#that is so fucking terrifying??? especially when her own mother always told her that she is BAD and everything she touches is bad

[netherfeildren]

Greener Memories of Better Men

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader

Summary: Best Story of the Day! South Austin elementary school started a “Breakfast With Dads” program but many dads couldn’t make it and several students didn’t have father figures. The school posted fliers at the local YMCA’s for 50 volunteer fathers… 600 different people from all backgrounds showed up…

Joel Miller is one of them. 

-OR- 

Sarah’s gone and Joel wants to feel close to her again. He reconnects with someone he used to know along the way.

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: No outbreak; Grief; Child loss; Emotional hurt/comfort; Angst; Fluff and smut; Unprotected sex; Creampie; Oral Sex (f!receiving); Size Difference; Size kink; Dirty talk; Truck sex; Praise kink

A/N: This was planned for a long time, and then just happened all at once today without prior thought. Enjoy! :)

Word Count: 10.8K

Read on AO3

When she got very sick, towards the end, they used to listen to “The Weight” by The Band all the time. He’d sit at her bedside playing it for her over and over again, and he’d watch her breathe. For hours, he’d sit there and watch the rise and fall of her chest, the slow, weak thrum of her pulse in her neck beneath the wan and clammy skin, listen to the sound of her fight to continue existing. Sometimes, when she was a little more on this side of lucid, when she’d let him look at those gorgeous green eyes, she’d mouth the words at him through cracked, parched lips. Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed? The still beautiful sound of her laughter, not made any less lovely despite its weakness now, when she adapted the lyrics to suit herself, take a load off, daddy. 

And sometimes, when she was keen on showing that superior and tremendous wit, that intelligent mind, the eye she had for seeing within and through him, she’d say that Fanny was the friend they’d always needed, but had never had. Like she knew, she knew there were times, only sometimes, where there was something missing, an imaginary figure that would have been nice or helpful, that was sometimes wished for. A mother, a wife, a partner, a friend, something they might have both needed or liked to have, perhaps, even especially, now, at the end. 

It had been a slow crawl towards death, for a long time, and then, suddenly, a mad dash to the finish line she’d seemed desperate to win. 

At times he’d been angry, angry and resentful and so fucking filled with a rage so deep it terrified him at the unfairness of it all. Sometimes there were parts of Joel that wished it was him lying in that bed, rotting away from the inside out by that invisible poison crawling through his little girls veins, but then the idea of Sarah being the one left behind, the one left alone, seemed an equally terrible fate, and he could not discern which was the worse of the two evils. And so he was left with nothing but this terrible impotence warring inside of him against his equally terrible anger. 

If he could have carried the weight of her illness for her, he would have. If he could have bore the pain and suffering of it, he would have. He would have eaten his own heart, cut off his own limb, forsaken everything he’d ever known, to have taken her suffering from her. He’d told her they’d be brave together, that they’d get out of it together. Eventually though, that mad dash had ended, and after it was all done, she’d been the only one to be brave, and he’d been the only one to get out of it. If that’s what it could even be called. Sarah had died and Joel had been left with nothing more than whatever half life he pretended at now. 

It’d been a year and a half since then, five hundred and sixty seven days since he’d put his only child in the ground. Days of living his life as if a thousand raging gladiators screamed and readied for battle in his mind while he lay limp and motionless in their midst. While he lay limp and motionless as the rest of the world went on around him. He failed all the time now, it seemed. Failed at being a father, a man, a brother, in his waking hours and in his dreams. And sometimes he wondered or worried at what she’d think of him now, if she saw what he’d let himself become. A limp and useless thing in the shadow of the memory of what he’d always been or wanted to be. 

But he remembered love, he remembered loving her, and he thought that if he held onto that, perhaps, he could be something again. Certainly not himself, or who or what he’d been before, but he could find the wherewithal or the strength or the conviction to be something, surely, he could be something again. How could death have the ability to touch such perfection? He could not understand. So, if he could no longer be a father, Sarah's father, then he could find it in himself to at least be alive, couldn’t he? For her, at least, for that memory of loving her. 

He sees the flier at the YMCA one evening, after he’s finished his workout. For months he’d gone from work to bed and bed to work. Gotten soft and lazy and horrible, half dead, but he’d had a dream a few weeks ago, a memory of them at Lady Bird Lake when they’d go and feed the ducks. She’d wanted to burst into the water after them, catch one for herself. Skinny little arms and legs flailing as he caught her around the waist, stopping her from rushing in after the poor things as they paddled madly away from the lovely little terror that she was. The thing he was now was not the man, the father, he had been before, not even a fraction. And he’d felt disgusted and ashamed and frightened with himself at the thought of her ever seeing the creature he’d become. He’d gone for a jog that evening after work. As exhausted and beaten down from the day as he’d been, he’d tied on his sneakers and forced his body to move. It had felt terrible and cathartic and he’d thrown up in his front yard afterwards, pathetic, heaving sobs wracking his body as he emptied the contents of his stomach in the overgrown grass and tears dripped down the tip of his nose, right there for the whole world to witness. But he’d gone out again the next day and the next and the next, and then he’d gone and gotten a membership for the Y, paid the thirty dollars and promised himself he’d make it there a few days every week. Pushed himself week after week to exhaustion and tears, even, sometimes. Wilting into bed at the end of the day like a felled weed, but he couldn’t stop. 

Don’t stop to think, don’t interrupt the scream. 

So he tried to not think, and he tried to keep going. 

They used to walk down there all the time before, to the Y, Joel, Sarah and Tommy. She loved to swim, and the three of them would jump in the pool together and play for hours every summer. They were good memories he knew he needed to keep fresh in his mind, like a muscle that needed to be exercised constantly. He couldn’t, didn’t want to lose them. 

The flier called for volunteers to show up for an event at Sarah’s old elementary school, “Breakfast with Dads” requesting fathers who could show up for those children who didn’t have a father figure in their lives. He’d stood still as a statue, reading the poster over and over again for almost ten minutes there, in the middle of the bustle of the busy gym around him. He could still remember the last time he’d picked her up at school with perfect clarity, the way she’d looked, curls bobbing around her, green eyes shining, shooting out the double doors towards him. She’d always been good in school, smart and lovely and friendly. He’d had to make the difficult decision to pull her out almost a year before she’d died, when she’d started getting too weak from the treatments to continue going in person. He’d not been back to the place since. Didn’t know if he was capable of walking through those halls she used to walk through, where she’d been happy, had friends, been a kid. 

He thinks about it for days afterwards, afraid and unsure and awkward with himself. Worried the children will be able to smell the deceit on him, the fact that he isn’t really a father anymore, lying on the soft purple rug of her perfectly preserved bedroom. A mausoleum to her memory that he meticulously cleans every Sunday to maintain exactly as she left it, staring up at the stick-on stars of the ceiling. He thinks that perhaps it would be good for him, that perhaps he would like the chance to feel like a father again, to remember what it is to have some spunky little kid talk at him for hours on end the way Sarah used to. And if nothing else, he thinks that there might be some child out there without the commodity of a father, the way he is without the blessing of his daughter, who would appreciate the fact that he’d shown up. Perhaps, he can make some kid not feel as alone as he always feels now. 

The morning of the breakfast dawns bright and warm, but with the faint scent of impending rain in the ether. She’d died on the same kind of sunny, tremulous day, and Joel’s hands shake as he walks up the steps of the elementary school. Flashes of the memory of her running out of these same double doors, skipping down the steps, curls flopping and gap toothed smile more luminous and sillier than any sight he’d ever beheld before. His heart beats like a hummingbird in his chest, hands clammy and shaking and ridiculous. He cries all the time now, at any and everything and it embarrasses him but is also so strangely freeing. He’d watched that ridiculous, but not really, movie Uptown Girls last night and had wept like a child at the end of it, all throughout it if he’s being honest. Huge mistake for the night before he was supposed to show face bright and early and have some kid inspecting him. Tommy’d shown up this morning with coffee and burritos and told him his face looked swollen, fucking asshole, and he’s once again ridiculous and embarrassed and awkward and shaking with nerves as he takes a few deep, calming breaths, before stepping into the Sarah’s old cafeteria. 

The large room is loud and chaotic, the bright sound of children’s voices and laughter and commotion, and people, there are a lot of fucking people. Two different lines of men, traversing the entire wide room, starting at a long table on one end and snaking through the lunch tables. It seems he wasn’t the only one who’d seen the posters, who had felt the need to come here today. He’s inspecting the lines, deciding which one seems to be moving faster when he hears his name, soft and breathy and incredulous, voice like a fucking angel: “Joel?”

He turns and there you are. “Joel Miller?” You almost stumble towards him, hand almost outstretched, eyes almost swimming. The last time he’d seen you was the last time he’d picked Sarah up here, and there’d been real tears in your eyes that time as you got to your knees, and his daughter buried her face in your neck, your soft hair, as she cried and told you how much she’d miss you, how much she didn’t want to go. You’d been her last teacher before she’d had to leave school – she’d never gotten to finish the year with you, and it had been a painful and difficult parting for the both of you. One he’d not appreciated fully in the moment, but now, looking at your shocked face, like you’ve seen a ghost, the memory rears its head in his mind, the sound of your voice trying to soothe her, trying to remain strong, stifle the sound of your own tears. You’d gone to the hospital once, near the end, the nurses had told him, in the quick hour he allotted himself to go home and shower every day, to say goodbye to her. Had sat at her bedside and laughed with her, brought her a card and a bright bouquet of yellow daisies in a pretty, blown glass vase from her entire class. It had been near the end of the school year, what would have been the end of Sarah’s second grade year, and he’d been glad, after the nurse had gushed about the pretty young woman who’d come in, made Sarah laugh and smile, perked her up for even a few brief moments, he’d been so fucking glad he’d missed you. He hoped he’d never have to see you again, could avoid the memory of his daughter in your care, the way the two of you looked at each other, like you shared a secret, a friendship, a connection, that of pupil and teacher, but also just two girls, something special and sacred. He envied it and resented it and was glad he’d missed you and grateful he’d not had to see you, but he was also grateful for the fact of you, that you’d been able to give her something she’d needed and he could not provide. 

He whispers your name, and you finally reach him, hand fully outstretched now, not an almost anything anymore, and your small, delicate fingers grasp at his thick forearm. The soft touch burns. 

He places his big hand over yours, completely engulfing you, and when he whispers your name back he feels a tremble in your limb. “Joel, I’m so glad to see you,” said with so much sincerity he feels the backs of his eyes pinch. He did not think the hardest part of this day would be seeing you again, a person who’d known and cared for his daughter so deeply. 

“I– I’m glad to be here,” he chokes, coughs, tries to take a steadying breath. “I saw the posters– just thought… I just thought it’d be nice for me to come around.”

“Yes,” you squeeze his arm gently, “Yes, of course. Welcome, please, I’m really so glad to see you here. There are so many great kids here today–” you cut yourself off, and your face does a funny sort of uncertain thing, you shake your head, try and give him a small smile. A deep breath, and then: “There are so many kids here that need someone. It’s a real good thing you came.”

“Yeah, well… I just wanted to– to feel– to remember–” he shakes his head too, unable to continue, but he sees that you understand. You slide that small hand into his, wrapping around two of his thick fingers and pull him around and further into the room. Nodding your head and smiling back at him like you’ve got the best sort of secret you’re about to let him in on. “Of course. Come on, I’ll show you to your seat. I know just the person for you.”

-

“Joel, this is my niece–”

“Who the fuck is this guy?” All the sass in the world and a scarred eyebrow to boot. 

“Ellie,” you say nice and slow, voice soothing as if trying to calm a wild banshee on the verge of revolt, it makes him smile a small smile, “We’re gonna be nice. You promised this morning.”

“Ugh, fine,” she drops her head back on her neck, and he can see the whites of her eyes flash as she rolls them as far back as they can surely go. “Stick me with the dinosaur, what do I care?” Christ, he mutters under his breath, trying to hide his scoff of a laugh with a rough cough. He turns his head to rub his chin against the hill of his shoulder, running a hand over his whiskered face. 

“Ellie– Mom said you can’t go to the sleepover tonight if you aren’t nice. Right?” You try and reason with her. 

“Fine. Whatever – nice.” And she flashes a big old, saccharine grin, wagging her eyebrows at you. 

“Okay,” you turn back to him, bringing your hands together in a soft clap beneath your chin and giving him a small and painfully sweet little smile – worried and probably a little afraid for him. He shakes his head, “It’s alright, we’ll be okay,” he says low, distracted by the sight of your small hands, fine and delicate looking, and the dainty gold necklace that sits at the hollow of your throat, a little golden pendant of your initial. 

You nod your head slowly, turn back to give the kid, Ellie, one more stern look, and then turn to walk away, leaving him to face her alone, and no, he most definitely does not glance at your ass as you walk away from him.

He turns back to look at the kid, and she rolls her eyes again, turning back to flip open the book she’s got infront of her on the lunch table, a one Will Livingston’s No Pun Intended: Volume Too. 

He snorts a little, sighs and settles into the cramped bench made for a child, thick thighs barely squeezing into the space between the table’s edge and the seat, knees bumping the underside. “Well aren’t you a pleasant one.”

“Yeah, a ray of fuckin’ sunshine. What’s your problem?”

“Jesus, kid. How old are you?”

“Thirteen. How old are you?”

“Forty eight.”

“Old.”

“Yeah.”

“So, why'd you get stuck with the leftovers? Where's your kid?”

He clears his throat, “Uh well, she– she’s not here anymore. Or I mean– she doesn’t go to school here anymore. She died. A while ago.”

“Oh, shit.” She’s quiet for a beat, looking down at the open page of the book, It doesn’t matter how much you push the envelope. It’ll still be stationary. “That sucks, man. I'm sorry.”

He supposes the correct response is: “Thank you,” he nods his head awkwardly, still unaccustomed to going through the motions of having to tell people and accept condolences. He doesn’t think it’ll ever be something he gets used to. 

“I think…” she tilts her head side to side, letting the thought slide between her ears, flips to the next page, I walked into my sister’s room and tripped on a bra. It was a booby trap. “That my dad is dead, or at least a dead beat or something,” she snickers. “Don’t know. My mom never talks about him.”

Dead or a dead beat, he mutters, shaking his head, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s hard– being a parent, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah… hardest thing in the world–”

“Is it like – like weird… to not be one anymore?”

He feels his stomach drop out from under him, coughs roughly, “Dunno… I guess– I guess in ways I still feel like a parent. Think I’ll always feel like that. But in other ways, yes, it’s… weird.”

“Yeah… I guess that makes sense. You don’t forget how stuff feels, right?”

“Yeah, you don’t forget how stuff feels.”

“Do you like space?” she asks suddenly, very seriously, knocking her head to the side, looking up at him with big, baleful, hazel eyes. His heart twists in his chest.

“Sure, yeah. Space is alright.”

And then another seeming one eighty: “If you could do anything you wanted, where would you go? What would you do?”

