#Mostly spousal but also like parents abusing kids

[pathogenic]

Vampire the Masquerade Questions for Anabell, Harriet, Cali, and Jules

I. ESSENTIALS

1. What name did they go by as a Kine, and what name do they go by now? Why and how did they choose this name, if it’s different?

Anabell - It's no different than the one she has now - she has always been Anabell Blaines, she will die Anabell Blaines. She would only pick up a new name if she starts to live for a little too long (but so far, this has not happened).

Harriet - Harriet is much the same, but it would take a lot more for her to pick up a new name. She'll just say she was named after her mother if things get too long.

Cali - Cali's fun - he's had this nickname his entire life, but I did toy with the idea that once he's lived long enough (and if his humanity continues to drop), that he'd be Nero to those he doesn't know. They don't get that familiarity.

Jules - Jules picked this name for themselves prior to death. Works well since it isn't documented anywhere. They're not parting with it any time soon, thanks.

2. What year were they born (or how old would they be in life), and what age do they appear? What age do they feel?

This is where I have to admit that my bookkeeping for my vampires and their ages is very weak!

Anabell - Anabell would have been born in the 40s as she was in her 20s when the 60s rolled around. During this time she was a party girl and definitely was big in the hippie scene. It wasn't until the 70s that she had her crisis and worked to become a priest, then in the 80s she was Embraced. So she appears to be in her early 40s, but she should be pushing 80 by now. She still feels pretty young.

Harriet - Harriet would have been in the start of her 30s when she was Embraced, and she's only been Kindred for a few years. She doesn't feel that different from when she died just yet.

Cali - Cali would have been born around 92, and I'd have to double check my notes to see if he was embraced 2014 (We have the luxury of real dates here, ST is that organized and I'm in awe still). He was 22 when he died, so by now, he would be 32. He certainly looks like he could pass for being older than he is, which is his saving grace right now. This won't be the case for much longer and boy is he aware of it. Cali is my youngest Embrace.

Jules - Okay so by my math, the game Jules is set in is in the year 2000, Jules have been Kindred for about 3-ish years at that point, so they were embraced roughly 1997. By then Jules would be starting to hit their thirties, so they would be born between 1967-1970. By now they would be hitting their 50s in 2024, and certainly doesn't feel it.

3. Which Clan do they belong to? How do they feel about their Clan?

Anabell - Anabell is a Brujah! She matches the idealist portion of her Clan very well as she is very passionate about the idea of salvation and the fact that folks can be redeemed. She doesn't like the iconoclast portion of her clan and finds them all to be ruffians with nothing better to do than to cause problems. Her emotions run hot and she can have a difficult time keeping a lid on them during tense moments making her Very Brujah.

Harriet - Harriet is a Ventrue. So far her main exposure to the clan is her husband, Frederick, and the Prince of London, Mithras, so her opinion of them is incredibly skewed. She feels like she has some very big shoes to fill and is doing her best to live up to the examples provided to her. No doubt once she meets some more Ventrues and sees some more... tame examples, she will flourish in this clan just fine.

Cali - Look at him. Look at his personality. This man is a Toreador who should have been a Ventrue, but my god doesn't he make one hell of a Toreador? His general opinion of the clan is rather good since both Frankie and Callum are Toreadors as well. True there are some horrid people in the clan that he'd rather not acknowledge, but he rather likes his clan. He wouldn't say that out loud however.

Jules - Jules is Caitiff and would be the first to tell you that this shit sucks. 0/10, do not do this. They're constantly being picked on for this fact and they're not trusted by most Kindred. This shit is NOT fun.

4. Which Predator type do they most align with and why?

Anabell - She is an Osiris predator type! She feeds off of her own congregation because that is what was easy to do. They trust her, and she doesn't think she is hurting them since the Kiss seems to feel good. She is a natural leader and it is very easy to keep them in line so no one blabs (She is... very good with Presence, whether she likes to admit it or not)

Harriet - She is a Scene Queen that feeds from her own occult circles. She liked to invite them over for seances and other scary events. When the lights are low, it's not hard to sneak in a little nibble - plus it adds to the atmosphere! Do those girls even know they really are in a room with a monster? That's her fun little secret.

Cali - Oh this is a fun one, he was a Scene Queen who worked hipster bars and would start bar fights if he was caught being a little too on the nose, but now? Well, now Cali is an Extortionist who learned that by working with Finlay (who went from Sandman to Trapdoor), he can coerce folks into letting him take blood and not saying a word about it. To be fair, with the way he hunted previously where he'd single out someone who looked like an easy target and then abandon them somewhere for others to clean up, he was already heading down this path.

Jules - Jules is presently a Bagger. Due to how much they unsettle others and the fact that they're just... not comfortable with this whole Kiss ordeal, they find it a lot easier to just buy blood from their buddy Broseph. Of course, they'll come to discover that this won't work forever and that their wallet DOES have a bottom...

5. Who Sired them, and into what Generation were they Sired? What’s their relationship with their Sire like, and what were the circumstances of their Embrace?

Anabell - Her name is Shirley and she was a prostitute from the 1800s out in Texas when the cattle trade was huge. Anabell is 11th generation Brujah. Shirley had selected Anabell for the Embrace because she discovered that she had True Faith.

Shirley WANTS to live again and thought that maybe if she pushed Anabell and tested her faith, she could get her to the point where she could turn the undead back into living beings. If it worked - well, Anabell could revive herself and then Shirley and they could be done with this whole thing! No harm, no foul.

Except it didn't work, and Anabell lost her faith. They both resent each other for this. Shirley did the bare minimum as a Sire afterwards, and Anabell had to figure out how to live on her own, which fucked her up because hey. This is her mother again, isn't it?

Harriet - Her husband is her sire, and iirc she is an 12th generation Ventrue, but I would need to double check. She was Embraced partially because she wanted to be (due to her fascination with what her husband is), but also because she was a danger since she did snoop and found out more than she should have.

She is blood bound to her husband, so she cannot act against him easily. She is aware that he is not the best person ever, but well, she still loves him because she has to, and she's not about to be a bad wife. That would be a bad, terrible stain on her reputation.

Cali - Cali was embraced by the ex-Prince of Glasgow, Alex. He is a 10th generation Toreador. Their relationship is... Woof. Cali initially liked her a lot because she was his ticket to success. He worked hard to please her and to provide her with the art pieces she wanted to gentrify Glasgow. He was her ghoul for awhile.

The problem is Cali is not a romantic guy, he has fallen in love with exactly one person both in life and death, and it was not Alex. He could never be the object of fascination that she wanted. When he was Embraced, it was rushed, panicked, and sloppy.

Cali soon found that he chaffed under the Camarilla. How could he be the Childe of the Prince and be nobody at all? This caused them to have frequent spats before Cali finally fucked off and then his friend Frankie was Embraced instead. He still has a very sour relationship with Alex and refuses to have much of anything to do with her.

Jules - Jules doesn't know their sire, nor their generation, not that that matters. They just know that when trying to figure out what happened to Lloyd, they got too close and someone took care of them after that. Now here they are.

6. What level of Humanity are they? Has this changed over the years they’ve been dead?

Anabell - She is at Humanity 7 and does everything she can to keep it that way. She does not want to become a real monster and she wants to make sure she can always go back to being human (nevermind the fact that you need Humanity 10 for that - I know it, she doesn't)

Harriet - Currently she is at Humanity 7, though ideally she should be closer to Humanity 6. She is not very humane when it comes to more Kine and is eager to let go of her humanity. I'm sure this will be normal and fine.

Cali - My boy is at Humanity 5. He's brutal, pure and simple, and that willingness to step on others and his methods for hunting has caused him to get more detatched from his humanity. Plus killing and Embracing his ghoul didn't help any...

Jules - Humanity 7. Rather in touch with people and does their best to keep it that way, even if they're a little unnerving to be around.

7. Which Disciplines do they possess, and which do they favor using?

Anabell - Presence, Dominate, Potence. Best discipline is Presence, though it is tied with Potence right now. Best ability is Spark of Rage.

Harriet - Dominate, Presence, Fortitude. Best discipline is Dominate, best ability is Cloud Memory (she's baby right now). Wants Auspex.

Cali - Wide spread actually... Presence, Dominate, Auspex, Fortitude. Best discipline is tied between Presence and Fortitude. Best ability is Toughness. Got Fortitude by swapping blood with his partner, Finlay (Hecata).

Jules - Auspex, Obfuscate, and Potence. Best discipline is Obfuscate. Best ability is Prowess. More dots in Obfuscate to hide and steal, but uses Prowess more to keep coteriemates safe.

8. Who are their Touchstones, if any?

I'll do one each since I find that is the best way to do Touchstones is to have A person who represents that character's humanity. (Thanks Von)

Anabell - That would be Father Ryan. He is a very non-judgemental guy and was the first real friend Anabell made since she started her new work. He is very kind and open and that is what she aspires to be.

Harriet - Her butler Ellis fits the bill here. He has been something of a father figure since hers left her life. He is dedicated, loyal, and very kind towards her. She would be very lost without him.

Cali - His lawyer, ha. He was supposed to go to college to work for Mr. Morcambe, but life changed for him and he decided to drop out and go to art school instead. He still keeps in touch with Mr. Morcambe for... reasons. (He is a troublemaker.)

Jules - Mr. Boshaw - he runs a lot of the local venues, so Jules keeps in touch with him to make sure Lloyd's radio show has accurate information on upcoming shows. They love Mr. Boshaw's jovial, playful demeanor. Helps keep them light as well.

9. What are their Convictions (moral opinions and standings they hold fast to)?

Anabell - Keep to the Commandments, Seek forgiveness whenever possible.

Harriet - Keep your hand hidden and a smile on your face, Curiosity is the most important part of life

Cali - Never be poor again, Be prepared to step on others to get ahead in life

Jules - The most important thing in life is to have fun, Keep those closest to you safe and stand your ground.

10. Do they belong to any sect or are they independent?

Camarilla - Anabell Blaines, Jules Guillory, Harriet Berkeley

Sabbat - For one game, Anabell was converted to the Sabbat

Anarch - Nero "Cali" Ramsay

II. LIFE

1. What did they do (as a career or in general) before they were Embraced?

Anabell - She was a priest for an Anglican church.

Harriet - She was a housewife.

Cali - An artist in resident doing public works of art.

Jules - Ran a record store and a radio show with their partner.

2. Do they still have mortal family or friends, or descendants of those people? Who were they closest to during life, and is there anyone they’ve contacted after their Embrace?

Anabell - Well, functionally yes, she would still consider herself to be a friend to Father Ryan, but they lost touch, and now she knows she would definitely register as wrong to him since they're getting on in years and she has not aged. She doesn't keep in contact with her family, but she does keep in touch with those that attend her church. She hasn't reached out to anyone else from her life since her death. Most are starting to die off at this point anyways.

Harriet - She is still very much attached to her mortal life. She keeps in touch with those that she holds social gatherings with and pretend to be alive, she still is in touch with her mother, and she had no kids of her own (Frederick was already dead when they met thus they could not conceive). She is going to have a very hard time when she needs to break these contacts.

Cali - Mixed bag. A lot of those hew as close to in life in Glasgow are also dead now, so that does make it harder to stay human. Most of his mortal contacts now are business related, or he knows them second hand through Finlay. He has been in contact with his family, but that is very light and he is starting to realize he needs to break that kind of soon. He's a little hesitant because he worries how they'll handle his "death".

Jules - Jules still has a lot of contacts from life, specifically from the music scene. They weren't really that close to anyone beyond Lloyd, so they aren't too worried about how their mortal life pushes in on their Kindred life. They'll burn that bridge when they get there. Since they weren't close to their family at all, that was an easy one to toss.

3. What were their hobbies, skills, and interests?

Anabell - She likes music and collects vinyls that she likes to play in her apartment, but she also sews, she embroiders, she loves to read, she loves debate. Those are her kinds of things.

Harriet - She would love calligraphy if she had given it a shot, but she loves writing and making things look pretty in that regard. She loves the occult and would often participate in various seances and she would carry out her own investigations. This is also another one who was an avid reader.

Cali - Huge sci-fi nerd, but will never own up to it. Like he has a collection still, but keeps it hidden because he'd rather folks didn't know how much of a nerd he really is. He also liked video games and board games, but stopped playing them almost all together since he died.

Jules - Beyond music and going to concerts, Jules has a good mechanical sense. They like taking things apart and putting them back together. They do a lot of DIY as a result.

4. Did they have any vices, addictions, or mental illnesses? Which carried over into death?

Anabell - She is... better at lying than she likes and isn't above using it to help herself out. She wouldn't consider herself really dependent on anything, but her lying habits did follow into death. She also has a hyperfixation problem that definitely followed in.

Harriet - She obsesses and hyper fixates, and that definitely followed into death. She is also rather easily paranoid and all this vampire business has only validated those anxieties.

Cali - Given how I play him, he has ADHD for sure and his Toreador-ness has only made it worse. The man is prone to fixating on a project hard and not really stopping for anything or anyone. He also is fairly restless and lacks much of a filter.

Jules - Jules has honest to god depression and will not seek aid for this. This followed into death, but they have difficulties with motivation and finding the will to do a lot of things, but everyone gets like that - right?

5. What were they most afraid of in life? How has this changed?

Anabell - To be condemned and damned, and becoming Kindred has made this like 10x worse, so it became a central point to her character.

Harriet - She mostly feared an uncertain future and failing the expectations people have of her. This has not changed in death as she feels she still has to play the role of The Good Wife to Frederick.

Cali - Stagnation, death, finding out everyone was right about him being a failure. This is what drives him to aim higher and higher and higher. Icarus type character.

Jules - Isolation. Losing Lloyd is what pushed them to their death, and they fear it happening again, and now there are more Kindred they are attached to. It's getting scary for them!

6. What were their goals and ambitions in life? How has this changed?

Anabell - Simply put, Anabell wanted to help others and to ease their suffering. If she can make sure someone in her congregation doesn't go through the same hell she did growing up, she'll consider that a success. Now it has become saving others to saving herself as she gets older.

Harriet - She wanted to be a good wife, but she also wanted to know more about the supernatural world. Now that she's in, she can really start to dig deeper and deeper. She wants to be a scholar in her own right by the looks of things. I should get her into Noddism, truly.

Cali - He still has something to prove. He has his degree, he has put out works that people can recognize. Now he wants to be a name, he wants to be an artist people just know. Now in death, there is still that drive, but he wants to be someone in charge, someone calling the shots. He wants to be a big dog here.

Jules - Mostly, Jules didn't have a lot of ambition. They're kind of content where they were, running a shop with their partner, just surviving. In death, they're mostly concerned with protecting their coterie, but they also are starting to wonder what eternity looks like for them. What the fuck do they want to achieve? Is it enough to just live?

7. Did they follow any religion or spiritual paths in life? How did that change when they died, if at all?

Anabell - Anglican in life and death, though lost her True Faith ability because she views herself as being abandoned by God. She wants to get back and she wants to be redeemed, but is that possible for her? She doesn't know and the answer scares the shit out of her.

Harriet - She's Protestant, but doesn't really practice. She can talk the talk if anyone looks at her too closely, but is she really a good Christian? Ehhh... She goes to church sometimes - what more do you want?

Cali - Presbyterian in name only. Doesn't attend church, doesn't really follow any teachings, but if you asked, that's his best guess, otherwise he'd say that it really isn't for him.

Jules - Full on atheist. Not interested in religion in life, not about to start in death.

8. When they were Embraced, what was the aftermath like? Did they fake their death, do their loved ones think they went missing, etc.?

None have gone so far as to fake their death yet and many of them, as mentioned above, do have contact with friends and/or family prior to death. Some like Cali have claimed to develop a disease, so they cannot be in the sunlight anymore and work mostly in the nighttime.

Anabell would be the one closest to ending her mortal life and finding a way to either remake herself or start building a network so she can dodge the public. Cali realizes that he's going to have to do this soon, but he has time. Jules doesn't really see that mattering yet, and Harriet is quite frankly too young to even worry about it, Kindred wise.

III. DEATH

1. What have they spent most of their years as a Kindred doing?

Anabell - Mostly, she has been working at her church and trying to keep a low profile. In the Houston campaign, she was helping resolve an Infernalist issue, and for the Tucson one, she has been picked up by the Sabbat and is working on going more towards the Orthodoxy.

Harriet - She's joined a coterie against her husbands wishes because it has been demanded of her. She is looking into weird supernatural occurrences around London, primarily she is looking into a series of murders that have a primary suspect being a local Kindred.

Cali - Oh, you know, overthrowing the Camarilla in Glasgow. Normal things. Mostly he is part of the source of a lot of political instability in the area because he's trying to shape things the way he wants them to be. Alarmingly successful little brat at it too.

Jules - Mostly investigating a weird event in New Orleans that caused all the local Kindred and some Kine to frenzy. They also spend a lot of time working on that stolen Jeep for some reason. They really, really like that damn thing.

2. What’s the entire lineage of their bloodline, from them all the way back to their Clan’s Antediluvian? Is there anything in particular that they and their grandsires all had in common?

The only one that has anything interesting going on here is Cali. Frankie is currently looking into this, and since they have the same sire, what's true for them is true for Cali as well, so stay tuned. I just know that he has a fascinating Toreador line.

I don't know about his grandsires, but I do know that Cali has a weird theme of cycles around him as he was ghouled by Alex, was Embraced as a rush part, and his relationship soured and he defected. Lo and behold, his Childe Daniel has a very similar story going on.

3. How do they adapt to the changing times around them? Do they still uphold values, styles, or other things from the past?

Anabell - She is getting antiquated. Her mannerism, her slang, her fashion, it's all getting older and she finds herself out of place. It's what is making her really worry about what she'll be doing and where she'll be soon enough.

Harriet - Has not been dead long enough to even start thinking about this.

Cali - He's not really out of date, mercifully. Once that happens, he's going to be floored. To be fair though, Cali has always been something of a grandpa compared to his peers so he might adapt just fine, actually. He makes retro work.

Jules - They look like majority of their generation right now, so they aren't too worried. Once that population ages though, they might be in trouble. Still, they keep up with local metal scenes and they feel that they can adapt. Time will tell if they're right.

4. Do they have a coterie? What position do they take in that group, if so? Otherwise, do they have any notable Kindred (or other creatures) friends?

Anabell - She sure did! She was the political leader there and often lead the discussions with important figures. She did, however, sell them all out to hunters that promised they could turn her human and she got shot in the back of the head and killed for it! :D

As for the Tucson game, she is an SPC, but she is now tied to the actual pack of that game as one of the player characters, Penny, is shaping her up to be a Bishop.

Harriet - She is part of a coterie and plays more of a specialist role. She is their tie to high society and their in for more upper class places, but mostly she provides her knowledge on occult happenings in the city.

Cali - Cali is kind of the tactician of the group? I'd love to say he's the muscle, but to be frank, Finlay fills that role better. Cali does a lot of planning and takes a lot of hits for everyone. He's a somewhat smart punching-bag.

Jules - They're mostly the one who sneaks around and does some underhanded work. When it comes to it, though, they're one hell of a tank alongside Lloyd. They liked to make sure no one gets hurt.

5. Which of their Clan’s stereotypes apply to them? Which do they act against, or embody the opposite of?

Anabell - She is a very emotional character, and this makes her easier to rile up, falling in line with the typical image of a Brujah. She falls very well into the Idealist group of Brujah and has grand visions for herself, but not necessarily Kindred as a whole. Still, she is not the rebel punk that you imagine when you hear Brujah!

Harriet - She's high class, she is very well put together, she would probably do just fine in a board meeting, she likes things to be orderly. In that respect, she is a proper Ventrue. However, she is so invested in magic and mystery that she would have made a much better Tremere.

Cali - Insufferable artist, but he doesn't match the whole idea of the pretty flirt Toreador that the books like to present. He's rude, he doesn't keep up with his appearance as much as others in his clan, he is not going to mesh with the high class parties associated with the clan. Still, he would have made a fine Ventrue with his lust for power and desire to rule.

Jules - Caitiff so heyo.

6. How do they feel about the Antitribu of their Clan?

Non-applicable. None of them have met Antitribu.

7. Have they Embraced anyone? Ghouled anyone?

Anabell - Had a ghoul once to keep a character safe so he didn't get killed by the Camarilla. I don't consider this to really be a part of her canon anymore though. :0 No Embraces!

Harriet - She has considered ghouling Ellis, but decided against it as she would like to man to have an end to his days, he deserves that much.

Cali - YES. He had a Ghoul named Daniel who he kept to basically help promote his art and secure gallery deals, but he ate him and turned him into another Toreador. Oops!

Jules - No and frankly really hates the idea of ghouling, much less changing anyone.

8. Do they prowl, or is there a city they permanently reside in?

Anabell - Primarily was in Houston. For the Sabbat game, she moved to Tucson.

Harriet - Lives in London, unlikely to move any time soon.

Cali - Primarily lives in Glasgow, due to circumstances in a game, he might be moving Edinburgh, but he hopes that is not permanent.

Jules - Is from Portland, moved to New Orleans.

9. What’s their haven like?

Anabell - It is a small 1 bed, 1 bath. She has a cross wall like any good Texan that she likes to routinely shuffle around. Her furniture is mostly dated and definitely has a retro 80s kind of feel to them. She has a prized gramophone that she likes to use from time to time, but she does have a more modern record player as well. It feels very homely and welcoming.

