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#just bc she was surrounded by it before and she is so heavily integrated in it
swordmaid · 4 months
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man I can’t stop yapping abt the difference between spawn astarion/oathbreaker shri’iia and ascended astarion/vengeance (or devotion…) shri’iia. I love the idea that oathbreaker shri’iia calls astarion arlurlssrin and other terms of endearment in drowic. even though she’s turned away from lolth and is now an apostate, I don’t think she’s divorced from the culture and she still practices their customs when she can. likewise I think astarion would get her whatever drow related food/item he came across bc he knows she would appreciate it.
on the flip side, I think vengeance shri’iia is completely divorced from the drow culture and ascended astarion probably got her a teacher so she can speak the surface language all the time. the way she does her hair, her clothes, her mannerisms, etc. I like to imagine astarion wants her to look like some noble but still gives her more risqué clothing that looks similar to what drow nobles would wear so she looks more exotic in court. don’t think she’s allowed to speak drowic too … she doesn’t need that anymore, not when she’s going to live in his castle forever by his side. idk if she would call him pet names tbh I kind of like the difference between how she just calls him astarion vs his various pet names for her but he never calls her her own name (which is a drow name too…) just furthers make her feel like an object than a person 🤭
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gotatext · 4 years
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 hello, its nora (she/her, gmt) n this is the ethereal but spoiled alma olive putnam (she goes by all 3 names cos she’s pretentious as fuck). raised in a farmhouse in vermont, big horse girl energy. very hungry for everything life has to offer. wakes up and smells the success in her blood. luvs the smell of libraries and listening to french music from a tinny record player in knee socks. here is pinterest. bio is below the cut, like this post to be bombarded with plotting messages but i might forget tho so pls message me x
application template.
『ELLE FANNING ❙ CIS-FEMALE』 ⟿ looks like ALMA OLIVE PUTNAM is here for HER JUNIOR year as a CLASSICS student. SHE is 21 years old & known to be RESILIENT, MAGNETIC, CALLOUS & PROUD. They’re living in PERKINS, so if you’re there, watch out for them. ⬳ NORA. 24. GMT. SHE/HER.
aesthetics.
a red beret nestled on top of bright platimum locks, neck scarves tied around your throat the way they do it in french new wave films, running barefoot through the woods in feckless hedonism, china dolls with porcelain faces lined against the walls of your room, the mona lisa smile, knee-socks tugged over the hockey grazes on your knees, a forged botticelli drying on your easel, ophelia floating in the middle of a lake. 
proceed w caution, tw for death, drugs, alcohol, violence
the short form.
— studying classics cos she thinks it makes her sound smart, but actually hates fuckin latin and just loves learning about feckless hedonism and the festivals of bacchus and writing about how all women in myth are literally forgotten. was expelled from princeton in her first year so her parents basically paid her way into radcliffe but she made an impression.... like... super fast and in her sophomore year she was upgraded to perkins accomodation n a paid scholarship bcos i think the governors kind of expect to see her in the supreme court one day or.
—  born in vermont in a big old farmhouse. her great-great-grandfather moved to america as an immigrant and worked on a plantation, made his way up cos he could speak a lot of languages and therefore win more people over. for the last two generations, putnam men have owned the farm and do little of the dirty work. big in the meat industry.
— both her parents had large personalities, so alma’s never really been shy around adults, even as a kid she’d speak to them in a forthright, confident manner, and because she was always surrounded by adults, she’s always seemed a bit wise beyond her years.
— very much a consolidation of every character in the secret history. has a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs. obsessed with w.h. auden and the beat poets. — ”aestheticism is the only thing worth pursuing and even that is pointless” — is majoring in classical civilisation. can read ancient greek and latin. also speaks french.
— studies hard and plays hard. she gets top marks but it’s because academia is literally her life, she loves the smell of libraries, the ancient smoke of learning, of feeling like old wine in a new bottle reincarnated from the bones of some old, dead witchy woman who invented a cure for cowpox or somethin.
— isn’t a foward-planner, however. alma prefers to leave her options open, play the field, live in a spontaneous manner so her study style is mostly cramming a few days before a test, or staying up all night writing an essay on a massive adrenaline boost powered by red bull or probably adderall, scribbling (or typing) furiously into the night.
