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arcticwaters · 4 years

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i’ve said a couple times that i have a beau meta ready and was just waiting to hear marisha’s thought on a certain topic, and now we have! i now feel more confident talking about something that i took issue with: the idea that beau only backed off from jester and gave her blessing to fjord begrudgingly as a sign of her lack of self worth and is only going for yasha because she’s better than nothing.

alright, so under the cut is that post, my thoughts overall on the idea of beau “lying” and “self sabotaging,” how her relationship with jester and yasha has changed, and how yasha just really deserves so much. keep in mind everything here is like A MONTH OLD, i wrote all this around the time ep 110 aired. frankly i don’t even know how relevant most of this even is anymore cuz i don’t pay attention to discourse BUT people are claiming once again that beau is only “settling” for yasha so, here we go. (i added in more recent thoughts regarding marisha’s answer on talks at the very end.)

the idea that beau was just downplaying her feelings for jester to fjord like “haha no prob bro! totally over that pffft you’re in the clear” makes me super uncomfortable?? i get it would be in character for beau. i get that she thinks she’s second best and jester is looking at fjord, not her, so she would push her best friends together because she loves them and she’s not Worthy. that would be a very beau move. but doing so would also be saying that she herself only sees yasha as second best to jester. that she is now only pursuing yasha because “welp, my first choice is off the table :/”

and i find that to be SO disrespectful to yasha, who cares about beau so deeply and has had feelings for her long before beau had feelings for jester. who has been through SO MUCH and deserves to have someone love her solely for her, and not just because she was there, a back up because oh-so precious jester wasn’t available. yasha, who did the thing beau wants more than anything: picked her first. like do ya’ll honestly think beau “constantly upset that she’s never anyone’s first choice” regard would turn around and treat yasha, who she knows has been through hell, exactly like that? (never mind that yasha was beau’s first choice, but okay.) because ultimately that is what that take is saying, there’s really no other way around it. no matter how much she might be spiraling, beau wouldn’t do that to her friend who’s already been through so much heartbreak. yasha deserves better than that and she is better than that.

and to be clear i’m talking specifically about the idea that beau was just choking back her still-strong feelings for jester because she realized she wasn’t good enough and she Hoped Too Much But Wasn’t Enough. so she just pushed them deep down, lied that they were gone, and secretly-tearfully stepped aside for fjord and that basically that whole ep108 talk was another example of beau self sabotaging herself ala the hag. (even claiming that because of this she is headed towards another downward spiral??) the idea that she must’ve been lying.

is it really so hard to think that maybe beau just got over jester? that she told fjord about it, not to deflect, but because she just wanted to be honest? that she can still care for jester and her wellbeing, but just no longer in a wholly romantic way? (you can know your best friend inside and out just as easily as someone you’re interested in after all.) that maybe she realized her jester crush was just not that deep? it was, in her own words after all, just a crush. she wasn’t in love.

let’s not forget that beau’s second playlist, which specifically had a song for yasha that confirmed it was a crush all along and not just a physical thing, and nothing really romantic at all for jester, was released before they did ep108. if beau really did still feel strongly for jester, strong enough that she only said she was over her because of self sabotage,,, wouldn’t there have been a song? marisha’s not dumb; that would’ve been THE time to bring up if beau’s feelings had turned from just a little crush to something stronger, just like travis and ashley did. but she didn’t. there wasn’t even a song about not being good enough for jester and needing to step side, no song about how much it hurts to secretly be in love with your friend. jester just got a platonic song. yasha got something romantic. i bring up that it came out before 108 because it shows that this is something that’s been building up. that she didn’t hear fjord’s confession and made an on the spot decision to be like “uh, my crush is gone dude go for it!”

is it possible she was just downplaying? sure. i’m not marisha, i don’t fucking know. maybe she watched jester kiss fjord’s cheek while he was revived and realized she couldn’t compete (tho even that doesn’t really line up because beau says to him in 108 that she doesn’t know if jester still likes him, she’s only guessing.) sure, we know beau lies, but at the same time, that doesn’t mean every single thing that comes out her mouth is a lie. beau spends most of the rumplecusp arc being the most open she’s been in a long time. she spent that whole evening having moments of realness with everyone, why suddenly lie now? like what, she had a deep talk with caleb, veth, and yasha and thought “you know what? time to lie to fjord about my feelings for jester that he doesn’t even know about.” fjord just bared his soul and feelings to her; it’s just as likely that she decided now is the time to be honest with him as well, to be honest with herself, because we know this is something she’s been thinking hard about for quite a while. the cast had three whole months between 99 and 100 to stew in the minds of their characters and figure out their wants and needs, but a lot of this also started before this.

stay with me here, this is gonna be a bit long. as i’ve mentioned before, i’ve been rewatching from 92 onward, focusing mostly on beau as i go and the obvious turmoil that meeting her father again left her in. and one thing i did notice is that in 96 - the episode where she’s at her most rough - she really is all over jester, that can’t be denied. she’s like, trying really hard to get her attention. but then in 97, which is only a day later, that’s gone. then the amount of attention beau gives to jester lessens over the following arc as she gives more of it to yasha. here’s the thing about 96: it’s the peak of her spiral. she hadn’t been ok since meeting her family again, and i think all of it came to a head when she met caduceus’s and saw a loving and supportive family, a sweet gentle father. i think it (along with nearly dying earlier) just set her off and she reached the peak of her regression and decided to act out and be shitty for the sake of it, and she latched on to jester because jester lives for that kind of thing. jester is the one who will say “make confused people’s lives even more confusing for the sake of a laugh? no judgement here let’s go!” it was likely easier to be like “haha yeah we’re having so much fun together heehe you’re so attractive when you validate my bad behavior ;3″ than it was to confront the shitty horrible mindset that she was in at the time and ask for help.

and then,, she’s kind of over it? when you reach a peak, the next step is coming down from it. she got out of that temple, she watched cad say goodbye to his family, she got some sleep. she calmed a bit, turned her issues inward, instead of taking it out through unnecessary mischief. and in a moment of just having some silly fun, flirted with yasha, and yasha threw that same energy back at her. yasha, not even missing a beat and cracking dumb jokes with her, calling her beautiful? that must’ve made her feel really good. then later, while she was having some alone time, she watched yasha be alone too. this woman who, just like her, carries a lot on her shoulders and feels broken and lost; who just like her, once dealt with her inner demons through self destruction, choosing to deal with her hurt through quiet music. by being gentle and soft instead of hard and loud. not that expressing your hurt through being loud is always wrong, but that it’s likely such a different thing for beau. something she’s not used to. something she might have decided she wanted to give a try.

i think this marked a turning point for her relationship with yasha. old feelings she forced herself to not think about resurfacing, a subtle reconnection to a kindred spirit, and i think it was the kick in the ass she needed to start feeling better after kamordah. (oh also?? fjord fucking dying. there’re a lot of reasons she started moving on, but i’m focusing on the shippy.) she started reaching out to yasha more from then on and into the rumblecusp arc. there’s gentle talks on the boat, there’s more beautiful harp, there’s healing hands, there’s carrying, there’s flying with owls, there’s checking in with each other after fights, there’s looks. she seemed to be realizing that she didn’t need to cling to jester, because she didn’t need to act out and fuck with people to deal with her issues. because there was yasha, growing angel wings just to catch her. she felt, in her own jumbled words, “better than she has in a long time.” she’s doing so much better than she did a month ago, and yasha made her feel that way. i don’t think we’ll ever really know what marisha meant by “so many things, but not now” but in the context of everything, it sounds like someone who is now doing a lot of thinking.

beau had a moment, within just two days of each other, where she took a solo flight with both jester and yasha that resulted in the flying poofing out midair and they plummeted and had to scramble to land without injury. only one of them left her visibly and audibly stunned, amazed, breathless, and flustered beyond belief.

i bring all of this up, i lay this all out, because if you really think about and look at how beau’s relationship with both jester and yasha evolved over the course the late 90′s and early 100′s, what’s more likely? that beau really was spending all that time still desperately pining over jester, reluctantly stepping down for the sake of fjord’s feelings? or that she simply realized just how strong her feelings for yasha had become, and always were, and they eclipsed her feelings for jester? realized that just maybe, her feelings for jester only happened because it was less scary than falling for a widow, but that she wasn’t scared anymore? (for the record, i don’t think marisha literally meant “physical body lust” when she said that. colloquially lust doesn’t always mean “just wanted sex.” i think she meant like... something that burns hot and eager but is otherwise not the same as a commitment. jester, in this particular situation, is that puppy in the window that you fall for because it’s just so cute and happy and bright and there and you want it, but you have to stop and think “do i actually want this dog or am i just charmed by the big puppy dog eyes because i just lost my other dog?” that’s how i think she meant it.) because i genuinely don’t know how people could see beau stare at yasha with a look of absolute awe while telling her “you’re incredible” and think, two episodes later, “poor thing only stepped away from jester because she felt inferior :/”

a lot of these takes i saw were written just after 108 and thus before 109 - 110, but there’s been no indication that she’s secretly jealous of fjord, or still looking at jester like that. her eyes have been firmly on yasha and she looks very happy for fjord and jester when anything happens between them, when previously, marisha wasn’t shy about pouting a little whenever jester looked at someone else, just like liam does.

beau is not falling headlong into a horrible crash that will fuck up her relationship with jester and yasha. she’s doing better than she has in a long ass time, she’s healing. she’s finding her way to the arms of someone who she not only picked first, but who picked her first too.

present day october arctic jumping in to say now: we now know that yes in some ways, beau was thinking about fjord’s feelings, but it came from a place of love. that she stepped back not because she was thinking “oh woe is me, i’ll never be good enough for jester i shouldn’t even try :(” but rather “hey you know what? i love both of these people dearly and if they would be happy together, i’d be happy for them.” (and that trying to be with jester wasn’t even as important to her as just being there for jester.) and that her picking yasha is not a sign that she is slipping more into a dark place, but the opposite: she’s come very far in her own sense of self worth and she’s allowing herself to want something, and that’s yasha, the person she’s had feelings for since like, day one.

marisha didn’t go in too deep with the question she got or give the ins and outs of beau’s feelings for jester and yasha like i’d hoped (man they love to be coy huh?) but we know this: beau did have real, legit feelings for both of them at the same time. and, yes, beau did step away from jester because she realized that jester and fjord had something going on. but she did it because, at the end of the day, she just wants jester to be happy. i didn’t get the impression from marisha that she meant this in a somber “beau thinks jester would be happier without her :c” way, but that her platonic feelings for jester were just as strong as her romantic ones, if not more so, and stepping back was something easy for her. (this wasn’t specifically said, but because marisha brought up how jester was beau’s first real female friend, i think you could argue that there may have even been some underlying “how much of this is romantic and how much is platonic? i’ve never done this before.” just a little bit.)

there was no lie. there was no moment of “oh no i’m not good enough.” she simply let go, and she did so willingly and gracefully. her feelings were real, but they really were just a crush, one that she had no problem at all just getting over, no all encumbering [romantic] love that people seemed to think. and i honestly find this to be extremely mature of her, to realize that a silly little crush was not more important than simply being there for her best friend. to say “her happiness doesn’t have to involve a romance with me and that’s ok.” this fictional character handled a crush on a friend better than i have in the past. there was no need for some grand conflict shaking them up; she just made the choice to get over feelings that, again, she had no plans to even act on.

and maybe there’s a tiny tiny flavor of “well, i wanna be with someone and yasha’s right there, so, i guess i’ll pick her” in marisha’s answer, but i really don’t think that’s the case, or at least not the only reason beau is now going after her. especially since, much of what she said was kind of just a summary of beau’s playlist, which came out all the way back around ep103-ish. the idea that beau is slowly coming out the haze of self loathing and realizing she wants a real lover isn’t new information. i think this was just the first time that marisha had a chance to vocalize that, and it just accidentally came out like “well, yasha’s there so” because she was juggling a couple topics at once, while at the same time seemingly wanting to limit how much she said. (i feel like both she and ashley are playing it a little bit coy because they want it all to be in character, not out.) from the hints laid out throughout the campaign and beau’s own words, it’s always been yasha, the feelings were always there, beau just wasn’t at a place where she was ready to admit that she wanted a real relationship. and both of them just had things they needed to work on.

i definitely find it telling that marisha made a point to talk about how beau wants to really be with someone after talking about how she let jester go. to me this is kind of confirmation that beau, for as much as she cared about jester, really sees yasha as someone she could truly be with. after all, if jester really was The One, wouldn’t she have fought a little more for her? wouldn’t jester be the one making beau feel things that she’s “been avoiding?” (and i think it goes without saying that this “avoiding” is the idea of being in real love.) compared to yasha, who beau tried hard to get over, but was always drawn back to, who she has always felt a kinship with. beau already took yasha off the table once, but months later still found her way back to. trying to let go of yasha was not nearly as easy for beau as letting go of jester.

beau was lonely, didn’t think she deserved love, and it’s yasha who’s making her realize how much she doesn’t like being alone. yasha is the one helping beau come out that fog of self loathing, who’s making her think maybe this is something she can really let herself have. there is no self sabotaging to be found here, just mutual healing.

wow this is so long ALL OF THIS IS JUST A LONG WINDED WAY TO SAY no beau picking yasha is not her “settling” or a sign that she is secretly trying to let go of her soulfully desperately pining for jester, because beau will never think she’s good enough. she just likes yasha and is in fact doing so much better than she has in a really long time because of yasha. because yasha is incredible.

#critical role #beauyasha #critical role meta #beauyasha: heaven is where you are

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saintsofvoid · 3 years

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Not saying you have no reason to feel "bleh", sometimes the brain just insists, but there is so much character in the little snippets and commentary and photos you do. Even if they are similar to other people's (which is really hard not to do), they are so unique to themselves it's absolutely worth it.

Hopefully you're feeling better soon, and can find joy in creating and talking about your boys again ❤

Its late so I'm gonna kinda reply to this with what has been going on on my end and where this funk is coming from. Putting it under a read more to spare everyone, but first and foremost I do appreciate all of you beyond belief for reaching out and having such kind words to say. I know its just a me thing but sometimes it all does just get to me. With that being said, feel free to ignore the whole next bit.

I 100% understand and accept its never going to be completely possible to make completely original characters, especially given the restricted format we have for CP2077. I wish we had more power to craft our characters, more like Fallout 4's character creator (which despite the game's flaws I still go back to just to make characters lol). The problem is I see Valor in game and these screenshots of him and while I do like how he looks... its not him. Not completely. His scars are wrong, he doesn't have his tattoos, hair isn't right, he's missing the ports on his body, and overall things just aren't 100% with him. But despite all that, 3rd time around I think he looks pretty good. Again though am limited to what the game allows so a part of me does get a bit offed when I see other ppls Vs that look a bit too similar. I know its just me, I don't take it to heart, its just upsetting reminder I can't make him look how he's supposed to. Same with Umbra, he looks nothing like how he looks in our TTRPG and it really hurts because I spent a long time making him with our GM and I can't show that. Its not possible in game and my art doesn't do him any justice. So it gets frustrating because I look at some of these guys and they're not my characters, just similar figures to them, but not them.

Which is really hard especially when it comes to Val because long ago he was a self insert that I used to project how I wanted to look. I Have never done well with identifying as trans, I don't like to glamorize it or be recognized for it. I'm saving up for chest surgery but I'm fucking terrified of having the scars. I just don't want to be associated and recognized with it after my transition just because it's been really rough to go through in general. I haven't enjoyed this journey at all really, and really wish I didn't have to go through it. Valor in the RPG was my way of coping and going through stuff. Instead of gender though it was his association with cyberware and having parts of his body and "humanity" removed, replaced with machine and wires. I don't project onto him as much as I once did but he still will and forever hold pieces of that history because that's how I made him.

With all that, all I really do have is my words. Part of the problem with that is there's literally years worth of lore. I've been playing the same campaign with the same group of friends since my freshman year of college. So like 6/7 years now? There's a lot. The issue is these are people I'm really good friends with. This game has become a kind of safe zone for us. We're all a bunch of artist that mainly specialized in horror content. We were part of a movie club that mainly watched horror movies. We're the bitches that watched the Saw series during our free hour in the school library, like we are chill. That also just kinda means there's a lot of dark and twisted subject matter that ends up in our games. Characters having experienced some fucked up shit, witnessed some fucked up shit, and have done some fucked up shit. Feel kinda weird posting or sharing some of the more dark things in detail. So end up watering them down and they don't always feel right.

Top of all that, I just don't have the time to do things I wanna do. I feel so goddamn pressured at home and like I should be doing more. I honestly don't know how half these people have the time to learn and do the amount of mods and edits they do. I'm not gonna lie, I'm envious of it. I get 8-10 hours of being yelled at by customers, and then I may or may not have an hour long drive to take my brother to work or pick him up some days, and then whatever my parents have going on. I want to get back into art, I want to learn 3D modeling, I want to learn how to properly mod but I'm usually so stressed out or just exhausted nothing sticks so I don't even bother really. It sucks, because I want to learn, I want to do things, but I can't. I feel like because I have so little private and personal time now if I can't get things quick enough its not worth the effort. Its frustrating but again that's all on me.

And in other news, lotta people around me are dying or have had family die do to COVID and other things. Earlier this year a close friend of mine lost her dad to COVID and she's still struggling with that. A family friend of ours died earlier this week at the age of 35 from unknown causes. I have another friend who is in the psych ward because he is once again dealing with mental stuff and wellness check did not turn up well. Round it all off, my grandpa has basically given up on his life as well, flat out saying there's nothing worth living for anymore. Given his health issues I know its only a matter of time until I'm saying my final goodbye to him as well. So its rough, and fucking sucks. Not much I can do about it, but it makes me feel fucking worse with my own depression and suicidal thoughts. I know I'd never act on the thoughts, but seeing how death effects those around me makes me feel fucking worse for even thinking about it.

