#this thing is true. this other thing is also true. this story could not exist as it does if they were not the same level of true

[demon-of-the-ancient-world]

So so insane about just how well the Dune movies walk the line between making Paul sympathetic and making him...uhh.....everything else.

Because it would be easy to tip it too far in either direction and make him out to be either cartoonishly evil or (excuse the term) woobified -- but I think the key to it is that it's never depicted as being a "but" situation and rather always a "yes, and" situation. Yes, Paul is a very young, very deeply alone person who has lost everything and is under the pressure of thousands of years of genetic engineering and religious propaganda and really never stood a chance against all that, and it's a tragic and heartbreaking thing to witness. That is all true. Also, he's using an oppressed group of people for his own political gain and is about to cause both a horrible environmental disaster and a war that will leave countless people dead, among other very very bad things that you are absolutely not supposed to agree with and root for. This is also true. All those things are equally true, and it WILL make you uncomfortable. And you as the viewer are not supposed to choose a side to fall on, you're fully intended to see all of that at once and walk that fine line with the character, and the chaotic and messy experience of having all those things packed together as truth without it being an either/or situation is absolutely the most accurate way of perceiving him.

[arcaneyouth]

having a chronic illness/disability and also having medical trauma is a bitch for obvious reasons but also like. being part of the disabled community n stuff. like yeah i want to show my love and support for disabled people and i dont want to be uncomfortable when they talk about their experiences. if they talk about specific experiences i will stop breathing while the panic hits me like many bricks

[simonstamenovic]

genuinely very very happy about maya still Do Not get me wrong. I simply wish... the world was better and less cruel. and that I was not complicit in that cruelty. and that honorspren in shadesmar werent such hypocrites.

[trashlie]

Thank you for answering my asks! I agree, Alyssa wanting to belong to something bigger to fill in a void of loneliness sounds like a better fit than simply being an attention seeker solely for the sake of validity.

I've been thinking of what will happen after Alyssa's bullying scandal is exposed and I'm starting to wonder if Shinae's bullying accusations will be brought up in tandem. Both girls covered in similar rumors and confronting a shared past, highlighting a key difference between them: true friendship. Which I hope is one of the possible or many catalysts for Alyssa.

No matter what reputation she gains in public, Shinae will be surrounded by her friends who genuinely know and support her. A full on Shinae Defense Squad! Meanwhile, Alyssa will have a fan base turning against her, except for the stans who have a parasocial relationship towards her.

So, what will Alyssa do when she's cornered again? Will she dig her heel in, clinging to all these strangers who only see her as an image, in a desperate attempt to not lose all she has left? Or will she realize all of her former friends are standing together while she has no one and have a wake up call? 1/2

You're totally welcome! I say it all the time but it's true: I get so excited that anyone wants to talk to me about this series and reads my really long, rambling thoughts lol. I'm always happy to answer asks and share my thoughts and ideas!

I'm putting the second half of your ask under the cut. While it's not totally spoilery, it still mentions FP content so we'll be safe and throw it all under the cut!

(This is a bit fast pass spoilery). Then what if the rumors of her sexuality come to light and they step in to protect her. Will she realize it then? What she truly lost was not fame? 2/2

So I, and many others, probably including you, have figured that if Alyssa has a big career-changing scandal, it will likely be about bullying allegations, because that's a big deal in Korea and it can really make or break someone's career, especially if it's true. But I won't lie - ep 196 made pause and wonder if it could be worse. Now, I'm going to straight up say, I really, really, really hope if it turns out Alyssa is, in fact, queer, I really hope she is not outed via a scandal, but also.... it would be one way to ruin her career, wouldn't it? It just doesn't sit well with me - I'd rather she get to embrace that herself one day than have it outed against her will. For that reason, I like to hope that it will be just bullying rumors.

Once upon a time, I had written about how I thought there was a possibility that if Alyssa's past came to light, Nol might see himself in her, but that was long before he finally talked to Shinae, so, lol I think that's all out the window! He's really been giving me whiplash this last year lol. That said, I've never considered if it would wind up involving Shinae. Part of me is inclined to think no, it wouldn't, because she's not the one who is in the limelight, but the more I think about it, the more I think it would at least involve her at the "local" level - whether it's just that someone slips up and says something, that the news reveals enough details to connect to Shinae, whether Alyssa herself actually names her. It certainly wouldn't be Alyssa's finest hour, that's for sure.

As always, I think these scenarios always depend on variable factors - like would Nol still be "dating" Alyssa at the time of the scandal, for instance. I still think there's an opportunity for Nol to see himself in Alyssa, especially because we still don't know what his altercation with Kousuke was like (was he provoked, was he cornered, was he acting out of malice or was it an accident?). I don't think it has to be either or, though, right? He can both see himself in Alyssa and what sympathize with what it's like to be painted as something you aren't, cornered into something you never meant to, while also acknowledging he is trying to be above all that - you know, supposing that's his choice. I still don't know if we are getting the antihero arc that everyone has anticipated for Nol, since I feel like the big emphasis on Shinae revealing to Nol how she mirrors him is meant to imply that he may try to find a way to leave all of that behind, and to be a version of himself that he chooses to be, as opposed to the one he's been painted as. But what I'm getting at is, I think there's yes the potential that while he could sympathize with Alyssa, he could also be part of a support system to Shinae, because humans are complex. But I think that could flip a switch for Alyssa.

Again, there's a lot of factors here, like... she and Nol have discussed the nature of their relationship, so there's no real expectation that he would take her side just because she's his girlfriend or anything, and they already have a lot of contention between them, but I think there's still room for to feel... I don't think betrayed is the right word because that's a little dramatic, but I think there's a lot of complicated emotions that could arise from that, right? Picture it from Alyssa's angle: she wound up wrapped up in something she never intended and was desperate trying to save face even though her choices were not the kindest, they were what she thought was right in the moment, and in the end she wound up hurting someone she (presumably) never intended to hurt, did something she never meant to do. And though she's not in love with Nol, and maybe they aren't even truly friends, wouldn't you feel some kind of complex feelings akin to betrayal for him to support the person directly involved with this? It's an interesting scenario and I DO like to hope it would make her think about true friendship. I can't say I'm confident it could make her reassess her approaches, but that's more because I cannot say I'm confident about anything Alyssa might do lol. In such a scenario, I'd hope she'd finally understand what it means to have a handful of people in your corner, rather than a lot of people who only care about one facet of you, a persona that may not even be real. In fact, I think this would be SUCH an interesting thing to explore, but I don't think we'll really get a chance to without adding 3 more years to the story lol, but isn't there something compelling in that kind of lonely story? Once again, this is a reason I've really come to love Alyssa as a character - there is SO MUCH that can be done with her!

I do think, though, you are right in that it needs to be more than just that fall from grace and finding herself alone - being juxtaposed against someone like Shinae who would have people supporting her, reassuring her. It's one of the best ways for her to really face that void she's trying to fill and finally understand what she really seeks.

Now, trying to tie this back into the sexuality, god, if done right, it could be so tender, couldn't it? I know I said I'm opposed to Alyssa being outed by someone else, because it doesn't sit right with me, and that's such a dangerous thing for someone if they are surrounded by people who don't support her, but also a story is not about the "right" choices because as we've learned lol in general, people do NOT make the right choices. So the idea of Alyssa being outed but defended by people who she doesn't have a good track record with, because they are, at heart, good people who think it's unfair to do that to someone, to reveal something so private before they are ready, makes me want to cry, frankly lol. For Alyssa, she'd be getting another taste of what she lost, of what she has willingly thrown away, and yes, I think that could actually do a good job of making her see that.

Ultimately a thought I have about most characters (and, frankly, people in general) is that often we have to go through something to change, or to finally see and face the ugly in ourselves, to address something we've been avoiding, to take on something we are running from. It is human nature to be so wrapped up in our own experiences that we forget others have experiences and biases of their own. For Nol to change, to be more honest with himself, he essentially had to "lose it all". To be fair, he sort of threw in the towel himself, decided to be exactly what he's been painted as and give up his efforts to try to have a better life - but that's still prompted by two points of "failure". He was a good person at the formal, tried to save a friend, and in the end he couldn't do it and she got hurt, plus the drug and assault charges. He was pushed to the brink and even when being a person who cars, even when being a good friend, it backfired. Likewise, it blew up his option to go away and escape, to attend his father's alma matter and not only prove to everyone he was more than they believed he was, but to find peace for a while. For him, he lost things because he dared to defy this life so he decided to concede, and in conceding he loses his escape, his chance to maybe make his father proud, and he lost his friends, because in his eyes he was not worthy of them and would only endanger them. Only then, after listening to Shinae's desperate attempts to lure him out, when lmao attacked by her cat, the final straw!!! Did he come out - and he had no intention of coming clean to Shinae, she just happened to overhear him!

I think it will be the same for Alyssa and Kousuke - that they cannot simply wake up and decide to change, or see themselves for what they are. They have to reach a point that forces them to contend with that. It's so easy to say "Why can't Alyssa just realize that fame is not the same as friendship", but someone who has conflated friendship with idolization isn't going to see it the same. Someone who has believed that popularity feels more secure cannot see that for themselves. Logically, she knows the love her fans have towards her is conditional. That's the whole point of that incident with the fans that spotted her out with Nol - even though Nol is right to tell them off for bothering her after she politely told them she can't take a picture, she also knows that fans will only give you their support as long as they like you. Refuse their whims and they'll take to the internet to trash you to anyone who will listen. She knows that's not real love, but it's all she has so she's clinging to it. What will prompt her to change, otherwise?

The more I ramble about this lol the more I think you are right: she has to see that hollow popularity foiled against true friendship, and maybe even be reminded of what it feels like, what it's like to be supported unconditionally. Even though I've repeated that I don't want her outed against her will, I cannot deny how much I would love to see at least Nol and Shinae try to protect her. I love the complexity of it - that they are both people she has hurt in some way, that she has used in some way, but could still be allies to her. Shinae has made it clear that her feelings about Alyssa are complex - that though she doesn't seem to hold a grudge, the weight of what transpired between them still weighs heavy on her and what she really wants is clarity, to clear the air and understand. There's something painful and messy about being defended by people you feel guilt and regret towards, especially as people who probably offered some of the truest friendship she's know. (I mean, I say this loosely because, again, Nol lol likely befriended Alyssa for his quest for absolution and while he didn't intend to truly be their friend, he still was a good friend to them?) I guess what I'm getting at is: I love those complex, nuanced kinds of events, where maybe they will never become friends again, but maybe the genuine act of defending her could be the thing that makes her want to be a better person, to form real friendships and be her honest self. I hope Alyssa sometimes thinks about the first friend she made in middle school, who thought everything about her that other kids might find weird was cool, and feels some kind of regret.

lol as always this has gone on a whole tangent that was not intended but also, as always, these kinds of asks get me thinking about a lot of things! Frankly, I do not know what to expect of the second half of ILY. I don't know where we will leave the story in the present, or what we'll be set up for then, but I hope that when we see the characters as adults, we may get to see more of that complexity, of exploring and overcoming the things that have been holding you back. Alyssa is an extremely unlikeable character for good reason, but I just can't help but want to continue to see her involved in a big way, you know? There's just something so COMPELLING about her relationships with everyone!

Now lol with all that said, I will fully acknowledge that I think there IS a good chance that Alyssa could dig her heels in, because as I've said before, it is very likely that not all characters will overcome their pasts. Again, we see it with grown adults every day of life - that we are shaped by experiences and by our willingness to learn and unlearn. Is Alyssa willing to let something go or would she decide to push back and fight it, to find a way to shift blame, which would only get netizens more fired up. I WANT Alyssa to make some non-shitty choices for once, but that doesn't mean that's the arc she's on lol. I would not be surprised in the least if she found a way to try to deflect lol. Just, yknow. A resigned sigh like yup that's her lol. Flawed people can die flawed without making attempts to change, and I don't want that for her but look, sometimes that's life.

Man, this took me so long to answer and I apologize! My brain has been running away all week ;_____; some days I can sit down and bang out a response, other days the words are all jumbled in my head and it feels like I have to make a game of stringing them together since I can't telepathically write my responses. But as always, thank you for this ask and indulging in my love of Not Great Women characters lmao

[cluescorner]

There's no feeling stranger than knowing that something is bad but liking it anyways. Not in a 'it's so bad it's good' way. Because that implies that it has become good. I'm talking like this thing is just kinda bad in the normal ways things are bad, but i like it anyways.

[vaspider]

While I'm writing things that I've been intending to write for a while... one of the things that I think that a lot of people who haven't been involved in like... banking or corporate shenaniganry miss about why our economy is its current flavor of total fuckery is the concept of "fiduciary duty to shareholders."

"Why does every corporation pursue endless growth?" Fiduciary duty to shareholders.

"Why do corporations treat workers the way they do?" Fiduciary duty to shareholders.

"Why do corporations make such bass-ackwards decisions about what's 'good for' the company?" Fiduciary duty to shareholders.

The legal purpose of a corporation with shareholders -- its only true purpose -- is the generation of revenue/returns for shareholders. Period. That's it. Anything else it does is secondary to that. Sustainability of business, treatment of workers, sustainability and quality of product, those things are functionally and legally second to generating revenue for shareholders. Again, period, end of story. There is no other function of a corporation, and all of its extensive legal privileges exist to allow it to do that.

"But Spider," you might say, "that sounds like corporations only exist in current business in order to extract as much money and value as possible from the people actually doing the work and transfer it up to the people who aren't actually doing the work!"

Yes. You are correct. Thank you for coming with me to that realization. You are incredibly smart and also attractive.

You might also say, "but Spider, is this a legal obligation? Could those running a company be held legally responsible for failing their obligations if they prioritize sustainability or quality of product or care of workers above returns for shareholders?"

Yes! They absolutely can! Isn't that terrifying? Also you look great today, you're terribly clever for thinking about these things. The board and officers of a corporation can be held legally responsible to varying degrees for failing to maximize shareholder value.

And that, my friends, is why corporations do things that don't seem to make any fucking sense, and why 'continuous growth' is valued above literally anything else: because it fucking has to be.

If you're thinking that this doesn't sound like a sustainable economic model, you're not alone. People who are much smarter than both of us, and probably nearly as attractive, have written a proposal for how to change corporate law in order to create a more sensible and sustainable economy. This is one of several proposals, and while I don't agree with all of this stuff, I think that reading it will really help people as a springboard to understanding exactly why our economy is as fucked up as it is, and why just saying 'well then don't pursue eternal growth' isn't going to work -- because right now it legally can't. We'd need to change -- and we can change -- the laws around corporate governance.

This concept of 'shareholder primacy' and the fiduciary duty to shareholders is one I had to learn when I was getting my securities licenses, and every time I see people confusedly asking why corporations try to grow grow grow in a way that only makes sense if you're a tumor, I sigh and think, 'yeah, fiduciary duty to shareholders.'

(And this is why Emet and I have refused to seek investors for NK -- we might become beholden to make decisions which maximize investor return, and that would get in the way of being able to fully support our people and our values and say the things we started this company to say.)

Anyway, you should read up on these concepts if you're not familiar. It's pretty eye-opening.

[writingwithfolklore]

5 Tips for Creating Intimidating Antagonists

Antagonists, whether people, the world, an object, or something else are integral to giving your story stakes and enough conflict to challenge your character enough to change them. Today I’m just going to focus on people antagonists because they are the easiest to do this with!

1. Your antagonist is still a character

While sure, antagonists exist in the story to combat your MC and make their lives and quest difficult, they are still characters in the story—they are still people in the world.

Antagonists lacking in this humanity may land flat or uninteresting, and it’s more likely they’ll fall into trope territory.

You should treat your antagonists like any other character. They should have goals, objectives, flaws, backstories, etc. (check out my character creation stuff here). They may even go through their own character arc, even if that doesn’t necessarily lead them to the ‘good’ side.

Really effective antagonists are human enough for us to see ourselves in them—in another universe, we could even be them.

2. They’re… antagonistic

There’s two types of antagonist. Type A and Type B. Type A antagonist’s have a goal that is opposite the MC’s. Type B’s goal is the same as the MC’s, but their objectives contradict each other.

For example, in Type A, your MC wants to win the contest, your antagonist wants them to lose.

In Type B, your MC wants to win the contest, and your antagonist wants to win the same contest. They can’t both win, so the way they get to their goal goes against each other.

A is where you get your Draco Malfoy’s, other school bullies, or President Snow’s (they don’t necessarily want what the MC does, they just don’t want them to have it.)

B is where you get the other Hunger Games contestants, or any adventure movie where the villain wants the secret treasure that the MCs are also hunting down. They want the same thing.

3. They have well-formed motivations

While we as the writers know that your antagonist was conceptualized to get in the way of the MC, they don’t know that. To them, they exist separate from the MC, and have their own reasons for doing what they do.