— pretentious motherfucker. loves poetry, especially the romantics, loves morbid ones too, edgar allen poe, sylvia plath, allen ginsberg, she just loves them all. can’t get enough. her favourite films are like…. wanky artfilm independent european cinema. especially french new wave. “what do you think of goddard’s work??” while snorting a line off someone’s sink at 5am on a school night, but you can bet she’ll make it to that 9am class. — very intelligent and beautiful and knows both of those facts. plays devil’s advocate. humanitarian, vegan. — judgemental but takes great care not to appear so. petty and vindictive
— obsessively devours mystery and thriller novels. she herself is a gillian flynn book waiting to happen. — tries to be an enigma. wants to be mysterious and unreadable because that’s what books have taught her makes women desirable and interesting and cool. very amy dunne in the way she expertly reinvents herself to suit her audience, when she wants to impress
— act like the flower but be the serpent under it. is a user. manipulative. leads people on. will throw another student under the bus to demonstrate her own intelligence and integrity — heavily involved in the theatre society. loves attention. — has an addictive personality. seems unable to do anything in a small dose, she has to let it utterly consume her. with sports, she’s fiercely competitive, runs track, played lacrosse at school, now is a cheerleader probably. with alcohol, it’s never a shot, it’s a whole bottle – wine or whiskey – she’ll be table dancing before the night’s up and making out with someone she’ll regret in the morning.
— her clothing style is like…. vintage thrift store but make it preppy. berets and cute hats, neck scarves, large fluffy cardigans or like those leathery jackets with big suede fringes on them, mini skirts (very 70s), and knee-high socks or boots. quite often she’ll be in sports kit, maybe a cute tennis skirt, n when she’s feeling casual she’ll wear like, a talking heads tshirt with a pair of mom jeans and converse, but otherwise, the library is her catwalk. — relates to ophelia from hamlet and sibyl vane in dorian gray. weirdly obsessed with women who commit suicide. loves jackson pollock paintings and abstract art. – likes old things. old books, old music, old houses, it reminds her of happier times like when she wasn’t alive. buys all her music on vinyl and has a gramophone because “the sound quality is better” kfdsjj.
plots.
here are some generic wanted plots but by all means message me so we can flesh them out more if any strike ur interest:
study buddies !! someone who is equally unprepared and so spends all night in the library with alma before a big deadline, maybe they even met in the library
if they’re from new england or vermont, then cousins . second cousins / extended family / family friends –  probably spat volavons on your character once as children, omg childhood friends !
people who live in perkins n feel like they r constantly competing with one another to keep their place as one of the #elite only know each other from brief interactions in the lift or the canteen
honestly someone who is fully in love with her or crushing on her that she can just break would be sweet :/ or on the other hand someone she unexpectedly gets feelings for and actually wants to guage her own  eyeballs out bc of it
frinds !! unlikely friends !! toxic friends !! former best friends separated by sporting or academic rivalries !
hockey / cheer friends who are on other teams but who she absolutely loves playin against!!!
fellow academics who like meeting up to discuss latin and greek ! gimme a secret society bonding by their love of ancient learning
i reckon she’s in a lot of societies, definitely the film club, maybe works as a projectionist at the uni cinema if they have one so give me ppl affiliated with that, give me fellow wanky pretentious art-lovers and poets and historians who will go to museums and galleries with her and listen to the velvet underground on vinyl
people she gets mortally fucked off her tits with at parties
people who think she is throwing her academic potential away by caving to hedonistic impulse
A SECRET SOCIETY !!! honestly i would die for a slug club esque thing in which the children of notable families are invited to dinners OR alma’s also an art forger, so maybe like a club of students set up to basically forge paintings and documents from the university special collections
people she has drunkenly made out with, hooked up with, or regularly sleeps with casually, maybe even a friend w benefits she is repressing feelings for, i love angst,
people she used to date or unrequitedly likes, but to them it’s just a physical thing, give me all the thirsty angst plots, and maybe some softness too, i need some religion in this girls life, she is a roman catholic after all
full biography.
alma olive putnam.
intro.
         the girl is a knife. razor-sharp, double-edged, the bright shine of a two-faced, lovely thing. silver like the secrets you magpie thief from other heads. you’re a scavenger of knowledge, of tidbits, of gossip to lock away for later use and late-night re-inspection. a mind is like a clock if you get to learn the pieces. bit by bit, you dismantle the inner workings of the brains that tick around you – how easy it is to change it’s path, how words and their meanings can make a person laugh or cry in an instant. to have the power to control that is to be a god. it’s the power trip you crave wielding pom-poms in your hands; a possessive need for control that a younger you, small and weak, never had as a child. small lips, smaller smile, a doll clutched in your too-hungry fingers, hard enough to shatter the bones of a real infant. you cut your hair with your mother’s kitchen scissors before the autumn falls, rendering you out of season, unfit for the cold weather that beats against the nape of your neck, where a stick-and-poke marks the star you were born under ; the bull. “mama, when will i be a queen?” as soon as they find a crown small enough not to slip from your head.
