#I have a lot of mixed feelings on the subject as someone who's been jumping around being possibly aroace

[gem-de-lune]

i know the members loves him and wanted him back and they are family but do you think their feelings changed even a bit after what happened? i saw reader on twt said that the relationship between them changed and isnt the same and they want him back but not as much as before so im scared if what happened affected them

Mydearwonbin I apologize for the shit show of an answer I will give just know not all of this is directed at you, but I am taking the opportunity whilst on this subject to address several related things in addition to answering you.

I am gonna go on a little rant here bc some of yall have been mentioning other readers a lot, and to be frank, that is quite literally enough. So this is the last time I will be expressing my opinion on this matter and why yall need to stop referencing other tarot readers who are saying wack ass shit.

Here we go

There are a LOT of readers on twt who are solo stans and OT6- or just non boycotters. These people are DESPERATE for ANY REASON to not boycott and return to normal. That is one thing you must take into account. Some people just want this to end.

So, separately, I want you to know that you do not just "stop wanting something" unless you now believe something is not as good as you thought or unless you already have it or something better.

If you want something LESS, it is because there is something BETTER or because you are exhausted and someone has been kicking you so hard into submission that you can't take it anymore.

There is absolutely no REASON for Riize to want him back LESS that is not a DIRECT EFFECT of SM's terrible management. Do you understand?

Therefore, we need to use our common sense.

The most probable option is that they are simply tired of this situation and the dragging of SM's feet. This does not mean they "want Seunghan less" that is not even a thing. It's abt wanting the situation to be over. It is about losing your motivation after a long time of being berated and told no.

Also, the spiritual vibes have been BLOCKED leading up to MAMA LA. Anyone who is doing a reading on their feelings as of the 15th is getting mixed messages that they could be interpreting wrongly. Whoever is doing a read on all the members' feelings rn and DOES NOT MENTION this block- means they are not getting all of the info they need to be getting and worse- they don't notice it.

Im not telling yall to only believe me as a reader, I am telling you to follow transparent people. This doesn't mean people to tell you "harsh truths" or people who don't shy away from a negative reading. I mean follow people who are going to explain this shit to you and who HAVE. COMMON. SENSE when it comes to people and interpersonal relations, are empaths or empathetic, and use critical thinking to navigate their readings. You should not follow or trust every single reader you see bc a lot of them will jump to conclusions and not use any forms of common sense or navigating a situation.

Every reader has their own way of doing things. But when you are looking into how an individual feels, you must understand how that person got to that point. If the reader can not explain logically and emotionally how that happened, then they do not understand that individual nor their own reading. Their reading will be slightly off. You need to listen to readers who know how to read for the particular question they are asking.

I spend a lot of time explaining these things to you guys because I care, and I want yall to have the facts here. Not every reader is built the same. Not every reader is reliable for certain questions. For example- I am terrible at past tense questions. My energy hates it and prefers present or future readings. If you are gonna listen to tarot readings you need to use discretion, not take things as 100% truths, and understand that there is a margin of error that can be widespread based on all the things I stated above including personal negativity and lack of critical thinking skills and common sense.

So, before you go believing any tarot reader, see if they explain anything. Critical thinking. Use it.

To answer Anon's original question: No, their feelings for Seunghan did not change bc there is no reason for them to. They are just tired and drained like all of us are.

Sorry again, Anon. Not all of this is directed at you unless what I said directly applies to how you are feeling or thinking. No matter, either way, i love and appreciate you.

I hope this was helpful to some people newer to tarot.

Not me calling u anon lol

[celtrist]

Something important to add is that if you AREN'T comfortable with this portrayal of Alastor or anything like that, or think it's "erasure" or the like, you're feelings are VALID for that, especially if you're in the aroace community and get bummed seeing ship art of your favorite aroace character. BUT, you do NOT need to harass anyone for how they might depict and aroace character in a romantic light (QPR or not).

Can fandoms have issues dealing with an aroace character? Yes, and that can be chalked up to how heavy shipping/romance is within fandom culture. But does what a fandom does with an already established aroace character dictate their canon authenticity? No! Canon will not change because someone made fanart of an aroace character in a romantic relationship, same how canon wouldn't change depicting a gay character in a straight relationship.

YES, there is arguably a "problem" so to speak with people completely disregarding some orientations but holding others as something unchangeable (hetero is a bit of an exception since most media in the past and still now are dominated by a less than diverse cast/weren't allowed to be diverse in gender or sex). YES, it can get a bit annoying to see the double standards of people say placing Alastor in a blatantly romantic/sexual relationship when they're also of the "shouldn't ship Angel or Vaggie in a straight relationship because they're gay". YES, it CAN be tiring to constantly see a character canonically averse to sex (and hinted romance) in those type of relationships and not feel great about it for one reason or another.

This is all true but fandom is, for many, an escape and people often portray their own experiences to these "dolls" for funsies or self-exploration. How you feel about how people handle this isn't invalid and you should not be demonized for thinking Alastor shouldn't be shipped in anyway. However, just as people shouldn't cram down their ship with Alastor down your throat, YOU should not cram down that "he can't" be in a relationship down others. I think it's fair to bring it up in a civil way or if the topic is brought up, but if someone is minding their own business doing ship art of an aroace character that you strongly oppose of, just move on. Block the tags, that's what they're there for (personally think it would be helpful to have separate tags for QPR like using "+" instead of "/" or a whole new ship name so it doesn't get mixed with the flat out romantic stuff, but I digress).

And kind of like the response to the question essentially says, QPR is a very unboxed sort of relationship that will have different boundaries between different groups (some are all good with smooching in a QPR relationship, others aren't. Both are valid for this type of relationship.) So while yes, some aspects might get more romantic than comfortable with (for me personally), it doesn't always mean the relationship itself is romantic and shouldn't be disregarded as such. (if you're gonna disregard it, at least just do it in private rather than to the person).

TLDR; Don't like it? AVOID IT! It can be hard with how suffocating romance/ship stuff is in fandoms, but it's not anyone's duty to cater to YOUR dashboard. It can be a bummer to feel like people ignore the aroace identity to get some form of shipping in, and it's fair to feel that way. But it's not fair for you to dictate how they interact with their favorite media as much as it isn't fair for them to dictate how you interact with it.

Do you think there's a right and/or wrong way to handle QPR? I know it's a tricky relationship, but it feels like most/some people kind of just slap the label onto a ship while depicting the ship as just romantic/having no difference with a romantic relationship. (this is why I was a little surprised when you said you do radioapple qpr when it reads a lot more like normal romance). Not meant as an attack or anything on anyone, just genuinely curious more than anything. Again, tricky relationship

So Imma put this link to info at the top of this post: https://taaap.org/2022/07/16/qprs-part-one/

Alright, so please take what I say with a grain of salt, because that's exactly what it is. One small bit of perspective in a mass of many people who experience QPRs in their life and/or are on an aro/ace spectrum. I also have NO QUALIFICATIONS on gender/sexuality theory, so my opinions are shaped by what I've learned and experienced personally. While people may identify with the same term, we are all still individuals with our own experiences. Words can help describe a phenomenon, but it doesn't make everyone who identifies with the word into a monolith.

So I've stated a few times that I navigate shipping Alastor similar to my own experiences as an aroace person. (I guess I'm sharing about myself with this post, but I think that can be helpful to just spreading awareness of an "alternative lifestyle"). So I'm romance-repulsed and sex-repulsed LOL but I'm also "positive" about those things. Like I view romance and sex as lovely, fun experiences people can have, but I've never been into it personally. It's fun for me to consume media about romance/sex, but yknow, it's also fun for me to consume media about violence or isolation. Doesn't mean I want to experience or engage in any of those things lol.

Anyway, I'm a huge people person and I love to party and yknow it seems most people are really wanting to fall in love or fuck or whatever pretty much all the time, but especially at parties hahaha. Normally, I'm pretty touch-averse, but I love dancing so much and it's a blast to dance with a partner (salsa especially!! i don't care for grinding for probably obvious reasons). And to connect the two previous sentences, people (whatever gender they are) would be very kissy-touchy on the dancefloor. Which i honestly dont really give a fuck about hahaha. I don't really get anything out of kissing but I also don't mind it. I just like to dance. It's all a pretty superficial--but still genuinely fun--experience for me.

When it comes to my deeper or more intimate connections, I have had friendships that have felt SO on the line of what was viewed as a romantic relationship. They were exceptional friends and we connected on a level that was deep and true, but it wasn't romantic. Sometimes we'd slow dance, sometimes we kissed, and it rocked. But it wasn't more than that, it was all that it needed to be. I didn't want more and neither did they (except one situation and so we had to stop being friends lol whoops). From the outside, people would even refer to us as partners in a half joking way, but we really were just friends. And I love those friends!! And a huge part of what made those relationships (which at the time were described as 'situationships' because we didn't know any of these terms haha) was their convenience. We either lived in the same building, worked together, or were neighbors LOL. I'm still friends with those absolutely lovely folks, but we don't live around each other, so our QPR just appears a lot more like any ole regular friendship. But it's not like there was a feeling that we transitioned into something different than before. It twas what it twas! (Had to take a pause while I was typing to reminisce fondly for a second, okay back to hazbin hahaha)

SO, whenever someone asks or it comes up, MOST OF THE TIME I do ship alastor through an aroace lens and experience with QPRs (specifically, MINEE because they were fun and I've never felt like doing this before I met a character like Al). And my XP is: "this isn't gonna be a partnership and we ain't fucking" LMFAO. so yeah!

When it comes to using a queer term like QPR, I just hope folks are considerate in their writing, but I also am inclined to just believe them if they say that's their intention because QPRs can look very different. Again, aroace and ace folks are not a monolith. The terms help to describe a human's experience. I'm inclined to think people are writing in good faith.

And all this being said, I want to just emphasize that I really don't think it's necessary to consider any of this shit if you want to ship a fictional character. I understand wanting to be protective of a character who shares an identifier with you (I personally don't wanna see romance/sex with Al in canon). But shipping is a fun thing a fandom does that often does ignore canon. Tale as old as time. I don't think anyone needs to be beholden to canon when they're writing fanfiction or having fun. If we did, I would have like--5 artworks on this blog hahaha. These characters are like dollies, do whatever you want. It's cool if people don't like it and I think it's cool if people do. It's just not that serious. There are ships I'm not particularly into or dynamics that I am not enchanted by, but whatever. I can just scroll or close my eyes.

TLDR; shipping in fandom doesn't need to be taken seriously at ALL. It can just be fun way for someone to play with fictional characters they like. That being said, I think it's good practice to use queer terms thoughtfully.

[megalony]

Our Army

This is a new Eddie Diaz imagine based on a lovely anon request, and an idea I had. I hope you will all like it, feedback always makes me smile.

Taglist: @justagirlthatlovedtoread @musicistheway @avada-kedavra-bitch-187 @luula @missdreamofendless @bradleybeachbabe @woderfulkawaii @amberpanda99 @daggersquadphantom @marvel-and-chicago-fan @angryknightstatesmantrash @minjix @lyje @kmc1989 @itsmytimetoodream @noonenuts @hiireadstuff @ashie-babie @classyunknownlover @jayyeahthatsme @sp1ritssz @dumb-fawkin-bitch @oliverstarksbae @gimatida @heart-35 @supernaturalstilinski @kyky9103 @wutheringhearts2275 @gay4hotmilfs @itshamleth @chaoticnosleepinfluencer @gs29 @wh0reforsmutstuff @mel-vaz @natashamea18 @chrisevansdaughter @alexandra848484 @deena-beena-weena @targaryenluvs @kpoplover-19 @marvelmenarebeautiful @gillybear17

@zoeybennett @mrspeacem1nusone @zephyrmonkey @estella-novella @eleventhdoctorsangel @kniselle @senjoritanana @shauna-carsley @dottierose @cfdhouse51 @darkfemme1 @rainechase45 @lolalolsstuff @jupiter1700 @ashdoctor @an-aliens-ghost @lunaroserites @houseoftwistedspirits @callsignwidow @winterreader-nowwriter @reneinii @bellsbomb @western-pyro @itsgigikay @harry-satellite @midsummereve1993 @babyqueen17 @buckyyyismahhlife @sammiejane22

Eddie Diaz Masterlist

Part 2

Part 3

Summary: When (Y/n) brings up the subject of more kids, her and Eddie seemed to have mixed opinions which leads to a small disagreement. And an eventful night with their kids.

Enjoy.

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Closing her eyes, (Y/n) tilted her head down and braced her hands on the sink. She could feel herself beginning to shake, but the overwhelming urge to be sick slowly started to disipate the longer (Y/n) stayed locked in place.

The cold air of the bathroom started to make her feel better and stopped her body from feeling like it was burning up. Her skin prickled with goosebumps, despite the cold sweat that broke out on her body a few minutes ago.

If this wasn't an incentive to talk to Eddie, then (Y/n) didn't know what was.

The panic she had been feeling for the last few days had been keeping her up at night. She didn't know how to approach the subject or what Eddie's reaction would be and it was increasing her nerves and making her feel worse.

Her stomach slowly started to settle and she shifted her weight from foot to foot but when she opened her eyes, she could still feel the bathroom spinning in circles around her.

She almost jumped out of her skin when there was a curt knock on the door before it was being pushed open.

There were six of them in the house and one bathroom, it was hard to find a moment to go to the bathroom without being disturbed or having to wait or push in front of someone. And none of them ever locked the door anymore if they were going for a bath or a shower because someone always needed the toilet.

(Y/n) quickly turned the tap on and began to wash her hands, trying to hold her breath at the same time to make herself feel a bit better.

She looked towards the door when Amelia leaned against it, one hand gripping the door handle while the other moved to cradle her temple.

"Mum? I have a headache again."

She knew what that meant. (Y/n) looked at her eldest who was practically leaning on the door, barely able to open her eyes. She looked like she was about to fall asleep standing up, but the look in her eyes clearly showed she was uncomfortable and didn't feel well.

(Y/n) made quick work of drying her hands, but she still felt queasy herself. She ran her damp hand through her hair and looked over at her daughter.

"Go see dad, he'll get your meds."

The twelve year old shuffled away almost immediately, aiming for the kitchen where they both knew Eddie was washing up. Amelia had epilepsy and usually, a bad headache could be a sign that she might have a seizure, therefore they had a lot of different medications for her.

Amelia had meds she would take once in a morning and once at night, every day, which were to ward off seizures. She had emergency meds to administer if she was in the middle of a bad seizure that wouldn't stop. And they had some 'as and when' medication that she could take when she felt like she might have a seizure. They often helped her go to sleep or feel settled and sometimes they would prevent seizures, but not always.

All the meds were kept in the kitchen cupboard and right now (Y/n) had a headache too. She wasn't sure she could scramble through all the meds in the cupboard to find the right ones whereas Eddie was there right now.

Trudging down the hall, Amelia leaned close to the wall but she could barely open her eyes when she got to the kitchen. The lights were too bright. She had a dimer light in her bedroom and a lava lamp which was pale green and worked better for her migraines than having a bright lamp on. It was a good job she didn't share a room with Chris because he had LED lights around his tv and fairy lights around his bed.

"Dad, mum said you'd get my meds for me."

Eddie glanced down at his watch before he looked over his shoulder, but when he realised his daughter looked like she was practically sleep walking, he frowned.

He swiped his hands up and down his jeans to dry them before he walked over to her. He went to tilt her head back but his lips rolled together when she pushed forward and buried her face in his chest instead. He breathed through a sigh and cupped the back of her neck, kissing her temple while he stretched his left hand out and opened the top cupboard.

"How bad you feeling, carino?" He murmured against the top of her head while he found the little grey basket where they kept all the meds specifically for Amelia.

"Drowsy… can I go to bed?"

Eddie's eyes widened at her words. She had to be feeling bad if she wanted to go to bed early.

Looking through the basket, Eddie found her usual twice-daily meds and popped one on the counter before he rummaged around for her other medication. He didn't think giving her two would be a good idea if she was tired and when she was going to have her usual meds if she wanted to go to sleep. One would be enough to make her feel a bit better and calm her mind enough to go to sleep.

He detached from her to fill a glass with water and held it out to her as she slouched against the counter.

"There you go, I'll come check on you both in a bit." Eddie had already put Tilly to bed since the toddler had fallen to sleep. But he would check on both girls in a while, it wasn't unusual for Amelia to struggle to sleep or seize before she went to sleep.

Once she'd taken her meds, Amelia waited for Eddie to kiss her temple before she shuffled back down the hall towards her and Tilly's bedroom. She would probably put her headphones on for a while and lay in bed.

Eddie grabbed a drink from the fridge before he wandered into the living room. This was strange. All the kids were in their rooms, Tilly was asleep, Amelia was about to go to bed and both Paul and Chris were in their room watching a movie. Although Eddie was sure Paul would be asleep by now too as he had been nodding off earlier.

He sat on the sofa and flicked through the channels, it felt weird to be able to choose a programme to watch rather than having the tv overrun with cartoons or kids movies.

A soft grin spread across his features when he heard footsteps and he looked to see (Y/n) aiming his way. He lifted his arm, shivering when she sat down next to him and instantly cuddled up into his side. When he felt her lips attaching to the side of his neck, Eddie kissed the top of her head and tightened his arm around her waist.

He could feel her fingertips gliding across his chest, drawing patterns into his shirt like she was trying to send him secret messages.

"Lia okay?" (Y/n) murmured against his neck, feeling the way Eddie's breaths became deeper beneath her lips.

"Yeah, she's gone to bed. Wanna watch a movie?" Again, it felt strange to say that to (Y/n) rather than to the kids. The only times they watched movies together, alone, was when the kids were at school and they had a day off together or when all the kids went to (Y/n)'s parents for the weekend.

(Y/n) leaned her cheek on his shoulder and brought her knees up so they were pressing into Eddie's thigh. She wormed her left arm between his back and the sofa as she tried to calm down her heartbeat that was becoming erratic with nerves.

"Sure."

With all the kids asleep or just generally settled in bed, this would give (Y/n) a good opportunity to talk to Eddie. She wanted to have this conversation when the two of them were home alone, without the kids nearby to risk hearing the conversation. But this was better than nothing and none of the kids could hear them unless they came running into the living room.

(Y/n) couldn't go another night thinking about this and not talking it through with Eddie, the anxiety was eating away at her.

"Babe…" She kept her cheek on his shoulder so she didn't have to look up at him and her eyes focused on the tv where Eddie was scrolling through some of the movies they had recorded. There was a whole list of movies they wanted to watch but hadn't gotten around to yet.

"Hm?" The vibration of his voice sent shivers through (Y/n) and she felt him kiss the top of her head while he selected a random movie from the list.

"You know when you were talking to Buck last week?"

"You'll have to remind me what conversation you're referring to, amor." Eddie could feel a grin spreading across his lips, despite not knowing what (Y/n) was talking about yet.

He had so many strange, random and ludicris conversations with Buck almost every day that it was impossible to remember them all. And he didn't have a clue which conversations (Y/n) or the kids might have heard or which one she was thinking of right now.

"When Buck said we have a full army of kids," (Y/n) smiled at the memory. Buck wanted them to take the kids to a zoo out of town and, being Buck, he had been looking at tickets already. He found it would be cheaper to get two family tickets as if two of Eddie and (Y/n)'s four kids were Buck's, then it would be cheaper.

A lot of the team had often said Eddie had his own little army or football team since they had four kids and none of them ever meant anything bad by it. Eddie was proud to be the one with the most kids out of their work-family.

"Oh, yeah, he wants to go to the zoo next week. Why?"

"Well, I just… you said you love having a big army. Do you think about having anymore?" (Y/n) did her best to hide the unease from her voice and kept her eyes set on the tv that was just starting to show the beginning of the horror movie Eddie had chosen.

She felt Eddie's arm shift around her waist and his hand moved to feather up and down her hip and she wasn't sure whether the chuckle he let out into her hair was a good sign or not.

"What, more kids than we already have?" He mumbled for confirmation while his eyes drifted between (Y/n) and the movie.

"Yeah, well, another baby." (Y/n) leaned back and pushed up off Eddie's chest so she could be level with him and gauge for his reaction. The laugh and shake of his head wasn't what she had been hoping for.

"Fuck, no."

