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homielander · 5 months ago

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i'm sorry but hotd positing that all women are innately cautious and peaceful and compassionate while men are rash warmongers is not a feminist win! i could see the value in everyone being hesitant to go to war at the onset of the story because it intensifies the tragedy of this house tearing itself apart, but at this stage, rhaenyra has as much reason for bloodlust (if not more) as the men on the show. it's pretty heavily implied that the shock of her usurpation killed her daughter, aemond killed lucerys, and one of aegon's kingsguard snuck into her quarters with the intent to assassinate her. most importantly, she has felt entitled to the throne since she was named heir as a child. she should be incensed! rhaenyra's inaction in the season 1 finale due to a sudden aversion to violence was already stretching believability -- this is the same woman who expressed nothing beyond mild shock at vaemond's beheading, who plotted with daemon to have an innocent man killed to facilitate laenor's escape while declaring that the realm should fear her. to have rhaenyra insist on peace at this point in the story, when war is already well underway, is incredibly irrational.

this problem is not limited to rhaenyra. alicent ordered larys to kill mysaria's network of spies and any suspected traitors in the red keep, presumably without any due process, and neither of these decisions was depicted with the gravity they deserved for a character who was once horrified by any bloodshed. meanwhile, aegon had a few extra ratcatchers executed, and not only was the direction sufficiently ominous, but we also got a lengthy monologue from otto about how it would spell his doom. it is probably pointless to bring up rhaenys because she is written less like a believable human being and more like a mouthpiece for the writers to assert whatever political opinion they believe is correct in a given episode -- but she did very much kill dozens if not hundreds of smallfolk last season. she did do that and very clearly did not care. why is she an advocate against war? for both alicent and rhaenys, there is a strange dissonance where their actions are at odds with their attitudes about opposing large-scale war for the good of the realm. i'm not saying this dissonance cannot exist, but it should at least be acknowledged.

helaena raising concerns about the losses suffered by the smallfolk might have worked in isolation, but for it to accompany everything above is exhausting. can none of these women be allowed to feel for themselves?

#alicent isn't so much a problem in THIS ep btw... i'm just so annoyed by the fact that they brushed over her having larys kill ppl #i encourage her to commit atrocities but i would like it to be known that she committed them #in 1.09 she ordered larys so casually that i thought s2 was going to have a bit about how larys had gotten trigger-happy w arson again #because alicent had only wanted him to take out mysaria lmao. but i guess not???? we don't even see her conflicted about it?#baela and rhaena are finally getting to speak so maybe one of them (prob balea) will fix this. a girl can dream #rhaenyra targaryen #alicent hightower #rhaenys targaryen #helaena targaryen #house of the dragon #hotd spoilers #just finished the ep... i always watch a bit later when it drops on 🏴‍☠️#i did promise myself to hold off on any complaints until the full season dropped but i think this is egregious regardless of what happens

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hotchfiles · 7 months ago

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↪ day twelve. dinner party stories — #marchhotchness

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ❝ [family line] ❞

pairing: hotchner x fem!reader. summary: he snickers when he secretly whispers you that and you’re sure this is the family you were born to be after all, it just took you a little while to find it. or: aaron shows what the unconditional love of a family should be like. content warnings: not proofread, a lot of family issues brought up, weight gain mention (negatively once, then positively), reader's parents being annoying and kind of mean. word count: 2.4K

Aaron sees it in your eyes, in your breathing, in the way you move. He sees it in the way you’ve been playing more with your necklace and by how you can’t seem to stop spinning your engagement ring around your finger. He hasn’t seen you this anxious in months, and back then you were working on finishing your dissertation and it collided with the company you worked at losing clients, it was chaos. He knew right now there was no chaos in sight, so it could only mean one thing.

“Honey, did you speak to your parents recently?” His voice is always as soft as a feather when talking to you, even in the rare instances you argue.

You turn from the scrabble pieces and set your wine glass down, not minding the interruption to the cozy game when his voice sounded like that and his eyes looked at you like you were something so precious you could break.

“No, babe, why d’you ask?”

“You’re fidgeting like an hyperactive kid who hasn’t been put on Ritalin yet lately.” His explanation catches you off guard in a way that you almost reprehend him saying his name in a high pitched voice and slapping his arm in between laughter. His smirk shows you just how accomplished he feels that he made you laugh like that.

Aaron takes both of your hands in his, kissing your knuckles and urging you to talk with him just by the way he looked into your eyes, eagerly waiting for you to vent about what was making you so restless.

“I haven’t told them about the engagement yet. I want to have them over for dinner, to share the news but they are so…” You sigh profoundly, looking up to the ceiling trying to finish that though in a way that made sense. “Difficult.”

