#speaking of weeks do you know who else is a tortured poet | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

producingtrashycontent · 3 years

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Can I get something with Julius? Where he's got a huge crush on someone (magic knight) but is not sure she'd be comfortable with him asking her out- but everyone else can tell that she's crushing on him as well? Be creative! 💙💙 Thanks!

Of course anon! Sorry this took me so long to get out. School has been relentless these past few weeks. I tried to make the reader as gender neutral as possible. This is my first time doing a character x reader, so I hope I didn't mess up.

Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue

Julius sighed at Marx placed another stack of papers at his desk. Paperwork was practically torture itself, but on top of that, one of his best friends had to hand it to him and expect him to fill it out.

"Lord Julius, you know you need to do this."

Julius groaned. "I know, but I don't want to."

Marx rolled his eyes. "I need to leave, so please do your work, Sir."

"Fiiine."

Julius turned to the papers, but he found himself unable to focus on them. His thoughts drifted to the one person that had been taking up all his headspace as of recently, y/n.

Y/n was a 5th class Senior Magic Knight from the Golden Dawn. As a Fire Magic user with a sweet personality, y/n was the very definition of "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee." Y/n came over whenever Captain Vangeance needed to discuss things with Julius. But Julius fell for y/n after an attack on the capital where Julius got to see y/n in action for the first time. Now, every time Julius spotted y/n, his world flooded with colors that he'd never seen before. Unfortunately, Julius wasn't even sure if asking y/n out was appropriate.

"Lord Julius!" Marx shouted at the daydreaming Julius.

Julius jumped in his seat and grabbed a pencil from his pencil holder and pretended to write. Marx groaned and rolled his eyes.

"If you want me to believe you're writing, at least hold your pencil properly." Marx walked over and flipped the pencil in Julius' hand so he was holding it correctly. While he was at Julius' desk, Marx stole a glance at Julius's paperwork.

"Sir! I left you here for an hour and you haven't done anything! Please do your work. I have other matters to attend to. I can't stay here babysitting you all day."

Julius slouched in his seat before coming up with an idea. "Hey, Marx?"

Marx, who was writing on a sheet of paper, turned to Julius. "Yes, Sir?"

Calming his heart beat, Julius drew in a breath. "If-If you liked someone, how would you tell them?"

"Is this about y/n again?"

"Y-yeah..."

Taking his attention off the paper for a moment, Marx looked the lovesick Wizard King in the eyes. "Well, if I had feelings for someone, I would write them a letter. I can't trust myself to speak to them without messing up, so I would write a letter. It takes the stress of being in the same room as them off me."

"That's a great idea, Marx!" Julius smiled until he remembered something that returned him to his slouch. "But, I don't think y/n wants to go out with me."

Marx rolled his eyes with a small smile. "That's the least of your worries, Sir. Trust me."

Julius nodded and pulled out a piece of paper, ready to start a love letter.

•~•~•~•

Y/n was delivering some papers to Captain Vangeance. William's face dropped a bit when he spotted the stack of papers.

"Oh my. I have to fill all of those out?"

"Yes, sir."

"Ah well. That's life."

Y/n turned to leave William's office when William called them back. "Y/n! Would you like to accompany me to visit Lord Julius today?"

Y/n froze. "Um, you want me go go with you?"

William nodded. "I enjoy your company. Also, I think it would benefit you to finally talk to Sir Julius. He's very kind, you know."

That sent y/n off to dream land. Y/n knew Julius was sweet and kind. He was the sweetest and kindest person they knew. After a few moments, y/n realized that William was still watching.

"W-what are you saying, Captain? It's not like I like Julius or anything."

William chuckled. "I never said that."

A blush shot across y/n's face. "Oh..."

"Anyway, be back here in an hour."

"Yes, sir!"

•~•~•~•

Y/n walked with William into Julius' office. When Julius spotted y/n, he sat straight and put a large grin on his face. He just hoped y/n couldn't see the dumb grin or the blush on his face. Julius was definitely not expecting 2 people.

"William! Y/n! Come in!"

It was definitely awkward being in a room with two lovebirds who weren't aware of the other's feelings, but William didn't mind. As long as his two friends could be together, William didn't mind at all. After some time of y/n and Julius staring at each other, William let out a cough. Julius jumped in his seat.

"William! What can I do for you?"

William let a small smile grace his lips. "Lord Julius, you're the one who called me here. I should be the one asking what I can do for you."

Scratching the back of his head, Julius chuckled. "Y-yeah. Um, here. I need you to fill out these documents."

William pulled the stack of papers to his side of the desk and engaged in conversation with Julius for a while. Eventually, y/n worked up the courage to speak in front of Julius. The three spent the rest of the time laughing along to y/n's story. Spotting the way Julius looked at y/n, William knew he had to get those two together. He just had to figure out how.

•~•~•~•

As William arrived in his office and examined the papers Julius gave him, he spotted something that seemed a little off. One corner of the stack was slightly higher than the other 3 corners. William pulled out the folded paper and saw a note attached to it.

Could you give this to y/n for me? Thanks.

William smiled. "You finally did it, Lord Julius. I didn't even need to assist you."

•~•~•~•

Y/n was reading a book when a note was slipped under their bedroom door. Unfolding the note, y/n was shocked and excited by the contents.

Roses are red

Violets are blue

You stole my heart

So please be mine

(P.S. meet me in Moonflower Park at sunset)

Y/n was ecstatic. Could this be from Julius? Reminding themself not to get too excited, y/n drew in a deep breath. It took less than 5 minutes for y/n to get dressed. Sunset was close, so y/n dashed out of the Golden Dawn headquarters and made their way to Moonflower Park.

•~•~•~•

Y/n arrived right at sunset. Panting, y/n sat down on a nearby bench. Every few minutes, y/n took a look around to see if anyone approached them. This unnamed poet had to show up soon. After about 20 minutes, y/n grew impatient.

"Is this a prank? Because it's a pretty bad one." Y/n muttered.

"Hello!"

Y/n jumped at the voice. When y/n spotted that voice's owner, y/n's heart raced out of control.

Julius smiled softly at y/n, hoping he didn't seem awkward. "Hello y/n! What brings you here?"

"...I-um, I received a poem from a secret admirer who told me to come here today at sunset." Y/n blushed, hoping that Julius wouldn't make fun of them for it. "Have you seen anyone around?"

"No." Julius chuckled.

Y/n's shoulders dropped a little. "Oh, well do you know who the secret admirer is?"

Julius pressed a kiss to y/n's warm cheek. "Does this answer your question?"

#black clover #julius novachrono #julius novachrono x reader

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gyll-yee-haw · 4 years

Text

Chapter 1

Professor!Jake x Reader

Series information

Series masterlist

---

I would write you a poem, my love.

(For you - Passenger)

---

You drove home feeling like the most stupid person who has ever lived.

You felt like a child who didn’t know teachers had a life when they weren’t in class.

Like he only existed in your daydreams when you couldn’t see him.

Like he waited all week to come alive to you every Tuesday.

Since when did Mr. Gyllenhaal has children? He never mentioned them.

He’s not married. You paid too much attention to his hands to miss a detail like a fucking golden ring.

This is not the 19th century, though. Maybe he just had a girlfriend. Maybe he was divorced.

It didn’t matter to you. It wasn’t about what you saw, but the realization that he loves or already loved someone else that killed you. And you were so angry at yourself for feeling like that. You had loved other men before him. And he was probably... 10 years older than you? Maybe less, maybe more. But it was pretty obvious he had his own life.

He was nothing but a teacher you were supposed to forget in a few months.

Maybe that was it. You would prepare yourself to lose him as the semester ended, but you weren’t ready to do it now.

When you entered your apartment, you didn’t feel like doing anything. All you really had to do was wake up from that stupid fairytale.

---

When you heard your alarm and opened your eyes, you wished that any kind of miracle had happened and it wasn’t Tuesday. Maybe you slept for 24 hours straight and it was Wednesday already. But you checked your phone and it said it was Tuesday.

Then you thought about skipping class. Only for a day, it wouldn’t hurt...

But what would happen the next Tuesday? And then the next one?

Sooner or later you would have to see him again. So it would be better to just end this quickly.

---

You got to college early to find a seat in the back. If you looked as terrible as you felt, you didn’t want Mr. Gyllenhaal to notice.

You sat there in silence, opening your book at a random page, so you would look busy and no one would talk to you.

“Hey.” Wes interrupted your inner drama after a few minutes. “I almost didn’t find you when I arrived, why are you sitting here?”

“Headache.” You lied. You knew Wes already thought your crush was ridiculous, if he knew all the pain you were going through at that moment, he would probably want to punch you. And you knew you deserved it.

“Well...” He sighed and took a seat beside you when he heard the bell ring. “It’s gonna pass real soon. There he comes.”

When you looked at the door and saw Mr. Gyllenhaal walking in, your heart started to hurt again. So you decided to look at your book, at the floor, at anything but him for the next couple hours.

But you couldn’t help it... you started to pay attention to his clothes, to his bag, checked his left hand again, anything that could give you a clue about his personal life.

And your head started to wonder way too far. You wondered if he ever had his heart broken. How many women had the privilege to be touched by him? What did they look like? Was he a good father? Something inside you told you he was a great father.

---

When the bell rang, you felt relieved. Now you would have an entire week to heal. To forget about him completely.

“Are you feeling better?” Wes asked, grabbing his stuff to leave.

“Yeah.” You lied again.

The class was getting empty really fast, or you were grabbing your stuff really slow, cause silence soon filled the room. You thought there was only Wes and you left, when you heard Mr. Gyllenhaal’s voice say:

“Hey, Y/N. Can I speak to you for a second?”

A shiver ran down your spine. You looked at Wes and he was just as confused as you.

“See you later, then?” He shrugged as he started to walk towards the door, while you mentally begged him to stay. If this all happened last week, you would be beyond excited. But right now, you just wanted to run.

When you realized it was only you and the professor left in class, you grabbed your bag and approached him, looking at the floor.

“Are you okay?" He asked, sounding really worried. “You didn’t seem to be able to focus today.”

“I’m sorry, professor.” You gave him a weak smile. “I’m just tired. But I’m fine.”

“Really?” He insisted. “You sat pretty far from me, but I could see that your book was on the wrong page.”

“I didn’t sleep well.” You felt the shame deep in your stomach.

Shame for both the way you acted in class and the way you acted the day before. Shame to be standing in front of him at that very moment wanting to cry like a woman who had just been cheated on.

He didn’t believe your words. He didn’t fully understand why he felt like he knew you that well, but he simply did. So he thought for a second before saying:

“Come with me.”

You weren’t sure why, but you followed him outside. If he was going to give you a “disappointment speech” or ask you to try harder next time, he would simply do it right there, so what was he going to do?

He led you to the garden near the building's entrance and looked around when he stopped.

“You’re not gonna tell anyone, will you?” He asked laughing a little.

You had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. He didn’t know what was going on inside your head at that moment. You just wanted to push him away screaming YOU. YOU. YOU. YOU ARE MY PROBLEM. But you just shook your head.

He opened his bag and started looking for something. When you saw a pair of scissors in his hand, you swore you couldn’t get any more confused. He used them to cut a rose from the garden.

“Come closer, let me show you something.” He smiled and you approached slowly. “Give me you hand, but be careful.”

You offered him your hand and he gently placed the rose on your palm. Your eyes met his as he did that and you melted, wondering if he ever showed up at someone’s house bringing them flowers.

“Today I was telling the class about the challenges of teaching Botany.” He told you. “Did you hear that part?”

“I-” You tried to remember, but you really didn’t hear a word he said that day. “I’m sorry, I don’t think so.”

“It’s fine, I’ll tell you now, then.” His smile never left his face, and he was talking to you the sweetest way he could. “We grow up listening to music and reading poetry and if there’s something artists like to talk about is flowers, right? Maybe that’s why we don’t pay attention to other structures that are just as beautiful... well, at least for me.”

You chuckled and it warmed his heart. He knew there was something bothering you that day and he was glad he could get your mind out of it for a minute.

“And it also makes people call those structures by the wrong name.” He continued. “For example, we only think roses have thorns because society believes ‘prickles’ isn’t a poetic word.”

“So... today’s class was a manifesto against social conventions? Sounds interesting.” You joked. He really made the atmosphere a little lighter. “Let’s be real, there aren’t too many pretty words that rhyme with prickles.”

“Okay, the poets are forgiven.” He laughed. “But my students don’t have to rhyme during the tests.”

“Good point, sir.” you shrugged.

“Please, just call me Jake.” He asked.

“Jake.” You nodded. It sounded silly, but it was some kind of new intimacy for you not having to treat him with formalities, even though you knew he never liked them anyway.

There was a moment of awkward silence and you tried your best to keep your eyes on the flower, because you could feel that his were on your face.

“So...” He cleared his throat. “Like I was saying...”

He proceeded to explain the difference between thorns and prickles. You really tried to pay attention this time, but your mind drifted away and focused on the way his hand softly brushed yours as he tried to show you the things he was talking about, using the rose in your hand. You also couldn’t stop wondering why he was doing all this. He had just said all of that in front of 50 students, but he realized that one of them wasn’t listening, so he decided to do it all again. It would be so much easier to not fall in love if he wasn’t so good to you.

“I mean...” He interrupted your thoughts. “I couldn’t give you all the details I mentioned in class earlier, cause I don’t want you to lose your entire break, but I hope it helped.”

“Mr. Gyl... Jake.” You were still not used to this new intimacy. Or at least, what you wanted to believe was intimacy. “I honestly don’t have words to thank you. But you know you didn’t have to do this.”

“Can I be honest with you? About the reason why I did this?” He sighed. Your heart started to beat faster, even though you tried to keep your expectations low. “I know many people are in my class exclusively for the credits. So, I don’t really care if they learn something or not, it’s their choice. But I know you’re different. I enjoy reading your essays. You’re very creative and perceptive. You know... there’s like... a group of 5 or 6 students that I would love to work on a project on my lab with. And I can’t have the number one of them missing a single detail.”

His number one. If only he knew how badly he was hurting you by saying nice things. You had to hold back the tears and decided to hide your emotions behind a joke:

“So... what am I supposed to not tell anyone? That you stole a flower from the garden or that you have a ‘number one’?”

“I guess we have two secrets now.” He laughed. “See you next week, Y/N?”

You nodded and handed him the rose.

“Keep it.” He smiled. “I can’t keep any evidence of my crimes.”

With that, he put his scissors back in his bag and walked away after giving you one last smile.

You looked at the rose and felt a single tear rolling down your cheek. It was so unfair to be special to someone for the “wrong” reasons. You knew the reasons you wanted to be special to him for were the actual wrong ones. But you would let him torture you with his own reasons forever.

---

Taglist! (Pls let me know if I forgot someone, I'm not a very organized person... or if you still want to be added!)

@lady-evans @shay-vaughn @sogothiamdead @paosesposts @baby-haz @billyspotato @gyllenhaalstories @lexie-wayland @gaymysterio

#jake gyllenhaal #jake gyllenhaal x reader #jake gyllenhaal x you #jake gyllenhaal fanfic #jake gyllenhaal x y/n

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therainbowwillow · 3 years

Text

https://therainbowwillow.tumblr.com/post/640994942684151808/therainbowwillow

Part 13.

Premise/last time: On Olympus, tensions are high. The pantheon is forced to choose sides: an innocent poet or the man who stabbed him. Hermes only grows increasingly anxious about his approaching trial. If he’s not ready to sing, he’s afraid Orpheus will take the fall.

—————————————

Thanatos stands, exhausted at the gates of Olympus. The walk out of Hadestown had been longer than he’d expected. Hypnos hadn’t woken after the third night. He’d been in and out of consciousness since.

Thanatos calls out to the gods, pleading for aid. Their lack of ambrosia had taken its toll on himself and his brother. Despite his near-constant unconsciousness, Hypnos looks as if he hasn’t slept for weeks. The blinding lights of Olympus do him no favors. The bags under his eyes look even more pronounced here.

Pasithea steps up to the doors and slams her fists against them. “Please!” She cries. Still, they’re met with no reply. She sinks to the ground and buries her head in her hands. Thanatos forces himself not to collapse under his and his brother’s weight.

It feels like an eternity before a man arrives at the door: golden hair, blue eyes. He looks just like his father. “Asclepius.” Thanatos bows his head to his old enemy. A doctor so incredible he’d resurrected the dead. Zeus’s punishment hadn’t held him down long. Now he’d become a god himself.

“It took me a moment to convince Zeus to let me take my leave. Come in. Speak to no one. Keep your heads down,” he directs. He helps Pasithea to her feet. “You must be out of your mind to come here, Thanatos. If Hades learns of your presence-”

“Hades is here?” Thanatos inquires, forcing back his panic.

“Yes,” Asclepius answers. “He arrived, worse off than you, a few days ago. It seems his years of pushing around his workers finally caught up to him.”

He opens the gates and guides them through the city’s oddly silent streets. Quieter than Hadestown, Thanatos observes. Down below, a pickaxe always swings. A foreman’s shouts are always audible. Here, there is nothing but stillness. “I mean you no offense, my lord, but I believe my storage cellar may be the best place for you to take shelter,” Asclepius says.

“None taken. We’ll take what we can get.”

“If I might ask, what happened to your brother? I will treat him, as he clearly has taken a hit to the head. How long has he been unconscious?” Asclepius asks.

“Hades’s doing,” Thanatos replies, curtly. “He’s been in and out of consciousness for six days.”

Asclepius opens the door to his residence and ushers them inside. “I suspected as much. I assume you fled without carrying ambrosia with you?”

Thanatos nods. “We had no time.”

“I don’t blame you.” Asclepius takes a few pillows from his bed and tears off the sheets. He guides them down a short staircase into a dimly lit cellar. It smells of herbs. The sweet scent of nectar reminds Thanatos of his hunger. Asclepius tosses the pillows against a shelf and rests Hypnos against them.

“Make yourselves comfortable. You may have as much ambrosia as you wish. I will not tell the counsel you’ve arrived. If they come looking for you, hold the door shut and stay quiet. I shouldn’t be long,” Asclepius tells them. He turns to leave.

“Asclepius, I’m sorry for the circumstances of our last meetings,” Thanatos apologizes.

He smiles. “I’m lucky I got off so light. You helped the boy escape, didn’t you? That is why you are so afraid.”

“I’m the god of death. I have nothing to fear,” Thanatos attempts to convince himself.

“Angering Hades gives anyone something to fear, mortal or divine. But I believe Hermes and Orpheus are in far danger than yourself. Regardless, take care. I won’t be long.” He shuts the door behind him.

Thanatos immediately turns search the shelves for nectar. He finds a bottle, flicks out the cork and drinks half of it. The rest, he hands to Pasithea.

Hypnos rubs his eyes. “Ugh...” he groans. “Where are we?”

His wife briefs him of their journey. “So... we’re locked in Asclepius’s basement? On Olympus?” He smiles slightly. “These pillows are almost as good as mine. Comfy. I could almost forget that the furies cracked my skull open.”

“Do you ever stop?” Thanatos mutters.

“Like I said! Vacation, Than. Sure, it’s not a beach, but to be fair, there’s no difference. I’d sleep either way. Give me some of that nectar.” He tips the bottle and swallows. “Mm. Not bad. The underworld ages it better.”

“Hades is here,” Thanatos blurts. “So would you shut up and let me think?”

“He is? Didn’t Hermes steal the train... oh my gods! He walked? Ha! I wish I could’ve seen that.”

“Would you listen?” He snaps. “Hades wants us punished. You’ve seen what happens to mortal traitors. We can’t let him find us, Hypnos.”

“And that’s why I’m not going anywhere. Not that I could. Pretty sure I can’t walk. Or at least I wouldn’t want to deal with the headache,” he replies. “Now. What’s the plan, Thanatos?”

“I... don’t know.”

“So we are in trouble then! I... have an idea, but I’m not sure we should rely on it.”

Thanatos exhales. “I’ll hear you out. Maybe a bad plan’s better than no plan.”

“Hades will summon Orpheus and Hermes to trial, right? If that song was as good as it sounded and if I didn’t hallucinate the change in weather, I’d say other gods will side with Orpheus simply because his song has power. Maybe we ought to take their side. Show ourselves and proclaim our support?” Hypnos says.

“Hades will call it a second betrayal.”

“What do we have to lose, Thanatos?”

He sighs. “If they win the trial, it’ll give us a chance. Even that’s better than nothing. I agree.”

—————————————-

“Hermes.” He jumps at the sound, startled awake.

