#I Learned to Hate in Nursery School

[weirdanecdotes]

I Learned to Hate in Nursery School

This is not an anecdote I share casually. Lovers and husbands have heard it, best friends, a therapist or two. It’s not the kind of story you tell to just anyone. But then, no one who’s heard it has ever believed it so…

In my earliest memories, Papa was going to Georgia Tech and working nights, Mama worked as a bookkeeper for Rhodes Furniture Store, and I got sent to a nursery school when I was two. Small children don’t see the big picture, don’t understand the good reasons behind the arrangement of their lives. They only know what they need and resent not getting it. Maybe I needed more love and attention than other children did. But, I doubt that. I knew for sure that I wasn’t happy being put in a system that only noticed me if I deviated from the prescribed regimen.

O how I cried! And begged! And pleaded every morning, “Please, I don’t want to go, please, don’t make me. Please, Mama, take me to work with you, please don’t leave me in that awful place!”

In retrospect, I feel bad about dumping all that guilt on my poor Mama; she really had no choice. Papa was in college and worked double-shifts at a greasy diner. But they needed more.

From my childish point of view, my parents were as cruel as Cinderella���s, dropping me off into that teeming play yard to be jostled about by other babies whining, “Please don’t leave me here.” It was really a very high-class school located in a white frame house in Buckhead across from Regenstein’s Fine Clothing Store on Peachtree Road. All the very best struggling two-income families sent their tot-bodies to be warehoused there.

The Art Room and Rainy Day Playroom were downstairs in the basement and the other classrooms and an office were upstairs. The facilities were as nice as nursery schools can be, I suppose, and the curriculum wasn’t much different than the way Kindercare’s are run today. I could have been happy if I had accepted the situation, but that was the problem; I just couldn’t get used to having somebody telling me what to do almost every minute of the day.

It was the uncompromising schedule I disliked the most. Everyday followed the same routine without inspiring any moments of joy or wonder. Even in “art,” pressure was applied to make you stay inside the lines.

Lunch was gruesome in its blandness. The dietitian splatted scoops of nutrition on top of each other upon the plates. Hard under-cooked green peas rolled over mounds of over-cooked macaroni and cheese. Chunks of raw pineapple peeked out like the tips of yellow icebergs in seas of green Jell-O. It was simply disgusting.

I always had indigestion after lunch; it was a combination of my seething resentment and nausea over being forced to eat this mess. Yes, forced! At this point in the day, the Director appeared. Scowling and glaring, she patrolled the tables like a storm trooper.

The Director of the school was not a kind, loving woman devoted to small children. Maybe she had been when she started out but some bitterness or disappointment in her life had transformed her into a cold, autocratic despot. She held a wooden ruler in her hand at all times and would slap it against her palm. Slap! Slap! Slap! Like the beating wings of an angry hornet.

Slap! She’d pop her palm right next to my ear and make me nearly jump out of my skin in fright. And if you really resisted eating your canned, sliced, slightly heated carrots, she’d pop you! On the thigh, or the calf, or your shoulder, whatever was handy.

I hated her, purely and with such passion and purpose, and to such an end, as you will soon see, that I have never been capable of hating anyone so much again in my whole life.

After lunch, we heard a story delivered by the Director. She transformed storytime into a boredom to be endured when it should have been a life-enhancing experience. Papa was far more entertaining. The stories were chosen not for any value other than sleep inducement. Because right afterwards came nap time, the break the Director and her assistants waited for all day — and the ordeal I most dreaded commenced.

I was a delicate, little bird-child, vibrating with nervous energy. I only missed being labeled hyperactive and addicted to Ritalin because my parents weren’t rich enough to take me to a fancy doctor. I stopped taking naps when I was 18 months old and still had trouble getting to sleep at night. My imagination was developed during the long hours between the time I got put to bed and the time I finally managed to fall asleep. Maybe I wasn’t exercised enough or maybe I was hyper-adrenal, I don’t know. Sleeping was not something that came easily to me then nor does it now.

Now this Director had a fixation on children actually sleeping during nap time. It wasn’t good enough to lie quietly staring at the ceiling until this period of forced inactivity had passed. Oh no, every little eye had to be closed and if you couldn’t sleep you’d better learn how to fake it!

“Close your eyes, Jackie,” the Director would stand, menacingly, over some small child, “I said, close your eyes!” Pop! She’d swat the kid with that ruler. “Don’t you dare cry! I said, be still and go to sleep!”

Somehow I evaded her notice but right after my third birthday, I got caught. I remember actually trying to reason with this crazy woman, “I’ll be quiet. I won’t talk to anyone, I promise. I just can’t sleep. Just let me look out the window and I won’t bother anybody else.” How pathetic I was. This was a real issue for me. I couldn’t figure out how to explain everything else I hated about the school but I could make my mother understand this part of it.

“I just can’t sleep, Mama, you know I can’t. Tell her not to make me try to sleep.”

“Couldn’t you just try, darling.”

“I do, Mama, I try but I can’t and she makes me pretend and it’s boring!”

My mother complained on my behalf and that made the situation worse. I imagine the Director explaining that it was important to establish discipline in young children, that we needed to learn to eat, draw, and sleep when we’re told and not to question the authority of our elders.

“Well, well, well,” the Director said to me after lunch the next day, “You’re having trouble sleeping, are you? Well, we’ll have none of that, do you understand? When it’s nap time, you go to sleep. Understand?”

“But, I can’t.” I protested.

“Oh yes you can and you will.” Her eyes glittered with malice.

Defiance swelled in my chest and I retorted petulantly, “You can’t make me sleep if I’m not sleepy.”

“Don’t talk back to me, young lady. If you can’t follow the rules then you can’t be with the other children. We’ve got a special place for problem children like you.”

That was ominous; I swallowed hard. “Come with me,” she snapped while grabbing my arm and jerking me along beside her. I didn’t cry or whimper. I matched her willful glare for glare. I was cold with anger. She yanked me down the hall and shoved me into the bathroom. After saying, “This will take care of you,” she shut and locked the door.

I couldn’t believe it. She had locked me in the employee bathroom! It didn’t seem real. I put down the seat on the toilet and climbed up to sit. My skinny legs dangled over the sides of my high perch. The bathroom was a windowless, white tile cubicle. There was a grubby bar of soap, a dirty hand towel and a partial roll of toilet paper.

At first, my punishment didn’t seem too bad. I hummed a little tune and listened to it echo around the room. I began to tell myself a story like I always did when I was alone and bored. I was starting to build up a plot line about being a princess that gets stolen by Gypsies when discomfort began to interfere with my concentration.

My perch on the toilet was cutting off the flow of blood to my feet. I tried crossing my legs and leaning back against the cold ceramic tank but it was hard not to slip off and the chill edged into my back muscles. I got up and paced around my little cell. There aren’t any comfortable places in a bathroom, really. I tried lying down in the tub but it was hard and cold. Ditto the floor. Even sitting on the floor became intolerable after a few minutes because of the cold tiles.

“Solitary confinement.” I’d heard the term in a prison movie I’d seen on our neighbor’s TV set. It drove the guy in the movie crazy. I wondered if I was going to start raving and screaming like he had done. I wondered if other “problems” like me had pounded on the door and begged to be let out.

I washed my hands for want of anything better to do. I managed quite a bit of play out of the soap bubbles and that got me humming again. I decided I wasn’t that unhappy with my punishment. It beat lying on my mat with my eyes squeezed shut.

Drying my hands, I got the idea of laying the towel out on the floor and lying down on that. The floor was still hard but the towel took the chill out of it. I lay down on my side and studied the caulking between the tiles in the floor. I rolled on my back and imagined clouds on the ceiling. Then I started up my story again.

The princess was about to be rescued by the mysterious prince when the Director jerked open the door suddenly as if to catch me in a criminal act. I jumped up startled.

“Come along,” she said cheerfully, “It’s time for Outdoor Play.”

As I followed her out to the play yard, she confidently asked in a sickly sweet sing-song voice, “Have you learned your lesson?”

Her attitude and her question so surprised me that I laughed incredulously. I couldn’t think of anything to reply. She stopped and turned on me, all sing-song gone, “I said — have—you—learned—your—lesson?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. I couldn’t figure out what she meant. I hadn’t learned how to sleep on command if that’s what she wanted to hear.

“You were asleep when I came in,” she declared smugly.

“I was not,” I shot back without thinking.

“You were!” She hulked over me, clutching the ruler up in the air like she was going to swing it and chop my head off.

I shrank from her anger but held to the truth with a feebly muttered, “Was not.”

She started hitting me with the ruler. After beating me until she was red in the face, she demanded, “Are you going to be a problem at nap time again?”

I had cried during my beating; it hurt and I was still sniffling and swallowing hard from the sting of it but I clenched my jaw and narrowed my eyes, “No. You can lock me in the bathroom again.”

“Ha!” I think I surprised her, “Okay, we’ll see who wins this little test of wills.” Then she turned on her heel and went off to pick on somebody else.

I whispered to her back, “I’ll win,” I smiled with my certainty, “Cause you’re gonna be dead.”

In my childish mind, the Director was crazy. The Director was mean. And the Director deserved to die! As soon as possible, some how, some way, I was going to kill her dead and that was that.

“I had to give Sally a spanking today for lying,” she told Mama later.

In case you were born decades after I was and don’t understand why Mama accepted this and didn’t sue the school or call CPS to report child abuse, the answer is: Almost everyone beat their children! This was The South where “Spare the rod; spoil the child” was the guiding rule.

Driving home Mama wanted to know what I had lied about and I told her, “I can’t sleep at nap time so she locked me in the bathroom. It was cold and hard but okay. I played by myself. She came in and said I was sleeping and I wasn’t. Then she hit me.”

Seeing that this little telling had disturbed my mother, I tried to reassure her, “It’s okay. She’ll be gone soon.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s gonna die,” I stated.

“Oh, Sally,” Mama moaned, glancing at me anxiously, “Don’t say things like that.”

That night I hardly gave a thought to the Director. It was a given, a done thing. First chance, I’d kill her. It never crossed my mind to figure out how a small child was going to overcome a grown woman. I thought nothing of guns or knives or poison. I was going to do it. Period.

The very next day we were downstairs in the Art Room. I was sitting at a table pasting magazine cut-outs onto a piece of construction paper when the door upstairs opened and I looked up to see the Director coming down the stairs ahead of her usual schedule. I had a clear shot at her and I fired. A raw, uncivilized bolt of primal hatred lanced out of my eyes and hit her squarely in the stomach. She doubled over, lost her footing, and fell with a scream down the length of the stairs to land with a terrible thud on the concrete floor.

