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ghelgheli · 7 months

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Historians are rarely challenged just for applying words like ‘woman’ and ‘man’ to the past; it would not inevitably cause a backlash to say that a historical figure wanted power, or grieved, or felt anger. A trans historian, though, is caught in the double-bind of the DSM-5. Our experiences and our desires are quite literally mad. We do not have the social license to see ourselves fractured and reflected in historical figures; we are standing in the wrong place to write. Put simply, if you foreclose trans readings, you foreclose trans writing. When we reflect on the similarities between our lives and those of historical figures, we are accused of spreading our social contagion to the dead. To read our own anamorphoses in a text, to communicate that to a cis academic establishment who have rendered our unqualified subjectivities unimaginable, we are forced to accuse historical figures of transness. And then, of course, we are chastised for pathologising them. For a trans historian, it is not viable to simply universalise our experiences of gender. In order to relate to historical figures’ gendered experiences in our writing in a way that is legible to cis readers, we have to assert that those figures were trans. There is a gap to be bridged, and the onus to bridge it falls on us… Transmisogyny and anti-effeminacy were and are integral to the structure of patriarchy and therefore to cisness (or vice-versa). In ‘Monster Culture (Seven Theses)’, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen proposed a methodology for reading cultures: ‘from the monsters they engender’. In concluding this sketch of Byzantine cisness, I would like to attempt to apply this method. To monster a group or an individual is a violent act, and through examining the way transfemininity was monstered in Byzantium, we can begin to understand the shape of the violent regulation of gendered possibilities that constituted Byzantine cisness… Synesius [of Cyrene] did not simply compare the image of the elegantly coiffed effeminate with the shiny dome of the soldier’s helmet; he went one step further, proclaiming that pretty hair was the give-away for hidden effeminacy. He rails against ‘effeminate wretches’ who ‘make a cult of their hair’, who he suggests engage in sex work not out of economic necessity but as an act of sex and gender exhibitionism, to ‘display fully the effeminacy of their character’. Then, he goes on to say:

And whoever is secretly perverted, even if he should swear the contrary in the marketplace, and should present no other proof of being an acolyte of Cotys save only in a great care of his hair, anointing it and arranging it in ringlets, he might well be denounced to all as one who has celebrated orgies to the Chian goddess and the Ithyphalli.

The implication is clear: long, well kempt, perfumed and curled hair is not just hair, it is a signifier, one that signals total abnegation of manhood, and therefore of cisness. This demonstrates one of the mechanisms by which cisness was maintained and enforced in the Byzantine world. Relatively minor embodied gender transgressions, like too-long or too-pretty hair, could be linked to transfemininity and to sexual receptivity, the two farthest points from patriarchal manhood. That is not to say that this prevented people from committing such gender transgressions; rather that it made them risky, a weapon that could be used against you by anyone who wanted to do you harm. The other thing demonstrated by Synesius’ invective is the relationship between effeminacy, unmasculine vanity and presumed sexual receptivity. It would be tempting, based on the relationship Synesius draws between long beautiful hair and receptive anal sex, to suggest that the animating force of this antipathy is, if not homophobia, a narrower pre-modern equivalent. There is, however, a fantastically complicating detail in Synesius’ remark on the reasons such ‘effeminates’ engage in sex work: being sexually available is presented as an instrumental, rather than terminal value. In Synesius’ imagination, sex work is the means, but social recognition of the feminine gender of the sex worker is the end: to ‘display fully the effeminacy of their character’. The monster Synesius invokes to shore-up his own gender position, to guard his own cisness and his access to hegemonic masculinity, is an unambiguously transmisogynist fantasy. It is here that Byzantine cisness most sharply converges with twenty-first-century cisness.

‘Selective Historians’: The Construction of Cisness in Byzantine and Byzantinist Texts, Ilya Maude [DOI]

#reading #gender

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apoemaday · 9 months

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The Quiet World

by Jeffrey McDaniel

In an effort to get people to look into each other’s eyes more, and also to appease the mutes, the government has decided to allot each person exactly one hundred and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear without saying hello. In the restaurant I point at chicken noodle soup. I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover, proudly say I only used fifty-nine today. I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond, I know she’s used up all her words, so I slowly whisper I love you thirty-two and a third times. After that, we just sit on the line and listen to each other breathe.

#poetry #jeffrey mcdaniel #the quiet world

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blossomthepinkbunny · 3 months

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Charlie as an underdeveloped character

One thing I was genuinely dissapointed by when watching Hazbin Hotel was that they never cared to dive into Charlie's Morality more.

I feel like a lot of people can agree that Charlie felt very flat/sidelined in a show she was supposed to be the main character of and I think that that's because they ran out of Character Moments for her. Her Backstory is pretty much just infodumped at the start so there's nothing you can really explore there (except for her relationship with her parents ig but they only really brought that up and resolved it in one episode). Alastor has the mystery behind him of what his goals really are, Angel Dust has his arc about standing up to his abuser, Vaggie has her dramatic backstory reveal thing and Sir pentious gets focus as the one real guest at the hotel and with his goal to be redeemed.

Charlie really has no conflict at all, which is weird since the whole plot is that her idea is relentlessly mocked and never succeeds until the end. But she doesn't have a personal conflict. All the issues she faces come from the ignorance of the people around her who don't support her, but never from who she is. She never has to change. They try to hint at this with her being possibly invasive and not respecting boundaries in the Angel Dust and Valentino episode. But the episode doesn't focus on her and Angel as they talk it out and she realizes how she might have to change as well (from how I remember it). It focuses on Husk and Angel's relationship instead.

I feel like the easiest route they could've taken for her character was that of a moral dilemma. Charlie believes in second chances and being able to change demons and her opposite is Adam, who doesn't think demons should be redeemed and should just be killed instead. But it's never specified if Charlie truly believes everyone deserves a second chance or if there are restrictions to that. Adam sings a song in the first episode and explaines his reasoning for why he believes demons shouldn't be saved, which is that they had their chance to be good and didn't choose it and now they can't expect another one (I guess the real reason is that he's just an asshole who doesn't care but that's because Vivzepop can't write Villains so I'll just pretend like that's his real reason).

The problem is that Adam is presented as fully in the wrong and I just don't agree with that. I'm not saying he's right with killing random demons of course but the show never takes the time to consider that sometimes people go to hell because they are actually terrible and have done inexcusable things. Like yeah, someone who had an addicition or a mental health problem while they were alive obviously doesn't deserve eternal suffering without any chance for redeemability, but we know that those aren't the only people that go to hell (in the pilot it's literally confirmed that real life criminals like Jeffrey Dahmer are also down there).

The show blatanly shows us characters like Valentino who are shown to do irredeemable things and be purely evil.

My question is just if Charlie would also look at someone like Valentino and say: "Yeah they deserve to be saved and get a second chance". She obviously thinks Valentino sucks, which we see in the Episode were she meets him.

So like, what would she have done if in the second episode someone like him stood at their door and wanted to be redeemed instead of Sir Pentious. Does she draw a line? Or would she have really heard him out? Her morality with this "everybody deserves a second chance" attitude is so underexplored even though it would have been the perfect place to develop her more. If they had confronted her with an actually tough situation, where she is presented with a truly terrible person, they could've had two interesting ways to take her character.

She could've accepted the person and with that she'd have taken her role a fully 'good' saviour for the demons. Someone who is truly without judgement, or atleast believes that there is good in everyone that just has to be brought out. Which would've also given room to think about if people like that are even inherently good, if they can 'excuse' the actions of terrible people and still want to help them. This would have made her a very extreme character in her believes, but something coherent and definitive is actually something Charlie desperately needs for her characterization.

The other way would've had her reject the person and with that she would have to face the idea that maybe Adam isn't fully wrong. In that situation she would have found herself in a similar position to the Angels in heaven, where she basically is the one deciding over what's acceptable and what isn't. This could lead to her having a moral dilemma. Is she even a good person if she's deciding what's moral and what isn't? Can she just be okay with making exceptions to her idea to protect her people? Does she even want to view EVERY demon as her family? Or does she think there are some demons that maybe deserve death?

I'm just really dissapointed that the show takes such an interesting idea and such a difficult topic and then just does nothing with it. What we view as bad and good and which people we judge harder than others will always depend on social norms and the situation. It's a topic with no real right and wrong answer because there are so many things to consider. But this moral grey conflict that is literally one of the MAIN CONFLICTS in Hazbin Hotel is so incredibly underwritten, that it's not even funny.

Instead of acknowledging the difficulty of the subject Hazbin does what it does best and takes the easy route with seemingly clear right and wrong sides. This is especially stupid, since morally grey characters are supposed to be the point of the show. Like there are these demons who have done bad things and who aren't perfect, but that doesn't make them bad people. Its about revealing that a person has layers (which the writing doesn't). This is also a big point in Helluva Boss, where characters like Blitzø or Stolas who mess up repeatedly, are supposed to be shown as still having interests, aspirations, and good things to them.

The easy route which is taken constantly in both shows however makes it so that Charlie is completely in the right and anyone who criticises her is one of the evil people who try to ruin her plan, just like Adam. Who's also such a straw man for anyone who even dares to bring any objection to Charlies ideas, because everyone who does is apparently a hypocrite who just doesn't understand her and would rather side with genocide (I wonder were Vivzepop takes her inspiration from).

Charlies writing was just really dissapointing with almost never any reflection being done on her part. She doesn't have really striking moments, discussions or ideas to her in a show she's supposed to lead. That's just an issue that comes with Vivzepop never really putting as much work into her female characters, even tough they would desperately need it.

I know that only the first season is out so far, but I highly doubt thay they'll bring up a discussion like this in s2. Especially since Adam is dead now and the Angels will probably try to work more with the demons, after Sir Pentious' redemtion and the reveal of the exterminations to them. Also the Vees, Lillith and Alastor will be more of focus from what we can assume by the ending scenes.

I just don’t like that Viv can take interesting conflicts and write them to be completely one-dimensional and boring.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel charlie #hazbin hotel critical #hazbin hotel criticism #hazbin hotel critique #helluva boss #charlie morningstar #vivzepop critical #vivziepop

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gentlebeardsbarngrill · 4 months

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02/02/2024 Daily Recap

TLDR; SaveOFMDCrew Tumblr Updates; How To Help; Twitter Hashtags; Daily Lists; Reminders: Appreciation Events; Live Rewatch OFMD Party with Q+; Operation Auxiliary Wardrobe; Cast & Crew Sightings; New Watch Partys; Actually reasonable Articles; Stats; Petition Status; Morale; Love Notes; Daily Darby/Tonight's Taika

= Save OFMD Crew Tumblr Up =

The SaveOFMDCrew Tumblr is finally up and running! Due to some weirdness with accounts they'll be under @saveofmdcrewmates as opposed to the regular name. This will have the same news as the other platforms so feel free to give them a follow.

== How To Help ==

Twitter folks: looks like @SaveOFMDCrew as well as several other people who've been leading the charge on twitter wanted to remind everyone on when to use what hashtags. Apparently there's been some cross pollination and they wanted to try and clear it up. Thank you to @havethisonelife for summarising.

Haterade Posts:

#OhBloysHeMad , #TheNumbersWereThere, #FinishOurStories Avoid: #DontStreamOnMax

When Advertising ourselves:

#SaveOFMD #AdoptOurCrew

Horny Posts:

No tags (Edit: @SaveOFMDCrew said it was ok to use #OurFlagMeansDeath on horny posts, just no other tags).

Suggestions for How to Help

Looking for ways to help? There are still daily ideas for you here: How To Help Save OFMD Task List - US How to Help Save OFMD Task List - Outside US

==Reminders!==

Cast Appreciation Events!

Tomorrow is Day of Damien! A day to shower Damien Gerard (Father Teach) with support and kindness for all he's done for our fandom! He has been hitting #SaveOFMD events pretty hard trying to support us!