A jolt surged through (Y/n)'s heart like she had been charged with electricity and a quiet 'oh' tumbled past her lips. She quickly dropped back down, landing her cheek on his shoulder again with a thump while she shifted her arms to wrap them around her chest rather than around Eddie.

That wasn't the reaction she had prayed to see; it was what she had been worried about.

She felt Eddie's hand on her waist give her a squeeze, but she ignored the touch and tried to focus on the tv. She wasn't sure what to do now. (Y/n) had come up with all sorts of responses and questions and things to say if Eddie had this kind of reaction, but now, her mind was blank. Everything had flown out of her head and all she could think about was the way her stomach was churning and her throat felt like it was closing up.

"Amor?" Eddie pressed a kiss to her hairline and tucked his chin into his neck so he could try and look down at her.

(Y/n) tried to mutter 'forget it' but her voice caught in her throat and she realised her eyes were watering. Eddie didn't like the lack of response, he could feel his chest tightening up and when he looked down at his wife, he paused the tv. He had a feeling he'd just said something utterly wrong.

The moment the movie was paused, (Y/n) swung her legs over the side of the sofa and got to her feet. She swiped her hand beneath her eyes but it didn't stop the tears that started to cascade down her face.

She wasn't sure where she was going and she knew she couldn't go into their room because then they would be closer to the kids. And if this turned into an argument, (Y/n) didn't want the kids catching wind of the conversation.

She aimed for the kitchen instead and briskly yanked open the fridge so harshly the door clattered against the wall. (Y/n) darted her watering eyes around the fridge, unsure what she was looking for and she settled on taking the juice, she may as well make herself a drink while she was trying to stay distracted.

"Baby, are you gonna talk to me?" Eddie followed her into the kitchen and propped his hip against the sink, but his eyes narrowed when he watched (Y/n).

She was shaking.

His lips formed a frown and he leaned over and gently took the juice bottle from her and poured it instead. But he didn't like the way (Y/n) twisted away from him or how she kept her eyes focused on the counter rather than him when he slid the glass across to her.

"Just forget it. It's okay." (Y/n) took a deep breath and tried to raise the glass to her lips, but her hands were still shaking and one mouthful made her sure she was going to throw up.

"No, let's not forget it, talk to me."

She did her best to continue looking down at the counter, but a shiver crawled over her skin when Eddie leaned closer to her. His hand gently tucked beneath her chin and tilted her head in his direction, but the moment Eddie's eyes set on the tears tracing down her cheeks, his gut pulled in. A groan caught in the back of his throat and he traced his thumb across her lower lip while he leaned closer and pecked her temple.

"Fuck, amor I've clearly said something wrong here." Tilting his head down, he pressed his temple against hers and nudged their noses together.

He hated to see (Y/n) cry, and knowing he had said something to make her upset made Eddie feel sick. He didn't want to upset her and he hadn't meant to upset her. He didn't think she was being serious about having a baby, he presumed she was just striking up conversation since Buck had made that passing comment last week.

Moving his hands up, he gently but firmly cupped (Y/n)'s face in his hands with his thumbs grazing across her cheekbones just beneath her eyes. He pressed a chaste kiss to her lips just as he felt (Y/n)'s hands reach up to grip his wrists. He feared for a moment that she was going to pull away from his touch, but she seemed to hold him tighter as if making sure he wasn't going to take a step away.

"Mi amor, do you really want another baby?"

His voice was so gentle and sweet that it caused more tears to fall down (Y/n)'s face. She did her best to hold herself together but she couldn't look him in the eye. Not when those brown eyes were so caring and full of worry and confusion.

She had never said anything to him about wanting another child and Eddie hadn't given it much thought. They had two girls and two boys, and Tilly hadn't exactly been planned. It just seemed like an unspoken agreement between them that their family was perfect just the way it was and they were happy with the brood they had.

Eddie hadn't thought about having another baby, it never really crossed his mind to be something to contemplate.

"That's not- not the point," She held her voice together just enough to stop from breaking apart or having her tone come out scratchy and off pitch.

"Okay, then what is? Hm, talk to me baby." Again, his tone was gentle and understanding and (Y/n) wished she could just project her thoughts into his mind already so she didn't have to actually tell him. But if she didn't tell him, nothing was going to make sense and they needed to talk about this.

"I'm already pregnant."

She didn't dare lift her eyes any higher than Eddie's chin, too afraid of the reaction she was going to see. She focused on watching his jaw click from side to side, ignoring how his lips were starting to part and move without actually saying anything. And she didn't want to think about the emotions that would be circling around in his pupils right now.

(Y/n) found out a few days ago that she was pregnant, and they hadn't exactly been trying for a baby this time around. They had been happy every other time, even with Tilly when she had been a real surprise, considering they didn't find out until (Y/n) was over fifteen weeks along. And they already had three kids at that point.

She knew that one more wouldn't change things too much, but it was going to be harder with five kids. It wouldn't be impossible, but it wouldn't exactly be easy, and it wasn't as if they could just say no and turn back now.

(Y/n) didn't realise she was shaking Eddie's wrists she was gripping tightly until he carefully broke his wrists out of her grasp. She feared for a few seconds that he was going to walk away from her and the thought made her heart leap up into her throat.

But instead of pulling away, Eddie wormed his arms around her waist instead. He spread his hands out on her back and pulled her into him while he tucked his face into the crook of her neck.

She looped her shaking arms around the back of his neck, but when Eddie felt her sniff and try to gain a proper breath, he pulled back. He looked down at her, resting his temple down on hers while his arms gave her a loving squeeze.

"Hey, no tears mi amor. This is good news."

"What?" She swiped her hand beneath her eyes to dry away the tears she couldn't help but shed. Her eyes filled with curiosity. Eddie had already said he didn't want more kids, she didn't want him to pretend or try and say what she wanted to hear if he didn't mean it.

"You know I love how you look when you're pregnant. And the kids mean the world to me, I love our army." His smile was genuine but it only seemed to multiply the confusion bubbling up inside of (Y/n).

"But you said-"

"I was wrong. Amor I didn't mean it like that, I swear. I just- Dios, I worry, okay? This is the best job I've had but it's demanding, and I wanna be here for you and the kids. I don't wanna leave you struggling with five kids if I'm at work and I wanna be here for them." He felt the way her chest fluttered when he moved his hand to place his palm delicately on her stomach. "All of them."

The kids meant everything to Eddie; he loved their family and he was proud of it. But this was a demanding job, it meant he didn't always get the day off for the kid's birthdays or school events. He couldn't be home to put them to bed every night. He couldn't make all of their hospital appointments and he didn't always find out about Amelia's seizures until he came home if (Y/n) couldn't get hold of him.

Eddie worried that another baby would mean he might not be able to split himself between (Y/n) and all the kids. He didn't want to make her do all the work like his father had done with his mother. His father barely raised him or his sisters at all and Eddie strived to be different.

He wanted to be there for everything with the kids, another baby just meant he would have to try a bit harder and would have another person to cherish and be there for.

(Y/n) could feel a tepid smile working its way onto her lips, despite the unease she was still feeling. She didn't want to think that Eddie was saying what she wanted to hear and she didn't want to imagine him not wanting this baby.

But his smile said different; his smile said he was instantly warming up to the idea. The way he leaned down and stole a kiss from her lips made (Y/n) feel the warmth radiating off of him and she could feel the love he was pouring into his touch. He was practically bruising her lips to transfer every emotion he had onto her.

"You- you mean it? You really want another baby?" She breathed against his lips, inhaling each gasp of air he took as she moved her hand to cradle the side of his neck.

"I wanna have another baby in my arms again. You know I always miss that feeling." When they had Tilly, Eddie thought she would be their last. He thought he wouldn't have that feeling again of having a newborn snuggled up on his chest or a toddler running around crying for his attention.

He thought the late night feeds and cuddles were over. He thought he wouldn't witness anymore first words or first steps or see himself pushing another pram. Or jogging round the neighbourhood with a newborn in a pram to settle them and do his exercises.

But he could already feel the adrenaline sparking in his stomach at the thought of doing all of those things again. All the things he loved but thought they were finished with.

"Come on."

(Y/n)'s breath hitched in her throat when Eddie's hands wandered down to cup her thighs and he hoisted her up until she was perched on his waist. Her arms stayed looped around his neck and she tucked her face into the crook of his shoulder while he walked them out of the kitchen and back into the living room.

She could feel herself calming down immensely by the time they were sat in the living room again. All the nerves that had bubbled up in her stomach started to fizzle out and disipate and the panic she felt earlier had been forgotten.

Eddie laid out on the sofa with his feet pressed up against the opposite arm rest and (Y/n) laid between his legs. He had one arm bent behind his head, propping his head up so he didn't fall asleep during the movie, and his other arm was bound around (Y/n)'s waist.

She was laid on her side, her face burrowed down into Eddie's chest with one hand scrunched up in his shirt. It was hard to keep her eyes open when she was tired enough to fall asleep right here like this, especially when a jump scare happened in the movie and she hid her face in Eddie's chest.

She knew there had been a reason he chose this movie. Eddie liked horror movies, he loved the gore, the dark scenes didn't bother him and the storylines never seemed to scare him. But he loved how each little jump got to (Y/n), even if she wasn't necessarily frightened, just not expecting it. He loved when she would hide away behind him or burrow into him like this.

"You still awake?" Eddie murmured softly, running his hand up and down her back and over the curve of her hip. The movie had almost ended by now, they had about twenty minutes left, if that and Eddie knew they would probably go and watch a movie in bed after this. One they had seen before and could easily fall asleep to.

(Y/n) hummed quietly and kissed his chest through his shirt before she nuzzled her cheek into his chest and wriggled to get comfy again.

She liked the feeling of Eddie's fingers ghosting up and down her waist and along her back, even though the touch was distracting her from the movie somewhat.

Eddie kissed the top of her head before he pushed his chest up into her so he could lean and take a look over the back of the sofa. He heard one of the bedroom doors open. He couldn't see which kid it was who had gotten up, but when he heard the bathroom light click on, he turned back to focus on the tv. If one of them was going to the toilet they wouldn't need him or (Y/n). It would only be if they couldn't get back to sleep or had a nightmare that they would need some help.

He went back to kissing the top of (Y/n)'s head, burying his lips into her hair for a few minutes. He could just have fallen asleep and he tilted his head back into the crook of his elbow propped up behind his head.

He was sure he was about to nod off then and there, but his attention peaked when one of the bedroom doors creaked open again. His ears tuned in to the quiet noises coming from the hallway and he tried to decipher which of their kids it was and what they were doing. But when the sound of bare feet shuffling against the laminate floor caught his attention, Eddie peaked behind the sofa again.

"Why aren't you in bed?" His voice was quiet and a bit croaky but he smiled when he watched Paul shuffle towards the end of the sofa where Eddie and (Y/n)'s feet were tangled together.

Eddie's leg jerked when Paul gently grabbed his bare foot and started moving it from side to side. Clearly the five year old was trying to distract himself and make sure he wasn't in trouble for being out of bed.

"What's up baby?" (Y/n) rubbed her eyes and twisted to look over at Paul, he looked like he had been asleep for a while. He could barely keep his eyes open and he was swaying back and forth from his heels to his toes.

"Need toilet, but Lia's asleep on the toilet." Paul timidly let go of Eddie's foot and pointed back towards the hallway.

It wasn't often that Paul or Chris woke during the night for the toilet, they could usually go all night without needing to go. But it was just his luck that when Paul got up to go, he opened the bathroom door to find his big sister already in there. He had been rather unsure why she seemed to be fast asleep sat on the toilet and although he didn't want to stray since he was tired, he needed to go.

(Y/n) tilted her head back to look up at Eddie, but he wore the same confused look as she did.

Amelia wasn't one for falling asleep just anywhere, and she had certainly never fallen asleep on the toilet before. This wasn't like her, clearly she wasn't feeling well tonight.

"I'll go see what she's doing." She felt Eddie's hands on her hips as she wriggled around and slowly heaved onto her feet.

As quick as lightning, Paul scuttled onto the sofa and took (Y/n)'s place barely a second after she vacated Eddie's lap. As if he was keeping her seat warm for her. He clambered between Eddie's legs and slumped into his abdomen with a thud, curling up like a little fox while Eddie wrapped his arms around his youngest boy.

Another headache began to stir behind (Y/n)'s eyes but she tried her best to push the feeling aside. It would probably be because she was tired and needed to get some sleep, combined with all the mixed emotions she had been feeling tonight.

Her hand moved to cradle her temple as she walked down the dark hallway. They never left the lights on in the hall because it annoyed all the kids to see the light streaming through the gap beneath the doors. Especially when they usually had to leave the boy's bedroom door open ajar. Both boys liked it open because they liked their parents to check in on them during the night.

When she reached the bathroom, (Y/n) gently tapped her knuckles on the door before she peeked her head round.

"Lia, baby you okay?"

As Paul said, there was Amelia sat on the toilet which was in the left-corner of the room. She was slumped to the left, her head slumped into the wall and her arms limp on her lap. The eldest looked like she had fallen asleep, but (Y/n) could hear her murmuring something.

Confusion pooled on (Y/n)'s face as she headed over towards her daughter and crouched down to the side of her. She tried to be cautious when she rested her hands on Amelia's thighs, but she frowned. Her legs were stiff and tense. They felt like they were made out of wood.

"Lia?" She brushed her thumbs along Amelia's thighs and gently shook her to try and get her attention. But when her legs suddenly kicked out and held straight like planks, (Y/n) froze.

A horrid trembling set in Amelia's body and her feet curled and bent inwards towards one another like she was a ballerina. Her legs began to rattle up and down which caused the toilet seat to tremor and jerk like it was about to snap off. And both hands, still on her thighs, started to curl and her fingers twitched inwards towards her palms.

She was having a seizure.

Her chin was dithering up and down against her chest and she was no longer mumbling or muttering anything. Her back began to slam back against the toilet which made (Y/n) wince; that was going to give her bruises.

Her body went from side to side and the way she had her legs held straight made her lift up off the toilet slightly. She wasn't going to balance like this for long.

Reaching up, (Y/n) moved her hands to try and wrap them carefully around her daughter's waist to keep her steady. It didn't work very well when Amelia thrashed back into the toilet, knocking the lid before she started to tumble to the right.

"Fuck- ow, Eddie! Babe!" (Y/n)'s head snapped back when Amelia's temple crashed into hers and almost knocked her out.

Her legs bent awkwardly beneath her and her heels touched the back of her thighs as she toppled backwards onto the floor. (Y/n) managed to keep her arms around her daughter's waist and she landed on top of her mum with a thump.

Twisting to the left, she tried to be careful and eased Amelia onto her side so she wasn't laying on top of her. An elbow to the stomach wasn't going to be a good idea right now.

"Alright baby, i-it's alright." (Y/n) huffed and rolled onto her knees, feeling the sudden urge to be sick but she tried her best to ignore it.

Her hands trembled as she leaned up on her knees and reached down for Amelia's legs. Her underwear and pyjama bottoms were hanging around her lower legs, that wouldn't be a good feeling if she woke up like that and (Y/n) doubted she would want Eddie seeing her like that either. She managed to drag Amelia's bottoms back up her tense thighs, snapping the elastic around her hips just as Eddie blundered into the room.

"Oh fuck!"

Eddie scrambled into the room and went down on his knees beside (Y/n), his hands hurriedly reaching out for Amelia. He cradled the back of her neck and held her thigh so he could ease her onto her left side so her back was facing them. His thumb brushed across her skin when she began to drool and he leaned over her to check she wasn't choking when her breathing sounded like she was wheezing. But her airways were clear.

"She started seizing on the toilet?" It was more of a question than a statement because Eddie hadn't known their daughter to do this before. But then again, she had told them tonight that she didn't feel well.

Migraines and a general unease usually meant Amelia could feel a seizure building up, she just didn't know when they would happen. Clearly, this one had been building up for a while.

"I think she's had an absent one and then gone into this one." (Y/n) ran her hand up and down Amelia's waist while Eddie held the back of her neck and her upper arm to keep her in place.

But he noticed (Y/n) move to rub her temple and subsequently wince. "You okay?" He huffed, tensing his arms to try and hold their daughter steady so she didn't writhe or hurt herself.

"She clocked me when she fell into me, I'm alright." She felt Eddie's eyes raking over her to double check for himself before he looked back down at Amelia.

"Alright carino, you're doing great. Almost over now." He hushed as he leaned over her and pecked the side of her head. She wasn't writhing as much now, but her legs were still as straight as planks and her hands were digging into her lower chest. Both hands curled and fingers bent at odd angles which could make her muscles cramp when this seizure was finally over.

"Daddy…"

Eddie's head snapped to look over his shoulder and his lips pursed when he saw Paul leaning around the doorframe.

"Go wait in your room please buddy, Lia's not well tonight." All the kids had seen Amelia have seizures. She'd been having them since she was two so Chris, Paul and Tilly were growing up around them. It was a normality for them and they all knew what to do. They hadn't seen her have a bad seizure in over a year.

The last time that happened was when they were all at a party at Bobby and Athena's place. Amelia started biting her tongue and began choking and the seizure had been bad enough for them to have to take her to hospital.

"But I need the toilet," Paul fidgeted from foot to foot and scrunched his nose up. He didn't want to get in the way but he needed to go.

"Paul." The warning tone in Eddie's voice made the five year old shiver, but he stomped his foot in defiance.

"Daddy!" His sister wasn't using the toilet. She was on the floor now and Paul wouldn't get in their way, but he had to go or he would pee himself.

He watched the way Eddie growled and shook his head before he looked over at (Y/n). Both parents shared a look before Eddie hooked his right arm over Amelia's waist while (Y/n) held her legs. On the count of three, they carefully pulled her back, sliding her across the floor three feet towards the door so they were all away from the toilet.

Eddie clicked his fingers and pointed to the toilet, watching Paul scuttle over with a look of relief, despite the unease and panic floating around in his eyes. He tried to be quick, and he nodded when he heard (Y/n) murmur "Back to bed please," when he was done. He wouldn't hang around, he didn't like seeing his sister have a fit, it wasn't pretty.

"There we go. You back with us, carino?" Eddie kissed her temple slowly while he ran his hand up and down her arm when the trembling and jerking finally stopped.

It was as if she had been cast under a spell. Amelia's arms went slack against the floor instead of being held rigid near her chest and her fingers stayed curled into her palms, but all her muscles began to relax. Her legs finally ceased holding straight and her knees bent as her thighs slumped against the floor like she had passed out. But they could hear her trying to mutter something, but it only came out as little croaks and hums.

Amelia rubbed her cheek against the floor, trying to turn and look behind her where she could feel both parents knelt down with her. But she could barely open her eyes. The bathroom light was far too bright and she settled on keeping her eyes closed while she coiled her trembling arms closer to her chest.

"Do you feel alright?" (Y/n) glided her hand up and down Amelia's thigh, suddenly feeling exhausted herself.

"Better… want- want to go to bed." She could scarcely get the words out and it was clear in her expression that she was halfway between conscious and sleep already. She didn't feel sick, for once, she didn't feel tense or like she was going to be stuck with tensed muscles for hours and she didn't feel like she was about to go back into another seizure.

She was tired. She was drained and limp and overwrought, she just wanted to go to sleep.

A breathless chuckle left Eddie's lips and he hung his head for a moment before he leaned over her. "Alright carino, let's get you back to bed." He ran his hand up and down her arm before he carefully turned her so she was laid on her back rather than her side. He was pleased to see her arms were no longer taut and pulled tight and she wasn't trembling anymore, she had gone limp which meant the effects were wearing off.

"Eddie, if she has another in her sleep, we took the guard off…" (Y/n) looked up at him and moved her hand to his arm.

This was the first time Amelia had had a seizure on the toilet and that could imply she might have another at some point during the night, especially since she hadn't been feeling well this afternoon. (Y/n) didn't like the thought of putting Amelia to bed and wondering if it might happen again. If they did that they would have to be in and out of the girl's room every hour to check on her.

She watched Eddie lean back on his heels while his hand swiped across his jaw and chin in thought.

Growing up, all the kids used to have night guards on the side of their beds, it was a mesh frame attached to the side of the bed so if they turned over, they weren't at risk of falling out. When Amelia got diagnosed, they kept the guard on her bed as she got older so if she seized during the night, she wouldn't hurt herself or tumble out of bed.

