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#the first time I felt loved was when I was 15 lol there is 0 love in my family

wwilsonbarness · 5 months

Text

my girl

pairings: bucky barnes x female!reader

summary: based on the request below!

Warnings: smut 18+ only - established relationship, quick mention of reader being a teacher, minorrrr angst (like not at all), mentions of anxiety, fluff fluff fluff, smut (unprotected sex, public sex, creampie, nipple play, spit kink), use of pet names (sweet girl, baby) - let me know if i missed any please :)

word count: 2842

a/n: not beta read or really edited lol. Also my first time writing in months so this is kinda shit.

Feedback, likes and reblogs are much appreciated :)

I do not give permission for my work to be copied, reposted or translated on any other platform. Do not read or interact if you are a minor.

masterlist

“How do I look?” You ask Bucky as you walk into the kitchen, twirling slightly to show off your outfit.

“Beautiful as always doll.” He walks towards you and brushes his lips against your forehead. “Don’t be nervous, they’re gonna love you.”

Bucky always knew how you were feeling, even when you were trying to hide it.

You take a deep sigh before replying, “I just want to make a good first impression, I know they’re important to you.”

“Not as important as you are doll.” You feel his smirk against your forehead as he brings himself closer for another kiss.

“Forever the charmer Buck, I love you.”

“I love you too,” He grabs your hand and pulls you towards the door, “come on, we don’t wanna be late.”

You try to stop in front of the mirror to check how you look once more but he stops you, “Stop worrying baby, you look perfect.”

“I just want them to like me.”

“And they will, I promise”

Everything about your relationship with Bucky had been amazing so far but the idea of meeting his friends, the people who had been there for him since he became himself again, before you even knew each other, was terrifying. If they didn’t like you, what would that mean? Sure Bucky says you’re the most important person in his life but no matter how hard you tried you couldn’t convince yourself that if his friends didn’t like you then Bucky would dump you.

“Baby, you have got to stop worrying. They’re gonna love you.”

“You don’t know that Bucky.”

“But I do..” He trails off his words to show you how confident he is about this. Your lips come together in a little pout, which Bucky finds adorable.

It was only a 15 minute drive to the tower where the rest of the Avengers lived, you were secretly hoping there would be some traffic to hold you up but the roads were nowhere near as busy as they usually were. Bucky could feel the anxiety radiating off you, he wished he could take it away from you, there was really 0 chance that his friends wouldn’t love you, but you were naturally an anxious person and he knew that so he did what he knew comforted you and rubbed circles over your hand on the drive there. You appreciated him for trying to comfort you but your anxiety would not ease up. You’d never felt this nervous before, you must’ve completely zoned out for the rest of the car ride because what felt like only a minute later had actually been 15 and you were pulling up to the tower.

Bucky had a quick chat with the gate attendant before driving through the gates and parking in his designated spot.

“You ready doll?” He asks, turning himself towards you with a soft smile on his face.

“Mhmm, let’s go.” You were not ready but you didn’t want to ruin Bucky’s night, it’d been a while since he’d seen everyone with all the missions everyone had recently been on and you knew he was excited.

He quickly climbed out the car and made his way to your side, always insisting on opening your door for you. When you get out he holds his hand out for you and you immediately grab hold of it. He pulls you closer towards you and plants a gentle kiss on your forehead before whispering to you. “I promise baby, it’s gonna be fine.” You shoot him a quick, almost forced smile, and nod, showing you were ready to go in.

It only takes a few minutes to get up to the living quarters side of the tower, and now a quick elevator ride was the only thing between you and people Bucky loves. As the elevator started to slow you took a deep breath and readied to walk out. As soon as the doors open you can hear a loud laugh boom through the room followed by a quiet chuckle beside you. It had only been a couple seconds and Bucky was already so happy to be back here.

As you turned the corner your eyes quickly scanned the room trying to put names to faces of everyone Bucky had told you about. Obviously you knew everyone's superhero names, but to Bucky they were his friends, his family, not superheroes. Suddenly everyone had turned your way and you realise Bucky had made both your presences known. You felt like all eyes were on you and Bucky could tell your nerves had shot up, so he lightly gave your hands a squeeze.”Hey guys.”

“Hey Bucky!” Sam shouted over and began walking towards you. “You must be Y/N? Bucky’s told me a lot about you.”

You nod towards, who you knew to be Sam, as much as Bucky told you they weren’t best friends, you knew that they were. You smile and hold your hand out to shake his. “That’s me, nice to meet yo-” Before you could finish, Sam pulled you in for a hug.

“We’re all about hugs here. You’re part of the family now.” You can’t help but laugh and hug him back. You really appreciated him being so welcoming, he was the one person you were most worried about not liking you. From what Bucky told you, he was very protective over the people he cares about.

“Alright Wilson, don’t scare my girl away.” Sam pulls away and moves to Bucky to give him a hug as well.

You look at Bucky and smirk, "Your girl, hm?” He looked confused for a split second before the tips of his ears started to turn bright red and his usual smug smirk disappeared when he realised what he’d said.

“Sorry doll.” You weren’t sure why he was apologising or why he was embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to sa- sorry.” You’d never seen someone's skin turn so red as fast as his had in this moment.

“Don’t be, I liked it.” You whisper right next to him, hoping no one else heard. Before he could respond to you, more voices filled the space around you.

“You could’ve just asked for a hug too Bucky, besides if you haven’t scared her off already, I don’t think much will” Sam teases.

“So your girl? Must be serious. I’ll expect my wedding invite any day now. Bucky’s face was only growing redder and he couldn’t look anyone in the eye, forcing his gaze to the floor. His hand was rubbing the back of his neck, something you knew he did when he was embarrassed. You took a small step closer to him and rubbed your hand on his arm, showing you really didn’t mind the nickname, in fact you loved it. A small smile was starting to form on his face but before you could see it grow any more a voice pulled you away.

“Alright Wilson, stop hogging them. The rest of us want to introduce ourselves as well.” You instantly recognise the face as Clint, someone who Bucky truly owed a lot to. He had let Bucky live with him and his family for a bit when he needed some time away from the city. The memories of Steve leaving and his past life got too much to handle and he already felt like he had imposed too much on Sam and his family. He would forever be grateful for Clint and Laura taking him in, he really felt a part of their family, so much so that their kids had started calling him Uncle Bucky.

Clint put his hand towards yours and introduced himself, “Hi Y/N, I’m Clint. Sorry about him, I promise we’re not all as crazy as him.” You laughed at his joke and shook his hand. It’s lovely to finally meet you Clint, Bucky’s spoken a lot about you.”

“It’s all lies.” He jokes before moving onto Bucky and giving him a side hug.

“Laura and the kids here too clint?”

Clint shook his head before moving to stand in front of you both. “Sorry Buck, they had some school things on, but they made me promise to ask you to visit soon, and to bring your girl!” Clint replies with a wink which makes you laugh. Bucky couldn’t stop his huge smirk from reappearing as Clint called you his girl.

As they continued talking more people made their way over to you and introduced themselves. First there was Joaquin and then Sarah and her boys. The boys completely skipped saying hello to you and ran over to their uncle Bucky before Sarah called them back to apologise. They came back and introduced themselves and with a little nudge from Sarah apologised for rushing past you. “That’s okay, I know you're excited. It was very nice to meet you both boys.” They shook your hand and ran over again to Bucky.

“Sorry about them, I swear they love Bucky more than they love me sometimes.” Sarah smiled at seeing how nicely you fit into the group and gave you a hug, just like how Sam had to show you that you were welcomed. Once all the introductions were done you all sat down in the living room. You were the main topic of the conversation, everyone was interested in knowing how one person had completely changed Bucky’s life.

“So Y/N,” Wanda started, “Bucky said you’re a teacher?”

“Yeah that’s right.” You slightly laughed aftwards, not because it was funny but you were slightly panicking being the centre of attention around all these people. Especially since some of them were literal superheroes. “I know it’s not as exciting as you guys but I enjoy it.”

Everyone quickly spoke up and defended you against yourself. Especially Sarah and Clint, with having kids they knew how important teachers were. It felt good knowing that they thought that of you, even though you were still feeling anxious, everyone had been so welcoming to you and you weren't sure why you were so nervous.You didn’t notice but Bucky was looking at you as you spoke, his eyes were a tell tale sign that he was so proud of you. He knew how hard you worked and loved when you got the recognition you deserve.

“What age do you teach?” Joaquin asked next.

“Oh erm, at the moment I teach second grade but I’m hoping to move up soon.”

“It must be hard, kids are annoying little creatures.” Sam says, looking at Cass and AJ for their reactions, they both shout “Hey!” before Sam tickles them.

Another voice starts, you’re not sure who but doesn't get far before Bucky interrupts. “Alright alright, stop grilling my girl.” His girl. “I haven’t seen most of you guys in months, what’s been happening?

You look at Bucky and smirk when he calls you his girl again and it only takes a few seconds for him to realise what he’s said again and he can’t help but smirk, knowing that you like it.

The rest of the night went well, you felt like they all really liked you. Before you knew it, it was around midnight and you were working in the morning so had to get home.

“Again, it was really lovely to meet all of you! Thank you for a great night.” You say as you head for the elevator, Bucky following close behind.

“Make sure to tell the boy’s I said bye, Sarah!” Bucky shouts, “Clint, let’s plan a trip soon. See you all later!” Bucky shouts through, the elevator doors just cutting him off.

As soon as the doors shut you lead your head against his shoulder. “You okay sweet girl?”

“I’m good, just tired.”

“You have a good night?”

You nodded against him, “I’m sorry we couldn’t stay longer.”

“Hey,” He moved slightly and held your head in his hands, bending over slightly to be eye level as he spoke. “We stayed plenty, I know you have work tomorrow, and plus..” He moved closer to your ear to whisper. “.. I couldn’t do this in there.” He lowered one of his hands to your ass and squeezed before pressing you both against the elevator wall. He moved his lips against yours and kissed you, it was a desperate kiss. “You like being my girl huh?”

You can’t help but giggle when he calls you his girl again. You bite your lip before answering. “I do..” He lowers his hand to the hem of your dress and traces his fingers over your inner thigh

“Fuck baby, I nee-” The ding of the elevator doors opening interrupts you both. “Fuck!” Bucky curses everything stopping him from touching you right now. He presses the button to close the doors and immediately after presses the alarm button. The elevator makes a clank noise before it goes silent again, the only sound being you trying to catch your breath after that kiss. Bucky goes back to kissing you but starts on your neck and starts going lower and lower. When his teeth graze over your nipple through your dress you push him back slightly.

“Bucky we can’t here..” You whisper, knowing he can hear your heart beating, you needed him just as bad as he needed you.

“Baby.. I’ll fuck my girl anywhere I want to.” He says before returning to your tits. You bite back a moan which Bucky notices. Your sex life from bucky wasn’t boring by any means but it had never felt as intense as this. The thrill of being in public was sending chills through you.

“Oh shit.. Bucky please.

He lifts your dress up and pulls your panties to the side, using his other hand he unties his jeans and pulls them down enough for his already hard cock to fall out. He rubs his hand over it a couple times and looks at you. “Spit on it for me.” His words send flutters through your stomach and down to your pussy, and you do as he says.

“You ready?”

You nod as you answer, “Pleasee.”

He lifts you up and rubs the tip of his cock against your pussy, gathering your slick before he pushes in. “Fuck, my girls got such a tight pussy.” He keeps pushing until he’s fully in, hitting that spot that makes you grab onto his shoulders, your nails digging into him, which he likes. “You feel so good baby.”

“Fuck.. Bucky please..” He feels so good but his thrusts are slow and you need more.

“What do you need?” He smirks at you, knowing exactly what you need but waiting until you ask for it.

“Fuck me..” Your head falls back, Bucky’s hand cups it to stop it hitting the wall. “Please.”

He chuckles at the desperation in your voice, “Anything for you my sweet girl.” His thrusts fasten and you feel yourself racing towards your high. You use your hands to steady yourself as he fucks into you. You bite your lip to stifle your moan but Bucky doesn’t like that. “Don’t do that baby.. Don’t hide your pretty little noises. I wanna hear you. Want the whole tower to hear how you sound when I fuck you.”

“Fuck.. Bucky you feel so good. I think I’m gonn-”

“I know baby, it’s okay. Let go for me.” He moves his hand from behind your head and wraps it around your neck. The cold from his touch and him speeding up was enough to send you over the edge.

“Fuckkkk.. Bucky I’m cum- I’m cumming.”

“Oh Fuck.. I’m there too, baby.” He groans, almost whimpers in your ear. “Feel s’good baby.” He slows his thrusts down as you both come down from your highs.

When you don’t respond he looks at you. “You okay?”

You can’t speak but you nod your head.

“You all cockdrunk?”

“Mhmm.”

“Such a good girl for me.” He strokes the side of your face and plants a soft kiss on your lips. “Let’s get you home, sweet girl.”

He slowly inches out of you and sets you down. You stumble a little and grab onto his shoulder to steady yourself.

“Thank you Buck.”

“You don’t need to thank me, come on let’s get you home.” He puts his arm around your waist before reaching over and pressing the alarm button again.

The doors of the elevator open and Sam is standing there, his eyes bulge open before he laughs. You immediately stand up straight and try make yourself look like you haven’t just been fucked moments before but it was obvious.

You feel your skin warm at being caught but Bucky just laughs beside you like it was no big deal. “I should’ve known it was you two lovebirds causing trouble. Now I know no ones really stuck, I’ll see you guys later”

“Bye Sam.” You manage to mumble before Bucky pulls you closer, you look at each other and have to hold in your laughter.

“See ya Wilson.”

“I love you sweet girl.”

“I love you more.”

2K notes · View notes

cheshiresense · 1 year

Text

Anon:

Fandom: Harry Potter (CLV kinda?)

Character or Ship: Hadrian from CLV, I love Hadrian/Orion but that might not work here so it's totally up to you!

AU/Trope: I'd love to see an AU where instead of the CLV dimension, Hadrian is sent to a universe still with BWL!Neville but more similar to canon. Maybe with Slytherin!Hadrian and Hadrian taking some of the other Slytherins under his wing? I just really like the idea of a world where the "good guys" win and instead of (or in addition to) Orion it's the Slytherins who need Hadrian in their corner. Doesn't have to be all of them, whoever you prefer writing is fine. I am also down for bashing if you need to work that in. Thank you!

Tags: CLV AU, Slytherin!Hadrian, Canonical Prejudices, Draco Malfoy Bashing, kind of?, tbh this is more or less how I see him in canon lol but I know he's a fan favourite so fair warning, he's not the CLV version here, at least not yet.

-0-

Author's Notes: Hello, it's been a while since I've worked on these. I think I mentioned before that my tumblr inbox got glitchy so I actually couldn't find the other 6 requests from the last batch of 10 you guys sent in for 5+ Headcanons. So I set up an airtable form instead and got someone to test it, and this was the one they sent. It works, so in the future, I'll toss out a new post with the form link for more requests, and maybe I'll get through them in a timely manner lol.

If you're not in the UraIchi server, then you might've noticed that I've sort of been MIA on the writing front for a while now, the last time I wrote and posted something was like back in May last year, and honestly I've been kind of tired and burnt out ever since, and real life is kicking my ass a bit, so when I do have spare time, all I feel like doing is reading fics or webnovels and sleeping. But the winter hols were a nice break for me, and I've started on a couple new fic ideas and added to some wips on and off over the past few months, so I'm slowly getting back into it, and this 5+ Headcanons prompt was one of the things I've been working on. Hopefully, I'll be able to get back into posting fics soon.

ANYWAY, on to the stuff you actually care about: Slytherin!Hadrian, so basically amp up the hardened war vet and dial down the friendship magic XD Way back when I first started CLV, I did consider Slytherin for his House but it felt like everybody did that, plus the politics I would have to get into gave me a headache and I felt like I couldn't do it justice anyway, so I went with Hufflepuff. Slytherin does give me more options to play with a powerful Hadrian who has less morals about flinging that around to get what he wants though since he would be viewed as a halfblood at best and he'd need that currency to make sure nobody messes with him, especially if this universe is more canon than CLV (lbr, almost everybody is at least 50% nicer in CLV lol). So okay, let's give this a spin.

(AO3 Link Here -- I’ll add this to the collection fic on my AO3 to make it a round 15 but this one will be the last for that. If I do more, I’ll start a new fic.)

-0-0-0-

Hadrian ends up being a Hatstall. He sits on the stool for a full seven minutes as the Sorting Hat sifts through his bloodstained memories with a silence so grim Hadrian is tempted to comfort it. Then it proceeds to send back memories of its own, the major points of recent Hogwarts history that would best help Hadrian fit in - Neville, the Boy-Who-Lived; an image of Hadrian's counterpart and an entire family still alive; Quirrell vanquished in first year, a basilisk slain and a diary that bled itself to death in the second, Remus teaching in the third but no Pettigrew in sight; Neville at odds with Potter, Gryffindors at odds with Slytherins, and Death Eater children who hadn't managed to come out of the last war as financially and politically secure as families like the Malfoys, subtly shunned for their parents' sins, while children from the Light side, the winning side, with parents who'd openly defied Voldemort, can do almost no wrong. On the surface, everything looks bright and happy. Beneath it, malcontent and despair bubbles and brews with hardly anyone the wiser, and those who are, are glad to look away.

The Sorting Hat offers no opinions of its own after it is done, only continuing on to extol the virtues of all four Houses while making an argument for why Hadrian would be perfectly suited for each of them in equal measure, before finally leaving the decision in Hadrian's hands.

"Even I cannot be certain where you would do the most good," the Sorting Hat tells him. "Nor do I know which House would do you the most good. There are many children in this school who could use a helping hand such as yours, and likewise, you too would benefit from the same. Who am I to decide which is more important? Perhaps it is most accurate to say that no matter where you end up, who you will help, and who you will allow to help you, a new future will unfold, one made possible only by your existence. Yours is a fate that demands change, Mr. Evans, for better or for worse. But when peril looms on the distant horizon, when our society insists on blind stagnancy, and its people have long stood divided, change is exactly what this world needs. Thus, I leave the choice to you. Where do you wish to go?"

Hadrian says nothing - thinks nothing - for a long deafening minute. The mounting whispers in the Great Hall are easy enough to tune out, and within the confines of his mind, the Hat too remains patiently silent.

The truth of it is - Hadrian is tired. Even now, in this moment, in this place, one year and an entire dimension and seven years away, he still feels like he does on most days— as if he's just walked off a battlefield at the end of one of those kinds of days that can break a man even when you think there's nothing left to break, yet still hyper-alert for the next enemy, the next fight, the next death, because he doesn't know how to do anything else, how to be anything else. On all the rest, of course, it feels as if he never left the battlefield at all.

He is tired, and he honestly doesn't feel like he's capable of helping anyone, not children, not the reflections of his loved ones, and certainly not an entire world that's rapidly revealing itself to be as stuck on a one-way train to hell as his original world had been.

He doesn't want to be a hero, doesn't know how to be one even after all these years, even when other people had always so desperately wanted him to be. A hero, until he'd proven unable to meet their expectations, and then he'd been their villain, right up until they'd needed a hero to stand in front of them again, and round and round and round they'd gone.

The only thing he could never be was just Harry, just himself, and now even Harry Potter is no longer his to claim.

But maybe that's not so bad, not when Harry Potter has always been more story than reality, a patchwork fairytale portrait of a boy, a man, a weapon, a sacrifice, stitched together by every hand except his own.

Maybe Hadrian Evans could be something different.

Gryffindor feels too much like repeating history, and Hadrian would rather not be forced to stare at the majority of those long dead to him day in and day out. Hufflepuff is too prone to crowding together for his liking, persistently eager to be friends with their own members even if they're quick to turn on those who aren't, and Hadrian doesn't think he can bear the overenthusiastic socializing that would require.

Ravenclaw might be best, a House where even the most introverted can find a home if they have a thirst for knowledge, but at the same time, for a lot of them, once they latch on to a question unanswered or an opinion that doesn't fit their worldview, they won't let go until the question is exhausted or the opinion has conformed to what they consider acceptable, and Hadrian has too many secrets and no more patience to be what others what him to be to fit in with those sorts of people anymore. Besides, he's never quite forgiven that House as a whole. Marietta Edgecombe had been Ravenclaw. Quirrell and Lockhart and Trelawney had been Ravenclaws. Every single one of Luna's bullies had been Ravenclaws. He'd worked with members of that House over the years, taught them back when the DA had been up and running, and even been friendly with some of them beyond just Luna, but generally speaking, he has no positive emotions regarding Ravenclaw. He knows that he isn't being entirely fair, because Voldemort had been from Slytherin, and Pettigrew had been from Gryffindor, and the worst of the lot who'd spearheaded the damaging gossip and baseless accusations incriminating him - first for the Heir of Slytherin debacle in second year, and then the Cup nonsense in fourth year - had all been from Hufflepuff, but still, Ravenclaw simply stands out as that one House that holds no appeal for him.

That really only leaves one place he can go though, and Hadrian finds that he minds that a lot less than he once would've. Slytherin will have its own problems, him being a halfblood at best with a very obvious muggle surname, but Slytherins also respect power, and most of them have the sense to back off if they realize they're picking a fight with an opponent they can't beat. And once that's dealt with, Hadrian will most likely be avoided and left to his own devices, with only the occasional curse to his back to worry about. From a bunch of schoolchildren, that's a negligible issue.

In his head, the Sorting Hat chuckles. "Very well then. If you're sure, better be-"

"SLYTHERIN!"

But Mr. Evans," the Sorting Hat says in the seconds before it's removed from Hadrian's head. It sounds thoroughly amused. "Do not be so quick to underestimate your own heart."

And with that last ominous statement imparted to haunt him, Hadrian stands to lacklustre applause and makes his way to his new House as his tie settles into green and silver stripes.

The briefest of glances over the stretch of the Slytherin table tells him that none of the students seated where most of the fourth-years are gathered have moved to make room for him. That's fine. Hadrian would rather not be boxed in anyway. He takes a seat at the end of the table, smiles at the suspicious first-years around him, and then waits for Dumbledore's opening speech to finish so they can start the feast.

Fifteen minutes later, one treacle tart and a glass of pumpkin juice is all he can manage. He sips at some water for the rest of dinner even as he wishes it was something a lot more alcoholic. He speaks to no one, and no one tries to speak to him, although plenty of prying eyes and sneers of disdain find their way to him throughout the meal.

It makes him feel, Hadrian thinks with some humour, almost nostalgic.

Near the end of the evening, he thinks about going over to the Gryffindor table to find Neville, Ron, and Hermione. But he's in Slytherin now, so he doesn't know how they'll react, and after another moment of contemplation, he decides against it. Not much can embarrass him anymore, but he'd still rather not be put on the spot if the Golden Trio rejects his overture of friendship. It won't help his reputation in Slytherin either if he ends up making a spectacle of himself like that. There's plenty of time tomorrow to see how they'll feel about maintaining ties with a Slytherin without too big of an audience watching, and if they're against it, then, well, it's not as if Hadrian hasn't been living as a recluse over the better part of the past year anyway. He sees no problem carrying on exactly as he has.

Fate sent him here against his explicit permission but she sure as shit can't make him dance.

-0-0-0-

Hadrian ends up shuffled into a dorm room with five very familiar Slytherins - Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle, Blaise Zabini, and Theodore Nott. He gets the remaining bed that's presumably been empty since the others' first year, and a very pointed silence coalesces at his back as he starts unpacking his clothes into his wardrobe.

He ignores it. Instead, he absently begins a count of how long it will take for someone - he's betting Draco - to put their foot in their mouth first. He casts a glance at the floor-to-ceiling window next to his nightstand; like the Gryffindor dorms, the room is circular so everyone has a view to the outside, but here, instead of winds and open skies, it's lake water that shimmers against the glass, with the shadows of passing aquatic life flickering by. It's not bad, just different; the ambience of it is almost soothing.

Someone clears their throat behind him. Hadrian hangs up his winter cloak before moving on to his books. They each get a desk too, complete with a mini bookcase, which the Gryffindor dorms don't have. They have to do their homework on their beds or in the common room. How unfair. But at least Hadrian gets to benefit from it now.

Someone clears their throat again, louder this time. Hadrian smothers a twist of a smirk and bends over his trunk again to fish out his towels and toiletries. His more personal belongings can remain inside, although he'll have to ward everything to the nines anyway.

A displeased noise that comes out gilded with that distinctly familiar Dudley-esque whine of a child who's been spoiled since birth and has never known hardship reaches his ears, and then finally-

"Are you deaf, Evans?!" Draco demands, and oh, look at that, Hadrian wins the bet.

He straightens and turns, idly fiddling with a packet of quills as his gaze falls on the blond standing puffed up and bristling by the bed opposite Hadrian's on the other side of the dorm. He looks him over, looks at Crabbe and Goyle bracketing him with twin expressions of oafish scorn, looks at Zabini standing a ways away, watching the whole room with a smirk that doesn't reach his eyes, looks at Nott who doesn't look at anyone at all.

His attention returns to Draco, considering him for a moment longer before asking mildly, "Did you say something?"

Draco's cheeks flush pink even as he draws himself up and snaps, "You should at least have enough manners to introduce yourself!" His face narrows into a sneer, and Hadrian can almost predict his next words. "But I suppose even that might be too difficult for a mudblood to learn."

For a second, Hadrian wonders if he should tell him he's a halfblood. Then again, it doesn't really matter, and also some people consider halfbloods to be mudbloods too. And now that he thinks about it, the person he is in this world might actually be a muggleborn. But he was homeschooled so at least one of his fictional parents had to have known magic, right? Then again, they could've just been related to a witch or wizard but were muggles themselves. Who knows. Certainly not him since Fate couldn't be bothered to inform him.