The part that sucks the most about it all, and even something I've expressed to my therapist is I'm completely self aware that its all in my head. I know I can't control these situations, and that skills take time to be acquired and grow. I am so grateful for all friends and support I do have, here, on disco, irl, I see the kind words and love and it really means a lot. I feel like a horrible friend because I don't know what to do really. I know its in my head, and I know what I can and can't control. I know what I need to do, yet I don't feel any better. I feel worse, I feel like I'm distant, and dismissive. I feel like what content I am putting out is stale and boring. I just feel lost and I'm not sure what piece I'm missing to really get things going again. I love my characters, I love making stuff with them. I love the story arch I have for Val and Ker and I want to share all of that with you all. I just feel really weird.

#asks #really do feel free to ignore #i'm sorry this is going to you rindemption #your ask is just the only thing I had #i do appreciate you though #thank you for the kindness

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ginnyweasleywannabe · 3 years

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How James found out- James' Pov

Companion piece to my other story "How James found out" but from James' POV. Gives more of glimpse to Marlene and James' friendship with a little background Blackinnon tender moment.

((I still don't know how to format a tumblr post so if you want to read the first piece, just go to my page and search tag #my writing))

As always you can also read on AO3 @inthemiddle

Notes: IDK honestly I just wanted to write more of the thoughts behind the other story. I thought about writing the talk between Marlene and James' after this event but I think I'll make that a separate piece. As always minimal editing because I just wanted to write and then be done and get it out-there.

Start:

Honestly, James was tired. He had been really pushing himself both mentally and physically lately. Revising was starting soon so he was working his school work more than usual. Revising and the end of the year also meant the end of quidditch season. They only had a few more games which mean they really needed to make them count to have the best chance at the cup. He had been looking forward to dinner all day, all the workouts meant bigger appetite. He was currently diving in deep into his shepherds pie, only half listening to the talk around him.

“Peter was great, he took a step in front of me and held up his wand. He didn’t even have to say anything, they just left!”

“Well, it wasn’t quite like that Mary….” Peter said sheepishly, “I think they knew that if they messed with us then it would become a whole thing with you lot, that’s all.”

“Peter, I think it was nice of you to stand in front of Mary. They truly believe as a muggle-born she’d be worth the easy fight.” Lily wanted to help boost Peters confidence.

“It shouldn’t matter! Mary is great at defense, she could’ve taken the whole lot without even breaking a sweat!” Marlene’s word were encouraging but James could tell she was really annoyed. Marlene tended to have a short fuse. James couldn’t blame her. He felt like things were getting worse and worse. He was of the firm belief that it was time for the staff to take more action. Dumbledore was a believer in keeping the peace and that there was always more to the story. James felt like that was bullshit.

“Uggghhh”

He looked up to see Marlene staring down some Slytherins down the table. He knew what she was thinking. He could read Marlene like quidditch through the ages. He got it but tomorrow was really important to him. He just wanted to make it through the game then deal with this.

“Just let them pass, Marley, it’s not worth getting suspended from tomorrow’s game” James urged her with a pleading glance.

Rosier sniggered to Snape “I saw the little chubby one staring at the redhead mudblood earlier, she must had something special to get them all worked up”

Okay screw keeping the peace, James was out of his seat. And so was Marley… and so was Sirius. But he was just not going for the Slytherins, he standing in front of her, back to Snape and Rosier. He had his arms wrapped around Marley’s waist, trying his best to stop the lunging girl. James felt small quick relief, Sirius had Marlene. If things turned physical, which it would with Marlene, she had a good ex but much preferred a punch, they would definitely have to forfeit tomorrow’s game. He glanced away from the focus of the two for just a second, taking in the whole scene as Rosier said “She’s got all of you wrapped around her finger, maybe I ought to give her a try.”

Marlene went to lunge again but James knew Sirius could hold her steady. He went to turn back and give the pair of Slytherins his mind but suddenly he was more focused on Marlene and Sirius. They had exchanged a few words but now it was time for Snape to cut in “Yeah Black control your girl” welp. James knew that wasn’t good. Back in 5th year Marlene had dated Luke Wilson for a few months and hated being called “his girl” She was not a piece of property. James knew the chances for the game tomorrow were gone, or so he thought but then Sirius just leaned into Marlene and whispered something in her ear. She slowly relaxed and let her feet back down onto the floor. Marlene never relaxed that easily, especially with the way things had been going for her today. Then with one arm still wrapped around her waist, Sirius used his free hand to push a piece of hair behind her ear. James suddenly felt like he was invading in a private moment. A private moment between his best friend and his sister.

What. The. fuck.

Before James could even blink, Marlene straightened her robes and excused herself. James whipped his head to Sirius. Sirius looked at James like everything was perfectly normal, like he didn’t just stroke Marlene’s hair and comfort her. He gave a quick shrug and then agreed with Lily to go check on Marlene. The whole group went to get up and James was still stunned for movement before storming ahead of the rest of the 6th years. He found Marlene pacing out in the corridor. James charged ahead, he wanted answers.

“What the hell was that?” He couldn’t help but raise his voice.

“Oh, sorry Jamie, I know I should have let it go but its just been a long day” Marlene sighed letting her shoulders hang.

James wasn’t mad at her outburst, how could she think that. This just got him more worked up, why was she not answering. “Jamie” that was she had always called him. She was the only person he allowed to call him that, it was their thing.

“I don’t care about that… what the fuck was that” James knew he wasn’t making a ton of sense but he couldn’t bring himself to say the words, so waving his hands around like a mad man would have to suffice. Marlene just stared at him with a face of confusion.

“James…”

Oh yeah that bastard was still here. During this whole thing James had been processing things at lightning speed and thinking everything through but at the sound of Sirius’ voice James didn’t think, he just whipped around and punched Sirius. Sirius stumbled a little but remained on his feet. James was seething. Marlene was his everything, he would give his life for her. She was the first person outside of his parents he ever loved, it wasn’t romantic but that’s what made it so special because he felt so much love for her it went beyond lust.

“James, its not-“ it’s not what he thinks?! Was he actually about to say that? What else could it be. Sirius had been sneaking around with his Marley behind his back, after he promised he would stay away from her. Sirius had taken advantage of her, her willingness to love everyone and want to fix broken things. James hit him again, this time knocking him to the floor

“MY SISTER?? I asked you for one thing and it was not to sleep with my sister!!” James was yelling as loud as he could. Sirius felt the blood from his nose. He lunged back at James. James was caught off guard expecting to just let him have it. They both tumbled to floor, it didn’t last long before the group was pulling them apart.

James was breathing hard. He was glaring daggers at Sirius while Marlene quickly wiped his cheek. Why was she doing that, why was she comforting her. She suddenly whipped around to James.

“What. the fuck. was. that.”

James recoiled into himself for just a moment. He took a lighter tone remember that this was his favorite person, he hoped his tone was filled with love so that she would listen to him. “Marley...”

“What. did you. Mean. He. Promised.” Oh yeah… had he said promised. He had never meant for Marley to find out about the promise. But once he explained, she would understand, he wasn’t the person she should be upset with. He was doing this for her.

“It’s Sirius, you know how he his. After fifth year anyone with eyes could see the way he was looking at you. I just wanted to keep you safe, I mean, I mean HE” but Marlene cut him off.

“You had no right to do that, James. You don’t get to hold your good deeds over him for a favor in return. Especially one that controls MY life.” Marlene was still glaring up at him. Her voice never taking the soft tone they usually used with each other.

James released his breath and hung his head. He was tired and he hated fighting with Marlene, he just wanted to go somewhere with her and they would talk, move past this and laugh.

“James…” Sirius had started barley above a whisper.

“Don’t.” James removed any emotion from his voice but anger. He couldn’t be here anymore, he turned and left the group.

#blackinnon #sirius x marlene #my writing #marlius

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theonetryingtolive · 3 years

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A Reply to Harmful Literary Discourse on Tumblr

I have never actively engaged in a discussion about books in the way I am about to. Full disclosure, I have more than one degree under my belt and have written papers and been published in journals and scholarly web sites. I am saying this because I want you to understand where I am coming from.

Recently I reblogged a post in which a user complained about The Song of Achilles and the takes on Tumblr about it. Calling for people to “read another book” and saying that the writing “sucks ass” as well as not to take it as the same thing as the Illiad. And here is why I think this discourse is offensive and damaging for readers and the community of book lovers on Tumblr.

First of all, this is a work of fiction. Saying that it shouldn’t be taken as the Illiad is repetitive as The Song of Achilles is in itself a work of fiction. But you know what? Even if people want to think of the world of TSOA as the mythical world of the Illiad, once they read or learn about myth this vision of the world will dissipate on their own. It is offensive to assume that people cannot differentiate between one work of fiction and the other. The Illiad is another work of fiction. And assuming that TSOA can somehow take away from the Illiad is the exact embodiment of a huge fear in academia that “low-brow” or “lower class” books can somehow become as important for the literary canon than what we consider as classics. Newsflash, friends! The canon is indeed fluid and ever changing and it doesn’t matter if you go back to Derrida or talk to someone about the canon today, academics all over, critics all over agree that it is near impossible to come to a single definition of canon that satisfy everyone. TSOA is as important for the literary tapestry of today as other works of fiction.

I assume the person who made that post had a problem with the romanticized relationship between Achilles and Patroculs that is found all over on Tumblr. And to that I have to say, I sincerely hope they do not cling to the belief that romanticizing things is cringy and should be cancelled. There are whole literature genres that are all about romanticizing situations in life, relationships, and locations. Ever heard of the pastoral genre? That’s a genre that’s about romanticizing pastoral settings, values, and relationships. Apart from the issue of somehow trying to censor romanticization of a work of fiction, there is another issue. Tumblr is a website in which anyone can write and paint and express themselves however they like so long as it is not illegal or harmful to others. Why is the poster so upset about romanticized versions of Achilles and Patroclus? Perhaps it is the same fear that I mentioned earlier, that somehow this version of these characters is taking something away from the Illiad. Spoiler alert, it doesn’t.

Creating such a negative response and telling people to read another book is unfair to the fans of the work, unfair to people who are seeking a soft, romanticized version of a gay relationship in Ancient Greece, and it is a dick move. Are we so entrenched in our beliefs on literature that we are willing to go to these lengths to make Tumble,a place that proclaims to be inclusive, non-inclusive to these people? Know what you sound like when you do that? An asshole. I’m a POC and all my life I have felt excluded because of my skin. I don’t want that same feeling of exclusion to be part of anyone’s experiences online or offline and this negative response is damaging because of this reason.

You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but criticizing a work of fiction is different to suggesting that TSOA is awful and sucks and people who enjoy it are somehow wrong for liking it. I saw the post, and you were very careful not to say this in any way that could imply you’re actively trying to hurt people. It didn’t work. If you have a good critique that goes beyond ‘this sucks’ and ‘I hate to see people happy’ then by all means, write a cohesive post or better yet, try to get published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Saying that a writing sucks ass is saying nothing. It means nothing. It just means that you didn’t like the writing style, but it does not invalidate a writer’s writing style. And saying this is also harmful to budding writers who were inspired by TSOA and who may come across that harmful post and say “maybe I shouldn’t write because I will suck.” Do you think I’m going too far? Think again. If you actually cared to look around you and spoke to people you might see how one comment can fundamentally alter someone’s life. Do you want to be the one who extinguishes someone’s passion for writing?

But just in case you were wondering, I will say Madeline Miller’s writing is not considered to be bad in style. You can go on JSTOR or Project Muse and read articles about it. There is nothing wrong with it other than the fact that it is not for everyone. TSOA is a book intended primarily for young people, and it is written in a vernacular that young readers can understand and enjoy. That does not exclude older readers from enjoying it.

I may come to regret writing this because I can imagine the backlash that will come. On the other hand, I may not regret it one bit. Why can’t we let people enjoy the things they want to enjoy and blacklist any tags that we don’t want to see? I have blacklisted all Marvel-related tags and don’t go out of my way to call out Marvel fans for liking the films or comics. It’s so easy to scroll past something you don’t want to see. Just do it.

#tsoa #be kind #booklr #books #book tumblr

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langdvnshepherd · 5 years

Text

A Change of Heart (Michael Langdon x fem!Reader)

Summary: Michael Langdon drunkenly stumbles into your dorm one night at The Hawthorne School for Exceptional Young Men.

Word Count: 6.5k

Warnings: use of alcohol, angst, smut, heavy petting, fingering, cum play, oral (female receiving), a lil bit of fluff I suppose

A/N: I’ve been seeing a bunch of posts floating around about the bed-sharing trope, and I wanted to write it SO BAD. It took me a while and ended up being wayyy sweeter than I wanted it to be, but this is finally what I came up with! I hope you guys enjoy. Reblogs/likes/comments are always appreciated! Let me know what you guys think! Also, I did no proof-reading whatsoever so I apologize but what’s knew lmao

Masterlist in bio!

Weekends at Hawthorne were a blessing. You cherished them, counted down the minutes until your Friday lecture was dismissed and you were left to your own devices for the next two days. There were no classes, no nitpicky professors, no being bored to death for hours on end with countless spells and potions that you’d already mastered back at Robichaux’s (you’d come to conclude that the warlocks were eons behind the witches, despite how advanced they swore they were). While your prolonged stay at Hawthorne was turning out to be quite miserable, the weekends worked wonders for the permanent furrow in your brow from Mondays to Fridays.

Most witches and warlocks left the boarding school on the weekends, charming their way into trashy clubs and finessing fruit drinks from whoever they could seduce with their powers. It was as if they never slept for the entirety of those two days. They left early on in the night and returned late the next morning, often looking like they’d just been hit by a truck: messy makeup that was smudged to hell and back, blazers wrinkled beyond belief, sometimes one of them even would be missing a shoe. Some of them never returned until the following Monday, getting caught up in the bustling city of Los Angeles and wishing to forget their duties as students of the supernatural.

But not you. You rarely went out, if ever. Instead of leaving Hawthorne to escape your studies, you stayed within its walls, escaping the people. Your classmates annoyed you, and you used every ample opportunity to stay as far away from them as possible. Everyone left Hawthorne on the weekends, so staying indoors meant you’d be able to avoid the chaos almost completely. It was the only time you were glad to be trapped within the underground of the school for warlocks. No one bothered you. No one beat on your door at night asking you to help them cheat on their upcoming exam. It was peaceful. You could catch up on your latest tv binge, indulge in an extensive skincare routine, relax your bones that ached from putting up with absolute imbeciles for five straight days.

And that’s exactly what you were doing. It was late Friday night, almost too late for any sober person to be awake. You had just gotten out of the bath, this time treating yourself to a lavender soak that successfully worked its way into the sore muscles of your back. Your favorite, oversized t-shirt felt especially cozy against your bare thighs, the hem exposing only the slightest sliver of the bottom of your underwear.

There were no noises coming from outside of your dorm. No shuffling of loafers. No clicking of heels. Just silence. Thank Satan, because you had a long night of catching up on some much-needed sleep ahead of you. That was until you heard a series of offbeat knocks on the dark wood of your bedroom door.

What the fuck? Who could possibly be beating on your door this late at night? You were almost certain that any student that normally harassed you for your assistance during the week was out partying, and it couldn’t be one of the Hawthorne professors. They’re far too old to be up this late. Maybe something went wrong. Maybe someone was in danger. Maybe it was Cordelia coming back for you to tell you you could leave this godforsaken bunker. There was honestly no telling.

You padded over to the door, reaching out to grab the cool, metal handle of the knob. You kept your body hidden from behind the thick of the door, because whoever needed you this late at night certainly did not need to see you in your underwear.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” you huffed as the door came ajar and you saw the slender, tall figure that was waiting for you on the other side.

His body towered over yours, much like his ego, his lanky arms leaning casually against the door frame. He was still clad in his Hawthorne uniform that he wore to class earlier that afternoon, only the top of his undershirt was unbuttoned and his necktie hung much looser around the base of his throat. His eyes were still as aquamarine as the Santa Monica oceans that you once visited on a long weekend. It was none other than the Boy Wonder himself, the supposed Alpha, Michael fucking Langdon.

His appearance was quite comical if you were being honest. On any other day, you wouldn’t catch Langdon with a single hair out of place on his perfectly quaffed head or one speck of lint on his onyx black blazer, but given his current posture and the reeking stench of liquor that hit you head on as soon as the door cracked open, you knew he wasn’t in any state of mind to be caring about his appearance in the slightest.

“Oh, come on. You can’t be that surprised to see me,” he daunted, that iconic, shit-eating grin plastered clear across his face.

“It’s the middle of the night, Michael. What do you want?” you asked, disdain dripping from your voice. Your hand went to rest on your hip as you impatiently waited for his answer.

“What you mean, silly? I came to see you. My favorite girl,” he sneered, emphasizing the word ‘favorite.’ His words slurred together as he leaned in to bop your nose with his pointer finger, his drunken state unraveling further and further with each word that left his mouth.

You scrunched your nose up in disgust as his finger made contact with your face. “First of all,” you spat, “I am not your girl. And second, you’re drunk, Langdon. Extremely drunk. How did you even get here?”

Michael chuckled lightly as the cogs in his brain tried to process what you’d just asked him. He ran the palm of his hand up and down his jawline in order to form his next response.

“IIIII don’t realllly knowww,” he mumbled, “Alex called an Uber, but...”

