#also i feel in my bones that the show is gonna be about motherhood

[kaladinkholins]

While theorising about the events to come in future seasons, I just keep going back to the question about who Mizu's parents really are.

So to try to figure it out, let's go over what we already know about Mizu's parentage and the white men. This info is from the flashback of Mizu as a baby in Episode 3, from the bounty hunters who came to kill Mizu in Episode 5, and from Fowler's reveals in Episode 8, assuming that everything he said is the truth.

Mizu must be someone important, as Fowler calls her Little Miss. It is capitalised in the Netflix official subtitles. This implies that Little Miss is something like a title, rather than just a nickname.

There is a bounty on Mizu's head with a sum few can resist. Whoever is trying to kill Mizu is rich and powerful.

Two men are sent to kill Mizu as a baby. They are Japanese. We know this because their swords are both katanas, and they're shocked when they see Mizu's blue eyes, discovering she's a "half-breed." Man #2 also calls her a "devil child" at the end of the flashback.

Man #2 is hesitant to kill her, as she's "only an infant," and ends up killing Man #1 to stop him from killing Mizu. Man #2 then gives Mizu to Mama, who is actually her maid.

Mama is paid to keep Mizu hidden. Mama does as told for years. We can infer that there was a steady stream of income going towards her, as she did as told until "the money ran out."

Skeffington and Routeley were the "worst" of the four white men, making their money from "selling Japan's unwanted daughters." Unwanted daughters like Mizu.

One of the white men "tried to burn Mizu alive as a baby."

One of the white men killed Mizu's mother ("Don't you want to know which one killed your mother?").

When bounty hunters came to the ranch to ambush Mizu, she asked them which white man they worked for. They only replied that the only white person they see is her. This could just be a way to avoid her question, or it could also imply that they do not work for a white man at all.

So from this, again assuming this is all true, let's go over some things:

The white men are NOT the ones who paid Mama to protect Mizu, as one of them had been responsible for trying to burn Mizu alive as a baby.

Mizu's mother was killed by one of the white men. She likely died protecting Mizu.

If it was the white father who tried to kill Mizu and her mother, then it's likely the mother's side who paid Mama to hide Mizu.

Mizu's mother must have been rich enough to afford servants.

Mizu's mother must have been someone powerful enough to have been in the shogun's inner circle, allowing contact between her and the white men.

Furthermore:

Mizu's mother should be someone tied to existing characters, to make the reveal of her identity more narratively significant.

So with all that said, let me dip my toes into wild theory-land for a bit and propose a new idea.

WHAT IF: Mizu's mother was a concubine or even the previous wife of the Shogun? And, considering how people have pointed out how similar Lady Itoh and Mizu look (credits to @roninzuzu in particular for her post on this), what if, maybe just maybe, Mizu's mother was also Lady Itoh's sister?

If this is true, then Mizu's connection to the shogunate would explain why and how Fowler knew so much about Mizu's past, especially regarding her maid taking care of her, etc. This is because Fowler is allied with the Shogun himself, as well as one of the shogun's closest advisors, Master Chiba. So if it were true that the previous wife/consort of the shogun gave birth to a blue-eyed baby, it would've been a big scandal that was certain to reach Master Chiba's ears, and he would have in turn informed Fowler about it.

If this is the case, both the shogun and the white man would be trying to kill Mizu and her mother. The shogun would be trying to cover up the scandal, while the white man would be furious that she wanted to keep the baby at all, as the scandal likely ruined his business dealings in Japan and forced him to retreat back to London or wherever else he came from.

But then, if that is the case, then who would have been the one paying Mizu's maid to take care of her? I think it's Lady Itoh. If she and Mizu's mother had indeed been sisters, perhaps Lady Itoh went behind the shogun's back to protect her sister and her baby niece. Because maybe Lady Itoh knew that Mizu's mother had wanted to protect her no matter what happened. In such a case, what kept Mizu alive would thus have been love. Her mother's love. In this scenario, Mizu would have been brought into the world through the sheer strength of her mother's unconditional love. This would be a very poignant message that overturns everything Mizu believes about herself.

Moreover, Mizu having connections to the shogunate would inevitably lead to her wanting to discover the truth about her mother's identity. This would thus bring Mizu back to Edo palace, and would neatly tie Mizu and Akemi's storylines together again, letting them cross paths once more and work together to face the main plot-conflict.

TL;DR it's my crazy theory that Mizu's dead mom was the sister of Lady Itoh and the previous consort of Shogun Itoh. She had an affair with one of the white men, and against her better judgement and against what everyone else wants from her, she decided to keep Mizu. By making this decision, she risked and sacrificed everything for Mizu, out of love.

#blue eye samurai #mizu blue eye samurai #blue eye samurai theory #I JUST WANT MIZU TO BE LOVED!!! #also i feel in my bones that the show is gonna be about motherhood #which would add up considering all the themes about otherness and heritage and identity and aaaaaaa #shut up haydar #fandom.rtf #cross posted on reddit

[dallonm-archive]

[image description: a wideshot of the san francisco skyline, tinted orange by a sunset. Above the skyline, in a white serif font reads "REVELATIONS, REVELATIONS." in all caps. below, in lower caps reads "update #2" /end id]

Revelations, Revelations | Update #2

Hey besties! I've got a funky little RR update

I've had a little bit of a love hate relationship with this book in the last two months but I am loving it right now! I think my struggles came from how I didn't really accept that this book is Hard to write. like it's complicated! and it's set in another country in another era like idk what to tell you! And accepting that was such a weight off my shoulders because I'm not putting the blame on myself. I also was really stuck in part one's problems and I had to be like <3 bestie <3 abandon it til post draft editing. So right now it's like:

Part one: I see it as a little stray cat in an alleyway that I kneel down in front of like pspspsp :) and then it hisses and bites me because it is actually a feral raccoon. Definitely not where I want it to be but like I can fix him

Part two: super fun!! A lot of deeper (and messier) elements are introduced here and I feel like the story's ~vibes~ have clicked. It's a lot of fun and it's getting complex. Whilst there's conflict going on in part one there's definitely this false sense of stability and then part two hits all of them like a baseball bat

My drafting has been much more chill and non linear too, just writing the scenes I want to and then connecting them together. I've been focused less on rich prose/descriptions and more on prose that explores character and it's been very refreshing! I love my flowery prose but I think it's easy to get caught up in. I'm also no longer going to do chapter by chapter updates, both for plot privacy but also because this story is very delicate both in content and the drafting process and I don't just want to expose the bare bones of that, you know? So I'm just gonna do some sectioned rambles and talk about a couple chapters under the cut!

also no longer doing multiple taglists because i can't keep up so! general taglist, ask to be added or removed! ; @kowlazovdi @avi-burton-writing @ryns-ramblings @kitblogsthings @ezrathings @aetherwrites @radiomacbeth @bijouxs @bookphobe @haldimilks @alicewestwater @bookpacking @shaelinwrites @onlyganymede @theelectricfactory @write-like-babs @oceancold @veiliza @sidhewrites @wolf-oak @oasis-of-you @coffeeandcalligraphy @cecilsstorycorner @howdywrites @keira-is-writing @flip-phones @svpphicwrites

Only major change to report is I switched to alternate POVs instead of multiple chapters at a time in one POV because I'm insane <3 I had a lot of fun braiding POVs in Life Cycle of Massive Stars and wanted to try it here and it works much better! Though at this point I am simply ignoring the existence of part 1 because it really was the guinea pig part LMAO i experimented so much with structure and form and now it's a mess but it's <3 a future problem <3 i'd rather have one messy part than a whole first draft that's behind on my growing ~vision~ of the story.

[image description: a slightly purple tinted photo of two arms extending from the top and bottom of the photo, cropped to only show their hands. Their index fingers touch. in the middle, in a white serif font reads "dorothy" /end id]

Not a chapter, I had a lot of trouble with Dorothy in part 1 but I still love her so instead y'all are getting a mini character ramble! I felt really bad about her for the longest time because I've only been writing her since last summer whereas I've known Felix since like 2018 so there's naturally an imbalance, but I Do Not like that!! And she's really taken her time revealing herself, but I am ~fascinated by her.

I feel she's best summarised by this disillusionment for her life but mostly herself, because she's framed her whole identity by illusory perceptions of other people: a mother she doesn't remember, a girlfriend she breaks up with every six months but still shares a bed with, a twin brother she hasn't seen in person for four years and still sees as a teenager drenched in religious manipulation. It's a lot! She assumes that she feels dissatisfied with her life because she's without her twin, but then Felix returns to her life and shockingly this does not fix all of her problems??? She also doesn't know how to be alone, which definitely will not get better after Felix returns oop

The day her brother decides to leave, Dorothy is home alone.

Her San Francisco apartment is hollow like a hungry stomach. Three days ago, she drove Jolie to the airport then came home to cover the bathroom mirror with towels. On the first day she took an extra shift at the book store, drove through Sea Cliff at sunset, bumped into Mona on the stairwell and joined her and Margot for wine and slipped out when they began arguing over rent and office interns, started then discarded a portrait of a fictional girl and slept from two to five in the morning. On the second day she worked and spent an extra hour designing a window display on science fiction that she put together on the third day. Cut and painted a rocket ship on cardboard that she’ll have to scold kids for tugging, then get scolded herself by their mothers.

The day I finalise a design for their apartment it's over but I call this trick Trying To Get Around The Fact I Made Characters In Their Earlier Twenties Live In San Francisco (cw: drowning)

The apartment is nicer than her, but it’s been home for three years and they get $100 off rent each month because Jolie tends the garden and looks just like the landlady's daughter that drowned in the Pacific.

I don't think I've talked about Jolie much here which is funny because she is probably the most well-received amongst my friends! They love her so much and it's because she's a hot but slightly toxic lesbian smh, I'm like no seriously she does some fucked up things and they're like you promise?? Some funky facts:

Her real name is Jolene and she hates it except when the Dolly Parton song came on, that gives her a god complex

We are going to ignore how I accidentally named two characters after words for beautiful and pretty in French we are going to pretend it was intentional because when this gets published a uni student could get some good analysis out of that in their Intro to Literature class

She joined the cult with her mother at 13 and left as soon as she turned 18 LMAO. She was Dorothy's only connection to the "outside world" and the only reason she was able to leave

Her dream job is gardener/florist! We get it I watched Bly Manor last November. She's also a bartender

would probably have this on her car /j

[image description: a close up of a car sticker of a frog above "MILF" in green caps. below "MILF" reads "Man I Love Frogs" /end id]

Dorothy and Jolie have always been on and off and building tension but Dorothy realises this can't keep going when Jolie gets into a barfight at work and Dorothy feels Insane because she's the only one concerned?? (cw: blood, mild violence)

“You’re lucky it’s not broken.” She angles Jolie’s face, hand under her chin. Even with red blotted around her nostrils and lips, mulberry lipstick smudged, she still smiles like her bruises are a trophy. It’s a surprise she doesn’t dwell on it: it’s just some blood, doll, nothing to worry about. She didn’t even strike that good. Her technique was all off. If she shows her face back here I’ll just teach her how to punch properly. The worst part is over and I’m a big girl. Do I look upset? Am I crying? When they drive home, she’ll ask to stop and see if she can get free cigarettes or beer by holding her nose and making herself cry. She’ll probably ask Dorothy to hit her so it starts bleeding again. But she’s quiet, leans against the basin and lets her dab damp towels on her face. It doesn’t take long to clean up. It was just some blood.

“Nursing,” Jolie says.

“What?” “You keep saying you want to go to school but don’t know what for – nursing. You’re too good at taking care of people.”