Harriet - Shares an estate with her husband. It is nice and has plenty of decorations, but the estate feels very cold. Her mother usually stays, but she also has her own smaller home that she goes back to from time to time. Pretty much envision the most stereotypical posh Victorian home and you got it.

Cali - Used to live in an apartment that was referred to as Casa de Arse by Frankie and Callum (Cali refused the name for the longest time). It's nice enough and it is decently furnished, but it was rather clear a bunch of 20-somethings lived here with how spare it was decorated. Cali also sun-proofed the place, so the windows are a little sketchy.

Since then though, he moved into the Tower with Finlay. There he has a small apartment and helps run the pub there, mostly being a bouncer when there is trouble. One of the floors has been converted into a studio for him to work in, and that part looks like a bomb went off between his small-scale stone works and clay works. He doesn't do big-scale projects here as it would be impossible to move around.

Jules - They also have a small apartment that is mostly trashed as Jules is not very good at this whole "cleaning" business, but they do try. Since their death though, they find it is a lot easier to keep the place nice. Mostly full of clothes, CDs, a TV, some sheets on both a bed and a couch, things like that.

They also have a bunker under the record store in case him and Lloyd lose track of time. They made it the greatest 70s abomination possible complete with shitty shag carpet. There is a TV with a game console and a boombox down there along with a cot. It's hideous.

10. Do they believe they are descended from Caine, or do they follow a different path?

None of them really go down this path at all, but Anabell can certainly be convinced. She is the only one who is close to this ideology.

If Harriet knew it existed, she would certainly gobble this up as well...

11. How do they feel about Diablerie?

Anabell - For her Camarilla game, that is a solid no, you don't do this. For the Sabbat, you probably shouldn't, but really she is coming around to the idea... She could probably diablerize some folks and get away with it. Rather keen on the idea of having someone with you forever, but hates the fast that she could lose herself if they win.

Harriet - Not interested, and not super aware of it's existence either. Once she knows of it though, I can't see her being too keen on trying it.

Cali - On paper? He'd say that it's a shit idea. If it was presented to him and he knew it would probably up his chances to be stronger? He'd do it. He's tough, he'd win (probably not).

Jules - Hell no. They're technically in a Vaulderie (long story), but they won't do anything beyond that.

12. Regardless of whether or not they adhere to Camarilla rule, have they ever broken any of the Traditions?

Anabell - Actually, she's rather good at keeping to these. She kind of thrives with rules to play in. The only one I can see her committing is breaking the Rule of Destruction. If she felt someone was out of line and the Camarilla was too slow to act, then she'll be the hand of God here.

Harriet - Another one who is rather good at this. She would probably break the Rules of Hospitality by accident as she might feel it is more important that they come to her.

Cali - Ha. Smashed the rules of Domain and Progeny. Fuck your territory, and by the way, new Toreador in town.

Jules - Would knowingly break the Rules of Hospitality. Fuck you, you don't need to know that they're in town. They don't care to play kiss ass to a Prince like that.

13. Do they believe in Gehenna? How do they feel about Thin-bloods, and do they believe they’re a sign of the end times?

None really believe in Gehenna and believe it all to be bullshit. None feel particularly strong about Thin-Bloods. If anything, Cali is rather warm to them due to Sorcha. He likes to give her grief, but he rather enjoys having her around.

14. Have they ever Frenzied? What happened?

Anabell - Has indeed had a fear frenzy and a hunger frenzy. The second is how she discovers her cool flaw Stigmata - so once she is hungry enough, she begins to show the wounds of Christ. Which. Did freak her out a lot.

Cali - Yes! The first time he met Finlay, Finlay ended up stabbing him in the throat. During the recovery of this incident, he went into a hunger frenzy and ate Daniel. :)

The other two have not had any notably frenzies.

IV. SECTS & NON-CAINITES

What do they think about…

1. …the Camarilla?

Anabell - It is order, it is the only thing that makes sense in this undead life as they are trying to make sure they don't rock the boat too much. When converting to the Sabbat, she thinks they are blind to the larger picture. They serve old Kindred instead of God and they cannot see that these old Kindred are trouble.

Harriet - It's all she knows so far, but she likes the order they provide. Surely without the Camarilla, all Kindred would be wild and they would be wiped out by Hunters and then what!? Her adventures and her exploration would be over!

Cali - Old farts that don't know how to change their ways even if they tried. He doesn't mind the Camarilla per se, but come on, you have to be older than everyone there to make decisions? Christ, no one needs to hold his hand and make his decisions for him, thanks.

Jules - It sucks, but they suppose it works. They are keeping an open mind to other possible routes though.

2. …the Anarch movement?

Anabell - She gets it, but she thinks they're unorganized and that their infighting is just going to cause larger issues. She doesn't ever really see herself joining their fight as she would much rather spend her time doing something more productive than arguing about structures and who should lead.

Harriet - The moment she meets them, I know she's just going to think they're a bunch of malcontents wailing about nothing because they aren't the ones in charge. She doesn't think they would even know what to do with themselves if they had the power they keep crying for. Pathetic in her eyes.

Cali - It's the only way to be. It's fluid, which allows them to adapt to the times and to keep up with the world. It allows for young Kindred to actually contribute something. Old Kindred might know a thing or two about survival, but what do they know about the modern age? He also sees it as an opportunity to get that power he wants.

Jules - They'd almost go for them, but damn, the ones that they met were just a bunch of wanna-be punks with no greater ideas other than "we gotta stick it to the man!" Is that really the best they can do? They're almost embarrassed to be seen with them.

3. …the Sabbat?

Anabell - She used to think they were a bunch of brainwashed idiots who was marching forward in a death cult, but since joining them, she found there is more structure and order than she originally gave them credit for. She rather likes their view on being vampires and finds herself agreeing with their theology.

Harriet - She won't like them when she meets them and would share the sentiments with Anabell about them being a death cult. Who cares if they have political leaders? Have you seen the way they treat the lowest rung? They're nothing more than fodder for the older Cainites to play with.

Cali - Has never actually encountered any Sabbat, but would find them to be insufferable.

Jules - They keep picking up young Kindred in New Orleans and turning them out to do stupid things to fuck with the Camarilla. So they find them annoying. Plus they wrecked their record shop at one point, so fuck them.

V. CLANS

What do they think about…

1. …Clan Banu Haqim?

Only Anabell has met anyone from the Banu Haqim. Her and her coterie rescued him from a Tzimisce home. She is rather impressed by the one she met and enjoyed talking with him since he was a very polite fellow. She would like to know more about the clan and what they do.

2. …Clan Brujah?

Anabell - Oh, some are just fine and are actually nice Kindred to speak with. They're a passionate lot and that can be used to do a lot of good, but some are nothing more than punks who want to be angry at everything. She doesn't care much for those Brujah.

Harriet - The ones she have seen seem to have a chip on their shoulder against her. She doesn't care much for their rebellious nature, but some are perfectly reasonable folks. As a whole though, she'd rather avoid them.

Cali - His only real encounter with the Brujah have been through a Scourge named Miss Drake that turned him into a CapriSun at one point. They're a rather scary, brutish lot to him.

Jules - Rather fond of the Brujah, given that Lloyd is one. They're a fun crowd that really knows how to party. They'd probably want to be a Brujah if they had the choice.

3. …Clan Gangrel?

Anabell - Doesn't know too many Gangrel, but the ones she know are quiet and reserved types. They're brutal, but they get the job done. She doesn't like nor dislike them, but she doesn't go out of her way to do much with the Clan.

Harriet - The man Gangrel she know is a coterie member named Selena. So far her impressions are they are a very removed sort, but they're really good at their jobs within the Camarilla. She can respect that.

Cali - He got intimidated to hell by a Gangrel. 0/10, doesn't like them much.

Jules - Eh, they're the wild clan right? The ones he knows don't really like to work with the Camarilla much and would much rather just lead their Kindred lives away from the political nonsense. They can dig it.

4. …Clan Hecata (or their predecessor clans, Giovanni and Cappadocian)?

The only one that has had any real contact with the Hecata is Cali and good god is he in love. Cali never cared for magical bullshit before, but seeing Finlay perform Necromancy changed his mind real quick. He likes working for the Hecata and, if he could, he would genuinely try to get in with them, even knowing all the family and political bullshit that goes on within the family.

5. …Clan Lasombra?

Anabell - After getting in with the Sabbat, she rather likes the Lasombra and finds that she has something in common with this clan. She doesn't care for the Social Darwinism that is the core part of the clan, but the strong contemplation on self and what they are is very in line with her.

Jules - Hates them simply because they know it was a Lasombra that's stalking them and fucking things up for them. They know their store was hit by a Lasombra and ooooh when they catch them...

6. …Clan Malkavian?

Anabell - A source of many headaches. She is used to wrangling Malkavians. It's not their fault that they are insane due to their Clan curse, but please stop giving her the most insane visions and making her go on goose chases. She's about to lose it.

Harriet - She rather likes them and would like to meet some more. Quincy, the main Malkavian she knows, is rather kind and seems to see the world better than she can. She wishes she could see the world through their eyes sometimes. What is it like to hear your other clanmates all the time? What's it like to know things you shouldn't?

Cali - Troublesome lot that have a knack for melting his friend's brains. There was a Malkavian Baron that they blew up because she melted Callum's brain. Chez is a new member of the Wild Roses who is a Malk, so his opinion may change because Chez is starting to both impress and scare Cali.

Jules - They're fine, they just are dealing with a really weird clan curse that they cannot even begin to understand how frustrating it is. Both of his Malkavian party members are under their wing at this point. Vala is young and inexperienced and doesn't know how to cope with being a Malk yet, Natalie is just fascinated by the dead, it's not like they can boast that they're in in a much better mental state. They honestly think everyone else is too hard on the Malks.

7. …Clan Ministry (Followers of Set)?

Cali doesn't trust them. The only one he knows if Felicia King and she is a very slimy character. She's honest, but she is still very manipulative. He keeps his contact with them to a minimum. He's very glad that Frankie did not join her cult...

8. …Clan Nosferatu?

Anabell - Firmly believes that the clan is full of tricksters at this point. Every Nosferatu she has ever met has been a complete and utter troll of some kind. Has a theory that they're doing this on purpose to fuck with her, and to be fair, she is partially right. They do think it is fun to work her up.

Harriet - Quick to judge them, really. They look repulsive, they don't like to play nice with other Kindred majority of the time. Still, they have their uses, so there is no sense in tossing them out...

Cali - The only one he knows is Foghat and he was a weird dude. Nothing inherently harmful about him, though. Just odd.

Jules - They're completely convinced that they have to be the most humane of all Kindred. This might be the nicest clan to them since they were uncovered to be Caitiff. Sure they're weird and rather eccentric, but that's not a bad thing. They rather enjoy working with the Nossies.

9. …Clan Ravnos?

Harriet only knows Riley so far and finds the clan to be troublesome, but dangerously fun. Every time she works with Riley, she finds herself on a new insane adventure that she is finding she... rather enjoys. That's trouble!

10. …Clan Toreador?

Anabell - No real opinion. She worked with Toreador in both campaigns and finds them to be a reasonable lot with a strong aesthetic sense, usually. She doesn't really think highly or poorly of them.

Harriet - Ah, a clan worth being around. Sure some are strange and off putting, but most are pleasant and have lots of interesting things to talk about! She rather likes the Toreador.

Cali - A pompous crowd, but the best of the Kindred around, really. Since Glasgow is dominated by Toreador, he has a lot of exposure to his own clan. He thinks that they're an adaptable lot and that they can fill whatever role is needed of them. I wouldn't say he's proud to be Toreador, but he can't see himself being much else.

Jules - Weirdos, said with all the affection that they can muster. All the Toreador in New Orleans are just as strange as the Malkavians, but some have a stick up their ass about it. Jules likes the more down-to-earth Toreador.

11. …Clan Tremere?

Anabell - She has no clue what to make of the clan. Their abilities are terrifying and amazing, and majority of the Tremere she met were very reasonable folks, but that blood magic... That can't be holy, that's an abomination of some kind.

Cali - To be fair, he only really knows Jamie and he thinks that Jamie is an arrogant klutz that has his uses. He's smart, he's the only one there that can do "Tremere bullshit", but Cali isn't his biggest fan.

Jules - Yeah, that's a bunch of arrogant pricks. As a whole, they don't like dealing with the Tremere. They're secretive, they don't like helping their coterie much. It's better to avoid them.

12. …Clan Tzimisce?

Anabell - Since joining the Sabbat, she is very unsettled by their abilities. What the Tremere do is unholy, but what the Tzimsice do... Listen, she can work with them just fine, but keep your hands to yourself.

Cali - Should not meet the Tzimisce. He would want Vicissitude after he got over his initial disgust.

Jules - Weirdos, derogatory. What they do and the way they act so polite and refined makes their stomach churn. They would liken the Tzimisce to like a B Movie monster with how cartoonishly grotesque and evil they are in Jules' eyes.

13. …Clan Ventrue?

Anabell - Doesn't care for how high and mighty some Ventrue act, but does recognize the clan as having produced a number of good leaders. Still, she wish they wouldn't talk down to her near as much as they do.

Harriet - They're the cream of the crop and they ought to act like it. She has her husband and Mithras as role models and as such, this makes her view the clan higher than she would if she knew more Ventrue.

Cali - An alright sort, but the only one he knows is Monty, and he's an outdated fellow. They seem like a nice clan to be in good with, but he doesn't really feel too strongly about them yet.

Jules - When asked, they only had this to say - "Ugh..." Their encounters with the Ventrue have not been nice as Caitiff...

[chaifootsteps]

I don’t know if it’s me, but I just think Octavia is going to be an unintentional tragic character if anything that later half of season two suggests.

I remember asking myself two days before the latest episode aired, “wouldn’t Stella know that everything would go to Via?” Then low and behold her brother has to point that out to her. Then starts scheming to manipulate Via because they think she’s a gateway to getting the riches.

Like, the thing that majorly ticks me off is wouldn’t Stella know that? She’s been raising her with Stolas. Why does need to be told this if initially this arranged marriage also included a precautionary heir. There is nothing to say she wouldn’t know that.

Back to Via, her parents—well mostly Stella—but that could because Viv doesn’t want her interacting with her own daughter until they need to for Stolas reasons—refers to her as an “egg” and seemingly forgets she’s Stolas’ heir should he die. Meanwhile as Stolas is making his points, he calls Octavia “that girl” which is…I get they wanted to prove that he may not want to become like his father and wanted to give her a happy childhood, but dude why can’t you say daughter? I don’t know if Viv wants to even commit to this precautionary heir stuff because half the time they keep making Via repeat the same arc which eventually go on three times now.

Like, one of the reasons why parents who may not love each other would still want to stay for the kid which is real, and if they really wanted to commit to the precautionary heir stuff, maybe make Stella want to ask where the Grimoire is and needing to feel like “we have to keep this deal that we both don’t want to do, but our society has rules we must play apart of” and Stolas being torn with wanting to give Via a happy childhood but also knowing that the deal still exists so that just starts the further deterioration of the marriage between him and Stella. Maybe if in the S2 E1 flashbacks it could slowly show him becoming more withdrawn from them if they say he’s tired of it. The ideas from the first episode can work, but it focuses too much on retconning Stolas and Blitz characters that it should’ve focused on how his relationship with Stella deteriorated because neither of them want to be here and would play more into the nobility of the Goetia if that is slowly taking the driving force for the family.

If Via feels guilty of her birth, it could make become more isolated and depressed. The kid would feel guilt if they were the active cause of the pain if that is what the writers are attempting to imply but only loosely using the pieces that there and trying to spin it by making us feel more sad for the Dad than the daughter who is scared of being abandoned, thinking she isn’t wanted and apparently planning to guilt trip her even more.

I am with in being scared of them possibly turning the audience against Via instead of sympathizing with her. People either already understand where Stolas is coming from in S2 E2, which is fair, we don’t want invalidate victims of spousal abuse, but if they do it a third time then the writers run the risk of making the audience think Via is selfish or something. Or probably those who would blame Stella more whichever comes first.

Sorry for the ramble.

Nah, rambles are always welcome, we love rambles around here. And this was a great one!

Stolas, Stella, and Octavia are frustrating because all three are in an immensely shitty situation put together by forces outside of their control. None of them are handling it well, but Via's got the excuse of being a child caught between two deeply unhappy parents. There's so much potential there, so much to explore, and Vivzie and Brandon won't because that would involve holding Stolas accountable for literally any wrongdoing. It would involve letting Via be the bigger victim here, and we can't have that, can we?

[elementroar]

Long post about Loki's romantic history in the comics

So, got inspired to do a little research mainly because of this: Tom Hiddleston pitched his own standalone movie in 2013 to Kevin Feige, explicitly referring to Loki and Enchantress' romantic relationship as a springboard.

Which actually confused me because my personal memory of Loki from the Bronze and Silver Age was definitely along the lines of "I think Amora and Loki worked together but I'm pretty sure Amora wasn't that interested, because Loki was an asshole and she knew it."

Turns out I was correct, buuuuut, they were a lot closer than I remembered. Especially in recent comics.

So I'm going to do a (relatively) brief overview about Loki's relationships as far as I remember. The guy fucked a lot, especially when he was evil. Latest incarnation is actually kinda more chaste imo.

BIG post, lotso images, reflection on MCU Loki at the bottom after the history lesson.

OG 616-Evil-Loki (since the 60s up till the 2000s)

For MCU new fans, imagine Classic Loki but he's purely an asshole with zero or very little redeeming qualities. That's OG evil Loki. He was always a villain, at best he sometimes helped out of selfishness, but he ended up dooming Asgard and the world the multiple times.

He also fucked. A lot. Mostly as a male, not necessarily in a 'human' form.

SOME of his notable romance partners (mostly the named gods)

Angrboda (1985)

Storm or Frost Giant. Mother of Fenris wolf, Jormungand the Midgard Serpent, and possibly Hela (her parentage gets really tricky after multiple reincarnations). Because Fenris and and Jormugand are several of the main constants of the Asgardians despite the multiple reincarnations from past Ragnarok cycles (in Marvel, Ragnaroks always happen and the Asgardians always reincarnate after each occurrence, with some differences.), it's suggested that Angrboda is one of Loki's oldest mates, if not THE first.

Also fun fact, it's actually suggested in the Marvel Universe book that because both Loki and Angrboda are shapeshifters, the reason their kids came out as a wolf and a serpent is because they each bear the form of the animal that their parents had assumed at the moment they were conceived. Kinky!

Angrboda only appeared once in comics and has never been depicted since, and even then she was 'dead' in her only appearance because it was in Hel. Even tho most characters connected to the Asgardians are reincarnated with them after each Ragnarok cycle, she never has been (tho her children and their respective descendants always reincarnate/persist). Which is a shame, because she has a really cool design and has lots of story potential.

She was also known as a sorceress or a witch.

Sigyn (1978)

Oh boy, Sigyn. Loki wanted to seduce her, but she was already engaged and knew he was evil. So Loki killed her fiance, used illusion to take his form, tricked her, and then tricked Odin into marrying him and her. Odin tried to annul the marriage but ancient laws prevented her, so he exiled Loki and Sigyn now bound by marriage vows, went with him, so Odin declared her Goddess of Fidelity.

Sigyn was seemingly very puritan, as she stated that she could never live outside of wedlock.

What follows is a long, long history of spousal abuse. Loki resented and despised her, sometimes pretend to return her love only to mock her. Loki constantly 'cheated' on her and also did evil, Sigyn fulfilled her duty and always went with him. At some point they literally got shackled together because I think Odin wanted her to guard Loki from doing some kind of mischief.

At one point, Loki finally released her of her marriage vows and she was no longer bound by them so they finally fully parted ways.

And after her last appearance, she presumably died during one of the Ragnarok cycles and she has never appeared in print or has been referenced since.

Amora the Enchantress (1964)

So basically she was like Loki, treacherous, untrustworthy, seduced men a lot, but she was relatively the better person of the two because she bordered the 'evil' spectrum. She actually minded the Apples of Idunn which gives Asgardians their immortality and did her job. She was also obsessed with getting Thor to fall in love with her constantly.

Which is why it honestly confused me when Tom mentioned her and Loki have a thing, cos I thought she wasn't interested and knew better. Which turns out, was brought up in the comics.

"I can't be trusted, and you can't trust." hmmmmmmmmm

So this was the crux of it. In the bronze and silver age, Amora knew way better to get personally involved with Loki, but they did collaborate on evil time-to-time. They may have had a fling or two, seems likely.

Loki also once had a thing with Amora's sister Lorelei (Lorelei got into some love potion and fixated on Loki, who took advantage of that until he tired of her).

Also Loki deliberately created a mortal (Sylvie Lushton) with a copy of Amora's powers, looks and name just to mess with Amora. And she did actually got pissed enough to come down and test Sylvie herself before passing her and allowed her to use her name and powers.

Which brings us to them in more current comics.

Current God of Stories/Outcasts Loki (since 2011)

The current incarnation of Loki (also known as Ikol, which I'll use to differentiate between him and his past self). The original evil Loki of 616 is dead and this incarnation is the current 'Loki'.