In Type A antagonists, whatever the MC wants would be bad for them in some way—so they can’t let them have it. For example, your MC wants to destroy Amazon, Jeff Bezos wants them not to do that. Why not? He wants to continue making money. To him, the MC getting what they want would take away something he has.

Other motivations could be: MC’s success would take away an opportunity they want, lose them power or fame or money or love, it could reveal something harmful about them—harming their reputation. It could even, in some cases, cause them physical harm.

This doesn’t necessarily have to be true, but the antagonist has to believe it’s true. Such as, if MC wins the competition, my wife will leave me for them. Maybe she absolutely wouldn’t, but your antagonist isn’t going to take that chance anyway.

In Type B antagonists, they want the same thing as the MC. In this case, their motivations could be literally anything. They want to win the competition to have enough money to save their family farm, or to prove to their family that they can succeed at something, or to bring them fame so that they won’t die a ‘nobody’.

They have a motivation separate from the MC, but that pesky protagonist keeps getting in their way.

4. They have power over the MC

Antagonists that aren’t able to combat the MC very well aren’t very interesting. Their job is to set the MC back, so they should be able to impact their journey and lives. They need some sort of advantage, privilege, or power over the MC.

President Snow has armies and the force of his system to squash Katniss. She’s able to survive through political tension and her own army of rebels, but he looms an incredibly formidable foe.

Your antagonist may be more wealthy, powerful, influential, intelligent, or skilled. They may have more people on their side. They are superior in some way to the protagonist.

5. And sometimes they win

Leading from the last point, your antagonists need wins. They need to get their way sometimes, which means your protagonist has to lose. You can do a bit of a trade off that allows your protagonist to lose enough to make a formidable foe out of their antagonist, but still allows them some progress using Fortunately, Unfortunately.

It goes like… Fortunately, MC gets accepted into the competition. Unfortunately, the antagonist convinces the rest of the competitors to hate them. Fortunately, they make one friend. Unfortunately, their first entry into the competition gets sabotaged. Fortunately, they make it through the first round anyway, etc. etc.

An antagonist that doesn’t do any antagonizing isn’t very interesting, and is completely pointless in their purpose to heighten stakes and create conflict for your protagonist to overcome. We’ll probably be talking about antagonists more soon!

Anything I missed?

[ajdrawshq]

i wanna like. do a whole octopath playthrough but i try to travel thru the realm in a way that Makes Sense while still achieving all the stuff needed for the full true story and record exactly how i do that in a fic sorta way. everyone has business to do literally everywhere and there Has to be a way to optimize travel time bc realistically itd be such a pain to travel from one side to the other and back again a million times. maybe theyd travel in a spiral? but depending on who starts and whos adapted into the group last, let alone When.. logically a normal playthrough tends to go thru and collect each character before branching off into everyones chapter 2s and so on but that seems so inefficiant from a realistic standpoint. they could split into 2 groups which mirrors the 4 character per group limit ingame, and while that might be better for handling the characters more evenly in various scenes it means certain character interactions will be lost the whole groups dynamics among each other are too good to pass up like that. plus that doesnt fully solve the travel efficiancy problem bc even with just 4 characters everyone is going Everywhere. could also choose to use my main 4, but that has similar problems as the last point and leaves out the ability to achieve the true ending And leaves out tons of needed leadup info. much to think about

[mashkaroom]

Translation thoughts on the greatest poem of our time, “His wife has filled his house with chintz. To keep it real I fuck him on the floor”

It’s actually quite tricky to translate. Because it’s so short, each word and grammatical construction is carrying a lot of weight. It also, as people have noted, plays with registers. “Chintz” is a word with its own set of associations. Chintz is a type of fabric with its origins in India. The disparaging connotation is from chintz’s eventual commonality. Chintz was actually banned from England and France because the local textile mills couldn’t compete.

Keep it real” is tremendously difficult to translate -- it’s a bit difficult to even define. It means to be authentic and genuine, but it also has connotations of staying true to one’s roots. Like many English slang words, it comes first from AAVE. From this article on the phrase:

“[K]eeping it real meant performing an individual’s experience of being Black in the United States. As such, it became a form of resistance. Insisting on a different reality, one that wasn’t recognized by the dominant culture, empowered Black people to ‘forge a parallel system of meaning,’ according to cultural critic Mich Nyawalo...The phrase’s roots in racialized resistance, however, were erased when it was adopted by the mostly-White film world of the 1970s and ’80s....Keeping it real in this context indicated a performance done so well that audiences could forget it was a performance.This version of keeping it real wasn’t about testifying to personal experience; it was about inventing it.”

One has to imagine that jjbang8 did not have the origins of these phrases in mind when composing the poem, but even if by coincidence, the etymological and cultural journeys of these two central lexemes perfectly reflect the themes of the poem. The two words have themselves traveled away from the authenticity they once represented, and, in a new context, have taken on new meanings -- the hero of our poem, the unnamed “him”, is, presumably, in quite a similar situation.

Setting aside the question of register, of the phonology, prosody, and meter of the original, of the information that is transmitted through bits of grammar that don’t necessarily exist in other languages -- a gifted translator might be able to account for all of these -- how do you translate the journey of the words themselves?

In my translations, I decided to go for the most evocative words, even if they don’t evoke the exact same things as in the original. The strength of these two lines is that they imply that there’s more than just what you see, whether that’s the details of the story -- what’s happening in the marriage? how do the narrator and the husband know each other? -- or the cultural background of the very words themselves. I wanted to try and replicate this effect.

Yiddish first:

זייַן ווייַב האָט אָנגעפֿילט זייַן הויז מיט הבלים

צו בלייַבן וויטיש, איך שטוף אים אופֿן דיל. zayn vayb hot ongefilt zayn hoyz mit havolim.

tsu blaybn vitish, ikh shtup im afn dil

This translation is pretty direct. There is a word for chintz in Yiddish -- tsits -- but, as far as I can tell, it refers only to the fabric; it doesn’t have the same derogatory connotation as in English. I chose, instead, havolim, a loshn-koydesh word that means “vanity, nothingness, nonsense, trifles”. In Hebrew, it can also mean breath or vapor. I chose this over the other competitors because it, too, is a word with a journey and with a secondary meaning. Rather than imagining the bright prints of chintz, we might imagine a more olfactory implication -- his wife has filled his house with perfumes or cleaning fluids. It can carry the implication that something is being masked as well as the associations with vanity and gaudiness.

Vitish -- Okay, this is a good one. Keep in mind, of course, that I’ve never heard or seen it used before today, so my understanding of its nuances is very limited, but I’ll explain to you exactly how I am sourcing its meaning. The Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary (CYED) gives this as “gone astray (esp. woman); slang correct, honest”. I used the Yiddish Book Center’s optical character recognition software, which allows you to search for strings in their corpus, to confirm that both usages are, in fact, attested. It’s a pretty rare word in text, though, as the CYED implies, it might have been more common in spoken speech. It appears in a glossary in “Bay unds yuden” (Among Us Jews) as a thieves cant word, where it’s definted as נאַריש, שרעקעוודיק, אונבעהאלפ. אויך נישט גנביש. אין דער דייַטשער גאַונער-שפראַך --  witsch -- נאַריש, or “foolish, terrible, clumsy/pathetic. not of the thieves world. in the German thieves cant witsch means foolish”. A vitishe nekeyve (vitishe woman) is either a slacker or a prostitute. I can’t prove this for sure, but my sense is that it might come from the same root as vitz, joke (it’s used a couple of times in the corpus to mention laughing at a vitish remark -- which makes it seem kind of similar to witty). I assume the German thieve’s cant that’s being referred to is Rotwelsch, which has its own fascinating history and, in fact, incorporates a lot of Yiddish. In fact, for this reason, some of the first Yiddish linguists were actually criminologists! What an excellent set of associations, no? It has the slangy sense of straightforward of honest; it has a sense of sexual non-normativity (we might use it to read into the relationship between the narrator and the husband) -- and a feminized one at that; it was used by an underground subculture, and, again, the meaning there was quite different -- like the “real” in “keeping it real” it was used to indicate whether or not someone was “in” on the life (tho “real” is used to mean that the person is in, while “vitish” is used to mean they’re not). It’s variety of meanings are more ambiguous than “keep it real”, which can pretty much only be read positively, and it also brings in a tinge of criminality. Though it doesn’t have the same exact connotations as “keep it real”, I think it’s about as ideal of a fit as we’ll get because it’s equally evocative of more below the surface. I also chose “tsu blaybn vitish”, which is “to stay vitish”, as opposed to something like “to make it vitish” to keep the slight ambiguity of time that “keep it real” has -- keeping it real does< I think, imply that there is a pre-existing “real” to which one can adhere, so I wanted to imply the same.

The rest is straight-forward. “Shtup” is one of a few words the Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary (CEYD) gives for “fuck”, and I think it has a nice sound.

Ok, now Russian

женой твой дом наполнен финтифлюшками

чтоб не блудить с пути, ебемся на полу

zhenoy tvoy dom napolnin fintiflyushkami.

shtob ne bludit’ s puti’, yebyomsya na polu

In order to preserve, more or less, the iambic meter, I made a few more changes here -- since Russian, unlike Yiddish, is not a Germanic language, it’s harder to keep the same structure + word order while also maintaining the rhythm. I would translate this back to English as:

“Your house is filled with trifles by your wife. To not stray off the path, we’re fucking on the floor”

So a few notes before we get into the choice of words for “chintz” and “keep it real”. To preserve the iamb, I changed “his” to “your”. This changes the lines from a narration of events to some outside party to a conversation between the two men at the center. Russian also has both formal and informal you (formal you is also the plural form, as is the case in a number of other languages). I went with informal you because I wanted to preserve the fact that his wife has filled his house not their house, as someone pointed out in the original chain (though I don’t think that differentiation is nearly as striking in the 2nd person) and because it’s unlikely you’d be on formal you with someone you’re fucking (unless it’s, like, a kink thing). I honestly didn’t even consider making it formal, but that would actually raise a lot of interesting implications about the relationship between the speaker and the husband, as well as with what that means about the “realness” of the situation. Is, in fact, the narrator only creating a mirage of a more real, more meaningful encounter, while the actual truth -- that there is a woman the husband has made promises to that he’s betraying -- is obscured? that this intimacy is just a facade? Is there perhaps some sort of power differential that the narrator wishes to point out? Or perhaps is the way that the narrator is keeping it real by pointing out the distance between the two of them? there is no pretense of intimacy, the narrator is calling this what it is -- an encounter without deeper significance?

Much to think about, but I actually think the two men do have history --  i think the narrator remembers the house back when it was actually only “his house” and was as yet unfilled with chintz. We also don’t know what they were calling each other prior to this moment. This could be the first time they switched to the informal you. 

Ok moving on, I originally translated it as “твой дом наполнен финтифлюшками жены”. Honestly, this sounds more elegant than what I have now, but I ultimately though removing the wife from either a subject or agent position (grammatically, I mean) was too big a betrayal of the original. The original judges the wife. She took an active role in filling the house. If she were made passive, that read is certainly a possible one -- perhaps even the dominant one -- but it could also read more like “we are doing this in a space filled with reminders of his wife and the life they share” -- the action of filling is no longer what’s being focused on. Why do I say the current translation is inelegant? I feel you stumble over it a little, because it’s almost a garden path sentence. This is also an assset though. “Zhenoy tvoy dom napolnen” is a fully grammatical sentence on its own, and it means “Your house is filled by your wife” -- as in English, the primary read is that the wife is what the house is full of. If the sentence makes you stumble, perhaps that’s even good -- we focus, for good reason, on the relationship between the two men, but in a translation, the wife is able to draw more attention to herself.

Ok, chintz: I chose the word “финтифлюшки” (fintiflyushki), meaning trifle/bobble/tchotchke, because it, allegedly, comes from the german phrase finten und flausen, meaning illusions and vanity/nonsense. Once again, I like that the word has a journey, specifically a cross-linguistic one.

Keep it real: this one, frankly, fails to capture the impact of the original, in my opinion, but allow me to explain the reasoning. “Stray off the path” implies, again, that there is some sort of path that both the narrator and the husband were on before the wife and the chintz -- and one they intend to continue taking, one that this act is a maintenance of. It brings in a little irony, since the husband very much is straying from the path of his marriage. “Bludit’“ can also mean to be unfaithful in a marriage (as, in fact, can “stray”). The proto-slavic word it comes from can mean to delude or debauch -- they want to do the latter but not the former.

As for register -- “shtob” is a bit informal. I would write the full version (shto by) in an email, for example. The word for fuck, yebyomsa, is from one of the “mat” words, the extra special top tier of russian swears, definitely not to be said in polite company (and, if you are a man of a certain generation or background, not in front of women; it’s not that the use of mat automatically invokes a male-only environment, but if we’re already thinking that deeply about it. But while we’re on the topic, i will say that in my circles in the US, women use mat much more actively than men (at least in front of me, who was, up until recently, a woman and also a child).)

Ok i think that’s all the comments i have!

[hazelfoureyes]

⟢Alastor x Cupid FemReader Tasked with making a demon believe in true love or you can’t return to heaven, things immediately go off the rails when you hurt yourself and Alastor catches one of your most troubling arrows; Mania

I managed to finish this despite, ya know, the aforementioned: (´°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥ω°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥｀)

˚₊ · »-♡→ Week 1 and Week 2 (keep reading)

˚₊ · »-♡→Week 3 and Week 4 smut💦

˚₊ · »-♡→Week 5, Week 6, Week 7, and Epilogue smut💦

「warnings/promises: Alastor x CupidFemReader, broken bones, feet washing, normal sized Luci, you know the outfit in my PFP? You’re wearing that but soft purple and the bottom half is ambiguous because idk baby whatever you feel best in it’s your story, Husk has a bad time, Alastor has a bad time, You have a bad time, Charlie has a great time 👌🏼, not choking」

Minors this one is chill but the next two imma need you to Dni 💋 ♥️ 🧹lovingly

You had made a mistake, yes, but Hell? Really?

Sure, you had dropped an arrow into the water supply of a nunnery which did lead to some unholy behaviors. But! The nuns seemed quite happy. Wasn’t that the point?

Tossing you to Hell through a hastily opened portal was honestly unprofessional. You ended up dropping three stories, upside down, in front of a butcher's shop.

In the seconds between Sera telling you, ‘You can return when you’ve made a sinner believe in true love.’ and Lute kicking you square in the chest through the hell door, you thought it wouldn’t be so hard. True, you couldn’t use your arrows as that wouldn’t be “true love” and also too easy, even gods weak to your shots, but ultimately sinners were still human. Humans were pushovers! Pliable, gentle at their hearts, desiring love and tenderness. How bad could the naughty ones be? 

And then you landed shoulder first onto the pavement. It hurt. Things didn’t hurt in heaven…

Your arrows scattered, quiver spilling when you inverted. Wincing, you scrambled to grab as many as were within reach. Your right shoulder was burning, a new sensation.

You counted them by name as you gathered: Eros, Agape, Philia, Pragma, Philautia, Ludus, Storge… panic. 

ErosAgapePhiliaPragmaPhilautiaLudusStorge— Mania wasn’t there. Arguably the arrow that caused you the most trouble, the sting of Mania would cause a madness that led to obsessive behaviors, possessiveness, jealousy. 

Pulling yourself up, arrows clutched in one hand, the other holding the place near your collar was throbbing, your eyes were frantic in their search.

“What’s this?”

You finally looked up from the sidewalk, a man’s back to you before he turned. Bile rose and burned your throat as he pulled Mania from where it had pierced his chest pocket.

His eyes, shades of red heaven didn’t even entertain, made a simple trip from the arrow's head to your face.

The man went so still you thought for a moment he was a hologram, but you could see the tiniest rise and fall of his chest. A deer facing down a bright light, he remained frozen in place as you began to approach him.

“Excuse my manners, but that’s mine and I really need it back.” Your injured arm moved first and the pain made you see white, a cry so sharp people turned to look. He snapped back to his senses, and with an odd sound you couldn’t quite place, he seemingly disappeared into the ground.

Mania was left behind, shining smugly against the dirty pavement. You didn’t want to make a reach for it, fear flooding you. You’d never felt pain before.

You’d seen it in humans, but never in your existence had you experienced it. Would both arms hurt?

You let the left hand abandon its guarding place and grabbed the errant arrow. Tucking into an alley, you crouched and returned the arrows to their quiver with immense difficulty.

Okay, yes it was Hell but maybe you were a little paranoid. A sense of being watched wouldn't leave you even after you re-emerged from the darkness of the alley. 

The enormity of your task set in as you surveyed the area. You, an obviously heavenly creature even without your wings out on display, would need time to make anyone believe in any form of love. Where would you go in the meantime? And now injured for the first time in your life? How long would that need to mend?

Expanding your view, you saw the currently defunct doomsday countdown hovering above the embassy. Perfect, holy ground would atleast keep you safe for the night, which was falling with a malignant speed.

