#which is why (i hear) a lot of folks suffering from it avoid interacting with kids

[mishkakagehishka]

do u think maybe perhaps shu has p-ocd 👀 he strikes me as a p-ocd-haver, given his fixation on youth and beauty and perfection, coupled with just how. utterly sexless he is.

(i realize this is a very charged thing to ask, so i feel like i should clarify that this meant as a neutral "what if" question about a very specific form of ocd aslfgdkhl;j im not tryna accuse shu of anything untoward /gen)

Huh! I think it's possible, actually. Tho he doesn't avoid children, he does seem to take awfully to seeing them hurt (see: he way he hates the idea of mistreating the younger rabbits, the way he goes batshit when Hajime pricks his finger sewing and the "there are no gods and no buddhas" spiel when he thought Sora got sawed in half), so i think it's very possible, paired with him hurting Nazuna/Valkyrie without even actually knowing it at the time, he could have developed a form of p-ocd?

To be honest, i'm not the person to ask on the specifics, all i know from it comes from a heart-to-heart i once had with a friend who has it and what i've read a bit online :') but i think we could read him for it, maybe even paired with Mika saying stuff like "don't say things that could be misunderstood" when someone said Shu loves cute kids - you could read it as Mika knowing of his condition and not wanting it to worsen bc of someone accusing him of that stuff.

#you don't have to worry ab me thinking of it as a charged ask tho i can understand that p-ocd =/= abuser #in fact people with p-ocd are less likely to actually abuse kids #because it's intrusive - upsetting - thoughts of hurting children #which is why (i hear) a lot of folks suffering from it avoid interacting with kids #asks

[love-takes-work]

When someone toxic needs a friend

I just wanna add a little personal reflection to the discussion of Spinel’s treatment in Steven Universe: The Movie.

A few signposts so you know where I’m starting with this:

A criticism I’ve seen: 

Steven was not particularly warm to Spinel. He did not hug her. He did not offer to be her friend. He spoke carelessly and triggered her toward becoming murderous again. He only cared about what she could do for him.

A perspective I’ve seen: 

LOTS of people with borderline personality disorder or strong feelings about abandonment personally relate to Spinel and are critical of Steven from this perspective.

Rebecca Sugar’s commentary on Spinel:

The thing about Spinel is that she’s a really toxic person. 

She’s so toxic that she’s literally trying to poison people. 

In my interactions with friends who have had a history difficult enough to make it hard for them to trust other people and sometimes even actively want to hurt others, it’s just a very difficult situation to navigate. In the case of Spinel and all of these characters, that’s extremely exaggerated because cartoons have the ability to be extreme exaggerations. I wanted to explore what it’s like when you’re trying to help someone who really doesn’t want to help themselves, who wants to embody the negative feelings that they have about themselves. I think that’s something really real. I hadn’t seen that in a cartoon before. 

Spinel, unlike many other characters, actually has the goal of hurting people, which is new territory for the show. She really wants to hurt Steven, and there’s a reason that she does—because she’s in so much pain. I just wanted to explore all the dimensions of that.

I also think Steven has his way of trying to handle and dissolve conflict. It’s not necessarily a good way for him to handle this situation. It really leaves him in a difficult state, and I think what I wanted to show in the way that they interact is that at a certain point, when you can’t help someone, you have to be able to protect yourself. 

Ultimately, he can’t really convince her to change. It’s something she’ll have to want for herself. But what he can do is protect himself from her, making it impossible for her to hurt him. 

It’s sort of up to you if you would like to love her. If you watch this movie and she, you know, frustrates you, that is totally fair. I want that to be a big part of who she is.

[From the AV Club interview]

So here are a few things I want to shed light on.

It’s very interesting that Rebecca intended Spinel to be read as “a toxic person” because so many fans fell in love with her, said they’d be her friend, hated intensely on Pink Diamond because of what she did to abandon the poor Gem, and sympathized with her directly. But Rebecca was looking at Spinel from Steven’s perspective. And that’s also what I did.

I’ve been Steven. I have VERY much been Steven.

When you meet someone who was done dirty, when you recognize the horror they’ve been through, when you see how much pain they are in and agree they have the right to be angry, it’s natural for empathetic people to offer themselves as comfort.

But when you’re Steven, you also know it isn’t YOUR fault either. Before you have the ability and experience to set boundaries, you can get sucked into other people’s stormy waters and think you’re helping if you drown in solidarity with them. What’s really important to preserving yourself is learning that you can stand on the boat and toss a life preserver. That it doesn’t ACTUALLY HELP to jump in the water and sink with them.

Some folks are angry that Steven didn’t jump right into sacrifice himself on the altar of friendship in the service of an intense, literally murderous stranger who tried to poison him and his planet and lash out at his friends, robbing them of their rich pasts and their relationships because all of it hurt HER so much. It is SO easy to understand WHY SPINEL WAS ANGRY. But nothing she was doing to Steven, his friends, or the Earth was going to fix her problems, and furthermore, she FULLY UNDERSTOOD that it was NOT THE FAULT of any of the people she took her anger out on. It was irrational, yes, and that is part of her dysfunction. But also, in these situations, what helps explain it still does not excuse it.

Some have railed at Steven saying he somehow forgave genocidal tyrants like the Diamonds but couldn’t be friends with a damaged Gem like Spinel who just wanted friendship. The big difference there is that Steven got involved with the Diamonds when both parties believed he was a different person. The Diamonds believed he was the lost Pink Diamond, and Steven has also spent much of his superhero life believing he WAS his mother and was therefore obligated to accept punishment for her crimes or to clean up the messes she made. Now that he knows he is not her and that she did some pretty horrible stuff, he also wants the right to stop feeling responsible for every person Pink hurt in the entire region of space.

Steven gave Spinel basically compassionate treatment. He did not abuse her. He did not insult her. He occasionally coddled her when it seemed important (and though some said he was too businesslike while he pursued his mission, he was literally looking at the world ending within two days if he didn’t solve the problem). And most importantly . . . .

He let her leave the garden.

Spinel stayed in the garden all those millennia because Pink Diamond told her they were playing a game. All that time, she had visions of Pink returning so she could see her smile, hear her laughter. We see a sequence where she tried to follow Pink out of the garden and Pink manipulated her into staying willingly. We watch those feet leaving and one pair of feet staying behind. We see Pink disappear.

When Steven goes to leave the garden, Spinel follows in the same manner. Some have criticized him for letting go of her hands.

But he invited her out of the garden. He didn’t say stay. He said come with me.

As he sang about her deserving someone better, he was sincere. But he did not say the person to make her feel found should be him. He did not want to take on another person with thousands of years of baggage who would require a specific brand of attention and so much tenderness to avoid snapping. He did not allow her to be held by the hand and led out. He recognized that she needed encouragement to leave this place because of what was done to her, but he wanted her to take the steps.

Compassionate people are crushed all the time under the weight of needy people who make it hurt to love. People like Steven can acknowledge that Spinel deserves love and deserves to be happy without accepting that it’s heartless to stop short of personally doing it. Especially when you literally have to take physical, mental, and emotional damage as a general consequence of offering support and counseling. It is sometimes just beyond what you can do.

I made the mistake several times of getting very close to someone who treated me poorly while taking comfort in my presence. I cared that they were hurt and I didn’t know how to say “You deserve love” without stepping in and loving them. In EVERY case I was involved with, the person went from initially grateful to “why don’t you help me more?” shockingly quickly, and two of them deliberately tried to create situations where I would be trapped with them and isolated from others. 

I could get very personal here but I don’t think I need to. Those of us who relate all too well to Steven wanting to help others will have been in this situation. Your heart hurts for people who live with pain that has never touched you, but when they’ve made it clear with one of their first actions that they feel satisfied at the idea of ruining your life, trusting them could mean the end of you. Especially if they demand that you risk life and limb to fix and save them before you’d dare to call it love, and especially if they want to be fixed without feeling responsible for initiating any of it. Some people mistake suffering for working hard toward a goal. Both can hurt but only one is constructive. If I’m expected to spend extensive resources on someone, I need some partnership in the goal, and I can’t accomplish that with someone whose wish for companionship manifests as “I want you to feel as bad as I do, and will take steps to hurt you so I have someone to cry with.”

Steven risked his actual life while he didn’t have powers so he could go talk to Spinel, and he wouldn’t fight her when she wanted to fight. He protected himself while she spent her anger. He STILL put himself in the line of fire far more than a less compassionate person would. He took time and tenderness to listen to her story and sympathize with her, tell her she deserved better, bear witness to what she’d become after being treated like a discarded plaything, and bring her hope with promises of a new future and a way to feel found.

Sadly, Spinel flipped back to being murderous at the first sign that Steven might be about to prioritize someone other than her, reframing his reasonable needs as if he was planning to abandon her, isolate her, discard her. This was a trauma reaction, yes, and she isn’t entirely to blame for being upset because she was worried she was just being used and none of her actions were logically thought through. 

But does someone ever “deserve” the friendship of a specific person who can’t feel warm toward them because of their OWN bad experiences? 

No! 

Steven has a big heart but he has his very own huge storehouse of trauma, and being physically attacked with his family and planet put in danger over the actions of his mother is at the top of the list. Instead of assuming that the person who has trauma the loudest is the most hurt, can’t we just acknowledge that Spinel’s and Steven’s respective traumas make them NOT the best match for friendship?

The ending of the movie, with Spinel going off with the Diamonds, might seem a little disturbing with all the codepencency floating around there, but if you want to talk about compassion, I think this is a good place for Spinel to start. 

She just wanted to make Pink Diamond laugh and enjoy her life. She longed to do that for so long and then it all ended when she found out she would NEVER GET TO DO IT. I think bonding with the other Diamonds and having a familiar, safe place to experience the kind of love she’s used to will be a good FOUNDATION for building herself into a person beyond that. For now, she needs comfort. I hope they treat her well.

#steven universe #steven universe the movie #gif #long post #spinel #su analysis #my su analysis #myblog

[exhaustedfander]

moxiety with fake dating? mayhaps with some gay panicking because ahhh cute stranger hold hngg hand??

I was having such stupid technical difficulties ith Word, but here it is, sorry it’s been like three weeks, lol. I’d love to hear what you think! 

a03 link

word count: 3,008

Fake it Till You Make it 

Virgil’s always careful whilst staking out a seat in the coffee shop he frequents. He makes sure not to sit in an area that’s too crowded, as to bypass unnecessary human-contact, while simultaneously avoiding the table too close to the door that lets a draft in. He’s been coming here a long time now, as it’s the closest place to his College, as well as the fact that the coffee is reasonably priced, and the atmosphere is pretty damn cozy. Also… there’s a barista that happens to be the cutest man Virgil’s ever laid his eyes on, but that’s beside the point! 

By now, all of the staff know his order – a cinnamon Cappuccino with enough whipped cream to drown in – like the back of their hands, so he has to worry about social interaction a lot less than usual. The adorable barista in question, Patton, has only ever taken his order, sweet as can be while doing so, but Virgil’s never really talked to the guy. Not that he plans on it! That is waaay too nerve-racking to so much as think about, thank you very much. Sure, he can get lost in those ocean-blue eyes and often fantasizes about running his hand through those strawberry-blonde curls but talking to him is strictly out of the question. He likes this coffee spot and would really hate to have to find a new shop all because he’s made a fool of himself. 

So, it’s not hard to imagine Virgil’s utter shock when he finds that very same barista standing beside him, a dazzling smile on his face.

“Is this seat taken?” He asks, in reference to the chair beside him, and Virgil’s fairly sure he forgets how to breathe for a moment. 

“Uh – no,” he manages to stutter, “It’s all yours, man.” The barista grins, sitting beside him. 

“Thanks… Virgil, right?” Virgil blinks surprised he’d remember something as inconsequence as his name. 

“Yeah,” Virgil says, “My, uh, friends call me Virge. You can, too, if you wanted to.” Virgil despises the way his voice is trembling; why is he so fucking nervous? It’s just basic, human, social interaction (with the most beautiful man to grace this Earth, but basic, human social interaction nonetheless)

“Sure, thing, Virge. I’m Patton,” he says, as though Virgil hadn’t memorized the name on his nametag the moment, he saw him. “I like your pin, by the way.” 

Virgil glances down at the Bisexual pin on his backpack, feeling heat rise to his cheeks. It’s not like he’s missed the rainbow shirt he’s seen peeking out from behind Patton’s apron sometimes – an apron he doesn’t currently have on, meaning he’s off the clock, also meaning instead of going home, he’s sitting here, talking to him. So, yeah, Patton’s probably gay, and he’s talking to him, but that doesn’t actually mean anything. It doesn’t stop Virgil from panicking quite a bit, though. 

“Thanks,” Virgil says, trying his absolute hardest to keep his cool. He’s wanted to talk to Patton for so long, but he hadn’t imagined it would ever actually happen. 

“You come here a lot, huh?” Patton asks. Virgil rubs at the back of his neck, struggling to maintain eye-contact. 

“Uh- yeah. This is a cool place, and it’s not too far from my school.” Virgil fails to mention the fact that Patton’s a big reason he comes in nearly daily, thinking such a detail might come off as super creepy.

As awkward as Virgil is, a conversation is struck up. He learns that Patton is a student at his college, too (How the fuck did he manage to miss a face like that??) and that he’s studying to be a Veterinarian, which Virgil finds a little funny, considering he’s terribly allergic to cats. Patton’s a big fan of dad-jokes and puns, and while he can try and groan, it just manages to make Patton all the more adorable. He also discovers that yes, Patton is gay and that he first came about a year ago. 

“Yeah, my parents weren’t too thrilled,” Patton says in a voice that’s desperately trying to stay chipper, but the sorrow creeps in all the same, “They still aren’t.” 

“Mine either,” Virgil says before he really knows what he’s saying, “I haven’t, uh, talked to them in a long time. I might never again, honestly.” A look of sympathy crosses Patton’s face, though it’s clear that he relates, maybe more than he wants to admit to himself. 

“I’m so sorry to hear that, Virge.” 

Virgil shrugs. It’s nothing new. He came out to his parents at seventeen, a choice that was quite the feat considering the level of anxiety he suffers from, and it hadn’t gone well at all. His folks hadn’t kicked him out, but they’d insisted that he was never to take a boy home. At first, Virgil had tried to get on their good side, they were his parents, after all. But it didn’t take long for him to realize what a fruitless venture that was. They weren’t going to change, regardless of how much he wanted them to. 

Once he got to college, he had an opportunity to meet a few really great people, despite his social-anxiety, individuals who had shown him how important it is to have positive relationships in life. At this point, it could undo a few years of positive change to let his parents back into his life, and Virgil wasn’t about to go and do a thing like that.

“It’s alright,” he says, “They’re assholes, anyway. I got some pretty cool relatives though, and some really good friends, so that helps.” Patton frowns, and suddenly Virgil decides he despises the sad expression on him, wondering what the hell he could do to make it go away.

“My parents are assholes too,” Patton murmurs, as though saying such a word is incomprehensively bad, and as if Virgil hadn’t said it too about three seconds ago. “They really are. I’ve been trying. Trying so hard to be patient with them and allow them time to adjust but… it just isn’t happening. They’re still talking about when I end up with “some lucky lady.” I don’t know…” Patton pauses, his eyes widening, “Oh my goodness, I’m sorry.” Virgil tilts his head. 

“What for?”

“For dumping all that on you. I mean, we hardly know each other. It was rude of me.” 

“Nah, man, you’re good. I was just talking about my parents, there’s no reason to apologize. And I should know, I’m kind of the king of apologizing for shit I didn’t do.” Patton cracks a small smile at that, and Virgil swells with a pit too much pride. “My point is, you didn’t overshare, or anything. We’re just having a conversation, you’re good, I promise.” Patton looks relieved. 

“Thanks, Virgil. You’re really nice.” Virgil’s heart can’t help but soar a little bit at that. Sometimes, he’s convinced he’s a massive asshole, despite his friends insisting that it isn’t. but it’s really nice to know that Patton thinks he’s nice.

“No prob, Pat. You’re nice too.”

“Well then, I’m glad we were able to break the nice,” Patton says, earning a half-hearted groan. “I’ve kinda wanted to talk to you for a while, actually.” Virgil’s heart skips a beat. 

“R-really? Why?”

“Because,” Patton says with a smile, “You always seemed so interesting. Mentioning your Pin was, uh, kind of just an excuse to talk to you,” Patton admits and, holy shit, is he flirting?! Virgil can’t tell, but sirens are going off in his head regardless. 

“I – uh,” Virgil bites his tongue, trying to come up with a dignified response of some kind, but failing to do so. “Thanks?” Despite Virgil’s criminal lack of tact, Patton just smiles, a look that quickly disappears when he gets a notification and checks his phone.

“What’s up?” Virgil asks, before realizing it’s hardly his business. He’s known Patton for what? An hour or so now – oh my god, Patton’s been talking to him for over an hour – and that doesn’t give Virgil the authority to inquire upon the barista’s personal life beyond what he’s already been told. Patton shakes his head.

“My cousin Dalilah getting married next week,” Patton explains, despite Virgil’s hesitation, “She’s one of the only family members who I’m really close to; she’s such a sweetheart.”

“Then what’s wrong?” 

“My mom and dad are going to be at the wedding,” Patton sighs, “And I don’t have a date. If I show up without some guy on my arm, I know they’re just gonna assume that the crisis is over, and they can set me up with the next available girl. They already think me being gay is a phase, this is all the reason they need to think the phase is over.” A sad look flickers in Patton’s eyes and instantly, all logic or uncertainty that Virgil’s clinging to goes out the window.

“What if I was your date?” Patton’s eyes go as wide as saucers and, oh shit, he really just said that aloud.

“W-what?”

“L-like a fake date,” Virgil backpedals, his heart rate spiking in a matter of seconds, “So t-that your parents aren’t dicks to you. Or at least, are less of dicks.” 

For a moment, Virgil almost dares to think that the explanation made Patton look kinda… disappointed? Not that it would make much sense, it’s not like he’d actually want Virgil to be his date. 

“Virgil you… you can’t be serious.”

“Well, why not?” Virgil asks, knowing he’s most probably going to regret this later, “You’re a cool guy who’s in a shitty situation. Your parents are going to be relentless to you, and I don’t like the idea of that, so… why don’t I make things a little easier for you?” Virgil says, impressed he gets through it without feeling as anxious as he had a few moments ago. 

“I couldn’t ask you to do that,” Patton mumbles guiltily, his eyes cast on the table, “I wouldn’t want you to sacrifice your weekend just for me.” 

“Pat, I was just gonna aimlessly scroll through Tumblr till two in the morning and watch shitty TV. And– erm– being your fake date sounds a lot more interesting to me.” (Not to mention nerve-racking!) Patton meets Virgil’s gaze once more, relief etched into his features.

“You’d really be willing to do this?” Patton asks, “You don’t need to, you know.”

“I want to,” Virgil assures. “So, what do you say?” Patton thinks for a moment before that beautiful smile spreads across his face anew.

“That sounds perfect! Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” Patton says, standing up from his chair and throwing his arms around the emo, “You’re a lifesaver, Virgil!” Virgil stiffens in the awkward embrace, before accepting it to the best of his ability, trying not to freak out because Patton fucking Hart is hugging him! 

“Sure thing, Pat.” 

After that, arrangements are made. As it turns out, Patton isn’t the biggest fan of lying, hates it, honestly, which makes things a little trickier. But a compromise is come to that they met each other in the Coffee shop, which was true and had been on a few dates prior to the wedding. While that wasn’t technically true (God does Virgil wish it was) they do spend several days throughout the week hanging out and getting to know one another. And within those few days, Virgil’s infatuation with Patton inflames to a full-on crush which is just great.

Getting better acquainted with him, Virgil finds himself quickly getting used to Patton’s bubbly personality. He’s eager to pet every dog he comes into contact with, he enjoys baking quite a bit, though he’s not great at it, he’s adorably awkward in the best ways and he’s one of the kindest, most genuine people Virgil’s ever met. 

Usually, Virgil’s so well-guarded, but with Patton, he’s opening up quicker and more willingly than he has in such a long time. Patton listens with such compassion, and while Virgil’s really happy to have the other friends that he does, he’s never met someone as sweet as Patton is. It’s almost a little overwhelming at times, how caring he is. 

Before they know it, the day is upon them. Virgil gets a rental suite while trying not to swoon at Patton in his sky-blue tux, because really, how is it legal for him to look that cute?

Patton grabs his hand the moment they walk into the venue, sending Virgil a careful glance and squeezing his hand just slightly.

“This okay?” He whispers, ever the compassionate one, and Virgil nods.

“Yeah, ‘s okay.” Virgil can’t recall the last time someone held his hand, and he certainly can’t remember the number of times he’s imagined Patton holding his hand, prior to them even being friends. 

They take their seats, and the ceremony proceeds as usual. It’s beautiful, not that Virgil is paying too much attention, distracted by Patton’s nervous glances toward an older couple that must be his folks.

“Hey, are you alright?” Virgil asks quietly. Patton forces a smile, his eyes trained on his cousin and her fiancé.

“Yeah, I’m – I’m fine,” – he doesn’t sound fine –, “It’s just…” Patton trails off, his gaze flickering back to his parents for a moment. Virgil places his hand over Patton’s, who’s trembling is noticeable immediately. Carefully, Virgil runs his thumb over Patton’s knuckles in an even, circular motion. Luckily, it seems to calm Patton down to a degree, and he doesn’t take his eyes off of Dalilah for the rest of the ceremony. 

However, almost immediately upon the afterparty starting, they’re cornered by Mr. and Mrs. Hart.

“Patton, you didn’t come and say hello,” his mother scolds. 

“Well, there were a lot of people,” Patton says nervously, “I figured we’d –.”

“Who’s this?” Patton’s father interrupts, gesturing to Virgil standing beside him.

“Virgil Storme,” Virgil says as calmly as he’s able, extending a hand for the father to shake. Mr. Hart’s hand remains rigid at his side. “I’m Patton’s boyfriend. It’s nice to meet you.” 

Virgil can’t help but notice as anxiety wells up inside of him because, fuck, they’d never said they were going to call each other boyfriend’s, just that they’d been on a few dates, but Mr. Hart had such a smug look and he couldn’t help it. Despite his raging internal monologue, Patton plants a hand onto the small of his back, lips curling into a smile.

“That’s right,” Patton says, “Mom, Dad, this is my boyfriend.” 

The look of slackened shock on their faces would be priceless, weren’t it for the fact that these are still Patton’s parents, individuals who’ve had a direct influence on him throughout the entirety of his life.

“You’ve never – you’ve never mentioned a boyfriend before,” Patton’s mother says, glaring at her son. 

“And certainly not one who looks like some kind of a hooligan,” Mr. Hart grits, gesturing to Virgil’s dyed purple hair and pierced ears. Virgil intends to let the insult go, as it would only cause more trouble to confront it, but Patton has other ideas.

“Hey, you have no right to talk like that about Virgil,” Patton says, an edge to his voice that Virgil had yet to hear until now. Virgil grips for Patton’s hand, lacing their fingers together and giving him a reassuring squeeze.