That ending is like Top Three dialogue lines that made me really Concerned for how this character arc is gonna go :) but don't worry about it y'all. I do think Jolie genuinely loves Dorothy but that does not mean! the relationship is healthy!

Basically I love her a lot now that I know her better and I am excited to see where she goes! I think the biggest part of her arc is motherhood/daughterhood and TBH as a recently realised trans dude it took me a Minute to feel entitled to write her story? But being a cis woman shaped my life for two decades and getting to navigate that and being a daughter from a perspective that's totally distanced from myself is very helpful. It's about the inherent admiration and pain that comes from being a mother's daughter! (cw: blood, diet culture/disordered eating)

She lies next to the table and presses her forehead to the glass corner and imagines what would shatter first: the glass or her skin. And she imagines being a girl again, with French braids and too much baby fat in her cheeks and being picked up by a mother before the blood stains her hands and then her dress. She’d tell the mother she just wanted to read her magazines, the dog-eared articles about divorce and top tips for menopause and the benefits of eating half a grapefruit before your calorie-counted meals. And the mother would just brush the bangs out her face, press a pack of thawed peas on the wound and let her choose between the band aid with hearts or the band aid with flowers. And maybe the mother would know she did it for attention because they both know a daughters cry slices oxygen like glass to skin, but she’d still detangle her curls in the evening and kiss her forehead goodnight and serve her breakfast in the morning with half a grapefruit – the other half on her own plate, untouched and left to rot.

[image description: an orange firework exploding against a black sky. across the photo, in a white serif font reads "the last 10 hours of 1986" /end id]

This is technically two chapters, one in each POV and they close part one! Title is v explanatory and they're meant to be framed like a countdown - my plan was for the scenes to get shorter as it gets closer to midnight and that didn't really work but? The twins def get messier as the countdown goes down and THAT is what we like to see. This is also the only end of a part where the twins are separated but don't worry about it hehe :)

Dorothy

This chapter is like the First Time Dorothy does something for herself and. Good for her!

She’ll publish poetry under a pen name and horror short stories under another. She’ll paint indigo mountains and magenta oceans and not care when the colours stain her clothes. She’ll teach Felix how to blend acrylics and he’ll teach her how to remember piano notes and they won’t argue about who abandoned who. When Mona and Margot break up, she’ll go down to comfort Mona or Margot and then kiss Margot or Mona. She’ll move out and tell neither of them. She’ll find a landlady with a dead daughter and get a discount on an ocean view apartment with wall-length windows. Isaias will move in next door and they’ll have weekly dinner parties with wine that costs more than $10. She’ll go vegan. She’ll be so in tune with herself she won’t need to read magazine horoscopes or pay $50 for a psychic reading that assumes she knows her grandparents. She’ll know when she’s happy sad angry and why. She’ll take portrait commissions so she can afford a therapist. She’ll love her life and ignore that there’s no space for Jolie because she wants there to be. She’ll need nobody except herself. She’ll try and make things with Jolie work. She’ll kiss a random girl at midnight to see if it’s any different. She’ll go home after the countdown.

I had the revelation (aha) of Isaias and Dorothy as besties and I am OBSESSED! I love Isaias but struggled with his role so I'm really happy about this. Like he practices calligraphy and writes poetry titled after his favourite plants is he not the ideal character!! Hoping this will make it easier to learn about him so we can get that fun content

Felix

Felix's is fun because he makes the best decision of his arc but also the stupidest fucking decision of his arc. He truly has the range NOBODY is doing it like him. Here's a part that mirrors the excerpt above because even when they're apart Felix and Dorothy are like hmm we Will Be Intrinsically Connected (cw: drug, vomit and sex mention sorry he's going through it!!)

Two hours before midnight and Felix is alone in the bathroom. The party he abandoned synths through the ceiling. He plays Love My Way on his Walkman. Highest volume. Eyes closed. Imagines 1987 and decides he’s going to be honest about everything and nothing. He’s going to tell strangers at bars that he studies Literature at Stanford. He’s going to date a girl and pretend he has parents to introduce her to, that he grew up on a farm in Ohio and was secretly raised atheist, lie about what lies his parents told him. He’s going to grow out his hair and and blend cyan on his eyelids and send polaroids to his father with no return address; burn his fingertips on a candle flame like Michael will burn the photos of his son. He’s going to adore himself. He’s going to quit smoking and start jogging. He’s going to fuck Pacific Heights husbands whilst their wives sleep in the master bedroom and maybe they’ll angrily call him when they’re served divorce papers and hang up when he laughs. He’s going to get promoted to Assistant Manager and not care that his job is dead-end. He’s not going to kiss anyone at midnight because he doesn’t want to. He’s going to flush the cocaine because he doesn’t want it. He’s going to stare at his reflection until it moves for him. He’s going to vomit in a minute. He’s going to pierce his right ear with a sewing needle.

Felix at the end of part one: I give no more fucks!!! I am going to do whatever I want!!! Life is too short!!!

Felix at the end of part two:

[image description: screenshot of a tweet by @/idksomedumbshit. the tweet reads, "i can't mansplain manipulate manwhore my way out of this one boys" /end id]

I do think it's iconic that this time last year Felix was a repressed Christian boy and now his dream is to be a homewrecker THAT is growth. I also got to write Felix and Jolie which was fun because they do Not like each other <3 but they respect each other <3 but only sometimes <3 They have their first little bonding moment where Jolie pierces his ear in their bathroom but then Felix says something to piss her off so Jolie is like hmm okay time to chose Violence. This dialogue is funny because Felix does not really hate himself at this stage Jolie just knows she's gonna fuck him up by saying that !! My life would be so much easier if these twins had a normal relationship with the concept of being a twin but also this story would be very boring

The needle pierces his skin and he doesn’t feel it. Only the tequila swirling behind his eyes. The sting of the light-bulb. Jolie speaks again, “but she looks just like you, doesn’t she? Not the same of course, but enough to see each other in each other. That’s the worst part, right? To see the person you hate on the face of someone you love?”

[image id: a photo of the ocean with cliffs in the background, tinted orange by sunset. in the middle, in a white serif font reads "1/10/1987" /end id]

This chapter is so CUTE and also my first successful attempt at a different form that I can consistently keep in the narrative <3 I really like the idea of a fluid novel form that's adaptive to how the character's perception of the world would change which? Idk how much I can maintain that but this definitely follows it. I need to fine tune the execution but the concept is shots and transcript from a camcorder recording and playing with what the camera sees/doesn't see. The title is what the tape would be labelled, and on 1/10/1987 (american dates throw me off omfg) Beau takes Felix to a seaside town for his birthday and yes it's gay <3 but it's also just a lot of stupid dialogue which was very refreshing because I overthink dialogue so much I always think it has to have deeper meaning when sometimes its like....characters can sometimes...have Fun together. They are simply displaying Relationship Dynamics!

BEAU: Okay, give me a second…(the camera zooms on Felix) There we go! Right, okay, so it’s Saturday, January 10th, 1987, what’re doing out here today?

FELIX: What is this, an interview or something? You sound like a TV host on those morning shows.

BEAU: Oh my God no they’re so annoying, don’t compare me to those.

FELIX: No but I can imagine it perfectly. You’d just be all (holding a pretend microphone) Gooood Morrrning from sunny San Francisco! My name is Beau Teixeira and—

Beau: (laughing) Shut the fuck up!

I love this chapter a lot because you can definitely tell that their dynamic has Shifted but also! They are still just friends being friends and I really want them to just kiss already but also I love the natural progression of friends to lovers....falling in love and not realising it and then suddenly it all makes sense...

BEAU: You wanna try filming? It’s easier if you hold it on your shoulder. Like this. Put your hands where mine are.

[How their fingers whisper against each other. How Beau’s cologne smells of lime and tangerine. ]

Beau steps back into view, runs a hand through his curls. Leather jacket flutters in salted wind. Behind him the sunset flickers over waves like a candle flame. He smiles at the camera.

BEAU: I think you’re a natural! You’re definitely gonna be first choice for cameraman on my shitty morning show.

[How Felix smiles at him.]

(cw: next paragraph talks about the AIDS crisis)

Whilst this is a Fun And Cute Chapter there is more depth to it since the last time we see Beau and Felix before it is the first time they open up about the AIDS Crisis and their fears surrounding it. I have a lot of complicated thoughts about writing this part of history that I could write about all day but it boils down to the fact that "so many queer stories are centred around queer trauma and tragedy and queer people deserve to read stories centred around love and happiness" and "with a queer novel set in 1980s SF it'd be just as bad to completely ignore what happened" are two things that can coexist. I definitely think stories centred around the crisis are necessary (recently read The Prettiest Star by Carter Sickels and highly recommend! Also has a similar camcorder function and an emphasis on preserving. Also made me cry) but shouldn't be the default, especially in a story that if published would have a queer readership, so whilst it's something I want to explore I want to do it in a way that ultimately celebrates queer happiness, love and life. Definitely way more that could be said about this and the function of queer trauma in queer narratives but! Both Beau and Felix feel a need to not only capture as much as possible, but to capture it specifically with the intent to look back in the future, as well as a general We Are Going To Try And Find Happiness Wherever We Can. Also feel like a lot of Beau's character clicked whilst writing it which was very fun!

[How Beau wouldn’t say where they were going but cracked before they left San Francisco because he had too many stories to tell: five year old burning his tongue on café tea, six year old falling into waves and being unbothered, seven year old plucking chrysanthemum petals from stranger’s gardens. How Beau has an orange car freshener and missing headrest on the passengers seat. How Beau drove a longer route because it was closer to the coastline. How Beau played Pet Shop Boys’ Please and knew the words to every song. How Felix realized that he did too.]

[image description: a man and a woman sit next to each other on a bench. the photo is taken from behind them. in the background, you can vaguely see water, hills and the golden gate bridge. across the image, in a white serif font reads "everything the same about dorothy and felix" /end id]

Little title explanation: part 1 has two chapters, "Everything Different about Felix" and "Everything Different about Dorothy" which introduce their relationship + impression of each other after not seeing each other in person for four years (and also how they have images of each other in their heads that are false but they're attached to and it's really not helping the whole complicated twin relationship thing but don't worry about it) and I'd like to expand on that in part two so! An attempt was made. This takes place the day after the above chapter on the twins' actual birthday, the first one they're celebrating together since they were 18 and the first one in the "outside world" so it's a moment!

I'm not happy with how this chapter came out but I think it's just because it's an important one to me! Partly because it helps cement the idea that in spite of their complex relationship, Felix and Dorothy never stop being twins and they never stop loving each other even on the days they dislike each other. But mainly because: these are two adults who lost their childhood to trauma and they finally have the freedom to live their life and! Sometimes that means living for the inner child that never got to be a child. As a certified Adult With Childhood Trauma having a chapter like this was v important because trauma never leaves you but that doesn't mean you can't be happy!! Also it's just. cute. They run around San Francisco, bake a really shitty birthday cake, talk about whether or not San Francisco is real, I want what they have. There is underlying conflict because hoo boy there is Shit simmering rn! But it was nice to have this and the previous chapter as just like. Two little golden moments you know. Calm before the storm if you will

Midnight. Dorothy lies on a mattress on the floor in an apartment in San Francisco. Her brother’s head in her lap. “You know what’s crazy to me? Nobody ever asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. That just wasn’t something we were allowed to think about. I know it’s depressing, I just think about that a lot.”

Felix keeps his eyes on the ceiling. The clock ticks. “Well, what do you wanna be when you grow up?”

“Astronaut, of course.”

“I was gonna say astronaut.”

