#also truly my bf is a man from fanfiction

[knightofameris]

hi ames !! long time no see!

was just thinking about you :] i don’t even know if you’re going to see this or respond to this, i scrounged around to find your blog cause i think you changed your url? if i’m not mistaken? sorry if i’m wrong! it’s been a long two years and life’s been really really busy. it really catches up to you, huh?

if you do respond to this, do let me know how you are! i really loved talking to you back then, more than you know :’) how’s everything going for you? what are your interests now?

oh yeah! i still think about that haikyuu fic you once recommended me KWNDWKDJ the fly high, baby! one. i came across it the other day and thought of you—maybe that’s why i’m doing this, heh. anyways i hope you’re doing well and that you’re drinking water and making sure your pillow is cool at night :)

see you around, lovely!

<3🧸

sent in April 5th 2023

Oh my god I’ve missed you! And everyone for that matter. I just thought what the hell I’ll check my inbox for fun. I finally logged into tumblr after a long time. I’ve definitely changed my pfp from haikyuu to genshin but I don’t recall changing my URL! (I’m not even that obsessed with genshin anymore lol)

It really has been a long two years… I’ll be 23 in less than a month and it’s crazy I started this blog at 19. If you see this my lovely teddy bear anon, I hope you also tell me how you’ve been!

The last two years was a blast, I moved out, worked, paid my own way through college and rent. I graduated, granted it took five years but I did take a bit off from university! And I am more than thankful. I’m still looking for a job, I’ve since moved home but my parents can no longer hold anything against me now. I might switch career paths from what I studied but I’ll stick to what I did for at least 3 years for now. I have a boyfriend of one year (plus two months!) now and he absolutely adores when I gush about my fandoms and theories. Vice versa when he talks about his interests (mainly video games and the best I can explain which is STONKS but like for CSGO [at least currently]). Literally he’s a man written by a woman that came out of my fanfic dreams. Oh and we play games with each other sometimes and watch all the anime xD

During the past two years I was pretty burnt out I had no obsession which made me extra espresso depresso. But I’m on medication and doing a lot better that I’m able to once again be obsessed with a fandom (main: one piece. Secondary: Honkai star rail).

And that’s the tldr! Adulthood sucks but my friends and I still text and catch up when we can. And my boyfriend lives about 30 minutes away which isn’t too bad for me :3 (pre moving back home and even now that I’m back home xD)

I think about fly high baby sometimes… I still have yet to reread it cus DAMN did that hit me in the feels.

I hope you’re doing well too. I hope life is treating you in the way it should! If you see this, pls let me know how you’re doing!!! I really do think about everyone’s whose paths have crossed with mine during this journey.

Sleep well <3

#a.responds #from.nonnie #a.anonfamily!! #from.🧸 #I think that’s how I tagged things #I’ll fix later lol #also truly my bf is a man from fanfiction #smut and all HAKDHAJDHSHDHS

[1moreoffkeyanthem]

what do you like most about writing each south park character?

Oh MAN I love this question! I’ve only ever written from the perspectives of Stan, Kyle, Kenny, Cartman, Butters/Marjorine, Craig, and Tweek, so I’ll be focusing on those seven!

Stan I adore making him a massive simp like ohhhh my god Stanley Down Bad Marsh my son hes kind of a loser sometimes and we love him for it! He’s definitely one of my favorites to write and I project onto him a good deal and have a few running gags with him, like a lot of the time I put him in clothes that I actually wear, have him reference media I enjoy, make him vegetarian every single time, just… Stan. What an icon. I love when he’s just so Done with the shenanigans around him too lmao

Kyle is my other favorite, easy, like he lends himself out so well to serve as the voice of reason and there’s so much to do with his character over every au! The majority of my Kyles are very empathetic to a fault, mostly idealistic in their worldview, very introspective, which is super fun to explore! It’s also fun to delve into his hypercritical side, when he portrays a false confidence that he doesn’t feel, when he’s everyone’s go-to. I really enjoy writing style because like yeah they’re in love, but they’re best friends at the root of that, and it’s important to me that their relationship is built off that bond.

Kenny! Dude Kenny is such an inherently complex character, whether you factor in the immortality or not, but he’s so interesting because he’s kind of a comic relief character on the surface, but holds this deep melancholy. He’s another favorite of mine to write and I have so many headcanons for him, like how he’s incredibly good at reading people, super good at making friends and cheering people up. Also I LOVE making Kenny unhinged as shit, like he is my vessel for inappropriate jokes and out of pocket comments, just so much eccentricity because he deserves it damnit! King shit. Or princess shit, perhaps ;)

Ok Cartman, I had SO many hang ups writing Cartman when I first started. I had absolutely no clue how to tackle him, because I don’t really like writing truly evil characters, and when I was super new to sp fanfiction I thought that was the only way I could really do him, that or leave him out. But YALL!!!!!! Once I realized I could write him as actually caring for his friends but just being an abrasive fuckwad for the hell of it, everything changed!!! He is SO GODDAMN FUN TO WRITE like the Cartmanisms are delightful to come up with and he is EASILY one of my favorite characters to include now! His commentary is fucking hilarious and he will deadass just say anything, I can’t BELIEVE I spent so long avoiding writing him bc he’s a blast and the most unserious guy you will ever meet also he absolutely reads fanfiction that guy is devouring dead doves. One of these days I’ll make a list of my favorite cartmanisms I’ve written.

Butters/Marj, so I don’t necessarily have more of an attachment to either version, but I think my favorite thing about writing them is the speech pattern! Butters has more of a hesitant way of talking and that’s honestly super fun to translate into writing. I like making them a really nurturing character, like as the station medic in ATLCTS, but also pretty gullible to shit like pyramid schemes like in the OrangeJuiceVerse. Another character that I hesitated to write from for a hot minute because I wasn’t sure how I wanted to go about it, but Butters/Marjorine is really fun to switch up the rhythm of the prose!

BY FAR my favorite thing about writing Craig is giving him pointless beef with Stan, like when this mf does not care about shit except his bf and stripe it’s so fucking funny to me. In In The Truly Gruesome I had SUCH a blast making him so quick with the comebacks and the nonchalance like bruh he is so damn funny for no reason that’s probably one of my favorite Craigs I’ve written. His relationships with people in his life are really cool to explore too, like in the later OJV he’s really good friends with Kyle, and their differences in personality that au are super cool to work with!

Similar to Butters, Tweek is fun to write because of the distinct speech and thinking pattern! His prose, the slight stutter and hesitation, like you can tell when it’s Tweek talking. That’s part of the reason I alternated chapters in Broken Bottles From Apartment 2 between him and Kyle, because of the juxtaposition of their ways of thinking and talking. Whereas Kyle is concise and deliberate, Tweek is more scattered and sporadic, which is an interesting contrast!

