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#cw: child abuse
ninadove · 2 days
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“They’re running through the halls of their grandparents' estate. It’s like a castle from a fairy tale. There’s a library full of books, and they hide in there for hours and the adults don’t even notice they’re gone. Felix has a bruise on his arm, but he won’t tell Adrien where it’s from.”
— The Ties That Bind by @thevioletthread
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bluegiragi · 24 days
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human.
early access + nsfw on patreon
more backstory that i wrote up for patreon heh:
Simon and Tommy had a complicated relationship as brothers. 
At a young age, Simon basically wrote himself off as a lost cause, and did the best he could to make sure at least Tommy had a chance to be a functioning human being. After all, Tommy was the gentler brother, the dreamer, the one who looked like their mother (who'd walked out on them years ago to escape their father). But Tommy got bitter, got sick of the one always being protected, being babied. He lost respect for Simon, for the way he wouldn't fight back, and in a twisted way, grew closer to his father as a way to learn how to be powerful, strong. It backfired, and Tommy got wrapped up in some bad business.
Simon's kid brother died while he was deployed. He got the news in the letter, and it broke him in a big way. In the story timeline, it was years and years ago but it still hurts like hell whenever Simon thinks about him. 
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v-albion · 2 months
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Look who’s inside again
Masterpost
Warning for child abuse at 1:11
He’s there for a few weeks. Shouldn’t have talked back or tried to sneak out
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dduane · 1 month
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"I was led to believe that this world was an evil place, filled with cops who control, hospitals that injure, government agencies that brainwash, church leaders who lie and lust, husbands who refuse to protect and children who need abuse."
:/
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blueywrites · 11 months
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turtle dove and the crow, part four
A 1940s Farm AU, featuring bsf!neighbor!eddie x fem!reader
story tags: 18+ (minors dni). smut; true love; unexpected pregnancy; angst, angst, angst; parental issues; corporal punishment; scheming, plotting, and betrayal; hurt/comfort; period-typical stigma regarding unwed pregnancy; angst with a happy ending.
chapter tags: please heed this warning and decide if you are prepared to read this chapter, which includes scenes of harsh but period-accurate parental abuse against an 18-year old child. this includes emotional and mental abuse in the form of 'discipline' and depictions of physical punishment. these methods are always harmful and never appropriate. they do not represent the views of the author. avoiding tw/cw's? read the part four summary instead
masterlist | part one | part two | part three | interlude | part four | part five | part six | epilogue | playlist
PART FOUR: THE WEIGHT BENEATH THE SUN (8.6K)
It’s hard to make the moment last
Hard to keep the dreams you have
Hard to let the love inside your heart
The guards are always at the gates
Turning everyone away
But you got through
Didn’t you?
You’re the One I Want — Chris and Thomas
When you were six— two years before Edward Munson became the new boy next door— your mother still hosted garden parties during the warm months. Pa would arrange the iron furniture into a pleasing configuration, ensuring the grass was level and dry beneath the table's heavy feet. The stiff-backed chairs would be spaced precisely from its wrought edges, far enough for ease of entry but close enough that the ladies would not have to stretch their arms too far to reach the cucumber sandwiches. Those Mama would assemble in careful layers, laying them out on a ceramic platter decorated with filigree. Mama's finest pitcher, made of delicate glass and attractive curves, would be used to serve fresh-squeezed lemonade. She'd garnish the sweet drink with muddled mint leaves plucked from the small personal garden she carefully maintains against the backyard fence. A generous spray of flowers would finish the trio of treasures awaiting the town's ladies, invited by your mother for an afternoon of light refreshments and genteel socializing.
Your sister, Virginia, has the supreme honor of being allowed to join the garden party for the first time this year. She is five years your senior in age and ten your superior in manner, evident in the graceful way she smooths the skirt of her shiny pink dress, perching herself with impeccable posture on the very edge of the iron chair situated to your mother’s right side. Poised and prim, Virginia accepts a glass of lemonade, taking a tiny sip before placing the china delicately to the right of her plate. Ever observant, her eyes dart around the table, absorbing gestures with ease; she follows her sip quickly with a dab of her napkin before arranging it dutifully on her lap again. She is rewarded for this, as the ladies generously indulge her presence among them.
You would be jealous of your sister's invitation if you gave a hoot about such things, but you are entirely disinterested in all of it. You care not for hushed titters floating from beneath their sunbonnets and the passing of cucumber sandwiches, which are nibbled little by little and then chewed behind demure palms as gossip is exchanged. Instead, you've happily plopped yourself behind the apple tree, back to rough bark and short legs spread wide in the ticklish grass. 
Methodically, one by one, you have been picking the delicate yellow petals off the heads of dandelion weeds, dropping each one to collect in the basin of the sunbonnet cradled between your thighs. It's painstaking work and nonsensical, perhaps, but it serves to satisfy some innate curiosity inside you. The purpose of this is unclear; your actions are confusing, the way children's play is often confusing to everyone but the child. But since you are quietly occupying yourself, and your mother and sister are busy socializing, they are happy to leave you to your own devices.
They are happy, that is, until your eye is caught by something much more exciting than plucking weeds.
Your neighbor down the lane has just finished imparting some succulent gossip to the gathering, and her lips are pursed against a grin as she relishes the reaction to her news. Her revelation has the intended effect: shock ripples around the table, but it is mixed with the suppressed delight of knowing a new, tantalizing secret. The party-goers exchange glances, searching for cues in one another, all wanting to know more but reluctant to appear too eager.
"Oh, my goodness." Mama places her hand over her heart as if in regret, but her eyes are gleaming. Interest thrums within the hush of her voice as she begins to ask, "And what d'you suppose he might now do, on account of—?"
"Mama!"
Her question is interrupted by your delighted cry. She turns to see you holding aloft that which made you abandon your collection. Back by the tree, those petals have spilled from the tipped sunbonnet to scatter heedlessly across the grass. "Look't what I caught!" you squeak, eyes alight with eager, innocent delight. "It's a big one, too!"
Despite your excitement, you cradle the large bullfrog gently in your hands, mindful of its comfort as you present it to your mother. You considered it quite the feat to catch the frog without causing it alarm, and when its strong legs twitch against your palm without attempting to flee, pride glows beneath the dirt streaks on your round cheeks.
Your mother does not share your sentiment. 
The way her expression contorts is so opposite what you expected that she may as well have smacked you across the face. Your earlier excitement is smothered like water douses a match, and promptly, you drop the frog. 
You drop it as if by acting quickly, you can undo whatever has caused your Mama offense. But it is not enough. Your mother stares at you, and though the look in her eyes is one you are too young to fully decipher, a parent's disapproval is sensed innately, and felt deeply.
One year after you drop the bullfrog, Mama will sell the garden furniture to purchase seeds and stock in preparation for the coming hardship, and the garden parties would end. Two years after you drop the bullfrog, Eddie will roll in like a summer storm to join his uncle in the red house next door. Seven years after you drop the bullfrog, Virginia will establish a nest of her own, leaving you as the only unwed daughter left in your parents' roost. But no matter how many years pass, you will never forget how your mother's stare made you feel. In the garden, a heavy stone sank in your gut, sickeningly leaden, steadily crushing your delicate insides with each second you spent pinned by her furious stare.
This moment in the hayloft reminds you of that. But there is no stone of lead in your stomach this time. This time, with the salt tang of Eddie's seed still lingering on your lips, your entire body turns to solid, petrified rock. 
Your mother stares up at you from the barn floor. Her face is contorted, screwed up tight with shock and rage, but her eyes are wide, wide enough to swallow you up entirely like a sinkhole would. She traps you. And you remain there, locked tight until the seethe of her voice boils hot from between her lips, blistering the ruddy flesh on its path to you.
"Git. Down. Here."
Each word is a spitfire bullet, enunciated so precisely so as not to be misconstrued. The burn rushes down your spine to melt your solid rock into magma. 