They couldn’t have given you some time to change? Or pack a set of clothes? Your short sleeved button up a (literally) glowing shade of white was attracting too much attention, golden sandals now cloudy from various fluids across Pentagram city’s streets. Your heart shaped overalls a powdered purple, you looked like an adult child among a sea of very tired professionals. 

When you got to the embassy you only had one good arm to open the heavy doors, which unfortunately didn’t budge. Perhaps you needed two? Trying to muster up some adrenaline, you began to pant. Deep breaths like the women in labour you sometimes worked your magic on.

As soon as you gripped the handle you saw something that made you jump back, muscles flexing around whatever damage you’d done in your body from the fall. A large black snake? Some demonic squid’s appendage? Something unholy grabbed hold of the handle as soon as you had and gave such a tug the doors violently shook.

You spun around to the dark neighborhood behind you. Nothing. Turning back the thing was gone. And so was all of your hope. It was locked. The tears were unwanted and unnecessary, but just-- you were hurting so much, you were dirty, you were alone, and now essentially homeless.

If there was ever a reason to cry, you decided to let yourself have this one. 

The lamplights flickered and the entire street went pitch black. Because of course it did.

Hyperventilating now entirely without intention, you watched as one light to the left popped on with a static buzz. Desperate to be out of the darkness you ran to the spotlight. As soon as your foot entered the beam, the light beside it lit up. Your eyes wandered to heaven above, were they helping you? Had you not been entirely abandoned?

Of course! Yeah. They sensed you at the doors and sent off some guidance. How silly of you. Relief washed over you as you ran through the lights until your foot left one spotlight but the next hadn't popped on.

Twirling back to the embassy, you saw all of the lights shut off in succession behind you.

Just you and the one lamp now, and the glow of some TVs in the shop window to the right. What was the meaning of this? 

That weird sound you heard earlier but couldn’t place… electricity but dusty and barely contained. Your gaze was drawn to the radio in the shop window in front of you. You hadn’t noticed it until it buzzed to life. It lit up faintly, dial turning on its own until a high and smooth voice rang out, “Looking for your way to heaven? You’re in luck! The Hazbin Hotel is now accepting any and all willing to find redemption!”

This must have been the message, I mean, heaven was never good at being subtle.

“Just make your way to the left and toward the looming building atop the hill!”

Your head turned to your left and then up slightly. Bathed in red and white lights stood a behemoth of a building on the edge of a cliff.

Head still facing the hotel, your eyes flitted back to the radio.

“Reception is open 24 hours a day!”

You touched your arm, then patted at your pockets. Not a wallet or ID card on you. You were the 17th Cupid incarnation, why would you have a fucking ID card? But didn’t those places need such things? You’d seen every romcom earth had ever produced. There was always some issue with hotel check ins. 

“Not a red cent needed! We literally do not care who you are!”

Oh. Wait. Was this a trap?

“Created by the Lucifer Morningstar’s daughter! A foolish young woman who genuinely believes in reforming sinners!”

Lucifer?? The former angel, yes, but the word angel carried much more weight now. Perhaps he would have a modicum of pity given your circumstances.

You took an unsteady foot forward and toward the hotel when the street lights all buzzed back to life.

The path to the hotel was long, many demons stopping you on your way but quickly losing interest after a second or two of pestering you. You gave a silent prayer to the archangels for that blessing.

It must have been nearly 1am when you finally made it to the hotel’s doors. When you entered you found an empty reception desk and a poorly written note:

Before the bell’s hammer even hit the metal, a man popped up from behind the counter.

The man.

The man you shot with Mania.

“Welcome to th-,”

You were outside and leaving the awning before he could finish, but just as quickly as you left he appeared in front of you, “Still missing your manners?”

He blocked your path with his remarkable size. Why were demons so tall? What was the use of it?

“Deer got your tongue?” He bent over unnaturally at the waist.

“What?”

“Would you like-,” he began.

You walked around him and down the driveway. He moved briskly beside you, slowly growing larger and larger until his body was several stories tall and entirely blocking the gates of the premises.

A horror. Hell was full of horrors.

He crouched, large toothy smile now baring down at you.

If you stabbed him in the eye with an arrow, which would cause the least trouble? It was a rule to never give a double love bite but this was a dire situation.

But if you were sent to hell for a little nun love fest, what would purposefully stabbing a sinner do?

He rapidly shrank, hands coming to his front to catch a summoned microphone…Cane? Staff?

“You’re injured. Just, come back inside. I promise I don’t bite without consent.” His head cocked to the side, a quiet, “Usually” tacked on.

We’re you visibly hurt? How bad was it? You looked past him to where sounds of yelling and music were rolling up the hill.

“You don’t have many options, angel.” He hissed the word through clenched teeth. Disgust almost seemed to lace his voice, but why, then, was he offering help?

“Not an angel. Cupid. Different.” Kind of. You gave the quiver a shake.

“Ah yes. That explains why you shot at me earlier.” A large hand came to your side and directed you to turn back around. He kept it there, pushing softly to keep you moving.

“I didn't shoot you.”, You huffed, crossing your arms before doubling over in pain. He stopped walking, hand resting now against your spine. Regaining your composure, you continued towards the hotel lobby, “My arrows fell out and…you caught one. With your body.”

“My pocket made quite the lucky catch. Now!” He snapped, a key appearing and floating into his hand with a sparkle of neon green, “Let’s get you to a room and cleaned up.”

“Do you work here?” You asked as he escorted you to one of the upper floors. The room was surprisingly clean and well decorated. You had expected a dingy highway motel. And while the room was largely dark wood and rich colors, it wasn’t as offensive as the rest of hell had been.

“Ah! My my, forgive me! I am Alastor, the radio demon and hotel manager here.” He bowed and offered his hand for you to place yours in. You did so without thinking, and he kissed your knuckles once but his mouth lingered over your flesh. Eyes half lidded, he glanced back up at you, “It is an absolute pleasure to meet you.”

There was no way to reverse Cupid’s arrows. Not by force. Love could only die by the hands of the ones who held it. Others could definitely bruise it, but ultimately it was up to the beholder. Mania was a little different, obsession could be dispelled by shattering whatever illusion the holder felt.

If the holder thought someone was the epitome of genteel chastity then a show of wanton sexuality could break the spell. If someone was convinced the object of their desire was very smart and savvy then acting ignorant could make the obsession fall flat. But there was no indication he had any illusions of you. Not yet, atleast.

Mania was now his, and he would keep it in his heart until he lost it or killed it. He could, technically, be possessed by, and be in the possession of, Mania for eternity. A sinner had never been shot before, that you knew of.

He didn’t noticeably react as you took back your hand. With a hum, he snapped again and you found a chair pulled up behind you and knocking into the back of your knees. You fell into the plush armchair, watching a metal basin of steaming water slide against your feet.

“Excuse you— ExcUU-,” you pulled your legs back but he pulled harder, Alastor removing your dirty shoes and tossing them off to the side like trash.

“You can't clean yourself with that broken collar bone. Allow me.” His hand gripped your ankles and dunked both into the water, “I insist.”

“It’s broken? How could I break a collarbone…,” the humor wasn’t lost on you, sinner washing holy feet, but your focus was entirely on the concept of a broken bone. 

“Falling twenty five feet head first, apparently.” Alastor rubbed soap into your calves.

“But I don’t break.” What happened to you, what had that kick into hell done? “You saw me? Also, that isn’t dirty.” you pointed at your calf.

“Peripherally.”

Did he mean the dirt or witnessing the fall? You sat in silence while he hummed, returning your feet to their original color. 

“Now,” he rose, patting his hands dry on a small towel, “Unbutton your top.”

Your expression was apparently quite loud, Alastor putting his hands up quickly, “Not like that. I’ve no interest in that sort of thing. I need to see your shoulder and upper chest.” He waited patiently, staring at you the entire time. His smile was so wide, teeth yellow and sharp. Unsettling. 

He really did look like he could eat you. You’d heard of such demons.

You slipped off the straps of your overalls, and began to open your shirt. He did away with the water, coming to kneel directly to your right as he watched. You couldn’t see anything without some kind of mirror. If it was bruised or swollen, it was out of your line of sight. Long clawed hands came to the front and back of your shoulder, pressing inward. You pulled away, a firm grip now as his right hand held at the left side of your waist.

“Are you a doctor?” Hotel manager and doctor would be an unlikely combo, but the day had been odd from start to finish.

A shake of the head, “But when I was alive, I did have quite a lot of experience with the inner workings of anatomy.” You grimaced, how could he say such sinister things with such a lovely voice? “Maybe not broken. But I’d say at least a fracture. Perhaps your heavenly body didn’t take full damage. It hurts when you move your arm, correct?” You nodded. 

He hummed, another click of his fingers and a fabric unfurled into his waiting hands. “Take it all the way off so I can set this.”

You were exhausted. The pain was gnawing at your nerves. No more fight in you, you just wanted rest, so you slipped off the shirt entirely and let him wrap your arm up into a simple sling. You were surprised his hands were so warm. Demons seemed like they’d be cold to the touch. Like lizards or pearls.

When he finished, you sitting in the large chair with your arm wrapped in a silky black sling, no shirt, and pastel purple heart-shaped overalls folded down your torso, you considered having another cry. You felt your chin tremble. You couldn’t recall ever crying from sadness before today.

It was just a mistake. You hadn’t meant to drop your arrow. Why were the archangels so angry? What’s some sex between nuns? 

Alastor bristled, hand coming to your cheek. It was an unwelcome gesture. You batted his hand away with your only free one, but he just sighed and set it on your thigh. You pushed it off, shooting him a glare. The audacity.

You thought you saw his eye twitch.

With what little energy was left in, you stood and open the door for him, “You have been very kind and helpful. Thank you very much. You can leave now.” Oh, right, “Please.”

He stood, pausing as he passed you. He was so tall. Shoulders wide. You felt your heart rate pick up. Even with two good collarbones you knew you couldn’t take him in a fight.

Alastor leaned down to your level, you backing up and into the door, “Until the morning.”

When he said it you had thought he was just going about formalities. But he wasn’t. You awoke some hours later to a knock. When you opened the door he was looming in your doorway again.

You tried to close the door but he put his foot in the gap, then a strong hand wrapped around the door’s edge and he pushed his way into the room.

You sputtered, arm flailing a little as you choked on which reaction to give first. You were undressed, in just your under things.

“I don’t want you to hurt yourself further when you get dressed. I’ll undo the sling and help.” Closing the door he then spun back around to face you, smile as bright as it was earlier that same day. 

“No! Absolutely not! Leave! Please!”

As he guided your arm through the shirt, you struggled to process what had happened. One minute you were indignant and stubborn and then he was so close to you, hands warm and gentle, and then already he was untying the sling and your shirt was just there and-

“See? Wasn’t that easy? No harm in accepting help.” Alastor looked you over from top to bottom.  

“Accepting? What part of any of that did I accept.” You stood bottomless in a button up, trying to get the overalls from the hanger with just your left hand. His chest pressed into your back, nearly forcing you to fall into the armoire, to assist you.

“The part where you didn’t actively fight me. I think we can call that acceptance until you learn better.” His words shook through your ribs and to your front. 

Annoyance rose in your chest, what was he thinking? Humans had no right to touch you let alone a sinner. “You’re an eldritch horror, please back away from the divine creature before you.” Alastor laughed, backing away with the clothes in his hands. Hand out, you motioned for him to pass it over. He tossed it on the floor, and took a seat on the bed with crossed legs. “Oh, I see. You’re an asshole. Perfect.” Pretense gone, manners not needed.

You grabbed it with your left hand and managed to get both legs into it before slinking it up and onto your left shoulder. While you tried to figure out how to do the right side, realizing the flaw in your order of processes, Alastor leaned over and unhooked the left strap, overalls falling to the carpet with a soft thud. 

You stood there for several moments, staring at him with purple fabric pooled around your ankles, him staring at you with a shiteating grin.

After finally getting dressed, preferring to not think about how, you were followed down to the lobby. 

“Breakfast?” He asked, you both in the elevator as he hadn’t gone more than three feet from you since he entered your bedroom. 

“No, no appetite. I need to find Lucifer.” You were sure he could help somehow. Somehow he could do….something. Details about Lucifer’s powers and abilities, his strengths and skills were all kept hush-hush. But if nothing else, you could find someone who understood your position. 

Your hand was being vigorously shaken before the elevator doors even closed behind you. Charlie Morningstar was not what you expected.  Chipper and bright, she was bursting with energy. 

“Gentle, Charlie. Our dear Cupid is injured.” Alastor’s hand came to the small of your back. You reached back with your left hand and knocked it off of you. 

“Like, the real actual cupid?!” Charlie’s eyes were shining, you could almost see the hearts floating up around her face. You felt Alastor’s hand again, now on your hip. You took three steps to the right, slipping from his fingertips.

“Yes, that is exactly what I-.” You were cut off, Charlie launching into a speech about sinners and heaven and redemption and so much more you couldn’t process. 

The energy she gave us was very angelic, which was confusing. Until you saw her father entering the common area.

The most hated creature in all of creation. Your best hope for a tiny sliver of comfort. 

Alastor’s hand reached for yours, fingers trapping your wrist and stopping you from approaching the king of hell. 

You shook your arm. His hold stayed. You tugged. He was unaffected, talking to Charlie now about your injury as if you weren’t right there. 

As Cupid, or at least as a cupid, you weren’t physically strong. You really weren’t meant to exist for a long time, just for as long as your body held up to repeated trips to the human realm. But, in heaven, you were never capable of being harmed. And of course, on earth, you weren’t really corporeal so no harm could come to you. You weren’t built for tug of war with a 7 foot tall demon.

“Mr. Devil! Sir!” You waved your foot, shouting out to the normal sized man. As he saw you, his eyes widened, “Hello there! Sorry to be a bother, I’m from heaven and-” You jerked your hand free, power walking to Lucifer, “I’m here on punishment. It’s a pleasure to meet another member of Elysium’s caretakers. Former or otherwise.”

Flustered, Lucifer fumbled with his phone before dropping it. “Oh! Shit! H-hello!”

You reached down to retrieve it for him, seeing black and red shoes behind you as you did. 

“What — why are you here?” Lucifer was looking at Alastor now, which was great news because for a second you thought he was talking to you. A sneaking feeling leaked into your chest that heaven hadn’t actually told him you were coming. 

“Just keeping an eye on my guest! As you can see she got injured and I’ve taken to the task of her safety while she’s in hell.” 

“No one asked him to do that, sir.” Your smile was strained, you could feel Alastor’s shoulder was touching yours. You looked to where you were connected and then back to Lucifer, “Are all sinners like this?”

“Honestly? Yes. They’re all pretty terrible.” Lucifer sighed, “What did you do?”

A cold sweat, “Misused an arrow. I can’t leave hell until I make a demon who doesn’t already believe in true love…believe in it.”

“Oh no! That’s— you’re gonna be here awhile.” Lucifer pulled at his collar in a mock attempt to release the awkward heat of the conversation. He saw you wither, and Alastor seemed to bloom, so he quickly changed pace, “But! Uhhh, you can totally do it! Charlie has some of the best of the worst here. If I can ever help, just ask!” Nervous laughter that did not put you at ease. He seemed so silly. So sweet and easily flustered. 

You felt your hope dash for a second time in less than a day. How long would you be in hell? How long was awhile?

“She is my responsibility now. She won’t be needing anything from you, your majesty.”

A darkness came over you as the two demons began to bicker. You now had your own obsessed shadow; a large and creepy sinner following you around. How on earth could you get close enough to a demon to complete your task? Convincing someone of true love would require trust and time. This would be impossible with Alastor attached to your side. 

You spent the first week in hell in the hotel. Everytime you got the courage to leave and explore the areas outside, you’d find yourself shadow portaled “back to safety” by Alastor. It was like the human film ‘Groundhog Day’, always starting over back in the lobby. 

No matter where you went in the hotel, he was either beside you or where you had been headed. You saw the sky less often than Alastor’s grin and you couldn’t stand it. You took to hiding, leaning against darkened stairwell corners and sitting on the floor of the ladies restroom. 

It bought you a little time to yourself, but the second you moved he was there again. Asking if you were a lost little doe, hand reaching for your waist to pull you near him, red eyes threatening to swallow you whole.

Toward the end of the week, while helping you get dressed as he did daily, Alastor took a step back. “I could get you some new clothes. Cannibal town has the finest duds.” He lifted the lace that lined the top of your  pocket, “You stick out. No demon is going to let you trick them into believing in true love like this.”

You could have screamed. No, no demon would even approach you with Alastor standing behind you. It absolutely wasn’t the clothes. You politely rejected the offer and went about your day.

The next morning you awoke to find your floor littered with strips of something. Flinging open the armoire you found two empty hangers. You turned back, noticing the white and purple color to the fabric confetti.

The march to Alastor’s room was easy, as it was 10 feet in front of your door. He had placed you directly across from him, because, ya know, Mania.

He clearly hadn’t expected you to leave your room in your underwear, eyes like saucers as he yanked you in.