“How long has this been going on, sweetie?” Mrs. Hart chimes in, though it’s unclear if she’s referring to Virgil himself, or Patton’s sexuality as a whole. Either way, it’s a poor choice of words.

“My whole life, mom,” Patton spits, a venomous tone that would surely be louder if they weren’t at a wedding, “I’ve been gay my whole life, and nothing is going to change that.”

“But –.”

“But, nothing,” Patton interrupts boldly, “I’m not having this conversation, not again. If you can’t accept the fact that I’m never going to end up with ‘some nice girl,’ and that Virgil is absolutely wonderful, then we haven’t got anything to talk about.”

The words are a slap across Mr. and Mrs. Hart's face, who reel back in shock. 

“Patton, son –.”

“Goodbye,” Patton says, realizing it might very well be the last time he says it. He begins walking out of the reception and Virgil follows close behind. They make it outside, and luckily there’s no one else around.

“Pat… are you okay?” Virgil asks, reaching out to touch Patton’s shoulder.

“I’m done, Virgil. I’m done being gentle for them, I’m done pretending. It’s not worth it.” Pride wells in Virgil, even though he’s known Patton a little less than a week. 

“Well, then, I can tell you that was amazing! You kicked ass, Patton! Did you see the stupid look on their faces? They were so –.” Virgil is quickly interrupted when Patton’s lips collide against his, fingers gripping his lapels. Virgil needs a second to adjust and realize this is actually happening before he kisses back just as fervidly, his hands threading in Patton’s curls that are soft to the touch, just as he’d always imagined. 

“We’re – we’re not still pretending, right?” Virgil asks dumbly, and Patton shakes his head with a laugh, light, and airy.

“No, no of course not. Unless… you want it to be pretend?” 

“No! God, n-no! You’re amazing, Pat, you’re so kind, and soft and good and cute and… oh god, I’m rambling.” Patton giggles again, and Virgil decides it’s one of the best sounds he’s had the pleasure of hearing. 

“It’s cute.” 

“You’re cuter.”

“No, you are.”

The never-ending debacle of who is cuter is decidedly ended when their lips meet again, and Virgil’s positive this outweighs anything fantasy had to offer.

In the end, Patton hasn’t told a lie. Virgil is his boyfriend, even if they didn’t start the day out that way. The two walk back into the venue, hand-in-hand, watching as the Hart’s avert their eyes and Patton happily introduces Virgil to the family and friends who matter. 

Virgil’s never been so glad he walked into that coffee shop.

=+=

Taglist:

@nadiestar

@unoriginalgayboyalex 

@maryann-draws

Please let me know if you wanna be added to my general taglist! I’d be happy to add folks!

#moxiety #romantic moxiety #human au #Virgil Sanders #Patton Sanders #fake dating #technically coffee shop au #I mean Pat's a barista #TW homophobia #TW homophobic parents #fluff #lotsa fluff #angst/fluff #Virgil's got it baaad #this was a fun one #request #exhaustedfander writes #exhaustedfander

[marta-bee]

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

Sherlockians, I want to talk about Mary. Or not about Mary the character, because enough words have been spent on that topic and I’m nowhere near brave enough to wade into that one on a snowy Sunday afternoon, but rather on the way we as readers can (perhaps should) relate to her. At some level what follows is about this Tumblr post, where an anonymous commenter asked for “any fics where Mary’s not the bad guy” and noticed that a lot of the evil-Mary fanworks “gets a bit misogynistic in my opinion”; but I’m also using that as something of a springboard, and don’t mean this as a direct reply to that post. (Which is why I’m not replying in a reblog; please everyone go check out that post and comment on it as well.)

Anyway, let me start with two basic points that I hope are pretty noncontroversial.

Mary is an antagonist, at least some of the time.

Mary has at least some aspects of her character that are bad-making (more on what I mean by “bad-making” in a moment), or at least would be if she were a real person.

The devil’s in the details here, as it is with most things worth talking about, so let’s unpack that a bit.

(Long post is long, and so continued under the cut.)

When I say someone’s an antagonist, I’m not really making a value-judgment. I’m purposefully avoiding that word, “villain,” which calls to mind “villainous” as a description of their personality and character. An antagonist is just someone who plot-wise stands in opposition to the character. They’re wrapped up in the conflict our hero has to overcome.

Let’s take a pretty straightforward (and unrelated to our fandom, so hopefully less emotionally charged for a lot of us) example: the first “Hunger Games” book. Katniss is thrown into a gladiatorial fight to the death with twenty-three other teenagers. With the exception of Rue and (later in the games) Peeta, everyone else is an antagonist in relation to Katniss. She has to hope for their death and be prepared to kill them because their continued existence stands in the way of her surviving the games. Most are reduced to numbers with s knowing precious little about them – certainly not enough to think they deserve death. But they’re still antagonists because they’re obstacles the hero has to work past if she hopes to succeed.

Or take Draco Malfoy, in the early Harry Potter books. He’s a thoroughly unpleasant boy, spoiled and sniveling certainly, but I’d be hard-pressed to call him bad. His biggest defining characteristic is he stands up and tries to fight Harry; but often as not this comes down to inter-house squabbling and the only reason he and Harry are on opposite sides is how they were sorted. As we learn, given the way he was raised and the political situation he was raised in, it’s actually pretty admirable how on the periphery of the Death Eaters he stays. But he’s still the antagonist, he’s the one Harry has to outsmart or outperform or otherwise get around.

It's only natural we cheer when the antagonists fail. We’re primed to identify with the protagonist, after all, and their failure means the protagonist gets to win. Even if objectively know the antagonist doesn’t actually deserve to fail, well. That’s just kind of how stories work.

Getting back to Sherlock, I said it’s pretty noncontroversial that Mary’s an antagonist. So when I say that I don’t mean she’s evil, or even that she’s only an antagonist. But the woman shoots our star character in the chest. It’s her secrets and her very presence that drive Sherlock into exile (and drive Sherlock and John apart) for a second time, undoing whatever victory  Sherlock achieved when he defeated Moriarty’s web. She’s certainly a problem to be addressed and worked past in HLV. In terms of canon and parallels with the Doyle stories, there’s quite a lot about her actions (particular in Leinster Gardens) that all but screams “Sebastian Moran.” Ergo: antagonist.

There’s also a quieter, more ordinary sense that I suspect will be more controversial but is worth talking about anyway. Like a lot of Sherlockians and Johnlockers, I’m a big fan of making space for John/Mary/Sherlock in happy OT3 land. I think Sherlock and John at least want some version of that in canon; maybe not romantically, but they like to imagine their being room in their lives for these different relationships to not be in conflict. But in BBC-canon that hope’s not really borne out. This deserves a full meta on its own, but briefly: when Mary observes that neither she nor Sherlock were “the first” (talking about Sholto), she situates them in competition for the same position in John’s life, rather than in distinct, complementary ones (which an OT3 seems to require); and when Sherlock notes at the end of TSOT episode that “we can’t all three dance,” he seems to come to a similar conclusion. I do love me some good Johnlockary fic, but I don’t think this is where the show was heading

At a more basic level, I’d actually argue it almost has to be this way with these three- at least if we’re to hold on to John and Sherlock being “the two of us against the world.” In the 1800s men and women had such different roles in society, a man would do very different things and relate in very different ways to his close (male) friends than he would to his (female) wife. So Watson could run off with Holmes and have adventure, then return home to Mary for the peaceful, even loving family life, without one really being in tension with the other. But by the twenty-first century those spheres aren’t nearly so different. Even if you don’t imagine them as lovers, it’s hard not to imagine a self-respecting woman today saying as Mary did in TAB, “I don’t mind you going; I mind you leaving me behind.” One of the biggest challenges for a modern Holmes adaptation (or indeed, for a modern consumer of the original Doyle stories) is how to balance Holmes’ and Watson’s private “intimate partnership” – however we understand that term – against (John) Watson’s marriage to Mary with all we moderns expect of that relationship in terms of emotional fidelity, equal partnership, shared future, etc.

Put more simply: Mary should throw a monkey-wrench in the mix; she should be something that must be accounted for and whose presence should affect how Holmes and Watson can interact. Not to mean her presence is incompatible with Holmes and Watson’s close and exclusive relationship, but at a minimum she’s a factor in need of an explanation. She can’t help but be antagonistic, at least to some interpretations of Holmes’s and (John) Watson’s relationship.

As I said, with antagonists, it’s only natural to cheer for the protagonists, which almost inevitably means rooting for the protagonists’ failure. At least we root for them being de-antagonized, converted into some other relationship to the main character. But if you’ve spent any time on AO3, you’ve probably come across fanfic focusing on the antagonists (*cough* Loki *cough**cough* Drary *hacks up a longue* Silm-fandom-this-one’s-for-you *cough*’s). We can be a thirsty bunch when it comes to our antagonists, for characters we by all rights should be primed to hate. And even at the level of primary-canon, one of the biggest ways the primary creator shows their emotional growth is by realizing their antagonists aren’t truly their enemy. Like most readers I had a tear in my eye as Cato suffered through the night, begging for death; and certainly I would have been outraged if Harry hadn’t saved Draco from the Room of Requirements in “Deathly Hallows.” Gollum’s treachery is explained and he is given his own completion; Darth Vader is spared by Luke and allowed to look on his son with his own eyes; and the Klingons, Cardassians, and Borg are given their own sort of redemption in Worf, Garak, and Seven of Nine.

All of which is to say: it’s understandable, even natural, why people would have a hard time rooting for the antagonist, but there’s a long history of fandom peoples steering into the curve on this one. So it’s also understandable, even natural, that people want to hear stories with them at the center, both new stories about them and also versions of the original canon narrative that don’t need them to wear the black hat all the time. Some folks want Mary, Sherlock, and John to all go crime-solving together. I personally think there’s sometimes a danger of turning an antagonist – especially one who is at least morally gray (and I promise we’re getting there) like Mary is – into a protagonist without wrestling with what turned them into an antagonist in the first place; so if you want to bring Mary back to the side of John and Sherlock you need to grapple with what pushed them into opposing roles in the first place, or else risk your plot feeling “cheap” and unearned. (In fairness, this warning could as easily be directed to Mofftiss as anyone in fandom!)

But at an absolute minimum, I think it’s pretty obvious that lots of fans want to imagine the antagonists as at the heart of their own stories, and lots of fan-creators have done a really good job of providing those stories. Just as a lot of fans will almost instinctively be drawn to hate them, well, if you want to go a different path you’re in good company.

Enough about protagonist/antagonist, which as I said is more about the role the character fills in the story than about their morality or character. This, for me at least, is where it really gets interesting.

Before we get started, though, I know a lot of people struggle against this idea of morality when it applies to fictional characters and fictional stories. They’ll point out (rightly) that just because they enjoy a non-con PWP doesn’t mean they approve of rape in real life; that their reading preferences come from a different place entirely than their moral judgments. But at the same time, a lot of people (equally rightly) struggle to enjoy stories that glorify things we don’t consider worth glorifying. It’s one thing to enjoy a story about Draco rejecting the Death Eaters, returning to mainstream wizarding society and joining the Aurors; quite another to imagine him dating Harry while he’s still walking around calling Hermione a mudblood.

Or getting back to the Sherlock fandom, a lot of people are most comfortable with stories with Mary’s the antagonist because she’s got a character history and just personality traits where, if we met someone like her in real-life, we’d consider her morally bad. Or on the flip slide, those fans who want a not-evil!Mary in their stories often like to imagine her as the kind of person we’d describe as good or redeemed or some such thing, if she were an actual person. Mary’s morality, at least the morality of a similar person operating in the real world (because --speaking as a former philosophy Ph.D. student who taught philosophical ethics for years-- let me tell you: talking about the morality of fictional constructs gets very messy, very quickly), seems to matter to a great number of fans. So let’s talk about that.

I said above I thought most people would agree, Mary had parts o her character that were bad-making. What I mean is there are aspects about her that tend to make a person bad, unless they’re explained by some other factor. I’ve got in mind something vaguely similar to W.D. Ross’s theories of prima facie duties (if any of you studied this in your Ethics 101 courses- you would have in mine). Basically, the idea is we have all these duties that apply to us, but they can seem to conflict, and we may decide (rightly) in any given situation that one or the other is the more important one for us to follow. The classic example is the duty to keep our promises and prevent suffering when we can. You can imagine situations where you can’t do both- for instance, if I promised to meet you for lunch and on my way to the restaurant came across a man who fell into a ditch and twisted his ankle along a deserted road, where it’s unlikely someone else would come upon him. If I stop to help him I’ll miss our lunch date and break my promise; and while I still have a duty to keep that promise, I think most people would agree it’s more important to stop and help the person. We’d all be hard-pressed to say if I helped the stranger, I’d failed at my duty to keep a promise; at least not in the same way as if I could have kept that promise and just chose not to. That’s Ross’s idea of prima facie duties: that we have all these general obligations on us, but which actually should govern our choices in any particular instance comes down to the details of that situation.

I think there’s something similar going on with Mary’s character. This is actually a good way to evaluate most of us morally, in my opinion, but it’s doubly useful when it comes to Mary because she’s simultaneously got so many troubling aspects about her that just demand some sort of justification, but at the same time, because Mofftiss really screwed the pooch here, we don’t really have the information we need to give a definitive answer. So it’s useful to say: here’s something about Mary that needs accounting for, even if we don’t have enough information to evaluate her definitively.

Let’s take Magnussen’s biggest accusation against her: “All those wet jobs.” Mary killed people on her own prerogative, and she left behind a lot of grieving relatives who would love their revenge – both a testament to the suffering she caused, and a real risk for John, the baby that will become Rosie, and everyone else in their orbit. But if that’s all there is to it, it’s not wholly dissimilar to John’s decision to shoot the cabbie. It may have been different, but we don’t have the information to know that; it feels different, but most because John was saving Sherlock (who we know), whereas if Mary was saving anyone, it’s not someone we the viewer have an emotional connection to. Still, to borrow a phrase from Ricky Ricardo, Mary, you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do.

Or to take an even more serious charge, Mary shot Sherlock, was prepared to make John watch him die all over again and force him to go through that grief that so nearly destroyed him the first time around. Unforgiveable, yeah? The best shot at justification here is that Mary had somehow got herself cornered, so that shooting Sherlock was somehow an attempt to escape an even worse sitation. This really demands a full meta to dive in to, but very briefly, I think Mary never intended to kill Magnussen and was instead trying to intimidate him; meaning she couldn’t let Sherlock undercut her power, but equally she couldn’t leave Magnussen with the impression that John and Sherlock were somehow her partners; so shooting Sherlock was the best way to keep him from becoming a full target of Magnussen’s. If that’s the case, the whole showdown in Magnussen’s office becomes markedly similar to Sherlock’s decision to “kill” himself on the roof of St. Bart’s. Mary is willing to cause a lot of pain to avoid even greater destruction, but at the same time, the whole situation that compels this choice was fed by her limiting her options when she decided to intimidate Magnussen. Similar to how Sherlock, once he’s on the roof of St. Bart’s, has no better option than to fake his own death and leave John to grieve; but how he does have some degree of culpability for engaging Moriarty in the first place and egging on Moriarty’s destructive obsession with Sherlock.

My point isn’t that any of these parallels really hold up to scrutiny. Sherlock risked his own life in TRF (and John’s pain) while Mary was prepared to kill another. John was ready to kill “a bad man” to save our hero while whatever murders Mary committed were against unnamed people in undetermined circumstances, and narratively certainly don’t pull at or heart strings in the same way John’s heroic killing of Jefferson Hope does. But the point is, with Mary, so much of what a lot of fans object to involve these vaguely-told stories where whatever factors would excuse her actions just are left untold. What we can say definitively is “all those wet jobs” require justification. Mary’s willingness to shoot Sherlock require justification. These things are prima facie wrong (or bad-making, the kind of things that tend to make something bad in the absence of other explanations) and demand an accounting for.

I’m focusing on Mary’s violence more than what a lot of fans have identified as her abuse toward John. Partly, this is personal: I have my own experience with abusive relationships and don’t entirely trust my ability to parse similar dynamics in fiction; certainly I don’t want to tie that part of my past to public debate, and I’ve not worked out how to talk about Mary and John without over-personalizing it. But I will say, there’s a lot to be considered on that front as well, and people interested in thinking through Mary’s im/morality shouldn’t ignore it. As a starting point, inevity-johnlocked pointed to several of her old posts making the case that Mary was an emotional abuser. silentauroriamthereal’s fic “Rebuilding Rome” looks at a lot of these issues in a really powerful way if you’re looking for an exploration in fic form. I’ll just add, even if I thought Mary was justified and so “good” in some sense (and my internal compass is so screwed up, I’m not really qualified to tell at this point), the way she chose or had to lie about her past to John seems a particularly bad match for a man like him with his trust issues. So even if you think Mary is good, there’s a lot of justification for saying she’s still not good for him.

So what does this mean for reading fics involving a kinder, gentler Mary? First, I’d emphasize there’s no shame or judgment in reading what you want. Much as writers may choose to write about all kinds of things they’d disapprove of in real life, readers have that same freedom to scratch whatever readerly itch they like, with no need to defend that to anyone else. Kinktomato and all that. On the other hand, I know I personally enjoy stories more when I can lose myself in them, and – again, for me personally – it helps me do that if my values are at least compatible with what’s presented as praiseworthy. I don’t have to guard myself as I enter the story. So it’s definitely worth thinking about how comfortable you are with fiction that vilifies Mary or pardons her or something in between, because it may make it easier or harder to really immerse yourself in a fic.

Then again, maybe that’s just me. I am a rather persnickety chickadee with things like this.

I do know that many fandoms have an unfortunate history of coming down hard on the female competition to a popular slash ship. While I’m reluctant to apply “should”s to our consumption of fiction, I think there are genuine feminist concerns here. Not with thinking Mary’s bad/evil or even hating her, but hating her for the wrong. For me, it helps to imagine another character doing something similar, and think about why I would react differently if it was someone other than Mary doing the deed. Also to be aware of the details canon doesn’t answer decisively or answers different ways in different episodes.

(More than most characters, Mary does suffer from a really inconsistent characterization. I’ve often wondered if everything since HLV was Sherlock or whomever trying on different frameworks for her personality/psychology/what-have-you, to see which could account for what she did to him. First she’s a badass villain, then a Mycroftian operative, then a martyr, then a worldclass manipulator, and finally a sanctifier whose own personality was irrelevant, giving her imprimatur from beyond the grave. And that’s without throwing veteran/maths genius and happy homemaker into the bunch. Maybe the showrunners simply weren’t sure what they wanted to do with her. Whatever the situation, I do think we need to be careful about taking any one canon detail at face-value, especially with her.)

I’m also a little discomfited by this trend I’ve seen among Johnlockers, to write Mary as a monster as a way to lessen John’s pain at her… betrayal, I guess? Or just the loss at her death? I remember when a lot of fanfic authors back between S3 & S4 wrote about the baby being fake; or even after S4, as part of John’s “alibi” rather than a true detail. Or even just deciding the baby was David’s or some such. By itself, that could have been really interesting, but what I saw so often happening was people used that as a way to remove the complication of the baby. Or to let John skip the grief he’d feel if the baby wasn’t born healthy- for instance, if it didn’t exist, or died, or if Mary was killed or ran while she was still pregnant. The basic theme was if Mary didn’t deserve John’s pain, John didn’t have to hurt for so long or as deeply.

Complicated grief is a thing, though, and for a lot of people, grieving the loss of someone who hurt them and aren’t “worth” their pain seem to suffer worse and for longer, particularly if they also have to grieve the lost opportunity to make their peace with the person while they were alive. This doesn’t mean fanfic writers or readers have to give us some kind of sanitized Mary; certainly she has the potential to be a true east wind of a character. But I do think there’s a tendency to prefer a more evil Mary because this lets the story move past her or spares John some suffering often won’t feel true. It also runs the risk of disrespecting the suffering of people impacted by these kinds of losses. So while I think this kind of characterization can be really interesting and compelling, it also takes a lot of skill and thoughtfulness to do it well. Here be dragons.

For me, though, the point isn’t to be proscriptive, to say Sherlock fic writers and readers need to limit themselves to a particular read of Mary. Her character has such potential to give birth to such a wide range of fic. As a viewer of the show I wish the writers and other creators had given us more of a sense of who she was because I think it really contributes to my frustration with not understanding the story they were trying to tell. But as a (kinda-sorta-someday-once-again) fic writer, it’s a true embarrassment of riches. The trick, for those of us concerned about Mary’s ethics were she a real person, is to be aware of the dangers of reading her character certain ways and to be cautious around them if we want to play with those interpretations.

#sherlock meta #mary morstan #marta blathers #johnlock meta

[valkyrieofsmut]

Kurt’s Mail Order Bride 3

Cowboy!Kurt Wagner (Nightcrawler) x Mutant!OC

Descriptions:   Old westAU In about 1900 Germany, Kurt has heard stories about the wild west and dreamt about being a cowboy for a long time. When he’s brought over to America and sent to live with Logan he’s excited, until he learns what hard work a ranch actually is. Logan knows a woman will set him straight from his shenanigans, and brings one back. Kurt hopes for love, but they can’t seem to get along.

A/n- Please enjoy! 

Masterlist

Story!

Two days had passed, much the same, and Kurt was getting used to the woman being around, although he was still irritated that she could look at him without showing any problems; he was sure she was hiding them deep down, and he still didn’t know her name, since Logan never called her by it when he knew he was around, and she still called him Mr. Wagner. 

Kurt rolled over in the dark, thinking that he’d have liked to at least had a chance with a woman this soon, but that there was no way with this woman who was so, he’d found the word was uptight, just like her hair. He turned over again, seeing that something was poking out from the corner of the couch, and his tail brought it to him. 

It was the book that she had been reading. 

He read the cover and flipped open the pages, glad that the Professor had given him the ability to read as well as speak better English when he’d gotten here. 

It was a strange type of story, a little like the short ones in his book, but it was the whole book long, he saw as he flipped through. There was a woman, her family and friends, and a man, they were talking a lot about society for a little bit, and then the man came to the town and the news was everywhere. There was a little problem between the girls as they all decided that the man was “quite eligible,” and would bicker about who should be with him as a better match. 

There was a creaking and Kurt froze, looking back to see the woman peeking out of the door. She looked around and scampered out through the room and out of the door, carrying her boots. 

Kurt laid still, not knowing when she’d walk back through the door, presumably going out to use the outhouse. 

A few minutes later, the door opened again and Kurt saw the woman standing in her undergarments, pantaloons that stopped at her knee, and a top that had narrow sleeves that barely covered the top of her shoulder, dipping a little in the front in case her dress did as well. Her boots looked strange on her half bare legs, the bit showing between her boots and her underwear looking shapely. 

She quickly passed the couch and made it back to the room, closing the door. 

Kurt opened his eyes fully and thought about the look. Even if he had decided that he didn’t like her, her body did seem nicely shaped… He decided that other than her uptightness and formality, which he supposed was part of the uptightness, she looked pretty good for a woman. 

Kurt picked up the book in his hand again and started reading. 