Even though she was twelve now, they had only recently taken the guard off her bed because of how often she had seizures. And they only took it off because Amelia asked them to; she felt safe with it, but she didn't want friends coming over and seeing that she still had one. Not when her little sister also had one and it made her look childish if people didn't know why it was there.

"We might have to put it back for a while." If she had any more late night fits, Eddie would consider putting the guard back on her bed for a while, to be safe. "She can stay with us tonight."

Having her sleep in their room would save them going in and out of the girl's room to check on her and it meant Tilly wouldn't be disturbed tonight.

Eddie tried to be careful as he wound Amelia's arms loosely around the back of his neck and he shifted from his knees onto his feet. He eased her up into his arms, grinning to himself when she nuzzled her face into his shoulder. It was as if she was five years old again, begging to be carried around everywhere they went.

He felt (Y/n)'s hand on his lower back as she followed him down the hall towards their room. Once he walked inside, (Y/n) weaved round him and sat down on the bed to help him lay Amelia down in the middle.

It made them both smile to see her wriggle beneath the covers almost immediately. Her knees stayed curled up near her stomach and something told Eddie that it must feel better to have her legs curled, she had probably strained her muscles straightening them out the way she did during her seizure. She laid on her side, humming when (Y/n) kissed her temple and wrapped an arm around her waist to hug her.

(Y/n) kissed her temple again, then her cheek, but she looked up when she felt Eddie sit down on the edge of the bed. He ran his hand up and down Amelia's arm, but he looked like he was lost in thought.

Reaching across, (Y/n) gently nudged his arm, her smile silently asking what was on his mind.

"Just thinking… I might put a handrail up in the bathroom, and one in the shower. In case this happens again."

(Y/n) nodded, that seemed like a safe idea. If there was a small hand rail on the wall next to the toilet, Amelia could grab it if she felt a seizure coming. She could use it to safely get onto the floor, the same if she felt a seizure coming when she was in the shower. She only ever had a bath if either parent stayed in the bathroom with her, it was too dangerous to take a bath alone in case she seized and went under the water.

At least with a few rails dotted around it might be a bit safer and easier for her, and it would also be a safety measure for Chris. He had quite good balance but it was better to be safe than sorry.

With a smile, Eddie swung his legs round and stretched out on the bed, looping his arm around (Y/n)'s shoulders with Amelia wedged happily between them. He looked between both girls as he turned the tv on and leaned to pepper a few kisses against (Y/n)'s temple.

"We might need a bigger bed too… don't think we can get five kids in here with us."

[vidreview]

some thoughts on Action Button Reviews

[originally posted december 22nd 2023]

ANONYMOUS ASK: Not a recommendation because I know you've already seen it, but I remember you (this being like a year ago) calling Tim Rogers' action button reviews boku no natsuyasami something along the lines of "a triumphant demonstration of what's possible in the video essay medium". I was wondering if you could elaborate, provided it hasn't been too long. I recognise I'm blasting you from the past here lol. It was one of the few hours-long video essays that I didn't mind sitting through, though I'm still not sure it quite justifies its length. Tim's delivery helps significantly there, in a way that reminds me of Caleb Gamman's casual/improvised-feeling but thoroughly scripted shtick.

oh i still think Tim Rogers is hands down the best in the biz. i've watched the Action Button reviews multiple times, i've got a davinci resolve project with all his videos in, studied them under a microscope and taken lots of notes. i think his work absolutely does justify the length, because rather than trying to say Everything There Is To Say about a game, he instead focuses on digging into the game's relationship with his own hyperspecific subjectivity. i don't know how else to describe the Action Button reviews except as literary media criticism, using incredibly in-depth analysis as a jumping off point for discussing how these games shape us and the culture, the role they occupy at various stages of our life, and how who we are at any given moment is just as important to our opinion of a game as the game itself. sooner or later i want to do a full-on VIDREV on his stuff, probably in video essay form, but consider this a first draft overview of why i find his work so special.

there's little things. despite the length of his videos, he never fails to get to The Point (his term for the thesis statement) within five minutes of starting the essay proper. he is a talented and quick-witted tour guide, funny and clever and philosophically ponderous all at once. his work is clearly designed to reward multiple viewings, yet never fails to feel complete on a first watch. he writes with a precision of language that'll knock your socks off if you let it, especially if you're willing to go with him on his seemingly non sequitur tangents. but it goes a lot deeper than that.

i just don't think anyone else is putting nearly as much time, effort, and thought into the moment to moment particulate matter of his video essays than Tim Rogers. there are a ton of little mistakes that quite a few essayists make as a result of only doing one or two complete editing passes, or otherwise not sitting down and watching their video start to finish at multiple points in post-production. things like bad audio mixing, cut-off breaths and sounds that ought to be removed, stray frames from footage creating accidental jump cuts, flubbed line deliveries, misaligned overlay elements, sloppy compositing, the list goes on. it's no great sin to make these mistakes, mind-- no one's being commissioned, most essayists aren't professional editors, there's no quality control or review board or institutional best practices. it's the difference between giving the kitchen a quick once over with a rag and getting on your hands and knees to scrub every stain with a toothbrush. most people don't have the time it takes to do the latter, aren't getting paid enough, and the returns on putting the effort in are impossible to measure and therefore, practically speaking, nonexistent.

but as someone who tries to put that kind of work in (not always successfully), i can always tell when another essayist has done the same. longform video essays in aggregate tend to be messy, under-structured, rambling; they often arise out of an essayist's desire to say everything they could possibly say on a subject. not only is this an impossible task, it makes for a pretty dull viewing experience to boot. what i find so impressive about Tim Rogers' work is that despite their length, his videos are relentlessly structured. the attention to fine details in the moment-to-moment edit across the whole runtime is astonishing; that the script itself is so internally integrated never fails to make me furious (with professional envy). he always has a lot to say, not all of which is strictly speaking essential to the analysis, but nothing ever feels so indulgent that it drags the rest of the essay down in my estimation. he often repeats information, but he does so very strategically and in a way that's meant to help the viewer follow a thread from start to finish. i also think his presentation style goes a long way towards hiding how much effort he puts in, how relentlessly curated these things actually are in spite of their length. he's talked extensively about how much he cuts from these videos (most prominently is story 5 from the Cyberpunk 2077 review, which went from over an hour in length at first draft to, eventually, just over a minute), how he watches them back over and over and constantly makes fine adjustments. that work won't be apparent to everyone watching, but it's exceedingly apparent to me.

and then there's the cherry on top of it all, which is the fact that the Action Button reviews are constructed as being part of "seasons" that have a planned thematic throughline. taken as a whole, season 1 is a completely unique work of literary metacritical nonfiction, a series of six reviews (Final Fantasy VII Remake -> The Last of Us -> DOOM -> Pac-Man -> Tokimeki Memorial -> Cyberpunk 2077) that use specific games to talk about trends in game design, trends in gamer culture, the history of games development, all through an astonishingly earnest and open autobiographical document of Tim Rogers' own professional and personal life, which is given particular weight by his astonishing capacity for near perfect recall from early childhood. they are the clear result of a life spent thinking about and writing about and talking about games in between all the rest of his life, neither of which was ever truly separate. i know i'm throwing around a lot of superlatives here, but i really do adore these essays. i think a lot of folks doing longform games reviews try to achieve a sort of technical objectivity, limiting the scope of their analysis to strictly what's in the game (and often only that which involves numbers, leaving any narrative or thematic components to a brief aside at the very end). the Action Button method should fall into that category, and yet Rogers himself uses its technical objectivity as an anchor around which flows an endless and unquantifiable ocean of subjectivity, where game mechanics and thematic elements mix forever. each subsequent review drops a new anchor, and thus begins to compose a map whose purpose is as much a matter of self-reflection as it is pure education or analysis.

but i really do think it's with the first (and so far only) episode of season 2, his review of Boku no Natsuyasumi, that you can really see the cunning of what he's been up to all along. i often find myself thinking about his reflections on returning to Kansas ("it took me back to a place i had never never been"), on why people rewatch movies and replay games ("our memory only records the cold parts"), on the futility of trying to recapture the past ("places don't remember us"), on the screaming terror of our own looming mortality ("meanwhile our shattering animals"). i just know those quotes off the top of my head, man, that's how deep in it i am. the Boku no Natsuyasumi review is a masterpiece, and the ways it breaks from the style and approach of season 1's reviews only strengthens the choices he made in season 1, because suddenly we realize that they were choices. that's the artfulness of this series, in my opinion: it starts as, seemingly, a relatively bog-standard "i'm going to review some video games and make some jokes and tell some stories along the way" type joint, but slowly reveals to you essay by essay just how little of this project was automatic, unconsidered, arbitrary, and that its aims were never so miniscule as "tell you why a video game is good". there are themes running throughout the entire series, repeated phrases and ideas, theories of mind and play that build in the subtext, accruing like memories, subtly building mass until you look back and realize that what seemed like a random selection of topics was, in truth, premeditated with a conspiracist's attention to detail.

and yet despite all this high-minded gobbledygook, these videos are relentlessly watchable and entertaining. i don't always agree with his takes (i was particularly frustrated that his exploration of "every cyberpunk game" omitted the flood of relevant titles that came the indie sphere over the last decade, like Cloudpunk and Read Only Memories), but they're not the kinds of disagreements that would make me sour on his work overall, and anyway the experience is so much more valuable than something as rote and immaterial as an opinion. there's so much more i could say (and inevitably will say, someday), but there you go, that's a rough gloss on what i like about the Action Button reviews.

[rainbowcarousels]

The Armand Bed Pile (aka ramblings about the ot4 and why they work for me as a ship)

I’m going to kick off my feeling somewhat like a human being again with talking about what has become something of an OT4*.  

I want to preface it by saying this is just my personal take but I want to talk about where I’m coming from when I say what has been generally described as the Armand Bed Pile because he’s kind of the person who links Lestat, Louis and Daniel together. (I forget who named it someone jump in, it was probably someone on Armandblr) I think there’s something really obvious about why the canon romances work but I’ll include them because I never pass up the opportunity to gush.

I’m going to go for Armand first because he is the name of the bedpile for good reason.

So Armand/Lestat are at once a new and old relationship, they’re just working out what they want out of it and their love for each other even though they’ve loved each other a long time. They are lightning, summer thunderstorms where they both end up drenched and hurt and happy and it’s confusing.  They are both intense people who tend to masquerade as calm (Armand) or blase (Lestat) who crave family and acceptance after feeling as if he never fit in anywhere (Lestat) or was defined by what he can do for others (Armand) and striking the balance between those are tricky. It’s a mix of control and learning when to hang on and when to let go.  

Armand/Louis on the other hand is an old married couple. Their relationship is redemption. They are attracted to one another but it’s not the raging intensity that Lestat brings to the table. It’s a love that meanders slowly along, it’s warm and soft and opens slowly but Armand can show extraordinary patience with Louis in a way that I don’t think we often see from him and Louis will allow Armand a lot more liberties than most.

They understand each other and accept each other with the major issue between them is that Louis is by his nature always a little in conflict with what he is, he is often subject to guilt and depression from that and mixed with an old fashioned gentility and politisse, it means it’s easy to have miscommunications with them. Armand is at a stage where he’s refinding himself, his humanity under his trauma, so it’s easy to see where Louis’ issues can interact badly with that and he can take that as rejection.

For them, it’s learning to communicate their boundaries and feelings without what they feel they should feel getting in the way or dragging the other person down.

Then we have Armand/Daniel. I think if I were to put the great loves of Armand’s life into seasons, Daniel is Autumn: a season of change, of ripe harvest, a slight chill but warm enough to still explore and the old dying into the new. They’re new love and changeable love – both he and Daniel suffered in the aftermath of his change after having a period of young love in Devil’s Minion, but they’re both coming through it and they once again choose each other.

For better or worse, Armand is the love of Daniel’s life and Daniel is the only person Armand has ever truly known he couldn’t live without. In modern times, I think they’re finding their footings as a childhood sweetheart turned adult relationship. They cross lines without meaning to, Armand cannot read Daniel as he once did to know when it’s just his sense of humour talking, Daniel has a lot more power and independence than he used to and none of this is bad, but it is different. For them, it’s just learning how best to love the person they are now as well as who they were and weathering the difficulties and sharing the joys together. 

Then we have what must be seen as the flagship couple in Louis/Lestat. I’m not going to go too hard on this, we all know they’re in love, we all know that these two are terrible at communicating on the same level as each other but ultimately, love wins out with them. What I love about the modern era is that it seems to be far more on Louis’ terms, he is the one setting his own very self aware boundaries and reminding Lestat of what his needs are. Lestat has some bad habits of running away from love when given freely (coughArmandcough) probably because he’s afraid of what might happen or if people will leave (something he shares with Armand too, triggering another issue for those two) so the version I’m working with for a modern them is trying to find a balance.

Louis needs to have his feelings understood and his needs met and Lestat also needs room to breathe, he needs ways to work through what he’s feeling and he needs to be told he’s a voracious slut at least three times a week. Like Armand/Daniel, love is never in question – it’s the working out of the relationship that takes time, space and commitment to one another.

Now we come onto the two that are the most speculative. For me, Armand is it for Daniel, that’s the big love of his life, blood runs through his veins, etc. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t love other people and not even that he doesn’t grow or experience other romantic loves. 

So we’ll go into the one that surprised me which is Louis/Daniel, likely in the context of Louis/Armand/Daniel but I want to talk about how they work functionally within the relationship. Louis’ issue tends to be one of communication and propriety. He gets stuck in his own loops and what he should or shouldn’t do, experiences his own monstrosity then feels crap about it. This is something I think Daniel relates too because I think some of the corpse issue is that he has more trouble than he lets on early on differentiating ‘food’ from ‘people’ and what comes along with that, so he gets where Louis is coming from but he’s also mostly worked through it so he has a different perspective.

He also does not really give a shit about propriety – he doesn’t play into it (like Armand seems to with Louis) or mock it (as Lestat does) but cuts through the bullshit with words and actions that are heartfelt, perceptive and will call out anything he feels like he should. 

It’s also worth noting Louis was Daniel’s original conduit into this world, the first vampire to ever bite him, so I think there’s attraction there as well as love. It’s not the same kind of love, but that doesn’t make it less valid. 

Then the one that gave me the most trouble: Lestat/Daniel. It was actually @desertfangs that made me realise what it was about them that worked as a relationship (I’ve always thought they’d work to fuck, they would both be so down) and it’s that Lestat’s human self in Paris during that period where he’s doing well at Renaud’s and he’s deleriously happy right as he starts to see Magnus gives off some serious Daniel vibes. Lestat even maintains this as a young vampire – he loves it! He’s joyous. He does see both despair and ecstasy in the world, he does romanticise it all and want to do everything and that is something that he sadly loses a lot of it from the repeated traumas of Nicolas, of losing his little family, of Akasha and then Memnoch and then almost losing Louis too. He’s struggled a lot and lost sight of what he loves about his immortality.

Daniel, having gone through something not dissimilar to the first trauma that knocked Lestat for a loop as a vampire in Nicolas’ delirium, is still discovering what he loves about being a young vampire. He sees so much good in the world, so much love and joy and most importantly, he knows and loves to play. I think for them, this is what sparks in their relationship. Daniel is experiencing and in some ways re-experiencing what it means to love being part of the world, love his immortality and I love the idea Lestat can rediscover these parts of himself through that.

Daniel for his part in these two relationships I think brings something to the table that I don’t think anyone else in the coven does: he sees both person and monstrosity as equally worthy of love and he’s always going to love the original big three because they were his rebirth long before his actual rebirth. I think it can make him naive and that he can stick his nose in when he shouldn’t, but it does always come from a place of affection so I think it works for them.

So this is kind of my point: they balance each other out as a relationship. Daniel and Louis both get overwhelmed more easily and need more breaks than Armand and Lestat, Lestat and Daniel are both terrible enablers of each other while Armand and Louis tend to be more practical people, Lestat and Louis are more prone to melancholy than Daniel and Armand are and in each of these, you get someone who helps either make sure someone gets their needs met or gets challenged when they need it.

Daniel has no problem explaining Armand’s needs when he can’t, Louis has no problems telling Armand when Daniel looks like he needs a break, Lestat has no issue telling Louis that he’s been wrapped up in doing stuff so long that it’s time to come and do stuff now and Louis can and will take Lestat’s hand and lead him home when he starts to question where home is.

For me, the balance is slowly Armand letting go of some of his ‘host�� identity and responsibilities because that’s kind of what Lestat does usually, he wanders off and does what he wants (except duirng his Prince era but tbh I think he needs rescuing from that) and Daniel still loves new experiences so he learns how to be playful and put his own needs out there a little more.

For Louis, I think it’s learning how to break his own spirals because it’s pretty hard to contend with multiple people who will still love you no matter what you struggle with and when propriety has a place. I also like the idea he has had very limited experience with kink and living with Armand (and later Daniel) has really been an eye opening experience** and Lestat is in for a shock when he realises it.

For Lestat, I think it’s learning he doesn’t always have to run away from how he feels, that putting his heart in something doesn’t guarantee to break it and that he doesn’t have to give up having adventures or new experiences just to have a relationship work. He can have both, and he can reconnect with himself a little.

Finally, for Daniel, I think it’s coming home. It’s simple, but it’s not easy. He has to find his own ways and routines not to get overwhelmed but he’s naturally curious and still learning what he can do, he’s learning to trust himself and connect with himself more. They can and do break each others patterns in a way that feels safe, provide new experiences or how to interact with old ones and 

There is so much passion there that I’m not really touching on that but I think reconnecting physically human things also helps, especially learning to vampirically spin it. Again, feels like Daniel and Armand could write a whole book on this and for the people who struggle to communicate (aka all of them at some point or another), the physical acts and how they interact with kink** is part of what helps them stay feeling loved, connected and wanted. It is the origin of the bed pile too because it’s not just about sexual things but the reassurance of waking up feeling like you’re safely ensconced that feels like it’s really up Armand’s alley specifically but also appeals to all of them in some way. It creates a sense of a safe home that isn’t too boring, too much or not enough.

So the tl;dr of this is that I think Armand/Louis/Daniel/Lestat can work in any combination for love, sex and everything else but that my favourite is when they are all involved in some way or another. Maybe not always all at once, it can be months and perhaps even years between seeing one another, but the love never fades and perhaps never will.

*The reason I don’t generally call it OT4 is because in an OT4, for me, you have to be able to see each individual relationship working one on one as well as a polycule and I started to think that actually, maybe I was being unfair because I do think these are people who either do canonically love each other or would work in a relationship setting. It’s just that in this case, I think the best balance of the relationship comes in all four.

** At some point I will ramble about how kink can be an exploration of internal issues and howmuch I think that’s something Louis would end up finding appealing. The understanding of drawing pain out in the physical in a safe way to feel it, acknowledge it and process it is something I think both he and Armand would benefit from but the former would probably not think of it if he wasn’t currently living with two people who practice it on the regular. It’s just too complicated to go into in one post.

[teawitch]

Q: Do you think it’s important to know the history of paganism and witchcraft?

I think I'm going to be controversial because I'm divided about this one. I have a Master's degree and have spent a lot of time studying many things. I can tell you that an early reference to Drawing Down the Moon can be found in Aristophones' play The Clouds. I enjoy knowledge and think it is important.

But then - my grandmother was a folk practitioner who is unlikely to have ever researched the history of witchcraft or paganism in her life.  She knew folk magic, which was more technique focused. She came from a community where need was more common than books.  (Though knowing a lot of psalms and bible versus was an important part of technique, so do not think they were without knowledge. They were without access.)

So, let's look at modern witchcraft.  I think we might have a split on this depending on whether someone is mostly online or practicing and learning with a more in-person tradition.

The online sphere seems to swing toward - research, research, research - as if that will provide all the answers. And it will provide many but I've also seen it just lead to confusion. (Okay, any massive influx of information without a basis to sort and understand it is likely to lead to confusion, even if it isn't about witchcraft.)  But we're online, what we have access to is links to sources, excerpts from books and the ability to share bits of knowledge. Online is rather like being back in my college days but without a professor to sort things for the class.