Aight man that’s it for this ask, I hope I made some semblance of sense, thank u for asking about this!!!

#asks #south park #my shit #star seven #sp kids #PCE speaks

[crucifiedfaerie]

HOWDY!!!!!🤠

I hope you are having the most amazing day/night (it’s 12:30am right now for me, whoopsies)

I saw your post about stan accounts who follow you and I’m gonna be totally honest, totally might be me (I’m a new follower because I have re-entered my Adam Driver is a refrigerator I would like to climb and open)! But I will say, I try to stay away from the actual celeb(s) and their die hard stans because they are, put lightly, CRAY CRAY!!!! Like a literal war zone sometimes. I admire their hot-ness and their fictional characters’ bangability from a distance of the celeb/rpf!

Anywho, I have only been following for a little, but I want you to know that I LOVE YOUR BEN SOLO WRITING!!! Especially nicotine stains, I love me a modern au and yours is simply delicious!!!

Like so good I might shit myself from excitement when pt 2 comes out!!!!!!!! And I mean that in a good way!!!!

Any way, this has gone on way too long. Have a great day!!! I hope it is as amazing as you are!!!!

🫀🫀🙇‍♀️

omg its all good! i was half joking anyways i really dont care who or what ppl enjoy, im just personally not a [redacted] supporter ! at the end of the day we're all just freaks on the internet trying to have fun.

i totally agree w you though there's certain fanbases who take shit way too far... some more than others but i feel like it can be found in every fandom to a certain degree. there are even icky adam fans out there that i try to steer clear of. like ppl who slander his wife, that shit is so not cool. i love him and thirst after him as much as the next fan but like man :( hes a human being and shes a human being and they love each other and have kids... theres a certain line that should not be crossed. ppl tend to forget that celebrities are real people with feelings.

and aaaaa omg thank you!! it makes me so happy to hear that ppl genuinely enjoy my silly little stories about my emo little guy <3 nicotine stains has got to be my fav so far as well, its literally so fun to write and delinquent!kylo just fills my heart with so much joy. its also nice to not write something so heavy and dark every now and then for a change. kylo ren fanfiction in general tends to always be super sad and sometimes i just wanna see my emo space bf be happy for once lmao.

and girl- me too honestly. im currently writing pt 2 and im making even myself giggle and kick my feet so im super excited to finally put it out... its very overdue bc ive been distracted by a bunch of stuff. (the bunch of stuff in question being a 59 chapter ao3 fic lmao) but if youd like to be added to the taglist so you can be notified when its out, you can always pm me !!!

i hope you have a lovely night/morning as well (its 1am for me lol) and thank you sm again for your kind words on my work, it truly means the most 🫶🏻

#<3 #saint answers !

[best-enemies]

I have to write an actual review on Gallifrey TW4 for the podcast I’m in but I have a writer’s block, so here are some of my thoughts on the box because I need to yell about it somewhere and my friends are pissed that I keep yelling on twitter. Spoilers ahead!

Don’t expect anything coherent to come out of this post I’m just going to throw stuff in this post and if you get it you get it lol. It’s not like I have fully recovered from the blow anyway... 

Deception is a great introdution to the box and probably one of the best Gallifrey audios. I hate it when the OT4 gets separated (and that it happens all the time!), and in this case it happens between Narvin and Leela. However, it’s always great to see Leela working on her own and interacting with other people. When she tried to save those people from the resistance, the way she dealt with the situation even when she felt lost because she couldn’t trust her senses - a tool Leela values a lot as a warrior and a hunter - was absolutely incredible and it reminded me (not that I could ever forget that) of how much I love and admire her. 

Listening to them being inside the distortion field felt like a really bad trip 

All I could think throughout the box and not just Deception is that Leela had a crush on Eris and man I can’t blame her at all not only he was a great guy he’s really good looking and I got a crush on him too akshdashdkjaks

I don’t think I say this enough, but I really like Livia. She’s not evil, she just makes a lot of bad choices and she has this problem of being too much on the fence, which is not the characteristic of a true leader. She was never one. But still, even if I don’t remember the content of the earlier audios she’s in I’ve always liked her. And I liked that she finally chose a side in the end. I mean, she did when she helped the resistance, and that was a good beginning.

 Also can I interest you with my headcanon that she was Romana’s girlfriend at the Academy and they broke up? Lol Anyways, when she heard that Romana had “died” she was shocked and later on complimented her as a person and I kind of wish we saw more of them on good terms

Now, on Dissolution: I love Narvin. That’s pretty much it lol. Before starting Gallifrey my friend gave me a spoiler which was basically, “you’re gonna love Narvin”. Well, at first I really liked his voice - it was funny and cute and voices are an important thing to me. Of course, even if he seemed funny to me, unfortunately he was a total xenophobic asshole. He had convictions, he had layers which made him very interesting, but still, an asshole. Which makes me really proud to see how far he has come, how much he’s grown. When he joined Romana’s side I soon realized that my friend was right; Narvin had one of the best redemption arcs I’ve ever seen. He went from Romana’s political rival, if I could put it that way, to one of her most trusted allies and best friends. And he found out that he could still fight for and protect his home, but using the right tools, doing it the right way. Dissolution showed that contrast between the old Narvin and what he wanted and the new Narvin, and honestly? I could almost call this episode a moment of relief amongst the chaos. Narvin has become one of my favorite characters in the Whoniverse and one of my all time favorites as well.

Alright... now we get to Beyond *deep breaths*. So let’s start from the beginning, shall we? I spent months since listening to Unity living in a total hell not knowing if Romana was alive or not. I couldn’t believe that that was her ending, that she wouldn’t show up again for their last hurrah, and that my favorite companion ever was gone forever. But then, BF announced the cover, and the description for the episodes, and her name came up, and I could finally breath. My friend and I started theorizing that maybe Braxiatel had dematerialized the TARDIS around her and saved her in the last second - which is kind of what happened, I mean, the description said he wasn’t ready to give up on her! So they go to that place called Beyond, and shit happens. Those ravenous bitches were there eating people and shit. They even ate Narvin - I almost started crying in the middle of the bus, telling myself he wasn’t our Narvin, but he was a Narvin and it still hurt. I wanted to fight those ravenous myself. And not just that, Romana went through hell watching Leela die in front of her, and her reaction was really heartbreaking. 

