#i think there are like four completely different essays dropped into the middle of this

[cringecompanionapologist]

Because I'm Bored: Doctors 1-13 Ordered from "Most Human" to "Most Alien"

So, some incarnations of the Doctor seem more "human" than others. Factoring vibes, aesthetic, social skills, emotional connection to companions, and then just shrugging and picking an order that makes sense, here goes:

Short Version, from most human to most alien: 1, 3, 5, 10, 9, 12, 6, 8, 2, 13, 7, 11, 4

(Very) Long Version:

Here There Be Spoilers for multiple Doctor Who Stories, the most recent of them being from Series 12 (and I'm not sure if the bit I'm talking about counts as a spoiler since it's just a thing that happens in the episode). Also this really got away from me and there are quite a few tangents in there. And because it's so long and it's very late I didn't really edit it, so I hope it's at least mostly coherent.

Most "Human"

Okay, this could be defined in a lot of ways, but based on my own definitions:

One:

The Doctor wasn't originally intended to be an alien, just an eccentric human from the future. So One isn't very "wacky". His cloths are a sort of vaguely Victorian/Edwardian normal. Because of Hartnell's age and health, he usually isn't very high energy. He's curious and mysterious, but if you didn't know from future reveals, you might not think he's a literal space alien.

Three:

This one was almost a tie. Three was the first incarnation to be established as an alien from his first story, and because he was written as an alien, he's more alien than an incarnation mainly written as a human. But, he usually comes across more like an eccentric professor with little regard for rules and regulations.

The UNIT Era setting might be a part of this. You take time travel from a Time Lord and what you've got left his a lord. He's an aristocrat who's fallen on hard times and had to get a job and is grumpy about it.

Five:

Five is one of the more cautious Doctors. He's aware of how his curiosity can get the better of him and sometimes tries to reign it in. He can also pass as human very easily. In Black Orchid, he fits perfectly into the setting, a costume party/cricket match in the 1920s. He is very traditionally British, and the British are almost definitely humans.

Five has more alien companions than most incarnations, which means that the ways in which he's alien don't stand out as much. He's been traveling the universe for centuries and he loves Earth, so he's picked up on a lot of human stuff. Adric and Nyssa are much younger and much more sheltered, so they're the alien fish out of water. Turlough has a bit more experience with humanity, but he hated it and is quite proud of being an alien to these people, actually. So, the Doctor blends into Earth surroundings while his companions either have no idea what's going on or are actively protesting it.

But, Fivey's still a space alien. He's still eccentric, and somewhat socially awkward. He misses social cues and tends to deal with emotions by avoiding them. Adric just died? Sadness is happening? Well, he doesn't know how to process and express that emotion while also comforting two people who are also feeling that emotion. So, he basically tells them to stop grieving and get back to the plot. He still feels emotions, of course, but he tries to ditch them whenever possible.

Ten:

He's often thought of as the most human Doctor. He's got quite an emotional range and can connect with humans very well. But, a thing with Ten isn't that he's the most human, but more that he most wants to be human. The Time Lords are dead because he killed them and humans are his adoptive species. But he can never truly be one of them. That's one of the many tragedies of the Tenth Doctor.

Ten is more overtly quirky than the Doctors listed before him. He talks a mile a minute, he's easily distracted, and he can say some very silly things. He's the guy who gave as "wibbly wobbly timey wimey". He's the first Doctor on this little list to regularly seem too weird to pass for human, though he still can when he's really committed to it.

Nine:

I honestly wasn't sure where to put him. He has a less quirky appearance than most Doctors, with his leather jacket not being out of place in a modern setting.

But, he's still very quirky with an added element of being unstable and more emotionally distant than Ten. He's a bit more cynical about the universe, having just come out of a war.

Honestly, 9 and 10 sort of tie. They're both human and alien to around the same degree in different ways.

Twelve:

Twelve changes a lot throughout his run, so it was hard putting him in one spot. He has the darker edges of Nine, but those soften over time and he becomes your silly professor who was in a band in the 70s.

So, in Series 8, he's a grumpy space grandpa. The first to point out that he's an alien. By Series 10, he's hung out on Earth for a while and lightened about. Strangely, he feels more human when he's being silly than when he's being serious.

There's also the added element of Moffatisms, which aren't exclusive to Moffat, but they are elements of the show that became more prominent around 2010. The Moffat Era had the Doctor as more genuinely socially awkward than before and more likely to view that as a problem. It feels like the bit where the Doctor's an alien but he's spent centuries around humans so he knows the basics at least was sorta lost.

Even though I called this a Moffatism, this trend only became more noticeable after Moffat left. We'll get there when we get there.

Six:

The only reason Six isn't higher on the alien scale is his darker, more violent edge. It doesn't feel very alien. But, Six is probably the most alien-looking Doctor.

Six is great at pissing people off, sometimes on purpose and sometimes not. But, even in the TV episodes that usually had weak scripts, you could still see how much he cared.

When I think of the Doctor being socially awkward, I often think of The Mysterious Planet, of all stories. Basically, Peri has a bit of an existential crisis over realizing that she's on a far future Earth and that Earth won't last forever. Six has a little speech about how everything ends at some point. It's not very comforting, but you can tell from his tone that he intended it to be. As a centuries-old time traveller, the fact that everything ends isn't quite that big a deal. You can just go back in time to before the world ended. But Peri, though she's been traveling with the Doctor for a while, is still a regular human from 1984, of a single time and place where time travel doesn't exist. So when something ends, that's it. The Doctor understands that Peri is upset and he wants to comfort her, but he doesn't understand her feelings enough to succeed at it. It's a great little moment from one of the more "meh" stories of the era.

So, there's the Doctor being an alien depicted in a slightly more subtle way, underneath the loud technicolor dream coat.

Eight:

A while ago, I made a post that sorted the Doctors into three loose categories. One of them was called something like Wacky, Zany, Silly, Fun-Time War Criminal. All the Doctors I'll talk about as the most alien are in that category. Eight is the most alien incarnation to not be in that category. Eight is a romantic, heroic type, who also happens to basically be a puppy with the zoomies for whatever parts of the TV Movie he doesn't have amnesia in.

I haven't seen a lot of Eight, so I don't have much else to say. He gets more seriously later on, because of the Time War and several companions dying. There's also a difference between the Eight Doctor Adventure novels and the Big Finish audios. Big Finish is where a lot of the "Eight gets more serious" arc happens. Both series have the overall plot of "the puppy is kicked repeatedly by absolutely everything". The EDA Doctor is traumatized by it and that's another thing that triggers an amnesia arc, but he remains upbeat when he isn't suffering The Horrors. BF Eight grows more cynical over time.

Two:

The Most Human of the Most Alien. He's very silly and very energetic. He plays the recorder and behaves in a way that often feels half-child/half-grandma. He's the template that all the other Wack, Zany, Fun-Time alien Doctors are built from.

So why's he the most human of that category?

Two actually has a unique skill. Though many incarnations of the Doctor can be manipulative, or use their understanding of people to accomplish their goals, Two is the most socially intelligent Doctor. He acts silly because he likes being silly, for the most part. People underestimate him, which can be useful. But, his more serious moments show a side to him that, though he doesn't act like a normal human, he understands humans, as individuals and as a species, very well.

Compare that scene from The Mysterious Planet I mentioned earlier to The Tomb of the Cybermen. Victoria is a knew companion who only became a companion because she'd otherwise have been stranded on Skaro. She's also just become an orphan. The Daleks killed her father. So, though she's trying her best, she's obviously not doing very well. The story stops for a moment and the Doctor talks to Victoria and what he says actually comforts her. While Six couldn't understand Peri's existential crisis, Two can understand grief, losing family, and being forced to leave home. So, he's able to emotionally connect with Victoria in a way Six couldn't with Peri, even though he wanted to.

Two's emotional intelligence gives him a strong human side, or at least a side that can relate to humanity.

Thirteen:

She's quirky. Very, very quirky. She has no attention span and often just does things. Chibnall takes the Moffat Era social awkwardness even further. Thirteen is self-aware and obviously insecure about not relating to her companions socially. She's also one of the more secretive incarnations, so she sometimes just refuses to connect with her companions, but even when she wants to connect with them, it often feels like there's a barrier between them.

Some of this is, at least as I perceive it, the result of consistent writing problems. Basically every writer of this era had difficulty distributing lines between the three companions and making sure everyone had something to do. Unless the plot had stopped for the characters to talk about their feelings, the companions tended to all fall into the stock "what's happening, Doctor?" role. I get the feeling that people who like these characters, and there are people who love these characters, love them for the fleeting moments when they get to be characters, when there's nothing else going on. Yaz stands out when she's talking to the Doctor on the beach, trying to sort out romantic feelings, but not when she's one of three companions in the middle of some Alien Bullshit.

But, you often don't get the "what's happening, Doctor?" Many scenes of exposition involve the Thirteenth Doctor thinking aloud, asking herself questions and answering her own questions, while three other people just stand there and wait to be addressed. Of course the Doctor is going to seem distant from her companions when she's talking to herself most of the time they're around.

Thirteen's social awkwardness actually led to a somewhat infamous moment in Can You Here Me, where Graham talks about having cancer and his fear that it might come back someday...and the Doctor straight up admits to being too socially awkward to know what to say in this situation and there's a complete tonal whiplash from Graham's serious talk about cancer to a "Doctor is socially awkward" joke, as if the seen was getting to heavy and the writer was desperate to change the subject.

A lot of people complained about this and the defense basically amounted to "It's not that the Doctor doesn't care about Graham. She just doesn't always know what to say.". My problem with it isn't that she didn't know what to say, but that she didn't try. Again with The Mysterious Planet. Six was also socially awkward and didn't know what to say to comfort his companion, but he tried. It didn't work, but he tried. And there wasn't a tonal whiplash, since Six not understanding why Peri's upset wasn't being playing as a joke. Thirteen can be socially awkward. She can admit to being socially awkward. But, what you had in that scene with Graham was a poorly timed joke that, because the show tried to lighten the mood, made it feel like Thirteen wasn't taking things seriously. That clearly wasn't the intent, but that's what felt so wrong to so many people.

So, she's about as far from Two as you can get in terms of social skills.

But, the fact that she is so self-aware, insecure in a way that previous incarnations weren't, feels like a very human trait. So despite everything I've had to say, she's still just shy of the top three.

Eleven

Quirky Moffatisms at full force. He is silly, acts like a child, comes with several wacky catchphrases, and sales of bowties in the real world increased about he said they were cool. That was supposed to be weird but the world changed for him.

Eleven is better at connecting to his companions than Thirteen, so I wasn't quite sure which to put first, but Eleven has more in common with the two I haven't gotten to yet. Thirteen didn't really have the confidence to pull of the "angry god" thing that some incarnations, especially in the the new series, sometimes do. She had her lapses in sanity and could be downright cruel during those lapses but it felt more like "the Doctor is having a bad day" than "Do Not Piss Off This Eldritch Horror". When Eleven snapped, it felt like the Wrath of God. No human could really do that.

There's a reason I call this one category of Doctor the Wacky, Zany, Fun-Time War Criminal. They're the silliest Doctors, but also the ones that are the scariest when angry.

Eleven is heavily inspired by Two, but I also tend to see him as combining traits of Seven and Ten. He's high energy and high intensity like Ten.

As for Seven, who was also based on Two, well, there are Eleventh Doctor moments that are basically their own versions of Second and Seventh Doctor moments. Victory of the Daleks has the "Daleks pretend to serve humanity to win their trust so they can take over" lifted from The Power of the Daleks, but while Two was scared of the Daleks, Eleven was enraged. In Two's case, it was because this was his first story. One rarely expressed fear quite this openly, which made it clear that 1. Two is different from One and 2. Daleks are serious business. For Eleven, it was something of a rehash of Nine torturing a Dalek in Dalek. Victory of the Daleks is made up of little moments stolen from better stories.

However, a deliberately similar moment isn't necessarily stolen. Sometimes, it creates another opportunity to compare and contrast. So, let's talk about Seven.

Seven

He's got all the clownish behavior of Two and Eleven, but he comes across as more alien from his tendency to act like a supervillain from time to time. It's all part of the plan and sometimes he screws his friends over along the way. Of course he still cares. Ace is still his Space Daughter. But, sometimes sacrifices have to be made to save the universe...

So, we did a Two vs. Six. vs. Thirteen on the subject of Comforting Companions. Now it's Two vs. Seven. Eleven in Betraying Companions.

Okay, not really. But the companions are made to feel betrayed, whatever the intentions behind it were.

The obvious two to compare are The Curse of Fenric and The God Complex. This is one of the more obvious "new who just does a classic scene" moments. Both stories have a reoccurring theme of faith, which has an effect on the Monster of the Week. The Curse of Fenric has one of the many varieties of Doctor Who Vampire that are repelled by faith. It turns out that the sign of the cross only worked on vampires because it was used by devout Christians. Any sort of faith works. A Soviet soldier repels vampires with a hammer and sickle badge because of his faith in Communism. The Doctor starts listing the names of past companions to repel them because he has faith in his friends.

Jumping over to The God Complex, we have a sort of Minotaur thing that eats faith. There's this weird prison hotel thing where people are shown their worst fears. Everyone has a room with a fear in it. Except for Rory. He's experienced all the Horrors and came back from the dead so many times that he doesn't care anymore. People who have some sort of faith tend to think of that faith when scared for their lives. So, the fear leads to faith, the Minotaur converts that faith into worship of the Minotaur and then it kills people.

The Doctor, Amy, and Rory end up in the prison hotel with a group of other random people. There's a gambler who believes in luck, a conspiracy theorist, a Tivolian, who are a culture of strategic cowardice, and his faith in his oppressors oppressing him, and a sane woman who is a devout Muslim. They all get picked off one by one.

Then we have the companions. Eleven has two with him, but Rory just kind of hangs back for this one. You have Ace and Amy. A names are apparently unlucky.

As companions who jumped at the chance to be companions, Ace and Amy have faith in the Doctor. In The Curse of Fenric, you'd think this would be a good thing, since it keeps the vampires away, but because of Reasons it becomes necessary to turn the faith off to save the universe. In Amy's case, her faith is putting her at risk of getting eaten by a minotaur.

So, the Doctor has to break his companion's faith in him.

But I also mentioned Two, so let's derail things even further to talk about The Evil of the Daleks. It's not as direct of a comparison, but I want to bring it up because the Doctor betrays a companion's trust and challenges his faith in him. In this case, it's Jamie. The Doctor tricks him into taking part in a Dalek experiment to discover the Human Factor, all the things that make humans special, so they can understand the people who keep beating them.

The Evil of the Daleks softens the blow. We see the build-up to the Dalek experiment from the Doctor's perspective. The Daleks demand that Jamie be used in the experiment. The Doctor asks why it has to be him and not some other human. The Daleks say that traveling in time makes Jamie unique. The Doctor asks why they can't just to the experiment on him, and since a later plot point in this serial is dependent on the Doctor NOT being human, I'm going to just say he was lying here. The Doctor's traveled in time too much, apparently.

So, the Doctor did everything he could to keep Jamie out of it, including lying to put his own life on the line. This was an absolute last resort and the Doctor tries to make the most of.

But, Jamie wasn't present for any of this, so all he knows is that the Doctor put his life on the line working with the bad guys.

So, it's not quite the same as the later Faith Breaking stories. The Evil of the Daleks feels more like a misunderstanding.

So we go back to Seven and Eleven. Seven breaks Ace's faith by claiming not to care about her, that he was just using her this whole time, and that he doesn't care if she dies. It's absolutely brutal. With Eleven, it's more about recklessness and incompetence. He failed to protect Amy. He let her down. He put her in danger knowingly, because he likes having companions and he cares more about having their company than about their safety. He keeps talking people into running off with him to see the universe, only for terrible things to happen because it wasn't safe. The Doctor knows it isn't safe, but he just can't stop endangering people's lives. It's more complicated, a deconstruction of the Doctor/Companion dynamic, but it seems like a last minute confession, like the Doctor is breaking down in the face of losing another companion. In the end, he did deliberately say what he needed to to break Amy's faith, but it doesn't seem quite so cold.

Eleven doesn't usually have master plans. He's just willing to get very dark in certain situations. Seven plans ahead, so you can't know just how long he was planning to emotionally destroy the teenager he sort of adopted. That also adds to the brutality. Ace's faith in the Doctor is more like a child's faith in a parent. Eleven was Amy's imaginary friend who turned out to be real, so it's a more abstract faith.

Okay, I've gone on an on and on about so many things. Let's wrap this up.

Four

Four is big and loud. His hair, his eyes, his teeth, his impressively long scarf...You can't not pay attention to him. He looks a bit silly, but he can also be a little intimidating. You have all the quirkiness of the Doctors we already mentioned, but with an added sense of authority. Everywhere he shows up, he just sort of takes over. Two and Seven will just blend into places at times, put Four doesn't need to. He walks in, offers people jelly babies, and starts asking about what's going on. People tell him. It's refuge in audacity. People are too confused to even ask questions and they just start following along.

If you take the idea of a renegade Time Lord: There's a powerful species of aliens and this one went rogue to travel the universe and help people, Four perfectly fits. He's authoritative, like you'd expect a powerful person to be, weird and distant from humans, as you'd expect an alien to be, and chaotic, like you'd expect someone acting in defiance of the ultimate Lawful Neutral Bordering on Evil.

Four is alien in a very specific way that might be the entire show, so yeah, he's the Most Alien Doctor.

This thing's really fucking long I'm sorry...

#all the doctors #first doctor #second doctor #third doctor #fourth doctor #fifth doctor #sixth doctor #seventh doctor #eighth doctor #ninth doctor #tenth doctor #eleventh doctor #twelfth doctor #thirteenth doctor #the essay to end all essays #i think there are like four completely different essays dropped into the middle of this #and yes i realize that i can't sound normal when talking about four #i have no idea why that is #i haven't even seen that much of him

[widowbitessting]

how would the trio react if baby was really overwhelmed with school? like she’s really stressed and was hiding it well but eventually just brakes down in front of them?

it’s completely fine if you don’t want to answer this

Hope you all enjoy

Livvy

xoxo

I feel like they'd see you come home, all smile at you but when your body starts to tremble and your eyes glass over with tears, their smiles would stop.

Natasha would be straight off her chair and approach you quickly, engulfing you in a warm embrace as you fully breakdown with the stress of everything.

Your heart would be hammering in your chest, throat tight, constricted as you howl and burrow into her neck or shoulder.

They would just hold you.

Let you have this cry that has been building for however long and offer small words of reassurance into your ears as you grip onto whoever is hugging you then.