When to start: Saturday February 3rd, 6 AM CST, 7 AM ET, 4 AM PT, 12 PM GMT Hashtags: #DayOfDamien

His Social Media Accounts:

Linktree (has his cashapp, etc) / Instagram / Twitter / Twitch / Tiktok

== Live - Rewatch Party with Q+! ==

This rewatch party is particularly important because the crew is really trying to get people hyped for the BBC launch of s2 on Feb 5. Everyone is hoping that if the s2 launch in the UK shows huge interest it'll be a huge boon for the potential for s3 with the networks.

Sunday Feb 4, 2 PM GMT / 9 AM ET / 6 AM PT

Watch Party Hashtags:

#OurFlagMeansRewatch

#AdoptOurCrew

#SaveOFMD

#OurFlagBBC

=Operation Auxiliary Wardrobe=

Do you do applique, crochet, cross stitch, embroidery, knitting, needle felt or any other textile-based OFMD Art? Wanna join a fun group of participants? Starting next week there will be a recruiting drive for a new fabric+thread project mid-month if people are interested! If you want to jump in now you can message @ForceMonument on twitter, otherwise other avenues will be opened sometime in the coming weeks!

=Cast & Crew Sightings =

This is from 01/26/2024 but I missed it and I feel like it needs to be shared. Dominic Burgess being a goofball badass as Jeffrey Fettering singing a 18th century version of the Friends theme song. <3 (Apologies for the quality of the video, I had to record it off my screen so people didn't have to go to Twitter). Twitter Post.

Wee John Wednesdays Mondays are back!

Mon 5th Feb, 10.30pm on Kristian Nairn's Instagram

=NEW WATCH PARTIES =

You can see a running list of current/upcoming watch parties here.

Thank you @libbyroseitm for the new Watch Party!

Uncle Season 1 watch party on i-player. Thurs 15th + Fri 16th Feb (GMT - 8 PM , ET - 3PM, PST - 12 PM)

Catered specifically for the UK crew, but we'd be thrilled for anyone else using VPN's to join in too! Here's an article on how to join via VPN

WatchParty Hashtags:

#ForTheNewUncle

#SaveOFMD

#AdoptOurCrew

== Articles ==

Finally! The Q+ Article is wonderful and very uplifting.

Our Flag Means Death: Why It Deserves to Find a New Harbor

The 10 best TV shows to watch this week, from Mr and Mrs Smith to One Day

Hairy Bikers Go West, Death In Paradise and Wheel of Fortune: TV highlights this week

The Uncertain Fate of “Our Flag Means Death” Season 3: A Closer Look

Every show canceled so far in 2024

Netflix adds one of ‘the best shows of 2022’ after it was dropped by HBO Max

== STATS ==

Thanks to @Seven_Sugars over on twitter for this info and analysis.

Also, as always, more fun stats from @meowzawowza on twitter from the Netherlands.

== Petition Status ==

Almost to 84K signatures friends!

== Morale ==

I know we're ending day 24 of being the Gravy Basket. It's been a lonnnnng several weeks. We haven't heard from chaos dad in around a week now, so it may seem again like things are slowing down again. As several folks have mentioned before, not every day can be ground breaking, but seeing everyone in the community getting together, having fun with watch parties, discussing ofmd meta, making new art and fanfiction, it feels like the momentum is still there. We often don't see many updates on the weekend so take this time to relax, take a break, maybe do the rewatch party if you have time on Sunday. I did want to bring up, this article on The Tourist is cool because it highlights that HBOMax has cancelled some very highly rated shows in the past and Netflix has picked up on them-- and while we didn't see anything from the 2024 Netflix announcements (as @poison-into-positivity mentioned, even if it was picked up it wouldn't be for 2024) that doesn't mean it's not still a possibility. So don't give up hope. It's going to take some time to get through to the networks, and we'll keep keeping at it.

If you are feeling down or concerned, be sure to reach out to your fellow crew, we're all here for you.

== Love Notes ==

Hey lovelies. You are so incredibly strong, do you know that? No matter what's going on in your life, you're still here. Every single day you get back up, and you keep going. That is incredibly powerful, and incredibly strong, and don't let anyone tell you any different. Do you think our buddy Rhys let's anyone tell him he's not the baddest ass mf on the planet? Nope.

If all you did today was get out of bed, or take a shower, or walk your dog, and nothing else, you kicked today's ass. If you wrote fanfiction, or watched a tv show, you kicked today's ass. They say that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and while I see where that phrase is coming from I like to think of it a bit differently. What doesn't kill you, gives you a glimpse of just how strong you already were. You are the reason you are kind, you are the reason you are strong, you are the reason you continue to grow. You. Outside forces can help shape you, but you have always been strong even when you have felt your weakest, it's just not always easy to see. That strength is so important, and so is your need to rest. Remember to take a break from all the stressors of your life, whether that be a shower, or a 5 minute walk, or a day or a week away from the internet, whatever works for you. Even the strongest bridge in the world can break when there's too much weight on it. That doesn't mean the bridge is any less strong, it means something extremely heavy pushed it past its limits. Anyway, enough of my ramblings, just please know, everyone out here in the crew are so incredibly proud of you, we're rooting for you, and we're so very grateful you're still here with us.

===================================

Speaking of resting....Reminder! No recap for 02/03/2024 unless someone else wants to do one! Please feel free to, obviously! I will be off drinking after taking a dip in some hotsprings and then watching OFMD with two friends who have yet to see it. So if I show up lurking and drunk-tumblr you all, I sincerely apologize, but I hope if I do that drunk Abby is at least amusing. Love yall <3

===================================

== Daily Darby / Tonight's Taika ==

If you wanna see someone else other than these two in these gifs from OFMD let me know, we can switch it up a bit.

#ofmd daily recap #ofmd daily recaps #daily ofmd recap #daily ofmd recaps #ofmd #our flag means death #stede bonnet #gentlebeard #renew as a crew #edward teach #save ofmd #rhys darby #blackbonnet #save our flag means death #Taika Waititi #adopt our crew #ofmd renewal #renew our flag means death

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respectthepetty · 4 months

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Pit Babe Jeff x Alan & Kenta x Pete Colors Ep. 11

I'm challenging myself with this show and seeing how good my color skills really are, so I'm doing my normal thing of watching it double-speed on mute, but now, the captions are off also. It's just colors and vibes here.

Disclaimer: I've been listening to Drake's "You Broke My Heart (Fuck My Ex)" on repeat for over two hours, so I'm *in* my feels, and all of them are salty.

Jeffrey, the red? Really?! Is it because you are looking at Barbie suffering and know the truth?! YOU KNOW, MOTHERF*CKER!

Love that Pete's side starts with the blue-est drink because he is a GOOD MAN, while Waymond's side begins with the non-blue side since he cannot pick a side in this color war!

Peter, I know you were a red, but I also notice you in that blue blazer, and the way you look at Waymond. I wish Waymond could see that no matter how much the red may linger, he NEEDS to make a choice. Be blue. Commit to it, Way Way.

Babe is back in black, Alan is blue, and Jeffrey is a LIAR!

"You broke my heart. I had my doubts about you from the start! I swear you're dead to me. Does Mercedes make a hearse? FUCK MY EX!"

All I'm getting out of this is Jeffrey and Charles have a dad and Decanus was the fall guy for this very-dumb-plan. I am not a Dean apologist, but I am very much on his side, without a doubt, no hesitation.

Alan Scale - 12/10. Why?! WHY?! It's not even the damn outfits. IT'S THE RED TUBE OF PRODUCT PLACEMENT Y'ALL ARE SHARING! Are y'all secret agents?! Do y'all have superpowers? What in the hell is y'alls deal?!

KIMBERLY! Not wearing red. I wouldn't either. Fuck them hoes. You're a free man now. I love you and I like you.

Alan, you have never done anything wrong (expect apologize to lying Jeffrey), and you using the blue tube of product placement is healing my soul. I love you. I like you. I respect you.

Pete in the blue shirt too! My holy trinity is coming through. Kimberly, Alan, and Peter, you are good men, and I have never doubted you. You three will save the day like the PowerPuff Girls. Sugar, Spice, and Chemical-X. Beat the hell out of Mojo Jojo Big Red. And in case it's not clear: Alan = Buttercup, Kim = Blossom, Pete = Bubbles

Kentana, why do you have spies at Bubbles' place?! You were spying on him in the woods, and y'all had that moment. Why are you so obsessed with him?

Jeffrey, in the blue. Better be telling Buttercup you're sorry for LYING and that you love him. You will never find a better man. NEVER!

Oh, are you telling him that?!

I think you are! There is pink!

Buttercup, these was cheesy af, and I'm disgusted at myself for smiling when the hearts connected.

POP OFF, SIR! Sex on the blue bed!

Sex in the blue shower!

Cuddles in the blue bathroom! Jeffrey is gonna be blue one way or another, even if Alan has to -redacted- it into him.

Big Red did wear red once?! Color me shocked, but who are these kids in the past? A blue kid and red kid? Which one are you, Kentana?

I love that the blue is *right* there next to Kentana, yet he stays in the black. He is a Black Brooder, but he is blue-adjacent, and I just do not understand why he can't be loyal to the blue instead of the red.

Oh, wait! Was that them as kids?! Pete, in his red pants, emerged from the blue (because he has always been a GOOD MAN!), but . . . that means Kentana was the little blue kid? Kentana, what made you go black? The abuse? The manipulation? You and Barbara are the same text, but different font, and I just need you to be better. Kiss Peter and let him heal you because this is the second time you have pushed him against a wall, and I think you want any excuse to be on him.

Waymond, I'm stressed over your ass. Color-coded boys in love get happy endings, and unlike Kentana who is color coded black and Southwest Airlines and Vegas' Hedgehog who are just pure color chaos, you refuse to pick a damn color. And do you know what that means? No happy endings. You are paired with Peter, and he is trying with you, but it's episode 11 and you haven't solidified your color. Are you black? Are you blue? Are you red? Are you gonna kiss Peter because if not, Kentana sure looks like he will? ARE YOU GOING TO GET A HAPPY ENDING?!

Peter, always in the blue! ALWAYS! Give that blue to Waymond. Give that blue to Kentana. And kiss them! I cannot support Waymond and Kentana's wrongs if they don't kiss a boy (with consent, Waymond!)

KENTANA! In the dark, again. Pete is always coming from the blue, and you are always in the dark. SEE THE LIGHT, KENTANA!

Oh my god! The dark versus light. Y'all were best buddies since childhood. Quit your shit, Kentana. You are a good guy in there. I saw it in the beginning when you looked sad that Barbie was being hit, but I need you to act! I need you to do something, and I'm hoping it won't be sacrificing yourself. Kiss a man! Kiss Kimberly already! You and Waymond are scaring me!

OH SHIT!

Pete. Liked. It.

Waymond. Waymundo. Way. I thought you were supposed to be with Peter and Kimberly and Kentana would be the new Kardashians, but . . . are you going to be the sacrifice? You cannot settle on a color. You haven't kissed a man (with consent). You are drinking all the time. You were taking pills to cope with life. Kiss any man so I can know you are safe.

FUCK!

Way, please touch Whiny Winifred and convince him not to do shoot. Way, please do not take a bullet for Barbara to atone for your sins. Barbie can fix himself if he is shot. Way, please do not do this to me. Please. I'm begging you.

Don't. Fucking. Do. It.

#pit babe #pit babe the series #the colors mean things #and they will guide me the whole way through #color coded boys in love #episode 11 #way is gonna do it #he is gonna break my heart to redeem to himself #It's because I like Nut that I cannot be rationale about this #I'm gonna be stressed all week

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formosusiniquis · 9 months

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when you're fifteen

Even as he hands over the platter of chocolate chip miracles he makes, Steve sighs. It's a full bodied affair that makes Eddie nervous on instinct. "We need to talk about Mike."

It is and isn't a surprise.

Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson; Steve Harrington & Mike Wheeler WC: 4044 | Rated T | Tags/Themes: Good Babysitter Steve, Period Atypical Depictions of DnD, HoH!Steve, Disabled!Eddie Ao3

Eddie prided himself on his ability to manage a table. A forever DM, four years into a lifetime sentence, he can keep a story on track and, more importantly, keep tempers in check for hours at a time.

