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delphinidin4 · 3 years

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“Abominable neglect and unkindness”: Fanny Price and Trauma

I have C-PTSD, and it’s really been on my mind as I’ve been rereading Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: her heroine of Fanny Price is so OBVIOUSLY traumatized that I started making notes upon notes upon notes in my kindle copy on her symptoms and their causes. A couple of my followers said they’d be interested to read my analysis if I wrote it up, and it doesn’t take much to encourage me to put a few thousand words on the page screen! So below is my (probably WAY too long) analysis of Fanny Price’s emotional trauma and complex PTSD (a form of PTSD often caused by long-term emotional abuse/neglect). It’s hella long. sorrynotsorry lol

*unleashes inner academic*

Part 1: How Fanny Price Was Traumatized

Trauma 1: She is taken from family and home.

Okay, imagine this: You’re ten years old. You grew up in a noisy, lower-middle-class family with multiple little siblings and both your parents. You are the oldest girl, and are important to all the members of your family because you act as “playfellow, instructress, and nurse” to your younger siblings. You are also “exceedingly timid and shy”. And suddenly you find out that your mother is SENDING YOU AWAY--far, far away--to aunts and uncle and cousins you’ve never met before, to be raised by THEM instead of your parents. Leaving everything else out of the equation for a second, that by itself would be ABSOLUTELY DEVASTATING. You would feel like your parents didn’t love you and didn’t want you. You weren’t important to them. You might wonder what you did wrong to be sent away. And THEN it turns out you’re NEVER COMING BACK. EVER. Fanny doesn’t see her family again until she is, I think nineteen years old. At first, she doesn’t even have the means to write to her brother William, which was to be her ONLY connection to her family: it seems her parents don’t write to her at all over the course of the novel.

All of this would be bad enough. But to come to a place that was entirely alien to everything you had known... I mean, think about it. This is Mansfield Park, an ENORMOUS house with MANY servants, a completely different way of doing things. There’s MONEY. Even the items around you are of a totally different quality than you’re used to: Austen says of Fanny’s initial impression of Mansfield, “The grandeur of the house astonished, but could not console her. The rooms were too large for her to move in with ease: whatever she touched she expected to injure, and she crept about in constant terror of something or other; often retreating towards her own chamber to cry.” The accent people speak with is probably different. The vocabulary is probably different. And everybody DEFINITELY thought she was under-educated (more about this in a bit) because she didn’t have the education of a gentleman’s daughter--because she ISN’T a gentleman’s daughter. It must have caused her intense culture shock.

Trauma 2: William’s absence

It’s clear that in her childhood in Portsmouth, William is the dearest member of Fanny’s family (see below for a discussion of her parents). When Fanny first arrives at Mansfield, Edmund discovers that,

dear as all these brothers and sisters generally were, there was one among them who ran more in her thoughts than the rest. It was William whom she talked of most, and wanted most to see. William, the eldest, a year older than herself, her constant companion and friend; her advocate with her mother (of whom he was the darling) in every distress. ‘William did not like she should come away; he had told her he should miss her very much indeed.’

Fanny’s one really warm and loving connection seems to be with William, and she is parted from him, first by her move to Mansfield, and then by his going to sea:

Once, and once only, in the course of many years, had she the happiness of being with William. Of the rest [of her Portsmouth family] she saw nothing: nobody seemed to think of her ever going amongst them again, even for a visit, nobody at home seemed to want her; but William determining, soon after her removal, to be a sailor, was invited to spend a week with his sister in Northamptonshire before he went to sea. Their eager affection in meeting, their exquisite delight in being together, their hours of happy mirth, and moments of serious conference, may be imagined; as well as ...the misery of the girl when he left her. Luckily the visit happened in the Christmas holidays, when she could directly look for comfort to her cousin Edmund.

Fanny continues a correspondence with William when he is at sea, but it’s clear that his long absence from her life is very difficult for her.

One final note on her being parted from her family for long intervals: I think we might actually see a sign of this trauma in an emotional flashback later in the book.

For those unfamiliar with complex PTSD, flashbacks don’t always mean that you have a sort of hallucination of a traumatic experience. In the case of complex PTSD and PTSD from early childhood trauma, flashbacks often occur in the form of “emotional flashbacks”: instead of re-experiencing the sensory input of the traumatic experience (seeing and hearing the experience all over again when triggered), emotional flashbacks consist ONLY of the emotional content of the trauma. They result in sudden rushes of negative emotions such as fear, shame, sorrow, despair, embarrassment, anger, etc. This may be partly because the trigger is acting on so many different traumatic memories at once (the brain can’t just pick out one to show to you) and partly because the traumatic memory being triggered is from so early in your childhood that you don’t have a direct memory of it anymore, just the trauma memory. Emotional flashbacks can be identified by comparing the emotional response to the stimulus: If the emotion is inappropriate for the situation or inappropriately intense, it may well be a flashback.

In this scene, Miss Crawford--whom Fanny does not care for at all--is taking her leave of Fanny: I find it to be illuminating.

And embracing her very affectionately, “Good, gentle Fanny! when I think of this being the last time of seeing you for I do not know how long, I feel it quite impossible to do anything but love you.”

Fanny was affected. She had not foreseen anything of this, and her feelings could seldom withstand the melancholy influence of the word “last.” She cried as if she had loved Miss Crawford more than she possibly could.

It sounds to me as if Fanny is having a negative reaction that is out of proportion for and inappropriate to the situation. Miss Crawford is leaving, and Fanny is GLAD that she is leaving. Nonetheless, she is involuntarily emotionally “affected” by Miss Crawford’s goodbye, and cries far more than is actually in keeping with her feelings. It seems like Fanny is triggered by the leave-taking and “the melancholy influence of the word ‘last’.” Fanny has had traumatic leave-takings from her family and her beloved William; and things like “This is the last time I’ll see you for who knows how long” must have been said to her before in intensely traumatic situations. So it’s no wonder she gets triggered by this situation’s similarity to those and has an out-sized emotional response. Separations from her family and from William were definitely traumatic to her and reminders of them now trigger trauma responses.

Trauma 3: Emotional neglect by parental figures

Fanny might not have been so badly traumatized by leaving her family and being separated from William if she had had emotional support from adult caregivers. Research has shown that if a child has even ONE adult to whom they can talk openly about their feelings, that can insulate them against the effects of trauma.

Fanny doesn’t have this. Both Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram are emotionally neglectful and distant.* Lady Bertram is pleasant, but is entirely self-centered and doesn’t really GAF about anybody or anything that doesn’t directly affect her. While she never abuses or hurts Fanny with unkindness, she also never comforts her, listens to her, or seems to do anything but get Fanny to fetch and carry for her and do half her sewing for her. There is a total lack of emotional connection between them until considerably later in the story.

[*Footnote: Miss Lee is surprisingly absent from the narrative and seems to be of no emotional support to Fanny whatsoever.]

Sir Thomas is worse. While he intends to take good care of Fanny--and to his credit, he does make sure she has her material needs met, is well educated, gets exercise, etc--he cannot be said to be NICE to her. Even when she first arrives, when he is trying his hardest to be kind, Austen says, “Sir Thomas, seeing how much she needed encouragement, tried to be all that was conciliating: but he had to work against a most untoward gravity of deportment.” He’s not good with kids, and he seems to be highly critical of Fanny, especially before his return from Antigua. Apparently he used to terrify her in childhood by catechizing her on her lessons in French in English, which implies he constantly found her wanting. His parting words to her on the beginning of his voyage to Antigua are downright scalding: “If William does come to Mansfield, I hope you may be able to convince him that the many years which have passed since you parted have not been spent on your side entirely without improvement; though, I fear, he must find his sister at sixteen in some respects too much like his sister at ten.”

JFC, Tommy-boy. Throttle back a little, can’t you?

He’s not popular even with his own daughters: Austen says of Maria and Julia, “Their father was no object of love to them; he had never seemed the friend of their pleasures, and his absence was unhappily most welcome. They were relieved by it from all restraint”. Sir Thomas comes across as a bit of a martinet, always finding fault and always saying no. At best, he doesn’t seem to be at all warm and encouraging, and appears to be almost entirely ignorant, not only of what Fanny’s character is like, but also about his own daughters’ characters.

There’s also the problem of his lack of understanding and compassion for Fanny. She describes him as “all that was clever and good,” but both his cleverness and goodness frequently seem to be lacking. He doesn’t understand Fanny’s feelings any more than he understands those of Maria, sending Edmund to sound Fanny out on the subject of Mr. Crawford because he CANNOT understand how a woman might not love a man that was clever, pleasant and rich. While he provided the money to raise Fanny, his disregard of her is clear when he sends her on a long visit to Portsmouth, where her health suffers. Even Crawford recognizes Sir Thomas’s likeliness to neglect her:

I know Mansfield, I know its way, I know its faults towards you. I know the danger of your being so far forgotten, as to have your comforts give way to the imaginary convenience of any single being in the family. I am aware that you may be left here week after week, if Sir Thomas cannot settle everything ... without involving the slightest alteration of the arrangements which he may have laid down for the next quarter of a year.

Sir Thomas, while priding himself (and being praised by others) as being so kind and clever, has low emotional intelligence and too little care for Fanny. Despite his occasional kindnesses, and her claim on his care as his direct dependent, she is not one of his priorities.

Of course, Fanny’s own parents would have had the strongest effects on her earliest years (especially considering the Prices didn’t seem to have a nanny or governess, so Mrs. Price would have been responsible for all her education, as well). It’s clear that Fanny’s mother didn’t show her much love in her early childhood: Mrs. Price is described as

“the ‘mama’ who had certainly shewn no remarkable fondness for her formerly; but this [Fanny] could easily suppose to have been her own fault or her own fancy. She had probably alienated love by the helplessness and fretfulness of a fearful temper, or been unreasonable in wanting a larger share than any one among so many could deserve.”

We can see Fanny here doing what so many emotionally neglected children do, making excuses for their parents and assuming that the emotional neglect and abuse they suffer are somehow THEIR fault. Many emotionally abused or neglected children believe that they’re too loud, too needy, too much, and even ugly, blaming themselves for their parents’ rejecting and disgusted behavior toward them.

It’s proven, however, when Fanny goes home, that her parents are just as neglectful of her as she felt them to be formerly. Her father is “negligent of his family”, and her mother clearly does not really love her:

Mrs. Price was not unkind; but, instead of gaining on her affection and confidence, and becoming more and more dear, her daughter never met with greater kindness from her than on the first day of her arrival. The instinct of nature was soon satisfied, and Mrs. Price’s attachment had no other source. Her heart and her time were already quite full; she had neither leisure nor affection to bestow on Fanny. Her daughters never had been much to her.* She was fond of her sons, especially of William, but Betsey was the first of her girls whom she had ever much regarded. To her she was most injudiciously indulgent. William was her pride; Betsey her darling; and John, Richard, Sam, Tom, and Charles occupied all the rest of her maternal solicitude, alternately her worries and her comforts. These shared her heart: her time was given chiefly to her house and her servants.

[*Footnote: I have to stop here for a moment and mention poor Susan, whom I like better at every reading. With Mrs. Price only loving her sons and Betsy, with Mary dead and Fanny gone, Susan was for years THE ONLY completely unloved child in the house, which must have been pretty awful. It’s clear that Fanny and Susan have suffered rather similar fates in being raised without love, and Susan only responds more with irritation and Fanny more with tears: “Susan was only acting on the same truths, and pursuing the same system, which [Fanny’s] own judgment acknowledged, but which her more supine and yielding temper would have shrunk from asserting. Susan tried to be useful, where she could only have gone away and cried”. Please tell me somebody’s written a sequel about Susan?]

Again, while Mr. and Mrs. Price are not CRUEL, they’re not KIND, either. They are deeply emotionally neglectful toward Susan and Fanny, and Mrs. Price shows favoritism for the rest of her children, thus hurting her daughters further. Fanny’s probable surmise when she was sent away that she was not loved or wanted by her parents unfortunately appears to be very true. While an adult like Fanny can rationalize such behavior by her parents (even if it pains her), a child cannot do so, and the Prices’ lack of love for their own daughter must have been traumatizing and contributed to her belief that she can never matter to anybody (more on this in a bit).

Trauma 4: Lack of Companionship: Maria and Julia (and Miss Lee)

Fanny’s education when she arrives at Mansfield is not that of a gentlewoman--hardly surprising, given both her family’s socioeconomic position and her mother’s busy-ness with her family and general indolence. Maria and Julia’s education on scholarly subjects is clearly much stronger (they’re also 2-3 years older than her), and we know that their moral education was neglected, so that they only care about whether Fanny is rich and well-educated like themselves:

They could not but hold her cheap on finding that she had but two sashes, and had never learned French; and when they perceived her to be little struck with the duet they were so good as to play, they could do no more than make her a generous present of some of their least valued toys, and leave her to herself, while they adjourned to whatever might be the favourite holiday sport of the moment, making artificial flowers or wasting gold paper.

They’re generous enough to give her presents (though their least-valued belongings), but not generous enough to actually spend time with her, and it appears that this pattern holds throughout Fanny’s time at Mansfield.

At first, Mrs. Norris, Sir Thomas, and Miss Lee all think her actually stupid instead of just ill-educated: we are told that not only did Miss Lee “[wonder] at her ignorance,” but

A mean opinion of her abilities was not confined to [Sir Thomas and Mrs. Norris]. Fanny could read, work [that means “sew”], and write, but she had been taught nothing more; and as her cousins found her ignorant of many things with which they had been long familiar, they thought her prodigiously stupid, and for the first two or three weeks were continually bringing some fresh report of it into the drawing-room.

You would think that the adults at least would realize that Fanny hadn’t had the opportunity of a gentlewoman’s education, but no, they attribute it to natural stupidity instead of opportunity:

“My dear,” their considerate aunt would reply, “it is very bad, but you must not expect everybody to be as forward and quick at learning as yourself.”

It is only Edmund who perceives that Fanny is not only NOT stupid, she’s actually clever:

He knew her to be clever, to have a quick apprehension as well as good sense, and a fondness for reading, which, properly directed, must be an education in itself. Miss Lee taught her French, and heard her read the daily portion of history; but he recommended the books which charmed her leisure hours, he encouraged her taste, and corrected her judgment: he made reading useful by talking to her of what she read, and heightened its attraction by judicious praise.

One wonders, if a sixteen-year-old boy hadn’t decided to undertake part of Fanny’s education himself, how much worse off would she have been?

That Fanny’s companionship fell almost entirely to a teenage boy six years her senior who spends most of the year away at boarding school/university, is a ringing indictment of the behavior of Maria and Julia, and of those who should have been encouraging them to make a friend of their cousin.

Trauma 5: Mrs Norris (who gets a fucking section all her own)

Here we are. We’ve finally come to it. The other four traumas would certainly have been sufficient to cause C-PTSD, but JFC, Mrs. Norris could have caused it all by her lonesome. While she comes across as amusing in Austen’s sardonic style, she is absolutely toxic for Fanny’s mental health.

Mrs. Norris seems to have had an out-sized effect on the three Mansfield girls. Generally, mothers were in charge of the education of their daughters (even if indirectly, through a governess), so while Sir Thomas did examine them on their lessons, it was really supposed to be Lady Bertram’s job to see to their practical and moral education. But Lady Bertram is an absolute zero, a completely passive character, and Austen says directly that, “To the education of her daughters Lady Bertram paid not the smallest attention.” So it seems like the much more active Mrs. Norris stepped in, and her influence was extremely strong with all three of them, despite her being married and having her own house and her own concerns for the first seven or so years of Fanny’s time at Mansfield.

We can see her influence with all three in the fact that all three of the Mansfield girls end up evaluating themselves in almost perfect accordance to how Mrs. Norris evaluated them. Maria, the golden child*, became very spoiled and proud and thought she could do almost whatever she wanted. Fanny, the scapegoat, came to believe that her only worth was in being “useful” (Mrs. Norris’s hobby-horse) and that she could never be of any importance to anybody. And Julia, while closer to Maria’s level of treatment than Fanny’s, also suffers from comparisons to the golden child:

That Julia escaped better than Maria was owing, in some measure, to a favourable difference of disposition and circumstance, but in a greater to her having been less the darling of that very aunt, less flattered and less spoilt. Her beauty and acquirements had held but a second place. She had been always used to think herself a little inferior to Maria.

[*footnote: Treating one child as the golden child and one as the scapegoat is a very common tactic of abusive caregivers. The scapegoat becomes entirely worn down in self-esteem so that she is powerless to fight back against the abuse. The golden child and other children see how the scapegoat is treated and try hard not to rock the boat because they don’t want to end up like that.]

Mrs. Norris teaches Fanny from the beginning to judge and reject her own natural emotions. On her first traumatic separation from her family, Mrs. Norris lectures her incessantly on how she ought to be HAPPY, not sad:

Mrs. Norris had been talking to her the whole way from Northampton of her wonderful good fortune, and the extraordinary degree of gratitude and good behaviour which it ought to produce, and her consciousness of misery was therefore increased by the idea of its being a wicked thing for her not to be happy.

Fanny is taught to regard her own natural feelings as “wicked”, especially when they are a negative reaction to how the Bertram/Norris family treats her. While she can see some of her own feelings as just--when they have been sanctioned by Edmund’s judgment--any feeling that tends away from perfect gratitude toward the Bertram/Norris family she immediately rejects as an immoral response. She frequently takes herself to task at these moments. Anger and resentment are natural responses meant to help us protect ourselves against mistreatment from others, and this self-defending response is entirely squelched by Mrs. Norris’s behavior to her.

Mrs. Norris’s behavior toward Fanny is not only emotionally abusive; it is also at least physically neglectful, if not physically abusive. Despite the fact that everyone agrees that Fanny “is not strong”, Mrs. Norris makes a lot of difficulties in Edmund’s attempts to make sure Fanny has a horse to ride, and also refuses to allow Fanny a fire in the East Room, even in the middle of winter, a privation that ever Sir Thomas thinks bad enough that he countermands it--though doing so with a little explanatory disclaimer to Fanny explaining why Mrs. Norris MEANS well and why Fanny shouldn’t dare to be angry, or indeed anything but immensely and forever grateful for their neglectful treatment of her:

Your aunt Norris has always been an advocate, and very judiciously, for young people’s being brought up without unnecessary indulgences; but there should be moderation in everything. She is also very hardy herself, which of course will influence her in her opinion of the wants of others. And on another account, too, I can perfectly comprehend. I know what her sentiments have always been. The principle was good in itself, but it may have been, and I believe has been, carried too far in your case. I am aware that there has been sometimes, in some points, a misplaced distinction; but I think too well of you, Fanny, to suppose you will ever harbour resentment on that account. You have an understanding which will prevent you from receiving things only in part, and judging partially by the event. You will take in the whole of the past, you will consider times, persons, and probabilities, and you will feel that they were not least your friends who were educating and preparing you for that mediocrity of condition which seemed to be your lot. Though their caution may prove eventually unnecessary, it was kindly meant; and of this you may be assured, that every advantage of affluence will be doubled by the little privations and restrictions that may have been imposed. I am sure you will not disappoint my opinion of you, by failing at any time to treat your aunt Norris with the respect and attention that are due to her.

~*GAAASSSSS-LIGHTINNNNGGGGGGG*~

“Oh, shit, you’ve been freezing to death here for years because your aunt’s an abusive asshole. Oh, but there are three million excuses for her, and also you’re SO GOOD AND GRATEFUL that I KNOW you’ll never allow yourself to see it for the abuse it was, and aren’t you so GRATEFUL to us all for everything we’ve done for you? We MEANT well. And being abused was good for you anyway. If you ever get mad at your abusers I’ll treat you with withering criticism.”

*gagggg* I could write an entire essay explicating the gaslighting in that passage ALONE.

I could go on and on about Mrs. Norris’s abusive behavior toward Fanny, but I think most of it’s perfectly obvious to the reader. I think a very interesting argument might be made on whether Mrs. Norris would count as having a form of narcissistic personality disorder--always worried about her own importance, living through her golden child Maria, taking everything out on her scapegoat, insisting always on associating her own value with that of Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram and insisting on Fanny’s status being lower because her own self-esteem is dependent on being as good as her sister Bertram and better than her sister Price. Might be interesting.

Part 2: Fanny Price’s Trauma Responses

Complex emotional trauma expresses itself in a number of symptoms and behaviors. We’ve already talked about emotional flashbacks, and I’m going to look at four more major aspects of Fanny’s trauma responses.

Anxiety and Hypervigilance

People with PTSD often suffer from hypervigilance, where their body is constantly on high alert for threats in their environment. These threats are not only physical threats (resulting in things like jumping really hard at sudden noises) but also interpersonal threats. For instance, whenever I hear people talking really quietly in my house, I stop whatever I’m doing and listen REALLY HARD because I’m worried they’re talking about me and it’s gonna be bad.

Fanny exhibits this same behavior when she has retreated to the East Room when Crawford is in the house to propose to her:

She sat some time in a good deal of agitation, listening, trembling, and fearing to be sent for every moment; but as no footsteps approached the East room, she grew gradually composed, could sit down, and be able to employ herself, and able to hope that Mr. Crawford had come and would go without her being obliged to know anything of the matter.

Nearly half an hour had passed, and she was growing very comfortable, when suddenly the sound of a step in regular approach was heard; a heavy step, an unusual step in that part of the house: it was her uncle’s; she knew it as well as his voice; she had trembled at it as often, and began to tremble again, at the idea of his coming up to speak to her, whatever might be the subject. It was indeed Sir Thomas who opened the door and asked if she were there, and if he might come in. The terror of his former occasional visits to that room seemed all renewed, and she felt as if he were going to examine her again in French and English.

Her trembling at the sound of her uncle’s footsteps looks like hypervigilance, and the fact of her childhood “terror” being “renewed” sounds like she’s having another flashback, since she so strongly associates the presence of her uncle in the East Room with those painful childhood visits. She reacts with physical symptoms of stress, trembling at his approach.

Fanny’s anxiety and hypervigilance also demonstrates itself in her being constantly convinced that people are going to be angry with her. When she turns Mr. Crawford down, for instance, she is CONVINCED that Miss Crawford is going to be furious with her, and fears to meet with her. Edmund tells her Miss Crawford isn’t REALLY angry with her, but cannot convince her:

The promised visit from “her friend,” as Edmund called Miss Crawford, was a formidable threat to Fanny, and she lived in continual terror of it. As a sister, so partial and so angry, and so little scrupulous of what she said... she was in every way an object of painful alarm. ...The dependence of having others present when they met was Fanny’s only support in looking forward to it. She absented herself as little as possible from Lady Bertram, kept away from the East room, and took no solitary walk in the shrubbery, in her caution to avoid any sudden attack.

Fanny is so terrified of a polite confrontation with Miss Crawford, whom she has never seen angry before, that she spends DAYS trying to never be alone so that she’ll feel protected by the presence of company! Of course, when Miss Crawford DOES visit, she’s nothing but friendly. But Fanny’s PTSD couldn’t allow her to believe that until it happened. Her anxiety is intense, and this sort of thing happens repeatedly over the course of the novel.

Over-accommodation of others / people-pleasing

Childhood emotional trauma frequently leads to people-pleasing behavior: doing what you do not want to do simply because someone else wants you to. To understand this, you have to put yourself into the point of view of a very young child or an infant. Children depend entirely on their caregivers for survival: they are aware of this on an instinctive level. If the caregiver shows them very conditional love, only appearing pleased with them when the child does things they like and displeased when the child does things that inconvenience them, the child quickly learns that they need to please their caregivers in order to survive. “Mom gets angry when I cry--Mom doesn’t like me to cry--if Mom gets angry at me, I could starve to death--I need to not cry.” Obviously this line of thinking happens on a subconscious rather than a conscious level, but it’s incredibly powerful nonetheless. I have found myself in situations where a person with some kind of power over me--a doctor, for instance--shows displeasure with something I say to them, and I INSTANTLY find myself backing off, making light of it, taking back everything I said, etc, even though I very much meant it and it needed to be said. The people-pleasing instinct is very strong and difficult to overcome.

In Fanny’s case, it isn’t just a matter of her caregivers showing her inconsistent love in early childhood. Even as an adult, she is fully aware that she needs to please the Bertrams, or she--and her family!--are SCREWED. She is entirely financially dependent on the Bertrams. If she displeases them, not only can they make her life at Mansfield even MORE uncomfortable than it already is, but they can send her back to Portsmouth. Even worse, they could stop their financial support of William and the financial support they are periodically sending to the rest of her family. Huge things hang on Fanny’s pleasing the Bertrams, and it’s small wonder she has developed the habit of trying to please everybody constantly (even her un-pleasable Aunt Norris).

Fanny repeatedly does things she doesn’t want to do, simply because someone asks or tells her to, even if there’s likely to be no major consequences if she doesn’t. One example is on Miss Crawford’s last visit to Mansfield, when Fanny is trying her darnedest to avoid speaking with her alone:

[Miss Crawford] was determined to see Fanny alone, and therefore said to her tolerably soon, in a low voice, “I must speak to you for a few minutes somewhere”; words that Fanny felt all over her, in all her pulses and all her nerves. Denial was impossible. Her habits of ready submission, on the contrary, made her almost instantly rise and lead the way out of the room. She did it with wretched feelings, but it was inevitable.