biography.
         if you get hungry enough, they say, you start eating your own heart. hands red, stained by pomegranate seeds, the empty pulp of its shell splattered on your thighs you find yourself wondering – what would it be like to want? in the beginning, you never knew hunger. twins, born under the same star, you first, him second – a nuclear family. never a sister to compete with, you were always the cherry pie of your parents’ hearts. white-haired, blue-eyed, beautiful baby of mine. the townhouse in vermont and the summer house in lyon, you wanted for nought, showered with attention, saddled with gifts - hardly a wonder you came to rely on such affection as a confirmation of your own worth.
         at eight years old you first met death, blood on a gingham-print dress, a smear of it over your cheekbone and the pulp of a mangled animal at your feet murdered by the hands of a stable boy. “alma, my precious baby, you get away from that filth,” your mama would cry from the upstairs balcony – cigar in one hand and a bloody mary in the other – though whether the filth she referred to was the dead pig or the boy with a kernel of corn in his mouth, you never did find out.
         your family earned their keeps in farming, great-grandfather wolfgang hildegarde a german immigrant, great-grandmother maura lisbon a prairie girl. they fell hopelessly in love between troughs and pig-shit, working for three dollars a day at a farm their descendants would later own, trade deals with the indians, vacations to calcutta, your father todd putnam in the kind of sheepskin coat his father’s father could only dream of owning. he worked hard so that you’d never have to. your mama once asked – you heard it through the window, rounding cartwheels across the picket-fenced lawn – could he not find a respectable career rather than selling shrink-wrapped pork for a dime a dozen? that blood money had no business raising a child. you look far back enough, edie, your father had said in his low, strong voice that could bring a civil war to silence, and i think you’ll find that all money is blood money.
         language was never fickle on your tongue, french dinner time talk by the time you were out of your hush puppy shoes, your mama fixing the au pair a smile as she fixed herself another martini. you learned the clarinet at four and how to dance with the grace of a swansong at six, ethereal under a spotlight, an audience captive in the palm of your hand. by eight you knew that you’d always been destined to be loved. loved so hard they would want to taste you, bite into the soft plump of your cheek and eat you alive. that was how magnetic you wanted to feel. but mother hamsters eat their own young when penned in together too long, and soon you became too wild, too restless, another package on your father’s delivery invoice, box-shipped out to english boarding school.
         fitting in had never been something you had to concern yourself with. you were always the shiny new toy the other girls wanted to play with, bright like a dropped coin from a magpie’s beak. wherever you went, you seemed to leave a trail of awe, pig-tailed harriet’s adoring you, imitating you, teachers forgiving your class-time chatter for the sake of your wild heart and the restless spirit you possessed. tell us what it’s like in the states, alma. they’d coo, enamoured by your hollywood drawl. does your father own a gun? you hardly knew. barely even knew the colour of his hair, for the scarce amount of times he’d stoop to kiss your cheek, though you’d tell silver-tongued tales if it’d guaranteed you an audience. when you learned how to smile at the right times, and that flattery would get you everywhere, it soon became apparent that charm would pave the yellow brick road to success even when your lack of drive couldn’t.
         the road you followed – gum-snapping, roller-blading, friendship bands all up your arm – eventually led you to radcliffe. bright-eyed and gingham skirted, you’d always known you were more. there was a hunger in you to be something extraordinary, a want so adamant to be imagined and desired that it was almost savage. in leather-bound volumes and a circle of stones, you were helen of troy, the girl for whom they’d launch a thousand ships. but there’s so much rage within you, collecting like sawdust in cavernous parts. hockey helped. there was something grounding about the feeling of a stick clasped in your hands. sweat. stiff knuckles. feet pounding the earth. the smash of wood against flesh in the scram of a game, passed off as mere enthusiasm. “slipped, sorry.” hockey is the one thing you had that was yours alone – a feral instinct that motivates you to play; something primitive within you that sparks an energy like no other. on the pitch, you feel alive. you feel like a god.
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maggotmouth · 4 years
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         hello, its nora again ( she/her, gmt ) n this is the ethereal but spoiled alma olive putnam (she goes by all 3 names cos she’s pretentious as fuck).  ive never used anya taylor joy as her fc before but anya has a smile that looks like she knows something u dont and thats completely alma’s vibe so we’re gonna try it out. she was raised in a farmhouse in vermont, big horse girl energy. very hungry for everything life has to offer. wakes up and smells the success in her blood. luvs the smell of libraries and listening to french music from a tinny record player in knee socks. here is pinterest. bio is below the cut, like this post to be bombarded with plotting messages but i might forget or get shy tho so pls message me x
application template.