He kept track of a thousand little details across notebooks, binders, and just trapped in his own brain. He knew everything about his NPCs, the world, his player’s characters, and the things that drove his players nuts. He had plans, backup plans, and vague ideas of shit he could do if things went completely and totally off the rails despite all of those plans. That was one of the things he held fast on his tongue the first time he failed senior year. Of course he didn’t pass. He’d taken on the mantle of Dungeon Master. He had to put together a story that took into account: Jeff’s high stakes backstory with the missing mother and bounty on his head, Gareth’s need to flirt with anything age appropriate that had a pulse, and Joey’s tactical mind when it comes to battle. Wasn’t it enough that he was going to class, he had to do shit at home about it too?

He didn’t like saying it. He liked to bitch about it a lot, actually. Eddie wasn’t really sure what he’d do with himself if he wasn’t The DM. It was like a core part of his identity.

It made the current situation he was in more world rocking than he really wanted to deal with.

He liked to think, if he couldn’t feel the remaining muscles in his side screaming in agony because he was sitting wrong -- or for too long or both -- and if his lower back wasn’t seizing and spasming for the same or maybe a brand new reason it had decided to come up with today, that he’d be able to manage this table just as well as he always had. Eight really wasn’t that different from three.

Except that combat is impossible to manage, each round took forever and that’s when everyone was paying attention. Except that there hasn’t been a satisfying story moment for Jeffrey the Jovial or Dustin’s Sir Rathington in the last four sessions. Except that Erica has been scribbling something in her notebook that probably wasn’t campaign notes since she hadn’t called him on the plot hole he caught session planning a month ago and hasn’t been able to fix -- and is more likely to have something to do with the way he noticed her looking at Uhura and Chapel when she was watching Star Trek reruns with Steve.

Except that Mike has been screaming at Dustin and Lucas for the better part of five minutes and Eddie really isn’t sure how to fix it.

“The plan is stupid. Did you even spend more than ten seconds thinking about it or did you decide that Will could just roll another character and we could save the resources.”

“Will could roll another character. It's not the first time he's rolled another character.” Lucas points out for what might be the third time, Eddie’s lost count.

“This whole thing is about resources, Mike.” Dustin snaps, “We’ll all be rolling new characters if we go into this stupid fucking fight while Gareth has no spell slots, Lucas is down to three arrows, Joey’s already used his second wind, and half the party is below half health.”

“It doesn’t matter, if we don’t go into the fight now Will is going to turn into some bloodsucking vampire spawn.”

Eddie knows this is the point that he should grab the reins again. He should prompt one of them to make a decision, or better yet, take the decision away from them entirely. But there’s a numbness in his thigh that has somehow spread to his mouth; it’s different from the pain the rest of his body is in, not really better or worse, and just as distracting.

The rest of the table is quiet, boredom and annoyance plain on their faces. But they’ve also stopped looking to him to fix the problem. That’s the worst thing the Upside Down took from him, he thinks, even as his body is radiating pain from places he used to be able to forget he had.

“Or maybe it’s a trap,” Lucas points out. And it should be, but Lucas is a far better tactician than Eddie who already knows he won’t want to deal with the work it would take to do that well. “Y’know since you made all your weak spots pretty clear to Lord Ellias.”

“Or,” Dustin drawls out with a Harrington’s level of bitch and ire, “we could trust Eddie to turn this into a fucking story moment.”

“You guys are both so full of shit, just-” Mike has his nose curled and lip snarled, Eddie can feel the breeze of the blade swinging down to deliver the death blow to this campaign and adventuring party.

“Alright time to take a break.” Steve claps his hands, an angel come from on high to save Eddie. “Get up, get a snack, move your feet. Give my dining room some time to air out before it smells like nerd forever.”

Mike turns the full weight of his aggression on to Steve, who hopefully has a damage immunity or advantage on saves at the very least otherwise this is looking like a short talk, “We can't just take a break. Do you not get what the stakes are here? We've got to save-”

“Save someone who will still be in danger in twenty minutes.” Steve steamrolls over Mike’s argument with an unaffected ease. Eddie can feel the mood of the table lift just a bit, now that they’re about to be rescued.

“You just don't get it.”

“I get that it's pretend.” In a pre-Vencapocalypse world that would have been enough to get Eddie fighting on Little Wheeler’s side, but much as DnD is still his life. Fuck, it is all just pretend. “Go take a lap.”

“Ugh why do we even come over here. We could do this at my house without washed up jocks interrupting us.” Mike says but he gets up. Storming off to god knows where in the monstrosity of Steve’s house. Will, quiet as he always seems to get when he’s the center of one of these drag outs, trails off after Mike with an eye roll at the other two sophomores and an apologetic shrug for Steve.

And Eddie has his table again. Quiet and still, waiting for him to say something. Like there’s even anything to say when his very own Deus Ex Machina is leaving the room without so much as a backward glance at the poor schmucks he’s saved. “Well,” he says with a clap of his hands, “My blood sugar is dropping, so I’m going to shove as many of those cookies I smelled earlier into my mouth as I can in twenty minutes.” Because as much as they weren’t looking to him before, they need the DM to break the spell of the table. That’s how the whole thing goes.

And they scatter once it breaks. Eddie’s original Hellfire boys stay at the table, their ease at the Harrington house has been hardwon and the argument has rekindled something nerdy and skittish in them. Erica has headed off to the corner of the house Steve has let her claim as her own, nose still buried in her notebook. He doesn’t know where Lucas and Dustin are, but wherever they’ve gone they aren’t around to watch him struggle to pull himself out of his throne with his cane. He should just give in and let Steve raise the seat, half the problem is that it sits too low -- but knowing that and being willing to admit it at any point other than when he’s in PT levels of misery from pulling himself up are very different things.

Steve has his back to the door again, by the time Eddie makes his way to the kitchen. He has a bizarre semi-awareness of his surroundings that can be hard to predict. Sometimes it’s freaky how Steve can call out Dustin or Erica from a different room with an almost parental ‘eyes in the back of his head’ sixth sense. Other times his own soulmate can get the drop on him, managing to get her arms wrapped around his middle before he even realizes they’re in the same room.

It’s better to slam his cane against the floor a couple times. To let Steve feel the vibrations through the floorboards with his sock feet, that way nobody has to get hurt or feel guilty for doing the hurting.

Getting to see Steve’s grin bloom across his face as he flips that famous hair and catches sight of Eddie isn’t so bad either.

Next to Steve, it’s safe to prop his cane against the counter. He can rest his hips against the sure, solid surface and relax in the presence of his boyfriend while the blood returns to his limbs and a new kind of discomfort settles in. A hand, warm and sudsy finds the back of his neck. A strong thumb digging into a knot that had been there since at least last week with an erotic precision.

“You’ve got to stop letting them keep you in that chair for so long.”

"If we take breaks we'll just be here longer."

He shrugs, pulling his other hand from the dish water to pull Eddie into a gentle hold. "So be here longer."

"You'd get sick of the fighting. I'd get sick of the fighting." Actually it was probably better not to remind Steve of that. "You know I really did want one of those famous Stevie Henderson cookies."

Even as he hands over the platter of chocolate chip miracles he makes, Steve sighs. It's a full bodied affair that makes Eddie nervous on instinct. "We need to talk about Mike."

It is and isn't a surprise. "I know the yelling is a lot, Sweetheart, I'm sorry. You don't have a migraine, do you? I can talk to him and make him chill out a bit." That last part is absolutely a lie; he doesn't think he could get Mike under control right now if he had a stun gun and half a pound of Argyle’s primo Cali weed.

Not that it matters Steve has on his scrunchy faced 'you're wrong about something,' look, Eddie just needs to give him the minute it'll take to get his thoughts together. "You know I love you right?"

“In this dimension and any others,” Eddie supplies.

Steve smiles, feather soft, and runs a soothing hand through Eddie's hair the way he always does right before he says something atrociously bitchy. "I turn my hearing aids off the second you all start playing. If I had to listen to your game three different times, three different ways I'd drive my car into a portal."

He keeps going the way he does when he's afraid he's been too mean and wants to try to soften his edges for general consumption, like Eddie hadn't fallen in love with him the first time he called Dusin a butthead. "This way you and Dust can still use me as a sounding board for your plots and theories and I don't have to listen to my favorite nerds try to remember if 5+7 is 11 or 12."

“So what’s?”

“I’m worried about him!” Steve insists. Eddie might pride himself on his ability to handle a table, but he knows Steve is proud of his way with the kids. His relationship with each of them is rich and distinct, the way he handles each of them unique.

But it’s Mike.

Something must cross his face. He can only call it something, because he’s honestly not sure what emotion he’s feeling other than headache and how many cookies can I eat before they start tasting like nausea. But something else must have been there that causes Steve to cross his arms and glare.

“Yeah, of course, you’re worried about him. We are worried about him. Why are we worried about him, other than worried about what an asshole he’s been lately?”

That was not the right thing to say either, Eddie’s really rolling straight ones today. Steve’s glare shutters even further closed, and seriously it’s Mike. The same kid who called Steve a washed up jock not ten minutes ago. Who takes every single offered opportunity, and even some that he makes himself, to bitch and glare at Hawkins own #1 babysitter and monster hunter.

“He’s a teenager with more trauma than a ‘Nam vet. But even if he weren’t he’s not an asshole for being barely fifteen and not knowing when to shut the hell up. Do you remember the kind of shit you were saying back then?”

Big brother Steve has successfully landed a critical hit. Eddie does remember the kind of shit he used to say. Just like he knows Steve remembers the kind of shit he used to say. And they both remember the shit that they used to say to one another. How Eddie called Steve a braindead future Reganite who wouldn’t know good taste if it spit in his mouth. How Steve had called Eddie a tryhard that was so desperate to be different because that was the only way he could hide having nothing to offer.

“So we’re worried?”

“I just don’t want him to say something he can’t walk back because he forgot the thing he’s getting upset over is pretend.” He runs a finger down Eddie’s splayed hands. A tickling sensation he can feel down the path it traces from the back of his palm and down his middle finger and, in a phantom mirror, down his spine. “I know you get into your characters, or whatever, I’m sure this is bringing up a lot of memories but he’s going to regret lashing out if it means he pushes away Dustin or Lucas or one of the other guys.”

“I notice you left out Will.”

“Yeah well, Will is more likely to get hurt by something he says when lashing out while they aren’t playing exposure therapy the game. I mean seriously, you had to kidnap him? That’s where your, ‘Stevie, baby, what should I do with them this week? They decided to do something stupid,’ bitching and moaning landed you?”

Eddie doesn’t even really have time to let himself feel the fluttery, squishy feeling he wants to feel -- cause Steve does actually listen when they’ve got their feet tangled on the sofa together, each working on their own things -- before it’s getting smacked by down by the paladin of his heart. “No, no, that isn’t where I landed. I had a perfectly acceptable diplomacy mission prepared, with a back up fight that they were supposed to run away from. What do you want me to do, Sunshine? I gotta give the game some stakes. It’s not exactly fun for Will if he knows he’s indestructible.”

Maybe, he thinks, he should just stop talking today. Just cancel the rest of the session entirely. Will gets carried off by the vampire spawn, half dead and unsaveable, the party on its last legs, unable to agree on a course of action; and actually that’s where we’re gonna end things come back next week and hope Steve even lets us in the house after the screaming we’ve all done. Why? Because he can feel every joint in his body and every one of them is in pain. Because there’s been the dull throb of a low grade headache beating an even pulse in his temples since he woke up this morning. But mostly because every time he opens his stupid fucking mouth to talk Steve stops touching him, and that sucks absolute balls.

“I maybe had an idea,” Steve says. His voice dips and slides while he keeps his hands small, quiet, and close to his chest. Something Robin told him, and he’s now noticing, means Steve has thought about this idea a lot, long enough that he’s convinced himself it’s bad. Eddie’s noticed that even when these ideas aren’t phrased well, they’re never bad.