I jumped up, knocking over my chair. Everyone did. The Director was a twisted heap on the floor, convulsing, twitching blindly, frothing at the mouth and spitting blood. The crumbled mess moaned horribly.

I threw up my breakfast. Children started screaming and running out the back door into the parking lot. Teachers and assistants ran frantically about, some after the children, others to stand a foot or so away from the Director, fearful of touching her. One of them had to jump over her to race up the stairs to the phone to call an ambulance.

The Director’s thrashing diminished to a rhythmic rocking from side to side and her moans rose into wails of agony. Tears blinded me. I stumbled a few steps toward the mess that I had made and it looked up at me, not really seeing. I wanted to say something to her. I wasn’t sorry; I didn’t feel at all sorry or guilty—not then. But I didn’t feel triumphant either. Everything I felt in that moment was summed up in three words I said to her, “I didn’t know.”

I didn’t know!

Jimmy Cagney said, “Aaaargh,” and fell over when the FBI riddled him with machine gun bullets. He didn’t turn into a spastic, blood-spitting, pain-wracked heap of broken bones. Movies and TV weren’t at all realistic in my youth; nothing had prepared me for the reality of life and death and mutilation. What I had done to the Director was a horrifying, nauseating, bad thing.

The power of the mind is an awesome force, dear reader. I tell you I knocked a woman down a flight of stairs without ever touching her. By the sheer force of my hatred, I brought terrible grief to another human being. I didn’t know such things were impossible. Before I knew I couldn’t or shouldn’t, I did.

As I stood there looking down on what I had done it was like I was an empty jug being filled with the cold waters of guilt. I began to sob uncontrollably and beg, beg, beg the Universe to undo what I had done.

The nursery school was closed while staff, parents and children waited for the Director to be taken out of intensive care. But I found no joy in staying home with Mama given the circumstances. I tearfully confessed but she didn’t believe me. I reminded her that I had told her the Director was going to die.

Her reassurances were rather odd. “You’ve done that before,” she used the kind of nervous but cheerful tone that always crept into her voice when she entered areas of thought that disturbed her, “Remember. You said my friend Norma was going to be sick and she got appendicitis, remember. Did you make that happen to Norma? No, of course not. And Jill, you said her baby was going to come when it wasn’t due and she went into labor that night. You said it’d be a boy, too. Now, did you do that? Of course, not. It’s just coincidence.”

I tried to repeat the word. “Co-in-C-denz,” and she explained, “A person says something and then it seems to come true but not because the person said it.”

“But this is different,” I insisted, “The other times I just knew something, this time…”

“Not really,” my mother interrupted, “You’re always talking, always saying funny things, sometimes, well, just a couple of times, well, anyway, like I said, it’s just coincidence.”

Mama was actively censoring her data to conform to her reality view, which did not include premonitions or psychic phenomena. I was left without guidance in a torture chamber of guilt. A couple of days later, I overheard my mother telling a friend, “The Director’s going to survive. Her leg was broken in multiple places, her hip fractured, her arm broken, her shoulder dislocated, but the worst damage -- this is interesting -- was caused by a wooden ruler; it broke two ribs and punctured her lung. She carried it around with her all the time.”

This last bit of ironic justice eased my guilt. Yes, I had done a bad thing and vowed to never hurt someone like that again. But, the Director was a bad person, a mean woman who tormented small children and someone needed to do something about that. It had fallen on me to save myself and the other children.

The Director needed over a year to mend so I never saw her again. By the time she returned, I had moved on to a public kindergarten program. But, the school re-opened without her and was improved by her absence. The same schedule was upheld; the food was still bland. The overly cheerful teachers and their assistants were still overt in their mock enthusiasm. When I told one of the assistants that I couldn’t sleep during nap time, she asked me not to disturb the other children and gave me a book. After that I spent all my nap times flipping through illustrated books and other children did, too. Without the menace and the malice of the Director, their system was tolerable.

[theteaisaddictive]

my mother’s transphobia never ceases to enrage me.

[s0lace-1n-s0l1tude]

Tumblr get to know me:

-Favorite type of music from @sparky4577 :

I don't really know tbh,I can like pop as much as rock or metal. I wouldn't really say I have a favorite band or artist.

-Weirdest thing I've ever done from @the-fallen-collective: I'm not sure... There's eating cereal with orange juice,eating serial with water,the toothpaste and ice sandwich,trying to eat a worm,bringing a lizard to school idk

Some of my lore from @deeply-moonstruck:

I'm not that much of an interesting person, actually. So in the nursery or whatever, there was a guy who had a crush on me, and he wouldn't stop biting me so I flung a Hot Wheels car into his eye and he never did it again. There was this girl in my first year of primary school who would always blame me for things she did or accuse me of things I didn't do and the teachers would always believe her since she was a grade above me and I was too confused to say anything. So I got into plenty of trouble because of her, and I still hate her to this day. But I'm not above doing something like that either since a grade later I got a classmate in trouble for hitting me when he didn't. I got a concussion because I fell while running in the halls. (I got a second one a few months ago) I was the gifted kid, and every of my teachers either put me on a pedestal or despised me. And they all thought I was autistic. (They might've been right ngl) So my parents took me to a psychologist who didn't get me diagnosed with anything, but about 4 years later, I got diagnosed with adhd. I fistfought a girl for spreading false rumors of me dating my best friend at the time.On the same year of my diagnosis I had a racist teacher everyone hated since she mostly targeted students of color but she was awful with everyone in general. She was old,so I heard she's dead now lmfao,I'm not gonna get too much into detail cuz this is already long as hell, but I also have some form of trauma from her. And school in general,especially work. Queue my first year of highschool and my whole class hates me for being the "gifted kid" and they try to bully me but it was so pathetic I didn't even notice. Late half of second year burn out finally hits. Then depression. I kinda bullied some girl but it got sorted out. My grades went down by a lot. Not much else to say from here I think. Quick addition: my primary school was apparently haunted, and strange things did happen and I make a separate post about it/srs (keep in my mind we were kids so it probably wasn't that bad)

In last year of primary,I pissed off my art substitute so much she threw scissors at me and if flew right past my eye lol, but eventually became our actual teacher because ours died the same year. Teachers hated me for being introverted and not being very skilled with my hands, so I spent plenty of recesses inside finishing work for school events. Which I later learned was apparently illegal.

Current obsession by @kaiserkisser : Literature,Bungou to Alchemist/Stray Dogs

Fave short story by @cherubsaliaa : Anything by Akutagawa Ryuunosuke

If I was a dog breed, which one would I be from @p1xel-1mp: Doberman Pinscher,specifically in all black or a wolfdog

Favorite mythical creature by @p1xel-1mp : Kitsunes,Medusa,Dragons, and probably a lot of other things, but this is getting way too long

Let me know if you want a part 2

I'm tagging y'all so you can see this

@windyskiez @zestylemonsz @sky-the-weirdo-ace @casinoownersigma @swimminginyokohamasrivers @creatorbiaze @bananaede @cocaine-cass @solzinstarzzz @teddyandmochi @1-d0nt-w4nn4-b3-m3-4nym0r3 @cherubsaliaa @just-floating-around @suicideenthusiast @kimisbunny @myluckymoon @patiori

[mellowsadistic]

Mindy wailed and thrashed as her Nanny spanked her forcefully, aiming for the top of her thighs, what little of her bottom that wasn’t protected by her thick, crinkly, heavily loaded naptime nappy.

“Bad girl, Mindy!” Nanny scolded, “Very bad girl! You do not yell at Nanny, and you especially do not complain about your treatment!”

“Ow! Ow! Ow! STOP IT!” Mindy cried.

“You need to learn your lesson, little girl, “ Nanny continued sternly. “Your loss of night-time bladder and bowel control is a good thing. Waking up with a soaked and stinky diaper sagging from your bottom shows that our regression training methods are working.”

“But I don’t want them to work!” Mindy shrieked. “I don’t wanna be some big baby freak!”

Nanny’s arm began swinging down with all her might, smacking against the skin of Mindy’s rapidly reddening bottom with so much force that the girl’s squealing doubled in volume. “BAD GIRL!” she shouted. “VERY BAD GIRL! You’re here to be punished, young lady! The court sentenced you to four years as a two-year-old, but since you were too proud to allow your boyfriend to treat you accordingly, he had no choice but to enrol you here! State-run discipline nurseries have a 100% success rate at putting regressed girls in their place, and you’re not going to be any exception, missy! A big baby is exactly what you’re going to be!”

“OW! OWIE! PLEASE!” Mindy begged, tears streaming down her face. Her bottom hurt so badly. She didn’t even know what she was begging for. For the spanking to stop? For her adulthood back? To be let out of the discipline nursery and get sent back to her loving boyfriend? How could she have pushed him to enrol her here? If she could turn back time, she would. Who cared if she had to live like a two-year-old, to have her boyfriend change her wet and messy nappies, to have him feed her and bathe her and burp her like a baby, if this was the alternative? Spending her time playing with baby toys and dancing along to toddler songs, and spending hours a day gazing into those screens, swirling colours and faint music that infiltrated your head and whispered to you.

Mindy could never remember the exact words, but the results were clear. After a few days she noticed her bladder and bowel control beginning to weaken, her hands becoming slightly uncoordinated, her walk turning into more of a toddle – and when she’d asked the nursery staff if it could be reversed, they’d only smirked at her.

And now she’d woken up from her nap to find her nappy absolutely drenched, and worse, packed with a yucky mess that she certainly didn’t remember making. The evil bitches at the discipline nursery had turned her into some kind of oversized two-year-old who filled her diapers in her sleep!

“Once we drop you off with your boyfriend at the end of your training, you’ll be a completely different girl!” Nanny said happily, not letting up with her furious swats. “Just like your little friends that are almost done with their conditioning!”

Mindy sobbed and screamed and kicked her legs over her Nanny’s lap. She couldn’t become one of them. She couldn’t! Not those dim-witted baby-women she shared the nursery school with, the diaper-dependent losers with their adult minds still more or less present, but so heavily conditioned with spankings and hypnosis and all the other foul training methods the nursery employed, that they may as well have had their personalities reverted back to toddlerhood – nothing but babbling, screeching, pants-wetting babies in the bodies of beautiful young women.

Mindy wanted to fight it. She couldn’t think of anything worse than ending up like one of them. But it was hard to think straight when her bottom was blazing like it was on fire. She couldn’t help herself. It was just too horrible! She wanted it to stop! She needed Nanny to stop!

