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the-wayward-arc · 3 years

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Commission done for a friend. (WARNING! GORE AND TORTURE ARE MENTIONED AND INVOLVED)

Their plan had failed. Kidnap the Arc heir and get the ransom. Easy. Of course, the child put up a fight and force had to be used. Necessary. But then they came, Tyrian and a man known simply as the Hound. Both of them were her mistress's top men in the Grimm syndicate. Why did they attack them? Why were her and her three other associates tied up in the middle of the clearing? Cinder wanted answers and she needed them now!

"I just wanna go home." She looked to the five year old Arc heir, he was clinging to the Hound for dear life, his eyes closed tightly as tears ran down his face.

"Hey! What's going on here!? Why'd you ruin our job?!" The fourth member of Cinder's team yelled out, Bron. A swift kick to the jaw from Tyrian was his only answer. Bron coughed, spitting a tooth as he glared at the uncomfortably quiet assassin. Cinder knew Tyrian, he was never this quiet! He always had something to say! Before she could ponder more, lights could be seen approaching from the tree line along with the sounds of Engines.

An armored limousine flanked by four hummers, two on each side drove up, their lights nearly blinding. Their headlights were turned off but the floodlights on top of each hummer was turned on. They all recognized the vehicles, they were all Grimm syndicate vehicles. Though the limousine in the center, they all knew who that was. Cinder had a small smile on her face. The occupants of the Hummers exited their vehicles, they all looked ready to fight a war. Decked out in full military apparel from their military rifles to the various tactical gear, the only striking things separating them from any actual military branch was their black and red uniform color and their bone white metallic masks. Apathy squad. That was the name of this particular group of Grimm syndicate soldiers. Only used for the extreme of issues and commanded only by on-

Two people exited the driver and passenger sides of the limo. Hazel and his older sister Gretchen Rainart, both dressed in suits. All four watched Gretchen walk to the end of the Limo, opening as someone stepped out, someone they all recognized; Salem, the head of the Grimm Syndicate. She was strikingly beautiful given her age, platinum pale blonde hair kept in half undone bun style. Fair skin with vein like tattoos spreading all over them, a tradition she once stated was part of her family for those that became the heads. Her light blue eyes fixated on the bound for as she walked over to them gracefully. Her heels kicking rocks as she walked over.

"Ha! You idiots are in for it now! Once the boss lady hears you messed up our job, there will hell to p-"

"Aunty Salem!" Bron stopped talking, all four of them froze as they saw the hound put the young boy down as he ran with a limp to Salem. She brought herself down to one knee, arms opened as a loving smile that none had ever seen before was on her face. The boy hugged her tightly as she did the same, her arms wrapping around him as she kissed his forehead.

"Shhhhh, it's okay my sweet knight. I'm here. Your aunty is here." She said with a soothing motherly voice, soothing the crying boy as she sent a death glare at all four of the bound men.

"I *hic* scared Aunty! They said they would *hic* kill me. That they would come after everyone." He cried as he buried his face into her chest, crying.

"Мой маленький рыцарь(my little knight), I'm here now. You were so brave, I'm proud of you for being brave. Aunty is gonna make the bad people go away okay?" She said, a chill of pure fear running down all their spines.

"M-Mistre-" cinder tried to rise, to tell her Mistress this was a misunderstanding! Only for the butt of a rifle to hit her back down. She looked to see an Apathy soldier behind her, they had surrounded them. All their rifles pointed at them. She looked at the crying boy, then to Salem. This boy. The sole male of the Arc family was Salem's nephew. He was her family...a family they all just threatened.

"Stay down." The soldier stated.

"Jaune, why are you limping and who gave you that black eye?" She asked him, Bron and Mercury stiffened as Jaune pointed at them.

"The man with the silver hair hit my legs hard because I tried to run away. He said if I did it again, he was gonna make sure I could never walk again." He told her. Mercury looked at Salem, her glare terrifying him. Then he glared at Cinder, the one who decided to go against Salem's orders.

He rose up, "DAMN YOU CIND-" the butt of rifle slamming against his jaw sent him to the ground, two soldiers picking him up and putting back onto his knees.

"Silence! You will speak only if Salem allows it!"

"who gave you that black eye?" She asked him, ignoring the commotion as she moved locks of Jaune's hair to get a better view of his eye. Her anger rising as she could see the outlines of a fist among the swelling. He pointed at Bron.

"He did." Tears started forming and it broke Salem's heart to see her nepphew had gone through so much pain, the redness on his wrist did not go unnoticed. "H-he said h-he would kill me and our f-family. Saying h-he would do bad s-stuff to m-momma and my sisters."

Bron's mouth was dry. He couldnt speak to defend himself. What the boy said was true. Of course he was just stating it to keep the kid in line but he didnt know that. Not would Salem care if he didn't mean it. Salem looked at him, there was death promised behind that stare.

"You arm, why is it like that?" It was Cinder's turn to stiffen more than she already did. She kidnapped and beaten Salem's nephew. Threatened his family with death or well Salem's family.

"T-to keep me in the room. The metal hurt when I tried to get out of it. She gave me a knife and said I could leave if I just cut off my hand." Cinder didn't dare look up. She knew they had screwed up immensely. There was no mercy. No way to talk themselves out of it. There was only punishment.

"Gretchen," the older woman stepped forward, "take Jaune into the Limo, give him water and some snacks. Hes had quite an ordeal."

"Yes ma'am." The giant of a woman extend her arms out as the boy hugged Salem tighter. She gave him a kiss on the cheek, whispering in his ear as he nodded. He allowed Gretchen to carry him as she began to walk away. Salem slowly walking towards the four.

"Wait!" Jaune cried, causing Salem to immediately turn her head with concern. Gretchen walked towards Salem. "Aunty, the girl with the green hair...she was nice to me. She gave me food and played a game with me." Salem looked at Emerald, the girl not wanting to look back.

"Is that so."

"Yeah! She was nice to me, when the man over there punched me, she wiped away my tears and tried to make the pain go away." Emerald smiled a bit, internally thanking the boy for remembering. Cinder however was seething with anger. She didnt know Emerald was doing this!

"I see, go rest now мой маленький детеныш(my little cub), I'll be there shortly." Salem turned away, waiting for the door to the Limo to slam shut. Once it did, she looked at Cinder.

"Cinder," there venom and anger in her voice, despit her calmness. Gone was that motherly tone. "What were your orders hmm?"

"Mistress, please just all-" a hard slapped shut her mouth. She looked at Salem, seeing her hand raised with a glare. "What. Were. Your. Orders?"

"T-to S-stand by and wait for your orders." She answered, recovering from the slap.

"What did you do instead?"

"We acted on our own."

"And?"

Cinder clenched her teeth. "We kidnapped the Arc heir and held him for ransom..."

Salem look towards Bron as she walked over to him. Two soldiers bring the bound man to his feet.

"let me see your hands." She commanded, holding her own hand.

"Ma'am, T-this was all Cinder's idea! If we had know-" a fist to the gut by one of the soldiers silenced him. Salem still waiting for him to show her his hands. The two guards did for him, Salem examining his right knuckle and seeing it was somewhat red. Her anger rose more, knowing what he had done to Jaune.

"This the fist you used? Hazel." The large man immediately walked over, clasping Bron's fist into his own before crushing with all his strength, a sickening crunch was herd as Bron screamed in pain, his fingers all broke with a few bones poking out. "His punishment isnt over yet, stand him up." The soldiers immediately raised the man up, cutting his bound hands as he went grasp the broken one.

The others looked at Salem as she walked in front of them, then hearing the snarling and growling. All their eyes widened when they saw three large wolf like creatures. Beowolves, The result of the Grimm syndicate cross breeding Russian bear dogs with Wolves, to create vicious attack dogs to be sold. The dogs were large, with jet black fur and vicious fangs as they snarled. They charged at the 3 bound people only to be stopped by their chain leashes.

"Каблук!" The dogs immediately sat down, looking at the one who ordered, Salem. She looked at Bron who looked back fearfully.

"I have done everything in my power to ensure my family is never involved in the other side of our business. From bribing officials, forcing others to look the other way, to even assassinations against anyone that looked at my family the wrong way. Then you four," she looked at them all, seeing their fear. "Decide to act on your own, kidnap my sweet nephew and make him endure pain that I worked extremely hard to ensure he would never experience!" She shouted, making them all flinch. "Bron, you threatened to kill him. You threatened to kill MY family. To do unsavory things to my not only niece but my great nieces as well." She walked forward, the man trying to back away only to be stopped by Hazel.

"Ma'am! Please!" He begged. "It was Cinder's idea! Please you have to believe me!" He cried, tears running down his face but it didn't faze Salem. She snarled at him.

"Run."

"W-wah?" He asked through sobs.

"Run. You have 3 seconds." She said, turning around. "3..." the beowolves stood up and bron knew what was going to happen. He stepped back, breaking into a sprint towards the treeline. "2..." he ran, as fast as he could. Praying to any god that would listen to save him. "1." Salem turned around, "Убийство.(Kill)" The beowolves immediately broke into a run, free of their chains as they chased after their prey.

Bron ran, he could hear the barking from the canines. He ran, despite his lungs burning. He had to keep going! He had to survive! He wasnt going to die here! He- a Beowolf lunged onto his back, pushing to the ground, before he could react they were on him. Biting into his flesh, ripping chunks off as he tried to fight back. One grabbing a hold of his broken hand and violently tugging at it, he screaming as one bit into his exposed stomach, a chunk being ripped off due to the powerful jaws.

Salem looked at the surviving three as they listened to their former teammate being ripped apart. His screamings echoing throughout the forest. Screams for help. To make the pain stop. Forgiveness. There was no forgiveness. No mercy. They had brought the wrath of the devil himself onto themselves. Mercury could clearly hear the flesh being torn off as the screams died down before silence.

"Возвращение!" A soldier yelled. Within a few minutes, the canines came running out, all three recoiled as they saw each one of them was covered in blood. In their jaws, each held a piece of Bron. One held his mauled tattooed arm, bits of flesh hanging loosely off it. The other held what looked like intestines in its mouth but the other was the worst. A piece of Bron's face was held firmly in its jaws, his lone eye hanging out of the half torn socket. Emerald couldn't hold it in and vomited. Cinder tried her best to stay composed despite the brutality she had just heard and seeing its aftermath. Mercury was shaking, the assassins always the one doing the killing. Now he was on the other end.

"Emerald. The kindness you showed my nephew will not go unnoticed, your punishment will not be as severe. But you will still be punished, just not now. Others are ahead of you." Salem stated as she walked past Emerald. Silently thanking Jaune.

"Mercury." She looked at the young assassin as he looked away.

"Look at me." He still looked away. Immediately a soldier grabbed his head and forced him to look at Salem. He could've sworn her blue eyes were gone, replaced by a pair of glowing blood red ones. He blinked and her eyes were normal.

"You beat Nephew's legs. To ensure he couldnt run far. You threatened to make sure he couldn't walk again if he tried to run again. Am I correct?"

Mercury could only nod. He dare not lie.

"You will not die today. No, I still have need of you. But you will be punished and it will be the way you threatened my sweet boy." Mercury's eyes went wide as the soldiers grabbed him, throwing to the ground and started to tie his legs above the knee caps, a piece of wood placed between his legs, also above the knee caps as it painfully forced his legs to spread apart despite being bound. The soldiers held him down.

"Make him experience the pain he brought upon my nephew." She ordered, before Mercury could say anything, something was shoved in his mouth.

"You may wanna bite down my dear Mercury, or else you'll bite off your tongue." She told him as a large soldier walked foward, a sledgehammer in hand. Mercury eyes widened as the soldier raised the sledgehammer high and immediately brought it down to the side of Mercury's right leg. Forcing the limb to bend into the wood. He screamed into the leather as the hammer came down again onto his right leg, another swing and another followed until his right leg was a right angle. His bones sticking out.

Emerald shut her eyes as the soldier repeated the same action onto the other leg. Salem unfazed by any of it as she looked at Cinder. Each sickening hit of flesh tearing and bone breaking made her flinch. Eventually it stopped and she looked at the gnarled form that was Mercury, he had passed long ago from the pain.

"Treat his wounds. Make sure he lives." The soldiers bowed before taking the broken assassin away. The beowolves were still gnawing their prizes.

"Take Emerald away, put her in one of the vehicles."

"Yes ma'am." One soldier stated as he picked the thief by the arm and forced her away. She dared not look at Salem or Cinder. Cinder glared at her as she was led away.

"Cinder. You have no one to blame but yourself." Salem snarled as Cinder looked at her. She was immediately brought to her feet to look at her boss.

"Ma'am! Please, I acted on how you taught me! To take the chance when it presented itself!" Cinder told her, hoping she can get out of this.

Tyrian walked forward, holding a long box in front of him with both hands. Salem turned around, opening the box's latched lid carefully to reveal a sword Nestle in soft fabric.

"Crocea Mors. This sword has been in my family since the time of the Roman Empire. During the reign of Julius Caesar. It was his sword, then it was melted down by one his descendants and reforged into the sword you see now. Carried by our ancestor Joan of Arc before her death." She waved the sword a bit, holding it up high as she inspected it. "Each Arc since then has held onto the sword, swearing upon it to protect our family no matter what. To honor our promises we make. To ensure any foe who stands before us falls. It will be Jaune's soon. When he comes of age, it will be his." She looked at Cinder. "You harmed my family Cinder. I had such high Hope's for you as well, but you still have some uses to me, so I won't kill you."

That didnt make Cinder feel better. "Raise your right arm out Cinder." She ordered, at first Cinder didn't. Salem looked at Hazel as the man stepped forward and forced her to. Cinder tried to fight back, but to no avail due to the man's strength.

"Mistress! Please! It won't happen again! I promise!" She pleaded, Salem handed the sword to the hound, as he raised the blade above Cinder's arm, right above elbow.

"Oh my sweet Cinder. I know. But what was it you said to my nephew?" The Hound raised the blade higher. "The only way to get out was to cut off your hand?" The blade came down In one swift motion. Severing Cinder's arm. Cinder fell to her knees, shocked. She looked at her severed limp limb as it was thrown towards the canines as they began to rip it apart. Then down to her stump, blood pouring out. The shakily looked at Salem, who simply cleaned the blood off the blade before carefully placing it back into secured holder. She began to walk away, as the pain finally registered to Cinder. She screamed and flayed on the ground as she tried to stop the bleeding.

"Go, make sure she lives. She still has uses to me." She told the soldiers. The canines were put back into their cages as Hazel opened the door for Salem. She saw Jaune was fast asleep, hugging into Gretchen, Salem extend her arms out, wanting to hold the small child. She cradled him as snuggled into her, a sweet smile on her face as she alerted her niece that he was Safe and the proper authorities were dealing with the people involved. She slowly ran her fingers over his swollen eye, then looking at his wounded wrist. "The bad people are gone now, I'll always protect you my sweet knight." She kissed his forehead as they drove away, the sound Cinder screaming could faintly be heard.

#jaune arc #rwby #rwby salem #salem rwby #cinder fall #mercury black #emerald sustrai #hazel rainart #gretchen rainart #Au #commission snippet #snippet

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achliegh · 3 years

Text

Golden

Yeehaw Leo… it's all because this song came on one day (I don’t even really listen to country anymore so it really is fate). Leo is based off that song, each chapter is going to be based off a yeehaw song too.

Characters belong to @lumosinlove

Beta: @the-most-slyterin-hufflepuff & @punkkkboi

TW/CW: Smut, terrible yeehaw sayings and jokes, injuries, mentions of past death, minor character death, underage drinking, mentions of past arrests, cringe

Chapter Songs (listening in order is recommended):

Chapter 5:

Redneck Woman

Red Solo Cup

Eloise smiles as Leo continues to ramble on about these boys who have clearly stolen his heart. She sips her black coffee and sets it down on the counter she is leaning against. Walking over to her offspring, that is a total of two inches taller than her, she kisses his cheek causing him to stop mid sentence.

“Was I rambling too much?” The red appearing on his cheeks made her smile, ruffling his hair that is in need of his yearly head shave. He swats her hand away. “I know it's long but because someone told me how to keep my hair healthy.” Looks pointedly at her as she snorts. “I only cut my hair once a year and it's a full shave.” He sticks out his tongue.

“Who even raised you to be so disrespectful?” She dramatically puts her hand on her chest, then tightens the ties on her robe. Giving him a motherly smile she thanks him as he puts some toad in a hole on a plate for her. “I don’t have my hearing friend in to help me listen to you,” She makes a gesture like she is swooning with her hand on her forehead and her hand fanning herself. “ GuSh, about your hockey boys. But, it is very sweet.”

“I really like them Mama… I think you and Daddy would too.” He focuses on his toast as he takes a bite and brushes the crumbs onto the floor, much to Eloise’s annoyance. She knows this is a sign of him wanting to trust his emotions but doesn’t want to jinx himself.

“Come here, let's get all the motherly squishing done before Clay and… what was his name? Rex?” She pulls him into a tight hug and crushes him in her arms with her old lady strength. He relaxes completely into her and hugs back just as tight but making sure not to hurt her. He makes sure to have his head on her right shoulder so she can hear him.

“Reg, his name is Regulus but we call him Reg. I think you should try and adopt him like you did with Clay. Pseudo Mother is just your personality now that you are so old.” He squeaks and gets out of her death grip hug as she pokes his ribs. “RUDE!”

She is still cackling as Clayton bursts through the door announcing his entrance, running into the kitchen.

“I smell food!” He hops on the counter and begins earring Leo’s breakfast. She pats his knee with a happy yet defeated look on her face. She has told him so many times not to climb on the counters that cost more than some people's entire house. “Mm! Ma, meet Reg.” He gestures to a boy who looks like he feels entirely out of place, she was going to tell Clay off for talking with his mouth full but she has a new mission now.

Protect this kid.

After making a mess and eating, Clay and Leo go out to load the trailer and Horses up for the drive to Texas where the rest of their team already is. Eloise has started on the dishes and looks over to Reg and nods him over.

“You know how to rinse dishes?”

“No Ma’am.” She smiles at him and pushes the faucet to face the sink in front of him.

“No need to call me Ma’am, call me Eloise. Now, you just run the dish under the hot warmer and get all the suds off. Make sure I don't miss any food or spots because I am just a helpless old lady at the end of the day.” She gets a small smile to form at his lips as she shows him exactly how to rinse. An easy task, but one that he was never taught. That triggers something in her head that makes her think he was told he only has one purpose in life. No one only has a single purpose in life. “Who are your parents Reg?” She notices him tense at the question and immediately regrets asking.

“Orion and Walburga Black.” Simple and straightforward answer. He doesn’t want to talk about them. She nods and hums in acknowledgement. Passing the last few dishes in silence, she drains the sink and turns to look at him.

“So, what did Marigold and Bluebell tell you to convince you to come with them this summer?” She smiles at him as his whole demeanor changes. He smiles that same small smile but he visibly relaxes.

“First off, Marigold… Bluebell? What the fuck kinda names are those.” Eloise laughs in surprise. “Second, we watched tiktoks half drunk together for two hours while the rest of the team socialized.” She nods her head, that does sound like what those two would do. “And Third, I have been needing to get away from my brother and his boyfriend so they can boink in peace and not have to worry about me hearing.” He looks at her and his smile drops off his face. “Sorry, Leo told me you were laid back and I thought it would be alright to share this type of stuff with-”

“Reg I think you are a wonderful man who is going to keep those two pea-brains in line while on the road. Maybe loosen up a little yourself.” She smiles. “Is it alright if I give you physical affection? I tend to be a touchy person and not realize it.” He pauses for a moment and then nods, she pats his cheek and smiles as the other two walk back into the kitchen.

Reg is still a little stunned when Clay throws his arm around his shoulder and jostles him around.

After kisses and hugs goodbye Leo hops into the driver's seat, Clay in the passenger and Reg in the middle seat of the back. Reg has barely seen a truck in his life but this vehicle was fucking huge. Giant. Thicc some might say. The first few hours of driving was a podcast that Clay was in the middle of listening to when he picked up Reg. Once that ended Reg descended into music hell.

He has come to the conclusion that most country songs are about the three G’s.

Guns, God, Goodies (meaning like titties)

He was absolutely taken aback by how Leo was screaming, we can’t call it singing its terrible, these songs that are the complete opposite of him. Clayton at least liked goodies. There was one song that will probably stick with Reg his entire life. Redneck Woman by Gretchen Wilson.

Holy shit. When that song came on it was like Leo and Clay were having a contest of who could sing it the loudest. So, Reg decided that for his first check in with the team. Which Sirius was making him do because he is paranoid. Reg decided he would turn around in his seat and film a video of him painfully smiling and giving a thumbs up to the camera as Leo and Clay scream at each other.

“I’M A REDNECK WOMAN AIN’T NO HIGH PRICE GAL!”

Clay sees Reg recording and flips off the camera still singing. An hour later they pull up to this massive ranch style AirBnB with stables and all. It must have cost a fortune. Reg hops out of the truck and feels out of place, Yeehaws everywhere. Okay, there were like three of them and this giant man with long hair and a braided beard, covered in tattoos just reading a book on the front porch.

“That's our tattoo artist, he travels with us because he is the only person Leo and I trust to tattoo us. You’d like him, his name is Hagrid. But, no time to chit chat! We need to teach you some of the basics, we’ve got a rodeo in two nights. I am competing on Leroy and Peanut is just here for fun. How about we teach you how to care for them a bit?” Clay smiles at him and Reg remembers he is with people who want to be friends with him… for him. Not because of hockey or his family, not because his brother made them. Just for him. Reg went willingly with Clay to watch Leo as he led the horses one by one out into a pen for them to roam around in for a bit.

Clay went into more detail about how they care for them and what he thinks Reg can do. It was night already so they decided to go inside, Leo asked around to see what people were hungry for and made almost anything after someone had got groceries.