“I know it’s like rule number one: don’t split the party,” Steve can’t help but roll his eyes when he says it, an instinctive bit of brotherly mockery of Dustin, he would guess. “But what if you split the group a bit. Mike can go after Will, I’m sure Erica would be down to kill some vampires. She loves a chance to test drive her new feats and shit. Then Jeff and Dustin and whoever else can finish up that thing? With the missing girlfriend or whatever? And once that’s done they reunite to do whatever’s next on the list, save the kingdom.”

Eddie sits with that for a bit.

Impulsive is still his middle name, but sometime between being eaten alive by other dimensional hell creatures and getting a thousand and six tiny, itchy stitches removed he’s started giving things second and even third thoughts. Though in this case the second thoughts are less ‘is this a good idea’ and more ‘will Steve bend me over that solid oak dining table and critique my DM notes while he rails me.’

As his stomach swoops, his lower body twinges in a much less enjoyable way. Letting him know that now he’d been standing too long, or leaning against the counter the wrong way, or maybe something else entirely that made his legs tired of doing one of the few things they were made to do.

Figures he finally lands a hot boyfriend and he's got chronic pain keeping him from getting his dick wet.

“If you’ve already got another idea-”

“No,” he rushes to assure Steve, who needs to stay confident in his own ideas for all kinds of reasons but right now mostly so he’ll be willing to play into this new fantasy of Eddie’s once his body is willing to cooperate with the standing and the bending it’s going to require. “No, it’s a fantastic idea. I’m plotting as we speak.”

And that isn’t a total lie. Forever DM, he can think about all the fun ways the love of his life and reason he’s still living could degrade his current campaign -- An oath of vengeance paladin questing to save a lost love, isn’t that a little played out. Oh wow, rat swarms in a dungeon, they’re never gonna see that coming -- and figure out how to trick the group into thinking splitting the party was their own idea.

“How long,” he asks his resident child expert, “do you think it would take Will to roll up a new character?”

The smile that tips the corners of Steve’s face is the best part of his day. “Will always has an extra character rolled up with the rest of his stuff in his folder."

Things are slotting together in his head now, and as Steve's hands come around to do something magical in a spot on his back that probably has a name but mostly makes his legs feel like they should really belong to a baby deer.

“So Will…”

“Can convince Mike, and get a chance to try out the new thingy he built. He’s been waiting to talk to you about it.”

Eddie’s getting excited now, hands shaking in the good way. He doesn’t even care that his knee locks as he tries to bounce on his toes, just lets his hands get out the excited energy. “And the band can go do the story side plot shit I’ve been putting off…”

“With Dustin,” Steve reminds, “cause he’ll want to go wherever there’s the best chance to stir up shit. You already know Erica is going to go where there’s a chance to prove she’s the best at fighting, Lucas too. Not the fighting thing. He’ll go to round out the group, and so his mom doesn’t have to worry about keeping track of one more thing on the family calendar.”

“You’re a genius, Sweetheart.” He snags Steve by the collar, ignoring his bitching that the two fingered pinch he’s got it in is going to stretch it out, and pulls him close. Pressing a kiss on the corner of his perfect boyfriend’s pleased little smile. “I gotta go talk to Will about this character.”

“Send Mike down when you do?”

He’s surprised when he gets no argument, barely gets acknowledgement, when he finds Will and Mike in the guest bathroom and separates them. Mike slips from the room with nothing but a backward glance at Will, who smiles supportively. Once he clears the room, it takes next to zero prompting to get Will to talk about his backup character. The ‘thingy’ he'd been working on a tricked out ranger build that's going to annihilate.

There's something fresh, brightening, about Will's enthusiasm for the character that infects Eddie too. It gets him excited, for the first time since everyone arrived, to sit down around their over crowded table and play the hour of set up it's going to take to get the party ready to be split.

And Will doesn't duck his head anymore when Eddie pushes at him and his DnD expertise, he just pushes back. Together they work out a couple tweaks that will make the build fit better in the party, flesh out a backstory that they can integrate even if it doesn't end up going anywhere, and it doesn't really feel like time passes at all. Until Sinclair is sticking his head through the door, surprise artfully hidden at who he finds, as he asks if they're ready to go.

Mike is conspicuously absent from the table when Eddie makes his way to it, and that won't do at all. He's not an asshole, he's just 15. Something like shame crawls up the back of his throat as Steve's reminder sounds in his head. He remembers 15 and the things he said but more than that, as he looks around the table, he remembers being the last to arrive at a hangout of people you're already worried hate you only to find them having a good time without you.

Eddie has always prided himself on his ability to run a good session. "Stevie, gimme back our paladin, do I need to bring in a hostage negotiator."

A cookie held in one hand while the other smooths down the ruffled fringe of his bangs, Mike re-enters the dining room. The back of his Hellfire shirt is bunched and, if that weren't sign enough he'd been on the receiving end of a perfect Harrington hug, he looks settled. A smile tugging at his face that Eddie hadn't realized how much he missed, he looks boyish and happy and if Eddie didn't before he understands Steve's mission to keep these kids kids by whatever means necessary.

"Alright, now where were we?” He says once Mike is back in his seat beside Will, “Ah yes, you all watch in horror as the vampire spawn, hastened, dash away from you all with the unconscious, but still alive, body of Sir William the Wizened." Before anyone can restart the shouting, and he knows there will be shouting now that they’ve all had a chance to look over their notes and their character sheets, he barrels on. “From the hill behind you comes a shot. An arrow flies, thwip thwip. It slices between you all, before sinking into the back of one of the spawn at the back of the pack. He stumbles to the ground and the rest of the pack leave him to die.”

“We can interrogate him!”

“Worry about who’s behind us, dude.”

He doesn’t let Mike or Dustin derail him, Eddie continues, “As you turn the hill behind you is nothing but mist. You all know the range of an elven bow, but whoever fired it is nowhere to be seen. You wait, breath held, as a figure all in black slowly approaches. You get the feeling you see him now only because he wants to be seen.

“Will, describe your new character for us!”

#steddie #steve and mike #mike wheeler #good babysitter steve harrington #hard of hearing steve harrington #disabled eddie munson #its the mikes not an asshole he's just a traumatized teenager fic #yknow the one no one was waiting for #for my tag readers will homebrewed a prototype gloomstalker #and the author borrowed the hardwon vampire arc from naddpod #my fic

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mariacallous · 5 months

Text

When you think of Eastern European Jewish cuisine, which words come to mind? Light? Healthy? Plant based? Probably not. Heavy, homey and meat-centric are more like it.

Fania Lewando died during the Holocaust, but had she been given the full length of her years, Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine may have taken a turn to the vegetarian side and we might all be eating vegetarian kishke and spinach cutlets in place of brisket.

Lewando is not a household name. In fact, she would have been lost to history had it not been for an unlikely turn of events. Thanks to a serendipitous find, her 1937 work, “The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook” (“Vegetarish-Dietisher Kokhbukh”in Yiddish), was saved from oblivion and introduced to the 21st century.

Vilna in the 1930s, where Lewando and her husband Lazar made their home, was a cosmopolitan city with a large Jewish population. Today, it is the capital of Lithuania but it was then part of Poland. Lewando opened a vegetarian eatery called The Vegetarian Dietetic Restaurant on the edge of the city’s Jewish quarter. It was a popular spot among both Jews and non-Jews, as well as luminaries of the Yiddish-speaking world. (Even renowned artist Marc Chagall signed the restaurant’s guest book.)

Lewando was a staunch believer in the health benefits of vegetarianism and devoted her professional life to promoting these beliefs. She wrote: “It has long been established by the highest medical authorities that food made from fruit and vegetables is far healthier and more suitable for the human organism than food made from meat.” Plus, she wrote, vegetarianism satisfies the Jewish precept of not killing living creatures.

We know little about her life other than she was born Fania Fiszlewicz in the late 1880s to a Jewish family in northern Poland. She married Lazar Lewando, an egg merchant from what is today Belarus and they eventually made their way to Vilna. They did not have children.

Lewando, to quote Jeffrey Yoskowitz, author of “The Gefilte Manifesto” was “a woman who challenged convention;” a successful entrepreneur, which was a rarity among women of the time. She supervised a kosher vegetarian kitchen on an ocean liner that traveled between Poland and the United States, and gave classes on nutrition to Jewish women in her culinary school.

“The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook” was sold in Europe and the U.S. in Lewando’s day, but most of the copies were lost or destroyed during the Second World War. In 1995, a couple found a copy of the cookbook at a second-hand book fair in England. They understood the importance of a pre-war, Yiddish-language, vegetarian cookbook written by a woman, so purchased it and sent it to the YIVO Institute’s offices in New York. There, it joined the millions of books, periodicals and photos in YIVO’s archives.

It was discovered again by two women who visited YIVO and were captivated by the book’s contents and colorful artwork. They had it translated from Yiddish to English so it could be enjoyed by a wider audience.

Like many Ashkenazi cooks, salt was Lewando’s spice, butter her flavor and dill her herb. The book is filled with dishes you’d expect: kugels and blintzes and latkes; borscht and many ways to use cabbage. There’s imitation gefilte fish and kishke made from vegetables, breadcrumbs, eggs and butter. Her cholent (a slow-cooked Sabbath stew) recipes are meat-free, including one made with prune, apple, potatoes and butter that is a cross between a stew and a tzimmes.

There are also some surprises.

Did you know it was possible to access tomatoes, eggplants, asparagus, lemons, cranberries, olive oil, Jerusalem artichokes, blueberries and candied orange peel in pre-war Vilna? There’s a French influence, too, such as recipes for mayonnaise Provencal and iles flottante, a meringue-based dessert, and a salad of marinated cornichons with marinated mushrooms.

“It’s hard to know who the target audience was for this cookbook,” said Eve Jochnowitz, its English-language translator. “We know from contemporary memoirs that people in Vilna did not have access to these amazing amounts of butter, cream and eggs,” she said. “Lewando was writing from a somewhat privileged and bourgeois position.” While many of these recipes may have been aspirational given the poverty of the Jews at the time, the cookbook demonstrates that it was possible to obtain these ingredients in Vilna, should one have the resources to do so.

While the cookbook is filled with expensive ingredients, there is also, said Jochnowitz, “a great attention to husbanding one’s resources. She was ahead of her time in the zero-waste movement.” Lewando admonishes her readers to waste nothing. Use the cooking water in which you cooked your vegetables for soup stock. Use the vegetables from the soup stock in other dishes. “Throw nothing out,” she writes in the cookbook’s opening essay. “Everything can be made into food.” Including the liquid from fresh vegetables; Lewando instructed her readers on the art of vitamin drinks and juices, with recipes for Vitamin-Rich Beet Juice and Vitamin-Rich Carrot Juice. “This was very heroic of her,” said Jochnowitz. “There were no juice machines! You make the juice by grating the vegetables and then squeezing the juice out by hand.”

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, a Jewish scholar and Jewish cookbook collector, describes Lewando as “witty.” “She is showing us,” she said, “that once you eliminate meat and fish, you still have an enormous range of foods you can prepare.” Lewando is about “being creative, imaginative and innovative both with traditional dishes and with what she is introducing that is remote from the traditional repertoire.” She does that in unexpected ways. Her milchig (dairy) matzah balls, for example, have an elegance and lightness to them. She instructs the reader to make a meringue with egg whites, fold in the yolks, then combine with matzah meal, melted butter and hot water. Her sauerkraut salad includes porcini mushrooms. One of her kugels combines cauliflower, apples, sliced almonds and candied orange peel.

There is much that, through contemporary eyes, is missing in “The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook.” The recipes do not give step-by-step instructions; rather you will find general directions. Heating instructions are vague, ranging from a “not-too-hot-oven” to a “warm oven” to a “hot oven.” Lewando assumes the reader’s familiarity with the kitchen that today’s cookbook writer would not.