If you study within a tradition, they are likely to begin with a mix of technique and knowledge of the tradition. It's more of a "learn this and then do this" approach. Before the internet, what you read might have been limited because books on various subjects were harder to come by. By training within a tradition, you might have had access to the coven's library. But there was always be an emphasis on the doing part.  Becoming good at technique feels wonderful. However, you may have to make the jump to learn things outside the sphere of the tradition on your own.

Learning the history of witchcraft makes you an educated historian of witchcraft.  But doing witchcraft makes you a witch.

I can do both but knowing about Aristophanes' The Clouds didn't make me a witch. For that, I was more like my grandmother, focusing on techniques - and sometimes need.

(This is not meant to imply in-person witches are somehow better. I know some truly ineffectual in-person witches and because I know them in person, I know how truly ineffectual they are.)

Question list here:https://candorwitch.tumblr.com/post/681626897347657728/witchcraft-asks-1-105

[coffeebanana]

15 Questions 15 Mutuals

Thanks for the tag @ladyofthenoodle and @kasienda

1. Are you named after anyone?

No, although my middle name is a family name.

2. When was the last time you cried?

I think a few weeks ago? I watched "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once" and KJBSDFKBJD. Like that movie is such a fun mix of WTF is even going on craziness and contemplating the point of existence and exploring complicated family feelings and the end is weirdly heartwarming--particularly the interactions between the mother and daughter, which is what really got me. And I was watching with one of my best friends and like right after the movie ended he was like "if we were rocks you'd be the googly eyes"--which makes no sense if you haven't seen the movie but that made me cry again because kajdfbksjbf it was so oddly sweet. (Though that was a mixture of hysterical laughter and crying ajsdjfsvjhv in a good way though!)

3. Do you have kids?

nope. maybe one day if i ever get my life together LOL

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

idk if it's a lot?? though i'm probably single-handedly responsible for teaching my brother sarcasm (he's 7 years younger than me so when he was learning would have been right as i was entering those peak sarcasm years LOL)

sarcasm is still deeply engrained in me though, and i nowadays when i use it i definitely pay more attention to how people react to it (ie whether they picked up on it) because i tend to deliver it in a very matter-of-fact voice. like, one of my favourite stupid sarcastic comments to make is whenever something weird weather-wise happens i'll be "but thank god climate change is fake, right?" and KJABFDKSJBD i've gotten some WEIRD LOOKS saying that one around ppl who don't know me that well and then i have to explain myself 😭

5. What sports do you play/have played?

i used to figure skate!! my mom was a coach when i was growing up, so i would joke that i lived part-time at the ice rink. it was kind of inevitable 😂. but i was never good at the jumps. i prefered ice dance or synchronized skating (think synchronized swimming but on the ice)

and i also used to play hockey!? very different environment LOL and my hockey teammates would sometimes tease me for showing up to a game in a dress after skating practice on days i had both but it was all in good fun

now...now i really SHOULD do something kajsdkbfsj

6. What’s the first thing you notice about someone?

i...really have no idea.

7. What’s your eye color?

hazel? i think?

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

happy endings. scary movies don't really freak me out but i guess i just find them sort of...low-reward? i'm not a movie person to begin with because it's hard for me to get invested in the characters in such a short amount of time. with horror movies that's even harder because they're all about shock value instead of getting to know the characters

9. Any special talents?

i am very very good at puns. does that count? 😂

10. Where were you born?

canada. on the west coast

11. What are your hobbies?

when i have energy/motivation i really enjoy cooking (or baking, but with baking i have to actually measure ingredients and with cooking i just sort of go with the flow). my new apartment is going to have space for a dishwasher--which really is the most exciting thing in my life right now--so i'm hoping that motivates me to cook more!!

12. Do you have pets?

yes!!! i have a ginger cat and her name is Curie (namesake Marie Curie because i'm a proud little nerd like that). I love her she's so stupid and has tried to eat plastic TOO MANY TIMES but every morning and night she will curl up on my chest when i'm in bed and she's just a precious bean

13. How tall are you?

5'5.5 (166cm). but i would have been taller if my spine had known how to grow straight 😔

14. Favorite subject in school?

science!! i had the same science teacher in high school from grades 8-10 (aka the only teacher in the french immersion department who was really qualified to teach it 😂) and i ADORED HER. from day one i was hooked--like she even made syllabus day fun. so i owe my love of science in part to her, really.

in university i realized i liked chemistry best amongst the sciences, so that was my major. and my favourite class i ever took was intro to quantum chemistry (which is really just quantum physics but the math was geared more towards what us chemistry students were familiar with)

15. Dream job?

okay, avoiding the typical "i do not dream of labour" answer...i really don't know. which is a problem. like i genuinely have no idea what i could do long-term that would actually make me happy and i just hope i figure it out at some point akjsdkfsjbd ... I feel like I was not supposed to leave paragraph responses for some of these but akjfkdsjbgd i can admit i like to talk about myself, okay? Anyways! I think I can find 15 mutuals who as far as i know haven't been tagged yet.

@ck2k18, @wackus-bonkus-maximus, @redundant-lava, @maridotnet, @celestialtitania, @talkstoself, @saiikavon, @sunfoxfic, @rosiesared, @mexicancat-girl, @tiredfloridianbutverygay, @fortuna-et-cataclysmos, @zenniaphoenix, @eggothemusicalwaffle, @bocadelicate

[kingofthenorth]

Horror recommendations from someone formerly too afraid to enjoy the genre

I spent almost my entire childhood too chicken to watch scary movies, only occasionally trying to brave and get through one here and there. I lost countless hours of sleep over trailers I'd seen on tv for various horror movies, which then went on to shape the nature of my fears--and nightmares--for the rest of my life. But in my late teens I decided to try and conquer my fears by facing the genre head on, and in the process... it actually became my favorite genre.

If you're scared but want to jump in, this is my gift to you, as someone who used to be in your shoes. This list is broken down based on the kind of experience you're looking for, so you can get your feet wet on your own terms. It's not that these movies aren't scary (scary is subjective, after all!), it's that this way you can at least know the general vibe first.

Disclaimer #1: Horror tends to be absolutely teeming with common triggers, so much so that I don't trust myself to individually warn for each item on the list. I suggest using a site like Does the Dog Die? or similar registries to look up anything you might need to filter out. Assume death and violence to be a common theme here. Disclaimer #2: This list is far from perfect. Please don't come into my inbox saying "but what about [insert movie here]?"...

Emotional

If wanting to connect to characters and their situations is a big priority, and you're tired of ye olde "one dimensional teens on summer vacation get picked off one by one" vibes from movies you've considered, here are some deeper, heavier options.

Before I Wake: A couple adopts a child who has been in and out of homes, only to discover the reason why no one will keep him is because he has the ability to physically manifest his dreams as he sleeps... and often has recurring nightmares about a horrible, menacing creature. This movie is an excellent take on the tough issue of how adoption means shouldering a child's baggage, and how difficult that can be, even when you want the best for them.

The Monster: On a long drive through a fairly remote stretch of road, a young mother and her daughter have to deal with both the figurative monster that is the strain on their relationship and the much more literal monster that is the thing hunting them in the woods. For being relatively straightforward in plot, this movie does a lot to tug at the heartstrings.

Train to Busan: A man's train ride to take his small daughter to visit her mother goes south fast when a zombie outbreak hits. Zombie movies aren't for everyone, but even as someone with mixed feelings on the genre, I consider this a must-see that balances drama, action, and fear amazingly well.

Fun

Every horror fan has a different definition of what a "fun" horror movie is, but hopefully you can see eye to eye with me on these movies being a good, entertaining ride.

Nope: Following their father's death, a brother and sister investigate the perplexing occurrences plaguing their family farm. One of my top "go in blind" recs. The less you know, the better. It manages to balance fear and humor while also being a fresh take on a classic concept.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark: A group of friends find a book of scary stories, one that's all fun and games until their own names start popping up in the tales. Whether you read the book or not as a kid (which I didn't), this one is incredibly nostalgic. It feels like it belongs at a sleepover, or perhaps retold around a campfire. Perfect viewing for a Halloween party!

Malignant: Surrounded by mysterious deaths, a woman can't help but suspect her childhood imaginary friend may be the one responsible. A fantastic example of a movie where the creep factor is unique and well thought out while also being fun in an almost absurd way.

Unsettling

Sometimes, instead of being outright terrifying, you want a movie that makes you go "hey, what the fuck?"

The Boy: To get away from her own troubles, a young woman accepts a nanny job with strict rules while the parents leave on holiday... only to discover right away that the "child" she must watch is actually a doll. This movie is creepy, subtle, and keeps you guessing. Honestly, it's a great first horror movie if you're looking for something iconic but not so classic you already know the whole plot.

Oculus: A young woman manages to track down the haunted mirror she blames for destroying her family's lives many years ago, and she intends to prove that supernatural forces are behind it all. This remains one of the most interesting horror movies I've watched, combining past childhood terror with an investigative spirit in the present as it jumps back and forth in the story.

Savageland: This mockumentary the trial of a man charged with slaughtering an entire small town because he walked away the lone survivor. Another "go in blind" rec, and honestly a hidden gem. The reflective tone of looking back on the events creates a sense of safety for the viewer, and yet, watching the mystery unfold is positively chilling.

In the Tall Grass: In an attempt to help a boy they spotted from the side of the road, two siblings enter a disorienting field of tall grass. Arguably a bit more "advanced" in its creepiness than others in this category, but I feel like I'd be amiss not to include at least one Stephen King adaptation, and this one makes the cut by not bearing as much pop culture baggage as his better known works.

It's Not That Deep

If you don't want a heavy, involved plot, and would rather focus on the scares, then these movies have you covered!

Sweetheart: A young woman shipwrecked on an island must survive not only the wilderness itself, but the strange beast that wanders onto land at night looking for a snack. If the first episode of Lost set your hopes high for a more creature feature vibe, then this movie will scratch that itch nicely.

Dark Skies: After repeated unexplained occurrences in their home, a family begins to accept that their problem may be extraterrestrial in nature. A fantastic and spooky alien horror flick for both UFO buffs and casual viewers alike.

Willow Creek: While filming a small documentary about the famous Patterson-Gimlin bigfoot film, a couple realizes they aren't alone as they try to reach the site of the film itself. As silly as it starts off, this one captures the simple but powerful fear of not being alone in the woods at night, and is to bigfoot what Dark Skies is to aliens; perfect for both cryptid fanatics and those unfamiliar. Also, it made me hate sleeping in tents even more than I already did.

Staples of the genre

Popular movies are popular for a reason. Here are some ones you've undoubtedly heard of (and maybe even seen parodies of) but get a spot on this post because they're Just That Good. No plot summaries on these, as you likely already know more about them than I could say in any brief description. Just pure opinion from here on!

Ringu/The Ring: Whether watching the original or the American version, this one is a must. I say this despite it being the movie with the trailer that scared--and scarred--me the most as a kid. Onryo are among my worst fears now. Enjoy!

Paranormal Activity: Despite people making fun of it, this one (and its sequels) actually makes amazing use of subtle-but-realistic effects. When I finally watched it, I was shocked by how simple yet high quality it was. I think everyone should watch this at least once.

The Woman in Black: One of my first serious attempts at getting into horror. It's everything you could ask for out of a haunted house movie, hitting all the classic elements without feeling too predictable.

The Blair Witch Project: You know this one. Everyone knows this one. It was THE genre defining found footage movie, so go watch it!

The Conjuring: Yet another great haunted house movie, and one that scratches that "based on a true story" itch to boot! The trailer for this one also scared the snot out of me, except that I was already an adult (I think?) by then. Somehow, it's practically an old friend to me.

Midsommar: As much as this one dealt a devastating blow to critical thinking (particularly of white women), it really is a good movie. Just... please try not to miss the point.

The Ritual: Okay, not quite as iconic as the others in this section, but any creature design fanatic can tell you that this one holds a special place in the hearts of many horror fans. No, it's not one that anybody and everybody has heard of, but it's very well known inside the broader horror fandom.

...And that's it for now! I might edit it to include some others, though, since I had to leave tons of ones I dearly love out, and my willpower to resist mentioning them is not strong.

[luveline]

in the morning, afternoon and night [Fred Weasley x Reader]

tags: reader-insert, hurt/comfort, self esteem issues, low self esteem, reader has acne, sad reader, insecure reader

pairing: Fred Weasley x Reader

word count: 1.8k

You glared at your reflection.

You'd think with such amazing magical medicine available, some witch or wizard would've invented a cure for acne, or at least a spell that covered it up.

You'd struggled with it since your third year. The muggle doctor you'd seen with your mother had suggested it was hormonal, and would calm down as you got older.

That was years ago.

It shouldn't have been a big deal. It wasn't, really. It wasn't usually very painful, though it was itchy as a stinging nettle and twice as unsightly. A large part of you knew it wasn't your fault, that acne was something that simply affected people at different times in their lives. You'd tried topicals and changing your diet, you'd tried losing weight and exercising and dermaplaning and everything they suggested in your mams fashion magazines.

Nothing worked.

Tears welled in your eyes and you sniffed them back, blinking rapidly.

It might've been silly, but it honestly made you want to hide away. You'd skipped dinner without really thinking, finding your way into the girls bathroom you inhabited now. You straightened your tie and robes, dusting down the sides. You leaned forward again, dabbing under your eyes with your sleeve.

The last thing you wanted was for anyone to know you'd been crying, because then someone might ask why. You didn't want to talk about it, ever.

If Fred saw you like this...

You and Fred Weasley had been almost dating for a few weeks now. Almost, because you hadn't talked about the whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing yet.

It had been years of thinking he was the fittest boy in Gryffindor (besides George) and months of meeting his gaze in the corridors and catching his eye over dinner. Gradually it had become something more; he started carrying your books between classes and opening doors, touching your arms and your hair and your face.

You cringed at the memory. He had been so caring, moving to wipe an eyelash from the skin under your eye. You'd violently flinched from his hand, afraid he might feel the bumpy texture of your skin, feel the acne beneath your makeup. He'd been apologetic and a little confused, filling you with guilt. You hadn't been able to find a way to tell him it wasn't him, it was you. Of course you wanted him to touch you, the thought of him cradling your face had been the subject of many dizzy daydreams, but you just couldn't tell him this one thing.

It was your deepest insecurity.

The stress had only made it worse. Redness was easy to cover with muggle make up and even some wizarding tricks you'd learned over the years, but there wasn't a way to smooth your skin, and the acne was textured.

It was depressing. You didn't want to use that word, it felt ungrateful to compare your skin issues to something so severe, but it made you miserable.

You but down on your quivering lip, pushing away from the mirror unhappily and opening the bathroom door, a frown on your face.

"Y/N!" a familiar voice said.

You jumped, startled but unsurprised. Fred had a talent of always knowing where you were. You'd find it creepy if he wasn't so endearing.

"Fred," you said, plastering a smile over your frown. "I was just coming to find you."

"What a coincidence, ma chérie, I was doing the same."

"Well," you began, easily sidling into his space, "you found me."

"Yes, I did," Fred hummed, wrapping his arms behind your neck, grinning.

He took a long look at your face, his forehead creased. "What's wrong?"

"Nothings wrong, Fred."

He moved his hands to your shoulders, looking down into your face searchingly. "Have you been crying?" he asked.

You shook your head, lying without thinking. "Something in my eye,"

"Both of them?"

You stepped backwards. He let go of your shoulders accordingly.

"Y/N?"

"It's really nothing," you said through a forced laugh.

He frowned at you for a few seconds more and his face cleared. "Alright," he said slowly, rolling the words in his mouth, "if you say so, doll."

You opened like a blooming flower at the pet name, your whole face softening. You smiled, hoping he understood that the smile meant, oh I just so adore you, Fred Weasley.

He threaded his fingers through yours, dragging you down the corridor beside him and waxing poetic about their newest lot of Peruvian darkness powder as you went.

-

It got so bad you couldn't go to class.

Okay, so you definitely could've gone to class, but the thought of leaving your curtained bed was enough to make you sick with anxiety, so worried that everyone would see you - see your face.

NEWTs were coming fast and hard. Everyone who wanted to be anyone was working hard studying their asses of, on top of Professor Umbridge's million new rules you had to abide by, including her newest life-ruining rule: Boys and girl are not to be within 5 inches of each other.

What a joke. You struggled through classes, wrote essays so long your hand burned at night and now you weren't allowed to sit next to your almost boyfriend at lunch? It was miserable. It was making you miserable, and now you may as well have sharpied on your forehead how equipped your body was to deal with it.

Fucking badly.

You groaned to yourself, rolling on your side to face the wall. You were at your wits end. It felt endlessly unfair that the thing that was stressing you out most was getting worse from stress.

Your stomach growled hungrily.

You threw your arm over your eyes in defeat, eyes finally filling with tears. You felt so hopeless. There was nothing to be done except keep up your routine until the flare up was over, or until your mothers next 'miracle cure' popped into existence.

The tears felt too hot against your sore skin. You couldn't help but sob quietly to yourself in self-pity.

A knock sounded at the door. You gasped, wiping the tears away in panic.

"Y/N?" It was Alicia. "Are you alright? Can I come in?"

"Yes," you managed. "Yes, of course. It's your room too, after all."

The door clicked open. Alicia appeared, tanned skin completely clear and glowing, though each perfect feature was marred with empathy. "Fred's been begging every girl in the common room to come fetch you, but I told him to leave you be."

"Thank you," you said.

You cleared your throat. Alicia moved her weight from foot to foot, twisting her hands.

"I- Y/N. I won't pretend to know how it feels, but I promise you, Fred won't care. He's beside himself worrying that you're bedridden and dying or-" she laughed to herself, "or that you're still mad at him for the itching powder. What I mean is... he's a good guy, and you're upset. Maybe you should tell him what's wrong. He won't care."

You sniffed. "I know," you admitted, feeling the weight of her shifting the bed. "I know he's a great guy. I just wouldn't blame him if he, if he didn't like me anymore. If he found it ugly. I would understand it, and I think that makes it worse," you choked on your words, heat building behind your eyes.

"Oh, Y/N," Alicia said, placing a tentative but comforting hand on your shoulder.

You lay in quiet, listening to your own ragged breathing.

"I'll go talk to him," Alicia said.

"No! I mean, no. Thank you, but no. I... I'll speak to him myself."

Alicia nodded, rubbing your arm kindly.

The sound of the door clicking shut behind her finally spurred you into sitting up. You dressed in a hurry, chucking a wool jumper over last nights pyjamas.

He wouldn't care, would he? You cringed. Yes, he definitely would. Whatever was between you would stop. He'd have the grace to let you down slowly, drawing away his affections. He was a polite guy, he'd probably even say the whole spiel of "it's not you, it's me". But he would, eventually.

Well, you figured. Let it be quick. Like ripping off a bandaid.

You tread lightly down the steps, hoping to see him before he saw you.

Of course, when the slightest groan on the bottom step sounded, his lovely face whipped to meet yours. He smiled in relief, but it was mixed with something else. Disgust, your brain supplied nastily. He was disgusted. He rose to his feet, smiling smiling smiling. But something in his eyes was different, now.

"Y/N," he said.

"Hi," you said.

"Hi yourself, beautiful. Where've you been all day?"

"I'm... sick. Bad cold," you settled on.

He raised an eyebrow. "You sound okay," he said, not unkindly.

"I..." you looked down at your hands.

A siren was sounding in your head. You didn't think Fred had seen you without make up for the last 3 years. Fight or flight was leaning heavily towards flight.

"Well, are you hungry?"

You shook your head.

"Are you sure? You haven't eaten all day. You need something in your system if you're gonna fight this cold."

"I'm not actually sick, Fred," you admitted under your breath.

"I know."

You looked up. He was still smiling kindly. It was infuriating.

"Look," you said finally, rushed and all at once, "if you don't want to- if you're grossed out. Then it's fine, I'll understand if you don't want to see me anymore."

Fred was stricken.

"I know it's - ugly."

"Ugly? Nothing about you is ugly."

"Fred, my face-"

"No, listen to me, Y/N. It's not ugly. It's not gross. You're not any of those things, are you kidding?" he said, grabbing your hands. "You're beautiful. All the time, in the morning, afternoon and night. You're beautiful in charms and transfiguration and care of magical creatures. You were beautiful yesterday and you're beautiful today and you'll be even more so tomorrow." He stopped suddenly, looking down at your joined hands. His cheeks had turned bright red.