“I didn’t know you could cook.” Reg was sitting across the island from Leo as he finished up the food, having watched him make the entire meal.

“Mama taught me how to cook when I was younger, it was the one thing I did that wouldn’t get me in trouble with the law.” He rolls his eyes at the thought of the sheriff and Reg decides not to press. “What do you want to do tomorrow while Clay practices?”

They got wasted. Mostly on jello shots, Leo taught Reg the trick: rim job, blow job, swallow. Leo had promised the boys he would call them, he didn’t want to do it drunk but he misses them like crazy. Drunk or not he was going to call them. So, there he is sitting on the balcony out of his bedroom waiting for them to answer. Finn picks up first, shirtless and sweating.

“Okay Finn, I love this” Gesturing in a circle at Finn who just smiles out of breath and wipes his face with a towel. “But I need you to calm down, because I’m a little tipsy and that means I’m very horny.” He smiles when Finn laughs.

“Well I’m glad to know that even on truth serum you find me attractive.” Finn sets his phone down but props it up on some books as he finishes his warm down stretches from his run he just came back from.

Then Logan picks up, in Leo’s T shirt he left for him last time. It was baggy on him and his hair was messed up from sleeping. The side of his face is a little red and there are lines from his pillow squished into his face. He sleepily smiles at the camera.

“Hi Leo.” Leo groans in response and leans his head back.

“You two are gonna be the death of me. Fucking Christ.” He signs and looks at Logan who is suddenly bright red but smiling back. “You’re beautiful Sweet Pea.”

“Really?” Logan looks at him with such big unbelieving eyes that it breaks Leo’s heart.

“Mhm you and Finn make my little heart do a pitter-patter every time I think of y’all.” Being drunk Leo’s accent is incredibly thick.

“You sound like a true southern man there, Le. How is Texas?” Finn is sitting on the ground criss cross with his hands resting on his knees. Logan has laid back down and snuggled up with his blanket on his side. “You’ve been there a day right?”

“Yes sir! I have been here for a full 27 hours now and I can say, it ain’t no Louisiana but it’ll do.” He shows off his chipped tooth and hears a trilling sound on his railing and looks over to see a mama opossum with her babies hanging on her back. He smiles and flips the camera. “Look at This Little Mama!” He reaches his hand out and she looks at it suspicious. Logan told Leo to stop and Finn said no, but he knows what he’s doing.

To their surprise, the mama just lets Leo pet her under her chin and Finn takes so many pictures. The opossum lets Leo pet her babies with his finger and he pats her head on last time before he goes inside to flop on his bed.

“So, We’ve been thinking” Leo lifts his phone to be above his face as he slowly starts dozing off. “We want to come out.” Leo’s eyes snap open and he drops the phone on his face, rolling over to his stomach he wiggles his nose as he processes what Finn just said.

“Wait, like all three of us or just your two?”

“Well, we thought we would leave that up to you…”

“I think to start, it would be safest for all of us, if you two came out together first. We can talk about me coming out when I’m done traveling this summer, okay?” They all smile at each other nervously and Finn notices a couple of watery sniffles from Logan, they were going to talk to Dumo and Sirius tomorrow. Maybe then they can talk more.

“Leo, do you want to move in… in the fall? Winter? I mean you don’t have too but I would like it and I bet Logan would too. We miss you.” Finn has his fingers crossed where the others can’t see.

Silence.

“I would love to, let me give you my Mama’s number. She will be so glad to get me out of the house the rest of the year.” He laughs a little, they fall into a comfortable silence and Leo drifts off, fully dressed in his boots and everything. Clutching his phone like he never has.

Finn knocks on the Dumias door the next day. Nervous about this talk they are going to have with the other French speaking people. Finn can’t speak French so he hopes they don’t start speaking it because he will just up and leave. Logan opens the door and Finn can’t help the soppy smile that crosses his face when he sees Logan in his sweatshirt. He wondered where it went. Logan and Him walk into the dinning room where Sirius and Dumo are talking about new plays they want to practice. They look up when they enter the room and stand across from them.

“Dumo, Sirius I need you to mind your fucking business.”

“What he means to say is why did you tell Leo that he hurt Logan?” Finn translated.

“I was the one that hurt Leo! Leo did nothing and you guys fucking made him doubt us even more!” Logan crossed his arms and Finn rested a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

“What? That's why you were so sad? Because of something you did… Logan, I know we sound like broken records at this point but please start talking to us.” Dumo looks at him with a slightly frustrated look in his eyes but also worry. It makes Logan’s skin crawl.

“I think you meant well with the shovel talk, but Logan was the one who broke things off with Leo before it even started. He told Leo we didn’t want him and all this other shit that was Logan being… scared.” Finn feels Logan take his hand and interlock their fingers. He looks at the smaller man and squeezes his hand as a way to say, I’m here.

Dumo and Sirius didn’t get another word in before Logan was dragging Finn out the door. Staying at his apartment for a few days. Lo already has some clothes there and… they had to film something special.

Rodeo the next day went well. The after party was even better.

They were in a large steel building with everyone, concrete floors covered in dirt with people swinging dancing their hearts out. Leo was drinking and Clay was drinking, they somehow managed to lose clay about twenty minutes ago. Reg was getting a facetime from Sirius and answered it so Sirius doesn’t worry, the music is so loud that he can barely hear him until a less background heavy song comes on and Leo is humming it while drinking out of his red solo cup.

“Reg where are you!?” Sirius was yelling because it was so loud and Remus was in the background trying not to laugh.

“I’m at an after party! Are you with the team?” Sirius nods and flips the camera to show everyone and Leo’s eye catches his boys.

“FINN! LOGAN!” He yells super loud so everyone turns to face sirius’ phone. “IF YOU WERE HERE RIGHT NOW I WOULD TOTALLY SUCK YOUR DICKS IN THE BATHROOM! AT THE SAM- CLAY!” Leo sees Clay in the ocean of people and scurries off before finishing his sentence. Reg looks back at his phone and shrugs. Finn and Logan are bright red and getting chirped to hell for sure but the music is so loud that he can’t hear them.

“I’ll call you when I get back to the BnB!” Sirius nods and hangs up. Wrestling two drunk idiots into an uber is fine but getting them out was like untangling headphones that you left in your pocket for three years.

Just legs everywhere.

Hands? Don’t know how to use them.

Braincell? Reg has it.

At some point Clayton started crying because a guy he thinks he has a crush on has a girlfriend and he isn’t Leo so he can’t convince two people to love him. Very dramatic. Leo thinks he lost his phone, even though he gave it to Reg at the beginning of the night, and he is worried someone will find it and steal his nudes for their own. Reg doesn’t even know how to respond to that.

Waking up the next morning. Leo has a mild headache, but nothing that will stop him from driving. It was going to be a good day. Especially when Leo got his phone back and saw a tiktok notification from Finn and Logan.

They came out last night.

Time to wreak havoc.

#leo knut #logan tremblay #finn o'hara #james potter #thomas walker #Clayton Bruss #o'knutzy #o’knutzy #lumosinlove #sweater weather #coast to coast

33 notes · View notes

desertsquiet · 3 years

Note

Top 5 music collaborations?

5) George Harrison & Bob Dylan

I think you’ll appreciate this pick. In my experience, a songwriting collaboration between two very big names doesn’t necessarily mean a good song will come out of it, but clearly this is not the case. The perfect song to open a perfect album.

4) David Bowie, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp

David Bowie and Brian Eno’s “Berlin trilogy” is one of the most famous and rightly celebrated musical collaborations we’ve ever had. I could have chosen many different tracks from all three of those albums, but here yet another musical giant gets added to the mix. Robert Fripp’s beyond iconic guitar tone (and riff) help make this song the experimental pop masterpiece it is.

3) Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush

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This endlessly touching, beautifully written Peter Gabriel song wouldn’t quite have the same power if it wasn’t for Kate’s almost whispered, pleading vocals on the chorus. Gives me chills every single time. Two of my very favorite 80s artists coming together to produce some magic.

2) Nick Cave & P.J. Harvey

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I’ll admit I’m not very familiar with P.J. Harvey’s music but the pair she and Nick make (I believe they were actually dating at the time) is just too good to be true! So wonderfully creepy, dark and sexy at the same time. And of course their beautiful duet should be on a murder ballad based on a folk traditional. Love it. Relationship goals 😂

1) Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris

How shocking, I know. The more I listen to Emmylou Harris, the more she is a mystery to me. How can someone with such a strong, distinctive lead voice also be one the best harmony singers that ever lived? I want to mention that this album was supposed to be credited to “Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris” and have a picture of them together on the cover. Gram’s widow Gretchen was so jealous of their relationship she had Emmylou removed from the credits and replaced the photo with one just of Gram. Nice try. What she couldn’t do, however, was deny the musical fireworks these two created every time they sang together.

#thank you this was very fun #i’m quite happy with the musical diversity on my list #asks

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lingthusiasm · 2 months

Text

Transcript Episode 90: What visualizing our vowels tells us about who we are

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm episode ‘What visualizing our vowels tells us about who we are'. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the episode show notes page.

[Music]

Gretchen: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Gretchen McCulloch.

Lauren: I’m Lauren Gawne. Today, we’re getting enthusiastic about plotting vowels. But first, we have a fun, new activity that lets you discover what episode of Lingthusiasm you are. Our new quiz will recommend an episode for you based on a series of questions.

Gretchen: This is like a personality quiz. If you’ve always wondered which episode of Lingthusiasm matches your personality the most, or if you are wondering where to start with the back catalogue and aren’t sure which episode to start with, if you’re trying to share Lingthusiasm with a friend or decide which episode to re-listen to, the quiz can help you with this.

Lauren: This quiz is definitely more whimsical than scientific and, unlike our listener survey, is absolutely not intended to be used for research purposes.

Gretchen: Not intended to be used for research purposes. Definitely intended to be used for amusement purposes. Available as a link in the show notes. Please tell us what results you get! We’re very curious to see if there’re some episodes that turn out to be super popular because of this.

Lauren: Our most recent bonus episode was a chat with Dr. Bethany Gardner, who built the vowel plots that we discuss in this episode.

Gretchen: This is a behind-the-scenes episode where we talked with Bethany about how they made the vowel charts that we’ve discussed, how you could make them yourself if you’re interested in it, or if you just wanna follow along in a making-of-process style, you can listen to us talk with them.

Lauren: For that, you can go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm.

Gretchen: As well as so many more bonus episodes that let us help keep making the show for you.

[Music]

Gretchen: Lauren, we’ve talked about vowels before on Lingthusiasm. At the time, we said that your vocal tract is basically like a giant meat clarinet.

Lauren: Yeah, because the reeds are like the vibration of your vocal cords – and then you can manipulate that sound in that clarinets can play different notes and voices can make many different speech sounds. They’re both long and tubular.

Gretchen: We had some people write in that said, “We appreciate the meat clarinet – the cursed meat clarinet – but we think the vocal tract is a little bit more like a meat oboe or a meat bassoon because both of these instruments have two reeds, and we have two vocal cords. So, you want to use something that has a double vocal cord.”

Lauren: I admit I maybe got the oboe and the bassoon confused. I thought that the oboe was a giant instrument. Turns out, the oboe is about the size of a clarinet. Turns out, I don’t know a lot about woodwind instruments.

Gretchen: I think that one of the reasons we did pick a clarinet at the time is because we thought, even if it’s not exactly the same, probably more people have encountered a clarinet and have a vague sense of what it looks like than an oboe, which you didn’t really know what it was. I had to look up how a bassoon works. We thought this metaphor might be a little bit clearer.

Lauren: Yes.

Gretchen: However.

Lauren: Okay, there’s an update.

Gretchen: I have now been doing some further research on both the vocal tract and musical instruments, and I’m very pleased to report that we, in fact, have an update. Your vocal tract is not just a meat clarinet, not just a meat bassoon, it is, in fact, most similar to a meat bagpipe.

Lauren: Oh, Gretchen, you found something more disgusting. Thank you?

Gretchen: I’m sorry. It’s even worse.

Lauren: Right. I guess the big bag – a bagpipe is made of a bag and pipes – the bag acts like your lungs. The lungs send air up through your vocal folds as they vibrate to make the sound. You do have a bag of air, just like in the human speech apparatus.

Gretchen: That’s a good start. What I didn’t know until I was doing some research about bagpipes – because the lengths that I will go to for this podcast have no bound – is that a bagpipe actually has reeds inside several of the pipes that extrude from the bag.

Lauren: Because there’s multiple sticking out in different spots.

Gretchen: There’s the one that you blow into, which doesn’t have a reed, but then the other ones, there’s the one with the little holes on it that you twiddle your fingers on and make the different notes, and then there’s also some other pipes up at the top. They also have reeds in them. Those reeds are just tuned from the length to a specific level. You know when you hear someone start playing the bagpipes and there’s this drone? [Imitates bagpipe sound] The sort of single note? That’s because of the note those reeds are tuned to in the other pipes that don’t have the holes in them.

Lauren: Ah, they’re not just decorative.

Gretchen: Right. They have this function of giving this harmony to the melody that’s being played on the little pipe with the holes in it, which is technically known as the “chanter,” but this is not a bagpipe podcast despite appearances to the contrary. We will link to some people on YouTube telling you more than you ever wanted to know about how bagpipes work if you want to go down that rabbit hole. But if you had an extra pair of hands or two, or a couple people helping you sort of reaching around your shoulders – this metaphor’s getting weirder by the minute – and you cut a bunch of little holes in the other sticking-up-the-top pipes –

Lauren: You would have less droning, and you could play multiple melodies or multiple notes at the same time. Hm.

Gretchen: At the same time. With this, you could make a bagpipe play something very close to vowels.

Lauren: Ah, cool!

Gretchen: This is so cursed.

Lauren: I mean, yes. Before we even talk about making it out of meat – it’s deeply, deeply cursed – it kind of reminds me of this instrument from the early 20th Century called the “voder.”

Gretchen: Would I pronounce that “vo-DUH” or “vo-DER”?

Lauren: With the R at the end.

Gretchen: Okay, “voder.”

Lauren: Thank you, convenient rhotic speaker here.

Gretchen: I’m glad to be of service.

Lauren: It kind of looked like something between a little stenographer’s keyboard and a piano, and with a whole bunch of finger keys and foot pedals you could manipulate it to make something that sounds like human speech.

Gretchen: Ah, wow. And this is pretty old?

Lauren: It’s from like the 1930s. There’s a little, short video snippet in one of the links in the show notes.

Gretchen: You could play these chords, and also have some consonants somehow, and end up with something that sounds like a synthetic human voice.

Lauren: Yeah. A lot of the early computer speech synthesis, as well, was actually quite good at making things that sounded like vowels. It turns out a lot of the consonant things are a little bit harder to do, but the very basic sound of vowels, as you say, you could play it with just a few bagpipes very carefully re-engineered.

Gretchen: I guess if you’re looking at instruments that can play multiple notes at the same time, we could also say that the human is like a meat piano.

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: Or at least you could make vowels on a piano by doing a sufficiently complicated sequence of weird chords, like notes at the same time.

Lauren: I mean, we also have an instrument that’s known as the human voice. Humans are very good at singing. We possibly don’t have to engineer all these cursed things to get to that.

Gretchen: Okay. Let’s talk about the human voice as itself. We start with the vocal cords or folds. The tenseness or looseness of the vocal folds is what produces pitch. Then they go through the throat, which we can think of as one tube. Then they go through the mouth cavity, which we can think of as a second tube. Each of these tubes bounces around the sound in different ways to add two additional notes – one from the throat, one from the mouth – onto the sound that’s coming out, which is what makes it sound like a vowel to us.

Lauren: You can map the physics of air moving through the throat space and the mouth space as it comes out to pay attention to the differences between different sounds.

Gretchen: If you’re taking a physics diagram or a diagram of the acoustic signal and saying, “Which pitches are coming out of the mouth, which frequencies are coming out of the mouth that are being produced by these two chambers?” then you can see what those are, and you can do stuff with those diagrams once you’ve made them.

Lauren: The seeing bit is spectrograms, which we looked at in an earlier episode and played around with making different sounds and how they look in this way of visualising it where you have all these bands of strength and information that you can see vary depending on the different sounds that you made. That’s because of those different ways that we manipulate and play around with the air as its coming out of our mouth.

Gretchen: The first band that comes out is just the pitch of the voice itself. The lowest one is what we hear as the pitch of the sound, but I can make /aaaa/ and I can make /iiii/. Those are the same set of pitches but on different vowels.

Lauren: There’s something more than pitch happening there.

Gretchen: There’s something more than pitch happening. There’s two more notes – sounds – that come out at the same time. If the throat chamber is large because the tongue is fairly high and far forward, then this sound that’s the next one after the pitch, which was call “F1,” is low. Then if the mouth is quite open, and the lips are spread, the mouth chamber is quite small, so that sound is quite high, so the next sound, “F2,” is high pitched. If you put your tongue far forward, and your lips spread, you get /i/. The first of these dark bands is low; the second of them is high. That produces the sound that we hear as /i/. Whereas, by comparison, if we make the sound /u/, the throat chamber is still large because the tongue is quite high, but now, the mouth chamber is big because we have the lips rounding that make it big – /u/. Now, F1 is low, and F2 is also low, and we’re hearing the sound /u/.

Lauren: We have a very clear way of telling from those signals in the spectrogram, if we look at it, the difference between an /i/ and an /u/, even if we can’t hear it, we can see it on the spectrogram. This is where you begin to read spectrograms.

Gretchen: Or if we want to start measuring spectrograms very precisely, we can start doing this. We can also start seeing, okay, is /i/ when I make it the same as the /i/ when you make it?

Lauren: They’re similar enough that we recognise it as the same sound. If we both say, “fleece.”

Gretchen: “Fleece.”

Lauren: You say, /flis/. I say, /flis/.

Gretchen: /pətɛɪtoʊ pətatoʊ/. I think they sound pretty similar.

Lauren: Mine is maybe a little bit higher. I really pushed my tongue forward and up. It’s a very Australian thing to do.

Gretchen: We can actually record some people making all of the vowels and compare their measurements for these two different bands of frequency and see how similar two people’s vowels are to each other.

Lauren: Depending on the quality of your recording, you can see a lot more happening there as well. There’re all the properties that mean that we can tell your voice from my voice, or my voice from someone who has exactly the same accent because we have all these other features. It’s very different to if you record, say, a whistle or one of those tuning forks that people use to tune instruments because they are giving a clean single note.

Gretchen: A pure tone that’s just one frequency, one pitch, not several pitches all at the same time that we then have to smoosh together and interpret as a vowel sound.

Lauren: That’s what gives the human voice its richness. If a human voice sings the same note as a clarinet and an oboe, which are definitely two completely different woodwind instruments, there’s all these extra bits and things in the spectrogram that you can pick up the difference in the quality or just use your ears – also another possibility.

Gretchen: Yeah. If you wanna do detailed acoustic analysis on it – which is kind of fun and can tell us more precise things about the differences between how different people speak, which is neat – then you have this very precise way of measuring it by converting it into a visual graph/chart thing or a vowel plot rather than just listening to someone and being like, “Uh, these sound pretty similar. I dunno. I guess they’re a bit different. How are they different? Hmm.” Sometimes, being able to do it with numbers is easier.

Lauren: In the era before we had computers to create spectrograms and take these measurements, people did use their ear. The best phoneticians had this amazing ability to tell the difference between really, really subtly-similar-but-slightly-different sounds.

Gretchen: And they’re so well trained in being able to hear the difference between “Oh, you’re saying this, and your tongue is a little bit further forward than this other person who’s saying this with their tongue a little bit further back,” but if you’re not very good at hearing tongue position out of sounds, you can also produce some stuff and make the machines tell you some numbers about it, which can be easier with a different type of training.

Lauren: When we talk about the position of the tongue and how open the mouth is, we can use a plot to map where in the mouth these things are happening. That’s called the “vowel space.” We made a lot of silly sounds when we talked about that many episodes ago.

Gretchen: The vowel space goes from /i-ɛ-a/ on one side.

Lauren: That’s all up the front of your mouth, and it’s just going from being more close to more open.

Gretchen: /i/ to /ɛ/ to /a/, but you can through all these subtle gradations between them, and through /u-ɔ-ɑ/ at the back.

Lauren: That’s from all the way up the top at the back to open at the back.

Gretchen: You can draw a diagram of this which is shaped like square that’s been a bit skewed. It’s wider at the top than at the bottom. It’s known as the “vowel trapezoid” because the mouth is not perfectly shaped like a square. The jaw can hinge open.

Lauren: Only so far.

Gretchen: Only so far.

Lauren: Because this represents how you say or articulate these sounds, this is known as “articulatory phonetics.”

Gretchen: But then because you’re articulating a thing that goes into a sound that we can also analyse as the sound itself, these ways that you can articulate things map onto things that show up in the sound itself. Analysing that is called “acoustic phonetics.”

Lauren: Because you’re paying attention to the acoustic properties – the sound properties.

Gretchen: The really nifty thing is that this vowel chart that we’ve made from over 100 years ago, linguists, before they had computers, were like, “Here’s what I think the articulatory properties of the vowels are based on my mouth and my ear and some other people’s mouths and ears.” You can actually map very precisely this acoustic thing. Once we had computers, you can make them correspond to each other in this way that – you hope it works because, obviously, people do understand the vowels, but it actually does work when you start measuring things as well.

Lauren: I had always wondered whether it was just a coincidence that the articulation – where you put your mouth – and the acoustic information about the F1 and F2 with the spectrogram, but explaining it in terms of F1 and F2 are the way you change the shape of your throat and your mouth that leads to these changes in the acoustic signal, you can see how the articulation and the acoustics come together, and you get a similar type of information across both of them.

Gretchen: Absolutely. I think it’s really neat that there’s this relatively straightforward correspondence. There’s also, you know, an F3 that also does other stuff because there’s other more squishy bits of your mouth, and we’re not getting into them.