Aaand that kind of brings me to a point here, something that bothered me. Romana and Brax, as always, spent the audio bickering a little, but they had their moments as well. Like when Brax says that it’s good to see her smile again, when he says (sorry I don’t remember it word by word) something like, she couldn’t die and that she’s supposed to be the best of the Time Lords, when she calls him her friend, and when she asks with a soft voice if he’s coming back to Gallifrey. And it was sweet. Like, they have a lot of issues, but they also have good feelings towards each other. Despite everything they care about each other, and it shows. Which is why I got really confused about Romana’s reaction when Brax was eaten by the ravenous. I remember I even thought she wasn’t around when it happened, that he had left and was somewhere else (I have a little difficulty paying attention), but then my friend said she was. So I was like... wait, she saw her friend, whom she’s known for most of her life (and more than she can even remember) die in a truly horrible way and didn’t even react to that? I’m not blaming Romana, I think this is really out of character for her. She may have difficulty expressing her feelings but she would never, ever react so coldly to the death of a friend. 

Now, on Brax’s death... I was really devastated. At first, as always I got confused and thought the older Brax was an older version of him, somehow. Even if he died, I was like, this is confusing, but it’s Brax? So I was weary, but still, I thought “well at least he’s safe now, on another universe in the Beyond”. But then my friend said “no, that’s an alternative Brax, the one we know is dead”. And that’s when I felt my stomach drop. IT HURT SO BAD. I’ll be honest and say I don’t know everything about Brax, or about the depth of his character, I’m still very early on the Benny audios and only have listened to him on Gally and a few audios here and there. People who have more knowledge on him say that the way he was written wasn’t really accurate, and that can be true, but I won’t get into that because I don’t know for myself. Still, Brax is one of the best and most interesting characters I’ve ever known. I loved him from the beginning. I got mad at him so many times during the series, felt as betrayed as Romana did, heard about a lot of dark shit he’s done, but still I could never hate him. I got a little bit too attached to him, which is why his death felt absurd and unnecessarily cruel. I don’t think for a moment that Brax deserved that, as I said I don’t know everything about him but something in my heart tells me that things could’ve gone another way. I knew he could die in the finale but not like this. And it’s a bit hard to put into words how much I hate the ending he got and how much I’ll miss him. I just hope he comes back, I mean, he always does, BF writers need to figure something out I don’t even care lol

I had to edit the post because my dumb ass forgot about one of my favorite and at the same time one of the most bittersweet moments of Beyond: Brax asking about the Doctor and saying leaving Gallifrey was a “family thing”. I love them and there isn’t enough stuff out there from the Lungbarrow siblings for me. He talks so fondly of the Doctor and now all I think about is that he never mentioned him in the series but thought of him on the last hours of his life... brb I’m gonna go cry in the bathroom

Oh god. Okay, Homecoming. I’ll start on a light note and say some stuff about Hot Rassilon: Richard Armitage nailed it. I’ve always liked him as an actor and I got thrilled when he was announced. His voice is like, the one I want to hear when I get my name called up in Heaven - or Hell, which is where I’m going - and his speeches were really powerful. Still, I wish they could’ve given him more to do. Of course, I understand that this is where they wanted to go with him - Hot Rassilon going batshit crazy and calling himself a god and coming up with some stupid fanfiction about the Time Lords becoming gods of everything, yada yada. I loved his interactions with the Dalek Emperor, the first thing I thought (besides the fact that it was really funny) was that it showed two despots with a god complex playing chess with the universe and discarding their people as garbage, fighting for their own personal power and not for the collective. Of course, I don’t expect the Daleks to care about each other - they want to spread throughout the galaxies and gain absolute power, not bring social well-being to their own. But that should apply to the Time Lord Society, and we see that Hot Rassilon doens’t give a flying fuck about that. 

I feel like I should reinforce the fact that I actually hate Rassilon. I call him hot but I hate him. I can do both

Once again, I need to point out the emotional moments between the galligang. It all felt so off. As someone pointed out here (sorry, I saw the post but don’t recall who said it now): it’s a war and there’s little time for grief, however, it’s not like they’re just grieving the loss of a group of people they’re not familiar with. The galligang are the closest thing they have to a family with each other. They’ve been through all sorts of things together, created a deep bond and have crossed the universe to find each other. And then, that Dalek ship blows up, with Narvin still in it, and... nothing. Leela even asked Romana if they could’ve done something and she says if the bracelet thingy had been working he would’ve come back already. And that’s it. At first I didn’t even understand, I was like “wait, he was really still inside the ship? And it blew up?”, because once again, I couldn’t tell from the way they reacted, I was only sure when they had that exchange. And of course, I started sobbing, because my favorite character was dead. I guess the writers wanted to focus on the war and political aspects and shit but did they forget that Gallifrey was about these three specific people and that their relationship was the core of the series, not just the politics? 

Okay, moving on. Leela and Romana once again end up on Gallifrey and run into Hot Rassilon. Did I mention I found him a bit scary? Well, I did mark me down as scared & horny.

Aaaaaand he decides to lock Romana up in a pocket universe. It surprised me, because I thought he would execute her. I find that he wanted to do that because Romana was the president who wanted to take Gallifrey into the future, to make it a prosperous and advanced society who left all their fears of the unknown and prejudices behind. And now he locked her up in the past. Get it? I don’t know, maybe that’s just me, but this was the first thing I thought. But I cannot even begin to tell you all how RELIEVED I am that she’s alive, and that there could be a possibility - even if a very tiny one - that she could escape. It’s Doctor Who, so everything is possible. EDIT: Now I’m sad because Leela will die after the end of the Time War and Romana will know about that, and all her friends are gone, and she believes the Doctor isn’t the man she once knew so she can’t rely on him, and she’s alone, and I’m FUMING because I’m still processing the whole thing and I hadn’t realized that. She’s totally alone and now I’m crying once again. I HATE IT HERE

As for Leela, I want to see what’s next for her. I haven’t gotten into the other Time War stuff yet, this is my first introduction to the actual thing, but I heard that she’s gonna fight alongside the War Doctor and might be on the War Doctor Begins boxset. But man listening to her and Romana having to depart like that broke my heart. And now I know that she’ll be protecting Gallifrey because of Romana, because Romana represents the best in Gallifrey.

*Phew* okay, that was a lot. I don’t even know if I covered everything, but I managed to make more sense than I thought I would at the beginning of this post. I don’t know man I’ve been crying for hours, went to sleep at 2am crying because of Narvin and Brax and woke up at 7am and my first thought was them, dying again... I don’t even know anymore, I guess I’ll either focus on uni and my job or curl up into a ball and cry for the rest of my life lolololol

Now I want to write a post with my theories on how the entire galligang is alive and in the epilogue in my head they have reunited and are all living together happily. Maybe it’ll be my next post.