"Evans, are you listening to me?!"

Hadrian blinks out of his thoughts. "Yes, I'm listening, what is it?"

Draco glares. His features are so… pointy at this age that the expression doesn't really carry the impact he's probably going for, but Hadrian figures it would be unnecessarily mean to mention it, so he doesn't. Instead, he quickly reviews everything Draco has said, and there wasn't actually a question anywhere in there, as far as Hadrian can tell, but maybe Draco really does want an introduction. Seems like a waste of breath though.

"Is there a point to introducing myself?" He asks. "Everybody heard my name at the Sorting. You even just used it so it's not like you don't know."

Draco splutters as if that wasn't what he expected Hadrian to say. He recovers after a moment and opts to glower harder instead, as if that would hide the way the pink in his cheeks is slowly turning red. Poor bastard. That's what you get when you have a pale complexion and fluster easily.

"Are you actually a mudblood then?" He demands contemptuously.

Hadrian honestly doesn't know, but he can't say that, so he volleys back, "Does Slytherin accept muggleborns?"

He knows they take halfbloods, but he can't remember any muggleborns in Slytherin, although if there are any, he doubts they would be willing to broadcast it, even if it means inventing a magical parent in their family tree.

"Of course not!" Draco refutes, sounding scandalized.

Hadrian can't tell if that's actually true, or if that's just Draco's own belief, but it does make things easier. "Then…" He shrugs. "If you already know, why are you asking?"

A beat of silence passes, then two. The red deepens in Draco's face as he hisses dramatically, "Are you mocking me?"

Hadrian suppresses a sigh. He probably is being too flippant for someone as high-strung as Draco, but it's still a far sight from mockery. He can definitely do better if he wants to taunt someone. Had his world's Draco been this easily riled up? They hadn't even really gotten into any exchange of insults yet. "I wouldn't say I'm-"

He stops.

Across the room, Draco has pulled out his wand, and when he realizes that Hadrian's broken off mid-sentence, the flush recedes from his face, and a triumphant smirk instantly takes its place instead.

"Since you've been sorted into Slytherin," Draco announces, raising his wand with a ridiculously showy flourish that makes Hadrian twitch with the desire to correct his posture. "You should know your place. Mouthing off to your betters is a good way to get cursed around here, especially when you're in the presence of someone like me." He sneers down his nose even as his chin tips up, all peacock proud. "My name is Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. Even the likes of your kind should've heard of my family." He looks smug, as if a mere surname can protect him from anything when it comes down to it. "You'll be staying here for the next four years, Evans, and I guarantee you'll have a miserable time of it if you get on my bad side. But today's your first day at Hogwarts, so I can be generous. If you apologize, I'll let you go just this once."

An expectant hush falls as Draco finishes his little speech. Hadrian doesn't say anything right away, still turning over the packet of quills in his hands, still waiting. When nothing happens after a good five seconds tick by, and the silence gradually becomes strained, Hadrian finally nods at Draco's wand, "So are you going to use that or not?"

The stunned look of outrage on Draco's face is gold.

"Don't say I didn't warn you, Evans!" Draco snarls, jabbing out with his wand. "Oscausi!"

Hadrian has time to arch an eyebrow at the choice of a pseudo-silencing charm before he's flipping a quill into the fingers of his left hand. A swipe of his thumb leaves a chain of runes glittering along its shaft, and then he brings it up, catches the oncoming spell with the tip, and swats it aside with a flick of his wrist, all in one fluid motion. His right hand doesn't stay still either as his wand slides neatly into his palm, and a single wordless modified Expelliarmus darts out and attaches itself to Draco's wand.

The white light of the Mouth-Sealing Charm is sent soaring across the room, shattering against the door in a shower of harmless sparks, and in the heavy silence that follows, Hadrian smiles.

He thinks it's a very bland smile, if he does say so himself. At the very least, he's careful to not look too intimidating or too unhinged, the way he can sometimes get, if some of his dead friends were to be believed, back during the war. Nevertheless, it still makes Draco blanch white, makes Crabbe and Goyle shrink back, makes Zabini lean further back into a convenient shadow and Nott go utterly still from where he's sitting on his bed.

Hadrian glances down at the remains of his writing utensil, most of the barbs now burnt black. It was a regular quill after all, not exactly made to withstand so much magic. He looks back up, at Draco who has a white-knuckled grip on his wand, and with his own wand, he gives the other's a tug, just enough to make Draco's eyes go wide with something like panic, but not enough to actually disarm him and - considering the sheer amount of honed intent in the charm that even Draco can undoubtedly sense - most likely bend the wand's allegiance.

Hadrian holds it for a moment longer, and then lets go. Draco staggers back a step, jerking his wand down and reflexively pressing it into his chest as if he's trying to protect it, or maybe assure himself that it still belongs to him.

Hadrian tucks his wand back up his sleeve before stooping down to pick up the rest of the quills he'd dropped. The burnt one goes in the bin by his desk.

Nobody speaks. Nobody even moves. So Hadrian does.

"That took you almost five seconds," He begins almost conversationally as he opens a drawer to stash his remaining quills away. "From when you decided to fire that spell to actually firing it. And that's not even counting all the time you wasted saying the stuff before that, after you already took out your wand. It's stupid. When you draw with the intent to harm, you shouldn't give any warning at all. And the spell itself was slow. You should work on that."

He pauses, and there's still no response, which he supposes makes sense. He doubts anybody here wants to listen to him preach. He should just wrap things up since the plan is moving along so neatly.

"Anyway, this is pretty unfortunate," He switches gears and smiles again, as fit-for-public-polite as he knows how to be. It doesn't seem to make anyone feel better, but he also doesn't feel like he was that heavy-handed earlier, was he? Ah well, can't change anything now, and it's still in line with what he wants so it doesn't matter.

"I wasn't really expecting to make any friends since I know the average Slytherin's views on blood isn't exactly in my favour," He continues in light tones. "But I was hoping that we could at least remain on civil terms and get along as schoolmates, if only because we'll be living together for the rest of our time at Hogwarts. Since that doesn't seem to be possible anymore though, how about we just go with the simplest solution?"

Hadrian surveys the room and smiles some more. "You ignore me and I’ll ignore you. You attack me and I'll retaliate. An eye for an eye, so to speak. Everybody just needs to mind their own business, and there won't be any problems. That's fair enough, don't you think?"

His gaze settles once more on Draco. "Since you're the only one who's said anything so far, I'll assume you speak for everyone in this dorm. Draco Malfoy, right? So then, do we understand each other now?"

Across from him, Draco shivers imperceptibly like a rabbit caught at the wrong end of a predator's line of sight, but he also swallows and nods and gingerly puts his wand away. It looks like it costs him, but - at least for now - he seems both too shocked and too afraid to try anything else.

"Great!" Hadrian says cheerfully before cocking his head as a thought occurs to him. "Oh, right, one more thing."

He lets his smile fall away. Lets his expression smooth over into marble. And then he lets his magic flare, lets the pressure of it roll across the room like the black merciless depths of a storm-tossed ocean, lets it eclipse them all like death come to call, and then he brings it crashing down, not most of it, not even half, because he hasn't forgotten that these are children, that they're still young, and they can learn, they can be better, and Hadrian doesn't actually want to traumatize them permanently.

But he also remembers Draco - his world's Draco - telling him once, in a fit of aggravated exasperation during one of those times when they'd devolved into insulting each other's House traits yet again because they still hadn't understood what made the other tick, but they had also reached a point in their friendship where they'd started trying to, and kept trying.

"Slytherins respect power," Draco had said, not for the first time, but then he'd also added, for the first time, and haltingly as if he hadn't known why he'd had to explain it at all, "How else are you going to know they're worth your time? Or I guess worth befriending, in your Gryffindor terms."

"You don't decide whether or not to make friends based on how powerful someone is."

"Slytherins don't have friends. I only said friend because you're a Gryffindor and you don't understand anything else."

"Fine, you don't decide whether or not to associate with every single person you come across in your life based on how powerful they are either."

"Why not?"

"Why would you??"

"How else would you know they're strong enough to stand with you? Or competent enough to protect themselves? Power is a good starting line. If they're powerful enough, then they won't be afraid to face your enemies with you, and you can trust them to be capable of keeping themselves safe without having to keep an eye on them every minute of the day. Only brainless Gryffindors prefer doing things like throwing themselves in the line of fire and dying dramatically for each other and calling that a win. Let me tell you something, Potter - it's not a victory when you're forced to suffer a loss. You haven't won anything if you're not around to enjoy the aftermath. So the best allies must be ones who are powerful enough to not only achieve their goals but also survive them."

"…"

"Well, I will grudgingly admit that I didn't put quite that much thought into it when I was younger, but who did? …It's what I believe now though. Did I finally get it through your thick skull this time, Potter?"

After that particular conversation, Hadrian had understood a little better, even if he hadn't entirely agreed with it all. But he hadn't forgotten a single word, and Draco was right— as they are, these kids definitely aren't thinking that deeply, but Hadrian thinks that the core of it at least is the same. Slytherins respect power. And he has power in spades, so at the very least, he can make them respect him.

Of course, if that also happens to make them afraid of him, then, well, he was never aiming to be their friend or even ally anyway. So long as they leave him alone, it's fine.

He brings his magic to bear, allows the weight of it to fall and fall and fall, and he watches dispassionately as Draco goes grey, as Crabbe and Goyle's knees buckle, as Zabini flinches back like he wants to melt into the walls, as Nott curls into himself and may or may not have stopped breathing.

Hadrian catches Draco's eye, and doesn't let him look away. "I have no betters. Do I make myself clear?"

He'd spent half his life being beaten down by the Dursleys, told over and over that he was worth nothing, that he didn’t deserve food or clothes or kindness, that he was a waste of space and better off dead. He'd spent a good chunk of his Hogwarts career obliviously dancing to Dumbledore's tune, and then some more of it knowingly dancing to it because what else could he do with a target on his back. He'd spent over twenty years shackled to Voldemort, to his parents' legacy, to a war that had loved him a whole lot more than he'd ever loved it. And he'd been Fate's everything since before he'd ever even been born.

Some days, he wonders if he even knows what freedom is anymore. Or if he's ever known at all.

But one thing he is sure of is that he will never passively tolerate anyone controlling what he can or cannot do ever again.

Draco whimpers something like agreement, like deference, like surrender, and- that's enough. Hadrian reels it all back, all his magic hidden away again, and in the dizzying wake of its abrupt disappearance, Draco collapses, barely catching himself and his dignity with the edge of his bed. Crabbe and Goyle do crash to the ground, while Zabini has to steady himself against his nightstand, and Nott sways like he might faint.

Too much, Hadrian thinks distantly, and tries to feel bad about it because he really hadn't meant to go that far, but his lines in the sand have also long since blurred away beneath a tide of blood and corpses.

Mostly, he just feels tired, and it has nothing to do with his displays of magic tonight.

He breathes. Turns. Grabs a towel and his underwear and pyjamas and pretends everything's fine. It is fine, now. He's gotten what he wanted. "It's getting late. I'll shower first. Won't be long."

And then he's exiting stage right, straight into the bathroom, and it's a relief to close the door behind him.

Of course, that sentiment is one that's shared by probably every single person in the room.

-0-0-0-

Theo is awake before anyone else the next morning. Or at least he thinks he is because he usually is. But everybody's curtains are drawn, and after last night, he doubts anyone was able to sleep right away, if at all, with the exception of their new roommate.

Hadrian Evans. Great Merlin, where had this person even come from? Even just the memory of his magic - vast and endless and utterly uncompromising - pressing down on them like the sky had fallen on their heads, makes his hands want to shake all over again. For a long, suspended, suffocating moment that could've lasted an eternity, Theo could've sworn he was going to die last night. And the most terrifying thing is that he is absolutely certain that Evans hadn't even been trying that hard.

Evans had radiated enough raw power to force all of them to their knees if he'd really wanted to. But he'd held back. He'd only given them a glimpse, just enough to warn them off. The rest of his magic had been out of reach, but present. It was there, reined in and waiting, but the shape of it and the depth of it had felt… unfathomable, as if it had no limits.

And that doesn't even account for the spellwork he had done. Theo had recognized the Disarming Charm, but last he checked, the average Expelliarmus only deprived a wizard of their wand. A more powerful one might send the target flying and even knock them out, but he's never heard of one that can… threaten to disarm your opponent at your leisure and - if Theo wasn't mistaken - force the wand to forsake its owner. Everybody knows that that's always a possibility in a real duel; if you win and take your opponent's wand, then that wand might not work for its owner anymore. But most of the time, you have to mean it, you have to set out with the intent to do it, the buildup of magic in the duel itself gives that intent a foundation, and there has to be an actual possibly life-threatening conflict of interest between the parties too, a real enmity that even last night - however excessive the exchange - shouldn't have qualified. Squabbles between students just don't count. If it did, with the Disarming Charm being taught in school, there would be a lot more students in need of new wands. The only way Theo can rationalize it happening anyway is that Evans must've been strong enough to compel the wand itself to leave its owner.

Pity he hadn't gone through with it in the end. Evans is powerful, but he's also… Theo is hesitant to call him soft, but if it had been Malfoy, if it had been Blaise or even himself or pretty much any other Slytherin, they would've done it. He's unsure of why Evans hadn't.

And then there had been the thing with the quill. Theo can't even explain that, and he'd mulled it over for half the night. He has the… incidental fortune of occupying the bed closest to Evans', so as soon as Evans had ducked into the bathroom last night, and the others had been distracted with pulling themselves together and possibly trying not to wet themselves, Theo had chanced a swift peek into Evans' wastebasket.

It really had looked just like any other regular quill, one that'd been burnt completely black and missing most of its barbs, but it had been a quill. He'd been tempted to open Evans' desk drawer to check the other quills, but - with Evans' ultimatum still ringing in his ears - he hadn't been that suicidal, so he'd refrained. But from what he could recall, the pack it had come from had looked just like the mass-produced writing utensils one could find in any stationery shop in Diagon Alley.

Whatever he'd done though, he had made it look like child's play. A quill and a Disarming Charm, so fast that Theo could've blinked and missed it. Could someone like that really have remained in obscurity all this time? Evans had apparently been homeschooled up until now, and they haven't even attended their first class yet, but by anyone's definition, after last night, he can't claim to be anything less than a prodigy.

It's… unbelievable. And not even because of any of the blood purity ideals that Malfoy likes to preach about. Theo doesn't think much of muggleborns or halfbloods, but he also doesn't think much of most purebloods, so he's fairly certain it's not high society prejudices that's driving his disbelief. It's just… He's never met anyone - not even his father, and Merlin knows Theo's been afraid of him for as long as he can remember - as effortlessly powerful as Evans had shown himself to be, and he doesn't understand how nobody has heard even a whisper of a rumour of this boy before he'd arrived at Hogwarts.

Someone like him shouldn't exist. Or perhaps there has been one, and that had been how the Dark Lord had made so many people bow at his feet or cower in their homes, but Theo had never met him in person, and so all he has is Evans' example to draw from. And not a single witch or wizard whom Theo's ever met could compare.

Has Evans just been hiding himself? Maybe his family hid him before they deemed him ready to face the rest of the world, and he's certainly proven that he can hide it when he wants to. But what kind of family can bring up this kind of wizard? Evans is only fourteen. None of them had thought him anything special before he'd revealed exactly how wrong they were. And he probably wouldn't have done even that much if Malfoy hadn't immediately taken a go at him, always so obsessed with making sure everyone knows he sits at the top of the food chain.

Well, he certainly doesn't anymore, and if Theo hadn't been caught up in the confrontation last night just like everyone else, he would've been tempted to applaud the spectacle of Malfoy being taken down a peg or ten. Before Evans' arrival, Theo was the one Malfoy liked to take jabs at every few days, and it was only partly because he'd had a halfblood mother. The Notts could've been said to be respectably rich once upon a time, but after the war had ended, with his father's political clout being almost nonexistent and most of their extended relatives either dead or in Azkaban, they'd been easy pickings for the Aurors. His father had escaped prison time with the Imperius excuse and some bribes, but that hadn't prevented multiple raids on their home and a hefty list of fines that had left their vaults near-depleted. And what little fortune they have left is reserved almost entirely for Theo's father's alchemy obsession that's more often focused on illegal research topics than not, as well as his black market dealings, although neither of those at least is widely known, or who knows if they would even have their ancestral manor left after the Aurors were done with them?

Malfoy loved reminding him of almost every one of those things as often as he could, and the most absurd thing is that - more than being born from a halfblood mother or poverty or loss of prestige - Theo's pretty sure Malfoy's biggest reason for disliking Theo is because Theo had refused to follow him around like Crabbe and Goyle back in first year.

So here they are now, and after three years, Theo had more or less become inured, not to mention it wasn't as if Malfoy only bullied him, or even bullied him the most - nobody could top that list while Potter and Weasley were around to fight for first place on it - but it had still been annoying and stressful because Theo was the only one who had to share a dorm with him. Considering the Malfoys' standing in society however, all he could ever do was stay silent and bear with it.

Admittedly, he'd been a little happy when Evans had been sorted into Slytherin, because between Theo and an unknown halfblood-at-best with no allies and no significant family background to speak of, the perfect prey in every way, Malfoy would definitely enjoy targeting the latter more, and even if the blond ponce still came after Theo, it would at least take some of the pressure off of him.

Now… well. That will still probably pick back up sooner or later, but Theo resents it less when he thinks about how it will take at least a few weeks before Malfoy will be able to strut around again after last night's humiliation. And also…

He thinks again of last night, of how Evans had basically smacked Malfoy down like he was nothing more than an unruly upstart getting above himself, and of that quiet oath too - I have no betters - and it hadn't even been pride or arrogance or superiority, only stone-cold certain fact.

He thinks of the fear he'd felt, but behind that, beneath that, more than that, there had also been nothing less than a breathless, heady, wondrous sense of reverence that had settled itself behind his ribcage, in his lungs, in the sudden hungry swell of curiosity that he'd just barely managed to lock behind his teeth, and it had only grown stronger after a night of fitful sleep.

He wants to see that magic again. He wants to know what else Evans can do.

And most importantly, he wants to know if he can do it too.

-0-

Ten minutes later, Theo hears Evans pull his bed curtains back. Very cautiously, he twitches his own curtains open half an inch to watch Evans get up, stretching languidly and scrubbing a hand through his messy black hair before gathering up his toiletries and a change of clothes. Like this, he looks completely normal, nothing at all like someone who could flatten all five of his roommates with a thoughtless flex of his magic. Even his eyes are just green now, no longer glowing like the light of a Killing Curse.

Of course, then Evans waves a hand at his window curtains, which obediently sweep open in response, and… yes, why not? Wandless magic seems par for the course for Evans, even if Theo has only ever heard of a handful of seventh-years capable of some very basic wandless spells if they concentrate hard enough.

Evans leaves for the bathroom as if casual uses of wandless magic is an everyday occurrence for him, and only after the door has closed does Theo let himself relax.

Evans had never even glanced over, but somehow, Theo thinks the other boy had known he was being watched anyway. But he'd said nothing, hadn't even given any indication that he'd noticed, let alone minded. Theo still isn't sure why he'd let Malfoy off so easily yesterday - because on hindsight, when it came down to it, all Evans had really done was scare them and scare Malfoy most of all; despite the verbal abuse and even the Dark charm Malfoy had shot at him, Evans hadn't actually hurt any of them in return - and Theo doesn't get it but maybe part of it is just because Evans doesn't take offence easily.

It seems unwise to Theo to not at least dole out some injuries as a reminder when that offence had been as insolent as Malfoy's, but perhaps Evans has his own measure of such things. Besides, Malfoy's known to say worse. Theo's looking forward to what happens if Malfoy forgets himself and says something even more loathsome. It's not impossible. Malfoy has been unchallenged since he came to Hogwarts. He's used to saying and doing whatever he wants, even to the upper years and those outside his own House. Most people ignore him when they can and indulge him when they can't, or otherwise manage or placate him with their own methods, but the one thing no one has ever done is tell him no, tell him to stop and make it stick. Potter and Weasley tend to give as good as they get, what with how short their tempers are, but they're louder and more obvious about it, so they get caught more often, which just makes them even angrier, so it never actually feels like they win, even when Malfoy doesn't either. Certainly, no amount of lectures or point loss has managed to deflate his ego.

But now there's Hadrian Evans. Theo doesn't need a second demonstration to know that Malfoy is outclassed in every way, but funnily enough, Malfoy himself might need it.

Theo eyes the bathroom door for a moment longer before finally getting up himself. He's barely set his feet on the rug before Blaise - in the bed on Theo's other side - also whips open his curtains, looking far more alert than he ever has this early in the morning.

For several seconds, they stare at each other in silence. And then - because he isn't sure if the other three boys in the room are awake yet - Theo pitches his voice even lower than usual and says, "He said Malfoy spoke for us."

Blaise blinks twice, and then something like distaste curves up at one corner of his mouth. "I heard."

Theo nods. They're on the same page then. Neither of them is particularly keen on this opinion that Evans has regrettably formed, Theo because of obvious reasons, and Blaise because he's Blaise.

Blaise has always been strange. He's the type who gets along with everyone and gets along with no one. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone - biased Gryffindors aside - who would say a bad word about him, but they'd probably have to think a while if you asked them to describe something of personal significance about him too. It's not that he's average - he's never failed a class, and he's especially good at Potions - but for all that he can carry a conversation in a way that makes everyone feel comfortable and included, and he could probably talk rings around a politician without making them feel stupid, he also never lets anyone close enough to actually get to know him. He's approachable, but only when he wants you to approach him. He's generous with his smiles, but sometimes, it feels a little like he's laughing at you. He might say something condescending or spiteful to you one day, but he has the kind of charisma that makes you forget that the very next. People might call him friend and invite him over for a chat or a game of chess, but most don't make any attempts to go beyond that. And if you know what to look for, as Theo has learned to do, you would realize - Blaise views the world like it's one big boring joke, and his estimation of most of the people in it is probably somewhere around the level of dancing clowns.

Theo doesn't mind. The two of them aren't friends either. They're also not enemies though, and occasionally, they can be allies, but only when Blaise feels like it. Sometimes, the other boy will distract Malfoy from messing up Theo's potion in class or launching yet another diatribe on all of Theo's deficiencies, but Theo will never ask him to because he has nothing to repay Blaise with.

It works for them. Blaise does what Blaise wants, and even Malfoy can't control him. Theo is secretly envious of that— with the Zabinis' seat of power in Italy, it means they don't have that much clout in Britain, and yet nobody messes with Blaise, not even the few who don't buy into Blaise's charm or simply hate him because he's a Slytherin. Not even Malfoy messes with him, and even Theo can't tell if it's Malfoy's self-preservation instincts kicking in to ensure that he isn't about to go insulting someone with a black widow mother like Blaise's, or if Malfoy genuinely hasn't noticed that Blaise doesn't respect him at all no matter how pleasant his words can be. Honestly, when it comes to Malfoy, there's a decent chance of either option being true.

With all that in mind though, it's not a surprise that Blaise isn't pleased with being slotted in as one of Malfoy's lackeys, especially by someone as impressive - or, as Blaise might put it, entertaining - as Hadrian Evans has swiftly proved himself to be.

"It's fine," Blaise says next, rolling out of bed to get ready for the day. He's already regained his typical lazy slouch, as if he hadn't been just as terrified as the rest of them last night. His eyes slide to the bathroom, then away, unreadable but more focused than Theo's ever seen them. "We live in the same dorm, and we'll attend at least most of the same classes. He'll see soon enough that we don't share the same opinions as Malfoy."

Theo watches him dig into his wardrobe. "And then?"

"Then?" Blaise tips a more familiar look of knowing amusement at him. "Then you do what you want, and I'll do what I want, and at the very least, we'll have the good sense to not throw ourselves straight onto a hippogriff's talons like dear Draco."

Theo smothers a snort and rises to his feet. Neither he nor Blaise take Care of Magical Creatures, but everybody had heard of Malfoy's idiocy last year. The phrase "my father will hear about this!" had reached a record high by winter's end. Not much had come of it, not when Hagrid had had the likes of James Potter and Sirius Black and Albus Dumbledore championing him. Even Lucius Malfoy would - and had, more than once over the years - find it difficult to contend with the British wizarding world's vaunted war heroes when they join forces. In the end, Hagrid could continue teaching so long as he did it alongside a second professor hired by the school, and even the hippogriff got to live. Malfoy had not been happy, and he'd made sure everybody knew it too, but at least he'd also whined less about it once Slytherin House had learned to snigger about it where he wouldn't hear.

But 'throwing oneself onto a hippogriff's talons' had become rather popular vernacular ever since, subtle enough that even Malfoy couldn't call anyone out on using it without embarrassing himself, but funny to everyone who understood, and nobody could even say who'd started the phrase. Theo's money would be on Blaise though.

The bathroom is spelled so that nobody outside can hear anything when the door is shut, but they can hear the lock click open just fine, and almost in tandem, he and Blaise both immerse themselves in picking out their outfits for the day as if it's a task that requires every last bit of their attention.

Evans walks out. True to his word, he ignores them completely, neither greeting them nor sparing them a glance as he moves back to his section of the dorm. Theo watches him out of the corner of his eye as the boy folds his pyjamas away before proceeding to pack his bag. He catches a glimpse of an Ancient Runes textbook, and his mind abruptly flashes back to the quill. But… that can't be right.