“What in heaven are you doing?! Anyone could see you.” He hissed, closing the door with a little too much force.

“Whose fault is that?!” You seethed in return. Anger was something you rarely ever felt but he was inspiring new things in you. “Someone shredded my clothes.”

Alastor’s ears folded back, eyes looking to the left and up, “Odd. Are you sure? Maybe you accidentally threw them away.” That devilish grin you’d come to expect. He knew damn well how stupid that was.

You stomped your foot, if you had two working hands you’d try to rip his antlers off, “Are you serious?!” You turned to leave, kicking the door before attempting to open it.

A large hand pressed back on the door, slamming it shut. His breath was dropping down the back of your neck despite his considerable height, “You will not be leaving this room in such a state of undress, my dear.”

His voice was so low and close, had anyone ever spoken to you with such a commanding tone? A new feeling twitched in you. You blocked it out.

“You don’t get to make decisions for me,” said too softly.

His other hand came to press on the door, too. An arm to either side of you, trapped, as he leaned in. You pressed yourself against the door to make distance from his body.

“Oh, I absolutely do. Who is going to stop me? You?” Alastor’s voice had noticeably dropped an octave as he whispered what felt like a challenge against your hair.

Who indeed…you had no strength, an arrow would either be useless or complicate things. Lucifer seemed preoccupied and jittery. Heaven wasn’t returning your prayers.

He took your silence as an answer.

“Exactly. Now, I’ll only ask nicely once.” His hands left, warmth on your neck fading. You turned to look at him, sensing his eyes burning holes into your back.

He was holding a two piece set. Older style, 1920s American maybe. Black and burgundy. When did he have time to get this when every hour seemed to be spent near you?

“May I help you get dressed?”

You’d gotten quite close with the few residents who didn’t run at the sight of Alastor. Husk was one of them. You became fast friends, often drinking and lamenting about Alastor’s general existence as Alastor sat some 15 feet away on the sofa. Still not allowed outside the hotel gates, your second week you spent many hours at the bar talking to the surprisingly kind grump.

To your delight Alastor didn’t seem bothered by it, oddly, as long as you were in eyesight he seemed content.

You thought maybe his mania was already waning. Sure you hadn’t attempted to leave the hotel, and you hadn’t argued when he dressed you, but…Ah, hm. Fuck.

Mania can look like Love when you don't struggle against it. A fly motionless in a web can elude the spider for a little bit.

Don't push against the restraints and you can forget they are there entirely.

But push you did, accidentally. Husk was making some new cocktails, trying to enjoy himself and be creative. 

“Yeah, that’s it.” He grinned.

“Good?” 

He took another sip before handing the glass to you. You grabbed it, taking a taste. Sweet but a bite as it went down. Something with citrus. When you looked up from the glass, he was gone.

A choking noise from behind the bar made you stand up in your seat, eyes flying from Husk to Alastor. A glowing green leash dragging Husk across the floor, his hands desperately pulling at the collar as he struggled to breath. 

“Stop!” You shouted, crawling over the bar and grabbing the chain with your good arm. You tried to pull back, to slow the choking force, but got pulled along with it. “Alastor!” You screamed as your shoulder hit the floor and sent searing pain down your arm. 

You could hear Husk gasp, the green glow disappearing from past your clenched eyelids. 

“Why can’t you-,” Alastor started to speak a he came to your side. Husk scurried away, crawling back from the demon. You hit the hand Alastor offered you but were surprised to see his face painted with concern.

“I said stop.” After rolling to your feet you began to march away. “Every time I find something nice in this piece of shit domain you remind me I’m in hell.”

You had almost made it to your room when a hand pulled you by the good shoulder and pushed you against the wall. It still hurt. 

“Don’t you know? Sharing a drink, it’s as close to a kiss as you could get without bringing your mouth to his.”

“It was a drink, Alastor. You had no right.”

His hand settled on your throat. No grip, just a gentle placement, “I have every right.” His brows knit together in worry, in confusion. “What should I do to make you understand me?” His hand came to your chin, thumb ghosting over your lips.

“If I let you go too far, someone will surely take you. Who wouldn’t? Please. Stop pushing me so much.” His eyes were almost loving as they shined down at you. His breath was picking up. You could hear the desperation in his voice. 

Those damned eyes were unrelenting in their stare into your own. There was no creature in presence or audacity in heaven like Alastor. You’d never encountered anything like him. 

“Of all the Love you had to take a stray hit from, Mania really was the cruelest accident.” You held your hand at the crook of your neck, wondering if you did more damage. No, if he did more damage.

“Mania? Is that the arrow I caught? How fitting.” His finger pulled down on your bottom lip. You’d seen this movie, you’d been there for these scenes in dorm rooms and under rainy awnings, in darkened beds and sunny fields. You could move, no part of him was actually holding you physically. “Yes, maybe I am obsessed. But whose fault is that? Will you take responsibility for it?” His chest was shaking with every breath. Why didn’t you move? Just walk away. Knock off that touch as you had been doing. You hadn’t noticed how quickly you were breathing, too, until his hand was pulling your chin up and towards his face.

It only came out as a whisper, half said as it was only half meant, “don’t.”

A laugh, “At least pretend you mean it.” 

Your knees came together in some desperate attempt to stop the feeling creeping up your legs and to your lap, “Apologize to Husk.”

“Why would I ever do such a thing?” His breath was so warm on your mouth, face tilted to keep his nose from hitting yours.

“What a terrible reply!” You slid down the wall and slipped under his arms, “If you shadow work your way into this room I will fuck that horny spider on camera just to spite you.” You opened your door, pausing to make sure he was still down the hall, “Angel on Angel, working title.”

Your whole body went slack, the sounds of a wild animal loose in the hallway rocking the door as you took shaky steps to the bed, paintings on the walls rattling as he did unseen damage. Sounds of an unknown, unholy animal raging just past the thin drywall. 

Had you ever seen Mania work so quickly with so little fuel? Hand coming to your mouth, a burning where his finger touched you. 

No one had touched your lips before. No one could ever hope to. Humans were beyond the realm of feeling you, and you didn’t allow kissing with the partners you took in heaven. Personal rule. As in, it was too personal.

The lights in your room flickered, briefly shrouding you in darkness before coming back to life.

Deja vu.

Oh.

What had he introduced himself as? The radio demon? It wasn’t heaven who brought you to the hotel. Of course not. 

No. Obviously not.

ᡣ𐭩ˋ°•*⁀➷ masterlist

∰ Summoning the Horny Little Deer Cult (general tag list):

@cxrsedwxrlds , @nonetheartist , @tsunaki , @janchei , @wettiny-in-smutland , @moonmark98 , @hoebihoeshi , @pansexual-opera-house , @polytheatrix , @lorddiabigmommymilkers , @backinthefkingbuildingagain , @harley2223-blog , @coffee-colored-hopeless-romantic , @poinappel , @midnightnoiserose , @spookieroz , @missmidorima , @ivebeenthearchersstuff , @downbadforfictionalppl , @xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx , @sleepylittledemon , @aether-th3-enby , @dontfuckbutimfab , @breathlessaura , @aperfectidiot , @certainlygay , @jth12 , @star-kujo-platinum ,

@ivebeenthearchersstuffn, @rubyninja1 , @simphornies , @alleystore , @readergirlstuff , @berry-demon , @chirimeimei , @fairyv-ice , @olive-frog , @thonethatflies620 , @tiredkiwiii , @ilikemyteawithmilk , @whateverlololo , @psipies , @howabouticallyou , @roxxie-wolf , @ive-no-idea-what-to-call-this , @fizzled-phoenix , @fjorjestertealeaf , @phobophobular , @surusurusuru , @mariaclarade-la-cruz1 , @whateverlololo , @simplyonehellofanotaku , @xixflower , @i-am-nonbinary-bean-deal-with-it , @roxxie-wolf , @a-case-of-attachment , @multifandomfanatic02 , @watereddownmilk , @raynerrold , @crazii-saber-wolf , @valkyrie-expeditions , @bontensbabygirl , @sillyb0nez , @oo0lady-mad0oo , @jazzmasternot , @pseudobun , @fraugwinska✨, @alitaar , @straows , @alastorssimp , @angelicwillows , @b-o-n-e-daddy , @one-and-only-tay , @asleeponelmstreet , @tremendoushearttaco , @mutifandomkid , @sapphirecaelis , @itzzzkiramylove  @saccharine-nectarine , @viannasthings , @looking1016 , @ultimate-duck-king-lucifer , @blakeaha , @astraechos , @reath-solia ,

🏹Alastor stalkers: @celestial-vomit , @amurtan

@faeoffaith , sailorsmouth , @jeannyjaykaydeh , @jyoongim , @cosmic-lavender , @saturn-alone , @lustylita , @radio-darling , @kaylopolis , @dickmastersworld , @leviskittywh0re

[wonderlandrry]

hi, this is my first ever attempt at writing on tumblr!! the story could be more than one part if you like it (maybe three or four parts). this is also my first time not writing in first person pov so hopefully it doesn’t suck complete ass. (not really edited and idk how to format either so GREAT first impression, friends.)

pov: best friend! harry x you (aka i tried my best lmao)

blurb: you and harry have been best friends your whole life and one night changes everything.

contains: friends to lovers, bad girl x good boy if you squint, smoking green 🍃, smut, cussing, oral (giving and receiving for both characters), praise kink, and size kink if you squint really hard again and read between the lines lmao.

word count: 5k

• NOT RAMADAN FRIENDLY •

just friends

“You sure you don’t want me to come up?” Rylan’s honey eyes flick from your dorm bulging back to yours. The tension from tonight’s argument is fresh in those crinkles next to his eyes that you used to love. Fucking adore.

Parting your lips, you sigh, “See you around.”

“Don’t be like that,” A ringless hand runs through his dark hair. You’re not exactly sure why you’re focusing on that but here we are. “It was a joke, come on.”

Your hand rests on the door handle, silently contemplating on freaking the fuck out again. This isn’t the first time he’s made jokes, very public jokes about your best friend. The very first time you let it slide with a warning because some people don’t understand that you can be just friends with the opposite gender. They can’t wrap their heads around that not every relationship revolves around sex. You understood but tonight? He went too far.

“Saying Harry follows me like a stray dog,” You have to take a deep breath because Rylan doesn’t know what Harry’s been through. That only pisses you off more. “Was too far.”

“He doesn’t have any friends, Lil, just you.”

“Because he’s smart, he doesn’t have friends because he’s fucking brilliant.” It was true, Harry focused more on school and baseball than friendships. He got a full ride to Calloway University reliant on grades and his pure, raw talent. Some would stop there but he took it a step further by studying physics. Now it’s your turn to run a hand through your hair because this is the fourth fight over your best friend. “Don’t be a dick.”

“Do you not see how fucked that is?” He hisses, making your head snap in his direction. “You’re supposed to be dating me, not him.”

You scoff, “So that’s what this is?”

Rylan’s hold tightened on the steering wheel, so tight that his knuckles were almost white. “Look, I don’t care that you’re friends with him but you spend too much time-”

That confirmed everything for you. Your long friendship with Harry wasn’t the problem. Rylan knew how much Harry meant to you and how your friendship was all you had sometimes. He knew yet the fact that he didn’t have your full attention every waking moment of the day was the source of cruel jokes.

“You’re threatened, huh?” His knuckles blanched even more as the words left your mouth. “Listen to the words coming out of my mouth, Ry. Harry’s been my best friend since I was seven. Nothing has and will never happen between us. I would never sleep with him and ruin our friendship.”

“I see how you guys look at each other.”

Your whole face heats, it’s literally on fire. “You’re seeing things because we’re just friends.”

“You’re in denial.” Fuck. This.

Those three words were enough to push you. Push you to fling open the car door and launch yourself onto the pavement. They were enough to heat your whole body to the point that chilly winter air wasn’t enough to simmer down your anger. You don’t even bother slamming the door shut because that asshole can get out and shut it himself. That’s what he gets for constantly trying to pry a confession out of you. A confession that doesn’t exist but he still won’t accept it. The security guard gives a weary smile as you pass him, an obvious witness of the whole shit show. You look over your shoulder just in time to watch Rylan peel out.

He doesn’t follow you, shocker. Not that you wanted him to but you also didn’t expect him to. He acts like he cares but when push comes to shove, actions don’t match the words constantly flying out of that stupid mouth.

Unlocking and relocking the door with a soft click, your dorm is oddly dark and quiet. It looks like no one has been here all day. This is a possibility since Ellie spends most nights with her boyfriend. You slide off your black vans and place your bag on the hooks by the door. Seniors get a common room and separate bedrooms in student housing and you love the privacy. Honestly? It’s hard as fuck to hook up sharing a room with someone. El never cared who you brought home but felt weird as hell, yano?

From: ball boy (11:35 pm)

you home?

To: ball boy (11:36 pm)

yeah

You loosen your claw clip and honey-blond waves tumble. Walking into your room, you slip out of the cute-ass outfit you spent an hour perfecting and into some random band shirt with no bra and spandex shorts. Such a shame because you looked hot, too bad the night didn’t end with Ry ripping this lacy, black corset off you. Sucks for him.

From: ball boy (11:42 pm)

open the window before Mack catches my ass.

Your eyes snap toward the only windows in your room. The sheer, black curtains were closed but they did a shit job keeping the sunlight out so, honestly, how good were they for privacy? Your heart hammers thinking about Harry seeing you. How he could’ve seen all of you, not just what you choose to show off. The thought made your heart hammer.

From: ball boy (12:46 am)

don’t tell me you’re fucking someone right now

From: ball boy (12:47 am)

fuckin’ sick, lil

Annoyed, you rip open the curtains to find Harry’s cocky expression staring straight at you. It’s too dark to make out his full face but you can tell by the smirk tipping the left side that he’s amused. Making your favorite dimple dent even deeper. In one swift motion, the latch unlocks letting him in. He’s done this a million times, yano? Sneaking in your room for late-night study sessions, movie nights, or sleepovers. You’ve shared a bed countless times but never crossed that line, he’s your best friend. There are rules in place to save your friendship. He means more to you than one night of pleasure. Always has.

“Nice shirt, been looking for that everywhere.” Evergreen eyes bounce across your face, “Thought you had a date.”

You blow out a breath, “Not anymore.”

He smirks, dimple popping, “Obviously.”

“Thought you had plans.” You counter because Harry may not have many friends but that didn’t mean anything when it came to his sex life. He had trouble talking to girls but that didn’t seem to matter because they flocked to him. There was just something about him that drew people in, you included especially you. Maybe it was his ability to make anyone in the room feel special; wanted by having his undivided attention.

His lips purse, “Nah, not tonight.”

“Why?”

He gives you a pointed look giving away that he knows, “You know why.”

Guilt settles into your stomach, that stupid sinking feeling of being caught hit full force. He had the same argument with Grace that you did with Rylan tonight. They seem to argue more though and it kills you seeing him upset. You know he cares about her but he loves you. Maybe not romantically but definitely platonically and that means something to him. Every time they have this conversation, you know you should walk away. It's always your first instinct to protect people you love and you love your best friend. But, you’d rather die than let him go and that’s selfish as fuck but true. You sigh, “Harry-”

“I’m good,” He closes the distance and wraps you into a hug and it feels like home. Your favorite type of hug. “Worried about you.”

You smile against his chest, the steady rhythm of his heart hitting your cheek, “Nothing a Star Wars marathon won’t cure, Stud.”

His face lights up, “God, I could kiss you, Lil.”

“Whatever you say, ball boy.” Your heart flutters violently but you ignore the feeling. He always jokes like this in secret and maybe that’s the reason no one believes you’re just friends. But, they’re just jokes, yano.

“Ball boy?” He scoffs, making you tilt your chin to meet his gaze. When your eyes finally focus, Harry’s staring at you with his stupid, dimpled smile. Just because he’s your best friend doesn’t mean you’re completely immune. He’s handsome and you’d be dumb to deny that because, well, you have eyes. Currently, he looks even better from this angle. His hair’s tousled as neat as those chestnut curls will allow and dimples seem more prominent. Deep, inviting indents. The black, backwards hat only adds to the contrast of those evergreen eyes. Your favorite shade of green. A sliver of metal trapped between perfect teeth as he cocks his head. He chuckles, squeezing you tighter, “That’s fucked up.”

Pulling back, you shrug, “You’re the one who plays with them all day.”

His tongue clicks, cheeks hollowing, “Baseball, I play baseball.”

You dismiss him with a wave, walking into the common room. “Whatever helps you hit balls with your bat, Ball boy.”

“Better watch that pretty mouth of yours,” He warns in a low tone, so low that everything tingles. Reaching into his hoodie, he pulls out a bag of weed before plopping on the couch, “because I don’t share with bad girls.”

“Watching Star Wars high?” You grin as he nods. “Man of my dreams.”

Harry smirks, all boyish and full dimples, “Don’t tease.”

