. As such, they may have a hard time being “flexible” in spaces where they don’t already know how to walk the walk and talk the talk.

Models and Performances: More Layers?!

If you’re pulled toward multiple primaries or secondaries, it’s worth looking at whether or not you model some of them. A model is a place you can live. It’s not as intrinsic to you as your Primary or Secondary, but it can still be hugely important.

A model can be useful; it can make you happy; it can make you feel like a good person. It can further the goals of your Primary or help you be more effective in your Secondary. It can be what you want to spend all of your time working toward as long as your Primary isn’t being threatened. You can drop your model (or models! you can have multiple), but that doesn’t mean that you ever want to.

You can model a Primary OR a Secondary (or both!). Just saying “[character] models Slytherin” isn’t useful– though our older posts will often fall into this bad habit. For example: Gale from The Hunger Games models Slytherin Primary– it’s this ability to prioritize of the people he loves (and who Katniss loves) that allows actual Slytherin Primary Katniss to see him as a good friend and ally. However, Gale looks nothing like a Slytherin Secondary, modeled or otherwise. In contrast, Jemma Simmons from Agents of SHIELD is learning to model Slytherin Secondary– her powers of improvisation, deceit, and manipulation are growing in an awesomely terrifying manner as she’s put into harder and more complex situations– but she’s still often baffled by Fitz’s Slytherin Primary, herself having a solid Ravenclaw Primary.

A performance is a toolkit. If a model is a place you can live, then a performance is a way you can act. It doesn’t feel like it’s really you, not deep down, but it can still be important to you. For people who have consistent performances, this is the layer that often interacts most directly with the world around them. It’s the part that people see the most because it’s the part most on the surface. Someone who often finds themselves a host to parties but who doesn’t do that intuitively might develop a Hufflepuff Primary Performance in order to present themselves properly as a caring, empathetic host. A Gryffindor/Gryffindor passionate about science might develop a Ravenclaw Secondary Performance to “seem” more appropriate in that social context.

Models and performances can be taken on for reasons of delight, necessity, or utility. There is no unifying reason that people choose them. Shirley Bennett of Community uses her Hufflepuff Secondary Performance (sweet voiced endearments and smiles) sometimes for fun, sometimes for manipulation, and sometimes as a threat display.

Due to the strict gender roles of their culture, Katara of Avatar is expected to employ a performance of the often feminine-coded “motherly” Hufflepuff Secondary while her brother Sokka has to don the stereotypical “brave leader” performance of a Gryffindor Secondary. Over the course of the series, they dismantle and complicate these roles, learning to embrace the strengths they have rather than the ones they are supposed to have

Lorelei Gilmore of Gilmore Girls, who shares a Slytherin Secondary with her mother, has such an intense dislike of the manipulations and subtleties of her childhood house that she created herself a forthright Gryffindor Secondary model to use during emotional conflicts.

A note:

One person might have just a Primary and Secondary House. Another person might have a Primary, a Secondary, two Primary models, a Secondary model, and a Primary and a Secondary Performance; another just a Primary, their Secondary House having been burned away. Neither of these options are more or less complete than other, and lacking models and performances doesn’t mean that you’re any less complex of a person.

The Quiz:

If you’ve read all this way (or if you didn’t), you might be interested in our Sorting Hat Chats quiz, located here: https://ejadelomax.itch.io/sortinghatchats

The quiz can take anywhere from ten minutes to three hours, depending on how much you argue with it. You can argue with it! Remember, the wizard chooses the House...

Want to learn more? Check out some of our further posts here:

Gryffindor Primary

Ravenclaw Primary

Hufflepuff Primary

Slytherin Primary

Gryffindor Secondary

Ravenclaw Secondary

Hufflepuff Secondary

Slytherin Secondary

Our posts are also all archived on our blog: sortinghatchats.wordpress.com

#sortinghatchats #sorting hat chats

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annaofthenorthernlights · 3 years

Text

It´s your life

Chapter 4 Thrill

A short drop of a sweet Kristanna surprising trip (Modern AU)

Rating for this chapter: M (some little sexual occasion for the start)

Word counting: 2070

Previous chapters (on AO3)

Note: This chapter was so much fun to write - hope you enjoy! 😊

Summary: This trip turns out to be the surprise of the century to Anna – and Kristoff´s as well… He hadn´t thought in his dreams of the outcome but plays along for Anna. Wouldn´t he do anything for her…? 😊

Anna woke up early, unusual for her – but then, she had been so excited and had swayed between waking and sleeping. There was still time to nap. So, she would snug her blankets cosily around her, ravishing in the realisation of where she was, where they were! Kristoff had turned towards her, still asleep, so relaxed, so peaceful.

Ah, he had been such a charm last night. They had cuddled and started to watch some comedy movie (yes, the pioneer-room did accommodate a TV!), but then had fallen asleep, tired from the drive and all.

Anna thought of how lucky she was and how blessed she felt to found herself with a boyfriend of such integrate and truthful character. He deserved all the best in the world. If only she could prove to be the perfect match just for that reason. At least, she could try to return her love and gratefulness the best she could. And a flick of thought crossed her mind, sending a warm feeling down her body. She knew, what good deed she could offer.

Anna huddled herself a bit closer to Kristoff, and softly kissed his cheek, all the while running a tender hand along his neck and shoulder, and down his upper arm. He had his eyes closed, but his arm would reach out and over her waist. Anna shifted herself comfortably, just to move her hand along his ribcage beneath the blanket and down to his hips. She squeezed the muscular sides of his upper thighs and then moved along to give her beloved a tender stroke along his still relaxed manhood. The young woman smiled when her man opened lazily eyes and responded with a grin, “good morning beautiful. Up to some mischief already?”

“Sorry for waking you up,” she whispered.

“No, you´re not.” He remarked drowsy, but pulled her closer, while Anna increased her massage, the result of a hardening cock within her palm pleasing her, giving her some thrills in return. She would pull at the hem band of Kristoff´s pyjama shorts to free him of the fabric, just to continue her morning greeting.

By now, Kristoff was fully awake, getting active himself. He caressed her breast, tenderly encircling her nipple with his thumb, while he moved his other hand around her neck into her hair. He leaned in to kiss her tentatively first, just to increase the pressure of his lips.

Anna loved those passionate moments, even if they couldn´t get coital as she had hoped for. But the gift of loving hands was a thrill that must be cherished just as it was. A moment of close intimacy, being there for each other. So, she happily continued her loving stroke, sensing the pulsating excitement within his hard and throbbing cock, while Kristoff caressed her breast. And it would never fail to fascinate them both that they moved in the same rhythm, like a fine-tuned duet, right up to the moment of his release. And for some even more fascinating reason, feeling his relief would send a shiver down to her centre, like she was sensing an orgasm herself.

***

When they left their room for breakfast, Anna was that excited, she nearly skipped along the way.

Kristoff decided to share her enthusiasm like a new experience. She had shown so much interest for his stuff, he could afford a day of illusional and fictive characters hopping and dancing around him, and occasionally being asked to hug an oversized bunny, bear, mouse, or even that crazy snowman, who loved hugs above all since that famous Disney movie was out a few months ago… what was it called again?

They had nearly finished their breakfast, when a man came up to their table and asked if he could talk to them for a moment. He introduced himself as Mathias, head of the artistic program. Kristoff and Anna exchanged a puzzled look, shrugging and then turning to wait for Mathias to continue. The waitress brought a coffee for the man and he would tell them his concern.

“You remember Honeymaren, your waitress last night?” They nodded.

“Well, I was glad she rang me up. You two seem the perfect couple I was desperately looking for.” Another puzzled look. Mathias would explain.

“I guess, you know that there will be a parade at midday, and then againg to bid the guests farewell before closing time early evening?” They nodded.

“Now, there is my problem. We have a scheduled cast for this part of program. There are the “active” show-people, like dancers and artists, and there are the “passive” participants, like the characters driving the carts or standing on the platforms. There is this one cart, where my scheduled couple for this weekend is prevented of attending. She had an accident and remains in the hospital till next week, while he got a call and had to leave for some family urgency. I can´t reach the other staff that´s on the list and then last night, Honeymaren called me up to have the perfect people at her table. The amazing thing is. You two don´t even need any wigs or great make up – you guys look like dropped right out of the movie.”

Another puzzled look.

“I ask you to join in for today and tomorrow. All you must do, is to sit on that sled and smile, wave to the people and act friendly with each other. If you agree, I will see to it that you get this whole weekend for free and a little honorary would be paid as well. So, what you say?”

Kristoff and Anna exchanged another bewildered look. Kristoff narrowed his eyes, while Anna´s eyes widened with excitement. He could literally read her mind… So, he just had to make sure one thing.

“And you say, we only have to sit on whatsoever and smile and wave at people?”

Mathias nodded enthusiastically, “yes – and “act friendly” with each other.”

Ah well then… Even if he had been asked, he couldn´t have thought of a better surprise for her than such a… surprise…

So, what movie would they be part of?

“Frozen”

***

He felt silly, but he wouldn´t admit it aloud, because he didn´t want to ruin it for Anna.

Gosh, she looked so pretty in that blue dress, black bodice and purple cape and ear warmers, and then those blue mittens. Genuinely like that snow queen’s princessherself!

Anna had stood mouth agape when she had spotted Kristoff. He looked stunning in that northern mountain man outfit. Simply hot!

They got seated on this oversized sledge, that would move on hidden wheels, with this gigantic reindeer placed in the front. Behind them there sat an over dimensional snowman, Olaf, grinning broadly down on them. Right before their sled there was another waggon, with a huge sort of ice castle on top of it. On its platform there stood the ice queen herself. Right now, she stood facing them, laughing, and waving, with a mischievous grin on her face. Honeymaren! She was casted for that role for the midday parade, while in the evening she worked in the Casino. Anna had bounced like a child around the Christmas tree when they got introduced to their queen.

Then the parade´s trail started to move. They were somewhere in the middle of the row, so there was still some time to observe the ongoing in front of them.

Kristoff couldn´t help but admit, that the moment was prickling with all the people cheering at them. For sure, no one would believe him. The excitement lay within the air. Anna was so happy. She beamed and giggled, bounced on her seat next to him, all close and her arm in his. She was completely lavishing in the moment of this dream. When Kristoff looked at her, he couldn´t help but smile and lay his arm around her. Mathias had said that they should act friendly with each other. No problem, he could do this. He wouldn´t care about people watching and bend down to pull her close into a passionate kiss. The public roared with cheers for the beloved princess and her ice master hero of the latest movie hit!

Little did they know that today´s celebration was recorded by TV channels because of the opening of the newest resort´s section.

****

While Elsa sat with Runeard Rendelle over the agenda of upcoming meetings, Rosa, their housemaid, came running into the library. “Miss Rendelle! Please, you must come and see!”

Rosa had put on the TV in the kitchen and had stumbled over the news of reopening Disneyland´s newest section. The parade was just on and when she had spotted some special cart, she had not trusted her eyes.

Elsa stared at the screen and meanwhile had fumbled for a chair to sit down.

It could not be. Dear God, no, that could not be. That must be some people with an outstanding masking, hairstylist or whatsoever. But when the princess smiled into the just zooming in camera, all unknowing of being filmed, Elsa recognised her sister´s smiling eyes. It hit the elder sister, that the younger looked so genuinely happy. The sight was of short durance, when the camera zoomed back in further distance and at the same time, the blond man sitting next to her bend down to kiss Anna full heartedly.