“Don’t know, never really thought about it. Maybe… an old farmhouse, some land, a ranch.”

“Cool. What kind?”

He shakes his head, Jesus, I don’t know… “Sheep. I would raise sheep.” She nods, doubtful, unimpressed look on her face, and he frowns at the look, “They’re quiet, do what they’re told.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay. So, just you and a bunch of sheep. Romantic,” she says sarcastically. 

“What about you? What would you do?”

She points a single finger up towards the ceiling, ah, space… “Probably because I’ve always been here, never left Austin, single mom and all, ya know– I’ve read everything I could in the school library… Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Jim Lovell. But you know who my favorite is?”

He could understand her on this. He felt, too often, like he was still right where she’d left him. “Sally Ride,” he says, of course.

“Sally fuckin’ Ride!” She slaps her hands down on the table, “Best astronaut name ever,” Shakes her head, whistling through her teeth appreciatively. 

He nods his head, yeah, figures. “So, your aunt…” and he feels a hot flush spread over the tops of his cheekbones, real smooth, Joel. At least he’d waited this long. 

“She’s my mom’s sister. She’s great. The three of us live together – kind of like my second mom, I guess. Or like they take turns being mom and dad. We’ve always been together.”

“That’s great, kid. She’s great. She– she was my daughter’s teacher, I’ve known her for a while now.”

“Yeah, she really is. I punched this girl last year,” she says way too excitedly, “Bethany,” rolls her eyes, “For being a huge dick, man, like seriously, she was. And she got me out of it. Backed me up with the principal, Mr. Kwong. No one else would’ve stuck up for me that way.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Seems like her style–”

“Protective,” she snickers.

“Yeah–” 

“And good. Her and my mom, they’re a unit, the three of us. Don’t know, I’ve never seen anyone take care of each other the way they do. Sometimes…” she looks away a little shyly, “I misbehave,” she says slowly, “Like the fighting. For no reason, I guess. And I know it worries them. But I’m trying to be better, not fight as much. My friend Riley, she’s a good influence. She stops me when I get too riled up.”

“I reckon it’s a lot easier said than done, but the fact that you’re trying to be good is what counts, is what I’d say. I’m sure being thirteen is difficult,” he says a little sarcastically, but giving her the approximation of a small, warm smile.

“Fuck you, man,” she laughs, “It’s difficult as shit.” It hits him then, suddenly, that the kid just needs someone to talk to, someone other than perhaps her mother or her aunt who she knows love and worry for her so much. A third, impartial party. Joel had come here today and been able to be that for her, and as inconsequential as it may seem, after all he’s lived through, it’s everything to him. 

The teachers and school administrators begin the process of handing out the breakfast: pancakes and bacon and sausage and fruit, and Ellie tells him about her book, full of terrible puns he pretends to frown at but also can’t really help but laugh at with her, and about a comic she loves Savage Starlight. Endure and survive, she tells him, is the motto, and he can’t help but think the idea is far reaching and significant in its truth. They sit and talk and laugh together, and it’s easy, this surly kid who pretends at being angry, hiding her charm with a potty mouth and a scowl, but who’s really nothing but sweet. It makes his chest ache and his throat go tight. So much so, that after a while he needs to excuse himself. He tells her he’s going to the restroom and runs off like a coward, the devil and his memories on his heels to take a few deep breaths, a moment alone to collect himself. 

He rushes out of the cafeteria, bursting through the double doors and out into the hallway, scurrying to find a lone corner to hide himself and his shame and grief away in. He makes it to a shadowed alcove at the mouth of an empty hallway of classrooms and presses his hands to the concrete blocks of the wall, painted a soft blue color. He stares at the pockets in the aggregate and tries to take deep breaths, feels the air pass through his lungs, inflate his belly, and then back out, transformed into the world as something else. Sometimes he wishes he had the ability to transform his grief into something else – a non-memory, perhaps. Sometimes he wishes he could forget the whole thing, a terrible, selfish, disgusting thought. But pain makes terrible creatures out of us sometimes, and Joel has existed in a pool of such pain these past five hundred and sixty seven days that sometimes it’s difficult to recognize himself anymore, his desires, his goals, if he even has those anymore. Like he’d said to the kid, it’s a lot easier said than done, but the fact that you’re trying to be good is what counts, and he was trying so very hard to be good, better. 

“Joel?” That soft voice again, a shiver claws its way down his spine, and he shakes his head at the wall, letting his hot, pinched eyes fall closed. 

He coughs, trying to clear his throat, “M’fine. Just needed a second–” Coughs again. And then he feels that small hand from before, at the small of his back. You rest there, gifting him that brief, comforting touch, and he reaches behind himself to clasp you around the wrist, keep you there with him, silent for a moment while he tries and fails to collect himself. His fingers wrap entirely around your wrist and something different and hot and alive flutters deep in his belly. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I can’t talk about it. I’m just– It’s overwhelming being here. I’m sorry. I’m okay,” he rambles. 

“It’s okay, Joel. Just take your time.” Your voice is too soft and gentle for a hard and broken thing like him. 

“She’s a good kid,” he tries and fails to keep his voice steady, comes out all hiccupped and cracked instead, and he feels you step closer, not touching him anywhere else, but he can feel the heat of you against his back. 

“She is,” you whisper.

“S’got a fuckin’ mouth on her.”

“Yeah…” You try and laugh, fail.

He cracks and splinters: “I didn’t think it would be like this coming back here… seeing you,” voice breaking, “She was sick for so long, and I knew she didn’t want to leave me. I knew she was so fucking tired, but she kept holding on just for me. And I told her it was okay, I told her to go and that I’d find her again one day, and now I don't know who I am or what I’ve become, and all I can think about every single day is that if she saw me now I worry she wouldn't recognize me anymore.”

“You’re trying, Joel. That's all that matters. I know you are. I can see it now even just here today, you being here–”

“I wish I could see her smile again, just once–” he cuts you off, not really listening. His ears filled with static noise, chest heaving. Your other hand comes to his flank, and it’s too much: this place, your touch, the kid, all of it, all of his memories and all of his grief, and he shouldn’t have come here today. He squeezes his eyes shut tightly, and for a second, right before he pushes you away, he squeezes your wrist tightly, as tight as he can without really hurting you, lets the heat of your skin burn him, and then lets go of you, harshly shaking you off. 

“I’m fine. I shouldn’t have come here today, I’m sorry. This was a mistake.”

“Joel–”

“Tell Ellie I’m sorry, but I have to go.” And like a fucking coward, like a man his daughter’d be ashamed of, he leaves, runs away from you and the memory of her and another child who needs something he is not equipped to give. 

He listens to the sound of your voice calling after him, and he is nothing but sorry and nothing but too much of a man he wishes he’d never been made into. 

-

You’re on your second margarita when he walks in. Trailing his brother, serious, sullen look on his handsome face. When you’d seen him this morning, after all that time, after the last time which had been so painful and so sad and so full of regret for the circumstance of it, you’d felt like your heart was about to burst through your chest. You thought about him so often, about her, more often, probably, than was warranted or healthy, but the experience of having a child such as that in your care, such a special little person, and having to witness the extinguishing of such a bright flame… Well, calling it a tragedy was entirely inadequate in the face of all it truly was. 

Anna was kind of dating the bartender that worked here, and with Ellie away at a slumber party tonight, the two of you’d decided to have a girl’s night out that you were almost certain was going to turn into a slumber party for Anna with her bartender, Ben, as well. 

You eye the two brothers as they find their spot at the far end of the bar, watch as Tommy, you remember she used to talk about him all the time, flags down Ben to order them two beers, appreciating the way Joel pulls on the glass bottle with that soft, frowning mouth of his. 

He’s so sad. There’s no other word for it. Sad and hurt and made into a sort of tragedy of a man that you wish desperately, and even though it’s not your place, that you could do something to help. The sound of him choking back tears this morning, the sight of him laughing with Ellie, she’d warmed to him immediately which was a miracle all on its own, and he is, you think, a man with so much tenderness to give that has nowhere to go now. And it is nothing but the gravest and saddest sort of tragedy. 

“Hi, Joel.” Eventually, you muster up enough courage, after one more margarita, to approach him. You think that, perhaps, he’ll be annoyed to see you again, another reminder of his past and the difficulty of the morning, but you need to just talk to him one more time. To thank him again for being so brave, to reassure him that he’d done good. Tommy’d abandoned him to brave the waters of the bar a while ago, and he turns in his stool at the sound of your voice to peer over his shoulder. You love his beard, thick and lush and so soft looking, his thick, dark curls, slightly threaded with silver at the temples, and his ridiculously broad back. He’s wearing a dark green button down that brings out the colors in his eyes, tight around the swell of his thick biceps. He’s gorgeous and so fucking hot, and he makes you feel silly with nerves and fizzy bubbles deep in your belly. 

“Hey–” he clears his throat, says your name softly, with a hint of apology. “Hey.”

“I saw you come in earlier, and I– I just wanted to come over and say hi and thank you again for this morning. It was a real nice thing of you to come today.” You try and swallow the shyness and nerves in your voice, but you’re pretty sure you fail spectacularly, can just picture Anna’s mocking giggles as she watches you twist your fingers and fidget in front of the man. 

“You already thanked me,” he says gruffly, “And besides there’s nothing really to thank me for.”

“I know, but again, or anyways,” you stutter, “And there is.” There’s absolutely no reason for these nerves, you know this man, have known him for years, “It was a good thing of you to do. Ellie really liked you–”

“You gave her my apologies, right?” He cuts you off, a thing akin to desperation and worry coloring his tone. 

“I did, don’t worry. She understood.” He looks like he wants to ask what excuse you gave her but forces himself into silence, looking down at his hands in his lap sullenly. “I don’t know… I just wanted to say thank you again.”

“Alright. And I’m sorry too, about earlier – after. I was an ass.”

“You weren’t. I shouldn’t have gone after you, should’ve given you your privacy. I’m sorry. I was nosey.”

He shakes his head, looks up at you with those hazel eyes, “No, I wanted you to come after me.” His voice is rough, like it costs him something to admit this truth to you, “Thank you.”

You have to look away, glancing back at Anna who gives you a wide, cheesy grin and a thumbs up, followed by a much more inappropriate hand gesture. You roll your eyes at her, a hot flush burning your cheeks. “That’s your brother, right? Tommy?” You turn back to him. 

“Yeah, it is… You wanna sit?” He gestures to Tommy’s empty stool. 

“She used to talk about him all the time.” You take the offered seat, nervous for a second that he’ll resent you bringing her up, react badly, but he gives a soft laugh, looking after his brother. “Yeah…” he says slowly, “They were real close.”

“That’s really nice,” you say sincerely. You catch Ben’s eye, and he nods his head at you, turning to get the two of you another round. “You two having a boys night out?”

He gives a short laugh, bringing his beer to his mouth again, pressing the lip of the bottle to his smile, “Guess he was just trying to do the same thing you are right now, distract me, make sure I’m alright or somethin’,” a quick shake of his head, and then takes another drag, and you watch the thick muscles of his neck work as he swallows. You have to look away from the sight, cross your knees together tightly, pulling down the hem of your wrap dress to keep it from riding too high. 

Ben comes around at that moment to place two shots in front of the two of you. “Here you go, baby girl,” a wink and that smarmy little smirk that makes Anna lose her head, for some inexplicable reason, “Tequila for you and your friend here.”

“Baby girl?” Joel eyes you, as you push the shot towards him. 

You roll your eyes, “Ignore him.” He takes the shot from you, fingers brushing yours briefly and you swear you feel a slight jerk move through him. You want him to want you so badly, you think suddenly. 

“Shall we?” you wiggle your eyebrows at him, and he gives you a soft laugh. 

“Seems I don’t got much of a choice,” before clinking his glass against yours, touching the base of it to the bar’s surface, and then shooting it back, not even an insinuation of a grimace as he swallows the strong alcohol, while your face puckers ridiculously. 

Gross. You shake your head, squeezing your eyes shut and sucking on the lime Ben had left also. “He sweet on you or somethin’?” 

“No, not at all.”

“Huh, not so sure about that,” he eyes your sister’s boytoy almost sourly, and you get brave or reckless or something, all of a sudden, when you press right up to his ear, your breasts against his arm, emboldened by the liquor or the soft hazel of his eys, or the breadth of his shoulders when you whisper right into the peach fuzz covered shell of his ear, “He’s fucking my sister. Not me.”

He freezes, a soft, masculine sound rumbling deep in his chest before he clears his throat. He sets the glass down, and then slowly turns to face you, gripping your knee briefly as he spins on the barstool to bring your legs between the space of his spread thighs. He’s so thick everywhere. 

“Is that so?” The place on your legs where he’d gripped you burns and throbs and the other, softer place between your thighs drips and aches. You nod your head at him, temple resting in your palm propped on the edge of the bar. Ben walks by again, snagging your attention from Joel’s molten gaze, “Gimme permission to come over tonight?” he says as he passes. 

“Oh, fuck off,” you laugh after him, and you swear you feel the whisper of Joel’s touch on the curve of your bare knee again. When you turn to look back at him he’s staring down at you, a flush sitting high on his cheekbones. 

There’s something slightly bold or desperate or sad stirring inside of you, and you need to hear the sound of his voice. You wish you could make things better for him. You wish that perpetual look of grief didn’t sit so deeply embedded in his gaze all the time now. 

“You know that feeling of knowing someone, but not knowing them?” He asks you suddenly. “You and I, we’ve known each other for years. You were Sarah’s teacher, and she talked about you all the time – her last teacher – and I felt like I knew you, even though I didn’t really, not in a way that mattered, not in the way I would have liked, if I’m bein’ honest, but we knew each other peripherally. And I wanted you, all that time ago,” he laughs a boyishly shy little huff of laughter interrupting the rush of his confessed words, the crests of his cheeks flushing bright, “In that way you want someone you don't know but see all the time and want to know better. And now, it’s like… like we’re meeting again for the first time, but in a different way, in a way we’ve never met before, and yet you know so much about me already. You knew my daughter, spent time with her, you cared about her – it’s… I don’t really know what it is I’m trying to say, to be honest. I’m sorry.” He shakes his head, another unsurely shy laugh, and you reach out to set your hand softly on his knee, rubbing the thick, muscular ball of it. It’s okay, you nod and shake your head at him at the same time. Confused also, with what you’re trying to convey, but knowing you want him to continue anyway. “You knew me before in a different way, and I’m not that man anymore. And I don’t know who I am now, or I’m beginning to relearn, but I’m not there just yet,” He trails off, and then softly: “Have you ever not known yourself?”