"Smooth, Freddie," came George's voice, from the sofa behind them.

"Shove OFF," exclaimed Fred, growing more red by the second. Heat filled your own cheeks.

"It's skin, Y/N. That's all it is."

"Okay," you said tightly, trying not to cry.

Fred breathed out, his hair shifting in response. His corded arms pulled you tight to his chest. You breathed him in. He smelled sweet and rough, like burning caramel.

He thought you were beautiful.

You smiled into his shirt.

<3<3<3

tag list: @msmimimerton

if you’d like to be added to a tag list, please ask ! for in general or for specific characters, i don’t mind

[therealvinelle]

Ok I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I'm just now copying your Norwegian Bella AU into a text translator, and if you don't already have 50 people in your inbox demanding a translation then shame on ALL OF US because this is glorious! And while Google Translate does have a certain charm (it translated "piper hun ut" as "she beeps") I'm curious to see how you'd put it in English.

Troquantary is referring to this post. In which Bella doesn't speak English.

Fun fact, you're the only one who's gone into my inbox to request this. I was so sad, had the translation half-written and everything, but I was too proud to beg. So thank you, Troquantary, for popping this ask.

As for the dictionary fuckups, sounds about right. I made a few typos, too, that made Google Translate suffer even more. (Such as managing to mix up "henne" (her) and "hendene" (hands), resulting in Aro patting Bella instead of clapping his hands. Poor Google.)

Also, there are a few cultural references and language things that would be lost in the translation, in an attempt to keep them I included notes clarifying things.

Some things, like Aro and Carlisle's very old man way of speaking, are easier said than done to translate, you'll have to bear with me there.

Additional notes are that I added a few things to this version, many of them because translating is hard, but a few because while translating I thought "oh you know what would be much funnier-" and then wrote that.

Alright, without further ado:

When Renée left Charlie she did not go to Florida, she went to Oslo. And she went all in to make her daughter a true Norwegian, hiring Norwegian nannies and making sure never to speak English around the child. Since transatlantic flights are expensive, little Bella Swan rarely got to visit her father, and as such she never did learn what should have been her native language.

She quickly forgot what English she did have in favor of Norwegian, with the exception of words like “Yes”, “No”, and “I’m Bella”.

The few trips she took to visit her father were all the more awkward than in canon since she couldn’t play with the Black kids. Let not the blame fall upon Charlie: he took Norwegian classes and speaks conversational Norwegian. He can’t speak to Renée, because her Norwenglish is incomprehensible even to Norwegians, but he can communicate with Bella.

Not that he’s had a lot of chances to do so.

Bella makes it to seventeen years old, she’s in second grade at Handels* and is a major outsider among the preps there, and then Renée marries a handsome skier**. Together they shall travel the continent all winter to participate in as many skiing races as they can, and in the summer they’ll take gigs at Hurtigruta to see the coast.

*“Handels” is the nickname for an Oslo high school infamous for its pupils being rich and beautiful blonds who are going to be CEOs when they grow up.

**Skiing as a sport is huge in Norway

***Hurtigruta is a famous ferry that travels across the Norwegian West coast

Bella, who sucks at skiing and is too young to work at Hurtigruten, takes the hint.

With dread in her stomach and dictionary in hand she goes to her father in America.

Where she doesn’t speak the language.

Faen.

Charlie gives her a car, and I wish this meta was set in the present because I could have joked about electric cars and the automat only driver’s license*, but Twilight is set in 2005 so I can’t. The car part proceeds without drama.

*An increasing number of Norwegian youth take the driver’s license for automatic cars only, and we’re the country in the world with the highest percentage of electric car purchases.

School is worse than in canon, because she is now a thousand times more sensational than if she was merely the new student. She is from another country! All of Forks keels over with excitement.

To make matters even worse, our girl doesn’t understand a word of what people are saying.

She is too awkward to let them know she doesn’t know English. It’d become a thing, and they might think she’s dumb. To be fair, it’s not good that she’s been through primary, secondary, and now a year and a half of high school and still sucks at English.

So she nods, smiles, mumbles “Hi, I’m Bella” to the new faces, and blushes heavily when anybody says anything.

People assume she’s shy. That’s a bit boring, but oh well.

She has her biology class with the redhead hottie she noticed during lunch. She watched him and his family, they were fascinatingly pretty, but she doesn’t know anything more about them. Sure would have been great if she could have asked the tiny girl (was it Jess?) about them.

Biology proceeds as in canon - Edward badly wants to eat the delicious girl, but fortunately doesn’t.

She runs into him in the office when he tries to switch to another biology lesson, but she has no idea what he’s saying so she only has the suspicion that this somehow concerns her. Which is still uncomfortable, but Bella is probably the problem here. The hottie surely can’t be.

He’s missing from school for a week, Bella finds that weird.

He returns, and to her great horror he starts talking to her.

“Hello”, he says.

Bella dies inside. He’s too handsome!

"I'm Edward Cullen," he continues, and ok, she got that. The hottie is called Edward, that’s good to know. She’s not sure she caught that last name, though, Köln?

He says something else, it’s gibberish to Bella even though she’s concentrating, and at the end there he says “Bella Swan”.

She gulps.

"I'm Bella Swan," she confirms and nods. That should be correct. God, she hopes it’s correct.

He smiles a crooked, boyish smile. She’s awed. She didn’t think it was possible to be so beautiful.

He says something else.

Bella didn’t catch it.

She blushes even harder, she hasn’t been more embarrassed in her life. Here he is, the most handsome guy in all the world, and she has nothing to say to him. Literally, they don’t speak the same language.

She should tell him.

It’s one thing to chicken out of telling the town she doesn’t speak English, but there’s something different about Edward Cullen. He deserves the truth.

But...

He’s the most beautiful person she has seen in her life. He is American, too, so the odds of him knowing Norwegian are microscopical. If he finds out she doesn’t understand a word he says he’ll stop talking to her, and selfish as she is she doesn’t want that.

So with a slightly guilty conscience (but not enough to fess up) she contributes to the conversation with enough words and smiles to pull through. "Yes", "No", "Thank you", and "That's nice".

He is surprised by several of these answers, but instead of giving her odd looks and losing interest he grows more invested in the conversation.

Class ends.

The next day the near accident happens, and he saves her. She is stunned - dear god, did he just pick up a whole car? After teleporting across the parking lot..?

Soon she’s in the ER, and more than a little bit stressed about that fact since she knows the Americans have a terrible healthcare system.

She hopes Charlie has an insurance.

An insanely beautiful man walks into the ER, and Bella is shocked. He is just as handsome as Edward and Edward’s lunch friends!

He introduces himself as Carlisle Cullen, and Bella can only assume this is someone’s older brother. Possibly related to the blonde girl.

He smiles at her, says something, and she answers, "I'm Bella Swan."

He frowns.

That must have been the wrong answer, then.

His hands return to investigating her scalp, and to her great surprise he switches to perfect Norwegian, "kjenner De* noe ubehag når jeg holder her?" Do you feel any discomfort when I touch here?

*De is the Norwegian polite pronoun for “you”. Du = thou = the French tu, and De = you = the French vous. These polite pronouns went out of use in the 1980’s, save for when addressing royal persons, and would be considered antiquated in 2005.

He hurries to add, "Norsk lærte jeg i... fjor sommer. Det var et nettkurs." I learned Norwegian… last year. Online class.

"Hvilket da?" Which one? Bella asks, because Charlie needs to hear about this. The doctor has beautiful, if slightly outdated, pronunciation.

The doctor’s smile turns uncertain. She gets the feeling there’s something he doesn’t want to say. "Husker ikke," I don’t remember, sier han etter en litt vel lang pause.

That’s a shame. And weird.

"De hadde hellet med Dem i dag, som ikke ble truffet av den bilen." You were lucky today, not getting hit by that car. he then says, noticeably changing the subject.

"Det var ikke hell, det var Edward," It wasn’t luck, it was Edward, she replies sharply.

The doctor definitely looks uncomfortable.

She continues, "Han krysset skolegården på et blunk, og plukket opp hele bilen. Jeg så det," He crossed the schoolyard in a moment, and picked up the whole car. I saw it,

The doctor laughs. "Om han kunne det hadde nok gymkarakteren hans vært meget bedre. Nei, frøken Swan*, jeg beklager å si at det høres ut som at De er litt omtåket. Det er helt normalt ved hjernerystelse." If he could do that, his PE grade would be a lot better. No, Miss Swan, I’m sorry to say you seem confused. That’s normal with concussions.

*Addressing a young woman as “frøken” is even more outdated than using polite pronouns.

Why does Bella get the feeling he’s lying?

She’s discharged.

We’ll jump ahead to her trip to La Push - that trip uneventful, since Jacob knows she doesn’t speak English. They stick their hands in their pockets and stare at the sea.

The next day she’s shanghaied to Port Angeles, because apparently she said “Yes” at the wrong time when talking to Jessica (Turns out Jess’s name was Jessica!) and accidentally said yes to a day trip to Port Angeles.

Like in canon she wanders away from the others, and as in canon she is nearly gang raped. And again as in canon she is saved at the last moment by Edward.

He buys her dinner, and she can’t believe her own luck- and misfortune. A date with the most handsome guy on the planet (hence the luck) and she can’t say a word to him (hence the misfortune)!

He says things to her, lends her his jacket, and really this is it for Bella, she’s peaked, life can’t get better than this.

(That’s a lie, it would be better if she spoke English.)

He’s so amazing.

She’s gotten pretty good at navigating conversations with him, so she nods and aha’s her way through.

In his car on the way home the tone takes a more serious turn.

He asks her about something, and it’s a serious question, that much she’s gathered. She answers in the confirmative.

He is silent.

Did she say anything wrong?

(Edward, on his end, just asked if she knows what he is. She said yes, so calmly, not even a trace of fear in her.)

A few days later he takes her out on a walk in the woods.

He shows her a meadow in the woods, and when he steps into it he lights up in the sunlight.

Bella is in shock.

She knew there was something different about him, but- holy cow. This guy isn’t human.

Is she dating a god?

She stumbles into the clearing after him, and they spend a day together where he says things, and she can barely hear any of it (nevermind understand it) because she’s so distracted by how pretty he is.

The next day he takes her to a house in the middle of nowhere. She doesn’t want to guess that this can be where he lives. Surely gods don’t live in houses?

He shows her inside the house, and introduces her for Dr. Cullen and a lady with a name she doesn’t catch.

Bit weird that these two are acting like a couple of parents, they’re far too young and divine for that.

Edward shows her around in an old-fashioned office, and she doesn’t know what to make of i when she sees a painting of Carlisle. Edward launches into a long story when he sees her watching it, unfortunately she doesn’t catch any dates or artist names. At one point she heard the word “suicide”, though, and that’s not good.

She doesn’t get much out of the story.

The baseball game doesn’t happen because Bella didn’t pick up on what Edward wanted and didn’t realize she was being invited to a thing. They spend the afternoon watching a movie instead.

The relationship continues, impeded slightly by communication problems, but she’s mostly able to cover those up.

Until her birthday comes around.

She gets a papercut.

Jasper lunges at her. Edward throws her into a glass table, and then everyone is leaving.

Carlisle is kind enough to switch to Norwegian when he’s stitching up her arm, perhaps remembering the last time she was his patient. "Jasper har ikke vært på dietten vår så veldig lenge." Jasper hasn’t been on our diet for very long.

"Diett?"she asks. She’s never seen Edward eat anything. She wasn’t clear on what the Cullens ate, honestly she thought they were above such things. She was thinking maybe photosynthesis. The knowledge that they apparently eat food astounds her, but diets?

"Dyreblod istedenfor menneskeblod," Animal blood in stead of human blood, Carlisle clarifies.

Whachasay?

Carlisle gives a slight smile. “Jaspers liv som vampyr fikk en brutal start." Jasper’s life as a vampire got off to a brutal start.

...

Vampire?!

Bella’s missed something here.

Oh dear lord, oh fy faen, she has missed something.

“Åja”, uh huh, is all she can say, and suddenly she’s very aware of the fact that she’s sitting there with a bleeding arm.

And Carlisle.

Who is a vampire.

Over the course of the following conversation Bella makes a host of discoveries.

Edward has been a vampire this whole time, and he’s a telepathic vampire. Whether Bella should be a vampire too or not has been a matter of hot debate, but due to religious reasons Edward doesn’t want that.

Carlisle also brings up how Edward died of the Spanish flu.

"Jeg var under den oppfatning at Edward fortalte deg bakhistorien min?" I was under the impression Edward told you my back story? Carlisle asks at one point, and Bella just has to ask very nicely if he’d be so kind as to repeat it.

Turns out the guy is nearly four hundred years old.

Jaha.

Jahahaha jaa ha.

That’s… a lot.

She wanders out of the house in shock, and hardly notices Edward’s strange behavior over the next couple of days.

One day he picks her up at school, and takes her behind the house.

That works out.

He’s a vampire, but he never hurt her. He is endlessly beautiful, perhaps easier to love now that she knows he’s not a god. He’s her Edward, and that’s suddenly easier now that she knows.

They can still be together.

But now that she knows this about him, it’s about time he knows something about her as well.

It’s time to finally be honest with him.

So when he opens his mouth, she opens her mouth as well, but she doesn’t get any further than to “Edward-” before he launches into a monologue.

She’ll have to wait until he’s done before saying her piece. It’s a bit embarrassing, but it doesn’t seem like he intends to stop talking anyway.

And what he’s saying seems to be serious, so it’s probably best to let him finish.

Edward concludes his monologue by kissing her forehead. Then he disappears.

Where did he go?

A big unsure, Bella goes back to the house. She’ll just have to wait until he gets back.

She doesn’t know what to think when Charlie returns from work and tells her the Cullens have all left.

Oh, god.

Edward must have found out she doesn’t speak English.

She made a mockery of him.

He has every right to leave.

Knowing this doesn’t make it any easier to live with.

Bella sinks into a depression.

The hallucinations begin, as in canon, though Hallusinward speaks Norwegian. Thank god for small mercies.

The friendship with Jacob (dictionary in hand) blooms, as someone has to help her see those hallucinations.

The cliff diving happens, and Alice shows up. Bella’s not sure what this is about, but she has gotten good enough at English to know that something bad happened, and Alice wants them to do something.

She’s a bit surprised to find herself on a plane to Italy, though.

Alice tells her to “Run to Edward” and ok, she got that, actually.

So she saves Edward.

After that she’s taken into the sewer, which turns out to house dozens of vampires.

Bella, Edward, and Alice are received in some kind of hall, where an unusual vampire has quite a bit to say. She understands some of what he’s saying, at least the part about “la tua cantante”. She knows a bit about Italian, see, so she knows that he’s talking about a song now.

She wishes she knew the context.

At one point he takes her hand, and appears fascinated by it. She wonders if he’s a palmreader. Not very vampirey, but what does she know.

He asks her a question.

"Yes," she says.

Saying yes has gotten her this far, after all.

But when he lights up and claps his hands together, and Edward and Alice stare at her in shock and betrayal, she knows she must have said the wrong thing.

The two are dismissed from the room before Bella can do or say anything, she’s just listening to Edward make a racket outside in the hallway.

Not good.

The unusual vampire brings her further down in his sewer palace to a basement, and she is given comfortable clothes to wear.

This is getting terrifying.

The vampire leans towards her - and she chickens out.

"Jeg snakker ikke engelsk!" she squeaks. "Non habla ingles!" I don’t speak English.

Han stanser, og ser forvirret ut. "Que- Hva behager*?" I beg your pardon? spør han etter et øyeblikk.

*A very formal, and slightly outdated (you can use it, but people will think you’re putting on airs. And they will be right) way of saying “excuse me?”

Sobbing, Bella tells him the whole story, from how she didn’t want to be the weird kid in school to how she’s now somehow in Italy without knowing why nor what she just agreed to.

When she’s done the vampire starts laughing.

"Dette forklarer jo en hel del," This explains quite a bit, ler han. "Men, kjære Bella, jeg er redd det ikke endrer noe." But, my dear Bella, I’m afraid it changes nothing.

He tells her that she has agreed to serve him and his army of undead warriors into eternity.

Well fuck.

"Du skal få slippe det, når du ikke visste hva du samtykket til - men skjebnen din forblir den samme. Loven er loven." You’re released from that promise, as you didn’t know what you agreed to - but your fate remains the same. The law is the law.

After a moment of silence, during which she looks terrified, he hurries to add, "Vi har en lov. Du må bli en av oss." We have a law. You must become one of us.

A law that Bella Swan has to become a vampire?

People are finally speaking Norwegian, and Bella is still lost. And it’s too embarrassing to keep pestering this poor, polite man with questions.

So she nods.

He gives her a glittering smile, and bites her.

When she wakes, Aro offers her an English course. A language course that, naturally, leads to her staying in Volterra. Why not learn a few more languages while we’re at it, dearest Bella?

Some time later Edward breaks into Volterra to save his Rapunzel, only to barely recognize her now that she’s a vampire who says things. Lots of things, she talks all the time now. WHAT DID ARO DO TO HER.

Too mortified to admit that she never spoke English, Bella claims she’s been brainwashed.

Aro is having too much fun to correct her, and the whole sad affair sets off a regrettable flood of rumors.

[shorkbrian]

A Midsommar Night’s Dream

Prelude - I watched midsommar so have this.

Pairing - Izuku X reader X Todoroki males

Warnings - NSFW, dead dove, do not eat. Implied incest, cult-like behaviors. Dubcon.

Music - https://open.spotify.com/track/7clyJIrLkEbXUDwj1tC9zz?si=EK3gCdOHQ3WQeK-ed9eucg 

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

Izuku’s been officially dating you for three weeks.

Three weeks.

He’s known you for far longer - the two of you solid friends since you first met. The man doesn’t know when friendship had evolved into something more, but he’s sure glad it did.

You were sweet, and kind, and far too caring for your own good. You didn’t mind waiting up for Izuku when his nights ran late, studying for his masters or taking on extra shifts.

You would rub his shoulders when he got stressed, offer to make him tea or run him a bath or anything else he needed, anything to help out. You loved him, and he loved you.

Tonight was a night that many partners might fear - meeting the family.

But Izuku was hardly worried. He was best friends with your brother Shouto, a level-headed student with good work ethics and a dry sense of humor. The rest of the family couldn’t be that bad.

A simple dinner, you had told him, dress casual and no gifts required. Still, Izuku felt obligated to bring the finest bottle of bourbon his paycheck could afford him (he’d asked Shouto what your father’s favorite was, just to be safe).

The Todoroki household was impressive; massive and imposing in the countryside, surrounded by tall stone walls and looking straight out of a victorian romance novel. Izuku knows what those look like, because he’s seen them on the covers of the romance novels you like to read. He’s always doing his best to pay attention to your likes and dislikes.

“Izuku!” came your excited little voice as the door opened after his loud knock, and the green-haired man couldn’t stop himself from breaking out in a smile.

You were almost bouncing in excitement behind your older brother Shouto as he held the door open, taking the offered bottle of bourbon from Izuku with a nod before leaving you alone together in the foyer.

“Hey, missed you-” Izuku grunted as you attacked him in a hug, and a laugh bubbled out of you both when the solid man had to take a step backwards from  the push of your body.

“Missed you too! I’m so excited for tonight, it’s so good that Dad and the rest of the family are accepting you.” A quick kiss to his cheek distracted Izuku.

You were fairly comfortable with physical touch, resting your head on his shoulder, never afraid to snuggle up to his side on movie nights, or hold his hand out in public (especially now that the two of you were dating). But Izuku had honestly expected more.... sensuality once the two of you started seeing each other as lovers more than just friends.

He had asked to kiss you one night, after you’d made him dinner and rubbed his shoulders and listened to him talk about the latest subject he was studying. Izuku had felt his heart warm, like cold wax cradled over a flame, and his love for you was bursting out of his chest. He wanted to kiss you and hold you close, tell you how much he loved you.

You had just smiled shyly and shook your head, saying you wanted to wait a bit. Which Izuku understood! This was all new, going from friends-to-dating, and he didn’t want to rush you or make you uncomfortable in any way. He was willing to wait.

So the kiss to his cheek surprised him, made him stutter and blush and hug you a bit tighter.

