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#this year cannot possibly get any worse
knaveofmogadore · 1 month
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Kfkdks
#messages from knave#im making breakfast and im gonna list my observations from three years of weird living situations#younger siblings of big age gaps will see most interactions as a form of soft combat until trained out of it#but when actual clmbat happens they're used to not having any sway so they don't actually know how to act in arguments#siblings with codependent relationships have their own internal langauge that they apply to others. not sure if they realize they do it#but they'll hold you to the same rules they've mentally created for each other without explaining them#siblings of ALL stripes will approach situations with a set idea of how communication works. and even if it's not a logical way to communica#they'll expect you to also communicate in that way. and if you can't or refuse they'll shut down and communication stalls completely because#they can't fathom doing it any other way except the way they and their siblings socialized each other to do it#siblings with adversarial relationships don't take outside advice and will take attempts to give advice as manipulative. not their fault#oldest siblings are the most conflict averse people on the planet. oldest sinlings say#'is anyone gonna balloon this situation out of proportion by avoiding it for as long as possible' and not wait for an answer#siblings who were regularly appointed as hall monitors will see any interaction with you as transactional#a hallmark of a dysfunctional sibljng relationship is someone who thinks telling you NO is worse than going through a situation they do not#wanna be in. and then they'll complain about it endlessly#and then they'll be like 'i don't want favours from my parents because they'll hold it over me' and never make the connection on their own#people cannot anticipate your needs with their minds. they are sometimes going to ask you to be a part of things you don't wanna#you're NEVER gonna be able to live in a world where people will stop asking you to be a part of things that's not feasible#had one say once 'people should just know not to ask me along for plans I can't get to people should know not to invite me'#and you know dude that's just now how stuff works. there's a difference between 'x cant drive so they can't help me move my dresser' and#'i know xs work schedule so i shouldnt infomr them of group plansnon the off chance they could make it so they don't feel left out'#people with hyper competitive siblings can't fathom that other people won't know how to do stuff. i don't just mean athletes but siblings#with that scarcity mindsetnin general like they can't handle people not having the same knowledge base they have. it's a survival thing#and NO having a life of suffering doesn't make you correct all the time has literally anyone else watched heathers#youngest siblings always have the most deranged dating stories and the oldest in a set of age gap siblings always has the WORST taste in men#< that's directed at my sister and no one else that's a personal diss not a real observation#only children have one thing. theyre SUPER weird about splitting the grocery bill#food is NOT communal to only children I've learned firsthand. Also they'll be perfectly fine sharing anything else BUT food usually#weed. loans. bathroom supplies. dishes. ect. but NOT food#meanwhile sibljngs are a little TOO comfortable chowing down on stuff they didn't buy. bad roommates are bad roommates
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hoshigray · 3 months
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𝐏𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐌𝐞 [𝐍𝐎𝐓]!! | a JJK series
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𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: “GO FUCK YOURSELF, SATORU GOJO!” “BETTER THAN FUCKING YOU!” It’s no secret to anyone on this Earth that you and Gojo cannot stand each other. Despite that, the world seems amused to put these two star-crossed lovers haters in the same space. Or worse, have them dwell deeper into their feelings for one another…
𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Gojo x fem/afab! reader - explicit content; minors DNI - modern + college AU - frenemies to lovers + mutual pining - fluff + angst + misunderstandings - first kiss - virginity loss - Gojo and reader are at least age 20 - secret relationships; implied friends-with-benefits - sex in shared rooms; college dorms + hotel suite - college parties - use of party games (seven minutes in heaven) - confessions - mention of drug/alcohol abuse - humor bc Gojo and college, lol - Gojo is a cocky, tactless sweetheart, nothing new - cameos of other characters + explicit content will be listed in their respective fics (within the contents).
𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞: when I say that I had this series planned out, I mean like mid-October last year planned out, lmaoo!! I'm honestly so psyched to do this series, as it's one of my favorite tropes + relatively short as I'll be busy irl, but we'll do what we can!! i was lowkey feeling this concept when i was re-watching Ranma 1/2 and figured it would work great with Gojo. So, here's to hoping i can properly execute my thoughts with this series, hehehe~
reblogs + comments are appreciated wholeheartedly ❤︎ gif header made by me + fic dividers used are provided by the wonderful @cafekitsune and @animatedglittergraphics-n-more!!
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𝑳𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝑰𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑨𝒊𝒓...
All the material below contains explicit 18+ content, so minors do not interact.
₊˚⊹♡ 𝐒𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐇𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧 (Feb 1st)
The start of the spring semester is supposed to be fresh and new, not be cramped up in a closet with your frenemy at a party! And what's worse: you actually like the feeling of his lips on yours!?
₊˚⊹♡ 𝐇𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞, 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐝 (Feb 7th)
Is it possible to wish to be in the embrace of someone who makes you want to throw them off a cliff? You seem to think so, and the same goes for Gojo. But alas, good things always come to an end, even when not meant to be...
₊˚⊹♡ 𝐒𝐮𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐥𝐲, 𝐈 𝐇𝐚𝐝 𝐚 𝐕𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞 (Feb 14th)
Going on a date with the guy who broke your heart is something you’d never thought would happen – especially on Valentine’s Day! But it’s just for him to be in your good graces again, nothing more…Yeah, go ahead and tell yourself that.
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𝑨 𝑳𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒀𝒐𝒖!
Would you like to be tagged when these pieces get released? Lmk in the replies, please, and thank you!
𝑻𝑨𝑮 𝑳𝑰𝑺𝑻 𝑪𝑳𝑶𝑺𝑬𝑫!!! Have made a list of the first 50 ppl who asked, but don't worry!! Check back for the stories when they're posted on their respective dates!!
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© 𝐇𝐨𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐲2024 ❤︎ These stories have been written by the original poster (me). Do not steal, edit, copy/plagiarize, or post any of my works on your own accounts, in or out of this app. Please and thank you.
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theoldsports · 5 months
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married.
Coriolanus Snow x reader | 5.5k words
alcohol makes consent messy, substance abuse, manipulation, arranged marriage, public humiliation, two-way abusive relationship <3
Coriolanus may well replace Lupin as my favorite guy to write for. he’s fucked up. i can’t fix him, but i could certainly make him worse.
As quietly as possible, [Y/N] closed the door to Coriolanus’s lavish new apartment behind her. She didn’t particularly want him to know that she had left the apartment in the first place. There were always too many questions.
[Y/N] had recently moved in with Coriolanus since their engagement. Her parents had arranged their marriage with his grandmother, affectionately called the Grandma’am not long before she passed. Coriolanus was about the most desirable bachelor in the Capitol. Not only was he an excessively handsome twenty-three year old, but he was also growing increasingly wealthy and had recently received his first assignment as a Gamemaker working on creating a new arena structure for the Hunger Games. Everyone who was anyone in polite society knew of Coriolanus Snow.
And [Y/N] hated him with everything she had. She had to see his defiant smirk in school every day for years since they were twelve or so. She hid from him every chance she got at home. [Y/N] slept in another room away from him. The only advantage of their marriage were the politics and name recognition for the both of them.
“I didn’t realize you were going out.” Coriolanus said flatly, snapping [Y/N] from her thoughts. She hadn’t even realized he had been in the apartment’s common area. He was sitting calmly in an putrid-looking armchair, alarmingly still.
[Y/N] gasped and clutched her chest in surprise. “Is there a problem with my leaving?” She said quickly.
“No problem.”
[Y/N] looked at him curiously. “Okay.” She said and moved passed him to her bedroom.
After a moment of pause, Coriolanus appeared in her doorway. He leaned against her doorframe with a hand in his pocket. “Where were you, by the way?” He asked plainly.
“I don’t see how that’s your business.”
“It was beginning to get late. Our engagement party’s in two hours. I cannot very well attend an engagement event without my fiancée. So. Where were you?”
“Dry cleaner’s.”
Coriolanus let out a scoff. [Y/N] could see him get hot under the collar. “You expect me to believe you were—Where’s the laundry?” Coriolanus questioned.
[Y/N] reached into her coat pocket for the stub of her laundry receipt. “Dropping off, not picking up. You’re on Lucky Flickerman’s next week. Dropping off my dress ahead of time. Anything left you would like to accuse me of?” [Y/N] sighed, leaned against her desk chair.
“Do not speak to me like that,” Coriolanus begun, sighing. It was obvious that he felt undue humiliation from her response. “It’s childish and unbecoming.”
“So is your being a hypocrite.” [Y/N] snapped back instantly.
The pair fought daily. Never had Snow laid a hand on her, but it wouldn’t be surprising if he did one day. [Y/N] didn’t recall any particular fights he had been involved in at the Academy, but it doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.
“Stop acting like a child!” Coriolanus repeated. “Are we not allowed one remotely pleasant moment together? You know I don’t want this just as much as you, but here we are. Can’t we be civil?”
“I am capable of civility, yes. You, on the other hand…”
“You’re disgusting. You don’t know how to listen. It blows me away. I asked you a simple question that a married couple should ask the other when one is gone. Now you’re screaming at me like a little girl. Grow up.”
“Grow up? You wanna talk about childish; you’re selfish, demanding, and cold. I’m scared to death of you. You make me feel like a toy, not a person, Coriolanus. I was always pretty fucking certain children had toys, not grownups.”
“Good gracious… Fine! Be that way. Cause a fucking scene!” Coriolanus screamed. His temper flared. He got that look in his eye that only men can get when they lose something they wanted. “My coat and tie are black. I’m assuming you’re not intending to clash or something, so just letting you know. Y’know. Communication. The polite thing to do.” He reported and stormed out of her room to his own. Her door slammed so hard behind him that she feared in may splinter off its hinges. What must the neighbors think of them?
[Y/N] resisted the urge to shout for Coriolanus to drop dead.
She was left to ready herself alone. As she pulled out her dress (that wouldn’t look foul against Coriolanus’s coat and tie) from the closet, she caught a glimpse of the engagement ring on her finger. White gold with a moderately sized ruby set in the middle. She was told both the gold and the stone were real, but she had her doubts to some extent. She found it was difficult to believe anything Coriolanus said. The ring made it clear that Coriolanus didn’t truly know [Y/N] because she had always worn silver jewelry. She felt isolated from all her prior jewelry pieces as now, none of them matched.
Then, [Y/N] stepped into her dress. A flowing black ballgown with a full petticoat and a glittery exterior over the fine satin it was made from. She couldn’t quite complete the buttons running up the dress’s back. She sat down at a small vanity Coriolanus had purchased her to do her hair and makeup. She assumed he would be hard pressed by the fact she couldn’t button the back of her own ballgown; that she was incapable or needy.
After dragging kohl and shadows over her eyelids, among other things, she set out to find the correct pair of shoes to match the dress.
The problem with dressing to match Coriolanus is that he was excessively tall. This meant every dress had to be accompanied by the tallest heels one could find. [Y/N]’s ankles ached just thinking about a night in shoes like that again. With her makeup done and her dress unbuttoned down the back, [Y/N] set out to find the red heels Coriolanus had purchased for her. She sat unceremoniously on the floor with her large skirt fluffed out around her to dig in her closet for the shoes.
Coriolanus was fastening his white gold and ruby cufflinks that matched [Y/N]’s engagement ring when he knocked at her door.
“Yes, what?” She shouted from the floor.
Coriolanus pulled the door open without asking if she was decent. “I was going to ask if you were ready, but I can see that you aren’t.” He sighed. Coriolanus never apologized after a fight, instead he tried to placate in whatever way possible. He was incapable of an apology, [Y/N] thought. Whether it was buying her something, taking her out, helping her find something she had lost, that’s what he would do to ease his own guilt. If he could feel guilt.
[Y/N] sighed as well. She was unwilling to engage in verbal sparring with him now. She lowered her head in a visual show of defeat. “I can’t find my other shoe,” She said weakly. “The red ones you got me.”
“The red heels?” He asked quietly. Coriolanus perceived she was not much in the mood for his attitude, and felt his residual anger cool off several degrees.
[Y/N] nodded hopelessly. She didn’t want to go to the engagement party. She didn’t want to be marrying Coriolanus under terms such as these. [Y/N] felt like property and everything hurt.
“Let me look,” Coriolanus said. What he meant to say was ‘I’m sorry for everything,’ but what he said was: “I’ll help you look. Don’t wrinkle your dress, alright?”
[Y/N] stood up awkwardly, holding the falling bodice of her dress up. She felt uncomfortable being so vulnerable in front of him like this. “Sorry, I couldn’t button the back.” She said. With her free hand, she reached around the back of the dress in an attempt to close it.
“Don’t apologize. I’ll get it. Turn,” Coriolanus commanded plainly. [Y/N] did as he said. He notched the buttons down her back with ease. “You should’ve called for help. I didn’t realize you were struggling.” He said. He patted her shoulder to signify he was done with the back of her dress. Coriolanus moved in front of her closet and bent down to find the missing left red shoe.
It was silent for a moment. “Of course you weren’t aware I was struggling.”
Coriolanus offered no reply. He understood what she meant.
“Aha!” He said after a few moments, holding up a matching set of shoes. Coriolanus placed them on the floor in front of her so she could step into them. He offered [Y/N] a hand for stability as she did so.
“Thank you,” she said. “Hey, Coriolanus?”
“Hm?”
“Are you nervous?”
“No,” he replied, standing up from the carpeted floor. “Are you?” Coriolanus’s blue eyes were piercingly inquisitive. Eyes that didn’t want to know you, but to consume you.
“Yes.”
“Really? Why?” Coriolanus asked. It didn’t feel rude or hot-tempered. It was merely a plain question. It made [Y/N] feel safe to answer, even though she remained guarded.
“I’m presenting myself as the soon-to-be wife of the most important thirty-under-thirty in the Capitol in an arranged marriage. And you hate me. You have hated me since we were children. My life is over, Coriolanus. This is for you and for my family’s honor, evidently. What do I have left?”
“You think I hate you?” Coriolanus asked, bending his neck to look at [Y/N]. “I don’t hate you.” [Y/N] wasn’t sure how truthful the statement was.
“Well, at least, you don’t like me.”
Curiously, Coriolanus placed a hand on her neck and dragged his thumb across [Y/N]’s jawline. “That’s such shit, [Y/N]. I didn’t realize you thought that of me. That you… Felt that way at all,” he started carefully. “Rather, and this sounds silly, I enjoy arguing with you. I sort of thought you did as well. You’re ruthless, I admire that,” He smirked and paused for a breath. “I do like you. Believe it, or not. I’ll just have to figure out a way to show you better,” Coriolanus’ hand slid from [Y/N]’s throat, down her side and back to eventually rest at her waist. She blinked up at him, surprised at the luxury of such unexpected contact from him. “Your life is not over. You wanna work, work. You want to not work, stay home. Please, allow me to do what I can for you. I can open doors. Whatever you want, name it. Things, opportunity,” [Y/N] nodded at the word ‘opportunity.’ “You’re meant to be my wife and I’m… really, I’m one of the best resources there is around here. Let me use that advantage. Had I known sooner, I wouldn’t have wasted all that time and money buying you things you hate.” He attempted a casual joke, holding her too close to him.
They were closer physically than they had ever been. Due to their proximity, [Y/N] had to rest her hands on Coriolanus’ chest as she stared up at him. She didn’t know what to say, so she nodded and straightened the red rose at his lapel. “You just might get yourself that unified front with me if you bring home your work…”
“You’re interested in Gamemaking? Since when?”
[Y/N] rolled her eyes. “We’re going to be late. We can speak about this later.”
“By all means.” Coriolanus leaned down awkwardly and kissed her. Maybe it was out of duty, maybe out of desire. Neither of them knew. They had shared the occasional peck on the lips for social reasons before, but this felt a bit different. It was charged somehow. A promise.
When they separated, [Y/N] stared at Coriolanus. He was all eyes - blue, blue, blue. He blinked at her. She blinked back. “Come on, we’ll be late to our own party.”
The whole ride to the event venue, Coriolanus had kept his hand on [Y/N]’s thigh. This was an unusual gesture. Normally, he didn’t chance touching her, even by accident. It was an unspoken agreement to keep their distance.
“I’m gonna be sick.” [Y/N] groaned into her palm as she exited the vehicle, led by Coriolanus toward the door of the event hall. The building had been destroyed when they were children in the war and had been recently restored to its former glory.
“Same thing as earlier, or did you decide I’m the worst person on earth?”
“Same as before. Haven’t decided about the second thing. My parents are going to be here too. You remember them?”
“Yes. I’ve met them… Twice, I believe—”
“Tread carefully.” [Y/N] said, offering no additional support.
Coriolanus nodded in solemn understanding. His eyebrows knitted together, knowing one more nasty, exhausting troublespot would be in his way tonight. He hated social gatherings as much as [Y/N]. With all the gentleness he could muster, Coriolanus took her hand. “Heading inside… Unified front?”
“If I must.” [Y/N] said.
With that, the night took off. Bright flashing cameras reflected off the black and white marble of the building, and applause rang off the large, cavernous walls. Everyone was shaking their hands, greeting and congratulating them, and stopping them for overly pictures at every turn. For a moment, [Y/N] truly believed that everything in her life was perfect, because everyone around her seemed to assume that it was. It made the pill of her future easier to swallow.
Coriolanus led her around the room with ease. He introduced her to many individuals whose names she would not remember tomorrow. She was beginning to develop a stunning routine of artifice with him as Coriolanus puppeted her around the room. Each interaction functioned with a greeting from Coriolanus to the stranger, he would remove his arm from [Y/N]’s waist and drag it down her arm into her hand in order for her to showcase her striking gown. Then he would say “isn’t my fiancée beautiful?” or “isn’t she just divine?” or “what a lucky man am I?” [Y/N] would chuckle and compliment him back with “my Coriolanus, ever the charmer!” or “isn’t he just divine?” or “what a lucky woman am I?” accordingly. They would smile sickeningly and pretend they were in love, he would lean in and kiss [Y/N] on the cheek, and she laugh warmly at his ‘spontaneity’ and place a hand on his chest, or straighten his tie.
After that, they would move on to greet the next poor sucker and repeat the process.