You tilt your chin slowly, watching the slow rove of the leftover tequila in the glass as you roll the base of it along the grain of the bar. “I’m… I’m not sure. Would it be very naive or arrogant or shallow to say, no? That I’ve always known myself, that even when I was lost or afraid, I was still certain of who I was, or at the very least, who I wanted to be? Like… like sometimes when you’re uncertain of the next step, or– or of what it is that you want to do next, but you still know the direction, maybe? Or what ending you’d like?” You give a brief huff of laughter, not really meaning to laugh, but expelling the air anyway, glancing down at where you’re still gripping his knee. He lays his own large paw over your much finer hand, calluses on his palm that you can feel on the back of your knuckles. “I think now we’re both, maybe, not making sense. But I think that sometimes happiness is only the peripheral thought, the peripheral ending, like obviously we all always want to end up happy. I was always open to the journey, open to the different avenues my life could take, but all I’ve ever wanted was for me and Anna, and then later, Ellie, to be okay, to be happy. Nothing else matters after that. The way I get there, the way I’d make it happen never mattered. Only that, in the end, we’re okay.”

“No… I know exactly what you mean.” His brow caves in on itself, “I know exactly what you mean because I failed at that. That was all I ever wanted too, and look at what I ended up with. She’s gone, I failed her.”

“But you didn’t, Joel,” you say with all the fervor you can pull from your heart, all the certainty you absolutely know that he’s wrong with. You bring your other hand to his other knee, leaning forward to make absolutely sure he’s understanding. “You can’t honestly say that. You’re right, I did know her, and that little girl was an exceedingly happy child. If anything, you were nothing but a triumph, and you need to hold on to that, and think of it every single day for the rest of your life. You were triumphant in that girl. Never forget it.  There is not even a shadow of failure in the memory of that child and the life she led.” And this does not seem like the appropriate environment to be having such a conversation, but you push on. His hand tightens over yours almost painfully, his blunt rough nails digging into your soft skin. “When she died – was she scared? Or peaceful?”

“She was so fucking brave,” he chokes. “She was so fucking brave. There wasn’t an ounce of fear in that heart. I’d swallowed all of it. I’d swallowed all the fear either of us could ever carry. She’s the one that held me while I fell to pieces. While I lied through my fucking teeth and told her it would be okay, that I’d be okay, that she could rest, she could go. And held me and tried to soothe me and told me she’d see me again one day, but not too soon. Eight years old, dying and comforting her father, cracking jokes. She was so fucking brave, and I’d promised her that we’d both be – that we’d both have courage and both get out of it, and in the end, I ended up being nothing but a goddamn liar.” And there are tears in his eyes, and maybe you shouldn’t and maybe you’re overstepping and maybe it’s the alcohol, but you lean forward in your barstool, that boldness and that desperation and that sadness pushing you along so that your knees are sliding further between his spread thighs to wrap your arms around his neck to hug him tightly to yourself, and he buries his face in the crook of your neck, big hand coming up to cup the back of your head. 

“I’m so sorry,” you whisper, even though you know the words are redundant. Even though he’s probably heard them an antagonizing amount of times. You are so sorry, and you have to tell him that you wish you could help him in some other way, that he’d not have to bear this alone, that he’d never have had to live it at all. I’m so sorry, Joel. I’m sorry that you lost your daughter, and I’m sorry you’re alone now, and I’m sorry we didn’t know each other better before, but maybe we can know each other now. I’d like to know you now more than anything else.

You feel the rattle of his wide back as he takes in a shaky breath, and you slide your hand soothingly up the broad expanse to tangle in the curls at the nape of his neck. 

“I’m sorry,” he laughs wetly into the warm space beneath your jaw, rolling his forehead against your shoulder, “I’m killing the mood,” and you feel the wet press of lips to the soft spot beneath your ear, right at the vulnerable hollow. Your heart stutters, and you shiver a syrupy sweet little jitter down the line of your vertebrae in the clutch of his arms, letting your head fall to the side to open yourself further to him, you smell good, whispered into your skin, but the two of you are sitting at the center of the crowded bar, industriously dedicated patrons hooting and hollering around you, and you can feel Anna’s nosey gaze zeroed into the back of your head so you pull away, letting your hand on the back of his head drag around along the edge of his jaw, fingernails pulling through the soft whiskers of his beard so that you can feel the snick, snick, snick of each bristle beneath your nail. 

“Let’s go outside,” you whisper, made only of boldness and desperation and want now. Wetness pooling at the center of you. 

He pulls back, and his hand slides to grip your jaw in his wide, rough hand. The architecture of you feels inconsequential and without strength or steel in his grasp. “For what?” Voice serious but also knowing, also provoking. 

“I wanna kiss you.” Might as well be honest now that you’ve got his hands on you.

“I think that if we go out there, I’m gonna do more than just kiss you. You prepared for that?”

“Yes, let’s go,” and you’re already pulling him out of his barstool before the words are even fully out. His hand goes to your elbow to steady you as your feet meet the ground, and you can’t help but give him a small laugh. “Are you okay?” Just making sure.

“Yeah, I’m okay, sweetheart. Are you?” His gaze is so warm. 

“Yes.” And you can’t help but smile widely up at him. He gives you a huff of laugh through a half crooked smile that looks a little bit like the sliver of the moon when it’s nothing but a silver crescent in the sky, hand wrapping entirely around your bicep to tug you closer. You feel a little bit out of control when you slide your hand over his belly, and his eyes go immediately dark and molten, rubbing slowly up his chest. He makes a deep, rough sound, low in his throat. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” He pulls you along behind him, and as you’re making your way together out the door, you hear the sound of Anna whooping and whistling loudly behind you right before the bar door slams shut. 

He tugs you along behind him, and then passes you gently in his hands to walk in front of him as he weaves through the crowded parking lot, his wide chest, smoldering hot through his clothes, pressed up against your back, big hands wrapped around the soft of your hips. You feel him nosing into the curtain of your hair, smelling you and humming appreciatively, and you realize that he’s steering you towards the back of the parking lot, his familiar truck tucked into the far dark corner, and you twist, suddenly, in his arms, walking backwards and reaching up to wrap your arms around his neck. His hands go to the small of your back, bunching your dress in his hands tightly so that you feel the humid night air against the uppermost backs of your thighs. The look in his eyes is so dark, so wanting, and he presses you tight against his chest, your breasts squished up against the hard planes of him. He’s not even looking where he’s going, and your feet are barely touching the ground anymore as you tiptoe backwards, guided by his embrace. One of his hands comes up to grip the curve of your jaw, and then you feel the side of the truck against your back. He hoists you higher up towards his mouth, “I’m going to kiss you now,” he says, and before you can even think about saying yes, yes, please, finally, he’s swallowing your breath in his mouth, eyes still slightly open to watch you as he does it, pushing his tongue into the wet gleam of you to taste everything you so desperately want to offer him. He nips at your full bottom lip, then laps at it soothingly, and you moan for him, head falling back on your neck to open further for him, cradled now in the palm of his hand. Your hands smooth down the sides of his neck and then curl to scrape your nails down his stomach, and he groans into you, one thick thigh shoving between your knees. One of his palms slides over your hip to grip the curve of your ass, the other coming up, gentle yet unyielding, to circle your throat and tip your chin up to him as he pulls back to look down at you. The hand on your ass tips your pelvis into his and pulls your core along the broad expanse of his thigh so that your pussy slowly rides the hard muscle, once, twice. “Joel–” you gasp. 

“Back seat,” he orders, tugging the truck door open and hoisting you inside. Are you really about to let this man fuck you in the back seat of his truck in a crowded parking lot? Yes, yes, you are. He follows in after you, and then slams the door shut behind him, encasing the both of you in this quiet, paused moment before he’s pulling you forward to straddle his lap, spreading his legs wide to widen your own stance perched atop him. You listen to the sound of your panting breaths as he runs his hands over your curves, squeezing and kneading as he goes, and you plant your palms on his strong chest, smoothing them down over his belly, reaching the line of his belt to tuck them inside, he growls low, leans forward to lick at your throat and you feel the tug of his fingers at the tie of your wrap dress, then the pull of the fabric as he bares you for his eyes. You pop the first few buttons of his shirt as his wet mouth moves down the thrumming line of your neck, over the wing of your clavicle to the tops of your breasts where he pulls back to take you in. You’re wearing a soft pink lace bra and a matching thong, and as his eyes move down the length of you, the fire already smoldering within seems to ricochet up to a burning inferno. There is something about the look in his eyes, compared to before, compared to the usual look, that is even more thrilling than just the fact of him gazing upon your naked body. He’s always so serious, melancholy and sad and straightforward, in a way. But taking him in like this, the way he’s looking at you now like he wants nothing more than to devour you, to push inside of you, it makes it all the headier. “Fuckin’ gorgeous, look at you,” he murmurs, smoothes his hand over your breasts, thumb catching and flicking at your nipple, down the soft swell of your belly, stopping at the little bow at the front of your thong. He pushes the sleeve of your dress over one shoulder and tugs you forwards, you feel him lift the back of your dress over the curve of your bottom, his hand following the path of bared skin, taking in the tiny scap of lace disappearing between your asscheeks, and he makes a breathy, desperate sound, “Where the fuck are the rest of your panties, little girl?” He pinches the lush of your ass, smoothes his hand down and around to cup you between your legs, and you’re sure he can feel the soaking wet there because you listen to the sound of his gasp, and then he’s pressing there, seeking out your clit and rolling gentle circles to the swollen, throbbing nub. You run your hands up his chest into his hair, gripping there, pressing your nose into the thick curls to take in the scent of him and then running them down the heavy swell of his biceps. He’s so masculine, hard in all the places you’re soft, and wet, for him. His other hand grips your hip to pull you closer, rolling you onto the thick line of his erection, and oh God, he’s big. You can tell just like this, thick and long. Your hand moves to his belt buckle, pulling at the leather and the zipper of his jeans, and then you’re slipping your fingers beneath his boxers and wrapping around the thick heft of him. “Jesus, fuck–” he gasps. 

You fist him tightly, squeezing at the thick root of his cock and sliding up to the fat head to twist there gently. His fingers move beneath the line of your panties, finally making contact with your bare skin. 

“Fucking wet little cunt. Shit, you’re soaked for me, baby.” All you can do is moan as you pull him out of his jeans. He’s heavy in your palm and your mouth waters as you take in the sight of his big cock. Thick and long, wide, drooling head an angry red verging on purple. He hooks the gusset of your panties to the side and slides the underside of the shaft through your swollen lips, pressing the fat tip to your clit, and then sliding along your slit to catch softly at your opening. “Joel, please–” you moan. The head of his cock catches again and again, and you’re so wet, coating his thick length in your slick. He reaches to pull both cups of your bra down, exposing your breasts to his gaze and when his mouth latches onto one peaked nipple, sucking sharply, his other hand wrapping around the heavy weight of your other breast you cry out, fingernails digging into his thick shoulders. You use your grip on his shoulders to drag yourself along the length of his shaft while he sucks and nips at your breasts, pulling back to gently slap the full side of one, sending a jerking shiver through you while he watches how it jiggles and sways for him. “Shit, you’re too fuckin’ pretty,” he groans, and you’re about to come just from this, just the feeling of his thick cock sliding through the lips of your sex, and you tell him so, wet mouth presses to the arch of his ear, you tell him you’re about to come, but he changes the angle, presses his hips up and then the tip of his cock is breaching the dripping mouth of your cunt, stretching you wide to take him and you both pant and gasp, burying your face in his neck as one wide hand presses at the base of your spine, forcing you to take more of that impossible length. You feel the pinch and snap of your thong around your hips as he rips the scrap of lace off of you, and you think you must shake your head or something, make some soft sound because he tuts his tongue in a gentle reprimand, “All of it, baby. The whole thing.” He squeezes your breast, strums at your nipple, presses a feather light kiss to the hinge of your jaw, and you feel your cunt flutter around him, sucking him deeper so that he can wedge that thick cock further inside of you. “Yeah… Fuck, yeah. Just like that, good girl. You asked for this, sweet girl.” You hitch and sob into his neck, clawing at his shoulders as he finally forces you down all the way onto him, buried balls deep in your weeping, fluttering pussy. “Now you’ve gotta take the whole thing, no cryin’” He sounds like he’s spitting the words through clenched teeth, struggling to get them out despite the demand of them. “You’re doing so good,” he whispers, “Taking my big cock in this tiny little cunt.” He kisses your ear, your throat, pulls back to suck on your nipples, all while his hands on your ass start to rock you on his length, working you loose and wet and pliant. 

“Fuck– fuck, Joel–” 

“I know, I know, it’s so much, isn’t it? But you can take it– deep breath, you can take it.” He fucks up into you, holding your hips steady as he feeds you his cock over and over again, and you drip down onto his balls and the leather seat beneath. “Does that feel good, sweet girl? Tell me–”

“It’s so– it’s so good. Wanted it so bad–” you slur, wet cheek pressed to his shoulder, you mouth at his neck, little teeth digging into the thick line of muscle so that he’s growling, thrusting up quick and a little painful into your cunt, tip punching right at your cervix. 

“Lemme see you– I’ve gotta see you,” he says suddenly and presses you back. You reach back to plant your hands on his spread knees, arching your back to present yourself to him. His gaze is almost manic, licking over your skin, your bouncing tits as he fucks up into you, the swell of your tummy glistening with a fine sheen of sweat, down finally to the place where he’s fucking in and out of your swollen, blushed cunt, stretched obscenely around the base of him. “You’re so goddamned lucky we’re in a car right now,” he growls. He jerks you back into him, both hands squeezing your ass in each palm and rolling you hard and fast onto his impaling cock, your swollen clit presses into his pelvis on every thrust in, and you feel your cunt pull tight and then go loose as you start to come around him. Yes, yes, yes, fuck, yes – just like that. His cock kissing your g-spot with every press inside. You sob into his neck, pull at his hair, scratch at his shoulders and neck as you gush around him. 

He surges up then, orgasm not entirely abated, and flips you over onto your back, laying you down on the truck’s bench. He pulls his dripping cock out of your still grasping clutch to kneel down on the floorboard, hulking form entirely too large to fit in the tight space, and drags the broad, flat of his tongue through your drenched sex, tasting the echoes and throbs of your climax, sucking your clit and your come into his mouth while you sob up into the roof of his truck. He pushes your knees up to your chest, displaying you for himself entirely and devours you. “Fuck, there ain’t enough room in this fuckin’ truck to eat your cunt the way I need to,” his accent suddenly heavier, a sharper twang cutting off the end of his words, lost to the taste of you and the feel of you and the scent of you. You lean up onto your elbows, sweaty face burning bright hot with shyness as you take in the sight of his mouth wrapped around your clit, lapping at your leaking sex. He looks up at you, reaches up to wrap one hand around your breast, one of your legs is hanging down the length of his back over his shoulder, the other hooked at the bend of his elbow to keep you open and spread wide for him, and the two of you hold gazes for a moment. His eyes flash with something… different to desire or lust, something more in tune with whatever it is that’s happening here between the two of you right now, something more than just a quick fuck. You whisper his name, and his eyes flash again, predatory and desperate, and he’s pushing up, the wet sound of his mouth unlatching from your pussy and crawling back up onto the seat bench, pressing his slick wet mouth to yours and licking into you, sloppy. “Taste–” he orders, he pulls back, fists the root of his cock and feeds it back into your gaping cunt, “That’s what it tastes like when you come for me.” His voice is a growl, something like a commandment or a promise, something else that hums beneath the mere words, something that says this is happening again, I need this to happen again, I’ve wanted this longer than I can say. He fucks into the very end of you, and you squeeze your eyes shut, let him maneuver and manhandle you to his liking so that both of your ankles lay limply over his shoulders, pressed entirely in half for him to pound into you. 