If it goes as far as a full blown panic attack, Wanda would be the one to step in and bring you out of it; using different methods until you're breathing normally and are able to stop shaking.

When you're able to vocalise back to them, Carol would then ask a simple question.

"Sofa or the bed?"

Irregardless of the option you tell them, they'd do the exact same care.

You'd be carried to your desired location - because a princess shouldn't walk - and placed down in the middle.

Wanda would go and make you your favourite caffeinated drink as a one off treat, just to see you smile.

Every time your eyes stare off, Natasha would gently pull you back to her and make sure you're still with them. They can't lose you to your thoughts again.

Carol would then wrap you up in a blanket and then they would ask you to tell them what's wrong.

And wait so patiently for you to do so.

Even if you open your mouth and all that comes out is a squeak or more tears.

The Trio! will wait.

You eventually tell them about school. About the stress of it all and how you're so overwhelmed you don't think you can do it anymore.

They'd let you rant, let you get it out of your system until they offer their support.

Wanda saying she'll even go as far to get you a sick note for a week so you can look after yourself mentally.

It's something you contemplate.

Between the four of you though, you come up with small plans to ease the load on your shoulders.

Like one of them dropping you off at classes and picking you up so you don't have to walk (if there are days where you'd prefer to walk, one of the Trio! would either offer to walk with you or give you space, whichever you need). So you can enjoy that 30-45 minutes extra in bed.

Ensuring you have a proper lunch with you in a lunchbox of your choosing so you can eat during your breaks, and not just rely on caffeine and sugary snacks.

Help you in anyway they can with assignments, homework, essays, revision etc.

Help you understand that you're not alone through all of this.

The Trio! are right there with you to support you.

Everything that gets put into place is 100% on your terms.

They never want to come across as controlling.

Ever.

So the new rules are mentioned, discussed and agreed on by the four of you.

It's something you want.

Not something you've been made to do.

Natasha even cancels travel plans to ensure you're happiness and safety first.

Who's going to fire her?

It could take days, weeks or even months, for you to finally come back to them; less stressed, happier and back to being their bratty submissive whom they adore and love.

But that wouldn't stop them.

They would be with you every step of the way.

On the good days.

On the bad.

Because they love you.

#natasha romanoff #wanda maximoff #carol danvers #reader insert #sugar mommies #sugar mommies!asks #natasha x wanda x carol x reader #smu #spiderbites #sugar mommies drabble

[jikookuntold]

Hi! I appreciate your takes a lot, please can you share your opinion about this situation. Hope you saw Jungkook last Wlive which he did between Friday-Saturday night, at 2-3 am. Jungkook said there “I don’t have nothing to do to tomorrow. I will just work out tomorrow” then we know that JK spend Friday night before this Wlive at musicals with Tae and Wooga, and later on Saturday night he spent bowling with Tae. Two nights in a row he chose to spend with Tae. Ok. Whatever. Maybe Jimin was busy, right? But no, today Jimin said this: “ it would have been great if all the members could go together, but because we all busy with our individual work. But I'm still in the middle of preparations so I had time (other translation says *spare days*) in those few days after various film shoots and it happened to be on a weekend and Hoseokie-hyung also had a day off, so we went together.” So I have many questions here and confusion. Their stories contradict themselves, JK said he was totally free on Saturday, while JM said other members were so busy they couldn’t join even if he wished. I think JiHope visited Jin in the early afternoon, while JK fall asleep early in the morning (he woke up at 8 again, said he was tired and would want to sleep some more, it’s unknown if JK slept more). Soooo there’s several questions, and to be honest they don’t advantage jikook much. Just from following the situation: Jimin isn’t updated to JK’s life and didn’t know he was free that day? Or Jimin just didn’t contact JK and didn’t invite him for some reason? Or he lied that all other members had working schedule that day so others would look good in public eyes that they didn’t join? On the other hand. Did Jungkook just declined to go to JIn because he had something more important that day (bowling with Tae and and before spending morning on Wlive just chilling and doing nothing)? Or JK was just not invited by Jimin? And then again I don’t think JK lied that he was free on Saturday, he or Tae decided to spend lovely night bowling together. He was definitely free I think. So the following question is the most important one that bothers me: Why would a couple chose to spend their precious day off completely separately with different people? And that happened when finally their schedule would align (after one partner was busy with job), they what didn’t miss each other…plus while one of them doesn’t know the other one was free, and the other one was spending two days in a row with the same person, prioritizing that friend over his allegedly lover…how does it make sense? Maybe I missed something and didn’t understand it and drew some incorrect conclusions, and you would be kind enough to say where my logic lacks because honestly …it is confusing

ps sorry if i double posted, I didn’t understand if it was sent or the site dropped

Your confusion and the essay you made out of it comes from a little mistake in calculations. You forgot that waking hours for a normal grown up human being is at least 16 hours per day, and they can do multiple activities at the same day, like having schedules (not necessarily Hybe-related things), working out or going to musicals, or bowling or eating outside, and still having spare time left. And the bowling didn't happen last Saturday, the photos are from November.

Also you forgot that boot camps don't accept visitors at night, so what if Jimin wasn't lying or covering for anything and JK actually had important business during the day? Or JK just had things to do but didn't want to spoil and just said he will work out?

You see? There is no need for overanalysing or writing essays or calling anyone liar or calling a resurfaced friendly hang out from four months ago "lovely". Just chill ❤️

[laundrybiscuits]

(Untitled Steve POV: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4)

Steve pays extra close attention, but Eddie acts completely normal around him, afterwards. Steve had been a little worried that maybe things would be too weird, but now he’s worried that things aren’t weird enough. Something should be different, right? He’s not totally sure what or how, but it feels like something should be different.

With Nancy, Steve had felt the silver tug of a life ahead. He could see everything so clearly: dating, a proposal, a wedding with a suit and a white dress, a house with a TV room, kids, grandkids. His whole life laid out in one shining road so flat he could see all the way to the end in the distance. 

With Eddie, Steve doesn’t even really know what a real date would look like, not if either of them wants any kind of future with the rest of the world. It feels like he’s been taking a multiple-choice test and turns the page and suddenly he has to write a whole essay from scratch. 

The sex stuff is simple. He’s a pretty simple guy. He likes sex, and Eddie’s hot. It actually hadn’t been that big of a revelation.

It’s the other stuff that he’s tied up in knots about. He’s opened this door, practically took a crowbar to the lock, and now he doesn’t know where it leads. 

But it’s fine, because all he thinks about now is Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. He thinks Eddie is the kind of guy who it’s easy to get obsessed with. Eddie cares about so many things, and he cares with his whole body. Every single thing he does is turned all the way up, like it’s too big to fit in his skin. Steve doesn’t think he’s cared about anything he’s ever done in his life the way Eddie cares about the stuff he does.

Steve would give a hell of a lot to be something that Eddie cares about. 

“Of course he cares about you, dingus,” says Robin. “He only has like six friends who aren’t literal children, and you’re definitely in the top five. Maybe top four.”

“Wait, who do you think is his best friend?” asks Steve, because apparently he’s at a middle school sleepover, emotionally speaking; Robin pelts him with Jolly Ranchers until he stops asking.

———

Dustin’s been bugging Eddie more lately about dating and stuff. Honestly, Steve thinks things might not be going great with Suzie, but Dustin won’t talk about it no matter how many hints Steve drops. Instead, Dustin has been splitting his attention between convincing Steve to date Robin and convincing Eddie to date literally any girl who breathes in his direction. 

“I think that waitress really liked you,” he’s saying, though he doesn’t sound totally convinced himself. “When she gave you the fries, there was a moment. Back me up, Steve.”

“Absolutely not, Henderson,” Steve says, stealing a fry. Eddie bats him away half-heartedly. “Stop bothering people at work. They just want to get through their day, they’re not thinking about getting a date.”

“Oh my god, you hypocrite,” yells Robin, loud enough that Eddie kind of jumps in his seat, clutching at Steve’s arm. “You constantly hit on girls at work!” 

Steve gives her a look like stop fucking me over, Buckley, and she makes panicked, apologetic eyes back. “I mean, you used to. Past tense. You have hit on, uh, people, at work. In the distant, distant past. Not anymore!”

Robin is the worst wingwoman in the entire world. Steve kind of wants to slap duct-tape over her mouth until she can be normal around Eddie, who’s sporting a sly grin. 

“Yeah, Harrington. I seem to recall something about you striking out a lot, lately?”

Steve’s hit on exactly one person in the last few months, and in his opinion it went pretty well. He can’t say that, though, so he just elbows Eddie, glaring. “Shut up, I’m—I’m doing fine.”

“Su-u-ure you are, big boy,” laughs Eddie. 

It all works out, though, because on the way out of the diner, Eddie leans over and murmurs, “Just in case you’re not actually doing fine…I happen to have a free afternoon.” 

It takes Steve a second to remember how to walk again, and he has to jog to catch up. 

He obviously isn’t planning on dropping Eddie off first, but Mike says, “Hey, that’s the turn-off to Eddie’s,” loud enough that Steve can’t pretend to miss it, and he can’t think of a good excuse not to turn. Eddie doesn’t seem to be bothered at all, just hops out of the car with a jaunty little wave. 

It takes way too fucking long to drop Robin and the kids off, and Steve is practically vibrating out of his skin by the time Dustin’s front door swings shut. He doesn’t go tearing back to Eddie’s immediately, though. Even if he wants to. He needs to get his shit under control first, make sure he doesn’t come off as too desperate. 

Steve heads home and splashes some water on his face. He looks normal, in the mirror. Not like someone who’s planning to go over to Eddie Munson’s place for homosexual reasons. He’s not sure what that kind of person would look like, but he looks normal. 

He thinks about changing his clothes, but that seems too obvious. In the end, he just fixes up his hair a little and heads back out without changing anything at all. 

(Snippet directory)

#steddie #christ I have got to figure out a better organizational system for these #this is just a transitional bit really. I've been writing a lot of stuff for this & other snippet wips #yes including the hanahaki au #but unfortunately the other stuff I've been writing is all missing SOMETHING that I can't quite figure out #so! I am chewing the cud of Steve's voice and character development via this verse yet again #fic: come alive in the neon light

[cuthechicane]

okay fuck it we ball.

Red Bull Racing as the Hotel California: an Essay

(tw for genuine insanity under the cut)

there she stood in the doorway / I heard the mission bell: "she" — the rbr golden boy™. Historically there have only been two (Seb & Max); but "she" is also an ideal. There is only one golden boy at any given time; but the golden boy is not one person.

I was thinking to myself / this could be Heaven or this could be Hell: pretty self-explanatory.

then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way: the way — the road paved with gold and glory. It could be yours, if you wanted. If you're good enough.

plenty of room at the hotel california / any time of year / you can find it here: the red bull junior program with its 50,000 seats across different series. All fighting for four seats in f1 (realistically only three at the moment tbh), but only one is worth having.

such a lovely place / such a lovely face: the glamour of the red bull sports empire. The ephemeral mass-produced dream "red bull gives you wings".

we haven't had that spirit here since 1969: insert low effort joke about rbr only serving red bull energy drinks.

and still those voices are calling from far away / wake you up in the middle of the night / just to hear them say: ghosts of former trialed-and-errored rbr drivers. This is a very old story.

what a nice surprise: obvious irony. Contrast to line in previous chorus "plenty of room" — the rude awakening of getting dropped/shunned/exiled from the rbr ""family"".

bring your alibis: alibis — aka contingency plans. May allude to ultimately racing in a different series. It may go well it may go great it may even redeem you. But at the end of the day formula uno is always numero uno.

we are all just prisoners here, of our own device: multiple rbr drivers obviously but most notably Daniel & pre-alpine Pierre. You suffer this just to have this a while.

and in the master's chambers / they gathered for the feast: Christian Horner's annual silverstone barbeque (lol)

they stab it with their steely knives / but they just can't kill the beast: the beast — the easy answer here would be Helmut Marko; but also — the monstrousity of your own ambition. You want to kill him, you want to be his golden boy. You are disgusted and terrified of how much you need him to find you worthy. Which brings us back to:

mirrors on the ceiling: being forced to confront your own desire (delusions) but also self-doubt: am I truly as good as they say? Am I truly as good as I believed? Will I ever be good enough? Have I ever been good enough?

I was running for the door / I had to find the passage back to the place I was before: everyone that left that eventually found fulfillment & self-actualization elsewhere. Rediscovering the racing driver in you that fell in love first & foremost with the racing. Applies to many but mostly I'm thinking about Alex at Williams.

we are programmed to receive: can't get over the word "programmed" here. Driver development "program". So clinical. Mechanical. Methodical. Completely devoid of human sympathy.

you can check-out any time you like / but you can never leave: do I even need to say it? Daniel & Seb — "and then come home". Seb is probably the only one out of two people (the other being Max) to whom the word "home" does not come with baggage. (Or; relatively little baggage. There is still something to be said about leaving home to prove something to yourself & others and then ultimately being proven wrong. But of course the Sebrrari saga is much more layered & complex than that). For Daniel it's the return to the lion's den (knowing full well that it's a lion's den), because the lion's den is the only place that will welcome him with open arms (open jaws) anymore. Time is a flat circle. For as long as you continue to want you can never leave.

#i'm going to lose like twenty followers for this unhingery but you can't expect me to be sane about this #if it wasn't for the big narratives who would even care about sports #rbr #rbr meta

[didsomeonesaydaddydraco]

My Oh My | Draco Malfoy one shot

Request: yes! @leydileyla (I would like to request a Draco Malfoy fic, with a Female Hufflepuff Reader (you don't need to specify Hufflepuff if you don't feel like it goes with the story) with the prompt,2. Take another step, and I can’t be responsible for my actions.Maybe it could be something like, they could have been flirting for a while and both sides feel like they are hitting their boiling point )

Word count: 3,205 words

Warning: drinking (just a tiny)

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Hufflepuff!reader

Note: This was a requests from the prompt list. Used prompt: “Take another step, and I can’t be responsible for my actions” 

They say he likes a good time

He comes alive at midnight

My mama doesn't trust him

He's only here for one thing

But (so am I)

The dungeons. The Slytherin Common Room was located there. A place for the cunning, ambitious, determined and resourceful wizards and witches. And of course the kingdom of the Slytherin Prince, Draco Lucius Malfoy. He was mysterious as the night, but oh Merlin, he was the most alive during the dark hours of the day. He really knew how to have fun and how to throw the best Common Room Parties without the professors or Filch founding out. Those parties were the topic of every conversation. Students were talking about how the Slytherins managed to sneak snacks and alcohol to their Common Room, and how clever they were to use the Muffliato Charm, so the loud music wouldn’t be heard from outside. But the most interesting and exciting part of those parties was the way students from other Houses were invited. Not so many people had the privilege to be good friends with a Slytherin, due to their struggles with trust, but that didn’t mean they refused to have some fun time with their fellow school mates. You could only enter the party, if a Slytherin invited you. They would leave a note in your book, on your desk before class or sneak it into your bag with the exact details and the password. That’s how Y/N was invited. Hufflepuffs and Slytherins were at the same Transfiguration class, and one Monday, when Draco Malfoy passed her desk, he dropped a piece of parchment. She bent down to pick up the folded note and give it back to him, but she saw her name on the middle of it, written in neat handwriting. 

Beautiful, come to our party this Friday, 10 at night. Bring only one FEMALE friend if you want. The password is serpent. I’ll be expecting you - Malfoy

That was the beginning of a beautiful flirtationship with the Slytherin bad boy. That night, Draco never approached Y/N, but he was always around her, glancing at her while I was talking to our school mates, staring at her while she was dancing with Pansy on the tables. After that party, it was hot glances at each other during class. Draco couldn’t kept his eyes off her, and after a while, it wasn’t enough for him. For some strange reasons, he wanted to be as close to the Hufflepuff girl as possible, so he made her House mate move from next to her and sat by her side during classes. Draco would greet her with a compliment, and Y/N would wink at him in response. The small nice gestures and words soon turned into more. She would stroke her hand along his back as she passed him in the corridors. Draco would touch her hand secretly while they were chatting with friends. He never hid how he was feeling about her, and wasn’t afraid to threaten anyone who tried to approach the subject of his admiration. The flirting between the youngsters was something that couldn’t stay unnoticed by anyone. 

“Who is the boy?” Her mother would ask when she was back at home for Christmas. She kept receiving owls with litters and small parcels with her name on top of them. Same neat handwriting. She would smile brightly and even blush while reading the shorter or longer notes attached to her gifts from Malfoy. 

“It’s probably still Draco” Y/N’s sister groaned and with an annoyed expression on her face, she shoo away the owl. She didn’t like the idea of her sister being involved with someone who was mostly famous for his jerk behaviour and the idea he was brought up in. In her eyes, Draco Malfoy was the devil himself. She wanted to hex him just because he would breathe around her. Of course she didn’t want Y/N to get hurt or being used by him. 

“Draco? As in Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy’s son?” Their mother looked up from her book and her kind eyes focused on her youngest child. She knew that family and heard enough about their shady businesses and arrogant behaviour “I don’t trust him, darling” she shook her head disapprovingly.

“You know he likes to sleep around and mess with girls, right?” Her sister asked, but Y/N shut their voices out. Of course she heard about his reputation, and even saw him throwing girls away from one day to another, but that was what pulled her in. She wanted his taste. Maybe he wanted only one thing, but so did she.

A little bit older

A black leather jacket

A bad reputation

Draco Lucius Malfoy. Everyone knew who he was. Everyone knew about his reputation at Hogwarts. And of course, everyone warned her about him. He had everything that a girl could wish for in a guy. He was tall and strong. He was hard to get and a total twat. He bullied everyone who wasn’t good enough in his eyes and he never regret it. But he had the most beautiful pair of stormy blue eyes with the slightest hint of baby blue in them. And that damn smirk that could make a girl faint. He was just a few months older, but his features made him look much mature. Y/N always found herself staring at him when he wasn’t by her side, just admiring the man he was. After a while, Draco would feel someone watching him, and would look for the person, secretly hoping it was the girl who he wanted so badly. He could have made her his fully, but they loved and lived for their little cat and mouth game. The bickering and flirting entertained not only the two of them, but everyone around them. 

“Bite me” Y/N said to the blonde bloke towering over her body. She couldn’t tell anymore what they were arguing about, she just wanted to push his bottoms and see when he would snap. Her remark made Draco smile at her darkly, and leaned in, dangerously close to her face.