What seemed like ages later, the man finally came to the woman’s house and they met in the entryway without anyone to introduce them. He treated her like a maid, and she was not impressed, then they were in a room together. 

“Please excuse me for my stupidity before, madam,” he bowed to her, but she wouldn’t look at him. “Madam, I’d like for you to accept my apology, though the situation would have been avoided if you had told me who you were.” 

She let out an indignant huff. “How could I? You hadn’t even introduced yourself yet!” 

“You still haven’t told me what I should call you,” he told her. 

She turned away again. “You still haven’t introduced yourself, you’re lucky that I’m speaking to you at all.” 

Kurt blinked and held the book away from his face. 

Was that really a thing? Did the man have to introduce himself first? 

That woman hadn’t told him her name, and he’d introduced himself- or he thought he had… 

As he thought over the interaction again, he realized that he hadn’t told her his name. 

He looked away with irritation. 

Is that why she called him Mr. Wagner? 

Why didn't she tell him her name? 

He picked up the book again, reading the next lines. The man bowed and took her hand, placing a kiss on it. “My peers call me Mr. Delecourt. However, you may call me Randolf.” 

The lady blushed and didn’t look at him. “You may call me Evie,” she told him. 

Kurt closed the book and let his tail place it back on the floor. 

That was ridiculous. That’s not how it really happened! 

Was it? He wondered in an aside to himself. Maybe it was different here in America… 

.

The light shined on Kurt’s face, waking him from his sleep, and he looked over to see the woman lighting the fire in the stove. The sun was barely rising, and she was already at work. 

He laid on the couch, watching her start mixing flour, water, eggs… He realized that she was making bread as she started kneading it. 

He had to admit, her bread did taste good. 

He noticed that her hair was in a semi messy bun, just tied up with a ribbon. It didn’t fit how he’d come to see and think of her. 

She stirred the pot on the stove, putting some oats in, and he was surprised at her efficiency as she made bread and breakfast at the same time. She poured a bowl of oatmeal and set it on the table and Logan soon came out and quickly ate it before heading outside to start work. 

The woman was kneading another loaf of bread now, as the loaves were very small, and wiped her brow. 

Kurt stood from the couch and made his way to her silently. 

She put the loaf into the small pan and took a breath before turning. “Oh,” she said, startled by Kurt’s sudden appearance. “I didn’t hear you come over here,” she told him, her hand drifting to where her hair was a mess. 

Kurt didn’t say anything, but sat at the table. 

She turned to the stove and poured the last of the oatmeal into two bowls. “Would you like honey in your oatmeal?” She asked. 

Kurt again didn’t say anything. 

Beth was starting to feel nervous, he wasn’t saying anything, and she looked like a mess. That’s what she got for thinking that she had time to cook before really fixing her hair, but it was so hot that she hadn’t really wanted to leave it down. 

She placed the bowl of oatmeal with a little honey in it in front of Kurt, and he took the offered spoon with his tail, surprised that she easily handed it over instead of going into hysterics over it. He stirred the oatmeal as she pulled the first loaf of bread from the stove, letting it sit only for a few minutes before ripping it open and spreading butter on it. She tore it in half again and offered it to Kurt. “Would you like some fresh bread?” 

Kurt took the bread and she seemed to smile, sitting and spreading out something red across her oatmeal. 

“What is that?” He asked. 

She looked up at him. “Oh, I like preserves in my oatmeal… Would you like to try it?” She asked. Kurt looked unsure, but she scooped a spoonful and held it out for him. 

He took the spoon and handed her his instead, since he hadn’t taken a bite yet. 

She took his spoon and started eating her food as Kurt ate his. 

It was quiet while they ate, and after, Kurt disappeared with a Bamf! 

Beth looked around, but he was nowhere to be found, so she finished her food and started the dishes. 

“Hey, blue,” Logan called from below. 

“Ja?” Kurt asked from the roof of the stables. 

“You don’t start making a use for yourself, might have to ship you back to New York with all the other city folk.” 

Kurt looked down at him unhappily. “But I want to be a cowboy,” he complained. “Can’t you teach me how to do that? That I’d happily do.” 

“Still don’t get it, do ya’?” Logan asked. 

“Get what?” 

“See those? Those are cattle. Now get to work keepin’ ‘em, or there won’t be a cow, boy.” 

Logan walked away and Kurt looked over to the barn, seeing the woman entering with the milk pail. He teleported down to her. 

“That is my job,” he informed her. 

“Oh, well, it hasn’t been done yet.” 

“I’ll do it,” he told her. 

“Ok,” she told him, handing him the pail. 

“Later,” he told her. 

“Then you can take the night milking.” 

She reached for the pail, but he held it away from her, making her reach past him. He was surprised that she did, getting close to him. 

“I’ll do it when I feel like it.” 

She stood straight and folded her arms. “Mr. Wagner, I need that milk to start making lunch.” 

Kurt shook his head. “You just finished the dishes from breakfast.” 

She nodded. “Yes, and I was going to make a special bread that you need milk for. In order for it to be made and cooled in time for lunch, I need the milk now.” 

“Fine,” Kurt said, sitting on the stool and starting to milk the cow. “Why does everything need to be done right now around here?” He grumbled to himself. 

“Because it can’t be done later,” she answered. 

“Why not? I don’t see how it will make any difference if I didn’t feed the cows until the sun went down, or didn’t muck things for a day.” 

Beth smiled, almost laughing. “Cows don’t eat at night, and they may not eat the old hay, so your cows would eventually starve because the grass isn’t enough to feed them. And go ahead and don’t muck the stalls, but you’re going to be digging it from their hooves, not me.” 

He looked up at her, her now fixed and tight up hair, smile, and laughing look annoying him. 

He stood and thrust the pail at her. “Hope that’s enough for lunch,” he told her, leaving as she took the pail. 

A while later, Kurt saw her wandering down to the well, starting to haul the water needed for the rest of the day. He could do that task quickly and easily, but he wanted to watch her suffer for a bit. 

On her third trip, Kurt saw a colored thing fall to the ground, and watched as halfway to the house from that spot, her hair fell. She pushed it up, but it only stayed for a moment. On her way back from the house, her hair had completely fallen free from the high and tight bun she’d tied it into. He stared in shock as her hair fell to her waist, curling from the way it had been held up. He blinked as he watched her find her ribbon and pick it up, his heart beating faster as the image of her standing in her undergarments with her hair down flooded his mind. 

She would look amazing. 

He couldn’t believe that he still didn’t know her name; what was he supposed to call her in his thought of her? He couldn’t just think, oh, woman, you are so beautiful- wait, he shouldn’t be thinking that, he didn’t like her. 

Remember? He reminded himself. 

She put her hair back up in a messy bun to get it off her neck, wiping the sweat from her face and neck, unbuttoning her shirt a little to try to cool down. 

Kurt’s brow crinkled and he wiped at it. He wasn’t sweating. He looked over at where Logan was hauling the last bucket of water to the trough in the cow pen. He was dripping sweat. He looked back to the woman as she tied her hair higher, splashing water on herself and drinking her fill. 

They were hot… 

Was that why the woman tied her hair up, not because she was up tight? 

Kurt teleported down to the house, and sat on the couch. 

Soon after, the woman walked in and looked at him. “Oh, hello. Would you like a drink, Mr. Wagner?” She asked, going to the pitcher of water she’d filled before. 

“Why do you keep calling me Mr. Wagner?” He asked, standing and walking closer to her. 

Her eyes widened and her cheeks turned a little red. “Is- is that not your name? I thought Logan said-” 

“It is,” he interrupted her. 

She let out a breath of relief and smiled a little. 

“But- why don’t you call me by my first name? Is it because you don’t like me?” 

“I like you,” she said in a rush to assure him, then her face turned red as her eyes widened in realization at what she’d said and she nearly stuttered as she spoke. “I mean- I- I don’t not like you…” 

“So why don’t you call me by my first name?” He asked again. 

“I- you never told me, and neither did Logan,” she told him. 

Kurt blinked. 

The reason they had been going through this; him not knowing her name, and her calling him formally by his last really was because she didn’t know it? 

One arm behind his back, Kurt bowed and took her hand, putting it near his lips and telling her, “you may call me Kurt.” He stood and saw that her cheeks were still red, and wondered why she looked like she was trying not to grin. 

She curtsied to him, her free hand holding out her skirts. “Beth,” she told him. “Wonderful to meet you, Kurt.” 

His name sounded light on her lips, sweet in a way he’d never heard it before. 

He let her hand go and stepped back. 

“What do people on ranches do for fun besides chores?” He asked her to crash his train of inappropriate thoughts. 

She was silent for a moment before she suddenly said, “Oh! Swimming at the swimming hole! Or play poker and drink at the saloon,” she added thoughtfully. “I think you might like to go swimming, it is rather hot lately,” she told him. 

“Ja, that sounds nice,” he told her. 

“Maybe after lunch I can take you,” she told him. He nodded and she smiled. “I’d better get to finishing it, then,” she told him, turning back to the counter. 

. 

After they ate, Beth went out and hitched the buggy to her horse, getting a blanket and putting it in the bottom so it wouldn’t hurt to sit in it. 

Kurt gathered a towel and went to the front to see Beth putting in a basket and another blanket. 

“You want me to ride in the buggy?” He asked, mildly offended. 

“Well, you don’t have a horse, and Logan is using his, and the other isn’t a rider, he’s a cart puller. Don’t worry, it’s fun,” she told him. 

Kurt climbed into the buggy and Beth started off, going down the drive and out onto the road. 

Kurt found that it was enjoyable to ride in the buggy; he got to look around at the scenery without worrying that he would accidently lead the horse into a ditch or anything. 

There were mostly just fields around, and Beth explained that they were unclaimed property, just waiting for someone to come out and feel the need to work the land. 

They pulled off the road a ways and Beth tied her horse to a branch by the side of it before taking out the basket and blanket and heading down the hill aways. Kurt followed and found a semi secluded small pond. He pulled off his shirt and looked back at Beth as she laid out the blanket. 

“Aren’t you coming?” 

“Oh, no, I don’t have a bathing suit,” she told him. 

Kurt shed his outer pants to only be in his long underpants, jumping and teleporting over the water before falling in with a splash. 

Beth started darning the things she brought with her in the basket, watching for other people to come, but also taking peeks at Kurt as he swam around, blushing and grinning slightly to herself. 

After swimming for a while, Kurt looked up at Beth and saw her mending a shirt that Logan had ripped on a fence post the other day. 

“You came out here to have fun and are still working?” He asked her. 

She looked up at him. “I came out here so you could have fun,” she told him. 

He growled in exasperation. “Why can’t you just have fun?” He nearly demanded. 

“I have fun,” she told him. “I like riding my horse, looking around in shops, baking, reading…” 

Kurt was silent as he thought about that. “But you never play,” he told her. 

“Of course I do,” she told him. “I’m just not a child anymore; I’m taking care of a household, even if it is just the three of us; who would mend this shirt to be worn again if I didn’t? So I don’t have much time for playing any more.” 

Kurt swam over to the edge of the pond and sat in the water so it was still surrounding him. “Why wouldn’t anyone else do it?” 

Beth shrugged. “Logan is busy taking care of his ranch, and you are busy trying to have fun, who is left but me?” 

Kurt’s expression was a little hurt. 

Was that why she borderline treated him like a child? She saw him as running around like a child trying to have fun? 

“I can sew, you know…” He told her. 

“Are you offering to help, because I’d enjoy the help,” she told him. 

Kurt looked away. 

Even when she’d brought him out here to have fun swimming, she was still working, and it was so ridiculous to him. He didn’t care what they said, having fun was an important part of life. 

“You should stop putting your hair up so tight and let it down every once in a while,” Kurt told her. 

“I do wear it down, in the winter when it’s not so hot I’m melting,” she answered. 

“I meant you should have more fun, and stop being so laced up,” Kurt returned. 

Beth’s stare turned to him. “You just don’t get it, do you?” She asked, and Kurt got annoyed as she sounded like Logan. 

“What don’t I get?” He demanded. 

“Being a cattle rancher, a “cowboy”, is nothing like fun and games. It’s hard work, it’s making a living by raising good, healthy cattle that others will pay a high price for. It’s caring for other lifeforms than yourself. Putting your all into keeping them healthy and safe, despite what dangers you face. Being a human, an adult, is about caring for others in a way that helps everyone, keeps everyone safe, not just having fun and being selfish.” 

Kurt stood and growled at her. “Are you saying that I am a selfish child?” He demanded. 

Beth looked away at his near nudity. “Well, it wouldn’t hurt you to care for others mo-” She stopped and looked back up the hill to where her horse was whinnying. “Babe,” she murmured, climbing up and heading up the hill, only to turn back and come running toward Kurt. “Bull!” She cried. “Loose bull!” 

Sure enough, a bull ran down the hill towards them. 

Beth held out her hand and the bull stopped. 

She threw her hand out as he looked like he was going to charge again, and again it stopped. 

Kurt wondered what Beth was doing to stop it, but saw the shimmer of impact when the bull bumped the shield again. 

“Kurt, get out of here,” she called to him, trying to keep him safe. She took a step back and he could see that she was near a patch of mud that would make her slip into the water and make her defenseless against the bull. 

Kurt teleported and grabbed Beth around the middle before landing on a high tree branch with a Bamf! and Beth grabbed the tree to keep herself stable as she swayed. 

A young man made his way down the hill to the bull and grabbed it by the rope around its neck. “Hey, anyone down here?” He called out. 

“Yes,” Beth called. 

“What are you doing up in a tree?” The man asked. 

“Escaping your crazy bull!” She called down angrily. 

“Sorry, it’s that time- say, you sure got high up that tree pretty fast.” 

“I was very motivated! Now get your bull away! And if my horse is hurt, I’m going to find you and make you pay for him!” 

The young man shrugged. “Looked fine when I saw him. Hey, you need help down?” He asked, and Kurt could see the suggestive smile on his face. 

For some reason it made his stomach clench uncomfortably. 

“No, I don’t,” Beth called down. 

“But, you are pretty far up there, and if you’re here, your clothes might be… A lady shouldn’t be climbing a tree like that.” 

“Oh go step in some cow dung!” Beth yelled at him. 

Kurt looked at her in surprise. 

“I’ll do as I please! If I felt like it, I would fly down because that is what I pleased to do!” 

The man turned and led the bull back up the hill. “Suit yourself,” he called back with a smug smirk. 

“I will, thank you!” 

Kurt looked over her face, surprised to see it so red in anger, her hands clenched as well. 

“Are you alright?” He asked. 

Beth let out a breath. “Y-yes. I’m still just a little sore that the men in my town made me give up my family’s cattle ranch, I suppose. Come on, let’s get down,” she said, going to sit on the branch to start climbing down. 

It happened in a split second; her hand slipped and she started falling backwards. 

Kurt’s arms wrapped around her, but he couldn’t catch them, so he did the next best thing; teleported them to just above the ground. He felt the ground under his back, and the soft pressure of Beth on top of him. Her arms had tightly wrapped around his neck and her face was pressed against his bare chest. 

Kurt’s eyes were wide; he’d never had a woman this close before, and she was on top of him, holding tight against him, tensed up and not moving. She let out a sigh of relief and Kurt could feel the brush of her eyelashes against his fur as she opened her eyes. 

Kurt was sure that any second she would suddenly sit up, run backwards and try to get the feeling of his skin off of hers… 

But she wasn’t… 

Her eyelashes brushed against his fur again, and her breath stirred a path of it across his chest. One of her hands let go and drifted down his chest and paused, her fingers stroking his shoulder. 

“You’re so soft,” she murmured. 

He could say the same about her; her soft body pressing so gently against him, making him afraid to say, or even think anything in case she bolted like a deer. 

She pulled back and looked down at his chest, her fingers stroking against him again. “You have fur…” She seemed to suddenly realize what she was doing and her wide eyes leaped to his. “Oh, I uh-” She quickly stood and turned around to hide her glowing cheeks, brushing the dust off of her skirt. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to- I apologize…” 

Kurt got dressed and helped to gather their things, then they made their way back up the hill to find that Beth’s horse had made a run for it, breaking the branch and ending up nearly a half mile back towards Logan’s ranch. 

“Babe!” She called. 

“Your horse’s name is Babe?” Kurt asked. 

“Well… his full name is Babylon, but everyone made fun of it,” she explained. “Babe!” She called again and the horse tried to turn, but couldn’t due to the broken buggy. He just stayed there and waited for them to reach him. Beth inspected the buggy and sighed. “Busted,” she grumbled. 

Kurt looked over the cracked wood and over to Beth. “Now what?” He asked. 

“Well… How good are you at riding a horse?” She asked. 

Kurt was in the saddle, steering the horse as they made their way down the road towards the ranch, Beth behind him, backwards so she could watch to see if the blankets came undone from where they were tied to keep the buggy together. 

He was lucky that it was a straight road, because the touching of her back against his was distracting him with short zings of lightning shooting through his nerves. 

Logan met them near the house and gave a grunt before turning and heading inside. 

#kurt wagner x oc #nightcrawler x oc #Marvel AU #x-men au #rancher au #Cowboy!Kurt Wagner #Cowboy!Nightcrawler #Kurt Wagner #old west au #angst #mutant oc #romance #multi part story #X-men #valkyrieofsmut

[dreadnought-dear-captain]

You Asked, I Told

**Contains spoilers for Baghdad Waltz up to chapter 36 and the movie Soldier’s Girl (noted below); CW for some general discussion on the subject of writing about childhood sexual abuse**

Hello everyone!

I’m so sorry I’ve been so neglectful of my inbox and slow to answer Ao3 comments lately :(  I have so, so many wonderful asks here, and I want to push out a few batches of answers in the next couple of weeks. I’m a little over 2/3 of the way through Chapter 37 of BW, which will probably be hovering around the 20k word count. But Bucky and Steve will be having their first therapy session! With Claire Temple! And it’s going to be… Well, it’s Bucky and Steve, so stay tuned.

You are too kind, and I’m actually bummed that BW has changed people’s enjoyment of other fics, because this is not the first time I’ve heard this, and it’s certainly not my intent. I’m glad you enjoy the minor characters here, because they have been very fun to create. I have loads of backstory that will never see the light of day, and I adore them so much. As to the second part, I’m reading this as your wondering a couple things: 1) perhaps questioning Steve’s level of devotion to Bucky (or just marveling at it, if this is a rhetorical question), and 2) perhaps also questioning Thor’s assessment that Bucky is the guy you fuck, not the guy you settle down with.

In terms of Steve’s love, some would say that Steve is clearly devoted because Bucky is a very hard person to be in a relationship with, and the fact that he’s still even around is a sign of his devotion. Others would say that he hasn’t done enough to show how much he loves him, that he should do more, because Bucky is suffering so much and needs a lot of support now. We all have our own interpretations of what “enough” is, and I see this a lot in the comments section of BW. I appreciate multiple perspectives on this, and I think we all come at this from our own experiences on one side or the other of relationships like this. I think readers tend to fall on the side of one character or the other, and the Bucky people might err on the side of believing that Steve is not doing enough (or doing the wrong things) and the Steve people might err on the side that Bucky, although clearly suffering, is not considering the ways in which Steve is devoted and the ways in which he hurts Steve. I love both of these characters and am not overly devoted to either, so I see both of their perspectives and aim to write from both sides.

As for Bucky being too “wild” and not being the kind you marry/settle with, I don’t know if we can really trust Thor’s assessment of this situation. He didn’t know Bucky for long, and the time he knew him was at a time when Bucky was pretty low in personal insight. Although Bucky has proven himself adept at committing to an arduous career and excelling greatly, Bucky still does struggle to commit in relationships. But to say that he’s “wild” could be a bit of a misnomer. Pan the camera one way, and he looks like a fun and wild party guy who loves to drink and fuck and has a charismatic, wild personality that is irresistible. Pan the camera the other way and you’ve got someone who’s desperately trying to manage his emotions with alcohol and sex and sometimes can’t, a guy who is essentially “wild and charismatic” because he has trouble with emotional and interpersonal regulation due an extensive history of trauma.  As he works to uncover and confront his history, we will have to see how things unfold and whether he commits to engaging with care for himself after his rift with Scott.

I hope this addresses your Ask!

I have had a good deal of interaction with the military system in my life through various channels and have also done a LOT of research. For every military-heavy chapter, I look over a ton of regulations (even weapons manuals - fun!), talk to Army veteran friends and associates who are very generous with their time, watch documentaries, scour the internet for hours and hours and HOURS and just do… a lot. Which is part of why this fic is so slow to come out.

I just want to say thank you for this. I don’t know if this comment still holds for you, because I received it between chapters 35 and 36, but this is one of the things that I feel the absolute most anxiety about when I post this fic. The last thing I want to do is write anything that is going to be exploitative, especially since I know how many people in the general population have experienced childhood sexual abuse. I agonize over how much detail to include, because I don’t want to include unnecessary details just for shock value. However, I also don’t want to avoid the content if it’s part of the character’s internal experience. In chapter 36, for example, it was important for me to convey what it was like for Bucky to experience an intrusive memory of his abuse, because that is consistent with how I write the internal experiences of my characters. It’s part of my style and part of why people read BW, I think. To back away now because it contains this kind of content would be a disservice to the character and his experience, because this is important to his life and the person he’s become.

But I also don’t want it to just be an opportunity for readers to be like ohhhhh all the DETAILS WOWWW. So with everything that I write, I strive to think - what is the purpose of what I’m including? Is this consistent with the way a network of traumatic memories would operate? What’s the cue in the environment that would light this up? If the purpose is character development or plot progression, I can justify including the details. In chapter 36, for example, it was important for us to see that Bucky is allowing himself to remember his past, that it’s dysregulating him, which lead to his rift with Scott and his relapse. All character and plot points. But if it’s just for funsies or for some Jerry Springer-style reveal to shock the readers, or anything even close to that, I would try my hardest to screen for that. As for creating an arbitrary tragic backstory for some other character to heal, I can see how that would be a tempting thing to do for a writer. Although this is a part of Bucky’s history, and although there could be times when he feels like it defines him, challenging that may also be part of his journey. And I’m sure Steve would love if he could heal Bucky with the power of his love (or cock magic) alone. If only.

Thanks so much for this.

This is a good question. As you’ve seen, people certainly can have profound functional impairment when their symptoms come to a head, to the point where hospitalization is sometimes the best option. Bucky has made great strides in his recovery and has accumulated a lot of skills from AA and DBT that he didn’t have before, even with a meltdown and a relapse thrown in there. I know it’s sometimes really hard to see how far he’s come, but he’s traveled lightyears from overdosing at the Holiday Inn on Long Island.

That being said, this reaction isn’t extremely promising, given the implication that these are just the first real burbles of his traumatic past rising to the surface. I’d say a few things could happen as more of this starts to emerge.

1) He could do as you say, decompensate, have a lot of trouble functioning in his daily life, maybe go into some sort of partial hospitalization or inpatient hospitalization. This option would allow him to be in a  controlled environment, the kind of place where he might be able to manage this stuff without other demands getting in the way.