“You definitely weren't,” she says. “Besides, I already claimed it.”

He looks at her. “I was thinking it. Before you said it, I claimed it in my mind.”

“That’s not how it works. I can’t read your mind.”

Felix sits up. “Wait, you can’t? Gee Dotty, some twin you are.” He grins. So does she.

Usually I am like. I don't think they would care too much about the twin thing. But I also think they would definitely joke about it, like if someone asked a stupid question Felix would be like "well of course we can read each others minds, dont you know how twins work?? like right now my twin sister who is my twin is thinking about giving me, her twin brother, $200" But lets end this on an excerpt where Dorothy doesn't give him $200 but she does think Oh How Did I Spend Four Years Without My Brother

(cw: death mention + missing persons mention, plane crash + boating accident mention)

Dorothy is used to his presence, has been for a year: coffee stains on the table, cupboards left open in the kitchen, clustered ashtray in the living room, hair gel and Jazz aftershave behind the bathroom mirror, Queen or Bowie or Alphaville sifting from his room. His voice. How he always knocks on her door to say goodnight. How he weaved himself into the ecosystem like air but tonight she watches her brother do nothing but breathe and she remembers waking up every January 11th in 1983, 84, 85, 86, and chucking a towel over the bathroom mirror. How she told strangers at bars that she’s an only child; or that she had a younger brother, but he died in a plane crash or a boating accident or went on a hiking trip and never came back, was likely immortalised as a John Doe in Oregon or Nevada records. How she went four years without coffee stains and open cupboards and goodnight knocks and Queen or Bowie or Alphaville renditions when he forgets that she exists in this space too. How hollow those four years were.

And that's all I have to share! I'm not sure when the next update will be, but I much prefer this format of talking about the story! If you read this far I love u <3

#revelations revelations #atlastracking #writing update #i wrote most of this update at 5am so ignore any typos god bless

[hobiiwan]

the mandalorian with a pregnant s/o

⇒ pairing: the mandalorian x reader

⇒ summary: pretty self-explanatory

⇒ warnings: brief mentions of some nsfw spicy times

⇒ notes: based on this anon (thank you!) thought the gif would be fitting. this could potentially be extended into dad!Mando (although that’s already kind of shown in the show👀so let me know if yall are down for some MandoBaby bc i definitely am) also i kinda went overboard, but who am i if not extra

you’re not quite sure how it happened

i mean, okay,,,,

you knOw

but you can’t seem to fathom how one day you were just you and now you’re you’re carrying a little person inside you

it comes as a surprise

even though the signs were all there

the other day, you’d snapped at mando for the tiniest thing

twenty minutes later you were practically on him

not to mention the morning sickness

thaT should’ve been your biggest red flag

yet you simply chalked it up to the fault of questionable cantina food

however, now with the pregnancy test in your hands with the double red lines mockinG you straight to your face

there’s no denying it

you’re pregnant

you hate that your first thought instantly jumps to doubt

how are you going to raise this baby?? your life was not one for a child

you would never want your child to grow up in a constant state of danger

and what would mando think??? what if he doesn’t want to keep the baby; what would you do then?

you haven’t even seen his face, how are you going to raise a child together

will the child be raised a mandalorian????

so many questions

but under it all, you were happy

you’ve always wanted a family of your own

not that baby yoda doesn’t count as your child bc it totaLLY DOES

although this isn’t exactly how you expected it to happen

you’re determined to let your baby grow up surrounded by love

you just hope mando is too

when you tell him, it’s not a big occasion

it’s another day, he’s checking the ship’s controls and you’re curled up on the seat next to him

he instantly knows something’s up

because for once, you’re quiet

you gnaw on your lip as your knee bounces up and down

the anxiety is radiating off of you and it’s starting to get to him

never one to beat around the bush, he asks, turning to your huddled form, straight to the point

“what’s wrong?”

taking a deep breath you force the words out your mouth

“i’m pregnant, mando.”

your throat burns as your eyes well with tears

he goes absolutely silent

even the usual rhythm of his breathing through his moderator goes cold

his helmet is turned towards you, but you feel as though he’s looking anywhere but at you

the second the first teardrop spills down your cheek, that’s when he finally moves

whatever was on hand is dropped as he goes to take your hands in his

“i—” he starts, continues with a waver, “do you want this?”

his voice is gentle, more so than you’ve ever heard it before

mando’s thoughts are soaring

he can’t believe this is real; you’re real

he takes a moment to thank the maker for gifting him with you, and now your baby

he swears all the planets align when you nod

you’re smiling now and even with the tear tracks drying on your cheeks, mando thinks he’s never seen anything more ethereal

his hands tighten around yours as he pulls you close to him

“but what about—how can we raise a child like this?”

at this moment, he sounds so vulnerable; so open with his fears that you can’t help but love him a little more

you press your forehead against mando’s helmet

closing your eyes, you know he does too

“we’ll find a way.”

it’s in the way that he allows you to place your hands just where his helmet meets his shoulders, fingers brushing against the sliver of exposed skin

the way his own hands are heavy against the small of your back, keeps you grounded in this moment of euphoria

he doesn’t have to say it; neither do you

the words hang in the air, unspoken yet heard

you know your baby will be loved

NOW,,, TO THE FUN STUFF

mando ups his protectiveness to the goDS

not one haiR on your pretty little head will be harmed on his watch

he won’t let anyone get close to you, and his awareness has been tuned to a whole new level

it’s to be expected; you know he’s just doing this because he cares

but,,, manz forgotten you can take care of yourself just fine

the first few weeks, he’s a little paranoid, to say the least

but once he sees you slam a slimeball who got a little too handsy into a wall, he relaxes a bit more

still, don’t expect to do anything on your own bc for the next 9+ months, mando’s signed up to be your new butler

most days, he’ll have everything you want on hand; whenever you have cravings, back pain, swollen ankles

he’s got u

on the days you have terrible all-day morning sickness, he’s right there holding your hair up and rubbing your back soothingly

when you slump against the toilet, you swat him away because you don’t want anyone to see you right now

he doesn’t give a flying damn

cuddles are a biG thing (which surprises both of you since you’re both quite reserved people)

most nights you’ll fall asleep to his hand tracing over your growing bump and not gonna lie,,,, it’s kinda great

unTIL your bump really starts to grow and you can no longer reach down to pull on your own boots or sleep on your back

that’s when it really hits you

by the time you get to your third trimester, you’re ready for this baby to be out of you

you can’t say you particularly enjoy feeling bloated 24/7 and not being able to frequent your beloved grimy cantinas

but you’re also really excited to meet your lil baby!

you wonder how he or she will look; like you or their father?

what will their name be? 

you probably should have planned these things out by now

but since when were you and mando known for planning?

eventually mando sets up a little nursery on the ship; baby yoda’s going to have a sibling very soon

you have yet to discuss the whole helmet issue with mando

hell, you don’t even know his real name

what you do know is that you want your child to know the face of their father

but you also know how important it is for him that his face is kept hidden

mando knows the conversation is bound to happen one way or another, yet he’s still a deer in the headlights when you bring it up

he sighs heavily, and tells you he’ll think about it (despite that usually being a half-assed answer from anyone else, you know his to be genuine)

you don’t bring it up for a while afterwards; you don’t want to push him

until one day,,,,,

you’re chilling with the Child (not your own) (yet), who’s happily cooing in your arms, when the father of your actual child comes stomping in

“dyn.”

you blank, eyebrows furrowing in confusion; the Child mimics your expression with full emphasis on the eyes

“come again?”

he sighs, (a common occurrence nowadays)

reader, you’re exasperatinG (but in a good way)

“my name,” he tries again, “it’s dyn. dyn jarren.”

your eyes widen comically as it dawns on you; that is noT what you were expecting today

he would’ve chuckled at your expression but this was noT the time

“dyn,” you breathe out as a smile grows on your face

you like it, it’s suits him perfectly

that’s when he decides he likes his own name, if it means he can hear you say it again

you lean up to press your lips against where his own would be under the helmet

“thank you,” you murmur with a softness he still hasn’t gotten used to

suddenly mando feels ready to reveal his whOLE life story to you

this is a hugE step obviously, and you can’t help but still call him mando from time to time

force of habit :’))

but when you feel that first wave of sharp pain piercing your lower back, his name is the first thing that escapes your lips

after the first ‘oh shit’ ofc

he’s by your side within a span of ten seconds

you still manage to tease him about the cacophony of clanging metal as he runs through the ship

but then the next wave of contractions hit and you’re 200% sure you blackout (mando tells you later that you didn’t)

because the next thing you know, (6 hours later, mando says) there are about 4 medical droids around you

they’re telling you to push

and boY DO YOU PUSH

you didn’t think you had it in you

mando didn’t think he had it either, as you crushed every single bone in his hand

you’re also mildly cursing him

“daMn yoU MANDO, I HOPE YOU ENJOYED IT BECAUSE I AM NEVER SLEEPING WITH YOU EVER AGAIN-”

that’s a lie, obviously

there’s a pause as you gasp for breath

you’re knackereD

suddenly there’s a little cry

the droids clean your baby up and they hand him to mando

it’s a,,,,,,, drumroll please

girl !!!!

his heart stops when the baby, your baby, meets his eyes, or rather, his helmet

at that moment, mando knows he’d do absolutely anything for this little person

he’d take his helmet off a thousand times if it meant he’d get to love her properly, the way a real father should

that’s exactly what he decides to do

within the next few days, you’re back home

one morning, you wake up, suspiciously well rested

that’s weirD,,,,

you realise your daughter never cried last night

you bolt upright as quickly as you can in your state, alarmed

motherhood is wiLD

you stumble outside, eyes darting for your baby when they land on something that makes your heart stop

there he is, dyn jarren, the mandalorian, holding your baby girl in his arms, bathed in all the glory of the binary sunrise

but that’s not what gets you

his back is turned to you, and you can see the back of his head, tufts of unruly dark brown curling around warm, bronzed skin

there are tears welling in your eyes as he turns to face you

your gaze meets his own, not the reflection you’re so used to

but his eyes, rounded and dark; the ones you see on your daughter

as soon as your face breaks into a grin, he knows he’s made the right decision

your breath hitches as his lips curl into a smile; it’s a little uncertain, a little nervous

but it’s one you know you’ll never get tired of in this lifetime

he’s taken it off.

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian imagine #the mandalorian oneshot #the mandalorian headcanons #star wars x reader #star wars #star wars imagine #dyn jarren #dyn jarren x reader #dyn jarren oneshot #dyn jarren imagine #cw pregnancy

[california--poppy]

book recommendations for each 911: lone star character

okay this is just something i’ve been working on for fun but i feel like sharing it! i picked books based on similarities between their content and the character’s storylines (or in some cases, what i wish their storylines were), so maybe some of these only make sense to me. i wanted to have two books for every character but for some of them, i could only think of one for so maybe i’ll add more to this list later based on season 2b. if you have any of your own recommendations i’d love to hear them! 

TK: a little life by hanya yanagihara (sad boy hours) or the great alone by kristin hannah (moving far away and facing a parent’s mortality hours)

Carlos: memorial by bryan washington (dad issues! dad issues! also, you know my favorite character was gonna get one of my all time favorite books.) or on earth we’re briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong (idk. i just feel this one in my soul.)

Owen: the great believers by rebecca makai (i know the show has never once referenced the 80s or even owen’s backstory before 9/11 but it’s rob lowe so i had to go with a book that partially takes place in the 80s + deals with some complicated parent/ child relationships) or lily and the octopus by steven rowley (cancer is sad. cancer is scary. i don’t care for the character of owen but god. cancer is so fucking sad.)