“Where, princess?” His was deepened and he bit his bottom lip. A tiny gasp left her lips and he knew he won this round “You thought you were so badass, but then you met me”

“You think too highly of yourself” she rolled her eyes and pushed him away. Draco sat back next to her on the bench and put his hand on her thigh, softly stroking her soft skin with his thumb.

“Am I not everything you wanted?” He asked with raised eyebrows, and he sneaked his hand up a little higher. They crossed the line of innocent flirting a long time ago. Y/N and Draco were basically on fire when they were just simply in the same room, yet alone sitting next to each other.

“I wanted a little less arrogance” she pushed his hand away and stood up, grabbing her back from the ground and walking away with a huge smile on her face. She loved the affect she had on the Slytherin boy, and enjoyed teasing him too much to end it anytime soon. 

“You can’t resist me, Y/L/N” Draco yelled after her and watched how her hips swayed as she walked further and further away. That girl really knew how to ignite the fire inside him over and over again, but never stayed long enough to let it warm her. Draco smiled at the thought of chasing after her in the corridors and throwing her over his shoulder to her back to his room. 

Insatiable habits

He was onto me, one look and I couldn't breathe

Yeah, I said, "If you kiss me

I might let it happen”

I swear on my life that I've been a good girl

Tonight, I don't wanna be her

Y/N was a good girl, always the first to submit her homework and the one who volunteered to tutor the younger witches and wizards when they had troubles with any of their classes. She liked to know all her assignments were complete and outstanding, searching for new information about the topics of their lessons to add to her essay and show her professors how determined she was about her studies. She was nice with everyone, she was the shoulder you could cry on even if you didn’t know her that well. She liked to help people and loved to make new friends. But she had a side that only a few people knew. She wasn’t that innocent little Hufflepuff girl like so many students would have thought. She was always up for a good party and flirt with boys. They were young after all. It was their time to live, to experiment, to fall in love and to make mistakes. She loved her life and wanted to live it fully. That was what Draco admired her. Her essence and the way she saw life. She was fun to be around, and hot to stare at. And he liked to watch every move she took.

“Like alchemy, Kabbalah isn’t one generalised study either, but several different branches. The two beaches that specifically have the most influence” she was trying to teach Draco  everything about their Alchemy class before their midterm test, but she rudely interrupted her.

“You gotta stop doing that” he said with a teasing tone. He was laying on his side on the bed, keeping himself up by his elbow while he was playing with the rings on his long fingers. 

“What?” she asked with a confused expression and looked up from her notes. Draco wasn’t paying attention to her words, but the way her lips moved.

“Saying things that make me wanna kiss you” she annoyedly rolled her eyes and pushed Draco of her bed. She might tried to act cool, but she couldn’t hide the smile dancing on her lips and her eyes brightening up by the thought of kissing him.

——-

“See you tonight, Y/N?” Pansy Parkinson asked as she passed by in the corridor. It was Friday afternoon, and they just get out of their last class. The usual Friday Night Party was the topic of every conversation, which made Y/N rather annoyed. She found it weird that she wasn’t invited. The last four months, she was there. Draco always made sure she was invited and had her by his side the whole night. But this week, she wasn’t. She kept checking for little notes in her books where Draco doodled during classes or Study Halls, she reorganised her bag to see if he had slipped a piece of paper, but nothing. Maybe he didn’t want her there.

“I wasn’t invited” she shrugged and tried to hide her disappointment with a smile. The Parkinson girl laughed and hugged her by the side. They weren’t the best of friends, but it felt good for Pansy so have another girl in their group of friends, who was actually a lot like them. It was a nice change to be able to have girly chit chats with someone, who wouldn’t make gagging noises by topics like skin care, menstruation or clothes. 

“Oh, bunny” she shook her head in amusement. Pansy found it funny how a bright witch like Y/L/N could be so stupid sometimes “You don’t need to be invited anymore. You’re one of us now, so when you hear about a party, just know that it’s your party too”

“Then I’ll see you tonight” Y/N smiled happily and quickly kissed Pansy on the cheek before she hurried back to the Hufflepuff tower to take a nap before the party. Her afternoon was a blur. After she woke up, she found Parkinson sitting on the floor beside her bed, drawing little butterflies and birds on a parchment. Pansy insisted that they get ready together to the party, because she needed some girly time and she was fed up with Enzo and Blaise making fun of her for taking too long to get ready. So the girls went to her dorm room and took a few shots of Fire Whiskey while they were doing each others hair and makeup. Y/N had a plan for the night. She was done with their little game, and wanted Draco to finally make the first move. She had been trying to make him do something that would move their relationship forward, but it seemed like the Slytherin Prince was more than happy with their current status. If Draco wasn’t man enough to make a move, then she will do it.

Her dress was perfect for her plan, and even Pansy drooled over her a bit when she saw Y/N coming out of the bathroom. The dress she chose was a simple black dress with think straps made out of diamonds and reached only down to the middle of her naked thighs. The fine satin fabric hugged her feminizing curves perfectly, the light fall of it on her chest and the slit of the dress on her thigh gave the whole look a slightly innocent, but teasing vibe. And everyone in the Slytherin Common Room agreed on that. Boys turned their head after her and tried to talk to Y/N, but the Hufflepuff had eyes only for a certain Slytherin, who was nowhere to be seen at the beginning of the night. She was tipsy and waited for the two more shots she took with Theo and Adrian to kick in and push her into another stage of drunk. All her insecurities, worries and boundaries were long gone, all thanks to the Fire Whiskey burning in her system. She was determined, she felt irresistible and she knew she had the boy in her palms. He just needed a little nudge, to finally make a move.

Draco Malfoy wasn’t the one who was easy to be amazed, but when he finally spot Y/N walking towards him, he almost choked on his drink. He had seen her in a jogger and sweater, with absolutely no makeup on and with messy hair, and he thought she was the cutest little thing ever. He had seen her in leggings and a workout top, with sweaty hair and face, and Draco felt motivated to go and workout too. He had seen her with a high pony tail and her school uniform, and he thought she was someone who could easily beat Granger at studying. But this was new. She never dolled up like this for a party. Her dress, the way her corrugated, tied up hair swung from left to right in perfect harmony with her hips made Draco to think about a lot of unholy things. She was a goddess in his eyes and he wanted to be the man by her side. His whole body, his heart and soul had been burning for Y/N for months, and he was getting impatient with their little game. He desperately wanted to take the next step, but he wasn’t completely sure if she was feeling the same way. Of course she flirted with him. They had their heated moments, where both of them were seconds away from crossing the line and kissing the other, but somehow, they managed to control themselves. Draco loved to replay their playful fights, their bickering that turned into heavy flirting and the secret glances and touches when he was in bed and tried to sleep. He loved to see the light blush in her cheeks when he complimented her hair, makeup or just her beauty or brain in general. He absolutely lived for the flame igniting in her beautiful eyes when he said something dirty and naughty to her during class or Study Hall. But he wasn’t brave enough to actually man up and ask her on a date. Or maybe to be his girlfriend. They were far too deep for basic things like first date, first kiss or anything like that bullshit. Their relationship was on a different kind of level, and he knew she was someone you just don’t want to lose. 

“Hey, handsome” she greeted him from a few feet away. Draco knew Y/L/N and Parkinson were getting ready together, and the two witches pre gamed a little before they came downstairs. He also saw her taking shots with their friends, so he was sure she wasn’t completely sober anymore. Not drunk enough, to not know what she was doing or saying, but definitely not sober anymore to be shy “Haven’t seen you all almost all night. Here I thought you were ignoring me” she smirked at him and twirled the end of her hair around her finger, looking at Draco with tilted head to the side. She wanted to take a step forward, but he held out his hand to stop her.

“Take another step, and I can’t be responsible for my actions” he warned her, his blue eyes never leaving hers. He couldn’t take this anymore. They were playing a very dangerous game, and they were so close to hit their boiling spot. Y/N straightened up and started the play with the ring on her necklace. Draco gifted her his ring two weeks ago, after he got enough of her always stealing it from him while they studied together. Little did she knew, Draco meant it as a sign, that she was all his. He wanted the boys at Hogwarts to see she was wearing his ring and she only belong to him.

“Than maybe you should take a step” her voice was teasing but serious at the same time. She bit her bottom lip and pushed her hip to the side a little bit, showing Draco that she was waiting. It was all up to him. And he did. The sassy look on her face, the way she was biting her bottom lip and everything that had been building up in him for long weeks, gave him a final push and he said fuck it. He grabbed her and pulled her to his body. Their chests were pressed together, he could almost feel her heartbeat. She looked up at him, fire burning in her eyes “If you kiss me, I might let it happen”

Draco kissed her. He kissed her like he had never kissed anybody before. It was exactly like it was written in romance books and said in the films. They had butterflies raving in their stomachs. Fireworks behind closed eyes. Hands holding onto the other like their lives depended on it. Lips moving in perfect harmony. She was his. He was hers. After months of flirting, it was good to finally burn in their love. 

“Just for the record, you’re mine” Draco said and rested his forehead on her. They were both breathing heavily, trying to catch breathe after the kiss. She giggled at his possessiveness and rolled her eyes at him. Of course he had to show who was the alpha “Oh, and this dress is coming off at the end of the night” he winked at her and pulled her face into another passionate kiss.

#Draco Malfoy #Draco #daddy draco #draco fanfiction #draco x reader #Draco Malfoy one shot #Draco Malfoy imagine stories #Draco Malfoy imagine #Draco Malfoy x reader #Draco Malfoy x Hufflepuff reader #Harry Potter imagines #prompt list

[dailybeastarsthings]

Chapter 4 - Can This Day Get Any Worse? 4.1. It's Not Easy Being A Bunny

The school’s cafeteria is one of the main areas where all students can meet with each other without any boundaries. The area was designed to be able to serve all kinds of animals regardless of their species and sizes. The main area was dissected into three larger levels, which looked like platforms. They were bordered by wooden walls planted with succulents and tiny shrubs to create a greener atmosphere. The roof was made out of glass to ensure that natural light can always get inside. In the four corners and the middle of the cafeteria, there were large oak trees planted with decks on multiple branches. This served as the dining area for smaller animals, such as mice, squirrels or songbirds. The tree was specially developed so its leaves would rarely fall, in order to avoid any accidents.

The cafeteria was packed for dinner, as usual. Students lined up at the kitchen ladies, who served them the food. The meals were specially chosen and prepared to satisfy both herbivore and carnivore students. Each day, there were separate meals for carnivores and herbivores. Today, carnivores were given steamed soy beans, egg salad, black bean pastries and milk, while herbivores were given vegetables boiled in soy milk, fruit parfaits and orange juice. Of course, if a carnivore student preferred something from the herbivore menu, they could change their meals and vice versa.

In the mass of animals, there was a small Netherlands dwarf rabbit girl. Her name was Haru. Her fur was pure white with no marks or any other colors. Her eyes were pitch black. One could easily get lost in them, wondering what thoughts were being kept secret behind them. She was quite short even for her species so she wore shoes with thicker soles to add to her height. As she walked along the line, her uniform was flowing in the air.

Today’s dinner is my favorite, I just can’t wait to eat it!” she thought. “Now I just need to find a place to sit.”

She paced the area for free seats and found three tables with free seats. First, she walked up to a female mongoose student.

“I’m sorry, may I sit here?” Haru asked.

“Umm… Sorry, but I’m waiting for my friend” the mongoose replied.

Next, Haru walked up to a feline student, who didn’t even pay much attention to her. It seemed like she recognized her and since the situation was too awkward for her, she just went back to eating without saying anything.

Haru was a bit annoyed, but she still had one option, a group of rabbits.

“Hey, may I sit with you, please?” Haru asked them.

But they were so busy chatting they didn’t even hear her question. Haru’s ears drooped but she wasn’t the type of girl to get upset over a situation like this. She walked outside and sat down on the stairs to enjoy her meal.

“Oh well, I’m sitting alone behind the building but at least the food is delicious” she thought as she was eating her meal in silence. She suddenly heard another student calling for her. It was her roommate, Sally.

“Haru! There you are.”

“Oh, hey, Sally. Are you heading back to the dorm?”

“Well… umm… yeah. Why are you eating your food alone in this place? Don’t you think it’s too dangerous for a small herbivore like you to be alone after the incident?”

“Well… It’s better than eating alone in the cafeteria. Anyway, if you’re so worried about me, why don’t we have dinner together?”

“Oh… Sorry, I can’t. I can’t be seen together with you. Everyone in the school knows what you did.”

“Well, that figures” Haru sighed. “Everyone’s been avoiding eye contact with me for two days now…”

“Mizuchi is really mad about it. Take it from your roommate, okay? Try to act less resilient.”

And with that, Sally walked off without saying goodbye, leaving Haru by herself. Haru lost herself in her thoughts…

“Is it just me? When an animal is as small as I am, their body will sometimes shake uncontrollably from the pressure of their own heartbeat. If I were to just follow my instincts, I would just keel over and never get back up.”

Haru sighed. For the first time, she felt lonely. Yet she was determined to not allow it to get to her and stand up from this situation even stronger. She finished her meal and went to the main building. She still had some homework to do for tomorrow and wanted to finish it in the library. As she was going up the spiral stairs for small animals, a walnut shell fell down in front of her. And then a couple others followed, but this time, they landed straight on her head.

“What the…”

“Oops, my bad! My hand slipped” said a high-pitched voice.

“Did you get hurt?” asked another one.

“Oh, you’re probably fine, aren’t you? No doubt some boy will come running to save you!” a third added.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m fine” Haru replied. “Nothing you do can hurt me.”

Haru continued her walk up the stairs, trying to ignore the laughs of the other three girls, but she suddenly came face to face with them. It was Mizuchi and her two allies, a black cat and a raccoon. Mizuchi was a harlequin rabbit and a pretty popular student in Cherryton. If anyone, she could completely destroy someone’s reputation with a gossip in just a few days’ time.

“I guess all of your friends are ignoring you…” she said. “And yet, you’re still holding out quite well. But you do understand your situation don’t you? No one wants to deal with you” she said with the most satisfied smile on her face.

Haru didn’t mind the harsh words Mizuchi threw at her just now. She picked up one of the walnut shells and threw it at her.

“Yeah, yeah. I don’t have time to deal with you or your little friends so bye” Haru said while passing the others without even looking at them.

“Hey! I’m not finished with you!” Mizuchi yelled.

“If you’ve got enough time to spread rumors about me, you surely have enough time to make up with your boyfriend.”

“You have no right to say that! You’re the one who split us up in the first place!”

“I’m sorry, but he’s the one who kissed me. I don’t know what you were told and I don’t really care either” Haru said while turning around with a smug look on her face. “Still, a buck who’d get infatuated over a little kiss isn’t worth much if you ask me.”

And that was it. Right then and there, Mizuchi was destroyed and she knew it. The frustration caused her two-toned face to turn completely red. She picked up the janitor’s water bucket and threw the water at Haru, who fell to the ground.

“Listen well. We were a harlequin rabbit couple. Harlequin rabbits are an endangered species. We’re on a completely different league with obvious pedigree. And yet you, a plebian dwarf rabbit, went and destroyed that couple! How dare you! We’re going to spread rumors that you’re messing with other male students as well.”

Haru was not surprised by Mizuchi’s reaction but she was still a bit upset. Her clothes and fur were dripping wet and the other three were laughing at her.

“Let’s go girls” Mizuchi said. “You should really pick yourself up from the floor, Haru. Or don’t. It suits you anyway.”

And with that, the terrible trio was finally gone. Their footsteps echoed in the corridor for a few moments but with each passing second, they became quieter. Haru stood up and looked at herself. Her clothes were dripping wet. Fortunately, the water didn’t get into her bag, so at least her schoolwork was safe. She looked for the nearest restroom and walked inside. She went inside one of the stalls, closed the door and hung her dress on the door. She sat on top of the toilet seats and started the rest of her homework.

“Well, it’s not the library but at least no one should bother me here” she thought.

It didn’t take Haru to finish her school work. She completed an essay and two multiple choice exercises and was ready to go. She reached out for her uniform, which was almost completely dry. She got dressed, exited the stall and washed her hands.

“I don’t want to go back to the dorm yet… I’ll just spend some time around the back of the gym” she thought.

She looked in the mirror and took a good look at herself.

“When males see this face, they start to approach me thinking »I want to help her« or »I want to protect her«… But when they realize that I’m different from their fantasies, they use me and eventually leave. Right… The winners of this world are the animals who live by their feral instincts. I was destined to be a loser. I lived a life of being used as fodder for other animals.”

It was already late when Haru exited the main building. It was really quiet all over the school and only a few lights were on in the dorms. A thin layer of mist was resting lightly on the ground, deterring from Haru’s way as she took her steps towards the gym. It almost felt to her like even the mist didn’t want to touch her anymore. She reached the gym and headed towards the fountain in front of it.

Haru was always mesmerized by the dancing water. She didn’t know why, but she enjoyed looking at it for hours, enjoying the sight of the little drops being painted into colorful gems by the surroundings or silver tears by the moonlight. It was a place where she could calm herself down in all cases – exams, arguments, family life… But the peace and harmony didn’t feel the same this time. She felt as if someone was watching her. She heard a rustle from the gym’s entrance.

“Someone’s here. But who could it be? Do they know who I am? Do they want to hurt me? Or… can it be the one who killed that alpaca?”

She heard the rustle once again… The other one moved closer to her… Tears started to flow from Haru’s eyes. Her legs were trembling. She wanted to run but her legs wouldn’t move – they were heavy as stones.

“I’ll let you have me… But please… Just once in my pathetic life…Give me a reason to run away in fear… Give me a reason to cry in fear… Give me a reason to value my life…”

With all these thoughts in her head, she started running towards the arches. She couldn’t even make two steps though when she could feel her body being grabbed by large hands with sharp claws… She was trapped. And yet, she felt completely calm.

“Could you understand what valuing your life is?” she thought. “He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t have to. I can feel that his desires resonate with mine. I’m just glad they are not here to see me like this…”

#beastars #beastars fanfiction

[eqt-95]

s'mores

"You're doing it again."

"Hm?"

"You're on fire."

"I'm on-? Oh shit," Kate muttered with a slew of other curses, swinging the flaming ball of sugar from the end of her found branch. She shot Melvin and James a threatening look through the wave of snickers hidden behind their boyish grins.

"You sure you've done this before, City Slicker?" Melvin continued teasing.

"Yes," Kate growled, secretly grateful the tinge of afternoon sun could hide the burn from her cheeks. The glow of fire from the pit sitting in the middle of the group also added a distorted hue to everything. Plus nightfall cast a reasonable amount of ambiguity over the group. Honestly, Kate was looking for any excuse she could to deflect from embarrassment.