Your muscles are clenched tight, but the warm pulse once stoked between your legs has deadened. You're thrumming instead with horror, with deep, all-consuming dread. Where one moment ago you were heavy as a sinking stone, now you are unsteady, shaky like the first time Eddie coaxed you into a rowboat. 
You can't grab hold of his rough, broad palm to settle yourself this time, and you don't dare risk a glance at the man still nestled in that soft bed of hay. To catch his eye would be torture of a different kind. Instead, you rush to obey your mother's command. Your knee scrapes raw against old, splintery wood as you scramble around and dip one foot to catch the rung of the ladder. 
It's a sturdy old thing, that ladder. Good thing, too, because it holds fast as you cling to it with shuddering fingers and legs so wobbly, they clatter against its rungs with each step toward the perilous ground. By the time you reach the floor, the knee you'd scraped has gone numb. You want to turn your chin down and see if your dress has bloomed a crimson flower of blood, but your neck is unyielding. It's hard enough to step back from the security the ladder provides. All the will your spirit possesses must be channeled into facing the woman looming like a cloud of miasma behind you.
There is no time to brace for a confrontation, but you force your face into as docile an expression as possible before you meet your Mama head-on. She is short and portly, hunched up in such a way as to make her smaller in theory, though, in reality, the sight is only more imposing to you. You expect to meet her piercing stare again, but she isn't looking at you. Instead, she's got one eye hooked on the edge of the hayloft and her lip caught in a sneer so deep it's almost a snarl. 
"You too, Edward," she spits, and your throat dries to dust. "Don't think I'm ignorant of your bein' up there with'r."
The silence that follows is stifling, crowding in on you from all sides. The pressure doesn't ease even as that pregnant pause turns to the creaking and groaning of wood, which protests as the weight of an unseen body shifts toward the hayloft's edge. The thud of booted feet that replaces the wood's cry is little consolation; your heart kicks up at the steady plod that commences, matching it in rhythm but pounding twice as fast. You don't dare to turn and look or even to fiddle with your skirt nervously. Your hands remain still at your sides as your mother stares above your head, watching Eddie climb down from the hayloft. Her eyes dip slowly and steadily along with the thumping of those booted feet until her gaze is even with your face. The final step down behind you is quieter than the rest, and your throat tightens as you sense Eddie's hesitance in the sound. 
As he alights on the ground, Mama's eyes suddenly shift. Where once she had been staring almost uncannily in your direction, as if she may or may not have been trying to look you in the eye, a sudden cut and glint make it abundantly clear that now— now— your mother is gazing directly at you. 
It's all you can do to keep from trembling.
You vaguely hear the shuffle-scrape of Eddie's footsteps and feel the warmth of his body as he comes to stand beside you. The tiniest glance reveals the extent of his mortification: his pale cheeks are beet red with a flush that creeps down his throbbing neck, and his eyes are squinched half-shut as if bracing for a blow. His adam's apple bobs, and unconsciously, you swallow at the same time.
When Eddie finally opens his mouth, all that eeks out is the briefest croak before your mother interrupts coldly. "You best be gettin' home to your uncle now, Edward."
While the words don't drip with venom, the mention of Wayne is nothing if not a threat, and Eddie recognizes it as so. You would never expect him to argue; in fact, you'd be dismayed if he had, but the thought of facing your mother's wrath alone covers the frozen dread inside you with a fine layer of poignant sorrow. You are heavy, but now you are empty, too. 
Weakly, Eddie clears his throat to rasp, "Yes, ma'am." Your chin trembles at the sound of his voice, but your eyes only begin to sting when you feel the soft, subtle draw of his fingers across the small of your back as he passes by you to disappear out of sight beyond the barn doors. The touch is one last offering of comfort from your beloved before you both must face the consequence of your transgressions.
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In the kitchen, Mama takes you apart.
The way she lashes you with her tongue is harsh and unforgiving. Each word darts across the kitchen counter, catches you with its claws, and burrows beneath your tender skin, sinking deep to carve into your marrow. 
"How dare you." Her voice quivers with the force of her rage. "How dare you bring such disgrace upon our family. You know darn well that we forbade you from seeing that boy, yet you went behind our backs anyway. And now, to make matters worse, I find you been carryin' on like a," her lips twist up to spit a sharper barb, "hussy up in the hayloft. What kind of a girl do you think that makes you, y/n?"
She pauses long enough to make you question whether she expects an answer, but she carries on without you. Her eyes dart along the cabinets, unseeing as she chuckles mirthlessly. "And, oh. M'blood could just boil thinkin' how that boy could set there at his dinner table and talk about how good we raised our daughter, only for you two t'turn around and… and…." 
She stutters off, wild eyes rolling as she works herself up. The deepening of her wince uglies her visage, so that lines crease at the corners of her mouth where before there were none. And oh, how foolish you were to think the sight of her bulging eyes would be in any way gratifying. How deeply, utterly stupid of you to think such a thing.
"What you done is unspeakable. How'm I supposed to show my face in town, knowing what you been up to right underneath my nose? It turns my stomach just to think about what y'were doin' up there w'him." 
Each word sinks deep inside you. It’s a barrage of all you deserve because it's the truth. And this is just the beginning. Because there's disgust there, in Mama's screwed-up face, and there's fury, too. But beneath those, there's also hurt— the evidence of a deep wound torn open by your impropriety. It's a hurt you aren't sure you can mend. 
At that realization, fat, hot tears begin to roll unimpeded down your cheeks. They drip from your quivering chin, which tightens with the occasional sniffle as you try to keep yourself from collapsing to the floor, wrapping your arms around your mother’s skirt, and pressing yourself to her shins in pitiful supplication. 
Though Mama is looking at you, she doesn't seem to register that you've started to cry. "I just can't understand it." Mama's fingers press divots into her temples, and her head wags absently as if in subconscious denial. "Virginia was your age when she married her Lawrence. She knew the way of things. And now look at 'er— got her own home and three children to raise." Her hands drop sharply, and a flash of judgment returns. "She's a proper lady. And then what d'we have? You. I never thought I'd see the day when a daughter of mine would behave like this." 
The burrs stick sharply, coating you in a prickly sadness that only intensifies when your Mama's plump arms tighten to her sides, crossing beneath her bosom, cinching in tight as she presses a fist to her lips. 
"Lord help me— what'm I gonna do with you now?" 
It's so much quieter than all else she's said, so much duller, and yet all the more painful for it.
Her name on your lips is a whimper, a sob, a plea all at once. "Mama—" You suddenly feel no more than six years old with dirt streaked on your shameful cheeks, filled with the crushing sense of all you've done wrong.
"Don't." She cuts you off firmly. Your teeth click together painfully as your jaw snaps closed. She stares at you for a long moment. "Th'last thing I wanna do is talk about what was goin' on up there, but clearly…" 
You read the intention in your mother's restless shifting, the discomfited rocking of her heels. Heat floods up your throat, a sickly blaze of shame. "Well," she continues stiffly, "I know y'had your mouth on him, and that's… that's one thing. But I need to know." Her fist drops to reveal a stiff upper lip, but her voice quavers slightly as she asks a question that doesn't stick like burrs or burrow beneath your skin. Instead, it pierces straight through the center of you. 
"Have you had relations with Edward?"
Your shock is like the firm twist of a leaky spigot. The steady flow of your tears ceases so abruptly that it's nearly enough to distract from the question itself.
Nearly enough. Not quite enough.
Horrified panic surges up as the question sinks in: Mama's askin' me if I had sex with Eddie. The feeling claws its way past your stomach, past your heart, past the heat in your throat, and straight up to your head. It rushes there, leaving you dizzy. Black fuzz spreads across your vision. 