Eventually, [Y/N] dragged Coriolanus off to the side so she could relax her artificial grin. “Sorry, I need a moment. My face hurts. And that last man and his wife, was that his wife? They stunk. They smelled so foul it is unreal.”
Coriolanus smirked. “Those were my next door neighbors growing up. Vile. They’re very heavy morphling users, if you couldn’t tell with the glazed over look and twitchy eyebrow.” Coriolanus mocked.
[Y/N] laughed, hard. “Oh, you’re terrible!” She jeered. “Damn, what I wouldn’t give for morphling tonight…”
“Don’t tell me you’re a junkie, now.” Coriolanus pressed.
“Junkie is such a strong word…”
“Well, since I can’t get you high out of your mind at the moment, best I can offer is posca. I can grab you a glass and you can hide from the onslaught for a moment.” Coriolanus offered.
“Please. A particularly stiff glass if you can swing it. Or whiskey!” [Y/N] said. She watched Coriolanus turn to leave for the bar. [Y/N] tucked herself in a corner behind a noble Corinthian column for a moment of peace. A few people came and went that she greeted with that 1000-watt fake smile of hers, but she was mostly left unbothered. [Y/N] caught sight of a clock and realized Coriolanus had been gone for several minutes longer than he should have. She excused herself from talking to some old woman that claimed to be some distant great aunt or something of Coriolanus’ and set off to locate him and her posca.
Cutting through the crowd, [Y/N] spotted tall Coriolanus over most everyone’s heads, holding two glasses of posca, and speaking to her parents.
Fuck.
Her parents.
[Y/N] rushed sharply towards Coriolanus. She stopped short of approaching. She wanted to listen in for a moment to what they might be saying. [Y/N] knew her parents were of the socially treacherous sort. She turned her back to them and stood, pretending she didn’t know they were there.
“…Hasn’t given you too much trouble.” She heard her mother laugh.
Coriolanus laughed uncomfortably back. “Ha, not too much, no,” He said. “She’s quite fiery, for lack of a better word, though. Tough. She’s a tough woman.”
“You’re a strong young man, Coriolanus. I’m sure you’ll find a way to put her in her place. You can’t have her compromise your image and all that, you know. She can just be so destructive.” Her father said.
[Y/N] felt her heart sink. The positive interactions she had with Coriolanus were slipping out of her mind by the second in overhearing the conversation.
“Ah, yes sir,” Coriolanus said. “We’ve got a whole lifetime for—“
[Y/N] turned around and stomped over to Coriolanus. “There you are!” She said, returning that winning smile to her lips. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, dear,” [Y/N] the pet name coming from her mouth made her nauseous. She grasped Coriolanus’ arm firmly. “And you got me a drink? You really are a dear, aren’t you?” She smiled and turned to her parents. Coriolanus felt tense beside her; she could feel it in the muscles in his arm.
Both her mother and father embraced her lovingly. “Oh, [Y/N], you look beautiful as ever.” Her mother said.
“Thank you,” [Y/N] said flatly, not returning the compliment. “If you’ll excuse us, there was someone else I wanted Coriolanus to meet. We’ll be back around soon. Love you!” She muttered, pulling Coriolanus away from her parents.
“Give me that.” She said, as soon as they were out of earshot, taking the glass of posca from Coriolanus.
“They’re…” he started in reference to her parents.
“Dreadful. I know,” [Y/N] heart felt broken. She didn’t even have a chance with Coriolanus without their humiliating influence. She didn’t want to dive into rationalizing his overheard conversation. So she just morosely stared down at the floor.
“They’re cruel to you,” he remarked as [Y/N] drank. “They told me I should work on breaking your spirit.”
[Y/N] took a long drink from her glass. “Are you going to? Break my spirit, I mean.”
“Haven’t decided,” Coriolanus replied. “Is tonight terrible so far for you?”
“Absolutely and unendingly.”
“Shame, since it’s supposed to be for us,” Coriolanus frowned. “Here’s what we’ll do. Drink up and we’ll dance. You told me you liked to dance once. Still true?”
“Uh, yes. You remember that?” The truth was that Coriolanus forgot very little.
“Too much talking, not enough drinking.” He replied, reaching out to tip the stem of her posca glass up, forcing the drink towards her lips.
“You’re a dick.” [Y/N] snapped. Her voice echoed from the round glass at her mouth.
“Never heard that one before.” Coriolanus said sarcastically.
A total of five empty posca glasses were settled on a cocktail table between them after about forty-five minutes of chatter and drinking. Coriolanus seemed looser than before, but focused as ever. The third glass, and the last half of Coriolanus’ second, had sent [Y/N] over the edge into drunkness, however.
“Dance with me now?” [Y/N] slurred slightly.
Coriolanus held his hand out as an affirmative response. She took it and he led her towards the dance floor. “FYI, I’m going to lead. You’re falling apart.” He leaned in to whisper teasingly as they approached the shiny wooden floor.
“If you’re shit at this, I reserve the right to take over as lead.”
“You have zero faith in me,” Coriolanus said, grabbing her too firmly in a waltz hold. She placed her hand on his broad shoulder. “Don’t think, just follow. I’ve got you.” He said, staring at her. Blue, blue, blue eyes, completely unreadable. Coriolanus sloppily led her around the dance floor, keeping the spins to a minimum. Sober, he was probably a fairly decent dancer. [Y/N] was reflexively a fine dancer as well, but a bit sloppier than normal. The thing that was actually holding back her dancing abilities, were the damn red heels. Her feet ached and she didn’t think she would be able to keep up with much more than a waltz in them.
The next song began after only half the length she had expected from a waltz, [Y/N]. It was a brisk foxtrot; all reliant on footwork. As Coriolanus led her into the first sidestep, [Y/N] kicked off her heels without missing a step. She harshly kicked them aside, sliding them to the edge of the dance floor. [Y/N] found she felt tiny now in front of Coriolanus. His smirk doubled at the sight as well. “Better?”
“Much. How about you shrink six inches next time so I don’t have to grow six inches. Seems fair to me.”
Coriolanus laughed cordially. His laugh turned into a sigh when he noticed [Y/N]’s lack of reply. “Are you angry with me?” He was aware that she usually was angry with him, he was asking specifically she to the conversation with her parents.
“Yes, why?”
“Because you’re being extremely rude.” Coriolanus said sharply.
“And?”
“No reason, just making conversation.”
Coriolanus couldn’t figure out what [Y/N] was looking at over his shoulder, but he didn’t care enough to ask. “Wanna make it up to me?” [Y/N] asked. “Posca wasn’t enough.”
“I’ll consider it. The terms?” He replied, spinning her through a tempo change.
“I want to make my parents hurt. I don’t live under their roof anymore. She’s been staring at me since I took my shoes off. See? I’m embarrassing her. And you know how big you owe me.”
This gave Coriolanus pause. Really, he didn’t owe her anything worth a damn. She was as bad to him as he was to her. “Why?”
“You said you could grant me opportunity. Grant me the opportunity of making her feel a fool for making me marry you, Coriolanus. I’m drunk. This offer is only going to work right now.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“Blowjob.”
“I have an idea,” Coriolanus said immediately. [Y/N] grinned. His job was having wicked, awful ideas, so it was nice when he delivered. “Do you trust me?”
“No.”
“By the end of tonight, you will,” Coriolanus grimaced. He rotated the pair of them on the dance floor so [Y/N]’s back was to them and he could keep eyes on her parents. “I’m going to touch you.” He whispered in her ear when the music shifted to something more akin to a rumba.
“What?”
In seconds, [Y/N] felt Coriolanus’ nose slide from where he had whispered in her ear and down her neck to above her pulse point. He planted one kiss to her throat. Coriolanus waited before kissing her again to make sure she didn’t throw him halfway across the event hall in rage first. After that, he felt he had the go-ahead to work more forcefully. Coriolanus sensually kissed hard up and down the right side of [Y/N]’s throat, while both of them tried to keep their fuzzy brains clear enough to keep dancing. He kept kissing and sucking at her neck until she let out a nice loud sound of pleasure. That was when he pulled away. He was happy to see a nice purple bruise starting to form on her exposed neck.
“How was that?” He asked dryly, trying to hold off a pending erection.
“You’re out of your mind. Do it again.”
“I’m pretty sure my boss is here, [Y/N]. That was… great, but unless there’s—“
“We got lectured our entire growing up at the Academy to make sure we were to be winners by any means necessary, Coriolanus. Push the envelope. It’s our night. We can do whatever we want. Let’s make it count, at least. With all these cameras here? You keep this up, and your face will be on every periodical in Panem.”
“Yeah, for terrible reasons!”
“Any press is good press and you know that. ‘TROUBLE IN THE ARENA?: GAMEMAKER’S FIANCÉE BREAKS DOWN AT PARTY,’” she said, showing a fictional headline example. “Below it, a nice picture of me crying and you dusting me off like a dutiful husband. Have your way with me and eventually I’ll snap and cry and accuse you of something you didn’t do, then you can ‘put me in place,’ so to speak. Control the fucking news cycle til everyone knows your name.”
[Y/N] could tell that Coriolanus had in fact agreed to gamble with his image when his hand slid down her back and grabbed her ass. His mouth ducked back into her neck as well, biting harder than [Y/N] expected. [Y/N] let out a painfully loud moan without meaning to.
“You want a show, let’s give ‘em a show.” He muttered against her skin. Coriolanus pulled his hips flush against his. The fabric of her ballgown being the only meaningful barrier between them. After a few moments, they had given up any chance at a rumba. Coriolanus stood over her, kissing her bruisingly hard anywhere we could reach.
“Coriolanus,” [Y/N] muttered. She gripped his shoulder tightly to steady herself. “Fuck, that feels good.”
Coriolanus took his hand out of the one that was clutching hers and slid it up to grab her face harshly between thumb and forefinger. “Can you shut up for a minute? I’ve let you run your mouth all day. It’s getting annoying,” He said, the mask of kindness slipping from his eyes. “You have had a complaint about everything. I put up with it, too. It’s getting… really,” Coriolanus’ hand gripped her ass harder over the ballgown. “Fucking annoying. You’re already making me do all this because I’m a dick. Stop being a brat. Please keep your mouth closed until I want it open, okay?”
He was holding her face so tightly that she couldn’t even nod. That’s when she saw the cameras start flashing, as Coriolanus gripped her by the face like a spoiled child and rubbed her ass in front of everyone she knew. “Yes.” She tried to mumble, but it came out squished.
“Great, then, we’re clear. Don’t think, just follow.” Coriolanus leaned forward and kissed her blazingly. That’s around the time [Y/N] could hear her mother in hysterics stomping to the bathroom. She sighed with relief, but also burned with humiliation. It felt like Coriolanus was practically trying to fuck her with her clothes on.
[Y/N] couldn’t believe this. This wasn’t brutally argumentative Snow, this wasn’t pseudo-gentle Snow. Who was this? What the fuck was he doing? Why did it feel good? [Y/N] felt a shiver tingle down her spine as he kissed her. Aggressively, she kissed back in an attempt at delivering that ruthlessness Coriolanus said he prized. He squashed that quickly and leaned her back, almost knocking her off her feet. She pulled back breathlessly.
[Y/N]’s eyes were darting around the room, watching everyone watching her. She was the show tonight. For the first time in her life, someone had made her the real center of attention that she always craved to me. Coriolanus granted her opportunity. It fucking worked. Her gaze shot back to Coriolanus, looking down at her possessively. He was mouthing something to her, but her intoxicated brain couldn’t signal her eyes to focus enough to piece together his words.
“What?” She whispered, leaning away from him.
More clearly this time, Coriolanus mouthed. “Hit. Me,” He leaned in close to her ear and whispered. “I told you. I’m leading; I have an idea.”
[Y/N] started to shake her head ‘no’ at her insane exhibitionist fiancé, but she remembered she was the one that had asked for a show. Without asking why, [Y/N] feigned disgust and stepped away from Coriolanus. She raised her hand and sharply slapped him across the face. This elicited gasps of shock from their guests. She could see a red mark beginning to develop on Coriolanus’ fair cheek.
Violence like this is what people in the Districts did. This was not what well-bred, promising youth from the Capitol did. The chatter in the room grew in the form of prying hushed whispers. The band stopped playing. This was not how beautiful young girls behaved at their engagement parties. [Y/N]’s stomach dropped. She looked angrily between her vile hand and the mark on Coriolanus’ face. Both of their expressions showed that she had hit him harder than they expected.
“How many men, [Y/N]?” Coriolanus asked, forcefully.
“What?” [Y/N] asked, shocked. She had no idea what he was talking about.
“How many men have had you behind my back?”
It was a fucking act. No truth to it at all. He wanted a rise out of her and so did the cameras. This was exactly what she had asked him, she didn’t realize how seriously he would take her.
[Y/N] sighed. She understood her role and she was going to play it perfectly. “One. Only one, I swear. None since you caught us in bed.” Lie. “Stop. We’re…” she glanced around, playing ashamed of the cameras. “We’re in public, Coriolanus. Please. Don’t cause a scene.” She said, parroting what he had said to her that morning.
That line did the trick. She saw the vein in his forehead pop out. “Don’t cause a scene? You struck me!” Coriolanus roared. “That’s unfair, and you know it.” The ghost of a smirk played on his lips while he clutched his face.
“You wouldn’t hear reason! The accusations you made of me, Coriolanus. You—You—“
Coriolanus surged forward and grabbed her by her forearms. “Accusations that are warranted. I don’t know how you expect me to trust you after something like that! Do you think I’m made of stone?”
“Yes!” [Y/N] yelled truthfully.
Coriolanus paused. “[Y/N], I hurt just as much as you do. You’re drunk. You’re not thinking straight,” He placated. “I just can’t stand to see how these men look at you like that, knowing you would trade me for them in a heartbeat.” He brought the tempo of their fight down with his false melancholy.
“Coriolanus…” [Y/N] said tentatively. “I wouldn’t… Not now. We’ve put that behind us. I-I’m yours and—“
“I made this whole night about you. I…” Coriolanus swallowed dramatically. “I love you.” Lie? “I love you, I spend all night trying to show you that I don’t want anyone but you. I try to make you feel special so you won’t stray again. And you, you hit me… I can’t do anything right enough for you.” He turned his face away, feigning hiding tears and released her arms.
Without the stabilizing touch of Coriolanus, [Y/N] was starting to feel uncertain on her feet from the alcohol. Far from gracefully, [Y/N] sank to the floor, her skirt fanning out around her as it had when she was searching for her shoe earlier that evening. From the drink, the tension and the state of her shambling life, [Y/N] let out an unexpected sob. Coriolanus turned his head in genuine surprise at the sound. “I’m sorry, my love,” she started through sniffles. “I’m sorry. Forgive me,” She looked up at him as her mascara began to drip down her cheeks. “Please forgive me. You have every right to leave, but please, Coriolanus, you’re all I have left.” That part was true. It was all gone. Her childhood home, the security of her parents, university and the Academy were behind her, taxing relationships with friends she had outgrown. Coriolanus was all that remained. [Y/N] cried harder. “I made a mistake.” She howled.
Coriolanus was impressed, to say the least. Cautiously, he knelt down in front of [Y/N]. He would remember this image of her for his whole life. With her mascara running, her stockings ripped, her shoes long missing, the top of her extravagant dress sliding too low for public consumption, she was divine, truthfully. That was her. That was how he would always want to remember her. “Darling?” He said quietly.
Now, the bastard was left open to play the dutiful savior, just as she had teased earlier.
[Y/N] started to twist the engagement ring off of her finger, theatrically. Coriolanus took her obvious bait and took her hand to stop her. He slid the ruby ring back down her finger calmly. “Darling, I’m not going anywhere. You’re drunk. You just need a little help, right? You mustn’t drink so much. It breaks my heart to see you like this,” Coriolanus squeezed her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing it softly. “You need me. I’m not going anywhere. What kind of husband would that make me if I did?”
She nodded. “Thank you,” she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “You’re a good man, Coriolanus,” LIE. “You’re too good to me.”
“Come on,” Coriolanus rose from the floor and extended a hand to her. “Let’s get you home, huh?” He said condescendingly.
[Y/N] took his hand carefully. He pulled her up and she stumbled to her feet. Coriolanus wrapped an arm tightly around her waist and pulled her closer. He glanced around in surprise to address the crowd that had gathered in front of them. “I’m sorry for everything you just had to see. Please be kind to my fiancée; she’s had a lot to drink. Posca, right?” Coriolanus darkly attempted a somber joke. “I should’ve kept a closer eye on her. We’ll be getting home. Thank you all for coming out to celebrate us tonight.” Sorry to call it a night with so much night left.” He said softly.
Coriolanus led her to the edge of the dance floor where he had spotted her shoes. He grabbed the red shoes from the floor and carried them dangling from his free hand as he walked her to the door and down the stairs to the sidewalk. [Y/N] had a vague memory of Coriolanus summoning their driver via the valet at the door. She was too busy noticing how her stockings caught on the sidewalk with every step.
“Darling?” Coriolanus whispered, leaning down to whisper to her. “You were brilliant.”
“Really?” She sniffled hesitantly. “Because I’m fairly certain that everyone in that room hates me.”
“Any press is good press.” Coriolanus reminded her with a gentle kiss to the forehead.
“For you, maybe. I made a mistake asking for that…” she kicked at a stray stone on the sidewalk. “I am probably the biggest villain in Panem right now.” [Y/N] said, shaking her head a little with a sad laugh.
“Not a villain,” Coriolanus scoffed. “A star.”