Lauren: There’s also a bunch of flip-flopping of X- and Y-axes that you need to do that Bethany kindly walked us through in the bonus episode.

Gretchen: Because these diagrams were created in an era before they were doing the computer acoustics. Sometimes, I think about the alternate version of what phonetics would look like if we’d started doing it with computers right away, and how there’s all this analogue stuff that’s residual based on human impressions, and how our vowel charts might be completely rotated if we had just started doing it with computers the whole time.

Lauren: But then we’d have to imagine ourselves standing on our heads to say anything, so I’m glad they are the way they are.

Gretchen: That’s true. When you’re talking about vowels, it’s an interesting challenge with English because there’s lots of different dialects of English, varieties of English, ways of speaking English, and, generally speaking, we’re pretty good at understanding other accents. One of the big factors that accents vary on, though, is the vowels.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: If you’re getting people to record a word list to do some vowel analysis on, what you might wanna do is have them record a bunch of words that all begin and end with the same consonant insofar as possible.

Lauren: Because vowels are very sweet and easily influenced. They’re very easily influenced by the consonants that are next to them. You have to make sure that they’re all kept in line and not influenced by what’s happening around them by giving them all the same context.

Gretchen: They’re very susceptible to peer pressure. You can have people say something like, “beat,” “bet,” “bit,” “bought,” “boot,” all of this stuff between B and T.

Lauren: I learnt to record between H and D: “hid,” “had,” “hoo’d,” “hawed.” Some of those words are less, uh, common – frequent – than others, but again, a really consistent environment.

Gretchen: But this also, obviously, causes problems for when you want to talk about the particular vowels in a given accent or in a given variety because if you go around saying, “Oh, well, the /hoɪd/ vowel” or something like this, how do you know if that’s a Cockney person saying, “hide,” or it’s me saying “hoyed,” or something else because all your consonants are the exact same, and there’s nothing to let you figure out what the original word is.

Lauren: Someone did come up with a solution for this. That person’s name is John Wells.

Gretchen: John Wells is this British phonetician who I’ve never actually met in person, but I feel like I know him because I used to read his blog back when he posted more actively.

Lauren: He used to write his blog in the International Phonetic Alphabet, which means that if you read the IPA, you would be reading it in John Wells’s voice.

Gretchen: You absolutely would be. This was a challenge that I used to set to myself. Sometimes, he also wrote in Standard English orthography, to be fair, but sometimes he would just write a whole blog post in IPA, and you’d be like, “Cool, I guess I’m reading this out loud to myself and hearing John Wells’s accent and speaking it like him,” which was really neat. In the 1980s, John Wells was like, “Hey, it’d be really useful if we had a way to refer to sound changes that happen in different English varieties,” which often happen to – like, all of the times you say the /ɪ/ vowel are a little bit more like this or like that, depending on the accent.

Lauren: I think it was very personally motivated because he was writing a book called “Accents in English.” It gets very difficult in a book, especially, but even in an audio recording, to be like, “the /ɪ/ vowel,” “the /u/ vowel.”

Gretchen: Right. You could use the International Phonetic Alphabet to refer to the specific vowel that people are making. But if you want to say, “People in this area realise this vowel as that, and people in this other area realise the same vowel as something else,” how do you refer to that thing that’s the macro-category of vowel that people would consider themselves to be saying the same word, but the specific way they’re realising it is different? He came up with what he called “the standard lexical sets,” which are now also called, “Wells Lexical Sets,” possibly John Wells’s greatest legacy, which is a bunch of words that are, crucially, easy to distinguish from each other based on the surrounding consonants that you can say when you’re giving a talk – like you can say, “the ‘kit’ vowel,” or “the ‘goose’ vowel,” or “the ‘fleece’ vowel,” and people know that the “kit” vowel refers to the specific sound because there’s no other “keet” word in English that it could be confused with.

Lauren: John Wells was somewhat self-deprecating when he was talking about this, and he was like, “I just kind of came up with it in a week where I had to write this bit of the book, and it’s weird to think that they’re still in use now,” but it was based on years of insight into the different ways different varieties of English realise different vowels and the balance he was trying to strike.

Gretchen: He has this charming blog post from 2010 where he’s like, “Anybody’s welcome to use them. I don’t claim any copyright. Maybe this is my legacy now, I guess.” He does actually put quite a bit of thought into the sets because they’re words that can’t be easily confused for each other. Sometimes, that means the words are a little bit rare. You have “fleece.” You might think, “Well, why not use ‘sheep’ because surely that’s more common. People say that.”

Lauren: But “ship” and “sheep” are very hard to distinguish in some varieties of English.

Gretchen: Right. If you had “sheep,” it could be confused with “ship,” whereas if you have “fleece” and “kit,” there’s no “flice” or “keet” for them to be confused with.

Lauren: Good nonce words to add to your collection.

Gretchen: Thank you. Similarly, for people like me where I make the vowels in “caught,” as in the past tense of “catch,” and “cot,” as in a small bed, the same. If I talk about /cɑt/ and /cɑt/, people are like, “I dunno which one you’re talking about because you say them both the same.” And I’m like, “Great, neither do I.”

Lauren: You mean when you’re talking about /cɑt/ and /cɔt/.

Gretchen: Hmm. Yes, see, you don’t have that “caught/cot merger.”

Lauren: Very easy for me, but it’s much easier to be able to say /θɔt/ and /lɑt/ – much more distinct for me to perceive with you because they don’t have merged equivalents.

Gretchen: “Thought” and “lot” are much more distinct because the consonants are different. You don’t need to be relying only on the vowels. Some of these words are just super fun. Can we read the whole Wells Lexical Sets? There’re not very many of them.

Lauren: Sure. Let’s take turns in going through each of the words.

Gretchen: All right.

Lauren: So, you can hear the differences in the way we pronounce each of these vowels.

Gretchen: /kit/.

Lauren: /kit/.

Gretchen: / dɹɛs/.

Lauren: / dɹɛs/.

Gretchen: / tɹæp/.

Lauren: /tɹæp/.

Gretchen: /lɑt/.

Lauren: /lɑt/.

Gretchen: /stɹʌt/.

Lauren: /stɹʌt/.

Gretchen: /fʊt/.

Lauren: /fʊt/.

Gretchen: /bæθ/.

Lauren: /bɑθ/.

Gretchen: Ooo, very different.

Lauren: We’ll come back to that one.

Gretchen: /klɑθ/.

Lauren: /klɑθ/.

Gretchen: /nɛɹs/.

Lauren: My Australian English speaker in me is already immediately prepared for /nɛːs/.

Gretchen: So, non-rhotic. Very good.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: /flis/.

Lauren: /flis/.

Gretchen: /fɛɪs/.

Lauren: /fɛɪs/.

Gretchen: /pɑm/.

Lauren: /pæm/.

Gretchen: Ooo, very different. /θɑt/.

Lauren: /θɔt/.

Gretchen: Also, very different. We’ll come back to this. /goʊt/.

Lauren: /gəut/.

Gretchen: Bit different. /gus/.

Lauren: /gus/.

Gretchen: /pɹəɪs/.

Lauren: /pɹæɪs/.

Gretchen: Bit different. I have Canadian raising there. We’ll get back to that. /t͡ʃoɪs/.

Lauren: /t͡ʃoɪs/.

Gretchen: /moʊθ/.

Lauren: /mæʊθ/.

Gretchen: Also, we’ll get back to that. /niɹ/.

Lauren: /nɪɑ/.

Gretchen: /skwɛɹ/.

Lauren: /skwɛɑ/.

Gretchen: /stɑɹt/.

Lauren: /stɑːt/.

Gretchen: /nɔɹθ/.

Lauren: /nɔːθ/.

Gretchen: /fɔɹs/.

Lauren: /fɔːs/.

Gretchen: /kjʊɹ/.

Lauren: /kjʊɑ/. I’m only slightly hamming up my Australian English diphthongs there.

Gretchen: That whole set with the Rs where I’m like, “These are just the same sounds, but now there’s an R,” you’re like, “No, these are really different diphthongs.”

Lauren: /kjʊɑ/.

Gretchen: /kjʊɑ/. /kjʊɹ/.

Lauren: Taking you on a journey of my whole mouth.

Gretchen: One thing you could do if you’re trying to compare mine and Lauren’s vowels is you could listen to us saying them and being like, “Yeah, those sound kind of different in some places.” But another thing we could do, is we could draw some diagrams.

Lauren: That’s what we did.

Gretchen: Yes!

Lauren: We were very grateful that Dr. Bethany Gardner – who is a recent PhD in psychology and language processing at Vanderbilt University in Nashville in the USA – took the time to work with us to take recordings of us saying words and plotting the vowels onto a vowel plot.

Gretchen: Now, we can look at our vowel plots and compare our vowels to each other. We have a whole bonus episode with Bethany about how we made these graphs with them. For the moment, let’s just look at them and compare them with each other and say some things about the results.

Lauren: We sent Bethany recordings of us reading the Wells Lexical Sets, much the way we did just then.

Gretchen: Less giggling though.

Lauren: We did record them a little bit more professionally, but they also used some processes to scrape data of equivalent word recordings from episodes of Lingthusiasm using our transcripts – turns out, another use of our transcripts!

Gretchen: Get people to analyse your vowels for you. It’s so cool!

Lauren: You can see the difference between clearly spoken vowels where we’re really focusing on them and then that really compelling influence that other sounds have on vowels that drag them all over the space.

Gretchen: Yeah. I’m looking at the first set of graphs for each of us, which are the Wells Lexical Sets, and my vowels are a lot more consistent in them. When I make /i/ and /ɪ/ and /u/, all the points are quite clustered in one spot – because we said everything several times – but I seem to be hitting quite a consistent target there. Whereas when I look at Bethany’s vowel plot of me from the Lingthusiasm episodes, there’s way more stuff there, and I’m way more spread out. My vowels are less consistent with each other because I’m producing them in several words. They tested several different words. I’m just producing them in running speech where things merge into each other a lot more rather than this very clear word list style.

Lauren: And human ears and brains are so good at disambiguating things that might be very close to each other in the plot, but in a running sentence, we can hear them quite clearly for the words that they are.

Gretchen: Right. My “goose” vowel and my “foot” vowel – /gus/ and /fʊt/ – are almost totally distinct from each other when I’m reading a word list. There’s very little overlap in terms of how I’m saying them. But when I’m saying them in running speech, apparently there’s a lot of overlap because I’m probably saying something like, “Oh, go get the goose,” /gʊs/, rather than /gus/ with that really clear /u/.

Lauren: There’s no other word I’m gonna confuse “goose” with, or even if I did, in context, I’d know what thing you’re expecting me to go get.

Gretchen: Right. Even if I’m saying something like, “dude,” you’re not gonna confuse that for “dud.” I’d be saying them in different contexts.

Lauren: The nice thing is you can see, especially from our clearly spoken word lists, that we are speaking a language where the vowels are in a similar place, but there are some slight differences. You can actually start to get the hang of the differences in the way different varieties of English tend to use the vowel space from this information.

Gretchen: One of the things I noticed about your vowel plot, Lauren – and this is a feature of Australian English – is that your “kit” vowel and your “fleece” vowel are very close to each other, especially in episode speech rather than word list speech.

Lauren: Yeah, “kit” and “fleece,” for me, are both really far forward. You’re using other features like length or tenseness to really disambiguate them. People struggle to do it.

Gretchen: Or just in context. I noticed when I was visiting Australia that people would say things like /bɪːg/, and I’d be like, “Oh, okay, I would say that as /bɪg/.”

Lauren: It’s a pretty classic feature of Australian English. It does remind me of one of the most embarrassing times someone misheard me when I was living in the UK. I was talking about how I used to be on a team with my friends for social netball. This person was not listening that well, and it was a noisy environment, and they thought that I had said, “nipple.”

Gretchen: Oh, no!

Lauren: /nɪpl̩/ and /nɛtbɑl/.

Gretchen: /nɛtbɑl/, /nɛtbɑl/, whereas I think my /ɪ/ and /ɛ/ vowels, my “kit” and “dress” vowels, are pretty distinct from each other. They don’t really overlap.

Lauren: Whereas all of Australian English is really far forward. It tends to be quite high. The British English speaker – I don’t know what sport they thought we play in Australia, but there was a moment of deep confusion.

Gretchen: These are the types of things that you can find out when you get your vowels done the way sometimes people – I think there’s a trend on Instagram right now to get your colours done, you know, find out whether you’re a “winter” or a “soft spring” or something like this.

Lauren: I’m an Australian English “kit”-fronting.

Gretchen: Yeah. What are your vowels? What does this say about where you’re from? Is there anything you noticed about mine?

Lauren: I think, for you, definitely what becomes clear is that “caught/cot merger,” or, as I like to think about it, the “Gawne/gone merger.”

Gretchen: Ah, the “Gawne/gone merger.”

Lauren: I can tell if people have it if my name and the word “gone” sound the same.

Gretchen: The past participle of “go.”

Lauren: It’s very salient for me. The cot/caught merger is so famous, people don’t use the Wells Set terms for it. They just refer to it as “caught/cot.”

Gretchen: But you could also call it the “thought/lot merger” or the “lot/thought merger.” I never know which one goes first because I literally just think of these as being said the same.

Lauren: You can see evidence. We’re not imagining that you’re merging them. You are physically merging them in the vowel space.

Gretchen: I’m literally saying them as the same thing. I was always confused about the “thought” vowel when I was learning the International Phonetic Alphabet because I was like, “I can’t figure out how to make a sound that is somewhere in between this sound in ‘lot’ and ‘thought’ but doesn’t go all the way up to the /oʊ/ in ‘goat’.” It doesn’t feel like there’s anything between them for me. That’s true. The vast majority of Canadians have “thought” and “lot” merged. But unlike at least some Americans, we don’t have them merged low; we have them merged high. I have “thought” and “caught,” and in order to produce the other vowel, I had to actually produce something lower in my throat – like /θɑt/ /cat/ which sounds very American to me – I had to produce this lower sound because there was no space between “thought” and “goat.” They’re very close to each other. In fact, the thing that I wasn’t producing was /ɑ/, the really low one, that sort of dentist sound.

Lauren: Yeah. Movements and mergers can happen in all kinds of different directions. The merging of “cot” and “caught” also explains why it took me a very long time to understand that “podcast” is a pun because it’s meant to be a pun with “broadcast,” and /pɑd/ and /bɹɔːd/.

Gretchen: /pɑdkæst/ and /bɹɑdkæst/. It’s the same vowel for me.

Lauren: Whereas it works as a pun for you. That was very satisfying to learn that’s why that’s meant to be a pun.

Gretchen: The pun that I didn’t get based on my accent – and this is to do with the “price” and “mouth” vowels – I didn’t realise that “I scream for ice cream” was supposed to be a pun.

Lauren: Oh, because the raising that you have in Canada means that it doesn’t work that way, whereas /ɑɪ skɹim fə ɑɪ skɹim/.

Gretchen: Right, you have the same vowel in those – or the same diphthong – but for me, “I scream for ice cream,” those are very different. In “choice” and “price,” I have different vowels than I would have in “choys” and “prize” – if “choys” was a word.

Lauren: “Bok choys” – multiple.

Gretchen: “Bok choys” – yeah, several of them. And “prize.”

Lauren: Returning to “podcast” but moving to the other end of the word, /kɑst // kæst/ as a distinction is so famous in mapping varieties of British English that people talk about /bɑθ // tɹæp/ distinctions all the time.

Gretchen: I hear of it as called the “bath/trap split,” but as you can hear, the “/bæθ // tɹæp/ split,” I just say them both the same.

Lauren: Whereas in Australia, Victorians traditionally would say /kæsl̩/ like “trap,” and people further north and in the rest of the country could say, /kɑsl̩/ –

Gretchen: Like “bath.”

Lauren: So, whether you’re a /kɑsl̩/ or a /kæsl̩/ shows this “bath/trap split” as well, to the point where, in New South Wales, you get the city of “New /kɑsl̩/,” but in Victoria, you have the town of “/kæsl̩/ Main.”

Gretchen: Ooo, this “castle” distinction from the “trap/bath split” – I think sometimes when I’m trying to do a fake British accent, I will just make all of my “traps” and “baths” into /tɹɑps/ and /bɑθs/.

Lauren: Right, okay. You know there’s something happening there, and you haven’t quite landed – because it does vary.

Gretchen: Well, then they’re not different categories for me because it’s all one category, and I push them all forward rather than moving half of them because I don’t know which half to move.

Lauren: I find it very satisfying listening to “No Such Thing as a Fish,” because they talk about the /pɑdkɑst/ or the /pɑdkæst/, and their guests do, depending on whether they’re from Southern England or more in the midlands and north where they tend to say /kæst/ instead of /kɑst/.

Gretchen: I have literally never noticed this distinction. I’ve also listened to many episodes of “No Such Thing as a Fish” because you made me start listening to them back in the day, and I’ve never noticed that they say anything different because it’s just not something I pay attention to.

Lauren: It’s so salient for me as a Victorian English speaker, but I notice it all the time. There would be a really fun mapping variation activity to do listening through to Fish – turns out I just listen to it and don’t get distracted by that too much.

Gretchen: Well, if you want to commission Bethany to make graphs of their vowels, I’m sure that’s an option.

Lauren: I love how Wells’ lexical set has just entered – in many ways, the “bath/trap split,” it means you get all these other terms like “goose fronting,” which is just great as a term.

Gretchen: I love how vivid these words are. Things like “fleece” and “goose” and “goat,” they’re very common animal nouns that are quite vivid.

Lauren: And there’re definitely linguists who have dressed up as Wells Lexical Set items for Halloween. It makes a great group Halloween costume.

Gretchen: Oh my gosh, my favourite one of these was from North Carolina State University. They got the whole department, and they each dressed up as one member of the Wells Lexical Set. Someone was a “kit.” They dressed like a cat. Someone dressed like a goose, and someone dressed like a cloth or a fleece. Then they stood in the positions to create the vowel diagram. They posted a photo on the internet. You can see it. We will link to it. It’s really great.

Lauren: Magic. You and I also once had a project where we plotted the Wells Lexical Set using emoji.

Gretchen: That was your project.

Lauren: I did the making the joke. You did the graphic design. It was a good team project.

Gretchen: Okay, that’s fair. That’s fair. I feel like I remember you being the instigator of this.

Lauren: Shenanigans were shenaniganed.

Gretchen: You can get a goose emoji and a goat emoji, and you can map the vowels in there as well.

Lauren: And “Goose fronting” – because we’re talking about moving the tongue further forward or back or up and down in the vowel space – I have quite fronted vowels as an Australian English speaker for my front vowels. So, “goose” – I’ve already got it quite far forward compared to you. You can see that in the diagrams.

Gretchen: I think my “goose” – my goose is also cooked – my “goose” is also fronted. Because I think Canadian English is also undergoing goose fronting. There’s a lot of different regions that are all simultaneously fronting their geese – no, not their “geese,” fronting their “gooses.”

Lauren: Fronting their “gooses.” I feel like the really stereotypical example is from California, particularly in the lexical item “dude.”

Gretchen: “Dude” – sort of like a surfer pronunciation of “duuude.”

Lauren: “/du̟d/ you’re a fronted /gu̟s/.”

Gretchen: If you compare that with like /dud/, which would be less fronted, /dud/ sounds like you’re more of a fuddy duddy, and /du̟d/ sounds like you’re “so /ku̟l/.”

Lauren: Yeah, I mean, there’re other things happening there as well because I found a paper while researching this where someone looked at 70 years of Received Pronunciation, which is that incredibly stuffy, British, old-fashioned newsreader voice. Apparently, goose fronting is happening in that variety as well.

Gretchen: Oh, so if the Queen was still alive, she’d be fronting her “goose” as well?

Lauren: Quite possibly. Gooses are being fronted all over the place.

Gretchen: All over the English-speaking world. One of the things that can happen if you’re getting your vowel tea leaves read is you can say things about region. Another thing that looking at a vowel plot can do – because vowels just contribute so much to our sense of accent – is it can say things about gender. One of the cool studies that I came across about this is there’re studies of kids. People often assess someone’s gender based on their voice. If someone’s on the phone, you may have an idea about their gender. You may also have an idea of their age. Part of this is based on vocal tract size. Kids’ voices are high pitched because kids’ heads and throats and larynxes are smaller than adults.

Lauren: The cool thing is there’s no gender difference in that until puberty. People who go through a testosterone-heavy puberty tend to grow larger vocal tracts and tend to have deeper pitches. I mean, not in the scheme of things where they’re so completely different. There’s so much overlap. But we’re really tuned into these subtle differences. But before that age, anything that kids are doing different, it’s nothing to do with what’s happening with the meat pipe and everything to do with what’s happening with the social performance of gender, which is to do with your culture.

Gretchen: Even at age 4, when there’s really no physiological difference, age 8 when there’s really no physiological difference, you can see that kids are producing their vowels somewhat differently in a difference that increases with age based on their gender because they’re culturally acquiring “This is what it means to feel like a boy,” “This is what it means to feel like a girl,” and they’re doing gender with their voices even when they don’t have the vocal tract changes reinforcing that yet.

Lauren: Cool.

Gretchen: Yeah. You can see that there are differences at age 4 that increase with age and increase up to age 8 and 12 and 16 and get more distinct from each other. The other thing is, once people get a bit older in teenage-hood and in adulthood, there are gender differences in vocal tract. The general finding with gender differences in vowel plot size – so we’ve been talking about having some vowels be more front or some vowels be more similar to each other, but the overall finding when it comes to gender is roughly that, at least in English-speaking environments, men tend to have all of their vowels more similar to each other, more towards the centre of the space/ Specifically, cis straight men tend to have vowels that are all more towards the centre of the vowel space. Everybody else – so cis, straight women, gay men, lesbians, trans people of all genders, nonbinary people – use way more of the vowel space.