After pressing play and settling into the couch, you glance over at him just as the credits begin to roll. He’s lighting a joint, brows set in concentration, pink lips puckered around the paper inhaling slowly before passing it to you.

The next forty minutes fly by in the best, blissfully buzzed way. Time doesn’t have an exact science. We’re happy and having a good time. All the anger from earlier dissipated from you and Harry just being together. His nose found its way under your jaw, right next to your pulse point, some time after fifteen or so minutes. He’s always been affectionate when buzzed but holy fuck, was he toning it down before. You don’t know what changed but his hands haven’t left your waist and he keeps hugging closer to your chest with little sighs and hums of contentment. He smells so fucking good like peppermint, fresh laundry, and smoke.

Your breathing is slow and steady. Completely wrapped in him. Fingers twisting the curls at the nape of his neck until your fingertips tingle to touch him elsewhere. You don’t allow them to go lower than his throat, feeling how harsh each swallow was each time you’d get below the hinge of his jaw. He hums against your neck, nuzzling deeper into the column dangerously like he can’t get enough, “Feeling better?”

“Yes.” You breathe as he hugs tighter, not stopping your feather-like movement through his soft curls. “You?”

“Yeah, that feels good.” His words come out sleepy and deep and gravelly. “Your t-touch always feels good.” Warm evergreen holds all your attention as he kisses your cheek, “Thank you for being here with me. You make everything better, always have.”

Your face tilts, noses inches apart, and whisper. “You make everything better for me too.”

Harry’s the type of man that goes from beautiful to devastating with a change of facial expression. Your hazy brain can’t stop taking him in for some reason. It’s involuntary. That beautiful, sculpted face is hidden at nightfall but you allow yourself to appreciate how much time someone put into crafting him. It’s like you spent the last fifteen years with blinders on and can finally see.

Sage burns into evergreen as his lips roll a few times like he’s trying to come up with a safe response. The irrational part of my brain wants to feel his mouth on you again so bad that you almost crave him. Your lips part at the same time waiting for the other to make a move or do something drastic. Three heartbeats of your mouths seconds apart. Three heartbeats in your own hazy, happy world. His nose nudges yours once before dropping back to your throat. His arms wrapped around you tighter and your breathing synced again. Instead of calm and steady, now it’s erratic and fast.

Fuck, you have to be high, right? Best friends don’t look at each other like this. Especially you guys.

He leans closer, left hand planted on your thigh as we just stare at each other. Almost like he feels it too. Your fingertips ache to touch the stubble dusting his jawline so bad they tingle but you can’t seem to move. Completely lost in the hypnotic desire clouding the calm green of his irises.

Not wanting to put pressure on Harry to make the first move, you close the distance. Not sure why you did that but your mouths part at the same time. His in surprise and yours in want, yet in perfect sync. Pressing your lips to his, he immediately kisses back, cupping your jaw. One second everything’s moving slowly and the next, he’s lifting his shirt over your head. Touching every inch of exposed skin like he can’t get enough. His fingers hook into the waistband of your shorts as yours find his jeans. The kiss breaks as he leans back just enough to look at you. You’re looking at each other in silence but it’s so fucking loud.

“We should-” He swallows harshly, columns of his throat tense, “Don’t wanna finally have you if you’ll regret-”

“Won’t ever regret you, H,” Your voice is hushed yet full of so much want and sincerity. “Don’t stop, we’re okay.”

“Yeah?” He breathes out in relief pressing another kiss to your lips that sends trace currents through your body full force. Finally giving into the sweetest temptation you’ve ever tasted. Forbidden and delicious. This was like an avalanche of feelings and lust in motion, couldn’t stop the cascade if you tried. The aftermath would eventually come but everything would be okay. It had to be.

“Yeah, just friends,” Your lips move with his again but lazier, a slow pace that makes everything come to life. “This doesn’t change anything.”

You lied because this meant everything but you can’t stop.

He blinks like he can see right through your bullshit.

You blink back hoping he doesn’t.

“Just friends.” He repeats only the first half of your lie between kisses, pressing your body further into the couch with his hips.

The words come out breathless.

The words come out easily.

The words come out in cool peppermint.

He starts to drag your shorts off at the same pace the kiss and you lift a little to help. Being this vulnerable, letting the other fully see the other is something you can’t put into words. Your eyes rake his body as his lustful, dark gaze mirrors yours. There aren’t enough fucking words to describe how beautiful he is. Taking in every single detail from his tattoos to his cock pressed between your open thighs. The desperation; everything fucking aches for him. He leans forward, lips parting, eyes darkening by the minute, leaving open-mouth kisses along your jaw until they meet your mouth. The warm metal of his tongue ring claiming every inch of your mouth. He tasted like charged temptation in the best way, like something you didn’t know you craved until now.

Harry whimpers as your legs wrap around his waist. His cock throbs between your thighs and he groans against your lips. The sound vibrating with need; so fucking desperate. Strong hands grip your ass as the kiss deepens. He’s kissing you like you’re oxygen and he’s hungry for air. Almost like he can’t breathe without tasting you. Without having you like this. Staggered, harsh breaths hit the left side of your as his lips descended. Sucking and biting gently at your throat until they reach your chest and wrap around your nipple piercings. Metal clanking salaciously as his tongue swirls, toying with each little bar. His cock throbs again and your head falls back into the throw pillows with a loud moan. The arrogant smirk against your already heated skin only sends fire dancing.

Crackling and humming with each touch. They say fire needs oxygen to grow and Harry was yours. Always has been, he ignites all your fires.

Pulling back slightly, salacious evergreen meets thunderous oceans as he speaks, “So fucking pretty.” His words come out as a rasp, full of raw desperation. “Wanna taste you so fucking bad.” Kisses pepper your face, “Wanna make you feel so good, please? ”

“Y-yes,” You breathe, unable to finish the sentence as his kiss-bruised lips meet yours again and again, his fingers digging into the sensitive skin of your already open thighs, while yours run through his soft curls. Tangling and twisting as your lips move hungrily, desperately. Your teeth trap his tongue ring gently tasting and the sound that escapes his throat is feral. His body pushes against yours as you devour each other. Urgent, hungry, and like you might run out of time or change your mind. Hot, open-mouth kisses descend from your lips to your jaw then stop at the base of your throat.

“Fuck,” The word’s rushed, nearly a pant, as he pulls his sweatshirt over his head. The view of his gorgeous, toned body sends a shiver down your spine. The butterfly on his chest fluttered with each rapid breath. His abs jutting and rippling like it took everything in him not to lose it right then and there. Rough yet gentle hands feather your ribs, gliding effortlessly until they pause at your hips, leaving trace currents branding me with each tortuous touch. The rings on his fingers dig into the sensitive flesh of your hips despite how gentle he’s being. A surprised gasp leaves my lips in a whimper as his grip tightens holding you into place. Your hips tilt, wanting to feel him and he groans, nostrils flaring like he’s in pain, “Want you so bad,” His nose runs against your jaw, “Not gonna last if you keep moving, Lil.”

“Sorry,” You breathe letting your head fall back as it swims with every effortless emotion you feel for him.

“Shh, you’re perfect, so fucking perfect, look at you.” He whispers, the gravelly tone of his voice sending vibrations between your thighs making you ache. A completely desperate ache for him that would be embarrassing if it was anyone but your Harry. Suddenly, he’s kissing you but lazily this time. His lips moved so painfully slow and tender against yours. Kissing like you have all the time in the world. As soon as you match his pace, he breaks the kiss sighing deeply against your parted lips. He studies your face, evergreen locked on blue, as he slowly drifts between your thighs. His hands follow him, traveling down your inked body with ease, until they lock around your upper legs.

“What’re you doing?” You ask breathlessly, trying to keep up with his pace. He ignores you, placing drawn-out kisses trailing from your left hip to inner thigh. Soft moans leave your parted lips each and every time his mouth touches your skin. His kisses are getting closer and closer, nipping and sucking, teasing and torturing. It’s too fucking much. “Harry-”

“Need something, Lil?” He sucks harder on your hip, leaving a purplish bruise on porcelain skin, tilting his head up to meet your gaze with a lazy smirk. So effortlessly sexy.

“Please-” Desperateness clings to the word as your head falls back, unable to handle seeing him between your legs.

“Please what?” Harry smirks against heated skin as your hips move forward, “Use your words, pretty girl.”

“I want-” The sentence pauses at the tip of your tongue. No one’s ever asked what you wanted before. “I’ve never-” Your brows push together trying to find the right word but he reaches up, fingers smoothing the line between them like he understands.

“It’s okay,” He runs the flat of his tongue against your clit and your knees almost push together from pleasure, the round of his tongue ring hitting perfectly. Like he knows exactly what you need. Burning evergreen disappears into the back of his head as he moans against you, fingernails digging into your skin. “Taste so fucking good, Lil. Knew you would, so fucking sweet.”

“Fuck,” The whimper that comes out of you is pathetic as he lifts your leg, draping your right knee over his shoulder, tongue circling with no mercy. Flicking and sucking and teasing as he changes pace. Your head falls back feeling his piercing tease your entrance with each flick of his perfect tongue. Your fingers laced into his wet curls, tugging as he pulled back, eyes meeting yours. Bringing his left middle and ring fingers to your lips, manually parts them until his fingers push past your bottom teeth. The cold metal of his rings hits your warm mouth. Evergreen dances darkly as they glide across your tongue until you gag around them. He exhales roughly, head cocking, “Mmm, suck. Such a good girl for me, yeah?”

Your lips wrap around his fingers as your eyes lock. He moves them in and out a few times before withdrawing. Never breaking eye contact, pink lips puckering around my clit as his fingers tease your entrance. He watches you intensely, so fucking intensely as his fingers match the pace of his tongue. Your eyes flutter in pure fucking bliss as your grip on his hair returns. Pulling and tugging, making him groan so deeply, “Lil.”

Your name came out of his mouth with the same electricity that courses through your veins whenever he’s around. Hot, entrancing, unfuckingdeniable, and your undoing. White, hot pleasure hits so hard that you try to close your legs but his hands wrap around your thighs, keeping them open, easing you through it. Your breathing evens out as Harry watches you between your open thighs. His head tilted upward, lips parted in amazement, evergreen bouncing around your face like he’s committing every muscle movement to memory.

“For fucks sake.” He exhales, blinking in complete astonishment.

“Hmm?” The word comes out lazily, so fucking easy like your smile.

He hovers, face inches from yours, hazy eyes blazing with lust. The end of his cross necklace bounces off your bottom lip a few times. “So pretty when you cum, Angel.”

Fuck, in one swift movement, you push his chest backward completely straddling him as his back hits the couch. Long, ring-clad fingers grip your jaw as he presses his lips to yours, kissing slowly, tongues tangling lazily. He tastes like you and it makes your head spin. His fingers tangle into your hair, blond waves fall, as he collects them wrapping the strands around his wrist. Breaking the kiss, your hands glide across his skin, feeling every harsh breath and ridge before settling between his legs. Every flutter of his butterfly as he breathes, how his abs constrict with each breath like he wants you so badly that it’s painful, and the vein resting next to the perfect v-line of his left hip. Taking a deep breath, your head tilts, meeting his hungry, beautiful gaze as your lips wrap around his head.

He lets out a loud moan, abs jutting, as your tongue twirls and teases. His head lolls back, lips parting while the moans come out so fucking feral; desperate. The grip on your hair loosens as you take him deeper, hollowing your cheeks with each suck. Honey curls fall you around like a curtain as he cups the back of your head, pushing you to take him deeper, never breaking eye contact. You almost wanna shut yours seeing how much adoration and attention and lust swims in his pretty irises. He starts moving his hips slowly, testing, and relaxing your jaw. His jaw tightens with each thrust, moaning so fucking loud, lips puckering around a needy exhale, “I-fuck-I’m not gonna last.”

Flattening your tongue, a hum in appreciation and that makes him break. The soft green of his eyes darkened as control slips with each thrust. “God, look at how pretty you look wrapped around my cock.” He groans even louder and you gag around him. His hips slow, “You can take it, just like that, so fucking good.”

Your cheeks hollow as his movements grow more frantic. More fucking desperate. Twirling your tongue, he pulls out, cupping your jaw again as he cums. Painting your chest in the most filthy way. Head tilted back, eyes shut, pumping his cock as he whimpers. Blush spreads up his throat, neck vein popping in the sexiest way, and perfect lips parted in pure ecstasy; pure bliss. He’s the most devastating man you’ve ever seen. The minute your gazes meet, your breathing halts. So many emotions battle to come to the surface as lush forests meet raging oceans. The push and pull that is us. This is a moment where you just stare at each other in understanding. Letting your eyes say what you’re afraid to admit out loud.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, yeah?” Harry’s voice is gentle and soothing while his fingers trace your jaw before disappearing. You count his footsteps but don’t respond. The weight of what happened crashed into you like a freight train. Your breathing accelerates instead of steading as everything plays out. You don’t want to lose him when this doesn’t work out. The thought comes quickly and like a bucket of ice water. Panic setting in because you can’t lose him. You can’t lose him over one night of weakness. Shit, the uncertainty feels heavy on your chest, heavier than it should because there’s no one you trust more. He’s your best friend.

“Lil?” Hesitantly, your eyes snap to your favorite shade of green. Allowing them to travel his peaceful features, illuminated by the soft glow of the moon. Everything about him is relaxed and unguarded as he starts cleaning you up with a warm washcloth. The light stubble on his sharp jaw to pink parted lips to the freckles on the bridge of his nose that you wouldn’t see unless you were close enough. Your fingertips ache to trace the path, feel each little freckle and plane of his face, until they’re touching his pink lips. Sometimes, you wish memories worked like photographs or something so you could accurately remember how being in his arms feels. How finally being his feels until unrelenting reality hits. You’re not his, Grace is, and that hurts worse than you thought. His lips tip into a left-sided smile, “There she is.”

“Here I am,” You smile back, cheekbone gently compressed by his long fingers.

Dark curls sticking up in different directions, evergreen eyes following every detail of your face, a red hue dusting across his cheeks, and his once parted lips tugging into a sleepy smirk, “You still with me, Lil?”

“Always.” The word came out fast because you were with him. Maybe too with him. “Gonna get dressed real quick.” A giggle escapes your lips, “Don’t have the money for Ellie’s therapy bill if she walks in.”

“Fuck,” He chuckles, running a hand through long curls, “She’d probably ask to join.”

Your phone buzzes two times and something inside you freezes. You know it’s Rylan, no one else but him and Harry text you this late. The playful expression on Harry’s face slowly drains into something that resembles pain as he hands it to me. The sudden change makes your stomach turn in the worst way.

From: Ry (2:30 am)

Sorry about tonight.

From: Ry (2:31 am)

Can’t lose you over a stupid argument, Lil. I know you and Styles are just friends and you wouldn’t touch him. Sorry for being a jealous prick.

That stomach-sinking guilt comes back full force and causes your mouth to flood with saliva. You pull the Nirvana shirt over your head and turn to explain but he’s already looking at the wall. His jaw tense, so tense that the hinges are bulging, but expression is stoic. He swallows, the columns in his throat tense then relax showing just how hard the salvia was to get down. You linger on his side profile for a second, appreciating the beautiful yet masculine planes of his face, before clearing your throat. He blinks a few times before turning slowly to meet your eyes. The words rush out of your mouth, “Harry-”

Playful evergreen darkened to forest green, “I better go.”

You jump to your feet, following behind him quickly, desperate to explain. His back to you, broad shoulders sagging, as he works to unlatch your window. The glass opens with a thud and you expect him to leave but he doesn’t. Ring-clad fingers grasp the ledge, knuckles blanch, as he just breathes. You count to fifteen waiting for him to look at you but he doesn’t. 240 long, excruciating seconds pass. Exhaling harshly, his voice is hoarse, “We need to tal-“

“Friends?” You blurt, not letting him finish. Needing to know you’re okay, eyes volleying between him and the notification on your phone.

He pauses, hand resting on the windowsill, so much pain in those evergreen eyes you love so much. There he was, always taking care of you. Even if it means hurting him.

“Yeah, Lil.”

Your attention stays on the window as he slips out without giving you a chance to respond. Everything smells like him, a mouthwatering mixture of fresh laundry, peppermint, and something earthy like the wind. Even your skin has traces of him that you don’t think you’d be able to wash off. The memory of tonight permanently embedded into you and there is no denying it. How his mouth felt, his hands on you, the sound of his raspy voice slowly ruining you for anyone else.

What the fuck did you just do?

[elodieunderglass]

Hi! I was wondering if you could help me out with a word I've forgotten? I'm trying to remember the name for a concept that (I think) talks about how people better understand or process Things once they have vocabulary to describe it - I've heard it talked about in regards to the colour orange, or coercive control, etc.

long story short i've just read a paper saying ancient Greeks and Romans weren't racist bc they had no word for racism and am trying to form an argument against!

(no worries if this is unanswerable, i'm aware its a bit of a long shot but you struck me as a person who Knows Things)

That’s extremely kind and funny of you. i don’t know much but i am ok at synthesis.