PART II HERE
TAGLIST:
@badwicht @stelleduarte @cinnamongirl127 @prettyppetty @soulessien @bejeweledreverie @jjstyles @ndycrls @arminsarlerts @catlover420sstuff @chmpgneprblem @co1dmountains @watermelonharry @ohantonia @miscellaneousmoonchild @lille999 @pumkinnxsmut @nananarwhal @taykorsyogurt
sorry - some of them would not process and actually tag! i tried!!!!! non functional tags indicated with strikethru
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scientia-rex · 26 days
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I feel like disappointment in Biden is baffling to me because he was always a disappointment. He was the asshole who got to ride to power on the coattails of a better man. He told bizarre and repeated lies (despite getting caught at it and his team telling him not to) about having a Welsh coal miner dad when he did not and he stole that story from actual Welsh people. I read a profile of him years back that pointed this out and told the story of the time he straight up ignored good advice from an expert not to plant a certain kind of tree too close together and flew a bunch of them out to plant, at night because he was just too fucking excited about it, and they all died. He’s not a smart man! He’s charismatic ish and lacks principles and as far as I can tell doesn’t really care about abortion rights or a lot of things we’d consider pretty critical to preserving freedom. I sincerely thought he couldn’t become President because there were so many obviously better candidates in the pool. I underestimated the sexism and antisemitism in American politics, and when he became the candidate in 2020 I gritted my teeth and voted for him because the alternative was a man who is not only an idiot but also profoundly dangerous. Trump is not ha-ha crazy, he’s Mussolini crazy. He is not dangerous because he’s stupid, although that doesn’t help; he’s dangerous because he does not care about anyone except himself under any circumstances and if that means he lets the far right push us straight into forced birth for white women and sterilization for women of color he’s going to do that. If that means conversion therapy for queers and death penalty for homosexual acts he’s going to do that. He has literally no limits. If he gets back into power, a whole lot of people are going to die, again. It’s not a hypothetical because it happened the first time and he’s only going to get worse.
I am not, never have been, and never will be a fan of Biden. To pretend that he and Trump are in any way equivalent is wrong at best and another goddamn Russian psy-op at worst. To pretend that a third party candidacy is viable in the US is to completely ignore every election of your lifetime and your parents’ lifetimes, and to further ignore the lesson of Ross Perot.
You cannot save Palestinians by not voting for Biden in November; the best you can do is chip away at his margin, and the worst you can do is see Trump elected so he can decide to do the worst possible thing in ever circumstance. Biden has Palestinian blood on his hands and watching this when we could have had Bernie or Elizabeth Warren instead is maddening. (I would have preferred Hillary to Trump, but I don’t think she’d be any different than Biden here. They’re both old-school politicians.)
I hate everything about this, and I hate that saying “maybe don’t put the man who literally said he would kill his political enemies in power” is seen as supporting genocide. It’s acknowledging reality. Joe Biden as a person can eat rocks for all I care. I was kind of hoping he’d die sooner in his term so we’d have time to get used to and then vote for President Harris. (Remember when the line was “she’s a cop, don’t vote for her”? Funny how there’s always a reason not to vote for a woman or a person of color or someone you just “don’t like” and can’t put a finger on why except she “seems angry.” Oh does she. How would she not? When Michelle fucking Obama, the picture of grace , STILL got called angry for having the nerve to be a Black woman with an opinion? When Hillary Clinton lost to a man with no political experience to her decades and who openly discussed sexually assaulting women? Would you have voted for President Harris? Or would you let Trump win again because you don’t LIKE her personally and she’s made decisions and statements you disagree with?)
Biden has both less power than his critics give him credit for and more power than his fans give him credit for. He needs to do more to pressure Israel and although it’s a delicate diplomatic situation I’d rather see us fuck up our diplomatic relationship with Israel than watch more Palestinians get murdered for things like “wanting to eat” and “existing.” The line has been crossed, and he doesn’t see it. Because he wasn’t the best person for the job. Because they didn’t get elected, because of sexism/antisemitism/racism. Hell, I have no idea what bootlicker Pete Buttegieg would have done here, but I’d have given him a try. But no. We got Biden and we’re stuck with this reality where you can be as leftist as you want and still have to look at the situation and decide whether you’re comfortable contributing to a Trump victory through inaction. I want socialism—I want every single person on Earth to have clean drinking water, enough safe food, shelter, medical care, and education—and I’m going to vote for Biden, pissy as it makes me, because the only actual alternative is so, so much worse, for me personally as both a woman and a queer, and for everyone in America and the rest of the world who Trump would find reasons to hurt. What do you think the man who openly and repeatedly praises dictators is going to do when those dictators massacre their own people? Yes, we need to care about this genocide now. We also need to care about all of the other people who are at real risk, both at home and abroad. Would a Trump government agree to fund military intervention in Haiti without insisting on it being a colonial exercise in power? Would a Trump government roll back the restrictions on discriminating against transgender patients in healthcare? How would Trump respond if Orban started dragging people into the streets and shooting them en masse? How would Trump respond if China finally went for it and invaded Taiwan? There are more lives at stake here than mine or yours or even those of the Palestinians, who have deserved better for literally decades and are being mass killed in ways that should result in immediate sanctions, a war crimes trial, and the execution of Netanyahu.
The world deserves better from you than complicity in a Trump victory.
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unpretty · 2 months
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i got approval like a year ago to start working on a version of our local government office's website that wasn't made by me in notepad in my first month on the job. except i haven't actually made any progress whatsoever because i'm too busy doing my actual job (accounting, not remotely web dev) and dicking around on tumblr. so i got this clever idea to ask if i could work on it at home sometimes. what i do is i request pto and then at home i dick around in wordpress for an hour and print a screenshot to attach to my timesheet. if i can convince my boss (still uses a typewriter and one of those calculators with the little roll of paper on it) that making it look like that took eight hours i don't have to use any of my vacation time. i have not had to use any of my pto since i started doing this.
which is all well and good but i've actually made more progress in one hour increments than i did trying to set aside whole days at the office for website bullshit. this has unsettling implications for how much time in my day is taken up by tuning out my coworkers and trying to look busy. it wouldn't be so hard except my coworkers cannot comprehend that it is possible to be busy while not interacting with the public (my job does not involve interacting with the public). so the only way to avoid a sales pitch for nail wraps, or, worse, getting volunteered to decorate the st patrick's day tree (they bought generic white led trees with the idea that they were neutral enough to be decorated for "all the holidays") is to type constantly and aggressively on the loudest keyboard in the world. which is easiest to accomplish by using keyboard shortcuts to browse the internet at high speed. not having to do this at home seems to be saving me about seven hours per work day.
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clockwayswrites · 1 month
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Rumors of a Prince
“You could always ask Jason to pay her a visit,” Dick said from where he was lounging, mostly upside down, on the couch in Bruce’s study.
Bruce frowned at him. “I am not going to have Jason kill Vickie Vale.”
“Hey, you’re the one who said kill!” Dick held his hands up or, rather, given his position, down. “I just meant puts some fear into her. Maybe kidnap her for a few days so that she can’t write any more libel.”
Bruce found himself smiling, slightly and against his better judgment. It faded away when he looked back at his laptop. “At least in this case, it wouldn’t do much good. The stories is already out there and, unfortunately, Vale’s take on it has captured the public’s attention.”
“Tim knows I bet… and Babs.”
“Undoubtedly by now.”
“And if those two know, Steph knows. If Steph knows, she’s ranted to Cass.”
“Yes.” This family was impossible to keep things secret in.
“Welp,” Dick said and swung himself to be sitting up normally— or as normally as Dick ever sat. “Then I guess we better tell the others. How do you want to divide this?”
Bruce was grateful that Dick was willing to be his partner in this. “You would be best to take Jason. I’ll speak with Damian. Either of us can catch Duke when he returns from his patrol.”
Dick nodded. “And Tom?”
“I think perhaps it would be best to have as much of the family in the manor as possible,” Bruce said after a moment. “If he destabilizes, I want him to know that we are around and that he is still safe.”
“Alright.” Dick slapped his knees once and stood. “I’ll drag Jason back then. You know he’ll come if it’s for Tom.”
“Make sure he reads the article before he comes over.”
Dick grimaced. “Yeah. Yeah, that would be best. I’m going to bring some food too over with me. Good luck convincing Dami that he can’t go and stab Vickie Vale.”
Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose. “Right. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Dick chirped as he left for his task.
Bruce dropped his hand.
‘Gotham’s Pale Prince’ stared back at him from the screen.
-
“Seriously?!” Jason burst in through the kitchen door. “Have you read this swill?”
“Yes chum, of course I have,” Bruce said. He shot Dick, who trailing behind Jason’s fury, a look. Dick was supposed to get Jason to read the article before coming over.
Dick just shrugged helplessly and motioned in a way that conveyed Jason had read it and was still clearly quite upset.
“One of the biggest questions is,” Jason said, clearly reading now from the article with the air of Bristol accent he had put on, “perhaps, why the newest Wayne is not in school. Bruce has proven himself to be a champion of the educational system. This is despite the man himself being a college drop out’ like what the fuck?”
“To be fair, I am,” Bruce said.
Jason rolled his eyes and continued. “His oldest ward’— Dick is fucking adopted now, bitch!”
“Boo!” Steph echoed and tossed popcorn at the tablet Jason was holding.
(Bruce was neither sure when Stephanie had arrived nor where she got the popcorn.)
“Never going to college,” Jason said with a jab of his free hand, “and the second oldest never completing high school.’ I was dead you narrow minded shew!”
“Well, I mean, all she knows is that you were supposedly kidnapped by terrorists and tortured for years,” Dick said. He had moved over to help himself to Stephanie’s popcorn and paused raising the next handful to his face. “Okay, no, that’s actually worse.”
“And you are clear on your line that I cannot stab this woman for the dishonor she implies about the family?” Damian asked, again, as he joined them in the kitchen.
“Unfortunately we have to handle this the proper way, with a press conference,” Bruce said. Stabbing was looking increasingly appealing though.
Jason dropped into one of the open chairs. “I’d call it a battle of the wits, but I don’t think Vale has any left with this trash she’s writing!”
“Alright,” Tim said as he entered the kitchen with almost as much fury as Jason, just more contained. Cass followed in his wake. “I am sure that B has already run through no killing, no stabbing, no maiming, no poisoning—”
“No poisoning Vickie Vale,” Bruce said, feeling so tired.
“Way to go, Timbit, now we can’t poison her,” Jason groused.
Tim sighed, “Fair, I shouldn’t have assumed. I really thought someone else would have brought it up already.”
“People went for more bloody options,” Dick explained.
“Also fair,” Tim said, pointing at him. “Anyways, since we can’t do all that, can I ruin her reputation?”
“Tim,” Bruce sighed.
“Now come on old man, let’s here Timtam out,” Jason said, holding out his arm. “You said yourself we had to handle the proper way and I’m sure that our little socialite here knows just how to ruin her through something like a press conference.”
“You I can stab,” Tim said with a shark sharp smile towards Jason.
Jason returned it with a smile like broken glass. “You can try.”
“Oh, if you keep calling me a socialite I will try and I will manage.”
“Boys, please.”
“Are people threatening blood and violence again?”
Every head in the room swiveled towards the door to the hall.
Tom almost recoiled at the sudden attention of all of the family, taking a half step back and looking a little wide eyed.
Cass walked forward and wrapped her arm around Tom’s. “Tim is. To Jason.”
It took a moment for Tom to tear his eyes away from the family to look at his sister. “Of course. What’s… it about this time?”
“Jason is reminding Tim that he’s a rich society brat and Tim hates to be reminded about that even though it’s true because Tim is also a little freak and the upper crust would be applaud if they knew even a fraction of it,” Steph said before she stuffed his mouth full of more popcorn.
Everyone in the room paused for a moment.
“No, yep, I think that’s pretty much spot on,” Dick said. He wasn’t even pretending not to laugh.
The laughter was infectious and almost everyone was either snickering or outright laughing. Bruce even quirked up a little smile. Tom still looked mostly confused but at least less nervous.
“Come sit by me, little shadow,” Dick said with a smile.
When Thomas settled next to Dick, who immediately wrapped an arm around him, the room settled again into that slightly somber mood.
“What is going on?” Tom asked, voice small. There were times when he still seemed unsure if he could be a presence in a room or consternation. It was something that they were still working on as a family.
Bruce sighed. “A reporter found out about you and wrote an article with mostly speculation. Unfortunately, because of who I am in the city and my existing tendency to adopt, it’s getting attention.”
Tom chewed on his lip and Bruce just hoped he wouldn’t worry it so much it bled. “Bad?”
“Not bad towards you, but unkind. She made a lot of guesses and fact reasons about why the public hasn’t seen you,” Bruce explained.
“Oh. Am I…?”
The dropping of words wasn’t the best sign. Dick pulled Tom into his lap.
“No. Most of the children didn’t attend the press conference announcing them and you don’t have to either. But I will need to make one simply to clear up some of rumors. I wont say anything that you don’t want me to say.”
“Bruce and I can plan it out,” Tim said, “and then run it by you if you want to look over it.”
“Can… will… if anyone wants to help…”
“Of course!” Dick said cheerfully. “We can make a lunch of it or something. It will be the best press conference yet.”
“Yeah. And you don’t even have to watch it,” Jason said. “We’ll plan something fun for that day. The old man can go and do the hard work and we’ll enjoy ourselves.”
“Thank you, Jason,” Bruce said dryly, pretending he wasn’t warmed still whenever Jason refereed to him as anything approaching father.
“It’s what you deserve,” Jason said and tossed his tablet, cleared of the article, on the table. “Come on, let’s plan what we’re going to do.”
“The zoo is always enjoyable,” Damian said.
“You always say zoo,” Cass pointed out as she perched next to Jason.
“What about the park?” Steph suggested. She joined the others at the table and passed around her popcorn.
“Nah, Ivy has a new variety of tulips. I’m worried some of them might turn man eating again,” Dick said.
“We could head out of Gotham I guess,” Jason pointed out and pulled up the map.
Bruce slipped quietly out of the room with Tim on his heels.
“You can stay with them and help them plan,” Bruce offered. Tim was always too grownup, had been since before he came to Bruce.
Tim just shook his head. “I’m never the best distraction. I’ll be more use to you. Besides, I have some plans to run by you that doesn’t need the blood thirsty contingency hearing about.”
“Of course you do,” Bruce said with both a sigh and a smile.
“Nothing physical,” Tim defended himself. “I can ruin her legally.”
“That I have no doubt of.”
No matter what, Bruce had absolutely no doubt that the family would be there for Tom. They were a family, after all.
---
AN: Vickie Vale won't know what hit her. Esp after what she wrote.
Don't know if this will become a full sequel or not, but it was fun to revisit this universe and see how they've progressed!
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FLORIDA TRANS PALS, IT IS TIME TO PLAN
Especially if you are on HRT!
HB1421 is a bill that severely affects access to gender affirming care, including for adults. It outlines goals to:
1) Prohibit changing gender markers on birth certificates
2) Require that gender affirming care only come from physicians (not nurse practioners) who take on liability insurance for 30 YEARS after they provide care to a patient
3) Require informed consent forms at every single appointment, including distributing literature to dissuade patients
4) Ban transition care completely for minors
5) Make it so providers who accept state funds cannot provide gender affirming services (this is the big one that stands to affect anyone who takes medicare/aid, is a university, etc.).
6) Make it so providers who accept state funds cannot reimburse for gender affirming services.
We are facing a return to the Harry Benjamin days, or worse, an effective ban unless you are fortunate/wealthy enough to find a willing provider.
If it passes, this bill would take effect July 1, 2023. That is not a lot of time.
I would not count on any Rx or refill request to be honored after this date if the prescribing and dispensing sources no longer are allowed to grant care or decide to drop care because of the penalties.
July 1, 2023. Unless we hear otherwise, that is your clock.
This sucks, but there is comfort in seeing a clear date to plan around and the worst case is no longer completely unknown. It begins July 1.
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YOUR HOMEWORK, DUE ASAP:
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1) Get any and all your HRT appointments in now, including picking up your meds and doing bloodwork promptly.
2) If you think you will be living in FL come July, start looking now for providers where physicians - not NPs - provide the care. Get an appointment on the books for July. Be prepared to go in person for everything after July 1, because I believe telemed will also be shit-canned. Here is a map of informed consent providers.
3) If you are an old like me, also dig up your HRT permission slip from your therapist. Fuck, make a packet of all your transition documents, including Rx history.
4) If you are on private insurance, start budgeting now to prepare to pay out of pocket.
5) Create a simple spreadsheet of all your HRT dates (pls forgive, my experience is with shots on a 2 week cycle, so this is pretty easy for me to do) and plan out how long your current supply will last. Then, forecast how long all your upcoming refills before July 1 will last. Update it every time you pick up and take your meds. Refer to it for decisions like moving or finding backup providers.
6) Subscribe to the bill to get notified of changes asap
7) Follow this site to keep tabs on other very scary bills happening in Florida, including a bathroom ban and a child custody bill that is effectively kidnapping
8) If you need to change your birth certificate, do it now, pay the rush fees and write RUSH on the envelope. The Department of Health has the most up-to-date forms. Processing time for rush I last saw was around 18 business days.
9) Now that your own oxygen mask is on, so they say, boost mutual aid and recruit allies to assist in any way possible.
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Do try to continue seeing your current provider as long as possible, as they likely will need your support. Talk to them frankly about their plans if the bill passes.
Now. I am just a little guy and not a legal expert, but the aggressive enactment date on this bill makes me feel like everyone should plan now instead of waiting to see if it passes.
Be safe, plan, and then get a little rest. Do not lose hope - this bill could still fail.
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unbidden-yidden · 8 months
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Honestly at this point, I'm really uninterested in hearing any gentile's "critique" of Judaism.
Whatever it is, whatever you're about to say, I am 1000% certain that at least one Jew has already raised this issue in ways that are thoughtful and centered in respect for other Jews. Probably lots of Jews; possibly whole theological movements. It's even possible that this particular topic has been under active discussion for hundreds or even thousands of years.
Someone has already said this better than you will. Someone has already raised whatever issue you have and grounded it in their own experiences of having lived a Jewish life.
So just leave it to us. Just stop. You're not helping. At best you're white-knighting, at worst you're actively contributing to an antisemitic majority culture.
"Well I've never seen Jews discussing [x] topic!" Your ignorance is not reality. These conversations are happening, possibly offline and at our Shabbos tables or shuls only, but they are happening.