Fanny doesn’t want to talk to Miss Crawford alone. Fanny doesn’t NEED to talk to Miss Crawford alone. Fanny could stall, perhaps until Miss Crawford left. Nonetheless, the MOMENT Miss Crawford asks it of her, Fanny does it--even though she’s clearly terrified, feeling it “in all her pulses and all her nerves” (more on this physical reaction later). She acts almost like Ella Enchanted: she literally can’t say no.

Likewise, she doesn’t take opportunities she is offered to do things that she DOES wish to do. After a very long description of how much she wants to dance one evening, when her only chance of a partner is Tom, the following exchange occurs:

When he had told of his horse, [Tom] took a newspaper from the table, and looking over it, said in a languid way, “If you want to dance, Fanny, I will stand up with you.” With more than equal civility the offer was declined; she did not wish to dance. “I am glad of it,” said he, in a much brisker tone, and throwing down the newspaper again, “for I am tired to death.”

Fanny DOES want to dance, and the way that he worded the question, she could very well have said, “Yes, please,” and gotten up to dance with him. He has made it obvious that he doesn’t want to dance, and she has picked up on this and said--not only that they don’t have to dance, but the LIE that she doesn’t WANT to dance--in order to please him. Later Austen points Tom out as a hypocrite when he complains, “It raises my spleen more than anything, to have the pretence of being asked, of being given a choice, and at the same time addressed in such a way as to oblige one to do the very thing, whatever it be!” But while it is true that Tom left Fanny LITTLE choice in the matter, it is also true that a stronger character, like Miss Crawford, could probably have found a way to say that she DID want to dance, even with such an unencouraging questioner. Fanny cannot do this: she has been conditioned all her life to give in to people--because her very SURVIVAL has depended on it.

In particular, Mrs. Norris has squelched Fanny’s independence of spirit very firmly. At one point she observes, very unfairly,

There is a something about Fanny, I have often observed it before—she likes to go her own way to work; she does not like to be dictated to; she takes her own independent walk whenever she can; she certainly has a little spirit of secrecy, and independence, and nonsense, about her, which I would advise her to get the better of.”

As a general reflection on Fanny, Sir Thomas thought nothing could be more unjust.

Obviously, Mrs. Norris is completely wrong about this. But as long as she can project* the fault of independence on Fanny, and punish Fanny for this false fault, she can prevent her from ever developing it. By picking on the least little supposed sign of independence and harping on it for ages, Mrs. Norris can prevent Fanny from ever developing a will of her own.

[*Footnote: this is another thing narcissists do: they project their own bad behavior on to others. Mrs. Norris is definitely not secretive, but she is very “independent” and has a lot of “nonsense”--instead of consulting with others about what they actually need in any given situation, she TELLS them. She has no spirit of cooperation, and all her “services” to others tend to be officious and useless.]

Low self-esteem

I thought about putting this together with the section on Mrs. Norris, because Fanny’s self-esteem has been so much shaped by her aunt. This is the kind of message Mrs. Norris is constantly drilling into her about the lowness of her importance:

The nonsense and folly of people’s stepping out of their rank and trying to appear above themselves, makes me think it right to give you a hint, Fanny, now that you are going into company without any of us; and I do beseech and entreat you not to be putting yourself forward, and talking and giving your opinion as if you were one of your cousins—as if you were dear Mrs. Rushworth or Julia. That will never do, believe me. Remember, wherever you are, you must be the lowest and last.

This message is so entirely in keeping with the messages Mrs. Norris has been indoctrinating Fanny with over the years that she has fully internalized it. When a primary caregiver tells you over and over again that you do not matter to anyone, you come to believe it:

[Fanny:] “I can never be important to any one.”

[Edmund:] “What is to prevent you?”

“Everything. My situation, my foolishness and awkwardness.”

“As to your foolishness and awkwardness, my dear Fanny, believe me, you never have a shadow of either, but in using the words so improperly. There is no reason in the world why you should not be important where you are known. You have good sense, and a sweet temper, and I am sure you have a grateful heart, that could never receive kindness without wishing to return it. I do not know any better qualifications for a friend and companion.”

“You are too kind,” said Fanny, colouring at such praise; “how shall I ever thank you as I ought, for thinking so well of me.”

Fanny’s “I can never be important to any one” sounds very much like a triggered teenager sobbing, “Nobody will ever love me!” even while friends next to her are demonstrating that they DO love her. The survivor of this kind of abuse comes to a place where their beliefs do not reflect reality because their beliefs instead reflect the intense emotional rejection they have received from their main caregivers*. Fanny is important to Edmund, William, and Lady Bertram, but is convinced that she not only is NOT important to ANYONE, but never CAN be. She also convinced that she is foolish and awkward, probably by the early experiences at Mansfield when she didn’t know all the intricate rules of high society and was far behind Maria and Julia in her education. Fanny, though she is extremely shy, manages to carry off most things with surprising grace, and she is clever and has a wisdom and common sense in some things far beyond her years. Yet she is CERTAIN that she is “foolish and awkward”, because she has been repeatedly called so by authority figures in her life and almost all of her family at Mansfield.

[*Footnote: these extreme beliefs are often couched in “black-and-white” language: “EVERYBODY hates me, NOBODY loves me, I’ll NEVER be able to do it right, I’ll be alone FOREVER”. We can hear this in Fanny’s “I can NEVER be of importance to ANY ONE”.]

Fanny not only thinks very lowly of herself, she also is afraid of being praised or of anything that could possibly raise her self-esteem. For instance, in a discussion with Edmund, she explains why she never wants anybody to notice her:

[Edmund:] “Your uncle is disposed to be pleased with you in every respect; and I only wish you would talk to him more. You are one of those who are too silent in the evening circle.”

[Fanny:] “But I do talk to him more than I used. I am sure I do. Did not you hear me ask him about the slave-trade last night?”

“I did—and was in hopes the question would be followed up by others. It would have pleased your uncle to be inquired of farther.”

“And I longed to do it—but there was such a dead silence! And while my cousins were sitting by without speaking a word, or seeming at all interested in the subject, I did not like—I thought it would appear as if I wanted to set myself off at their expense, by shewing a curiosity and pleasure in his information which he must wish his own daughters to feel.”

“Miss Crawford was very right in what she said of you the other day: that you seemed almost as fearful of notice and praise as other women were of neglect.”

She is literally fearful of notice and praise--because Mrs. Norris has told her repeatedly throughout her life that she must NEVER shine more than Maria or Julia, must NEVER take attention away from them--a sort of vicarious narcissism. And Fanny feels that to receive a compliment, to state her own opinions, or even to TALK much in company is “stepping out of her place”, the high crime and misdemeanor of Mrs. Norris’s upbringing.

I was raised by a narcissistic caretaker, and I am sometimes suddenly overwhelmed with terror that I’m taking too much attention to myself and that I’m therefore BAD somehow. Because a narcissist (or their proxy, the golden child) must always be the center of attention, the scapegoat is emotionally punished for ever taking the spotlight. Mrs. Norris is disposed to be upset when Sir Thomas holds a dance in Fanny’s honor, and is only reconciled to it because SHE will be able to make herself the center of attention in the preparations.*

[*Footnote: I think another argument can be made for Mrs. Norris’s narcissism in her response to Crawford’s proposal to Fanny:

Angry she was: bitterly angry; but she was more angry with Fanny for having received such an offer than for refusing it. It was an injury and affront to Julia, who ought to have been Mr. Crawford’s choice; and, independently of that, she disliked Fanny, because she had neglected her; and she would have grudged such an elevation to one whom she had been always trying to depress.

Mrs. Norris is DETERMINED to put Fanny down, as the scapegoat, and is offended that one of her golden children (her emotional stand-in) is shown less honor in this situation than the scapegoat. For the scapegoat to be elevated and her narcissistic stand-in to be neglected induces a narcissistic rage.]

“Sensibility” and High Sensitivity

In the 18th century, a theory and “culture of sensibility” grew up in places like Britain, France, Holland, and the British colonies. Encyclopedia.com’s article on sensibility states, “Sensibility (and ‘sensible’ and ‘sentiment’) connoted the operation of the nervous system, the material basis for consciousness.” But the workings of the nervous system, they believed, affected more than just the physical body. Some people, it was held, had greater sensibility than others: their nerves were more easily affected by not only physical but also emotional and moral input, and they responded accordingly--not just in word and in deed, but in tears, blushes, trembling, fainting, etc. It was believed that people’s emotional responses AND physical responses could tell you something about their physical AND moral makeup. A truly modest woman, for instance, would blush and look confused when confronted with something that offended her maidenly modesty. A woman--or indeed, man--who was truly moral and “sensible” would be emotionally affected by something sad, such as a tale of oppression, to the point of openly weeping. A heroine of sensibility would most likely faint if threatened with something she found, not only physically frightening, but morally abhorrent (such as a forced marriage). This is part of the reason for what seems to use like excessive emotional reactions in some 18th-century novels: the writer is demonstrating her characters’ moral superiority through their physical sensibility.*

[*Footnote: Encyclopedia.com adds, “The coexistence of reason and feeling was assumed, but the proportion of each was endlessly debated, above all because of what many saw as the dangers of unleashed feelings... [After the French Revolution,] The debate over the proportions of reason and feeling in persons of sensibility was politicized, and the need for women to channel their feelings toward moral and domestic goals was reemphasized. The word ‘sentimental,’ which had been used positively, became a label for ‘excessive sensibility’ and self-indulgence.” We can see this conflict clearly in Austen’s Sense and Sensibility!]

There is, in fact, a modern equivalent to the 18th century idea of sensibility: the concept of the Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) or Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS). First proposed by Elaine Aron's book The Highly Sensitive Person (1996), the theory suggests that SPS

is a temperamental or personality trait involving "an increased sensitivity of the central nervous system and a deeper cognitive processing of physical, social and emotional stimuli". The trait is characterized by "a tendency to 'pause to check' in novel situations, greater sensitivity to subtle stimuli, and the engagement of deeper cognitive processing strategies for employing coping actions, all of which is driven by heightened emotional reactivity, both positive and negative". (wikipedia)

While some people have mocked this theory as pseudoscience, Aron is by no means the only researcher to have studied it, and a great many people who suffered from people telling them “You’re too sensitive” when they were hurt have taken comfort in the positive affirmation that high sensitivity is a natural phenomenon and can even at times be regarded as a strength rather than a character flaw.

It seems to me that there is a good deal of overlap between those who self-identify or may be identified as HSPs and those who have C-PTSD. Whether this is because greater emotional sensitivity leads to a greater incidence of traumatic responses to negative experiences, or whether high sensitivity is itself a product of repeated childhood trauma, I can’t say. (Heck, it could even be that the HSP’s belief that they’re over-sensitive comes from childhood gaslighting!)

What I can say is that Fanny Price exhibits, not only hypervigilance, but also what Austen would call “great sensibility” and I would call “SPS”. Fanny has the greatest sensibility of any character in the entire novel, even Edmund: she judges more clearly on moral matters than Edmund or Sir Thomas, and has the strongest physical and emotional reactions to stimuli. She seems to be constantly blushing, trembling, or tearing up. This is not only painful to modern readers (who, if they’re not pained by sympathizing with her, may well be pained by what seems to them a lack of proper 21st-century backbone in a main character) but is clearly highly uncomfortable at times to Fanny herself. She might be able to pride herself on her moral discernment (not that Fanny would EVER pride herself on ANYTHING), and she may be in transports of happiness when something good, like William’s arrival or promotion, occur, but she is often “cast down” as well by things that seem to others like trifles. We see this not only in her hypervigilance but also in the depression and the black-and-white thinking which are often the products of trauma. Edmund observes to her, “It is your disposition to be easily dejected and to fancy difficulties greater than they are.” Fanny’s apparent high sensitivity may be just a natural trait (made worse by trauma) or may itself be a product of trauma.

Conclusions

At the end of all this, I’m really not sure what I think about Fanny’s “happy ending”. On one hand, she gets what she’s always wanted in life: companionate marriage with Edmund, valued by Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram, with Mrs. Norris (and Maria) gone forever, and Julia and Tom chastened and better behaved. It seems perfect for her. But a little voice inside of me keeps saying how very unlikely it is. People rarely change as much as Sir Thomas does in the book--and in fact, we are only assured by Austen that Sir Thomas comes to value Fanny more: we don’t actually SEE it. I can’t help but feel that Fanny must still have been subject to ongoing gaslighting about how she was brought up and about respect toward Mrs. Norris and himself. Fanny got what she thought she wanted, but at the same time, she didn’t get free. Especially considering that Austen goes out of her way to say that things COULD have turned out differently and that Fanny and Crawford COULD have been happy together, I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if Fanny had ended up with the ONLY person in the entire book who truly recognizes how badly she has been treated at Mansfield Park:

[Crawford]: And they will now see their cousin treated as she ought to be, and I wish they may be heartily ashamed of their own abominable neglect and unkindness.

#jane austen #mansfield park #trauma #c-ptsd #literature #tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk

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lils-of-the-valley · 3 years

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Summer Time (Family) Madness

Not me reposting this because Tumblr won't show my shit in the Renga or Sk8 tag. I will cry if this one also doesn't show up

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AO3 | Original Chapter 1 | Original Chapter 2 | Original Chapter 3 | Original Chapter 4

Apologizing to Emily was a lot harder than Langa had anticipated. He knew he could be stubborn, but Emily was worse. She did everything in her power to avoid him: locking herself in Nanako’s room as soon as he left his, turning away from him if she had the misfortune of being in the living room when he got back from work or the skatepark, eating at a different time from Langa and his mother. No matter what Langa tried, she refused to acknowledge him. He didn’t exist anymore to her.

And Langa had tried reaching out to her, both physically and metaphorically. He had tried grabbing her arm, forcing her to acknowledge him, but he was just shaken off the same way he had shaken her off three days prior. He had tried being gentler, calling her name the few times he did see her leave the room to get food, but he had been ignored. Langa had even tried texting her an apology, but the text had never been opened, the little checkmark never appearing next to his text. Emily was rightfully pissed, Langa understood that, but after 72 hours, he was starting to get annoyed again. She could have at least given him a chance! It had been three days, for crying out loud!

“Seem familiar?” Nanako asked over her cup of tea. Langa didn’t miss the amused smile on his mother’s face or the way her brown eyes were staring straight through him. Recently, she was really starting to pick up on whatever Langa was feeling, which he wasn’t sure if he was grateful for or absolutely mortified about.

“I-!” Langa bit the inside of his cheek as he pushed his pancake around his plate. “Okay, fair.”

“Look, I talked to Emily this morning. She’s still pretty mad at you for snapping at her and refusing to tell her why, but she seems ready to talk about it. It wasn’t my place to explain your actions, but I did encourage her to give you a chance to apologize. Which,” Langa shrunk in his seat the way his mother was looking at him, “I really shouldn’t have had to do, Langa. You’re an adult now; you shouldn’t need to have your mother fixing your problems anymore.” Nanako sighed, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth as she took a long sip of her tea. “But, here we are. I don’t even want to imagine the chaos that would have been if your father and I had decided to give you a little brother or sister. I don’t think I would have survived those fights if I’m struggling with just you and your cousin.”

Langa had asked a few times for a baby brother or sister when he had been younger. He had been in kindergarten and watching the children arrive with siblings made him envy them. The closest thing he had to a sibling was Emily, and he only say her during the summer. But those kids, they had a friend all year long. And they didn’t have to meet anyone new because siblings were family and family wasn’t scary. Not like all the kids whose faces were starting to blur together.

As he got older, he grew to be content with being an only child. He didn’t have to share at home. Everything at home was his: his toys, his parents, his room. As he grew older, he heard the other kids complain about their siblings, how they were hogging the tv or finished the last of the cereal without telling anyone. So Langa was happy with being alone. It was perhaps selfish of him, but he was glad he just had to deal with another kid just during the summer. Playing with Emily in the summer was more than enough.

But as he got older, Langa also wondered what it would have been like to have a real sibling, someone constantly buzzing around him. Would they have snowboarded with him? Would they have looked up at him? Would they have played with him? Would they have fought a lot? And would Langa have been a good brother, like Reki was? Would he have been able to help his sibling with their homework or their daily problems? Would he have been able to give and give and give so much like Reki did? Would have been as kind as Reki when-

Langa shook his head, shaking away the thought of Reki. He had to stop thinking of Reki all the damn time.

“Maybe it would have been better if I had a sibling. Maybe I would actually know how to say sorry?”

A light chuckle shook the teacup his mother was holding to her lips. “Maybe. But it’s never too late to start learning! I really think you should go see Emily. Oh! And bring her breakfast while you’re at it! It’ll be bonus points for you!”

Langa gave his mother a curt nod before moving to the kitchen counter to prepare a plate of pancakes for Emily. If there was one thing Langa knew, it was that food always cheers people up. Food was a universal peace offering that no one could refuse. Nobody could refuse a good plate of fluffy pancakes drowned in maple syrup. Or at least, Langa wouldn’t have been able to refuse. Hopefully, Emily wouldn’t refuse.

The confidence that Langa had built up lasted a grand total of three minutes, just enough time to assemble the plate and make his way to his mother’s room. Everything had been clear in his head: he would knock and apologize to Emily, offering him the pancakes. It was a simple plan, but when it came time to execute it, Langa froze. The words jumbled in his head and his hands refused to cooperate. He had to knock. Form a fist, lightly tap the door, that was all. Yet it felt like the most difficult thing to do. His fingers only tightened around the plate, not wanting to let go of it.

What was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to say? If, a big if, Emily opened the door after he finally fessed up the courage to knock, then he would have to say something. He’d have to say sorry. He would have to say sorry, but for what? For being cold and distant and…. Like himself? No. That was making excuses. It was a bad habit of his, apologizing and making excuses for himself. Like when he had that big fight with Reki- No! He was not thinking of Reki. He was thinking of Emily and how he was going to say sorry for shouting at her. He was thinking of Emily and how he was going to apologize for being inconsiderate and too in his own head to realize that he was hurting her and straight-up selfish. He was going to apologize instead of ignoring the situation until it went away.

With a deep breath, Langa raised his first. One knock. Silence. Two knocks. Movement in the room. Three knocks. The door creaking open.

Emily stood in the doorway, staring up at Langa, her eyes devoid of their usual warmth. Her eyes flickered between his face and the plate he was holding up for her, a peace offering. There was no sign of cheeriness in her face, only a deep frown. She was small, but she seemed so big. Small, but intimidating.

Langa shifted from foot to foot, pushing the plate into her hands. “It’s, it’s for you. Mom made it. Thought you’d like some.”

Finally! Finally, she took the plate, though she didn’t seem any closer to wanting to listen to Langa. But she didn’t turn away. She just stood there in the doorway, plate in hand.

“And I- I just…” Langa inhaled sharply. He could do this. He could fix this. “I’m sorry.”

It was stupid. It was so stupid. He felt like a little kid on the playground, small and childish, sent off to apologize for breaking the other kid’s plastic shovel. He felt like a child who had no clue how to apologize. Sorry. I’m sorry. It was all he knew how to say. He didn’t know how to truly, properly apologize. He had never cared enough about people to feel the need to say more than just sorry.

“Did your mom send you to apologize or is this really from you?”

“Me! I’m sorry, I mean it.” Langa did mean it, but Emily didn’t seem completely convinced yet. “I… shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. I’m sorry.”

“Alright, alright,” she shifted her weight onto one foot, leaning into the doorframe, “don’t need to overuse it. I know we’re known for constantly apologizing, but you know damn well that that’s just a stereotype. You don’t actually have to say sorry every other word.”

“But I feel like I should.”

Emily sighed. “Alright. Don’t overdo it either. But,” she glanced towards the kitchen behind Langa, right where Nanako was sitting, sipping her tea and finishing her breakfast, “can we talk in your room? Like, don’t get me wrong, I love Auntie Nanako, but it’s just… feels weird doing this in front of her. Like we’re back at the grandparents and we have to apologize for breaking whatever before going home and the parents want to make sure we’ve properly apologized? Yeah, it’s… it’s really weird. No offense to your mom or anything.”

“I get it, no worries. Reki’s the same way.”

Emily raised an eyebrow, an amused smile playing on her lips. “You really never stop thinking of him, do you?”

“I-!” He didn’t. He had to stop, but somehow Reki always found his way back into Langa’s head. “He’s my best friend. And the only one of my friends who’s come over. So it’s just, it’s a coincidence.”

“Uh-huh, sure, sure.” Emily brushed past Langa, making her way to his room with her breakfast. “You keep telling yourself that, buddy.”

“I’m serious!” Langa huffed, stuffing his hands in his pockets and refusing to acknowledge the heat forming in his cheeks as he followed his cousin. “You know, for someone who’s pissed at me, you sure are in a good mood.”

“Oh.” Emily stopped in front of his closed-door before turning to him with a grin. “I stopped being mad at you like two days ago.”

Two days ago. That was impossible. Just last night she was leaving the kitchen as soon as Langa was coming in, kicking his shoes off. Just last night she was locking herself in his mother’s room, refusing to even look at him. It was impossible that she wasn’t still mad at him. It didn’t make sense.

“Yeah, I’m just really petty.”

It was the way she was saying it, just shrugging as she pushed the door open. It was how nonchalant she was about it, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“You…” Langa sighed. Reasoning was impossible. “You made me suffer for three days, brushing me off, refusing to eat at the same time as me, basically telling me to go fuck myself for… for what reason?”

“You were insufferable for three days, so it was only fair that I made you suffer the same amount.”

“You,” Langa said with a huff and entering his room right behind his cousin, “are impossible.”

“Thanks!”

As Emily got comfortable on the floor, her back pressed against the closet door as she got ready to eat, Langa let his whole body flop onto his bed. It had gone better than he had anticipated, but it had still been exhausting. The spiraling insecurities always took a lot out of him. But as soon as his body sank into his mattress, his face hitting his pillow, everything melted away. Everything felt better, the weight of his mistakes lifted from his shoulders. And the sound of Emily struggling to cut her pancakes with her fork reminded him that things would be okay. He hadn’t broken everything important to him.

Langa shifted on his bed, folding his arms and tucking them under his chin as he looked over at Emily.

“I’m serious though. I am sorry about being insufferable and all. Just…”

“It’s fine, really. Apology accepted, Langa. Just,” Emily stopped picking at her plate, her brown eyes falling onto Langa instead, “can I finally know why you were acting all shitty and whatever?”

Why had he acted the way he did? The answer was terribly obvious, but it was also stupid. Terribly stupid.

“Reki?”

Silence emptied the room completely. Emile blinked at Langa, a forkful of pancakes hanging between her mouth and her plate as she gapped at him. It was stupid. So stupid. Langa should have lied. He should have found another reason. Now he seemed stupid because he was and this whole situation was stupid because of Langa’s stupid heart that was constantly beating in his chest at a speed that was probably alarming and-

“You…” Emily inhaled sharply, putting her plate and fork down onto her lap and brought her hands together to her mouth. Then her hands were pointed in Langa’s direction and he sank into his pillow. “You were an asshole to me for three days because of your boyfriend?”

Heat raced through his body as Langa jolted up. “He’s not-!”

“Fine! Your ‘best friend’ or whatever you wanna call it! What- What the actual fuck, Langa?”

“I don’t know! I don’t…”

Langa shouldn’t have been laughing. He should have been serious, trying to explain his mess. But Emily was laughing, her hands in her face as she wiped away tears, and it was hard to not laugh with her. Maybe she had also realized that everything was ridiculous. Maybe she had finally realized that Langa was absolutely ridiculous.

“I don’t know, Emmy. I really- It made sense, or maybe it never really did?”

“No, it does not make any sense. You do not make any sense, you twig!”

“I just… I was mad, okay? I don’t know who I was mad at – probably myself most of all – but it was just easier to take it out on you since, since, you know, you kinda, I mean, if you hadn’t come to DopeSketch then maybe?”

“You were pissed at me because your not-boyfriend suggested teaching me how to skate? You… what the fuck?”

Langa dropped back into his pillow, resisting the urge to scream. It sounded so much worse when said like that. It sounded so much worse when talking about it. If only he could disappear forever and avoid the absolute humiliation of having Emily half-screaming at him, half-laughing at him. It was worse than… than anything, really. Langa was ready to dig his own hole to hide in.

He peered over his pillow, not ready to let go of it quite yet. It was a rather effective shield.

“Yes? I mean… It’s not the skating part that bothered me. It’s the-”

“Part where it sounded like he was asking me out?”

Langa chewed on the inside of his cheek, nodding hesitantly into his pillow. He was aware that he was acting like a child who was caught doing something wrong. He was aware that he looked stupid and foolish. He was aware that he was supposed to be able to handle himself just a little better than that, but what was he to do? The pillow was the only thing keeping him safe.