ANYA TAYLOR - JOY   ,   CIS-FEMALE   ,   SHE/HER         →         according   to   the   school   records   ,   ALMA OLIVE PUTNAM   has   been   attending   sacred   heart   for   the   past   three   years   .   i   last   saw   them   hanging   around  the  sacred   heart   cathedral   ;   i   think   they   were   studying   the   stations   of   the   cross   with   a   smile   like   a   well - kept   secret.   at   twenty   -   one   years   old   ,   alma   has   been   studying   classics   and   get   this   ,   i   heard   that   she   has   made   a   fortune   on   the   black   market   by   forging   renaissance   art   to   sell   to   collectors   —   figure   it’s   true   ?   everyone   around   here   always   associates   them   with    neck   scarves   tied   around   your   throat   the   way   they   do   in   french   new   wave   films , running   barefoot   through   the   woods   drunk   on  red  wine   and  untapped   power , a  smile  like  a   locked   door   that   speaks   only  in   riddles  .   in   the   time   since   these   strange   happenings   ,   they   have   have   encountered   any   unexplained   occurrences   .         (   written   by   nora   ,   24   ,   she/her   ,   gmt   )
aesthetics.
a red beret nestled on top of bright platimum locks, neck scarves tied around your throat the way they do it in french new wave films, running barefoot through the woods in feckless hedonism, china dolls with porcelain faces lined against the walls of your room, the mona lisa smile, knee-socks tugged over the hockey grazes on your knees, a forged botticelli drying on your easel, ophelia floating in the middle of a lake.
proceed w caution, tw for death, drugs, alcohol, violence
the short form. (still long af tbh)
— studying classics cos she thinks it makes her sound smart, but actually hates fuckin latin and just loves learning about feckless hedonism and the festivals of bacchus and writing about how all women in myth are literally forgotten. was expelled from princeton in her first year so her parents basically paid her way into sacred heart and the board really liked her in her interview. i think the governors kind of expect to see her in the supreme court one day or st
—  born in vermont in a big old farmhouse. her great-great-grandfather moved to america as an immigrant and worked on a plantation, made his way up cos he could speak a lot of languages and therefore win more people over. for the last two generations, putnam men have owned the farm and do little of the dirty work. big in the meat industry.
— both her parents had large personalities, so alma’s never really been shy around adults, even as a kid she’d speak to them in a forthright, confident manner, and because she was always surrounded by adults, she’s always seemed a bit wise beyond her years.
— very much a consolidation of every character in the secret history. has a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs. obsessed with w.h. auden and the beat poets. — ”aestheticism is the only thing worth pursuing and even that is pointless” — is majoring in classical civilisation. can read ancient greek and latin. also speaks french.
— studies hard and plays hard. she gets top marks but it’s because academia is literally her life, she loves the smell of libraries, the ancient smoke of learning, of feeling like old wine in a new bottle reincarnated from the bones of some old, dead witchy woman who invented a cure for cowpox or somethin.
— isn’t a foward-planner, however. alma prefers to leave her options open, play the field, live in a spontaneous manner so her study style is mostly cramming a few days before a test, or staying up all night writing an essay on a massive adrenaline boost powered by red bull or probably adderall, scribbling (or typing) furiously into the night.
— pretentious motherfucker. loves poetry, especially the romantics, loves morbid ones too, edgar allen poe, sylvia plath, allen ginsberg, she just loves them all. can’t get enough. her favourite films are like…. wanky artfilm independent european cinema. especially french new wave. “what do you think of goddard’s work??” while snorting a line off someone’s sink at 5am on a school night, but you can bet she’ll make it to that 9am class. — very intelligent and beautiful and knows both of those facts. plays devil’s advocate. humanitarian, vegan. — judgemental but takes great care not to appear so. petty and vindictive
— obsessively devours mystery and thriller novels. she herself is a gillian flynn book waiting to happen. — tries to be an enigma. wants to be mysterious and unreadable because that’s what books have taught her makes women desirable and interesting and cool. very amy dunne in the way she expertly reinvents herself to suit her audience, when she wants to impress
—  an incredibly talented dancer. she was accepted to juliard to study ballet, but after an injury to her foot she had to refuse her place, something that she’s incredibly bitter about. she went to princeton instead to study classics for a semester, before being expelled. 