Evans shuts his bag, pulls on his robes, and toes on his shoes. Like this, there's something vaguely familiar about him that Theo can't place right away, and the thought is gone again as Evans slings his bag over his shoulder and strides for the door.

He still doesn't look at any of them, and he's gone from the room a moment later. They might as well have been empty air.

Theo's fingers tighten around the shirt he's holding. Somehow, he-

-doesn't like it.

-0-

Malfoy gets up two minutes after Evans is gone, moving around with an exaggeratedly unaffected sort of poise that makes Theo want to roll his eyes. At least the blond doesn't try to make conversation until Crabbe and Goyle wake up as well.

Evans aside, Theo is the first out of the room, as per usual, although this time, Blaise accompanies him up to the common room and out of the Dungeon. It takes no time at all to arrive at the Great Hall, and this early, most of the four House tables are still empty of students, although more and more are gradually drifting in in groups of threes and fours.

Unlike the other Houses who like cramming into whatever space they see, Slytherins are more political about it. The end seats are left to the outcasts or first-years who don't know better yet, while the midway point of the table is typically reserved for the most influential students, such as those with the best grades or the largest range of social connections or the strongest family background, or some combination of the three. And everybody else arranges themselves between the two extremes accordingly. The only time that changes - from what Theo has heard - is when someone is so magically powerful that they can overwhelm everyone else. Then it doesn't matter what grades or connections or background they have because magic is respected most of all, although they would usually have some qualifications in those other areas. But either way, they would be given reigning place of pride in the middle with their chosen followers around them, and everybody else would sit where they're told to sit, regardless of their accomplishments.

Someone like that hasn't come along in fifty years though, not since the Dark Lord was still at Hogwarts.

So it's jarring to see Evans seated at the very end, furthest away from the High Table, with a book open in front of him and a steaming mug in one hand, but Theo supposes it shouldn't be. He's newly transferred in, and a halfblood besides, so he probably doesn't know about the traditional seating arrangement, and since it's still just the second day of school, it's not as if anybody else outside their dorm knows that Evans is anything but the unfortunate fourth-year with a muggle surname sorted into Slytherin, so he really can be considered an outcast.

Theo exchanges a look with Blaise before tentatively taking a seat at their usual spot a few feet away from the halfway point of the table. It doesn't feel right to… go over Evans' head like this, but it's not like they can really do anything about it at the moment. Theo in particular is technically sitting above his station, but his family is still one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, no matter how far it's fallen, and he gets decent grades in almost every class. He's also on friendly terms with Blaise, and the fact that he shares a dorm with Malfoy is a double-edged sword. Malfoy has the status to sit near the middle ever since he was a first-year, and it wouldn't look very good for him if he's seen completely spurning a Nott in his generation. So Theo is largely left alone so long as he looks like he's nominally part of Malfoy's group during mealtimes.

Theo spends the next five minutes sneaking sidelong glances down the table. Blaise does the same, and neither of them is obvious about it so nobody comes up to ask them any questions. Other Slytherins begin filing in, and more than one wrinkles their nose or sneers when they pass Evans, as if they've smelled something repulsive.

Theo has to make an effort not to wince every time it happens. Blaise watches with a shallow smirk hitched across his face and something cold and callous and thoroughly amused in his eyes.

By the time Malfoy - with Crabbe and Goyle on either side of him - sits down across from them, about half the table is full, plates of breakfast have started appearing, and Evans still hasn't looked up from his reading.

Malfoy - much less subtle - shoots something sulky and resentful with just a dash of fear down the table and mutters, "Doesn't even know how to sit properly."

Theo really does roll his eyes this time, although he makes sure to do it down at his scone. Before anyone can say anything else though, Evans unexpectedly straightens, his attention finally lifting from his book. Malfoy immediately stiffens as well like he thinks Evans had heard him from all the way down the table, which Theo wouldn't put past Evans's ability but also doesn't think that Evans thinks that Malfoy is worth that effort to eavesdrop on.

Evans looks around, but not at any of the Slytherins. He cranes his head over one shoulder, seems to catch sight of whatever he's looking for, and gets up, shutting his book and tossing it back in his bag. Then he's making his way across the Hall, past the Hufflepuffs and the Ravenclaws, straight over to the Gryffindor table that's only partially filled at the moment but is also hosting the Golden Trio, who had just come down for breakfast.

Evans stops a few feet away, and Longbottom, Weasley, and Granger turn to face him. What Theo can see of their expressions indicate that they're surprised and a little wary, but they also seem like they know each other. They converse about something, Weasley makes some exaggerated hand gestures, Granger smacks him, and then Evans says something else that makes the Gryffindors burst into laughter, startled but bright.

And then Evans moves forward and-

-sits down.

At the Gryffindor table.

Longbottom and Granger are smiling, and even Weasley - with his hatred for everything Slytherin - seems fine with it, going back to plating more food for himself while passing some sausages over to Evans.

In Theo's peripheral, Malfoy's face has lost so much colour that he could pass for a ghost. Theo can't tell if he's just that offended or if he's actually managed to comprehend the fact that he's already alienated possibly the most magically powerful student at Hogwarts from Slytherin House, to the point where that student doesn't even want to eat at the same table as them, and classes haven't even started yet.

Theo can't tell, nor does he care, but if he'd ever needed any more reasons to despise Draco Malfoy, this would be it.

He averts his gaze from Evans, even if the mere thought of him preferring a bunch of Gryffindors - and those Gryffindors at that; the only ones worse would be Potter's lot - over his own House is… grating. But staring isn't going to win Theo any favours and might just tick Evans off. Besides, there are plenty of others who have noticed a Slytherin sitting with Gryffindors, and they're staring enough for ten of him.

He starts on his breakfast. School has just begun. There's plenty more time in the future to observe Hadrian Evans.

-0-0-0-

Within the space of a week, Theo is cautiously pleased to find that he shares all nine classes with Evans. The core subjects are mandatory of course, but in addition to Ancient Runes, Evans also takes Arithmancy, both of which Theo is also studying, and after three weeks, he gets a slightly more detailed picture of what Evans is capable of.

In class, Evans doesn't stand out, or at least not in a way most people would notice. He doesn't take the initiative to answer questions posed by the teachers, and his spells and potions aren't particularly dazzling when they're assigned practical classwork.

But every time a professor calls on him, Evans always answers correctly. Every time they have to practice a new spell, Evans doesn't clamour to be the first to show off, and he isn't the one who produces it with the most eye-catching burst of magic, but when he's asked to show his progress, he always does it exactly the way the teacher demonstrated it at the beginning of class. Even in Potions, all he does is work discreetly in the back corner on the Slytherin side of the room. He never finishes early, but he also never finishes late, never failing to turn in a textbook-perfect potion ten minutes before class ends, and a couple times, Theo catches Snape watching Evans with an inscrutable expression after the boy quietly hands in yet another flawless potion.

After three weeks, Theo can conclude that while Evans doesn't deliberately dumb himself down, and in fact is performing spectacularly across the board, he does it in such a reserved, inconspicuous manner that even most of the professors probably aren't going to notice until they've graded a good few months' worth of homework and tests.

He does it for every subject. Every single one, except Ancient Runes, and Theo is convinced that that's less because Evans didn't try, and more that… well, some brilliance just can't be hidden.

In the third week, when Babbling hands back their first assignment - Acceptables and Poors all around of course; some days, Theo isn't sure if he wants to strangle Babbling or himself, just to put himself out of the misery that is attempting to understand anything their Runes professor says - she holds Evans back at the end of class, and half the students snicker like they think he's in trouble or did so badly that even Babbling can't stand it, and it's the best joke they've ever seen. But two days later, some papers that Evans has left out on his desk while he's off doing something else, probably with his Gryffindor buddies, catch Theo's eye while he's on his way to his own desk. More specifically, the symbol of the Department of Magical Education stamped on them catches Theo's eye, and after some very hasty and very undignified neck-straining and squinting from a prudent five feet away, he more or less understands.

Babbling hadn't held Evans back because he was doing badly. Babbling had held him back because he was doing so good he would be sitting his Ancient Runes O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. exams on the twenty-third of October.

Three minutes after that revelation, Theo's still sitting somewhat dazed in his chair when Malfoy returns, Crabbe and Goyle in tow. The blond also spots the papers on Evans' desk and - after suffering day after day of, in Malfoy's increasingly belligerent opinion, being disgraced by Evans due to all the time he was spending with Gryffindors, and even three of the ones Malfoy hates most - practically lights up with a malicious sort of glee at the opportunity to get a little revenge.

He seems to have already forgotten that first night's lesson, and it hasn't even been a month yet. Sometimes, Theo is honestly baffled by Malfoy's Sorting into Slytherin. What ambition is there in a boy whose solution to everything in life is to fall back on his father and surname and family money? What cunning is there to speak of when he so often acts without even considering the option of leaving himself a way out, just in case his taunts and schemes backfire on him one day?

Or perhaps the real mystery is how he's managed to go this long without anyone telling him that the world won't always bend to his demands.

"O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. exams?" Malfoy says loudly as he wanders over to read the papers. He scoffs. "No matter how much magic he has, there's no way that's possible. He's just a fourth-year. And a halfblood! I bet he paid Babbling to sign him up for them. Everybody knows she's not all there so Evans wouldn't even have to pay her a lot to persuade her."

Theo flicks a glance at Blaise, who'd brought up the rear, a few seconds behind Malfoy, and had entered on near-inaudible footsteps in time to witness this latest snowballing disaster. The taller boy's lip curls, and his next words come out in such a nonchalant drawl that it takes a moment for Malfoy to register the bite of them, "Why would he do that though? He's not you."

Malfoy flushes an unflattering shade of red. "Zabini! That's not funny!"

Blaise's insults are always taken as jokes. Theo thinks that's the only way Malfoy can weather them, because he doesn't truly dare to cross Blaise, so even if he does know better, he still has to feign ignorance.

"It can't be possible," Malfoy repeats, turning back to the papers. "Otherwise, why hasn't he said anything about it? If it were me, I'd let everyone know! Obviously, he knows he'll fail, so he doesn't dare to spread it around."

Theo tries to wrap his mind around that logic, fails, and gives it up as a bad job.

"Then, why is he taking them?" Crabbe suddenly pipes up, blinking with a befuddled air in Malfoy's direction.

Malfoy rolls his eyes. "Obviously, Crabbe, it's to impress the Boy Who Lived. You've seen how Evans is constantly fawning over Longbottom." And there's the jealousy leaking into his voice even as it strengthens as if he's gaining confidence in his conjecture the longer he speaks. "He's still just a vulgar halfblood with subpar upbringing after all. He needs political connections if he wants to make anything of himself in our world. And Longbottom's a soft touch, and an idiot besides at everything that isn't digging in the dirt. Just trying to take the exams is probably enough to make him think Evans is a genius."

He takes another step forward, almost hovering over the desk now, childish spite tarnishing his features. "Let's see what the rest of Slytherin thinks of this. We are in the same House so Evans should look for support from real purebloods. I'll help him out."

Malfoy reaches out, and Theo goes still, staring, avid and unblinking.

(Greedy.)

Hadrian Evans does not disappoint him.

Malfoy's hand lands on the papers, and it's as if a miniature explosion takes place. There's no warning as the desk ignites with enough interlocked, interwoven, bloody intricate runes to send anyone reeling. It blankets the entire desk in layers of circles and lines and eye-watering spirals, before even those disappear in a blaze of brilliant silver light that pulses once before bursting outward and knocking Malfoy clean off his feet.

Malfoy screams as he's sent flying across the room in a tangle of flailing limbs and flapping robes. Coincidentally - or not? - he lands on his bed in a graceless upside-down heap, the bag he's still wearing smacks him in the face, and the momentum tumbles him straight over the far side of his bed and onto the floor with a final muffled thump that cuts Malfoy's shriek to a yelp.

The light disappears, along with the runes. The room goes eerily quiet, and for a long moment, nobody moves.

It's Blaise who reacts first.

He laughs.

It's enough to snap Malfoy out of his stupor. The blond scrambles to right himself, pushing to his feet, fury and humiliation writ large across his face as he opens his mouth to shout, "Shut up, Zabini! Wait until my father hears about this! Evans will regret-"

There's a clatter. The door opens.

Malfoy shuts up so fast Theo wouldn't be surprised if he bit his tongue.

Evans steps inside, and then stops. He looks around, looks at his desk, looks at a still dishevelled and increasingly pallid Malfoy, and then he shuts the door behind him and heaves a very deep sigh.

"Seriously?" He asks in rhetorical tones. "I just went to borrow a library book. I couldn't have been gone for more than thirty minutes."

Nobody says anything. Evans sighs again before striding over to his desk. He raises a hand and combs his fingers through the air— or perhaps something only he could see, and that's proven correct as a runic array shimmers into existence, swirling together before reshaping itself into-

-a memory.

Specifically, it's a replay of everything Malfoy had said and done as soon as he'd gotten within three feet of Evans' belongings, complete with sound and colour. It's basically a pensieve without the pensieve or the removal of memories to supply it.

Theo wants so badly that his teeth ache with the leashed desire to ask a million questions immediately.

Patience, he reminds himself.

"Hm," Evans says once the memory's run its course, and the runes wisp away once more. Theo is both surprised and not when the other boy proceeds to pull out his chair, sit down, and dig out his library book, clearly intent to continue his work.

Behind him, Malfoy seethes, and before he can think better of it, or he simply doesn't think, he barks out, "Do you think you can treat me this way, Evans? Do you know who my father is? When I tell him about this-"

"Tell him then," Evans interjects, leaning back to slant a cool look at Malfoy. "Tell him you tried to steal my things, and my wards tossed you onto your bed, and the only thing it really bruised was your ego. Or you can lie and make up something that would make you more of a victim, and big bad mudblood Hadrian Evans bullied you terribly. What's the worst that could happen? Expulsion?" He huffs a laugh, and as far as Theo can tell, the thread of mirth that laces the sound is astonishingly sincere. "Malfoy, I don't actually care. I don't need Hogwarts."

He really doesn't. Worse comes to worst, which other school would be daft enough to not scoop him up if they see what he can do with runes? And that's not even getting into everything else he can do. Any school would accept him in a heartbeat and then laugh themselves to tears if Lucius Malfoy actually managed to get him ejected from Britain's sphere of influence on some trumped up charges just because his son went crying to him. Besides, since Evans had been previously homeschooled, he could always just return to that as well.

Malfoy opens his mouth, then closes it, and he does that a couple times, eyes wide in his face like he's never met anyone who has stonewalled him this way, who has challenged his authority so directly, more than once, and yet remains utterly unintimidated and untouchable.

Evidently, he never has.

Evans regards him for a few seconds more before sighing once more. "I thought I was clear enough that first night, but apparently not. When I say 'attack', I don't just mean with a wand. All my things are off-limits unless I say otherwise, so if I were you, I would keep my hands to myself. You don't want to know what my wards will do to you if they sense intentions worse than just petty theft. I hope you won't forget again."

He holds Malfoy's faltering gaze for a moment longer before turning back to his books and papers. Malfoy stumbles back a step as if he's been physically released, and he looks like he wants to pitch a temper tantrum but also doesn't dare. In the end, he storms out of the room without even straightening his robes or smoothing back his hair, and nobody tries to stop him or go after him, not even Crabbe or Goyle, who've both retreated to their beds, shoulders hunched, almost bowed, angled almost in Evans' direction.

Evans is already poring over his library book though, quill in one hand, inkwell set out, fresh parchment beside it. It's clear he's done interacting with the lot of them.

Theo almost lets it go, as he has every other time he wants to speak to Evans, to ask him questions, to know. He's already biting his tongue and swallowing down the words and opening his bag to fish out his homework.

Except-

It's been three weeks. Theo can be patient when he has to be, but more and more, it's… starting to feel like he doesn't have to be. He's had an entire childhood's worth of practice at dissecting emotions, at looking at a person's face and words and actions and taking all of them into account to figure out how they really feel, if they're angry at him or upset with him, if they're about to lash out even when they're smiling, or if there's still time to appease them even if they look like they're about to go for their wand.

Evans is harder to read than most, but at the very least, Theo can tell that he doesn't get angry often. In fact, there's only ever been that one time, that first night, and even for most of that incident, Evans had only acted to secure his own safety in their dorm once it became clear that Malfoy wasn't going to leave him alone otherwise. None of it had been driven by rage, not even when he'd nearly drowned them in the undertow of his magic over that particular handful of words Malfoy had jeered at him. And ever since then, Evans hasn't done anything except go about his business while ignoring theirs. That went for the rest of Slytherin too, and even some students in other Houses who don't like the fact that he's a Slytherin. Sometimes, they make snide remarks, usually behind his back, sometimes within his hearing range, and to a man, every student in their House has openly shunned him since he went to sit with the Golden Trio that first breakfast, but Evans has never given them a second glance, or really even a first glance, not out of anger or embarrassment or distress, and certainly not out of any desire for them to accept him, which just seems to offend them even more. But Evans is simply… indifferent to it all.

Most importantly, as much as Theo has been able to conclude, Evans isn't prone to violence. He always seems calm and easygoing when he's with the Golden Trio, and quiet the rest of the time. And from the very beginning, he's never done anything to harm any fellow Slytherins, not even Malfoy. Even his wards seem to have some kind of function worked into them that would rate the level of threat first and only respond with the same degree of damage.

Actually, not the same— if Malfoy had been caught taking another Slytherin's documents without permission, important or not, it wouldn't be too much even if they cursed his hands in return. They probably wouldn't, because it's Malfoy, and people are used to being more lenient with him, but normally, even Malfoy wouldn't do something that gauche anyway. No matter how much they've spoiled him, his parents have at least taught him pureblood etiquette. He's never even tried to rifle through Theo's belongings.

Admittedly, Theo had committed a slight faux pas as well when his curiosity had prompted him to read those Ministry forms, even if they were laid out on Evans' desk - unintentionally seeing them in passing was fine but the polite thing to do would've been to keep walking - but at least he hadn't been stupid enough to get too close, let alone put a single finger on them. Malfoy really only has his own poor impulse control to blame for going too far yet again, and Theo has every right to judge him for it.

Although since it was Evans, Malfoy had probably categorized him as someone who doesn't deserve a pureblood's courtesy.

Even then though, Evans hadn't retaliated with anything more than the ward equivalent of a watered down Knockback Jinx, which is basically a common prank amongst rowdier students. Malfoy's pride had - once again - been hurt, but nothing else, even when it would've been Evans' right. And he hadn't gotten angry this time either.

Of course, Theo isn't foolish enough to think Evans isn't capable of violence when he wants to be. If he's pushed far enough, Theo is certain that the other boy could and would inflict some significant damage that would at least end with a visit to the Hospital Wing. Perhaps it was his magic, the relentless weight of it that said it wouldn't hesitate to crush them if they proved themselves a real threat. Or perhaps it was Evans himself, who looks at Malfoy after each stunt like he's putting up with a recalcitrant child that he has to go easy on because said child is too young to know better, except the detachment in his gaze also says that he's weighing Malfoy's age on a scale and waiting for the day his youth will no longer be able to compensate for his actions.

Frankly, Theo hopes that day will come soon. But that's his pettiness talking, and Malfoy in general is none of his concern. What Theo really wants is to learn all those things for himself. Well, not all, he's more than self-aware enough to know he's nowhere near as powerful as Evans, but some of those things - the spellwork, the runes - surely those things can be taught to others even if they don't have incredible amounts of magic? Even if it's slow-going and difficult, Theo isn't afraid to work for it.

So long as he learns even just a little of what Evans knows - and he clearly knows so much, knows the things that can actually be useful in real life - then perhaps, one day, maybe even before he graduates Hogwarts… escaping his father won't be a fool's hope anymore. And if there's a chance that he can do that, then no matter how exorbitant the price Evans names, Theo would be willing to pay it, even if it takes him the rest of his life to honour the debt.

But nothing's going to happen if they're not even on speaking terms. It's been three weeks. Already three weeks. Only three weeks. Maybe it really is still too soon, but at the very least, Theo doesn't think Evans will do anything worse than say no.

At his back, he can feel Blaise's eyes on him, but he doesn't turn around.

"Is that-" His voice doesn't crack, thankfully, but it comes out croakier than normal, giving away his nervousness. He bites back the urge to hex himself and tries again. "Is that taught by the time we graduate?"

Evans… doesn't react, doesn't even look up. For several tense and increasingly awkward seconds, Theo thinks maybe the other boy will just continue ignoring him, or maybe he even thinks Theo is speaking to one of the others, not him.

But then he writes something down and flips a page of his book, and then he raises his head and shifts away from his desk to face Theo.

It's a little daunting, to suddenly have that piercing bright green regard aimed straight at him, but there's also no hostility that Theo can see, and that settles some of his nerves.

Evans looks at him, then frowns, then asks in return, blunt, but amazingly, willingly enough, "You mean the wards?"

Theo nods carefully, making sure he doesn't look too eager or too demanding. Masters of their trades are always rightfully reticent about their knowledge and skills to anyone who isn't their own mentor or apprentice, unless they're a teacher. Evans may not be a master signed and sealed and authorized to practice, but nobody who can write the exams at fourteen can be considered an amateur.

Evans shrugs. "I haven't exactly flipped through the Ancient Runes syllabus of every year so I can't really say. If it continues at the same pace as third-year and fourth-year though, then probably not. You'd maybe get to the point of basic wards, but not much more than that. Compound wards like these-" He raps his knuckles against his own desk. "-put crudely, requires the use of runic coils to weave together multiple basic arrays, on multiple levels, in varying sequential order depending on how multifaceted you want the wards to be. It's not that difficult once you start getting some practice in, but from what I hear, you guys don't even begin practical work until after your O.W.L., which… I don't really get, but maybe Hogwarts is big on theoretical learning. But yeah, at that rate, I don't see how you could be constructing something like this by graduation."

Theo's head is spinning. He didn't understand… anything in that summary except perhaps a general idea of "basic arrays". It's rare for him to feel so stupid.

Evans is still watching him, and he doesn't seem impatient for their exchange to be over, or irritated that it's taking place at all. He looks like he's waiting for Theo to reply, so Theo hurries on to keep the conversation afloat.

"So you didn't learn Runes following the Hogwarts curriculum when you were homeschooled," He surmises. "Does that mean the standards here fall short of the international schools?"

It wouldn't be the first time. Britain's educational requirements have been growing more and more lenient for years. Correspondingly, their elective options have also been reduced to four due to budget cuts and lack of interest in anything harder than petting animals and making up death predictions. Every year, more second-years choose to sign up for Care and Divination than they do Arithmancy or Runes. It's one reason why the number of incoming students has been gradually declining and consists of more muggleborns than purebloods. Foreign schools are strict about accepting any children outside of their designated countries, but those in Great Britain and Ireland who want better for their kids and can afford the higher prices tend to prefer sending them to one international school or another instead of Hogwarts.

But Evans shakes his head. "I wouldn't know that either. I didn't really follow any official curriculum when I was learning." He pauses a beat, like he's thinking about how much to reveal, or even why he's revealing anything, but then he seems to decide it doesn't much matter. "The person who taught me was a bit… unconventional about it. He was a very good teacher, but he wasn't actually a teacher with the degree and whatever else you need to be a Ministry-approved professor, so he didn't really care about following some checklist of what a student attending a magical school was supposed to learn. Plus he was kind of a genius at runes. Ward-cracking and disassembly in particular since that's what he majored in - he was a Curse-Breaker - but he was pretty good at almost everything else too, which meant he found the basic stuff pretty boring. So when he taught me, and he realized I didn't have any trouble getting the foundations down, and I could mostly keep up even when he skipped ahead to more advanced stuff, he basically ended up just jumping between the subjects he liked most, filled in any gaps along the way, and gave me free rein to research whatever I found interesting. And whatever topic I picked was the one he lectured on, or helped me look up if it was one of the few areas he didn't know much about."

His expression turns wry, if only for a moment. "Apparently though, according to Babbling, that means there's nothing left for Hogwarts to teach me. But I don't know how I would compare to students in other schools."

He finishes and falls silent. It's the most he's said since that first night, and it's clear as day that whoever this Curse-Breaker tutor was, Evans respects him a great deal, great enough to ramble on about him to a roomful of near-strangers, and considering what he'd had a hand in molding Evans into, he deserves every bit of that respect too.

Theo envies it. He is oft a creature of envy, and it hollows him out a little more every time it rears its head, but he's resigned to it. He wonders why Hogwarts can't have a teacher like Evans' instead of the whimsical mess that is Babbling, who can never get through a single class without her train of thought wandering away like an untrained dog off its leash.

"Then," Theo continues, carefully neutral, carefully watching for any signs of displeasure on Evans' face. "Once you pass your exams, will you simply have an extra study period slot? Or will you be required to attend another elective?"

Evans blinks at him. "The first, I think. I might see if it's possible to take an owl-distance university course or something, but spare time in my day isn't bad either."

"Then," Theo forges on, watching as Evans's mouth twists a little, like he knows that this is what Theo has been aiming for from the beginning. Theo can't tell if he disapproves though - he doesn't think so - and it's too late to divert his course anyway. "What do you think about tutoring?"

Evans cocks an eyebrow. He doesn't say anything for several anxiety-inducing seconds, just scrutinizing Theo with a face blank enough to rival Snape's when he bothers to stop sneering. The quill in Evans' hand taps-taps-taps against his desk before the boy swings around in his chair completely to face Theo.

"Tutoring," He repeats. "You want me to tutor you in Ancient Runes?"