He trailed off, scratching his head in concentration.

“I thiiink they got out at another bar? I kept walking and then I got cold and remembered that I could just use telekinesis and now here I am!” Michael shrugged his shoulders in satisfaction with the nonsense that he’d just spewed from his glossy lips that were sticky from all of the alcohol he’d tossed back like cold medicine.

You stared at him with your brow raised, gobsmacked with the story he’d given you. He was clearly drunker than your intuition led you to believe.

“Transmutation, Michael. It’s transmutation. Not telekinesis.”

“Okayyy. Whatever,” he sassed back, rolling his cerulean blue eyes far back into his head.

“I’m here now, so...Why don’t we have some fun like old times?” his syllables were drawn out and his voice was low, an embarrassing attempt at trying to be seductive. He reached for your sides to give them a playful pinch, but you swatted them away before they could even get close to touching you.

“Michael I already I told you I-”

You were interrupted by Langdon pushing the door to your room open with his foot. He waltzed in casually as if it were his own space, his feet tripping up just slightly as the scuffed the polished hardwood of the floor. There was a sudden shift in the atmosphere as the brazen boy entered your dorm for the first time in weeks. The feeling was all too familiar, but only this time it was under completely different circumstances. Your arms went instinctively to pull down your already oversized nightshirt to cover yourself, as if it mattered. Michael was the last person that cared about your indecency. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen you in far less before. And more than a handful of times at that.

“I know, I know, sweetheart. You told me. I’m an, ‘insolent, repulsive excuse for a man,’ and you, ‘never want to speak to me again,’” Michael babbled while using air quotes with his fingers as he recalled the explosive argument you’d gotten into where you ended your arrangement with him permanently. You were surprised he could even recall that much of the fight given the way his eyes were glossed over and his cheeks were consumed by a rosy, drunken glow.

“But you know something, Y/N?” he asked as he crossed his arms behind his back and began pacing around the room, “I never understood why that bothered you. It really wasn’t that ba-”

“You told the entire school, Michael,” you interjected, clapping your hands together for emphasis.

“Sooo? Is that such a horrible thing?”

“Yeah, it is!” you were growing angry now at his persistence, wishing he’d just leave and go back to wherever he came from before he’d ruined your quiet night in. His presence was bringing up feelings you had repressed deep into your psyche, and it only got worse as each second passed.

“You need to caaaalm dooown,” Michael began rubbing his temples with each of his middle fingers as if to say your increased volume was giving him a migraine.

He sobered up suddenly, walking right up to you to and taking both of your shoulders into his hands. “I’ve told you one thousand times already, sugar. I never meant to upset you when I said that shit. Honestly, I didn’t think you had a problem with anybody knowing.”

“Well, I did have a problem with it, Michael. What we did-,” you gestured back and forth, referring to the both of you, and the long history you shared before Michael betrayed your trust, “-was private. Personal. It was our thing. And you ruined that by telling everyone. It was so embarrassing, walking into class every day knowing that everybody was staring at me and calling me a ‘dirty whore’ behind my back.”

Michael nodded silently at your words, his lips pressed into a thin line. For a split second, you almost thought he took what you said to heart. That maybe you’d even get a genuine apology from him. That was until he leaned into your ear and you felt his warm, inebriated breath trickle down your neck as he spoke.

“But you’re my dirty whore, right?”

You should have known, Langdon was never one for taking things seriously. You shook his palms away from your shoulders, walking to the other side of the room to be as far away from him as possible.

“You know what? I’m done with this shit, Michael. Get the fuck out of my room. Go find another girl to entertain you for the rest of the night because I’m not the fucking one. Not anymore,” you demanded, crossing your arms against your chest.

A flicker of sadness danced across his face at your harshness. Had you not been staring a hole into his soul, you wouldn’t have caught it. Michael kept his feet planted on your shaggy area rug, not moving one muscle. He was quiet, for once. The only sound coming from him was his heavy breathing that you assumed was due to your outburst.

“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?” you spat, “Does the magnificent Boy Wonder have nothing to say for once in his fucking life?”

Michael continued to stare at the floor like his pointed, Louboutin oxfords were the most captivating thing since the invention of the wheel. Maybe you’d actually managed to hit him where it hurt. Maybe the disintegration of your relationship had affected him more than he’d let on. Or maybe, hopefully, he’d finally leave you alone so you could permanently forget about everything that had (or hadn’t) happened between you two.

“I think I’m gonna be sick.”

That was all it took. Not even one second later, your favorite, faux-fur rug was covered in vomit. Michael dropped to his knees as he hurled, clutching his heaving stomach to ease the queasy feeling. It was like watching the water at Niagra Falls continuously cascade down its steep drop; you had never seen anyone puke that much in your entire life.

“Ohh, shit,” you muttered to yourself as you padded your way over to where Michael was sitting on the floor.

You suddenly felt bad for Michael. He had tears in his eyes from the strain, and you could feel the fevered hotness of his skin radiating from his blazer. His helplessness compelled you to reach out and stroke his spine comfortingly while he continued to empty his guts out onto your bedroom floor. Michael leaned into your touch, resting the side of his head against your bare thighs to steady himself.

“Are you okay?” you asked when the waves of his vomit had subsided.

“Peachy,” Michael snapped back, wiping the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand.

As much as you hated him at the moment, the thought of Michael being left alone to tend to his impending hangover filled you with the slightest bit of guilt and pity. You expelled a loud sigh from your throat before you spoke again.

“You should probably just stay here. I don’t think you should be left alone tonight,” you posed, your tone in great contrast to how you were screaming at him to leave just minutes before.

“No, no, no,” Michael stated. His voice was woozy again, still drunk even after all of that puking. “You wanted me to leave, remember?”

He tried to stand up, planting one of his large hands on your nightstand for leverage, but he stumbled again much like how he had when he first entered your room. You caught him by wrapping your arms around his torso before he could faceplant into the vomit that had pooled at his feet.

“Okay, but that was before you threw up everything you’ve eaten in the last week onto my carpet,” you began walking him back to your bed so he could be more stabilized, making sure to avoid the pile of bile, “And I’d rather not walk into another lecture on Monday morning about the dangers of teen drinking when John Henry catches you puking again in the hallway on your way back to your room.”

Michael let out an unexpected chuckle to himself at your mention of the Hawthorne instructor.

“I’ve got John Henry under control. You don’t need to worry about him,” he waved his hand in the air nonchalantly, clearly still unable to shake the alcohol from his system, even after the damage he’d just done to your rug.

“Umm, why?” you asked whilst simultaneously digging through your drawers for a shirt Michael could sleep in.

He flopped back on the bed, his arms crossing behind his head like a pillow. “We have a little, arrangement, I guess you could say. He definitely won’t be up my ass about anything anytime soon.”

You paused your rummaging to turn around and give Michael a quizzical expression, confused as to if he was being serious or if it was another one of his drunken rambles.

“Well, that’s not entirely true. He will be up my ass. Just in other ways, I suppose.”

“You’re disgusting,” you huffed, your fingers finally settling on the sweatshirt you’d been looking for. You wadded up the top and launched it at his face, suddenly wishing it was something much harder than a ball of fabric.

“Put that on.”

Michael took the sweatshirt in his hands, his faded vision trying to comprehend where he’d seen it before. It was one of the heather grey gym pullovers that every warlock was given when they arrived at Hawthorne, so he knew it wasn’t yours. He knew it wasn’t his either, because you’d thrown that at him also when you broke things off with him a handful of weeks ago. Which only meant one thing...

“Where did you get this, Y/N? Whose is this?” he demanded, his body shooting straight up from where he had been laying on your down comforter.

There was no reason to, but your face immediately flushed with embarrassment. What happened between Michael and you was in the past, even though you often wished it wasn’t. You had to move on, and in some ways, you had. It was what you were supposed to do. You’d hoped he would be too drunk to even notice that it was another warlock’s pullover, but Michael Langdon always had a way of catching you off guard.

“Don’t worry about it, Michael. Please, just put it on so we can both go to sleep. You’re not wearing your vomit-soaked clothes in my bed.”

“No. Tell me,” his eyes were pleading for an answer. You could see the rising anger in his chest, how his nostrils flared just slightly with every breath he took.

“It’s not a big deal, Michael. Seriously. Now put on the fucking sweatshirt before I make you sleep on the floor next to your puke.”

Michael rolled his eyes at your digression from the subject, wishing he was sober enough to be able to read your thoughts. He made a mental note to do that first thing in the morning. If he would even remember.

“I’m not wearing your new fuck buddy’s clothes, love. It’s not gonna happen.”

That struck a nerve. Just because the relationship between you and Michael never strayed from casual fucking, and lots of it, who was he to imply that that’s all you’ve ever been interested in from other guys? If the supposed Alpha was so good at reading people, why hadn’t he caught on to your own desires?

“Who said he’s my fuck buddy? Do you not think I’m capable of being in an actual relationship with someone?”

“Not saying that at all, princess. I just have a feeling there aren’t very many people you’re interested in. Especially not a warlock anyway,” he said disparagingly.

(Well, shit. Maybe he was good at reading people.)

“Honestly, I’m tired of arguing with you. Can you please just take off your clothes so we can both get some sleep?” you jeered, utterly exhausted at just the presence of the tall blonde.

“Mmmm, yes ma’am,” Michael replied, wiggling his brows at you flirtatiously. He seemed to have forgotten about his bubbling rage for a brief moment. Of course, that’s where his train of thought went to.

You didn’t even have the energy to fire back, you simply rolled your eyes at the mess of a boy in front of you with your arms crossed sternly at your chest. It got your point across.

Michael huffed a low, “fine, but I’m not wearing the fucking sweatshirt” under his breath before he began fumbling for the necktie that had come completely untied at this point. He tried to take off his blazer, but got caught in the thick fabric and began helplessly trying to shrug it off of his broad shoulders.

“You’re pathetic, Langdon,” you groaned, trudging over to where Michael was sitting on the bed to help him shake the remainder of his unkempt uniform.

He was tired now, seemingly floating in and out of consciousness as he tried to keep his heavy eyelids open. When you finally unlatched the last button of his undershirt and your fingers gently grazed the dip of his protruding collarbone, you paused. Just weeks ago, this action would have brought you great joy, a spout of arousal seeping from your core at what was to follow. But for some reason, this evoked a twinge of sadness in your heart. Michael wasn’t yours anymore. He wasn’t yours to touch, wasn’t yours to think about. Despite the suggestive things Michael had said throughout the evening, you knew it was the alcohol speaking on his behalf. He certainly didn’t feel the same way you did about him. You were nothing more to him than a hole to be filled, as he’d let the entire school know it.

You snapped out of your daze after hearing a loud hiccup escape from Michael’s lips. He chuckled like a child at the high-pitched sound it made, only causing you to roll your eyes at him for the millionth time tonight.

“Okay, you’re good,” you said to him whilst giving him a gentle pat on the cheek, “Go to sleep.”

Michael nodded sheepishly, falling back to rest his head on the extra pillow at the head of your bed. He seemed to fall asleep almost instantly as his hiccups subsided and were replaced with small snores that trickled out of his open mouth with each breath.

You walked around to your side of the bed and crawled in, savoring the cool satin of your sheets and the feeling of being off of your feet again. As you threw the duvet cover over both yourself and Michael, you considered stuffing a body pillow in between the two of you. Assuming he was far too intoxicated to even think about trying to pull anything, you opted against it. You’d most definitely wake before him anyway. By the looks of it, he’d surely sleep until well on the next evening.

Just as you felt the beacon of sleep crawling towards you, you remembered the overflow of vomit on the floor next to your bed, as it was beginning to smell more and more foul. With droopy eyelids, a half-hearted wave of your wrist and a low mutter of Latin under your breath, the stain evaporated.

Michael stirred at the commotion, swimming about in the excess of the duvet to turn towards you.

“Y/N?” he beckoned, not even bothering to lift his head from the pillow or open his eyes as he spoke.

You didn’t answer, seeing as it would most likely be another attempt to piss you off with his intoxicated bullshit.

“I’m sorry,” he muffled through scrunched up cheeks and the material of his pillow.

“For what?” you asked him. For interrupting your quiet night in with his nonsense? For puking on your floor?

“I just wanted everyone to know you were mine.”

It felt borderline cruel, the way he’d been talking all night. This was no different. He’d sworn up and down that all your relationship ever was was casual, but everything he said in the last hour, regardless of whether or not he meant it, seemed to contradict that statement.

Before you could question him further, although you were almost positive you knew what he was referring to and that he wasn’t being truthful, he had fallen back asleep. His breathing evened out and his body stiffened, succumbing to his drunken slumber.

But it was alright. You wouldn’t have known how to respond anyway.

Your brain paid no mind to the fact that it was the weekend, as your biological clock withdrew you from your sleep at a rather early hour. Especially given that you’d spent a lengthy amount of time tending to the presumably hungover Boy Wonder that was fast asleep next to you. As you motioned upwards to outstretch your stiff limbs, you realized your body was being constricted by an overbearing force.

Michael’s arms.

In the midst of his slumber, or most likely, on purpose, he had found his way over to your side of the bed. Go figure. Michael had his lanky, toned forearms wrapped tightly around your middle and his head nestled comfortably in between your shoulder blades. You felt the ends of his golden blonde curls just slightly tickling the back of your neck each time he took a breath.

You could move. Shake yourself out of his grasp or shove him back over to his side of the bed, or even kick him out of your room and send him back to his own. But a handful of reasons kept you from doing so.

For starters, he had certainly had a long night. Him puking on your carpet was only the aftermath of what you had assumed was an extremely eventful evening, meaning he could definitely use the sleep.

Second, you couldn’t help but be reminded of how things used to be with Michael. There were only a handful of times that you ever slept together through the night, but when you did, you savored every moment. He was much softer when he slept, a great contrast to how harsh he had always been with you earlier on in the evening, when he had you on your knees, forcing his length down your throat, making you gag on your own saliva as well as his cock while he fucked your face with no mercy whatsoever. He cuddled into you like a child does their teddy bear when he slept, tangling his limbs with yours, tucking his head into the crook of your shoulder. The first few times you’d woken up being practically smothered by Michael’s body on yours he’d tried to play it off, tried to pretend like he hadn’t meant to grab onto you at all. After you’d failed to show any type of discomfort, he stopped making excuses and shamelessly grappled onto you as often as he could. You loved it quite a bit more than you were willing to admit, hence why, right now, you opted to stay put. If lying here for an extra 20 minutes was the closest you would ever be to Michael again, so be it.

And you really hoped he was comfortable, because much to your chagrin, his sharp hip bone was digging into your back. At least you thought it was his hip bone until you accidentally shifted in the sheets and you heard a quiet, hoarse moan spill from Michael’s lips.

To test whether or not your movement and Michael’s subsequent groaning was a mere coincidence, you rolled your hips back again. Another quiet, but more forceful mewl evoked from Michael’s chest, the vibrations muffling against the cotton of your t-shirt.

Now you knew it definitely wasn’t his hip bone. You had been grinding yourself against his impressively hard morning wood, and just the mere thought of it already had you worked up. The girth, the thick, prominent vein that ran along the underside, the way that Michael had the ability to split you in half with it, skewering you onto him until you saw stars. You needed more. To hear his pants and groans while you worked him over and over as you had many times in the past.

Pushing the boundaries even further, you swiveled your hips back once more, this time further back and harder against him. This time, all you got was a low-register grunt.

“Are you having fun?”

His deep, baritone voice filled you with shock, and a little with panic. You’d thought for sure he had been sleeping, as he’d barely even moved the entire time you’ve been awake thus far. Unsure of how to respond, you laid frozen in his arms.

Michael resituated himself on the bed, pulling you closer into him so that he had a better grip around your waist and his cock was pressed firmly against your backside.

“I know you’re not asleep,” he beckoned, slowly trailing his fingers up your stomach and then down again, stopping just before he reached the flimsy waistband of your panties.

“I can smell you.”

“C’mon, Y/N,” Michael teased as his hand crept lower and lower until the pad of his middle finger barely grazed over the fabric that rested above your clit.

“Don’t you want to play?”

He pressed down on your panties gently, eliciting the smallest of whines on your part. You jutted your hips forward in an attempt to grind yourself harder onto his fingers, which did not go unnoticed by Langdon. He clicked his tongue in your ear.

“Not so fast, little witch,” he paused, “You’ve had your fun. Now it’s my turn,” he emphasized with a harsh roll of his hips into your ass.

“Michael, please,” you begged, fighting a moan as he began circling his calloused fingers through your folds.

You could feel your heart beating in your ears, and the flickering of an addictive fire simmering low in your belly. Michael was breathing heavily down your neck, focusing his concentration on your throbbing clit and each desperate sound that weaseled its way up your throat and through your now parched lips.

He clicked his tongue in your ear in disapproval of your begging.

“As I recall, you used to enjoy this,” he mocked, “The chase. The build-up.”

He paused to pull your panties to the side and plunge his index and middle fingers inside of you.

“My fingers.”

Michael quickly withdrew them from your heat, but not without another whine from you. He brought them to his lips slowly, savoring the taste of your sickly sweet saccharine that he’d been denied of for quite some time now. You heard him moan obscenely as he lolled his tongue around his digits, sending another bout of arousal through you, and your patience over the edge.

“Are you done being dramatic?” you posed, the annoyance evident in your voice.

It was obvious where this was going. Why waste any more time?

Your words seemed to have angered Michael, as he abruptly shoved you onto your stomach and straddled your waist all in one, fluid movement. His cock rocked against your ass firmly when he situated himself so that he was hovering just above your face, his silky curls tickling the exposed part of your shoulder.