“Apollo.” He crumpled the letters and stuffs them into his pockets.

“You’re anxious. Panicked. What are you afraid of?”

Hermes rolls his eyes. “Didn’t I tell you to stop doing that? I know how I feel without you telling me.”

“Sorry, but you’ve hardly spoken to anyone for days. You’re hiding something. You secret would be safe with me.”

“Oh yeah? I don’t believe that for a second,” Hermes retorts. “You’ll blab to your boyfriend the second you walk out the door.”

Apollo leans slightly more of his weight against the crutch he’s using to walk. “I won’t,” he says, softly. “Hyacinthus is a good man, but this is clearly more than he needs to worry about.”

His tone is honest. Still, Hermes doesn’t back down. “It’s more than you need to worry about. Go write a poem or something, o god of music,” He replies, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Hermes, look. I know we’ve had our disagreements, but... I do care about you. I guided you through your childhood; I taught you how to function on Olympus. I tried to protect you. From what I understand, you broke your contract with Hades and you’re afraid of what he’ll do to you. Why won’t you speak to us? We know, Hermes,” Apollo tells him.

“No, you don’t know!” He snaps. “I’m not afraid of what he’ll do to me. You called me Prometheus yourself. I’ll suffer, but I can manage. But it’s not me they want. I know Orpheus will take Hades’s punishment in my place. He’s young. Afraid. He won’t survive,” Hermes draws in a shaky breath. “We have no defense.” He hands Apollo the letters. “Read.”

His eyes pass over the words on the pages. “Hermes, we’ve been summoned immediately.”

“I know. We can’t go. Not yet. Orpheus needs to rest. And...” he exhales. “I haven’t told him.”

“He deserves to know. Why do you keep this from him?”

“Because he needs to recover. If he knows, all he’ll do is sing and sing. He’ll forget all else if he thinks he can protect me and Eurydice. That boy, my son, he feels with the whole of his being. He loves with such kindness, such passion, that his love alone brought flowers to the realm of death. He’d give his life if it meant protecting us and I can’t let him do that.” His voice rises. “If Zeus wants my blood, fine! Let him torture me. He won’t touch Orpheus.”

“Hey, it’s gonna be fine. We’ll win the trial. You have nothing to worry about! We’ve got Athena on our side and even I’ve argued a few cases. With Orpheus’s song, we’ll be undefeatable.” His words are encouraging.

“I have to tell him,” Hermes mutters.

“He needs urgency. I hate this as much as you do, but we do what we must.”

Someone pounds on the door. Hermes bristles at the sound. “Who’s there?” He calls.

“Hermes...” Three voices in harmony.

He strides across the room. “Don’t open the damn door!” Apollo snaps.

“Orpheus is next on their list,” he replies. He turns the handle. “What do you want?”

“You cannot defeat fate. You will see. What is coming.”

Hermes slums against the door frame and sinks to the ground. Orpheus is singing. His voice falters. He cries out, “No! No!”. Eurydice screams. The metallic stench of blood hits him. Hermes tries to stand. His wrists are bound in chains. It’s dark. He can’t tell if his eyes are open.

He gasps and the room returns. Apollo kneels at his side. “Orpheus,” he chokes out.

“He’s fine. Hermes, what did you see?”

He takes a deep breath. “Orpheus screamed. I couldn’t reach him. Apollo, this is fate. It’s unchangeable.”

“Don’t talk like that. I know how prophecies work. They’re misleading by nature.”

“There wasn’t nuance. We’re going to fail. And when we do-”

“No. Hermes, we’re going to win.” He puts his hands on Hermes’s shoulders. “I swear we’re going to win.”

“We have to tell Orpheus.”

“I can do it if-”

Hermes cuts him off. “No. He’s my son. I need to tell him myself.”

Apollo doesn’t argue.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Orpheus strums his lyre. His voice sounds a little better today, he notices. Still, he struggles to reach high notes. His voice breaks or he coughs in between lines. He’s begun to realize that it isn’t going back to the way it was. Eurydice doesn’t mention it. He hates to think about the possibility, but he knows he’ll have to eventually.

He reads over his sheet music. He starts another paper. He tries humming his melody, replacing his higher notes with low ones. Eurydice perks up at the new song. “That was beautiful.”

He cracks a smile. “You think?”

“Sing it again.”

He repeats it, louder this time.

“Orpheus!” A carnation blooms in his hands. “My gods, that’s incredible.”

Again, he sings, this time plucking the lyre to the tune of his old song. The harmony hums in the air. Flowers spring up in his hair.

“How’d you do that?” She’s grinning.

“I don’t know! I thought maybe it’d be easier on my voice.”

“Is it?”

He nods. “I think so. I don’t feel like hacking my lungs out at least.”

“I love you, Orpheus. So, so much.”

He blushes. “I know.”

“I know you know. I just needed to tell you again.” She marches to his bedside and kisses him before he gets in another word. “You’re beautiful, you know that?”

He turns as red as the carnations dotting his hair. “I- mmmph!” She kisses him again.

“Shush.” She places a finger on his lips. “Just kiss me.”

“O-okay!” He awkwardly presses his lips against hers. She wraps her arms around him.

“Gods, I love you,” she whispers in his ear.

He remains in her embrace for a while until she pulls away. “You wanna sing that song again, lover?”

He’s smiling like an idiot. “Yes.”

“Well, sing it then.”

“La, la la la... ha ha!” He laughs. It sounds ridiculous through his ear-to-ear grin.

There’s a knock at the door. “I’ll get it!” Orpheus proclaims habitually. “Oh, wait.” Eurydice stands to open it. “No, I said I’ve got it! Come in!” Orpheus calls. “See?” he says, winking. She laughs.

The door opens. Hermes stands in its frame, looking exhausted. “We need to talk. Both of you.”

Orpheus frowns. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes. No... I don’t know, kid.” He considers just handing Orpheus the letters. Instead, he continues. “I’ve been receiving summons to Olympus since we arrived. I didn’t want to worry you, but I can’t keep you in the dark any longer. Hades has convinced Zeus to put us on trial before the counsel. The charges against you are baseless. But... I did break my contract and I’ll face the consequences.”

“No, Hermes, we’ll win! You said yourself I could convince Hades of anything.”

“Orpheus, broken contracts don’t go unpunished. I just don’t want you to feel the consequences of my actions.”

“Hermes, I don’t want them to hurt you!” Orpheus begs.

“I’ll be fine. I don’t want you to worry over my fate, kiddo. I’ll do what I can. I just didn’t want to leave you in the dark about all this.”

“My song has to work. It will work,” he repeats.

“It will,” Eurydice agrees. “It can do all this.” She gestures around the room. Flowers have pushed through the floor boards. They line the fireplace and decorate Orpheus’s nightstand. “It can save us.”

“How long do we have?” Orpheus asks.

“Maybe two weeks,” Hermes answers, “at best.”

“I’ve almost got it, Hermes. I’ll be ready to sing by then.”

“Thank you.”

“It will work. I promise.”

#hadestown au #hadestown #hadestown fanfic #therainbowwrites #my god this fic is off the rails

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skypieace · 4 years

Text

kenhina / kagehina au i guess?

ok this is gonna be funny i think

So our story begins with Hinata Shouyou, the little peanut butter-ray of sunshine from Karasuno High. He's the sweet guy everybody knows and loves but he's super chill so doesn't act like he’s the king of the world or something like that. He doesn't even have the height for it. Ok, and we also have Kageyama Tobio, the new kid at school that kinda looks like is always about to curse someone, but he's a sweet guy and just doesn't know how to deal with new people. He sees Shouyou in the hallways every day and ugh he's so small and beautiful! Kageyama is definitely into him. Last but not less important, we have Kenma Kozume. He's super shy and doesn't care so much about what others could think of him. He loves video games and nerdy stuff and only hangs out with his bestie Kuroo. He's known Shouyou since they were kids and has adored the orange guy since then. But he's never had the guts to tell his feelings and honestly he doesn't want to, that's fine. So far so good.

Hinata asks Kenma one day if they could talk privately. Imagine the poor's guy heart! He got so nervous thinking how the conversation would go that he wrote a letter about his feelings for Shouyou. He could never have the courage to say it but writing is fine he thinks? So they went to a nice place to chat. Hinata tells him he's in love with someone and thinks this someone loves him back. Kenma is like on fire and asks if he knew the person and Shouyou say yes. “He's from your class I think. He's the new kid, Kageyama, you know?” Ooh, he sighed and felt stupid thinking that Hinata could have feelings for him. Anyway, Shouyou asks if he could help him to get Kageyama's attention and like a good whore he says yes.

The next day Kageyama decides to talk to him about Hinata as well. He asks for Kenma’s help to have Shouyou since they are friends and Tobio is terrible at flirting. Kenma is a smart and nice guy, and also he is in love. And what do we do when we love someone that doesn’t love us back? We suffer, damn it! And he was already in his emo and overdramatic mood, so he thought about his love letter to Shouyou, which still was on his backpack. And then, gave it to Kageyama. The letter had no name and signature so it would fit for anyone, because it was just some romantic shit. Tobio was confused, who tf just has random love letters by chance? “I just.... like to write, guess I’m a poet guy. Nevermind, just take it and give it to him.”

So things went how they were supposed to go in this case. Shouyou loved the letter and Kageyama was all he could think of. So they started to hang out and etc but sometimes it would get weird because Tobio didn’t know how to express his feelings and they’d have this awkward silence, but their eyes would say “I really like you and like when we spend some time together.” They were really cute lovebirds. Some weeks later, Kenma is at Kageyama’s house doing some school shit and he actually thinks Tobio’s a nice guy and deserves to be with Shouyou. Anyways, Hinata wants to facecall Kageyama and soon his phone started to ring. It was funny to watch how the guy would freak out everytime he had to speak, and he just says things like ‘Hinata-boke’ and makes fun of Shouyou’s height calling him chibi. Hinata loves it but this day he wants to hear some beautiful words from his almost-boyfriend. Tobio turns to Kenma with a desperate face and receives a disgusted look from the blonde one. “Ugh, you’re terrible at this. It’s torturing to watch, let me help you.” So he stays away from the camera but whispers lovely and fancy words about Hinata to his friend. As expected, the orange guy gets super emotional and praises Kageyama’s talent. They end up that day oficially dating.

Time goes by for almost a year and since the lovebirds are dating, Kenma’s service is not required anymore. Until one day Hinata opens his heart to Kageyama about his true feelings. “Look, since the first time I saw you, I knew you were going to be mine. You looked like an angel and you always do it. But now I know that I love you more every day, and I love your soul. I get chills thinking that we’ve been together for almost one year and you still write and put these love letters on my locker every day. I love you, Tobio.” Kageyama takes a few minutes to absorve the information and feels so angry he could pass out. After saying goodbye to his boyfriend, he looks for Kenma all over the place and eventually finds him. Kageyama’s a good guy and the walk made his nerves get calm so he asks Kenma about the boy’s feelings for Hinata. He already knew the answer but needed to hear it, and the blonde had no choice than nodding with his head affirmatively. Tobio gives a long sigh and looks at him. “You need to tell him. I don’t want this anymore, I don’t wanna pretend that I can write love letters and recite poems. Just talk to him and we’ll see who he prefers.”

Kenma didn’t want to, but he feels like he owes Kageyama this since he’s been kinda catfishing his boyfriend for one year. He finds Hinata and approaches him saying they need to talk, but soon as he looks directly into Shouyou’s eyes, he feels sooo weak! He feels weak because Hinata is too much for him to handle, because him and Kageyama are a happy couple and he doesn’t want to ruin things for nobody. Also, Kageyama is at 3rd year, about to graduate and move away for university, so why not just let everything the way it is? He’s okay and so are the lovebirds. “Nevermind, Shouyou. I forgot what I had to say, sorry.” He looks for Tobio too after this. “You won, prince charming. He chose you.”

So nothing changed at all. They stayed together more happily than ever, enjoying every minute they had together before Kageyama’s moving, but it eventually happened. They managed to stay together for some years despite the distance but Tobio has his own life now and so does Hinata, and they decided to go to different paths. Shouyou and Kenma are still friends and as always, Kozume would get his back for anything. They see each other almost every weekend and in one of these days, Hinata reminds the school times and everything that happened. Now he’s not that chibi anymore and has some muscles that makes Kenma sweat, and Kozume by the way looks the same as high school, just his hair changed a bit and got longer. “Wow, remember when I dated Tobio? It was fun. Hope he’s doing great.” Kenma doesn’t say anything and just takes a sip of his tea.

”He wrote me so many letters by that time, I wonder why he didn’t follow this career. He was truly something else.”

”I’m sure his writing sucks.”

”Shut up! It doesn’t.”

”Yeah, right....”

”Ken-chan, you are so mean sometimes! I’ve even memorized some of his verses, you know? There’s one that’s like... ‘My heart follows you every instant... And it will always be, even in the most distant worlds’... Ugh I don’t remember the end.”

“...the same heart that loves you so passionately.”

Hinata chokes on his tea. “Kenma, how do you know that?”

Kenma looks away, waiting for his orange braincells to start working.

“It was you this whole time?” Silence. “Look at me, please.”

Kenma did it. And he sees the guy he’s always been in love with giving him the brightest smile.

“I’m sorry, Shouyou.”

They discuted a bit about reasons, emotions and this kind of shit. The important part is that Kenma was still a living being, since he always thought he’d pass away if Hinata knew his feelings one day. But it didn’t happen and he was holding hands with Shouyou now (thought they are a bit sweaty) and feeling happier than ever.

“Ken-chan, can you recite to me some words?” Shouyou closed his eyes, putting his head on the blonde’s shoulder.

“Yes, Shou. I could do this forever.”

“Oh then, please do it.”

Kenma smiled and closed his eyes too.

little disclaimer! you might be thinking “but why didn’t kageyama check with hinata if his conversation about kenma’s feelings actually happened?” well, that’s because this au is inspired in a theater play and kageyama’s character was supposed to die right after kenma told him shouyou’s choice, but god i wasn’t going to kill the poor guy right?? and don’t worry about him, he’s living a cool life in paris.

oook so i had a great time writing this!!! it is inspired from my ultimate-favorite-play of all time, ‘cyrano de bergerac’ by edmond rostand. hope u enjoyed reading :)

#haikyuu #haikyuu au #kagehina #kagehina au #kagehina fluff #kagehina angst #kenhina #kenhina fluff #kenhina angst #alternate universe #au #au crack #haikyuu funny #crack au

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thedyingmoon · 5 years

Note

I dont know if im doing this correctly... god i hope so. Im a virgin at tumblr and at sending asks. First i need to tell you that I love your writing, "I see my future before me" is amazing and so enjoyable and "chat buddies" is so funny. I love vergil and V so much. Now i wanna ask something i know you say that you dont do smut and thats perfectly fine, but... what about a romantic/make out session with V inside a Phone thingy. Hugs and kisses(you dont have to do it if you feel unconfi with it)

Hello! I'm so sorry this took a long time to do. 🙈🙈🙈

Anyway, here you go. Enjoy!

A/N: Written while listening to Rachmaninoff ( the king of angst ) Piano Concerto No. 2 in D minor.

***

🖤 Stay 🖤

***

youtube

Everything was ruined the moment you decided to confess to him.

Well, yeah, at first you thought he was intimidating and all, considering the fact that he kept to himself most of the time and actually gave no shits to others around him. And during those times when he did bother to join the team, he would always assert dominance over everyone, including you, and that would make things a bit harder, albeit more organized, since any of you no longer had to formulate proper strategies, since he already made some.

But, you had to admit that, during those times when you do get to go with him during missions, you learned his gestures, his distinct mannerisms, heck, even his habit of quoting poetry. And then, you realized that he was actually not the person you thought he was when you first saw him.

The cleverness of his every action, the tenacity to stay alive, the authority he exudes, the kindness he radiates, the sheer strength of his willpower,...

... his love for poetry, his deep voice, his emerald - colored eyes, his smile,...

... and yes, that smile,...

Ah, yes. It was safe to say that, after a month of being with the tattooed poet, you fell head over heels for him.

And that, alone, was a vast understatement.

And it came to the point where keeping your feelings all to yourself was no longer bearable that you just had to confess ( with a little urging from the others, especially Griffon, who kind of sensed your feelings from the very beginning ).

So, one day, that one fateful day, you mustered up all the courage you could, walked up to him and called his attention.

Then, you said it, the dreaded three words, matched and laced by other jumbled phrases and sentences that you could barely remember.

And, just like that, he told you, flat out, that the feelings aren't mutual, and that he could not, would not, reciprocate through any means.

Of course, you two came to a point where a sort of friendship was established between the two of you.

But,...

Everything was ruined the moment you decided to confess to him.

No.

More like fucked up.

And that was three whole months ago since that summer month.

Despite the embarrassing situation you two were in because of that failed attempt at an honest - to - goodness confession, you still went on missions together because no other Demon Hunter in your team could match his unique skills than you ( the others are just too brash and unrefined ). Of course, the first few weeks were very awkward. The two of you found it hard to look into each other's eyes and you barely talked to each other. The atmosphere around the two of you felt heavy and stiffling that you honestly regretted your decision to confess and ruin your decent friendship.

But, soon enough, after a few more days, you learned to move casually around him like before. You managed to maintain eye contact with him for a few minutes and regained your confidence to speak with him without feeling uncomfortable.

A few days after those torturous weeks, you learned to be yourself once more, despite the fact that you cried yourself to sleep for nights on end after his rejection.

Despite the fact that you tried to hide the bags under your eyes with heavy foundation,...

Despite the fact that you stopped listening to music entirely because every song, every lyric, every story, reminded you of him,...

Despite the fact that you were losing your appetite and that the others were beginning to notice your weight loss,...

Despite the fact the you hid all the hurt behind a smile while telling everyone that you're okay,...

Despite the fact that it hurt you even more to see him on a daily basis, reluctantly reminding yourself that you two were just not meant for each other and that you should move on.

...

And move on, you shall.

You were still in this one - sided painful loop of emotions that one cold and dreary day out in an unknown town with V for a mission when something truly unexpected happened.

You and V made your way to the only phone booth in town ( which was located in the middle of an almost empty road a few kilometers away from the next distinguishable establishment or building ) to call Nico and let her know that you successfully finished your mission.

As usual, V was the one who entered the booth to use the phone while you patiently waited outside.

Your back was turned against him all this time but, you suddenly felt an urge to look back at him like something, like an unknown force, pushed you to do it.

And there he was, actually staring at you as he talked to Nico on the phone. He had this strange look in his eyes and his eyebrows were furrowed as if he was deep in thought.

Your own eyebrows furrowed as well.

Was there something wrong?

However, you were not given the chance to muse about this any longer as rain started falling from the sky. You gasped and flinched with the sudden coldness, instinctively trying to cover your head with your hands as you made your way inside the booth. And as you entered, the cramped space did nothing but heighten the tension that V seemed to sense around you, and it actually made you very, very uncomfortable.

Well, there's no other way, right? He has to put up with the lack of space. After all, it would be for the last time -

"Who is Leon?"

At the sound of utter confusion and shock in his deep voice, you glanced up at the man who was only mere inches away from you.

"Oh, he's,..." you began, uncertain how he found out about Leon Kennedy. But, of course! Nico had to mention him to V. " ... my new partner. A high profile client from Europe has commissioned us to take on a top secret mission the day after tomorrow."

To those simple words you just uttered, V's eyes widened even more.

"So, you're,..." V began, his face getting darker by the second. "... you're coming back, right?"

Damn you for being such a big mouth, Nico!

You bit your lip, thinking it was no use to hide the secret from V any longer.

"V, I'm staying there. For good."

Silence. At first, you thought his stricken reaction would only be momentary, since he really didn't have any sort of connection to you to begin with, so there's actually no use in him even reacting, at all.

Until,...

"You're leaving and you never once told me while the others already know." He pressed on, his voice suspiciously getting darker and darker. Like he actually cared about you leaving him. "Why?"

You laughed nervously at his question, actually feeling kind of cornered that V was interrogating you this way like some kind of a criminal.

But, why even bother? You are nothing to him, and you knew that! You learned the hard way,...

"Aren't you happy that I'm finally getting a much better career opportunity?" You attempted to answer in a light - hearted, even jesting, tone, hoping, praying, for the gravity of your words to reach V. "I mean, me! The second rate Demon Hunter me finally getting a once in a lifetime chance to work at a better place! How cool is that?"

"You did not,... answer,... my question."