Lewando and her husband were listed in the 1941 census of the Vilna Ghetto but not in the census of 1942. It is believed that they both died or were killed while attempting to escape. “She really was a visionary,” said Jochnowitz. “It is an unbearable tragedy that she did not live to see the future that she predicted and helped to bring about.”But in cooking her recipes, said Yoskowitz, as dated and incomplete as some of them may be, the conversation between then and now continues.

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ofstarsandvibranium · 11 months

Text

Walls Are Crumbling: Part 4

Fandom: Bridgerton

Pairing: Benedict Bridgerton x F!Reader

Summary: 6 months into your marriage and your pregnancy. You and Benedict are so in love. Every day is filled with even more love and laughter...until you see Lord Mattias again.

Warning: mentions of miscarriage (but its a lie), insinuation of smut at the end.

A/N: uh oh

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

You didn't expect for things to get a lot better, but they had. Being in love with Benedict, being married to him, having a child with him, albeit not his by blood, it was wonderful.

After the love confessions, you two had decided to sleep in the same bed together. You still have your room for reading or some alone time. Benedict has his own study where he paints. More often than not, you'll sit in the room with him to read while he paints.

Not today though. You had gone on a walk with Daphne and Auggie and you ran into someone unexpected: Lord Mattias.

It had been months since you last saw him. He had his arm around another woman and, previously, you would've been crushed. But now, you have neutral feelings towards the man.

"Lady L/N. How," he glances down at your stomach, "..wonderful to see you."

"You as well, Lord Mattias." You see him glance at your wedding ring, the one that belonged to Benedict's grandmother.

"I heard you'd gotten married," he states plainly.

You nod, "To Benedict Bridgerton."

"And you're expecting."

"I am and I'm very happy. Things have worked out well for me. I assume they have for you since," you gesture to the woman he has yet to introduce to you.

"Amelia," she introduces herself, "Jeffrey and I just gotten engaged ourselves!" She looks up at her fiance excitedly.

"Congratulations," you say. You nod to Daphne, "This is my sister-in-law, Daphne Basset, Duchess of Hastings."

Amelia immediately curtsies and Daphne shakes her head, "That's not necessary, please." She clears her throat, "Amelia, why don't you tell me how you and Lord Mattias met?" She gives you a pointed look before wandering off to the side. Amelia, eager to be in Daphne's presence follows her to a nearby bench.

Jeffrey clears his throat, "So is this child-"

"No. Fortunately for you, I lost the baby in its early term. This child is completely mine and Benedict's," you put a protective hand on your belly.

Jeffrey sighs, "Y/N, I regret what I said all those months ago. I do still lo-"

"Please, don't, Jeffrey. Save yourself from embarrassment. I'm happy now and you're getting engaged," you nod in Amelia's direction.

"I don't love her. Not like I love you," he reaches out to touch you, but you step back.

"Do not get any closer to me. Despite how much you've hurt me, I don't hate you. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be as happy as I am now, married to the man who's always been there for me and cared for me. But do us both a favor, and forget what happened between us."

You swiftly turn on your heel and walk over to Daphne and Amelia, your sister-in-law looking relieved to finally have you back, "Ready to go, sister?"

"I'm feeling quite tired now. I think it's best we head home for rest, don't you think, Daph?"

She nods all too quickly, "Yes! I agree!" she turns to Amelia, "It was a delight speaking with you. Congratulations on your engagement."

"Thank you so much, my lady!" You watch as Amelia gets up and rushes back to Jeffrey's side. You don't look his way as you pass, but you feel his eyes on you.

"Are you alright?" Daphne whispers.

"I can't believe I thought I was in love with him," you mumble, "He said he still loves me."

"Oh dear."

"I know. That poor girl. She looks so happy with him."

"Hopefully he'll get his head out of his arse."

You groan, "God, I hope so."

__________________

When you arrive back home, Benedict is in his studio painting. You're stomping in, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl in the middle of the room, and biting into it.

"I was painting that," he says with an amused smirk.

You stop chewing, "Oh," you look at him guiltily, "I'm sorry." You place the apple back into the bowl as best as you could.

He chuckles, putting down his brush and palette down, "It's alright. I should take a break anyway." He gestures for you to sit on the chaise and he sits beside you, "How was your time with Daphne?"

"It went well...until I ran into Lord Mattias." Benedict immediately sat up, "He asked if the child was still his."

"What did you say?"

You wince, "I lied. I said I lost his baby in early term. Should-Should I have told him the truth?"

"Did he say anything else?" Benedict asks with concern.

You look away from him, "He said he still loves me."

"Do you believe him?"

You look back up at your husband, "I don't know and, to be quite frank, I don't care. I've moved on. I'm happy and content," you cup his face with your hand and he leans into it, "with you and our cherub."

Benedict leans in and pecks your lips, "That's-That's very comforting to hear, honestly."

You look at him confused, "Why? Did you expect me to go running back to him?"

"No. Of course not. I-I suppose I thought there might have been a small part of you that still loves him."

You shake your head, "Benedict, my heart is completely yours. I don't care how Jeffrey feels. I love you."

"I love you. I just don't want to lose you."

"You won't," you take one of his hands and place it over your heart. With his other hand, you place it on your stomach, "You have us."

Benedict pulls you in for another kiss, murmuring against your lips, "I love you." Smooch. "I love you," Smooch. "I love you," he lays you onto your back, continuing to press kisses down your face, to your neck.

He truly loved you and he was going to show just how much.

#benedict bridgerton imagine #benedict bridgerton fic #benedict bridgerton x reader

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paradisiacvl · 8 months

Text

✩ ABC’S

SFW alphabet with JEFFREY MASON.

warnings: mentions of sex in G,J,& N! | word count:

—‘A’ IS FOR AFFECTION (How affectionate are they? How do they show it?)

In public, he'll keep it simple for the most part; hand-holding, an arm around your shoulders, peppering quick kisses on the side of your face, playing with strands of your hair while you're busy doing work or talking with someone

In private, he gives you everything and more

—‘B’ IS FOR BEST FRIEND (What would they be like as a best friend? How would it start?)

After he first saw you he was doing his damnedest to find out everything he could about you; eavesdropping on other students, watching you and your reactions very closely, following you around, etc..

But you would probably have to initiate it first

Unless he did something really sly like waiting until everyone in class was partnered up for a project and you two just happen to be the only ones left without one, forcing you two to be together

He can't be just friends with you though

You were already his before it was established

—‘C’ IS FOR CUDDLES (Do they like cuddling? How would they do it?)

It would take him a while to get used to it. He's not familiar with affection of any sort

But he realizes how nice it feels to hold you, to smell you. Just being that close to you is exhilarating

So he eases into it but that's mainly something saved for in private

—‘D’ IS FOR DOMESTIC (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

He only wants to settle down with you and have a life with you. No one else. Everyone else can go die for all he cares

lol he's so mean to other ppl

Surprisingly, pretty good at cooking

Considering most of his life was spent indoors with not much to do, he was left to fend for himself a lot so he racked up some practice

He doesn't necessarily like cleaning but he'll do it if he has to

—‘E’ IS FOR ENDING (If they had to break it off, how would they do it?)

You're the love of his life, no way in hell he's letting you go

whether you like it or not (you like it)

—‘F’ IS FOR FIANCÉE (How do they feel about commitment? How quick do they want to get married?)

He's definitely very committed to his love but I feel like he's not a marriage guy

Like the commitment level is up to there but there's no wedding yk?

Wants to be able to call you his wife though

—‘G’ IS FOR GENTLE (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

He's only really gentle with you.

That is, outside of sex and makeouts ofc

Come on, look at who we're talking about here

He's a rough man in nature

He is very observant so he always has a good idea of how you are emotionally and tries to act accordingly, helping you when you need it

—‘H’ IS FOR HUGS (Do they like hugs, how often do they do it, what are they like?)

He doesn't hug that often, his thing is keeping his arm around you. It's like his trademark show of affection

But when he does, it's just like cuddling, done in private

Likes coming up behind you, wrapping his arms around you, and loom his head over yours

His hugs are so nice since he's so big compared to you, he just engulfs you completely but because of that they can also feel...imposing

—‘I’ IS FOR I LOVE YOU (How fast do they say the L-word?)

He waits until you say it first and he'll say it right back, he's felt it since shortly after he met you

He's scared of doing it first and you freaking out or something and looking like an idiot so how fast he says it entirely depends on how fast you do

—‘J’ IS FOR JEALOUSY (How jealous do they get, and what do they do?)

VERY!1!! He's ready to scare off any wandering eyes and show them that you're all his

When it comes to jealousy and Jeffrey Mason it's hard to keep it PG-

Jealousy sex is very big with him

After a particular guy has been flirting with you non-stop...he'll ask if he could fuck you as good as he is or if he could make that much of a mess out of you while he's pounding into you relentlessly

And of course...the answer is "no" >:)

—‘K’ IS FOR KISSES (What are their kisses like, where do they like to kiss you, where do they like to be kissed?)

His kisses are usually heated, possessive, and almost always turn into makeout sessions

He likes to kiss you everywhere but especially your lips and neck

Like I said, he likes full-fledged makeout sessions, so he also likes it on his lips but the times you gently press a kiss to his cheek or jaw...

He melts

—‘L’ IS FOR LITTLE ONES (How are they around children?)

Thinks they're annoying and doesn't want to deal with them

Yucky

Doesn't want them

—‘M’ IS FOR MORNINGS (How are mornings spent with them?)

Pre-killer Jeff would generally leave before he had to get up for school so his parents wouldn't freak. He'd give you a lil kiss before he went

After the incident, there wasn't much of any time spent with him unless it was visitation at Pinehearst and he was very agitated– more than normal so there was even less time spent with him

After he escaped he would wake up before you, watch you for a few, then wake you up– if you didn't wake up already by his eyes burning into you lmao, and make you breakfast or something

Kinda grumpy

—‘N’ IS FOR NIGHTS (How are nights spent with them?)

Him crawling through your bedroom window lol

Before the incident and after the escape, that's one thing that's stayed consistent

But he'd crawl in while you're doing your skincare routine or something and afterwards, you guys would just talk, watch tv, or engage in other activities

—‘O’ IS FOR OPEN (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

He's a very difficult man to get to know. He wouldn't really talk much about himself so you would have to be observant

He would after a relationship is established, just give him time. It makes him uncomfy

—‘P’ IS FOR PATIENCE (How easily angered are they?)

On a good day, he just doesn't care about whatever it is that would bother him. Just rolling his eyes or scoffing at the fact, but those are rare 🧍🏼‍♀️

He has a record (literally) of having a bad temper, he's defensive and he just wants to be left alone fr

—‘Q’ IS FOR QUIZZES (How much would they remember about you?)

He remembers everything and for a while, he knew things about you that you didn't even tell him or let on but... you didn't have to

He's a stalker

—‘R’ IS FOR REMEMBER (What's their favorite moment in your relationship?)

When you first met

When he first saw you it's like he felt his whole world crashing down on him, he's never felt anything like it and he knew then he just had to have you

—‘S’ IS FOR SECURITY (How protective are they? How would they protect you, and how would they like to be protected?)

Verryyy protective.

This boy is a guard dog

As far as he's concerned, he doesn't need protecting

He's a killer bro

—‘T’ IS FOR TRY (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

Dates— I can imagine him bringing you to a pretty clearing in a forest and spending hours together there or bringing food up to a rooftop and watching the sky and just talking about whatever comes to mind

Anniversaries— he's got everything recorded in his handy journal, every waking thought he has ever had about you has been gushed to in his journal

You call it his diary and he gets mad

Gifts— he's not super fancy with it but he'll steal things he thinks you'll like or gather random wildflowers or stray animals and bring them to you

He tries

—‘U’ IS FOR UGLY (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

Drinking, he knows how to hold his alcohol so you don't ever see him drunk but you still don't like to see him do it

Stonewalling

—‘V’ IS FOR VANITY (How concerned are they with their appearance?)

