#grim reader

[voodooya]

🖤.

[chibiclem]

@hetaween-event

For the Day 2 hetaween event (an HetaliaxHalloween event) : bookshop - horror movie - grim reaper

"England the grim reader"

"They had heard about the strange light in the library at noon. Arthur had warned them himself not to wander past 8 o'clock.

But they didn't listen. They were intrigued by the legend, they wanted, like all young spirits, to be the first to brave the danger.

And thus, the students hid and stayed until the last employee dissapeared, until no sound could be heard.

The path to the oldest part of the building was near, they could smell the books from afar.

And suddenly, one warned " shut the light down!". A greenish glimmer, a fantomatic halo...all the warnings in their head, the contradictory feeling couldn't stop the curiosity, the bravery of the adrenaline.

In a few steps, they came to face a dark, clothed figure, reading, sitting on a pile of books with funny names.

To their dismay, the apostle of death raised its head, fully aware of their presence. The electric green eyed of Arthur, the "librarian", glared menacingly, before he shut his book and growled " I did warn you."

*****

England the Librarian is an old idea of fanfic (I never wrote because I can't see how the story would really end) about England taking a regular job at a library full of students and being seen as a bit too knowledgeable for someone his age. Normaly he is protective of his people, so we could say he's actually just scaring them of.

But it's Halloween so, how much merciful can he be on these damned times, hehehe! ;D

[therealslimshakespeare]

grim reader here!! I’d personally like to see some of the scenes where Ida THINKS she’s ready for intimacy and it devolves into panic or whatever bc I think it’s formative to how they approach things in the future :) you know; the angst stuff haha

Nine times Ida Rosenthal thought she was ready, and the one time she really was —

coming to a bookstore near you!

Ok, I’m joking because I’ve not even written it out yet however, this is exactly how I imagine it, and I think each of those non instances are huge, crucial to their growth and going to be amazing to explore.

Literally I wanna have a set number, and each is a vignette of its own. I just need to plot out what those scenarios are.

Because there is so much before the sex.

NSFW BELOW:

There’s the lost art of necking which they reinvent, the first few times she turns into his touch in her sleep, it’s waking up to him warm and hard and not feeling a jolt of terror, it’s stumbling into him in the shower when he’s otherwise occupied, it’s kissing gone so intense on the couch they fall to the rug before the hearth and she thinks in a wine daze that she’s ready -she’s not. It’s holidays with her folks and Johnny and his new wifey breaking the bed upstairs and Ida getting genuinely miffed by the sounds of it that her brother bounced back so easily from all his fuckery and, in a competitive lurch, she climbs into Rosie’s lap and must be lawyerly dissuaded from competitive intimacy. It’s allllll the little gestures of romance and kindness beforehand, it’s Rosie helping her study for the bar once she chooses to leave the Air Force, it’s him helping her with the homework and his rewards get more and more tantalizing until she learns what that man’s hands can do -so much for all those protestations about not playing a instrument, Mr. Rosenthal. It’s the first time Ida asks him in the morning not to take care of things in the shower but to stay abed, to show her, teach her even. She wants to watch him, hear him, learn him. It’s her learning to associate sounds of male pleasure with a good thing, with Robert’s raw adoration and ecstasy as her hand grows more firm and her thumb clever.

It’s the first time she manages to put him fully in, after he’d just spent in her hand. There’s nothing much to be done then, just hold each other and process their oneness until he shrinks and slips out. It’s something though.

It’s all these things.

[therealslimshakespeare]

Grim Reader here ☠️ I’m wondering about Bucky and his feelings about that baby….and how it plays into his adjusting after the camps and post-war. I assume it’s going to be a painful memory for him and when he finally finds someone, he’s worried about miscarriages….like if someone as noble and good as Ida Brady can lose a baby, then someone with his checkered past and actions doesn’t deserve a child either? Idk, it just makes me think of how self-destructive he’d continue to be in his relationships post war because of the things he’s seen and had to do. And he already feels wildly out of place bc of how alone he is, but add to the fact that he thought of himself as the father and that’s brutal.