A fluffy white pillow appeared in Melvin's outstretched hand as an olive branch, and Kate begrudgingly took it, piercing it over the burnt crisp that remained from her last two failures.

"Maybe if you spent a little more attention on the marshmallow and a little less on-"

Whatever Melvin was going to say was drowned out by a sea of laughter coming from the other side of the fire. The side where Kate's attention wandered to. The side where she sat, her back poised up against a dead log, her long legs shifting between scrunched up, bound by her arms and stretched out and soaking in the heat radiated off the burning driftwood onto her bare skin. Her warm, soft-

"I'll take that," came Melvin's voice and with it the tug of the stick from Kate's hand.

She was hopelessly distracted; had been all day. It wasn't her fault. No living person should carry the laugh of two dozen angels or smile with the glow of the damn sun. How could anyone expect to carry on a conversation when the alternative was to stumble over words in lieu of hearing her voice instead. Or better yet, why would anyone remember how to swim when that was simply a distraction from watching the controlled, focused way she slid through the water. And certainly why would Kate Kane give a fuck about the bubbling skin of a marshmallow when she could watch the orange light flicker and glow off her skin.

"You could go talk to her."

"You say that like I'm a six year-old with a crush."

"Aren't you?" James asked.

It annoyed her when James chimed in. It wasn't because she didn't like James. It was that if James was clued in, it meant something incredibly obvious was being said.

Kate opened her mouth to argue but was rendered speechless when she looked up to see the spot opposite her sat empty. Her eyes darted around, squinting into the darkness beyond in search of her. She couldn't have just disappeared. Maybe she'd-

"Hey, what does a girl need to get a toasted marshmallow around here?"

Kate choked. On what, she had no idea. It was probably her spit, but that was more mortifying to admit than pretending it was a fly or the wind or something invisible.

"Wh-I-uh…"

To a third-party observer, the comical timing of Melvin's arm thrusting the marshmallowed skewer back into Kate's personal space would have triggered a laugh track. Fortunately for Kate, she was the only witness, but even then she still nearly dropped the gift horse onto the sand as he handed off the sugary baton.

"Uh, yea, I… er, I've been known to, you know… er, roast a good marshmallow."

Kate Kane was not normally an idiot, but somehow Sophie Moore had a knack for jamming the signal between Kate's brain and her mouth. Saying she regressed to a cavewoman was an insult to cavewomen. She was practically a potato. And honestly, even potatoes might object.

"Oh yea? You write your admissions essay on your unparalleled roasting abilities? That slow, rotisserie-style turning technique to ensure only the most consistent, caramelly, bubbly skin encapsulating the decadent, soft, gooshing center of the… uh, Kate?"

"Yea?"

"You're on fire."

Kate wished she was on fire. She wanted to roll right into the fire and face the same charred fate as her third failed marshmallow. Melvin and James didn't have the heart to laugh this time. Instead they flinched away, finding an adjacent log to occupy while the meltdown that was Kate's pride spilled onto the log and then the sand and then the fire and finally into the water beyond. Minnows were feasting on the remnants of Kate Kane. Her tombstone would surely read 'couldn't even roast a fucking marshmallow.'

"Here," Sophie smirked, slipping her fingers around the stick and tugging it away from Kate's unresponsive hand.

Kate relied on silence to guide the next few minutes. Silence and Sophie monologuing about the nuanced ways of properly toasting a marshmallow. The stick rolled seamlessly between Sophie's fingers, setting the pale pillow just within reach of the flickering flames. It was mesmerizing. If all Kate did for the rest of her life was watch Sophie Moore toast marshmallows, she'd be content.

At least, that was until Sophie proceeded to sandwich her perfectly roasted marshmallow between two graham crackers and a slice of Hershey's. Then Kate could have spent the rest of her life watching Sophie Moore bite into the s'more; bite into it and make an absolute mess of everything.

It was everywhere. Kate could have cared less about marshmallows ten minutes ago, but now she was so unbelievably jealous of the strings of melted sugar stretching and catching on Sophie chin, her cheek, her chest, her-

"You'd think I'd never eaten a s'more before. Is it kosher to just lick it off of everywhere?"

"I could help."

"What?"

Idiot.

"Uh, with the, uh… I can… here," Kate choked, swiping up a napkin and waving it a conservative distance from anywhere remotely close to Sophie's skin.

"That's not gonna cut it."

"The.. with the, I can… soap?"

"Soap?" Sophie chuckled. "On the beach."

"Sand?" Kate offered instead.

What a miserable existence. The only silver lining was that Kate had said two real words consecutively without stumbling over her tongue.

"Definitely more accessible but far from practical."

"Right."

"I have an idea."

Then Sophie stood up. Sophie stood up and stripped. Not completely, of course. That would have sent Kate into epileptic shock. No, Sophie did nothing that graphic, but the way she shimmied out of her shirt and cut-off shorts to reveal her bikini from earlier that afternoon set Kate's skin ablaze in a way that had nothing to do with the fire. Or the sun. Or the graveyard of burnt marshmallows.

"What are you doing?"

Four words. A new record.

"Well I'm not about to roll around in the sand."

Kate blinked. Processing. Whirring. Her brain flickered with understanding. "You're going into the water?"

"You coming?"

"Am I… w-with you?"

"Is there anyone else?"

"In the water."

Sophie's head turned in confusion, her eyes narrowing humorously back at Kate.

"You scared?"

"Scared? Me?" Kate repeated, and that's when she felt it: the flare of a challenge. Through months of skittishly toeing the edge, unable to articulate anything beyond a mound of farm animal noises, she had passively watched. She was an awkward observer around Sophie Moore. Nowhere else in her life did she occur this way, but Sophie was different. Kate wanted to impress her. She wanted to be smart and clever for her. She wanted to go toe-to-toe not because she wanted to beat her, but because Kate saw how Sophie could bring out the best in her. The only problem was Kate didn't know how to tap into that… until now.

She climbed to her feet faster than Sophie could register what was happening, and in the blink of an eye Kate had burst past her. "Last one in takes mess hall duty for a month!"

"Oh, you are on, Kane!"

#batmoore #batwoman #sophie moore #kate kane #fanfi #ao3 #oneshot

[dragonofthedepths]

29/100 (29th of June 2021)

(29/100) Written/posted for the #100daysofwriting challenge by @the-wip-project

I spent several hours today filling out a survey on my fanfiction reading habits! This was not supposed to take several hours, but my inability to answer any free form question without writing multiple paragraphs dragged it out much longer than it was supposed to be! Considering that this was done around baking, having a friend over, and finishing a drawing that according to the timer on my art program took me a cumulative 22.5 hours to complete, I figured I would just copy and paste some of my more interesting answers here for today!

Here’s the link to the survey if you want to take it yourself, apparently it’s part of some kind of collage study: 

https://robertgordonuniversity.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/fanfiction-questionnaire

Question:

What type(s) of library/libraries do you use? What activities or purposes do you use them for?

Answer:

The local library. I go there every now and then when I’m looking for an actual book to read, I usually have what I want already in mind, but might end up picking up something new from the same section if anything particularly catches my interest. Very occasionally I grab a few reference books, usually on things like religions that are harder to find a comprehensive reference for online beneath all the sensationalism and opinions.

I almost always spend at last a couple hours there, looking through my selection and reading a chapter or two. the only reason I’ll leave without sitting down and beginning at least one book is if I’m already late for something somewhere else.

Tldr: I use my local library, I do not go very often but I take my time when I do.

———————————————O0—0—0O————————————————

Question (fanfiction.net):

If possible, please explain your typical process for finding fanfiction to read.

Answer:

Whenever  I get interested in a new show I’ll latch on to a concept or particular character interaction eg. Villain!hero, ensemble finds out secret, character A needs a hug, character A adopted by character B, character C & character D friendship & hurt/comfort. Sometimes (especially if it’s a lesser known thing/has a small fandom) I’ll be as vague as favorite character, timetravel, wingfic, or soulmate AU. Whatever it is that I’ve latched onto, I’ll enter it into the search bar on whatever browser I’m using, and open whatever links look most appealing in a new tab, giving preference to stories from any website except Wattpad* over any king of collection, and links to Ao3 preference over links to anything else.

From there I work my way through everything that was offered, and as I do so I eventually come across new things that capture my interest, and —in general terms— follow them.

On ff.net I’ll follow the link back to the page for whatever franchise this is, then open the filter menu, select "all ratings" and begin using the filters to look for whatever character or pair of characters (seeing as looking for idea is not really possible on ff.net) interests me most in either the family, hurt/comfort, or angst genre depending on which has the most stories, unless one of them has stories in excess of 3 or 4 hundred, in which case I’ll pick whichever has the least stories. I’ll then go through the offerings, opening any story that look is interesting in a new tab. If I make it through all of that and somehow haven’t found something better to do on Ao3, then when I’m done I’ll go back to the genre filter and pick whichever had the middling number of stories, then after that the one on the opposite end of the spectrum from most to least. If at any point I’m offered more than 1,000 stories I’ll add additional filters until the results drop below 1,000, because I am not dealing with slogging through that much ff.net at once. If there is that much written for whatever I’m looking for, then either there’s some on Ao3 and I can leave, or I’m actually looking for something more specific and was just over-estimating how vague I’d need to be to get results at all. This is very methodical probably because I do not like this site and am putting up with it only to find what I’m currently looking for, I never get new ideas prompted to me or am enticed to wander off the beaten track. I don’t use ff.net very often, though still more often then I go to the library.

———————————————O0—0—0O————————————————

Question:

Are there any search features or filters you wish fanfiction.net had for readers and searchers?

Answer:

Fanfiction.net is not a functional website, it’s a particularly shitty ghost town that is actively crumbling to pieces around its few remaining inhabitants. I it’s a hassle to read on and I only do so because I’m a fan of rare pairs, and have to take anything I can get, and because I’m a fan of a particular kind of low-brow overpowered-hero fanfiction that tends to be more common there then on Ao3 or Tumblr.

I wish it didn’t have adds in the middle of a page, every time I hit next chapter, ect.

I wish it didn’t have pointless captchas every time I  start a new session.

I wish it had a visually pleasant format for presenting the stories for you to select from. Whether they’re search bar results, the results of a filter search, stories in a collection, or stories on an author’s page. It’s the same aggressively bad format and makes it hard to tell them apart from eachother and hard to pick which one(s) I want.

I wish stories could have longer summaries. They are so short that it forces everyone to sound same-y and rushed, and if an author want to include trigger warnings they have to be even shorter.

I wish there was a way to exclude/search/mark trigger warnings.

I wish you could select more than four characters in the filters, I wish authors could TAG more than four characters.

I wish there was a way to search/mark platonic relationships instead of only romantic.

I wish there was a way to search/mark a single character in multiple separate relationships eg. [A/B] and [A/C]

I wish there was a way to search for certain tropes or cliches without relying on pure hope that either the author used part of their limited summary space to mention it, or that someone else already made a collection for that trope and managed to find at least a few (they never have all) of the fics containing it.

I wish you could copy and paste the text without having to switch to the mobile version of the website. I don’t personally know why you can’t do this on desktop but I’ve heard other people say it’s because it’s actually generated as a pdf instead of genuine text.

I wish there was a way to open the whole story in one tab instead of being forced to go through it other by chapter.

I wish there was a way for authors to include author’s notes without it being part of the chapter.

I wish there was a way for authors to respond to comments without doing so in the author’s notes.

I wish the formatting wasn’t so aggressively bad as to be actively harming the quality of the story. I have found stories that were posted on both Ao3 and ff.net and read them on both websites, no differences in text, in punctuation, in anything at all, but on Ao3 it flowed much better, was much easier to read, and I’d have given a higher estimation of the author’s skill level if asked. All because it wasn’t actively being dragged down by ff.net’s formatting.

There are probably a fair few more things that I’m just not managing to think of at the moment, but considering there’s no way ff.net will ever be fixed and is in fact very likely to completely implode and die in the near future, I think this is good enough.

Sorry for the essays every time I’m allowed to write an answer but you’re asking loaded questions.

———————————————O0—0—0O————————————————

Question (Ao3):

If possible, please explain your typical process for finding fanfiction to read.

Answer:

Whenever  I get interested in a new show I’ll latch on to a concept or particular character interaction eg. Villain!hero, ensemble finds out secret, character A needs a hug, character A adopted by character B, character C & character D friendship & hurt/comfort. Sometimes (especially if it’s a lesser known thing/has a small fandom) I’ll be as vague as favorite character, timetravel, wingfic, or soulmate AU. Whatever it is that I’ve latched onto, I’ll enter it into the search bar on whatever browser I’m using, and open whatever links look most appealing in a new tab, giving preference to stories from any website except Wattpad* over any king of collection, and links to Ao3 preference over links to anything else.

From there I work my way through everything that was offered, and as I do so I eventually come across new things that capture my interest, and —in general terms— follow them.

On Ao3 I’ll head back up to the top of a fic I really enjoyed and click on the tag for whatever little bit of it I enjoyed the most, and begin browsing again from there, refining with filters and following links and tags from new stories.

I will filter out reader inserts, original characters, y/n, or notps if I keep seeing too many of them in my results, but otherwise I’ll just scroll past them. Sometimes if I’ve been reading for a specific idea for a while I’ll sort by word count and begin going through it from least to most to see if there’s anything I’ve been missing because it’s not been updated recently. And sometimes if I feel like reading fanfiction but don’t have anything particular in mind I’ll just head to the Ao3 page for the main character (more reliable then a fandom tag, if a franchise exists in multiple forms of media they’ll usually each have their own tag the fanfiction will be scattered accordingly) of one of the bigger fandoms I’m in and start trawling the page for anything that looks interesting.

———————————————O0—0—0O————————————————

Question:

Please use the box below to write any thoughts or opinions on this questionnaire or the subjects within it that you did not get the chance to share.

Answer:

On how I find fanfiction to read on websites that are not ff.net or Ao3, copy-pasted from the original all-encompassing answer I wrote before I realized you were looking for answers only about the website you’d just been talking about:

Wattpad (which I did not select when asked what websites I search for fanfiction on because I never willingly go looking there I just end up on it sometimes to my great frustration.):

Whatever idea it is that I’ve latched onto, I’ll enter it into the search bar on whatever browser I’m using, and open whatever links look most appealing in a new tab, giving preference to stories from any website except Wattpad* preference over tags or other collections, and links to Ao3 preference over links to anything else.

(*If links to Wattpad make it onto the first page of results, I’ll take whatever meager scrapings I was offer from other websites, then give up the search as a lost cause and pick a new idea as a I mourn the lack of the content I want to read. Only if I am already very attached to an idea and very desperate will I follow a link to wattpad. That website is the only one I have ever encountered worse then ff.net and it is an absolute unnavigable MESS.)

Tumblr:

If I’m on tumblr (mobile, I’ve never used tumblr on the computer but I don’t think it works the same) then once I find one thing to read that I like, I’ll begin tapping my way through the suggested posts on the bottom based on whatever looks the most interesting from what little I get to see of it. Sometimes I’ll end up on a specific blog or a specific tag, and I’ll just scroll through reading anything that looks even mildly cool regardless of whether it has anything to do with what I was originally searching for or not, until I click on a specific post for some reason (usually a “read more“), and then I’m back to navigating by suggested posts again. I tend to wander through fandoms and subfandoms a lot faster here, trading one interesting idea for the next as they’re presented to me. It’s a lot of fun and I sometimes discover completely new stuff! I’ll often end up following Authors I really like so that their stuff will end up in my feed, and this is really the only site on which I do that.

Just another couple comments on my general media consumption habits that I didn’t really see anywhere else to put:

Everything I stated about my fanfiction habits when getting into a new show applied if it’s a movie or book or game too, it’s just that 90% of the time it’s a show. My favorite movies are documentaries so I’m not sure what fanfiction for them would even look like, I prefer video essays and theories for games, and I just don’t read as many books as I used to. About half of the remaining 10% of the time is actually probably musicals.

It’s not unusual for me to have seen only three or so episodes of a show, but to have read insane amounts of fanfiction for it. I have difficulty sitting down to actually watch a show, and I usually only expend the effort for my absolute favorite series, so most of my interaction with most shows ends up being fanfiction. Getting into a new show because I came across some really good fanfiction for it is not uncommon either.

#100daysofwriting #how do I tag this #scribblings from the deep #I guess #fix tags later

[spicy-mbti-memes]

How the Types Dump You

ESTJ: As you walk into the room, he is sitting at an office desk. He motions for you to sit down. (This confuses you greatly, because you don’t even have an office desk in your house; did he buy one just for this occasion?) He takes out his reading glasses and pulls out a file folder that you can see is extensively tagged with color-coded index notes. He opens it up and begins reading from a double-spaced, 5,000-word essay written in size 12 Times New Roman with in-text citations and a bibliography written in APA format. His essay lists every way in which you’ve ever failed to live up to his expectations in the relationship; the report concludes that there is no other rational choice but to fire you as his companion. He thanks you for your time and writes you a severance check (aka first and last month’s rent) before leaving. You shrug casually because, well, hey, it could’ve been worse: you could’ve been broken up with the way that the ENFP girl’s boyfriend on this list did.

ISTJ: ISTJs don’t break up with you. If you end up with an ISTJ, you’re either going to have to do the dirty work yourself, or you’re going to be stuck with them until you die.

Either that, or they’ll e-mail you from work while they’re on their lunch break (because they can’t send a personal e-mail during work hours, obviously).

ESTP: You walk into your apartment to see your ESTP boyfriend in the middle of having a literal orgy in your living room. “What the fuck are you doing?!” you scream at your ESTP boyfriend (and the twelve other people in the room, too, I guess), who seems genuinely confused somehow. “But I don’t even love them!” he continues to insist, not understanding how you could be so upset about this. “It’s just sex, what’s the big deal? Here, how about this: why don’t you join us? Would that make you feel better? The bowl of condoms is over there. They’re just for decoration and we’re not using them, but I thought I would show them to you anyway.”

ISTP: Sends you a letter in the mail from a clinic advising you to get tested for STDs.

ESFJ: You’ve been talking about starting to try for a baby for a while now, so you and your partner begin to make some preparations to help protect your future family - stashing away money for the down-payment on a house, trading in your car for a family van, filling out life insurance policies; routine stuff. But then, little things started happening; things so small that you only noticed in hindsight. The new lock on her phone that wasn’t there before. How often you caught her smiling to herself as she was texting. How much more often she was suddenly going on out-of-town work trips, or going out for a lady’s night, or having to stay late for work. How irritated she always seemed to be with you, and how little you were having sex despite actively trying to get pregnant. You were in denial at first, but slowly, you’re starting to put the pieces together. You make up your mind to confront her on the weekend, in case anything goes wrong and you suddenly have to go stay somewhere else.