He's not really all that concerned but since he's albino he does have to keep up with his hygiene more so than normal people

It's not really about appearance per se but cleanliness

Sunscreen, UV-blocking sunglasses, and shirts galore

—‘W’ IS FOR WHOLE (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

Absolutely. After he met you, his life wasn't boring or mundane anymore. He actually has something to look forward to, someone that's looking forward to him too

He doesn't ever want you to be apart from his life

—‘X’ IS FOR XTRA (Random headcannon(s) about them?)

Jeff loves it when you wear his hoodies or shirts, especially during cold nights, his clothes are so much bigger on you

It's like he marked you, he has his clothes on you with his scent rubbing off on you and anyone could tell that it's his clothes you're wearing

He gets so smug ab it, it's the perfect solution for a jealous, possessive bf

He really likes it when you wear one of his shirts with just panties underneath, good luck getting him off you then

—‘Y’ IS FOR YUCK (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

Someone who's exceptionally whiny

Someone who doesn't know when to be quiet

Calling him by his full name

—‘Z’ IS FOR ZZZ (What are their sleeping habits?)

He stays up real late but when he does sleep it's heavy

He has nightmares a lot

#jeff the killer #jeff the killer x reader #jeffthekiller #jeff the killer headcanons #darling writes #jeffrey mason #jeffrey mason x reader #jeff mason x reader #tmf #the morgue files #david near #sfw alphabet #fem!reader #new writter #new writer boost

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factorialsotherfandoms · 8 months

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Lucie is cold, and bleeding, and the monster is gone but there is nothing she can do. Adrenaline keeps her away but, as soon as it crashes, she knows she will succumb.

To the cold, to the blood loss, to the failure.

She is dying alone, and it is meaningless. Carol will throw Emi to the monster again, Benito will not care, Diego and Luis and Jeffery are too far away to save her… The monster… Oh, god, the monster - it is going to take them, too. She will die alone and for nothing and soon Diego and Emi and all of them will join her too.

"Lucie?"

She thinks, on the breeze, she might hear someone call her name. It is a dying hallucination - it must be.

"Lucie!"

Maybe whatever god exists has granted her mercy, letting her hallucinate Diego one last time. Even if Diego is crying… But of course he is, because he and everyone else is about to die.

"Meu Deus, Lucie…" she can almost smell him. "Wait. Jeffrey! Jeffrey, help, she's still alive!"

Not for long, though; she knows it will not be long. The adrenaline keeping her heart going is leaking out of her wounds and into the snow. The pain makes her delirious, makes her see things she does not.

Lets her feel a warm hand on her cheek and harsh ones on her chest, something tight against her leg. She is in pain, she is in agony, and her mind has tricked her into not being alone.

"Lucie, can you hear us? Lucie!"

But he's only a hallucination, and Lucie does not want to stay.

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts so much… She's already failed, why won't it just let the pain end? Why won't it leave her be?

/The ice/ says a voice that sounds suspiciously like Diego. /People bleed slower in the cold./

Lucie doesn't think she wants to bleed slower - she wants to bleed fast, so she can die, so she can finally put an end to the pain.

For a moment she thinks she gets it, but then there is another sharp pain that shakes her core. Reality comes in flashes, barely understood; a blue coat, lights, yelling- She tries to call to the voices, to ask for Emi. Someone terrified slams a hand over her mouth, and she forgets to breathe.

A crackling radio, hysteria, something heavy pressed against her. She doesn't understand, she hurts and she hurts and its no longer cold but why hasn't she died, why won't the world just let her die and for a while the world fades out, but then there's Emi screaming her name and Diego stroking hair from her face and Benito throwing a fit over the amount of blood on her coat as he pulls out a needle and thread, and Lucie almost wishes it was real.

It isn't real, it isn't, the monster took her - she's a dead woman… not walking, but lying.

There's arguing all around her. There's screaming and yelling and she grabs the nearest trouser leg to try get attention.

It's Diego - ways Diego - who answers.

"Lucie?" He drops to his knees beside her, voice caught in a sob. "Lucie, Lucie, you're okay, we've got you, you're okay, what do you need?"

The words blur and she doesn't quite understand, especially when they're not in her own French.

Its hard, its impossible, but she must - she shakily presses a finger to her lips and pretends she cannot taste the blood.

It takes Diego a moment, before he turns and does his best to yell "I'll do it just be quiet!"

Lucie doesn't want Diego to leave, but he does, and she thinks, maybe, that dying alone might be kinder than hallucinations who abandon her.

They don't, however; Jeffrey takes the radio and Luis watches Mikael, and Emi is still clinging to her hand. Benito's hand is also taken by the girl, and his free one pokes bandages around her chest.

Lucie screams, and the world is black, and she thinks - finally!

But then reality crashes back, and she's being carried in arms she doesn't understand, and the carry must be real for she screams as footsteps shake her, but perhaps it is the monster back again, here again, unsatisfied with his larder and so moving her instead.

The jolting, the pain, being passed to someone - more yelling. So much more yelling, and agony as things are pressed to her wounds and her face and perhaps the monster means to smother her, but at least it means it is not touching the others.

The others, the others, who should not be here - who need to run and run and run and never look back because they are being chased and chased and don't they know they're all dead, all dead, all so so dead, but they //need. To. Run.//

A prick on her arm, and another scream - even if she is a failure, maybe she can bait the monster away and -

And Diego is there, and Emi, and Luis, and Jeffrey, and Benito… No Carol, no Mikael, and Lucie isn't sure that she cares.

There's more yelling and more loud noises, and the haze that is Lucie understands none of it, and the longer it goes on the more the haze grows.

Lucie doesn't remember the rest of it, just Diego and Emi sobbing, and that, perhaps, is how it always should have ended anyway.

---

Lucie wakes in a bed, with beeping all around. Diego is right there, at her side, more bandage than man but grasping her hand none the less. It is bright, too bright, but the world is only what it is.

Diego seems asleep, clutching her hand. Looking… Jeffrey lies in the next bed, Luis passed out on the floor between them.

And Lucie…

Lucie is covered in wires, and pain, and a blur, but she knows where she must be. She's… not dead? And Diego is hurt, but right here! They're safe, they're safe, they're safe, but where's Emi?

The panic comes back as soon as the thought occurs, dulled by the painkillers but still impossible to ignore. She wants to wreathe, to run, to find the girl and they need to get away before it comes back and-!

The beeping gets louder.

A doctor - not Bonito, someone she has never seen before - appears. He asks her things and she thinks she answers, he adjusts wires and makes notes and she doesn't understand. Diego is woken up - he looks exhausted - and clings to her hands, making her promises she doesn't think he can keep, as she panics.

When the doctor leaves, he pulls her into a hug, and sobs into her hair.

"Where's little brat?" she asks, shaking in his hold. "Where are we? What- I was dead, what happened?"

Diego holds her tighter, tucking her close and it isn't /safe/ but its /safer/.

"Benito took her to get food," he says. "It's okay, you're okay, we found you - Jeffrey and I got the bleeding under control, and Luis carried you back. Its… Its bad, but its okay! You're going to be okay."

With a shaking hand she touches one of the bandages on Diego's face.

"There were more infected," he takes her hand from his face, and gently holds it in his own. "It's okay, we got away. Well… Mikael and Carol didn't, but…"

"Fuck them," she whispers. "Fuck them both, fuck all of them." "Yeah," Diego agrees. "Even Jeffrey agreed to shoot them by the end."

Lucie feels light, feels giddy. The laugh bubbles forth, first a giggle, then a shriek, as stress pours from her soul into the void. "I was dying," she laughs. "I- I- I was dying, and Carol was going to kill Emi, and- and-"

The laughter gives way to sobs, and a door slams open. In marches the little brat herself, eyes wide and shaken as she clutches Benito with one hand, and a milkshake in the other. Benito seems much more relaxed, but for the glasses that hide his eyes - there's a large bag of MacDonalds over his elbow, and he tosses it at Diego.

"Lucie!" he calls. "See, Diego, I told you she'd live."

Diego flips him off, and leans over to wake Luis up.

Lucie is quickly distracted by Emi throwing herself on the bed, the girl scrambling desperately until she's pressed against Lucie and gripping her tight. Lucie surpressed the yells, the pain it causes, and hugs her back.

"You okay, little brat?" Lucie tries to soften her voice. "Did the dumb dumb doctor look after you?"

"Don't you dare do that again!" Emi screeches. "You're not- Dad's- you're not allowed to do that again!"

"I wasn't going to let you die," Lucie holds her. "We look after you, ok?" "No!" Emi sobs. "No, not okay!"

"Eh, chill out, she woke up so she's fine," despite his dismissive words, Benito is soft as he pets the top of Emi's head. "Well she's missing a leg, and her spine is fucked so she's probably losing the other one too, but its not like she can't live without legs. Will probably be faster on wheels than trying to run. So she's fine."

"Benito!"

Lucie isn't sure which of Diego or Luis - or Jeffrey, newly awake but looking very out of it - the screech came from. She doesn't really care, the reality not crashing in yet. All she can do is laugh at the flippant tone Benito says it in, like telling someone their cat got hit by a truck - or, no, a normal person wouldn't sound like that then either, so like someone telling you there's a bug in your hair. It's not right, it's not how anyone should say it, but in the short time she's known him it is so /very/ Benito.

Some idiot doctor she barely knows but who has survived hell with her just flippantly has told her she'll never walk again, and all she can do is laugh and think, perhaps, not walking is a small price for being alive with her Emi and her boys.

Because they are /hers/ now, if the universe wants them from her they can tear them from her cold, undying hands.

It will hit her later, the mess of her situation, in the dark and the alone, but for now she laughs in defiance of a world that tried to kill her. She grasps it with her teeth, just like teeth bit into her, and may not be a hero, but she won't let it win.

---

It will be many, many months before Lucie will be okay, but she will. The flat she and Diego share will need to be sold, but Luis' Abuelita will open up her home to all six of them strays. Lucie will get her own room on the ground floor, Emi on the first, and the boys all share the basement. Most nights, however, everyone will end up in Lucie's room - and nobody will mind.

Diego will help her up, and Abuelita will make them all breakfast, and Lucie will wheel herself out to the garden. She will drink wine and laugh and watch her Emi and her boys. Jeffery will be helping with the flowerbeds, while Benito heckles him instead of reviewing his textbooks. Luis and Diego will drag Emi into a game of catch, and Lucie will cheer for her girl.

At least, until a throw will be missed; Lucie will catch it and return it, and will join them - one hand to the controls for her wheelchair, the other to catch the ball.

There will be nightmares and horror and days she can feel the glove on her wrist or pain in a leg no longer there or the break in her spine will be agony, but those are not the only days for her future.

There will also be family, and love, playing ball in the garden and teaching Emi French and late nights on the patio where she falls asleep beneath the stars and in the arms of her boys. Benito will train to be licensed in Mexico, Jeffrey will get a job at a new pizza place closer to their new home. Diego will research and use the hush money to find parts of the world she can still explore, and they will go together - and never out of signal range.

Luis will see his grandmother again, and Emi will have a new home. They all will have a home, in each other, in blood.

Lucie may not remember being saved, but she remembers how it felt to die afraid and cold and alone and believing you had failed everything in your life forwards.

Lucie will look at her future, then, and for the first time in many years see hope.

#opq #opq fanfic #fix fic #um surprise? scene 3 is kinda more a bonus than actual part of the fic but eh #opq lucie #opq diego #opq emi #opq benito #the others are also here but less important #lucie lives au!#mikael and carol still die but nobody is especially upset about it #tldr of the other PoV: most of the show remains the same but Diego Luis and Jeffrey find Lucie on their way back #manage to stabalise her and leave her in the radio tower #mikael manages not to kill her while she's extremely out of it #when it comes to running to the helicopter Luis carries her #and then we're skipping the next facility and assuming pancea did actually have a cure for the infection itself just held elsewhere #and fluffing things a bit to get everyone staying in Luis' grandma's house

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that--funny--feeling · 4 months

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CSM and how the lies destroyed the Mulder family: a headcanon

I have a complicated and maybe personal image of CSM that to me makes more sense than whatever they tried to do with his character (since they changed minds so many times).