Grace: the hour i first believed by wally lamb (okay hear me out on this one. this book is about a man whose wife is at columbine high school during the 1999 school shooting and the resulting fallout of both of their trauma. he’s in another state when it happens and it takes about a day for him to find out that she’s okay. grace was stuck on the other side of the phone during the factory explosion! how long until she even got to be with judd?? how scary was that?? and i know we saw a little bit of her struggling with judd’s recovery and ptsd and i know her character is calm under pressure and handles difficult situations well, but i can’t help but want to see her make a mistake or be a little mean. supporting someone with mental health problems is hard! nobody’s perfect! aren’t you tired of being nice, grace? don’t you just want to go ape shit?)

Judd: east of eden by john steinbeck (i did not think i would like this book when i started reading it but i really, really did. much like judd himself.) or things you would know if you grew up around here by nancy wayson dinan (did i think of this book because it might be the only book i’ve read that takes place in texas? yes. but it works, trust me. a book about texas, but also the lengths you will go for the people you love)

Tommy: red at the bone by jacqueline woodson (a book about motherhood and figuring out what you want and how nothing’s just one thing. about how all of the members of a family affect each other. i really love tommy’s storyline and the ups and downs in her dynamic with her daughters and husband, and how it’s not bad, but it’s not perfect either) or separation anxiety by laura zigman (a much lighter, funnier option still with the themes of motherhood and changes within a family)

Marjan: less by andrew sean greer (marjan spent more than half of her life knowing who she was going to eventually marry and now that’s just gone. what’s next for her? i’m dying to know! i kinda want to see her lose herself a little before she figures out what she really wants from life.) or circe by madeline miller (it boils down to this: i want marjan to go on a journey)

Paul: beach read by emily henry (okay hear me out again. i thought this book was a little annoying because the character of gus was this brooding, bad boy type who also was soooo in touch with his feelings and always wanted to talk things out when there was a conflict and always said the right thing and it just felt a little flat to me. BUT i feel like a character like paul would work a little better-- sensitive and intuitive because of how he’s had to live his life, wants to be open but has a hard time navigating how to discuss his past with people he’s dating-- plus we’ve seen that dating and relationships are important to him. where’s paul’s ‘this is totally NOT a basic romance novel’ but then it fucking is!!! i can’t believe i fell for that!! moment??) 

Mateo: oksana behave by maria kuznetsova?? (idk i had a really hard time coming up with one for mateo. i settled on this one but i’m not 100% happy with it. a book about trying to do the right thing but it doesn’t always work out that way.)

Nancy: girl woman other by bernadine evaristo (haha jk unless.............)

happy 9 days until 2b everyone!!

#911 lone star #book recs

[magicofthepen]

i am Extremely interested in the titles of every single one of your wips but i am actually begging you for details on 'Veega my beloved' because she is also my beloved <3 (🤝 our unity bullshit ❤❤)

Send me a WIP doc title (list here) and I’ll talk about it!

I’ve had “something Leela/Veega” on my fic idea list since Time War 3 came out....but it’s your fault that this fic has skyrocketed to the top of my priorities now, thank you so much for jumping into this sandbox with me <33

Initially I wasn’t sure whose pov I wanted to write from – we know Leela, we know her baggage going into this world and this relationship, and exploring all those internal emotions could be really interesting? But at the same time we don’t know Veega very well and so *insert “It’s Free Real Estate” gif*

So the project evolved from “something Leela/Veega” to “Veega character study” because I realized if I was writing from her pov, I wanted/needed to know what baggage she’s carrying when she meets Leela, and that means this fic has to be about her life and her backstory. 

I keep thinking about Unity as the end-of-the-line, a place people end up when they have nowhere else to go (I feel like there’s actually a quote about this but I can’t find it right now so it’s possible I made that up?) So I see Veega’s backstory as one of running, of losing one home and building another and losing that one too. There’s tragedy throughout her life, but she keeps choosing to create a home as much as she can wherever she is, and keeps choosing to love even in this universe that’s tearing itself apart. 

And since Veega’s father was a soldier who died in battle (and she references the battle by name when she’s talking to Romana, as if Romana would have heard of it), I see her story as one of running from the Time War specifically – sometimes she’s ahead of it, sometimes it catches up to her and tears at her world.

The fic is going to be structured around that idea of loss and rebuilding – I’ve kind of split it up in my head into the different families she builds throughout her life? So starting off with the family she was born into – her parents, I’ve invented a younger sibling – and seeing where she grew up and what that world and that family was like (I’m thinking maybe she originally grew up on a farm, and so there’s a ‘coming full circle’ narrative with the farm on Unity, and also she’d have certain skills and memories to lean on when she’s starting the farm on Unity later in life?). And then how that world falls apart – the death of her father and something that forces her family to run/scatter in some way (still working on this bit).

For her second family (when she’s a young adult), I have vague ideas for this group of twentysomethings all on their own who become close friends as they’re all thrown into the same work environment or running in the same direction together.....again, a lot of the details of this fic are still tbd. But I think this part is likely to be quite spaceship-based? It’ll depend on what I decide for how she got separated from her mother and sibling and what kind of work she gets involved with (Veega’s work experience/background is something I’m still thinking about).....but if the first part and next part of the fic are very grounded on a particular planet, I like the idea of telling a story here about her finding a home while hopping from place to place – there's never the same ground under her feet, but there are the people she loves around her.

And then we hit Things Get Bad, Round 2. Also very nebulous right now? In general, I don’t want to just kill of or have her get separated from everyone she’s ever loved throughout her life, but she is definitely quite alone by the time she meets Leela so.....yeah it can’t really be a happy backstory?

But I think Rayo’s father is going to be one of the people in that friend group, so there’s some continuity-of-family there? And I can get into the backstory of that relationship, and then how they eventually ended up alone together on Unity. And this is the third family – the two of them setting up this life on the farm, and Veega getting pregnant, and them preparing for this kid who they’re so ready to love and do everything they can to shield from the war.

And then, not long after Rayo is born.....yeah. (This fic really is just me continually ripping the ground out from under Veega’s feet unfortunately, but also that cycle of loss is what I want to explore – particularly because it parallels how Leela keeps losing one home and finding another one, so by the time they meet they’ve both loved and lost so much - but they still choose to love again.)

So Rayo’s father dies, Veega’s alone with baby Rayo on the farm, things are very rough.....and then Leela shows up, injured and alone, running from the city and the slavers she recently escaped from. And I’m going to spend quite a bit of time on this family (of course). The early days: Veega taking Leela in and taking care of her, Leela protecting her and Rayo (if Leela’s way of dealing with grief is throwing herself into a fight, Veega’s is throwing herself into caring for others). Them learning to communicate (bc language barrier – I could handwave it and say the Trell, who must have given Leela the ability to speak the language on that planet in Mother Tongue, left her with that ability – but I want to try exploring the idea of not having a translator?). And the eventual shock of learning that Leela’s from Gallifrey, and processing that (honestly I could write a whole fic just on that, so I’ll probably just touch on it here?). Growing into being a family, falling in love (and I know it’s from Veega’s pov, but I’ll have to at least indirectly touch on Leela’s motherhood-related trauma and initial wariness around Rayo because of it, and Leela’s complicated emotions towards Romana and Narvin and how there isn’t any closure there so it’s hard to let go?)

One thing I haven’t completely decided is the exact relationship backstory I’m going with for Leela and Romana and Narvin in this fic – it’s not something the fic will get into too much, but I’d like to know in my head? But there is a good chance I’ll end up making this fic What We Choose compliant. I want my post-Time War fic to be a WWC ‘verse fic and I want to get into Leela’s grief for Veega in that fic, so it is all nice and convenient if all the fics can co-exist in the same universe, even if the Veega fic won’t formally be part of that series? And I like the idea of there being an overtly romantic backstory there, because then I can explore how not ever ending things with or being able to talk with Romana and Narvin affects Leela re: getting into a relationship with Veega.

I would actually want to explore a different relationship backstory for those three for the Everyone Escapes Unity AU.....but that’s not an active project/as likely to actually get written, so I probably won’t let that factor into things. 

And back from that tangent: so eventually, we once again hit the Things Go Wrong times – the raids keep getting worse and worse. The shadow of the Time War is looming.

Veega gets sick.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted this fic to go right up until her death but I think it will – because I want to touch on Romana and Narvin showing up, and how Veega resents them for crashing into her life but also is glad that they’re hear because maybe Leela will have people to lean on after Veega is gone. Maybe, if they get the TARDIS, Leela and Rayo can run when they need to and continue to keep away from the war as long as they can.

Stylistically, this fic’s gonna be along the lines of knock the ice from my bones or leaned in and let it hurt, with shorter scenes spanning a (in this case very) long range of time. It’s in vague outline stage right now – I’ve got this general structure, but I’m in the process of figuring out what scenes I actually want and making actual proper backstory decisions. It has the potential to end up quite long, but I also don’t want to go overboard – there’s a lot of coloring in the lines I could do in future fics, this one is meant to sort of sketch an outline of her life? So I want to make sure I’m being selective with how many and which scenes I’m including, and if they’re each contributing to the thematic through-lines.

So this fic is gonna take a little while, but most definitely watch this space :)

#unity family #leela x veega #gallifrey audios #veega #leela #sircarolyn #thank you for sending this!! <33 i love talking about the unity family #i don't have anything written yet and i'm in the process of starting to recover from major burnout #so my writing might be even slower than usual over the next many months #but i am committed to this fic especially <3 #ramblings #asks

[samsexualdeancurious]

Accidental Happiness | Part One

Pairing: Sam x Reader

Words: 2,164

Warnings: Accidental pregnancy

Summary: Sam gets a call from his top secret girlfriend - a girlfriend not even Dean and Cas know exists.

Written for @saxxxology as her August Angel request.

Betaed by @manawhaat

--

She calls right as Sam is getting back from his run. There’s something in the tone of her voice - tight, like she's holding back a breakdown and trying to hide it - that makes him jump in the car without a shower or even an explanation to Dean. His mind is racing with all the horrible possibilities - angels, demons, vampires, and that's just the start of the supernatural options. Sam doesn't even want to think about the things regular human beings can and will do.

The drive across town to her safehouse is a quick one but it still feels like too long before he's pulling into her drive. She opens the front door before he even reaches it and he pauses, taking a moment to just look her over. She looks fine, if a little stressed, but he knows from experience that looks aren't everything.

"Y/N," he says stepping into the house and pulling her in his arms as the door falls shut behind him. "What's wrong?"

She looks terrified and it takes Sam a second to realize that she's scared of him. His heart twists and he presses a kiss to her forehead, cradling the back of her head in one hand.

"You can tell me, baby." He moves back a little to cup her face in both hands. "No matter what it is, I won't get mad."

"Promise?" she whispers.

"I promise," he says firmly.

Y/N blurts out, "IthinkImightbepregnant."

Sam blinks, brain struggling to process the string of words, and brushes his thumbs over her cheek bones. "Deep breath. Try that again."

She nods, bracing her hands against his chest and drawing a deep breath before saying in a shaky voice, "I think I might be pregnant."

Those words stop any response Sam might have planned out in its tracks. Finally, after a moment of stuttering, he manages, "Have you… taken any tests?"

She shakes her head. "Not yet. I- I wanted you to be here when I did. I've been throwing up a lot, though, and I missed my last period."

Shit. Sam takes a few deep breaths of his own and kisses her forehead again. "Okay. Okay. Do you have tests to take or do you want me to go get some?"

Her fingers curl to grip the front of his shirt. "I have a few. Please don't go."