Except you never get a chance to, because one morning, you wake up and your world looks completely different. You aren’t in your bed; in fact, you don’t seem to be anywhere at all. And that’s because you’re dead, because your wife poisoned you so that she could move overseas to be with her new hot 23-year-old boyfriend from Spain, and the money she got from your $250,000 life insurance policy.

ISFJ: Does it the proper, old-fashioned way: by sitting you down and explaining to you why it just isn’t working out. Fuck ISFJs and their wholesomeness and perfection preventing me from shitposting about them. =/

ESFP: Sends you a picture of themselves flipping the bird while sucking your best friend’s dick. Afterwards, texts you a detailed play-by-play of everything they did, and how much of a better lay he was than you. Oh, and how much bigger his dick was than yours, of course.

ISFP: Breaking up? Us? Oh, honey. Honey, no. You’re not going anywhere. I will murder your entire family if that’s what I have to do to stop them from being able to take you away from me. The police? Lmao, that’s cute. Let them come and watch me win the Oscar performance of the year as I cry about how you beat me, and drag you away to jail instead. No, baby, you’re not going anywhere. We’re never breaking up. We’re always going to be together. Forever.

ENTJ: He’s a wildly successful entrepreneur who ended up becoming a multi-millionaire. You’re the beautiful philanthropist and socialite trophy wife and stay-at-home mom who takes care of the kids. Together, you own homes in four different countries (one for each season, and several in Aspen and Montauk - just for the weekends, of course), a yacht, multiple sports cars, an entire room just for shoes, ties, and handbags, and a chef, a housekeeper, and a full-time, live-in nanny. Everything he owns is shiny, new, the latest model - everything, that is, except for you. So he cheats on you behind your back, divorces you when you find out about it, and then replaces you with a hotter, younger replica of yourself.

But hey, at least you got half of everything in the divorce. At least he was gracious enough not to have you assassinated, I guess.

INTJ: Calmly and rationally explains to you why it just wouldn’t work in the grand scheme of things. I mean, for one thing, having a wife (or even a serious girlfriend) just wasn’t a part of the life plan that he created for himself in the first grade; hell, it wasn’t even a part of the ten-year plan that he drew up for himself on the first day of high school. He’s not trying to be rude or insensitive, but he just doesn’t have the time to waste on pursuing empty, meaningless pursuits like social relationships or having a girlfriend. How is he going to meet his goal of becoming the youngest PhD holder in his state if he has to waste time doing things like talking to you?

Joke’s on him, though, because this is exactly how the movie Legally Blonde started, and doesn’t he know how that movie ended for someone like him?

ENTP: ENTPs don’t break up with you, because ENTPs don’t date anyone seriously in the first place. If, by some stroke of (horrible) luck, you actually did manage to get an ENTP to agree to hang out with you often enough under a context that could reasonably be construed as the two of you being “in a relationship”, they would probably get bored and cheat on you within weeks. But hey, if you’re a masochist and getting your heart broken repeatedly is your thing (lookin’ at you, INFxs), then do what makes you happy, man. I’m not judging.

INTP: Meh. Doesn’t really bother to break up with you. Continues to co-habitate with you while ceasing to continue putting any effort into the maintenance of the relationship, and just kind of letting it die a natural death. By the time it’s over, neither of you have cared for months.

ENFJ: Leaves you a length, caring, compassionate, “It’s not you, it’s me” goodbye letter on your bedside table in an attempt to soften the blow of gently explaining that she has decided to leave you and your life together in order to pursue her dream of cultivating relationships with multiple wealthy Sugar Daddies who fund her extravagant, globetrotting lifestyle.

INFJ: INFJs never truly break up with anyone. They keep the door open just the tiniest sliver, so that they can keep you around as their potential back-up plan in case their current relationship falls apart. After all, where are they going to get their identity and sense of self from if they’re alone?

ENFP: You come home after work and she isn’t there. None of her stuff is missing, so at first, you aren’t worried - she must just be running late, or made an impromptu decision to go see a friend. By 10 PM, you’re riddled with anxiety and the fear that something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. You call her friends. You call all the local hospitals and jails. You file a police report. But nothing ever comes of the investigation, and no one can figure out what happened to her - it’s like she dropped off the face of the Earth. The whole ordeal is emotionally devastating for you, but eventually life goes on, as it inevitably must.

Years later, you turn on your computer and have a new friend request on Facebook. It’s your ex-girlfriend. You find out that she’s been living on a hippie commune in the Costa Rican rainforest for the past three years. She felt “stifled and trapped” by her old life, she tells you, and felt like she “needed a change from the oppressive grind of daily life”. She can’t understand why you’re so upset about it; shouldn’t you be happy for her for finally getting to live out her dream?

You hang up the phone and never think about her again.

INFP: Ghosts you.

That’s it. That’s literally it. You’ll never hear from them again. It’s like they just never existed. After a while, you start to wonder whether they ever really did, or if they were just a figment of your imagination.

(If you’re an INTP, then this is probably true. Your caring, squishy uwu INFP senpai girlfriend was all a product of your lonely imagination.)

#mbti #memes #shitpost #intj #infj #intp #infp #funny

[rogueariadne]

To Have A Villain’s Quirk

ELEVEN: SAFETY

Song: Young Folks - The Wind and The Wave

Reporters clamored around the entrance to UA, pushing almost every student that came in to answer questions. While a lot of the reporters were caught up with the other students, Kaida used that to her advantage, slipping through the crowd with her head down. She practically ran past everyone to get inside. She hated the press with a fiery passion. They did nothing but put words in people's mouths, and twist the truth. And she could see by the look on their teachers face, that Mr. Aizawa felt the same. He practically shooed the reporters away as he walked inside, Kaida in front of him as they walked. She was trying to make sure they didn't catch too many of her classmates. Finally up in the classroom, Kaida hummed to herself as she watched the students find their seats, with Aizawa soon entering the room. He was probably out talking to the principle.

    "Decent work on yesterday's combat training, you guys. I saw the video feeds and went over each of your team's results. Bakugo. You're talented. So don't sulk like a child about your loss, okay?" She could hear the boy in question simply huff in response. "And Midoriya. I see the only way you won the match was by messing up your arm again. Work harder. And don't give me the excuse that you don't have control over your quirk. That line's already getting old. You can't keep breaking your body while training here. But your Quirk will be really useful if you can get a handle on it." Kaida was sure that that was the first time that he had actually really complimented the boy. "So, show a little urgency, huh?"

    "And Hiyama." Kaida flinched as she hesitantly rose her eyes to those of her teachers, instantly regretting it. "Not only did you attack a student, you skipped out on combat training. Something that would really be useful for you. While I get that you were trying to protect Midoriya, it wasn't your place and was completely unnecessary. That being said, I want at least a four page essay explaining why you did what you did on my desk tomorrow, and a proper apology to Bakugo and All Might for disrupting class." She bowed her head, nodding quickly.

    "Y-yes, sir!"

    "Let's get down to business. Our first task will decide your future." Kaida held her breath. She was lucky she didn't get detention, but another task to determine if they're still worthy to be here? "You all need to pick a class representative." Oh, good. Just normal school stuff! Kirishima immediately started trying to get people to pick him, followed by Kaminari and the purple haired girl, Jiro. Aoyama also joined, Mina right after, even little grape boy. She was surprised that Bakugo wanted it as bad as he did.

    "Silence, everyone, please!" Iida bellowed, shutting everyone down. "The class representative's duty is to lead others. That's not something just anyone can do. You must first have the trust of every student in the classroom. Therefore, the most logical way to fill this position is democratically. We will hold an election to choose our leader!"

    "It's pretty obvious you want us to vote for you." Kaida simply rolled her eyes. Isn't it obvious who should be the representative though? Iida really knows what he's doing, she didn't understand why it should be up for debate. Of course, everyone's arguments were true in statement, saying that most people would vote for themselves.

    "Most people will. But that means whoever does receive multiple votes must truly be the most suitable person for the job. It's the best way, right, sir?" He looked over to Aizawa, who was zipping himself up into his sleeping bag.

    "Do what you want, just decide before my nap's over." Some teacher.

                                                                                                    *

    Soon the election results were in. And Midoriya and Yaoyorozu were at the top. Midoriya with three votes, and Yaoyorozu with two. There was a lot of surprise coming from the green haired boy and the angry blond. Sure, Kaida thought that Iida would be a good fit, but that didn't mean she couldn't just vote for herself. She knew she wouldn't get it anyways. Although, it looked like Iida was pretty upset over the results. They pulled the two top students to the class, Aizawa waking from his nap just to give the results they already knew. Poor Midoriya was shaking away.

    "Alright, the class rep is Midoriya, and our deputy is Yaoyorozu."

    "R-really? Uh. It's not a mistake?" She was sure Izuku was going to explode from nervousness, and everyone was looking at him in confusion. Yaoyorozu just seemed a little annoyed. Everyone started to get behind the idea though. Except the boy who suggested the voting system. Kaida rested her cheek against her hand, watching the exchange. Soon, it was lunch time, and Kirishima and Kaminari stopped by Kaida's desk with their usual grins.

    "Hey, Kai, wanna join us for lunch?" Denki asked, both boys stuffing their hands in their pockets as they waited for the girl to respond. Mina peeked her head around their figures with a smile.

    "Hey, guys! Mind if I join?" The pinkette joined the trio, standing beside them with her hands on her hips. Kai's eyes widened a bit as she looked between them before a smile started to form on her face. Friends. Standing up, the smile only grew as she nodded her head.

    "Sure, let's all go together!" Mina grabbed Kaida's arm, squeezing her close to her as she pulled her out of the room, the boys quickly following with shouts of protest. Hiyama's face exploded into a dark red at Mina's forwardness, looking to the blond for help. Both of the boys just watched with small chuckles coming out, Denki just shook his head, basically telling her she was on her own. She let the girl drag her along, Kaminari and Kirishima walking on either side of them, listening to the conversation they were having. She tried to keep up, giving small inputs, but mostly laughing at their behaviors. She loved how friendly and accepting they were of her, going as far as asking her to join them for lunch.

    Lunch was spent getting to know each other mostly, but finding out that Kirishima and Mina already knew each other from Middle School. Kaida was hesitant to open up but mostly mentioned a little of her family, and how she went to school with Bakugo and Izuku. It started getting more into their hobbies and the things they liked and disliked. It was weird for her. The only other person she told this stuff to was Izuku, but it looked like they were gaining different friend groups, but still being friends since they were in the same class. It was honestly kinda nice having different friends, in her opinion. It showed just how dependent they had become on one another. While Kaida and Denki were watching Mina and Eijiro talk excitedly about something, the two throwing in their two cents every now and again, an alarm bell started ringing. It sent everyone on edge, jumping in surprise.

    "Wh-what's going on?!" Ashido shouted, Hiyama quickly jumping up, along with Kirishima. A robotic announcement came over the intercom, causing the four to exchange worried looks.

    "Warning. Level Three security breach. All students please evacuate the building in an orderly fashion." They gasped, looking around as all of the students started to take off into the halls. Everyone was yelling and screaming in fear, trying to escape the building, while Kaida quickly activated her quirk, wrapping her tails around the other three's waists.

    "Kaida, what are you doing?" Kaminari asked, raising his hands a bit as they stared at her back. The tails had caused her undershirt to come untucked, letting them loose as she moved away from everyone, raising her friends out of the way. They would get trampled at this rate. She quickly led them around the people, using an extra tail to hold onto the rafters away from everyone. It was the only way they wouldn't get trampled. So, when the crowd was mostly gone, she lowered them back down to the ground, dropping herself next to them. "Whoa, thanks Kai!"

    "That could've been a disaster."

    "Look outside, there has to be something everyone's not seeing." She said, the four of them running to the windows.

    "It's just the press!" Mina called out, hands pressed against the glass.

    "Really, that's it?"

                                                                             *

    After the fuss was all over, and they all returned to class, Yaoyorozu stood up, Midoriya following her to the front of the class. Midoriya was back to being a mess over being class rep, but she gave him a quick smile and a nod. He glanced at her after he was done stuttering, taking a small breath. "First, there's something that I wanna say. I've thought a lot about this. And I think Tenya Iida should be our class rep! He was able to capture everyone's attention and get us in line. So, I believe that he should be the one leading our class from now on!" Kaida looked down as she smiled. Iida was going to get the position anyways, they should've known.

    "Yeah, you know what? If Midoriya vouches for him, I'm good. Plus he was a big help. He totally manned up and took charge, right?" Kirishima chimed in, Kaminari nodding his head in agreement.

    "Yup! Oh! Did you notice he looked like the dude on the emergency exit signs when he was on the wall earlier?" That comment caused the four friends to giggle before Aizawa called it a waste of time. It shut them right up.

    "I don't care who the rep is, just hurry up."

    "If Midoriya is nominating me for this job... then I humbly accept. I pledge to carry out the duties of class rep to the best of my abilities!" Iida stood up, proudly proclaiming. Kirishima gave him a thumbs up.

    "Sounds good, Emergency Exit!" Cue the giggles, with Kaminari joining in. "Emergency Exit Iida! Don't let us down, man!"

                                                                                              *

    It was an ordinary night when she got home, spending a lot of missed time with her family now that they were all back together. Kaida did spend most of the night writing out her essay for Aizawa and writing proper apology letters to All Might and Bakugo. She was nervous to give her letter to Katsuki. Why? Because she was sure he was just going to rip it up in front of her and tell her to get lost. She was prepared for it. Nearly midnight, she as finally finished with the papers, putting them neatly in her folders in her bag. Hardly getting any rest that night, she felt like a zombie in the morning, fueling up on flesh and coffee before she was off to school. She held her folder in her hands, ready to hand the papers in. She had entered the school grounds when she saw him, slouched over and grumpy as usual. She took a deep breath before she sped up her walking. "Katsu! Wait up!" He merely grunted as he slowed down, turning a little. He saw the folder and rolled his eyes.

    "If you have that stupid apology letter, don't bother. S'not like you meant it. Just throw it out." He said, starting to walk again. She huffed and ran to stand in front of him, making him growl. "Get out of my way, Red."

    "Please, you don't have to read it. Just accept it so I can tell Aizawa I gave it to you. That's all I'm asking." She bowed a little as she held out the paper to him. He scoffed, snatching the paper from her, gripping it tightly in his balled fist.

    "Tch, fine, whatever." She let herself finally breathe as he walked away from her, her smiling a little. One target down, two more to go.

    Entering the classroom, she quickly laid her essay on Aizawa's podium, taking her seat as the day commenced. She could see him nod in satisfaction as he skimmed over it. He set it aside as classes began. When training rolled around, everyone seemed pretty pumped up about it. "Today's training will be a little different. You'll have three instructors. Me, All Might, and another faculty member will be keeping tabs on you."

    "Sir! What kinda training is this?" Sero called out, everyone looking to Aizawa for answers. He held out a card.

    "Rescue. You'll be dealing with natural disasters, shipwrecks, stuff like that." He explained.

    "Disasters, huh? Sounds like we're in for a big workout." Kaminari said, Ashido joining in happily. Kirishima seemed pretty excited about it, and some other students joined in.

    "Guys, I'm not finished yet." That shut everyone up for the time being. "What you wear in the exercise is up to you. I know you're excited about costumes... but keep in mind that you haven't gotten used to them yet, and they might limit your abilities. This special training's at an off-campus facility, so we'll be taking a bus to get there. That's all. Start getting ready." Immediately, everyone was up, Kaida was first to grab her case, waiting for Mina so they could walk together to the changing room. They talked, well, Mina talked, Kaida mostly listened, while they got dressed, some of the other girls joining in with how they were going to be doing the rescue training. Soon, they were all gathering outside while they waited for the bus. It wasn't long before Iida was calling them to gather around.

    "Using your student numbers, form two neat lines so we can load the bus efficiently." He shouted, blowing a whistle as he went. Kaida couldn't help but giggle a little bit, Mina laughing along with her. No way anyone was going to do that. They wanted to sit together. Besides, when they boarded, it had a more open layout than they were expecting. Mina promptly called Iida out on needed to chill as they rode along. Kaida ended up seated in between Mina and Kaminari. The mustard blond took that chance to get to know her more. She didn't try to give him too much to work with, and it ended with him calling her a mystery and shooting her a wink. It made her roll her eyes, but her face was slightly pink as she looked away from him, Mina taking her attention now. Of course, the back and forth between the rest of the class and Bakugo caught her attention, causing her to laugh at Kaminari's comment.

    "Y'know, we basically just met you. So, it's kinda telling that we all know your personality is flaming crap mixed with garbage." He shrugged, and it sent Kaida into a small fit of giggles as Bakugo yelled.

    "You're gonna regret the day you applied to this school, you loser...! And stop fucking laughing, Red! I'll kill both of you!" She only stuck out her tongue to anger him more, giggling with Ashido as she joined in, the two teasing him.

    "Hey, hey, we're here. Stop messing around." Aizawa said, standing from his seat. There was a chorus of 'yes sir's as things quieted down a little, everyone looking out the windows to look at the dome like building. As they left the bus, the rescue hero, Thirteen was waiting for them. Thirteen was an amazing hero, and just seeing them in person made her almost as giddy as Midoriya. They were one of her favorite heroes! Entering the dome, she was in awe. It was amazing! There were so many areas to simulate rescue operations, to train in environments you're not used to. Her eyes seemed to sparkle as she looked around, a big grin forming on her face.

    "A shipwreck. A landslide. A fire. A windstorm. Et cetera-- I created this training facility to prepare you to deal with different types of disasters. I call it the Unforeseen Simulation Joint. But, you can call it, USJ!"

    "Hey, shouldn't All Might be here already? Lemme guess, he booked an interview instead." A smartass comment came from Aizawa, questioning All Might's whereabouts. Thirteen closed in and said something but she couldn't hear them. She was too busy in awe. Aizawa turned back around to face the group. "The clock's ticking. We should get started."

    "Excellent! Before we begin, let me just say one thing. Well, maybe two things. Possibly three, four, or five..- Listen carefully. I'm sure you're aware that I have a powerful Quirk. It's called Black Hole. I can use it to suck up anything and turn it into dust." They explained. Midoriya quickly chimed in as Uraraka bounced beside him.

    "Yeah, you've used Black Hole to save people from all kinds of disasters before, haven't you?"