"Well [x] topic impacts me personally!" Does it? Does it really? Because unless you live in Israel or Palestine, no Jewish group - no matter how seemingly numerous we may be in your city or neighborhood - is actually powerful enough to affect large-scale (or even typically small-scale) changes. Our fundamentalism is, for better or worse, directed at other Jews. The most intense thing I've heard of outside of Israel is a community getting together to petition the city to allow an eruv or a concentrated effort to make a few neighborhood blocks particularly Jewish because they're within walking distance of an orthodox shul. All other issues - no matter how ugly the opinions - are something that is part of much larger social trends that unfortunately some Jews happen to be engaging in. We'll deal with them; you focus on your people.
"I'm just listening to ex-fundamentalist Jews and white-knighting trying to help them be heard and not shouted down!" So first of all, if you knew anything about this topic, they typically call themselves OTD (which I'm sure you know what that stands for, because you've been listening) and secondly, great! You should listen to them. But their critiques are not your critiques. I can go on all day long about my family and their bullshit, and I can even (sometimes) appreciate you chiming in supportively. But it hits different when you go off chattering to other people about how my family is bullshit.
"Okay fine - I'm taking all that in and accept that my critiques aren't wanted, but what CAN I do, since I am literally vibrating in place about how Those People Over There Are Wrong and cannot simply ignore them?" Best thing you can do? Honestly? Learn about Judaism thoroughly from a variety of people, and learn how to be a good ally against antisemitism in all the spaces you want us in. Judaism not feminist enough for you? Learn how to make your feminist spaces safe and welcoming for Jews. Judaism not queer or trans enough for you? Learn how to make your queer and trans spaces safe and welcoming for Jews. Whatever movement you think we're not supporting enough or not showing up for enough, or whoever it is you think we're oppressing? Find the Jews who are doing that work (they exist, I promise) and listen to what they tell you about how to make your spaces be better.
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mrchiipchrome · 2 months
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Family
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W.C. - 3.8 k
The long awaited part two of Parents:)
——————
The few days before the season started had always been your favorite, the excited butterflies wreaking havoc in your stomach and the sheer anticipation of getting to play against other teams in the league with the possibility of winning it all, it was just on a whole other level.
The energy around the locker rooms always changed too, everyone sharing the same excited energy about getting to play league football again after a long summer. You had always enjoyed the excitement coursing through your body and you had to wait an entire summer to get it back.
So when you wake up less than a week before the season started with the back of your nose bolting with pain and your throat itching like hell, you cannot believe it. The immense pressure behind your eyes and the pounding headache only makes you feel that much worse.
Your limbs feel heavier than usual as you climb out of bed, the heinous task of putting one foot in front of the other makes your head spin and your vision blackens. In order to not pass out, you took immediate hold of the dresser that stood near your bed, swaying back and forth slightly.
Hot and cold flashes shoot down your arms and legs, and as another stabbing pain shoots through your head you can’t keep from letting out a pained hiss.
Your feet drag along the ground as you shuffle towards the kitchen, not ready to start your day what-so-ever. 05.37 flashes bright green as the oven comes into view, loud yawn you let out a sure indication of that.
Opening the cabinet, you reach your hand up and feel around for the crinkling plastic that accompanies the paracetamol, and as the ridged plastic is felt under your fingers you wrap them around the packaging.
Making sure to not make too much sound, as to not wake your parents, you quickly pop a tablet right into your slightly sweaty hand before moving over to the sink and turning on the tap. You fill your mouth with water before popping the pill into your mouth and swallowing quickly, just so that it doesn’t start to dissolve in your mouth.
Dragging your feet back to your room, you looked closer to a zombie than you did a 15 year old footballer, the bags under your eyes really encompassing the zombie spirit.
—-
The next time your eyes opened, you somehow felt worse. The pounding headache is only enforced by Lucy’s obnoxious shouts of your name, trying to get you to wake up. The loud whining of the door hinges cuts deep into your ears, but the soft footsteps that follow it soothes your ears.
Freezing fingers make contact with your face, stroking softly over your cheekbones as the owner tries a different approach to waking you up. The bed dips beside your covered form, Keira’s low voice trying to coax you from the slumber while her hand moves up to scratch at your scalp slightly.
Instead of having a waking effect on you, it slowly lulls you back to sleep, the massage making your brain unscramble and not hurt as much. Your entire body slowly shifts to lay on Keira’s instead of the mattress, your head landing on her shoulder as you sling one arm around her in a tight grip.
Soon enough, you’re lying fully on top of the older girl who you fully considered a parent, whilst the other one was downstairs wondering what had happened to waking you up.
Keira only looks up from her ministrations when she hears the door open once again, meeting her girlfriends eyes quickly before they move back down to your overheating body. Lucy’s steps echo throughout the room when she moves closer to the bed, and as her hand meets your forehead she feels the unusual warmth emitting from the skin there.
She meets Keira’s eyes yet again, the younger of the two shaking her head vividly as to signal that you couldn’t go to practice under any circumstances. Sighing, Lucy picks up her phone in order to send a quick text to the coach, informing him of their absence.
The bed dips one more time as Lucy settles in beside her kid and girlfriend, bringing her hand up to rub at your back slowly.
“Has she seemed off to you the last few days?” Keira questions quietly, the whisper meeting Lucy’s ears softly and she instinctively smiles at the accented voice.
“No, not outside of being excited for the season to start. Oh…I just remembered, she’s been more clingy than usual with everyone, not just us.” Lucy whispers back before pressing a quick kiss to your warm temple.
Keira’s finger trails down as she starts to trace your features, the cold hand a contrast to your hot skin. You break out in a coughing fit soon after, a big ball of mucus escaping your throat before disappearing back down again.
The two women look at each other yet again, communicating through their eyes as you seem somewhat delirious. Picking your head up off Keira’s shoulder, the women watch on as your eyes flit around the room before seemingly taking notice of the clock sitting on the nightstand.
Your eyes widen for a second before you’re springing up off the bed in a hurry, ignoring the sudden dizziness you start to wrangle with your sleepshirt. You hear laughter coming from the direction of your bed and you slowly lower the shirt back down.
“What are you laughing at? We’re super late! Why’d you not wake me?! Oh I’m gonna have to run so many laps.” You exclaim loudly through a croaky voice, almost sounding like you have a frog sitting in your sternum.
“Y/n, you’re sick. We called out of training, there’s nothing to worry about.” Lucy explains softly, like you would explain to a toddler that they can’t get a toy.
“Wha-what? ‘m not sick, where did you get that fro-” Your protest is cut off by yet another coughing fit, contradicting your words as they look at you with a ‘really?’ look. Tears gather in your eyes when you start to cough again, the exasperation of the action draining you.
Lucy gets up from the bed to sling her arm around your midsection, leading you back to where Keira sat with open arms. As you lay back onto the bed, Keira and Lucy entrap you in a human sandwich, the two laying on either side of you.
And that’s how sleep once again overtakes your body, the sounds of quiet snores floating around the room.
—-
“Y/n, wake up. It’s time for lunch.” Lucy’s the one to wake you this time, the woman slapping your cheek softly as a way to wake you up.
All she gets in response is unintelligible mumbling before you sit up abruptly and frankly, throw yourself off the bed and onto the floor. The resulting thud makes Lucy hold back laughter, but she can’t hold it in anymore as instead of getting up and walking you army crawl all the way to the door. It’s frankly a hilarious sight to be seen, the little grunts you let out as the hardwood floor comes in contact with your elbows and knees.
In reality, it would probably be much easier for Lucy to bring your lunch to you, but she, like usual didn’t think that far. She also liked watching you struggle like a fish out of water against the floor.
When she finally decided to take pity on you, you’d already crawled halfway across the room, whispering a firm ‘yes sir’ every now and then.
Lucy’s hands hook under your armpits as she hoists you up to your feet, your dead weight no easy feat to move even for the strong defender. It was like slinging a dead body over her shoulders when Lucy finally managed to get your limp body up, you could barely stand on two feet let alone walk all the way down to the kitchen.
She nearly throws you down into the chair as your dead weight drops, the gravitational pull meaning your body falling down into the seat.
“Oh I’m sorry kiddo, I didn’t mean to hurt you.” She says softly, taking your face in her hands to inspect your warm and red cheeks, eyes nearly at the point of closing.
“No, ‘s fine you didn’t hurt me, ‘m totally fine.” The slurred words make Lucy worried, in the short time that you’d lived with her and the redhead you’d only managed to get sick once before, but even then it wasn’t as severe as now. Back then it was merely a slight cold that went away with some cough drops, but now it was clear that this wasn’t some harmless cold.
Maybe it would be good to take you to the doctors after all, even though her and Keira had agreed on waiting for a little to see if it would get worse. But Lucy was rightly concerned for your well-being, there was no way she’d let you continue without at least seeing a doctor. This feeling was only heightened by the coughing fit you suddenly found yourself in.
“Okay Y/n, you’re going to eat your soup and if you don’t feel better after that then we’ll wait for Keira to come back from the store and then go to the hospital together, that okay with you kiddo?” Her hand is on your shoulder as she looks into your halflidded eyes, speaking slowly and gently so that you’re able to understand her in your fever ridden state.
She immediately recognises the shaking of your head as a no, you clearly didn’t want to go to the doctors, even if Lucy tried to bribe you.
“No, no doctor, ‘m fine.” You mumble out incoherently, waving your hands around pretty obviously trying to deter the defender, to make her change her mind.
“Listen bubs, you’re clearly not fine and it’s worrying me and Kei a lot. We don’t have to go to the doctors office per se, if you want we can go see the physios at the training grounds, do you want that?” Lucy sees your hesitant nod at her proposal, still not wanting to go see anyone other than her and Keira, but the physios always let you have a piece of candy every time you come by.
“You actually got her to agree to go to the doctors?!” You hear the very distinct voice of your other mom, of course the two women knew that you saw them as some pseudo parents, but they didn’t know how you longed to call them mom, because that’s what they were in your mind. They were your moms and nothing would ever change that.
“Yeah, I think bubba’s too tired to really know what she agreed to.” Lucy responds lowly, not wanting you to decipher what it was she told the midfielder. You’d probably make quite the scene if you had heard it.
Over the next 30 minutes the Walsh-Bronze household, the two women manage to feed you the now lukewarm soup, even with your struggling against them like a toddler, get you out of your pjs and into a pair of Keira’s oversized shorts and one of Lucy’s too small for you hoodies.
After that they carry you by your arms and ankles out to the car, a rather funny sight, and lays you over the three back seats in Lucy’s car. It’s definitely unorthodox and a bit dangerous, as Keira herself noted, and so you were moved into a sitting position and helped with bucking up.
Keira decided that it's best for someone to sit with you in the back, to hold your slumped form up with their forearm in order for you not to hurt yourself even more. Ultimately, it’s decided that she’s sitting in the back with Lucy driving the familiar route to the training grounds.
It’s barely midday by the time you arrive, so most of the girls were still in training. That was lucky enough for you, too tired and depleted to walk and too stubborn to be carried like a baby in front of your team.
“Bubba? If you just let me unbuckle you quickly then we’ll find out what’s wrong with you sooner, okay?” With Keira still supporting your upper body, Lucy unbuckles you and slips your limp arms around her neck. She then carefully pulls your lanky frame out of the car, your long legs wrapping loosely around her hips.
One of the shorter woman’s hands goes underneath your thighs to prop your relatively lifeless body up and the other goes around your back to keep you from flopping back and falling to the ground. It’s only when your head is secured in the space between her neck and shoulder that she starts walking towards the large building, Keira already having locked the car.
But you don’t get far until you encounter one of your teammates, legs still dangling loosely by Lucy’s hips.
“Y/n/n? Why are you being carried?” Asisat asked you, having gone on a bathroom break only to meet you, Lucy and Keira in the hallway.
In response to the forward you let out a few incoherent babbles, brain not being able to catch up with your mouth. It’s only when the Nigerian looks to your parents that she gets to understand the situation.
“Bubba’s pretty sick, she doesn’t have the strength or energy to walk right now so that’s why she’s being carried.” Lucy just escapes being cut off by a loud coughing fit coming from the young football player in her arms, the older woman rubbing her hand up and down your back so as to sooth you.
“Ahhh okay, I assume you’re meeting with the physios? Just know that both Jana and Alexia are there right now, but I don’t think they’d be bothered by the bébé. Get well soon young Anakin.” Ever since you had watched Star Wars with Asisat, she’d been calling you ‘young Anakin’, though she always joked about you not being allowed to join the dark side. Not that you’d ever want to join Real Madrid anyway.
“‘Kay Obi-wan.” With one last stroke of your cheek, the forward departed and let you continue on your merry way to the physios room.
After a while Lucy has to retake her grip on you to make sure that you wouldn’t slide down her body, and that’s when you encounter two more teammates.
“Aye díos mio, what’s happened with the bébé?” It’s Aitana and Frido come up to you this time, the two nearly attached at the hip.
“She’s really sick, we’re meeting with the physios to see if they’ll be able to figure it out.” Keira answers this time, her voice less loud than the Spanish girl’s, indicating that it is the tone that they’re supposed to use.
“Men lilla stackare då, I’ll swing by later with some soup and crackers.” The swede says determined, clearly her motherly instincts shining through for her young teammate. “Krya på dig lillen.” With that, both of them disappear down the hallway, discussing plans on what they should bring over to the Walsh-Bronze household later that evening.
The three football players make their way to the room where the physios were, the silhouettes of multiple people showing through the artificially blurred glass. There was a need for privacy but like any other establishment, the Barcelona training grounds needed to look modernised.
Incoherent words are heard from inside the room, the door not blocking out the usual noise. There was always someone talking at the training grounds, Pina and Patri talking and making up schemes for their next pranks, Ingrid and Mapi hiding away in some closet you’d found them in more than once, Aitana and Frido speaking aimlessly about their weekends.
There was always conversation.
And in some way you relished in that fact, that the team all knew that they had someone to talk to. It wasn’t easy in the beginning despite Keira and Lucy involving you in everything they did. Luckily, you found your place pretty quickly.
You can hear the way the conversation in the room gets cut off as soon as Keira opens the door, Lucy entering right after the younger woman. When the captain sees the state you’re in, she can’t keep from gasping.
A sickly kind of pale, inner part of your lips covered in a thin layer of deep red, skin damp with a thin coat of sweat. Your arms were still loosely wrapped around Lucy’s shoulders, only letting go when she places you on the bed closest to the door.
When the weight of your head disappears from her shoulder, she finally notices the wet patch on her shirt, ‘poor bubs’ she thinks absentmindedly.
The physios swarm you almost immediately, asking Keira all types of questions, how high of a fever you had, if you’d eaten anything yet, and so many other things. It was like you’d finally spaced out fully with all the different voices stamping at your eardrums.
You focus on trying to breathe properly, the whistling sound annoying you to no end. The next coughing fit arrives abruptly, turning your body to the side as brutal coughs wrack your body, making it shake viciously with every cough.
When you fall back to your original position, there’s a big ball of dark green, yellowish mucus laying beside your head. There’s immediate concern for the physios as they notice the slight red tint the mucus has.
“How long has she been coughing like this?” One of them asks, looking directly into Keira’s wide eyes.
“Since last night, but I think it's been going on for longer.” She responds unsure, Lucy’s hand coming up to rest against her back,reminding the younger girl that she was there.
“Can you help us get her into a sitting position? Alexia, you help too.” The captain holds onto your hand, clutching it in slight fear as your body barely responds to her touch. Lucy slides in behind you, letting your body rest against hers fully.
The cold metal of the stethoscope makes contact with your overheated skin and it makes you whine, virtually the first reaction you’d given them since entering the room.
The physios face knits together uncomfortably at the noise emitted from your lungs, he becomes even more concerned when another coughing fit takes hold of your body. He motions for Lucy to push you forward slightly so he can listen to your lungs from your back. He shakes his head worriedly at the results, but he ultimately lets Lucy pull you back into her body.
He gestures for Keira to follow him out of the room, their footsteps heavy on the ground. She nearly drags her feet against the ground, knowing purely by the expression on the physios face that it probably was not good.
“It’s more than likely that she’s got a chest infection, a pretty severe one as she’s coughing blood, but we need a scan to be 100 percent sure. But as long as you and Lucy keep observing her and making sure that she’s doing relatively fine, everything should be okay in a few weeks' time. Someone does need to be with her though.” He explains carefully, looking to see her reactions, but she doesn’t let him know what she’s really thinking, only nodding along to his words.
When the two enter the room again, it’s like chickens have replaced all the grown women in the room, clearly reacting to the small amount of blood covering your chin. Keira barely manages to get a word out before Lucy shouts out a rushed sentence.
“KEIRA SHE'S COUGHING BLOOD.” Lucy is visibly panicking, her knees shaking against the bed, looking helplessly at her girlfriend who seemed calm as a cucumber even after her revelation. “WHY ARE YOU NOT FREAKING OUT RIGHT NOW KEIRA? OUR CHILD IS COUGHING BLOOD.”
A lazy smile covers your face, not being able to do much more due to your energy being fully depleted, at the older woman calling you her kid.
“Luce, she’s got a chest infection, it’s normal for her to be coughing blood. Now she needs rest so it’s time to get home.” Alexia springs to her feet to help you get up, even though her knee is busted. You always admired how he cared for others.
Lucy gives you a piggyback ride back to the car, claiming it to be better for her back. In reality you knew it was so that she could hear your breathing better, but you didn’t mention it. It’s sweet, the way they care for you.
You can feel eyes on you the entire way back to the house, Lucy checking on you through the rearview mirror every time the car stops moving, Keira checking up on you every so often and pretending she wasn’t when you catch her.
Lucy’s arms must be tired after carrying you around all day, but she seemingly doesn’t care in the slightest as she puts you down carefully on the comfortable sofa. She plops down next to your prone body, her arm resting over her head as she grabs the remote to turn the tv on, knowing that the low hum of voices lulls you to sleep more often than not.
She hears how Keira moves around the kitchen, pots and pans clanging together in a destructive tune, and you nuzzle your head in under her arm, Lucy’s hand coming up to run through your hair. The day finally catches up to you as you fall asleep, tucked closely into the defender’s side.