“What the matter, princess?” he taunted, snaking his arm under your neck so that he could jerk you upwards by the jaw, forcing you to lift your head from the pillow he had just shoved you down onto.

“Does your new boyfriend not know how to treat a lady?”

Michael wiggled his other hand around your middle to toy with your clit through your soaking wet panties once more. You mewled against his tight hold on you, struggling to breathe as he seemed to push his fingers even more harshly against the pressure point on your throat and harder against your swollen bud.

“Or did you just forget everything I taught you?”

Michael released his grip from your throat, hands moving south to yank your underwear from your legs. You were left clothed in only the oversized t-shirt you slept in.

He took your ass in hands, kneading the warm mounds of flesh in circles, admiring the beauty beneath him. As he parted your cheeks, you felt his thumb creep downwards. He began to rub you in circles, from your sticky folds where cum oozed slowly from your core and up to the puckering ring of your asshole. Michael pressed down gently on the skin there each time he returned to it, savoring the exaggerated pants that left your lungs.

“God, Michael,” you moaned against the pillow, fighting tears of frustration and lust.

He was right. All of your hookups since Michael couldn’t compare the racy nights you spend with him, where he teased you for hours, making sure you were a wet, sobbing mess before brutally fucking you into the squeaky, springy mattress in his dorm. You had missed this, but you felt like you might implode if he didn’t do something to ease the aching between your legs, and fast.

“Oh, come on, Y/N. You know better than that.”

From behind you, you heard the sound of Michael tugging his boxer briefs from his hips. Everything inside of you wanted to turn around and look, to see his impressively hard cock bobbing freely against the skin below his navel just before he rammed it inside of you, but you feared he’d only draw out the process further if he caught you gawking.

“There isn’t a God on this earth that could keep you from me.”

“Then what’s stopping you now? Hmm?”

Michael chuckled at your poor attempt to snide him before parting your cheeks again, this time to run his cock through the folds of your pussy and against the quivering ring of your asshole. He made sure you were nice and ready for him, although the overflow of sticky juices that had pooled in between your closed legs spoke for itself.

Your eyes screwed shut as Michael entered you, your fingers moving to pinch the silky fabric of the pillowcase beneath you. He moved slowly, only pressing in an inch at a time. The stretch was unbearable, as Michael was endowed with a cock that was incompatible with any other man you had been with. Even when you two fucked regularly, it was never easy to adjust to his massive size.

When Michael filled you to the hilt and stretched you to your full capacity, he began to rock his hips into your ass. His thrusts were shallow at first, but still caused your breath to hitch in the back of your throat each time he bottomed out. He quickly set a new pace, withdrawing himself further and further until he was repeatedly slamming the entire length of his delicious, oozing cock into your dripping cunt without regard to the small tears that were now falling freely from your eyes at the sheer pleasure that consumed your entire body.

Just when you thought you couldn’t feel any more full with the brazen boy’s illustrious cock, Michael dug his fingers into your hipbones and lifted your backside up, forcing you to bring your knees inward and press the top half of your body even further into the sheets. Your glistening hole was now on full display for him, giving him the chance to penetrate your walls even deeper than you imagined possible. You tried grasping onto the pillowcase even harder, but not even your white-knuckled vice grip could soothe the overwhelming build of pressure pooling inside of you below your tummy.

“Michael,” you whined, embarrassed by the desperation in your tone.

“Don’t you dare, slut,” he scolded, giving your ass one firm, blistering smack, “Not until I say.”

His punishment made you cry out and sent another pool of fresh tears from your eyes as you tried your best to give him an obedient nod of your head. It felt good to be taken care of again.

By the shakiness in his voice, you could tell he was rearing his own end. His thrusts began to fall out of line with his previously remorseless pace and his breathing was becoming more and more erratic by the second. You felt him twitching inside of you, his cock begging for release each time he pounded into the warm, tight hole of yours that he had missed so dearly. He’d never tell, but the pillowy folds and spongy, welcoming walls of your pussy was his favorite by far.

“Fuck, Y/N,” he managed to spurt in between thrusts.

You felt his body heat radiating down onto you, heightening the pleasurable burn inside of you. Michael was panting and moaning and gasping, and his hold on your hips grew so intense that you were almost convinced he’d drawn blood with the crescent-shaped indents left behind by his nails.

You couldn’t take it any longer.

“Michael, can I please cum?” you cried, your sweaty hair trashing against the pillow as you tried to hold out for him.

“What did I just fucking say?” he spat.

“You cum when I tell you to cum.”

His pace quickened suddenly. He began skewering his cock into you as fast and as violently as he could manage. When his hips smacked into your ass particularly harshly, he stilled. Michael’s release was accompanied by a throaty groan. He milked himself in your heat as you felt the thick, rope-like strings of his cum coating your walls.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” you whined.

Before you even had the chance to complain about Michael denying you of your release, he flipped you over, looking you in the eyes for the first time this entire morning.

“When have I ever not taken care of you?” he posed before snaking his body down the bed and stopping when his head reached what laid between your open legs.

He licked a broad, flat stripe up your pussy, eliciting a gasp from you. You watched as he circled your clit with his tongue, your eyes making contact with the vibrant sapphire of his own. Michael was smirking against your folds as he mouthed at them, getting off on the knowledge that he was the only one that could ever see the pretty faces you were making now. He was certain no other boy had the skill or willingness to see you fall apart, with your eyes glued shut, back arching almost unnaturally as you cried out with passion, on their tongue.

Your fingers went to his hair, which was matted to his forehead with the sweat he’d accumulated from splitting you in two just moments ago. You tugged on the curls nestled against his scalp, wanting him to be suffocated by your heat, not able to breathe even the slightest of breaths. And he let you. He burrowed his tongue into your core, his jaw now covered in your slick and nose now pressed snuggly against your clit. Chants of his name echoed loudly against the cinderblock walls of your dorm. You sure hoped no one was awake yet.

“Are you ready to cum now?” Michael asked, licking another tantalizing stripe through your cunt.

As he lifted his lips from your pussy to speak and dipped back down again, you saw the pearly milk of his own release swirling about on the pad of his tongue. He’d been catching it as it dripped out of you, which only spurred you on even further.

All you could muster was a pathetic, half nod of your chin. Your thighs were beginning to tremble and you could barely keep your head up to see the magic Michael was working in between your legs.

“Then cum,” Michael beckoned.

“Let me feel you fall apart on my tongue.

You came directly after he granted you permission, the juices of your cunt soaking Michael as he continued to tug on your clit with his lips through your orgasm. You contracted around him as he held your hips down with his hands, becoming overstimulated almost immediately after you came down from your high.

Michael climbed on top of you, wiping the excess of your release from his chin as best as he could. He lowered himself to your face again, taking in the glowing sheen that now adorned your cheeks.

“You are so beautiful,” he spoke aloud before crashing his lips against yours.

His teeth clashed against your own and you could taste the remnants of his cum left behind in his mouth. Michael held onto your jaw as he pulled back, pulling the flushed skin of your bottom lip gently with his thumb.

“You taste like vomit,” you jabbed, shoving him off of you and onto the empty space beside you on the bed.

Michael chuckled softly at your dig, placing a hand over his heart.

“And you really know how to ruin a moment. Don’t you?”

He missed you and these little moments you shared after fucking each other’s brains out. He wished there was something he could do to get them back. Forever this time. No more “no strings attached.” No more casual fucks. He wanted you to be his and his only. But he had fucked up so badly that he wasn’t sure there was anything he could do to bring that to fruition.

Little did he know, you were thinking the exact same thing.

Tagging:

@avesatanormalpeoplescareme @sloppy-little-witch-bitch26@venusxxlangdon @ccodyfern@readsalot73 @americanhorrorstudies @wroteclassicaly @gold-dragon-slayer @langdonsdemon @langdonshell @1-800-bitchcraft @rocketgirl2410 @hecohansen31 @alice-is-mad @hplotrfan

((I need to work on an updated tag list so if you didn’t want to be tagged and I tagged you/didn’t get tagged and you would like to be, I’m really sorry just let me know and I won’t do it again sorry!!!))

#michael langdon x reader #michael langdon fanfiction #michael langdon smut #michael langdon one shot #ahs #ahs apocalypse #american horror story fanfiction #american horror story apocalypse #my writing #mine #fic

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a-gay-bloodmage · 5 years

Text

Never have I seen a prompt better suited for Hundir!

((From this post!))

Thank you so much for the request, @zeesqueere!

—I Thought You Didn’t Want Me—

Pairing: Gorim Saelac x Male Aeducan

Pairing: M/M

Words: 2,600

Warnings: Referenced and Implied NSFW Content, Internal and External Homophobia, Moving on From Bigotry, The Wonderfulness of Being a Nobody, God I Love These Two, My Adorable Little Bears

Avoiding the subject was Hundir’s specialty. If a potentially personal question was brought up, it was always best to simply invoke the right of none of your blighted business and move on. Such a right was easy to come by when he was still a noble, as interrogating a prince not yet accused of treason simply wasn’t an option. Keeping to oneself while a Warden, however, was much more difficult. Fellow Wardens—Alistair—often didn’t know how to take a damn hint and leave him alone. Constant questioning about what the dwarven nobility was like, what the world looked like from four and a half feet off the ground, and if dwarves found short human girls cute. The answers were, of course, awful, awful, and I wouldn’t know, but he was content to let the human simply ponder without an answer. Thankfully, the only other companions he received similar interrogations from were the redheaded human girl, the elf, and Oghren—though his interrogations were usually just so, about those rumors going around Orzammar about you… The giant, the witch, the golem, and the elderly mage were all much better at keeping their questions to themselves, but the elderly mage was good at springing questions upon him when he least expected it and in a manner that actually got him talking. Damn her motherly charm! At least she kept his answers to herself.

It’d been almost a year since he was thrown into the Deep Roads at this point, and Denerim had proved to be just as wonderful as he’d hoped it to be. Not because of the unique architecture—the flimsy human structures looked ready to collapse any second—nor the threat of darkspawn war finally coming to a concerning amount of the Surface, but because of the people. Well, one person in particular. The rest could die via the Archdemon for all he cared. Especially those Chantry harpies constantly hounding him for not giving a damn about their prophet.

“I still can’t believe that you didn’t say something earlier,” Gorim said, looking over his tankard of ale at Hundir. The human tavern they were in was far from ideal, but everyone was grateful for the few days of rest before they set out to look for the alleged miracle ashes hidden in the Frostbacks. Everyone in Hundir’s party of mismatched fools was thrilled about the break, content to put off a goal so long as they could watch their stone-faced leader blush and fawn over his former manservant. Especially the gossips of the group. The redhead, mage, and Alistair cooed, the elf attempted to offer his perverted advice, and Oghren looked more vindicated than any man Hundir had ever known.

Hundir tugged on his hair, fraying it between his thumb and forefinger. “I thought you didn’t want me,” he admitted in a quiet voice.

“I-” Gorim sighed. “I thought it would’ve been obvious I didn’t mind us being more than friends, but…”

“Of course I didn’t notice the obvious,” Hundir said, cursing himself. “But I- Does this conversation really need to be had in the open?” He asked through clenched teeth, eyes flickering over to the table packed with three humans, an elf, and a dwarf.

“By all means, carry on,” the redheaded human girl said, freckled cheek resting in her hand.

“By the Stone,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I feel obligated to apologize for my terrible choices of companions,” he said, looking back at Gorim. “But, in my defense, it was that human that insisted on picking up the strays for aid.”

“He’s lying,” Alistair stage-whispered at Gorim, making him chuckle.

“They seem to like you,” Gorim said, a knowing smile on his face.

“I didn’t ask them to,” Hundir said back, smiling a little.

“Well, it does seem that anyone who spends enough time with you comes to like you, my- Hundir,” Gorim said. “I’m certainly proof, am I not?”

“I-” Hundir pressed his lips together, unable to respond adequately.

Gorim took another long sip of his ale, shaking his head as he set it down. “You always like to think it’s impossible someone would like you,” he said, looking decently upset by the fact, his smile almost pitying. But pity didn’t hurt coming from Gorim. Hundir knew better than to think it insincere. “But with enough time, it’s obvious you really are a wonderful man.”

Hundir was sure his ears were red with embarrassed fluster. “Gorim, please,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “There’s no need to flatter me. I’m no longer a prince, nor your employer.” His thumb was nervously tracing over the handle of his tankard. “I have good reason for not believing everything you say.”

Gorim sighed, moving a little closer and placing his hand on Hundir’s shoulder. “Yeah, well, just remember that Orzammar is far behind you, and that those reasons you had don’t need to carry over onto the Surface.” Hundir opened his mouth to speak, but Gorim shook his head and carried on. “Up here, there’s hardly a dwarven tradition to speak of. You can be and like whomever you want."

Hundir couldn’t help but shrink away as subtly as he could, hiding his face behind his tankard. It was shameful how much Gorim’s words frayed his nerves. Such a life of affection wasn’t meant for him, surely. Gorim was just being nice, flattering his foolish ideas because he used to be a prince. He tensed as he felt Gorim’s shoulder press against his own.

"Do command me to sod off if you so wish, Hundir,” Gorim chuckled, his voice low.

“Uh,” Hundir felt like every eye in the tavern was on him, noticing, realizing, and judging. But, as his nervous honey-brown eyes flickered over the tavern’s patrons to confirm his fears, all he saw were drunkards staring into their ales and his companions, stupid grins on their faces. But they weren’t laughing at him. For once, nobody was glaring at or mocking him. It was… liberating, to say the least. “No… sodding off will be necessary, Saelac,” he whispered, nervously smiling at his old friend. The handsome redhead’s proximity seemed to raise the temperature to unbearable levels, and Hundir could feel that nervous sweat on his palms gathering. This is what he got for never having talked candidly about his affections—the emotional maturity of a shut-in, teenage virgin. Thankfully, as of last night, only the shut-in part still applied to him.

He felt a warm hand cup the side of his face, turning him to look at Gorim.

“Come now, what’s to gain by being so shy?” Gorim smiled, his face so close that their annoyingly dwarven noses bumped against one another. “Nothing lost, nothing gained, my Lord.”

“Lose the my Lord,” Hundir said shyly, letting his tankard rest on the table, certain its wooden surface was shining with the nervous wetness from his palm.

“And gain…?” Gorim’s face was ever so smug. He was always so good at feigning the utmost respect while forcing someone to give over some crucial piece of potential blackmail. He would’ve been a wonderful noble.

“Uh… me?” Ancestors’ asses, I sound like a blighted idiot, he thought.

“Sounds ideal to me,” Gorim said, not giving Hundir a second to respond before he tilted his head and leaned the rest of the way in, pressing their lips together. In public. In plain view of anyone who so happened to look over at them. Hundir’s mouth was slightly agape, and he could feel Gorim just waiting for the slightest hint of an invitation to slip his tongue past Hundir’s lips.

He kissed back, hesitant beyond belief. Kissing Gorim in the marketplace after a year of not seeing him was one thing. For all the Surfacers knew, all Orzammar dwarves greeted lost friends that way. And kissing Gorim in that rented bed, lost in the passion of making love to him for the first time—that was far different, too. That was secret, hidden away behind a locked door and shuttered windows. This kiss was universally understandable and for anyone to witness. So much as a glance over would be all it took for a stranger to know exactly what was going on.

And yet, Hundir didn’t pull away. He couldn’t. Not because of Gorim’s hand on his rough cheek, nor because of any force threatening him if he backed away like the coward he was, but because he didn’t want to. Gorim’s lips were soft and gentle and sincere in a way he never imagined anyone’s to be when pressed against his own. And when it pressed in, Gorim’s tongue was simply curious and patient as it coaxed Hundir’s to copy its movements.

Hundir was breathing a little too heavily for his own liking when he pulled back.

“Well,” Gorim smiled, using the hand that wasn’t on Hundir’s cheek to wipe away a stray bit of saliva that was stuck to his scruffy chin, “please don’t take offense, but I didn’t expect you to be as good a kisser as you are.”

Well, I did practice on my pillows imagining they were you for the entirety of my teenage years. “Ah, yeah,” he said, chuckling a little embarrassedly. Gorim did not need to know anything on the matter.

“Has anyone ever told you that your eyes really shine when your cheeks turn pink?” Gorim chuckled, raising an eyebrow as he seemed to inspect Hundir’s warming face.

“Absolutely not, Gorim.”

“Well, they do,” he said, pressing another kiss to Hundir’s lips. By now, the world seemed to be spinning and everything was blurry save for Gorim’s handsome face. “Do… you need to lie down, my Prince?” Gorim asked, his smile growing concerned. “Sorry- Hundir?” Hundir shook his head. All the cliché romance novels in the world couldn’t have prepared him for the real thing. Gorim simply smiled and shook his head. “Ancestors, I never will understand you nobles, will I?”

“I’m not a noble.”

“Fine, I’ll rephrase it,” Gorim laughed. “Ancestors, I never will understand you, will I?”

“Maybe… if you… kiss me enough?” Hundir said, his attempt at charm failing so badly it seemed to work on the redhead.

“Maybe!” He grinned. “Only one way to find out.” Hundir felt the other side of his face become enveloped in Gorim’s warm hand, and welcomed the repeat collision of their lips, even if it did hurt his nose a little to squish against Gorim’s scruffy cheek.

His hands were gripping his thighs tight, as he had no idea where to put them. Did he hold Gorim’s face in return or would that be too many hands in one area? Would Gorim even want his sweaty palms on his handsome face? Definitely not. He worked to keep his eyes closed as gently as he could, unused to not being on high alert.