"Y/N," Sam says, looking her right in the eye. "I'm here. I’m not going anywhere."

--

He finds himself sitting on the edge of her bed, listening to her rummaging around behind the closed bedroom door. It feels like hours before the toilet flushes and he hears her wash her hands. When the door opens, she has her phone in her hand with a timer on the screen.

"Now we wait," she sighs.

Sam scoots up to sit against the headboard and opens his arms. Y/N falls into them, settling between his legs with her own thrown over his thigh and looping her arms around his waist.

"No matter what happens," Sam says softly, tucking her head under his chin, "we'll figure it out together."

They sit like that until Y/N's phone starts vibrating, announcing that the time is up. Y/N startles and groans.

"Don't wanna move," she mutters against his collarbone.

"C'mon," Sam urges, nudging her gently. "I'll go check them with you."

Together they make their way into the bathroom, where the three different tests are lines up neatly on the counter. Three positive tests.

Y/N grips Sam's hand tight.

--

They end up sitting across the kitchen table from each other, mugs of tea making little spirals of steam in the air between them. Sam watches her carefully, noting the way she's already pressing her palm to her stomach. She's clearly nervous but there's a little bit of awe in her eyes when she does it.

"I guess we should talk about this," she murmurs, fiddling with her mug.

Sam bobs his teabag in his own mug. "I just have one question and I want you to answer honestly. No matter what you think I want to hear. Can you do that?"

Y/N hesitates, studying his face, before nodding.

He sits forward, looking her right in the eye. "Do you want this baby?"

There's a second of silence and then she whispers, "Yes."

Sam can't stop his smile. He leaps to his feet, rounding the table to sweep Y/N into his arms and kiss her.

"I'm gonna be a dad," he says, a little choked as his joy overwhelms him.

She's a little startled but still grins up at him, reaching up to hold his face in her hands. "Yes, you are."

--

Reality will hit later, when Sam misses her first ultrasound because of a hunt. He finds himself irritable with Dean and Cas the whole time. He knows that between keeping Y/N secret and hunting, the next nine months aren't going to be easy.

That's when doubt sets in. Should they really be doing this? A baby will be another person to keep secret - the keep safe - and on top of that, how's he supposed to be a dad if he's hunting and she's living on the other side of town?

Fuck.

He finds himself checking his phone constantly until she texts him a picture of the ultrasound. That's when he knows the decision is already made.

--

He's able to make it over there the day after they get back the hunt, giving Dean some shit excuse about needing to be away from him and taking one of the cars his brother is fixed up in his free time. She's pleasantly surprised to see him on her doorstep, quickly pulling him into a kiss.

"I didn't expect to see you for a few days," she says when they come up for air. "How'd the hunt go?" She brushes her fingers across a fresh bandage on his inner forearm, just peeking out from under his sleeve.

"Shifter. It went as well as expected and I'll tell you all the details later." He presses a kiss to her forehead, savoring the feeling of her body against his own. "I just couldn't stay away," he admits, letting go of her long enough for her to close the front door. "Plus, I have something to talk to you about." When fear turns the corners of her mouth down, he quickly leans in to kiss her. "It's not a bad thing. Just a thought I had that I want to run by you."

She relaxes visibly. "Okay. Take your shoes off. I just finished making dinner and there's plenty to go around."

They banter back and forth for a moment when they reach the kitchen, both wanting to serve the other, and Sam comes out on top. He gets to work dishing out bowls of taco soup with all the toppings she's laid out, watching her out of the corner of his eye. Y/N's also watching him, thoughtfully rubbing a hand over her belly. She's not showing yet and won't for at least another month or so, according to Sam's research, but that doesn't seem to matter to her subconscious. Motherhood runs deeper than he could possibly learn from any of his research.

"Thank you," she says when he sets her bowl in front of her, lifting her chin for a kiss. "What is it you wanted to ask me about?"

Sam settles into the chair across from her with his own bowl, automatically stretching out one socked foot to hook it around her ankle. The contact is comforting to both of them.

"How would you feel about moving into the bunker?" he blurts out before nerves can get the better of him.

Y/N stares at him in silence for a few excruciatingly long seconds. "Me… move in with you?"

Sam nods.

"But that would mean-"

"Introducing you to Dean and Cas," Sam finishes. "I know. You don't have to if you don't want to - I can understand why you wouldn't. I was just thinking with the baby, it would be nice to have you close by, and plus the bunkers warded against pretty much everything so-"

"Sam," she says gently, interrupting his rambling. "Of course I would like to move in with you."

All the anxiety about asking drains from his body and Sam grins. "Really?"

"Really," she assures him, smiling softly. "Plus, it's been how long? It's about time I met the rest of your family. I want our baby to know their uncles." She sobers a little. "You don't think Dean will be mad?"

"Dean? Hell no. He's gonna give me shit for it, I can guarantee that, but he loves kids. He's gonna be over the moon about being an uncle."

--

"You're seriously only telling me about your secret girlfriend because you knocked her up?"

Sam winces at his brother's words and leans back against the hood of his car. "I would've told you eventually."

"Uh-huh. And she knows about what we do?"

Sam nods. "Yeah. Her parents were hunters. They managed to raise her outside of the life but she knows."

"When are you gonna bring her around?"

"I was thinking tomorrow." He glances up to see Y/N through the kitchen window, dividing leftover soup into containers.

"I'm guessing you're spending the night?" "Yeah."

Sam can practically hear Dean's smirk. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Sam rolls his eyes and hangs up.

--

Sam's woken early the next morning to Y/N making a mad dash for the bathroom. He lies there a moment, blinking sleepily in the dimly lit room and trying to figure out exactly what's going on. He always sleeps so much deeper with her by his side. Maybe she's making him soft - he can't bring himself to care.

After a minute or two, he drags himself out of bed and goes to lean in the doorway. Y/N is sitting on the rug next to the toilet looking absolutely miserable.

"Hey," Sam says quietly. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

She shrugs. "Some tea might help."

"Mint or ginger?"

"Mint, please."

Sam makes his way down to the kitchen and puts some water in the electric kettle. This is definitely something they're bringing with when she moves in. The stovetop kettle the bunker has is good - if ancient - but electric ones are just so much better.

Y/N comes down stairs while her tea is steeping. She falls right into Sam's arms, snuggling up against his chest and rubbing her nose into the soft fabric of his pajama shirt.

"Tea's almost ready," Sam tells her, stroking her head with one hand. "What time so you want to head over to the bunker?"

She shrugs. "Whenever we feel like it. Think Dean would like me more if we bring him food?"

Sam chuckles. "Oh yeah."

---

They stop to pick up breakfast at the diner in town, chatting amicably with the waitresses while they wait for their food, and then head right over to the bunker. By the time they get there, Sam is confident Dean will be awake. Y/N is a bundle of nerves - the bout of morning sickness that hit in the diner definitely isn't helping - and it takes a minute for Sam to coax her out of the car.

"We come bearing food," he calls as they finally make their way down the stairs to the war room and then up the library steps.

Y/N can't stop looking around, taking in everything. Sam feels a little proud of his home. He works hard to keep the bunker clean, roping Dean and Cas in whenever possible, and it shows. The hard wood of the library gleams under the old-fashioned lights.

"So many books," she murmurs, running her fingertips along the spines of the closest ones.

"I hope you went to Deborah's. Otherwise I'm kicking you both out."

Sam chuckles as Dean appears in the door on the other end of the library. "Where else would we have gone?" He holds up the bags.

Dean stops a few feet away, finally noticing Y/N where she's standing a little behind Sam. She’s prettier than Dean expected or something because he puts on his flirting-with-a-cute-girl face. "Why, hello there."

Y/N ducks her head a little, clearly nervous, and holds out the one thing she insisted on getting for Dean specifically. "We brought you a pie."

Dean lights up, eagerly accepting the box she's offering him. He looks her up and down quickly, and then nods with a boyish smile. "You can stay."

He shoots her a wink and heads off towards the kitchen.

Y/N visibly relaxes, hooking her arm around Sam's. He leans down to press a kiss to the top of her head.

"Toldja it would be okay. C'mon. Let's go get breakfast started before Dean and Cas starting fighting of who's gonna be number one uncle."

---

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—

Team Forever: @mrswhozeewhatsis @laughing-at-the-darkness​​ @tumbler-tidbits​​ @imsuperawkward​​​​ @emoryhemsworth

#sam x reader #my writing #spn fanfic

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

what’s up i have had like a migraine-hangover that has tanked my ability to concentrate on anything at all today except Takes. penny/kady was a relationship that made intuitive sense because of shared mutual interests (being insanely hot, petty crimes, hating nerds). between that, penny flirting while tied up with prof whose name i can never remember because i am always too excited that cutthroat bitch from house is on my TV speaking of shows that managed to have some pretty awesome female characters for how much they hated women, and penny choosing not just to hook up with alice but specifically to hook up with alice when she was even more deranged than the usual alice baseline, and his post-death admission that he always kinda thought he might bang margo, we can surmise that penny’s type is the woman in the room who seems most capable of murdering someone with her bare hands, which is why he is an ally, and also means that while the revelation that penny23 was in love with julia23 is of course a Whoa moment, it did not feel hard to believe, because julia lives her life by finding the most Extra reaction to the situation and then pursuing it 110%.

BUT THEN they never did any work to set up julia being interested in 23. their s4 hookup was kind of whatever in the sense that this show does love to just shove very sexy people at each other but (NOT UNLIKE MARGO/JOSH AS IT BEGAN) it made a certain amount contextual sense given the.... INSANE stress that julia was under between her confusion about her magic/indestructability/etc. status and her position by virtue of her loyalty to quentin as like the monster’s number two trauma action figure. you could imagine pretty easily that under this ongoing traumatic circumstance it would be pretty tempting to get with a dude who looked at you like you walked on water even if your logic-brain understood somewhere that he wasn’t really looking at you because of how you had never had a real conversation. it is idiotic that they got together because HYMAN of all people shipped it and also i actually don’t know that i agree with what hyman says about their alleged similarity, that they both put other people before themselves so often that they never let themselves be happy. that fits with penny and is basically exactly what hades says to penny to get him to let go of the earthbound life he spent all of doing that. and it was certainly true of kady, stemming from her relationship with her mom and seen in the single-minded desperation she brings to helping first julia and then penny.

but julia? tanked her relationship and her entire life because she wanted magic so bad julia? nearly killed her best friend when she was mad at him julia? thrilled to find a non-evil crew to do magic with because she just fucking loves magic julia? betrayed her recently reconciled best friend and all his friends because she was determined to have revenge julia? knowledge seeker julia? spilled the secret of her mysterious magic to josh for fun julia? i don’t.... like i don’t actually think she has that problem. i think she DOES derive a lot of personal satisfaction from helping people, which is part of what’s so lovely about her goddess scenes in season 3 (her little smile when she cures quentin’s headache ;-; ), but she’s not out here signing billion year contracts to the order. i am pretty hard pressed to think of one (1) thing that julia does seasons 1-4 for a reason other than Because She Wanted To. even in s4 when she’s so committed to the monster situation because of quentin, she’s also taking time when she can to try to figure out her own deal, or nope-ing out of a particular endeavor because it involves the guy who sexually assaulted her in a bathroom to prove a point. even giving up her goddesshood - that is a sacrifice, but it’s one she makes extremely clear-eyed, and one she explicitly says she would not take back.

julia does not have the problem that she ignores her own happiness and desires, and the more i think about this the more it grosses me out because like, with penny whose personal harm from this tendency of his is manifestly clear re: the library contract (altho the show seems to have decided that was for the best anyway LOL), but with julia... what has she ever done to or denied herself? every possible answer to this question is gross! like, is the assumption that we are supposed to believe this is true of her simply because up to that point she was the only main who had never been in a romantic relationship except for the one with james which again she tanked not to save the world but because she wanted magic more than she wanted to make good choices? (also ultimately it wasn’t even her fault bc she was gonna tell him but then pete wiped him!) like if a woman is out here living her extremely busy life and never boning anyone she must secretly be denying herself happiness? despite the fact that for example even accounting for the fact that she gets magic back privately she seems to have emotionally adjusted to life without magic WAY better than quentin, alice, or josh? or are we to infer her tendency for self sacrifice from the contours of her friendship with quentin, which, ://////////////

anyway so then like they could have (1) not done the most heinous thing in the world in 4x13 and/or (2) spent 13 episodes illustrating for us literally one (1) thing julia & penny23 actually had in common or giving us a single moment where we could understand why julia wicker the character we know would be drawn to this particular person but instead they just had them fight about 23′s insistence basically that hyman was right and julia’s insistence that actually fucking knows herself and then break up and then get back together because julia was pregnant and LOL J/K despite her series-long bone-deep passion for magic (i understand why fandom fixates on quentin in this regard but there is one (1) other character who has the pure full-throated hunger and wonder and love for magic that quentin does AND IT IS JULIA WHICH IS WHY THEY ARE BEST FRIENDS) and her sense of calling to do things that mattered which actually well preceded quentin’s death thank you very much (remember when she was like “i actually have to hit pause on the quest to bring back magic because of how i need to end fairy slavery?”) she apparently did just want motherhood & monogamy all along. COOL.