It feels like mere moments between when you fall asleep and when you wake up, but in that surprising amount of time a lot has happened. It’s dark out, but the voices of your teammates can be heard throughout the whole house, and you open your eyes to the sight of Pina staring right at you, her face not too far from your own.
Lucy feels the way you jump when you notice the forward and she pushes Pina’s face away from you, but as soon as that happens she’s replaced by Frido, the swede shoving a spoonful of soup into your mouth.
“Sådär ja, nu kommer du att bli bättre på nolltid.” The swede smiles at you sweetly, her eyes scrunching up. There are so many people at the house, all doing something different, but everything combines perfectly into the mix that you know as Barcelona Femení.
And even though you’re annoyed by night four of Keira and Lucy sleeping in your room every night, you wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world. They were your moms after all.
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Note
You should post the full screenshots, in light of everything that has happened. Not to start drama, but people should know who not to continue having a relationship with on here and block. The community feels so unsafe now that we know anyone you are talking to could be laughing at you on discord or doxxing you on social media. I only come to tumblr for the hotd fandom and it just seems to get worse here every month.
Hello, anon.
I was going to let this lie, truly I was. I was reached out to by the person behind the comments made approximately half an hour after posting, an exchange in which I was gaslighted and levied with implied threats in a style I am very much familiar with from this person. I did, however, state that I would not escalate matters without provocation. Learning about past events, while upsetting, is not a new provocation.
That has changed upon learning that my good friend Ange, @ewanmitchellcrumbs, has been receiving screenshots of specific things these users have been saying in a group chat with originally six members, now five, via burner accounts. Presumably, this is the efforts of one/two members trying to deflect from what Ange has learned about @rafeism's doxxing efforts by suggesting it was another member in the group responsible. And in the last hour, burner accounts have been attempting to share very obviously doctored screenshots attempting to assign mean-spirited comments about other writers in the community to Ange. I believe this is the work of one or both of the original two people I called out in this post, and I strongly suspect that my answering this ask will invite continued instances of this behaviour or even a direct public post incorporating edited screenshots to defame us and divert from accountability. And finally, I was informed via anon that a lawyer would come after me on the basis of lies and misrepresentation, which is a direct threat and something I will not abide.
I said I was going to expose it all if I learned of any fresh fuckery. And alas, I have. This was asked for, and now my hands are tied.
My original post was about Bel, otherwise known as @succnfuccubus or @valeskafics, and Fae, @eyelinerandcigarettes or @barbiedragon, both of whom have been historically prominent figures in the House of the Dragon fanfiction community on Tumblr.
In July of last year, Bel made a commentary post criticising fanfiction writers who did not write anal intercourse with an appropriate amount of attention paid to preparation. This was perceived to be an attack against another fanfiction writer with whom she had noted enmity at the time, @arcielee, who had written a fanfiction work that arguably did or did not meet this criteria. I do not know and cannot claim expertise on this, as @arcielee and I have mutually blocked each other some time ago. What I do know is that several of @arcielee's mutuals observed the possibility that Bel's post was about this fic; the user Cal, @bucknastysbabe or @bnb-atnite, despite having had absolutely no prior connection to Bel, decided to call her out in a public post for it. Ange, with no context other than thinking a mutual of hers (Bel) had been targeted by this user, defended Bel, believing at the time that the post was not aimed at this writer or at any specific writer she was aware of.
This prompted Cal to divert her attention from Bel and turn it toward Ange, claiming that she had been told by "dozens of people" that Ange was quote-unquote toxic and abusive, claiming to have screenshots of this though she never shared proof, and essentially spending a good several hours (the specificity of which I can no longer recall, though it was certainly over the span of 24+ hours) responding to asks that 'came forward' with incredibly inappropriate commentary about Ange's personal life and friendships under the guise of "exposing her", without however actually committing to concrete proof beyond this. I will note that several of these posts discussed the nature of Ange's marriage to her husband and outright stated that Ange was parasocially fixated on Ewan Mitchell, without proof of this. I was a peripheral target of this, though it was clear the issue was with Ange specifically. This seemed to be the efforts of a few isolated users with personal grudges against her, masquerading as anonymous users to create the perception that this toxicity was widespread. I still do not know what prompted this explosive behaviour, and have absolutely no interest in hearing from this user directly to find out.
All in all, this served to bring Bel, Ange and I together, and we created a group chat on Discord on the 26th of July 2023 so that we could discuss the effects of this effort.
Fae was added a day later, as a close friend of Bel's and an ongoing mutual of both mine and Ange. Fae had previously had a conflict with another user named Shruie over her perception that Shruie had borrowed elements of her story writing to create her own works. Shruie received hate over this, which Fae had previously stated to me was not her work. Shruie went to Cal's blog, submitted an ask publicly slandering her and us by association, and thus it was decided that Fae would join the group too.
This group originally revolved around venting over the ongoing effects of Cal's decision to publicly slander us, and the fallout of this. We received a few hate anons and several people unfollowed or distanced themselves from us all because of it, and we were all understandably angry and upset about this. This anger is justified, and I absolutely still maintain that.
However, I and others in the writing community learned that Shruie had received a number of anons with racist connotations, specifically that she had been called a 'paki' and sent rat emojis. I still am not aware of the culprit behind the 'paki' anon, but Bel herself admitted to sending the rat emojis to Shruie:
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I would like to note that Fae reacted to this with the react.
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I did not call this out. I should have. But given that Bel was capable of this, the idea of addressing her behaviour directly made me nervous, and so I ignored this revelation and tried to cling to the hope that if I concentrated on building closer friendships with these two women, the hate Cal was levying would die down. Eventually, it did.
However, the vitriol these two women would participate in over the course of the months we identified as 'friends' was nothing short of ugly. They did not want to speak about writing-related topics at all; the entirety of their conversation revolved around making inappropriate and at times downright nasty comments about other writers in the community, many of whom I was completely unaware of. A great deal of the time, I would ask who someone was, as I did not know them at all. Other times, I would 'lol' at a comment to further the conversation along, and I will admit to also participating in some unkind venting about people I feel had been unfair to myself or to Ange. I have already reached out to these people specifically and apologised for this behaviour, as it does not reflect who I am as a person.
Further complicating things, Bel shared the private details of a user whom we had all blocked due to her association with Cal, including the sharing of her full legal name and her private social media account. I have screenshotted this and redacted heavily as evidence it exists, but I do not wish for this information to be known public. I have already initiated conversations privately with this person to provide them evidence.
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I need to be clear. This is a crime. The ONLY fortunate thing about this matter is that this information was shared specifically to Ange, Fae and I, and Ange nor I are the type of person to have acted upon the sharing of this information. To this user, I am sorry I did not reach out before now. I am sorry that I allowed our previous longstanding enmity to fuel my inaction. To this user, I promise that my knowledge of your real name or social media presence will not be revealed to anyone. I have not shared this information in any way whatsoever, though you are already aware I have spoken to a close friend of yours and asked them to pass the bare facts forward to you.
Even worse, Bel has also shared this person's image and mocked her physical appearance, which again I have a redacted screenshot of:
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During the months in which I was friends with Bel and Fae, I was influenced to believe in several untruths. First of all, Ange and I were informed by Bel that a user we shall call E had deliberately chosen to speed-write a fanfiction work about Ettore in order to post it before Ange could finish her Ettore series as a means to 'drown out' her update. This fact had originally made Ange upset enough to complain without naming E directly in my public Discord server, something which spurred E to receive numerous hate anons and spark the conflict that I currently believe eventually spiralled into Cal's decision to publicly slander us. I requested evidence of this from Bel while I was writing a public post about it, so I could attach evidence. I should have known that her inability to provide it was a problem.
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I was influenced to believe that another user, @targaryen-dynasty, had created her server as a means to spread inappropriate rumours about me and Ange to her mutuals. I created a falsified Discord account and joined her server to see if this fact was true; when I failed to find evidence of this after a period of time, I exited the server. I have already apologised to Laura for this, and freely admit it was stupid of me to do so. She has not engaged in inappropriate commentary about me on her server and I am happy to publicly share this. We have mended bridges, and moved on. I have also apologised to Sam, @randomdragonfires, for being unkind about her in response to Fae's upset that she had written a Daemon fanfiction work. There are many people I have been unkind about that I earnestly wish I had not been, and I have done my best to apologise for these things.
What I have not done is engage in the following.
I have a number of screenshots wherein these two women admit to sending anonymous hate messages to various users. I have reached out to who I can to provide them unredacted versions, but I will be redacting names for privacy reasons. These are throughout and as I have a photo limit, I cannot provide every single one. Here is an example:
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I wish to also share the further evidence I have of racial escalations from these two women against a writer of German heritage. I have reached out to this user to share directly, but will redact the name for privacy reasons.
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There are numerous instances of further hate to many, many writers. To those of you who suspect you may have had comments made about you, I invite you to reach out to me in private if you wish to know exactly what has been said. To those of you who I have already informed, I am deeply sorry I allowed myself to be silent.
Over the course of this 'friendship', I began to pull away from the internet. I barely interacted online, even with Ange, who is one of my absolute best friends on here. I did not write at all. I couldn't. I was paranoid, anxious, full of anger and fear. I was ruined. Fandom was ruined. These women ruined me. I watched on from a distance as Ange began to grow distant with Fae and Bel in the group chat, as it had been MONTHS and they were still behaving in the exact same angry, bitter way they had when they first joined the group chat. Ange grew increasingly frustrated because Bel had commenced a pattern of using Ange's content to heavily inspire her own.
It all came to a head when Bel learned that her 'enemies', Jo and Karina, had unblocked E and @arcielee and mended bridges. She decided to do the same, and in doing so apparently informed E that Ange was at fault for any and all conflict that had occurred, and I presume any and all hate anons that had been sent to E. Ange learned this because E reached out to her and sent a barrage of furious messages telling her that Bel had 'told her the truth', which Ange was completely bewildered by. Here is the exchange that effectively ended the group chat:
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You will note that Bel's story is different here. I do not have screenshots verifying what Bel specifically told Ange the conversation was about, as it was a private conversation. If Ange wishes to add to this and bring this conversation up specifically, she is invited to do so.
Not long after this, seeing little point, I ejected Fae from the group and decided to leave it for the time being. You see, after learning this last fact as above, I had a very unfortunate suspicion that things were going to turn sour for us. I was right, and boy am I glad I have the evidence to dismantle the lies that have been told about us.
For a time, we existed in limbo. Bel and Fae and Ange and I had a series of lukewarm interactions that were largely brief in nature. I think we all knew that the friendship was about to come to an end. 
Then, Ange reblogged an opinion post about her dislike of the bimbo trope being used for Michael Gavey fics, believing many examples of this to be an incorrect and wildly offensive representation of what writers thought was the ‘bimbo’ trope. This prompted Cal to go on another rampage, ugly and public, and one I will not post screenshots of because let’s face it, everyone is aware that it occurred. I do have them, though. I can provide them if anyone insists. She spent further time calling Ange out for being ‘toxic’, eventually having it die down when her posts failed to gain much attention. I did hit out at a few of her mutuals who tried to claim for some reason that Ange was a racist (?) because she expressed worry about Ewan attending a Con, and hoped his fans wouldn’t behave inappropriately to him. I digress. Irrelevant. The result of this all was that Bel, without warning or notice, reached out to Cal to ‘make amends’, despite having gone through all the above. Despite the fact that she was supposedly friends with Ange, who had had her marriage, her life mocked and insulted by this woman. Over what? A perception that Ange was insulting her for her love of the bimbo trope. 
Ange told Bel directly that she wasn’t a fan of it but that she didn’t care either way that Bel wrote it if it made her happy, and Bel told her this was fine. Bel choosing to befriend Cal was something Ange and I felt was a massive, massive betrayal. We blocked Bel, and we moved on.
This was one of my final interactions with Fae:
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I ended up blocking Fae because I learned she unfollowed me, and I presumed it was because of her friendship with Bel. I knew what Fae was like, didn’t want her to have access to my anon inbox, and so I blocked. For a very brief time, things were somewhat approaching peaceful. Until I started learning that people I barely associated with were being targeted. I learned that @marthawrites had been blocked by Chris and from her, that Bel/Fae/Cal/Chris had made reference to a quote-unquote “frightening degree of hatred” for me and Ange. From her, I also learned that Bel evidently had a burner she used to “camp out” on my blog and make screenshots of everything I said so she could mock it in her group chat. She did the same to Ange. I received a number of strange or unkind anons during this period, and so I can only speculate as to the person involved. I also learned that Bel has a habit of calling me “pedo” or “Pedo Em”, which I can only assume has something to do with the fact that my main character in my fanfiction is 17 when she is married. In A Song of Ice and Fire, this is tame.
I was deeply upset to learn this, and I made a vague-post. Within hours, I received the anon from this post, prompting me to respond in the manner I did. See, me being called a pedo is not a widely-circulated insult from my knowledge. It had to have been Bel to send it. Interestingly enough, she reached out to me not even an hour after my post went up, claiming she’d been sent a screenshot of it. I don’t believe this. Here is the exchange:
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What surprised me most was when a formerly incredibly staunch friend of Cal and Chris, and Bel and Fae by association, reached out to me via a different account before completely deactivating. She grew tired of the relentless hatred circulated in the group chat she previously shared with them, and left. This prompted the entire group to block her, only after Chris called her names and Cal had what was described to me as an “absolutely psychotic” rant at her. She is struggling. She was very close friends with them, and despite having engaged peripherally in the commentary they have circulated against me and Ange for a while, I cannot hold it in my heart to be angry with her for believing lies her friends have told her. She has told me that they would repeatedly mock me and Ange, constantly trash-talked about us for months, make claims of all manner of insane things, and yet never provide a SINGLE instance of proof for this.
I would like to now provide clarification for some of the specific rumours that this former mutual informed me have been spread around about me and Ange.
Ange and I are racists who told Bel off for wanting to write Bollywood HOTD fanfiction. This is categorically untrue: see this screenshot for proof that this was never mentioned.
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Ange and I bullied Fae whenever she mentioned getting her treatments for her condition (which, by the way, she has discussed online and is therefore ALSO not doxxing). See the screenshots for proof that Fae has never once mentioned it. There are specific phrases that can be searched for also, but because she has not been specific about her illness online I will not disclose the nature of this.
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I have made nasty comments about Chris’s child. See the screenshot below for evidence that it is in fact Bel who called the child “a little fucker”, among other things.
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Ange and I have doxxed people. See…… all the above as proof we have not. This was likely a pre-emptive deflection, and I am disappointed but not surprised by it.
That I have sent hate anons to the group, which they claimed was verifiable through their 'hacker' mutual. However, the former mutual of theirs that reached out to me has sought professional feedback about this claim, and it has been concluded that the so-called hacker was "right-clicking on page analytics" in a manner that cannot possibly reveal the identity of the anon-er. Furthermore, I didn't. They have been blocked by me.
I am responsible for @emilykaldwen blocking Cal and others. See this exchange wherein Nat informs me she already had Cal blocked. As for the accusations of a block list, this is categorically untrue. I have no screenshots to share because there are no screenshots at all. Because I did not do this.
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I don’t know at this stage what else has been said. If anyone has anything further they’d want clarification for, I’m sure I could find evidence to disprove it. There are further statements that are wholly untrue that, as I do not believe they have been disclosed by any party in public, I will not share here.
None of this should have happened. None of this should have happened. How DARE you all. You have spent FAR too long abusing this fandom for your own sick, selfish amusement, and I am done. Nothing that has ever happened here was begun by either myself or Ange, and the fact that even NOW you are all attempting to redirect the blame on us or even on each OTHER is truly, truly shameful. I have owned up to the part I have played. I have apologised to the people who I have hurt, whether they had known I did it or not. That alone makes me better than you will ever be, because even now, you fail to take accountability for the full scope of what you have done. You have minimised, redirected, falsified and manipulated everyone because you do not know how to admit you were wrong without taking whatever opportunity you can to get 'the last dig' in.
What was the purpose, ladies? What is possibly going on in your life that being so angry, so hateful filled you with so much joy? Now, you’ve gone past the point of no return. You cannot come back from this. You cannot deflect from this. I’m sure you’re going to try to, maybe even to come up with “evidence” that none of this is true. You’ll lie, you’ll scramble, and you will not apologise, I’m sure. You should. Do you understand how far past the line you have crossed? Do you understand that we are actual, real people? This isn’t a game where you’re making sport out of upsetting a bunch of pixels. Ange is a journalist. I am a teacher. We are adults with full time jobs and full time lives and full time human experiences, and you have done your absolute level best to destroy us. I don’t understand why. I don’t understand how you could do this to another person. I don’t know what to do to make you stop. Do I need to deactivate? What do I need to do? You have terrified me beyond belief. I am so, so afraid of you. Does that make you happy?
I’m just speechless.
And to those of you still—STILL—clinging to supporting these women… You’re either stupid or just as horrible. The fact that people on "all sides" of this fandom have reached out to me and cleared the air should be telling enough, but I cannot change what you refuse to accept. I really don’t know what your problem is with us. With me. We’ve been holed up doing nothing for months, and that STILL wasn’t enough for you. This isn’t a game. This isn’t something you can win. This is real life, and you are making people suffer. For fucking fanfiction.
I am open to letting bygones be bygones if you genuinely didn’t know any of the above information. However, to the four of you—Bel, Fae, Chris, Cal—I do not wish you kindness. I do not wish you empathy. I do not wish for anything at all but for you to leave us alone, finally. You have burned just about every bridge possible, and the only people at fault are you. If you attempt to ‘reconcile’, your burners will be reported. If you attempt to further slander us, your posts will be reported. We are in the process of figuring out what legal recourse there is, because this has gone beyond ‘mean’ and straight to cyberstalking and criminal offence. I want you to take a good, long think about why on earth you ever thought any of this behaviour was okay. And then, I want you to stop. Stop. No one’s safety is worth your ego on Tumblr.com.
To everyone else. Please don’t get involved. Do not send any anons, any messages, any vitriol to these women. Let them reflect in peace and silence. Or let them bang at the walls of the prison of their own making. Let them lie to themselves as much as they wish.