Lauren: Straight men, you’re missing out.

Gretchen: Like, cis straight men are doing this one very specific thing with buying into hegemonic masculinity of vowels where they’re not wearing interesting colours, and they’re not doing interesting vowels.

Lauren: Hmm.

Gretchen: There was one quote from one of the studies that I read where they had one cis straight man who was an anomaly in the list of not doing this very centralised vowel thing, and he was like, “Yeah, sometimes people hear me, and they think I’m gay, which I’m not. I’m just a nerd. I don’t really do that macho stuff.”

Lauren: Aww, it’s nice they asked him.

Gretchen: Yeah. “People just perceive my vowels as whatever. I don’t really care. I’m not trying to do that thing with my vowels.”

Lauren: Fascinating that the social discourse was enough that he had been made aware of it.

Gretchen: Yeah, and that doing anything out of that little man box of the very small set of vowels was enough to get him thinking, “Oh, yeah, well, it’s because I don’t buy into this particularly narrow view of masculinity.”

Lauren: Fascinating. I should say, you flagged English there, but that’s because we have more of this work in English. We need more of this work across the world’s languages. There’s so much to be done about the social dimensions of vowels.

Gretchen: Right. A lot of the early work in, especially, gender and vowels has this very essentialist framework of like, “We found the male vocal tract; we found the female vocal tract.” There’s a recent study by Santiago Barreda and Michael Stuart which I got to see at the Linguistic Society of America last year where they were looking at “What are the vowel differences between genders, and can we actually characterise these more precisely?” They found that the biggest thing that affected vowel spaces was actually related to height. Taller people have more space in their vowels – deeper voices.

Lauren: Makes sense. They’ve got more space for their bigger meat pipe. That’s more of a bassoon than an oboe, Gretchen.

Gretchen: Taller people have a bigger meat pipe. In fact, the relationship between height of your whole body and size of your meat pipe is very linear and doesn’t have a categorical distinction for gender. Of course, if you collapse this into two different buckets labelled “men” and “women,” you’ll find, on average, that men are taller than women on average, but of course, there’re lots of individual people who are exceptions to that, and it’s much more of a variant thing. Similarly, with some of the research on sexuality, some of the early stuff is like, “Oh, do gay men or do lesbians have different-shaped vowel tracts from a physiological perspective?” The answer is “No, this is cultural.”

Lauren: Right, yeah.

Gretchen: But the finding keeps being reported in terms of like, “Oh, well, gay men have more extreme vowels in various places,” especially with “trap” being produced further away from the centre of the mouth. Lesbian women tend to have further-back sounds for “palm” and for “goose,” or sometimes they’re intermediate between male and female targets. But again, this seems to very much be cultural. The bi women – some studies found they patterned with the lesbian women. Some studies found they pattern with the straight women. No one knows what to do with us. The one study I found on bi men found they patterned with the gay men, but again, maybe other studies would find something different. There’s a paper by Lal Zimman about trans men’s voices being perceived as quote-unquote “gay” after they go on testosterone. He finds that it’s not quite the exact same as the cis gay men, but it’s also because it seems to not be in that narrow man box. People are just parsing it as gay.

Lauren: So many cultural attitudes coming to bear on vowel spaces.

Gretchen: Studies on trans women’s vowel spaces is often fairly dominated by the speech pathology literature, which is about, specifically, vocal training and trans women really trying to make their voices sound different, but it still finds that they’re not doing exactly the same thing as either cis women or cis men.

Lauren: Right. Again, lots of cultural practice at play there. Anything about our nonbinary pals?

Gretchen: There is a recent dissertation by Jacq Jones, and they find that basically nonbinary people do whatever the heck they like.

Lauren: I love it.

Gretchen: Which is, again, not exactly the same as anybody else and not necessarily the same as each other either. They could just keep doing whatever they want. But yeah, there’s a lot of stuff on gender and sexuality, especially in terms of dispersion of the vowel space and regional stuff in terms of specific things being closer or further from each other.

Lauren: There’s so much happening in vowels in terms of plotting them all in this space in the mouth, but also so much happening in terms of plotting them in the social space. This is what makes vowels so rich and so interesting.

Gretchen: I feel like when we’re talking about vowel plotting, there’s this aspect of “Mwahaha, I am putting my fingers together and plotting,” which is maybe the fact that vowels do convey so much social information about who you are or where you’re from that you can make plots about people when you know what their vowels are. If we were going to make a meat clarinet or a meat bassoon or even a meat bagpipe –

Lauren: Oh, dear.

Gretchen: I’m so sorry. We would not only want it to be able to convey the basic vowel chart. One of the reasons why I think these synthetic versions of the human voice often sound so weird is that they don’t have all of this additional demographic information, regional information, gender and sexuality information that’s also so important to our experience of vowels.

[Music]

Gretchen: For more Lingthusiasm and links to all the things mentioned in this episode – including visualisations of our very own vowel plots – go to lingthusiasm.com. You can listen to us on all the podcast platforms or lingthusiasm.com. You can get transcripts of every episode on lingthusiasm.com/transcripts. You can follow @lingthusiasm on all the social media sites. You can get scarves with lots of linguistics patterns on them including the IPA, branching tree diagrams, bouba and kiki, and our favourite esoteric Unicode symbols, plus other Lingthusiasm merch – like “Etymology isn’t Destiny” t-shirts and aesthetic IPA posters – at lingthusiasm.com/merch. Links to my social media can be found at gretchenmcculloch.com. My blog is AllThingsLinguistic.com. My book about internet language is called Because Internet.

Lauren: My social media and blog is Superlinguo. Lingthusiasm is able to keep existing thanks to the support of our patrons. If you want to get an extra Lingthusiasm episode to listen to every month, our entire archive of bonus episodes to listen to right now, or if you just wanna help keep the show running ad-free, go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm or follow the links from our website. Patrons can also get access to our Discord chatroom to talk with other linguistics fans and be the first to find out about new merch and other announcements. Our most recent bonus topic was a chat with Dr. Bethany Gardner, who built the vowel plots we discussed in this episode. We talked to Bethany about how to do vowel charts and how you can plot your own vowels, or you can just learn about how they did it for us. Think of it like a little behind-the-scenes episode on the making of this episode. If you can’t afford to pledge, that’s okay, too. We really appreciate it if you can recommend Lingthusiasm to anyone in your life who’s curious about language.

Gretchen: Lingthusiasm is created and produced by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our Senior Producer is Claire Gawne, our Editorial Producer is Sarah Dopierala, our Production Assistant is Martha Tsutsui-Billins, and our Editorial Assistant is Jon Kruk. Our music is “Ancient City” by The Triangles.

Lauren: Stay lingthusiastic!

[Music]

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tuanhood · 4 years

Text

miss goody two shoes

pairing: drug dealer!bambam x reader

genre: smut, angst?

warnings: 18+, language, drug use/mention, fingering, dirty talk, public and unprotected sex.

word count: 6k+

summary: you want to prove to everyone you’re not the good girl they all think you are. your best friend’s drug dealer? perfect choice.

a/n: hello back with that smut everyone loves. this is unedited and quickly(ish) written so please don’t judge. it took me until 3:36am and two aperol spritzes to finish this SO. YAH.

“Do we really have to do this right now?” You asked your best friend, trying to keep up with him as you follow him through the city.

He stops for a moment and turns back to look at you as if you’ve just confessed to a murder, “y/n are you kidding me? Do you really think I can deal with an interaction with Gretchen not high?” Jae shook his head at you and continued walking forward.

“It’s just brunch! I doubt you’ll even interact that much!” You hated walking with him, because of his damn long legs. His strides were honestly too much for you.

Jae huffed in disagreement, “I need it regardless. Now come on, we’re almost there.”

When you had agreed to a brunch date with a few friends from college including your best friend, you hadn’t really thought meeting up with his drug dealer right before was a part of the plan. Sure, many of the people the two of you went to college with were insufferable, but for some reason whenever they’d reach out to you to make plans you would always find yourself saying yes and ultimately drag Jae along. He constantly told you that you were too nice.

Specifically, Gretchen – a girl who had lived across from you your second year of University – was the most difficult to deal with and usually her and Jae would end up in passive aggressive arguments that made everyone at the table uncomfortable. So, you guessed that if meeting Jae’s drug dealer was a part of making that issue vanish, so be it.

By the time of you reached a small park square in the middle of the city, you felt a burning in your legs from trying to keep up with Jae and crashed onto the first bench you see. He looked down at you massaging your legs and chuckled, “we barely walked a mile, calm down!”

Rolling your eyes, you looked up at him through your lashes, “easy for you to say. You’re not the one trying to keep up with a 7-foot giant.” He doesn’t reply, but simply snorted at your comment and looked down to check his phone, “when is your guy getting here? We’re going to be late if we wait here for too long and you know how that’s gonna be a whole thing if that happens.”

“Don’t worry, he’ll be here soon,” Jae assured you.

And sure enough, after a few moments you heard a loud “Dude!” leave your best friend’s mouth and looked up to see a man enter the park square. The man returned Jae’s enthusiastic welcome with outstretched arms as he walked towards the two you, giving Jae the “guy handshake” as soon as he’s in reach.

When he’s out of the handshake with your best friend, you begin to take in his features and were surprised by how much this guy didn’t look like a drug dealer. Most of the drug dealers you had seen or heard of had a casual style to them – hoodie, somewhat presentable and maybe on the weirdly older side. This guy was not that in any way shape or form. Everything about him screamed Paris fashion week and your brain was trying to process how this guy could be a drug dealer. Maybe he made that much money? Judging on the very expensive watch he was sporting and the Cartier ring on his middle index finger, you believed that it had to be the case.

“Y/N,” Jae said snapping you out of your thoughts, “this is Bam.”

You stood up from the bench and dusted yourself off, looking at the two men suspiciously, “Bam? Is that short for something?”

The dealer shrugged, “Bambam I guess.”

You can’t help but notice the way he scans you up and down, checking you out. You tell yourself he’s looking at you in an effort to feel you out and see if you’re a snitch or nark, but the nervous flip in your stomach tells you maybe it’s for a different reason.

As though Jae noticed the strange interaction between the two of you, he claps his hands loudly, “let’s get to it then, shall we?” Bambam simply nodded his head and fiddled with the clearly nonprescription glasses on his face, “Right… how much do you want?”

“An eighth should do.” Jae confimed.

Bambam began to reach into his bag and stops, “that’s it?”

Your best friend pursed his lips in thought, “actually if you have molly that could be good too. I’m supposed to be going to my stupid racist aunt’s wedding next weekend and it would be much better on something.”

Bambam shook his head sadly and clicked his tongue, “sorry man. There’s some music festival this weekend and all those stupid frat dudes wiped me clean on acid and molly. But I should be getting some more next week if you want to meet up again.” You swear when he says the words “meet up again” you see his eyes wander to yours, but as quickly as they’re there, they’re back on Jae.

You heard a groan leave Jae’s throat in annoyance, “whatever I’ll get through it sober, I guess. I’ll just take the weed then.” Bambam nods his head and hums, “cool.”

You watch as Bambam meticulously takes a small clear baggie out of his bag and places it inside of larger black sack, “I’ll throw in a free edible too, since you’re my number two customer and all,” Bambam laughs. The noise that leaves his mouth is almost melodic, and you can’t remember a time where someone’s laugh put you at ease. You felt a smile reach your face.

“What the fuck? I’m not number one?” Jae complained.

“Nah man, Mark’s got you beat there.”

Jae shook his head, “Fucking Tuan.”

Bambam and Jae laughed at his response as you stand there clueless as to who this Mark person was or why it was funny that he was Bambam’s number one customer. It’s when your eyebrows furrow and there’s a small frown on your face that Bambam’s gaze is once again fixated on you. “Does the pretty girl want anything?”

Before you can answer or react at Bambam calling you a pretty girl, Jae answers for you, “She doesn’t do this kind of stuff.” You roll your eyes annoyed at him just deciding what you do and what you don’t do. Just as you’re again about to open your mouth to speak, you’re cut off but this time by Bambam.

“Let her speak for herself man,” At that your heart warmed and you feel your face grow hot at how a drug dealer you barely know was treating you better than your own best friend. Bambam nods at you as if to go on and you felt yourself sputter your words out, “No… I mean he’s- well I guess he’s pretty much right. I don’t really like- um well do that stuff. Not that I have anything against it! I totally don’t! You know I’m like friends with the number one stoner in the area- or I guess number two since that Mark guy is number one? But anyways it’s just not for me so I- yeah so no… No drugs for me today.”

You feel yourself want to hide in a corner as you turn to see Jae with wide eyes and looking at you as if you should be in a mental institution. Somehow, you turned to face Bambam, expecting him to also categorize you as a psycho for your rambling, but instead he has a smile on his face and chuckles. His smile was practically as bright as his overpriced watch.

“Totally understandable. I don’t do any of this stuff either,” Bambam revealed.

“What? But you’re like a…” you begin, drifting off and unsure if “drug dealer” was a polite term to use in this day and age.

“Drug dealer?” He laughed, “yeah I know… But you know not everyone tries their own merchandise.”

You frowned, not completely understanding, “but shouldn’t you try and know your merchandise so you’re better at selling?”

He shrugged, “I guess when you’re selling drugs it really doesn’t matter,” Bambam shocks you by taking a step closer to you and reaching out to push a strand of hair that had fallen in front of your face, “or I’m just really good at what I do.”

Taking a step back, he smiles at you and you hear Jae clearing his throat, clearly uncomfortable at the situation, “so how about those drugs?” Bambam simply nodded, unfazed and handed Jae the bag as the latter slips him the cash.

You became confused as you watched Bambam handle the money. He was doing something so simple, but looked so attractive doing it? Absentmindedly you felt yourself bite down on your lip as you watched him count and place the cash in his money clip. You were lost in a daze of watching his hands and the money that you didn’t notice his gaze back up to you, “don’t bite down so hard baby girl, you never know what could happen.”

Jae coughed again, still awkward about your interactions with Bambam. You on the other hand felt him calling you “baby girl” go straight to your core, so much so that you pressed your legs together. Praying he didn’t notice; you found your eyes wandering to anywhere that wasn’t the drug dealer.

Bambam took your silence as a sign, “well I better get going. Have other stops to make this morning.” Jae nodded, simply thankful to not be caught in the middle of whatever this was any longer, “yeah us too.”

“See ya later Jae, you too y/n.” You still feel semi-dazed from his words that all you can do is wave him goodbye, and watch him walk out of the park, the opposite direction of where you and Jae came in from. Bambam turned around one final time before exiting the park completely, “remember! Say no to drugs!” he shouted over his shoulder, shooting you another smile.

As soon as he’s out of view, Jae turns to you, “let’s go. I want to roll this and smoke it before we get to the restaurant.” You follow Jae out of the park the way you both came until you both stop at a corner of the street that is inconspicuous and hidden enough that Jae can roll and light up his joint.

“That was weird right?” You asked Jae suddenly when he finally lights the joint.

“I think he was flirting with you?” Jae said as more of a question than a definite statement. You couldn’t tell if he was asking you or himself. Your friend’s ponderance was enough to confirm your suspicions and cause your stomach to flip. A small smile spread across your face and you see Jae look at you with a frown on his face.

“Dude chill, he’s just my drug dealer.”

His dismissal at the small amount of joy you felt for being flirted with annoyed you that you felt yourself soon go silent besides the odd cough here and there caused by the smoke induced by the joint.

When he was finally done and you began to walk to the restaurant, you felt yourself picking up your pace, walking far in front of him. When it soon became difficult for even him to keep up with you, he came to the realization that you were upset with him, but nonetheless Jae continued to try to talk and reason with you as you approached the restaurant where you were meeting your friends.

You didn’t say single word to him until you were sat at the table with everyone and asked him if he wanted to split a mimosa pitcher with you. At your words he felt thankful to know you had let go of what he had said earlier and nodded in agreement.

“Ooh a mimosa pitcher for y/n? Pinch me because I must be dreaming,” Gretchen said overhearing your conversation with Jae.

Another one of your college friends Brian laughed, “Yeah but Jae will probably finish most of it. We know y/n can’t really hold her alcohol.”

Why did everyone suddenly choose today as the day that they would make fun of you? So what maybe you weren’t as crazy as them when it came to certain things, but you weren’t a fucking nun like they were making you out to be. So what you didn’t get blackout drunk at brunch? So what if you got excited about someone flirting with you? Even if he was a drug dealer.

“That’s not true,” Jae said coming to your defense, clearly trying to make up for how he had upset you earlier, “honestly y/n can drink me under the table.”

Gretchen waved her hand in dismissal, “come on Jae we all know that’s not true. But that’s what we love about her! She’s our sweet pure friend! Every group needs one of those.”

“If she was pure would she go with me to see my drug dealer?” Jae asked.

Gretchen smiled, “Jae are you high right now?”

“Yeah I need it so I can fucking deal with you,” he practically growled. She laughed in response as if he was joking, when he was in fact not. “That’s so funny. It’s not like she would ever buy or do any though.”

You felt helpless watching this argument – about you – unfold. Moments like this made you feel like maybe you were too nice. Why couldn’t you just say something and defend yourself? Jae shouldn’t be the one doing it. You should be the one arguing with Gretchen.

“Well who cares because my drug dealer thinks she’s hot!”

At Jae’s confession you feel everyone turn to look at you as if you can offer some kind of explanation, but you’re just as clueless as everyone else on the topic of “my best friend’s drug dealer thinking I’m hot.” Jae must really be trying to make up for earlier.

“It’s true, he just messaged me like 15 minutes confirming he would bang her.”

Your mouth drops open. Turning to look at Jae you can’t tell if he’s being honest or just making things up for the sake of arguing with Gretchen.

“Okay y/n having sex with a drug dealer is probably the last thing she would ever do.”

“Um is this a brunch topic?” One of your more silent friends at the table, Mina asked clearly wanting the discussion to be over.

Finally, you feel like it’s important that you’re the one to end this weird discussion about you having sex at 11am at brunch. You rolled your eyes, “I am not some untouched Mother Theresa, Gretch.” She flinched at the nick name; you knew how much she hated being called that.

“I mean you what? Have had sex with only two people? Both who you had long term relationships with? That sounds pretty untouched to me.”

The table shifts uncomfortably and no one says anything in response, it isn’t until the waiter approaches the table to ask everyone if they’re ready to order that you feel yourself snap back into reality.

“A mimosa pitcher please,” Jae ordered and soon all eyes are on you as the waiter waits for your response, “add one more pitcher to that.”

Jae leans over to you, “we don’t need two.”

You smiled at him, “no this one’s for me.”

After the “discussion” at brunch, the atmosphere between you and everyone else clearly shifted. You predicted that they probably wouldn’t be calling you to get together for a while. For that you were thankful.

Both you and Jae headed to your apartment in silence and you tried not to be fixated on the topic of your sex life and how “pure” and “good” you were, but your mind kept lingering there. It infuriated you how much you cared, because you knew deep down it really didn’t matter. It caused you to feel off for the rest of the day. So much so that it felt as though you blinked and it was suddenly dark outside. Brunch had been hours ago, but you were still you were thinking about the words exchanged.

“Hey um… I was wondering… can I have his number?”

“Whose number?” Jae asked barely paying attention to you. He leans against your bed on the floor and had been engrossed in a game for the last 45 minutes.

“Bambam’s…” You said quietly, hoping that maybe just maybe your best friend was in a strong enough trance that he would just hand over the number without registering whose number it was exactly and not ask any questions. But of course, you weren’t so lucky.

“Really?” He asked placing his phone down in his lap to turn to you laying on the bed, “why?”

You shrugged your shoulders nonchalantly, not wanting Jae to see just how nervous you were, “I don’t know… Maybe I want to like pick up or something.”

He snorted, “Y/N… You don’t do drugs.”

“Okay but maybe I’ll start!”

He rolls his eyes and picks his phone back up, assumedly to return to his game, “We both know that’s a lie. You’re a goody two shoes and everyone knows it. The way you coughed this morning when I lit up is evidence enough.”

There it was again. Too nice. Goody two shoes. Pushover. You were so fucking tired of hearing it all today. In fact, you were tired of hearing it all the damn time.

Instead of arguing with Jae, like you knew you should have done, you found yourself rolling over to stare at the ceiling of your bedroom, “You’re right… I’m just a good little girl,” you mumbled. Silence soon filled the room and Jae felt himself tense up; he couldn’t deal with you being upset again. Rolling his eyes, he swiped up on his phone to exit his game and searched through his contacts.

You suddenly felt something being nudged against your body and looked to your side to see Jae’s phone open with the contact “BAMBAM (PLUG)” glowing up at you.

“I don’t know why you really need it, but there it is.” You smiled at your best friend and sat up quickly to copy the contact into your own phone, “thank you Jae.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”

Later after Jae’s departure, you find your thumb hovering over Bambam’s number. Would it be too much to call? He probably wasn’t used to it in his line of business… Maybe it was just usually a texting thing?

To be completely honest you weren’t sure why you wanted his number… You weren’t sure if it was for drugs to prove everyone wrong, that you can in fact be bad or if it was for something… else. You thought about what Jae said at brunch… Did Bambam really text him that he would bang you? Did you want that?

The idea of having sex with Bambam certainly didn’t disgust or repulse you, instead you actually found yourself blushing at the thought and pressing your thighs together.

Holding your breath, you clicked his number and opened a new message.

y/n. hey… bambam. It’s y/n… Jae’s friend? We met in the park today…

bambam. Oh hey sup?

y/n. was just wondering… if maybe I could like idk pick up?

bambam. Ummm…. Hold on a sec.