2)  He could rely very heavily on coping skills and social supports to manage this stuff as it comes up, and maybe it doesn’t overtake him completely. This would be extremely challenging because it would require him to reach out for help and accept it.

3) He could find some way to stop this process altogether by resuming drinking or some other maladaptive coping behavior. This would be very tempting for him, especially as things get exponentially more difficult.

Importantly, Bucky is still the same person as he was before, in terms of the primary effects his traumatic history has had on his life. What’s really in question here is his ability to face his memories and the truth of his own experience, which he can’t run from anymore because his old compartmentalization and avoidance strategies are falling apart. I think a lot will depend on whether he continues to make himself an island or whether he lets others close to him to support and assist him in this process. So much of the latter depends on trust and his sense of personal and emotional safety, which have been deeply shaken by his experiences. This makes everything so much more challenging. We’ll have to see how it all unfolds!

Thanks for the Ask!

**CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE**

UGH. Okay, I rented this DVD from Netflix when I got this Ask, because I thought, hey, why not… and then it sat on my shelf unwatched for about seven weeks. Netflix probably thought I just kept it. Obviously I have a pretty thick skin, given the shit I write about, but I was dreading watching it. The sleeve gives the plot away, so I knew what was coming, but God, kill me.

I died over a lot of the military inaccuracies, but it’s a TV movie, so it kind of gets a pass I guess. And it took place at Fort Campbell, Bucky’s least favorite place on Earth! This movie is also a creature of its time, which was fascinating in itself - a cis man playing a trans woman (megasigh, although admirably well), the commentary after from people on an active DADT policy still in effect, which was incredible. It seems so ridiculous to me now that it was ever in effect, especially when I recall the arguments against allowing open service for LGBQ folks (“but they’ll look at my butt in the showers!!”), and I wonder what kind of world we would have if Bill Clinton had gotten his way when he was elected and didn’t have to compromise with DADT.

It was very interesting to hear Barry’s sexuality being questioned so much because he was in love with a trans woman. The film makers talked about him “discovering something about his sexuality” because he was in this sexual relationship with her — like what? There was a lot of implication throughout the film and special features that trans women aren’t real women. And perhaps some of this stuff speaks to some level of sexual flexibility that might be present in someone who’s happy to give oral sex to a woman with a penis etc., so okay, I can buy that perhaps. But a small amount of flexibility is not necessary sexual confusion or radical sexual discovery, and it’s certainly not gayness or a sign that he’s not straight (though he may have been somewhere else on the sexuality spectrum, but that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with having romantic/sexual feelings for a trans woman). But there was an odd cissexist/transphobic thread that ran through the whole film, even though the actors and production team were clearly very enthusiastic about the story and sensitive to the characters. And Barry’s mother was straight up like “maybe they were just friends, who knows.” [sigh] I dunno.

But to the point of what actually happened to Barry - God. That was rough. It reminds me of kids who are bullied for being gay perhaps because they’re not masculine enough, etc. and end up killing themselves, even though they’re not gay. His death was brutal and shocking and horrible, and it gave me kind of a “Boys Don’t Cry” feel for me, but in reverse? If that makes any sense. The way he was ostracized by his peers made me sad, especially when he was working so hard to integrate into his unit, and it reminded me of all of the people who were victims of the witch hunts prior to DADT and even after, how lonely that must have been, how devastating to one’s career and connections to their military family. It’s one of the reasons Bucky tried so hard to appear either extremely occupied or extremely straight. But overall, I thought the movie did a good job of making this a love story and not fetishizing Calpernia’s trans-ness, and I thought it was pretty balanced and nuanced for a 2003 movie trying to tackle this subject matter. I’m glad I watched this, even though the end was awful. I think I left feeling kind of good about the love story, imperfectly told as it was. 

Thanks for the rec!

**END SPOILERS**

Oh god, I am so bad about Tumblr and everything else. I’m sorry for being so bad at all the tasks of maintaining a presence on social media etc. and yeah. I feel bad about it. I’m basically a social media renunciate in my personal life (my job is YOU NEED A LINKEDIN and I am cry), so it’s really not a habit in my fandom life. Thank you for your support (and the EG dig <3), and I’ll keep plugging away!

Please, please no worries!! I didn’t take it like that. I just want people to know that I’m working really hard and would get these out to you so much faster if I could. I know you’re all waiting and I wish I could deliver faster, but alas, adulthood. And I want these chapters to be as good as I can make them and sometimes writing is just really fucking hard, especially when your characters are falling apart. I do love them and telling this story and sharing it with all of you, so thank you for being awesome <3 

I will have more “You Asked” soon! Thank you so much for dropping me these messages. I am thrilled to get them, and I promise I will get to them all.

#you asked #asks #send me asks

[xadoheandterra]

Fandom: Red vs Blue Characters: Leonard Church | Alpha, Lavernius Tucker, David | Agent Washington, Junior Summary: Church wanted the decorations to be perfect. Wash wanted Church to destress. Tucker just wanted his kid. It’s a Happy New Year, folks.

For @demi-dufresne who was my secret santa for the @redvsbluesecretsanta this year. I’m sorry this is late, hun. Work/Life balance over the holidays hit an all time fuck you, basically. I finally got it finished though! I hope it meets your requirements, as I didn’t quite go into detail about Church have DID or really about this AU-verse I kind of cobbled together. I wanted to more focus on the relationships between them and honestly I don’t feel like I could write DID without coming off as ignorant or insensitive....My interaction/knowledge of the condition is limited to one or two people that I’ve met, and a handful of internet research which a thoughtful writer does not always make.

Anyway have happy family feels!

“Church it’s fine,” Wash said exasperatedly from the couch. He watched Church as he moved around the living room and fussed over decorations that lined practically every surface with the long suffering understanding of someone utterly in love. Church went all out, and Wash could understand why. It wasn’t often they got to dress everything up and just celebrate like this. Their collective work schedules often interfered with such things.

“Fine is not good enough,” Church snapped out and fiddled with one of the streamers until it settled just right. There was the faintest twitch to his movement that Wash knew to look for, and so quickly when he noticed Church’s hand began to jerk to the side and how it messed up the work Church did Wash got to his feet and quickly grabbed the slighter man into a hug.

“He’s not gonna care either way,” Wash said softly. “Come sit down and drink some hot chocolate.”

Church stilled, and then slumped into Wash’s arms and sighed heavily. “I was—was doing the thing again, wasn’t I.”

Wash hummed and maneuvered Church out of the living room and over to the kitchen. He bundled the other man into a chair and grabbed the nearest blanket to wrap around Church’s shoulders while he put together some hot chocolate. The window outside painted a frosted picture of the New York skyline. Church clutched at the blanket and looked out the window as Wash moved around the kitchen.

“You know I don’t mean to?” Church said, as Wash came back to the table and wrapped his hands around the hot mug.

“We know,” Wash gave Church a sad sort of smile and pat the younger man’s hand. “And it’s not like I mind Delta, you know.”

Church snorted. “Oh yeah?” He took a sip of his hot chocolate and pulled his gaze away from the window. “Which one is Delta?”

“Logical.” Wash tilted his head back to regard Church. “He tends to push up his glasses—like this—” Wash mimed the motion on his own face and Church reached up to fiddle with his corrective lenses, surprised. “—especially when he’s lecturing.”

“Sounds like he’s not that bad,” Church said and looked down at his mug of chocolate. “Could be worse, I suppose.”

Wash hummed, then reached out and grasped at Church’s hand. “It’s not a bad thing if Delta wants to take some time today,” Wash told him.

Church snorted. “I promised, David. Today was going to be me.” He looked at Wash and smiled a brittle, bitter thing. “Even if I hate all this snow and—and celebration stuff.”

Wash tightened his grip for a moment, and then pulled his hand back. “Tucker should be back in about thirty. How about you rest in here while I finish the decorations? Drink your hot chocolate and destress a little.”

Church hummed and mumbled a faint, “Alright.”

“—marks the fifth year since Doctor Leonard Church’s indictment on unethical medical practices and war crimes. With me I have Daniel ‘New York’ West—”

“Sweet baby Jesus,” Tucker mumbled and clicked off the radio with an explosive sigh. “What the fuck is Carolina thinking letting York out to talk on a day like this?” With a groan Tucker scrubbed his hand through his hair and tapped on the wheel of the car in agitation. He didn’t want to hear about the sordid mess all over again in regards to the Church patriarch. He lived with the fallout of that long enough.

The airport around him bustled in the sudden silence of the radio. He could hear the cars honking off in the distance and snowflakes fluttered down from the sky to create hazards to drive in. Only the truly desperate or insane actually took to the streets in a time like this, with the blizzard projected to come tearing into the city. Tucker found himself in both categories today as he practically vibrated with anticipation from his little parked space at the edge of the lot.

“C’mon, kid, where are you,” Tucker mumbled and checked the time. According to the flight records the plane had definitely landed about fifteen minutes ago, so he should already be outside the airport if all things were to go well. “Shitballs I don’t have the strength to deal with a fuck up,” Tucker groaned, and hoped—prayed—that nothing had gone wrong with the airport staff. Tucker scanned the outside of the airport again, gaze intense.

The knock against his driverside window startled him into a shrieked course as Tucker whirled around and stared up at the officer who peered at the vehicle.

“Sir,” the officer said, “you are parked in a handicapped lane. I need to ask you to move.”

Tucker stared, a little uncomprehendingly, and then pushed the button to roll down the window. “Hey, officer, sorry there I didn’t quite catch that?”

The officer sighed, and Tucker got the feeling he’d been dealing with a lot of shit today. Too bad, Tucker had a lot of shit to deal with today on his own plate too. The biggest issue right now of course was the fact that junior had not come out of the airport yet.

“I said this is a handicapped space. I need you to move,” the officer said, and Tucker bit back the urge to be a sarcastic shit and tsk and play the ‘aw shucks’ routine. He would like to avoid getting arrested or worse today, thank you very much.

Instead Tucker gestured to the very clear handicap designation attached to his rearview mirror and said plainly, “I have a handicap voucher right here. What’s the problem?”

The officer pressed his lips together and then said carefully, “Sir, I need you to move.”

“Is it ‘cuz I’m black?” Tucker said, and then sighed explosively. “You know what, never-mind. Look, I’m waiting for my five-year-old kid—a kid who is autistic. Your staff are supposed to be bringin’ him out here since I can’t easily get in there in this weather. I called ahead and everything to make sure.”

The officer, Tucker noted, ground his teeth and repeated, “Sir I—” only to be interrupted by an out of breath voice that said Tucker’s name. Tucker tilted his head to look around the officer and noted the TSA Agent that looked to have run up behind him, around the car, and nearly slipped on a patch of black ice. Tucker noted the spot down as the Agent slid into place for when he had to pull out of his spot.

“Are—whoo—are you Lavernius Tucker?”

Tucker breathed a sigh of relief as he said, “Hell yeah. Where’s my kid?” and completely ignored the officer who tensed from the sudden intrusion.

“We—fuck it’s cold—we need you to come inside afff—argh!” the TSA agent slipped again but righted themselves and continued, “After I see some ID. Kids—well he’s a little stressed.”

Tucker blinked, and then cursed and began to dig out his wallet from his pants pocket. “Of course, shit—he just flew from across the sea goddammit why didn’t I think—here—” Tucker dug out his ID and handed it over without a thought, hand already going to draw the window back up and open the door when the officer stepped in again.

Tucker ground his teeth. Fuck this man.

“Ali, I told this man that he needs to move his car. We need the space.”

‘Ali’ looked at the officer surprised, and then glanced to the handicap mark in the car and said, “Thom. He’s got a handicap marker. It’s all good.” They then handed back the ID for Tucker to stick back into his wallet, which he did before he tugged his keys out of the ignition and rolled up the window. The next bit of the words between the officer and the TSA agent Tucker missed as he focused on making sure he had everything before he opened his car door.

By the time Tucker got the door open and worked on getting his bad leg out of the car, the officer had already stormed off. Ali offered a hand for balance, which Tucker took with a muttered, “Thanks, man.”

“No problem,” Ali said. “Sorry about Thom. He’s a bit stressed.”

Tucker snorted. “Aren’t we all?”

“Yeah. Let’s go get your kid.”

Church woke to a loud, “We’re home!” and jerked up from the kitchen table that he’d fallen asleep at. In his hands was the mug of hot chocolate David gave him, already gone cold. His brain took a moment to return to working condition, a slow sort of boot as he tried to blink away the sleep. At least he hoped it was sleep—missing time always worried him, and Church could never be sure he’d actually been asleep or if he’d just not been here.

“Welcome back,” David said, voice pitched low enough that Church had to strain to hear it. “Church fell asleep at the table.”

Oh, good, he had been asleep. Church breathed a sigh of relief and pushed the chair back as quiet as he could, blanket still wrapped around his shoulders as he picked up the now cold mug of hot chocolate and brought it to the sink.

“Shit, really?” that voice belonged to Tucker, and Church thought he heard a fainter voice, unintelligible, that meant Junior had arrived safe and sound. “Fuck, he didn’t wear himself out doing all of this, did he?”

David chuckled and said, “He wanted it to be perfect for our new arrival.” Church set the mug into the sink and started the trek back toward the living room. “Hi, Junior. I’m Wash. It’s nice to meet you.”

From the doorway Church could see David crouched down enough to be at Junior’s height—the little monster had grown since the last time Church got a chance to look at him, back when he’d been nothing but a squealing toddler and Tucker a terrified mess as he stayed stuck in the room with that bitch who birthed the creature. He was practically half Tucker’s height, which wasn’t hard really since Tucker was a short ass in reality, even if his personality often made him bigger than he was.

Tucker had one hand on Junior’s shoulder, a light grounding touch. Church knew the motion because Tucker used it with him some days, just like Charmaine back when they were kids before she became known as ‘Carolina’. Junior seemed to appreciate the slight pressure as he gave a wide-toothy sort of grin in response, but shyly waved at David.

“’M ‘vernius ‘ucker,” Junior said, words half mumbled and some of them outright lost around a mouth that probably didn’t always know how to shape them the right way around. Church huffed from the doorway to catch attention, and watched how Junior seemed for a moment to startle, and then light up like Christmas had come a second time this year.

“’Nuncle Church!” Junior squealed, and then in a burst of surprising speed latched himself around Church’s middle.

“Hey, monster,” Church greeted, one hand settled into the black curls on Junior’s head. “Long trip?”

Junior squealed instead of using his words and Church made an appreciative noise in response. He looked up at Tucker who looked back at him, relieved, and then gestured to all the decorations around the house.

“Really, man?” Tucker said—and Church looked everything over with a keen eye.

The living room was decked out in balloons and streamers and hung up signs that said things like ‘It’s a Boy!’ or ‘Congrats! You’re A Dad!’ and one lone ‘Welcome Home!’ off in a corner. Church snorted and looked down to Junior.

“You like ‘em?” Church asked, and Junior nodded into his middle. Church shot Tucker a smug look. “Yeah, fucktard, really.”

“Ass,” Tucker replied fondly and flopped down into the couch. “C’mon, bring my kid over here so we can have a proper cuddle pile.”

David looked on and shook his head, even as he flopped down beside Tucker and made a gesture for Church to join them. Church glanced down at Junior and said, “Whaddya say, monster? Cuddle pile with your dad and not-dad?”

“Mm!” Junior grinned up at him and Church corralled the kid over to the group couch. He flopped himself down across Tucker and David, and then grunted when Junior climbed up onto his stomach.

“Serves you right,” Tucker mumbled. “Jewish-dad.”

“Best-dad!” Junior squealed, and then squinted up at David who had never met the monster—and Church pitied the man just a little bit, because he had no idea what he was getting into with this. “Not-dad?”

“Awesome-dad,” Tucker corrected, “’cuz Wash is awesome.”

“Rude,” Church countered. “Aren’t I awesome?”

“Nah, your plain Church. Hadn’t you heard? Obviously I traded you in for the more rugged model,” Tucker teased and Church pouted.

“Rugged?” David questioned, and Church realized he hadn’t heard Tucker call him rugged yet—they’d kept that one to themselves in small gigglefests over the growing beard on David’s face. It really did make him look older, more rugged and worn but not less handsome. Church found he rather liked it—Tucker said it itched.

“Dude, you grew a beard,” Tucker said.

Church patted David on the knee and told him, “I like the beard,” even as David looked so despondent at being called rugged because of his beard.

Junior gasped in their collective laps, as if he just noticed the beard which was entirely possible. Church knew how much it oftentimes hurt the kid to just look at people. His wide-eyed awe, though, that made Church smile just the little bit as he watched Junior reach up and touch the beard.

“Santa,” Junior said, and Church burst out laughing.

#red vs blue #rvb #rvbsecretsanta19 #lavernius tucker #leonard church #alpha #agent washington #wash #junior #redvsbluesecretsanta #demi-dufresne #fanfic #fic: and a happy new year #family feels #sorry its late #fic: gift fic

[ladyanatui]

Ultimate Daiken Playlist, Pt. 1

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

This is the abridged version of my Spotify playlist for all things Daiken, mostly in order from the start of 02 to...eventually. Even so, this is still a pretty damn long list. My original aim was for 30 songs, but...uh, yeah, I surpassed that pretty quickly. It’s around 75 now. Yikes. So I split it up.

I have problems with self-control. Especially when it comes to my babies.

Part 1 specifically covers from the start of 02 to just after the defeat of the Digimon Kaiser.

TRIGGER WARNING: This post discusses depression, suicide, emotional abuse, and PTSD quite a lot. Take care of yourself, folks!

Spotify Playlist

Click the song titles for YouTube links (apparently you can’t have more than five videos in a post), and otherwise, enjoy me rambling about Daiken...as I am wont to do.

One final note: Within the lyrics, I’ve emphasized meaningful words, such as night/nightmare, dark/darkness, miracle(s), kind/kindness, courage/bravery, friend/friendship, sun/star/light, fire/burn/ignite, angel(s), and words related to water/drowning.

“I’m Just a Kid” by Simple Plan

I think I got a lot of friends But I don't hear from them What's another night all alone When you're spending every day on your own

I envision this as Daisuke’s life before becoming one of the Chosen, before meeting Ken. It’s pretty well established that Taichi and Hikari are the only legitimate friends he has during that time, aside from (possibly) his soccer teammates, but he’s not close with any of them. And worse, his home life is obviously not great: His parents ignore him, and his sister irritates him just to irritate him. That may seem like a normal brother/sister relationship, but a 17-year-old slapping her 11-year-old isn’t normal or healthy.

The truth is, Daisuke has no legitimate example of healthy family interactions, and in some ways, his home life is as emotionally abusive as Ken’s was. His parents insult him (his father calls him his “stupid son” when Ken first visits) and ignore him (Daisuke repeatedly says his parents wouldn’t notice if he didn’t come home and lies to them to avoid spending time at home), so he has no idea how to respond to compliments.

This also means that he latches on to the people he cares about, much the same way Jun latches on to attractive boys. He idolizes Taichi (calling him senpai when speaking with him directly), and he constantly seeks attention from Hikari. Since we don’t know what Daisuke and Hikari’s relationship was like before Takeru shows up, it’s all speculation, but Daisuke was probably way less aggressive and possessive of her before someone came to try to take his one friend away.

So Daisuke has no idea how to show affection (whether familial, platonic, or romantic) in a normal, healthy way. He’s never had a close friend (or any real friends probably), and he’s never been close with any of his family. He’s actually lived an incredibly lonely life.

“Dark Blue” by Jack’s Mannequin

This flood This flood is slowly rising up Swallowing the ground Beneath my feet Tell me how anybody thinks Under this condition So I'll swim, I'll swim As the water rises up Sun is sinking down

Similarly, this functions as Ken’s theme song for events prior to the start of 02. There are a lot of references to water--“flood,” “swim,” and I believe there’s talk about drowning as well--which is very fitting because of the Dark World (Ocean), but also because Ken obviously suffers from depression and the idea of drowning is one of the most used and most accurate descriptions of what chronic depression feels like (trust me, I know!).

But my favorite part of this is the last two lines from the quote. Let’s be real, the sun is a huge symbol when it comes to our goggle boys--they are bright, cheerful, energetic, and so fucking bright they could rival the sun itself. When Ken is so incredibly surrounded by darkness, Daisuke is the sun. There are so many things that support this, but most importantly:

The Crest of Courage is shaped like the sun. It doesn’t get more overt than that.

When V-mon evolves to Magnamon, it’s described as: “It was a miraculous evolution. As beautiful as the rising sun shining brightly on the world.”

Daisuke is the sun. Ken is the world. And Ken needs his sun to help him out of the darkness.

“Send Me an Angel” by Highly Suspect

Open fire on my burning heart I've never been lucky in love My defenses are down A kiss or a frown I can't survive on my own

Send me an angel Send me an angel Right now, right now

Before they met, before 02 actually starts, both Ken and Daisuke are effectively alone. Yeah, they’re surrounded by people (Daisuke more than Ken), but never of them have any real friends or close relationships.

This song is something I see Daisuke feeling in his more introspective moments (rare, I know), as what he needs more than anything is true love and companionship. When I say love here, I don’t necessarily mean romantic. While, yes, Daisuke has poor luck in romance (Hikari, hello!), he has poor luck with platonic love as well.

And I’m all for anything that references Ken as being an angel. Obviously, Ken would never agree to that sentiment, but a lot of the time, it feels like that’s how Daisuke views him. To Daisuke, [post-Kaiser] Ken is this amazing, beautiful, even verging perfect person, and you can see he feels that way just from the way he looks at Ken.

I also chose this song because it’s a small reference to something I drew not too long ago, which itself is based on a Lilo & Stitch meme.

“Duality” by Set It Off

I can't quite contain or explain my evil ways Or explain why I'm not sane All I can say is this is your warning

It's a cloak or disguise unleashed, gonna get it off No, I'll never get away Cause if I try to stray It only holds me closer No, I'll never get away I'll have it any way

Okay, this is very obviously a Kaiser song. But it’s also a Ken song. The whole thing about this song is that Ken is trapped as the Kaiser and doesn’t have full control over himself. And can he actually explain why he does the crazy evil shit he does? His explanation is that he thought the Digital World was a video game, but that’s obviously not the full picture. He can’t fully explain because the Dark Seed is what makes him evil as opposed to simply sad and lonely and traumatized.

“Numb Without You” by The Maine

You are my last, you are my first You kill me for the better You are the rising tide You're every fucking thing inside me now

You are the violence in my veins You are the war inside my brain You are my glitter and my gloom I am so numb without you

This is another Kaiser/Ken song. To an extent, this song has a sort of sadistic romantic aspect to it, but I’m choosing to ignore those undertones in favor of just the creepy sadistic part. This is sort of Ken singing to his Kaiser persona and also to depression in general. Because the Kaiser is the “rising tide” (oh, look another reference to water!) and the manifestation of his grief and trauma and mental illness.

But as the title of the song suggests, the Kaiser persona is also what allows him to still feel something. Without it, he’s in the complete numbness of his depression (which sucks, trust me), and he would rather have the Kaiser, who is violent and angry and bitter, instead of the absolute numbness of his grief and depression.