Hello my dear, I’ve missed you, *pets head*

I’ve got a rather massive one shot queued up on this very aspect, it’s not the full of it, no, but it’s a massive part of his arc in this story and the bereft feeling that peacetime brought with it. While I have a vague intention for his marriage and family to closely resemble his real one in this AU, it will be postponed, rash as he may be once he marries anyway, it’s simply not at all on the cards in 1945 for this AU, his emotional fidelity is split about three ways in this one, and there was a whole life he has planned and dedicated to himself that didn’t happen, twice over. It is going to be brutal but it’s also one of my fave parts as it explores what a heart this man has, beyond a romantic one.

Here, have a snippet, I haven’t got a title for it yet but it takes place after Jack Brady’s wedding in 1945:

There is a stubborn silence in which she can hear Bucky’s labored breaths practically repeating that he is not, in fact, weeping into her pillow mid morning on a Saturday in Victor, New York. She pats his arm -suit yourself- and pulls away to begin her day. She lights a cigarette, not having fully quit the filthy habit since camp, and grabs a pair of slacks and a shirt from the closet, needing a shower.

“You kept your baby doll.” his voice comes muffled and stuffy from the bed, she glances over and sees he has barely moved, only turned on his side to stare at the threadbare doll propped on her bookcase.

“That’s Minnie.” Ida introduces them with a grin, “Don’t sound so shocked Major, I’d have thought you’ve been in enough boudoirs to know that plenty of women keep their dolls.”

Bucky keeps staring at Minnie morosely, not laughing at her tease. “Did you keep it for your daughter?” he asks.

Sometimes John Egan reminds Ida of a callously curious child, his sympathy sometimes as wounding as his barbs. She refuses to read into it, he is hungover and he is confused by her childish relic; she keeps pace in her routine and replies with honesty, “I hadn’t thought about it.”

“Well I do.” he mutters instantly, bitterly, accusingly.

“Beg pardon?” she cautions him.

“I think about your baby all the damn time.” he turns around in the sheets then, sits himself up in her bed, eyes raw and dangerous.

The frog from Egan’s throat now takes up residence in Ida’s, she thinks she might choke on her own breath. “Why-“ panicked, her chest begins to shutter, ears ringing, hands cold. Why would he say that? “Bucky!” she'd have taken a stab in the heart over this, why would he- “Why would you say that?” she begs hoarsely, forced to sit beside him on the bed as her legs are no longer steady.

“You really don’t?” he begs in turn, looking as wretched as she feels.

“I-I-“ Ida digs her fingernails into her thigh, willing the cacophony in her head to cease, to get a grip back on the lid of that tiny coffin, “I’m not doing this. Not this morning, not when I’ve got breakfast to make for a household of people and -my brother just got married, Egan! Is this really the time to bring it up? They’re going to make jokes about you being in here! God’s sake -can’t you possess a modicum of sensitivity.”

It’s not a question. It’s an insult and he takes it on the chin. He knows that his own question -asking if she even recalls her dead child- was one of his own. That doesn’t prevent one last building tear to slip the dam and join the mess on his cheeks, because his heart is nothing if not on the opposing team.

[therealslimshakespeare]

Grim Reader here! Thinking INTENSELY about Gale Cleven and the amount of self-shame he probably feels over the abuse that he endures. And thinking about how long it probably takes him to actually talk to Maureen about it unsolicited by her questions. It's an ouch moment for sure.

Grim Reader, I raise my glass to you and am turn thinking intensely of how maybe it wasn’t so bad at first or was merely a one off occurrence upon landing, it’s not until after the great escape when the SS take over that the brutality and arbitrary authority reaches new levels that this man is compelled by necessity of protecting others to push himself further and further where he never thought his own pride and principles would allow him.

If not me, then who? Is what haunts him and if it were his own life at stake, it’s not even worth hearing the alternatives but when it’s another’s wellbeing, he’s got no choice…and the Germans know it.

And all the while, Maureen is watching this devolve and know he’s not alone in it and everything he’d once been so enraged for on her behalf he now mutters away as inconsequential as its happened to him. And it makes her blood boil as there’s no arguing with that man when he thinks his choice is his comeuppance and that makes them different.