#the magicians #the magicians critical #when my bf watched the s4 finale he got to the part where julia was like #'can you just stand there and let me be mad at you' #and closed the window and was like 'so am i looking this up on wikipedia or are you telling me what happened after that bc i am NOT doing it

[chiliiscereal]

Okay so I kinda wanted something a little heart felt and sad, and I got back into Voltron again so here we goooooooo. Also since Mother's Day is on its way it's kinda themed that way. Go hug ur moms okay? Or go hug the people that matter to you if you can't or don't want to :p 

By the way, there's mentions of death so... beware? 

——

"Keith, don't push yourself too hard." You called from the side of the training room with worry. That boy kept upping the fighting level of the training bot. He hadn't eaten breakfast yet, he hadn't had any water, and he went to bed late last night. It was just a disaster waiting to happen. 

  Keith wiped the sweat off his forehead and readjusted his grip on his sword. "I'm fine." He ran at the bot again. 

  You bit at your nails nervously. "You want to take a break? I can make you a snack or something. You should really eat or take a nap..." 

"I said I'm fine!" He yelled as the bot swiped at him. "You're distracting me! Just go!" 

You swallowed your hurt. "Okay... let me know if you need-."

"Go!" 

——

"Hunk, that's dangerous!" You called up to the yellow paladin.

He was cooking in the kitchen and was trying to reach the bowl on the top shelf. Instead of grabbing a ladder he used a swivel chair. 

"I got it!" He yelled down to you. 

You knitted your eyebrows together. "You sure? I can grab a ladder... or I can get the bowl for you?" 

He could fall and hurt himself. 

He could break a bone.

He could get a concussion.

"Y/N, no offense, but I don't need your help, okay?" He informed you, stretching his hand out to grab the bowl. "I got it. I can do things myself, you know." 

"I know..." you trailed off, running closer to stabilize the chair he was standing on. "I just worry about you guys." 

  "Just stop, okay?" His fingers barely touched the rim of the bowl. "We don't need a mom." 

 His words ripped at your heart. So you let go. He was right. They didn't need a mom. You were just being a smothering worry wart. 

"Okay." You sighed, leaving the kitchen and casting one last glance at the disaster waiting to happen. "You're right! But if you need anything-."

  "Nope. I'm good."

——-

"Pidge, maybe you should put the computer away." You told the girl from your spot on the couch. "You've been on it all day."

She wasn't being very social. It couldn't be good for her. Maybe a little time away from it would be good for her.

  She snorted. "And do what?"

  You frowned at her. "I don't know, play a game? We could rope the other paladins into it." Your worry faded as your enthusiasm grew. "Maybe Allura and Coran have some Altman games we could try?" 

  "I doubt we'd understand it." Pidge shot that idea down immediately.

  You tensed a bit. "Okay... maybe we play an earth game!" 

  Pidge chuckled as she typed away at her computer. "What, like hide and seek?"

  "Yeah! The castle is big enough and maybe it'll lift everyone's spirits-!"

  "Sorry, but hide and seek is a bit childish." Pidge rolled her eyes before returning to her screen. "We're not little kids." 

  You clenched yourself fists a bit. "I know that, but-."

"Then act like it." 

You stood up awkwardly. "Okay... I'm sorry. I'll just... I'll just go."

Pidge said nothing as you left.

——

"Lance don't tamper with that!" You ran over to the boy messing with the gravity generator. "You don't want to break it!" 

  He rolled his eyes. "I'm not gonna break it. Coran told me that it needed to be fixed, so I'm fixing it! You should be happy I was motivated to help for once!" 

 His humor didn't ease your nerves. If anything it made your worry more. 

"Do you know what you're doing?" You glanced over his shoulder. "You could get shocked or turn the gravity off!" 

 "It's fineee. Besides, Pidge told me how to fix it a little while ago." He shrugged and continued rewiring it. 

  You fidgeted a bit. "How long ago was that?" 

  Lance paused and thought a bit. "I don't know, maybe last month?"

  "Lance!" You groaned. "Why don't you at least go ask Pidge again? Or ask Hunk or Coran?" 

  "I got this! I know what I'm doing so just back off!" His playful attitude faded. "Just get off my back!" 

You bit your lip and nodded. "Okay... I'm sorry." 

  He glanced at you still watching him with worry. "I mean like... right now."

  "Oh. Right." You sighed and walked down the hallway.

——-

You bit at your nails as you tried to wrap your mind around what you should do. These kids needed someone to look out for them, but how could you do that without smothering them? Maybe not jump into the problem right away? Would that work? Would they still get upset? 

You walked by the lounge door and stopped when you heard a conversation on the other side. Maybe you should join them! Test out your idea. Just relax. Show them you wouldn't smother them. 

You took in a breath and went to open the door. 

The words you heard inside stopped you. 

"Ugh, she's been breathing down my neck since we first got to the castle!" Pidge complained. 

"She has been a bit... much." Hunk added. "It's hard to relax and cook when someone is constantly making sure you're not messing up." 

  "I know right?!" Lance jumped in quickly. "I was trying to fix something, and she just wouldn't stop pestering me!" 

  "She also distracted me when I was training this morning." Keith muttered. "I feel like I don't get enough space." 

  "If you want space, just look out the window." Lance chuckled. "Plenty of space out there." 

  "Shut up!"

  "Ow! Don't hit me!" 

You shoved down the immediate response you got of trying to break up their fight. They didn't want that. Or you. At all. 

 "Yesterday, she even tried to tell Allura she needed to rest." Pidge added. "Something about how she needed her energy or whatever. Allura's the princess! And an alien! She doesn't need someone to boss her around. Especially someone who doesn't even pilot a lion!"

Bossy. 

Nosey. 

Smothering.

Annoying.

Useless.

  That's what they really thought. 

  You turned away from the door, face growing warm and tears threatening to fall. 

You could change. 

You could stay away. 

Maybe you could just... not try to see when they needed help.

Avoid the situation entirely.

Then you wouldn't feel the need to be like that. 

   You swiped the tears from your eyes. 

  "Hey, are you okay?" A voice asked from behind you. 

 You jumped and turned around quickly. 

"Oh," you sighed in relief when you saw your best friend, Shiro. You'd trained with him in the Garrison and even worked with him as a teacher. "Hey Shiro." You wiped the remaining tears away. "What up?" 

  He frowned and walked closer. "Nothing... just a bit concerned I guess. Have... have you been crying?" 

  You shook your head quickly. "No! No I haven't. I'm good." 

  He chuckled lightly. "You know, lying isn't very effective when there's evidence." 

  You laughed to. "Yeah, I guess that's right." 

  "I just wanted to check on you... cause I know the anniversary of... you know...." he rubbed the back of his head nervously. 

  "Yeah." You looked to the ground. "It's coming up." Your heart jumped a bit at the thought. It'd already been two years since that day. Your tears began to fall a little faster.

Shiro frowned. "I just wanted to let you know that we're here for you, okay?" 

You nodded. "Yeah, definitely." 

He rubbed your shoulder a bit. "I know I wasn't close with him, but it hurts me to... even though I only met him a couple times." 

  You smiled softly. "He still adored you. He thought you were the coolest thing Dino nuggets. He tried to convince me to let him cut his hair like yours, and I nearly had a heart attack when I caught him trying to take apart my car engine to follow you into space." 

You both shared a fond laugh.

  "Well, just let me know if you need anything, yeah?" He grinned. "I'll be in the lounge." 

You nodded. "Yeah, I'm just gonna be in my room." You gestured to the hallway.

 "I'll tell the paladins you say hi." 

#voltron #space dad #takashi shirogane #keith kogane #lance mcclain #wattpad

[sueboohscorner]

#JaneTheVirgin: Jane the Brokenhearted Chapter Fifty Four

Chapter Fifty Four

Look, I feel some kinda way and I knew it was going to happen.  You’ll recall in my midseason finale/spoiler alert post, I told you this was coming to pass.  I hate being right.

(If you haven’t seen the eppy yet, 1) why are you reading a recap and 2) don’t read ahead unless you want the spoiler spoiled.) (Go away.) (Stop playing.)

First of all, this episode was tight. It was Jane in peak form, firing on all cylinders, every single character involved.  It was written by showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman and directed by Melonie Mayron (Professor Donaldson).   At the top of the show, the Narrator takes us back to young Michael instead of young Jane.  Young Michael is dressed for Halloween in a cop outfit that’s adorably too big for him. In a nice bit of foreshadowing, Michael wants with all his heart to go trick-or-treating, but he’s sick and his mom won’t let him go.  In the present, Jane and Michael are looking through old photographs and come across a pic from that long ago Halloween. Michael swears he remembers that moment perfectly, but Jane explains something called “flashbulb memory,” memories that seem so vivid and clear because of the intensity of the emotion attached to them, not because of our accurate recollection. (She read that in the New Yorker, here’s the article: http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/idea-happened-memory-recollection) (I wish I could figure out how to hyperlink). Michael says, “Nah, I remember everything.”

The phone rings and Jane is offered her dream job, assistant to a publishing wunderkind.  (What happened to the other lady? Last I remember, Jane and Michael (sob) wowed the assistant at a bar singing Bruno Mars karaoke, right?). Rogelio stops by with a different kind of picture: a still from his nude scene (Rogelio’s genitalia is a gift that keeps on giving).  Ro invites Jane to the screening and she agrees to come as long as he tells her when to look away in order to avoid having the image her padre’s cadre seared on the inside of her eyelids.

Unlike the last time when Catalina (may she never return) told Jane to wing her interview, Jane is hella prepared.  And when Jane is prepared, she does the darn thing. She’s given a memoir to read and her prospects ($40K and benefits) look amazing.  Jane goes to pick up Mateo from Abuela’s where Xiomara is watching him.  Xo wants some quid pro quo and asks Jane to come to dinner with Alba, Bruce, and Scary Tess.  Jane agrees.  When Xo asks Jane for feminine protection, Jane realizes she’s late.  And she’s been having a lot of sex. A lot of sex. With Michael. La amor de su vida.  (Why, Jennie Snyder Urman, why?!)