The focal points of his character are his envy, obsession with control and inability to love.

I think he really envied what Mulder Sr. had with his family, even before Fox and Samantha were born. He had a wife who loved him and above all he did his same job (more or less) but that hadn't turned him evil or selfless. I like to think of William Mulder Sr. as a decent and kind person, at least when he was younger.

Obviously, his life wasn't perfect and he and Teena probably fought a lot because of the secrecy of his work. I think that was the real first struggle about the truth that the Mulder family had (1°). Bill couldn't be honest with his wife about what he was doing and that created a distance. CSM may have taken advantage of this situation, growing closer to Teena maybe while Bill wasn't there for her.

Deep down in the headcanon tunnel from now on, I like to think Teena and CSM didn't have an affair but just a one night thing. Teena probably never forgave herself for that night and never told Bill about it (2°). Bill never asked, but understood what happened (3°).

At this point, CSM wants to have a relationship with her, but she refuses him and just wants to forget what happened. He's insistent and she starts hating him.

Soon after, Teena and Bill's relationship gets better and Fox comes into this world. Now. I'm not sure what to believe (pun intended) on CSM's being his father. Because, in this logic, he could but so could Bill. Surely CSM thought to be Fox's father and thought to have rights on him, no matter what Teena could say about it.

CSM marries Cassandra, they have Jeffrey, he tries to have what Mulder Sr. has but doesn't work. He can't love. His wife starts hating him, his son is a delusion for him. In the meanwhile, Samantha Mulder is born.

When the time of the abductions is closer, Bill and Teena get to choose which one of their children to "sacrifice" (4°). They painfully indicate Fox, because he's older and stronger, but CSM don't even give them the luxury of the choice. Fox is his son, so Samantha will go. That's the moment where the Mulder family irremediably shutters. Teena divorces Bill and Fox will never know anything about this from his family (5°).

Maybe after the abductees' return, CSM goes to Teena, offering her a possible life with him (this could be why he took Samantha and she wasn't returned). She doesn't believe him and swears to never talk to him again.

Samantha starts living with CSM, he has now what Mulder Sr. had, but again, he can't love. She understands that he constantly lies to her and hates him, so she quickly becames useless to him and he uses her for experiments.

His fixation on the Mulders keeps going, because he thinks Fox is his son, but above all because he likes him as a person. He challenges him, has a goal, a conviction, doesn't care what the others think about him. Maybe he thinks they are similar and that's why he sometimes protects him. But again, he doesn't know what love is, so if there's something more important, he's ready to sacrifice him.

He thinks he knows Mulder and tries to get him on his side more than once, but he fails. Mulder was loved and is loved, he knows what love means, he's kind and decent, even more than his father William.

He thinks he knows Scully because of his own past, but he understands nothing about her or their relationship, because it's the complete opposite of what he's ever experienced. ("You'd die for Mulder but you won't allow yourself to love him" he says to Scully in En Ami, while they're already in a relationship.) And he lies, lies, lies, the thing that made him advance in his life. At the cost of love.

What could really have saved the Mulder family, was the truth, that will become Fox's reason of life. If Teena told Bill about her moment of weekness, if he ever asked her instead of acting like nothing ever happened, there could have been hope. Hope to forgive, to go on. But what they did was the opposite, letting Fox enter in these net of lies. Hiding everything from him "for his own good". But that's not what he wanted and accepted ("The truth will save you, Scully. I think it'll save both of us").

My TXF posts and videos.

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deathsbestgirl · 6 months

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csm always wanted mulder to join him into the conspiracy, to "see the light" and that his way was the only way.

first he takes diana away, successfully having lured her (presumably), and later assigns scully to the x files as a (fake) spy. he hands mulder the person he needs to validate his work.

at the end of season 5, scully & mulder are a solid team. the lose the x files upon diana's return. but this time, they're not separated like they're threatened with in fight the future, like what happened at the end of season one.

diana is there to lure mulder, and the way to do that is to drive a wedge between mulder & scully. as soon as scully becomes aware that there's history, she's suspicious. she notices the timing. she understands what mulder calling her diana means, what diana calling him fox means. he never told her about diana. she's already witnessed person after person from his past disrespect him at the least, and abuse him at the worst.

scully really struggles with her presence. and episode after episode is about them grappling with their relationship and what it would mean to be together. it's littered with fears & insecurities, miscommunication & misunderstanding. but through it all, they remain together.

diana fails over and over. csm can't get mulder and he tries to get jeffrey spender, another failure. but no matter, he abducts him & uses him for experiments.

when diana not only fails, but betrays him & helps scully save mulder, she is murdered for the only good thing she ever does. and this too only ends up bringing mulder & scully closer together and further from joining csm.

eventually, csm tries to lure scully. weaving a story of wanting to do the right thing, to do something good. having regrets, being misunderstood. pretending to hand her the cure for cancer. merely to win her sympathy and continue trying to play god.

it puts mulder & scully on the rocks for maybe two episodes. and then scully "talks to god" and she is reaffirmed in her choices. a burden of guilt lifted for choosing mulder, choosing a different & unexpected path to fight the government conspiracy & find the truth with him. and it isn't into the arms of the false god csm has been trying to drive them toward. he keeps setting the chess board, he "never underestimates" mulder. but absolutely everyone underestimates mulder & scully.

#mulder and scully #fox mulder #dana scully #the x files #txf meta #diana fowley

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raythekiller · 1 year

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Hi, I've been reading your works and I'm envious. Your scenarios and headcanons are so cool :D I was wondering if you could make a headcanon for the creeps living with a Latina recruit who is sassy but caring to the point she (or they) will aggressively take care of someone if they aren't feeling well. Hope it isn't too much out of your comfort zone. Have a good day and take care

<3333

🗒 ❛ Sassy But Caring Latinx! Reader ༉‧₊˚✧

Featuring: Jeff The Killer, Ben Drowned, Ticci Toby, Eyeless Jack, Masky

#Notes: as a dad friend sassy latino myself this one was right up my alley ty

pronouns used: none

˗ˏˋ back to navigation ´ˎ˗

꒰⸝⸝₊⛓┊Jeff The Killer

You definitely give him a lot of shit. When you first arrive he's all cocky thinking he has a new victim, but then as soon as you opened your mouth, boom, he got dragged. Since he's quite the troublemaker, you'll probably be screaming at him a lot.

"¡Jeff! ¿Que chingado estás hacendo?"

"Slender, the new recruit is speaking tongues again!"

Secretly thinks it's kinda hot when you speak Spanish. The rolling r's just do something to him. While he's absolutely not gonna try to learn it, he ends up picking up a thing or two just from hearing you and the context of the situation. Can't speak it to save his life, though. Still, he makes fun of your language all the time.

"What, you forgot English already?"

Also, he's like, terrible with self care. Not as bad as Ben, but still pretty bad. Doesn't shower for days and hates drinking water. You'll have to threaten him with a chancla to get him to actually take some care of himself.

"¡Jeffrey Woods, chingada madre, limpia tu habitación!"

"You can't fucking make me!"

꒰⸝⸝₊⛓┊Ben Drowned

Little mister Hasn't Showered, Slept Or Eaten In A Week over here. I swear, this guy is helpless. Spends all his time cupped up in his room playing videogames and eating nothings but trash like some kind of fucking raccoon. You'll have the hardest time trying to take care of him.

"Ben, how long has it been since the last time you showered?"

"Uhmm... I don't know, about 9 days?"

" *sighs in spanish* "

Genuinely terrified of you when you get mad and start cussing in Spanish. He'll clean his room, he promises, just please put the chancla down!

Will actually be really happy if you make him Hispanic food. Not only does it taste good, but you made it for him because you care about him, and that means the world. He can't handle spicy stuff though, so be careful.

꒰⸝⸝₊⛓┊Ticci Toby

Not too bad in general when it comes to taking care of himself, but he does just... Forget to eat. All the time. He will just suddenly get light headed and remember he hasn't eaten a bite of food in the last 3-4 days. Another one who loves if you make him Hispanic food, but unlike Ben, he likes his shit extra spicy. Probably one of the only creeps who will try to learn Spanish to understand you better, even if you're fluent in English.

"H-hola, Y/N. Como- como estás?"

"Estoy bien, pero no necessitas hablar conmigo en español, chulo."

Yes, you call him "chulo". He will also listen to the music and just try to learn more of the culture in general to make you feel more welcome. Overall, genuinely puts in an effort in taking better care of himself so you don't have to worry about him as much.

꒰⸝⸝₊⛓┊Eyeless Jack

I'd be surprised if he didn't know Spanish already, which was probably a bit of a shock to you, but a good one nonetheless. He's not normally into gossip, but there's something extremely funny about talking shit about someone while they're right there and they have no idea what you're saying.

"Jeff es tan jodidamente estúpido."

"Sí, ¿verdad?"

"The FUCK you two talkin about?"

You won't have to worry about him much, he takes basic care of himself unlike most of the others. If anything, he's scolding rhe others WITH you. You're basically the parents of everyone else at this point.

꒰⸝⸝₊⛓┊Masky

Has the biggest fucking crush on you and will forever be mad about it. I said this in the ideal S/O post - he needs someone who gives him shit but also looks out for him and the others. The fact that latino people are extra hot is just a bonus. Unfortunately, this also means he's extra mean to you.

"Tienes que dejar de fumar. Te va a joder los pulmones así."

"Sorry, doll, I don't speak 'freak'."

Like Jeff, secretly thinks it's hot when you speak in your language. Hates when you scold him, loves it when you scold others, especially if you get extra mad and start cussing in Spanish. It's just amusing to him. Plus, you make things easier for him now that he's not the only one parenting these weirdos and he's genuinely glad you came along.

#creepypasta #creepypasta headcanons #creepypasta x reader #ray.writes #jeff the killer #ben drowned #ticci toby x reader #eyeless jack #ticci toby #jeff the killer x reader #ben drowned x reader #eyeless jack x reader

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pycobutterpie · 4 months

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Stranger in my kitchen

Summary: Dean goes full to protective dad mode, as he sees a stranger in his kitchen touching his daughter.

Pairing: Dean x reader

Warnings: firing a gun in front of a baby

Word Count: 1392

A/N: English isn’t my first language, so please don't judge me for using a translator for this original text. I wrote it together with my friend Minnie who has added the part of Lu and Y/N. We are so exited to add something to this beautiful community of writing for dean. Also this is my first fanfic ever published outside my inner circle of writing friends. (In our story it also became true, that Dean is Bens real father. And Bobby never died. ;) )

[Y/N's POV] It was actually a normal day at the Winchesters' house. Dean had been on a hunt with Bobby and should be home soon. Ben was still sleeping his bed upstairs. The two dogs were running around in the garden and also needed a little time to themselves… Baby Cassidy was already awake with her mother Y/N. Cassy was in damn good hands and was currently sitting in a little baby bouncer on the kitchen counter and Y/N was clearing out the dishwasher. But they weren't alone. On one of the bar stools sat a man, not much older than Y/N and Dean, in a smart dark blue suit and white shirt that wasn't completely buttoned up. In his hand was a steaming cup of coffee and on his hand was a ring with a black rectangular stone in it. With the other hand, he nudged Cassy's bouncer and smirked at her. Y/N had just tied her hair up in a bun and was wearing just a top and hot pants as she crouched behind the counter at the dishwasher. Cassy started laughing and just babbled to herself.

[Dean's POV] Hunting. An activity in which Dean felt completely free and could rely entirely on his instincts. It was what he had learned, what he was born for. Making the world a better place, saving lives. The family business.

For once, it wasn't about changing diapers or talking to stuffy principals. No, Wendigos didn't talk and Dean understands Bobby without words. So the men had chased the thing in the nearby St. Jeffreys mine for a few hours and finally sent it to purgatory. It was life like before the unexpected baby happiness. The hunt had been all about instinct, speed and accuracy. That was what Dean had been living for the last few hours.