You waited for what felt like eternity… He was putting you on hold? On hold through a text?

bambam. What do u need?

y/n. uh whatever you have on you I guess. Or like in stock ? is that how it works?

bambam. Haha something like that. I have mj, addy, coke, k, oxy lol pretty much anything u want. But like I said earlier today I’m out of acid and molly till next week.

y/n. yeah yeah yeah… okay. What’s k?

bambam. haha you’re so cute. It’s ket.

y/n. ??????

bambam. Ketamine. Horse tranquilizer.

y/n. okay… well I will not be doing that one. Can you just bring like a couple things and I’ll decide when we meet?

bambam. Um????? I guess so??

y/n. cool.

bambam. I’ll meet you at the park, I guess? In around an hour?

y/n. yeah that sounds good!

bambam. Bet.

You felt your heart beat out of your chest. Were you really just going to do this? What is it that you were going to do?

Looking at the time on your phone, you realized you needed to get ready and leave quickly if you wanted to meet Bambam on time. It was going to take you at least 40 minutes to walk to the park where you had met him earlier. Walking instead of calling an Uber would give you enough time to think, but also enough time to perhaps talk yourself out of it if you changed your mind mid-journey.

Although somehow, it hadn’t. Your mind on the walk over had been filled with Bambam, but not in a negative way that convinced you to turn around and head home… but in a way that had your core pulsing. You thought of what he had said to Jae earlier – true or not – and how he would take you if that’s what he wanted. It made your mind hazy and the lust that took over your thoughts caused you to barely notice that you had arrived at the park, Bambam already seated on the bench that you had been massaging your legs on earlier that morning.

He was sporting the same outfit he had been wearing earlier – a satin striped button up shirt tucked into tight black jeans and his clothing was enough to remind you of the reality of what you were doing here. To your dismay he was no longer wearing the glasses, in the fantasies that had fluttered into your mind on your walk, you had really grown in wanting to see Bambam’s glasses on as he fucked into you.

Approaching him, you shyly waved and he stood up to greet you, “hey…”

“Hi,” you replied feeling foolish at your choice of welcome. What were you supposed to say to seem more… cool?

“I don’t usually don’t take drop offs this late at night…”

You furrowed your eyebrows at him confused, “what? You’re a drug dealer… Isn’t night the best kind of time to do this stuff?”

“Nah night I work on my music. So, what’s up… You change your mind?” He tapped his foot impatiently and you can’t tell if he’s nervous about being in your presence or if he’s annoyed that you called him out here so late. But if he didn’t want to come… why would he? You took a deep breath in, hoping you were doing the right thing, “No… I-I lied I don’t want to pick up. I just- wanted to see you I guess?”

Even in the darkness of the park, you could see Bambam’s eyes widen in surprise, “see me? Why?”

You’re really not sure what’s supposed to happen next. You’ve never been in this situation before and although it seems like all of your friends' words drove you to text Bambam and come here, it was your own needs that were driving you to stay.

Deciding to take a risk with your questioning, you looked away from him, “Is what you sent to Jae true?” Bambam quickly blinked, unsure of how to respond to your question. He wasn’t sure if he needed to be honest or not. Were you mad at him for what he had said?

Instead, he clears his throat and decides it’s always best to tell the truth, “Um yeah what I said is true…”

You felt your stomach flip at the fact that the text Jae received was in fact true.

“Do you… still want to?” You asked shyly, still not daring to make eye contact with the beautiful man.

Bambam’s cock twitches at your question. Suddenly his jeans feel way too tight.

“Fuck yes,” Bambam replied, voice low and husky. It takes everything in him to not lunge forward and have his hands roam up and down your body, but he restrains himself, “where should we go? Mine? Yours?”

“Let’s do it here.”

Your words surprise both Bambam and you, but you ultimately decide to go with it.

“Here?” he asked, interrogating whether or not you were being serious. What if this was a joke? Before you can stop yourself, you nod, “yeah, here.”

He takes a step closer to you, until his hand moves forward to cup your face, “I knew you were bad girl when I met you.” His words go right to your core and you feel your panties grow damp. Typically, you would find that kind of talk cringe, but coming out of Bambam’s mouth all you wanted was to hear more of it.

Instinctively, Bambam groans at the thought of having his way with you, and he uses his free hand to grip your hip, hard enough to bruise and pulls you flush against his chest. He doesn’t hesitate as he leans in to press his lips to yours in a feverish kiss that leaves you breathless. His confidence surprises you, but also turns you on enough that you instantly moan against his lips.

You feel him smile and it feels as though you’re in an entirely different world than just a park square in the middle of the city. Bambam’s tongue brushes the seam of your lips before his tongue slips inside to explore your mouth. You feel him begin to pull you into the depths of the park, closer to the trees where it would be less visible if someone just so happened to decide to walk through.

The two of you stand there for what felt like forever and you feel surprised at Bambam’s clear want of wanting to take his time with you. His hands moved from your hips to your ass, his fingers kneading the flesh roughly as he makes himself familiar with your taste. He pulls himself away from the kiss, chest heaving and cheeks flushed. You whined at the loss of his lips on yours, but he simply stares at you, taking in your kiss swollen lips and the lust-filled look in your eyes. He had to admit that it was difficult to believe that the girl in front of him now was the same shy girl he had met earlier, but knowing you had this side to you made him want you even more. He drops his head to press his lips to your neck and you can feel his teeth scraping the sensitive skin on the column of your throat as his hands move to dip beneath the hem of your shirt.

After leaving a few marks, he pulls away just enough to tug the t-shirt up and over your head before his hands move to cup your bare breasts. Not wearing a bra was probably the best idea you had all week.

“Fuck… y/n your tits are so pretty,” he breathes against your skin as he returns his mouth to your neck, “I could just play with them all night.”

As he gently kneads your breasts, you feel yourself clench around nothing. You were overly sensitive from not being touched like this in so long, that you felt as though you could cum just from his hands on your breasts.

You attempt to focus on the kiss in an effort to control yourself from not letting go so easily, but soon Bambam’s hands release your breasts and seamlessly drag down your stomach to the button on your jeans. He snaps them open instantly and hooks his thumbs on either side, shoving them down, along with your panties, down your legs. Your sudden nakedness causes you to shiver as you feel the cool breeze of the summer night drift over you body. Bambam notices this and places his finger against your lips, “shh baby girl let me warm you up.”

Reattaching his lips to yours, Bambam gently pushes you against the tree behind you and you feel his fingers drift to your core and swirl around your entrance. The feeling of him where you need him the most is enough to cause you to moan and you can’t help but notice how he disconnects from your lips when he feels at how wet you are.

“Jesus y/n, you’re so wet. Are you sure you didn’t cum already?”

Wordlessly you shake your head almost violently to tell him you hadn’t.

“I don’t know if I believe you… a bad girl like you might lie,” you feel one of his digits slip into your slightly, only part of the way but not fully and you feel as though you’re about to scream at the teasing. You should have known that Bambam wouldn’t give you want you wanted that easily.

“I-I’m not lying,” you stuttered out between your attempts to hold your moans back.

He fully inserts the finger into you, curling it a bit and you can no longer stop the noises that want to leave your body, “If you’re not lying, I guess I just have to see what my baby girl looks like when she cums. How wet she gets, how tight around me, hmm?” You can’t find it in you to respond, you simply nod and he smirks at you, clearly proud at his efforts to make you so weak so quickly.

It isn’t long before, without warning, you feel him insert a second finger, pumping them inside you at a teasingly slow pace. You felt like you were going to break, because you just needed more.

“Bam p-please I-I need more.”

He played dumb, frowning at you, “need more what?”

“Faster, more,” you manage to breathe out and without a word he picks up the pace of his movement, a smirk on his face and lust in his gaze. It’s when he suddenly curls his digits, hitting just the right spot that you feel like all sanity and speech has left your body. How can something feel this good?

“Come on, cum on my fingers. I know that’s all you want. I’ll let my bad girl have what she wants, just this once.”

His words spur you on as you find your arms moving to the back of you to grip onto the tree for stability as you buck your hips further onto his fingers, wanting nothing more than in this moment to have a release. The combined effort of his finger curling and his thumb coming up to tap on your clit in an almost musical rhythm has you falling apart and releasing around his fingers. He can feel the shaking of your thighs and the tension of your body as his fingers work to let you ride the waves of your orgasm.

Bambam’s length which had been growing hard since the moment you asked if he wanted to fuck you, suddenly felt painful as he watched you fall apart from just the pure pleasure he had caused. He couldn’t wait any longer, he wanted and needed to be inside you.

“Ride me,” Bambam says without hesitation as soon as you’ve caught your breath from your orgasm. Despite your release which had only occurred moments ago, you felt yourself ready to go once again at Bambam’s words and at how quickly he worked to remove his clothes.

Instinctively, you licked your lips as you first laid eyes on his painfully hard and leaking red cock which had been desperately waiting for its turn. You wanted nothing more than to get your mouth or hands on it – preferably mouth – but as you reach forward, Bambam shook his head.

He sat himself against the tree, not caring about the fact that he was sitting on the actual ground in the middle of a public park. The only thought he had in his mind was getting inside of you and feeling how tight you would be when you sank down on him for the first time.

“Baby girl, let me feel you.”

That’s all it took for you to get into position and find yourself squatting down to sit in his lap, rubbing your slit against the head of his cock, ready to take in every single inch of him. At the feeling of you rubbing yourself against his sensitive cock, Bambam groans, “no teasing, I just need you. Please.”

His begging and more submissive request turns you on and it leads you to wonder if maybe that would be a side of yourself you would want to explore later. But for now, you just needed to feel him inside of you.

Slowly, you lowered yourself onto him, moaning at how good it felt to finally have him around you, stretching you out completely. It had been awhile since your last sexual encounter and with the way Bambam was filling you, it almost felt like your first time again – this time there was no pain however, only pleasure. “Fuck… Bam.”

You just sat there for a moment, enjoying the feeling, until you felt him ever so slightly shift and then heard a groan. His hands instinctively landed on your hips as he attempted to get you to move, he almost couldn’t take how snug you felt around him, he wanted you bouncing up and down on him at a brutal pace. Understanding his want, you lifted your hips barely an inch before falling back down on him. Every time you did it you went a little bit higher.

“Come on I know you can do better than that,” Bambam egged you on despite his groans. At his words you leaned back, placing your hands on his thighs, giving him a much deeper angle into you. As you rode him like this, he began to thrust up meeting your hips and every time he did his cock hit a spot inside of you that made your eyes roll back into your head.

Your movement on him began to grow sloppier as a shot of pleasure made itself known throughout every part of your body. At your sudden change of pace, Bambam held your hips to continue moving you up and down on him, his own thrusting becoming faster. “You feel so fucking good. Damn maybe I should just stop working and fuck you all day,” you felt yourself clench at his words and he continued, “you’d like that huh? I can feel how tight you’re getting just at the thought of me using you and filling you with my cum every single day. Such a dirty girl.”

You could feel your walls clench, and Bambam let out a groan having to thrust harder just to keep going as deep, “I’m- gonna- fuck.”

Somehow, not out of breath, Bambam whispered into your ear, “You’re gonna what? Cum? Do it… Cum all over me in this fucking park where anyone can see. I know how much want it so just fucking do it.”

You were seeing stars and your thighs were shaking once again when Bambam reached in between your bodies, pinching your clit, finally making you fall apart. Although you had once been concerned about being loud because of the public aspect of your location, you found yourself unable to contain your screams when your orgasm hit you. You could feel your juices dripping down onto his thighs as he pulled out of you and pumped himself one final time, released his seed onto your stomach and chest. As he caught his breathe, you dipped your finger into his release which had begun to drip down to your thighs. Placing it into your mouth, you suck it gently. “Mmmm,” you moaned at the taste and Bambam stared at you wide eyed. “Um fuck… should we do a round two?”

You laugh at his response and the lustful gaze that still clouds his eyes, “maybe… not here?”

Bambam grasps his discarded shirt and begins to wipe up the mess he left on your body, as well as the mess you left on his thighs. The gesture warms your heart.

He hums in response, almost lost in a trance as he wipes you up. “I mean… I know I’m just a drug dealer,” he said laughing, “but how about I take you out for a late night dinner slash early breakfast and then we have a round two where I enter you from the oh so classy doggy style position?”

You laugh and grab his hands, stopping him from continuing to wipe you up, causing him to look into your eyes.

“Deal.”

#got7 fanfic #got7 smut #bambam smut #bambam fanfic #bambam

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rwby-ask-central · 3 years

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RWBY VOL8 EP9 SPOILERS BELOW!

There’s so much to talk about. As I usually do, I’ll break it down into sections.

Yang & Salem Interaction

It’s really really sweet to see her still refer to Summer as her mom. Anyone could be a mother, but not everyone could be a mom. If you ask me, it’s adorable. But on that same note, her speech and subsequent interaction with Salem was...concerning. She said everything she lost was Salem’s fault. I agree, she had a tough time. Her arm is gone, her mother is dead/missing, and her life as a huntress is kinda gone. What’s concerning was how Salem responded. She seems to know Summer Rose by name. For a being who has lived for as long as Salem, I can’t imagine that she knows them all by name, even if they are recent. I think there’s a reason. She must be special. I don’t know how or why...but she must be.

Summer is Alive Theory

I just want to note, this isn’t my theory. I’m being told this is a theory circulating around in Twitter. If Summer is alive...where is she likely being held?...AND WHAT IS WINTER CURRENTLY PLANNING TO DO?! WHAT THE HELL WINTER. That’s really all I’ve got for this one. Not long, but worth pointing out.

Traitors

Well, we have traitors/defectors. Hazel and Emerald. I knew that Emerald would. If you want to know why, go check out my post about predictions for the volume based on Episode 1 & the opening. But HAZEL?! I never would’ve guessed, even with the episodes up to now. Is Cinder even still with Salem? I know they haven’t interacted in a bit, but she’s going against Salem’s wishes...if her past is anything to go on, not listening to directions only gets her in trouble. And NEO. What the HELL is Neo, THE MUTE, gonna do with the lamp? And more importantly, if she CAN talk and just hasnt this far, what would she even ask?

Hazel Theory

This is just a quick one I’ve been thinking about. Ozcar and Hazel share pretty similar outfits and color schemes. Not to mention eyes. Gretchen was Hazel’s sister. And Ozcar lives with his Aunt...is it possible they’re actually related!? If Oz took interest in any way to Gretchen, I’m sure she either had or directly linked to Silver eyes. Which just adds to the mess. I’d like to think they are, and that’s what bonds them, not just Ozma.

Semblances & JRY

Now that we have directly seen confirmation that seblmances can evolve, I think we need to have a serious talk about it. It’s more than just combining them like Jaune and Ren do. Ren can sense emotion. He can SEE it. He can understand and locate it. We got hints earlier than Harriet believed there’s more to Ruby’s semblance than just speed. Obviously we know there’s more to it than going FAST, as Penny pointed out. But I think Ruby might get an evolution by the end of the season. But what’s to stop there? What about Yang? Harnessing her sadness and misery, much like her anger. And Blake? Who KNOWS. Jaune? What if his aura could be projected to act like a giant shield? Like a physical one. The possibilities!!

Ozcar...

I hate and love Ozcar’s character. He’s strong but whiney. He’s relatable and yet also so foreign from us. He wants to be free from Ozma, but he wants to make a difference in this war now. He’s still scared, but I think he’s learning that he will give up his own identity to protect those around him. And honestly, I don’t know what he’s planning against Salem, considering he couldn’t even stop Cinder as a brand new maiden at a much better advantage...but all I can come up with is to slow down time for Salem and allow everyone to escape.

Other notes of Interest

Just how STRONG are Yang and Hazel? Like Yang really made a DENT in Salem, which is a feat for fighting an immortal being. AND Hazel? He didn’t just make a DENT, he literally slapped her across the whale and the. Beat the actual goop out of her body. This man is INSANE. I’m sure I’ll come up with more things to talk about but for now, that’s all I can think of! If I missed soemthing you’d like me to cover, comment and I’ll see what I can do!!

#rwby v8 #rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby speculation #rwby yang #rwby salem #rwby hazel #rwby neo

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marvinswriting · 4 years

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Jason

hey, you guys remember jason from the movie? the one gretchen hooked up with but he didn't actually care about her? yeah :) ALSO REGINA POV?!?!? tw: bullying, suffocation, manipulation, shane omen mention g/t mean girls

I wasn't controlling.

Well- let me rephrase that.

There were rules for being plastic. I made sure Karen and Gretchen followed those rules. That wasn't controlling. Just, guidelines. They're rules in place to help the other plastics. Dress codes, what clubs you can and can't join, you can't buy a dress without the others approval, don't date your friend's exes-

but totally new boys were fair game.

So before you ask, no, that's not why I'm against Gretchen dating Jason.

On surface level, Jason seemed like a nice guy.

But he constantly blew off Gretchen, he flirted with other girls, and overall was totally using her.

And that's not even getting into how he treats tinies.

That's right.

Jason is a two-faced fucking asshole.

And none of the giants can see it.

I mean- I'm sure they're suspicious. I know Damian notices when Janis stiffens the second Jason walks in the room. And, Cady has probably picked up on the way Aaron gets quiet. If Gretchen has caught on to anything, she totally ignores it. I mean- Janis, Aaron, and I tried telling our friends in the begging. Gretchen didn't want to hear it. She's got a huge crush on the guy and totally ignores all red flags.

So we gave up getting through to her.

Besides, who would believe us? Jason was so sweet whenever our giants were around.

I guess when we collectively decided we couldn't get through to Gretchen- all the other giants were a lost cause too. And that was months ago. We're in too deep now.

"Allow me to take it back to the drawing board and suggest the best idea we've had since day one," Janis huffed. We were in an empty hallway after school for 'english help'. We've been staying after a lot more recently.

It's been getting worse.

Jason isn't trying to be sneaky anymore. He'll pick up Aaron without asking, conveniently drop his textbook on the cafeteria table right next to Janis, wrap his arm around Gretchen when I'm on her shoulder.

Yet nobody has caught on.

Janis continued. "Why don't we just tell our giants what he's doing?"

"Because Gretchen won't listen to me."

"Good thing there's three other friends." Janis points out.

I rolled my eyes, waving my hand dismissively. Of course, Janis didn't understand how it felt not to have her giant listen to her. Her and Damian practically share a mind, if anything it's a shock he hasn't started asking questions. "Fine, if you know what's best for everyone, go talk to Damian. I'm sure you two will solve everything with your buddy buddy perfect communication skills. Janis has a giant who actually listens to her! Wow! You don't have to rub it in." I cross my arms over my chest, leaning back against the wall.

Aaron blinks, his gaze bouncing between both of us nervously.

"I wasn't-" Janis pauses, letting her hands fold in her lap. "I wasn't rubbing anything in. Listen- Regina, I'm sorry Gretchen won't listen. Truly. I'm being genuine right now. But don't make me feel guilty for trying to come up with a solution to something affecting all three of us."

"Right," I mumble, guilt rising in my stomach. "Sorry. I just-"

My voice trails off but neither Janis nor Aaron push for me to continue talking. Gretchen was somebody I could always trust to be there and listen to me. Now she didn’t. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to make her listen. We're silent for a while while I regroup my emotions, not wanting to snap for no reason again.

"I have tried talking to Gretchen recently."

"And how did it go?" Aaron prompted.

"Well, it fucking went." I shrug. "Gretchen isn't used to having boys like her. I love her but crushes directed to her don't happen often. So of course she accused me of being jealous a boy finally liked her and not me."

"Maybe it had to do with how you worded it?" Janis suggests.

"Well, how else do I word 'hey maybe you should break up with the boy you're not even officially dating yet because he's toxic, a cheater, not actually in love with you, also harassing your tiny friends'?"

"Literally any way but that." Janis mumbled.

I shrug again, pulling out my phone. "Well, I did my best. You know emotions aren't my thing." I want to cry a little just thinking about the talk last week. But I don't. Crying won't fix anything.

"Regina, why can't you be happy that a boy likes me for once?! I know you're used to all the boys falling head over heels for you, but this is the first time a cute boy has put in the effort to care and call back and-"

"But he doesn't, Gretchen! He doesn't call back. He. Doesn't. Care! I'm doing this for you because nobody else is gonna tell you. Jason is bad news. He doesn't care about you, or Karen, or Cady, or Damian, and he really doesn't give a shit about Janis, Aaron, or I!"

"Just let me be happy, Regina." Gretchen says dismissively, ignoring everything I just said.

There's a hand on my shoulder, jolting me out of my thoughts. Aaron looks at me worriedly but retreats his arm. "Gina, you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just-" I wipe away a strand of hair that's been matted to my face by tears. Wait-

-tears?

I use my sleeve to dry my face quickly. I didn't even realize I started crying. I was just so tired. I was supposed to feel safe around my friends. Even when the rest of the school sees me as an emotionless bitch I should be able to turn to my friends and be okay. I couldn't do what when my current number one source of fear has intruded into our group.

"So," Janis says awkwardly. "We don't tell our giants directly. How do we get them to see the side of Jason we're seeing?"

"We catch him in the act." Aaron suggests.

Janis shakes her head with a sigh. "I am tired and quite frankly sick. I don't want our plan 'a' to be; lets put ourselves in danger in hopes that our friends stop by to witness. Let's make that plan 'y' or 'z'."

"Well, we already have plans 'b' through 'z'. We need and 'a', I'm just spouting ideas." Aaron points out.

Janis sighs, shaking her head. "I should have stuck with Damian. I need a nap and maybe an Advil."

I chuckled dryly at the girl sitting across from me. "Always have your priorities sorted, huh Janis?"

"If my priorities include being sick and not wanting to deal with Jason ever again then yeah."

"It's getting harder and harder 'not to deal with Jason ever again'," Aaron pointed out. "Remember lunch last week?"

"Don't remind me." Janis huffed.

Last week Jason decided to be a lot more careless with how he treated us around our giant friends.

I cringe just thinking of the memory.

"All I'm saying is the tiny soccer team is so underfunded. We're even better than the giant soccer team but you wouldn't know it because we've set up to fail."