And the lie springs up, ready and poised behind your teeth. It's a denial borne of fear, desperation, and the deep ache beating in the child's heart still nestled within your grown one. That tiny heart flutters against your ribs, recalling the plink of music box drift-offs and gentle John the Rabbit wake-ups; the balm of kisses pressed to scraped knees and hurt feelings wrung out with tight hugs; the roundness of laughing cheeks streaked with flour and little hands cradled in large palms, guided to knead love into dough, right here, in this room, all those years ago.
Could you survive the loss that would come with confession? Could you bear to see the lingering light— the final vestige of a mother's regard for her child— die behind her eyes? 
Led by a child's heart and a mind seized by panic, the choice you make is not a choice, but an inevitability.
"No," you whimper, and such sincerity pools within your eyes that even one who knows better might be convinced you believe that. "No, I din't lay with him, Mama. I swear it."
The softening of her features, fractional though it is, brings you such tender relief that tears spring anew at the corners of your lashes. 
"Well, all right," she says finally, and while her voice isn't quite fond, you can see the creases around her mouth ease, fading from deep crevices back to the faint lines you're familiar with. It's a gift you wouldn't dare waste. "Y'know what needs to be done, then."
Without a hint of protest, you retrieve the wooden spoon from the crock on the counter, passing it into your mother's waiting hand and presenting your backside to her. 
With balled fists and a rigid spine, you take your punishment. You press your lips flat to keep all your noises in as Mama spanks you with the rounded back of the wooden spoon. The even raps— ten against your clothed buttocks— smart and sting, but they do not ache. Her actions are not hesitant or reluctant, but they aren’t gluttonous either. Your mother does not grow fat feasting on your pain; she is merely obliged to provide it.
You are braced for another impact when you hear the spoon clatter back into the crock. When you realize another blow will not come, you face her again. Silence reigns the room as you take stock of yourself: warm, stinging skin, pressure in your cheeks, nose, and forehead from crying, and a new, yawning hollowness inside.
"M'sorry, Mama," you sniffle, throat thick with remorse, "M'sorry for disobeying you, a-and bringin' shame on the family. I— I jus'..." You choke and try again. "I—"
There is only one justification, however inadequate it might seem to your mother. It's spoken in the misery of your crumpled brow, in the glaze of your big wet eyes, in the copper of your lower lip where you've worried the spot Eddie's kisses still sweetly linger.
I love him.
"I know." Mama replies as if you'd said it aloud, and her voice is tight, tight with what she is trying to suppress. "I know you do." Her bosom heaves with a heavy, bracing sigh. "But y'know what your Pa said." She doesn’t seem to feel the need to be more specific, and you muster a smidgeon of gratitude for that.
"I know," you echo her, and your voice is tiny and broken. You are tiny and broken. And tired. You realize all at once that you are so tired, it's a labor just to keep from lying down right here on the floor. "R'you gonna tell 'im what I did?"
A jerky nod confirms it, and you think you'd feel more afraid if you could feel anything at all. "I'll speak with your Pa when he gets home," Mama tells you. "Now go'n up to your room. Don't expect you'll get any supper tonight." 
You stare at her, solemn and unresisting, and in that stillness, you can see the moment she hesitates. The flicker that passes across her crinkled eyes is brief, but you see it, and the hush of her voice tells a story all its own. "Don't come down for nothin'," she murmurs intently. "No matter what y'hear. Just stay in your room 'til the morning. Hear me?" 
You can feel yourself wilt further into exhaustion with each passing moment. "Yes, Mama," you croak in dutiful agreement.
The press of her cool palm against your warm, sticky cheek is brief. It lingers only long enough for you to barely realize it has been offered. But that fleeting sensation keeps you alert enough to drag yourself up to your bedroom, softly shut the door, strip off your dress and chemise, and pull on your thin nightgown before relinquishing yourself to the sunken mattress. At that point, you cease to tick, like the final tines have plinked within a wound music box. You have landed on your back atop the covers, and there you will stay until you can summon the strength to turn onto your side.
Though you are tired, sleep does not come to offer a reprieve. Instead, though your eyes begin to strain, you stare at the crack in the plaster above your head. It's the same one you traced while waiting for your crow to land on your windowsill yesterday, yesterday, yesterday. Yesterday beats in the useless yearning of your heart, trailing down your temples to pool in the hollows of your ears.
Yesterday, Eddie held you in your bed until you fell asleep. Today, he never would again.
Heavy footsteps rouse you, and you jolt awake. 
At some point in the afternoon, outside your conscious memory, the slow leaking of your eyes had finally ceased. Blearily, you curled into yourself, tucking your wrists beneath your chin and finally drifting off into unconsciousness. Now, your bedroom is not the way you remember it. It's dizzying at first when your eyes pop open not to the crack in white plaster you'd expected but instead to the sight of your bedroom window. The outside is dark beyond the gauze curtains. The air now hums with the dusk song of cicadas. 
You have little time to orient yourself before the heavy footsteps that woke you yield to the squeal of a door hinge. Your neck is stiff when you lift your head, attempting to blink the strain from your eyes.
Cast in dimness, Pa looms over you like the shadow of death.
Your father is typically imposing, but his visage is made even more severe by the lack of light. His long face appears to be carved with crags, which harshen the snarl of his brow and turn the wrinkles of his sneer into jagged gashes lining his thin lips. What little light remains glints off the bony line of his nose and the flash of his hard, unyielding eyes. He stands unmoving as if etched from obsidian; the only feature to betray him as man and not stone is the ticking of his square jaw. A muscle there jumps erratically, twitching out its silent fury.
Eyes wide, heart fluttering, breath quick and shallow, you lay still as a prey animal hoping to escape a predator's sight. That is no use. Quick as a rattler, Pa's hand strikes out, and the yawning hollowness inside you becomes an uproar of fear flooding your throat.
He takes firm hold of your arm, thick fingers like a vice pinching your skin. When he tugs at you roughly, you let him maneuver you to the edge of the bed. You keep yourself limp and unresisting because, now that you've been caught in his jaws, you know he'll only bite down harder if you don't. And you even shimmy to assist him, fingers twisted tight in the hem of your nightgown to keep it from dragging up your legs. Preoccupied with maintaining your modesty, you're unprepared to be dragged beyond the footboard; you lurch off the bed in an ungainly slump, and your knees clunk painfully to the hardwood floor. 
A shock of pain shoots up both of your legs, and you muffle your reaction with lips pressed tight, following the silent command of your father's grip as he insists you turn to face the mattress. He drops you only once you're kneeling how he wants you, and the loss of his clamped fingers is a relief. Feeling begins to return to your arm as blood flows freely again, and a dull throb starts up in the place he'd gripped you. 
Yet that's nothing compared to what you know is coming when you hear the metallic clink of a buckle. It's followed by the unthreading of his belt, which shicks through the loops of his blue jeans with a drag of denim and a snap of leather breaking free. 
Moments pass in agonizing silence as you wait for the first crack of the belt. Everything inside you tightens in preparation for the pain to come— your muscles, your bones, your heart, and your spirit. You brace yourself, thighs quivering as you hold so perfectly still despite how your skin has begun to dew with nervous sweat. As you hold that stillness, you can even detect the sting of your mother's milder punishment throbbing in time with the pulse that thrums within your tense body. 
Your head has just begun to sag when Pa's voice grates loudly like the grinding of stone, gruff and hoarse. "Y'pologized to your Mama for your behavior?" 
You rush to answer. "Yes, sir." 
"Y'ever gonna dare sneakin' around under my roof again?" 
"No, sir." 
A grunt follows your reply. It sounds satisfied enough to untwist a little of the fear inside you. "Y'ashamed of yourself for what you done with that piece of trash? You regret lettin' him," he pauses so the spit of his words might sting you worse, "ruin you with his filthy hands?" 
Unbidden, Eddie's face blooms in your mind's eye: wild curls of soft dark frizz, crinkled eyes lightened to amber in the sunshine, soft nose dusted with cinnamon freckles, pink lips stretched wide in a smile that makes your heart squeeze even in your memory. You see him there, your beloved crow, and your chin trembles with the truth. You manage to steady it so that your second lie of the day can come out strong. "Yes, sir." 