#gallifrey spoilers

[mercuryonparklane]

Does this mean that “Dammit”, which was released in 2018, was actually written in 2012:

"Dammit" I was drivin' to town and I passed by a house The one with pillars on the porch Had a sign on the door, said "For Sale" So, what the hell I walked in and sat down on some strangers couch Solid oak hardwood floors Didn't need to see more 'Cause I could hear you in the kitchen Playin' your guitar All our friends coming over Little lights in the yard And dammit Didn't we almost have it? Honestly, I still don't understand it We used to love to sit and talk and wish And picture and plan it Man, now I just... dammit I think the owners could tell I was lost in myself So, they left me alone Said "Make yourself right at home" I was already makin' dinner Callin' you down the stairs Little girl out the window Hear her laughin' out there Dammit Didn't we almost have it? Honestly, I still don't understand it We used to love to sit and talk and wish And picture and plan it Man now, I just... dammit Baby, didn't we almost have it? Honestly, I still don't understand it We used to love to sit, talk and wish And picture and plan it Man, now I just... dammit Now I'm drivin' away Thinking "Oh, what a shame" You can pray, you can hope But you just never know I guess that two bedroom picket fence magic Can't ever be ours now, can it? (Dammit) Ooh Honestly, I still don't understand it Thinking how could we, coulda had it We coulda had it Dammit

If so, this song is not about her ex-fiancé… it could be about her ex-bf, tho… but what if?? I’ve had a major, completely wild, borderline fanfiction, crack theory about this song and the mvs for EHC and “Lover” that, even if the song was written in 2012, still seems too crazy for me to even mention… 

It’s also possible that she had a different song back then with the same/a similar title. Still, if that song is from 2012 that really does make it more interesting. Especially, since that tweet was posted almost a month after Red was released. But maybe she wrote that song a while before that and it is about her ex-bf... that is absolutely possible.

Liz did do that interview about a week after the rep tour show she attended, where she used gender neutral pronouns while talking about the song (this interview was for the same outlet where in another video from that day she mentioned that “Can’t Love, Can’t Hurt” was the last album she listened to in full and my last post was about Liz tweeting about listening to a song from that album a week and a half after Red was released):

“‘Dammit’, actually, was a story that I lived out. Like, I was with somebody I was, you know, getting very serious. We were talking about starting a life together and we even had this house, like, picked out in the city where we lived and we would drive by it and be like ‘one day when we buy that house’. And, so, when we broke up, the pain of, like, saying goodbye was really, you know, really intense, but it was also mourning the loss of the hypothetical future. So, it was like saying goodbye to the past memories and stuff, sort of what we almost had and that’s where that song came from. So, honestly, I didn’t write it for anyone else, but myself, truly. But, um, it’s beautiful that music has such a way of resonating with someone who might not even know and they connect with it so much that another artist would want to sing it. It’s such a high compliment.”   

Here is a short clip of Liz singing the song a few months after that interview:

Again, I think it could have been about her ex-bf or maybe was repurposed for her ex-fiancé... but if it was written around the time Red was released, then maybe there is a tiny chance that it could be about Taylor, but I’m just trying not to go completely delulu over here...

#tayliz coincidences #tayliz crack theory

[alirhi]

I just want this done 😭

When I was 15, I started RPing with my friends over AIM. Usually we'd only stick with a particular story or set of characters (always original work; I wasn't much into fanfiction back then, though I'd started a few that never went far lol) for a session or two and then move on, but I had this one friend - we'll call her T - who had one character with a really rich, interesting backstory. We stuck with him and the boy I'd created to pair with him and just kept developing this story over several months.

My character, Zephan, ended up getting sidelined by another, much more interesting character who got added later, Kieran. And the first incarnation of what would eventually become the Crossroads series was born.

This is a really long rant, so I'll be nice and put the rest under a cut.

I have no fucking idea why T wrote with me, tbh. She was in her 20s. I was 15 and really annoying, and really bad at writing. 😂 I look back over that early material (and my ooc ramblings) and I want to die. Or reach back through time and slap that kid lmao. But anyway, for some reason this grown-ass lady put up with me, and my barf-inducing fawning over her character, and out of all that truly fucking awful writing, a pretty great idea came about.

I wasn't going to get into this, but then I realized context kind of matter lmao so here's a (hopefully) quick rundown on Crossroads 1.0:

Zephan is a bi cutie who meets a really hot guy, they hit it off right away (no insta-love, so at least I had that going for me lol) and start dating. They both have secret traumatic pasts neither is ready to reveal to the other, but of course, they come back to bite them in their respective asses. Zephan starts acting really strange; not moody so much as literally his entire personality changes. Eventually he learns that when he was a baby, he was possessed by this dying creature who needed a body - Kieran. And part of Zephan's trauma is actually linked to a monster from Kieran's past tracking him down. Kieran was weakened by the shit that almost killed him, so once he was safe in a new body, he kinda just went to sleep for 20 years. But then he started waking up and taking control of the body, which Zeph's not too happy about. They fight for dominance, hurting Zephan's bf in the process (emotionally lol not physically), and bf fucks off to a scary place from his past while Zephan and Kieran go to Kieran's home world to try to sort some shit out. It doesn't work. Eventually, they do figure something out with the help of one of Zeph's best friends, Leyna, who happens to be a super powerful witch. She splits them and gives Kieran a new body, he goes home to face his monsters, Zeph tries to find his bf... the whole thing was left unresolved because T and I drifted apart and I haven't spoken to her in like 17 years lol

in the meantime, I met a new bud. We'll call this one A. Me and A? IRL insta-love, yo! Not the romantic kind, but definitely BFFs from the second she first spoke to me. It's been a roller coaster since then lol. She's still very much in my life (is my unofficial sister) but our friendship has been nothing but drama the whole damn time. Not all of it was rl drama, though! A became my new RP partner! and guys, back in the day? This girl had some good ideas!

I can't remember anymore who was responsible for what. We spent years talking about this story... and not doing much else with it tbh. I got a little writing done here and there, but was hampered by all the rl fights and her flaking constantly, and when the drama got bad enough that we "stopped being friends" (every few weeks in high school lmao and a few times in our 20s), I had to go back and rewrite everything to get her contributions out of there.

It wasn't called Crossroads yet, btw. Until around 2012-ish, it was just this one story line - Achlais (T's suggested name for Kieran's world. I later learned that it's apparently Gaelic for "armpit" and was like "fuck that" XD but I loved the sound of it. so my friend - we'll call this one S - did some digging and found this really cool Greek deity Achlys and we were both like "yeah, that works." So...yeah. story was just Achlais/Achlys)

Achlais centered around Kieran and his struggles. Zephan became a footnote in this much more interesting character's journey. See, Kieran was born of trauma; he's a rape baby and the first thing he saw in the world was his mother being killed for having him. Never mind the fact that the man who killed her was his father and her rapist. Always blame the women, amirite? The cool thing is, though, daddy fucked himself over big time. Kieran was his first child, and by the very strict laws of their world (not Achlais; Kieran was born on a different world, called Takaldor, and then banished to Achlais) is the only legitimate heir to the throne. Oh, yeah. Daddy's King of Takalador. And mom? Mom's human, but she's also a Queen of another world in her own right. So enter leetle Kieran, heir to two thrones and shipped off to a third world and left to die. His body does, but his soul's too strong, so he body-hops for a while. Finds stillborn babies (no soul to fight him) and takes their bodies. Kieran gets to live, parents get to raise their child instead of mourning them. They never know their kiddo is actually just the vessel for a half-demon magical parasite lol.