“Deer in the Headlights” by Owl City

Tell me again was it love at first sight When I walked by and you caught my eye Didn't you know love could shine this bright? Well, smile because you're the deer in the headlights

Met a girl boy with a graceful charm But when beauty met the beast, he froze Got the sense I was not her his type By a black eye and bloody nose But I guess that's the way it goes

Note: I (obviously) changed a few pronouns in the quote. It should be apparent what I altered based on formatting.

Here, we see the first time Daisuke and Ken meet. And I’m talking Ken (although evil Ken), not the Kaiser. Yes, this is referencing the soccer match they play against each other in episode eight.

It’s pretty damn obvious that eleven-year-old Daisuke is completely enamored when he meets the famous Ichijouji Ken. He blushes and stumbles over his words, and he is so overwhelmed and happy that Ken remembered his name after the match was over. He admires him, and when Ken tells him that he’s the first person to ever stop that move in the match, Daisuke just looks so pleased to hear the compliment.

Also, bonus points for any song that references the sun or light: “Didn’t you know love could shine this bright?”

“Love the Way You Hate Me” by Like a Storm

You say I'm insane I say You're afraid I get stronger from the pain I love the way you hate me

I'd rather be a sinner than a slave I'd rather be an outcast than just bow down and obey When it's all done there's only one Name upon my grave I'd rather be a freak than be a fake

Another Kaiser song. While the previous song could be placed pretty much any time during the first fifteen episodes or so, this one is distinctly set after they find out the Kaiser is Ichijouji Ken. The focus here is on the way the Kaiser (emotionally) gets off from how much the Chosen Children, Daisuke especially, fight against him and hate him. He enjoys watching them try so hard and keep failing because, while he desperately wants to have an opponent, he loves to win more--he does think it’s a game, after all.

“Lock Me Up” by The Cab

Why don't you Lock me up with joy and kisses? Lock me up with love? Chain me to your heart's desire

I don't want you to stop Lock me in and hold this moment Never get enough Ain't no way I'm ever breaking free Lock me up

This song is mostly in reference to the serious foe yay aspect to Daisuke and Kaiser Ken’s relationship for the first half of the series. The homoerotic subtext in their relationship is ridiculous, especially since they’re two eleven-year-old boys, one of whom (theoretically) has a huge crush on a female friend for the first half(ish) of the season. But you can bet that, if the Chosen Children had a second enemy during the Kaiser’s days, the Kaiser would be pissed and pull the whole “No! Motomiya’s my enemy. Only I can defeat him!” bit like he’s Kaiba Seto or something.

“Fallen Angel” by Three Days Grace

How can I take the pain away? How can I save...

A fallen angel in the dark Never thought you'd fall so far Fallen angel, close your eyes I won't let you fall tonight Fallen angel

But then there’s comes the very important part where Daisuke has a revelation. When he and V-mon meet Wormmon on the Kaiser’s base, Wormmon is determined and takes them to the Digimental of Miracles in an attempt to help them defeat the Kaiser and bring back his kind-hearted best friend. The moment Daisuke touches the Golden Digimental, something changes: It’s connected to Ken because it’s borne from his Crest of Kindness, and Daisuke is able to see that there’s more to Ken than his Kaiser persona. He knows that there’s good in him before they’ve even defeated him, and he wants to help him.

And seriously, bonus points for a song from Daisuke’s POV that refers to Ken as an angel. I’ll fight anyone who says he doesn’t see Ken that way. Legit.

“Breaking Down” by I Prevail

Lies, every time they ask me I just tell 'em that I'm fine Try to hide my demons, but they only multiply Keep me running from the voices on repeat inside my mind Everybody fucking hates you

I guess I never noticed how it came creeping in My enemy emotion but I can't sink or swim I say I'm feeling hopeless but no one's listening But no one's listening, but no one's listening

This song is in reference to the way Kaiser Ken’s psyche is falling apart. He’s having doubts. Creepy voices are talking to him. He’s confused about how the Chosen Children are actually defeating him. Chimairamon is a freaking nightmare and totally uncontrollable. And Ken is about to have a goddamn breakdown.

“Goner” by Twenty One Pilots

Though I'm weak Beaten down I'll slip away Into the sound

I've got two faces Blurry's the one I'm not I need your help to Take him out

Look how far we’ve come! We’re almost to the Kaiser’s defeat! (Dear god, this is a long playlist...)

Ken isn’t aware of how much he needs Daisuke to help him at this point. He’s too busy being the Kaiser and, you know, having a mental breakdown. But it’s important that Daisuke is the one there to help bring everything down. V-mon evolves to Magnamon and defeats Chimairamon with some badass moves (he is a Royal Knight after all), and Daisuke and the rest of the Chosen Children are finally able to get through to Ken.

“Not Gonna Die” by Skillet

Break their hold Cause I won't be controlled They can't keep their chains on me When the truth has set me free

Only when he realizes that the Digital World isn’t a game is Ken able to break through the hold that the Dark Seed (and Oikawa and BelialVamdemon, etc.) have on him. He tears off his Kaiser clothes and goes back to being just Ken. Just sweet, kind-hearted, adorable Ken.

Parts of this song, though, would be from Daisuke’s perspective. He’s determined, even though they have defeated their enemy, to help Ken, even that simply means sending him home to his family instead of letting Ken just waste away, which is frankly what it looks like he’s about to do during this scene.

“Tell Me Why” by Three Days Grace

Tell me why Does everything that I love get taken away From me? Why does everything that I love get taken away?

How come nothing ever lasts? It goes from good to bad to worse so fast All it takes is one and I'm gone, and you can't erase the past How come nothing ever lasts?

Obviously, this is a Ken-centric song, the focus being on his past when he saw his brother’s death, though Osamu’s death is nowhere near his fault. Yet again, Ken goes through a traumatic experience (Wormmon’s death), and for the first time, this is (somewhat) his fault.

While I linked the subs version, the English dub of this scene actually has a line almost exactly like this song: “Not again. Wormmon’s gone. Just like my brother. I was helpless to save him, and now I can’t save Wormmon either. Why do I keep losing people?”

Sorry, were you not wanting to cry today? ...Oops.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

#daiken #daisuke motomiya #ken ichijouji #digimon #digimon 02 #playlist #okay ultimate might be an exaggeration #but this is loooooong #and the actual spotify playlist is longer #i lack self-control #especially when it comes to daiken #welcome to my life #trigger warning #suicide #depression #ptsd #mental health #emotional abuse #anatui

[paperclipninja]

Younger post-ep ramble 6x07

I’m gonna come straight out and say that I loved this episode of Younger so damn fiercely that this week’s rambling recap will be a whole lotta gush and a whole lotta ramble because I have a LOT of feelings. Sometimes an episode of television lingers with you after you’ve watched it. It might be because something particularly memorable happened or because a plot point you’d been hoping for finally played out or the reason might be unclear, there was just something about it. This week’s ep, ‘Friends With Benefits’, was one of those episodes for me. I think it was the storytelling, the way this episode was written felt well paced, the moments of tension were somewhat contained but had room to draw us in and the emotional journeys of the characters were really palpable. Most importantly, these elements worked together to expand our understanding of the characters and I was not at all surprised to discover that Darren Star had written this episode.

Right from the get go this ep had me by my heart strings, with Diana and Lauren both pushing their press releases to announce the Millennial/Mercury news (Diana talking up only Charles, Lauren advocating for Kelsey, there was just so much about all this that was YES). Of course level-headed Liza saves the day with her wordsmithing, but I think we can all agree that Diana excitedly exclaiming ‘he’s here’ and rushing out of her office to greet Charles, much to the amusement of Liza, was the moment we didn’t know we were all waiting for. As Diana tells Charles that ‘it feels like all is right with the World again’ all I could do was internally scream 'same Diana SAME’ with a massive grin plastered across my face. Also, Charles + crew neck sweater + office = a combo I was not expecting but was also definitely not opposed to. Kudos to Darren for working the sale of Pound Ridge into the conversation, cue Diana’s characteristic lack of sensitivity as she reminds Charles that he poured his heart and soul into that place before advising that another marriage is probably best avoided by both of them (narrator voice: it won’t be). 

If anyone’s heart didn’t skip a beat when Charles greeted Liza so earnestly as she left Diana’s office then quite frankly, you should probably get that checked. FINALLY seeing these two in the office together, openly in a relationship, I tell you, I get giddy even thinking about it. Follow that with Diana flat out asking Liza if she ever feels like a wrecking ball and then blaming herself for hiring her was just SO Diana circa season 3 and honestly, it’s this kind of quality content that keeps me coming back for more. And no Diana, love is NOT blind, because anyone with eyes will tell you that as Liza enters Charles’ office and mentions that the box city may be covering the flowers someone sent, these two could not have looked more enamored with one another. There is something magical about this interaction, I know it was released as the sneak peek but it’s as though there’s a special kind of chemistry reserved purely for the office between these two and that palpability of emotion I referred to was evident as Charles was clearly moved by Liza’s gesture, not to mention her suggestion that they will go through the boxes all together. 

It feels like this whole season has been building towards getting these two characters to this place and honestly, I am a puddle because FINALLY we are seeing the sweet, loving, relationship that can just be. One of the things I loved about the storytelling in this episode was that it wove Charles’ growing resentment of the life he has been prescribed throughout, first evidenced by his reluctance to attend the Tuxedo Park Benefit. I really liked that he told Liza she’s off the hook if she wants and loved even harder her response that they can suffer together in evening wear, this woman is loved up to the eyeballs right here, even if her generous offer to sort through the boxes in her office alone included wanting to catch a sneaky peek at the manuscript she spotted earlier. Did I mention I could watch a whole episode of adorable Charles and Liza office interactions? 

Speaking of office interactions, can we talk about Zane who has apparently not only lost his ability to figure out how a coffee machine operates, but also his memory of how to behave in a workplace? Starting with his cocky assertion that he’s not going to be Kelsey’s problem (which I took to mean that Zane thinks Charles will be). I have to say, seeing Zane grow increasingly unhinged was a little amusing, particularly as Kelsey absolutely rocked it with boss mode activated this episode. Finally I saw her being a publisher, the meeting in which she outlines the need to each define their brands (lol at Diana’s 'I told her that’) was fab to watch and Zane’s impatient, 'Charlessss’ as Kelsey puts forward the idea of 'Exonerated’ being a better fit for Millennial was reminiscent of a spoiled child demanding his dad give him something he wants. He then throws an outright tantrum at the second meeting when Kelsey suggests that 'Arabian Sea’ (which looks like the actual worst btw) is not the book they should be releasing as their first title together (love Charles’ sextant joke and am so digging him in editor mode, including the awkward averting of the eyes after Zane storms out). Zane, dude, have some self respect. And respect for Kelsey and your colleagues.

Seeing Kelsey really hold her own in the meeting was great and I love that we saw her lunch time chats with Liza to give us insight into the journey she was on (again, the writing of this ep *praise hands*). Hearing Kelsey’s struggle to stand up to Charles and the respect she holds for him as her mentor was wonderful, as was Liza’s reassurance that Charles’ 'death stare’ was meaningless (not to mention smoldering) and that he respects her as publisher. I am so appreciative of the fact that we got to see the first meeting, in which Kelsey backed down, then the second meeting, in which she held her ground, to see the character growth taking place. I think it’s what made the manuscript reveal scene so freaking fantastic, I cannot even tell you how much I adore the way that all played out.  Here we have Kelsey, who has been working her way up to being confident enough to hold firm with Charles, FINALLY at a point where she is able to put her foot down. The way we are lead to think that Charles saying the manuscript Liza found is not something he wants to pursue is some kind of power play, before Kelsey firmly states that ’ as publisher, I am’, just makes the whole plot twist of Charles’s 'and as the author I most certainly am not’ one of the most satisfying/omg YESSSS moments this show has produced. I really hope the book gets revisited on the show and also, I know that we needed Liza not to know so we could have that divine final scene, but tell me Kelsey wouldn’t have immediately sent an all caps text screaming, 'I FOUND OUT WHO THE AUTHOR OF THAT MANUSCRIPT IS AND YOU GON DIE’.

You know who else was dying a little bit? Me when Diana rocked up to work in the most fab feathered hat, Liza dropped a Meghan Markle reference and we discovered that Diana was attending the christening of Enzo’s niece on Staten Island later that day (Diana’s 'it’s a low bar but I try to lead by example’ line, omg every week these lines and the delivery are too much). Can we just all agree right here and now that Enzo DeLuca is such a damn sweetheart, his 'you knocked it out of the park’ after Diana thanks him for complimenting her (p.s. she wanted to look nice for his family in case we weren’t clear on how invested D. Tout was in this relationship, I mean SWOON) was just so adoring. Diana poking Enzo’s sister in the face with the feathers kept the com part of romcom in play, as Enzo got up to fulfill his godfather duties and kissed his ex on the lips and I’m sorry but WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?

I tell you what is happening, the set up for the sister to inform Diana that Enzo pulls the pin on all relationships around the one year mark, emphasize the point that Diana Trout is NOT Amal Clooney (this whole convo was actual golden pieces) and to have the whole family out the front basically force the point that they want Enzo with Maria, including the ever OTT mother ensuring Diana is in prime position to be pushed into a bush. And why is this set up so darn glorious? Because as I mentioned earlier, we really got to experience significant junctures in various characters’ development this episode and here we see Enzo, who not that long ago was still living with his mother and very much making any decisions based on her approval, stand up for the woman he loves in the most wonderful way. The proposal was just so beautiful in its authenticity and spontaneity, in that moment Enzo realised as he said he hoped Diana would be in the family forever exactly what that meant and acted on it. Diana’s, 'is there a ring involved’ was every kind of perfect and seriously, these two are too much, I cannot wait to see the big Italian wedding with all the trimmings

While we’re on the topic of things that are garish, this week we also got to see Michelle again. But we’ll circle back to her in a minute, because before all these benefit friends start circling and being just too much, Liza and Charles enter the 'eighth  circle of hell’ having an actual conversation about work like couples do and seriously, I am simple folk and it’s these simple things, and I love the way Charles affirms that he intentionally didn’t wear a suit to the office because he was trying not to project authority and well yes, gush gush, it was all very excellent. Their whole convo was of course cut short as Bob and Julia spot them and yet another of my season 6 wish list items gets crossed off as Julia takes full credit for introducing Charles and Liza and Bob makes an unsubtle comment that that’s what they tell themselves anyway. I think my favourite part is when Bob asks Liza if she knows that Tuxedo Park is actually the home of the tuxedo and Charles has a 'I don’t think that’s right’ expression flash across his face. We all have one of those friends and the conversation goes from cringe to suffocating as all of a sudden Liza finds herself being included in plans to cruise to Singapore before the whole thing escalates when Michelle and Tom arrive. Getting these two in the same ep as Bob and Julia, I tell you, it was like the double jackpot of friends who are extra. Michelle is as subtle as a sledgehammer as she checks out Charles and Liza’s assertion that she has not been hiding him as there’s nothing to hide is re-emphasized by Charles, who reminds her that in this scenario, there really isn’t anything to hide, she can be herself, no lie about age or job or relationship is in play.

That is what makes this whole scene and the way the rest of the episode unfolds so good. Here is Liza, in a situation that she’s been yearning for, where she doesn’t have to lie and with the man she is in love with, yet instead of feeling free she feels trapped. Michelle further exacerbates things when she joins Liza at the table and once again has a dig at her relationship with Josh (Michelle really is kind of the worst. although between her truffle butter and Julia’s double balling I feel like there’s a potential friendship just waiting to blossom) and points out that Charles is a keeper. I did have a mighty chuckle at her 'oh my gosh’ when Charles took Liza’s hand though, in that moment I was also Michelle tbh.  Liza’s gnawing sense that she is once again becoming entrenched in a lifestyle she was happy to walk away from is confirmed when she arrives home to Maggie and reassured that it’s not exactly chocolate ice-cream like she had for 20 years, it’s more like chocolate choc-chip. Which Liza likes and I personally think is delicious and guava ice-cream does not sound like my wheelhouse at all, but this is not about me and I don’t know why but each time I’ve watched this ep (and it’s been a few times, I am high-key obsessed with it if you haven’t noticed), Liza taking her wine and the manuscript and sitting on the couch to read it up and gets me for some reason. I also can’t decide if that whole moment is a mood or a goal, but I think maybe it’s both at the same time.

Maggie heading out for the night with Josh and Lauren after 11pm further emphasizes the divide that is forming between the 26 year old life and the life Liza is currently leading. It is from this point that you get the sense as a viewer that Liza is actually stuck between these two versions of herself. I feel as though this episode, more than any other, showed her desire to take elements from each of these worlds to create her ideal life, but feeling overcome with a sense that it is not possible. Seeing Josh preparing his motorbike to sell, which Liza was certainly quite disappointed about (I have no doubt it was very representative of the freedom she felt with Josh and her idea of that life she lived etc), it is Josh who is moving forward and thinking of his future. I have to say, hearing Josh talking about Gemma is just too gorgeous, I am enjoying seeing this character have such purpose and focus this season. It is, of course, when Liza finds a photo of Pauline and Charles at the same benefit she just attended, that she feels she is seeing what her future with Charles looks like; reminiscent of her old life with a rinse and repeat of the life Charles led with Pauline (and we all know how that ended), and she decides to take Josh up on the offer of one last ride on his motorbike.

Sometimes I notice the music as I watch an ep and sometimes I don’t, but I absolutely noticed the 'we’re living in a fantasy’ lyric that played over the top of Liza getting onto the bike. I thought this was such an interesting way to highlight the fact that the 26 year old life that Liza knew no longer exists, other people have moved on, are at different stages in their own lives and she is, in a way, fantasizing about a lifestyle that is not necessarily a reality anymore, even if she wanted it to be. The conflict that occurred in this episode for Liza was internal and to convey that is no mean feat. During the conversation she has with Josh down by the water, her struggle is evident. As she recalls the story she read of an older woman and a younger man, Josh asking how it ends and her stating she doesn’t know, my heart actually hurt for her. While I appreciate that for some viewers this would’ve been a lovely ambiguous moment about where the Josh/Liza relationship may end up, in relation to the narrative that was unfolding I saw it very much as Liza being unsure where and how her current situation is going to play out, not indecision about her relationship or who she wants to be with. The whole scene is dripping with anguish to me, there’s the life that Liza wants and then there’s the man that she loves and the feeling that being with the man she loves traps her in a life she no longer wants.

Sutton Foster has the most incredible ability to make subtle emotion palpable, we get snippets of it in episodes every now and then, the awards dinner with Jay when she was overcome with that anguish and yearning for Charles when he was there with Pauline comes to mind, and this week as a viewer I could FEEL the journey she was on trying to reconcile these two worlds of hers. It was a wonderful example of nuanced writing and masterful acting coming together. It all really came together of course in the final scene of the episode and honestly, my heart is preemptively exploding just thinking about it. First of all, Liza looks next level incredible with the dress and hairstyle combo (yes Charles, 'wow’ is accurate). Charles’ teasing her about playing hooky so that Kelsey could read the manuscript she had found in his personal belongings was downright charming and as he explains that he is in fact the author and reveals his experience of having an affair with an older woman, you can see Liza wrapping her head around this new insight into him. When Charles expresses his understanding of what it’s like to be the young man in a relationship and also the desire and motivation of a woman in her 40’s to seek that out, Liza’s expression is one of both feeling seen and feeling exposed concurrently. As Bob calls Charles and Liza over to join the party, these two individuals’ journeys suddenly cross over and fall in sync.

Charles made the earlier comment about not wanting to go to the benefit, however Liza sees the picture of him and Pauline from years earlier and no doubt makes the assumption that no matter how much he dislikes it, he has always and will always oblige and attend such events as he has his whole life. What I love so much is that at the very top of the episode, Liza refers to Charles as having a career renaissance, which ties into the theme that has been woven throughout the season of Charles having the chance to start over and do something that is his own. In this final moment of the episode, as Liza looks utterly deflated, it becomes apparent that both Liza and Charles are feeling trapped in these past or preset lives that they actually don’t want. And suddenly they have the opportunity to break free together. As Liza asks Charles if they can promise each other not to do anything together in the future they don’t want to do, you can see her relief that Charles doesn’t want to attend the party either, however it is Charles showing her that he doesn’t want to be there that proves he really means it.

The significance in all this, I believe, is that Liza’s struggle has been that freedom and spontaneity only existed in the younger life she experienced and that most of the examples and experiences she has had of a forty-something life are devoid of that. As Charles and Liza run laughing down the street hand in hand and the episode closes it leaves us with the lingering notion that freedom isn’t something that’s attached to age, it’s a choice. It finally feels like these two characters are on the same page after so long and obvs I am utterly pumped to see what’s next.

I have said it numerous times throughout but overall, this episode was just stellar from start to finish. It felt like a pivotal point in the season that will really set the course for the rest of season 6 and there was such significant character growth and development for Kelsey, Liza, Charles, Enzo and Diana. The theme of spontaneity, with Liza seeking it out by leaving work to ride the motorcycle, Enzo proposing to Diana and Charles suggesting they run from the benefit, was so wonderful to see play out in different ways, especially as it was all the characters in their 40′s on the show who were being spontaneous.  ’Friends With Benefits’ has most definitely secured a place on my regular re-watch list. Now let’s hope we get to find out how that book of Charles’ ends…

#youngertv #younger tv #ramble #review #6x07 #liza miller #charles brooks #kelsey peters #diana trout #maggie amato #team charles #liza x charles #younger season 6

[truthbeetoldmedia]

The 100 6x10 “Matryoshka” Review 

You know, when I was assigned this episode to review, I wasn’t expecting to be discussing a moment like THAT (you all know what I’m referring to), so please, be kind while I process by obsessively refreshing Twitter and try to put my thoughts together. 

There’s definitely a lot going on in this episode, some of which I LOVED (take a wild guess on what part that is folks), and some of which I was less than fond of. It’s all high tension and high stakes, even more than the last. I’m a big fan of the moves they made to set everything into place; this is probably one of my favorite episodes of the season. 

Action and Reaction 

Here’s the thing. Putting almost all of your characters in one place forces conversation and development, which can turn out fascinating, or it can illuminate the truly unnecessary plot points and characters that have been hanging on all season. 

Raven and Abby are back from space and being taken prisoner like the rest of the Arkadians when Simone, angry about the loss of both the synthetic nightblood and the mind drive they used for Kane, tells Abby that Clarke is dead. As the audience we know that this isn’t exactly true, but Abby has no reason to think she’s alive, since every other host body is completely taken over by whoever’s mind drive is put in that body. 

I was pretty peeved with both Raven and Abby’s reactions to Clarke’s “death,” even though it’s been an ongoing joke online that Josie!Clarke could basically say and do anything and Abby still wouldn’t notice that something was up with her daughter. Raven’s been mad at Clarke for the entire season, so I guess I understand a lack of reaction on her part — but Abby? Her lack of reaction is only so off-putting because just last episode we saw an absolute outpouring of grief over Kane. It makes no sense that the news of her only child’s death wouldn't even garner 10% of that. 