Ancestors, if Bhelen saw this… He had to constantly remind himself that his brother was far off below the Frostbacks, and all the rest of Orzammar was with him. The only people who gave a damn about anything he did were sitting at a table and cooing.

Hundir pulled back from Gorim’s lips, turning to glare at the aforementioned onlookers. “Do any of you mind?” He hissed, trying to keep from shrinking into himself to avoid their gazes.

“Nah, keep goin’,” Oghren grinned, leaning back on his chair. “Damn, the bets I could cash in on…”

“You are depraved,” Hundir said back. Oghren just shrugged in response.

“Alright, alright, we should leave them alone,” the redheaded human girl whispered to the group, smiling a little shyly at Hundir as she stood up.

Alistair groaned as he was shooed away by the elderly mage. “But it’s so cute!” He whined under his breath. He waved hesitantly as he retreated to his room.

Hundir noticed the elf’s stupid smirk, and shook his head before he even said a word.

But, as seemed his nature, not even a glare from an annoyed dwarf would halt his mouth. “I do hope you two have another wonderful night,” he smiled, feigning innocence. “The headboard banging against the wall really made me feel at home!” He laughed at Hundir’s reddening face. “Buenas noches!” Oghren just winked and made a vile little hand gesture before following the elf up the stairs.

“Assholes,” Hundir huffed, shaking his head.

“Oh, don’t act like you don’t like them, too,” Gorim said. “I’ve known them for, what? A day? It’s obvious you don’t just tolerate them, Hundir.”

“And what makes you claim that?” Hundir asked, once again pulling at a lock of blond hair.

“You would’ve killed your brothers of they spoke to you like that,” Gorim said knowingly. “You let these Surfacers tease you and watch you kiss me because you like them and know they wouldn’t mock you.”

Hundir sighed and leaned against Gorim’s shoulder. “Is it not strange to you?” He asked, staring at the table, his thoughts hundreds of miles away in Orzammar. “How do you have the bravery to act like this?”

“Like what, my- Hundir?”

“You know what I mean, Gorim.”

He paused, thinking. “Because, when I got to the Surface, the first thing I did was bad-mouth your blighted brother. Screamed into the mountains that Bhelen Aeducan was a good-for-nothing, a liar, and a damned kinslayer,” he said. “And you know what happened? Nothing. Not a sodded thing. Sure, the guards that tossed me out looked at me funny, but I wasn’t a citizen of Orzammar. I wasn’t breaking a law for bad-mouthing a noble because the law didn’t apply to a man on the Surface.” He looked over at Hundir. “Orzammar doesn’t rule over me anymore. It doesn’t rule over you, either.”

“You always were more willing than I to disobey,” Hundir sighed, smiling a little. “Even if your whole job was to obey orders.”

“Well, I wasn’t the best at my job, was I?”

Hundir’s brows pushed together in genuine confusion. “You were the best bodyguard I could’ve asked for.”

“Even if I fell in love with my charge?”

Ancestors, Hundir’s face was redder than lava. “Of course,” he choked out, failing in his attempt to not look like an idiot. Here he was, a grown man, blushing and breaking out in a nervous sweat just because someone said they may be in love with him. Love. The word made Hundir’s heart beat a mile a minute as his mind struggled to even comprehend it.

A kiss was planted on his burning cheek, just above his blond beard. “What say you finish your tankard and we head back to our room?” Gorim suggested. Hundir felt dizzy from his low tone.

He quickly drained his mug, tossed a few silvers on the table, and slid out of the booth they’d occupied. He wiped his sweaty palms on his pant legs, trying not to look so painfully juvenile. Gorim took his hand into his own, making Hundir freeze. He only moved once he felt himself being pulled along ever so gently. Hands were being held in public. One of his biggest dreams and worst nightmares.

But, as he looked around the tavern, all he saw were sleepy-eyed drunkards and an exhausted barmaid slumped in her chair. Nobody gave a damn about what he and Gorim were doing. Nobody gives a damn! Finally, after over two decades, nobody gave a damn about him. It was liberating like nothing else.

The world may not have wanted him, but Gorim did. And, in truth, that’s all that mattered.

#we love a secret sofie character in this house!!#dragon age #dragon age origins #requests #da warden #gorim saelac #gorim x aeducan #fanfiction #original content #hundir aeducan #i was in a very hun mood when i started this and like?? thank god i was he was a perfect fit for this one!!!

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caramelpears · 5 years

Note

Cake and them may have done most of the healing, but these two saw what Pear posted, so they’re here. And it seems Chief’s here too. Upon seeing Pear, Prey whimpers, shaking with tears in his sockets. Chief scoffs, eyeing Pear. “*SO YOU REALLY THOUGHT GETTING YOURSELF KILLED WAS A GOOD IDEA?” At that, Prey sobs quietly, hiding his face in the fur of his sleeves, as Chief readied his green magic. Pred spoke up, very visibly upset, protective mode clicking on, “*What the hell happened?”

Its rare that Chief is anywhere in his timeline.

And Pear, settled at just around .5 HP, with medical pills working their magic in his body, has managed to regain enough magic to at least form an eyelight, blinking exhaustion away, in order to see them.

The three skeletons are crowded around his bed, and he can’t quite bring himself to look at any of them, his teeth grinding together despite the pain it put his jaw in. Cake, Blue, and Curiosity are also still present, though they’re mostly hanging around in the background by this point, one skeleton looking disinterested, while the other looks timid, and stressed beyond belief.

How long had they been there? Long enough to stabilize Pear, it seems.

“Ya think I went into a fight, lookin’ ta get dusted?”

Pear scoffs.

He can’t push the guilt down, either, hearing Prey sob off to the side, just out of his range of vision. Predator speaks up, his words practically a growl as he demanded to know what happened. Pear doesn’t want to talk. Doesn’t want to admit that he’d been stupid, angry at himself, and at another person. That he’d chosen to pick a fight he knew he wouldn’t win if it got out of hand.

For a good, long minute, he stays quiet, focusing instead on the feeling of hands on his injuries, only muttering to them that his neck hurt as well. He hadn’t been awake earlier, otherwise Blue might have heard about the damage there. His cervical vertebrae are bruised, cracked in the odd area, thanks to the force in which his neck had been grasped during the fight. It puts strain on his voice, makes it hard for him to want to move his head at all, really.

But when that too, is inevitably given the healing touch, he doesn’t really have much choice, but to give an explanation as to what happened.

He just—can’t look at them as he does so, his head turned away, eyes clenched shut as fingers curl into the fabric of his own blankets.

“…I—felt bad. Fer—scarin’ ya. Trappin’ ya against th’ wall. Felt like th’ scum o’ the earth, fer—doin’ wha’ I promised m’self I wouldn’t do again.”

A beat of silence.

“I was—angry at myself. An’ it just—brought back old anger. So I. C-Challenged someone to a figh’. Challenged—tha’ fuckin’ bastard—Pippap—to a figh’.”

A bitter laugh.

“…Jus’ goes ta prove m’ still a dumb mutt, pickin’ fights outta m’ league.”

#hunternhunted #askblueberrymuffin #((tagging for background mention bc they werent gonna leave pear alone anytime soon))#[ The Man himself | F2F ]

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dandthegods · 6 years

Note

Can you explain/sum up the overall attitude Hellenics have towards Riordan? I loved his books when I was much younger, and they're what got me into polytheism (I'm now much much more educated and take the books with a grain of salt). I just find it frustrating that polytheism is now such a trivialized religion. If people did a quarter of what they do to Polytheists to Christians, they'd absolutely freak you out. Also I love your blog!!

Thanks for the compliment, I’m glad you enjoy what I post.

Ooooookay, Riordan. In my opinion, he isn’t respectful to the religion and the Gods and the worshippers of them. On his website, giving an otherwise academic account of the earlier struggles of native Grecians trying to establish religious presence in Greece, he says, “We just found this posted from Associated Press — another story about an attempt by a tiny fringe group of Greeks to revive the worship of the Greek gods. For years, worshipping the Greek gods has been against the law in Greece. Now, this group is seeing how far freedom of religion can go. I love Greek myths, but why anyone would want to worship the Greek pantheon is beyond me. Still, it’ll be an interesting court case to watch.”

Now, there’s nothing wrong with his approach to modernizing the myths. He makes the main demigod characters relatable to kids that don’t get much representation. He makes it funny. He creates an odyssey of adventure in the books and creates new conflicts. He changes the god characters as they change in the traditional myths. Which is all fine. They’re meant to be entertaining and that is what happens.

BUT what changes and frankly sours many polytheists, myself included, is his attitude towards the religion itself and the people. He said the above quote along with these (sources I don’t have access to but here is the link to the post that gives them):

http://practical-magick.tumblr.com/post/116366161150/you-should-tell-us-about-how-rick-riordan-is-a

“It’s strange to think anyone would still worship the Olympians seriously” (X)

“I didn’t realize some people still worship the old Viking gods. Very strange, and a little scary…In my opinion, the more you learn about the mythology, the more impossible it is to take it seriously as a religion… after you’ve met Odin and Thor in the stories, who in their right mind would ever want to worship them?” (X)

“As long as we recognize them as stories that are part of our heritage and long-since stopped being any kind of serious religion” (X)

“Early in the book, the character Chiron makes a distinction between God, capital-G, the creator of the universe, and the Greek gods (lower-case g).” (X) “I don’t have the words for how much I hate this sense of religious superiority” (@ccconfidence )

“…Cernunnos is a bearded guy with horns, and he’s got… a torque, around each of his horns. Was he the god of playing ring toss games? Did you win a stuffed animal if you got one around his horns? I don’t know.” (X)

“…that horrible Disney animated movie based on his life” (X)

If you can’t tell in these quotes, Riordan takes the myths at face value and thinks the ancients and modern day worshippers did/do too. He treats the myths and thinks we treat the myths as many (if not most) Christians take the Bible: as canon fact of the deities.

Now, this contrasts greatly with Neil Gaiman, another author that modernized polytheistic gods. He focuses more on Norse Mythology in both his “American Gods” book and his retellings in “Norse Mythology”. Both are fantastic books and I recommend them. In “N.M.” he introduced it by explaining his process to writing these stories. He went through months of research, cross referencing CLASSICAL versions of the myths, asking and getting editorial advice from classicists and academics in the mythology. Essentially, he shows RESPECT for the mythology and the Gods. And that, I’ve never heard him say it, brings the feeling he would respect the worshippers of the Aesir and Vanir. In “A.G.” he creates versions of Odin and Loki and other gods of MANY pantheons that he expresses are not THE gods. Even at the end of the book (spoiler alert) he shows the actual Odin who explains the version of himself that the story was driven by was not, in fact, THE Odin.

At the end of the book, in a note section, Gaiman explains how his version of America in “American Gods” is not a true America as it is. He feels, and so do I, that he has made an America that is entirely fictional and other. I feel he accomplished that same aspect with the gods he wrote and kept it entirely fictional.

Okay, now that I’ve defended Gaiman, I’ll explain. When Gaiman writes about other people’s gods, even those who are not living any more (as many segments of American Gods illustrate) he shows respect and reference towards them. Riordan on the other than, does not. He mocks the religions his books’ mythologies are based on. He, when given the chance to acknowledge respectfully that others worship the Gods, outright mocks people and devalues us.

I’ve seen things and articles about him and his interviews and he seems to act like an authority on the mythologies he writes about. Greek, Kemetic, Norse, all of them he boasts a “superiority complex” when it comes to his knowledge. And I personally don’t think he should. If he takes them at face value and doesn’t see the reason for myths as entertainment, lessons, and pure FICTION inside of the religion, then he doesn’t understand the myths and isn’t as knowledgable as he claims to be. Gaiman, on the other hand, says in his exposition in “N.M.” that he wishes he could write about the lesser known gods and giants in the Norse mythos but he doesn’t and says it wouldn’t be right for him to assume he can. He shows more understanding of the purpose of myth than Riordan.

When I first saw that he was coming out with the Magnus Chase series, i honestly got upset. Not only was yet ANOTHER pantheon and its worshippers going to get the same treatment, but it was the heritage of my family (my family is 100% Norwegian and as Norse as it goes outside of the worship). So Riordan’s words and attitudes follow him wherever he goes, in my opinion. IF he ever did apologize, earnestly and honestly take back the words he has said and actually LEARNED about the religions he so openly and unfairly mocks, then I would give him a little forgiveness, but as that has yet to be even alluded to, I still say he is an asshat.

So, in short (as I could go on), Riordan is disrespectful towards the Gods, religion, and the worshippers both ancient and modern of any polytheistic religion he decides to incorrectly appropriate with his books. He is unapologetic towards his words against our beliefs and doesn’t see us as sane, moral, and valuable human beings. And he takes the myths at face value and thinks he’s an authority on them. Furthermore, this attitude seems to rub off on his fan base and fandom making it to where they think they know the myths and everything because they read his books. This makes it incredibly hard for worshippers to go through tags and find good, religious content, and for us to hold reasonable conversations and NOT be seen as simply book nerds who take it a little far.

Hope that answers your question. If you want to discuss it more, comment on this, or send me a message and I’ll be happy to reply!

Cheers!-D

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x-dudes · 6 years

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Keep on Going (Padmé Amidala x Reader)

@kweenies requested: “I'd like to request Padme content for that lovely wlw post please!” (this one right here)

Published: January 1st, 2018

Takes place in an ideal world where she doesn’t die, falls in love with a girl who treats her right, and then goes on to form the Resistance.

Notes: Yes!! I won’t even lie, this became my top priority request because Padmé is my wife and this godless website is severely lacking in the good space queen content. (well, wlw content in general but Padmé is so underloved it should be a damn crime) And ohhh lord is this a doozy. (Nine pages on google docs, thus why I didn’t just answer it in the ask format)

psst If u love Padmé and dumb imagines like I do please hit me up. Let’s be best friends!!

It had seemed like lifetimes had passed since you had first heard her voice. You only ever saw her face anymore in photographs or dreams, yet you still could see every miniscule detail burned into your brain every time you thought back to her.

And yet still, though her memory, once a bonfire much like the ones on your homeworld of Naboo, now began to die out leaving only sparks and embers in their wake, you could sometimes still hear her voice. Always reassuring you of who you were, and what you had in a way only Padmé Amidala Naberrie could ever do. One particular phrase of hers from your distant youth still struck you like a bolt of lightning each time it reappeared.

We have to keep on going, even when the world feels like it’s just complete garbage, we just have to persist.

She had been only twelve, and you mere months younger sitting at eleven when you had first seen her. She had been another member of the Apprentice Legislature, and one you had shamed yourself for not noticing sooner. From a very early age, Padmé had earned herself rightful distinction among the young girls of the program. The rumours spread during designated breaks told of a noble Nabooan girl with such high expectations put on her by her family that she had joined the Legislature at the tender age of eight. The older girls spoke of a sister she had, not accepted into the Apprenticeship as the mysterious girl had been, and seen as disgraceful among the Naberrie family, leaving only more pressure along young Padmé’s shoulders. Though you desperately desired to disregard the gossip, branding it as nothing more than overzealous fiction spread around to break the bland nature of the academic season, you were endlessly curious about the strange girl’s true history.

You recall locking eyes with hers across a senate classroom later that same day. Something about the warmth held behind her eyelids provided a feeling almost as if in the stories your older sisters had fawned over all about finding light and love in the darkest of situations. The gentle smile she had offered you engulfed you in a light so indescribably wonderful and overwhelmingly ethereal that you had been convinced in that moment that the light of every star in the galaxy had appeared as little more that the dying embers of a fire when placed against the wonder that was her smile. And though you knew all too well that flying too close to the sun would only melt your wings and leave you falling, the way she spoke to you as she introduced herself, or the way she held herself in professional matters, yet allow her barriers to fall to rubble in your presence only brought you higher and higher up in the sky, relishing the warmth she had brought you.

You soon learned that her name was Padmé Naberrie, and she did indeed hail from a noble family on your own home planet of Naboo. She rapidly became your closest friend, and on particularly long sleepless nights at the Legislature you would creep into her chambers, resting your head on her shoulder as the two of you spoke softly about the prospect of going home, discussing what you would do upon seeing your families again and returning to your homes, and for brief moments among all the chaos and tension the two of you felt serene. As though it was only you and Padmé, pinpricks amongst an endless expanse of stars with no worries or responsibilities to make a mess of it.

As your years in the Legislative Youth Program progressed, so your relationship with Padmé. What once began as smiles from across the lecture hall flourished into boundless support and wholesome showcases of affection. Your late night chats progressed into you being in her room so frequently you practically shared it. The turmoil of the entire galaxy seemed to melt the moment she would enter your arms, knowing something you did and you alone could do kept her night terrors away. Your discussions of plans for the future from years earlier now began to shift to fit to each other, with talks of picnics in the flower fields and long strolls along the banks of the Solleu River. She felt safe with you, and you felt like you had found your entire world as you watched your friend sleep another night in peace cradled in your arms. As you would drift off, all you could think of was her. How soft she was in your arms, long hair like loose strands of silk and skin scented vaguely of Lemon and Rosemary. You would wake up to her gentle smile in the mornings, and get the privilege of hearing such a gifted mind in action throughout the day, and despite what anybody would think you could never get sick of the feeling of having her around. You loved the feeling of Padmé in the same way people loved the sun. In your young heart, freshly fourteen and finally departing from the program that brought you two together originally, she was the sun. She was the sun and you would melt if it meant the chance to be near her for one second longer.