And at least he doesn't sound derisive, nor does he put any particular emphasis on any part of that question. It does make it harder for Theo to gauge how he should respond though.

"Yes," He confirms, because straightforward seems to be what Evans prefers. He thinks, briefly, of including Blaise, but he doesn't actually know if Blaise would like tutoring as well, and even if he does, Blaise can ask for himself. Theo isn't that charitable, and Blaise might even take offense if he tries to be.

"I can compensate you for your time," He adds, because he's poor by pureblood standards, but not so poor that he can't afford decent education, especially with the nest egg he's been secretly building on the side since he turned eight and realized his inheritance was only going to get smaller at the rate his father was drawing from it for his… extracurriculars. His seven years at Hogwarts at least have already been paid for, robes and supplies and even some pocket money included, because even Silas Nott isn't going to let his son go into public at even more of a disadvantage than he already is. So as long as Evans doesn't ask for a huge sum of money, or even if he does, and he's willing to take part of that payment in favours, then Theo should have enough from his own funds to cover the cost.

Evans leans back in his seat and doesn't say anything about payment. Instead, he looks almost puzzled as he asks, "Why do you need tutoring though? Even if you want to learn stuff like this," He motions at his desk. "I wouldn't be able to even start teaching you how until you got at least the basics down, and that's what Hogwarts teaches, so is there any point in getting more of the same lessons from me?"

For a moment, even Theo can't come up with a way to say 'yes, because Babbling can't teach worth a damn, and I don't actually know how I passed last year but I definitely won't this year with the way her lectures keep getting lost somewhere between class and Atlantis every bloody week' but in more polite terms, if only because Evans might not appreciate anyone badmouthing her since she's obviously the one vouching for Evans' qualifications in order to let him take his exams so early.

Fortunately, Blaise has no such compunctions.

"Have you seen the way Babbling teaches?" The other boy enquires in his usual lackadaisical tone, just aggrieved enough to sound invested, but mild enough to leech the provocation out of it. It also gives Blaise a foot in through the door, drawing Evans' attention to him without making it seem as if he's interrupting.

Theo glances behind him at where Blaise is now lounging in his own desk chair, emptying his bag of textbooks and papers even as he glances over to meet Evans' gaze, and his expression has eased into an invitation to commiserate over Babbling's questionable teaching methods. All of it is designed to look casual and cordial, to keep this fragile first exchange lighthearted, if also full of a resigned sort of exasperation, funnelled together in order to lower Evans' guard.

And it seems to work too, like it does with everyone Blaise turns his charms on. At the very least, the way Evans' mouth quirks in response looks reflexive enough to be genuine.

"That's fair," Evans concedes, a wry sort of humour suffusing his voice. "She's not the best at… staying on topic."

Theo has to suppress a snort, but something of it must show on his face anyway because Evans' eyes snap back to him, and a moment later, a quicksilver grin flits across the other's face, bright in a way that lights up his whole face, and perhaps Blaise will have to try harder after all because Theo realizes that this is what genuine looks like on Evans.

"Okay, I get why you might want a tutor," Evans acknowledges. "But isn't there anyone better for that?"

Theo blinks at him. "Better than someone who's ready to take his exams in a month?"

Evans' eyebrows go up briefly, and something in his eyes sharpens. "No. Better than someone who's a halfblood orphan in Slytherin, stuck in a one-sided grudge-match with a pureblood brat who has all the maturity of a toddler and isn't going to be very happy if his friend starts hanging around the guy he wants to curse into the Hospital Wing."

Orphan? is Theo's first thought, followed by, I wish Malfoy was around to hear that. But all of it is superseded by a defiance that bursts out of him before he can curb it, "We're not friends."

Evans waves a hand. "Yeah, yeah, I know, Slytherins don't have friends. What I mean is-"

"No," Theo says, wincing internally at how he'd cut Evans off mid-sentence. "I mean, we aren't friends. Normally, we aren't even civil acquaintances most days."

Evans eyes him for a long moment like he can hear all the things Theo isn't saying. Theo's pretty sure Evans doesn't know about his family's circumstances - How would he? Why would he even care to look it up? - but he seems to be able to glean at least the gist of it in a single glance because he seems to accept it easily enough, and the next thing he says is, "Alright, but that doesn't change the fact that he's still not going to be happy about it."

"Good," Theo says, once again before he can stop himself, and with more relish than he should convey. Even if he's often thought that anything that made Malfoy unhappy was a good thing, he's certainly never expressed it out loud. He doesn't know what's come over him, only that there's something about the way Evans is watching him, patient and without judgement, that makes him… bolder than he normally would be.

And since he's already opened his mouth, he might as well keep going.

"So long as you're willing, I don't mind what other people might say," Theo says as firmly as he knows how to be. "I need to raise my grades for Ancient Runes before I take my OWLs next year or I'm never going to pass. I would appreciate any tutoring you can spare the time for." He hesitates, but only for a beat. "If you want, in addition to monetary compensation, I can also snub Malfoy at dinner somehow. And you would know it wouldn't just be some show we put on either. Malfoy doesn't have it in him to be humiliated in public, even as a stunt."

It's far more outspoken and far more audacious than Theo is accustomed to being, and he can feel Blaise's eyes on him again. But he gets the impression that if he doesn't put his cards on the table - that he really does want to learn from Evans, that it's his main motivation, even if it isn't the only one - then Evans might think Theo is playing some kind of trick on him, possibly on Malfoy's orders, and that's the last thing Theo wants him to believe.

Besides, this is also an opportunity. Theo had been resigned to living under Malfoy's temperamental rule for the duration of his Hogwarts career. It wasn't as if he wouldn't be doing more of the same as an adult, after all. Considering the difference in their social status, Theo would still have to bow his head, and jump when told to jump, and remain courteously - or at least forbearingly - deferential in front of Malfoy whenever they see each other. At least this more childish version at school is giving him plenty of practice for the future.

But now, there is Hadrian Evans, whose existence no one had expected and no one thus far can control, who isn't afraid of Malfoy, whom Malfoy is afraid of instead, and Theo honestly can't see that changing. Of course, the real world is very different from some squabbles between teenagers, and Theo has only known Evans for less than a month. But… call it instinct. Even if one day the Malfoy family can really make it so that Evans can no longer live well in Britain, Theo gets the sense that the other boy would rather up and move to a different country than ever submit to anyone.

People with inborn power like Evans won't bow. They don't know how to.

And if Theo can get even a fraction of that protection that openly siding with Evans might earn him, then the choice is obvious. He's long known that he isn't powerful enough or ambitious enough or even brave enough to stand on his own. That in order to thrive, or even to simply live a satisfactory life, it would be best to choose someone's shadow to settle in. Preferably, that someone would be willing enough to leave Theo alone most of the time and wouldn't ask too much of him, but he already knows he wouldn't be able to get that from his father or Malfoy.

Then, there's no point clinging to either of them. Before, there had been no other choices, and between his father and Malfoy, Malfoy was the better bet, though it wasn't as if the blond ponce could've gotten him out from under Silas Nott's thumb either. But at least being - loosely - affiliated with Malfoy would, in the future, offer Theo some protection from his father's obsessive tendencies. It wouldn't do for one of Malfoy's circle of acquaintances to disappear under mysterious circumstances after all.

Now there's a new player on the field. Of course, Evans probably doesn't see himself as one, and wouldn't care even if he knew. But that doesn't change the fact that his shadow casts a long and looming line, and somehow, it feels more like a refuge than anyone else's Theo has ever come across. Evans might not be willing to protect him, if only because he would have to make himself known to do so, and if there's one thing Evans has shown over the past few weeks, it's that he much prefers staying in the background. But even if he isn't willing to protect Theo, at the very least, he can teach Theo how to protect himself. So, Theo might as well take his chances with Evans, and the first step in doing that is to make it very clear to all and sundry that he's throwing his lot in with the halfblood Slytherin transfer.

He hadn't quite been prepared to go this far when he'd first decided to speak to Evans today, but doing things by half measures doesn't bode well for him either. Prevaricating or at least being vaguer about his intentions might leave him an extra hand to play, a way to retreat in case associating with Evans becomes too dangerous one day, but no one likes a fence-sitter.

In Slytherin, every decision is a power play, whether it seems like it or not. An insignificant word or action might result in large consequences that aren't always obvious until the waves and ripples have settled. And Theo's never been much of a gambler, preferring safety over potential riches. But the things he can learn from Evans are too tempting to pass over. Put in plain terms, he's technically using Evans as a means to an end, which no one in Slytherin wouldn't approve of, but for a good chunk of this House, Evans' blood would definitely outweigh any usefulness he might have, especially since he hasn't publicly proven himself in any way at all. And the way he spends all his free time with Gryffindors hardly helps.

Still, it's a risk Theo's willing to take. And now the Quaffle is in Evans' hands, and all that's left is to wait for his answer.

Of course, if Evans says no, then Theo can only hope Blaise is feeling magnanimous today and won't go spreading this little story around. Then again, there's Crabbe and Goyle too, and they'll definitely tell Malfoy, so it will get out either way.

Such is Slytherin, where the only shared secret you can trust to remain a secret is when all other parties are dead.

In front of him, Evans only raises his eyebrows for a moment before amusement quirks one corner of his mouth. "Well you don't have to go that far."

Theo can't tell if the other boy understands the implications of publicly cutting ties with Malfoy, but he's relieved to hear it anyway. He'd do it if it's a condition Evans sets, if only to alleviate any concerns Evans might have of being played, but it's not as if he wants to do it. He would happily see Malfoy humiliated any day of the week, but Theo is at heart an introverted person. Open confrontation of any kind will always make him uncomfortable.

Evans studies him for a while longer as if weighing his sincerity. Eventually, he says, "I'm not opposed to tutoring. Actually, I'm already doing that for Hermione every Wednesday and Saturday. Adding one more doesn't make much of a difference. It's just that I don't love tutoring so much that I want to do it more than twice a week. So," He smiles, and this time, his expression is one of a sharp sort of curiosity. "If you want me to tutor you, then you'll have to be okay with Hermione. And I don't just mean tolerating her presence enough to sit at the same table as her. I mean if you say one bad word about her blood, I'll take that as an attack on me and react accordingly. Understand?"

Theo blinks once, twice, digesting that ultimatum with something like disbelief because- "Is that all?" And then, because it couldn't possibly be that easy, he hastily tacks on, "How much would you like to be paid?"

Evans blinks back at him, looking like he's re-evaluating Theo on the spot. Then he makes a dismissive gesture and says, "I'm not short on money. Also I don't make Hermione pay so it wouldn't be fair if I made you pay." He sits back with a finality that starts bringing an end to their conversation. "Wednesdays and Saturdays, 4-6pm in the library. I know we share all the same classes so that shouldn't be a problem for you. Showing up isn't mandatory, you can just come whenever you want, and I'll tutor you in whatever you need help with. My only condition is that you treat Hermione with basic respect. Of course," His mouth twists into a strange smile. "That goes for her too. And her friends if they happen to stop by."

Theo has to suppress a grimace at that, but it's mostly out of reflexive distaste. Even if Weasley starts flinging insults, he's sure he's heard worse than anything a Gryffindor could come up with, and his tolerance is high, so it doesn't much matter whether Evans can prevent it or not. Actually, it's already pretty novel that he would try at all. This is by far the easiest and weirdest deal Theo has ever been offered, which only makes him that much more suspicious, but Evans also adds no other terms, so Theo is forced to conclude that this really is all Evans wants from him.

The sheer unfairness of what each party is bringing to the table is jarring. Does Evans not understand what's happening here or is he seriously willing to offer up his time and knowledge on a silver platter at basically no cost?

Part of Theo wants to ask again, to make sure Evans really doesn't want anything else, but since they've come to this point, even if Evans were to ask for something in the future, Theo would have no obligation to give it. It's admittedly somewhat uncomfortable, to receive so much in exchange for giving back so little when he wasn't even the one manipulating Evans towards this outcome, but at the same time, wouldn't he just be stupid if he keeps pushing the issue? Complaining about not having to spend any money or owe any favours seems rather counterproductive, and even though Theo is willing to pay for a chance like this, that doesn't mean he wants to if he doesn't have to. Of course, he supposes it isn't very honourable of him to not at least insist on some form of compensation, but that's why Theo isn't a Gryffindor.

So then.

"Very well, I agree to your terms," Theo says, letting himself relax a bit more when Evans' expression doesn't change. And because even a Slytherin should acknowledge genuine goodwill, he shoves past his own discomfort and manages, if a bit stiffly, "Thank you, Evans."

Evans makes a face that's something left of embarrassed. "It's just tutoring, you don't have to be so formal. Besides, you're still the one who's going to have to put up with Malfoy pitching a fit once he finds out."

Theo almost shrugs. That's not anything new. He might have to field some curses hurled his way once other Slytherins realize he's no longer under Malfoy's "protection" and is seen spending time with a halfblood, but it's not as if he has no way of protecting himself from most spells that a student can get away with using in public at Hogwarts. He already has a few family wards set up around his bed too, so Malfoy can't get to him while he's asleep, and the only time he spends in the Common Room is when he's crossing it to leave the Dungeon or return to his dorm, so his Housemates aren't likely to be able to corner him there either. So long as he's careful, he'll be fine.

Blaise's voice cuts into his thoughts, speaking this time with the lightest touch of concern seeping out from behind a thin veil of indifference that would've fooled even Theo if Theo didn't know the way Blaise can change his approach like he's changing clothes depending on his assessment of the person he's talking to. "You sure you don't need to ask Granger first before letting a Slytherin join your tutoring sessions? She might not be too happy to have Theo there. And her friends definitely won't."

Evans' attention shifts again, and as with Theo, his gaze is neither friendly nor hostile, but it's different all the same in a way Theo can't quite name. "Is that my problem?"

The room is quiet for a beat.

Evans smiles, careless, casual. "I'm the one doing the teaching. Who I teach should be up to me, shouldn't it?"

Blaise stares, unblinking, hands finally gone still. "Aren't those Gryffindors your friends though?"

"Sure," Evans agrees. "Still doesn't mean they get to tell me what to do just because they're biased against Slytherins." He shakes his head. "I doubt it'll be much of a problem though. Like you said, they're my friends, and aren't I a Slytherin too?"

Nobody says what Theo is certain they're all thinking— that in many ways, Evans isn't anything like your average Slytherin.

(And in others, Evans is the very epitome of one, but the Golden Trio probably doesn't know that, do they?)

"Are you saying other Slytherins are welcome in your tutoring sessions then?" Blaise says next, and it's the most straightforward Theo has ever seen him, skipping at least three prevarications and five backhanded compliments that Theo could've sworn Blaise would normally include just because he doesn't know any other way to speak. Apparently not.

Except Evans' response is to huff a breath that sounds like laughter, except not in any way they've heard before, not as amicable, and Theo sees Blaise's smile grow a little fixed.

If they were in the business of distributing vices, then excessive hubris would undoubtedly go to Malfoy, but only because Blaise doesn't have the same reckless self-defeating habit of flaunting what he has everywhere and retaliating like a rabid lapdog the moment he feels slighted, the latter of which is helped along by the fact that he doesn't hold many people in high enough esteem for them to offend him. After all, you wouldn't get mad if a ghost or a goblin or even a house-elf - as unlikely as that is - is rude to you, would you? At most, you'd punish the latter and move along with your day. And for those who do register enough as people in Blaise's eyes, well, Blaise far prefers retaliating when the other party least expects it.

It's the same now, in the way Blaise blinks twice rapidly but doesn't otherwise react. Of course, since this is Evans, he won't be able to retaliate later either, not with any kind of success, so it's doubly impressive that the other boy manages to keep his pride nailed down and tucked away.

"You know," Evans says lazily, mirth or perhaps mockery gleaming in his eyes. "You could just ask. Take a leaf out of Theo's book; it wastes less time."

Because even Blaise's straightforwardness needs to take a stroll or two around the block first, and apparently, Evans had caught onto that possibly since the first time Blaise had opened his mouth since this conversation began.

Blaise's lips thin, but after a moment of no doubt weighing the pros and cons, he shrugs gracefully like it doesn't sting and asks, "Then, may I join your tutoring sessions, Evans? I would also appreciate some assistance with my Ancient Runes studies. Of course, I will abide by the terms you've set as well."

Theo listens and wonders just how much self-control those three sentences took. Before today, he hadn't even known Blaise was capable of it, and the fact that he is, for this, actually says a lot more about his regard for Evans than Theo had realized even just a minute ago.

At least Evans doesn't make it harder for Blaise than that.

"Sure," The other boy acquiesces with the air of a predator sitting back on its haunches. "On your own head though."

At this, a trace of a smirk - his real one, beatific in its cruelty, instead of his regular fit-for-public one - cuts across Blaise's face for the span of a heartbeat. "No problem."

Evans levels another long look at him before shaking his head with another twist of a smile. "Okay then. We're all good now?" He looks from Blaise to Theo and even spares half a glance in Crabbe and Goyle's direction before nodding, satisfied. "Fantastic. Back to work for me."

He spins back around to face his desk, reaching for his quill, and the rest of the day passes as usual, without another word traded between them, even when they all get up for dinner. Malfoy comes back shortly before that, stalking over to his section of the dorm with the mulish single-minded intensity of someone unwilling to even acknowledge Evans' existence, although that probably won't last once he finds out what Theo and Blaise have agreed to.

Later, in private, Theo remarks to Blaise, "I didn't expect you to care so much about your Ancient Runes grades."

Blaise slants an indecipherable look at him even as a shallow smile stretches the width of his mouth. "Who wouldn't care about their grades when someone's offering to help raise them for free?"

It's a rhetorical question and answers approximately nothing, but Theo wasn't expecting anything of substance anyway.

Besides, when it comes down to it, he supposes it's not so surprising that Blaise can also see which way the wind is blowing, hard enough to tell anyone with decent enough instincts that a major shift in power is imminent.

And no one likes a fence-sitter.

-0-0-0-

Hadrian would like it to be known that he isn't quite sure how he's gotten to this point in his life.

Well, that's a lie, he sort of knows, or at least he can pinpoint all the decisions that got him from Point A to Point B, but he supposes he just wasn't expecting a couple Slytherins whom he'd always assumed - even back in his original world - were just Malfoy's lackeys in school, to commit, and commit hard. They hadn't even participated in the war on either side, as far as he was aware— Nott had died relatively early on under mysterious circumstances, and Zabini had by all accounts returned to his home country. To Hadrian, they'd been little more than faces in the background that he'd never even exchanged five words with in total before coming to this world.

But within the first week after they've asked to join his tutoring sessions, Nott and Zabini - Slytherin/Pureblood Rule Number Who-Knows-What: you can't use someone else's first name until you're invited to - make it really fucking obvious who they're… supporting? Have sided with? Because Slytherin is a nest of brewing factions and shifting alliances and political doublespeak and even a couple blood feuds, and this is precisely why Hadrian doesn't want anything to do with this House.

Except apparently, agreeing to tutor Nott and Zabini means he's… joined the power struggle? Formed his own faction? Decided to vie for in-House supremacy and possible world domination? Who knows because Hadrian sure doesn't, and he's determined not to know, because surely if he just continues doing his own thing, it'll become clear sooner or later to all and sundry that he has no interest in fighting a bunch of schoolchildren over whatever they think he wants to fight for.

It's just that he can't quite do that either, because not even three weeks after Nott and Zabini start joining him in the library every Wednesday and Saturday with a wary but accepting Hermione, something that translates to them moving their seats to sit with him in class and - when they can make it look natural, if still deliberate - walking with him in the hallways, the displeasure and animosity in Slytherin House reaches breaking point.

It's not as if Hadrian hasn't already been the target of multiple hexes and curses from his own Housemates. He's a halfblood who hangs out with Gryffindors— it's to be expected. But so far, the spells have always been in the realm of reasonable, ones that might make him trip down the stairs or rip his bag or screw up his potion, and he's been able to block or avoid them all, so he'd figured it wasn't that big a deal. He'd put the fear of a Horntail in Malfoy early on because he has to live with the berk, and he doesn't much feel like returning after a long day of classes just to have to butt heads with him every single time. But he basically has no intersections with the rest of the House, so he just hasn't bothered paying attention to any of them.

Then, perhaps rather suddenly, Nott and Zabini are there, not so much orbiting him as they do hover from afar. But they join his tutoring sessions, and they're serious about learning from him, listening earnestly and asking questions and even checking out the books he recommends they read if they have time. There are holes in even the most simple of their fundamental knowledge of Runes - Babbling, read a how-to book on teaching for Merlin's sake - so Hadrian has to more or less start from the ground up, as he had with Hermione, but both of them quickly prove themselves more than intelligent enough to keep up, and they're startling enthusiastic - by Slytherin standards - about everything he teaches them. Nott is more obvious - more ravenous - about it, but even Zabini - who likes to pretend he's only there for the novelty of it or something and therefore tends to play up a laidback sort of indifference - never fails to complete the optional exercises Hadrian writes up for them once a week.

And outside of the tutoring sessions, it's like they've decided that being tutored by him means that he's now their new Malfoy or something. Not that Malfoy was their Malfoy before, if Hadrian had understood Nott correctly, but they'd at least acted like they were part of Malfoy's groupies. Now they've done a one-eighty, and it's not as if they follow him around all the time the way Crabbe and Goyle do with Malfoy, honestly if you don't count classroom and dorm room, they're not even around him half the time, especially Zabini, but when they are around, when they move their cauldrons next to his in Potions class despite working separately, when they go down to breakfast with him despite splitting off at the entrance, when they trail behind him back to the Slytherin Dungeon after a tutoring session, they're so damn conspicuous about it that they might as well be waving neon-bright signs above their heads.

In contrast, they don't even sit next Malfoy during mealtimes anymore, much to the blond's increasing red-faced ire that vaguely resembles a Silenced teakettle on the brink of boiling over. But now they sit at the end of the Slytherin table, which Hadrian has gradually gathered that that's not a good thing, but he doesn't know how to fix it either, and neither Nott nor Zabini seems to mind.

They also talk to him now, not often, not just in private, and not just about Runes, although that does still take up the majority of their conversation topics, if only because they don't know each other that well yet. But in their dorm or in class or in the library or in the halls, sometimes, Nott would say something completely normal, like whether or not he owns an owl or if he's noticed Snape's increasingly intent attention on him or if he's found the secret passageway connecting the Dungeons to the sixth floor yet because climbing six flights of moving stairs isn't what anyone would call a good time. Zabini on the other hand prefers sharing obscure gossip that even most of Slytherin isn't aware of, sordid little secrets like whose parent has a mistress (or three) on the side that will very likely cause an inheritance problem down the road, who killed a cousin over the summer due to jealousy but has done a decent enough job of covering it up as an accident because said cousin had been the heir apparent, and even who had to go to Pomfrey for an Abortion Charm just last week but will likely have to break her betrothal contract - and consequently have her magic bound, as per the terms of said contract - in the future anyway because there's no hiding the loss of her virginity from the olde family magicks no matter how frantically she searches for a way.

To the former, Hadrian responds the way he would if Neville or Ron or Hermione were to ask him similar questions. To the latter, he says, "You have serious issues, Zabini."

Nott never smiles, but his body language is a little less closed off and his eyes look a little less hunted with every random conversation they have. Zabini is almost always smiling, and in response to Hadrian's incredulity, he only laughs like it's the grandest joke he's ever heard.

They grow on him, is the thing. One's probably abused at home, and the other is honestly half a psychopath already, and Hadrian shouldn't care but he's always had a bit of a soft spot for broken people, people who don't quite fit in no matter how well they fake it, people who remind him of himself. And the war he'd survived had only served to destroy what little compunctions he'd ever had about getting too close to dangerous things.

So they grow on him, day by day, and half a month in, the other Slytherins apparently can't handle it anymore.

Hadrian's just coming back from dinner. Nott and Zabini are with him, having joined him once he'd bid Neville, Ron, and Hermione goodnight. They're halfway across the common room when Hadrian catches movement in his peripheral, and he has half a second to decide what to do, to abort the reflex to go for his wand, to cancel the shield ward sparking at his fingertips, to pivot around on the spot and abruptly swing himself right into Nott's personal space, which means Nott immediately puts on the brakes, and - behind him - Zabini has to do the same.

Hadrian senses more than feels the curse that grazes the back of his robes and splashes against the far wall between a pair of suspiciously empty armchairs in an area that's normally a popular hangout spot. There's no sound, but out of the corner of his eye, he sees the way it oozes a sickly viscous purple that puddles to the ground and eats straight through the carpet before finally evaporating into nothing.

He doesn't turn his head, doesn't challenge anyone into a duel the way his hands are itching to do. Instead, even before the spell disappears, he's already asking, "Did you copy down the Potions assignment from today? I just remembered I forgot."

In front of him, Nott's turned three shades whiter, and he's already pale-skinned to begin with, so he obviously recognizes the spell. Zabini clearly does as well if the way he's gone gargoyle-still is anything to go by.

If they'd continued walking, that curse would've hit Nott right in the ribcage. His left ribcage.

A beat of silence passes. Then Nott takes a breath and answers in a voice that doesn't waver but is even more inflectionless than usual. "Yes, I wrote it down. I can show you."

"Cool, thanks, let's go."

Nobody else speaks, nobody even moves, as Hadrian leads the way back to their dorm.

Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle aren't back yet so they have the room to themselves. As soon as the door is shut, Nott almost slumps onto his bed, hands shaking. Zabini pulls out his chair to sit, a smile hooked at one corner of his mouth, but absolutely nothing about the rest of him says amusement.