Then you were taking his hand, leading him through the maze of a house. He couldn’t help but notice the old-timey decorations mixed in with the more modern features, but done in an elegant, timeless fashion. A good blend of old mixed with new.

Stepping into the large dining room hand-in-hand with you, Izuku was met with the sight of the entire Todoroki family.

“Everybody-” You started, catching their attention until every set of eyes was on you and the tall man by your side. “This is Izuku!”

Shouto stepped forward, closest to the pair of you, and set his hand on Izuku’s shoulder with a smile. “Glad to have you joining the family.” 

Izuku smiled back, pulling his friend into a hug and giving him a hearty pat on the back.

“This is Fuyumi-” A tap to Izuku’s shoulder had him turning around, stepping away from Shouto to shake your sister’s hand. 

“Hi Izuku, I’ve heard such good things about you.” Her voice was soft and gentle, almost like your own. Izuku could see the family resemblance between the two of you. 

“And this is Natsuo, he’s studying for his masters just like you.” A white-haired man approached him, friendly and open, ready to shake Izuku’s hand but ultimately pulling him into a hug. 

“Sorry, I’m a hugger.” Natsuo laughed, and Izuku shrugged, completely unbothered.

“Here’s Touya.” You introduced a redhead next, a man sitting almost sullenly at the table. He didn’t rise to his feet, didn’t even take Izuku’s offered handshake. 

“This is the guy you’ve been babbling about? He looks bori-”

“Touya.”  The room, already hushed, grew even more silent, almost heavy with the weight of the voice from the man at the head of the table.

The gangly redhead shut his mouth, looking ready to roll his eyes. You pulled Izuku past him towards the imposing man who was looking at the man at your side, appraising him.

“And this is my dad. Dad, this is Izuku.”

“A pleasure to meet you sir.” Izuku shook the mans large hand, and the man nodded solemnly.

“Sit down, we’re ready to eat.”

-----

Dinner wasn’t a quiet affair. Comfortable conversation flowed easily between everyone; questions about Izuku’s degree, about his goals, his dreams, his job. He knew it was just everyone getting to know him, assurance that he was suitable for their daughter. Izuku wanted to be perfect for you, anything and everything you needed.

Enji (Izuku was not about to call your father dad) asked only a few questions, otherwise decidedly quiet at his spot at the table, chewing his food while watching Izuku respond to the rest of his family. 

It was mainly Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Shouto keeping the conversation flowing, Izuku easily keeping up with whatever they decided to talk about, asking engaging questions of his own about the family members he’d just met, laughing easily whenever you made a pun or Shouto’s dry humor jumped out.

Everything seemed to be going well. 

Fuyumi asked to be excused, saying she needed to go prepare, and Enji waved her off easily, telling you to go with her. You rose from your chair easily, but not before catching Izuku’s hand and giving it a squeeze, eyes shining as you leaned close to whisper “See you in a bit.”.

“You really love her?” Touya asked as soon as the two women left the room to go prepare dessert, leaving Izuku alone with the male Todoroki’s. Izuku assumed this would be when he gets the shake-down, the usual “Hurt her and we’ll kill you” talk.

“So much. Sometimes I feel like I love her so much that I don’t know what to do with myself.” Izuku confessed.

“She talks about you a lot. I think she feels the same way that you do.” Natsuo supplied from across the table, and Izuku felt his cheeks flush, his heart flutter. It was one thing to know you loved someone - to feel the warmth and peace it brought to your soul. It was another to know that they loved you back; it made him feel whole.

“I've seen how you treat her, I think the two of you are a good match.” Shouto said, and Izuku smiled at his friend. Shouto had been his buddy since high school, truthfully was the reason that Izuku and you had met. You’d come along with Shouto one day when he’d come to hang out with Izuku, and the two of you had become fast friends.

Natsuo was rising from the table, walking back to the little shelf along one wall where various drinks sat (and Izuku’s bourbon gift). Izuku watched the man begin to pour out a red liquid, before his attention was caught by Shouto leaving the table as well, taking his plate and exiting the room.

Then Natsuo was placing a glass of the red liquid down in front of Izuku. “Don’t worry, this is nothing more than homemade punch.” He said as Izuku eyed it.

“It’s tradition.”  Touya growled and Izuku found himself taken aback at the heat in the other man’s voice. Was the redhead angry at him for some reason? 

“Touya, calm down.” The eldest Todoroki said, and Izuku almost wanted to cower himself at the sheer dominance exuding from the powerful man. “Izuku is becoming family. You will be happy for your sister, not jealous.”

Touya huffed, grumbling under his breath before shoving his seat away from the table. “Just don’t fuckin’ hurt her, got it? She’s my baby sister.” 

“I would never-” But Touya is already storming out of the room, uncaring of Izuku’s assurances.

Natsuo sighs. “Don’t mind him, he just.... doesn’t like change.”

“What is this again?” Picking up the red drink, Izuku swirled it around the glass, trying to change the subject and hopefully smooth over the tension. Most of the tension had dissipated when Touya left, but it never hurt to be proactive. 

“It’s a tea we brew and sweeten ourselves. We grow the plants in the backyard, you’ll see them soon.” Natsuo explained.

“It’s tradition?” Izuku parroted Touya’s earlier words, before taking a quick sip. It was delicious tea.

“Yes, we like to welcome those who are approved to join the family.” Natsuo laughed a little. “Fuyumi’s husband thought we were trying to drug him. It’s really just tea.”

Izuku snorted. It tasted like tea, why would someone think the Todoroki’s were trying to drug them? Sure, the family might be a little odd, but they weren’t malicious... right?

Before he knew it, his cup was empty and Natsuo had slipped out of the room, leaving Izuku alone with the head of the household, Enji.

Where were you? And why had everyone else left the room?

“I��m very particular about who I allow in my house, boy.” Enji started, and Izuku suddenly felt.... uneasy.

“Not everyone thinks the same way as the Todoroki’s. But you seem to be a bright young man. Educated. You aren’t going to be any trouble, are you?”

The last question wasn’t posed as such. It was a statement. 

Still, Izuku shook his head. “No sir, I have no intentions of causing trouble.” Why did this casual dinner feel so serious? there was so much emphasis on being accepted into the family, on being welcomed. Izuku recognized how big of a deal that was but still... it’s not like you were about to marry him. He was planning on that a few years down the road.

“Come with me.” Enji instructed, wiping his mouth with his napkin before his impressive bulk hefted itself out of his chair. Izuku felt tiny next to the patriarch, following the man through the dark, empty house.

He wanted to ask where Enji was taking him. Where you had disappeared to, where the rest of the family had gone. But that would be rude, so Izuku kept his mouth shut.

Outside it was dark, moon shining dimly through the sky, the residual warmth of the summer day still held in the air. Izuku followed Enji through the back door, down along a path, into the plentiful, green backyard.

To a grove of trees, torches flickering from within the grove, small bushes and beautiful flowering plants dotted among the trees. A garden, Izuku realized. Those must be the plants and bushes that produce the tea Natsuo had given him.

Then there you were, in a little clearing among the trees.

Sitting on a dark blanket, knees drawn to your chest and ankles crossed in front of you as you hid your body.

Izuku started - you were naked.

Touya was kneeling beside you, a hand on your shoulder as he talked to you gently, barely sparing Izuku and his father a glance as they strode into the torch-lit clearing, Touya’s attention truly focused on you.

Shouto and Natsuo stood in the light, watching you, watching Izuku.

“What is this?” Izuku sputtered, and upon hearing his voice you looked away from Touya, a smile lighting up your face as you saw your Izuku.

“This is tradition boy.” Enji laid a heavy hand on Izuku’s shoulder. “Now strip down, my little girl’s been waiting.”

Izuku’s head swirled.

Touya stood up, shooting the green-haired man a lazy glare before moving to stand by his brothers, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Izuku...” Your sweet little voice called for him, and green eyes snapped to your form on the ground, watched as, with a nod from Enji, you slowly unfurled your body to expose yourself to your lover.

A stab of arousal hit Izuku in his gut, watching your soft-looking skin be revealed. 

Pert breasts, a squishy tummy, glistening folds ready and twitching between your legs. 

You were drenched.

There was so much shiny slick, all over your thighs and dripped onto the blanket, Izuku couldn’t catch his breath, couldn’t think straight. It was impossible for you to be that wet on your own, you must have used lube or something to prepa-

It hit him; You and Fuyumi hadn’t gone to prepare dessert.

“You just gonna stand there all night like an idiot? Take your clothes off and fuck her you dwee-”

“Touya.” Enji growled, silencing his son immediately. Then the man turned to  Izuku, easily pushing him forwards towards you. “You’ve been accepted into the family; that’s an invitation you don’t want to refuse.”

With a sigh, you easily laid down onto your back, legs still spread for Izuku to look at you, hands coming up to rest shyly over your breasts.

“Don’t do that, let him see.” Shouto murmured, and immediately your hands dropped in obedience. Shouto hummed in approval, before bi-colored eyes swept up to look at Izuku, urging his friend forward with a tilt of his head down to your form.

With trembling hands, Izuku fumbled with his pants, unzipping them with a bit of difficulty, undoing his belt, working on the buttons of his nice shirt the he had worn to make a good impression when he met your family for the first time.

It took him a moment to undress, a red blush creeping up over his cheeks and down to his chest as he bared his body to the Todoroki’s.

He didn’t think he was small, but he wasn’t big either; average. Izuku was confident in his size, didn’t really know or are how he stacked up against other guys, and the girls he’d been with before hadn’t complained.

Still, he felt embarrassed to be naked in front of other people, to be on display. But there wasn’t another option, was there? (Izuku didn’t know if that was such a bad thing)

Two short strides before dropping to his knees in front of you on the blanket, his throat dry and his palms sweaty. 

“Are you-” His voice was barely above a whisper. “Are you okay with this?” 

Your head nodded yes, a pleased, yet shy grin on your face. “Of course. I want you.”

The softness of your voice, of your body, Izuku felt dizzy as he shuffled forward, close enough to touch. Still hesitant, worried about the male Todoroki members watching from the sidelines, brain racing to work through the strangeness of the situation, the utter oddity of this... ritual that was currently taking place.

But then you were sitting up, hands circling around his neck, pressing your lips to his with crushing finality.

He was a part of the family now.

It felt good to kiss you, soft lips pressed together, little huffs of breath from your nose as you kept going. Izuku took the freedom of circling his hands around your waist, almost gasping at the plushness of your flesh, melting against you with a groan as your lips kept pressing to his.

“I’m all ready, just-just put it in.” Your breathless little confession tumbled out as soon as you pulled away from your first real kiss with Izuku, a blush high on your cheeks.

But it was Izuku’s turn to blush, sitting between your legs like a fumbling virgin. “I’m not hard yet, but I can, uhm, finger you. Or we can kiss for a little bit mo-”

“You aren’t even hard? Touya’s sneering voice cut through Izuku’s babbling. “Look at my sister. She’s fucking soaking the ground. That’s not hot to you?”

Izuku stuttered, eyes flickering down to where your legs were opened, pretty little cunt twitching. It’s like you were begging to be touched, and Izuku was a sucker for begging.

“No, that’s so hot, oh my god.” He breathed, fingers instinctively reaching to swipe through your wetness, relishing the way you gasped and shuddered as his hand made contact with your body.

“She’s so soft too, got tits like little pillows. You should lick ‘em, she likes that.” Touya continues, and Izuku wants to point out that the reason he’s not completely hard yet isn’t because he’s not insanely turned on by the beautiful creature in front of him, but because he’s feeling weirded out by all her brothers and her dad watching intently from the sidelines.

Yet he does what Touya suggests, leaning forward to put his mouth on your chest, tongue darting out to drag against your skin. 

The eldest Todoroki was right about you being soft.

Izuku can’t stop his other hand from rubbing at your cunt more firmly, feeling your little hips twitch towards him, pressing your chest more firmly into his mouth.

“She’s so pretty.” Natsuo comments, but Izuku is hardly listening when he’s flicking at your clit, nursing at your tits. “She’s gonna feel real good around you Izuku, like a new fleshlight.”

“You better breed her good, boy.” Enji booms, and suddenly you’re scrabbling at Izuku’s arms, pulling his hair, whining “Please, Izuku please.”.

“Okay, shit, let me-”

“He must be really worked up, Izuku hardly ever curses.” Shouto announces, and fuck, he’s right -  but how could he not be worked up?

Izuku is hard, blood rushing so quickly to his cock that he feels lightheaded, taking himself in hand and giving his length a few dry pumps. He’s envisioning how sopping wet you’ll feel against him, staring, drooling over your cunt.

And then he’s lining himself up, kissing you hard, and pushing inside.

“Big, ‘s too big!” You panic, tears popping to your eyes but Izuku is quick to wipe them away, cooing at you and stilling his hips.

“Oh, don’t cry! Shh, I’ll go slow, ‘m sorry, I thought you were ready-”

“Natsu-” You cried, hand scrabbling into the ground above your head, reaching, searching for your brother.

“Hey, hey, I’m here.” The man was immediately on his knees by your face, clasping your hand fervently, leaning down to put a sweet kiss on your nose. “Breathe honey, in and out. It’s okay.”

“Noo I-I.... ‘M scared, he’s-he’s-ah!” A stuttered cry broke from your chest as Izuku shifted slightly, inadvertently pushing deeper.

“No, it's gonna be okay. It's just like when we do it, yeah? He's gonna be nice.” And Natsuo is looking at Izuku, fixing him with such a pointed gaze and Izuku gets the message. He’s going to be nice.

It’s not like he wasn’t planning on it - the green haired man loves you.

But then the breath is sucked out of his chest as he comprehends what Natsuo had just comforted you with, that-that.

That you’ve fucked your brother.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.” Izuku chants, unable to stop his hips from inching back and forth, humnping into you in infinitesimal movements as arousal punches through his gut. “Sorry, I can’t stop-’h my god that’s-”

He can hear Touya cackle. “Damn, something really got him going.”

You were squeezing your eyes shut, clenching Natsuo’s hand so tight that the skin was whitening. Your brother didn’t seem to mind, more occupied with stroking your hair, eyes fixated on the soft jiggle of your breasts as Izuku humped you like a senseless virgin.

His breathing turned into wheezing, hitching when a presence was felt at his back.

“You can do better than that.” Enji’s hands were pressing against Izuku’s naked rear, making the green haired man flinch forward and away from the touch. But Enji merely pushed, propelling Izuku’s thrusts so that he would really fuck the warm, willing body beneath him.

“Izuk-Izu-Izuku-” You moaned, rocking your body to further spear yourself onto his cock, apparently finding the fast glide pleasurable as opposed to your hesitance earlier.

He leaned down to kiss you, both of you moaning into the kiss, hands wandering as you pushed to meet each other, Izuku’s stomach clenching tighter and tighter as he neared his release.

“She’s never had someone fuck her raw before...” Shouto mused, eyes glued to the scene in front of him, watching his best friend fuck his sister with the help of his family. “I wonder if it feels different.”

But his words were lost in the quick slap of skin meeting skin, Izuku’s grunts, your sweet little noises as you writhed and clutched at Natsuo’s hand, your other hand holding onto Izuku.

And then Izuku was gone, balls clenching and cock twitching inside you, pulsing as he shot his seed.

Your eyes fluttered shut, pulling your hand away from Natsuo to place it against your tummy, pressing right over where Izuku was still grinding against you. “Feels... feels so warm.”

Izuku was panting, sweat sticking his curls to his forehead, desire slowly swirling out of his body as he came. 

What the fuck had he just done?

Enji clapped him once on the back, before rising to his feet. “Welcome to the family, son.”

[mac-kd8]

                                                 Law x pregnant readers

Waking up, (Name) only felt tired as if she hadn't slept in months.  She  just blamed it from the late nights of working and nothing else. Not even realizing when she woke up it was already in the afternoon and the Heart Pirates were currently eating in the galley.

With a loud groan (Name) took off her Pj's and walked into the shower, she gasped slightly when the water presser felt a little more sensitive on her chest than usual.

(Name) shrugged it off, thinking it was because she was still healing from the last battle she took part of, so she didn't think much about it. Propping herself next to her captain like she always does, she quietly ate her late lunch while trying to keep her eyes open. Law being the observant man he is, grew quite worried about his beloved wife acting so fatigue. "Are you alright?" Law asked, trying to act he wasn't concerned. She only nodded before face-planting into her food with a loud smack. No one panicked or thought it was something to worry about, guessing (Name) was just having a narcoleptic attack.

Later that day, (Name) was currently laying on her bed while reading a book. Feeling like she was about to throw up, she put down her book next to her and quickly opened the bathroom door. She then puke out all of her lunch and maybe last night dinner as well into the toilet. Wipeing her mouth, (Name) then headed toward the sink to splash some cold water on her face.

Feeling a familiar presence, (Name) then turned her head to where Law was currently standing with a worried expression on his face. "Are you okay?" He asked.

"Yeah, I guess it's just a little food poisoning." (Name) said while scratching the back of her head.

"Alright but let me know when it gets worse."Law stated as he exited the bathroom.

(Name's) heart almost escaped from her chest when the submarine started shaking and yellow lights started flashing. Running onto the deck she could already see a battle taking place with men in white and blue uniforms on one side and men in colorful hats and white overalls on the other side. Unsheathing her twin katanas, (Name) then started cutting one marine after another but for some strange reason she already felt like she was out of energy. 20 minutes into the battle, with a large pant for air she finishes off the last of the marines before wobbling back to the submarine's doors.

"Damn why am I already out of breath, those marines were just small fries. My training methods haven't changed one bit, why do I feel so weak. "(Name) muttered to herself in annoyance.

(Name) only pushed her food around on the plate, hardly nibbling then she looked around the room. Everyone was so cheerful and she couldn't help but smile.

"Not eating much I see." Law commented, leaning over to whisper in her ear. Not like he needs to, over the usually loud noise that the Heart Pirates made at each meal.

"I'm just not hungry." She responded.

"Strange and I thought for someone who was out of breath just by fighting a few marines would be starving." Law stated in a matter-of-factly tone.

"Is it not to your liking, (Name)?" The head chef asked, catching sight of Law's actions.

"It's good. I'm just not hungry right now"(Name) said as she pushed back the plate.

"I'll put it in the fridge until you feel like eating again,"The chef said as he scooped up her plate of uneaten food.

"Do you need to lie down again?" Law asked her again for the third time today.

"I'm okay."

"Could I get some orange juice though?"(Name) sweetly asked the cook.

Then immediately , the crew got back to their usual antics paying no mind to (Name's) odd behavior.

She got to her feet while squeezing Law's shoulder gently. "I'm going to read a book." She said before taking a sip of the juice.

She was hoping that it was simply a case of stomach flu and not something alot more serious.

(Name) was once again in the bathroom and vomiting all of what she ate yesterday, which was not that much. (Name) felt terrible , as would anyone in these types of situations would, however, she still didn't want to bring the matter up. Luckily, Law hasn't woken up from his deep slumber , which made her sigh in relief. Slipping back into bed, she then let her eyelids close as she slept all the way through the afternoon again.

Then that cycle of having no appetite and vomiting lasted for this day as well, which made Law start to worry even more about his wife.

"(Name)!" She picked up her head by the ship's railing in surprise as she heard her name being called by Penguin. Her stomach hadn't seemed to settle, and now she is throwing up into the sea.

She then turned her head to the mechanic, trying her best not to look sick.

Penguin walked up to (Name) getting rather closer, causing (Name) to become nervous.

"You look pale." Penguin commented.

"I haven't been feeling well the last few days Penguin. So I'm probably a bit pale." (Name) stated .

"You're sick (Name)?" questioned Shachi. (Name) nodded her head, however quickly realized what she had brought up.

"I'm only slightly sick, just a little headache. Really."

"You sure (Name)?" Law asked as he walked up to the swordswoman, worried about her health.

She then gave a reassuring thumbs up to everyone to show that she was okay. Though internally, she was kicking herself for lying to the crew, even more so to her trusting and loving husband. The crew soon believed the lie as they continued with their day, however, Penguin, Shachi, and Law didn't seem to be convinced, so they kept an eye on her.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it." (Name) thought as she ran to the bathroom for the third time this week. She still was getting lucky with Law having once again already left their room or sleeping, but she knew that it was only a matter of time before they really began to be suspicious.