I think you might be thinking of the concepts loosely called the “Sapir-Whorf hypothesis”, which describes something called “linguistic determinism.” This idea has been “disproven”, as it is just too reductionist as a concept - people are clearly perfectly capable of having experiences that are tough to describe with words. There will be plenty of papers showing how this reasoning is applied.

but it is still commonly thrown around and still considered a useful teaching framework. That’s why you’ll see it referenced online as if it is fresh, new, and applicable - people learn about it every year in college. Also, elements of the framework are probably perfectly sound. It definitely seems to be the case that language shapes brains; it just doesn’t seem to be the case that humans who don’t have specific words for them can’t experience orange, or the future.

(Many things in college are taught using teaching frameworks that may not be, technically, true; the framework is intended to give a critical structure for interpreting information. Then, when we later find evidence that disproves the hypothesis, that single piece of information doesn’t destroy our expensive college education; what we paid for is the framework. This is mostly frustrating in the sciences, when fresh crops of undergraduate students crash around on social media, grappling with their first exposure to (complex concept) and how it’s DIFFERENT to what they learned BEFORE and their teachers LIED TO EVERYBODY and they’re going to save the world from POP SCIENCE by telling the TRUTH. You’ll notice that these TOTALLY NEW INFORMATION reveals map along the semester schedule. The thing here is that getting new information, or information being different from what you were previously told, does not cancel out the fact that you are getting what you pay for - an education. Learning new facts that change our relationships to hypotheses isn’t a ✨huge betrayal ✨ , but the expected process of academia. Anyway.)

You have an interesting response here, and can start by looking at the ways that Sapir-Whorf has been disproved. There will be loads of literature on that.

However, it would be interesting to look at the argument as an unpicking of the other side’s rather weird, ritualistic superstitious belief that a behavior doesn’t exist if the creatures doing it can’t describe it. It is not on the ancient Greeks and Romans to categorise and interpret their behavior for a modern educated audience. They do not have the wherewithal to do so. They are also fucking dead. We can name the behaviors we see, and describe their impacts, however the hell we like.

Sure, the ancient Greeks used “cancer” to refer to lumpy veiny tumors. We can infer that they still had blood cancer, because their medical texts describe leukaemia and their corpses have evidence of it - they just didn’t know it was cancer. But we do, so we can call it cancer. Just because Homer said “the wine-dark sea” in a flight of girlish whimsy doesn’t mean he was unable to distinguish grape juice from saltwater, which we know, because we can observe that he was an intelligent wordsmith perfectly capable of talking about wine and oceans in other contexts. We are the people who get to stand at our point of history with our words, and name things like “this person probably died of leukaemia” and “poets say things that aren’t necessarily literal” and “this behaviour was racist” and “that’s gay” and “togas kinda slay tho” despite Ancient Greeks having different concepts of cancer, wittiness, prejudice, homosexuality, and slaying than we do today.

Now just to caveat that people do get muddled about the concept of racism. Our understanding of racism from here - this point of history, with these words, probably from the West - is heavily influenced by how we see racism around us today: white supremacy and the construct of “whiteness,” European colonial expansion, transatlantic chattel slavery, orientalism, evangelism, 20th century racial science, and so on. This is the picture of racism that really dominates our current discourse, so people often mistake it for the definition of racism. (Perhaps in a linguistic-deterministic sort of way after all.) As a result, muddled-up people often say things like “I can’t be racist because I’m not a white American who throws slurs at black American people,” while being an Indian person in the UK who votes for vile anti-immigration practices, or a Polish person with a horrible attitude about the Roma. Many people genuinely hold this very kindergarten idea of racism; if your opponent does as well, they’re probably thinking something like “Ancient Greek and Roman people didn’t have a concept of white supremacy, because whiteness hadn’t been invented yet, so how could they be racist?” And that’s unsound reasoning in a separate sense.

Racism as the practice of prejudice against an ethnicity, particularly one that is a minority, is a power differential that is perfectly observable in ancient cultures. The beliefs and behaviors will be preserved in written plays, recorded slurs, beauty standards, reactions to foreign marriages, and travel writing. The impacts will be documented in political records, trade agreements, the layouts of historical districts of ancient towns.

You don’t need permission to point out behaviours and impacts. You can point them out in any words you like. You can make up entirely new words to bully the ancient romans with. You are the one at this point of history and your words are the ones that get used.

Pretending that “words” are some kind of an intellect-obscuring magical cloud in the face of actual evidence is just a piece of sophistry (derogatory) on the part of your opponent here. It’s meant to be a distraction. You can dismiss this very flimsy shield pretty quickly and get them in the soft meat of them never reading anything about the actual material topic, while they’re still looking up dictionary definitions or whatever.

[0luv9]

forlorn || mattheo riddle

Summary: based on this request.

Beware: angst, fluff, slightly aged-up characters, Hufflepuff reader, sweet reader, she/her pronouns used, mostly in second person, jealousy, mistreatment, a little bit of blood, slightly commanding(?) and intimidating Mattheo.

Words: 7.8k (not beta read)

Note: I am sorry luv, I don't think I did justice to the request. I also apologize for taking so long. I still hope you like it, even if it's just a bit. @cat-loves-music

Mattheo Riddle, son of Voldemort, or Tom Riddle if you will—for a more humane approach. But then, there's no humanity in the way he's treated. Always an outsider, always a monster.

There is wealth to his name; after all, he is the only living heir of Salazar Slytherin. However, his blood is corrupt, shunned by the very people who kissed the steps his baby feet took. Looked down on by the blood supremacists and not accepted by the other side, the "good side."

Even he was tired of the same sob story. He doesn't even need to introduce himself; they already have a preconceived image of him in their minds. He could try to fix his image in an ideal world, but even then, what would he say?

'Hello, everyone, I'm Mattheo Riddle, son of the man who once threatened your lives. Please welcome me with warm hands.'

Too cliché? Yes, but it's true and the only truth he knew.

Riddle didn't even know why the name Riddle was cursed and didn't know what his father did that made everyone's hate transcend generations. What made their hatred justified and his hate a crime? He didn't know until it was too late.

Mattheo was raised by the only living relative of his, his mother's aunt—the one who died recently. The one who kept all this hidden away from him hid all the Hogwarts' letters, raised him like her own, and protected him until her last breath. She loved him but all within the vicinity of the manor. He didn't know the world that existed beyond those walls.

He knew about the world outside only through the books she'd let him read. He thought it would feel liberating to step off the lavish floors onto the rich earth. It was everything but that.

"But Nona, why can't I go outside?" he remembers asking that silly question when he was about nine. What he wouldn't do to get that naivety back.

"Because, my dear, there are people out there who wouldn't like you. There are bad people outside ready to punish you," he also remembers crying when she told him that. He didn't understand why people would hate him. He just wanted to try the chocolate frogs he read about.

He just wanted to talk to all the different animals out there, the same way he could talk to the garden snakes.

"But I didn't do anything wrong, Nona. Tell them that I'm a good boy. I can even give them some of my toys. Will they like me then?" If only it were that easy. His Nona cried for the first time in front of him then, looking at all the toys he had set onto her lap, looking at her with teary eyes, pleading, "I didn't do anything wrong, Nona, I promise."

Mattheo didn't understand her tears back then, but now as he stands all alone, those same tears fall out his eyes. It's useless. "They'll know that someday, moon pie. You aren't wrong. They'll know." They'll know? What a fucking joke.

Mattheo tries to enjoy the view in front of him, you know. But how can he? When his batchmates are out there partying and enjoying life, he's been a lone wolf all his life. Yet in moments like this, he seems to forget his old ways of existing.

There's not much he can do anyway; he's not needed anywhere. In fact, they all want him gone. Finding beauty in small things is hard when misery clings to him. There's self-loathing in the way he thinks about the night and himself. There's nothing positive he can say.

You'd think that he must've gotten used to it all by now. No, he hasn't; it only got worse. At least little Mattheo held hope that people would understand someday or the other. Every bit of hope was destroyed by the very people who would've feared him had his father been alive. In moments like this, he wished he could see the man, live as the son they paint him as.

He'd have someone to lean onto then, someone to call his own. At least his father would've loved him. But this last bit of consolidation too was stolen away from him when he got to know that he was a backup plan for his father. Mattheo Riddle was not supposed to exist. His father wanted to live on forever; he was the last option the so-called Dark Lord had, to produce an heir and have them further his cause, and control his life as Tom lived on his last lifeline.

But all of it died with him. Mattheo promised himself that he would never be the man they all expected him to be, the man they wanted to point fingers at. So, he stayed in line. But then he thinks, sometimes, maybe, what if—you know?

He simply stares up at the brightly lit sky, it's a shame that he's the only one out there to appreciate the scenic beauty because he's physically and mentally incapable of appreciating anything, you can't blame him now, can you?

Cold breeze in mid-August, how fucking ridiculous just like this life of his, so unlike his peers, who were out there partying and having the time of their lives, the music vibrating through the walls was like salt on wounds. He'd like to drink a few and chat with his friends but then again, he hasn't got any. And it's the bitter truth that he's not welcome there, he'd be greeted with nasty looks if he tried to enter any such party, they'd all glance his way like the ominous thing he is. It's times like this when he really contemplates it.

Mattheo looks down from the height he's on, no one would care anyway, the fall will kill him, might just give it an actual try unlike those previous attempts- he's been a coward all his life, never ready to face the extremes of life but he has nothing to protect at the moment, he's come far too long, life was never going to be worth it.

He climbs over the railing onto the brick ledge, sitting down for a moment, to take it all in for the last time ever. Mattheo remembers all the whispers that followed him, the suspicious looks passed along the way, those words of disdain- at the same time the thoughts of a happy life enter his mind, it all feels unattainable, in fact, he's so far gone he can't even picture joy, all he sees is bright colours when he thinks of a happy life.

Mattheo had desperately sought relief all his life, but the pain only worsened with time, it's only reasonable to want to end this feeling of hopelessness. The weight of his family's legacy feels heavy on his shoulders. He slouches over and looks down once again, sighing as his eyes shift to the ring on his finger, the other Gaunt ring, he slowly removes it- a pathetic heir he is, he doesn't deserve it, couldn't live up to the name, disappointing both sides of the world.

Maybe they should have destroyed this along with his father's ring but apparently, his dear sweet Nona thought he could change their fate, change the course of history, change the Gaunt legacy for the better, fuck- he couldn't even try and change people's perception about him. Even in this sense, he's nothing like his predecessors, incapable of leaving a mark, of changing the world, be it for the better or the worse. He's just fucking worthless- he fiddles with the ring as he shifts a bit closer to the edge, ready to let go of it.

"Nice ring," he turns around startled, "Mattheo, isn't it?" not Riddle? He hadn't heard his own name in a long time, no one had directly addressed him in years let alone called him by his first name. It all feels foreign, he simply nods not knowing what to say. "Do you mind if I join you?" you don't wait for a response though and carefully bend and climb through the gaps between the two rails, settling down beside him. "Hi, I'm-" he doesn't hear it, he's too focused on your face, you were dolled up, for the party he thinks, but then why are you here of all places? Was this some kind of prank? He steals a glance back at the entrance and the seemingly empty hallway, to see if anyone is waiting for a reaction.

"You know you shouldn't sit so close to the edge, you might fall down," you grab his forearm urging him to move back, your hand feels warm on his skin, it feels unnatural, his hands are always cold. Even though it's on him for a couple of seconds he can't help the multiple emotions going on about in his mind and before he can sort them out, his mouth decides to act on its own, "Why aren't you at the party?" "Oh-" you look disappointed, and he apologises right away, not wanting to upset the only person who had the decency to talk to him, "Sorry, I shouldn't have asked," he's quick to defend himself, it's a natural response after all but you only seemed amused, "No, it quite alright, I was just surprised by your voice-" "Is it that bad?" "Gosh no! It's just not what I expected, quite rough, it's nice," you are quick to shut him up, "And about your question, I am annoyed at my friends forcing me to try more drinks and all, I just came up here to relax."

"I can leave if you'd like," you add on as an afterthought, but you really didn't want to go, it was the only place with some peace, unlike the loud corridors and dorms, where you were mad at your friends and were in no mood for a party. "No, it's quite alright, I was just surprised," he tries to lighten the mood, repeating your words jokingly, it works, you laugh and properly look at him instead of the waters ahead.

"Haha so funny," you say in a monotonous voice, trying to act like you didn't just laugh but you can't contain your smile, and he finds it quite beautiful. You look down at the ring between the two of you, "it's a beautiful ring I must say," You compliment it again since he hadn't acknowledged it before. Mattheo thanked you quietly trying to think of a response that might not make you run away from him.

It's been only a few minutes and you've said more nice things to him than he has ever heard in his whole life, it's quite ridiculous when he thinks about it, seemingly you find it quite easy to compliment him. He stays quiet not knowing how to take a compliment, but you don't let the silence continue, you look around trying to find something to talk about and soon enough you start talking and he's glad, "You know about those plants right there?" you point to the shrubs at some distance from the castle walls. Mattheo shakes his head unable to recall if he had seen them before. "It's alright but now that you know, you have something to look forward to this upcoming month!" you smile yet again, cheerful that you have something to share.

"What's special about them?" "It's not the plant itself but the fireflies that live there!" Mattheo tries hard to keep up with your energy and pace, "Why aren't they out now? They aren't migratory, are they?" "That's what makes it special unlike fireflies that are present throughout the summer, these ones light up only for the last week of August," "I'll look forward to it," "You should! I missed it last year and then everyone thought I was lying when I mentioned it." Mattheo frowns, "No one knows about them? Not even the professors?" "The professors would know but it wasn't that serious that I'd take it up to them," Mattheo finds it difficult to relate, he always would let everyone know that he was in the right if the facts favour him because no way in hell would he let anyone see him in the wrong light, he couldn't bear to be in the wrong.

And it slips out his mouth, "I would've argued till they knew I was right," "I don't like arguing though, reminds me of my parents, they parted ways because they argued a lot, so I try to avoid it myself," his lips purse trying to think of an appropriate response, "Anyway, you are in Slytherin right?" it wasn't a question, you just knew, "I'm in Hufflepuff, nice to meet you!" you turn towards him and extend your hand with a smile, he can't help but mirror your smile, "Nice to meet you indeed." Your hand feels soft in his, he was finding it hard to let go but you pull your hand back almost instantly- remembering something, "OH right I forgot, do you like chocolates?" Mattheo was quite taken aback by your energetic self, it was infectious, "Of course you do, it's a silly question, I mean who doesn't like chocolate-" you stop midway and fix him with a scrutinising look, "Unless you are some heartless monster-" "Nah I like chocolate alright," "Good good."

You fish through your jacket's pocket and pull out two chocolate bars, "It's muggle chocolate," you place one in his hand, "Muggle? I've never had muggle candy," Mattheo inspects the small sweet in his hand, "You are missing out then!" you chuckle as you take the wrapper off yours, "I'll eat it tomorrow, thank you," He pockets it and looks ahead with a small smile, tonight's beautiful now that he looks at it.

"You are a muggle born then?" Mattheo can't help but want to know more, because how dare his fucking father go after your lot, "Yep, I was surprised you know? To receive the letter, I thought it was some prank but of course, after a few days I realised how real it was, couldn't have been happier, to be away from home." It's funny because all Mattheo wants to do is go back to the gloomy old mansion and here you were saying the opposite, the stark difference between the two of you was obvious to him.

You ramble on and he listens, it's nothing but enjoyable to listen to mundane stories being narrated with such interest, he finds himself smiling a bit too much, to the point where his face hurts but he doesn't care because you are quite the lovely company to be around.

Muggle-born, the same year as him, Hufflepuff, living with your mom- it's not the best back home he gathers that much. You were angry at your friends and were going to hold a grudge if they didn't apologise. He learned a lot about you in that one hour and learned a few things about him as well, he didn't know he had jokes like that OR you were just too kind to laugh at his bad quips, whatever it was he was grateful because you didn't make him feel bad or like a burden. Mattheo was glad that you were the talkative one and that you didn't expect him to share anything if he wasn't comfortable, also the fact that he didn't want to send you running away by talking more about himself.

He admires the fond smile you wear when you talk, the stars reflect a bit too brightly in your eyes, and he inhales breathing in your scent, it's surreal, the moment. Mattheo didn't quite think properly until you left, wishing him a good night, "it was nice spending time with you, Mattheo!" He wonders if you knew how much it meant to him.

...

He finds out your name the next day and sees you everywhere, it's annoying because he was tired since he couldn't sleep thinking all night about you and now he has to see your face again. Now that he knows you, he can't seem to avoid you, earlier it was easy to be blind but now, everything else seems like a blind spot but you. Or maybe it's that his head is not hanging low, avoiding looking up at people.

Mattheo got over the irritation rather quickly, discreetly looking at you, eyes following every movement of yours. But you don't look at him once, he was just like any other guy to you, the realisation both hurts and feels nice, knowing that you don't demonise him but also the fact that he's no one special either. And maybe, he can live with that.