But perhaps, in your remembering, you hesitate a second too long, because your answer is quickly followed by fire cracking across the crease of your thigh and cheek. 
You yelp with shock and pain, reeling as the contact burns through you, beginning as a white-hot ache before dulling to a throb. You tremble, breathing shakily as your father mutters, "I'll make damn sure of that."
Pa belts you across your buttocks and thighs, attempting to scald that shame into you with the cruelty he wields by his hand. But the whip of the belt is not the same as the lashing of your mother's words in the kitchen; it could never be. Not when Eddie's face has bloomed before you, bathed in summer sunshine. Not in this place, where the bunching of your fingers in the bedspread only makes you think about strong arms around your middle, soft breath on your cheek, and the tickle of wild curls against your shoulder. 
Your father feasts on the cries he draws from you. He takes them as evidence of your guilt and shame. But you're fortified by the memory of Eddie's strong body cradling you in this bed, the breadth of his wide palm on your mound as he brings you to the pinnacle of pleasure, holding you snugly against him when you fall into surrender.
Harshness could never drive out reverence. Pain could never drive out love.
Pa might leave you welted and whimpering against the footboard, but he can never make you waver in your devotion to Edward Munson.
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That's not, of course, due to a lack of trying. Because try he does. Pa efforts to cleave you from Eddie in any way he knows how. He begins with a belting and continues the next morning with a visit to your neighbor, Mr. Wayne.
He's over there 'til midday, which you know because you do not rouse from your bed until he returns. You'd lain there on your side for the entirety of the morning, wrists again tucked beneath your chin, but legs straight since curling them made the throbbing in your bottom and thighs sharpen to a burning ache. Throughout the morning, you stared out the window, watching the light crawl steadily up the red siding of the house next door. 
You stirred only when Mama came to tend you. She didn't speak, but you could sense her sentiment in the mild soap and damp cloth she used to wash you, in the gentle pat of a soft towel against your cleansed skin, in the earthy spice of the calendula salve she dabbed on your welts. After she was done, your nightgown fluttered back into place around your hip and flank with the lightest touch. You nibbled on the toast sweetened with butter and honey she left for you on the bedside table, but you did not quit your bed.
This was not the first time Pa had taken the belt to you for some indiscretion, but it was by far the harshest. That's evident as the painful throbbing in your lower half intensifies when you prop yourself up on a palm, testing how it feels to sit up. Your father finds you in the midst of this endeavor: leaning gingerly on one flank, your lips pressed tight and pale. 
You glance toward him warily as he bullies open your bedroom door, and he squints back but doesn't acknowledge your pained expression. "Get y'rself presentable," he grunts. "You're comin' with me next door."
Humiliation, it seems, is the next tool Pa has decided to use to cleave you from Eddie. You know it isn't unreasonable to ask you to apologize to Mr. Wayne for your inappropriate behavior. In fact, now that you've had time to reflect on your actions, you even want to apologize to your neighbor. You cannot— will not— denounce your devotion to Eddie, but you do regret disrespecting Mr. Wayne. He's a man who has been nothing but kind and patient with you and his nephew throughout all the years you've known him, and to think you'd wounded him with your actions makes your throat thicken with genuine regret. 
So you dress hastily in your loosest, lightest frock and spend the majority of the time Pa affords you sitting at your writing desk, crafting a missive of carefully-chosen words you hope will convey to Wayne the depth of your sincere contrition. It takes some scratch-outs and restarts, but by the time Pa returns to retrieve you, you feel satisfied with what you've written.
You expect to apologize to Mr. Wayne for the offence you have caused him, and you expect to make the apology in person, so you don’t hesitate as you follow your father into the red house. It is also unsurprising that Pa would watch you deliver that apology. Knowing his nature, it's expected that he'd want to ensure your efforts are satisfactory. But you do not anticipate the way Pa ushers you through your neighbors' house, one palm pressed flat to your back to keep you from retreating when you see Eddie sitting next to Wayne at the dining room table.
Eddie doesn't look any worse for wear, not in the way you feel after enduring Pa's punishment last night, but he isn't unaffected by yesterday's events. He's wilted like a shade plant left too long in the hot sun: limp curls clumped at the ends, broad shoulders slumped, pink lips sagging at the corners. His umber eyes are smudged with purple in the hollows of their sockets as he stares down at the table. He doesn't look up as Pa urges you forward. 
Your heart seizes at the sight of him, stalling as familiar, hungry want mixes with poignant, thrumming sadness. The impulse to rush to the table and throw your arms around him, to bury your fingers in his curls and cradle his face to your breast, to feel his hot arms crush you against him— all comfort, all sweetness, all desperate relief— is nearly overwhelming. 
To resist is worse agony than any strike of leather, but resist you must. Pa's firm hand on your back demands you stand behind the chair across from Mr. Wayne; all the while as he maneuvers you, you will your crow to look up. He doesn't, though you can tell he now knows you're here. You see it in the tightening of his brow and the twist of his plush lips, which pinch with the effort to keep himself at bay. 
Pa scrapes a chair out, settling himself heavily down into its seat. Standing beside him, you fidget with the crisply-folded letter, pinched fingertips crawling slowly along its edges as you pour all your will and longing into a stare that Eddie refuses to return. 
The stalemate ends as Pa clears his throat loudly, growing impatient. "Go'n, now," he prompts, crossing his arms and kicking his feet out under the table in a scuff and thump of heavy boots.
You steal one more lingering glance at Eddie before dropping your eyes to your hands and unfolding your letter. It is silent at the table as you turn it right-side up to read from. You lick your lips and take a breath to steady your nerves before beginning.
"Dear Mr. Wayne," you begin, reading in a cadence reminiscent of your schoolteachers' voices— melodic, perhaps too overly-expressive. "I want to tell you that I am so very sorry—" 
A lump rises suddenly in your throat, and you falter; you begin again, speaking a little faster, though you can't disguise the tiny tremble that has emerged. "I am so very sorry for what I've done to disrespect you. I have been carrying on in a shameful manner…."
The apology becomes a blur as you race to complete it before losing your composure. As you express your remorse and acknowledge your wrongdoing, the shaking of your voice only worsens; by the end, your chin is wobbling hard enough that your teeth start chattering.
"Tha's all right, dear," Wayne interjects, gruff but not unkind. Never unkind. "I kin what you're tryin' to express. 'ppreciate your apology."
You nod jerkily, accepting the reprieve gratefully. You fold your letter back up with trembling fingers and pass it over the table to your neighbor, who tucks it away in his pocket.
With a jut of his chin, Pa motions to Eddie. "S'your turn now, boy," he says, and there's enough vitriol roiling there beneath the surface to more than compensate for Wayne's lack. Pa's shrewd eyes dart to you. "Sit down now."
You don't dare disobey, though your stiffness and pinched expression bely your discomfort as you perch gingerly on the edge of the chair. Eddie rises sharply, and your gaze catches on the clench of his broad fist at his side, how his ruddy knuckles have blanched with the force of his grip. You know they'd tightened at the sight of your pain, and a sudden surge of longing nearly leaves you breathless.
You'd urged Eddie to look up at you when he'd been seated, but now you know why he didn't because neither can you, now that the positions are reversed. You can't look up at his face and see the expression there. It's hard enough to hear his voice as he apologizes to your father for touching you without his permission, for the deep offense of wanting you when he'd expressly been told he wasn't allowed because he was too wild and frivolous, and that he'd proven himself as such for what he'd done with you in the hayloft. 
At the end of Eddie's apology, Pa grunts his acceptance. Then, he informs you in no uncertain terms what now will happen. It is the result of his lengthy discussion with Wayne this morning; in the end, they both agreed on certain truths moving forward, and they share those with you now.