I raise my eyebrow as Aaron sits next to me, passionately explaining how he swears the tiny soccer team is not a total failure.

I sat in front of Gretchen and across from Janis, who was flopped against Damian's forearm clearly struggling to stay awake.

I grin as she yawns.

"Am I boring you, Janis?" Aaron teases.

"A little," Janis says with full honesty.

Before Aaron can remark, a stack of textbooks is dropped in between him and I, narrowly missing me as I push myself backward.

Jason.

Janis's eyes widen and I instantly rush around the textbook to make sure Aaron is okay. He is, just looks equally as shaken up as I do.

Jason sits in the seat between Damian and Gretchen without bothering to great the tinies he just nearly crushed. It's where Cady normally sits, but she isn't here today.

"Jason!" Gretchen grins, pecking him on the cheek like I didn't just almost die.

I throw and exasperated look to Janis who laughs at my expense.

She wasn't the one almost fucking crushed.

Janis pushes off Damian's arm, making her way over to Aaron and I.

Or tries to.

She doesn't make it very far before shes intercepted by a hand scooping her up.

Janis makes a noise of surprise as Jason lifts her off the table without asking.

I push myself closer to Gretchen as Janis instantly tries to get back down to the table. Jason's thumb knocks her down and I cringe because- that looked like it hurt.

Damian eyes Jason wearily but doesn't vocally say anything. But neither does Janis so why would anyone worry? It's just Jason. Sweet Jason. The boy who's probably gonna ask Gretchen to spring fling. Innocent Jason.

Janis sits up again, clearly uncomfortable, as Damian speaks. "Maybe I should hold Janis?"

"No," Jason says simply before Janis can even open her mouth. "She's fine."

"Janis," Damian ignores the boy next to him. "Do you want Jason holding you?"

Janis is silent for a while, and I don't blame her.

She's in Jason's hands.

One wrong more and shes getting hurt-

badly.

"I- I uh, kinda want to be with Damian right now? If that's okay?" Janis speaks slowly, picking her words wisely.

"That's okay!" Jason reassures her sweetly, passing the girl to her giant. "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable." Aaron and Janis make an identical face of discussed at the sickly sweet tone and I can only assume my face is similar.

"It's okay." Janis says softly, visibly more relaxed in Damain's hands.

Jason forces a frown. "Well- I'll go give you space. Gretchen, I'll see you next period."

He gets up, walking away but I don't feel very bad for him. If anything, I feel safer. And if the collective breath of relief from Janis and Aaron was an indicator- they felt the same.

As soon as Jason was out of earshot, Gretchen turned to Janis. "Jason was just trying to be nice, Janis. You need to be willing to welcome him into our friend group."

Janis' jaw slacked. The 'are you kidding me' went unsaid. Instead, Janis forced out an "Of course, it's my fault."

"I'm serious, Janis. Be nice."

"I'm serious too." Janis shot back.

Aaron and I shared a look of helplessness. We couldn't just tell them. Our giants would never believe us.

To them, Jason could do no wrong.

"The only solution is to never go to lunch again." Janis speaks up, bringing me out of my thoughts.

"Mhmm, sure. That's a reasonable solution." Aaron teases.

"You got something better, soccer boy?" Janis raises her eyebrow.

Aaron shakes his head. "We've reached a dead end. Gina? You got any ideas?"

I shake my head with defeat. "Unfortunately, no. All I know is Jason hates us and his goal is to make our friends hate us too through lying and manipulation."

"Go girl, give us nothing." Janis rolls her eyes. "We already knew that Regina."

"Okay, I get your sick and cranky, Janis, but I don't need you-"

"Okay!" Aaron interrupts me. "The three of us are stressed! We're worried. We're scared. But we're also all on the same page. Let's not go at each other's throats right now. We're the only ones who understand each other's struggles. Please stop fighting."

Janis and I both mumble a weak sorry.

Aaron was right. We were all scared. Can you blame us? Jason was doing everything in his power to isolate us from our friends. For no other reason other then we're tinies and see-through his act. Why he wants Gretchen so bad is beyond me. But hell am I gonna let his toxic ass have her.

"Do you guys remember that scarf Gretchen wore last week?" I ask.

Janis tilts her head. "Yeah?"

"I don't pay enough attention." Aaron shrugs.

I grin. "Well, it was a baggy infinity scarf to refresh your memory. There was enough fabric that I could sit on Gretchen's shoulder next to her neck and not be seen. So I obviously skipped my boring history lecture. But also- Gretchen talked to Jason. He didn't know I was there."

"You're like a spy!" Janis grinned, invested in the story. "What happened?!"

"Hey, Gretchen!" Jason smiles, slipping his hand into Gretchen's as they walked down the hall.

I sunk lower into the pool of fabric, hopping Grethen didn't point out I was here.

"Hey, Jason!"

I let out a breath of relief when she doesn't.

"I have to ask you something," Jason asked.

My ears perk up as I wait for him to continue.

"Is that Janis girl always so- unfriendly? I get the feeling she doesn't like me. I just don't know why. Like Regina clearly doesn't like me very much but she might just be jealous you've got a boy and she doesn't-"

So that's where the seed of jealously in Gretchen's head was planted from. It takes all of me not the stand-up and call Jason out on his bullshit.

He continues.

"But I don't understand why Janis or Aaron wouldn't like me. Aaron just gets quiet and hey- maybe he's shy. But Janis lashes out every time I try and talk to her."

"Janis can be like that sometimes." Gretchen says, nodding in agreement.

Jason could tell her the earth is fucking flat and this bitch would nod in agreement.

I wouldn't be surprised if Gretchen is even really listening to what Jason is saying.

All she's thinking is 'hot boy's lips are moving'.

Ugh.

"At least he's caught onto the fact that I don't fucking like him." Janis crossed her arms.

"Janis, he's painting you to be the bad guy. He's trying to turn Gretchen against you, what don't you understand about that?" Aaron asked.

"Oh no, I understood. I just don't care. I hate Jason and I'm glad he's caught on."

"He hates you more." I point out.

"Impossible." Janis shook her head.

We go back and forth about who hates who more before settling on the fact that our collective hate for him outweighs anything he feels for us.

"Let's go meet our giants, it's getting late." Aaron said standing up. He holds out his hand, helping Janis up first, then me.

Janis groans holding her head. "Still feel sick as fuck and standing up so fast did not help."

"Woe is you." I roll my eyes. "Let's go."

We walk through the school, making our way to the tiny pick up zone. We're halfway there as Aarons phone dings.

Its a text from Cady.

Aaron reads allowed: "Gretchen went home early so Karen is driving Regina home. Damian and Karen are still in after school help and I might be a bit late to pick you three up. Wait there for me, I swear I didn't forget about you guys."

I laugh. "Cady could never forget about us."

"I mean-" Janis starts. "There was the one ti-"

"Shut up." I cut her off. "Cady would never forget about her tiny friends."

We make it to the tiny pick up zone and sit against a wall to wait. It's no surprise that the hallway is empty. It's late after school on a Monday. Who would willingly still be in school?

There's footsteps down the hall and we all look up, expecting Cady.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Janis groans.

"Ever the pleasant one, Sarkisian." Jason jeers.

"I'm tired, and sick, and will literally cry if you even touch me. I will bawl. And maybe bite. Don't come the fuck near me." Janis threatens, holding up a sharpened pencil like its a knife.

Jason doesn't seem intimidated by this action. "Whatcha gonna do? Nibble my finger?"

"Fuck off!" Janis whines, throwing her head back. "Literally any day but today."

"Listen whiney and friends. I just hear to pick you up for your friends. So stop being such a bitch Janis."

The friends that told us to 'wait here for Cady'?

Riiight.

I share a knowing look with Aaron while Janis gets up, making her way back into the tiny halls.

"Not fucking dealing with this. Good day asshole."

"Nope." Jason reaches forward, picking Janis off the platform. "You're coming with me bitch."

"This is kidnapping," Janis says flatly. She doesn't fight Jason or thrash. She looks tired, like death is appealing at this point. "I'm being abducted."

Jason's fingers tighten around her. "Thought you were the fisty one? Huh? Shane said you put up a pretty good fight. Where's the fight, Sarkisian?"

"You talked to Shane?" I gawk. I don't know why I'm surprised. They definitely seem like best friends.

"Can you put me the fuck down?" Janis huffs. "Kinda hard to breath."

"Oh, is it?" Jason said with feigned worry. "Shame."

Janis cried out as the hand around her tightened, and Jason grinned at the first real signs of fear Janis has shown yet.

"Put me down- asshole!" Janis wheezed.

"Let go of her!" Aaron yelled.

It was moments like these when you really realize how helpless you were as a tiny.

All I could do was sit and watch as Aaron yelled and Janis squirmed. All I could do was pray Cady or really anybody would walk past and see what's happening.

Yeah, we've been threatened with death before.

Every tiny in Northshore has at least once.

And yeah, we've been pushed around before.

But I've never legitimately feared for my life of a friend's life.

I know maybe that's just a perk of being Regina Geroge, but this was new territory. And scary as fuck territory at that.

Jason seems pretty fucking pleased with himself and it makes my stomach twist. It's never gone this far before.

Somebody is going to get really hurt.

And I can't do anything.

I can almost feel my heart stop as Janis goes limp. I can't see her face.

But she's not fucking moving.

"Oh whoops." Jason shugs. "You tinies really are weak."

Aaron looks like if he could he'd fucking kill Jason.

Wouldn't we all.

"Put her down!" I yell, snapping out of my helpless funk.

Jason loosens his grip on Janis but she doesn't move. My breath feels caught in my throat.

My eyes were trained on Janis and I didn't see Jasons another hand till his finger flicked into my side, sending me falling backward.

I felt like I was living through one of those dramatic fight scenes in the movies.

Expect isn't it the villains who are supposed to be defeated?

I'm curled into myself on the floor, Janis is knocked out in the literal hands of the enemy and Aaron looks ready to kill or cry, whichever is possible first.

Never thought I'd die in high school.

"Hey, Jason, is that you?" A voice calls from down the hall.

"Cady!" Aaron runs to the egde of the platform.

Jasons condescending nature and snarl disappear. "Hello, Heron!"

"Is Janis asleep?" Cady asks as her eyes fall to Jason's hand. "She only ever falls asleep with Damian, either shes exhausted or really trust you."

The bitter laugh is out of my mouth before I can stop it.

Cady looks at me and tilts her head. "Regina, why do you look like you've been crying on the floor?" She pauses, her eyes trailing back between the four of us. I can almost see the doubt set in her mind. Yes! "What's really going on here?" She asks. "And uh, I'm gonna take Janis-"

Jason shakes his head. "She's fine, it won't be necessary."

"No, I wasn't offering." Cady's voice is an unfamiliar cold. "I'll take Janis."

I stand up and make my way closer to Aaron as Cady takes Janis away from Jason. "Now, what the fuck is going on.

"Literally nothing, we're just talking and-"

"No! He's a fucking asshole and he-"

"Regina, what did I ever do to you?!"

"Are you kidding me?!"

Cady looks between us nervously. "Uh, Aaron? Wanna tell me what's going on?"

"Gladly."

Cady steps over, picking both Aaron and I up. My mouth is still open from shock.

What did I ever do to you?!

Fucking bitch, want me to list it?

"So uh," Aaron starts nervously. Cady cups her hands so I'm next to Janis who looks like she's beginning to stir but uh- I've never been suffocated before, maybe she's just sleeping at this point.

But she's breathing. It's reassuring enough for me.

"It started a couple months ago." Aaron continues. "Jason actually isnt very nice? To the tinies at least." He laughs nervously, leaning closer into Cady's hand and away from Jason, who isn't bothering to keep the nice facade up anymore. "He's actually like- Shane Omen but worse?"

"Worse?" Cady's jaw drops slightly in disbelief.

"I mean- he held Janis so tight that she passed out so I'd fucking say so." I snark.

Aaron nods. "Yeah, heh- like, I dunno. Just- not nice? He uh, flicked Regina, which is why she was laying down when you walked over. And like its not the first time he's done this? Especially when we're alone."

There's an unreadable look on Cady's face as she looks up to Jason.

It almost scares me.

"I'm gonna walk away. Just-" Cady gives a low laugh. "Jesus, I almost feel sorry for you, Jason. You deserve everything coming to you. Starting with Gretchen and Damian when they find out."

Despite everything, I can't help but smile at the way Jason's face falls with realization.

It's not a big secret that Gretchen loves an excuse to slap someone.

And this is hell of an excuse.

I look at Janis who is still laying next to me, breathing shallowly.

We might have to bail Damian out of fucking jail.

Cady turns on her heels without saying another word to Jason and walks down the halls. Once he is out of earshot she looks down at us. "How long?!"

Aaron shrugs. "Since Gretchen first met Jason."

"That's like three months guys!" Cady looks genuinely heartbroken. "I can't believe we didn't notice."

Janis stirs next to me, weakly propping herself up. "Huh?"

There are tears in Cady's eyes as she stops walking. "You guy have been enduring this for three months?"

"No," I say. "Well- yes but not really. It was a build-up. He didn't just start attacking us to the point of death one random day. It started with little things. Like pushing us around and knocking us over."

"That shouldn't happen anyway!" Cady says sadly.

"But it did," Janis mumbled. She seems to have caught onto whats going on. "My chest hurts."

"I'm so sorry you guys," Cady whispers sadly. "I- how did we not notice?"

"Not notice what?"

I turn around to see Karen and Damian walking over. For a second my eyes trail behind them in search of Gretchen but- she went home. Of course.

"Cady, are you crying?" Damian asks, instantly worried. "Is everything okay? Where's Janis?"

"Right here, dude." Janis mumbles. She's looking down at her lap, her arms wrapped loosely around herself. She's still wheezing slightly and tears threaten to spill over her eyes. I don't blame her. That was almost death.

Janis almost died.

My breath hitches at the realization.

As a tiny, you almost die a lot. But- it's accidental. It's falling or almost being crushed. Never malicious actions of bigger peers.

Cady offers her hands out and I step backward, letting Damian gently scoop up Janis.

"What happened?" Karen asks, peering over Damian's shoulder at Janis.

I look back to Cady trying to figure out if she's gonna talk or if Aaron and I have to explain. She's staring at Karen with a crestfallen gaze, tear tracks down her face. "Guys-" She starts.

I know this is hard for her because she's taking it personally and blaming herself, but we really don't need the fanfare.

Not that I'm gonna step up and tell the story.

Karen steps towards picking up me and Aaron. Cady doesn't fight it, she just lets her hands fall to her side. "Y'know, Jason?"

"Yeah of course. Smile emoji." Karen says from above me.

I look over to Janis, who has her arm around Damain's finger. She's doing pretty well for passing out. God knows I'd be sobbing if that were me. Hell, the ache in my side is enough to make me want to cry right now.

"Not smiley face emoji, Karen," Cady explains softly. "I don't know the full thing, you're gonna have to ask the tinies but-"

Cady explains what she walked over to see and the minimal information she got out of us earlier. She left out a lot, but she didn't know a lot to be fair. The look of utter horror on our friend's faces almost made me feel bad. We barely scraped the top layer.

Damian is looking down at the girl in his hands who at some point in the bad retelling started crying again. Karen had held Aaron and I even closer and Cady looked ready to sit down and cry. Me too, Cady.

"Three months?" Damian whispers weakly. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"Why would you believe us? Jason's fucking great." Janis said bitterly, still clinging to his finger.

"Of course we would believe you, Jan."

"Gretchen didn't." I say softly.

I didn't really think about what I was saying. I was just mumbling to myself. But Karen heard.

"You told her?"

I shrug. "Tried to. She didn't listen."

"Well, she's gonna listen when we tell her tomorrow," Cady says. "I can't believe you didn't tell us."

I shrug dismissively, not wanting to talk about it. "It's not a big deal."

I didn't mean it. Of course, it's a big deal. But I said it wasn't anyway.

"You're telling me Janis almost died today and it's not the first time you guys have been through something like that, but don't worry it's not a big deal?!"

I pause, looking at the three giants. This was Aaron, Janis and I's normal. It's what we went through every day. Yeah, it's shitty but we're used to it. I forget sometimes the giants don't understand the fact not getting shoved around is normal for us. Being threatened and made fun of for our size is just part of an average day.

"Can we continue this with Gretchen at lunch tomorrow? I don't want this conversation twice. I feel even crappier than I already did before and I just want to sleep." Janis speaks up from where Damian held her protectively close.

"You all better tell us everything tomorrow." Cady says.

"Cady are you taking Aaron or should I get these two home?" Karen asks.

"This was a really funny joke guys." Gretchen says from above me. Despite her words, her voice is void of all amusement.

"Yes, because we're the type to make jokes about our tiny friends almost dying." Damian deadpans. Janis is sitting on the table in front of him looking like she'd rather talk about anything other than this.

I don't blame her.

But this could finally be my chance to get Gretchen to listen and believe me.

"Gretchen." I turn around to look up at her, but I'm on the table I need to crane my neck. "I know this isn't what you want to hear, but you have to believe us. Cady witnessed it with her own eyes if you don't believe me. Janis sure as hell can vouch since she nearly fucking died yesterday."

Gretchen doesn't respond for a long time. I feel like I can see the seed of doubt settle in on the situation. She reaches forward, scooping me up and bringing me to her shoulder.

"I- I'm not sure what to believe," She admits. "but I'll listen. I'm sorry I didn't do that before."

That one sentence felt like so much weight being lifted. Jason had Gretchen around her finger. His word was law and everyone else could fuck themself.

But not anymore.

I open my mouth to speak but get cut off by a familiar and unwelcoming voice.

"Hello everyone!"

Cady's eyes widen in disbelief. "You aren't actually stupid enough to think about sitting with us today, right Jason?"

"Aw, why not?" He asks, sitting next to Gretchen and slinging his arm over her shoulder.

I gasp as I'm knocked forward, gripping onto Gretchen's shirt underneath me as I try to stay on.

Gretchen bats Jason's arm away and scoops me up. "Jason we were talking about something private maybe it's better you join us again later."

Jason's eyes narrowed, as he looked across the table. I sunk lower in Gretchen's hand as his eyes landed on me but he moved on without trying anything. I mean- obviously, Gretchen was right here but still.

Cady's hand was resting wearily by Aaron if Jason tried something and Janis had been transported to Damian's pocket when I wasn't looking. How could Gretchen not pick up on how stressed we all are?

"What's wrong?" Jason asked, turning to Gretchen.

"It's nothing for you to worry about. I just-"

"Did I do something wrong?" Jason's face fell and I almost felt bad for him. Almost. He should pursue an acting career.

Gretchen looked at loss for what to say for a second before speaking up. "Where were you yesterday after school?"

Jason scoffed. "Whatever Cady said was a lie, Gretch."

"I-" Gretchen froze. "I didn't mention Cady."

Jason's eyes widened as he began to backtrack but- it was too late.

"Jason I need you to leave, please." Gretchen's hand was shaking as she placed me gently on the table. "There are some things I need to rethink."

"You really believe those tinies?" Jason's face morphed into utter disgust.

The mask was off, the act was over. Karen reached over, tugging me away from Gretchen and Jason and closer to her.

"I should have believed them a while ago, apparently." Gretchen snapped.

Jason rolled his eyes. "Please. They're just tinies. What makes them so trustworthy? Actually- what makes them worthy?"

Karen lets out a legitimate gasp from above me. Gretchen looks to me with an expression I can't read. My breath feels caught in my throat. I can't shake the feeling that this may be where I lose my best friend.

But she looks back at Jason. "I can't believe you really just asked that. Did you think that would help your point? What made you think- oh this will totally get Gretchen on my side? What is wrong with you?"

Jason looks dumbfounded at Gretchen's outburst. "Gretchen-"

I knew it was coming, so it was no surprise as Gretchen raises her arm, and a loud smack echos through the cafeteria over all the oblivious conversations. Jason gasps, his hand shooting up to his cheek. "You fucking bitch-"

"You have treated my friends awfully for too long. Go fuck off and find somewhere else to sit for lunch." Gretchen says simply, turning away from Jason.

Jason doesn't say anything as he looks across the table one last time. Aaron was still on the table but Cady had her hand cupped around him defensively, Damian's hand rested over his chest pocket and Janis gripped onto his finger. Karen had pulled against her arm where I sat pushed away as far away from Jason as possible. It was pretty clear he wasn't wanted here.

"Whatever." He bitterly admits defeat, pushing away from the table and walking away. Gretchen watched him leave before turning to me, wide-eyed.

"I can't believe I didn't believe you." She said sadly. "I can't believe I didn't believe any of you." I hold my arms out and Gretche complies, reaching over to scoop me up. "Regina, I'm so sorry."

I don't try and stop the tears that burn in my eyes as Gretchen holds me close to her.

We still have a lot to talk about after this but-

I've finally won after a long and painful battle. All our giants are awake and no longer oblivious to the suffering.

I'm safe.

I cling to Gretchens's shirt as the tears poor over my eyes. Gretchen shakes and I realize- she's crying too.

I wouldn't be surprised if I turned around and the whole table was.

Jason was an asshole. He manipulated his way into the friend group and made my life miserable. Plus Janis and Aaron too, I guess. But he's gone now.

We don't have to worry anymore.

We're okay.

It will be okay.

2.5/10 not my best work but fun to write @realmisspolarbear @smallsoysauce @musicallygt

#yes #shane omen mention is an official trigger warning now #hes a very triggering guy smh #g/t mean girls #tiny regina #giant gretchen #giant jason #ooo #tiny janis #giant damian #tiny aaron #giant cady #giant karen

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saleintothe90s · 3 years

Text

427. Super Bowl 1991 Commercials (1/27/1991)

(I love that this carefree ad ran in the WE’RE AT WAR issue of my local paper, Daily Press, ten days before the Super Bowl):

I believe my mom would save the papers from the war, and send them to my dad who was out to sea at the time. That’s the only reason why we still have this copy that’s in my collection right now (I took this pic back in 2017 when I re-found it).