It's in his last host body before Zephan that Kieran gets his name (mom was killed before naming him; he eventually found a host with a name he liked and kept it)... and also the bulk of his trauma. woo lol. He's kidnapped by the main villain, Kanaye (I was obsessed with A and K names in my teens. this story was rife with them until I painstakingly went through and changed as many as I could over the past few years), kept as a slave, bad things happen to him that I won't go into detail on because I forgot to put a trigger warning in the beginning. 😅 But just... really, really bad, traumatic shit. And even though his mind is fully grown at this point, his host body is a child (5ish when kidnapped, 7ish when Very Bad Stuff starts, 15 or so when he escapes. ...oh yeah, spoiler alert XD Kieran escapes). I had this policy that I still sometimes have trouble shaking off: I was never satisfied with my writing until it made me cringe (from ick factor, not from lack of quality lol. unfortunately, I have a very strong stomach and my tolerance for ick only grew as my writing got more icky lmao so... yeah. that snowballed.)

While in captivity/slavery, Kieran meets a girl also enslaved to Kanaye, named Amara (see? A and K names 🙄) and falls in love with her. He escapes, joins a gang (don't ask 😂 I'm trying to keep this as bare-bones as possible because there are a lot more stories than just this one in Crossroads), eventually when he thinks he's strong enough to take on this crazy demon wizard, he goes back to rescue Amara. he fails completely, Amara is mortally wounded, Kieran's host is killed, and Amara uses the last of her strength (she's magical af and that's why Kanaye kept her around) to push his soul to Earth. The whole thing with Zephan happens, just with a different bf who opens up this whole awesome subplot having to do with one of Achlais's moons. Anyway, when Kieran gets his own body back, he goes back to Achlais (where his enemy has literally taken over the world) and leads a war against Kanaye. Then he stands against his father to avenge his mother, and eventually becomes King of Takalador. unfortunately, it's a super ultra over-the-top racist world so they hate him for being half human, and there's like civil war and shit. fun stuff. Also, his mother is brought back from the dead lmao. There was stuff with different types of dragons, a whole slew of fantasy species and magic and y'all I have been building this world since I was 14 (yes, before the RP that kicked off the main plot. I had the world before I had characters or plot)

I would love nothing more than to go into excruciating detail about the worlds and their canon history and that awesome moon subplot and everything, but... I mean, look how long this already is, and I haven't even touched on the other stories yet lmao

The first non-Achlais/Achlys story to get linked to it was A's and my amazing (if I do say so myself lol) retelling of the war between the Biblical Heaven and Hell. It's told from the perspective of the First Fallen, and reframes the entire thing. Adonai (God, if you didn't know his name) is a psychotic fuckwit, there's an oft-repeated saying that no man is made more in His image than his Catholic priests, and Lucifer and his followers didn't fight for the throne or because they hated humans or whatever. that was all propaganda. They fought for their freedom, and they won. As part of the treaty that finally ended the bloodshed, they were given Hell but with the caveat that they have to torture the souls of evildoers. Kay, fine. They got a level for that lol. They finally have a home! They're safe from Adonai!

Until he breaks the treaty himself, determined to have his favorite pet back, and kidnaps Lucifer. His eldest daughter (a general who helped lead the first war) invades Heaven to get him back and a second war breaks out. The rescue attempt is ultimately successful, but Luci's just about fucking had it. There are all these rumors that Adonai can be killed, but because he created all things, kill him and reality unravels. Lucifer gives zero fucks. He's willing to put it to the test. Turns out is exaggerated... but pretty much true. The reality he created - Heaven and Hell - does depend on him being there and, y'know, alive lol. and so it all collapses when Luci kills him. The few survivors become refugees and they end up on - you guessed it! - Achlys!

There's also this whole other realm we created with our own made up Gods and Goddesses, that also comes into play and has its own story arc, but we'll get back to that. Just remember that the main Godly place is called Valdell.

Next we have the one I'm struggling with most rn, DJ's story. DJ is the oldest OC of mine in the entire Crossroads series. I made him up when I was 13/14. Originally, he was supposed to sort of blend into the background; he was just the bestie of the one I'd intended to focus on, Kali. but Kali's kind of a fuckhead and DJ was much more fun lol. They're both still in play, and still besties, but DJ is the main and Kali's just kinda there XD

Oh, DJ Gallagher, how I love thee, let me count the ways... On the surface, his story doesn't seem at all connected to the rest of the Crossroads universe (unless you're eagle-eyed and notice little Easter eggs here and there). There's no magic, it takes place entirely on Earth (in my hometown in the 90s, specifically lol)... doesn't seem to have much to do with this epic fantasy adventure. but oh, it does. DJ's got quite the future ahead of him... or did, when A was supposed to be writing this with me.

You know what? DJ's getting his own post. He deserves the attention lol. Just know that I love this boy, and his story is the part of this series giving me the most grief right now in my attempts to rewrite yet again to get all of A's crap out of the way.

Claddagh - Rebecca's story that I posted a bunch of snippets from a few days ago - is the next road added to Crossroads. What's her connection to all this? Well, in addition to her meeting Lucifer and his daughter/General Haliel, you learn that she is actually Rachel's (Kieran's mom) little sister. She's also the final piece of the puzzle at the end, in the one book that ties all of these stories together. Thankfully, despite many attempts to get her to, A never even tried to look like she was helping with this one. S was, back when we were friends, but she ghosted me in 2015, so I wrote her character out, replaced her with Fiona, and got a much better plot out of the deal, so that worked out lol. Thanks for being a bitch, S!

There are smaller parts, as well (Claddagh's planned to be a pretty long series, and so was Achlys when A was involved) - Dying Breed, in which Johanna's mother is abducted and skeptical, cynical Jo is forced to see a world of magic that her mom had been trying to show her (and protect her from) all her life; Annwn, where we're shown that Jo's mom actually knew a boy from DJ's story, Ice, and begs him to take on this insane quest that only gets crazier once he's actually on it; and the Winter trilogy, which genuinely started out as a joke, but my friends liked what I had, so I decided to keep it. That one's... it's different. XD it's a "reverse harem" story that gets pretty squicky. I'm not entirely sure how much of my original plan to keep. A never had a hand in any of this (though a mutual friend of ours, L, was briefly trying to help me with Dying Breed before she had to bow out) but just because it didn't come from our 2 AM spazz sessions doesn't mean all the ideas are good lol.