— alma comes from a family of high-end art dealers. while her parents paid her way into the school, that was mostly due to previous expulsions, not low intelligence. she’s incredibly intelligent but will only put in effort when she deems the cause worthy. she’s frustrating to teach, because she requires evidence, truth, in order to accept something as worthwhile. she plays devil’s advocate, but academically she’s brilliant. 
—  she can recognise any renaissance artist just by their brush strokes. her aunt and uncle deal antiques and art, and from an internship with them after her expulsion from princeton, she learned how to market and sell art, how to recognise originals in contrast to fakes. from this, alma began to produce counterfeit art and sell it off as the original work to the contacts she had made in her internship. it’s disloyal, but it’s powerful.
— act like the flower but be the serpent under it. is a user. manipulative. leads people on. will throw another student under the bus to demonstrate her own intelligence and integrity — heavily involved in the theatre society. loves attention. — has an addictive personality. seems unable to do anything in a small dose, she has to let it utterly consume her. with sports, she’s fiercely competitive, runs track, played lacrosse at school, now is a cheerleader probably. with alcohol, it’s never a shot, it’s a whole bottle – wine or whiskey – she’ll be table dancing before the night’s up and making out with someone she’ll regret in the morning.
— her clothing style is like…. vintage thrift store but make it preppy. berets and cute hats, neck scarves, large fluffy cardigans or like those leathery jackets with big suede fringes on them, mini skirts (very 70s), and knee-high socks or boots. quite often she’ll be in sports kit, maybe a cute tennis skirt, n when she’s feeling casual she’ll wear like, a talking heads tshirt with a pair of mom jeans and converse, but otherwise, the library is her catwalk. — relates to ophelia from hamlet and sibyl vane in dorian gray. weirdly obsessed with women who commit suicide. loves jackson pollock paintings and abstract art. – likes old things. old books, old music, old houses, it reminds her of happier times like when she wasn’t alive. buys all her music on vinyl and has a gramophone because “the sound quality is better” kfdsjj.
plots.
here are some generic wanted plots but by all means message me so we can flesh them out more if any strike ur interest:
study buddies !! someone who is equally unprepared and so spends all night in the library with alma before a big deadline, maybe they even met in the library
if they’re from new england or vermont, then cousins . second cousins / extended family / family friends –  probably spat volavons on your character once as children, omg childhood friends !
honestly someone who is fully in love with her or crushing on her that she can just break would be sweet :/ or on the other hand someone she unexpectedly gets feelings for and actually wants to guage her own  eyeballs out bc of it
frinds !! unlikely friends !! toxic friends !! former best friends separated by sporting or academic rivalries !
hockey / cheer friends who are on other teams but who she absolutely loves playin against!!!
fellow academics who like meeting up to discuss latin and greek ! gimme a secret society bonding by their love of ancient learning
i reckon she’s in a lot of societies, definitely the film club, maybe works as a projectionist at the uni cinema if they have one so give me ppl affiliated with that, give me fellow wanky pretentious art-lovers and poets and historians who will go to museums and galleries with her and listen to the velvet underground on vinyl
people she gets mortally fucked off her tits with at parties
people who think she is throwing her academic potential away by caving to hedonistic impulse
a secret society !!! honestly i would die for a slug club esque thing in which the children of notable families are invited to dinners or alma’s also an art forger, so maybe like a club of students set up to basically forge paintings and documents from the university special collections
people she has drunkenly made out with, hooked up with, or regularly sleeps with casually, maybe even a friend w benefits she is repressing feelings for, i love angst,
people she used to date or unrequitedly likes, but to them it’s just a physical thing, give me all the thirsty angst plots, and maybe some softness too, i need some religion in this girls life, she is a roman catholic after all
full biography.
alma olive putnam.
intro.
        the girl is a knife. razor-sharp, double-edged, the bright shine of a two-faced, lovely thing. silver like the secrets you magpie thief from other heads. you’re a scavenger of knowledge, of tidbits, of gossip to lock away for later use and late-night re-inspection. a mind is like a clock if you get to learn the pieces. bit by bit, you dismantle the inner workings of the brains that tick around you – how easy it is to change it’s path, how words and their meanings can make a person laugh or cry in an instant. to have the power to control that is to be a god. it’s the power trip you crave wielding pom-poms in your hands; a possessive need for control that a younger you, small and weak, never had as a child. small lips, smaller smile, a doll clutched in your too-hungry fingers, hard enough to shatter the bones of a real infant. you cut your hair with your mother’s kitchen scissors before the autumn falls, rendering you out of season, unfit for the cold weather that beats against the nape of your neck, where a stick-and-poke marks the star you were born under ; the bull. “mama, when will i be a queen?” as soon as they find a crown small enough not to slip from your head.