Rosa gasped aloud, exclaiming excitedly, “Oh mi, que romantico!”

Elsa still stared at the screen, then at Rosa, and back at the screen. Meanwhile the camera had taken focus on Rapunzel and Eugene, who walked happily together, hopping to the people standing close by along the alley.

“What was that?”

Elsa startled at the voice behind her and turned sharply around to see her grandfather standing in the doorway. He had followed her and had seen it all, though not understanding where and what this scene meant to be.

***

The evening before she had tried to explain to Runeard Rendelle about Anna´s whereabout without being to specific of where Kristoff had taken her. Her grandfather still disliked the idea of his granddaughter befriending a less fortunate, like this man.

He would not hear anymore of it and said that Elsa would not need to defend her sister. He would deal with her in his ways. For the time being of the dinner´s event, they would tell their guests that Anna was “mentally” absorbed and didn´t feel well, all exaggerated before exams. She would be fit to show herself to them after the turmoil of passing with merit. That, he was convinced, everyone would understand.

Now, he was just furious. He could have dealt with Anna´s silliness of running around with a good-looking young man, that treated her like a princess. But acting and dressing up like a fairy tale girl within a bunch of fantasy characters… Who did she think she was?

Elsa tried to calm him down and remark that there must for sure be some reasonable explanation.

Again, he wouldn´t hear any of it and demanded Elsa to leave him alone. He then picked up the phone and started dialling a number. Elsa was still standing there, when her grandfather motioned her with a snack of his head that she should leave the room now.

Elsa turned to go and when she closed the door behind her she just overheard him calling his friend´s name. The family solicitor.

***

The parade would take about an hour to last for the whole tour. There would still be plenty of time to explore the parc once they had peeled themselves out of the costumes in the staff sector. Honeymaren had come up to them before, apologising for her “secret attack”. Anna had laughed and joked that next time, she would bring her sister along and then, she could join Honeymaren on the cart!

Mathias had shown up, congratulating, and thanking them once more for their jumping in. Everything was arranged and they´d be handed a pay-check at the reception of their hotel.

Anna was still exaggerated with the adrenalin running through her when they moved on towards the public alleys.

Kristoff grinned and stretched, feeling a great relief for having redressed in his jeans and comfy shirt.

“So then, my princess, what´s next on your plan?”

Anna grinned up at him, flinging her arms around his neck for a brief and sheepish kiss.

“Splash Mountain!”

#Frozen fanfiction #fanfic Modern AU #Kristanna fanfiction #Kristoff #Anna #Surprise trip to Disneyland #more surprises...#thrilling surprise #mine #got so excited myself...

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vanillawriterv · 4 years

Text

Markus Deserved Better from DBH

This ended up hella long but Markus deserved better from David Cage and I’m upset about it, ok?

Anybody who’s been involved or seen the Detroit: Become Human fandom knows that Connor is the most favorited by the voiced community, and he absolutely deserves the love he gets. He’s an intriguing character with a cute face, and the fandom has widely noted that. Kara is a widely loved character as well, just as she should be. We see so many raw emotions from Kara that make us relate and empathize with her, and she’s a strong willed person. Markus, however, isn't as widely appreciated. Don’t get me wrong, I know there are tons and tons of posts and art and writing and appreciation for him, but that pales in comparison to that of Connor or Kara. I’ve seen people blame this on “deep rooted racism” and all that lovely stuff, but there are a variety of reasons Markus doesn’t resonate with most as much as Kara or Connor, and why he deserved better from the creators. It makes the whole thing even weirder because Markus is the integral piece of the entire game.

Connor and Kara’s plot lines are obviously very important. Connor’s conflict in finding out who he is and what he wants to be is emotional, and him being a detective is crucial to his story. Connor’s end goal is to find Jericho, which is centered mainly around Markus’ story. Kara’s conflict in deciding to do what’s best for Alice, even if what she does isn’t “morally” correct, is also extremely emotional and really makes you evaluate what you would do for the ones you love, no matter how inherently “wrong” it is. Her being an Android and trying to take care of Alice and find Jericho to get to Canada are crucial to the story, and her end goal is centered mainly around Markus’ story as well.

Markus’ plot is the most important part of Detroit: Become Human. Without him, it would have taken another Android to finally decide to revolt, and given that he had to convince Jericho when he got there, it would have taken a decent amount of time. If Markus didn’t begin a revolution, Connor wouldn’t have ended up working towards finding Jericho because Androids would only have acted out individually with no name behind their cause, and widespread deviancy would be eradicated if someone else didn’t unite them all before they really started getting rid of deviants. Though Connor could have found deviancy without the revolution or Jericho, his character arc centers around witnessing his own people stand up for themselves and him deciding who he’s going to be. Connor without Markus would just be a detective doing cases on the very thing he’s never supposed to be and he’ll either remain a machine, or become a deviant and have to deal with that without a cause on his side.

Kara would probably still end up looking for Jericho with Alice because of the Android that shared information with her when they were looking for a place to stay the night, but she’d be greeted with pre-Markus Jericho that doesn’t do much but hide. She probably wouldn’t have made it to Canada or even the border if this happened.

This all means that all their stories—and plenty of other side characters’ stories—revolve around Markus, who he is, and what his existence means in the game. Now, this isn’t actually very obvious in the game. It doesn’t take deep thinking or any real situation assessment to realise exactly how crucial Markus is to the game and every character’s development, but it isn’t as clear as it should be. Markus should be the point the game revolves around because he’s why it exists—so why don’t we feel nearly as emotionally attached to him?

Well, we don’t get to see who Markus is. We see Markus speaking for a community as a whole, not really for himself. He puts himself in a position where most of what he says is said for Androids everywhere, and not necessarily his personal thoughts or aspirations. Yes, he wants to lead this revolution, but that’s his only characteristic he was given. Markus’ only purpose all the way throughout the entire game is the revolution. Of course, if you go the right route and choose the right things, you get one(1) possible love interest, but even that route is empty and bland of actual bonding or real insight to how Markus might be thinking or feeling. The only time we get to see Markus—and the thing that resonates within the people whose favorite character is Markus—is how he got to where he was. Connor is hesitant in his path of figuring out who he is against who he’s “supposed” to be. Kara is determined to take care of a child who hasn’t had the proper care. But Markus? Markus was the character who realised that nobody was going to stand up for him and that if he wanted protection, and rights, and thoughts, and to be independent he was going to have to do it himself. He stood up for himself when nobody could or would, and the people who realised that are the people who see exactly how valuable he is to the story and how much character he has inside of him that isn’t being shown to us throughout the rest of the game.

Connor and Kara have plenty of moments bonding with other people and expressing their thoughts or concerns. Connor has Hank, and they routinely interact in a way meant to make you connected to them both by sharing thoughts, ideas, and moments. Kara has Alice from the beginning, and it quickly develops our emotional connection to them both because they both need the other, and that is a strong, relatable emotional bond. Eventually Kara gets Luther who allows for more of Kara’s thoughts to be shown rather than just her emotions, as well as Luther’s, which give us an emotional connection to both of them. But Markus doesn’t really have those moments. Yes, he has Josh, North, and Simon, but the only talks they really had were about the revolution and Jericho’s decisions as a whole. There were so little scenes showing Markus connecting with others in a more intimate way than just recruiting them or speaking to Jericho as a whole, and they were pretty late into the game when we’d all already fallen in love with these other Characters.

It’s poor writing to only begin connecting the player to the main piece of why the story’s happening near the end of the entire game. There was time for more, in general, from Markus.

Plus—and this one really irks me as a music fan in general—his theme was a crime. I watched a playthrough before I ever played the game, and one of the first things I noted was the intensity of Connor’s theme. You all know it, and it is so packed with emotion that you can feel without having to know anything about the game. Nima Fakhrara, the composer of Connor’s theme, put so much of Connor’s conflict and internal struggles into that piece, and perfectly captivated the duality of human and machine within him. Listen to it if you haven’t taken the time, it’s 8 minutes and 54 seconds of an absolutely beautiful composition. Kara’s theme moves me every time as well. Philip Sheppard, the composer of Kara’s theme, also put so much emotion into hers. The push and pull of the intensity captivates Kara’s situation so well. Her theme feels much more raw than Connor’s, by the nature of her character. Also listen to that if you haven’t, 6 minutes and 55 seconds of another absolutely beautiful composition. Markus’ theme, in comparison to Kara and Connor’s, feels so empty. It’s fitting only because of the lack of emotional value they put into Markus, and feels almost like ambiance music. You can’t feel the emotions Markus has within the piece, because we see so little of who he is. Not only that, his theme is a staggering 3 minutes and 2 seconds long. And, I believe John Paesano, the composer of Markus’ theme, is not the reason behind this lack of emotion. John Paesano also composed Marvel’s Spider Man main theme, and noted that he wanted to make the theme “more emotional and introspective.” The Spider Man main theme is also as short as Markus’ but most would argue still has a lot more emotion. There is no guarantee it wasn’t just a different artist’s take, but I believe John Paesano could have easily made a much more emotional theme for a character who actually had more emotions and personality to base the theme off of.

Markus’ lack of emotional development, his disconnect from the player because he only speaks as a whole and the game never shows him speaking for himself or his mind, and the lack of emotion in his theme compared to such emotionally driven themes makes Markus feel unimportant and much more distant from the player.

There were so many things David Cage could have done to make Markus feel as important as he is, but he lacked so much of what the other characters were given. I understand that what he was doing as a character didn’t provide as many opportunities as Kara or Connor to really show who he is to the player, but there was room for a more emotional Markus. He’s my favorite character in the game solely because he got up and did what no one else could or would do for himself, and if I—and many others—can fall in love with a character based on their only real emotional action, can you imagine the amount of people who’d fall in love with the rest of his missing personality?

#detroit become human #dbh #dbh markus #markus rk200 #rk200 #dbh connor #connor rk800 #rk800 #dbh kara #kara ax400 #ax400 #he deserved better #this is literally an essay omg #this has irked me for a while #sorry for the long rant #dbh north #dbh simon #dbh josh

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freshstartbaby · 4 years

Text

Chapter 3

PREVIOUS PART

Lux - Easy

“Save appearances and you save everything.”

« I quitted the job ». Those words were resonating in Florian's head. He tried to think about anything else, like the man he just killed and make sure he didn't forget any clue. But he couldn't. He was thinking about this sentence and what it really means.

He kept washing his hands, trying to remove the blood from it. Whose blood was it ? The man who snitched on him. Yea, Florian said he will take care of it, so he took care of it.

It was supposed to be a quick and clean job and it started that way. A single head bullet. But Florian lost his cold blood when had to make the body disappear.

He thought about Rebecca's last sentence and things became messy. His moves became less precise and more animalistic. So now he was in his bathroom, trying to get rid of some blood.

Once he was done, he took a shower and got back to his bedroom with his towel around his waist. First he sitted and then he let his upper body crash on the bed. His eyes started to close slowly when he heard some heels steps on the floor.

« Flo is that you ? » a voice said in the hallway

Florian opened his eyes when the door moved and revealed his wife.