(Slytherins don't have friends, and Zabini doesn't seem to know how to have friends, but Nott's probably the closest to one that his disposition will ever allow.)

Hadrian looks from Nott to Zabini and back, and then he asks, "Who was that boy? The one surrounded by that group by the fireplace."

The one who'd fired the spell. Don't think just because a bunch of students were arranged in front of him that Hadrian had missed the way his arm had moved, the jab of a wand, the blossom of light at its tip before the curse had flown across the room. Did they think he was blind?

Nott blinks up at him, features still pinched. It's Zabini who answers, soft as silk, "Malcolm Avery, seventh-year."

Hadrian takes a moment to digest that, to press that face into his memory before filing it away for later. He focuses on his roommates again instead and presses on, "Has this sort of thing happened before?"

Because even if they're spending time with him, Nott's an old pureblood name, isn't it? And Zabini is Zabini, and everybody's heard of his mother. Even if they're shunned a bit, jeered at a bit, even hexed a bit, any serious assaults should only be aimed at Hadrian, right?

Well, apparently not. That curse earlier had been a much Darker cousin of the Bone-Vanishing Spell, a variation on the more public-friendly Bone-Breaking Curse. If Hadrian hadn't seen it coming, if he hadn't stopped Nott in time, that thing would've not only shattered the left half of Nott's ribcage but also stabbed the resulting fragments directly into the nearest organs before dissolving into the bloodstream as a lethal poison— in this case, it would've been the heart and a lung. Nott would've been dead in under a minute, drowning in his own blood in extreme pain, and it's a tossup if even Hadrian would've been able to save him.

Zabini - unsurprisingly - shakes his head. For all that he doesn't have an old bloodline to rooted in Britain, he still has enough family clout to grant him a strong backing. And that's not counting his own means of protecting himself. Hadrian had actually gotten the feeling very early on, from the moment they'd had their first conversation, and he'd only been proven right as they'd gotten to know each other a little better— Zabini has all the best traits of a quintessential Slytherin. And thereby also all of the worst. Magic-wise, Hadrian can overpower him in a second, but that's why Zabini knows not to make an enemy of him, knows how to bend and stretch and profit while he's at it. He doesn't need anyone to protect him.

Nott on the other hand doesn't reply right away, and when he does, it's an evasive, "Spells like that would be an instant expulsion from Hogwarts, especially coming from a Slytherin, and from a seventh-year, they'd go straight to Azkaban. There are portraits all over the school. I'm not stupid enough to wander into places where there aren't any."

Hadrian aims a flat look at him. "That's not what I asked."

Nott purses his lips and stares at his lap. Hadrian waits him out.

"…They've tried cornering me," Nott finally admits, grudgingly, almost resentfully. "There's no avoiding a couple areas with no portraits. But they never used a curse this Dark before, and I've always been able to slip away."

Hadrian swallows the first three things he wants to say, to shout, because at his core, he likes to think he has a long fuse, but when someone crosses his line in the sand, his temper has always been explosive and violent, which won't help here.

Besides, hadn't he more or less told these two to handle the consequences of letting him tutor them on their own? Even if they weren't Slytherins and actually had the mind to reach out for help, they probably wouldn't have come to him after what he'd said, so he has no one to blame but himself and the fact that he'd underestimated just how deep some Slytherins' senseless hatred runs.

So he breathes through his first instinct, his second, his third, and then he pushes off the desk he'd been leaning on in favour of pulling out parchment and ink and the appropriate books.

"Alright, come here," He beckons, spreading everything out on his desk. "I'm gonna teach you a Fourfold Rebounder Ward so you can wear it on you from now on. The variation I'm thinking of has a chameleon element, so it'll be both strong enough to deflect a curse on the level of the one from earlier and also camouflage it when it's bounced back at whoever attacked you. It's based off of intent too, so it won't act up in a scuffle or a practice duel or something, the other person has to really want to harm you with deadly intent, so keep your guard up for other stuff, and honestly, this should just be for emergencies, you should still try to dodge it because it's not good to grow overly dependent on stuff like this. I'm confident the runes won't fail when I'm the one making it but your reflexes will get rusty if you get lazy. It's a bit- okay, a lot more difficult than anything you're learning right now, but I'll do most of the work, you just watch and provide the magic at the end, and once your foundation is a bit more stable and we can move ahead to more interesting things, I'll come back to this first so you'll be able to learn how to do this yourselves one day."

A long silence follows. Hadrian looks up. Neither of his roommates has moved. "What's wrong?"

Another few seconds tick by. It's Zabini who gets up first, an odd smile on his face, one that Hadrian's never seen before. But all he says is, "Nothing's wrong. I was just hoping if we waited a bit, Malfoy will get back in time to see what we're doing and finally keel over from high blood pressure."

Hadrian snorts with laughter. "Get over here. If that really happened, we'd be the ones who'd have to waste time carrying him up to the Hospital Wing."

Zabini's expression says that that wouldn't be his problem but he only smirks and saunters over to Hadrian's desk with his chair. When they both turn to look, Nott is already on his feet as well. He doesn't say anything, but he looks steadier, and he's watching Hadrian with a strange gleam in his eyes that makes them look almost feverish.

They settle down around him, eager - by Slytherin standards - to learn in a way that reminds Hadrian exactly why he likes to teach.

He gets to work, explaining each step even though he knows most of it is going over their heads. That's fine though; for now, these wards just need to protect them properly, and in the future, he'll teach them how to protect themselves.

-0-

Of course, things aren't over just like that, because Hadrian's temper is an explosive and violent beast, and the only things that's changed from when he was still a teenager is the fact that he's gotten a lot sneakier about it as an adult.

They aren't friends. But Nott and Zabini are his roommates and his students and kids that he's starting to genuinely care about, and nobody gets to walk away scot-free after fucking with the people under Hadrian's care so long as he's still alive to do something about it.

Malcolm Avery is seventeen anyway. That's an adult by any magical community's measure, which means Hadrian doesn't have to hold back.

It takes a week. A week of slipping out after curfew and eavesdropping on conversations, of finding out what the seventh-year's next practical Potions class will be working on and scanning all of Avery's belongings to see what Dark spells he's been mucking about with, and finally of filching Avery's cauldron for an afternoon while he's in class and replacing it before he returns to his dorm.

When it happens, Hadrian isn't even in school. Even if he were, it wouldn't matter because he'd made sure to time everything just right, and all the fourth-years - and most of the rest of the student body too - are already in the Great Hall waiting for lunch to be served. Seventh-year Potions is in the morning block, and Avery always goes overtime when there's a practical.

Hadrian isn't even in school, sitting his Ancient Runes exams at the Ministry all day instead, but he certainly hears all about it when he gets back that evening.

A few minutes before noon, a silver doe Patronus comes bounding up from the dungeons with an urgent summons for Pomfrey, Dumbledore, and McGonagall. Nobody hears what is said, but the three staff members rush off even as the food begins to appear, and nobody hears from them again until half an hour later when whispers start going around about Healers from St. Mungo's being called and one Malcolm Avery being carried out the front doors on a stretcher because his condition is too unstable to be transported through the Floo. The professors don't really tell them anything except that there was a Potions accident, but - as these things do because the rumour mill at Hogwarts is healthier than ever, and there'd still been a few other seventh-years in class with Avery at the time - everyone more or less knows what happened anyway by the time afternoon classes start. Potions is cancelled for the rest of the day, because no one else was injured but Snape was too busy furiously documenting what had happened after running multiple diagnostic spells over the remains of Avery's cauldron to teach. Also, he has to submit said documentation and a Pensieve memory to the Aurors investigating the accident, which doesn't exactly say great things about his mood, so nobody's unhappy about being able to give Potions a miss.

Apparently, Avery had been using his cauldron to make other potions - banned potions - in his dorm room. His roommates had been willing enough to keep mum and even give him a hand, and the book he'd been learning from had been found in his trunk. Thankfully, he hadn't managed to make anything too terrible yet, and his failed attempts hadn't managed to kill anyone, but he also hadn't cleaned his cauldron properly, and so there'd been a mess of residue potion and Dark magic clinging to the metal. Coincidentally, it had ended up reacting quite badly to the potion that the seventh-years were to work on that day, and the end result was a magnificent explosion that Snape had barely managed to protect himself and the other students from in the nick of time. There'd been no helping Avery who'd been standing right next to the unholy concoction.

In the aftermath, the explosion had caused bad enough burns to disfigure Avery, but time and Healers would fix most if not all of that. Far more serious had been the potion damage to his body— the liquid had seeped right through his skin and disintegrated the majority of his left ribcage, and then it had gone on to chew even further, straight into his heart and left lung, an insidious venom that had dissolved into his bloodstream and sent him into convulsions that had wrung scream after agonized scream out of him until Pomfrey had deemed it safe enough to knock him out, although even then, his body wouldn't stop seizing from the pain.

He'd still been alive when he'd been rushed out of the castle. Word has it that he's still alive now in St. Mungo's, except the Healers have no idea how to even begin treating him. Mixing multiple failed attempts at Dark potions, most of which even Avery's own roommates couldn't list all the names of or in which order he'd made them, together with one N.E.W.T.-level potion but in an explosion that had caused the maximum amount of entropy in the magic imbued into it— Merlin himself wouldn't be able to fix it with just a wave of his wand.

By dinnertime, everybody is talking about it, and the professors have given up trying to stop them.

(In truth, the outcome probably wouldn't have been quite so serious if Hadrian hadn't added a spell to amplify the toxicity and volatility of the residue in the cauldron, as well as several looping single-use runes to hide the volcanic buildup and also bind the whole thing to Avery alone so that it wouldn't have hurt anyone else even if Snape hadn't reacted in time. Without Hadrian's interference, it would've still exploded sooner or later, but Snape might've seen the danger signs in time to evacuate everyone from the classroom, and even if he didn't, the effects of the potion on Avery probably wouldn't have been so terrible.

But then, that wouldn't have been enough. After all, lessons like these should stick.

Avery will live, but he sure won't enjoy it.)

It's almost ten by the time Hadrian gets back to the Slytherin Dungeon. Snape drops him off at the entrance before sweeping off to his own office in a dramatic billow of irritably flapping robes. He'd been at the Ministry for half the day just to piece together what had happened for them, but as Hadrian had ensured, the Potions master had been cleared of any negligence in the matter. The potion had very obviously shown no signs of exploding - three other experts had verified - and students are expected to take care of their own cauldrons from third-year onwards without the professor having to do weekly checks. Snape had been released by dinnertime, but he'd apparently decided to simply eat in the Ministry cafeteria and return with his student and Babbling, so here they are.

Except-

Just before Snape makes to leave, he turns and pins Hadrian with a long appraising look, clinical and penetrating. Hadrian stares back serenely, and maybe the fact that his mind is a steel trap wrapped around a battlefield would be highly suspect to anyone looking in, but he also doesn't feel so much as a brush of Legilimency from Snape whatsoever. The professor really is just looking at him.

It's a strange new world.

In the end, Snape doesn't say anything before walking off, and Hadrian is left to blink after him before letting himself into the common room.

Everything goes eerily silent the moment everyone realizes he's back. Even if he hadn't said anything, someone - let's be real, it's Malfoy - had spread the news of Hadrian taking his Ancient Runes exams early, so pretty much everyone had known where he'd gone today. It was never a secret though so Hadrian hadn't cared, except when he steps into the room, it's very obvious that everybody is focused on him, and just as obvious that nobody is willing to make eye-contact with him.

The younger students should've already retired for the night. At least everybody still in the common room, studying or playing chess or chatting with each other like any standard evening, are fifth-years and up, so most of these students had probably known - or had been told after the fact - exactly what that curse would've done to Theo Nott that day, and exactly who had been the one to attack him.

And everybody knows what had happened to Avery today. More specifically, they know that what had happened to him today had been an almost perfect mirror of what he'd wanted to do to Nott one week ago. Nobody here believes in coincidences, and there's only so many people who would've had the motivation to orchestrate the entire accident down to the smallest detail.

Most of them have known Nott and Zabini for at least a few years. Perhaps they're not on speaking terms, but they'd still been Housemates for a while. Something like this isn't really Nott's style, and while it is Zabini's, neither of them has the ability.

The only real unknown is Hadrian Evans, and if they still can't put the pieces together at this point, they might as well sell their brains.

The area by the fireplace, normally always occupied by Avery's group at this time, is empty today. Avery's at St. Mungo's, his roommates are in overnight lockup at the Ministry, and any who aren't but were part of Avery's faction are probably hiding up in their rooms. Nobody else has taken their seats, not even the students who usually do when Avery hasn't claimed it for the day.

Hadrian walks towards the doorway leading to the boys' dormitory, and no one stops him. It feels like the entire room is holding their breaths. Nobody speaks. Nobody even moves until Hadrian is out of earshot.

The dorm is likewise very quiet when Hadrian enters. Malfoy's bed curtains are already drawn, as are Crabbe's and Goyle's, but Zabini's are open, and he's lazing against the headboard with a book in his hands while Nott is still at his desk doing homework.

They both look up as soon as the door swings open. Zabini stays on his bed but Nott even stands up as Hadrian shuts the door behind him. His whole frame is tense with a restless sort of energy, and he's staring at Hadrian with shining eyes. They both are, although in different ways. Zabini looks equal parts ecstatic and hungry, while Nott just looks the kind of deeply confused and deeply grateful that makes Hadrian want to set fire to someone, preferably whoever stitched this very expression into Nott's range of emotions out of the pieces they'd torn from him.

Nobody says anything right away. Hadrian squints at them as he makes his way to his own bed, feeling vaguely perturbed, because he hadn't truly expected them to not connect what happened to Avery back to him, but he hadn't thought they would be so fixated on it either. Maybe a roundabout tactful thank-you from Nott, an offer of a favour at most. But not… this, whatever this is.

He laments the fact that these two aren't more stupid when it comes to this sort of thing. Ron would be oblivious. Hermione would be determinedly oblivious. Neville… would actually react a bit like Nott, Ginny would react a lot like Zabini, Luna wouldn't react at all but she'd be extra cuddly for a few days, and gods, Hadrian needs saner friends.

Not that these two are friends of course.

He manages to get through a shower, brush his teeth, and climb into a bed before Nott is suddenly at his side, eyes still shining with something Hadrian really doesn't want to put a name to. Thankfully, he doesn't burst into any heartfelt speeches that would probably embarrass everyone within hearing range. Not so thankfully, he honest-to-fucking-Merlin bows, all archaic and meaningful in every way Hadrian has never learned and so doesn't understand, but even he can sense the weight and deference behind every word as Nott murmurs, "All of mine is yours, until the end of days. I would be honoured if you would call me Theo."

"Jesus fucking Christ," Hadrian mutters, because sometimes wizarding swears just don't have enough oomph to encompass the never-ending circus trainwreck that is his life. He scrubs a hand over his face, peeks at Nott - at Theo - who's still halfway bent over, and of course, it's just his luck that he has no idea how to respond in the proper pureblood way.

He would've preferred the heartfelt speech.

"I'm a halfblood, I don't know how to respond appropriately," He says bluntly because he doesn't know what else to do. But he also flicks a Silencing Ward at Malfoy's bed, then at Crabbe's and Goyle's as well because you can never be too careful, and then he leans over and hauls Theo upright and catches his gaze and holds it, "I'll call you Theo if you call me Hadrian. One day, you'll be strong enough to take care of your enemies on your own, and you won't need anyone else to do it for you if you don't want them to, but until then, if all of you is mine, then your enemies are too, so I'll deal with them if it turns out that they still haven't learned after today. That makes us allies from now on though, which means we're equals, and that means you never, ever bow to anyone again. Not me, and not anybody else either. Understand?"

Theo stares again, wide-eyed and lost and so terribly young, and sometimes, Hadrian wonders what it says about just how messed up the world is when broken kids can be bought so easily.

Finally, almost dazedly, Theo gives some semblance of a nod.

"Hadrian," He says, and something about him straightens, grows steel, settles.

"Hadrian," He repeats and dips his head, not a bow, but respectful all the same, and his eyes are still bright with that unnamed creature, but at least he looks at Hadrian head-on. "Thank you. Goodnight."

Hadrian sighs and figures that this is about the best he's going to get tonight. Maybe it'll dial back to normal in a few days. "Goodnight, Theo."

Theo smiles, tiny, crooked, a little awkward. It's the first one Hadrian has ever seen from him, and that at least he can't be upset about.

They can finally go to sleep though. Theo returns to his own bed, Zabini is still watching them both from his bed like they're his new favourite show, and Hadrian resolutely pretends he doesn't see anything else as he takes down the Silencing Wards before drawing his curtains, rolling over, and promptly making a sincere attempt at smothering himself with a pillow.

His life.

-0-0-0-

End Notes: Ok wow so this got hella long and I didn't really get to all the stuff anon wanted whoops. Theo just… wouldn't stop thinking lmao, and also this AU has the potential to get so big so I ended up cramming in worldbuilding wherever I could. So unfortunately all you get is sort of a starting snapshot of where this is going and how Hadrian is going to turn out and a shitload of Theo's character. I kind of wanted to do him and Blaise's POV but I could only fit Theo, and I feel like getting Blaise through Theo's POV actually added to his character just as much as a personal POV would've. Anyway, those two are basically blank slates in canon so ofc I would pick them to write lolol.

#headcanon meme: answered #HP series #c'est la vie #hadrian evans #theo nott #blaise zabini #draco malfoy #headcanon #slytherin hadrian au

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ebonysplendor · 3 months

Text

My Darling Review 🧑‍❤️‍💋‍👩

TL;DR: Takuya may be our boyfriend, but that doesn't make him any less psycho. He's still cute or whateva.

Game Link: https://water-horse-games.itch.io/my-darling

Notable Features: Yandere LI, Gender Neutral MC, Self-Insert (up to 6 letters tho) Spiciness: 2/5 -- There's a scene where it gets a little suggestive and another scene where the LI straight up mentions sex and making love. Other than that, it's extremely tame (as far as 18+ content). Red Flags: 3/5 -- Gaslighter, locked us in a room, tied us up, drugged us

Wanna know more? Well, let's get into it!

How do I tell you guys about the unhingednessnessness that is this game without spoiling it?

Well, for one, I can tell you that it's pretty damn crazy. Like always, it starts off so cutesy and "Oh, this guy isn't toxic at all! What do they mean 'yandere'?" to "WHAT THE F--K. IS HAPPENIIIIING?!". Okay, maybe not that unhinged -- actually, it isn't as unhinged as I'm suggesting at all -- but it still gets pretty crazy pretty fast.

This review is going to be way shorter than the other ones that I've done because the game itself is pretty short. It's only like 15 - 20 minutes long, maybe a 5 minute difference if you get the same "What the hell?!" reaction that I had at a very specific part that I'm going to try to avoid telling you.

That being said, the intro is about as long as I can make it considering the game is so short, so let's cut the bullshit and start summarizing.

So, boom.

We get off of work, and we are greeted by our man~

His name is Takuya, and...meh, a little basic lookin' but he still cute or whateva. I'd let him hit it.

Anyways, so Takuya and us are making small talk. In the midst of this small talk, he goes on this weird mini rant about technology, and basically, how he feels that it shouldn't really be a thing because it ruins relationships. We just kind've brush him off, like "Yeah, I know", end the conversation there, and eat dinner.

During dinner, we're talking again, and here he comes with the heavy stuff again. He drops the whole "Do you love me?" question because he's like really, really, really insecure about this, but we reassure him, and he's good again; however, now we're like:

"Aha, time for dessert, knowwhatlmean~?" Oh lawd...

And he's just "Shiiit, okay! But let me do the dishes first". Wack...

So, we put our little flirt session on pause for a second for household chores because he's just got to be the perfect house boyfriend, but it's paused for more than a second because we start feeling real dizzy and pass out.

For the sake of not ruining it, we have this pretty gnarly dream and wake up in a cold sweat because of it, but we are pretty damned disoriented because the dream was super vivid which was super weird because it felt so real. Takuya sees/hears us kind've freaking out and was just like "Don't even trip. I got you. Just go back to bed." but it's like, nah, son, because why are you just brushing me off when I'm trying to confide in you?

You already know that this started a whoooole bunch of shit, and it starts to rapidly go downhill from here. No, I am not telling you what happened or even going to give a synopsis because I can't! Lol don't look like that! You already know that I wasn't going to tell you how it ended nor all the juicy details because I need you to play this for yourself! But I will leave you with this very concerning screenshot from the game.

Yeah...this man is a little psycho...

Like I said, 100/10 I would give you more details, and believe me, I really, really, REALLY want to but also like I said, the game was super short and pretty much to the point. It damn near went from 0 to 100 without much warning -- it lowkey did, to be real with you. You deadass just have to play the game yourself, and I promise you'll see what I mean when I say it truly is short and psycho.

For it being so short, this visual novel is pretty damned intense, and it is good!

The best part about this game to me is the visuals of Takuya's sprite. As per usual, you'll know what I'm talking about when you play it yourself. There has been quite a few times that, when I read a visual novel, the imagery around the sprite will startle me, especially if it was meant to be a jumpscare or something, but holy shit, seeing Takuya's sprite change was extremely unsettling this time around. And then--! What made it all the more effective was what he said when the personality flip happened.

Ugh! It's so frustrating because I want to tell you guys about that scene so bad, but it'll ruin a crucial part of the story, and it's burning me not to include it in this review. I'll leave you with this though, and for like the third time at this point, you'll know what I mean if you choose to play this:

• The way that you THINK his sentence is going to end is not the way it ends, and it ran a literal shiver down my spine the execution was so good • That scene alone made that entire game. It was pretty good, but then that scene carried it on its shoulders. It really solidified the tone and creepiness and suspense of the game

That's pretty much all I have to say! Like I said, definitely play the game yourself, because explaining it without the really intense part just does not cut it. You honestly have to play it because you are missing out on a short, intense little gem of a game. Just as a fair heads up, it's a touch bit predictable, but at the same time it's not. If you're like me, you'll have a very clear suspicion during a specific part, and while you're right, it's not exactly going to pan out the way that you think nor for that particular reason. There's still some surprise to it, so don't let that deter you!

As always, be sure to leave your comments on the dev's page if you feel like they've done a good job, and you want to give them that extra reassurance to keep making games. Of course, donations are always helpful to them as well! Like mentioned at the very top, here is a link to the game so that you can play it for yourself, and I really suggest that you do because when shit goes down, it goes down. Anyways!

That's all from me! Drink water, don't be dumb, and hope to see you around~!

My Darling

#my darling #my darling vn #my darling visual novel #my darling takuya #visual novel #visual novel review #yandere visual novel #yandere visual novel review #my darling vn review #my darling visual novel review #yandere boy #male yandere #yandere vn #vn review

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ageless-aislynn · 1 year

Text

Okay, frens, I’m about to probably be a lot less available once NaNo starts tomorrow. Which is kinda saying something, given how I’ve been pretty absent lately. Being sick sucks rocks through a straw. 😕

However, the exceptions will be if:

I’m stalling (despite the fact I’m probably panicking that I’m not writing at the same time 🤷‍♀️)

I’m blocked (in which case I might ask for prompts just to try to get something short going again)

My writering muse* is being a little jerk (there’s no cure for this 😣😛)

(*I just caught this weird typo and left it because “writering muse” felt appropriate for some reason, lol, kinda like she’s wandering around, maybe gonna write eventually... 😛)

Again, depending on how I feel/how things are going, I may start editing and posting things just to give me a much-needed serotonin boost. We’ll see!

I’m hoping going to write “The Price” (Frosthunter, The Flash, NSFW) in its entirety because I have a total of one (1) person at AO3 who has politely asked me about it a couple of times over the past - what, year? Two years? - since I first mentioned wanting to write it. Just when I’m about give up on it, this lovely person writes me a sweet note saying how they hope I’m doing well and that I’ll still write it one day. And that gives me the strength to keep fighting on, lol!

Despite the fact that, well, Zoom isn’t usually a laugh riot, “The Price” is intended to be rather explicit smut with a humorous slant. Just how explicit and how humorous... we’ll find out together! Even if it’s just me and that one lone person over at AO3, lol!

(If you ever wonder if your comment will make a difference, then I can promise you that yes, it definitely does. Just knowing that somebody cares is SO important. 🤗)

Secondly, I want to finish “Cupid’s Kiss” (Snowells, The Flash, NSFW) and “Guardian Angel” (Snowells, The Flash) at long last. 🤞😣🤞

This will probably close out my Flash fics for now. I wish I could’ve gotten them done sooner but... Life, right? 😕 I hope that anybody who still cares how they ended will get the chance to see them.

“Try” (aka the Big Beast of ReverseSnowThawne) still might randomly appear one day, despite being a thing that exactly zero (0) people probably want to read, lol. But I still want to see how it all works out and it has worldbuilding and there are already 3 chapters written so... We’ll see. It definitely has enough mileage to it to give me the 50k for this NaNo.

Over in the world of Halo... “15 Minutes” chapter 6 (John/Reader) and “Recreation” chapter 3 (Kai/maleReader) are in pre-planning. (“15 Minutes” is the rare beast of mine in that I actually have so many events still in store for it that I’ve done an outline. As a long-time pantser, that’s saying something, lol!)

“Choices” (tentative title, Noble Team x Reader, Halo: Reach) is something I’m still very excited about! It starts with the premise in chapter 1 where the reader meets Noble Team. At the end of ch1, you’ll choose who you’re going to go with and there will be links to the appropriate chapter that will conclude the story with you and either Carter, Kat, Jun, Emile, Jorge or Six (male and female versions).

