#local girl refuses to be perceived !!
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Living the Vida Loca Ep.
• Jesse Pinkman & Reader. (Platonic)
(Here’s part one.)
(Here’s part two.)
(Here’s part three.)
(Here’s part four.)
(Here’s part five.)
• (Find this story on Ao3.)
Summary — A short story about how a young teenaged girl gets wrapped up in Jesse's life.
Notes — Phew. The epilogue. Please enjoy :)
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Bear Creek, Alaska.
The first thing you do when Jesse gets the keys to your new apartment is throw your bags on the floor and run around, poking your heads into all the rooms, pulling open all the kitchen cabinets, and laying like a pair of starfish on the bland carpet of the bedrooms.
Holy shit, you laugh.
Holy shit, Jesse laughs.
You lay there for a long time, waiting for your new lives to feel real.
Saul Goodman really missed out on being a real estate agent.
He picked the perfect apartment.
It’s got heating, for when the cold becomes colder.
It’s got two bathrooms, with an elephant’s worth of space in each.
It’s got spacious wardrobes that will eventually be filled with band shirts and beanies and thick, woolly socks, and a fireplace that with time becomes a mantle for you to frame your little polaroid's on, turning fleeting flashes into permanent memories above the cozy flames.
It’s got everything.
The first week goes by fast.
You’re on a high and you won’t come down.
You and Jesse have become avid thrift shoppers in the wake of your old riches, determined to fill out your home with bits and bobs; knicks and knacks. On every second corner of this mountainous town, there’s a second-hand store bursting with charm. Oh, and someone’s grandpa’s collection of Christmas sweaters.
(Yes, Jesse buys one.)
You also buy a toaster, some sofa cushions, and a big, green blanket that will be perfect for your movie nights. You hit three more on your way back.
You also go bananas in the local supermarket.
You sit in the cart and swipe almost every cookie and frozen lasagna you can off the shelves, while Jesse hops on and scoots you both around.
Your fridge looks like an overstuffed suitcase.
You use the town library to print off a couple resumes, and some hours later, you re-converge at the same parking lot you started out in, and you both run up to each other and shout —
I got the job!
When the population is as small is Bear Creek’s, anything is possible.
You become a cashier at the supermarket.
Jesse starts bussing tables at a small steak-and-chips restaurant.
(They let him spray-paint a mural onto the side of the building. It takes three whole days and two broken ladders, but it’s beautiful, and Jesse walks around now with compliments on his shoulders and a pep in his step.)
The first week goes by fast.
A blur of shopping, moving furniture, and movie nights.
Two kids in a candy store.
Then, after that —
It’s the slow and steady Bear Creek lifestyle.
The slow Bear Creek lifestyle.
Everybody knows everybody in Bear Creek.
The elderly clerk at the corner store knows the man who walks in with his dog, and the man with the dog knows the lady from the bookshop down the street, and the lady from the bookshop knows you, and you know the guy who busks outside the library, and the busker-guy knows Jesse, and it just keeps going in circles, circles, circles, until it’s all a big web.
Some years ago, you might have perceived this as danger.
You might have perceived this community as a reactive entanglement of whispers, and stares, and one rogue phone call to the wrong people.
But one thing Bear Creek teaches you is how to let go.
How to let go of glancing over your shoulder.
How to let go of peeking out the windows at night.
How to let go of these things that have shaped you into something sharper than what you really are. The person you used to be.
The same goes for Jesse.
For a month, he tucks a gun in his pants-line.
He smokes cigarettes while he scrutinizes your new IDs.
Isaac and Riley Miller.
He has three different phones, and refuses to text anybody except you.
You can hear him, in the night, checking on you from your doorway, like you might’ve disappeared in the ten minutes he’s been in the other room.
It’s difficult, because old dogs can’t learn new tricks, but Jesse gets better.
He’s safe enough, now, to revert back to that teenage boy he’s always been at heart, even if he is twenty-nine years old.
You build lop-sided snowmen together in the apartment complex’s parking lot, and pelt each other with snowballs. It’s a parallel image to your nights back in New Mexico, throwing frisbees in the driveway, except with two completely different people who look like you and Jesse, but have been through and seen so much more.
You go for walks and shit, like normal, healthy people.
The DVD store becomes a second home for you.
You drink hot chocolate out on the balcony and argue over who got more marshmallows while you people-watch.
You take your sleds down to the edge of the forest, and you coast down the tall mounds of snow and hoot into the trees like happy children.
Some nights, you lay in bed and wonder about your old life. Are there ghosts of you, back home? Do people think of you?
Some days, it’s hard to keep looking forward.
There are just some things you will never be able to forget. Some things you will never be able to look at with the same eyes as everybody else.
Like how all meat looks like sheep guts.
And all flies come with a flash of dead eyes.
And how sometimes, when Jesse reaches to hold your hand, you’re back in that desert and you’re being grabbed, pinned, and shot.
The days are slow, and they give you time.
Sure, the apartment is nice and all, but Jesse’s always been your home.
He’s always there to pet and shush away the nightmares.
He’s there when you need him, and he’s not when you need space.
He’s a familiar face.
He’s family.
He’s your twin, trapped in the same echo of an old nightmare you survived together. He’s someone who knows what you’re thinking whenever you see a grate in the ground, or a bucket, or a paperclip. He understands.
The days in Bear Creek are slow.
You spend them painting, laughing, exploring, and living.
It’s sort of like buying new shoes.
Uncomfortable, at first, but then it learns to work around you —
And everything is easy-peasy from there on out.
A visit from Uncle Goodman.
Jimmy has a thick moustache, and he can’t handle the cold.
These are the first things you notice when he shows up at your door, with that strip of carpet above his lip and the three coats he’s shivering in.
You’re in shock. Jimmy?
He is not. Are you gonna let me in, you little punk, or what?
He says he is freezing his nuts off.
Jimmy McGill is in your living room. He’s shed all his layers, toed off his boots, and apparently, he’s jet-lagged, so he helps himself to your coffee machine like he’s lived here all his life. You stare at him while he sips it.
There’s an awkward silence.
I thought I’d never see you again, you mutter, at this version of an old memory you forced yourself to forget, currently standing in your kitchen.
Jimmy sets the mug down.
He looks like he tries to say something, but then he just opens his arms.
You hug him for the first time in four years.
You’re an adult, now.
He must sense this change in you, not just physically but mentally, because when he pulls back, he doesn’t want to let go, and he’s just looking at you and crying, which looks wrong on a guy like Jimmy.
Why’d you have to go and get all grown up on me, huh?
Then he demands that you tell him everything.
You demand he tell you everything, because, How’d you even find us?
He says he knows a man who knows everything about everyone; someone who can make fake IDs and people disappear. He says it’s how you’re living out here, and you’re reminded of the night you were herded into the back of an electronics store and given a new name.
Jimmy helped you and Jesse out in the beginning, but only as a voice through a phone line, and then as an invisible force pulling strings.
Even when he’s 2,800 miles away, Jimmy’s been there for you.
You tell him about Hank Schrader and Steve Gomez.
You tell him about the phone call, and the sheep guts.
Then you try telling him about the desert, and the Welkers, but your voice gets caught in your throat like a fish hook, and he suggests going for a walk instead.
You trail the sidewalks until you bump into Jesse.
He’s on his way home from work, and when he sees you, he almost faints.
Yo, yo, yo, hang on a second, His mouth hangs open.
You giggle while they take each other in.
They even do a bro-hug, because Jesse does things like that, now.
He tells Jimmy that the apartment kicks ass, man, and that he can’t believe he flew all the way up here just to see you guys.
Hey, man, Jimmy holds up his hands, I just came here for the waterfalls and the moose. You people were second-to-last on my itinerary.
You both tell Jimmy to shove it, and then you walk together to the park.
Just like old times, right? Jimmy asks you.
These are nothing like old times, but you got your two favorite people in the world back together again — your weird little family — so that has to count for something.
Whatever you say, You chuckle.
You see a fire-colored fox sniffing along the frozen lake while you talk about everything that’s changed; everything that’s happened. The people you’ve become. You cry again when Jimmy says he’s proud of you, and Jesse gives you a hard noogie for being such a sap.
Apparently, Jimmy’s staying in Bear Creek for a while.
Today’s a good day.
The final piece.
You graduate college in May.
It’s been a long struggle, but you made it.
Jimmy’s there.
Jesse’s there.
Your friends are all there, too, in matching gowns and caps.
You hear your name, Riley Miller, being called, and you step up to the podium with the overwhelming sense of metamorphosizing from one cold husk of a life into a newer, brighter one. One where you have a new name and a new home, but the same old family cheering for you in the crowd.
You can’t believe how much everything has changed.
For one, Jesse shaved all his hair off, ‘cause he’s an idiot.
At least one thing makes you laugh every day, now.
(It’s usually Jesse shouting bitch at your Xbox, or Jimmy complaining about the people he works with, down at the Cinnabon, because the only young person he can stand to be around is you.)
It’s been a year since you last had a nightmare.
You’re back to walking dogs again.
You’re back to singing in the kitchen.
You moved into the apartment next to Jesse’s, and he tells you every day how much he doesn’t miss finding your dirty dishes in the sink. But you know he hates that you’ve grown up so fast. He comes around for dinner almost every single night, swaddled in that big, green blanket you bought when you first landed in Alaska, and you’ve upgraded from watching Tinkerbell to old Disney movies. He cries every time at Lion King.
Jimmy lives ten minutes away, in a proper but small house.
You know there’s days where he yearns to live on that same pillar of glory he had back in New Mexico.
He plans on heading back to the states in the coming months.
He says he’ll miss the crisp air, and the caribou, and watching the snow roll over the caps of white mountains while he eats breakfast croissants with you in quiet cafes, but it’s just not in his nature to stay in one place for too long. You can’t trap a butterfly in a bird cage.
Besides, he’s basically the poster child for burner phones.
He’ll find a way to contact you.
That skatepark seems like a million years ago.
You throw your cap in the air.
Now when you spend nights at Jesse’s place, ‘cause the two of you are like teenage girls obsessed with sleepovers, and you warm yourself up by the fireplace, there’s one more photo sitting there, now.
Dead center. Ceramic frame.
The final piece of the puzzle.
It’s you, holding your degree and laughing while the sun blooms on your shoulder, with Jimmy and Jesse on either side of you, throwing up rock-star hands like they’re at the sickest concert they’ve ever been to.
You smile to yourself.
Because you love those fucking idiots.
And they love you, too.
End notes — Oh my God! The epilogue, it’s finished!! I hope you enjoyed reading, and I hope I was able to wrap this up in a satisfying way. Thank you for reading, everyone :)
#Breaking Bad#breakingbad#daddy issues#jesse pinkman#jesse pinkman x reader#fanfic#reader#saul goodman
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Significant aspect of Steve being Irish-Catholic:
As well as having branches of the Nazi party (ie. the German-American Bund), the Brooklyn of Steve’s day also had a big problem of antisemitism amongst the local Irish-Catholic population.
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Examples:
There was a Canadian-American Catholic priest and demagogue named Charles Coughlin, who received indirect funding from the Nazi party. Up until 1939 'Father Coughlin’ had both a regular right-wing talkradio programme, and a matching newspaper (ironically called Social Justice), broadcasting pro-fascist, anti-communist, virulently antisemitic diatribes. (He was the inspiration for the character Brother Justin Crowe in the show Carnivale.)
In New York, Coughlin’s writings prompted the creation of an antisemitic organisation called the Christian Front, which held public rallies on the intersecting corners of Jewish/Irish neighborhoods in Brooklyn, with the specific intention of drumming up conflict. And just as in Nazi Germany, this indoctrination started young: there were Hitler Youth summer camps in both New York and New Jersey.
In wider pop culture, the most successful broadway play for a long time was Abie’s Irish Rose, a “schmaltzy interfaith romantic comedy" about the conflict between a Jewish family and Irish-Catholic family when a Jewish boy marries an Irish girl (so, that generation’s equivalent of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.) It was so successful that it was mentioned in the lyrics to songs of other broadway shows, spawned a long-running series of tie-in movies, and had its own radio show.
Similarly, the musical West Side Story was originally titled ‘East Side Story’ and was about a star-crossed Jewish/Irish-Catholic couple in the Lower East Side of Manhattan (where Jack Kirby lived, and Cap too, before he was later moved to Brooklyn. Those other kids Jack Kirby grew up fighting? Probably Irish-Catholic.)
This is also why, when Jewish writer Norman Lear came to rip off UK sitcom Till Death Us Do Part to make US sitcom All in the Family, in the 1970s, his choice to play the role of the bigoted father -- even though he was inspired by his own, bigoted Jewish father -- was an Irish actor whose face “screams ‘Irish.’ (Lear kept being encouraged to use that and make the character Irish-Catholic in the show, but he refused.)
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Context:
That rise in Irish-Catholic antisemitism originated with the Fascist conflation of Jews with Bolshevism, and of Communism with the persecution of Christians.
(All this while Russian-Jewish immigrants to NYC were moving into traditionally Irish-Catholic areas, competing for jobs and housing, and their success was resented.)
This also tied into the Spanish Civil War, when Russian and Communist Front groups in America aided the Loyalist forces instead of the Fascists (the Abraham Lincoln Battalion, for example, was made up of American volunteers who fought for the Loyalists, and was 25% Jewish).
In New York, the fact that the Communist party membership was mainly Jewish was treated as proof that all Jews were Communist, (and therefore enemies of Catholics), even though the majority of Jews in New York were not Communists.
In fact, it was more the case that Jews were drawn to what they perceived as progressivism -- grounded in a history of discrimination -- and since they saw Fascism as their chief threat, they were more likely to accept Communists as allies in the fight against it (just as Catholics were more likely to ally with Fascists against Communism).
Amongst American Catholics there was also distrust of FDR's liberal New Deal policies, regarded as a wave of Communism sweeping the country, since the government’s helping of the poor post-Depression was seen as a deliberate infringement upon what was traditionally the territory of the Catholic Church. (I kid you not.)
And then, since Ireland was a neutral country, the Irish-Catholics in New York were able to continue to espouse such views during the war. Unlike them, the Germans and Italians suddenly became more circumspect (as they had during WWI), for fear of appearing to support America’s enemies, and suffering reprisals as a result.
And all this was not helped by the fact that the Pope shared this view of Communism, and collaborated with Hitler on the Reich Concordat, an authoritarian pact wherein the Vatican vowed to forbid Catholics in Fascist Germany from interfering in politics.
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All of which is to say:
It’s a BIG DEAL for Steve’s Jewish creators to make Steve Irish-Catholic.
It means that, on top of being a Nazi’s worst nightmare (disabled, blonde, blue-eyed, turned into a supersoldier and yet still antifa), and fighting Bundists, Silver Shirts and ANP members, as you’d expect, Steve often would've been fighting his own people, as well.
That takes an even greater strength of character and commitment to left wing ideals.
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tl;dr: in historical context, Steve being Irish-Catholic is hugely significant.
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sources:
https://muse.jhu.edu/book/67077.
https://crimereads.com/forgotten-history-of-the-far-right-pro-nazi-anti-semitic-christian-front/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/25154932
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/06/american-nazis-in-the-1930sthe-german-american-bund/529185/
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/american-hate
https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/bcoppola/2019/01/01/father-coughlin-is-already-explaining-it-to-the-american-people-june-13-1939/
https://twitter.com/TheNormanLear/status/1582494950649757696
https://www.history.com/news/west-side-story-was-originally-about-jews-and-catholics
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/captain-america-getting-real-life-statue-some-say-its-wrong-place-180959706/
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Abie%27s_Irish_Rose
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/The_Cohens_and_Kellys
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/1999/10/pope-pius-xii-199910
#irish steve#steve meta#historically accurate stucky tag#steve rogers#mcu meta#meta#mcu#dat's me#this is JEWISH NEW YORKERS picking this identity for steve this is not a coincidence they didn't just pick one out of a hat it's IMPORTANT#so mcu bucky being based on jewish arnie roth while steve is irish-catholic = HUGE deal#steve and bucky = STAR CROSSED AS HECK#the only way they could've made it any more significant (and explicitly about being an ally to jews no matter ur background)#is if they made steve german-american#yet each man queues the thing he loves
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make room.
a/n: having thoughts about slice of life anime utahime because i am recently obsessed with the ice guy and cool female colleague anime! (do not perceive me for i binged the entire thing in one night .)
fandom: jujutsu kaisen
character: iori utahime
genre: fluff
info: non-sorcerer au; utahime is your neighbour
warnings: -
synopsis: you were only supposed to stay for a while, but utahime doesn't want you to leave.
word count: 1.3k
fluff-vember prompt: kindness from a stranger
fluff-vember 2023 masterlist is here.
Iori Utahime
Utahime wasn't used to coming home to someone.
Ever since she moved out of her parent's house after graduating from high school, she quickly came to the conclusion that living alone suited her the best. In the first year of university, she had lived on campus and shared a dorm room with three other girls. Adjusting to communal living proved too irksome for her since she was an only child, and she decided to take on a part-time job at a local izakaya to afford a studio apartment some distance from her university.
She has lived that way ever since. Even when it was clearly more affordable to have a roommate to split the cost of rent with, she lived alone, and she was happy that way.
The window to her apartment was open, and there was a smell of hot oil mixed with chicken fat wafting out to the corridor as she approached. Utahime fought back the urge to recite the standard greeting phrase for when a customer walked in, an old habit from her waitressing years.