They tell you that you and Eddie have been stripped of your freedoms and grounded for further notice. That you aren't to attempt to see or speak with one another. That you should begin thinking about your separate futures and leave this silly summer romance behind. That you are both lucky they are benevolent enough to allow you to continue living side-by-side without sending one or both of you away. 
You are bidden to acknowledge the rules, and you intone your obedience, as does Eddie. And when Pa is satisfied that you have been sufficiently cleaved from the boy across the table, you are herded back around the tall fence and deposited onto your property.
Having seen the defeat written across your miserable face, Pa leaves you to your own devices. You choose to sit beneath the apple tree, hissing at the lance of pain that races up your buttocks and into your spine as you thump down into the grass. Stubbornly, you ignore the low throbbing in favor of deciphering the storm inside you.
Under the apple tree, a billow of emotion spreads within, complex and layered, filled with contradictions. Because what you've done is indeed wrong, and you know that. But to take the depth of your relationship with Eddie and reduce it to an indiscreet romp, a careless mistake, an insignificant dalliance chalked up to the folly of youthful impulse… 
Well, you know this also. Down to your core, you know that that isn't right. And no one rivals you in conviction once your mind is set.
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Twelve days ago, the intimacy you shared with your crow came to fruition in a wondrous way. As you pass your days in solitude within your roost, that wonder begins to transform you. It starts with a letter. 
Though the tall fence running the length of your adjoining properties keeps you apart from Eddie, and your parents' watchful eyes prevent any wandering from your front porch, one minor breach remains in those steadfast defenses. It's the tree stump rotted straight through, the only place where the grass of your backyards mingles to become one. Secrets are concealed there, announced by the innocuous song of two woodland birds: the turtle dove and the crow.
You don't hear the call the day following your public apologies, or even the day after that. It comes on the third day while you're sat on a stool in the goat pen, working down the nanny's final teat with one hand. Milking her has been slow and steady work, impeded because her kid is leaning against your flank, content so long as you keep one hand on his small bristly side. His tiny tail beats rhythmically against your skirt as her milk rains hollowly into the metal bucket with each pull of your pinched fingers. And when the stream has turned to a dribble, you hear that unmistakable sound: a deep, harsh 'kaa-kaa-kaa' that has your heart pattering instantly against your ribs as your head whips of its own accord toward the fence. You strain to see Eddie through those tiny gaps, but you're too far away for the gesture to mean much. Your eyes dip to second best— that familiar stump, gnarled and weathered gray, splintered but surprisingly soft and spongy to the touch as if it would give way under a heavy hand or foot. You cannot see into the dark crevice at its base, but you know what now awaits you there.
You want to throw yourself to the ground and reach elbow-deep into that damp space, dirt and dress be damned. But you know the second you leave the bucket unattended, all the milk you'd painstakingly gathered would be claimed by the kid. You squeeze out the teet a few more times— perhaps a bit too hastily, since the nanny flicks her ears at you— before snatching up the bucket, bringing it to the kitchen to strain with cheesecloth and tuck into the icebox, leaving the bucket and soiled cloth in the sink out of sight. I'll wash it right quick as soon as I check the stump, you assure yourself. You couldn't possibly wait another moment longer to see what Eddie has left for you to find.
You're thrumming with impatience and excitement as you pop the screen door back open, struggling not to rush toward your prize and draw suspicion from anyone who may see you. Thankfully, a furtive glance around the yard ensures you are alone, and with nothing else to impede you, you quickly gather up your dress and kneel before the stump to claim your offering. 
You reach past the blanket of fertile green moss that skirts the stump's base, mind flicking through the possibilities of what you might find in there. It will surely be a scrap of paper, but what will its few words convey? Will Eddie beg you to join him at the creek one last time? Tell you he's enlisted someone's help, an emissary of sorts, to go between you so you can speak again? Will he express his longing for your body's closeness? His pain at your separation? 
A fluttering thrill blooms low inside you, cautious and sweet, fearful in its intensity. Because another wondering crosses your mind before you have the good sense to prevent it, and that wondering is this:
With an acknowledgment, perhaps, of how unideal the timing and the method is… will Eddie finally put words to the truth you see in that soft expression that graces his features, the one that's only come out for you, only you, only ever you?
Your fingertips graze thin smooth paper nested in a cradle of grass. As you pull your arm out of the stump, you can imagine it so plainly, written in that familiar scrawl: three words to turn a scrap into the most precious of treasures.
But the paper that comes out is not torn hastily from the corner of a brown paper bag as it usually is. Instead, you’re holding a folded piece of stationary, lightweight and crisp white, though its edges have soaked up some dirty dampness from where it has been hiding.
You don't have the luxury of time needed to examine the emotions that stir at this unexpected sight; you need to get to safety first. You tuck the letter beneath the band of your pocketless apron, fumbling with the bow at the small of your back to tighten it. There the paper stays, pressed against your stomach as you return to the kitchen to wash the bucket and cheesecloth. You lay them out to dry, then pass by your mother in a brush of fabric down the narrow hallway. Lightheaded, heart thumping, you creak up the stairs to your bedroom, closing your door and releasing a woosh of held breath. You sink to the floor in front of it, pressing your back to the wood. In lieu of true privacy, this position keeps someone from bursting suddenly in on you before you can conceal what you're doing. With that assurance, you shift forward, untying that tight bow and letting the apron fall across your legs, revealing a flutter of crisp white.
That stirring of emotions returns full force as you run your thumb along the bottom edge of the paper, wiping the collected dirt absently on the hem of your dress. As you unfold it and Eddie's penciled scrawl is revealed, the first wave of your emotion crests to sting sweetly in the corners of your eyes.
The letter isn't particularly long. It doesn't wax poetic about your grace and charm or meander through the hills and valleys of your shared story. It little matters when you can hear Eddie's teasing rasp in every sentence, see his wild beauty in every word, and feel his firm touch in each uneven scratch of letters into the page.
My Dove, Eddie murmurs against your temple, and you sigh, melting with the sticky sweet honey as he voices his claim on you. His Dove. That's what you are. 
"Yes, Eddie," you whisper into the stillness of your empty bedroom, lids low, lashes heavy as you read the next line. 
First things first. Don't you even think about writin' me back. You hear me? Plush lips curl as your besotted expression falls into a pout, and you hear the rasp of his laugh as he cradles your face in his broad, rough palms. S'not that I don't wanna get a letter from you, you know. I just can't have you in any more trouble. It nearly killed me to see how you were hurtin' on account of me. Umber eyes crinkle, and his thumb brushes the corner of your lip. Promise me you'll listen for once. 
You regard him sullenly for a moment. "Fine," you grump, and the crooked smile you're rewarded with softens the edge of your frustration. 
Eddie regards you fondly. I know you don't wanna. But you will anyway, 'cause y'can't help but do what I say now that you're all gooey over me.
You flush with heat, bashful but pleased, twisting your lips against the dopey smile that wants to come out for him. Now that that's settled, he snarks, making you yearn to kiss the knowing tilt right off his lips, I want you to know that… well, I really am sorry for makin' a mess of things for us. Maybe if I'd done different, we wouldn't be where we are right now. No use dwellin' on it or nothin', because what's past is past. But I screwed it up for us, and I don't know what to do to fix it, and I'm just sorry, Dove. I really am. 
"Oh, Eddie—" His name is a soft, feminine sigh of anguish as the sting returns full force, burning insistently behind your eyes. You grab up his hands, squeezing them tight; the paper wrinkles in your grip. "Eddie, you didn't make a mess of anything. It's not your fault at all, what's happened."
He stares at you mournfully, dark eyes heavy and sad, continuing as if you hadn't spoken. And I know it's only been a few days since I seen you, but I miss you something fierce. S'like my arm's been cut clean off. His lips quirk up just slightly in the corners. And you'll say that's just me bein' dramatic as always, but I mean it. It really does hurt me that much to be away from you.