I’ve always loved Choose Your Own Adventure type stories and after reading @lialacleaf‘s awesome and super fun Master Chief x Reader interactive fic “The Medic,” I was inspired to try my own variation (mine is, of course, a very simplified version, you only make that one choice of who you’re going with but still! Similiar if simpler! 😁)

If you’d like to be tagged for any of that, just let me know. 😉

Flash Masterlist

Halo Masterlist

Anyway, that’s where I’m at right now. I have only a really basic NaNo playlist done but that can fall into place as we go along. 🎵💃🎵 I just mainly gravitate to songs with a good beat to type to, lol! This one is already on there...

youtube

“Sing Along” - Sturgill Simpson

Noble Team is kinda running to the beat in my GIF, lol! 🤷‍♀️😂

Anyway, it’s helpful to me to spell out my goals, hence why I wrote all of this. 😉 Good luck to those who are also participating in NaNo and happy November to those who aren’t!

🤗💖

#nanowrimo #nano #writing #snowells #caitlin snow x eobard thawne #frosthunter #frostzoom #killer frost x hunter zolomon #halo #halo: reach #master chief x reader #kai-125 x male reader #noble team #ageless aislynn

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squib-2006 · 1 year

Text

I posted 12,267 times in 2022

That's 12,267 more posts than 2021!

83 posts created (1%)

12,184 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@legogeek33

@jays-ask-blog-extravaganza

@master-of-fluff

@howuart

@senseiwu

I tagged 1,670 of my posts in 2022

#lmao - 266 posts

#ninjago - 62 posts

#lego ninjago - 58 posts

#lol - 44 posts

#yes - 41 posts

#kai jiang - 23 posts

#kai smith - 23 posts

#:( - 21 posts

#:d - 20 posts

#lmao yes - 9 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#lloyd was aged up but in my opinion he looked to be about 10-12 years old before the tea and after about the same age (maybe younger) than

My Top Posts in 2022:

I can finally be Kai ninjago

This is going to be the best Halloween ever.

63 notes - Posted October 7, 2022

Lava fans be like: we were robed on lava interaction in crystalized pt.2

Meanwhile kailor fans: (hasn’t gotten any real content between Kai and skylor since season 4) that’s rough buddy *watches safe haven & compatible for the 50th time*

99 notes - Posted October 2, 2022

I have an idea

Like what if when krux kidnapped Kai and nya’s parents They actually went to an orphanage and nya got adopted But Kai didn’t And the people got so sick of him they shipped him off to darklys So by the time Lloyd gets there kai is like all angsty and “bad”And he takes Lloyd under his wing And they are like bros But a few years later kai abandons ship and runs away from darklys And Lloyd is just like :( And when wu goes to look for Kai at his parents forge nya is just there visiting and is like I haven’t seen my bro in years And then she gets kidnapped and the pilots happen except Kai isn’t there And then Lloyd gets kicked out of darklys And try’s to be evil and releases the serpentine And the ninja do the ninja stuff but nya is a ninja w/them And they just keep running in to this guy in a cloak who keeps stoping them from capturing lloyd And also doing small crimes And when Lloyd gets kidnapped by the serpentine and Kai helps the ninja escape the slither pit like samurai x did in the original episode he manages to get away but nya stops him and he takes off his hood and is like hi little sis and nya is just like :0 And then he steals the sword of fire for shits and giggles and runs away And tries to save lloyd And then eventually joins up with the rest of the ninja and garmadon to save lloyd. and instead of the compation of who will be the first to find out the identity of samurai x it’s just who the mystery guy who keeps screwing with there plans and generaly causing chaos is And then when nya finds out it’s like

All the other ninja: arguing over who the guy is

Nya: sobbing on the inside

Also sorry if this is just a run on sentence I had a brain fart and I am to lazy to fix it

99 notes - Posted July 14, 2022

Just watching the first 15 minutes of the school for good and evil adaptation makes me remember how much I hate book to movie adaptations. This book has been butchered ho hell and back. Also as a warning to people who haven’t red the books or at least up until book three. DON’T SHIP AGITHA AND SOPHIE TOGETHER. They are revealed to be fraternal twins in the third book as they share a mother. While their relationship may give off heavy gay vibes they are sisters (unless they end up changing this major plot point I haven’t finished the movie yet). Please don’t make this mistake. Anyways back to watching what will no doubt turn out to be a brutal butchering of one of my favorite childhood books.

129 notes - Posted October 19, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Just finished violet

First time I have felt emotions from a Pokémon games ending since moon.

Here’s some memes

^ I say this with love I swear

See the full post

208 notes - Posted November 21, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #ninjago #lego ninjago

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iwonderwh0 · 1 year

Note

Any more microtonal music recommendations? I'd rather get recs than hop blindly into the youtube unknown lol

YES, of course! I'm so glad you asked since now I have an excuse to share here more of my micro-obsession

Little disclaimer - at first most people find it absolutely unlistenable and some even find it deeply disturbing, but it's only because they are not used to it. It takes time

So it might be reasonable to start with

"King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard" - this is Australian indie rock band that often uses microtonal instruments for their music -- not all of it, but enough to be a good starting point to get used to some of it. I'd start with "Nonagon Infinity" - this album is FIRE, and the cool thing about it is that every song of this album flows flawlessly into the next one, and the last one flows almost flawlessly into the first one if you listen to them on loop. Other album I'd recommend is "Flying Microtonal Banana", and one specific song that I was absolutely obsessed with that I also want to link is Crumbling Castle This band is where microtonality is mixed within familiar type of music, so it feels comfortable and familiar and not intimidating

Okay, moving on to other microtonal examples on the beginner-friendly side

I remember really liking this one in 19EDO, here it's really gentle microtonality, just enough of it to be noticeable without overwhelming someone who'd listen to it for the first time. Also perfect example of how microtonal music can convey the kind of mood that would be impossible in 12EDO

Next, this one is really nice, and it's a pity there's not much more from this musician as I find it adorable.

Brendan Byrnes - Cave Dance I just realised I completely forgot that he exists, I only remember that this songs slaps, should probably dive into his discography myself

Now getting closer to my absolute faves - Xotla and Sevish. All of my following recommendations are just individual songs and albums of theirs. Xotla is probably more beginner-friendly, so I'll start with his songs

Xotla - Surprise me This was the song that made me obsessed with microtonality, here is where it started. I remember listening it on repeat just because 4:15 <-- MY GOD I can't even describe how amazing this place felt when I listened to it for the first ten times or so

Xotla - No Longer 2:50 ❤️

Xotla - Cosmic Microwave pure goosebumps the first listening

Xotla - Dance of the Forest Lights (Reimagined) - the new version of this song. I love both of them

Xotla - Robots Dream To Dance absolute bop

Xotla - Sipping Tea By The Sea already familiar to you, It's from "Seeds of Moonlight" album. If you liked this song maybe you should check out the rest of the album. My favourites from this album (other than that): Metallic Lilypads and Losing Connections. Although this album is not my favourite.

Okay, I realised maybe I should just recommend albums. All of them (except Planting Seeds of Microtones, it sounds too much like pop music and it's not the Xotla I love), my favourite is Science Fraction

Lastly in regards to Xotla I wanna note Funkrotonal (0:56 !!!)

Also Between Space (3:24 !)

Okay, now I'll link THE WHOLE SEVISH DISCOGRAPHY (no, but really)

But really, this is the most important place of this post

SEVISH

Sevish is the kind of microtonality that you probably shouldn't jump on when you're just getting used to microtones, because this is where most of my irls noped immediately. But if you're ready and your heart is open, his music is literally out of this world

Sevish - Outside (!!!!) - this is where my head exploded when I listened to it for the first time. The moment I realised that microtonal harmony is absolutely unearthly GEORGEOUS

Sevish - Better Left Unanswered - more of absolutely gorgeous microtonality

Sevish - Gleam - if you're using tiktok there's a possibility that you've actually heard this one, it was trending at some point. The moment from 0:50 specifically

Sevish - Horizons - I just want to leave here this comment that was written under this song on youtube:

Here I'll just link the whole Morphable album - I listened to it more times than I could count, but here are some songs from it that I like more than others:

Tritavium (absolute insane percussion at 1:17, I'm not normal about it at all)

Launch (1:29 is 🤌✨😩)

Smashing, actually damn I can just link every single song from this album, they're all uniquely amazing

Songs from other albums

Sevish - Freathy the end of this one is heaven-like (3:12) and I mean it, it's like church-choir

Sevish - Desert Island Rain - this was one of the first I listened by sevish and it scratched my brain in a way no other song ever did, also 4:34 here is a completely different vibe. This is also the song I tried to show to my irls that made them make such a face expression as if they're in physical pain. Well, definitely not the best one to familiarize anyone with microtonality, as this one is amazing if you're ready, otherwise it's miserable

Also check out "Formless Shadows" album if you love ambient

Damn

I LOVE microtonal music

I got so used to it that when I now listen to usual 12EDO it feels like something is missing

#microtonality #sevish #xotla #microtonal music

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punnymoi · 1 year

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I posted 7,560 times in 2022

5 posts created (0%)

7,555 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@humii369

@thewolvesrunwild

@bravest-notts

@dealanexmachina

@blackandwhiteinhere

I tagged 382 of my posts in 2022

#cr spoilers - 155 posts

#lvm spoilers - 44 posts

#exandria unlimited - 22 posts

#goncharov - 12 posts

#unreality - 12 posts

#😭😭 - 4 posts

#😭 - 4 posts

#exu calamity spoilers - 2 posts

#👏 - 2 posts

#😭😭😭😭 - 2 posts

Longest Tag: 106 characters

#lmaos what if travelercon and the wildmother getting mad at artagan were what caused the flare or whatever

My Top Posts in 2022:

Daffodil, chamomile, nutmeg?

daffodil ⇢ do you have siblings? if yes, in what ways do you think you’re similar to or different from them?

I have 2 older sisters, and one little brother. I think I'm sorta a blend between my two older sisters, most like my oldest (both queer, ADHD, nerdy), and my little bro is similar to us, with our other sister as the "normal" and religious outlier.

chamomile ⇢ what kind of things do you like receiving as gifts?

Lots of things, it's nice when I get what I ask for, or something spontaneous or personal. One thing I always want/need more of is hugs

nutmeg ⇢ how’s your room/home decorated? do you have a specific theme or style going on?

It's very small and messy which I don't like lol. I don't think I really have a style, just lots of pretty art/fanart on my walls, lots of bookshelves, lots of blankets. More what's affordable/practical than things I actually like the look of.

0 notes - Posted October 6, 2022

Gotta love this Tumblr ad showing up while AO3 is down lol

1 note - Posted November 15, 2022

LIAM 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

1 note - Posted September 8, 2022

So just watched the first 2 Legend of Vox Machina episodes! HOLY CRAP I LOVE IT! I feel like I get/appreciate more now how this animated adaptation differs from the campaign, so excited to see where it goes. First ep felt like the transition between the SHITS and Vox Machina, and now second ep heading into the briarwood arch- so many great little moments, can't wait to rewatch on Friday, and now I want a Gilmore hug even more

1 note - Posted January 25, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Trigonometry is evil because soh cah toa was created by uk'otoa (uk'otoa)

6 notes - Posted November 18, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #my 2022 tumblr year in review #Lol my top 5 posts are just the only posts I made #I feel like I was a bit better at tagging this year #But still working on doing it more #and so many of my top tags were just 😭 lmao

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lexijaynex · 8 months

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🍭DAY 4 (9/7/23)🍡

I got online around 4am, and I made $33 in a little under an hour. Today will be better than yesterday!

The total time I've been online so far is 1hr 16mins, I made a total of $33.72, it's slow, but I'm going to be patient! It's 5:38a, I'm going to get offline around 9:30-10:15ish, hopefully I can make it!!

I've been online for 2hr12mins, I've made $39.42. I'm finna quit lol, but lemme stay online, I feel like quitting tho!

Well I'm glad I stayed online, I'm 2hr51mins in and I'm now at a toal of $131.43, I had a regular come thru and get 2, 15 minute block sessions, so the first $100 had been made and it was great! 3hr21min in I ended up with $154.87, not bad. I didn’t get my $100 screenshot, but I hit it shortly after the first block session.

I'm glad I waited, but only because I actually felt okay about waiting. When absolutely nothing is going on, and I feel like I'm waiting in vain, I log off to save my sanity lol

[Speaking of waiting in vain, lol 50 minutes in and still $0, on Monday 9/11. I'm watching old Hollywood scandals with Ashley SaysSo. Her and Auntie Pooh's stories definitely keeps me focused and going. I love a good story time, interview, or documentary while I'm online. I have 57 minutes to go, you never know!]

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an-inbetween-place · 1 year

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15. This was a going to be a 2 minute high note but ended up being a very enjoyable hour of straight writing

10:03 PM?

A note -- I've been beating myself up for feeling immature and insecure with David but it's because of my lack of a defined relationship (aka commitment) combined with a lack of reaching out (like reaching out and having good, long convos) and seeing each other/making time for each other (we didn't even see each other when he was on break lol) has led me for a long time (since before thailand even) to feel like I'm fighting for him to continue liking me. Didn't I send him that semi nude because I wanted to ensure I still had his interest? I felt like I was losing his interest because he was no longer making me a priority in terms of time and making time. Is that what's making me feel so terrible these last few weeks? The fact that I've been fighting a losing battle with him for his interest? Is this what it always means to be in a relationship? If so, I don't think I can bear it. I have to imagine not though -- that being in a actual relationship with commitment and constant reminders of a person loving you reduces one's insecurities. Potentially not to 0 I suppose. But when will one be able to ever not feel that? I suppose the same question lies with your friendships -- as long as you've made enough of an effort and aren't always an asshole, they cut you some slack and you feel comfortable in trusting that y'all will be in each others lives forever. When did I start feeling that with Deanna and Tina? I suppose that's all it is.. another iteration upon that.

I will say though -- as this draft grows ... I cannot go back. Sitting here and thinking about how I was about to type 'If love means being in this constant state of chasing and ensuring I kept his interest ... I don't know if I want it' is literally a sign in that I cannot go back. I spent the last few months in agony -- waiting for his texts, waiting for our dates.. and how shitty was that feeling? He literally just gave me just enough to keep me hanging... just enough attention at the end of the week to keep me on the line ... just enough conversation a day to keep me invested in him and let me not imagine a life without him. But I always wanted more -- more time to spend together, more conversations to go on... and for so long I feel like the power has been in his court. And that's what led to the last few months to be terrible... just a jumbled up emotional mess who's happiness depends upon when David decides to text me back. Or call me. Or do anything without me first asking for it. And that always made me feel like I was the insecure girlfriend, the one asking for too much from him and the only one who would bend over backwards to accommodate what he needed.

Why was I so touched yesterday when he said 'he would want me to be in his life forever'? I was lowkey shocked when he said that ... which means I wasn't expecting that to be true/wasn't anticipating him saying that cause I didn't think he meant it.

Shouldn't that be something that you should expect someone you're currently dating and want to be currently dating to think? I guess it was the long term-ness about it that shocked me.

That's it really. I am in my love sucks era because right now I cannot imagine love without this desperation.. this insecurity. This constant fighting for his attention and fighting to keep it. Like I must keep fit.. I must say something funny.. I must .. never be mad. I feel terribly embarrassed re: admitting my feelings for him to him .. but why? Because now that he's caught me, there's no more chase in it? But if all there was was the chase.. I think we were past that long ago.

I guess that's it -- I cannot imagine the beautiful aspects of love without associating it to the toxicity of the previous paragraph. If only I had more from him -- more commitment, more verbal and physical affection, more time and energy that shows me he cares ... And the fact that my view on love right now is so ... piss poor I think states why I can't go back.

He's showing me in all the ways that it matters -- in our text convos, in our time (1 in a month?), in our calls (the 15 min hard end) that it's just all not enough. I've been MISERABLE -- my self esteem feels like it's been stomped all over -- hoping that he doesn't move onto some other prettier girl and just hoping I don't lose his interest.. that our current setup won't work.

I don't have enough access to him -- I don't feel okay blowing up his phone and texting him and calling him and I'm trying to play it cool

Why am I trying to play it cool? Why was he making me chase for so long? It's clearly not working so I need to back off.

Keep thinking about how desperate you've been for his attention over the last couple of weeks. It shouldn't be like that. Not for a long time. It feels like when I was pining for Sung. It feels terrible -- like he's always going to be the conventionally hot and muscular guy that everyone in the office like and you're always going to be the fat girl in the class that nice but "just as a friend". And him talking to you is like him being kind and he's secretly embarrassed inside cause he knows you like him but he would never like you. It was the same way with Dennis Kan.

Wow I feel like I really am going to need the time and energy to work through that one. That was quite a nugget uncovered.

I think this time is even worse because David is really like ... not hot. It's embarrassing that I'm fighting so hard over a medium ugly man. But it'a repeating itself! That's why I'm so hesitant to tell him that I like him -- because I think he'll feel bad inside that I like him more than he likes me. Which is what I felt about Spencer -- and I knew all along that it would never move into a relationship for me. I even said so to Deanna multiple times.

So I suppose I should really dig into that -- that I thought Spencer was kinda embarrassing in his ... lack of being hard to get. And now I feel like the Spencer of the relationship -- coupled with all the stereotypes of girls trying to lock men down.

I guess what I'm thinking about ... is that a lot of my past few experiences with dating has left me with feeling very unlovable and with very low self esteem recently. Like I feel like every time I get close to a man ... he never likes me enough to make his girlfriend. I'm just desperate for a boyfriend right now that I'll take anyone that has lasted long enough it seems.

I'm lonely because I feel like everyone's found someone. I'm feeling very unlovable. I don't like that energy at all.

So do I even like David that much or do I simply like having someone around? To call when I'm drunk and let's be honest... horny? I remember doing that a little with Senior Diaz as well -- just liking having someone but for some reason I could cut away with that one. Maybe it was because school consumed me -- there wasn't as much emphasis on dating (at least in my eyes). Ever since I prioritized dating .. it's become much more of a emphasis.

Maybe that's what we need to do. Cut back down the emphasis. You gave it a good two years -- it's time to work back to enjoying what you had without the men.

I think that's the only way forward -- the only way to stop this from running your life and dictating your happiness.

Think of all the things that you didn't really enjoy this last year. The holidays! The first few days in THAILAND!!! Now that's truly a shame and you should be mad at him for that. For ruining your trip to thailand.

And think of the lack of courtesy he showed by also RUINING YOUR TRIP TO SPAIN?! Like .. this man only thinks about himself and what's best for him. And isn't that one of your least favorite things?

Doesn't that show what a good for nothing mfker that guy is? He couldn't even let you enjoy your vacations? Where you felt like there was this umbrella of doom around you?! Isn't that the way you felt yesterday?? You had to lie and pretend to be happy even though you haven't felt at ease or happy/content in your normal day to day life in months. And you felt terrible when you were at home and had to fake it in front of your mom. Or this week when your mom was here.

And what good thing is there about this man that is even worth mourning over. You don't think he's that hot, you don't have good sex with him, he doesn't make you feel special or treat you right. He's never taken me to do the things that I've mentioned that I wanted to do. And I'll always harbor some shame and sadness around that and my wants not being met.

Like was i not good enough to go hiking with?

I let this man make me feel this way and I cannot anymore. He is a nice man and .... whether or not I like him because of him OR if it's because I haven't had anyone else stick around as long or wanted to stick around as long (I guess if I didn't want them to stick around... then that means I was the one that broke it off and thus can't be THAT desperate yet). anyways -- he is a nice man but look at the way he's making me feel about myself.

I need to go back to back when my own life -- just me! -- made me happy.

Truly, I understand now -- you gotta make sure you can just be happy in your own life before you can merge it with anyone else's.

I guess I became codependent on having his interest and affection. And since I haven't been getting enough of it recently ... that's why I've been feeling so terrible.

Clearly it cannot continue. I will find someone that I can do cute couples shit with. It isn't going to be David so if I want to achieve that, I need to move on.

I should get more edibles. TO be fair -- David was right about this ... writing is so easy and touch feels great. We'll save it for our next boyfriend -- there's always a new opportunity out there.

10:57 PM

UPDATE -- WE ARE MAD NOW. WE ARE MAD THAT HE CAN'T EVEN SPARE THE TIME OR ENERGY TO THINK ABOUT US AND WHAT HE'S PUT ME THROUGH UNTIL HIS STUPID PAPER IS DONE. CAN YOU JUST WRITE YOUR PAPER??? YEAH SCHOOL IS HARD BUT IT AINT THAT HARD. FIGURE IT TF OUT. 23 YEAR OLDS CAN DO IT, AND I HAVE NO MORE PITY LEFT FOR YOU. SCRUB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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mejomonster · 2 years

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Yakuza like a dragon is SO good it is Such a well designed turn based rpg I'm kinda losing it

Now I get why some ppls reviews were like it made them fucking love video games again

It's got the enjoyment of Yakuza 0 with mini games with stories u find fun, side stories u enjoy getting lost in, so all ur non main story play time is enjoyable and decided by you, then you have even mini games now adding to ur personality which affects ur sidestories and jobs and therefore skills u can get which Makes My Goofing Off at minigames actually Valueable! Besides for my own fun I'm changing who Ichiban IS. (Which yakuza always played with, the implication the protagonist could be whoever u made him by your personal things you had him do or not do, but now that is literally reflected in the protagonist Ichibans traits which actually effect his sidestories and fighting system!! which is SO cool and reminds me of Persona even More which Yakuza games always danced lightly similarly too in the social slice of life sidestory aspect).

And your minigames you can bring party members, and no one ruin this for me if dating is eventually written bad lol I don't wanna know, but for NOW as I'm 20 hours in the bond system works the same with All party members and gives similar rewards to when you'd bond with hostesses/coworkers in prior games. You get your party members mini story as you deepen the bond, and get to make decisions. And the party system works WELL in this game because Ichiban isn't kiryu, ichiban is a warm friendly supportive guy and is the type to make a found family of his friends (something Saeko needed and appreciates, something nanba gravitated to him no doubt partly for, something adachi is warm to, something Eki values). With kiryu it would feel odd to get so buddy buddy and reliant with such a huge group, just cause he works alone or with maybe one other at a time. But ichiban is talkative, loud, social, and it's shown from his first scenes as he already has a close friend in yakuza. As he already sees his boss as a dad, his boss's kid as almost a brother. He's built to like being close to people he values, and so a party in his game feels natural and works well!

And the jobs system, how its introduced! How it's cause 3 of your characters are jobless and constantly going to Hello Work, how Saeko is trying to get extra work too, and so it feels like a very fitting in game reason to allow you to job switch. I loved FFVII when it came out, and in some respects I love the remake, and the remake did good at updating the combat and materia to be turn based and feel good. But ffvii remake tried to make a big long game with a thin plot it padded, and dungeons it expanded which didn't need that. Which gave you busy mindless work, and I hate when games waste my time by trying to pad with mindless stuff to make the run time longer. I would've preferred a shorter tighter game. And yakuza like a dragon is long, I can tell its gonna be huge ToT, but the world is small with no time padded dungeons (yet), the time I spend is doing all things I like and chose to. I'm never grinding through 10 hours of dungeon just cause they made a section long to make me fight that long (sorry ffvii remake but). I loved original ffvii but a lot of it was designed For its time, to be a perfectly great turn based rpg For Its Time - for its size it had great quests, minigames, fighting, and never felt time wasting or padding and always felt fun and like it was designed well to do what it planned. The remake had some good polished bits, but it also expanded to Try and not just update the combat, but also try to make itself into the modern huge world games with their long hours and I think a lot of those expansions (the time in the reactors for like 15 hours, the time by the orphanage) flopped for me because like. Ffvii wasn't designed for that. (The new changes sephiroth wise and even maybe jessie wise worked okay because the new remake game felt it always had that in mind, not like it was add on or padding primarily). Ffvii remake is a game that was designed perfectly well originally, transported to 2020s and with stuff tacked on to Try and make it feel modern. But instead of feeling well planned out like Nier Automata, it feels like it's got pointless bits like Dragon Age Inquisition (which I felt so frustrated with for wasting 80 hours of my life for what was actually a 20 hour story with lots of busy boring padding work and no real ending). I don't want boring padding tasks, I want story and elements designed to be part of the whole.

Yakuza like a dragon is designed so well. They combined the well Mashup of almost persona like slice of life side quest with typical yakuza angst crime drama movie like serious narrative on the other half (as usual) with its snappy combat to tie them together. A formula yakuza games have used for years, put together in possibly the smoothest version yet at that time. Then yakuza like a dragon takes the drastic shift of going turn based rpg instead of snappy action combat. But instead of a 1 to 1 replacement (which would've also been fun! And would still work well with ichiban!) the game actually decided to interweave the turn based job class combat system into how the sidestories work (effecting his bonds which affect combat, his traits which effect combat), into how the main story works (the party members of friends, the way ichiban sees things from his pov in a very help people/accomplish quests manner). This interweaving makes the whole game design feel So fucking good. So well thought out and balanced and natural. (In fact thinking back Nier Automata is the most recently made game that I played that felt this good as far as all game design elements coming together into a cohesive well planned whole that compliments - but its action rpg and I can't think of any other ps3 or later game that's turn based that felt this well planned out I'd played). This game is what a modern turn based rpg with job classes and skill levels can Feel Like. Yakuza Like A Dragon is the route modern turn based rpgs can work really well in the medium. (I haven't played persona 5 but I would assume similarly it complimented its combat and skills with its social link gameplay into a well designed whole, since usually persona is fairly good at that).