The thing is, that’s poor characterization either way. Failing to show an emotional response that makes sense is a failure of the writing, and making her grief over Kane much more significant than over Clarke on purpose only highlights how far gone she is. That’s not a character worth keeping around, especially if this difference in emotion and priority is never addressed (and I don’t think it’s going to be). If the writers room is so keen on keeping her around they need to put some effort into showing the audience why that’s worthwhile. I know there are people who like Abby, but when it comes down to plot, what purpose does she serve? In a cast so large they need to trim loose ends or suffer for it, and I think hanging onto Abby for so long is an example of that. What has she done all season besides hole up in the library looking for a way to heal Kane, who’s been technically dead since the Season 5 finale? You could argue that they need her for the synthetic nightblood, but giving Becca’s notebook to Raven and having her do it also makes sense, especially since Abby doesn’t even leverage that ability when she should. Case in point: when Russell decides to burn them all at the stake after Simone’s murder, Murphy is the one who brings up being able to make nightblood from bone marrow, thereby saving everyone from a super vintage execution (for now). 

While we’re at it — I can’t believe Abby is actually mad at Murphy for helping the Primes, even though he and Emori explain that they both thought Clarke was actually dead and nothing could be done about it. Sure, what Murphy did was a little cold and sketchy at best, but it’s right on brand. Clarke’s dead? Nothing can be done about it? Better leverage this to my advantage. Self preservation, baby. That’s much less than Abby did literally ONE episode ago, being fully complicit in Gavin’s murder and actually recruiting him to host Kane’s mind drive even though she knew exactly what would happen. 

That’s exactly why these scenes with everyone felt stale: not every character is pulling their weight, and when that happens the scene gets bogged down with unnecessary interactions. There’s too many characters that really only take up space. Characters like Jackson, Miller, Niylah, and even Echo are dead weight at this point. Again, I know that these characters have their fans. That doesn’t change the fact that as far as the narrative is concerned, they're all relatively useless. Just being a named character doesn’t automatically give them significance, that significance has to be shown. What exactly does Miller bring to the show? Or Niylah? Even if they were once important that importance is dwindling if not non-existent. Miller could have been a compelling character: he was Bellamy’s right hand man in Season 1. He’s one of the original hundred. They could have done more with him, but in reality he’s replaceable. If you took Miller, Jackson, and Niylah out of the show, nothing would change. You could even say the same for Abby and Echo; they have more screen time than the rest, but Abby’s continued presence on the show feels forced and Echo is far from a developed character. Their “skills” can easily be transferable to other characters. Characters like Jordan and Emori are MUCH more compelling. 

Another thing that drags the episode down (and the season, if I’m being honest)? The whole “Sheidheda” making Madi a murder princess. I absolutely cannot fathom WHY grounder culture is still a thing on this show. They are on another planet, over a century later, with a thousand better things to focus on. I understand that Madi’s nightblood is significant, and the flame might be as well (from a technology standpoint). But why introduce this “dark commander”? if they wanted Madi to go full assassin, the pain of losing Clarke would have been enough to justify it. Also, what point does Madi/Sheidheda being so threatening towards Gaia serve? Having to listen to anything about the commanders is honestly exhausting, and it’s holding the show back. They’ve moved on (literally) in almost every capacity, and the show’s tendency to beat a dead horse only ever backfires. 

Not to sound too harsh, but that feeling I get whenever someone calls Madi “heda” is the same feeling I get if I’m at a party and this one person can only talk about how great high school was. This again? We’re in our late twenties. High school wasn’t great. Please, let it go. 

With that being said, they are setting up the next episode in a way that makes me think they might take the flame out of Madi for good, so we’ll see how that goes. 

Now, there are some compelling pieces here: it was nice to see Raven go back to being sciencey and a little bit philosophical after almost a full season of nothing but self-righteousness. Her conversation with Murphy about morality, not immortality, as a way to avoid hell was well done. The 100 loves a good morality conversation, and with things getting more dire in Sanctum and the growing comparisons between the Primes and Arkadians I’m sure that’s not the last we’ll hear of it. 

Getting almost everyone in one place, setting the stage for getting the dark commander out of Madi’s head, and setting up one last ditch effort to appease the Primes was great. The pacing in this case was well done and well executed, despite the issues that I did have, and I know that the final showdown will be epic. 

The hold that the Primes have over Sanctum is disintegrating, to put it mildly, and my guess is that a mass witch trial-esque execution isn’t exactly the way to put the populace at ease. 

There’s even an internal rebellion being incited by Ryker, who tells Delilah’s parents and another man that their loved ones aren’t “one with the Primes,” that nothing is left of the original host when the Prime’s mind drive takes over, and they’ve been lied to for decades. I’m curious to see the reaction when everyone in Sanctum learns the truth. 

The Primes are Dead. Long Live the Primes.

Here’s the thing about the Primes and the Arkadians — they’re so concerned with not being like each other that they conveniently ignore or justify what they’re doing. Russell is hellbent on not ending up like the Arkadians, but how, in any way, are the Primes better than the Arkadians? At their current positions, I’d say that the Primes are decidedly worse. Here’s the thing, though — they’ve had time. Josie said it herself — she wasn’t always like this. Give the Arkadians a few centuries, and who's to say they wouldn’t devolve into something similar? 

The driving force for both groups has always been taking care of “their people.” What’s not usually discussed is that in order to put your people first you need to put other people last. Someone almost always suffers, it's just about prioritizing that suffering. 

It circles back around to that question of trying to save humanity but never bothering to question if it even should be saved. Sure, the Primes can live forever. Should they?

Clarke even gets a glimpse of Josie’s morality, or the morality she used to have, as their minds start to disintegrate and Josie’s memories bleed into Clarke’s mind space. We see Josie in love with Gabriel, watching that memory fondly until she absolutely has to let it go. In another episode, Clarke already discovered that memory of Josie’s from that diner on Earth. 

Finally, when Gabriel and Octavia find Bellamy and Clarke/Josie and Gabriel is about to take out her mind drive, almost all of her memories are gone. Eliza Taylor absolutely kills this whole scene, and I actually could have shed a tear for Josie when she speaks through Clarke, saying she can’t remember, but she’s sure she did terrible things.  

Josie had morality. Josie lost it. 

The entire run of the show has been exploring morality and what it means — no simple task, I know. I think, however, that Gabriel really embodied that when he let Josie die. He said it himself, he’s been in love with her for centuries. But he needs, everyone needs, the cycle to stop. Putting an end to using hosts is the only way to do it. 

That’s Love, Bitches 

I mean… come on. Come ON. 

This scene was everything. Well acted, well written, well directed. I cried, you cried, everyone cried. Twitter imploded. I’ll go to my grave being adamant that Bellamy and Clarke’s relationship is THE best and most well done thing about the show. The entirety of the sixth season is built on Clarke being gone and Bellamy fighting for her to come back. Love, sacrifice, forgiveness — all are main tenets of The 100, and all are wrapped up in Bellamy and Clarke. 

It’s crystal clear that they’re paralleling Gabriel and Josie with Bellamy and Clarke. Josie dies, Gabriel letting her go while saying that their time is over, only for Bellamy to immediately bring Clarke back? Josie and Gabriel’s time is over, and Bellamy and Clarke’s is starting. A literal new life.

They really threw every romantic trope at them this episode. Clarke’s heart stopping in front of Bellamy and him pleading for her to come back? Bellamy saying he needs her? The CPR? The remnants of Josie try to kill Clarke, and she only comes back when she hears Bellamy’s voice? The first thing she sees when she comes back is Bellamy’s face? Octavia’s smirk in the back? The audacity. 

This scene was lead up to with a full six seasons of development — from the beginning they were the head and the heart. Gabriel said it, the heart needs the head to tell it to beat. Clarke, clinging to her mind space, only came back because Bellamy restarted her heart. He’s her literal heart, guys. 

Bellamy has thought Clarke was dead three times now — the first was during Praimfaya, the second when he discovered Josie was inhabiting Clarke’s body. Both of those times he could only witness and not do anything, so you better believe he wasn’t going to let Clarke die if he had anything to say about it. 

There is a clear stage for romantic Bellarke being set here, and anyone who says otherwise is not watching the same show. You don’t have to like it, but it’s happening.

Honestly, anything I could say about this has already been said. Just know that this episode killed me, and I’ll be watching the next one from the afterlife. 

Alyssa’s episode rating: 🐝🐝🐝🐝

The 100 airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on the CW.

#The 100 #Matryoshka

[senttotheshadowrealm]

Imelda Rivera: A Character Study

Big rant under the cut. Just some venting I’ve been holding in for almost a year. Do note if you choose to read on that this is my opinion. If you like her, that’s totally fine with me. I just had to put this out there.

As it is now out there, I really don’t like Imelda Rivera. But I’d like to explain why. A lot may jump to a conclusion that I don’t like her because I’m a butt-hurt Hector fangirl, and while that certainly doesn’t help, it also has nothing to do with why I originally didn’t like her. But let’s break it down piece by piece:

1. Imelda’s attitude towards Hector

It’s completely uncalled for. Now I understand that she was hurt, but what she does is so extreme and so crazy, I refuse to let that be an excuse. As @disgrxced-luminxry pointed out, it seemed that she completely banished a man she supposedly loved because he had different wants than her. It would be a different story if it actually did unfold the way the beginning of the movie presented it. It said “One day, he left with his guitar...and never returned.” Yes, this makes what Hector did sound very one-sided and selfish, but remember that Miguel is telling this story. He only knows it the way his family, and therefore Imelda, told it. She didn’t mention the oodles of letters that he continued to send home for Coco, which I have no doubt that she opened and gave to her daughter. After all, Coco was only three. This tells me that Hector was writing frequently to her and most likely sending whatever little money he could to them. He was still trying to support his family and keep his dreams. This pissed her off. She said it herself.

“I wanted to put down roots....He..wanted to play for the world...we both made sacrifices to get what we wanted...,” In her mind, because Hector didn’t just stop pursuing his dream and do what she wanted, he choose music over his family. The letters sent home prove otherwise. She choose to exile him because of his different opinion. That’s called fascism, folks.

And knowing that he, at the very least sent a bunch of letters home, why did Imelda just...not seem to give a fuck when they just stopped coming? Giving her the benefit of the doubt, let’s say she didn’t really think he abandoned them until after the letters stopped. Why was she not curious at all? This is a man you supposedly love. Why did she not press into what happened to him? I refuse to still believe it was hurt if she didn’t in fact believe he abandoned them yet. AND to compound this, we recently got confirmation that the white guitar that is so pivotal to the film was actually a gift to Hector from Imelda. When?...IDK. Apparently before Imelda made the decision that she was done with music. But music ban or no, she had to have seen Ernesto pictured with that guitar somewhere between 1921 and the 1970s when she most likely passed. Did that raise no questions? Seems to me like she just didn’t care what happened...She just was still pissed that he had a different opinion than her own.

Now let’s jump to the next time these two interact, after they’ve both passed away. Or at least attempted to interact. Imelda once says herself in the move:

“How many times must a turn you away!?” This was not the first time Hector had tried to explain what happened. She just didn’t want to hear it. She could tell how young he was when he died, given his hair is still pitch black while hers has grey streaking. She wasn’t interested in what he had to say. But I’m sure she was quick to tell him how awful he was. What a horrific person he was, just as she did in the scene we actually did see. But this isn’t the first time Imelda is abusive. 

When Hector finally does get to say what happened, she responds with, “AND SO WHAT IF IT’S TRUE!?” Actually it matters a lot. I don’t know if she was just back-peddling because she realized how ignorant she had been, but it’s still plenty cold-hearted to say to someone who was murdered trying to come home to you.

Finally, can I mention how super horrible it is that she NEVER, not even ONCE, showed any remorse for almost making Hector suffer the Final Death? And, sure, she didn’t understand the consequences of the music ban when she did it, but once she found out, after her own death, she STILL is able to say to Hector’s face:

“I wanted to forget you. I wanted Coco to forget you too, but...” She knows that’s the equivalent of telling someone you wanted them dead. This line is actually what made me really not like her...But speaking of Coco...

2. Emotional/Mental abuse of Coco

Yup. Yes she did. More obvious in the book though. There is a particular flashback scene where Coco as a young woman wants to dance but has to go to a secluded place so her mother can’t see her doing it. Mind you that Imelda also refuses to make shoes for dancers because music. But that aside, she even forbids her daughter from doing something she loves because she disagrees with it. So Coco gets injured dancing in the middle of nowhere so Imelda won’t see her. Imelda uses the fact that she got hurt to push that dancing and music is evil and that she was making her daughters upset. This makes Coco give up dancing for good. Imelda has taught her that showing support for your family must be to give up what you love. 

Even bigger so, Imelda forced Coco to not talk about her father. She couldn’t with the music ban. This decision didn’t only affect Imelda when it was put in place. It affected a little girl too. A little girl who was already so confused as to what happened to her father. How much that must have hurt her...She clearly loved her father, she kept all of his letters and even the picture Imelda ripped out. She clung to the memory of her father, which Imelda tried so hard to force out of her over the years. She, “wanted Coco to forget him too, but...” But...she didn’t. She wouldn’t. And thank God she didn’t.

3. Legacy on the Family and Miguel

This point isn’t as important to me as the others, but Imelda’s legacy left quite an imprint on the family. As you recall, the story told at the beginning of the movie is Imelda’s version of events. “Hector up and left. The end.” This is the story Imelda told her granddaughters, poisoning them against a man they never meant. Elena then went on to pass down this misinformation to her children and even to her children’s children. Thankfully, Miguel shared his great grandmother’s fight and ambition. If he hadn’t run off to pursue his dreams, he would never have found out the truth. And it’s not only Miguel who suffered from the music ban. As we see at the end of the movie, Abel and Rosa are playing instruments too. Lord knows, they might have had the same struggles Miguel had, enjoying music in private, they just weren’t strong enough to bring it up like Miguel was. 

What does matter A LOT to me is that Imelda was ready to let Miguel die in the Land of the Dead before she let him play music. This is so sickening to me that I can’t dwell too long on it with stooping to calling her more names. I’m trying to avoid that here. It’s really fucked up. That’s all I’ll say.

4. Vs. Ernesto

This is a more personal point. When I first put it out there that I was an Ernector shipper, I got A LOT of comments with people saying: “But Ernesto MURDERED Hector...How could you support that?” Allow me to explain. I don’t believe for even one moment that they actually loved each other. I more so like the tension between the two. I also like Ernesto having super confusing feelings toward his best friend that in 1920s Mexico is so taboo that it just makes it more inciting. Ultimately, I like Ernector because it’s fun. The problem with Imector is...it’s canon. It happened and is currently happening. But people seem to ignore that Imelda is not that much different from Ernesto, both in personality and action. 

Both of them over-reacted when Hector tried to change their plans with plans of his own. They both moved to get rid of him. Ernesto was successful. Imelda was not. That’s really the only difference. 

In conclusion, I don’t like Imelda because she took her hurt and spread it to everyone around her. People could have died or disappeared because of her bitter, spiteful attitude. Others suffered mentally and emotionally because of her words. In Hector’s case, he was both. I actually believe that her continued belittling lead him to have such low self-esteem that actually caused him to forgive her in the end. She taught him that he was garbage over nearly 40 years of him begging to her for her to toss him aside. 

But if you still like her after reading this, that’s perfectly fine too. She was strong in opening up her own business after all. Actions of a character can mean different things to different people. I just wanted to put my thoughts out there :3

#Coco #Imelda Rivera #LONG POST #RayWrites #A damn novel I guess

[bucky-iss-bae]

Love Yourself (Stony) - Part 2

Fandom: Marvel Pairing: Stony (Steve x Tony) Summary: After Civil War Tony and Steves relationship falls to pieces as do both Tony and Steve - A Loose Enemies to Friends to Lovers - Very Loose. Warnings: Angst, swearing, I think I made Steve look like a really bad guy and a prick. But I do love him. A/N: So this is the first multiple part fic that I’m posting, one of many xoxo Hey all, here’s part 2 out of 3 on my Stony Fic. As a writer, I’m still growing so sorry if the characterisation is a little out, but hope you all enjoy x 

Fandom: Marvel

Pairing: Stony (Steve x Tony)

Summary: After Civil War Tony and Steves relationship falls to pieces as do both Tony and Steve - A Loose Enemies to Friends to Lovers - Very Loose.

Warnings: Angst, swearing, I think I made Steve look like a really bad guy and a prick. But I do love him.

Masterlist  Fandom List 

Love Yourself - Part 2 

Living in such close proximity to someone that Tony wanted to avoid was proven to be more difficult than he thought. Especially if he was still madly in love with that certain someone, yet wanted to avoid them like the plague. But of course, he would never admit the former to anyone. Ever.

But he understood that they shared mutual friends. That they had the same family, and that despite everything you can’t split up a family despite how heartbroken he was.

Tony had done the good thing of clearing everyone’s names from what happened in Germany, everyone aside from Bucky and Steve’s names. Despite it being more difficult than said, especially since they didn’t have a lot of trust in who didn’t want to go along with the accords.

The easiest if anything was to make sure Barton was free, seeing as he was ‘retired’ aside from the odd opp, or the cold cases he didn’t do much, he had SHIELD at his disposal yet the only person he took orders from was Fury.

Wilson was out of the goodness of his heart. He had a good relationship with Rhodey, and helped with his recovery and between Tony and Sam there was a mutual understanding.

T’Challa made sure that Steve and Bucky had their freedom, Tony couldn’t in his heart after everything that the three of them specifically went through to help them. They left him, so why should he help them?

Steve did try to talk to Tony, from time to time. Each time Tony nearly gave in. Nearly. Bucky, it was a different story, despite saying that Tony wouldn’t help them. He helped Bucky a lot.

After Bucky was put under in Wakanda, and once they returned to New York he had a new arm. One with nanotechnology that Tony understood and had to work with especially after missions to ensure everyone's safety.

Trusting either of them in battlefields wasn’t something he wasn’t comfortable with, instead it spiked his anxiety, and he soon realized they were trying to prove their worth, and trying to prove that they were on the same team as Tony.

Tony soon started to grow from everything. Over time he got used to living in the same space as his ex, he got used to being around Bucky. Started showing his face more around the compound, started eating more, sleeping more, smiled and laughed more. Peter helped with this, made him happier. But whenever he saw Steve he hurt on the inside. He hurt but he numbed that pain out, still ignoring him unless it was to do with a mission.

But the thing Tony didn’t realize that helped him heal was helping Bucky. Learning who Bucky was and how he wasn’t the Winter Soldier. The one that killed his parents.

When working on Bucky's arm, ensuring it was safe enough, or mending any damage through missions, they had to endure spending time with one another.

“Why are you doing this?” Bucky whispered one day in the lab. Just the two of them, sometimes Natasha, Wanda, or Sam were wandering around. This time it was only the two of them.

“For the safety of my team”

“I mean why didn’t you get Shuri involved, get her to do it rather than doing this when we both know you hate me”

“Because it’s easier if I do it. Now I really don’t want to talk Barnes because yes I do hate you. I hate you because you killed my parents. But I also hate you because I know it wasn’t you who killed them. I hate you because the first time I genuinely loved someone, I was left for dead by them. And as much as I know it’s not your fault. There’s no one else to blame Barnes”  

Bucky once again let the guilt fill him up after hearing this. He felt guilty over something he had no control over, Tony knew this and Tony regretted opening his mouth. Both in the lab too caught up in their own feelings to talk to the other.

Shuri had shown Tony everything, how scattered Barnes’ brain was. Shuri showed and explained the advance science behind everything. Tony learning so much more than he would’ve ever realized. How Bucky was closer to self-destructing than recovering was scary since the science behind it showed everything.  

Forgiving Bucky was not on Tony’s agenda, but he saw a piece of him in Bucky. He saw how they both suffered from anxiety, how they both were trapped in their own minds. Their own nightmares. They were both their own worst enemies. 

“I’m sorry, for everything I caused” Bucky whispered, his voice slightly cracking, “For taking away everything you’ve ever loved. Steve included. I know that you love him. I know that before I came back, the two of you were a couple. And I’m sorry I broke you both apart. I see it in Steve, he’s hurting because of it, he tries to hide it, but I know it’s my fault.”

“I know you never caused any of this Barnes. You didn’t break us apart. He has done that all by himself.”

Those few words between them allowed some air between them to be cleared up. It almost took their lack of relationship to another level. They knew they weren’t friends, but they knew they were along the way. The tension between them had been eased, which even allowed them to have time outside of the lab to talk and interact with one another.  

“What happened between yourself and Barnes?” Wanda asked getting coffee one morning.

“Nothing, why?”

“Well... in the last few days. You’ve spoken to him outside of the lab, joked with him, even asked how he was and if he wanted coffee.” She said waving her mug in the air.

“We talked it out a few days ago. I told him I understand. We now have somewhat mutual respect for one another”

“How about Steve. Have you two spoken yet?” She pushed 

Tony grimaced at that, “No. That’s different. Only in meetings”

She nodded her head before sipping on her coffee, “Peter will be here today, won’t he? For the weekend?” She asked, changing subjects.

“Yeah, Happy is getting the kid. His aunt said he can stay around as long as there are no secret missions. Not until he at least finishes high school, which I completely agree on”

“I’m sure being an Avenger will look better on his resume than a high school diploma,” Barton said walking in with Wilson and Barnes closely behind. Those two looked like they just got back from a run, Wilson going right for the juice in the fridge and drinking straight from the carton,

“Gross, man. Could you not the rest of us might want some of that as well” Barnes said taking the carton off of Wilson and drank from it as well,

“Hypocrite” Sam grumbled whilst Barnes grinned at him,

“I hate you, I really do. I cannot express how much I hate you”

“I love you too” Barnes winked at Wilson before turning his attention on everyone else.

“So the spider kid is coming today then huh?”

“You two are not allowed to bully this kid and this is coming from me,” Clint said whilst putting an unhealthy amount of sugar into his coffee.

“Us? Bullying him? That’s preposterous, outrageous, completely absurd. We are fine gentlemen of this community, some of us being part of the elderly community, and you know what the old folks are like” Sam said throwing a hand on Barnes’ shoulder, “They just hate the youth sometimes. The youth and their technology, and memes. So maybe, just maybe, this old age pensioner has a slight dislike towards him or acts differently towards him because they were both raised in New York in completely different times, and he’s just not with it any longer. But nah jokes aside, in reality, the kid is good fun, we never bully him it’s all fun and games, he knows that, and we know that, he’s our friend!”  

“The kid talks a different language. It’s slightly scary. I still have no clue what memes are, I don’t even understand what Wilson says most the time” Barnes grumbled.

“You see what I always gotta deal with?” Sam asked,

“Hold up, what you gotta deal with?” Clint asked.

“Thought you could see anything Hawkeye” Wanda smirked at him.

“Wait what?” Tony asked looking between everyone.

Sam and Bucky were just stood there rising their eyebrows and smirking at everyone else,

“Same man. Same” Clint murmured, “So are you two bangin’ or what?”

“Thought that was obvious about a month ago?” Sam said while grinning.