“Open your fucking eyes,” he pants. “Look at me,” he begs. You do, and you watch a bead of sweat roll slowly down his temple, over the curve of his jaw to the point of his chin, and then drip and splash down onto the swell of your breast, seep into your skin. 

He’s so deep like this, right at the heart of you, and it hurts and it feels good and you can’t help but think about the next time already, hope that this can happen again. “Yes, Joel,” you gasp, “Please, don’t stop.”

“Yeah?” He grits, lifting one hand to hold on to the edge of the window above your head, the other gripping at your ass to pull you onto him harder. “Yeah, just like that– Taking me so well, baby. Taking the whole thing like such a good girl.” He’s so big, maybe too big, and he pounds into your cunt, forces you to take the entire thing, thick thighs bracketing your frame, cock punching at your womb over and over again. You feel cock drunk, Joel drunk, and you turn your face to press into the back of the seat crying, telling him you’re about to come again. 

“God, yes, yes, you’re such a good girl. Come on my cock again, one more time for me.” His thrusts speed up, harsher, stronger and he’s saying your name while you sob out his, while you leak around him. “Hey,” he grips your jaw, gives your head a little shake, “Hey, baby– you gotta tell me where. Where can I come? Inside? Can I come inside?” It sounds, a little bit, like he’s beginning. 

You nod your head, yes, gaze delirious, unfocused, the swell of his anchoring bicep is so thick and distracting, and you start to milk his thrusting cock inside of you, muscles squeezing tight, fluttering loose – please, please, please, come inside of me, please, I want it so bad. He groans, grits a curse, your name, something that sounds like gratitude, and then he’s filling you, thick cock kicking and jerking and spitting his come right at the mouth of your womb, inciting your own orgasm to throb again, again, harder, deeper. 

-

He drops his head to the damp crook of your shoulder, takes in the heady scent of your sweat and sex, licks a path up the side of your throat. He’s careful not to ask you to bear the full, heavy weight of him, and he pulls his hips back, shivering at the sensitive slide of his spent cock falling from your wet cunt. He sits back, grasps your knees to keep you spread and watches the flutter and clench of your hole as the thick white leak of his spend starts to drool out of you. He gives a low, appreciative hum, and then bends forwards to press his face into your tummy, nuzzling there softly. Your hands come to his hair, panting chest heaving, and he mouths and sucks at the skin of your stomach, the undersides of your breasts as you both catch your breaths. He looks up, then, suddenly, a thought occurring to him, “You’re going to have dinner with me, right?” Voice a little frantic. 

You give him a slow, lovely smile, eyes sparkling, “Think we’ve gone and done things a little out of order here, haven’t we?”

He frowns in mock severity, then presses his face back into your tummy, another soft kiss, and shakes his head slowly, “No,” another kiss, this one to your hip, “Not at all. This morning counts as breakfast together.” He looks up to give you a quick, boyish grin. “How I see it, that’s actually an extreme dedication to order. Breakfast, sex, dinner.”

You sigh, laugh softly, “You know… I’m actually a little hungry right now,” you say contemplatively.

“Burgers? Fries?”

“Milkshake?”

“Well, we’ve gotta have somethin’ to dip ‘em in, right?”

“Of course.” Your fingers twist in his hair, pulling him up towards your mouth, “You’re so smart.”

“Very true. You’ve gotta stick with me now, I’ll teach you everything I know.” A kiss, another and another. 

He rests his face back on your belly, looking up at you, and you run the pad of your thumb over the fan of his lashes, and he feels so happy. 

-

It’s been months since then… and still even now, when he looks at you, all he knows is that he’s sure you saved his fucking life. 

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[bonefall]

How does Fallenleaf feel about how Ivypool and Dovewing were treated? And what do the latter think about her (Dovewing especially, since i imagine she was compared to her a lot when it came to the prophecy. I can definetely see an exasperated Jayfeather going 'Well Hollyleaf took the prophecy seriously before- when we thought she was part of it). Come to think of it, I can see Dovewing resenting Fallenleaf not only for the comparisons made about her, but also the fact that Jayfeather and Lionblaze let their sister know but she can't tell Ivypool even as they grow more distant. (Granted, Hollyleaf was told BEFORE they realized she wasn't part of the prophecy, but who knows if Dovewing is privy to that. >:3c)

Their relationship is, uh...

Skip back 100 years ago, Holly Leaves the Tyrant ruining ancient society.

She killed Jay Wing with her own two paws, drove Lion Roar out through grief, and then tried to stop Dove Wing from taking the survivors to the mountain

Dove Wing beat her ass. Handed it to her on a silver platter. Folly Leaves could break her brothers, but NOT Dove Wing.

Fallen Leaves for 1,000 seasons in a tunnel: "thank god i never have to see that random person who mcfuckin wrecked me ever again i think i would die of embarassment and/or fear"

Lionblaze, modern day: "we missed you so much... we were terrified when you acted like that, I thought I killed you when we... well... it's time to put that behind us. Are you prepared to meet your nieces? ...i raised them. If you hurt them I'll never forgive you."

Dovewing: (IS THAT RANDOM GUY WHO KICKED HER ASS)

And then Fallen learns Cinderheart went through with the plan to raise them with Lionblaze so Poppyfrost could have access

But that Poppyfrost did not TAKE that access.

So basically Cinderheart went through all this for nothing

AND on top of all the other new information (and she can't entirely remember where she "left off." Was that one's name ALWAYS Honeysnake??)

One of those things is the prophecy. That was only revealed shortly before the Fire Scene in BB, and then the Fire Reveal, Firestar dying, the Gathering Reveal, uhh... what was the gray guy she killed's name again? Asterfall??

Her freakout before getting time travelled is the fuzziest part of her life, she can barely remember half of it and the order of events is totally scrambles egged. Did the fire happen before or after her grandpaw died??

But meanwhile Dovewing's been raised her whole life with Fallenleaf as like, this big missing piece in everyone's lives, she wanted to know the truth about her for her entire existence. Hollyleaf was an impossible standard to live up to, her mother's true love and her Firekin's prodigal child before her.

And now she can't. Because this is obviously not Hollyleaf. This is a big, confused shadow. That's FRUSTRATING. Dovewing is trying really hard at this point to not show how upset she is about this. You mean to say the sad ghost she could hear shuffling around in the tunnels her whole life was her long lost aunt all along?!

THIS is what she was being held up to, all her life? This is why she could never take a break? This is the fuss? Some Fucking Guy?!

Meanwhile Ivypool is trying to mimic the feelings her parents feel. She takes a lot from Lionblaze, desperate to signal to them that she's in the family and cares about the same things they do. I don't think she really feels much of anything towards Fallenleaf at first-- but if they all care together then it feels like they've "come together"

And Dovewing's lack of enthusiasm, or even desperately veiled frustration, is like betrayal. CARE with me, we're supposed to FEEL GOOD about this AS A FAMILY. And if you can't then WELL WELL WELL look who's WINNING AT CARING ABOUT THIS, something very NORMAL and POSSIBLE to do! Surely, I am the better daughter, actually.

And while all that's playing out, Fallenleaf is still like, absolutely haunted by Dovewing being that random person who kicked her ass. She deserved it but like... she killed her brother in an ancient epoch and it turns out his sister in another lifetime is now his daughter in this one. What the fuck. And she looks at her negatively EXTRA what the fuck

I want them all to have a few good scenes together, but I don't think their relationship to Fallenleaf is... strong.

She ends up marrying their mom, Cinderheart. I think for Dovewing, she DOES actually think that's nice for them.

But Ivypool feels threatened. She feels she's going to get replaced.

This is while Lionblaze also ends up moving on with Toadstep, mind you. Both parents are finding new mates and having new kits

Ivypool takes it especially poorly, Dovewing has complicated feelings.

Isn't it just peachy that Cinderheart and Lionblaze COULD have been good parents all along? They just weren't, for you?

Hollylark is their half-sib through CinderxHolly, and Snaptooth and Flywhisker are adopted half-sibs through ToadxLion

When Fallenleaf learns the full story, she feels sorry for how the two were treated. She would controversially support Dovewing's leave; but she isn't the type to do huge confrontations anymore. Since her time as a Tyrant, she has a sort of godly, detatched air about her.

So there wouldn't be any chewings-out of her brothers. She doesn't have that sort of confidence in her own judgement anymore. Trying to control others and tell them how they should sort out their problems caused the Kitty Bronze Age Collapse lmao

#Slaps the hood of the BB!Firekin #This dynasty can fit so many problems in it #Better bones au #Hollyleaf's Century #BB!Fallenleaf #Bb!Dovewing #BB!Ivypool #BB!OOTS

[ultralightpoe]

The Absinthe- Aemond Targaryen

Writers Note: Sup

Warning: A lil steamy. They drink absinthe

Word Count: 2036

Description: Part 2 to THE COURT 

There were many games Aemond liked playing with you. Charades after you drank too much wine, poker (he had learned from Aegon nearly always won, using your mothers pearls as chips), hide and seek, and he especially loved the game of making you nervous. There was something addicting in the fast beating of his heart whenever you showed signs of being flustered around him. 

But this new game you were playing with him was not something he enjoyed. Not in the slightest. It had been three weeks since it began, which was torture since he figured out what you were doing the first day. 

You were avoiding him. No, worse, you were completely ignoring his existence. You wouldn’t even look in his direction, your face never showed any hint of difference whenever he was announced into the room. And he had been announced a lot, considering he was all but stalking you. 

He had servants listening in, reporting your every move so he knew where you were and who you were with, and he found himself surrounded by his worst enemies quite often these days. The younger court members. 

That’s how he found himself sitting between Bela Baratheon and her older brother Gran Baratheon, his spine so tight he thought it might snap as he stared at you sitting across from him. You were giggling at something Claris Tully had said, Miriam holding her nose to hide a snort. 

It had been made clear to him that you were closest to those two females, which eased his worries about where he stood a bit for they seemed to be the lowest on the grade for the Court. Bela had already made many snide comments about Claris’ weight that you seemed to ignore, and everytime you defended your friend Aemond felt his chest lighten because it was a whole new aspect. 

You had always been ready for a fight when it came to him. Eager to defend your closest friend, apart of the reason he fell in love with you in the first place. He had always loved it when it was just the two of you against everything. 

But then something changed and it was clear you wanted something more, and he didn’t know how to act. He was terrified, because it seemed like you were growing up and he didn’t know what to do, he didn’t want to be left behind. 

At first he blamed your mother, he knew she was the main problem when you started dressing like one of them, with the corsets and skirts. But he was the one that fully pushed you into their arms, he had told you to go to a brothel. Sneered it, hurt you without any hesitation, and they had been there to pick you up. 

“What do you think……Prince Aemond?” Bela asks, snapping her fingers to catch his attention away from where he had been staring at you. 

“I think many things.”

“So you are in?” 

“In?”

“In for the Dragons Flame?” She smiles, leaning in so her chest was against his shoulder. He risked a glance to you, still sat between the other two but this time you held a goblet in your hands and were staring into the contents with a grim face. 

“The Dragons Flame?”

“Absinthe darling prince.” Bela giggles, handing him a goblet. 

“We shouldn’t-” And just like that you were downing yours, gulping it so loud the others giggled and followed suit. A wave of panic crashed over him as he watched and they all looked to him, waiting with raised brows. Everyone but you. 

“Cheers to Lady Y/n.” He mumbles before downing his own. 

He had known it was time. 

It had been 10 years of having you to himself and suddenly his best friend was ready to go out into the world. But he was no fool, not like his father. He recognized a problem when he saw it. It was him. 

You were absolutely stunning, there was no reason for you not having suitors, in fact they should have been lined outside the Red Keeps gates begging. He would beg, if you wanted him to. But who would want to marry the girl that was friends with the beast. 

It was your name day, your fucking name day and he wanted to spend it with you. But first he had to make himself the bad guy. 

“Lady Y/n? No, I’d choose a donkey over her. Took me years to get her to leave me alone.” The words tasted like acid, and the truth was he was desperate for every second you gave him. 

They laughed and shoved his shoulder in a playful manner, Aemond doing his best to remain cool. This was for you. Fuck, you had taken to wife lessons, this needed to be done.

“But I do believe she finds one of you quite fit.” He smiles, doing his best to play insightful and gossipy. 

“Aemond- Prince-” He snaps awake to Bela above him, a wide smile spreading across her face, widening into her hairline. So wide she could probably eat him like a snake. 

“You seemed to be talking in your sleep-” She’s cackling now, and he feels like he is on a boat. But wasn’t he on a couch before? 

He had been across from you on the - WHERE WERE YOU?! The couch was completely empty, he sat up so quickly his head smashed into Belas. Both of them gave a grunt of pain as he struggled to remove her from where she sat on his chest and stand. “Where did Lady Y/n go?” 

“Oh, the sweet prince wants to look for the darling damsel-” She rolls her eyes, sinking to the floor and fixing her corset. No, not fixing, she was untying it. Shit, was the painting coming alive. 

IT WAS. He had to find you fast. 

Not risking another glance to the Baratheon girl he runs to find you. He went to the first place he would go in a time like this, trying to catch his breath as he raced through the halls. 

A sharp feeling of pain in his chest as his boots clomped through.

“Have you seen Lady Y/n?” He asks his mother, two days after your name day. The first day you were gone he was sure it was just you sleeping off the wine from your night, but the second day he was anxious to find you. 

“Oh yes, she and her mother joined Helaena and I for breakfast.” Alicent hums, looking over her husband's sand sculptures, tracing her fingers along it. “I felt so guilty about missing the festivities of her name day.”

“Did she say anything about-”

“Oh dear.” His mother cuts him off, picking up a sculpture of a dragon that was hidden in the center, looking at the chipped wing. 

“I was thinking of calling upon her today-”

“She has something with the Baratheon boy today. I believe he is courting her.” Aemond tried not to think about the churning feeling in his gut as he heard this. This was good.

The doors to the library were heavier than normal in his current state and for a moment he almost gave up because if he couldn’t open it then why would you be able to. But then he realized the doorknob had an actual use and the heavy oak swung out from under him, sending him sprawling to the floor. 

There was a shark scream from under one of the tables and he found himself launching to his feet, knife in hand as he searched for you. “Y/N?! WHERE ARE YOU?!” 

He traced along the floor silently, waiting to find you. He made it to the back walls when a hand snatched at his ankle and he whipped to find your wrist covered in a bracelet he had given you, peering out at him softly. 

“Aem, hurry hide.” You whispered, pulling his leg and he was all too happy to join you under the table, pulling you into his lap and hugging you tightly and caressing your hair. 