It just feels. So good to play. So much the Opposite of a chore. I never feel like I'm level grinding or doing anything I don't happily excitedly want to do. And just as I feared enemy level grinding might become necessary to level up enough to handle the next areas? The Part Time Hero quests opened up. Giving me incentive to go explore, to fight enemies for actual rewards, and any fear of annoying level grinding disappeared. Like yakuza 0, this game seems like I can do whatever the fuck I want, not even aiming for near 100% (I only finished 37% of yakuza 0 lol ToT) and just by exploring a little ill definitely be prepared enough to handle the main story. So any extra stuff I dig deep into is by my choice, and if I do wanna streamline through the main story I can just go do that whenever. (And like all yakuza it seems there's new game plus to go back in if I ever zoom thru and want to go enjoy certain parts I didn't explore yet).

Just. It feels so good. I'm happy to say at minimum it's as good as yakua 0 enjoyment wise. And gameplay/design wise I think it's the best modern turn based game I've seen post ps2 (I only play ps tho as I'm sure good switch and ds ones came out ToT). I'm really floored it's as thoroughly enjoyable a turn based game as it is. And it has so much customization! I think rpg fans who love specially changing job classes and crafting and building perfect parties would love the amount they can dig into the system, and at the same time for a person who like me enjoys exploring but doesn't plan too much I can still get by fine and enjoy myself without feeling I need to learn perfect planning.

I imagine it's going to at some point have some flaws that tend to make it into yakuza games just cause that tends to happen, qnd I'll see if it does. But as of now I'm very over the moon. And as long as the flaws aren't worse than yakuza 0 it's still going to be a fairly wonderful ride. I'd say if it has Any flaw so far, it's mainly that the cutscenes are so long! But I normally enjoy that in games lol (I like kingdom hearts after all) and yakuza games are prone to hour long opening and endings at times, 5-15 minute big scenes at times, so it's not any more than your usual yakuza game. It'd normally be a plus for me but my ability to focus has been shot lately and so I pause a lot to do multiple things, making the scenes way longer than intended for myself lol.

#rant #lb #yakuza like a dragon #basically. love the game so far #it took a minute to get goojng #but ichiban is great for this story #i love that i have multiple girl party members and girls in a main yakuza plot active in scenes #i love the writing too bleach japan is suxh an obvious commentary on a few big social issues

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imanhaitani · 2 years

Text

1. Would you have sex with the last person you text messaged?

my bestie, so maybe? we've made out before lol.

2. You talked to an ex today, correct?

nope. trash

3. Have you taken someones virginity?

haha yes, it was cute.

4. Is trust a big issue for you?

HUGE.

5. Did you hang out with the person you like recently?

unless you count getting off to fictional 2D men, then no.

6. What are you excited for?

taking my bachelors degree next year.

7. What happened tonight?

nothing. just a few shots of soju.

8. Do you think it’s disgusting when girls get really wasted?

depends. I think it's sad, myself included.

9. Is confidence cute?

huge turn on.

10. What is the last beverage you had?

Saffron tea. :")

11. How many people of the opposite sex do you fully trust?

maybe 2?

12. Do you own a pair of skinny jeans?

yes but I never wear them.

13. What are you gonna do Saturday night?

probably make some tea and read manga.

14. What are you going to spend money on next?

a vacation.

15. Are you going out with the last person you kissed?

nope.

16. Do you think you’ll change in the next 3 months?

change is a constant.

17. Who do you feel most comfortable talking to about anything?

honestly, no-one.

18. The last time you felt broken?

all the time.

19. Have you had sex today?

no, it's actually killing me.

20. Are you starting to realize anything?

yes, being alone and at peace is a godsend.

21. Are you in a good mood?

Well... I'm IN a mood.

22. Would you ever want to swim with sharks?

sure. I just don't want them to bite me, and if they do, bite my head off so it'll be a quick death.

23. Are your eyes the same color as your dad’s?

yup.

24. What do you want right this second?

to cuddle with Eren Jaeger.

25. What would you say if the person you love/like kissed another girl/boy?

I would watch and get off.

26. Is your current hair color your natural hair color?

yup.

27. Would you be able to date someone who doesn’t make you laugh?

Big no.

28. What was the last thing that made you laugh?

my mum's text messages.

29. Do you really, truly miss someone right now?

no.

30. Does everyone deserve a second chance?

yes. but not a third.

31. Honestly, do you hate the last boy you were talking to?

nope, it's my gay bestie. he's a beautiful person.

32. Does the person you have feelings for right now, know you do?

nope, Eren or Dazai definitely don't.

33. Are you one of those people who never drinks soda?

occasionally, if it's 0 calories.

34. Listening to?

Dark Angel by Provoker.

35. Do you ever write in pencil anymore?

can't remember the last time I held one lol.

36. Do you know where the last person you kissed is?

probably with their wife, or cheating on her.

37. Do you believe in love at first sight?

nope.

38. Who did you last call?

my goduncle.

39. Who was the last person you danced with?

Haha, a good friend at work.

40. Why did you kiss the last person you kissed?

because I was in need of physical intimacy.

41. When was the last time you ate a cupcake?

probably a month ago.

42. Did you hug/kiss one of your parents today?

Not yet, but I always do before I go to bed.

43. Ever embarrass yourself in front of a crush?

Yes. I shat in his bed one time by accident, had an upset stomach lol

44. Do you tan in the nude?

Nope. my body is disgusting.

45. If you could, would you take back your last kiss?

definitely.

46. Did you talk to someone until you fell asleep last night?

nope.

47. Who was the last person to call you?

my work bestie.

48. Do you sing in the shower?

nope. total silence.

49. Do you dance in the car?

if I'm drunk then yes.

50. Ever used a bow and arrow?

No, but I'd like to.

51. Last time you got a portrait taken by a photographer?

probably like 4 years ago.

52. Do you think musicals are cheesy?

err.... depends.

53. Is Christmas stressful?

Nope. I like the gifts.

54. Ever eat a pierogi?

what's that?

55. Favorite type of fruit pie?

probably a cinnamon apple pie.

56. Occupations you wanted to be when you were a kid?

a model, an actress. basically anything that didn't require hard work.

57. Do you believe in ghosts?

yes.

58. Ever have a Deja-vu feeling?

rarely, but yes.

59. Take a vitamin daily?

Royal jelly for the Queen bee 🐝

60. Wear slippers?

always at home.

61. Wear a bath robe?

nope.

62. What do you wear to bed?

a tshirt and panties.

63. First concert?

My chemical romance in 2009.

64. Wal-Mart, Target or Kmart?

probably Walmart if I had access to it.

65. Nike or Adidas?

Adidas.

66. Cheetos Or Fritos?

Cheetos.

67. Peanuts or Sunflower seeds?

Sunflower seeds.

68. Favorite Taylor Swift song?

Ew.

69. Ever take dance lessons?

Yes until I realised I have absolutely no talent for anything lol

70. Is there a profession you picture your future spouse doing?

probably a musician, or a writer.

71. Can you curl your tongue?

yup.

72. Ever won a spelling bee?

Always. haha

73. Have you ever cried because you were so happy?

yes.

74. What is your favorite book?

No longer human by Dazai Osamu.

75. Do you study better with or without music?

with.

76. Regularly burn incense?

I wish I had incense rn.

77. Ever been in love?

yes. shit hurts

78. Who would you like to see in concert?

The Weeknd, or The Neighbourhood.

79. What was the last concert you saw?

MCR.

80. Hot tea or cold tea?

Both.

81. Tea or coffee?

Both, at different times.

82. Favorite type of cookie?

Macadamia and white choc chips yummy

83. Can you swim well?

I'm ok.

84. Can you hold your breath without holding your nose?

Yes.

85. Are you patient?

Depends what I'm waiting for.

86. DJ or band, at a wedding?

band.

87. Ever won a contest?

Never.

88. Ever have plastic surgery?

Nope. Will probably do it if I could

89. Which are better black or green olives?

Both are amazing.

90. Opinions on sex before marriage?

Do what you want. Just be safe.

91. Best room for a fireplace?

Living room, duhh.

92. Do you want to get married?

Never. I've seen too many people cheating on each other like they're just changing their clothes. ew

#im bored #i want to fuck him #rain is coming #i hate my body

0 notes

butterbeerblurbs · 3 years

Note

Hiii! I was wondering if I can get a 1+1 Drabble?

I want to do situation 15: someone is jealous/hurt (but I specifically want hurt)

and I want sentence 40!

I have some requests for details if that’s fine too. Can you put the character in hufflepuff and she’s shy and reserved? Fred decided to do a prank that he thought would make her laugh, but it ended up embarrassing her so much that she felt hurt? (The prank was in front of a bunch of students) Kind of like she thought Fred would understand that she didn’t like pranks towards her that included people seeing her in a state like that?? Thank you!! I hope the details are okay lol.

ahhh sure thing! i did my best trying to incorporate the details! thanks for sending one in lovely 💞💞💞i didn’t want to make it too heavy, so i kind of lightened it a bit if that’s okay! >:) i hope you like it nevertheless! :0

a small little drabbles game based on this list! [web masterlist] | [tag: 1+1 drabbles]

situation: 15 - someone is jealous/hurt (hurt specifically for this) sentence: 40 - “it’s just hard for me to forgive you after everything that’s happened.”

fred hasn’t been able to speak to you in two days since... the little incident. it was a bit more difficult considering you were in different houses and you definitely benefited from that to create the distance. he understands–he deserves it–but he misses you. for someone who enjoys making you smile, on the daily, he’s rather disappointed in himself that he’s made you upset.

so what does he do?

well... first, he has to find you in order to find out.

fred manages to spot you on the grass nearby the greenhouse with a book in your possession. closer towards the trees, resting underneath one of it as a shade as well as hiding from the world. after what he did... he wouldn’t be surprised if you wanted to find a hole and bury yourself under... which... again, made him feel twice as guilty.

but if there’s one thing that fred knows how to do: it’s apologize. especially when he’s made a mistake and he wants to show to you that he means it.

left, right, left, right–crack–ah, shit.

fred’s breath hitches when you turn the cheek and you’re looking at him dead in the eye. not even for a few seconds before you look away. he heaves a sigh, releasing the breath caught in his throat as he approaches you. he carefully sits down opposite you and he hates how you’re still ignoring him even though it’s within your right.

he’s able to capture your attention when he gently places a hand on the book you’re reading; blocking the words with a small box. you’re curious for sure, but that doesn’t mean you weren’t hurt. being with freddie, it was like being in a different world altogether. the shy and reserved hufflepuff you were merely surprised that you even let him in the first place.

so for him to have played a prank (albeit not in front of many but it still mortified you), hitting you at your lowest, it takes every part of your being not to cry and lose it. that resorts to you cooling off for nearly two days without speaking to him until now... well...

wordlessly, you pick up the box and set the book aside to the ground. when you open it, tiny sparks soon start to fly and from a seed inside, it blooms to a tiny tulip–the symbol of love, the claim of worthiness and request for forgiveness. the sentiment made you crack a small smile and the flower remains standing, along with fred’s gaze lingering on you when you tilt your chin up to him.

“i’m sorry,” fred murmurs, shifting a little closer until he’s able to place a hand on one of your wrists, “i’m so sorry,”

when you still don’t say anything, fred carefully cases your hands with his, framing the small box of flower in your possession. “y/n...”

your mouth opens and already fred anticipates for your words. you feel it when his hands squeeze yours gently, anxious to hear your voice for the first time in two days. your voice is soft, gently drumming against his ears and shaking his heart at the delicacy.

“it’s just hard for me to forgive you after everything that’s happened, freddie...” you frown, eyes glued to the flower because it’s pretty. the fact he chose this specific flower, knowing very well it shows his dedication to get your forgiveness (along with the possible hours he went through looking for the right flower) made your heart swell. almost easily forgiving him.

he nods, a couple of times for good measure so you know he’s listening.

“i... i fully support the pranks you do–you know i do–but when it’s a prank on me, in the eyes of so many, i...” fred notices your hesitance, gently giving your hands a squeeze, “go on, darlin’. be honest with me,”

at his reassurance, you take a deep breath and close your eyes for a bit. only to open them and see fred’s looking at you with such fondness, your disappointment in him ebbs away.

“it hurt me when you pranked me in front of everyone. i don’t feel comfortable under all the attention and to have–to be embarrassed like that was–i didn’t like it,” you lick your lips, the word lingering around your tongue and fred knows you’re holding back. he nudges the flower from your hands, filling the spaces between yours with his and gives one more squeeze. as if he’s forcing out the right words you wanted to say.

“i hate it. so so much,” you confess, peeking at him, “no more pranks in front of others, please? in private, just two of us, maybe even with george is fine with me–just–just not in–”fred shakes his hands from your grip, putting his arms around you to tug you into his embrace. your stammering stops when your face is against his chest and he shifts you closer until he’s all you feel.

you sink into his warmth, arms meekly returning the hug around his waist and he smiles at this. how you succumb to his touch, how delicate fred becomes when he’s with you. as if his thoughts are quiet, tranquil. the bold and playful side of him simmering down, being at peace, at ease–with you.

“no more pranks, i promise,” he murmurs, dipping down to press a kiss to your cheek, “forgive me?”

when he doesn’t hear a response, he sees it when you’re smiling at him. teasing him with the silence, melting his insides at how radiant your smile is. the color in his life returning to full saturation at the sight of your bright eyes; the glow on your face he basks in, so warm, so full.

“i was miserable for two long days, y/n. please forgive me,”

“...did you learn your lesson?”

“learn? i think i got it tattooed to my brain forever, thank you very much–and why are you laughing?”

“because now you’re forgiven.”

fred tackles you to the ground and is relentless with his tickling. to the point where it hurts. hurts to laugh, the kind of hurt that makes your stomach somersaults at how happy fred looks at the sight of you happy. granted, fred made you upset and... humiliated you but it was all without ill intention–you know it, imprinted in your gut feeling.

now, as he lays on the ground with you, hands interlocked as you stare up to the blue skies, your heart rests easy.

and so does freddie’s, next to yours.

#1+1 drabbles #fred weasley fanfics #fred weasley #fred weasley x reader #fred weasley fic #fred weasley imagines #fred weasley fanfiction

100 notes · View notes

marindram · 3 years

Text

full transcription of Marin's blog from Omega Mart!

huge thanks to @b0chelly for recording a scroll-through, which i typed this out from. (and warning for Omega Mart lore/story spoilers. second half is in reblog)

Marinknows.best

Location: Seven Monolith Village

Last Login: 12/31/2019

Profile Views: 101,275

About me: I love listening to music and glitter

Friends (0)

June 26, 2018

Happy Birthday to meeeeeeeeee!

So 14 feels way different than 13. For real. I think it's because I was expecting 13 to feel different, but sometimes when you expect something it turns out the opposite ya know?

Plus, 13 is like, "I'm new to being a teenager!!"

14 is more like, "I'm becoming the person I want to be." At least that's how I want it to be. I wanted to start this blog as a record of all that.

I should ask Did you guys feel the same way when you turned 13 and 14?

But probably nobody's gonna read this because I'm just a weirdo in the weird dessert. I mean, I know my best friend Jesse is reading this (hi Jesse). Besides her, crickets.

But yeah, if you are reading this and you don't know me - I live in Seven Monolith Village, a teensy tiny town that you've only heard of if you're into aliens or homesteading. And I'm literally stuck. As in, I'm physically unable to leave. My first memories are of all the adults in my life (Charlie, my great-uncle/father-figure - Rose, my what? Roommate? Mother-figure? Pseudo-aunt? All of the above? and my mom, Cecelia. who doesn't live here) telling me that for some reason, there's something wrong with me that makes it so I can't leave a certain radius of where we live. I got older and thought that they were just exaggerating to keep me safe, but then last year I tried. And it was, let's just say not good.

Anyway. That part of my life sucks, but not everything sucks. This year is all about Marin Dram 2.0. Not new, but definitely improved.

And maybe someday, somehow somebody will read this and care about what I have to say. Somebodies, even. Until then, this is Marin Dram signing off and sending my lame contemplations into the void!

July 1, 2018

Things I Want To Do Before I Turn 20 (and some of these will never happen like are literally unable to happen but JUST LET ME DREAM

1. Kiss someone (who???)

2. Meet HTB (kiss him) (jk he would never) (plus meeting him would be enough)

3. Go to Paris

4. Go to Rome (or somewhere cooler in Italy, look up where is the best pasta???)

5. Go to Greenland (why not???)

6. Go to New York City

7. Go to LA (with a dream and my cardigan lol)

8. Go to the Grand Canyon (this isn't mine, but 9, Jesse is sitting right here and she went to the GC when we were 12 and she's like blah blah blah it's my favorite place in the world and you'll love it. I'm doing this so she'll shut up.

9. Live in a normal house with normal rooms → ideally 12 of them: living room AND TV room, kitchen, dining room, 3 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, study/library.

-plus an upstairs downstairs

-I'm willing to compromise on the number of rooms as long as there's more than ONE for TWO PEOPLE and I got my own

-plus an upstairs/downstairs

-I'm willing to compromise on the number of rooms as long as there's more than ONE for TWO PEOPLE and I get my own room with an actual door. Very into doors.

10. Go to a mall (Jesse says there's a bunch of bonkers ones in Vegas)

11. Make friends who aren't Jesse (no offense, Jesse)

12. Get Cecelia (my "mom") to teach me about business stuff so I can open my own cool coffeeshop/bookstore someday

13. Learn to drive (ask Charlie to teach me, he's obsessed with his truck) (Jesse says she can teach me because she's Little Miss Mechanic and thinks she knows everything about cars but news flash Jesse: you're you get than me)

14. Figure out my signature style- like I want people to send me pictures of things and be like "this just screamed Marin" and for that to be true

15. Liquid eyeliner??

16. I'm stopping here because I just read over all this and want to die/cry because easily 3/4 of these are literally impossible?

17. Kill me

18. Bye

19. Lololol Charlie just came in and I was complaining about this, not being able to leave and stuff, etc and he said that I should visit new places by... reading books?? And I mean I like to read. But dude. That's the dumbest thing I've ever head.

July 30, 2018

Okay so this is what I want my life to look like:

I want a pink room. Not just pink... P I N K. Cool pink wallpaper (floral? jacquard??), pink carpet, lots of pink flowers everywhere, a four-poster bed with a pink silk canopy, lots of cool pink throw pillows. Like, so pink that

people think I'm being sarcastic! Oh, and BOOKS. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases, and some of the shelves have, like, STUFF on them that isn't books, like gifts people gave me, or things I've collected on my JOURNEYS. You know, normal stuff that people who live on normal places and do normal things have.

If I lived in in this room, it'd be in awhite three-story house at the end of a cul-de-sac (did you know "culs-de-sac" is the plural? Not "cul-de-sacs"? crazy) and I'd wear very classic girly clothes and my hair would always do what I wanted it to. It'd be one of those towns that people call small, but it's actually a city. just one with a kinda small, cozy feeling. Somewhere that gets cold enough to wear cute jackets but not so cold I have to to like, shovel my driveway. Not a non-place with like 100 people where you can't even go outside without going crazy.

August 2nd, 2018

I guess I should explain where I live, for all my avid fans out there! (lol) (hello??)

So like... I don't live on Earth. At least, not the Earth you think of when you think of EARTH. I live in some some weird off-brand version of Earth called the Forked Earth where there are aliens and magic wells of magic energy and everything is MAGIC but like the crappy kind of magic, where the sun never fully rises and some goo called "runoff" has made everything wacky and oh yeah, my mom is responsible for that and everyone here hates her!! LOL

Also, I can't leave! Like, literally can't! Rose says I'm a "special child of Source" and that's why but that LITERALLY explains tells me nothing, in fact it just raises further questions that no one can seem to answer! AHHHHHHHHHH

Anyway, the last time I tried to leave I felt. When I try to leave I feel like I'm being pulled back by something, like you know those old cartoons where someone's on stage doing something dumb and then someone offstage pulls them away with a giant shepard's crook? It felt like that, and when I opened my eyes I was back in 7 Monolith Village. UGH.

I know this sounds crazy!!!!! But believe me when I say that I am the least crazy person here. Also, """here""" is C R A Z Y. Runoff has made everything the bad kind of psychedelic and then people here actually DRINK IT! Not only do I not DRINK THE STUFF THAT HAS MADE THE WORLD INSANE, I also do not talk to aliens (or whatever Nula are) like Rose or believe crazy conspiracy theories like Charlie, so I believe that qualifies me as the most normal person in the Forked Earth, thank you for this honor, I accept this award with humility and grace!

September 4, 2018

I had the weirdest dream last night?? I was swimming in a pool full of cereal, and when I came up for air, my mom was pouring milk on my head like she was rinsing my hair. She had her hand over my face like I was a little kid and she was shielding me from soap getting in my eyes.

Anyway I have no idea what it's supposed to mean. I went to bed hungry and I need to take a shower? Lol

October 16, 2018

I was trying to hide this entry from Jesse, but JESSE IS A NOSY PERSON. She says that blogs are for readers, and if I wanted something to be private then I should "Just write in a fucking notebook and hide it under your bed like a normal person, Marin." I'm allowed to have secrets!! Anyway, I'm making her a freaking playlist, that's why I wouldn't tell her what I was writing about. but EVEN STILL! I'm allowed to have secrets!! But I have this blog because I wanna get my feelings out, I wanna see everything in my head typed out all nice in a way that doesn't make it look insane. You know? I don't know who I'm asking.) Because, it's not like I go to a normal school or have a normal life where I'm surrounded by normal people I can talk to. No one knows about me! I'm trapped in this crazy place and This blog is my only outlet to the world outside. I KNOW that's heavy but it's true! The point is: Jesse's birthday is coming up. The central consistent thing in pretty much my whole life is sharing headphones with her and listening to music. The soundtrack to my entire existence is her. I wish I had money and could buy her the best presents of all time, but I can make her the best playlist of all time. I want it to be so good it feels like magic. I want her to think I'm magic. I had another dream the other night. I don't remember much, just glitter. I must be crafting too much. Or looking at festival makeup tutorials. Or both.

November 12, 2018

WARNING- Weird thoughts ahead, lol.

I can never tell which feelings are normal, and which are me being a giant weirdo. But for as long as I can remember, I've had this feeling like every part of my body that's possible to have a ribbon tied around it, has a ribbon tied around it. It's so weird. I can't see the other end of the ribbons - how far they go. where they're attached, nothing. And sometimes it's fine, because sometimes I can hardly feel them. I can forget about them for days at a time, weeks, months if I'm lucky. But then other times I can feel them like, pulling at me. It's freaking spooky, to have something pulling at you from somewhere you can't see. I can't tell if it's pulling me toward whatever it is? Or if it's trying to warn me? Or if I'm just insane??

Does that make sense? Does anybody else feel that way? (she asks into the void)

So idk I guess this ribbons-feeling is why I'm really careful all the time. Like I'm just a careful person. Charlie tried to give me a hard time about it, and I can't be like "I don't wanna pull back in the ribbons too hard without realizing it and wreck something!" because he'd be like "WTF Marin, do we need to get you help?" But also, more and more, I want to be the opposite of careful. I want to take a pair of comically oversized scissors and cut the ribbons into so many pieces that nobody can even tell what they are any more.

I don't know why I'm such a freak, only that I am. I don't know why I can't leave 7 Monolith, only that I can't. But there must be a reason, even if I can't see it, and I feel like it makes sense that the ribbons-feeling is part of that reason, right?

There's just a lot.

January 15, 2019

Happy new year! Lol I forgot to write on the actual first day of 2019, but OH WELL!

I got this new glitter nail polish, thanks to the monthly makeup subscription box my "mom" sends me as an outlet for her abandonment guilt. It has like, every color glitter imaginable without quite reading as "rainbow" which is fine just not really what I was in the mood for and it's vaguely halographic and shifts into all these different colors depending on the light. I'm obsessed. Anyway.

I was putting on another layer because I chipped it like 20 minutes into wearing it, and all of a sudden I had this feeling like I recognized the glitter? Like I felt this thing way deep in my gut and for a minute I couldn't breathe. It's the closest thing I've felt to how books and movies make Christmas look. Like I was home, with family, cookies and cider and all that stuff. Familiar and safe. I almost didn't recognize that feeling. And it came from the nail polish. How weird is that.

I mean, I don't want to make it sound like I've had this awful Charles Dickens childhood - Rose and Charlie are the best ever and always there for me and I love them a lot. But things never feel like...home. You know?

My mom always says this cryptic stuff about how I'm "special" and I wanna strangle her because I'm not, but you try getting my mom to stop doing anything she wants to do. Rose told me once that one day, I would "lead the charge into a new era of existence and access" because I'm "of the Source" and I was like uhhhh okay?? Charlie mostly treats me pretty normal, except when I ask him questions about our family. my mom or any Dram. He knows that I want to know more about them and he's my only real entrypoint, but apparently he's like the black sheep of that whole family. He and my mom were close way back right before I was born, but now whenever she comes to visit he barely even looks at her.

So that's to say: nobody tells me anything, ever.

January 16, 2019

Okay this is so weird. I wrote that entry yesterday about glitter and then last night I dreamed about glitter. Then I woke up with purple glitter in my bed?? Like not a lot, so at first I thought it was from my nail polish, but it was just a handful of purely purple glitter that looks nothing like my nail polish. SO WEIRD!!!!!!

February 14, 2019

Rose has an old book full of "ye olde" style fairy tales, and I flipped through it for the first time in forever today.

Not so weirdly, I've always been drawn to the story of Rapunzel.