“Langa! You useless-!”

Langa almost missed Emily pinching the bridge of her nose, looking more exasperated than he had ever seen her.

“You… Look, first off, he wasn’t asking me out. And second of all, if you had stuck around an extra 20 seconds, you would have known I turned him down.”

Emily had turned Reki down. She had refused him. What kind of monster refuses anything from Reki?

“What? Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why’d you turn him down?”

Emily clicked her tongue as she stared up at the ceiling. “Well, it’s pretty simple, really. Your ‘friend’ there,” Langa cringed at the air quotes, “really did sound like he was asking me out, which apparently actually wasn’t his intention. But even if it had been his intention, he’s basically a kid. He’s not even 18, is he?”

“Next week.”

“So he’s not even 18, which is… weird? I don’t know, even if he was 18, it would still be weird for me. Not that was the main point of this. The most important part of this,” Emily straightened out, leaning closer to Langa, “I know you like him. Hell, I think everyone knows that you’re basically head over heels for him.”

“Everyone but him,” Langa mumbled into his pillow, completely defeated. There was no point in moving out of the fluff.

“I… I don’t think you’re giving the kid enough credit, Langa. I don’t think he’s as dense as you paint him to be.”

“Oh great. Yay for me. I get to fuck up yet another friendship.”

“I… also don’t think you’re messing up your friendship.” Langa could hear Emily shuffle on her side of the room, the fork clanking against the ceramic plate. She was probably starting to feel sore from the hardwood floor. “Look, I don’t know shit. The only news I’ve gotten of you in the past three years has been from your mom talking to grandma who would then tell my mom. And from the time I’ve been here, well, I’m just your dumb, airhead cousin. My opinion isn’t worth shit, but it kinda looks like it might be reciprocated?”

Langa propped up onto his elbows, huffing as he stared at Emily. “It’s not. And all you’re achieving right now is giving me false hope.”

“No! That’s not-! I didn’t mean… I was talking to Reki, after you stormed off like a big baby.”

“Gee, thanks. False hope and making fun of me.”

“And like, I was telling him that I was flattered and all, but that I had to turn down his offer since, you know, I’m heading back home in a couple of weeks. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone to try something with an expiration date and he doesn’t seem to be the type to just wanna hook up or whatever.”

Langa buried his face in his pillow again, hands over his ears. “I don’t wanna think about it, I don’t wanna hear about it. I don’t wanna think about it, I don’t wanna hear about it. I don’t wanna think about it, I don’t wanna hear about it. I don’t-”

“I didn’t say that to him, you twig! Now listen to me! I don’t wanna talk about sex with you, anyway!”

Langa’s face was flushed and panicked as he lifted it from his pillow for what felt like the thousandth time in a very little amount of time. His voice was high-pitched, only accentuating his horror. “I don’t wanna talk about sex with anyone! Especially not- No!”

“Aw, it’s okay, little baby Langa. I won’t disgust you with that. But I will tell you that Reki is so cute when he’s flustered. Like, he’s adorable, isn’t he?”

“I… will not answer that.”

Emily raised an eyebrow, a smile stretching across her face.

“Right. I forgot, you probably find him cute even when he’s passed out cold, snoring and drooling into his pillow.” Langa stayed quiet, chewing at his lip. “But yeah, turns out that it was just genuine desire to get me to try something new that would keep me busy? He was so embarrassed at the whole miscommunication thing and thinking he was asking me out. But so very cute. Just wanted to pinch his cheeks and squish his little face! Ah! I can’t wait for you to ask him out! Like, it’ll be so cute! And dumb! Because look at you!”

Embarrassed didn’t even begin to describe whatever it was that was twisting in Langa’s body. There was the heat of embarrassment, the desire for Emily to just shut the fuck up, but there was also the lightness of familiarity and fun. Falling back into the easy banter was nice. It was much better than being mad or being ignored. It was… comforting to know that there was someone he could talk to like this.

“This feels homophobic.”

Emily stared at him with a deadpan expression which made him snicker.

“When’s the last time you made that joke?”

“Whenever the last time you spoke to me and forced my hand.”

“I did not- Go to Hell!”

Oh, she was making this just too easy for him.

“But,” Langa cocked his head to the side, not bothering to hide his amused smile, “isn’t that where all the gays go?”

Exasperation stained Emily’s face as she reached out to him, her hands making a choking motion. Oh, how he had missed the jokes. How he had missed being annoying and obnoxious.

“How? How have you not outed yourself yet?”

Langa shrugged. “Simple. I don’t know how to say half of this shit in Japanese, so I can’t say it. Plus, new place, new life. Only you get the privilege of dealing with how I was back in Canada. But you bet your ass that I’m thinking it, even if I’m not saying it.”

“I’m sure you’re also thinking of someone’s ass-!”

It was a reflex, throwing the pillow at Emily. It was the only thing Langa could think of to get her to shut up. But the moment the pillow collided with the girl, her whole body curling to defend herself from the attack, Langa knew he had fucked up. Metal and ceramic clattered across his floor, half-eaten pancakes and an ungodly amount of smuggled maple syrup pooling on Emily’s lap and at her feet. Both froze, staring at the white pillow soaking in the sticky mess they had created.

“Damn, all this because you can’t take an ass joke.”

“I will choke you.”

“Kinky. Keep it for your boyfriend.”

So Emily was even worse than him. At least, when it came to obnoxiously dumb jokes. When it came to cleaning, both sucked, just staring at the floor instead of doing anything. At this rate, Langa would be better off just buying himself a new pillow; there was no way he would manage to get all that syrup out of it. But moving meant acknowledging the problem, and Langa was not ready for that. Or maybe he just didn’t like cleaning up messes.

“If my pillow is trash, I will murder you.”

Reluctantly, Emily picked up the pillow, holding it far from herself. A large stain had formed on the pillowcase, having probably seeped through the fabric and into the pillow’s fluff. Her face twisted in disgust. She also didn’t seem keen on cleaning and laundry.

“I invite you to try, but people have been trying and failing for the past 20 years.”

Langa sighed, finally pulling his legs off his bed and crouching down in from of the flipped plate. How was he supposed to clean this up? Where did he even start?

“Just help me clean your mess.”

“My mess? Excuse me? You’re the one who hit me with a pillow and caused this!”

The fork. He would start by picking up the fork. And maybe the plate. Leaving it on the floor was just risking breaking it. Hopefully, it wasn’t chipped.

“Go get the cleaning products. I think mom keeps them under the sink in the bathroom. And throw my pillow into a bag or something. We’ll have to go to the laundromat later.”

Emily sighed, finally pushing herself off the ground. She still held the pillow with the tip of her fingers, very far from her body.

“Fine! I’ll keep you company later, but you’re cleaning your floor! I’m not touching anything sticky and gross.”

“It’s maple syrup. How is that gross?”

“Just saying that I don’t know what trash you’ve put on your floor and I am not scrubbing it.”

“Just go get the stuff before this leaks through the floorboard.”

Emily huffed one last time before exiting the room. While he waited, Langa could hear his mother questioning Emily. “What was that noise?” “What are you looking for?” “Did you and Langa make up?” A smile pulled on the corner of Langa’s mouth. He knew his mother would ask questions and that was the only reason he had sent Emily to fetch the cleaning products. He knew if he had gone himself, then he would have had a thousand questions to answer which he absolutely did not want to do.

#If this doesnt show up I will cry #I can't do this anymore #I'm tired and just want my shit to be noticed #please please please tumblr #renga #snowgear #langa #hasegawa langa #langa hasegawa #kyan reki #reki kyan #reki #sk8 #sk8 the infinity #lils writes #stfm

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manjiroro · 3 years

Note

Hey! May I please get a Tokyo Revenger matchup (and MHA if you're doing 2 fandoms)! 🙋🏾‍♀️

Ok so I'm a bisexual girl 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 who uses any pronouns, mostly she/they. I'm an ambivert 😈 I am a Virgo, although I don't think I act like one. It's probably because I'm an Aries Rising and Pisces Moon. And I'm also an ISFP 4w5

Personality: I've been told that I'm pretty inocent looking but once I open my mouth, people never think so anymore 💀 cause at school, people would describe me as kind, quiet, athletic, chill, smart, funny but when I open my mouth I start talking about weird things. (I once told my teacher about how some astronauts had herpes in Space 🏃🏾‍♀️). So, at school I would also be described as weird, dirty-minded and overall a nice person to be around 😌

At home, I would be described as a troublemaker who never listens and does whatever she wants. So I get in trouble a lot especially since I talk back 👀 but for good reason 😤 but other than being a troublemaker, I would be described as loud(I have a very high-pitched scream so I do it all the time for fun), energetic(Suprisingly, I act a lot like the younger sibling although I am the oldest 💀), dumb(I once watched my baby cousin eat and then asked if she had teeth like she wasn't just chewing on food 😐), annoying (I annoy my sister so much to the point where if my mom ever hears my sister say "stop", she automatically assumes I did something 😭), competative(I was playing with my sister and almost lost a game and accidentally broke something in her room 😶), argumentative(I get into arguments all the time just cause I'm speaking facts 🙄), mean(I asked my sister to give me a situation where I'm mean and she told me that she didn't know and that I'm just mean 😒), strong(I'm constantly told that I don't know my strength and that I'm really rough. My dad even told that when I was younger nobody wanted to play with me cause I was too rough 😢), chill at times (which is like 20% of time), really talkative although I have a stutter(Nobody can ever watch a movie with me because all I do is talk, talk, talk and criticize everything the characters do cause they be dumb as hell). I would also like to add in that I laugh and smile at EVERYTHING‼️ I smile so much to the point where I have smile lines(I have a really faint scar in that area that looks like a smile line 😏) 😫 but it's aight cause I got 2 cute dimples 😼 I've had multiple times where people never believed that I was telling the truth just cause I was smiling really hard 😔 LMAO there was this one time I saw a kid fall on the road so I covered my face so no one could see me laugh and my friends thought I was crying until I lifted my head for them to see the smile I had on my face and they were SO disappointed in me 😹 Last thing that I would describe myself as is HOT‼️ I be checking myself in the mirror everyday cause I am THAT pretty 😌 Ooo also my top kins are Itadori, Denki, Nishinoya, Bokuto and Atsumu 🤩

My Hobbies/Interests: One thing I've always been obsessed with is playing the Sims! I would always spend hours getting custom content and creating my sims just to make them have babies and never play with them again 😭 It was worth it tho, I haven't played in a few months but next time I will play will be at cousin's house cause we made a plan to play together 😌✊🏾 but other than playing the sims, I like playing video games with my sister(we play Ace Attorney, Gang Beasts, My Hero Justice 2, Overcooked and some other games), sleep cause my sleep schedule is fucked 😿, playing with my rats(they're all boys and their names are Gyuki, Bean, Boba, Squidge and Mango), read xblack¡reader fanfics, listen to music, dance(I've been told that I have a natural talent for dancing 😏 I've been asked multiple times if I took lessons but I have never have 💃🏾), going for walks, watch videos/movies/shows/anime, read my Warrior Cats books (I never expected a book about feral cats to make me cry so much 💀) and PROCRASTINATE cause I hate homework 😤

My dislikes: I ABSOLUTELY HATE 9-5 jobs‼️ There's no way in hell I'm boutta work from 9-5 everyday for the rest of my life until retirement. I literally only have one life to live, I want to have fun and live it. I just wish I could be rich and live that black women in luxury life while also helping people and animals 😭 another thing I hate is being told what to do. I like doing things on my own time when I want to, it just feels better like that 🤷🏾‍♀️(and yeah I totally get in trouble for that 👀). I'm pretty patient with people most of the time(although I do got a lot to say 😠 but I ain't gon waste that much effort on school kids 😒) so there's nothing I really hate but I really hate it when someone explains something to me like I'm dumb 😐 I don't really understand big words most of the time 🤠 but like I'm not stupid, I understand what you're saying damn 😒 I also hate hypocrites like don't be talking when you do the same thing 24/7 🙄 but yeah I'm pretty tolerant of people so there's not a lot that gets under my skin(there may be a few things that I probably forgot) but I will say that, that is a different story at home. My mom and sister would say that I'm very easily angered. Once I said that I'm easily angered sometimes and they both looked at me like I was crazy and they were like "SOMETIMES?? 🤨".

My favourite traits in people: Ion even know what I like about most people 😭 I would say that being easygoing, confident and open-minded are things that I really like so kinda like me ig. Ooo I also really like politeness, like I find that shit so attractive 🤤 Humor is very good too since I love laughing 😆.

What I would like to do with my s/o: Some things I would love to do is...

- Go on late night drives

- Listen to music together

- Do chaotic shit together

- Cuddle

- Go skateboarding (like if my s/o was able to skate, I'd like to hold on to their shoulders while they help me I- 😍)

- MAKE OUT HAHA

- Play with kids together

- Go ice-skating or rollerblading

- Go for ice-cream

- Watch horror movies or tv dramas

- Bake or Cook together

- Go on roller-coasters together

- Go to a haunted house together

- Cosplay (if my s/o is a dude, I want them to wear a maid dress while I wear a butler outfit and then have us take pictures together 😍)

^ Like this (I would be the one being carried)

I just wanna do a whole bunch of cute, domestic and chaotic shit together! 😫

That's it! I'm sorry if that was too much 😭 and thanks in advance btw <3

500 milestone event (closed!!)

hello!! thank you for joining my event~~ omg?? okay everything about you seems fun help- also idky tumblr doesnt like that image but i wanna do that with my s/o too 😔😔

i match you with.. MATSUNO CHIFUYU

i picked chifuyu because i feel he can match your chaotic energy but be super sweet at the same time

he might be caught off guard at first when he finds out how different you seem than when he first met you

but in the end he has the best time with you, doing the weird chaotic shit you wanna do

i’m sure he hits all your favourite traits so best boy :3

you can definitely do domestic and chaotic shit with him and it will be a blast

but when you tell him to wear the maid dress he’s a little shy at first but after much convincing he’ll put it on

oh he’s also the type to be super patient with you so if you’re mad, he’ll wait until you’ve cooled down and he wouldn’t argue with you just cuz

the both of you would spend your time together playing games and watching anime

he loves everything about you really from your personality to your interests, you never fail to make him laugh

you and chifuyu are a chaotic couple, there’s no doubt about it. whatever weird thing one of you did, the other would be present. but that isn’t to say that the both of you have never done anything calm. there were many instances where the both of you would hang out at home, chilling with each other, instead of being menaces to the toman guys, especially takemichi.

and this was one of those days where the both of you decided on having a stay home date. it started out with baking, the both of you made a mess of the kitchen trying to bake cupcakes, chifuyu thought that it would be funny to throw flour at you and the both of you ended up having a flour fight, coating the kitchen white.

afterwards, you decided to watch a horror movie. chifuyu never really liked horror movies so the entire time, he was clinging onto you for dear life while you laughed at him. sadly though, at some point, chifuyu flinched so hard that he knocked all the snacks off the table, making you laugh at him. he was embarrassed of course and decided to defend himself by saying shit like “something flew into my eye, it was just my reflexes.” and so the movie had been forgotten.

and now, the both of you were in your bedroom, rummaging through your closet.

“fuyu, can you wear this for me?”

you asked your boyfriend while holding up a maid dress. he looks at you with wide eyes and his mouth opened, red slowly creeping onto his face.

“no.”

“aw why not??”

“because.. it’s embarrassing..”

“aw c’mon, just once pleaseeee and i’ll forget about you flinching so hard just now.”

“hey it wasn’t because of the movie i told you this.”

“sure, so put on the maid dress or i’m telling baji your lame excuse.”

chifuyu narrows his eyes at you before sighing. he takes hold of the dress and went into the bathroom to change.

once he returned, you squealed at how adorable he looks.

“hey why are you wearing the butler outfit and i’m wearing the maid dress?”

you ignored him.

“let’s take a picture!!”

“but-“

“i’ll tell baji, chifuyu.”

he sighs at the threat and nods. you told him what pose he should do as you set your phone on the floor and took the picture. now chifuyu wouldn’t outright admit it but, that picture was his favourite and was his wallpaper for the next few months.

#tokyo revengers #tokyo revengers fluff #tokyo revengers matchups #tokyo revengers drabbles #tokyo revengers x reader #chifuyu #chifuyu fluff #chifuyu matchups #chifuyu drabbles #chifuyu x reader #matsuno chifuyu #matsuno chifuyu fluff #matsuno chifuyu drabbles #matsuno chifuyu matchups #matsuno chifuyu x reader #kai’s 🌤#🌤 chifuyu #feralfordazai 500 milestone event

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goat-goth · 3 years

Note

Hi, you said essay on the not-love Victor and Elizabeth have?? I am fully invested, tell me EVERYTHING.

Im glad you’re curious!!! content warning for misogyny and arranged marriage

Ok here we go.

So to preface I am not going to use Victor (or Elizabeth’s) queer coding as a justification because while it is heavy as an osmium brick, it can still technically be dismissed as reading through a lens that would discredit my perception of the relationship between Victor Frankenstein and Elizabeth Lavenza. I would also like to mention that this is based on my reading of specifically the 1831 version of Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus which was written by Mary Shelley.

Cool so the book begins with Victor explaining his life story, from the beginning, to a stranger named Robert Walton. He starts by explaining how his parents met and got married (which is its own whole can of problematique worms) and then moving on to explain how Elizabeth was adopted. In this version of the story they are not biologically related but are raised together as siblings and call each other ‘cousin’. I think we can agree that they very much consider each other close family. I think it's also important to note that when Victor was first introduced to Elizabeth she was presented to him as a gift and object ‘future trophy wife’ by his mother. As a kid he didn't interpret this as romantic but literal and just kind of accepted it as fact.

Years later their mother, Caroline, falls ill. She calls Victor and Elizabeth to see her on her deathbed and tells them, in no uncertain terms, that it is her dying wish for them to get married and that it is Elizabeth's job to become a parental figure to the other young Frankenstein's, William and Earnest.

They're still young though and Victor is sent off to school at Ingolstadt while Elizabeth stays home. While Victor is away we learn that Elizabeth has Grown Up and learned how to put her own feelings away to Be Strong for her family. It is made pretty clear that she now sees bottling her own feelings and doing whatever is deemed necessary to help the family to be her Responsibility as a mother figure and as a daughter.

While that is happening, Victor is out at Ingolstadt building his creature. To briefly summarize, he makes his creature, is struck by what he has done once faced with a living breathing Dude making baby noises at him at like 1 am (estimate), flees leaving his creature to wander out of the building, comes back and falls into a very rough sickness from sleep deprivation and general neglect + trauma, and is brought back to health by his good bro Henry Clerval. Henry gives him a letter from his family, who he all together stopped writing Months Ago, telling him to come back home at once because his brother was murdered.

Elizabeth is Very upset seeing a kid she was a mother figure to was killed and her friend Justine Moritz is being wrongly convicted, and Victor, thinking that his creature did it (based on no evidence btw) is Consumed with guilt and offers No comfort or explanation. A bit later after that Victor's father approaches him and goes, ‘you know, everyone's really really sad that your little brother was murdered. You know what would cheer them up???? Marrying your sister.’ and then Victor just kinda goes ‘ …. You're right, I need space though. First, can I take a two year trip out of the country? I promise I'll do it right after.’ and his father says yeah that would be cool, and Henry decides to go with him.

Victor, the way I see it, has two pretty big motives for leaving in this situation.

His creature has approached him demanding a wife, so he wants to get away so he can isolate and do that. This is the bigger and more pressing motive as well as victor’s priority.

He is literally being cornered and old that he could make everything better by marrying Elizabeth who, yes he is fond of as family, but who he has never once shown romantic interest in beyond ‘mom says that this is how it works and that I should think of you as an object so I guess that's fine with me’

This leaves us wondering how Elizabeth is feeling? We know that the last time tragedy hit, her response was to bottle up her feelings and do what she thought best for the family. You could argue that she did love Victor based on how she speaks to and of him but you have to understand that quite literally from day one she has been told over and over that her purpose is to love Victor and that it would make her parents happy if she loved Victor and that her mother, who she was close to, laid on her deathbed and told her that her dying wish was that she would marry her brother, Victor. From her perspective, logically the only next step would be to make everyone happy again by marrying her brother, right? It doesn't matter that he didn't write to her when he was away and was completely emotionally unavailable once he got back right? This Has to be the next step for her.

And so they do get married but no, I don't think there was any romantic intention. I think it was two people who felt obligated to their family and in Elizabeth's case, subconsciously sacrificial, and in Victors case, too preoccupied with his murder-child and horrendous mental health to think about what He wants personally.

#long post #tw mysogyny #tw arranged marriage #tw objectification #ask to tag #tw dysfunctional family #frankenstein #victor frankenstein #elizabeth lavenza #frankenstein essay #essay is a generous word for this #if you want a formal essay with citations you can pay me :)#my poor little ghost boy #ask

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beetlegoose01 · 3 years

Text

it’s all so simple (one shot)