“I’m sowwy, Nanny!” she wailed, hating how easily the baby talk came to her. Another gift of the hypnosis programs. “Baby was just cwanky ‘cause she did a poo-poo!” She cringed with shame as she said it, but she knew it was what Nanny wanted to hear. She wasn’t complaining because she was being turned into an oversized toddler who waddled around in full Pampers all day. She was just being cranky. “Pwease, Nanny!” she sobbed.

And then, mercifully, Nanny did.

“That’s a good girl,” she cooed, her voice soft and sweet, but with a definite note of condescending satisfaction. “What a good baby. Well done for taking your punishment, little Mindy. I’m sure you’re right. You were just being a little cranky because of your yucky, stinky nappy! But I’m afraid I’m not going to change you anytime soon, sweetheart. Babies need to get used to being in full diapers. You need to learn that you’ll be changed at an adult’s convenience, not when it’s convenient for you. Is that clear?”

“Yes Nanny,” Mindy whimpered.

“Good girl! Now let’s get you over to the playroom. We’ve got some lovely programs for you to watch this afternoon. Isn’t that nice?”

Mindy sobbed and sniffled, but didn’t resist as she was led off to sit in front of the television in the nursery’s main room alongside all the other infantilised women, to stare into the screen and allow herself to slip further and further into her new life.

[murfpersonalblog]

Delico's Nursery: Kids (TVC Headcanon)

Ok, so the cast from the new anime Delico's Nursey was clearly loosely inspired by Interview with the Vampire/The Vampire Chronicles' main characters, Louis, Lestat, Armand, and Marius.

But what about their children?

Until we're told otherwise, here's my current headcanon:

Dali Delico / Louis de Pointe du Lac:

Raphael: Rose Fisher (genderswapped) -- Raph witnessed his mom's murder, and I wonder what PTSD that will give him. Raph's very jealous of how much attention Ul gets, and it made me think of how drastically different Rose & Viktor's upbringing was. Rose/Raph had deeply traumatic childhoods, before Louis/Dali swooped in and saved their life. (Yes, Lestat did that first, but Rose would've died in that boarding school if Louis hadn't rescued her. Les couldn't even get to her until days later, after Dr. Fareed had already hospitalized her.)

Ul: Viktor Gilman de Lioncourt -- I'm literally projecting my wish that we'd seen Viktor grow up. But maybe AR skipped over it cuz he lived in a bubble all his life, secluded & protected by Dr. Flannery & Dr. Fareed. So there's really not much to Viktor, beyond being a son from a vitally important bloodline, who needs protecting--like we'd see when Rhoshamandes kidnapped him. In the timeskipped Trump stageplay, Ul grows up & wants to become an immortal vampire to protect those he loves, just like Viktor. In Grand Guignol stageplay, we learn that Ul's a dhamphir (halfbreed), just like Viktor's a strange genetic clone of the vampire Lestat.

Gerard Fra / Lestat de Lioncourt:

Angelico: Claudia (genderswapped) -- He looks like a spoiled brat, but seems to desperately want his dad's attention/affection, only to get brutally shot down. I hope for Gerard's sake that he eases up on Angie & stops perpetuating cycles of abuse/neglect, b4 Angie grows up to resent/hate him. Cuz we see how that turned out with Lestat & Claudia.... 😬💀 (The one thing giving me Viktor vibes is that Raph & Angie are the same age & are bffs. But Rose's literally Claudia 2.0, so...?)

Henrique Lorca / Armand:

Lucia: Sybelle / Mekare (?) The older & quiet twin.

Elena: Benji (genderswapped) / Maharet (?) The younger twin.

(They seem to be anime-onlies, not appearing in the stageplays?)

Dino Classico / Marius de Romanus:

Theodore: Pandora (genderswapped) Oldest of all the kids/fledglings. (Seems to be an anime-only, not appearing in the stageplays?)

[cowgurrrl]

Getting Older

Author’s note: FUCK IT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT TOMMY’Y GRIEF

Summary: "I love my little brother so much. I wish I could take back the years I spent treating him like I didn't." aka Joel and Tommy Talk [1.5k]

Warnings: discussions of deployment/Army, mentions of Sarah and Tess, pregnancy, deceased parent, learning to love someone even when you can't recognize them anymore

The brothers had been avoiding the topic pretty much since Joel learned of Maria. They were close once. Of course, they were. Joel let Tommy live in his home, work with him, and help him raise his daughter once he came back from Afghanistan. When the nightmares got bad, Joel was there in his stoic, big brother way to ask about therapists and support groups for veterans. When Joel didn't have enough money to buy Sarah a bike for her birthday despite scraping together pennies and dimes for months, Tommy miraculously came up with it after a few rounds of Texas Hold' Em at the local bar. They were a team. Had been since their mom died. 

But twenty years of a world ruled by fungus is enough to break any bond. The first few weeks in Jackson are rough. Not only are Joel and Ellie recovering from their journey, but Jackson offered up a whole new world of pain that Joel didn't even know existed. Kids Sarah's age running around without a care in the world. His baby brother suddenly no longer a baby anymore but a husband and a father-to-be. The little graveyard a little further away with lovingly etched headstones that make his stomach turn when he thinks about the river his little girl died next to. Couples walking the street hand-in-hand, and he knows Tess hated PDA, but maybe she would've made an exception. You don't realize how big a bed can be when it's suddenly empty for the first time in a decade. They struggle. All of them. There is no one in this little fucked up family that goes untouched by the hurt. 

It takes a month before Joel invites Tommy and Maria over to their house for dinner. Joel does his best to make a niceish dinner and even buys freshly cut flowers from the market. Ellie teases him about it, and he teases her back, but deep down, he just wants everything to be okay again. Normal. Tommy and Maria arrive with a wave of polite smiles and offerings of help, which Joel refuses like any good host. He finishes dinner while Ellie tells her aunt and uncle about school and her new friends. It's quaint when they sit down at the table together. If you squint, you could almost believe this is how it's always been. 

They shoot the shit and tell stories and enjoy the meal Joel lovingly made for them. Joel even asks about the pregnancy, which makes his insides clench like a vice grip, but he doesn't let it show. Maria gives surface details: how far along she is, how she's feeling, how the nursery's coming along. He's silently grateful they don't talk about names or clothes. He'd always saved Sarah's baby clothes in little boxes in the attic. "Just in case," he told himself. Whether it was in the event of a sibling for Sarah or a cousin, he never got to find out. Now he wonders what became of the boxes of pastel pinks and yellows somewhere in Austin. 

When Maria yawns and announces she's tired, Tommy offers to take her home. She refuses and looks at Ellie. "I've got some more clothes for you back at the house. Wanna come look at them with me?" She asks. Ellie looks to Joel for permission or maybe reassurance that she's safe to go with Maria. He nods and picks up her empty plate. "You better get a move on." He urges, and just like that, they're out the door and talking like they've known each other forever. Joel and Tommy collect the dirty plates and wash them in the sink side by side, a tradition their mother instilled in them so young they can barely remember a time when they didn't do it. Tommy's the first one to break the silence.

"She's a good kid." He says, testing the waters, and Joel nods. 

"Most of the time," Joel says, laughing to himself. "She's nothin' like Sarah." It's the first time they've talked about her. Really talked about her for a long time. Tommy freezes like he's trying to figure out what to say or do, but Joel continues. "They're both smart and funny and strong. I think they woulda even been friends. But Ellie…" he trails off. "Ellie's just different. A pain in the ass, sure, but different." He shrugs as he puts a cup face down to dry on the towel next to the sink. "And your little one'll be different, too."

"Joel-" 

"I know you're gonna wanna compare them to Sarah 'cause that's what I did, but it don't work like that. Every kid's different. You just gotta figure out how. You gotta give 'em a chance to show you who they are." He continues. Tommy knows not to interrupt him when he gets on a soapbox like this. So, just like he did when they were kids, he stays quiet and follows his big brother's lead. "I'm happy for you. I really am, and not 'cause I'm forcin' it or anything. I always knew you were gonna be a good dad, and I know it now."

"But?" Tommy asks, and Joel shakes his head. 

"No 'but.' I'm just thinkin'." 

"'Bout what?"

"Your wife kinda scares me," Joel admits, making Tommy laugh. The sound is reminiscent of summer days spent roughhousing in the backyard or playing with little green Army men in the kitchen while their big chocolate lab, Arlo, lay on the cool tile nearby. 

"Yeah, me too," Tommy says, and now it's Joel's turn for childhood giggling. When the laughter dies down, Joel turns and looks at his brother fully. If he looks past the beard and the long hair, he can almost see the eighteen-year-old he dropped off at boot camp all those years ago. It pushes on an ache in his heart, and maybe that's what prompts him to finally say what he's been dodging this whole time.

"I wish I was there," he mumbles. "Your wedding." The weight of the admission hits Tommy square in the shoulders, and he clears his throat. 

"Me too." 

"Was it… I mean, was it nice? Did you get all fancy or anythin'?" He asks, and Tommy chuckles. 

"Yeah, it was nice. Borrowed a suit that was a little too big, and Maria wore a dress that was a little too old, and we got married down at the courthouse few years ago. I've got a few pictures if you wanna see 'em." Tommy smiles, and Joel does too, and for a second, they're not men beaten down by wars and death. They're two little boys with missing teeth and red popsicle staining their mouths. 

"That's nice," Joel nods. "You deserve nice. I want you to have nice. Always did." The words drown out the dripping sink and the wind blowing through the trees and shaking leaves against the windowpanes. They land somewhere deep in Tommy's stomach, where he stored all emotion and grief down after that September night when he dragged Joel away from Sarah because he was being a "fuckin' idiot." They don't fully relieve him of what he feels is his share of the blame for how things happened, for what happened to Sarah, but they made it a little less heavy. Tommy didn't realize tears had sprung to his eyes until Joel sucked his teeth and pulled him into his chest like he did when Tommy scraped his knees, falling off his bike in second grade. 

"I love you. I'm sorry I acted like I didn't for so long." Joel whispers, his own tears threatening his lash line, and Tommy tightly wraps his arms around his big brother. 

"Love you too," Tommy says, removing a stone from the pile on Joel's shoulders. "Thanks for comin' back for me."

"I'll always come back for you. You're my brother."

