#misd asks

Chapter 9 rewrite:

Laurence could feel his jaw tick as he clenched it, grinding his teeth together. The infernal sound of the radio slashed through the silence with such violence that he felt it physically. 

He couldn’t feel the radio knob when he pinched it between his fingers. It scratched against his fingers when he turned the knob until it clicked off and kept turning until he almost broke it off.

Sweet silence filled the car again, leaving Laurence with the rumble of the engine and the racing thoughts. 

How dare that radio prick, Mr. Moreau, spirit you off alone? How dare he give you flowers? How dare he try to court your attention? 

How dare he try to take what belonged to Laurence? How dare he after shaming Laurece for even suggesting to use you as collateral on the loan? 

It was Laurence’s choice if another man was going to touch his wife and no one else’s. Yet every time Laurence turned around, it was Moreau’s hand resting on his wife’s lower back. 

You shifted in your seat, gripping those damned flowers tighter. The sound cut through Laurence’s thoughts. 

He hated those flowers. The deep red of them, dripping with affection and love. Fucking Moreau, acting like they were just an act or propriety. Who the fuck brings another man’s wife roses?

The car lurched and jerked as Laurence parked in the driveway. 

“Get out,” Laurence’s voice came out tight, controlled. 

You did as you were told, clutching those damned flowers to your chest. 

The car rocked with the force Laurence slammed the door with. It took considerable effort to force his shoulders down and back. The blunt ends of his nails bit into his palms as he watched your back as he walked toward the door. 

He couldn’t feel the keys in his hand as he twisted them in the lock. The pain in his tense back overshadowed anything else he could feel. All he wanted to do waws get upstairs and take his medicine so he could have some relief from the damned pain. 

“I should put these in some water,” you said, voice wavering pathetically as you clutched these flowers to your chest like they were some prize from a damned suiter. You were a married woman, for God’s sake. You could at least do Laurence the favor of acting like it. 

Laurence didn’t remember reaching out for you. One moment, he was standing behind you. The next he had a hand on your shoulder and a fist wrapped around the steams of the flowers. 

Your soft skin gave way easily as he whipped the hand that threw the flowers against the wall, petals falling through the air as the whole bundel fell to the ground in a heap. Your skin was always so soft. 

The backhand Laurence delivered to your face knocked you off your balance. You crumpled to the ground, shoulder crashing against the dark wood. There was a hollow thump as your head bounced against the floor. 

Hollow. Hollow like your heart. Hollow, like your morals. Hollow like you. 

Empty bitch, just willing to let anyone fill you up. Willing to let some dirty mixed breed mutt fill you up. 

You laid on the floor, a disgusting heap of a woman as Laurence glared down at you. You were in his way, even as you struggled to get onto your hands and knees.

Did you get on your hands and knees for Moreau? 

You belonged to him and yet you strayed and he had to deal with you before he could deal with the pain in his back. 

Fuck you. 

“Did you suck his dick?” Laurence’s fingers tangled in your hair, pulling you from the wall you leaned against. He could feel each strand tangle around his digits as they wrapped tightly around them. 

“No!” Your lie flew easily from your lips. “Laurence, I didn’t! I swear!” More lies. 

He rammed his fist into your side, feeling the way the bones shifted under the pressure. The air wheezed from your lungs. Your knees went weak and your body sagged, hanging from his fist in your hair. 

“Wrap your pretty little lips around his knob like a dirty whore?” Laurence shook you by the fist in your hair, pulling your face nearer as he shouted, voice bouncing off the neatly decorated living room. 

“I didn’t!” More lies dripped from the lips Laurence was sure you had wrapped around Moreau’s cock not even a few hours ago. “I swear! I didn’t do anything!” 

“Did you like the taste of his dirty black cock?” Laurence could feel the pounding of his pulse in his temples. The pain in his back flared with each pounding of his heart. The pain in his back didn’t get better as he dragged you through the room. 

Each time you stumbled over your feet, you fell to the floor and the pain in his back surged. He needed to finish dealing with you so be could deal with the pain and you couldn’t just walk on your own feet. 

No, you had to be a selfish bitch and cause him more pain. You were always causing him pain. 

You failed to hold yourself up again, hanging by his fist in your hair in front of the stairs. Pain. More pain in his back as he tensed the muscles and threw you against the stairs. 

He watched the tremble in your hand as you reached up, wiping away the blood under your nose. Red poured down your skin, gathering in a bubble on your lip. 

“Stand up,” Laurence demanded, looking down at you. 

You looked so small. So weak. So pathetic. And yet you had the nerve to run around behind his back. 

The fat of your arm bubbled around his fingers as Laurence grabbed it, yanking you to your feet. Your weight sagged in his grip as a foot slipped off the stair. He didn’t waste time steadying you. 

“Useless whore!”