a short fic about Charlie and Albus bonding.

~~~~~~

I don't want to get married. I don't want to have children. I'm happy the way I am. And if you love me, you'll be happy for me too.

Charlie had recited that mantra for as long as he could remember. He told himself in the mirror before he was ready to tell his family. He told his favorite dragon Topaz as he was petting her scaly muzzle.

“There isn’t anything wrong with me!” He bellowed into a puddle, staring at his reflection stubbornly.

Topaz nudged him, tired of him venting to himself. He would laugh, run a hand through his messy red hair, and continue reminding himself that what he was feeling was normal. Wasn’t he?

His mum had persisted the most. Asking him every time he visited when was he ever going to find a nice young woman to settle down with. Eventually, he had told her firmly that the answer was never. He had fancied men for as long as he could remember. She, and the rest of the family had been accepting. He hadn't expected any less. But then the questions changed. When was he going to find a nice young man to marry and perhaps adopt children with.

At one point, he thought he had found someone. Alexander. A fellow dragon keeper. But he wanted things that Charlie couldn't give him. So it ended like that. Amicably, of course. No pressure involved, thank Merlin. But it still stung, like a burn from a dragon's breath. Except with less blood. And he recovered a lot faster and didn't need to cover it with a tattoo.

When he was a younger man, he had doubts about himself. When all of his siblings married and started to have kids of their own, the anxiety of being the odd one out definitely took a toll on him. Was there something wrong with him?

But as the years passed, those feelings subsided. He was happy where he was with his career. He loved his family. He loved his nieces and nephews and being the 'cool uncle' showing off his newest burns and scars-- usually overdramatizing the tale. And as time went on, finally his family stopped asking. That made his visits less stressful. He didn’t have to worry about them pestering him.

The summer visits to the Burrow were always a rare treat. Sometimes he couldn't come for various work reasons. But when he did, he was always excited. One particular afternoon, all of the kids decided to play a game of Quidditch in the garden. The adults were responsible for making sure none of them were injured and taking care of the little ones. Charlie relaxed from the back, enjoying the sunshine and counting each child to make sure they were included. Lily, Vic, Hugo, Dom, and Roxanne were one team, while James, Rose, Freddie, Louis, Molly Jr and Teddy were another.

"Hey!" Hugo shouted. "They have one more teammate!" He pointed at James' team.

Charlie frowned. He thought there were enough kids for sure. Yes, Lucy was only four and couldn't play but Albus...

"Come on, Al, you're on the blue team." James groaned, already frustrated from the heat and his little brother.

"I don't want to be on the blue team!' Albus said stubbornly. "I don't wanna be on any team. I hate Quidditch."

Several of the other children looked outraged. No Weasley hated Quidditch. It was in their blood.

"Don't be silly, Albus." Victoire said, looking at the younger boy kindly. "You don't mean that. Come on, we can be Beaters together." She offered him the bat, which he scowled and huffed away from.

"No, I don't want to." Albus shook his head furiously.

"He only hates it because he's bad at it." James mumbled under his breath.

"James!" Ginny snapped.

Albus, filled with rage, tossed the bat aside as he stormed away. It snapped in half from the impact. Lily and Hugo gasped in horror.

"Albus Severus, you're too old to be breaking things!" Harry rubbed his nose tiredly. "Come back here this instant!"

"I'll get him," Charlie offered, nodding at Ginny. "Don't worry Gin."

"Thanks Char." Ginny murmured.

Luckily it wasn't too hard to find a ten year old who seemed to think hiding behind a row of bushes and gnomes was a good hiding place. His heart dropped when he heard tiny sobs from behind the bush.

"Hey bud," Charlie awkwardly brushed aside the prickly bushes and sat beside the boy, who's eyes were puffy and red. He made sure his voice was quiet, approachable. Last thing he wanted was to be as stoic and apathetic as Percy.

"Go away. I don't want to play Quidditch." Albus said shakily. He turned to face Charlie, eyes shining with tears. He seemed to hesitate when he saw his favorite uncle.

"You don't have to, that's not why I'm here." Charlie assured him. "Just wanted to have a chat. Everything okay?"

Albus sniffed, shaking his head.

"Sorry, dumb question. Do you wanna talk about it?"

Albus was an open book, especially to Charlie, who had grown fonder and protective of the little Potter. He wasn't like his siblings or cousins. He was quiet, exceptionally bright but very timid.

"I'm not like them," He whispered, biting his lip. "I'm bad at everything."

Charlie snorted. "Really? The boy who nursed a wounded bowtruckle back to health at age eight is 'bad at everything'? Sorry if I find that hard to believe."

"But I'm not good at Quidditch."

"Quidditch isn't everything." Charlie said, summoning a handkerchief, which Al took gratefully.

"Still, I'm different." Albus said glumly. "They think I'm weird."

"Yes, you are. And that's what makes you so wonderful." Albus didn't look convinced, so he continued. "You know, you're a lot like me."

Al scoffed. "I don't play Quidditch though. You're brilliant, I've seen you play and I know you were Gryffindor captain. Mum told me."

Charlie nudged him softly. "I'm touched, mate. But no, what I mean is I was quiet too. I loved the outdoors, never really fit in with other kids my age. And that's okay."

"But you're so...cool."

"You are too! Well, maybe one day you'll be as cool as me. Though, don't aim for the impossible. Those aren't mutually exclusive."

Albus laughed lightly, which Charlie considered a win. But there was something in his eye that didn't seem right.

"Alright, Al?"

Albus fiddled with pieces of grass uncomfortably. He looked desperate to say something, but whatever was troubling him held him back.

"Is that why you never married?" He asked finally. Then he turned pink, mortified at how blunt that sounded. "I mean- not like you - I'm sorry I didn't mean to be rude."

Charlie chuckled, shaking his head. "S' alright, I'm not offended. To answer your question, er, no."

"I realize how horrible that sounded the second it came out." Albus said, looking down. "I'm really sorry."

"The simple answer is, despite my ruggedly handsome good looks and my charming personality, I chose not to marry." He explained, grinning. "I just didn't want to. I've dated several blokes-"

"Blokes?" Albus' eyes lit up, a moment that was so quick, anyone who wasn't Charles Weasley could have missed it.

"Heh, you bet." He ruffled Al's curls. "I dated, and I found out on my own I'm happy where I am. Just like you aren't forced to play Quidditch, I'm not forced to get married. Of course those two are completely different things but my point still stands. I love my family, my friends and career."

"And...that's okay?"

"Sure is. Why wouldn't it be?"

Albus seems satisfied with that answer. "I might not marry either." He said firmly.

"Eh?"

"When you get married, you become boring." Al explained as if it was obvious. "You're cool, and you have the best job on the planet. So...I think I'll be like you and stay single."

"Well, you're only ten-"

"I might date though." He said hastily. "Pretty girls, maybe. But I don't think I'm ready for that sort of commitment." He folded his hands, surprisingly mature.

"Again, you're only ten."

Albus shrugged, grinning cheekily. "Just kidding."

Charlie couldn't help but laugh. "We'll see. Don't worry too much though. Really you should wait until you know for sure. So...do you wanna play something? Just the two of us."

"Not Quidditch?"

"Nope. Whatever you want to play."

"Wizard Chess!" He looked up eagerly. "Please?"

Charlie nodded, a mischievous glint in his eye. "You're on."

And the remainder of the evening, Uncle and nephew played chess until their hearts were content.

#asexual character #fanfic #charlie weasley #asexual charlie weasley #gay charlie weasley #albus potter #next gen fic #harry potter next gen #charles weasley #albus severus potter #slice of life

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elitparadox · 3 years

Text

Life Goes On~ (Pt. 4)

↳ miya osamu x f!reader

↳ fluff, comedy??

↳ 2.6k

↳ status: ongoing

↳ parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

You suddenly appear in haikyuu after watching the show for weeks now, and you’re trying to find a way out. Deciding to make the most of it, you learn from these talented volleyball players, cuz why waste an opportunity? You weren’t meant to fall in love with any of them, but with Osamu’s alluring formosity and talent, you can’t help but rethink your life that has led up to this exact moment.

It’s Sunday afternoon. During the span of two days, you tried to contact someone who could help you, but it was no use, because of course, no one believed your story. On the other hand, you became a little bit more acquainted with Osamu and his too-clean apartment.

Sighing, you turn away from your borrowed laptop as you focus on Osamu’s pencil that was writing unfamiliar calculus signs on his homework paper.

“Wait- what am I going to do?”

“Hm?” Osamu doesn’t turn around as he responds.

“Don’t I have to enroll in your school? Which is the nearest one, I suppose. The hours will pass by too slowly for my liking, and I must receive my education”

Osamu’s gaze lands on you. “You could contact the principal and ask if you could attend for a few weeks with an excuse.. You’re a… 1st year?”

“Yeah.”

Silence fills the room as the two of you brainstorm.

“I guess I could do that; do you know what the principal’s phone number is? And we’ll call as an unknown number. Can you lend me your phone?”

Osamu shrugs as he enters a password, opening the calling app to the principal’s number, and hands over his phone, fingers accidentally brushing yours, making the atmosphere a little awkward.

You press the call button after quickly switching the number identity, and someone on the other end answers.

“Hello?”

“Hi.” quick. make up a name. You fake a cough, changing your voice tone. “I’m Kagai Yinimi, Y/N’s mother. We recently moved to Japan, and I have not yet found a school fit for Y/N, but tomorrow is supposed to be the day she needs to go to school. Is there any way you could clear a spot for her?”

“Excuse me?”

You didn’t realize you just spoke English. Then it hit you. The whisper from your dream. This situation now. You’re a polyglot. (someone who can speak multiple languages fluently) You weren’t one before. So had haikyuu changed anything about you? But most importantly, why can’t you control it?

*ahem* go with the weird-everything-goes-her-way mom tone. “I’M TELLING YOU- Y/N NEEDS HER EDUCATION! COULD YOU PLEASE CREATE A SPOT FOR HER?? SHE CAN CATCH UP, AND, UM, SHE SPEAKS JAPANESE TOO!!”

During this whole time, Osamu was looking at you with a “what the heck are you doing” expression.

You shoot him a “come help me” glance.

Osamu takes the phone from you, alters his voice tone, and says, “Sorry. My, uh, wife can’t speak Japanese yet. But she’s saying that we just moved here, and Y/N, our daughter” *pauses* “-needs a school. Is there a spot for her?”

Silence first. But after about fifteen seconds, he responds.

“Yes. However, the prefecture needs more information about this, um, transfer student. How old is she?”

“15.”

“Parents name…”

So, after forty minutes, Osamu was finally able to enter you in the school.

You feel too grateful to the point that guilt eats at you for what Osamu’s doing for you, although he did have to tell the principal lies, but only because he doesn’t know you well

As Osamu ends the call, he turns around and asks “so what was all that? You can speak fluent English?” You stare at him quizzically. “Of course I can! Do you think I’m uneducated??”

He laughs, but you notice a hint of relief. “No. But why did you speak English to the principal even though you could’ve talked to him in Japanese?”

“Uh- I- the thing is, well, I’m not sure if this theory is accurate,” you said slowly, “but I think that if I talk too quickly, I speak English and if i speak a little slower like right now, I talk in Japanese” you shrugged. “I don’t really know”

Osamu looks confused for a second. You can hear him mutter “things are really weird right now”

“Mhm. Sorry, but it really wasn’t my fault that i’m in another dimension” like hell it wasn’t

He sighs slightly, then suddenly looks a little less pressured. How did he manage to change his expression so quickly??? uwu

“anyways, the principal says that tomorrow morning you can visit the main office and pick up your schedule. I could take you there-”

You cut him off. “Again, it’s ok; you don’t really have to do that- Uh, also, don’t I need textbooks? Once again, I apologize-”

“No,. it’s fine. Like I said, I’m glad to help- As for the textbooks, the teacher gives them out at the beginning of the school year, but you could ask the office tomorrow”

He smiles- a little weary, but still breathtakingly beautiful.

“Thanks again.” You feel an urge to hug him right then, but you don’t, instead walking back to your room. Because, after all, you need to return to your home and away from everything you’ve seen in these past few days.

Several more hours pass, lapsing into the night, and then morning. 5:30 A.M.

You yawn, stretching your arms and kicking the covers. Another day, another chance.

Wait- why was it nearly 5:30 in the morning? Didn’t Osamu say yesterday that school started at 7:50? It was way ahead of your usual wake time.

You hastily brush your teeth, untangle your hair as quickly as possible, change into your own clothes, and open the door, tiptoeing across the living room toward the other room to ask Osamu why his usual alarm was set so early in the morning.

But he’s already up, making breakfast. He turns around and notices you walking strangely about the living room.

Shoot.

You fake-cough and stand up straight, brushing off imaginary debris from your shirt. “Good morning? Um, also why is your- I mean my alarm set at this time?

“Because we have volleyball practice, remember? And you asked me for help. So it would be rather convenient to watch us practice.”

“Oh yeahhhh- I forgot. Sorry. By the way, do you live by yourself? I mean, without your parents or any siblings?”

Osamu nods, his eyes still focused intently on whatever he’s cooking.

“Okay. Uh, I was also wondering what people would think if you, um, suddenly came to school after a weekend with an, uh, immigrant, or whoever they think I am. You know what I mean?”

“Oh.” He seems thoughtful. “I could say you’re my cousin who’s staying at my apartment for around a year” He shoots a look at you. “Because, you don’t really know when you’ll be returning, right?”

You glance at the clock. It’s exactly 5:39 A.M.

“Yeah. So when does practice start?”

“You do ask a lot of questions, huh?” You can see the hint of a smirk on his cheek, making you blush. “At 6 A.M.”

“So then why are you packing a lot of food?”

“My lunch, remember?” Now he finishes preparing the light breakfast and lunch, turning around. “And yours too.”

You stare at Osamu for a little longer than usual, but quickly catch yourself, averting your eyes from his.

“Thank you again. I really don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t there to help me.”

You chuckle. It was such a lucky turn of events to meet him.

“Well, we only have around ten minutes to finish breakfast and clean up, so let’s hurry.”

At approximately 6:00, you and Osamu enter a particularly large gym where a group of boys, the volleyball team, is warming up.

Whispers spread among them as they notice you following Osamu.

“Uh, ‘Samu? Who’s she?” A tall blond-haired boy, probably Atsumu, gestures toward you.

Ah, so he wasn’t the flirting type that your friends like. Better tell them after you get back. If you even get back. If they would even believe you then.

“Oh, Y/N? She’s our cousin. She’s staying at my apartment”

You were pretty sure everyone on the team noticed the glare he shot at Atsumu. And you desperately wanted to climb under a rock and never come out. Nobody would believe that story now.

“Uh, well I’m only here to observe your practice. I just wanted to see everyone’s volleyball techniques and learn from there! Since I really want to advance my volleyball skills-” You cut in.

Your insides were shaking from the looks these tall boys gave you. You personally didn’t like the fact that people would view you as only Osamu’s cousin, but on the other hand, things could get fun.

“Sorry if I’m wasting everyone’s practice time. I- I should go”

“No, it’s fine.” A silver haired boy, whom you noticed was Kita, steps forward. “It’ll be nice to have someone watching and learning from our practice. And so that some people-” he shoots a glance at the twins “-won’t fool around.”

Ah. So he noticed how serious Osamu acted in front of you.

“Thank you.” You look down at your tattered shoes.

Although a few members of the team look at you cautiously, the others smile at you kindly.

As practice continues, you notice that there isn’t a female manager anywhere in the gym. Shaking your head, you focus again on the practice rally raging on. It was amazing how you had never known any sport that would involve so much shouting to cooperate and energy to race after the ball.

You were taking mental notes on volleyball techniques when a ball whizzed past you. You could literally feel the force traveling with the ball near your cheek. But then again, you were used to that stuff.

It bounced off the side wall and miraculously ended up beside your left foot. You picked up the ball carefully, checking for the brand name, and contented, threw it toward the next server. Atsumu. You had watched their routine, and it seemed that someone on the team or on the sidelines would retrieve the ball depending on where it was. So you had no worries of being judged. But all those thoughts vanished as Atsumu frowns at you.

And without even knowing the reason why he did so, you frown right back. It isn’t a big deal, but you decide that you would get over with Osamu’s twin brother right now. But then he smirks, averting his hazel eyes from you.

Out of the corner of your eye, a boy with weird dark hair turns away, clicking away on his phone.

“So what’s the deal with my brother?” Osamu asks as he leads you to the principal’s office at 7:20.

“Oh, nothing, just that he’s kinda rude?? And he doesn’t even know me! So why does he act like I’m his enemy? Wait- sorry I didn’t mean-”

“I agree.”

“HUh?” You looked at him, slightly amazed. “Oh yeah. You fight all the time.” No surprise there. “Welp, let’s see if we have any classes together in my new schedule”

Two minutes later~

“crot this” you mutter under your breath. “What am I supposed if I only have one class with you? If someone bullies me, I won’t make it out alive!!” you complained, voice lowering by the second as students nearby shoot looks at you. You could only imagine what they were thinking that had something to do with the new student, you.

“You’re exaggerating. It’s okay though, you have a class with Kita and two with Atsumu”

“oH okay, so you’re saying I have to put up with him??”

“Ignore him” He shrugs, indifferent about your so-called situation.

“Okay....”

The first part of the day went by fine. Except for some skeptical and often rude looks thrown in your direction, the teachers seemed kind and schoolwork was a breeze.

Holding the lunch Osamu prepared for you in a paper bag, you walk tentatively toward an empty table when you hear a voice behind you.

“Why don’t you come eat with us?”

You don’t need to turn around because Osamu’s already walking next to you.

“Maybe the others won’t feel comfortable? After all, I’m a stranger who randomly appeared in their school gym to watch them just practice?? Sounds suspicious, even to me. By the way, why did you lend me a room in your apartment? I bet others wouldn’t have, out of fear that they’ll be murdered or whatever”

Osamu stays silent for quite a while, and you two are nearing the volleyball team’s lunch table. You’re wondering whether you should apologize, but he says coolly, “That’s a good question. Although this might not make any sense, I invited you to stay because from the moment I saw you, a small voice in my mind said to help you” He shrugs. “It actually happened, believe it or not. How things have gotten weird these days”

Your mind’s racing for the nineteenth time today as you sit on a metal chair between Osamu and the dark-haired boy, Suna.

You don’t realize that you’re staring blankly into space until Osamu snaps his fingers in your face and says “Aren’t you going to eat your lunch?”

You shake your head to clear up your thoughts. “Yeah. Right.”

You pull out a recyclable container from the lunch bag, fumbling with the lid holds.

It was then all hell broke loose.

And everything from here seemed like a movie on 2x speed.

You accidentally knocked down Osamu’s thermos/bottle, which was still open, and coffee spilled all over his lap and the floor.

You desperately grabbed some napkins and tried to clean up the mess while students from the other tables were bending over backwards to memorize this scene well, because it’s not every day someone spills water over someone’s lap and there’s chaos brewing in a normal high school.

Suna was capturing the whole thing on camera, and Atsumu- well, Atsumu he actually was trying to help.

But of course, that went wrong, because he somehow slipped on the floor drenched with water and landed flat on his back.

Then a bunch of girls ran over one another to help him, and a teacher nearby rushed over to smooth things out.

You figured that everything would be fine, because after all, it was a small accident, but some idiot decided it would be funny to throw his burger right in your face. See where I’m going with this? People shouldn’t follow this action, except: monkey see, monkey do. And humans are connected to monkeys, apes, whatever. So, just like in a cheesy cliche movie clip, a food fight commenced.

Fast forward a couple more minutes after lunch ends…

You sigh, rubbing your forehead. You’re seated in the principal’s office on a firm wooden chair next to Osamu, half-listening to the principal’s lecture.

“First day of school and...blah blah... due to inappropriate blah blah, you are suspended-”

The moment your brain heard and processed the word “suspended” your defense mode activated and you started to protest about how it wasn’t your fault and people shouldn’t suppose that you’re a troublemaker just because it’s your first day of school here

The principal sighs. “I understand, but since we don’t have a janitor, you and the other kid-” he nods at Osamu “- will kindly clean up the mess.”

You sink in the chair, your hopes deflating by the second. “Okay.” A second later, Osamu nods in acquiesce. It would be a hard day tomorrow.

The principal seems to read your mind because he adds, “Oh- and you two start today.”

reblogs are always appreciated! thank you for reading :)

#haikyuu #hq!!#osamu x reader #miya osamu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu!!#haikyuu fanfiction #miya osamu x reader #haikyuu x you #haikyuu x y/n

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capybaraonabicycle · 3 years

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A Family Wedding - Part 4

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Rating: Teen

Summary: Jenny meets her mums’ friends and the wedding is drawing to an end

Warnings: Some innuendo and the dagger makes another appearance, also consummation of alcohol

Words: ~3000

AO3

Eventually, they made their way back to the party. The Doctor wanted to introduce her daughter to some of her friends and the Ponds had agreed that her and River couldn’t completely ignore their duty as hosts. Thus, Jenny spent the rest of the very long night talking to an endless number of people who were important to her mum in one way or another.

Bill and Heather immediately decided they were basically cousins and had to get together for space trips some time. Bill wrote her number onto a napkin and made Jenny promise she would get a phone so they could stay in contact. She also talked a lot about the eyebrows-version of her mum, saying it was a shame Jenny missed him. But at least now she got two badass mums and according to Bill, that was pretty perfect when it came to parents.

Missy, her mum’s best woman, casually mentioned she should abduct Jenny, as it would be the perfect leverage over her mum. This remark made Amy threaten her with the cake knife while Rory protectively put his arms around Jenny. Missy made a point of ignoring Jenny’s grandparents, promising Jenny would meet one of her regenerations again soon.

“Your mum is obsessed with me, Honeybunch” she said, trailing her nails over the blade of Amy’s knife thoughtfully, “I’m sure she will come running again with you in tow to foil my next brilliant plan. She can’t let me be on my own for a second. It’s quite embarrassing, really.”

She gave a little dramatic sigh at this, pushing the knife away to move past Jenny. “She just loves me so much.”

Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and Petronella Osgood were luckily part of an earlier version of UNIT than the one, Jenny had enraged. They were fascinated by her and she had to describe in great detail how the machine worked that had birthed her.

“Now, Kate” the Doctor warned her when she walked by and overheard, “Don’t you dare try building that device. I will come and destroy it, I promise you.”

Prompted by Jenny’s heartbroken gaze she explained why she was against the machine, recounting how it had been used to produce soldiers, dispensable to die in a day.

“Maybe I should build one then, the next time you are not traceable, Doctor” Kate joked to the Doctor’s affront, “Just so you’ll come running.”

Clara tried teaching Jenny the names of her Gallifreyan relatives. Apparently, she had met some of the Doctor’s family when she had been something she called an ‘echo’. It was quite confusing, really, because the Doctor kept contradicting her and neither of them were really sure how many siblings, nieces and nephews Jenny had in total. It was still great fun to see them argue whether the people they remembered actually existed and how they were related to her.

Captain Jack Harkness got as far as introducing himself to Jenny, when the Doctor already shot in between them.

“Back off my daughter, Jack” she growled, pressing both her palms into his chest to physically keep him from touching Jenny.

“Your daughter?” Jack asked, his eyebrows wandering up to his hairline.

“My daughter, Jenny” her mum presented proudly, just to return to her strict voice the next second, “And you are not to flirt with her.”

“I was just saying ‘hello’!” Jack complained which made her almost strangle him.

“Ianto Jones” the man next to Jack presented himself to Jenny very softly, considering the wrestling couple with quiet confusion and some distress, “His boyfriend.”

“Ah” Jenny said, grimacing, “So sorry for this.”

That made Ianto smile.

“Right back at you” he murmured.

Martha and Mickey found Jenny, when she was sharing a piece of wedding cake with River, expressing their relief that Jenny seemed welcome in the family. They talked about Donna for a while and Jenny learned that their friend had lost her memories after saving the Earth from Daleks.

Her mum recounted how when the Doctor first met her, Donna had been there, too. They exchanged a few stories about her, unanimously deciding they would have loved to know her better. Martha and Mickey said they sometimes checked up on her.

"Only from afar, though" Martha sighed. "She can't see us or else her memories might get triggered."

She and Mickey then told Jenny about their job, how they were freelancers now, hunting hostile aliens.

"Sounds fun" River commented and Jenny had to agree.

"You could join us some time" Martha offered, "Both of you."

"Really?" Jenny asked delightedly, grabbing River's arm in excitement.

"Of course" Mickey grinned, "It always pays to have some backup."

They added their phone number to Bill’s on the napkin and promised to let Jenny know the next time they had an interesting assignment.

“How is everyone immediately adopting me?” Jenny asked Yaz, Ryan and Graham, when they had proclaimed her part of the ‘fam’ as soon as they heard she was the Doctor’s daughter.

She had already gotten the invite to travel with Bill and Heather, Clara and Me and to live with her grandparents, Martha and Mickey, Jack and Ianto, Sarah Jane Smith and even the Paternoster Gang, although she had tried to avoid them after the pudding incident.

"The Doctor is family" Ryan shrugged. "Which means you're family, too."

The other two nodded in agreement.

“And we all know you can use the support with her being your mother” Ryan continued with a low chuckle, and Jenny stared at him with wide eyes.

“It’s nothing bad” he hurried to appease, “The Doctor’s great, she’s just…”

“The Doctor” Graham finished, and Ryan nodded as if all was said now.

“She’s a little chaotic” Yaz tried to explain.

Graham snorted, “Yeah, right, a little.”

“And irresponsible” Yaz added, “And most of the time you can’t understand a thing of what she’s doing or saying. And the things she does…they tend to go wrong.”

“But she’s wonderful” Ryan said and the other two nodded again.

“‘Brilliant’” Graham said with a low chuckle.

“She’s the best person I know” Yaz ended with a smile and Jenny found herself returning it.

“And you’ll have River and me travelling with you” Yaz concluded, gently nudging her with her elbow, “We’ll take care of you and among the three of us, we’ll also manage to take care of her.”