    "That's true, but my Quirk could also be very easily used to kill." Kaida flinched as it reminded herself of her own quirk. "Some of you also have powers that can be dangerous." She felt as though Thirteen was looking right at her. Of course, all of the faculty members knew about the drawbacks of Hiyama's quirk. "In our superhuman society, all Quirks are certified and stringently regulated, so we often overlook how unsafe they can actually be. Please don't forget that if you lose focus or make the wrong move, your powers can be deadly. Even if you're trying to do something virtuous like rescue someone." The girl put her head down. "Thanks to Aizawa;s fitness tests, you have a solid idea of your Quirk's potential. And because of All Might's combat training, you likely experienced how dangerous your powers can be when used against other people. Carry those lessons over to this class. Today, you're going to learn how to use your Quirks to save people's lives. You won't be using your powers to attack enemies or each other, only to help. After all, that's what being a hero is all about. Ensuring the safety of others. That's all I have to say. Thank you so much for listening." As they finished talking, they bowed, the class erupting into a cheer for them. Kaida even clapped a little bit.

    "Right. Now that that's over..." Aizawa started, before electricity started to crackle through the buildings lights, the fountain in the middle of the dome sputtering before it looked like it started a type of swirling motion. A purple vortex was taking over in front of it, Kaida stepping forward as Aizawa began to turn around, realizing that something just wasn't right. The purple vortex erupted across the ground, and they could see a hand starting to reach out of it.

never miss an update! send an ask or a dm to be added to the taglist.

don’t want to see THAVQ content? blacklist “#THAVQ”

Updates: Mondays 12 pm CST

#THAVQ #To Have A Villain's Quirk #mha #bnha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha fanstory #fanstory #Kaida Hiyama #Hiyama Kaida #rogueariadne

[queerbutstillhere]

Hi, honey!! I'm back on Tumblr hohoiii 😆 If you still accept prompts can I ask you for: Damian and Jonno's children (a boy and a girl, God knows why😶) are sent to the past and met their daddys who are recently dating. ((Please, make it extremely awkward, some Batfam too)) tysm😙

(Once again, thank ya for giving me a chance to work with these kiddos! I hope you like this!!)

The portal dumped them out in the middle of the air. Because of course it did.

The two screaming kid vigilantes grabbed at each other as they plumpted through the air. Zaina willed her fluctuating powers to kick in, and sure enough, the adrenaline caused the surge and she snatched her brother out of the air, slowing their fall.

"Oof! You're heavy!" She exclaimed, scowling down at him.

"I am not!" The younger teen, built like a rugby player, said with a scowl.

"Yes you are!"

She looked around, flying to the nearby roof and touching down on it, she "gently" dropped her brother to the graveled roof of the tall building.

"Where are we?" Malik asked, popping up and looking around.

"Ummm."

He was already activating his lenses, which were glowing blue now. He looked around, turning a full circle.

"I think we're in Gotham," Zaina asked, walking to the edge and looking down.

"Really? Did he just teleport us away."

"... No, look."

Zaina pointed across the street to billboard on the side of a building, one that had Bruce Wayne, and something about Wayne Industries.

"Oh my God," Malik exclaimed. "Sis. I think we were sent back in time."

Zaina and Malik Wayne-Kent were the children of Damian Wayne and Jon Kent, they had been adopted at 5 and 3, respectively, and had lived with their parents for thirteen years now. Both were born Arabic, but had met Jon during a crisis in their Homeland, their mother having been killed in it, and Jon took very quick steps to make sure the kids were okay, and not long after, he and Damian decided to adopt them.

Zaina was eighteen now, and yet still shorter then her brother. She was only 5'5", and fairly muscular from having done gymnastics almost her whole life. Her black hair was cut short in a shoulder length bob, and she had darker skin like her father. She had, a few months ago, been exposed to platinum kryptonite, and had thus gained the powers of Superman. Only they were still on the fritz. It made her wince to remember the weeks when her hearing was changing, and when her eyes evolved. The good news was she didn't need glasses. Her father had wanted to take them away, but Zaina had begged and begged and made full persuasive essays and finally convinced him to allow her a trial period.

Malik was only sixteen and but he was tall, and broad in the shoulders. He played lacrosse and worked out and ran and all those things, and yes, he was in a rugby league. He was already a hottie at sixteen, and Zaina could not count the amount of girls she had chased away from her brother. His dark hair, more brown then black, was kept short, shaved on the sides and just a little bit of fluff on top. He had no powers, just his wicked sharp intellect and skills with technology.

They had both become teen vigilantes a few years back, having adopted adaptations of some of the previous heroes in their family line. Zaina had become Robin, with a bit of a twist on the uniform, it was more solid black, with splashed of color here and there, her boots, her belt, her cape, her gloves. So on. Soon she probably would switch to a Super title when her powers fully developed. Malik had made his own name, Batboy, until he felt he had earned the Batman title from his father. His costume was a lot like the Black Bat costume, and his cowl didn't completely cover his head, just came up his neck and around his eyes, his hair sticking out the top, and the classic bat ears poking up from the sides.

Their parents had both stepped down from their vigilante rolls for the most part while they were raising the kids, but when the siblings had started sneaking out, they decided to pick the rolls back up so they could properly train them, and watch their backs until they were ready to go out. It's doubtful they ever thought this would happen.....

Their game plan was simple. Find Batman or one of their uncles. Explain. Get taken back to the batcave, and then to the Watchtower so Waverider or someone can send them back to their time.

They split up after Malik resynced their comms, going to opposite ends of the town. Zaina was flying, scanning the streets, listening for the sounds of her family. And then, as it tends to do, her powers just gave out. She screamed as she started falling, scrambling for her grapple gun, which Malik wisely made her keep. And then she landed on something with a small thunk.

"Hey there, you better slow down a bit, shouldn't jump without a grapple in hand."

She recognized that voice. It was a bit younger, a bit more innocent and lively, but she recognized it all the same. She twisted in her savior's arms, looking up at Superboy.

"Pops!" She exclaimed joyfully, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him tightly.

She probably shouldn't have done that.

Jon chuckled nervously, keeping his hold on her.

"I think you have me mistaken for someone else..."

"Oh. . . No. It's a long story, we need to find ba- Robin, or errrrr....." She paused, considering how she should do this. "What year is it?"

"2019?"

"Okay. We need to find Robin."

".... Who are you?"

"I'm also Robin, but from the future."

Malik had similar luck. He had been poking around the narrows, secretly hoping to find Red Hood, when the screaming hit him. His sensors started going crazy seconds before he could hear it, and then he took off, running through the streets and weaving between cars and signs to reach the source.

He burst around the corner and found a full on gang street fight going down, a couple kids stuck in the middle.

"Hey!" He yelled, his voice projected slightly by his tech.

A couple people paused and turned to him. He grabbed his Bo staff, fully expanding it and hitting a button to send electrical currents through it.

"Back away from the kids."

One of them scoffed, stepping forwards.

"It's one of them batkids. Soak 'em, boys."

Malik easily knocked out the first two, flipping off the third to get back out of range of their bats and knuckles.

"Oh ho! He thinks he's hot shit!"

More thugs rushed at him, but Malik was used to this, he easily beat them all down. Until one got behind him, arms wrapping around his upper arms and squeezing. Another grabbed his Bo at the insulated section, preventing him from hitting anyone.

Then there was a thump and the person behind him let go. Malik reared forwards, headbutting the person in front of him. He judo flipped them quickly before turning back to find the kids. They were huddled against the wall. He took a running start and flipped over some thugs, ducking past others until he was at the kids. There were three total, two younger ones, and a teen, not much younger then him.

"Hi," he said with a smile, smacking another thug with his bo. "I'm going to get you children out of here okay?"

They nodded rapidly. Malik considered his options and then looked at the oldest.

"I need you to carry the smaller one."

She nodded, quickly getting him on her back piggyback style. Malik picked up the other kid the same way. Then he produced his grapple and aimed for the roof. Once it was hooked, he put away his baton, and grabbed the girl with his free arm. They quickly were yanked up and swung over the crowd of gang members to the end of the Street, where it was clear and safe. His shoulder complained greatly, but it was fine.

When he landed, set down the kids and turned around, everyone was gone. Except a vigilante. Robin. His baba.

He recognized his father instantly, having seen enough pictures to know, even with the significant difference.

"Oh thank God."

Robin eyed him warily.

"Who are you."

"I think we best wait for-"

His sensors beeped in annoyance at the detection of two Kryptonian's. He turned and found his sister and a much younger version of his pops landing, Zaina on Jon's back.

"Sis! Are you okay?!" He exclaimed, ditching Damian to run to her. She jumped off and ran over, meeting him and grabbing his face, scanning him over.

"I'm fine! I heard all the fighting!"

"I'm okay, did your powers give out again?"

"Yes! I was up four stories and they dropped and-"

"I told you not to get that high!" Malik protested.

"Hey! Don't lecture me!" Zaina glanced to the side and froze. "You found Baba?"

"Yeah."

"Are we going to tell them?"

"What else do you have in mind?"

"Doesn't that break time travel rules?"

Malik gave his sister an annoyed face.

"No- God, that's not- no, Z, no."

"Excuse me. We have questions," Jon said, stepping up.

"Police are almost here," Malik shot back, the lenses of his mask slightly blue. "We'll talk after."

After they cleared things up with the police, they headed to the batcave, and Malik immediately felt more relaxed in the familiar, yet older interior. He didn't hesitate to pull his mask off, looking around, noting the differences.

"Robin what is this?"

He glanced over to see Batman and immediately went still.

Bruce had died with they were young, they had barely gotten to know him, and Malik especially had very few memories of him... Zaina, on the other hand, gave a sob like noise and smacked her hand over her mouth. Everyone looked at her, confused.

"I'm sorry," she said softly, composing herself. She too reached up and took her mask off.

"You would like an explanation?" Malik questioned, even as he tapped at the screen attached into his glove.

"We would," Damian responded, eyeing him warily.

"I'm Malik Wayne-Kent, this is my sister, Zaina Wayne-Kent, and we're from the future."

Silence hung over the cave after his words and Damian looked thoroughly shocked.

"I'm sorry," Jon said, speaking up. "Did you say, Wayne-Kent?"

"Yes."

Damian opened his mouth, shut it once, and then spoke. "Please tell me you are Drake's children?"

"Afraid not," Zaina said with a head shake. "You're our baba."

There was another several beats of silence, and then Bruce seemed to put two and two together.

"And your other parent is..... Jon?"

Malik nodded. "Pops."

"Which makes me your grandfather."

Another nod from Zaina.

"You're kidding me. If you're joking right now I'll-" Damian clenched his jaw and looked up at Jon.

"Wait, are you two.... What half of 2019 is this?" Malik asked. "Have you not started dating yet?"

Bruce opened his mouth, looking at his son, and then back at his future grandchildren.

"Oh, dear," Zaina said softly, leaning into her brother. "I don't think they have."

"Oops."

"Wait so you're telling me we get married?!" Jon exclaimed, shocked.

"Uh, well in our timeline you do. When we got spit out here, we created a separate time line from ours."

"And. She . . . She has powers," Jon said, pointing at Zaina.

"I was given them by Platinum kryptonite," Zaina explained. "You wanted to take them away, baba, but I managed to convince you otherwise."

"Sounds like something you'd do," Jon said, nudging Damian.

"Shush, Jon, this is important. We have to get them back to their timeline before we change anything else accidentally."

Bruce was sitting there in silence and then he looked to his son.

"Damian. Are you two dating?"

Damian winced slightly. "Just a few weeks ago...."

"... Okay. I'm going to go prep the jet. We'll head to the watchtower."

The four watched him walk away. Then Zaina looked at Damian.

"It's really odd seeing you guys do young," she said, smiling lightly.

"I imagine so... We really let you two be vigilantes?"

"You didn't really have a choice. I hacked into the cave and then we snuck out every night until you decided to just train us."

Damian and Jon didn't quite know what to do with their children, just kinda awkwardly looked at them.

Malik finally turned and walked away, over to the dino. "Man, this thing is so old."

"Okay, you young pup," Zaina said with a laugh, following after.

"So whose all what in this time line?" Zaina asked, looking over to Damian and Jon, who were whispering softly.

"Pardon?" Damian asked in a cold tone she wasn't used too.

"Uncle Dickie, he's.... Nightwing?"

Jon nodded, his arm was around Damian now.

"Dick's Nightwing, Jason is Red Hood. Cass is Black Bat, Barbara is Batgirl slash Oracle, Steph is Spoiler, and Tim is .... Drake," their pops explained. "Obviously we're Superboy and Robin, and Bruce is Batman."

"Bruce is dead in your timeline isn't he?" Damian asked, walking away from Jon and torwards them.

They exchanged a look, and then Malik nodded.

"There was an accident.... No one could stop it. I'm sorry," he said softly.

Damian shook his head, gently hugging Malik.

"No. I'm sorry. How old were you?"

"I was only five, Zaina was eight."

"I remember him more then Malik," Zaina offered, looking sad now.

Malik, hugging his baba back, looked up to Jon, who looked contemplative.

"But, again, we accidentally changed your time line, so that may not happen. Just like you two may not get married, and you may not adopt us."

"... As far as I'm concerned those seem like fixed points in time," Jon said.

Damian sighed and pulled back, giving Jon a look, and then he hugged Zaina.

"Who am I? In your time?"

"First and foremost your our dad," she answered. "But you're also a businessman and Batman. Once Malik is old enough, you're going to give him Batman."

Damian nodded as he considered this, but went silent, stepping back to stand next to Jon.

They had a very awkward flight to the Watchtower, Zaina and Jon quietly chatting about their powers, and what Zaina had developed so far. Malik sat next to Damian, silently working on his tech, as always. He was obsessive about keeping it updated, always changing the programing. Some of his features didn't work due to the lack of connection to the Wayne Satellites of the future, but enough of them did that he could still preform scans, bouncing off nearby cell phone towers.

"What's that?" Damian asked, watching him tap at the screen on his forearm.

"It's my control panel."

"For what?"

"My OTL."

"What."

"It's. . . Optical lenses in my mask, look."

Malik held it up, flicked on the blue lenses and then turned, looking at Zaina. On his screen, a digital display of a file popped up.

"I can also do this."

He triple tapped it and it was projected up into a hologram.

"Oh."

Zaina leaned forwards, arms on her brothers shoulders. "Malik's a genius. He programs all his tech himself. Even uncle Tim and Aunt Babs can't keep up with him."

Malik flushed, looking down. "I just like programming."

"You'd never guess it, from his public appearance, but he'd a major nerd. Jock Nerd type."

"Okay Prep Jock, shut your mouth."

Zaina giggled.

"So, what are you two's vigilante names?" Bruce asked from the cockpit.

"I'm Robin," Zaina answered, looking up to her grandfather. "But pops and I have agreed once my powers and are more consistent, I'm going to take up another name, Supergirl or something."

"And I'm Batboy, for now."

Bruce nodded slightly.

"I know you guys have a lot of questions, but I am afraid we won't be able to answer some of them," Malik said. "There's somethings I don't dare mess with, timeline wise."

"We understand," Bruce answered. "this isn't our first time messing with time travel."

The rest of the flight was awkward silence. They got to the watchtower and confused everyone they talked to.

"Where's Waverider?" Bruce asked J'onn, who was on duty at that moment.

"He has not been around for several-"

There was a burst of sparks and then suddenly Waverider appeared in front of them. He gave Malik and Zaina a startled look. They waved.

"You two are much bigger," he remarked.

"Well, that's what happens when you aren't hoping around the time stream," Zaina said with a grin.

"Your father's are probably waiting for you," he said, walking over to them. "Let's go."

"Wait!" Zaina backed away, and then spun to Bruce. "I know you don't know me. But... Can I just give you a hug?"

Bruce chuckled and nodded, opening his arms. "Come here."

She ran over, crashing into his body, hugging him tightly. Bruce gently hugged her, rubbing her back.

"It's okay, I don't know what happens, but I understand," Bruce said softly, kissing her head.

"I love you, grandpa," she murmured softly.

"And I can not wait to meet you again, little one."

Zaina pulled away, reaching up and adjusting her mask. Bruce looked to Malik and held open his arms. Malik immediately gave in and ran over, hugging him. They exchanged no words, just hugged. And then Malik stepped back, and Waverider grabbed onto both of them.

"Goodbye, and thank you," Zaina said to the younger versions of their fathers.

"Bye! Be safe!" Jon said with a grin.

And then they were gone.

They appeared back in their time, right in front of their fathers at the batcave. Damian jolted slightly, and then raised an eyebrow.

"Waverider?"

"Hey, Damian. Jon."

"What's up?" Jon asked, setting down his cup of tea.

"Oh, not much, found your kids in 2019. Figured you might like them back."

"Indeed we would."

"Well, see you around."

Waverider disappeared again. Malik sighed and pulled off his mask, walking forwards and hugging his baba.

"It's been a weird day, and I'm ready for bed. Good night baba, good night pops. I love you," Malik said, heading towards the locker room.

"Love you too, kiddo," Jon called after him.

They looked at Zaina. "So what happened?"

"I'll explain over some hot cocoa and smores."

#writing prompt #prompt ask #prompt #give me prompts and shiz #ask me #send me asks #ask away #ask box #ask me things #ask me questions #damian wayne #jon kent #bruce Wayne #zaina wayne-kent #malik wayne-kent #original character #original batfam character #time travel #damijon #queerbutstillhere writes #queerbutstillhere

[unfortunatelysirius]

STUDY BUDDY // SIRIUS BLACK X READER

「 ❁ 」PROMPT 「 ❁ 」 You’re Sirius’s History of Magic tutor, but it occurs to you that maybe he doesn’t need the extra help.

「 ❁ 」WARNINGS 「 ❁ 」 Swearing, Fluff

「 ❁ 」WORD COUNT 「 ❁ 」

2426

       “Y/N, I have to say this before I go mad,” said Lily Evans out of the blue one day, as you and your four dormmates lounged in the common-room. “You’re bloody oblivious.”

       You looked up from your Transfiguration essay. Against your will, a beetroot flush spread across your cheeks. Why would Lily say something like that? What did I do wrong? “What do you mean?” you asked her.

       Lily exchanged a glance with Marlene, who was absentmindedly throwing a wad of parchment up into the air. While Lily’s expression was unreadable, Marlene’s was very readable; layers of anger and irritation were flickering on the hollows of her jaw. The girl in question sat up, caution-less, and blurted out, “Are you really that thick?”

       Silence. Marlene quickly covered her mouth, looking simultaneously unabashed and apologetic, while Lily bit her lip and sighed. Mary was twiddling her fingers, looking out-of-place in the conversation—and Alice, well, she was looking over at Frank Longbottom, who was sat with a few other members of the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

       You sat down your quill. “Well, I don’t know what you’re talking about. At all. What is it?”