“What’s wrong pretty one?” He whispers as you look around.

“Aegon-”

“Did my brother harm y-” You cut off his growl with a finger on his lips, shaking your head. 

“Aegon the first. He….. he’s here.” Right, the drink. You were seeing things too. 

“Hey, hey. Look at me.” He whispers, grabbing your chin to pull your face to his own. “It’s not real. Aegon the first king is long behind in history.”

“Aemond I saw him. He was limping and he looked like a corpse-” You sob and he feels a sting of embarrassment as he realizes. 

“That was just my father.” 

“I know your father-”

“You haven’t seen him in a while. Just as you haven’t seen me.” He bites out, trying not to look at you. 

“If it upset you then you should have gone and seen the donkeys.” You snip, moving to crawl out of his lap. He snatches you in a tight grip, not allowing you to abandon him as he processes your words. 

“Is that why you have been ignoring me?”

“You said it.”

“And you believed me?”

“What was I supposed to believe?!”

“You would honestly believe that? That I would choose a donkey over you when you are all I could ever fantasize about. My deepest desires surround your every move and you believe I think so lowly of you.”

“Don-”

“I have never known you to be daft, so why be so now?” He sneers, grabbing your jaw on both sides and pulling you so your noses were touching. “You needed suitors, I made it so you would get them.”

“I didn’t want suitors!”

“THEN WHAT DID YOU WANT?!”

“YOU!” You scream, and it falls silent for a moment after, both your chests rising and falling faster than ever as he keeps a firm clutch on your jaw. Then within a moment the world explodes. 

He drags your lips against his, hungry to taste you, practically moaning when you kiss back. Your teeth scrape, tongues fight for room as he pulls you further into his lap, one hand traveling down to your back as the other pushes into your hair to pull your face closer. 

This was heaven. This was everything he’d ever wanted. 

You moan loudly and he finally pulls back harshly to catch his breath, looking at you with wide eyes as you stare back at him. 

“Y/n i’m sorry-”  Then you were there again, this time biting down on his lip as you kissed him, pulling him as close as you could, there was a small amount of blood drawn as you absorbed into each other. 

Each break you took was used to gasp for air before you would be brought back into him, both of you starting to move against each other quickly. Guttural moans were slipping through his lips as you moved against him, his hands tightening on your corset, desperate to get it off you and see you.

You both freeze at the sound of tearing fabric, a small giggle escaping you making a smile break out on aemonds face. He was desperate to make you smile and laugh over and over. 

He was just about to pull you in once more when a scream cut in, Aemond diving to cover you as a guard snatched his arm. He is dragged out from under the table but keeps a firm hold on you, keeping you close as Ser Criston Cole glares at him. 

“Hands off her immediately.” He sneers as the door behind them all opens, a choked sob coming from his mother as his grandfather leads her in to the room.

“Not before she gets something to cover her-”

“Hands off the whore-”

“SER COLE.” Alicent snaps, pushing past him to wrap her arms around you.

“This is a true problem.” Otto sneers, glaring at both. “You fool.”

“Do not blame the boy. This was obviously a trap set by the-”

“We will marry.” Aemond snaps, looking to you, the absinthe beginning to make him sick. Or maybe that was just nerves. “Tonight.”

#aemond targaryen #aemond #aemond targaryen imagine #aemond one eye #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen smut #aemond targaryen angst

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

How do you think Tom Jr would have turned out if Merope never stopped using the love potion on Tom Senior? I would assume at the very least he would have like a very, very fucked up view on relationships. Would Merope try to play happy family by including Tom Senior’s parents as Tom’s grandparents?

Well, that's a Nabokov story, isn't it?

Let's dive in.

Tom Doesn't Know Growing Up

Tom grows up much more well-adjusted (initially) than he did in the orphanage. On the outside he has a stable household with very good income, he has a mother who loves him and a father who... sometimes he remembers he's in the room, he probably has younger siblings if we're being very honest here, he gets a good education, has a future assured going to a good preparatory school and likely university down the road.

There are hints that things aren't right, but this is all the world Tom and his siblings have known and just the way his parents are.

His father's hopelessly in love with their mother, to the point of obsessiveness, and barely pays the children any mind (as under the influence of love potions he would only ever be fixated on Merope and couldn't really process the kids).

Merope, having chosen this path, could have done so for her children out of terror they'd be abandoned but also likely did it as she's terrified Tom Riddle will leave her if she doesn't. That is to say, I'm not sure she's paying that much attention to the kids either.

Tom also sees his father drinking something his mother makes about once a month that the kids are never, ever, to touch ever. That's just how home life is for Tom.

Tom also has very special abilities, is clearly very talented, and I imagine Merope given her background and that magic was a means of tormenting her--doesn't encourage that.

She does tell Tom though that he's a wizard (probably the siblings as well) but Hogwarts is a fantasy as no one in the family's been in ages. When Dumbledore shows up with a letter (as Tom has the last name 'Riddle' and lives in a Muggle area) Merope is shocked that he got in.

She's torn between being proud and disappointed.

Tom Riddle Sr, to Tom's surprise, doesn't care where Tom goes to school at all. Dumbledore gives Merope and Tom Sr. some very shrewd looks but says nothing for all Tom catches him staring.

Tom Goes to School

Tom learns he's a Half-blood. His mother said it but never focused on it much and while he knew there were wizards and a wizarding world, he hadn't realized he was missing out on anything. He just assumed everything was like the way he lived.

He now feels robbed and wonders why his mother didn't take him or his siblings to Diagon Alley, why they don't have spell books at home, why he was never told about Hogwarts.

Tom, not living in poverty, may not be slated to Slytherin as he doesn't have the drive at eleven to get out of the situation he's in. He's still an ambitious sort, though, so we'll say he does, it's certainly on the table.

There, he's treated not quite as bad as he was in canon, but he still is a Half-blood with the last name "Riddle". He's the worst kind of Half-blood, his father was an actual Muggle. As a result, he faces much of the same issues and likely is very upset over it especially as his father, frankly, is such a non-entity in his life.

Having younger siblings, Tom is likely even more pissed off that they'll join this school to this nonsense.

I imagine Tom makes it his goal to put everyone in their place for his own pride and also to pave the path for his younger siblings by the time they arrive.

Eventually Tom Recognizes the Signs

His mother's brewing a potion every month, he now knows that after class. Likely from the library, he recognizes the symptoms of a love potion in his father, the scent is different to each of his siblings but it always smells pleasant: this sounds like amorentia.

Tom realizes his mother has been feeding their father love potions since before he can remember.

I imagine Tom emotionally distances himself then.

He doesn't want anything to do with these people.

He may sabotage the potion so as to see what his father will do, and gets confirmation that Tom Riddle Sr. was a prisoner in his own home. Tom Sr likely flees, the children essentially strangers to him/not anyone he could take with him without Merope catching up.

Merope never forgives Tom for this, the youngest of the siblings probably doesn't understand what's happening, and Tom proposes "I WILL GET A JOB" to support the family.

As Tom's too young/still in school, the realities of poverty quickly catch up with them. Tom can't even use magic in the house (as it's a Muggle house) without the aurors dropping by.

As it is... Honestly, Tom probably takes the younger siblings to go live in the woods somewhere, where the wards that detect illegal use of magic wouldn't be set up. He ditches Merope.

Does Tom Do the Voldemort?

He might but he honestly might not.

The thing is his history's not as glamorous in this universe. He knows his mother's the magical one, and she's a piece of garbage. The legacy of Slytherin has no charm for him when he knows the realities of it. He's not sent back to the Blitz during the summers by the headmaster.

Tom's horrific childhood is a product of his own horrible, family, drama and not society. Yes, he still has to deal with being a Half-blood and supporting his family, but I imagine becoming a romanticized Dark Lord isn't a solution he actively thinks about.

Not to mention, if he has these younger siblings, then his immediate future is going to be trying to get them through school and then on their feet without any support from their parents and little to no income.

There's no real place for Voldemort in there.

Maybe, like canon, he comes back as Voldemort years later after being abroad (I'm highly suspicious that Voldemort was anything Tom was all that serious about until about a decade before canon, maybe) but this is a Tom who lived a very different life.

How Would Tom Turn Out

I imagine, as in canon, he'd be a very angry and cynical individual. I imagine he'd also be extremely scrutinous of anyone trying to approach him and always watches his drinks.

Whether he'd become a dark lord or not is up for debate.

#harry potter #harry potter meta #harry potter headcanon #tom riddle #merope gaunt #tom riddle sr #tw rape #tw drugs #meta #headcanon #opinion

[yeojagroup]

tw: death, grief, emotional abuse

my mom unexpectedly passed away on friday and in the worst way possible. after we'd had an argument.

i told her i was fucking terrified that something would happen to her. i was bawling, subsisting on very little sleep or food, and she motioned for me to hug her and lay my head on her shoulder. i think i read somewhere that in some cultures sleep deprivation can lead to prophetic visions. or maybe, i just knew my mother better than the back of my hand. but i did lay my head on her shoulder and sobbed. she said she "wasn't going anywhere any time soon" and i don't know what prompted me to say this, but i said, "i don't believe you." because that was the truth. if she didn't change her habits, i thought she was going to be leaving me behind very soon. especially because she was in the hospital the day before mother's day. anyway, i was hysterical, and the night got worse from there on, with mom breaking out her DARVO handbook as she called me a drama queen, insisting that she was fine and i just liked having control over her.

i was fucking exhausted, and i'd gotten into an argument with my brother on top of it all. he's always seen a very different version of mom, as well as had a different version of her, than the one i did. maybe that's why we fought so much. but we had words. none of them pleasant. actually, i heard him joking to his gaming buddies by saying something about holding me underwater so no bruises showed. and because i was !! horrified by what i was hearing, i told him he was fucking disgusting, he shouldn't say those kinds of things ever, and he said .. i don't even remember, that he owned it, that it was a fucked up thing to joke about. i don't even think he said sorry. i wasn't appeased. so i sent him this message.

only for our mom to be found dead that following morning, my brother haven woken me up because she wasn't responding. the nightmare wasn't over by then. the nightmare continued, from the moment she was discovered and the moment the police were called and the crime scene unit had to come out because it was likely an overdose and not a 'natural' death. i'm so, so angry. the pain i'm in is unimaginable. i did everything i could, right until the very end, and it still doesn't feel like i did enough. i knew that she'd meet her maker like this one day, and selfishly, i was hoping i would've been several states away when it happened. no discovering her like that. no unfortunate memory i'll never be able to scrub clean.

#txt #tw: long post #i might be posting a few things here and there to just. process my grief #it will likely be very heavy so if you need to unfollow to protect yourself #please do. stay safe #tw: death

[viciousgold]

a thought that's occurred to me, my portrayal of marisa has very much changed and evolved from when I've first started writing her. with the secret commonwealth, the collectors, the la belle sauvage play and especially the bbc adaptation of his dark materials coming out, all of these coming out after I've started playing marisa first in 2008. (not here, I've written marisa on several different platforms before tumblr, I've only been writing her here since 2016) but yeah it's strange sometimes to think about how differently I write her now.

but at the same time, with all of this now canon media that's been released about her, as well as my own headcanons changing and adapting to this new canon information, of course my adaptation is going to change and evolve. now I can't definitively say that it's for the better or the worse but it has definitely changed, and I still try to be as respectful to her canon as possible while also taking her in directions that I feel make sense for her character.

ted talk about marisa and my characterization of her below:

while yes she is a definite blend of all canon media of her, I have to admit that she's made up of a lot of the bbc adaptation. I know that in some circles that portrayal of marisa is controversial because it makes her "softer" and "more humanized" and I kinda agree but I also don't necessarily see that as a bad thing. but then again I've always preferred villains that are more multifaceted than just, they're straight up evil. and even in the original trilogy, my personal belief is that it was never the case with marisa then either.

in the golden compass/northern lights, we see marisa almost exclusively through lyra's eyes and we only see her for a few chapters. imo she is built up as someone purely evil for the sake of the narrative. we start to see cracks in this as we start to see more of her perspective in the subtle knife, but we also learn more about her motives, even if only in snippets. though we don't get the full character depth we know her most for until the amber spyglass, which is when we really start seeing things from marisa's perspective, seeing previous events from her perspective, and seeing her actually grow and change as a person. from everything we learned about her character in the amber spyglass, and including that line from mary "words like good and evil describe actions, not people" that's not the exact quote but that's what she says in less words, I think it was pullman's intention to express that marisa, as well as many other characters in his books, aren't entirely evil and aren't entirely good, and even not evil or good. that they're just people. but he seems to show us in great detail that this is especially the case of marisa.

she does so many both evil and good actions throughout the trilogy, as well as so many both evil and good intentions and motivations throughout the trilogy. I don't think making marisa out as dehumanized and purely evil was ever pullman's intention. for me I see further proof of this when we got la belle sauvage, when we learn of marisa being sa'd in her youth, of the usually fearless marisa being so physically terrified at being told that gerard bonneville was looking for her, when we got the secret commonwealth where we see that marisa had an absolutely fucking horrible mother, and no we don't know all the details of these things, but the pieces are there. another element that I feel is proof of this is that pullman has been both incredibly supportive of the bbc adaptation, as well as heavily involved in its creation. he's credited as an executive producer, a lot of things went through him for approval. also, pullman has said time and time again that his favorite character of this series is marisa coulter. I truly don't think he would approve of the way she's portrayed in the series if he didn't actually see it as her, if he agreed with some of the sentiments saying that the adaptation "ruins her character by humanizing her".

honestly I feel like the bbc adaptation gave marisa the depth that pullman wanted to give, but at the time was focused more on the main narratives in the first two books, but then we got to the amber spyglass, where so much of the novel is focused on giving marisa that same level of depth and, yes, humanization. honestly the bbc adaptation to me feels like an extension of that depth shown in the amber spyglass, and it's one that clearly pullman is approving of.

the other thing I've seen is the complaint that because she's so humanized in the bbc adaptation, it belittles and erases what evil actions she has done. I disagree. I personally have seen with most people who do these evil actions, realistically, that person usually does think that they're doing the right thing, that they are acting with what they see are good intentions, that they have reasoning for why they're doing what they're doing, and of course that doesn't make any of their actions okay.

what does, however, make their actions at least possible to forgive, is character growth. learning from mistakes, changing ways, doing better, which is what we see marisa doing in the amber spyglass. though another argument I see is that, it says in the amber spyglass that marisa is remorseless but in the bbc adaptation, we see marisa showing remorse, and to that I argue; those times in the book, that is said/thought about her, by other people. they believe her to be remorseless. from what I can think of, we never truly get a statement either spoken or thought by marisa herself that she truly doesn't feel remorse for her actions. we get asriel's inner thoughts, will's inner thoughts and I think at some point lyra's inner thoughts about how she doesn't feel any sort of guilt or remorse, but never marisa's own.