You slightly drew back at what you just witnessed. Somehow, V looked conflicted in some way. His eyes, which was giving you intense stares since that moment he talked to Nico on the phone, never left yours, and his posture looked more intimidating than ever before.

And he looked mad, and,... possibly hurt,... at the same time for some reason,...

You only sighed. "V, I see no reason to let you know. I mean, hey, at least you won't have to deal with my shit any longer."

"I never,... said,... you were shit."

Once again, you flinched at his words. "Don't make this any harder for the both of us. We both know this would happen any time, and you know this is inevitable."

To your utter shock and total fear, the man slammed a hand against the glass door of the booth mere inches away from the side of your face. Your shoulders tensed, your eyes closed, you were so confused as to what was going on between the two of you.

And so, so scared.

Why, V? Why?

"I' am making this harder for the both of us?!" You never heard V talk in such a way, and it honestly frightened you to the core. This is not the V you were used to. He was kind, and gentle, he was soft, and above all, understanding,...

But, all of those things were absent from him, and you honestly don't know anymore who you were talking with.

"Please, V, stop this - "

"Are you just escaping me, then?"

Your eyes snapped open, and when you finally looked at his eyes, you saw the hurt, the anguish, the torment in them.

There was no mistaking it.

He didn't want you to leave. At all.

"Maybe."

You flinched as another hand slammed on the door, this time on the opposite side. That's it, you were hopelessly trapped by the man.

By the man you still adored above all else.

"Why?!"

"I want to move on, V!" The words came out of your mouth ripped your heart apart, the gravity and truth in them hurting you and torturing you from the inside. "Every time I see you, my eyes sting. Every time I hear your voice, my chest hurts. Every time I see your face, my body goes weak. I thought I cried enough for you but, I was wrong! How stupid of me to think I was finally learning to move on but, no! As always, I'm wrong!"

"(Y/N),..."

"You listen: I want to go away from here, away from you, as far as possible! So I could learn to be myself again! So I could learn to enjoy the things I once loved! So I could learn to smile without getting hurt again!

"I love you so much, V. But, I know I mean nothing to you! I know you never cared! I know I'll never be good enough for you! I'm not worthy! And I don't want to impose my feelings for you any longer because then I know you would only drift away from me further until I could no longer reach you!

"So, please, let me go! Set the both of us free!"

"No."

"WHY?!"

The man's eyes finally started to glisten with the unshed tears that tortured him for weeks since that moment you confessed to him.

Of course he noticed how your eyes were always red and how they have huge bags under them. Of course he noticed how you stopped listening to music - the thing you adored so, so much. Of course he noticed how you were losing your vitality and not only your weight and appetite. Of course he knew that smile of yours was only a facade to hide your sadness.

Of course he knew you wanted to move on.

But, who could blame him for acting this way?

During the course of those three months since that infamous confession, a strange kind of emotion has awoken inside V. At first, he simply ignored this, since he assumed that what you were feeling for him was merely some kind of infatuation of some sort and nothing too deep.

However, as days passed, he began seeing more and more of you in a different light. For the first time in many days, he saw the gracefulness in your movements. He saw how you selflessly cared about others around you. He saw how you unconditionally showed kindness even to the lowest of beings that others might consider trash.

And, above all, he missed your little talks about yourself. He missed the sweet voice that greets his ears each morning whenever you sing to your favorite songs on the radio. He missed how you doted on him and him alone and how you ignored Dante's childish demands for attention, despite his twin brother being the clearly better man than him.

And he missed how you said you loved him and him alone.

And he damn wanted to hear you say those words to him once more.

But, you were leaving him. For good.

You would drift far away from him like a long lost childhood memory.

Then, you would learn to love another.

And this inevitability hurt him. Tore his heart apart.

And the pain was so fucking unbearable.

"Stay. Please." He pleaded, begged, you, his voice lowered and anguished.

To this, you simply shook your head.

"I have made my decision, and you have no choice but to understand and respect it."

"No!"

"Please, V! I beg you - "

And the sadness crept even closer to you as the man took hold of the back of your head and crashed his soft lips against yours, moving in a rushed and certain way that successfully conveyed the untold emotions he had for you.

You tried to push him away, to wake up from this wishful thinking that he's doing everything he can to not let you leave him. But, the gentle strokes of his hands against your back, those whispers of his that begged you to stay, those lips which were locked against yours in heated passion and deep longing that betrayed and conveyed his true feelings to you,...

... that warmth of his and those forbidden sensations it caused your body to have that slowly breached and destroyed the high defenses you put up for your poor and hurt little heart,...

Oh, God! Why?! Why are you falling all over again?!

"I love you,..." the man whispered as his lips softly brushed againts your now tear - stained cheeks. "I love you. I love you so,... so much."

"V,..."

The man cupped your cheeks and laid his forehead against yours, his eyes melting yours, finally making you cave in with his pleas.

"I know this is too selfish of me to ask, but,... I beg you,..." he whispered, his hot breath mixing against yours. "Please, do not,... leave me. Stay."

You closed your eyes, the action making you shed even more tears.

For how you could you refuse him now?

For all the things that happened between the of you for the last months,...

For all the things that unfolded between the two of you in that cramped and hot phone booth,...

Of course, you love him.

And you definitely couldn't leave him alone now.

Nico, who arrived a few moments ago with your luggage inside her van, witnessed everything. With a smug and proud smile on her lips for her two team mates, she dialled a number and waited.

"Hello?"

"Leon, it's me."

"Hey. What time will she arrive on the airport? I want to personally escort her, myself."

"I think that won't be necessary."

"Why is that?"

"Umm, I guess she found another,... a new,... leash on life. She's not going. I'm sorry."

"Oh. That's too bad. Then, I would let the President know. I guess I'll be going to Spain alone."

"Ah, yeah. Thanks, Leon."

"No problem."

"Don't let those zombies bite. And get the girl out."

"Will do."

***

🖤🖤🖤

***

#devil may cry 5 #vitale sparda #stay #v x reader #v x you #devil may oneshot #angst you very much #ask

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alexsmitposts · 4 years

Photo

It is All about Race, Awful Hypocrisy Hypocrisy to Say it’s Not! While I am following closely various discussions on Western mass media and social media, simultaneously engaging in several direct exchanges, one overwhelming leitmotif that I see is clearly emerging: “What is happening in the United States (and the UK, France and other parts of Western Empire) is not really about the race. Let us protest peacefully, let us not allow ‘rioting’ to continue, and above all, please let us not single out the white race, Western culture as a sole villain. Let us have peace, love each other… Then things will miraculously improve; terrible occurrences will soon go away.” I have worked and lived on all continents, from far away island nations of South Pacific (Oceania), to Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia. Of course, I lived in Europe and North America, too. Colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism – these are all my topics. Seriously! I have been studying them, investigating them; I wrote and made various documentary films about them. On several occasions I came very close to losing my life, confronting them. My conclusion after all that I saw and experienced and survived? You can probably guess it: “To claim that the race is not what has been, for centuries, dividing our Planet, is outrageous hypocrisy. Or deranged wishful thinking. Or something much worse: it is calculated blindness that serves only the ruling, white group of people.” To make it blunt: Our Planet has been reduced to only two races: White and “the other”! On top of it, the color of one’s skin is not always identical to what the West, in general, perceives as the Caucasian/white race. To be “white” is the state of mind. It means: belonging to the culture which perceives itself as “superior”. The culture which sees itself as ‘exceptional’, and somehow ‘chosen’ to judge and advice the entire humanity. It also means ‘a state of indoctrination and obedience, as well as lack of intellectual courage’. All this, in exchange for the privileges; fabulous privileges! “Plunder the world, and live well above your means; live grotesquely plush life! And while you are living it, do not forget to whine, demand more, and keep repeating that ‘you are also exploited and, actually, a very poor victim’”. Denying the privileges is part of racism, too, as it demonstrates unexpectable spite for the real victims! Or, perhaps, self-imposed blindness. Citizens of some countries, such as Russia, Cuba, and Turkey, may look mainly ‘white’, but they are actually not. They are not invited to the ‘club’, because their mindset is different because they are not submissive because they think on their own. *** Such conclusions may not be popular in New York, London, Paris, or Berlin. Especially not now, when the United States and the entire West are in turmoil. The culture which was built on blood, bones, rape, and theft, ‘culture’ shaped by more than 500 years of colonialist terror, is now turning, twisting, and trying to justify itself. It tries to survive while staying in a driving seat. Countless editorials penned by both ‘conservative’ and so-called ‘liberal’ scribes are carpet-bombing the pages of newspapers at both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Fear of perhaps mortally injured beast – Western regime and its citizens – is delectable by its repulsive stench, and it stinks for miles. Suddenly, most of the so-called ‘progressive’ publications do not want to hear from those writers and thinkers who are shooting powerful projectiles in the form of highly uncomfortable truth. Actually, in the West, there are hardly any true “left-wing” sites or magazines left, of course with some shining exceptions. What is really progressive these days? I don’t want to name the sites or publications here, but you are most likely aware of which ones I am talking about: they almost exclusively carry the stuff written by the Western/white men, for other white men’s consumption! They never cross the line: their criticism of the Western white-dominated world is half-hearted, “peaceful”; in short cowardly. A white man is an individual who has been brought up and indoctrinated in a certain way, who thinks, speaks, and writes in a manner that is expected from him or her by the Western regime. And all these ‘non-whites’, all over the world, including the minorities in the Western countries, are expected to sit on their asses, shut up and listen to him or her, but mostly him. And of course, to obey. Or else! Or else: they will be verbally attacked and humiliated, eventually, they will get sanctioned, their governments were overthrown, countries invaded. There will be corpses all over, the stench of burning flesh, overflowing mass graves. And ‘at home’, in the West? Bullets shot at their eyes, or necks squashed by military or police boots. So, what actually happened a few weeks ago to Mr. George Floyd, has been constantly happening to non-white people all over the world, to the entire communities and countries. Then, suddenly, people, all over the world, had enough! Almost everywhere, not just in China, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Enough of being treated as some lower, subservient races. Enough of being treated like a scum; brutalized, killed like Mr. Floyd! *** Now, in the West, both liberal and conservative media is making noises, claiming that Mr. Floyd was “not a saint”, that he used to serve some time in prison. What can I say? People, in general, are not saints. People and countries. Very often, circumstances make them behave in a very nasty matter. But if you are raised as a second-class citizen, if you are beaten, day and night, by your own regime, are you expected to turn out to be a romantic poet? Get real! Our countries, non-Western ones, are not always behaving like saints, either. But they are still better, much better, than those that have been murdering hundreds of millions in their colonies! Don’t they understand, in Washington, London, and Paris, why those millions of people, from Tokyo to Buenos Aires, from Africa to Asia, are now marching in support for the African-American people? It is because all of us, outside Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand, are somehow related to Mr. Floyd! Yes, we read those phony essays. We observe those cynical little smiles on the faces of the people who are denying racial and racist division of the world. Individuals who are defending the status quo, the rule of that tiny minority over the planet, so they could maintain their advantages. Some defenders of status quo are now going as far as claiming that the rebellion against the white rulers is actually some sort of dark conspiracy theatre, triggered by the well-concealed business elites, or that it is connected to COVID-19; but above all, that it is not spontaneous at all. It is clear, where they really stand and what they want to achieve. It is never “them”. It is always somebody else. They keep pointing fingers at some invisible bankers, or the minorities in their own countries. You know precisely what I mean. As long as it is not them! But it is all much simpler: most of Europe and North America are constructed on white racism. And so is imperialism, colonialism. Citizens in the West are voting right-wing scum, voluntarily, and consistently. Can you imagine a genuine North American or European “internationalist”? Maybe a few. Perhaps 1%. Not more! So, the proverbial gold keeps flowing in. And billions of non-whites are rotting alive, in all corners of the globe. My friends, my comrades, all over the world, are now opening their eyes, realizing what is happening in the United States and its colonialist daddy: Europe. Many of them, of course, already knew. At least they knew something. But those who did not, are now wide awake, getting well aware of the brutality of the Western regime, as well as of the racist nature of the “global arrangement”. Those who were, for centuries, manufacturing consent, justifying and glorifying colonialism, imperialism, racial discrimination, as well as Western supremacy, can suddenly do nothing to stop the avalanche of awareness. This may be the beginning of the end of segregation, of global apartheid. Just the beginning of the true struggle for equality. A knee of a beefy white racist cop in Minneapolis, which had cut the supply of air, killing an African-American person, somehow managed to trigger that avalanche. Nobody wants to live like this. Oppressed nations do not want to be threatened this way by those white Western cynics and nihilists: like Clinton and Trump, Navarro, Pompeo, and others. What a hellish troop of third-rate violent people! Oppressed minorities inside the empire, be they of African descent, Hispanics or Chinese, are sick of the vicious and repulsive racism. Mostly, they are frightened to speak. But now, day by day, they are gaining courage. *** The United States of America has been built on the genocide of the non-white people. The great majority of native folks had been slaughtered so the small number of the first and brutal European settlers could thrive. This is “to some extend” known fact, but learning in-depth what really happened to the original inhabitants of ‘America’ has been thoroughly discouraged. Word ‘genocide’ is hardly ever uttered, in connection with the first chapters of U.S. history. Actually, it is taboo. Slavery has been turned into folklore. Millions, tens of millions of broken, methodically destroyed human lives, is hardly ever presented in its real, nightmarish authenticity. People in Africa were hunted down like animals, tortured, raped, killed, and shipped like cattle to the so-called ‘free’ and ‘democratic’ “New World”. Does a country constructed on such macabre foundations have really any moral right to call itself ‘free’? Can it be allowed to police the world? It is as if you would allow that murder cob who killed Mr. Floyd, to run a nation! And those states which are now forming Europe? Their citizens are the descendants of those who were hunting down millions of human beings. Offspring of those who perpetrated and then got rich on such mass-slaughters as those of the Namibians, or people who used to inhabit what is now known as Congo. When dragged to the broad daylight, it is all very, very uncomfortable, isn’t it? Better to sweep the truth under the carpet, and talk about “love”, “goodwill”. And then keep robbing and murdering as before, far away from the cameras! This way, nothing would ever change. Repeating over and over again: “race does not matter; it is actually all about class”, could make those who are in control of the world feel good about themselves, even sometimes sorry for themselves, which is actually their favorite state of mind. But it is a terribly hypocritical and deceptive position. And it has to be unveiled if there is ever to be justice! *** On 3 June 2020, UN News, published an essay condemning the situation in the United States: “Voices calling for an end to “the endemic and structural racism that blights US society” must be heard and understood, for the country to move past its “tragic history of racism and violence”, the UN Human Rights chief said on Wednesday. “The voices calling for an end to the killings of unarmed African Americans need to be heard”, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said in a statement. “The voices calling for an end to police violence need to be heard”.” Ms. Bachelet, a Chilean, knows precisely what she is talking about! She knows what it is to have someone’s knee choking your aorta. Her father, an army General during the socialist era of President Salvador Allende, was murdered after the US-sponsored coup led by Augusto Pinochet. Ms. Bachelet herself was kidnapped and tortured. She looked ‘white’, but obviously not ‘white enough’ for Washington and its local assassins. What is truly significant is that even the United Nations (usually subservient to the US) is now unwilling to remain silent. *** Race ‘issues’ have to be addressed. Racism, inside the national boundaries, as well as on the global scale, has to be fought against, by all means. The depressing state of our planet is a result of racism. Look at the map of the world at the beginning of the 20th century, and you will see: a great majority of the nations were colonized by the West. Colonialism is one of the most evident forms of racism. It humiliates victims, it robs them of everything: of culture, dignity, land. To a great extent, most of the world is still being colonized. Even right now, as this is being written. Almost the entire Planet is brutally controlled by the racist West-centric education system, and by the mass media which is controlled by the White boy’s Western narrative. Things have been arranged, so that the people in non-Western countries have been ‘learning’ and ‘getting informed’ about themselves from the Western curriculums and the fraudulent sources disseminated by the US and British media outlets. That is grotesquely racist, isn’t it? Close to 10 million people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in just a quarter of a century. It is because they have coltan, uranium, and other essential raw materials, desired by the West. But also, because to the West, their black lives matter close to nothing. My film, “Rwanda Gambit”, is clearly addressing the issue. But who cares? In the West, they rather watch porn, instead of learning the greatest genocide of the 20th Century, which they helped to trigger! And who cares about the West Papuans, who are murdered with almost the same intensity by the Indonesians, on behalf of their Western masters? After all, the West Papuans are blacks, therefore matter nothing. On those millions, mountains of corpses, huge companies, and even entire countries are thriving, prosper. While their CEOs and Presidents are talking rubbish about some ‘corporate responsibility’ and love for democracy. And most of the white Europeans, Canadians, Australians, have to sacrifice very little, in order to live their obnoxiously luxurious lives. Isn’t this racist? The entire arrangement of the world is! Soon, it will be impossible to hide behind all those lies. I work at the frontlines. Where human bodies are crushed by all that “love” of the white colonialism and racism, directly but also indirectly. Racist violence is the most repulsive and the creepiest thing on Earth. I want it to end; once and for all. I don’t care if some shops get looted or trashed in the process. Peaceniks who are crying over them are mostly sitting in their plush living rooms, watching censored news. They do not see those tens of millions of victims of racism rotting in tropical heat, floating on the surfaces of polluted rivers, thousands of kilometers away! Images of Mr. Floyd being murdered, slowly and sadistically, is as close as they ever got to reality. For centuries, they did all they could in order not to see. Now they are running out of excuses. Not to see, not to fight against the endemic global racism is a terrible crime. A crime that has been taking place for more than 500 years. The crime against humanity.

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itsthecupbros · 4 years

Text

Afraid of Your Own Shadow: Muse is unnaturally skittish and afraid of everything around them.

What Are You, Chicken?: Muse gets the chicken pox. Anon decides if there are any magical side effects.

Man Overboard!: Muse develops an intense fear of water.

Feeling Guilty: Muse is convinced they are wanted for a crime they have commited. Anon can decide what the crime was.

?yako uoy erA: Muse is cursed to speak backwards.

Happy Days: Muse is forced to keep a permanent smile.

Do Not Pass Go: Muse is put in a small prison without escape or bail.

All About the Money: Muse becomes obsessed with money and refuses to spend any of it.

My Big Day: Muse believes they are to be wed to the person of anon's choice.

I'm Melting!: Muse cannot stop bleeding from the mouth, nose, or eyes (anon's choice). Muse cannot pass out from blood loss.

Holy Halo: Muse is dressed like an angel and can float.

The Living Dead: Muse dies and becomes a living corpse. Comes back to life when time is up.

S-S-Stop!: Muse develops a bad stutter.

The Invisible Man: Muse's body becomes invisible; this does not apply to clothing.

Thou Wretched Fool!: Muse believes they are a medieval knight.

Poet In Hiding: Muse can only speak in rhyme.

Awkward Stage: Muse becomes a teenager. If Muse is already a teenager, they become an adult.

The Reaper Crys!: Muse becomes obsessed with death. Anon decides if it is another Muse's death or their own.

Frozen to the Core: Muse becomes extremely cold natured and seeks any form of warmth.

Shut the Blinds: Muse becomes allergic to the sun.

1ST JUL 2013

2,049 NOTES

Baker Baker: Muse won't and refuses to stop cooking.

Russian Roulette: Muse is given a gun with one bullet that must be used to shoot someone/something of Mun's choosing. Ends when shot is executed.

All That Glitters: Muse becomes obsessed with shiny objects.

Just Shut Up!: Muse hears voices in their head. Anon can pick whose voice it is.

Bury the Hatchet: Muse believes they have a murder weapon, and will try to hide it at all costs. Anon can choose the murder weapon.

Achoo!: Muse becomes allergic to something precious to them. Anon can decide what this is.

Just Like Rapunzel: Muse has extremely long hair that cannot be cut.

For Science!: Muse suddenly has the urge to become a test subject. Anon may choose who's subject he is.

That's Not Punny: Muse feels inclined to make a pun about almost everything.

Nice Boxers: Muse believes they are stripped down to their underwear, even if they are fully clothed.

The Fairest Queen of Kings: Muse must dress in drag/drab.

Mankind's Best Friend: Muse feels the need to keep their pet or some animal with them at all times. Anon may choose which animal Muse desires.

Insomniac: Muse desperately wants to go to sleep, but cannot.

It's Pouring!: Muse keeps a cloud over their head, which will rain depending on their mood. Anon can decide what mood it rains on.

Technologic: Muse is turned into a robot.