Aaron knows what difficult really means. It means patronizing. It means unsupportive. Unwilling. Unhelpful. It doesn’t mean unloving, but it means old fashioned in a way that it feels unloving. “We could have dinner in a nice restaurant instead, to ease up some of that pressure.” He suggests, always the problem solver.

“It would be perfect, handsome, but we did that last time…” Your voice trails off, laying your head on his lap, urging him to gently pass his fingers through your hair by that act alone, cozying up to him in an attempt to ignore the problem at hand.

Hotch follows your lead, not forgetting to place a kiss on your forehead, but also, not letting the problem go. “And my dear future mother in law will start dropping hints again that we don’t want them here.” You nod quietly. “Alright. Don’t call. Text her inviting them over with the details. Less talking.”

You groan, “She will complain about that too…”

“Once they’re here.” He kisses your forehead, “So it’s only one,” and your nose, “Night,” your right cheek, “Of,” your left cheek, and you’re already grinning like an idiot, holding in your laughter at his boyishness, “Complaining.” Aaron finishes, brushing his lips against yours. you nod and pull your head up slightly, finally connecting you two in a sweet slow kiss.

You get your big girl pants on after a delicious making out session with your fiancé, the scrabble pieces long forgotten as you gulp down your whole glass of wine and pick up your phone. His hair is messy, his cheeks are flushed and he grins at you with reassurance pouring from his sweet eyes as you send your mother the text, throwing your phone back to the table before seeing a response and going back straight to his arms.

He made it easier, always. Helped you sort your feelings out, helped you find out the less stressing way to solve your problems. It was a joy to have him, to watch how he talked to Jack and see how it should be.

More often than you would like to admit, you caught yourself thinking wow my parents would not let that slide, and then you would be faced with the reality that they were in the wrong, not Aaron.

You talked to him about it once, asked how could he be so sweet and so effortlessly so to Jack, his answer came quickly, no hesitation: Jack had lost enough, losing his trust on his dad was not something Aaron would let happen, he didn’t want Jack to go through what he had as a child.

Then it clicked to you once more, how you would never want to treat your hypothetical children like you had been treated too.

You try not to think too much about these things too often nowadays, but even as you laid on Aaron’s chest and felt his fingers lightly, softly, trace designs on your skin, now all you could think about was the damned dinner.

Your mom wasn’t too judgy when it came to what you cooked, your dad was and annoyingly so, always had some remark about what would have made the food better, just like he did to your mother back home.

So first thing you did the next morning was think through all dinners and remarks and find something you could do following his tips to lessen the complaining, Aaron’s idea, of course.

“He always says my lasagna is delicious but too dry,” You mumble to yourself, but not really, you have your earphones on and Aaron on call, in the office doing reports he was able to entertain you as you picked up ingredients for extra sauce.

You can hear him smiling, the sound of his aggressive pen on paper stopping for a second, “Even Rossi loves your lasagna, it is delicious. Just give your father a bowl full of sauce, he will be happier.” You snort and he goes back to his papers, satisfied to have made you laugh through the stress.

Gathering the rest of the ingredients is easy enough, you’re already used to the grocery store’s layout and setup, you keep him on the line either way, a tradition you both kept whenever you were doing monotonous tasks, even when he didn’t speak, listening to his breathing, the shuffling of papers and his pen quickly making work through all his reports made you smile, calmed you down.

Hotch thought it was silly at first, but quickly warmed up to it when he heard you softly, secretive so, humming songs to yourself as you worked on your own reports, or went shopping, not to mention how adorable he found you to be when you forgot he was on the line and jumped scared as he spoke something.

Most of all, he loved being immersed in a paper trail and being surprised by a hey I love you right in his ear as if you were there.

It pained him to know how much of yourself you tried to mute down to please your parents when he loved every single tiny piece of what made you… You.

Hotch excused himself from the call to talk to Rossi just as you were about to go back home, satisfied you convinced him to get Rossi’s sauce recipe.

“Hers is great, why does she need mine?” Rossi sound almost exasperated, as if Hotch himself had said something about your cooking. He is quick to reassure that’s not the case and explain how you’re trying to please your father, Dave doesn’t seem that much happier about it, always pleased with the dishes you made for dinner parties at his mansion, but he still takes his phone and sends you a voice note explaining each step of his homemade tomato sauce. “Anything else?”

“I need a favor as well. I’m gonna need the next weekend off for this.” Hotch begins, he knows Rossi would never mind that, no one would, in fact most people from the Bureau agreed he needed time off. “I know myself enough, I need to be completely off, no calls, no briefings.” He’s learnt his lesson from too many past mistakes, if he knows the case, if he knows the team needs him, he will be putting his job above anything else, Aaron can’t afford to do that anymore, so he prevents it.