"Utahime-san, welcome back!" you called out from her kitchen, aware of her presence since the door creaked when she pushed it open. She removed her shoes in the entryway and pushed them to the side, before she stepped over the threshold into the living room.
"I'm home," she said, and it was beginning to taste familiar on her tongue.
You rushed to round the corner to the living room, wiping your hands on a patterned tea towel clipped onto the bottom hem of your shirt. "Dinner will be ready soon!" you said, shooing her away from the kitchen. Instead, Utahime tiptoed to look over your head, and you moved to block her view.
"Please don't worry about the mess! I'll take care of it after," you said, putting a hand on her arm to steer her towards the couch. She allowed you to usher her to her seat, laughing when you made a show of fluffing the decorative pillow for her.
Utahime collapsed into the plush backrest of the couch, suddenly feeling the tiredness of her day weighing on her. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched you scurry back into the kitchen."What are you making?" she asked, inhaling deeply and feeling a wave of nostalgia wash over her. The dinner you were in the process of making smelled like izakaya fare, and her stomach involuntarily rumbled at the thought.
"Yakisoba and karaage! And beer, of course," you said, smiling. "Making your faves as a little 'thank you' for letting me crash these past few weeks! Couldn't have done without your kindness, is all." With that, you disappeared back into the kitchen to get back to cooking.
This entire week, you were the one making the trips to the grocery store and cooking meals for two. Utahime, while perfectly capable of preparing herself something healthy and balanced to eat, strongly preferred not to. Buying ingredients and keeping the house stocked with essentials was a chore she never enjoyed, and you were the solution to her problem for the week, going so far as to even cover her share of the groceries when she refused to accept money for rent.
She knew she'd miss you once you moved into your own apartment.
It was a stroke of good fortune – 'serendipitous', just like the word of the day she received in her email in the morning – that the apartment you were supposed to move into was still occupied when you arrived. Sharing her space with you was a very different experience from when she was a student, crammed in a room with three other girls who made the room feel much smaller than it actually was. Living together was easy, with you. It was nice.
You emerged from around the corner with two plates of yakisoba, the glistening yolks of the fried eggs on top winking at her. Utahime immediately straightened in her seat. "Let me help," she said, getting up from the couch and ducking into the kitchen before you could stop her.
"No, I got it!" you said, jumping into the spot behind her to keep her from bringing the rest of the food to the dining table. She tightened her hands around the large platter of karaage, shouldering her way around your flailing arms. You laughed, and it made her laugh too, and she was confident she never felt so at home in any place before this moment.
"I hope you don't mind," you said, the stainless steel buffet-style serving pan Shouko had gotten her as a gag birthday gift making its appearance from the depths of one of her kitchen cabinets. She could count at least half a dozen cans of beer in it, shoved into the mass of crushed ice you filled it up with.
"It's alright. I wouldn't have a use for it otherwise," she said with a smile, meeting you halfway to hold up the other side of the serving pan. "You know I don't do much entertaining."
You removed the tea towel clipped to your shirt and laid it on the dining table in place of a trivet, and the two of you set the serving pan full of beer and ice down.
When you settled into the other chair, she was glad that she had taken her mother's advice and bought a pair of chairs instead of just one. She had insisted that she wouldn't be hosting any dinners, earnestly citing the size of her apartment and the singular cooker hob in her kitchen as her reasons to refuse hosting. Her mother gently insisted, and she furnished her apartment accordingly: two dining chairs, two full sets of cutlery and dinnerware, a couch and a dining table and a bed that were all big enough for two.
Utahime helped you clean up after dinner, even if you maintained that you were just paying her back for letting you stay. It felt natural to wash the dishes at the too-small sink, while you stood to her left as you dried them off before returning them to the dish rack beside the toaster oven.
You were sitting on the living room floor when she was done with her shower, your luggage open as you rolled up your clean clothes to slot them in between the bits and pieces of your belongings that you've retrieved from around her apartment. She took a long look around the place, and it looked quite lifeless without your things blending in with hers.
Maybe you were the other person her mother wanted her to make room for. Maybe—
"You don't have to go, you know?" She called your name and came to kneel beside you on the floor. You momentarily stopped fiddling with the stubborn hoodie sleeve that refused to cooperate with your rolling, and you looked up.
"If your cousin's still living in the other apartment with their boyfriend, you don't have to go," Utahime said, her heart oddly calm for a moment like this. Wasn't it supposed to be something nerve-wracking to ask someone to move in with you? There was a severe lack of those butterflies her coupled friends often spoke of, and she knew it was because things felt easy, natural with you.
She watched the realisation of what she asked dawn on you. Like the dark blue night with the coming of the first rays of the morning sun, your face brightened. You scooped up her hands in yours, squeezing. "Then I won't go," you said.
#jujutsu kaisen#jujutsu kaisen scenarios#jujutsu kaisen x reader#jjk x reader#iori utahime#iori utahime x reader#fic#fluff#event: fluff-vember 2023#kaija writes#kaija writes: jujutsu kaisen#this gives me feelings of longing#i had a little crush on utahime even before i started watching the anime#and i thought it'd be nice to write a little domestic non-sorcerer thing for her
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I have finally figured out why it bothers me so much when people try to explain Cybertronians having gender with "they learned it from other species", and it's not (only) because the "genderless" robots always mysteriously default to male pronouns. It's the fact that when they learn about gender, the only thing that changes is they suddenly have girls. We never see bots going, "You know what, this masculine thing is a vibe", or "Yeah, organic pronouns are weird, but I really like how he/him feels". We just get girls and everyone else.
If they were a genderless species, and then they learned gender from organics, you cannot convince me there is any reason for Cybertronians to have fewer than three sets of standard pronouns. Like, if we the audience are watching them discover gender, there should be bots expressing interest in male and female pronouns, as well as bots who don't care what organics call them and bots who straight up reject organic forms of address. Especially bots who see gender becoming a trend and refuse to take part in it. And even if they discovered gender a long time ago, the original genderless state doesn't just go away. There are still going to be a lot of bots using the original, nongendered pronouns.
"The robots are genderless, they just learned it from organics" does not work if they only have two genders. It does not work if "learning gender" only means "there are girls now". Genderless robots are going to express interest in all the options, and that's if they care about organic pronouns in the first place.
You know what, let's talk about that, actually. Let's talk about why genderless robots would care about what pronouns are used for them, and why they might favor one set over another.
Let's say they learn about gender from humans. If the first human to explain gender to them describes men as strong, controlled, and dominant, and women as gentle and nurturing, some bots will get the idea that you need to be male to be taken seriously, and will lean towards masculine pronouns; others will favor female pronouns in hopes that the tiny organics will be less afraid of them. In other words, the bots will choose pronouns based on how they want to be perceived. They might not care if they're "misgendered", but they'll still want to make the right impression.
Now let's say the first human to explain gender describes men as the strongest, smartest, and most capable, and women as fragile and helpless. Not only are the bots more likely to favor masculine pronouns, being referred to as female could be seen as an insult: not because they were "misgendered", but because they were effectively called "weak".
And so it goes. Bots collect data on the local humans, or prominent human media, take in the stereotypes and biases presented to them, and gender themselves based on the impression they want to give, or based on what fits them the best (rather like a personality quiz). Some of them won't care if humans call them something else. Some will change pronouns based on how they want to come across. Some will feel strange or uncomfortable about using different pronouns, like they're being attributed with traits they don't have. And some won't care what humans think of them, gender is weird and they aren't going to be a he or a she just to make tiny aliens happy.
TL;DR: If you're going to argue that robots learned gender from organics, give us robots that learned gender from organics. Don't just slap boobs on some of them and declare that the rest were already conveniently male.
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Some members of the LGBTQ+ community have been banned from a hair salon in Michigan in a breathtaking display of ignorance and bigotry.
The owner of Studio 8 Hair Lab, Christine Geiger, said in a Facebook post that she is exercising her right to free speech by refusing specific customers her services. She also compared gender-diverse people to animals, the Kansas City Star reports.
“If a human identifies as anything other than a man/woman, please seek services at a local pet groomer,” urged the hair salon owner. “You are not welcome at this salon. Period.”
The salon’s Facebook page was later deleted, and its Instagram profile was set to private. A description of the business on Instagram says it is “A private CONSERVATIVE business that does not cater to woke ideologies.”
A few days earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that a web designer was protected under the First Amendment from building a website for same-sex marriages if she refused to do so based on her beliefs.
“We are not bound to any oaths as realtors are regarding discrimination,” Geiger’s post on the salon’s page noted.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a bill in March that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Geiger, who mocked Whitmer in the post, expanded on her bigotry in a comment on a Facebook post in the Overheard in Traverse City group.
“I have no issues with LGB,” she wrote. “It’s the TQ+ that I’m not going to support.”
She continued, “For those that don’t know what the + is for, it’s for MAP (Minor Attracted Person aka: pedophile).”
That's not true and is simply a right-wing conspiracy theory. The plus symbol in LGBTQ+ does not stand for minor attracted person.
The LGBTQ+ acronym is an inclusive term for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and “plus,” which includes pansexual, asexual, intersex, two-spirit, and omnisexual sexual identities. As an umbrella term, queer refers to the community of people who do not identify as straight or cisgender and can also be used to describe someone's non-heterosexual sexual orientation.
Geiger explained that she’s taken this stance to “[e]nsure that clients have the best experience and I am admitting that since I am not willing to play the pronoun game or cater to requests outside of what I perceive as normal,” her salon isn’t a place for those with diverse backgrounds.
“This is a free country and I am not a slave to any narrative,” Geiger concluded while hoping that “more of you will see this and be inspired to stand up tall and speak your own truths and not simply let them be.”
Facebook users did not hold back in response to Geiger’s ignorant comments.
“I’m speechless with how ridiculous your comment is right now. Please, for the sake of yourself and others, go educate yourself,” wrote one person.
“I am BEGGING YOU to PLEASE read a book and turn off Fox News,” wrote another.
“For the love of all things, turn off the t.v, get off of YouTube and educate yourself. Spreading hate & gross misinformation is not a good look, girl,” responded somebody else.
#us politics#news#advocate#advocate.com#Michigan#2023#bigotry#bigots#bigots be like#lgbtqia+ rights#lgbtqia+#republican homophobia#Studio 8 Hair Lab#Christine Geiger#discrimination#us supreme court#303 creative v. elenis#republicans#conservatives#Overheard in Traverse City#facebook#alt right jihad
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SCOLDED.
ask meme
cw: depiction of corporal punishment
(ty for the ask @abalathia!)
The unnatural humidity clung to his hair as he sat by the riverbed. His clothes unpleasantly stuck against his skin, meaning he would have to take a long bath afterward. The now lonely moon peeked through the canopy every now and then, its white glow illuminating an old pipe held between shaky hands. The trees were silent. He scratched at the still-healing tattoo near his cheek. The evening song of cicadas, crickets, and toads grew louder as the minutes passed. Thirsty mosquitos bit into Achille's bare arms and exposed lower legs with vigor, leaving behind swelling welts as he contemplated in solitude.
No one's around to see me, it's ok.
Everyone else's doing it.
Nel and Nilo'ya keep making fun of me. They call me a bloody altar boy. They piss me off sometimes.
If this was so bad, why do adults smoke it? Seems to be pretty good, I'd imagine.
A warm summer night such as this, especially deep within the southern parts of the Shroud, should be spent listening to bard tales around campfires with friends and family—on any other day and not in the aftermath of an apocalypse, not hidden away in the thicket of the forest alone... Alone. That's how Achille spends most of his nights recently. His foster father, Chiron, began working evening shifts at the mines after they moved to Boughbury roughly a few moons ago to escape the permanent winter that fell upon the lands when Dalamud fell. But Boughbury was not home—home was up north, in the crisp, open space of Coerthas. Besides his two only friends, Achille hated Boughbury—and the feeling's mutual with the older locals.
Chiron wasn't due home until late into the night. Achille was independent enough to make his meals and look after the cottage, and Chiron trusted him not to make a mess of things now that he was older. Achille had his chores to keep him busy—clean Talona's pen, feed Talona, scrub the floors, wash and fold the laundry, and inventory the food stores. But menial tasks led to boredom, which quickly led to mischief, and Achille found himself leaving the relative safety of his home to partake in youthful disobedience—such as drinking, stealing, and smoking.
Achille considered robbery immoral, and drinking dulled the senses. He tried a mug of ale once, it was disgusting. His peers, those he tried to integrate with, would hurl all kinds of names at him for his perceived self-righteousness, and Achille would respond with harsher insults and physical violence. But Chiron raised Achille with concrete morals and beliefs, like a true monk he once was. Chiron refused to indulge in these activities; to indulge in the base excesses of man would be to sever the connection to the Destroyer. He raised Achille to follow the same beliefs: he must never drink, smoke, or use violence for the sake of violence. Chiron had broken the creeds in the past, and he toiled every day to make up for it.
Unfortunately, this would make Achille the target of social pressure; as the new kid on the proverbial block, Achille was an outsider looking in. Nel and Nilo'ya, fellow outcasts in the tumult hierarchy of adolescents, saw Achille as a kindred soul. They, too, followed the rules set by their elders... When they were being watched, of course. Nilo'ya, a rambunctious Keeper boy with a blinding smile, gave Achille the initiative after snatching his grandpa's smoking pipe and tobacco for Achille to try out.
While Nilo'ya tends to snort the stuff as dried snuff, he considered this to be "too easy" and that "the reward must equal the risk." Achille was reluctant at first, but after watching Nilo'ya make smoke rings as effortlessly as he skipped stones across the water, Achille was quick to change his mind. Alongside Nel, a lively Duskwight girl as tall as Chiron, they taught Achille the know-how of pipe smoking. His heart hammered in his chest with excitement, but Achille's stomach rolled with anxiety. He drew in a few deep breaths to steady his hands; Nilo'ya would cry if he were to drop his grandpa's pipe into the water and lose it. From his front pocket came out a tiny pouch of fresh tobacco; it reminded Achille of mulch.
As instructed, Achille carefully packed the bowl with at least three pinches and packed it down with his thumb. He tested the draw once, twice—it was just right. All that was left to do was light it. He took a glance behind his shoulders on the off chance there was someone nearby who could spot him. He had walked a suitable distance away from the village, and no one besides his friends knew about this particular spot in the woods. It's now or never.
He clutched the mouthpiece between his teeth as he struck the match, watching the flame sway in the light breeze of the night. His hand was still trembling as he watched the flame dance across the top layer of tobacco. He could hear Nel in his ear telling him not to inhale the smoke as soon as it hit his tongue, just let the vapors roll around in his mouth before he released. Nilo'ya said to draw in small puffs to keep the embers lit, or else he would have to relight. Achille blew out the smoke slowly. It disappeared into the night air.
Achille took another draw, and before he knew it, he was smoking as if he'd done so for years. The flavor was something to get used to, however. It had a bitter taste as it sat on his tongue, and it almost put Achille in the mind of Gysahl greens. How did Achille know what Gysahl greens tasted like? He ate some on a dare once; he had to clean up the vomit before Chiron came home.
Thankfully, Achille didn't get hit with a sudden wave of nausea. The tobacco, or at least the thrill of smoking, calmed his nerves and settled his stomach. Achille couldn't find any reason not to smoke now that he was doing it, displeasing taste aside. But, like all things, Achille would get too bold and disregard consequences. Thinking himself a master, he drew in a deeper puff he wasn't ready for. The smoke reached past his mouth, slithered deep into his chest, and burned his insides. Achille dropped the pipe as a coughing fit overcame him, his eyes stinging with tears the more he hacked and wheezed up the smoke, his throat crackling from the dryness. Desperate for relief, Achille took a few gulps of river water, careful not to let the pipe roll away from where it fell into his lap.
"Who goes there?"
Achille nearly jumped out of his skin at the voice—he knew that voice. He tried to speak, but his throat was still raw. A flurry of coughs spilled from his lips instead, thus making the voice come closer to his location. In his blurred vision, Achille could make out a large and dark figure in the low light, and it carried a small ball of light that swung from left to right with every footstep. Achille rubbed at his eyes to see Chiron standing before him, confused and shocked to find him sitting here in the dark. Soot and dirt dusted Chiron's clothes, and the lamp he carried cast a deep shadow across his face, revealing a drained appearance.
"Achille? Seven hells, what in the world are you doing out here this late at night?"
Achille couldn't answer. His foster father must've got off early, of all the nights. He could feel his face burn from embarrassment, his ears drooping from being found out. Achille tried to hide the pipe from sight, but he couldn't conceal the lingering stench of tobacco.
Chiron sniffed at the air. He narrowed his eyes, "What are you clutching?"
Achille hummed in ignorance. Chiron set his jaw.
"Show me. Now."
Chiron's tone of voice was something not to argue back to. Achille had only heard it a few times in his life, and he could count on one hand how many instances Chiron was this cross with him. Unable to talk his way out of this situation, Achille shamefully gave the pipe over to the now greatly disappointed man before him. Chiron's shoulders sagged as he inhaled a steady breath, his nostrils flaring and eyebrows pinched. Achille awkwardly rubbed at his neck, his mind flailing to find an excuse, an apology perhaps. But no amount of pious posturing would make up for this latest act of rebellion.