Laurence slammed his fist into your side, one blow after another. This time, not only did he feel the bones move under the force, he felt the crunch of bone giving way. 

The pain you felt would be nothing compared to the pain in his back and you? You were keeping him from treating that pain. You and your stupid lies. You and your cheating cunt. 

Blood splattered out onto your lips and chin as you coughed. 

You were disgusting, coughing in Laurence’s face like that. All it took was sucking a dirty cock, and you forgot basic manners. 

He dropped you, letting you collapse again on the stairs. You rolled onto your side, cradling your hand to your chest as if he did something to it. How dumb were you to not even know where he hit you? 

“Get up the stairs.” 

Laurence watched as you staggered up the stairs. You lurched up the stairs, hunched over to where your fingertips grazed the stairs in front of you as you went. It was a disgusting display. 

What did you think it would get you? 

“Hurry up.” Laurence planted a foot between your shoulder blades and pushed. 

Your back curled as you tried and failed to remain upright. Instead of reaching out to brace your fall, you fell face forward, crashing into the step. You slide down a step before catching yourself.

He watched and followed as you climbed up the stairs until you almost made it to the top. Reaching down, he wrapped his fingers in the hair at the back of your head and just as your fingertips grazed the landing, he pulled you up off your feet as he walked down the hall. 

“Please,” you whimpered. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” 

Laurence turned, slapping you across your pretty, sorry face and silenced the pathetic pleas for mercy that you insisted on voicing. He watched as you landed on the bed, legs crumped and folded under you on the floor, chest and arms resting on the mattress. 

His back hurt and if he had to deal with your lying ass, he would find another way to feel better. He grabbed and shoved, pushing your body until you were where he wanted you. 

If he couldn’t have a few drops of the tincture, he would have you. 

He pulled at your dress, pushing and pulling at the fabric until he had the skirt bunched up around your thighs. You fell into a routine you knew well, reactions growing muted as he pulled your underwear down your legs. 

He would remind you who you belonged to. When he was done for you, you would not remember the feeling of that dirty black cock. He would erase the memory of another man’s hands from your skin. 

Laurence would remind you who you belonged to. 

He rolled you over onto your stomach, folding you over the edge of the bed. His belt clinked loudly in the bedroom as he freed himself from his pants. 

It was that damned radio host’s fault you were bleeding, smearing blood on the bedspread. It was his fault you were in pain. He did this to you. 

He was making Laurance do this. 

“You’re mine,” Laurence said. “You belong to me.” 

It was that damned Alastor who was making Laurance push inside your body.

It wasn’t Laurance’s fault. 

None of this was Laurence's fault. 

Firstly- I am white. I'm so fucking white that I use SPF 100 sunscreen. I grew up in Alaska. The history I learned growing up wasn't African American history; it was Alaska Native history. I didn’t learn about how we fucked over African American people in America’s early history. Instead, I learned how we fucked over the villages of the land I was raised on.

Why does this matter? The current accepted fanon for Alastor's human life is that he was a Black or mixed-race radio host who died in 1933 and reached his mid to late 30s or 40s. We know he had a successful career and was also a serial killer. He favored jazz, and rye is his drink of choice. He exists somewhere on the ace spectrum.

Time for a little math. Let's go with the middle ground—he was 40 in 1933. That means he would have been born around 1893. Let’s assume his mother was 25 when he was born. She would have been born in 1868. Using the same age for her mother, Alastor's grandmother would have been born in 1843. Remember this—it’ll matter in a minute.

For MisD and all of my human Alastor writing, as well as the works of many other human Alastor writers, we approach Alastor's life through a historical lens. I, like many others, enjoy exploring a time period rich with change—dynamic and vibrant with energy, money, and hope.

What does this mean? This means Alastor would have faced significant amounts of racism. Being Black, mixed-race, or how well he could pass as white would all drastically impact his life. It affected what opportunities he had, the education he received, and how laws were applied to him.

Ready for a history lesson? The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. It declared all enslaved people in rebellious areas of the United States to be free. Alastor's grandmother—based on the ages we used earlier—would have been a 20-year-old woman at that time.

Alastor would have been raised by a first-generation free woman. He likely wouldn’t have had access to public education, instead being taught in group homeschool-like sessions by those who had learned to read and write.

If he was mixed-race, he would have faced significant discrimination from all of society.

The Civil Rights Movement in the USA didn’t begin until the mid-1950s—a full twenty years after his death.

The reality is that we don’t know a lot about the Black experience during the early to mid-1900s. Much of this history wasn’t recorded by (white) historians. Instead, it was passed down through stories from parents to children, and so on. Only now are we starting to uncover and listen to the histories, stories, and experiences of Black Americans during this time period.

Remember how I mentioned at the start that I’m white as fuck? I don’t have grandparents I can go to and ask about the Black experience when they were children. First—my grandparents are all dead, and second—they were somehow whiter than I am. Their perspective wouldn’t help me because it isn’t my family’s story to tell.