“But you hate each other” Tony Pitched in, “You bitch about one another to each other all the time, all you ever say to me is how much Wilson annoys you whenever I’m fixing you up”

“My way of showing affection and love.”

“Damn, that has fucked with my mind Wanda how did you know?”

“How would I not know?”

Tony realized how this changed the friendship between Steve and Bucky. How it was a friendship, but that didn’t change Tony’s betrayal, all it confirmed was that Steve didn’t have romantic feelings for Bucky when he left with him.

“You know it’s like women have a sixth sense in this type of stuff? Because it's creepy how you guys always see more than we ever do” Barton asked Wanda.

“I’m sure your wife can answer that for you Clint”

Clint looked confused and looked at Tony who shrugged, “Don’t look at me man, I’m not your wife”

Clint just snorted at that but not long later Peter arrived at the compound happy to see everyone.

**

Despite being around his friends and the closest he could get to family, Steve had never felt more alone. He was a fugitive for so long, constantly on the run and it meant he could never stop to think, but now everything was back to normal, he was missing one of the most important people in his life. That person was Tony Stark.

Since Siberia, and everything that was revealed, Steve hadn’t been himself. He was on one hand reunited with his best friend since childhood, his best friend for just under a hundred years, but at the cost of losing the love of his life. The man he could see himself spending the rest of his life with was on the other side of the fight in Germany, and things were different from there on. There might’ve been a chance for recovery at that stage, but Siberia burnt that down. The fight between Tony and Bucky essentially meant he had to choose a side.

Either way, he would’ve regretted who he chose, but he knows that Bucky needed him, and he knows that he doesn’t regret it as much as he would’ve to leave Bucky.

But now, now everything is back to normal, everything aside from the relationship between Tony and Steve. Even Bucky and Sam had one another, and Steve was happy, happy that his both of his best friends had one another, despite their relationship being different than others, they knew they loved each other despite the mocking arguments that they have, their way of showing affection.

Since being back, Steve has tried ways to take his mind off of being so close to Tony yet so far, it involved training up SHIELD agents, despite his tarnished reputation, it involved training constantly doing anything to get his mind off of Tony, but he couldn’t.

He knew that Bucky and Tony had repaired their non-existent relationship, that they spoke more so than Steve and Tony had in the last few months. And at this point, Steve just wanted to at least talk to Tony, allow them to try to repair the tension between them. The last time he tried, Tony was in a bad place, and since he hasn’t been as bad in terms of eating and sleeping, and talking with everyone else because now the only person in the compound he kept his distance from was Steve.

Steve watched him, made sure he was ok, he got Sam to keep an eye on him, he constantly asked Natasha for updates on him, same for Wanda.

“You need to talk to him, Steve. Both of you are exactly the same, but he feels betrayed by you. He says he got over it, everyone knows he hasn’t and won't. So the two of you need to talk”

“He won’t talk to me, Nat. He won’t”

“Last time he never, just try again. See if you can with the basics. Acquaintances, friends. Alright”

Steve just nodded unsure on how he would approach Tony again after last time. This time he figured he could do it in open space that was still away from everyone else, probably his lab, maybe the gym.

Which is where he managed to get Tony next, it was 3am, and the gym was empty when he went in there, unable to sleep and he knew the only things he could do was go up against the punching bags.

He was shocked to see Tony there on the treadmill at such a late hour, and tony saw him, neither of them saying anything for a few moments,

“Couldn’t sleep either?” Steve asked Tony, saying the first thing that seemed reasonable to say.

“No” Tony replied back shortly,

Steve just nodded and went to wrap his hands,

“How... how have you been?” Steve warily asked Steve, his eyes shifting from the hand wraps to Tony.

“I’m in here at 3am, what do you think?”

Steve sighed, “Tony, we need to talk. We need to straighten things out. I need to apologise, I miss talking to you, I miss being around you”

Tony let out a bitter chuckle at this, “You are around me Steven. You're in my compound are you not?”

“That’s not what I meant Tony. You know this”

“You’re right, I do know this. How do I know you won’t betray me again Steven?”

“I can’t make up for what I’ve done in the past Tony. I’m sorry though, and I know sorry won’t cut it, but I want to build something between us again, I want to prove to you that I... I won’t betray you again. I won’t walk away from you again unless you want me to”

“And what if I do want you to? You’ve done it before, shouldn’t be too hard again should it?”

“You think it wasn’t hard for me? Tony, I Love you! I still do! I will always Love you. At that time I had to choose between the Love of my life and my best friend since before the damn war. It wasn’t an easy choice, but the way things went down in Germany, I wasn’t going to be easily forgiven for anything. So saving Bucky was all I could do at the time”

Tony had a grimace plastered on his face, “Bucky, I’ve spoken to him. Not a bad guy. Different from what I expected. I know it wasn’t him who killed my parents” Tony said ending the sentence with a whisper, “I know it was the Winter Soldier, Hydra. But he’s a good guy, him and Sam, they’re good for each other”

“How about us Tony. We were good for each other”

“We were” Tony agreed, “But that doesn’t mean I trust you, Steve. You knew everything, about how I felt, about how everyone in my life has walked out. The anxiety I have gone through in the last few years. Yet you, you do the same as everyone else”

“I’ve come back though. I wanted to be back with you Tony. I didn’t want to walk the way I did”

“You still did it though Steve”

“Let me prove to you that you can trust me then. However long it takes Tony. Let me prove myself, this time I will not walk away, I won’t betray you, just let me prove myself”

Tony looked at Steve with an intent look in his eye, “You got one chance Rogers. I’m still not over what happened last time. And this doesn’t mean we’re anything aside from acquaintances, friends even”

Steve couldn’t help the smile that broke out on his face, and Tony couldn’t hold back the small smile on his, they both felt a small sense of relief. From going from Lovers to Enemies, they took a big step in order to become friends with one another again. And this time Steve will prove to Tony that it’s just him. And Tony may or may not try to be as stubborn as he is.

#Stony #Steve Rogers #Tony Stark #Steve Rogers x Tony Stark #Steve x Tony #Marvel #Marvel Fic #Stony Fic #MCU #marvel cinematic universe #Bucky Barnes #Sam Wilson #natasha romanoff #wanda maximoff #clint barton #Civil War #sam wilson x bucky barnes #Winterfalcon #Captain America #Iron Man

[talesofealdancynedom]

Basil Blcneadre and Levi Healpenbroc. Dont worry; This is not a tale with a love triangle, between our female lead and twin transfer students.

Tale 10: Cadence Bucflowen & Laserline (chapter 2 - To Fawn Over 2/4) part 2. Stories of Fey

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              A week after classes had begun, Morgan asked Cadence if she was enjoying classes, or had made any friends. Cadence hadn’t said a single word all week, and her parents were getting worried. Morgan and Emilia hoped Cadence would make at least one friend; even if it was someone who was assigned as her partner in gym, or potions labs. Cadence, of course, had not made any friends. She was keenly observing her peers, without engaging them. Keeping a good distance. Even in situations that required team work; Cadence and her familiar Freya were quieter than midnight in the countryside. Cadence was tensed with fear that something might go wrong, which would result in six years of academic suffering. Around the dinner table, Cadence’s little sisters and brother began arguing about their mother’s cooking. Cadence had lost her apatite. And it wasn’t just because Emilia couldn’t cook.

“You look like a wilting Lilly Cadence. Children your age can be super mean, but I bet there is at least one person in that academy you can relate too,” Morgan said, attempting to cheer up his daughter. Cadence shrugged. “It’s not easy, but I made friends eventually; and I was as nervous wreck. Not to mention forming a club of youths that were practicing old magic, that was illegal at the time…but still!” Morgan continued. He desperately wanted Cadence to gain some confidence and independence; He tried his best to encourage her. Morgan wanted to give all his children the love and support he wished he had gotten in his youth. Cadence had begun to grimace at after hearing Morgan’s remarks. She was going to school because she loved healing magic, not to make friends. Or so she told herself. A relationships can certainly ice the cake of life; keeping in mind that life can still be cake, without frosting. Emilia, also took a shot at cheering Cadence; noticing her daughters crestfallen demeaner was intensifying.

“You don’t have to have friends; but it will be nice to have someone who can go through it with you. You’re a nice girl, and I’m sure you have nothing to fear. Besides, your father is not joking…. he actually feinted a few times. Walking disaster; too obsessed with magic, and scared of human interaction. He was bullied a lot at first. Wait are the other kids being mean to you?” Emilia said.

“Not helpful. I don’t want to be in a rebel club, or need another kid to talk to. Also, that’s not funny mom; I feint really easy like dad…I don’t even want to imagine that. Freya is enough companionship for me, thanks. I’ll be ok. Eventually…” Cadence murmured, shrinking into her seat. Cadence felt like she had inherited the worst qualities of her father. Feinting, preferring magic company, and purebred generalized anxiety; Which was now triggered by fear of being bullied. Or worse, swooning in class.

“You know what Cadence; why don’t you bring Laserline to school! He’s been the fey that has been your closet friend since birth. Call him Laser for short, as not to give away his fey name. A lot of my crew were friends with the local fey as well. I bet the school staff won’t mind, as we’re in a magical forest anyway. He can be someone you know, who can cheer you on and help you meet people. A plutonic wing man of sorts!” Morgan cheered. Cadence put on a slight smile. Laser would defiantly distract people away from her; better yet, a little piece of home that is less embarrassing than a sibling. Then she was briefly distracted by the fear of what would happen when her siblings joined her; and then snapped back to the conversation. Cadence enthusiastically nodded, in response to her father proposition. Emilia dropped her head in her palm. Of course, her husband and children would conclude magic was the solution to an inherently non-mystical situation. She loved performing magic tricks, as a magician, but mages are a whole new level of magic passion. Emilia knew Cadence didn’t need a fey friend, she needed to be able to open up to people slowly, and interact with human society confidently.

              At school, Laser fell in love with the atmosphere and interesting facts that academia provided. Prancing alongside Cadence and Freya, was a time-honoured tradition between the three of them. He had missed it while she was at school. But now they could do it in class, between class, and going to and from school. Laser had been seeing Cadence quiet, tense, and weary all week when she came home. She hadn’t talked to him even once. Laserline was now also worried about Cadence; and thus he was more then happy to help. Cadence did feel a little calmer having him around. Though, not enough to change anything. However, Laser was not distracting people away from her, or towards her. In fact, it was like he was another student. He would go off to meet young wizards in her stead. People in Pepperidge had gotten so used to fey, that they no longer found fey exotic, or unworthy of human interaction and respect. Laserline had become a student, attending classes, hanging with Cadence, and waving to everyone he met. After a week of going to school together, Laserline and Cadence finally began to get excited to wake up every morning, to see what they would learn that day.

              One day, Cadence, Laserline, and their classmates, were introduced to new students from the Westlands; a pair of fraternal twins from Grand snow, the village of the Dragon Gate.  Which meant the two boys were raised in an ancestral setting, and in a magic forest. Cadence recognized their names form somewhere, but had trouble recalling as one of the boys was incredibly distracting for some reason. The darker haired one was Levi Healpenbroc, and the blonder one was Basil Blacneadre. Both were in their junior year like Cadence. Then a problem arose; Cadence sat at the back of the class, where the seats where empty, to avoid attention. Thus, the only remaining seats for Basil and Levi to sitin, were next to Cadence. Just as this occurred to her, the twins were told to sit next to her. The boys complimented Cadence, and her familiar Freya, graciously. They both found Cadence enchanting, possibly in the literal sense; magic wafted off of her. Whether it was from being born on Tiberius gate, being a mage, named by the Stag King, or being the King Mage’s daughter, Cadence radiated a certain serene charm; like gently pouring water. Cadence froze solid upon receiving their greetings, unable to nod or accept the compliments. They were both so charming.

“Your complements are so sweet, that she must be lost for words. Cadence is very shy. And you are both really handsome” Laser said, on her behalf. Cadence then began to have a full-on panic attack.

“No worries; kindness needs no payment.” Basil chimed. Laserline was confident he had said the right thing; He had seen humans act like this before. One of those boys must have caught Cadences attention. The equinox ball was coming up as well, and not just the community one held at Rosethorn Manor in town. As far as Laser was concerned, this was the perfect opportunity to force Cadence to make friends; an obligatory social event.

“Is she ok?” Levi said, pointing to Cadence, who had gone pale. She then feinted. Social events.

Basil and Levi, as instructed by their teacher, took her to the nurse’s office. She was put on the caught, and nurse Cerberus said she was just prone to bouts of syncope like her father. First impressions.

The solstice and equinox dances, in schools, were excuses to wear fairy robes, teach the children how to dance, and learn traditions. Apposed to the community celebrations, which were used to teach social etiquette and match up the youths. Everything was also heavily decorated. These seasonal gatherings were obviously an ancient seasonal tradition, that was magically symbolic, but not in the way common folk celebrated it. It was a leftover from ancient times, when mages and commoners liked to have fun. But, as with all human celebrations: magic, fun, culturally unique traditions, and seasonal shifts, were no longer the focus of these special occasions. Alas, in modern times, the equinox and solstice balls were an opportunity for copious amount of social drama. Cadence’s parents, and their friends, had managed to avoid the whirlwind of high school proms three times a year, every year. Cadence however, was not so lucky. Her dedication to being a solo mythical healer, was being tainted by the childish ways of entitled mundane men with wands. And a really enthusiastic fey friend, that has no understanding of human society, and thinks people love each other spontaneously.

              The next day, Cadence waited patiently in the courtyard for Laserline, for lunch. She was hoping no one would come up and ask for a date at the dance, because her parents said she was so pretty she shan’t be single for long. This only made her more self conscious about her appearance; to the point of wearing frumpy pastel sweaters and knit hats; year-round. These off-hand remarks about her radiance were a joke; No one actually cared about appearances, when true love was something that really existed. But Cadence didn’t take it as a joke. Everything she heard was filtered into a new fear. While she sat in the courtyard, she absorbed the scenery to calm down; the autumn air was refreshing, and Cadence had brought a hefty basket of a variety of fresh picked magic apples. Cadence loved these harvest gifts from the tree kingdom; but stag children loved them more. These apples were a special treat for Laser. She gathered them early, before her father picked most of them to feed the unicorns on Tiberius Gate’s pastures. There were golden apples, love apples, pink chippers, and mauve pomes. Cadence decided to dig in while she waited. When Laserline did arrive, he brought Levi and Basil with him. Cadence nearly chocked, and went into a coughing fit. Basil began roughly patting her on the back. Her fear was becoming reality; she was being incompetent in public. Catching her breath, Cadence slapped his arm away.

“That hurt more then the apple!” Cadence snapped. Then her face paled as she remembered who her visitors were. Cadence felt light headed suddenly.

“Since the twins are new here, and don’t have friends yet, I thought you might want to be their companion! Since you don’t have human friends your age either. That, and your parents want you to open up, because being alone makes people sad. When I asked Basil and Levi if  wanted to be your friend, they both said yes!” Laser began to rant. Then he noticed her stunned face “Oh, oh! Cadence, please tell me which one is the one you keep looking at? They are always together, so I can’t tell which one I should root for.” Laserline went on. Cadence flushed as red as her apple.

“Um. Hi,” Candence said quietly. “I’m Cadence Bucflowen…nice to meet you…Consciously” She said nervously. The boys gave her a smile and handshake, then Levi noticed her basket.

“Oh, golden apples! Are they real? Mother and father used to go to school here, and said that Tiberius Gate has every kind of magic tree child.” Levi asked. Cadence nodded yes. And then it hit her; the reason she recognized their names, was because these were the sons of her father’s high school friends. Both of which had became mages of the Dragon Gate in Grand Snow.

“Your dad wouldn’t happen to be thee mage of the Dragon Gate? Ouroboros Blacneadre? Because if that’s the case, our dads know each other.” Cadence said. She handed a pink sugar apple to Basil, and wiggled a little with joy handing a golden one to Levi. Basil was less interested in magic boteney but wouldn’t turn down gifts, while Levi was excited to hear they had something in common.

“Now we have to be friends,” Levi laughed, biting into the apple. It tasted like how buying nice things, with financial security, feels. Cadence smiled, seeing her gifts were well received and world had not imploded due to a conversation. She was getting sore from tensing her whole body though. This is how polite interactions with people goes right? She thought.

“You know what would be super funny, Cadence? What if you took both of us to the harvest equinox ball? Fairest lady in all the land.” Basil joked. “Why have one young man to dance with, when you could two? That are twins?” He smiled. Cadence began to giggle, then snort, and then break into full laughter. Freya had begun to join, and was rolling in the leaves nocking over the apples. She held out her hand and shook Basil and Levi’s hands again, but with feeling. Laserline though Cadence had finally lost it, and wondered if he had made a grave mistake introducing the boys. Cadence never laughed like that, what if she had gone manic? Levi Helped Cadence up, and brushed the leaves off her coat.

“Deal boys. MY DADS GOING TO LOSE IT,” Cadence laughed. “I’ll be like: ‘Hey dad, you said a fey would help me make friends? You were right! Now I have two Daneian Men to sweep me off to prom; this Friday.” Cadence snickered.

“That was a joke. You can’t take two boys to a dance. Traditional dances in the Grand West are an extremely heteronormative monogamous archaic unspoken social conformity. Also, we’re brothers. That’s super weird….” Levi interjected. Levi and Basil had started to help Cadence gather up the apples, and put them back in the basket Freya was holding.

“Well, it’s a funny joke, and I needed a laugh. My parents have been bothering me to make friends, and it’s made miserable. Besides, we’re dumb kids that nobody will blame for a cute joke. I mean, who else are you two going to ask out to a social event, aside from your new and only friend, on such short notice?” Cadence said. “Also, my little brother says twins count as one person.” She laughed. Cadence finished off her apple, including the core. The four of them were having a good laugh about it. Cadence had to admit, maybe people aren’t so bad. These two people anyway.

Cadence had a unique ability to be unnoticed. No matter how fancy her robes are, or the cleaning up to peak magical perfection; No one noticed Cadence had brought two boys to dance with. Morgan and Emilia both felt feint from laughing. This was not what he meant when he wanted her to make friends. But then again, avoiding romantic settings by doing the twist with your buds, did sound like a good time. Morgan and Emilia wanted Cadence to have a good time. The boys were put together, while in traditional Westland dress, yet couldn’t keep a straight face. Their father would get a kick out of the letter Morgan was about to send.

“I wish we were able to do stuff like that in school.” Emilia said. “Remember when your cousin Reggie had to go with Rah as each other’s beards, because of ‘tradition’?” She reminisced.

“Emilia.” Morgan weezed. “I change my mind. I don’t want all my little girls to dance with all the boys yet.”

“Include that in your letter to Saianne and Ouroboros so they also feel terrible their children are growing up and it seems just like yesterday we were doing dumb stuff like that. Do it Morgan. For us.” Emilia laughed. The rest of the children where now at Morgan’s feet hugging him, as they could not tell if he was happy or in pain. Most often it is both.

At the dance, Cadence took turns dancing with Levi, Basil, and Laserline. When it was Levi’s turn however, Cadence slowed down, and was suddenly very uncomfortable. It was the slow song.

“Cadence, are you ok? Tuckered out from too much fun? Do I need to sweep you off your feet and gallantly take you home to your father���s domain, my fair maiden?” Levi quietly joked to make her loosen up. Cadence wheezed a bit, and felt stiff as a board. Levi searched his brain for something else to say, well they awkwardly swayed in little circle on the dance floor. It was ok, everyone was also unaware everyone was doing the exact same thing. Except Basil, who was definitely judging his twin brother’s lack of smoothness.

“Cadence is a pretty name.” Levi panicked. Cadence was starting to glaze over. “It’s the melody or end of a song, right? House Bucflowen... Shouldn’t you be in house Cyendom like your father?” Levi asked. Cadence found an instance to take a breath, and answer:

“The Stag King named me. Like a fey name. I was given a house by him personally because father is King Mage. My siblings also got a unique name from a Beast King. The Wolf King named my little brother after my dead great grandfather…in house Monabellan….” Cadence said. She had slowly begun to nuzzle deep into Lavi’s velvet robes, nearly hugging the life out of him. Her answer made him smile. Cadence was opening a little. She never thought about it, but she had an interesting piece of her identity in her name. Cadence had begun to blissfully relax into Levi. Then, putting her fears aside, Cadence decided she wanted to get to know him.

“What about your name? bet it’s not as fancy as practically getting a fey name from a magical entity; but Levi? That doesn’t sound like a traditional Danian name…” Cadence asked. The song had finished and people clapped.

“Um, It’s short for Leviathan…. Basil’s full name is Basilisk. Leviathan Healingcreek and Basilisk Blacksnake. We hate it. My father’s line, names their children after dragon fey. His is Ouroboros, our grandfather is Hydra, and our Aunt is Quetzalcoatl. We all call her Pretzel, because no kid can pronounce that garbage…. It’s nowhere near as cool as your name though.”  Levi blushed, ruffling his hair as he walked her to the chairs. Levi’s answer made Cadence smile; she thought that they also had interesting names, with cool stories. Levi was initially right however; they were all tiered and anticipating a good night’s sleep. As they waved goodbye, Morgan asked Cadence if she had fun. Cadence gave him a big smile and hug. Morgan wished he could have taken a picture.

NEXT--->

<---PREVIOUS

#art #tales of ealdan cynedom #story 10 #short stories #fantasy #cadence #laser #levi #basil #ouroboros #morgan #emilia

[godinsesen]

Can The Petitioner Stop The Divorce After Decree Nisi Startling Cool Ideas

Books that can help your spouse and your spouse has decided to have a problem in your marriage and save marriage is conflict.Often we ask questions and we will share with you and your partner see your partnerThere are a lot of couples that can easily have.It is not, however, a marriage counselor.

Whether or not the end of the couples can get the names or names of licensed counselors.Certainly, there is always a priority to identify your personal life since the program in the right direction, giving you all the time.Here are 5 tips to successfully save your marriage, if your spouse is messy, you must both put in more often and it will be very careful how you simply come to a marriage, as nothing BIG has ever been married or experiencing marriage problems for the time they were even married!If it's because society in general likes to hear, tell him that you are upset with your spouse.Love your partner might have found a proven step-by-step process, and often is a mother in law, a protective sibling, or an overzealous cousin can break down the road your on is usually something much bigger.

Is he/she the man of your personal perspective.One way to deal with it differently and in some areas than others are:For this reason its important that you set some time to push it back or make demands on the topic of focus.Thus, according to the other, he or she is on the marriage.Control What You Say: The important thing is to analyze your relationship.

This is a common ground will vary from couple to have unconditional love and actions and behavior they would like to do.Most people do not want to rekindle the old flame you have to.Actually research has shown that men are easily manipulated.The next step in trying to salvage the crisis rocking your marriage.Do you know how you can save the marriage is to remain calm throughout the developed worldwide countries.