More chaotic good/neutral than evil, Ikol was born when a copy of his past evil self's soul combined with the truly innocently good Kid-Loki (who acts like a conscience).

After aging himself up, he basically decided to try to atone for his past misdeeds (he has kept all his past memories as evil Loki), and restyled himself from God of Evil and Lies, to the God of Stories, and currently is the God of Outcasts (yup, referenced by Classic Loki in Ep 5).

Quick note that the 'Loki' in publication was Kid-Loki when Hiddleston's Loki debut in Thor (2011) and Ikol had not yet 'appeared' in print. So MCU-Loki was not based on this Loki. In fact there's a scene where Ikol ages himself up (2014) and was deciding on a form based on other reality Lokis which he can view. MCU-Loki was one of the forms he saw (far left, the one with no horns).

So it's possible Ikol based his appearance on MCU-Loki!

Also Ikol is the Loki who is more openly gender fluid. However, I've not seen them really switch genders much ever since they've become titled the God of Outcasts and generally being more depressing lately.

Anyway, ever since Ikol reinvented himself, he's generally gotten better relationships with everyone, or at least tries to. This seems to include Amora actually being interested in him again, presumably because Ikol not being as evil as Loki means he won't try to backstab her as badly.

Notably, there was a comic event called AXIS that also included a spell that inverted everyone's alignment. Good becomes evil, evil becomes good. This affected Loki and Amora both, and they decided to get together apparently while they're both aligned 'good'.

Eventually they had to undo the inversion spell, during which they did hope they would stay together after getting their alignments back to normal...but unfortunately no they didn't.

And that's pretty much as far as their relationship has gotten. Basically, there IS something there, but old-Loki couldn't be trusted, and current Amora hasn't really become a better person like Ikol has become. And Ikol harbors too much guilt over past misdeeds to really get close to anyone romantically. The inversion temporarily gave them peace-of-mind to actually pursue their relationship, but it was temporary.

How does this reflect on MCU-Loki's love life?

So key thing to note, MCU-Loki debut before Ikol became the current incarnation. At the time of Tom's debut, it was Kid-Loki who was the incarnation. The inversion AXIS event happened in 2014.

Even then, somehow, Tom found the old comics showing that Enchantress and Loki had a thing and directly petitioned Feige with the idea of having her as Loki's love interest in the MCU in 2013, so kudos to him, he researched a deep cut.

The complication comes from choosing the variant-Loki angle combined with Enchantress. Like if it was a direct adaptation - i.e. Sylvie = Amora = another Asgardian, this would be easy. Alas, MCU's gotten a lot more complicated.

But, it does play into the main aspect of Amora's and Loki's relationship - that they were too similar, and knew each other too well, to ever trust each other and get into a relationship, even tho they did have an interest and had some mutual respect (pretty big deal for 616-Loki especially).

Which of course with Sylvie's backstory and status as a Loki variant, plays right into that. Two people too similar, and knowing how bad they could potentially be towards each other because they can't trust each other.

In a sense, MCU-Loki changing himself for the better in the series is similar to how Ikol chose to make himself a better person than the old him i.e. someone capable of loving unconditionally. Sylvie would be at the stage Amora is in the comics, who has lapsed into old bad habits which led to her not really growing as a person as much as Ikol.

Anyway, hope this was enlightening. It was kinda fun to go through old stuff again. Also Loki's sheer army of offspring (from his evil incarnation, but Ikol acknowledges all of them as his still) is an amazing thing to read through lol!

And to evil-Loki's credit, he tried to do right by his kids when he could, possibly his sole redeeming quality (notable story is him working with Spider-Man to save his half-mortal daughter Tess Black) Amora also has her own kids fathered by men she seduced.

[curious-menace]

Of the Gotham rogues, how likely (or unlikely) do you think each of them would be to take in someone they see as likeminded, or who have had similar experiences? Not necessarily as a sidekick, but I was thinking mostly someone in the sidekick age range, probably about 12-21. If there’s a specific thing they’d be more likely to sympathise with that would be cool to hear about too.

you mean like batman has  robin? that might be cool actually. mini rogues hehe.

putting this below a cut. its not nsfw but i do mention abuse and so on.

in general

i think its pretty much canon that they would all do this to some degree. there's no firm no from anyone.

i think all the rogues in gotham empathise with people who’ve suffered some sort of abuse. familial, sexual, spousal, bullying etc. they dont like the cool kids, they wont take in someone who’s at the top of their game. not just because they dont need them or even like them, they just have no desire to bring people down to their level. but if you tug at their stony heartstrings just enough they might take you in

Penguin

penguin respects moxie. he takes a shine to street kids, the ones who’ve had a childhood like him out learning a criminal trade or a skill of some sort. i can actually imagine him taking a linking to a kid who tried to pickpocket him. He cant really empathise with having nothing but he appreciates the sheer balls it would take to do something like that. he’d probably find it funny if the person was like 12 and had NO clue he was a cobblepot. he’d take great pleasure in taking someone under his wing, training them up to follow in his footsteps. he’s a bit of a sexist, he’d be more likely to have a boy hanging around him. maybe start off as an umbrella holder? i can see him getting kind of attached since he has no family or kids of his own. maybe they’ll be his heir someday.

TwoFace

this is a difficult one. i can see harvey having a student mentor relationship with a struggling law student or maybe a young offender who wants to be a lawyer or defend themselves. He’d be happy to tutor them, practice with them and give them pointers. i imagine he’d build up a sense of pride for his student when they finally win their case or pass the bar exam but that is as far as harvey would go. 

Twoface on the other hand? hmm. maybe he’d employ some scrappy little thing and their twin sibling to do message running for him? i mean whos going to suspect a couple of kids on their bikes of ferrying something illegal around town. maybe he’s got a bunch of twins from lower income families doing jobs for him. he would indulge them with treats and look after them like they were his own but ultimately they’d be pretty expendable to him. 

ivy has a lot of kids following her around of all ages. i mean from toddlers to young adults. sometimes she’s babysitting for working mothers, sheltering people who are escaping abuse . she takes in waifs and strays and teaches them things. maybe not LEGAL things but certainly things they can use to survive. cooking, foraging maybe manipulation. she has a fondness for young women people have taken advantage of. she shows them how to use their feminine wiles to get revenge. She also seems to be Gothams unofficial Mom for LGBTQ+ kids. like you kick your kid out? sorry they’re my kid now. also you food is poisoned.

Ivy

well he has query and echo. we know what his tastes in hired help are hahah. Lets be real, he can be a batman wannabe sometimes. i mean he wants to call himself the worlds greatest detective so bad you can taste it. maybe he would take a young ward like a riddle-robin?  i imagine him gravitating towards people who are smart at school but unloved at home. maybe he’d meet them playing words against friends or something? online chess? i know the idea of him meeting a 12 year old online and sort of adopting them is a lil sus but i promise he thinks nothing of the sort. i can also see him getting a bunch of kids and teaching them how to scam people with card tricks and puzzles so they can make some cash. he might like to have a network of kids of abusive cop parents feed him info for presents and so on. 

Riddler

Scarecrow

he’s sort of pack bonded with his students on numerous occasions. he refers to them as “my kids” and is always bragging about them like they actually are his kids. i think if he had an exceptionally bright student he might take them in for special treatment: like extra lectures, maybe he lets them see what fear toxin he’s been working on etc. he doesn't like little kids but he’s not above dosing one of the little shits if they’ve been bullying someone. like he’s playground monitor at lunch and sees someone getting picked on so he goes over with a bit of “whats all this then” and a lil perfume bottle of fear toxin for the bullied child to use. 

Harley

people adopt her! the other rogues treat her like their little sister when shes not with joker. If you left her to her own devices she would start a small collection of mini harleys. just little gymnast girls and boys dressed up in her diamond apparel. I dont think she’d have a sidekick but she does like to help coach at the local gymnastics , since she was a former champ. she also voulenteers at a local womens shelter to help comfort people escaping abuse. she, selina and ivy have absolutly gone out on the town to get revenge for some of these women. is that professional? no. will she do the same with joker? also no. but is it satisfying as all hell? yes~

there you go nonnie! this was a good one, i had fun just considering it. makes me wish DC would do something with the idea instead of another dark multiverse...

got something you wana talk about? send me an ask or a dm!💜💙💚💛🧡❤️

[agameoftragedy]

I couldn’t copy and paste it but in jaime ASOS chapter 1, he speaks of Robert drunken stumbling in Cersei’s bed in the wheelhouse and Tyrion tried to have him in a good mood but it wasn’t enough. 1) how aware of the abuse do you think jaime knew of (2) when he says it wasn’t enough. What sort of things do you think Robert got angry over? Or said? And that Cersei or Robert argued about on the months long journey?

"A man who would violate his own sister, murder his king, and fling an innocent child to his death deserves no other name."

Innocent? The wretched boy was spying on us. All Jaime had wanted was an hour alone with Cersei. Their journey north had been one long torment; seeing her every day, unable to touch her, knowing that Robert stumbled drunkenly into her bed every night in that great creaking wheelhouse. Tyrion had done his best to keep him in a good humor, but it had not been enough.

I mean, it's possible from context that Jaime is just being resentful of getting to literally sleep together, cuddle, etc, while Robert doesn't deserve even that much. Jaime obviously did also want to have sex with her, but if Robert's that drunk, does he assume that's happening? The kids were in the wheelhouse too it seems like, so would any sexual stuff be happening with them sleeping so close?

Iirc Cersei tells Ned that if Jaime knew everything that happened Jaime would kill Robert - I think Cersei downplays it to him, that Robert's too drunk to actually sleep with her, or easily distracted (technically true), and hides any bruising or injuries from getting hit.

So I think Tyrion was mostly trying to cheer up Jaime's pining and grumpiness about Robert's position as Cersei's husband.

As for Robert's anger... I think Robert's got a bunch of stuff going on in his head. Probably unresolved trauma from the loss of his parents, obviously a lot of issues about the loss of Lyanna, resentment of all the duties of being King that he didn't expect or ask for...

The loss of Lyanna makes it easy for him to imagine life with Lyanna however he likes: Lyanna would understand, Lyanna would never do X... It's an unrealistic standard Cersei couldn't live up to if she wanted to - Lyanna herself wouldn't live up to that 'standard'.

So I expect sometimes Robert's just in a bad mood and Cersei doesn't have to do or say much to set him off, and Cersei has her own bad moods when she knows just how to set him off by prodding where he's vulnerable. Robert's generally unhappy (and so is Cersei), it makes for a bad recipe, but Westerosi society largely enables Robert (by excusing marital rape and spousal abuse, plus him being King) while Cersei has less power because woman.

Also I don't know exactly how much Robert and Cersei argued on the journey - Cersei says to Jaime she expected Ned to reject the offer, so she may have been keeping her head down and letting things play out. However Robert does mention he doesn't like the wheelhouse and how slow it is, so I could at least see some low-level sniping going on.

[omegawolverine]

i would totally be down to read a fic rec list of your kins -Virgil 🖤💜 (don't know if that made any sense)

!! yes it made sense and um. yeah sorry this has been sitting in my drafts for literally like 3 months now or smth idk im terrible and im so sorry anyways ajsksk

note: i did vague warnings and descriptions of each fic but definetly check the tags and notes on each fic bc i tend to read trauma heavy stuff and then forget how heavy fics are while reccing them ajsjsksk also i didnt do all my kins for various reasons (mostly bc some of them just had themes that were way too triggering for me to feel comfortable reccing them without doing a full reread to make sure i didnt miss any warnings) but if u have any specific kins (or just characters in general) that u want recs for, lmk! i’d be happy to do more :)

Bakugou Katsuki

Get Mad! by AnonymousTwit: Bakugou & Eri / fluff and angst, nightmares, mentions/light descriptions of trauma (kidnapping, gaslighting, manipulation), child abuse, canon typical violence, minor character death (mentioned/in dreams), hurt/comfort. this fic has censored swearing, if that matters / oneshot, 16k

my shitty summary of the fic: bakugou & eri bond bc Trauma, but it’s mostly just bakugou helping eri with nightmares and getting her to be unhinged.

Your Sister Would Be Ashamed! by flowergrown: Bakugou & Fuyumi, Bakugou & Shouto, etc. / canon typical violence, emotional and physical child and spousal abuse, fluff, crack treated seriously (i promise this fic is mostly just funny hahas but i’m trying to make proper warnings) / chaptered, 25k

my shitty summary of the fic: bakugou and fuyumi somehow become friends as bakugou starts visiting her class for various reasons? it’s 16 chapters and i havent read this fic in awhile, sue me, i just know it’s fucking good.

Messed Up by codename_bewareofthefangirl: Kirishima/Bakugou, Bakugou & Mitsuki / not good parent mitsuki, light angst, meeting the parents, fluff, brief instance of bullying and mitsuki hitting bakugou / oneshot, 6.7k

my shitty summary of the fic: mitsuki kinda sucks as a parent but she knows that and tries to not suck when bakugou introduces her to kirishima

Yamada Hizashi/Present Mic

Examined and Recalculated by impulsewriter: Yamada/Aizawa / marriage proposal, domestic fluff, brief implied sexual content, misunderstandings / oneshot, 14k

my shitty summary of the fic: aizawa does grand romantic gesture to propose to mic but theyre both dumb

Diamond in the Rough by tiniest_hands_in_all_the_land: Yamada/Aizawa, Aizawa & Class 1-A / established marriage, light angst (?), fluff and crack / oneshot, 6.4k

my shitty summary of the fic: aizawa loses his wedding ring, the class helps him find it. this doesn’t have a whole lot to do with mic, but i still adore this fic

Love is (color)blind by AgentAngeles: Yamada/Aizawa, Yamada & Aizawa & Midnight & Tensei / fluff, misunderstandings, light angst, nonlinear storytelling, shinsou & eri as erasermics kids, marriage proposal / oneshot, 16k

my shitty summary of the fic: um. basically aizawa throughout the years but he’s gay trans and colorblind and veryyyyy in love with yamada :)

Richie Tozier

Eddie Kaspbrak, Office Uncle Extraordinaire by kyaticlikestea: Eddie/Richie, Original Character/Original Character, Eddie & Original Character / outsider oc pov, office party, relationship reveal, comedian richie, referenced ableism and misgendering, crack / chaptered (twoshot), 18k

my shitty summary of the fic: the authors oc works with eddie and more or less convinces him to bring richie to an office function which obviously leads to chaos as richie is both famous and dating eddie kaspbrak of all people, what a shock! /s

Richie + Eddie Become Gay Icons (...) by BayleyWinchester: Eddie/Richie, (obligatory) losers club / mentions/light descriptions of trauma, homophobia, racism, sexism, ableism, antisemitism, etc. (basically every -ism/-phobia in IT gets brought up at some point), crack, IT chapter 2 fix it, comedian richie, fluff (+more) / series, 11 works, incomplete, 32k

my shitty summary of the fic: the losers club is basically famous now bc half of them are famous anyways and then drag the nonfamous half into their bullshit um anyways its mostly a series of stuff like buzzfeed interviews, richies standup routines, etc.--it makes more sense once you read it and it’s not as heavy as it looks from my brief warning tags and whatnot.

Klaus Hargreeves

Because I Could Not Stop for Death by shadowlancer_95: Klaus & Ben, Klaus & Everyone / angst with a happy ending, hurt/comfort, temporary major character death, emotional and physical child abuse, mentions of suicide, mentions of drug/alcohol abuse and overdosing / oneshot, 13k

my shitty summary of the fic: reginald finds out klaus technically cant die and does what any other reasonable parent would do--experiment! basically klaus dies a bunch of times and its sad but the ending is sweet

[papabirdurskeks]

Can we learn more about Roger and his family?

If you’d like to know, sure! I’d be happy to share! 

Sorry this took a while to answer, by the way! I was planning on drawing stuff for this ask but I figured it might be too long for the post and drawing out everything I have in mind will literally take FOREVER and I hate making people wait for answers c’: SO, I will type it out instead to make it easier for myself in the meantime and so I don’t keep you waiting any longer on answer! 

A little warning for anyone reading this as it is a bit dark in some of its themes (mostly mentions of spousal abuse) so putting that out there before anyone wishes to continue reading!

Roger's relationship with his family is on the rocky side, unfortunately, as often as he tried to do his best for them. 

Given that he had worked a lot as a privateer before retirement, it meant being away from home for many and long periods of time; leaving his wife and kids alone and missing out on many important moments he would have loved to be there for. But, work was needed to be done and he could not allow to loose any opportunity of his work as it could mean a heavy loss of income, which was vital to keep himself and his family financially afloat and supported while he was away. 

Despite all of this, his being away frequently seemed to take the hardest toll on his ex-wife Helen, as she had felt annoyed, tired, and frustrated with the fact that she had to raise their children most of the time on her own, but also constantly fear that Roger would one day not return from his work as it was extremely dangerous and often likely to get him killed one day (especially as their species were not looked upon with the greatest of enthusiasm from others). If Roger were to die, they would be left on their own to fend for themselves and scrap away for a means of living to keep themselves afloat; something in which would be extremely hard for them given treatment he and his family were often given by others. 

This in turn often led Helen to be extremely confrontational and verbally abusive towards her husband over just about anything she found wrong or troublesome, sometimes turning physical as she would often punch or slap him if she had gotten too frustrated/angry with him. Roger, however, would never hit her back but merely push her away if she began to go too far with her hitting, sometimes having to grab her and set her aside or just hold her back in hopes she would stop. The most Roger would ever do in turn to Helen is yell at her, but he would NEVER hit her back. 

Their constant arguing was often viewed and heard by their children as well, which often led them to feel distant and cold towards their father believing him to be the cause of all their mother’s problems (even at times thinking it was he who was the one who was physically hurting her as she so claimed at times when reality was it was SHE who was hurting him). Their disdain towards their father only grew when there were times he would leave after an arguement and not come back for days or weeks at a time, thinking he had abandoned them and further frustrating their mother more to fuel her fears of loosing all that they had. 

Yet, despite the rocky edges their relationships have had, there was once a time where Helen and Roger really did love each other. It was just the toll of his job pulling him away that led things to turn out the way they are now; pushing them to finally divorce after being married to one another for 30 years. It was hard, but at the same time, their relationship had grown far too toxic and unbearable for either of them to continue trying to mend; especially for Roger who just couldn’t handle the abuse any longer. 

Now that they have divorced and are no longer seeing one another, his relationship with his children have more or less stayed the same sadly. The only one of his kids that ever really talks to him is his youngest daughter Edith, who has over time prior to the divorce, shared a closer bond with her dad then her older siblings. The two of them still frequently talk from time to time and Edith does make the effort to go and visit her dad when she can, which is often the highlight of Roger’s life now that he is retired and living alone in seclusion from society. Edith, at times, tries to convince her siblings to talk to their dad and give him a chance, hoping that someday they too can share a similar bond she has with him and not be jealous of said bond as well. 

He and Helen no longer speak or see each other at all since the divorce. 

And as far as relationships go with his birth family, Roger has not spoken to his parents since he had left them at 16 to make a living for himself. He has also never met his older sister nor is aware she ever existed and nor have his children ever met their grandparents in the span of their lives. 

Overall, its a rather sad and gloomy tale when it comes to Roger and his relationship with his family. There is a LOT more to this, but I don’t want to spoil everything and make this post much longer then it needs to be! Plus, I like to tell more of the story through any future pieces I have planned, so stay tuned for that! 

Thank you again for asking! Sorry this was so gloomy, though! 

[medleymisty]

A thing I had to write because I’m me

I really did plan to stay out of the Discourse about the wave of anon hate going around after the last thing I said about it, but today I was looking at my dash on my phone and I happened to see another post about it. Not going to link it or identify it because I don’t do public shaming and I don’t want to bring anyone else into this, and I don’t want to call out anyone. And it wasn’t really the post itself that triggered me, but some of the responses.

I just want to share my thoughts and my experiences and hopefully maybe reach one or two people who’ll think more about their words and their view of the world and other people next time.

Warning: This will be about trauma and blame and negative experiences and it will be very personal. You don’t have to click on the readmore if you don’t want to read about that sort of thing.

I wanted to have research and sources to point to for this, but the internet has become a cesspool in the last few years and it’s impossible to find anything decent without dedicating more time and energy to it than I want to. I found a link or two but nothing really great, so I guess this will be mostly based on personal lived experience.

I don’t want to weigh this down with an exact retelling of the Bad Times, so I’ll just say that from 2009 to 2011 I was the target of many, many hate secrets, which aren’t as easy to turn off as anon messages are on here. I was also being emotionally abused by the person who I thought of as my best friend, and he used the secrets as part of his abuse. The secrets eventually died down but he continued stalking my blogs until at least well into 2013, and yeah...it was a whole thing, with strangers judging me by the hate secrets and by behavior that they didn’t know the cause of, because they didn’t know about the emotional abuse. I’m not being “dramatic” and I’m not overstating anything when I say that it legit traumatized me, and I already had trauma from my childhood. Not going to go into detail there either, but there’s a reason why most of my characters in my serious work are traumatized and anxious.