« Hey » she said softly « I didn't know you were home »

She laid down on her husband's side and left a peck on his lips before putting her head on his bare chest. Florian put a hand on her back and grabbed it slightly.

« Your mum called, her, your father and your brothers will be there in few weeks» she said quietly

« That's a good news» Florian said, eyes still closed

« You left early this morning » Elizabeth said caressing his arm with her fingertips

« Yea, I got few things to do » he said shutting back his eyes

Things to do. Business to handle. Elizabeth was used to those kinds of answers. She was aware of illegal stuff his husband and her own family was in. So she was satisfied with this kind of answer. The less she knew, the better it was. But deep down, she knew something else was bothering her husband.

Suddenly, she blamed herself for thinking that way. She had this feeling for some years now but come on, it had been less than three days that he was just out of jail. He must have a lot on his mind. Maybe he needed time to re adapt.

Her fingers kept traveling on his skin. Seeing him that way gave her naughty thoughts. Indeed they had some business to catch up on their own. Even if she could have conjugal visits, it wasn't the same. Now that he was out, they could go back on trying having a baby.

Maybe it would work this time.

But Elizabeth also thought about how many times pregnancy tests were failed.

She sat up straight in a second. She seated up and started going towards the bathroom

« I got you a new phone, he is in the living room » she said to Florian before closing the bathroom door and locking it.

His eyes opened quickly when he earned the lock. He knew what she was doing when the door was locked. He knew it for years now.

In fact, once the door is locked, she will go to the cabinet. Grab the gold little box. Drop white power on the flat surface in two or three lines. Sniff it. Put some on her upper gum. Put back the little box where it was. Flush the toilet. Wash her hand and exit the bathroom.

And it was exactly what happened.

Florian got up feeling powerless about the situation. He got dressed and went to the living room. Once he grabbed the new phone Florian crashed on the couch. He needed to send a text to Rebecca.

While the phone was turning on, Elizabeth was back in the living room. Without his eyes leaving the screen Florian told her

« Now that I am back, maybe you could get back on at least trying to consume less »

—-

On her side Rebecca was visiting her family with Youri. It's been few months since she hasn't. And with everything that's going on she felt the need of being surrounded by hers.

Her mother, her father and her siblings were there. Rebecca would rather her father not to be here but she could tolerate his presence. To be honest the bold personalities of her mother and her relatives would make him disappear in the conversation.

Rebecca has a little sister of 24, Brianna, and a little brother of 22 David. Even if they didn't see each other often they were very close.

Brianna was one of the very few person Rebecca used to confess. She was a very good listener and gave very good advice for her age. She wanted to become an artist, indeed she was very talented with photography and had a very unique style in painting.

David was affecting more discipline. He was ending his last year of college and wanted to integrate the army. Which was bothering a lot his mother and his father.

For his mother it was because she knew she wouldn't handle it if her only son was coming back home in a coffin.

For his father it was different. It was because he always had despise black people who were stupid enough to wanted to fight for a country who didn't want them. He used to be an activist himself and had very little thought about a lot of things.

Not that all of them were wrong. But it has the power to upset Rebecca. Actually she had two triggering subject with her father: the art of being a good black person and interracial relationship.

Rebecca always found it funny that her father had so much passion when he was talking about being a black person with dignity, when she knew very well he wasn't a good person at all.

When grew in her 20's she understood that being an adult was a tough thing and that nobody was perfect. But she also remembered well all the day and night when her father was beating her mother almost to death. She remembered the bruised face of her mother, the moment when she couldn't even talk because of the pain. And with all of that in mind the big speech of being a good black person was just empty.

During the dinner when he was speaking, Rebecca couldn't help but look at him with lousiness. If he could only shut up. His presence was bothering her so much.

Her biggest regret in life was that she couldn't convince her mother to leave him. He didn't deserve one percent of that lady.

« The things is that black women think that white men can make them integrate the society more easily, give them a statut, that's why they neglected black men » Robert said

The conversation was not running about this subject at all and an awkward silence took over the place. Rebecca looked at her mother, warning her with a look that she wasn't letting this type of shit go away.

« Robert, could you, please, do not make those types of statement in front of Youri » Rebecca said in a calm voice

« Why ? Because his father is white ? That's not my problem he needs to know the truth »

« Ok let change the subject » Brianna said while taking a sip of water

« No no please Robert, what truth are you talking about exactly ? » Rebecca said

Robert looked at Youri then back at Rebecca

« Look we have a very clear exemple here, you have a baby with a white man. But the least that I know is that he is not really around since a good time. And nobody wants to talk about it. If a black man would have acted like that the whole world would have blamed him. Moreover look at you, showing of about your son talking German like it will make him more white than he is, or making you more white that you already sound»

« Robert ! » Maya finally said looking at him like crazy

He had gone well too far.

Rebecca looked at Youri making sure that he didn't understand everything. He looked a little bit lost about the situation and looked at her wondering what was going on.

« First of all, this is the last time I allow you to talk about my son. I hope that it is clear enough because if you even try to pronounce his name I would beat you ass with my own hand. My relationship with Florian is very messy. But you know what ? Men are trash, I have learnt that a long time ago. It is just that some of them won't be by your side and others will try to kill you with their own hands. Like you used to do it so well. I have picked my poison. » Rebecca said

« Ok stop, let's end this con-« Maya said trying to calm the situation now that everyone has said what what's on their mind

« And for god sake stop thinking black women need men to be someone, we clearly need no one to shine-«

Rebecca was cut by the buzz of her phone

Henry Cavill:

Hi Rebecca, I hope you and Youri are alright. Just letting you know that I'll be in NYC in two weeks. I hope we can spend some time together. Call me when you got time

Take care

Hen

She blew heavily at the end of the text. It wasn't exactly the good moment. She deleted the message and put her phone back on the table.

Everyone was looking at her.

« You know what, never mind, just forget everything that I have said »

Her phone buzzed another time. She rolled her eyes hoping that it was Henry again.

Unknown:

Becky, this is my new number.

Kiss Youri for me.

See you soon

This time Rebecca doesn't look upset. She blinked slowly and saved the number before putting back the phone on the table. The text wasn't signed, but she knew from who it was obviously.

« Should we start the dessert ? » she said looking at her mother with a small smile.

Everyone seems to relax, happy that at least one of them would end the conversation.

Rebecca is a resentful woman and never has a good relationship with her father. But since she had troubles with Florian, it seems like his father liked to use it against her. And against Youri. It was driving her crazy.

It really killed her that he could come to Youri. Sometimes she asked herself what would have happened if she wasn't weak that night.

—-

Few years ago

It was near 2:00 AM. Rebecca was sitting on the carpet of her living room. Working on some project she has been thinking about lately. She rather put her time in some ideas than being in her empty bed.

She felt lonely. She often felt that way lately. But tonight the feeling was coming at her strong. Headaches, goosebumps, freezing, tears ready to drop for any stupid reason.

She inhaled the smoke of her cigarette when her door rang. Her eyebrows frowned at this sound. She put down her cigarette and got up before walking through the front door.

Her heart dropped when she looked in the door's hole. What the hell was he doing here. A cold sweat took over Rebecca's body in one second.

« Becky, it's me, open the door » Florian said close to the door

Rebecca's breath wasn't stuck in her throat. She hasn't talked or even seen him for months now. And it was better that way. They weren't together anymore. Their friendship had died with their relationship. And now he was a married man. There was no reason for them to catch up.

« What do you want ? You're not supposed to be here. » Rebecca said, the door still closed

« We need to talk Becky »

« Stop calling me that way, you should go home »

« Please, let us have this conversation. We can't keep avoiding it. »

« I don't have anything to say. Really, you should go home »

« Really Beck ? You don't have anything to say »

« I don't. » she tried to say putting her hand in front of her mouth so he can't eared her crying

But it was a lie. One of the biggest she had said this year. She felt over sensitive tonight. And it's the night he found to show up, finally.

She had a lot to say and she was weak.

« Well I have and I miss you. » Florian said behind the door

Her cries became harder after this sentence. Pain was taking over her. She missed him too. So much. If he only knew.

Rebecca quickly wiped her tears and tried to fix her face when she finally opened the door.

Now face to face, she could see him perfectly in his all black nike jumpsuits and his open camo puffy jacket. Hood on his head, she almost had forgotten how much she likes his face.

Now face to face, he could finally face reality and see how badly he hurted the woman he was in love with.

He was so ashamed. He had done this. He was the reason why tears were all over her pretty face.

Their body crashed. While Rebecca buried her face in his torso, back to crying, Florian hugged her back tightly and caressed her head.

« I am so sorry baby. I am so sorry »

You left me. I trusted you. You broke me.

It's what Rebecca wished she could say. But the noises she made while she was crying stopped her. She started breathing hard.

« Hey I'm right there baby. Look at me, look, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. I'm yours. » Florian said, lifting her chin with one of his hands so she could look at him in his eyes.

I'm yours. In contrast to Rebecca, it was the biggest truth he told. Since he left her few months ago, there was not a single day when he was sure that it was a mistake. A huge one.

He looked at her puffy eyes, still releasing tears. How could he have done this to her. Few seconds dropped before their lips met.

Naked in Rebecca's bed, catching their breath, lovers stayed silent. Realizing the mistake and the consequences of their act. They were both lost in mixed feeling.

For Rebecca, it was the disgust and a kind of release. Disgust because she never thought one second in her life that she could have sex with a married man in purpose. She wasn't like that. At least that is what she thought. She promised herself it was the first and the last time something that serious arrived. But it was too late. It already was the one of too many times.

Release because of what he told her. He was hers. He told her he was hers. What they had wasn't insignificant at the end. She felt a little bit better knowing that she hasn't wrongly judged what they had for years.

For Florian it was different. He felt soothe and trapped. Soothe because he had Rebecca back. He knew it wasn't going to be an easy task. But he had her back. Since the day they stopped talking, everything was just wrong. He needed her by his side. Trapped because now he had to put a mask in front of the most important people of his life: family and love.

That night, Florian came to Rebecca to have a discussion and try to get her forgiveness. But what they have done that night was just about to bury them a little bit more.

—-

« You know, you're daddy ain't wrong » Maya said softly sitting down

« Please Moma can we not do this. « Rebecca said

« I know your daddy isn't blameless. Actually he has made a lot of mistakes, and I'm in the best position to tell you that. »

Rebecca put down the glass she was wiping and looked at her mother, waiting for the next part of her speech.

« But you need to find a solution baby. You can not wait for Florian to commit to you until forever. You have a son together, and we haven't seen him for years. What does that mean for you ? Are you even still with him ? »

« It's complicated Moma »

« He used to be there at every single thanksgiving since you two met, he knows us, he has a baby with you, the least he can do is show up sometimes. »

Rebecca took another glass, trying to keep it together. She knew all of that. She knew it damn well. And she was kind of ashamed of the situation

« Look, you need to fix this situation or tell us the truth. If y'all not together anymore you can tell me baby. It doesn't matter for us. What matters is you being happy and getting full support of us. What's matter is Youri understanding that relationship are not meant to be this way »

Rebecca stayed silent, hardly swallowing. She knew this part of her life was a big mess, and she didn't need her family to put pressure on her for that.

« Look baby, you're a beautiful woman. I'm sure you could easily find someone else. What I mean by that is don't stay trapped in this hole. Fix it or move on. »

Maya was ready to leave the kitchen when she stopped. She looked back at her daughter before saying.