What I can do is look at what we do know, listen to the voices of Black Americans who are finally being allowed to share their stories, and reflect that in my version of human Alastor. I can spend the time to research and learn. For instance, Alastor would have been ahead of his time—the first Black radio host was in 1929, a man named Jack L. Cooper from Chicago. He hosted the first Black-produced weekly variety show and showcased Black entertainers.

I can listen to stories of how mixed-race men were afforded the privilege of their lighter skin as long as they were useful to their white employers, only to be scapegoated the second anything went wrong. I do my best to reflect these stories in Human!Alastor's experiences and behaviors.

Why A White Coded Reader? I cannot even begin to hope to understand the Black American experience as it is now, let alone how it was in 1922, when MisD is set, or in the late 1910s, when my other Human Al fics take place. What I can understand on a deeper level is the white woman's experience, the experience of poverty, the experiences of abused women, and what it’s like to view the Black experience from the outside looking in.

And so that is what I try to highlight with my Human!Alastor fics. Yes, when I’m writing a Human!Alastor fic that deals with racial, class, and social politics as one of the themes to be explored (such as MisD), the reader is coded as white. It is through a white reader that I can have conversations with Alastor about why he feels he has to be perfect, why he straightens his hair, and so on. I cannot do proper justice to these feelings on a deeper level from a Black perspective because I can’t even begin to hope to understand it.

I cannot truly understand what Alastor’s Blackness would mean to him or how he would feel about being mixed. However, I can learn and understand how it impacted his life from the outside looking in. This is what I strive to do—to shed light on what Alastor’s accomplishments would have meant and how much his mistakes would have cost him.

I would love to see more Black writers in the fanfic space, especially within the Human!Alastor space. I would also love to see fewer readers written as blank slates. The Black experience in America and other white-dominated cultures is still not spotlighted often enough, both in present-day and historical settings.

These are stories that need to be told—perspectives that need to be explored, seen, and heard. However, they are not my stories to tell. Personally, until I am far better educated on the matter, I feel it would take away from these stories and be disrespectful to the lives of the very real people who lived them if I were to write from a perspective I cannot hope to understand.

I will continue to strive to write readers as racially neutral as often as the plot allows. However, I also ask that readers respect that, when the plot deals with racial, social, and class divides in a historical setting, if the reader is coming from a place of privilege, their skin tone is often the reason for such privilege.

Of course, I encourage readers to suspend disbelief and insert themselves into the fic regardless of their personal skin tone. I write from a historical setting, but as readers, you can imagine a set of historical laws or circumstances that allow for the same dynamics without requiring a white reader.

Can I do better? Absolutely—we all can. We’re always growing, improving, and learning. I was blessed to be raised in one of the most diverse places in the country (over 45 languages were spoken fluently at my high school). However, since leaving, I’ve struggled with the realities of having that bubble burst—not that Alaska was without racism.

I always welcome respectful discussions about the themes in MisD and all of my fics, as well as the reasons things may be portrayed the way they are. I prefer to write dark content, and with that comes the opportunity to educate and shine a light on topics many people avoid discussing. I simply ask for respect in return for the respect I give.

If L and Emma say... killed reader the day before Alastor and reader killed L? It would be a bloodbath, likely the murders that get Alastor caught.

Alastor would often say he's above harming women. That's not to say he can't, in reality he just idolizes women just enough to not find in them the fatal flaw that sets him after men so much. But if they killed Reader?

Everything everyone wanted to see Al do to L? He'd do it to Emma right in front of L. This would go on for days until she died from the injuries and then Alastor would likely feed part of her to L. Roasted Emma's face anyone?

Of course, during this time Emma's family would be looking for her.

Once she was dead, he'd really start in on L. Both the physical torture and verbally reliving all of his best memories with reader... and his most intimate ones. There would of course be some confessions of his ace nature and how he was made for Reader, teaching her to gobble dick brought him more pleasure than he'd ever experienced. He never wanted a woman, sexually, until he was knuckle deep in her.

I imagine he'd be feeding Laurence his intestines when the police finally came to investigate, Alastor having stopped showing up at work after Emma died. They'd kill him on sight, likely a reflexive action from the horrific sight.

The letters in his house, the letters in L and Emma's spaces... would paint a clear picture the tabloids would eat up. A love affair turned fatal, famous radio host falls victim to his more primal nature (they would absolutely report this with a racial tint). He'd be framed as the reason things went bloody, even though Emma and L would have taken first blood.

He would also be framed in more sympathetic circles as a man that was driven mad by love, though even that line of thinking wouldn't be enough to squash the speculation of the strange meat in his kitchen...

that meat would have whispers about the radio host that went mad and ate his first victim into modern times...