You've Got Mail!: Muse believes they have an important message for the person of Anon's choosing. Anon can also choose what the message says.

Sufferin' Succotash!: Muse develops a lisp.

The Life of Mime: Muse becomes a mute and is forced to wear a mime outfit, along with proper mime makeup.

Freeze!: Muse freezes up for a few seconds whenever a certain word is said. Anon may choose the word.

Round and Round: Muse develops vertigo, and cannot stand, walk or run too much without feeling dizzy and/or sick.

1ST JUL 2013

439 NOTES

The Premature Burial: Muse has catalepsy, thought to be dead, and is buried alive with no provisions and no hope, for ____(duration specified by anon)

The Black Cat: Muse is a perpetual drunk prone to abuse, be it animal or domestic, for ___(duration specified by anon)

The Pit and the Pendulum: Muse is a convicted felon and sentenced to death. Anon specifies form/duration of torture.

The Raven: Muse is masochistic for ___(duration specified by anon)

Annabel Lee: Muse loses their one true love and suffers from a broken heart (duration specified by anon; muse can die from broken heart should the anon choose it).

The Masque of the Red Death: Muse is afraid of death and has a lethal disease whose symptoms include sharp pains, dizziness, profuse bleeding, and red stains, causing him/her to be shunned from society. Lasts for____(duration specified by anon)

The Tell-Tale Heart/Murders of the Rue Morgue: Muse is paranoid of others and upon killing them, tries to hide the bodies of his/her victims, all while evading arrest through use of wiles. Lasts for____(duration specified by anon)

Fall of the House of Usher: Muse becomes a shut-in consigned to the hospital, incapable of caring for him/herself and in need of special, degrading attention. Lasts for ___(duration specified by anon)

Ligeia: Muse is deathly ill and dies, but resurrects in the body of another person. Anon specifies duration and the body of the other deceased.

William Wilson: Muse is manipulated by their alter ego and believes his/her rival to physically exist; but being unable to escape his/her personal demons, ultimately commits a murder-suicide in an attempt to vanquish said rival.

1ST JUL 2013

122 NOTES

Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites: Your muse feels the need to hide from everyone. Anon specifies the time length.

Rise and Shine Little Bitch: Your muse has just woken up from an excruciating hangover that lasts one day.

Pretend it's a Video Game: Level up! Your muse is now a video game character. It lasts for 5 days.

With you, Friends (Long Drive): Your muse suddenly feels extremely adventurous. Anon specifies the time length.

Bikinis and Big Booties Y'all: Whoo! For one entire night, your muse suddenly wants to get drunk and party.

Never Gonna Get This Pussy: Your muse is feeling so fragile that if anyone touches them, they're mentally impure. Anon specifies the time length.

Smell this money: For one night, your muse has an urge to go and rob something. Anon Specifies where they rob.

Park Smoke: For one night, your muse stays outside {with an optional cigarette}, due to their belief that if they go inside their settlement, they'll get sick of slow suffocation and die.

Your friends ain't gonna leave with you: Your muse is afraid that everyone they care about will forget about/leave them.

Ride Home: Your muse gets extreme nostalgia that doesn't go away until {Anon specifies}

Son of Scary Monsters: Muse acts like a stubborn child that must scare everyone for {Anon Specifies the time length}

Big 'Ol Scardy Pants: Your muse is afraid of everything. Everything. Lasts 2 days.

Scary Monsters on Strings: Your muse is a puppet on strings. 3 days.

Lights: Turn the lights on! Your muse has a sudden addiction to lights. All lights are beautiful. Must look at lights. Lasts a full week.

1ST JUL 2013

32 NOTES

Castle in the Sky Your Muse see a Castle in the sky and goes up to the sky and see it real For__

Angel of Darkness Your Muse become evil with dark powers and become The Angel of Darkness and Try to take over For__

Earth Wind Water & Fire Yous Muse Have power(Ex.Earth powers) For__

Roses are Red Your Muse Is love with (anon tell to who) For__

Bumble Bee Your Muse Has a feeling love for(anon tell to who) For__

Superstar Your Muse Become Rich and Famous For__

Dam Dadi Do Your Muse Dance Non-Stop For__

1ST JUL 2013

1,204 NOTES

The classiest M!A list you’ll ever see compiled by yours truly and Tomas mun. All times are specified by anon or mun.

Taming of the Shrew: Your muse turns into an obstinate, headstrong person who has to be tamed into being compliant and good again

The Tempest: Your muse has been caught in a terrible shipwreck and is stranded on a seemingly uninhabited island (other muses can be on island too if mun agrees)

Romeo and Juliet: Your muse has fallen /desperately/ in love with the one person they know they can’t have

As You Like It: Your muse has to pretend to be the opposite gender for whatever reason the anon or mun think is appropriate

Macbeth: Your muse is convinced they have killed someone-or maybe they really have- and is going mad with guilt

A Midsummers Night Dream: Your muse is now some strange part them part animal hybrid (anon specifies animal)

The Merchant of Venice: Your muse owes a large sum of money to someone on pain of death (anon specifies when the money is due by)

A Comedy of Errors: Your muse either develops an evil twin /or/ the muse goes around pretending to do loads of things and blaming it on their 'twin'

King Lear: Your muse is descending into complete madness

Richard III: Your muse wants to trade really important items for really menial ones

Winter's Tale: Your muse is frozen and can’t move but they can hear and see fine.

Hamlet: Your muse is overcome by a death or tragedy in their past, and seeks revenge on whichever character/person they believe to be most responsible for it.

Much Ado About Nothing: Your muse unashamedly attempts to seduce as many characters as he/she can

Henry V: The muse embarks on war/battle against a character/threatening force

Julius Caesar: Your muse thinks everyone is stabbing them in the back, literally or metaphorically

Othello: Your muse thinks his/her lover is cheating on them with their best friend. Alternatively, if you prefer / if your muse has no lover, your muse plots to convince /another/ character that /their/ lover is cheating on them with their best friend

Twelth Night: Your muse disguises themselves as the opposite gender/as someone else, which either directly or accidentally creates an awkward love situation or a love triangle.

Sonnet: Either your muse can now only speak in sonnet form /or/ they are going around pronouncing their undying love for everyone.

1ST JUL 2013

50 NOTES

Ico: Muse now has horns protruding from their head.

Yorda: Muse has to be literally led by the hand everywhere. If left alone, they will just stay in one spot.

Queen: Muse wants to take over someone's body to continue living. (Anon decides who)

Wander: Muse slowly becomes paler, and dark splotches will form on their skin and clothes over time.

Mono: Muse is dead, and will only wake up after a certain amount of time.

Dormin: Muse is disembodied and can only go back in their body when they are given sixteen of a particular item. (Anon decides what item)

1ST JUL 2013

131 NOTES

All M!As are inspired by the tv show "Animalia"!

The Mists of Time: There are ancient, elephant-sized, ravenous frogs everywhere. Perhaps your muse is hallucinating, perhaps not, but either way, they're scared of being eaten. 7 hours.

Catcher in the Rhyme: Your muse suddenly can't stop speaking in rhymes. If they say a word without a rhyme, their muscles cramp up and they get cold, freezing themselves stiffer each time. 5 hours.

Forget Me Not: Long-term and short-term memory loss. Who are you? Oh, ok. Wait, who are you? 3 hours.

Long Story Short: Did you hear about...? Gossip is being spread from the mouth of your muse, and it keeps getting worse and worse because they aren't really listening to anyone but themselves. 3 hours.

Speechless in Animalia: Your muse just wants some peace and quiet! And they get it... in spades. Deaf and mute. 1 day.

Don Iguana: Your muse just started reading Don Quixote and is inspired to fight crime! They become d'Avenger of d'Whatevercountrytheylivein. They lose sleep while fighting crime, eventually being to hallucinate. They really should have finished that book first... 2 days.

Over and Beyond: One day your muse meets a unicorn. And the next they are held captive by a dragon. 2 days.

Being Peter Applebottom: Your muse suddenly thinks they're a genius. A condescending, pompous, arrogant genius who hates laughter and playfulness. "Comedy is low, sophomoric, crass. I don't practice it." 2 days.

Brain Drain: Your muse swaps intellect with another muse. 1 day.

The World According to Iggy: Your muse is a hero! Well... in their eyes they are! They've got a sudden desire to tell everyone of fantastical tales -starring themselves- that are extreme exaggerations. 1 day.

Gettting Over the Glums: Your muse inhales the pollen of a strange plant. They become lethargic and depressed, and slump on the nearest couch. The only cure is a good, long laugh. (And ticking won't work!) 12 hours.

The Day Zoe Listened: Your muse makes a vow to go a day without talking. But as the silence goes on, your muse starts to hear whispers in the trees. Hallucinations? Dryads? Who knows. 1 day.

Alex's Treasure Island: Time for a treasure hunt! Your muse is searching high and low for Captain Flint's hoard, getting greedier all the time. That pretty necklace around that other muse's throat... why, it's a part of the trove! 16 hours.

The Animal Within: OOOGAAAAH. Suddenly, your muse is acting like a wild animal. Eating with their face, scratching themselves, grunting... 7 hours.

Scary Story Go Round: Your muse is now the hapless victim in a horror movie. Tripping, screaming, rallying the rebels to take on the monsters. 1 day.

The Ballad of the Creeper: Your muse is a blethering ninny. "Whacka-doo, whacka-doo, whacka-doo!" 3 hours.

From 'A' to 'Z': Your muse starts forgetting words. "Could you please move that ch... ch... that thing! That thing that you sit on! What's it called again?" 12 hours.

The Dragon and the Night: Your muse is afraid of non-existent trolls and the dark, and is too embarrassed to admit to either. 12 hours.

Tomorrow: Your muse thinks the world is going to end tomorrow. 1 day.

Guardians of the Core: Your muse can't stop singing and dancing. Whatever song pops into their head, they will perform. 3 hours.

Back to the Present: Your muse is traveling back home, perhaps one day to return, perhaps not. 12 hours.

What the World Needs Now: Your muse gains the powers of a god. They can change the world to their ideals... but should they? 7 hours.

1ST JUL 2013

3,876 NOTES

Paint it Red: Muse becomes blood-crazy. They want to see it, taste it, and feel it in any way or form.

Overprotective: Muse becomes obsessive of the next person in their inbox.

Over the Edge: Muse's mental health has skyrocketed down, making them very unstable.

Burning Up: Muse feels extremely hot and can't seem to get cool.

Hypochondriac: Muse thinks they have an illness (chosen by anon), even though they are completely healthy.

Heartache: Muse feels a sharp pain in their chest every time they think of their lover (or someone/thing they love).

Not Yourself: Muse has the personality of a character of anon's choice.

Double Trouble: Muse has an exact copy of themself to deal with. Only the copy secretly wants to kill them.

Heavily Accented: Muse's voice has an unfamiluar accent to it, which is chosen by anon.

Night Owl: Muse has trouble staying awake during the day and going to sleep at night.

A Holy Man?!: Muse takes everything literally.

A World of Color: Muse becomes colorblind. If Muse is already colorblind, they can now see colors.

Congratulations!: Muse is given a baby and told it's theirs. Anon can tell them who the 'other parent' is.

A Haunting I Will Go!: Muse becomes a ghost that must haunt the person of anon's choice.

Bittersweet: Everything Muse eats turns to candy in their mouth. The reverse effect goes for actual candy, which turns into a random food.

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kariachi · 5 years

Text

And we’re going to try for another two episodes today, which’ll be the last season 4 ones I have access to in a language I know for a while. So after today we’ll probably be getting breaks of at least a week between liveblogs. But that’s something to worry about then, this is now, and we’re going for What Rhymes With Omnitrix.

There’s poetry in this episode, I love poetry. Ya know before I settled deep into fic I used to mostly do poetry? Anymore I only rarely do, but back in like the sixth, seventh grade? Poetry all over the place. Then I realized I could induce emotion better through narrative prose and dialogue and a true ficcer was born.

Anyway, is another Kevin episode of course, and Charm but who gives two shits about Charm, so let’s get into it! My son and poetry!

They’re just dropping us right in with Charm, who has poetry very blatantly about Gwen and how she hates her. In public. Can’t fault the kid for confidence or dedication.

This girl and Kevin both need therapy, preferably in different cities because last time she and Kev were in the same space he looked this close to killing her and while that would be entertaining to watch, kinda hard to go to therapy when a pissed off tween is carving your bones into parts for his latest piece of tech. Because if anybody would tap into the necromantic arts purely as a fuck you to someone he’d already killed, it’s reboot!Kevin.

‘Ode to Hating Gwen So Much #16′ Charm, kiddo, you need therapy and a hobby. Have you considered felting? Maybe videogames? A couple hours of Terraria would do you good.

Polite people at the (presumably) Amateur Poetry Night.

Oh look, a Kevin. Of course any book you carry around is gonna be black, you aesthetic mess.

Also can I pause a moment here in appreciation for every bathroom we’ve seen so far I think appearing to be unisex? Very nice.

“Conning” and here is where I heave a sigh and my bloodpressure goes up a bit, because what she did to Kevin was not conning in any way, that was clearly and blatantly magical enslavement complete with chains, torture, and mindcontrol. You can’t just downplay that shit like this and expect me to go along with it, not when the sequel series already tended to pull that, especially with regards to Charmcaster doing that sorta shit. You do not get to blatantly show Kevin being forced to do things against his will, being tortured for fighting back, and then try to pass it off as him having been tricked into working with her. What the fuck is with this franchise with having Charm do horribly evil shit and then just waving it off?

At least Kevin still clearly hates her.

Charm trying to play like she’s actually gotten more powerful since they last saw each other and is not, ya know, powerless in front of somebody she literally tortured and who is bigger than her even without his shapechanging watch. At least she’s reacting appropriating even if Kevin isn’t. Laying it on kinda thick though for someone who just ruined her makeup with tears not three minutes ago.

Are these children both trying to outbluff each other? Oh that works. I can totally work with a Kevin who’s kinda scared of Charm after what she did, alongside a Charm that’s definitely scared of Kevin now that she’s powerless and has hurt him so bad. That is something I can enjoy. Not that Kevin does it particularly well, but he’s young yet and anyway he doesn’t need to bluff well to avoid trouble here, he just needs to fall for Charm’s bluff.

And lo, the classic ‘we bumped into each other and dropped our books, then each grabbed the wrong book when we walked away’ trope. Always a good one. I hope they realize they have the wrong books fast though, given they look nothing alike.

Definitely a unisex bathroom, nice.

Charm’s uncle gave her a magic amulet. I’ve seen people theorize this is referring to Hex, but I don’t think that makes sense given what we know of either of them so far so I’m not giving the reboot back those points.

Of course Slam Poetry Night attracts a Rath. Of course. I wondered how they were going to get Ben into this.

Max really needs to stop using slang from any decade. It’s just painful.

Gwen sees Kevin take the stage and just, “oh no”.

So, this is definitely where Kev realizes he has Charm’s book, he’d have to, it’s full of somebody else’s poetry.

Also can I just say 1) I am proud of my baby for going into poetry, it is very good for working through your emotions (am proud of Charm for that too, but, ya know, my son vs Charm) and 2) I am not surprised to see him being into poetry given the sheer number of books we see him owning in other series. Like, at least 65, which doesn’t seem like a lot until you remember he’s probably only been acquiring them over the past few years, if not just over the course of the sequels, and that he’d have to be putting aside time specifically to read them given how much shit he’s shown doing regularly. Basically- my boy is literary and it’s wonderful.

And he has realized this ain’t his book.

Ben no heckling! There are rules and manners to the world you know! Gwen smack him.

And upon being heckled Kevin just tosses the book and decides to freestyle it ‘I came out here to have a good time but bitch if you wanna go I’ll go’ style.

He’s not bad. Especially when you consider he’s, so small. As nix would put it ‘this is a fetus’.

Ben, not happy with getting called out.

Ooo, complete with dropping the mike and walking away, point to Kevin! That is Kevin 1:Ben 0 so far this episode.

Ben just the living embodiment of that Pikachu meme after that.

Climbing on stage to try to win a point for himself in this battle of the wordsmithing. Godspeed, Tennyson.

Rath is being Rath and Kevin is just, not impressed. He knows he’s won, he knows Ben is rising to the bait and can’t do shit.

Kevin glancing out into the crowd like ‘am I the only one seeing him being this... wtf? tell me I’m not, we’re all seeing this right?’

Kevin trying to point out to Rath that he is not rapping, not even close, wtf Tennyson. The best part being, I’m fairly sure he’s offended on behalf of all rap at Rath’s complete failure to even be in the same ballpark.

And Ben times out, thank fuck, maybe we can make some progress here before Kevin kicks his ass just to defend the honor of a whole artistic medium.

Also I’m already counting the above as point 2 to Kev.

He hasn’t even started and I’m in pain.

Not eight words in and already Kevin is even less impressed and I’m in even more pain. Just gonna channel Ben trying to rap when I head into urgent care, that should be enough pain to chill me out.

Not even a verse in and Gwen and Max are this close to skipping town and just, abandoning Ben here. “Tennyson? No, no, we’re the Smith family, never seen that kid before, think he might be delusional.”

Point Kevin. He didn’t even have to do anything for this one, just not be Ben.

So that’s Kevin 3:Ben 0, so far this episode.

“Even your grandpa wants you off the stage.” Which is true, but gets Kevin dive-tackled offstage anyway.

Hello Charm, back again I see.

And now it is your turn to realize you have the wrong book?

Oh gods Kevin put effort into making his alien names cooler than Ben’s. And the early ideas were shit. But it worked in the end, so hey. At least we can assume his band-related naming scheme is deliberate in-character. Good on him, too, for writing everything down, it’s good for reference and can help get thoughts straight. (part of why it’s good for dealing with emotional shit)

Don’t you side-eye the camera, child, you mean to tell me you just jumped straight to Charmcaster without any stupid name ideas along the way?

“You started it!”“No you started it!” Okay boys, take you shoving match elsewhere and also Ben, Kev’s right, you are the one who started it with your heckling.

Charmcaster is just, not for Gwen existing in the same area as her. Gwen, meanwhile, is just surprised to see her.

Charm I don’t know what you’re looking for in there, it’s a tween engineer’s private journal, it’s not gonna have anything you can use against Gwen. Against Kevin, probably, against Gwen, not likely.

Charmcaster you cannot get up anyone’s ass about emo poetry when you recited ‘Ode To Hating Gwen So Much #16′ on stage. Pot, kettle, black.

It’s a poetry powered amulet. Either that or Kevin’s poetry counts as spellwork. I wonder if there’s something specific you have to do to make a poem count as a spell or if it’s just whatever works as long as it’s a magic user reading it aloud? Because Charm clearly ain’t meaning to cast this as a spell, at least at first, and yet. That seems kind of worrying though, if that’s the case. I mean what happens if a warlock tries to read his kid some Shel Silverstein at bedtime?

What happens if a sorcerer recites It’s Raining Pigs And Noodles?

I don’t know whether I’m more concerned to continue listening or for how Kevin’ll react if he notices Charm is reading his poetry aloud. I mean this is sounding like a personal one (and speaking as a former 11yo poet with Issues, I know what that sounds like) and gods if somebody I didn’t like was reading one of mine aloud I don’t know if I’d have broken down or killed them where they stood.

Gods I’m gonna have to rewatch this episode when it ends up on CN’s site so I can get a proper transcript of this, their captioning works right.

Welp. I knew emo poetry was powerful but this takes the cake.

Charm that is not your shit! Go find your book again! Or are you worried your shit isn’t as strong as his? I mean I’m getting more and more convinced this isn’t something he’d have been reading aloud.

Oh gods it does only go for real poetry! She tries to throw in some stuff built for spellcrafting and the amulet nopes right out! ‘Sorry, kiddo, there’s gotta be emotion involved or it’s just not happening’.

Hopefully that answers the Pigs And Noodles question

I’m kinda hoping Charm’s mini reign of terror is ended by a beet red Kevin divetackling her from offscreen and wrenching his journal from her. Bonus points if he gets her upside the head with it.

Gotta love when youtube decides to while you’re trying to pause on a scene.

Meanwhile, the boys have worn themselves out with their fighting and arguing.

Kevin, panicking because Charmcaster has his notebook and is also reading it aloud. As is the only proper response to such things.