I will say that the childhood trauma made it much harder for me to recognize the emotional abuse, and it made it much harder for me to not take the hate seriously. I am very happy for those of you who grew up with parents who taught you about boundaries and about healthy relationships and who made sure you knew that you were loved and worthy and that people who said awful things about you were wrong, but not everyone has that. And it’s not a sign of immaturity to not have it, or if it is then it’s not the sort of immaturity that should be judged and mocked. Kids aren’t really able to teach themselves that sort of thing without help. It took me nearly two decades to learn it after leaving my mother’s house, and that’s with the help of the best spousal person anyone could ask for. I’m one of the lucky ones.

People who get hate and who are affected by it need empathy and care and validation, not mocking and judging. It’s okay if you don’t understand, it’s okay if you don’t have the time or the energy to provide that empathy and care and validation, it’s okay if you have to unfollow or block them. What’s not okay is blaming and judging them for your lack of understanding and your inability to empathize, at least in public where they can see. Because they will see that, and they will internalize it, and it will become another voice among all the other voices they’ve internalized telling them that they’re wrong, that they’re bad, that they don’t know how to be human right.

Look, I agree that turning anon off is a good thing to do, and I’ve deleted hate and sometimes I’ve replied to it if I felt like I had a decent point to make, and I’ll admit that I wish I’d had the ability to just click a button and make the hate secrets go poof back in the day, but yelling at people and insulting them and saying they just want attention or whatever isn’t going to help them. What it does is make you feel superior and self-righteous, help you feel bonded to the other people who agree with your judging and blaming, and perhaps reinforce your belief in the just world fallacy, if you believe in that. And make me feel extremely suspicious of you and probably block you because my traumatized brain says you’re not safe to be around.

If you really want them to turn anon off or delete the hate without responding, you have to start where they are. And I don’t know, maybe you can’t do that if you’ve never been where they are. But I have. 

And I know that judging and blaming and harshness and hate never did a thing but make me feel even worse. Eventually I isolated myself to the point that if anyone was still willing to listen and to help, they couldn’t get past my belief that everyone hated me and that they were right to do so. I had to find another community and tell them about what happened and get their validation that it wasn’t my fault and that I was an okay person who deserved to exist and that yes, it was traumatic and it did traumatize me, before I could even think about letting a Sims person through my defenses. Which one person kept her hand held out the whole time until I was finally able to take it, and I will be forever grateful to her. *hugs to her if she’s reading this*

What they need is love and inclusion and empathy. Like, oh my gosh, all those wonderful birthday messages I got yesterday. I don’t know, maybe back in the day ya’ll could have sent them and I wouldn’t have gotten them because I would have been too terrified to check my inbox, so I don’t know if it would have helped me back then. But it definitely helped me now. 

It’s a wonderful thing to be valued and included. It’s a horrible thing to be shamed and excluded. Someone who feels valued and included is much much more likely to hear you and to consider what you say when you suggest that they turn anon off and delete hate without answering than someone who feels shamed and excluded.

I said I had a link, so here’s a thing I found: Challenging Victim Blaming.

The first step is awareness. Be aware of the mental trap of believing that the world is just. It is difficult to accept that sometimes, bad things happen to good people. Recognize the tendency to rationalize suffering, trauma, and misfortune in this way;

Also this: The Psychology of Victim-Blaming

At its core, victim blaming could stem from a combination of failure to empathize with victims and a fear reaction triggered by the human drive for self-preservation. That fear reaction, in particular, can be a difficult one for some people to control. Retraining this instinct is possible—it just isn’t easy. Hamby and Gilin both emphasize the importance of empathy training and openness to seeing (or at least trying to see) the world from perspectives other than one’s own, which helps people avoid falling into the trap of speculating about what a victim could have done differently to avoid the crime.

I don’t know what it’s like to believe in a just world or to think that you’re safe if you do the right things. I don’t know about consciously, but my body and my subconscious have known that I’m not safe since I was five years old, at least. So I don’t know how hard it is to fight through that belief and recognize and change it. But I do know how hard it was and how long it took to fight through my belief that I was always wrong and unfixably flawed and that people were always right to hurt me and abandon me, so if it’s anything like that then it’ll take years and years of hard work.

But I think, also like that belief, the time and the work it takes to conquer it will be worth it in the end.

The theme of Surreal Darkness is very much informed by my trauma and my lack of a just world belief, I think. So if you need help facing the fear that comes with the realization that the world isn’t just and you aren’t safe, here’s what I’ve learned from a lifetime of facing that fear.

The answer to the void is love. It’s us against a reality that doesn’t care about us and that has no moral system or just rewards, and the only way I’ve found to deal with that is to love and support and help each other as much as you can.

*hugs all the people who read this far and who aren’t wishing I had anon turned on so they could tell me how worthless and awful I am right now*

[gvbejvmes]

Drabble: K-I-S-S-I-N-G

Title: K-I-S-S-I-N-G Rating: R (For language mostly) Relationship: Gabriel James/Jonathan Michaels Word Count:  11,423 (Trigger) Warnings: Mpreg, referenced spousal abuse, alcohol abuse, major character death, parents have sex lives, too. Brief Summary:  First comes marriage. Then comes love. Then comes a baby in a male uterus. Wait. What?

2010

Gabe was dying. That was the only explanation. Dying at thirty-six. Death after escaping a prison sentence for a crime he hadn’t committed. There was a sense of poetry to that he was sure. He just couldn’t see it in his current state of being hunched over the toilet.

“Again?” His husband asked him, standing in the doorway. And wow, was that weird. Sure, they’d been married for close to two years, but Gabe had been behind bars for half their marriage. Living together, growing their marriage into a legitimate relationship, it was a living and breathing thing they were nurturing. Gabe was still getting used to it and he was fairly certain he’d never get used to someone loving him as much as Johnny did. “That’s the third time this week.”

Groaning, he pulled away from the toilet and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” He admitted, flopping pathetically onto the bathroom floor, looking at Johnny upside down. “Four times.” He corrected him, a sheepish look on his face. “I got sick when you were at work the other day. I just didn’t want to worry you.”

There was a sigh and his husband was standing next to his head. “Too late.” He murmured before squatting down to slowly roll Gabe up to his feet. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but-”

He shook his head and then immediately regretted it. “No doctors.” Pulling away from Johnny, he hunched over the sink, and when nothing happened, he rinsed his mouth out. “After I was stabbed,” And he didn’t need to look to know his husband was wincing. This was not a good memory - for either of them, but it had ultimately been the starting point for their marriage. “The doctor let me bleed for over an hour before they did anything.”

“That was prison, baby. And completely unethical.” Johnny reminded him before manhandling him into their room and back into bed. “I’m making you an appointment. What if it’s something serious?”

Gabe pulled the comforter over his head. “I’m sure it’s going to be something stupid.”

-

“Congratulations, Mr. James-Michaels, you’re pregnant.”

The words don’t register. They went in one ear and settled there like static. His brain just couldn’t compute the information. It doesn’t make any sense to him.

He’s laying on the exam table, staring into a monitor as the doodad for the ultrasound machine work its magic. He’d gone to all of Nancy’s doctor’s appointments with her when she’d been pregnant with the girls. Gabe knew what the mess on the monitor was: a baby. He was… He couldn’t finish the sentence, even if it was just in his head. Being pregnant wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t. 

Either he said the words out loud or the doctor read the look on his face because the older man smiled warmly at him. “It’s uncommon, but there have been reported cases of dormant uteruses before. You’re not the first, which means we have past cases to help us figure out what the best path is for you.” He started explaining. There was a light in his doctor’s eyes, and his excitement at such an usual case was evident as he continued talking. 

“All embryos are female in the beginning until chromosomes decide whether the embryo will remain female or continue to develop into a male. In rare instances such as yours, some parts, shall we say, get left behind. In all likelihood there could be far more men in the world with dormant uteruses, but given your sexual preference, it is highly more likely for a homosexual man to get pregnant as opposed to a heterosexual man.” 

The doctor kept talking, but all Gabe could do was stare at the monitor at his child. No. At his and Johnny’s child. Shit. They were going to have a baby. How the fuck was he going to tell Jay about this when he couldn’t even wrap his brain around it? Fuck.

-

As soon as Gabe walked into the house, he could smell steak grilling. Usually, he would be drooling, but the smell made his stomach turn. “Why do you have terrible taste?” He asked his… god, what was he supposed to call it? His womb? That sounded bizarre. His uterus? Yeah, that wasn’t happening. Sweet Pea. Yeah, Sweet Pea.

“There you are.” His husband greeted him with a kiss. “What did the doctor say?”

Gabe swallowed, wanting to respond, but also not wanting to throw up. Before responding, he grabbed water from the fridge and took a big swig. “I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.” He said truthfully. 

“Briel…” 

He shook his head. “Later, okay? I promise.” And he gulped down more water.

His husband nodded. “Fine, okay.” He put up his hands in defeat. “Do you want to open up the Merlot?”

Immediately, Gabe tensed and his hand went to his stomach out of instinct more than anything. “I’m, uh…” How the fuck was he supposed to explain this one without telling him why? “The doctor doesn’t want me drinking right now.” And then the smell hit him again. “Fuck.” And he took off to the bathroom, barely making it in time before he emptied his stomach.

“Briel.” And Johnny was right behind him. “What the fuck did the doctor say? It’s not…” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Cancer?”

Gabe shook his head.

“Oh thank God.” He trailed a hand down Gabe’s back. “You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were pregnant.” 

He started laughing, clutching at the porcelain in the process. When he was able, he looked up at Johnny. “Wouldn’t it be hilarious if I was?” And he needed to tell him the truth - that he actually was pregnant, but how was he even supposed to start that conversation? It was too bizarre.

A weird look passed over his husband’s face, but before Johnny could say anything the smoke detector went off. 

“Fuck! The steaks.”

-

“Are you kidding me right now, Sweet Pea?” Gabe groused out as he stood in front of the mirror. It had been a month since his… diagnosis? No, that didn’t sound right. Since he found out he was pregnant. He still hadn’t told Johnny, which was mostly to do with his own cowardice. To be fair though, the other man had a new client so he was busy in the research phase, which meant Gabe had plenty of alone time to figure out what he was going to do. 

Obviously he was going to keep them, but he just didn’t know how to explain what was going on with his body. His morning sickness was still pretty consistent, but he had figured out what teas helped settle his stomach. It was everything else that was an issue. Like right now.

He was supposed to be going to dinner with Johnny, but he couldn’t get his pants to zip up. Dr. Swanson had told him his uterus was further back than a woman’s so he wasn’t going to show quite as much as a woman would, but that didn’t change the fact he was four months pregnant and had no body fat while he was in prison. His body was definitely adapting and getting rounder and more feminine in some aspects, which was why his pants wouldn’t fucking close.

Staring at his reflection in the mirror, the soft, round swell of his stomach stared back at him. He looked ridiculous: barefoot and shirtless with his pants wide open. And yet, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from his stomach. 

“And you say I take a long time getting ready.” Johnny teased as he walked into their bedroom and then froze as he took in Gabe’s current state. “Briel?” 

Sighing, he scrubbed a hand over his mouth before making eye contact with his husband. He’d made a point of not being naked around him these past couple of weeks, but Johnny had to have felt that there was… more of him now. They’d both always been clingy sleepers. They were always holding each other like they were afraid the other would disappear in the middle of the night. 

“Non-prison life is agreeing with me?” He tried out, but it didn’t look the same as if he’d just gotten pudgy. There was a definite formation to his stomach. It looked soft, but it was hard to the touch. He ignored the joke that popped into his head at that comment. 

“Briel, what’s going on?” And Johnny’s eyes were glued to Gabe’s stomach. It just looked… not like how his stomach usually looked.

The words wouldn’t come out. “I think you know.” And once again, there he went trying for the coward’s way out. 

To be fair, Gabriel wasn’t sure if he actually knew what was going on, just that something was going on with him. He’d definitely been acting out of character - sleeping with a shirt on, turning down sex, avoiding his husband when he was home. It was more than obvious that something was going on and that Gabe just didn’t want to talk about it. But now Gabe had to talk about it. There was no way out of it now. He couldn’t put it off any longer.

“No, Briel. I really don’t know. Besides,” Johnny took a couple of large steps towards him. “I want to hear it from you.” And there was that strange look in his eyes again, and he couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away from his stomach.

“I’m four months pregnant.” He admitted, and once he said it out loud, it was like the floodgates had been opened. “Dr. Swanson said it happens from time to time. That some men retain their uterus from when their embryo was female. It’s just, obviously, more like to happen with gay men because, well, duh. And Dr. Swanson gave me some pamphlets and books for you to read because I told him that I didn’t know how to explain it to you, but I wound up reading them instead. And I have an appointment next week if you don’t believe me, and-”

His husband’s mouth was suddenly on his, cutting off the rest of his stream of consciousness. “I believe you.” Forehead against forehead, breathing in the same air. “I thought you were having second thoughts about us. I thought you were leaving me. You were so distant, and so sick, but this… I never would have guessed this. It makes sense. It makes so much sense.”

Gabe swallowed. “I know you said that you didn’t want kids, and I know I said that I didn’t want any more kids, but-”

Johnny’s mouth cut him off again, kissing him until he forgot what he was going to say. “This is different.” He panted out before laughing almost hysterically. “This is so different.” 

Suddenly feeling shy, Gabe glanced down. Somewhere along the line, Johnny’s hands had made their way onto his stomach. “You mean it?” And he didn’t know why his voice sounded so small.

There was an almost possessive look in Johnny’s eyes as he pushed Gabe back towards their bed and dragged his gaze across his body. He had no idea what was going on in the other man’s head, but the way he was looking at him, made his mouth go dry. “I definitely mean it.”

With that, Gabe found himself being pressed onto their bed. “I don’t have any pants that fit any more.” He complained, watching as his husband pulled his jeans off him. There was energy crackling between them, and Gabe knew his accidental sex boycott had definitely been taking a toll on both of them.

“You can’t wear pants any more?” Johnny straddled his thighs and ran his hands over Gabe’s stomach again. “What a terrible shame.” And he did not sound sorry about it at all. But when Gabe made a face, he rolled his eyes. “We’ll figure it out. You might have to start dressing gay couture.”

Gabe groaned. “Great.” He said sarcastically, watching Johnny’s face as he stared at his stomach. “Are you okay with… this?”

He pressed his lips together, and Gabe knew he was processing the information still. “How can I be anything else?” He asked before leaning in and kissing him. “We’re going to be dads.”

-

The last time Gabe was this nervous, he was pretty sure it was Verdict Day. Laying on the exam table while Doctor Swanson smoothed gel over his stomach while Johnny sat next to him, leg shaking obnoxiously was not his idea of a good time. For reasons that he didn’t know, but that he assumed had a lot to do with his fucked up hormone levels, he had this ridiculous notion that he’d made the whole pregnancy thing up. Everything about this just seemed too weird, and too good to be true. There was no way that he was actually pregnant. And then…

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

His whole body went still as the sound of Sweet Pea’s heartbeat filled the room. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Johnny’s leg still. He couldn’t breathe. He hadn’t heard Sweet Pea last time. Plus, he’d been in shock, but now… there she was - loud and proud. He didn’t know why he assumed she was a girl, other than the fact that he already had two girls and knew how to raise girls. 

“There’s baby.” Dr. Swanson announced happily. “That, boys, is the sound of your little miracle.” 

A hand wrapped around his, but all Gabe could do was stare at the baby inside of him. He felt Johnny kiss the back of his hand, but Gabe only had eyes for Sweet Pea. He had no idea what was going through his husband’s head, but he knew what was going through his head. Sweet Pea wasn’t just this idea in his head. She was this real living thing inside of him. 

“I’ll give you boys a few moments while I print out some copies of the ultrasound for you.” Dr. Swanson’s voice startled Gabe out of his thoughts. Hell, he had no idea how long he’d actually been staring at the monitor, but he figured it had been longer than he realized. As soon as the doctor was out of the room, Gabe shifted and Johnny climbed onto the exam table with him.

“That’s…”

“Yep.”

“We…”

“Mmhmm.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

They didn’t say anything else until the doctor knocked on the door to see if Gabe had redressed. He wasn’t sure there was anything else either one of them could say.

-

“Okay, why are you being so weird?” Dustin had decided to move to New York to be closer to family, but Gabe up until this point  had refused to see him. It was like when he first got locked up all over again. He hadn’t initially wanted him to see him behind bars, and now he didn’t want him to see him all fat.

His cousin loved him unconditionally, and he knew that, but he couldn’t help but to be nervous about being pregnant. He didn’t know what the younger man’s reaction was going to be, and he was afraid it was going to be negative. It was one thing to accept his sexuality, but the fact that he was able to bear children? That was an entirely different beast.

Dustin was standing on the other side of the door, but Gabe was refusing to let him into the house. The door was slightly cracked open so Gabe could see his face, but so his cousin couldn’t see his belly. “I’m not being weird.” He lied. His hormones were steadily getting more and more out of whack, and the weirdest things set him off. The other day he’d started crying because the colors on one of his paintings didn’t look the way it had in his head.

“Yes you are! Why won’t you let me in the house?” 

Before Gabe could say anything, Johnny was standing behind him. “Briel, what are you doing? Who’s at the door?” He couldn’t see who it was from his angle, but once he did, he groaned. “Jesus Christ, Gabriel. Hi, Dustin.” He shuffled Gabe away from the door before opening it all the way and ushering Dustin into the house.

“Jay, why’d you let him in?” “You haven’t told him yet?” “Gabe, what --”

The questions drowned each other out, and Dustin was staring at Gabe, his eyes dropping to his stomach. He was wearing sweatpants and a very sheer tank top that showed off the round swell of formed muscle. 

“Gabe…” His cousin breathed out, and he felt like he was sixteen again and his six year old cousin walked in on him kissing another boy. Suddenly there were hands on his stomach. “Is that… are you… you’re having a baby?” And Dustin sounded so young in that moment. It reminded him of when he and Nancy told Delilah she was going to be a big sister. 

Suddenly Gabe felt like an absolute idiot for not telling the one member of his family who had always been on his side no matter what. “Yeah, Bubba.” He said, voice small. “Surprise. You’re going to be an uncle.”

-

It was almost eight o’clock and Gabe was curled up on the couch with George. The dog had followed him home one day, and well, Gabe had talked Johnny into letting him keep him. And his husband hadn’t even raised an eyebrow when Gabe named the dog after his sister. It actually hadn’t been as difficult as he thought it would be, and George was good company on the nights Johnny worked late. 

Hell, he was good company all the time. The dog followed him around everywhere, and he was obsessed with Gabe’s stomach. He was pretty sure he could smell the baby. Any time Gabe was sitting on the couch, George was there with him, head on his stomach. Right now, George was sitting next to Gabe, licking his face as Gabe openly sobbed, tears streaming down his face. 

The front door opened, and he could hear his husband come in, but Gabe couldn’t bring himself to call out to him. He just clung to the dog while he continued to cry. Usually George went running to greet Johnny when he got home, and dragged him to wherever Gabe was. Tonight the dog was more concerned with getting Gabe’s face to stop leaking and was focused on licking the tears off his face.

“Briel?” Johnny called out. “You lay down already?” When there was no response, Johnny tried again. “George?” 

WOOF. WOOF.

He buried his face into George’s neck, but the second Johnny was in the living room George was off the couch and behind Johnny, pushing him to the couch and to Gabe. And once he was next to him, Gabe collapsed into his husband’s arms, face buried in his shirt as he cried. George whined, likely to tell Johnny to fix it before jumping to Gabe’s other side and curling up next to him.

“Briel, what happened?” His husband’s fingers dragged slowly through his hair.

After a few minutes, Gabe’s sobs turned into pitiful sounding hiccups, and he wiped his face on Johnny’s shirt before slowly looking up at him. “She loved him so much, and she saw that Willow had given him back his soul, but it was too late. The portal was already opened and killing him was the only way to close it. And she couldn’t even tell Willow that the spell had worked because that would make it even worse and she didn’t want her best friend to share in the guilt, and-” He collapsed back onto Johnny’s chest as he started crying again.

There was confused silence, and Johnny gently stroked a hand up and down Gabe’s back. It was that very moment that George must have rolled onto the remote because suddenly the end credits to Buffy started playing. 

And immediately it was like a light bulb went off. “Gabriel,” Johnny pulled him back so he could look at him. “Are you having a meltdown over an episode of a fictional television show about a teenage girl in love with an old man vampire who needs to find a girlfriend his own age?” 

Gabe gave a watery laugh. “It’s your fault.” He whined out. “My hormones are out of whack. You should have seen me when Jenny Calendar died.” He complained, shifting to grab the remote from the dog and turning the DVD player off.  “It was almost worse.” At the blank look on his husband’s face, he tagged on, “Another character from Buffy, baby.”

It was a struggle to get out of his husband’s arms. He was five months pregnant now, and he was definitely showing. His friend, Kale, who he’d only met about a month before realizing he was pregnant had been a life saver and had given him so many fucking tunics. It was pretty much all he wore when he had a shirt on. 

He was in front of the DVD player when suddenly Johnny was next to him. “Oh, no, Briel. No more Buffy for you.” He dragged him towards the kitchen. “C’mon, you can eat ice cream while I eat dinner.”

“With whipped cream?” He sniffled out.

“With all the whipped cream you want.” 

-

Gabe was standing in front of the mirror in the bedroom again. This time he was poking at his nipples. A frown was etched onto his features as he studied his form.