"Achille," Chiron started, voice low, "I raised you better than this. I've tolerated your behavior because I can understand what it's like; becoming a man in this world, especially the world we have now, is not easy. A boy's coming-of-age is full of many trials. But this crosses a line that I cannot accept. You have disrespected me, my rules, and my teachings. We monks must keep our bodies and minds unclouded, and we must be diligent in our pursuit to become one with the Destroyer. You have used our techniques for petty squabbles and disregarded our truths as fiction. It's dishonorable."
"But Baba, it wasn't me, it was-"
"Not," Chiron's eyes grew dark with rage, making Achille shrink back, "another word. You will go home, and you will wash off this taint... And you will prepare the salt."
Achille's eyes grew wide in fear. He shook his head in a panic as he began to plead and beg, but Chiron grabbed him by the scruff of his collar and ordered him to walk. Achille only experienced this punishment once when he was younger; he acted particularly ornery one day and said something he shouldn't have. Punishment was swift—kneel in a line of salt until his kneecaps bled. The monks in Ala Mhigo used this against new initiates to fortify their resolve, a type of thick salt that could cut through flesh. But Achille broke down after ten minutes in tears and wails. It was an experience he wouldn't forget for as long as he lived.
The second time around was worse. Achille had done what Chiron requested: he washed away the stench and prepared the salt. The whole while, he willed himself not to cry. His fifteenth nameday was approaching, and men did not cry. Chiron sat at the kitchen table, his face stoic and hands clasped on top of the wood surface. Dressed in his smallclothes, Achille stared down at the salt before he lowered himself on top. The pressure from his weight allowed the sharp salt to pierce the skin almost immediately.
Achille bit down on his tongue to keep from crying out. His back stayed rod straight, and his hands were clenched so hard his knuckles turned white. His face started to turn scarlet from the pain, but he kept his eyes on Chiron with an unwavering stare.
"I hate to make you do this," Chiron had a tinge of guilt in his voice now, "but you know the rules, my son. You must endure it, embrace the pain."
My son. Spoken with the unconditional love of a parent. They weren't related by blood, but Chiron never saw Achille as anything else.
Achille wanted to cry. The more the crystallized salt dug into his bleeding wounds, the more Achille's resolve shrank. He felt himself double over, his nail-bruised palms flying out to keep him from falling facefirst into the hardwood. The fringe of his red hair kept his watery eyes hidden, but the tremble of his shoulders gave him away. The sob that threatened to spill from his lips caught in his throat; it was getting harder to keep his composure.
The dam finally broke when Achille adjusted his legs to keep the numbness away—the overwhelming pain was too much. His forehead met the planks of the floor as he wailed, tears and snot and drool staining the wood. Achille lost track of how long he stayed on the floor, but he wanted it to end. He screamed himself raw:
"Make it stop, Baba! Make it stop! Please!"
Before he knew it, Chiron lifted Achille into a tight hug, the air of the room cutting into his bleeding wounds. He openly sobbed into Chiron's shoulder much like he used to do as a child—he still was a child. Chiron shushed his sobs as he walked to the bathroom to clean and treat the wounds.
"You're alright... You're alright, my son. It's over, it's all over."
Achille continued to cry, breathless and wracked with exhaustion. He felt Chiron's hand card through his hair, making Achille curl into his chest in shame. Chiron held him close; he said nothing for a long while until he whispered:
"You may think me cruel and even hate me for this now. This seems fun for your friends, and you think I'm being too hard on you. But please understand, my son, I made a promise to someone when I found you: I promised to keep you safe. Don't give in to the temptations of man, for you will be lost. I wouldn't be able to live with myself watching you go down the path of wickedness. You will overcome this, I have no doubt."
Achille had calmed to sniffles as he listened, his eyes swollen and face splotchy. His head throbbed. He let the words of his foster father—nay, his father, sink in. He didn't have the energy to talk.
"Everything will come together in the end. I'll be right here with you. I love you, son."
Achille felt his heart stutter. He swallowed back tears and buried his face into the fabric of Chiron's work shirt. His words were muffled and small, but the message was clear.
"... I love you, too, Baba."
#inbox#abalathia#a glimpse into achille's teenaged years with this one and his relationship with his dad. it wasn't the best during this period#but they got better over time. achille was dealing with stuff as most teenagers would#like i mentioned once before: achille got into a lot of trouble before he eventually ran off to ul'dah (probably when he was 18/19)#he was straying from the path so chiron had to set the record straight more than once. but this is the only time he truly got angry#so it may be extreme to some but so would any parent's reaction to finding out their kid has done something wrong#chiron had lost one son (during the rebellion mind you). he doesn't want that to happen again either way#chiron basically lives a straight edge lifestyle. it's why achille never drinks or smokes as an adult#it may be the sleep deprivation talking bc icr but i don't think achille has ever said a curse word in his life#moral of the story: smoking is bad stay in school#writings.#q.
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okay so nailah has a whole ~thing~ about people using her name and how she’s perceived so here’s the long explanation/story about it (covers pre-arr up through the end of base arr)
(it gets heavy - this is your warning. also ~1k words. sorry.)
As a kid, her mother Tasya would rarely use Nailah’s name, choosing instead to just call her “girl” or “child” the majority of the time. In the very rare times she’d praise her daughter, Tasya would say it quietly, and only ever in private. Nailah internalized the idea that a name is a vulnerable thing - something delicate, reserved only for people one deeply trusted. She projected this rule on others as well, picking up the habit of calling people by their job or title on the few occasions she was allowed to speak.
Once Nailah’s started having visions, she lost the privilege of having a name. Tasya immediately switched to referring to her with insults, ranging from “thing” to “half-mad beast” to “disappointment” and the like. Nailah’s potential was mourned far more than her presence was tolerated. The rejection and denial carved a weeping hole in her heart, and she spent an incredible amount of effort trying to be good enough again for Tasya. It never was.
After her mother finally abandoned her, she wandered nameless through the wilds. She thought of herself as a wild, half-mad beast, fit only to scavenge the very fringes of society. Yet when she’d encounter a stranger in the woods and they’d ask her name she never knew how to respond. Should she admit to her brokenness? Tell them she was a monster? Someone better left forgotten? She settled on simply being called “wanderer” - it was the truth, if anything. A mask to hide how she saw herself. She quickly realized it could be used to set people’s expectations of her on her own terms.
Once the wanderer discovered she could manufacture a social mask, she took up the mantle of the mercenary. She kept to remote villages, appearing and disappearing as suddenly as the wind, often only noticed by news of some local threat being quelled. Few people recognized her, and fewer still heard her speak. She hid as much of herself as she could, staying hidden under a thick cloak of silence and only answered to her moniker. She thought nobody could reject her if she rejected herself first, but her relentless visions haunted her. She felt, through other’s hearts, the warmth of lovers greeting one another, the affection in well worn childhood nicknames, the joys of long lost friends reuniting. The aching loneliness she was so used to grew more overwhelming with every vision. Was this truly what she wanted? To be forgotten and alone? Who was she really, hiding under her mask?
She wandered town after town, road after road, using her title as a statement of being. She was just a Mercenary. Little more than a weapon to be pointed at a problem. People were kept at an arms length distance with professional ease, and she could still be useful to those she came across. There was comfort for her in how simple it all seemed, though simplicity was a poor answer to her loneliness. Every solitary morning she drowned in silence, every new horizon was greyed by her sorrow. She stopped trying to answer the cloying doubts that clung to her, their despair staining her thoughts more than she could bear. Who was she, under everything? She gave herself one last chance - go to the closest city and try to find an answer - or fade away, lost and forgotten.
Ul’dah held much more than just an answer for her, though she didn’t know it at the time. The adventurer’s guild asked for a name - she told them Nailah. She couldn’t remember where she heard it. Familiar as it was, she refused to let anyone call her such. She was Mercenary. Adventurer. The name was a formality, nothing more. It wasn’t a mask she wanted to use. Much to her displeasure, the guild used her name frequently enough for it to become common knowledge among their clients.
When the Scions took notice of her abilities, she asked the same comfortable distance of them she was so used to. In response the Scions gave her their names - Thancred, Yda, Minfilia - and she couldn’t understand. Why tell a simple mercenary the names of Scions? Did she not deserve scorn for her visions? The visions have a name? Their responses were acceptance and support and Nailah could not understand. She called them by titles instead - Scholar, Scion, Antecedent - though her echo didn’t let her miss the disappointment they felt. She tightened her masks and hid behind a new one, one given by those who accepted the mercenary - the Warrior of Light.
Tales of the Warrior triumphing over Titan and Garuda spread through Eorzea like wildfire. Her new allies respected the distance she desired, though they had the odd habit of confiding their worries to her. The Warrior supposed she made a good listener, quiet as she was. Would they listen to her? Should she risk that vulnerability? She didn’t know what answer she hoped for anymore. She didn’t know what she would say. She kept her silence.
Her mask started to chafe. Strangers made assumptions about who she was, remarking they expected her to be bigger or a man. Few expected her to be as quiet as she was. Fewer still, a mage. She felt choked by their expectations - who she was wasn’t what they seemed to want. The desire to abandon her masks and nascent bonds writhed inside her whenever she heard new voices. What more did she need to do? Was the Warrior not enough for them? Scions noticed her frustration, offering short words of encouragement. She did her best to listen.
Once the Ultima Weapon was destroyed, she took a look at herself. The Scions - Papalymo, Yda, Urianger - stood by her every step they could. Did they not deserve to see who their Warrior was? One quiet morning, once everything was moved to Mor Dhona, The Warrior met Minfilia in her solar for possibly the most terrifying request of her life - she asked her first new friend to call her by name.
Nailah.
As long as they were in the solar. Alone. Where nobody else could hear.
It was a start, at least.
#its nailahposting hours#cw abuse#cw depression#just to be safe#for everything surrounding her mother is not healthy#nailah's got some rough mental health stuff goin on but i dont know how much i want to go into it >.>#mostly out of fear of missing a cw tag#sorry this is so long ;-;#cecil gets carried away talking about blorbos ;-;#idk im just fascinated by the concept of identity#if you can't tell i have a lot of fic ideas surrounding nailah's struggle with identity - every paragraph is a potentially different fic#i might expand on this even more (re: hw through ew identity thoughts) but she's through the worst of her issues by the end of arr#...i'm gonna tag this as a writing thing bc it gets kinda fic-y#cecil writes
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The Way We Perceive
By Vandya Bisaria
December 3, 1989
Outside, there are birds singing and trees whistling to the tunes of the wind. In my home, there is peace and contentment, which mirrors the feelings that ripple like a tranquil stream inside me. I write in this diary when I am overcome by profound emotion and today is just one of those days. Thankfully, the emotion that overwhelms today is not anxiety or sorrow. No, today I just feel thankful for being able to exist in this world. My mother, however, fears the days I smile more than she fears the days I cry. It seems to me, that to her and to the world, I should be in a constant state of lament and should always be wondering the “what-if” to lead to a better world for me. They do not realise that the problem is not with me or with my dysfunctional legs but rather with the world. It is the outsiders who invade my privacy and stick their glowering eyes into my life and make me lose my sanity. My mother hides my disproportionate legs in a blanket and the world tries to put my head in there too. But I refuse to hide, at least due to this affliction.
Anyway, that is not what I wish to recount. I have managed to keep this space free of the world’s opinions just like the world has kept itself free of mine.
Today is December 3rd, the day my Mr. Darcy has her birthday. I must call her by the name of this popular, revolutionary protagonist lest someone read my diaries and use them to arrest her. As you know already, the people around me have tunnel vision. Like that of a horse whose peripheral vision has been blocked with thick, black cloth and who can only be led by the pull and push of the reins of its driver. That is what everyone around me is like, they are driven forward, stopped or pulled backward based on the whims of someone who only uses them for his own benefit.
My mother read my diary when I was 9 and she saw what I wrote for a girl in our class. She admonished me immediately and stated,“How do you think you will survive in this world, being disabled and being like this too?” She tore the page apart with her fingers as easily as her words tore apart my heart. At first, I felt guilt and shame but later I just felt rage. Now, I feel only pity for those who so glamorously fail to understand.
My Mr. Darcy never celebrated her birthday with balloons, candles or decorations simply because she could never see them. Even as her parents tried to decorate the house, she simply refused. She was always rebellious like that and since it was her birthday, she did not want another thing to remind her of her loss of vision.
I distinctly remember when she huddled close to me during one of our weekly workshops. It was the month of June - it was a sweltering, bristling day and yet she had wrapped her arms around my shoulders and begun weeping. When her sobbing stopped, I asked her what had happened. She refused to speak of the incident but only whispered before falling silent, “Sometimes I wonder if seeing things makes us unable to truly see them. It is me who cannot see people, but it is the people who cannot see beyond my loss of sight. Is it me who is blind or is it them?”
She never complained again of her loss of sight. She used to be exasperated and so, so agitated that her life would have been “normal” had she been treated properly at the vulnerable age of two years old. The doctors at her local government hospital refused to see the baby because of her olive skin and by the time her parents drove to another hospital, it was already too late. Irreparable damage done. A life changed forever.
My mother says I am fortunate in this, that my skin is pearly white and my eyes the deep blue of the ocean. Had I been like Mr. Darcy, she always shakes her head when she says, I would have been in a very different situation. I believe her but I do not condone her reasons.
Mr. Darcy and I celebrated her 18th birthday in the storage room of the Care Centre where we went for community sessions. She sat on my lap easily, after falling almost twice and even then, trusting me to direct her. I brought her a pastry and we giggled and laughed for three hours before the voices of our caretakers grew too loud to ignore and she had to leave. My paralysed legs ached from the loss.
The next time I went to the Care Centre, she was absent. Our caretaker mentioned that she was sick with the flu so she could not attend the session. She was sick for the next one as well. And then the next. And the next.
I found out after three months that she had moved with her family to another state, ten thousand miles away. The entire Black community was moving and her parents thought it would be safe to travel with them and not remain as isolated units. It was fortunate that they left when they did because a month after I received this news, my fellow brethren set fire to the homes of those left behind. Brethren, they say, out of love. Brethren, I say, out of malice.
It seems that even in how unfortunate I am, there are others who are even more unfortunate than me. Just like there is diversity in ability, there seems to be diversity in disability too.
It has been ten years since she left. My other friends, the “normal” ones, often mentioned that I must feel fragmented. Broken. Like a part of me was missing. Shy, timid me could never tell them that this was not true. I was too afraid to offend those friends but I never felt fragmented. I have never known what it is to walk on my legs. I have felt fascinated, seeing others do it, but I have never felt what it is like to actually walk. This is a hard truth for people to grasp. It seems like there is a disability of thought that exists in them. And they never try to alter it. There are a few who venture to talk to me, most of them are afraid of saying the wrong things and others just do not care.
After Mr. Darcy, I knew what belonging felt like. I knew what love was supposed to feel like. It was a warm, fuzzy feeling that started from where my heart beat and spread throughout my entire body. Even my sensationless limbs could not block that completeness and light from spreading through my whole being. After Mr. Darcy left, I knew what it felt like to miss a piece of myself. Like someone had snatched away a part of me and never given it back. We are, all of us, made of experiences – with people, without people. There is this loneliness which gnaws at me, which wishes for true community. But people are afraid and so am I.
I have made progress even though it has taken me time. I have tried over the years to feel the yearning without the loss, the sweet without the bitter, the love without the pain.Not for my sake but for Mr. Darcy’s. I do not wish to be so solemn on her birthday.
My mother says that things are getting better now. That the world is changing and people are becoming more accepting, more concerned, more tolerant. I think the only thing that is changing now is that people like me are not invisible anymore - they are more popular objects of pity and sympathy. And it is a privilege, only available to those like me, who have the same skin as I do. My mother tells me I should be grateful for it. I feel anything but.
There is this interrelatedness that exists in who we are. A multidimensional story. A kaleidoscope, where different colours and beads and patterns merge together to form a different mosaic each time. My disability characterises me but does not define me.
Maybe the world is changing and I do not resent its progress. But I wonder if it will change fast enough for me and for all those Mr. Darcies hiding behind blankets which serve as shrouds to their voices…”
“Till then I continue to camouflage like so many others and find community in those who I have never seen or heard.” Professor Ramsay snapped the book shut and took an exuberant step to the front of the classroom. “You see, the author’s thinking was so ahead of its time that she inspired Kimberley Crenshaw to come up with the term ‘Intersectionality’ in 1989. Feminism inspired this debate and disability has gone hand in hand with other narratives and perspectives ever since. It was a great feat the author achieved and it is something you should all take inspiration from. Think about the glory and the pride when you reach a level no one thought you could…”
At the back of the class, an introverted, Asian Americantransboy tuned out the words of his Professor. The author was a they, first of all, not a she. They were someone who did not want to glorify their disability. They did not achieve something despite their disability, they simply achieved it. They did not wish to be normal, they were normal, just different. Different, kind, intelligent, attractive.
He looked around the room and saw the same realisation sink into each and everyone in the Community Care Centre. They all had different experiences, different lives, different aspirations. They did not need to be Stephen Hawking or John Nash or Frida Kahlo. They could just be themselves and that would be enough. Even if not for the world, at least for themselves.
He turned back to the rambling Professor and raised his hand. If change was needed, it had to begin somewhere.