Michael comes home happy (he’s so happy this episode; he’s like a dog that doesn’t know he’s about to be put down) and Jane is making pasta. She tells him she might be pregnant, and she’s worried about their timeline and Mateo—but the look on Michael’s face assures her that a little Cordero would make Michael the happiest man on the planet.  Jane takes one of Xo’s old pregnancy tests (what is she stockpiling them?) but the test is expired, and the result is unreadable.  I loved that there was this kind of lingering hope that they might have a baby, even though I knew Michael was doomed. Doomed, I say!

Rogelio has been trying to come up with a matchmaker reality show for Darci. Darci wants him to co-star, but Ro is all about that indie life.  He invites Darci to walk down la alfombra roja to the screening of his movie. At the screening, Ro’s big reveal has been edited out of the movie. (“They cut my penis!”). He storms outside and Darci tries to console him. As a bystander secretly records Ro’s freakout on cellphone, Ro says “penis” about a hundred times and he also hurts Darci, telling her she just wants to be Bethany Frankel while he wants to be a serious actor. Not the move, Ro.

At the Tess dinner, Tess is being a shady little heffa, but Jane wins her over by telling her that she and Michael live near a popular coffee shop Tess likes (okay….). Back at the apartment, Jane tells Michael she got her period, and she’s not pregnant (seriously, she had to tell him that last part. I’m like, Mike, you’re a cop!)  They agree they’re disappointed, and Michael says they’ve got all the time in the world because he’s doomed! Doomed, I say! There’s a knock at the door and it Tess, drunk as a skunk in a trunk! Jane takes her to Xo’s, where Tess escapes on a bike, only to be captured by Abuela, who tells her to get in the car ahora mismo! Xo calls Bruce, who wants to lock Tess up forever, but Xo offers some sage advice that saves Tess’s butt, which Tess overhears, opening the door to a civil relationship between Tess and Xo.

Oh! The other people—you know, the ones who survived Jennie Snyder Urman’s death scythe.  Scott told Petra he and Anezka are married, and he has gazillion copies of the will’s addendum (I love Anezka’s forever bangs, lol). Rafael tells Luisa (remember her?) he’s not a real Solano and she assures him he will always be her brother and she’ll always have his back.  Rafael finds out he’s going to have to do some jail time for cooking the books after his dad-not-dad died. Petra freaks because she hasn’t bonded with the twins, but she eases into motherhood and tells Raf to go ahead to jail if that’s what he wants (maybe he’ll see Petra’s mother, Magda in the co-ed prison yard!). Luisa introduces her new girlfriend, Eileen (come on!), to Rafael and Rafael is like, “I’ma need some bloodwork, proof of plastic surgery, and MRI, a bone scan” whatever it takes to prove Eileen is NOT Sin Rostro. 

Of course, Eileen IS Sin Rostro (does she even have cartilage left?) and she has a look alike go take all the tests for her. Meanwhile, Jane delivered Ro’s naked pictures instead of the memoir summary and analysis to the publisher and torpedoed her chances at getting her dream job. Ro shrink-wraps a bus and wins Darci back.

The Date. God, this was beautiful writing.  Jane and Michael go to the amusement park they went to when they first started dating. The scene alternates between the shy pair feeling their way around commitment to the married couple dreaming of forever.  They play carnival games and take photo booth pictures.  Jane looks at Michael and they both smile, knowing they’re going to ride the Ferris wheel, where they became a couple (yes, I thought it was the night of Jane’s 21st birthday, too, but you remember they added that Sam in the beginning of season 3). As the wheel goes round the past folds in on the present and you just know Michael is doomed. Doomed, I say! Chile, I thought the Ferris wheel was gonna break and send him hurling to his death there were so many omens! That didn’t happen; instead, Michael remembers some minor detail from an investigation that proves the memoir wasn’t entirely true and will allow Jane to march back to the publisher’s office, find out it was all a test and get the job. Because Michael is Jane’s safe place to land, always guiding her, supporting her, loving her.  Sigh.

Jane gives Michael the cutest lunch box to take to the LSATs. She tells him she loves him, she’s proud of him.  Michael goes to take the test. When he finishes and lines up to hand his test in, he collapses and dies.  When Jane receives the call that Michael has died from some complication from his gunshot wound, she drops the phone and lets out a scream that better be on Gina Rodriguez’ Emmy reel, because it was life! Rafael comes in and wraps his arms around her (they are never, ever getting back together, so forget it #TeamRafael!).  There’s a hint that Jane goes through some dark times and we’re about to jump ahead three years (no more Mr. Sweetface?!), but we’ve reached the end of part two.

So, basically, this is a reboot of the entire show. They’re jumping ahead three years, so anything can happen for the rest of the season. Raf’s going to jail. Sin Rostro’s back.  Jane’s going to a wedding ( I bet it’s Alba’s!) and she has a funky new haircut. But as a member of #TeamMichael, my heart will always be a little broken when I don’t see Brett Dier’s goofy-sweet face mooning at Jane. (I hope he comes back as a Patrick Swayze in Ghost like spirit! Jennie  Snyder Urman told The Hollywood Reporter they will do Michael flashbacks! Yay!)

A+ eppy. Can’t wait until next week.

Tell me what you think of Michael's death in the comments section!

Kellybelle

#Jane The Virgin #janethevirgin #Gina Rodriguez #Andrea Navedo #Jaime Camil #Justin Baldoni #Brett Dier #Ivonne Coll #Yael Grobglas #yara martinez #Justina Machado

[the-end-of-art]

Forced increase

Every Day is Magic: Ada Limón by Alex Crowley in PW

In her 2015 collection, Bright Dead Things, a National Book Award finalist for poetry, Ada Limón writes of moving to Kentucky: “Confession: I did not want to live here.” It’s perhaps not a surprising sentiment coming from a coastally oriented person who was raised in Northern California, attended college in Seattle, and then spent over a decade in New York City.

But Limón and her husband, Lucas, have been in Lexington for seven years now and the effects of settling into this place are noticeable in her new book, The Carrying (Milkweed, Aug.). It’s a phenomenally lively and attentive collection replete with the trappings of living a little closer to nature. While Bright Dead Things is marked by a preponderance of light, such as images of fireflies and neon signs, The Carrying features numerous appearances by various trees, birds, and beetles. Limón also demonstrates a greater willingness to be explicit in naming colors, particularly green. “It’s crazy green, the whole book,” she says. “Lexington is the greenest place I’ve ever lived.” Similarly, where in Bright Dead Things, Limón tells a lot of stories and anecdotes, in The Carrying she is very present in her thoughts and experiences.

As it turns out, these shifts in focus have another, altogether unexpected source. While putting Bright Dead Things together, Limón was diagnosed with chronic vestibular neuronitis, which can cause bouts of vertigo. “If I’m really having vertigo, it’s pretty intense and I really have to focus,” she says. “There’s a focus on presence that I think that the body has given me in the last three years that I’ve had to listen to. When I was sick, everything was a little bit of a blur. When things would stand still, it was the most amazing technicolor. It’s almost like the static stops and then suddenly the picture became clear. ‘Oh my god, I see the mailbox! I see the little red flag.’ Those became things I anchored on to. It was a way of saying that I was surviving, that I was ok.”

Limón’s writing process has been heavily impacted by this new reality. “I used to write everyday but when the vertigo was bad, it was nearly impossible for me to write. So when I could, I would try to write a poem every day, because I felt good. Suddenly the brain would stop worrying about remaining in balance and would be, ‘oh, remember words?’ So this book was written much more in fits and starts.” Limón thinks it’s likely that lots of poems didn’t happen because of her health but that what she did produce benefited from the forced increase in concentration, “in the stillness of it.”

The book’s title points to another health issue that Limón confronts in its pages: struggles with fertility. “What if, instead of carrying// a child, I’m supposed to carry grief?” she asks in “The Vulture & The Body.”

“It took us a while to even come around to the idea of trying,” she says of she and Lucas having a child. “We thought, ‘let’s try this, it might be amazing.’ Unfortunately, The fertility drugs made the vertigo worse.” Limón has since ceased the fertility regimen she discusses in several poems and is now “happily child-free.”

“You wait for the universe to send you an answer and the universe does. It just said ‘no!’” But this reality opened up a new avenue for her, what she calls being a “poetry mom”: “Anyone can have a different experience, but for me, I find a lot of creativity, creation, in poetry and in writing, so I have this element of myself that I feel I’m giving to the world and it doesn’t necessarily have to be a child.” In the poem “Mastering,” Limón writes, “perhaps the only thing I can make// is love and art.” It’s a subtle political stance, given the ways that womanhood and motherhood are conflated: “Think about the word mother or woman. How are you valued? It’s a lovely, beautiful thing to know you can be valued and respected and even cherished without giving birth. Because motherhood becomes such a definition of, ‘well, you’re not a real woman until you’ve given birth.’”

Following that line of thought, Limón pays homage to Gwendolyn Brooks, Lucille Clifton, and Sylvia Plath, for “speaking about motherhood in a way that was never spoken before.” She lists a number of important influences—”Sexton, Plath, Rukeyser, Brooks and Clifton. Adrienne Rich! These women who were opening little doors”—before continuing: “Isn’t it cool that, even if I don’t get to be a physical mother, the people who’ll read my work will somehow be affected. I’m related to Gwendolyn Brooks. I’m not, but in that way I am.”

Limón’s deep respect for her predecessors also points toward another core theme of The Carrying, that of the interconnectedness of beings and how humans attempt to express it through language. “If we’re gonna say we’re poets, we’ve got to say that language matters, but we really have to look at a thing in all sorts of ways. Every aspect of it. How does it enforce patriarchy, how does it enforce white supremacy? The way we think about gender fluidity? All these levels. Let’s look at our language deeply. Why not pick it apart? Why not use it as the right tool?” Limón brings up her poem “A New National Anthem,” in which she delivers the brilliant insight that maybe there is a hidden third verse to every song of America. She asks, somewhat rhetorically “Why do these words, for me, fail?”

Here, the subtle politics of The Carrying become more explicit and pointed. “It’s hard not to be political now,” Limón says. “A lot of poets, they’re like, ‘well, I’m not political, I don’t do this,’ and it’s like, no, we have to. You can’t be truthful if you don’t talk about it.” She realized it was true of her own disability issues: “I realized on some level how much I’ve taken my own ableism for granted.” The general public is finally starting to talk about ableism, Limón notes, and suspects it’s part of a wider phenomenon within contemporary poetry: “Poets seem to be at the forefront of those conversations; like, there’s an openness that we’re always trying to get to, instead of getting comfortable when one door comes down—what about the next one?”

Limón says she constantly asks herself, “Can I go deeper? What kind of poems come out of revisiting the stories we tell ourselves?” She has taken such a step, both formally and substantively, between these latest collections. It’s most notable in a set of letter poems written to poet Natalie Diaz. “She’s so fun to write to,” Limón remarks. Written over the course of nine months, she says that these poems “became a way where even if I wasn’t feeling well I felt like I could write to her because we didn’t have any agreement to publish; they were very personal.” These four poems are more fluid and off-the-cuff than most of Limón’s usual lyric narratives. “They really intended to be letters, so I wanted to remain true to that; I wanted them to communicate just to her, so I wasn’t thinking about an outside audience at all. That’s totally different for both of us.”

Limón opens her notebook to show me a handwritten draft—in effortless, fluid script—of one of her poems to Diaz, discovering in the process another that she had forgotten about. “Oh, this is funny, I don’t remember this poem. This is a totally different poem, I never typed this poem up. Holy shit.” She scans the page for a minute and reads aloud, laughing: “it says ‘Was Bishop a mean drunk?’” She then finds the draft of “Cargo,” the poem she was looking for. “It’s very letter-like. When I typed it up, though, that’s when all the edits happened.”