Not a soldier. Not a hunter, a raider, or a smuggler. Not even a patrolman. A brother. It's been a long time since Thomas Miller has been allowed to only be a brother. He thinks he likes it. He thinks he can get used to it. He thinks there will never be a day after this one where he doesn't include brother in his list of titles because, for once, he's proud to be Joel's brother, and he will be until the day he dies. 

When they were little, and they used to fight over stupid things like bikes and what music to play in the car, their mama would look at them in the rearview mirror and raise her eyebrows in the exact way Joel is prone to doing and shake her head. "Now you two better settle it 'fore I settle it for you," she'd scold. "Y'all are gonna have to learn to live with one another 'cause I'm not gonna have all this fightin' all the time. Y'all are brothers, and that's gotta count for something." Tommy thinks he can hear his mother's voice in his head as they cry together for the first time in decades. He thinks she'd be happy with the way they turned out. He thinks she'd be proud of them for coming back together in this way.

They're brothers, after all. That's gotta count for something. 

TAGLIST: @abbyhaslongshorts @kiwiharrykiwi @sumsworldz @myloveistoolittle @anavatazes @marantha

[ravenmoon903]

Headcanon Masterlist

This is where I'm going to put new headcanons.

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO AGREE WITH ANY OF THESE

It took me an entire day to make this lol

This is long, be warned.

I edited it more right after I made it

Some headcanons changed from the original posts but whatev

Under the cut:

Project Sekai: Colorful Stage!

Virtual Singers

Hatsune Miku

Niigo

left handed

Kagamine Len

VBS

left handed

Niigo

left handed

KAITO

WXS

ambidextrous

Niigo

ambidextrous

Leo/Need

Ichika Hoshino

plays several instruments

joined the animators club in middle school and some kind of guitar group

when she was a bebe she had a miku themed nursery

Saki Tenma

Addison's disease (google it)

likes astrology and gemstones

Tsukasa sings her lullabies

Honami Mochizuki

baking club in middle school

hated apple pie til middle school

watches birds and has expensive equipment

Shiho Hinomori

secretly loves Wandasho and Momojan. Saki found out and told Shizuku

friends with Rui over Nightcord because they both like forensics

when she was a baby annoyed the hell out of Shizuku by touching her stuff

hates sudoku

More More Jump!

have a body positivity channel run by Airi

cooking with Airi and Minori at Minori's house (Samo got quite the attention, he has his own fanbase)

Minori Hanasato/Tenma

died from her bad luck and reincarnated into the Minori we all know and love /j

a Tenma sibling!

has a green hair feather

Haruka Kiritani

like to glassblow on a small scale

someone draw her as Elma from Yorushika please (begging)

when she was a bebe she had penguin themed toys

romance reader

Airi Momoi

actually Chinese (about the name, I can't explain it. Maybe her grandparents were Japanese and moved to China?)

likes to draw with Ena

when she was a baby she ate makeup

Shizuku Hinomori

likes sudoku

IQ of like 5 but EQ of 200

likes to garden

left handed

learned how to make hard candy

Vivid Bad Squad

Kohane Asuzawa/Tenma

her parents show her bebe pics to everyone they meet

played all the Mario games (Rae speaking here, Mario Odyssey is so good I could rant about it for hours)

likes to write fantasy stories at MEIKO's cafe

nothing scares her except public speaking

likes Taylor Swift but never told An

rollerblades

An Shiraishi

likes Taylor Swift but never told Kohane

loves kebabs but can't make them herself

skateboards

Hand In My Pocket by Alanis Morissette represents her so well

gonna be called Taiga's lil girl even when she's thirty tbh

Akito Shinonome/Shiraishi

adopted by Ken because he was done with Shinonome papa's abuse towards Ena

left handed

gets a motorcycle for his 21st birthday (all the Tenmas and some of their friends chipped in to give it him. he loves it)

when he was a bebe pancake nursery

takes pride in not drinking water

Akikoha headcanon: he plays guitar for her

Toya Aoyagi/Tenma

left handed

fluent in Russian, English, German and French for classical music reasons

sees MEIKO as a mother figure

mystery reader

Wonderlands x Showtime!

Tsukasa Tenma

left handed

was inspired by the Sing movies (guys they're fr so good anyways)

star themed nursery when he was a bebe

wanted a dog but his parents said no because they wouldn't be able to take care of it

good friends with Kanade because they both have a reason to be in the hospital a lot

Emu Otori/Tenma

when she was a bebe she also had a star themed nursery

Tenma sibling

IQ = 5, EQ = 200

cursed once and now everyone is scarred for life

Nene Kusanagi

extremely grumpy on her period

my wife :D

plays a variety of games on Steam, and has a Nintendo and a PS5

was born with gray streaks in her hair that faded as she got older

Rui Kamishiro

friends with Shiho because they both enjoy forensics

bribes An so he doesn't get caught doing things at school

took his mom's clock apart and put it back together at like 2 years old

ambidextrous

Nightcord at 25:00

Kanade Yoisaki/Tenma

plays a variety of instruments but is mostly skilled in the synthesizer

was born with darker hair and eyes but they faded when she got older

has cuts from trying to cook

Tenma sibling

left handed

Filipino

likes 80's music

Mafuyu Asahina

she can throat sing

plays electronic instruments and does vocals

she grew up eating spicy

Ena Shinonome

when Akito was born, she said 'bye bye baby' to him all the time (I did this to my own sibling so)

can't play instruments for the life of her

ambidextrous

takes pride in not drinking water

Mizuki Akiyama

does ballet

plays a bit of saxophone

when they were younger their sister made them bows and such

is the type to go to a country once and think they instantly know everything about that country

Tenma Siblings

they have a van which they decorated with star stickers and Tsukasa even put a sticker that said 'Star On Board!'

The Tenma family is Saki, Minori, Kohane, Tsukasa, Emu, Toya and Kanade

Stardew Valley

Sebastian

when he was a bebe hew had a frog themed nursery

had a salamander phase

hates mayo

keeps his room clean

left handed

reads comic books and magazines but also sneaks in some romance

Sam

hates tomatoes but likes pizza

Ado fan

had a very stereotypical childhood

left handed

Abigail

her parents fought about what theme to make her nursery. Caroline wanted a purple theme and Pierre wanted it to reflect the grocery store.

Caroline used to leave amethysts in her room but Abby would always eat them before she came back

likes to cosplay

Haley

preppy. not up for debate. mf Stanley and everything

has a blog for fashion, and Emily makes clothes that she really likes to post about

even though that she says quinoa is weird, she secretly likes it

her actual favorite food is curry

had a goth phase lmao (Emily doesn't use it as blackmail though)

wanted to become an influencer, but realized the industry fucking sucks

like wearing buns in her hair. AAHH IMMA DIE THINKING ABOUT HOW CUTE SHE LOOKS IN THAT SHIT AHH

Reddit lurker (meirl)

sharpie addict

Filipino (not up for debate) and can speak Tagalog, English, Indonesian and Spanish (Emily too)

types with ✨ too much

caffeine addiction for fun!!

Elliot

can't swim. Willy teases him for it sometimes

imagine him in a momojan outfit

Emily

left handed

Maru

ambidextrous

Penny

slight Southern accent

Jas and Vincent

likes to design buildings

dream of a proper school

made a terrarium but Jodi made them take it apart

Jas's full name is Jasmine

Vincent wants a dog but Jodi said no

they see Seb as a big brother, and Penny as a big sister

Willy

ambidextrous

Australian accent

Caroline

ambidextrous

Dwarf and Krobus

Krobus is ambidextrous

Dwarf is left handed

Clint

left handed

Marlon

left handed

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K

Aiura

has connections from her crystal ball

Our Life: Beginning and Always and Our Life: Now and Forever

Cove:

avid gamer

left handed

Qiu

skateboards

@wabatle

@stellas-starry-stories13

please do not copy or repost my work, and only use with persmission!

[gemini-sensei]

Alpha!Hawk Moskowitz x Omega!Lawrence!Reader Headcanons Pt. 3

Chubby!Fem!Reader ○ Domestic Fluff with a dash of Angst ○

CW: discussions around difficulties getting pregnant, discussions of depression, hospitals, fainting, medical scares (not pregnancy scares or emergencies). (unedited)

@sensei-venus thank you for the idea of angst and inspiration ✨️💘 great minds think alike, you'll see what I mean 😉

(And no, I don't know what a break is. I never stop writing these days, so yeahhhh.... have this.)

💖Hawk and Reader try for months to get pregnant. She even starts taking heat inducers so she will have more frequent heats and up their chances of it taking. However, after weeks of negative tests and getting her heart broken, Reader decides to take a break.

💖For many omegas, the repeated failure to fall pregnant can weigh down on their minds and make them feel bad about themselves. They can start to feel guilty because they're not providing their alpha with pups or a pack, or they become depressed following the failed attempts.

💖Reader has never been one to let typical omega feelings or pressures get to her, but when the last test came back negative, she couldn't stop the feeling over overwhelming sadness overtake her. She builds a half heartedly nest with some fresh warm sheets, some of Hawk's clothes, and her favorite blanket, then crawls inside and curls up.

💖Hawk hates seeing her upset, but he's never seen her this low before. His inner alpha is beating him up because he doesn't know what to do to help her. He understands why she wants to stop trying for a while, it disappoints him too when the tests come back negative, but nothing hurts him more than his tough, aggressive omega with a secret big fat heart is borderline depressed or at threat of becoming depressed.

💖When sheballows him into her nest, he cuddles her and holds her. He doesn't blame her for not getting pregnant and makes sure she knows that, assuring her that these things can be so unpredictable. He kisses her all over her face just showers her with affection and compliments, basically anything he can think of or read about online to keep her from being too sad.

"Your nest is wonderful."

"This is the shittiest nest I've ever made and you know it."

💖(An aside, but just picturing young, middle school aged omega!Reader learning how to nest and Johnny having no clue what to tell her. He kind of stays away as she figures it out, scenting blankets and pillows when she brings them to him, watching her smile before she runs off. It warms his heart when she wants to show him her finished nest and its a little misshapen and lopsided, but she'll be damned if she isn't proud of what she accomplished.)

💖Though all the websites warned him not to be around pregnant omegas or other mated couples with their pups, Hawk suggests going to see Miguel, Sam and their son. If there's one person he knows will cheer up his wife, it's the chubby cheeked Diaz baby.

💖She agrees and they go to their friends' house. As soon as Sam opens the door with her son on her hip. Reader's demeanor instantly changes. She takes the eight month old pup from Sam and is tickling him, making him laugh, and running off to play in seconds. Sam is confused but Hawk just tells her Reader needed a pick me up.