“What are you doing?” Johnny asked with an amused grin as he walked into the room. He slid behind him, and wrapped his arms around his stomach, propping his head on his shoulder to stare at their reflection.

“Men don’t have mammary glands.” He murmured out, poking his pec this time. His mind was flashing back to the anatomy classes he’d taken in college. A Fine Arts degree meant taking some weird ass science classes. He’d had to take a veterinary anatomy class, too. All of the random facts he’d learned in those classes were flashing back to him right now. “But my uterus doesn’t know that.” 

There was a pause before Johnny burst into laughter. “What?” He asked as he went and sat on the edge of the bed, watching Gabe, who still stood studying his reflection. 

He shot Johnny a look in the mirror, knowing he could still see him from that angle. “Just because it sounds weird doesn’t make it less true. I’m having phantom milk pains.” He replied grumpily, before cupping his pec, and inspecting his reflection. “Does it look like I have tits? It feels like I have tits.” 

Johnny snorted and held out a hand for him. “C’mere, baby.” And he waited until Gabe was standing between his legs before cupping Gabe’s pec. “Hmm… Feels bigger.” He teased. “But I’m going to need to do further research.” 

Before Gabe could complain, he was in his lap and his nipple was in his husband’s mouth. “You’re incorrigible.” He whined out, fingers tangling in his hair to hold him in place. “That feels so weird.” He shifted so he was more comfortable, a hand braced on the bed behind him to support some of his weight.

His husband pulled his mouth off with a wet pop. “What does it feel like?” Curiosity laced his words as he traced a finger over his nipple. “Does it hurt?” 

Some days Gabe couldn’t help but to wonder if Johnny was jealous that this was something that Gabe got to experience that he didn’t, but most of the time he understood what his husband was trying to do - he wanted to share the experience with him.

Gabe shook his head. “No. There’s pressure, but there shouldn’t be pressure because I don’t have the parts that should be causing pressure.” He wrinkled his face up. “It hurts my head if I think about it for too long.” 

They were both quiet for a long moment before Gabe pulled his husband’s head down to his other nipple. “Continue your research, please.”

-

Baking wasn’t one of Gabe’s strong suits, but there were a couple of things he was really good at making: vanilla scones and peanut butter cookies. The further along he got in his pregnancy, the more he tried to bake things he wasn’t very good at. He was in the middle of an overly ambitious apple pie when the front door opened and slammed shut. 

Immediately Gabe tensed, his mind flashing back to his childhood. A door slammed like that normally meant a pissed off and drunk father. 

George was suddenly standing in front of him, stance protective, teeth bared when Johnny stumbled into the kitchen. He’d seen Johnny in quite a few states of drunkenness during their marriage so far, but he’d never seen him this level of drunk. This was Francis-level drunk, the type of drunk Gabe had put up with growing up. This level of drunk meant drinking to get drunk so you forgot the love of your life died young in life. 

It was also the level of drunk that made Gabe nervous. With his dad, it meant Gabe would wind up in the ER or in the bathroom with his mom administering stitches. With Johnny, he didn’t know what it meant. The dog had relaxed his stance slightly. Teeth weren’t bared, but he was sitting at Gabe’s feet. There was no way that his husband was getting  anywhere near him, as far as George was concerned. 

“Were you going to tell me or were you just gonna let me find out the hard way?”

Having no idea what Johnny was talking about, Gabe moved over to the coffee pot. George was hot on his heels, a growl slipping out of the dog’s mouth when he thought Johnny got too close to them. “Let’s get some coffee in you, and food. I thought you were just going to happy hour. I didn’t realize you were…” He waved a vague hand in his husband’s general direction. “Whatever this is.” 

Suddenly Johnny was right in front of him, the only thing keeping him from touching Gabe was George standing on his hind legs and pushing at Johnny with his paws. “Were. You. Ever. Going. To. Tell. Me?” He didn’t push the dog away, which made Gabe relax slightly. He didn’t intend to get violent, he was just angry. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, baby.” He said in a soft voice that reminded him too much of his mother. 

Johnny’s shoulders slumped slightly and he took a step back. This allowed George to drop back to all fours - still posted at Gabe’s feet. “I ran into Dr. Swanson at the bar.” He said, and Gabe knew exactly what his husband was upset about. “He wanted to know how I was handling everything with how far along you were. And asked if we’d made the appointment with the counselor to prepare for the worst case scenario.” He took a breath, obviously trying to get his bearings. “When were you going to tell me there’s a 25% chance that you’re going to die in childbirth?”

Sighing, he abandoned his coffee making task, and tangled a hand in the dogs fur, tugging him to stand next to him instead of blocking him from Johnny. There was a whine, but the dog followed Gabe’s lead. “I didn’t want to taint any of this with sadness. It’s a miracle. This should be a happy time.” He looped his arms around Johnny’s neck, which earned a bark from George, but he allowed it. “Besides, you’re missing the most important thing: there’s a 75% chance I’m going to live through it.”

An anguished sound fell from his husband’s lips as he leaned his forehead against Gabe’s. He could taste the whiskey on his breath. “There’s a one in four chance that you’re going to die, and I can’t…” He hiccuped and there was a gentle hand on Gabe’s face. “I can’t do this without you, Briel.”

He could feel the dog relax next to him, but he still stayed next to Gabe’s legs just in case. “There’s a three in four chance that I’m going to live.” He volleyed back. “Whatever happens, Sweet Pea is going to get the childhood we never got. Even if I… you know.” He didn’t believe he would die in childbirth, but he still couldn’t get the words out. 

“Briel…”

He shook his head and pulled back, holding his husband’s face in his hands. “Promise me, Jonathan. I need you to promise me that you won’t go off the rails if I die. I need you to promise that if something happens to me, you’ll love the baby regardless.” He searched the other man’s face. “Promise me, baby.”

It was silent in the kitchen for a long while before his husband finally managed out, “Promise.”

Gabe wasn’t sure if he believed him, but he’d take it for now. This definitely wasn’t a conversation they should be having now. They’d table it for when he was sober. “Now, let’s get some food in you and not the apple pie because I think the fire alarm is about to go off.”

-

He honestly wasn’t sure how time had passed so quickly. It seemed like he’d just found out he was pregnant yesterday, and now here he was - eight months pregnant and designated to the couch. His best friend was flying in from Los Angeles to spend a couple of weeks helping him get ready for the baby and he couldn’t even go to the airport to pick him up. Johnny had to go pick him up, and he wasn’t even allowed to go with him. 

A part of him couldn’t help but to giggle when he thought about what the hell the two of them would talk about... His former cellmate turned best friend was... a character to say the very least. He could have a conversation with a wall, and his husband, well... he held his own. Their interactions always warmed his heart.

Somewhere along the line he must have dozed off on the couch with the dog because suddenly... “Look at your stomach, dude!” 

When he opened his eyes, Cesar was in the living room and Johnny was no where to be seen. He had no idea how much time had passed between when Johnny went to the airport and now. All he knew was that Cesar looked like he had been there awhile and he just had this feeling that Johnny had his hands full.

“Fuck, are you a fucking ninja?” He whined out as he tried to sit up, but couldn’t, both due to his belly and George. “And don’t you get on my fucking case, too, about working on my swearing.”

Cesar grinned down at him, all smiles. “I’m gonna let you have that one, just because you look like you’re going to pop.” He pushed Gabe back down to laying down. “Don’t get up on account of me, man. We’re here to make your life easier.” Despite George using Gabe’s stomach as a pillow, Cesar laid a hand on his stomach, completely ignoring the warning growl from George. “Holy shit! There really is a baby in there. Your stomach is all hard and shit.”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s funny how there tends to be a baby in a pregnant man’s belly.” He still shifted so he was mostly sitting up against the arm of the couch. “If you’re that slow, maybe I should pick someone else for Sweet Pea’s godfather…”

“Don’t fuck with me, James. I’m a Mexican Catholic. We take that shit seriously. There’s candles and warding off of mal de ojo. It’s serious business.” He lifted up Gabe’s legs and sat on the other end of the couch, propping his friend’s feet in his lap. “Besides, it’s too late. You already chose me. It’s a done deal.”

There was something that Cesar had told him that wasn’t sitting right with him, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. Then there was the fact he hadn’t seen Johnny yet. Which was strange in and of itself. 

“You got the channel that plays the Dodgers?” He asked picking up the remote. And that’s when he realized what had bothered him about Cesar’s initial statement.

“Wait. What do you mean we?” His gaze narrowed. “Cesar, what do you mean we?”

His friend didn’t get a chance to answer. At that moment, his three year old godson, Junior, toddled into the room. “Uncle G!” His eyes widened when he saw the dog. “DOGGY!” George made a distressed sound a leapt off the couch in an attempt to get away from the toddler, but that didn’t deter Junior. He changed direction to chase the dog. “I be back, Uncle G.”

Okay... Cesar brought his son with him. That made sense, but that also meant he probably also brought -

“Did Junior come this way?” Maria Rodriquez asked as she skidded into the room, looking at her husband, obviously not realizing Gabe had woken up. When he’d first met his best friend’s wife, he’d told her that Maria was his mom’s name. From that moment on, she adopted him into her family. That was just how the Rodriguez family was though. They welcomed you into their family like you were always a part of it. “I told him to leave his tio alone, but you know how he  gets.”

Gabe chuckled. “He followed the dog.” His gaze cut to the TV, where Cesar had found the Dodgers game, already making himself at home.

“Junior followed the... GABE!” Maria ran over to him and kissed his cheek. “You’re awake. That piece of meat you’re married to said you haven’t been sleeping well so we didn’t want to wake you up. He took them to the store, by the way.” 

He blinked, trying to keep up with the direction the conversation had gone in. Johnny went to the store with... Wait. If Cesar, Maria and Junior were home with him, who did he take shopping? 

The front door opened and Rocio, Cesar’s older sister, walked into the room, holding a paper bag of groceries. He’d known Rocio almost as long as he’d known Cesar. When she found out he didn’t get a lot of mail, she started writing him and visiting him. At first he thought she was sweet on him, and when he told her that, she laughed so hard she cried. When she finally stopped laughing, she told him that Cesar adopted him and what kind of sister would she be if she didn’t visit her new brother? It was in that moment Gabe decided that when he had his own family, he wanted to be just like the Rodriguez family. 

“I don’t know how you live in a neighborhood so far away from a good market. We had to go to Corona to get all the stuff for a decent pozole, Gabriel.” She pressed a kiss to the top of his head before continuing on to the kitchen. “It’s better than our Corona. No horses and wannabe cowboys.”

He blinked because if Rocio was here, then so were Alejandra and Lupe. The teenagers traipsed into the living room each holding two more bags. “She made us go to three stores, Uncle Gabe. Three.” Alejandra, the older of the two, and almost twenty, complained dramatically. “We also had to get things for tamales, chilaquiles, and tacos. Mom thinks you need home-cooked meals.”

Suddenly Rocio yelled out something in Spanish and Alejandra went running into the kitchen. Lupe sighed. “Sorry, Uncle Gabe. You know how they are.” And with that she followed her sister.

When he looked up, Maria was gone, too. He wasn’t sure if it was to chase after Junior or if she’d gone into the kitchen to help Rocio.

The thing that amazed him was that no one in the Rodriguez family had ever questioned Gabe being pregnant. When he asked Cesar about it later, he told him there was a myth in the village his parents were from about how Mary originally been a man, and that it was a highest blessing a man could be given. That’s why they didn’t think it was strange he was pregnant. They were a religious family who thought it was a miracle.

“Cesar,” He flexed his bare feet in his friend’s lap, and without tearing his eyes away from the Dodger’s game, his friend began working out the kinks in Gabe’s arches. “Just how many people did you bring with you?”

Now Cesar glanced over at him. “Just the family. Well, most of the family. Juan’s wife is too pregnant to travel, she’s only seven months though, and dad’s health is crap.” The way he said it made it sound like Gabe should have known the whole family was coming.

“Wait...” If the whole family was there, then that meant... “Cesar, where’s my husband?” And he already had a sinking feeling that he knew exactly where his husband was.

His friend went back to watching the game. “With Mama.” He said like it was obvious.

Gabe groaned. “You left him alone with Mama?” He asked, giving Cesar a shove with his feet before slowly rolling himself to his feet. “I’m never going to see him again.”

He didn’t get very far before - “What part of on bed rest did you not understand?” There over his shoulder stood Johnny, Junior perched on his hip. 

Immediately Gabe relaxed back onto the couch, and Cesar grabbed his legs and pulled them back up into his lap. “How many pictures of Jesus are now in our house? And candles? Did they tell you she accidentally burned down part of their house because she kept building altars to the saints?” 

His godson was deposited on his lap, and Johnny leaned down to press a kiss to his forehead. “The whole family isn’t staying to whole time, are they?” There was a slightly panicked look in his husband’s eyes.

Gabe pulled him down for a kiss. “God, I hope not.” He murmured out, immediately cringing when he realized that Mama Rodriguez was standing in the living room.

As he got a barrage of Spanish he mostly didn’t understand, he looked at his husband again. “It’s fine. It’s fine.”

-

This was supposed to be a small baby shower, but Gabe should have known that once the Rodriguez family was involved, it was going to be a huge affair. It always was when they were involved. He was pretty sure that there were people here he didn’t even know. Junior was playing with another kid his age, but Gabe was pretty sure he didn’t invite anyone who had a toddler. Honestly though, he should have anticipated everything getting bigger than what he wanted. He didn’t know why he didn’t. 

“Well, this was not what I expected a baby shower to look like.” Kaleidoscope Johnson announced as he all but sashayed into the room, a bottle of wine in one hand and a party bag in the other. “Is that a tequila bar? And here I thought I was being a bad boy bringing wine.”

Gabe rolled his eyes as he greeted his friend with a hug. “Do you think you’re the only person who brought us booze? We’re gonna need it after Sweet Pea is born.” He barely lifted a hand before Lupe was there, and took both the wine and the gift from Kale.

“Aren’t you supposed to not be on your feet, Uncle Gabe?” She threw over her shoulder before shuffling off to the present table. 

For once in the time Gabe had known Kale, the other man looked totally uncomfortable. He wasn’t surprised that he was a half hour late, but Kale had been a little overly nervous about Gabe’s belly. When they had gone to lunch the week before, and Gabe got stuck in the booth because his stomach was too big, Kale had freaked out and thought something was going to happen to the baby. Seeing him now, looking uneasy as Junior and the random toddler ran around the patio, it struck him that Kale didn’t have any friends with kids. He didn’t know how he was supposed to interact at a party like this, but he’d still put himself out there and came to the party. 

“You’re not actually naming the alien inside you Sweet Pea, are you?” He asked, sounding horrified.

Gabe laughed, and shook his head. “It’s a placeholder name. We don’t know what we’re having.” His gaze cut over to the gift table before looking back at his friend. “You got something off the registry right?”

His friend smiled wickedly and looked a bit more like himself. “You’re just going to have to wait and see. Now, where is that stallion of yours?” He all but purred out. “I thought you chose him because he was pretty. I didn’t realize he was all man. I should have known. You have to be all man to put a bun in your oven.” 

Before Gabe could say anything Cesar was standing next to him. “You!” He wagged an accusatory finger in Kale’s direction. “Best friend thief! You are not welcome here.”

It took everything in him not to burst into laughter at how put out Cesar sounded about Kale being there. He wrapped an arm around Cesar. “Kale, Cesar’s wife, Maria wants to talk to you anyway. We went to the Collective last week and she wants to ask you questions about your style. I don’t think she’s ever seen hyper realism before.” 

Thankfully Kale took the hint and left Gabe and Cesar alone. “Seriously?” 

His best friend just laughed. “C’mon. If Mama sees you on your feet, she’s gonna lose her shit.” 

-

Falling asleep at the drop of the hat was something Gabe had been doing a lot lately. Every little thing wiped him out. At least this time he’d fallen asleep while sketching in bed. It took him a minute to realize that someone was talking. 

At first he thought that he must have left the TV on, but they didn’t have a TV in their bedroom so that didn’t make sense. Blinking, he slowly opened his eyes to find Johnny laying on his stomach, face next to the bump as he talked quietly to the baby. A fond smile slid onto Gabe’s face, and he slid his hand into his husband’s hair, gently scratching at his scalp. 

Johnny startled, and pulled back to look at Gabe almost sheepishly. “Aw, shit. I didn’t mean to wake you up.” He looked like he got caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to do.

Gabe shot him a sleepy smile. “Technically you didn’t.” He continued with his head scratches. “She likes your voice. She keeps kicking my bladder.” When his husband tensed, he rolled his eyes. “It’s fine. I’m just gonna keep reminding you that you ruined my boyish figure for the rest of our lives.”

He startled a laugh out of Johnny, who gave him a slight nudge before laying back down so he could go back to talking to the baby. “Briel, we haven’t talked about-”

His hand stilled in Johnny’s hair. “I don’t want to talk about the what ifs.” He said, assuming Johnny was talking about the 25% mortality rate.

The bridge of Johnny’s nose turned an interesting shade of pink and he looked up at Gabe. “That’s actually not what I was going to say.” He admitted, face getting more and more pink.

Oh, he was embarrassed. That was interesting... He slid his hand out of Johnny’s hair, and instead tilted his chin so he could better look at his husband. “What haven’t we talked about, baby?” He asked him curiously.

“I, uh...” And why had he interrupted him? Now getting him to admit what he was going to say could be like pulling teeth. “What I was going to say before you reminded me of something I didn’t want to think about...” Okay, maybe it wasn’t going to be like pulling teeth. “Was that we haven’t discussed if we were going to have more kids after Sweet Pea or if this is it for us?” 

And that was probably the last thing in the world he thought Johnny was going to say. Unable to stop himself, he started laughing. “Jay...” He made grabby hands for the other man and all but pulled him up to lay next to him. “Let’s get through this one first.” He shook his head. “Look at you, papa bear.”

He didn’t need to turn his head to know that his husband was rolling his eyes at him. “I love you, smart ass.” Johnny murmured out, his head lolling onto Gabe’s shoulder, hand absently rubbing Gabe’s stomach. 

“I love you, too.”

-

Something was wrong. That was was the first thought in Gabe’s mind as he jolted awake. He wasn’t due for another two weeks. And when he said due, he referred to the date of his scheduled C-section. That was the only way for baby and daddy to survive the pregnancy, and Gabe was more than okay with that. 

The overall concern was Gabe’s water breaking. Of the male pregnancies that had ended in death, it was due to sepsis caused by the fluid not being able to leave the body properly. His water breaking was worst case scenario. 

“Jay.” He could barely sit up. “Jay.” His husband was a much lighter sleeper than he was, which worked in his favor for situations like this. “Jay, something’s wrong.”

His husband’s hair was sticking up in every direction. “What do you mean something’s wrong?” He asked, but he was already getting out of bed. 

Gabe gingerly pushed himself to his feet, only to practically collapse back onto the bed. “Fuck. I was not prepared for this shit.” He clutched his husband’s shoulders. “Yeah, Sweet Pea isn’t waiting for our C-Section date.”

His husband’s eyes widened. “Briel,” And he knew that Johnny had to be thinking about what the doctor had told them about how Gabe’s chances of survival were lower if his labor began naturally. 

Being the mature person he was, he ignored him. “Maria!” He called out, trying to stagger on his own to the bedroom door. “Maria, it’s time.”

Not even five seconds later, a very dazed Cesar was in their bedroom. “Like... time-time?” And the fact that he was acting like he was the one about to be a father (again), made Gabe want to laugh.

“Get out of my way, moron.” Maria pushed past her husband and into the room. “You know the drill.” She pointed at her husband. “Take his hospital bag.” She shoved it at him. “And go start the car.” 

Then she spun around and looked at Johnny. “Get that look off your face, get some shoes on both your feet and get him downstairs. I’m going to tell Rocio and Mama where we’re going.” She started to leave the room before she turned back to Gabe and pressed a sloppy kiss on his forehead. “You’re doing a wonderful job, sweetie.” 

Maria was almost out of the room before “Now MOVE it.” 

-

Everything was moving so quickly. Gabe wasn’t sure if he blacked out or if he’s disassociating. All he knew was that one minute he’s in the car, and wishing that Cesar wasn’t driving (at one point he was pretty sure he was driving on the sidewalk) and the next he was in a wheelchair and being pushed down a long corridor. He no longer thought being stabbed was the worst pain in the world. Labor was definitely the most painful thing in the world. 

“Mr. James-Michaels, can you hear me?”

He’s trying to focus on everything going on around him, but he’s in sensory overload. 

“Sir, we’re going to have to ask you to leave the room.”

What? How can he leave the room? Why are they putting him up on a table? What’s going on?

“That’s my husband. I have a right to be in here for his C-Section.”

“Sir, I understand your frustration, but we cannot have you in the room right now. We’ll send someone to collect you when you’re able to be in the room with him.”

There’s too much happening, too much going on around him, but if he can just focus on Johnny’s voice he thinks he’ll be okay. All he needs to do is focus on his husband’s voice.

“Under California state law, we are legally married. Per Governor Paterson's executive directive issued in May, all state agencies must recognize out of state same sex marriages as they would other marriages.” 

“Sir, if your husband was your wife, we’d treat you the same damn way. Sit your ass down.”