       It was Alice, of all the girls, to say, “They’re talking about Sirius.”

       “What about Sirius?” You wracked your brain for a logical explanation for why Sirius would have anything to do with this conversation—why he, of everything and anything that could be a part of this conversation, was what made you “thick” and “oblivious.” There was nothing. “He’s who I tutor in History of Magic. What’s he got to do with anything?”

       Lily let out a groan, while the other girls shared frustrated glances. Was there something you were missing? It seemed so. Made especially apparent when Marlene huffed out a raspberry and said, with all the poise and subtlety of a bear, “He fancies you, you nitwit.”

       No. No. Your expression grew befuddled, and your brow twitched. Did you raise an eyebrow, or furrow your forehead until your face was nothing but creases and squinty eyes? You couldn’t decide. “Sirius does not fancy me,” you said, ignoring the way your heart spluttered at the news. “He’s a womanizer. Womanizers don’t settle.”

       “He would for you!” Marlene burst. The entire common room glanced over, and Alice sunk deep into the divan when Frank’s attention diverted to the girls. A look of apology was on Marlene’s face, but again—she didn’t look as sorry as she should have been. “Sorry. Anyway… We’ve been here for—what? Five years? And I’ve never seen Sirius like this with anyone. He doesn’t respect boundaries, and he flirts even when the girl’s not bloody interested. The only girl he’s ever shown respect for is Lily, and that’s because James has claimed her for himself.”  

       “Hey!” protested Lily, but she went ignored.

       You shook your head. “I don’t believe that at all,” you said. Your mind was in an over-analytical uproar, going through past memories and picking apart scenes that supported and uncorroborated Marlene’s claim. What you concluded was that Sirius saw you as a sister. Why else was he so kind and respectful towards you? “I think he sees me as a sister.”

       “Oh, Merlin.” Marlene face palmed. Alice broke into a giggle fit. Lily’s lips twitched, like she was half a second from joining Alice in uncontrollable laughter, and Mary… well, she just looked confused. She wasn’t there when Marlene, Alice, and Lily conspired about Sirius fancying you. “I think I’m going to cry. Y/N, you are frustratingly dim.”

       You shook your head, chancing a glance around the common room to make sure no one of notable importance was around. You honestly probably would have fainted if you had to explain to any of the Marauders what this conversation was about, and where the idea of a crush was coming from. Any of them would laugh it off—except Sirius, who would hang this over your head until the day you died. And that was what reasoning you gave yourself when you pretended to roll up a sleeve and check an imaginary wristwatch, yanking down the cloth before any of your dormmates could notice the lie.

       “Well, would you look at the time—I have a session with Sirius in a few minutes.” You started throwing your things into your satchel, barely sparing a wince when your Transfiguration essay was crumbled and carelessly shoved into the bag. Oh well, I’ll fix it later, you thought dismissively, only taking precaution when you had a bottle of ink in your hand.

       The girls watched you suspiciously. “I thought you only had sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” said Lily, her mouth twisting into a frown.

       “We changed it, to fit with his Quidditch schedule and my prefect duties.”

       “Halfway through the semester?” Marlene was catching on. So were the other three, though Mary didn’t verbalize her suspicions—something you were ever-so-thankful for.

       You gave them a quick smile. “Yup. Bye!” You hightailed it out of the common room, barely dodging the Marauders as they were just entering from the Fat Lady portrait.

       “Oh, hullo, Y/N!” said Sirius, flashing you a damnably charming smile. For a moment, you lost your wits and all you wanted to do was smile and say your own, albeit awkward, greeting—but then you remembered…

        Marlene. Lily. Alice. Mary.

       All undoubtedly watching this potential catastrophe, from the oblivious look on Sirius’s face to the dawning horror in yours.

       “Hey, Sirius!” you said in reply. You made sure to ignore your dormmates, who were burning holes in your backside. “Ready to study?”

       His warm, inviting features turned confused. “I thought we—” The bespectacled one, James, thumped him in the back—a weird gesture, but one you found yourself appreciating, nonetheless. Sirius’s face reddened. “Yeah, okay. I do have my book and some parchment on me… Might need to borrow a quill.” He sounded strangely nervous as he held up his bag, which seemed to overflow with materials. James and Remus were silently observing him, one with a shite-eating grin and the other with a subtle smile.

       You nodded, in a rush to leave. So rushed, in fact, that your mind barely took time to observe Sirius’s red face and shy, embarrassed demeanor—something that you could have put into the support pile for Marlene’s claim. “Okay, let’s go.” Not realizing just what you were doing, you grabbed Sirius’s hand. And you dragged him behind you as you left the common room in a hurry.

       “Wow, where’s the fire?” he joked, voice a bit too shaky to be coming from Sirius. But you ignored it. Desperate to get away from the vicinity, when you wouldn’t put it past Marlene and Lily to follow the two of you to the classroom. “Y/N—”

       You realized what you were gripping, and quickly dropped it. His hand. Oh Merlin, you hoped your palm hadn’t been too sweaty. “Sorry. I just really needed to get away,” you said, knowing it was a lousy explanation. There was literally no reason for you to manhandle him like that, you tosser. You flinched outwardly, feeling a copious amount of guilt. “That’s no excuse, I know—”

       “You don’t need excuses to hold my hand, Y/N,” said Sirius. When you stopped in your tracks and looked over at him, he was smiling. Humor danced in his eyes. Of course he’s joking, you thought, wanting to throttle yourself for thinking he meant anything by it. Of course. He wouldn’t like me like that. “I’m slacking in History of Magic, anyway.”

       McGonagall said you’ve been doing exceptionally well in the class, though… You shook your head, trying not to dwell on suspicions. Unlike Marlene, you didn’t like to doubt people; Sirius wouldn’t lie. He wasn’t a very conniving person. “Alright. We’ll go to the Arithmancy classroom. I’ve got a key.”

       “Why do you have a key?” Sirius looked intrigued. He probably thought you did something against the prefect code—like stealing. You felt slightly bad for disappointing his expectations.

       “You’re not my only student, Sirius,” you told him, feeling shy. Sirius’s smile flattened completely, a look of bemusement flashing in his unusual grey eyes. “I tutor a fourth-year in Arithmancy, and another fifth year in Ancient Runes.”

       “I thought I was your only student,” said Sirius, sounding and looking like a petulant child.

       You loosed a sigh. Against your better judgment, you felt obligated to reassure him. “Sirius, they’re just blokes I help with homework,” you tried.

       Sirius stopped in the middle of the hallway. He stared at you with this look of utter frustration, and before you knew it, he was throwing his hands into the air, one reaching to tug furiously at his curly, charcoal-black hair. “Yeah! And I bet they asked McGonagall for you specifically! They’re not slick; I know they heard me telling Prongs about it—”

       “What?” you said abruptly. On a different occasion, you might have felt guilty for interrupting him, but the way he worded what he said… “Sirius, don’t tell me… you…”

       Sirius’s face turned red. And he said nothing.

       “Why?” Marlene’s assumptions whizzed through your head. They didn’t sound so implausible now. In fact, the rational voice in your head told you to firmly believe them.

       “Weren’t we going to study?” Sirius wouldn’t look you in the eye. “Let’s just forget I said anything, and just—” He cut himself off. His gaze was anxious as he repeatedly glanced from you to the ground.

       You shook your head, but otherwise said nothing. Making sure Sirius saw the suspicion in your gaze, you felt an overwhelming sense of satisfaction when his own gaze lowered, embarrassed. It was very un-Sirius-like. You wondered what his head looked like at that moment—if it was haywire or as calm as an abandoned poolside.

       The two of you walked in anxious silence all the way to the Arithmancy classroom. Even when you got the door, you found yourself void of anything to say. The same could not be said for the bloke at your side. As you rummaged through your bag, searching for the key, Sirius cleared his throat.

       “Are you angry?” he asked. When you looked over at him, classroom key in hand, you couldn’t help but to raise an eyebrow. He couldn’t be serious.

       Sirius is my middle name, you imagined him saying, as cheeky as always, and you wondered where his humor had gone. He seemed far too nervous to be a Marauder, and that observation made you a tad-bit more irritated than you should have been.

       Even if Marlene were right, a crush wouldn’t make someone so unlike their usual self.

       “No, I’m not angry. Just irritated,” you told him as you unlocked the door. You pushed it open, gesturing for him to be the first one inside. He slowly went, after giving you a reluctant glance.

       He silently went and sat at one of the tables. By the time you made your way over, he already had his book and parchment out. But he was looking at you sheepishly. Pursing your lips, you said, “What?”

       “I need to borrow a quill,” he said.

       You shook your head. “You won’t need a quill.”

       Sirius looked confused. You couldn’t blame him. You hardly even knew what you were doing, let alone saying.

       Be bold. You’re a Gryffindor! you thought. But looking at Sirius, as he sat there, staring, this look of apprehension on his face…

       You flushed.

       “What?” Sirius leaned forward in his seat, ignoring his parchment as a roll of it fell on the ground. “Are you alright, Y/N?”

       “Do you fancy me?” you blurted out.

       It was almost comical how quickly Sirius’s body retracted. How his eyes widened. How his jaw fell open.

       How quick he was to stammer out, “W-Wha… w-where’d you get that idea? Ha-ha…”

       His eyes weren’t looking anywhere near you, and his skin was flushed red. His behavior was almost identical to yours.

       “Marlene said you fancy me,” you told him. You wanted to curse yourself for admitting who put the idea in your head, as Sirius would definitely say something to Marlene in the near future. What kind of friend were you? “I mean, I didn’t think she was right… I still don’t… but I just wanted to ask. Clear the air.”

       Clear the air, my arse. You just want to see if he’d be a willing shagging participant. The lustful part of you stayed silent, in complete agreement.

       Sirius let out a breath. “Okay, so… maybe, there is the slight chance… I do. Yeah, a slight. Itty-bitty.” He raised a hand, putting just a centimeter of distance between his thumb and pointer finger. “Very tiny! About as small as Snivellus’s brain.”

       “Is that why you asked McGonagall to have me tutor you?” You crinkled your brow. When Sirius stayed silent, his eyes expressive of where his answer lied, you let out a laugh. You couldn’t help it; the womanizing Sirius, going to the lowest of heights just to spend time alone with you. With you, of all people. What were the odds?

       “Yes, laugh at me!” Sirius looked a hundred more times embarrassed than he already did, his face cocked in the opposite direction of you. His face was so red, you could hardly tell what natural pigment his skin was. “Right before you reject me. What ways a bird has of afflicting a man’s ego… Merlin’s beard, Y/N, you are heartless.”

       “I wouldn’t bring it up if I didn’t fancy you back,” you told him.

       “Yeah, I bet—wait, what?” Sirius’s head snapped towards you. “Are you being serious?”

       “There is only one Sirius in this room, and it isn’t me.” Your lip twitched, and you lowered your gaze. That previous Gryffindor confidence was wearing off, and you were back to your usual self—reserved and awkward. “But… yeah. I’m not lying.”

       Sirius hopped up from where he was sitting, knocking the chair out from underneath himself. Before you knew it, your gaze was locking onto a pair of shoes just inches from your own, and when your eyes traveled up, they met a silver pair. “That’s… great news,” he breathed.

       “Yeah,” you breathed back.

       Moments passed, and the two of you continued to stare at one another.

       “I really want to kiss you,” he suddenly said. His hangs hung limply to his sides.

       Before you could tell yourself no, that this wasn’t the best place, you replied, “So kiss me.”

       And so he did, History of Magic study-work be damned.

#sirius black x reader #sirius black imagine #sirius black fanfiction #sirius black fanfic #sirius black #sirius black one shot #sirius black oneshot #marauders imagine #marauders era #marauders map #the marauders #marauders universe #marauders cast #james potter #remus lupin #lily evans #marlene mckinnon #harry potter #harry potter x reader #harry potter imagine #harry potter blog #unfortunatelysirius

[scrunchyharry]

on allowing translations of our fics: a non-native English speaker’s perspective

Here’s some 7am thoughts from my brain to your screens. This isn’t criticism, to be clear. I’m thinking out loud.

Under a cut because it’s pretty long and verging on Discourse.

I’ve been writing fics for 15 years, across four different fandoms and as many platforms. I’ve always allowed translations to be made of my fics because, I suppose que je comprends que certaines personnes ne disposent pas des capacités nécessaires pour lire des œuvres écrites en anglais.

I couldn’t comfortably read a novel in English until I was 17-18. It took me three weeks to get through Of Mice and Men in high school and when I was asked to read Dracula in my 9th grade ESL-A class, I found a French translation of it. I still can’t go to a Shakespeare play and hope to understand what’s going on. I’ve tried, numerous times. I’ve tried with Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet. I just do not understand them when they speak (to be fair, I have seen a handful of Molière plays and also struggled my way through the Ancien Régime French, so maybe I just have really bad hearing comprehension).

And I’m Canadian, so English is omnipresent in my life. I started learning when I was in the 4th grade, I only truly felt like I could call myself bilingual in my early twenties, after going to university in English. Je comprends donc que l’anglais n’est pas confortablement accessible à tous et à toutes.

the 1D fandom is the first where I see people being against translations, yet it is also the most "international" of the fandoms I’ve been in. I have to clarify: I never witnessed any discussions of translations in my previous fandoms, is what I mean by that. Whether for or against them, I never saw people talking about them. The 1D fandom is the first where I a) see it being talked about and b) see people against them.

It stands out as odd to me because I personally never had any objections to it, I never even gave it a second thought beyond making sure that I was properly credited and asking for a link to the final product so that I can verify that I was. I think, perhaps, it speaks to the fact that the English speaking world is so rarely confronted to works in a language inaccessible to them. The outcries around Parasite being in Korean with English subs come to mind, while the rest of the non-English world was like "this is a regular Monday for us? To have to contend with translated or subtitled works to be able to access the hegemonic culture?"

Being a non-English speaker in an Anglo-centric world means constantly readjusting what you thought you knew. I didn’t grow up watching The Lion King or reading Anne of Green Gables. I grew up watching Le Roi lion and reading Anne et la maison aux pignons verts. Translations are an integral part of my life. Hell, on days when I’m really tired, I’ll switch whatever I’m watching on Netflix to French (when it’s available, which is a topic for another discussion) so that my brain can catch a break.

When I say readjusting, I mean that you’re always reframing. “Oh, I didn’t know that Severus Rogue’s English name was Severus Snape. Let me keep that in mind throughout our entire discussion in my second language.” “Oh, right, Americans have middle school so I better remember what years that covers and speak accordingly so I don’t have to go down the longer road of explaining that, actually, my French-Canadian school system didn’t have middle school and oh, also, our high school ends in the 10th grade and...” you get my drift.

This post is getting away from me. I’ll try to reel it back in. When I was in undergrad, I took a lit class from the French department (remember my bit about giving my brain a break?) and it was about the early 20th century. After suffering through the inevitable Proust, we moved on to Milan Kundera, a Czech writer (I had to use autocorrect for that, see, for me Czech is Tchèque) who became a French citizen. I don’t have the exact quote, that notebook has been gone since 2012, but I remember that he considered translations to be entirely new works of fiction and that the translator’s touch made the book anew because of the interpretations they chose when translating. Here’s an excerpt from an abstract about this:

"Kundera showed displeasure at any translator who, however briefly, would impersonate the author and take some license in translating Kundera’s work. Further, Kundera decided that only his full authorial involvement in the process would ascertain “the same authenticity” of his translations as the original Czech works. Kundera thus becomes the omnipresent, omnipotent author, himself impersonating God controlling his own creation."

Margala, Miriam. (2011). The Unbearable Torment of Translation: Milan Kundera, Impersonation, and The Joke. TranscUlturAl: A Journal of Translation and Cultural Studies. 1. 10.21992/T9C62H.

I’m not just name dropping Milan Kundera to show that I’m Educated. I’m bringing this point up because this isn’t my personal perspective on translation, but I can understand how it can be other people’s. My stance on this is that I want my work to be as universally accessible as it can be. Once I’ve put a story out into the world, while I do retain the copyright of it, it isn’t mine anymore. Every person reading it will read a different story because of their own inner lives and what they bring to it. Similarly, translations may bring out other perspectives of it. My work is done, though, the moment I click "post" and send it out into the world. I am no longer in control of the way it will be understood. And I’m at peace with this. It is a true ego death to read comments and see people picking up on things you did not even notice yourself as the omnipotent little god of your own creation.

As I was revising this essay, memories of bygone discourse came back to my mind, from the time I was in the Les Misérables fandom. You can imagine that I got a kick out of being able to say I had read it in the original French, but beyond that, the most interesting conversations I had in those days were when comparing the various English translations of the novel to each other and to the original French. There were Opinions on who had done it best, and who got closer to the original, but then not quite as much, because “see, here this word that Hugo used can be interpreted in a different way and it changes the entire meaning of the next sentence.” 

More recently, a woman translated The Illiad or the Odyssey, I don’t quite remember, and her interpretation of certain scenes completely changed their meaning. I’m working off my memory, here, but I think I recall reading that where men had translated “prostitute”, she had translated “companion”, or something along those lines, and it showed how the translator brings their own worldview to a work, it’s inevitable.

I am not trying to compare One Direction fanfiction to The Illiad, let’s be clear. What I’m attempting to say in too many words is that fanfiction is derivative work, and so are translations. I, personally, will never be against people translating my work if I’m credited correctly. Without translations, I wouldn’t have known Disney growing up. I wouldn’t have known Anne of Green Gables, or Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter, or Winnie the Pooh, or Alice in Wonderland, or any other work that have shaped my psyche as a child. Far from me to say that my native French culture is not rich in itself with works (I owe as much to the Comtesse de Ségur as I do to Lucy Maud Montgomery), but translations allow me to be able to take part of a global conversation, to be a part of the Internet’s collective unconscious.

At the same time, with the plague that are unauthorized reposts of our works, I understand why other people are wary of anything that involves a form of reposting. There is no easy answer to this, but I did want to share my thoughts on the matter as a non-native English speaker and, most importantly, writer. 

I’ll conclude by saying that, if anyone is wondering, I’m not writing in my native French because the mere thought of writing a sex scene in the same language I use to talk to my mother is enough to Catholic-guilt me off the face of the planet, without even breaching the topic of writing in the language that has the biggest potential reach.

so, huh, yeah. thank you for coming to my ted talk.