"This will pass. This will pass."(Name) kept telling herself furiously as she finished with her recent vomiting episode. She picked herself up, taking in deep breaths trying to settle her stomach. As she looked into the mirror, she noticed that she is even paler than yesterday.

Putting on a brave face, she then walked out of the bathroom and went onto the deck.

"Land ahoy!" Shachi shouted as he pointed at the piece of land.

All of the Heart Pirates gather around the railing in a disorderly long line, and lean over it, while watching the island they were about to dock. They had docked at a unique island well-known in the areas as vicious wild blood thirsty animals live there.

"Yahoo, a new adventure!" (Name) said happily before walking off the submarine's plank. As she got closer and closer onto the island, she felt someone grabbing her shoulder.

"I think it's for the best if you stay back in your current state."Law stated with a worried look on his face.

She only shrugged his hand off. "I'm fine, I feel a lot better today."

Before Law could protest, (Name) had already made her way onto the island.

And then she left, not running, but walking kinda in a slow pace into the forests.

After some time had passed, both Penguin and Shachi had returned after a troublesome adventure with some saber-tooth monkeys. Law was starting to get a little worry since (Name) wasn't back yet, so he went the same direction she walked in.

As Law walked deeper and deeper into the forest he finally made eye contact with the swordswoman. "Help!" (Name) called out as she was kneeling onto the tall grass while clenching her slightly bleeding shoulder.

Law was surprised, (Name) never called for help unless it's something really serious or life-threatening .

Activating his Room he switches places with (Name) while killing the beast in the process.

While Law was carrying (Name) through the forest, she leaned away from his chest so she wouldn't get vomit onto his clothes

-x-

"I'm going to take a blood sample." (Name) nodded as she rolled up her sleeve allowing Law to apply the alcohol onto her skin then inserting the needle. Only taking a tiny amount, Law removed the needle and quickly placed a band-aid on where he poke her. "You can leave, I will give you your results as soon as possible."

She only nodded before leaving the infirmary room.

Law stood there from where he was sitting in shock, not knowing how to feel after reviewing the results of her blood test. It was a mix of happiness, relief, fear and mostly parental love. It took all of his strength not to jump down like a crazy man who just won the lottery, because it was the middle of the night and he didn't want to wake up his crew. When he finally made it to the doors of his room, he put on a calm face and slowly and quietly opened the door. "Hi Captain, so did my blood test turn out good?" (Name) asked casually.

"Yep, it seems that both of you are fine." Law said with a big goofy smile on his usually calm and serious face. (Name) looked at her captain in surprise and in slight confusion, even already knowing the answer. "W-what do you mean the b-both of us?" (Name) managed to stutter out.

"I mean our baby. You're 9 weeks pregnant."

He was in love with (Name), and the idea of her having his baby was ideal to him, but it was still a shock, they'd never even spoken or brought up the subject. He wanted a family, but the idea still scares him. All the memories of his mother and father, and his little sister Lami all stuck to him. Then, the struggles and problems of them being famous pirates with both of them having large bounties on their heads. And all of the struggles that their child will face as well, everything he, (Name) and his unborn child, everything they will face together suddenly hit him in one go.

"Law I'm sorry, I should have been more careful." (Name) said while sobbing.

Law quickly, but carefully picks her up and sits her onto his lap while stroking the spot where their child was growing.

"Sorry for what? Making this the happiest day of my life." Law said before kissing her still flat stomach.

(Name) began to cry more but it wasn't tears of sadness, they were tears of joy. "We're going to be parents. I'm going to be a mom."

"And I'm going to be a dad. " Law said while showering her with even more kisses. (Name) squeaked when Law gently swooped her off her feet and began sprinting across the metal halls.

"What the... Law?!"

"Your shoulder, your shoulder was wounded. You're staying overnight, no, 3 nights in the infirmary. What if the baby got hurt. What if the baby got killed?"Law started listing off the things that could happen to their unborn child.

-x-

"Everyone, we have an announcement!" Law shouted loudly to get everyone's attention who was on the deck.

"We're getting a new crew member." (Name) said while trying to hold back her giggles.

"Oh, that's nice, when can we meet them?" Penguin asked.

"Less than 9 months." Law answered which made everyone go completely silent.

"We're having a baby!" Both (Name) and Law shouted cheerfully.

They were all staring at the expected couple, completely dumbfounded.

Astounded, flabbergasted, shock whichever word to describe their expressions and the tense atmosphere. Law's hand started to turn purple just by how hard (Name) was squeezing his hand.

"CONGRATULATIONS," Penguin and Shachi shouted in perfect unison.

"This is amazing, this calls for a party!" A Heart Pirate exclaimed.

"No alcohol for the pregnant woman though," Bepo smiled warmly at her from Law's side.

"(Name), don't cry, " Law said, reaching around her shoulders to comfort her.

"I know, it has to be the unbalanced hormones. I'm just so happy, this is a new chapter of my life." (Name) said as she cried into Law's chest.

Throughout the day everyone was partying while congratulating the new parents-to-be.

"So who will be the godparents?" Bepo asked.

"We have already decided that Ikkaku and you will be the godparents of our child."(Name) answered. Bepo then lifted both (Name) and Law off their feet and gave them a big hug while crying tears of joy. "Thank you, I'll be the best godfather ever." Bepo said, which made everyone in the Heart Pirates stare in jealousy, especially Penguin and Shachi.

"You guys will make great uncles." (Name)said with a big smile while hugging both of them in her arms.

"Lucky bear." Shachi muttered.

The 2 mechanics' faces turned a deep shade of red when (Name) kissed both of them on the cheek. "Don't worry, there is enough love to go around."

Then out of nowhere, a large explosion could be heard across the deck.

"Heart Pirates, Give up now or prepare to die."A marine holding a megaphone demanded.

(Name) smirked before unsheathing her twin katanas as she got into a fighting stance.

"Do your worst.''She retorted before Law used his devil fruit ability to transport her back into the sub.

Law shut the metal doors, ignoring the loud banging noises that were coming from the other side.

"Law, you ass, I want to fight too. Let me out, let me out." (Name) demanded as she kept on banging her fist onto the metal door.

"No, as your captain and doctor I order you to stay back and let us handle this. You're pregnant, you need to take it easy for now on."Law stated, which made (Name) slump down in disappointment. She hated being useless, she wanted to fight, she wanted to help, she wanted to do something besides laying down and doing nothing.

"Oh great, 7 more months of being totally useless." (Name) muttered under her breath while sighing.

A few weeks later-

(Name) felt like she was already going crazy. She wasn't allowed to do anything and she meant she couldn't do anything. First, the large weights she and Jean Bart can usually lift with ease have been replaced with 5 pound weights and she wasn't even allowed to use them for more than 5 minutes. Law had also forbidden( name) in certain places in the submarine as well, which was almost one half of the metal vessel that was off limits for her.

(Name) also swears, Law has super hearing because when she decides to get out of her bed, Law uses his devil fruit abilities to teleport himself right next to his wife's side.

"Law, go back to work. I'm just getting a snack."(Name) protested.

"Then ask me or someone else from the crew to get it for you. You're still in your first trimester of pregnancy, there is still a possible chance of miscarriages or physical deformities or all sources of possible medical stated as he called forth his room again then instantly a jar of peanuts appeared in his hand.

"Here, take these and go back to our room." Was all Law said as he pointed the direction of where their room was located, as if she was completely clueless of where she had been living for most of her life.

Rolling eyes (Name) went back to her room while munching down on the jar of peanuts on the way.

-x-

When the Heart Pirates docked onto an island, (Name) thought she could get some alone time to herself while getting the necessary items for the future stages of her pregnancy. And it was a good thing too since her pants and shirt had been feeling tight lately. "Bye Captain, I'm going to do a little shopping." (Name) said before she jumped off the submarine's front deck.

"Room, Shambles." Law now had (Name) in his arms.

"What the hell Law?" (Name) questioned.

"I'm coming with you, " Law stated as he tightly held her hand.

"Law, I'll be just fine. It's just a little shopping, I'm barely showing." (Name) retorted while trying to slip her hand from Law's strong grip.

"Nope, as long as you're carrying my child you're stuck with me." Law said, securitly wrapping around his arm onto her waist.

After 5 medical and clothes stores later, Law's arms were both covered in shopping bags while (Name) just carried a single bag with a small bottle of medicine inside of it.

"Law, let me carry that for you. You know I can lift 1000 times my own body weight." (Name) Stated with an annoyed frown.

"I got this, I don't want you to lift even one eight of your body weight. Your-" (Name) then cut off Law before he could finish the rest of this statement. "Yeah, Yeah, I know I'm pregnant and pregnant women shouldn't be exerting themselves."

Smirking devilishly, (Name) came up with a small plan to get away from her overbearing husband.

"Hey honey, I really need to use the bathroom."(Name) said as she pretended her bladder was about to burst.

"Very well."He responded, then they headed to the closest bathroom.

Reaching down in her left sock, (Name) grabbed a screwdriver and began unscrewing the bathroom's top window.

When (Name) was finally outside of the building, she began to grin like she has been in prison for 20 years and just now escaped. She was free, she could do whatever she wanted without worrying about Law dragging her back to their room and making her stay there until the next day.

In a swift motion, (Name) unsheathed her twin katanas and blocked an attack from a familiar mask man.

"Yo... it's been a while, when was the last time we fought together."(Name)greeted, enjoying the weight and feel of her swords when fighting. "Too long and this time I will become victorious." Killer responded.

Killer and (name) have been rivals ever since their crew had first met. The 2 of them will always break into fights everytime when they see one another. But so far they're about even, most of the time their fights usually ended up in draws.

The fight soon stopped when Killer stepped away and put back his scythe blades into its case. "Hey what gives, why are you chickening out now! The fight was just about to get better." (Name) shouted.

"I'm not fighting a pregnant woman, I want to kick your ass at your best."Killer stated while pointing to her slightly rounded stomach. "Damn, I knew I should have put on more baggy clothing."(Name) thought to herself as she tried to cover her baby bump.

"You're a pirate, why should you even care? Pirates do whatever they want."(Name) exclaimed while pouting slightly.

"I may be a pirate but I'm still a man who doesn't like fighting weak women." Was all he said before walking away.

"I'm not weak...fight me, please! Law won't even let me hold a fork. Please, I'm only on my 16 week."(Name)whined as she tugged onto Killer's shirt.

"No, and you look alot more further along than that."Killer retorted which made (Name) gasp loudly of being called fat.

Before Killer had any time to dodge, (Name) kicked him square in the balls which made him groan in pain.

"Meanie!" (Name) spat out before taking off into the forest nearby with small tears running down her face.

"Ouch!"He groaned loudly, laying on the ground while holding his sore nuts.

-x-

Law was pissed. But mostly Law was extremely worried. He couldn't find his wife anywhere, but what really worries him is that the Kid Pirate's ship has been spotted as well.

What if the Kid Pirates took advantage of his wife's current state or even worse killed her on the spot.

No matter how much observation Haki Law uses, he didn't have any lead on where his wife is.

"Captain, we know where she is." Penguin reported.

"Yeah, Killer from the Kid Pirates told us she kicked him in the nuts and went into the forest,"Shachi added.

"And why did she kick him in the nuts, (Name) doesn't usually use low blows?"Law stated with a raised eyebrow.

"Well,"Penguin started off while scratching the back of his head.

"He kinda called her fat." Shachi answered.

In a blink of an eye, Law called forth his room and teleported himself into the forest. Without even trying, Law hears small whimpers coming from the top of a tree so he looks up and sees the person he was looking for all day.

"(Name!)Law called out his wife's name.

"Go away!" She screamed then resumed crying again.

"No, I know I've been a little too clingy lately, but it's only because I want the best for you and our future kid as well. And to be fair, I don't really blame you for running away from me, so that is why I promise you I will try my best to give you your space."Law promised as he kneeled down.

(Name) stopped crying and looked at her husband.

"Okay, I'm coming down now."(Name) responded as she started climbing down onto one branch after another.

She gasps when one branch snaps from her weight and she begins to fall, face first into a painfull fall, and Law swears his heart stops for 5 seconds as his throat hitchs.

"Room, shambles!"

When his wife's stomach was only inches away from hitting the hard ground, she instantly appeared in Law's arms.

"Law, I'm sorr-"(Name) whispered her husband's name.

"That was way too close." He then looked and touched her baby bump gently.

"You're never ever leaving my sight until that baby is out of you. That's an order." Was all he said as he started walking back to the sub with his wife in his arms.

-x-

(Name) found herself laying flat on her back in the medical bay as Law prepared the new ultrasound equipment.

"Damn, that's cold." She hissed when the clear gel made contact with her stomach.

"Sorry," he apologised half-heartedly.

"Usually I would just use my scanning ability, but I think it would be a lot more useful to check in like this."Law stated then he turned on the monitor. He moved the device around her stomach slowly with his eyes on the screen, instantly stopped when he saw a gray blob in the middle.

"There's our child."He pointed to the blob.

As (Name) looked closer at the screen, she cock an eyebrow when another blob had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. "Honey, why are there 2 of them?"(Name) stated while pointing where the 2 blobs were located.

"You're just seeing things, there is no-"Law stopped himself when indeed there were more than 1 blob. "We're having twins."Law whispered so softly that (Name) had to ask him to repeat himself.

"We're having twins. Yes,! Now you don't have to get pregnant again."Law said again as his wife just stood there in shock, not knowing how to process the new information.

"Wait, you're not satisfied with one kid." (Name) yelled at her husband in which he only nodded.

"Great. I already get smothered enough with one baby, I'm sure it's gonna get worse."

"It's now double," his lips formed into a smirk. "For now you're going to have daily instead of weekly check ups. And you're no longer allowed to practice swordsmanship with real swords anymore."

"Excuse me? No way, I've been holding swords since I was only 5 years old, you can't do that." She sat up sharply.

"You lost all of your rights when you started carrying precious cargo. Now you must be twice careful with our little ones." He brushed his fingers against her stomach before kissing it gently.

The more (Name-s) belly got bigger and bigger, the more cautious everyone, especially Law became. In only her 30 weeks of pregnancy, (Name) already looks like she could give birth any day now.

The Heart Pirates were currently docked on a winter island while (Name) only watched from a sideline.

"But Law, I want to play in the snow like everyone else. Please, I've been cooped up in this submarine for far too long."(Name) begged while giving Law the puppy eye look.

"Fine, but you need to bundle up."Law exclaimed.

6 layers of thick clothing later, (Name) walked off the Polar tang's deck with Law right next to her side.

Working on her snow fort for about 30 minutes, (Name) started to feel a sneeze coming along and tried her best to hold it in.

"Achoo!" She then covered her mouth, in hopes Law didn't hear it.

She sighs and doesn't even put up a fight when Law's room incases her, and teleports her into his arms.

"You're going back to the sub, I knew it was a bad idea to let you play in the snow."Law stated flatly.

And once again (Name) was laying flat on her back as she watched Law move the ultrasound equipment around her stomach for the fourth time this week.

"Is this really necessary?"(Name) questioned while pouting.

"Yes, unless you don't want our babies to be healthy. You're now forbidden to leave our bed until your cold has subsided. If you break any of those rules then I will bind you to the bed until your pregnancy has ended. Do I make myself clear?" Law questioned which only made (name) stick out her tongue.

"You 2 need to get out of mommy soon because I can't take another minute with your daddy."(Name) talk and rub to her rounded stomach when Law left the room.

-x-

2 weeks later and (Name) Was finally on her last trimester of pregnancy. "Law!" (Name) shouted his name loudly.

"Yes my darling, is there something you need." Law responded as he headed toward where his wife was currently sitting down.

"The babies are kicking, they're kicking again."(Name) said excitedly then grab's Law's hand to guide him where the kicking was happening.

Then the day when his children would be born.

(Name) woke up in the middle of the night when she felt a warm wet substance in between her legs and soon realized her water just broke.

"Law...Law." She shakes her husband awake.

"Yeah, what is it?" He muttered as he tried to rub away the sleep from his eyes.

"My water just broke."She then yelled in agony after she felt a contraction.

"Shit?!" Law then quickly moves to her side to help her into the wheelchair he had laying by for this day. "Bepo, round up the medical squad, it's time." Law shouted through a den den mushi.

"Whatt, I thought she wasn't due for at least another couple weeks." Bepo shouted.

"Well, the kids have decided to come now!" Law stated.

12 hours of shouting and a lot of pushing later, the first one came out.

"She's a beautiful girl!" Law said before handing the bundle of joy to Bepo.

"Come on just one more push." Law said then he could see the head of the baby.

"It's a handsome boy," Law said before handing the other baby to Penguin's arms.

"Law, what should we name them?"(Name) asked as she panted for air.

"Rosey for our baby girl and Corazon for our baby boy." Law answered, then placed a sweet and tender kiss on his wife's forehead.

"You need rest now, I will take care of them in the meantime."

[carry-the-sky]

merry and bright

summary

Foggy has seen his fair share of crazy shit— alien portals, ninjas, dudes with glowing fists and bulletproof skin, ninjas again. His best friend—who’s blind, by the way—spends his nights in a red spandex suit leaping across buildings and running down criminals. Foggy can’t say he’s used to any of it yet, but he’s getting there.

Well, he was. Frank Castle standing in the entryway to Josie’s might just be the final straw.

[read the entire fic on ao3]

Foggy is honestly debating whether or not to just beeline it over to the bar right now to get the good stuff, but— Frank’s still over there, so instead he settles for taking a longer-than-necessary pull on his beer.

“Still nothing from Matt?” Marci asks, pulling Karen into a hug.

Foggy shakes his head. “Nah. You know how he loves to be fashionably late.”

Marci hums with— disapproval, maybe? She’s always been a little tricky to read when it comes to Matt. Foggy’s lost count of the times he’s almost slipped up and spilled the big secret; part of him wishes he could, mostly because it would help explain a lot. But it’s not his to tell. Things are finally, finally somewhat normal again with Matt, or at least, normal for them. Now that a certain murderous ex-client of theirs is in the mix, Foggy’s not sure which of his two best friends’ extracurriculars will give him an ulcer first.

“Oh, and by the way,” Marci is saying, “the guy at the bar— Pete, right?” She lifts her chin in Frank’s direction. “Nice work, Page.”

“I’m standing right here,” Foggy says, only half-offended. The guy does clean up pretty well.

“Oh, come on, Foggy Bear.” Marci winds an arm around his shoulder and pecks him on the cheek. “You know I love you. I’m just admiring the view.”

“Thanks, I think,” Karen says, settling into her seat. “But we’re just friends.”

“Right,” Marci says, drawing out the word. “Foggy and I were ‘just friends’ for a while, too.”

Karen rolls her eyes, but her mouth crinkles at the corners. “So, I see you finally won Josie over,” she says, eyeing Marci’s martini. 

“Must be my sparkling personality,” Marci says, flipping her hair in an exaggerated motion. “But hey, don’t change the subject. We’re talking about you and Mr. Intense Eyes over there. I want to know everything, so spill. Where’d you two meet?”

“Shot up a hospital,” Frank says, coming up behind them like he’s some sort of horror movie villain pulling a jump scare on his unsuspecting victims. Foggy thinks he deserves some sort of medal for not screaming like a small child.

“We met while I was working on his case,” Karen says, waiting until Frank has set their drinks down before digging an elbow into his side. His mouth twists into a grin.

Jesus, Foggy’s not nearly inebriated enough for this.

Again, Frank seems to read his mind. He pushes a bottle and an empty glass across the table, nodding at Foggy. “Bartender said you looked like you could use that.”

“The bartender is correct,” Foggy says, wasting no time in pouring himself a drink and taking a long swig. The stuff burns all the way down, and Foggy can practically feel it stripping the taste buds off his tongue. God bless Josie and her top-shelf mystery liquor. 

“Wait—” Marci turns to Foggy. “He’s a client of yours?”

Foggy pauses, glass halfway to his lips. Frank’s face is neutral, but Foggy can see his leg bouncing under the table. That’s his tell; Foggy remembers it from the trial, fingers twitching at his side while the rest of him was stoic as a statue. The longer the trial dragged on, the worse it got.

Holy shit, Frank’s actually nervous. Because of him. 