Jenny was just talking to a head in a box and a nice couple owning an antiquarian bookstore, when her mums approached her. They were exchanging conspirative glances and the Doctor was hiding her hands behind her back, so Jenny immediately decided whatever they were up to was more interesting than the blonde guy’s obsession with easter eggs. She excused herself and made her way over to her mums.

“River said you might still feel insecure about whether the TARDIS is your home” the Doctor said without greeting, “So, I got you a gift.”

She revealed a tiny package from behind her back with great flourish. It wasn’t much bigger than her thumb, obviously wrapped in leftovers from her own wedding gifts. Without knowing what was inside, Jenny decided it couldn’t have been more perfect.

“Thank you” she beamed and hurried to open her present.

Unfortunately, that was almost impossible for the amount of tape her mum had used. Now that she paid attention to it, it became apparent the Doctor had fought quite the fight against the tape - strips of it were also sticking to her suit jacket and her forearms. One even made its way into River’s hair and Jenny dreaded the moment she would find out about it. Luckily, she missed it when she wordlessly reached into her hairdo upon seeing Jenny struggling. She pulled out the mini dagger again, handing it over to her. With its help, the tape and wrapping paper soon were torn, and a silver key fell into Jenny’s hand.

“It’s for the TARDIS” the Doctor explained. “Now you can come and go whenever you like and stay as long as you like.”

“And once I’ve shown you how to fly her you can also use it to take the TARDIS out on your own whenever you like” River supplemented, and the Doctor glared at her.

“Don’t you dare encourage Jenny to steal my TARDIS!” she grumbled, “It’s bad enough when you do it.”

Then she turned and beamed at Jenny again. “But yeah, pretty much: Welcome to the TARDIS!”

Jenny felt herself tear up a little, clutching the key tightly. It was real! She had a family and a home and she was welcome.

She pulled both her mums into a hug, smiling when they embraced her tightly.

“Thank you so much” she murmured.

Suddenly, an aggressive flash blinded her.

“Oops, sorry” Bill said, lowering a vintage looking camera from her face. “It wasn’t supposed to do that.”

She fumbled with the flash a little bit until Heather took over and switched it off. When Bill raised her gaze again and noticed the whole family was still staring at her, she blushed.

“Don’t mind me”, she said. “I’m just repaying a favour. Have been taking pictures all night. You will want something to remember this day by, Doctor. And yeah, I recalled what you did for me with my mum and thought…I should do that for you, too.”

She smiled sheepishly and the Doctor looked like she was about to melt.

“That is a lovely idea, Bill” River found, pulling Jenny and the Doctor close again to pose for another shot, “You know what? We should get my parents and do a proper family photo!”

“Did I hear family photo?” Jack said, miraculously turning up behind Bill with Ianto in tow. “Can’t do that without uncle Jack!”

“Oh, they most definitely can” Missy chuckled, appearing next to him. “This is not about you, puppy. It’s just for real family members. Like me.”

She pushed past him, positioning herself next to the Doctor and facing the camera with a thin but content smile. “I’m ready when you are, Loves.”

“Uh, yeah, that’s not happening” Jack decided, joining River’s side and slinging his arm around her waist, pulling Ianto with him into the frame.

While Bill shot the photo, Jenny could see more guests taking notice, some approaching them fairly quickly.

“Seems like everybody wants to have their picture taken with you” River whispered to her and Jenny chuckled.

“I am 100% certain it’s about you and mum” she answered although she couldn’t deny she felt important in the middle of the frame that more and more people crowded into.

“You should be in the picture, Bill” the Doctor called out when Sarah Jane was ushering a couple of teenagers and a metal dog to sit down in front of them. “If anyone’s family, it’s you! Just give the camera to Nardole.”

“Yeah, thank you, Ma’am” Nardole frowned. “Always a pleasure to know how much you appreciate me.”

He still took the camera from Bill and she and Heather hurried to the space the Doctor and Jenny cleared between them. It was a little tight now as Missy refused to budge but Jenny just threw one arm around River and the other around Bill and smiled for the photo Nardole shot of them.

It took a while until everybody who wanted to be in the photo had found their place and someone had tracked down a waitress to take the picture. In the meantime, a lot of quirky photos were shot by and of various combinations of the Doctor’s friends. Later they would be glued to the walls of the TARDIS hallways and Jenny would come back to them often to trail the faces of her mums’ loved ones and remember the night.

There would be a picture of Mickey and Martha kissing with Amy photobombing behind them, a picture of Wilf and Rory having exchanged their suit jackets and beaming like idiots and a picture of Jenny, Bill, Heather, Nardole, Yaz and Ryan in a group hug that Graham took as a very blurry selfie. There would be a picture of when Jack had decided to hoist Jenny onto his shoulders and another one of when Clara, Ryan and Yaz had followed suit, respectively carrying the Doctor, Graham and Bill on their backs with varying degrees of success.

Then there would be a picture of Jenny with her namesake which had made them giggle way too much, and another picture that the other Jenny had taken of her with Vastra and Strax, because ‘no-one would see the difference’. Which was an even sillier joke but made Jenny understand how much she liked the Paternoster gang after all. Especially because Vastra and Jenny had promised her fencing lessons between the shots.

There would be a picture of her mums kissing both of Missy’s cheeks simultaneously while Missy wore a decidedly unimpressed expression, a picture of Kate, Osgood, Martha and the Doctor trying to evoke an air of semi-professionalism as ‘UNIT-representatives’ that was completely ruined by the mess of people goofing around behind them and finally the Pond family picture River had asked for. They had to take three versions: one featuring Missy, one Jack and one on which both had begrudgingly left them alone.

But Jenny’s favourite photo would always be the one they took in the end, before everybody dispersed and went on to enjoy the party. The big group photo, with her mums in the focus and everyone surrounding them. The photo they took while she was standing right beside them, between her grandparents, Rory’s arm around her shoulder and Amy’s hand in hers and the happiest smiles possible on all their faces.

Then it was finally time to leave. Almost all the guests had gone and Clara and Ashildr were collecting the last of them in their diner-shaped TARDIS. All that was left now were Jenny, her parents and her grandparents.

“We’re taking…the kid…with us” Amy said. She was slurring and Jenny presumed she had found another bottle of vodka.

“No, why?” the Doctor complained, clutching at Jenny’s arm. She seemed a little drunk as well, although Jenny couldn’t fathom how. There had been next to no alcohol in the pink drinks. “I’ve let you have her the whole evening already.”

“Jenny will come visit us soon” Rory tried to reassure Amy. His ductus was considerably clearer than hers, but he was swaying a little as well. “She has promised, remember?”

Jenny’s hearts swell a little when she understood Amy must have recounted their discussion on the balcony to him. They’d been talking about her!

“We’re still -taking her” Amy decided, “Or do I needo…- do I need to remind you …what happened in our wedding night?”

“I did” River supplemented smirking. Rory went very pale while Jenny shrieked, hiding her face in River’s shoulder.

Her mum chuckled, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

“Go with your grandparents, Love” she advised, pulling her into a hug and kissing her cheek, when Jenny looked up at her, “Have a splendid night at their place and we’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Thanks, mum” she grinned, returning the kiss to the cheek. Then she turned around to the Doctor.

“We’ll come pick you up first thing in the morning” her mum said, holding her tightly, “I promise.”

“I know” Jenny murmured, amazed by how sure she was of that now, “Have a good night, mum.”

“Oh, she will” River said. The Doctror spluttered and Jenny tensed.

“Mu-um!” she complained, giving her a stern glance. Still, she couldn’t help smiling, when she added: “I hate you!”

River threw her head back laughing.

“No, you don’t” she said.

“We’ll be there tomorrow” the Doctor repeated when she let Jenny go.

“For once…-I am hoping, sh-she will be a month late” Amy murmured, pressing Jenny to her side and thus swaying her lightly.

“How about breakfast at the Ponds together? As a compromise?” the Doctor offered, and Jenny nodded quickly.

“That sounds perfect” she said, and her mum beamed at her.

“Breakfast it is, then” she decided, “Don’t you lot worry, I can bring the custard creams.”

“Yeah, give us till noon, though, Doctor” Rory mumbled, “I’ll need a lot of sleep now.”

“We’re not goingdo - going to sleep” Amy complained, “We’ll have an afda-afterparty. Movies,… facemasks, goss-gosspip.”

She pulled a face at her own slurring which made Jenny chuckle.

“Yeah, you don’t really b-believe that either” Rory commented, gently taking her arm and steering her towards Clara’s TARDIS. He stopped himself to yawn loudly and reach for Jenny’s hand. “Let’s get all of us to bed.”

They waved goodbye and then Jenny took Rory’s hand and followed her grandparents to the diner. Before they passed the TARDIS, she turned around one last time, seeing her mums standing in the ever-setting sun on Darillium. They were facing each other, River’s hand cupping the Doctor’s cheek, the Doctor’s hands on her shoulders and talking in quiet voices. They seemed perfectly comfortable with each other, exhausted, but happy, like they had finally arrived home after a very long journey.

‘We all have’ Jenny thought, when they started slowly kissing and she turned around to her grandparents again, ‘We’ve all come home now.’

Hey :) Thank you so much for reading this series! This is the end, at least of the wedding and of the story, but I’m sure Jenny is about to have many adventures with her mums. Thank you so much to everyone who has left comments, you are all incredibly kind! <3

And thank you so much @elsaistherelifeonmars for letting me play with your story! <3

This fic is inspired by ‘The Wedding of River Song’. Go, check it out, if you haven’t already :)

#dw #doctor who #fanfiction #a family wedding #thirteen/river #the doctor/river song #thirteenth doctor #river song #jenny #the doctor's daughter #amy/rory #amy pond #rory williams #alcohol #daggers

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skateboardtotheheart · 3 years

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Alex vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda

hello, everyone! i’ve been working on a fic titled “Alex vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda” for quite a long while, and i’m finally biting the bullet and posting the first chapter. this fic is based on the novel "Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda" by Becky Albertalli! it will be very closely based on the book, as well as some things from the movie "Love, Simon", and you may find dialogue or details that you recognize from either version of Becky Albertalli's story! i have no rights to the novel/movie or the JATP characters depicted in this fic. that said, there are a lot of details that are changed, and you'll be able to spot those really easily. this fic will be crossposted to my AO3 and can be located HERE.

like i said, this fic has been a long time coming, and there is tons and tons i have planned for it. here on tumblr, i will be posting things like extra details, bonus content, and maybe some sneak previews! for now, let’s get into the fic!

SUMMARY: Alex Mercer is just like everyone else- only he has one huge ass secret. Nobody knows that he's gay, not even his closest friends and bandmates Luke, Reggie, and Julie. The only time he's ever mentioned it to someone, it was in an anonymous email chain with Ghost, another Los Feliz High School student. Alex can't risk coming out to anyone, but when his emails fall into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into a spotlight. Suddenly an already stressful junior year is all that more complicated as he juggles everyday drama, the school's annual band competition, blackmail, and trying not to lose his shot with the best guy he's ever met.

READ CHAPTER ONE BELOW THE CUT

Everything about this conversation is so out of the box of normal that I barely even register what's happening. Of course I'm the type of person who can't tell when this- something so crazy and awful and stressful and honest to God what the hell is happening- is going on. In my defense, Caleb Covington has never spoken to me before. I had no reason to assume that the first time he did, it would be to blackmail me.

We're taking a water break in the bleachers when Caleb saunters over. No greeting, no introduction- just words to send my entire junior year of high school spinning on its head.

"I read your email."

I swallow my water. "What?"

Caleb raises an eyebrow at me, and there's no other way to describe it but menacing. It's funny looking back on it all; I'd always heard Caleb was a really nice guy.

"I was in the library. And I read your email."

"You read my email?"

"Not on purpose. You really should have logged out of Gmail."

There's nothing I can do but stare at him, dumbfounded. What in the name of David Bowie is happening right now?

Caleb, thankfully, stops towering over me and takes a seat in the bleachers, a foot or so away. To anyone else, it might look like we're friends. To me, it feels like I can't breathe.

"Why the fake name?" Caleb asks, and my entire soul screams a wish that he would stop being so casual about this.

I want to tell him that the point of a fake name is to keep people like Caleb Covington from knowing my secret. Way to freaking go, Alex. He must have seen me sitting at the computer like the monumental dumbass I am.

"Would it interest you to know my cousin is gay?"

"Um. No, Caleb. It really wouldn't."

He still has his eyebrow raised and a small smirk on his face. If I focus hard enough- kind of impossible right now- I can picture Luke punching it right off his face.

"What do you want Caleb?"

This is the longest five minute water break of my life.

"Look, Mercer, I don't have a problem with it. It's not a big deal."

Yes, it really is. It's a huge monster of a deal. This is the biggest disaster since Luke slammed his fingers in a door and couldn't play his guitar.

"But. . ." Caleb drags out, and I can feel my leg bouncing quicker by the second. "It's pretty clear to me that you'd rather keep it all hush, hush."

I mean. Yeah. Kind of. The coming out thing doesn't scare me that much. Except it does. Because if people know then my parents will know and if my parents know then my whole family will know and if my whole family knows then I've become like a living, gay, everyone-finds-out version of If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, and I'd rather die than have that happen. So maybe the coming out thing does scare me. But the biggest problem if people found out?

Ghost.

I have absolutely no idea what it would mean for Ghost if Caleb was going to tell anyone. The thing about Ghost is he's a pretty private person. I bet he wouldn't forget to log out of his email so people like Caleb Covington wouldn't see it. I bet there's a good chance he'll never forgive me if he finds out about this. So really, I have absolutely no freaking clue what would happen to Ghost- to us.

And I'm still sitting in these stupid gym bleachers, the pink hydroflask Reggie bought me limp in my hand, desperately wishing Carrie would call an end to this godforsaken water break. I can't believe I'm having this conversation with Caleb right now. Why couldn't anyone else have logged into Gmail after me? Why was I so impatient to see if Ghost had emailed me back that I used the freaking school computers? Why did this stupid school insist on blocking the wireless so I had had no choice but to use the school computers? But it had been one of those days where I couldn't even wait to get out of dance practice to check my phone in my car.

I'd emailed Ghost this morning, and it had been a pretty big email. I was desperate to know if he'd emailed back.

I must have been just staring at Caleb for a while because he cocked his head at me and said, "Don't worry, Mercer. I'm not going to show anyone."

I take a relieved breath. Then my hydroflask finally slips from my fingers as I freeze, and the sound echoes through the gym. I don't even look at the rest of the dancers when their laughs break out.

"Show anyone?" I ask.

Caleb leans in a little bit, smirk wider on his face. I feel sick.

"Did you- oh my god, did you screenshot my emails?"

"Yes, see, I wanted to talk to you about that."

"You took a fucking screenshot?" I hiss out, thankful I'd put my stuff farther away from the rest of the dance team today.

Caleb has the audacity to roll his eyes. "I've heard you're in a band with-"

"What the fuck does that have to do with- Let's go back to how you screenshot my email."

"Or you can shut up and listen to what I have to say."

Something about the way Caleb's gaze catches you, it's hard to do anything but what he says. Fuck.

"I believe we may be in a position to help each other out."

Jesus Christ, what 18 year old talks like this?

"Why the hell would I do anything for you?"

It's a stupid question, I realize as he stares at me calmly. Calmly. Like this isn't the end of my life. Whatever he wants right now, it'll be in exchange. I do this, and he doesn't broadcast my private emails with Ghost to the entire student body.

All this time and I really thought Caleb was supposed to be this nice guy. Fuck me.

"You're going to make me do whatever you want?"

Caleb tsk'd like the condescending bastard he clearly is. "Well, now. I'm not making you do anything."

"But if I don't help you, you'll what? Post my emails on the fucking tumblr?"

LosFelizSecrets. The bane of every Los Feliz student's existence. Ground zero for more gossip than anyone in their right mind knows what to do with. A school of almost 3,000 kids but if it's on the tumblr, most people know within a day. A complete and utter hellscape disguised as a blog.

When Caleb stays quiet, I speak again. "What do you want from me, Caleb?"

He sneers.

"Music of the Night."

Once again, I'm stuck staring at him. Music of the Night? That's what this is about?

"Your band is signed up, as is mine. The HGC lost to Dirty Candy last year, and I will not lose again this year."

Music of the Night is this competition Los Feliz holds every year as part of the music program. At the end of the year, there's this huge concert held at the Orpheum theatre in Hollywood. At the beginning of the school year, anyone can sign up. Then each band has 4 months to perform at school events, outside gigs and parties, and whenever they have an opportunity, really. During winter break, the student body votes on who the headliner of the concert will be. Last year, the headliner was Dirty Candy. Because they won last year, they're out of the running this year and are in charge of organization and things for the concert. This year, I was hoping the headliner would be Julie and the Phantoms. My band. Caleb and his band HGC has entered the competition every year, and he's never won. He's a senior, and I know this will be his last chance. I also know who his biggest competition is.

Us.

"So. . . what? You want me to sabotage my own band?"

I feel breathless and dizzy as I ask. Caleb just shrugs casually.

"Whatever you need to do. So long as it's my band that gets the votes. Like I said, I think we can help each other out. Think about it."

Caleb winks- he actually winks- and walks away. I stare dumbly after him. No way. No, I'm not doing this. I can live with being outed. Right?

But my thoughts travel to Ghost. Because he's a part of this, too. He goes to Los Feliz, and he's my age, and he uses a fake name, and he's not out.

Ghost isn't out, and Caleb has my emails.

Fuck.

----------

Any hope I have of forgetting about that stupid conversation clearly isn’t worth it. I have an hour before dinner, and right now I’m basically willing to do anything to avoid my family. Trying to talk to my parents is exhausting. You can’t just get away with telling them your day was good or bad. No, you have to ring out every excruciating little detail. Everything that happens in my or my siblings’ life, they want to know about it. In all honesty, I used to love telling them all that stuff. Now I can’t get away from them fast enough. Especially today. I’m barely in the house long enough to put my backpack in my room before I’m slipping out the back door and leaving again.

I try to drown out my thoughts with Axl Rose screaming into my earbuds. But my mind is stuck on Ghost, emails, and Caleb freaking Covington. Caleb wants to win Music of the Night. I can’t exactly blame him for that. Everyone wants to win it.

Except he’s blackmailing me. And by extension, he’s blackmailing Ghost. And that makes me want to hyperventilate a little bit. Maybe go scream somewhere.

But Axl Rose is helping. The familiar route of walking to Luke’s is helping. We don’t get much of a fall in LA, but the air feels a little crisper in mid October, and I can already see the houses that are getting ready for Halloween.

When I reach Luke’s house, I don’t even bother going through the front door. I just cut through his backyard and head through the backdoor right next to Luke’s bedroom. I hear them before I see them. Reggie’s laugh fills the air, paired with a frustrated groan from Luke. They’re sitting side by side on Luke’s bed, facing the small tv with some video game I’ve never seen on the screen. They look like they haven’t moved in hours. Luke pauses the game as soon as he sees me, waving, and I can’t help but smile a little bit. The guy won’t put down his guitar for you, but he’ll pause a video game or movie without a second thought.

“Great, you’re here! Tell Luke he’s shit at this game and he should let me play Mario Kart.”

I roll my eyes, “Dance was great, Reg. Thanks for asking.”

Reggie sticks out his tongue, and I crack a smile. This is the most comfortable I’ve felt all afternoon. I throw myself into the beat up bean bag chair Luke keeps in his room.

“Luke, you’re shit at this game and Reggie wants to play Mario Kart.”

Luke gapes at me, a betrayed gleam in his eyes, but I just shrug. Luke grumbles a bit as he gets up to switch out the game, and Reggie whoops in victory. I let out a soft sigh. I think I needed this. The chaos of Reggie and Luke playing whatever game, the strange mix of leather, Axe, and his mom’s Hawaiian Breeze cleaner that makes Luke’s room smell awful and entirely wonderful at the same time, and the familiarity of Luke and Reggie. Everything just fits right when I’m with them.

As Luke sets up the game, Reggie looks at me excitedly. “Alex, Luke hasn’t heard about le wedgie.”

I snort a little, “Ah, yes. Le wedgie. C’est une histoire touchante.”

I don’t know why Reggie bothered to wait for me to tell the story; he’s the far better storyteller between us. Maybe it’s just because I’m better at French.

Luke stares at me, “English, please?”

Reggie and I thought we’d be fancy and take something fun like French for our required language credits. Luke decided to take something actually useful and learn sign language. This story is stupid, and my reenactment is stupid, but it feels kind of perfect. Like Caleb and secrets are all things of my imagination, and nothing exists but this bedroom and me, Luke, and Reggie. Benefits of having known these dorks since elementary school, I guess.

About as they finish the second race in Mario Kart, Luke lets out a yawn. Reggie reacts so quickly I barely realize what he’s doing. He grabs a crumpled up Hershey’s Kiss wrapper from Luke’s nightstand and throws it into Luke’s mouth. Luke sees it just in time to clamp his mouth shut. Reggie sighs in defeat, but shrugs.

“Keep yawning, I’ll get you one of these times.”

“Why are you so tired?”

“Because I party real hard. All night, every night, baby,” Luke says, slamming Reggie’s bike with a green turtle shell.

“Alone in your room with your guitar. Some party that is,” Reggie retaliated with a bomb thrown in Luke’s direction.

As the race finishes Luke yawns again, and Reggie’s Kiss wrapper bounces off his cheek.

“I just keep having these weird dreams,” he explains.

I raise my eyebrows. “TMI, dude.”

“Not that kind of dream!” Luke tosses the wrappers at me, Reggie cackling beside him.

Luke starts explaining his dream- something about every time he started playing his guitar his cord had magically unplugged itself from his amp- and Reggie and I just share a look. We were used to Luke being in his weird, feels-the-need-to-analyze-everything moods. But even after all these years, it was almost like a movie, watching Luke get so weirdly passionate about things- music and otherwise. It made me glad that Luke was a brother to me by everything but blood. Partly because if he wasn’t, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop myself from falling for him. And I have a strict policy about not falling for straight guys.

To everyone but me and Reggie- immune to him after knowing pretty much every thought that’s ever gone through his head since elementary school- there’s this pull to Luke. Like he casts a spell that has everyone in a 10 mile radius tripping at his feet and each and every girl swooning. Poor Julie is not immune to the spell, it seems. Lucky for her though, Luke doesn’t seem immune to her either.

It took barely a few weeks into the school year before I noticed Luke switching seats with Willie Meyers at lunch to increase the odds he’d end up right next to Julie. Then there’s that stupid, puppy-dog, love-sick look in his eyes that Luke gets every time he thinks Julie isn’t looking. And it’s not like Reggie and I haven’t put up with a pining Luke before, but everything seems a little different with Julie. It makes me think of Ghost.

Would I look like that if I saw him in person? Would he look at me like that?

If Caleb leaks my emails and Ghost hates me forever, I don’t think I’ll ever find out.

-----------

chapter one complete!

i'll let everyone know right now that i have no clear updating schedule for this fic; it's kind of hard to write and get down the way i want, so i'm not sure how long anything will take me. but it is summer break for me, so hopefully you'll all start seeing consistent posting of new chapters!

i hope you all liked this first chapter, or are at least intrigued to read some more. as i said in the starting notes, this will be cross posted to my AO3! Feel free to leave me a comment here if you would like, or head over there if you have any comments about the fic at any point! feel free to send me a message/ask on here if you have any questions or comments, too! my inbox is open any time <3

if anyone would like me to start a tag list, let me know and i’ll get that done right away!

this fanfic is definitely my baby, so i really hope you guys all like it as much as i do!

thanks <3

#jatp #julie and the phantoms #jatp fanfic #fanfiction #alex mercer #willie jatp #luke patterson #reggie peters #julie molina #willex #simon vs the homo sapiens agenda #love simon #alternate universe #willex fic #owen patrick joyner #booboo stewart #alex vs the homo sapiens agenda #AvtHSA

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muchymozzarella · 4 years

Text

I just watched the Cuties / Mignonnes movie on Netflix and honestly, I loved it. It isn’t for everyone though. I also have a feeling that a lot of the controversy comes from whatever baggage you bring with you to the film.

It’s not the most comfortable movie to watch, first of all, but it’s not exactly vague about its message. In fact, it paints a fairly clear picture of what happens when you take a girl going through a difficult situation and tell her she has to pick between Religious Womanly Purity and being Sexy And Desired and force her to choose when she’s way too young to be making any sort of choice in either direction.

More of my thoughts below - spoilers for the film, and content warning for personal experience with childhood sexuality and how that plays into the film’s content and themes.

I think Americans will have a hard time taking this movie’s message as it is presented, because American media is so polarising -

it’s either you’re watching two adults pretend to be teenagers fucking all over the place or you pretend kids are 10000% non-sexual entities who will only magically become so at age 18, instead of realising that kids and teens are doing their own growing up and it’s deeply uncomfortable and awkward to observe how they try to copy overtly sexual content they get access to without fully understanding what it entails or why they shouldn’t be doing it.

But I think that international films can present something more nuanced, especially when it comes to sexuality - since America’s puritanical culture and overly sexual counterculture has fucked it up so thoroughly.

Cuties reminds me a bit of how I was as a kid. I got my period when I was 11. I got my first bra when I was 8. I started masturbating when I was 10. I started accessing porn when I was 12 - though to be fair it was all doujin and fanfic lol.

The movie itself happens as follows:

Main character Amy is 11 and Muslim Senegalese, and she’s shown to largely be bored with the religious proceedings, and is explicitly told in the beginning by an Auntie in the religious group about how women should be pure and modest. She’s close with her mother, but the relationship is fraught. Her father has taken on another wife, and Amy is feeling resentful and angry toward him, but Amy’s mom has to help host the wedding even though she’s clearly pained by his decision.