He notices the large number of people you keep around, you are never alone, always surrounded by a group and you are always the one talking, you are clearly popular. How had he not noticed you before? But then again he knew no one in the school apart from the professors, he never tried to get to know anyone because of course his fate wouldn't allow that.

Mattheo seeks out the solace of the library to keep you out of his mind for a while but the plan doesn't seem to work when he finds the chocolate you gave him in his bag. He simply sighs, knowing that there is no escape, unwarps the sweet and pops it into his mouth, shutting his eyes, and recalls your sweet smile. Warmth takes over his body, it feels nice like this, he has to talk to you once again because that can't be the only interaction he has with you, not when it's all he can think about. He breathes out slowly, staring down at the wrapper and mindlessly reading the information on the back, his jaw tightens as he realizes his stupid pathetic feelings. Mattheo puts the wrapper in his quill case and tries to study with a head full of you.

...

Okay, now it was really starting to bother him, he practically couldn't keep his eyes off you, it's like a spell had charmed him in. He wasn't even trying to be discreet at this point, he downright stared at you from a distance, it was creepy, he was aware of that but he couldn't bring himself to give a damn. Mattheo doesn't like this new feeling you've instilled in him, it's sweet and it's fucking uncomfortable. He finds it extremely difficult to get rid of you from his thoughts, so he gives up on trying and lets his mind go on autopilot.

The way you talked to him without any judgement in your eyes that day, the images of you repeated over and over again in his mind. Even when he sees you with someone else he can't help but think you are in front of him telling him a story, with those animated expressions of yours, but then seconds later he comes to his senses and sees the smile that's not directed at him, the one you gave to everyone, him too. He thinks it was your pity, that made you talk to him. He didn't feel like he was burdening you then but now when he thinks of approaching you, he knows he'd be burdening you. Your life looks no different, every day is full of joy, and you aren't smiling any less.

Why would you talk to him of all people? Perhaps, you only talked to him that day because you needed a change of scenery and not because you wanted to, he's wrong in thinking that but he's also deluded. It's the only way he keeps himself at peace, to not see meaning in your words, to not long for your company.

But he's a Riddle after all, some things just run in your blood, he has his eyes set on you and he finds it difficult to look away. New dream of his, and he'd like to have it, no matter how unattainable it feels. Yet he hasn't got a clue, it's all too new, and he doesn't know what to do, he'd like to have a plan but what would the plan even say? Go and talk to her? Yeah, like he's about to embarrass himself in front of her.

...

Your eyes stretch at the sight of him sitting in the library, alone but not in some deserted corner, he had claimed the whole couch in the centre of the room, sitting right in the middle, reading a book leaning back, a frown on his face. He looked intimidating, and to be honest, you were scared of him, the little beer in you that night had given you the courage to approach him, maybe your fate was too kind to let you find him that night but now your nerves were on fire.

It was no secret to you that he had been staring at you the past couple of weeks, but you couldn't understand the look on his face, his jaw was always clenched, eyes narrowed, and not a hint of emotion on his face. Was he mad at you? Was he the planning on-

No. You didn't like to think about it, you didn't want him to be the man they paint him as, he's just a boy, your age, maybe that's another reason why you hadn't approached him. Staying away because you were scared that they'd be right, you'd rather delve into what ifs than actually be heartbroken, your imagination brought you bliss.

But would it really be your mind if it would let you just forget it? You think and think, getting worked up over every little interaction you've had with him. How could he be evil? He talked to you so nicely the other day, even- even though you were a muggle-born, a mud blood. But when you see how he looks at you, you can't help but feel scared.

It really was an intimidating sight, your courage wore thin but you had made up your mind. You approach him cautiously, as you greet him, you start feeling jittery and flushed, "Hey Mattheo."

Mattheo jerked his head up as he heard your voice, surprised, caught off guard in fact, he didn't trust his words just yet so he simply nodded at you, acknowledging your presence, closing the book and setting it aside, all his attention on you. "I came here to study and noticed you," you look around bashfully before continuing, "I just wanted to ask you if you liked the chocolate I gave you the other day, you know the one with dark brown wrapper-" "Yeah I did," He stops you from rambling on, not that he had any problem with it but you clearly seemed nervous, he just wanted to ease your nerves, "Right so-" you quickly pull out a small pack of the chocolate from your sling bag placing it beside him, straightening up, "I'll go then, enjoy-" you are quick to turn away from him, cursing yourself in your mind, blaming yourself for making things more awkward than they already were.

Mattheo stops you in your tracks as he calls you by your name, you turn around, and he speaks in that cold voice of his, "You said you were here to study right?" you nod timidly, clutching onto the straps of your bag, he leans back and with a flick of his wrist, a table and chair are summoned in front of him, "then study," he motions to the chair opposite of him.

You were quite taken aback, you stood there for a bit before actually registering his words, and you quietly sat down, you didn't have it in you to disobey him, he was Mattheo Riddle for fucks sake, he looked and sounded like someone who doesn't take no for an answer.

A small smile tugged at his lips as he watched you carefully sit down, looking down, not meeting his gaze, he couldn't believe it, you obliged his wishes? Mattheo leaned back fully, arms folding as he watched you, brown eyes capturing each detail, amusement crawled over his face as he watched you pull out multiple books all at once, various colourful stationery items sprawled out all over the table. You looked pretty like this, stray strands of hair framing your face, lips pursed in concentration. He knew how creepy he was being, so he opened his book again and tried to read but he simply couldn't not when you were sitting in front of him, he relished your presence and this was so unlike the others, every time he had looked at you- you had been surrounded by people, so it was a sight to behold, only for him to admire. So he did, in secret, glancing up at you, every few seconds.

It's been two hours and not once did he get bored of looking at you, a small smile lingered on his face as you closed your books and looked up at him, "How's that book?" you nod towards the book in his hand- the one he was supposed to be reading, "Good, good" he bites the inside of cheek as he lies through his teeth, "Got everything done?" he sets his book aside, fixing you with a soft stare, "Yes, I just wanted to revise a bit, I forget stuff easily if I don't revise regularly," you tilt your head a bit, his eyes were much softer now, and it made your heart flutter a bit, feeling a lot more comfortable than before, so you do what you usually do when you are comfortable- talk.

"By the way, did you study for the upcoming herbology test?" And before he could answer, you pulled out a piece of paper from your bag, "This is like the holy grail, a senior gave it to me last year, it has all the specifics, of recognising plants and how to make generalised guesses about their uses-" you speak in a hushed voice, slightly leaning over the table, eyes wide as you shared your little secret, "you can have it, I have it memorised haha" You bless him with that pretty smile of yours, pushing the paper towards him, you don't let him refuse the offer and start talking about something else, he gives you a small smile, and it makes your insides turn into mush, you bite your lip trying to contain your smile, eyes shy as you start fiddling with your hands on your lap.

You talked for hours, he was much more open this time, and the conversation flowed smoothly between the two of you, it was you who mostly did the talking but he didn't seem to mind he looked more than pleased, he didn't like talking much, it seemed, so you filled in the gaps, made it look so effortless like it was easy talking to him, maybe it was easy for you but to him, it made him feel warm and fuzzy inside. You two stopped only when the librarian came in and told you it was curfew time, your eyes widened as you turned to look back at him, an amused smile on your face, both of you got up, walking beside each other, not uttering a word till you were out of the librarian's stern gaze.

"I made you miss dinner-" your eyes widened further as soon as the two of you got out, stepping into the empty hallway, "it's alright, I don't mind," you playfully rolled your eyes at him, he chuckled at your antics, "yeah sure, but your stomach would, but- we can sneak into the kitchens, you know, sneak some food out," you wiggle your eyebrows at him with a sheepish grin on your face, he scoffs in disbelief, a fond smile gracing his face, "something tells me, this isn't your first time sneaking around."

"No, it's not," you chuckle a bit before continuing, "So, are you coming or not?" you purse your lips, looking up at him with doe eyes and he questions your motives right then because there's no way you didn't have a clue about what you were doing, "would be an idiot to say no," he muttered under his breath shaking his head, "I didn't catch that-", "Yes, I am."

You give him a pleased smile, you looked so happy at that moment, he was rooted in his position as you started walking ahead of him, he had to look away to catch his breath, "Merlin" he exhaled, a hand reaching over to his chest to soothe his loud thumping heart, and in that moment he knew he was a goner.

"Mattheo-?" you turned around since you didn't hear him walk with you but soon he rushed to your side the moment you looked back, you gave him another smile as he walked beside you, he looked straight ahead then, you needed to stop doing that because no fucking way- would he be able to let go of you.

You lead him to the kitchen, both of you cautious, well just you- he was having the time of his life, getting a detention would be worth it, just a small price to pay. Mattheo repeatedly stole glances here and there, the moment you entered the kitchen, you grabbed his arm and pulled his painfully slow self in, "gosh- you sure do walk slow," you glare at him, but there's no malice in your eyes, instead they are just amused, you roll your eyes when he just shrugs in response, moving over to the tables. Mattheo just looked at you with fond eyes, he was just trying to buy more time with you by walking slowly and he didn't feel one bit guilty about it, he felt a bit too proud. 

You sigh dramatically before returning to him with a small tray in your hands, "I didn't find anything else, apart from these blueberry muffins," your eyes wander around once more trying to see if you missed something, "usually there's still stuff left, that's weird- oh well, at least we have these," you give him a small defeated smile, setting the tray on the table, shrugging as you felt that muffins weren't worth the effort of sneaking around and that you only troubled him further. Mattheo saw through you and he hated that you were feeling that way, "didn't I mention this to you? I love muffins, especially the blueberry ones." he gave you a small smile, picking up the muffin, taking a bite, "yeah, that's good, way better than the dry vegetable and chicken pies they make." He didn't look at you as he said that, but you smiled, realising what he was trying to do, you wanted to cry, why was he being so considerate? You were now beginning to go down a spiral, of all the times you thought of him in the wrong light, how dare you even think like that? 

Mattheo caught you staring and it was hard for him to control the heat that rose to his cheeks, he cleared his throat, "What? You don't like these? Well, guess they are all for me-" he teased, taking the tray in his hand and started walking away, "Hey! No-" you rushed after him with an amused smile, "I want one too," and the tray was shoved back into your hands, "better not eat all of them, yeah?" he gave you a small cheeky wink, leaning against the table, finishing the muffin in his hand. 

Mattheo offered to walk you back to your dorm, he didn't have to insist much, after all, you wanted to spend time with him too, you easily agreed after a couple of tries. You two walked in comfortable silence, as you neared the Hufflepuff dormitory, you were thinking about how you'd part ways, overthinking about what would be appropriate and in the mix of it, you just gave him an awkward side hug, squeezing his arm a bit before mumbling a quick "goodnight" and rushing in. 

He couldn't believe his eyes, were you blushing? No way, he must be imagining things. Mattheo could still feel your warm touch lingering on his side, the scene playing over and over again in his mind, he wanted to scream out of excitement- he was getting cuteness aggression, had to be it, his fists clenched at his side as he stared at the door, for god knows how long, if he could- he would've squeezed you into a bone-crushing hug, but you were quick, left him speechless. 

He walked back to the Slytherin dorm without any trouble, he closed the door behind himself and leaned back against it, he was pretty sure his skin was burning with all the warmth that was flowing through his veins. Merlin, he was embarrassing! Mattheo sighed contently, a big smile on his face as he replayed the whole day, your smile- 

...

The next few days, you guys didn't talk at all, he was back to staring and this time, when you did catch him in the act, instead of pretending you didn't see him, you gave him a knowing smile and a wave. Lingering looks, and subtle greetings, were sweet, Mattheo was now on a new high, he couldn't get enough. But for some reason, he maintained his distance, he stuck to looking at you from afar, it felt comfortable this way, not wanting to taint your reputation by talking to you in front of others, he'd talk to you if it was only you but you were never alone. 

Mattheo starts seeing life for what it is, when he looks at the trees outside, the castle in its entirety, he feels like he is seeing it for the first time. How had he missed this? He finds himself back at the astronomy tower, he looks at the lake ahead, it was a sight to behold, and he is starting to appreciate the view, these days he didn't care about much, you were all he could think about and you were more than pleasant, it was as if the grey lens of his life was replaced with a coloured one, and it would be foolish to credit anyone else but you for it, and he was fucking grateful for it. The reason he was here was, that it was the end of August, and the fireflies you so damn wished to see would be out tonight, he came here just in the hope that he'll get to see you alone. 

He was zoning out when some movement near the edge of the lake caught his eye, it was you- with a few of your friends, his smile faltered the moment he saw some blonde Hufflepuff dude pull you to his side, slinging a hand over your shoulder, you all walked towards the shrubs and didn't have to wait long before the fireflies lit up and started raising above the shrubs. He was about to leave, he was mad for some reason, really pissed- but then he took another look at you. You were standing a bit behind your friends, who had all their attention on the flies ahead, you seemed sad, looking down, messing with the soil beneath your shoe, hands in your jacket. Mattheo could make out the pout on your face, the deflated shoulders, you then turned to look right where he was, and he felt his breath catch in his throat.

Your posture straightened immediately, the pretty smile returning to your face as you looked up at the astronomy tower balcony, having spotted him, you waved at him. Mattheo nodded, forearms on the railing as he leaned forward, a smile gracing his features, the anger leaving him. You excitedly pointed at the sky, and he nodded, you turned back around when your friend called you and he couldn't look away, he was staring at you till you left, Mattheo started feeling the warmth creep up to him when he saw you making an effort to steal back glances at him. He felt seen, fucking special- 

...

Mattheo still hadn't talked to you, he couldn't catch you alone really, it was starting to get to him, he longed to hear your voice, hear you talk to him- and yet, he didn't have it in him to approach you in front of others, it would ruin you, you thrived in the company of others, he couldn't snatch that away from you. Maybe if he was a bit more selfish, he'd do it, snatch you away from others, have you all to himself but he wasn't about that life, it was something his father would do, he's sure of it, go after what he wants, not caring what others would think- 

Mattheo feels like passing out when you deliberately look at him just to give him a shy smile, a flushed look on your face. He walks away because he cannot handle looking at you, the urge is too strong, to just take you into his arms, he walks out to the empty hallway, a hand over his chest- it had become a subconscious habit of his, whenever you gave him that smile, the one that felt like it was just reserved for him, yeah that one, he felt like he was in heaven, you sent his heart rate through the roof when you did that, it borderline hurt him since he couldn't do much to satiate this feeling. 

The longing was etched into his eyes when he looked at you, one thing he realised was, that when he had his head up, no one dared to look his way, he was enjoying that power for some reason, it filled his veins with something dark, he liked seeing people look down instead of him looking down, it felt fucking nice, and it felt even better when the only person that did look at him, was you. People averted their eyes when he entered the room, choosing to ignore his presence but the fear was very much evident, so he knew they didn't see him staring at you but at this point, he really couldn't bring himself to make an active effort to look away even if someone noticed. 

It was no lie, that Mattheo wasn't up to date with all the gossip and news, he just lived life passively but now that he was out there more, he couldn't help but hear the words that fell onto his ears, Yule Ball, huh. WAIT- ball dance? That meant having a date, who were you going with? Fuck his mind was rambling shit to him, he could not let someone else take you to a fucking dance as their date, no, he wouldn't let that happen. He had to get to you before someone else did, it was nighttime, and tomorrow's the weekend, approaching you will be the first thing he'll do after he wakes up, he has to plan shit out, you know, make it special and heartfelt, you deserved nothing less.

But his heart nearly broke when he overheard two Slytherin guys talking about you. The way one of them talked about you made his blood boil, his jaw clenched tight, nails drawing blood from his palms as they dug into his coarse skin, "I told you not to ask her out, plenty of guys tried and guess what? She rejected them all." the guy who was being talked to only scoffed angrily, "She's a fucking slut, that's what she is, leading people on-" the other boy just stopped him and Mattheo exhaled, a bit relieved because if it wasn't for him, Mattheo would've smacked the guy and pushed him to the fucking wall, "dude, come on, that's not true, all she did was smile at you when you gave her your seat, she's a nice girl," these guys were in the fifth year, he recognised that much, "sure, whatever," the guy walked away to his room, making sure to loudly slam the door behind him. 

Mattheo then gets up and walks towards the guy left behind, the one who stood up for you, when he stands in front of him, he sees the dude cower into the seat, Mattheo tries to speak in a polite voice but the anger is still radiating off him, his irritated stare didn't help either, "she doesn't have a date, yeah?" his hands were behind his back, over one another, the blood still fresh, "who-o?" the guy stutters out, looking around for help but no one was there- "You know who," he fixes him with a glare, before uttering your name out loud, "no no, she doesn't, rejected them all." Mattheo then nods at him and leans back, then finally he walks back to his room, allowing the guy to catch his breath. 