biography.
        if you get hungry enough, they say, you start eating your own heart. hands red, stained by pomegranate seeds, the empty pulp of its shell splattered on your thighs you find yourself wondering – what would it be like to want? in the beginning, you never knew hunger. twins, born under the same star, you first, him second – a nuclear family. never a sister to compete with, you were always the cherry pie of your parents’ hearts. white-haired, blue-eyed, beautiful baby of mine. the townhouse in vermont and the summer house in lyon, you wanted for nought, showered with attention, saddled with gifts - hardly a wonder you came to rely on such affection as a confirmation of your own worth.
        at eight years old you first met death, blood on a gingham-print dress, a smear of it over your cheekbone and the pulp of a mangled animal at your feet murdered by the hands of a stable boy. “alma, my precious baby, you get away from that filth,” your mama would cry from the upstairs balcony – cigar in one hand and a bloody mary in the other – though whether the filth she referred to was the dead pig or the boy with a kernel of corn in his mouth, you never did find out.
        your family earned their keeps in farming, great-grandfather wolfgang hildegarde a german immigrant, great-grandmother maura lisbon a prairie girl. they fell hopelessly in love between troughs and pig-shit, working for three dollars a day at a farm their descendants would later own, trade deals with the indians, vacations to calcutta, your father todd putnam in the kind of sheepskin coat his father’s father could only dream of owning. he worked hard so that you’d never have to. your mama once asked – you heard it through the window, rounding cartwheels across the picket-fenced lawn – could he not find a respectable career rather than selling shrink-wrapped pork for a dime a dozen? that blood money had no business raising a child. you look far back enough, edie, your father had said in his low, strong voice that could bring a civil war to silence, and i think you’ll find that all money is blood money.
        language was never fickle on your tongue, french dinner time talk by the time you were out of your hush puppy shoes, your mama fixing the au pair a smile as she fixed herself another martini. you learned the clarinet at four and how to dance with the grace of a swansong at six, ethereal under a spotlight, an audience captive in the palm of your hand. by eight you knew that you’d always been destined to be loved. loved so hard they would want to taste you, bite into the soft plump of your cheek and eat you alive. that was how magnetic you wanted to feel. but mother hamsters eat their own young when penned in together too long, and soon you became too wild, too restless, another package on your father’s delivery invoice, box-shipped out to english boarding school.
        fitting in had never been something you had to concern yourself with. you were always the shiny new toy the other girls wanted to play with, bright like a dropped coin from a magpie’s beak. wherever you went, you seemed to leave a trail of awe, pig-tailed harriet’s adoring you, imitating you, teachers forgiving your class-time chatter for the sake of your wild heart and the restless spirit you possessed. tell us what it’s like in the states, alma. they’d coo, enamoured by your hollywood drawl. does your father own a gun? you hardly knew. barely even knew the colour of his hair, for the scarce amount of times he’d stoop to kiss your cheek, though you’d tell silver-tongued tales if it’d guaranteed you an audience. when you learned how to smile at the right times, and that flattery would get you everywhere, it soon became apparent that charm would pave the yellow brick road to success even when your lack of drive couldn’t.
        the road you followed – gum-snapping, roller-blading, friendship bands all up your arm – eventually led you to sacred heart. bright-eyed and gingham skirted, you’d always known you were more. there was a hunger in you to be something extraordinary, a want so adamant to be imagined and desired that it was almost savage. in leather-bound volumes and a circle of stones, you were helen of troy, the girl for whom they’d launch a thousand ships. but there’s so much rage within you, collecting like sawdust in cavernous parts. hockey helped. there was something grounding about the feeling of a stick clasped in your hands. sweat. stiff knuckles. feet pounding the earth. the smash of wood against flesh in the scram of a game, passed off as mere enthusiasm. “slipped, sorry.” hockey is the one thing you had that was yours alone – a feral instinct that motivates you to play; something primitive within you that sparks an energy like no other. on the pitch, you feel alive. you feel like a god.
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ariswrites · 7 years
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just a stupid deleted intro from laugh til i cry with some more magical context i’ll probably write into the upcoming chapter+ short stories.
i ended up replacing it 100% because i realised i didn’t have enough time to write something that was big enough to suit the magnitude of what i was introducing here 
Kuroo’s more dark, than not.