I don’t know what to do anymore. But if anyone does have a similar story to tell about these women, please reblog this and share it. It'd be nice to know I'm not alone.
219 notes · View notes
phas3d · 2 months
Text
Roblox W/ Them || Slytherin Boys
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type :: fluff
tw/cw :: doxxing, bullying,
contains :: draco, tom, mattheo, theodore, lorenzo
summary :: how they play roblox
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DRACO MALFOY
Grinds the shit out of every game he plays
He cannot enjoy a single game if he doesn't become rank 1 for at least one week
Really likes roleplay fighting games for some reason
Like Bloxy Fruit and stuff
Definitely wastes a ton of money on Robux and stupid stuff
He doesn't care that it's cheating, it lets him become #1 way faster
Doesn't really like tycoons and slow games
If he can't brag, how can he show off?
His character is SOOO try hard omfg
He definitely dresses in all black
1000% HAS RAGED AND BROKE HIS TABLE
Bought a new table after and took a break from Roblox for a week
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TOM RIDDLE
Plays old people games like a grandpa
A fucking beast at Bingo
Even though it's completely luck base, he wins 9/10 times
Always has like 6+ bingo cards and can easily keep up with it
Plays tycoons every once in a while
But he likes the ones where you just press a button and it's auto built, doesn't like building stuff on his own
Like, he hates restaurant tycoon and rollercoaster tycoon
Never ever spends his money on Robux, he thinks it’s cheating
His avatar is the default one too with maybe some clothes he unlocked
Bullies the shit out of little kids on roblox for no damn reason
He could have 15 missing assignments and still find time to log on and dox some 12 year old
Whenever someone beats him at Bingo he finds their mom and dad's name and then private chat's them it
Takes everything so deep for no reason
Get this man to try weed or smth man he needs a new hobby
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MATTHEO RIDDLE
This man has tried every single genre of games and has beaten almost everything
He's who Draco wants to be
Definitely spent way too much money on Robux for no reason
He has the headless stuff and almost every rare item ever
Has like 20k followers as well for some reason
Grinding never stops so he literally STOLE someone's house elf and makes the elf play Roblox all day
But the elf actually likes it and has fun playing it :) So it's cute
He ends up sharing his account with the elf and they become kinda like besties, but more so Matt sees him as a little brother
1000% like Tom he bullies little kids
He insults people's outfits, rates their little drawings and outfits super low, and straight up annoys them in any form possible
Sometimes he joins tycoons that have swords, doesn't even start his own tycoon, and just uses robux to get a sword and kill people
His daily mission is to annoy as many people as possible
Even worse is that he's not scared of getting hacked or doxxed because Tom made SURE that would never happen
Sometimes Matt even joins Tom's boring games but he leaves mid way cause he starts to fall asleep
Super fun to play with and will carry you 100%
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THEODORE NOTT
This man, oh my god this man is so guilty of so much
He's one of those people who pretend to be a different gender online for benefits LOL
But not people he actually is transgender or nonbinary, but because he wants to do girly things without being judged
Always plays fashion games and WINS?!???
Even when the votes are super duper rigged, he always wins in the end
Plays a bunch of family roleplay games too as a mother of like 5 kids
Starts fake drama for fun, like favoriting one kid but ignore the other
OR he plays as a teenage girl and runs away LMAO
But his favorite game is definately Total Drama Island
This man will stay on the game for like 2 hours just to win
Super good at parkour and aim since he also plays shooting games besides Roblox, like Apex and Valorant (ewwww)
When he plays with the guys, they mock him for his girly ass avatar but he doesn't care at all
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LORENZO BERKSHIRE
Likes more calm games but is up to anything
Grinds tycoons a lot, like resturant tycoon and rollarcoaster tycoon
Sometimes he plays with Mattheo but they're so different
Matt finishes his level in like 2 mintues and Enzo takes an hour
Sucks at parkour, avoids it like the plague
Super bad aim as well, literally dies first every time
He likes playing with Theo a lot more since they can vibe and play a chill game
He really likes story tell games too which is fun
LOVES the games that aren't super roblox-y which is kinda cheating
Like he used to play the old Roblox Pokemon game daily until it got shut down :(
Plays those family games too like Bloxsburg and stuff
Is actually a good kid
BUT,,, he has his name has "Enzo (17) Cute, Smart, 6 feet tall, athletic, depressed"
335 notes · View notes
Oh dear sweet god
Why do I do this to myself
This goof has such a chokehold on my heart I just CANNOT
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Working on P is for Public of ABC's of Kink, but it's getting split into two. Part one is SFW, part 2 will be very much NSFW. Already working in it and planning to have it up tonight.
And awaaaaay we gooo—
I lied part 3 will be NSFW don't hurt me
Blacksmith's Daughter
Part 1 of 3
Part 2 here
Series: ABC's of Kink
Letter: P is for Public
Wordcount: 2.7k
Tags: SFW, NSFW (part 3 only), fluff, hurt/comfort other stuff maybe
LA!Shanks X AFAB!Reader
Dear gods I loved writing this one
To say you were in a pickle would have been a grievous understatement.
You and a close friend had been caught sneaking around a Marine base after getting the bright idea to break into their treasury vault. For a few years since your father's death you had been down on your luck, and it had seemed a quick ticket to dragging yourself out of the gutter. You had become over that time a particularly skilled thief, and the training you had recieved from your father in blades, not to mention the pair of cutlasses he had smithed for you, didn't hurt your chances.
And you had been forced to give yourself up after your friend was killed while resisting arrest.
Thrown onto a Marine ship bound for Impel Down, locked in the brig with your hands and feet bound in irons. No family, no friends, set to rot for at least the next few years in prison, if not for the rest of your life.
You were fairly certain your situation couldn't possibly get any worse.
The officer guarding the brig was leaning against the desk across from the stairs that led up to the main deck of the ship, polishing his rifle with a rag and gun oil and whistling to himself. He had an easy enough time of it—you were the only prisoner there, and you weren't bothering to give him a hard time. You had been aboard the damnable ship for three days, stiff and sore from your limited range of movement in the heavy shackles clamped around your wrists and ankles, the gravity of your situation weighing heavily on you, and there really wasn't any fight left in you.
Sudden shouting from the deck overhead made him pause and look up the stairs, his brow furrowing under the brim of his cap as you both listened.
"Open fire!"
"Pirates!"
"All hands! Man the guns!"
The officer glanced into your cell, shouldering his rifle as he tossed his rag on the desk and pointed at you.
"Not a peep, wench."
You just leaned back against the wall of the cell with a sigh. "Yup."
So your situation could get worse. Wonderful.
The ship rattled and shook, the cannon fire making your ears ring. Bits of the ceiling fell into the cell around you. You flinched when a hole was blown through the wall of the cell next to your own, the cannon ball rolling across the floor and clanging against the bars. Rather than rotting in prison, you were just flat out going to die.
A fitting end for a miserable few years.
And then all at once, you heard another voice call for ceasefire. The cannon fire stopped first, and slowly the sounds of fighting on the deck above your head fell into relative silence, peppered with animated chatter and laughter.
That could only mean one thing—the Marines had lost.
And your suspicions were confirmed when, a few minutes later, one of the senior cadets on board burst through the doors and sprinted down the stairs into the brig in an outright panic, whimpering, attempting to draw his pistol with shaking hands—but not before he was followed by a broad-shouldered man with a long black ponytail, a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth, holding a large rifle with one hand and leveling the barrel between the young Marine's eyes.
The pirates had won. You weren't sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.
"Oh, don't shoot the kid, Benn, just get him restrained."
You watched another pirate stroll down the stairs and lean into the wall at the edge of them, bright red hair framing his face, a long black cape hanging around one of his shoulders, and a pair of cutlasses slung over his shoulder—your cutlasses. He set them lightly on the desk and patted his crewmate on the shoulder a couple times as he passed.
There was only one man on the Grand Line that matched his description, and even having lived in a town too far inland to have had much experience with pirates, you had heard of him—Red-Haired Shanks, captain of the Red Hair Pirates, who held one of the highest bounties in the world.
"Be quicker to shoot him." Benn shrugged a shoulder. "Or just coldcock him over the head."
"Kid's probably already shit himself." Shanks grabbed a coil of rope from the wall and tossed it across to him. "No use adding injury to insult."
Benn rolled his eyes over toward his captain...and then his gaze flicked back a bit, landing on you as you glanced warily between him and Shanks. Benn gave a nod toward your cell, and your heart went from racing to ceasing entirely when Shanks turned his head and locked his gaze with your own.
He lifted his eyebrows a bit, his dark brown eyes glinting.
"Well, hello there." You swallowed as he approached the cell slowly. He wrapped his hand around one of the bars, leaning forward. Evidently your anxiousness was written all over your face, as he said next, reassuringly, "Don't worry love, we don't bite. Unless you make the idiot decision of opening fire on my ship," he added, raising his voice just a bit and tilting his head to look back at the Marine cadet, who was putting up absolutely no fight over having his hands tied behind his back now.
Shanks directed his gaze back over to you, flashing a charming grin. "So what're ya in for, sweetheart?"
You took a deep breath, and forced yourself to speak. "I—I, er—"
"She snuck into the base in Nanohana and attempted to break into the treasury vault," the cadet chimed in, and flinched as Benn shoved him down to sit against the wall.
He then grabbed the gun-oil rag from the desk and stuffed it in the cadet's mouth.
"Nobody asked you, kid," he said, leaning against the adjacent wall and crossing his arms, his rifle propped up against the wood paneling beside him.
Shank's grin only widened at that. "Did you really?" You nodded shortly, and he chuckled. "God, what a horrible crime," he went on, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Everyone knows the World Government is horrifically impoverished and doesn't have a single Berry to spare." He leaned a bit closer, resting his head against one of the iron bars. "How far did you get?"
"W...we had just gotten the vault open before we were surrounded," you said quietly. You couldn't tear your eyes away from his, as they widened and his eyebrows shot up toward his hairline, completely taken aback.
"Impressive," he said, his eyes passing over you slowly. He bit the corner of his lip thoughtfully, before his eyes returned to yours. "You said we. You have a crew?"
You shook your head. "It was just me and my friend. Well...more like my brother, really." Your eyes dropped to your knees for a moment. "He didn't make it," you said quietly, still not quite able to process it. Your best friend, your only friend, who you had known for twenty-three years, since you were a toddler.
Gone.
When you lifted your eyes back to the red-haired captain, his expression had softened considerably, mouth turned down in a small frown, his amusement replaced with genuine concern. "I'm terribly sorry to hear that, sweetheart," he said gently. He drew in a deep breath, and let it out as a slow sigh, before flipping his cape out of the way and taking a seat on the floor—and you noticed with a bit of shock as the cloak shifted that the left sleeve of his loose white shirt was empty.
He rest his elbow on his knee, leaning his chin into his palm, hand curled over his mouth for a long moment.
"Arabasta is around three days from here," he said finally. "Provided the wind cooperates, and honestly we could do with making port. We'd be more than happy to take you home."
You swallowed, your heart still pounding, still anxious, but for a different reason now. This man, who didn't even know your name, who was gazing at you with a gentle compassion spread across his handsome features that you were entirely unaccustomed to, offering to go out of his way just to get you home���this man had a bounty of over three billion berries?
After a moment, you shook your head. "Wouldn't be much use," you said, shrugging a shoulder. "I don't exactly have a home."
"Any family?" You shook your head—your father's death had been wholly unexpected, and led ultimately to the closing of his smithy, where the two of you and your "brother"—his apprentice—had also lived. Within less than a month you had been on the streets. "Friends?"
His face fell a little more every time you shook your head no. He ran the pad of his index finger over the top of his lips, glancing briefly at Benn.
Back at you, looking at you almost like you were a poor, abandoned puppy he wanted to take home.
He glanced at Benn again, longer this time, until his first mate sighed, straightening out from the wall. "I'll figure out who's got the keys," he said, already starting toward the door.
"Good man."
From the slam you heard, you were fairly sure he kicked the door open at the top, and his voice boomed over the loght chatter on the deck.
"Alright, you assholes. I'm gonna ask one of you who's got the keys to the brig. I don't get an answer in ten seconds, you're getting an extra hole in your head, and I move onto the next guy."
Your eyes widened a little as you looked toward the stairs, moving back over to Shanks as he laughed a little.
"Has a real knack for subtlety, doesn't he?" he said with a crooked grin. He leaned back, planting his hand on the floor behind him. "Seems you have two options, love. You can stay here, with a bunch of tied up Marines who want to take you—where, Impel Down?" You nodded, and he returned the nod. "Or..." He cooked his head slightly to one side, his grin widening a little. "We can break you out of here and you can come with us."
You blinked a few times. "And...go where?" you said slowly.
Her shrugged a shoulder. "Wherever the wind and the waves carry us."
He was asking you to join his crew. You felt your eyes widen a bit, and Shanks laughed softly when he saw his meaning had sunk in.
"I'd choose the latter option, personally," he said. "Never hurts to have another good thief on board."
"You...can't really say I'm a good thief, given..." You glanced down pointedly at the iron shackles around your ankles. "Well, circumstances."
"Ah..." He waved his hand dismissively. "Everyone makes mistakes early in their career. How long have you been thieving?"
"Two years," you said. "Since my father died. Mostly just...pick-pocketing and sneaking money pouches off vendors. This was the first actual break-in."
His eyes widened a bit. "Your first actual break-in," he said slowly, the corner of his mouth curving into a smirk, "was into a Marine base in a major city?"
You shrugged a shoulder, and nodded. He huffed out a sigh, shaking his head.
"Oh, I like you," he said in a low, flirtatious tone, his eyes making a slow pass over you that made your heart speed up and blood rush to your cheeks. "So tell me, princess...." He finally leaned forward again, resting his arm across his knee, and went on with a debonair grin. "Is there a pretty name to go with that pretty face?"
You managed to stammer out your name, your eyes wide as saucers. His smile softened as he shook his head a little, his gaze locked firmly onto yours as he spoke one word softly.
"Beautiful."
You jumped when the door opened, and both of you looked over as Benn descended the stairs, flicking a spent cigarette butt at the Marine cadet still seated in the corner. He tossed a ring of keys over to Shanks.
"Already informed everyone we have a new thief on the crew," he said flatly, tossing a ring of keys over to Shanks.
Shanks swiped them out of the air, grinning. "And how do you know that? I don't recall telling you."
Benn gave him a look equally as flat as his tone.
"Oh, lighten up, you grumpy old bastard," said Shanks jovially, pulling himself to his feet. Your eyes were glued to the keys as he flipped one out and tried it in the cell lock.
It didn't open.
"So what're we doing about this?" said Benn, gesturing broadly. "Caravel full of tied up Marines. Sink her? Just leave her adrift?"
Shanks shrugged. "Might as well just leave it. Take anything that isn't nailed to the floor."
There was a muffled sound of protest in the corner, and both men turned their gaze to the cadet.
Shanks tried the second key, with no success, as the cadet managed to turn his head and tug the cloth out of his mouth with traction from the shoulder of his coat. "Y—you can't just—there's no telling when another Marine ship will come by!"
Shanks snorted. "Or another pirate ship." He flipped to the next key, smirking. "So you'd rather I sink her?"
"W—well, no, but—but we—"
Benn had evidently heard enough. He rolled his eyes as he stooped down to pick up the cloth, and the cadet's jaw snapped shut immediately. Sighing in irritation, he grabbed the kid by his nose and held his nostrils shut until he was forced to open his mouth to take a gasp of air.
And Benn immediately shoved the cloth back into his mouth, and pointed a finger an inch from his nose. "Do it again and it'll be the last thing you ever do. Got it?"
The cadet nodded quickly, his eyes wide circles of terror.
The third key turned, and the lock clicked. You expelled a heavy sigh of relief at the sound. Shanks chuckled lightly as he watched you lean your head back against the damp wall behind you. "No need to worry, love," he said, kneeling down at your feet and flipping to the attached set of smaller keys for the cuffs and shackles. "I can pick a lock when I need to." He freed the first one, leveling his eyes with yours, and a small shiver coursed up your spine as he reached out and brushed a few strands of hair behind your ear, his thumb briefly caressing your flushed cheek. "I'm not letting a few iron bars and chains keep me from you."
"Oh dear god," Benn grumbled under his breath, rolling his eyes, and you almost giggled a little, biting your lip. The guy wasn't wrong, Shanks was laying it on pretty thick.
Though you weren't really complaining.
Shanks glanced back at him as he set to unlocking the second shackle, feigning surprise. "Oh, are you still here?" he said with a sarcastic smirk. He turned his attention back to the irons. "I fear I forgot there was anyone else in the room for a moment."
He glanced up and gave you a little wink before tossing the shackles away, and touched your shoulder lightly to indicate for you to lean forward so he could get to the cuffs wrapped around your wrists.
Benn leveled his eyes with yours, glancing at his captain, and gave a small snort of laughter. "Good luck."
And with that, he headed back up the stairs.
"Oh, don't listen to him, sweetheart."
Shanks chuckled, leaning over you to quickly unlock the shackles, so close you could feel the heat of his body, smell the leathery scent of his cologne mingling with a subtler hint of spiced rum. Your heart raced as he stood back up, dropped the cuffs, and held out his hand, smiling.
You hesitated for the briefest of moments, before placing your hand in his. He pulled you to your feet...and then flush against his chest, grinning as he wrapped his arm around your waist.
"I promise I'm perfectly harmless."
619 notes · View notes
redclercs · 8 months
Text
DELICATE✰ CHARLES LECLERC.
xiv. this feels like the calm before the storm.
— the one where the world is caving in.
warnings: cheesy pop culture references, aidan and victoria are back, more articles than usual. mentions of panic attacks, anxiety tics, spelling mistakes in the tweets that i am too lazy to correct, forgive me. 2.3k words (+articles!)
masterlist ✢ next
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'Did Timothée Chalamet get y/n y/ln a role in 'Little Women'?'
By Bridget Thomas
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As previously reported by various outlets, actress y/n y/ln has been cast as the youngest March sister for yet another remake of "Little Women", expected to be premiered by the end of next year. However, we can't help but wonder, how did y/n manage to get a role alongside actors of such high caliber, such as Meryl Streep and Best Actress Nominee Saoirse Ronan?