#I'm sure no one will read all of this but here it goes #my two cents on a topic that is close to my heart #dare I tag this #discourse #I hope no one feels attacked by this because it truly wasn't my intention

[omophagias]

bookposting #22

tender is the night, f. scott fitzgerald: 3.5 stars, i’d say. i really do like his prose style. it…there’s some l-word, i forget which—languid, that’s it. it felt very languid. i was less a fan of the flashback parts, partially because i didn’t like being in dick’s head as much as i liked being in rosemary’s. it also sometimes felt like fitzgerald was kind of wobbling around on the border between “no, obviously dick isn’t meant to be a sympathetic character, he’s a self-destructive asshole” and the, like, not being really sure whether he was extending that “you shouldn’t like him!” to the part where he marries his teenage psychiatric patient. (fortunately the autobiographical resemblance didn’t get that far…?) really what i was mostly thinking by the end was, damn, fscott and zelda, i really wish you’d lived in a time when it was easier to get divorced. but, you know, on the list of books about people just really fucking themselves over, this is one of the better ones. i think i got it because i can’t / couldn’t stop thinking about “patient is the night” from over the garden wall.

the fire next time, james baldwin: 5 stars easy. i really wish i’d read it sooner; i ended up reading it because i bought my roommate a copy for his birthday and wanted to be able to write him a decent further-reading list to go with it. i just was completely awed by the facility with which he was able to touch on so many different things and draw them back together into a whole, and he was such a writer. i don’t know that i can really talk about "down at the cross” right now without just quoting massive passages because it just speaks so completely for itself. read it.

trouble the saints, alaya dawn johnson: three stars? this is kind of hard to talk about because i theoretically like a lot about it. alternate-universe 1930s-1940s where at the age of 10 some people of color gain a power called “the hands” along with occasional semi-prophetic dreams, “the hands” basically give you one superpower like “can see a person’s worst deed by touching them” or “can sense threat to oneself”, protagonist’s power is unfailingly perfect aim, which she uses to kill for the mob. i think maybe it was a marketing issue, because from the blurbs and so forth it seemed to be being sold as much more of a straight up and down fantasy noir, which is absolutely not what you’re getting. it’s extremely character-driven and thematically very concerned with passing, liminality, justice, ancestral trauma. i will say i didn’t care as much for the middle third, i thought dev’s narrative voice was not interesting, especially compared to phyllis or tamara. it’s…i don’t know, i think it’s interesting and it’s definitely something i’d enthusiastically recommend to other people but i just didn’t really click with it. maybe a prose issue, idk, it got kind of dense sometimes in a way that didn’t really work with the plot, imo.

the story of silence, alex myers: rating…i don’t know, i feel like it might be a book that’d improve on rereading, provisional three because i felt a bit disappointed. retelling of the roman de silence, a 13th century french poem about a lord who, due to inheritance law, raises his afab child silence as a boy and which i haven’t yet read (which might be one of the reasons it didn’t click, i couldn’t tell if/where myers was deviating from the story beyond the obvious change to the ending—in the poem, silence ends up married to the king; in the book, silence escapes that fate and the fate of being forcibly externally gendered in general). i think that probably its best strength is as a prose adaptation of the poem, because it definitely has the feel of, like, the better prose adaptations of arthurian poems (which this is, merlin is in it). but on its own i’m less sure; there’s not really a lot of character exploration. i’m gonna donate my copy because it’s a 400-page hardback and i don’t want to pay to send it home, i can get a paperback in the states.

wakenhyrst, michelle paver: two stars. oy. a very boring gothic horror with not enough horror and far too many diary entries from the main character’s terrible father. remarkably unsympathetic treatment of the housemaid who is being, frankly, sexually exploited by said father. also i felt like there were digs being taken at margery kempe, which is less serious but still annoyed me. paver really, really likes doing epistolary/diary-based horror—she did it in dark matter, which i did like—but these ones are just not well-done, the shift back and forth between them and the main character’s perspective doesn’t do much, and the horror—which as far as i can tell is the maybe-real ghost of the father’s sister who he let drown in the fen when they were kids coming back into the house—is just not given enough room to get really settled and also not really successfully integrated with the big spooky 15th century painting that’s also part of the whole thing somehow.

one-way street and other writings, walter benjamin, trans. j.a. underwood: three stars again? i don’t know; i think that a lot of it was very well-written / translated but i was missing the referents to actually engage with it. also i was really, really tired when i read the first two essays. i did like “one-way street,” it felt kind of like invisible cities in a way, and “hashish in marseille” was funny because like dude we’ve all been there, we’ve all been high and unable to stop staring at people’s faces. i think overall the things that i understood i liked but i didn’t understand as much as i wanted to.

the dunwich horror and other stories, h.p. lovecraft: three and a half, four, something in that neighborhood, graded to the lovecraft curve (a curve somehow squamous and rugose!). overall the stories were pretty well-selected—the dunwich horror is definitely one of his best, the thing on the doorstep is very interesting as a story, like, thematically; the dreams in the witch house didn’t work as well for me because it is kind of about a guy double-majoring in math and folklore too hard (and what the fuck is “non-euclidean calculus” anyway, howie), accidentally discovering teleportation, and then getting chased by a witch and and her half gef the mongoose / half vladislav cat familiar in the form of evil shapes, the lurking fear really dropped the ball at the end and is basically a dry run for the rats in the walls; i had no idea what was going on in hypnos, and the outsider is a decent sort of twilight zone-y tomato in the mirror couple of pages. i think really what i found most interesting about this collection is that it made it very clear to me that lovecraft was deeply, deeply obsessive about eugenics. which, i mean, i’d already known he had the ingredients for it (seething, all-consuming racism; classism of the “augh the inbred hillbillies!” type that was very foundational for american eugenics; his personal concern with / fear of hereditary mental illness; interest in what was in the 1920s cutting edge science) but i hadn’t quite put them together until looking at the dunwich horror and the lurking fear and their presentation of rural new englanders, combined with the, you know, his stuff about innsmouth (as always i say: THE FISH PEOPLE DID NOTHING WRONG) and the racist implications therein, which crops up in dunwich and in thing on the doorstep, the way all three are very, very concerned with genealogy / heredity… shouldn’t have taken me that long to figure it out. one thing i did like about the lurking fear was the moment when the narrator, atop the hill where the abandoned house of the ill-fortuned and vanished martense family stands, looks out over the plain and suddenly realizes that the weird earth mounds in the area are all radially emanating from that hill. it’s an actually effective spooky moment! i thought it was gonna be giant mole people! it isn’t, it’s the martense family having somehow managed in 100 years, through some really committed inbreeding, to devolve into weird voiceless subterranean cannibalistic hominids. boo.

#.txt #book review #.bookposting

[whiskynottea]

An Interruption in the 1st Law of Thermodynamics.

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24, Chapter 25, Chapter 26, Chapter 27,  Chapter 28, Chapter 29, Chapter 30, Chapter 31, Chapter 32, Chapter 33, Chapter 34, Chapter 35,  Chapter 36, Chapter 37, Chapter 38, Chapter 39, Chapter 40, Chapter 41, Chapter 42, Chapter 43, Chapter 44,  Chapter 45, Chapter 46, Chapter 47, Chapter 48, Chapter 49, Chapter 50, Chapter 51 Chapter 52, Chapter 53, Chapter 54, Chapter 55, Chapter 56

AO3

Thank you @theministerskat​ for your beta! ❤️

                                   – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – 

Chapter 57. Juggling and Swimming

Jugglers. 

People skilled enough to throw three, four, five balls into the air, and with swift and precise maneuvers of their hands, keep them flying over their head. Easily. While smiling.

I remember watching them as a child, open-mouthed, mesmerized. I always kept my eyes on the fast-moving balls, as if studying their hands would steal the magic away. As a consequence, I never tried juggling myself. I was sure that I would drop the little balls -- or lemons, I had seen a guy juggling at the side of the road using the yellowest lemons once -- even before throwing them up in the first place.

Maybe if I had tried to juggle before, my life at university would be easier. Because it felt like juggling. I often found myself lying on my bed after midnight with my eyes closed, not because I sought sleep, but because I was trying to imagine how I would manage to keep all the tasks I had undertaken -- my very own lemons -- successfully flying around me and not send them crashing to the ground.

If I finish this essay on Tuesday night, and then start with the presentation for Dr. Raymond after Wednesday’s practical…

No. 

If I first work on the presentation, on Monday…

Shit. We have the ‘Dissection Drinks’ on Monday night. I can’t miss it again.

No matter how I tried to schedule my tasks, my lemons were one too many.

Jenny had called me twice that week, and both times I had texted back, explaining that I was in the middle of a lecture and I would call her later. Texts had never been Jenny’s preferred means of communication. Which was more than odd, since she had to be the only Gen Z-er who hated texts. With practicals after my lecture and heading to the library to prepare for the tutorials after that, later had become tomorrow, and tomorrow became the day after. 

Don’t forget to call Jenny, I would think to myself at the most irrelevant and inconvenient times. Tomorrow morning. I will call her tomorrow. Before she comes down to Oxford herself and I have to justify the radio silence to Jenny face-to-face.

With Joe things were different. He demanded pictures from my college, my dorm, and my textbooks, so we could compare our respective medical schools and start bickering about whose university was better. It was utterly ridiculous and we both knew it -- since mine was the Oxford University and there was no real competition, to begin with. Not that Joe would ever agree with that notion. We usually texted when I was in the library and ended up writing in caps, our conversation nothing more than ludicrous arguments. I had choked more than once in my desperate attempt to swallow my laughter, but it was more difficult to pretend that I wasn’t aware of the irritated glances shot at me from my fellow students who were trying to study in silence. To Gail’s utter despair, Joe kept arguing with me even when they were together, and on top of that, he tried to pull her into the debate. When Gail grabbed his phone and started talking New York bagels and pancakes, I knew the conversation was over.

Apart from feeling totally overwhelmed by the workload, life at Oxford was good. More than good. Mary and I got along fine, and when we weren’t deep in the library researching for the essays we had to prepare for Dr. Hildegard’s or Dr. Raymond’s tutorials, we had late nights together with Malva and Davie, drinking beers and discussing professors and medics from other colleges. Davie had proposed we call ourselves the very humble ‘Lifesavers’, while I was inclined more towards Malva’s ‘Where’s the Finish’. We settled for ‘Four Angry Pencils’ and we were very proud of our little team.

Texting with Jamie was a constant. He was becoming more and more stressed as his meet in New Jersey approached, and I pulled out all my feel good moves to calm him down. Silly, sweet gifs in the middle of the day, ridiculous voice messages, goofy selfies... We stopped calling in the morning because he was literally running to the pool the moment he woke, and we kept our conversations short at night because he was usually exhausted and needed sleep. No matter how much I smiled or played the fool, he was getting more distant as the days passed by.

“Ye don’t understand, Claire,” he would say, again and again, even though I insisted that I did understand. “It’s very important to do well in this meet.”

I would spend the rest of the call reassuring him that I knew how much the meet meant to him and that he would do great, until at last, he would mumble that I was right and he shouldn’t be so nervous, but that he couldn’t help it. By the time we would say goodnight, he would become my sweat Scot again, sure of himself and his abilities. Until the next morning. 

The Wolverines departed for New Jersey on a rainy Tuesday -- or at least it was drizzling in Oxford. When he was with his teammates, Jamie fell back into being much closer to his old self. He was sending pictures of himself and John making silly faces or smiling like loons, and when he called, his voice sounded aloof, unconcerned. I wasn’t sure whether he strived to maintain a cool facade in front of the others or if he really relaxed around them. I could see that the strain back on his face, however, a frown establishing itself between his eyebrows, the moment he was alone.

“No matter what happens tomorrow, know that we are very proud of you and that won’t change,” I told him the night before the competition and saw him heaving a deep sigh, his chest deflating. 

“What if I fail, Claire? What if I’m not as good as they thought I would be? I can’t continue here without the scholarship and I don’t want to go back to Scotland like that.”

I looked him in the eye and put on my most serious face. “Jamie,” I intoned, trying to keep my voice harsh on purpose. “Stop doing that. It’s not fair! You’re doing a disservice to yourself, can’t you see that?”

“What if --”

“There are no what-ifs. I’ll have none of that,” I announced as if I was his mother and he was asking for another scoop of ice-cream. “You will go out there, and you will swim. Remember what I had written on your birthday cake last year?” 

I could still see the dark blue buttercream letters if I closed my eyes. Not my most beautiful work, but it had served its purpose.

“Just keep swimming,” Jamie replied, and I could swear I saw a smile crack on his lips.

“Just keep swimming, Jamie. I’ve seen you swim, I’ve been there. You swim because you love to. And you’re good at it because when you’re in the pool, you feel free. Don’t be afraid, you stupid Scot! Live it! Go out there and enjoy yourself!”

He rubbed his face with his palms, then ran a hand through his hair. “Ye’re right, I guess.”

“I am. I always am,” I amended. “You should know it by now.”

Jamie snorted, but didn’t disagree. He was smiling now. A wide, toothy smile. “I will think of you the entire time,” I said, softly. “You won’t be alone, I promise.”

Jamie nodded but didn’t speak. 

“I won’t be in the bleachers but I will be thinking of you,” I said again and felt the guilt painfully squeezing my heart. Jamie needed me and I had chosen to stay in Oxford. Not that it had been the wrong decision. It just hadn’t been the right one, either.

“I ken, babe. ‘Tis irrational, this worry.” The camera lost focus as Jamie moved to lie in bed. When his beautiful blue eyes were back on mine, I gave him my biggest smile.

“It is. Don’t let it eat at you. But first, you need to get some rest, and I need to go to bed because we have Hildegard’s tutorial tomorrow and it’s a pain in the arse.”

We ended the call and I returned to my room, my heavy steps the only sound in the corridors. Speaking with Jamie before he went to bed had made me Oxford’s resident nocturnal animal. I fell asleep the moment my head sank oin to the pillow and dreamed of swimming pools, wet auburn curls, and finishing times.

Jamie was more cheerful the following day, but I could tell he still wasn’t completely himself. I went on with my pep talk as I had prepared it, trying to boost his confidence in a break between two practicals, and promised again that I would be thinking of him. Before hanging up I risked sending him a ridiculously loud kiss while wishing no one was around to hear it. I returned to the class keeping my head low, in case anyone would identify me as the silly girl kissing a screen. 

I hadn’t wished Jamie good luck, because I planned on calling him again right before his race. It was our little tradition since we had been in Scotland. He would say “I will imagine that I’m swimming towards you, Sassenach,” and I would reply, “Come find me, then, ridiculous Scot.”

It was cheesier than I could usually handle, but Jamie insisted that he loved the way I blushed every time before I said my part. And that was the reason he demanded we hold onto our own version of ‘good luck’.

I spent a good part of the practical checking the time, counting down the hours to Jamie’s race. It was two hours later when Mary stood in front of me, asking if I was ready for Hildegard’s tutorial. I was ready to nod when I checked my bag and realized I had forgotten the USB drive with our presentations back in the dorm. And like that, we found ourselves running in the rain, boots splashing through puddles and breaths hitching in our throats, frantic to get the flash drive and be back before the tutorial started. 

We made it. We entered the class with our cheeks red, our hair matted on our faces and coats soaked in water, but we made it on time. Dr. Hildegard crooked an eyebrow but gestured towards two empty seats without any verbal comment, and I felt immensely grateful towards the taciturn professor. 

The tutorial was amazing. Dr. Hildegard was so serious and collected, that she kept making jokes we only got when it was too late. She managed to stop Mary’s stuttering while she was a few slides in her presentation by subtly praising her work, and after mentioning a few points I should have addressed differently in mine, she concluded that it was one of the best presentations she had seen from a fresher. I beamed and nodded repeatedly my thanks before I found my voice to properly thank her.

When we left the tutorial, I realized that I had missed the time window for Jamie’s ‘good luck call’. 

I had six unanswered calls and two texts on my phone.

Scot: We left the room and we’re heading to the pool.

Scot: Oh god, there are so many people here. I think the backstroke race is in fifteen minutes or so.

Scot: Sassenach?

Scot: A few minutes left, babe.

Scot: Where are you?

Scot: Claire? Where are you?

Scot: I’m going.

I wanted the earth to open beneath my feet and swallow me up. I had promised I would think of him during his race and instead I had been thinking of… physiology.

Not listening to what Mary was saying about our next tutorial, I called Jamie. It was an hour since I had received his last text and the race must be over now. He didn’t answer.

I called again. And again. 

Feeling the tears rolling down my cheeks, I texted him. 

Sassenach: How did it go?

It wasn’t enough. 

Sassenach: I’m sorry I didn’t call.

Sassenach: I’m so, so, so sorry Jamie. 

Sassenach: I was in Hildegard’s tutorial, and got carried away. 

I waited for a minute after that, then called him again. Nothing. The initial plan was to leave the class at some point to call Jamie, but with presenting my work and then listening to the others... I had forgotten. 

Sassenach: Jamie, please pick up your phone.

It wasn’t that terrible, was it? I didn’t say good luck before a race. A single race. I had talked to him that morning and every day before that. He knew that I would think of him… 

I paused on this thought. I had said that I would think of him, but I didn’t. I wasn’t thinking of him at the time of the race. I had promised.

Pulling my hood over my head I walked back to the dorm, my eyes fixed on my phone. 

Sassenach: I’m sorry. 

Jamie needed me and I had disappointed him. And even though calling him for one last time didn’t seem that important to me, it obviously was important for him. I had messed up. Royally. 

I entered my room and changed out of my clothes, but didn’t dare take a shower. He might reply at any moment. Maybe he hadn’t seen his phone yet. Maybe he was with the rest of the team, celebrating his victory. It wasn’t the end of the world.

As if there was a chance Jamie wouldn’t reply to my texts, no matter where he was.

It was irrational. He was irrational. I repeated that thought to myself, trying to smother the burning feeling that kept eating at my heart. 

Jamie needed me and I hadn’t been there.  

I wore an old t-shirt I had stolen from him when I visited Michigan and buried myself under the blankets. I unlocked my phone and kept looking at my screensaver. He was hugging me tight and we were both smiling at the camera. 

It was just a call, it couldn’t be that bad. I had always been there. People make mistakes.

I looked at Jamie’s eyes in the picture, so slanted from his smile that I could barely see the blue in them. I called him again. 

One more time. 

And again.

Two hours had passed. I saw the lemons I had flying over my head, falling, crashing down.

I set my jaw, tried not to cry, and sent yet another text. 

Sassenach: Call me. Please?

Chapter 58

#thermodynamics #the first law of thermodynamics #jamie x claire #high school AU #college AU #outlander fanfic #outlander fanfiction