It isn’t something he considers prevalent throughout his early childhood. There’s very little indication of magic type before maturation despite the stereotypes others enjoy to perpetuate – he isn’t inclined towards any particular behaviours, but his mother’s friends joke about his fieriness, gift him red beaded jewellery on the salient celebratory dates his kind consider important. His mother is always gentle towards this, laughs along with them and scruffs his hair when the bracelets slide off his small hands, wrists too small for the adult decorations. She folds the bracelet in half, fitting it around his wrist twice to secure it, catches his gaze with the contrast in the shades. She tells him, in soft tones when her friends are gone, that she’d never expect a colour from him. That any magic is a gift. That his colour is not him.
Red is an offensive magic. Something which flares and simmers, something his mother embeds in her rings and necklaces. Magic isn’t bound by something as concrete as genes, and while family trends are considered common, the opposite is far from rare. Magic picks the host, and though it is innate to his lineage, it is notoriously picky about the compatibility of the life force it bonds with. Lessons on the topic are vague until he becomes older, but elementary teachers throw around terms of personality, of souls.
Somehow, this is easier than the truth.
The Kuroos present early, as magic ability goes, and the affair is quiet and small. An imbued statue of a shifter kneeling in prayer is brought to their home, laid out in the main room and surrounded by spice-laden candles, remnants of their more individualistic cultural roots.  The hands of the statue are stained with colour, with rainbow, metallic sheens that catch the light above, dulled down to its lowest to allow the candle light to glow headily. It’s a simple ceremony, over in minutes. He is cut, he bleeds, and the colour that wells forth in the statue’s hands is the magic type he possesses.
So, his mother comes forward, and cuts across the lifeline of his palm in two. His hand is held over the cupped palms of the praying idol, and he bleeds out into the waiting metal.
Her grip on his wrist tightens.
Dully, he notes none of the bracelets his family brought were going to match.
and alternate start number 2:
which was scrapped bc... i didn’t like where it was going. but this is mainly cannibalized for the current version
Kuroo’s more dark, than not.
 It isn’t something he considers prevalent throughout his early childhood. There’s very little indication of magic type before maturation despite the stereotypes others enjoy to perpetuate – he isn’t inclined towards any particular behaviours, but his mother’s friends joke about his fieriness, gift him red beaded jewellery on the salient celebratory dates his kind consider important. His mother is always gentle towards this, laughs along with them and scruffs his hair when the bracelets slide off his small hands, wrists too small for the adult decorations. She folds the bracelet in half, fitting it around his wrist twice to secure it, catches his gaze with the contrast in the shades. She tells him, in soft tones when her friends are gone, that she’d never expect a colour from him. That any magic is a gift. That his colour is not him.
Red is an offensive magic. Something which flares and simmers, something his mother embeds in her rings and necklaces. Magic isn’t bound by something as concrete as genes, and while family trends are considered common, the opposite is far from rare. Magic picks the host, and though it is innate to shifters, it is notoriously picky about the compatibility of the life force it bonds with. Lessons on the topic are vague until he becomes older, but elementary teachers throw around terms of personality, of souls.
 Somehow, this is easier than the truth.
 (Kuroo dreads to think of the fallout of this, dreads to think of the others like him, the ones who grew up believing their magic type matches their aptitude, that they are inherently one way or another because of the spectrum among their blood. Who think they are bad, or violent, or those who grew up trying so hard to fit a predestined role.
 He knows its bullshit. Magic cares not for personality, for soul, merely for energy exchange and balance. Concepts beyond the knowledge of their cultures conception.
 He knows and he hates it, hates it because he still believes it, somewhere. )
 The Kuroos present early, as magic ability goes, and the affair is quiet and small. An imbued statue of a shifter kneeling in prayer is brought to their home, laid out in the main room and surrounded by spice-laden candles, remnants of their more individualistic cultural roots.  The hands of the statue are stained with colour, with rainbow, metallic sheens that catch the light above, dulled down to its lowest to allow the candle light to glow headily. It’s a simple ceremony, over in minutes. He is hurt, he bleeds, and the colour that wells forth in the statue’s hands is the magic type he possesses.
 So, his mother comes forward, and cuts across the lifeline of his palm in two. His hand is held over the cupped palms of the praying idol, and he bleeds out into the waiting metal.
 Her grip on his wrist tightens. He notes, in the next few moments of silence, that no pre-prepared bracelet quite matches his hue. He remembers this quietness in every moment of self-reflection, this delicate, soundless pause as those around crane their necks and push up on their toes to peer into the tiny, coppery hands. It is the chorus of expectation, one that fades to disappointment, to resentment. A kind that lapses into another, longer and longer, until his mother grip draws more blood from him, nails still upshifted.