Despite the success of movies such as Supercut and The Hating Game, y/n's acting skills cannot even begin to compare to those of her co-stars, she's a romcom actress, and she's supposed to stay that way. But as Ringo Starr once sung: "I get by with a little help from my friends" and y/n is no exception.
Timothée Chalamet, Greta Gerwig's other main muse, has Hollywood eating out of the palm of his hand, and his influence goes a long way. So much so, that he was able to secure Amy's role for new friend (possibly new something else) y/n y/ln.
Right after they were seen mingling at a party in Paris with y/n's boyfriend (probably soon to be ex) Charles Leclerc, y/n got the call that they decided to give her the role.
Don't we all want a boyfriend who uses nepotism to our benefit?
Seriously, though, how does y/n manage to get this heartthrobs to spare a glance her way and do this stuff in her name? Somebody call the Winchester Brothers, we might have a witchcraft case right in front of our eyes.
Click here to go to the next article.
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'Victoria Presley: I still miss my best friend, but all she did was use me.'
By Daniel Gomez
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After staying away from social media and her job for a month and a half, beauty influencer Victoria Presley is back and she's not afraid of anything. Not even legal repercussions.
Back in July, Victoria received a 'Cease and Desist' letter from none other than former best friend y/n y/ln, demanding she stopped talking about her in public and to news outlets. This sparked the rumors that Presley had been selling her secrets to tabloids and was the one to reveal the engagement secret alongside actress Mia Kim, Aidan Kim's sister.
Victoria immediately removed herself from the narrative, deeply hurt by her ex-bestie's actions. Now, after gathering her thoughts and recovering from being stabbed in the back, she's giving us this exclusive interview.
"I can't help but miss y/n, she was my best friend for so long. But all she did was use me." Victoria is still in disbelief of y/n's actions, after giving her all her love and support. "I let her live in my house for months, and one day she leaves without any explanation. All to meet that Formula One guy."
Victoria has expressed her discontent with y/n's relationship with Charles Leclerc several times, arguing he is one of the main reasons y/n cut all ties with her and not the rumors that she revealed y/n's secrets to tabloids.
"He changed her for worse. Their relationship is so toxic, they breakup and get back together again and again, and they're just looking for ways to use the other's reputation for their benefit."
However, Victoria is certain the relationship won't last much longer, since y/n has her sight set on co-star Timothée Chalamet. "y/n has liked him for a while. When the rumors of his relationship with Kylie Jenner came out, she assured me she could steal him away with a flick of her hand."
Meanwhile, Victoria is focusing on her beauty line and its evergrowing sales. "I'm competing directly with Rare Beauty and Fenty. I'm in the big leagues, the way I deserve to be."
Click here to go to the next article.
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'Aidan Kim reveals tracklist for "MIRRORS" and moves the release forward.'
By Paul Dean
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Aidan Kim fans won't have to wait until October 5th anymore since their idol has decided to move the release date for his debut album forward by one month.
While we believe this decision was influenced by the news of ex-girlfriend y/n y/ln making her acting comeback in a high category movie, his fans also begged him to 'remind everyone of how awful y/n is' and judging by the titles of his upcoming tracks, we're sure he's leaving no crumbs.
Check out "MIRRORS" tracklist here:
In Your Pocket
All The Things I Hate About You
Him
Cry Me A River
Stabber
Stupid Love Letter
MIRRORS
Round and Round (Star-5 Reprise)
Yours and Mine (Star-5 Reprise)
Blinding Lights (The Weeknd Cover)
No Lie (With Mia Kim)
We can't wait for Aidan's insight on his relationship and breakup to y/n, we're certain the details are juicy! Don't forget to presave "MIRRORS" on Spotify and Apple Music!
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Monza, Italy, September 3rd.
1...2...3... deep breath in, 4...5...6, breathe out.
You repeat the process five times until your heart has set in your chest and isn't trying to break free anymore. Until you've stopped squeezing your thighs with your palms and you can keep your eyes open without feeling like the red decoration is stabbing your eyeballs.
It's good that you can manage your anxiety before it turns into panic. You're still embarrassed about The Spain Incident, although neither Charles nor Carlos fault you for it at all. Still, every now and then, their panicked faces flashback in your mind and you feel sorry for them all over again.
You don't want this weekend to turn into The Monza Incident. Not when Charles' contract renewal was announced a few hours ago and he's on Pole Position, this weekend has to be perfect. Or as perfect as possible, for your boyfriend.
Boyfriend.
The weight of the word has multiplied by a thousand in your mind. Silly, when you really think about it. But palpable in a way that has butterflies flying around your stomach every time you think about the word and Charles' smiling face appears in your mind.
He's your boyfriend and you're his girlfriend, and this was a mutual agreement you reached with panic still holding you by the throat, only soothed by Charles' soft lips against your temple and his warm hands rubbing your skin.
You agreed to come to this Grand Prix because it will be the last one for you for a while. Filming for Little Women starts soon, and though they have a couple of races in the States, your schedule can be a little unpredictable. Also, you're hoping to score more roles soon.
You breathe again, deep enough that your lungs ache and lightheadedness threatens to rise through your body. You're overwhelming yourself, again.
According to the world, you’re not skilled enough to be in a movie with Saoirse and Timothée and should give up the role to someone who actually deserves it. Which you won’t do, of course. That someone who deserves it is yourself. It has taken a lot of pep talks in the bathroom mirror to brainwash yourself into believing it, but you’re getting there.
Plus, there are more things to worry about with Victoria back on her bullshit and Aidan's album coming out in two days. There are so many things to fix again, just when you thought you were getting there. Of course the two people that hate you most in the world have to mess with you again.
"Already here?" Carlos asks the second he crosses the door to the Suite. "It's way early."
"Good morning to you too," you let the air out of your already burning lungs and smile at Carlos. "I have nowhere else to be."
You could be at the Paddock Club, mingling with whatever celebrity or rich local is there. Or even visiting McLaren, since Lando offered to 'show you the garage', something Charles didn't like, of course. The secret of your newly earned girlfriend-boyfriend titles is one you try to keep close to your heart.
As if that has worked before.
A wave of anxiety runs down the back of your neck when you remember the tweet you saw this morning about a Deuxmoi tip on Charles and you. What could the exact price be, to reveal your relationship to the world?
"Have you had breakfast? Looks like you're going to throw up," Carlos says, sitting in the sofa opposite yours.
It's at least the fifth time he's told you that during the weekend. You know he does it out of a place of concern, but it still rubs you the wrong way. You also need to look perfect, not like you're going to throw up.
"I had breakfast back at the hotel, it's just the lighting."
"Sure?"
"I'm fine, Carlos. How are you?"
Carlos shrugs, he's not being the center of attention this weekend despite this being another home race for the team. "Good."
"Didn't you have to be at the meeting today?" you question, although it's obvious that by his getting there just now, he didn't.
"Had my PR reminders yesterday. Charles is different."
Of course. He has to know what he's allowed to say about his renewal and what he should not speak on at all.
Your own team advised you not to let yourself be seen at Monza. Mildred would have pulled you out of the plane if it had been up to her, and Walter would have helped her hold you hostage until the weekend was over.
They're both trying to find out about the Deuxmoi pictures too, although you doubt they can reach an agreement of any kind with whoever holds them to stop them from calling People Magazine up.
This whole avoiding being seen thing makes you feel wrong. As if you were doing something bad with Charles instead of just finally letting the love you've felt for him for months show. You hate it.
You're wrong to compare your current situation with your past ones. Aidan was your first really public romantic relationship, but before that, you didn't hide your partners either. Of course you weren't that famous, but even then, you didn't entertain the thought of scurrying around like criminals.
"He'll be fine, y/n," Carlos adds, looking at the way your foot keeps stomping the floor, like you're some kind of hyperactive bunny. "He's on Pole. You can pray for Max's downfall, though, maybe that'll help."
"I don't pray for people's downfall," you click your tongue, crossing your legs to stop the tic.
Karma and all that.
"Maybe you should." Carlos winks at you, and your conversation is finished as Charles leaves his meeting.
You can tell something's off just from the way his shoulders tense, but he smiles at you the moment your eyes meet.
"Everything okay?" you ask before he leans down to reach your height as you sit and pecks your lips.
"Yes, everything's good."
He's lying.
─────────
What was the point of coming to Monza if you're only watching the race through the screens?
You don't think the sun has touched your face at all since you got to the circuit, and you really want to be out there. But you stay put in your seat as the formation lap occurs right outside of the Suite.
It will make no difference, though, Charles is focused on the race, as he should be, rather than whether you're watching him through the TV.
Soon enough you know what will make a difference.
It's some kind of miracle that Charles has managed to regain the P1 position after the disastrous pit stop Ferrari put him through, and maybe Carlos was actually praying for Red Bull's downfall since Max has his very first DNF of the season and Checo can't get past George in P3.
Charles is going to win Monza again.
The decision making tree branches in front of you in a matter of seconds, people at the Suite are already talking excitedly and someone asks if you want to go down, there are four laps left.
You get up from your seat, aware that if life was anything like that videogame you played a couple times on the set of Parisian Valentine with your co-star, the "This action will have consequences" legend would appear on the screen right now.
You follow the Ferrari worker out, but even between the excitement and celebrations, you manage to hear what the PR Manager really thinks of your presence in the Paddock.
"She’s such a PR nightmare,"
She switches to Italian when your eyes fly to her face. And you can only wonder what cruel yet entirely accurate thing she said.
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It's worse than a nightmare. It feels like the apocalypse all over again. And the weight of the world is back on your shoulders, feeling like you're messing up what was a weekend out of a dream for Charles.
You flashback to Monaco and the way Mati pulled you out of your head and locked your phone in her purse. You wish she was here more with each passing second. You cannot tear your eyes away from every single tweet speculating about your presence, about your relationship, about your intentions. It's overwhelming.
But Charles' happiness is what matters. He's absolutely ecstatic, even after the mishaps during the interviews where his PR training had to kick in and lead reporters back to Formula 1 related questions.
The thought that maybe you should have tried to make friends with more people occurs to you when you arrive at the celebration in the private club and Charles is dragged away from you. He tries his best to hold on to your hand, but the truth is people want to be with him and not you, so you let him take the spotlight he deserves and enjoy it.
"So, are you and Charles dating, then? Didn't you use to be engaged?"
You half-smile at the girl who just asked you the question, so boldly it takes you aback. But you guess her eyes are so bright from how much alcohol there is in her system, she's bound to be direct with liquid courage running through her veins. She's pretty in that dark hair, dark eyes way that has you momentarily doubting your own looks.
The extra heartbeat that takes you to reply, has her eyes shifting around the room before settling on Charles, who is finally walking back to your side.
Your boyfriend hands you a drink and smiles at the dark-haired girl and her friend, politely. "Are you having a good time?" the question is mostly directed towards you, but both girls jump at the chance of saying they're having the time of their lives and congratulating Charles for such an epic win. But they prompt you to join the conversation a few seconds later, so you're grateful for it either way.
There's a song in Spanish playing on the speakers and Charles is doing his best to sing the words while encouraging you to move to the beat with him. With his arms around you, things feel a little lighter, the whole in your chest that anxiety carved out is slowly filling with the love you feel for him, and the happiness of the day outshines the darkness of the thoughts in the back of your mind.
That is, at least, until the first notes of 'In Your Pocket' replace the previous song, after the DJ announces it's a special request. It's a remix, obviously, so people can dance to it, but a few of them have stopped moving altogether just to be a little less discreet about eyeing you.
"C'est pas amusant," you hear Charles say to one of his friends, who is hiding his mouth behind a tall glass of alcohol, his eyes still betray his enjoyement.
"It's fine," you squeeze Charles' arm, trying your best to smile although you're being put in the spotlight and there's nearly nothing worse than being the butt of a cruel joke. "It's just a song."
You wondered many times what those surrounding Charles thought of you. They didn't know you, after all. His brothers were nice to you when you saw them around the Paddock, and it wasn't like you'd hung around the rest of his friends. Did they mock him when tabloids called him a homewrecker? Or did they believe he'd just embarked on what seemed to be a dead-end relationship?
"I'm sorry, soleil, they're just— they're idiots," Charles adds, his hand reaching for yours. He looks genuinely upset and you can't help but hate whoever requested the song a little more for spoiling Charles' mood rather than for making fun of you.
"Charlie, it's okay, I've been through worse," your reassurance doesn't soothe him, so you squeeze his hand and he presses his lips to your temple. "I'd rather listen to Bad Bunny or something, though."
Charles laughs and pulls you out of the dancefloor, to a more private part of the club where you both can catch your breath and share a few kisses, unafraid of people staring at you.
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New York, United States, September 7th.
You know you're in trouble when Mildred calls tells you that you need to be at her office ASAP. She also used that condescending 'I'm the adult' tone that send you back to when you were fifteen and got in trouble with your mother, so it's another indication that she's angry at you.
Of course you know why, the words 'PR nightmare' haven't left your brain in days. And the moment you set foot in New York, Mildred was all over you about every single thing that was being said about the Monza Incident—aka seeing your boyfriend like any normal person would.
"This isn't ideal," Mildred says after a while, she has been explaining the public's perception of you for the past half hour. "It's like you—"
"Like I fucked up?" you cut her off, squeezing your knees to stop from biting your nails.
"We were rebuilding your brand, y/n. People think you waited for things to die a little so you could go public with Charles. Aidan's new album is not helping your case."
If you thought 'In Your Pocket' was bad, nothing compared to the rest of the songs. Some in which he called you a list of things including a homie-hopper, drama starter and said you settled for a 'bum' when you could have had a 'rockstar'.
"How is that my fault?" you don't intend to sound so whiny, but you can't help it. Why are Aidan's actions always your fault somehow?
"People are talking more about how you are dating a Ferrari Driver after spending months saying you weren't, rather than the fact that you landed an incredibly important role."
"We haven't told anyone we're dating,"
Mildred rolls her eyes despite her best efforts to remain professional. "Do you really think that's necessary?"
"What do you suggest we do?" you ask, knowing you won't like the answer.
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─── team principal radio: ❝remember when I said it wouldn't take me one month to update delicate and then it took me longer than that? I'M SO SORRY LMAO. also not loving this chapter but i just want it out of my way for now i need it off my drafts, but don't worry this time i'll try for the next not to take me a century. thank you if you're still here, your patience means the world to me i love you all so muuuuch♡❞
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734 notes · View notes
chaedomi · 8 months
Note
Hi I just found your blog and you are so talented, your writing is so immersive you really have a gift, I was wondering if you could write for some yandere oshi no ko? Maybe with the mc being a very famous model, platonic or romantic is fine
LOVEABLE MODEL
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WARNINGS . YANDERE, female reader, can be read as platonic or romantic, ooc, hints toward spoilers in manga (and anime for those who have reached a certain point), implied stalking, mostly everything you'd find in a yandere post, unhealthy relationships (if i missed any, kindly alert me)
WORDCOUNT . 2.7k+ / MASTERLIST.
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YOU WERE pretty and sensational. You had a diverse career that allowed you to explore different types of styling, keeping the job interesting. You were also a huge influence and an inspiration to many, encouraging them to pursue a career in modeling and to experience various brands of fashion and cosmetics.
However, what attracted people to you the most was not your career, but rather your unique personality and your unparalleled charisma. It was one-of-a-kind, something that would leave people aching for more… similar to a former starry-eyed idol. It's no surprise that you have a ton of admirers, and that includes the odd ones as well.
AQUAMARINE HOSHINO
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Let's be real. Model or not, unless you were of use to him or acquainted with his sister, AQUAMARINE would see no necessary need to interact nor get to know you. Why should he care about someone who will eventually fall from stardom?
But, in this case, it was different. Very much so. It was as though time stopped for a split moment when you both passed each other in the school hallways. Faster than his mind could process, his hand was already reaching out to grasp your arm as if he were to let you go, you would disappear for an eternity. Unusual of him. After you overcame your brief surprise from the sudden contact, you offered him a polite smile, eyes twinkling with unspoken mischief… to which he gawked at like an idiot.
How was it possible for you to possess the same charm as 'she' did…? He’s so stunned and in disbelief that he’s incapable of constructing a coherent sentence for some time. No investigations were made to confirm his assumptions… he was THAT convinced. You best believe he made the effort to become associated with you. It wasn’t as though he was desperate to attach himself to you, you noticed, but somehow, he always found a way to be around you, and if on the correct setting, it was beyond unnerving. You shrugged your shoulders at his abnormal behavior, justifying it with a “you’ve handled worse.” By the time it is finally drilled through your thick skull that hey, ‘something is wrong,’ Aqua would have fully wedged himself into your life. Good luck trying to avoid him…
There is an annoying obstacle in the way… namely your career as a model. Not to mention, the large fanbase you have gained over the years. So much as it was very tempting to find shady methods to force you to void your career entirely, the problems that can arise afterward will be more than problematic.
As said, because you remind him of a certain individual, his extreme tendencies will begin to lay on you. Just because he cannot end your career does not mean he cannot become overbearing. The fear of seeing you injured or harmed in any way replays a very unpleasant memory in his head…
He constantly monitors what you do, and whom you choose to interact with, and makes decisions that seem appropriate for you. It's as though you’ve lost your right to free will…
He's aware of how wrong it is. But, to him, it feels like a second chance, to lift some of the burden that he has carried on his shoulders for a while, to rid of the guilt that was slowly destroying him mentally and emotionally. Well, at the very least, he didn't convince himself you were 'her'. Even though there were some strong resemblances in characteristics, it was still easy to nitpick many differences (to him).
RUBY HOSHINO
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There's without a doubt, Aqua was only familiar with your existence due to RUBY. A walking and living example of a true stan and diehard fan; god, she was obsessed with you. Magazines, products, advertisements, brands, merch, anything that has your face plastered on it, she’s out to grab it all… what she can afford, by the way. Your hair! Your lips! Your EYES! How can someone be this attractive!? Forget Model… someone put you in a museum for you to be admired by millions, quick!