And then there's Heart and Seoul, which is actually a really long fanfic we wrote 11 years ago. We never finished it (almost, though) but it got popular for a while, so we decided to convert it to an original and, due to references mainly in DJ's story, it became connected to Crossroads. I was actually very happy to cut that lol. It's A's baby so I feel a little bad for saying this, but... I never loved that story as much as she did. It was fun for a while, but I'm so over it.

Valdell had its own trilogy planned, at first, too, but it was kind of just more of the same tired crap that one comes to expect from A - mpreg for the hell of it and a "doomed" romance. meh. On their own, they're not bad story elements if done right, but when it's literally every goddamn story she comes up with, it gets old real quick.

So that was Crossroads 2.0 - it went through many stages and rewrites, but that's the basic gist. We had this whole interconnected Whedonverse concept, and an MCU Phase 1, 2, 3 thing going on (Phase 2 was kicked off by one of the Valdell Gods getting fed up with all the mortals' bumbling and erasing all of existence except his home and the other Gods. his wife flipped shit until he remade it. DJ was brought back as a girl. wife was like "fucking really? are you kidding me?" so he rolled his eyes and fixed it, and DJ got a Phase 3. also, Lucifer got 3 phases because of some shit with the whole killing Addie thing and a boy named Cole...)

It got...complicated, to say the least. Convoluted is probably more accurate. So when I made the decision to cut A out once and for all instead of spending my life in limbo waiting for her to suddenly become reliable, I cut like... that whole MCU concept. I also cut out a lot of what happened in Achlys, and around 20 planned books got cut down to 5. and the whole struggle with DJ... character arcs that I loved are gone, that whole awesome subplot I mentioned in Achlys? gone. which means I have to rewrite shit all the way back to the first book, because it was an underlying mystery that persisted through the whole series!

A lot of stuff, I cut because it was just bad. Whether it came from her brain or mine, or this weird hive mind thing we have going on when we're overtired, doesn't matter. It was bad. Some stuff was great, but I cut it because it was either her idea initially (she used to be so creative before she dug herself a little rut and decided it was comfy and dis is home nao) or tied into her ideas and characters too tightly. I couldn't cut her Achlys characters, for instance, without cutting that mystery subplot even though the mystery was 100% my idea, because we'd worked together on building the shit necessary for it to exist, and solving it for the reader hinged on A's characters in the Zephan chunk of the story. and none of that is there anymore. Zephan's not a part of this at all. That whole story line is gone.

Unfortunately, erasing the Zeph part also erases Leyna and her brother Lucian, and Lucian appears in DJ's story and that was a clever little tie-in before, but now it's just... a random boy who appears for one scene and is mentioned once or twice, and that's it.

So it's been a struggle, to say the least. I don't know if I should stick to my guns and keep this new, much shorter Crossroads 3.0, or rework it one more time to keep these elements I loved...somehow. ugh.

fml.

#writer problems #crossroads #crossroads series #creativity #sometimes i have it #sometimes not so much lol #kill me #i wish i could just #snap my fingers and it's done #y'know? #halp #if any of this even made sense #any ideas? #i'm listening #long post #extremely long post #you've been warned

[buckywintersoldierbarnes2017]

A Hidden Pain - Part 4

Original request from anon: Could you please write a Bucky x reader where she works as the teams assistant? She’s got a violent bf but no one knows about it until he assaults her at one of Starks parties. Bucky steps in and kicks his ass. He helps her move out of her place to live with him since he’s got his own floor at the tower. Bucky Barnes x Abused!Reader Words: 1,680 Warnings: Swearing, deception, threatening behaviour, violence, and angst. Disclaimer: None of the GIFs used are mine. All credit goes to their creators <3

A Hidden Pain Masterlist

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11

FOUR YEARS AGO.

“Agent [l/n] this is….”

“Agent Barnes.” You smiled at the new individual to join the team. “I know. I have heard a lot about you.” The brunette’s face fell at your words, an anxious look enveloping his eyes, and for a brief moment you were wondering why he had reacted in such a way and then as the penny dropped your eyes widened and you quickly corrected what you said. “I mean from Steve, about your past, not about….well….you know.”

Good god you wanted the ground to just open up and swallow you right now although given that you were currently 25 floors up from the ground that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Your cheeks flushed a deep red colour which gained a soft chuckle from him.

“Isn’t it me that’s supposed to be nervous?” The grin that lit up his face was a complete contrast to the images of him you had become so used to during his time as The Winter Soldier and knowing from Steve how unsure his friend was about coming here you were relieved that you had managed to make him smile. “Anyway call me Bucky. ‘Agent Barnes’ makes me sound old.”

You raised a single brow as a rather cocky little smirk made an appearance and wiped away any sense of embarrassment you had felt before.

“I hate to tell you this but 100 is pretty old so you’re already screwed on that front.”

He feigned a hurt look, placing his metal arm over his heart, before he shook his head and let a laugh escape him.

“I walked right into that one.”

Steve was stood between the two of you his head moving from side to side as though he was spectating a tennis match or something, confusion etched all over his face, Bucky had always been friendly and open with him but any new people he met he was usually so wary. He was at a complete loss for words.

Your [e/c] eyes looked right into his enchanting blue ones, a comfortable silence falling over the two of you before your cell phone started to ring pulling you back down to earth.

“I better answer this. I’m sorry…..see you around old man!”

You threw him a playful wink before leaving to answer the phone call you always received at this time of morning. As you left Bucky continued to grin before Steve waved his hand in front of his face with a rather amused look on his face.

“Come on Prince Charming…there’s other people for you to meet.”

                                             * * * * * * * * * *

PRESENT DAY.

The grip that had been applied to your throat by his metal hand was tightening with every second that passed by, your eyes already bloodshot from a mixture of the pressure and the sheer lack of oxygen, but they never left him. Not once did you tear your eyes away from his cold and calculating ones.

He had to still be in there somewhere.

“That’s enough soldier. She’s not your mission….yet.”

Josh finally spoke out as he leaned himself up against the wall just a little bit away from where you stood and immediately Bucky’s hand left your throat. You took in a huge inhale of air the second you had the chance to and fell backwards as you started to cough. A sore line of bruises had formed on your skin, something that provided that much pain you didn’t need to look in a mirror to confirm it.

“Buck I know you’re still in there. Please come back to me.”

He said nothing, eyes continuing to stare right through you, as his breathing steadied and he stood himself up to his full, intimidating, height.

“Oh sweetheart I’m afraid your precious little ‘Buck’ won’t be making an appearance anytime soon. I told you I would make him pay for what he did and what better way to do that than having him be the one to hurt you. The very person who was trying to protect you from me.”

Your hand continued to rub at your sore throat as you narrowed your eyes and sent an angry glare in your boyfriend’s direction.

“Seriously? You activated a cold-blooded assassin just to hurt me? You have no idea what you have done Josh.”