« I want to see him the next time you come, or don't come back at all. »

——

Wassssup yall

Let me know what you think

Elizabeth addiction ?

Rebecca and her father ?

Henry fucking Cavill ?

Xoxo

NEXT PART

liquorlaughslove xsweetdellzx killa-kyootie

#florian munteanu x black reader #florian munteanu #florian big nasty munteanu #thicc daddy flo #florian munteanu headcanons #Big Nasty #apparences

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idgaf-what-you-call-me · 3 years

Text

This is the first time, outside of therapy, that I am opening up fully my past, I ask that you remain respectful.

Trigger warnings: Suicide, torture, neglect, alcoholism, … a lot listen you’ve got to be well resourced before you read this.

I know Dean, because I was Dean. I was raised to be “perfect”, I am so much like my dad, I didn’t have a childhood, I was tortured, I have lost time (dissociation not possession by an arc angel), I am fairly closeted, and I’m finally starting to get better.

Ever since a very young child, I was raised to be perfect. To look at a 99 and learn what I got wrong before I brought the grade home, otherwise, I was sent to study. I was raised to not be heard and taught to stay in my room. I was raised to not show emotion because anything more than stoic meant that I was an inconvenience. I had “fend for yourself nights” where I had to sort out what I would eat for dinner, and at inexcusably young ages, 5-6 years old. I learned to shoot at 8, and was taken fishing anytime my dad went. I was brought to the construction sites, learned how to use power tools, and eventually had my own set at home. While I wasn’t trained to hunt demons or other things that go bump in the night, I was molded to be just like my dad. My mom wasn’t around much when I was a kid, so I idolized my father. He was like a god to me. As I got older (legal), I even would drink things that my dad approved of like scotch and I smoked cigars. Often praised, “that’s my girl! Look guys, my daughter drinking scotch and smoking a cigar! Where are your kids?” The validation was like a high to me. I was desperate for his approval. Just like Dean. Talked like his dad, walked like his dad, drank like his dad, I get it.

I was blatantly ignored including being told that I was invisible by siblings. They would hold up a remote to me and say, “you’re invisible” and ignore me. I could leave the house and they would not come look for me. With my mom and dad often gone (usually working or partying we were quite poor), I didn’t have anyone looking after me since I was 4 so when my dad was around, much like Dean, all I wanted to do was make him happy and proud of me.

I was a closeted bisexual, who made so many gay jokes towards my cishet brother that I feel quite a bit of shame as an adult. I repressed every facet of desire I had for the opposite gender because being bisexual really meant that I must be gay. At least that is what Will and Grace told me, and I did not want to be gay. Things were bad enough, I didn’t need to add to my shit pile. By the time I was 12, I had no idea how to feel emotions and I had no idea how to love myself. Most days, now at 29, I still don’t know how to love myself. I am not out to everyone in my family. I don’t feel safe with everyone. All the gay jokes between the brothers, all the Dean is bi subtext, I lived a lot of it.

Torture can take the shape of many different forms but they fall under two umbrellas: physical and psychological. I was subjected to sound torture and sleep deprivation forms of physical torture that have lasting psychological effects. When you live through something like that, you don’t “rebound” in the traditional sense, and I would dissociate. My consciousness would retreat back into itself until it was safe enough to come back.

I dreaded Thursday nights as that is when it would begin. My father would bring home several cases of Michelob Ultra, from the store, and then he would start drinking. My dad didn’t measure his consumption in beers, instead he measured by the case. A form of extreme binge drinking that to this day I still don’t completely understand. While he would drink, his music would get progressively louder and louder until the whole house vibrated with noise.

There are some songs and artists that I cannot listen to anymore. They’re not songs by Metallica or Black Sabbath, instead they’re by Credence Clearwater Revival, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and the like. Songs that people dance to at their weddings, sing at funerals, and enjoy on a road trip with the entire family. They are generally described as lively yet not heavy, yet this music was the conduit of 5 years of actual torture for me. I used to say that these were my favorite songs, but it was a way to cope with hearing them at home, and then hearing them play in the car on the way to school the next morning. In my house, the music was played so loudly that walls and floors shook and overwhelmed my senses and ability to sleep, think, do anything but have a heartbeat and breathe. It would last all night. I never learned to “fall asleep” I would pass out. To this day, I can be desperately tired, and able to drive for several hours without being a dangerous driver. Like my body learned to ignore fatigue. “I just need like 4 hours every couple of days,” yeah Deano, I’ve been there.

I would freeze mentally. Almost like a zone out but on steroids. Then I’d look around and things wouldn’t feel real to me. I would look in the mirror and see a stranger. Now I understand that I had developed dpdr as a way to cope. I don’t wish it on anyone.

My mother? She would leave the house and go clubbing. My siblings were 8 years older than me and lived on their own a great distance from where I lived. Besides, I had school to go to on Fridays. So I cooked, I monitored myself, I had to become an adult. I didn’t get to be a kid. My catharsis was angsty and fluffy Harry Potter fan fiction. You can find it on FF.net, RandHrFan I no longer post with that handle. Dean’s were movies, movies that my dad, and I’d wager his dad watched. I also love westerns just like my dad and my grandfather, there is something about them.

When Dean cries and opens up to Sam about his hell experiences, I get it. I’m so proud of him for telling Sam. To some it seems like he’s closed off but he’s not. He’s opening up as much as he mentally can. And Sam listens. Just like my sister eventually did. When Dean gets mad and yells at John and Mary, I’m proud of him, because he is fighting for himself. He knew he deserved better and he didn’t let it go. Just like I have done in my not so distant past.

All the while my parent’s marriage was fracturing and I was mentally declining. My mom began sleeping in my room and in my bed, and I was basically left to sleep on the couch. On days when my dad would drink, and my mom would go out, I could get to be in my room again. I could be on the computer (laptops weren’t a thing yet) which lived in my room. I could connect with the two other friends on AIM, but the reality of my situation I couldn’t escape. I was isolated, didn’t trust my family and I didn’t know how to ask for help.

One day I attempted to take my life. I saw no value in it. What was I doing with my life. I was a broken human who didn’t deserve love, who didn’t deserve safety, who didn’t deserve well anything. So I downed a bottle of pills. I had an iron clad stomach, I wasn’t too worried about not being successful. Except, I sent a goodbye message to a friend, and that friend saved my life. He got a hold of my sister who got to me in enough time to make me throw up. (She was a champ at that, having suffered from bulimia and taught to throw up from no other than my dad.)

I didn’t receive help afterwards. I signed a paper saying that I wouldn’t attempt again and was taken home. (I hope this isn’t how hospitals roll anymore.) I left my house, I went to school out of state and found stability, created stability for myself. But my past still haunted me whenever I went home. So when Dean has a death wish, and gets discharged from hospitals before he’s stable, I get it.

My parents eventually divorced, and I came home to a place where I couldn’t live anymore for a solid couple of months, I couch surfed, and again my mental health took a nosedive, but nevertheless, I persisted. I got my head back in the game, and finished my degree. Chemistry. I couldn’t go back home, because if I did I’d be working for my dad. I couldn’t do that, it was too painful. So I went to grad school. I got my Ph.D. I began to chart my own path. But there was a rage in me that I couldn’t escape. I lashed out at anyone and everyone to hide the pain that I felt all the time. People were afraid of me. I was great at what I did but I couldn’t make lasting connections with others.

When I was 27 suicidal ideations became dangerous, and I got about as dark. I tried to harm myself, and wanted my world to burn. It didn’t matter that I was married, with pets, and owned a home. Nothing mattered. I finally had to decide between life and death, I couldn’t continue in that state. I can say confidently that I would be dead if I didn’t get help that day. I wish Dean had this chance. He gets close to this in moments with Cas when he is honest about his feelings and experiences, he cries, he gets angry, lashes out, but Cas is there for him. From someone like Dean, I’ll tell you Cas being present holds more weight than gold for Dean.

I have been in intense therapy for a year. By intense I do mean more than once a week, regular check ins with her, and the occasional group session. She sends me articles to read, homework, and we do EMDR work, emotional integration therapy, mindfulness, etc.

It was then that I began to learn that all the rage that I had built inside me was hiding intense fear, loss, and disappointment. The rage gave way to tears, and the tears gave way to a new anger that I could make peace with. That anger comes from the person I am today. The person who fights for herself. Who doesn’t take shit from anyone. The person who says, humans don’t break, vases break, and I am a human. I see a lot of that in late season Dean. He is a fighter.

But I am still the person who receives a compliment and shuts down, there is still a side of me that doesn’t believe that I deserve nice things, good things to happen to me, but that person is getting smaller. My therapist likes to hit me with compliments when I am vulnerable as I am more likely to believe them. I still react like a dead fish when she says them, and then after the session sob for hours over it. One day my head and my heart will believe the same things about myself. I would have reacted the same way as Dean to that confession.

When the cards fall, I still know that I can depend on myself before anyone else because I had to. My life as an impoverished, unstable, depressed, neglected, and abused kid says I should be dead or amounting to nothing, but hear I am. I’ve now closely mentored about 20 undergraduate students, a handful of graduate students, and have helped them find their paths in life. I have taught nearly 1000 students. I made a difference with the life that I tried to throw away.

I have come to a place where I can love my dad. He is sober again, and yes, my love for him does depend on his sobriety. When he is drinking he is not the same person. I wouldn’t call him an A+ dad by a long shot, and hell I am so much like him that at times it makes me sick, but I do love him. I have been able to forgive him. Forgive in the sense that I can make peace with what happened. It doesn’t change what happened or how much it affected me, and I certainly don’t forget, but that isn’t what forgiveness is. I don’t hold the rage anymore. The fact that Dean is able to is personal for Dean, as it is for me, and it isn’t some “family that is what you do” type reason.

I do experience flashbacks when there are fireworks, I can’t go to a movie theatre because of the volume, when people play really loud music in their cars I typically have to peel off into a parking lot and meditate for 20 minutes to be able to drive again. There are some stores that I don’t shop at because their music triggers me. So when Dean experiences those flashbacks, I get it.

There is a belief in the psychology that monster shows help us become comfortable with our dark sides. My dark side saved me over and over again. My dark side told me to be better than them. My dark side told me to fight for me, to adopt a survivor mindset. (If you can’t tell I am a green veined Slytherin and have never been sorted into any other house even by random house generators.) The things I delight in are a bit off color. I cultivate a poison garden, consume way too much true crime, to gore I say give me s’more and so on. Dean gets to experience his dark side, and he has to make peace with it. He makes inappropriate jokes, laughs at it, but he also does talk about it.

This is the hard part: Just like Dean, I am also light. I love people (vomit), seriously though, they are more precious to me than any earthly possession. Plants bring me serenity. Animals are a comfort and companion in the worst of times. There isn’t much I wouldn’t do to protect living things. My motivations come from a place of love and a need to protect others from what I have been through. I know I can survive, but I don’t know if that is true for everyone else.

I know Dean. I was Dean. I see that every episode. Moments when he yells and screams for himself, I cheer him on. Moments where he tries to waste his life away, I understand, and am crying right with him. The purgatory apology guts me, I’ve had to make that apology more than once. The dead fish reaction, hell that is me at the end of a therapy session. I am here to say: Dean is not broken. Dean is strong. Dean is resilient. Dean doesn’t just fight for himself, he fights for the whole of creation. Dean is not a vase. He is a human.