Ben- out to stop Charmcaster because she a dangerous badguy Kevin- out to stop Charmcaster because she is reading his poetry aloud AAAAA

Charmcaster pls, stop being an ass for seven seconds

Child you cannot just recruit emo boys to write you sad poetry! Especially not after you just read their poetry aloud without their okay, it’s just not right! Besides, that’s not the look of someone who wants anything other than for you to close the book and forget you ever saw anything that was in there.

Charm: Work with me Kevin: Fuck you and the horse you rode in on

“You two are weak” Chamrcaster you only have power right now because you’re taking it from his poetry. I’m pretty sure that puts him above you on the scale by default.

Kevin, joining Team Tennyson purely to get back his notebook. Again, perfectly valid.

TL;DR: Kevin accidentally wrote a spellbook

I’m still wondering what it is that makes his poems work but not Charm’s actual spells? Is it the emotion behind them? In UAF magic was made of life force, in theory putting enough emotion into your writing could maybe imbue the words with magic? Is the solution to this puzzle that Kevin was feeling so strongly when he wrote this shit that they became magic on their own? Or does the amulet just search for true emotion in words and make it so? How is this all working?

If these boys could stop fighting each other for like 13 seconds we might actually get something done.

Charmcaster sealed Gwen’s voice with poetry. Welp.

Welp, the old ‘everything’s an enemy’ illusion trope. Not an illusion this time, but same deal.

Kevin: *easily sees through the spell because Charmcaster!Humongasaur keeps growing his damn tail* “You’d have to be a complete nincompoop not to see through this, right Tennyson?” Ben: *falls right for the spell*

Damnit Ben, Kevin thought you were better than that.

“I can’t not hit the dweeb now.” These children.

Charmcaster leave the innocent bystanders alone!

It takes Ben hearing himself get called Dweebyson to realize he’s fighting Kevin. Kevin knew the deal from the word go. Have I mentioned which one is my son?

Kevin makes Ben embarrass himself to prove he’s him, even though he already knows. Turns to him for a plan.

Kevin as Darkmatter: Finds Ben not timed in, fiddles with Omnitrix to bring it back up to charge, throws him at Charmcaster

“Stop her before she finishes that poem!” Well I’m concerned now

“I’ll show them all what I can do, I’m much more than a leech, their bodies paralyzed by words, their hearts grow heavy from my speech” Yes yes this was a very powerful verse magically I’ll unpause for the results in a second, do you see that second line? That second line there. Do I have to kill somebody? I have to kill somebody don’t I...

Huh, that verse increased gravity on the target(s).

Charm trying to recruit Kevin again, and he’s still turning her down because fuck her and everyone who looks like her. He looks so small in this frame. Very soft faced, he’s got two years younger from the stress of all this.

Oh and she’s pulling out WIPs to blackmail him into complying. I’m going to guess it’s less emo and more Gwen-focused, because I’ve seen media before in my life and know how that shit works. Would prefer more Kevin inner working stuff, but whatcha gonna do. If it is a love poem it’d knock down the rating though.

Also, when you’re so pissed the animators have to give you sharp teeth to emphasize it.

Okay, Kevin’s doodles are cute.

Also why do you have a note in your notebook denoting the secret shit Kevin? Do you have siblings or something? Who is going through your stuff, or that you’re worried might go through your stuff? Or are you just paranoid? It could be the last one.

Okay, so I’m paused on the poem in question and aww, Kevin’s ‘h’s go directly into his vowels. Yes I am commenting on his handwriting let me live. It’s an emotional poem and I’m working out things to say...

Kevin trying to claw his way forward to shut Charm up, it’s not working but he’s trying

Welp

Kevin, wearing a hoodie this episode purely so that during this scene he could drag it over his head to hide his embarrassment at having a poem about caring about Gwen read aloud.

I’m still deducting a point from the episode.

The good news is, the poem restored Gwen’s speech, which, I don’t know what Charm expected to happen there. Of course the semi-positive poem would have a positive effect, come on girl, do you know nothing of magic?

Okay, so, they’re gonna defuse Charm by using her own magic to silence her, via Kevin playing along and writing her a poem that’ll do just that. His improve abilities shall save the day, and what’s left of his pride.

Charm fuck off

Charm, digging your own grave, pls

And Kevin drops the hood when he sees Charm falling hook line and sinker, so proud of himself

Oh that was brilliant darling! “My spells undone, I’m speechless at my own defeat”, two lines and he not only stopped her but undid all the damage she caused! My son! My brilliant, poetic son!

Kevin, so smug

Gwen calling Charm’s ass out on treating people like toys when she of all people should know what that feel like

And not Charm’s amulet responds to her rhymes. Guess it does have to be tied to a proper emotion, rather than just being willy-nilly

Kevin is just happy to get his notebook back.

And Gwen compliments his work which, of course, leads to complete avoidance tactics. I don’t know what you expected Gwen, that last poem was all about him not knowing how to talk to you or even really having a solid hold on how he feels.

And we end with Kevin walking away as Ben disappoints everyone with more horrible rapping.

10/11, the Kevin stuff made up for the Charmcaster bullshit, but we still lose a point for Gwevin as is the rule. I continue to eye Kevin’s backstory with suspicion and suspense.

#ben 10 2.os

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in-this-light-on-this-evening · 5 years

Text

99 Question Tag

@your-basket-case tagged me - thank you so much dear!!! I'm a giant sucker for tag games, so here. WE. GO.

1.DO YOU SLEEP WITH YOUR CLOSET DOORS OPEN OR CLOSED?

Actually it's always half open because I need that air to circulate hah!

2. DO YOU TAKE THE SHAMPOOS AND CONDITIONER BOTTLES FROM HOTELS?

Only if I like the smell.

3. DO YOU SLEEP WITH YOUR SHEETS TUCKED IN OR OUT?

Tucked in! How can you sleep with sheets tucked out omg?

4. HAVE YOU STOLEN A STREET SIGN BEFORE?

I WISH

5. DO YOU LIKE TO USE POST-IT-NOTES?

Hm not really. I usually keep a big notebook/notepad on my desk and I fill it with things to remember, drafts, etc

6. DO YOU CUT OUT COUPONS BUT THEN NEVER USE THEM?

We don't have as a big coupon culture here in Italy as it happens to be in America but sometimes I do!

7. WOULD YOU RATHER BE ATTACKED BY A BIG BEAR OR A SWARM OF BEES?

Bear.

8. DO YOU HAVE FRECKLES?

No but I wish I had them!

9. DO YOU ALWAYS SMILE FOR PICTURES?

For selfies yes, for other pictures not so much.

10. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST PET PEEVE?

I have to many, honestly, but I guess Cancelled Culture and psycho stans are the biggest at the moment.

11. DO YOU EVER COUNT YOUR STEPS WHEN YOU WALK?

Maybe.

12. HAVE YOU PEED IN THE WOODS?

Yes. Traumatising experience.

13. HAVE YOU EVER POOPED IN THE WOODS?

You insane? I'm too scared of pooping in the woods.

14. I think I deleted this question on accident.

Lost in time and spaaace!

15. DO YOU CHEW YOUR PENS AND PENCILS?

Chewing pens and pencils? In this economy?

16. HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE YOU SLEPT WITH THIS WEEK?

3 with my imaginary lover.

17. WHAT SIZE IS YOUR BED?

I think it's an European King sized but I'm not 100% sure. I WANT THE CEASAR ONE.

18. WHAT IS YOUR SONG OF THE WEEK?

Hm, I'm still losing my mind over "Almost (Sweet Music)" by Hozier but I just discovered the new James Blake's album and that, as a whole, is a big mood for this week as well.

19. IS IT OK FOR GUYS TO WEAR PINK?

Bitch yes?

20. DO YOU STILL WATCH CARTOONS?

Sometimes.

21. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE MOVIE?

Hm, nothing comes to my mind at the moment.

22. WHERE WOULD YOU BURY HIDDEN TREASURE IF YOU HAD SOME?

I can't tell you. It wouldn't be hidden anymore although:

23. WHAT DO YOU DRINK WITH DINNER?

Diet coke or water because I'm too broke for wine.

24. WHAT DO YOU DIP A CHICKEN NUGGET IN?

Nothing. I die like men.

25. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FOOD?

Sushi, pizza, pierogi, carbonara, tomato & corn salad, fried mozzarella, tiramisù.

26. WHAT MOVIES COULD YOU WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND STILL LOVE?

Stardust, Dead Poets Society, Mean Girls, Little Miss Sunshine

27. LAST PERSON YOU KISSED/KISSED YOU?

A guy that broke my heart last year.

28. WERE YOU EVER A BOY/GIRL SCOUT?

Yes!

29. WOULD YOU EVER STRIP OR POSE NUDE IN A MAGAZINE?

If I wasn't an ugly potato... yes.

30. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WROTE A LETTER TO SOMEONE ON PAPER?

2 years ago, I think.

31. CAN YOU CHANGE THE OIL ON A CAR?

32. EVER GOTTEN A SPEEDING TICKET?

Who do you think I am? A redneck?

33. EVER RAN OUT OF GAS?

No.

34. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE KIND OF SANDWICH?

Rye bread + thin spread of cream cheese + lettuce + thin slices of chicken or smoked ham + tomatoes + red onion + pickled artichoke

35. BEST THING TO EAT FOR BREAKFAST?

Granola. Dry. Straight from your hand as if you're a starving horse in disguise.

36. WHAT IS YOUR USUAL BEDTIME?

00:00-01:00AM

37. ARE YOU LAZY?

I'm not lazy. I procrastinate.

38. WHEN YOU WERE A KID, WHAT DID YOU DRESS UP AS FOR HALLOWEEN?

Back in time Halloween wasn't a thing in Poland, so unfortunately I didn't dress up.

39. WHAT IS YOUR CHINESE ASTROLOGICAL SIGN?

I'M A HORSE.

40. HOW MANY LANGUAGES CAN YOU SPEAK?

3: Italian, Polish and English

41. DO YOU HAVE ANY MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS?

Nein, but I'd like to get Wired subscription.

42. WHICH ARE BETTER: LEGOS OR LINCOLN LOGS?

What are even Lincoln Logs... Did Lincoln harvest the logs himself, though?

43. ARE YOU STUBBORN?

Yes and no. Depends on the situation.

44. WHO IS BETTER: LENO OR LETTERMAN?

My tit.

45. EVER WATCH SOAP OPERAS?

Not anymore.

46. ARE YOU AFRAID OF HEIGHTS?

Not really. But if I find myself on the edge of something high without a fence, I'll probably panic and casually fall down.

47. DO YOU SING IN THE CAR?

Do I sing? No. I PERFORM.

48. DO YOU SING IN THE SHOWER?

Only when I'm home alone.

49. DO YOU DANCE IN THE CAR?

Yeah, sometimes when the inspiration and the right bop kick in.

50. EVER USED A GUN?

A glue gun.

51. LAST TIME YOU GOT A PORTRAIT TAKEN BY A PHOTOGRAPHER?

Does the mugshot for the drivers licence count?

52. DO YOU THINK MUSICALS ARE CHEESY?

Depends.

53. IS CHRISTMAS STRESSFUL?

The concept by itself isn't stressful. My family tends to ruin it with the overdramatic stress.

54. EVER EAT A PIEROGI?

BITCH THAT'S MY MOTHERLAND'S MEAL WE SNIFF THAT SHIT LIKE COCAINE.

55. FAVORITE TYPE OF FRUIT PIE?

Apple, rhubarb, pear.

56. OCCUPATIONS YOU WANTED TO BE WHEN YOU WERE A KID?

Doctor, fashion designer, archeologist, paleonthologist...

57. DO YOU BELIEVE IN GHOSTS?

Yes. I've had paranormal experiences and I'm still not over it.

58. EVER HAVE A DEJA-VU FEELING?

Very often.

59. DO YOU TAKE A VITAMIN DAILY?

No. I die like men.

60. DO YOU WEAR SLIPPERS?

Yes!

61. DO YOU WEAR A BATH ROBE?

I don't have any but I would like to wear one of those super cozy and soft ones!

62. WHAT DO YOU WEAR TO BED?

Hmm, depends. Now I'm wearing a hoodie, leggings and socks because it's cold as fuck.

63. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CONCERT?

I'm pretty sure it was DeMono, a Polish band. I casually saw them with my parents when we were on holiday back in 1997.

64. WALMART, TARGET, OR KMART?

I'M NOT AMERICAN BITCH. TESCO.

65. NIKE OR ADIDAS?

Both actually!

66. CHEETOS OR FRITOS?

What the fuck are FRITOS? I've never tried them, so I can't answer lol!

67. PEANUTS OR SUNFLOWER SEEDS?

BOTH. I'm a sucker for NUTS.

68. EVER HEAR OF THE GROUP TRES BIEN?

Of what now? Is this another American thing I'm not aware of because of my ancient and unbothered European nature?

69. EVER TAKE DANCE LESSONS?

Nein!

70. IS THERE A PROFESSION YOU PICTURE YOUR FUTURE SPOUSE DOING?

I don't care, really. I do care about them doing what they love and want to do. If they'll be happy about it, so will I :')

71. CAN YOU CURL YOUR TONGUE?

Sí, señor!

72. EVER WON A SPELLING BEE?

We don't have this in Europe asdfkgkf

73. HAVE YOU EVER CRIED BECAUSE YOU WERE SO HAPPY?

Kind of.

74. OWN ANY RECORD ALBUMS?

I have regular cd's but I would love to start a vinyl record collection.

75. OWN A RECORD PLAYER?

Not yet!

76. DO YOU REGULARLY BURN INCENSE?

I used to but I don't do that anymore.

77. EVER BEEN IN LOVE?

Yes but nobody loved me back.

78. WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE IN CONCERT?

QUEEN. On the more possible side: Andrea Boccelli, The Struts, George Ezra, MORE HOZIER, The Killers, Arctic Monkeys... The list goes on!

79. WHAT WAS THE LAST CONCERT YOU SAW?

HOZIER. It was a magical experience, I love him so much, I want to cry 😭♥️

80. HOT TEA OR COLD TEA?

Both.

81. TEA OR COFFEE?

Tea.

82. SUGAR COOKIES OR SNICKERDOODLES?

Both.

83. CAN YOU SWIM WELL?

Avarage just so I don't die sucked into the abyss.

84. CAN YOU HOLD YOUR BREATH WITHOUT HOLDING YOUR NOSE?

Wait, people CAN'T do that? What dysfunction do you have? It's literally so easy?

85. ARE YOU PATIENT?

Yes, very much but in the last couple of years I've started slowly losing my shit in certain situations.

86. DJ OR BAND AT A WEDDING?

Band.

87. EVER WON A CONTEST?

No. I'm an avarage bitch that thinks she's more than that but the truth is that I'm not a winner.

88. HAVE YOU EVER HAD PLASTIC SURGERY?

Does the surgery on my toe count?

89. WHICH ARE BETTER: BLACK OR GREEN OLIVES?

BLACK

90. CAN YOU KNIT OR CROCHET?

Not yet but I will learn at some point!

91. BEST ROOM FOR A FIREPLACE?

Living room.

92. DO YOU WANT TO GET MARRIED?

If I meet the love of my life then yes. The bar is too high, though, so I'm not sure if that's gonna happen haha!

93. IF MARRIED, HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN MARRIED?

94. WHO WAS YOUR HIGH SCHOOL CRUSH?

His name was William and that was the most embarrassing moment of my life because a bitch that considered herself as my "friend" told everybody that I had a crush on him. When he got to know it, he basically humiliated me in front of the entire clique, if not the whole school. I hate him ever since and it's been already 10 years or so.

95. DO YOU CRY AND THROW A FIT UNTIL YOU GET YOUR OWN WAY?

No.

96. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?

My dog is my son.

97. DO YOU WANT KIDS?

Kids? In this economy? On this planet? Just for my liking? Absolutely fucking not. That would be a crime and absolute torture for them and I don't want them to suffer as I do.

98. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?

Black, emerald green, gold, yellow, purple.

99. DO YOU MISS ANYONE RIGHT NOW?

Freddie Mercury.

I tag: @santonicababy, @chaotic-pansexual, @songparade, @fossa-poplitea and everybody else who wants to do this! :’D

#tag thingy #long post

8 notes · View notes

friendlyneighborhoodborg · 5 years

Text

Marc Appreciation Week 2019| Day 6: Collab| “Working Together”

Okay, this is actually late. It is past midnight, technically Day 7.

I am actually posting Day 7 later today, hopefully before the week is out.

Anyway here’s the 6th day, and the only chapter in the dumpster fire to actually follow the prompt given.

Disclaimers were in Day 1.

Chapters:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

AO3 Link

(~3200 biddling words. Why do I do this to myself?)

Marc didn’t know what he was. Today was weird: he didn’t feel girly anymore after last night, but at the same time he didn’t think the “he” suited him today. He realized this must have been what Alix was talking about before, about non-binary gender.

Being something that wasn’t a boy or a girl was trippy. Marc had felt it before, probably, but knowing what it was (which felt obvious now, considering… well, everything he was currently feeling) made it… something. For all the words he knew, he couldn’t peg one for the experience.

It occurred that he ought to have been surprised by how quickly he had taken to reconsidering his pronouns. But then, that’s what his gender did, didn’t it? Didn’t he always know that his gender did that? Hadn’t that been such a large source of his anxiety for years?

And now he was just rolling with it.

That morning, he had glanced at himself in a mirror, per his usual routine. His old adjectives, “Not him again” and “Could be worse” were absent this time. Instead, he had felt heavy. Overdressed, perhaps, only in his own skin.

But he could live with that.

It still stank, because French didn’t have a third-gender pronoun. That meant that, regardless of his actual self, he had to use male pronouns.

So, he comfortably got dressed, did up his face in a way he thought would suit him, and left for school.

Something was different that afternoon. Alix wasn’t in for some reason, which automatically meant the art teacher (he still kept forgetting his name) was more relaxed. Juleka and Rose were separated, for once. Rose was sitting in a corner, feverishly scribbling down notes in her pad. Juleka was in the opposite corner, reading a horror novel, and her ankle was shackled to a protruding pipe.

He approached Juleka cautiously, eyeing her restraints warily. “Did, uh…” He glanced up at the teacher, making sure he wasn’t listening. “Did Alix tell you?”

“Yeah, she got your text.” Juleka glanced up meaningfully at her girlfriend, by herself in the corner. “Lucky someone in this club has their head on straight.”

Marc chuckled. “I don’t know if we can say that, there’s like one straight person in this club.”

Juleka smiled for a second, then went back to reading her book. “And where was she, huh? Crazy overworked, fixing up stuff our last class rep neglected. Notice she couldn’t drop by all week?” She calmly flipped the page she was on. “Once again, Chloé got us into another fine mess that Marinette’s gotta pull us out of. Again.”

“What?” said Marc. “No, I meant… wait, Marinette’s straight?”

The musician shrugged. “So she claims. It is impolite to assume.” As normal, her expression and tone betrayed little.

“Biggest shock of my week,” was Marc’s jested reply. “But I was talking about Nathaniel.”

“Hm? Oh yeah.” She pulled up one hand to do finger-quotes. “‘Straight.’ That’s definitely an adjective that can describe him. Marc, have you seen the way he draws Chat Noir?”

“Of course, what about it?”

“Well, maybe you’re both blinded by the superhero’s skintight leather, but the boy is not that ripped.”

Rose hummed loudly. Juleka glanced up at her.

“I’m not trying to push anything, unlike some people,” she protested. “I’m merely pointing out that he should have already noticed by now, in a manner he will not pick up on for purposes of dramatic irony.”

“What’s going on?” he asked. “And what’s with you two?” He looked at the chain. “And… that?”

“She’s on probation,” explained Juleka. “Until she realizes what she did was wrong.”

“Probation of what?”

“Getting to run my hands through that soft, dark hair,” Rose replied for her, rubbing her fingers over the pages of her lyrics. “Holding her close to me, closing my eyes and breathing in her clove-scented perfume. Feeling the warmth of a heart matched beat-for-beat with mine.”

Marc looked back at Juleka. She was nose-deep in her book, but her forehead was sweating, her knuckles were white, and she refused to look anywhere near where Rose was sitting.

“Is that why you’ve chained yourself to this pipe?”

Juleka whimpered a little before answering. “It’s funny, in a tragic sort of way.”

“So, what’s holding Rose back?”

“Pity, mostly.”

“This isn’t about the makeup thing, is it?” questioned the writer. “I don’t blame Rose for anything that happened. I mean, it worked out, sort of.”

“Yeah, no thanks to me,” sniffed the poet. “If I’d have known…”

“Hey.” He approached her and offered his hand. “Hindsight is 20/20.”