So, anyway, just like 30 years ago, Super Bowl 2021 is being held during an uncertain time in the country, and just like in 1991, advertisers were hesitant. Diet Pepsi pulled a “call this number for your chance at a million dollars” ad days before the game, citing “world events”, and the fear of “Disrupting our nation’s ability to communicate” 1:

New York Times on wartime Super Bowl coverage the following day:

Even the commercials were affected by events in the Gulf. In most Super Bowl telecasts, the messages are slick and expensive. This year's batch was somewhat toned down because of the war, most notably the ads of Coke and Pepsi, which abandoned ambitious promotions and made sure the viewer knew it. (And didn't Pepsi have to love that halftime shot of a soldier drinking its product while watching the game in Saudi Arabia?) 2

(source)

Before we get started, I have to mention Whitney Houston’s Star Spangled Banner from that year. Every Monday morning in elementary school, we had to stand for the Star Spangled Banner along with the Pledge of Allegiance. For weeks after the game, we always stood for the Whitney version. I always refer to this Super Bowl as the “Whitney Houston Super Bowl”.

Ok, now to the “subdued” (?) commercials, beginning here:

Look, I know that Jay from the Purple Stuff Podcast said he loved this commercial in the Super Bowl Commercials episode, but I think this Bugle Boy commercial with the GoGos is so lame. I mean, I’m going to say it, were the GoGos still relevant in 1991? Was Bugle Boy clothes still a thing in 1991?

Are picture-in picture TVs still a thing?!

Bud Bowl 3 with Bud Dry this year! I predict Bud Light will win this year.

At 4 minutes in, Advertising History happens. Yes, it’s the Ray Charles Diet Pepsi UH-HUH commercial! I was seven when this aired, so this was one of the first big commercial campaigns I really remembered. I have this strange memory of seeing a TV interview with the Uh-Huh girls (Meilani Paul, Darlene Dillinger and Gretchen Palmer) , and they said they were coming out with an album soon, and little me was like, “I’m going to buy that album”. It never came out.

Ray made an appearance on Pepsi cans in 2018. I never got my hands on the Ray can, I always got Britney or MJ when I got a pack of Diet Pepsi that Summer.

I’ve been meaning to watch the John Goodman critical flop King Ralph for months now.

Is wielding around a giant bottle opener legal at the Bud Bowl?

Part 2 starts with an upset at the Bud Bowl -- Bud Light hid the football in his label? what? So many questions with the commercials this year.

Peter Jennings updates us during the commercial break about the war. The Air Force was using smart bombs to disturb the oil flow into the Gulf, started by the Iraqis. It was 3am and quiet in Saudi Arabia.

Earlier, I mentioned that I was just a little kid when this was going on, and I don’t remember much. However, I do remember thinking “Iraq” was spelled “Arrack”, until I saw the word “Iraq” in a newspaper headline.

Peter will be back at halftime for another update. Yup, you heard me, no halftime show was broadcast that year. If you were at the stadium in Tampa that year you saw the show with the New Kids on the Block and an “all kids Super Bowl”, but if you were watching it on TV, you got the news, and maybe after the premiere of Davis Rules after the game, you saw the show, pretaped, but most people didn’t see the show. There’s a great video by Secret Base about the “worst halftime show ever”. Peter Jennings was “the Beyonce of 1991″. It looks like from Secret Base’s video that we didn’t miss anything. i mean a small bowl-cut haired boy sang “Wind Beneath My Wings”, which I’ve mentioned before, is the saddest song ever:

(that little kid has major hair roots)

The original World Football League only lasted two years. I found an early game on YouTube.

McDonalds thought that neon clad skiers could sell its steak sandwich with onions, mushrooms, and sauce that looks little McRib-y.

Here is a Harlem Globetrotter dancing with Miss Piggy.

Karl Malone had some jazzy LAGears. Did you know that there are some LAGears on the Payless Shoes website?

I have more questions, what is that popping out of that Panasonic TV? A remote control? Way back in the beginning of this website, I asked another question about a Panasonic Commercial that aired this evening.

Bud Bowl update at the end of part 2:

Part 3

Oh, give me a break with this elementary school garbage, Hertz. This is the Super Bowl.

All the goodwill I gave the Ray Charles Diet Pepsi commercial is out the door after hearing Jerry Lewis sing murder the song.

A 40 oz of Budweiser crushed and murdered some Bud Light bottles. Game’s tied.

Part 4

~the new Panasonic portable laptop word processor~ Nope, this wasn’t a computer, it just handled word processing.

Eriq La Salle played an olympian in a Budweiser commercial. ~America~

Ok, Boomer. But seriously, l’m 37, and I still want Reebok Pumps.

Diet Coke dumped their Leslie Nielsen commercial, and instead ran a commercial stating why they didn’t feel right airing it? I don’t think this commercial would hurt anybody’s feelings or offend anybody, Diet Coke. In 1994, The New York Times mentioned it as an ad fail:

In 1991 the Persian Gulf War overshadowed the cola wars, forcing Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola to reassess plans to promote contests with humorous commercials.

Coca-Cola went ahead with its contest, but replaced its silly spots, starring Leslie Nielsen as a bumbling police detective, with serious spots, including one announcing a $1 million donation to the U.S.O. There have been few more surreal moments in advertising history than when a somber-voiced announcer in a no-frills Diet Coke commercial asked consumers to play the "Crack the Code for Real Refreshment" game.

Pepsi, by contrast, scrapped its contest but stuck with its funny commercials, featuring Ray Charles warbling "You got the right one baby, uh-huh!" for Diet Pepsi. The result: Diet Pepsi trounced Diet Coke -- and Coca-Cola has yet to return to the Super Bowl. 3

A sense of relief washed over me when I saw my bbys, Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey in an American Express commercial.

Jon couldn’t shop at Needless Markup.

Budweiser is cheating again.

(part 5)

Bud Light won fair and square!

1. “Pepsi Promotion Fizzles Out.” Broadcasting, January 28, 1991. 26. https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-BC/BC-1991/BC-1991-01-28.pdf

2. Lapointe, Joe. “SUPER BOWL XXV: TELEVISION; ABC’s Coverage Stays in Perspective.�� The New York Times, January 28, 1991, sec. Sports. https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/28/sports/super-bowl-xxv-television-abc-s-coverage-stays-in-perspective.html.

3. Elliott, Stuart. “Super Triumphs and Super Flops.” The New York Times, January 30, 1994, sec. Business. https://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/30/business/super-triumphs-and-super-flops.html.

#super bowl #superbowl #1991 #persian gulf war #operation desert storm #peter jennings #old commercials #diet coke #diet pepsi #ray charles #randy quaid #bud bowl #jon lovitz #dana carvey #eriq la salle #america

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starkid-mostly · 4 years

Text

Mean Girls Headcanons

- regina is secretly obsessed with watching vine compilations

- cady complains about english because there aren’t any rules but then damian mentions that grammar is all rules and she actually starts getting better grades

- janis and aaron either hate each other or they’re really good friends. there’s no in between, it just depends on the day

- karen is an astonishingly good writer and writes a book based on junior year and it becomes a bestseller

- gretchen bought the first five copies just to support her

- they have a giant group chat which is filled with random conversations and janis’s rants from the middle of the night where she thinks she’s made a huge discovery (or she asks really weird questions like “how did someone discover how to milk a cow? what were they doing?”)

- kevin answers these questions incredibly seriously, everyone else mocks her and the only one who gets away with it is damian

- after junior year, no one went to halloween parties anymore, they all went over to janis’s and watched movies

- it was the night her parents dreaded the most because they were all really loud and were almost all as chaotic as janis and damian after they had too much sugar

- their lunch table became too full, so they all take turns sitting on the floor and eating lunch so they can all be together

- truth or dare is the favorite game amongst the group. people will pass on dares occasionally, due to them being too much, but janis prides herself on the fact that she’s never passed on a dare. she’s downed an entire bottle of hot sauce and one of lime juice, stood on the roof and screamed, (not in her neighborhood) and used horrible pickup lines on regina, but has never passed a dare

- during a game of truth or dare, damian admitted that he and janis had kissed once because they were talking about it and neither of them had kissed anyone before so they tried on each other. “it was the worst experience of my life, and i’ve done and seen some horrifying things”

- gretchen is really good at archery and wears a golden arrow necklace all the time

- regina asked gretchen to teach her and they had a nice bonding moment

- damian and regina go shopping together

- whenever it’s someone birthday, they go all out, except for on gretchen’s birthday because she says that all she wants is to spend time with her friends. (they go to an archery range so they can hype gretchen up and let her show off)

- kevin and cady help everyone with their math homework

- janis loves talking about conspiracy theories. not because she believes in them, but because she thinks they’re so stupid and hilarious

- everyone has a piece of clothing with the same pattern on it (painted by janis) and they wear it whenever they go out so they won’t lose each other. (their parents had insisted on it)

- gretchen tends to apologize really often, and janis gives her this look every time she does it

#mean girls #mean girls bway #cady heron #regina george #damian hubbard #janis sarkisian #janis ian #aaron samuels #karen smith #gretchen wieners #kevin gnapoor #mathletes #headcanons #musical theatre

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ghostgothgeek · 4 years

Text

Blush. Chapter 3 has been posted!

Disclaimers: actual sex ed talk

FFN || AO3

---

Sam slowly walked over into the next room, saying hello to Mallory, who she already knew from her visits at the clinic, on the way to a seat in the back. Their class wasn’t huge, so it took only a minute or two to gather all the girls in one room. Ms. Tetslaff took note of who was in attendance before pulling out a newspaper and flipping to a crossword puzzle. Apparently, it was awkward for the teachers to be in the same room as the students as well.

Mallory shut the door and took a seat on a stool in the front of the room. “First things first, this is a safe space. What happens in this room stays in this room. No question is a dumb question. We are going to be open with each other and respect each other.” She smiled and glanced around the room. “I see some familiar faces, but for those who don’t know me, my name is Mallory and I’m a nurse practitioner at Planned Parenthood. Feel free to reach out to me personally for any questions and resources you may need. Again, this is a judgement-free zone. Let’s jump right into it. By a show of hands, how many of you have heard about birth control or are on it already?”

Sam looked around the room, seeing most hands go up, and raised hers as well.

“Excellent. Now, birth control can come in many forms, including an IUD, an implant, a shot, and most commonly, pill form. Obviously the name states that it can be used to prevent pregnancy, but it can also be used to help with period symptoms if yours gets too unbearable that you can’t continue on with your normal daily activities. It can help control your acne, and can help regulate your cycle. If you are interested in learning more about this and how it pertains to you, I recommend making an appointment using the website or phone number on the back of my card there. Are there any questions thus far?”

The girls all shook their heads and remained awkwardly silent.

“Alright well, with all these hormone changes, you’ll begin to see more physical and emotional effects on your body. You’ll also likely develop more sexual urges and thoughts as well. You may find yourself sexually attracted to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or none of these. Each sexual orientation is valid, and I would love to cover more of them in this short amount of time, but I was given specifics from your principal due to recent events.”

A couple of girls sunk down in their seats in embarrassment, while some others (Paulina, particularly) smirked and took note of exactly which girls she now had blackmail on.

“I want to mention that regardless of how you identify, it is still important to use protection during sex of any kind. Even if you are in a situation where you can’t get pregnant, it is important to protect yourself and your partner from STDs as well. I’m sure most if not all of you are sexually active, so let’s talk about that. I’ll grab some things from my bag and we will go over them, but feel free to talk amongst yourselves while I set up.”

Mallory started pulling things out of her bag while the girls remained fairly quiet at first. A few shifted in their seats or coughed, but Paulina was the first to break the silence, a small smirk forming on her face as she decided to torment her favorite victim.

“Well, we all know Sam gets plenty of extracurricular physical activity with Danny.” Several girls giggled at Paulina’s comment.

“W-what do you mean?” Sam looked around the room nervously, avoiding everyone’s eyes. There was no way Paulina knew Sam was helping Danny Phantom fight ghosts. Did Paulina somehow make the connection between Fenton and Phantom?

“You know what I mean. Is he good?” Paulina rested her chin on her hand and waited for Sam to answer.

“Well, yeah. He’s great. I can’t see anyone else doing what he’s doing.” Sam remained skeptical as to why Paulina suddenly decided to grow a brain and uncover Danny’s secret.

“Really? I would think he’s pretty small…” Paulina loved to see the goth girl squirm.

“He’s not! He’s been growing a lot lately and gets better every day.” Sam crossed her arms over her chest as she defended her friend. Danny has put on a lot of muscle since the accident!

Paulina raised her eyebrows as a few girls started to whisper. “Interesting. Are you guys adventurous?”

“We...kinda have to be?” Danny was going to flip once he heard Paulina and now some of the other girls in the classroom knew he’s half ghost.

“That must be exhausting, trying new things all the time. But it’s also gotta be really rewarding as well,” Star chimed in with a wink.

Valerie let out a small chuckle from next to her. She knew Sam was obviously misinterpreting what Paulina was implying, especially because she knew both girls rather well. Sam would not be that open with her enemy, or anyone for that matter, about her sex life with Danny. Valerie was pretty sure Sam was thinking about ghost fighting. It’s only been a few months since Valerie knew about Danny’s secret identity, which she intended to keep secret because Danny was actually a nice guy. She’s fought alongside them a few times and actually considered them friendly acquaintances, but for all the trouble the goth had given her over the years, particularly when she was interested in Danny too, she decided to let Paulina tease Sam for a bit.

Paulina, although she had experimented, hadn’t actually done anything, despite what most people thought. But Valerie knew she always grilled everyone for information on sex, both for her own learning and perhaps leverage if she ever needed it. Paulina actually had quite a perverted brain, probably a side effect from all the time she spent with Dash and Kwan. Valerie also knew Paulina would never pass up the opportunity to embarrass Sam Manson.

Meanwhile, Star would just do whatever Paulina told her to do or whatever she thought Paulina would be most pleased with. Plus, Star actually held all the secrets to Casper High. She was very observant and a keen listener. For some reason, everyone trusted her with their secrets. She was easily the Gretchen Wieners of Amity Park.

“Ever do it in public?” Valerie bluntly asked, a small smirk on her face. Paulina seemed pleased her former friend was joining in on bombarding the goth girl.

“Uh, I mean usually it’s in a public place, I guess. We can’t really control that, though.” Sam pressed her lips together and hoped all the attention she was getting would be ending very, very soon. She’d have to do damage control, that’s for sure. She’d have to make every girl in the room swear they’d never tell Danny’s secret, or she’d have to kill them. Most people were already afraid of her anyways, adding death threats she would never actually carry out wouldn’t be a huge surprise.

Paulina’s jaw dropped slightly. “Wow. I have to give you losers more credit. I never thought you’d have the guts to actually do anything.”

Sam scoffed at her. “We’re perfectly capable of handling ourselves.”

“Clearly,” Star started, “I’m so telling Uncle Jeremy about this.” She whispered the second part to Sam. Only Paulina knew that Star and Sam were actually cousins. She’d keep that secret until her death bed for the sake of her best friend’s reputation.

“You tell my dad, I tell everyone we’re cousins.” Sam narrowed her eyes at the girl.

“One is the truth and one is a lie. Which one is more believable?” Star crossed her arms defiantly. She sure lived up to the reputation she built herself. “You’re with Danny all the time.”

“Then I’ll tell everyone who your secret crush is. Both of them.” Sam smirked at her cousin’s shocked face. Most people knew Star liked Kwan, but she wasn’t fully out as bi just yet.

“How di-”

“Like that’s a giant leap? Please, it’s obvious.” Her eyes quickly flashed to the Latina girl next to Star, then back to the blonde. “You can’t tell anyone about Danny.” Sam warned sternly.

“Ooh, so this is secret information?” Paulina smiled, suddenly interested in the conversation again. She loved secrets.

“Of course it’s secret information! Why would he ever want this getting out? His parents would kill him!”

“Well, for one he’d be quite a hero,” Paulina pointed out.

“He already is a hero.”

“If you say so, freak. So, is it actually romantic? Does it hurt?” Paulina took mental notes.

“I mean, sometimes we get hurt, but it’s nothing we can’t deal with. Especially when Tucker is there to help too. As for romantic, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Sam was beginning to think Paulina was batshit crazy.

“Oh, so it’s a friends with benefits kinda deal then?” Ashley, a girl from their class suddenly piped in. Sam had never spoken to the girl in her life, and now she and almost half of their class found Sam quite interesting. If only they invested their time into actual causes that matter rather than gossip...

“Must be,” Star said. “No wonder your parents don’t like Danny.” She giggled.

“Friends with what?” Sam looked at the girls confused for a brief moment before she remembered what they were learning about today: sexual education. The girls were talking about sex the whole time. In particular, sex with Danny.

Sam’s eyes widened as her face heated up, turning a bright crimson. “N-no, uh, it’s not...I mean we never, we aren’t doing...he’s my f-friend…” She couldn’t stop stammering; she had never been more mortified in her entire life.

“Uh huh, sounds really convincing.” Paulina smirked.

“Yeah, freaky girl likes to get freaky, no big deal.” Star shrugged nonchalantly.

Sam wished she had Danny’s power of invisibility right now. Stop thinking about Danny in sex ed. “We….we aren’t a couple, we’re not dating, we are not together.” She felt like she was sitting under a microscope. She looked up at Mallory, who was still writing things on the board and paying absolutely no attention to the girls gossiping in the back.

“You can keep telling yourself that, but there’s always been something more between you guys. Trust me, we’ve all seen it,” Valerie said as all the girls nodded.

Why was everyone suddenly so interested in Sam and her sex life? Or rather, lack thereof. Sam preferred being ignored over this. “N-no, we aren’t….having...sex…” It was so hard just for her to get the words out.

“But you’d like to. Someday. I mean, we all know you like him...like, like him like him.” Valerie raised an eyebrow at the goth. “Maybe even then some.” Valerie and Sam had some silent understanding, though they never actually had the conversation, that Valerie backed off of Danny for more than just ghost fighting reasons. “It’s normal to want to sleep with the guy you like.”

“I don’t-” Sam stopped as Valerie held her hand up for her to stop talking.

“Don’t try to deny it. I saw you guys making out in the bushes freshman year.” Valerie’s comment earned a lot of chatter amongst the girls. Lots of “I knew it”s and “no wonder”s and “I told you so”s filled the room.

“Give us details!” Mia, another girl Sam had never spoken to, screeched, all girls drawing their undivided attention towards Sam.

“Oh my God.” Sam face palmed and dragged her hand down her face. “Kill me. Kill me now.”

“Alright, ladies!” Mallory clapped her hands to get their attention. Sam silently thanked all of the possible higher powers for the save. “I already mentioned birth control. However, the best way to prevent getting an STD is to use condoms.” She held one up high in the air. “They look like this, and come in various sizes. Please do not feel embarrassed to buy them for your partner, and remember to check for the expiration date and any signs of damage.” She unwrapped it and stretched it gently for a demonstration. “It’s always better to be over prepared and to protect both yourself and your partner. Now, we are going to practice putting one on.”

Mallory picked up the crate from the floor and set it on a chair, pulling out a bunch of bananas and snapping one off. “So, if this is the penis, you start by rolling the condom on like so. I’m going to pass out some supplies and you are all going to do what I just demonstrated. Please pass back a banana and a few condoms to your fellow classmates.” She gave everyone in the front row a bunch of bananas followed by a large handful of condoms.

With Mallory temporarily distracted, Paulina decided to keep pressing for information. “So he gave you earrings, picked you to win the pageant, you spend more time at his house than your own, and you’ve been caught rolling around in the bushes at least once. You’re really trying to tell us there’s nothing going on between you and Danny Fenton?”

Sam groaned. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no. I’m not dating anyone, especially not Danny.” She grabbed her supplies from the girl in front of her.

“Well you got pretty cozy pretty fast with Elliot not too long ago.”

Sam narrowed her eyes at Ashley. “Wow, and people say you never pay attention in school.” She finished off her sarcastic remark with a signature eye roll.

“That’s right! You were all lovey dovey goth freaks until Danny broke you up!” Star perked up at her sudden recall of information.

“That’s not at all what happened. Now, can we please stop talking about me and Danny and how we aren’t dating?”

“You can still sleep with him without dating him. That’s what friends with benefits means,” Paulina pointed out.

Sam pinched the bridge of her nose, growing to a surprisingly new level of annoyance she never thought was possible. “Danny and I are just friends. Best friends. That’s it. We aren’t dating, and we definitely aren’t having sex. Zero. Zip. Nada. Zilch. None.” She sighed in relief as there was no immediate response. Perhaps this time she was stern enough and they would leave her alone.

Then, after a moment…

“Even if she says they’re not sleeping together doesn’t mean they aren’t doing stuff.” Sam wanted to scream. “They’re always sneaking around and trying to get away from other people. Plus she has DSL.” Paulina examined her manicure.

“DSL?” Some girl, Hannah may have been her name, asked.

“Dick sucking lips. That purple lipstick must go places.”

“Alright, that’s enough. Let the girl breathe.” Valerie stepped in. It had gone too far. She looked over at Sam and mouthed an apology. Sam forced a small smile and mouthed a thank you. Valerie meant well, really. And she was generally pretty cool. At a certain time, the topic of Danny made things harder between the girls, though they had mainly moved past that at this point. The girls were fairly friendly now that Valerie wasn’t wanting to kill Danny Phantom anymore.

Paulina smirked and opened her mouth to torment her victim more, but the instructor had finally spoken up again.

“Alright, each of you should have been supplied a banana? Good, now you’re all going to take the condom, unwrap it, and roll it onto the banana.” Mallory gave another demonstration, covering the fruit in a colorful green rubber this time.