Limón and Diaz also read a book by Potawatomi botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer called Braiding Sweetgrass, which in its discussion of Native wisdom and ecology offered insights that suffuse all of The Carrying. “I think there was a part of that that seeped in about connectedness, the aliveness that I wanted to experience in the world,” she says. “I’m a narrative lyric poet, but I really wanted to do my due diligence and give attention to the things that were not necessarily myself. Even though I’m definitely talking a lot about myself in the work, it’s hopefully not in a way that feels disconnected or isolated.”

“I read a lot, but when I’m writing it’s hard because I’m a mimic,” Limón says about direct poetic influences on The Carrying. “I need a bit of radio silence. But I do think Lucille Clifton plays a powerful role for me in this book. And Joy Harjo,” from whom she takes the collection’s epigraph. “Natalie and I both talk about Creeley and Lorca, and they’re both in there; Lorca especially with his magical realism,” which she says reminds her that she’s allowed to engage as well. “The weirdest thing in the world is reality. I’m more fascinated by the idea of magic than I am of god. I mean, I understand why we think about it, but I think the idea of every day being this incredible gift, this chance for the bizarre and the ordinary to interact and dance and get twisted. That’s magic.”

Now that magic happens in a house in Kentucky, where Limón has her own office “and a screened-in porch with a big table and a grill—that’s a good writing space for me.” Still, she laments that “Sonoma is still deep within me,” especially after the 2017 forest fires, which appear in The Carrying. “And one thing about New York that I miss so much is that bar on the corner.” But, showing me pictures of her home, she scrolls past a picture of a snake in the yard and mentions that her poem “Against Belonging” is about how “these snakes find their home wherever they want to find their home. And I felt like that’s what I’m doing, wherever I am I’m finding a home.”

Limón returns to “A New National Anthem,” which ends with a “song that says my bones/ are your bones, and your bones are my bones,/ and isn’t that enough?” She repeats the question to me, “Well, isn’t that enough? I don’t know. Clearly it’s not, but I want it to be enough. I feel like poems can sometimes fail by trying to be too resolute, or by trying to give some received wisdom when there is none. I’m not a wise person. I’ve lived some years and I’ve had some experiences, but do I have wisdom to pass on? I dunno. I think I have questions to pass on,” Limón says, laughing again. Maybe knowing how to ask the right question is its own kind of wisdom and she doesn’t realize how wise she is. “It’s another way of saying we’re all in this together. I don’t have it figured out.”

(https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/profiles/article/77427-every-day-is-magic-ada-lim-n.html)

#Ada Limón #poem #poet #poetry #natalie diaz

[lindyhunt]

4 Comics Who Are Keeping it Real About Motherhood ( and 4 Who Are Proudly Not Procreating)

Having children is one of life’s greatest pleasures…or so I’m told. But what happens when you become a mother and life is not the mommy-blog perfection that we all expect it to be? Lucky for all of us, some  comedians have given us all a glance into the unfiltered world of pregnancy and parenting. And, greatest pleasure or not, that shit seems terrifying). An important part of the conversation when it comes to motherhood is that it’s a choice, and probably shouldn’t be considered the default choice for women. That’s not to say that women who don’t breed don’t like children, they’ve just decided that it doesn’t fit into their lifestyle. Like that time that I got side bangs without realizing the amount of work I would have put in  to styling them every day. And yes, I’m saying bang maintenance is exactly the same child rearing.

Regardless of whether or not you want to raise tiny humans, here are the voices of comedy who are keeping it real on all ends of the spectrum.

Ali Wong 

“I used to hate on other moms for the clothes that they wore, you know, all the cheesy-ass animal print and loud metallic shiny shoes, and now I see something that’s bedazzled in rhinestones and I’m like ‘oh that looks nice, I think I’m gonna get that,’ because when you’re a mom you need sparkle to compensate for the light inside of you that has died.”

I’m grateful the weekend is over. #WorkIsEscape #TGIM

A post shared by Ali Wong (@aliwong) on May 28, 2018 at 7:03am PDT

There’s something so incredibly wonderful about watching a heavily pregnant, 5’3″ woman dancing around the stage with her middle finger high in the air. Ali Wong became a household name in 2015 when she released her stand-up special Baby Cobra on Netflix. At the time, she was seven months pregnant with her first child. Three years later, and equally pregnant Wong came back on stage for her new Netflix collar, Hard Knock Wife, to report back to us on childbirth and motherhood. She gave the audience and viewers a…graphic look into what she’s been up to since we last saw her. She spoke about childbirth, breastfeeding and how she sometimes wants to throw her kid in the garbage (fair enough). She also speaks on her choice to continue her career after having children, and how that’s a choice she was privileged to be able to make. To sum up, Ali Wong should write a parenting book ASAP. Even my childless-self would read that thing cover to cover.

Natasha Leggero

“It is very humbling to think that you’re carrying life inside of you, you know? I don’t want to get too emotional but it’s even more overwhelming then when I realize that it’s gonna be five more months before I can do drugs again.” 

A post shared by Natasha Leggero (@natashaleggero) on May 25, 2018 at 4:43pm PDT

Best known for her blasé delivery of shock-comedy, Leggero’s stand-up will have you thinking whether or not you should feel bad for laughing (you should, but it’s okay). When she walked out on stage for her set in The Honeymoon Stand Up Special (which she did with her husband, Moshe Kasher) heavily pregnant in a sequin minidress and white-fur coat and told the audience to hold their applause because she was “still in the abortion zone,” Leggerro proved that she had no intention in changing her comedic style due to her maternal-status (nor should she!). Though Leggero hasn’t released any new material since the birth of her daughter, she’s taken to Instagram to reassure fans that she’s still the same-old Natasha. Whether she’s posting a photo of her breastfeeding while adorned in gold or introducing her daughter to the world of Vogue, she’s making sure that her comedic voice is still known.

Katherine Ryan

“My daughter’s six. Right now I just have to keep her hair out of her face and her hands out of her pants and I’ve nailed the day.”

💜

A post shared by kathbum (@kathbum) on Aug 9, 2017 at 11:19am PDT

Originally from Canada, this UK-based comedian released her Netflix special — In Trouble — in 2017. Ryan talked about her dating life, pop culture and life as a single mother. She’s also quick to gossip about the other moms that she has to interact with, which is relatable to anyone with or without a child. In her most recent set at Noel at the Apollo, Ryan tells her audience all about a mother at her daughter’s school named Jane. “Does anyone know Jane from the North London school run?…Jane said to me ‘Katherine, you must be so sad that you don’t have a husband at Christmas.’ This coming from the woman whose ham-coloured husband Brian is a man I’ve never seen out of a bicycle helmet.” Whether it’s dealing with the death of her child’s pet or bringing her kid along so that she can meet Prince Harry (true story), Katherine and her daughter are setting up to be the modern-day Gilmore Girls.

Tig Notaro

“I feel like [my wife] and I are doing a great job, I really do. But I also feel like it would be reasonable if somebody called child protective services a couple of times.”

When I have to share my Cheerios 😕

A post shared by Tig Notaro (@tignotaro) on Mar 5, 2018 at 2:02pm PST

A veteran on the stand-up comedy circuit, Tig Notaro has always included her personal life in her bone-dry comedy. In 2015 she released her documentary Tig on Netflix, which followed her ability to find humour in her breast cancer diagnosis and eventual double mastectomy. In her newest Netflix special, Happy to be Here, Notaro had much happier experiences to draw from. She spends most of the hour telling stories about her wife Stephanie and their baby twin boys Max and Finn. A lot of her material now stems from her kids, including her one son’s sudden outbursts. “A couple month’s ago, he just out of nowhere yelled ‘I’m gay’.. yeah, Max the whole family is gay, it’s not a big deal, except for Finn but even [our cat] is bi-curious.”

Michelle Wolf

“If having babies really was the best job in the world, men would’ve figured out a way for them to do it.”   

Not in the spirit of the mission.

A post shared by Michelle Wolf (@michelleisawolf) on Apr 29, 2018 at 9:52pm PDT

Michelle Wolf is most recently known for her set at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner which received mixed reviews to say the least. Now, she has her own show called The Break with Michelle Wolf on Netflix where she does a little bit of everything. In the premiere episode, Wolf sat with her friend and fellow comic Amber Ruffin to talk about their choice not to have kids. This isn’t a new topic for Wolf however, she touched on the concept of “making a human” in her HBO Special, Nice Lady. “It should be hard to make a human. It’s hard to make a croissant. It takes three days to make a croissant, you can make a human in that bathroom. You cannot make a croissant in that bathroom.”

Sarah Silverman

“I love kids, but I also really love what I do. Which is anything I want, all of the time.”    

A post shared by Sarah Silverman (@sarahksilverman) on Nov 20, 2017 at 11:56am PST

Sarah Silverman is another stand-up comedy veteran to speak about the idea of motherhood. Silverman is known for never holding back, so it seemed perfectly normal for us to share her ideas on having children in a monologue for her show I Love You, America. Silverman also brought it up when she was on Chelsea with Gloria Steinem and Chelsea Handler, all who have chosen not to have kids. “Loving kids  and having kids of your own are two very different things. The thought of having my own baby completely paralyzes me.”

Chelsea Handler

“Sometimes in your 20s and 30s people will trick you into having kids. But it’s possible to remain childless and alone. You just have to want it.” 

This sums up what I’m dealing with on the home front. Every day, it’s like I’m starting over.

A post shared by Chelsea Handler (@chelseahandler) on May 22, 2018 at 4:52pm PDT

Chelsea Handler has always made her aversion to having children known in her material. In her show, Chelsea, she has a recurring PSA spoof called Kids: They’re Not That Great. She is seen having a cocktail in her bathrobe or binge watching TV, telling people that being childless is actually pretty great. She even got wrapped into hosting a kids Halloween party, and it’s absolutely hilarious.

Jen Kirkman

“If you do something as big as having a kid…you gotta have an urge to be good at it and an urge to do it. And I’ve never had the urge to ruin my life.” 

Hello world!

As you can see – I’m not on tour right now. I’m on a job writing to bring you entertainment on the streaming teevee. Some years I hit 30-40 cities in about 3 countries – this is not that year! So far! ✈️✈️✈️ But there are plans and things in place for fall and winter – and things will go on sale before that. My weekly email newsletter is THE ONLY way to find out what’s going on in my head – where I’m thinking of heading next and why. 📝📝📝📝So, join up! Again, I am not on a big tour this year – I’m just going to be popping up in really surprising places in America and beyond. I KNOW WHAT they are – but you don’t! Cuz you’re not on my newsletter. CLICK LINK IN BIO TO JOIN. It takes you to my website homepage and the link is there. 🌟🌟🌟🌟😁 *****any question you ask below about what city I am coming to is literally the reason I have a newsletter. Save me the headache. The answer to all questions is JOIN MY NICE FRIENDLY FUN PERSONALLY WRITTEN BY ME 🙋🏻‍♀️ every week newsletter*******

A post shared by Jen Kirkman (@jenkirkman) on Mar 5, 2018 at 8:46am PST

In Jen’s first Netflix Special, I’m Going to Die Alone (and I Feel Fine), Kirkman speaks out about not having kids has never been an issue for her as much as the people around her. She even published a book in 2013 called I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids. Needless to say, kids have never been on Kirkman’s radar, and the only problem she has with it is the fact that people have a problem with it.