Rapunzel couldn't leave the tower, or else she'd break her neck and die.

Same.

February 19, 2019

I was reading this article the other day in one of the teen magazines my "mom" gets me a subscription to and it was all about body positivity, which is great, but it was basically just like "wear a crop top if you wannna wear a crop top! it doesn't matter what size you are! You go, girl!" And like, sure. Yes. I am all for that. But doesn't it seem like there are some steps missing in there? Like, I can physically put on a crop top and wear it outside. But how do I convince myself that everybody isn't looking at me and making fun of me in their minds? How do I unlearn the last almost-fifteen years? How do I get actually positive about my body, not just put on a crop top and fight the urge to cry all day?

It's the same thing like when my mom sends me brochures from the CEO camp she ten when she was my age (her dad started the camp for her, which is an insane thing just by itself, but she did all the work, which is even more insane) and she's like "Marin, you lack direction for your life" and I'm like, cool mom. Yeah. I can see that. What I can't see is how to get there from here.

March 2, 2019

This is what I want my life to look like, volume 2:

The walls of my room are covered in Polaroids of me and my friends. There are lots of mirrors in all kinds of shapes. hearts and moons and stars. There's a record player and a lot of vintage records by Billie Holiday and Lena Horne and Peggy Lee and Nina Simone. And Christmas lights! Everywhere! Lots of of pink and purple Christmas lights everywhere.

If I lived in this room, I'd have so many friends and be part of so many clubs. My best friend would have a collection of vintage cameras, and every place we go to that has a photo booth, we'd get photos taken. Every time I'd look at myself in one of those mirrors, I'd feel happy at what I see and never weird or sad. (Jesse hates taking pictures, so even when I actually do normal stuff with her there's no evidence. What even is a life supposed to be without evidence? That's not an actual question you need to answer Jesse, it's just a question)

Anyway, if I lived in this kind of room, my mom would probably be like, an art history professor at a liberal arts college. That's how come everything looks so cool, because I would know stuff about art. My mom and I would love to try new recipes together. We get each other new cookbooks for every special occasion, and right now we're working out way through a Moroccan one. Moroccan Mondays.

In actuality, there's a dust storm happening outside and my eyes sting.

March 9, 2019

Here's what I'm obsessed with lately.

Can. You. EVEN???

February 3, 2020

Omg I totally forgot this blog existed!!

I lost the password and instead of just resetting it I got in one of my super stubborn moods (Taurus moon lol) and just kept putting in guesses and jokes on me, it locked me out. Anyway, that's a boring story.

But my friend Ximena is really good at hacking and stuff, so she got me back in. Yeah you read that right - I have friends. Obviously a lot has happened since my last post. Ximena moved out here a couple months ago (X's family used to live here but they moved away a while ago) and she introduced me to Lora who I sorta-not-really already knew, and Jesse and I have been hanging out with them a ton. Jesse kind of more than me. Which is fine!!

Anyway I'm 15 now? If I lived somewhere normal I'd be psyched about almost being 16, because I'd get a car and have a Sweet Sixteen and eat a huge PINK cake, but I don't!

February 16, 2020

I read this fanfic the other night that was written in the second person so everything was like "you." "you're doing this" etc you know?

So... You go to a drive-in movie with Heartthrob Boy, and he spills soda on you by accident. And you take off your shirt ( you have a tank top on, don't worry) to clean it up, bit you're still all sticky and self-conscious about being sticky and HTB like... used his tongue to get it off??? AAHHHHH I'M DISGUSTING

but also I wonder if a boy will ever touch any part of me with his tongue

March 2, 2020

Hi I don't know if you heard but I have friends :)))

March 15, 2020

I think I'm so into painting my nails and doing my hair because those are things that always fit. I don't have to worry about places not carrying about a size 8, or places that carry XLs but when you read the measurements they're actually size 8s too and it's like jesus if that's an XL what am I

My "mom" was confused why I needed new pants because mine still look new, but I showed her the thigh holes and she was like "that's a weird place for a hole, how did that happen" and I realized that when your legs are a certain size, you just don't know about thigh rub and what it does to clothes. Pants could just last for years.

No matter what, I can paint my nails with a different color nail polish on every finger, and I can always do a braid crown. And I know I'm cute as hell, etc, so this is not a Marin Needs to Learn to Love Herself thing. It's just an UGH thing

April 17, 2020

So Rose does all these Source experiments on plants and flowers and stuff. Tbh, it's just one if those things I hardly even register anymore because it's just always there. She's explained to me a million times what Source is/does/means, but the way Rose explains things sometimes is just a LOT to take in and she refers to me as a "child of Source" but I kinda figure that's like "child of God" right? What else would that mean?

But anyway, it's really annoying because dried flowers are a part of my new aesthetic and I pinned a bunch of them up on my wall but I woke up this morning to a freaking jungle of very alive flowers. I freaked out. on Rose, and she Rose said she didn't do it and I was like WELL THEN WHO DID and she said that I did??

Which like. Obviously that doesn't make sense. I asked her what she meant and She just shook her head and said " It's happening. We should have known" which is some horror movie shit that she refused to elaborate on. I love to feel safe and normal!!

Or maybe it's not a horror movie at all. But maybe it's a superhero movie? Maybe there's some kind of origin story I don't know about yet, and all of this will be worth it once I figure out my powers. I wonder what my costume will look like. Lol.

April 23, 2020

Is it possible to die from longing? I know that sounds melodramatic, but I'm also kinda serious?? Because it seems like one of those things that could fester and get infected and kill you. It's like when you fall down and bang up your knee, and you need to put a band-aid on the scrape for a while, but THEN you need to air it out - but how do you know when you're supposed to do each one of those things? And if you do either one too much, your knee gets infected. What if I smother my heart with band-aids for too long and it gets infected? This isn't about anybody. I just keep having these dreams about someone I never expected to have dreams about and they're so intense that they keep leaking into my life and I wonder if I need to do something about them.

May 2, 2020

So Jesse's gotten really into metal music, and I tried to get her to play me something since, AS PREVIOUSLY ESTABLISHED, that's what we've literally ALWAYS DONE with music and each other, and she kinda looked at Ximena out of the corner of her eye and said like "I don't think it's really your thing" And it was the meanest thing anybody's ever said to me.

So later I looked up Zenion, the band she was talking about, and I listened to every single fucking song they've ever recorded turned up as loud as it could go with my own headphones that are better than hers anyway, and I loved it. And I didn't love it just because she said I wouldn't. I loved it because it was loud and weird and wild and when I listened to it it made me feel like it's not crazy when so feel stuff so hard it's like my heart's gonna vibrate out of my body. And I would have told Jesse all this and we could have shared it, but I guess she thinks just because I like HTB and glitter and stuff, I don't have the capacity for anything else.

She clearly doesn't know me at all. So much for any kind of whatever, why would she ever want to kiss someone she clearly sees as like a stupid baby.

May 7, 2020

The dreams are getting weirder and they're happening more. I'm getting scared to go to sleep. Not that the dreams are always scary (they almost never are, or not scary like in a typically scary horror movie way). I mean, I've only ever been me. I don't know what other peoples' dreams are like.

The other night in one I was jumping on a trampoline, which is something I've never done in real life. I told Rose about it when I woke up, and she said "do you even know how to jump on a trampoline?" and I said "Rose, it's not like riding a bike. You don't have to learn. You just jump." and then we got into this whole thing about how some things we just know, and jumping's one of them, and how that's so weird. Sometimes I really like talking to Rose about stuff.

May 19, 2020

So, it's prom season in the real world. If I lived somewhere normal, my prom dress would be pink with lots of tulle and silk flowers at the shoulders, and it would fit perfectly and trying in dresses would be fun and not anxiety-inducing.

But since there are only like 10 teenagers currently in 7MV, were not having a homecoming. Cool.

May 27, 2020

So, mom came to visit this weekend, and I asked her about her prom. She was Typical Cecelia at first, very "Prom is a waste of time and money, Marin. It's a night when lesser people play dress-up to engage with their aspirations of grandeur." And I was like eyeroll forever and just stopped talking. BUT THEN she actually talked to me like a human being. She was like, "I actually didn't go to my prom" and when I asked her why she said that she didn't have a date, and was very self-conscious about it. I almost passed out at her admitting that she's ever been anything less than perfect.

(gonna continue this in reblog)

#omega mart #marin dram #omega mart lore

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nikrangdan · 3 years

Text

cafeworker!ni-ki

pairing: cafeworker!ni-ki x female reader

genre: fluff, comedy

description: the cashier at the new coffee shop was so adorable you just couldn’t resist visiting just for him

**did not proofread

————

contrary to popular belief, you were NOT a social person

whenever you were around friends and family, you were always the loudest person there

like SHUT UP Y/N!!!!!!

anyways although you were loud, people still enjoyed being around you because you had such a sweet soul and interesting humor

everyone close to you knew that you hated talking to people you didnt know

but to all the strangers? no

they would think you were an outgoing ready-to-meet-new-people extrovert

which was so, so wrong

but ALAS, you had to talk strangers almost everyday living in 2020

(well lets pretend we arent in the middle of a pandemic right now)

moving on......

so you were in high school at the downfall of your existence

you used to have so many friends when you were younger ..now you only have like 3

and those three were always busy (busy making up excuses thats for sure) so you never really hung out with them outside of school

and on one fine evening after school you decided to visit the new cafe 5 minutes from your house

u were really excited because all the cafes were 15 minutes from your house so now u could just walk to this one if u wanted to !!!

but yeah it was in the middle of a small plaza that had cute buildings

you pulled up to the parking lot and was just about to get out the car when u remembered..

u have to talk to the cashier :/

who’s a stranger! even more ://

it was always so weird to you.. whenever you went out you always had someone else order for you because you just hated talking to strangers

you just felt uncomfortable and you couldnt help it

its not like you have never ordered for yourself but you would always prefer not to

and now that you think about it

this is the first time you have gone out by yourself

you did text one of your friends beforehand but they said they “had homework to do”

LIES!!!!

but you really wanted to try the coffee so you just ran with it

time to face your fears!

you opened the glass door to reveal a cute looking cafe, like the ones you’d see in movies

you loved it already

glancing to the cashier you’d have to be talking to—

hold on

you had to do a double take because WOAH.....

the cashier...

he....

wow..

you have never seen a boy like that in your life

you stood there for like 3 seconds before coming to your senses and standing infront of the menu

that was infrONT OF HIM

“hi, what can i get for you?”

HIS VOICE OH MY GOD..!?!?!

“oh um.. can i get a second to .. look..?”

“yeah of course,” he gestured to the menu on the wall above him

hes so nice u almost cried

your eyes shakily traveled up to the chalkboard menu and u began to ‘read’ the options

its like u could feel his eyes on u WTF!!!!

um um um *internally keyboard smashes*

you couldnt even think

the words on the menu were like gibberish

the ONE time u go out by yourself

this had to happen.. of course! someone had it out for you, you were sure of it >:(

picking a random drink you gave him your order

“uh can i have an iced caramel macchiato?”

ITS LIKE YOU CANT SAY A SENTENCE WITHOUT UH OR UM

u cant help but think hes judging you

he looks like that while u are standing there in old sweatpants your dads tshirt

“sure, what size?” he looks into your eyes after putting your order into the machine

god you felt your heart stop

his Eyes..... theyre so beautiful

“oh um regular” you attempted to give a small smile

hopefully it looked like one

“okay that’ll be $5.12.”

you dug out some cash from your bag and handed it to him

he gave u your change and gave u a small smile

“your drink will be out in a minute”

AAAAA

he went :)

he is so CUTE.....?!?!

he looked around your age too

sigh... you knew he was way out of your league though

you were gushing over him but he probably thought you were just another boring customer

while waiting u sat at one of the 2 person tables on your phone

and u IMMEDIATELY went to text your groupchat

‘GUYS’

‘AT THE CAFE NEAR MY HOUSE’

‘CUTEST BOY IVE EVER SEEN EVER IN MY ENTIRE LIFE’

‘WTF IM GONNA CRY HOW DOES HE EXIST’

‘WAIT BRB HE S COMIBBG’

you tried to quickly put your phone down without looking suspicious when you saw him walking towards you with a drink in his hand

“here you go, enjoy” he said before swiftly making his way back to the counter and talking to the other worker there

wow... hes so mesmerizing

you’d steal glances at him every now and then while taking sips of your drink

you were sitting there for like 20 minutes before you noticed you finished your drink

you totally forgot you came here to see how good their coffee was

it was good by the way

sadly it was your time to leave

taking one last glance at him, you threw away your empty cup and walked out the door

wow

u cant believe you got to witness the most beautiful human being ever

in your small town?? crazy

you were sitting in your car just thinking

WAIT

U DIDNT EVEN KNOW HIS NAME!

you mentally punched yourself but then you started laughing

what does knowing his name even matter, its not like u were ever going to talk to him anyway

LOL

*sad emoji*

but the coffee was good so you definitely planned to go back

and not just because of the cute boy

...unless....

*time skip*

the next day you went there was a week later at the same time in hopes that he was working the same shift

AND HE WAS!!!!

score! 1 for y/n, 0 for umm... any other person who had a crush on him too i guess

the cafe didnt have too many people since it was fairly new and also in a small part of the city

so when you went in, you were the only one there along with the two workers

“welcome, what would you like to order?”

NOT THIS AGAIN

he looked even cuter today

his messy blond hair almost covered his eyes

you shouldve forced your friend to come with you this time

you ordered the same thing as last time but this time he asked for your name

hmmm

“um y/n” you answered

your heart was always beating 2 times as fast whenever you had to talk to him

he wrote it down on the cup and after you paid, you went to sit down at the same spot as last time

looking at him is literally the highlight of your day

the same thing happened as last time, he came over and gave you your drink without giving u a second glance

>:((((

boooo look at me cute boy

nonetheless u continued going to the cafe at the same time as much as u could which was like three times a week

literally over a month later and u dont think anythings going to happen

u punch yourself for thinking the boy would somehow find interest in you

hes still indifferent to you which isn’t surprising since you’ve never made any kind of move

ever

but

he should know u by now

hopefully..

*time skip again*

it was a saturday

at this point you’ve basically given up on having a crush on him and now since its become a routine u just say you go for the coffee

not really paying attention to your surroundings you dont notice that the boy at the cash register isnt the normal one you see almost everyday

“hey, what would you like to order?”

woah WHAT

you look up from your bag to notice a boy that was definitely not the one that normally stood infront of it at this time

and you also noticed something on this new cashier

a name tag

how come your old little crush didnt have one????

this new boys name was ‘jay’ and he was fairly cute too

looking around the corner at the other worker u noticed he has a name tag too

you recognized him because he was always working when the cute boy was at the cash register

his name was ‘heeseung’

after taking in these new additions you answered to jay

“oh um.. can i ge-,”

“she gets an iced caramel macchiato. her name is y/n”

??!<_|#%[>~€\£~

you whipped your head around so fast to see who said that behind you

was it who you thought it was ??!??!

YES IT WAS!!!!

OH MYGOD

ITS HIM

you widened your eyes at the boy who wasnt wearing his normal black and white uniform

instead he was wearing black ripped jeans and a gray hoodie

wow....... and u thought he couldnt look any better

BUT OMG?? HE REMEMBERS U

“oh wow ni-ki, you know her?” the boy named jay asked him

“uh yeah.. shes a regular” he said before walking to stand next to you

NI-KI

HIS NAME IS NI-KI OHMHGOD

u thought his name fit him perfectly its so CUTE

“are you gonna get something too?”

this whole time you were silent because.. what is going on

your heart was being SO fast you thought that everyone could hear it

“yup, can i get the same thing? also im paying for both of us”

WHAT??/):)/$;##\%|

ur eyes widened even more it looked like they were gonna pop out of its sockets

u unconsciously leaned towards the boy next you and kind of put your hands up

“w-what?? oh um no, you dont have to do that” you nervously said to him as he looked down at you

he kind of had a smile on his face

“i want to.”

there is no way this is happening

“oiiii ni-ki” jay chuckled while punching in numbers on the cash register

“ill have both of your drinks out soon, you two kids have fun!” jay said before turning around to face heeseung

WHAT??!!??!

your jaw almost dropped from shock

millions of thoughts ran through your brain and you couldnt even process anything

u cant believe this was happening

it was like a wattpad story or something.. is this how u meet ur soulmate

your thoughts were interrupted by a hand on your back momentarily and u look to see ni-ki shyly grinning and gesturing u towards a table

no way...

you awkwardly follow him to a 2 person table next to wall and sit down

you literally could not hear anything except for the pounding of your heart

“uh sorry about that...” he rubbed his neck and sheepishly smiled

“im ni-ki by the way”

“y/n...” u felt so awkward u wanted to cry

“agh, im really sorry if that was weird.. i just didnt know how to ask you out.....” he trailed off

*passes out*

IM JOKING

Ok but u felt ur heart stop bc NO WAY

“wait what??” u ask, ur eyes bigger than the moon

“um yeah... haha i took the day off today to try to talk to you.. sorry if that was weird..”

HE WAS SO AWKWARD JUST LIKE YOU IT WAS THE CUTEST THING EVER

“no its okay!! im glad actually...”

“really? so is it okay if we hang out?” he asked excitedly

u did not think u could handle HOW CUTE THIS BOY WAS O M G...

“of course! sorry if im kind of awkward though” you gave a small smile

“its okay, i think i am too”

you two began talking about the cafe and where you went to school

turns out even though you two lived in the same town (literally 5 minutes away from eachother) u went to different schools for some reason

u talked for like 2 minutes before jay walked up with your drinks

“hows it going guys?”

“its doing good bro, now go away..” ni-ki lightly shoved jay and laughed

you giggled at the sight

jay looked offended and came right back

“that is not how you talk to your elders ni-ki! y/n do you see this?!” he scoffed

ni-ki just rolled his eyes and turned back to you

“do not ignore me young man!” jay joked

“oh y/n, ive heard all about you from ni-ki over here by the way.”

ni-ki’s eyes got so big you almost got worried

he turned around so fast and gave jay one of those ‘i swear if you say anything ur dead meat’ looks

jay obviously did not care

“hes always like ‘y/n this y/n that’ blah blah im glad he finally got the balls to ask you out because im honestly sick of hearing it!” jay laughed

u were blushing so hard

NI-KI LIKED U????

this felt like a dream

ni-ki pushed jay away so hard and turned back with red cheeks

awe

but yeah that was the beginning of the cutest relationship ever

u and ni-ki were so cute together <333

you’d always visit him during ur free time

it took like 2 months before u two made it official tho

and he was the sweetest boyfriend ever

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chaosprince-apollo · 3 years

Text

I find it poetic that in some ways Iroh's greatest defeat is ultimately his greatest triumph.

Like I'm not talking directly obviously. We know he was considered to be a great general and after his defeat he was ridiculed and broken because of the death of his son, he had no real place in his own nation due to his failure and outside of his nation he is a war criminal which he is undeniably aware of and he regrets because he knows he wasn't the good guy and his son died in vain. He may act like a buffoon at times but we know and the people in the avatar kingdoms know he is extremely capable and an expert stratergiest (a testament to this fact is people are wary of him and he STILL manages the convince them he's harmless even when the KNOW he's a dangerous man.)

Now to get to my point about why it becomes a triumph. Simple. It's his big turning point or his first big turning point. This failure and subsequent ridicule breaks him away from the expectation of being a great general. Breaks him away from being a model of what a fire nation soldier should be. Iroh is shown to always be a caring father and I truly believe he knew he was doing wrong but that he also loved his nation and the firelord (his brother) and wanted to bring glory/honour not just for himself but for his son. Failing at Ba Sing Se was a blow sure but if he'd succeeded a) more people than had already died would have and being enslaved by the fire nation. b) he'd have never become the man who became one of the cities protectors c) he'd possibly not have been the one to be with Zuko during exile and d) certainly wouldn't have been someone helping protect the Avatar.

Now I say this is one of his turning points because it's also extremely obvious his relationship with Zuko is his other important factor as to WHY Iroh is such a nuanced and well fleshed out character. There's no way Iroh WOULDN'T love Zuko, but his failure and death of his son drives Iroh not only to adopt Zuko as his own but also to understand that Zuko's mission is wrong and is the road to ruin.

Iroh has first hand knowledge what being on the wrong side gets you. He's also one of the only people around Zuko that acknowledges he is literally a 13 year old child (when exiled, 16 during the show) the gaang also make acknowledgement of this but considering they themselves are like 12-15 approximately this acknowledgement doesn't have the same impact as GROWN ASS ADULTS thinking it's okay for the firelord (a powerful force) to fight agni kai against a 13 year old and then exile him for having....an opinion? Like honestly do these people actually know what the agni kai was about and just accept that or are they told Zuko did something terrible...which like even so pretty poor form here y'all (anyway I digress clearly from my point but I have FEELINGS and probably there are other people with in the fire nation that have enough empathy and critical thinking to know that what happened to Zuko was wrong but my point remains) Uncle Iroh is one of if not the only ADULT character that seems to actually be shown as thinking Zuko is a child with feelings instead of that he's dishonoured his family or that he's evil.

(Side note, I know he calls Azula crazy but I also don't think he thinks she's actually evil either but he has no way to help her and even if he tried there's no way in her current mind set she'd ever listen. She wants to be strong and powerful and whilst she's incredibly smart she can't tell she's being manipulated because she's only ever gotten by on manipulation herself and being rewarded for that so it's difficult for her to see her father doing it to her. It's really enforced into her that her brother is weak and worthless because he doesn't have it in him to be like her. In her mind Iroh isn't just a failure as a soldier, he's a failure because he stood by Zuko. Why would she listen to someone so weak and stupid.)

So in conclusion after several tangents. Iroh's failure to take Ba Sing Se ultimately leads to his role in it's liberation and the defeat of the fire nation under firelord Ozai. His defeat helps put him on the side of the people and the avatar and gives him chances to make amends for his true failures (besieging the city in the first place leading to deaths including his own son and the failure to bring a stop to his younger brother's ambition and cruelty)

Another tangent fuck sorry, it's being a little while since I've watched and I'm thinking of things as I type and I am totally aware I might be missing stuff or misremembering things or that maybe I just have a different interpretation of certain events or characterisations. ANYWAY Iroh as the older brother was the one in line for the throne and Ozai tried to convince Azulon that Iroh was weak using Ba Sing Se as the reason (Azulon's reaction to this is entirely unfair, and it's hard to feel empathy for his fate at the time of his death even if, like other people of fire nation royalty, he has potential not to be a FUCKING COLOSSAL WANKER.) [Also a pause here to say there's a solid 11 to 12 hours between my thoughts here cause my friend called for me to pick her up from somewhere cause she finished waaaaay earlier than we were expecting so coherency who knows her lol]

I think the point I was making essentially comes down to Iroh's defeat leads Ozai to confront/try to reason with Azulon that Ozai would make a better firelord than Iroh (whether Ozai was wrong or right is a matter of perception ultimately) Azulon didn't like this and demanded Ozai kill Zuko, which I actually don't remember clearly but I looked at the wiki to jog my memory and it says that's what happened. Which was my point earlier about being a wanker, and sure maybe it was actually going to be some kind of test a la abraham and isaac etc but of course he got murked and also like firelords tend to have this follow through of becoming batshit at some point. Or at least the last few the precede our boy Zuko certainly have questionable levels of empathy for anyone outside of their immediate family and even then ... anyway who remembers Zuko's scar? Anyone, anyone at all. Yeah....

So Iroh defeat = Ozai trying to usurp the throne = Azulon's piece of shit death to Zuko demand = Azulon gets murdered, sorry assassinated = Ozai usurping the throne anyway (although I'm not sure Iroh really fought him on that at all? Someone please clarify) = Ozai being firelord when Zuko spoke up = the whole agni kai business = Zuko having his face burnt by his own father and told he's weak and is given a frankly impossible task = Iroh watching on and feeling shame, disgust, guilt, and honestly I ultimately think he felt fear for Zuko and fear of having to acknowledge more than ever before that his younger brother and even the nation he loves are on the wrong path and that power isn't worth the amount of pain and suffering caused, like I'm sure previous to this he knew, he had to have known because we know how incredibly intelligent Iroh is, and we also know he is part of white lotus (which again someone might have to tell me a timeline on that because the white lotus thing seems to have being going on a while so was he white lotus during the ba sing se seige? The first one I mean? OH THOUGHTS BUT I'LL COME BACK = Iroh and Zuko's pirate adventures uh, I mean Zuko tries to capture the avatar and Iroh drinks tea = Iroh having to watch Zuko struggle at an impossible task to regain honour he never actually lost = Iroh being a scheming old man to achieve the goal of giving Zuko a loving father = Iroh going on the journey with Zuko to befriend the gaang = Iroh participating with other white lotus members to liberate ba sing se = leading to help the downfall of an oppressive regime = Zuko taking the throne in a state of empathy and acceptance.

Like let's be real. Even though Iroh probably would have made a formidable firelord he possibly wouldn't have become the Iroh we know even though that man would have been in there and whilst he'd have remained a role model to Zuko it may not have had the same impact as the journey they DO share.

Okay I know I had more thoughts regarding white lotus things but this is so long and it's midnight and exactly 0 people will read this

Anyway I love Iroh thanks for coming to my Ted Talk

(Any mistakes are because my brain just dumped a bunch of thoughts and proofread absolutely nothing)

#uncle iroh #prince iroh #atla #avatar the last airbender #zuko #fire nation #fire lord #fire lord azulon #fire lord ozai #agni kai #white lotus #ba sing se

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