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Nikolas beloved university and attended JK to Grade 8 at St Joseph's Faculty in the French Immersion Plan. He also might have been going into his Grade 12 year this drop at Dryden Highschool. Anti abortion Tory MP Jacob Rees Mogg drops shares in abortion pill companyThe devout Roman Catholic had been profiting from an Indian agency which marketed the drugs10:forty four, nine OCT 2017Get Day-to-day updates straight to your inbox+ SubscribeThank you for subscribing!Could not subscribe, check out all over again laterInvalid EmailNorth East Somerset MP Jacob Rees Mogg has dropped his investment decision in a very pharmaceutical business which sells abortion medicines.The Tory backbencher Earlier strike the headlines immediately after he admitted he is against abortion in an interview with ITV's Great Early morning Britain.However the Sunday Mirror figured out he had been profiting from shares his investment decision company held in drug company FDC in India wherever abortion is authorized.The Conservative MP brushed off the Mirror's revelations of comparable investments in Indonesia very last 7 days, insisting: "The globe just isn't generally what you would like it to become."'You are a despicable person!': Jacob Rees Mogg politely normally takes on angry anti Tory protestersThe Keeping of 186,000 shares in India's FDC, really worth was acquired by Somerset Cash Administration, of which Conservative Mr Rees Mogg is actually a founder.The shares, detailed within the agency's March interim report, have considering the fact that been bought.(Graphic: Fantastic Morning Britain)The forty eight 12 months previous devout Roman Catholic, tipped for a future Tory leader, has built distinct his perception that abortion is "morally indefensible" in all conditions even adhering to a rape.Throughout the interview with Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid on Good Early morning Britain, he stated: "Everyday living is sacrosanct and begins at The purpose of conception."Nevertheless the father of 6 continues to be adamant that purchasing the Indonesian company Kalbe Farma whose tummy ulcer tablets are routinely employed for abortions provides no conflict along with his beliefs.Anti abortion MP Jacob Rees Mogg admits his corporation gains from abortion pillsHe suggests that's for the reason that abortion is prohibited during the state And so the capsules aren't overtly offered for that objective.But in India abortion continues to be lawful for 46 a long time, with terminations permitted up to 20 months into pregnancy. Much more than six million a yr are performed around the subcontinent.Rees Mogg explained he didn't make investment decision choices and defended the Keeping within the Indian organization as "pretty smaller in proportion to overall property".The worth of shares was just a tenth from the that Somerset Money still holds in Kalbe Farma.But the MP added of your FDC holding: "I'm glad to state it is a inventory that we no longer hold.
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whiskey buisness - john shelby x reader (part 2 of ?)
read part one here!
a/n: hey loves! i'm finishing up school rn, but i had to get this out and i'm about to start working on a tommy request immediately after i upload this. anyways, i'm so excited to post this series, it's incredible and i can't thank my bestie @stxdyblr-2k enough. she is a fucking genius :)
prompt: you can't get john out of your head. lo and behold, here he is.
warnings: fluff, mentions of smut, angsty af, soft john (ugh my heart)
Despite your best efforts, you'd been unable to stop yourself yearning for John Shelby. Your pokey flat now often lay empty; you were far too busy to mope at home due to your career as a personal assistant to a local solicitor who was allied with the Shelby's, attending rallies and lectures with Ada and the drunken nights you'd spend at various mansions, galleries and club openings with the "razor chasers" you'd become friendly with due to their refusal to leave Ada alone. Yet still, in those odd seconds of calm you seized over a cigarette, the first seconds after a bump of Tokyo, when you carefully applied your makeup, styled your hair or bathed, you'd think of him. The way the pads of his fingertips felt on your skin, how he’d muttered in your ear how pretty you looked.
But this was different to when you were dreaming about John at 15; he was no longer the allusive older brother of Ada who had a string of beautiful girls on rotation. He wasn’t a fantasy anymore. He was true flesh and blood, and for a moment he had wanted you.
It would be delicious if the whole situation hadn't left a bitter taste in your mouth. Of course you came back to Brum to only immediately fuck it up. The first night, and already you were so close to ruining everything? Looking back, now that you were so close with Ada once more, now that you knew who John had grown to be, that night was cringe inducing. Luckily, no one had seemed to catch on. Luckily, you thrived in the Small Heath rumour mill once again. All the gossip about you was mainly about your substance use, the lads you were seen curling up with outside nightclubs, your intelligence, your helpful nature, sometimes your questionable politics but that was all. John's was far darker, stories of blood, death and gasoline. Recently, the tales of his conquests had quietened, but only due to the lurid delight taken by the factory workers in talking about the recent blinding of some poor fucker who'd crossed the wrong person. Obviously, a lot of the detail had to be exaggerated for shock value and to boost the Shelby status, solidifying them as notorious throughout Birmingham city and its rural surroundings. There were murmurs everywhere about the violent John Shelby: ruthless, cocky, vengeful. It seemed impossible that the same man who cracked shit jokes just to see you smile, kissed you with so much desperation, and prioritised getting you off first could cause such harm without an ounce of guilt or shame to slow his swagger.
Whispers of war were far more constant, but then again, people would say anything for a reaction. You didn't bring it up with Ada. You refused to (openly) partake in mindless gossip on principle, yet you were hungry for information about him.
***********
You'd long forgotten whose wedding you were at. Some loyal blinder, a close friend of the Shelby's, the occasion calling for a large white marquee to be built onto one of Tommy's gardens, fully staffed with the best chef and service team money could buy (from a London restaurant at short notice; when Finn told you the extortionate figure Tommy had paid, your jaw had dropped). The cake, dress and decorations were stunning; you weren't sure exactly what the groom had done for the Shelby's but you could only assume the worst for what they'd splashed out on him.
However, thinking like that only spoilt your night: you'd realised at your fifth club takeover, now you repeated it like a mantra constantly. You'd quickly learnt every excess the Shelby's granted to those outside their circle were due to some perceived sacrifice for being associated with them. Well, that's what you chose to believe after John had sent a junior blinder to your office with a bouquet, the Monday morning after he turned you down. So, it was best to smile and take the shit, get paid, and get out as soon as possible. You were to keep your head down until then.
Yet, keeping your head down was difficult tonight. Ada had treated you to a shopping trip to London for the occasion this morning, Arthur forcing the junior blinders to tag along next to you on the train and trailing less than two metres behind you for hours. You missed the days when it was just you and Ada. It was far more simple without the stares whenever the two of you stepped out. Ada had gotten used to it, she'd devised her own methods of being completely alone; complex plans involving leaving a window open, knotting sheets into a rope and twisting her ankles. Not that she minded, she reckoned the suffocation of being a Shelby was much worse than a few bruised ankles.
You were wearing a clingy emerald green dress from some fancy French boutique you couldn't even pronounce, the diamond necklace sitting along your collarbone and the jewels dangling through your ears were on loan from Ada. You felt eyes unpicking you the moment you entered the after-party. Your arm was linked through Ada's as per usual, she looked equally stylish in a peacock blue number that set off her eyes, her delicate features perfected with makeup.
You'd quickly found your gaggle and began drinking and dancing the night away. Whispers about snow arose from your table, people disappearing to the toilets to rail a line on the bathroom counter, then to the dance floor or to the lap of the poor fucker who'd hold back their hair while they vomited in just a few hours. At least the Blinders were polite about it. Isaiah would kill them if they weren’t. You'd let your arm be tugged on various bathroom trips, treated among your group like secret missions although you weren't entirely subtle about it.
What you weren't aware of was across the marquee, you were being watched by the three men in your life who you'd never want to see you in this state: the Shelby's.
"Looks like Finn's taken your spot, John." Arthur yelled in John's ear over the loud music, gesturing to the youngest Shelby sat at the table next to you who was staring up at you in complete adoration as you chatted across him to Michael, seemingly arguing with him. By the looks of it, you were winning.
John pulled a face at Arthur. “Fuck off, old man. That'll never happen. Finn’s too young for her." He immediately regretted the words that had fallen out of his mouth, revealing far too much for his comfort.
"It's not impossible."
"He's just not right for her, yeah?"
"And you are?"
John didn't bother to bless him with a verbal response, instead flipping him off and downing the rest of his whiskey. "It's not like that."
"What's it like then? Because from where I'm sitting, it's pretty fucking clear, John." Arthur slurred, glass of whiskey sloshing onto his sleeve.
"You're too gone to even know you're chatting shit." John sneered, standing up, "I'm off for a smoke and some fresh air. Try not to fuck anything in my absence, both of you."
His brothers cursed him out as he left. John took a second to figure out his route, purposefully having to cross your path, gesturing for you to follow him subtly. He was surprised you came trailing after him, telling Michael that you weren’t done yelling at him and you’d be back. When you were both only metres from the marquee, he knew you were fucked. You were instantly bored, begging him for a cigarette, which he lit for you, shaking his head at your state.
"You're a fucking mess, love." He said, mouth sloping attractively to one side.
"Takes one to know one, John-boy. Where are we off to, then?"
"Somewhere fucking quiet, can barely hear myself think. Plus, you need to sober the fuck up, lass." He said, softly, as he walked across the dew soaked grass. You followed, heels in hand, holding your dress up as not to ruin it. He sighed, taking the shoes from your hands and wrapping his blazer around your shoulders, linking your arm through his for stability. He kept the distance respectful, but there wasn’t any denying the thick tension in the summer air between the two of you. Ahead, there was a small stone bench sat at the foot of one of Thomas' manicured gardens, and John offered his hand to help you sit. You made small talk and caught up on each other's lives, and you noted John only seemed to glow when you asked about his kids. He talked at length, the drink seemingly unhinging his jaw. There he was again, the John you knew and had admired for so many years. You could sit here forever, watching his blue eyes sparkle in the sunlight. Yet, it just wasn’t meant to be. You wished you could stop time just for a bit, give you enough moments to memorize the freckles on his skin.
"You know the night I first came home?" The alcohol and snow had loosened your lips. You were teetering on the edge of your boundaries, but you couldn't care enough to hold back.
"The night where absolutely nothing happened?" He joked, raising an eyebrow at you, cautious that you'd randomly brought it up in your state. "Sweetheart, this can wait."
He was warning you. For a second you managed to bite your tongue, but curiosity tipped you over the edge.
"But something nearly happened, right?"
"Y/N. Don't." He warned, his tone icy, suddenly distancing from you, hiding between an emotional boundary which he didn't wish to explore.
"John, it's just us. Can't we even talk about it?"
"There's nothing to talk about, though. You were off your face then, and now. That's fine. We know where we stand. It can't happen."
"I wanted to. I do want to."
"You don't. Trust me. You need a nice lad who'll marry you and look after you. Just need to keep your nose clean long enough yeah?" He teased, trying to lighten the mood, blue eyes begging you to move on.
Your head turned to face him, your face contorting in a mixture of confusion and irritation. "You don't get to tell me what I want or need. The last thing I want is to marry any lad, nice or not."
"I didn't mean it like that, right? Look, I just meant you deserve better than Shelby scum. You're going places you know? Don't settle for Small Heath." John responded with a pained sigh. He didn’t want to get into it with you; not here, not like this. He'd thought about it, naturally. You were constantly on his mind, yet only problems ever seemed to appear, never solutions. It was best for him to avoid you. Why the fuck did he drag you out here? Horrible idea.
"Your family isn't scum. Where the fuck did you get that from?" Your face was screwed up in genuine rage. "I-"
"Y/N, fuckin’ leave it."
His face had hardened completely now. He'd snapped at you. His voice hadn't raised, it was just the power he spat his order out with. You held up your hands in mock surrender, pointedly taking a cigarette from his front pocket and light it silently, not saying a word.
"Why are you so bothered, anyways?" He asked, breaking the silence like you knew he would. John always had to ask questions.
"Fuck off with that, John. I'm not in the mood."
"What do you mean?" He looked completely lost.
"We nearly had sex. Just sex, nothing else right?"
John remained silent.
"Would it be the worst thing in the world?" You asked, your voice wavering. It was hard enough to get the words out, let alone imagine the response.
"You're far too wasted to chat about this, love."
"John, I’m not-"
"I'm serious. You're fucking mashed like my brothers aren't you? Like all those other fuckers in there." He sounded genuinely angry. In the glow of the sunset he looked so much younger, so hurt and lonely. Why hadn't you noticed before?
He turned to you, eyes widened and shocked at his own outburst. "You're not the only one gone yeah? Ignore me, I'm fucked, sorry."
You reached out your hand and linked your fingers through his in silence, the warm evening wind ruffling your hair and dress, blocked from your skin by John's suit jacket which was wrapped around your shoulders. Not that anyone would notice or care. As long as Ada wasn't with you, you could disappear for hours without any alarm. There you sat in the tranquil last few moments of the day, your hand linked with John's, both beyond tipsy. You weren’t thinking properly but it felt right. You felt safe. You didn't want to have to return to the chaos of the party, to have to catch up on who your friends were currently trying to screw. None of that seemed to matter anymore.
Was it too much to ask for something to be simple? Maybe you didn't have to fuck him. Maybe just these small moments were enough. You laughed at the thought when it crossed your mind; neither you nor John were known for consistency or stability in relationships, you being admittedly rather inexperienced, only having been with a few men, and he had his fair share of escapades. But he was just so different. You wouldn't admit that he'd gotten your attention in any way than purely sexually (which surprised you to admit) and for fun, but you genuinely enjoyed his presence.
He was right though. It wasn't a good idea at all to hook up. There was far too much baggage for both of you to make it worth it.
Just once?
You glanced over at John. He rolled his eyes at you, but the edges of his lips were slightly upturned, his dimples faintly peeking through his defined cheeks.
Just once couldn't hurt.
***
The sky was streaked with shades of gold, amber and blood. John could feel the friction from your knee barely knocking against his, the pressure putting him on edge. In fairness, he had drunk heavily, and that's what happens when you let your guard down around beautiful women. He couldn't believe you had told him you wanted to have sex with him still. He'd chalked the whole situation down to a drunken mistake that would have progressed into a far more significant drunken mistake. Ada would never forgive him if he went for another of her mates. Especially Y/N. No matter if he said that Y/N could be different, that you wasn't just another conquest. But who'd believe him?
Far better to keep his mouth shut.
Far better to play safe.
As you were called back to the party by the gaggle of girls John vaguely recognised from hanging off the arms of other blinders, he realised (despite his state) that you were right. Having sex with you wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. In fact, it might be one of the best.
Just once?
He watched your figure disappear back into the marquee, waiting for you to turn back and look for him. You do. He would have done the same if it was him.
Maybe just once wouldn't hurt.
***
to be continued!
#john shelby fluff#john shelby#john shelby x reader#john shelby imagine#john shelby reader insert#peaky blinders fluff#peaky blinders imagine#peaky blinders
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see? - [Reid x Reader] - Chapter 3
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previous chapter // series index // next chapter
Summary: Months after Reader left, Reid has tried to put his life back together. He’s never stopped trying to find Reader, but he may find her in the worst way possible.
Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader
Word Count: 3.3k for Chapter 3
Content Warning: Normal Criminal Minds stuff. Mentions of drug addiction. This series has a villain, and he harms women. There is no s*xual assault, but there is brief talk of torture, and then the death of the victims. Spoiler: Our unsub targets pregnant women, one of the infants does not survive. Reader and her baby are fine. I don't go into detail, but if you need to skip this, I understand.
A/n: How can I ever thank you all enough for being so patient with me? That being said, this chapter does end on a cliffhanger that you probably saw coming if you read “River” by @yours-truly-r. She shared this plot with me, so this is my version. I’ll try my best not to make you wait too long for chapter 4. Chapter 3 & 4 are in Spencer’s point of view, but the remainder of the series will be in Reader’s POV.
-- Linear Progression --
(Spencer’s POV)
The night we came back from my first case with the BAU, Morgan declared that he was going to a bar near his apartment to "get lucky." When I pointed out the fact that it was almost 2 am, he had told me, "time is an illusion, Pretty Boy."
That was the first time he called me pretty boy, along with the first time I tried to explain a theoretical concept he had no interest in hearing.
He was right to a degree. The way we understand time is an illusion. Time doesn’t happen in the linear way that we as a society perceive it to. The physics of time are still widely debated, but the running hypothesis is that everything that has ever happened is still happening right now. Every single moment in time is happening all at once, and it always will be.
Morgan didn’t “get lucky” that night, but he did give me a ride back to my apartment. I think that was the beginning of our friendship; I had never been able to understand the social constructs of relationships and friendships, but I think he felt some sort of responsibility for the skinny kid with glasses who was babbling about the physics of time at 3 am.
My friendship with Derek Morgan was one of the most important of my life.
Which is why I wasn't going to murder him for banging on my door at 7 am.
“Open up, Pretty Boy!”
Grumbling, I got out of bed and padded down the hallway towards my living room where Morgan was pounding on the door so hard, I was concerned it was going to fly off its hinges.
“If you break my door, you’re gonna fix it,” I muttered out when I finally pulled the door open.
The man who was the closest thing to a brother I had just smiled at me. “I restore houses, kid. It’d be an improvement.”
Smirking, I waved him into my apartment. In the months since…Since February, Morgan had made it a habit of coming by several times a week whenever we were in town. I don’t know if the rest of the team knew he did it, I don’t know if they were as worried about me as he was, but it wouldn’t have surprised me.
“Coffee?” I asked, making my way into the kitchen.
"We'll grab some on the way," he said, flopping down on my couch. "We have a case; I told Hotch I'd swing by and get you. It's wheels up as soon as we get there and finish the briefing."
I frowned. “I didn’t get any message.”