In their apartment, Amy meets Angelica, who’s part of a clique of girls who dress sexy and want to take part in a dance competition. Amy does everything she can to be accepted by the girls, and eventually starts dressing more sexually, learning how to twerk and dance, and essentially rebelling against the ideals that are bringing herself and her mom so much pain.

The movie alternates between showing Amy and Angelica and the other girls being sweet kids and having fun and actually being kids, and them trying to learn from adult dances and being obsessed with trying to date older boys, take pictures of a guy’s dick at school, pretending to be older than they are, etc. It’s generally not fun to see, but also kinda reminded me of being 11 and acting like I knew better when it came to Sex but definitely talking out of my ass.

Eventually Amy goes too far when the day of the wedding comes nearer, she gets her period, more expectation is placed on her by the Auntie, who kind of represents the tight knit religious community, and her place in the clique is put at risk. She steals from her mom, she tries to bribe her cousin with nudity, and posts a genital pic in a moment of desperation - all explicitly framed as awful and painful within the movie, in case you’re wondering. Her mother shouts at her, her friends reject her, and they even have a whole uncomfortable cleansing scene and bring in an exorcist to see what’s wrong with her - though the exorcist, who is a sensible man, tells them it’s definitely not a bad spirit and heavily implies that they should think about the psychological toll her family pressures have put on her.

She eventually gets onstage to dance, but stops halfway and starts to cry and runs away. It’s a fantastic and painful sequence, because you get them dancing with these bright glamorous lights and then when she realises exactly what she’s become and everything becomes dark and grey and the colours muted and ugly.

She comes home to everyone about to go to the wedding, crying for her mom. Her mom defends her the Auntie saying she was dressing like a whore and hugs her. The two reconcile, and her mom tells her it’s okay if she doesn’t want to go to the wedding - since obviously it’s been hurting her so much. The mom is going, since she’s already made that decision, but Amy changes out of her overly sexual dance clothes and puts on some regular ones, goes outside, and starts skipping rope with some kids - finally enjoying herself like a kid should.

That’s a fairly long description, but I want to emphasise that at no point does the movie say that “girls dancing sexy is good, actually”. It does, however, portray how these girls have glamourised overtly sexual media, and how Amy is particularly susceptible to it because of the pressures partly caused by her more conservative religious upbringing.

I’ve seen some people say that it puts Islam or Muslim religiousness in a bad light, but I didn’t really think that either. I’m Catholic, not Muslim, and I related deeply with Amy. She was bored and pressured by religion, but it never showed her mother to be bad for being religious, nor the rest of the women. The Auntie pressured her and made her feel bad, but it didn’t really feel any different from literally any other religion where modesty and purity is part of the teaching.

I also see people saying it demonises sexual liberation, but that’s not really it either. I think the main message is clear when you think about what that deep feeling of discomfort you feel seeing kids dress like adult women in sexy dance videos. Both Angelica and Amy were feeling pressured by stuff at home, which pushed them to try to be wanted and loved, and to rebel, and that’s how they went about it. With Angelica, her parents worked all day and were barely ever home, so she felt neglected. With Amy, her family pressures made her feel like she needed an escape, and she wanted to be accepted by the clique.

Kids with difficult situations are most susceptible to growing up too fast, whether that be having to parent your own siblings (which Amy does throughout the movie) or trying to copy adults without understanding the implications. The kids were trying to chat up teenage boys but some of them didn’t even know what a condom was.

It’s not a fun movie - though to be fair, it has its fun moments, ie the parts where the kids are actually enjoying themselves like kids do. The movie consistently reminds you that these are kids, in case you forget somewhere while watching, and that what they’re doing is fucked up, actually.

I certainly think the movie can be uncomfortable to watch and you don’t need to watch it if it’s beyond your viewing limits. I just think that the ridiculous culture war surrounding it is so tainted by bad faith. I watched this movie and saw parts of my own childhood, and a tragedy with a hopeful ending where a young girl is forced into situations she shouldn’t even be in because she felt like she couldn’t rely on anybody.

I think it’s an amazing film and I think you should watch it with an open mind, instead of acting like your only two settings are “enjoying child porn” and “children do not know what sex is and I will pretend that is true”. I think that if the movie is making you uncomfortable, you understand the movie.

And I think that the message of the movie is “Let kids be kids, stop trying to push them into decisions they’re too young to make, whether it be insisting on their womanly purity or making them think they have to be sexy to be liked.”

But that’s just my take on it.

#cuties #netflix cuties #mignonnes

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peachyunjinnie · 4 years

Text

❝there’s always a first time❞ hjs ― m.

― summary:

your brother seungmin is very protective over you, but one day your best friend gave you a stick and poke tattoo and you get an infection. fortunately seungmin’s friend jisung as a hobby tattoo fanatic helps you take care of it and when seungmin wasn’t there you two decide to run away.

badboy!jisung/goodgirl!reader | fluff, smut | 5.3k ↬ content warnings: swear words, the mention of alcohol and drugs. drunk/high sex, with a little size and corruption kink.

a/n: i had this idea a couple of days ago and i tried my best to get this idea into a fic, i hope you enjoy it !!

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The relationship between me and my cousin Seungmin is better than with anyone else, you could say that we could consider ourselves as siblings and even best friends. We had the same taste in humor and even better lived in the same house after my mother died right after she gave birth to me. My father ended up bringing me to my aunt and uncle at the age of 2.

Seungmin is 1 year older and has ‘BBPI’ as he calls it which means Big Brother Protection Instinct. I know, complete nonsense and as a 16-year old I don’t get why I have to be protected. Well, as Seungmin said I am still ‘his small sister’. Pathetic. As said before Seungmin is 1 year older to be exact 11 months and 28 days and has friends, for whatever reason, he has a whole group. Well, he warned me about one of them, the walking trouble: Han Jisung. He basically is the opposite of me, a 180 if you want to say it.

He stole the car of his stepfather numerous of times and I remember seeing him drunk and completely stoned in school, that I will never forget. Last year he was stumbling through the hallways of our school. His hair messy and his smile never leaving his lips. He had the hardest time trying to keep his eyes open, or even just keeping his legs moving. And the best part, he puked on his teacher's chest. It was the highlight of the whole day, no the whole semester. His stepfather thank god is very wealthy and managed to keep him in school, somehow.

I heard a lot of rumors about this Jisung and I really do not want to believe that he was in the Russian mafia boss nor do I want to believe that he killed his father and is living with his mother who helped him. It was really funny though to hear how unique and ridiculous the fantasies and the gossip was at our school, I mean a Russian mafia boss, seriously?

I hung out with my own friends, but sometimes I would get to talk and just meet my brother’s friends. In conclusion, we even had the same taste in friends. They were really nice. I really have the best friendship with Felix and Changbin. Felix firstly has an excellent taste in music and humor, secondly, he is by far one of the most concentrated gamer I’ve ever met. Changbin is just Changbin. He is kind of annoying and clingy with his friends. Which you would’ve never expected from this buff hulk. And to be completely honest with you, Changbin and Lix...are kind of cute together.

Well, with Seungmin being as protective as he is, he has told me clearly that dating is already a picky topic but dating one of his group members. I think he would be as angry as he was when I asked him what a ‘Day6′ was. He really ignored me for 3 weeks straight, with a text message saying ‘if you know who wonpil is then you are allowed to talk to me’. (stan day6, cowards.)

“Stop moving so much, I’ve done it before and you’re overreacting.” She whisper-screamed. She was nearly done with her K on my thigh, It was way bigger than I thought it would be, but it looked good.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m just getting poked by a hot needle on my thigh over and over again.” My sarcasm was louder than the thoughts in my head that were shouting lines of ‘you’re so in trouble’ or ‘you will never be able to get this off your skin’.

“So.. Here we go. Done.” She said as she was looking at her masterpiece of a K on my thigh of the size of a thumb. But it looked even and nice. She has done a (The first letter of y/n) on her thigh. I cannot believe how red it was though, and swollen. Extremely swollen

“Kim, when will it be ‘okay’?” I asked her with a slight nervous undertone. I really am the biggest chicken on earth. She opened her bag and got saran wrap. She took some out and wrapped it over her creation with such a soft touch. I still cringed and squinched.

“Maybe a week or two. It doesn’t take too long.” She smiled at our bond. I smiled with her. We ended up in a big hug and stayed like this for some time before she packed her stuff and headed out.

I admired her work on my thigh and stood up, with an overwhelming pain spreading across my thigh. I couldn’t stand up on my own feet, my thigh stung extremely and harshly.

Panic rising through me, what the heck should I do now? Should I call my mom and tell her about it? Should I tell Seungmin and ask him for help? Should I just emigrate to Brazil and start my new life as a Silvia Theresa Rodriguez?

I crawled to my bed and tried my best to let the 2 years drama club pay off. I called my mom and asked for a painkiller. She came up to my room and sat on the edge of my bed.

“Honey, is everything okay?” Her concerned eyes scanned my body and noticed my messy hair and my pale face. I coughed.

“Mom, I-I’m sick.” She sat there and looked at me and gave me the painkiller with a glass of water.

I snatched it out of her hand and gulped the pill down as if it were the only banana in the jungle. Her concern grew faster and she shook her head.

“I’m going to call your teacher. You’re not going to school.” She said as she got off my bed and walked off with her phone in her hand, dialing the number.

After the longest 8 hours, Seungmin came home, and thank god came into my room. With a bag of McDonald's and a big smile, he went to my bed and sat down.

“Why didn’t you come to school?” He gave me the bag and with a breathtaking smell of fat and fast food filling my nose and getting the best of me.

“Oh, I am sick my head hurt a little, and mom overreacted.” I said with a huge load of fries in my mouth.

With a small pat on my thigh, he hit the right spot of the K and a shriek came out, my whole body tensing up and Seungmin looking at my covered thigh. He took the blanket off. My shorts relieving the now swollen and slightly scabbing spot.

A moment of silence filled the room and Seungmins face has gotten from a healthy color to a concerning red and then to a frightening purple.

“Surprise...” I smiled awkwardly.

“Y/N, you got a fucking tattoo...” His voice was a low growl, but still, you could clearly hear the pure panic in his voice.

“Uhm, haha yea. So I made it myself, you like it?” My shaking voice showing the state of mine. My thigh looked pretty bad and as painful as it would’ve been, without the painkillers.

“Did you disinfect it?” My whole head went blank. Of course, it was so swollen and scabbing, Kim didn’t disinfect it. My face went paler than pale and I rethought the consequences of an infection.

“Okay, I’ll take that as a no. Get your shoes and we will get to my friend he will help you.” He really was very serious about the infection so I stood up with a numb pain, but not as overwhelming as it was yesterday. I searched for my shoes and directly followed him.

A quick bus ride and a small foot-march later there was a big but still small and cozy house. Red and white, reminding me of a red velvet cupcake. Looks fancy but is cute at the same time. The grass and the dwarfs decorating the beautiful view. A middle-aged lady working in the garden, planting in seeds and watering the red tulips.

“Hello, Mrs. Han is Jisung home?” He grinned at her.

“Oh hello, Seungmin. Nice to see you again!” She smiled at him with a motherly aura surrounding her. She hugged him and I could see that she liked Seungmin a lot. He didn’t really know what to do awkwardly stood there and let her do. She noticed me standing there and hiding behind Seungmin's tall figure and met with her warm brown eyes.

“Hello, and who are you?” she asked with a bigger smile.

“Uh, I am Seungmins sister.” I immediately trusted her and her warm embrace.

“Ah yes, I can see the model genes going in the family. You seem like you’re in a big rush to see Jisung, he’s in his room.” She told us and saw my embarrassed blush across my face as Seungmin took my hand and yanked me downstairs to where Jisung was.

The basement as a room, interesting. It was colored black and had a lot of posters of some bands that I have never heard of. There he was on his bed smoking a cigarette and admiring his newest addition to his arm, a slightly red and in saran wrapped tattoo. A small skull drinking from a glass bottle, very precise and well made. He sat there and continued to smoke.

“Seungmin, what’s up.” he took a puff. Not giving anyone a single look. His hand tapping over his forearm and keep admiring his skull.

“I need your help. My sister made a tattoo and now it’s infected. Do you know what to do?” Seungmin seemed very concerned and worried. Jisung stood up and chuckled a little.

“The little Y/N, has a tattoo?” He asked me and looked down at me.

His eyes have the same warm brown as his mothers and I weirdly trusted him regardless of his reputation. His hair was dyed a very light blonde and his face was very chubby, unlike his body which was athletic: muscular but slim. He had two tears on his face and my thoughts went crazy. Who in the actual hell did he kill and the rumors of Jisung being a Russian mafia boss came into my mind and I reconsidered if I should be worried to be in a room with him?

“Seungmin, I have some lemonade for you.” Mrs. Han's voice echoed through the basement and he looked at Jisung.

“Go for it, I will take care of her.” He gave him green light and Seungmin looked at him with a look in his eyes. Which could be translated into ‘If you hit on my sister, I will drag your corpse to the nearest forest and let you get eaten by the birds’. Jisung nodded and Seungmin went upstairs.

“So tell me, how did you do that?” He said with a smile as he pointed to my infected K. His hair falling on his face, a little messy but still perfectly proportional.

“Uhm, a long story...” He went to his desk and took out a liquid and a cotton pad. He pushed the chair next to the bed and patted the bed. I quickly sat down. Him in front of me.

“I have time, come on.” He looked up and gave me a simper. I felt a small tickle again and wanted to trust him with it.

“Well uh, my friend Kim wanted to get us bonded. She took a needle and poked my skin for some time until it was done.” He laughed a little, letting me see his whites.

“You stick and poked and didn’t disinfect it?” His eyes still on mine and not leaving the look they had, of the warm and soft chocolate brown.

“No, we didn’t and stop making fun of me- Ah-” His cold hand touching my thigh. My body stiffened and it was hard to relax.

“Calm down, relax. You wanna listen to music? disinfecting this will be a little uncomfortable.” He stood up and walked to his stereo. He took out a cassette and stuck one in. A prehistoric cassette, I haven’t seen this since I listened to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban one years ago. After some seconds of silence, ‘All The Small Things’ by blink-182 boosted through the speakers.

He turned around and sat down again and wet the pad with this liquid. He took off the wrap and the air hit the wound. It was a stinging soreness, that leads me to look away and bite my lower lip, hard.

He took the wet pad and started to clean up the wound as careful and gentle as possible, the stinging and burning pain was a very harsh rush of pain. I whined and groaned loudly.

“Does it hurt?” He asked as he was still cleaning up.

“Well, yes,” I said with a small whine.

“Good. If I see you with a new tattoo I will get you punished.” his voice getting raspier and raspier. But he still cleaned the wound up and was done with the disinfecting. He stood up again and got some of the saran wraps and pointed his finger, signaling me to stand up.

I stood up from his bed and he kneeled down to wrap it up. His hands still very cold and tickling my thigh.

“So Kim, is your friend?” His voice a little absent.

“Yes, my best.” I had to automatically smile.

“Tell me about her, how is she like?” I was surprised at his interest in my personal life but answered him.

“Oh, um she is reckless and she never thinks about her actions. She makes out stupid things that I have to box her out of. But she also has a nice and gentle side that not many know. I love her a lot.” I smiled at our memories and how easy it was to be myself around her.

As I was in my thoughts, Jisung took out a bottle of Jack Daniels and takes a glass. He gets him a good amount and gets another glass after seeing my big eyes. After a long friendship with Kim who was known for drinking, I have never drunk any alcohol, well until today. He gave me a glass full of brown fluid.

“I- I can’t believe we did that.” I laughed as Jisung was holding my hand walking on an abandoned street in the middle of nowhere. He had given me a big sip of the whiskey, it was a burning sensation of my taste buds being confused and curious for more.

“It’s better, not being sober right?” He asked stumbling into the sunset.The bitter taste of the alcohol and the adrenaline of me running away with a friend of my brother without his permission. I felt every single touch of his hand tightening and holding my hand in his clutches not letting go.

“Come on drink it, Y/N. The painkillers are not going to help you any better than Jackie will.” He smiled and waved the glass in front of my nose. I mean I never was drunk and I want to know what it’s like. My curiosity and stupidity have gotten control of me and I accepted with a shaky hand.

I took a small sip of the whiskey and the bitter and stinging sensation was so disgusting. I couldn’t swallow it and started to look around for somewhere to spit it at. But with Jisung forcing me to look up at him with his fingers, pushing my head upwards.

“Swallow it, now.” his eyes burning holes into mine and letting me breathless with no other choice other than swallow. I gulped the fluid down and the burn in my throat was unbelievably harsh.

“Good girl, now. If Seungmin sees your ass drunk this will be very dangerous for both us. Do you have any other clothes or is this everything you’ve got?” He already searched in his closet and gave me a black hoodie with some jeans.

“Here you go. Hurry up, my mom is not going to keep him for any longer.” He went upstairs and left me with there a little tipsy and with some clothes from this boy that I barely knew.

After getting them on I noticed the size difference, Jisung has it in L. On me it was XXL. The size was really funny and the jeans that should hug his waist like they are on the ones he is wearing, are now hanging from my pelvic bone. I saw my reflection of the mirror and busted out in laughter.

Jisung came down and looked at my new outfit, and laughed as well. He came in front of me and squished my cheeks. He played with them and ruffled my hair into a mess, I officially am looking like I just woke up with my PJ’s.

“You look so cute, this stuff is the tightest clothing that I have and your body is just sliding through.” He smiled and looked into my eyes, his hands still cupping my cheeks. A strong smell of alcohol and cigarettes leaving him, mixing with his cologne.

He stepped back and admired this baggy look. He had a hand on his chin, thinking about what can make it look even better than it already does. With an idea in his mind he sought for.... a belt.

He took the of course black belt and put it over my waist. I almost wanted to remind him that I am not a toddler and can put on a belt myself, but the sudden closeness of him and his firm grip on his jeans on me. My heart did a small tap dance, but he continued to put it on with no sign of hesitation.

“This looks better. Take your shoes and let’s get out of here.” Trouble, that was what I am going to get after this. Am I out of my mind going with Jisung with no other thought? Am I dumb for trusting this dude that threw up on his teacher's chest in the hallway last year?

He packed his bag with a shit ton of bottles and some other stuff that I don’t even want to know what it is, the curiosity of what is in this bag now really bugged me. What did he have in this bag? He started to notice my glare on his black backpack.

“You ever had drugs, little one?” He asked as if it was the most normal thing to ask a 16-year-old. If I ever had drugs, the small sips of this weird and burning stuff and the coffee I had in the morning.

“N-No.” My stutter surprised me and the sudden tension started to get harder and intense. My subconscious shouted in my head to get out and go home with Seungmin, but this Jisung really had something and I wanted to explore that.

“There’s always a first time and I needed to go out anyway. You wanna meet my friends?” His smirk was absolutely precious and there was no way in hell that I could say no to this face. After my agreement, he smiled even brighter than before. He took some of his rings and gave those to me and some chains. I looked so different from what I daily wear and with a hat my appearance was complete.

“I-It’s so much better. Not having this pressure.” After another big gulp of the whiskey, he threw the bottle to the road and opened his bag. A see-through water like a bottle. He gave it to me and I opened it after some seconds of struggle. We stumbled through the sunset of the lonely and empty roads of a beautiful panorama.

“Le-Let’s sit down for a while. I am so ti-tired.” I laughed and sat down on the empty road. He joined me and took the opened vodka bottle from me and took a small sip after gasping dramatically and getting a green bag out of his pocket. It looked like leaves and after a long time of finding out what it was, I knew it when he started to build a joint.

I took the bottle and drank the alcohol. I couldn’t believe this scenario, I am drunk and I am about to get high. I will get so much damage for this one night, but it still felt like it was a Bonnie and Clyde after play. Such a euphoric moment, and a moment I would’ve never have dreamed of.

So deep in my own thoughts and my own actions and with this alcohol in my hands, I didn’t see that Jisung was already done with his work. He saw my lazy eyes and pointed out to his bag.

“Hey, listen to music on my phone the code is 0325.” I crawled over to his bag and searched for the perfect song and here it was. New Flesh by the Current Joys, a carefree and a lighthearted song. The song started playing and Jisung snickered.

“I start to really learn a new si-side of you. Little miss Y/N.” He finished his joint and licked it clean. He grabbed in his bag and pulled out speakers. This bag really is a survival kit. He connected them to his phone and the music blasted out with such an enormous volume.

He took out his lighter and the fire sneaked it’s way through the marijuana and gives out a really unique smell. He seemed relaxed and fell on his back. He now was lying on the hard and cold cement road, his little relaxing tool between his fingers.

“So you never smoked before, like ever?”He has gotten up again and let his arm over my shoulder, giving me a really focused look.

“N-Nah.” I giggled for no reason. My head felt dizzy and my vision getting blurry after breathing in second-hand smoke.

“So I’m gonna show you, ho-how to do it the right way.” He smiled and almost closing his eyes completely.

He took my face into his hand and held the joint on the other hand. He gave it to me and I held it the best way I could, trying to let it fall down. I took a big hit and coughed all of the smoke out in a matter of 3 seconds.

He laughed uncontrollably and as he was laughing my head started to turn, my stomach started to growl and my mouth was getting dry. I honestly did not expect it to work that easily but I felt the difference in my body. I took another puff of it and another.

With a little time it has gotten easier and better to not cough. Jisung after not talking for what seemed like a whole eternity, started to notice that the sky is getting darker. He saw a whole field next to the road and threw his stuff in there and threw himself as well.

“Come here! The field is soft.” He shouted from his new spot and I giggled and jumped on top of him. His laugh resounded through the emptiness surrounding us and my giggle became a little quieter when I felt his hand on my hip. As before, when he put on the belt for me, my face grew hot and my eyes stayed on him and I played with his hair. He stroked my body with his fingertips, it feeling like electric wires rushing through my hot body.

I leaned down and then kissed his soft lips. Right at this moment I didn’t care about anyone. My brother, my parents, my friends not even my own thoughts that screamed in my head to cut it off and go home. I wanted to live and wanted to enjoy, feel this moment. Exactly live in this moment right here and there. In a field in the middle of nowhere with the music still blasting somewhere near us and the taste of alcohol still running through my mouth and most importantly, Jisung being right here and there.

“I d-don’t want to pressure you to anything, Y/N.-” I shushed him up with another kiss and his smile making the butterflies in my tummy explode into a mess. He tucked on his hoodie and leaned into my ear.

“I am sure you look even better without my hoodie on.”

I giggled loudly, his hand getting lost on the inside of my hoodie. Grasping on my bra and massaging it softly. My world turning in circles and the music still playing on the highest volume from the speakers, somewhere in the grass.

“I want you, now.” I said, looking down to him. I took off my hoodie and threw it next to Jisung beneath me. His hands still on me, my hair falling down to the side of his face. I was needy and what could feed this hunger was him.

“If your brother could see his little girl…” he smiled at my face being some small inches in front of his. the taste of the marijuana in my mouth mixed with the strong vodka and whiskey was driving me into the dumbest things.

I kissed his soft lips, touching them a little and his tongue rolling with mine. He tasted like danger and everything forbidden for me, giving me a thrill of my life. I continued to go down his neck, sucking the best I could making it hard due to the lack of energy.

“You’re doing great, little one.” He moaned when I once reached his hard and perky abs, leaving a trail of bruises and hickeys all the way down here. He groaned once I unlocked his belt and pushed his jeans down to his boxers. The outline of his dick was hardly poking out, getting me to an idea of my first blowjob ever.

I pulled the off and there he was, poking at me. The hard and red tip, cum dripping on them slightly. I took him in my hands, carefully pumping him. His eyes following my actions his whines and stares telling me to put him in my mouth, I couldn’t get him all in, him laughing at me trying my hardest to deepthroat.

“Your little mouth is amazing.” He mumbled with his eyes closed tightly, his hands getting lost in my hair. Moans and grunts getting me wetter and wetter. I couldn’t breathe and with my mouth being filled up completely, my eyes turning to the back of my head.

I backed up and took some time to breathe, a string of saliva connecting my lips with his wet and throbbing dick. He pushed his hair back, his hand still on my head, grabbing and pulling at it hardly. I choked lightly on his pressure on my head, pushing me down and forcefully getting me down. After some seconds of complete silence he let go and a broken groan echoed through my dizzy head.

“Uh fuck, how can this small mouth get all that in?” He smiled looking down at me with his lazy eyes on the string of saliva connecting his tip to my lips. I started to laugh out, the feeling of a dick in my mouth reminding me of a Popsicle. He laughed as well, this whole scenario being unbelievable. It was deep dark outside, the only light being the lanterns of the side street and the moon, shining out heavily. The wheat among us, the music that still played beside us.

He suddenly stopped giggling immediately and closed his eyes. His head was thrown to the ground and he held my head in his hands, still thrusting into my mouth hardly.