Eddie's curls brush your cheeks as he gathers you close to him, pressing his nose to the top of your hair. Wish I could hold you. Be there for you, take care of you. But I guess this's all I can do for now. He breathes in deep, and your heart twists sweetly in your chest at the feeling of his breath there— a cool inhale, and then warmth puffing in short bursts when he murmurs, You know you're my best friend, but you're so much more than that. Y'always have been. I told you I'd never let anyone take you from me, and I intend to keep my word, no matter how long I gotta wait.
Your first tear falls, and Eddie's arms tighten around you. He presses a kiss to your hair. In the meantime, he rasps, quiet but sure and brash as always, if you find yourself missin' me, or if you're havin' a hard go of it, or if you just wanna remind yourself where I am. All you gotta do is call for me, Turtle Dove. And when I call back, what I'm really sayin' is, 'I'm here. I'm here, and I ain't goin' nowhere.'
On the page, there's a gap of space and a scratched-out word, and you can feel Eddie's adam's apple bob in a gulp. And if I'm missin' you, or… or if I'm havin' a hard go of it. If you still want me the way that I want you.
The final line of the letter begins to fuzz while you stare down at it, expanding in a bloom of dark-on-white as more tears flood your eyes. But you don't need to see it; the words have already been etched into your heart. 
Will you call back to me? So I know you're here, and you ain't goin' anywhere?
Those two questions close the letter; there is no signature. After all, when two like souls flutter their wings and settle themselves to perch together on a shared wire, names become nothing more than an afterthought. 
Paper flattens to the wooden floor. It crinkles as you press against it with your palm, leveraging yourself up to your feet blindly as your stirrings finally overtake you in a rush of tears. They flow over as you lurch around the footboard to the windowsill, pushing the gauzy curtains heedlessly aside; they catch the corners of your lips as your fingers twist the stiff window hinge, and your smile stretches in time with the window's jerky progress up the frame. 
September air floods in, ruffling gauze and soothing over your forehead and cheeks. The humid heat of summer has finally broken, leaving mugginess a thing of the past. And it's into that air, scented with crisp wind and the first dry musk of fading leaves, that you call for your crow. 
Your first coo isn't as graceful as usual because your voice is choked by sorrow and joy combined. But you do not let that stop you. You call out your bedroom window again and again, as loud as you've ever been, eyes fixed on the stoop at the back of the red house. You call and call until the door springs open there, and a crow hops out onto the stoop. As you look down upon him, tears run in trails that drip off your chin, and your cheeks begin to ache with the force of your smile. You cup your small hands around your mouth and call again. 
'Turr-turr-turr,' you sing, mimicking the melodic trill of the turtle dove.
This moment will not quell your stirrings. As more days pass, they will billow ever more intensely and change ever more quickly as the transformation continues inside you. Your bitterness and your temper are still to come; you have not seen the last of your aching. 
But, for right now, this is all that matters. A pale face tipped up toward the sun, a cloud of dark curls tossing wild and untamed, a boyish whoop of relief and adoration, and the love that swells within you— still unspoken, but no less true.
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lhachia · 5 months
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Spoilers for Wriothesley story quest, archon quest 4.1
Cw: child trafficking, abuse
I see a lot of people talking about Wriothesley triggering Lyney's PTSD but I haven't seen any talking about vice versa and I'm a bit surprised? We learn in Wriothesley's story quest that his adoptive parents were child traffickers and that he had multiple siblings sold or killed before he ran away/took his revenge. In his "About Lyney" dialogue, Wriothesley says, "I'll admit that when I removed the House of the Hearth's spies in the underworld, that was kind of an intentional provocation to the Fatui. But their only response was to send down a bunch of children..was it because they truly saw those kids as disposable?" And that remark really stood out to me since we know the HotH is an orphanage, which creates some very interesting parallels to how Wriothesley grew up. He and Lyney both describe their parents/Father as loving despite the fact that in one case, they're trafficking and killing children, and in the other, they're sending children to a literal prison isolated from any help where previous adult operatives have already died. If anything, I think the situation with Lyney & Co is a wretched reminder to Wriothesley of his own past and inability to protect his siblings, and he's doing what he can now to protect these children because their parental figures clearly have no qualms about potential harm coming to their charges, even if he has to be an asshole to do it.
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sonicexelle-junkary · 20 days
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How does Tails react to his big brother's eventual... changes? Because even if Tails does eventually get infected/effected by the Master Emerald I assume it doesn't happen exactly when it happened to Sonic, ya know?
CW: Child abuse
The affects of the Master Emerald began to effect Sonic basically the next day. He was very out of it and foggy, but he had too much to do to really let anything stir, knuckles told him to take the rest of the day off after he saw just how “out of it” he was.
Despite being a smart kid, Tails was too young to work, so he usually stayed home and studied or worked on whatever he could. He took care of Sonic while he was feeling so “off”. It wasn’t until the night that he realized something was wrong.
He was just about to go to bed, when he heard Sonic jiggle the front door handle and mumble the words “Out”. He was confused as they always locked the door when the sun had set, but Sonic could easily unlock it and go outside if he wanted, so he didn’t know why he was acting like this.
The closer he got to him, the more frantic he juggled the door handle and the louder he got. It wasn’t until he tried to pull him away from the door that he attacked, hitting him so hard that he fell to the floor in a daze. He was just barely able to keep Sonic from choking him to death. He desperately agreed that he would open the door and Sonic finally backed off.
He was obviously worried for his brother, but after his manic episode, he feared being near him from the time being. He just watched him calmly walk out the door after he unlocked it, taking a moment to glance back with those green eyes of his. Green eyes that looked to be glowing.
The next day Sonic came back, still feeling sort of off, but now with a splitting headache. He took the day off because of it, everything hurt so bad. Tails asked him about what happened last night, but he said he didn’t remember anything. He just wanted to take a tone of painkillers and sleep. Tails kept being persistent, wanting to get to the bottom of his manic episode, but Sonic didn’t say much that was useful, mostly because the splitting headache he had prevented him from thinking clearly. That, and he kept interrupting himself to talk to someone who wasn’t there, occasionally screaming at it to “shut up”.
Tails only got affected by the emerald when he followed Sonic the next time he wandered out of the house .
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So I've seen some people talk about how Belos ruined the human Realm for Hunter by possessing him and killing Flapjack and that's why he was ready to go back to the Demon Realm, but honestly I take a slightly different interpretation.
Having grown up in an abusive home that I managed to escape from the scene rang with extreme familiarity and felt like it was depicting what happens if you reach a turning point and and are able to find the strength to fight back against your abuser. (Which is great to see in kid's media, love it, it's so encouraging wrt to your *right* to think your abuser is jackass.)
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I mean at the end of the day, Belos had already "ruined" the Demon Realm, too. It was the place where Hunter was abused and manipulated. People have pointed out in some meta that he talks about "that throne room" the way abuse victims talk about "that house" when talking about where they were abused. Because that throne room was where he emotionally abused and if the implications about physical abuse are right, it's where he was likely physically abused as well, because of the privacy there.
We see the throne room is the private place where Hunter is expected to drop to a knee and bow before him, and to stay mostly still even as Belos nearly strikes his face. It's the place where sometimes it's only Hunter and Belos, where he's free to hurt him all he wants, with words or blows.
That said, I do think the human world was very good for him and definitely a revelation. It was a place where the nearest adult, Camila, was kind and nurturing and willing to take on parenting a whole gaggle of kids, constantly trying to figure out what's best for them (hence the trying to figure out where to find apple blood and their diets, etc).
It was safe for him to take up soft, non-combat hobbies useless to being a Coven guard like sewing (gently taught to him by Camila, a kind adult) to pick up nerdy interests like cosplay and basically being a Trekkie, and to wear comfy sweaters (and crocs!) instead of things with utility or decorum.
The human world being a place without Belos made him feel safe enough to be a normal teen. Openly. Not in secret, talking to online friends on Penstagram on his Scroll where Belos couldn't see (a hugely accurate thing for a lot of abuse victims, online friends being a lifeline).