I would argue that we also see her showing remorse in the amber spyglass. her thinking about her crimes, her saying how awful her crimes were, which is not something she did in the first book. she never would've called them crimes, she called them her saving humanity, her trying to do good. but in the amber spyglass, she specifically calls those same actions crimes. I just don't think a completely remorseless person would express the way she did about how truly horrible her actions were. she also audibly lamented her mistakes with lyra, even as far back as saying that she and asriel should've raised lyra themselves.

in the scene that is usually the biggest argument of marisa being this truly evil, remorseless person, is the scene where metatron is examining marisa, where he tells her about every horrible thing she's ever done, how horrible of a person she is, etc. we also see both in marisa's inner thoughts and in her aloud dialogue to asriel that marisa was actively trying to convince metatron that there wasn't a shred of good in her, for the purpose of her being able to trick him into thinking she was evil enough to be able to betray her child and her lover. that's the key here. she was internally doing her absolute best to shove down any shred of goodness she had, any amount of remorse, her love for lyra, her love for asriel. and surprisingly what a lot of people leave out when talking about that scene, is moments later, metatron literally sensing regret from marisa. he tells her that it's regret that she would never get to see lyra grow up, and ofc she lies her way out of it and claims its regret about not meeting him earlier in her life, which he accepts. which, personally, I feel like if he knew the reason behind her regret as a fact, he wouldn't have. so my guess? he was deciphering why she felt regret and that's what made the most sense, but he had enough doubt in this to believe marisa's lie about the actual reason.

so honestly I feel that could mean that this regret could extend to a lot of things, definitely with lyra, but I could argue that her regret was encompassing the fact that she did do all of those things that metatron said, she was that way before, and does feel regret and guilt for it. and honestly I think she came to feel that way through loving lyra, through seeing and learning from her, from lyra pointing out the flaws in her previous logic, from lyra telling her about how awful her actions were, lyra being this beautiful human being that marisa herself defends as someone brave, generous and loving. and I think that really had an effect on marisa, making her want to be better, to be more like lyra, which I think we see is definitely true in the bbc adaptation, or if nothing else, at least making her feel remorse and guilt for all of the things she's done. I think we see that in the amber spyglass, I really do.

I mean it was the amber spyglass that completely changed my opinion on marisa as a character. believe it or not, when I first read the golden compass, and then first read the subtle knife, I didn't trust marisa, I didn't like her, I thought she was cool and mysterious but I absolutely saw her as this wicked, evil bitch. and then I read the amber spyglass, and there was a change of perspective, I went through ups and downs of wondering if I could trust her, wondering if she was being sincere, and it actually turned out that she was. that she was genuinely so loving of lyra, genuinely going through character development, and also so many actions and statements here put previous actions and statements into a different perspective for me. I went from rooting against marisa to rooting for her, to emphasizing with her, to seeing her as, yes, humanized. the amber spyglass did that first, not the bbc adaptation. the bbc adaptation took that humanization and expanded upon it, showing her perspective and scenes that we didn't see in the golden compass and the subtle knife but ones that absolutely make sense for her character.

another argument I saw was that marisa being portrayed as a woman being oppressed by a sexist society is an invention by the bbc adaptation to further humanize marisa, to which I'm just like ????? go read the books again honestly. the first book especially talks about how big of a deal it was that marisa was the first ever woman accepted as a member of the royal arctic institute, and an even bigger deal that she was the first woman accepted as a member of the magisterium. in the original trilogy, we only ever see women in england as nurses, nuns, or any other non male dominant field besides scholars (who are only allowed to be so at st. sophia's college for women) and the one female reporter. and it's such a big deal that marisa is accepted into the magisterium as an actual member vs being in it as a nun or a nurse is because the magisterium time and time again is shown to view women as generally lesser. the golden compass also talks about how marisa's affair went down, how it was even a question of whether or not asriel had committed murder or self defense when marisa's husband aimed to kill asriel and their child, the court's argument of why asriel should be charged for murder instead of self defense was legitimately "edward had the right to defend the violation of his wife" despite marisa's relationship with asriel being consensual, because they legit don't see wives as autonomous people, they saw marisa as property of edward, that he apparently had every right to defend by possibly murdering her lover and their child. and that's just the first book. we see so many more examples of patriarchy and marisa (as well as other female characters in the series) being subjected to it throughout the entire trilogy. so to the person who said the bbc adaptation just made that shit up. yeah no, I'm saying with my full chest that you're wrong.

so idk yeah. my adaptation of marisa does feel regret, she does have the self hatred that we see her experiencing in the bbc adaptation, this self hatred being based on a scene we actually got in the movie that pullman has stated that he loves and approves of this scene of marisa striking her daemon as a means of self punishment and says makes absolute sense for her character, combined with it being based on another scene we get from the golden compass novel, (and honestly, we see her experiencing this same self hatred in the amber spyglass as well), she does have genuine love for lyra which we see time and time again in the original trilogy, from in the golden compass marisa putting her own ass on the line by taking lyra in, and then later saving lyra from the intercision machine, to the subtle knife where she goes through such lengths to find and save lyra, to the amber spyglass, where she gives up literally everything she's ever worked for in order to save lyra, even including sacrificing her life to save her, and yes, she does try being a better person starting from, what I feel is mid to late the golden compass after failing so hard with lyra and regretting it. I know some people disagree with this kind of portrayal of marisa, not because anyone personally told me this, although I'm kinda surprised I haven't gotten anons about it or anything, I've just seen people talking about how they think the bbc adaptation is insulting to her original canon, and I just really disagree with that. I think everything I've described here does have a canon basis in pullman's books, both the original trilogy and the side books featuring marisa, and my opinion is further cemented to me by philip pullman himself approving of the bbc adaptation.

#tw sa mention #headcanon;

[kinnsporsche]

Thank you for your kind words on my AITA for calling the police on my sister.

I'm sorry you've been through that. It's very rough and it's hard especially in situations where the child is abusing a parent.

hiiii op!!! (context, it's this @am-i-the-asshole-official post)

my brother was around the same age, maybe a little bit older, when everything went down with them. when i was growing up he'd always been abusive to me physically and emotionally (the worst thing i remember is him pushing me into a bunch of thorns and nettles and then him and his friend shooting me with a bb gun and when i was super young maybe 4 or 5 he hung my toys from the ceiling with rope) but he didn't start getting physically abusive with my own mum until somewhere between 16-18.

unlike your situation, i was young so i was home with my mum when it happened and so she never had to ask for our help, but i do have core memories of her hiding me and my little sister behind her whilst my brother was going off on one, i remember him shoving her and her hitting her head on the counter and splitting her eyebrow open and there was blood all down her face, i remember her having bruises all over, i remember him holding a knife to her, i remember her pulling one back to defend us (i was 11/12 which made my sister 7/8 at the time) and for most of his teenage years, he never changed. my mum made a lot of excuses for him until it got really bad - he was abused by his own dad (not my father, he's my half-brother) and she felt guilty for that, she felt like she messed up his childhood so this was her fault and she deserved it.

i dont think she started to understand how bad it was until the knives got involved, until he brought a group of people into our house whilst some man waited for them outside and threatened to tie everyone in the house to the back of his car and drive around our estate, until i, a twelve year old child, had to go up against him to protect my own mum whilst she was bleeding on the floor until my dad came over and got him out of the house. and after that is when my mum also became heavily involved with alcohol and alcoholism and lost herself until i was about 16/17. she's okay now, we're both in good places and super close, but i lost my childhood to the both of them because of how bad things got with the abuse and the drinking. i was kicked out of my own house at 14 iirc, i have ptsd (which fucking destroys my memory hence the broad age range bcs i cant remember shit), depression, social phobia, and anxiety from it all, i'm still scared of my brother, i'm terrified of confrontation, i have attachment issues, but the worst part of it all are the nightmares and the flashbacks. my mum doesn't know i have them, i've only told a few people, but they happen regularly. most recently my brother in one of them my brother tried to drown me and poured scolding water on my face so theres that.

op you did the right thing by showing her that there's consequences for what she did, if your mom was willing to let it lie, i am 100% sure it would and might still will grow into a situation like my brother. i cant believe there's people on that post claiming yta for calling the cops on your sibling when they laughed in the face of your own mother almost dying at her hands. yes acab, we know this, but until there is a better system in place to help and protect in situations like this, what else are you supposed to do? wait for your sister to one day do too much damage that your mom can't recover from? fuck no you have every right to defend your mom from her and, even if your mom understand it now, one day she will, especially if your sister continues to walk such a dangerous path.

please please see what i went through as a warning, and if you want to share this with your family so there's even the slightest chance that they might see how bad things can get if she isn't punished for her behaviour, if it's left to fester and root, if she thinks she can get away with it, then please send it to them. i'm wishing nothing but love and safety for your family, especially your mom.

#oh man oh man oh man im sorry i didnt mean to make that all about me and im sorry if its messy i started crying half way in it #ily op ilysm if u want to dm me to talk off anon my dms are open and i will be here to talk or listen to anything u need!!!!! ilysm!!!! #answered #anonymous #aita anon #abuse tw

[darecruit]

Any sneak peek on the next chapter? So excited!

Ask and you shall receive!

Sneak Peek, A Mother To Both Chapter 2: Promises Made

Shelby had a firm grip on Quinn’s arm as mother and child walked out of the main lobby. Quinn was glad the halls were deserted—she’d never hear the end of it if someone saw her being dragged off by a clearly pissed-off parent, all while still covered in congealed red slushie! Shelby had yet to say anything to her after Rachel’s big reveal in Principal Figgins’ office. It’d be better if the woman lectured, yelled, told her she was grounded—Hell, that she was going to get her butt spanked when they got home. Anything but this silence.

Her mind kept replaying that moment in the office. Rachel’s tears and her screaming. Quinn had slushied the other girl more times than either of them could count, and gotten sick pleasure out of it last year. She’d been angry and hurt and scared, especially after finding out early into the school year that she was pregnant. She had been terrified of her family discovering the truth, and of Finn finding out it was really Puck’s baby. Finn was an idiot, but he had always been kind to her when they were dating.

Rachel had come along and was this shining ray of fucking sunshine. Everything she touched seemed to turn to gold. Rachel was an insanely talented singer. She had a happy home with loving parents. Rachel Berry was going to make it out of Lima, Ohio and make something of her life one day—be someone. And Quinn Fabray hadn’t had a problem with Rachel until her own life imploded and Rachel caught the attention of Finn Hudson.

Quinn had been jealous. She had needed an outlet for her anger and hurt and all of the fear she was feeling. Rachel was that outlet. It was only when Quinn set her sights on Rachel and marked her out of the pack that life at school for Rachel became difficult.

And now Shelby knew the truth of their past. She knew that Quinn had had a huge part in hurting Rachel. Shelby’s silence spoke volumes.

Shelby’s mind was racing as she marched Quinn out the main doors of the high school and down the front steps towards the parking lot. The white-hot anger she’d felt just after Rachel’s outburst had long-since disappeared. She wasn’t even all that upset about the fight, though she did want to talk to Quinn and find out the details. And she had been truthful to Principal Figgins when she said she’d discuss the matter with the girl and make sure it didn’t happen again. But Shelby couldn’t focus on any of that right now because her thoughts were all about Rachel.  

Hitting the unlock button on her key fob, Shelby opened the passenger side door as soon as they reached it. She moved to help the girl in when Quinn snapped at her. (“I can do it myself, you know.”)

“Don’t start,” Shelby warned, her tone sharp. “Now get in. I’m taking you to Zayde’s.”

Quinn, who had one foot in the car already, stopped and yanked it back out. “What?!” she bristled, straightening and glaring at her adopted mother. “Why?!”

“First off, watch how you speak to me, young lady.” Shelby pointed a finger at Quinn and glared right back. “I’m taking you to Zayde’s so I can go over to Rachel’s.”

Quinn felt like she’d been punched in the stomach, hit with a slushie, and missed a whole flight of stairs on the way down. Of course Shelby’d want to run straight to Rachel—her real daughter.

#asks #glee #glee fanfic #Daughters series #A Mother To Both #Shelby #Rachel #Quinn #Shelby raising her girls #sneakpeek #sneak peek #glee au

[charleecat-bat]

how bout vector? (if he wasn't asked about already)

He has no! This is the third one i've gotten and they're all been about the power types. I love it hehehe.

Vector, similarly to Storm, has become a favourite of mine to play around with. I've always liked him and found him interesting but I hadn't played around with him much until I started doing AU's (you can blame @barsikscorner's for that lol we ramble about au's and stuff constantly)

College AU- Vector in this AU lives with his mother as well as Espio and Charmy, who are his adopted brothers. They're kinda poor and their mother (And sometimes Vector and Espio if they're able) work hard to earn enough money to get by, and they worked hard to try and get into college. Vector at first wanted to study law in order to get a successful and high-paying job... but man, the course drained him mentally and emotionally he just hated it. He kinda had a bit of a breakdown, and he had to go on break for a bit, but then he eventually changed his course after looking at some other opportunities. He then changed his major to criminology which is much more his style, and he's having a blast with it. He's a good guy and still has a heart of god despite his appearance and attitude. He's also in the music and sports clubs and has a ball with them. If he's not listening to music and jamming out, then he's listening to crime podcasts which sometimes can disturb the fuck outta Espio and his mother lmao. It's also a reoccurring joke in the AU that romance doesn't go his way, he either gets crushes but they like someone else or dont' like him back or he tries to date and it just doesn't work for him lol but he does eventually meet Vanilla in the AU who is a young mother who recently had her baby girl Cream and that relationship is interesting hehe

Gem/SU AU- In this AU, he's a jasper too, Rainforest Jasper. Since they're quite rare he was unique, but he came out slightly defective, not completely but if you compare him to the other jaspers there's a noticeable difference in that he's kinda skinnier compared to the other burly big tanks. He's a little insecure about this, especially if it's actually pointed out. He doesn't tell anyone he's technically a defective brand gem. He worked in a team much like the other Jaspers but then was eventually reassigned and put to work under Vanilla/Petrified Wood to be her personal guard. Vector/RJ worked under her for a long time and man he was in LOVE with her. He adored her with his every being but he never said anything about his feelings cause well, Homeworld would absolutely forbid any sort of relationship like that. At one point something happens (I haven't decided exactly what yet) and it gets him in trouble to the point that Vanilla/Petrified Wood is told that he needs to be shattered and he'll be replaced with another Jasper Guard due to his incompetence. Poor Vec/RJ is terrified of this and heartbroken when she initially accepts this and takes him away... only for her to tell him to take one the airships and flee, as far as he can, so he can live. He really didn't want to leave her but she didn't want to watch him die so he did. During his time of being alone and travelling he did meet the others, including his buddies Espio/Charoite and Charmy/Honey Calcite. Vanilla/Petri is still a sore spot and he misses her terribly even after all this time... best not to mention her around him.