“I know. I asked Garcia to let me wake you.” He turned his head around to look at me. “You haven’t been sleeping, kid.”
He wasn’t wrong. “It’s…I’m trying, Derek.”
I didn’t need to say it, because he knew it. Much like time, recovery isn’t a linear process. You start, you stumble, you go back, sometimes you go up then down. It’s an imperfect journey because there isn’t a finish line; addiction can’t be beaten, only beaten back.
Derek Morgan had been beside me through every step of my recovery.
Lumbering off the couch, he walked over to stand before me. “Reid, you’re doing the best you can. Everyone stumbles.”
I shook my head. “It’s different. I can…I can still see it. I can still see it all, Morgan.”
I could still see the look on Ben’s face when he found the vials of Dilaudid I had hidden all around my apartment. I could still remember the look on Hotch’s face when he told me she was gone. I could still see the anger on Garcia’s face when she refused to help me find her.
Most of all, I remember how y/n looked when I told her I would kill her, give up her precious life, for one more moment with Maeve. Every morning, right before I wake up, that memory flashes behind my eyes.
I’ve called in every favor I’m owed, reached out to every connection; no one could find her. She vanished.
I quickly realized the only way she could vanish like that is if she had help from inside the bureau, and if I had to guess, I’m sure I know who helped her. If she went to all these lengths, she didn’t want to be found, least of all by me.
"We'll find her, Spencer," Morgan said gently, pulling me from my thoughts.
He said the words to comfort me, but even he knew they weren’t true. No one would find y/n y/l/n until she wanted to be found.
Nodding my head, I made my way back towards my bedroom to get ready for the case.
Making amends is very big in the recovery process. I wanted to make amends to y/n, and while I wanted that to be in the traditional sense, I settled for a symbolic one.
I tried to make myself into the man she thought I was before that night. Every time I felt the itch crawl up my spine, I thought of her face. It didn't make the craving go away; it just made it easier to bear.
I didn’t deserve to have her back in my life, but I wanted to be someone who did.
After I had finished getting ready, I made my way over to my bedside table to pick up the coin I carried with me everywhere, running my fingers over the edges before placing it in my pocket.
Two hundred and forty-seven days sober, and each one of them was for her.
--
We never made it to the bullpen that morning. Hotch called and informed us that it was wheels up "immediately," and that we would debrief on the plane. Morgan and I were the last members of the team to arrive. He took a seat on the couch beside Callahan while I opted to sit at the table across from Hotch and JJ.
“Garcia is going to be out for the remainder of the week. She has the flu,” our unit chief informed us, his eyes fixed on the tablet in front of him.
Morgan toyed with his phone, no doubt trying to text his ‘baby girl’ before take-off. “Who is going to be running things from here since she’s out? Kevin?”
Hotch nodded, but I couldn’t help but notice he seemed distracted. “He’s the most familiar with Garcia’s systems.”
“Is that what they’re calling it these days,” Rossi muttered just a bit too loudly, earning a mock glare from Hotch, a confused look from Kate, an eye roll from Morgan and JJ, and a soft huff of laughter from me.
“Let’s get started,” Hotch ordered, drawing all of our focus back to the present. “The Oregon State Police have requested our help.”
I couldn’t help but wrinkle my nose at the tablet in front of me, further proof Garcia wasn’t on this case. Despite how mad she was at me over Y/n, she still always accommodated my wishes for paper files.
The state police?” Morgan asked. “Not the locals?”
"No," Hotch answered, right as I brought up an image on my screen. "He's not sticking to one county."
I heard a strangled gasp from JJ, but I didn't need to look up to know why. “How many?” I asked.
“When the original request was made two women had been abducted. Both of them were pregnant, days from giving birth, and both from the same town of Silverton, Oregon. The first victim was Iris Jenkins. She was a 31-year-old woman, and she was 40 weeks and 2 days gestation when she was taken by the unsub. The M.E. estimates he held her for less than 24 hours before she died.”
“The baby?” JJ asked, her voice thick with emotion.
“He was left outside of a local hospital in Silverton. He was completely unharmed. The next intended victim is Nancy Williamson. She was abducted outside her workplace. Also 40 weeks pregnant with a boy.”
“Could that be a coincidence?”
Hotch still didn’t look up from his tablet. “It could have been before the latest victim.”
“But Nicole Williamson escaped?” Morgan asked. “That’s lucky. Did she give a description of the guy?”
“No, she said he kept her blindfolded and bound to a chair.”
That caused me to pause. "That doesn't make sense. Why would the unsub blindfold them if he plans on killing them anyway?"
Rossi spoke for the first time. “Psychological torture? Sensory deprivation?”
I thought about that as I swiped through the crime scene photos; pausing when I saw a photograph of a letter on the screen. "He makes them write letters?”
“Just the first victim and the third. The one that got away was only held for 12 hours.”
I frowned. “Is this blood? Or just red ink?”
“The first is red ink, the second letter is still being processed.”
It was obvious based on the letter spacing and how many loops were in the letters that a woman wrote this letter. Based on the contents of the letter, I could also assume she was under duress.
Hotch spoke again, pulling my focus. “Morgan, I'd like for you and JJ to drive up to Silverton. Visit Miss Williamson and ask if she's up for a cognitive interview, then visit the M.E., ask him if he remembers anything about the first victim.”
“Where was the…” JJ’s question trailed off when he got to the same image Kate’s hand had been frozen over for the last 47 seconds, the same photo that was described in the incident report that Hotch had on his screen.
My unit chief, my friend, cleared his throat before he spoke. “Kayla Whitmore was found an hour ago in Eugene, Oregon. The autopsies are already underway, and the scene is being processed.”
“The cause of death seems pretty apparent,” Morgan said with a look of disgust on his face.
"The time between this most recent kill and the last abduction is much shorter. We need to move fast," Hotch said, his voice grave. "Kate, I'd like for you to come with me to the FBI satellite office in Bend, that's where we're landing. Kayla Whitmore's credit card was used to buy gas right outside the town limits. Rossi, I'd like for you and Reid to ride out to Eugene. It should be undisturbed."
"I already don't understand this guy," Rossi muttered. "The first baby survives, the third doesn't. The second victim is blindfolded, but it doesn't appear the others were. He makes them write their own letters. Then he uses the third victim's credit card. This behavior…it's erratic."
“Is the message on the wall the same in both crime scenes?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Yes.”
--
The media hadn’t named our unsub yet, but I was sure it wouldn’t be long, especially once word of Kayla Whitmore reached the public. This type of violence always draws attention.
Rossi was moving around the room, silent, but his eyes moving rapidly over everything. “He’s a cocky son of a bitch, I’ll give him that.”
I nodded. “Do we have the original note?” One of the deputies brought over an evidence bag, inside of it was the wrinkled piece of paper. “Have we analyzed this yet?”
The man nodded. “It’s red ink, just like the last.”
"It makes sense; blood might start to coagulate and make it more difficult to work with. Rossi, come here." I called, offering him the note.
“Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked,” he read. “It sounds biblical.”
“It is. It’s Psalm 82, verses 3 through 4.”
“Was the first note biblical?”
“The first victim was made to write, ‘Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.’ That’s from Ephesians. There are similar themes in both letters.”
“So, he’s perverting the bible to fit his own fucked up narrative? How original.” The older man handed the paper back to me. “We have to find out how he’s choosing them.”
My gaze moved over to the right wall of the room. "Did the unsub leave any prints when he wrote on the wall?"
It wasn't the first message I'd seen written in blood, but I don't think it's something you ever get used to. “’Do you see this, son of man?’ could be another biblical reference. It’s Ezekiel chapter 8, verse 17. “Do you see this, son of man? Yet you will see still greater abominations than these.’”
“So, are the children abominations? Or the mothers?” The deputy said quietly.
“The mothers,” I answered. “He doesn’t harm the children. I think it must go against his…moral code.”
The deputy scoffed behind me, and I was inclined to agree; the idea that someone could do something like this and have a moral code was almost impossible to imagine.
But devils hide in plain sight all the time.
“His rage is escalating,” I pointed out.
I heard the deputy ask Rossi what that meant.
“This guy is a bum,” the man who developed the art of profiling explained. "He can't get a girlfriend, and he has this idea in his mind that it’s the women’s fault. He thinks women owe him sex, love, whatever he wants.”
I walked away from the wall, turning to face the two men. “He thinks they’re dirty, unclean. It’s why he makes them write the note. By making them say they deserved what he did to them, he’s humiliating them even after death.”
The deputy’s face was pale as he survived the scene around him. “Why does he make them leave the messages in their own blood?”
“Only one message is from them,” I replied, gesturing to the evidence bag. “The message in the blood is from the unsub.”
Before we exited the room, I turned back to that message again, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Both victims had been discovered in the exact same way. The women were naked, stabbed multiple times, but with no signs of sexual assault. They were positioned in the middle of the blood-soaked mattress, their arms spread wide.
He had left the same message on the walls of the room, written in the blood of the woman he killed.
“Do you see this, son of man? Do you see?”
--
“The media is calling him The Prophet.”
Rossi scoffed. “I bet it was that wet behind the ears deputy who leaked the note and told him the kid’s biblical theories.”
Rossi and I had arrived at the FBI office in Bend, Oregon about an hour ago. Kate and Hotch had already set up; JJ and Morgan were on their way back from Silverton now.
“So, what do we know about this jag-off?” Rossi questioned, staring at the evidence board.
Hotch came to stand at the head of the conference table, his eyes sharp, his voice clipped. "Reid, Dave, what did the M.E. say about the Eugene autopsies?”
"He said he suspected it was a botched c-section. Kayla was just over 40 weeks pregnant, but he said it's not uncommon for first-time mothers to go up to 42 weeks.”
“I know that’s right,” I heard JJ mutter from the speaker placed in the center of the table.
“Indicates a lack of medical knowledge,” Morgan offered. “Because we know this guy isn’t squeamish.”
I agreed with my friend but didn't comment on it; my mind already on another topic. "What's interesting is that Kayla had an anterior placenta, meaning it attached to the front of her uterus. Usually, the placenta attaches to the posterior wall, meaning it's more towards her back. Because of the unusual placement of the placenta, I think that the death of this fetus was accidental."
“It wasn’t a fetus, Reid,” Kate snapped. “It was a baby.”
I cleared my throat, meeting her angry gaze. I knew Callahan was the guardian of a young girl, and based on my years working with fellow agents who were also parents, I knew it was best not to argue about definitions and semantics. "I'm sorry, Kate," I murmured.
Her gaze softened. "It's fine. Sorry. This case is just…this is a lot." She looked down to swipe across her tablet screen. "This child was a boy too?"
I nodded. “All three of the victims were pregnant with boys.”
“So, he wants boys?”
Rossi turned to Kate. “He wants mothers of boys. Probably his way of killing his mother over and over again.”
“But how does he know the babies are boys?” JJ asked.
“So, what do they have in common?” Hotch asked. “Let’s add Nicole Williamson into the mix too, what do we have?”
“There were quotes from the bible in the two complete notes. Those specific verses are often referenced when they speak about protecting children,” I said, my eyes moving over the files. “The women were all in their 20’s. They were all at least 39 weeks pregnant, and...huh, there’s not a father named in any of the medical charts.”
“But how does he know that!” JJ huffed again in frustration.
“And are we sure this unsub is a guy?” Callahan questioned. “There was no sign of sexual assault.”
“If we follow statistics, women take babies, and men take children. With that in mind, it would be safe to assume this was a woman, but the amount of rage we’re seeing makes me think it’s a man.” I turned my back to the team, my eyes moving over the crime scene photos. "The letter was written under duress, but the language is very misogynic. Based on the information Kevin gathered about Kayla's online life, she had a normal amount of self-esteem. It's out of character that she'd talk about herself this way. By all accounts, she was excited for the baby. It's also incredibly difficult to stab someone 54 times. All the women would have fought him until the end. He'd have to be stronger to subdue her. It's a biological instinct, mothers' will stop at nothing to protect their children."
Hotch had pulled out his phone before I finished speaking, dialing Kevin Lynch to give him the criteria of the person we were searching for. "We need women in the Bend, Oregon area that are close to giving birth. There will not be fathers listed on the medical charts. She'll be at least 39 weeks into her pregnancy."
“Alright, so that would leave us with…” Kevin wasn’t able to finish his sentence before an alarm started blaring over the speaker, almost drowning out Kevin’s yelp of surprise.
“What is it?” Hotch asked. “Did something happen?”
"I…I don't know, sir," Kevin answered after he had finally gotten the alarm to quiet. "I was running the search, and…it triggered some sort of system-wide alarm. It completely locked me out of Penny’s system.”
Morgan clicked his tongue. “That doesn’t make any sense. Penelope wouldn’t set some alarm without a reason.”
“Wait. Kevin, was there any sort of message that came up when you triggered the alarm?” Hotch asked, his tone urgent.
There was a weird tension on Hotch’s face while he waited for Kevin to reply. “Yeah, uh, just a dialogue box that says ‘Nightingale.’”
“Nightingale?” Kate asked. “Isn’t that the…”
Hotch didn't reply; he hung up abruptly while Kevin was still speaking. I felt a chill run down my spine when I noticed his hands trembled slightly.
“What is it, Hotch?” Rossi asked urgently.
But he never got a chance to answer; a deputy stormed into the room. "We just got a report of an abandoned car outside of a grocery store about half a mile from here. It's registered to a young woman, and there was an empty infant car seat strapped in the back."
Hotch took the paper from him but didn't look at it. His eyes were screwed shut, and his shoulders were tense.
I heard when the voice spoke on the other end of the line. I heard the deep breath Hotch let out before he spoke.
“Penelope, I need to know where y/n is.”
----------
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What About the Smaller Picture (2)
Summary: Merlin knows best. And what he feels is best for you and Douxie right now is to sit around and wait for him to come back from New Jersey, Merlin-knows-when. (2) Your first day in Arcadia, it sure is something. (1) - (3)
Warnings: swearing, proofing is for nerds
Word Count: 2211
a/n: i hope to be able to make you feel the awkwardness radiating off of every part of this series
Hisirdoux’s special welcome tour didn’t exactly do its job of making you feel welcome. You supposed that was more of a problem with you than the town. It definitely wasn’t of any fault of Hisirdoux’s. If anything, he was being a little too warm. It almost felt fake.
People appeared to like Hisirdoux. All across town, he would greet friends, introduce you to them. Kinda like he was showing you off. You did not know what for. He barely knew you, yet he talked about you like you were an old friend returned to him. Like he was proud of you or something. You supposed he was establishing a cover story. And you weren’t sure why. Why not just say you were new in town? What tracks was he trying to cover here.
You stopped paying too much attention to what Hisirdoux was telling others about you. He was telling them that he cared for you. That he missed you. It was a lie, sure. But just hearing those words come out of someone else’s mouth were making you melt. It had been so long that it was hard for you to recall the last time a person said such nice things about you. That was sad. You supposed the blush on your face did good to add to the story he was telling. Made it more believable. You felt really pathetic that this guy you barely knew lying through his teeth about you was actually making you blush as if it was real. As if anyone really thought those nice things he said about you in real life. Man that’s really sad. Moving on.
The town itself looked a little rough. Like it had seen better days. It was apparently a hub of magic, so it probably had. A lot of the damage you saw looked very recent though. That made sense. The whole reason you wound up here was because you befriended a girl traveling with a pack of trolls migrating from this very town. When asked why they were migrating, Claire, the girl, had told you that their home had been destroyed in a recent battle. “The Eternal Night” they called the battle. You, of course, knew about such eternal night. You had heard of the prophecy, you just didn’t expect it to happen in your lifetime. And you may had freaked out just a tad when it came along earlier that month, the unexpected solar eclipse confusing you and your studies before you figured out what was happening. However, you had assumed the battle took place underground, you know, cause trolls. The town you explored with Hisirdoux told a different story. At one point you saw a troll walking by, under an umbrella, following a red-headed human woman with a baby in her arms. And the locals didn’t seem to care. No one batted an eye. Strange town.
What really baffled you though was what happened later in the day, back at the bookstore, when you cast a simple spell. Nothing too flashy, just a little levitation on a book Hisirdoux had sent you to find up on a high shelf you couldn’t reach. When he saw you, Doux made a really panicked gasping sound. He threw himself in front of you, shielding you from the people who were not even there, startling you, and throwing off your focus. The book landed on both of you with a thunk.
“You can’t do that,” his voice was hushed despite you two being the only ones in the shop at the moment, “It’s business hours. The mortals don’t know about wizards and they shouldn’t see magic,” he stressed.
“But- uh,, They look just fine with the trolls?” Confusion was written across your face.
“That’s different. It’s different. Look, the situation is weird, okay,” He made a little X with his hands. “But I can’t have you casting spells around the shop. Or in public, period. The mortals can’t see anything, okay?”
“Okay, okay. My bad. I won’t do it again- Promise.” Your face was hot with embarrassment. This was your fault for assuming. Fuck, he probably thinks you’re a wild card now or something. Not a good start to your professional life here. Or your relationship with this Adonis who’s reprimanding you.
“While there are some other wizards around town that I’ll introduce you to tonight, to stay safe, generally just keep the magic for when we’re alone and out of sight.”
“Oh, yeah, uh- Okay”
He grinned. Suddenly, he leaned in, catching you off guard. “It can be a special thing,” His voice was even softer as he was so close to you, “just between the two of us.”