But unfortunately Belos was there, and alive, and as long as Belos is alive he's going to try to hurt Hunter, his home realm, Hunter's loved ones, and their loved ones.
After Flapjack dies the worst has happened. Belos came after him. Again. He literally controlled his body itself, and bored his way under his skin. Given he was consuming the flesh of animals and how he was back to full size after leaving Hunter, and Hunter was injured in the spots where he was goo, and needed to be healed, he possibly even dissolved and consumed some of his body.
And he killed his first friend - and lbr his best friend. With Hunter's own hands.
But the thing that makes it not just about something bad happening on Earth is that he still clearly loves parts of his home realm. There are things there he's always wanted that he still wants to have and tells Belos as such. Being a normal student at Hexside. Flyer derby with his friends. Learning about wild magic and Palismen-carving. He still calls it "home" probably in part for all the things there that he wanted to have growing up that Belos wouldn't let him. Things he's ready to fight for.
He loves things in both worlds, and Belos is clearly a threat in both worlds - a threat Hunter finally managed to resist. And even though Flapjack died, Hunter's still alive to fight because of his sacrifice.
He's ready to fight to make Belos pay for his deceit, abuse, and forced isolation; for trying to kill his world on the Day of Unity; for attacking his friends; and for his Palisman's murder.
It doesn't seem like he's leaving the human world because it's ruined, it comes off more like he's finally overcome his fear enough to go back to reclaim the world where he was abused because it's the home of his friends and because of all the good in it he always wanted to have. It's time to go home and make it safe enough to be home.
Yes, he looks exhausted, but he's the first one to go through after Belos, which is pretty fearless. It doesn't read like defeat, it reads like he's ready to walk through the portal and send an old man straight to hell.
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thissortofsorcery · 1 year
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Billy wakes up all at once. His first instinct is to control his breathing, pretend he’s still asleep. He’s pretty sure he just heard the door to his room open, and there it is, the sound of it creaking closed again. Something about it is off, but he can’t place it.
There’s someone in his room. He can hear the footsteps nearing the bed, soft, and Billy’s just waiting for it- Any minute now his dad is gonna yank him up by his hair-
“Billy? Did I wake you up?” It’s Steve. It’s Steve’s soft, worried voice beside the bed, because he’s in the bedroom he shares with Steve, in the apartment he shares with Steve, all the way in Santa Monica, and he’s twenty years old, not seventeen anymore.
Billy’s whole body relaxes, sagging on the bed, and he rubs a shaking hand on his face.
“It’s okay,” Billy says.
Steve swears under his breath and climbs on the bed, wrapping both his arms around Billy and burying his nose in Billy’s hair.
“Sorry, baby,” Steve says, and kisses his forehead. “I just went to the bathroom.”
“It’s okay,” Billy says again.
It’s so easy to melt into Steve, to rub his face into Steve’s collarbone and smell his skin, to let the feeling of him wash away every bad feeling, every bad thought in his head. In this bed, in this room, there’s only ever been Billy and Steve, and how much they love each other. How safe Steve makes Billy feel.
Steve runs his fingers up and down Billy’s spine, making his skin tingle. Billy lets out a long groan.
“Think you can go back to sleep?” Steve asks in his ear, pressing impossibly closer. It already feels like they’re fusing together.
“Think so,” Billy mumbles. To be honest, his eyes are already halfway closed, and he’s listening to Steve’s steady heartbeat, and the rhythmic feeling of Steve’s nails on his back is incredibly soothing. “I love you.”
“Love you too,” Steve whispers back. “I’ll be here.”
Billy means to say something back, but whatever it is is lost to sleep. He dreams of Steve.
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b4kuch1n · 6 months
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crumbs in your bed
transcript
#bakuspecial#comic#horror#cw: child abuse#cw: body horror#ask to tag#hi! hello. this is basically just a goosebump story I think. or a scary stories to tell in the dark entry#that's kinda what I aim for? along with the good ol vibe of fuan no tane#and also the like. Thing in east asian art where they make the main character a generic white person and then#every other thing about the setting is deeply recogniseably common asian shit lmao#that's entertainment for me. this came about extremely haphazardly... its why the first two pages look nothing like#the rest of it fsdjfhdsjhf. I slammed those out at a cafe like two days ago#went into this one no plan outside of a general sense of direction#I dont think Ive ever actually designed a single character in any of the short horror comics I did. like either its me or#I made someone up as I went. genuinely didnt know what the character'd look like until I sketched em#and then I kept referencing previous panels to draw em. dont know if I recommend this method#mmmm on reread not super sure if the sound effect of the bed leaving the room is clear enough... oh well there are other comics#been writing a lot about food and places recently Ive found out. oh yeah dyou know whats funny#I watched a wayner highlight vid of the kingdom heart charity stream today (I do not know anything about kingdom heart) and realized#how much of kingdom heart (at least the first one) is about like. places.#which is like. good job baku great deep read there isn't kingdom heart literally behind a door. arent there doors all over the place.#isnt the biggest symbol from that game taht EVERYONE knows about the KEYblade. for locks on door#fskdjfhdj but yeah its just. very cool to me that that game really does have iconic recogniseable sites. like the scenes are all tied to#where they happen at. and the climactic battle happens in a black void around a door. its good#good story about leaving ur home after ur friends aren't there anymore and being changed so much by what you go through that#you can no longer call where you started at home anymore. I am being conned by the music#anyways. yeah I go sleep now. powered thru the last 4 pages of this so its done and out there. hope my bed will not do this#have a good night lads! be careful of bugs
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msfcatlover · 1 year
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Headcanon based solely on that one scene from DC vs Vampires where Damian’s like “I don’t drink tea,” and Alfred’s like, “I know, so I made you hot coco instead.”
In the League of Assassins, Damian’s palate was tested as much as his battle skills or intelligence, and Ra’s primarily used different tea blends in order to do this. Given the punishments every time Damian made a mistake, Damian both prides himself on his skill in preparing & identifying basically any tea on the planet, and also hates the stuff. All of it. There’s about 80 triggers around the entire tea-process for him, and even the consistency of the slightly-thickened water makes it hard for him to choke it down. 
Fortunately, Alfred makes hot chocolate with boiled milk & melted chunks rather than hot water & powder, so Damian can still have that. (Just once, one of Damian’s siblings tried to give him instant hot coco when he stayed late at their house, and Damian immediately spat it back into the cup, called it disgusting, and proceeded to brush his teeth until his gums bled trying to get the feeling out of his mouth. They were very offended until around the 4th re-brush, when they started to realize something might actually be wrong.)
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dustorphan · 1 year
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I am eating child abuse salad tonight
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anniebuddy · 2 years
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Cassandra Cain & “Stop”
Okay so, I’m still early in, so apologies if I’m missing some other clues or interpretations, or if I’m just getting things plain wrong (anyone is welcome to correct me or just add their own takes ^^) - but; I noticed and wanted to appreciate how the concept of “stop” factors in to Cassandra’s origin. Like, communicating “stop” - telling something or someone to “stop”. For one, it’s the first word she successfully learns how to speak;
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Batman #567
And she first spoke it when David Cain reunited with her;
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Batman #567
It goes on to be the only word she can speak for a while.
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Azrael: Agent of the Bat #61
And even prior to her first utterance of the word, Cassandra is shown to have learned how to express the idea of communicating “stop” in a language more comfortable to her - physicality.
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Batman #567
It’s a phrase she’s taken to. And you can see why it would appeal to her. Why it’s so significant that the first word she speaks is one that is able to both disapprove of and order the ceasing of an action, after living a life deprived of that level of control.
After all, she first verbalizes it only after being reminded of what was the most traumatic result of this power imbalance growing up.
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Batman #567
And when she repeats it, the comparison is made even more obvious; by placing it side-by-side with what was likely the biggest, and earliest, attempt to communicate that idea, using the only language she'd known - violence.