This had all changed when the two of you finally did make it home, only for her to very quickly be elected as the newest ruler of your little planet, shadowed with a number of commitments far beyond your young understanding. She was now Queen Padmé Amidala of Naboo, yet each time she called you in to assist her in her political affairs she greeted you with the very same blinding smile as the first day you had seen her. She envelopes you in a hug the moment you step in, the draping sleeves of her robe comfortably swallowing you in an expanse of silk and fur. She moves her headpiece upwards as to give you what she deemed a proper hug. She would later explain this to you as “giving you the hug you deserve” after having to go so long without seeing you each time.

She missed you. She had missed you just as you had missed her. The sight of white remnants from her regal makeup on your tunic couldn’t even upset you in these moments, because she was here and she was real and despite being your queen, she was still your Padmé underneath it all. Beneath all the makeup and lavish clothing was still the woman you adored. As she discussed her dilemma with the Trade Federation, the look in her eyes assured you once more she had adored you all the same.

Padmé Amidala was truly extraordinary. She had been twenty-two then, having completed her second term as Queen of Naboo only a month prior and being accepted as a member of the Galactic Senate. You had always known she was incredible, yet the pleads of the people of Naboo to change the term laws, requesting Amidala to serve another term as queen had been an experience beyond even your own belief. You were infinitely proud of who she had become. The two of you had not spoken at that point since Padmé had been seventeen, yet still you refused yourself to forget her. Padmé was one light that would never go out even if it came at a cost to you. Her memory still burned in your mind.

Unbeknownst to you, just as you have, she’s thought about you with each day that has passed. The littlest things would send her into a spiral of thoughts of you, even if it was something as trivial as the thought that no medication, home remedy, or treatment in the world would push her stress away in quite the same way as being in your arms as a teenager would. She longed for you with each day that progressed. She would leave for Coruscant in mere months, and knowing that meant leaving you as well was eating at her. Her childhood home in the city of Theed only seemed to taunt her. A mounted photograph still sat in her chambers of the two of you, both so engulfed in your conversation that you were unaware entirely you were being photographed. Her gaze lingered on your bright eyes and gentle smile.

How she missed them.

Another long night spent alone was all it had really taken to push her over the edge, though she would deny this to even herself. Finally free of handmaids, royal guards, and Jedi knights hovering over her at all hours of the day, she could rise from her bed and feel a sense of peace in her solitude, though there was never truly any peace at night knowing you weren’t there with her. Slipping into a simple dress, one in a dark color to deter attention with a hood to cloak her, and a pair of slippers she wasted no time in ducking out her window and making the short distance to your new residence in the center of the city. Though she was no longer hovered over constantly, there were still guards posted at either entrance to her home for her protection until she departed for Coruscant.

The walk had taken her about 45 minutes in total, though she never once felt tired or worried as she wandered through the city of Theed, surging with determination with each heavy step taken to the door of your home. She tensed. It was late, and had been awfully long. Too long for her to just knock at your door and expect you to-

Well, truthfully, Padmé didn’t know exactly what she expected. Her nerves only sweltered as she awaited some response to the soft knock she placed on your door. She couldn’t do this. Solving a life-threatening trade crisis as a teen seemed like nothing to the feeling of lingering at your door in the middle of the night after years of absolutely no contact. When you had finally opened the door, gazing at her from the opening that the security chain provided, she was certain her heart had quickly gone from racing to having stopped entirely. She opened her mouth to speak, yet no words would form. A wide grin spread across what she could see of your features, and Padmé had been revived at the sight of that beautiful smile in person once again. The door shut, confusing her greatly until she heard the metallic scrape of the chain being unbolted and the door opening once more.

And you were there. Completely real and in her presence again for the first time in years. Just as incredible as you had been at sixteen. No, even more so. Slightly taller and visibly stronger, with a slightly slimmer face and a much fuller figure. You just appeared so much more mature in a way that could only be described as so very… (Y/N). Padmé realized she was staring, and with the stupidest dopey grin on her face as well, and returned to the best neutral face she could muster in your presence, searching for something to say to you. Anything at all. She thought it over. Opening her mouth, shutting it again deciding to start over, only to think she had found it again, and deciding against her better judgement, closing her mouth and furrowing her brow in thought. You giggled at her actions, snapping her out of her own thought.

“Padmé Amidala…” You marveled. She smiled nervously at your words, still so unsure of what to say to you. “Please, come in.”

She followed you into your home with careful footsteps, almost as though your floor was made of glass. You turned back to her with a beaming smile and offered her a wordless expression of everything you could tell she had wanted to say. A hug. It felt like hours passed by with the two of you locked tightly into each other’s embrace. Rekindling everything that had gone unsaid in the past five years.

“I missed you.” She finally mutters into your shoulder. Padmé buried her nose deeper into your neck, causing you to tighten your grip around her waist with a soft laugh. No words were spoken. No words needed to be spoken. It seemed in that moment as though you and Padmé were made to be together. A friendship written out within the stars themselves. Two girls against the galaxy, destined for glory and nobody could tell them otherwise.

“I missed you too.”

She confessed everything on her mind to you, as if the two of you had not been parted at all. She told you stories about her time as queen of Naboo, and discussed the famed Jedi knights that served the Republic. She shared her feelings about herself and her home planet, her new duties as a senator and the new environment she’ll be in.

“It’s so much different than our own little planet.” She commented, recalling her visit to Coruscant from the previous year. She told you of the young slave boy she met her first year of reign, Anakin, and how at the tender age of nine had saved her life and won his freedom in pod race. She added that it had been a miracle he had won, and Anakin, now a young man and older Jedi padawan under Obi-Wan Kenobi, seemed to be doing fairly well for himself. The entire time she spoke, you watched her with stars in your eyes, marveling at the way she smiled and her eyes lit up. As her tales from her days as queen began to die down, Padmé glanced at you. The silence engulfed you two. Warm summer air blowing through the open windows gave the peaceful moment a sense of modern enchantment. You smiled sleepily at your old friend, warming her heart like a fire. You were her home, she had discovered. No place in the galaxy could shelter her quite like your arms could. Gradually the two of you had worked your way into your kitchen, and from your kitchen to your bedroom. You plopped down on your unmade bed, extending your arms outwards as you has a thousand times in the past, and just as in the past, she sunk into them, with a smile growing as you embraced her. She was taller now. Taller than you, you’d realized, though if years of distance and a hundred and one life threatening situations hadn’t been enough to keep her out of your arms, the newfound height difference wouldn’t be either. “(Y/N)?” She said, voice soft under the cover of the silent night.

“Mmm, yes, Padmé?” You whispered. Your eyes had been closed, yet they felt every motion as she shifted her weight to rest on her stomach. Upon opening them, you could see every detail in her dark glassy eyes. You could count each eyelash out and every individual faint sun-kissed freckle if you tried. Her cool breath fanned over your nose and cheeks, soothing you even further as she spoke.

“I…” She stopped, glancing down in thought. “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.”

“Padmé,”

“I know I should have.”

“Padmé, you had a world to run.” You reasoned. Nimble fingers combed through her hair. “Of course I missed you, but deep down I knew perfectly well you never stopped caring about me.” Your hand moved from her hair to her jaw, caressing her cheekbone with your thumb.”I never stopped caring about you… I love you, Padmé. I always have.” The sleepy smile she sported, so much like the one you first had seen from so long ago, yet so different, melted your heart to a puddle within your chest. Padmé was like no other to you. Even after years of silence, she was like the sun after a hard night.

“You’re my world, (Y/N).” She stated simply. A matter of fact that, though not stated aloud before now, was known and reciprocated for years. It had almost been second nature when you had leaned over to kiss her. One of her hands snaked their way up to your neck, keeping you from second guessing yourself and pulling away. Her lips were plush and soft, and better than anybody you had ever kissed before or may ever kiss again. She was incredible.

When you finally pulled away, you noticed her eyes were still closed. A smile stretched across her face, shortly blossoming into a full on grin. As her eyes finally opened you marveled at the small wonder of the simple action. Her long lashes fluttering, the light of Naboo’s dual moons bouncing off of them with each little motion her eyes made until she was staring back at you, moonstruck and dazed. “I think I love you.” She whispered.

“I think I love you more.”

And as you cradled her in your arms that night, just as you did in your teenage years, it held so much more purpose than you ever could have imagined as the nervous child meeting her eyes across the room. Everything has finally felt perfect. You and Padmé, alone amongst the stars. No worries, no war, no pain or fear. Only serenity.

The two of you had found serenity in each other. Peace within each other’s love and light, just as in the stories your sisters loved in your youth. You understood what it was like now.

Because you understood what it was like to love Padmé.

“Please don’t go…” You mumbled into Padmé’s hair. Just as in the past, Padmé now lingered so often at your house it had practically become hers as well in the few months you had together before she left to join the Senate. It wasn’t quite the best of ideas, in theory, but to two girls, young and in love even after nearly a decade’s worth of time, good ideas didn’t matter. Only she did.

“I almost don’t want to anymore.” She confessed. “If only I could have known, (Y/N), I would have figured something out.”

“We can still figure something out, sunshine.” You weren’t entirely sure if this was true, though the feeling of her hand tucking a stray piece of hair back soothed your racing heart enough to believe it. “I’d do anything for you.”

“So come with me.” She reasoned. You looked at her quizzically from her position on your chest. “It doesn’t have to be a romantic thing. At least, not to anybody else it doesn’t. It can just be… a support thing.”

“A support thing?”

“Yes. You helped me when I was younger in political affairs. I needed support because I didn’t understand. I could reason that I would need this support on Coruscant as well. And who better to support me than my childhood best friend?”

“And not Palpatine? Or Sola?”

“Palpatine is there, and Sola is a mother. She’s not going anywhere. Please? (Y/N), to tell you the entire truth, I’m not sure I trust Palpatine entirely. I know that he’s important, and I will continue to be kind until I’m shown it’s unwarranted, but I have a gut feeling that something isn’t right.” Her eyes silently pleaded for you to accompany her. Eyes you couldn’t deny in a million millenia.

“Padmé, you know I trust you, right?” She nodded, slightly confused. “And it is because I trust you that I’ll go with you to Coruscant. However, as much as I love you, and I won’t deny that it is a factor, I can’t promise that I will stay for more than a year. Does that work for you?”

“And if you like it there?”

“I’ll consider staying longer, but you have a year with me promised.”

“That works perfectly. Thank you. I love you.” She pressed small kisses all along your face. The laughter you emitted brought purpose to her life in a way she couldn’t even begin to express. She would have you around for longer. The thought overjoyed her. You overjoyed her

For just a couple of young lovers, the pair of you almost had felt as though everything worked out. No matter what curveballs were thrown your way, you would always take comfort in just the knowledge of having each other. As though it was written in the stars.

This wasn’t always the case.

It was not until two years later that another great problem had arisen in the life of Padmé Amidala, this life problem ironically being several attempts on her life in a short period of time. You secretly theorised that this was the work of Rush Clovis, the senator of Naboo who stood beside Padmé, or someone who stood behind him, after Padmé admitted to not returning his affections. Truth be told, you hardly saw her anymore, which worried you immensely with the Clone Wars very clearly on the horizon. The times you would see her were spent either sleeping the day’s exhaustions away or debating with her on the current political state of the galaxy.

She did spend an awful lot of time with Anakin, however, and though you know he had been assigned by the Order to keep her safe in these times, you almost couldn’t help but burn with jealousy deep down. You liked Anakin, you truly did, though it was clear he liked Padmé, and without any knowledge of the relationship you and Padmé held, what was stopping?

“The Jedi Order, (Y/N)!” Padmé reasoned. Her voice was strained with exasperation, and one of her hands was threaded in her hair. “The Jedi Order is stopping him. Do you really not trust me so much as to doubt my fidelity simply for having friends? I need more than just you, (Y/N), I-”

“Now just a moment. I never once questioned your fidelity.” You argued. “I know who you are, sunshine, and that isn’t who you are. You told me yourself when we were younger that you could never bring yourself to do such a thing, and I believe you.”

“Then what is it?”

“What I am concerned about is your- well, actually two things. Your safety is the biggest one. Every time you leave this apartment I never know what could happen to you. More than enough misfortune has found its way to you, Padmé, and losing you just isn’t something I’m ready to deal with. You mean far too much to me.” Her eyes softened, though returned to their confused state so quickly you could have missed it if you blinked.

“And Anakin?”

“Padmé, I love Anakin, I just fear that he might… take your need for his protection as more than it what it is, if that makes any sense? I don’t want him to become too comfortable with-”

“You’re jealous.” She interrupted, giggling at her own revelation.

“No.” You insisted. “I just don’t want him to believe that your friendship is an invitation to…” You trailed off, unable to say another word with the taunting look she gave you. A single eyebrow quirked up and her small smirk grew wider. “Maybe a little bit.” You admitted, voice soft.

“A lot.” She countered

“Not a lot.”

“Quite a lot.” Padmé stepped closer, taking your hands and placing them over her shoulders. You took this as an invitation, and loosely locked your hands together behind her neck, allowing them to drape there. Her teasing smile was enough to make you cave, laughing softly before you spoke up, allowing her to win your little argument.

“Fine, I’m jealous of Anakin Skywalker, but in my defense-” She cut you off with a kiss, snaking her arms around your waist in a way that made your heart race. You pulled back with a chuckle as to finish your statement. “I’m not just going to let any mildly cute teenage boy with big ambitions think he can size up my super hot girlfriend. He has to earn it.” You pressed another quick kiss to her pouting lips that caused her grip on your hips to tighten. “Tell him to call me when you show up at his house after five years of absolute nothing.”

She rolled her eyes with a dramatic scoff, keeping you from saying another word with her own lips.

The Republic had fallen.

This was made evident with the death of Jedi Knight Mace Windu at the hands of Palpatine. Talk was spreading of a fallen Jedi, now turned dark and working under Palpatine’s command to bring end to the days of Diplomatic order within the Galaxy, and they believed this started with the Jedi. Truthfully, you didn’t care at the moment. You couldn’t be bothered to think twice about the new rise of the Sith or what would happen to the Jedi from this point.

All that was on your mind was her.

Padmé.

More specifically, getting her the hell off this planet. The only thing you could think of as you dashed through the streets of Galactic City was taking her and whatever small material possessions you needed from your shared apartment and getting far away from Coruscant at any and all costs.

Bursting through the apartment door, you had seen that Padmé had already beaten you to it.

“Get what you need, put it in a bag, and let’s get the fuck out of this place before it burns to the ground.” You stated simply. Without wasting any time, you dashed to your shared bedroom and packed any clothing, currency, food, water, and sanitary products you could fit into a couple of bags, praying it was enough to keep the two of you alive until you found a safer place to call home. You stepped back out into the living room, slinging the bags off your shoulders and by the front door for easier transport as you packed everything else you had.

“So we’re just leaving? A-a-as if this isn’t any worry to you that the Republic is literally ou there dying?”

“My concern is keeping you safe. The Republic is dying, but what do you expect any of us to do about it when the entire Jedi Order, trained their whole life for a situation like this, couldn’t make it out of the fight alive. I can’t let anything happen to you, Padmé, please understand where I’m coming from. Please come with me?”

“I- I just don’t- okay.”

“You will?”

“I will.”

You pulled her into a bone-crushing hug. The woman you loved would be safe another day. The thought eased your mind like no other. You brought a small kiss to her lips. “Hey, hey don’t cry, alright? I know it’s hard, sunshine, but we have to work fast. I have clothes food, water, and sanitary products in these,” You gestured to the two bags on the floor. “Let your hair down and change your clothes. It’ll keep us from looking too suspicious. I’ve have a small ship waiting at the edge of the city just in case. Can you think of anything else we need?” She shook her head and ran to change. “I know you just want to help, and I admire you more than you’ll ever know for that, but as of right now, we can’t do anything.” You reasoned, trying to keep from appearing too grim as she watched you. “Before we can do anything, we have to wait it out. Let all of this death and war fade out. Maybe even watch the Sith rise to power without so much as a word.”

“And then?” She sniffled.

“And then we form a Resistance. An alliance of rebels just as determined to restore the Republic as we are. And we fight. But we can’t fight until we know what we’re up against, and the two of us alone won’t nearly be enough. We have to go. These rebels are going to need someone like you, and without you around to guide us, we would need a miracle to see the light again.”

With packed bags and flowing robes to conceal your identities, the two of you bolted to the edge of the city, boarding your little ship and praying the old machinery had been fixed up enough to get you to the outer rim.

She watched with sad eyes from the cockpit as the planet’s surface grew further and further from view.

“We’ll be alright. Let’s just get as far away from here as we can before this old hunk of junk gives out on us.” Your hand snaked snugly around her waist, giving her small goosebumps in its wake despite your warmth.

“We’ll be fine.” She agreed. Your arm around her waist only reminded her of what she already knew. “Home was never Naboo, or our apartment on Coruscant, or even the little lives we had built for ourselves within the city. Home has always been with you. Everything we had built was destroyed, but I’m still okay. I’ve got you and that’s all I’ll ever need.” You grinned widely at her little speech.

“Man, that was cheesy.” You sighed, though she knew you agreed with every word. Despite the dark situation, Padmé laughed, leaning her head on your chest as you piloted.

“I love you…” She whispered, eyes locked on the blue rush of the stars passing by at light speed.

“I love you more.”