Oh. So he meant when just You and Him were alone and out of sight. Ooookaaaayyyy. He winked to you as he separated himself from your side, and went off to the back of the store to continue unpacking a shipment he had just got in. He left you there, clutching that damn book to your chest, face now hotter than before, if that was even possible at all. Oh no.
Fuck, it was fucking day one. Day one! Day fucking one and you were developing a crush. NOPE. This was not something you were going to do. Uh-uh. Nein. There was no fucking time for this. Well, you didn’t really know how much time you had with Merlin and his addiction to being perceived as mysterious or whatever the hell was wrong with that asshole you worked for now, but the point is you did not have time for this! Hisirdoux was too much. Merlin really should have had the decency to warn you that he was hot. This wasn’t fair. Not only was Doux beautiful, but he was a touchy person. You weren’t going to stand a chance.
The thing is you had been sooo worried about how you and Hisirdoux were going to get along, you even brought up the concern to Merlin. To be honest, you had thought the old wizard to just be annoyed at your worrying, and that’s why he reassured you it’d all be fine. That you and Hisirdoux would get along swimmingly or whatever just get out of my hair kid. You were so afraid Hisirdoux would have to warm up to you like a cat being introduced to a new kitten. Afraid that he’d resent you since you were technically Merlin’s apprentice too now in a sense. And he was used to being number one, no one else to compete with for Merlin’s sparse pride since Morgana went astray. Merlin assured you Hisirdoux was very friendly. But like, would it kill the geezer to give you a warning that he’d be too friendly.
While you were having your little crisis, Douxie was humming along to the song in his head, stacking up the new books onto a display, trying his absolute dilly darndest not to think about what just happened. What he did. That wasn’t weird, right? Oh fuzzbuckets, he did something weird. He was just so used to playing up the flirty persona he’d developed he hadn’t even stopped to think about if he’d be making you uncomfortable. And he really wanted you to be comfortable. Plus, he felt pretty guilty he had to stop your tour around town to go accept a shipment he forgot. Strangely, he was really concerned about the impression he was giving you. Caring about what another person thought of him was not very in character for him. Not counting Merlin, of course. He was going to have to make this up to you. He really needed you to think he was cool. For professional reasons, of course. Definitely.
~ ~ ~
“SO! I recommend the steak because it’s the least disgusting thing on the menu.”
You gaped at the wizard sitting across from you in this sticky booth, peeping your head over the kitschy French-themed menu you held. He had no menu. In fact he refused to even touch it. Great. What did he know.
“I- What do mean ‘least disgusting’, Casperan.” You were almost afraid to ask.
“I mean that kitchen is filthy and the steak is your best bet for something edible.”
“Why. Why would you bring me here if the food is terrible.”
You were always weary of greasy chain restaurants, but you had expected this one to be at least a little decent, since it was a smaller Cali chain and Hisirdoux had fucking brought you to it your first day in the town. Surely he was kidding.
“I just wanted to show you where I worked nights. So you’d be able to find me easier if there’s any trouble. Besides, you can’t say you’ve been to California if you haven’t had Mr. Benoit’s. It’s like In-N-Out burger. Remind me to take you to an In-N-Out burger later this week.”
You blinked. “Oh – uh, okay.”
Hisirdoux continued, “I can’t have my phone turned on during my shifts so you’ll have to come get me directly if it’s a big enough problem. Make up an emergency. Are you good at improve?”
You looked around the restaurant, getting a feel for its layout, taking notice of where the kitchen and back doors were located, making mental notes of all exits. “Ah, well, I’m good at lying, if that’s what you’re asking…”
“Good enough.”
The waiter came to take your orders. Hisirdoux shared an inside joke with him. It should have been awkward, them laughing away at something you didn’t understand why you sat there quietly, but you were a little too fixated on how pretty Hisirdoux looked when he laughed. It was mesmerizing. The waiter took your order. You got the steak.
~ ~ ~
It was very important for you to establish connections in Arcadia’s wizard underground. Or at least that’s what Hisirdoux thought. You weren’t particularly a social butterfly. It’s not that you didn’t like having a large group of friends or anything, you just never really had a reason to have one. And Doux was hell bent on introducing you to every person in this town in one day apparently. You had met twenty-three wizards in counting over the last hour being shepherded through this off-brand apple store. You had so far learned no names. How did he expect you to remember these peoples names. Scratch that. You knew one name. Zoe. Just because she was very annoyed at your and Hisirdoux’s presence in her workplace, and was very vocal about it. That being said, she didn’t make any real effort to get you to leave. You wished she would though. You were getting overwhelmed. Today had been incredibly stressful, with a lot of information to take in, and with only a brief rest when Doux was handling things at the bookstore. You wanted to go home. Geez, home. You realized that Hisirdoux had yet to show you home. Where was home.
You tugged on his hand to grab his attention. “Hey, I’m- uh – tired? Really tired. Can - can we go home?”
“OH. Yes! Home. Right away. Yes.”
Douxie possibly maybe had been avoiding home all day. It just, it wasn’t much. He had no idea how you were going to react. His space was small already without adding another person to it. Of course, it wasn’t any smaller than any of the one-room cottages that entire families used to share, but it was tiny for modern standards. Okay to be frank it was a back room. Not technically even an actual apartment. But it was his home. And now it was your home too.
Okay, so Hisirdoux lived in his bookstore. What was probably supposed to be a break room was his entire living space. It was… cozy. You set the backpack that carried everything you owned down on the floor and headed for the lumpy plaid sofa. It was nice and old, like a sofa should be. The plaid pattern covered any stains that might have been there. Hisirdoux sat down next to you, starting to fiddle with his hands. You looked around, took it all in. The was a kitchenette off to one side, a bed to the other side. The sofa was in the sort of middle ground. Notably, there was no table, barely any counter space, and various teacups on the coffee table, so it was a safe bet that he just ordered take out every night and ate it on the sofa. The twin bed was on the ground, and the quilts that covered it had visible holes. It struck you that this bed was the only one in the room. The one room.
“So I’ll take the sofa, until we get you a bed. I���ll, uh, figure something out with the space. We can put up curtains or something.” It was if he had read your mind.
You nodded, unsure of anything to add. This was,,,, going to be fun. A challenge. A test to see how long you can act normal while living in extremely close quarters with a funny medieval supermodel. Merlin help you. Something moved in the corner of your eye. You gasped.
“Kitty!”
“Oh, that’s Archie.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Talking kitty. How bout that.
#douxie x reader#hisirdoux casperan x reader#douxie x y/n#douxie imagine#hisirdoux casperan imagine#Douxie Casperan x reader#douxie casperan imagine#tales of arcadia x reader#tales of arcadia imagine#hisirdoux casperan#douxie#my writing#watsp
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Shantae Headcanons - The Seven Sirens
So! I've been in a creative mood - time for some more headcanons. While I've talked a bit about my headcanons for the Sirens as a species before (primarily here; I recommend you look at their section in it since I'm going to be referring back to it), this will be about the titular Sirens we were introduced to in the latest Shantae game, with more emphasis on the five that didn't really get a chance to shine.
As is to be expected, this will be a long post, so I'll put it under a read more
The Seven Sirens as a Group
Before they were trapped underground, the Sirens were part of a royal court, with each having a specific role: Empress Siren was, obviously, the ruler, Water Lily Siren was initially there as a representative for another colony of Sirens that ended up getting wiped out while she was negotiating, Coral Siren was the Royal Technician, Tubeworm Siren was the general of the Siren's armies, Anglerfish Siren was the Royal Magician, Octo Siren was Empress Siren's personal assistant, and Lobster Siren...well, that'll be explained a bit later.
When the airship crashed, with no signs of the Sirens themselves during the following week of the Half-Genie Festival, they were presumed dead - much to the relief of the half-genies themselves, but to the slight sorrow of Lobster Siren, who didn't wish to be the last of her kind - and, besides that, she did somewhat enjoy their company.
However, a month after Shantae and some other half-genies left, and the native half-genies - Zapple and Vera - as well as Lobster Siren were in the middle of an effort to fix the damage the rising airship had caused to the island, this presumption was proven wrong when Water Lily, Coral, Tubeworm, Angler, and Octo Siren pulled up on shore, looking rather peeved.
As it turns out, they did survive the airship crashing! It just so happened that, between Shantae's own beating and the ship, you know, exploding, they had to take a while to lick their wounds and recover. But when they regrouped, the Empress wasn't among them. A bit of covert spying from Angler led to them learning exactly what happened between Empress Siren and Shantae, and, seeing as she wasn't with them...they could only assume she'd been slain in battle. Enraged, Tubeworm Siren had rallied up the Sirens and led them to the surface to get vengeance for their fallen queen.
However, before there could be any fighting, Lobster Siren stepped in and desperately pleaded for the others to change their ways - though it was a bit hard to tell for Zapple and Vera, since their various brands of half-genie magic didn't lend itself that well to understanding Siren. And to Lobster Siren's credit, it did work...for Water Lily. The rest had to take some more convincing, with there being several battles between the local half-genies and the remaining Sirens. But, in the end, they did all end up getting redeemed...which lead to a new problem.
What about their names? Lobster Siren already had a more proper nickname than "lobster girl" (more on that later), but the rest were...a bit more lacking, and weren't really forthcoming on what their actual names were. So, for lack of better options, they called in Shantae with some teleportation magic to help translate Lobster Siren so she could explain, and she proceeded to inform them that...their names were effectively the name of the species they were crossed with. Just with fancy intonations that didn't really carry over to English. And so, more nicknames had to be given. The exact nicknames will be explained in each Siren's appropriate section.
Lobster Siren
Ever wonder why Lobster Siren and Empress Siren have such incredibly similar animal halves? The answer is simple: Lobster Siren and Empress Siren are related. To be more specific, Lobster Siren is Empress Siren's niece, who she took in after her mother died in battle.
...but that was less out of genuine kindness and moreso to look good in front of her subjects. In reality, Empress Siren couldn't really care less about Lobster Siren, usually giving her about as much thought she would to a random soldier or servant. Needless to say, Lobster Siren developed better relationships with the other Sirens than she did the Empress.
Around two weeks into the effort to fix up Siren Island, Zapple suddenly declared that Lobster Siren needed a name, as calling her "lobster girl" all the time was driving her crazy. She ended up settling on Tacea - as in, crus-tacea-n. Vera argued that that was a terrible pun, and so did everyone Zapple brought in for a "second opinion," but Lobster Siren liked it, so Tacea stuck.
Her teleportation magic is rather useful for facilitating visits to and from Siren Island, whether that be for Shantae, the other half-genies, or herself. It's a useful way to keep in touch...even if teleporting from that long of a distance typically means a few hours crashing on a nearby couch.
Empress Siren
Contrary to what was initially believed by the other sirens, the Empress survived the battle with Shantae and the airship crashing. In fact, thanks to some lingering power from her battle, she actually recovered faster than the other Sirens did. She simply didn't bother to check if the others were alive. No, no...her priority was getting revenge on that accursed half-genie and the double-crossing pirate!
A week before the other sirens made themselves known, the Empress burst out of the water near Scuttle Town, interrupting a battle between Shantae and Risky Boots that was going down at the time, and wasted no time sending bolts of electricity, raging waters, and an army of sea creatures their way. Although briefly caught off-guard, the half-genie hero and pirate agreed to call a truce to drive off the mad Siren, and successfully beat her once again.
Since then, Empress Siren has added herself to Shantae's rogue's gallery alongside the Barons and Risky Boots, although she does terrorize the latter as well...sort of. Recently, it would seem her anger toward Risky has cooled down and started to become a begrudging respect for managing to pull one over her. Her anger towards Shantae doesn't seem to be cooling down anytime soon, though.
Still goes by Empress Siren, and refuses to be called anything else.
That being said, her "Empress" title was never actually official - the Sirens don't have a combined leadership. The official title for the ruler of a colony is Queen. On paper, the title was just a sign of arrogance and ego. In practice...she had one of the largest colonies of Sirens under her command, coupled with more firepower than the combined efforts of three colonies. It was very easy for her to bully and push the other colonies around, and that "Empress" title suddenly didn't seem that farfetched.
Water Lily Siren
When one looks at Water Lily Siren, their initial assumption might be "lazy." And it is true that she likes to relax and sunbathe quite a bit - beyond just liking it as a Siren who's partially plant-based, she works hard and enjoys any time she gets to lay back and soak in the sun - this is downplaying her surprisingly gentle and kind personality. There's a reason she was chosen as a diplomat.
Speaking of! Water Lily Siren was an ambassador for a colony of plant-based Sirens to try and negotiate with the Empress. As said before, Empress Siren may not have been an actual empress, but she had a lot of resources. At the time Water Lily was sent, the Empress was blocking off supplies out of a perceived slight from their Queen, so she was sent to reason with her.
Unfortunately, as that was happening, some humans happened across the Siren colony that Water Lily came from...and the forces that Empress had sent to block off supplies. Panicking upon recognizing the latter from the Empress' attacks on passing ships, the humans assumed the colony was working with the tyrannical Siren, and promptly used their resources to blow the place to kingdom come.
Water Lily was distraught when the news came, locking herself in the room Empress Siren had provided her and proving completely inconsolable for several months...and then, when she finally started letting herself see visitors and try to move on from the loss, Empress Siren casually pulled her aside and told her that the official story she'd be telling anyone who asked is that she joined the Empress' court willingly due to seeing how superior she was to her own Queen, that she was glad her colony was all dead, and if she ever even hinted that her colony was destroyed due to Empress' proximity, she'd have to try her luck in the abyss. Fearing for her life, Water Lily Siren agreed, and was accepted into Empress Siren's court.
Despite her position, Water Lily never did much in terms of bureaucracy, so she did her best to try and fill that gap with some other things. Sunbathing, growing some plants...and caring for Lobster Siren. Yeah - for a lack of a proper mother figure, with her own missing and Empress Siren's cruelty, and for a lack of anyone to call her own, Lobster Siren and Water Lily Siren ended up growing a mother-daughter relationship, ending up incredibly close.
Ironically, this relationship with Lobster Siren is the main reason Water Lily never broke rank before or during Seven Sirens - before, it was just a worry of what might happen to Lobster Siren if she were to disappear, and during the plan set up by Empress Siren and Risky Boots, she was afraid that if she didn't do her part, Lobster Siren might have to step in, and, well...she already knew what humans could do to Sirens. She already knew what genies could do to Sirens. She wasn't going to take her chances with a half-genie.
Thankfully, with the threat of Empress Siren gone and Lobster Siren having broken rank herself, she took very little convincing to join up with the good guys. Although she didn't wish to fight the other sirens, having no quarrel with them, she did take a part in the following battles - her control over plantlife combined with Vera's refresh magic proved very effective.
Ended up settling on Lily when the surface-dwellers decided they wanted to go a bit further than "plant girl." It was a nickname she already had with the other Sirens, and it sounded like a surface name, so it was a fairly easy transition.
Does have a bit of a mischievous side to her, mostly brought out by Lobster Siren but can be brought out by others as well. The native half-genies to Siren Island have gotten especially good at it.
Coral Siren
The Royal Technician, Coral Siren was primarily responsible for the airship the Empress used to spread her reign across the sea, and all kinds of firepower and weaponry for the Sirens as well.
Her personality, in a single word, is gremlin. She likes shiny things, she likes tech she hasn't seen before, and if it's some combination of both she is instantly going to see what it is without regard for whatever she was doing before. Combine that with a seemingly limitless energy, and she's a terror in any lab that isn't her own. Key words being "isn't her own," because ironically enough, her lab is perfectly pristine.
The sea slug that serves as her cycloptic helmet is her pet, which she's affectionately dubbed "Spiny," and she loves it as much as she loves her own inventions, which is really saying something. Like many of the sea creatures native to Siren Island, it has unique biological properties thanks to the ambient magic in the area, with Spiny's being the cycloptic "eye" visor that other creatures can see through. When they look through the "eye," they can see beyond their normal sight, similar to Plink's own Seer Magic. This is especially useful for Coral Siren, as Spiny's magic readings can often be more effective and useful than her own equipment.
Lobster Siren was most often the one who helped her out whenever Spiny got lost or was missing, so they ended up forming a nice little friendship. They weren't that close, but it was nice for Coral to have a listening ear once in a while, and if Empress happened to come around looking for Lobster, well...what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her.
The third of the Sirens to break rank when they made their return. The reason? Well...she ended up spotting a hot air balloon during a battle in Armor Town and immediately dropped everything to try and see how it worked. Tubeworm Siren barked orders at her, trying to get her back on track, and Zapple...simply offered to let her look at all the tech she wanted if she came over to their side. She agreed in a heartbeat. And then had to be pulled out of the way of Tubeworm Siren's wrath. From there, she pulled from her own technical expertise to give the growing resistance tools to counter the remaining two sirens.
When she learned that she'd been dubbed "Coral Siren" as a result of no one really seeing her lower half, she first angrily corrected them, offended that she wasn't referred to by her proper title of Seahorse Siren...and then took on "Coral" as a nickname, because it sounded nice even if it wasn't the correct terminology for what she was, and it did sound like a surface name.
Tubeworm Siren
High and mighty, Tubeworm Siren was the latest in a long line of generals serving her colony's crown, and by god was she smug about it. Her legacy was one of the most important things to her, and she often boasted about the deeds the past generals did and her own strength that followed. In present day, her legacy is still important to her, and she does still hold pride in her combat prowess...but she no longer holds it over everyone else's heads since she's no longer loyal to the Empress. More on that later.