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Batman #567
None of that is to say the idea of being able to just say “stop” suddenly came to her in THIS moment, at 17 years old. But it seems likely she picked it up only after leaving Cain. 
Children are impressionable, and are going to defer to adults at a young age. As a parent, I don’t think Cain left any room for her to believe the life he was raising her for was optionable. And I believe the significance of this moment is that Cass has come face-to-face with him, and is now able to tell him to stop - to impart her disapproval, and demand adherence. Using both languages.
There lies the difference between these two scenes. Cass isn’t a confused child anymore, her escape from Cain isn’t defined by impulse, and certainly not misunderstanding - all of which are what David Cain seems to assume of her in the way he approaches her. She knows what she means to say. And why she’s saying it. She knows she doesn’t want to be deprived of control any longer. And her expression as she repeats it seems to be at peace in finally relaying that to him.
It’s Cass who’s internally comparing the events. And it’s Cain who can’t see the difference, still chasing after that wounded dove he can coax back into a cage.
And it’s also not a purely verbal idea! With the way things go, I don’t see it as a case of “speech is the pinnacle of expression”. Cass continues to communicate “stop” through physical signals, because at the end of the day, that is more natural for her. And it’s perfectly capable of communicating the same thing. For example, her continued use of the raised hand gesture;
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Detective Comics #734
As well as other gestures she’s picked up throughout her life. One comes specifically from David Cain’s training, in fact; which provides a perfect example of how Cain methodized control over people in his time - and how Cassandra has flipped that around and taken control of herself. All so she can communicate that there’s nothing anyone can do to stop her from doing what she’s going to do. Which, in this case, is stopping Cain himself from hurting more people.
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Detective Comics #734
And by the time she does just that, even David Cain is starting to realize this. By her own volition, Cass tracked him down - foiled his plans - and once again, said “stop”.
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Detective Comics #734
And for once, David Cain realizes she means it. There’s nothing he can do. 
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Detective Comics #734
Cassandra has outgrown him.
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franki-lew-yo · 1 year
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POV: You're a pregnant witch but your human himbo husbo isn't using his brain-
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-the post is no longer fun from this point on because it's not allowed to be-
Content warning under cut: restraining, child abuse, ableism, blurry read that needs to be read in separate tabs
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All these comics exist cuz I rewatched The Blaire Witch Project and The VVitch (who's dialogue is directly lifted in this comic) recently.
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vaxxy-the-raven · 1 year
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Thinking about little Vax being abandoned by his sister, curling up crying on the ground because he's okay being nothing to everyone else, but she's his whole world and he needs her so badly.
He would take every scolding, every beating, meant for her.
He would stand in her way and take every arrow meant for her.
He would sell his soul for her.
But she doesn't need him.
She doesn't want him.
He's a child still, really.
Barely a teen, having just ran away from a horrible life that only wanted to hurt him.
If it meant having her back at his side he'd go back to Syngorn and endure it all just for her.
He would take every nasty insult and closed fist his father threw their way if it meant Vex would stay by his side forever.
But she's gone and he's all alone, unwanted and unworthy.
Little does he know that he's so worthy that a Goddess has already laid claim to his very soul.
Little does he know that one day it would be his sister in his position.
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indieblueart · 3 months
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whats maeve's deal?? shes so cute!
OUGH TY FOR ASKING!!!!
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Maeve is an IDV oc, with her game title being “Dollmaker”. She’s a quirky, sharp-tongued, and upbeat gal with a passion for dolls, especially the three haunted dolls that always accompany her; Megaera, Alecto, and Tisiphone. However, under the surface, she’s a cunning and ruthless woman with more than a few skeletons in her closet.
Backstory and more info under the cut; content warning for murder, death, and child abuse. More info can be found on her lore doc here.
Maeve’s ability to interact with the deceased comes from a near-death experience when she was quite young; her uncle (Baron Shithead McCarthy), who adopted her after her parent’s death, attempted to kill her in order to take her inheritance for himself. However, the gunshot did not kill her, it just barely missed her heart. Waking up later that night in a grave, she dug herself out and walked back to town, much to the surprise of everyone there. She recovered, but the incident changed her quite a bit. After her little brush with death, she began noticing things that others could not. Primarily, she could see and talk to people that didn’t really exist, fragments of memories from ages gone by. She also learned that these memories have “homes” in the form of places, things, and even people.
Upon voicing these oddities, however, her uncle quickly declared her hysterical and had her shipped off to White Sand Street Asylum, a place chock-full of ghosts for her to practice her new abilities on. She quickly gained a penchant for being a sharp-tongued troublemaker with her hands in every other incident, damaging valuable equipment and generally causing a good old ruckus. This is where she gained her three ghostly besties: Alecto, who was stabbed, Megaera, who was electrocuted, and Tisiphone, who was mauled. She was able to transfer them to new “homes” in the form of dolls she made out of old clothes she snagged, making them her little partners in crime. While she was there, she also befriended Alice for a short time, retrieving her doll and fixing it for her when she first arrived.
After several years at White Sand, it was clear to most everyone that there was nothing actually “wrong” with Maeve, and any attempt to test on her was more likely to hurt several people then yield any results. Several staff there had even come to appreciate her spitfire personality within the Asylum’s depressing walls. On the down-low, she wasn’t really treated like a patient anymore, instead simply left to her own devices, it was safer for everyone that way. Noticing her passion with sewing, several of the staff there offered her more sewing supplies to work with, with which she went on to create toys and clothes for various patients there. Maeve found a lifelong love for crafting and gift-giving, with every tired smile and spark of hope pushing her towards her newfound dream.
When word of her improvement reached back home, her uncle sent word for her to return, as she was almost of a marriageable age. Maeve, however, had been nursing quite a grudge against him since his little murder attempt, and fighting fire with fire had already gotten her this far. Several days later, Baron McCarthy is nowhere to be found, and the only change to the house is a strange doll in the likeness of the Baron. Maeve takes her inheritance and uses it to purchase a small storefront, where she begins selling her crafts. However, the town soon starts experiencing some mysterious disappearances….
Maeve’s murderous tendencies are rather strange, for her, it’s a form of justice, making sure nobody has to suffer like she did. She targets abusive parents and relatives, especially those who go after children, whittling down their sanity with her ghostly friends until they repent their ways, go mad, or, if she decides it’s necessary, eliminating them entirely. She’s well aware that it’s dirty work, but for her, it’s a necessary job only she can take on. Even though she’s genuinely quite cheerful, she plays up the silly, naive persona to sell her act, keeping a well-maintained front while her friends are at work behind the scenes.
In all other fields, Maeve could be considered a very good person. She loves children, regularly sending money and toys to orphanages in her area and giving clothes and protection to the homeless kids that hang around her shop. She dotes on the spirits that make their homes in her dolls, regularly going out to offer safe places to memories that would otherwise be exorcized, and many locals know her as a wonderful conversationalist and a very helpful member of the community. Her “justice” is her little secret, and she intends to take it to her grave.
I don’t have toooooo much about her game just yet but the main points so far are!:
Maeve comes to the manor not on a game invitation, but on a commission; someone from the manor asked her to make a doll in the likeness of a very particular blonde-haired little girl, and requested a personal delivery.
Orpheus is participating! Maeve clocks him as a Bad Dude(TM) immediately, because every single ghost in the manor HATES him. Most of the preliminary events are Orpheus/Nightmare and Maeve playing logical 4d chess with ghostly possession against each other while the other players are very, very confused.
Maeve escapes! By the skin of her teeth, but once she’s figured out what Orpheus is really up to, she books it out of the manor before the actual game even starts. She goes into hiding for a bit while she turns over a new leaf about the whole murder thing and decides to make up for her past mistakes as best she can. Once the manor burns, she regularly returns there to collect the various memories lingering there and grant them some sense of respite.
Also more art of her because,,, I love she,,,,
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If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! As I said above the cut, her lore doc, which contains some info about her skills and deductions, can be found here.
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