“Still.” She rubbed the brimming tears from her eyes. “I was such an idiot, and you had to go through all of that because of me.”

“You’re still the first one who listened. Let’s be honest, that could have gone a lot worse.”

“I overreacted.” She looked down and continued to write, though it was mostly an excuse to avoid Marc’s eyes. “I thought I knew what was happening, and I thought I could help. I was wrong to try and do it by myself without seeing a second opinion.” Sniffing, she closed the notebook. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh…” groaned Juleka. “So close, Rose. Come on, I know you can do it.”

“Do what?”

“We aren’t be allowed to touch each other until she figures out exactly where she went wrong. She’s got most of it, but I’m not allowed to tell her the last one.”

“Okay, but why are you doing,” he gestured wildly at both girls, “this?”

“Because I don’t have the key and Rose is really trying, bless her.”

He looked between the two of them a few times, both of them equally miserable. “I get the feeling this wasn’t your guys’ arrangement.”

“It was Alix’s,” admitted Juleka. “We both went along with it. The chain was my idea, though. It’s the cruelest and most elaborate punishment ever devised, who do you think dreamt it up?”

“I mean,” Marc disputed, “I wouldn’t have pegged her specifically.” Particularly not after their little heart-to-heart yesterday.

“Never tick off someone with a small body-mass-to-temper ratio,” Rose advised. “Especially if everyone in her family is an ancient history buff.”

“What’s that got to—”

“Look, she knows a little something about torture.”

“Ah,” Marc commented, thoroughly confused and only pretending to understand. “You two look like you’re busy, I’ll leave you to it.”

He quietly took his seat at the back of the room, leaving the two to sort out their issues in peace.

All things considered, life was pretty good.

So why was Marc still feeling so anxious?

Nathaniel crept in through the door with his head down, answering the question.

“Nathaniel,” Juleka said. “Unlock me. I need to go use the bathroom.”

“Sure thing.” Nath approached her, holding something else up. “Brought your headphones, too, you left them in class.”

“It won’t work. She’s stuck in my head.”

Rose cast a saddened, dramatic gaze towards the writer in the back. “Pray you don’t become like us, Marc.”

Marc blushed. Of course Rose figured it out. She probably told Juleka, too.

Yet another thing to watch out for.

‘Wait, so is Nathaniel straight or not?’

Nathaniel joined him at their usual table once Juleka had been freed. “Hey.”

“You know,” Marc bet, “one has to wonder if that’s some sort of metaphor for something.”

The artist burst out laughing, but quickly shut himself up when he realized he was making noise. “Yeah,” he confessed. “Probably. But they’re good for each other. Rose helps Juleka’s self-esteem, Juleka keeps Rose grounded.”

“Yeah. They really are kinda fun to write. Speaking of…”

“Right! Back to work.”

“If we end off our comic there, Rose is never going to forgive us.”

“I know,” expressed Nathaniel, glancing over at the person in question. She was the only other student who hadn’t gone home yet. Volume up high in her earbuds, she wasn’t even looking at them. “But this story is way too interesting for one issue. With a cliffhanger like that, she’ll keep breathing down our necks to make more.” He blushed, realizing he had gotten ahead of himself. “I mean, if you’re okay with… I’ve really liked working with you and I want to—”

“Yes!” Marc blurted with a blush of his own. “I mean, um, yes. I would… I would love to keep working with you.”

“Okay.” He turned his attention back to the work. “So, if we end the issue with Princess Fragrance’s reveal, then that’s going to take a full-page panel.” He drew a border inside another blank page. “Right, so we’ve got that planned out. Now to just get cracking on those last few pages.” He surveyed the pages of blank boxes in front of him, each with a little note of what went in each. “And we know what has to be said at each bit, so if you want to edit specific dialogue, now’s the time to do that.”

“Cool. I’ll get on top of that.”

Marc’s brain suddenly took a dive, and he hastily tried to delete the previous sentence from his brain.

Each of them had the plans for everything, so they didn’t see a reason to talk much, a silence Marc respected even if he himself wasn’t comfortable with it. If it made Nathaniel more comfortable, he could swing that.

His brain needed to stop it immediately with the double-entendres.

The two of them worked for another few minutes, with only the sound of their pens scratching their paper.

Nathan, surprisingly, was the one who broke the silence. “So… last night you were a girl.”

Marc exhaled nervously. He wasn’t wrong, but it still felt weird to acknowledge the elephant in the room. “Uh, yeah.”

“Earlier yesterday you were a boy.”

“Yep.”

“So…” Nath bit his lip, which Marc had to avert his gaze from. “I don’t want to just assume, in case I get it wrong. What are you now?”

Marc had been stewing this over while he worked. Truth be told, he found he didn’t actually care as much today. He knew he wasn’t a boy, and he wasn’t a girl, but… he wasn’t really much of anything else either.

“I don’t think I’m anything right now.”

“Really?”

“Nothing, right now.” He shrugged. “I’m just… nothing.”

“How does that work?”

“Search me.” He shrugged once again. “I don’t have much of a gender today, I guess.”

“So…” Nathaniel paused. “It’s like there’s no… asterisks.”

“Asterisks?”

Nath winced. “Sorry. I was trying to be poetic, y’know, like you? You have this great, flowing… your words are just, they click. Does that make sense? It probably doesn’t make sense, forget I said anything.”

Marc smiled at the compliment, going back to his journal. “They’re just words.”

“They’re not, though, alright?” he declared. “They’re not just words, they’re you! The way you get words to line up, only you can do it that way. You’re so… smart, and creative, and… your writing style is just great.”

“Th-thanks.”

“I mean that.” Nathan looked away, holding his arm sheepishly. “You’re great, you’re really…” He shut his eyes. “Forget it.”

Marc blinked. “What was that?”

“Never mind. Where you at? Panel 9-g, the security guard is revealed to be possessed, Ghostlight comes out, and we need a good, punchy line to start the fight with.”

“No…” Marc closed his journal. “This can wait. What were you going to say?”

“Nothing important.”

“I doubt that.” He reached over the table and took his hand. “Nath, whatever it is, it’s important. You want to say it, say it.”

Nathaniel blushed. His mouth opened and closed, flopping like a fish, and he started to sweat.

Marc looked down and realized oh wait, he was actually holding Nath’s hand. He instantly let go, which seemed to shock Nath back into coherency.

“I can’t,” he told him.

“You can’t?”

“No,” he restated. “I’ll just mess it up, just forget it.”

“I’ll listen.” This gave the author pause. “I’ve been keeping up with you for the last week. I’ll understand what you’re trying to say.”

His face had determination etched into it. He opened his mouth and began.

“Oh!” Rose said suddenly, breaking his momentum. “Look at the time, I have to… go make an excuse.” She scooched off of her seat and sashayed out the door. “I’ll leave you two alone,” she called back, leaving the door ajar.

Both collaborators stared after her. The art teacher glanced in her direction, then he, too, left the room.

Nathaniel and Marc were alone. Nathan, only a little deterred, summoned back what little courage he had left.

“You…” He stopped. “You’re my friend, right Marc?”

“Yeah,” was the immediate, nodding answer. “I hope so, anyway.”

“And… I’m your friend, right?”

“Of course.”

“You… you’re so much of a better person than I am.” The boy gulped. “No matter… who you are. And today, it’s like… I’m so glad I get to see you happy.”

“Uh…” Marc nodded again in appreciation. “Thanks.”

“I mean, look at you, you’re happier, even if you’re still the same person who’s come in to help me with this stupid thing—”

“Nathan, it’s not stupid—”

“It is, though, and sometimes it feels like we’re the only people here who care about it. Only now you’ve changed, and you’re so much more relaxed now, and… And it’s good for you, right? You get to be so much more confident. Like just now, when you said you had no gender, you said it and you were sure.”

“I’m still not really sure.”

“You sounded sure, and that’s better than I can do. With pretty much anything. I’m not strong or witty, but you are. There’s just so many little things, here and there, and I can’t concentrate right. There’s just so many things about—”

The sudden halt from the speed at which Nathaniel had been talking gave Marc whiplash.

Marc looked at him, expecting him to finish what he was saying.

“I can’t…” he mumbled. “Just… that’s it, then. I don’t know how I was going to end that.”

“You feeling okay, Nathan?” queried Marc. “I don’t think I’ve heard you talk so much in one go.”

“It’s…nothing.” Nath took a deep breath. “I’ve been trying to… think of things I wanted to say—” He got out of his seat, turning away. “Never mind, it’s stupid.”

“No,” Marc stated, standing up behind him. “You’re not. If you need to say something, just say it.”

“I think—”

“Go on.”

“I think you’re—” Nathaniel swallowed his tongue and hunched over, covering his mouth.

“Nath!” Marc rushed to his aid. “Breathe slowly, okay? Are you alright? You look like you’re going to puke.”

“I didn’t say anything, just…” Nath’s voice broke. “Please, just drop it, I don’t wanna…”

Marc couldn’t believe it. Nathaniel, whose creativity knew no bounds, was censoring himself.

That could not happen.

And Marc needed to know.

“What if I don’t want to drop it?”

“Marc, please…”

“What if I don’t want you to be afraid to talk to me? What would you say if you could talk to me?” He looked into his icy-blue eyes, piercing through with his warmth. “What if you were about to say what I thought you were going to say? What if it’s that important that I hear how that sentence was going to end?” He snatched Nath’s hands from where they had covered his mouth and cradled them in his own. “And what if, by some miracle, I cared about how you felt and what you thought?”

Nath stared back at him, and both of them reeled from the shock of Marc’s outburst.

Then Nathaniel slowly started shaking his head.

“Don’t do this… don’t do that to me,” he murmured. “Stop doing that, you’re going to just regret it.”

Marc tightened his grip. “Just say what you wanted to. Stop putting up all these filters in your head.” He grasped at something. “Do the thing about the asterisks. What did you mean by that?”

Nath took a deep breath and tried. “Well… right now, you’re… no gender. No asterisks. No added stress. You’re just… Marc. Pure Marc.” He scowled. “I mean… that’s not good, is it, that’s not clever. Cause you’re not just genderless, are you?” He wrenched his hands from Marc’s ironclad grip. “Look, you could be a girl and I’d… you’d still be you. Same for if you end up a boy. You just get to be you. And… I like it when you’re you.” He stopped, looking to Marc for criticism.

After a moment, Marc smiled warmly. “That was pretty poetic.”

“Y-you do it so much better than me.”

They both smiled.

“C-can I—” Nath gulped, shutting himself down.

“What?”

“N-nothing.” He shook where he stood. “Forget it.”

“No chance.” Marc wasn’t sure where this courage was coming from, but he didn’t shake it away. “You don’t have to filter yourself. I won’t judge anything you say from here on out, you hear me? It’s the least I can do for what you and Alix have done for me.”

Nathaniel drew closer suddenly, his hand touched Marc’s cheek, and their lips barely touched. For a single half-second, their lips brushed against one another, and then Nathan drew back like Marc was a burning stove.

Both creators were left in a state of shock.

“Oh… my… God.” Marc gaped. “You…”

“Cute,” Nathaniel muttered. “I was gonna say cute. Before.” He looked down. “I’m… sorry, I’ll just…” He made his way to his bag, tripped on a chair, and started to bolt for the door.

Seeing Nathan start to panic and run away triggered something in him. He suddenly found a good reason to raise his voice.

Nathaniel had given him strength. Now he had to return the favor.

“Hey, get back here!” Marc called out, and the artist stopped. “I’ve had a crush on you for over a full month now. You get a do-over.” Marc surged forward, turned him back around, and kissed him again, this time much more solidly.

A few seconds passed and they separated. “You have a crush on me?” Nath said, confused.

Marc laughed a little at his expense. “There were times, even just this week, where something you did just completely killed me, stone dead.”

Nath blinked. “Do you want to go out sometime?”

“You see, this is what I’m talking about.” He pulled him close and hugged him tightly. “Son of a gun, yes, but don’t give me heart attacks like that.”

Nath’s arms awkwardly returned the embrace. “I, uh… I’ve never had a… an actual date before. What’s the, uhm… protocol, here?”

“Are you serious?”

“Half-serious.”

“Well don’t worry. It’ll be a learning experience for the both of us.”

We have always belonged together!

Nathaniel tore away from the embrace, turning sharply towards the door. “Rose, what the hell!?”

The little pink devil held the phone up high, volume turned all the way up. We will always belong together! Just keep moving on!

“Sorry,” Rose giggled. “My hand slipped.”

The collaborators looked at each other. Nodding a silent agreement, they chased after Rose together.

Okay. I don’t have much else to say right now, so... *shuffles away*.

#Marc Appreciation Week #marc anciel #nathaniel kurtzberg #juleka couffaine #rose lavillant #nathmarc #julerose #fanfic

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sabraeal · 6 years

Text

Desert & Reward: Chapter 4

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

Chaput is a man of Conti, four generations long to hear him tell it; a man more gnarled and twisted than the oldest birches on the preserve, but spry.

“Driven carriages my whole life, sir,” the man grunts. Time has worn his voice down to a rasp. “First for Conti’s grandfather, then the man himself. Now you.”

Obi closes teeth around, don’t get used to it.

“Fallen down in circumstances, then.” His mouth lifts at the corner, trying to make humor where there’s none to be found. He was good at that before he became a lord.

Chaput just coughs, mouth a knotted line in his craggy face.

Hopefully he’ll learn the trick of it again, after he’s not.

“Your name is fine as any man’s,” Chaput says at last, patting the shoulder of one of the leads. It snorts, nosing the man’s pockets like it expects a treat. “Old, for certain. Clearly breeding don’t matter a mite, considering how Conti ended up.” He cranes his neck north, wary. “That’s how a lot of lords have ended up, this time ‘round.”

Clouds hang heavy over the roofs of Cacciatore, bellies tinged a foreboding black, blacker than the lacquer on the carriage. Chaput’s face angles toward the sky, squinting into the distance.

“Maybe we shouldn’t risk it, sir,” he grunts. This conversation is as many words as Obi’s ever heard him string together at once. “Won’t do to get the wheels in a rut naught but a few hours’ ride from home.”

“There’s no use,” Obi tells him, “His Majesty will probably send a search party if I’m an hour late from when I should arrive.”

“Hn.” The man scratches at his beard. “The king expects troubles then.”

A grin twitches his lips.

“His majesty expects I am the trouble. Besides--” His eyes catch on the figures emerging from the house, clad in dour black. “I think I would rather risk foul weather than Mrs Carre’s mood.”

Chaput coughs. Obi suspects it might be a laugh. “Fair enough, sir.”

“I don’t like it,” Mrs Carre grouses as soon as speaking wouldn’t require shouting. Beside her, Morel startles, clutching at his heart like he’s near apoplexy.

“Mrs Carre!” Scandal seeps from every syllable. “You shouldn’t use such a tone --”

“Says you,” she snips cuttingly. “I’m not scolding him. I just think His Majesty could have waited until after the mistress arrived to call his lordship out. It’s all very sudden!”

Obi feels his mouth settle in a grimace, but he pushes it into a smile – a smirk, when it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Come now, my dearest Mrs Carre,” he cajoles, trying for his most charming, “coming when his master calls is the one duty a southern lord has.”

“Do you honestly forget?” Yori grunts as he passes, heaving the luggage onto the carriage. “You’re a southern lord too.”

Obi stutters in place, the thought, not for long, rises up, unbidden. He forces a grin on his face, forces himself to say, “A little humility impresses the ladies at court. You might learn some, Yori.”

“As you say, my lord.”

Mrs Carre’s mouth still sits in its thin line when he turns back to her, and he squeezes out just a bit more good humor. “It’s only a delay. We can have Miss come once I’m back. I’ll even write her when I leave Wistal to let her know.”

Guilt stings him when this mollifies her, but –

But what harm is it to tell this little lie, among all the bigger ones? None, just another on the pile for when the new lord arrives. The real one.

“I’ll be off, then,” he says, wishing there was some script for a lord bidding goodbye to his servants. Perhaps there is, but a man like him doesn’t know it. “I trust you all to take care of things while I’m gone.”

“Of course, my lord,” Morel hurriedly informs him. “All will be as you left it.”

Better than, he knows, but – but –

“Good. I’ll see you all when – when I return.”

What’s one more lie, for the road?

Chaput closes the door behind him, and Obi sighs, lets the mask fall as they ride away, and –

“Homesick already, my lord?”

His eyes slam open. “Yori?”

“We’ve barely left,” Yori presses, almost worriedly. “You won’t be like this the entire time will you? Does Wistal have parapets?” He settles back into the velvet, thoughtful. “Ah, but they would have guards to keep…people off them.”

“What are you --?” Obi can hardly move from shock. “How --?”

“I’m your valet, my lord,” Yori supplies easily. “Wistal supplies domestics, I’m sure, but when – when our last lord went to the castle, he would bring his own. I’m taken to understand this is how things are done.”

“You can’t come,” he blurts out, heart pounding in his chest. “What if – how could --?”

“You can send me back, but you have to explain it to Mr Morel.” His tone belies the confidence of his words. “Since I won’t survive it.”

Obi doesn’t need to imagine the storm that would cook up over Cacciatore for that. “Fine,” he sighs, settling back against the velvet. “You’ll come.”

“As you say, my lord.” Yori eyes him warily from his seat. “You did think to bring more than black, didn’t you?”

His mouth pulls flat, and he makes a show of craning his neck out the window, nearly head and shoulders dangling. “I wonder if there’s rails on this thing’s ro--”

“Black!” Yori blurts out, gaze rolled to the ceiling. “Lovely color. Hardly ever need too worry about matching.”

Obi sits back with a grin. “Can’t quite make it out from here. I’ll have to check at the inn.”

“Excellent, my lord,” he squeaks, face pale. He reaches over, fingers trembling, and yanks down the shade. “An answer I’m sure we’re all interested in.”

Dearest Miss,

I know you will be most disappointed, but I’m afraid sharing my bed will have to wait…

It’s half a week to Wistal, and Obi’s convinced that they’ll have to swim the last leg.

The sky opens just outside of Cacciatore and does not let up; they arrive at washed out bridges, detouring around to higher ground, only to get caught in ruts or sink into mires made nearly overnight. Of course it’s this trip that drags, that keeps him from – from whatever punishment His Majesty will dole out, that leaves Obi to imagine what sort of humiliation he could invent, given a few extra days.

There’s no use keeping a spy who can’t spy. Maybe, if he’s lucky, he’ll be sent back to Wilant.

“I asked Chaput,” Yori mentions, closing the blinds to keep out the rain. “There’s no towers between here and the capital. You’ll just have to do with brooding in dark rooms like the rest of us, my lord.”

He lifts an eyebrow, trying to smooth the twitching on his lips. “Don’t be ridiculous, Yori,” he drawls, affecting a disaffected mien, “I’ll just do it on the inn roofs.”

Yori stares, eyes wide, and, ah, perhaps if he can keep that dismay on his valet’s face for the rest of trip, it won’t be so bad.

My most benevolent Mistress,

I suppose I could say I’ve got both bad news and good news. You won’t get to sleep in my fancy bed at my estate, but at least I’ll be returning to warm yours soon…

He doesn’t know how to start these letters. It had seemed simple to keep the joke going, to reply to every flirtatious venture on Miss’s part with an even more brazen one. He hadn’t expected her to match him, to exceed him, to make him think –

It doesn’t matter. Not now. The joke has run its course, clearly.

“My lord,” Yori sighs, as other might sigh by the gods. “Perhaps just start with that you miss her.”

Darling Mistress,

I miss you. Also, I think His Majesty is almost certainly torturing me on purpose…

Lords enter through the Poet’s Gate.

He may not have spent long at Wistal, all things considered, but he’d learned that quick enough. Still, as he sees it drawing closer, fancy carriages slipping in and out of its shining pickets, Obi directs Chaput to the west.

The Poet’s gate might be for lords, but Obi is only one for a few more hours now. Better to slink in Starlight than to leave Poet’s in disgrace.

It’s too much for him, even then -- he doesn’t like this, doesn’t like being so conspicuous when he knows there’s a tree that hangs over the gate, when all it would take is a jump and a shimmy and he could stroll off to the west wing no one the wiser. The carriage grows a size smaller with each turn of it’s wheels and --

And it’s barely stopped before Obi bursts out of it, gasping for breath.

Gods, he hates those things.

“Obi!”

Of course, it would be too much for a moment alone, for a moment to catch his breath.