As you can tell, Ruby has quite an attachment to you. And this is her without the yandere tendencies included. It was terrifying and had the potential to creep out anyone unfortunate enough to listen to one of her passionate rants. Other than her fawning over you for your glorious visage, there was another reason as to why she acted the way she did. You were just like 'her', the way you spoke, the way you moved, everything was down to par. It filled her mind with memories of 'her' helping her cope through dark times, and you were too doing the same, distracting her from the negativity that threatened to cloud her mind. At some point… she fully believed that you were 'her' in another body. You just had to be! Explain the similarities! It took thorough reasoning for her to understand that the possibilities were low. You were around her age, so by the time 'she' passed away, it would have been too late for that to happen.
On the day of school, it came as a big shock to her seeing so many famous faces inside the premises. But the biggest one of them all was when you walked inside her classroom all smiles, apologizing to the teacher for your tardiness. Shit… was she actually inside a dream right now!? She pinched and twisted her skin for good measure. Nope! She was alive and conscious! There’s no room for argument, she most definitely did snap a couple of pictures from where she seated, behind you. Somehow, she mustered up the courage to converse with you after class, falling deeper into her admiration for you.
Unlike her brother who saw your career as a nuisance, she fully supports you to continue all the way! In addition to that, it's a massive stroke to the ego that she had the privilege to bask in your presence while the majority had limitations. Do you know how many people would kill just to breathe the same air as you, The Loveable Model?
Turns out, Ruby can make for a dangerous yandere. Once Ruby puts her mind into something, the results made afterward are so impressive that it’s scary… But, it’s not like she’ll ever need that to happen, as long as you vow to stay by her side, she’ll make no drastic attempts to prevent herself from losing something as she previously did.
KANA ARIMA
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For KANA, at first, it was an in-between… Although it was not to the extent of Ruby, she was a fan of yours… you were just too entrancing! You’re the reason why she went through many style phases, buying useless shit she didn’t need, wearing expensive brand clothing that you featured in… you get the main idea. Sooner or later she had to stop as she noticed the money she made from her child career quickly diminishing the more she allowed herself to indulge in her fan side for you. Begrudgingly she put a halt to it, still buying your magazines every now and then.
The other half is completely sour when she sees how whipped Aqua is for you. (she totally doesn’t question if Aqua’s attachment to you was romantic or not…) She kind of gets it; your personality, your looks, and your status as a famous model, you were a ten. But, there was a difference between love and admiration, so you were some sort of rival to her.
Fear not, Kana gets past that, clinging onto you instead as she got to know you in person. It was bound to happen. Kana was already ‘under your charm’, so it was only a matter of time before that admiration morphed into an obsession. Kana can be very clingy and manipulative. Manipulative in the sense that she uses her sad-sob backstory to ground you by her side. The majority of her supporters are now her anti-fans, she doesn’t have her parents around, and now you, the idol she looks up to, want to leave her too!? You wouldn’t do that to your lovely supporter, right?
Kana wouldn’t care about your career too much, she understands what it’s like to really love your job, so she doesn’t complain a lot. As long as you treat her kindly and remember her, she is content. Please.
MINAMI KOTOBUKI
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It's like, the calmer the individual is, the uglier their hidden side will be. And MINAMI will not be excluded from that logic. There is no doubt that Minami was affiliated with you due to her status as a pin-up model. On some weird, rare occasions, you would find yourself as her partner for a certain aesthetic for a photoshoot. So, yes… you knew each other to an extent.
What you couldn't wrap your head around was the fact you always felt a sense of unease around her. She out of all people. Why? She's an absolute sweetie, gentle and pure at heart. She always compliments you on how you look and praises you for the work you put in toward modeling. She goes on further to say she can see why people adore you so much.
There's nothing for you to worry about… except for the glaringly obvious issue that her eyes seem to follow whatever movement you make. It could be the twitch of a finger or any minority; glance to the side and there are pink doe eyes already staring holes into your face. Or when you're seated in the courtyard and just so happen to look at the corner nearby and see Minami there, who smoothly brushes it off with a friendly wave.
It was fine to you, till you began to see those pink doe eyes in the more uncanny places, namely restaurants you're in, or your job… you could swear you saw those pink eyes somewhere inside your house one time. But as you blinked, they vanished. As you take a peek at Minami who catches your gaze and laughs brightly, you can't help but wonder if it was just your imagination and you were overreacting…
FRILL SHIRANUI
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Hmm… This one is a bit tricky. You see, FRILL doesn't tend to expose much of an expression or a reaction. You never know what's going through her head or how she feels about something till she bluntly puts it into words.
She's also affiliated with you because of your careers, (the magazines of hers and you are always trendy and are the most popular) so you weren't awkward or tense around her. It's just… Why is she looking at you like that? It's similar to Minami in the sense her eyes never leave you, but there is a layer of coldness in her gaze, in addition to the slight furrow of her eyebrows.
You thought she hated you. For what? You didn't know. It couldn't be career-wise, she had a great number of followers and need not be concerned about you overthrowing her. She didn't come across as the petty type either.
What did you choose to do about the matter? Simple. You approached her with a blinding smile, getting straight to the point. That day you got to witness a sight you'd never think you'd receive an opportunity to.
Embarrassment. She got embarrassed and the light blush that crept its way to her cheeks had you staring in astonishment. It was out of character for her, much more the difficulty she had to fumble out a proper sentence.
You just left for your next class as the bell rang because wow, that was unexpected. It was cute to watch, seeing Frill become so soft-spoken around you. Who knew that a high-ranked celeb like her looked up to and admired you too!?
You're so amused by her change of personality that you don't notice the icy glares she shoots toward people daring enough to take another step closer to you…
AKANE KUROKAWA
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Another person who viewed you as a rival due to how whipped Aqua was for you. It didn’t matter whether Aqua’s attachment to you was platonic or romantic, the undivided attention Aqua gave you was something AKANE dreamed of having. So, when the chance arrived for her to develop a new character for the reality show she was featuring, she jumped at the opportunity to become what Aqua desired in a person. Spending hours studying your character, she aspired to impersonate you. Sadly, it didn’t work as well as she thought it would. Of course, she could never compare to you and your charisma. You were beautiful, very famous… there are just some things you cannot copy.
Initially, it was disappointment over Aqua’s lackluster reaction to her change, after all, she thought this a good way to pay him in return for what he did for her. Later, as she began to develop romantic feelings for him, the disappointment morphed into frustration. She felt like a loser all over again… No effort will make him adore her as she wants him to… So, she gave up.
Strangely enough, you managed to weasel your way into her heart in place of Aqua. She didn’t know what to make of it at first, frozen with a pale blush on her face when you praised her for her work. The way her heart thudded against her chest… she didn’t even react like that to the boy she so claimed to like. Perhaps he wasn’t the one she should waste her time on…
Even though Akane is considered one of the more ‘dangerous’ yanderes with her high intellect and analyzing skills, she’s pretty much harmless. In the nicest way I can say it, Akane is akin to a loyal devotee of some sort… As in whatever you desire, Akane will try her best to provide it, impersonation or not.
Akane is familiar with your works (god, BLESS the photographers for capturing your elegant essence in the most perfect angles), and is amazed, but she's not that into it??? Maybe if you were to branch out into her area of acting, the hype would be stronger… That doesn't mean you should stop in any way though! Continue to pose and look pretty while she appreciates (read as obsesses over) the sight. However, if your career were to ever… become an obstacle between you both, THAT will get her FULL attention.
BONUS: AI HOSHINO
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In this scenario, let's pretend you were around the age when AI was still alive. Let's think about this. Suppose you had a terrible childhood without correct familial guidance, or experienced situations that resulted in you being unable to feel and express love properly.
Now, imagine you came across a person who made you feel the very emotions that you desperately sought out. Would you want to distance yourself from that person, especially when they granted you something you've been seeking for so long?
The answer is no, and that's exactly what Ai did. By far, the worst one out there. She isolates you, she breaks your bonds with other people, and when you try to voice your complaints about her actions, she has the audacity to play innocent, baffled by your accusations.
A master with her words too, you would point fingers at her, the bad guy, and somehow, the argument would end with you apologizing and her rubbing your back gently as a large smile spreads on her face.
Surprisingly, she was the one who encouraged you to pursue a career in the entertainment industry. You agreed, thinking she was being normal for a change, but then later found out it was for her to spend time with you without consequences… Who would complain about two famous celebs hanging out with each other!? Not that she had a problem maintaining a lie, she just wanted the easier route.
It was very shameful that you felt a sense of satisfaction over the announcement of her funeral. Too bothered by the things she did while she was alive to you, the news deserved a celebration instead.
You lived a few more years of your life in peace. However, the day both of her children arrived on your front doorstep, it made you realize that Ai had no intentions of leaving you alone, allowing her children to replace the role she owned in your life. Even in death she still found a way to trouble you…
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©chaedomi. please do not modify, edit, copy or reproduce any of the works published.
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thornhawthorne · 3 months
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The thing about writing trans characters is that it is 100% guaranteed that at least a few trans people are going to be unhappy with whatever you write — not necessarily through any fault of your own, though that is certainly a possibility, but because there is such a dearth of trans representation in general.
Trans people are hungry and we’ve mostly been getting by on crumbs. I’m not saying that there are NO media with trans characters, but you have to admit that there are not a lot of really good things to read/watch/consume that have trans characters (and this is without getting into the question of whether or not those characters or the media they’re presented in cater to your particular tastes!)
^ This is usually the real problem. Certain genres and mediums have it worse, too! Think about how expensive it is to make movies or TV shows and how many people you have to get approval from and how many people need to be hired and paid to make one that makes it to cable, streaming services, or theaters, as an example.
Books and comics give us more to choose from in part because the barrier to pushing one out into the world is lower, though still not as much as I would like.
Personally, I want to make a TV show, but I can’t. So, I’m making the story into a comic that could maybe get adapted someday. This brings us close to my point:
Two of the protagonists (and many more of the side characters) in my current project are canonically trans. To some people, these two will be refreshing / the representation that they have been waiting to see for AGES. Those people will feel like they are being presented with a feast. To others, it will feel like being handed an empty plate and told to eat up. Those people are not wrong and I will not take it personally. The way that my writing makes them feel will be extremely real and undeniably valid.
What I want fellow writers to understand is that these feelings are not always going to be the fault of the individual author of the individual project that inspired these feelings (with the caveat that it does kind of suck when a new fictional trans person turns out to be exactly like all the other crumbs we’ve been forced to call a feast.) The people you make angry by breaking away from the norm could simply be mad because they’re used to feeling seen rather than because you've done something terrible.
People will be angry if a trans character is conventionally attractive or if they aren’t. They’ll be angry if you make the character pre-everything, non-op, HRT only, 10 years into a “do everything” transition, fat, thin, tall, short, etc. They’ll be angry if you make the character gay, straight, bi, pan, aro, ace -- I could keep going, but I won’t.
My point is that while you should definitely take the reasoning behind the anger your work may inspire into consideration and you should ABSOLUTELY remain critical of your own work if you want it to be the best it could possibly be...
You also have to be aware that you CANNOT please everyone, especially not with a single trans character in isolation, and you should not work yourself half to death trying to meet some imaginary guidelines of what “good” representation is, because it doesn’t exist.
"Good representation" means something different to everyone.
Also, someone already made basically what I was trying to express in this post but better and also in a single image:
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naomiswonderland · 4 months
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Désolé
A week had passed since Michéle’s brother had punched the boy who had played a joke on her. Of course she felt anger and embarrassment when water soaked up her entire school clothes but now that her brother was on the brim of getting expelled and her classmate had possibly lost an eye, she only felt utter guilt.
Her mind was clouded with all the possible outcomes that could come with her brother getting expelled. Would she even be able to keep staying at her new school? Would her parents also blame her? My god, Jean-Pierre will hate me forever! She thought when suddenly an arm wrapped around her shoulder.
“Morning!” Simones smile was brighter than ever that it could even make her feel a little better. “Morning Simone” Michéle replied but her voice came out different than she expected. “Oh my, are you still thinking about that dumb boy? It’s been a week, everyone’s already forgotten all about him.” She reassured her friend although it didn’t help much. “I’m not really concerned about him but more about my brother.” Michéle dragged her feet to school which she dreaded more than ever, her teachers and classmates all assume that she’s stuck up and gets a free pass because of her uncle now. Way to start off the new school year.
Can this get any worse? She thought to herself. “Don’t worry. I’ll always be by your side.” Michéle smiled, at least one person was making her feel less awful. As soon as the two friends entered through the school gate it was chatter all over the place. Yet the real talk of the school would enter minutes after. There he was, Joseph Descamps with an eye patch covering his left eye. It was dead quiet while he walked towards his friends, not missing a single glance at Michéle. She felt intimidated and scared although she was convinced he wouldn’t try doing something to her again because of her brother.
For a week she had been trying to reassure herself that he had it coming and that it wasn’t really her fault in the first place. She pressed her lips together tightly, her brows furrowing as she glanced at her friend once more, a similar expression on her face as well. Arm in arm they walked to class silently even though Simone tried to change the topic from time to time it was no use.
Time had passed and Michéle was sat in Latin for her second period. For the whole day she had been glancing at Joseph from time to time, even though he pretended not to notice he shared her glances a few times which left Michéle embarrassed and scribbling on paper, pretending to do something. “I’m so not ready for pe in third period. My bruise is so big! You cannot imagine how embarrassing it’s gonna be if people notice.” Simone whispered. “I don’t think it matters that much. That’s noting compared to Jospeh’s eye.” Although Michéle hadn’t intended for her reply to sound funny , Simone who felt absolutely no remorse let out a small cackle which caught the attention of the teacher.
“Is something funny?” Mr Douillard asked with an irritated tone which left the girl’s shaking their heads profusely. “You can stand outside if my lesson is boring you two!” He demanded and pointed at the door. Good, got in trouble once again. Michéle shut her eyes tightly as she and Simone left the classroom to stand out front. “He really needs to tone it down a bit. So dramatic!” Simone exclaimed in a louder tone than necessary which made Michéle alarm her to keep her voice down. “We have thin walls here, he can still hear us!”
Not a second later the door opened and left Simone and Michéle wide eyed. Had he really heard them?! A tall figure with his hands in his pocket appeared in front of them. It was Joseph. His eyes landed on the red haired girl as he stood there for a few seconds, watching her play with her fingers. Michéle averted her gaze as he walked past them, his shoulder intentionally bumping into Michéles smaller frame. “Watch it!” Simone yelled in an angry tone. “Who does he think he is?!” But Michéle knew that he was angry and was probably going to let his anger out on her…
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It was during break in which Michéle noticed her brother looking nervous and sweating profusely. Yes, today was his disciplinary hearing. “Are you even listening?“ Simone asked. “Huh? What?” Michéle looked at her friend that was sitting across from her. “No, sorry what were you saying?” “Ugh, I was talking about the new movie that just came out!” Simone’s voice faded into the background as she scanned the whole school yard but her brother was nowhere to be found. Then she saw Joseph walking to the bathroom, even though it seemed normal something was odd about the way he walked nervously looking around. As soon as their eyes met she knew something was wrong. Before she could do anything the school bell rang. “Simone you can go first, I’ll be running a little late, okay?“ “What? Why?” “Just go.” She said and ran to the boys bathroom as the yard was getting emptied.
Her hand reached for the doorknob when the door suddenly opened with a mischievous laughing Joseph. His smile disappeared once he saw Michéle standing in front of him. “The hell do you want?” His gaze was filled with anger and disgust. Gosh, he really hated her. “Oh, did you wanna go in for a quickie?“ he smirked but was met only with Michéles confused face. “Is my brother in there?” She ignored his weird statement and tried to look past his shoulder before the door closed. The only thing she could see was a broom locking a door and few faint yells. Panic set on Michéles face as she put the pieces together. “Did you lock my brother in the toilet stall?!” She yelled and tried to push past him.
“Oh no, leave my brother alone!” He mocked her voice as he blocked her way into the boys bathroom. “Stop it! Both of you!” Michéle and Joseph looked at Mr Bellanger who would definitely not let Michéle in or get into the bathroom as well. “Have you lost your mind? Fighting like this on the school yard!” “But Uncle, my brother-“ “I will be seeing him in the teachers office for his disciplinary hearing. Don’t make this any harder for him, Michéle. His options aren’t looking too good right now.” Michéle looked at him, brows furrowed as she felt the guilt she tried to suppress resurfacing and swallowing her whole. Suddenly the three of them heard a commotion in the bathroom and then a loud yell. The door opened and an angry Jean-Pierre was met with three surprised faces.
“I’m so sorry, Mr Bellanger. I was.. locked in the bathroom stall by this idiot! My Jacket, it’s ruined!” He stated. “Am I late? Do we still have time?” Michéle had never seen her brother this distressed before. He was usually so put together calm and rational but now she was causing him trouble. “You can wear my jacket and you two better get to class right now!” Her uncle exclaimed as she made her way to the gymnasium with Joseph.
“You’re horrible!” She stated and gave him a dirty look which he did likewise. He suddenly stopped in his tracks and grabbed the girl by the arm, yanking her back to him. His finger pointed at his eye patch. “I’m horrible? Look at what your fucking brother did to my face!” He said, his tone angry but he didn’t yell. “All because of you.” He whispered. “You started it!” She yelled and tried to push him off of her. “I felt bad in the beginning but now I realise you completely deserved it!” She retorted which only made Joseph tighten his grip around her arm.
“Let her go!” A voice appeared behind the two of them. Michéle looked past Joseph’s shoulder and met eyes with Laubrac. A wave of relief washed over her as Joseph let go of her and she quickly made her way over to her classmat. “Well if it isn’t the foster kid and the deans niece.” Joseph smirked, putting his hands back into his pocket.
a/n: i’m really not sure if this was written okay and I hope you guys like the idea! I really wanted to ask you for ideas but I thought I couldn’t keep you guys waiting any longer. Im really open for any visions and stuff that you guys have just comment them or put on my ask thingy (I’m not even sure I have one tbh). Just bombard me with some ideas I’d really like that<3 i hope you guys liked this
tags: @ssnowville @
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