Foggy won’t lie; it feels good to hold all the cards against someone with thirty-seven—that he knows of—counts of murder under their belt. Not that Foggy’s going to do anything with them. He has precisely nothing to gain from outing the guy as the Punisher, and that’s putting aside the fact that he would never in a million years do that to Karen. 

Doesn’t mean he can’t have a little fun, though.

“Former client,” Foggy says, setting his glass down on the table. “It’s been a minute since we’ve caught up. What are you doing for work these days, Pete?” 

Amusement dances across Frank’s face. “Construction, mostly. It’s good work. You’d know all about that, yeah, counselor?” 

Okay, shots fired. Except now he’s picturing Frank in a hardhat or driving an excavator and his brain short circuits for what feels like the eightieth time tonight. This is the man who turned an entire gang to minced meat, who threw his trial literally five steps from the finish line. It may have been ages ago, but Frank coming completely unhinged, contorted rage darkening his face, the vicious growl of his voice bouncing off the chamber’s walls— all of that’s etched in permanent marker in Foggy’s long-term memory. The scariest part was how easily the anger exploded out of him, like he’d been itching for the excuse to go apeshit.

A person can’t just turn that off, right?

Yet here he is, just another regular dude as far as everyone in this bar is concerned. Still intimidating as hell, obviously, but he doesn’t look like he has any intentions of flying into a murderous rage, so that’s a plus, right? And Karen— Karen seems to trust him, and Foggy trusts Karen, apparently against his better judgement.

Foggy hikes his shoulders, then makes sure he’s looking at Frank dead-on before he opens his mouth. “What can I say? I like helping people. Even the ones who don’t know how to help themselves.” 

Frank doesn’t say anything for a long moment, just stares at him with a blank, flinty-eyed expression, and Foggy does his best to hold his gaze without blinking. Okay, so maybe he shouldn’t be needling the guy who can snap him in half like a toothpick, but whatever, he stands by what he said.

After what feels like an eternity, Frank’s mouth twitches into something approximating a smile. “You always been such a bleeding heart, Nelson?”

“Always,” Marci answers immediately. “Almost annoyingly so. He once stood me up to help supervise his niece’s Girl Scout cookie stand.”

“Hey, those cookies don’t sell themselves,” Foggy says. “And there was a trip to space camp on the table, which we won, by the way.”

“Space camp, huh?” Frank says, and it occurs to Foggy with a jolt that he maybe did something similar for his kids. Oh, God, do they actually have something in common? The thought pinwheels through him; he’s not sure if he wants to laugh or throw up.

Karen raises her drink. “To being a bleeding heart, then.” 

Foggy clinks his glass against everyone else’s, and right as he’s about to drink—because he’s still not even buzzed, which is just unacceptable, at this point—his eyes land on Frank.

Frank, who’s watching Karen. All the steel from earlier is gone; there’s a warmth in his eyes, a soft smile playing around the edges of his mouth that looks completely foreign on him. The way he’s looking at her— that’s not the way you look at someone who’s just a friend. Not even close.

Foggy downs his drink in one go, then pours himself another. 

“Should we open some presents?” Marci asks. “I’m sure Matt won’t mind if we start without him.”

Foggy nods a little too enthusiastically. He needs to do something normal, something to remind himself that this is actually a party—his party, dammit—and he’s supposed to be enjoying himself, not having an existential crisis over the fact that the city’s most dangerous vigilante is making moon eyes at his best friend.

There’s just barely enough room for all the gifts on the table. Foggy’s always played that whoever’s birthday is closest to Christmas gets to pick first, which would be Matt, if he was here. Frank’s is the next closest. 

He picks the bag closest to him, digging through a layer of tissue paper and emerging with a corkscrew in the shape of a dog. “Hell yeah,” he says, giving a thumb’s up. 

So the Punisher’s a wine guy. Neat.

It’s Marci’s turn next; without batting an eye, she reaches across the table to pluck the corkscrew out of Frank’s hands. “Sorry, Pete. That was mine. I always buy something that I want for myself so I can steal it back.” 

Karen’s mouth falls open in mild disbelief. “That’s cheating!”

“That’s strategy,” Marci says with a wink.

“So what’s stopping me from just stealing it back?” Frank asks.

Marci shakes her head. “Gifts can only be stolen once. That’s, like, the first commandment of white elephant rules.”

“That’s some fine print bullshit, is what that is,” Frank says, but he’s smirking a little as he reaches for a different gift. He pulls the wrapping paper apart to reveal a pair of reindeer antlers attached to a headband.

“Cute,” Frank grumbles, glancing at Foggy. “I’m guessing this was you?”

Foggy sips his drink. “I plead the fifth. But you do have to try them on.”

Frank just stares at Foggy for a second, probably picturing the most efficient way to strangle him. 

Foggy just shrugs in response, feeling way braver than he probably should. Thanks, mystery liquor. “Yeah, it’s white elephant commandment, uh, number five. If you’re gifted something you can wear, you have to try it on.”

The glance that Frank shoots over to Karen practically screams save me.

“Hey, rules are rules,” she says with mock seriousness. “Antlers would really tie together your whole lumberjack look, don’t you think?”

“Chrissakes,” Frank mutters under his breath, but he slides them on.

Foggy takes back everything he’s said or thought about tonight. This is the happiest he’s ever been in his entire life. 

Karen is openly beaming now. I’m sorry, she mouths at Frank before leaning in to kiss his cheek, and sure, it’s probably the alcohol that’s making Foggy feel way less concerned about her questionable taste in men, or maybe it’s because said man now looks like a disgruntled reindeer. Either way, he’ll take it.

By the time it’s his turn to open the gift that Karen brought—a sparkly avocado tree ornament, sweet—everyone’s glasses are low, so he volunteers to grab the next round and heads for the bar.

“On my tab, right?” he asks Josie, who promptly levels him with a glare that could melt glass. “C’mon, Josie, it’s the season of giving!” 

“Oh, I’ll give you something, alright,” she grumbles. Then she tips her head toward the front door. “Your better half’s here, by the way.”

Foggy frowns, because Marci’s sitting with everyone else— but when he glances at the entrance, there’s Matt, honest-to-God lurking by the doors like an enormous weirdo. He straightens up a little, like he can sense that Foggy sees him.  

Foggy blows out a slow breath. And here he was just starting to enjoy himself.

The cold hits him like a smack across the face as soon as he steps outside, sobering him up way more than he wants to be.

“What the hell, man?” Foggy says. “How long have you been standing out here?”

“You don’t want to know,” Matt replies, angling his head slightly. “Castle’s in there, right? With Karen.” 

It’s the way he says the with part that has Foggy pinching the bridge of his nose. “How did you— never mind, stupid question. Of course you already knew. Yeah, he’s here, yeah, he came with Karen, and yeah, if I think about it for more than two seconds I start to feel a migraine coming on, but— it’s actually been okay. We’re having a nice time.”

There’s a strange blend of emotion working across Matt’s face, but mostly he just looks tired. “This is really happening, isn’t it?”

“It’s insane, I know. But tonight— I really need tonight, buddy. You two wanna beat the hell out of each other, great. Knock yourselves out. Just do it tomorrow, okay? I just want one normal night out with my friends.”

Matt scoffs. “You call this normal?”

“Well, no one’s getting shot at, so I’m gonna take what I can get,” Foggy says. When Matt doesn’t reply, he pulls out the big guns. “Forget about me, at least do it for Karen. She seems happy, Matt. Happier than I’ve seen her in a long time.”

Something in Matt’s expression cracks, and he bobs his head in a tiny nod. 

Foggy claps him on the shoulder. “You’ll feel better after a drink or five,” he says. “Ask me how I know. Also, Josie started a tab just for us.”

“A Christmas miracle,” Matt says with a wry smile as they head inside. “So, he’s ‘Pete’ now, huh?”

“Yep. I wasn’t too sure about it at first, but I gotta say, it’s growing on me.”

Matt groans. “Kill me now.”

“That’s the spirit, buddy.”

There’s a bit of a tense moment when he and Matt approach the table—Foggy’s really glad Matt can’t see the look on Frank’s face, because even in reindeer antlers the guy still gives one mean stink eye—but honestly, Foggy would be a little concerned if things weren’t tense. He knows he’s not the only one remembering the last time they were all in the same room together. So much has changed since then. It’s laughably hard to believe that he and Matt were ever those scrappy, wide-eyed lawyers who stood their ground against Reyes and took on a trial way above their nonexistent paygrade. None of them are the people they were a year ago.

Foggy’s still not sure what to make of any of it, but the revelation feels like something heavy has been lifted off his chest.

It’s technically Matt’s turn, and because the universe has one twisted sense of humor, Frank’s gift is the last one left. Matt puts on a good show fumbling with the tissue paper as he pulls what looks to be an article of clothing from the bag. He holds it up.

It’s a red sweatshirt. Emblazoned in blocky white letters across the front are the words I’M NOT DAREDEVIL.

Foggy’s eyes dart to Karen. She’s staring at the piece of clothing like she can’t quite believe what she’s seeing, one hand over her mouth. Then a stuttered sort of wheezing sound comes out of her, and Foggy realizes she’s trying not to laugh.

Matt’s hands are working now, skimming over the letters with practiced ease. Foggy clocks the exact moment he figures it out, mouth pinching into a thin line. For one horrifying second, Foggy thinks he might actually launch himself across the table at Frank.

But then his mouth curves, a soft chuckle breezing out of him. “Hilarious.”

“Bodega across the street from my place was selling ‘em,” Frank says, looking entirely too smug. “Figured someone here would get a kick out of it. Red’s your color, yeah?”

“So I’ve been told.”

Karen has pulled herself together a bit, but she’s still smiling wide. “You won’t know for sure unless you try it on, though,” she says.

Matt’s eyebrows hike up to his hairline. “Uh, no, I don’t think—”

“Come on, man,” Foggy interjects. “Pete’s wearing reindeer antlers.”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” Matt says, but there’s a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He’s still holding the sweatshirt, probably imagining suffocating Frank with it. But then he scrunches up the hem and lifts it up. “I want it on the record,” he says, pulling it over his head, “that I did this under extreme coercion.”

“Duly noted, counselor,” Karen says.

Matt spreads his arms wide. “How do I look?”

“Red really is your color,” Marci says.

Frank ducks his head close to Karen. “Think I’m starting to see the appeal of commandment number five,” he says, and she swats him lightly on the shoulder. Matt tilts his head in their direction, that same expression from earlier spilling across his face. Then his face seems to soften. Foggy doesn’t know how much of that is genuine, but it feels like the tiniest of olive branches.

Matt didn’t have time to grab a gift—occupational hazard on both the attorney and vigilante fronts—so Karen steals Frank’s antlers, eyes sparkling as she pulls them off his head and slides them onto her own.

“Look better on you, anyways,” Frank says softly— softly, yet another adjective Foggy would never have attributed to the man before tonight. He’s still not sure he’ll ever be able to reconcile this Frank Castle with the one he remembers, the one who does unspeakable things and scares the shit out of him, but maybe he doesn’t have to. Maybe the guy was always both, and Karen was just the first one of them to see it.

So, no, this definitely isn’t how Foggy pictured the night going. But he’s starting to think it’s okay.

Maybe all of this is okay.

.

“So, that was fun!” Marci says much later, in the cab ride home. “Make a note to invite the Punisher to more parties.”

Foggy groans, too exhausted to feign ignorance or surprise. Marci’s a hell of a lot smarter than he is— of course she figured it out. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“And pop the magical new-relationship bubble those two were living in? Come on, Fog. I’m not that heartless.”

“But weren’t you, I don’t know, freaked out? Because I was freaked out. I mean, less so once the libations kicked in, but still.”

Marci shrugs. “Maybe at first. But honestly, Karen dating Frank Castle is probably the seventh or eighth weirdest thing to happen this year, so I just went with it. Besides, they seemed really happy together.”

“Yeah, they did.” Foggy reaches for her hand, twines their fingers together. “We’re cuter, though, right? Like, objectively.”

“Oh, it’s not even a competition,” Marci agrees, resting her head on his shoulder. “Although— Frank did look pretty great in those reindeer antlers.”

“Don’t remind me. That guy could pull off a burlap sack.” 

Marci prods him in the stomach. “Now who’s admiring the view, huh?”

“Hey, I have eyes,” Foggy laughs. “I can see the appeal. Still not exactly who I’d pick to date one of my best friends, but I guess it could be worse.”

“You’re a good friend, Foggy Bear.”

“Damn right, I am,” Foggy says.

Marci laughs softly, snuggling closer to him, and he smiles down at her before turning his gaze to the city passing by outside the window. 

Nope, not a bad night at all.

[twink-between-worlds]

honey whiskey chapter 11

hey so, yeah, might not update in a while/very slowly bc Sprained Wrist tm

relationships; leg & truth, leg & four

ao3 link; x

Okay, there’s absolutely something wrong.

Legend didn’t take his wing binds off last night, and now something feels… Off. Mix that with the nightmare he had, and today is already terrible. That nightmare is…frequent, and it sometimes feels like a memory that Legend no longer has. There’s always a lot of fire, and a couple figures he can’t make out fully. There’s six, in total. Six figures and Legend doesn’t know—or remember—who they are. He’s tried to fit people he’s met into the empty, vague impressions of where the people in his nightmares stand, but nobody fits it. Not a single person fits, not even Fable. He hates it. Legend’s eyes trailed across the room, frowning when he saw the door was slightly ajar, and jumping when it slammed followed by a familiar little laugh. The laugh of something—someone the prince doesn’t fully understand. “Why are you here, Truth?” “Seems like his royal highness isn’t having a good night.”Truth hummed, materialising in front of the door, leaning on it. “Same thing as always, I assume.” “I repeat; why are you here, Truth?” “Can’t I visit my light counterpart just because I want to?” “It’s you.”Legend raised a brow, frowning. “Fair point.”He laughed, floating over to the young prince. Legend…doesn’t really know what Truth is. Actually, yes he does, he just has a hard time wrapping his head around it. Truth had said he was a shadow, and he physically can’t lie so Legend believed him. But…it’s still weird to think about. His shadow is sentient. “—ey? Hey!”Truth huffed, snapping Legend out of his thoughts. “Don’t you ignore me.” Legend rolled his eyes. “Can you pass me my leg? If we’re going to do this, I’d like to have some coffee in me.” As Truth turned to get the prosthetic, Legend’s eyes were glued to the other. More specifically—the other’s wings. Truth is a shadow, after all, and so he sports his own pair of wings. His are also multiple colours, much like Legends, and still developing too. The base of his wings are black, and the two existing colours are blue and what looks like orange. Legend can see some magenta peeking through, too. But the main difference is that Truth’s wings are big, beautiful, and healthy. His wings are much healthier than Legend’s own. “Here.”Truth passed the leg to his light counterpart, standing to the side as Legend attached it and got up. Legend quietly and carefully made his way to the kitchen, ignoring the confused look Truth shot him. “Why are you sneaking inside your own house?” “Because I don’t know if Four is awake,”He replied. “And if voi isn’t, I don’t want to wake void up.” “Four? That the creepy, little one?” “Yep.”Legend sighed, hopping up onto the kitchen counter to grab a mug as he boiled some water. “What’s that kid’s deal, anyways?” “Voi’s literally the same age as us.” “That little thing is 19?” “Mh, ‘parrently so.” “Never woulda guessed that.”Truth blinked, rolling his eyes in annoyance towards his own words. “Remind me why you can’t lie?” “Lied to the wrong person. Got cursed.” Legend paused, looked at Truth for a second, before placing the mug down and clapping sarcastically. “Well done, ya dumbfuck.” “Fuck off.” Legend grinned, making his coffee with a gentle hum. “Who’s your friend?” Both Legend and his shade jumped, looking around only to find Four, sitting on the kitchen table in the dark. “You’re…so fuckin weird, yanno that?”Legend let out a breath, huffing when Four let out a cackle. “Well aware, thanks. So, who’s your friend?” “The name’s Truth, ya creepy little fucker.” “Truth?” “Cause he can’t lie.”Legend shrugged. “He’s my shadow.” “Your shadow, huh? Interesting. Anyways! Why’re you up?” “Why are you up?” “If I sleep now I’ll have a nightmare about the time I tried to kill my partner.” “...oh—” “Now why are you up? Don’t change the subject again.” Legend glanced to where Truth had been standing, only to find that the bastard had disappeared into his shadow again. “Bitch,”He mumbled under his breath, glancing back at Four with a sigh. “I had a nightmare.” Four blinked, and hopped up onto the kitchen counter, looking at Legend. “What was it about?” “Four—” “Talking about it can help. You can trust me, I won’t tell a soul. Have I told anyone else about your other secrets?” “...no.”Legend sighed. “I don’t—really know what it’s about. There’s just a lot of fire and people I don’t recognise or remember…”Legend trailed off, thinking back on it. …Four fits the size of at least 4 of the figures—meaning it could be the colours, and Legend has a history of predicting events in dreams… “I think—something might happen to you…the four of you, I mean.” “Oh?”Four frowned, taking Legend’s hands into his own. “Like what?” “I…don’t know.”Legend mumbled quietly, and he doesn’t know why but he’s crying. “I dunno, Four.” “Hey hey—shh.”Four frowned, tugging Legend over into a hug. “It’s okay. Nothin’s gunna happen. Pinky promise?”Four mumbled, holding his pinky finger out, smiling faintly when Legend quietly hooked their pinky fingers together.

When Legend glanced up, he didn’t see his best friend there—he saw his uncle in Four’s icy blue eyes.

[fallforfables]

First of all I want to say I’m sorry for for the way Terrence treated you. I hope writing this blog has been therapeutic for you and your healing. Please only answer if you feel comfortable, but I wanted to ask how you felt about the recent YouTube video that discussed your abuse. I used to be a repo fan a few years back, and watched that video when it came on my suggests. It was my introduction to the youtuber, and to your blog and well. Watching the video felt a bit upsetting, but also helped me make sense of my experience in the fandom and the weird culture of these niche gothy fanspaces where a lot of ickyness and misogyny goes unnoticed. I imagine the extra attention you got from the video might have been stressful. I wanted to hear what you thought about it and whether hearing someone else talking about it felt therapeutic to you. Hearing Laura talk about your involvement in so many of these art projects made me feel for you, because I realized how invested you must have been in these movies as well. Wherever you are, I hope you are able to still be involved in art and/or projects that you love.

Thank you! Between being able to share what happened to me and actual therapy, I'm better than I've ever been. Progress is a not-fun roller coaster, but I have so many more days where I can look back on my life with him and laugh about the ridiculousness rather than cry about the damage done.

I have really mixed feelings about the video. Laura's critique of the movie and terrance's work was hilariously on point and the whole video is just super enjoyable to watch, as both an ex-Repo! fan and someone who enjoys snarky media critique.

While I understand her reasoning as to why she never reached out to me, I don't agree with it. I'm honestly still a little mad about it and I don't know that I ever won't be. It would have been nice to have been asked for permission, which I would have happily given. It would even have been nice to have a head's up, whether or not she wanted my permission. There's just something uncomfortable - to me, the subject - about someone else telling my story - which is in good part about being left out of my own story - and leaving me out of it.

Obviously she couldn't have known this, but also, the video dropped at a time when things were not so hot for me. I didn't really have the energy to spare for that unexpected burst of attention, but I still felt like I had to run to catch up to all of it since I hadn't been given the opportunity to get in front of it and prepare. It's been a long time since I had active bullies, but the comments on the video absolutely awoke that same feeling again - except, tbh, kind of worse because I knew I couldn't jump in and defend myself or cut anyone to the quick with my sharp wit without looking like a whole idiot. Reading them became something of a self-harm routine for weeks after, where I'd be refreshing the video multiple times a day to see if there were any new hateful, ignorant takes about me - which I really didn't need at a time in my life when I already had other things making me feel isolated, not listened to, and hated. And, look, I know that knowing she was going to make this video wouldn't have saved me from any of that, but...I don't know, I would have liked to have been able to do some prep work with my therapist beforehand rather than being forced to frantically try to patch the cracks after.

At the end of the day, I do think it's good that the video exists. I'm glad it's put more attention than I've ever been able to on the fact that he's a self-important, predatory bag of trash. I want people to stay safe from his bullshit and I want people to hear a funny, inciteful take-down of his overinflated ego. If there's more than one place on the internet for people do that, that's a good thing!