[therealslimshakespeare]

Kinda grim...but would Ida ever try to get intentionally beat up by the guards in an effort to try and speed that miscarriage along? 👀 like, it's an act of desperation and i'm sure everyone's LOSING their minds about it if she does

Uh, Nonnie, I feel like I just met a fellow Grim AF-er and I kinda wanna hug you, for some weird reason.

Because -I’ve been thinking of this and wondering how hated I’d be to add it and I probably need to just man the hell up as an author and realize not many people are reading this series for the fluff -the love, the connections, the human resilience? Sure, and those will always be present. But we also want to put ourselves through it, that’s why it’s set in a POW camp.

I also love some angst. I love some historically accurate horrors. I love impressive people stripped down to brass tacks. The more I love you the more you’ll go through is a very common authoring motto, ha.

So anyway. Was already thinking that.

Because what else are her options? Especially after all other likelihood starts to pass by, stubbornly it stays and her chances for evasion are growing ever slimmer. She’s tried sports and god knows she’s not eating enough and she could try to catch Egan’s elbow to the gut or rile Maureen into a fight but she knows they’d take that guilt on them if her ploy succeeded. So…

…Yeah…

Also, to cleans the pallet, part of me wants to do a wack spin off of this AU where the baby survives, for some reason the German colonel allows it (Simoleit was a fascinating and rather hormonal man while he governed) and it’s just one big comedic exploration of everyone as baby sitters in the camp and on the march.

[therealslimshakespeare]

Grim Reader here ☠️

That whole little portion where Rosie's talking about the Brass paying the men to never talk about it? I'd love to see some expansion on that. Is there anyone out of the men that actually WOULD talk about it and the Brass would try to enforce a policy of silence? Statistically speaking, there oughta be at least one man who's unafraid to speak about it, at least to Rosie and Ida. And how do the Brass respond? If he's a military man, are they trying to stifle his career because it's not a good look? Are they trying to pay him off or find ways to buy his silence? Where's the support system for this person who is so willing to talk about it but no one will listen? Just a thought haha.

Holy smokes you’re over the target.

Because, not only are the brass both angry over it and have the leverage to damage and suppress his testimony of the same, I feel that the support group is indeed non existent. Becasue who the fuck wants to bond over that? Hell no, they wanna go home and get jobs and enjoy hamburgers and marry women and have kids and never be suspected of ever being less than a man ever again.

So not only do you have the brass being pissed over this, I think his fellow servicemen would as well. Like, just shut up already so this stops being a subject, ya know?

It gets even hairier when you start digging and learning much of this abuse took place in a extortioned bartering sort of scenario, which in military jargon that immediately gets categorized as an event with a certain amount of complicity. Although we’d all recognize it for what it is, this isn’t the same as sexual favors for a nice room at the Ritz, putting yourself in a position between your men and an abuser is not an act of compliance. But try telling that to a society that doesn’t operate from the same presupposition.

Ok but who is this brave and irrepressible whistleblower? Thats a fascinating idea and im not sure i have someone I’m sold on. To be honest i can see Howard Hamilton having the guts and the moral fiber to not give a shit about the nature of things but only their wrongness or rightness. Maybe not a massive disrupter so much as just someone who won’t not say shit, even if it’s not something applicable to himself. Even if it’s about others he witnessed he cannot be bought off and will to his dying day maintain that “that shit was fucked” and say it at a squadron reunion while the clatter of cutlery comes to a dead silence and his pilot gives him those betrayed eyes from across the white table cloth.

I’m also side eyeing Crank for a similar gentle and morally driven rebellion in this way -even if it’s for the cause of others and not his own experience. But I think he’s also discreet so if the victims want it mum? He might stay mumm.

But I think we are all thinking of one guy. Already bucks the system over and over and fights from the heart and not the head, decades ahead of his time in how much emotional expression he gives and demands… John Egan may have not personally experienced a damn thing beyond a black eye but as he sees it, the men and women under him were abused, and they all belong in the same pot, don’t matter if some were attacked or others were forced to trade themselves for their due rations, that don’t matter at all. It is what it is.

And this makes it interesting to think about how the men respond to this. Because they’d want anyone else to shut up already, as mentioned, but they respect the hell out of Bucky so they’d be slower to abandon him than they would one of their own rank and file.

[voodooya]

🖤.