💖Everyone hangs out for the day, Reader crawling around the floor with the Diaz boy. They're "rough housing" as they play fight and he crawls over Reader, sitting on her and trying to tickle her. He shows her all his toys and babbles nonsense, and she's all for it, nodding along and telling him how he has such cool toys. They build towers out of blocks and knock them down.

💖When Sam says it's time for a nap, Reader tells her she can put him to sleep. She scoops up the baby and takes him to the nursery, bouncing the yawning baby in her arms.

💖When she's far enough away, Miguel and Sam turn to Hawk for answers. They ask him if everything's okay and his walls crumble. The whole time he's acted like he's okay, but he's hurting on the inside. He hurts because Reader hurts and he just wants to make her happy, but he knows as soon as they go home and lay in bed together, she's going to cry for a pup that they can't seem to make.

💖He simplifies it down to they've been trying for a what feels like forever to have a pup and nothing seems to be working. He explains that it has Reader feeling really down and he's just doing everything he can think of to help her. Sam and Miguel feel their own hearts break as they heart the guilt in his voice for not being able to give Reader the pup she's been wanting for months. They assure him that everything happens when they're supposed to and that they have no doubt that he and Reader will have pups soon enough.

💖It's only after the vulnerable conversation that they realize Reader hasn't come back from taking Baby Diaz to lay down, so they all get up to investigate. They find her sitting in the big comfy feeding chair Sam has in the corner of the nursery, relaxed and asleep with the baby curled up in her arms. His head is rested on her shoulder as he grips the front of her shirt tight, fast asleep with his dark curly hair in his eyes.

💖From there, weeks are filled with Reader coming to visit the Diaz home. While Miguel is off to work, she and Sam take care of their son. They spends days inside, outside, sometimes they go to the park or the store. She doesn't come over everyday, but when she does, Reader feels better. It helps her feel a little bit better everyday just to have something to do. It gets her out of the house and away from that empty room she and Hawk have that they wanted to convert into a nursery.

💖She spends days with Sam and Baby Diaz watching Disney movies and running around outside. As soon as he learns to stand on his own, Baby Diaz runs. Forget walking, he's a lil speed demon and Sam can hardly keep up. She feels lucky to have Reader around to run with him. She's let athletics take a backseat while she makes snacks for everyone inside.

💖One day, everything's going as usual. Reader has taken Baby Diaz outside for some sunshine and fun while Sam makes everyone lunch. There's a little window over the sink that let's her see the backyard where they're playing and everytime she hears her son giggle, she smiles wide. It's so cute and she's started thinking about having more pups so her son will have someone to play with like that all the time.

💖She turns her back for a moment, a few minutes really, and becomes busy. It's in that time the laughter stops. Sam doesn't question it at first, used to her son's new favorite game of hide and seek, except he's the only one that hides and everyone else has to seek. So he's learned to quiet himself when he's hiding. Except not a moment later does she hear him wailing at the top of his lungs. It's not a "I'm hungry" cry. It's not an "I need a new diaper" cry. It's a "something is very wrong" cry.

💖Sam drops everything and runs outside, seeing Reader on the ground, unmoving and unresponsive as her son stands over her. He's blubbering and crying over her, shaking her arm to in an attempt to wake her, but he gets no response. She doesn't move, and Sam is frightened as she has no idea what's going on or what might have happened.

💖After scooping up her son, she simultaneously tries to calm him down whilst calling for help. By the time EMTs arrive, she's crying and trying to call Hawk to tell him what's happened. They whisk Reader away with little information to give Sam and therefore not enough information to keep Hawk calm when she finally gets him on the phone.

💖At the hospital, Hawk finds Miguel, who works in the building and was able to step away from his own work in the PT department to come check on Reader. Hawk is a raging, fretting mess and Miguel has to calm him down before he can take him to see her.

"Hhey hey hey, look at me. Look at me, alpha to alpha, alright. I understand what you're feeling, I'd feel the same way if it was my mate back there, but you need to take a deep breath and calm down. Reader's okay. Doc said she got too dehydrated in the sun, but they're giving her fluids and she's gonna be okay."

💖Once Hawk isn't bouncing off the walls with worry, Miguel walks him back to Reader's room, where she's already woken up and annoyed to find out she's in the hospital. Hawk rushes for her and holds her close, muttering about how he thought he'd lost her when Sam called. She shakes her head and just buries her face in his neck, scenting him to show that she's okay and that he doesn't have to worry anymore.

💖Miguel has to leave but notes that he'll tell her doctor she's awake on his way out. Not long after he makes his exit, the doctor comes in to the mates still comforting each other. Hawk is kissing Reader's hands as he bends down to be as close to her as possible. He refuses to sit down, body too tense despite leaving in the middle of teaching a lesson at the dojo.

💖When he senses the other person in the room, despite the doctor being a beta, Hawk gets protective and stops everything. He stands close to Reader's bedside and holds her hand in his, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand. "So, doc, when can I take her home?"

💖The doctor is polite to the mates, keeping his face neutral as he speaks seriously. "Well, usually, we'd only keep her for a few hours to ensure she's gotten enough fluids, but we'd like to keep her over night to ensure she and the babies have enough before we send you home."

💖The world comes to a stop, Hawk and Reader look at each other before looking at the doctor.

"What do you mean babies?" she asks.

💖Coming to realize they've no idea what's going on, the doctor proceeds to tell them the good news: Reader is about 8 or 9 weeks pregnant with twins. He goes on to explain they may not have known for a number of reasons; Reader's chubby body hiding the weight gain in her midsection as the twins grew in the first few weeks, a lack of symptoms, the obvious scent of an infant pup rubbed all over her hiding the scents of the twins...

💖Hawk and Reader are left alone to let that information sink in after they're told about the ultrasound that had been performed to ensure the baby was okay after her minor fall, which lead to the discovery of the twins in the first place.

💖It's quiet for a few minutes before Reader squeezes Hawk's hand. He looks down at her and sees the marvel in her eyes and the little smile on her face. "Where having pups."

💖Hawk wants to pick her up and kiss her all over her face while spinning her around, but he settles for cupping her face and kissing her for now. He finally takes a seat as they talk about the pups, his hand coming to lay over her lower abdomen and he realizes now that there's a difference. He can feel it, the firmness of her lower belly.

💖And as time goes on, the sterile air of the hospital wafts away Baby Diaz's babyish scent and he can smell the new intertwined scents of the twins. It changes Reader's scent to be sweeter than sweet and he asks himself how he never noticed this before.

💖They are the happiest mates in the world, unable to stop gushing over the day's discovery. They share kisses, only for Reader to start huffing and puffing about being cooped up in the hospital bed. He doesn't stop her from throwing the blankets off and getting up, just pushing her IV stand around behind her as she stretches her legs and walks around the room.

💖He's happy, because there's the omega he knows and loves, happy as can be whilst still not abiding to anyone else's rules but her own. He can't wait to raise pups with her.

[divine-knight-hand]

My turn!!!!!

🦋🎤🌸

#ask game 🥰🥰

Yayyyy! Thank you for sending me this, Domina! 🥺💕

These are actually some really tricky questions, but they’re so fun! Hehehe! 🤭

🦋 Describe yourself in three words.

*Looks at my url* I’m tempted to cheat just this once… But no! I’ll describe my real self. 😅

Hmmmmm… I think I’ll go with loner, passionate, and dreamer.

Loner, because I feel that I’m at my best when I’m alone (I don’t know how good of a thing that is, actually-)

Passionate, because when I want something, I want it, and I’ll always find a way to reach it

And dreamer because… (don’tsaybecauseyou’reamaladaptivedaydreamerdon’tsayyou’reamaladaptivedaydreamerdon’t-) Because I’ve always got my head in the clouds! (Whew! Nice save!) …and because I’m a maladaptive daydreamer. (Damnit!)

🎤 Is there a song you know all the lyrics to?

Prepare for disappointment! 🤣

The first and only song I ever learned by heart (that isn’t, like, the alphabet or a nursery rhyme or something) was this little number from my middle school days:

When my DDLC phase hit, it hit hard. To the point where I still know all the lyrics. To. This. Day.

I actually just re-discovered it a few weeks ago after not hearing it for years and was able to sing it bar-for-bar! (only messing up on, like, two or three words- 😭)

Just Monika is hardwired into my brain. I can’t escape it. 😔

🌸 Best compliment you ever received?

This is a hard one! Honestly, I don’t think I appreciate compliments most compliments as much as I should.

Like, as a ginger, I’m always getting compliments on my hair, which actually made me grow bitter for some time because I felt that my hair was the only thing people found interesting about me, meanwhile I hated it. Call it preteen angst, I guess. 😅

But, I dunno, nowadays, I feel so disconnected from compliments. Like, I’ll smile and say thank you, but it almost feels like they’re talking about someone else. I dunno how to explain it…

Anyways, sorry for the slight baggage spill! I think the best compliments I’ve ever received were right here on tumblr dot com!

Every time one of you reads my work and comments on it, I can actually feel the warmth of that. It’s nice. Really nice, actually. 🥹

Thank you, again, for sending these in! You really made me think. And, I can’t complain. I got to overshare A LOT. 🤣🤣🤣

Here’s the ask game in question!

[restlessmaknae]

veritas vos liberabit // kim junseo

enemies to friends to lovers high school au with a murder mystery + “as far as i’m concerned, that never happened” + wei’s junseo

➳ Characters: high school student!Junseo x high school student!female reader/you

➳ Genre: enemies to friends to implied lovers, dark academia au, boarding school au, murder mystery

➳ Words: 1.8k

➳ Warning: mentions of murder, suicide, cheating (not on the main characters' part), money laundering, bullying

➳ A/N: This story was requested by the lovely @ishuayou for my request event. I hope you enjoy it! ❤️

➳ Masterlist for the request event

➳ WEi taglist: @dat-town, @hyu-won, @littlestartonightsposts, @ishuayou, @squiishymeow, @s00buwu

Non scholae sed vitae discimus

This was the motto of the boarding school you attended which means ‘we do not learn for school, but for life’, and more often than not, it proved to be true. In the treacherous hallways of the school, everyone was on their own. Even if certain students formed cliques, they were short-lived forms of alliance until one or more of them were accused of something scandalous. That’s how you had fallen out with two girls after your father - a politician in your home country - was rumoured to be cheating on your mother. You had ‘cheater’s daughter’ written all over your locker in permanent marker the day after the news had gotten out, and students had given you suspicious glances everywhere you had gone as if you had been the one cheating on someone.