His left thumb rubs the side of his index finger, his way to calm his racing thoughts, just the possibility of ruining this dinner has him anxious, this little habit of his was something he hadn’t even noticed he did before he met you. It was one of his tells and he never realized before you took his hand in yours and looked sweetly into his eyes saying you’re stimming, what’s wrong? In the softest tone he had ever heard anyone speak to him.

You were always quick to notice if anyone around you didn’t feel well, always a caretaker, it was a sight to take in and a pain to prove you so, being seen as selfish your whole life at home.

That day he got home late, Jack was doing his homework with your help while you worked on a few things on your laptop—a presentation you needed to finish soon as possible to get the next Friday off.

His office had become a shared office with your help, a U shaped desk where both of you could work being one of the first changes you made to it as soon as you moved in, it was perfect and it gave Jack space to sit close to either of you when he needed help.

The sides faced the walls while and front faced the window where you and Jack sat, focused, it gave Hotch time to lean in the door frame and watch you both.

“I’m not sure about that one, Jack-Jack…” You stop typing to read the question in his book again, impressed with how little you remember of school math. “If I Google this up, promise not to tell your teacher?” Aaron clears his throat at the question, catching your attention and making you laugh: Caught in the act.

“No Google, buddy, sorry.” Jack scrunches his nose at his father’s ruling out, a loud groan coming from his pre teen little voice.

“Told ya we should have started this earlierrrr—” You tease the boy, insinuating you two would have been able to find the answer online without his dad knowing then, you ruffle his short hair softly, loving the endearing smile he always gives you when you do that.

His smile quickly turns into a yawn, the weight of the time stamped on Aaron’s watch getting to Jack’s eyes, “I’m sleepy.”

“You can finish tomorrow, let’s get you two to bed, buddy.”

Hotch picks Jack up and the young Hotchner is nothing but a ball of giggles, always saying he’s too big for that now, but obviously still loving the attention.

“Enjoy while you can, Jack-Jack, your old man is not getting any younger.”

“Yeah? I’m carrying your ass to bed soon too, my back can handle you both for years still.” You and Jack both laugh at him. It’s always almost as if a harsh mask melted when he got home, in its place would remain his soft features and the bickering you loved so dearly.

It was warm. And kind. Even when he came back home stressed, you never had to worry about accidentally setting him off or saying the wrong thing. It was a completely different dynamic than what you were used to.

It takes a few minutes for Hotch to come back, but he comes ready to make true of his promise, hands straight to your waist to carry you, tickling his way into your defenses, he laughs at your laughter and at how easy you melt to his touch. “I’m just finishing this up, babyy—” Your voice is purposefully whiny, pouting at him and getting a kiss in return, “Go eat your dinner while I do it, I heated it up when I got your text!”

He stops trying to pull you up his shoulder or around his waist then, the look he gives you then reminds you of why you fell for him: Sweet like caramel, always betraying his known frown.

Aaron looks at you like every act of kindness you do makes him fall in love again, and it does. He traces your features with his thumb in silence, the mix of his calloused fingers and the softness of his actions makes you sigh, leaning into it.

“I love you. I love our little family.” He kisses your forehead and leaves you to your presentation before you can even reply, before you can even tell him the two Hotchner boys are the first healthy family you’ve ever been in.

You don’t even mind your dad complaining about your lasagna having way too much sauce the week after. Aaron eats for the both of them, compliments every single decision you made while cooking.

The second your mother tells you you’ve been gaining weight, Aaron replies with a simple “If anything, we’re both getting bigger and happier.” A squeeze tight to your knee, stopping you from tearing up at how that was the only thing your mother did notice.

They seemed happy about the engagement, but not too sure you’ll be able to care for him and his child as they needed to be cared for. You’re forgetful. You’re not maternal. You worry about work too much.

You’re not even sure how good news could lead to such rambling about your flaws but again, before you can either cry or lose control and yell—Aaron comes in, his soft smile being completely betrayed by his furrowed brows and stern tone. He’s trying to be polite. “We take care of each other well, and together we care for Jack. It works. We work.”

It’s simple but effective, what he wants is to shield you, to tell them how lucky they are you grew up as kind and hardworking when all they did was bring you down and doubt your feelings and your dreams.

He wants to show them drawings Jack made of you and essays he wrote about his family.

But for now he settles on being polite. There’s still the whole wedding preparation and the actual wedding to go through. He has time to do all that. Right now he just makes sure to show you and them how much he supports you and how nothing they can ever say will change how he sees you.

At least he’s glad his mother is dead, one less problematic in law to deal with.

He snickers when he secretly whispers you that and you’re sure this is the family you were born to be after all, it just took you a little while to find it.