And that was what he needed now, when he saw a strange man sitting at his kitchen table, holding out his hand for his Cassidy. The strange man was wearing a suit. He was sitting with his back to the doorway through which the hunter had just stepped. An advantage, if only for a split second.

And the pistol was already in Dean's hand, loaded with silver bullets, aimed at the stranger's back.

Dean pulled the trigger immediately.

There were no thoughts clouding his mind. No details that he noticed. Shoot first, ask questions later. That had always been the motto. At least that of John and Dean Winchester. The bullet that Dean hoped would save his daughter went off with a loud bang. Then his gaze was diverted by a person appearing from behind the counter. It was Y/N, who Dean's subconscious had classified as missing before. That's why he hadn't hesitated for a moment to shoot the stranger. Because nobody was allowed to get too close to his little Cassy. No one.

If you had time to look at Dean, you'd see a serious guy with soot and dust on his face, trousers and jacket. A bloody scratch adorned his left cheek, his knuckles were cracked and his palms were scraped open.

[Y/N's POV] Y/N hadn't given any thought at all to the fact that her cousin Lu had announced himself. Twenty minutes before his arrival. Of course, that was typical of him, as always. If he announces himself at all. But she was a good hostess after all, offering her visitor a coffee immediatly. And although he wasn't purely human, she knew he posed no danger whatsoever. Not to Ben, not to her, let alone to Cassy. She had even asked him to help her with some of her research into Cassy's powers and how to secure certain parts of them. But nonetheless, she knew Dean would be back later today. But she just figured the situation could be resolved with a simple round of introductions. But that wasn't the case. Dean came in in the manner of his father and started shooting at everything he didn't know and couldn't categorize. Great…

But Lu was quicker. He had already heard the footsteps crunching on the smooth tiled floor. Because Dean's shoes didn't look particularly clean from the hunt in the forest and so he also heard the safety catch on the gun and then automatically raised his hand towards Dean and the bullet made it out of the barrel of the gun but fell to the floor just before it hit his suit.

Y/N screamed briefly and slapped her hand over her mouth, but then saw how battered Dean looked… "Baby! What happened?" She had also dropped a cup that she had just taken out of the dishwasher and then immediately ran over to Dean, took the gun out of his hand and stuck it securely in the back of her waistband.

Lu had stood up in the meantime and straightened the front of his Armani suit and then looked over at Cassy again and stroked her lightly over her small hand. "Well, it looks like your daddy in a damn bad mood…" He looked to Dean with a grin now, being slightly provocative of course… But that was just the way he was. Otherwise, he was a kind-hearted person, if you could call him that…

[Dean's POV] Dean lips twitched in anger as the guy stopped the bullet just like nothing. That wasn't human. Something like that shouldn't be in this house. Briefly, he froze slightly as Y/N took the gun away from him and remained totally calm. She even seemed taken aback by Dean's reaction. Only slowly did he realize that she could also have an insurance agent visiting or someone from the youth welfare office. But that was out of the question, because the man was totally unimpressed by the fact that he had almost been shot.

What was wrong with the guy and his mocking grin? Dean looked at Y/N in amazement, because she must have guessed what had happened. He almost nagged at her: "A strange, supernatural guy is trying to touch my daughter. This maybe?" Long slimy fingers trying to hurt a cute baby. But not in Dean's kitchen!

Quickly, the hunter rushed to Cassidy and picked her up from the rocker to his dirty arms. The comforting smell of fresh baby skin and diapers came into his mind and grounded him a little. The little girl didn't quite know whether to be happy or cry and looked a little frightened.

Dean turned his child away from the stranger so that he couldn't touch her again. The protective father turned threateningly to the suit guy: "Get your paws off her or you'll have mine in your face!" He would love to deform that polished face a little, given the stranger's audacity. Dean protectively placed a hand on Cassy's head. Only Y/N's light-heartedness kept the hunter halfway to the ground. Eagle-eyed, he tried to spot something about his girlfriend. Some strange behavior. Was she under a spell? "So, what's this, huh?" he asked, still growling slightly.

[Y/N's POV] Lu stood there grinning, his hands buried in his pants pockets by now and leaning against the counter in the kitchen, really very relaxed and not at all intimidated. He then picked up his coffee cup, spread his little finger and simply watched the spectacle that was unfolding between the two of them. As panicked, angry and heroic as Dean was acting, it really amused the cousin.

Y/N rolled her eyes, but then realized that she should have warned Dean that Lu was coming over. She ran a hand through her hair and then said, "Dean…please… If there's someone in this house, I let them in here, otherwise Evangeline and Bones would have struck. And I told you about my cousin Lu from Vegas back then, didn't I? May I introduce…my cousin Lu from Vegas…yes, Lu is not human. He's a warlock. And yes, I invited him here to think about this magical barrier for Cassy's powers and to talk to him. But that won't work if you just shoot him. He's my biological cousin and I hope we've settled the issue now!", she said with a sigh. "Lu? This is Dean… My fiancé and father of my daughter. He's not usually that pissed off. But with Cassy, he sees red… And he has an aversion to strange men in suits…"

#happy birthday dean winchester #deansbirthdaybash #dean winchester #spn #supernatural #dean winchester x reader #angry dean winchester #protectiv dean winchester #dad!dean winchester #dean winchester x daughter #chocolatecakecas #spn family AU

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gentlebeardsbarngrill · 3 months

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03/13/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; Cast & Crew; Leslie Jones; Erroll Shand; Ruibo Qian; Dominic Burgess; Adam Wheatley; Kristian Nairn; Queerties; Fanspotlight: Cast Cards/Our Flag Means Fanfiction; SaveOFMDCrew /Billboards/trucks; Still Fighting; Max Madness; SchadenFreude; Articles; Watch Party Reminders; Love Notes; Daily Darby/Tonight's Taika

== Cast & Crew Sightings ==

== Leslie Jones ==

Congrats to Leslie for her NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Performance in a Short Form Series!!!! SRC: Leslie's Twitter

== Erroll Shand ==

It's Erroll Shand's birthday! please pop over anywhere you can find him and wish him a Happy Birthday!!! Thank you to @youvebeenricked on Instagram for sending him so much love!

Erroll Shand's Instagram

= Dominic Burgess! =

Our dear crew-mate @iamadequate1 got a Cameo from our very own Jeffrey Fettering (Dominic Burgess!) It's absolutely ADORABLE. You get to meet his cats and fish, and he's just the sweetest man alive-- please give it a watch!

Wanna send your cat pics to Dominic since he shared his cats with us? If you have twitter please add them to the thread below. Thank you to @ouibek for this lovely idea!!!

Ouibek's Twitter post

Speaking of Dominic, he also recently posted an interview he did, please read it when you get a chance!

= Ruibo Qian =

Our pirate queen Ruibo posted some very lovely pictures today, and the message of: 🎼🎶♾️ SRC: Ruibo's Instagram

== Kristian Nairn ==

New music comes out Mar 22, you can pre save it here!

== Adam Wheatley ==

Production Designer and Supervising Art Director Adam Wheatley has dropped some seriously awesome set designs! OFMD Twitter has been having a blast. Check out the full catalog here. Thank you to @adoptourcrew for bringing it to our attention!

== Queerties Results ==

Our Flag Means Death and Vico Ortiz both received Runner Up for the Queerties! Thanks so much for everyone who voted!

== Fan Spotlight ==

Thank you to @melvisik for yet another cast card! This time it's Bronson Pinchot, our very own Ned Low! I totally forgot he was in the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, I really need to go rewatch that! Thank you dear for another great card!

== Our Flag Means Fanfiction ==

Our darling crew-mates over at @ourflagmeansfanfiction have a new episode out, this time featuring Stede! On top of that, the #RhysDarbyFaction got a shout out 😭! Please check them out on Spotify or their Instagram!

== Save OFMD Crew / Billboards / Trucks ==

The AppleTV trucks were parked outside Apple today! On top of that, the SaveOFMD Crew sent some love out to David and the rest of the Cast & Crew for all the things they've done for us!

== Still Fighting ==

A lot of fans are still fighting the good fight. Even if we aren't getting OFMD s3, they're sticking it to the man, David Zaslav for stealing our Love, OUR JOY!

#FireDavidZaslav has trended two days in a row, and he's certainly getting some nasty press.

@screenjunkies made a call out to what a horrific job David Zaslav has been doing! Visit Honest Trailers | The Year 2023:

youtube

= Dont Stream On Max =

Are you still interested in causing Max some grief? There's a discord server where several fans are getting together to notify each other and make plans on how to polite menace max. Please reach out if you'd like a link!

= MaxMadness =

So today, Max thought it would be fun to post a really shitty bracket for shows and movies on their platform. They were pitching things like Citizen Kane to eventually be up against Shark Week. If you'd like to see the dumpster fire, feel free to visit their Twitter or Instagram.

Our crew-mate @iamadequate1 decided to make a Max Fan Favorites of our own! This time with cancelled shows! You can vote on this thread below on Twitter!

== SchadenFreude ==

WB is still having a rough time.

== Articles ==

Why is Wall Street Unimpressed with WBD Streaming Profits? Password-Sharing Crackdown Next in Zaslav’s Plans

== Watch Party Reminders ==

= Wrecked =

Times will be 10pm GMT / 5pm EST / 4pm CST / 2pm PST. Watch two episodes per day. Episodes are 21-22 minutes each. Use the following Saturday for the tags/watch if interested but not able to make this time.

Hashtags:

#WreckedPirates

#SaveOFMD

#RhysDarbyFaction

= Mar 15: Lube As A Crew =

Our dear friends over at @astroglideofficial are hosting one last Lube As A Crew, with all of Season 2 in one go! Starts Friday March 15th 12 pm Noon PST ( 4pm EST, 8 pm GMT)

Mar 17: Pirate Radio/The Boat That Rocked Watch Party!

Sunday the 17th of March at 7:30pm GMT / 3:30 pm EST / 1:30 pm CST Hosted & Graphics by @Tillychmo

Watch Party Hashtags:

PirateRadio

AdoptOurCrew

SaveOFMD

OurFlagMeansWatchAlong

== Calendar Reminder ==

Tomorrow is #TheoryThursday! Our crew deserve a happy ending. Let’s give them one! Post and tag us with your favorite fics or art that have happy/feel good endings. They can be your own!

== Love Notes ==

Hey lovelies! How are you holding up today? Are things any easier this week? If not, that's okay. It's okay to still not be ok.

It's already hump day, and here we are, still kicking. I feel like I've been having lots of ups and downs. Distracting myself with silly things that make me laugh help a lot. Talking with you all on the crew really helps too.

What makes you laugh? Is it puns? Or goofy pictures? Is it unhinged comments, or maybe schadenfreude?

Whatever it is that makes you laugh-- please laugh today. Turn on a special (there's plenty of Rhys Darby specials on youtube or prime video). If that's not your speed, and you want to reach a goofy fic, look up something on ao3 with the weirdest tag you can think of.

Laughter can make us feel so much more alive when we're feeling down, and I hope you get some today.

Remember that you deserve to laugh, and enjoy life. Life will continue to get better, and even when it has ups and downs, you can always laugh, and there will always be bits of joy in the world. You all are my joy. Every day I get by with witnessing all the wonders this crew accomplishes.

You're awesome, and you're kicking ass <3, and you deserve the best. Night Crew. Sending hugs and love.

== Daily Darby / Tonight's Taika ==

Tonight's lovely gifs feature... more hand action! Darby is courtesy of @jodegg! Taika is courtesy of @ofmd-ann!

#daily ofmd recap #daily ofmd recaps #ofmd daily recap #ofmd daily recaps #ofmd #our flag means death #rhys darby #save ofmd #taika waititi #dominic burgess #erroll shand #leslie jones #ruibo qian #finish our stories #long live ofmd #kristian nairn #Adam wheatley #Spotify #Youtube

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