“Wh-Where can I c-cum?” He stuttered and I just continued to bop my head down his length, feeling every inch in my mouth, I choked a little on the twitch of his cock. “Fuuuck.” He groaned loud through the hard beats of the music. I felt his dick twitch again in my throat and as I moaned the vibrations got him to spill his load into my mouth. The warm liquid running through my throat, I choked once again and the shivers went down my spine mercilessly.

“Ah fuck.” He tried to collect his breath, moaning more curse words. I still sucked at the tip and popped him out of my mouth, his seeds running down my lips. I looked up at his brown eyes, stars above us reflecting in them. He had the warmest and softest expression on his face, starring down at my cum filled mouth, trying my hardest to swallow everything.

“Now it’s your turn, princess.”

226 notes · View notes

thiswasinevitableid · 3 years

Note

#56, OT4, NSFW if possible. Thank you for providing Winter-y cheer for us all!

You’re welcome! And this is indeed NSFW

56. my little sibling/cousin makes me sit on santa’s lap and when santa asks me what I want for christmas, I blurt “someone to love” and you’re the cute elf that overhears (or I blurt ….[insert here])

He’s exhausted, but he promised he’d take his cousins to see Santa after work while his aunt does some shopping. As is traditional, half the Newton family is already in town, even though it’s three and a half weeks until Christmas.

Dove and Robin each take their turns, and then insist in that terrifyingly forceful way of six year olds that Duck do so as well. Given he nearly blew it last year when they asked him if Santa was real, he decides he should play along. At least he changed out of his work uniform first so fewer of the other mall employees will recognize him as a twenty-three year old man sitting on Santa’s lap.

“And what would you like for Christmas, young man?”

“Ned, please, make this easy” he hisses at the man playing Santa.

“Well, then, answer the question dear boy.”

“I, uh, I really want…”

He can’t lie and say something bland, and the only thing he’s really hoping for this winter is-

“I want to get laid.”

He regrets the words and all of his life choices as Ned booms out a laugh. His cousins are too busy studying the toys strewn about the room to hear, so he counts that as his luck for the day, takes their hands, and hurries off into the mall.

------------------------------------

“He really said that?” Barclay looks back at Stern as he restocks cookbooks.

“Yes. I was photo elf today so he didn’t see me cracking up.”

“Don’t know why they hide their cutest elf away like that.”

“Because I’m tall.”

Barclay turns, glances around to be sure no one is watching, and kisses his cheek.

“Nah, you’re perfect.”

He blushes; even after nine months of dating, Barclay has a way of acting as if he’s in a perpetual state of falling for him.

“What did the guy look like?”

“On the shorter side, and his eyes where two different colors. Works at R.E.I.” It’s his best attempt to protect Duck’s dignity.

A conspiratorial smile crosses his boyfriends face, “Keep an eye out for my manager for a sec, babe?”

“Of course. What are you doing?”

“Matchmaking. I hope.”

-------------------------------------

Duck’s on duty in the tent and sleeping bag area when Indrid Cold appears. Indrid works at the tattoo shop across the way, and has a habit of taking lunch the same time Duck does, sitting on a metal bench and trying to draw. The mall gets crowded and loud around then, and two months ago Duck started sneaking him into a back corner of the store so he can have lunch in peace. Indrid, a few years his senior, with his tongue piercing and tattoos, the ratty black pants and various tank-tops that show off a skinny frame Duck would love to get his hands on, is the kind of guy Duck would’ve had a crush on.

Now, Indrid is the kind of guy who makes him so hard he does embarrassing-ass things like say “I need to get laid” in front of his cousins.

Indrid leans his shoulder on the wall, grinning, red glasses making him resemble the mothman tattoo on his right arm.

“Howdy, sir, got questions about the tents?” Duck smirks.

“Indeed. Which one is best for sex?”

Duck barks out a laugh, claps a hand over his mouth when a nearby shopper gives him a funny look.

“Any that ain’t a one-person deal. That your way of tellin me you got a hot date tonight?”

“I might” Indrid peers of the rims of his glasses, “a little bird told me you had a rather, ah, explicit Christmas wish.”

“Aw fuck, who even heard me othern’n Ned?”

“I suspect it was Joseph. Poor man is stuck being an elf, and it was Barclay who texted me the hint.”

“Ughhhhwait-” Duck stares at him, “you came over here to ask me if, uh, if I wanted to, uh-”

“Yes. Oh dear, was my innuendo unclear? Or was it not even an innuendo?”

Duck has him against the wall in two steps, not touching him but bringing his mouth up to growl in his ear

“Your place, sugar?”

“I get off at seven.”

“Won’t be the only time you get off, I gauran-goddamn-tee it.”

----------------------------------

Indrid’s grip is flatteringly eager as he pins Duck to the door of his trailer.

“Damn, sugar, didn’t know you wanted me that badAhnnnnnohfuckyeah.” He rolls his hips as Indrid yanks his collar down to set hickeys in his skin.

“I have though you were attractive from the moment I saw you, and have wanted to fuck you since that time you made yourself laugh so hard you nearly snorted soda out of your nose.”

“Kinky.”

“I meant” Indrid grabs and shoves and guides him across the floor, “that the moment I saw that smile I wanted to see what other smiles I could draw from you.” The kiss is a counterpoint the heated touches, so gentle and sincere Duck changes course.

“Fuck it” he hops up onto the kitchen table, discarded illustrations crunching under him, “I can’t wait anymore, you’re so fuckin cute, all fuckin romantic and shit.” He pulls him down into another kiss, groans as clever fingers undo his pants. Duck shifts as Indrid gets them mostly down, refusing to break the kiss all the while. The wire of the taller man’s glasses bumps his skin, and he finally gives in, pulling away so he can guide them off Indrid’s face.

“I’d very much like to touch.” Indrid’s fingers are tense, poised on Duck’s thighs. He looks shyer without the glasses, almost virginal, which is fucking remarkable for a guy who came onto him in broad daylight.

“Touch whatever you like, sugar, long as you let me do it back.”

“Gladly. I, ah, that is, should I stay on the outside?”

He thinks, trying to sty a step ahead of his own brain to see if this is a day where penetration might set it off.

“This time, yeah.” Duck hooks his legs round Indrids, keeping them close.

“Does...that mean there might be a next time?” Indrid is gnawing his chapped bottom lip.

Duck waits for him to meet his eyes, then nods so Indrid can know what comes next is pure teasing.

“Depends on how well you doOHfuck, ‘Drid, that’s it sugar, c’mon, jack me off.” He grinds his hips, Indrid experimenting with different movements, grinning every time Duck moans.

“Touch me, please, Duck, I want you, want you so much.”

It takes a few seconds of fumbling and two muttered “fucks” before he gets Indrid’s pants undone enough to get his hand around his cock. A tattoo peeks out over either hip, and Duck decides his new plan for the winter is to discover every inch of Indrid’s skin with his mouth and hands.

There’s a whine as Indrid buries his face into Duck’s shoulder, working him harder as Duck’s fingers go slick with pre-cum.

“I, I am not going to last very long, wanted this too long, too much”

“Then cum for me, sugar.” He picks up the pace and in four strokes discovers Indrid isn’t kidding, the silver-haired man cumming down his hand.

“D-don’t stop, don’t stop until I’ve made you cum. AH, ahnnnyes, yes” Indrid squirms with a delighted smile.

“You like that? Knowin I’m gonna wring you dry unless you get me off?”

“Yes!”

“Fuck, you’re so fuckin needy, you’ll even take me bein rough just so you can fuck me.” He gives up on being gentle, moans when this makes Indrid find just the right pressure and speed. When he cums he let’s go of his cock, uses both hands to drag Indrid into a kiss and feels him shuddering with pleased little sounds.

“Jesus fucking christ.” He slumps back on his elbows as Indrid drops into a chair, forehead resting on the table “shoulda opened my big mouth in front of Joe sooner.”

“Mmmhmm” Indrid bumps his arm with his nose. Then he cracks his eyes open, the shyness back full-force, “if, ah, if you need to get home I understand but, ah, I was wondering if you’d like to stay awhile?”

“Told my folks I’d be out late. You anglin to cuddle and steal my body heat?”

“Maybe.” A kiss to his arm now, Indrid gazing at him adoringly.

“Then I’m gonna snuggle the hell out of you.”

Soon they’re nestled under the covers of Indrid’s bed, watching the Repair Shop and talking, Duck’s head on Indrid’s chest.

“Kinda funny that our exes set us up, ain’t it?”

“You consider Joseph an ex?”

“Kinda? Sounds better than “friend I fucked a few times Freshman year of college.”

“True. I must admit, the thought does make me wish I’d been a fly on the wall.” Indrid freezes as soon as the sentence hits the air, “ah, that’s, I apologize, that just sort of came out.”

“No harm done.” Duck kisses the top of his head, ignoring the ideas conjured up by the admission. Why stick to Indrid watching when he could be involved? And he bets Indrid goes full-on tease with Barclay, something he’d love to see, and there is definitely a recurring fantasy of fucking Joe from behind while someone else came down his throat….

Later. He can think about those things later. Right now, he’s utterly content and happy to focus on the lilting voice rambling about art restoration and the bony hand holding his own.

------------------------------------------

A side benefit of Duck and Indrid getting together is that they can now go on double-dates with himself and Barclay. Or, as Joseph is starting to call them “put all three men he’s attracted to in a room to see if he cracks” dates. He honestly didn’t mean for it to become that, but the more time they all spend together, the less he can deny the wish that it was just one, four-person date.

His feelings for Barclay are self-explanatory; he’s his boyfriend of nearly a year who, among other things, treats eating him out as something akin to a religious experience. Indrid, he now understands, plays at his long-running interest in the strange and unusual. The fact his intriguing exterior hides someone a little awkward and very well meaning makes it all the better.

And then there’s Duck. They’d hooked-up a few times in college, when Joseph was newly out as trans, and being with someone who wasn’t weird about it had been the icing on the beefcake (a phrase he used once and made Duck laugh and fall off the bed). Duck has only gotten better with age and, looking at his strong arms and rounded face, the ass he wants to sink his fingers into, Joseph understands that the awe he felt whenever Duck was naked wasn't solely to do with the newness of the act. If ever there was a body to be worshiped, it’s Duck’s.

So, yeah, he’s had a lot to think about while listening to parents art director their children for their picture with Santa.

Tonights “double date” is a little odd. He and Barclay are each getting a small tattoo (not matching, he’s too sure that’s a way to jinx things) courtesy of Indrid, with Duck tagging along so they can all go to dinner after. Barclay is the last client of the day, and Indrid’s boss locked the four of them in with a reminder to Indrid to arm the alarm when he leaves. Duck flips through magazines as Joseph reads off Buzzfeed Unsolved conspiracy theories for his entertainment.

“You should do one of those shows. You got that whole nerdy but stylish thing going for you.”

“Duck, my work uniform is an elf costume.”

“But the rest of the time you look like Special Agent Cooper.”

He blushes, “Special Intern Stern is more like it.”

“You’re gettin there, city mouse.”

He looks up at the old pet name, just in time to see Duck throw an Adbusters up as cover and start talking about the image he’s staring out. Joseph lets him. For now.

--------------------------------------

“There. A safely wrapped present to yourself.” Indrid double-checks the bandage on Barclay’s upper arm.

“Thanks, man. Can’t wait to see what it looks like all healed. Sure it’s gonna look fucking great.” Barclay still sounds a little shaky from the adrenaline.

Indrid allows himself a burst of pride that his friend thinks so highly of his work, “I just need to clean up and then we can be on our way.”

Barclay gives an affirmative grunt, staying in his chair. There’s a spike of fear in Indrid’s stomach; did he do something wrong? Is Barclay about to pass out?

Circling the chair to check replaces the fear with pure, skin-prickling lust.

“My, my, is this why you’ve waited so long to get a tattoo?”

Barclay whines, shaking his head, his eyes shut and his cock pitching an obscene tent in his jeans.

“Are you lying?”

“N-no. I, uh, I mean I like pain, but I didn’t think this would happen.”

“That’s a new development.” Indrid leans against his workbench, enjoying the view.

“Joseph and I have been trying out a bunch of things, figuring out what we like.”

“How very methodical. And unfortunate; if memory serves, once you get wound up it takes time for you to unwind.”

“Indrid please” Barclay’s gritting his teeth. Indrid’s remembering just how fun it is to have such a big man wrapped around his finger.

“Please what?” He cocks his head.

“I, fuck, I dunno, talk about weird morbid shit. Disasters. Anything that will make it go down.”

A sinful image enters his mind, unshakeable in it’s appeal.

“I can do you one better. Joseph? Would you come here? I need your help.”

Barclay’s eyes snap open, Indrid grinning at the excitement in them.

“Is everything alright?” Joseph steps through the door, Duck poking his head in worriedly after him.

Indrid points to Barclays cock, “I have to clean up, and that needs to be seen to.”

“And you want me to, um, see to it with you two in the room?”

“Only if you are both comfortable-”

“Yes” Barclay and Joseph say it at the same time, the dark haired man crossing the floor and dropping to his knees in front of his boyfriend.

“Should I, uh?” Duck glances between the three. So polite, even when Indrid can see the flush spreading up his skin from here.

“Please stay.” Joseph is panting, in spite of only now getting Barclay’s zipper down.

“Barclay?”

“Fine by me, man. Long as you know I’m gonna fuck your boyfriend into the floor for fucking with me like this.”

“That I’d like to see.” Duck shuts the door, grabbing Indrid’s chair so he can sit.

“There is one caveat, sweetheart; you are not allowed to cum right now. I promise I’ll show you new ways of being rough with me if you do.”

“You drive a hard bargain, sugar.”

“No fucking kidding, maybe you should get to fuck him before me since he’s being so meEEan, fuck, yes babe, goddamn I love your mouth.” Barclay arches in the chair as Joseph sucks him off. Indrid’s own cock perks up at the sight, becomes insistent as he turns his back and cleans to the sound of Barclay growling profanity in time with the wet sound of his cock defiling Joseph’s throat.

He gets things cleaned and in order as fast as his rapidly dwindling focus will let him, turns back to see Barclay whimpering as Joseph kisses and licks along his shaft. Duck is still seated, rubbing his thighs together as he watches them, hands digging into the faux-leather seat. Indrid supposes he should scold him for stimulating himself, but he looks so very handsome right now.

Instead, he strides over to the pair in his client seat and fists his hand into Josephs hair, gelled strands breaking free in his fingers as he guides his mouth back over Barclay’s thick cockhead.

“We do not have all night, pet. So get to it Snap twice if it needs to stop.” He pushes him down by his hair until Barclay’s pressing the back of his throat, then yanks him almost all the way up. Joseph moans steadily, blue eyes darting between him and Barclay beneath black lashes as Indrid forces him up and down.

“Fuck, babe, you look so fucking good on your knees, taking my cock like a good boy.”

“Ahem.” Indrid manages to look stern. Barclay is just able to tilt his head up enough for Indrid to dip down and kiss his full lips.

“Thank you, baby, thank you for letting me get offAHshitshit.”

“Close, dearest?”

“Uhuh, socloseohfuck”

“Do you want to cum down his throat?”

“So bad, Indrid, please.”

“You heard him, pet.” He holds Joseph’s head down, pre-cum thoroughly staining his pants as Barclay jerks up and Joseph frantically gulps him down. He brings his head up without warning, gathering the stray droplets of cum from his lips and fucking them into his mouth with his fingers.

“Good boy.” He purrs and Joseph whimpers happily.

He looks at Duck, and for a moment he’s terrified he went too far, ignored him for too long. His boyfriend’s eyes are wide and dark, locked onto where Joseph is still eagerly sucking his fingers. Slowly, his gaze drags up to Indrid, crooked smile blossoming as it does.

“Indrid Cold, you’re a fuckin genius, and I am gonna fuck you into next week.”

---------------------------------

It’s not next week, but it is ten at night and Indrid is being fucked well into it.

They’re at Joseph’s apartment, his lack of roommates giving them optimal privacy, and Indrid is on his back on the tidily made bed. Barclay fucks him hard, grunting out thank yous for the privilege, which Indrid would reward with praise were his mouth not currently occupied with Duck riding his face. Joseph is near his head as well, having cum earlier via Barclay’s tongue (“this one of the best goddamn things in the world and I’m gonna show you two how to do it right”) and now rapturously groping Duck. Indrid can’t quite hear all the praise he’s directing at Duck’s body, but he’s going to hazard a guess he agrees with the statements.

“Can, fuck, can one of you make him cum? Wanna feel this demanding little ass tighten.”

“On it.” Joseph grips his cock and oh, no wonder Barclay looks so blissful most days. The man gives masterful handjobs and Indrid cums hard, whimpering when neither Duck nor Barclay lets up. The base of Barclay’s cock thuds against his ass so hard he’s wondering if that part of him can bruise, and Joseph switches his attention to Indrid’s nipple piercings, toying with him just like Duck demonstrated, Indrid squeaking as he sucks Duck’s dick.

There’s a groan as Barclay cums, working himself through it in Indrid’s increasingly sensitive ass while Duck cums on his face, petting his hair as his hips jerk.

When he’s finally able to sit up, it’s to a portrait of tender debauchery. Barclays head is on his stomach, his beard and hair a royal mess that Joseph is gently stroking down to some semblance of order. Duck is snuggled up beside him, kissing his shoulders and holding Indrid’s hand.

“That was, um, something.” Joseph murmurs.

“A whole hell of a lot of somethin.” Duck opens his free arm so Indrid can nestle against him, Barclay shifting to put his head onto Joseph's thigh.

“Is it...something we wish to happen again?” Indrid’s nerves creep back up.

“Hell yeah.”

“Yes.”

“Yep.”

“Thank goodness. I. Ah. I am realizing I am fond of all three of you and, ah, very attracted to all three of you as well.”

“We should lay out some ground rules, right?”

Barclay’s stomach growls, “For sure, babe. But can we please get dinner while we do? I’m gonna start eating the strap on.

“You better not, that one was expensive.”

They clean up themselves and the room, frequent kisses prolonging the process. As Barclay orders pizza and Indrid starts water for tea, Joseph loops an arm around Duck’s shoulders.

“We should get you to blurt out Christmas wishes more often.”

“You got a deal. Just, next time, not in front of Ned.”

#indrid cold/duck newton #Indruck #agent stern/barclay #sternclay #Mall AU #OT4: Government Men and Their Cryptid Boyfriends #duck newton/agent stern #trans duck newton #trans agent stern #agent stern/barclay/indrid cold/Duck newton #Indrid cold/Barclay #agent stern/Indrid Cold

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doyouever-daydream · 4 years

Text

V-Day Babysitting Duty

A/N Hello all! Here I am with another imagine about Spencer Reid and SSA (y/n), forgot to mention before that this will probably catalogued as slow burn lol, this can be read as a one instalment or you can go and read this if you want to know more about (y/n). I’ve had this idea in my head for two weeks and I’ve been trying to write it down but then my mind went blank and tonight from having one page, I ended up with almost six. This song also helped with the inspo. GIF is not mine, I found it on pinterest and I’ve tried to find the source but failed to do so :(

ALSO this is another entry for my Criminal Minds bingo card the square is holidays and my plan is to write a series of oneshots so this is the first one.

@cmbingo

Enjoy! And if you want to read more of my nonsense here it is lol

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female Reader

Warnings: Fluff, fluff, fluff.

Word count: 3056 (oof)

It was Friday morning and the bullpen was busy, people seemed to have more energy than usual, maybe they were eager to finish their tasks and go home to their loved ones so they could celebrate Valentine’s day.

Luckily for the BAU team, they had no active case which meant they were only consulting, they were all looking forward to the weekend, hoping to enjoy the calm before the storm, it was only a matter of time before they had to travel somewhere.

“So what are your plans for tonight?” Luke asked excitedly, wanting to hear about his friends’ plans and to tell them his.

“I have a date, we’re having dinner, then we’re going to a classic cars exhibition” Tara replied while she closed her casefile and turned to see her coworkers.

“Sounds dope” Luke told her also forgetting his current case.

“Is this a first date?” (y/n) looked at her with narrowed eyes while she bit her pen.

“No, actually, this is the, uh, like 8th date” Tara shrugged her shoulders.

“And why didn’t you share it with the class, Tara?” Matt smirked.

“Well I don’t know, but it is actually going really well”

“What is?” JJ was walking by and decided this conversation sounded way more interesting than the pile of cases waiting in her office.

“Why am I the only one talking? (y/n), what are you doing tonight?”

“Well, funny that you ask, this Friday I am spending my Valentine’s day like I did pretty much every V-day during my highschool years” She laughed while everyone looked confused.

“She’s babysitting the kids so Kristy and I can have dinner and some alone time, she might be my favorite teammate” Matt interfered.

“Damn right I am and if there is a sixth baby after tonight, I have godmother rights” (y/n) joked while everyone laughed.

“Ha! I don’t think so but you have auntie rights with all five”

“We have great friends, Matt, Spence offered to babysit Henry and Michael tonight” JJ looked at Matt while raising her eyebrows.

“Oh, well, why don’t they come over to the house tonight? Maybe they can have a sleepover, the kids would love that, would that be ok, (y/n)?” Matt carefully asked, desperately hoping she’d say yes.

“Yeah, totally” (y/n) thought that having an extra pair of hands with the Simmons clan would be helpful besides she adored JJ’s little boys.

“I’m gonna tell Spence then”

JJ smiled widely as she immediately went off to find Spencer to tell him the good news. Matt, Tara and (y/n) went back to their files while Luke sat there, amused by the way JJ and Matt were trying to set Spencer and (y/n) up. His face fell when he noticed the others thought the conversation was done and he hadn’t told them his plans.

“I’m taking Penelope to dinner, then I’m gonna surprise her with tickets for an art exhibit she’s been dying to go” Luke spoke up while everyone looked back at him with wide eyes.

“You what!?” Penelope almost screamed while walking up to Luke, the closer her high heels sounded, the more Luke sank into his seat “You got us tickets for tonight!? Oh my gosh, I can’t believe it” She shrieked with joy wanting to kiss him right there but she didn’t want any HR seminars on proper behaving so she stopped herself from doing so.

“Luke’s getting really lucky tonight” (y/n) smirked while Tara and Matt started laughing.

“Atta boy!” Tara said still laughing.

“I better hurry up then” Luke flashed Penelope a smile, the blonde woman just winked at him and continued her way to find Anderson.

The rest of the day went by fair quickly, everyone was anxious to start their weekends and forget about work duties for a few, (y/n) hadn’t seen Spencer much during the day but she figured JJ had already told him as she promised.

She entered the elevator and as the doors were closing, Spencer barely made it into the elevator with her.

“Are you in a hurry to see someone, doctor?” (y/n) held back a smirk while Spencer recovered his breath.

“No, it’s just I really need to take these books back to the library before it closes” He awkwardly smiled while holding up the books to her.

“Oh, I thought you had a date or something” (y/n) was curious as to if he had other plans before going to JJ’s house.

“No, uhm, actually JJ told me, the boys and I were invited to join all of you at Matt’s house” His free hand played nervously with the strap of his bag.

“Yup, I believe you’re stuck with me on Valentine’s day, doc” She nudged him on the elbow.

“It’s ok, I- I think all nine of us will have a great time” He flashed her a shy smile.

(y/n)’s stomach did a flip, she was nervous, happy and excited about spending time with Spencer. The last few weeks she had noticed something had changed in her, suddenly the presence of Spence made her heart feel warm and fuzzy.

The doorbell rang and (y/n) picked up Rose from the playmat to go and greet their visits. When she opened the door Henry and Michael were already in their pajamas and jumping with excitement ready to go and play with their cousins.

“Hi auntie (y/n)!” Michael hugged her legs and (y/n) affectionately

“Hi sweetie, happy Valentine’s day! We’ve been waiting for you, come on in!” (y/n) moved to the side so the three of them could enter the house.

“Henry! Michael!” David ran to greet his cousins and was followed by the rest of his siblings.

Spencer’s face made (y/n) laugh, he certainly looked a little worried.

“We’re gonna be fine, it’ll be only a couple hours” (y/n) said while patting his shoulder with her free arm.

“Seven children, I don’t think I ever been with this many children alone” Spencer looked at her while she bounced little Rose in her hip.

“You’re not alone though, I am an expert at babysitting besides they are really sweet, I don’t think they’ll give us trouble” As if on cue Rose shrieked in an adorable way getting both of their attention. “See? Rose agrees with me” (y/n) smiled widely at the baby.

“Ah, Rose! Since when you’ve gotten so big?” Spencer cooed to Rose, who was getting excited for getting more attention, she reached her little arms to him.

“Ok, off you go with uncle Spence” (y/n) passed her to him and he happily took her in his arms.

Spencer had gotten way better with kids thanks to Henry and Michael, then when Matt had joined the team, he had not only gained a team mate but nephews and nieces. He adored all of them.

“Ok, so what do you want to do?” (y/n) said when they were all in the living room, Rose was still in Spencer’s arms trying to pull his hair.

“There’s a Lego set David and I, have been wanting to build, do you want to help us out?” Jake turned to Henry.

“Yeah, that’d be cool” Henry eagerly replied.

“It’s on our room, let’s get it and we can build it here” The three of them ran upstairs leaven the little ones looking at their uncle and auntie with expecting eyes.

“Guys! Do you wanna make Valentine’s cards?” I brought a lot of stuff we can use to make them” (y/n) suggested, she loved doing crafts with kids, something she had gotten from her mom being a kindergarten teacher.

“YES!” Chloe, Lily and Michael started to jump with excitement, they, too, loved making crafts.

“Let me grab the stuff from my bag and set it all on the table, wait here” She turned on the TV so they could watch something and Spencer was sitting in the living room, still playing with Rose.

“Spence, can you come over here for a sec?” (y/n) called for him from the kitchen while looking to the pizza place menu Kristy had told her to call.

“What’s up?” The moment Spence took his eyes off Rose, the little one took her chance and went to grab his uncle’s hair, pulling it hard, both Rose and (y/n) started laughing.

“That’s why I put my hair out of her reach” She pointed to her headband that had any strands of hair away from her face.

“Yeah, I’m gonna take that into consideration” Spencer smiled at the baby who was still amused in her arms.

“Kristy told me to order pizza for dinner, I’m ordering pepperoni for the kiddos, I texted JJ and she said it was fine, but I’m not sure what would you like?” She was already dialing on her phone.

“Whatever you order it’s fine” She looked at him warily “Seriously, anything is fine”

“Ok, go and see if the kids got the Lego set they were talking about, please”

“Ok” He smiled and turned to go back, he felt so content of being there with her and the kids, he didn’t care much for Valentine’s day but this one was his favorite, without a doubt.

When Rose started to get fuzzy and wanting to go down, he put her in the playmat where she happily took her toys and started babbling, forgetting about the people around her. So Spencer decided to see if David, Jake and Henry wanted some help.

(y/n) was sitting with Chloe, Lily and Michael while they did their cards.

“So you already know who you want to make a Valentine’s card for?” (y/n) asked while giving them paper sheets folded in half.

“My mommy!” Michael was already grabbing crayons and drawing something.

“I’m not sure yet” Lily had a hand under her chin, squinting her eyes trying to figure out who she wanted to give a Valentine’s card to.

“I’m gonna make you one, auntie!” Chloe started to grab stickers and putting them on the paper.