Master is a flutter of silk as he storms down the stairs, brow knitted in fury. Obi curses being caught in an open pavilion; there’s no way to throw himself out a window without walls, and no way to disappear into the underbrush when everything is stone and decorative shrubbery.

“Obi!” he shouts again, closer now, Mitsuhide following close behind, and Hisame trailing a dignified distance after. “You’re here!”

“Master!” Obi greets, ignoring the surprised glance Yori gives him as he steps out. “I am!”

“Good.” The word bites ominously into him as Master turns his back, as he gestures for him to fall into step. “We’ll go see Izana now.”

Obi stumbles a step, like a broken marionette. “I thought…” He glances back at Yori, who is very firmly doing his job with the luggage, and not at all eavesdropping. “I thought His Majesty would want to wait --”

“There’s no need,” Master tells him firmly. “We’ll sort this all out now.” He claps Obi on the back, his smile all teeth. “Don’t worry, I’ll handle my brother.”

“Zen,” His Majesty remarks mildly as the door to his study swings open. His gaze slips over Master’s shoulder, catching on Obi, and he wishes he could be anywhere else. “And Obi. Or should I say, Marquis Conti.”

“Should you?” Obi chokes out, swallowing down the lump in his throat. At least Yori wouldn’t be here to see this, even if he’ll have to send him home with the news. Maybe it will be more palatable from him, rather than the new lord.

“Should I?” His Majesty raises an eyebrow. “Ah, of course. I mean, Marquis --”

“We’re not here to debate titles,” Master snaps, throwing himself into a chair.

Obi just holds back, we’re not?

“Are we not?” His Majesty drawls, a second brow joining the first. He nods to another seat, and Obi scrambles to take it; anything to not make him the tallest thing when lightning strikes. “Then what could we possibly have to talk about that cannot wait until after the marquis has had time to freshen himself up?”

Master’s eyes narrow. “You know what. You’re not going to – to trap Obi like you did me.”

“I wasn’t considering it a trap,” His Majesty’s gaze flicks between the two of them, lingering awfully on Obi. “A problem arose, and I saw an amenable way to solve it.”

“You didn’t ask.” Master’s fingers drum restlessly on the carved arms of the chair. “You just decide.”

“That’s why I summoned him.” The king of Clarines folds his hands over his desk, slim fingers knotting over papers than decide life and death. That decide the fate of former assassins, who have somehow tricked their way into becoming lords. Obi swallows. “You’ll learn one day; some things are best broached in person.”

Master bridles. “And you think he would say no, when you have him here?”

A small smile creeps across His Majesty’s face. It is...amused.

Obi feels sweat prickle at his hairline.

“Why, no,” the king says, with the sort of tremor that would mark laughter, in a normal man. “I did not think he would say no.”

“You weren’t going to give him a choice.” Master’s fingers grip his chair like claws. “Just like I didn’t --”

“You did.” His Majesty had been known as the Ice Prince once -- still, if the gossip of the kitchen was to be believed -- and he earns it with the chill in his tone. “I am afraid princes don’t have choices than can be made without consequence. Do not blame me that you did not like the one that would come if you said no.”

“But this --”

“Life isn’t fair, Zen.” For a moment, he almost looks sorry for it. “It’s the only way to solve this, unless you think Obi would object to the match.”

That wakes him. “Match?” he interjects, blinking. “You’re trying to get me married?”

That’s -- that’s a world of difference from what he thought. Married.

Zen winces. “Obi, it’s just a --”

The door opens. His Majesty’s mouth curls into a self-satisfied smile.

“Ah, wonderful,” he sighs, standing. “I’m glad they were able to catch you in time.”

“I’d only just arrived,” says the intruder, breathless. Obi’s heart catches at the sound of her voice. No.

“Sir Obi,” His Majesty drawls, holding out a hand. “May I introduce you to your wife?”

Obi stands, and it’s as if every noise in the room has stopped as his gaze meets familiar forest green.

“Though,” His Majesty continues, more than a little pleased with himself. “I suppose your already know each other.”

“Miss,” he breathes, just as Master yelps, “Shirayuki!”

May I introduce you to your wife?

Something in his chest aches. It cannot possibly be his heart, not when it’s so clearly stopped.

“Perhaps,” His majesty says after a long moment, “we allow Lady Shirayuki and Sir Obi to freshen up before we get into the details.”

#obiyukibingo2018 #arranged marriage AU #obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #desert and reward #my fic #ans #a slightly shorter chapter #because i am a bitch who loves drama #but SURPRISE #glad no one managed to smoke me out on this plan #I WAS WORRIED

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sunsetinmyvein · 6 years

Text

Just Off the Key of Reason - Chapter Six - I Could Walk This Fine Line

Saturday, 17th of March, 2007 – Orlando, Florida

They hadn’t been able to find anywhere to sleep after their show in Florida, nobody had any friends this far down South and most motels nearby had been booked out, which meant an uncomfortable night on the bus was in order. After three nights in a private room and a hotel bed, it was a tolerable change but certainly not desired. The bus only comfortably fit them sitting down; sleeping on it required two people to sit in the driver and passenger seats up the front and then the other three people to share the remaining two benches in the back. The boys were fairly used to being forced to huddle up together from their early days of sleeping in cars to get to and from venues on time, so they had said that they would always leave the back bench totally free for their new companion who might not be as comfortable with being spooned in the middle of the night. Patrick had found himself unable to sleep, and surprisingly not because of the snoring of the man next to him who had an arm draped across his mid-section. He stared up at the roof of the bus, trying to work out what his next step was to not fall deeper into this pit of one-sided despair. Avoiding the issue hadn’t worked, distracting himself from his feelings was a no-go due to his own moral dilemmas, what else could he do? Maybe Andy wasn’t too far off the mark. How hard could it be to fake his own death? As his eyes slowly focused on the darkened surroundings, he could see a soft blue light slowly fading in and out against the roof of the bus. He sat up slightly, glancing behind him to see that he was not the only one still awake.

“Hey.” She mumbled quietly, looking up at him from her phone.

“Hi. Can’t sleep?” He whispered. She shook her head in response. He turned around to look in front of him at the sleeping car, figuring he had nothing better to do than clamber over into the back. Patrick was not the most graceful of people, particularly in a cramped vehicle while he was trying to free himself from the vice-like grip of a bassist who hadn’t had any affection in a while. But he managed to get over into the back seat without causing too much noise.

He paused for a moment before speaking; making sure that everyone was still asleep. The sounds of Pete’s uninterrupted snoring gave him the impression that he had done a half decent job at being stealthy. “What’s the time?” He asked finally.

“About four in the morning.” She answered, sitting up slightly and moving to have her back pressed into the side of the bus so that she could face him properly. Her eyes looked past him and out into the darkness beyond the window. It looked almost like the light blue hues of sunrise were starting to seep into the skyline, but she knew it was probably just the lights from the city. “Why are you still up?” She sighed, rubbing her eyes tiredly. He shrugged, not overly wanting to answer the question in case his lie was caught out. Eventually after a minute or so of silence that implied he should elaborate on that, he made up something that sounded half plausible.

“Just nervous about the shows I guess. You?” He asked back, wanting to quickly get away from his own answer. She studied him for a moment, and he worried she was trying to work out the authenticity of his answer, but she was warring about whether or not to truthfully give her own.

“My brain isn’t liking me right now.” Was the answer she settled on. He frowned at her in the dimly lit backseat.

“What’s wrong? Do you wanna talk about it?” He asked in concern.

“Not really.” She smiled at him. He held her gaze for a while, wanting to press her on the topic in the hopes of being able to help, but deciding to drop it.

They hadn’t had much of a chance to talk since the night at the club. Even on days off the band was escorted from interview, to photoshoot, to radio appearance, to anything in between that the label wanted them to do. Their time in Georgia had been non-stop until they had to leave for their show in Florida. Even after the show, the guys had only wanted to sleep so that they could make it to North Carolina early enough to find a bed at a motel near the venue and not deal with sleeping on the bus for another night. “How was your night at the club in the end?” She asked quietly, breaking the silence around them.

“Oh, it was uh… all right.” He lied, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“Mmmm… no, it wasn’t.” She smirked.

“What? It was fine.” He shrugged, breaking their eye contact and looking back into the bus to make sure everyone was still sleeping. The crescendo of snores implied he was still safe.

“You fiddle with your glasses when you’re nervous. So, I’d guess that you’re lying.” Once she had said it, a part of her regretted it because she expected the answer to really be ‘it was amazing’ and then for Patrick to launch into the details because she probed him about it.

“I…” Patrick opened his mouth to try and back up his lie, but he couldn’t think of anything to say and closed it again. “Well, yeah. You got me.” He sighed deeply. She winced slightly, preparing herself for the worst. “It was pretty terrible.” He admitted. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise, but he didn’t continue.

“How did you manage to mess that one up? That girl seemed like a sure thing.” She asked. Quiet returned to the vehicle as he tried to find the balance between the truth and not spilling his guts right there and then.

“It’s never a good idea to mess around with fans. Trust me on that one. Pete and Joe’s experiences have taught me second-hand that more often than not it ends in a lot more…”

“Effort?” She offered.

“Heartbreak and tragedy is more what I was going for.” He chuckled. “A lot of the fans think that I’m the talent behind the words, they assume that I felt the words they fell in love with and by extension they put all that on me. They want me to be this… tortured soul that they can repair. Which I know Pete gets all the time and he loves it to a degree.” He eyed the foot of the man in question that was sticking up over the back of the bench in front of them. “He loves the girls who think he’s a poet and think that they understand his brain, for a while anyway. Just like Joe loves the girls who think he has amazing skills with his guitar.” He could see the guitarists mop of hair hanging in the space between the passenger and driver’s seat. “But in the end, all these girls want to change them. They want to fix Pete and make him write happy songs about them. They want to be Joe’s one and only and be the one he winks at in the crowd. I’ve seen it a million times; they charm a girl and she thinks she’s special and then gets heartbroken when it turns out she’s not. Then we have a week of damage control and a lifetime of LiveJournal and Myspace posts written about what assholes we are. I don’t like being known for that…” He stared down at his hands, picking a little at the side of his nail. “I’m just me. I’m not the lead guitarist, I’m not the mind behind the words. I’m just the means by which they’re broadcast, the shy guy who forces himself on stage for the sake of his friends. I’m the dork behind the spotlight. I’m not the one who breaks hearts.” He finished, shaking his head slightly.

She stared at the man opposite her, feeling her heart swell somewhat at his words. Her thoughts raced at all the information he’d just laid out that she was trying to process. For a start: he hadn’t done anything with the girl everyone assumed he went home with and talked about the whole taxi ride back to the hotel. That was an instant load off her mind that she didn’t realise she was carrying. In addition to that, he had also just confessed to not even wanting that lifestyle.

“I-I’m sorry. I was just rambling, don’t mind me-” He spoke, breaking her train of thought.

“No! No, don’t be sorry.” She quickly interjected, not realising the volume of her voice and hearing Pete grunt in response from the bench in front. They both instantly stopped talking, expecting him to have woken up and be about to make his presence known, but his snoring resumed shortly after. She took in a breath, trying to make sure her thoughts were halfway coherent before speaking. “You’re a great guy, Pat, and super talented. You may not write the words, but you sing them better than anyone else could and you help Pete put it all together. You may not be lead guitar, but you compose most of the songs, right?” He nodded. “Exactly. You do a lot for the band, even if it is behind the scenes. They’d fall apart if it weren’t for you holding them together. But the fact that you’re happy to do these things without getting the recognition from the fans, without being the one plastered on magazine covers like Pete is, and without using it as a pickup line, makes you an even better guy.”

“Nah, I’m not that great…” He dismissed, tearing his gaze away and scratching at the hairs resting at the base of his neck.

She didn’t know what more she could say to convince him, but she felt the overwhelming need to do just that. Staring at the overly modest boy opposite her, she did the only thing she could think to and tackled him in a hug. A small ‘oof’ escaped his lips at the sudden pressure on him, and it took him a moment to realise what was happening.

“Just accept it, you’re awesome.” She muttered into the side of his chest. He felt his face burn up as he looked down at her and was suddenly very grateful for the fact that it was 4am and it was unlikely she’d be able to see it in on his face. Though, she didn’t seem like she was moving any time soon either. He slowly moved his arms to wrap around her, figuring that it wouldn’t be so bad to return the gesture when his common sense was shouting at him to move back to the other bench. She had said she wasn’t feeling great, he was just being a good friend. Right? It sat at the back of his mind that he was pretty sure this was the first time that they’d actually hugged. She mumbled something in his shirt, her words heavily slurred by what he imagined was tiredness; he thought he heard the word ‘sleep’ mixed in there somewhere. Sighing quietly to nobody in particular, he shuffled slightly to make himself more comfortable, figuring they wouldn’t be moving any time soon. He found his hand resting in the hair falling onto her back, it still smelled of free hotel shampoo. His brain warned him repeatedly that he was walking a very fine line between falling deeper and friendship. But, what else could he do other than resign himself to his fate?

Sunday, 18th of March, 2007 – Orlando, Florida

He was awoken with a start the next morning by someone poking him in the face. His eyes fluttered open to see Pete leaning over the bench in front of him, grinning like a maniac. Looking past him slightly he could see that Andy and Joe had already left the bus. The sun was well and truly shining outside and it looked like cars were passing by on the road near where they’d stopped to sleep. What time was it? “Sleep well, ‘Trick?” He all but giggled.

“What?” He asked in confusion as he frowned slightly, his voice hoarse from having not been used in hours. The bassists’ eyes flicked down and he followed his gaze to see that he still had his arm protectively wrapped around her shoulders. His mind raced as their conversations from last night poured back into his mind. “Out.” He glared back at Pete. This time he did giggle as he exited the bus, closing the door quietly behind him and shooting Patrick a wink as he walked in the direction of the nearby roadside diner.

When he was sure that Pete wasn’t going to charge back and press his face to the bus window, he nudged her awake, removing his now dead arm from around her. She looked about as tired as he felt as she sat up, blinking a few times and eyes eventually focusing on him.

“Where is everyone?” She asked as she looked at the now empty seats in front of them.

“Already at breakfast I think.” He answered, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “You feeling any better?” He asked as he began trying to clamber back into the front bench so that he could access the door. His brain was starting to drive him crazy and if he didn’t get out of this confined space soon, he’d probably regret it. Witching hour thoughts of being okay with how close they had been were one thing, but in the cold light of day it was once again a terrible idea to try and pursue his feelings. He could see the band’s contract getting ripped up before his eyes, the looks on their faces. She looked at him for a moment, trying to remember what he was talking about.

“Oh, that.” She mumbled, remembering having admitted to him that her brain had been working against her last night. “Uh, yeah… I am actually.” The feelings in her chest fluttered uncomfortably and she tried to ignore the fact that she knew exactly why.

“Good.” He nodded, stepping out of the bus into the daylight. He waited for a moment for her to follow suit before throwing a blanket over his Gretsch to hide it from any thieves and locking the bus. They walked into the diner, and he chose to overlook the shit-eating grin plastered on Pete’s face.

#patrick stump #patrick stump x reader #sunsetinmyvein

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musicmixtapes · 6 years

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August 15th, 2018 Mix

Happy Thursday! I hope you enjoy this mix, I had a lot of fun curating a wide variety of songs that span over several different genres. Spotify Mix 1. Changes by Langhorne Slim - This songs moving acoustic sound and light hearted sound really correlates with the meaning behind it, the flowing feeling of life changing and the confusion of stepping into a new phase of life and being in the dark, but being ready for it at the same time. I think that this song really emotes the way that people grow apart during important shifts in life and how there is both beauty and sadness in this, it can be viewed as both because it represents growth and maturity. 2. Peach Scone by Hobo Johnson - Quite possibly the weirdest mix of musical genres in a song that is very strange but so much fun to listen to and very easy to sing along to also. Johnson combined a conversational spoken poetry and letter style message to someone he is in love with unrequitedly and adds a really cool guitar rhythm and beat to the back to turn it to a funny song. It makes you think about a first love or crush that you've had and for some reason can't let go of. I definitely never thought I would be into a song like this but the easy going vibe to it and the reoccurrence of the "maybe it's the thought of not being so alone" adds such a powerful to the center of the song. 3. The Record Player Song by Daisy the Great - The harmonies in this song immediately attracted me to this niche little artsy indie song that describes the ways that girls with a certain aesthetic try to portray themselves as being elusive and musically inclined, but in all reality are just misunderstood and a little self centered who don't really understand themselves. I think its so important that there is a song that pretty much outlines the "manic pixie dream girl" trope while validating that there is an issue with categorizing girls into one big lump even though they too are confused with their identity. 4. I Can't Tell What The Time Is Telling Me by And The Kids - I was so surprised to discover this perfect blend of rock and pop and that it was a sound that wasn't overplayed at all, mostly because, well, this band is pretty low key on the alternative rock scene. The musicians' proficiency is equivalent to the song's meaning which is always really cool to see with young bands. The essence of the song combines a person searching for deeper meaning with the current generation and the problems that lie within it concerning poverty and the epidemic sweeping the country; but it also talks about caring about someone while being unsure if they reciprocate feelings, smaller topics embedded within a bigger issue. 5. Bad Girls by M.I.A - This was a fun choice for me because I am in love with the show "The Mindy Project" and this song reoccurs in several of the episode when the main character, Mindy, is going to work and doing something that exemplifies strong female power, which we always love to see. I think that MIA the artist always adds a badass female persona to her music and opens up the possibility that not just male hip hop artists can be badass and have that gangsta style in their music. The beat along with the synth sounds is really catchy and great to pump up a night or a morning workout. 6. Art School Wannabe by Sorority Noise - I think the title basically sums up what the song is all about: basically the trope of having a tortured artist life and having to realize that maybe suffering doesn't always have to occur as much as artists think it needs to in order to create "good" art. I like the fact that a post punk garage rock band can laugh at their own perceived artist persona and that maybe life is a combination of highs and lows and the happiness can be portrayed within music too and can make enjoyable content as well. From a review of the song, a critic compared the song to the expression, "You can wear black on the outside and still be happy on the inside" which describes it quite well. 7. Hannah Hunt (cover) by I'm With Her - I am pretty sure I included the original song by Vampire Weekend in a past music mixtape, but my mom played this version in the car one day last week and I completely fell for this one. Something about the female take on this male to female love song made me think of it in a completely new light and the use of the mandolin and violin as well as the acoustic guitar completely transformed the song from a "feels" indie slow song to a folky indie song that breathes new life into it. The mandolin solo in the middle of the song combined with the violin solo made me feel l was kind of in the middle of an empty field listening to it. 8. This Is The Last Time by The National - Completely not acoustic or uplifting, in comparison this song is all about something ending and not wanting it to, but knowing it needs to because it is unhealthy and addictive. The National has come to my attention more and more recently because of their ability to include so many pieces of a band and make such simple sound at the same time, with such precise musical technicality. Berninger is such a proficient songwriter and is able to put a name and metaphor to feelings about relationships that us mere mortals are not always able to do. I think it's interesting that he has said in the past that he is very influenced by the writings of great poet Walt Whitman, as his influence is very clear in The National's song lyrics. 9. Table For One by AWOLNATION - This song comes from AWOLNATION's most recent album that was released a few months ago called "Here Come The Runts" which includes a lot of rock heavy ballads with very different storylines all centering around feeling like the smallest person in a group and being an underdog all the time, which I think is very relatable to a large demographic. I liked this song in particular because of the large swell of the chorus and it's sound shift in comparison to the very chill verses. The song's meaning is not that hard to understand from just listening to it once or twice, being that a summer love occurred and now one half of the equation is done with it, leaving the speaker at a "table for one". 10. Lady Grinning Soul by David Bowie - This romantically styled piano ballad is the last track off of Bowie's iconic album from his persona's Aladdin Sane perspective, which is a lot of people's favorite and has since then turned into kind of a cult classic in terms of music. The title, of all things, perplexed me the most and upon further inspection I discovered that a "lady grinning soul" refers to the feminine characteristics of a man's persona, which is so modern and ground breaking, especially for 1973 when this song was released. Bowie often talks about having a fantastical and idealized romantic obsession with people which didn't always pan out to be releastic, which totally correlates to the eclectic sounds of his music. 11. The Little Things That Give You Away by U2 - Taken from a commenter on Genius Lyrics this song is about: "Bono surviving an accident; a car accident it seems. He’s leaving clues all along the album about “a near death experience” that he has stated having no much long ago." This made me definitely think about the song in a different light and added much more depth to it for me. It has a classic U2 original sound that only the voice of Bono can give to a song, especially the deep writing that is focused in on a specific experience but can translate to much bigger world issues at hand, in this instance, communication and the trouble with people not being able to speak to each other normally. 12. Smoke Signals by Phoebe Bridgers - I could totally see this song being written as a poem first, being primarily that it follows like a storyline entirely and tells about a person reaching out constantly to the speaker in several ways in metaphor of a smoke signal on a beach. Bridgers voice is so soft and beautiful and makes you lean into the meaning of the song and listen carefully to every word there. I'd also like to point out the main use just of the bass guitar, a very quite additional guitar and the swell of string group that swells during the chorus which adds a very cinematic experience to the listener. She later revealed in an interview that this song was written to an ex lover and about their relationship and the complexities of it which is very heartfelt and personal. 13. Wes Anderson by Alex Lahey - Titled as the iconic director of our time who comes out with quirky adventure and life stories, Lahey created her one Andersonian love story within this song and brings us through a journey of her own with someone and the small things that one does with a lover can be the most special just because it's with that person who is held to such a high importance in our live's at the time. This song is just very simply written and laid out, not having to figure out that much to enjoy it because it's clear and concise about being a love song and it doesn't need to do anything more than that to be good and appreciated. 14. Big Sis by SALES - Very much reminded me of the beginning of Sonia Richardson's "Ruin Your Night" except instead of swelling and becoming a rock song, it was content with remaining a bedroom pop/dream pop style of song which I really liked hearing. I think the meaning behind the song can head in a few different directions but I heard it as being with someone who isn't content with themselves because they are trying too hard to be like someone else, most like their "big sis" which is well understood due to the repetition of that line which is pretty crucial to the song. But I think that the minimalistic style of song that is becoming popular in the indie world is really likeable. 15. Gap in the Clouds by Yellow Days - A singer and bedroom producer, artist Yellow Days came out with this song when he was only seventeen years old which is in itself impressive, but the fact that the music is so soulful and vintage sounding made me appreciate his youth behind the song even more. The artist explained about the song that, "It's about being in a depressed state for so long that your sky is full of clouds, but then that special someone makes a gap in those clouds and they can light up your world again" which is so beautifully put because it definitely describes love's ability to influence such a diverse range of music, even from someone with so little years on the earth. 16. Two Slow Dancers by Mitski - This track was released just a few days ago and I was so excited about more new music from Mitski, an amazing artist who is coming more and more popular on the alternative scene, having toured with Lorde on and off throughout the past year and doing shows on her own as well. This song lives and breathes nostalgia and the feeling of being young and slow dancing in a school gymnasium and wanting to recreate that feeling with a new love no matter what age you are. The feeling of being the only people in the whole world while in a dinghy school dance is so special, and as older people trying to stay the same is so difficult and sad. Needless to say, Mitski got it perfect. 17. 4am by girl in red - If a song were to correlate to anxiety and the overwhelming feelings one gets while trying to fall asleep, this would surely be that song because it's exactly what it is. Another great example of a young artist who is breaking onto the bedroom indie pop scene, girl in red describes how the feeling of thinking too much can cloud judgment and create this bedtime hysteria and creating an insomnia nightmare in such a short song. Songs like this are so good to listen to in order to gain the insight that music doesn't need to be seven minutes long to give a deep meaning into someone's emotions and thoughts. 18. Feeling Whitney by Post Malone - I'm not going to lie, when my little brother first put this song on in the car, I did not expect much from it because of his pension for heavy rap music that breaks the bass stereo system, but I was completely taken aback and completely shameful at my snap judgment just because of the artist that had created this song. Malone's completely unabashed story of his drug addiction and the struggle to try to find good influences who could help him get through a hard time in his life tugged at my heart strings so hard. The really interesting chord progressions totally impressed me along with his super folk inspired voice which rivals sounds that come from The Lumineers and Mumford and Sons. I would like to hear more of this from him for sure. 19. Someone Great by LCD Soundsystem - At first, I was convinced this song was about losing someone that the speaker was in love with but didn't appreciate fully and now wasn't able to talk to. In fact, it definitely could be perceived as a multifaceted song in terms of meaning, pertaining to losing someone and how everything that happens in life is colored gray by the loss of that person because it can't be shared with that person anymore. Upon research and reading I found out that this is actually about the death of James Murphy's therapist of all people, and then all of the details of the song really clicked into place for me and reached new levels of love for this track. I think it's so important to write about losing people that aren't just family members or loved ones, maybe just people you grow to care for platonically or professionally. 20. Los Ageless by St. Vincent - I have featured St. Vincent many times on my mixes by now because she deserves that and more at all times in her musical career. I believe that she has released this track as a single recently, as I have heard it a couple times on the radio recently and it has become one of my favorite car bops to dance in my seat to and then realize that the person in the car next to me is looking at me singing and dancing in the car. But although it is very much a dance electronic song, it still goes to the regular depths of meaning that all of St. Vincent's songs have, as it's about the complete juxtaposition from her other favorite city to talk about (New York). The you in the song can refer to losing a lover, a friend, a place, youth, fame, money, etc... I love this because the interpretation is left up to the listener. Thanks for tuning in, see you next week! Julia