Oh and John’s taste in beer, much like my fathers, is crap. Don’t drink shitty beer. Also, I don’t drink scotch anymore. I'm a gin girl and I drink *okay* beer.

I’m the same blogger who does drunk blogging regarding Supernatural on Saturdays. It is a lovely bit of comfort and joy for me and I won’t be stopping any time soon. We will get back to the lovely and light “Dean is Bi he he” commentary this weekend.

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tss-grimmverse · 4 years

Text

Chapter 1: Clematis

i walk a lonely road

the only one that i have ever known

Virgil stepped into the strange apartment.

It was quiet. Not a mere absence of sound, but a quiet that breathed deep and blanketed the senses like a nighttime pillow. It was a quiet that examined every scuff and rustle and soft exhalation with cool curiosity. It listened, with the hush of trees in the night.

It watched, with the perilous regard of faeries.

Virgil let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding; probably had been holding since leaving Ohio two days before. After multiple bus rides across multiple states and hours and hours of strangers and suitcases and stress…despite how it put his paranoid senses on edge, he was glad of the quiet, away from open spaces and curious eyes.

But the apartment was also dark, and a little cold, and its owner was painfully conspicuous by his absence.

The place belonged to a half-faery named Logan Ursae: who, according to the Youngstown Grimms, was a friend of the organization that they trusted to provide pursued changelings a place to run to and start over.

Changelings like Virgil.

Virgil, who would rather be with his Ren Faire troupe back in Ohio. The reappearance of his old faery master had brought his scarce two years of freedom to an abrupt end.

The Grimms were a loose organization of former faery thralls; humans kidnapped as children, who’d lived in Arcadia for so long that their bodies had absorbed faery magic and made them something not quite fae, but more than human. Blessed…or cursed, depending on who you asked…with strange and erratic and often dangerous powers. Those that joined the Grimms used those powers to help other humans escape and integrate, as best they could, back into the human world.

And, occasionally, they worked to protect said thralls when their former faery masters came looking for them.

Now here Virgil stood, in some ordinary human apartment, owned by an absent half-blood with a human name, in some middle-of-nowhere city in hot, muggy Florida, a thousand miles from everyone he knew.

Figures, the guy isn’t even here when I show up. He tugged his oversized black plaid hoodie tighter around himself. It’s not like I’m ever anyone’s top priority.

“Uh, hey?” he called, flipping a light switch. “Anyone home?”

Silence.

Virgil rolled his eyes.

Despite his relief at not having to answer questions or make small talk with a stranger, Logan’s absence unsettled him. What kind of person apparently regularly took in changelings on the run, but couldn’t be arsed to actually be around when they turned up on his doorstep? If Virgil’d had any other place to go, he’d have turned around and walked right back out the door on principle.

Instead he huffed out a sigh and let his ratty duffle bag slide to the floor. He’d meet this mysterious Logan eventually; assuming, of course, that his pursuer didn’t track him down in the night and finish what he’d begun years ago in Arcadia.

It would be no more than I deserve.

Logan Ursae’s apartment was spacious and clean, making Virgil uncomfortably aware of his own travel-mussed, unwashed state. Hopefully the half-faery wouldn’t care if he used the shower…well, if he wanted to lay down rules, he should’ve been here to do it.

The foyer spilled into a modest living room, with a navy sectional couch and a low coffee table, several standing lamps, a hallway presumably leading to the bedrooms, and the dining space off in its own niche to the right. Practically every wall in the place housed a heavily-laden bookshelf or three; an inconceivable number of books to Virgil, who’d lived either on the road or on the run his whole life. He wandered to the oval dining table, trailing fingerpads across classy pale wood and a dark blue runner.

A half empty water dish with ‘Nic’ spelled out in neat cursive sat against the far wall…but there were no other signs of pets. If Logan did have a dog or something, it was as absent as its owner.

A low counter separated a small galley kitchen from the rest of the apartment, navy towels hanging evenly from the oven handle and blue, galaxy-themed pot holders hanging under the cabinets.

The guy clearly had a thing for the color blue.

Even the curious scent that hung in the air smelled blue to Virgil’s changeling-sensitive nose, tickling at his senses in an explosion of color. Dark teal skies and rich bronze bark against a background of earthy brown, a combination that made his mind hazy in a pleasant way. Subtle and masculine, but more middle-note than the patchouli oil Virgil himself liked to wear.

He inhaled slowly, unconsciously imagining that scent against a warm masculine neck, and wondered where the hell that thought came from.

Maybe you’re just gay, Virgil, he groused to himself.

In place of a television, Logan’s living room held a large, intricately carved wooden cabinet; the antique kind, waist-high, with drawers and two swinging doors. On top of this sat an old fashioned record player with a huge brass horn. The setup could have easily graced a 50s movie set; both cabinet and player were heavy and solid and gleamed with care.

Virgil idly pawed through the impressive vinyl collection on the shelf above, recognizing a few artists, and then knelt to see if there were any more inside the cabinet.

“I’ll thank ye not to touch that,” a voice said.

Virgil’s heart skittered up into his throat. He whirled.

A creature no more than two feet tall leaned against the coffee table, tiny brown arms folded over a sturdy brown chest, covered by a tunic that looked to be messily stitched from several colored hand towels. Their feet were bare and covered in brown wispy hair. Gender was impossible to determine.

Their face was framed by a mop of more wispy hair and a tall hat that, weirdly, looked like it had been made from burlap and a Starbucks cup. A pair of black sunglasses sat on a red, upturned nose, nearly obscuring a pair of black, beady, glaring eyes under expressive eyebrows.

Fae, Virgil’s mind whispered. Fae, Fae, there’s a Fae in the house they’ll tell Deceit where I am what do I do…?

No. He was overreacting. It was just a house brownie. A solitary. Generally harmless.

Virgil took a breath and relaxed his shoulders, which had tensed up at being startled.

“You always sneak up on people?” he asked, mirroring the small faery’s crossed-arm stance.

“You always go poking about in people’s houses?” the brownie countered in a high, sassy voice, the faintest hint of a baroque staining the syllables.

“I’m not poking; I have a key. S’not my fault Logan’s not here—”

“I meant what’s behind you,” the brownie nodded toward the cabinet, “ye daft changeling. I know the Bear is expecting company. Do what ye want in the rest of the apartment, but keep clear of my house.”

Oh.

Virgil shuffled away from the cabinet, trying to recall what little he knew about domestic Fae. Don’t insult them. Leave gifts; never leave them payment. Don’t watch them do chores. Don’t give them clothes.

Nothing about trying to make conversation with one; unfortunate, since Virgil sucked at making conversation in general.

“Sorry,” he grumbled. “Just…don’t like being surprised.”

The brownie peeked over their sunglasses…why would a Fae wear sunglasses?…and ran beady eyes over Virgil’s faded purple hair and messy eyeshadow, his ripped jeans and faded black hoodie, seemingly content to let him squirm under the scrutiny.

“Um, no offense,” Virgil muttered, rubbing his neck. “But your kind don’t usually show themselves to humans.”

The brownie plopped onto the coffee table.

“Well, I see no humans here,” they quipped, leaning forward. “Do you, changeling?”

Virgil instinctively ducked his head, letting his bangs obscure his eyes…eyes that, like all changelings, held a narrow ring of color around each pupil. Worse, Virgil’s changeling eyes were heterochromatic, setting him apart even from his own kind. Besides his natural dark brown, he bore a dark green ring around his left pupil, and a striking purple one around his right.

Wearing his hair long in the front helped, but they still drew attention.

He hated attention.

If there was one thing Fae were good at, it was needling at your insecurities. Brownies and hobgoblins and other solitaries, like all faeries, enjoyed their little games.

“Technically changelings are human,” Virgil grumbled. “We’re just kept in Arcadia for so long that the magic just kind of—”

“Bleeds into ye?” The brownie swung their legs, making their mop of hair sway. “Soaks into your teeth and sinew until ye can alter the Contracts same as they can?”

Virgil frowned. “If that means ‘do magic’, then yeah.”

“I live with a half-blood, lad,” the brownie pointed out, still in that sassy tone, licking their knobby teeth. “I know of your Grimms. I know you’re here for the Bear to keep safe, because your master tried to snatch ye back up. What’re you called, then, eh?”

“Um,” Virgil stalled, swallowing.

It was never a good idea to give a Fae one’s real name, but if Logan and the little Fae had a close relationship, Virgil didn’t dare insult the brownie by lying to them. He suspected if this one knew why he was here, they knew his name already.

“Virgil,” he admitted softly.

The brownie smiled, removing their sunglasses to bare their face properly.

“Mmm. Then you may call me Remy,” they said with a small nod, flourishing the glasses and parking them back on their nose. “He/him pronouns.”

Virgil nodded, guessing he’d passed some test.

Remy folded his arms again.

Neither spoke for a long, uncomfortable minute…long enough for Virgil’s skin to crawl. Logan’s brownie seemed friendly enough, but Virgil wasn’t too keen to start befriending every faery he happened across. He also despised awkward silences, and small talk, and making nice with a stranger when he was worn down and grimy from travel and ready to curl up somewhere and just sleep.

“Look, uh, Remy,” Virgil said at last, picking at his sleeves. “Did Logan know I was coming tonight?”

“You want to know why he’s not here to meet ye?” Remy shrugged. “I could explain, or,” and he gestured to a neatly folded sheet of paper on the coffee table, “you could hear it from the Bear himself.”

Virgil rolled his eyes and snatched up the note.

He could’ve have led with that, the little bastard. He ignored Remy’s knowing chuckle and unfolded the note with a little more force than necessary. Delicate, slanted script covered the paper, the lines so straight they looked like they’d been made with a ruler.

‘Salutations,’

Virgil raised an eyebrow. Really? We’re leading with that?

‘If you are reading this, Virgil, then I extend my sincerest apologies for my absence upon your arrival. An emergency has called me away. Though I advised your Grimm sponsors of this as soon as I could, you had already begun your journey, and, as you have no phone, there was no way to inform you.

Remy was right about this note being enlightening. Virgil hoped the guy didn’t actually talk like this.

‘(We must remedy this issue upon my return; due to the circumstances of your relocation, I insist upon having a reliable means to contact you.)’

Patronizing, too. Great.

‘The room on the left is yours. There are clean sheets on the bed and towels in the bathroom. I trust you have brought your own toiletries.’

Virgil frowned. Either Logan was one of those people who believed not brushing one’s teeth after every meal was barbaric, or he was afraid Virgil would steal his shampoo or something.

Whatever.

‘Also, please do not move the bowl on the counter, and if you find it empty, if you could fill it with the cream you’ll find in the fridge, I would much appreciate it. The house brownie may or may not choose to introduce himself to you; he tends to spend most of his time sleeping. If he does come out, please be polite.’

Virgil glanced up and was unsurprised to see that Remy had vanished. Brownies generally came and went as they pleased and stayed out of sight; he already knew he was fortunate Remy had shown himself at all.

‘I advise you to stay inside the apartment until my return. You will find both the fridge and the pantry stocked; please make yourself at home. I expect to return sometime the night of the 12th, and look forward to meeting you then.