“Oh no, you’ve got it wrong, what he is going to do to you is a bonus…..my payment for doing that which was asked of me. This brainwashed monkey is needed for other things.”

You weren’t able to say anything after that because the next thing you saw was the unmistakable shape and colour of Steve’s shield whizzing past you in the air. Bucky caught it with his metal hand without even having to look at what he was doing – his eyes seemingly glued onto yours.

“Soldier get me out of here.”

Josh was petrified, a vision of which you would have highly enjoyed had you even been looking at him, and as he voiced his command Bucky’s blue eyes finally tore themselves away from you…your heart fell down to your stomach as he stalked over to where Steve was stood in his Captain America outfit and they started hand to hand combat.

“Don’t think you’ve gotten away from me yet sweetheart….” Josh’s hand cupped your chin roughly, forcing you to look at him, before he drove his lips onto yours. His tongue dived straight in despite your refusal and he lapped up your taste in a rather sloppy fashion before pulling away and looking at you dangerously. “….he’ll be back for you.”

With that said he was gone and after Steve got thrown through the living room wall you saw Bucky race past in the same direction in which his new handler had gone.

“NO! BUCKY!”

You couldn’t let him get away. He needed you. When you had needed someone he had always been there, done things no one should ever have to in order to try and protect you, so you couldn’t leave him now….he needed to remember who he truly was. Without another thought for your own safety you pushed yourself off the ground, ignoring the fact that the room span when you did, your head in a completely dizzy state and ran for the back door. You only managed to a few steps before a hand wrapped around your arm and stopped you in your tracks, spinning you round to face the person who had stopped you.

“Steve get off! I have to go after him!”

“That is the last thing you should be doing [y/n]! Bucky isn’t Bucky anymore and if you go after him you are going to get yourself killed.”

“Please.” Your desperation was more than evident in just the one simple word. Tears were lining your eyes and building up so much that your eyes were beginning to turn just as red as they had done when Bucky had attacked you. “I can’t…..I would never forgive myself if we lost him completely.”

He looked at you in pity, knowing exactly how you were feeling, but he also knew that when it came to The Winter Soldier no one could just go rushing in and making rash decisions.

“I’m taking you back to the tower until all of th-“

“NO! YOU’RE NOT TAKING ME ANYWHERE!”

You balled your hand up into a fist before raising it up and driving it straight into his face. The pain that coursed through your hand after such an action made it feel like you had just broken each and every one of your knuckles and yet the super soldier had barely even flinched from it. Instead of cradling a bleeding nose he just let out a sigh before reaching one of his gloved hands down into his trouser pocket.

“I didn’t want to have to do this [y/n] but you have left me with no choice.” The only thing you had the chance to do was furrow your brows in confusion because before you could utter a single word he raised up his hand and drove something into your neck. Within seconds your vision went blurry as you were forced into a sleep you had never wanted. Steve’s strong arms caught you just seconds before you hit the floor. “I’m sorry but I’m not losing you as well.”

                                               * * * * * * * * * * 

You found yourself beginning to wake up but given the fact that none of your senses were coherent enough yet it was clear that for some reason or another you were doing so far too early. Through your unfocused vision you could make out red lights flashing around whatever room you were in and although it sounded like you were underwater you could also make out some kind of alarm.

In a rather vain attempt to get up you swung your legs around off the bed but found yourself falling off completely with a rather heavy thud that took the wind right out of you.

“St-Steve? Steve where are you?!”

Your words were no more coherent than the rest of your senses and it seemed like they were falling upon deaf ears too…..until a rather large shadow made its way towards you. A mixture of emotions filled you at this moment; a part of you was relieved that it could be the very person you had been calling for but another part, one that was fast becoming dominant, feared that it was someone you really didn’t want to be nearing you when in such a vulnerable state.

“Your friend is a little…..preoccupied right now.”

The voice, even in your exhausted state, was enough to make your heart skip as well as send a wave of fear through you. It was Bucky or rather…..The Winter Soldier. Seemed Josh was true to his word. He really had come back for you. 

But if he had managed to get through the security of the building that meant no one was going to stop whatever he was about to do.

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[nirah10]

From J,

What you said about siblings having different experiences with their abusive parent really stood out to me as well.

My boyfriend was the suprise baby of the family. His parents had only planned on having two kids, and then years after they thought they were done with children, a little accident happened that resulted in my eventual boyfriend.

Therefore their is quite a big age gap between him and his sisters, despite them all biologically sharing the same mom and dad.

His sisters were 19 and 17 when their mom was murdered, while my boyfriend was 10.

The sisters were too old for foster care, and weren’t old enough to be eligible guardians of their brother either.

So while they were dealing with the this trauma in their late teens, their brother was very much still a child and ended up being moved from foster home to foster home for a couple of years. 

He went through about five foster homes, and then found a permanent one when he was twelve.

His foster parents took him in at 12, and he stayed with them, even as an adult when the fostering runs out, they didn’t force him out (teens getting tossed out of foster homes at 18 with no where to go is a big problem here) but he stayed living with them until he was 20, and had the finances to move out.  He is like a son to them. He is 24 now, and we go to their place for dinner every week. They are two of the most awesome people I have ever known. I love them both. They are pretty cool people.

The sisters don’t really get on well with their brother’s foster’s parents, being 21 and 19 when they met and having to do things the hard way on their own, they were quite hostile to someone trying to ‘claim’ their brother as their family. They saw the foster family as stealing their baby brother and the relationship has always been icy.

Despite this he remains very close with both his foster parents and his siblings, just separately.

(Don’t worry, my boyfriend knows about this post, and is okay with the personal stuff being discussed, we are pretty open with  each other.)

But I told my boyfriend you mentioned your siblings can be a still hostile with your step dad because of how close you are. He was a bit curious and these following questions actually come from him.

Is the hostility jealousy or resentment or protective based? My BF sometimes struggles to get a read on his sisters, and not sure if they are just protective and don’t want him to get hurt by trusting his family to much or if it is a bit of bitterness. I guess it changes how you deal with it, as protective instincts after coming from a tough background is easier to empathize and be patient with.

And has the problems with the step-dad’s closeness to you eased up over the years? Have your siblings become more relaxed? 

For example, his sisters wouldn’t come to a house warming party at our house as his foster parents were there. They came to see us the next day. It really, really upset my boyfriend the next party we had (his birthday) we took his foster parents out for dinner on the night of his actual birthday, so his sisters could come to his party on the weekend. 

We are having friends over on the weekend, and haven’t invited either, mainly because we are unsure of who to invite. Should we just invite both and not tell them? Although that was an awful experience for you when your brother tried to force a meeting between you and your dad as a teen wasn’t it?

Is their a third way we are not seeing?