 She apologies, afterwards. Smooths a plaster over the indents, a ribbon across his palm. They don’t scar, scab over in a few hours, but he recalls them as the last time a wound would decorate his skin for longer than a day, the final lasting damage. As reminders – he knows what he is.
 More dark than not, and it’s undercurrents. Deep river running far beneath the earth’s crust, ancient tunnels carved from drops and tears and waterfalls, hallowed passages lost in the blurry nowhere between surface and core. Bone dust and minerals, thick oils, sand so fine and cold soft skin, preserved in stale air. There are glimpses in caves and oceans, oozing water from flesh wounds which, among the plasma, carry with it shivers from far below, a chilled unrest palatable only under the sting of salt and iron.
 This is where he finds it again within himself, years later. A place just out of reach of his nails, further even than his claws dream to tear through. Somewhere so dark he must bleed for hours to feel it slipping from him, and even in that instances only ever in the tiniest slivers. As if, somewhere between his split veins and his heart, it has slipped away through thin membrane. Buries deep within lymph nodes, nestles beneath organs. It matters not how many layers he tears through reaching within, how much blood is spilt down his thighs, how much he shakes and shivers and sweats, pale and determined on the bathroom floor.
 It doesn’t matter, because he can’t ever carve it out.
 (Because it’s part of him. Protected alongside marrow, integrated in every blood cells sense of self. Integral to his functioning. The bitterness beneath his teeth, the sourness on his tongue.
 Here, fingertips red, warmth dripping to pool sluggishly in his palm, between his knuckles in ruddy ribbons; here is where he stops. And he asks himself;
 What am I trying to kill, really?)
  ++++++
 He keeps this inside.
 There are few of his ilk, and they keep to themselves. Understandably. The polars of energy, black and white, are not considered favourably. Just like red magic is considered offensive, polar magics are thought to be universal. Jack of all trades, masters of none, and that is only the mocking undercurrent recent attitudes have brought about – historically, culturally, they are significant. Bringers of life and death, decay where there is growth. A balancing energy, a magic that enhances and inhibits, a tradition that is marred by prejudice and folk tales –
 Kuroo is a bringer of death. It’s supposed to be an honour, to carry those to death, to eternal rest, to escort them with soft words and tendrils of his being to where their next life lays; instead, he never sees his grandparents again. Instead, his family talks around him, do not visit as often - leave his mother isolated, a guilt in his heart he can’t outgrow.
 In folk tales, he rips life from the hands of innocents. In reality, he rips into himself.
 Because the old traditions are too old now. Because the new thinking is still too new.
 It leaves a bad taste in his mouth, and he doesn’t wear his ribbons and bracelets and necklaces like his species is prone too. Cats adore their varied bloodlines, their versatile mixing, but Kuroo only ever worries over the exceptions. He’d love to say it’s a statement; that he rejects the jewellery as a protest of the discrimination among hisses and gatherings and ruffled tails – that’s he’s doing this for a cause, for a belief, to defend others, to make a place for them in this world. That he’s a brave frontier, fighting against the flow.
But Kuroo’s a coward. It’s easier to tuck away his ears, keep his tail wound at his waist than it is to explain to others why he isn’t wearing the jewellery so heavily associated with his lineage. It’s easier to curl up in shame at who he is, than it is so hold out through young kittens peering at his darkness from behind their parent’s legs, than it is to hear whispers of horror stories brought about by the black sleek of his tail paired with the induced glint of aged gemstones. Kuroo is tired of people shying away from him, of people scared of him, hating him. It’s easier to be anyone else, anything else, than it is to force through every interaction with razor wit and harsh edges alone.
 He’s not red like his mother. He won’t stand and fight.
 (Not anymore, at least.)
 So, so, so; He gets up after nights of hating himself so intensely he almost turns himself inside out, and he doesn’t throw himself a pity party. He covers palms red from bleach and scrubbing with the sleeves of his turtleneck, ruffles his hair enough to disguise the beaks of his ears as a messy peak of a haircut and dons a jacket just big enough to hide the suggestive bump at his waist where his tail coils. The pain isn’t there if he doesn’t let himself feel it, and he’s not limping or flinching every time he slides his phone into his pocket. There isn’t raw flesh beneath his jeans. He isn’t stitched together like the ghost of a family heirloom, and he doesn’t hate himself.
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