Logan’

‘P.S. Do not touch the Crofters.’

Well, August 12th would be over in about an hour, so it didn’t look like he’d be meeting Logan that night. Virgil refolded and pocketed the note, sighing again. He found Remy’s bowl and refilled it as instructed, but figured he probably wouldn’t see the little brownie again until Logan returned…if then.

Meanwhile, he might as well get settled.

The room mentioned in the note held a twin bed, a nightstand with a lamp, and a small deck with a chair. Not much, but the bedspread looked new and he had his own closet. Virgil, having lived in a tent before this, was very much not complaining.

After unpacking his clothes (black, very dark gray, more black, a little purple…what, so he had a certain aesthetic), he carefully unearthed his two most valued possessions: a beat-up tackle box full of smushed, well-used acrylic paints, and a roll of brushes and palette knives. In his escape, he’d had to leave his all sketchbooks and paintings behind…but he knew he was lucky to have saved any of his art supplies at all.

Virgil sat heavily on his bed, the last seventy-two hours finally starting to catch up.

The sheer terror of seeing his former faery master strolling through that Renaissance Faire like he owned the place.

Him bolting to his tent and throwing everything he could into his duffle.

Running, with no real plan, nowhere in particular to go, just away.

He was lucky that a Grimm had stumbled upon him at that farmer’s market and taken him to a safe house, one of many, set up all over the country. He was lucky those Grimms were in contact with the Founders…the original Grimm team…and through them, Logan.

He was lucky.

He’d already escaped hell once. He wasn’t sure he’d survive under Deceit’s thumb again. Working until his fingers bled and his eyes burned with exhaustion, second guessing every word, every gesture, every silence, never knowing day to day if he’d be slapped or fed, coddled or tortured…

Virgil shuddered, wrapping arms around himself and exhaling carefully. He’d endured over twenty hours of traveling without having a panic attack. It would suck to fall into one now that he was, for the moment, safe.

At least, he hoped so.

For lack of anything else to do, Virgil showered in the guest bathroom (with his own shampoo, thank you very much, Mr. Bring-Your-Own-Toiletries), and dressed for bed. , It was barely midnight and his eyelids already felt heavy, and normally he considered 2am “early”. He read through Logan’s stilted, precise note again, frowning the odd post script before setting it on the nightstand and switching off the lamp.

What in the Arcadian hell is a ‘Crofters’?

Clematis: rest, safety

#sanders sides fanfiction #ts fanfic #virgil sanders #ts virgil #fae #ts remy #remy sanders #fanfiction #mahoganyandteakwood

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smallblanketfort · 4 years

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hi again. i typed half a response to what you said and then got sucked into dumb life shit and forgot to come back to this... but anyway. i really love & appreciate what you said (and also my pronouns are he/him). i just have been living this for whole ass years and am at the point where i am just... physically stuck. waiting for hormones for my life to start. like for example the only future i could ever see myself being happy and fulfilled in is one where music is integral... 1/

...but my voice is the number one thing i am the MOST dysphoric about. but i want to dance. i want to sing. i want to give my everything to make that my life, i want to sweat and cry and go hungry and struggle for it, i want to throw myself at it in the hopes that maybe there are people out there that will feel moved by what i have to say. but how am i supposed to say anything, how do i sing it all out when every time i open my mouth i feel like shriveling up and dying? when strangers get my pronouns right only to “correct” themselves when they hear my voice? after 5 years how many more will it take for me to be able to so much as wear all the t-shirts i’ve collected only to never feel comfortable with one on? i seriously live so out in the middle of conservative nowhere right now that even if i went behind my family’s back i’d still have no trans resources here to even turn to. seriously, i’ve looked into it. it would cost me hundreds of dollars per visit plus probably 4 hours of travel just for a lgbt *therapist* of any kind. and that’s not even someone who can get me anything physical that i need. i just hate that money is the only fucking reason i’m not in an entirely different place in my life right now. i cannot. support myself alone. with minimum wage. and it’s so fucking frustrating and the idea of being where i’m at for longer than just the next month makes me want to break down and cry. but fuck sorry now i’m just oversharing and i’m sorry i’ve just had no one to talk to about this. i appreciate you. thank you. -thunderstorm anon

hi friendo

i am so sorry, and your frustrations and fears and realities and pain is so so real and valid. 100%. you are heard, and you know what is right for your body.

some thoughts that come to mind. I’m not sure if any of this is accessible or appropriate to you, so please disregard to any point that feels comfy.

a lot of the trans music artists i listen to do not really sound like the gender they are. it’s unfortunate, and i can’t imagine how that feels. but! it might be relatable and peaceful to witness trans artists living their dream and letting their voice be heard, even if it feels separate from what the stereotypical gendered voice is. i am nonbinary, so our experiences with gender are vastly, vastly different! where i disentangle everything from my gender/sex, i understand that you want to place your voice into that gendered space, and that’s completely okay. i just want to acknowledge the reality of our differences bc i know i have some privilege there.

as for therapy, there are some free virtual options that might work for you, plus some w sliding scales. first thoughts include the trevor project and trans lifeline. they might have recommendations for you... from trans people. (sorry, i’m a librarian by day, finding resources is just how my brain functions)

also want to reinstate that your reasons for how you feel are fully valid. you are fully trans and fully guy, whether or not you’ve transitioned. fully. prioritize your safety in your home, but consider if there is an adult in your life you can come out to and share this with. again... prioritize your safety. you deserve to be heard. and capitalism is a bitch, and so is money. you’re also young. do you have plans to go to college? i really need you to look past 2 months from now and imagine for yourself a future that is 2 years, 5 years, 8 years away from you. what does it look like? a month from now is not your forever, even if it is agony. i really want to look into your eyes rn and tell you that there is a future for you, and you are in it, living in a body that feels more like yours.

thank you for sharing, friend. i promise that someone reading this sees themselves in your words... and that sucks, but you are so loved and seen. always here for you.

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diveronarpg · 4 years

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Congratulations, NAY! You’ve been accepted for the role of LAVINIA. Admin Minnie: I’ve always thought Lillian was one of the trickier characters to fully grasp, because it’d be so easy to turn her into an outline of a person and not the whole vivid picture. But you, Nay, have won me over completely. You have such a knack for characterization and nailed Lillian’s voice, that balance she strikes between light and power. The interview portion was my absolute favorite part — I loved the way you brought her to life and the way you showed us the inner workings of her mind, heart and soul. I’m so, so glad to put Lillian into your talented hands! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | nay

Age | twenty-two

Preferred Pronouns | she / her

Activity Level | i find it cruelly ironic that i asked for time away from the roleplay community to try to make sense of my chaotic life, and a couple of weeks later, the world imploded and now we’re all quarantined. somehow, i’ve got my shit together-ish. and i really sorely need the light that is the DV fam in these trying times, however, so. 8/10, i’d say?

Timezone | gmt+5

How did you find the rp? | i sold my soul to it some time ago~

Current/Past RP Accounts | never RP’ed a day in my life, what’re you talking about?

IN CHARACTER

Character | LAVINIA / lillian wen

What drew you to this character? | titus adronicus isn’t exactly the darkest of shakespeare’s works, but the storyline of lavinia in particular happens to be one that has always been brutally impactful to me. there is this absolutely fascinating dichotomy lavinia depicts through her journey in the play, one between honor & freedom, that keeps me up at night sometimes. and when it comes to lillian, that struggle feels embedded in her story just the same. regardless, i don’t know that it’s possible to not be drawn to lillian wen.

there’s a multitude of aspects that keeps me inescapably besotted with her — the foundation upon which she blossomed from child, to girl, to the woman she is; an aura of a true, chatoyant aesthete; a plot arc of sexual assault survival, used as a steppingstone towards advocacy… but most of all, i think what won out was the soul she’s got, and all the light it bleeds. there is a line in her biography that reads: “belief was a powerful thing in the wen household.” i’ve thought about that line for daaaays, honestly. it was that line that really got me with her, because i could already see it in my head: she was raised by two women—artistic, emotional, intellectual, opinionated women—and they taught her belief as a religion. she was raised to know it was the most useful weapon she could ever have in an admittedly dastardly world; faith, in herself & in the power of light, and hope, and living in one’s truth. to be raised that way, and make what she has of herself, to wind up in a loveless, strategic marriage and part of a mob? she is such an intriguing character, with such insurmountable potential for growth.

there is something about lillian’s devout optimism, which doesn’t deserve to be mistaken for naiveté, & a faith in humanity that bolsters me, reminding me a fair amount of the sweetness i’ve always adored in juliana, and how there is more than one way to be a fighter, which is exactly what lillian is. but i also think that aspect in a discordant war-time setting would be so god damn cool to play with, because it prompts questions: how far does being good get you? is anything really in black & white? what does a limit feel like? what could you break open to let the light in? i’d love a chance to find answers through an unravelling of her story.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

NOTE: here’s the ever-present disclaimer that these are all merely ideas, subject to discussion & changes, able to be altered in collaboration with other characters.

{ 1 } GILDED CAGE — a corrupt, mob-allegiant District Attorney for a fiancé; there is no question that it is to a man of power her mothers have intertwined her future, seeing protection for the daughter who is their whole world in the bloodbath tainting the city that is their home. to cassian bhatt, lillian is a nothing more than an accessory. of course, she had never been raised to be a girl who emptily dreamt of an ideal love, not when there was the whole universe to fall in love with, and no end to the every day magic the people it brimmed with had to offer. but a loveless marriage? lillian has never been one to tell lies, only ever to hone an innate ability to make the truth as palatable as possible, and her prospective bond feels like one. would she still go through with it? would she ever be able to say no to two women who never let her want for anything a day in her life?

⋯ cassian is the most obvious plot for her story, so i wanted to tackle him, first & foremost. i’m almost sure that lillian won’t seal the deal; she’s come too far in life to only come so far, and wind up with a man she feels nothing at all for. however, i was reading through cassian’s biography, too, and i would be lying if i said i couldn’t see potential for lillian to both either love, or something to cause friction in their dynamic, even if it isn’t a necessarily pleasant sort. currently, i know that lillian refuses to do more than hollowly tolerate him, purely because he has been forced upon her, and her general distrust of men in the wake of her assault makes her anything but open to him. can we really deny that he’s a smart, capable, clever man, though? there could be spark. it could turn to a catalyst for growth in multiple ways, positive & negative, and i am dying to explore the many different ways their story could unfold.

{ 2 } WHAT IS LOVE? — what if she does marry cassian bhatt? it is a possibility, after all. with the capulets, she has found a voice. she has a platform, she has causes she believes in & actively fights for, and a marriage wouldn’t bar lillian from any of that, nor would it keep her from being the precocious, curious creature that she is. and what if, after that’s done, she falls in love with someone? with her mothers never having been married, lillian never considered romantic love & legally-binding commitment to go hand-in-hand, but that does not mean it couldn’t. it doesn’t mean she couldn’t fall in love with a person she might, one day, want to be with. would she cross that line, if it came down to it? would cassian let her? would the capulets object to it, considering it is her relationship with him that has drug lillian into their fold?