Mattheo feels relief wash over him as he lets the information sink in, okay good, you didn't have a date but then again, why were you rejecting them all? What if you reject him as well? Yeah, he couldn't handle that wound, he'd fucking die, he contemplates whether he should ask you or not but he's done fucking waiting, waiting for his fate to fuck things over, if things are going to be fucked, he'll be the one to do it. 

...

Mattheo puts on a black shirt and black pants, not caring to tuck his shirt in, the cold metal ring stings him as he puts it on, the feeling is grounding, he's doing something his dad would've done and for some reason that doesn't feel half as bad, he feels like himself, it was like something had possessed him, the confidence was unwavering, even as he stepped out into the crowded hallway, hands in his pockets, looking ahead, people parted, giving him space and Merlin, did that feel fucking powerful. He rolled his sleeves up to his elbows as he approached the room you'd be in, you always were there on the weekends, with your friends and he didn't think before he stepped into the room, heads turning towards him in shock, even yours but the shock on your face was soon replaced with a smile, quietly waving at him and that right there, fed right into his ego.

He walked over to you in a few quick strides, eyes zeroed in on you, nothing else mattered at that moment, "Can I talk to you?" To say you were surprised would be an understatement, you were ecstatic, you've wanted this for so long, to talk to him in front of others, you never knew if you should because he might've felt uncomfortable, "Yes ofcourse, what is it?" you nod, a smile still on your face, "Alone," his voice was cold, "oh yeah, sure-" you step towards him, thinking he'd lead you somewhere private but he stayed rooted in his place, eyes never leaving yours, he stayed quiet for a bit, taking in your whole self, the bright clothes you were dressed in, the equally bright smile on your face. Then he looked over your head, to the shocked faces of your friends, "Alone." It came out as an order, he couldn't care less. 

Mattheo liked this newfound authority, he also relished in the fact that you were being so compliant as if you wanted this to happen and he couldn't be more glad, "Guys, I'll be back, you can go ahead, don't worry," you explained, seeing their hesitance, his unwavering gaze was back on you, brown eyes were intense. The apprehensive group slowly emptied the room and just went the last person was out, Mattheo muttered something under his breath, and the door slammed shut, locking itself. 

Mattheo cursed that pretty smile of yours before smiling back, "You have a date? For the ball?" you lowered your eyes to the ground at the question, a shy look grazing your features as you shook your head, the more he looked at you, the more positive he got. "Good."  He finally pulled his hands out of his pocket and suddenly there was a bouquet of your favourite flowers in his hand and a velvet box, he wordlessly handed them to you, your eyes were wide, full of amusement, face warm, you noticed how the lights around you got dimmer, the small mock firefly charms that floated in the air, you didn't have a clue on how he was doing all this without his wand but you couldn't bring yourself to think of it, not when you had him standing in front you, in all his glory, about to ask you to the ball, gosh you felt like you were on cloud nine, the guy you were waiting for had actually approached you? You had to be dreaming. 

Then out of nowhere, you hear your favourite song but on strings, you look down at the box curiously- "It's the muggle chocolate you were talking about, the one you said was hard to get your hands on," he shrugged nonchalantly, as if it was no big deal but in reality, he was finding the courage to finally tell you what he was feeling, ask you out. Your brows pinched together, as you noticed that all of it was a muggle, even the flower arrangement- the song, how did he do all of this? You looked up at him with an amused look. "No questions please," he breathed out like he was out of breath, you then smiled at him gratefully, and he quickly averted his eyes, his hand subconsciously reaching over to his chest, "Oh Merlin," he exhaled quietly, not being able to look back at you. 

He then slowly gathered the courage to look back at you, you were just looking at him patiently, the smile still on your face, Mattheo cleared his throat before opening up, "I have never been the one to be graceful but I want to do this properly." he inhaled sharply before continuing, "Ever since that night, I haven't been able to stop thinking about you, I think I've gone mad honestly," He lets out a dry chuckle shaking his head, looking into your eyes, "I think I've taken a liking to you, your voice, your smile-" and then he interrupts himself, forgetting the little speech he prepared as he watches your smile widen at his words, "yeah that, more of that please," and that makes you blush, the genuine interest in his eyes, the way admiration shines in his eyes, you are so close to him, that you can hear his heart thumping loudly, "I'd like to have the honour of taking you to the ball," then he says your name quietly, "would you like be my date?" 

"Yes yes!" you couldn't be more excited, you are quick to throw your arms around him, and all the worries leave his body as soon as he is subjected to your embrace, he closes his eyes, pulling you closer, finding everything comfortable in your grip. His heartstrings thrum at the moment, it was embarrassing how quickly you got him flustered but he didn't seem to mind it. He whispered a small "thank you," before hugging you tighter, you just giggled into his chest and Merlin, did he feel like he had just won the lottery.

...

<<prev work: this love || mattheo riddle

[signedkoko]

(separate) lucifer and striker with an s/o who fell from the heavens headcanons!! the more closer they get, the more they realize their s/o was one of the angels on the council but didn’t condone the extermination — of which, they were casted down to hell.

Lucifer | Striker X Reader [Romantic]

In which they know you are a fallen angel, but not the extent to which you protected hell. Reader is genderneutral.

Lucifer could sense your presence quite fast

But only because you weren't an exterminator—no, you were something far stronger

It pained him to see a new angel cast down, the first since he was, bloodied and caught in the fiery pit you'd have to call home

He understood you must have been an angel that came along after him, though, because he didn't recognize you

Either way, Lucifer offered you a place to stay and let you adjust to life in hell through his lens—a safe house where demons couldn't bother you as much

Of course, he also wanted to make sure the news of your existence didn't get out

He could only imagine the kinds of people who might want to get their hands on a fresh angel

Even though he was cast down himself, Lucifer is very flattered that you know him and that you speak so highly of him

You quickly worm your way into his heart, and he loves talking to you a lot about his past and all the things he kept buried within him

Even down here, you still seemed happy, although a tad uneasy

He won't pressure you for your backstory too much, but with his knowledge of heaven he is able to gather that you were at least a mid-ranking angel on the council

Your position exactly, he wasn't sure

He only found out after he spoke about his daughter's plan with the hotel

" Thats a wonderful idea! They may cast me down for demanding an end to extermination, but I won't let them ruin your daughters redemption plans. "

You dropped it so casually that he almost missed it, swooning at how supportive of Charlie you were

Actually chokes

Please give him a moment to catch his breath because, wait, really?

That explains a lot, at least

Of course, heaven would cast down the most beautiful of angels just for being kind to even the most damned beings

That same anger within him roars back to life, both for you being shut down and for how he, too, was treated in heaven

He'd make sure your life was far better here, no matter what it took

Being a fallen angel is already an extremely worrisome background for Striker, especially following his hate for royalty

Not that a fallen angel is royalty, but the power dynamic is hard for him to get over, as guilty as he feels now for holding it against you

When you first met, he saved you from another bounty hunter

Saved is the wrong word

He stole you so he could get a prize himself

But it all backfired when you were just so kind and curious, and offering you up to some terrible people didn't feel like the right move

Striker told himself he'd hold onto you until he knew the true value of an angel, but that may have just been him stalling for time

Either way, your charm worked wonders, and now he was stuck with the most attention-grabbing partner in all of hell

Oh well, he knew he could protect you

While he was curious about your life in heaven, Striker was extremely used to not asking questions about others past

But the more he knew, the more he wanted to know

Every few months, you'd tell a story that revealed a new interesting piece of information, things that made him wonder what you had to have done to be so harshly cast down

It all made sense when he puzzled it together one afternoon, when you were particularly fond of your past memories

" I hope Em isn't in trouble too. "

" Why so? "

" Well, she also thought killing demons was pretty bad... "

" Of course, hun. "

As usual he nods along with you before he freezes and jumps out of his chair

" Hol on now, what? "

Striker is able to puzzle things together fast, and he's not sure if he's more pissed at the angels above you or if he's surprised you felt that way

He'd always assumed no angels thought good of demons, but this changed things

Next extermination, he wants to have a hand at capturing one of those winged fuckers and seeing if he can force some more out of them

Author's Note - DEVIL FINALLY I GOT TO UR REQ!!! More Striker content, love to see it- and ofc Lucifer, who I know is about to be eaten up by every person in this god forsaken community. Thank you for requesting 🖤

[arista-stl]

The reasons why I think Stella and Bloom's friendship is amazing and is not something we often see

Or why Fate is trash

One aspect of Winx club I always loved growing up was the friendship between the girls. They all love each other, despite their very different personnalities and having some rough times.

While I could write an essay about almost every duo in Winx club, I do think that Stella and Bloom are the most interesting to analyze.

Even though they are part of a friend group, the show doesn't try to hide the fact that Stella and Bloom are each other best friend, they even say so themselves.

This friendship is truly groundbreaking when we think about it, for one simple reason: Bloom and Stella's archetypes usually hates each other when depicted together in media.

Hear me out.

Stella is the girly girl, the mean girl, the popular girl with a big mouth who can appear shallow. Plus, she's blond. She bases a big portion of her self-worth in her apperance. Basically, she's the Regina George of Winx Club.

Bloom, she's not like the other girls. There's nothing wrong with her, she's attractive and a sweetheart, yet she attracts attention for being different (in the show there are a few reasons for this, first she's from Earth and she's also the keeper of the Dragon Flame, making her a god-like existence in the story). She has messy hair, dresses in jeans, doesn't really care about her apperance... She's a fish out of water type of character, the character everyone can and wants to relate to. She's the Cady of Winx Club.

These two were designed to hate each other.

Taking into account Stella's nature, we expect her to hate Bloom out of sheer jealousy. Bloom doesn't try and gets all the attention, she's the new girl who turns out to be the one girl more powerful than her, she's also a princess. We could say that everything Stella can do, Bloom can do better.

And yet...

Stella would kill a bitch for Bloom. Never in the show does she display any sort of ill feelings toward Bloom, on the contrary, she spends her time trying to get her to be more confident in herself and her abilities. She's sweet with her and does her best to uplift her. I can say with confidence that Stella is the one person in the show who loves Bloom the most (tied with Daphne), like Sky doesn't hold A CANDLE to her.

When Bloom leaves on missions by herself she's worried sick, she's always clinging to her, teasing her, looking out for her. She's always the one there for Bloom when things get hard (when the Trix steal her powers, when Sky gets engaged to Diaspro, when she thinks of her family...)

And Bloom, she just loves Stella. She's the reason her dream became reality (it was her meeting with her which caused her to learn her true nature), and Stella took her under her wing to make it easier for her to fit into this new world. She saw from the beggining that Stella was willing to lie for her, to fight for her and she couldn't help but love her, even if she had a big mouth and quite the personnality. Stella brought lightness and laughter into her world, she was her anchor.

For real, just look at her reaction when Stella throws herself from the cliff in season two. She spends the episodes after that obsessing over finding and saving Stella.

These two can't live without each other even though one is the 'your typical mean girl' and the other is 'not like the other girls'.

Heck, everytime the villains freaking spy on the Winx these two are all over each other.

I think the heart of their friendship is their first meeting. Stella was what Bloom had dreamed of all her life: she was a real fairy, the living personnification of her dreams. She's the one who made her dream a reality. As for Stella, she was saved by a human who risked her life and stood up for her even though she didn't stand any chance and didn't know her. Bloom was just lucky she turned out to be a fairy. Bloom then took her to her house and took care of her, without expecting anything in return, which caused them to bond instantly.

That relationship was freaking transgressive for the time, and Fate's writers deserve jail for what they did to their friendship. Bloom and Stella fighting over a boy and Stella turning into the typical insecure and jealous mean girl? Hell no.

Look at these queens 🥹

[writingwithcolor]

What Makes an Ethnic Villain "Ethnic" or "Villainous?" How Do You Offset it?

anonymous asked:

Hello WWC! I have a question about the antagonist of my story. She is (currently) Japanese, and I want to make sure I’m writing her in a way that doesn’t associates [sic] her being Asian with being villainous.  The story is set in modern day USA, this character is effectively immortal. She was a samurai who lost loved ones due to failure in combat, and this becomes her character[sic] motivation (portrayed sympathetically to the audience). This story explores many different time periods and how women have shown valor throughout history. The age of the samurai (and the real and legendary female warriors from it) have interested me the most, which is why I want her to be from this period.  The outfit she wears while fighting is based on samurai armor, and she wears modern and traditional Japanese fashion depending on the occasion. She acts pretty similar to modern day people, though more cynical and obsessed with her loss. She’s been able to adapt with the times but still highly values and cherishes her past.  She is the only Asian main character, but I plan to make a supportive Japanese side character. She’s a history teacher who knows about the villain and gives the protagonists information to help them, but isn’t involved in the main plot otherwise.  Are the way I’m writing this villain and the inclusion of a non-antagonist Japanese character enough to prevent a harmful reading of the story, or is there more I should do?

Why Does Your Villain Exist?

This makes me feel old because David Anders plays a villain with this kind of backstory in the series Heroes starring Masi Oka. 

I think you want to think about what you mean when you say: 

Villainous (In what way? To whom? To what end?)

Harmful (What tropes, narratives and implications are present?)

I’m relatively infamous in the mod circle for not caring too much about dimensions of “harm”. The concept is relative and varies widely between people and cultures. I don’t see much value in framing motivations around “What is less harmful?” I think for me, what matters more is: 

“What is more true?” 

“Are characteristics viewed as intrinsic to background, or the product of experiences and personal autonomy?”

“Will your portrayal resonate with a large audience?”

“What will resonate with the members of the audience who share the backgrounds your characters have?” 

This post offers additional questions you could ask yourself instead of “is this okay/not okay/harmful.” 

You could write a story where your antagonist is sly, sadistic, violent and cold-blooded. It may not be an interpretation that will make many Japanese from combat backgrounds feel seen or heard, but it’s not without precedent. These tropes have been weaponized against people of Japanese descent (Like Nikkei Japanese interned during World War II), but Japan also brutalized a good chunk of Asia during World War II. See Herge’s Tintin and The Blue Lotus for an example of a comic that accurately showcases the brutality of Japan’s colonization of Manchuria, but also is racist in terms of how Japanese characters are portrayed (CW: genocide, war, imperialism, racism).

You could also write a story where your character’s grief gives way to despair, and fuels their combat such that they are seen as calculating, frigid and deeply driven by revenge/ violence. This might make sense. It’s also been done to death for Japanese female warriors, though (See “Lady Snowblood” by Kazuo Koike and Kazuo Kamimura here, CW: sexual assault, violence, murder and a host of other dark things you’d expect in a revenge story). 

You could further write a story where your antagonist is not necessarily villainous, but the perceived harm comes from fetishizing/ exoticizing elements in how her appearance is presented or how she is sexualized, which is a common problem for Japanese female characters. 

My vote always goes to the most interesting story or character. I don’t see any benefit to writing from a defensive position. This is where I'll point out that, culturally, I can't picture a Japanese character viewing immortality as anything other than a curse. Many cultures in Japan are largely defined by transience and the understanding that many things naturally decay, die, and change form.

There are a lot of ways you could conceivably cause harm, but I’d rather hear about what the point of this character is given the dilemma of their position. 

What is her purpose for the plot? 

How is she designed to make the reader feel? 

What literary devices are relevant to her portrayal?

(Arbitrarily, you can always add more than 1 extra Japanese character. I think you might put less pressure on yourself with this character’s portrayal if you have more Japanese characters to practice with in general.) 

- Marika. 

When Off-Setting: Aim for Average

Seconding the above with regards to this villainess’s story and your motivations for this character, but regardless of her story I think it’s also important to look specifically at how the Japanese teacher character provides contrast. 

I agree with the choice to make her a regular person and not a superhero. Otherwise, your one Asian character is aggressively Asian-themed in a stereotypical Cool Japan way (particularly if her villain suit is samurai-themed & she wears wafu clothing every so often). Adding a chill person who happens to be Japanese and doesn’t have some kind of ninja or kitsune motif will be a breath of fresh air (well, more like a sigh of relief) for Japanese readers. 

A note on characterization—while our standard advice for “offset” characters is to give your offset character the opposite of the personality trait you’re trying to balance, in this case you might want to avoid opposites. You have a villainess who is a cold, tough “don’t need no man” type. Making the teacher mild-mannered, helpful, and accomodating would balance out the villainess’s traits, but you’ll end up swinging to the other side of the pendulum towards the Submissive Asian stereotype depending on execution. If avoiding stereotypes is a concern, I suggest picking something outside of that spectrum of gentleness to violence and making her really boring or really weird or really nerdy or a jock gym teacher or…something. You’re the author.

Similarly, while the villainess is very traditionally Japanese in her motifs and backstory, don’t make the teacher go aggressively in either direction—give her a nice balance of modern vs. traditional, Japanese vs. Western sensibilities as far as her looks, dress, interests, values, etc. Because at the end of the day, that’s most modern Japanese people. 

Sometimes, the most difficult representation of a character of color is making a character who is really average, typical, modern, and boring. 

- Rina