As one would expect of a general, she was fanatically loyal to her Empress, rarely questioning her decisions and simply following orders. Her loyalty was valued very much by the Empress, and she did her best to ensure its cultivation, making sure that Tubeworm Siren was completely and utterly obedient to her...
One of the few things Tubeworm Siren ever did question about her Empress was her treatment towards Lobster Siren. She never brought it up to Empress' face, but it always rubbed her the wrong way how easily she was dismissed and ignored. So, Tubeworm Siren decided that she wanted to help...which, unfortunately, translated to "make Lobster Siren stronger." After all, she was strong, and she was well-respected! Surely, a little training was all the little lobster needed! But her idea of "training" involved...a lot of things. Like lasers. Lots and lots of lasers. And needless to say, Lobster Siren didn't like any of it. Although she understood that Tubeworm Siren meant well, she tried to avoid her if she could help it.
The last of the Sirens to break rank from the Empress - she stayed loyal even as Sirens left one after the other, calling them cowards and traitors to the crown. In the end, she refused to listen to reason, so there had to be a joint effort to restrain her and then imprison her. Lobster Siren often visited to try and get her to join them and be free, but no luck. Her turning point only came when Shantae came around to visit Siren Island, and she just so happened to overhear a conversation about the Empress' latest exploits as Shantae and Zapple passed by her prison. Upon hearing that Empress Siren was alive, and that she'd been attacking some random half-genie rather than helping her people...Tubeworm Siren connected the dots of why she didn't show up. She didn't take it very well.
Which is to say, she promptly broke out of her prison and started going on a rampage to take out her rage and sorrow. The other Sirens and the half-genies teamed up to stop her once again, but this time they were barely able to slow her down, even with Shantae's help. But just when it seemed like they would have to take drastic measures...Tubeworm Siren just. Broke down. It was quite the unexpected sight for all involved. Eventually, Tubeworm Siren ordered that the others go away - save for the half-genies and Lobster Siren. Once they were alone, she quietly explained her own conclusions about the Empress' actions, and then pledged her loyalty to their side - it was clear to her now that her Empress...no, the Queen, did not deserve her loyalty, and perhaps never did.
At first, she just patrolled the shore, constantly on the lookout for that traitorous Queen should she ever come back, but with a bit of coaxing from Lobster Siren and some sporting brawls offered by the half-genies, eventually she was helping out with the rebuilding effort and being social once more, finally back to her normal self after weeks of misery.
Tubeworm Siren took on the name Scylla after a monstrous beast in Siren Island's folklore - the tales of which she properly identified as the exploits of her great grandmother, the first of the colony's generals.
Anglerfish Siren
The Royal Magician, Angler served as the eyes for Empress Siren, using her magic eye constructs to spy on the surface and either take notes on ships with good loot...or to take notes on other siren colonies and any slights they might have committed against the Empress. She didn't like the latter part too much, but, eh, orders are orders, right?
Saw potential in Lobster Siren's teleportation magic, and privately taught her how to hone it and use it to its fullest. Angler couldn't help as much as she would've liked, due to her own magic differing a good deal from Lobster Siren's own (even if it was supposedly in the same category), but the progress she and Lobster Siren did make her pleased her significantly...one of the few times she smiled was when Lobster Siren managed her first long-ranged teleport.
Empress Siren ended up putting a stop to it as soon as she found out, much to Angler's displeasure and Lobster's protests. But Angler knew how powerful the Empress was. She was in no position to fight back, even with her impressive magical power. And so she accepted it, though not without giving Empress Siren the stink eye every time they passed in the halls of the airship.
This apprenticeship with Lobster Siren was why she was the second to break rank. Because, as she was spying on the surface to learn what had happened to their Empress...she saw how Lobster Siren was genuinely happy. How much fun she was having with her friends on the surface, how much she smiled...and how much that contrasted with her fearful behavior when she was under the Empress' command. She tried to hold onto her loyalty to Empress Siren, but in the end, she couldn't fight against her own apprentice. Not when she was so happy up here. After the first fight, she left in the shadows and arrived at the alliance's temporary base in the dead of night. Needless to say, she gave them quite a scare.
That being said, "willing to help" did not equal "friendly." For Lobster Siren, sure, and Water Lily she could treat as a passing acquaintance, but for the half-genies she was anti-social and rather moody. She stayed that way even as more of her Siren brethren joined with them. However, an unexpected visit from Rottytops led to the zombie discovering and ultimately befriending the Siren, thanks to her own experience with magic and the occult...maybe a bit too well, if the ensuing prank spree is anything to go by. It did get Angler out of her shell, though. Still moody, but she's willing to talk with people outside the Sirens.
Ended up going with "Lure," by Rottytops' suggestion. Besides just being appropriate for someone who's part anglerfish, it also happens to be wordplay - "Think about it. Ang-LURE. Eh? Eh?" To Rottytops' credit, Zapple laughed.
Octo Siren
Octo Siren had a similar issue to Tubeworm Siren's problem, but in a very different direction. Whereas Tubeworm Siren boasted about her legacy and her physical prowess, what Octo Siren had was a personal line to the Empress, as the one who helped her with matters like paperwork and court. As a result, Octo Siren grew haughty and saw her assistance to the queen as the only thing that mattered, leaving more trivial matters to the octopi she could command with her magic.
She did have a surprising amount of respect for Lobster Siren though, thanks to her connection to Empress Siren - moreso than Empress Siren herself, ironically enough. As long as it didn't interfere with Empress Siren's own desires, Octo Siren was more than willing to lend her some octopi for some minor things...key words being "Empress Siren's own desires." In the end, Octo Siren always defaulted to Empress Siren above all else, so she and Lobster weren't very close.
The fourth to break rank. At first, she stayed by Tubeworm Siren's side, because in spite of her past respect of Lobster Siren, well...it was as Tubeworm Siren said, she betrayed the crown. Any respect she had for her was now gone. And with Tubeworm Siren being the next best thing, she stuck to her. Then she started to get worried as they lost more and more of the more combat-ready Sirens. She actually quite likes her little octopi servants, and as the others left, she was forced to draw upon more and more to make up for the deficit. And the problem is, to put it simply, her servants aren't that capable of combat, especially compared to the sheer monstrous might of Tubeworm Siren. Octo Siren really, really didn't want to keep throwing octopi at the problem and losing them, so in private, she discussed the idea of a truce. Even Empress Siren knew when to back down, right...? Although she couldn't remember even one time.
The answer she got was, unsurprisingly, a resounding no, and that was enough for Octo Siren to push away from Tubeworm Siren and join up with the rest. She never helped that much in combat, to no one's shock - being a secretary doesn't prepare you for combat and all - but her servants are very handy for reconstruction, and she is very good at paperwork and legal terms. So, the half-genies and other sirens are willing to put up with the occasional haughtiness as long as she gets things done.
Octo Siren was the last to choose a surface name, though not for lack of trying. She just couldn't find one she liked, and no matter what that electric half-genie or zombie would suggest, she was not going with a stupid pun. However, after thinking it over, she settled on...Molly. You could really hear the crickets when she announced that one.
"...what? Did you just assume that because you all chose aquatic names or those horrid puns that I'd pick one too? Please, I'm hardly that cliché. Au contraire, I am a trendsetter, and I happen to think my surface name is quite fetching, wouldn't you agree?"
"I still think you should've gone with Ceph."
"You shut your mouth!"
#shantae#not a quote#headcanons#lobster siren#empress siren#water lily siren#coral siren#tubeworm siren#anglerfish siren#octo siren
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BACK TO YOU ↠ 「 JJ Maybank 」
PAIRINGS: JJ Maybank (eventual love interest, enemies to lovers), Rafe Cameron (unrequited love, platonic), Topper Thornton (platonic)
WORDS: 1,476.
NOTES: I hope you enjoy reading this story! I also had created playlists for my characters like River and her relationship with JJ which are linked and can be found in my masterlist, they are continually being updated with more songs. Unfortunately, I had just started both so neither have many songs yet but as mentioned, I will continue to add more as the story continues. Once again, please enjoy! Also, turned their relationship into an enemies to lovers trope.
SUMMARY: Eden Thornton is someone who was always looking for a good time, she was known for being a party girl and one who like her best friend, Kiara had hated the Kook lifestyle despite being forced to grow up in it and had taken comfort in another group, the pogues who she’d find great times with and deemed as cool guys. Her Kook friends and brother were quite discouraged by this and found them to be the cause of her rebellion. As a way to rid her of so called childish behaviour that was the rebellion, her mother would consistently force her to attend these events or to set her up on dates with the stuck up Kook that was of Rafe Cameron. However, Eden would never withhold any romantic feelings like she secretly had with the infamous JJ Maybank. The two wanted to believe that they didn’t see each other in that way but to everyone, they had already established feelings for one another with the decision of denying them in fear of tearing the group apart of something going astray or even the pogue rule. But maybe with the group investigating the mysterious case of their dear friend, John B’s father and his disappearance, that may help the two change their mind but only time can truly tell.
EDEN THORNTON, was quite different from what people had commonly perceived of her, in fact she was quite the opposite from her peers among the locals that lived on the island of Figure Eight. Eden was quite the rebellious Kook, someone who was very different from her elder brother, Topper. A girl who loves to dabble into the world of partying, weed, alcohol and her personal favourite hard drugs but unlike her peers, she wasn’t the type to get easily addicted.
Like one of her childhood best friends, Kiara, she was known for her rebellious hippie type soul and personality as Eden would use her spoiled rich girl with a taste for vengeance act as purely a facade, knowing that her mother would never accept that her daughter would act the way she had as Eden was known for taking stance against global issues and the protests that came with it.
Alongside Kiara, she had decided to hangout with the pogues, whom were considered the “lowlifes of Outer Banks,” but like her friend, she never saw the bad within the group and saw them as non judgmental fun guys. She was quite close to all of the three guys and despite denial, especially the infamous JJ Maybank, whom she was known to have a very clear annoyance of but was believed to be flirtatious and clearly ambiguous relationship with despite them wanting to be perceived as simply “enemies,” since the low key flirting and teasing of each other refused to fool anyone. Eden had deemed them to have no chance of happening since the two’s relationship was filled with consistent taunting and oftentimes, disagreements which could definitely be seen as a frenemy type relationship.
Something that had always convinced their friends to have a definite possibility considering Eden was someone to get upset when hearing of the situation between JJ and his shitty ass father. Deep down, they knew that the two definitely cared deeply for one another since at times, they were there for each other whenever in need particularly, despite not wanting to admit it, Eden who would at times comfort JJ after a fight with his father and the abuse that followed it as she would feel such sympathy for him.
Not only a somewhat okay friendship with JJ but a definite close one with Pope, she had quite a closer friendship with John B whom Eden was believed to be somewhat romantic with, a fact shared within the three friends especially between a surprisingly JJ and Kiara who had began to grow secretly jealous of this close friendship which unknowingly to them was a purely platonic one. The possibility of a romance between Eden and John B occurred had deeply affected JJ who like Eden wanted to deny the fact that there were romantic feelings between the two for one another.
The two had simply nothing to worry about since John B and Eden’s friendship was just that, a friendship and a sibling like relationship but JJ never really bought it nor quite saw it that way either. He secretly saw Eden as “his,” even instances of him jealously confronting both men and women that she would flirt and hook up with. John B possibly having feelings for Eden had JJ feeling completely betrayed by this. But the proud feminist disagreed strongly with any of this mess and jealousy, as the girl never believed she was anyone’s property, she was her own woman after all.
Despite their shared flirtatious behaviour and teasing banter towards one another like they wanted to be believed, Eden had felt that their relationship was purely platonic considering their intense dislike for each other but unbeknownst to her, JJ had somewhat thought otherwise as he believed their relationship could go further and that his unreciprocated crush could finally be reciprocated, considering the fact that once, JJ had met the rebellious Kook and had seen the true her; he had gradually fell in love with Eden, an act he never expected of himself.
Thinking of the heartbreak that is of Eden refusing to believe she has reciprocated feelings for him, JJ refused to put any further action towards this and had simply decided to swallow his feelings down, ignoring his feelings with the act of drowning himself into sleeping with random girls.
One thing that was true for the girls that JJ would hook up with was that, he could never love them the way that he had loved Eden. For Eden however, despite what she’d convince herself to believe, she did have romantic feelings for him that she felt had she acknowledged; her mother would notice and she’d get her heartbroken by forcing her to end whatever romantic connection they shared also with fear of the somewhat, daddy issues she had developed since having an absent father.
Her close bond within her friendship with the pogues had earned her the title of being “the fearless adventurer,” of their gang as John B had mentioned considering she was the type to always be up for a party and to entertain in having fun regardless of who it was with. Because of her friendship with the pogues, it often caused conflict with her once close knit older brother, Topper whom he felt of her connection with the pogues was the cause of her self destructive behaviour and caused her to change to the worst.
Despite what her family and the status of her being apart of the privileged side of her island in her town were, the girl was far from being a stuck up prissy prude, in fact that whole act was purely a facade to hide her troubled self.
In fact, dear Eden was someone who never believed in engaging in a committed relationship, frankly she’d rather just hook up with the guys and girls she was interested in. Because of her flirtatious and in denial romantic relationship with JJ despite the obvious sexual tension, the two would consistently take matters into their own hands with playing mind games and frequently making one another jealous, something that would typically annoy their friends considering it was very clear of their feelings for each other.
Their friends were consistently aware of their feelings for one another, considering that throughout all the random hookups with girls, Eden was the only one that JJ secretly had serious feelings for. It was clear that his feelings for her, were more significant than any relationship he had ever have, the boy was in love with her and had been since the time they had been introduced to each other.
The one thing besides the obvious answer of fearing commitment was Eden’s fear of judgement regarding her relationship with JJ. A fear so enlarged that would refuse to let their unofficial love affair become official. Another thing that had refused to make their relationship official was both her mother and Rafe Cameron, both who believed Eden could do better than some “washed up pogue” and both believed that she was better suited for Rafe.
She always thought that Rafe never truly liked her but had only liked her for her image, the person he believed was her but never really was. She had felt that way about all the Cameron’s and the rest of the Kooks. Regardless of her close friendship with Rafe, his little sister and their parents, she was no longer close to her once best friend, Sarah. Their friendship had became strained from two separate cases, Sarah felt betrayed that she had taken Kiara’s side after the falling out considering she had known Sarah a bit longer and the two were always up for the title of “Kook Princess,” as the title had been forced to be some competition between the two.
However, despite both Rafe’s clear feelings and somewhat obsession with Eden, it was always obvious that the rebellious Kook would never feel anything romantic for him the way that he had hoped; the way that she had felt for JJ. Because of her mother believing Rafe is “the one” for her, and believing that her being with a pogue would give her daughter no future whatsoever or at least not the future she hoped her daughter would receive. Sadly for Rafe though, Eden didn’t quite see it that way, she deemed him as someone who never properly understood her in a way that her friends had, in a way that JJ always had at least.
The girl with a knack for trouble had decided to play mind games with Rafe, he did mess with her friends so it was only fair right? With the consistent pressuring to date Rafe, she would be set on numerous dates with the boy despite all her protests and would often toy with his feelings seeing it as fun for herself especially considering all the horrible things her brother and himself had done to her friends as the girl was surely a vengeful one or what was presumed of her at least.
The toying of his feelings had deeply hurt Rafe, he never understood nor could accept the fact that Eden didn’t see him in the same way that he saw her and that angered him quite a lot and was one of the many reasons of his intense hatred for JJ.
Despite what people hoped of her, Eden felt happy with JJ, he accepted her for who she was and never judged her for it. Eden felt the same way for him, she never judged him for his background and felt quite upset about his abuse, she felt complete angry with knowing of this, all the times that he would sneak into her bedroom late at night after fights with his father looking to Eden for comfort. Like their friends believed, she was his refuge and did almost anything that would give him any type of support.
Throughout all the trouble that her and her friends had gone through in discovering the truth about dear friend, John B’s father and his disappearance, she did learn quite more about herself that she had originally thought she had already known. Things that she felt had given her a new perspective, a better perspective on her life.
Regardless of what her mother and brother believed, she never did care for what they thought nor did she about the other Kooks. Deep down, River did perhaps see a future with JJ despite being disgusted as her friends felt she was as in love with him as he was secret with her. She definitely did want to be with him too. After all the events that happened regarding the disappearance of their dear friend, John B’s father, her clear and undeniable feelings for him had caused her to realise that she did in fact want to be with him and would be too regardless of whether she had her family and Kook friends’s approval or not.
BREC BASSINGER as EDEN THORNTON.
OUTER BANKS CAST as THEIR CHARACTERS.
#outer banks#outer banks fanfic#outer banks fanfiction#jj maybank x kook!reader#jj maybank x kook!oc#jj maybank fanfiction#jj maybank x oc!#outer banks x oc!#jj imagine#jj maybank imagine#jj maybank fanfic#jj maybank#brec bassinger#eden thornton#back to you#my writing
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Okay so I have this idea of the boys in the modern world! Like what kind of profession/ college course would Azul, Malleus, Leona, Lilia, and Idia would take? Some modern au headcanons with them please!
Curiouser and Curiouser...
Idia Shroud...
...would be an e-girl Twitch streamer that sells his bath water a famous video game let’s player or streamer, maybe even a professional gamer.