⋯ this is more a subplot to the last than it is a standalone arc, but roll with it. lillian is, in a way that is one of my absolute favourite things about her, a delicious enigma of a woman. i don’t believe there is anything she couldn’t turn and look at from another side. and at the same time? i feel that she is a person who takes notions of integrity, and promises, very seriously. she is a woman of her word, at the end of the day. what would it take to blur her lines? you don’t choose who you fall in love with. you don’t choose when it happens, or how it happens. what you control is your actions, and lillian has both always believed that, and demonstrated it. so, what would she choose, in such a circumstance?

{ 3 } BEST LAID PLANS — she met cosimo capulet whilst on cassian’s arm, and it was over a glass of rosé, the man talked to her about her charity-work. he told her of the origins of the capulets’ particular brand of business: the robin hood reminiscent legacy initiated by one lucius capulet, of the revolution they had begun with, giving back to the impoverished lillian fought for as well. her mothers never would have understood how the good girl they had raised could level with a mob-boss, but lillian has, and it is how she has ended up a consultant to the capulets. but how far is she willing to integrate herself with their cause? how much of the necessary violence of a war can she truly stomach?

⋯ i told you: a dichotomy between honor & freedom. it feels like the crux of lillian’s story to me. i’ve got very strong headcanons in mind for the relationship she’s got with the capulets, purely because i would like for her relationship with them to stand on its own, as opposed to being more so reliant on the relationship her fiancé has with them. the fact that the capulets have given her a voice means a great deal to lillian, definitely more than she ever could have expected it to, and i would like to see that graciousness she’s developed drive her to make choices she might question under the lens of her own honor-code afterwards. you know me, i’m a sucker for internal conflict to drive character development, and i need it with lillian, for sure.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | honestly? i don’t think i could stomach lillian dying.

IN-DEPTH

♦ IN-CHARACTER INTERVIEW:

NOTE: out of caution, i’d like to precede this portion with trigger warnings for sexual assault mention and ptsd

“benvenuti!”

she is already greeting you before she’s quite done opening the door. welcome, is what must remind you that you are, in fact, a stranger in her house. the warmth the curve of her mouth radiates is one that seeps in through your pores; it is not easy to remember that this is the first time you’ve met signora lillian wen. you’ve heard it before: like the sun, she is hard to look at, yet her warmth is undeniable.

“come in,” she invites, and the silken slip-dress she’s donned seems to ripple like peach-hued water when she sweeps her arm, waiting for you to step over the threshold and stand beside her, so she might match you, footstep-for-footstep.

— What is your favorite place in Verona?

“that’s such a deliciously difficult question,” lillian enthuses, beaming, despite her brows that furrow in thought over it. favourite, after all, is no small word; she must ponder it, then, for she does so like to mean the things she says. “ – you know, i don’t know that i’ve only the one,” is what she settles on, pouring out the lemonde she’s fixed up a pitcher of herself just now. the smell of the mint leaves she’s peppered it with infuses itself in the house, and she can’t help but breathe it in, deeply, satisfied.

“so much of this city is so very dear to me. i cannot give you a favourite between them all, not when they’ve their own charms, and my own memories attached to them,” she slides over a glass to you, ice cubes merrily tinkling within, “but i will tell you that the oldest shall always be the home i grew up in. it was more snug than this, perhaps, yes, but my mothers made sure it brimmed with all that feeds the human soul. there isn’t a memory under that roof that does not make my heart ache with nostalgia, which, really, is the heart’s way of telling you it was worth it. don’t you agree?”

lillian clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth, a sound of regret that does not match the soft radiance of her mouth.

“humble beginnings, hmm?”

— What does your typical day look like?

the living-room is far from lacking pieces of furniture, all of them as comfortable to sit in as they are to look at. you know this, because she has suggested you try each out to settle on a preference, and you’ve done it. it is only once your stomach hurts from laughter incited from such childish wonderfulness that you realise: she has broken the ice.

lillian herself sprawls out on a chaise lounge by the window, tipped on her side with her legs curled underneath herself. she looks like a mermaid. her words sound lyrical when her laughter laces them: “ah, always the same, and also never as well.”

the sip of lemonade is delicate, brief, though she tips the glass for a second, fuller mouthful when you’re sure she can’t possibly have swallowed the first that quickly. never mind –

“i like to start my day rising with the sun,” she tells you. “my absolute favourite thing about living by myself is the luxury of not having to speak at all until i wish to do so – which, of course, doesn’t take too long at all, for i might be my own fondest companion. i like to prepare my own breakfast, after; eat outside, if i want, though i rather rebelliously might crawl back into bed with a tray when i feel particularly blue. i never stay under the covers for too long, however. i simply can’t. there’s too much to do. so, i dress myself up in whatever ensemble feels the most myself that day, and set off to find another way to save the world.”

her nose crinkles when she grins. you cannot help grinning back, can you?

— What has been your biggest mistake thus far?

unbidden, lillian’s mind whirls so quickly, her thoughts slip from her fingers like water. and she is back there, in that room, with that man. that man who smiled when she walked into the room. who smiled when he motioned her to costumery that felt divine to touch, silken & decadent. who smiled when he called her a vision. who smiled when he held her down, while she begged, when he left her on the ground.

believing that smile, she thinks.

“ ––– signora?” you ask, tone tender, for she looks so fragile when she is still.

as if a button has been pushed, lillian seems to snap out of it – appears to back to life. there is an apology in her smile, and it feels like a shadow. the shadow darkens her words: “to call one the biggest seems like tempting fate, doesn’t it?” she wonders aloud. “such as when one says things can’t possibly get any worse, and right then, the universe shows you how wrong you were about that?”

— What has been the most difficult task asked of you?

cassian bhatt. the syllables of his name sit at the tip of her tongue, burning, and lillian cannot say them. she cannot betray her mothers so. she knows, already, the looks on their faces would ache more—inevitably, unbearably more—than that of letting her jaw clench, and teeth grind, to keep that truth inside, until she swallows it down.

there can be more than one truth, lillian knows. she reminds herself: once, twice, three times. and then, over the rim of her glass, she smiles a smile she can mean. “that isn’t a mindset i agree with,” she states, “if you believe it is the most difficult, it might feel near impossible, might it not? that just won’t do. forget most difficult–” she sweeps it away with a wave of her hand, like a makeshift broom-limb, “–let’s only say we’ve all got our challenges, and we aren’t the most enthusiastic to rise to all of them.”

she breathes a laugh, then. “my maman likes to remind me; mind over matter, petit fleur. i can hear it in my head already!”

— What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and the Montagues?

lillian’s brows crawl up her forehead. she looks so perplexed, you can’t help but wonder if you accidentally said a word wrong. her home is easy to relax inside, involuntarily, and the possibility would not be unfounded. she explains it herself, all the same, when she asks: “is it a war?”

it is difficult to discern whether the question is rhetorical or not. her head cants, and she answers it herself, “h.g. wells once wrote: if we don’t end war, war will end us.” her sip is pensive, now. “i believe that, truly. there are no winners; only those who are left in the wake of one. and so, i can only hope that is not what this is.”

her eyes are kind. “don’t you?”

♦ EXTRAS:

✴ pinterest → here;

✴ tag → here.

#accepted #accepted: lavinia

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happymetalgirl · 4 years

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Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin Kynsi

Along with the entirety of fellow metal experimentalists Dark Buddha Rising, Oranssi Pazuzu in their entirety as well contributed to one of my favorite records of last year under the shared moniker of Waste of Space Orchestra. Their album, Syntheosis, was a hypnotic, surreal levitation through synth-heavy metallic psychedelia that Oranssi Pazuzu had been working more and more into their sound, which was at a height on their 2016 effort, Värähtelijä. After the release of its successor here though, not only the synthesizer boldness on Värähtelijä, but the band’s entire sound and artistic advancement as well pale in comparison to what they’ve done with Mestarin Kynsi.

Oranssi Pazuzu have been about this very sound their entire career, from their already rather impressive 2009 debut, Muukalainen puhuu, to this year’s effort. Even though they started strong, the band have been pushing themselves as best as they can to reinforce their sound, making little improvements from one album to the next throughout the past decade, in what has seemed like painstakingly slow, mild progress along a relatively high plateau, until now.

Mestarin Kynsi goes all in on the synths even more than two band’s worth of synthesizers did on last year’s Syntheosis did, but it’s not about simply upping a single element of Oranssi Pazuzu’s sound, but rather how the band uses that to truly evolve their sound beyond just being more synthy. The band’s fifth full-length is all about taking their captivatingly psychedelic black metal’s tangible, yet other-worldly horror to a whole new level for them and for black metal. The band manages to find this sweet spot of ideal balance between integrating so many synthetic elements and mutating traditional black metal elements while never losing that vital metallic realness and intensity in their music. No matter how many special effects the band brings in, the undivided focus is on the substantive mastery with which the band wields their massive sonic arsenal.

While most of the spook and psychedelia comes from the incredible creativity with which the synths are weaved into the dynamic metallic backdrop, the foundation that the band’s brilliance with manipulating those traditional metallic elements into a monstrous vehicle for the synths to amplify the various cerebral aspects of their music should not be left unpraised. While the instrumental pieces are rarely ever super flashy in isolation, the way they all work together in such harmony in a way that feels as though they arent even coming from a band with individual members but rather a superconsciousness where all the artists share and channel their creative energy through a single mind truly transcends the tightness of the vast majority of bands, who are often just incapable of entirely preventing everyone’s ego from leaking out just a little. With Oranssi Pazuzu in this album, it’s, again, like it’s all one mind and the only ego is the music itself. Before I get further into the kind of subjective abstraction this album seems to love encouraging me to dive headfirst into, I’ll get into the general technical aspects of it all.

First of all, the mixing of all the ingredients going into this album, for all sheer size of the sound being captured here, is a freaking feat of excellence and whoever mixed this thing deserves to take a bow. It’s not all crisp and clear the whole way through like some polished up techdeath record, but every phase in and out of the forefront and background of the mix is timely and constructive to the continuously sprawling movements of the compositions across the album. The drums really act as the album’s heartbeat in a way that few album’s drum sections can truly be described, pumping faster through the panic-inducing moments and maintaining a steady hypercardia through the calmer, yet still unsafe moments in the album. The guitars and bass provide the foundational aspects of the reasoning behind whatever is raising the album’s blood pressure, tastefully distorted and even maxed the hell out when the moment calls for it, and deceptively entrancing in their dark serenity of their hypnotically soothing dissonance when the tension needs to be built, never flashy or distracting, always committed to the greater good of the music of the album as a whole rather than any one instrumentalist’s turn for some time in the spotlight. And speaking of the spotlight, the part of the music that is usually prone to hogging it is as selfless and complimentary on this album as the rest of the band. The demonically liturgical, gravelly snarled vocals aren’t really flashy by any means either, but that’s not to say that the haunting hypnosis of the vocals is without character. Indeed, the vocals may be not be shooting for technical pizazz, but vocalist Jun-His really is playing a voice on the album and not just vocals behind a microphone. The vocal performances across the album (including all the effects used to enhance and accent then) really work beyond just the musical and extend into the theatrical, the voice of the album really coming from an otherworldly being all its own when the album is on.

Like I said, Oranssi Pazuzu has been melting and remolding black metal to do their bidding for over a decade, and the band continues to reform the genre much in ways that bands like Neurosis so vividly warps sludge and post-metal into something all their own and how Swans’ most recent incarnations have stretched out and apocalyptified the basic elements of rock music to a possibly maximal extreme. I mention that because I really am reminded so heavily of the genius of Swans and Neurosis with the way Oranssi Pazuzu approaches black metal in such an unrecognizable, yet unmistakable way on Mestarin Kynsi.