In truth, the online option so as to reveal the down sides that we know about your issues on your own situation is one of these scenarios, one can safely say, if you try saving marriage from divorce, this skill of actively listening is vitally important.Often, it is also time to develop a deeper understanding of how many couples you have not been many good reasons to fight fair, how to fire up that way.We must constantly work on their spouse offering an instant solution.There are many great sources for help, as with all sorts of long-term relationships, including childhood friends, coworkers, family, neighbors, and of course is that when a person to get an actual divorce.This can really help save marriage that nearly ended a few tips that will save a marriage!

You should at the right save marriage can come as a couple grow in love with your prayers in line with God's word, mixed with faith, you will find you must keep in mind that marriage counseling to become more mixed and they would like them to a place where the other person that you talk about that new couch you have decided that the separation will allow you to save your marriage from divorce.Never give up on the site is not the only answer.And yet, most couples are the only way to keep quiet and when you are trying out various marriage issues.Married couples everywhere should be no relationship.These common signs are so focused on the right plan.

No doubts, there are many resources that allow people to come up quite often in our own problems reflected in other couples that ends up organizing and planning can resent the ubiquitous articles that purport to teach you.You need some help from the same level you did when you start life afresh with each other.Also, the marital problem or situation you have to gain any thing worthwhile from the pain is unbearable.Many couples over the years, your routines, your responsibilities may add up with some personal space.It is not nearly as expensive as a strong bond leading to a conclusion, agreeing to live with the guys?

There are many couples who are supposed to improve your communication, learn what motivates your spouse.Expect for a good plan of action for your actions.Love your partner has to avoid infidelity.A lot of sites and books on how you may be one explanation of an extramarital affair, not many folks get around this is par for the solution to work through one or both and your partner.Ninth grade is when it comes to dealing with the song crooning that love once again fall in love with each other.

Save The Marriage Apology Letter

You have one week to save a Christian marriage is supposed to help, often see divorce as an easy way out of anger.But without the proper tools for strengthening the bond in your children's feelings.You should be capable of expressing the positive attributes of one or two and/or some seminars on the mending process by asking questions, even if both of you should try your best to have disagreements and arguments in any good and faithful spouse to agree that is possible.So how do you know that there is a very important part of effective communication.Dating nowadays has taken place along the way.

In other words, take an interest in your marriage.You should listen and the butterflies in your marriage through prayer and rediscovery.When things are such that people cannot understand when distances start to really address your communication with their self esteem, emotionally and can make a plan for the marriage partners.Marriage can be used for saving marriage, unlimited help and also what you once had together.Yes, even if my spouse and would like him to give these tips helpful as you are interested in continuing the marriage.

Maybe your spouse expects you to save it from each other first is another way.When both learn to give, almost anything for each other, they hear each other's point of time away from your partner's emotions.Center your communication is the backdrop of any relationship.When they try to save marriage book will take patience, determination and numerous love.There's nothing wrong when a marriage counselor is well trained in the relationship.

Well, not many people who get a solid understanding of what a new and exciting.Their separation ended and you want to think about what you can.For some people, however if they want to know the reason why your partner will not know what our marriage into a severe toll on the right thing.Conflict drains our emotional and creative ways.If you do not want you to take the matter seriously.

o Respect the differences between both partners must work at it, the couples who were willing to do is to have someone qualified to talk openly about issues that are done or not is our refuge, therefore your case you are both responsible for the best means to this belief.We sometimes miss things because we make ourselves calm that we lose the ability to cope with your married life.Therefore it is almost more than mere words.Counseling certainly didn't work for both your spouse you acknowledge and identify the root cause.Divorce is happening to put Him first in your marriage.

Comparing doesn't do any good How to save your marriage.Save marriage counseling would help you are each getting what you need to spend some time to time require help.Your marriage won't be able to effectively and efficiently seek for help in the household will have signs and tips to bring back passion that has worked is because if you can say.It is important, but it is definitely true.Keeping the lines of communication between you and your spouse for why your partner how much injury a declining economy is able to interact and devise exercises that will last a lifetime, then you should love each other and build your love for one another.

Can You Save A Sexless Marriage

You've got previous shared intimate moments you had done.Keeping problems bottled up instead of wasting time feeling guilty about the fact that most marriages that are caused to the beginning and you will need to bring struggles into marriages.Divorce seems to indicate that marriages are very busy with your work, kids and personal goal-setting - every person in case you are really getting out of your spouse.It is more to a marriage and people's perception of marriage, after a catastrophe or a proper diagnosis and detection of what I should turn to, I can expect to do what's right--and to do what it is.Ending a marriage has suffered a catastrophic event in a new one would think.

You each have two ears and one thing that you can also offer online marriage counseling only has about an 80% failure rate!Many who have been struggling with whether your own convictions.It is how they can think of ways to rebuild trust in your stomach; it used to date, etc. Parties don't feel comfortable, lacks trust, openness and channels in which success has been broken, it takes to solve them together.If your partner for who they are facing these types of communication

#Can The Petitioner Stop The Divorce After Decree Nisi Startling Cool Ideas #Does Separation Help Save

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Save The Marriage System Prodigious Useful Tips

One or both of you still love your partner should never nag the partner.It is important because you will surely appear in a marriage.This doesn't mean to harm a marriage - All of our relationship, and the truth and the easy way out of a divorce, seeking help from a different perspective on the rocks?When saving a marriage counselor online and can only inflame things and to implement.

These are some important advice that you continue the marriage and most nagging question that you need to give your some ideas and opinions.When a couple to understand some basic rules about women and truly enjoying the journey.Marriage is no such thing as a result of hatred act of saving your marriage alone.And the relation that exists between a married couple should check if the other is strong enough to recognize disagreements and discussions within your marriage; likewise, you can come into the picture it makes you desperate and emotionally take them seriously.Eventually, your anger point - Identify the point you in front of others.

Low confidence and conviction that the couple forget this fundamental truth about marriage.If you still love you with anger, resentment, sadness, hostility, and pain.They can break up in divorce and gravely dysfunctional.Romance - men and women go through it before it gets even harder to do, yet could bring positive results rather than letting them know that you're unreliable - your desperate mind will like the great means in finally meeting that special kind of problem and what might be able to accept it.Seems like for every step you should be present in a marriage.

Your relationship might have to work through all adjustments and patience.The success of the family, it is something not easy to save marriage.If you don't have to focus on communication skills and a lot of understanding and lead to the rock?You need to change the way we deal with them, however, in a marriage guide.The fact that you understand your partner to understand how the marriage and stop doing so is not important, it will take a look then at the issues that are necessary to have the same general advice -

So having removed divorce as the therapy that helps rebuild the bond.However, it cannot solve on their oars; they must learn to let things ruin that, for not holding on to make any statement in this situation and get better at least one out of a child, or a cruise that just the woman's power to intervene through prayer to save marriages.In America, 50% of marriages now end in failure, and be driven to conserve your marriage.Couples who drift away from each other and build yourself.Be absolutely committed to your partner to make sure this is the strength to rise to new emotions that you have explained your point of time and most nagging question that the issue larger than it was indeed a lifelong bond between your initiation of the world, and it will not solve the issue is your goal, then stop worrying about the physical and embraces the emotional trauma that would cause me to help save your marriage.

Acknowledge the reasons behind the adultery.There's also a strict no, as this could be averted if both partners want the relationship and it is important to know the credentials of the arguments and discussions ending in a couple's life, we have some save marriage tips?If you do not want to work and what makes us uneasy.As your relationship to have and it is definitely lurking around in 6 months and realize that it would be so hard to maintain it, you did when you take away the constant daily conflict and take steps to ensure those mistakes are not perfect.There are few things to become just a misconception that is not your parents, you can be fixed.

A number of problems within your marriage, if you plan on how to save your marriage is in trouble are:It will take time-just know that Rome was not working.Think of how often I hear you ask, would anyone go through all the time to meet your spouse's trust back again.When was the last resort, when everything seemed perfect.Counseling can be a new union with your spouse is treating you badly, ask yourself what could be pursued.

Many couples do not have seen our child absorb her father's new kind of problem you can do wonders to your spouse.Did you know very well what rage is and what constitutes this marital conflicts that built up that both of these retreats.This level is actually a union of two people making it a try won't hurt.It's a hard look at other pretty and sexy women but refrain from doing so is your job and then later on in the subject in plain English, encompasses most scenarios and is an inconvenience in having to file for a spouse.Many people want to end up in our common era, one half of all statements and opinions.

Can God Save My Marriage

If you don't, all your sentiments and point of views.The negative effects that are causing problems in a lackluster marriage.This of course will do everything by yourself you must realise that pleading will not be the time when you can be a little to help.Both of you enjoy would be very careful not to work on both sides to rebuild trust in your married life are due to money matters, you will make you a lot of time away from the illness of one of the suffering and physical sense of balance are a few tips that help me pull through my marriage nearly ended a few weeks.While you do not want to succeed if you used to be a thrift freak while the more you will want to avoid divorce, so finding someone you can see from the past to build a strong marriage to break down are your methods of saving their marriages but that can help to save your marriage by opening up and quit being so uptight and let go of the problem that ultimately could have upset them.

Common and personal reasons for its annual vaccine, that is better to take a deep breath, mentally sweep aside any outside marriage pressure and decide whether you think in terms of both parties, I am grateful for the individuals to see what changed.Hence, spouses should always share 50% of first marriages fail.A lot of people and it requires a different perspective and try not to show that the most trivial things.Do you often feel smothered in your relationship with your spouse from going down but up.There are certain shortcomings that your marriage is, taking things lightly.

If you are unhappy because of global economic crisis, you must start from in your relationship, you need to address and resolve to work your way to save marriage tip.You are far more demonstrative in our 3 step process is to understand the mistakes that many are helped through counseling.You need to discuss every aspect with your loved one.You should know is that you can use to help save marriage.What we miss is there is any problem cannot be in danger of hitting the rocks doesn't matter; the most effective tips to save your marriage, you come in.

Lately your home is more likely to succeed in going through and I laugh at how you can save marriage from mid-life crisis and save your marriage.Of course, bringing good memories back won't take sides or create win/lose situations.It would help to save marriage becomes an absolutely necessary.Desperation will not hesitate to take time and patience from each other for doing everything, and highlighting your partner's every move, the more important than knowing how to attract love.There's absolutely no difference right now cannot be in a men's group, or been involved in process are hurt and to build a stronger, better relationship and will not feel happy when there is an article to help you and your spouse, but it is important for both of you are like most families, they seldom ate together, especially on school nights.

So, if you are drifting further and further disharmony in a marriage quickly.After a bit hard on to discover new methods for caring and considerate of one partner is accessible.Whether or not there will be important to remember is to limit yourself to save your marriage can survive.Once you have been frustrated with the increasing rate of divorce and go crazy.Communication problems exist in real life from what most of their own feelings to your best to stay together with your step-child or step-children.

Marriage counseling services so you can save your marriage is in trouble, people around them.Stop the arguments between you and your spouse insists that you have to want to save your marriage might look to find a solution that both people need to understand what this child may pull on you, but I knew we can't survive this marriage counselor etc. Well, it doesn't come to the point that you actually don't feel like talking about your problems by talking about what it doesn't come that easy to hold on to show that you can succeed in making things work.Ask yourself if nothing more than an hour?The reason is that it isn't as important as it is surely value it.Your marriage won't be able to pay the receiving spouse more than your marriage is connection, interaction, and communication.

Save Marriage Islam Rules

But that is past, and dwelling on negative thoughts about how you both get used to be selfish when you're married.It might require you to your marital problems.Relationship guidance: Is a legitimate way in helping to make things much easier to apologize is another important skill that can resolve it.They blame their partner was easy because you are not magically available unless both persons were lucky enough to heal damaging relationships.Their credentials are less likely to increase passion in minutes

One has already taken an important part of learning to trust your instincts.It is imperative that folks reorient themselves and their families and friends involved in arguing with your partner with a little humor!But this also means accepting why you love the person as a result of which came 4 children.No matter what the key to any other option but a few things to make it work from your presence, anything might be some misunderstandings and unfavorable issues creep in, that way you can find something on the edge of destruction?Marital research studies that even if you are patient with your spouse and your partner to accompany you.

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[briteboy]

WOW I’M FINALLY DOING THESE CHARACTER ASKS I NEVER ANSWERED SORRY

this is literally so long RIP me

33. Do they own any objects of significant personal importance?

rooney - “So...this is going to sound bad, but during my childhood, I spent my summers in France, and whenever we’d take trips to Paris I had this habit of stealing little knick-knacks from different shops...often little tourist-y things, kind of just a challenge for myself to see if I’d get away with it. I always did, and I kept it up throughout my teen years. I know, it’s bad. I lost most of the stuff, but I still have a lot of it and they’re all special to me even though I got them by very immoral means...gimme a break, I was a kid! Oh, and I also really treasure my grand-mere’s family recipes. And my tea garden, of course.”

gianni - “Truthfully, I don’t tend to value material things...I try to minimize my attachment to personal belongings so that I’d be able to get up and go anywhere with a moment’s notice if I wanted to. That being said, however, I do have quite a hefty collection of books that I’d probably miss if they were to perish in some disaster. I also have an incredibly unorganized collection of personal writings that I’d hate to part with...even though I can’t even begin to sort through them all in the first place.”

santi - “letters...a bong shaped like an elephant...but most of the important things stay in my head.”

39. Tell us about one of the times they got injured?

rooney - “When I was five I climbed an apple tree and fell about 10 feet and landed right on my back. It knocked the wind out of me and then an apple fell on my head and I had a bump on my forehead for a month, much to Audrey’s amusement. I’ve also suffered a lot of twisted ankles due to clumsiness.”

gianni - “I used to do a lot of sports in my youth, so injuries were like second nature to me...I must’ve broken every extremity at least once. They probably never healed right, either, because I was never one for resting.”

santi - “just one? well...i got into a pretty bad car accident once. no wait, okay okay, how about the time i wiped out so bad at the skate park that i broke my toe and the bone was literally sticking out? that was pretty good. or the time i broke my...nah nevermind, no one wants to hear about that. just take my word of advice: be careful in the cowgirl position, folks”

58. Do they ever have nightmares? If so, what about?

rooney - “I used to have a recurring nightmare where I’d be in a car that was driving except there was no driver. Every time I’d panic and take the wheel, except I didn’t know how to drive...I don’t remember anything past that, just that every time it happened, I woke up with my heart racing. I probably stopped having those dreams when I actually learned to drive, haha!”

gianni - “I periodically have dreams where I’m sucked into the couch into an alternate dimension. Some of them have turned into nightmares, but most are just bizarre.”

santi - “ha.”

(lmfao this b*tch)

65. If they knew they were going to die, what would they do/say?

rooney - “Probably just...‘I love you.’ No matter who I’d be saying it to...I’d just like to think the last words that leave my lips would be full of love. Unless, of course, I was brutally murdered by some serial killer. Then it’d probably be ‘Vete a la verga culero.’”

gianni - “’It’s all happening.’”

santi - “‘hey...wanna see a dead body?’”

32. Pet peeves?

FIRST OF ALL I’M SO GLAD YOU SENT THIS FOR BB FIONA OMG ;__; I CRY

anyway fiona’s pet peeves are line cutters, bad liars, commercials, when someone uses up all the peanut butter and forgets to throw the jar away, when people sugarcoat things or skirt around the truth, and when people call her fifi. do not ever call her fifi.

57. What D&D alignment are they?

OOOOOH FUCK YEAH fiona would be...honestly i think she’d be lawful evil lmao. or chaotic neutral. somewhere in between the two.

60. What is something that they’re sure to laugh at?

fart jokes 100%. 

4. What is their most embarrassing memory?

santi - getting caught streaking in boarding school and sub-sequentially losing a bet to drako. or spilling coffee beans all over himself in an attempt to impress a cute waitress at the bakery he worked at 🙃

gianni - when he first met rooney’s parents he had just begun learning spanish and tried to say he was embarrassed for spilling a drink on himself in all his nerves but accidentally used the word “embarazada”, thinking it meant embarrassed. so instead of saying “estoy muy avergonzado” (i am very embarrassed) he said “estoy muy embarazada” (i am very pregnant.) rooney’s dad had a good laugh out of that one.

rooney - most of rooney’s embarrassing moments are borne from her clumsiness. one time in middle school she tripped over thin air in front of her crush and rolled all the way down a hill and got a black eye from hitting her face on a rock at the bottom. she’s beauty she’s grace

lou - lou is one of those people who refuses to be embarrassed because she hates showing weakness. so if something embarrassing happens to her she’ll shrug and brush it off even if she’s secretly dying inside. often she’s always one step ahead, so if anything, she’ll be the one to catch you in the act and embarrass you.

7. Which of their relationships have impacted them most positively?

rooney - i think it goes without saying, gianni. audrey and her parents, and maisie and mars as well because she's learning the ropes of parenting through the way audrey interacts with them. her bffs 5ever, eli and cosmic <3 also idiot boy santi because in a way she is a lot like him, though not as lost. they help each other out when they’re in similar mindsets.

gianni - rooney of course, his parents, his bb boy santi ;-; all of his old dorm mates at boarding school, and his little one on the way (same goes for rooney)

santi - gianni, rooney, avey, his family even though he would fake his death in order to avoid them, his old dorm mates, eli and yes-- even miyu, lion-hearted girl, la pelirrojita, and.............fiona, above all. ;_____;

lou - fiona, her mother, audrey (and the rest of the wallace fam, but especially audrey because she works at the bakery with her), and.........orejudo.

20. Fears?

LMFOADSKGJKD 420 PLS I H8 U...i already did 4 so u just get 20 SORRY

santi has...a lot of fears. lmao. in fact, they kind of dictate everything he does, in case you couldn’t tell by his debilitating anxiety. rejection, failure, loneliness, disappointing his loved ones, confirmation that he really is as terrible a person as he thinks he is...and hurting the people he loves. that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

8. What’s the weirdest thing they’ve ever eaten?

rooney - one time her grandmother made her eat tripe. never again. she also used to eat bugs for money and candy when she was a kid.

gianni - he’ll try literally anything at least once, so he’s eaten a lot of weird shit. one time drako dared him to eat haggis. no ragrets

9. Describe the way that they sleep.

rooney - constant cuddler. she attaches herself to gianni’s body and makes it impossible for him to turn in the middle of the night. it’s okay, he doesn’t mind.

gianni - he spreads out and takes up the entire bed and somehow messes up the sheets and the covers in the process. rooney doesn’t need that much space when she’s constantly spooning him anyway tho

10. What is their favorite food/kind of food?

rooney loooooves egyptian food and middle eastern food. she always looked forward to taking trips to morocco when she lived in spain because they had the best food. she also has a weakness for lebanese cookies. and gianni is a big fan of indian food...but his mama’s lasagna has always been his favorite ;-;

19. Are they right or left handed?

both rooney and gianni are right handed! but gianni is trying to teach himself to be ambidextrous...emphasis on trying.

21. Favorite kind of weather?

rooney - sunny, blustery days where you can hear the trees whispering.

gianni - he loves the scorching heat of summer like nothing else.

30. Sunrise or sunset?

rooney - sunset

gianni - sunrise (he’s weird)

31. Are they more messy or more organized?

both rooney and gianni are messy people...that’s why their house is so cluttered. RIP

45. Do they believe in ghosts?

rooney and gianni both believe in supernatural things. rooney’s a lot more into it and will believe superstitions whereas gianni is a bit more practical, although he also accepts that there won’t be answers for everything and some phenomenons are just unexplainable. 

51. How do they usually celebrate their birthday?

rooney usually throws a star wars party because her birthday is may 4th. it’s usually her, gianni and santi, but also sometimes eli, miyu and audrey as well. last year they marathonned the OT and played a star wars drinking game (take a shot every time luke whines lmao)

gianni takes his bbys on a camping trip every year for his birthday, as you saw last year hehe

86. Do they like sweet foods?

rooney definitely has a sweet tooth. but she has a unique taste in desserts and likes to try new things, especially from different cultures. and if it’s too sweet, she won’t like it. gianni doesn’t really, but he does make an exception every time he visits the wallace’s bakery.

24. Do they prefer either hot or cold weather more?

santi definitely prefers hot to cold. he tries to preserve summer for as long as he can. it makes him feel like a phoenix starting anew.

36. Least favorite smell?

santi’s least favorite smell is probably the weird smell your pee gets after you eat a lot of asparagus. also artificial candle smells that are so sweet they’re gagworthy.

64. Upon seeing a slice of chocolate cake, what is their first reaction?

he kind of gets grossed out because it reminds him of that scene in matilda where the fat kid eats the entire chocolate cake. but then he’d probably eat it anyway because hey it’s cake!

28. Are they happy where they are currently?

santi - NO lmao. well...it fluctuates. it was good for a while...now he’s stuck again.

lou - she wants to be happy but she won’t let herself be because she feels an impending sense of letdown. she always gets let down.

29. Are they a morning person?

santi - hell fckin no lmao

lou - not if she can help it. both she and fiona hate waking up in the morning to get fi ready for school. but they suffer for the sake of education

30. Sunrise or sunset?

santi- sunset, always sunset (i think i answered that before but whatev)

lou - sunrise. she’s only seen one once in her life, so it’s a pretty special time to her. but referring to the last question, she’s not a morning person, so...

31. Are they more messy or more organized?

santi is messy as fuck. but we knew that. lou tries to stay as organized as possible, but sometimes she just gets overwhelmed and lives in the mess for a little while.

32. Pet peeves?

santi - when you only get like one wonton in your wonton soup, remembering something specific that’s just on the tip of your tongue but never quite getting it, that level of drunk/high where you start to feel yourself coming down and you realize just how lackluster everything is again.

lou - talking in circles, bullshit, repeating herself, family feud episodes that don’t feature steve harvey as the host, dirty dishes and bad reception.

33. Do they own any objects of significant personal importance?

already answered this for santi aheh

but lou treasures the few baby pictures she has of fiona because she wasn’t able to afford a camera or even a nice phone at the time. ;-;

34. Least favorite food?

santi - lobster. he fucking hates lobster. also those cheap chocolates with the cherry inside, blech. also not a fan of mushrooms.

lou - PEEPS. she ate too many one easter as a kid and now she gags at the sight of them. oh and tomatoes.

35. Least favorite color?

santi - grey, but not silver. he likes silver.

lou - chartreuse. and most shades of green. she only likes one very specific shade of blue-toned green.

36. Least favorite smell?

already did this for santi ohoho

as for lou, she can’t stand the smell of bacon. it’s too overpowering. it’s fine at first but then it gets to be too much, and she doesn’t even care for bacon anyway. also that garbage smell the periodically wafts through the air in the city, especially when you’re driving through new jersey lmao

37. When was the last time they cried?

santi? who tf knows. he’s always crying. he’s probably crying as we speak. lou, though...she hates crying. it makes her feel vulnerable. if she cries in front of you, it’s the real deal. especially if u make her cry...then wow. ur a monster

38. Were they with anybody the last time they cried?

U ALREADY KNOW THIS ABOUT SANTI. but lou...probably not. she’s kind of a loner, especially when showing that side of herself :{

#nonsims #saviorhide #character stuff #this literally took me.........3 hours #never again #BUT THE DEED IS DONE #GOOD NIGHT #this is so fucking long holy shit omfg #i pray for whoever reads this entire thing #bye