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therainbowwillow · 3 years

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Oh yeah, here’s part 3: https://therainbowwillow.tumblr.com/post/640227062984130560/therainbowwillow

I’m tired of school, so I’m going to write now. This is part 4/?? of my Hadestown AU.

Here’s the premise/what happened last time so you don’t have to read it all: Hades is having a midlife crisis about the fact that his wife would rather be hungover than speak with him. Instead of getting a therapist, he decides murdering a very tired teenager is a far better coping mechanism. Hermes is so tired of his travel companions, Dionysus and Apollo, he gets hella drunk. Orpheus is blaming himself for the difficulty of their journey. He’s kinda losing it. He feels terrible that he let Eurydice die and now he must ask her to drag him out of Hadestown, given that he was shot in the leg by a would-be assasin. Eurydice is trying to keep Orpheus motivated to get out of Hadestown. It is going about as well as the rest of their escape attempt. Achilles is worrying about Patroclus, who was shot in the shoulder while defending Orpheus. Patroclus is trying to get him to shut up. The workers are taking sides. (Which must be fun because their choices are losing-it Hades or losing-it Orpheus. Then again, Hades wants to murder a kid and Orpheus just wants to not get murdered.)

Here we go:

“Orpheus, how are you doing?” Eurydice asks again. They hadn’t made it very far. In fact, the greenhouses were still in sight. She tries to ignore this fact.

He looks up at her with sunken eyes. “Please... can we... can we rest soon?”

“A little farther,” Eurydice tells him. “How’s your leg?”

“It hurts. Please, Eurydice... can we sit down?”

“Soon, baby, soon.” She’s afraid that if he sits, he won’t stand again.

“I’m so tired, Eurydice. My stomach hurts. I can’t remember the last time I ate. Explain again why I can’t eat with you? I can’t remember what you told me.”

She sighs. “The living can’t eat the food of the dead because they’ll end up stuck down here.”

He swallows. “I... I don’t care.” His legs buckle under him and Eurydice catches him before he falls. “I’ll work for Hades. I’ll do anything. Just something to eat. Please...” he implores her.

“Hold up,” Eurydice calls to Persephone. “We can sit, Orpheus.” She lowers him to the ground. He winces. “Please don’t talk like that. I can’t lose you down here, love.”

“I can’t do this.” She pulls him into her arms.

“We’ll do it together, step by step.”

He shakes his head against her chest. “I... I can’t. I can’t. Every step is torture. I just want to close my eyes and...” he sighs softly. “Never... open them... again.” His voice trails off.

“I know it’s hard, but you can’t give up now! You came all this way!”

“I’m too tired to walk any more. Let me sleep... please...” His eyelids are heavy. So heavy... he closes his eyes.

———————————————

Orpheus blinks. He’s laying on a cold stone floor. Eurydice is nowhere in sight. He calls out to her.

‘Eurydice... Eurydice... Eurydice.’ The walls echo.

“Hello?”

‘Hello? Hello? hello...’

“Orpheus.”

Orpheus shudders at the sound of the cruel, almost harmonic voice. It doesn’t echo as his does. “Who’s there?”

“Who’s there! Who’s there? who’s there...’

“There is no escape.” His breaths are slow and strained. The air is rancid. It smells of death. And his leg hurts. Gods, his whole body hurts. “You belong to Hades now.”

“I’m not dead!” Orpheus begs.

‘I’m not dead! I’m not dead. I’m not dead...’ his echo mocks.

“The King of the Underworld will see you now.”

The door to Orpheus’s cell creaks open. He tries to scramble backwards, but his wrists are shackled to the ground. Hades stands in the doorframe. He smirks. “You failed.”

Orpheus shakes his head. “No... no... I don’t understand! I didn’t break your rules! I didn’t sing.”

Hades strides to his side and takes a knee. He lifts Orpheus’s head to face him. “What don’t you understand? No one leaves Hadestown.”

“Please...”

“Your little muse watched you turn to dust. Must’ve broken her heart.”

Orpheus buries his head in his hands. He lets tears streak down his cheeks as he curls up on the floor. “Let me go. I’m not dead. I’m not dead!” He shouts.

“The girl, Eurydice. And your protectors, Achilles, Patroclus, my wife, they’ve still got a chance. I could call off my shades, boy, if only you’ll agree to my terms.”

“Don’t hurt them. Don’t hurt them... please...” he moans.

“That’s up to you, Orpheus.”

“Let me out of here!” He wails.

“Enough!”

Orpheus clutches his head. “Argh!” he cries.

“Do you want to be agreeable, or do you prefer this?”

Orpheus rolls onto his side. His head feels like it’s going to explode. “S-stop...” he groans. The pain fades.

“Do we have a deal or don’t we?” Hades growls.

Orpheus gasps for breath. “What... terms?” he chokes.

“You,” Hades presses a finder into his chest. “Help me get this place under control. Your song’s powerful, boy.”

“H-how?”

“Write a song for the shades. Make them listen to you. And I’ll let your friends go.”

Orpheus shakes his head. “Why should I trust you? You gave me one rule. I didn’t break it, so you killed me.”

“Because if you don’t, Eurydice is mine. Patroclus and Achilles will never see each other again. And Persephone will be left all alone. She’ll be forced to return to me.”

“I’m not yours to control. The workers aren’t yours to control!” Orpheus sits upright. His head spins. “Let me go.”

Hades smiles. “Fool.” He rises and slams the cell door behind him.

“Wait!” He shouts. There’s no reply.

Orpheus strains against his chains. His ankles are bound, and his wrists. He tries to pull the shackles off over his hands, but to no avail. He sinks to the ground. Every breath burns his lungs. He feels like he’s suffocating. The cell is dark as pitch and he can’t see an inch in front of him. The bandages around his leg had been torn off at some point. He feels his blood pooling under him. He wraps his hands over his head and sobs. He rocks back and forth against the icy floor until he has no more tears to cry.

————————————

“Orpheus?” Patroclus places a finger against the poet’s neck. “I can feel his pulse. It’s slow. He’s barely breathing.”

“Unconscious?” Achilles asks.

“I... don’t know. He’s not getting in enough air to keep his heart beating, but he’s not dead.”

“What do we do?” Eurydice whispers. “He can’t die now... not after all he’s gone through.”

“We carry him?” Patroclus suggests. “I don’t see what else we can do.”

“With haste.” Persephone adds, “Like the plants in my greenhouse, he can’t hang on forever.”

“Where do we take him? We won’t be allowed across the Styx,” Achilles says.

“Away from Hades,” Persephone responds. “Hermes can help us get him home, if that message is to be trusted. Regardless, we can deal with the Styx once we get there. It’s a week’s walk. Longer, carrying Orpheus.”

“Can he hold on that long?” Eurydice asks.

Persephone sighs. “I hope so.” She lays out a blanket. “This’ll do for a stretcher until we find something better.” She lifts Orpheus onto it. She takes one end of the blanket and Achilles takes the other. “Eurydice, watch Orpheus. If anything changes, speak up. Patroclus, keep look out.”

——————————————

Hermes stumbles along the road, a much more bearable journey while drunk. Really drunk. So drunk that Apollo’s poetry brings tears to his eyes where normally, he’d probably want to throw himself off a cliff by this point, envying Hephaestus.

He half-remembers what he’s doing. Finding Orpheus. Where had the kid gone? He isn’t sure. He feels bad to come home drunk, though. Orpheus had always hated the scent of alcohol on his breath. The boy’s mother, Calliope, had smelled of wine last he’d seen her. A painful reminder of his childhood abandonment. Of course, Hermes didn’t blame the muse for leaving the boy behind. A single mother, all alone in the rain and storms, with Apollo as the boy’s father? It had been for Orpheus’s good that she’d given him up. Protection from Apollo’s unpredictably.

“Hey, Hermes! We’re here.” Dionysus says, waving a hand in front of Hermes’s face.

He blinks and his intoxication melts away. The railroad stretches out before them, spanning far beyond the horizon. A line of mortals stands along the track, slowly boarding the train. Thanatos takes their tickets. “I ask you again, Hermes, can’t you get out of those damn meetings?” He calls.

Hermes smiles. “I wish I could. Tickets for three, Thanatos.”

“Ah Dionysus, come to see your mother. Say hello to Hypnos for me, if you see him. I’ve been busy lately. And you, Apollo?”

“Working for Demeter,” Apollo says, “Persephone’s late again and she’s tired of waiting. Looks like I’m the only expendable Olympian these days.”

Thanatos nods. “If you plan of convincing Hades to send her back... well, best of luck to you. I wouldn’t cross him like this.”

“What’s happened?” Hermes asks.

“You don’t know?” Thanatos inquires. “Isn’t Orpheus your kid?”

“Mine, actually,” Apollo interrupts.

“Yes, I raised the boy,” Hermes explains. “Is he alright?” He already knows the answer.

“Listen, I’m sure you knew he was going to look for her. He almost made it but... Hermes, we should speak. Alone.”

Hermes nods. Dionysus takes over ticket collection, grinning at the shades.

Thanatos glances over his shoulder. “I’m not supposed to tell you anything, but you’ve done me plenty of favors. Don’t tell Hades, alright?”

“Of course,” Hermes agrees. “What happened?”

“Orpheus made it to the throne hall,” Thanatos begins. “He sang a song. I’d never heard anything like it. Hermes, flowers bloomed. Flowers. In Hadestown. Hades seemed moved by the boy’s melody. The poor kid was half-starved though. And I’ve never seen someone so exhausted. He passed out. It broke the charm of his song. He woke pretty quickly, but not fast enough. Hades told him he could leave, but his terms were meant to be impossible. Orpheus wouldn’t be allowed to look at his lover, nor touch her. And he couldn’t sing until he’d made it out.”

Thanatos sighs. “Poor boy. He didn’t have a choice. He was far too weary to stand on his own. He was leaned up against the girl. Hades called he deal broken and... I’ve never heard someone scream like that. Persephone talked him down and Orpheus escaped with his life, only singing was forbidden. Persephone left with him.”

“The order went out the day before last: kill him. To every shade in Hadestown, after I refused to do it myself. And yesterday... I wasn’t granted a second choice. It was kill Orpheus, or lose my home. Funny, I thought I commanded a little more respect than that. But I couldn’t refuse so I went and found the poor kid. I saw how desperate he looked, staring up at his lover.” Thanatos pauses for a second. “I gave Hades his soul, but I didn’t end the boy’s life. His mind is locked up in a cell somewhere, but his body is still breathing. I guess he’s somewhere between life and death. I don’t know how else to explain it. Gods, Hermes, I’m sorry. I live with my brother though, and his wife. Hypnos and Pasithea shouldn’t have to reestablish their lives somewhere else, not because of me.”

“That’s worse than I could’ve expected,” Hermes mutters. “Hades cared once. For his wife, for his realm, for his people.”

“I’ll get you as close as I can to your boy,” Thanatos promises. “Hades will eventually notice that he isn’t really dead. You need to move quickly. Apollo’s medical abilities should be enough to return him to life.”

Hermes nods. “Thank you, Thanatos.”

“Now, let’s get going. These shades can wait.”

———————————

Orpheus opens his eyes. It hardly matters. His cell is too dark to see a thing, eyes closed or open. His wrists are rubbed bloody by his repeated attempts at escape. His throat burns with his every breath of the awful underworld air. It’s more smog and death than it is oxygen.

His mind is hazy. He remembers a long walk. He’d been looking for someone. Further details are lost to the fog of the Lethe.

The first night, he’d desperately tried to escape his cage, Orpheus remembers. The second, he’d sang until he couldn’t make a sound. The third, he’d heard voices. He’d begged for food or a sip of water. He’d received nothing. Was this the fourth or the fifth? He couldn’t remember.

He’d forgotten his song, note by note. He’d scratched it into the floor with the edge of his chains, but when he draws his fingers across the lines of his music now, he finds it means nothing to him. Dots and lines, not notes. To think that it had once been a language to him... he vaguely remembers sitting by a fire, scribbling down those very same lines for the hundredth time on crumpled papers, soft from being folded.

This is his eternity, Orpheus knows. He’d given up hope of escape or rescue. Hades would keep him here, alone and in pain forever. No food, no water, his restless sleep woken by the echoing screams of his fellow prisoners. Hades. The only name he remembers. His prison warden.

What had he done wrong? Orpheus wonders. How had he ended up here? What great cruelty had he committed?

“Eternity.” Orpheus rasps.

‘Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity.’ The echo of his voice bounces down the hall.

He shivers. Sweat beads his forehead. His shuddering breaths are heard only by the stones. He lays there a moment, silent and unmoving.

Light washes across his cheeks. He shields his eyes. “You.” The voice that greets him is gravelly and cold.

“Who am I?” Orpheus whispers, desperately.

The man smiles. “A shade like any other.”

“No... I am someone.” Orpheus takes in a shaky breath. “Or... I was.”

“Now you are mine,” Hades states.

“All of those shades were people once.”

Hades nods. “And now they are mine.”

Orpheus blinks. The light spilling in through the doorway is blinding. His eyes slowly adjust to the new brightness. He recognizes his visitor now, Hades, king of shadows, king of shades, a red carnation in his front pocket.

His memories flood back to him suddenly. His song. He sits up, weakly, but he lifts his head and... “King of shadows,” he croaks, “King of shades. Hades is king of the underworld.”

Anxiety flutters through the god’s eyes. “You...”

“He fell in love with a beautiful lady. Who walked up above, in her mother’s green fields.” His voice cannot reach as high as it once did, but still he sings, quietly, in a lower tone. “He fell in love with Persephone, who was gathering flowers in the light of the sun.”

“Enough!” Hades snaps.

Orpheus continues. “And I know how it was because...” he remembers her face. Eurydice, the love of his life. “He was like me. A man... in love with a woman.”

Hades glares at him, but the god doesn’t move, he doesn’t react, so Orpheus doesn’t hesitate. “Singing... la la la la la la la.” He stops singing, smiling ever so slightly. More than he had for days. “You still love her.”

Hades nods.

“Why then, do you take everything from her?”

He is silent.

“Her wedding ring is as heavy as shackles around her wrists.”

Hades opens his mouth, as if to speak. No sound comes out.

The words fall from Orpheus’s mouth before he has a chance to consider them. “Let her go.”

“She would flee.”

“Perhaps.”

“I would be confined to the underworld. An eternity without solace,” Hades says.

“Maybe. But love is... love is doing what’s right. Even if it hurts.” He thinks of his walk to Hadestown. His long, long walk.

“There is no love if she is not by my side.”

“If you care so deeply for her, give her what she desires: freedom. Hades, she doesn’t want to be locked up, the only key around your neck.”

Hades says nothing.

“You do everything for her. You give her everything.” Hades nods. “Except for what she needs. She loved you because she had a choice. What became of your love, King Hades? What became of her choice?”

“She promised me eternity.”

“And you promised her six months up above. Promises are breakable. Now Persephone’s just another slave to your electric city.”

“You know nothing of my wife, boy,” Hades growls.

Orpheus sighs. “I know of your workers,” he rasps. “How they toil endlessly for no reward. Meager rations, and worse pay. They have nothing and you have everything. They flock to your wife because she is a light in the dark. The darkness you created. What happened to justice? Fair contracts? The man Persephone loved is gone,” he finishes. He sinks back to the ground, one hand laid across the music inscribed on the dusty floor.

Hades rises. The door clangs shut behind him.

#hadestown au #hadestown fanfic #hadestown #therainbowwrites

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