But the type that doesn’t show his face, or uses some kind of prop to censor his face whenever he happens to be on camera.
His online personality and his real life personality are so different...! Idia turns down invitations to conventions and fan meets because he worries about how his followers and fellow content creators. will perceive those very different sides to him.
He still makes bank off of his merch though.
I can see him taking college courses for tech-related things so he always has an excuse to hole up in his room and avoid normies. Computer science, video game design, etc.
He does well in school, but if he ever needs to give a speech/presentation or do a group assignment, well...Idia’s gonna bomb it. Thanks a lot, crippling social anxiety.
Disturbs his room mates and his neighbors constantly because of his video game raging late into the night.
The type to show up to lectures in his pajamas if he shows up at all.
Looks like he has gotten zero sleep all the time even if he slept for a full day and then some.
Wears headphones everywhere in public and blasts music at maximum volume so everyone around him can hear it and knows that he doesn’t want to be disturbed.
Llilia Vanrouge...
...is a child daycare worker or a teacher. On weekends, he moonlights as the lead guitarist and vocalist for a death metal band (though he never brings this up in parent-teacher conferences)
He studied history in college, but he discovered his love for childcare when he was tutoring high school students in history as part of a volunteering program...so Lilia changed career paths!
Don’t get him wrong, he still loves history and he’ll tell the little tots under his care all about the most interesting tidbits of it.
But everyone loves him, from his coworkers to the parents to the children under his care. Lilia is just loads of fun--but he knows when he needs to dial back and be serious, too.
Back in school, he was always getting into trouble for small pranks. Spooking the other students, drawing on school property with chalk, etc.--nothing that would get him expelled.
Kind of an easy-going student. If he did well, that’s great. If he did’t do well, that’s also fine! He goes with the flow and doesn’t sweat the details.
Lilia worked really hard for his degree though, especially since he changed it abruptly into something so different.
He volunteered a lot during his studies, wishing to give back to the community and to be with the children even before he had his degree.
Leona Kingscholar...
...is an unemployed rich kid living off of daddy’s money. He’s the second son to some big business or even actual real life royalty.
Have you see how lazy this man is? Of course he doesn’t have a job.
Leona only attends college because his parents threatened to completely cut him off if he didn’t. (”Your older brother Farena went to college, found himself a nice girl, and got himself a stable job that pays well; why don’t you too?”)
Probably got in on an athletic scholarship. What a chad.
He studies liberal arts, English literature, or women’s studies (because he thinks those subjects are easiest to pass with minimum effort and because he respects women).
Very sleepy boi. Falls asleep during the first few seconds of every single lecture (if he’s even there on time), and it is impossible to wake him up.
Shows up late to class. Like...five minutes before the end of class late.
He falls asleep in the most random public places all over campus.
The master at pulling all-nighters.
Most likely sleeps around (both literally and metaphorically).
Popular with the ladies, even if he doesn’t go out of his way to pursue many. Leona won’t force himself onto them, but he won’t say no if they proposition him and he’s feeling bored enough. Might as well have some fun while he’s forced to be here, right?
Has zero idea where he is going in life. Don’t we all?
Malleus Draconia...
...studies architecture, or art history.
He’s so fascinated by the design of buildings and how styles have changed so much over time.
Tends to daydream. This, paired with his resting bitch face and inimidating aura, makes everyone fear him.
Malleus likes to walk around town and the college campus just to enjoy the buildings. Because of this, his peers think of him as “the local scary-looking weirdo”.
Comments like that hurt him, but Malleus tends to bottle up his emotions and be sad about it in the comfort of his personal quarters.
Malleus tries showing up to publicized college events and every club meeting he can think of, but people tend to keep their distance from him.
Probably phones up his family every other night just to check on them and hear their voices. He’s very lonely...
Has a hard time finding a job because many people are intimidated by how he looks. Ends up overwhelming many interviewers.
Probably works part-time at a discreet WcDonald’s location. Nothing glamorous or high-paying, but Malleus doesn’t expect anything like that while he’s still a student. Plus, he is still thankful for the job experience.
Lands a job at a big building firm after college; quickly rises through the ranks and becomes the CEO. All of his haters must be jealous now, huh?
Still, Malleus feels no ill will towards them. He hopes he can be friends with them at the college reunions.
Azul Ashengrotto...
...works as a drug dealer barista and manager of a coffee shop or cafe. If you want to get darker, he runs a casino (where everything is rigged in his favor) and/or is a mafia lord (just look at Octavinelle’s aesthetic) by night.
He dual-majors in business and law because his brain is just that large.
Straight A student, in the honors program, and a teacher’s pet. Most likely a full ride scholarship as well.
Also the president of student government or the head of a club--Azul has stacked his resume with achievements and titles. Employers will be tripping over themselves to hire him.
Azul applies what he’s studying in college into his business (albeit in less-than-savory ways) to maximize his profits and to scare of unruly customers.
He has a lot of friends in college, but he’s not particularly close to any of them.
Binge eats when he’s stressed.
Do not bring up school prior to college life to him; Azul will get war flashbacks to the time when he was bullied. He refuses to talk about his past, and if you keep persisting, he will get back at you.
Despises group projects; he ends up doing all of the hard work. He’s super passive aggressive about it.
Snitches on anyone that crosses him, even slightly. Azul is very petty. Oh, you forgot to return that pencil that he so generously lent you for the exam? Well, prepare to have your embarrassing photos from that one crazy party leaked to the college newspaper.
#twst#disney twisted wonderland#twisted wonderland#Azul Ashengrotto#Leona Kingscholar#Idia Shroud#Malleus Draconia#Lilia Vanrouge#twisted wonderland headcanons#twisted wonderland imagines#twisted wonderland requests#twisted wonderland scenarios#curiouser and curiouser
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Plane Shift: The Boiling Isles, Brief Character Portfolio
Hello all, today I am going to go into some measure of detail for the characters in this crossover between the Owl House and Dungeons and Dragons 5e. Everybody clap your hands!!
Now, to give a little heads up, the way this portfolio is set up is based on the following Format:
Character Name
Defining Quote/Motto
Alignment Inclinations
Favored Classes/Known Classes
Brief Profile
Okay, now that the format is listed, time to get into the nitty gritty!
Luz Noceda
“Limits? What are those!”
Chaotic Good/Neutral Good
Primary Class: Wizard, Subclass: Order of Scribes. Secondary Class: Artificer, Subclass: Battle Smith. Tertiary Classes: Paladin, Rogue, and Bard.
The young daughter of the famed Plane Warden and Cleric, Camila Noceda, Luz has always had her head in the clouds, longing for adventure and friendship. Upon entering the Adventurer’s Academy, she proceeded to rock the very foundation of Plana and adventuring by choosing not one, not two, but FIVE classes to train in! She would’ve tried them all, but was talked out of it when they professors made it clear it would be physically impossible for her to take them all, and that the number she had selected would push her to greatest of limits. Luz lives life without limits or regret, and while her extremely impulsive nature has resulted in a rather poor social life, she is greatly beloved among the street dwellers and lower ranks of local organizations and groups of her home.
Amity Blight
“Perfection is impossible. That’s why we seek it.”
Lawful Good/Neutral Good
Primary Class: Warlock, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Artificer.
The youngest child of the affluent Blight Family, recently displaced from her home dimension, Amity holds herself to a strict standard of decorum. Her methodical nature, dedication to study, and respect for authority has made her a divisive figure within the Adventurer’s Academy, as while her new instructors find her dedication admirable, they also worry it will disallow her from living a healthy and happy life. Amity regularly runs afoul of Luz, but the human girl’s friendly nature, genuine endearment, and appreciation for magic and learning has served as a bonding bridge between the two. Hints of something deeper within her heart grow clearer all the while.
Willow Park
“Nature is a blessing to us all. We have a duty to care for it, and each other.”
Neutral Good/Chaotic Good
Primary Class: Druid, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Barbarian.
The only child of the Park family, Willow is a quiet, gentle child all around, but within her lurks a frightening power over nature itself that constantly threatens to break free if not for her ironclad self-control, and kind nature. Once friends with Amity Blight, circumstances forced a rift between them, and she holds that pain as a torch within her heart, always wary of letting it burn her down to nothing but unwilling to let go. Willow’s incredible connection with Plants has made her a rare talent among the Druid classes, and she is constantly called to demonstrate her power before her new peers, much to her delight.
Augustus “Gus” Porter
“So much to learn! So much to experience!”
Neutral Good/Chaotic Good
Primary Class: Wizard, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Bard.
A young prodigy who skipped several grades in his home dimension, Gus is still an outstanding figure when it comes to both technical skill and application of magic. Excitable, kind if somewhat insensitive on occasion, and with a fierce need to prove himself, Gus often finds himself in difficult situations, both socially and dangerously, but he never allows it to affect his optimism. He’s rapidly built a bond with Luz over their shared passion and energy, not to mention his excitement over befriending “an actual real-life human!”
Boscha Triplet
“I saved the day! Why? Because I’m a Star of Course!”
Lawful Neutral
Primary Class: Monk, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Artificer.
An athletic star with an incredible ego, Boscha is by all accounts an unpleasant individual, yet since coming to Plana, she’s gradually shown signs of a more vulnerable personality, one she vehemently denies and buries within herself, much to the chagrin of others. While she initially chose Monk as a joke, thinking it of a blow-off course or something similar, the relentless physical training, and the brutally humiliating smackdown dealt on her first day have served to motivate her to continue and succeed in the Class she chose, if only out of pure spite. The philosophical aspects of Monk training seem to go over her head, yet her friends and foes alike have noted her occasionally seem to verge on saying something mean or crude, only to stop herself and stare off in contemplation.
Skara Levine
“Just go with the rhythm. Everything will work out, right?”
Lawful Neutral
Primary Class: Bard, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Sorcerer.
A young girl who lived at the top, Skara had many halmarks of being a potential problem child, often being easily lead and influenced by those deemed her friends, Skara is typically very sweet and outgoing, but for all her social butterfly moments, they are undercut by her poor interpersonal skills, frequently stumbling onto sensitive topics without any inclination she understood why she shouldn’t bring them up. She is a paradox, being both kind and cruel, nice and mean, in equal measures, the parallel nature of her behavior often befuddles those around her. She’s recently begun stating that she hears things suddenly when no one is around.
Emira Blight
“Don’t worry, I can handle this on my own.”
Chaotic Good/Chaotic Neutral
Primary Class: Rogue, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Fighter.
The oldest daughter of the Blight family, Emira is a mischievous girl with a fondness for mayhem. Nonetheless, she cares for her family and friends, even if her methods occasionally leave much to be desired. Of the Blight Children, Emira is the most independent, often resentful of any perceived restrictions, but calm enough to find workarounds rather than lash out. She frequently professes that looks forward to the day she can live her own life, and enjoys teasing her sister along with her brother.
Edric Blight
“We got this, we just got to stick together.”
Chaotic Good/Chaotic Neutral
Primary Class: Rogue, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Bard.
The lone son of the Blight family, Edric is Emira’s twin, and is in many ways both her equal and her mirror. While sharing her sense of mischief and love of tricks, Edric is far more flighty and whimsical, often hyper-fixating on animals and whatever shiny thing catches his eye, often projecting a childish air about him. He is the most insecure of the Blight siblings, though he hides it well, and dreads the idea of being alone, particularly from his twin.
Viney Arkswood
“Animals are our friends. They have just as much capacity for good as we do.”
Chaotic Good
Primary Class: Ranger, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Druid.
One of three students sentenced to the Detention Track for their mixing of magical disciplines, Viney has a caring heart and a love of people and animals that manifested in a rather strange way, in that she attempted, and technically succeeded, in training her pet griffin to be a nursing assistant. Viney is genuinely unsure if she wishes to return, with the lone benefit in her mind being to see her parents again.
Jerbo Underslack
“I might be nervous, but that doesn’t make me incompetent.”
Chaotic Good/Chaotic Neutral
Primary Class: Cleric, Subclass: Nature Domain. Secondary Class: Druid.
One of the three Detention Track students, Jerbo’s love of plants and his fondness for the idea of loyal aides combined in his creation of plant monsters that trashed the gardens of his school. Jerbo is the most suspicious and leery of his friends, often being slow to trust and even slower to act, he nonetheless is a kind soul, and used his admittance into the Adventurer’s Academy to try and kind some new meaning in his life.
Barcus Howsberry
“Your soul glimmers with the joy of a newfound toy in the arms of a lonely child.”
Chaotic Good
Primary Class: Wizard, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Artificer.
Last and oddest of the three Detention Track students, Barcus’ unusual body and strange speech make him truly bizarre, and his cryptic demeanor doesn’t help. Barcus enjoys both the art of Potions and Prediction, and frequently seeks to join the two. Upon arrival, and confirmation that yes he is a sapient being, Barcus was checked by Camila, and was determined to have a hereditary curse bound to his being, and when offered to have it removed, his comfort with his form initially made him refuse, only to be told that the speech impediment and oddness of his form would destroy any chance of him being able to integrate into society, causing him to compromise and have the curse suppressed instead.
Camila Noceda
“To bring goodness and love in this world means I can rest easy, knowing I left it in the hands of those I love.”
Lawful Good
Primary Class: Cleric, Subclass: Life Domain. Secondary Class: None.
Mother of Luz Noceda, Camila is the current Plane Warden of Plana, being entrusted with guarding the city from extraplanar threats and to help guide and aid those lost between realms. Camila is a loving soul, but the strain of her job has worn on her over the years, with the sole reprieve being her precious daughter. Camila often adopts a motherly role for the displaced children now in her care, offering both advice when needed, and discipline as necessary. Camila also frequently aids and offers advice to the adults now sharing her living space, hoping to help them adjust to their situation.
Edalyn Clawthorne
“I’m the most powerful witch in the Isles, but it never meant a thing until I found someone to use that power for.”
Chaotic Good
Primary Class: Sorcerer, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Wizard.
Fiercest Wild Witch to grace the Boiling Isles since Belos’ ascension, Eda marches to the beat of her own drum, no exceptions, but she still holds a beautiful heart for those she cares for, and people in general, no matter how much she denies it. Eda was genuinely shocked to learn that Camila could, and did, heal her curse, effectively if not easily, and feels a deep sense of obligation towards the woman a a result, not to mention her all around soft spot for Camila’s daughter. Eda genuinely has no desire to return to the Isles at this point, beyond maybe a chance to reconcile with her mother and retrieve Hooty and all her stuff.
Lilith Clawthorne
“I am far from perfect, and have made many mistakes. This is the least I can do.”
Lawful Good/Lawful Neutral
Primary Class: Paladin, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Wizard.
Lilith Clawthorne, elder sister to Eda, means well, but is both painfully naive and far too trusting for one her age, as well as disturbingly childish and immature. For all that though, Lilith holds a good heart and thrives in a structured and ordered environment and system. When she received the knowledge that Eda’s curse had been cured, Lilith was nearly left catatonic, as the curing of Eda rendered all her efforts meaningless and her life without true purpose. When Eda bluntly stated that even with her curse cured she will NEVER join a coven, Lilith forced herself to accept it, no matter how much it hurt. Since that day, Lilith has attempted to find a new direction in life, and to help others as best she can.
Odalia Blight
“Like it or not, one’s word is their bond.”
Lawful Neutral/Lawful Evil
Primary Class: Wizard, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Bard.
Matriarch of the Blight family, and a near-Karen level individual, Odalia is both incredibly goal-oriented and driven by a desire to succeed. Domineering and controlling, Odalia exerts a highly unhealthy and toxic level of influence over her childrens’ lives, though she does truly love them. Odalia enjoys having the upper hand, and will do anything to allow her children and family to not only survive but thrive, and is very much fond of disproportionate retribution against her enemies.
Alador Blight
“This could prove interesting.”
Lawful Neutral/Lawful Evil
Primary Class: Artificer, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Rogue.
Patriarch of the Blight family, and all around bizarre individual, Alador cares for little in his life aside from his inventions, his wife, and his children, in that order. Often dazed and easily distracted, Alador is highly curious and constantly seeks new inspiration for his devices and creations, no matter how dangerous the circumstances. He cares little for his wife’s antics and schemes, but in no way does he find them unacceptable, he often acts as a stabilizing influence upon her, and is perfectly fine with calling her out on her behavior when she genuinely goes too far.
Hieronymus Bump
“Dedication and Focus are important, but true passion and joy for what you do makes all the difference.”
Neutral Good/Lawful Good
Primary Class: Wizard, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: None.
Principal to the famed, some would say infamous, Hexside School of Magic and Demonics, Principal Bump loves to teach and help others learn, and is perfectly willing to play the system to ensure he can do so. While he genuinely loves all his students and wishes them to succeed, he is willing to admit he is old-fashioned to a certain extent and can have trouble keeping his views on a topic unbiased, and can occasionally act in unethical ways if it means finding a solution to a problem, though he does not enjoy such measures. He aids Camila in searching for a way to return home for him and his fellows, and often acts as a reasonable authority figure for the students who came with them.
#the owl house#owl house au#owl house crossover#dungeons and dragons#dungeons and dragons crossover#dungeons and dragons au#luz noceda#camila noceda#amity blight#alador blight#edric blight#emira blight#odalia blight#eda clawthorne#lilith clawthorne#willow park#gus porter#boscha the owl house#skara the owl house#principal bump#viney the owl house#jerbo the owl house#barcus the owl house
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