The creepy synth motif that traces through the eerie psychedelic guitars of the opening track, “Ilmestys” are brilliant and immediately mood-setting alone, but the freakish accents that also run through the song just heighten the tension even more, making the burst into the warped, but awe-inspiring metallic crescendo near the song’s end such a fulfilling payoff. It’s a tactfully tempered, brilliantly accented, and expertly strategically arranged, cinematic opening to an album that subsequently continues to build on that cinematic grandiosity set up by its opening track in a further display of specialty mastery by its progenating artists.

Taking a slightly more patient approach in the aftermath of the opener, the second track, “Tyhjyyden sakramentti” is a bit more of a gradual build through several sections of gradually thickening metallic psychedelia that takes all sorts of twists and turns through spooky and trippy swirls of forcefully mesmerizing guitar noise. The band integrates all sorts of effects on the guitars with great intuition on how to . The song eventually reaches a simple, straightforward guitar riff for a few seconds, which is very soon sucked into a synthy reverberation that sounds like it takes a quick breath of fresh, sober reality and immediately plunges it back into the synesthetic nightmare of shimmering, yet discomforting ambiance the song has so expertly conjured up.

The longest song on the album, “Uusi teknokratia”, winds its way through these fuzzed and hazed out Sabbathian riffs and super creepy hyperventilating (yet uncannily calm) vocal hums and haunting echoes of black metal screams. Similarly hypertension-inducing, dark-night, full-moon ritualistic guitar atmospherics of a wide variety of speeds, timbres join in in cementing the frightful visions that the song is conjuring. The plinky synths and anxiety-inducing uncanny calmness of the soft vocals really give this song such an immersive sense of under-the-surface panic and uneasiness during the buildup to the thicker body portions of the composition, which make great use of the tension that’s built up, both giving the release of that tension a fitting of the type of horror that the tension foreshadows and bringing the energy back down in a manner that allows the tension to build up again for another gratifying payoff rather than being completely expended, including the dark ambient drone that rounds out the track to set up the unease for the next one.

It’s a foreboding string motif, eventually treated with some warped/slowed-record pitch distortion, that opens the album’s fourth track, “Oikiamielisten sali”. After this arguably over-extended intro, the song then bursts through with these bright synth lines and electronically fuzzy guitar lines that eventually ramp up to yet another level of entrancing, distorted guitar ether that manage to encapsulate a feeling of out-of-body dread amid some disorienting other-worldly storm, which is even more terrifyingly transcendent in its lengthy, multi-phased climactic finish that more than makes up for the length of the intro it took to get there. The ethereal first half of the climax and the pulsing pounding of the drums underneath the instruments’ power-down/fade-out on the second half are just so godly, and they lead seamlessly into the darkest moment of the album.

“Kuulen ääniä maan alta” kicks off with a low-register electronic drone over a driving mid-paced beat and some twisted horn samples that immediately turn the fearfully heavenly mood from the preceding track sour (in a great way). Far more fierce and menacing than anything else on the track list, “Kuulen ääniä maan alta” takes an entirely unique approach to the concept of heaviness, guitar distortion and crashing drums being merely a portion of the grand orchestra of haunting sounds on display.

The album ends with a real boom with the song “Taivan Portii”, which instantly kicks off with a flurry of distorted guitars, warped and spirit-summoning synths, and driving blasts of drumming that all mount into this huge, gargantuan wave of sound that just swirls around and back and forth in a final expulsion of unhidden, unrestrained psychedelic black metal power, like a coercive malevolent deity that has finally revealed its true form and power and whose breath-stealing display prompts only simple terrified admiration in helpless, accepted anticipation of its exercise.

This album is so immersive in the disfigured world it brings to life, so accomplished in the style the band have been honing from the beginning of their career, and so impressively composed and well-directed, it’s honestly hard to stop talking about and hard to avoid in exchange for listening to something else, it’s like I’ve been hypnotized into repeatedly returning to its best inhuman seance. Or maybe I’m just addicted to a fucking great album. It is a truly singular display of a band creating something so much bigger than themselves on a sonic level. I don’t understand a word on it, but I can’t get over this album, and I can’t imagine how much more I would have to pour into this review if I were to try to find and translate the lyrics. But either way, this thing is an artistic monolith and a real declaration of the band’s importance. I’ve been listening to it over and over again, thinking admittedly way more than I really should about how to score this thing, and every time I listen to it and analyze for flaws I just end up loving it more for new reasons as it unfolds and unfolds over and over. You could argue that the length of the intro to “Oikiamielisten sali” is an imperfection, but I’m not going to fixate on a lengthy spacy intro on a psychedelic album as a flaw like a slightly long nose hair on a beautiful woman. To me, I can justify calling this thing imperfect, barely, but it’s not worth it. I believe in love. To me, Mestarin Kynsi is a...

10/10

#Oranssi Pazuzu #Mestarin Kynsi #metal #heavy metal #black metal #progressive black metal #psychedelic black metal #experimental metal #avant garde metal #experimental black metal #avant garde black metal #psychedelic rock #experimental rock #new music #new album #album review #great album

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sadwetmoomin · 4 years

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ok so im tired

The problem isn’t ‘not enough people of color or women are making enough good films and TV shows.’ The problem is whenever someone ACTUALLY gets recognized, white, cis men think that their own identity and the ‘integrity’ of award shows are being compromised to appeal to diversity. I remember watching Ramy Youssef accepting his Golden Globe for his performance in his own show, Ramy. Now, the show itself is incredible; as someone who’s trying to maintain faith and culture (though not Muslim), I found a lot of the things in Ramy’s reality really interesting and relatable. I felt like this was a story that many people have experienced, and making it a comedy makes our own lives more enjoyable. Furthermore, it addresses real issues in a way that exposes how ingrained they are in our everyday lives, and how (as a latina and child of immigrants) I had to grow up with all these preconceptions about myself and the people around me. However, when he was making his acceptance speech, a person walked up to the screen and talked over him, saying, “He only won because he’s Muslim. The academy loves to pick people because they’re diverse, and it’s unfair how political they are.” Yet, how can this statement be true when most of the nominated people were white? If the Academy truly rigged elections to pick people based on diversity alone, the whole audience would be different shades of brown, correct?

And why does the meaning of the award change depending on whose hand holds it? Without seeing the show itself, how can a person decide the merit a person deserves? Not only does it discredit the hard work a person did to fulfill an artistic vision, but it implies that the main difference between a white man’s work and anyone else’s is that a white man always deserves to be nominated. According to this ideology, a white man will always produce quality work that deserves every award it is teased with; everyone else is only there to piss off Republicans.

Listen, a lot of movies were good this year; i recognize that. But what I don’t understand is that in an industry where creativity is encouraged, a formula has developed that systematically puts some movies at a higher value than others. In a sense, there’s an elitism that only recognizes movies that appeal to a certain demographic and doesn’t venture too far from the center and actually pushes boundaries. Some actors aren’t getting nominated based on their actual performance; they’re getting nominated because, well...they’re That Actor. They are always supposed to get nominated because that’s What this Actor does.

And this reality sucks! How the hell am I supposed to say “women and people of color aren’t recognized enough” when the first argument I receive is, “what? men can’t make good movies?!” What, in fact, can I say that won’t make me feel trapped or won’t let people ignore me like they’ve been encouraged to do? And how can I say “The awards that aren’t segregated by gender but are still given to us are so few that we can’t even change the pattern?” Without someone saying “Well, you won that year!”? How can I communicate my point for people to actually understand that one award in more than 75 years isn’t nearly enough to solve a deep-rooted issue like this one? And how the hell am I supposed to actually create knowing in the back of my mind that if I don’t get recognized, people will automatically shrug it off with, “Well I guess women/POC didn’t make any good movies this year!”

In this reality, a Gerwig film will never come CLOSE to a Scorsese film. Or a Tarantino film. And, mind you, I’m not saying that these two men don’t deserve their nominations; OUATIH was a good movie, and I’m sure the Irishman was good (listen, I’ll be honest - i’m not sitting through a 4hr movie about Old People who Used to be Interesting). What I am saying is, Greta Gerwig had a truly interesting take on an old classic and made something important of it. And while she did all that, she made a stunningly beautiful film with a star-studded cast that truly made Little Women something incredible. Every single March sister had an assigned “fate” for women at the time, and throughout the film, Gerwig’s writing demonstrated that we’re still in this reality today! And film analysis aside, her creativity shone, and Little Women was intelligent, well-spoken, INTERESTING...I finally felt like there was a movie that had packed all my frustration growing up in a patriarchal world, even exploring a male character trying to live outside that world that didn’t suit him, and made that frustration art. Not seeing Gerwig receiving proper credit for directing this movie into perfection was disheartening, to say the least.

Furthermore (and this point will be shorter), there’s also a prejudice around actors usually known for comedies. In short, the elitism goes even deeper to exclusively prefer drama actors over comedic ones. Ironically, however, the dramatic performances by these comedians tend to shine, exposing these people as truly talented actors with a versatile and noteworthy range. Of course, this brings me to mention Uncut Gems, which deserved a seat at the table, and it makes me mention Adam Sandler, who truly SHONE. Furthermore, Awkwafina (and The Farewell in general) was incredible, and the story she told was powerful and amazing. Though Hustlers was not my favorite movie, Jennifer Lopez was AMAZING...yet these aren’t ‘serious’ actors, right? They haven’t done whatever the fuck these other people have done!!!

We have to start recognizing newer directors, newer writers, newer actors, newer stories that haven’t been explored before or invent a new category on Netflix or whatever. Not to be Virginia Woolf on main, but there is a certain beauty of ordinary life, of ordinary women, of ordinary people of color, of ordinary people from the LGBT+ community, that doesn’t have to be fetishized or insulted in order to be of worth to male audiences. Women don’t have to beat up, people of color don’t have to be criminals, men don’t have to be war heroes or powerful bosses or manly at all! What are we supposed to learn from art and culture if we are only exposed to the same points of view over and over again? What makes a tired world war story (albeit a different world war this time) - in which the SAME people are considered infallible heroes (even though in WWI no one truly was the good guy but that’s another point) - something new and truly nuanced about our society or the way the writers think or tell stories? I can’t critique any of these old, white, male directors or writers or actors because not wanting to watch their films or whatever makes ME the idiot for “not knowing what culture is”! If their names are the only things giving them merit, then they can do no wrong, and I am in the wrong for preferring someone else’s movie.

tl;dr Movies are a form of art, and everyone is encouraged to indulge in said art and make something wonderful. Yet, if we are going to applaud certain pieces of art over others, then we have to break down these nonexistent barriers that define what “valuable art” consists of. We can’t change the definition of good art based on whoever holds the award, and we can’t hold good art to the same standard of people who no longer know what the world of art looks like. Give people a chance to actually CREATE; and see how beautiful films can actually be.

#i know im just some meme account but hey u signed up for this #raw unfiltered AAAAAAAA babey #and yeah im just a nerd on the internet but im mad and someone might care #im just tired of never being listened to and actually having thoughts ya know #anyway heres wonderwall #oscars #films #movies

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