Sadly though, you weren’t the only case of castaway isolation. It seemed as if it was a game by now, the target falling on a different pupil every other day. Since everyone came from a wealthy family, each and every one of you could be a target for something. Your father might have cheated on your mother, but one student’s cousin committed suicide and they started asking him if he was next; one student had a CEO as their father who was accused of money laundering; one student’s sister ended up in jail after breaking into a stranger’s house at midnight, drunk and high, and the list went on and on.

You did learn for life, after all. You learned that there were multiple ways one could humiliate another human being, and that you could never trust someone because they only had you in their favour until your picture perfect facade didn’t waver. Once it did, you were as easily disposable as a piece of trash.

That’s why you were wary to let Junseo in when he had first shown signs that he was different. When you had started attending the same school together, you had firmly told him that he shouldn’t speak to you because your families were rivals, so were you. They had both worked in the fashion industry, always coming in the worldwide sales neck-to-neck, and the Kims tried to uphold a perfect family image just like your family did so. You hated every second you had needed to work with him on an assignment, talk to him during Latin classes or sit beside him during modern literature classes.

However, he had been the one who had tried to clean the permanent marker off your locker that one time, and since you had told him to stay away from you, he had to do it out of the goodness of his heart. He had also been the one who had stood up for you when you had needed to go back home for a funeral, and some girls had accused you of going on a vacation during term time. He had been the one to buy you peppermint tea when you had been on your period and hadn’t been able to leave your room due to your cramps.

Little by little, the boy had managed to break down your walls, and if there was someone you would consider as your friend, it would be Kim Junseo himself.

Timendi causa nescire est

Ignorance is the cause of fear, that’s what Junseo told you when a dead body was found on school grounds, and the school committee presumed that it was due to suicide since it happened after midterms. Since the school was in the highlands, and had its own campus with a nursery, two grocery shops, one post office, a stationery shop and a special affairs office (which was supposed to be the closest thing to a disciplinary office), they never notified the police because the school said that it would handle everything by itself.

Besides, your boarding school was said to be an exemplary one, one of the best ones in the world, why would anyone assume anything other than suicide? The deceased student’s parents would most likely want to sweep the news under the rug anyway because suicide was seen as a sign of weakness, especially among your social circle. No one would dare to question what happened.

No one, but you and Junseo.

It’s because Hamin’s - the deceased student’s - locker was above Junseo’s, and on the day the news of his death came to light, Junseo slipped a piece of paper in front of you in a secluded corner of the school library. It read:

“As far as I’m concerned, that never happened.”

“It was tucked into the bottom of his locker, so when I opened mine, it fell out,” the boy explained, and you furrowed your eyebrows in question upon his words.

“Do you think someone had something on him?”

“Or he had something on someone else, and maybe they cornered him on the rooftop. I rather doubt Hamin would have jumped off himself,” he added contemplatively, and you had to give it to him that he was right. If there was anyone in your whole year who didn’t seem affected by the budding ground of hatred and humiliation that the whole school was about, it would be Hamin himself. He was always so carefree and chatty, and he hadn’t been the target of any bullying (a rare case), so he didn’t seem to have a reason to end his own life.

“Maybe you’re right. Hamin is a kind-hearted student,” you started, then corrected yourself after clearing your throat. “He was a kind-hearted student, but he had a loose mouth. Maybe he saw something that he shouldn’t have or knew too much, and it backfired,” you mused out loud, trying to keep your voice quiet in case there were other students around who could eavesdrop on your conversation. After all, you could never know at this school.

You exchanged a glance with Junseo, and you could immediately tell that he was thinking the same: you needed to investigate it or else, no one would do it. So you went up to check on the rooftop, but they closed down the entrance to the rooftop, so you could only peek above the tapes and fences, trying to see if anything was off about the place. Nothing seemed out of ordinary, but it didn’t mean that that was all that was to it.

So you kept up your suspicions, listening in on conversations that seemed relevant, examining students’ body language when Hamin’s death was brought up, and Junseo even tried matching the handwriting on the piece of paper he found to the ones he saw in the teachers’ office when he helped the English teacher correct some tests. At first, nothing seemed to work out, but then, the rooftop was open to the public again, and you found a lighter with ‘CY’ engraved into it.

Even though smoking was strictly prohibited on school grounds, everyone knew that there were students who smoked, and the teachers probably knew about it too, yet let it slide because you all came from wealthy families, and they were paid to teach you, paid a hefty amount on top of them. So they turned a blind eye to most, if not all, breaches.

“Choi Yoonsung?” You quirked an eyebrow in question, pondering whether there was anyone else with the same initials in your year. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he smoked. His family owns a tobacco company after all,” you noted, and even though you had not seen the said boy smoking, anything could happen here. Even a murder.

“I feel like we’re missing something here. Yoonsung couldn’t just throw Hamin over the edge because of his lighter,” Junseo mused out loud while turning the lighter in his hands as if it could help him put the pieces together. It didn’t, but it lit a spark that turned into a full-blown fire.

A wildfire that couldn’t be contained.

Veritas vitæ magistra

You never really believed in the saying that truth was the teacher of life because there were too many two-faced people in your social circle, too many lies and facades, and you could never know when someone was being genuine or they were merely playing their part in the grand charade of boarding school society.

Well, not until you had to discover the truth behind Hamin’s death yourself. It wasn’t easy, and it took you two almost a month to figure out, but when the truth came to light - all your proof put together into a folder and sent to both Hamin’s parents and the special affairs official -, there was no way to cover up anymore what happened.

What happened was that Yoonsung and Soomin had been going out together, but kept it a secret because Soomin had been forced to date a different boy (and keep it long distance while she was at the boarding school) for her family’s sake. Hamin had walked in on them kissing once but said nothing. Then, he had bumped into them on the rooftop that night, and made a joke about them being a power couple at school. Yoonsung had started threatening the boy while the cigarette was still hanging out of his mouth. When the cigarette’s light had gone out while they had been arguing, Yoonsung had tried to light it up again, but Hamin had tried to hold him back. That’s when the boy had pushed him so forcefully that he had managed to push Hamin over the edge of the rooftop. It had always been too short for someone as tall as Hamin, but it had never caused such a calamity before. However, it had been dark, Yoonsung and Soomin had been frustrated already, and the ground had been slippery because of the day’s rain accumulating on the rooftop and along its rails.

How did you come to the conclusion of all these? You had found the note Soomin had left in Hamin’s locker, identified that it belonged to her based on her handwriting, had found Yoonsung’s lighter on the rooftop, had overheard one of Soomin’s friends talking about the girl’s supposedly fake relationship with a foreigner boy outside of school, had stumbled upon a half-burnt picture of the two of them one day on the rooftop, and many more hints like that. It had not been easy, Yoonsung and Soomin had guarded their secret as if it had been their own child, but the truth always came to light.

Veritas vos liberabit was written over the door of the special affairs office that you walked out of with Junseo by your side, and when you looked at each other, you felt your shoulders drop in ease and your heart beating somewhat lighter. Maybe that’s why you let Junseo reach out to you and pull you towards himself, so you could rest your head on his shoulder while you were walking.

The truth will liberate you all.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this story of mine! Let me know what you think.

If you want to read more stories of mine, let it be for WEi or for other artists, consider signing up for my taglist here.

Hope you have a lovely day/night! Take care! ❤️

[veronasunmademods]

Occult Children

There's... not really a lot for children in the Sims 4, occult or not. But nothing has bothered me more than the fact that even if you make an occult child, you won't see any effects of it until that child is a teenager. From my experience, anyway. So, a bit of an idea to how one might change that.

Spellcasters

Accidental magic. I'll say it again and again, Spellcaster children, toddlers, and infants should have accidental magic. Especially when they're experiencing big moods.

It could be any mood other than "fine" for a toddler and/or infant; turns objects into flowers when happy, bubbles when playful, makes an earthquake when angry, makes it rain when sad, etc. Not every time or that would impede gameplay and be annoying.

Children instead would do it only during the extreme emotions. Hysterical, mortified, enraged, scared. Sadness as well, but that one doesn't have an "extreme" version. They'd have pretty much the same as the toddlers and infants as what would happen.

Potions stations would level up the potion making skill. That, or they have their own mini cauldron. Or both. One of the potions would be turning the giant stuffed animal toy into a proper Sim if the friendship level is high enough.

A few simple spells available to them, with Mischief the most accessible seeing as kids as mischievous.

Bring back the hair dye prank, but make the child have to craft it at with their potions skill.

In tandem with a boarding school mod, a magical boarding school just for Spellcaster children. Maybe two. One so they can learn to hone their powers, and one to hide them.

Spellcaster parents gain the option to inform their partners they are a Spellcaster if the other parent is not. Or not reveal. It's not mandatory.

Also an option to automatically hide heritage or reveal heritage to children, in case all children are normal Sims. Can later reveal Spellcaster heritage as desired.

Sims raising Spellcaster children and not knowing about it because they were not told can have different reactions when they find out. Anger, fear, excitement.

Spellcasters or normie parents could send child Spellcasters to the boarding school to free them of their abilities if they're trying to hide it or simply can't stand the magic. (Inspired by a throwaway line in the Children of the Lamp series where djinn children were sometimes put through such rigorous education it basically killed their magic)

Child sized broom that's closer to a rocking horse because it can't be used for travel. It just goes in a circle and can do loop-de-loops and other small trick shots if the motor skill is high enough.

Candies like those ones from HP that make you sound like different animals.

Mermaids

Obviously, let them be mermaids.

For toddlers/infants make them stay in whatever form the birther had when going in labor. If starts giving birth while mermaid, toddler/infant is full mermaid and has to learn to take human form. If human, has to learn to take mermaid form.

If in mermaid form, there could be special items made for an underwater nursery for them. If a mod can't do it on its own, it would probably require cheats.

Like, think a large lilypad floating in the water for a newborn, giant shells for infants and toddlers.

Mostly just everything found here, The Expanded Mermaids from SpinningPlumbobs. I like it, it fits what I want but can't have because I can't use the computer. 😭

Just wanted to add my own two cents about younger than children.

Vampires

Full vampire children should age slow, just like their parents. Half vampire children can stay the same when it comes to aging.

A breastfeeding parent to a vampire baby should occasionally get bit and get moodlets about uncomfortable bleeding.

On that same note, while I hate Twilight, I think the pregnancy and vampire children thing would work well with the Sims. Weakness during pregnancy (Sims can't die while pregnant, but a general higher need for sleep, apathy, a dazed mood, puking, etc), craving for more raw meals, normie sims able to digest plasma without getting sick.