Ghost AU- He has a big part in this AU. Things go badly for him as more of his friends continue to die suddenly and tragically, he attempts to try and figure stuff out on his own as the police had proven to not do enough in his opinion. He would've been involved more when it came time to actually investigate the hotel where the murders continued to happen, but he wanted to stay with the very fragile Vanilla who had lost her daughter. So he trusted Espio and Mighty to investigate for him... and when he got a concerning phone call about a very dangerously ill Mighty and Espio not calling him back, he quickly made his way over only to find them dead. This made him shut down for a long while, unsure how to react to all of this. Despite his emotions, he pushes them down with work. His office becomes a mess of this investigation, becoming determined as all hell to find out who's the killer behind all of this. He keep his office locked so Charmy and the other kids he's taken upon himself to look after now don't see the horrors he's grown desensitized too. He loses a lot of weight in this AU and h'es clearly sleep-deprived and not eating properly. He's been drinking a lot more though (he's not addicted dont' worry but he's definitely doing it more than he should. more as a way to cope right now). This AU is a mess for a LOT of the characters.

Magic AU- His name in this AU is Vector Marblemaw. He runs a watchman service (basically like his detective agency) which mostly aids in public safety, crime prevention, crime detection, and recovery of stolen goods, whether enchanted or not. His magical specialty is seen as unusual but it fits him well, which is incantation/vocal magic. Basically, his voice is the source of his magic. Can range from powerful shouts as attacks to soft-spoken tones as gentle healing spells. (he can basically be the Dragonborn lmao). He's got a whale as a familiar, he used to be embarrassed to have it when he was a kid but not anymore, he got over it. I also joke that in this version of Vector makes me think of the STOP YOU VIOLATED LAW meme.

Mermaid AU- As much as my friends joked that he didn't NEED to be another creature to be included I still did it lol. He's an Orca/Killer Whale in this AU. I have learnt too much about Orcas and I believe their sadistic assholes to everything BUT humans so I kinda influenced that in the AU. He grew up in a pod but they were dicks to everyone but each other and he didn't like that. So he eventually left which is deemed unusual for his kind but he just couldn't stand being around them anymore. He was lonely for a long time but he made some friends and sticks with them now. Other merfolk at first a little afraid of him at first but he tries his best to prove his a good guy... unless you decide to fuck with him and then he'll fuck you up even more. Mama didn't raise no bitch.

Monster AU (and the Cursed AU-) In this AU he's a Wyvern, basically a type of dragon but has wings and back legs instead of four legs and wings on the back. I imagine in his 'main form' as I call it when h'es not full wyvern he has hands though cause man it'd be annoying if he didn't have them lmao I keep going back and forth that he either breaths fire like a regular dragon boi or a more unique idea is that he spits acid. I haven't decided yet. I imagine he was born this way and raised by his mother but she was unfortunately killed by monster hunters when he was young and had to raise himself from that point on. He really hates mortals because of this. He and Espio (an Eastern dragon) met as kids and stuck together to keep each other safe, and as adults, they found little Charmy an imp who somehow wondered out of the underworld. Now that's Vectors son lmao He does eventually meet Vanilla whos' a dryad, and of course, he crushes on her, TALL NATURE LADY IS HOT, and he helps look after her little fairy daughter.

Pokemon AU- I imagined he's a detective in this too, at least at this point in time. Almost all of his pokemon have to do with his huge interest in music however or at least soundwave related. His team consists of Swoobat, Loudred, Obstagoon, Toxtricity (High amp/the yellow and purple one) and a Shiny Noivern. His newest one is a little Fuecoco and it's his baby, there's no thought behind its' eyes but man it adores him and he adores it right back. If he's having a hard time handling cold weather Fuecoco snuggles right up to him to warm him up. <3

The Quarry AU- He's one of the main characters in this AU. He's one of the counsellors that come to volunteer at the Summer Camp. He signed up with Espio to keep an eye on Charmy and figured it'd be good opportunity (idk if Charmy in this AU is more a little brother or son. I think the former, considering I imagine they're all kinda young adults kinda like the game). He served as the Water Activites Counsellor and one of the First Aid Supports due to the amount of counsellors being quite smaller and them having to take on multiple duties. He was having a fun time despite how busy and tiring it was. He's actually one of the confirmed ones that gets infected and turns in the story, I think probably one of the last ones to do so. He's the one of the biggest and strongest and while he's slow on land, he's much faster in the water. Like the others that got infected in the story he does turn back at the end of it when its' fixed.

And yes like Big and Storm, he's also in those two sillier AU's with the dinosaurs and the superpowers. I actually struggled to decide on a power with him for a long time but I actually came to a fun conclusion when talking with a friend about him being telepathic cause a: it'd work for him as a detective. and b: it'd be a good reason that he wears his headphones all the time cause hearing the thoughts of EVERYONE AROUND YOU even when you're not TRYING TO is EXHAUSTING.

Oh! I also had an AU with the chaotic inspired by Security Breach, where the Chaotix (including Knuckles, Mighty and Ray) where they're all animatronics that entertain children. Vecs kinda like Freddy in this Au and the main star and the lead singer in the band. And when he's doing his own thing outside of performances, he's kinda a DJ/Karaoke Party Animatronic. He's very curious about people in this AU and asks a lot of questions when he can, even though this can confuse people, he's just curious about life outside the facility. It's not like he can up and leave, he doesn't have a choice. He's gotten in trouble a few times for mouthing off at shitty parents, he's very protective over the kids and adores them. Papa Animatronic Croc.

#vector the crocodile #ask #stegocitrus

[loyalhorror]

cw: alcoholism, parental abuse, sibling abuse

I want to preface this with the assertion that addiction does not make people abusive - but it would be disingenuous, I think, to claim that addiction doesn’t influence pre-existing abusive behaviours. this isn't an "addicts are bad" post. this is a "i was raised by abusive people with substance abuse issues and that had an effect on me" post.

so.

something i’ve been thinking about is that... generational trauma is fucked for many reasons

but i think one of the worst parts is that... if you’re raised amongst horrors, your baseline for what is and isn’t an acceptable environment for your loved ones gets completely skewed, especially if you’re in a caretaking position. if you got physically beaten as a kid it’s easy to say “well i’m not beating my own kids” and then you’re a good parent, right? you’re a good parent, and you suffered horribly, and your kids aren’t suffering like that, so they’re doing fine. they should be doing fine.

(and that makes you resentful of them and it makes you terrified and angry that maybe you ARE fucking up your kids in other ways, because you don’t want to be like your own parents, but that’s not the point of this post)

the physical abuse example is the most obvious one and it’s one i see talked about pretty often, but one that i’ve been thinking about that’s relevant to my own life is... alcoholism, and other maladaptive behaviours.

(under the cut for personal shit, more discussion of alcoholism and abuse)

my mother drank to excess when we were kids. she drank to the point of hurting her kids and spending all of her limited money on more alcohol, leaving both them and her with nothing to eat. she drank to the point of blacking out, of setting things on fire, of other horrors.

my sister drank, too. before i lived with her and after. she knew all the things that alcohol could do to a person but she was young and surrounded by drinking culture and so, so traumatised. so she drank. and then when i moved out of our home and into another one with her, she still drank. she would drink to relieve stress; to feel good; to distract herself; for fun. sometimes it was fine; alcohol isn’t a demon, after all. and sometimes she was already in a good mood and alcohol just kind of made that more intense.

but one of the things about drinking is that if you already feel like shit, you’re probably just going to feel worse sooner or later when you’re drunk. and that was true for her: if she was angry, drink made her angrier, if she was sad, it made her worse. if she was desperate for attention and love, it made her outright violent in her attempts to seek it out. her drinking was the catalyst that finally made me run from her for good.

it had always been pretty clear to me that she’d inherited our mother’s substance abuse issues. and to be clear, it wasn’t that alcohol made them abusive: it was that it intensified the abusive behaviours they already had. it loosened them up enough to either not care or--i think more likely--not realise the gravity of the way they were treating the people around them. alcoholism didn’t make my sister treat me badly. she treated me badly already, and alcoholism made it--and all of her other issues--worse.

but anyway. the point of this whole post.

a while back, in an email, my sister acknowledged she’d had a drinking problem but also talked about how she hadn’t become an “alcoholic”, claiming that she “never drank to excess or used it as a crutch” the way our mother had. and i can see why she would think that way. she didn’t leave herself with no money for food; she didn’t set things on fire; she didn’t beat her loved ones. “i’m not my mother, so i’m not the things she was”, and so on.

except... she was and is an alcoholic. it is a conscious effort for her not to drink: she’s told me this before, she drank and drank until going to church gave her something else to cling onto. when i was with her, she relied on alcohol constantly as an emotional crutch; she turned to it whenever she felt any level of distress, or even happiness. she was noticeably more violent and coercive towards me when drunk, and far more prone to screaming and other abuse. she didn’t beat the shit out of me the way our mother had done to her, no, but that neither meant that she’d never hit me nor that she wasn’t otherwise violent to me.

but if she acknowledged that, it would mean acknowledging that she was in some way like our mother. that she’d inflicted upon me some of the horrors our mother inflicted on her, even if they were different, or lesser, and had fallen into a pit she’d sworn to herself she’d never take a single step into. it’s part of why she couldn’t recognise that she was abusing me until years after i ran away from her: she wasn’t doing what our mother did, so why was i acting like she was abusive?

and that’s important to talk about i think, both in the context of abuse and in the context of addiction, because when your baseline for “alcohol addiction” is “blackout drunk, beating people up, setting shit on fire” you’re probably not going to think of yourself as reliant on alcohol if you do anything less than that. if your context for abuse is “beating the shit out of someone, screaming at them constantly, putting them in physical danger, and essentially torturing them for bad behaviour” you’re probably not going to think of anything less than that as abusive even if it’s similar. it’s one of those things of like, ‘extreme’ cases of an illness or phenomenon being recognisable while less overt or obvious cases go unnoticed or unrecognised. i became reliant on alcohol as a teenager to get to sleep, to feel good, to get through social situations. i still find myself turning to the bottle every now and then when things are really bad, and have to pull myself away. a conscious effort not to drink. and of course, i don't think of myself as an addict. because i'm not doing what my sister did, am i? and i'm not drinking, so it doesn't count. or it's not interfering with my life anymore, so it doesn't count. did it ever count? i don't know. i know that it was a problem at one point and that it has nearly become a problem many more times. and i know that there are people who would say that it's not addiction because it looks nothing like my sister's experiences. or my mother's. and i don't know how i feel about that, just speaking for myself; maybe i was addicted once but i'm not anymore. the pit is there and i was halfway down and then i climbed out. but.

anyway. we are not my sister, my sister is not my mother, my mother is not her mother, my grandmother is not her father. and yet everything got passed down to us anyway. just one long line of trauma that took new forms as we all tried to avoid passing it on.

#rat.exe #crossposting this to dreamwidth i think because jesus it's long #alcohol// #alcoholism // #abuse //

[moonxbat98]

Kingdom Fall

Before deciding to spill her blood over the hot coals at her choosing ceremony and training to become a true Dauntless member Amity-born Anna never felt accepted in her faction. Neither did she feel safe among the community when all they knew was how to act like nothing was wrong —even if bad things were happening right under their noses and lurked behind the most innocent of faces. Although nothing could compare to the insurmountable weight that came with the knowledge Anna's aptitude test was inconclusive, being told she was Divergent. Being told ominously that she needed to be careful and to watch her back; two things she knew how to do well already.

As a little girl Anna had a small circle of friends, but they eventually stopped hanging out with her after the unexpected death of her father; when her frightened, push-over mother began dating again and met Andrew. The man who would use his charm to slither his way into their lives and torment them behind closed doors once he had what he wanted. Nothing had felt the same to Anna since their marriage, not even the love that used to come from her mother's touch. But being in a toxic home environment didn't change the fact that she planned on choosing Dauntless at her choosing ceremony, nor did being Divergent —she just wanted to be free. To be strong and brave, to survive.

There was one thing Anna wasn't expecting when joining the Dauntless ranks though and that was Eric. One of her leaders during initiation; stoic, moody and almost three times her size. His gaze alone seemed to burn holes through her body the first time they met, icy blue like glaciers glaring daggers at her. Eric was as quick to temper as she was quick to smart off, something she needed to learn how to control —and fast if she wanted to make it through the trials of training. Another thing Anna needed to learn how to control was not to piss off Eric too bad, or she just might end up factionless. But something about him just keeps getting under her skin and she doesn't understand why he keeps putting up with her attitudes.

The Choosing Ceremony: Part 1

Raise Hell

Bored. 

Bored. 

Bored. 

Anna felt her eyelids trying to shut of their own accord, thought she chanted in her mind: stay awake, stay awake. 

Stay, a-fucking-wake. 

She wasn’t quite comfortable though, the position she was in. Wedged between her step-father (abusive asshole) and her mother (the lamb in the lion’s den) in a row of stiff, plastic chairs. Surrounded by smiling, juiced-up crowd of other Amity citizens. 

Fools, the lot of them. 

Hopped up on happy serum. Everyone always gets a dose of the sickly sweet, bright pink liquid once a week. It was a potent potion made to “keep the sins of anger at bay,” which Anna found absolutely ridiculous. 

It felt like a violation of free will. 

She happened to like the idea of free will. It was something she longed for and had wanted for many years. Especially when her mother Kimberly decided she wanted to settle down with the man who tormented them both on a daily basis, which Anna could not stand. At all. 

Sometimes she would lay in her bed at night, unable to sleep and covered in bruises, feeling sorry for her mother. Sometimes Anna thought her mother would have been better off growing a spine, just like she did. 

She didn’t want to accept the abuse any longer, especially after the incident almost a year ago on her sixteenth birthday. It was the most terrifying moment she ever experienced in her life. 

The night was rainy, but it wasn’t noiseless. She could hear the faint melody of the Amity sector. The shrill singing of small children, the merry laughter of adults. It was all outside of her house though. There was a different kind of noise inside her home, where happiness and joy seemed a million miles away. 

It was the sound of silence, a calm before the storm. The atmosphere in the house was thick and could not be cut so easily with a knife. A heavy, ominous presence hung in between the casual “pass the salt” or “how was school today?” chatter. No “did you have a good day?” 

No “happy birthday, sweetie.” 

Andrew sat at her left at the kitchen table during dinner, as quiet and menacing as a snake slithering in the grassy fields. Waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. 

Strike you dead, if by the look on his face. 

Something was getting under his skin bad and her mother was doing nothing except cowering in her seat to her right, trying to keep up a happy charade with a fake smile plastered on her face. It faltered often, but no one ever commented. 

No one cared enough to speak out and ask some serious questions. 

To involve themselves in our family drama, to help. 

Help was not something the Amity community usually gave out, from kindness of their hearts or just out of pure curiosity. Why does Anna keep to herself and always has a negative outlook on life? Why does Kimberly never talk to anyone? 

To everyone else, Andrew is viewed as an angel. A model citizen with a charming attitude and good soul. 

If only the Amity people would stop turning a blind eye to everything around them. Maybe the world would really be a better place. Everyone just might be able to get along. 