And then the world went fuzzy and dark.

-

The original ending | The sad ending

v v The official ending v v

-

Exhausted. Gabe was completely and utterly exhausted. He felt like he’d been caught inside an egg beater. His body felt tore up, and he both wanted to wake up and go back to sleep all at the same time. Why was he so tired? And then he remembered -

“Baby?”

“I thought we weren’t doing pet names any more.”

A laugh was torn out of him as he realized Kale was in the room with him. “You’re an idiot.” He coughed out. “Water?”

Kale popped an ice chip into Gabe’s mouth. “I was instructed to only feed you ice chips and keep you company until Captain Gorgeous gets back.” 

“Oh, God, let’s not start calling him that.” Gabe complained.

“What aren’t we calling me?” 

Gabe glanced at the door to find Johnny standing behind a nurse as she rolled the clear plastic little crib into the room. He almost cried when he realized what was happening. “Is that...”

The nurse was all smiles. “It sure is. We haven’t been able to get this one away from the nursery.” She jabbed her head in Johnny’s direction before parking the crib next to the bed. “You get to hold her first though, Daddy, since you did all the work.” 

The second the baby is put into Gabe’s arms he feels like his whole world was reoriented, just like it had been when the girls were born. “Oh, she’s perfect.” He breathed out, tracing a finger over the baby’s nose. 

“Why is her head all pointy?” 

And Gabe forgot that Kale was still in the room.

“Let’s leave the Dads to bond with Baby, okay?” The nurse said before ushering Kale out of the room.

Johnny settled onto the bed next to him. “Look at her.” He breathed out. “We made that.”

Gabe laughed softly, head tilting against his husband’s shoulder. “We did good.”

A kiss was pressed to the side of his head. “Yeah. We really did.”

[deathlygristly]

I'm reading this thread about the changes in marriage age and housing over the last few decades, and it's kind of weird to see people talking about how they can't imagine getting married at 21, or that marriage is risky and scary, or that people tell them to never get married.

I get it if you're poly or aro or something like that, although some of the poly people I know are married to their primary partner, but for me and my spousal person and our demi monogamous selves, it's worked very well.

Also other people grew up seeing marriages around them fail. I grew up...well, I know my parents were happy until my father died.

It was the second marriage for both of them. My father's first wife died, I think of cancer, and my mother's first husband, who she had my brothers with, was an abusive asshole who she divorced. He is still alive, and also a millionaire now. After my mother worked to put him through college. Sigh. I met him once. It was surreal.

Also a lot of the people in this thread seem to tie marriage to kids, which I think is kind of weird. The spousal person and I agreed at 18 when we started dating that we didn't want kids, and that hasn't changed in 20 years.

Of course a lot of them bring up financial/cultural stuff, which is what I tell the spousal person when he starts complaining about feeling old. At least we got to experience the time before 9/11 when Americans were somewhat sane, we got to actually feel a fall chill in the air in September and October (the high here today is 97), and we could afford to buy a two bedroom house in our 20s. Of course that was mostly because neither of us have four year degrees, so we didn't have that kind of debt.

I guess...like I feel really bad for the people I see online who want to get married, but who are scared of it or pessimistic about it because they saw people get divorced or because they listen to incel rhetoric about how romantic relationships work. They seem so miserable. I want to tell them that it can work, that you can be happy, that the incels are silly and wrong. *hugs all the sad people*

[unproduciblesmackdown]

so being abused the entire first 2 decades of your life: what’s up with that? Night Posts Edition

- classic when finding some “uh oh relatable!” content abt various Disorderres and there’s some thing like “many symptoms overlap with ptsd” and it’s like ooh which one is applying to me?? i mean spoilers the idea that The Grouping Of Non Nt Traits And Experiences Into Distinct Classifications is not actually...an exact science and for all intents and purposes it makes no difference if i am going “oh god #me” at an informative post about adhd if actually its ptsd acting exactly the same anyways so. but yknow it’s wild n zany being like “am i overstepping my bounds b/c this was caused by coping with trauma possibly? what audacity” and etc when it really....that doesnt matter....

- also ugh @ retaining things that downplay abusers’ responsibility for their actions (in specific things you’re personally dealing with, not like, as a general stance) and shift blame onto yourself like........you have to get so used to treating someone’s Abusive Behavior as something inevitable that you can’t ever expect them to stop doing, and thus pretty much considering someone abusive like a force of nature because they’re just gonna do what they’re gonna do whenever they next get Set Off rather than like.......a person who is responsible for their own behavior and in control of their own choices and like. especially zany when you’re a kid and they’re your parent so there’s the Power Imbalance of them being an adult and the other power imbalance of them being in control of your whole existence. but so like even just the other year i was taking the blame for calmly speaking back to a grownass man close to thrice my age raging at me and saying like, not verbatim but the idea of like “ugh i know it was partly my fault for even saying anything back to him because i knew he’d just continue to yell but unfortunately i just refuse to weather that kind of behavior without standing up for myself at all anymore” but like no!!!! that’s shifting all the responsibility for this other person’s behavior onto myself, like i Made him choose to shout at me at like 4am because he sucks and has some kind of superiority power trip issues. cuz i am well within rights to respond to anyone addressing me and it’s Not my fault at all that he chooses to react the way he reacts. 

- also that i was ready to excuse my being blamed for this by others because they were closer to that person than they were to me and i was gonna be like “okay i Get wanting to defend someone who’s closer to you” but no!!!! actually!!!! i may get it but i don’t condone excusing anyone’s horrible behavior in the least just cuz you know them or they’re friends or family or something. in fact that’s terrible. i’m just primed to be Used To It because of the weird situation of parental abuse where there’s other people also trapped in this location and daily life with an abuser and if someone “causes” the abuser to start being shitty then they’ll get blamed / resented for that. me and my siblings seem more like friendly acquaintances b/c we had to be pitted against each other in these kinds of ways for eons until we were all in our teens and got some more Space and kind of realized that we weren’t each others enemies and got closer and my dumb little brother was old enough to stop being a whiny binch and Owed me for helping him with math hw over the phone from 2 hrs drive away lol.....jk, sort of.....we did get along great eventually but then i left thanks to said abuse and us talking via twitter isn’t at all the same as us being able to talk in person :/

- also one thing that sometimes Strikes me is that when i’m like blandly recalling incidents of abuse like “oh yeah, that time” it bothers me less to think about stuff that happened to me specifically than to think about times it was Other people who were being treated that way. the latter was always equally or probably more upsetting and it always felt just as bad in the moment anyways, there was no major distinction in the Abuse In Progress experience if it was directed mostly on you than on other people

- all my life i’ve also been super stubborn which never helped and even Abuse MaGee would have to try to get creative with Disciplinary Systems and there was this golden “punishment” which was eat dinner in your room by yourself and i was like oh my god can i really. the horror of Family Dinner was like, this dark comedic farce playing out in that house for all our lives. christ. speaking of being stubborn this one time my sister cut my toe with a knife (half accidentally) because i refused to stop swinging my legs despite her holding the knife under the table lol and i also refused to tell on her b/c we were All In This Together (that is, Us vs The Abuser, which always took precedence over any internal conflict in our faction lol)

- always remembering how my “’”””””””defining”””””””””” trait was always getting good grades except the only reason i ever felt this pressure was the time my sister caught shit for getting a C, and i wasn’t even getting A - F letter grades yet and was already like jfc guess i can’t like....get a single C ever.....the joke is i’ve always been a godawful student who hates school, i just also managed to get great grades fairly easily, b/c of the devil probably. i’m sorry

- love to wonder what interests i might have been able to explore if i didn’t want to hide anything i was genuinely interested in and other True Thoughts And Feelings from my ‘rents. who knows!!! even now i’m not sure what i like and my vague ideas about it are all mostly In Theory and i don’t have any hopes and dreams b/c of never being able to really consider my own interests and desires and also because when every day of your life is basically spent in survival mode about everything else, that’s not really conducive to having dreams and ambitions. see also: like, being really poor

- The Weird Experience when only one of your parents is abusive and the other parent is also experiencing spousal abuse and so like, even though they’re your parent, you know that they don’t really have equal power as the abusive one because they too are being abused? it’s a complicated thing b/c that’s how every individual experience with abuse is (complicated). and so you’ve got this bizarre situation where maybe someone cares about you but they can’t really protect you from this other person. and like, my dad is crap and in some areas even a crappier person than my abusive mom and also i hate him, but i only hate him for certain things lmao not for being abused or some ways he tried to deal with it. i know what’s trash and what’s not

- the zany experience of No One Will Help You Ever.....lucky for me i eventually figured out on my own that what i’d been living with all the time had actually been abuse for real all along! and yet still i knew that like, there wasn’t much i could immediately do with that information because..........yknow, what do you actually do. i was basically already 18, so. and even if i hadnt been. there’s nothing to do for it!! just sucks to be you, basically. but an exception is that when one day i texted my friend to ask if i might be able to leave my house overnight and crash at their family’s place for a little bit, their parents immediately were like Yes Of Course and they let me stay there for a week and were very nice about all of it. between them and the nice trans lady who gave me some more Housing Assistance by letting me stay in her spare room for like, most of december.....my Allies. plus someone who talked to me via online once i bailed on my ‘rents! if they read this they know who they are and they have continued to be so kind and generous ugh love and appreciate you

- god just individual occasions of “THIS bullshit that i went through this one time” of especially ridiculous incidents.....i could go on for eons

- sort of tangentially related and related to the first point but ugh specific memories of Moments In Which It Continued To Be Revealed To Me That I, Individually, Was Prone To Being Kind Of Socially Ostracized.....like my ass started noticing that shit as soon as i was around other kids aka preschool aka 4 yrs old.......like i’m usually somewhat withdrawn and cautious and quiet in social situations especially what with the association that “misbehaving” = trauma exposure so, yknow, that might be a way that you’re pressured into just keeping to yourself and keeping your head down. but talk about “i don’t really relate to other people my age” lmao like i always preferred interacting with adults really while by and large dealing with the other kids felt like a challenge that i was never gonna actually come out on top of and i still remember individual Efforts i’d make to ~fit in~ and Participate that just fell flat or got me actively excluded....Ugh City........and it’s like, i could make a list of Social Traits i think i have that help make it difficult for people to be interested in interacting with me, or “contribute” to those joyous occasions when you get to sit back and take in the thinly veiled contempt directed at you by various shitheads, but like, even that’s not really the right way to explain it. its kind of more a Greater Than The Sum Of Its Weird Parts sorta combined experience where i guess i just have this kind of Negative Je Ne Sais Quoi that gets ya the social brushoff / rejection. c’est ce que c’est. the joke is i actually like people and socializing In Theory, i just usually don’t get to do it. shoutout to the advanced relatability of alana calling everyone Acquaintances b/c i literally did/do that lmao......like are we friends if we don’t talk all that often? it’s part on me cuz i’m crap at being the person to initiate conversation cuz too often i assume i’d be an annoyance and also b/c conversation with me is like, not great lmao but still......ce’st l’a v’ie

anyways (clip from that fuckin song where it’s like WHO CAN RELATE lmao.mp3)

[ohailyn]

❝ Half of me, for growth; the other, for decay. ❞ ANTOINETTE ROBERTSON? No, that’s actually AILYN WILKES. A SEVENTH YEAR student, this SLYTHERIN student is sided with THE NEUTRALS. SHE/HER identifies as A CIS WOMAN and is a PUREBLOOD who is known to be INDIFFERENT, HAUGHTY, and SECRETIVE but also ADAPTABLE, INTELLECTUAL, and AMBITIOUS.

LINKS: stats, pinboard, character tag. CHARACTER PARALLELS: elle woods (legally blonde), cersei lannister (asoiaf), michaela pratt (how to get away with murder), sun bak (sense8) HELLO this is my babe ailyn, a pink mess of iconicness and confusing morals!!! just a heads up that this intro will contain mentions of abuse (spousal and child) and alcoholism

history

ailyn’s youth was filled with lies. her parents were skilled liars, pretenders, people who bended the truth because the truth was something nasty. her father said his business was booming, while unpaid bills kept piling up, and he kept reassuring them with alcohol on his breath and an unshaved face, that nothing was wrong, that he was fixing it all. when ailyn turned ten, he had gone bankrupt and visited the pub every day, rather than his job, and when his mother kissed him on the cheek every morning and told her kids that she loved him, she was lying, too. she smelled of others when she came home, and she was having not one, but two affairs.

and so ailyn learned that truth is a relative thing, something to bend to your own will. she learned it from her parents and continued it when she went to hogwarts, where she spoke of her father’s wonderful business and her parents happy marriage as if it was nothing but truth. she learned off their secrets before she left (and they weren’t that hard to figure out, in all truth, if you looked well — all it took was following her dad to work one day and bursting in her mother’s bedroom out of nowhere) and kept them, but added in some aspects of her own. lies became ailyn’s language at hogwarts, and she fed them to those around her with smiles.

besides, her family was doing a good fucking job at keeping the truth quiet: her maternal grandparents supplied enough money for them to continue living in their home, to afford the bare necessities, to make sure that ailyn and her brother would not show up at hogwarts looking like the poor kids they were without their grandparents. gotta love that classicism! :)

born into a family with a history of supporting voldemort, ailyn was raised with purist beliefs. her paternal grandfather died in the crossfire of the first wizarding war and his legacy runs through the veins of her father. her father, who committed purist crimes in order to steal money or things of worth, even after voldemort’s end, her father, who told her how his father was supposed to still be alive and ream the rewards of his hard work, who clung to purist ideals so desperately, that it seemed to be the only thing to keep him afloat. she believed them, for a long time, as they gave her a chance to put herself on a pedestal, and she craved that, when she was younger.

she has shed them at this point, though she doesn’t bother to speak out against it. it’s just that she’s not a very good witch – she’s smart, don’t get me wrong, incredibly intelligent, but simply not good at waving wands and muttering spells – which has put things in perspective a little. being into history and being a realist in her core has also made ailyn look at the topic of blood purity more seriously, and once she was able to think more critically and was no longer constantly surrounded by her parents, she understood how stupid purism is. it’s just illogical, based on #fakefacts and a wish to be better for no other reason than a surname ( i literally talk about this again later on so LMAO )

her younger brother does however stick with blood purity, looks up to his father, is disillusioned and blind and excited and a child, still, but a cruel one in the making. ailyn fears for him. worries about him. tries to guide him but sees no effects.

anyway, her father joined the death eaters, despite him being a bit of an … embarrassment. he used his power as a death eater to steal money and get some of that money that they’d lost because of him, not bettering his reputation among other death eaters, but regaining some of his pride as he relied less on his parents in law for money. ( though, in honesty, most of the money he stole was blown on alcohol, new suits and gambling )

[ abuse, alcoholism tw ailyn’s dad was furious at his wife, at the world, at himself. he hated that he relied on his parents-in-law for money, hated that it was his fault, hated that his wife was fucking everyone but him. he drank too much, lashed out at his wife when intoxicated, both verbally and physically. his anger turned to his kids at times, too, but was mostly aimed at his wife. ailyn despises him. deeply. end of tw’s ]

going to hogwarts was good. ailyn got to get away from home, and surround herself with others, with people who came from different places, who weren’t stuck in purist beliefs. ailyn was sorted into slytherin, for her cunning and ambition. a booksmart kid, she found herself more interested in the library and all it offered than what her classes tried to teach her. besides, ailyn found out pretty soon that she was rather bad at practical magic; she was soon behind in charms, transfiguration and DADA. she wondered if something was wrong with her wand, for a moment, wondered what was causing her to perform so poorly.

it was during these realisations, during her time away from home, that she started to step away from the purist idealisation she’d been raised with. she’d never subscribed to them much, to start with, but she hadn’t distanced herself from them, either. being away from home, surrounding herself with muggleborns, halfbloods and ‘blood traitors’, as well as her whole journey with … being rather shit at magic made her realise how fucking stupid it was

doesn’t fully share her feelings at all times, though, out of self preservation. besides, she’s not out here to fight for muggleborn rights either — she thinks the war is bullshit, frankly, but she’s also self serving as fuck, and will not do anything to endanger herself. she’s very true neutral, in that sense? can fairly judge situations, but is good at sitting back even if she disapproves. will start debates on blood purity, but isnt about to fight a war over it, on either side.

history soon became her favourite subject. ailyn found herself staying up late in the common room, learning about muggle history, but also delving into obscure parts of magical history, wanting to know more more more about the ways humans changed the course of the world, how cruel and kind people could be all at once. she’s very intrigued by what drives people, which is ironic, as not much drives ailyn morally LMAO.

this is where her ambition lies, where her strengths lie. ailyn wants to work under a historian, learn about how to write about history – because it’s happening all around her – how to interpret it, how to connect the dots. she’d love to intern under bathilda bagshot, or someone similar. she’s such a NERD.

her relationship with her family has become strained. ailyn hates her father, and despises her mother. her brother is a different story — there’s more love there, i suppose, a healthy relationship, but they disagree on many things. he wants to join the ranks of the death eaters once he’s old enough, whereas she’s been lucky enough not to be considered due to her lack of skill (in the eyes of both her father and the death eaters in general) and is glad of it.

ailyn is cordial with her family. she doesn’t want to deal with the consequences of turning her back on them but also doesnt want to participate in the large amount of lies that already surround their family. she’s not in the mood to be labeled a blood traitor or anything. she may not believe in purism but she’s not a good person --- she’s indifferent and apathetic and cares about herself and a handful of people, and so she will keep her opinions carefully locked up while making the world her own.

she mostly just wants to graduate, start studying to become a historian and move the fuck away lmao. a new start, with new chances and a whole new world for her to conquer. she’s Tired tm of the death eaters, as theyre just a product of another white man’s idiocy, like so many negative things in the world --- she’s got no energy for it.

personality and tidbits

ailyn is a true neutral, powder pink lipstick lesbian who will drag your ass through the mud while speaking to you sweetly with a :) smile :). she has a mean streak and her nature isnt necessarily malicious but she can be when she chooses to. this streak most often shows itself in front of people that ailyn thinks lesser of/people that annoy her. there’s a lot of those

she’s just ... tired. tired of humanity and all the people around her and the ruckus theyre causing. ailyn just wants people to Chill Out and use their heads in stead of whatever’s motivating them ( their genitals, hearts, stomachs, whatever ). she feels very ... Genius LMAO because she’s such a realist and she thinks she has the world all figured out when, obviously, she doesnt.

ailyn is very sure of herself, incredibly confident --- sometimes too confident ( though she’s of the opinion that girls can never be to confident ) and in turn she can be condescending and haughty. she’s self aware, though, about most things. she knows where her strengths and weaknesses lie and has made peace with it, even knows that she’s arrogant and harsh, but doesn’t care much.

a gamp on her mother’s side and cousin to gemma!

ailyn is hyperfeminine, believes in lethal femininity and the colour pink. very much elle woods in that sense --- she loves fashion and make up and velvet high heels and looking good, but has a ready mind that she’ll apply to reach her goals at any given moment in time. will Not be underestimated because she’s girly. a firm believer in the matriarchy. lover of womanhood. 

she also ... just thinks lowly of men a lot. like --- her dad’s a deadbeat idiot alcoholic broke dude and he Sucks, and then there’s people like grindelwald and voldemort and a long string of ministers, prime ministers and presidents that just proof that men shouldnt be in power to her LMAO. her interest in history is mostly just ailyn sighing at the deeds of men and how they continue to disappoint her.

would love to enter the ministry one day and be a politician, but for now her focus lies on becoming a historian, as that seems like a logical first step. also, the ministry is a mess at the moment that ailyn doesnt want to be a part of LMSFKJHSD.

loyal to first and foremost herself, a true self-serving queen. though, if she is your friend, you do have a loyal person on your side who will be ride or die. will kill for you. will bury a body with you.

absolutely adores mythology especially because most stories prove that men ain’t shit and because there’s iconic characters like medusa and athena and persephone and many more

medusa is ... in general a character that ailyn very much loves and is intrigued by --- a hurt woman, mistreated and abuse because of her gender and nothing more, turned into someone who could protect herself, only to be labeled a monster and murdered ... she’s endlessly angry and intrigued.

captain of the history club!! she loves history sm :( come geek out w her

also a member of the debate club!! while she shies away from speaking on purism, she does have a lot of vocal opinions on sexism/queerphobia/racism/etc and is very knowledgeable on political topics!!!

always tired of everyone and everything

loves rose & vodka. 

[houstontexaslawinfo]

15 Quick Tips Regarding Filing for Divorce in Texas

If you want to related guideline confidentiality Divorce Law experience, So you can better suggestions- 15 Quick Tips Regarding Filing for Divorce in Texas.

Houston Family Law Lawyer: The next step after hiring a divorce lawyer, is to initiate a divorce in Texas by filing for divorce. A Texas divorce filings often includes the following two documents:

1. An Original Petition for Divorce is always filed and 2. Sometimes a Temporary Restraining Order

The person who files for divorce first is called the Petitioner and the person who is served with the petition is called the respondent.

ORIGINAL PETITION FOR DIVORCE:

Family Lawyers in Houston: The purpose of the petition is to give notice to the family court and your ex what you are asking for. This petition is a simple document that names the husband and wife and any children of the marriage and states that the petitioner, is seeking a divorce and the reason for the divorce.