Sam wasn’t paying attention. She couldn’t pay attention. She didn’t give a fuck what people thought. But this also involved Danny. She could feel a light blush hit her cheeks just thinking about him. She couldn’t drag Danny into this. Plus, why would he even want a rumor going around that they were sleeping together? He didn’t like her that way. He definitely didn’t think she was attractive enough for...that. He pined after other girls all the time. And they’re only 18! Well, she and Tucker were 18. Danny still had a few weeks before his 18th birthday at the beginning of April. But either way, that’s way too young to be hav-

“Sam, I know you already know this stuff, but please set an example for the other girls.”

Sam looked up at Mallory like a deer in headlights. She just noticed she had peeled her banana and started eating it in the middle of her whirling thoughts. She stopped chewing and looked down at her banana, which was a quarter of the way gone already, then at all the girls who were trying to roll the colorful rubbers onto their own bananas.

Sam mentally slapped herself. She was totally calm earlier this morning. Like she had told Tucker, it’s just the human body, it’s natural. But ever since Paulina had made that first implication of Sam sleeping with Danny, she was frazzled. She couldn’t stop imagining what it would actually be like if they were to ever date...

Mallory sat another banana on Sam’s desk and gave her a soft smile. Sam grimaced after Mallory turned and walked back to the front of the room and stared down at it. Ugh. Why does it have to be a banana? She would never be able to eat one now without thinking about dicks. They’re probably not shaped and sized like this anyways. Sam couldn’t imagine any guy in school having a dick the size of a banana in their pants. Surely that would be noticeable?

She glanced down at the banana again as she slouched in her seat and rolled the condom onto it.

How would something as big as a banana fit up there anyways?! She knew from her research (fanfiction and romance novels) that girls preferred guys to be bigger...down there. Plus, guys seemed to compare or mention sizes all the time.

Sam looked at her banana with the purple condom rolled onto it. Was Danny that big?

WOAH. Nope. Abort mission! Don’t go there, Manson.

She felt her face heating up again. She hoped Danny and Tucker were having an easier time than she was. Stop thinking about Danny in sex ed!

Valerie glanced over at the goth again, noticing her red face. “Hey, I’m sorry if I egged them on too much about the making out in a bush comment,” she whispered.

Sam shot her a small smile. “It’s okay, it’s not your fault. It’s only happened a small handful of times.”

Valerie raised her eyebrow and moved closer to Sam. “Spill,” she pursed her lips, “if you want to, that is.”

Sam took a deep breath and smiled at Valerie’s level of respect. She was definitely getting closer to Valerie more recently, and it was a nice break from all the testosterone every once in a while. She could even start seeing Valerie as a best friend, one she could talk to about boys and period problems. But that required effort.

“Okay umm…” She saw Valerie’s eyes light up when she realized Sam was actually going to talk to her. It was actually kind of a nice feeling to finally talk to someone about this. Plus, she could trust Valerie. If Valerie could be trusted with Danny’s secret, Sam felt she could trust her with just about anything (except her family’s wealth; she didn’t need to reopen old wounds for her new friend). Sam gave a genuine smile, feeling a little excited to be able to finally gush about this. “Well, you mentioned the first time it happened. In the bushes. But it doesn’t totally count because it was a fakeout makeout and we were trying to distract you from discovering Danny’s secret,” she said quietly.

Valerie nodded eagerly and motioned for Sam to continue.

“There’s been a couple of fakeout makeouts since then. So it’s really not a big deal, but it is really nice kissing him. I don’t know how he feels though.”

Valerie chuckled, “Girl, I saw his face after you kissed him. He definitely liked it. Oh and, uh, sorry for calling you guys losers. You’re actually some of the most genuine people I’ve ever met.”

“We’re past that, Val. All is forgiven.” Sam opened another condom and rolled it around in her hands, giving them something to do. She wants to be friends with Valerie, but she was still nervous. Gushing about boys certainly wasn’t very goth of her, but she really appreciated the bond she saw many women having with each other. So she wanted that too. Sue her.

“So have there been any times where he’s kissed you for real?” Valerie set her three colorfully wrapped bananas on her desk, giving Sam her full attention.

“Um. I’m not really sure. Kinda once. And uh...he may be banned from my house right now because my mom caught us lightly making out…” Sam twirled her hair around her finger as Valerie let out a laugh.

“No way! Really?!”

Sam laughed also, “Yeah, it was pretty embarrassing. I don’t know what would have happened if my mom hadn’t walked in, if we would have gotten together or not, but yeah. If I ever bring up Danny in a conversation, my parents get all frazzled and my dad leaves the room. It’s actually been really fun to mess with them.” Sam grinned.

“Wait, your mom walked in on you and Danny having sex?!” Paulina said a little too loudly, earning a few heads turning in their direction. Paulina reached into her backpack and dug around for a bit. What the heck was she doing anyway?

“No!! That’s not at all what happened!”

Valerie chuckled again, “well, you know I-” Her watch suddenly beeped. “Ghost,” she mouthed to Sam, who nodded and looked around as well. She spotted Kitty ducking her head back in through the wall.

Before Valerie could jump into action, Sam grabbed her arm. “Don’t worry, I got it. And thanks.”

Quickly rising from her seat and ignoring all the eyes on her, she mentioned to the instructor she needed to use the restroom and walked out of the classroom before anyone could stop her, sneaking a thermos out with her. Once the classroom door was closed and she was in the hallway, she started walking around.

“Kitty?” Sam whispered, jumping a bit when said ghost suddenly popped up in front of her. “What are you doing here?” Sam hissed.

Kitty shrugged. “Johnny and I were riding by and saw the guys and girls all split up and got curious. By the way, if you ever need some alone time with Danny, just let us know. We can try to keep other ghosts away for twenty minutes or so.” She winked at Sam.

“What?! How did you hear about that?!”

“Good gossip travels fast in the Ghost Zone.” Kitty shrugged nonchalantly.

“The entire Ghost Zone has heard about this?! But it’s not even true!! You have to tell them it isn’t true!” What the fuck, all the ghosts knew about today now?! Did Paulina secretly have a ghost counterpart in the Ghost Zone? Was Sam in the Twilight Zone? What the fuck was happening today?!

“Nah, it’s fine. They definitely don’t want to sneak in on anything.” Sam raised an eyebrow at the comment. “Also holler if you need tips or anything. I know my Johnny sure likes it when I top sometimes. The trick is to move your hips like-”

“La la la I don’t want to hear this!” Sam covered her ears and looked back at the ghost. “Do I need to stuff you in the thermos or not?” She popped her hip and held up the thermos.

“Don’t be so dramatic! I just want to help. Johnny and I love helping couples! He went to find your boyfriend a few minutes ago, actually. Trust me, Johnny knows what he’s doing. He’ll teach Danny how to do it right.”

Sam choked on her spit at that comment. “What?! Oh god, this day needs to be over already. What the fuck is happening?” She let out a long groan.

“Okay, I don’t need a preview or anything. Just let me know if you need tips. By the way, you definitely should listen to that lady. Always use protection. I never really know when Johnny’s feeling extra...glowy that day.” Kitty zoomed off before Sam could change her mind about putting her in the thermos.

Glowy? What the-?

Oh. Oh god. Ghosts...must glow when they...did that mean that when Danny would…that he...does he think of her ever when he...?

Sam’s face burned scarlett again. STOP THINKING ABOUT DANNY LIKE THAT!

She leaned against the wall, sliding down to the floor. Letting out a sigh, she blew her bangs out of her face. The girls’ comments kept swirling through her head. And now the ghosts are all in on it too?! She wasn’t sleeping with Danny! “But you’d like to. Someday.” She growled at Valerie’s words. It wasn’t like she hadn’t thought about it before, she just always squashed those thoughts immediately. They were still in high school for fucksake! And they weren’t even together!

For a split second, Sam let her mind wander; the thought of getting that intimate with anyone was terrifying, but she always felt safe and secure with Danny. She was closer to him than anyone else in her life anyways, just not, you know….physically. Only a little bit.

Oh God, stop going there. She felt her face heating up again, so she climbed up from her spot on the floor and went into the bathroom to splash some cold water on her face and calm down.

This whole thing was stupid, anyways. Sure, she liked Danny. A lot. But that didn’t mean anything would happen between them. Just because they kissed a few times didn’t mean that Danny liked her. As far as she knew, he still liked Paulina and probably still Valerie to an extent. She frowned. She would never understand what guys saw in Paulina.

She dried her face off with a paper towel and stared at herself in the mirror. Danny would never see her in any way other than a friend or a sister. And high schoolers are just dumb. Hormones ran wild, as expected with teenagers, and everyone always talked about doing things, but aside from the whole debacle that got the school to have a sex education day in the first place, she highly doubted anyone was doing anything beyond second base. Everyone was just so immature. Guys and girls can be best friends and have sleepovers and find each other attractive without it being weird. But what if she and Danny did have something more than friendship?

She facepalmed. Nothing would ever happen. If anything were to happen, Danny would have made a move by now. Don’t get your hopes up. People were just stupid and trying to tease her. She knew she had to just not give a shit about what other people say or think like she always did. Once she convinced herself that she was calm and everything was normal (ghosts aside), she rounded the corner and left the bathroom feeling more confident. Until she ran into someone.

Sam was so flustered from previous events and was walking with so much momentum, she didn’t notice Danny walking out of the boys’ bathroom at the same time she was leaving the girls’. And because he was taller (and clumsier) than she was, he knocked them both to the ground.

#nsfw-ish #stephanie writes sometimes #danny phantom #sam manson

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tomtefairytaleblog · 5 years

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The Witch That Whirls in the Air: The Folkloric Roots of Walpurgisnacht in “Puella Magi Madoka Magica”

“On this night, I became a Magical Girl.”--Homura Akemi, Puella Magi Madoka Magica Drama CD: “Memories of You”

(The Witch Walpurgisnacht descends on Mitakihara.)

Walpurgisnacht casts a shadow—both literally and figuratively—over Puella Magi Madoka Magica from the very beginning, first appearing in Madoka Kaname’s dream as a looming figure floating ominously in the sky, while Homura Akemi tries in vain to defeat it (the scene accompanied by the appropriately ominous song “Magia”). It isn’t mentioned again until the sixth episode, when Homura tells Kyoko Sakura that Walpurgisnacht will appear in Mitakihara in a couple of weeks, and again in Episode 10, when its importance to Homura’s story and the overall plot are revealed. In the eleventh episode, Walpurgisnacht finally makes its appearance in the city, creating a supercell storm and forcing the civilians into a shelter, leaving the city abandoned while Homura faces off against it on her own. It appears in the middle of the storm, an upside-down giant of a woman dressed in medieval clothing, with gears where her feet should be, heralded by a surreal, circus procession, and accompanied by shadowy, ghost-like Familiars. While Walpurgisnacht may at first glance appear to just be a generic monster with a distinctive name, it has many roots in folklore, not just in its name, but also in its appearance and methods.

(Spoilers incoming.)

(1668 woodcut of the Witches’ Sabbath, by Johannes Praetorius.)

Walpurgisnacht’s name is a reference to the German name for “Walpurgis Night,” named after Saint Walpurga; it is also known as “Hexennacht,” or Witches’ Night. It was in 1668 that the Brocken—the highest peak in the Harz mountain range in Germany—was designated as the meeting place for Walpurgisnacht, as recorded by Johannes Praetorius’s The Blocksberg Performance (Davies). It was this idea that was further expanded on by Goethe in Faust; a footnote for George Madison Priest’s translation of Goethe’s tragic play specifically refers to Walpurgisnacht as a time that witches hold “carnival” on the Brocken, the highest peak in Germany’s Harz Mountains, a fact that is visually referenced when Walpurgisnacht arrives in Mitakihara with a parade of colorful animals signaling its arrival (Goethe 95). While traditionally set on the evening between April 30th and May 1st, no exact day is given in Madoka for when Walpurgisnacht appears; however, it is not a stretch to assume that it is also meant to be on April 30th.

(Dame Baubo as illustrated by Ernst Barlach, c. 1923.)

While Walpurgisnacht being a name for a specific witch associated with the day is new, the idea of a central, witch-like figure is not. One example appears in Goethe’s Faust, when Faust and Mephistopheles travel to the Brocken on May Eve, following a Will-O’-The-Wisp to the sight where the witches gather. There they see a group of witches, making their way to the celebration. Among them is a figure riding on a sow—this figure is recognized as “old Baubo,” to which the witches’ chorus responds to with “In front, Dame Baubo! Lead the crew! /A sturdy sow with mother stride, /All witches follow in a tide” (Goethe 96). This figure, Baubo, actually originates from Greek Mythology, as she was a demigoddess most known for making Demeter—who, at the time, was grief-stricken over the disappearance of Persephone—laugh by exposing her genitalia (Theoi). Just like how Baubo is associated with laughter, the Walpurgisnacht of Madoka Magica is portrayed as constantly laughing as she floats in the air; additionally, one can see that Baubo, a Greek figure, has been demonized into being associated with witches and the Christian Devil. This phenomenon of such a figure being turned into a demonic creature is not unique to Faust.

In their article “Becoming the Labyrinth: Negotiating Magical Space and Identity in Puella Magi Madoka Magica,” Sara Cleto and Erin Kathleen Bahl point out that Walpurgisnacht has many visual similarities to European nobility, shown in her “elaborate, blue gown with exaggerated bell sleeves and a cascading, tiered skirt,” while her head has a headdress that “tapers to two sharp points, suggesting horns or a crown.” “She resembles nothing so much as an evil queen,” Cleto and Bahl write, “a figure popularized most by Snow White tales” (9). Indeed, with the other folkloric/fairy tale imagery (both traditional and literary) referenced in the series such as “The Little Mermaid,” The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, and Goethe’s Faust, it would not be too far of a stretch to draw comparisons between Madoka and Snow White, especially since, as Cleto and Bahl point out, a central theme in Snow White is the generational conflict between a young girl and an older woman, which echoes the war between the Magical Girls and the Witches they will inevitably become when they are consumed by despair (9).

But if one looks at Walpurgisnacht’s general appearance—a queenly figure that rides out in the sky and terrorizes the land, especially children (the Magical Girls)—then one can also draw a parallel to the Biblical queen Herodias; specifically, the version of her that became a part of witch folklore. In the Book of Mark in the New Testament, Herodias was the wife of Herod who opposed John the Baptist, as the latter spoke against her marriage to Herod, because she had been Herod’s brother’s wife beforehand. She eventually gets rid of John by having her daughter dance for Herod at a party, who, impressed, offers to grant her anything; she then asks for John the Baptist’s head (New Living Translation, Mark 6:14-29) .

(Herodias, as painted by Paul Delaroche, c. 1843.)

That is where the story ends in the Bible, but folklore expands a bit on the aftermath. In Ysengrimus, a collection of folktales in Latin written by the poet Nivardus around the year 1148, Herodias is conflated with her daughter as the figure who danced for Herod; after receiving the head of John the Baptist, Herodias attempts to kiss it, having been infatuated with him. However, the head hisses at her, “with such force that she was blown up into the air and out through the skylight;” and since then, “she has been driven through the skies on John’s implacable anger” (Ridenour 135-136). Jacob Grimm writes in his Deutsche Mythologie that the winds in Lower Saxony were believed to be caused by Herodias constantly whirling, eternally dancing in the sky; additionally, she was believed in some places to be a child-stealing demon (Ridenour 136). Just as Herodias is associated with eternally whirling in the air, Walpurgisnacht in Madoka is described as symbolizing “the fool who constantly spins in circles” and whose nature is “helplessness” (Puella Magi Wiki). And Walpurgisnacht, as a Witch who was once a Magical Girl, certainly is helpless, being now nothing more than a pawn in the Incubators’ twisted plans.

In his book Witchcraft in the Middle Ages, Jeffrey Burton Russell refers to the Canon Episcopi, a text written in the early Tenth Century; the text itself refutes the existence of witches, in that it claims that any such stories are the result of people being deceived by the Devil, upholding the opinion that it is impossible for a human to wield magic (Russell 77). Within the Canon are references to witches who rode out in the night with “Diana, goddess of the pagans,” a reference to Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt (Russell 76). Russell then adds that Diana is one of many goddesses demonized to be associated with Witches by Christianity; another example being the Germanic Holda, who is mentioned in the Corrector by Buchard of Worms, another important document of witchcraft (80-81). In Eisenach, Germany, Holda and her host are said to emerge from the Horselberg Mountain (“Hear-Souls Mountain”) with her horde of spirits on Christmas, Eve, New Year’s Eve, or the Winter Ember Days (Ridenour 132). This idea of a witch-like figure emerging on a certain day is echoed in Madoka with Walpurgisnacht’s arrival creating a deadline that the series’ plot hinges on.

Those familiar with Madoka may also note the idea of a figure being seen as both a goddess and a witch as paralleling Madoka’s status as being both Ultimate Madoka (a goddess) and Kriemhild Gretchen/The Witch of Despair (a witch); in fact, the idea of a goddess being demonized into a Witch by the Church is a pretty close parallel to the Incubators turning Magical Girls into Witches for their own plans. (There is some debate on whether Holda was a goddess or not, due to records describing her as such being made long after Christianization set in; nonetheless, the similarities are there (Ridenour 120).)

(Frau Holle, or Holda, traveling through the air with her spirits, by Joseph Sattler, c. 1927.)

After her initial attack on Walpurgisnacht—during which Homura throws an entire arsenal of weapon fire at it, barely putting even a scratch on the Witch—Walpurgisnacht manifests a horde of shadowy figures that begin to attack Homura. These minions are described as “countless souls drawn to [Walpurgisnacht’s] vast magical power,” and bear more than an uncanny resemblance to ghostly Magical Girls (Puella Magi Wiki). In concept, as ghastly beings flying amongst the storm, they are akin to the European legends of the Wild Hunt, a folkloric archetype that combines elements of stories regarding “hunting and diabolic hunters, lost souls, and slain warriors” (Ridenour 156). Slain warriors and lost souls—kind of like the Magical Girls of Madoka’s setting, who are shown to often die in battle at a young age; and whenever a contract is made with Kyubey, the result is the girl making said contract having her soul removed from her body, effectively rendering her undead, and therefore able to endure the physical strain of battling horrific entities. While the Wild Hunt is said in many cases to be led by Odin, there are stories where other leaders have been recorded; one such example being, again, Herodias, said to have sway over a third of the world, said third including “unbaptized children,” amongst other supernatural creatures such as elves and gnomes (Kloss 100). A similar belief is attributed to the figure Perchta, who is sometimes associated with Holda, and said to lead the spirits of the unbaptized and unborn out into the night (Ridenour 132).

(Top: Asgardsreien, by Peter Nicolai Arbo, c. 1872. Bottom: The Clowns serving Walpurgisnacht.)

Finally, while the influences on Walpurgisnacht have thus far been entirely Biblical and European in origin, there is also Japanese folklore to look to for a possible link between the legends of the West and the country of Madoka’s origin. Japan is full of stories regarding supernatural creatures, or “yokai;” there are also stories regarding the event known as the “Hyakki Yagyo,” or “The Demon Horde’s Night Parade,” when yokai were said to swarm through the city of Kyoto. In many ways, it was less of an attack and more of a swarm or manifestation that went throughout the city, akin to the Western concept of “pandemonium,” a “raucous revelry of creepy-crawlies” (Yoda and Alt x-xi). This legend is in many ways similar to the Wild Hunt of Europe; as such, while Walpurgisnacht’s imagery in Madoka is heavily-inspired by stories of witches and slain warriors swarming during a storm, the knowledge Japanese viewers may have of the Hyakki Yagyo would just as easily make Walpurgisnacht’s attack resonate with them, much like the term “Walpurgisnacht” resonates with those in the West familiar with the word as a serious threat in a series whose main enemies are Witches.

(”Hyakki Yagyo,” by Kawanabe Kyosai.)

While Walpurgisnacht makes only a few appearances in the whole of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, its influence is greatly felt throughout the series; and while ultimately just an obstacle keeping the main characters from reaching a happy ending, it also has a lot of mythological, folkloric, and literary archetypes of witches and hauntings caused by spirits, all rolled into one enigmatic figure (indeed, even after the origin of Witches are revealed, Walpurgisnacht still remains a mystery in everything from backstory to motives). Like a lot of the folkloric and literary references in the show, it is not necessary to be aware of all the history behind Walpurgisnacht to understand the narrative; that being said, if one does choose to look into it, they will find quite a lot of interesting stories.

Bibliography

“Agrarian Gods and Goddesses.” Theoi. Web. Accessed 23 April, 2019.

Cleto, Sara and Erin Kathleen Bahl. “Becoming the Labyrinth: Negotiating Magical Space and Identity in Puella Magi Madoka Magica.” Humanities, 5:20 (2016).

Davies, Owen. “Witches and Walpurgis Night.” OUPBlog. Web. Accessed 27 April, 2019.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Faust. Translated by George Madison Priest, William Benton, 1952.

Kloss, Waldemar. “Herodias the Wild Huntress in the Legend of the Middle Ages.” Modern Language Notes, 23:4 (1908), pp. 100-102.

Ridenour, Al. The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas: Roots and Rebirth of the Folkloric Devil. Feral House, 2016.

Russell, Jeffrey Burton. Witchcraft in the Middle Ages. Cornell University Press, 1972.

Sekien, Toriyama. Japandemonium Illustrated: The Yokai Encyclopedias of Toriyama Sekien. Translated by Hiroko Yoda and Matt Alt, Dover Publications, Inc., 2016.

Shinbo, Akiyuki and Gen Urobuchi. Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Studio Shaft, 2011.

The Bible. New Living Translation, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1996.

“Walpurgisnacht.” Puella Magi Wiki. Web. Accessed 23 April, 2019.

Yoda, Hiroko and Matt Alt. “About The Books.” Japandemonium Illustrated: The Yokai Encyclopedias of Toriyama Sekien. Translated by Hiroko Yoda and Matt Alt, Dover Publications, Inc., 2016.

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