Then Andrew turned to her with a smile on his face, it was sudden and filled with dazzling teeth. He was a handsome man for his age, mid-forties with a head full of thick salt and pepper hair. Green eyes the color of jade, staring her down with malice. Hardened and angry. 

What had she done this time? She was being responsive to every question or comment, asked by either of them. Eating her dinner quietly otherwise, head bent down to avoid confrontation. It was a defense mechanism Anna knew worked best with Andrew and most of the time she tried hard to keep her step-father placate. 

This was how you survived in her house. 

“How was your day, baby girl?” 

What. 

The. 

Fuck. 

Anna snapped to attention, her startled dark-blue eyes meeting the amused expression on Andrew’s face. She was taken aback at the pet name, one she hadn’t heard him use in years, and glanced at her mother. 

She hesitated, a pause of breath which irritated Andrew. 

Kimberly was staring at her second husband with the look of a frightened animal, gaping mouth and teary-eyed. There was something in her eyes, all wide and watery, that made Anna’s blood run cold. 

It was a look she only saw once. 

The first time Andrew took his anger out on them. 

But that was then and this is now. 

Andrew was glaring at Anna now, slamming his knife down on the table. “When I ask a question I expect you to know the answer immediately and respond back to me. Have we not had this conversation before?” 

Her mother surprised her. 

She spoke out against Andrew, although as timid and small as the plea was. 

“Andrew, don’t. Please.”

Andrew turned away from Anna then, but Anna knew it would only be brief and the strike would be swift. Once for speaking out of turn, across the mouth. 

Twice for telling him what to do, on the hand. 

Three times for standing up to him, which Anna only experienced one time. 

It made her angry. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this. Her fingers gripped tightly to her silverware as she studied the scene before her. 

Prepared to either watch as her step-father descended upon her mother or step in between the two with the threat of a studded belt across the ass. 

Andrew was satisfied only mildly when Kimberly shrunk even further into her chair and raised an eyebrow, “Why not? You never said anything when I brought it up before. So I obviously assumed I had the right to ask Anna herself.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. 

What in the flying fuck was going on between these two? 

Something was off with both of them, a feeling of dread filling the pit of her stomach making it toss and turn the food contents she was previously piling down her throat. 

Though fear crept in there was also confusion and mild curiosity. Alarm bells rang off in her head though. Voices telling her to run away, get up from the table and run away, get away from the whole situation now. 

Kimberly glanced over at her daughter and choked on a sob, “Happy birthday. I love you, baby, I hope you know that.” 

She felt sick suddenly, then jumped to her feet at the feeling of a rough hand brushing her thigh. Anna felt the scream in her throat, but managed to keep it from filling the house. 

Andrew would not like that. 

It could have been a mistake. 

But he was grinning at her now, glancing from the expression on her face to the face of her mother. Kimberly felt anger course through her momentarily and she blurted out, “Stop it! Don’t you touch her like that.” 

In an instant, as fast as a lightning bolt appearing and disappearing, Andrew was on his feet with the knife and leaping over the table at Kimberly. 

Anna felt her vision blur for a moment, then go blood red at hearing her mother’s horrifying scream. She heard the plates fall from the table and shatter, heard the chair her mother was sitting in hit the ground with a thud as he tackled her to the floor. 

It filled her with absolute rage. 

Andrew had only intended on scaring Kimberly, threatening her with the knife against the throat, but enraged as Anna jumped onto his back he flung her off with ease. 

Then turned to her, a frightening smile on his face. 

The smile of a psychopath. 

“You see, I had a little talk with your mother the other night after dinner. It was really interesting. You left rather quickly, talking about how you were going to check up on a friend before bed. That was a mistake, you know. You have no friends.” 

Anna was winded, having hit the table with her shoulders which scraped it’s wooden legs across the oak flooring, and hitched a breath at Andrew’s words. At this point Kimberly was scrambling away, for the stairs, leaving Anna to fend for herself. 

Why wouldn’t her mother do something about this man? 

What was going on this time? 

“As you know your mother is 8 years older than I am and these past couple of years together have not suited her well. But you, my dear, have grown into a fine young woman and I feel it may be time for a change around here.” 

She scrambled to her feet, prepared now to defend herself until she couldn’t. 

This was one battle she wasn’t going down without a fight for. 

What needed to change was his ego, his pride. His sadistic cruelty. 

Andrew was faster, grabbing onto her legs as she started to run. He lunged at her like a football linebacker and they both fell to the floor. He laughed when she wriggled underneath him and fought to turn her on her back. 

“Come on, don’t you want to wrestle with your step-daddy?” 

Since then Anna began to train during her free time. Of course there was no use for gym equipment in Amity because of the farming business, but she had seen videos on her tablet (stolen from one of the Erudite-born at school) on how to build muscle and strength. 

Exercise videos that were played during health class, but not performed in the school. There was no physical education in her school that required actual physical labor. That was saved for after school. Chores, either at home or on the farm. 

She didn’t want to ever be put in that position again. Since that night Anna was preparing herself, physically and mentally, for the choosing ceremony. The choosing ceremony she was finally attending after six months of hard work and waiting. She would be free. 

She would finally be happy. 

Andrew was expecting her to remain in Amity, he had said so himself the night before, but Kimberly had not spoken a word in three days. 

Anna glanced back and forth between them both, hiding behind a curtain of pale blonde hair. It was freshly washed as of this morning and she was wearing tan shorts with a bright, yellow tank-top. She knew once she chose Dauntless she would be running towards the train with the other initiates, she always came to the ceremonies with her “family” and she loved watching the Dauntless run for the fast-moving locomotive. 

They were always shouting and screaming, but out of pure excitement. 

It was their new beginning and now it would be her new beginning. 

Although sitting quiet and stiff among the other Amity she was listening for the names of each new Dauntless initiate. 

Hardy, Ian. Candor.

Higgins, Samantha. Erudite.

Jonas, Zeke. Candor.

Larson, Holiday. Abnegation.

Maddox, Avery. Erudite.

Marsden, Jamie. Abnegation.

“Thatcher, Anna.” 

It was time. 

Her time.

[margridarnauds]

Margrid: 6, 12, 24, 29

My least favorite ship of them

Margrid/Hébert is definitely up there, but I'm also not really fond of the way that people tend to...automatically go "Why do you ship Margrid/Orléans when Marie Antoinette is there" before...watching the musical...where it's clear why. Like, just...watch....the musical....before discounting....the ship. I can see ways to ship Margrid/Antoinette if you're willing to go There, but if you want a pure, soft, non-problematic enemies to lovers WLW ship as an alternative to the Yucky Men....it ain't going to be it.

Sexuality hc!

Oh...God. I think she's possibly gray ace/demi, possibly mainly attracted to men, but even then, almost...resentfully. Like, for ages I've gone with Bigrid, but the more I rewatch the musical, the more I'm not sold that she's actually into women, especially because of the way that she uses Antoinette possibly being into women as a way of attacking her (you can always argue for internalized homophobia, but I don't really see it, though I *do* see her thinking of sex as kind of ridiculous/something that people make too much over, even though she also clearly has Something with Orléans.)

I don't think she's attracted to anyone frequently, I really think that Orléans might be one of her first adult experiences with a crush, and it makes her even more confused about the whole situation.

What do you think is a secret they have that they never told anyone?

God, you know.

You know.

But I have a longstanding headcanon that, when Margrid was younger, she did survival sex work, and, when she was about...17-18, maybe, she became pregnant from it. She didn't know who the father was, she didn't particularly *want* children at that point in her life, she could barely afford to feed herself, let alone a baby, and, even if they'd both survived the pregnancy, she'd have been condemning it to a life in the streets, and so she had an abortion.

She never told Orléans, who never understood why she got spooked whenever he brought up the possibility of kids. (She firmly thought that she could never become pregnant again.) On his end, he absolutely figured out that she did sex work at some point, even though she didn't want to talk about it, just because she was a young woman who was on the streets. It was common, it'd have been more surprising if she hadn't and...the man's been having sex with her for years *and* he's a notorious womanizer; I think he could probably gather that she wasn't a virgin the first time they had sex just from how she approached it. But he never found out about the other and he didn't really pry too much into her background specifically *because* he always knew that it would make him want to commit several paid murders.

How do you think they would be as a parent? (and if they are a parent, how do you think they would be if they weren't?)

Again. You know.

But IF, in a HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIO THAT I'M NOT WRITING, she became a mother, I actually think she'd be incredibly self-conscious about it. Her own mother died early on and that clearly fucked her up, so I can see her absolutely being devoted to sticking by her child's side, even if she isn't sure how to go forward. I think she'd be strict, no nonsense, but absolutely, fiercely devoted to her child and to making sure that child had a better childhood than hers had been.

It's the sad thing with Morléans as a ship in the sense that I think they'd have been genuinely great parents if things had been better for them, and I think that if they'd had the chance, they both would have been *happy* to be parents, even if Margrid would be terrified at first. It's just...things happened.

[gingeraleforthetrauma]

Jumping forwards a number of years, in honour of it being June, is the only story about me coming out to a supportive parent.

And apparently how I went from describing myself as Bisexual to Demiromantic/demisexual.

(I ramble. A lot. I'm sorry????)

(Just me having a queer panic for like over 8 years, dw abt it)

(I legit procrastinated my sexuality from when I was like 10 (holy fuck))

---

The first one goes back... I think I must've been 14, November of my freshman year in high-school, so somewhere around 6 years now. I was in the car with my mother after an doctors appointment (several months prior I'd had a very nasty incident where my father gave me several severe injuries) and we were just sitting in our car.

The conversation was light, just chatting about how school had been so far and how my friends and I were adjusting to high-school; I was talking about how this one friend of mine rather openly talked about wanting to date me and how I'd gently turned her down on a number of occasions (I wish I had been firmer about that, I wish I hadn't been so goddamn willing to please) and my mother says to me something like, "well, you know you aren't allowed to date right now and it doesn't really matter since you don't swing that way." She'd said it normally, a little amused by the conversation and a little stern, reminding me of the 'no dating until your 16' rule (which I later ignored, the fool I was).

And. I just. I stopped.

It felt like my entire world had screeches to a stop. Because, no, actually I do like girls. I have liked girls. In fact, at that point I really liked that girl.

And I turn to her, face pinched into a frown and replied, "no. No, actually I do like girls. And boys." And she looks back at me, surprise colouring her features before she nods.

And she's just like, cool, but you're still not allowed to date until you're sixteen.

From there I went to tell her about something that had happened two years prior-

---

The second story isn't... as nice, relatively, but it's far from the worst thing that could've happened.

See one time when I was between 12 and 13, my older cousin came over, now, they're an ENTIRE decade older than me, and about 8 years older than my own older sibling. I'd always idolized them growing up, they were cool and older and the only cousin I was actually close to.

And I'd known for a while at that point that they weren't straight. But I hadn't said anything, because that wasn't my place and I was content to simmer in my own sexuality crisis for a whiles yet.

My cousin had other ideas.

They pulled me aside at a family gathering, it was sometime between Easter and my birthday, or maybe Easter and the end of my school year, but I'd just finally realized that I thought that both boys AND girls (this was a bit before I really knew or learned about anything outside of gay, bi, boy and girl). Anyway, they pulled me aside and spoke to me in hushed tones and completely shifted all of my views on, well, everything.

"You aren't straight, are you?"

"What?"

"You don't just like boys, do you? I can tell, seeing as I'm not straight either."

"Wha- oh. Uhm, I guess? I-"

"You can't talk about it with anyone else, none of them (our relatives) will understand, and they might hurt you. You can always talk to me, of course, but no one else. Don't tell your mom I said anything, especially that last part."

"Oh, okay...."

And with that, they whisked me back to the main room without a chance to say anything else.

I was, frankly terrified. I'd already procrastinated about my sexuality in elementary school, deciding my crush of my best friend was something better left till I was a teenager, but now I'd just been told that I couldn't even talk with my mom.

It was scary. And for a couple years I kept my mouth shut. I barely said anything to my friends at school, I was terrified of the GSA club and acknowledging that I found girls pretty became a crime in my head.

Which, granted, was a bit much for a reaction to a 90 second discussion in an unlit hallway.

But I did, eventually, tell my mom I wasn't straight (awkwardly in our tiny car, hand on the door handle, just in case) and I even quietly professed what my cousin had told me to do (said cousin had ignored me after our little chat and completely and entirely refused to speak to me after my mother said that she knew about the advice I'd been given).

All in all, none of it was terrible. Though I've never been particularly fond of talking to any of my family (who can know, because I do unfortunately have bigoted, prejudiced asshole relatives (its bad enough, to them, that I'm not entirely white)

--

When I first started actually exploring my sexuality, I rather thought I was Bisexual, granted it'd been the first word I'd come across that sounded anything like and I latched onto it like a leech, had I known what Pansexual was, I'd likely have started from that.

But as I got older, I realized it didn't really fit, and by my junior year, I was entirely uncomfortable with using the term for myself.

Thus I started researching.

I learned a LOT about consent, sexuality, gender-identity, SSC (safe, sane and consensual), and the difference between a kink and a fetish. And... that covers a lot of different things, I'd started just wanting to figure out my own sexuality and learned a lot about sex in general, which I hadn't really planned on.

But it felt really good to know. And all of those side things made sure I was informed and safe, in a number of things I did, and made it easier to figure out what I was comfortable with.

Eventually all of that research led me to the term M-spec and under that category, the term Omnisexual.

I spent over a year with that label, finding myself a little bit more with each day, and eventually, I realized it didn't really fit me.

Now, I've considered myself Demiromantic for most of my journey of exploring my sexuality. It's something I've always been comfortable with, something that always just clicked for me.

So I started looking into Demisexual.

And for the past two years I've been in a limbo of sorts.

Am I actually into girls? Am I interested in sex at all? I know that I don't like [blank], but what about everything else? I havnt had much of any experience, do I really know? My first romantic experience with a girl ended really, really badly, and now im terrfied of them.

I had a lot of fears and doubts, but somehow, I figured it out. Very oddly, but I did.

And I recently realized that a lot of my experiences and romantic interest (I honestly havnt had many) let alone sexual interests (even less of those) were basically just the definition of Demisexual/romantic.

And suddenly I felt a lot happier, and free in a way I havnt before. And I'm happy with the term, I feel confident and comfortable for once in the entirety of the word.

So... I guess, to everyone one celebrating pride this month, quietly, loudly, discreetly or boldly, happy June; happy Pride month. And remember, sexuality is fluid, just like gender. There's a bajillion ways to identify and you're valid.

And if you're struggling with labels, identities, defining the differences between romantic and sexual interest, you're not alone. And it's perfectly fine to not use a label. Be yourself, love yourself, and be safe, do your research.

💟❤🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍💟

#pride month #one of the ways i came out to someone #memories #june 2022 #bisexual #pansexual #omnisexual #Demiromantic #demisexual #she/her #she/they #your valid #this stuff can be hard #love yourselves #happy pride month 2022 #queer pride