Child vampires can eat both regular food and plasma but start finding regular food unappealing.

Toddlers and infants can eat both as well, but tend towards regular food. But if they get a craving for plasma and they don't get it, they'll go bite anyone and everything, including family and pets.

If a child vampire has a high enough relationship with a normie child, the vampire can offer to turn the normie.

This turned vampire child does not age. Is stuck in the child state. Insatiable hunger, all the time.

Born child and under vampires don't die in the sun, but they'll get a nasty sunburn. Perhaps some rashes, like they're allergic to it. Turned children will die from sun exposure.

Turned children can only eat plasma.

Child sized coffins decorated with stickers, with colorful fabric and pretty wood designs. Open casket that's styled like a princess bed with a canopy.

Teething toys for infants that will occasionally burst and get them messy.

Plasma bags made to look like cute juice boxes.

A randomly chosen trait for how the vampire child comes across. Unsettling, enchanting, strange, etc.

Werewolves

Wolf form, wolf form, wolf form

Toddlers and infants can sleep in pet beds

Another situation where toddlers/infants/newborns are whatever the birther was at the time of birth. If in wolf form, they're born like a puppy. Switches uncontrollably human sometimes, but default is dog. Same for the reverse where the birther was in human form; human default, uncontrollable wolf.

Kids can dig holes with their hands in the backyard.

Can play with dog toys like dog.

Chase cats

Dogpile older Sims

Ability to chew on toys when not in wolf form

Excitement, playful, and embarrassment will turn children into their wolf forms

Can learn to control the wolf, but only that perk

Can "pack bond" with friends. Good things like raising skills, better moods, etc will be easier when packmates are around, but will feel distressed when they're not around for a while.

All of them could probably have the ability to "reveal or hide heritage" honestly.

[majorasnightmare]

Zora Cultural Differences

Yona canonically comes from a different domain than Hyrule's Zora's Domain but in true TotK-fashion does little to no elaboration on what her domain is like or her role or position within it, with us only learning that she's Sidon's childhood friend and his fiancee. With her character not existing at all whatsoever in BotW, having no mentions in memories, flashback scenes, dialogue, or diary entries, or even scenes where we get to see Sidon's childhood, that means nearly everything about her origins is left completely blank. And the one thing I hate more than a disrespected female character is a barely-written disrespected female character.

Consider this a sequel to my other zora post, link in reblog

Going under a readmore because i like the zora to be shamelessly weird

Yona's domain is further east in the Akkalan Sea, and takes about a week of travel time to get to Hyrule's Domain. Her ocean climate is tropical, and is reflected in the marine life the zora of that domain emulate and resemble

Yona and Muzu are both from the same domain, both being manta-emulating zora

When the great flood swept hyrule, most zora perished in the illusory waves. A small population survived with the help of Valoo on what would become Dragon's Roost Island, but an even smaller population managed to escape beyond the borders of the ocean. This population would slowly recover, and post Wind Waker began to thrive. This population of zora would begin to migrate outwards and diversify as they adapted to their new ecosystems, and some would eventually make their way back to Hyrule once the waters receded, establishing themselves as what would become Sidon's Domain.

The Zora are fairly consistently long lived, and new zora hatch from eggs laid in clutches. Your average individual zora will typically only have kids once or twice in their multi century lifetime

With these circumstances, you'd want to find some means of adaptation to help ensure the survival of the next generation, and each domain adapts to their ecosystems in their own unique ways

Yona's domain is built into and alongside a massive barrier reef, fed by the myriad currents flowing into their tropical ocean. Zora here tend to be brightly colored and varied in their marine animal appearances, with zora resembling nudibranches, mantas and other rays, and a plethora of fish types.

The Zora of Yona's domain have adapted to open ocean on all sides by having specially dedicated nurseries built into the coral, full of small nooks and crannies to help protect the zora eggs. They tend to be laid in small clutches of four to six, and baby zora will hide in the corals until their strong enough to swim away from danger.

Siblings will stick together as they grow, and will have food brought to them by their parents until they're capable of accompanying them. Afterwards, the siblings will school together with other clutches of siblings for safety and companionship, and will be supervised by two to three of the school's parents while the remaining family members take care of non child rearing tasks

Yona's domain, in continuing the ancient zora tradition of music (seen in the zora fingerlings (REAL TERM FOR FISH YOUNG BTW i just googled that) that resemble music notes and the tadtones in skyward sword) helps keep schools together via a distinctive series of whistled notes audible underwater

Sidon's Domain notably has a fairly large population of predator-emulating zora, Sidon himself resembling a shark. This is in part because Hyrule's rivers and lakes are home to particularly aggressive species of octoroks, who can squeeze their mollusk bodies into the small nooks and crannies zora usually use to keep predators away from their egg clutches. The Zora of Hyrule's Domain have adapted to these circumstances in a collection of ways other zora may find... off-putting.

Lacking the protective reef barriers of Yona's domain, and Hyrule's rivers being prone to flooding in times of crisis (alongside mudslides and other geography altering disasters that can strike at a moments notice), the zora of hyrule's domain have opted against hiding their young entirely

Early in the spring, the Zora celebrate the turning of the season, and the snowmelt it brings down the mountains, with a week long celebration. Emphasizing the chaotic nature of water, and the resurgence of new life, most years it is simply the domain's biggest festival. As the years pass, Zora couples interested in raising a family will inform the festival leaders of their intentions, and when a certain amount of interested families are gathered together, the zora come together to decide whether the coming year seems auspicious enough to bless with children. This is a decision that often takes weeks to months to arrive at a conclusion, taking into account both the state of the zora's population, the river and lake ecosystems and their health, and trends in fish population and other food sources

When all the conditions are right and everyone's in agreement, Zora's Domain closes off access to their waterways as best they can, and expecting couples return to the rivers that once raised them. The strategy Hyrule's Zora settled on is one common to sea life everywhere: sheer overwhelming numbers.

The Zora of Hyrule's domain have another advantage: they hatch bloodthirsty. In addition to losses from predation, newly hatched Hyrule Zora will often eat each other, similar to tiger sharks, to increase their odds of survival and having enough food. Unable to hide from octoroks (who try to prey on even adult zora), Hyrule's Zora rely on overwhelming the octorok population with potential food, ensuring that at least some of their young will survive, and that those young will be able to take care of themselves early on in life, able to hunt and feed themselves almost from birth.

For the duration of the festival's week long celebration, Hyrule's rivers are a horror show for those unacquainted with Zora ecology. Octoroks are tenacious nocturnal predators more than willing to squeeze through the metalwork of the elaborate zora architecture, and zora eggs suffer at high elevations and without flowing water, and attempts to raise zora eggs higher on mount ploymus have ended in tragedy for those reasons.

The Zora claim their children as soon as they can, which is usually around a few months after hatching when theyve grown past the fingerling stage and have defined limbs. Similar to the Blaschko Lines on humans, Zora have near invisible patternings on their scales that non zora simply don't have the eye structure to perceive, though underwater they may be faintly visible. Zora parents use these lines to identify their young, as they're incredibly distinctive. This trait is present in all Zora, though Hyrule's Domain has a stronger reliance on it

Of the multitude of eggs lain, on average one to three zora will survive to be claimed by their parents and raised in the domain proper. Most of the instinctive bloodlust has worked its way out of the younglings system by then, as they grow more curious and explorative as they age and develop, but it takes some time and careful parenting and socialization before the kids will be comfortable interacting with strangers

Notably this keen battle instinct can be honed as a Zora grows older, and the Zora of Hyrule's Domain balances their love and appreciation of art, decoration, writing, and engineering with a proud (and vicious) warrior culture (though some zora can never quite tap into the instincts of their youth again)

Having such a brutal early childhood has resulted in Hyrule's Domain having a strong appreciation for the arts of healing and medicine. To survive at all is blessing, to live is a gift, and should be nurtured whenever possible. Mipha is honored both for her skills as a warrior, and for her dedication as a healer, and many young zora, injured in the frenzy or otherwise disabled, thank her for the greater quality of life she helped to bring them. there is no wrong way to live, for to be alive at all is a joy

This cycle is seen as being spiritually emblematic of water's free flowing chaotic nature. Water brings both great life AND great death, and which one it chooses to bestow on you can be as random as luck. Subject to the full force of nature's brutal circle of life, Hyrule's Zora find spiritual meaning in their struggles and allow tragedy to enrich their joys. Mipha's death was such a cultural shock that it was enough to jar the Zora from this mindset, unable to find any comfort in her loss or any healing from the destruction the calamity inflicted upon the Domain and Hyrule at large.

Hyrule's Zora set their dead adrift on the river, as after a long life rich with experience, their body must now feed the waters that birthed them, and the guardian spirits that have protected them and aided their prosperity. In return for this feeding, the myriad spirits help guide the Zora to the horizon line where the ocean meets the sky, and cross over into the heavens where the light of Hylia can glint off their scales and provide light and guidance to their relatives down below

By contrast, Yona's Domain entrusts their dead to the wings of seagulls, who consume the body for energy and take the soul into the sky with them. They construct boats and rafts, and decorate them as befitting a proper celebration, before sending them on their way to contribute to the grand cycle of life that governs the ocean.

Mipha's manner of death was considered ESPECIALLY blasphemous, as she perished alone inside her divine beast, her body unable to be recovered, unable to be returned to the waters of her home, unable to be guided by the guardians of their people, unable to receive funeral rites from her family, trapped in a metal beast too far below to be reached by anyone

needless to say its all a bit of a culture shock to yona lmao

[alcoholttm]

@shipwrght asked:

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to." Though, he can't deny his curiosity to peel back the curtain to Kaku's true past. Out of all the time they had spent together, before and after everything that happened, his past had always felt more of a taboo topic. Never quite pressing further to avoid discomfort, but always having that wish he would bring it up first. Paulie sighs, scratching at his face. "I won't lie, I want to know... but I'm guessing it's going to be a lot." And even then, he feels like that was an understatement.

"no, no, it's about time that i actually tell you what happened," it was a loaded question that paulie had asked, but kaku knew that he deserved some explanation on how he came to be what he was. so, with a breath he looked down at his hands, they were scarred sure, but there were times that he swore he could still see blood upon them.