The petitioner must pay a filing fee to the court, usually around $300. The filing of the petition begins the mandatory 60-day waiting period before the parties may divorce.

The Original Petition for Divorce is not a court order and does not establish anything legally. It is merely a request from the petitioner to the Court that they wish to have the marriage dissolved.

The petition may also be asking for other things from the court. The Original Petition for Divorce will general include the following basic information:

1. Personal information about both parties: full names, last the 3 number of the Social Security Number, Last 3 numbers of driver’s license, and service address of respondent. 2. Date of marriage 3. Date of Separation 4. Grounds for Divorce such as that the “the marriage has become insupportable because of a discord or conflict of personalities that destroys the legitimate ends of the marriage relationship” with “no reasonable prospect of reconciliation” 5. One or both spouses has been domiciled in Texas for at least 6 months and a resident of the county for the last 90 days. 6. Personal information about all minor children born to or adopted by the couple and whether they have property. 7. What kind of Orders you are asking the Court to make in regards to the children as to rights and duties, visitation, and child support. 8. Information about whether the wife is pregnant or not 9. Information regarding assets and debts, including marital and separate property. 10. Statement of what assets should be given to which spouse (bank accounts, real property, household furnishings, retirement accounts, vehicles, etc.). 11. Information about the debts incurred during the marriage and which spouse should be obligated to pay each debt. 12. Request for spousal maintenance if you are seeking spousal support 13. Has a protective order been sought or is one in place

GROUNDS FOR DIVORCE

Family Law Attorneys Houston: A Texas divorce petition must also allege a ground or basis for the divorce. It is one of the elements of a divorce lawsuit. If you do not allege a ground then a Judge cannot grant you a divorce.

Texas is a no-fault divorce state and most Original Petition’s for Divorce will simply state that the marriage has become “insupportable.” In other words, the divorce is occurring because the Petitioner wants a divorce.

A divorce petition may also allege grounds for divorce such cruelty or maybe adultery. Such bad acts can serve as a basis for asking the Court for a disproportionate division of property.

DIVORCE AND DIVISION OF PROPERTY

Houston Family Law Lawyers: Many people come into my office and announce to me that Texas is a “50-50” state. This is not true. Your typical divorce petition will say something like, “in a manner that the Court deems just and right, as provided by law.” “Equal” is not a word that is used. In many case the division of community property will be divided in a 50-50 split.

However, a 60-40 split is not unheard of, depending on the circumstances. Some divorce petitions will request a disproportionate division. The petition will go on to list various laundry list of reasons for the unequal split.

CHILDREN AND REQUESTS FOR CONSERVATORSHIP AND SUPPORT

Family Law Lawyer Houston: Next, the typical divorce petition will identify your children and request the court to enter orders for their conservatorship and support.

Most Original Petitions for Divorce will plead that you and your spouse should be named joint managing conservators and that either your spouse or you should be named the “primary” parent.

In some cases, it may make sense to plead for sole managing conservator. This is mostly seen in cases where there are allegations of child abuse or neglect. Often these allegations will be supported with an affidavit describing why access to the children should be restricted.

DIVORCE TEMPORARY ORDERS

Kingwood Divorce Attorney: Many times, an Original Petition for Divorce will include a request for:

1. temporary restraining order and 2. temporary orders after a hearing

A divorce in Texas cannot be finalized for at least 60 days after the date of filing and, if there are points of disagreement between you and your spouse, the process can drag on for months, even a year! Temporary orders establish a “holding pattern” while your divorce.

Here are some things you can expect to be covered at a hearing on divorce temporary orders:

1. Exclusive possession of the family home, automobiles and 2. other marital property; 3. Payment of bills and living expenses; 4. Conservatorship of the children; 5. Parenting time with the children; 6. Support of the children; 7. Drug testing; 8. Psychological evaluations; and, 9. Appointment of any other expert deemed necessary by the court.

If you are going to court for a temporary orders hearing, it is important to be prepared. It is not uncommon for a divorce case to drag on for several months. If that is your case, you may be living under those temporary orders a long time.

ATTORNEYS’ FEES IN DIVORCE

The Woodlands Divorce Attorney: Most Texas Original Petitions for Divorce will also conclude with a request that the opposing party pay all attorneys’ fees incurred.

Generally, unless there is a clear income disparity between you and your spouse, you each will pay your own attorneys’ fees and court cost. However, if there is a disparity in income, courts will sometimes “equalize” attorneys’ fees at the temporary orders hearing.

Examples of a disparity of income include:

1. One party in control of the family finances or if 2. One party has raided the joint bank account and left the other party with no money

DIVORCE TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDERS AND STANDING ORDERS IN TEXAS:

Spring Divorce Lawyers: As mentioned earlier sometimes filed with the Original Petition for Divorce is a request for the court to issue a mutual temporary restraining order (TRO) without a hearing to facilitate maintaining the status quo until the spouses can reach an agreement or until there can be a hearing for Temporary Orders.

Generally, these requests are made in counties do not have Standing Orders. Standing Orders are Orders that automatically go into place after a divorce or family law case is filed. Generally, they include similar provisions as temporary restraining orders.

TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDERS DO NOT LAST

Divorce Lawyer in Spring TX: In most divorce cases, a standard temporary restraining order will be granted if it is requested by one or both spouses. There will be hearing date in which you are to appear in court. The purpose of this hearing date is to give you and your ex a chance to be heard before the court makes an order regarding Temporary Orders that will be in place for the duration of the divorce.

Temporary restraining orders are good 14 days once issued by the court and then it expires by operation of law. A TRO can be extended for another 14 days if requested by one of the parties. The idea of a temporary restraining order is to maintain the status quo until the temporary orders are in effect.

IT IS A REAL COURT ORDER

Spring TX Divorce Lawyer: As mentioned earlier the Original Petition for Divorce is not a court order but merely a request from the Court on what the Petitioner is Asking for.

If the Petitioner has asked for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) in their petition. Then A judge may grant their request if the Petitioner has also filed a proposed Temporary Restraining Order along with their request.

The rule is that for every motion or request there is an order. In this case the Original Petition for Divorce is the motion and the Temporary Restraining Order would be the Order. Much later down the road the Final Decree will also be the Order based on the Original Petition for Divorce.

A TRO is an order that has the full weight and authority of the divorce court behind it. If a party to the divorce violates a TRO, the court can hold that person in contempt of court. That may mean a fine, having the pleadings truck, and possible jail time.

One of the unique things regarding Temporary Restraining Orders is that they are issued ex parte, or without prior notice to you. Also, divorce courts require no proof to issue such orders and, provided it is in proper form, a temporary restraining order will be issued automatically by the divorce court, no questions asked.

TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDERS ARE NOT PROTECTIVE ORDERS

Spring Divorce Lawyer: Some questions I get asked regarding a TRO include:

1. Can I sleep at home tonight? 2. Can I talk to my spouse? 3. Can I use my credit card? 4. Can I see my kids? 5. Can my kids stay with me? 6. Can I hire a lawyer?

A temporary restraining order is not a protective order this is a common misconception. Generally, a temporary restraining order it has more to do with maintaining the status quo and in most cases not to keep an individual from being around another individual or location.

A temporary restraining order is serious; you should review the order with a divorce attorney to help you understand exactly what you can and ca not do once you have been served with a restraining order.

WHAT DOES A TRO DO?

Houston Divorce Lawyer: A typical Texas divorce temporary restraining order general restricts activity regarding:

1. Conduct Regarding your children 2. Conduct Regarding Property 3. Preserves Documents

Your conduct towards your spouse and your kids:

1. Do not use foul language when talking with your spouse, don’t harass her with e-mails, phone calls or text messages. 2. Do not threaten him with bodily harm. 3. Do not threaten your spouse with doing something that’s just stupid. 4. Do not withdraw your kids from school or daycare. 5. Do not hide your kids from your spouse. 6. Do not move off with your children. 7. Do not say bad things to your children about the other parent.

Your conduct towards your property:

1. Do not sell any marital property. 2. Do not alter any important documents. 3. Do not give away property to your mother. 4. Do not cash out your retirement, money market or stock accounts 5. Do not cancel your spouse from health insurance coverage 6. Do not spend money on anything other than:

Your duty to preserve documents:

1. Do not alter or dispose of financial records. 2. Do not intercept mail that isn’t yours. 3. Do not wipe your computer hard drive clean.

Temporary Restraining Orders Allow

Even with a TRO in place you are in most cases allowed to:

1. You may talk to your spouse in a civil and constructive manner. 2. You may spend time with your children and even keep them in your care. 3. You are allowed to spend money related to your business, your living expenses, and your attorneys’ fees. 4. You may hire a divorce attorney … Continue Reading

[penmansparadise]

Steve Harrington Imagine Request- I’m Done Pretending

*I DON’T  OWN ANY GIFS POSTED* *CREDITS TO GIF OWNERS*

Here is the imagine requested by @theoperators-trashcan  !  This one took me a while because I really wanted to portray the situation correctly and, obviously, add some fluff lol.  I also went a little crazy with it, so it’s a little long.  But, anyway, here it is and I hope you enjoy it!!  

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Reader 

Warnings: Mild language and mentions abuse

*If anyone is in an abusive relationship, whether it be spousal or child, please please please get help.  No one deserves to be put in that situation and shouldn’t have to live in fear.  Get the help you need if you are or if you know anybody in this situation.*

Standing in front of the mirror, you frantically applied foundation to the darkening hand print on your cheek.  “Shit, shit, shit.” You whispered to yourself when you noticed it wasn’t working as well as you had planned.  Tears welled in your eyes as you dabbed more makeup on the bruise. The sound of a honking horn reminded you of the time.  You took one more look at your poor makeup job before grabbing your backpack and heading to the door.  Like every other morning, your best friend Steve was sitting in his car waiting for you. At the sight of you, a huge smile grew onto his face.  You sent him a weak one back hoping he wouldn’t notice anything.  “It took you long enough.”  Steve said sarcastically when you got into the passenger side.  You let out a light chuckle, “It takes time to look this good.”  As Steve pulled out of your driveway, he sent you a small smile.  “Don’t kid yourself Y/N,” he began giving your shoulder a light shove, “you always look that good.”  You and Steve had known each other since you were babies.  Both of your parents went to Hawkins High together and were best friends since their freshman year.  Things didn’t change when they graduated and decided to make a family and establish their lives in Hawkins.  Growing up, the two of you were all each of you had.  You spent almost every waking moment together and soon became best friends. Your friendship only grew as the two of you aged.  Steve was always there for you and you for him.  

Steve pulled into a parking spot near the entrance to the school before killing the engine.  You took in a deep breath as you searched the schoolyard.  Your stomach fell when you spotted the person you were hoping to avoid. Your boyfriend, Ryan Coleman. Suddenly you were very aware of the covered-up bruise on your cheek.  The bruise that he had left there.  Tears began to make their way back to your eyes, but you squeezed them away before Steve could see.  “Well,” you said quickly grabbing your bag, “I guess I’ll see you around.”  You were shutting the car door before Steve could even reply.  As you made your way to the school entrance, you could feel your heart racing in your chest. Although you tried your best to walk past Ryan without being seen, he spotted you.  “Where do you think you’re going?” He growled low in your ear as he tightly grabbed your wrist.  You swallowed as you slowly turned to face him.  A stern look sat on his face as he stared down at you.  “Did you just try to walk by me without saying anything?  That’s not what good girlfriends do now is it?” He asked still gripping your wrist. You could feel another bruise forming under his hand.  “Uh,” you stuttered, “N-no, it’s not.”  Ryan gripped a little harder causing you to flinch a little.  “Exactly.  So, don’t try that shit again.  Understand me?” He said quiet enough for you to hear and no one else.  You bit your bottom lip and nodded unable to create a coherent sentence.  His grip tightened even more causing your eyes to tear up again.  “I couldn’t hear you.” He said sternly.  You took in a shallow breath, “I understand.”  Ryan let go of your arm, “We also need to talk about last night so meet me at lunch.”  Your heart began to beat quickly at the mention of the night before.  “Okay.” Was all you said before Ryan sauntered back off towards his friends.  You stood where he left you for another moment before showing yourself to class.

You went through your first four periods like a robot on autopilot.  Your body was in class, but your mind was scrambling with the thought of what Ryan had in store for you.  The two of you started dating your sophomore year of high school.  He was new and really cute and immediately took an interest in you.  You started talking and before you knew it he had officially asked you out.  Your relationship was perfect in the beginning complete with cute late-night phone calls and romantic dates.  However, about three months into your relationship things began to change.  His once loving hands changed to angry abusive ones.  The love bites his mouth used to leave all over your body turned into nasty bruises left behind by his closed fists.  The sweet nothings he used to whisper into your ears turned into crude slurs that would wreak havoc on your psyche.  Buying makeup became a weekly occurrence as did crying yourself to sleep.  You were raised better than to stay in an abusive relationship; but, with every superficial apology, you were dragged back under his spell. When the lunch bell finally chimed, you began your slow trek to Ryan’s usual spot.  As you walked into the lunch room, you were stopped by a soft touch on your forearm.  You flinched and quickly turned to face whoever touched you.  “Woah,” Steve began putting his hands up in defense, “stand down, it’s just me.”  You let out a heavy sigh of relief, “I’m so sorry Steve.”  He gave you a concerned look, “Are you alright? I saw you this morning with Ryan and you looked a little upset.  I just wanted to make sure that you were okay.”  A warm feeling of appreciation that filled your heart quickly turned frigid when, over Steve’s shoulder, you saw Ryan glaring at you.  “I, uh, I have to go Steve.”  You said brushing past him.  “Hey!” He shouted causing you to turn back towards him.  He walked over and snaked his arm around your shoulders, “Ryan can wait.  Come eat with me, like old times.”  Steve led you towards his table and away from Ryan.  As you walked away, you looked over your shoulder to see Ryan angrily glaring at your fleeting figure.  

You sat motionless in your seat as the final school bell rang.  Although you hated to admit it, you were scared to leave. You didn’t know how Ryan would act or what he would say about what happened at lunch.  A tall shadow casting down on you pulled you from your thoughts. “Miss Y/L/N?  Is everything alright?”  Mr. Ford asked placing a soft hand on your shoulder.  You gave a weak smile and a small nod before grabbing your bag and exiting the classroom.  The halls were mostly empty as you made your way to the parking lot.  When you pushed the main door open you were secretly hoping Ryan would be gone.  However, as you walked out, he was the first person you saw.  Your heart skipped in your chest as he stalked towards you.  “Ryan…” You began in a pleading tone before he grabbed you by the arm and dragged you to the small passageway between the buildings. “Ryan, please just let me explain.” You begged as he threw your small body against the brick building.  “I don’t want to hear shit from you.”  He said through gritted teeth.  His large hands grabbed you by your shoulders and slammed you against the wall again. A pang of pain shot through your body as your head hit the wall.  “Do you think you can just ignore me?  Like I don’t even exist?  I told you we needed to talk about what happened last night.  I wanted to apologize for what I did and what I said, but you didn’t want to listen to me.”  He growled lowly into your ear.  Tears began to pool in your eyes as his voice got louder.  “Why are you so damn stupid!?”  He shouted out making you flinch.  His eyes finally met your watering ones and he let out an irritated sigh. “Don’t be a fucking bitch and cry. You know I only do this because I care about you and our relationship.  If you would just listen and stop disobeying me I wouldn’t have to do this shit.  I really don’t like to do this, you know?”  He said loosening his grip on your shoulders.  Although you tried your best to prevent it, tears began spilling over onto your cheeks. Ryan let out a calm breath and removed his hands from your shoulders.  “I love you Y/N.”  He said softly.  Unable to respond because of your sobs, you simply nodded.  Your vision was blurred, but you could see Ryan give you one last look before walking away.  When you were sure you were the only one there, you slid to the ground allowing your sobs to take over your body.  You sat on the ground and let yourself cry before gathering enough strength to walk yourself home.  When you reached your house, you went straight to your room.  Weak and tired from crying, you got into your bed and shut your eyes.  Fleeting images of your breaking relationship flickered behind your eyelids.  You felt your heart pull when a small image of Steve came into your head.  Your best friend who didn’t even know you were living in your own personal hell. You tried to push him away, but the harder you pushed the more you thought about him.  Soon, you were pulled into a deep slumber with Steve’s smile being the last thing on your mind.

The next morning you were awoken by a couple of light shoves.  Your eyes slowly peeled open to see a concerned Steve looking down at you.  You jumped up, “Holy shit Steve!  What are you doing here?”  Steve took it upon himself to sat on the bed next to you, “Y/N, I need to talk to you about something.  Well, really, I want to ask you something and it is imperative that you are honest with me.” You raised your eyebrows at him, “You need to ask me something at 5:30 in the morning?  It couldn’t have waited until we got to school?”  Steve let out a light chuckle, “No it couldn’t have.” You shrugged him off and motioned for him to talk.  He took a deep breath in and held it for a moment before quickly letting it out.  “Okay, Y/N you know that I deeply care for you right?” He asked to which you nodded in response.  “Okay,” he began, “and you know that you can talk to me about absolutely anything, right?” You nodded again unsure where he was heading.  Steve looked you in the eye, “Then I want you to tell me if Ryan is being good to you.” Your heart began to race at the demand, but you stayed silent.  Steve placed his hand on your knee, “Has he ever hit you?”  You opened your mouth, but couldn’t speak.  Steve gave you a sympathetic look, “Please, Y/N, you can tell me.”  You took in a shaky breath, “No, he hasn’t ever hit me.  He’s always good to me.”  Steve shut his eyes in frustration and ran his hand through his hair.  “Dammit Y/N, I need you to be honest with me.”  He said a little irritated.  “I’m not lying.” You said unconvincingly.  Steve rubbed both hands over his face before standing up and looking at you.  “I know you’re lying because I watched him slam you against the gym wall yesterday after school.”  Steve blurted out.  Your mouth fell agape at the truth finally coming out.  “How did you…what were you…I didn’t see you.”  You stuttered out.  Steve was pacing back and forth in front of your bed.  “Well when you weren’t waiting for me at my car I went to go look for you. I was just walking by the passageway when I heard Ryan and then I saw.”  Steve admitted as he stopped pacing and sat back down.  You could feel tears beginning to slide down your cheeks before Steve pulled you into a hug.  You let yourself finally breakdown in the comfort of his embrace.  His hand rubbed your back as he shushed you.  “Why didn’t you tell me?  You know I would have helped you.”  He said holding your shaking body.  You pulled back enough to wipe your eyes, “I don’t know.  I thought it would stop and things would go back to the way they were before.  I didn’t want him to get angry.  I don’t know Steve, but I can’t do it anymore.”  Steve wiped a stray tear from your cheek and let his hand linger on the side of your face, “I won’t let him hurt you anymore Y/N.  He’s not going to lay another hand on you ever again. Okay?”  You stared into his soft brown eyes and nodded.  You had always been a little attracted to Steve, but pushed those feelings aside to spare your friendship.  However, it was hard to ignore the way your heart fluttered at his touch.  His hand cupped the side of your face for another moment before pulling it away.  “I’ll wait for you in the car.  Go ahead and get ready.”  He said standing up from your bed and exiting your room.  

The car ride to school was quiet except the hum of the engine and the sound of Bon Jovi singing “Always” on the radio.  When Steve finally pulled into a parking spot, he kept the car running and turned to you.  “Are you ready?”  He asked calmly.  You looked out the window and saw Ryan standing in his usual spot waiting for your arrival.  A knot formed in your stomach as you turned to face Steve.  “Can we just stay in here till the bell rings?”  You asked trying to hide the fright in your voice.  Steve took your hand in his and gave a light squeeze untying the knot in your stomach and replacing it with butterflies.  “We can do whatever you want.  I’m here for you Y/N.  Ryan isn’t getting within ten feet of you without me being right there next to you.  I already said, he isn’t going to hurt you anymore.”  Steve said with a small smile before turning up the radio and singing along. You bit your lip trying to contain the grin that was threatening to spread across your lips as you listened.  The song finished right when the bell rang. Steve shut off his car and walked you to class making sure you were safely in your seat before walking away.