#padme x reader #padme amidala x reader #Padmé x reader #Padmé Amidala x reader #padme amidala imagine #star wars imagine #star wars x reader #wlw imagines #Padmé Amidala #I love padme this tore me apart fuck #if anyone out there in cyberspace is listening to me screaming into the void I have a message for u:#Please request more wlw content with space women #it doesn't even matter who I just need it like tatooine needs water

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kagetsukai · 6 years

Text

How Could I Live Without You? [Cullen x Ellana]

Oh, Cullen and Ellana. At this point in time I have written more about their post-dance!fic state of being than the fic itself, but I feel no shame. I’m a fluff master and I’m here to deliver. That being said, this is NOT a happy story. I wrote it because I saw some bloodied Cullen artwork and it inspired me. Also, one of my dear friends is a huge fan of hurt/comfort trope and I wanted to do something nice for her. That being said, @sirinial, this is for you, babe! :) You have been such a wonderful presence in my fandom life and I would have been lost without you. Thank you for being there for me. I hope you enjoy this story ^_^

Pairing: Cullen Rutherford/Ellana Lavellan (Dance Like No One Is Watching) - modern AU

Warning: angst, hurt/comfort, post-violence imagery

Read on AO3

When a jangle of keys at the front door finally announced that Cullen had come home, Ellana quickly glanced up at the clock and frowned; he was almost two hours late, which while not unusual, meant that he had to have stayed late at the school clinic to help out. Still, she was happy he was finally home and she skipped to the front door to greet him.

The view that greeted her made her stop cold and choke out a cry.

“Cullen!”

He was standing, yes, but his entire body was slumped against the wall in their front hallway, while he clutched at his right side, clearly hurt. His face was covered in an assortment of scrapes and smears of blood, with some more dribbling down his chin. The normally pristine clothes were crumpled, and torn, and dirtied to an unsalvageable point, and before she could notice more things, Ellana ran up to him to help.

“Creators, what happened?” she exclaimed.

With what looked like considerable effort, Cullen cracked his eyes opened and briefly searched for her face in front of him. He tried to smile at her in reassurance, but that only made his split lip bleed again, and it dripped a little on the already-ruined shirt.

“Damnit,” she cursed under her breath. “Let’s get you laying down.”

The process of hoisting Cullen off the wall and into the bedroom proved long and laborious; the man wasn’t exactly small and even with her support, it took a lot of effort to move him onto a bed. His injuries looked even worse in the light of the ceiling lamp and Ellana fought really hard against tears that tried to overwhelm her. She needed to help him first; her break down would come later.

Her quick, clever fingers made short work of the buttons and she spread his dress shirt open... only to reveal a dirty undershirt. Without a preamble, she pulled it up and gasped: there were several bruises already forming on his abdomen with red, angry welts accentuating their appearance.

No. This was beyond her ability to help him and if something was seriously wrong, she’d never forgive herself if he died. She found for her phone and dialed a number.

“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

+ + + + + + + +

It took several hours of fighting with paper pushers - and one particularly racist orderly - before Ellana finally got to see Cullen. Even though she rode in the emergency vehicle with him, someone decided she had been responsible for the injuries and tried to detain her. By the time things got cleared up, she was borderline hysterical from worry, so when she was let into the room with Cullen, she felt as poorly as he looked.

“Cullen!” she whimpered and rushed to his side.

The blood she could remember from earlier had been wiped, but the scratches and scrapes still peppered the skin of his face. The gash in his lower lips still featured prominently - now with a few stitches to close it - and Ellana wondered inanely if it would scar the way his top lip had. Her eyes fell to his right arm, bruised and attached to an I.V., and she noticed how the wrist had been immobilized, as if waiting for a cast to come later. When she looked back to his face, she noticed a pair of dull ambers watching her assessment.

“Cullen, what happened?” she asked quietly as she carefully sat on his bed. She noticed the nurse readying to say something about that, but one pointed glare from Ellana had her leaving the room in a rush.

“I’m a little fuzzy on the details,” he grunted softly and she leaned in closer to listen. “I was leaving the clinic… and there were four men… they said some awful things about male nurses.”

Ellana tried her best to keep a neutral expression on her face, but in truth, her blood boiled. The fact that people could become violent over something so mundane made her angry beyond belief. Why did people have to be so bigoted? Still, she listened to his story.

“I tried to diffuse the situation… they were drunk… attacked me.”

Cullen stopped speaking for a moment and his eyes darted back and forth around the room. Ellana could tell he was getting agitated, so she placed a hand on his thigh and gently pressed. He seemed to calm a little before continuing.

“I did my best to defend myself, but they were too many… they were angry I fought back… not sure what made them stop but if… if they hadn’t… if I did.. I…”

She had almost lost him. The realization of that simple fact hit Ellana harder than a semi-truck on a highway and it took every last ounce of her self-control to not burst into tears right there and then. Instead, she squeezed his thigh even more and leaned in to press a gentle kiss against his forehead, mindful to not upset any of his wounds.

“You are okay now, Cullen,” she said and smiled the best way she could at the moment. “The doctors say you have three fractured ribs, a slightly bruised liver and a concussion, but they expect you to make a full recovery. It… it could have been worse.”

A small smirk ghosted over the unhurt side of his mouth and Ellana leaned in again to press another kiss to his forehead.

“Why didn’t you call for an ambulance?” she asked. “I mean, they didn’t take your phone…”

She saw him twitch his right arm then, hiss quietly in pain, and shift a little. He lifted his left hand, his good hand, and tenderly molded it over the side of her face.

“I couldn’t think straight… but I knew… if I only got home to you, everything would be okay.”

Whatever willpower had held Ellana together until that point shattered into pieces at his gentle words. She broke and she broke spectacularly. Huge, ugly tears poured down her face as she sobbed into Cullen’s hand; she clutched at it, hoping his warmth would eventually bring her back to reality at his side. She wanted to tell him, to let him know just how much she loved him and how deliriously happy she was that he had survived this mugging. And when she finally regained enough wherewithal to collect her wits, she noted that his eyes were not dry either.

“I love you, Cullen,” she whispered, her voice raw from emotion.

“And I love you, Ellana,” he replied, all gruff and gravelly.

Afterwards it became impossible to remove her from the hospital room. She had planted herself on a chair next to his bed - his left hand entwined in both of hers - and refused to leave until his siblings showed up in panic the next morning. Even then, she had stayed at his side, a quiet constant in this turbulent tide of Cullen’s life.

#dragon age #cullen rutherford #cullavellan #modern AU #ellana lavellan #dance like no one is watching #angst #hurt/comfort #violence #I am mean #I hurt them #I am sad now #please be sad with me #dance!fic

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sweetsweetamber · 4 years

Text

23.06.2020

Emailed this to a friend earlier today.

I have been putting off even beginning to allow myself to process my feelings on this since I found out Zac Hanson was a raging racist, transphobic, sexist piece of shit. The problem is he keeps doubling down on his stance and making it so much worse, instead of letting me delete him from my memory and never have to think about him ever again.

This is so different to when multiple women came forward with allegations against Jesse Lacey. Like the second I found that out I never listened to Brand New ever again. Done, deleted. They were one of my favourite bands too, like the same level as Fall Out Boy, MCR, Panic and anything Andrew McMahon does. It hurt, mostly because I used their music to help me get through dealing with shitty men doing similar things to what Jesse Lacey did. But I haven’t really thought about them since, and I only miss their music sometimes. Maybe one day I’ll be able to listen to it without feeling disgusted, but that time is still a long way off.

I am also not the kind of person to idolise celebrities really? Not since I was a kid, anyway. Like all my favourite bands now, I have no idea about their personal lives beyond probably the mid 2000s. I have no clue what their kids, or wives names are, or even how many kids they have. I don’t even know all the names of the people in the band sometimes! I don’t feel connected to them as a person, I feel connected to them through their art, their music, their lyrics. As well as the fandom, the fans, the concerts, and the things I experienced in my life while listening to their music.

Anyway, here’s a brief timeline of what lead up to the main blowout to help put things in context:

May 25th-27th: George Floyd was murdered and Hanson posts normal content on social media with ordinary fan comments

May 28th: Protests against police brutality happen across America, Hanson shares a post about the rocket launch. A handful of fans (mostly Black and POC) express their hurt and frustration with Hanson in the comments

May 31st: Hanson posts advertising a livestream with an organisation that provides mental health support to musicians. Fans comment pleading with them to do the right thing, other fans start absolutely dog-piling those fans and tell them to stop “attacking” Hanson

June 2nd: Black out Tuesday. Taylor posts a black square and a few people comment asking him to actually say Black Lives Matter. The main Hanson account posts nothing.

June 3rd: Isaac posts on his account that “racism is wrong!” to very mixed reactions. Still won’t say Black Lives Matter.

June 4th: Zac posts about recording a podcast. He responds to a few comments about why he won’t say Black Lives Matter, it turns into a shit show and he deletes all the comments.

June 5th: The main Hanson account makes a post advertising their shitty yearly island vacation but it got blown up with backlash in the comments so they deleted the post. Zac makes a really fucking weird instagram text post, that says “Racism is wrong, but simply saying I denounce racism in a post will not save the life of the next young black man who comes upon it, or the next victim of reckless brutality”. The main Hanson account posts a photo with the one black hand in it they could find and still refuse to say Black Lives Matter.

This is where I jumped in and commented “Open your purse” and got completely torn apart by racist fans. I spent hours fighting back and supporting another indigenous Hanson fan who was also getting hurled tons of abuse in the comments. It was genuinely hard to try to calmly engage with these people who were spewing paragraphs about how Hanson don’t owe us anything and to “stop forcing your beliefs on them”. Whew. I think I blocked like 60 accounts, and had to change all my instagram settings to keep me as protected as possible without having to go private.

I knew Hanson fans were terrible. I found this out while in line for their first concert, when everyone was obnoxious assholes who wanted to brag about how many tens of thousands of dollars they’d spent following the tour (no one in line with me in the mornings were locals or even from New Zealand). The more money you spent, the more of a fan you were in their eyes.

This put me completely off ever going to their yearly fanclub island retreat which had been on my bucket list for at least a decade. The thought of being trapped on an island with Hanson and hundreds of complete assholes put me right off for life.

The funny thing is, I always met the nicest and most amazing fellow Hanson fans in line for other bands concerts? But the second concert I went to really solidified my opinion of Hanson fans being the most entitled assholes ever. I should have known it was only a hop skip and a jump for them to slide over being to racist as hell.

I eventually ended up deleting my original comment because a week later I was still getting angry racists coming at me for a fairly mild but sassy post. Which is hilarious because when Gerard Way made a similar half-assed post on his instagram, nearly every comment was “open your purse” and sarcastic “we stan a king who does nothing!!”. The next day he was like, I fucked up, here are some links and resources, we are redirecting the MCR store page to links to donate etc. There were probably some fans getting angry at the “backlash”, but if there were any I didn’t see it. Just insane to see the difference between two groups of fans for bands that I like(d).

On June 6th, a whole lot of Zac’s personal social media accounts got leaked, including a Pinterest board, youtube account and instagram account. He then he publicly confirmed they were all his because he’s a fucking idiot.

A few days later I got sent a link to the r/PostHanson subreddit, which had screengrabs of all of Zac’s pinterest boards. Seeing all those ridiculous and incredibly offensive “memes” was like a punch in the gut.

I had not kept up with this dude's personal life at all, I have forgotten his wife's name and lost track of how many kids he has after the first one. I just figured he was probably conservative because homeschooled + super religious + getting married quick and churning out babies. I’d never really heard or seen Hanson take a political stance on anything, but I didn’t really follow them too closely.

Apparently it was known to fans that Zac was SUPER INTO GUNS and played airsoft which is basically paintball crossed with modern military reenactment?

His pinterest page was completely full of stuff he’d pinned about guns (so many guns) and second amendment memes, that said things like “an 18 year old is too young to buy a gun, but a 5 year old is old enough to decide its own gender?” and one with a picture of a man and a woman with the caption “I told her guns make me feel uncomfortable, she said we should both see other men” which he added the comment “So true” to. The worst were the ones that were supportive of George Zimmerman.

I felt frightened, disgusted, and upset.

On June 8th the Hanson instagram account finally posted (with comments turned off) saying Black Lives Matter.

Since then, Zac has really just…. doubled down on being a shithead. He’s been posting as normal on his main account, blocking fans and deleting even mildly critical comments, liking the most disgusting comments that racist fans have been posting in support of him - one comment he liked was a fan justifying Zimmerman murdering Trayvon Martin. Also replying to some critical fans, making a ridiculously long comment where he thinks everyone is mad at him for being a second amendment nutter which genuinely made me more upset, angry and scared. He truly is the most dangerous type of white person: uneducated, ignorant, arrogant, and with a massive platform to spread his fucked up views. As someone else summed up so perfectly in a comment on one of his posts:

Too stubborn to look inward and see how their own actions, thoughts and behaviours are problematic. No desire to actually hear out marginalised voices. Instead, they'd rather create their own narrative, they want to play the victim, feign being attacked, deflect from any of the issues brought up, and will do anything BUT hold themselves accountable. Instead, they block black people and other POC (Rule #1 of what NOT to do right now), and will "like" comments of other uneducated ignorant white fans who are blindly loyal to anything he says and also don't care at all about marginalised and underrepresented people. Because it's all about HIM. The Poor, entitled, white man is feeling attacked. Zac, you are less than a man. Your development, somewhere down the line, was truly stunted.You are so brainwashed, so self righteous and so far gone, I don't know if you are even salvageable at this point. You would rather be in your bubble, clutching your guns and "liking" comments on your page that are defending the murder of black children than taking the bandwidth, introspection and WORK is takes to actually evolve and be a good person. As a black woman, at least I know now not to waste another dime of my money on you. Now go do what you do best and block another black voice, or write yet another tone deaf and ignorant response to make POC feel crazy (ie: "I'm sorry you are feeling hurt", "I love you", etc.) SAVE IT. That's more deflection bc YOU as the white man are CAUSING the hurt. If you want to love black people, start with explaining to all of your black fans why you believe a young, innocent black child named Trayvon Martin deserved to die because he attacked George Zimmerman. You were man enough to post it. Be man enough to defend it and stand BY your actions.

So I’m not entirely sure where that leaves me or where to go from here. I feel completely blindsided by the boy I picked as my favorite member when I was 12 grew up to be an abhorrent racist fuckhead. I saw in the subreddit support group someone said it feels like someone died and we are all in mourning, which sounds strange but it really does. The Zac Hanson I thought I knew is dead. He never really existed in the first place, or maybe he did for a short while before all the hate wormed its way into his heart.

I also believe that the type of music you choose says a lot about you as a person, and so much of my identity in my preteen and early teen years are wrapped up in Hanson. Both them as individuals as much as the music - I think that's why I can’t separate them because there has never been any separation between the two for me. I first heard Hanson on MTV with their music video for Mmmbop and decided I was in love with Zac before the song was over. I don’t think I can ever stomach listening to that song ever again.

Everyone makes mistakes, has racism to unlearn etc, but Zac hasn’t even bothered to lie and give us the PR answer of “I’m listening and learning etc”, even if he isn’t. He doesn’t even want to seem like he’s saving face because he truly thinks nothing he said or did was wrong, and that is the most horrifying thing of all.

I don’t know how to move past this. It's very easy to think, “people are flawed so you shouldn’t idolise them” but I can’t just snap my fingers and remove this weird 23 year old bond I have that is a mix of intense love and nostalgia? Like there was genuinely a point at age 13 where I actually truly believed: if he could just come to NZ and lock eyes with me at a concert we would fall in love and get married. Which sounds wild but it's how all 3 of them met their wives so it actually was a pretty solid plan.

I immediately took down my signed photo of the band that I had on the wall though because seeing it didn’t remind me of the happy memory of seeing them in concert for the very first time, it just reminded me that Zac is an awful person and his brothers are probably the same and just better at keeping their views private.

I always wanted to get my Hanson tattoo covered and redone but now I think I’m just going to get it covered. A lot of fans are selling or throwing out merch, but I don't want to do that so I've just packed the few things I have away so I don't have to see them for now.

Thinking about the time I met Zac makes me feel sick. It used to genuinely be the best day of my life that I could think about if I was having a shitty day and think “Hey, remember Zac Hanson hugged you”. I’m just so angry that he has tainted so many amazing and happy memories with the hateful rhetoric he is spewing now. I know over time it will hurt less but everything just hurts a lot right now.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk lmao.

#personal essay

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lovelyladyls · 4 years

Text

Hey Sami,

I know I’m not allowed to say anything until your family does and I respect that. I just really need to write some things right now and no one really checks my tumblr anymore thank the gods and I wanted to write on the day I found out.

What the fucking hell, man? I don’t direct that at you, obviously, but what the hell? We spoke to each other a few days ago...you’re one of the only people where I save all our conversations. I’m looking at all of our threads so flabbergasted at the news Jenny H. sent to me.

It doesn’t feel real. Earlier this month I SCOURED through your photos on Facebook to find our 2010 pictures together. I saw you right before quarantine...we shared memes and you reacted to my “I’m pissy for no reason” tweet because we’ve been working through tough familial ties...

You’re one of the friends I’ve known the longest and one of my biggest and most kind and genuine supporters and I was so so so happy you were finally happy.

I cried when I saw some of your likes in the last few days, about how finding your girlfriend brought you to your highest and most happy state. You two truly truly loved and supported each other and I looked up to you two so much in a way. I thought when I was ready to date again (thank you so much for being a rock alongside Jenny to me during all of that. You truly were my peace) that I would want to find someone like you guys. I wasn’t settling for next to nothing anymore. Decent people exist.

You had such a uplifting personality (with edgy bite and killer sarcasm lolol). You were friends with so many amazing people and like the Leo you are—you truly are legit sunshine.

I’m just so confused. I know I’ll be told more later but...what happened to you? How are you transitioning to the next stage? I feel you’re adapting quickly but holding on a little.