“That’s so nice of you, if any of you need help with something, you tell me, ok?” (y/n) was excited to see them unleash their creativity.

“You’re not gonna make one?” Chloe asked with a surprised expression.

“You know what, I am” (y/n) winked to the little girl and Chloe giggled.

“Make one for uncle Spence!” Lily suggested with the biggest grin on her face.

(y/n) didn’t answer and just smiled, the whole world seemed to suggest that something else should happen between them but she just wasn’t sure that would turn into a reality. She didn’t think it was possible for Spencer to see her like that. Nor she was sure she wanted to be in a relationship with her teammate and friend. It worked out fine for Penelope and Luke but in their case Penelope rarely traveled with them for cases, they didn’t see each other as much as Spencer and her did, that sounded like too much trouble.

She had once dated a coworker, back when she worked at the NIJ and it got messy, the whole experience had ended in bad terms and it made work awfully uncomfortable afterwards, she didn’t want that to happen with Spencer. She knew she had a crush on him, but that was everything it was, a crush, she was more interested in keeping him as a friend.

Half an hour later, the doorbell rang and (y/n) went to get their dinner. The younger ones had already finished their cards and even had helped (y/n) with hers by making a draw of their uncle Spencer. They were currently helping clean everything, so they could sit and have dinner.

After having dinner, the Simmons kids went to change into their PJ’s, and (y/n) went to change Rose and put her to bed while Spence offered to do the dishes.

“Auntie (y/n), mom and dad said since it’s not a school night and this is a sleepover we could stay past our bedtime for an hour” David said with pleading eyes.

“Our mom said the same” Henry chimed in.

“I know, I know, both of your parents informed uncle Spence and me about that, what do you wanna do?”

The five of them went quiet but one could see their brains trying to think what to do in that valuable hour.

“We could watch a movie” Henry suggested.

“Yeah, something we all wanna watch” Jake added ruffling Lily’s hair.

“Ok, sounds like a good idea, but I had another suggestion, I thought why don’t you build a fort? You can sleep in there too” (y/n) had this plan since she knew she was babysitting for them, she had already asked Kristy and Matt where they kept blankets and sleeping bags.

All of their faces lit up with happiness as the nodded furiously.

“Could you go grab the blankets? They’re already down here, outside the hall’s closet” The didn’t think twice and ran off to get them.

Spencer watched the whole scene from the kitchen door, seeing (y/n) with kids made him wonder if she had ever considered having them. She was a natural with them, every time the whole team had a get together, at some point she would leave the adults to go and be with them, she would talk to them or play with them, helping the younger ones to the swings. And even in cases where they had to interview kids for some reason she was incredible with them.

(y/n) saw him lost in his thoughts and decided to interrupt him for a moment.

“I was coming to help you with the dishes”

“I’m already done, I was going to take the trash out” He lifted the bag he was holding “I wouldn’t have thought about making a fort, sounds like fun”

“You see, I’m not a regular aunt, I’m a cool aunt” She joked knowing he probably wouldn’t get the reference but she still laughed at her own joke.

All of them spent more than an hour playing on the floor, the kids changed their minds about the way they wanted the fort, the eight of them laughed, joked and had a blast. That was until the tiredness from the day started to be obvious in their eyes. The first one to give up was Michael, followed by Lily and Chloe, as much as Henry, Jake and David tried to fight, they fell asleep not much after their siblings.

(y/n) looked at them with a smile on her face while she went to sit on the couch with the baby monitor in her hand, she had been carrying it with her, afraid Rose was going to wake up.

Spencer sat beside her and sighed, he felt truly happy because of how the evening had turned out, it had been a while since he had laughed so much.

“If you want, you can go home, I can take Henry and Michael to JJ’s” She offered, thinking his sigh was because he was tired, and he was but he wasn’t about to leave his beloved godsons or her, he wanted to be there.

“No, it’s ok, I signed up for the whole night too” He sat beside her.

“Happy Valentine’s day” She handed him the card her and the kids had made for him. When he opened it, he saw a drawing of him, (y/n), Michael, Lily and Chloe. Each drawing was different, surely the kids had done them. And in her handwriting there was a WE LOVE YOU, UNCLE SPENCE, he felt his heart bursting out of his chest, not only (y/n) but this children made him feel extremely lucky to have them in his life.

“I’m glad we both offered to babysit tonight” (y/n) put her head in his shoulder like she had done a few weeks ago on the jet.

“Me too, I had a great time, you were right, I had nothing to worry about, they could’ve ended us but they didn’t” He joked.

“Told you” As she closed her eyes trying to rest for a bit, she heard Rose cry through the baby monitor. Spencer jumped a little at the sound.

“Is she ok?” For the second time that night, there was worry in his voice.

“I’m sure she is, I’m gonna go check on her” (y/n) grabbed the baby monitor and went up to the nursery, she changed her diaper and the crying stopped,but miss Rose was wide awake now, so (y/n) sat in the rocking chair trying to get her to sleep again.

“Go back to sleep, baby girl” She spoke softly to her “Oh Rose, one thing auntie (y/n) is not good at, is lullabies, let me think of a nice song to sing to you” She rocked the baby lightly trying to remember a song that she could sing to her.

Spencer was growing impatient, (y/n) had been up for more than 20 minutes, she had taken the baby monitor so he had no clue what was going on with Rose. He decided to go up and ask if there was anything he could help her with. As he got closer to the nursery he could hear (y/n)’s voice. He wasn’t sure what she was saying until he stopped right outside the nursery, the door was half open so he could now clearly listen to her singing softly to Rose.

“I’ve been trying to do it right, I’ve been living a lonely life, I’ve been sleeping here instead, I’ve been sleeping in my bed, sleeping in my bed, so show me family all the blood that I will bleed, I don’t know where I belong, I don’t know where I went wrong, but I could write a song, I belong with you, you belong with me, you’re my sweetheart, I belong with you, you belong with me you’re my sweet…”

Spencer smiled, he recognized the song, it was from the same band that played the song they had listened on the jet. After that conversation, he had searched the song and had downloaded more songs from that band. He enjoyed their music because it reminded him of (y/n). He silently went back down and decided to wait there for her. He didn’t feel when (y/n) came down a few minutes later and put a blanket around him. She sat on the other couch and let herself fall asleep there.

#cmbingo20 #cmbingo #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #CM Imagine #criminal minds #criminal minds imagine #spencer reid imagine #matthew gray gubler

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valhallanrose · 3 years

Text

A Kindling, Of Sorts

The invitation to join their grandmother that would change Astoria’s course forever.

This fic predates What the Water Gave Me and Katrinah Josephina, taking place when Astoria is about thirteen.

Astoria is nonbinary, and uses she/they pronouns interchangeably.

4k words. No CWs apply. Title: A Kindling, Of Sorts by The Oh Hellos

In the early hours of the morning, Castle Kintyre was beginning to stir, the hearths lit to combat the mid-winter cold and servants passing through the halls to begin their duties before the Canonach family began to rise and emerge for the day.

Of all the children who lived within the castle walls, only one would willingly stir so early, rising with the sun and making their way down to the lounge where their instrument sat covered in a swathe of fabric to keep it protected from the forces that were their cousins.

With a serene smile on their face and their harp between their knees, Astoria began to play, half-closed eyes fixed on the rays of golden sunlight that began to filter through the window from the morning sky.

The sky shifted from lavender, to rose, and when the sky began to shift to gold the door to the lounge creaked open. They didn’t seem to notice the sound, not when the wooden floorboards squealed and a cane tapped lightly against the carpet until the source of it stopped a few feet away from where Astoria sat.

“Do you ever sleep, Astoria?”

They jolted out of their trance, hands falling away from the harp strings to rest on their knees and looking sheepishly toward their grandmother as they laid their cheek against the shoulder of the instrument.

“I do, I just...don’t like to waste the day. And I wanted to play before Erskine woke up. They pulled some of the strings out of tune the last time I played around them.” Astoria shrugged lightly, their hands lifting to the strings again to pluck out a few notes. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“Not at all. Seems the older I get, the less time I spend asleep.” Myrna chuckled, leaning on her cane slightly as she lowered herself into a plush armchair across from Astoria. “Though I suppose that isn’t so bad, getting some peace before the chaos that is our family. Would you be willing to play for me a little while longer?”

Astoria cracked a smile at that, watching as their grandmother accepted the tea tray from a passing maid and poured herself a cup with a relaxed sigh. “Any requests?”

“Whatever your heart desires.” Myrna waved a hand as she leaned back into her chair and closed her eyes, both hands wrapped around her teacup and cane kicked defiantly beneath her chair - an action that made Astoria giggle before turning back to the harp.

And so, Astoria readjusted their posture, raised their hands to the strings, and began to play again - a gentle melody that filtered through the air as the sky transitioned from gold to clear, crisp blue.

They sat like that until Myrna’s eyes snapped open at the sound of gurgling laughter in the halls, quick footsteps making Astoria leap out of their seat and toss the cover over the harp before Erskine could come charging in -

Only for the laughter to pass, the sound of Flora’s playful voice following the toddler down the hall toward the kitchens for breakfast.

Astoria breathed a sigh of relief as they slumped back into their seat, and Myrna chuckled, rising to her feet and offering Astoria a hand as she patiently waited for them to finish smoothing out the cover.

“Remind me to pester Errol into helping you move the harp out of the lounge. It’s the least he can do, since it’s his child terrorizing the instrument.” Myrna smirked a little, then flung an arm around Astoria’s shoulder as they stood. “Suppose we should go be social and get breakfast?”

Astoria grinned a bit at that, looping an arm around Myrna’s waist and letting their grandmother guide them out of the lounge. “If I must, I’ll make the sacrifice. Do you think they’ll have butteries by the time we get there?”

“Monroe knows to save me a few. I’ve brawled with my brother for the last one too many times.” Myrna brandished her cane playfully, making Astoria snort in amusement, then gave them a squeeze. “Come on, then, I heard they broke into the gooseberry jam this morning. Gods know the gooseberries here are better than I can get when I’m on the road.”

* * * * *

Mealtime was always somewhat...eventful.

The eldest generation was still fairly young - Malvina, having only recently stepped down from the title of Baroness at sixty-four, had just turned sixty-six a few weeks past. Ualan had just broken seventy, as the eldest, with Griselda, Monroe, and Astoria’s grandmother Myrna behind them in their fifties and sixties.

Their children, encompassing Flora, Fiona, Bridget, Grace, Quinn, and Astoria’s mother Senga, were starting families of their own by then. Save for Bridget, who had just turned eighteen to Astoria’s thirteen - certainly an odd thing to consider, having an aunt who was close to them in age, but Astoria liked Bridget - but Flora, Grace, and Quinn had all married by then.

Flora’s child was Erskine, the harp-assaulting toddler currently raising a fuss at the end of the table for not being allowed to have a third buttery when half the table wasn’t there yet.

Astoria did not envy Flora for having to wrangle them.

Grace had two children, one with each of her spouses. Sachairi, the closest to Astoria in age at a mere six months younger than them, and Leana, who was eleven.

And then, of course, Astoria themself - the eldest of their cousins, having turned thirteen in the summer - and their half-sibling, Malcolm, who was a few months shy of turning a year old.

The breakfast table was usually full of some degree of bickering and healthy debate over clan affairs, something Astoria was content to watch while nibbling on a tattie scone and staying well away from. It’d been especially intense since their mother became Baroness of Kintyre, opening the door for new policy and leadership to see what new directions they could lead the clan in now that a new generation had come to the forefront.

Astoria found it all rather snore-worthy.

Sachairi settled into the seat to Astoria’s right, elbowing them lightly before he reached for the plate of tattie scones they’d dragged closer to their plate when it seemed nobody else was interested in them.

“Morning, cousin. Willing to share?”

Astoria shrugged, reaching up and ruffling his mop of red curls as he snagged a scone and shoved it halfway into his mouth. “Help yourself. Have you got lessons this morning?”

“No, they’re in the afternoon.” Astoria made a face as crumbs fell from his mouth, and he paused, covering his mouth to finish chewing before he continued. “Sorry. I meant to ask you, though, what’s the big deal happening in the library today? Something about your mom having some friends over?”

“Yeah, mum’s got some visitors. Friends from other clans who wanted to see Malcolm. I don’t really know, she’s been pretty busy lately and I haven’t wanted to interrupt the whole ‘new happy family’ thing she’s got going on.” Astoria didn’t notice the way Myrna paused in the seat across the table, instead shoving a bite of eggs into their mouth and gesturing with their fork a little when they continued. “In the library, though? That blows, I wanted to go poke around the shelves a bit this morning.”

Sachairi glanced left, then right, then leaned in to whisper excitedly to Astoria as they ate. “We still could poke around, you know. There’s that passage by the library we can sit in, maybe go listen? For all the talk about the clans we’ve been hearing, it’d be great to hear it from the horse’s mouth. I mean, your mom’s not a horse -”

Astoria snorted into their glass of water, grinning a bit as they elbowed Sachairi lightly. “None taken, I knew what you meant. But yeah, I’d be alright with that. Now eat your breakfast, your rumbly stomach isn’t giving us away when we try and listen in.”

* * * * *

The pair had practically barreled away from the table as soon as they were given permission to go, dashing down the halls toward the passage that led up to a gap behind the shelves where they could slip out a few books and listen in close to the group of giggling women in the alcove usually reserved for studying, not teatime. They pulled out just enough to peer through, to hear their voices, but not enough to make them visible to an unobservant eye.

Astoria could see Senga, with her back to the shelf they hid behind, long blonde hair braided back and falling neatly over her shoulder out of Malcolm reach. The other women Astoria didn’t recognize - one brunette, one redhead, another blonde, one with hair so blue it looked black. They seemed to have arrived mid conversation, where the redhead had been passed a sleeping Malcolm and allowed to hold him while Senga watched over them both like a hawk.

“...so darling, Senga, my boys were never this sweet when they slept. They always seemed on the brink of waking up and screaming whenever I held them.” The brunette laughed, leaning in to push a bit of Malcolm’s blanket out of his face where he lay in the redhead’s arms. “Was Catriona as darling when they were a babe?”

Astoria wrinkled their nose as Senga shrugged, the chuckle audible on her lips as she reached for a teacup. “Sometimes. Catriona was very vocal - can’t remember a night they didn’t wake up crying at some point. But Astor was an expert at getting them to settle when Riordan couldn’t. Catriona was always attached to them.”

“Astor?” Sachairi whispered, and Astoria nodded, pushing their glasses up their nose as they watched intently.

“My mum’s brother. He passed away when I was six, but I remember how nice he was. Always taught me about something new when I came to see him. Uncle Astor was sick for a long time, we all knew it was coming, but...Granny says he loved me like he would have his own children. I’ll tell you more about him another day. You would have liked him.”

Sachairi nodded, leaning his chin on the shelf and closing his eyes as the two fell silent again.

The redhead eventually passed Malcolm back, watching with a serene look on her face as Senga cradled their half-brother close to her chest in the crook of one arm.

“Catriona’s what, thirteen now? How do you feel having a baby after so long? I imagine some of it is like muscle memory by now.”

Senga shrugged, dropping a kiss to the top of Malcolm’s head. “To a degree, yes. But James has been quite helpful, and with all the changes about our lives, and my family has been kind. My cousin Flora had a child three years ago, Erskine, and she’s been happy to offer advice where she can.”

There were a few beats of pause as the blonde cooed at the baby before the blue haired woman spoke up, hands folded neatly in her lap.

“Do you...regret having a baby, so soon after taking the title? You’d barely been married when Malvina stepped down and it passed to you. Adjusting to a new child is hard enough, but the title, and James has said he felt like Catriona needed more time to adjust to the idea of having a stepfather after it just being you two for so long…”

Senga sighed heavily, enough for Astoria and Sachairi to see. “Not at all. While it’s certainly intense all at once, it feels like something I’ve been missing...has been completed. Perhaps the timing isn’t ideal, but of course I wouldn’t trade my baby for the world.”

Sachairi sighed himself before turning to Astoria and giving their arm a comforting squeeze. “Come on, Tori, it’s just mom gossip. We don’t have to stay. Why don’t we go for a ride?”

Astoria nodded, reaching for the books they’d taken down to slip them back onto the shelf. “You go ahead, I’ll just put these back. I’d feel bad if someone couldn’t find them where they were supposed to be.”

With a nod, Sachairi slipped out of the passage, and Astoria quickly began to reshelve the books. The women continued talking, long enough for Astoria to tune them out when they continued talking about James and Malcolm in particular...when their own name drew them back into the conversation.

“Catriona...I must admit, has never felt like my child.” Senga mused, tilting her head back as she spoke.

Astoria froze in place, the last book half shelved, eyes fixed on their mother from the gap in the books still left behind.

“Catriona always took after others. Riordan, Astor, my mother...I never felt connected to them. They were always someone else’s child. And in the beginning, I didn’t mind. I had cousins ahead of me for the barony, so I thought that if I had a child before the others, I would at least be able to impart some influence on what the clan should be through them. I didn’t expect Astor to pass, nor did I expect both of my cousins to abdicate and pass the title to me. And now that I have it...I have a new child, a new husband. I feel that the bridge is impossible to overcome for Catriona and I to have a personal relationship beyond leader and heir. I am simply glad to have a family I can observe as my family, nothing more than that.”

Senga shrugged, and while the redhead, the blonde, and the brunette all seemed to nod along in understanding, the blue haired woman seemed aghast at the idea.

“You had Catriona solely to ensure you had influence over the barony? What if Catriona doesn’t want it, what will you do then?”

“That’s not their choice. They know their obligations to the clan, and I won’t allow them anything less than what they’ve worked for all these years.” Senga seemed unbothered as she reached for her cup, bringing it to her lips as she spoke. “Such is the way of heirs, is it not? Their lives are laid out for them, and I expect nothing of Catriona beyond fulfilling the duty they were born for. I will rule, and then they will, and we will shape the clan the way it should be.”

The book fell from the shelf, thumping quietly to the stone floor, but Astoria couldn’t find it in themself to mind as tears began to trickle down their cheeks.

That’s not their choice.

Was that...was that it, then? They’d felt a little...replaced since their mother remarried and had Malcolm, but...to hear it out loud, to know that you were expected to be nothing but a tool to further someone else’s agenda? To know your own mother did not love you, but what you could give to her? To know that you didn’t have a say in who you were, who you could become, that you were heir alone and that was the only purpose you were permitted to have?

Clasping a hand over their mouth to stifle their sobs, Astoria fled the passage and ran down the halls of Castle Kintyre - the broad stone walls feeling like they were caving in around them, crushing weight as they felt their breath catch in their throat.

They ran blindly, stumbling through the halls and trying to hide their tears until they damn near bowled over their grandmother on the way to their bedroom. Myrna stumbled, leaning hard on her cane to catch them both, and had hardly opened her mouth to ask Astoria if they were alright before their grandchild was blubbering through an apology with tears streaming down their face.

Finding their grandmother, the most comforting presence they knew, seemed to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“I’m - I’m sorry, granny, I didn’t mean to -”

Myrna took a good look at them, really looked at them, then quickly pulled them back in for a hug that left Astoria burying their face in the fabric of Myrna’s shirt to try and stifle their whimpers.

“Oh, please, I’ve suffered worse than a tumble!” Myrna laughed, smoothing a hand over Astoria’s short pink hair and kissing the top of their head as they tried and failed to stop crying at Myrna’s words. “What’s wrong, a bhobain? I know you wouldn’t cry like this over a simple bump. Come, come, we’ll go sit in my room. I’ve just snuck some cookies from the kitchen, and I need someone to help me hide the evidence.”

Astoria cracked a small smile at that, and Myrna kissed their brow, smoothing a hand across their cheek to wipe away the trails of their tears that her shirt hadn’t absorbed.

“There’s my little rascal. Tears don’t suit you, Astoria.” Myrna looped her arm through theirs, guiding them down the hall toward the heavy mahogany door that Astoria knew led to their granny’s room. “Deep breaths, and then you’ll tell me what happened, yes?”

With a sniff, Astoria nodded, and Myrna led her inside her living quarters. A few steps carried them both to the two plush armchairs in front of the hearth, where Myrna sat them down and made them take a chocolate chip cookie out of the handkerchief she’d shoved in her pocket before prompting them as gently as she could to explain what was going on.

Slowly, ever so slowly - and through a new bout of tears - Astoria tried their best to recount what they’d heard in the passage, unable to meet Myrna’s eyes as she repeated the phrases that stuck out in her mind and refused to escape. They only managed to look up when they finished and their granny said nothing, the silence between them so thick and

Myrna looked like fury hardly contained - white knuckled grip on her cane, expression dark, angrier than Astoria had ever seen their usually energetic grandmother in all their years.

“Are you...are you mad at me, granny?” Astoria asked timidly, shrinking back in their chair as Myrna shook her head slightly.

“No.” Myrna got out, eyes fixed on a spot on the carpet as her jaw visibly ticked. “But I am furious with your mother. The absolute nerve of her -”

They flinched as Myrna shot to her feet, cane abandoned as she limp-paced around the carpet. “Please don’t tell her I was listening, granny, she’d get so upset with me for spying…”

“That’s her own damn fault for saying it in the first place.” Myrna snarled, then froze when Astoria let out a small whimper at the intensity of her tone.

She let out a breath, trying to calm herself down enough so that she could school her expression back into one of neutral calm. For as angry as she was...there were more important things at hand.

Slowly, Myrna stepped closer, kneeling in front of Astoria’s armchair after a bit of effort and clasping their hands tightly in her own.

“I want you to listen to me, and I need you to listen well. You understand?”

Astoria nodded, lowering their eyes to their clasped hands as Myrna leaned her forehead against theirs and let out a sigh.

“No human is perfect. I make mistakes, your great aunts and uncles and your cousins make mistakes, your father made mistakes in the time I knew him. Your mother is no exception - she has made many mistakes in her lifetime, Astoria, but you are not one of them, and damn her for making you think otherwise. There is not a day that goes by where I am not grateful for your birth, a day where I am not filled with joy when I come home and see the way you smile at me and welcome me back, a day where I do not love you for who you are and how proud I am to call you my grandchild.”

Myrna squeezed their hands again as she heard Astoria sniffle, uncaring of the tears of her own that were beginning to slide down her cheeks. “Astor loved you. Balfour loved you, gods rest them both. Your cousins love you. I love you. You are so, so loved, my darling, and it breaks my heart to know that you have doubted it for even a moment as a result of someone else’s cruel words.”

She released Astoria’s hands to cup their cheeks, tilting their head down to press a few kisses to their brow.

“What do I do, granny?” Astoria whispered, laying their hands over Myrna’s and squeezing their eyes shut. “Mum said...mum said she had me so I could be the baronet, but I don’t…”

Myrna leaned back slightly, enough to look Astoria in the eye when she tipped their chin up and waited for them to tentatively meet her gaze despite the tears that filled both their eyes.

“Damn the barony. Damn all of it, Astoria, because the barony means nothing if you are not happy. No title, no amount of money, no amount of power, nothing is worth giving up your happiness. No matter what your mother said, you have a choice, and if that choice is throwing everything she wanted for you at her feet, then I will stand behind you because I know it is what you want. No one can make you be anything that you don’t want to be.”

Astoria tried to swipe at their cheeks, but the tears only fell faster before Myrna pulled them into a tight embrace right there on the fur rug beneath them both. They sat together a long, long while, Astoria’s face buried in Myrna’s neck and Myrna holding onto Astoria like she was afraid they’d disappear. It would only be when Astoria quieted that Myrna would speak up, her voice gentle and thick with emotion all her own that she’d been trying to keep at bay for the sake of comforting their grandchild.

“Sweetheart, I want you to think about something.” Myrna murmured, prompting Astoria to lift their head and look up at her to show she was listening. “I’m leaving next week. I have to go north, up to Prakra to speak to some colleagues, and then I’ll be going to Firent to work on a dig site. I’ll be gone from here for about two months, perhaps longer if I’m asked elsewhere. But...I want you to think about coming with me this time.”

“Come with you?” Astoria echoed, and Myrna nodded, smoothing some of Astoria’s hair back from their face.

“You’ve spent your whole life here in Rosinmoor. I want to give you the chance to see the world, see what’s beyond our home - give you a chance to see what you could possibly become.” Myrna swiped a thumb across Astoria’s damp cheek, smiling a little despite herself. “I want you to know that you have choices, and I want you to understand how much bigger life is than it is here at Castle Kintyre.”

“What...what about mom?”

“Your mother may be Baroness, but she’s sure as hell got no authority over me. If you tell me you want to go, you’re going, and if I have to fight tooth and nail to make it happen, I will.” Myrna let out a playful growl, prodding at Astoria’s sides with tickling fingers and smiling when a peal of laughter fell from their lips and they shoved her hands away. “You don’t have to decide now, but -”

Astoria shook their head, looking up at Myrna with a hopeful gleam in her eyes. “No, I...I want to go. I want to go to Prakra, Firent, anywhere you go. I want to see it all for as long as you’ll let me.”

A smile broke across Myrna’s lips, and carefully, she reached for her cane - not before bringing Astoria in for another tight embrace.

“Trust me, my dear, you’re welcome to follow me anywhere. You’re far more welcome company than some of my other traveling companions.”

#astoria fenharrow #my writing #oops! another fic where i tear up a bit writing it lmao

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