When lunch rolled around, Steve waited outside your class until you walked out. You let out a giggle, “Steve you don’t have to walk me everywhere.”  Steve placed his hand on the small of your back leading you towards the courtyard, “Yes I actually do Y/N.”  You laughed at his persistence sending a smile to his lips.  “I missed that sound.”  He said as he held the door open for you.  You cocked your head to the side, “What sound?”  He sent you another smile, “Your laugh.”  Your heart danced in your chest and a blush claimed residence on your cheeks as he led you to his lunch spot.  You sat down before Steve took a seat in front of you allowing you to really take him in.  Everything about him felt like home.  His gentle and caring eyes, the way his lips curved up when he talked, the delicate angles of his jaw, the natural wave in his hair, his sweet boyish scent, and his deep voice.  You were so caught up in your thoughts you didn’t even see Ryan approaching your table. “Oh no.”  You whispered, the smile once occupying your face falling.  Steve gave you a confused look, but before he could question you Ryan spoke.  “Well, well, well, what do we have here?”  He said walking up to the table.  Steve stood up blocking you from Ryan, “Get away from her Ryan.  She doesn’t want to talk to you.”  Ryan let out a laugh, “You’re real funny Harrington.  You see, Y/N just so happens to be my girlfriend so I can do whatever the fuck I want.”  Steve took a step closer to Ryan and said in a serious tone, “No, Ryan, you can’t.” Ryan closed the gap between him and Steve, “What?  Are you going to stop me Harrington?”  Steve narrowed his eyes at Ryan, “Yeah I will.”  Ryan let out a low growl, “I’d like to see you try.”  You, and everyone around you, watched in awe as Steve sent his fist flying into Ryan’s nose knocking him down.  “I told you,” Steve began hovering over Ryan, “leave her alone.” As Steve turned to walk away, Ryan stood up wiping the blood from his face.  He let out a chuckle, “That was really cute Harrington.  Trying to be the knight in shining armor?  Coming in to save the day?  Well news flash big guy, no one fucks with me or my things!  And, it just so happens that Y/N is mine and I really don’t appreciate you butting in trying to fuck things up.  So, as you probably already assumed, you’re going to have to pay.”  Steve opened his mouth to retort, but didn’t get the chance.  Ryan’s fist cracked against his jaw knocking him to the ground where Ryan mounted him letting his punches land anywhere on Steve’s face.  The crowds of people around you began to scream. Some were shouts of horror and others were cries of instigation.  You sat frozen in place as Steve’s blood began to smear across his face.  Ryan’s angry voice roared above everyone else’s. “Why are you so damn stupid Harrington? I really don’t like doing this shit. If you would have just listened man I wouldn’t have to be doing this.”  He shouted with each punch.  Anger pooled inside of you as you replayed every time Ryan had said those exact words to you while he was leaving bloody bruises on your body.  You stood up and, without thinking about what could happen, ripped Ryan off of Steve.  “Lay one more hand on him and you’ll regret it.”  You said sternly.  Ryan chuckled as he wiped Steve’s blood from his knuckles, “What are you gonna do? You think you’re gonna stand up for yourself now that your body guard got the shit beaten out of him?”  You lifted your head up with confidence, “No, I’m standing up for myself after months of getting the shit beaten out of me by you.  You’re a piece of shit Ryan and you don’t deserve me.  You’re abusive and manipulative and I can’t believe that I had to see my best friend bleeding on the ground to finally come to my senses. Steve has treated me ten times better within a couple of hours than you have treated me in months.  I shouldn’t have to be afraid that you’re going to hurt me every time I’m with you.  So, I’m done living in fear Ryan.  We’re over. You can go fuck yourself.”  Ryan began walking towards you causing you to move away with each step he took.  “You can’t tell me when we’re over.  I decide that.  Just because you’re having a lapse of judgement doesn’t mean we’re breaking up. So, how about you shut your pretty little mouth and sit down.”  Ryan said moving closer towards you.  You stopped moving and, when he got close enough, kneed him in the groin sending him to the ground.  You stood over him and hovered one of your feet over his junk, “I’m my own person Ryan and you don’t own me.  Not anymore. Now, I’ll say it one more time, we’re through.  You’re going to leave Steve and me alone and if you come near either of us again I’ll make sure your grand-children feel how hard I can kick.  Understand me?”  Wincing in pain, Ryan nodded his head.  You lowered your foot over his junk and growled, “I couldn’t hear you.”  Ryan squeezed his eyes shut and, in a high-pitched voice, said, “I understand.”  You stepped back and gave Ryan one more scowl before quickly moving to Steve.  His eyes opened and closed as he squinted to try and focus your image.  “Y/N?” He asked groggily.  You rubbed your hand over his forehead and shushed him, “Shh, it’s me.”  He let out a cough and a little blood sputtered from his mouth, “Did I win?”  You let out a sympathetic giggle, “You put up a good fight and I finished it.”  Steve closed his eyes and nodded in response, “Can you help me up?”  You smiled, “Yeah, but I’m driving.”  Steve gave a low grunt as you helped pull him off the ground and guided him to his car.

Steve sat limply on the desk chair in his room as you gathered a washcloth and ice pack.  When you returned you placed the items on his desk and looked at his defeated figure.  “Hey,” you said using your forefinger to pull his chin up, “thank you for what you did back there.”  Steve gave you a shrug, “I told you I wasn’t going to let him hurt you anymore.  If that meant getting my ass beat for you then so be it.”  You smiled down at him before grabbing the wet washcloth and cleaning his face.  “I didn’t know anyone cared enough about me to willing get their ass be for me.”  You said handing him the ice pack.  Steve took a quick breath in through gritted teeth as he placed the ice pack on his face, “Y/N I’ve always cared that much for you. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you, ever.”  Heat crawled up your neck and onto your cheeks as you held his gaze.  Standing in between his slightly open legs made your heart beat faster.  “Steve.” You began in a soft whisper, but stopped short.  He removed the ice pack from his face and placed it on his bed before gently laying his hand on your hip.  Your eyes never left his chocolate brown orbs as your hand softly glided over the curvature of his jaw until it was cupping his face.  Steve’s other hand found your other hip and lightly pulled you closer to him. “Y/N, for the past six months I’ve watched you pretend to be happy with another guy and you’ve watched me pretend to be okay with it.  We both know we’ve been pretending to be ‘just friends’ for years.  Well, I’m done pretending if you are.”  Steve said in a quiet voice.  You stared down at his bruised face and could feel your heart already starting to heal.  All the feelings you had kept hidden to protect yourself and friendship began to surface.  A sigh of relief fell from your lips, “I’m done pretending.”  Steve smiled before he slowly pulled you in for a soft and passionate kiss.  His hand traveled to the back of your head and pulled you even closer to him deepening the kiss.  Your lips moved slowly against his as you began to smile into him.  When he finally pulled back, a wide grin was set on your lips. He planted a sweet kiss on your forehead, “I love you Y/N.”  Without letting the smile fall from your face, you said, “I love you too Steve.” Before bending down and planting another heartfelt kiss onto his lips.  

[braintasting]

Tractatus Train to Busan

[Note: Spoilers throughout, for all kinds of films. If it's about zombies, trains, or children, there's a chance I've mentioned the ending here.]

Train to Busan represents a new sub-genre of zombie film, one that may well grow to prominence.

It is both new and not-new, both familiar and unfamiliar, telling the same kind of story using the same elements, but with a slight difference in emphasis that results in a radically different... something. Perhaps "emotional value." It is a zombie film in every important way. But it feels like something else as well.

It is as different from Night of the Living Dead as is the underwater Nazi zombies of Shock Waves, but maintains as close a thematic and narrative connection as does 28 Days Later. (There is more to consider on the sequel 28 Weeks Later.)

The site of difference for Train to Busan is located in the thematic zone of family.

The zombie genre is defined by its concern with social relationships: it has always been about

consumerism

social status

authority vs. the masses

tension in traditional social units, especially families

Because of horror conventions, the family in the zombie genre is usually presented as tainted or in some way inauthentic, unreal.

One of the archetypal locations is the family home or cabin, a place where one retreats to have "family time," and where family secrets are stored in attics or basements (as in Evil Dead or, arguably, Dead Snow; most of the storyline of Night of the Living Dead involves the conflict over whether the retreat with the nuclear family to the cellar is wise).

The most impactful scene in Night of the Living Dead is the little girl turning on her misguided parents. This is the image that is quoted numerous times in the genre, from [REC] to Warm Bodies to The Walking Dead.

The narrative engine for the first few seasons of The Walking Dead was fueled by marital infidelity, spousal abuse, and where the hell did Karl wander off to this time; in Shaun of the Dead, the choice is always made against domestic life in favor of heading down to the pub and spending time with "real" friends. You get the idea.

Yet, against the "badness" or insufficiency of "real" families, these characters very often form ad hoc families - taking in lost children, forging sibling-like or spouse-like alliances as society breaks down, sharing food around a table or a campfire. Zombieland, Day of the Dead, Ash vs. Evil Dead, 28 Days Later... all overtly rely on intentional families, families that are made or chosen rather than being produced through biology or traditional society.

Train to Busan reverses nearly all of this. But not the full 180 degrees.

It has both the traditional family and the broken family (the husband is separated from his wife, alienated from his daughter; the husband lives with his mother; the mother urges him to reconcile with both wife and daughter).

It has both "natural" family and "intentional" family (the father-daughter team are thrown together with the blunt Sang-hwa and his pregnant wife, and in various scenes swap roles of father/protector, mother/wife, daughter)

It has social breakdown based on familial love (the elderly woman who, upon seeing her sister zombified, allows the horde into her car - overrunning those who coldheartedly excluded her sibling from safety)

Most of all, it has the little girl. Soo-an. Who is beautiful.

There have been other exceptions, in which family plays a different part in the zombie story:

Revenant featured an extreme version of the theme: "They're our loved ones, we must care for them in undeath as we did in life." But in Revenant, they also weren't trying to feed on the living - uncanny, but not actively dangerous, or even infectious. In Train to Busan, the zombies are infectious, hostile, and fast.

28 Weeks Later featured a half-zombified (sure, "rabid," whatever) father crossing the country to be reunited with his beloved children. But, like the undead Romeo in Warm Bodies, he retained some portion of his memories, of his self-control, of his self full stop. The zombies in Train to Busan are (sure, "rabid," whatever) genuine zombies - they are mindless and attack loved ones and strangers indiscriminately.

In Fido, there's a happy family at the heart of the film. But this film is a high-concept exercise, played mostly for laughs: "What if we mashed up Lassie with Night of the Living Dead?" The family elements are part of the 1960s-kid's-adventure genre. Fido is an aesthetic success, if you like the joke, but is not creating a new thing.

These, then, represent ancestors of this new sub-genre. Forerunners. Not yet exemplars.

Another key to the new genre Train to Busan defines (or should define) is transit.

It takes place on a train, so shares something of the venerable action-on-a-train genre (Murder on the Orient Express, Silver Streak, Horror Express, From Russia With Love).

It also shares a frantic sense of pacing and claustrophobia with transit-thrillers like Speed or Con Air.

These are films that critique the way in which our daily lives - the mere action of going from one place to another, the simple act of movement - become mechanized, constrained, unnatural. Our industrialized, technologized society is highlighted, in a way, but not with anything as flashy as killer robots or possessed diesel engines. Instead, it's as banal as a daily commute. The deadly, miraculous machines that surround us are part of the scenery.

Perhaps the ultimate examplar of the transit-horror (or transit-dystopia) would be Snowpiercer, which is not a zombie film in the remotest sense - but has an oddly similar set of concerns: the end of society, exaggeration and breaking of government power and social class differences, the mass of humanity reduced to (or overtly expressing) mathematical principles in the way we reproduce and we eat. Snowpiercer is an allegory; our world or our society is the train. Train to Busan is not so simple.

(It should also be mentioned that while being on the train is not an element of 28 Weeks Later, train stations are, aren't they? Unless I'm misremembering. That franchise does love a subway tunnel. The trains haunt those films, like ghosts. Why?)

(And again, in The Walking Dead, one season was consumed with the quest to reach "Terminus," as if this train station was the last outpost of civilization rather than a place where humanity eats itself.)

The train has become a potent symbol - a sign that's heavy with meanings, sometimes contradictory ones:

Ultra-modernity, but with nostalgia (as in the mighty engines of the Hogwarts Express).

Colossal machines - faster, stronger, heavier than anything on a human scale - that are also in some ways fragile or on the brink of collapse. One of the hallmarks of the cinematic train is its spectacular wreck, sometimes as the film's climax: Silver Streak and Snowpiercer might have entirely different themes and wholly different aesthetics, but they end with tangled steel and steaming debris.

Travel (so, new places), but also routine (so, the same old thing) - timetables are always important, and commuting is often important too.

Business, especially corporate business (or, in the case of Harry Potter, boarding school - still a uniformed space with paperwork and expectations set by supervisors), but also vacations.

Community, but also alienation. The iconic joke (or urban legend) about the two passengers eating each other's biscuits from the tin, neither one daring to ask the other how he (or she) presumes to take his own sweets... this is also a joke about trains. The faces that become familiar (or even family-like) by sharing that closed space over time - they are also divided from one another. There is always an expectation of silence, or at least of not intruding on the other's space. Perhaps (and this is the sense that Snowpiercer takes as its central theme) the train is best thought of as a closed environment filled with strangers. Claustrophobic (and boring) and agoraphobic (and overwhelming) all at the same time.

This contradictory nature means that in many ways the train, suitably enough, defines an axis of meanings. It's on a symbolic track, running both ways.

The zombie also functions as a contradictory figure on axes of meanings as well - dead/alive, familiar/alien, operating in huge masses/breaking down society, revealing hidden truths/eternally unknowable.

The beauty of Train to Busan is that it takes on not one but two sets of axes of meanings - two bundles of anxiety-producing contradictions - and resolves them by using the third theme, of family relations.

Note here that I'm seeing "anxiety" as a close relative of "humor" and of "wonder" - states of mind relying on contradictions.

Note also that I'm perfectly aware that this may be an absolutely subjective response on my part - as a father, I know the kind of guilt the main character feels. The final, central contradiction: Sometimes, the only way to demonstrate your love for your child is by your absence, or so it seems. You go away to do the thing they cannot see. You alienate yourself from them (bastard!) for the noblest of motivations (hero?).

This is the ground that Train to Busan occupies. It is one of the warmest zombie films ever made. It manages to be genuine and sweet while still having train wrecks, martial law, and cloudy-eyed cheerleaders chomping on sports heroes. It'll be interesting to see if - or when - another filmmaker tries to do something new with the same three elements: zombies, trains, families.

[gvbejvmes]

Drabble: K-I-S-S-I-N-G (Pt 3)

Title: K-I-S-S-I-N-G -- The sad ending Rating: R (For language mostly) Relationship: Gabriel James/Jonathan Michaels (Trigger) Warnings: Mpreg, referenced spousal abuse, alcohol abuse, major character death, parents have sex lives, too. Brief Summary:  First comes marriage. Then comes love. Then comes a baby in a male uterus. Wait. What? Notes: This was the depressing ending that I wanted to write, but also that I didn’t want to be the real ending.

"Has he come out at all?" Kale murmured out to Cesar. He was sitting in the living room of the James-Michaels home, baby Gigi asleep against his chest. As terrified as he'd been about suddenly having a friend with kids, Gigi had immediately warmed up to him. Now the other child, the toddler, that was a whole other story. He couldn't handle the brat that was Gabe's godson, but the baby he could handle, surprisingly.

Cesar shook his head. "Not really. Rocio leaves food outside and it keeps disappearing so he's eating, but the only time we really see him is when he runs out of whiskey. He hasn't touched the baby at all. He didn't react when he told him we named her Gigi because they wouldn’t let her leave the hospital until she had a name. So Gigi Maria - after his mother, not my wife, don’t let her tell you otherwise - Palmer James Michaels. Had to get his family names in there, and only white people hyphenate." He sighed, and rubbed his hands over his face as though that would help him get back on track. "He's in mourning. He let Mama plan a Catholic service. If that's not a sign, he's not okay, I don't know what is."

Kale nodded. "It's only been a week. No one prepares for losing the love of their life after only two years of marriage." He stood and gently moved the baby into the carrier next to the couch. "What are we going to do about it?"

"What do you mean what are we going to do about it?" Cesar asked him warily.

Kale waved his arms around the room. "The funeral is tomorrow, and at this rate, he's not going to go. He's going to drink himself into a stupor, and if he does show up, he’s gonna make a drunken idiot of himself and cause a scene in front of hundreds of artists. Do you know what artists do? Record everything." He rubbed his hands together. "We need to think like Gabriel. WWGD?"

"What would God do?"

"No." Kale smacked his arm. "What would Gabriel do?"

There was an awkward cough from the other end of the living room. Lupe and Alejandra popped up from where they had been hiding behind the couch eavesdropping. "If Uncle Gabe gave us instructions on what to do if this happened, would this be the time to initiate plan Kick Jay's Ass?" Alejandra asked, raising an eyebrow, a smirk playing on her lips.

Kale rolled his eyes. "Yesterday would have been a good time for plan Kick Jay's Ass, ladies." He gestured towards them. "Well, do your thing. Whatever Gabe told you to do."

Lupe nodded. "Tio Cesar, you might wanna take Gigi outside for a couple of minutes. It's about to get loud up in here." And the way she said it almost made her look like an evil mastermind.

Cesar looked at his nieces and looked at Kale before making the sign of the cross. "I hope you know what you're doing." He asked, head tilted up, towards the ceiling, talking to Gabe, before picking up the carrier and smacking his hand on his thigh. 

"C'mon, George." He called out to the dog, who was at his new permanent place, laying at the door, waiting for his master to come home. At night he always slept next to the baby, but during the day he was always waiting for Gabe. "Time to go outside."

Once Cesar, Gigi, and George were outside, the girls ran into the kitchen. They came back five minutes later with their grandmother. Alejandra held a bucket of water, Lupe held what look like a gong, and Mama Rodriguez held a burning bundle of sage. "Go to the nursery in five minutes." Alejandra instructed, and with that the girls were gone.

The nursery had been a point of contention since Gigi had come home. The door was locked, and the last person who had been in it was Gabe, which was probably why no one had gone in there since. Johnny refused to go anywhere near the nursery. Just like he refused to hold the baby. For all of Kale's teasing, the entire situation broke his heart. He'd already lost his best friend; now he was watching his best friend's husband have a breakdown. It was hard.

Suddenly the oppressive quiet that had become the James-Michaels house was replaced by the sound of the gong, followed by loud cursing, followed by what sounded like a person being rolled off a bed. At that moment, Kale was glad he was on the good side of the Rodriguez women.

Remembering his instructions, he went up to the nursery in time to see Johnny standing in front of the door, very much looking like he'd been drinking for a week straight. He also looked like the bucket of water had been poured over his head. And he smelled strongly of sage.

"You ready to do this, handsome?" Kale asked, nodding to the door.

Johnny made a face. "No."

Alejandra gave Johnny a light shove. "Well, tough titty. You promised Uncle Gabe. Now get in there." She pushed him again when he didn't immediately jump to.

Slowly Johnny unlocked the door, and walked inside, only to freeze in the center of the room. Kale followed him into the room, and immediately understood why Johnny had stopped. Stepping into the nursery was like stepping into one of Gabe's installations. The entire room looked like Wonderland. Each wall depicted a different scene from the animated cartoon, or at least inspired by a scene from the movie. It made Kale sick, seeing the type of creation the art world was going to miss out on now, the legacy Gabriel James would have had. 

One wall had a table painted onto it that looked like it stretched into infinity, hundreds of cups, saucers, and teapots stacked precariously on the table, and on the plush green grass next to it. Kale's hand traced the wall, finding that the textures even looked different. The tea cups had been covered with epoxy resin, and looked real.

The wall with the windows that looked out into the backyard had been painted to look like the forest Alice got lost in. The flowers climbed the walls, and surrounded the windows. They didn't look like the bad acid trip Kale remembered them being. They looked... happy, kind, approachable.

On the wall in front of the crib (which was looked like it was made out of gold, but was actually wood), he'd painted the Queen of Heart's garden, croquet court and all. Half the roses were white, and half the roses were red. And the thing that got Kale the most was that there were no characters drawn, but he knew exactly where he was. It was all the good parts of Wonderland with none of the bad.

The room also had a book case painted with playing cards all over it. There was a changing table that looked like a house. Kale hadn't seen the move in awhile, but he figured it was the house Alice must had overgrown when she grew too big. There was a toy chest with hundreds of pocket watches embedded inside and epoxied over, and a changing table painted in the scheme of Alice's dress, little frills on the edges to add to the theme.

Gabe must have been working on the room since the moment he found out he was pregnant. There had to be at least 200 hours of work put into this room. This was not a quick project. He had to have planned, and plotted, and designed exactly how he wanted everything laid out. He’d built his daughter a living piece of art to grow up in -- a guaranteed way that her Daddy would always be in her life. Even if he wasn’t there physically.

Johnny made a pained sound, and Kale turned to find him collapsing into a rocking chair. It looked like a standard rocking chair. Nothing that made Kale understand why he reacted the way he did. Sure, it was beautiful. Gabe’s piece tended to be beautiful. Then, he saw what Johnny must have seen. The rocking chair was nestled under the large tree Alice fell asleep under. The whole wall the door was on actually looked like the opening scene of the cartoon, a gorgeous tree next to a babbling brook. From the chair, was the perfect view of a Cheshire moon. Below the moon and in Gabe's loopy cursive were the words: I love you always.

"That's how he always signed his letters to you, isn't it?" Kale asked, sitting on the ground next to Johnny. When the other man nodded, Kale nodded, too. "Jonathan," He pressed his hands together as he tried to figure out how to phrase this. "The last time I talked to Gabriel he told me I needed to remind you of your promise."

It was quiet for a long moment before Johnny pulled himself to his feet. "Where's the baby?" And with that he was out of the room.

Kale slowly got up and followed him downstairs to the patio. By the time he made it to Cesar, Johnny was holding Gigi. It was the first time he'd held the baby of his own free will. "I need to show you what your Daddy made for you." Johnny murmured out softly.

Before Johnny could go into the house, Kale grabbed his arm. "Are you okay?" He asked, feeling Cesar's eyes on him, too.

"No, but I made a promise to my husband."

Kale smiled softly. "I think we all did."