I’m just upset. It still doesn’t feel real and I’m not sure how to act. Death doesn’t always bother me because I’m excited to learn my life lessons in Source before I come back and all that jazz but...I’m so confused. I’ve been crying all day and then I feel calm, knowing you’re just healing and learning at Source now and that must be so exciting—(or whatever anyone’s beliefs are) but I feel guilty. Why do some wonderful, beautiful, kind, courageous, firey, friends of all kinds of people taken from us so early? You had so much life ahead of you and seemed happy and excited for the rest.

I know you felt some anger about some things, like we all do, but reading it back really hit me in the gut.

I’m just so confused. I’m so so so so confused. Why you?! Why now? What is the meaning of all of this? I want to reach out to people in your life but I half think it’s inappropriate and half think we want our space to grieve for a minute before things proceed.

I hope you know I loved you. You truly were a great friend and for a long long long time in my life. We both moved a lot so I know you know what I mean. Thanks for always being patient and the type of friend to check in yet we knew space and our lives had changed so we didn’t see each other as much but that was okay. We talked on every form of media every other day lmao.

Fuck it doesn’t feel real.

Dude I do know you’re laughing at the fact I’m so fucking sunburned and my lip is hella fat and I move like a poor soul with polio without their sticks rn due to yesterday but fuck this is the last thing I ever thought I’d hear today.

I’m so sorry. A part of me wants to apologize and feels you were wronged and robbed but...it’s just time to return home. But I also feel guilty writing this to people who don’t always think the same way we do because I sound like an insensitive hack but who cares. I just hope you can transition well and know that I’ll see you again and we’ll be friends next time too.

I’m just sad I didn’t put more effort into some little conversations but I’m so so so happy I got to see you not that long ago. I’m so thankful for that time we had. I’m so thankful for the over ten years we had. We really have been evolving for so long...it’s trippy.

Don’t worry, I’ll write something super super nice later. I have so many things to say. I’m just a little befuddled right now and time feels like it’s in a weird continuum. 2020 is so beyond weird...I’m just...I’m so upset and confused and your birthday is coming up too and I knew this Leo season would be fucked I just didn’t know how.

This is total word salad vomit whatever from my brain. I feel calm and try to distract myself and then it hits me again. That’s normal for grief. But still.

I’m thankful I’ve been reading my books about death oddly enough. I feel like you feel at peace. Maybe I’m projecting but I honestly feel like you’re really sad you have to leave (B especially) but you understand.

God I hope I don’t sound awful. Not even for my sake but I promise I don’t mean to disrespect you in any way! Some people don’t share my thoughts on death and the transition to the afterlife and that’s okay...I just hope you have a good transition is all and have a fuckton of fun up there. Now that my ass will keep talking to you.

Fuck I’m crying again because I remember talking about cemeteries with you and our favorites. God I love/miss you SM. Later I’ll change it with (dates) due to privacy right now but fuck I miss you so much and I’m so sad this happened to you.

Know that you taught me about manifestations and bettering and healing myself and I’ll carry that with me until I meet source and see yo ass again lol. I’m gonna try my best to rock the SHIT out of the time I have left. For you and for me. We gonna rock this shit.

Thank you for teaching me strength and kindness and sunshine and being oneself truly. Thank you for your advice and care and entertaining soul and just for sharing how fucking awesome of a person you are/were idfk how to write that.

Dude...what the fuck. Whaaaat the fuck. Also the monarch butterfly on set at the tennis fields yesterday was lovely, thank you. What the fuck.

My head hurts lol.

Idk what this is anymore so I should wrap it up. I don’t want to text you this because it’ll trigger B or your family so I’m posting this here.

I love you. I miss you. I thank you.

Bitch, what the fuck.

Fuck 2020. Fuck the fact I keep fucking up spelling fuck. Fucj.

I’m crying again and I know you found that legit typo to be hella funny sad too😂. Very on brand for us 😂

Anyway, I should go for now and expect updates and for me to talk to yo ass when I feel this has all settled a bit.

I love you.

Goodbye, SM, until next time.

Lierin

#mywriting #lierin #lierinslife #7/28/2020

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darlingdreamingtree · 7 years

Text

eldritchtrashpile replied to your post:earlier today I saw that there’s gonna be...

Damn :/ That’s messed up. Like I’m just as speechless as you are right now. Here’s a big hug for you *HUG* You shouldn’t have to deal with that kinda shit

-hugs- Thank you! ;0; I can’t fathom being disengaged right now, but it’s so draining.

semiautomaticheart replied to your post:earlier today I saw that there’s gonna be...

Yiiiiikes. I’m so sorry :( the ignorance of “ALL lives matter~” is just infuriating beyond belief.

-hugs- Thanks. ;3; It really is. I don’t even have words. I’ve known my sister was racist for a long time, but this...really threw me. I also think she’s gotten worse because she tries to fit in with our extended family, which is also upsetting because these people don’t give us the time of day most of the time. How about looking into your own sister’s point of view, with the added bonus of not being disgusting????

#replies #eldritchtrashpile #semiautomaticheart #and then I feel bad for stressing my mom out but #I'm not the one in the wrong here?????#my life #venting

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beneathamaterialshell-blog · 7 years

Text

John Berger, Lord Clark of Civilisation and Michael McNay

I was very sad to learn of the death of John Berger. He had a big influence on the way I thought about art. In some ways, a lot of the work had been done before I saw Ways of Seeing, as I was already a Marxist and I had read some Adorno and Benjamin, but the way in which Berger put, in Ways of Seeing, his insights into the nature of art was bold, direct, invigorating. I think only John Molyneux and Terry Eagleton can offer that kind of excitement and interest now.

There’s a nice obit in Socialist Worker by Molyneux at the moment, which points you in the direction of some of his other well-known works. In the wake of his death, I shall try to read more of them. Nice though it is, it falls short of the kind of lengthy summary of the man and his life that you get in the national dailies, so it’s a shame that the more comprehensive one in the Guardian is so poor.

I’ll admit, I was pretty angry when I read Michael McNay’s obit, but the internet’s already full enough of people just being angry so I wouldn’t have written a blog post about this if, when I thought through exactly what I found so objectionable about the piece, I hadn’t thought there were some serious points to be made that might be worthy of a few lines in a public space. Besides, if McNay’s work is in the public domain I can’t think of a good reason why mine shouldn’t be.

A minor issue

Clearly, McNay hasn’t come to praise Berger but to bury him. He has some nice things to say about some of his novels, but has little time for his work as an art critic and commentator. Here are a few of his remarks:

Ways of Seeing, made on the cheap for the BBC as four half-hour programmes, was the first series of its kind since Civilisation (1969), 13 one-hour episodes for which Kenneth Clark, its writer and presenter, and a BBC production team had travelled 80,000 miles through 13 countries exploring 2,000 years of the visual culture of the western world. Berger travelled as far as the hut in Ealing, west London where his programmes were filmed, and no farther.

in one, he made a hopeless mess of Picasso’s later career, though he was not alone in this; in the other, he elevated a brave dissident artist beyond his talents.

This who he? element became a regular feature of his writings, but never seems to have damaged his reputation.

“Lie” may be a bit strong, but in his early days Marxist dialectic did force him into uncomfortable contortions.

During the course of the obit his work will be criticised and/or derided, his beliefs and opinions casually dismissed and there will be lots of implications (though little outright statement) that Berger was some kind of middle-class Stalinist poseur rather than a serious thinker.

Is this a major problem? No, of course not. Obits don’t have to be positive or hagiographic, and if I personally didn’t like the man I doubt I would have registered it as an issue. This comes firmly under the gripe category of well that’s not what I would have written, which is no objection at all. It might seem an odd choice of writer for the Guardian, which is often seen as a the most left-leaning of the national dailies. However, the Guardian has never been a particularly left-wing paper, and has been wedded to the right wing of the PLP for, arguably most of the twentieth century. There is no real reason to expect a sympathetic obit from the Graun. I bring it up because I think that his approach to the subject of the obituary has contributed towards several of the more severe defects in the piece.

The Problems

I: Who is the subject?

Whilst McNay clearly has little time for Berger’s criticism it’s pretty clear that he does have time for Lord Clark of Civilisation and his now legendary series These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things (1969). As you have seen from the earlier quote, the BBC put a lot of resources into What I Did On My Holidays (1969), which was indeed 13 hours of an avuncular bigot standing in front of some (sometimes wonderful) works of art by (and usually of) Western European men while squinting at the prompt cards under the camera. Now, I like Show and Tell (1969) very much. I like the high-quality footage of some wonderful artwork and I find a lot of Clark’s meandering bletherings about what civilisation might be (something which the BBC apparently weren’t bothered about him clearing up before they gave him the BA tickets) and why he finds it unfathomable that some young people nowadays seem to be terribly upset about something-or-other genuinely hilarious. But this isn’t an obituary of Clark, and it’s an indicator of where McNay has gone wrong that when he compares the two programmes he at no point asks: why were so many resources put into Clark’s piece and so few into Berger’s? Was it political? Or was it more practically to do with the scope and subjects of each programme? I don’t know, but McNay seems so disinterested in Berger himself that he doesn’t bother to think about this from his subject’s point of view at all.

II: Where is Berger?

The example of Clark is not the only time where McNay doesn’t pursue his subject. At one point he mentions that his first collection of essays Permanent Red was retitled unilaterally by the publisher for American publication. What did Berger think of this? What outcome did it have on the book or on Berger’s reception in the US? I don’t know, McNay doesn’t think it’s worth pursuing. He merely wants to bring it up to have a pop at Berger for being a Marxist.

We’re also told that he had a middle-class upbringing and that his politics were shaped for life by his experiences of military service in Ireland. We’re told that this is an immense life-changing event for Berger, so McNay explains it and its impact in this level of scrupulous detail:

He left St Edward’s school, Oxford, at 16 to study at the Central School of Art; his course was interrupted in 1944 when he was called up and posted to a Belfast training depot, where he served as a lance-corporal in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. It was his first day-by-day encounter with the working classes and it shaped his politics for life.

That’s it.

The point is that Berger was a Marxist critic and artist, his life was unabashedly political, yet McNay doesn’t pursue these politics with any depth whatsoever. Instead he regards the politics solely as a minor affliction. Okay, as I’ve said before he doesn’t have to like his subject to write an obit, but perhaps in a piece of this length he could have shown some level of understanding of one of the things that drove him. Marxism doesn’t come in one flavour, and no one spends their life without intellectual development, so what were his ideas? Well, we’re told they were ‘prescriptive’ and in a quote from Berger himself we learn that he understood that under capitalism and in the age of mechanical reproduction art is commodified. Well, actually we don’t. I had to add in the context ‘under capitalism and in the age of mechanical reproduction’ (which is given in his TV series and book) because McNay takes a quotation about the nude and gives us a commentary relating it to the idea of commodification. In this commentary McNay singularly fails to do that which is most distinctive about Marxist analysis – placing an object in its context and showing how it is related to others.

III – Sniping

McNay’s obituary is over 2,600 words long – a good space for the assessment of a major cultural figure. Clearly McNay doesn’t like Berger’s politics or his criticism, and has a lot of issues with most of his work. Once again, okay. No one has to like their subject in order to write about them. But in that case, come out and say it. You don’t think Marxism can be a good perspective for a critic? Explain why – you’ve got the space. Take out the bit about Lord Clark if you have to. All this cryptic stuff about being ‘prescriptive’ or implying through general tone that there’s something foolish about Berger’s perspective isn’t the same as having an actual argument or objection. The closest we come is towards the end with

though he never ceased to believe in the perfectibility of society, he edged towards an understanding of Marxism as an analytical tool rather than an infallible cure for the ills of the world.

Okay, but what does that mean? What kind of Marxism are you talking about? What political organisations was he a member of and what were their activities that you think so objectionable? ‘all the ills of the world’ is indeed a grand claim – is that a claim Berger made? I don’t know, because despite the constant sniping and dark hints, McNay doesn’t actually say anything about any of this in any kind of detail whatsoever. What analysis does he think Marxism is good for? Who knows? But it’s only a casual write-off of the core beliefs of the subject of his piece so it probably wasn’t worth spending any of the word count on it. Yet he finds it important enough to imply that there’s something fundamentally wrong with Berger’s views. So what gives? I have no time for this school of writing criticism: if you think something, come out and say it and explain why. You’re not writing a novel or a poem and no one is going to make you house captain if you’re especially supercilious this term.

IV – Opinion = ‘Fact’ - Support

One of the most continuously unsatisfying things about the obituary is McNay’s frequent unsupported opinion about something being stated as fact. Take the quote above about Picasso and Soviet artist Ernst Neizvestny:

in one, he made a hopeless mess of Picasso’s later career, though he was not alone in this; in the other, he elevated a brave dissident artist beyond his talents.

If you read this it sounds like someone stating the truth of the matter, yet the content is entirely subjective. Certainly at no point does McNay think that he should support any of these things, although if the comments are complimentary we do tend to get a bit of detail. The critical stuff though is just left hanging.

However prone Slive may be to an art historian’s preference for painterly values over social discourse, his analysis is nevertheless closer to the heart of the matter than Berger’s fanciful account of a kind of class stand-off

Is it? Why?

not least because on another and more likely reading, given Hals’s approach to portraiture even of men and women in their prime, these two groups are painted with compassion but above all with a sharp eye for laying down what was before him.

Never mind why this reading is more likely that Berger’s interpretation, the bigger question is: so this invalidates a class analysis because …? (Note to McNay – people can have compassion for their opponents.)

Ah, well. Neither of these issues were probably very important anyway. Odd that he spent three paragraphs on the matter though.

And on and on, in much the same vein, throughout the obit. Here’s McNay throwing out an aside in a bit about prizes for the novel G in 1972:

The Guardian’s editor, Alastair Hetherington, said in his speech that he would double the prize money (admittedly small to start with) if Berger would give half of it to a constructive cause rather than the obviously destructive Black Panthers.

The Black Panther Party was a very complex phenomenon born at a time where liberation struggles in the third world, civil rights struggles in the US and the failure of peaceful civil rights movements in the US to tackle violence from the state and racists outside the state apparatus were all colliding. The Black Panther Party did many varied things including breakfast clubs for poor kids as well as its more famous policy of armed self-defence against the police, in a country where lynchings were still a very recent memory for many black people (three civil rights activists had been lynched in Mississippi in 1964). The party changed as it grew and collapsed over several years under enormous pressure from the state. The point here is that if you’re going to throw ‘obviously destructive’ about such a complex organisation and issue out and you don’t have either the space or the expertise to justify it, maybe don’t do that.

The thing is, McNay can justify himself when he wants to. Here’s his verdict on Berger’s novel G:

Yet G is a not just a powerful book, it is powerfully flawed as well. It is an experimental novel at a time when experiment was the norm, influenced by the French nouveau roman. The structure, with its lumpen authorial interpolations, is painting by numbers: here is one of many possible examples from early in the novel when the rich father of the hero is speaking of his journey through the Alps to be reunited with his mistress (whom he addresses as a sparrow):

“‘Ah! Laura. To think that I came under those mountains, the tunnel is fifteen kilometres long, fifteen. It is a marvel ... And on this side of the mountain, passeretta mia, you are waiting for me.’

“(The St Gothard tunnel was opened in 1882. Eight hundred men lost their lives in its construction.)”

Cervantes had made this sort of writer’s intervention with a better and lighter touch 400 years earlier.

Reading that, I’m fairly clear what his problems with G are. I’ve not read G. Having read through more than 2,000 words of McNay’s obit I’m fairly sure that I understand something of where he’s coming from (much more in fact than I do of Berger’s views and politics) so if he hates it this much I’ll probably find myself enjoying it, but the point is that when he wants to he can write clearly and explain what he means. It still boils down to a subjective judgement, but at least his points of reference are clear, and he uses evidence so that I can see that this is exactly the kind of book that I might well love. He clearly can say what he means and why, it’s just that for most of this obituary he chooses not to.

In the end

In the end I have spent about the same number of words criticising McNay as he did failing to write an obituary about John Berger. Was it worth it? I hope that it addresses some key problems with the article itself and illustrates how not to write an obituary, even if it’s of someone you didn’t like. I think though that it touches a wider problem. Now this is much more speculative than the criticism which has gone before, and unlike McNay I would like to stress that this is opinion, not fact. However I will try to explain why I think this.

I don’t know Michael McNay; from a look at other things he’s written for the Guardian he seems to generally write obits. But what this piece does is fail to take seriously left-wing politics. The Guardian has a generally pro-PLP-right political alignment, sometimes tipping over into Lib Dem support. In the internal battles for control of the Labour Party it has generally taken a cautiously pro-PLP line, sometimes doing outright hatchet jobs but often allowing dissident commentary online. Certainly it in no way reflected the groundswell of support that Corbyn represents. Why does this matter, and what does it have to do with a dead Marxist art critic? I think that this is a problem for them, not for me. I think that they have failed to realise that in order for Labour to win office they must offer something more progressive than New Labour. There is a narrative emerging from the PLP and its allies that the UK has swung to the right, shown by Brexit, and that more racism and conservative policies will be needed to win an election. This flies in the face of all the evidence – but I’m not going to prolong this essay still further by going into this in lots of detail. You can find a good summary of why this is mistaken here.

The point is that despite its lack of solid politics of any kind, the Guardian sees itself as in some way ‘progressive’. By getting McNay in to do a hack job on this obituary it is part of a general trend whereby the paper continues to ignore genuinely progressive politics and try to live in the past where triangulation was a thing and you didn’t have to address the hard questions like poverty wages, food banks and income inequality. Well, that approach only leaves one way for people to go – and it’s not a progressive route. As such they will continue to leave people’s real problems further and further behind and find themselves talking instead about ‘people’s concerns about immigration’.

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