Also, thanks for your advice and for your repsonse before. I really did appreciate it.

My BF is not really into fanfiction or Doctor Who, but I am a massive fan of your story. Big Harry fan, I find him really calming for some reason. 

Dear J,

It’s hard to say where my siblings’ behaviour comes from exactly, but my best guess is that it is a kind of jealousy. But it’s like it’s a jealousy on behalf of my biological dad? I get the sense that they feel like he’s tried to replace my biological father and he shouldn’t be allowed to. Like, they hate that I don’t visit our father or really have anything good to say about him but I go out of my way to visit my stepdad and think he’s awesome, and I think they feel like maybe I would have a relationship with my biological father if my stepfather wasn’t there (which I would not). One of my sisters, who is normally very kind and accepting, is also super weird about him when it comes to her daughter. My mum and stepdad babysit their (almost) two-year-old several days a week and are a huge part of her life. They adore her and she adores them, often choosing my stepdad over anyone else in the room and running to him with her arms up and a gleeful shriek. But my sister hates that her daughter started calling him Grandpa and corrects her every single time she hears her say it, insisting that she call him by his first name instead. She even told me once when complaining about it, “Dad is her grandpa, not [stepdad]”, which I found to be really messed up because her daughter is adopted and if you’re gonna be a stickler for genes=familial relations then my father is not her grandpa either because my sister isn’t actually her mother (also, most kids have multiple sets of grandparents these days--her husband’s dad has divorced and remarried and that’s no problem). She also reacts poorly to seeing photos of him holding her and would basically prefer that he have no access to her at all. It breaks my stepdad’s heart because he loves my niece so much. I think it’s really cruel and it really disappoints me that my sister, who is normally so loving, would do something like that.

I do kind of suspect that the whole family has some unresolved issues from our intense isolation at young ages. Almost every wedding in the family stirred up significant drama, and pretty much every single one had siblings who refused to show up. One of my sisters got so stressed out from the insane squabbling over her wedding (unfortunately, it was coming from the groom’s family too) that she threw the whole wedding out and got married on the beach with just me, one sister (the other one who is openly not religious), and my mother present. We were the only ones who had actually been properly supportive of her out of the entire family in Canada. It seems that whenever an “other” shows up, there’s a lot of backlash and the family struggles against the change. One brother-in-law was already a family friend and well loved before he married my sister and another brother-in-law was just so damn lovely that we couldn’t help but love him (though my biological father, who hadn’t yet been kicked out, tried very hard to turn everyone against him, even though the best reason he could come up with was that he looked a little effeminate so he must be gay), but the rest were all rejected for a long time. There have been some truly vicious things said and done whenever someone found a new partner and, having never really thought much on it before just now, I think it may be because we had had it drilled into our heads from day one that we shouldn’t interact with the outside world. We weren’t supposed to have friends, never mind actually dating anyone.

Religion also plays a big part, but I think it’s used as an excuse rather than it really being the reason. For example, my brother didn’t go to my other brother or my sister’s wedding because they were marrying people who weren’t baptized Jehovah’s Witnesses (even though both spouses were in the process of studying to be baptized). When my eldest sister, whom he is very close with, was getting married to a man with no interest whatsoever in being a Jehovah’s Witness, he wanted to go to her wedding. He ended up not going but he even said it was only because he hadn’t gone to the other two and it would look bad. So the actual reasoning of not going because of the religious stuff was bullshit, because he would have gone to my sister’s wedding if it didn’t make him a huge hypocrite.

My siblings have become more relaxed over the years, though still not as much as I would like. They will be civil and polite with my stepdad (and my boyfriend too, who was also harshly rejected for years), but it’s still clear that they’d be quite happy if he disappeared. They don’t really want anything to do with him but they will tolerate him and play nice when they see him. One of my older sisters has actually come to realize that they have a lot in common and seems to slowly be building a kind of friendship with him. She has actually come to my parents’ house when I’m there so that the three of us can have movie nights and sometimes brings her kids to my parents’ house to visit (even though my mum is regularly at her home babysitting). My youngest and oldest sisters (the non-religious ones) have always gotten along very well with him and have great relationships with him, but I would very much like to see the others step outside of their own prejudices and give him a real chance too. He’s a really great person and he’s done more for me as a parent than my biological father ever did in the fourteen years he had the opportunity.

As for how to handle your boyfriend’s sisters when it comes to events, it’s hard to say when I don’t know them, but I’ll tell you what I did. My family tried very hard to push my boyfriend out, some of them refusing to go to certain events when they knew he would be there and then blaming me for it, claiming that it was somehow my fault that they were choosing not to go. I basically just didn’t let them blame me. I never tried to trick them. I was always clear when we would both be somewhere and, when they kicked up fuss, I just said that it was their choice. I didn’t make alternative plans to hang out with them separately. The plan was X, we were both going to be there, and, if this person or that person didn’t show up, then that was up to them and we’d just hope they changed their minds.

Most of them quietly accepted that and eventually stopped making the fuss because they realized that I didn’t care and they were only preventing themselves from enjoying events. One sister sent me a bunch of angry texts once saying that she couldn’t believe I was choosing a boy over her own family, blah blah blah. I simply told her that I wasn’t. I was going to see my family and I wanted everyone to be there. If she chose not to come, that simply meant that she was choosing her own stubbornness over her family and there was nothing I could do about it. That was the sister who had to ditch her wedding btw. It really sucked that she had to go through that but she sure sweetened up around my boyfriend quite a lot after getting a taste of her own medicine.

I think with situations like this, guilt is always a huge factor. Your boyfriend’s sisters are trying to guilt him about “tearing the family apart” when that blame is completely misplaced. His father tore the family apart. Likewise, they will try to blame him when they don’t show up for family events, but the truth is that it’s their choice to show up or not. If they don’t come to his birthday or Christmas or whatever family events there might be because his foster parents will be there, then that’s their decision to make and has absolutely nothing to do with your boyfriend. Think of a kid who refuses to eat their vegetables and then complains that they’re hungry. Any (good) parent would tell them that they have a perfectly good meal in front of them and it’s up to them whether they eat or not, and most people would nod and say that makes sense. Kids never really grow up and we all pull the same shit when we’re adults. “I don’t like this so I’m not going to do it and it’s your fault”. Demanding separate gatherings for things like birthday dinners is no different than a child demanding a different dinner because vegetables are gross. In my opinion, that’s just too fucking bad and it’s a take-it-or-leave-it situation. I found that taking on that mentality and being really damn clear about it seemed to embarrass some of my family and I think it made them realize how childish they were being. Trying to guilt someone really doesn’t work when they just laugh and say “What are you talking about? You’re doing it.” It took some time but they all stopped eventually, and the time in between was way less stressful for me.

I hope that helps. And thanks so much ^_^ I’m really glad you enjoy my writing :)

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