"i was sold to the world government from a very young age," he started, eyes glancing upwards just a bit to look at the window of their bedroom, he could remember bits and pieces of the nursery that he grew up in when he wasn't learning all that he could about the world from the eyes of the government. "see, my father was in debt and the only way to get out of it was to sell me. my mother had passed away when i was only a year old so i don't even remember what she looked like--not that i really remember my old man either." he then eyed paulie for a moment. "i was two when i was sold, from what i was told it wasn't much-babies don't really sell much, not like slaves who could actually do labor, but it was enough to get him out of debt and then some so he took the deal and never looked back."

he was starting to fiddle with his hands now as he thought about the training.

"they started out like a school, i guess, you know, learning to read and write, math and science and such, so it wasn't so bad at first," yet another breath left his throat, head shaking slightly. "but then when i turned ten they called it an advanced curriculum. teaching me how to hone my body to become stronger, there were nights that i came back to the dorms aching with pain, cuts and bruises all over my body but i couldn't complain." no, if he did so much as weep at the pain he'd have wake up the next day without any breakfast--without food for even a day kaku learned quickly not to show any agony of the days training.

"my training to become an actually assassin didn't really start until i was around fifteen. i got my first gun and was taught how to shoot it, taught how to zip around without being noticed--it's how i got so good at jumping across this city actually, so it wasn't all that bad." he always had to look at the positive of his trainings or he'd lose it. "i learned how to read pulses to check of people were lying--" he was sure that skill in and of itself would bring back some bad memories from paulie, but he did say he was curious about his childhood upbringing. "and then the guns turned into using my fingers to pierce people's skin, my legs now act like swords--i can cut a building in two if i wanted to.." he grew silent, unsure if he wanted to keep talking about this.

"i know now how wrong the world government is, but they did teach me some techniques that have gotten me to where i am today." did he regret his choices back on that day? of course he did, but at the same time if he didn't grow up the way he did he couldn't fight as well as he could now. "but now i use those techniques to keep this city safe, keep us safe..y'know?"

spilling his guts onto the floor, he hated himself somedays because of his past, and now that paulie knew a bit more about it--could he hate him now, too?

[theendofeverafter]

Apple White: A Character Study (Chapter 3)

We’re back in business!

I watched Spring Unsprung last night intending to write a separate post about it, but I realized a few minutes in that it wouldn’t make for a good solo post. Apple spends the majority of the special under the topsy-turvy spell, meaning she wasn’t acting of her own free will and can’t really be held responsible for what she did or said (nor can we examine her character). So I’ve decided to combine Spring Unsprung and Way Too Wonderland into one post. That one will be coming soon. For now, please enjoy my write-up of Apple’s character in Chapter 3.

CHAPTER 3

(Side note: why has it taken me until now to realize Raven’s makeup is the best in the show? Suits her perfectly.)

(Side note: if Ashlynn lateness curse is tied to noon, not midnight, how was that ever going to work with her story? Was the ball gonna be a brunch? An afternoon tea party?)

I think it’s interesting (and a good character choice) to have Apple help Ashlynn work around the rules of her destiny. While Briar is ready to yank the stepsisters off the stage, Apple uses her clever nature to make the best of the situation. But she never tells Ashlynn that she shouldn’t have to wait on her stepsisters, especially since they’re so mean to her. This also makes me wonder (a bit off topic) why Ashlynn, now a rebel, has to listen to what they say. Is it a magical constraint? Is it learned behavior that she’s having trouble letting go of?

(Side note: WHO is Duchess’s mans? 🤨)

(Side note: THE QUEEN HAS ARRIVED)

I still don’t know what to make of Apple and Ashlynn’s friendship. I know that Apple has been close friends with Briar and Blondie for a long time, and Ashlynn and Briar have known each other since nursery (rhyme) school, but it seems like Ashlynn and Apple didn’t have a lot of interaction until they started at Ever After High. Adding the strain on their friendship that occurred during True Hearts’ Day (and Apple’s mini-feud with Briar during Thronecoming), it’s surprising to see them chumming it up so much in these episodes—and that Apple was the first person Ashlynn wanted to take with her. Perhaps she was being nice because Apple was right there?

Apple seeing a movie with Daring, hm…

(Side note: sorrynotsorry I love these besties)

(Side note: tbh I prefer Ashlynn’s original voice actress, but Karen Strassman still does a great job)

(Side note: Dexter was TRIFLING for asking Raven out in front of Cupid lmaooooo)

Bruh the way Apple is cringing at Raven and Dexter’s awkwardness is so funny. At least she’s being supportive!

(Side note: idk how anyone could hate Raven and Dexter together tbh, they’re so cute)

“I say we pitch in and do something!” Apple says. (30 minutes later) “We just have to be patient and think positive thoughts”

How did Apple still manage to go to the Forest Fest :////

Junior year! Arguably Apple’s worst. She was immature as a sophomore, but the events of Dragon Games are tough to beat. Let’s see how her character changes after summer break.

Apple volunteering Raven to work on the yearbook instead of asking her first…hm…

I can’t fault Apple for not wanting to look bad in the yearbook. Have you taken a look inside yours from high school or college? That shit looks BAD. And she’s supposed to be the future queen of Ever After. That’s prime gossip rag material right there.

(Side note: Raven’s response to seeing Poppy and Duchess flail through the air was to take a picture instead of using her powers to help them lol)

(Side note: I must point out that in my story Poppy and Sparrow used to be a thing, and now Duchess and Sparrow…Poppy definitely seems like the kind of person to be chill about those sorts of things. Not Duchess though 😂)

(Side note: Bunny and Alistair really got their own episode 🙄 thankfully Kitty has had enough of hetero nonsense and is our sole source of entertainment here)

(Another side note, I know: do Maddie and Kitty not feel any existential dread at the fact that the narrators can alter and rewind their lives? Make them do things they don't want to do? Change their relationships with the people around them? Isn't that a gross violation of their personhood?)

Why is Bunny Apple’s wicket keeper?

Was that Apple’s first detention?

This is probably my favorite picture of Apple and Raven:

(Side note: She’s here she’s amazing we love her)

Wow, Apple and Raven finally learned to get along. What a surprise

(Side note: for story purposes I cannot support the last scene of Tri-Castle-On…except that most of the kids featured there could be the children of the endgame pairings I have in my story) SPOILERS BELOW

Idk who the person with gray hair would be (though I have a few ideas), but from left to right: Raven and Dexter, Chase and Justine, Duchess and Sparrow

CONCLUSION

You can see instances of Apple slowly starting to adapt her Royal ideology to be a better friend, which is good. I don't know what would have sparked this change over summer break, but I'm sure people like Ashlynn, Briar, and Raven really appreciated it. It seems like she was on an upward trend until the Big Event of junior year, which is a little heartbreaking.

Previous reviews: Legacy Day/Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Thronecoming

[mxmoonie]

Hello and welcome to my blog,

I'm Moon! I'm 26 years old, and I label myself as a struggling middle school teacher. *sigh* Where do I begin?

I guess you could say it all started when I was 3 years old. I went to nursery and all I remember is watching the teacher that I used to call "mama" based on the culture here, and wonder 'how can I be like mama?'

I would come back from nursery, rip pages off my notebooks (sorry, biological mama) and scribble in them as if it was my 'students' work. I would stand tall (or short, depending on whether you were my older siblings or one of my teddy bears) and teach. I would sometimes yell to add some drama to the hypothetical classroom, threatening the imaginary kids that I will call their moms if they dont behave.

Fast forward to 23 years later, I am standing in a real classroom, with real, beautiful and intelligent girls. Some ready to learn, some ready to talk and giggle. I sigh to myself, asking for patience from the seventh sky and mostly guidance.

The way I had been taught from grade 1 to 12 was listen to the teacher, write notes, study, take exams and move to the next grade. It was mostly the teacher's job to teach us. Now, I am learning that the kids can learn on their own. To 3 year old moon, it's called student-centered. You don't have to yell or threaten to call anyone's parent. Just make the plan and execute it.

In theory, it's really easy. In the classroom, it's hard. Just like I needed extra help from the teacher with math, some of my dear students need help with English. Just because I think it's fun and easy doesn't mean it is to all of them. Frankly, this reality is humbling.

It's been only two months and I feel like I haven't been doing a good job. I don't want to be a boomer and tell them that when I was your age, this was all interesting to me. It was all I wanted to learn. They have their own likes and dislikes, strengths, and weaknesses. I can't be the annoying teacher who pushes them too much to the point that they hate the subject (although some of them do hate it). I want to be the teacher they love and respect that makes things fun. Im stuck not knowing how to do that.

So Im starting this blog to jot down ideas that I get, things that I experience, and maybe more? You are welcome to join me on this journey of my raw experience. Unfiltered.

[the-box-of-mine]

Soo I did read the headlines of vol 4 of int chapters. Wth is this???

It's like a breakup arc smth💀💀

Aaaghh I hate the fact that I can't read Japanese, I didn't even read vol 3 lol.

SPOILER FOR INT VOL 3-4 AND KNK:

There's that theory that the dragon rampage in int mv is because of shiratama's breakdown. She had depression sights already. Especially when she's alone. But when she meets tobi these thoughts fade away, like here.

I assume that tobi is her closest friend.

Since, even when she was sick and in the nursery of the school, no one really checked her except tobi and monika in vol 2. She is good with socialising with people but she puts barriers between her and others.

Knowing the fact that her homelife is not really good. And tobi (her best friend/ crush) is gonna separate from her in vol 3 (ironically the only thing i know would happen in vol 3).

I thought that her depressive thoughts would get the best of her. But after I read vol 4 headlines, TOBI (MAYBE) HURT HER?????? THIS IS ×10000 WORSE MAN.

(I'll cut you off) (my ways of eating) (LOVE IS LUST)💀💀💀💀

I know I shouldn't really judge from the headlines only, but this is the only thing that it gives.

Like tobi really pulled a (seki) card to us, no dna test needed🤣💀

Or maybe his obsession with hunger got the best of him, so he hurt shiratama and ate chinu, got to his scenes after and realized what he had done. I think this is the most accurate one. Especially after the last chapter of int manga💀💀.

The guilt he must have felt.

It gets worse the more I think abt it 😔.

Something I noticed in knk is the fact that baku barley talks in knk, he doesn't have many interactions with Rei or other characters, yeah he just says sometimes (I'M BAKU SAMA!!) or whatever. But he seems not interested in talking with rei, I give a shot that after what happened with and shiratama and chinu he decided that he won't make connection with other humans soo if he gets to the point of eating their zingai ,it wouldn't hurt like shiratama's incident.

Anyway, this is my theory for what happened, until the volume gets translated or I learn Japanese or manga get there I won't know what happened lmao.